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On September 11 2012 02:00 Snuggles wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2012 01:18 Belial88 wrote:On September 10 2012 18:46 Spydo wrote:
hatch first is always ahead of speedling expand. Your opponent was probably playing bad Not on TDA though. In my opinion, you can't go hatch first honestly on TDA against 14/14 and come out ahead economically. You'd have to do a hatch first baneling nest, which is okay I guess but you end up behind economically if they just expand on 21. I think TDA is only 14/14 ling/bane all-ins. What about 15 pool 15 hatch on TDA? I'm pretty out of touch of the meta game right now, but that's what I remember from the last time I've played ZvZ on the ladder. Is 15/15 just not the standard anymore and everyone is reverting to 14/14 and hatch first builds?
I feel like 14/14 ling/bane all-in hard counters pool/hatch openers. I'm not entirely certain, but there was a wcs game on entombed that made it look like that, and it's been that way in my experience (which isn't much, tbh). With no ramp, I imagine 14/14 ling/bane all-in would just absolutely murder someone going pool/hatch, as you won't have speed or banelings before the 14/14 player has banelings already morphed by your base, because the tech timing between the two is so large.
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Just a general question but what are good ways to defend early pressure when you are going hatch first? I find that even when I scout, any time I go hatch first I'll still end up with zealots/marines/lings in my base before I can get even a queen out. Due to this I find that even when guys poke with a few units early, I will lose too much stuff before fending it off and spend the rest of the game playing catch up. I will usually go 14 hatch and when its done, build a pool and then build a couple of queens while droning the whole time. Is there anything generic I can do to help deter or fend off early aggro, or is it too different for each race that not one thing will help every time?
I'm a bronze noob btw!!
Edit: here is a game I just played. I won this but if he had sent 2 or 3 more zealots when he went with the early aggro I would not have been able to stop it and probably wouldve lost the game http://drop.sc/249254
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I was playing a zvz the other day and got picked apart by some infestor drops. What is the best way to deal with infestor drops if you dont have mutas? I play ling infestor style. It seems that roach drops would also be pretty effective because they avoid my spine wall at the front.
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On September 11 2012 06:46 trevaur wrote:
I was playing a zvz the other day and got picked apart by some infestor drops. What is the best way to deal with infestor drops if you dont have mutas? I play ling infestor style. It seems that roach drops would also be pretty effective because they avoid my spine wall at the front.
One does not simply "deal with" the four infestor hit squad....
Jokes aside, your best bet is to have overlord spread so you can see his overlords coming, and you should also probably get a spore ring. Hydras, queens etc, are good. Just make sure that he loses more than you (4 festors + overlord = 500 mins, 600 gas)
Edit: Both spores and queens kill overlords so fast it's not funny, especially if you get +3. It almost doubles their DPS.
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On September 11 2012 05:11 CougarsGonnaCoug wrote:Top silver Zerg here looking for some help. I generally play way better than my rank of silver, beating much higher-ranked players than myself. If I had to make a legitimate guess, I'd say I'm at about top gold/mid plat level but I didn't make a push because I wanted to finish my first season solid at #1. I went on a massive losing streak the past couple of days, so I've resigned to the fact that that isn't going to happen, but I could still use some advice with my ZvZ and play in general. Ok, so I usually dominate when I face any kind of standard play because my macro/apm is really good imo, at least until I fight and I slip up in macro, lol. Working on that. But when faced with early-game aggression, I really choke and can't ever seem to make the right stuff to hold it off. I feel like if I drone, he can attack and there's just no way I can hold; conversely, if I build units, my economy suffers and I never quite have enough to hold it off. I actually struggle heavily versus Reaper play, but that's not really too common and now I know to get quick roaches instead of quick ling speed if I scout it, so I'll move on to my ZvZ woes. Replay 1So my opponent opens 15 macro hatch, 15 pool, 14 gas. Interesting, I have seen this before and I can never make enough stuff to hold it. I don't drone scout in ZvZ and instead opt for 14 pool and 16 hatch, using my first OL to scout incoming lings. Generally I play aggro after I develop an economy, but in this case I didn't have the chance. Because of a bad OL angle, I didn't get to scout the macro hatch until about 4:10, at which point I reacted by making lings. In hindsight, making a few spines probably would have been better, but I still don't think