Hey guys, I don't know if i'll need a replay for this? If you do I can get one. But basically, when an opponent fast techs to air (banshees/void rays), how do you guys place your spore crawlers? Is there a formation that covers both workers and hatchery from getting sniped. Also, around what time should you be scouting for those? Should I have my hatcheries pump up to say... 3 queens before teching to lair? I've been getting beat a lot by people who take advantage of zerg's lack of anti-air at tier 1.

Here's how i've been doing my placements by the way; H for Hatchery, S for Spore, Q for Queen

__S S
_S H S
__S Q

k43r

Poland112 Posts

November 14 2010 20:39 GMT

4 spores is quite overreaction.

I usually just get 2 more queens Maybe 1 spore\base is enough. Remember to group your queens, and make creep highway between base\expo and you should do fine.

skirmisheR

Sweden451 Posts

November 14 2010 20:40 GMT

I dont like to defend myself against banshees/gayrays with spores. I often place one in each mineral line to prevent harassing later on (it helps against viking/phoenix harass as well) but the real defense is mutas/hydras and overseers. Otherwise you have to get 3-4 at each base and that is too much money spent on air defense.

ZomgTossRush

United States1041 Posts

November 14 2010 20:40 GMT

Spore firing range is smaller than its vision range. One of Day9's daily about dealing with banshee's has a great visual example of that.

If your goal is for your spores for vision of cloaked units, having on perfectly in the mineral line seems to work, then using your multiple queens for the actually damage works.

If you are not confident with your crisis management, put 2 spores on the edges of your mineral lines, to actually apply dps. Not as efficient economically, but worth it if your apm can't handle it.

CharlieMurphy

United States22895 Posts

November 14 2010 20:44 GMT

air units can outmicro the towers, they are essentially useless except for providing detection, but even then they can be outmicroed. they will just buy you time until overseer asssuming your lair isn't done yet.

You need to scout a lot. use a ling to dart up and down the ramp until it's unsafe for him every few minutes. if you can't tell what he's doing or it looks like he might be going hellion to X or something. then sac a lord into his main and try and find starports.

If you still can't scout anything and he is hiding his tech very well then just defaultly make like 1-2 extra queens and possibly spine crawlers at your nat.
If you guessed wrong, you can still use the queens to spread massive creep and/or transfuse.

As far as like a lategame placement for spores, it's best to have at least one on each side of the minerals and like 2 covering that hatch. But this all depends if they have purely air based force, how many of them there are etc.

I know it happens a lot in zvz where I've got a ground based army only and saccing roaches to kill their main or something meanwhile just dropping 6 or more spores all around my bases because I won't have enough AA in time.
So it would be more like this:

.....SHS
So_-_-_oS
.......S

o= gas
_- = minerals

and make sure to hold position queen inside spores after casting larvas or whatever. Don't want her chasing after their dart ins that fail and then losing a queen for free.

DarKFoRcE

Germany1215 Posts

November 14 2010 20:47 GMT

I almost never get spore crawlers against banshees or voidrays. sometimes 1 in the middle of the mineral line against banshees. getting additional queens seems way better.
against terran i usually get the third queen at 36-38 supply, and a fourth shortly after that if dont know what he is doing.

moosh

United States118 Posts

November 14 2010 20:58 GMT

Well it's an air rush, so I usually wont have lair up in time. Or if I do get early lair, that means that the hatchery which is spending time on morphing, wont be able to produce queens. So i'll HAVE to get spore crawlers. And yes, i'll need at LEAST two (one to protect mineral line, the other to protect hatchery itself from being sniped), at both the main and the expo. Which is really expensive. Which is probably why i'm having such a hard time against these strats. If someone has a replay on how to deflect these early air attacks. I would love to see it.

GinDo

3327 Posts

November 14 2010 21:04 GMT

Spores like Turrets and Cannons have more Detection range then firing range.

1 spore is enough if you using it for detection. Since your queens will be nearby to deal the damage. As for actual confrontation. You should probably get in the habit of making more then 1 queen per hatchery. On two base consider having 4 queens.

Not only will you be safe against air, but you'll have more energy for creep colonies and will be able to transfuse you other queens in case of a mass air attack.

Shikyo

Finland33997 Posts

November 14 2010 21:07 GMT

Just get one spore per base, put it in between your hatch and minerals so that it's hugging the hatchery. Even though it won't hit far enough, the detection range is much longer and will protect your whole mineral line assuming you have the queens necessary. It also makes you require less Queens than normal because the Banshees won't be able to engage in a battle with the queens because he'd get shot down by the spore.

moosh

United States118 Posts

November 14 2010 21:12 GMT

#10

Ok, so 2 queens per base. Got it. Does the detection of the spore colony reach behind the hatchery as well? So that the hatchery itself doesn't get sniped?

Apexplayer

United States406 Posts

November 14 2010 21:37 GMT

#11

if you put it in the mineral line the hatchery will be vulnerable, but the time it takes for a banshee to take down a hatch should give you more than enough time to deal with it.

Aelip

Denmark321 Posts

November 14 2010 21:45 GMT

#12

On November 15 2010 06:37 Apexplayer wrote:
if you put it in the mineral line the hatchery will be vulnerable, but the time it takes for a banshee to take down a hatch should give you more than enough time to deal with it.

Aye, if it's early game he'll only have 1-2 banshees, and his cloak will run out before he kills the hatch.

If it's late game you should get an overseer.

Arterial

Australia1039 Posts

November 14 2010 21:45 GMT

#13

I generally put them on the edge of my mineral lines

so..

MMMMM
S H S

and I generally have two queens per base with creep connecting to expansion so I bring my other queens as well.

Warp

United States166 Posts

November 14 2010 22:21 GMT

#14

If your lair tech has already started, put down an evo chamber and 2 spores on the ends of the mineral lines

MMMMMMMM
S WWWWWW S
H

W=worker

if you know its a hardcore rush, make a second queen and only 1 spore. As said before, the spore isn't really for the damage as much as detection. just micro your queens well and bring them back to the spore crawler when they are down to 2-3 hits so if the enemy wants to take that queen out, it wont be worth it due to the spore's DPS.

When making 1 spore, place it towards the spot where the banshee would come so if you're 12 o'clock on LT,

S
MMMMMMMM
WWWWWW
H Q
Q

Uranium

United States1077 Posts

November 14 2010 22:26 GMT

#15

I get 1 spore in the middle of each mineral line every game. It helps significantly against banshee/void ray, muta, even drops. The rest of my AA is usually queens, hydra against P, infestor against T.