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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. |
On July 08 2012 03:14 IdiotequeK wrote:
1) For zerg, I see a lot of flowcharts on gameplans. I'm silver, so I can usually stick to any one of those 3 flow plans and be constantly ahead in food/army count. How do I deal with...being ahead as a zerg? I know it sounds weird to ask that. Am I really supposed to just blindly go into one of those 3 branches? I don't want to just overwhelm and win at the 7 minute mark, since I am trying to practice my macro skills, but I also don't want to get into a "rock paper scissors" kind of a situation where I lose because I made a lot of roaches, for example, and he got a stargate at the back of his base and massed voidrays.
The general "flow" of zerg is to work towards the late game plan. As the game goes longer zerg, ideally, gets stronger. The ideal late game tech for a long time has been BL/infestor. If your opponent lets you, get up 4 bases, tech upgrades, and drone to 75ish without making a single attacking unit. This probably won't happen, but in the early game you want to be building as many drones as you can without dying to pressure. This means you need to diligently scout and play a lot of games to build the experience of knowing "I saw X, so I'm getting attacked soon". Yes, this means losing a ton of games because you misread a situation and made drones instead of attacking units.
Let's say you cleaned up a terran 10:00 timing attack. Make drones and scout ahead with lings. If there's no third base you're ahead. You can either build up a huge army and try to win, or take another expansion and go for the late game composition. It's safer to tech up, but without expanding your opponent will be building a huge army to try and kill you.
2) For teching, when do i choose the stage at which I go for the next tier? Upgrading hatch to lair comes to me naturally at around 6:20 as I seem to have just the right amount of gas/minerals as well as a couple of upgrades researching, but I seem to never understand when "its time" to Hive up. I am trying to learn how to think of when to do what, so I can respond to different situations, so I am NOT looking for an answer like "by minute X or food X you should hive", but more like "once your 1/1 is done and your third expo is under control".
You're describing a lot of questions about "creating build orders". As a silver player it would be greatly advantageous to steal a pro build. Day 9 Daily #285 gives a great practice-based method of doing so. Generally, there are "stages" to a build. Each stage has a certain amount of tech, upgrades, and units you should build. Going for lair/hive is included. For example, here's a Haypro ZvT build I stole about a month ago and have been using to tear up plat/diamond terrans:
1: 15 hatch
build drones
2: pool, 3 gas, roach warren, expand to third
build 2 queens when possible, build 2 queens when first two finish, take 3 gas when last 2 queens finish, build ~4 roaches and expand
3: 1 gas, 2 evo, gasses @ third, macro hatch, lair, infestation pit, hive, 4th base
upgrades before lair, build roaches and lings for timing attack, finish drone saturation when not attacked, expand before hive if able. There should be a lot of gas, so build lots of infestors. Upgrade diligently.
4: gasses @ fourth, ultras @ hive finished, 2 spires after 3/3 finishes, keep expanding
build ling/infestor/ultra. Use fungal growth liberally and try to save infestors. Keep upgrade advantage. Ultras will have 5/3 before terran is 3/3. Once terran is 3/3 finish game with BL/infestor/corruptor. Upgrade air, keep expanding, deny terran expansions.
After a lot of practice runs against computer and ladder it starts to flow very well. I already have a plan, so if I'm ahead I continue with the plan. The build is well-constructed, so I can make a lot of units for 1 base rax all-ins, build queens abd spores against banshees, and build more roaches against high hellion numbers (even switching to roaches against mech). Sure, you can make your own build and figure this all out on your own, but it's WAY easier to learn inject, drone, and overlord mechanics when you don't have to figure it out. I've also gone through a few replays of this build and benchmarked supply and drone numbers so I know if my macro is doing ok.
