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Australia294 Posts
On September 16 2012 23:20 Linkark07 wrote:
Good morning TL, plat zerg here.
Gotta admit haven't played in a long time so I may be still rusty but I can still counter most builds and do some fight. Anyways, there is a terran build that is irking me alot.
When a terran mass thors and BFH, how do you counter it?
Tried using cracklings, blings and Brood Lords but it didn't work at all.
You should really post a replay, because it sounds like its a specific timing that you're having problems with as brood lords are generally quite good against thors.
Infestor/brood lord should work, just make sure you don't stack up the brood lords. Engaging once you have a decent brood lord count should also help, thors are not as effective against brood lords once you have a decent count of them. Infested terrans are also quite strong against thors, as is neural parasite in some situations.
In the midgame you can either rush for hive (counter the thors with fast brood lords) or go for multipronged roach drop play (counter the thors through abusing their mobility).
In general, from what I've seen, Thors are only really good against brood lords during a certain timing window, once the brood lord count and upgrades increase, their usefulness against the brood lords diminishes. If he only goes for thors ultras can also be quite good.
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Gonna post the replay later, right now I'm not using the pc with SC2.
Thanks for the reply. Gonna try Infestors + BLs next time I see a terran doing that.
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I'm having trouble with toss that goes 1 gateway expand. When they send out 1 zealot + 1 stalker, or even just a couple zealots, it just rips me up. Is this a micro thing? I just can't get anything done with the 4 slow lings and a queen. If I try to micro battle with them, the stalker just kites me all day and my macro just goes to shit. Should I be making super early spine crawler against 1 gate expand? It's really unbelievable how such simple early pressure messes up my games.
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On September 17 2012 02:26 GWBuffalo wrote:
I'm having trouble with toss that goes 1 gateway expand. When they send out 1 zealot + 1 stalker, or even just a couple zealots, it just rips me up. Is this a micro thing? I just can't get anything done with the 4 slow lings and a queen. If I try to micro battle with them, the stalker just kites me all day and my macro just goes to shit. Should I be making super early spine crawler against 1 gate expand? It's really unbelievable how such simple early pressure messes up my games.
You should take a gas and get ling speed instead of taking a third. 1 spine isn't a bad idea, but if he does a 1g FE without making sentries, 1 round of speedlings will flat out win the game. And roach/ling all-ins. If he does 1g FE he needs sentries, and even then I believe a round of speedlings can force a cancel if he only has 1 gateway.
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On September 15 2012 11:55 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2012 07:19 envisioN . wrote:On September 15 2012 06:52 Agoniter wrote:
How does one counter mass ling/infestor in ZvZ?? Ling/Infestor relies on fast upgrades in the mid game to survive and get to fully upgraded ultras. To counter this, going for a strong 1/1 roach timing or 2/2 roach infestor timing to kill their third base is very strong. That's really an all-in way to play it though. If you don't kill them, you just lose. I'm not sure what the answer is to ling/infestor, and certain roach timing can be hard as hell to deal with (particularly fast third before lair into mass roach/hydra imo), but it's all-in. Then again, I really don't see any macro way to beat it. Your fucked if you do, your fucked if you don't, is how I look at it. I stopped playing it becuse so many maps, the third is so wide open that it's really hard to pull off, and I just felt really vulnerable playing it because you gotta make so many spines and infestors that you never can drone up your third i felt and you never have lings out. maybe my third was too quick and lair was too late, im not sure.
Ive played with ling infestor for a long time before switching out just because you need to turtle for too long during the mid game. It's actually very easy to counter just by pumping speed roaches with 1/1 before any infestors / adequate spines are out. If you don't kill them with roach stream, your fourth will be much faster. (of course this is assuming you are playing roach/infestor) . Just make sure you are walling your bases from ling counters which is crucial in ling / infestor strategies.
