EPTThe Zerg Help Me Thread - Page 301
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Make sure you read the OP before asking a question. Asking a question already addressed in the OP will result in moderation action. Also, please put some effort into your questions. | ||
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ShenoaVOX
United States10 Posts
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KichSC
United Kingdom29 Posts
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blade55555
United States17423 Posts
On June 30 2012 04:33 KichSC wrote: I have recently lost a few games to protoss 2 base all-ins. When i scout what should i be looking for so that i know when to make units and when to expand. Thanks first post in TL You should sacrifice an overlord at about 6:15-6:30 and look at his gateway timings. If you see 4+ gateways I would prepare for an all in. Most protoss players have their gateways finish when warpgates finish so think of that as well. If you see a robo, he might do +1 zealot timing but other then that you will have until about 10 minutes until he moves out to push out with the immortal all in. So if you see a robo, you have time and don't necessarily prepare for it unless you don't see him taking a third or you get another scout in his base (normally an overseer) and you see a ton of gateways with a robo, then he is all inning as well. | ||
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eXeel
Denmark62 Posts
It is good to know some all-ins that can punish players for being too greedy, because there will ALWAYS be people who play too greedy, even at the highest level. The key is to differentiate between what is too greedy and what is just economically friendly but won't be killed by an all-in. For example, CC first on Ohana is too greedy because it is a small map and a ling/bling all-in will do massive damage, where a 1 Rax FE on Condemned Ridge is not too greedy because it is a large map and a safe(er) build. The two last maps I did this on, I got around 30 drones one two bases, two queens and then I made 50 speedlings and 10 banelings and attacked. Replay: http://drop.sc/209939 I attacked a Terran just now at 8:20 and he had weak spots in his unfinished wallin of the natural, and was - 90% done with +1 inf, - 90% on stim pack - had a reactor factory finished, getting 2 hellions - a star port getting reactor too. - 11 marines, 2 marauders - Same workers as me Is this a risky, semi-allin? If I face a wall of barracks or other strong buildings, I can't break through naturally. Then I have wasted a lot. But is it often on my high gold level, that people will be ready with a wall in like that at 8:20? If there is no wall off, I can almost always vs a terran get some damage done with 50 slings and 10 blings, don't you think? Sending 10 to main worker line, 10 to natural and rest with blings taking on the army. I chose to get 15 more lings or so rallied down, then made a macro hatch and expanded again so I was getting ready to drone up a 3rd. Then he left. If it is too risky, I will have to evaluate. But maybe I need to punish those "trying too much" and not scouting me properly, just like I lose when I don't scout and when I drone too long and wait with lings or roaches. What are your takes on this? | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
So even if you kill 10-20 SCVs and all of Terran's army, you may still be behind. Another example is against 3 gate sentry expand, and you get gas after pool, and try to make a bunch of lings to kill toss when he expands, even if you kill his 3 sentries and zealot and force a cancel, you will still be behind because you gave up 20 drones just to basically force a cancel for 100 minutes and could have instead made 20 drones. As darkforce said in this thread "you just have to accept that attacking anytime before 70 drones on 3 base as zerg is somewhat all-in", and nowadays, zerg understand it even better than even doing any sort of tier 1 or 2 aggression after taking 3 base is semi all-in as it delays your hive by a lot. Grats on winning and doing enough damage. If it works for you on ladder, keep doing it, maybe you found a build that will change the metagame! You won't know until you start losing with it. It is good to know some all-ins that can punish players for being too greedy, because there will ALWAYS be people who play too greedy, even at the highest level. The key is to differentiate between what is too greedy and what is just economically friendly but won't be killed by an all-in. For example, CC first on Ohana is too greedy because it is a small map and a ling/bling all-in will do massive damage, where a 1 Rax FE on Condemned Ridge is not too greedy because it is a large map and a safe(er) build. Ohana is deceptively big in my opinion. The only 'small' thing about it is that you only have 5 bases. CC First can only be punished if you go early pool, a baneling bust comes too late to punish CC first, especially cc first into 2 rax. | ||