3) Supply blocks. Ugh, I hate them. I read all the zerg guides on the sticky, and their ways to deal with this does not make intuitive sense to me. I know I fail at checking supply count way more than I should (as we all know, once is once too many), but sometimes I seem to run into trouble even when I am making OS and staring at the top right corner. For example: buncha roaches are being made, and I have like 10 "open" supplies to work with after they are being made. Next inject cycle is done, and suddently I have way more larvae (3x4=12) than open supplies. Should I just keep 20-30 ahead of my count midgame or is there a "trick" or "ratio" to how to deal with this? Or am I basically supposed to "know" what my next cycle is going to be and plan 3 steps ahead with supply count? Because 2 hatches with 5-7 larvae full of roaches is...anywhere from 20-28 food, while drones are only 10-14 food.
You're right - making overlords is NOT intuitive. At least, not at first. You need to train yourself just as you need to train yourself to constantly make units, inject, and check drone counts.
The only trick is practice. The more you practice, the more you'll get the "feel" of it.
Also, when you're making supply-intensive units it's normal to make 4-8 overlords before you power units. This is how you can build 30 roaches straight-up when going Stephano-style roach in ZvP.
Sometimes pro's will say things on their streams about overlord timings, but more often than not they get supply blocked plenty as well. Some players make an overlord at each inject. When MrBitter coached he advocated making 2 overlords at each inject cycle (after about 52, I think) until over 100 supply and then make 3. Some players use supply indicators and times on the minimap. Whatever the case, it's well-practiced enough that they hit the timings.
4) If I am given free reign, is it normal for me to have excess minerals AND gas? Since I am basically allowed to drone up to full saturation in 2 bases in the early game if no attacks come, and my larvae only eats up 50 minerals per. Or am I still supposed to keep my supplies really low? If so, what are the ways to do this? Watching pro replays did not help me at all on this topic, since noone in their right mind lets TLO drone up to 60 in his first 75-80 supply without some sort of aggression. (while proofreading this post, I realized I could've made more overseers here and there with the excess, so if that is the answer, I will feel insanely stupid)
Not really. If you're not building units you should be teching. Tech eats up a lot of minerals and gas. If you find that you're in a situation when you banked 400 gas then you either took the gas too early or did not spend it properly. With good injects, expansions, and macro hatch timings you will be able to keep the minerals low. A good rule of thumb is when you bank 300 extra minerals with nothing left to spend it then build a macro hatch. Watching pro replays could help, but you could also shoot yourself in the foot by following their mistakes. Pro's play bad games, too!
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What are the general timings/supply counts when you do the 6 queen opener for ZVT?
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^ Watching just a single VOD and figuring it out for yourself would take much, much less time for everyone involved, than if someone wrote out the answer to that...
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Hey. I use to play bw as zerg and as such I like to be more active and harass oreinted than the general zerg playstyle. As a result I want to go muta/ling/bane zvt but I have no experience with it. Could someone give me a rough run down of how to transition into muta off a 4 queen opening [i.e how fast and in what circumstances I can take my third]? What are the thought processes behind it, how far and how fast should I upgrade my lings and my mutalisks? Any bit of info would be appreciated. 
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If only there was a good ZvT guide...
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oh you
edit: your guide is pretty vague on upgrades, it just says if I go one route Ill have less upgrades and more army. It doesnt actually explicitly say: You want to get up to +2 attack on muta or anything like that?
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Thanks for the criticism and feedback ^^
Upgrades are a rather stylistic thing, and my guide is not the forum to say what style is better. I say in the guide simply that +1 carapace is extremely crucial, which it is no matter what style you go. I also state that melee/carapce benefits both broodlrods and ultras (broodlords gain more dmg by +melee than +air due to broodling dps). All other upgrades, however, are not as critical, and it's a stylistic choice to get any more than +1 carapace, as more mutas, or quicker hive, can be preferred over upgrades, and you don't really 'need' upgrades in the same way that you NEED +1 carapace and zergling speed.
You could definitely argue to stay on 1 evo and go for more mutas, or quicker hive, and some say double evo is better, which is why I do not go into upgrades. It's up to you.
