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Im kinda out of ideas on a build my practice partner does a lot.
I am a platinum zerg so not very good but I seem to win a lot on the ladder lately because i have been practicing a lot with my practice partner. My ZvZ is prob the weakest but thats besides the point.
my practice partner is actually a 2100d Terran so I can imagine its just because of better overall play, both macro and micro wise.
Usually he's just toying with me either doing all kinds of thor drops or helion into banshee or straight up banshee or 5rax marines no gas.
I seem to be able to hold off most of these things now since i have been practicing a lot against it. however I seem to lose to this particular build all the time:
helion into banshee or just straight up 2 port banshee.
I 15 hatch 14 pool 17 gas 16 queen, couple of zerglings for scouting. around 25 supply if i haven't seen anything yet sac an overlord. now I see the 1 or 2 port banshee. I either make extra queens if i'm late or if i'm early i'll go for lair tech muta or hydra. Ok so he attacks and sees that in this case i'm prepared and retreats. switches ports to reactors and pumps vikings while expanding.
now one of these things happens: he keeps pumping vikings with later some banshees and even gets a raven or 2 in there eventually. I keep massing muta. well muta costs more gas and loses 1v1 to viking so not gr8. When I do have more muta's than he has vikings but he has a raven with HSM I have to retreat every time he fires and he can get free shots off with his superiour range. since I can't do much he takes another expo and gets that extra gas to win. I try to expo to but he just chases me away with HSM if I want to defend it while his banshees clean it up. I tried this 3 games and had 40 muta to his 32 ish viking with raven support. I was actually amazed how he got all that gas but seems to work. this was a 3 base vs 3 base i think.
If i go hydra which i tried then after similar build happened, he try's to deny my expo's as well, skips the raven most of the time and goes more (cloaked) banshees with viking support. I can hold this off most of the time in base but whenever i move out he can snipe my overseers, cloak and kill me.
Is it general macro/micro or is there something wrong with my counter?
This is going to sound like really bad advice, but trust me. If he is following up banshee wish mass viking and raven, just keep making queens and go hydra queen. Leave a queen at each hatch like normal, and keep the rest of the queens with your army. When you eventually fight his army, you want your queens out front tanking and just spam the shit out of transfusion. Transfusion also will solve the overseer problem too. Just make 2-3 overseers and transfer them when he's trying to snipe them. Your hydras can either rip the vikings apart or just go target the banshees.
Dimaga was messing around with this build before the patch.
I know this is kind of a ridiculous question before I even ask it, but I wanted another opinion.
If my ZvP strat is to roach/hydra into corruptor/broodlord, what combination of upgrades should I be getting? ranged/carapace or melee/carapace(melee for broodlings and perhaps lings if low on gas). And how should I prioritize my air attack/armor upgrades?
On November 04 2010 23:19 Tachion wrote: I know this is kind of a ridiculous question before I even ask it, but I wanted another opinion.
If my ZvP strat is to roach/hydra into corruptor/broodlord, what combination of upgrades should I be getting? ranged/carapace or melee/carapace(melee for broodlings and perhaps lings if low on gas). And how should I prioritize my air attack/armor upgrades?
missile attack and possible carapace and air attack
melee isn't going to help your broodlings much at all - the main damage they deal is the impact one that's affected by air attack upgrades. if you're playing to transition into UltraLing you might want to only upgrade +1 missile attack and then switch to carapace and melee becauses Ultras really aren't that good without upgrades
On November 04 2010 23:19 Tachion wrote: I know this is kind of a ridiculous question before I even ask it, but I wanted another opinion.
