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I've recently switched from Terran to Zerg (mainly because I want to look forward to late game instead of fearing it) and while getting maxed has always been my goal with Terran, it seems like it is more of a problem with Zerg if roaches and speedlings make up a large part of that maxed army since they are so supply-inefficient (The splash units of T (Hellions and Tanks) and the FF of P render them largely useless).
When my opponent would finally decide to move out with his huge ball of death, he would easily wipe out my entire army, dealing huge damage to my economy since my reinforcements would arive slowly and in non-threatening numbers while he's busy killing my expansions.
Solutions to that seem to be to fight away from your home (so you have reinforcements ready when he arrives at your bases) and to drop/nydus your useless supply into his main so you atleast trade them off somewhat cost-efficiently, while you replenish your army with Tier 3 units.
However I want to have an army that can fight anywhere, not only away from my home. It is also very hard to engage turtling opponents since the defensive capabilities of P and T are so good, rendering the cost-efficiency of your army compared to his even worse. (who hasn't lost a shitton of stuff to tanks + PF or just plain carpet storming)
Drops and Nyduses can be denied by good opponents or map hack (Sensor Towers / Observers), thus relying on the mistake of your opponent. Not a good tactic to employ imo.
Relying on reinforcements also doesn't work very well with our current map-pool. Ultralisks take 70 seconds to build, Broodlords 74 (40+34), any other unit can be dealt with by your standard mid-game T/P composition.
Of course you can keep throwing maxed armies at your defending opponent, however this almost never works when you aren't dramatically ahead of your opponent in economy/tech and is plain suicide if you are behind.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/g2gNq.jpg) Bye bye, Colossi
After hitting a wall in ZvP I decided to download the approx. last 20 ZvP from http://www.sc2.com.cn/ (has more pro-replays than sc2rep.com, is however harder to navigate) to see what the Korean Zergs are doing to beat Protoss. I stumbled across 2 very interesting replays by JookToJung. When he approached the upper limits of the supply cap he would make 20-30 zerglings and morph them into banelings. Since FF still stop everything but Ultralisks on the ground, he would drop them - en masse- directly on his opponent.
Here are the replays.
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-163842.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-163852.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-164396.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-165181.jpg)
In the first replay, Protoss opens 2 gate Phoenix forcing Hydras then transitioning into 2 robo Colossus. I want you to take a look at the last engangement by the 3rd of Z near the end of the game. Both armies are at around 110 supply. Normally those 7 Colossus would rape through the Roach/Hydra composition. (I tested it multiple times in the unit tester, about 6 colossus survive)
However, by dropping the banelings directly onto the colossus, most of them are killed and the remaining ones are cleaned up by the rest of the roach/hydra army. How often do you see a T2 Zerg army absolutely demolish a similiar Protoss army that has colossus in a normal game? That's right never ever in a million years. Once the colossus count gets that high, they become basically untouchable by ground and that's where the banelings really shine, they circumvent anything on the ground and go directly for the Colossus dealing guaranteed damage to them. The unit tester reinforced the tactic that was shown in the first replay. Every single time I used dropped banelings on the Protoss ball (depending on how well I did it), the Zerg army would still stand strong with about 10 Roach / Hydra each. The by far most efficient way to drop banelings is to steer them over the enemy unit ball and then start spamming D+Click onto the overlords so they drop the banelings evenly, maximizing the damage and giving the remaining units a very easy time cleaning up the rest. If I used Speedlings or just directly rolled my banelings in however (and this is even without FF) The combined AoE of the colossus would absolutely crush the Roach / Hydra. Even If I replaced the Zealots with Stalkers, the Protoss ball would die almost instantenously, even though the stalkers killed off a few more Roaches before they died.
The second replay shows a beautiful way to end the game. Instead of having to wait for T3 to finally break the goddamn turtling Protoss you can just drop all your shit on him :D The game was obviously won for Z, however it's a nice showcase of the tactic.
I know what I'm getting in preparation for Tier 3 now  It also gives me a nice incentive to get that overlord speed (which also gives map control and allows delaying expansions) + drop and it finally gives me a way to kill the colossus (and therefore keep their count low) without having to rely on useless corrupters.
What do you think? Are banelings worth the gas to survive until Tier 3? Is there another reliable solution to the problem of max army clashes as Zerg? I'd love to hear your take on it. Please note that the specific strategies or their excution in the replays isn't up for discussion, they are there merely to show the supply-efficiency of banelings. (Note that a baneling is 0.5 supply and guaranteed splash damage once it hits)
EDIT
I've now played tons of games with it, and I can say ZvP is just so much fun with this new technique :D The 3st replay is of the bestest baneling drops I've done so far. Sure, we both make a crapload of mistakes (who doesn't), but the last fight literally (literally) gave me a nerd boner. Enjoy!
EDIT2
I'm just adding replays as I play them. Unfortunately most Protosses all-in me before I can get the tech required to insta-win an engagement of my choice :D
EDIT3
Moar replays. ^_^
Keep posting your experience with this tactic and add replays if you like. It's a lot of fun to watch different people discover new ways to play the game
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ive screwed around with a 400 baneling army before, so i can safely say, assuming you can a) easily afford them in large numbers and can b) remake them relatively quickly they are extremely strong, also; watch out for air
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This sounds really good. I only ever thought of doing Baneling drops on MMM balls. Didn't think it'd work on Colossi too haha. I'm definitely going to have to try this out.
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The only problem I see is that its usualy not a zel/colsi mixture, but a stalker/colsi mixture. Stalkers arnt all that good to hit with banelings (but can be good if you drop them on top of a ball of stalkers). I fear a lot of stalkers with just snipe down the overlords before they even get over the ball.
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I think the second replay showed that banelings are pretty decent even against stalkers. My worry is that if you try to engage on open ground with baneling drop the overlords will get kited by stalkers. In that instance where the stalkers had their backs to their own base it's not an issue though. It's pretty dangerous either way if they actively attempt to kill your overlords.
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On November 08 2010 06:53 ddrddrddrddr wrote:
I think the second replay showed that banelings are pretty decent even against stalkers. My worry is that if you try to engage on open ground with baneling drop the overlords will get kited by stalkers. In that instance where the stalkers had their backs to their own base it's not an issue though. It's pretty dangerous either way if they actively attempt to kill your overlords.
Since this is a mid-lategame-tactic it's probably smart to be on your way to Hive-tech anyway and to put that infestation pit down. If you want to make absolutely sure that he doesnt kite your army in that big engagement you can get 1 infestor out to fungal his units. Infestors are great anyway as showcased by TLO in his series against HuK and KiWiKaKi.
Alternatively you can do a speedling flank which will temporarely stop your opponent from moving back giving your speed ovies enough time to catch up and deplay the banelings. You should always lead with some empty ones so the full ones get through.
Banelings actually deal quite well with stalkers if they are deployed directly onto them (like they also do with marauders. Also if your opponent has stalkers they will generally be in a big perfect clump directly underneath his colossus, allowing your banelings to deal at least 120 damage directly on impact (5-6 stalkers + the colossi above).
So it might sound like a lot but I'd rather expense those banelings + overlords + speedlings/infestor than having my roach/hydra ball endlessly FFed and kited around the map. It allows me to finally kill the goddamn Colo/Stalker, that just continues to grow endlessly, even if I throw army after army at it.
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yes they may be, its like when a toss has 200/200 army and u have lost of speedlings, theyll be really useless, so make them banelings, maybe then can do some damage
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When you upgrade melee attack, does it upgrade damage vs non light for banelings?. If yes, then i can defenitly see this being strong vs a stalker ball + ling flanks
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On November 08 2010 07:41 s1eger wrote:yes they may be, its like when a toss has 200/200 army and u have lost of speedlings, theyll be really useless, so make them banelings, maybe then can do some damage
Indeed. Speedlings are just the most worthless units against a well composed Protoss army. FF + Colossus + Stalker fire makes them just wasted supply, minerals and larvae. Just completely useless.
On November 08 2010 08:02 Adaptation wrote:
When you upgrade melee attack, does it upgrade damage vs non light for banelings?. If yes, then i can defenitly see this being strong vs a stalker ball + ling flanks
Melee does also upgrade baneling damage. So if you are on your way to ultralisks or broodlords (which both need melee upgrades to work well) banelings actually benefit from the upgrades you are getting anyway while making the stalker + colossus ball that much less threatening.
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Wow, that first replay is pretty epic.
TY for sharing, OP.
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On November 08 2010 08:15 MrBitter wrote:
Wow, that first replay is pretty epic.
TY for sharing, OP.
Yeah I was quite amazed when I tested it in the unit tester with 27 speedlings (i.e. he didn't morph them). The Protoss would absolutely smash the Z army with 6-7 colossus left. However when the banelings were dropped onto the colossus ball almost 80% of the Z arny would survive completely wiping the floor with the high colossus count.
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I feel this kind of thing is just too gimmicky to catch on
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On November 08 2010 08:53 dreamend wrote:
I feel this kind of thing is just too gimmicky to catch on
Are you kidding me? Fruitdealer, arguably the best Zerg in the entire world used them in almost every single one of his games (even when he Foxer put him under _constant_ pressure). Dropped banelings work so efficiently since they allow your front units (mainly roaches) to not get totally obliterated and actually walk up to the enemy to do damage.