I would have had enough minerals to fully hold that. Plus he could just avoid them and it would still hurt bad... right? I just never really had the chance to get ling speed because I went for a later gas and I couldn't hold his attack at all. Replay 2He goes double extractor trick into 12 pool and 13 gas. Again, interesting, but thanks to close air positions I was able to scout the early pool and gas by comparing it to the progress of my own inverted 14/14. I understand the standard 14/14 is 14 gas, 14 poo, but I figured pool first would provide more safety after coming off that loss against the macro hatch guy. I see this and, learning from my mistake, immediately threw down a spine. Probably should have made that two, but I'm not sure and that's why I come to you guys here. So I try to remember the amount of lings exiting his base so I know how many to make, and I figure that as long as I can hold, I'm ahead since I have a nat already. I thought I microed the first part decently, but I slipped with those lings and lost around 10 while I was pulling them away from the banes. I thought I was winning here, though, so I decided to chase him back to his base and see how many more lings he has. Can't tell you how surprised I was that he had quite a few roaches waiting for me. I suppose an OL scout would tell me that, but with minerals so precious I decided not to sac an OL to find out. I will admit my micro here was pretty bad, and there was just no way I could hold so many units with ~30 lings so I decided to go for a half-hearted counter attack that I knew would fail. Side notes: I know I should make a drone before mining: I did, but it lagged and the commands got dropped. Also, first game I normally don't leave without a gg but I was really, really frustrated. So yeah, that's where I stand. Help would be much appreciated.
OK so it is somewhat telling that from the two replays you have two radically different opening builds. That's the first thing you need to change. Pick one opener and use it every game. Then you will gain experience holding off those aggressive attacks by your opponent. The 14 pool 16 hatch is the more macro focused of the two so you should stick with that.
Your Goal should be to have your expansion, 2 queens (so that you can block the ramp if necessary), a baneling nest and spine crawler. You will need to learn to rely on banelings to keep you alive rather than massing zerglings. Relying on the banelings allows you to drone up more. So I would even go so far as to recommend baneling nest before speed every game. Technically it is a bit overly defensive, but it is good to do when you are just learning. Regardless you need to learn to drone up safely in the early game and fast defensive banelings is a good way to do that. Make sure you have the baneling nest planted with your first 50 gas, then get speed. Then when you start to saturate your two bases get your lair and do whatever you want. Roaches, infestors, mutalisks whatever. After you get the early game down, then work on your midgame and so forth. Anyways good luck.
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On September 11 2012 06:46 trevaur wrote:
I was playing a zvz the other day and got picked apart by some infestor drops. What is the best way to deal with infestor drops if you dont have mutas? I play ling infestor style. It seems that roach drops would also be pretty effective because they avoid my spine wall at the front.
when going ling infestor you should always spread out overlords around your base specifically because of drop harass. Also, if the opponent goes drops, you should re-root your spines from defending your front, to into your mineral line, because the opponent will have invested so much into drop tech isntead of an army to straigh tup bust your front. You really shouldn't lose much to initial drop harass because you'll have infestors out (so if he spams IT, just FG them real quick and then clean up with lings - also make sure to drag all your queens to transfuse the buildinsg before it goes down!).
Shouldn't be hard to deal with. By the the time the opponent transitions out of dropping, you'll have ultras out and win easily.
I also always put 4 lings on patrol in my main specifically because of nydus play as well.
Your infestors shoudl also be spread out in your base, and 1-2 left in the main or other vulnerable drop location. Specifically because drops/nydus are actually kind of a big threat when going ling/infestor (it's an intuitive response to a mass spine wall). If you alter your play to be more ready, it should be easily dealt with.
A spore ring isn't really a great idea unless you made spores already for mutas (sure, why not, re-root them) and queen, eh, i dont think they will deter a doom drop or infestor drop. Just leave an infestor or two in your main or wherever that may get dropped by the ledge, spread overlords. The one thing your infestors should not be doing, is all clumped up together, by the mass spine wall. You should have creep and the towers so you should know if a frontal attack is coming, so with proper map vision, you'll have plenty of time to get into position against a frontal attack, and from there, all your infestors are basically just waiting for any potential drop harass.
