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Hello, I just saw someone do this strange build on Jungle Basin and was wondering how you can actually beat it. They go mass banshee viking with planetary fortress and missile turrets everywhere so you cannot actually kill any expansions they get (fortress is impossible to kill with ground units except ultra, and if you kill the turrets the vikings will kill your mutas)
In terms of army vs army, muta hydra won't work (that is what I did) since banshees can cloak and kill all the hydras, and vikings have much longer range than mutas and can kill mutas and overseers.
I think what I should have done was get Infestors to fungal growth the vikings and just have litterally gone insane mass muta. Do you think this is what I should have done?
Or should I have gone tier 3 for ultras and just run in and destroy all the planetary fortresses while being attacked by banshees (this sounds kind of all-in)
Or is there something else I could have done? Remember this is Jungle Basin, I was at the only 3 bases Zerg can really get safely all 100% fully saturated, my opponent was also on 3 base, and like I said, without infestors its 100% impossible to destroy planetary fortresses with missile turrets if they have vikings and banshees. I did try to get more bases, but as I said earlier, banshee viking > hydra muta, so I was incapable of securing any additional bases.
I'm 2200 Diamond with +0 division modifier (s-rank division)
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infestors work very well against this. fungal growth gives you the detection you need against cloaked banshees and prevents them from flying away. to that you can add hydras and ultras or broodlords for the PFs (depends on how many vikings he has).
but jungle basin is usually a default win for terran, so you shouldnt expect too much on that map ;p
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On January 07 2011 04:13 DarKFoRcE wrote:
but jungle basin is usually a default win for terran, so you shouldnt expect too much on that map ;p
Yes I know Jungle Basin and Delta Quadrant are automatic win for Terran but I don't thumbs down any maps because I'm too optimistic. However, after recent games, I will now thumbs down both of these maps for the first time. To be honest, its just rediculous that Blizzard would add in such terrible terrible maps into the ladder pool, and GSL is terrible for using Blizzard maps. Maybe other tournaments will do the right thing and use custom maps.
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If he really only has banshees and viking, I think a good amount of corruptors would deal with that quite good, change some into brood lords and you can take out turrets very easily. Also, with a good amount of brood lords, the broodling will surround the planetary fortress very fast, making it much harder for the scv's to repair it.
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Thanks for the info on fungal growth and corruptors. I'll try those the next time I see this build.
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Unrelated to the specific question but I often find winning on jungle basin by getting an aggressive third in the middle and attempting to keep Terran on 2 base until he's mined out. My only answer to the specific question is maybe to win before he gets mass numbers.
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So JB and DQ are auto wins for terran, Steppes and LT as well I guess. Maybe Scrap Station is the only balanced map? Or just quit whining and deal with your actual question?
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On January 07 2011 04:26 Willzzz wrote:
So JB and DQ are auto wins for terran, Steppes and LT as well I guess. Maybe Scrap Station is the only balanced map? Or just quit whining and deal with your actual question?
All of those maps are Terran favored against Zerg, everybody knows that. The only balanced maps are Xel`Naga, and Metal, while Shakuras, and scrap station are slightly zerg favored, or possibly just balanced.
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Wouldn't mass muta (not hydra) handle this relatively well? Vikings outrange mutas, but in a straight up mass fight they destroy them. Microing properly by running then turning around and attacking quickly should do quite well as long as you have upgrades. I've lost many phoenix to that kind of micro.
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Hydra, Infestor, with over seers. Some corruptors if needed.
Thats honestly the best way I have been beat doing this on scrap 
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If a Terran is going strictly banshee/viking. There will be a sizable window to do a baneling bust and then flood in a ton of Zerglings.
Now if the Terran opened more standard and then switched into banshee/viking I can understand your problem.
Banshee builds are very open to early attack.
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Hydra Infestors and Mutas are the best combination I think because mutas and overlords with speed are fast enough to kill the banshees. Try to keep the oveseers following hydras in the back of your army so the vikings have to get in range of the hydras. I would recommend avoiding hydra muta because it is just too expensive.
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On January 07 2011 05:31 Terminator(471) wrote:
Hydra Infestors and Mutas are the best combination I think because mutas and overlords with speed are fast enough to kill the banshees. Try to keep the oveseers following hydras in the back of your army so the vikings have to get in range of the hydras. I would recommend avoiding hydra muta because it is just too expensive.
This post made me laugh out loud.
As for the OP you've had two very good suggestions, One being infestor/corruptor because his force is all air, the switch brood lords after you take it out will win you the game. Also the early +1 speedling attack with a couple banelings to take out the wall would absolutely decimate his economy forcing him to switch his tech and most likely lose.