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KhAmun
United States1005 Posts
thor/hellion is just terran being greedy as fuck and skipping tanks It has absolutely nothing to do with greed, it has to do with a hard-countering of Z compositions and using that momentum to either win the game with a specific timing or establish gas for sustainable mass-thor. You need to mass roaches and trade, as he wont have any tanks to stop you from simply walking up to him Trade, yes, but walk into his defensive position, no. When you engage thor/hellion armies you still want large surface area. Regardless that a ton of roaches can fit into a tight space, a singular angle mixed with thor range/attack speed, and a hellion buffer, attacking into T is not a good Idea, even to trade. personally i go 3 base infestor while maxing roaches 3 base infestor paired with another gas unit, even something as cheap as roaches is not a good idea vs mech in my opinion. Firstly the infestors don't really do much vs thor/hellion unless you upgrade NP, which is only a good idea when thor numbers get quite high. Your gas is better spent on roach/baneling. You mentioned that your banelings should only be reactionary, which is the opposite of flexible thor/hellion countering. Typically T is doing a couple things with this the composition (I mentioned them earlier: Hitting a kill timing vs a muta build, or gain momentum enough to secure gas for mass thor.) As mentioned, this is little more than a composition counter. The Ideal way to deal with this is firstly scout a third command center. If there isn't one, stay on 3 bases and one macro hatchery, ~65 drones. If there is a third, go straight to 4 bases, ~75 drones, and a macro hatchery. In both scenarios, your Ideal composition is roaches up to ~175 supply, and the rest banelings (in the 2base scenario you aren't likely to get up to this supply, though.) The banelings play the most pivotal roll in the engagements. When thor numbers start to get high, the banelings soften all the thors such a tremendous amount, get rid of roach-buffering hellions while rolling in, and eliminates any repairing scv's. (as always, move command banelings past the thors, and only a-move once you have maximum baneling surface area.) Once maxed, take another base or 2 and make sure your drone count is adequate. Prepare hive, additional upgrades, and I prefer 2 spires for late-game. Roach compositions max quickly, so his max will be better than yours, so you want to attack him at the first vulnerable area outside of his base, giving you time to remax, either on more roaches if you need to deny a base immediately / didn't win the fight, or on BL's (This decision becomes more clear with experience, it can be quite situational) | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
Trade, yes, but walk into his defensive position, no. When you engage thor/hellion armies you still want large surface area. Regardless that a ton of roaches can fit into a tight space, a singular angle mixed with thor range/attack speed, and a hellion buffer, attacking into T is not a good Idea, even to trade. imo, you can't let terran just mass pure thor and skip tanks while taking his third, or else they will destroy your broodlords, as once there is like 15+ thors, you need just a huuuge amount of broodlords to stop it, which you won't have in time before he pushes and is maxed. Of course you want to engage in the most open area possible, but terran should not have much more than 4-8 thors, and if he doesn't have any tanks, your roach max will just crush him. You just can't go pure hellion/thor and take a third safely, a roach max will just eat you alive. That's why you need at least some siege tanks. So, terran has to strike a balance, the more tanks he makes, the safer he is to take his third, but the worse he'll be when hive is out, but, the more likely he'll attack before broods are out, whereas if you go pure thor and can skip tanks, you'll just win the game since 10 broodlords or roach max will get owned by it. I think he talked about thor/hellion as a 2 base all-in though, in which case, you either need lots of banelings, baneling speed if you just somehow didn't realize what was going on quick enough, or lots of roaches. But not necessarily both. I was talking about my personal preference of getting infestors on 3 base with roaches against mech, because pure roach alone is a little all-innish imo (although you can almost always do great damage, but i still want to be 'safe' and get my tech going). However, infestors are far from useless against mech - IT spam does devastating damage to mech, especially if