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On December 16 2010 06:38 Salv wrote:
Great replays, but one question: In the first replay, he started hydralisks before scouting the phoenix. Did he know he was making phoenix somehow? Or was that just a guess? Or are hydralisks just pretty good in any situation for the position he was in?
Dude, I just had to reply to your post, youre a fucking legend considering my evolution as a player. I used to a be a copper (!) noob (sc2 being my first RTS) that just 4gated everyone all the time :D not hotkeys no strategy no nothing. Then I read your PvZ guide and started fast expanding vs Zerg. It showed me a completely new world of playing :D Thanks again for posting that guide. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=128437
If I'm not mistaken he planned for a hydra drop since pretty much the only way to not get rolled by Protoss on that map is to get into their base by air i.e. spire play or drop play. Spire play isn't really viable as an opener nowadays so hydra drop play works rather reliably to stop the Protoss from amassing that big unbeatable ball. That map requires for very specific strategies and I think straight up hydralisking on others is pretty crap. (no mobility/map control/inta-loss to colossus play)
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I've done this before in ZvP but only with alot of chargelots in the mix+Corruptors, I just dont get why you would choose bane drops over corruptors or am i missing something?
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On December 16 2010 07:19 TrANCE, wrote:
I've done this before in ZvP but only with alot of chargelots in the mix+Corruptors, I just dont get why you would choose bane drops over corruptors or am i missing something?
If you opponent has a substantial Colossus count (5 and more) you have to make corrupters no other way around it. However if he really has that big ass deathball with 10 sentries 6 colossus and the rest stalkers off like 50 probes then the baneling drops will REALLY help you with surviving his big push. If you have a superior economy and more workers all you really have to do is to hold the push to win the game since he's pretty much done if he loses his gas units (colo + sentry)
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What I like about this is not only are banelings more supply effective than the rest of the zerg army, but also you're in a situation where it's great to suicide some stuff if you can significantly lower the enemy's food in the process, which allows you to abuse zerg production to get a food advantage, and also to make whatever the perfect thing is to deal with the enemy's composition
On December 16 2010 06:34 lambnrice wrote:
Because if you do this successfully, you're basically saying "Attack me now since you're very behind economically".
And if you're not ready to hold a full on attack, you will lose.
Which is why kerrigan invented spine crawlers. I think people don't do baneling drops on minerals because stuff like infestors and hydras or even zerglings are more efficient for that job. Things that you can load back up into the OL after they've gotten some kills.
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...This thread just convinced me to switch from T to Z, and I have no goddamn idea why. This tactic certainly isn't anything new..
Thanks for the replays; I'll be sure to study them.
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On December 16 2010 08:02 .Aar wrote:
...This thread just convinced me to switch from T to Z, and I have no goddamn idea why. This tactic certainly isn't anything new..
Thanks for the replays; I'll be sure to study them.
Haha, I feel your pain. After having now played Z for a couple hundred games I could NEVER go back to playing T or P. Their macro just bores the fuck out of me. You gradually increase your army by pressing single keys for single units. How ... predictable. With Zerg you can just spam drones if you feel like it and then explode off units :D It gives you 100% control and imo rewards game sense the most. Enjoy getting all inned on ladder, it's basically just all in practice, I'm really glad I can practice with people off ladder and talk about games & strategy. Zerg is certainly hard but oh so rewarding.
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zerg is supose to have a weaker 200/200 army. This is because they can replenish thier army the fastest. It only makes sence that thier things are weaker and need to chip away the stronger protoss and terran armies. However i do not feel that banelings satisfy this requirement as much as broodlords.
Great post, banelings do have a bit of meat to them, Adun
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roaches into the overlord might probably be a better strategy
cost for cost the roaches have 145hp and banelings do such low splash damage to armored units
HOWEVER i believe droptech plus overlord speed plus banelings is a super sick way to harass the economy of your enemy
dropping banelings from overlords to kill your enemies worker counts is so powerful
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intrigue
Washington, D.C9935 Posts
great thread, chickenlips. if there was a god, this is what all strategy forum would look like.