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On January 07 2011 05:31 Terminator(471) wrote:
Hydra Infestors and Mutas are the best combination I think because mutas and overlords with speed are fast enough to kill the banshees. Try to keep the oveseers following hydras in the back of your army so the vikings have to get in range of the hydras. I would recommend avoiding hydra muta because it is just too expensive.
Hydra/Muta is too expensive for you, so you recommend Hydra/Muta/Infestor?
Logic.
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Just Mutas. Vikings are horrific against them cost for cost, and once you have a sufficient ball so are missile turrets. The only reason vikings can ever be a palatable defense against mutas is because marines are protecting them.
A replay would be helpful, as it's hard to tell how mass you're referring to, what he opened with, etc. You make it sound he's expanding all over the map with turrets and PF's. That doesn't just "happen". Ideally you get early mutas, establish some map control, force him to build turrets, and make him unable to take a 3rd.
Looking beyond mechanical reasons, the likely reason you lost is the fact that muta/hydra is a bad combination, since they're both extremely gas heavy units. pound for pound mutas are great against vikings, but if you're commiting half your gas to hydras you may not have enough to overwhelm them.
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This is one of those cases where you can't make a half hearted effort to beat one or the other. Viking/Banshee is one of those perfect storms that's very difficult to contend with.
Go pure anti air. Corruptors, mutas, hydras. Corruptors are handy because they can transition to brood lords. Mutas can help with keeping map control and guarding against drops. Hydras can raid/defend via Nydus, and work great with Infestor fungal support.
If he has ground support, you don't have much choice but to ignore it until the second wave. Sacrificial expos are not a bad investment to buy time against what is basically going to be his ONLY push (Zerg anti air is also insanely gas expensive). After the air is taken care of, transition to deal with the next threat.
Banshee builds are very open to early attack. Terran doesn't really have to leave themselves open to anything. If there isn't an impenetrable wall that not even Banelings can deal with, he simply isn't trying. Fortunately, Terran walling techniques are still in their infancy, leaving most players wide open to early aggression.
If he walls correctly, such builds are typically slow enough that you have ample opportunity to slime the map and macro up. You'll need EVERY dime possible to break a solid Terran defense.
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Kyrgyz Republic1462 Posts
Just mass muta with attack upgrades and add infestors later. I don't see how corruptors would help, muta is much more cost efficient vs vikings and also faster.
My friend and I have actually tried to make a build like this (i.e. viking+banshee) work, and it is super fragile, one positioning mistake from the terran and it is practically game over. Try to provoke the vikings to attack by showing undefended overlords or just mass expanding and then flank with muta so that they cannot escape without losses.
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Just screw over his air. If he's going banshee/viking, all you need to do is pick ground, or air. Right? Although air is better because if you go for ground you are less mobile and the vikings can land. So, mass Mutalisks, may be some corruptors if you don't have too much gas. I'm not sure if this is efficient against Vikings though. I'd just mass mutas, it's easier to micro if they're all the same unit  .
Another option, although situational, is to just mass Ultralisks and go for the kill. Banshees won't kill fast enough and Vikings will get raped if they try to land.
About Infestors. They are such a bad idea. One mistake and all your infestors go bye-bye. Also they'll only be useful if your opponent messes up and clumps his units. If they don't clump, fungal growth isn't going to be worth the gas. Just mass muta. They're superior in mobility, able to actually attack, and are reliable, unlike the Infestors.
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hydra/infestor will beat any terran air very cost effectively.
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Micro dmged nuts back and you can kill turrets with no losses. Also banelings vs fortresses are good too oy even just a mass of roaches can kill it with nuts to help.
Keep harassing until you have a sizeable flock of muta; 20->30. Then focus on opening holes in his base defences and pick off addons, depots, array units. Basically if he leaves his base you should be really hurting him for it while your ground force will just hold his push usually ling, bling or roach in there if mech.
He's using so many resources for defence that you should be able to stay an expo above him with a gas expo too if you can. Play to starve him out with massing counter armies repeatedly. Just make sure if you tech switch you are doing so at a good timing as you could end up maxing a worthless army if you don't scout.
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Kyrgyz Republic1462 Posts
On January 07 2011 06:18 Adeeler wrote:
Micro dmged nuts back and you can kill turrets with no losses. Also banelings vs fortresses are good too oy even just a mass of roaches can kill it with nuts to help.
Keep harassing until you have a sizeable flock of muta; 20->30. Then focus on opening holes in his base defences and pick off addons, depots, array units. Basically if he leaves his base you should be really hurting him for it while your ground force will just hold his push usually ling, bling or roach in there if mech.
He's using so many resources for defence that you should be able to stay an expo above him with a gas expo too if you can. Play to starve him out with massing counter armies repeatedly. Just make sure if you tech switch you are doing so at a good timing as you could end up maxing a worthless army if you don't scout.
Did you even read his post? You can't harass against this strategy because there will always be a bunch of vikings shooting at you from behind the turrets, you can't pick off anything.
