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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. |
Thanks guys, great responses. These are my follow up thoughts / questions.
ZvZ
[1] Ok. I will start 10 drone scouting, I like the idea.
[2] Lol. Glad others share my sentiments, I’ll keep 2 on gas and get early blings defensively
[3]Ok, I’ll hold off on the aggression. By aggression I didn’t mean actually trying to kill anything, I meant just making a cycle of lings to poke his front – but if I have blings, then I guess it’s not necessary.
[4] Interesting that you think hydra/roach precedes infestor tech, I see so many zergs going infestor roach before mixing in hydras. But, regardless of that, I am now going to commit to infestor ling ultra play and become a master of that because I think it suits my playstyle more.
Do you think with infestor ling style counterattacking is necessary to stay in the game, or can I just spine up like a boss? I watched Blades tutorial but I note that zergs play it differently – even at GSL level. Some go MASS spine like 20 spines, others just constantly counterattack. What is your preference and why?
ZvP
[1] Ok thanks
[2] Ok thanks again ☺
[3] Ok, interesting. I didn’t realise upgrade was always last.
[4] Ok, also interesting. That’s a good point about carapace being negated. I’ll probably opt more for +1 attack.
[5] I’m assuming he’s done something like 4gate into 3base with robo support, and you can expect a colossi / stalker ball follow up. What I mean to be asking in this question is how you decide on what your follow up is after he goes for 3 bases. Do you straight tech to hive? Do you spine up? Do you put on roach aggression? Etc. Obviously all are viable, but what I am asking is what information helps you decide what to do. E.g. On daybreak, I think roach drops and mutalisk play are great follow ups after toss third, but on Ohana, I prefer to straight tech to ultra bling infestor, because it’s harder to harass. So what I am asking is, how do you make that decision? Or do you have a general pre-set plan for the matchup and follow it blindly ☺
ZvT
[1] Ysnake – the problem is that if he has 8+ hellions you kind of need roaches then, so you have to drop your warren earlier. And if they’re BF, they’re essential. Therefore I feel like as soon as you seen hellions you should drop the warren and push the hellions back.
Belial – What I meant was dropping the third and then putting on the some roach pressure immediately. I’ve seen it done at pro-level – it’s like ling/bling/roach all-in – but not all in. You just make a cycle of roaches/lings, push to terran’s third, and drone behind.
[2] Ok, thanks. Will focus on improving roach timings into GGlords.
Cheers guys
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How do you guys set rallypoint for reinforcements? Setting them to a place on the map seems kinda bad, because you'll then have several "pockets" of units all over the place. Pretty easy to forget about some of them at that point. Rallying to your own natural seems bad because of the long reinforcement time. So that leaves putting eggs into the pre-existing control groups? What are your thoughts?
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gronnelg, when you make the units and your about to rally them, you can use the shift command to add them to your army so whenever they pop, they'll just go to where your army is.
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On July 09 2012 19:29 SgtFunShinebear wrote:
gronnelg, when you make the units and your about to rally them, you can use the shift command to add them to your army so whenever they pop, they'll just go to where your army is.
With that being said, DO NOT DO THIS WITH YOUR MUTAS, or they will end up flying over a pack of marines and dying, or something unfortunate like that
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On July 09 2012 19:26 gronnelg wrote:
How do you guys set rallypoint for reinforcements? Setting them to a place on the map seems kinda bad, because you'll then have several "pockets" of units all over the place. Pretty easy to forget about some of them at that point. Rallying to your own natural seems bad because of the long reinforcement time. So that leaves putting eggs into the pre-existing control groups? What are your thoughts?
Indeed, make it a habit of hotkeying what your morphing when it's in the egg phase. I started doing that over 6 months ago thanks to watching Stephano do it and it really makes a difference. You won't be scrambling to gather your forces in a rush defense because they are all hotkeyed when they hatch so you can direct them in 1 location. (Common losing scenario vs a rush, all your hatching units are split up and you lose.)