he's light on siege tanks. I have won a ton of engagements purely on IT alone, when I had a pidily amount of roaches (maybe from beign greedy and going infestor, hive too quickly) and just spamming a ton of IT to close it. FG is not great against mech, nor is NP, but IT is amazing against it. It's like an automatic boxer style bio drop on top of mech. I don't really agree that you NEED banelings though... pure roach does just fine against any sort of mech composition, it's just banelings are okay in a pinch if you realize it's a 2 base mech all-in without tanks and you didn't make any roaches, like nestea did against nada on belshir summer gsl. And you can beat most mech armies pre-hive with either roaches or roach/infestor. You should attack against mech when maxed, as that'll be around the timing that mech will be vulnerable, and you need to trade so you can broodlords without dying to his 3 base push. | ||
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KhAmun
United States1005 Posts
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KhAmun
United States1005 Posts
Attacking into a defensive position of blue flame hellions splashing your roaches, as well as buffering damage for thors with a better surface area is a terrible idea. Secondly, we have been talking about thor/hellion builds, which are designed to counter muta/ling, you don't need to state the logistics of general mech. The boxer game you're referencing, ganzi had almost pure tank, and boxer dropped marine marauder. These are units that attack instantly, tank more damage than IT, and all the while GanZi's army was killing itself in the process. Dropping IT onto thor/blueflame hellion is the opposite of about everything in that scenario, and your gas could be so much better allocated. Banelings are the most impactful/effective way to deal with mass clumped thor. I've already explained why, I don't know what else to tell you. I could pull rank, provide anecdotal evidence, and tell you about the multiple pro games/ streams it's been illustrated on numerous times... You should really try the way I explained playing vs thor-centric mech a couple posts ago, you'll find it much more effective than you think. | ||
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KichSC
United Kingdom29 Posts
On June 30 2012 04:37 blade55555 wrote: You should sacrifice an overlord at about 6:15-6:30 and look at his gateway timings. If you see 4+ gateways I would prepare for an all in. Most protoss players have their gateways finish when warpgates finish so think of that as well. If you see a robo, he might do +1 zealot timing but other then that you will have until about 10 minutes until he moves out to push out with the immortal all in. So if you see a robo, you have time and don't necessarily prepare for it unless you don't see him taking a third or you get another scout in his base (normally an overseer) and you see a ton of gateways with a robo, then he is all inning as well. Great, thanks alot i just played a game against a toss that went for the immortal all in and i seen it way before it came and just over-ran him with roaches and lings. | ||
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ThePlayer33
Australia2378 Posts
On June 30 2012 06:10 KhAmun wrote: It has absolutely nothing to do with greed, it has to do with a hard-countering of Z compositions and using that momentum to either win the game with a specific timing or establish gas for sustainable mass-thor. Trade, yes, but walk into his defensive position, no. When you engage thor/hellion armies you still want large surface area. Regardless that a ton of roaches can fit into a tight space, a singular angle mixed with thor range/attack speed, and a hellion buffer, attacking into T is not a good Idea, even to trade. 3 base infestor paired with another gas unit, even something as cheap as roaches is not a good idea vs mech in my opinion. Firstly the infestors don't really do much vs thor/hellion unless you upgrade NP, which is only a good idea when thor numbers get quite high. Your gas is better spent on roach/baneling. You mentioned that your banelings should only be reactionary, which is the opposite of flexible thor/hellion countering. Typically T is doing a couple things with this the composition (I mentioned them earlier: Hitting a kill timing vs a muta build, or gain momentum enough to secure gas for mass thor.) As mentioned, this is little more than a composition counter. The Ideal way to deal with this is firstly scout a third command center. If there isn't one, stay on 3 bases and one macro hatchery, ~65 drones. If there is a third, go straight to 4 bases, ~75 drones, and a macro hatchery. In both scenarios, your Ideal composition is roaches up to ~175 supply, and the rest banelings (in the 2base scenario you aren't likely to get up to