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On November 08 2010 08:53 dreamend wrote:
I feel this kind of thing is just too gimmicky to catch on
How so? Banelings are hardly that costly and they are clearly pretty freaking effective when dumping from overlords.
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On November 08 2010 08:56 ChickenLips wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2010 08:53 dreamend wrote:
I feel this kind of thing is just too gimmicky to catch on Are you kidding me? Fruitdealer, arguably the best Zerg in the entire world used them in almost every single one of his games (even when he Foxer put him under _constant_ pressure). Dropped banelings work so efficiently since they allow your front units (mainly roaches) to not get totally obliterated and actually walk up to the enemy to do damage.
you're comparing dropping a few banelings on tanks/scv lines to dropping 20+ banelings onto packs of colossi? come on
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if you can afford that many banelings in the 1st place i think you've would've won anyways, i thinks perhaps maybe your being far to passive into letting that "ball of death" get to it's wanted point, but the replays were very good to watch and interesting in seeing the effectives past using to counter the bio.
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On November 08 2010 09:14 TibblesEvilCat wrote:
if you can afford that many banelings in the 1st place i think you've would've won anyways, i thinks perhaps maybe your being far to passive into letting that "ball of death" get to it's wanted point, but the replays were very good to watch and interesting in seeing the effectives past using to counter the bio.
This was definitely the case in the 2nd game, but in game 1 I felt like Toss had a solid advantage until the banes came down.
I'll definitely be experimenting with this in my future practice sessions.
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Artosis
United States2140 Posts
excellent post. jooktojung is always one of the most creative zergs. ill definitely be giving this a try.
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Thank you very much for the tip, I'll use it next time against Protoss.
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God i love banelings. This is really simple but seems rather effective. I need to try baneling bombs more on other things (like expos, and quick snipes of important tech buildings)
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Man. I'm really blown away by how well this works.
This is a game I played with one of my toss practice buddies:
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/101820-1v1-protoss-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
We're both around the 2100 Diamond skill range.
I know my macro slipped pretty badly once I picked up my 3rd, and I know my army control was pretty shitty in comparison to the Korean pros, but the results blew me away.
Roach/Hydra has always been a great early-mid game option that keeps us safe from any sort of cutesy plays like the blink stalker build that will probably start showing up everywhere. (thanks a lot, Nazgul)
But its always suffered during the mid-late game transition, as colossi and high templar pretty thoroughly wreck hydra.
The baneling drops completely change that dynamic.
Colossus have to run, taking them out of fights completely, and slow HTs have no choice but to just die...
Plus, baneling drops are just fucking cool, man.
Definitely gonna' continue working on this strat. I can see it becoming a cornerstone play style.
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Banelings are pretty expensive.
You should try to drop raoches instead of banelings, I don't think it would be much worse, and they don't suicide instantly.
Anywayss that's pretty cool, would work wonders on zealot/sentry heave army.
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On November 08 2010 16:00 MrBitter wrote:Man. I'm really blown away by how well this works. This is a game I played with one of my toss practice buddies: http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/101820-1v1-protoss-zerg-xelnaga-cavernsWe're both around the 2100 Diamond skill range. I know my macro slipped pretty badly once I picked up my 3rd, and I know my army control was pretty shitty in comparison to the Korean pros, but the results blew me away. Roach/Hydra has always been a great early-mid game option that keeps us safe from any sort of cutesy plays like the blink stalker build that will probably start showing up everywhere. (thanks a lot, Nazgul) But its always suffered during the mid-late game transition, as colossi and high templar pretty thoroughly wreck hydra. The baneling drops completely change that dynamic. Colossus have to run, taking them out of fights completely, and slow HTs have no choice but to just die... Plus, baneling drops are just fucking cool, man. Definitely gonna' continue working on this strat. I can see it becoming a cornerstone play style.
I think Mrbitter summed up my thoughts perfectly. Roach-Hydra has always suffered from transitioning to lategame if protoss gets up a few colossus, while corrupter transition is always very risky, especially if you don't get the numbers right. Banelings, on the other hand, can be used to harass (bomb) mineral line, and potentially deal with the protoss deathball disregarding colossus numbers. Of course, I'm just speculating, but it seems worth a try, and maybe this is viable only in the short term, before toss start spreading out his units before your overlord hits. But still, worth a try.
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I made some unit testing and vs colossi the baneling drop is just barely economically worthwhile. The enemy needs at least 5 colossi clumped together and you need 20+ banelings
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Zerg users are really getting to understand that banelings are great for things other than MMM balls, especially when combined with overlords for baneling carpet bombings. I still feel they're rather undervalued, however, and people are getting caught up in the roach madness post-1.1.2. Roach-heavy builds are getting eaten up by smart protoss players who can FF and lots of roaches just forces terran into the turtle into hard-to-counter mech play even faster. Sure ZvZ battles can be won easily without making air units, but banelings being used mid-late game can still see some growth.
Infestors are also units that I believe everyone knows their use, but aren't used enough. Similar to banelings, I wouldn't advocate anyone to use infestors without roaches/lings to tank damage for them, but getting more than the 1-2 infestors can spell disaster for many of the late game protoss and terran unit compositions.
Having 1:1 infestors to Thor/Collosi with neural parasites on as many as you can reach, plus FG on their ground armies allows zerg to demolish armies. If they're slow-pushing terrans with lots of tanks and an MMM ball, nydusing or dropping into expos whereever possible can slow down the charge, and baneling carpet bombing with several empty OLs in front to tank marine hits works wonders.
Against protoss who are protecting their collosi too much makes their stalker/zealot army far more vulnerable to hit and run FGs to lower shields. With enough infestors you can waste the damage on their shields as long as you're still macroing up an army. If you're maxxed I'd recommend FGing into a push and keep enough corruptors to counteract collosi.
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Question: why not just drop lings instead of banes? Is it really that useful to have banes to kill the collosii?
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On November 08 2010 18:44 Douillos wrote:
Question: why not just drop lings instead of banes? Is it really that useful to have banes to kill the collosii?
Because when they get killed they don't blow up and do ridiculous damage to the (usually) clumped up protoss army. If you can force your opponent to micro his stalkers away from his collosi so they don't take splash damage the battlefield can open up to you being able to get a better surround with your lings up front.
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I have a question about the micro aspect of this, are you individually selecting an olord and spamming d? fruitdealer does this so well, what's cooler than an overlord pooping creep and banelings!?
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On November 08 2010 16:00 MrBitter wrote:Man. I'm really blown away by how well this works. This is a game I played with one of my toss practice buddies: http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/101820-1v1-protoss-zerg-xelnaga-cavernsWe're both around the 2100 Diamond skill range. I know my macro slipped pretty badly once I picked up my 3rd, and I know my army control was pretty shitty in comparison to the Korean pros, but the results blew me away. Roach/Hydra has always been a great early-mid game option that keeps us safe from any sort of cutesy plays like the blink stalker build that will probably start showing up everywhere. (thanks a lot, Nazgul) But its always suffered during the mid-late game transition, as colossi and high templar pretty thoroughly wreck hydra. The baneling drops completely change that dynamic. Colossus have to run, taking them out of fights completely, and slow HTs have no choice but to just die... Plus, baneling drops are just fucking cool, man. Definitely gonna' continue working on this strat. I can see it becoming a cornerstone play style.
Nice game! Tho I kinda missed the ling and bailing speed, when he ktied you you could see bailings and lings running straight behind them insted fo attacking, speed for those two units cost so little well worth it.
I think this would be best using muta ling (game 2), more damage for the bailings and mutas raping running colluses, oh man GG.
I'm going to try out muta ling with bailing drops vs protos right away!
What about infestors aswell? One good fungal growth on the back on his army, lmao.
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Banelings w/drop is a really good and underrused strat. Im gonna start to add this to my gameplay
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I think a lot of people, once they hit maxed, will start to convert some of their lings into banelings in overlords. Once your maxed, you cant make your army any stronger by building units, so why not make your army stronger by making more banelings? 1 banelings is cleraly going to do more damage then 1 zergling.
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On November 08 2010 16:00 MrBitter wrote:Man. I'm really blown away by how well this works. This is a game I played with one of my toss practice buddies: http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/101820-1v1-protoss-zerg-xelnaga-cavernsWe're both around the 2100 Diamond skill range. I know my macro slipped pretty badly once I picked up my 3rd, and I know my army control was pretty shitty in comparison to the Korean pros, but the results blew me away. Roach/Hydra has always been a great early-mid game option that keeps us safe from any sort of cutesy plays like the blink stalker build that will probably start showing up everywhere. (thanks a lot, Nazgul) But its always suffered during the mid-late game transition, as colossi and high templar pretty thoroughly wreck hydra. The baneling drops completely change that dynamic. Colossus have to run, taking them out of fights completely, and slow HTs have no choice but to just die... Plus, baneling drops are just fucking cool, man. Definitely gonna' continue working on this strat. I can see it becoming a cornerstone play style.