It doesn't explicitly say any upgrade because, quite frankly, none hit any critical hit number that's just super important, and you can play just fine without 'racing' upgrades. I mention in the guide that of course, you don't want to be 0/0 against 3/3, but you can definitely play a viable game if you just go 0/1, and get broodlords quicker instead of upgrades. It's super important you get +1 carapace, but any more upgrades than that is simply a stylistic choice or a response. Against bio, upgrades are great, against mech, upgrades are actually pretty useless save for maybe attack upgrades.
I believe in the muta section, I talk about that carapace is if you want to be more aggresive with your mutas and pick off units/small amounts of marines as well as benefitting your broodlords more, and that attack is more if you want to snipe tanks and medivacs and be more defensive with your mutas.
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Against a T who either goes reactor hellion expand or doesn't open with any gas, how viable is an early roach/ling push with a third base, cutting drones at around 31?
Basically I've been using this strat vs diamond/low masters players and it's working quite well, but I'd like to know whether it holds higher up in the ladder, since hopefully I'll be there soon.
Upon scouting lack of gas with my drone, or reactor hellion with my first pair of lings, I'll stop droning at 36. I put down a roach warren followed by 3 overlords, 8 roaches, and 16 zerglings. Then I'll attack his front with these while droning, taking a third, and getting double upgrades. The idea is to kill all or most of his hellions with roaches and do some damage at the front while safely getting a third. And well against many T's that I play, they're forced to lift their natural and run back to their main, so I get to deny a lot of mining time (but I don't know if this is supposed to happen at higher levels).
I know there's various roach/ling all-ins which cut drones at around 20, but I don't cut drones until like 31, so hopefully it's more viable in the long term? I really hate when T has a bunch of hellions running around in the midgame since then I can't really be aggressive with lings.
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Could anyone look at this replay? I just got promoted to silver today, this is vs a silver Terran. He takes his natural pretty late (I think it was when I was at 40-50 supply) and then turtles on those two the whole time, eventually rolling out a massive death ball through my face. I realized towards the end getting broodlords would probably be smart... but obviously I didn't get that far soon enough. I don't have a clue when I should start teching past roaches though.
Drop.sc is giving a 502 error, so here's a dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lozv2f9aptwuw9q/Outnumbered vs Terran biomech.SC2Replay
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On July 08 2012 09:45 vectrekawn wrote:
Against a T who either goes reactor hellion expand or doesn't open with any gas, how viable is an early roach/ling push with a third base, cutting drones at around 31?
Basically I've been using this strat vs diamond/low masters players and it's working quite well, but I'd like to know whether it holds higher up in the ladder, since hopefully I'll be there soon.
Upon scouting lack of gas with my drone, or reactor hellion with my first pair of lings, I'll stop droning at 36. I put down a roach warren followed by 3 overlords, 8 roaches, and 16 zerglings. Then I'll attack his front with these while droning, taking a third, and getting double upgrades. The idea is to kill all or most of his hellions with roaches and do some damage at the front while safely getting a third. And well against many T's that I play, they're forced to lift their natural and run back to their main, so I get to deny a lot of mining time (but I don't know if this is supposed to happen at higher levels).
I know there's various roach/ling all-ins which cut drones at around 20, but I don't cut drones until like 31, so hopefully it's more viable in the long term? I really hate when T has a bunch of hellions running around in the midgame since then I can't really be aggressive with lings.
For sure that is viable, even with a follow-up with banes if you do decent damage. Stephano had a phase of doing that about...3-4 months ago? Strictly playing Roach/Ling, usually with banes too, fast pressure off 2-base. Take the 3rd + upgrades behind it then you can go macro or continue aggression from there.
I personally like being aggressive when there is lack of gas, not much a T can do without siege tanks/stim/marauders vs this composition, you get some damage in and set the tempo. I hope someone else expands on this train of thought though.
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Are Broodlords really the end all be all end game unit for ZvP?
I find that every time I try to go Broodlords it ends in two ways.
1. He starts counter attacking my expansions which makes it hard to defend even with spines since I have to keep my Broodlords defended as well.
2. He gets Mothership out and depending how I position myself he vortexes some Broodlords and I end up losing the battle and ultimately the game..