I still prefer to ling infestor on certain maps though. Shakuras is really nice for infestor ling since your third and Nat is really easy to defend with spines and once you have your third locked down u get a free fourth base. As well Ultralisks are very good since the mid is pretty open
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can someone explain the philosophy of dongraegu's mutalingbane vT style? like the basic ideas and rules.
i keep trying to emulate it, but fall far far short :l, perhaps i should stick to turtling to hive...
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So after reading through all the mech related posts I could find it's pretty clear MVP has really popularized this mech style play and now it's a ladder phenomenon. I've been having a hell of a time with it personally, so I've been looking into it and have a few tips that might help lower leagues like myself. Forgive me if all of this has been mentioned before.
6 queen opening of course, and get the earlyish roach warren, and make a couple defensive roaches against all hellion openers. It's just the safest way to respond and the small investment isnt going to impact your macro all that much at lower levels (supply blocks and idle larva will do far more dmg than that small roach investment will). This also makes it very easy to transition into the roach heavy mid game that you need to do vs mech and which now due to meta will quite likely be the follow up (whereas b4 it'd most likely lead to a marine/medivac/tank composition).
Drop research (at lower levels esp again) I feel is mandatory. Not only for offensive purposes but also, and I'd argue more importantly, BFH harass. You can find many pro level replays where the zerg loses 100+ drones to constant BFH run bys. Their multitasking is pushed as they try to position spines and roaches effectively, etc. A zerg player can easily overreact, pulling the majority of their forces away from say the terran's expansions, allowing the t erran to get a sieged position and take an expansion behind this harass, which you DO NOT WANT, while investing very little APM/resources in doing so.
I first saw this response to BFH from a TLO stream. After getting the drop research he positioned 3ish OLs over each mineral line. If he saw a BFH runby coming in, he'd load all his drones up into the OLs. Deal with the BFHs, then back down go the drones. I've seen this play from a couple other people lately, but still hasn't seemed to have caught on as much as it should. I see absolutely no reason not to do this sort of defensive play vs mech.
Mutalisk based responses, when not over committed to, seem to be very effective vs mech. It seems thors start to make their presence known around the 11-12ish min mark. This gives you a small window where mutalisk can be extremely effective in harassing SCVs, picking off units outside of turret/thor coverage, and delaying the third. This also encourages more thors out of the terran instead of tanks, which makes any roach based follow up more effective.
The goal of the midgame roach play it seems is to equalize the harassment and delays. By picking off thors when you can you delay them tremendously as thors take a lot of gas and a lot of time to make. Delaying expansions through roach pressures, drops, etc, again delay that critical mass of thors, etc from really hitting the field. It also delays that stage of starport additions coming down and the insanely powerful raven composition coming into play. I almost feel if a meching player can get that right amount of thors/ravens/vikings/shees/tanks/w.e, coupled with defensive planetary fortresses, etc, it almost becomes completely unbeatable.
The goal seems to be to get a relatively earlyish broodlord count, and a HIGH number of infestors mostly for infested terran and to a lesser extent neural parasite. Fungal growth, outside of high hellion numbers/clumped air components, seems to be a relative waste of energy. Infested terran harass/infestor drops can at times swing the momentum to the zergs favour tremendously. Smart play with infested terran, upgraded from your commitment to roach play, is terribly hard to deal with cost effectively for a meching player, or so it'd seem. In the late game it really turns into a game of attrition, and broodlords help you to siege, contain, and starve the terran player. However if they go to a heavy viking/raven/thor composition the broodlords lose effectiveness, thus why you want to delay that stage as much as possible. When facing that composition tight play with a LOT of infestors seems to be the most cost efficient option.
Anyways, some food for thought, I am by no means high enough level to be taken as an authority in any way. Hopefully though I've spurred you to think about reactions to mech in some new directions and feel a little more confident when you identify a mech build. GL! HF!