Thanks for posting the replay, it really put a big grin on my face :D Just so much fun to see Protoss run away their big, mighty Colossi from some Overlords filled with T1.5 units. It forces his units to either move (and moving units are great since they don't attack), thus surrendering an potentially important position (like their direly needed 3rd to bring lategame-rape) or to stay and fight but also ... die.
What's even cooler is that if you've done it a few times you can just lead with empty overlords forcing him to run away for no reason, allowing your roach/hydra to get in free hits. How cool is that?!
As you mentioned, you made some micro mistakes, like leading with your army instead of the overlords, allowing them to get in free hit and dropping slowlings on his army^^
On November 08 2010 16:03 Alpina wrote:
Banelings are pretty expensive.
You should try to drop raoches instead of banelings, I don't think it would be much worse, and they don't suicide instantly.
Anywayss that's pretty cool, would work wonders on zealot/sentry heave army.
Banelings work so well since they do direct and - i repeat - guaranteed damage. So you drop a roach. Its gonna do 14 damage (1 armor, 2 GS) and then wait for what 2 seconds? Meanwhile it's dead already. The one baneling that is dropped costs a quarter the supply to get and it does anywhere from 80-140 damage instantly. Also that's the point of the idea. Banelings are expensive in comparison to their supply and thus work wonders in a maxed army. They allow you to kick a similiar supply army totally in the balls. Something almost impossible with Zerg as we see them in pro games.
On November 08 2010 16:21 ayadew wrote:
I made some unit testing and vs colossi the baneling drop is just barely economically worthwhile. The enemy needs at least 5 colossi clumped together and you need 20+ banelings
Just pure unit testing is worthless. Test real-game scenarios where you have a crapload of units underneath the colossus. Also if something is barely cost-efficient against colossus, and it is T2 (overlord drop and speed) that is a fucking revelation for Zerg gameplay. It works so well in a real game since it either forces retreat or death. Normally roach/hydra is forced to do both when it encounters Colossus. Now the tables have turned :D
On November 08 2010 18:44 Douillos wrote:
Question: why not just drop lings instead of banes? Is it really that useful to have banes to kill the collosii?
Meh. Lings aren't so scary. They aren't so great in the cost/supply department either and they take way too long to actually kill colossus. If he has 7 colossus ripping apart your ground army, do you want to get rid of them instantly or put lings on them one by one? The DPS is so ridiculously high with Colossus that every single second counts.
----
I remember how Day9 said that some units are great for breaking entrenched positions, something that to do this day Zerg could only really do in Tier 3. When your opponent takes his third and you only have a comparable amount of ground forces (whether it consists of ling or roach or hydra or a combination thereof) you're in tough luck, you essentially have to take your 4th immediately and your 5th shortly thereafter to compete with the imbalanced strong AoE that Protoss can throw so easily at you with 6 gas geysers running.
Now with baneling drops you can just fly the overlords into his third and he either stays to defend, losing all expensive expensive gas units that will take him a long time to rebuild or he retreats and is stuck on 2 gas.
Everything that Zerg has so much trouble with fighting is very expensive in gas, sentries, colossus and High Templar. If you repeatedly wipe his gas units out he will only have a very small and easy to engange army. Imagine a few sentries that had all game long to collect energy with a crapload of stalkers that never die due to their mobility + blink and Colossus + HT added in. That ball takes a long time to make but if you can fight a battle of attrition you can plainly overrun him with roach/hydra since it reproduces much faster and actually is able to fight a more mineral heavy P army (mainly Zealots and Stalkers).
gonna log on and play Zerg now :D
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Do you get bane speed if you are doing this? It seems kind of unnecessary if you are just using them in conjunction with ovies anyway.
Also, you can also use 4 banes + ovie to baneling bomb mineral lines, which is especially good against P.
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drops like that dont work on stalker/colossus/sentry ball
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i feel like it works mostly since people see overlords and think (food)
i had so many games in zvt where my enemy was just walking there ignoring my overlords and all his marines died
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I am curious as to if you would suggest bling bombs when you are behind(either army count or econ base wise). This seems like a great tactic to hold down the p army untill your hive tech gets going, but I have always been under the assumption that blings hitting p armies, especially nonzealots isn't cost effective.
These tactics do have enough basis for players to give it a shot though.
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how do you drop from all the overlords at once? whenever i try this and i click D to drop i have to select where each overlord drops individually
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On November 09 2010 01:40 RedHelix wrote:
how do you drop from all the overlords at once? whenever i try this and i click D to drop i have to select where each overlord drops individually
hit d-> click on the overlord.
Instructional Video:
+ Show Spoiler +
Neat concept, seems like a good way to deal with turtling protoss where you have the economic advantage, but run the risk of being run over by a Protoss death ball.
I am curious as to if you would suggest bling bombs when you are behind(either army count or econ base wise). This seems like a great tactic to hold down the p army untill your hive tech gets going, but I have always been under the assumption that blings hitting p armies, especially nonzealots isn't cost effective.
Yeah I really wouldn't recommend this when behind or even on bases. Even ZvT blings as a comeback mechanic are pretty crappy. You can win a battle, but very rarely cost effectively and you'll lack the forces to counter attack or pressure.
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Seems like banelings are zerg's answer to almost everything lol. I definitely need to incorporate more baneling drops into my play again. Thanks for this great find.
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On November 09 2010 01:40 RedHelix wrote:
how do you drop from all the overlords at once? whenever i try this and i click D to drop i have to select where each overlord drops individually
You are actually selecting all the OLs and clicking D on each of them. This causes them to start dropping immediately but they are still able to move so you get the carpet bomb affect.
-ninja'd
On November 09 2010 01:22 ZomgTossRush wrote:
I am curious as to if you would suggest bling bombs when you are behind(either army count or econ base wise). This seems like a great tactic to hold down the p army untill your hive tech gets going, but I have always been under the assumption that blings hitting p armies, especially nonzealots isn't cost effective.
These tactics do have enough basis for players to give it a shot though.
It seems like the whole point of this is to break a defensive opponent when you are supply capped and can't build a larger army since yours is less efficient supply for supply. Most likely if you were not at supply cap or were behind this wouldn't be a beneficial play.
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that first replay was insane, a 166 zerg army beating a 200/200 toss army with 7 collosi?!?! the toss was so far ahead, was even in expansions and had like twice the worker count. this is definitely something i will be trying to work into my play. Do you think this would work on a stalker/ collosus mix also? I tend to see that more on ladder than zealot/collosus/pheonix.
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This can work but imo its inferior to other options like corruptors, infestors and/or ultra's to counter the colossi. Cost effectively beating stalker/colossi is imo impossible if you didn't start of with muta/ling but generally you won't have too as you should be up a base against colossus play.
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On November 09 2010 05:49 Markwerf wrote:
This can work but imo its inferior to other options like corruptors, infestors and/or ultra's to counter the colossi. Cost effectively beating stalker/colossi is imo impossible if you didn't start of with muta/ling but generally you won't have too as you should be up a base against colossus play.
1) Corruptors - Corruptors don't instantly do their damage. They take time to kill colossi and don't do anything after colossi are dead. With this strat not only are the ground units damaged/killed but colossi are too all in one big explosion. I really think this is far better than corruptors when you are ahead/even eco wise.
2) Infestors - Not quite sure how infestors counter colossi. NP normally just gets target fired and then you just lost 150g.
3) Ultras - This is before you have ultras kicking in and you need to break a Ps army.
Really people should read the OP before commenting like this. It's a solid idea that seems far better than having zerglings when maxed.
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Surprised nobody mentioned my favourite thing in these replays - the game on metalopolis he realises the P is going fast expand and he hatch cancels > evolution chamber at the protoss natural to delay it quite a lot. Such a sexy move.
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My goal for the week - use baneling bombs in every game!
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On November 09 2010 06:04 Luckbox wrote:
Surprised nobody mentioned my favourite thing in these replays - the game on metalopolis he realises the P is going fast expand and he hatch cancels > evolution chamber at the protoss natural to delay it quite a lot. Such a sexy move.
then he waits for the evo to die so that the broodlings can take the damage from the canons and he can runby into the protoss's main with his lings. so good. god damn koreans
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On November 09 2010 05:58 Numy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2010 05:49 Markwerf wrote:
This can work but imo its inferior to other options like corruptors, infestors and/or ultra's to counter the colossi. Cost effectively beating stalker/colossi is imo impossible if you didn't start of with muta/ling but generally you won't have too as you should be up a base against colossus play. 1) Corruptors - Corruptors don't instantly do their damage. They take time to kill colossi and don't do anything after colossi are dead. With this strat not only are the ground units damaged/killed but colossi are too all in one big explosion. I really think this is far better than corruptors when you are ahead/even eco wise. 2) Infestors - Not quite sure how infestors counter colossi. NP normally just gets target fired and then you just lost 150g. 3) Ultras - This is before you have ultras kicking in and you need to break a Ps army. Really people should read the OP before commenting like this. It's a solid idea that seems far better than having zerglings when maxed.
Mixing banelings with infestors who have NP is actually highly effective. They have to focus infestors and spread out their forces all at once. You can test your opponents micro without too much of your own (besides a couple control groups).
