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On September 21 2010 23:59 Oshara wrote:Long post for a quick question - if I don't feel I have problems from early pressure, should I force myself to get into the habit of drone scouting / saccing an OL? I know consensus is that I’m retarded for this but my strats are mostly around mid game where I can put those Muties to work or counterattack after failed aggression or as slow armies march to me. Zerg has so few units that I never feel I’m not prepared to deal with aggression with 1-2 larva cycles.
Thanks again and sorry my post is so long!
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: 1st: Overlords shouldn't be going directly to your opponents base. Send them along routes that will cross over popular proxy locations, and have them arrive at your opponents base in a more roundabout way.
This is important for a couple reasons: 1.) It helps in spotting proxy cheese you might not see, otherwise 2.) It forces you to send a drone scout 3.) Overlords arrive at your opponents base AROUND the time you would want to sac one
You just have to drone scout. If he went 7 rax, or something retarded like that, your 14 pool is going to lose. The drone scout can also be used to gas steal after his marine pops out. This really constricts the T's gas, delaying factory, and starport plays.
Beyond that, T can just do SO much stuff. If you scout 1 rax with 1 tech lab, and then lose your scout, what options does T have?
Factory >> addon swap >> preigniter hellions Factory >> addon swap >> siege >> tank/marine push Factory >> Starport >> addon swap >> cloaked banshees Add 2 rax >> marine/marauder Add 5 rax >> 5 rax reaper Add CC >> reaper harass into expand
and the list goes on and on and on
By saccing an overlord, you eliminate the guesswork, allowing yourself to play without being blind.
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On September 21 2010 15:26 csfield wrote: Do you have any advice or tips on baneling micro?
I understand that I need to use lings to block the retreat and prevent kiting, especially before centifugal hooks.
The tricky part is getting around the marauders and getting to the marines.
I'm really looking for specifics. Should I right click the marines or the ground near the marines? Should I manually explode them? Spread creep. It helps banelings so much. Against marines, just keep moving until you're in range/surrounding them, and then attack move into them. I don't see why you'd manually explode them. If you have enough banelings, you can even just attack-move them head-on into the marine/marauder ball (but of course, for a non-ridiculous amount of banelings, you'll want them to avoid the marauders and hit the marines).
On September 21 2010 15:29 Confuse wrote: I have a lot of trouble multitasking; microing an army in a battle at the same time as building more units. I feel like zerg are very fragile, and if i look away from a battle for even a moment against a terran or protoss death ball when i look back everything's gone without a mark on the opposing forces, wheras if I do micro my forces, I might come out ahead but my macro suffers to the point where I can't meet the next army incoming with enough forces. I feel like zerg have the most to worry about position wise and macro wise (spawn larvae) which is why I am having this dilemma.
Question: Do you have any tips for multitasking? (Short question with long synopsis : P) There will be circumstances where you HAVE to watch the battle as Zerg, like if he has any energy on his sentries/HT, or if he has colossi, or if it's muta/ling/baneling versus marine/tank. Most of the time, this big battle will be the deciding battle of the game, so it's important to be able to respond to what he's doing/how he's microing. There's no reason why you can't build more units in the middle of a battle, though. If you use the minimap for spawn larva, you can do that as well (I personally don't, and I don't know any top player who does). Something else you can do is build additional hatcheries to help with the extra energy that the queen's accumulated.
On September 21 2010 15:38 phfantunes wrote: Just pure awesome.
My question: I find Infestors awesome, specially in ZvZ and ZvT (including against mech), and want to incorporate a build which opens with them at Lair tech, as an alternative to the usual Spire stuff, as I find them key to dealing with Terran harass and drops.
I've seem the CatZ game in the IEM (I believe) where he attempts this, but is unsuccesful. I've never seen another player attempt this, however (except maybe Cool, when forced to one based against a Reaper opening), so I was wondering the general opinion about it's viability. I actually don't really like infestors since people hype up fungal growth so much, but it's really not that great for a 75 mana spell, and the other two spells are just as underwhelming, if not more so. Compared to the defiler, the infestor is like the queen of Brood War. As for your question, I actually prefer mutalisks to deal with harassment and drops because they seem to shut them down more effectively, and they can harass and force turrets as well. However, mass speedling->fast infestor can be extremely effective against mass reapers. It's actually something I've had good results with and want to try more against better opponents.
