EPTI've seen that there are a lot of good Zerg resources, the three that I want to focus into are dApollo's and FilterSC's video guides and Belial's texts about the matchups. All of them seem to take a different approach, but the community seems to concur that they're all great in their own. How can I combine all of them to have an efficient learning proccess? Should I only choose one?
The Zerg Help Me Thread - Page 386
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Dedicatti
Spain77 Posts
I've seen that there are a lot of good Zerg resources, the three that I want to focus into are dApollo's and FilterSC's video guides and Belial's texts about the matchups. All of them seem to take a different approach, but the community seems to concur that they're all great in their own. How can I combine all of them to have an efficient learning proccess? Should I only choose one? | ||
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Tal0n
United States175 Posts
On September 23 2012 03:16 Dedicatti wrote: Uhh, I'm going to start playing again after such a long time (more than a year) and afterwatching streams I've realized that I know nothing about the current metagame, even tho I was in diamond. Also my mechanics are pretty rusty. I've seen that there are a lot of good Zerg resources, the three that I want to focus into are dApollo's and FilterSC's video guides and Belial's texts about the matchups. All of them seem to take a different approach, but the community seems to concur that they're all great in their own. How can I combine all of them to have an efficient learning proccess? Should I only choose one? the best way to learn the metagame is to grind out games on ladder. if you feel uncomfortable doing that, figure out which of your choices there you enjoy most and go with that. | ||
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Madmaik
Germany8 Posts
User was banned for this post. | ||
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nanoscorp
United States1237 Posts
On September 22 2012 16:40 raybasto wrote: When turtling to Broodlord/Infestor in ZvP, is it best to spend your money on mass Ling/Roach while teching or spending the money on Spines and Infestors. I feel like Spine Infestor is susceptible to Collosi timings before Broods and if you do no damage with Ling/Roach, you'll also be susceptible to a counter attack. Also when should I start my melee/carapace upgrades? Only diamond fwiw, but here's what I think about those two options. Mass ling/roach leaves you with a low-tech army that needs to do damage to justify the expense. As the game progresses, the roaches with terrible supply-efficiency mean your max army isn't as strong as a more resource dense composition. It's also one of the most larva-intensive compositions, spending only 50m/larva on lings and 75m25g/larva on each roach. In terms of vulnerability to Collosi, lings take the cake. Infestor+spine on the other hand, is both resource dense (150m->0 supply for a spine if you replace the drone, -1 supply if you don't!) and easier on your larva: 100m150g/larva for infestors and 150m/larva for a spine. Infestors also start accumulating energy as soon as they hit the field, so the earlier you can make them, the better. If you've put your opponent on the back foot, or just think you can get some even or better trades, roach/ling is solid. Against a careful opponent who doesn't overextend, nearing max with roach/ling is not as good an idea as spine/infestor. As far as upgrades go, I like +1 range, lair, +2 range off a single evo for a roach/infestor composition, transitioning into +1 melee/carapace off 2 as you move towards broods, or +1/+1 before lair for a more ling-heavy opener. | ||
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HaZeY.
Canada27 Posts
On September 23 2012 03:16 Dedicatti wrote: dApollo's video series will have you (IIRC) 15 gas/15 pooling into a 21 hatch every game. It focuses on scouting and reaction. FilterSC's videos will have you doing a 2 base mass roach play, aiming for a roach speed/+1 missle timing. You'll max out on roach around 12:30-13:00 I believe, and your attack will occur around 11 mins? I forget exactly. You basically focus on fully saturating 2 bases and then going into pure roach production around the 8 minute mark. It's almost a simplified stephano style. Both of these guides are relatively ignorant of the overall metagame, focusing more on out macroing your opponent and remaining safe. Uhh, I'm going to start playing again after such a long time (more than a year) and after watching streams I've realized that I know nothing about the current state of the game, even tho I was in diamond. Also my mechanics are pretty rusty. I've seen that there are a lot of good Zerg resources, the three that I want to focus into are dApollo's and FilterSC's video guides and Belial's texts about the matchups. All of them seem to take a different approach, but the community seems to concur that they're all great in their own. How can I combine all of them to have an efficient learning proccess? Should I only choose one? Belial's vT and vP guides are, as their title says, more comprehensive and more metagame orientated. In essence you will learn a lot more from them. Apollo and FilterSC's guides will help you more on just busting the rust off your mechanics. Belial will familiarize you with the current metagame and the appropriate reactions, etc. Therefore, starting with the Apollo and FilterSC resources initially, then as you get comfortable with that, transitioning out of them towards the strategies that Belial outlines in his text guides will most likely be your best bet. | ||
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AndySCWilson
43 Posts