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I dont understand why people are complaning about cost. Lets say you have your regular roach hydra army and toss now massing collosus from 2 robos. If you were to get corrupors vs 6 collosus you would need at very least 10. That is 1500/1000 that could fund 30 blings.That do 600 aoe damage more then enough to kill all collusus instantly. As well as damage rest of the army.
If you add the resources saved from units that didnt die to collosus it becomes hugely effective. Hydra roach ling >> gateway units VERY cost effectively. So even if you loose some resources on killing collosi you make them up in the rest of the fight.
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i did try in 3 games with my 2000+ partners and result is so much of a gg ill post replays when i get home, but really this is awesome, because my weakest point against toss is the mid-late transition. and one said that we need 20 banes agasint 5colo. i think it is really nice though it is A LOT easier to get 20banes then 6-8corruptors and 5colo. and the other thing is jooktojung is a beast
I am now a happy person
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On November 08 2010 16:03 Alpina wrote:
Banelings are pretty expensive.
You should try to drop raoches instead of banelings, I don't think it would be much worse, and they don't suicide instantly.
Anywayss that's pretty cool, would work wonders on zealot/sentry heave army.
On November 08 2010 18:44 Douillos wrote:
Question: why not just drop lings instead of banes? Is it really that useful to have banes to kill the collosii?
You drop banelings because they, unlike anything else Zerg has, are supply-effective, which is absolutely necessary once you start approaching 200/200.
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I will have to train my drops because this sounds like a really effective way to deal with one of the scariest things in the game (Tossballs with high colossus count). Should work awesomely against high templars too. It's of course also very easy to "transition" into from muta-ling which I like to go in all matchups.
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I really have to take a better look at this. After reading through this entire thread and specifically reading this post:
On November 09 2010 01:21 Sclol wrote:
i feel like it works mostly since people see overlords and think (food)
i had so many games in zvt where my enemy was just walking there ignoring my overlords and all his marines died
It completely dawned on me how many overlords I sent into my opponent's base to scout, Or his natural, or his 3rd. How many opponents casually send 2 marines or 2 stalkers to kill it? Often times my overlord will get through the base barely scathed when they don't notice.
How many times have I been sending overlords all over the map for vision, (specifically scrap station) and I see my opponent's M&M ball? What if those overlords had banelings?!
Now is the time that our Overlords learn to instill FEAR into our enemies!
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Catyoul
France2377 Posts
On November 09 2010 05:42 5miley wrote:
that first replay was insane, a 166 zerg army beating a 200/200 toss army with 7 collosi?!?! the toss was so far ahead, was even in expansions and had like twice the worker count. this is definitely something i will be trying to work into my play. Do you think this would work on a stalker/ collosus mix also? I tend to see that more on ladder than zealot/collosus/pheonix.
The first replay was superb, the protoss army just got vaporized. However, army wise they were almost equal (in resources). The protoss actually had 90 probes (!!), which made his main army about 20-30 supply weaker than it should have been.
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On November 08 2010 16:21 ayadew wrote:
I made some unit testing and vs colossi the baneling drop is just barely economically worthwhile. The enemy needs at least 5 colossi clumped together and you need 20+ banelings
Are you serious? Then this means they are extremely effective. You know why? It takes a TON of time to get that many Colossi. While it takes mere seconds to get a huge swarm of Banelings. You are buying time and destroying his time resource.
The faster production cycle makes them a counter to long production units even if on the mineral and gas count it is at a net loss.
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(just made me an account for this one)
600 diamond here.
I think people aren't aware that banelings are VERY effectives against protoss.
When i hadnt internet for a few weeks, i trained a lot against insane AI.
At first i thought zerg would be the hardest race to face AIs, since they have way more resources than you.
But then i discovered how well a 20/30 banelings cluster could crush a protoss army.
Since then i didnt stop making banelings against toss, less effectively since real players can spread and use FF.
With drops it's just the same except they cant do a shit, even with FF.
And about the price of that drop, since you are killing the most powerfull unit of his army, every second you fight with 4 less collosus on the other side is like 4 roachs just added to your army.
(Sorry if my english isnt very clear.)
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I think the point everyone is dancing around but not actually saying, is that even though banelings aren't cost effective against anything really, by killing the most dangerous parts of an enemy army instantly (be these marines or collosi), the rest of your army becomes much more cost-effective.
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Watching the replays right now, pretty excited about incorporating this into my lackluster ZvP. One nice thing about banelings is their larva and supply efficiency. With bane tech you can pump 100 minerals and 50 gas into your army off one larva. If the only lings you can make are zerglings, you can only dump 50 minerals. Even roaches don't let you do as well, 75/25 with higher supply requirements. I know unit cost doesn't directly equate to combat effectiveness, but assuming you know what you're doing, having a more expensive army usually means some kind of advantage on the field.
So, yeah, looking past just the unit cost, banes let you put a substantial army on the field without the need for a lot of extra hatcheries or overlords. It makes a smoother transition, especially vs P, where they love to hit right when you're going over to lair tech units. Zerglings are larva-intensive, roaches eat up supply, banes are a nice compromise. Timing on the baneling nest is crucial, too early and you hurt your econ, too late and, well, no blings when you need them.
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Yup, been using this more and more. Actually tried it vs a toss where I had mass hydras+ultras + ovied banelings. He actually microed the colossi out of it, but the banelings proceeded to mass rape the rest of the army.
When you think about it, any ball of death can be countered with ovied blings. At 20 dmg vs non light unupgraded, 20 blings loaded up will do 400 dmg in a certain splash radius ( the epicenter). Even thors cant live trough that. Coupled with a strong army, its pretty freacking awsome.
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Kinda off topic but, WTF was jooktojungs build in the first game? Why'd he save so much gas before adding his evos or starting ling speed? I liked the banelings though, I don't see a reason why they wouldn't work vs any composition.
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This looks absolutely and incredibly FUN!
I am a ~1400 point diamond zerg and I'd love to start using some new tools to throw my league off. I will definitely start getting upgrades on my ovies now to make this strat work. It will take some time, but if the alternative is 1A roach/hydra moving into attack collosi/gatewayunits armies, I think I'd rather perfect this strategy!
Thank you soo much! Please get more replays up!
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Just tested this against my practice partner. It worked surprisingly well. At first I was very worried about attacking the zeal/stalker/sentry/colo ball with my tier 1 army.... but damn.. it was glorious! the colossi went down in seconds and the roaches and lings just ate everything else. This is a good addition to any zerg's bag of tricks imo.
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:O I'ma go try this.
I always avoided using bane's in vP cause FF just makes them completely useless but this.. O.o
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http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/102446-1v1-protoss-zerg-steppes-of-war
More fun with baneling drops.
That was a ladder match. In practice sessions, I've come to this conclusion:
Dropping banes on the Protoss ball can be very effective, but if you don't kill him immediately after, or transition immediately into higher tech, you're going to fall behind. While using banes is very cost effective for a maxed Zerg, after that first fight, continuing to rely on baneling drops to win battles is just too expensive.
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On November 09 2010 15:47 MrBitter wrote:http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/102446-1v1-protoss-zerg-steppes-of-warMore fun with baneling drops. That was a ladder match. In practice sessions, I've come to this conclusion: Dropping banes on the Protoss ball can be very effective, but if you don't kill him immediately after, or transition immediately into higher tech, you're going to fall behind. While using banes is very cost effective for a maxed Zerg, after that first fight, continuing to rely on baneling drops to win battles is just too expensive.
Yeah. I agree, it works wonders when I am on my way to T3 but have the ressources to get maxed. If I have the banelings ready, nothing Protoss throws at me is scary :D I wouldn't use it in continuous battles, the purpose of it is to maximize the damage output in one big battle where they can hit a lot of stuff at the same time and hit those expensive gas units (sentries, Colossus, HT) that are normally untouchable.
As Day9 said in his most recent daily, who cares about cost efficiency in the sense, i kill 200 minerals for 150 gas. It's much more about what you gain in a strategic and late-game oriented sense. Dropping the banelings just changes every single battle afterwards. He will have 0 zealots and sentries to work with. His Colossus count will drop severely and if he wants to survive he has to quickly rebuild more and cannot as easily invest in othr gas units like DTs or HTs. It just feels easy to fight Protoss ^_^
I've now played tons of games with it, and I can say ZvP is just so much fun with this new technique :D Here's one of the bestest baneling drops I've done so far. Sure, we both make a crapload of mistakes (who doesn't), but the last fight literally (literally) gave me a nerd boner. Enjoy!
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I checked out the replay and did a baneling carpet bomb on a group of stalkers today and I whas amazed by how effective this is. I can't wait to try this more because I always struggle against those horrible protos balls. The damage output from banelings increase dramaticly once you drop them in the middle of a group. I can see this changing my game against protoss allot. Great post.
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some infestors and the ability to instantly reproduce a 200 supply army seem to be the solution to the weak 200 zerg army
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infestors with fungal growth could make this even more powerful as people come to expect it.
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I like this idea (saw that replay last week and almost cheered) -- my question is: how does a baneling drop compare to corruptor/roach/hydra? What are its benefits over corruptor/roach/hydra? I like 2/2 roach/hydra midgame into corruptor (working off 3-4 base). Is this strategy superior in your estimation? Or merely a transitional opportunity?