On September 21 2010 17:24 Archmage wrote: How the hell do you deal with a Tank or Thor drop on Lost Temple? You rage at the map + Terran imbalance. You can try to steal his gas so he can't do that. Or if you are sure he will try that, you can go 1base mutas. Or you can try nydusing into his main with roach/ling while letting your natural hatchery die if you feel like going all-in.
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United States7166 Posts
On September 21 2010 23:59 Oshara wrote: Thanks all for taking the time and effort to do this! ~800 diamond Z here that would like to ask more of a general question than for help with specific mechanics.
As Z I rarely drone scout or sac an OL. I probably watch ~40% of my replays and can truly say I can't recall watching a replay and thinking that if I had some extra early recon the outcome would have changed. On most maps my OL gets to the opponent's mineral line at a good time for me to judge their opening off their gas use, and can react based off that recon. I generally spend some minerals for an extra queen and some spines at my natural. I make 4 zerglings and generally no more units until ~40+ food (later if I can manage!), but make it a point to control towers. Towers + queens + spines buy me plenty of time to field a good defense by the time any early aggression gets to me.
Generally after pushing back the first army I have 8-12 muties, which I feel I have great control over, and provide me all the mid-late game recon I need. I can macro up easily while harassing and can usually spend 80% of my attention on the Muties, usually taking expansions 3 and 4 while my opponent is scrambling to deal with them. By the time they can deal with the Muties I either have a huge mass of them (25+) if I think I can win with them + lings, or have transitioned to BLs / Ultras.
I feel my play is pretty liquid and I can change my strat as needed depending on what my opponent is doing (early cheese, reaper / banshee harass, quick void rays alter my play the most, but I can deal fairly well with any). Long post for a quick question - if I don't feel I have problems from early pressure, should I force myself to get into the habit of drone scouting / saccing an OL? I know consensus is that I’m retarded for this but my strats are mostly around mid game where I can put those Muties to work or counterattack after failed aggression or as slow armies march to me. Zerg has so few units that I never feel I’m not prepared to deal with aggression with 1-2 larva cycles.
Thanks again and sorry my post is so long!
if it's working for you, don't change it and just focus on improving your mechanics and other parts of your play. I'm a bit surprised that you're able to hold off almost anything but I think in time you will see that there are some things you will need to make yourself be aware of ingame. But don't worry about that and just deal with it as it arises.. if you feel your general build is strong but then is having trouble with some specific build, try to find ways to adjust your build as little as possible in order to deal with it. in some cases this means scrapping your strategy if you find out he's doing it and doing something different.
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On September 21 2010 20:38 DarKFoRcE wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2010 12:21 Saracen wrote:On September 21 2010 11:56 raybasto wrote: Against Toss, what is the best way to fend off 4 gate pressure and survive till the late game. It seems like if I open Hydras/Ling/Spines, they fast expand and switch to 2 gate Robo in which I am unable to defend long enough to get Ultra/Ling (Whether its because of lack of harass or over commiting to Hydra/Roach). If I open Muta/Ling, they keep the 4 gate pressure until my defenses finally break. This is what I do against 4gate: 14 pool 15 hatch 15 queen/overlord - when that queen finishes, build another queen, take your gas, and spit larva at the main then movie it to your nat (you might want to take your gas slightly earlier) - drone to 32 supply, then MASS lings - build nothing but lings/overlords - take a drone off of gas whenever you have the 100 gas for speed - I have been able to beat 4gate with exclusively lings, but you might want to add roaches or banelings if you're feeling uncomfortable, like maybe he's going heavy zeal/sentry or something - try to engage him as soon as speed finishes because you don't want his gateway ball to grow too large, and you don't want him to have too many force fields I find this build a bit problematic. first off, you rarely can place the hatch at 15 as your opponent will have scouted you in time and will be blocking the hatchery spot most of the time with his probe. next, you say you take your second gas as you build your second