The method is to make however many units, then Ctrl + Left click the mouse on the Eggs, this will remove all larva from the control then hotkey them. I hotkey over existing army forces into 1 group that's perfectly fine. The beauty about this method is, you can hotkey half, and the other half to a separate hotkey and use that for defending expansions (3rd,4th, 5th), use it as your scouting lings , counter attacking lings, multi pronged lings. It makes the game feel more fluid, you have complete control of your army at 100% throughout the game. Makes you feel safer, so you can drone harder. DRONE HARDER. This was a message brought to you by. https://twitter.com/LiquidRet
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On July 09 2012 21:22 Slardar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2012 19:26 gronnelg wrote:
How do you guys set rallypoint for reinforcements? Setting them to a place on the map seems kinda bad, because you'll then have several "pockets" of units all over the place. Pretty easy to forget about some of them at that point. Rallying to your own natural seems bad because of the long reinforcement time. So that leaves putting eggs into the pre-existing control groups? What are your thoughts? Indeed, make it a habit of hotkeying what your morphing when it's in the egg phase. I started doing that over 6 months ago thanks to watching Stephano do it and it really makes a difference. You won't be scrambling to gather your forces in a rush defense because they are all hotkeyed when they hatch so you can direct them in 1 location. (Common losing scenario vs a rush, all your hatching units are split up and you lose.) The method is to make however many units, then Ctrl + Left click the mouse on the Eggs, this will remove all larva from the control then hotkey them. I hotkey over existing army forces into 1 group that's perfectly fine. The beauty about this method is, you can hotkey half, and the other half to a separate hotkey and use that for defending expansions (3rd,4th, 5th), use it as your scouting lings , counter attacking lings, multi pronged lings. It makes the game feel more fluid, you have complete control of your army at 100% throughout the game. Makes you feel safer, so you can drone harder. DRONE HARDER. This was a message brought to you by. https://twitter.com/LiquidRet
Hahaha that ending :D
But in my opnion you should mixup the instant hotkeying with rallying. Stephano doesn't do that often, but some Zergs (with really great macro) often macro so frequently that they only can produce 1 -3 units per cycle, and with that it gets really hard to hotkey everything instantly. In my opinion you should estimate the right situation for when to hotkey and when to rally, but that comes with experience and practice ... so yeah .. my point ... and follow Ret on twitter -> twitter.com/LiquidRet
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Bosnia-Herzegovina261 Posts
Lately, I have been having problems with in ZvT. Out of my last 50 games only 6 are against Terran and 3 are bunker rushes, 1 cloaked banshee (3 lost, 1 won) and I won twice with 6pool since when I encounter the same person that cheesed me, I return the favor. The reason why I say only 6 are against Terran is that I actually do not have any replays where I played against a Terran player, these are my general concerns and problems however:
- In all MUs, I rarely go above 1k Minerals unless it is 14+ minutes (or I'm maxed out and going to attack/waiting for his move), it is bound to happen, especially during the transition phase, but in ZvT, I overflow Minerals like crazy, and that's because I play a larvae-intense playstyle (I miss maybe 1 inject in the first 10 minutes, although, every game, my macro Hatch was a bit late) of Ling/Bling into Infestors and lately, I skip early Infestors to get Mutas since I do not like getting dropped at 2-3 places at a time, to discourage the Terran to actually try and use drops.
- Almost all Terrans that went Marine/Tank/Medivac have killed me dead on, I kill the first few waves, but once I run out of larvae, it is gg.
- I usually don't go for 6 Queen build, I only get 4 (3 injecters and 1 designated creep spread Queen) and 5th when my macro Hatch is up. Against MMT, I have problems mainly on Antiga Shipyard and Shakuras (I have Entombed, Tal'Darim and that new map vetoed), and when paired with drop play, I straight out die.
- However, I believe I keep losing to Terrans due to several reasons:
- I didn't scout right and I just die to whatever they have.
- My macro slipped a bit.
- My mechanics maybe, and this is where I need to improve, although, I am not sure as where to improve.
- I went to Diamond League, was ranked 7th and then fell down to Platinum and now I'm rank 28 or something.
