The Zerg Help Me Thread - Page 337

On July 30 2012 13:13 TFS wrote:
Hello TL Zergs.

I, like I'm sure is true of many Zergs (particularly lower-level ones) find myself having trouble in ZvZ. If the game happens to go past ling/baneling, I usually do fine and would say I have a winrate well above 50%. However, what I have a real problem with is getting speedling all-in'd or ling/baneling all-in'd. I typically open 15p/16h/17g and get ling speed and a baneling nest as soon as I can. I'm wondering if I just need to practice my control or what I need to work on, but I even see pros struggle against the aforementioned strategies. It has been so frustrating to play against and to see myself and pros lose time and time again to these builds that I have even considered switching to Terran to have a more 'stable' mirror.

I guess what I'm looking for is advice, but more than that, reassurance. If I get good enough, will I be able to hold these all-ins if I don't play too greedy? Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated.

On July 30 2012 12:30 Belial88 wrote:


I don't know... tech switches don't seem to work too well for me, and I don't see pros use them that often (sometimes I do though, and this is just my perception, I could be wrong here, I hear terrans qq about tech switches but who knows what level they are playing at).

When I go ultras, terran seems to just get more tanks, and I dont know about others, but tanks imo just rapes BL/infestor, in that mass tank, plus mass viking, and bam, I'm screwed - 10+ tanks making sure my infestors can't do shit, and then 10+ vikings (especially if split so terran can then just take the whole map and then be cost inefficient and outmine me, god damn i hate ohana, every game i play on that map comes to mining out the whole map for me and trying to deny terran's 5th, id literally say at least 30% of my zvt is like that on that map) just rape my broodlord army, and I can't go ultras because he has too many tanks.

Maybe it's just I've reached a point in the game where I've lost anyways, but that's how I feel like I lose the most with BL/infestor, when they have mass tanks and I don't see ultras as the answer in those situations.

I'd love to see a replay of you using ultras, especially a scenario where ultras would be better than mass broodlord.

On July 30 2012 23:17 Mahtasooma wrote:
I'm reluctant to post this topic as a singular one because the two times I posted something on the front page I got bashed.


I just watched the http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/news/20373-video-zerg-tutorials-with-tlo-and-husky
and TLO said something which is insanely obvious and important

for a terran, there is NOTHING worse than him getting supply blocked. it's very similar for a protoss, but only so much
if a terran gets supply blocked, he can't build more stuff, his money stacks, he has to pull workers (!) to build more supply depots (which he needs more APM and attention than zerg hitting 4svvv), and he will NEVER be able to get his money spent, because to do so, he would have to build excess structures which cost again money and apm and which HE CAN'T SUPPORT off of the bases he has once his money is back low.

in conclusion, zerg should much more focus on getting T (and P) supply blocked (mutas, banes, drops come to mind)

it's about delaying P and T. forget about killing workers, bases, trading units. Kill pylons and supply depots.
what do you think?

now seeing something like a supply depot wall should make me a happy zerg...

Are there any general guides to play Zerg with builds and info that is somewhat current? Or at least matchup guides? I haven't played in over a year and have no idea where to start back up again with what builds/playstyles are popular and all that. any help would be greatly appreciated.

You can't really use them after muta, the window where they're effective isn't very large, and using all the gas for mutas, and such a late hive basically eats up all that time. Terran's army will be too upgraded and developed by the time ultras are out.

Just curious to hear from anyone who has tried odd/cute measures in defending 6-pools in ZvZ such as:

1. surrounding your morphing spawning pool with 2-4 evo chambers to limit surface area and buy yourself time
2. building 2 spawning pools at the same time (either right next to each other to limit surface area, or at different ends of your base to ensure that he can only kill one

On July 30 2012 15:08 Belial88 wrote:
^ When Terran has a ton of tanks, well spread, and then a ton of vikings, yea, it really screws my broodlord/infestor army. I can't get in range to FG the vikings, and I can't really get in range with my broodlords to screw up the tanks.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=352388
Here's a thread I asked for help in, I never really got the help I was looking for, for the second game:
http://drop.sc/227010

Not the best example because he had ravens, it doesn't happen to often, but when terran has maybe 15+ vikings, and then like 10-15 tanks, my infestors just get shredded by the tank fire and I can't fight cost efficiently against that many tanks, and the broodlords can't really engage because he has so many vikings.

I mean I lose a bunch of infestors every time I try to move in to FG. I'll try that about shooting down some broodlings though. And the problem is a tank count so high that lings, or anything ground, doesn't seem to work too well. Maybe huge huge ultra army, but I can't exactly just give up my pure bl/infestor army and then remax on ultras instantly.

Sometimes, terran unsieges, sometimes he doesn't, but from my experience, it seems terran is better off staying sieged so he can kill off the infestors. Really depends on the tank and viking count, the tanks have to be somewhat spread and there has to be a lot of vikings, like a ton.