I've found that going Mutas and forcing him to either turtle up on his 2-3 bases or base trade is the most effective means of beating Protoss late game. The replay I posted is just your typical ZvP with me using Mutas. I don't know why but Broodlords just seem too slow to use in this matchup. Other than Protoss massing Archons with their Stalker ball I almost never lose with Mutas late game.
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-266785.jpg) ]
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Against a T who either goes reactor hellion expand or doesn't open with any gas, how viable is an early roach/ling push with a third base, cutting drones at around 31?
Basically I've been using this strat vs diamond/low masters players and it's working quite well, but I'd like to know whether it holds higher up in the ladder, since hopefully I'll be there soon.
Upon scouting lack of gas with my drone, or reactor hellion with my first pair of lings, I'll stop droning at 36. I put down a roach warren followed by 3 overlords, 8 roaches, and 16 zerglings. Then I'll attack his front with these while droning, taking a third, and getting double upgrades. The idea is to kill all or most of his hellions with roaches and do some damage at the front while safely getting a third. And well against many T's that I play, they're forced to lift their natural and run back to their main, so I get to deny a lot of mining time (but I don't know if this is supposed to happen at higher levels).
I know there's various roach/ling all-ins which cut drones at around 20, but I don't cut drones until like 31, so hopefully it's more viable in the long term? I really hate when T has a bunch of hellions running around in the midgame since then I can't really be aggressive with lings.
Submit a rep, that would let us gauge it better. Practice it against Terran builds (you clearly are doing that just fine on ladder).
But it sounds like you are doing the DRG style roach pressure - ~15-20 gas, 28 roach warren, 2 overlords, attack, against hellion expands. It doesn't work at all if Terran knows it's coming and makes a bunker, marauders, or siege tanks. It's stopped pretty easily, which is why people stopped doing it, but for a while Terran didn't know how to scout for it.
It's not viable with a third taken, but you can definitely do the roach all-in and if you fail to close the game, drone behind it. You can either get speedlings and go way all-in (requires gas earlier than 20), or you can drone behind it and kill enough SCV's and add-ons to make it worthwhile, while using the 1-3 roaches to secure your third against the hellions.
Also sounds like you are doing a much, much weaker version of the roach/bane all-in.
Check my ZvT guide, I talk about how to do both builds, in-depth, and include replays and vods of it.
Just forcing a lift on the natural is not nearly enough damage done though. Terran is way ahead if he knows ahead of time, just lifts off, and then retakes his nat using siege tanks or marauders (both roach all-ins, that is). You are cutting a huge amount of workers, as in you only have 20-35 workers depending what variation you do, instead of 4 hatcheries, lair started, 50+ drones around the similar timing.
Could anyone look at this replay? I just got promoted to silver today, this is vs a silver Terran. He takes his natural pretty late (I think it was when I was at 40-50 supply) and then turtles on those two the whole time, eventually rolling out a massive death ball through my face. I realized towards the end getting broodlords would probably be smart... but obviously I didn't get that far soon enough. I don't have a clue when I should start teching past roaches though.
You should never get hive tech against a 2 basing opponent (might be a small chance to do it against deathball play toss, but that's very very arguable as the best option).
If he went mech, mass roaches off 3 base would have owned him. You simply aren't macro'ing well enough, at all, that's why this owned you so badly. Macro better, and such pushes won't work. Also, 2 base pushes specifically punish a Zerg who's teching too quickly, from toss gateway all-ins like immortal/sentry or blink or anything autowinning basically against a zerg getting his 5th and 6th gas for infestors/mutas, to mech pushes killing a zerg who tries to go hive.
2 base timings, yea, can definitely be scary. But if someone is massing a deathball on 2 base, you just aren't macro'ing well at all, and are probably teching too hard. Mass units and kill him. Pure baneling probably would have beat him too.
Can you go a little more in-dpeth into the game though, before I watch? ie what exactly happened, what you did...
Are Broodlords really the end all be all end game unit for ZvP?
I find that every time I try to go Broodlords it ends in two ways.