this supply, though.) The banelings play the most pivotal roll in the engagements. When thor numbers start to get high, the banelings soften all the thors such a tremendous amount, get rid of roach-buffering hellions while rolling in, and eliminates any repairing scv's. (as always, move command banelings past the thors, and only a-move once you have maximum baneling surface area.) Once maxed, take another base or 2 and make sure your drone count is adequate. Prepare hive, additional upgrades, and I prefer 2 spires for late-game. Roach compositions max quickly, so his max will be better than yours, so you want to attack him at the first vulnerable area outside of his base, giving you time to remax, either on more roaches if you need to deny a base immediately / didn't win the fight, or on BL's (This decision becomes more clear with experience, it can be quite situational) thanks so much | ||
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Gamegene
United States8308 Posts
On June 30 2012 06:25 Belial88 wrote: You just can't go pure hellion/thor and take a third safely, a roach max will just eat you alive. That's why you need at least some siege tanks. So, terran has to strike a balance, the more tanks he makes, the safer he is to take his third, but the worse he'll be when hive is out, but, the more likely he'll attack before broods are out, whereas if you go pure thor and can skip tanks, you'll just win the game since 10 broodlords or roach max will get owned by it. This largely depends on the map and whether or not there is a ramp for the third base. When I'm trying to take my third base as the meching player and skipping siege tanks, I will be trying to aggressively take that third base if the ramp is tight enough, just because roaches have such a short range with the vision. Even without a tight ramp on the third, supply depots, a bunker and a barracks can be enough to delay the wave, with the hellion's splash damage, and hp. You're also attacking into me as I'm closest to my production facilities so I have reinforcing units practically instantly, while you're trickling in at varying creep spreads, and close to my SCVs which can give the infamous repair hugs. If a PF is up, it's pretty much impossible to break. If an OC or a starting command center is up, then I can just lift and wait for you to go away. I have the nice composition, and I'm not in a particulate hurry to quote on quote "do damage" or "keep up" with the zerg machine. | ||
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dabosaur
Sweden95 Posts
Do you guys think it's a good choise to practise it and in which order do you recommend it to be? I hope you dont find my question too silly ^^ | ||
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Gamegene
United States8308 Posts
Probably the biggest weaknesses of Roach Infestor, vs Mech is that it is a much more "slow" composition, in two ways: one is that they are obviously **relatively** slower than banelings, and they're a much more defensive composition. Energy takes time to build up, they're slower to introduce because of pathogen glands and the build time, the infestors can't retreat very well from battles unless the terran is unable to have a scan and have his hellions chase. Another problem to consider is that Broodlords largely benefit from Melee upgrades, rather than Ranged upgrades Probably the biggest strength of Pure Roach is that it's incredible in the short run. Probably the biggest weakness of pure Roach is that it's shit in the long run. The problem with going for a Roach and or Infestor type of style against a player who wants to go for these 2 base 3 base 2-2 +2 armor timings with no tanks, is that it plays against your strengths, and that it's what the Terran WANTS you to do. The Terran's mindset with going for this mass Thor Hellion type of strategy, is that he wants to have a powerful army relative to supply, he wants to have the mobility from not having to deal with siege tanks, and he wants an army that can take a beating. Infested terrans and fungal growths do basically nothing to the army, especially if the the other guy decides to bring the SCV train with him. Roaches are really cost efficient in small numbers because of supply, but that doesn't matter when he's doing his timing because if he's at 170-200 supply, then you objectively just have a shittier army, whether you are maxed with a really cost inefficient army or have less supply than him against an army that's designed to be as supply efficient as possible. Thor Hellion basically mutilates through Roaches once it's large army vs large army, just because you just can't kill the Thors quickly enough, and that there's enough hellions where the Splash damage is an actual threat, coupled with just the pure surface area of the units that you have to cut through. And with this kind of army, it defeats the point of going for Infestors when you want to abuse the fact that he has a high tank count, when his army is meant to steam roll in for the kill, rather than slowly push through your lines methodically, where you have the time to get your broodlords out, to get additional infestors and energy, and just have more breathing room. | ||