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Hey guys, how do i counter a very turtling passive protoss?
i played against this toss who turtled up hard with cannons at every base, he than made a deathball with mass stalkers, some immortals and about 3 collusus which wiped my army twice and than proceeded to a move my base.
this is in platinum league.
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On September 11 2012 22:29 Sra wrote:
Hey guys, how do i counter a very turtling passive protoss?
i played against this toss who turtled up hard with cannons at every base, he than made a deathball with mass stalkers, some immortals and about 3 collusus which wiped my army twice and than proceeded to a move my base.
this is in platinum league.
can you post the replay? it would be nice to see, when his attack hits you. It's also hard to help without knowing about your macro, your creepspread and your army composition.
In general, the key is to expand aggressively and to tech fast in order to survive his timing attack. If you're able to build up a nice bl/infestor force until his attack arrives (aided by some spines), you'll survive easily. the key is to engage his army intelligently, you can't win a head-on battle, when your army isn't ready, so it's all about buying time. there are several ways to transition into the late game. On platinum level, I assume that he'll have his deathball ready at about 14 ingame minutes, which is more than enough time to get a decent army.
If you prefer the aggressive approach, you can try to harass him with multi-pronged roach attacks, this gets kinda hard, when his army movement is smart and his building placement and forcefields are decent, so be careful. Don't waste armies, try to be as cost-efficient as possible.
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On September 11 2012 22:45 virpi wrote:Show nested quote +On September 11 2012 22:29 Sra wrote:
Hey guys, how do i counter a very turtling passive protoss?
i played against this toss who turtled up hard with cannons at every base, he than made a deathball with mass stalkers, some immortals and about 3 collusus which wiped my army twice and than proceeded to a move my base.
this is in platinum league.
can you post the replay? it would be nice to see, when his attack hits you. It's also hard to help without knowing about your macro, your creepspread and your army composition. In general, the key is to expand aggressively and to tech fast in order to survive his timing attack. If you're able to build up a nice bl/infestor force until his attack arrives (aided by some spines), you'll survive easily. the key is to engage his army intelligently, you can't win a head-on battle, when your army isn't ready, so it's all about buying time. there are several ways to transition into the late game. On platinum level, I assume that he'll have his deathball ready at about 14 ingame minutes, which is more than enough time to get a decent army. If you prefer the aggressive approach, you can try to harass him with multi-pronged roach attacks, this gets kinda hard, when his army movement is smart and his building placement and forcefields are decent, so be careful. Don't waste armies, try to be as cost-efficient as possible.
Unfortunatly not, im at work :'(
thx for the tips though, when his death ball was on the move i had a full roach army with some corrupters and about 3 infestors, that army dissapeared in an blink of an eye, i panicked a bit and made a full wave of roaches because i thought i woulndt be able to make broodlords fast enough before he would a move my 3rd and 4th, i did have BL tech available.
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I just watched life vs creator game 1 where life went for 2 base infestors. I thought that style was dead in ZvP? What are the advantages of opening 2 base over 3 base? How can you stay competitive economically? I thought it was really cool but I dont know if its something that would be viable as a standard build. Anyone want to give me a quick rundown of its pros and cons?
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how to perfeclty defend a 11 11 rax?
and how to do it on ohana where he can build a bunker that walls his marine COMPLETELY in?!
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On September 12 2012 00:24 Decendos wrote:
how to perfeclty defend a 11 11 rax?
and how to do it on ohana where he can build a bunker that walls his marine COMPLETELY in?!
I love playing against 11/11, been fighting marines with drones since BW.
First off, can you show me the replay? My guess is that you're fighting scvs, not marines. Drones chew through marines if you make sure to properly surround and target marines instead of scvs.
One marine walled in is not as broken as people think. That low ground spot does nothing except provide a safe forward position to start the critical hatch-hitting bunker. So don't panic and try to bust it, it's not a threat by itself. Instead, use your drones to cut off reinforcements, picking off marines as they are rallied across the map. When your natural finishes, start a spine behind your natural hatch, start a queen at your natural hatch, and use lings to contest any high-ground bunker that starts by targeting the scv if possible, keeping back marines from going up the ramp, and finally just damaging the bunker if nothing else. When the spine and queen finish, use them to fully deny any further bunkers. Continue producing lings until your overlord behind his natural sees a CC, or you notice that he doesn't keep adding marines.