I had a span of few days and crushed T's with muta/ling/bane - and I had no idea why what I was doing was working, when up until that point it never had. (Notes: When it worked, I typically took a late third - I have no idea how you guys get away with grabbing a third around 30 supply - seems so risky to me. I always get it sniped by a 5-8 marines. Or if they don't snipe if I feel like I'm losing too much ground in the mid-game when I saturate it so early. Typically when this strat has worked I'd pump a few rounds of lings/banes and usually hit a timing right before I saturated my late third (And right before their siege finished)- then I'd take an early fourth and lean on them all game. This is how the games played out when it has worked anyways.) What maps is it viable? Which ones is it not? I like to use it on bad zvt maps like Ohana, Shipyard, and Cloud Kingdom. I've have decent success on Ohana, Shipyard - but basically no success on Cloud Kingdom, which is frustrating because late game on that map vs Terran is a nightmare. ---- I'd really love a primer or a how to on muta bane. So that way when I win it isn't happenstance, and I can actually navigate the matchup. (P.S. I'm Low Masters.) Thanks a million -Andy | ||
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j.k.l
112 Posts
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6xFPCs
United States412 Posts
On September 23 2012 10:29 AndySCWilson wrote: For the love of God how does muta/bane/ling work against Terran? I had a span of few days and crushed T's with muta/ling/bane - and I had no idea why what I was doing was working, when up until that point it never had. (Notes: When it worked, I typically took a late third - I have no idea how you guys get away with grabbing a third around 30 supply - seems so risky to me. I always get it sniped by a 5-8 marines. Or if they don't snipe if I feel like I'm losing too much ground in the mid-game when I saturate it so early. Typically when this strat has worked I'd pump a few rounds of lings/banes and usually hit a timing right before I saturated my late third (And right before their siege finished)- then I'd take an early fourth and lean on them all game. This is how the games played out when it has worked anyways.) What maps is it viable? Which ones is it not? I like to use it on bad zvt maps like Ohana, Shipyard, and Cloud Kingdom. I've have decent success on Ohana, Shipyard - but basically no success on Cloud Kingdom, which is frustrating because late game on that map vs Terran is a nightmare. ---- I'd really love a primer or a how to on muta bane. So that way when I win it isn't happenstance, and I can actually navigate the matchup. (P.S. I'm Low Masters.) Thanks a million -Andy Muta ling bane on Cloud is tough because of the corridors. This is because a decent flank takes longer to set up (gotta split half-half and have one half go all the way around to the other side), and that marines can better defend the tanks against mutas. So I would say that any not-small maps with open areas in the middle of the map are good for muta ling bane. Short rush distance (due to spawns, generally) and narrow chokes favor infestor play. Lategame on Cloud? I feel like Cloud is infestor heaven. Lots of chokes that marines can't help but clump when passing through, lots of ledges and ramps for the chance at fungals, creep from hatches cover enough ground that spines can be placed fairly effectively. Only two primary (i.e. safe) drop corridors in late game: corner fifth base, easily spined/spored into full safety, and the back of the natural, spores work well there with overlords spotting the ledge. Contesting the Terran's corner fifth is key, the low-ground fourth is BL food if your armies are at all even. Randomly rallying a batch of lings into their main can cause as much havoc as Terran drop play, with less risk. A lot of people consider muta-ling-bane to be fragile and reliant upon a crushing flank against an out-of-position or unsieged Terran. Otherwise, it's just bad in a straight-up fight (compared to infestor-ling-bane, of course). So it may be that the timing you're using is exploiting the Terran attempt to punish a zerg who drones up the third ASAP, and you crush their army as a result. On September 23 2012 10:31 j.k.l wrote: how do you get ahead vs a hellion cloak banshee opening? imo you have to rush lair tech or spend money on spores. I feel like I am always behind even when i rarely defend it perfectly. It seems like a handful of speedlings help a lot to tangle with hellions (keep them busy, mostly) while the queens try and preempt the banshee attacks. Spores are pretty cost-effective, though, and you can drone heavily through the harass if you have enough queens and lings out. So don't call spores a "waste", it's like calling spores a waste against dts. They cost zero gas, have a ton of HP, and reroot quickly. Ideally, you'll have enough lings to hold the hellions away from your drones long enough for queens to mostly focus on the banshees, and drone through the whole ordeal. Have you tried putting down a spire to make sure you can fight it off in the long run? If they commit to banshees, I feel that mutas are a better choice than infestors. If he has enough hellions and banshees that you're seriously threatened, you can't just shrug and assume that your normal anti-harass measures will keep you alive, you'll need that lair tech. So likewise, you're not "rushing" lair, you're getting lair to survive. Again, think about the vs dt situation: spores are good, lair is great. | ||
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Dedicatti
Spain77 Posts
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xbehemoth
Germany10 Posts
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HaZeY.