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XxJuicexX
United States48 Posts
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
Banelings are the most impactful/effective way to deal with mass clumped thor. I've already explained why, I don't know what else to tell you. I could pull rank, provide anecdotal evidence, and tell you about the multiple pro games/ streams it's been illustrated on numerous times... You should really try the way I explained playing vs thor-centric mech a couple posts ago, you'll find it much more effective than you think. I don't disagree that banelings are very effective against mass thor or mech without tanks, but they leave your tech very far behind. Against general thor/hellion, just pure roach should do just fine for defense. Obviously though, that will delay your tech, just like banes will, and I am saying that you are safe to go infestors with the roaches after saturating 3 bases, and that infestors are far from useless when fighting thor-centric mech. I don't see how you can say "your gas can be much better allocated [than infestors]" when at the same time you are saying get banelings. Going infestors is a much stronger way to improve your tech, while at the same time still being safe against mech pushes. This largely depends on the map and whether or not there is a ramp for the third base. When I'm trying to take my third base as the meching player and skipping siege tanks, I will be trying to aggressively take that third base if the ramp is tight enough, just because roaches have such a short range with the vision. Even without a tight ramp on the third, supply depots, a bunker and a barracks can be enough to delay the wave, with the hellion's splash damage, and hp. You're also attacking into me as I'm closest to my production facilities so I have reinforcing units practically instantly, while you're trickling in at varying creep spreads, and close to my SCVs which can give the infamous repair hugs. If a PF is up, it's pretty much impossible to break. If an OC or a starting command center is up, then I can just lift and wait for you to go away. I have the nice composition, and I'm not in a particulate hurry to quote on quote "do damage" or "keep up" with the zerg machine. True. When a mech player is going for lots of thors and cutting tanks, they are going to have a hard time to defend a roach max push, but they can with good general play. I think it's up to zerg to do some sort of damage and aggression, to trade with the thors. It doesn't need to be game ending, and it's not particularly to get a lead, it's just to lower the thor count. If you don't trade with a thor-centric macro terran before getting your broodlords, the mass thors will own your initial broodlords. I think you really need to cut some of the thors down with roach aggression, as if you try to be greedy and just go straight into broodlords, which is generally very strong against mech, there will be too many thors and just own anything less than mass broodlord. and that you can turn the tide with neural if the unit numbers are low enough. i personally never rely on NP vs mech, I find that IT is the most powerful ability of infestors vs mech, and a way to safely tech to hive in case terran just decides to go push. More than once I've had a terran decide to push at a time they 'should not have', and crushed their army using IT spam while having very few roaches because I was being greedy and going straight to BL to 'counter' fast third macro mech. It is definitely a much more defensive composition than banelings, but you get broodlords in time to deal with the 3 base push. I get the infestors quite late, and focus on making a ton of roaches after droning up to 70 drones, so I can do some trading with high thor mech players. If they have lots of tanks, I'll just make infestors first and not as many roaches until terran pushes, since tanks also can translate into a quicker push. Infestors definitely won't help against a 2 base mech all-in though, against which I think either banelings, or roaches, is what you need. But I do think infestors will be out in time against a 3 base all-in. You should be maxed out in time with roach/infestor when mech is maybe around 120-140 supply, unless you go for your hive quickly. Whats the better build vs terran? 