If my ZvP strat is to roach/hydra into corruptor/broodlord, what combination of upgrades should I be getting? ranged/carapace or melee/carapace(melee for broodlings and perhaps lings if low on gas). And how should I prioritize my air attack/armor upgrades?
missile attack and possible carapace and air attack
melee isn't going to help your broodlings much at all - the main damage they deal is the impact one that's affected by air attack upgrades. if you're playing to transition into UltraLing you might want to only upgrade +1 missile attack and then switch to carapace and melee becauses Ultras really aren't that good without upgrades
The broodlings actually do more dps than the actual broodlord. While the broodlord does do a high base damage of 20, it's on a 2.5 sec cooldown making it only do 8 dps, the same as a single roach. 2 broodlings are fired every 2.5 sec I believe(2 on first volley, and then 1 every 1.25 sec?) and 3 can be out at any given time. If you combine the dps of all 3 it's actually 18.5, much higher than the actual broodlord itself. Add in +1 melee atk and that dps jumps up to 23.1, a 20% upgrade in damage, pretty phenominal.
I was undecided though on how much I should actually count on the broodlings to do damage. With their low HP, and them being a melee unit, they should be the first things targeted by the opposing army. Their real usefulness is just being cannon fodder while the roach/hydra deals the damage, so yea I'm definitely leaning towards ranged upgrades.
As for the air upgrades, it seems(in theory) more important to keep the broodlord alive for the broodlings than to boost it's already unimpressive air damage slightly(You also never have many broodlords out at once, so you don't get a whole lot of bonus from the upgrade). I was considering prioritizing the air carapace upgrade over attack.
I'm going to read the thread later but i'd just like to say Terrans own me each game. They just a-move a ton of marines with medivacs or snipe my main with stim and I just lose 90% of the time, even with banelings. Usually I don't have time to get mutas out or infestors. It's so silly how easy terran is to play and EVERYONE is doing the same builds.. it's really annoying that I keep losing to them.
Banelings/Slings with good positioning and a couple of spine crawlers should do fine against most early game attacks. Roach/Ling is also quite good with good positioning. I usually hold off most early pushes with a couple of Spine Crawlers at my natural with lings and Roaches. Later on, it's more about countering their composition. Keep in mind Infestors are just deadly, since they stop the terran from kiting you at all.
On November 01 2010 07:14 iEchoic wrote: I'm going to be switching over to random most likely, and Zerg is my weakest race, so I've been laddering with them the last couple days. I annihilate terran players, do okay against protoss, and lose all of my ZvZs.
Anyway, I have a question: - Is there a universally safe roach opener in ZvZ I can open with? I'm not too interested in baneling wars, and I'd like it to be early enough that I don't die to 8pools but late enough that it's not cheesy and doesn't hamstring my econ. Is the matchup so variable on different maps that this isn't possible or is there a standard-esque roach opener in ZvZ?
This thread is like 37 pages long so if this was asked somewhere else, let me know please.
to answer your question, yes, this matchup is so variable on different maps that there really isn't a "standard" yet
for example, hatch first is good on maps that you can defend your natural and ramp your ramp with 2 queens. (temple, shakuras, jungle basin, and its also possible on metal but a little harder) you just have to scout on 9 for an early pool, and put your pool down asap if you see it
i know you say you would like to avoid the bling wars, but on maps such as scrap station, blistering sands, and xel'naga, i find ling/bling to be the best opener. if he tries to fast expand you just own him with speedlings because he can't defend his ramp and natural at the same time., and you can mix in some banes because FE wont have banes out in time. if he tries to skip lings and go straight to roaches, there's a window where you can do damage with your lings, or get b-lings into his mineral line. if he does turtle up with his roaches, it becomes more of a judgement call on your part. you can either expand or tech up also, just be sure to make enough lings and/or spines to hold his first push. if you hold that first push you basically win.
but then again, i think we're all still trying to figure out ZvZ and, while i wouldn't say i suck at it, i would def. call it my weakest matchup
i'm around 1800 right now, but i've been crushing my way back up the ladder due to 2 weeks of playing random and losing ~300 pts so i'd say i'm probably closer to 2k+ skill level
i'd be willing to practice some ZvZ with ya too if you want, I'm AnAngryDingo 282 on US server.
On November 04 2010 23:19 Tachion wrote: I know this is kind of a ridiculous question before I even ask it, but I wanted another opinion.