queen (or slighty earlier), again i find this to be problematic for two reasons: a) non speed lings are very bad at killing off/intercepting probes - this can mean that you see a probe coming out of his base, running towards you, placing down two pylons and then you dying to a 1 gas 4 warpgate allin because you werent able to kill off the probe before it placed the pylons (and you usually dont have more than 2 or 4 lings at that moment, of which not all will be there immidiately to kill the pylons) b) if your opponent chronoboosts his first stalker and immidiately starts harrasing it can result in you having to build way more lings than you want at that stage to prevent any bigger damage from happening. also, without speed you will not be able to kill his stalker. i like the dronestop at 32 (i personally do 32-34 depending a bit on map and whether i saw him chronoboosting his core), but i wouldnt get exclusivly lings against a 4 gate as they do very very bad against zealot/sentry, and once you see he is going zealot/sentry its already too late to start a roach warren. mass ling is also very weak against a rather eco heavy late +1 attack push which you will not be able to scout if the protoss places his forge far from the edges of his base.i personally go 14 pool 14 gas and then expand around 21 and take drones off gas once i have 100 and get ling speed. the first queen injects once in the main then places a tumor and moves to the natural. the second queen is build at 21/22 supply after placing down the hatchery at the natural. then i pump drones until 30-34 supply (if i scout no second gas with my initial scouting drone and see alot of chronos on the core i stop at 30). at 30 supply i put 3 drones back into gas and build a roachwarren (this is usually shortly after the first inject at the main pops the 4 larvae). this build is a little worse in economy than yours, but it is much saver and has alot less trouble against the mentioned 1 stalker harras or any kind of weird early attack with like 1 zealot 1 stalker. furthermore, with faster zerglings you have an easier time scouting all possible proxy pylon locations.
Agreed. I used to start pumping +1 attack zerglings off 2 base at around 30 food; this seems to work, but if the composition is zealot + sentry i'm usually in huge trouble, unless he messes up.
I also like to do a 14 pool/14 gas, expand at 21, and I usually scout at 9 for harass to get a sense of whether it's a 2 gate coming or not. If I see a 2 gate, I end up making roaches sooner. But sometimes I get faked out (i just think a 2 gate is coming) and i've overcommitted on roaches (even just a few), and I find myself way behind when the 4 gate comes, since I didn't pump enough drones. So I guess my question is, how do you tell a 2 gate from a 4 gate? Do I need to sac an ovie? if they wall off it's hard to see if they're hiding it and/or more units.
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Hi Saracen!
Thanks for doing this. Zergs have needed this for a while now, with all other races having help/replay analysis threads.
Anyways, I have a few questions about ZvP when the toss goes 2 gate.
1. How do I stop a 2 gate without going roach? Do I simply scout his zealot numbers and match it 4:1 in lings? Since I'm at ~1000 diamond level, most Protoss players know to push when they have around 5 zealots (which is before my first wave of larva pops). Do I need to build spines to hold this off? What if I went blind fast expand? Am I screwed then?
I saw PhoeNixWeRRa hold off 6 zealots with just drones, a couple of slowlings and queens when he went hatch first. Do you recommend me trying this? Seems like I need pretty godly micro to pull that off. Is there any cost effective way to counter 2 gate without going roach? It seems that every time I go roach to counter 2-gate, the ensuing 4-gate push is that much stronger because I delayed my expo until ~late 20-early 30 food.
2. Also, when I don't go roach against 2 gate, what do you recommend me doing with my first set of lings? Do I dance around and stall, not engaging, or should I try to pick off reinforcing zealots (leaving my second wave of lings and queen to fend off the brunt of the zealot army)?
What are your thoughts on this?
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How to deal with early Thor push when he gets like ~3 Thors, few marines and SCVs repairs the Thor. I made bunch of roaches + speedlings but no way I can beat that Thor. Manually killing SCVs is also too hard..
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On September 22 2010 00:29 Alpina wrote: How to deal with early Thor push when he gets like ~3 Thors, few marines and SCVs repairs the Thor. I made bunch of roaches + speedlings but no way I can beat that Thor. Manually killing SCVs is also too hard..
