[D] [G] Zerg FAQ - Page 8

      1a. In this specific circumstance, I would cancel the spire immediately. This would leave you around 400-500ish gas depending on your build's timings. Build a hydra den and infestation pit right away, leaving you 200-300 gas, so by the time your den finishes you leaving you about 500-600 gas (depending on your 4th gas timing). Make an infestor and some hydras, but avoid getting hydra range for now as you can't afford it, and you only want like 1 infestor so don't get energy upgrade. Drone up and add a few more hydras so you have enough to defend your main + natural, and be very careful to keep your infestor protected as it can be easily picked off by his phoenixes. It goes without saying your main and natural must be connected with creep, and after you have a decent amount of hydras gathered and are ready to fungal his phoenixes, lead with fungal and send hydras on them, just be careful not to run your infestor in attack move as well or it'll be graviton'd even while theyre fungal'd. You should be able to pick off several phoenixes, especially if you micro, even if you dont have hydra range yet. You should be going for a roach/hydra combination with upgrades, and taking a 3rd base. If he's going 2 stargate phoenix he is somewhat concerned about a hydra attack, depending on the map, and it would be ideal to do what you can to threaten, forcing cannons/extra defense. On delta quadrant it's very easy for them to just hold their ramp with force field if they only took their back expo, so this threat doesnt exist and you should focus on taking a 3rd quickly. You should eventually be going towards corruptor if they went heavy colossi. Scouting their tech is tough but necessary, use changelings and send overseers/overlords when you know phoenixes are not nearby to pick them off.

as for the concern about canceling, well canceling spire returns you 150/150, a net loss of 50/50, but the return of resources is too important right now, even if you ended up losing some resources for 'nothing.' Another thing to note is as your spire is only half done it has 50 seconds still to finish building. A hydra den takes 40 seconds to build so it's still going to finish faster, and hydras build faster than corruptors. if you went corruptor/infestor instead that's easier to defend the phoenix harass but much useless vs ground army and requires you to build more ground defense than you woudl have with hydras, and also leaves him completely unconcerned about an attack, and can more freely move around the map with his ground army.

       1b. I would not like being put in this situation to be honest, so I'd make sure 1a happens instead. But if it did happen for whatever reason. I would go for an infestation pit right away, start +1 air attack if I haven't yet, and play defensive while trying to sneak expos. Once again keep infestor protected as it gains energy, and you wait till you have a large enough enough mutalisk force compared to his phoenix where you can decidedly win the straight air to air battle (for some reference, 16-17 mutas with a good fungal will win vs 10 phoenixes), and fungal them to make sure they dont flee. It seems very key to try and fungal as many phoenixes as possible, ideally right before they engage your mutas, so the phoenixes in the back that are fungaled cannot attack back. If however they saw the infestor/infestor pit they may know this and avoid flying phoenixes into danger. But that gives you map control, and you can continue with your original plan of ling/muta/spine, trying to outexpand him.

Perhaps a better response however would be to switch to hydras right away, it does feel safer and more stable, as trying to outmuscle phoenixes with mutas is dangerous/tough. Perhaps someone with more muta opening experience can enlighten us

2. This is a hard question to answer as it really really depends on what build you opened and the map as well, but if your build leaves you concerned about banshees, then around the I think around 6:30 ish mark is when you want to spot for banshees, someone please correct me if I'm wrong. If you went for the most normal speedling into lair build, it's around halfway or a little past halfway of the lair build time. If you're concerned about some kind of crazy marine allin and he doesn't have marines on the edge of his base, I'd send it in around 4:00 or so to check for extra barracks, if you see even one extra hidden one I'd just instantly make a baneling nest to be safe.

3. This is only applicable to Lost Temple. I actually think tank/thor drop is really easy to stop, easier than many other openers to deal with, but that came with lots of experience dealing with it. Part of the reason why I think so many zergs even pro zergs struggle is cus they don't abandon their plan of going early spire. You can pretty much always tell if they're going for this based on what you see at the ramp + if they took 2 gas or not. Send an overlord in about halfway while lair is building if you weren't sure, and you should have had an overlord above their main mineral ledge as well for additional scouting (focus on getting it there very early in the game). Put up 3 spines hugging your natural cliff, with 1-2 overlords placed carefully to spot for them but not too far onto the ledge. Go for roaches and drop, avoid taking the gas closest to the cliff, and if you have minerals to spare take another base at a far away main base. Use spines unburrow/burrow to stall for drop, every time the tank is sieging out of range of your spines, unburrow and move. as soon as it moves up to attack hatch, root them below the cliff, repeat this to stall time. If they went thor instead, spines do fairly well vs thor and has the same range, and anytime the thor wants to attack the hatchery it will be well in range for many of your roaches. Get roach speed and roach burrow upgrades and just go counterattack as soon as you built a huge enough army and feel safe enough to defend your expo hatch (dont worry too much about this, you can always sac the natural and transfer all workers to your far away 3rd base.) Also their natural is extremely delayed and put your ovelrord dropping creep to block their natural even more, and make sure its on hold position! (the creep will start receding much later as it will continue to goop until it dies rather than when its first attacked). Usually they cannot defend the roach counterattack and they jsut die, or you gain a significant lead, depends how they followed up. Regardless you can always retreat and you shouold be significantly ahead in economy.

As for the mutalisk vs weak to a ground attack close spawns, you should be safe if you went for a baneling nest sometime while lair was building, and I'd do this whenever I feel threatened by this and also on close spawns.

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I actually came up with the answers to all parts of 1. just now (yes even did some math/analysis with gas/timings) as I haven't really been opening spire vs protoss since the first few weeks of beta heh, I just don't like the spire opener that much vs protoss.

just tested 1b. some, 16 mutas loses to 10 phoenixes with this, but 17 vs 10, mutas win slightly