Thanks for sharing, interesting stuff.
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On November 10 2010 10:42 IPA wrote:
I like this idea (saw that replay last week and almost cheered) -- my question is: how does a baneling drop compare to corruptor/roach/hydra? What are its benefits over corruptor/roach/hydra? I like 2/2 roach/hydra midgame into corruptor (working off 3-4 base). Is this strategy superior in your estimation? Or merely a transitional opportunity?
Thanks for sharing, interesting stuff.
I hate corrupters. I truly do, they are only there to kill colossi and then they are the most useless unit one could imagine. I don't think it's correct to combat splash damage with units that only attack air, have 7 range and take a freaking long time to get AND to deal damage. While your expensive corrupters (100 gas for one, and you need atleast 8 to put a dent into his colossi count without immediately getting sniped down) even start moving towards his colossi, a good Protoss can immediately either trap your army with FF to trade his colossi for your entire ground force or just FF them out to snipe your corrupters one by one. If he decides for the first option you wind up with a bunch of corrupters in the air while his stalker ball rips you apart, he can even reinforce with immortals if he feels like it, if it's the second option he can slowly push at your expansions, remaining incredibly cost-efficient while getting more bases up. There's almost no way to flat out kill that stalker sentry colossus ball by ground and making corrupters feels like a losing game to me. You killed his colossi? Great, now you have no ground forces. It's a losing battle from the start and I'd rather invest in more ground forces that can actually counter attack and that share the same upgrades.
I'm glad that everyone who has tried this out so far has had great success It's a great tactic and it gives me something to look forward to in every ZvP, even before Tier 3.
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Btw, Banelings are amazing vs a pure mech Terran army as well. Hellions don't do much against them and they clean nearly all the Hellions in a Thor-Hellion ball, you don't even need the Overlords. If you do Roach until like 160 supply and then make 40 banelings just before their massive timing push and use the Banelings properly, you should destroy any mech army composition.
So yeah, overlords with banelings are imo an amazing transitioning unit going from the first 200/200 army into the T3 tech of your choice.
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Looks sweet man, I thought banelings have more uses than against light units when I saw how well fruitdealers drops worked out. Will try and work this into my games.
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I'm just adding replays as I play them. Unfortunately most Protosses all-in me before I can get the tech required to insta-win an engagement of my choice :D
This replay has brought 2 things to my attention.
First of all, if you play Muta/Ling and can deny him his 3rd for a long enough time, an all-in push by him will usually come. So far the solution was a base trade or, a ton of spine crawlers, neither of which is terribly beautiful a solution. Since you have a lot of freedom to do whatever you want in the those first minutes of your muta harass you can just power drones, expand and get the overlord speed + drop instead of 3 more mutas. Those mutas will not do anything in the fight either way and the baneling splash will completely obliterate his paranoid and panicky all in attack (that is as a result more clumped up and ready to a move, in spite of a lot of speed OLs)
Second of all, if you while he is on his way to attack you, for example put a few mutas on a pylon in his main and a few speedlings in the economy of his natural, this will, if he is determined to attack you and doesn't turn around, consume ALL of his APM to fend off. In the meantime you can - assuming you timed it right so that his army is in reach while you are doing this - just drop banelings on him and after he as dealt with the harass, he will either return to all the Overlords already above his army, or no army at all. ^_^
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On November 12 2010 17:24 ChickenLips wrote:I'm just adding replays as I play them. Unfortunately most Protosses all-in me before I can get the tech required to insta-win an engagement of my choice :D This replay has brought 2 things to my attention. First of all, if you play Muta/Ling and can deny him his 3rd for a long enough time, an all-in push by him will usually come. So far the solution was a base trade or, a ton of spine crawlers, neither of which is terribly beautiful a solution. Since you have a lot of freedom to do whatever you want in the those first minutes of your muta harass you can just power drones, expand and get the overlord speed + drop instead of 3 more mutas. Those mutas will not do anything in the fight either way and the baneling splash will completely obliterate his paranoid and panicky all in attack (that is as a result more clumped up and ready to a move, in spite of a lot of speed OLs) Second of all, if you while he is on his way to attack you, for example put a few mutas on a pylon in his main and a few speedlings in the economy of his natural, this will, if he is determined to attack you and doesn't turn around, consume ALL of his APM to fend off. In the meantime you can - assuming you timed it right so that his army is in reach while you are doing this - just drop banelings on him and after he as dealt with the harass, he will either return to all the Overlords already above his army, or no army at all. ^_^
I'm a die hard muta/linger when it comes to my ZvP.
I've enjoyed experimenting with this baneling drop style, and have more or less accepted it as part of my game when I go roach/hydra, but adding drop and banes to muta/ling is something I have to advise against.
Adding spines is what you're supposed to be doing. Add them sporadically, as you harass. My general rule of thumb is every time I hit a supply cap, throw down 1-2 spines.
Here's the logic:
Muta/ling relies on picking away at the toss economy and any outlying pylons/tech structures - basically just being a nuisance - while denying his attempts at taking a 3rd, and massing as many mutas and lings as you can muster.
If done correctly, the Toss 3rd will be either completely denied, or delayed for so long (or you'll have done so much damage forcing his hand) that he's going to have to make that one big push.
That's his last shot at winning the game.
If you defend it you win. If you don't, well, game over.
But the point is, you want him to make that big push. That's ultimately what you're trying to force him to do.
If you're executing your muta/ling correctly, you'll have enough mutas and zerglings to stop the push, but to do so you're almost always going to need to fight at your spines.
I'm getting off topic a bit...
My point is this: If you invest in drop and ovie speed, then sure. Those 3 mutas lost won't hurt. If you morph 20-30 banelings, however, you're starting to talk about such a significant gas invesment that your muta numbers are going to be far short of what you're going to need to defend the protoss push.
I'm sure that in isolated instances it CAN work. But if you're correctly doing your thing, and Toss is correctly doing his, he's going to have far too many units for you to clean up with just one big baneling drop.
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mr chickenlips..the toss who played jook ToJung.....i pressume he's high diamond...i mean...collosi are good and all that jazz...but rellying on an small variety of units,means ur prone to heavy counters.
U zergs allways complain about corrupters,he had so little stalkers....Its an rule...2 corrupters per collosi...but dont overreact and make like 10 corruptors for 3 collosi(most zergs do ).4 banes is 25 min more then an corruptor,but corruptors can kill more then 1 collosi.
Heck..even dropping roaches would work...he didnt had any immortals..and 1 roach is 25 min more then 1 bane..and deals alot more dmg...As toss..rellying so much on collosi..means ur hoping that ur oponent doesnt know how to counter them.
It was more like an wc 3 TD wave....passing trough an maze ....instead of an sc 2 battle.Collosi were being rallied and lost at the same time.Collosi are only good against hidra..and small quantities of roaches and lings,HT on the same time counter most things,they can be morphed to archons (altought ppl think theyr useless....theyr good against cracklings,and massed corruptors who tend to clump..and against ppl who stack theyr mutas),but unlike collosi..who are eassilly countered,HT ,if defended...cant be overpowered,there only true enemy are burrow roaches.
But its just my opinion.
I appreciate ur sense of innovation,but u should drop them straight on sentryes,instead of collosi.No sentryes=no FF,and no ff means imba surrounds of mass speed/roaches.
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On November 12 2010 19:25 MrBitter wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2010 17:24 ChickenLips wrote:I'm just adding replays as I play them. Unfortunately most Protosses all-in me before I can get the tech required to insta-win an engagement of my choice :D This replay has brought 2 things to my attention. First of all, if you play Muta/Ling and can deny him his 3rd for a long enough time, an all-in push by him will usually come. So far the solution was a base trade or, a ton of spine crawlers, neither of which is terribly beautiful a solution. Since you have a lot of freedom to do whatever you want in the those first minutes of your muta harass you can just power drones, expand and get the overlord speed + drop instead of 3 more mutas. Those mutas will not do anything in the fight either way and the baneling splash will completely obliterate his paranoid and panicky all in attack (that is as a result more clumped up and ready to a move, in spite of a lot of speed OLs) Second of all, if you while he is on his way to attack you, for example put a few mutas on a pylon in his main and a few speedlings in the economy of his natural, this will, if he is determined to attack you and doesn't turn around, consume ALL of his APM to fend off. In the meantime you can - assuming you timed it right so that his army is in reach while you are doing this - just drop banelings on him and after he as dealt with the harass, he will either return to all the Overlords already above his army, or no army at all. ^_^ I'm a die hard muta/linger when it comes to my ZvP. I've enjoyed experimenting with this baneling drop style, and have more or less accepted it as part of my game when I go roach/hydra, but adding drop and banes to muta/ling is something I have to advise against. Adding spines is what you're supposed to be doing. Add them sporadically, as you harass. My general rule of thumb is every time I hit a supply cap, throw down 1-2 spines. Here's the logic: Muta/ling relies on picking away at the toss economy and any outlying pylons/tech structures - basically just being a nuisance - while denying his attempts at taking a 3rd, and massing as many mutas and lings as you can muster. If done correctly, the Toss 3rd will be either completely denied, or delayed for so long (or you'll have done so much damage forcing his hand) that he's going to have to make that one big push. That's his last shot at winning the game. If you defend it you win. If you don't, well, game over. But the point is, you want him to make that big push. That's ultimately what you're trying to force him to do. If you're executing your muta/ling correctly, you'll have enough mutas and zerglings to stop the push, but to do so you're almost always going to need to fight at your spines. I'm getting off topic a bit... My point is this: If you invest in drop and ovie speed, then sure. Those 3 mutas lost won't hurt. If you morph 20-30 banelings, however, you're starting to talk about such a significant gas invesment that your muta numbers are going to be far short of what you're going to need to defend the protoss push. I'm sure that in isolated instances it CAN work. But if you're correctly doing your thing, and Toss is correctly doing his, he's going to have far too many units for you to clean up with just one big baneling drop.