4 queen + 2 gas or 6 queen +third hatch + 3 gas? All have their weaknesses, but I wouldn't say the build is x queen x gas. The more gas you take, the less minerals you have, so if you spend it on more queens, it's less drones or a later third. It's more a matter of "how many queens you like to make" and "how many and when you take your gas". Also, a lot of this mass queen stuff is a reaction to 1 rax FE or CC first, if terran goes a gas opening, I dont think you will see a gasless opening anymore. I personally like to go 5 queen (5 queen means 3 queens for 3 bases, 1 for macro hatch, 1 to spread creep), and get gas around 30 (against gas opening I take it around 23, so i take it after 26 overlord has popped and I've made a few drones to justify taking it after overlord instead of before it). I then take a 2nd gas around 50, as all builds generally have 2 gas by around 50 supply. Staple right now against 1 rax fe seems to be 4+ queens, with 2+ gas by 55, and a third at 40-50, with differing gas, queen, third, and macro hatch timing based on preference. | ||
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Vond
Sweden145 Posts
On June 30 2012 02:42 eXeel wrote: I just got mad at myself for losing vT, so I decided to go aggressive vs a protoss. 14 pool, 16 hatch, gas for ling speed and droning to about 30 drones total, and then I went lings in mass. 50 lings and 9 banelings attacked the FFE protoss. He had 3 sentries, 2 stalkers and a few zealots. He didn't scout me regularly, didn't see it come. I was so easy. I hate the fact that at my mid-to-high gold level, doing this works often for a P expansion. It is so tempthing, but I don't learn much from it. And I know at higher levels I will have to face my own issues and the areas I come short at. But the longer the game, the more mistakes I make. So easier to end it fast (or pressure him so I know he is troubles). I guess there is no question, but it is frustrating to know there is an easier way to win atm (early aggressiveness because they expect a Z to drone up), since it makes things harder in the long run (I never learn to macro in the mid and end game). I guess I just need to practise, practise, practise not letting the macro slip up  Watching iSjEcho, I see him do this quite a lot vs top GM toss on EU/NA, or atleast a variant of it as I believe he stops before 30 drones, but on 3 bases (as toss will scout the bases going up, and they work as macrohatches). To get it to come quickly, get just one queen and move it to the natural after inject to deny probes getting into the main and scouting gases. Get the gases as soon as you know you are able to deny a probe getting into the main. A trick to avoid getting the bust denied (as 1 sentry is all they really need to stop it aslong as they warp in more if energy is running out) is to sac an ovie or two just before the bust comes, which can lead to him backing away from the wallin to kill those off which means you won't get denied by FF's. So keeping those things in mind, you can practise on perfecting the build which does make you learn some things from it atleast. It's not something to use every game, but it is something that you can use even at top-GM level if you can perfect it so it hits fast enough without the protoss having any warningsigns. | ||
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Durp
Canada3117 Posts
I realize that the game will effect my maxout timings, so I'm just looking for a general idea. (for example, Stephano's 3base roach attack maxes between 12-12:30), but what is a good benchmark for hitting maxing supply? | ||
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KichSC
United Kingdom29 Posts
On June 30 2012 13:54 Durp wrote: I'm trying to figure out some bench marks for maxing out in ZvX. I realize that the game will effect my maxout timings, so I'm just looking for a general idea. (for example, Stephano's 3base roach attack maxes between 12-12:30), but what is a good benchmark for hitting maxing supply? Its not a benchmark but it is something important. Don't actually full on max out go to about 180 supply then attack as if you run in and see alot of air units you will still have enough supply for corruptors or any other unit. | ||
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Clarity_nl
Netherlands6826 Posts
On June 30 2012 13:54 Durp wrote: I'm trying to figure out some bench marks for maxing out in ZvX. I realize that the game will effect my maxout timings, so I'm just looking for a general idea. (for example, Stephano's 3base roach attack maxes between 12-12:30), but what is a good benchmark for hitting maxing supply? More like 11:30 - 12:00. Anyway, zvz you'll never get this since the matchup is too volatile. ZvT without pressure doing ling/infestor into 3-5 ultras I max around 14:30 on 5 bases/80 drones against AI. Don't know about pros since there is always pressure or zerg wins. | ||
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