- Playing too many games against Zerg (last 10 games, 9 were ZvZ), so when you get in ZvZ mentality, it is hard to break out of it. A couple of times, after a long marathon of games, I would just send my Overlord to his natural and actually spread them on the map as I would do in ZvZ (last 50 games were 36 ZvZ, 6 ZvT, 8 ZvP).
What I would like to anyone with some time to check out my stream videos and tell me what to improve in mechanics department, or anything in general as I literally just hit a wall and cannot progress, even though I would like to.
http://www.twitch.tv/ysnake
(there are some LoL games that I play with RL friends and just to warm up my hand, as I do not care if I win or lose in LoL)
I am not promoting my stream in any way (not sure if that is bannable), I am sincerely looking for help. Notes: some videos that just end without a reason is FFsplit crashing randomly, and today, I haven't been in the best of the shape, but I'd still like if someone could take a look at it. Thank you in advance. (last stream video is just me being frustrated after a very stressful morning and rage-race changing constantly)
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[4] Interesting that you think hydra/roach precedes infestor tech, I see so many zergs going infestor roach before mixing in hydras. But, regardless of that, I am now going to commit to infestor ling ultra play and become a master of that because I think it suits my playstyle more.
Do you think with infestor ling style counterattacking is necessary to stay in the game, or can I just spine up like a boss? I watched Blades tutorial but I note that zergs play it differently – even at GSL level. Some go MASS spine like 20 spines, others just constantly counterattack. What is your preference and why?
Well, if the opponent goes mutas, you need infestors before hydras, or if the opponent goes 2 base infestor, you can skip hydras and go into infestors. But if you are both going standard third before lair, roach play, it's hydras before infestors.
On ladder and lower levels, yea, you'll see a lot of infestor play in ZvZ, because people don't macro well enough to get punished by the timings. I didn't notice it until 1k+ pts masters - everytime I went infestors as 3 base zerg vs 3 base zerg, i got rolled by roach/hydra. It's just way too vulnerable, the hydra player hits you at like 160-200 right when your infestors are popping and don't have banked energy and he just gets too much of an advantage right there.
Counterattacking is good if the opponent thinks he can just leave a few banes or something, or tries to move out. Against ling/infestor, if you are going roaches, you can just never leave your base. So if the opponent moves out, you need to counterattack, and trading thirds is a good thing.
[5] I’m assuming he’s done something like 4gate into 3base with robo support, and you can expect a colossi / stalker ball follow up. What I mean to be asking in this question is how you decide on what your follow up is after he goes for 3 bases. Do you straight tech to hive? Do you spine up? Do you put on roach aggression? Etc. Obviously all are viable, but what I am asking is what information helps you decide what to do. E.g. On daybreak, I think roach drops and mutalisk play are great follow ups after toss third, but on Ohana, I prefer to straight tech to ultra bling infestor, because it’s harder to harass. So what I am asking is, how do you make that decision? Or do you have a general pre-set plan for the matchup and follow it blindly ☺
Yes, you need to get hive immediately, unless you plan to do mass roach aggression (which is outdated now, very all-in, and bad on a lot of maps) or go mutas (which is perfectly viable).
You make the decision based on experience. They are all viable options - roach aggression, muta, infestor-fast hive. I make the decision usually based on what I see. Against fast third Toss I usually go symbol style fast hive ultra/bane, you can check out the discussion thread "ultras in zvp symbol style'.
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hey guys, how do you respond to a gateway expand with 15pool properly?
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Quick question - I'm a diamond zerg player that desperately needs to expand his selection of styles/strategies in zvp (competition with practice partners that are starting to counterbuild me) and I'm looking into the kind of mutalisk plays that were common a few months ago, where you aim for a base trade to win the game if toss pushes out.
Where can I find good resources on this kind of style? I'd love some collection of guides and especially more recent replays.
On a side note - big thanks to the regulars in this thread. It's been a great help for a very long time.
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What timing/information should I look for in order to scout a two base baneling bust or ling bust zvz? How do you differentiate between between an immortal push to get a third and the all in?