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Basically ZvT(mech)
cannot break down the mech thor/tank/hellion deathball
replay is here http://drop.sc/253847
User was warned for this post
---- Sorry I wasnt entirely clear on the no linking of another thread rule haha
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I've seen a lot of infestor/ling/baneling lately, is this situational or is it a purely good composition? Whats its strengths relative to pure ling infestor? How many infestors should I be aiming to have, just enough to control medivac count?
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Was wondering if anybody could give me an idea of how to beat Mech? I'm having trouble when terran turtles on three bases and then pushes with a bunch of tanks and 3/3/3 thors. Tried a roach/bane all-in on two bases (using DRG build), but if they go banshee mech, it doesn't work. And it's hard to scout banshee that early.
I think my biggest problem is that I am not sure if the terran is going to do a mid-game push or a late game push. So I make too many roaches and then I am too late to get to broodlords in late game.
Maybe go ultra? Not sure, any help would be appreciated.
I'm mid-plat.
Check my zvt guide in my profile. You should be able to tell if terran is doing a 2 base all-in "midgame push" or lategame push if he takes a third. You should see it with your overseer when lair is done. Mech is sort of a critical mass army (siege tanks and with thors) so if he attacks 'too early', ling/infsetor, or mass roaches, or whatever, should hold easily.
You really need broodlords/ultras for the lategame push though.
Good morning TL, plat zerg here.
Gotta admit haven't played in a long time so I may be still rusty but I can still counter most builds and do some fight. Anyways, there is a terran build that is irking me alot.
When a terran mass thors and BFH, how do you counter it?
Tried using cracklings, blings and Brood Lords but it didn't work at all. Even with 3 fully saturated bases I couldn't do anything for defeat him.
That's mech. Check my ZvT guide. If terran is being 'greedy' and not making tanks, roach pressure will just kill him. If he doing a 2 base push, you can morph some speedbanes if it's really pressing and hold with ling/bane/muta. It's basically a macro issue, not a composition issue.
Ling/bane, and broods, can both beat mech and mass thors just fine. I really think you are having a macro problem, you should post reps.
Really, check out my zvt guides and my replays in it. I wouldn't really recommend cracklings unless you are going the ultra route vs mech.
And yea, of course 3 bases didnt' do anything to beat a 3 base meching terran. You should be on minimum 4, and really should be on 5 gas.
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can someone explain the philosophy of dongraegu's mutalingbane vT style? like the basic ideas and rules.
i keep trying to emulate it, but fall far far short :l, perhaps i should stick to turtling to hive...
It's pretty straightforward, check out my zvt guide. You are just doing a ling/bane/muta bust. It's a very, very old style, not a new one. It's quite outdated, the only reason he won those games were because of some terrible mistakes on bomber and polts parts (getting caught completely unsieged... when he had control of the watch tower on antiga, taking a fourth base with only 2 siege tanks on whirldwind against a muta opener).
It's standard opener, but you get spire instead of infestation pit. Then you just max out, get like 15-25 mutas asap, and then make a shitton of banes, spread em out well, run in. Or, if he pushes, counterattack, mass banes at home so you end up ahead in a base trade.
I still prefer to ling infestor on certain maps though. Shakuras is really nice for infestor ling since your third and Nat is really easy to defend with spines and once you have your third locked down u get a free fourth base. As well Ultralisks are very good since the mid is pretty open
I feel like shakuras is the worst map for it since you can't really split your infestors perfectly, so you just got to make soooo many spines and then the opponent can just go broodlords with mass spines quite easily.
What do you mean about a 1/1 roach timing? Off a fast third opening?
I've seen a lot of infestor/ling/baneling lately, is this situational or is it a purely good composition? Whats its strengths relative to pure ling infestor? How many infestors should I be aiming to have, just enough to control medivac count?
you want banelings to do burst damage for those medivacs. it's just a lot... 'safer'. 'Safer', meaning that if can get away with making zero banelings, great, your hive tech will be super fast super strong. But I think the standard has always been to get baneling tech, you just want to make as few as possible. Nowadays I think a lot of zergs just morph 20 banes pre-emptively with infestor play because it's too susceptible to get owned by drops and pushes if you just dont have baneling tech at all and are that greedy. I wouldn't say it's a different composition, the play is exactly the same, you just have some banes and bane speed to be a bit safer against drops and pressure.