Yeah, same problem here. in the heat of a battle, there's no way to individually kill the SCVs. You could try running banelings into them, but sometimes you just haven't built them. You can also try building a few infestors and just fungal the unit balls (SCVs will die to 2 fungals, make sure you have enough )
If they brought other mechanical units, sometimes the SCVs will repair those units instead of the thor if they are damaged, but you'd be counting on him to mess up (even funnier, damage some SCVs and they repair each other instead of the thor), but in the meantime the thor will be blasting the crap out of you along with other support units.
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United States7166 Posts
On September 22 2010 00:25 Goobus wrote: Hi Saracen!
Thanks for doing this. Zergs have needed this for a while now, with all other races having help/replay analysis threads.
Anyways, I have a few questions about ZvP when the toss goes 2 gate.
1. How do I stop a 2 gate without going roach? Do I simply scout his zealot numbers and match it 4:1 in lings? Since I'm at ~1000 diamond level, most Protoss players know to push when they have around 5 zealots (which is before my first wave of larva pops). Do I need to build spines to hold this off? What if I went blind fast expand? Am I screwed then?
I saw PhoeNixWeRRa hold off 6 zealots with just drones, a couple of slowlings and queens when he went hatch first. Do you recommend me trying this? Seems like I need pretty godly micro to pull that off. Is there any cost effective way to counter 2 gate without going roach? It seems that every time I go roach to counter 2-gate, the ensuing 4-gate push is that much stronger because I delayed my expo until ~late 20-early 30 food.
2. Also, when I don't go roach against 2 gate, what do you recommend me doing with my first set of lings? Do I dance around and stall, not engaging, or should I try to pick off reinforcing zealots (leaving my second wave of lings and queen to fend off the brunt of the zealot army)?
What are your thoughts on this? post patch, depending on what other changes we see maybe, you should be able to hold off 2gate much easier now with just slowlings, careful not to spend your larvae on drones until you find his gate timing, try not to engage them until you have enough to fight them head on as they regenerate shields quickly while your health does not
let your queen start to take some hits before your lings go in, then bring your lings in and if needed pull your queen away if theyre still targeting it
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On September 22 2010 00:29 Alpina wrote: How to deal with early Thor push when he gets like ~3 Thors, few marines and SCVs repairs the Thor. I made bunch of roaches + speedlings but no way I can beat that Thor. Manually killing SCVs is also too hard.. early thor rushes with repair is very annoying to deal with, but 3 thors takes a very long time for terran to get and you should know well ahead of time the route he's going with an overseer/overlord. if you know he's not trying to expand you just need a LOT of roaches to nullify the repair (enough to about 3 or 4 shot the thor) also thors move really slowly so if you have the expendable means you can swoop behind his thors after he moves out of his base with them and harass his main or any reinforcements coming
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On September 22 2010 00:29 Alpina wrote: How to deal with early Thor push when he gets like ~3 Thors, few marines and SCVs repairs the Thor. I made bunch of roaches + speedlings but no way I can beat that Thor. Manually killing SCVs is also too hard..
Banelings+speedlings.
The banelings aren't great against thors but they are great against all the support (scvs, hellions and marines). Speedlings absolutely annihilate 3 thors for cost (especially with an attack upgrade).
By the time he has 3 thors and this push you should have roughly 0/1 or 1/0 or 1/1 lings/banelings, a lot of lings/banelings, 2 bases (mostly saturated) and both speed upgrades. I have found rushing mutas to be less and less effective so often delaying the mutas (as long as you don't see banshees) in favor of more ground and upgrades will help. Add in a few roaches and some creep spread if possible.
Thors are very dangerous because they are often surrounded by other stuff, can be repaired and do huge damage to most things. The fact that banelings destroy all their support negates the first point and the overkill of a thors hammer on lings really helps with the second (it takes a 1/0 thor 2 hits to kill a roach but 4 hits to kill 4 lings).