Canada27 Posts
On September 23 2012 17:49 Dedicatti wrote: You're very welcome Thanks a lot HaZeY, didn't thought of it like that! I hope I've helped. To expound slightly: ZvP: You're 15 pooling into either a 16 hatch or a double expand. Hatcheries going down at 21 and 23. Depends on the pylon blocking, etc. You 15 pool though for the most economically safe opening against any protoss opener and to quickly take down any pylon blocks/protect against any cannon rushing. This quick third "stephano style" opener is in response to an FFE (which is metagame standard) from the protoss. Pretty much any other opener from toss (ie: any gateway first opener) you take a delayed 3rd, in accordance to the timing of their expansion, and an earlier gas and roach warren. This is in essence to make adjustments for any early gateway pressure that may (should) follow. ZvT: You focus on 2 base play until you have scouted to a point where you're comfortably reading the terrans play. Hellion/banshee play off a 1 rax FE for instance (which can be easily scouted via drone/zergling) typically calls for a responsive third at 600-630. The reasoning behind this is that hellions can do little to deny the third going down outside of killing the drone that goes out to build it. Banshee follow-up will be coming at you around the 800-830 mark. Keep in mind the following build timings: An evolution chamber takes 35 seconds to build. A spore crawler takes 30 seconds to build. A collective time of 1 minute and 5 seconds. Therefore if we start our EC (evolution chamber) at 7 minutes then the earliest time we can have a spore crawler completed (primarily for cloak detection) is 8 minutes and 5 seconds. This will then be in time for a cloaked banshee timing. Later/earlier EC timings are then responsive to the scouting information. A roach warren takes 55 seconds to complete. A roach takes 27 seconds to complete. This results in a collective timing of 1 minute and 22 seconds from the start of roach warren til spawn of first round of roaches. Considering the arrival time of the first initial hellions you'd want a roach warren at 500 minutes giving you roaches at 630 which will buffer against the initial 2-4 hellions. Due to the current metagames interest in mech play, a defensive roach warren at 5:30ish timing is recommended. 4+ roaches after completion will easily defend any initial hellion play off of a hellion opening. It also places you in a good position to emphasis roaches if the terran chooses to follow their hellion/banshee opening with mech play. Again when against this sort of opening you want to take a relatively early third (600-630) relying on queens primarily and roaches to supplement to defend against hellion pressure. The queens then allow you to defend your third against banshee, placing at that +1 base sweet spot that zerg rely so much on. Thus the recommended 5/6 queen opener. With the EC timing previously mentioned in mind, you should be well prepared to deal with any early pressure from this build. After that it's about scouting the folllow up, is it bio or mech, and reacting appropriately. Mutalisk play is responsive (clearly now I'm trying to respond to other people's issues in this thread). One must realize that morphing the lair takes 80 seconds. After lair completion the spire takes 100 seconds. A mutalisk takes 33 seconds. Thats a grand total of roughly 3 and a half minutes minimum from the start of lair morph to the completion of the first mutalisks. Thus if you start lair at 6 minutes your first mutas (given ideal resources) will complete at 9:30. If a terran opponent goes mech you can expect 2 thors by 11 minutes on the field. The more they invest in tech for (ie: cloak, blue flame, siege tech, tanks) the more these initial thor timings are delayed. With sufficient mutalisk numbers you can magic box against thor in the initial stages. If the terran opponent's multitasking leaves something to be desired you can abuse the immobility of thors with your mutalisks and make the investment more worth while. It also puts the terran on the backfoot, as mutalisks are a "positional" unit of sorts, used primarily to dictate the flow of the game (ie: delaying terran third) and to position the opponents army (ie: they move out, you rape their workers). The success of mutalisk play is then determined by your ability to identify and respond to these timings. Due to the gas requirements of mutalisk play you have to make a judgement call if you can make them cost efficient or if it's best to go infestor play. Given a similar lair timing the first infestors with pathogen glands will spawn at a similar time to mutalisks, but their efficiency against any composition continues through the entire game where mutalisk efficient can, if responded to properly, decay rapidly (given a bio follow up or mech). Investment into tanks really determines the best course of action in response. The higher the tank investment, the higher the efficiency of mutas and vice versa. Each follow up, be it bio or mech emphasis, requires a different response. Regardless, the goal is to be on 3 bases while the terran is on 2, denying/delaying their third as you attempt to take your fourth and make your way to broodlords. Additional timings to keep in mind (primarily against mech) ventral sacs takes 130 seconds to complete. Once completed I recommend position 3 overlords over each active mineral line. This way, if you see a hellion runby coming in, you can load your drones into the overlords and deny any significant damage by the hellions. Drop play is also very effective against any mech play to minimize the efficiency of tanks so if facing mech there is no reason not to do this. If against bio resources will probably be better spent in static defense/infestors. ZvZ is another beast entirely, the outcome being almost entirely dependent on reaction and decision making (ie: making it out of ling/bling into roach into infestor supplement etc). I really wish Belial will do a comprehensive guide of his to ZvZ so more people have a resource for proper builds and reactions, we will have to wait and see. | ||