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^ Your overlord over their natural should see they aren't making drones, and their mineral line at the natural is empty. You should always have an overlord watching their natural mineral line.
But this is just to make sure. Your build itself should be safe enough that any ling/bane all-in could be handled blind.
Your 9 overlord should always go in front of their base to see if they stream out lings (personally, I keep my 9 overlord in my main to watch for spines from 6/7/8 pools, but I move it after that timing passes, ie my pool finishes about, or if you drone scout, when you see they aren't early pooling, and it will get in front of their base in time still).
So say you go hatch first in zvz - you should get a baneling nest around 25-31 (if you go pool first, then after your expo). You should also make 6 lings at about 30+. Personally, I morph 4 of them into banes, and I'm 800 points masters. You could be greedier and just leave the 4 lings at home, and morph them into banes if you see him move out, or only make 3 pre-emptive banes, but that's all up to you and I'd recommend making pre-emptive banes, and cut that number down as you figure out more how to play. I still use 4 pre-emptive banes, sometimes I maybe miss the minimap or distracted with making gases or taking my third or scouting so maybe I'm bad, but it's just more honest.
If you watch pros play, you may see them cut corners, but they still all get a baneling nest by 35, and make at least 4 lings by then too, as well as get a spine. Yea, you need a spine the same time as bane nest too, to avoid single lings picking off your banes or 2 banes just bumrushing your mineral line if he puts on aggression.
You differentiate between an immortal push third and an all-in by the following:
1. Really solid/lucky overlord scout seeing their entire base and you know for sure there are no pylons anywhere else in his base that are supporting extra gateways, and you see his gateway count is between 1-5. can't always rely on this, but many immortal players dont make stalkers, in which case your overlord may see enough to know
2. Morph an overseer. This is the only sure-fire way. Immediately when lair is done, that 3rd overlord you had by Toss' base (1 by natural gas, 1 to sac into main, 1 to make into overseer or 2nd sac) into an overseer, to count his gateways. This will tell you if he plans to expand (1-5 gates) or is allinning (6+ gates). This goes with any build, really, ie 5 gate twilight or blink all-in, stargate 4 gate into expand or stargate into 6 gate stalker/vr all-in
3. He should expand by 9:00. I think 10:00 would be just the absolute latest, but you should see Toss expand by 9:00. Maybe the nexus doesn't go down solidly at 9:00, but he should be posturing to expand at 9:00 (slowly moving out, he is going toward his third rather than toward you, since any gateway all-in or even immortal/sentry all-in will start beelining toward your base by 9:30).
This is sort of an intuition thing, but it's pretty obvious. At 9:00, is he chronoboosting his forge and gateways or robo (if you can see that much), or still his nexus? has he been trying to hide a pylon on the map or having a probe out?
Basically, is that probe going toward your bases, or is it going toward his third? Just like 3 gate sentry expand, it should be obvious - he moves toward his third, he's setting up a pylon by his third, his army is by his third, versus going toward you, etc.
If there is no expo by 10:00, you can be assured he's all-inning though.
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Well I just tried an 8 roach push against 1rax gasless FE terran, cutting drones at 28 supply.
It failed miserably cause he had like 20 marines. Kind of need the zerglings here... I'm not sure how you guys are getting away with pure roach pushes early on vs gasless FE. I have no way of knowing if he's going to spam pure marine or go hellion after that.
Should I just back off if I don't see hellions?
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On July 10 2012 14:07 vectrekawn wrote:
Well I just tried an 8 roach push against 1rax gasless FE terran, cutting drones at 28 supply.
It failed miserably cause he had like 20 marines. Kind of need the zerglings here... I'm not sure how you guys are getting away with pure roach pushes early on vs gasless FE. I have no way of knowing if he's going to spam pure marine or go hellion after that.
Should I just back off if I don't see hellions?
Hm. Replay please?
Slightly worried I mislead you, I've been facing almost all fast third CC, so I never see that many marines. Are you sure he didn't go up to 4 rax after expo in an attempt to deny your third or something? "like 20 marines" makes me assume he has at least 12, my knee-jerk thought is that that's a ridiculous amount to have without cutting scvs.