If my ZvP strat is to roach/hydra into corruptor/broodlord, what combination of upgrades should I be getting? ranged/carapace or melee/carapace(melee for broodlings and perhaps lings if low on gas). And how should I prioritize my air attack/armor upgrades?
I recommend that you get range/carapace considering the fact that the broodlings will get the armor bonus aswell, also it is far more beneficial to have a 2/2 army of roaches and hydras with like 5 broods for support rather than a 0/2 roach hydra with 5 0/2 broods.
Has anyone had any success against these terran builds that involve constant pressure with marines (primarily)? It's very frustrating to play against, because it seems like the terran is losing army after army and not suffering many drawbacks for the loss. When I go for a counter, they almost always have a pf up, and a hoarde of marines waiting. I've destroyed whole terran armies, been 30 food and 2 bases up, and still lost because the terran simply pushes out, expands to another pf, pushes out, expands to another pf.
I've gone against that constant rine stream and fended off with roaches, spines and a few blings. Nobody in mid/upper diamond plays like foxer, so you can get away with a lot fewer blings to be effective. If he's hoarding up with mass rine, then pushing, then it's all about being efficient with crushing his attack (shoudln't be too hard...no foxers round here to fight blings).
I've gone against that constant rine stream and fended off with roaches, spines and a few blings. Nobody in mid/upper diamond plays like foxer, so you can get away with a lot fewer blings to be effective. If he's hoarding up with mass rine, then pushing, then it's all about being efficient with crushing his attack (shoudln't be too hard...no foxers round here to fight blings).
I failed to save the replays from last night, but I'll see if I run into another of these guys tonight. My problem isn't so much fending off the stream. I can usually hold off every push for the first 15 minutes with a 20-30 food advantage, but meanwhile my opponent is seemingly able to not only build a constant stream of marines, but expand with pf's all over the place. We then enter a late-game state where my expos are all vulnerable, and his are all unkillable super-fortresses. That's the point at which I lose.
The best solution is obviously going muta. He really can't expand and keep up a big stream of rines at the same time (I assume by stream he is pumping rines out of a bunch of raxes and sending them out every cycle or two). Going muta means that if he tries to move out/defend his expo, you can really hurt him unless he puts up turrets everywhere.
By late game you really should have ultras. As for your expos, they shouldn't be particularly vulnerable because with good creep spread, you will have map control. His only way of hurting your expos end up being drops, which you should see coming. Any pushes he makes would result in a big fight, and as long as you have a strong econ, big fights are in your favor because of your incredible ability to go from 200 supply to 100 and then back to 200 again.
On November 05 2010 09:55 pwadoc wrote: Has anyone had any success against these terran builds that involve constant pressure with marines (primarily)? It's very frustrating to play against, because it seems like the terran is losing army after army and not suffering many drawbacks for the loss. When I go for a counter, they almost always have a pf up, and a hoarde of marines waiting. I've destroyed whole terran armies, been 30 food and 2 bases up, and still lost because the terran simply pushes out, expands to another pf, pushes out, expands to another pf.
Depending on how early you scout the pure marine, just go pure ling/bling. Kyrix's build from the ro8 in GSL is the best counter to this. You can delay your lair and just straight up bust his nat if he doesn't wall with 2-3 rax or factories, but if he does that, or makes 4-5 bunkers you can just take and 3rd and then tech to lair. They'll have a really hard time putting any pressure on you if you do this. Also, don't pay attention to the end result of foxer vs kyrix, you aren't going to run into anyone with micro that good.
My apologies if this has already been asked in this thread (potentially by myself) but what is the best way to inject larva? And please don't give a "whatever you find best" response. I'd like to know why you think your method is the best. The two methods I'm familiar with is hotkeying queens under one key and v clicking the hatcheries on the minimap. The queen closest to the hatchery will automatically inject. The problem with this method is it requires a lot of attention. You're in the middle of a battle and you need to inject, you have to look at the minimap, locate each hatch and individually clcik them.