1. He starts counter attacking my expansions which makes it hard to defend even with spines since I have to keep my Broodlords defended as well.
2. He gets Mothership out and depending how I position myself he vortexes some Broodlords and I end up losing the battle and ultimately the game..
I've found that going Mutas and forcing him to either turtle up on his 2-3 bases or base trade is the most effective means of beating Protoss late game. The replay I posted is just your typical ZvP with me using Mutas. I don't know why but Broodlords just seem too slow to use in this matchup. Other than Protoss massing Archons with their Stalker ball I almost never lose with Mutas late game.
Yes, pure broodlord/infestor armies are the be-all end-all in ZvP.
1. Toss is kind of slow, there is no reason for this to happen except with warp prism or maybe recall... You should have better map awareness, and always have the towers. Toss has to turtle on 3 base and get a deathball before taking his fourth since infestor armies are so awesome before 3+ colossi (which you can't reliably support on 2 base without being all-in, so need 3), and mutas will always win a base trade vs 2 base toss as long as you transition well, tech correctly, and keep your mutas alive enough.
You should have seen his forces moving out way in advance, in which case you should be able to bring your infestors to buy time with FG/IT until your broods arrive. If it's early in the game, you should have enough roach/ling support to crush small forces, at least buying enough time for the broods, and if it's late in the game, just go fucking kill him. There's nothing wrong with massing 20 spines at a base if your opponent is doing that sort of play, don't wait until he does that sort of tactic twice.
2. There are a couple ways to deal with vortex.
1. NP. Not really reliable anymore as Toss are more aware of this, but trying to sacrifice a single infestor to flank behind while burrowed so you can NP the mothership and then quickly waste his vortex (learn the hotkeys, it's V! Spam that V as soon as you hit E!). But toss can't really waste a vortex on 1 or even 10 infestors, he needs them for the broodlords, so abuse him if he has 1a syndrome and his stalker/colossi army moves out just slightly ahead of his mothership. Just like terran cloak their ghosts on the chance Toss doesn't have an observer.
You can also try mass NP - if you have like 10 infestors and Toss does not have a high enough colossi count, like less than 4 (that late in the game, that's small), just bumrush the mothership and NP it when he tries to bring it in to vortex. You may lose all your infestors doing this, but it may be worth it, but dont do it if he has a ton of colossi, or without your broodlord support.
2. 20-40 banelings. They don't cost much supply. Throw them into the vortex when he vortexes, instantly kill the archons before they kill your broods.
3. Pre-emptive IT Spam. This is my preferred method against good toss. Broodlords have 13 range, vortex is 9 - abuse it. Siege the toss army with your broods, and spam IT's in front of your broods. As you see him bring his mothership in range, FG it and spam more IT's under it. The it's will kill it. This requires you to be quick to recognize what he's doing, at all costs do not let that mothership in range of your broods.
This requires good energy management. You really need at least 10 infestors for this, and you can't engage Toss if you are below half energy on all the infestors. You really need to be aware of your energy, and can't waste too much energy at all. just like mass recalling on your mothership over and over can lose you the game if you suddenly dont have enough for vortex when you need it (creator vs coca for example, gstl), spamming IT's too much and being overaggresive after you've spammed a bunch of energy and no longer have any more, can lose you the game.
Engage, spend energy, back off. After any engagement, back off to regenerate energy. You need it if you rely on infestors as your anti-vortex.
4. IT Spam - if he gets the vortex off, spam IT a la destiny all around it. The idea is the IT, with instant shot vs archon's delayed shot, kill the archons before they shoot your broods (like the baneling idea). You really need to spam a lot. This requires a ton of infestors too.
I've found that going Mutas and forcing him to either turtle up on his 2-3 bases or base trade is the most effective means of beating Protoss late game. The replay I posted is just your typical ZvP with me using Mutas. I don't know why but Broodlords just seem too slow to use in this matchup. Other than Protoss massing Archons with their Stalker ball I almost never lose with Mutas late game.
