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Hey Tlers,
I'm here to ask any zerg players if they have an alternative to standard Muta/Ling/Baneling play in Zerg vs. Terran. I've always been a Muta/Ling/Baneling player, and it used to work well, but it seems now a days that all the terrans have figured out how to beat it. I probably only win about 10% of my games versus Terran, and its starting to aggravate me.
The composition is great in theory, Mutas for Tanks, lings for tanks and distraction, and banelings for marines, but in practice it always falls short on me. It might be one bad click with the mutas that sends that into a clump of marines and they all die instantly, and there goes the primary tank killer, or banelings running into a tank line, and now there is no answer for marines. I feel at my level, low-mid diamond that these sorts of little accidents are happening more and more often, and a game that was mine to win can suddenly turn into a complete and utter loss, and its getting depressing...
So do any zerg players out there have some unit compositions that have been working well for them? I'm really looking for something that can even be a slight bit forgiving of a mis-micro scenario, and that has some killing potential, and ability to actually attack a terran after a winning a battle and potentially being able to end a game.
Thanks for any help I can get.
Also, not posting any replays, as I don't really want my Muta/Ling/Baneling play analyzed, I'm more looking for something altogether new.
Edit: And of course forgot the [H] in the title, if a mod would be able to add that in, that'd be great.
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Ling/Baneling/Muta is really bad vs Mechanical Terran, 9 times out of 10 he will roll you. If terran is mostly making BIO Ling/Muta/Baneling is a really good choice. If the terran mechs make alot of infestors. Why infestors?
#1 they are the ultimate counter vses Helion, infestor locks them from moving with that one spell (lol i cant remember the name, fungle something + it lowers helions life to 1)
#2 thors do alot of damage, and with infestors you can take over your opponet's thors and use them against him.
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I was watching iNcontrol coach Mr.Bitters last night. He confirmed that this is the basis of ZvT, and the frustratinos yoru having? yeah, it's universal. It's super micro intensive, so yes, your absolutely right, one misclick and boom, your super cool awesome army is dead.
The only other thing that may work is Infestor, Roach, Muta.... but then you gotta be super careful in microing infestors. Even then, infestors Fungal Growth can one shot 6 marines.
Mech? Roach/Infestor/Muta. NP the Thors, Muta's eat the tanks, Roachs soak damage.
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well ling baneling mutas is a great composition. I honestly think it is very strong vs any marine base composition. The good thing about starcraft is that there isnt a set number of unit composition that completely obliterate everything. Although some composition can be argue so, such as HT and viking but what it really come down is just how you play it out and how you use your composition the best way possible.
Vs terran, your usually the reactive race. The terran usually get to decide how the game flows. Such as if he goes bio then you probably forced to make baneling and eventually go ling baneling mutas but if he goes mech then you gotta go something with roaches. As zerg, i dont think you can honestly choose a set of unit composition in general because you are the reactive race and you are usually force to adapt to your opponent play style. This does not mean that during the game you cant make decision yourself however. You can go broodlord or ultras and infestor or mutas. The way i like to think is terran and zerg like chess. Terran are white and get to decide the opening the game by having the first move or the "tempo" and the zerg will do the logical response to the terran and just go with the flow. Of course this applys to PvT as well since T once again get to dictate how the game is played by deciding either to go bio or mech and toss get to choose later on HT or collosus and the other race will respond accordingly. Your zerg and you will most likely be force to sit back and adapt to the play style your opponent does and that why you are in chess, usually, black.
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The match-up is pretty much a micro battle most of the time- it's the same for Terrans. One bad split and our entire army of Marines are splattered goo.
I cannot really think of any build in this match-up that is not micro-intensive. I feel Zerg needs huge splash damage to overpower Medivacs, and that either comes from Banelings or Infestors, both requiring a lot of micro. Pick your poison, in essence.
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+ it lowers helions life to 1
no
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ive been trying some ling bling infestor while transitioning to broodlord. it was in a recent day 9 not sure which but it was jungal basin and the zerg won due to just being able to stall with infestors long enough to get lords. marines try to stim and run under the lords. they get fungaled or baned, they get tank shotted from the lings/broodlings, and the tanks get murdered lol. lords and infestors really work great against tank marine. its just getting thre that is the problem.