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On September 17 2012 11:25 Belial88 wrote:
you want banelings to do burst damage for those medivacs. it's just a lot... 'safer'. 'Safer', meaning that if can get away with making zero banelings, great, your hive tech will be super fast super strong. But I think the standard has always been to get baneling tech, you just want to make as few as possible. Nowadays I think a lot of zergs just morph 20 banes pre-emptively with infestor play because it's too susceptible to get owned by drops and pushes if you just dont have baneling tech at all and are that greedy. I wouldn't say it's a different composition, the play is exactly the same, you just have some banes and bane speed to be a bit safer against drops and pressure.
Do you think heavy spines/spores in each of your bases is an okay alternative to this? I've noticed that when I'm approaching mid-late game, my minerals are through the roof, while I struggle to have the necessary gas to build Hive tech appropriately, even on 6-8 gas. Drops are always the bane of my existence in this case. I've found that I do significantly better if I build 1-2 Spores and 3-4 Spines in each base. Is this a waste?
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^ yea sure.
Personally, i prefer to make banes. When I go infestor fast hive, I will just pre-emptively make ~20 banes because you are going to have to make them anyways, and I'll just leave a group of ling/bane to patrol at certain areas as my anti-drop, like ~2-3 banes and maybe 4-6 lings at my main and fourth. I never really find spores effective. But they can be great at buying time, which is what you are trying to do with spines/spores anyways. In extreme lategame I'll put like 4 banes on patrol with like 6-10 spines at far-off bases, sometimes even more, since counterattacks and drops is the only way you can really lose once you have broodlords out (not necessarily, but in certain games that's how it often is). Or, I'll have my pure broodlord/corruptor/infestor army, and I'll just have 20 banelings on a hotkey as my mobile antidrop, along with my queens since I have so many hatches I won't really need inject anymore and 8 queens just tears down drops with some spine/bane support.
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On September 17 2012 13:02 ryanAnger wrote:Show nested quote +On September 17 2012 11:25 Belial88 wrote:
you want banelings to do burst damage for those medivacs. it's just a lot... 'safer'. 'Safer', meaning that if can get away with making zero banelings, great, your hive tech will be super fast super strong. But I think the standard has always been to get baneling tech, you just want to make as few as possible. Nowadays I think a lot of zergs just morph 20 banes pre-emptively with infestor play because it's too susceptible to get owned by drops and pushes if you just dont have baneling tech at all and are that greedy. I wouldn't say it's a different composition, the play is exactly the same, you just have some banes and bane speed to be a bit safer against drops and pressure.
Do you think heavy spines/spores in each of your bases is an okay alternative to this? I've noticed that when I'm approaching mid-late game, my minerals are through the roof, while I struggle to have the necessary gas to build Hive tech appropriately, even on 6-8 gas. Drops are always the bane of my existence in this case. I've found that I do significantly better if I build 1-2 Spores and 3-4 Spines in each base. Is this a waste?
I personally love spore-heavy defense (one or two spines to buy time, but I want as close to full spore coverage of edges as possible) because it doesn't cost gas. When fighting drops, lings drop off in efficiency past a very early number (24? if I had to guess), I would rather add a few spores that will take out as a larvae efficient way to stay safe. This spore defense is especially nice because it also allows you to fight drops with fewer (or no) banes, since a medivac goes down pretty fast to a spore, much less the two plus a queen that they can face if they happen to take an unlucky path.
Anytime I'm in drop-y positions (e.g. antiga close, shakuras close by air, entombed non-cross) and see a non-techlab starport, I spore up the edges of my base, especially along obvious or abusive paths, especially if I'm going for infestors instead of mutas. I will try to find a replay.