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WellCrap
Sweden122 Posts
Zvt is interesting because I completly stomp bio as with 3 5 ultralisks, lings and banes but I find mech inpossible to beat without something like a roach rush, simmilar to Zvp Im maxed when he/I move out with ultras, lings and banes but i just get compleatly stomped by their much smaller army. So I got bio but get ROFLSTOMPED by mech. Im looking for timings or builds in both matchups that take advantage of weaknesses of the enemy and help me win. Im currently top gold and almost exlusively playing against platinum, I have roughly 150- 200 apm. | ||
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whatevername
471 Posts
edit: What do I do if someone walls me in with two barracks or two bunkers? I guess the games pretty much over by that point, eh? | ||
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ryanAnger
United States838 Posts
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Mavvie
Canada923 Posts
On September 24 2012 09:49 ryanAnger wrote: Is there any safe, econ friendly ZvZ build that opens Roaches without the need for blings? I realllyyyyyyy hate bling play in ZvZ and I'd much rather not have to use them at all. Nope. | ||
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6xFPCs
United States412 Posts
Just want to reinforce this: No, there is no viable bane-less opening. You might get away with it a few times, but then you'll get ling-bane all-in'd and go back to getting a few banes for safety. But usually games don't involve a lot of ling-bane wars anymore. So don't get too upset. | ||
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gronnelg
Norway354 Posts
What factors helps you deside to ultras or brood lords? | ||
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Mephtral
Sweden60 Posts
On September 24 2012 19:11 gronnelg wrote: In lategame zvt: What factors helps you deside to ultras or brood lords? Ultras come out faster, so if the terran is very aggresive, i feel like ultras are safer, you can usually push the terran back in early lategame and then tech for broods behind the ultra ling infestor army if the terran doesn't just die to the ultra tech. Also i dislike using ultras against a 4-5 base terran unless i can get them to overmake air, they just have too good economy and can afford enough marauders and medivacs to easily not make it worthwhile to use ultras imo I only think it gets tricky when some terran goes with 3-4 factories and start massing silly amounts of tanks, like 12-15 of them, then i feel i have to go broods alot faster, but dont really need as many broods then, because the terran puts so much resources into tanks and factories that the viking count will be lower. | ||
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Grubbegrabbn
Sweden174 Posts
On September 24 2012 13:14 6xFPCs wrote: Just want to reinforce this: No, there is no viable bane-less opening. You might get away with it a few times, but then you'll get ling-bane all-in'd and go back to getting a few banes for safety. But usually games don't involve a lot of ling-bane wars anymore. So don't get too upset. Only gold league here but I agree, banes are needed. However, Ive found out the hard way that if you make defensive blings and hold off some aggression its absolutetly vital that you counter attack. On countless occasions I've held off aggression and still lost only to learn from the replay that after aggression my opponent just made a crapton of drones. At least fake a counter attack to force him to make another round of lings/blings of his own. Sorry if stating something too obvious here... | ||
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MstrJinbo
United States1251 Posts
On September 24 2012 22:48 Grubbegrabbn wrote: Only gold league here but I agree, banes are needed. However, Ive found out the hard way that if you make defensive blings and hold off some aggression its absolutetly vital that you counter attack. On countless occasions I've held off aggression and still lost only to learn from the replay that after aggression my opponent just made a crapton of drones. At least fake a counter attack to force him to make another round of lings/blings of his own. Sorry if stating something too obvious here... Not really. You were probably overbuilding zerglings or missing too many larva injects. Usually if you defend well the attacking player is in a really bad spot. Still it's a very thin line between building too many units and not enough. Mostly comes down to experience. But a lot of times, blind counter attacks throw away any advantage you had with a solid defense. | ||
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