I have recently felt a little bored playing zerg and I'd like to spice up my gameplay with micro-intensive harassments and little "cutesy" tactics (as day9 would say). Below are a couple things I'd like to implement into my gameplay, but I would also like the assistance of the beautiful people of TL.
1.) Drops I feel that I don't have enough drops in my game. I would like to start doing some nifty little 8ling drops in multiple areas at the same time or some nice baneling drops here and there. Do the drop mechanics from scbw also apply to sc2? What other units make good drops?
2.) Spine Crawler Placement/Rushes I like having creep eveverrryyyyhwhherreeeeee. One thing I'd like to start doing with excess gold is building spine crawlers in annoying places; like on cliffs or in key harassment/attack areas. If I have enough creep, spines could also be used in my final attack. Can spine crawlers go through nydus networks? Can they be DROPPED?! What are some cool things to do with spine crawlers?
3.) Contaminate Attacks Contaminate costs a great deal of energy but it is soooooo wonderful. I was thinking about getting 3-4 overseers and constantly contaminating production structures. Can you contaminate unfinished structures? Does contaminate stop research? Does it stop generation of energy on orbital commands and nexii?
I hope this thread doesn't get closed cause there's actually a bunch of cute stuff you can do with zerg to harass. You should really check some of these things for yourself before making a thread, but w/e, most people know the answers anyways.
I'm only like 1350 or something with zerg, so not very good at all with that race, but here's some fun stuff that at least works well on paper:
Infestor drops are pretty good, infested terrans and fungal growth are both decent harass vs workers. Actually infested terrans AND fungal growth are pretty excellent late game harass. Drop and infestors are pretty much essential vs Terran anyway, and infestors are good against quite a few protoss builds so they're good.
Overseer harass to contaminate is only good vs bad players. It's cute and a fun idea, but it only works vs a tiny number of builds, the rest of which kill you too quickly for it to be of use (I did play around with it a bit early in retail)
Seen some koreans do drones in overlords and build spine crawlers near expansions.
Baneling drops are good, and ling drops are a good way to buy time.
Muta's can harass pretty well.
Roach drops are decent vs Protoss.
I don't know, I need to work on my zerg a lot, but this is all stuff I want to try in more depth.
Sniping CC's and such with infested terrans is absolutely glorious. If you have some infestors with a lot of energy, you can have the equivalent of a ton of stimmed marines in an enemy mineral line without too much difficulty. More than enough to DPS down their fair share of SCVs/Probes/Nexuses, etc- particularly if you have upgraded range attacks.
Would you just burrow infestors and crawl them into the base? I feel that that is a large waste of beautiful gas. What other methods would you use to get the infestors in there? Drops?
To answer your question, spine crawlers cannot be dropped and they cannot go through nydus.
My problem with cutesy harassment is it feels like Zerg isn't really built for it like terran is. Terran has cliff abuse, drops, siege, fast moving reapers, helions, the list goes on. Zerg has ol drops, but really they require two upgrades (both speed and transport) to be effective. Zerg has nydus but it's very hard to nydus a good player's base. And if they see it, which 9/10 times they do, that's a lot of wasted money. And lastly, contaminate is useless because it delays one building, which might be good in the very beginning of the game, but in the mid/end game, the benefit that comes from delaying one building is negligible. It would be different if you could keep contaminating, but it costs too much energy.
The problem with zerg harass is 1) keeping him from just fucking killing you and 2) the gas, oh god the gas.
contaminate is far from useless... I just wouldn't recommend massing overseers to use it. Delaying a colossi is well worth it.
You can burrow in infestors, but you need a scout for turrets and need to be careful about it.
A great IT tip is if he has sieged tanks within range of his scvs pop out the ITs very very slowly so each one dies before hatching. He won't get a 'units are under attack' warning as his SCVs get blown to bits. Just be careful about him noticing and scanning.