Note that the key point of ling/baneling is position, surrounds and not getting the banelings kited. Thors are slow and mean he can't kite (not without abandonning his 3-4 thors to your lings and then the marines look really silly). Note as well that if he pulls a bunch of scvs (especially on 1 base as these attacks often are) he is way way behind on econ if you kill the attack so don't give up even if you lose an expand before killing him.
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On September 22 2010 00:29 Alpina wrote: How to deal with early Thor push when he gets like ~3 Thors, few marines and SCVs repairs the Thor. I made bunch of roaches + speedlings but no way I can beat that Thor. Manually killing SCVs is also too hard..
3 thors is pretty insignificant. Muta/ling should wreck this pretty hard. Just aim to have a 4:1 muta:thor ration.
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Been occasionally having problems with a terran who sees me getting mutas and starts massing vikings with the occasional thor.
I'm not sure of the mathematics in whether or not mutas beat vikings for equal gas cost, although it does seem that way as my mutas usually whomp on an equal number of vikings. What usually happens is you focus down the vikings and your mutas clump up and a thor gets one shot out and now you're going to lose that battle because you just lost 30% of your health. I also worry if I lose air superiority i'm going to face a viking banshee army that constantly snipes my overseers.
So the question is... If they are massing vikings against mutas, do you recommend I keep building mutas? (I am obviously getting weapon upgrades first for the extra bounce damage, then armor upgrades) Is it better to start adding in corruptors? Never done the math on those either.
Right now I am currently just making a gradual change during these game from muta to hydra/infestor, and then getting ultralisks. It's not terribly bad to keep the terran using all his resources and production facilities on an AA unit i can deal with fairly easily, that's how i've seen it so far.
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On September 22 2010 01:01 DuneBug wrote: Been occasionally having problems with a terran who sees me getting mutas and starts massing vikings with the occasional thor.
I'm not sure of the mathematics in whether or not mutas beat vikings for equal gas cost, although it does seem that way as my mutas usually whomp on an equal number of vikings. What usually happens is you focus down the vikings and your mutas clump up and a thor gets one shot out and now you're going to lose that battle because you just lost 30% of your health. I also worry if I lose air superiority i'm going to face a viking banshee army that constantly snipes my overseers.
So the question is... If they are massing vikings against mutas, do you recommend I keep building mutas? (I am obviously getting weapon upgrades first for the extra bounce damage, then armor upgrades) Is it better to start adding in corruptors? Never done the math on those either.
Right now I am currently just making a gradual change during these game from muta to hydra/infestor, and then getting ultralisks. It's not terribly bad to keep the terran using all his resources and production facilities on an AA unit i can deal with fairly easily, that's how i've seen it so far.
Honestly, mutas beat vikings for a while, but there's a point where vikings just kill everything else so fast, that muta stops being cost effective.
This is a composition I've struggled with as well. I'd be really interested to hear what Saracen/Zelniq has to say about it.
edit: See Zelniq's response below.
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Sorry if this has been asked before, but when's the best time to get overlord speed, and which match ups is it vital? I can only think of ZvP if the P is going phoenix harass.
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United States7166 Posts
this is not true.
mutalisks are always cost effective vs vikings, vikings are quite poor antiair vs someone massing mutas. vs a mass viking and a few thor comp I would just mass muta with some roaches and be very careful to not clump my mutas (magic box)
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On September 22 2010 01:23 Zelniq wrote: this is not true.
mutalisks are always cost effective vs vikings, vikings are quite poor antiair vs someone massing mutas. vs a mass viking and a few thor comp I would just mass muta with some roaches and be very careful to not clump my mutas (magic box)
o.O
ty sir.
On September 22 2010 01:21 Treeplant wrote: Sorry if this has been asked before, but when's the best time to get overlord speed, and which match ups is it vital? I can only think of ZvP if the P is going phoenix harass.
Ovie speed is one of those must-have upgrades. Without it, you can forget about mid-late game scouting.
This should be one of the first things you spend gas on after lair.