There's a lot of ways a Muta/Ling game can play out and as more and more players start to straight up 5-6 gate you off of a FE before mutas are out I'm starting to steer away from it on anything but LT (god this map is so sexy with the natural choke and islands).
I'm also not a fan of just massing mutas until I have no more gas. I feel like they become less and less cost-effective as their numbers increase, as the Protoss will start to get storm or Phoenixes both of which deal pretty well with them. (and render them pretty useless as a harassment-tool) I like using them as a mid-game strategy, getting 24 at the most while transitioning into T3 since that is where Zerg actually has an advantage over Protoss. If you look at it like that, getting that Ovie Drop + Speed is actually pretty smart since it will increase your probability of surviving ten-fold. Yes sure you would rather have the gas for the T3 units, but I'd rather delay my T3 units and survive than lose my 2 most recent expansions.
You wrote that the goal of Muta/Ling is to harass the economy. I think that the goal of Muta/Ling is to threaten to harass the economy. A good player that scouts your spire will have 2 cannons and a few stalkers in each mineral line (and more as your muta numbers increase). As I play better and better players on the ladder I find that I almost never get to actually do significant damage in the mineral line as my opponent will almost always be prepared for my incoming mutalisks.
I'm perfectly fine with that, I happily fly in and out sniping pylons and maybe a lone stalker. I will absolutely never exchange mutalisks for anything he has sitting on the ground. It's just not worth it for me to lose mutalisks. I don't see them as a fighting unit but as a speedy harassment unit. I will use them in battles but I will try everything I can to minimize damage to them, just like IdrA did in his recent game vs oGsGon. He was content sniping refinieries and outlying supply depots while out-expanding his opponent. Mutalisks are just a way to dictate the game and force your opponent's hand (like you said).
You're talking about a big push. However I'd much rather have 20 banelings +ovie drop and speed than 8 mutas when that big push comes to completely obliterate all his zealots, sentries and HTs (the only threat to my Zerglings) and severly soften up his stalkers which my upgraded lings will have absolutely no problems cleaning up since they will be spread apart from the light-classed units now missing between them, giving the speedlings an easy surround.
Spines don't really help against good Protosses. Their range isn't as good so a Protoss can just dance around them while only having to engage 1 or 2 at the same time. Or he can just go where there's less of them. Having 10 Spines per expansion seems kind of excessive to me and even then he can position himself so only half of them hit him etc. Static defenses just suck once it gets to late-ish mid-game since they just never kill anything and cost so many minerals in the long run as the drone that is now a spine could mine 600 minerals every 10 minutes.
Watch Dimaga against WhiteRa on Lost Temple from the Blizzcon. Dimaga relies on a heavy muta count and spines in his natural and then gets rofl-blunk into his main where there's really nothing to defend. I'm not saying my strategy would've won that game, but it just shows a big weakness in the mass muta / mass spine crawler strategy.
On November 14 2010 19:35 Akash wrote:
mr chickenlips..the toss who played jook ToJung.....i pressume he's high diamond...i mean...collosi are good and all that jazz...but rellying on an small variety of units,means ur prone to heavy counters.
U zergs allways complain about corrupters,he had so little stalkers....Its an rule...2 corrupters per collosi...but dont overreact and make like 10 corruptors for 3 collosi(most zergs do ).4 banes is 25 min more then an corruptor,but corruptors can kill more then 1 collosi.
Heck..even dropping roaches would work...he didnt had any immortals..and 1 roach is 25 min more then 1 bane..and deals alot more dmg...As toss..rellying so much on collosi..means ur hoping that ur oponent doesnt know how to counter them.
It was more like an wc 3 TD wave....passing trough an maze ....instead of an sc 2 battle.Collosi were being rallied and lost at the same time.Collosi are only good against hidra..and small quantities of roaches and lings,HT on the same time counter most things,they can be morphed to archons (altought ppl think theyr useless....theyr good against cracklings,and massed corruptors who tend to clump..and against ppl who stack theyr mutas),but unlike collosi..who are eassilly countered,HT ,if defended...cant be overpowered,there only true enemy are burrow roaches.
But its just my opinion.
I appreciate ur sense of innovation,but u should drop them straight on sentryes,instead of collosi.No sentryes=no FF,and no ff means imba surrounds of mass speed/roaches.
I love that you're referring to me as Mr. ChickenLips. That's so funny :D
If you had read my original post you would've noticed that I don't want to discuss the specific strategies of the players or their execution. Yeah the Protoss couldve done xyz. Who cares? It's about how effective banelings drops are and Protoss in a normal game at that time will either have Phoenixes or Stalkers and then your Corrupters look pretty stupid as they get sniped etc. I've posted about them before. Read the thread. They're just shit imo
I'd imagine most protosses would love it if roaches were dropped onto them. They can just FF the rest of your army out while you conveniently give them whatever amound of overlords you have in slow-DPSing roaches every 1 second, that they can easily take care of with their stalker/colossus ball.
Burrowed roaches suck balls against HTs in my experience. Yeah, storm is mitigated by burrow regen. His stalkers still focus fire your slow as hell moving burrowed roaches and he can FF above them so they have to stay burrowed even longer giving him more time to kill even more roaches. If you go down that path, you have to rely on ONLY roaches since everything will just get stormed to death immediately and mass roach gets countered quite easily (f.e. chronoing immortals out of one robo while playing defensively and adding another robo)
However if you drop banelings on his templar he's immediately screwed. HTs are slow as hell and work their best when defending. What is he gonna do when your overlords start steering in the direction of his High Templar? Micro his stalkers and leave the HT behind? Storm the overlords? FF the overlords? (that would be funny if sentries could FF air)
There's nothing he can do, his HTs will die.
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nice strat i dont play zerg or toss but im happy you put quality threads on TL and dont just flame my Threads ;o)
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do some of the replays above show this against a stalker heavy colossus ball?
i tried to play a bit with this in the unit tester and dropping 20-30 banes on 4 colossi + a dozen or so stalkers doesnt work... i.e. the colossi dont die. im a noob and my micro sucks though.
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On November 15 2010 01:47 dementrio wrote:
do some of the replays above show this against a stalker heavy colossus ball?
i tried to play a bit with this in the unit tester and dropping 20-30 banes on 4 colossi + a dozen or so stalkers doesnt work... i.e. the colossi dont die. im a noob and my micro sucks though.
It's not about the colossi dying, it's about everything in the protoss ball losing a lot of health. If you drop 30 banelings with correct drop-micro every Colossus will die, if you mess your drop up however, or can't muster the necessary gas for enough of them before the Protoss pushes you then you still evaporize everything that isn't armored and allow for a much easier clean-up by your groundforces since there won't be any sentries blocking you, which is easily one of the most frustating parts of fighting against colossus heavy builds.
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the problem is that 4-5 colossi melt a maxed out army in like 10 seconds. doesnt really mean much if they lose health, unless they are dead my army evaporates... i can see how that can work if toss has a bunch of zeal/sentries but if he goes pure colossi stalker they can intercept a few overlords as they are coming, and stalkers do pretty well again banelings.
if they dont go mass stalkers if find a few corruptors do the job... its the colossi stalker army i simply cant kill
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On November 15 2010 02:35 dementrio wrote:
the problem is that 4-5 colossi melt a maxed out army in like 10 seconds. doesnt really mean much if they lose health, unless they are dead my army evaporates... i can see how that can work if toss has a bunch of zeal/sentries but if he goes pure colossi stalker they can intercept a few overlords as they are coming, and stalkers do pretty well again banelings.
if they dont go mass stalkers if find a few corruptors do the job... its the colossi stalker army i simply cant kill
Read the thread, everything you talk about has already been discussed
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This is nicely done. Much like Fruitdealer vs Boxer show match or some of Fruitdealer's GSL1 games except if Toss actually made it to finals of stuff anymore. I do remember Artosis doing this once in a ZvP though as a one off :D I guess he's not wrong always afterall.
Would be curious to see what it does to mass marine with competent control form both sides. But I don't think the 200/200 problem is as big of an issue there and baneling/speedling combinations are better.. I'd like to see Chicken Dropping or whatever we nickname this catch on because it is epic.