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Roach/Ling/Bling/Infestor is also pretty strong and should give you map control until the Terran gets a REALLY high tank count.
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Personally, I'm not a huge fan of banelings unless it's used in a
- baneling bust
- military baneling drop
- mineral line baneling drop
Not to say I won't use them, but they die too easily to - as well as aren't always as cost-efficient against - the units they are supposed to do best against (such as marines). Combine that with the fact they aren't particularly versatile (can't attack air, are melee, are low health, aren't reusable, only deal good damage against light and structures), and I think it could be understood why there are other options, or perhaps even why there may NOT be other options, but this option simply isn't satisfactory (underpowered)
If you go play Green tea AI and use banelings against it, you will likely not do well at all, since the AI spreads their units out vs banes preventing any major damage being dealt from them. Even pro gamers do this, just to a different extent (better and worse).
Anyway, to get to the point: I think a mass ling-muta build can be viable in the right scenarios, but will oftentimes need roaches or infestors to help as well. As there is no continual gas sink into banelings, a few infestors can quite easily be made in their place, it's just important to not loose them.
Regardless of whether someone uses banelings or not, it is pretty important to get some max tier tech up, like broodlords, to deal with critical masses of units.On January 20 2011 11:08 MEcH TErRAN MaNIaC! wrote:
#1 they are the ultimate counter vses Helion, infestor locks them from moving with that one spell (lol i cant remember the name, fungle something + it lowers hellions life to 1) Fungal growth deals 36 damage over like 8 seconds. It doesn't deal 89 (or more) damage, and it CAN kill the target.
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i didnt know that it could kill the helions o.o i just knew it did a crapload of damage and stopped helions from moving my bad.
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don't forget baneling mines... use your mutas to bait marine masses into burrowed banelings, which you unburrow manually as marines are on top. better yet, if they're stimmed, one baneling goes that much further. if they bring a raven, be sure to use the mutas to take it out first.
you can also try baneling/zergling bombs from behind on the overlords on the tanks, it makes them hit each other, and dropped one at a time, you force their marine force back or have them risk their tanks kill each other, i use that as an alternative if i've messed my mutas up
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I think the best thing for mid-late confrontations to make the baneling-marine confrontation less volatile (pun totally intended) is infestors. Lock down marines, splat. win.
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Russian Federation3 Posts
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On January 20 2011 12:59 Xapti wrote:Personally, I'm not a huge fan of banelings unless it's used in a - baneling bust - military baneling drop - mineral line baneling drop Not to say I won't use them, but they die too easily to - as well as aren't always as cost-efficient against - the units they are supposed to do best against (such as marines). Combine that with the fact they aren't particularly versatile (can't attack air, are melee, are low health, aren't reusable, only deal good damage against light and structures), and I think it could be understood why there are other options, or perhaps even why there may NOT be other options, but this option simply isn't satisfactory (underpowered) If you go play Green tea AI and use banelings against it, you will likely not do well at all, since the AI spreads their units out vs banes preventing any major damage being dealt from them. Even pro gamers do this, just to a different extent (better and worse). Anyway, to get to the point: I think a mass ling-muta build can be viable in the right scenarios, but will oftentimes need roaches or infestors to help as well. As there is no continual gas sink into banelings, a few infestors can quite easily be made in their place, it's just important to not loose them. Regardless of whether someone uses banelings or not, it is pretty important to get some max tier tech up, like broodlords, to deal with critical masses of units. Show nested quote +On January 20 2011 11:08 MEcH TErRAN MaNIaC! wrote:
#1 they are the ultimate counter vses Helion, infestor locks them from moving with that one spell (lol i cant remember the name, fungle something + it lowers hellions life to 1) Fungal growth deals 36 damage over like 8 seconds. It doesn't deal 89 (or more) damage, and it CAN kill the target.
What the heck? Banelings not cost efficient? have you ever tried fighting a marine/marauder/medivac ball with just roaches and zerglings? How can you say there are OTHER options? I'm sorry to say but there are NO OTHER OPTIONS when fighting an MMM ball but to include banelings.
I have yet to find a replay where a zerg beats a terran MMM ball w/o banelings.
Do not listen to Xapti. Worst theory crafting ever. Probably an even worse player.