EDIT: Replay, antiga close positions, high diamond (blah). I don't scout a factory building reactor with starport next to it (hallmark of fast medivac production), but I do see heavy marine production being added, and figured he'd drop my third. He goes for the main instead, so those three spores are a waste, but I deflect the first drop into the main (he targets the lair?) and then once I add heavy spores there, he has no way of dropping there anymore, so my infestor defense (slow, not good vs drops) starts to shine when he pushes the risky gold I took. And with all those spores up, I can do a finishing broodlord push worry-free (not that it mattered here), keeping infestors and broods together up front.
http://drop.sc/253929
The more "correct" answer to drops, however, is to split up your forces and be hyper-alert, like Stephano always seems to be. He's an amazing example to follow, it's almost to the point where you can count on one hand the number of times he has missed a drop on the minimap during tournaments this year.
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So recently I have started to play some ladder again and I have a lot of trouble with protoss, I just cant deal with some of the stuff protoss throws at me.
Quick summary of the game here:
http://drop.sc/253961
- starts and P cannons my natural
- get to three base and an immortal sentry follow up arrives, barely defeat it
- he gets up to 6 collosi: gg
I feel that I always seem to lose in the mid to late game to protoss, cause im stuck on roach infestor and the protoss gets collosi/immortal/leftoversentries and just roflstomps me. Anyone has some tips for me?
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Im having a hard time with ZvP lategame engangement.
I usually go for pure BL infestor. Is that what I should be aiming for?
What are good ways to split my army? (to minimize impact of vortex)
If the toss manges to vortex part of my army, what should my reaction be? Stay in place and fight? Pull back?
I've tryied spamming IT, but I generally find that toss has so much DPS, that they all die without really doing anything....
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On September 17 2012 21:16 gronnelg wrote:
Im having a hard time with ZvP lategame engangement.
I usually go for pure BL infestor. Is that what I should be aiming for?
What are good ways to split my army? (to minimize impact of vortex)
If the toss manges to vortex part of my army, what should my reaction be? Stay in place and fight? Pull back?
I've tryied spamming IT, but I generally find that toss has so much DPS, that they all die without really doing anything....
1. Yeah thats your lategame goal but before that you want to have some roach/ling in your army to stay maxed (so you dont get caught with just 5 bl and few infestors vs a maxed toss for example :D)
2. Dont think there is any other way than just with your mouse. Its important to predict that the fight is going to happen and split them before it, unlike marines bls are too slow to split them on the spot
3. Stay and fight, as long as he didnt vortex like half or more of your army you should be able to do ok. If he did then you are screwed anyway so its better to do as much dmg as you can.
5. IT die fast but thats their role - to absorb dmg so its always good to spam some
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On September 17 2012 10:36 whatevername wrote:
I've seen a lot of infestor/ling/baneling lately, is this situational or is it a purely good composition? Whats its strengths relative to pure ling infestor? How many infestors should I be aiming to have, just enough to control medivac count?
The biggest key in ling infestor is not to loose infestors. That way you may get to hive faster and get hive units faster. The big idea of ling + infestor is to fight vs tank + marine and have fast 2/2 upgrades, ling/baneling + infestors is good vs heavy bio. When fighting always try to save your infestors - use energy and back off, research burrow to have safer way to escape. I start to struggle so hard if I loose my infestors - remaking them costs so much and I almost never get enough gass to get decent ammount of gas units.
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Hi i am curently in gold ( i know i am not taht good but i want to improve), and i want to know what kinds of opening vs another zerg. i have been going wiht 2 builds against zerg
1. 8 pool in to macro mode.
2. Fast second and fast gas for muta play.
but now most zergs in diamond and high plat are slaughtering me wiht no mercy... T^T
PLZ HELP MEEE <3
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How can i win versus terrarn who goes really greedy 3 expand play?
i tried to rush bling/sling but than thye hav bunch of supply walls and bunkers ready to go.... plz help T^T
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EPT