Most Toss know how to handle mutas now, and you will eventually run into toss who learn NEVER BASE TRADE MUTAS! The problem with mutas is they can never fight, so one day you will fight a toss who just never leaves his base, and because you never kill his army, even if he's only ever on 1 mining base the next 40 minutes with just 20 probes, eventually, he'll have a pure mothership/archon/colossi/ht/3/3/3 army and he'll win. You need to transition into broods as soon as Toss starts to stabilize and secure his third and have HT. If he moves out though, by all means base trade and ezpz win. A lot of the maps aren't friendly for mutas anymore, like cloud though. if it works for you though, go for it. Another option is instead of going for the lategame with mutas, just transition into ultra/speedbane. It's a much more aggressive option that can win against Toss. Although it's kind of all-in and with toss already going templar tech i wouldnt recommend it and toss already know how to deal with this, but just saying, if toss seems like he's about to break...
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On July 08 2012 10:10 chasecaleb wrote:Could anyone look at this replay? I just got promoted to silver today, this is vs a silver Terran. He takes his natural pretty late (I think it was when I was at 40-50 supply) and then turtles on those two the whole time, eventually rolling out a massive death ball through my face. I realized towards the end getting broodlords would probably be smart... but obviously I didn't get that far soon enough. I don't have a clue when I should start teching past roaches though. Drop.sc is giving a 502 error, so here's a dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lozv2f9aptwuw9q/Outnumbered vs Terran biomech.SC2Replay
Your biggest problem was having 39 drones in a 30minute game, aside from that you can't expect for roaches to work aginst a huge bio ball with medivac's. He only made 4 hellions and 6 tanks all game, Ling/Bling, with your favorite tech would have worked alot better. I have found a 12-13 minute hive in Z v T, to be right on time, if you rewatch the replay, and look at the 16minute mark, when you would have had broods or ultras, you would have won easily. Best of luck next time, work hard on your macro and it will pay off in the long run!!! Cheers and happy laddering!
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You should never get hive tech against a 2 basing opponent (might be a small chance to do it against deathball play toss, but that's very very arguable as the best option).
If he went mech, mass roaches off 3 base would have owned him. You simply aren't macro'ing well enough, at all, that's why this owned you so badly. Macro better, and such pushes won't work. Also, 2 base pushes specifically punish a Zerg who's teching too quickly, from toss gateway all-ins like immortal/sentry or blink or anything autowinning basically against a zerg getting his 5th and 6th gas for infestors/mutas, to mech pushes killing a zerg who tries to go hive.
2 base timings, yea, can definitely be scary. But if someone is massing a deathball on 2 base, you just aren't macro'ing well at all, and are probably teching too hard. Mass units and kill him. Pure baneling probably would have beat him too.
Can you go a little more in-dpeth into the game though, before I watch? ie what exactly happened, what you did.You should never get hive tech against a 2 basing opponent (might be a small chance to do it against deathball play toss, but that's very very arguable as the best option).
If he went mech, mass roaches off 3 base would have owned him. You simply aren't macro'ing well enough, at all, that's why this owned you so badly. Macro better, and such pushes won't work. Also, 2 base pushes specifically punish a Zerg who's teching too quickly, from toss gateway all-ins like immortal/sentry or blink or anything autowinning basically against a zerg getting his 5th and 6th gas for infestors/mutas, to mech pushes killing a zerg who tries to go hive.
2 base timings, yea, can definitely be scary. But if someone is massing a deathball on 2 base, you just aren't macro'ing well at all, and are probably teching too hard. Mass units and kill him. Pure baneling probably would have beat him too.
Can you go a little more in-dpeth into the game though, before I watch? ie what exactly happened, what you did...
You didn't watch the replay ;0/ He says 2 bases, but you cant really call it a 2 base timing, when the terran doesnt push out
until 25 minutes! Sorry just saw you say at the end for him to describe before you watch, my apoligie, its just a case of macro, if you want the truth, he just really needs to pratice his macro, also I would look at unit counters, Pretty much in a nutshell, he see's 4 hellions and goes pure roach, vs mmm. The terran has 2 defensive tanks at home, its wierd watching silver games lol, The terran didnt take new expos until his previous ones were mined out lol.