That single marine will cause some damage when you run in, but any time you attack, it should be with enough lings+drones to overwhelm his marines. You must avoid attacking scvs, they are there to shield the marines.
Here's two less-than-ideal replays that show some of these tactics in diamond-level games (no masters terrans seem to 11/11 rax anymore):
Entombed Valley, vs 12/14 rax, low ground bunker, three scvs. I use one spine-one queen because it's cross map and one I saw one rax at his ramp, so basically I can sneeze and knock over his rush. Seriously though, watch how I consistently deny high ground attempts long enough for the spine to shut it down. I put the spine up front because it felt pretty safe, the drones are very easily able to fend off marines if they go for the spine, and his high ground bunker attempts actually make it more difficult to reach it. Spine+queen seals his fate, and once I can poke his bunker with the spine, my lings clean up most of the marines. I took a quick third, safely enough because I had a lot of lings (which I then threw away... don't do that). I scout what looks like a +1/+1 stim timing, and play tag in the center of the map long enough to get my own +1/+1, which allows me to comfortably smush him by attacking from behind and forcing him to split/retreat onto creep.
http://drop.sc/249431
Ohana, vs 11/11 rax, no low ground bunker. I go for two spines and later queen because I let a bunker go up due to being super overconfident after taking down the first two marines with drones. Again, I sac lings to keep marines away from the building spine (should never ever allow him to force a cancel), and to contest the new bunker, which I do very poorly here. I lose the queen because I got careless twice (bunker goes up, pulled queen away too late), but the two spines make me safe enough that I can just drone up in spite of the high marine count (he saved all his marines in the retreat). I can't take my third as quickly as the game on entombed, and things go badly for me afterwards due to poor play on my part, iirc, and the lateness of my third was probably a major factor in the loss.
http://drop.sc/249430
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On September 12 2012 01:23 6xFPCs wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2012 00:24 Decendos wrote:
how to perfeclty defend a 11 11 rax?
and how to do it on ohana where he can build a bunker that walls his marine COMPLETELY in?! I love playing against 11/11, been fighting marines with drones since BW. First off, can you show me the replay? My guess is that you're fighting scvs, not marines. Drones chew through marines if you make sure to properly surround and target marines instead of scvs. One marine walled in is not as broken as people think. That low ground spot does nothing except provide a safe forward position to start the critical hatch-hitting bunker. So don't panic and try to bust it, it's not a threat by itself. Instead, use your drones to cut off reinforcements, picking off marines as they are rallied across the map. When your natural finishes, start a spine behind your natural hatch, start a queen at your natural hatch, and use lings to contest any high-ground bunker that starts by targeting the scv if possible, keeping back marines from going up the ramp, and finally just damaging the bunker if nothing else. When the spine and queen finish, use them to fully deny any further bunkers. Continue producing lings until your overlord behind his natural sees a CC, or you notice that he doesn't keep adding marines. That single marine will cause some damage when you run in, but any time you attack, it should be with enough lings+drones to overwhelm his marines. You must avoid attacking scvs, they are there to shield the marines. Here's two less-than-ideal replays that show some of these tactics in diamond-level games (no masters terrans seem to 11/11 rax anymore): Entombed Valley, vs 12/14 rax, low ground bunker, three scvs. I use one spine-one queen because it's cross map and one I saw one rax at his ramp, so basically I can sneeze and knock over his rush. Seriously though, watch how I consistently deny high ground attempts long enough for the spine to shut it down. I put the spine up front because it felt pretty safe, the drones are very easily able to fend off marines if they go for the spine, and his high ground bunker attempts actually make it more difficult to reach it. Spine+queen seals his fate, and once I can poke his bunker with the spine, my lings clean up most of the marines. I took a quick third, safely enough because I had a lot of lings (which I then threw away... don't do that). I scout what looks like a +1/+1 stim timing, and play tag in the center of the map long enough to get my own +1/+1, which allows me to comfortably smush him by attacking from behind and forcing him to split/retreat onto creep. http://drop.sc/249431Ohana, vs 11/11 rax, no low ground bunker. I go for two spines and later queen because I let a bunker go up due to being super overconfident after taking down the first two marines with drones. Again, I sac lings to keep marines away from the building spine (should never ever allow him to force a cancel), and to contest the new bunker, which I do very poorly here. I lose the queen because I got careless twice (bunker goes up, pulled queen away too late), but the two spines make me safe enough that I can just drone up in spite of the high marine count (he saved all his marines in the retreat). I can't take my third as quickly as the game on entombed, and things go badly for me afterwards due to poor play on my part, iirc, and the lateness of my third was probably a major factor in the loss. http://drop.sc/249430
thx for your detailed response. 