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I'd be really scared to do this, because nowadays, toss rarely get much zealots in late game, and opt for a very heavy stalker build. And with stalkers, they can just focus fire ovies, and all the blings are dead
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On November 15 2010 03:17 Tazza wrote:
I'd be really scared to do this, because nowadays, toss rarely get much zealots in late game, and opt for a very heavy stalker build. And with stalkers, they can just focus fire ovies, and all the blings are dead
Meh. A lot of people come in here saying that it won't work because of overlords getting focus fired or stalkers not taking bonus damage etc.
Watch the replays or give it a try, even if you only do it in the unit tester.
If you look through the thread all the negative feedback has come from theorycrafters and everyone who has tried it was astounded by the positive results.
It's off course not the best thing to combat stalkers. However stalkers are manageable without T3, sentries and colossus are not and for those units banelings help alot since both are pretty slow and so gas intensive that he will not have the ressources to get a shitton of stalkers (and if you let him amass gas units for the entire game without reducing their count, youre doing something wrong anyway).
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I've actually been trying to perfect bling drop in my ZvT MU, its rather tedious as my macro falls apart because I am still trying to refine timings and plan exactly what I'm doing, but i've been truly inspired by fruit bombs.
As far as "110 supply p vs 110 zerg" and you thinking zerg will NEVER win with pure roach hydra if there are colos, you have never seen +2/+2, or even +1/+1.
Generally, the time it takes to get 6 colos is enough time to add corrupters to army mix, but really it comes down to positioning anways.
In fact, upgrades are SO important in zvp, i've had games where my 90 food army goes against a 110 supply protoss army w/ colos, but the difference is I had +2/+2 and I won lopsidedly.
As long as there is a really small number of air units to deny colo dps.
All this "standard" play aside, lately I have been going infester bling in ZvT, trying other things besides muta play which is always a fine line to walk.
Minus the fact that you can drop blings on minerals lines (some people will just think its a scouting OL, then bam green goo everywhere), they are extremely effective on tank lines.
Siege tanks are the best targets for bling drops, however it does take 2 filled OL's to clear an area of tanks. I use infesters because with FG, i can run my OL's in and drop blings right on top of a rine ball. With the pit, i can get fast hive solely for adrenal glands.
However, when it comes down to big armies duking it out, there is a simple solution for people "focus firing down OL's"- thats just adding in empty OL's into the swarm. They help soak up damage and distract the enemy. FG is still the way to go. Seeing how they are armored units, you can actually send speed OL's thru some turrets and they will tank enough damage to drop the payload.
edit- While banelings may be *cheap* in terms of cost, the roach costs exactly the same amount as well. 75 minerals, 25 gas (no gas required for building as well, the flip side being they cost 1 full larvae and 2 supply.) Early game, roach is my go to unit, but It would be interesting to see some transitions INTO banelings.
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(and if you let him amass gas units for the entire game without reducing their count, youre doing something wrong anyway).
this is the problem. i can have a 3 base advantage, but if he has the 200/200 colossi/stalker army he's unstoppable. I can remacro very quickly, sure, maybe I can rebuild the army up to max 4 or 5 times and that single army of his takes everything down. he can kite ultras, stalkers kill brood lords and corruptors, colossi melt everything else. I was hoping this would work but I am not able to pull it off (i tried in ladder one time and mismicroed, then tried in the unit tester and I cant get it to do enough damage).
I understand that you would not want to let him get to max, but I think its just wrong that he can turtle on 3 bases while I take the whole map and I still lose.
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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.rar
Rehosted the file again might work now >>
(I renamed the one with drops so it's easier to find)
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On November 08 2010 16:21 ayadew wrote:
I made some unit testing and vs colossi the baneling drop is just barely economically worthwhile. The enemy needs at least 5 colossi clumped together and you need 20+ banelings
you also need to take into account that by taking out those collosus you make your roach/hydra army a LOT more cost effective against whats left.
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Banelings are pretty much the solution to everything.
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i didn't know what you meant by 'nerd boner' until . . . well looky here . . .
that was aweseom
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What I like about this style of play too is the transitions it has available. It also takes further advantage of the melee ugprades that I really like to get. That mid/late game before I'm running strong off 3+ bases is where I feel most vulnerable now vs protoss so it's good to hear that there is a decent answer to it. I also think getting one or two corruptors in that overlord drop group for corruption on colossi before the carpet bomb would be really effective as well.
The biggest thing I have to watch out for in going for banelings/overlord upgrades is that I've been caught trying too hard to go for it. Carpet bombing is a tactic and not a strategy. If the baneling drop doesn't have a a primary army to back it up it's worthless. I haven't watched your videos yet (downstairs watching football) but I'll be sure to later today.
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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)
:D! I had the pleasure of randomly watching your stream and immediately messaged you after the game. Thanks for being so quick with uploading the replays! It's awesome to watch your games against Europe's finest and I think it's great that you're so open towards the community!
+ Show Spoiler +
//omgjizz my strat vs whitera
On November 08 2010 08:53 dreamend wrote:
I feel this kind of thing is just too gimmicky to catch on
On November 08 2010 09:03 dreamend wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2010 08:56 ChickenLips wrote:On November 08 2010 08:53 dreamend wrote:
I feel this kind of thing is just too gimmicky to catch on Are you kidding me? Fruitdealer, arguably the best Zerg in the entire world used them in almost every single one of his games (even when he Foxer put him under _constant_ pressure). Dropped banelings work so efficiently since they allow your front units (mainly roaches) to not get totally obliterated and actually walk up to the enemy to do damage. you're comparing dropping a few banelings on tanks/scv lines to dropping 20+ banelings onto packs of colossi? come on
On November 22 2010 01:41 dreamend wrote:http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/107520-1v1-protoss-zerg-metalopolisreally fun! he was around 2100 diamond or something so there was a pretty big skill discrepancy but I guess it shows how well it can work. it sets up nicely to do lots of harass with drops as well, and ling/baneling is great at cracking expansions
It's certainly nice to see a 2.3k Z critic converted
I really liked your macro in that game, your micro and decision-making could take some refinement but extremely solid game overall.
Cool game, I really love that people continuously post about their positive experiences in this thread.
It's true that it can start to work against you if you overdo it. It has to play a minor part in your overall gameplan and not be the major goal of it. It's afterall a quick-fix to stall time. (Isn't that always the solution as Z? :D)
I hope you guys don't mind I re-up the games to star2.org so the OP has a consistent layout.
And don't stop posting reps. Baneling drops are always awesome to watch :D
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Just thought i would add a replay i been playing around with this and i find it very very effective
replay #1 Protoss does a DT harras into XP i smelt something fishy going on when i saw a few zealots at the front..
Then later in the replay
Protoss has around 185 food of mainly templar zealots immortals and stalkers.. one of the counters to roach hydra ling.. well that was untill the banelings and overlords get involved... i had 199 supply the fight ended with most of my roaches and hydra alive so gg
replay#2
Not quite the same as the protoss had a much smaller army but there was some fun whine in this game, so i thoughjt since i was ahead i could pull off a super banedrop and see how he reacts.. lets just say it was a fun game for all...
(this is around 2500 diamond btw)
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on topic of banelings: i dont understand why baneling bombs on mineral lines arent used more. so devastating. anyone mind telling me why?
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On December 13 2010 14:16 Lockindal wrote:
on topic of banelings: i dont understand why baneling bombs on mineral lines arent used more. so devastating. anyone mind telling me why?
because it uses the moment of surprise. turrets wipe overlord out, and if the other reacts fast enough, you will lose 4 banes + overlord
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On December 13 2010 14:16 Lockindal wrote:
on topic of banelings: i dont understand why baneling bombs on mineral lines arent used more. so devastating. anyone mind telling me why?
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.
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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?
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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.C9933 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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Thats a really good point.
Armor upgrades are normally vital for baneling play just so they can actually get into range to actually deal some dmg, but if you go for baneling drops instead of baneling speed, then that whole aspect is negated, so getting the attack upgrades might just be overall much better. Armor is good for lings vs zlots, but nor really for that much else in the midgame, mitigating some dmg from stalkers, coloxen and immortals isnt really going to help that much.
Perhaps zerg flyer carapace instead, so the overlords last a little longer
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On December 21 2010 08:03 morimacil wrote:Thats a really good point. Armor upgrades are normally vital for baneling play just so they can actually get into range to actually deal some dmg, but if you go for baneling drops instead of baneling speed, then that whole aspect is negated, so getting the attack upgrades might just be overall much better. Armor is good for lings vs zlots, but nor really for that much else in the midgame, mitigating some dmg from stalkers, coloxen and immortals isnt really going to help that much. Perhaps zerg flyer carapace instead, so the overlords last a little longer
..the hell?
Since when do people call the plural of colossus "coloxen"?
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Since when do people call the plural of colossus "coloxen"?
Since Day[9] started doing it.
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I've seen FlashDave use this technique a few times on his stream. It's worked pretty dang well every time I've seen him use it.
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I have a question about your firstpicture: Why don't you just unload on his pure zealot sentry army then just rape the colossus?
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You can tell this is an awesome idea because I havent even faced it yet and already I feel like crying
Awesome find chicken, hopefully your post will change the zvp matchup :D
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lets get some replays up test this theory enough chit chat! im excited to see some carpet bombs yo!
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On December 21 2010 09:30 Ogy wrote:
I've seen FlashDave use this technique a few times on his stream. It's worked pretty dang well every time I've seen him use it.
link?
