The Zerg Help Me Thread - Page 399

early gas (before 18), interesting
you start 10 lings after seeing three marines marching across the map, but you saw the expo... feels like a slight overreaction. you then make it 14. ouch. 7 drones down, off a gas opening (i.e. less econ than 4-6 queen gasless)

7min you run in with speedlings, nice; this guy is panicky and easily flustered, his factory just floated there because he freaked out about speedlings. you end up with DOUBLE his actual workers, about 150% workers after factoring for the two OCs.

one problem is that you didn't take your third during that. so while your lair and ling upgrades are on the way, you could've been more ahead. just a slight issue.

around 9:30 you see 8 hellions, that's pretty clearly some kind of mech play. your overseer then scouts the reactored factory still going, so it's pretty clearly mech at this point. i like that you started spines to help delay for roaches.

10:30 you start floating a ton of resources. add a macro hatch when you hit 1k minerals (stephano-ish way of doing it) or when you hit 70 (i think that's usually when I see DRG drop one, though it depends on a lot of factors)

11min, hellions start fighting two queens, your slings need to be a part of that. you get the banshee, that's huge, but the slings need to save those queens.

you then go super heavy on roaches (16?), but forget roach speed. that's too many roaches, because he has banshees, you only need 6-8 to be safe against 8-12 hellions (he had 8-10 when he attacked together with the banshee). you also want to drone up your third, so that's more larvae wasted. at this point (12min ish) you've basically turned off drone production in your head, and as a result your economy is pretty bad, and now only on par with his stunted econ. you have a third with zero drones, you should have put down 2-3 spines there and droned up instead of holding down "R".

you then go cross map on a roach suicide mission against known banshees, and likely tanks (because mech). no roach speed means you're dead, let's see how much damage you do. you get three depots, five hellions, one scv for 16ish roaches. not good, especially since mech mainly cares about gas units.

you go fast hive on 60 drones, and go for ultras. that's rushing to hive, you don't even have a decent infestor count or army yet. your minerals reach 1.5k, you need to expand to 4 bases for the gas to support hive tech, and against mech I'd make it 5 base. you end up taking a late fourth in a bad spot (I would take south gold or 6 o'clock, or anything in the southwest quadrant, before i take 3 o'clock, especially against banshees and without mutas)

around this point he hits some kind of massive, massive supply block, and he needs to add a few more factories as he takes that third. sloppy on his part. he also ends up taking the gases super slowly. sigh.

you take out the banshees but lose infestors. equivalent gas trade if i didn't miscount (2 infestors for three banshees).

roach drop at 17:45. good, you grab the tech labs. but then you go for the ebay? you don't have mutas, he's not upgrading... I would grab scvs, or even a refinery. well, you pulled him out of position. should be countering his third here, though it's a planetary. or even just smack the front of his natural and try to nab some hellions as he a-moves back. break down the rocks at his third! try something, anyway.

ok he pushes out at 20min, you've got good upgrades but aren't maxed, and you go to attack after giving him time to siege up. big problem one: he's sieged. big problem two: he's up on army supply, and you actually use the ultras to take the tank shots (ultras are tanky, but tanks are anti-ultra until they get up close). you then fail to rebuild quickly. it takes you a full minute to max again, in spite of having the larvae and resources available.

then you run roaches into tanks. sieged tanks. still in the same spot. that's idiocy, pure and simple; he's not threatening any bases, he's not doing anything, and you had the chance to pick off two thors that were way out of position.

you keep refusing to remax. if you're trading out roaches, keep trading.

man, this guy is 1-0 on his mech at 23 minutes. how have you not killed him? if you had maxed out before attacking him, using some IT and lings to absorb tank shots, then held down "R" while you fought, and a-moved, he'd just roll over. you had 1-3 roaches, 3-3 lings, 3-5 ultras, with 4.5ish bases and 6 hatches of production. instead, you keep throwing little pieces of army at him, and he devours them.
I want to emphasize how easily you could've won here, had you engaged correctly. He does not even have blueflame, for god's sake. he just goes up to 12 thors because you're wishy-washy about building roaches vs teching up, and proceed to throw away what, 3k/2k resources against a sieged position that threatens nothing?

24:50ish, you engage badly (roaches under BLs taking tank fire? no IT or queen backup for BLs?). scoot your roaches in if you intend to use them, very few are firing at hellions. but really, let the BLs dance with the sieged tanks, force the unsiege before you send in roach cavalry. a lot of zerg players make this mistake, roaches really want to be in the face of everything, especially mech (splash from tanks, plus the firing thing). you also want to, after the initial roach charge and initial fungals, rain ITs everywhere. he can't back up, and you need dps ASAP, not over 12-16 seconds via successive fungals. watch stephano engage mech, he dumps ITs everywhere he can, as soon as that first batch of fungals hits.

26min on, you need to stop sucking your thumb and max out and hit him. he's isolated in the center, you can either hit his main army or skirt around and hit his gold or go around left and hit his third or scoot into his natural. doesn't matter. the problem is that you think BLs can fight 12+ thors, and they really, really can't. you don't dump ITs until everything of yours is dead, so they do a little, but not much. imagine if you had all of them able to finish because he had to kill your roaches first--I'd bet half the thors, if not more, would be dead, because you have 2 missile attack against his 1 armor.

this time you max right, though it's still late by 5+ seconds (at this distance, he should not be done dealing with ITs by the time your roach reinforcements hit). it's about to be 3-3 roach against 2-1 mech.

27min ish, good roach drop, pulling some units out of position and getting a thor kill.

nice roach drop again, plus the forced lift on the fifth. burrow a roach at his fifth.
where is your nydus escape??

ok he's out of position, what do you do? well, nothing, apparently. his gold base is so vulnerable it's ridiculous. one infestor's worth of ITs on the high ground shuts it down.

36min you do some multi-prong stuff and pull him out of position (back into his natural), but then you do nothing even thoug his army is as far from anything as it can ever be.

39ish min, you engage terribly with 10 ultras and 12ish infestors. you spread out badly, didn't use infestor energy until the battle was lost.

40:30, you pick off two thors three tanks, good, and you retreat to remax, even better.

41min, you pick off thors decently as he kills your gold. keep reinforcing and picking off more!

42:30, you pick off a ton with burrow play, awesome. seems like you got the roach rhythm going now.

you then decide not to keep it up and let him have the south gold. why do you let him have south gold? it's an orbital, he's not covering it with tanks. this is idiocy, you leave it alone for 5 minutes. it's like after your previous success, you forgot what you just did and decide to lose. you start fighting with a dozen roaches, while two dozen sit at home cowering in that little corner you love so much. be more active, you have to be more mobile than mech.

I'm not going to watch the rest. basically, he doesn't understand how to kill you, you have some kind of weird lack of comprehension about how to continue using what works. i don't care who wins in the end, it's like a loss for both of you because there're giant mistakes to learn from.