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On July 08 2012 09:45 vectrekawn wrote:
Against a T who either goes reactor hellion expand or doesn't open with any gas, how viable is an early roach/ling push with a third base, cutting drones at around 31?
Basically I've been using this strat vs diamond/low masters players and it's working quite well, but I'd like to know whether it holds higher up in the ladder, since hopefully I'll be there soon.
Upon scouting lack of gas with my drone, or reactor hellion with my first pair of lings, I'll stop droning at 36. I put down a roach warren followed by 3 overlords, 8 roaches, and 16 zerglings. Then I'll attack his front with these while droning, taking a third, and getting double upgrades. The idea is to kill all or most of his hellions with roaches and do some damage at the front while safely getting a third. And well against many T's that I play, they're forced to lift their natural and run back to their main, so I get to deny a lot of mining time (but I don't know if this is supposed to happen at higher levels).
I know there's various roach/ling all-ins which cut drones at around 20, but I don't cut drones until like 31, so hopefully it's more viable in the long term? I really hate when T has a bunch of hellions running around in the midgame since then I can't really be aggressive with lings.
This is close to how I play in mid masters, belive it or not 75% of terrans die to it and call me a cheseeing noob, I do the stephano style, open standard with speed, take off gas, then at 6min return to gas take 2nd gas, and drop a rw. @90% rw bane nest, then 7 roaches, and 14 lings(8 turn to banes), 7:30 3rd, 8min both expo gases, 8:30 double evo's, 10min lair, and 12min hive into ultra's. The pressure you can apply if it doesn't kill them sets them so far behind, you are good to drone up ur 3rd, and take a 4th soon after. I have lost, 2 times so far with this build, and they were both proxy banshee. I am really stead fast about scouting for banshee, because of the late evo's and lair.
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On July 08 2012 15:01 Gikimish wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2012 09:45 vectrekawn wrote:
Against a T who either goes reactor hellion expand or doesn't open with any gas, how viable is an early roach/ling push with a third base, cutting drones at around 31?
Basically I've been using this strat vs diamond/low masters players and it's working quite well, but I'd like to know whether it holds higher up in the ladder, since hopefully I'll be there soon.
Upon scouting lack of gas with my drone, or reactor hellion with my first pair of lings, I'll stop droning at 36. I put down a roach warren followed by 3 overlords, 8 roaches, and 16 zerglings. Then I'll attack his front with these while droning, taking a third, and getting double upgrades. The idea is to kill all or most of his hellions with roaches and do some damage at the front while safely getting a third. And well against many T's that I play, they're forced to lift their natural and run back to their main, so I get to deny a lot of mining time (but I don't know if this is supposed to happen at higher levels).
I know there's various roach/ling all-ins which cut drones at around 20, but I don't cut drones until like 31, so hopefully it's more viable in the long term? I really hate when T has a bunch of hellions running around in the midgame since then I can't really be aggressive with lings. This is close to how I play in mid masters, belive it or not 75% of terrans die to it and call me a cheseeing noob, I do the stephano style, open standard with speed, take off gas, then at 6min return to gas take 2nd gas, and drop a rw. @90% rw bane nest, then 7 roaches, and 14 lings(8 turn to banes), 7:30 3rd, 8min both expo gases, 8:30 double evo's, 10min lair, and 12min hive into ultra's. The pressure you can apply if it doesn't kill them sets them so far behind, you are good to drone up ur 3rd, and take a 4th soon after. I have lost, 2 times so far with this build, and they were both proxy banshee. I am really stead fast about scouting for banshee, because of the late evo's and lair.