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infestors will do the trick FOR SURE, btw infestors pwn all air when u have enough of them and filled with energy. you can make loads of infested terrans and just fungal all his air units.
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Hydras can outrange Banshees. Fungal growth can stop units and detect.
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Infestor/muta with spores. Don't be stupid and make 10 overseers, fungal growth reveals and those 10 overseers could've been 10 muta. 1 is enough if you keep it back with your infestors.
If T is smart he'll start getting ravens with hsm too. You have to get corruptors by this point and you have to have hive on the way. Your endgoal is always going to be to trap the air army as it tries to harass your expansions (which btw should be up literally everywhere on the map). Broodlords after you take air superiority will finish the game. (I STRONGLY suggest going straight for his main where the starports are. Killing expos is pointless compared to killing production.)
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Someone did this build against me yesterday and I failed hard. I went mass muta with ling, tried to get a third early to get more muta out, and I almost won, but he just had a few more vikings than I could handle, and then he lifted his buildings and managed to take me out slowly with his banshees even though I had both an eco and army advantage.
If I had realized it was an all air build, I wouldn't have lost so easily. Hydra with a few random spores will remove banshees from the equation, and then a couple infestors will destroy him if he tries to engage my army with his air units, with or without cloak.
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Vs terran I always have mutas out before Vikings so when I see him going vikings I just continue massing Mutas lol. Easy win with the splashdamage. Just don't engage with fewer numbers.
And then just spend all minerals on Lings and gg?
Banshees normally die fast too. Just have to get overseers yes...
Seriously
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mutas mutas and more mutas.. get map control once you destory his army go in break down the wall and flood with lings and its gg.
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Thanks for suggestions guys, although I do question if pure mass muta can beat it as some people suggested. I do think either infestors are needed or corruptors are needed and I forgot to get either of them (someone said mutas are more cost effective than corruptors vs vikings, is that true, because for some reason that sounds wrong to me)
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Mutas are more cost effective, if you ALREADY have a superior force. Otherwise, you'll get screwed by attrition as Vikings take pot shots every time they zip in and out of range. It's also not difficult to hold Vikings over some missile turrets or marines, which brazenly destroy Mutas.
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Mass Mutas would do it HOWEVER it is easier said than done, how are you going to mass Mutas when the Banshees are blowing up your economy left and right, and you are forced to make Drones.
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On January 07 2011 06:56 RaxsPrime wrote:
Mass Mutas would do it HOWEVER it is easier said than done, how are you going to mass Mutas when the Banshees are blowing up your economy left and right, and you are forced to make Drones.
How about with some queens and maybe 1 spore at each expo spore+ queens is cost effective AA
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the problem with vikings + armor upgrades is they beat up hydras and mutas once they reached a nice mass and the terran can return the damaged ones home for repair. And if the terran goes straight for Vikings they will fly in snipe ovis or mutas etc and they can keep this up without a problem as you are not able to get enough mutas to deal with the vikings, since their min/gas price is way better. Also one raven added in the mix means you will lose some mutas before damage kicks ins. (well if you know that your opponent tryes mass mutas against this you can even get one bc as you don't have to fear anything you can fly directly to his main and win)
Well anyway, the cute way of dealing with a pure air combination would probably be roach infestors, and fungal infested marine the crap out of them ^^. Otherwise the easiest way is probably infestors and hydras (with enough roaches incase the vikings manage to land) and a few spore spine crawlers at the bases to make up for the weaker mobility.
I wouldn't rely only on infestors and overseers, as a little group of vikings can try to snipe the overseers and then banshees will fly in for infestor sniping from about everywhere so fungal won't get them all (or worse a cloaked ghost later on hehe) So having a few spores with your army helps.
Mass muta can also work as they are way faster then vikings and can try to harass the opponents base when the vikings are out. So its easier get the enough gas to just overmass the terran. But be careful some terrans know how to deal with mutas and will get +2 armor for buildings, towers will never die to mutas then if the are repaired (the scvs will drop fast though hehe.) And with a nice tower setup you can control the enemys way back and ambush him with your vikings.
But if you know your opponent and know that he won't snipe your gas when he sees that you go mutas you can easily do this ^^.
but i would recommend roach hydra infestor as those will be the most interesting micro fights, mutas are only a try to force mistakes and win because the opponent did one.
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I think there was a thread about upgraded vikings will cost effectively win vs mutas, even after equal upgrades. Was this air terran getting upgrades? It would make sense that he would seeing as he is going all air. And if he is, then getting muta would be a bad choice, especially to upgrade them because an air terran can sit in base with turrets and vikings and can't be harassed by mutas, and can also push out and keep a 3rd.