Maybe belial will set us straight, but I would definitely like to see the replay, it just sounds a bit fishy.
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1-5 gates hes expoing? This might just be my league [diamond] but I've seen a 5 gate 1 robo immortal all in that cut probes completely at about 40. It was robo first too, so tons and tons of immortals. Is something like that bad enough I should just consider it an outlier and interpret 5 gates as an expo build?
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How do you guys play against reactor hellion?
Everytime I play against it, I lose, and the hellions do damage.
I go 4 queens, and in reaction to the 1 base opening, I get gas at 23 for speed. I guess I should make a handful of lings at 40, but I feel I'm forced to make an inbase hatch and 2 base lair... just like pre-patch. I don't understand why terrans dont just keep doing this build, I still get runbys, and I still am forced to make lair before third and in base hatch before third, and terran can just freely go reactor hellion into third like before. I dont understand. Do i need to make a spine too?
wtf
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On July 10 2012 05:15 OneObsession wrote:
hey guys, how do you respond to a gateway expand with 15pool properly?
The instant you scout that it's not a FFE, and also not a 2 gate proxy, drop a gas.
Pull drones out of gas at 100 to get speed, get your natural expansion at your normal time but build a 2nd queen out of your main straight away.
Drone like crazy till 35, keep poking his front for the sentry count and expansion timing, sac an overlord into the main if you have to. The only 1 base builds for protoss that are any "good" are 4gate, 4gate with nexus cancel, DTs or 1-3 gate sentry expands. If it's one of the cheeses you NEED roaches (unless you have a tight ramp at your nat, then spines and lings will do) so put back into gas the moment your drop your warren. You need it against DTs because zealot/archon timings as a follow up are common.
Also someone correct me on this if I'm wrong but 2 base muta styles seem REALLY good against a gateway expand.
Spine up your natural once saturated and take a third as you start mutas, make nothing but mutas and drones until you feel you have a good eco advantage.
Expand to the corners, deny the third as long as possible and if he moves out just counter-attack and make as many spines/mutas as you can afford.
On July 10 2012 16:48 Belial88 wrote:
How do you guys play against reactor hellion?
Everytime I play against it, I lose, and the hellions do damage.
I go 4 queens, and in reaction to the 1 base opening, I get gas at 23 for speed. I guess I should make a handful of lings at 40, but I feel I'm forced to make an inbase hatch and 2 base lair... just like pre-patch. I don't understand why terrans dont just keep doing this build, I still get runbys, and I still am forced to make lair before third and in base hatch before third, and terran can just freely go reactor hellion into third like before. I dont understand. Do i need to make a spine too?
wtf
Don't need a spine I don't think but definitely need a roach warren if you see more than 4. (I used to be super stubborn about this, feeling with perfect control I could hold without roaches, but I realized it simply cost me too many games)
I generally make 4-6 roaches in this case and add roaches as they add hellions. Against 4 you can just make like 6 lings and hold position them up a ramp. Save some energy on your 2 queens that are creepspreading for transfuse.
Also if you're doing the double upgrades before lair stuff, sim city your nat with your evos ^^
Remember to sac an overlord to make sure it's not an all in, and if you scout mech I like to get range upgrades and do roach drops
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^ Well I go muta play... but making roaches against just reactor hellion sounds like overkill. I never had to do that before.
I mean worst comes to worst, I can just do exactly what I did back then - 3 queens, and a single spine, and a couple lings. I thought making a 4th queen with 5 range can make up for that lack of spine, especially when I add a 5th queen, but they usually run in before that 5th queen is done, so I guess I need to make some lings (like I did before). But that still doesnt change the fact it denies creep spread and prevents me from taking a third, instead forcing me to go earlier speed, in base hatch, and lair before third.
I dont even understand why terrans are complaining. Reactor hellion still does it's job.
I mean i get the follow up, if he's going mech and what not, it's just reactor hellion is still as good as before against me it seems, even when i go 5 queen, he just runs in his first 4-6 hellions, denies my third, forces me to go lair, etc.