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On January 20 2011 15:08 Buruguduy wrote:
What the heck? Banelings not cost efficient? have you ever tried fighting a marine/marauder/medivac ball with just roaches and zerglings? How can you say there are OTHER options? I'm sorry to say but there are NO OTHER OPTIONS when fighting an MMM ball but to include banelings.
I have yet to find a replay where a zerg beats a terran MMM ball w/o banelings.
Do not listen to Xapti. Worst theory crafting ever. Probably an even worse player.
Obviously you don't see players like Marineking own baneling builds with mostly marines. Add marauders and/or tanks in there and it gets even worse. And I didn't say banelings ARE cost inefficient, I said they can be. I also didn't say just roach ling, I said muta-ling with roaches and infestors as necessary.
Insulting users without giving substantial reasoning is really immature and stupid. With regards to my skill, I have no problems playing in masters league. I'm not saying I have the best advice, I'm sharing MY advice and MY play style, which at least has reasoning and back-up behind it unlike yours.
Go play an AI or professional player who can micro their units well vs banelings and see how cost-effective they end up being when you're trying to use them anywhere off-creep. Maybe in gold league banelings can be heavenly cause people are terrible and just a-move, but it's not so simple when a bit of skill is actually involved.
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A few things I've tried:
ling/infestor/ultra where you are concentrating on getting melee and carapace upgrades through the whole game. Get pathogen glands asap, then get a couple infestors out. At hive get adrenal glands for lings and ultra upgrades, spend all gas on ultras, rest on lings, infestors when you need them. I dunno about this unit comp, I've had success against protoss with it, but terran has tanks and blue flame hellions which destroy lings and infestors. Maybe combine ultralisk drop play? then you can drop ultras on a group of tanks.
Burrow Movement Roaches is another one and can be strong, but you have to do damage to the terran to allow burrow movement roaches to be successful. For example, hurting his economy early on then going to burrow movement roaches can be effective because they don't want to use scans and also can't afford detection early on. I've used this pretty well against siege tanks but the bio is the problem, lots of rines can out DPS roaches pretty hard, add in marauders and it's just painful.
Muta/ling/bling IS the best MID-GAME strategy against terran. You can't be going muta/ling/bling the whole game, your cost effectiveness eventually wears out because you're wasting gas on banelings, while the terran is only wasting minerals on marines, eventually you're going to run out of gas. If you can do important damage with mutalisks, then it's going to take longer for your army to become less cost efficient. However, this is merely a mid-game strategy and there should be a transition into something better. Broodlords and infestors is a good transition, you will be able to take out any thors/siege tanks with ease, and fungal the marines makes for the ultimate end game composition. Keep your infestors around though, because vikings will come out, then go into a mass ground army with ultralisks and cracklings. The main thing to remember, is that you want to try and upgrade melee/carapace through the whole game, so that eventually your broodlings/ultras/lings will become extremely cost efficient.
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Muta ling bling is good because you can harass, have map control, and an army that can take the opponent army head on. But it's very micro demanding, and personally (2100 master here) I always loose my muta like shit to a thor passing by or runing into a shitload of marine. I just hate muta ling bling.
Roach ling bling and infestor seems to be (for me) way more stable. With a lot of expand and teching to ultra or brood later on. On big map you can also go for muta to force marine (and prevent marauder) and then switch to roach infestor with your ling bling.
You still need a lot of micro (FG on marine, baneling focussing marine, roach taking tanks one by one, which is usually easy since the bioball is retreating from the bling).
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As a terran player I've had some issues v ling/roach/muta mostly as a tech switch from the norm and I've yet to see any infestors used in any of my TvZ (in recent memory)  .
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I've had pretty good success with the following strategy:
Early roach pressure (not a rush), into early ling roach, into quick infestors (infestation pit as soon as lair finishes and 9-10 infestors with upgrades). From here you react based on what you see: can stay on ling/roach/infestor with an eventual sudden muta explosion, or can go into ultras. Mass infestors are wonderful at killing infantry FG, and stopping the mech (NP thors and tanks). Assuming its a normal engagement with infantry and thors up front and siege tanks behind you just FG the infantry and run in with lings/roaches and then NP all the thors...then use the thors on tanks. NP is incredibly powerful when you have a lot of infestors.
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EPT