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Well PvZ you can either do that baneling drop this or get corruptors, both cost a lot of money and time to get and you can't really face a maxed toss army without one of them, but if the toss starts sniping your overlords you'll be in trouble. The overlords need to above the enemy army so he can just select his stalkers and shift click them before they get in range, corruptors on the other hand have some decent range.
But when you think about it, baneling drops could be awesome vs HTs 
I'm going to experiment with that, I just need to find a good build for it.
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i go carriers against zerg
collosi suck at pvz honestly carriers do so much better... :|
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Ah, glad this thread got bumped, I lost it in the sea of threads here.
Anyway, will be updating this post with tons of replays of me excecuting a transition from the roach midgame to the MBCB ( mass baneling carpet bombing , easier to make it shorter than to say that all the time ). Expect about 15 in total once I've gathered enough.
Here's 5 to keep you waiting.
Replays - 7 , 6 wins 1 loss ( Note: I unfortunally didn't save all the replays, I did lose a couple more, about as much as I won due to me not getting the right units after the trade.
WIN
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/125189-1v1-protoss-zerg-scrap-station
WIN
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/125191-1v1-protoss-zerg-lost-temple
WIN
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/125193-1v1-protoss-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
WIN
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/125194-1v1-protoss-zerg-scrap-station
WIN
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/125526-1v1-protoss-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
LOSS
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/125558-1v1-protoss-zerg-steppes-of-war
WIN - Recommended. Once the midgame protoss ball was slain, the REAL zerg lategame begins.
I'm not talking about roach hydra, muta ling or whatever strategy that is supposed to keep you alive.
I'm talking about Tech switching to muta's, then into mass broodlord, back into roaches and then ultra's, in the end you can tech switch to ANYTHING if you scout your opponent well enough. Heck, once you start stacking up on gas, transition into mass overseer-contaminate for all I care ( its possible with the resources you stack up : ) )
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/125559-1v1-protoss-zerg-metalopolis
Needless to say. I'm finally having FUN versus protoss in the lategame. Not having to worry as much about the imminent death ball has gotten me a lot more comfier to set up for the lategame.
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Sorry if i sound negative but at what rank are these games played? (sorry I'm just blindly asking)
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I cant tell you how excited Iam about this. This is what Im going to do every late game. I was actually so concerned about this exact fact, that the 200/200 P army just roasts away the 200/200 Z army, but no not anymore. If protoss learns to move away from the overlords, I guess you can also pin them down with fungal growth as well. This gets my so moist.
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On January 09 2011 05:23 AmoKnocK wrote:
Sorry if i sound negative but at what rank are these games played? (sorry I'm just blindly asking)
Diamond level ranging from 2200 - 2400
Here's another
LOSS
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/125724-1v1-protoss-zerg-delta-quadrant
Obviously this loss wouldn't be complete without the map whine ( I'm a zerg, like thats new >.> ). I've been on a silly loss streak so I raged a little, obviously losing more games in the process.
I'll post any new replays here : http://www.sc2replayed.com/players/106679-eik#replay
I'm sure to upload all of my ZvP's which come to the MBCB stage. Losses and wins regardless of whines. Gotta keep these objective ofcourse.
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have any top notch players used this technique (successfully) against colossi balls in ZvP? I cant remember seeing this in GSL or other top tourneys...
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On February 05 2011 00:52 plainsane wrote:
have any top notch players used this technique (successfully) against colossi balls in ZvP? I cant remember seeing this in GSL or other top tourneys...
Absolutely not one game in GSL.
Its alot of expensive upgrades and resources (one time use only) that could've gone into broodlords (reusable).
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Gah! I guess I have to finally bite the bullet and practice executing those moving drops that I suck so bad at. Great thread, I've known about this for a while but I suck so bad at executing the moving drop that I rarely attempt it. I just need to do it 10,000 times and get really good at it.
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i thought banelings only did bonus dmg to light units? how many blings are needed to take out one collo?
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This might be a kind of Flavor of the Month thing down the road. It sounds like the sort of thing that really doesn't work once somebody knows what's coming. Especially if they grab blink or actually micro. That being said, a lot Protoss players probably aren't used to it, so it will probably work while it lasts.
They obviously should just shoot down your overlords. A single overlord with banelings is 300/100 for 200 health. That's quite a lot to lose for not doing any damage whatsoever. And honestly overlords aren't that beefy.
i thought banelings only did bonus dmg to light units? how many blings are needed to take out one collo?
The real power of banelings is their 100% splash damage in a wide area. With overlord drop, you can maximize the splash damage. They do perfectly reasonable damage to non-light units.
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On February 05 2011 00:52 plainsane wrote:
have any top notch players used this technique (successfully) against colossi balls in ZvP? I cant remember seeing this in GSL or other top tourneys...
I'm 100% certain that a Zerg player used it vs HuK on his stream, although I can't remember who it was.
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I have never realized it only took 14-16 upgraded banes to kill a colossus. That is amazing. Burrowed banes or baneling drops can annilate the backbone of a toss army.
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I just wanted to thank your face for bringing this to the TL forums. It's either baneling drops or ultra/mass queens + transfuse. Even though ultra+queens is more effective and gets less losses, it takes quite a while to get there. However, banelings take about 45 seconds from spawning zerglings to deadly green land mines :D My win ratio vs protoss went up alot in macro games :D
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ERI3Z.png)
JulyZerg vs TSL_Killer
^^
It was a pretty bad showcase of the tactic, but July won and we finally got to see it in a progame
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On February 09 2011 20:09 ChickenLips wrote:JulyZerg vs TSL_Killer ^^ It was a pretty bad showcase of the tactic, but July won and we finally got to see it in a progame
i don't know if this tactic is really doable in a normal game. In the July-Game, like in most of the others i saw, the zerg was already far ahead and just used it as a gimmick to defeat the protoss army.
i really would like to see it in a game were protoss and zerg are even
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this will just work if they are all clustered. if the toss spreads out you are dead, wasted alot of gas 16 Banelings cost about 400 Gas and 800 Minerals thats a shitload of money to kill 1-2 collossus with there 300/200 per unit. if the Toss stands close togeather and the Splash hits alot of targets and kills masses they are great, but otherwise its a fucking waste and better drop some eco with it.
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On February 09 2011 21:07 Tumor wrote:
this will just work if they are all clustered. if the toss spreads out you are dead, wasted alot of gas 16 Banelings cost about 400 Gas and 800 Minerals thats a shitload of money to kill 1-2 collossus with there 300/200 per unit. if the Toss stands close togeather and the Splash hits alot of targets and kills masses they are great, but otherwise its a fucking waste and better drop some eco with it.
I dont target colossus when I do it, I get the stalkers which fall much easier. The colossus will be in the back so I dont even bother. If they are clumped up in a ball then its just a bonus. But I feel like ~20-25 banelings whipes clean the stalkers so the colossus are easy pickings for the rest of your army + corruptors.
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One tactic I have found that works pretty well, especially as at transtition out of defending a 4 gate, is to go mass muta. This tactic is great, because protoss has the ability to micro the hell out of colussus and win with a vastly inferior army. If you have a much stronger economy you just need to be able to pay some price, any price, to cripple them. Mutas are about equal to the DPS of the stalker, and if you have a two base lead you can almost always harrass and then overwhelm them while they try and turtle hard. Not the best strategy in an even macro game of course becaues of phoenixs and how much cheaper stalkers are to mutas.
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I have been rolling this tactic in with my standard mid-game in ZvP lately.
I like to go for a "get everything" style after I get my nat in order and we've established that there isn't a 4-gate incoming.
While P sits back and techs up to colossus, I go from the +1 lings I've been making for map control into a Roach/Hydra/Queen/Ling/Corruptor army with drops and a nydus network building in my base while the ovies are en-route to Ps base.
Since reading this thread, I also added a baneling nest and just make about 12 blings in overlords that I keep on a separate hot key and, to keep things simple, it has added a lot to the bite of my mid-game army.
After playing with it a bit, I feel confident saying: If your going for drops in ZvP, getting a bling nest and taking advantage of bling-bombing should be a no-brainer.
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Zerg's need to be Pincer attacking the Gateway Colossus Ball
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Versus the GC Ball you'll likely have Lings, and Roaches. I prefer to have some banelings for the Zealots also. The problem, is the Colossus and the Stalkers chill in the back while annihilating you're army.
Use the Pincer. It is a tactical attack pattern that comes from two opposite directions. Against the GC Ball have your banelings and Roaches ready to attack the front of your opponent, and have a large contingency of Speedlings off to the side, quite a ways, from the attack path of the Protoss army. As soon as the engagement is about to occur run ALL of your Speedlings into the back of his army. By the time the fight starts Your banes and Roaches will be fighting the Zealots. The beauty is that ALL of the Stalker and Colossus fire will be instantly directed towards your Speedlings.
You will absolutely CRUSH the GC Ball if you use this Pincer strategy correctly. I think you'll be surprised by how many Stalkers and Colossus your Speedlings take out while you lose minimal Roaches - because the Stalkers and Colossus are not shooting them!
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-167845.jpg)
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