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On July 10 2012 17:15 Belial88 wrote:
^ Well I go muta play... but making roaches against just reactor hellion sounds like overkill. I never had to do that before.
I mean worst comes to worst, I can just do exactly what I did back then - 3 queens, and a single spine, and a couple lings. I thought making a 4th queen with 5 range can make up for that lack of spine, especially when I add a 5th queen, but they usually run in before that 5th queen is done, so I guess I need to make some lings (like I did before). But that still doesnt change the fact it denies creep spread and prevents me from taking a third, instead forcing me to go earlier speed, in base hatch, and lair before third.
I dont even understand why terrans are complaining. Reactor hellion still does it's job.
I mean i get the follow up, if he's going mech and what not, it's just reactor hellion is still as good as before against me it seems, even when i go 5 queen, he just runs in his first 4-6 hellions, denies my third, forces me to go lair, etc.
I don't see how your third can get denied though. I can understand having issues with run-bys.
Even with hellions there you should be able to spread creep enough to attack hellions at your building third. You just have to babysit the tumors as theyre building so he doesnt snipe them.
The moment he runs past your queens that should be close to the edge of creep attack move all your queens to your nat, block your ramp with 1 queen and mineral walk your drones to your main if you have to (be careful with this, of course).
I always felt roaches were overkill too but 4 roaches are pretty cheap (after starting lair) and they guarantee watchtower control.
This is all just my experience ofcourse, not fact.
ps: if you feel you can do it fast enough, spread your creep the moment he does a runby.
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On July 10 2012 17:15 Belial88 wrote:
^ Well I go muta play... but making roaches against just reactor hellion sounds like overkill. I never had to do that before.
I mean worst comes to worst, I can just do exactly what I did back then - 3 queens, and a single spine, and a couple lings. I thought making a 4th queen with 5 range can make up for that lack of spine, especially when I add a 5th queen, but they usually run in before that 5th queen is done, so I guess I need to make some lings (like I did before). But that still doesnt change the fact it denies creep spread and prevents me from taking a third, instead forcing me to go earlier speed, in base hatch, and lair before third.
I dont even understand why terrans are complaining. Reactor hellion still does it's job.
I mean i get the follow up, if he's going mech and what not, it's just reactor hellion is still as good as before against me it seems, even when i go 5 queen, he just runs in his first 4-6 hellions, denies my third, forces me to go lair, etc.
I have always preferred to grab roaches, just 3-4 to secure the front and ensure that I can get my third when I want it. I don't get a spine now that queens have range, but I rarely go past 3 queens. The roaches are worth something in a fight later, extra 2-3 queens are not, and I'd rather put down my third faster with the 150-300 more minerals.
I recommend just trying roaches if you're having trouble with reactor hellion. A long time ago, I used to defend with a spine and a few lings and three queens. Then I tried adding evo chamber walls because hellions kept sneaking through and handing me random losses. One day I just said, screw it, gonna get roaches. I think I've yet to play a roachless zvt since then. Plus, having roaches is better than making banes against hellion-marauder. I know you want the gas for mutas (specifically, to start lair/spire faster), but 3-4 roaches isn't too bad, and I feel like it's made up for by being able to take your third more easily (prob not the case in reality, but it just feels more comfortable). Roaches give you options and they take back control, otherwise you're cowering in base and the terran takes a third at the same time you do.
The worst thing that will happen is you've spent 375/75 (warren and 3 roaches) for no hellion kills, but a nice decoy against marine fire, so that your lings and banes can last a bit longer against a bio push. On creep, slow roaches still do ok, it's not much different from leading with a queen to soak tank fire, except that it's easier because they still can move when off creep, and they can do actual damage.
Plus, how else are you going to threaten an all-in? Roach warren front and center next to your main hatch, then add a bane nest too if you like, and you can feel the panic grip a terran when they scan.
Clarity makes the most helpful and concise point, though: more than 4 hellions just about requires roaches for defense.
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EPT