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The overlords with banelings accomplish two things:
Firstly, if the 5 collosi just sit there and take the banelings, they will fall pretty fast. A collosus is a pretty weak unit when it comes to taking hits.
Secondly, if the protoss tries to protect his collosi, he has to move them away from the overlords that are closing in on him. If the collosi aren't shooting, they aren't doing any damage to your roach/hydra line. Roach/Hydra is very very strong against gateway with no support.
Just the threat of having drops from overlords can be very beneficial. Sure you can drop mineral lines like people always talk about, but it is never seen by top players (still don't know why, I would think that a 3 pronged drop on mineral lines with a small push at the front of a terran or toss main would catch even the best players off guard). It is a great upgrade that can come in quite a bit of handy even for direct conflict. It is a pretty big investment, though, at 300/300. If you get it too soon, it could be too much of a tech crutch. Mineral line drops would be most effective when the opponent is on 3+ bases, and you have a solid economy.
As long as your strategy is just you saying "I want to drop banelings", and you go into a game, get the upgrades, and drop some banelings somewhere and go "yeah dropped the banelings! now what?", then it could work quite well. Most people know it best by watching Fruit Dealer in Season 1 of the GSL, or in his showmatch with SlayerSBoxeR. Those are great examples of incorporating the banelings into your play.
Against terran, you can't be target fired by seige tanks (ever lose a clump of banelings to 3 rounds of tank target fire?), and the overlords force the marines to run, or else they will instantly be hit. This leaves the tanks naked for mutas to go in an clean up. It makes marine split less effective as well, since overlords take way more shots to kill than a naked baneling, not to mention when a baneling is dropped, the overlords lose target priority (unless they get focus fired, which means your banelings REALLY won't be getting taken out. Once again, just watch some games of fruit dealer versus terran. It is a unique way to go about doing ling/bling/muta by spending 300/300 to make your army so much more effective.
But make sure you actually practice doing it over and over again, because I found out that it is so not as easy as fruit dealer makes it look 
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On November 15 2010 07:31 Magulina wrote:There's a nice replay of me using bling drops vs whitera in this rep pack. I was at 190 supply and knew that he would roll me, so I thought of this thread and built some blings since I already had the tech! His army comp was colossi stalker, and my drops were definately cost-effective. http://rapidshare.com/files/431001575/14_nov_Mag_pack.rarRehosted the file again might work now >> (I renamed the one with drops so it's easier to find)
I've watched a few replays but Magulina's really struck the point home.
When the battle begins Magulina has 199 supply and whitera has 182. Magulina has a supply advantage, but this is somewhat balanced by only having +1 attack vs. +3 attack, and by the mere virtue that Zerg units aren't quite as cost effective.
Within 8 seconds of the onset of the battle, coinciding with the first Baneling being dropped from an OL, the supply has swung: 162 for Magulina (-37) to 172 for whitera (-10). This is largely due to being out-positioned.
Within 8 more seconds, it would appear Magulina would be in a world of hurt -- but no, shall we see what the supplies are like post-drop?
Magulina at 142 (-20...12 of which is from Baneling suicide) vs whitera at 110 (-62). Within just a couple more seconds many hugely weakened stalkers get mopped up:
137 vs 84.
I believe that speaks for itself.
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Great thread. I've been a huge fan of baneling drops from the moment I saw FD's triumph in GSL1, and a max supply endgame context is where this tactic really shines.
The resource cost is relatively minor at that stage in the game, and the potential payoff is enormous -- especially if we consider the ramifications of losing a large-scale engagement without inflicting enough damage to the opponent's army.
This technique is a very useful tool in the zerg arsenal, and it can be applied to any matchup, given the right circumstances and good enough control.
I think it will become a lot more popular as people get comfortable enough with the basics and start really working on their micro, along with other forms of overlord play (multi-pronged drops, real-time creep rearrangement, advanced scouting and contaminate timings, etc.).
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zerg is supose to have a weaker 200/200 army. This is because they can replenish thier army the fastest.
Heh, thats wrong. It was true in BW, which is why most people still think that.
But right now, the spot of fastest replenisher goes to protoss.
A protoss with enough warpgates, and a warp prism is able to keep on replenishing his army, directly in the battle, near instantly.