Spines can't be dropped but drones can. Add in the fact that your dropping overlord can spawn creep and you can sort of "drop" a spine on cliffs, although I'm not convinced you're going to do too much damage with a spine considering its range.
One idea that just came to me is dropping drone and building spines on high ground near Xel'Naga towers (e.g. on Xel'Naga Caverns) which will give you fairly secure control of the tower with just a ling, and prevents the enemy from holding the tower with a single unit/really small army. (this all depends on whether the high ground is buildable or not, obviously)
contaminate is useless
I think that's the wrong thing to say. It's in no way useless. Sure it might be less useful late game, but it still has a place.
For example, I happen to know that when I do dimaga's +1 attack speedling build in ZvP, my ultras are going to pop around the same time that a quick collosus will after a standard toss push like a 4 gate if I go pretty quickly to ultras.
Being able to delay that collosus for up to a minute (2 contaminates, should be easy enough to get off) if I realise I'm a bit slow on the hive is huge. There are obviously other such uses of contaminate.
Contaminate lets you create your own timing windows in a game. There's no reason to not use it, especially on structures that are ideally constantly producing (e.g. rax). Even under perfect Terran macro, everything coming out of that rax is 30 secs slower than it would have been otherwise.
(Disclaimer: I'm not that good, take any and all advice with a pinch of salt - I'm mainly throwing out ideas)
I have a hard time using infestor burrow harass against Terran because of the prevalence of mutalisk-based strategies used against them. Terrans are so gun-shy about mutalisks these days that the second they scan a lair at my main they start turreting up their base. Even if they can see my infestor pit with the scan, they just assume the spire is hidden somewhere and that mutalisks are already on their way.
Contaminate harass can't be relied upon. It's worth it to do it anyway while you're scouting since you're already there. It might do SOME damage to a Terran doing a very specific build (banshees or a thor drop), but against bio play it's worthless. I guess it's useful against colossus tech. It would be most useful against a robo facility currently being chrono-boosted, imo -- you delayed the push for a couple seconds AND wasted the P's boost to boot.
I feel like, for me, the undiscovered country is incorporating more drops into my play like PsY does. It's useful for harassment and for breaking Terran positions. I just don't have the skill for it yet so I resort to mutalisks, which are still good at those things but require much less attention to execute while macro'ing.
I'm not a zerg player but I have a practice partner who is, and he does a lot of annoying things like this that can get out of hand in a hurry.
The biggest one is he burrows zerglings EVERYWHERE. Usually there are groups of 6 lings burrowed all over the map, and as soon as I try to leave my base, there's a group of lings trying to run into my mineral line. It basically forces a walloff or cannons at every nexus, and with enough lings and some aggressive creep spread he has vision of the entire damn map.
Mutas are also a pain and are always bouncing around poking my buildings and forcing me to make phoenixes. If I can't find some way to put counter pressure on him, he winds up expanding like 8 times and making some ungodly broodlord/ultra/hydra combination because I can never leave my base.
@toxigen: Why does him thinking muta is on the way hurt infested terran builds?
Most anti-muta builds rely on building turrets in the BACK of his base, meaning you can get in no problem. Once your inside his base, make sure a raven wont come out and that he isnt building a turret next to your infester, and just wait for him to move out, the moment he moves out drop 1000 infested terrans on his cc, kill some scvs and if your lucky the whole cc.
On October 02 2010 06:59 obsid wrote: @toxigen: Why does him thinking muta is on the way hurt infested terran builds?
Most anti-muta builds rely on building turrets in the BACK of his base, meaning you can get in no problem. Once your inside his base, make sure a raven wont come out and that he isnt building a turret next to your infester, and just wait for him to move out, the moment he moves out drop 1000 infested terrans on his cc, kill some scvs and if your lucky the whole cc.
I guess that's true -- I could try to find a turret-less portion of his main to chill while burrowed and just move forward once I know he's too far to defend/reinforce.
Someone might be able to exploit the lack of scans when the one or two terran command centers are contaminated. And they might be able to create or extend timing windows.