Even worse, is when the T decides to get Battle Cruisers because those crush mutas when mixed with viking. Vs an air terran, the best bet would be hydralisk + infestor + aggresively spreading creep. Put down spore and spine crawlers, and keep adding spores in as the game goes on. You can keep pushing your creep and spores toward their 3rd, and if they don't have any/enough tanks, they won't be able to hold off hydras + infestors with spore back up.
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Banshee/viking is an amazing midgame switch against zerg, especially if you turtle hard.
Early game, open however you want, as long as it can hold early zerg pressure. You can open with marines/tank, getting plenty of turrets and planetary fortresses. Grab a third and surround it with turrets while transforming it into a PF. Play very very defensively and just worry about fending off mutas and banelings. You can easily have three starports up and running once your third finishes and pump out viking/banshee. You can even start with some medivacs for drop harass or just rush cloak and use your banshees to harass.
If you can clog all your bases with e-bays, turrets, PFs, and barracks, while having vikings sitting overhead, zerg will have a very very difficult time breaking your defenses. Seriously, what is a zerg supposed to do if you have 2 PFs at each expo surrounded by turrets and barracks with vikings floating overhead.
Several people are saying mass muta, but you are forgetting that Terran doesn't have to engage outside his base if he doesn't want to. He can post up his vikings over his missile turrets and just mass up a powerful air army. Remember, you don't have to always be pressuring with vikings, they are a great defensive unit because of their range.
The real trick is turtling and playing defensively. Lots of turrets and PFs. You have several harass options (hellion, medivac, cloak banshee, viking overlord snipes) Mutas can't approach your base if you have marines, vikings, or thors with your turrets. BUILDING PLACEMENT IS KEY. Block off every entrance to your bases. Hell, if the level allows it, make buildings between your main/natural and third. Have a couple tanks interspersed between all you bases. Thors are great too if they decide to mass mutas. You are going largely air so you can wall in your scvs if you want to.
ALWAYS GET BUILDING ARMOR AND PF UPGRADES. They are the two most underrated upgrades in the game. Also, you will want to get air upgrades as soon as possible. The armor upgrade is great for vikings against mutalisks.
If you are able to stop the mutas, you will win. Remember, vikings can kite corruptors to an extent, and you can always retreat to your turrets. If they try to transition to hydras, get more tanks, or even more hellions. Hydras are super slow so you can abuse their mobility and just run around sniping hatches with banshees. Even if you get caught off guard and lose your air army to fungal growth and hydras, they can't do much to a PF and a few siege tanks. If you ever engage a hydra army head on, try to snipe overseers first and immediately cloak your banshees.
The only tricky micro involved is spreading your banshees and vikings a bit. Fungal growth can ruin your day with this build. I recommend having several hotkeys for your air army, and the magic box trick is not a bad idea against fungal growth. It doesn't do a whole lot but it is still better than stacking your banshees.
Battlecruisers aren't really necessary in this matchup. Corruptors are too good against them and that money could be spent on the faster-building vikings and banshees. Banshees can snipe a hatch in no time.
TLDR
-Open normally with whatever you want
-Play very defensively (PFs and turrets with upgrades, clog your PFs with barracks and e-bays, seriously, buildings everywhere, sim-city to the max, multiple PFs if needed)
-Harass if you want (hellion, fast cloak, viking overlord snipe)
-Spread a few tanks to defend (thors if heavy muta play)
-Transition to 3 starports (2 tech, 1 core)
-Start massing viking/banshee while playing defensively
-UPGRADES! Get air upgrades as fast as possible, also building armor and PF/turret range
-Only harass if it's safe, you don't want to lose early banshee/viking to FG or fast mutas
-Once maxed, go fucking kill him
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On January 07 2011 06:33 Omni17 wrote:
Hydras can outrange Banshees. Fungal growth can stop units and detect. Hydras and banshees have the same range, and anyway it doesn't matter since the Banshees are cloaked and the vikings blew out your overseers.
You do need Fungal, and ideally, you get queens in there to transfuse your overseers, and you bring in 2-3 spore crawlers. These things detect much larger than they see/shoot.
Alternatively, mass muta to get air control so he can't leave the safety of his towers, and attempt to claim the middle. Considering the speed of your other options, this might actually be the safest route.
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Yeah the problem I see is that the terran will probably have Vikings earlier than you will have mutas, and being cheaper and reactor-able, he will get a nice bunch of them. So once he flies around your base, it will be super hard to get a decent amount of mutas. Also I fear that banshees could kick in before you have fungal groth making it nearly impossible to get the energy upgrade out in time...
Roach Hydra should be the safe bet so you get enough time to build infestation pit.
The problem is, how many Zergs open Hydra against Terran? ^^
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Lings-upgraded, hydra, and a touch of infestors works well. Teching up to ultras when you can. Make sure you use your lings and hydras to kill expos...hydras en masse rape PF.
~2300 D
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EPT