Being able to make a follow up wave of lings isnt nearly as strong as being able to warp in stuff directly to help the ongoing battle.
In BW, toss had to actually build the unit, and then move it across the map, so at that time, zerg was better at doing a 300 food push.
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On December 20 2010 08:57 morimacil wrote:Show nested quote +zerg is supose to have a weaker 200/200 army. This is because they can replenish thier army the fastest. Heh, thats wrong. It was true in BW, which is why most people still think that. But right now, the spot of fastest replenisher goes to protoss. A protoss with enough warpgates, and a warp prism is able to keep on replenishing his army, directly in the battle, near instantly. Being able to make a follow up wave of lings isnt nearly as strong as being able to warp in stuff directly to help the ongoing battle. In BW, toss had to actually build the unit, and then move it across the map, so at that time, zerg was better at doing a 300 food push.
This is misleading. While it's true that protoss can easily warp units into battle very quicky and efficiently given enough warp gates, they cannot replace their power units that fast. A zerg, on the other hand, can replace 12 ultras with 12 more ultras given the resources.
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On December 20 2010 15:04 Xanbatou wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2010 08:57 morimacil wrote:zerg is supose to have a weaker 200/200 army. This is because they can replenish thier army the fastest. Heh, thats wrong. It was true in BW, which is why most people still think that. But right now, the spot of fastest replenisher goes to protoss. A protoss with enough warpgates, and a warp prism is able to keep on replenishing his army, directly in the battle, near instantly. Being able to make a follow up wave of lings isnt nearly as strong as being able to warp in stuff directly to help the ongoing battle. In BW, toss had to actually build the unit, and then move it across the map, so at that time, zerg was better at doing a 300 food push. This is misleading. While it's true that protoss can easily warp units into battle very quicky and efficiently given enough warp gates, they cannot replace their power units that fast. A zerg, on the other hand, can replace 12 ultras with 12 more ultras given the resources.
If you count Ultras as a power unit, you should probably count Archons as well, which CAN be warped in en masse if you have the resources and infrastructure.
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I realized this strength of the banelings when I saw FD carpet bomb tanks with them.
Takes 8 banelings to kill a tank, but if you kill a cluster of tanks, you come out ahead - think of it this way, banelings are amazing against light, but are tuned to trade evenly against heavy armor, if you can get splash.
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/IK3MOl.jpg)
A picture is worht a thousand words, right? Well the top right SCVs were hit by a rolling baneling. The middle ones were hit by a dropped baneling.
The dropped baneling did 3 times the damage of the rolling one, and dropping them also makes it less likely for them to die while rolling to the front.
So yeah, looks like the 300/300 for ovie speed and drop is well worth it compared to baneling speed, when they end up doing more than 3 times the dmg
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On December 21 2010 02:53 morimacil wrote:+ Show Spoiler +A picture is worht a thousand words, right? Well the top right SCVs were hit by a rolling baneling. The middle ones were hit by a dropped baneling. The dropped baneling did 3 times the damage of the rolling one, and dropping them also makes it less likely for them to die while rolling to the front. So yeah, looks like the 300/300 for ovie speed and drop is well worth it compared to baneling speed, when they end up doing more than 3 times the dmg
Wow thanks for doing the test, that's a really cool way of showing just how much damage dropped banelings do. Now imagine that with colossus over them :D
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After you get your range and armor upgrades, wouldn't it be beneficial to also get melee upgrade to boost the baneling aoe damage? The cost pays for itself fast enough (after about 10 banelings) assuming each baneling that is dropped is hitting >2 units.
Or is it better to just use that 100/100 somewhere else and forget about upgrading melee?
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On December 21 2010 07:45 P00RKID wrote:
After you get your range and armor upgrades, wouldn't it be beneficial to also get melee upgrade to boost the baneling aoe damage? The cost pays for itself fast enough (after about 10 banelings) assuming each baneling that is dropped is hitting >2 units.
Or is it better to just use that 100/100 somewhere else and forget about upgrading melee?
I would say it's absolutely essential to get at least +1 melee as your opponent will be upgrading his armor/shields throughout the game so you will be inflicting less damage with your banes.
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EPT