And I'm also of the opinion that setting up spine/spore crawler high ground/cliff strongholds with overlords filled with a queen and drones all over the map is a great way to sink minerals. Not easy to deal with at all.
I tested this, and contaminate ONLY stops building of workers. It does not stop scans or lifting-off or landing, or muling (imo It would be cool it if did do these things though).
On October 02 2010 05:58 aliciakeys wrote: And lastly, contaminate is useless because it delays one building, which might be good in the very beginning of the game, but in the mid/end game, the benefit that comes from delaying one building is negligible. It would be different if you could keep contaminating, but it costs too much energy.
I fully disagree. It is actually an essential part of my ZvT and ZvP atm.....
The benefit of delaying his first Phoenix from finishing before I can get some mutas, or the benefit of delaying his medivac from finishing before I can get some mutas out to stop it is essential to my current speedling->expand->lair->muta/ling build. It gives me enough time to actually prevent a lot of different types of rushes that I wouldn't be prepared for otherwise.
It is not just a "good" spell, it is a "very good" to "essential" spell in the early-midgame.
And, if you've got Overseers in the late-game, its because you need mobile detection. Contaminate or changelings are just a bonus.
contaminate ONLY shuts down unit production and research/upgrades it does not disable any ability any building has, that means contamination has no effect on: buildings that can attack, buildings that can cast spells/abilities (mule, scan, liftoff, land, create tech lab/reactor addon, morph to lair/hive, uproot, root, spawn creep tumor, creep tumor's creep spread)
the ONLY exception as far as I know is with Spawn Larva. if spawn larva was in progress when contamination is used on the hatchery/lair/hive, it will pause it until the 30 sec duration is up. if spawn larva is used after contamination is already in effect, the spawn larva's spell will start after contamination wears off)
a useful stat to know is that if an overseer has 200 energy, and contaminate is used on a building, then is used again once the first one wears off, by the time the 2nd wears off it will have enough energy to cast a 3rd
I'm a 950 plat player. I think that 1 thing people often disregard, is the power of the scouting drone harassment. It is freaking amazing. This of course requires some good micro.
First off, I like to 9 scout which gets me into bases before wal.
Vs. toss & terran. - K, both these guys like to wall their bases. So 1st great harassment, is block their buildings! Micro circles around their scv's and probes on their front ramp. At best, this will slow down their build, disrupt them, and sometimes force them to do other things. Common reactions include pulling probes/scv's off the min line to chase you away, or forces them to build their building off the ramp in fear of you rushing. Terrans can always lift off their rax and replace it, but toss will have to cancel/rebuild gate or build a 2nd gate to finish the wall. vs terran - alright, even if they get their rax/supplydepot wall down. ATTACK THIS SCV. At best chances against slow players, you'll kill this guy and delay build. Or, once again, they'll have to micro scv's off the min line to repair/get you away. vs terran/toss - take their gas! 1 base toss and terran is very common. taking one of their gas slows down tech which helps you react easier to speed reapers, speed VR's, speed banshee's, thors, etc. basically everything.
The trick: I saw this in a replay, forgot where though. Begin building extractor on their gas but DO NOT finish it. Right before it finishes, cancel - B - E, and rebuild. This allows it to outheal any probes/zealots/marines attacking it. When i do it, I can tank 2 marines or 1-2 zealots off rebuilding it almost infinitely.
vs zerg - alright, so you may have seen this one and theirs a huge debate about its benefits. but i've been dropping evo chambers in front of zerg extractors. Slowing down their gas to beat them to speedling is huge to me. It's success varies widely though. Look up PsyStarcraft's (youtube) most recent ZvZ vid, it's here he showcases someone doing it to him.