On July 31 2012 02:02 jdsowa wrote:
Just curious to hear from anyone who has tried odd/cute measures in defending 6-pools in ZvZ such as:

1. surrounding your morphing spawning pool with 2-4 evo chambers to limit surface area and buy yourself time
2. building 2 spawning pools at the same time (either right next to each other to limit surface area, or at different ends of your base to ensure that he can only kill one

On July 31 2012 05:15 6xFPCs wrote:


EDIT: so I watched this at 4am last night, some things are a little fuzzy on the overall flow before he moves out with the tanks, I was mostly focused on finding the tank-viking part you mentioned.

Ok, watched the whole thing. First I just want to say that your split map strategy is odd, you're way too light on mineral income. It's clear that you want the gas for a drawn out lategame, but you also need to hit BL before he gets a deathball with PF backup (which clear broodlings as fast as colossi) so that you have a chance at rolling through and taking the win on the BL "timing". I mention all this because you sit at 160 food for awhile, not doing roach trades/drops and remaxing, nor jetting straight to BL. I think that's how you get stuck dealing with a super lategame deathball.

So the 6 ultra attack had very little other than ultras, I don't know what the reasoning was behind this attack. I feel like this attack was no different than the mass ultra terribleness that have sunk zergs in pro games even when they were ahead. So uh, don't do this. You need some kind of damage unit behind them, lings or banes or both. Watch stephano's antiga zvt games, every time he attacks successfully with ultras, theres a damage unit to support (on top of infestors). Then watch for the occasional attack where he thinks he can clean up 8 marines with two or three ultras, gets kited, and eventually has to back out.

29:20ish he moves out entirely unsieged... and you run from him instead of taking that chance to fungal everything. You then let him siege up and so he takes out two bases. From there it's almost impossible to dislodge him, and worse, you keep runnin out of minerals and can't remax as you lose random units to his pokes. At that point, I would mass spores and send them crawling forward, along with a crapton of overlords and spitting as many ITs as possible (you have a lot of excess infestor energy that can't all go into fungal), all to soak up fire, because all you need is to overwhelm his one rather immobile force, mech can't rebuild tanks fast enough, and you seem fine at playing viking tag. Scratch that, I would never get to that point, even if he had double the number of vikings and all ravens at full energy, I would've engaged here. Maybe we need a third opinion here, but I think that was your chance to devastate his precious slow-building tank count, and you shied from it. Not much different from ling-bane attacking before tanks are sieged, it's the difference between a win and a loss. It's comparable to charging a trench line.

Then at 34:30 you eat a massive set of seeker missiles, and if you weren't screwed by being down a base with tanks everywhere and ghosts nuking from safety, you were screwed when you lost nearly a dozen corruptors and had no resources to replace them, while he was banking 4k/2k.

So I guess I feel like your late BLs let him get PFs up and a strong standing mech army, ultra attack just did not work (just running past to production would have been better, honestly), and then you missed the chance to take it all back when he moves out.

Let me know what you think. This one isn't as clean a thing as that one where your infestors got vortexed.

On July 31 2012 10:11 sniklfritz wrote:
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=268449

What went wrong here he got his 3rd up but drone counts still weren't over 2 base sat. Dont really see the big red wtf light going off this game. I attacked him when he had +1 but that shouldn't be the single reason i lost. Was it the constant streaming roaches to defend my thrird. I dunno i need to work on ovy spread and creep spread, but thats not it if i had more creep i could have walled in my 3rd and nat. Really lost on this.

On July 30 2012 09:53 Belial88 wrote:
I have a question:

How do you use Ultras in ZvT?

I don't really understand them. I feel like why make ultras, when I can just make more ling/bane. I don't really see how ultras are better, and especially if the opponent makes marauders in their army, I feel like more ling/bane would be better than those ultras. Given the map distances, and just playing the game, I feel that going straight to broodlords would be a better choice, since it's only a 20 second difference between the 2.

I've tried making ultras recently in ZvT, I've been playing the whole less than 15 mutas, double evo, fast hive style, but when I make ultras they don't seem particularly useful, and when I go straight into broods, it seems much better (granted, my opponents are stupid im sure has a part to do with it). I just dont see why go ultras when you can get broodlords out 20 seconds later, which i think is enough time for you to delay terran to make it work, and ling/bane seems to work better, especially if you focus on flanks.

Only time I find ultras useful is if terran maybe goes air maybe? but i dont think ive yet made ultras work against mech/air play, i just lose with my broodlord army and cant get enough money to remax on ultras. Even against mech, some people say ultra/np is good, but most of the time if terran doesn't make tanks and gets air too early, roach aggression works really well, and sometimes I face mass air with lots of tanks that doesnt make ultras too good.