The second method is using the "backspace" key to center your view on each hatchery. You press backspace and the camera automatically centers on the hatchery and you just click v on the hatchery. You press backspace again and again cycling through each hatchery. This is A LOT faster than the minimap method. However, its downside is that the camera centers on seemingly random hatcheries. So say you have 3 queens at the first 3 hatcheries that you made. Well the problem is the camera might center to your 4th or 5th hatchery first before cycling through the rest of the hatcheries.
And I just learned about a third method today. You hotkey all your hatcheries on 4 and then you hotkey successive queens and hatcheries on 5, 6 and 7. So your first queen and hatch goes on 5, your second goes on 6, etc. This way you also have control of your queens when you need them.
^IMO the best way to inject is all the queens on one hotkey. After some practice it's pretty easy to just spam around where your hatches are, and IMO it's a lot easier to do while microing because you don't actually take your eyes off the screen. When I muta harass I just tap 6 then go click click, all while watching my mutalisk and they dance around.
Sometimes I end up with tons of queens, I use excess queens on a separate hotkey to use them to poop tumors and transfuse.
On November 06 2010 05:13 Warrior Madness wrote: My apologies if this has already been asked in this thread (potentially by myself) but what is the best way to inject larva? And please don't give a "whatever you find best" response. I'd like to know why you think your method is the best. The two methods I'm familiar with is hotkeying queens under one key and v clicking the hatcheries on the minimap. The queen closest to the hatchery will automatically inject. The problem with this method is it requires a lot of attention. You're in the middle of a battle and you need to inject, you have to look at the minimap, locate each hatch and individually clcik them.
The second method is using the "backspace" key to center your view on each hatchery. You press backspace and the camera automatically centers on the hatchery and you just click v on the hatchery. You press backspace again and again cycling through each hatchery. This is A LOT faster than the minimap method. However, its downside is that the camera centers on seemingly random hatcheries. So say you have 3 queens at the first 3 hatcheries that you made. Well the problem is the camera might center to your 4th or 5th hatchery first before cycling through the rest of the hatcheries.
And I just learned about a third method today. You hotkey all your hatcheries on 4 and then you hotkey successive queens and hatcheries on 5, 6 and 7. So your first queen and hatch goes on 5, your second goes on 6, etc. This way you also have control of your queens when you need them.
I use the backspace method.
A lot of pros prefer to hotkey their hatcheries separately on 5-0 and just 55, inject, 66, inject, 66, inject, etc.
In other words: Just use what feels natural. Different strokes for different folks.
anyone have any experience implementing hydra/broodlord lategame? i saw kawaiirice do it ZvT lategame.
i'm assuming you go roach/hydra 2/2 upgrades in midgame, then add broodlords late while protecting them with hydras. you would use them as a slow push strat due to their speed.
On November 06 2010 08:34 PrideNeverDie wrote: anyone have any experience implementing hydra/broodlord lategame? i saw kawaiirice do it ZvT lategame.
i'm assuming you go roach/hydra 2/2 upgrades in midgame, then add broodlords late while protecting them with hydras. you would use them as a slow push strat due to their speed.
That's a pretty solid assumption.
I really like Hydra play in ZvT for this very reason. It transitions very solidly into hydra/brood, and hydra/brood is, in my opinion, virtually unstoppable.
On November 06 2010 08:34 PrideNeverDie wrote: anyone have any experience implementing hydra/broodlord lategame? i saw kawaiirice do it ZvT lategame.
i'm assuming you go roach/hydra 2/2 upgrades in midgame, then add broodlords late while protecting them with hydras. you would use them as a slow push strat due to their speed.
That's a pretty solid assumption.
I really like Hydra play in ZvT for this very reason. It transitions very solidly into hydra/brood, and hydra/brood is, in my opinion, virtually unstoppable.
That was always my endgame goal when I was trying to learn dimaga's hydra/queen strategy. It's strong as hell but there's obviously some downsides. It's immobile on creep, and impossibly immobile off creep. You are going to have a very tough time fighting off drops for said reason, and it's a very supply and gas heavy army. 2 per roach/hydra, and 4 per brood. Also, it's very slow to remacro.
EPT