On October 02 2010 06:23 sgtcodfish wrote: One idea that just came to me is dropping drone and building spines on high ground near Xel'Naga towers (e.g. on Xel'Naga Caverns) which will give you fairly secure control of the tower with just a ling, and prevents the enemy from holding the tower with a single unit/really small army. (this all depends on whether the high ground is buildable or not, obviously)
That would definitely be interesting to see. I wonder if an offensive spine on the cliff at Lost Temple would work too.
Problem is, zerg just isn't designed for things like this. You have to get lair and then put a lot of money into drop tech that would normally make other things... it's not like terran where you're almost always getting the medivacs anyway.
And zerg has to be so defensive, they have to expand more but manage to stay alive... I just don't know where you can find the time and resources to get spinecrawlers on a ledge and have it be worth it. And of course, unlike tanks, you can't just pick them up and take them somewhere else to be useful afterwards.
I like the creative thinking (would have been pretty cool if they could walk through a nydus, especially since a nydus makes its own creep) but zerg just has almost no non-standard ways to play.
Just checked and spine crawlers have the same range as a thor, and I KNOW a thor can hit my hatch from the high ground on LT, so I believe a spine can as well. Would be intresting strat to rush for nydus, drop it on the high ground, then have like 5 drones come through and make spine crawlers.
Then you can use the nydus to expo to the islands for 4 bases. Might be an intresting strat. Only problems I can see with it would be that terran gets tanks really early a lot, and they would rape those spines before they get a chance to do dmg, and you got to worry about anti air from banshees, although queens could go through the nydus to defend them. Still might be really good vr a FE protoss, I have seen 1 pro zerg go for nydus drop the cliffs, and then use extended range hydra to kill the gas and 2-3 patches of drones, but using spines have alittle more range to kill that nexus.
I've used drops with some success. Roach hydra (doom) drops have been okay, also roaches with their burrow upgrades can be effective - my opponent had no observers yet. sniping pylons or tech can be a big deal.
Any of these examples can be combined with a small force of mutas to force their army out of position as you drop.
This is very effective in close air positions, of course.
As far as contaminate ; No, contaminate does not stop a building that is under construction. Lately i've been using the overseer to contaminate gateways once i'm pressuring a protoss's ramp.
I guess none of these are very cooky, but they do work. Don't forget about fake drops either ; ]
On October 02 2010 05:58 aliciakeys wrote: To answer your question, spine crawlers cannot be dropped and they cannot go through nydus.
My problem with cutesy harassment is it feels like Zerg isn't really built for it like terran is. Terran has cliff abuse, drops, siege, fast moving reapers, helions, the list goes on. Zerg has ol drops, but really they require two upgrades (both speed and transport) to be effective. Zerg has nydus but it's very hard to nydus a good player's base. And if they see it, which 9/10 times they do, that's a lot of wasted money. And lastly, contaminate is useless because it delays one building, which might be good in the very beginning of the game, but in the mid/end game, the benefit that comes from delaying one building is negligible. It would be different if you could keep contaminating, but it costs too much energy.
Just don't try to use a Nydus as the ONLY attack and hope that your Opponent does not see it, that will never work actually.
Use Nydus as Counter Attack, or if you Play Mutas for example. Harras with Mutas on nat. expo and place a Nydus in Main Base (or other way around) thats so much Pressure for most People, they have to Split Army up, and Terran with Mech is sooo slow.
Or Nydus in one Base, so often People send their WHOLE Army to the Nydus Place, then you can attack somwhere else. Imho Mutas + Nydus is very dangerous.
If you've been watching the GSL, you notice that Fruitseller/Cool uses quite alot of baneling drops, ultra drops, and even Nydus play. Ofc, all this is done whilst expanding/spreading creep.
I'm starting to think that baneling drop can be worth it once you have enough overlords. One overlord dies, and it's 300/100, but it can be worth it if you can use it to get rid of a heavily fortified position, with flanking with zerglings and stuff ofc.
If you get Spire, then realize that any harassment done with Mutas is not going to be cost effective, then it may be better to stop pumping mutas, get +1 air carapace, and just try and go for drops.
EPT