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On September 22 2010 01:24 MrBitter wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2010 01:23 Zelniq wrote: this is not true.
mutalisks are always cost effective vs vikings, vikings are quite poor antiair vs someone massing mutas. vs a mass viking and a few thor comp I would just mass muta with some roaches and be very careful to not clump my mutas (magic box) o.O ty sir. Show nested quote +On September 22 2010 01:21 Treeplant wrote: Sorry if this has been asked before, but when's the best time to get overlord speed, and which match ups is it vital? I can only think of ZvP if the P is going phoenix harass. Ovie speed is one of those must-have upgrades. Without it, you can forget about mid-late game scouting. This should be one of the first things you spend gas on after lair.
I see. Also, for muta heavy, is it attack upgrade for ZvP and carapace for ZvT as a rule of thumb?
And is there a general rule regarding overlord production? I'm used to simply chain building depots for supply, so sometimes I get supply blocked as zerg. Do you guys follow a rule like 1 ovie per larvae inject, or do you just do it by feeling?
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On September 22 2010 01:01 MrBitter wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2010 00:29 Alpina wrote: How to deal with early Thor push when he gets like ~3 Thors, few marines and SCVs repairs the Thor. I made bunch of roaches + speedlings but no way I can beat that Thor. Manually killing SCVs is also too hard.. 3 thors is pretty insignificant. Muta/ling should wreck this pretty hard. Just aim to have a 4:1 muta:thor ration.
i wouldnt go mutas against a 1 base terran.
On September 22 2010 01:23 Zelniq wrote: this is not true.
mutalisks are always cost effective vs vikings, vikings are quite poor antiair vs someone massing mutas. vs a mass viking and a few thor comp I would just mass muta with some roaches and be very careful to not clump my mutas (magic box)
this might work if you are very very far ahead, but in a somewhat even situation i'd never do that, i personally find roach/infestor the much more appropriate counter to thor / viking. if you have any replays that show this working i'd be interested in seeing that..
against pure vikings i agree that mutas are a decent option if he isnt too far ahead in viking count by the time you start building the mutas, but against viking/thor you have to fly in with magic box, meaning not all your mutas can attack, and you first have to kill off all thors before you can even start attacking the vikings, which, in the meanwhile can freely shoot and move into a position which is at around range 9 to where you stopped your mutas.
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Any of you got a good mass Muta build against toss? Saw Check (i think) doing this in GSL and am very intrested. Also, will this be reasonably safe vs 4gate?
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On September 21 2010 20:49 DarKFoRcE wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2010 20:38 Xizorz wrote: How do I properly punish an early zerg 15 hatch > 15 pool build in zvz, assuming you went a more standard 14 pool?
1. Hit him early with a few zerglings. 2. Hit him a bit later with speedlings/banelings. 3. Fast tech to muta. 4. ? first off, i would go 15 hatch 14 pool in this situation (in the position of your opponent). On maps where the blocking off of the ramp with 2 queens is possible a bust with speedling/baneling pretty much does not work (unless the opponent makes a mistake). for this reason the 14 gas 14 pool build is a little risky on maps where the 15 hatch build is possible, as this build is pretty much automatically behind in that situation. on the other hand, the 15 hatch build of course loses to any kind of 6-9 (maybe 10?) pool (if you place the hatch before scouting your opponents main). going mutas is probably the best thing you can do, but as the 15 hatch player will have a stronger economy he can build a few queens to defend against the mutalisks, and then either go mutas himself or go for roach hydra and 1-2 infestors and do a timingattack before you are able to get a third up and running and catch up in roach/hydra count or tech to broodlords. another possibility would be to go banelings, but i feel this is very risky against infestors as fungal growth is very good against them. in the deciding battle it will come down to positioning/micro and whether the roach hydra infestor player can get off good fungals, but i feel the roach/hydra/infestor force is favorable in this situation. the player who is fast expanding might need a good bunch of experience to get a good feeling for when to push, but my intuition tells me that this is the superior strategy.
Ah, yes, it is 15 hatch 14 pool.
I played a guy who did it twice. I beat him on scrap station with my old 15 hatch > 14 pool > roach nydus (he put down like 7 spine crawlers at the choke in the front),
I feel like there should be some way to use my early ling speed advantage to kill that expo before he really spine crawlers it up.
What maps do you suggest 15 hatch in a zvz?
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