to the ohana game. i think he came pretty late. his rax finished at 3:00 and 3:05 which is much too late for 11 11 i think?! but i like your 2 spine response. think thats much better than 4 extra lings.
and the tip with just focusing marines and back up afterwards is nice also.
anybody got a timing then to pull drones? i think 3 scvs + 2 marines need 9 drones?! about 25 sec later (2 more rines) pull 6 more?
thx so far. think i will try 2 spines instead of some extra lings since i have the feeling the lings are bad anyway if he has scvs or even worse a bunker to puffer. just some lings and 2 spines might be better.
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On September 12 2012 00:24 Decendos wrote:
how to perfeclty defend a 11 11 rax?
and how to do it on ohana where he can build a bunker that walls his marine COMPLETELY in?!
The perfect defense is for your drone scout to find the proxied Rax being constructed and to harrass the Scv and force a cancel. There are common proxy locations on maps so it is a good habit to learn where they are and check those spots.
6xFPCs has a pretty good write up on what to do if it is at your doorstep. I felt it was good to add that adjusting you scout patterns helps a great deal.
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I can't stand ling bane wars in ZvZ. What's a safe and economic way to skip that stage of the game?
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On September 12 2012 03:52 Geo3 wrote:
I can't stand ling bane wars in ZvZ. What's a safe and economic way to skip that stage of the game?
You can wall in, but after that I bet your opponent would go for early 3rd. I would suggest getting some sim city in front of natural, queen and a spine. Have 4-6 lings ready to morph to banelings if you see him running out of his base. And defend this period out. Roaches are too expensive in early game since you need to drone hard and speedling + baneling in large numbers rape 5-8 roaches. I would suggest to learn to defend and turtle.
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Is there a concensus as to what is best when blocked with an incomplete engineering bay? I don't see pros do it, but it has happened to me 
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Best unit composition for dealing with mech? I feel like my units always get melted by mech units
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On September 12 2012 04:35 M4nkind wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2012 03:52 Geo3 wrote:
I can't stand ling bane wars in ZvZ. What's a safe and economic way to skip that stage of the game? You can wall in, but after that I bet your opponent would go for early 3rd. I would suggest getting some sim city in front of natural, queen and a spine. Have 4-6 lings ready to morph to banelings if you see him running out of his base. And defend this period out. Roaches are too expensive in early game since you need to drone hard and speedling + baneling in large numbers rape 5-8 roaches. I would suggest to learn to defend and turtle.
Well getting a natural in the first place is a bit of a challenge as well. By the time I'm usually well into trading lings and banes with my opponent my natural is around 50% done. This is what I'd like to avoid. If I open 14 gas/pool when should I expo?
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On September 12 2012 05:13 Geo3 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2012 04:35 M4nkind wrote:On September 12 2012 03:52 Geo3 wrote:
I can't stand ling bane wars in ZvZ. What's a safe and economic way to skip that stage of the game? You can wall in, but after that I bet your opponent would go for early 3rd. I would suggest getting some sim city in front of natural, queen and a spine. Have 4-6 lings ready to morph to banelings if you see him running out of his base. And defend this period out. Roaches are too expensive in early game since you need to drone hard and speedling + baneling in large numbers rape 5-8 roaches. I would suggest to learn to defend and turtle. Well getting a natural in the first place is a bit of a challenge as well. By the time I'm usually well into trading lings and banes with my opponent my natural is around 50% done. This is what I'd like to avoid. If I open 14 gas/pool when should I expo?
Sounds like your natural is getting started too late. With 14/14 the common hatch timings are 17 and 20-21. The hatch at 21 is generally the more agressive as you can make 6-10 zerglings before expanding and I don't think you really have money for that with an expand at 17.
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EPT