Uh... hm. The guy you are replying to does something that is, in my opinion, less viable than your version--he does not add banelings. Which gives him no ability to bust through a wall. His build/strategy can be dead in the water if the terran has just a flimsy supply depot wall at the natural and kept his bunker (gasless FE), so it is primarily used against hellion openings. It can work, it often still gets through, but it's very different from a roach-bane timing. Additionally, he's not trying to kill the terran and he's fine without doing damage because he's just trying to secure a third--in which case just serious roach pressure (say 6-8) should be enough, no need to convert 8 drones into 16 lings as well. Stephano used to do exactly that, as this roach timing forces hellions to come back to defend if a marauder+bunker or a tank isn't ready, and it does so without the use of reinforcing lings, so that he can drone up behind it while forcing an scv pull if he can break into the main, or a lift at the natural if his roaches get stuck outside.
Basically, you guys are talking about pretty different things: sounds like he wants an aggressive roach push against reactored hellions, and you like to do a roach-ling-bane timing attack/semi all-in. The biggest difference is in intent, as he just wants a build that shuts down hellions while he macros, while your attack pretty much needs to do damage, but is also viable against marine-heavy FEs, too. Whereas his quick roach business is primarily a response to reactored hellion.
EDIT: clarity
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Bosnia-Herzegovina261 Posts
Indeed, that is a good way to go. I have even asked some progamers how to play an aggressive Zerg without it being an allin, and the strat that both of you posted is the best way a Zerg can play aggressive in the early game. Most of high Diamond/low Masters Terran nowadays cheese almost all of the time, simply because they hate the MU.
Yesterday, I had a run of 32 games:
ZvT - 2 games (both bunker rushes, 1 win, 1 loss)
ZvP - 9 games
ZvZ - 21 games
Then after that, I started meeting only Terrans, my mind was just in another state and I kept losing to everything as I was just playing ZvZs all day long. Lost too many times to Marine/Hellion attack (which gets repelled, but forces you to make Zerglings) followed by Cloaked Banshees. If I see such a timing coming, I don't do the Stephano style 7min Evo Chamber, I do it even sooner (especially if they don't start building a second CC), at around 6mins.
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Broodlords have 13 range
Belial I've seen you mention this number on many occasions.
...are you sure?
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On July 08 2012 14:44 Gikimish wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2012 10:10 chasecaleb wrote:Could anyone look at this replay? I just got promoted to silver today, this is vs a silver Terran. He takes his natural pretty late (I think it was when I was at 40-50 supply) and then turtles on those two the whole time, eventually rolling out a massive death ball through my face. I realized towards the end getting broodlords would probably be smart... but obviously I didn't get that far soon enough. I don't have a clue when I should start teching past roaches though. Drop.sc is giving a 502 error, so here's a dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lozv2f9aptwuw9q/Outnumbered vs Terran biomech.SC2Replay Your biggest problem was having 39 drones in a 30minute game, aside from that you can't expect for roaches to work aginst a huge bio ball with medivac's. He only made 4 hellions and 6 tanks all game, Ling/Bling, with your favorite tech would have worked alot better. I have found a 12-13 minute hive in Z v T, to be right on time, if you rewatch the replay, and look at the 16minute mark, when you would have had broods or ultras, you would have won easily. Best of luck next time, work hard on your macro and it will pay off in the long run!!! Cheers and happy laddering!
Thanks, and thank you to the others who replied! I was basing my strategy on the first few FilterSC bronze to masters zerg series YouTube videos, which was basically about massing roaches with much better macro than I pulled off that game. I like that style a lot, because it seems like once I last the first 8-9 minutes the game is usually mine except in situations like that replay. Any tips on timings for starting with ling/blings?
Also, here's a new replay of a ZvZ game. I won't be offended if no one bothers to watch it, but I feel like I pulled off the roach build and macro MUCH better (and against a much more appropriate unit composition)... although I started slacking once I realized he was stuck on the two bases, either low on drones or resources, and pretty much dead. Maybe a few suggestions on specifically what to focus on with macro improvement as well as my third base timing?
EDIT: actually adding the replay might help -- https://www.dropbox.com/s/bhklqkho1divf32/awesome zvz mechanics - roach win.SC2Replay
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On July 08 2012 15:58 Oboeman wrote:Belial I've seen you mention this number on many occasions. ...are you sure?
lol
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EPT
