Early game map control, whether it's the positioning of your lings or overlords or grabbing the towers. The placement / scouting path of your early lings will allow you to drone up or give you the time you need to defend early pressure. In addition, your ability to react to what you scout. The toughest part about playing Z is that you need to worry about what your opponent is doing much more than he worries about your unit composition. Sometimes T and P can get away with playing blind for certain parts of the game, as a Z if you play blind, it's gg. Therefore your ability to adequately scout and react is crucial. Lastly, I'd say knowing your timings. So that if you end up in a situation where you are blind, you can at least make an educated guess as to what to do.

Sicky

United Kingdom121 Posts

February 12 2011 11:01 GMT

#62

Great thread, has really made me think about how to improve.

Mythol

Sweden24 Posts

February 15 2011 01:10 GMT

#63

OP here

rly glad that people post such great tips. I feel like this thread is helping people alot! Please send it to all of your zerg buddies

I would love to see you post how this thread has improved YOUR gameplay

And to keep you updated, I got to 3000 pts tonight!

<3 from sweden

babysimba

10466 Posts

February 15 2011 06:58 GMT

#64

IMO zerg is the easiest to understand. They do not have any complicated stuffs like build order losses, refining of builds etc like other races. Their play only revolves around 3 main things: scouting, economy, army. The idea is to scout constantly, get as greedy as possible with your economy, which in turn boost your army production later on.

This is how i improve my zerg from the bottom leagues (silver). I will not talk about the basic mechanics like overlord placements, not getting supply blocked etc. since it's already mentioned. Some of you might not agree to it, but i tend to take things 1 step at a time. You will improve and understand matchups much more if you take the long route =)

Always refer back to replays after every game, they are your best tools to improve. They tell you all the information that you need to know. There are only 2 tabs that are important. Income tab: Check if your economy is keeping up or even better than the enemy's. Army tab: Check if your army value is about the same as the enemy at the point of ENGAGEMENT. If your army value is way lesser than his during engagement, it means you have drone way too much. Always scout in the game, poke up the ramp with your lings to see the structures and their unit compositions. Sac overlords when you cannot infer from the limited information. It is fine if you do not understand what you are scouting. When referring back to replays, look at the limited information that you have scouted from your POV: Gas, strutures, chronoboost, units etc, and compare to their actual tech route. You will learn how to infer better after many games. Just constantly take note of when you can kill them straight up by busting if they go greedy on tech/economy but you do not want to do that until you are have almost perfected your mechanics. Even if you win, take note of timing windows that enemy can exploit and kill you straight up, but they are not good enough to realize that.

You would want to start out with FD's style of droning, lose by over-droning. Get a feel of how much you can drone each game, push your drone production to the limit. If you think you lost by over-droning, please confirm through replays that its not due to other reasons like scouting. For example, theres a huge difference when your ling scout sees the enemy moving out at the bottom at his ramp instead of seeing them only at xel'nega towers. This is also an opportunity to polish up your drone micro. Many battles will happen just at your natural, requiring the need to pull drones to kill them off. Win games by starving them out for now. Go crazy on your expansions. Use this chance to practice your mechanics. Use replays to check out how fast you can get away with your expansion to 3rd base based on the opponent's build. For ZvZ, it's a bit different. I would approach this match up from the opposite direction. Unlike other matchups, army that you spawn can actually be used for attacking. So it's fine to overproduce you army and squeeze in the production of drones here and there based on what u scout. Cut down your army production each game and increase the number of drones. The idea is to get a feel when you can kill them straight up or just play the most economical way possible when you want to.

After you feel you have polished up your mechanics, you can try to start playing more aggressively. For me i like to produce way more on army, as a larger army is more cost efficient which in turn save more larvae in the long run to power drone. I am more comfortable with the idea of using the whole map as my battlefield, able to kill my opponent once they move out instead of waiting for my units to spawn and fight beside my natural. I feel it's a safer way to play this way on ladder too. However it requires a bit more game sense in a way, since you need to predict and produce your units at the 2nd last min instead of the last min in order to keep up with economy.

Lastly, you would want to figure out your own style of playing. Which units you are more comfortable with, playing passively or aggressively. I find it more fun and effective to keep your options open and play unpredictably. Adapt to your opponent, kill him straight up when he's playing greedily. Mind f**k him by over-droning like a mad man when you play him the next time instead of the usual aggressive play-style.

Neo.NEt

United States785 Posts

February 15 2011 19:28 GMT

#65

On February 11 2011 04:25 Venomsflame wrote:
So far a lot of good information in this thread. I play in high diamond(Protoss mostly although I offrace every now and then and sometimes go random), and I find the difference between Masters Zerg and diamond Zerg TREMENDOUS. I have beaten many Protoss and Terran Masters, but I think I'm something like 1/9 against Masters Zergs. One thing I notice is against Zerg players my own skill it is a battle of unit composition and a macro race that ends through one or two mostly even pushes. However, when I play against a Masters Zerg I feel pressure ALWAYS. Zergs don't give their opponent a break when in the highest league, constantly throwing me off my macro game when usually it's the other way around.

I understand my sample is pretty small, but I feel Zergs play a fundamentally different game in Masters league. They are not afraid to be the aggressor and don't feel the need to play your game, setting the tempo themselves.

Honestly, it's kind of inspiring. It really shows how this game can be taken to a whole new level.

I remember before I was in master league I was on a really good run ZvP like 15-2 or something like that. Then they started putting me against master league tosses and things changed ridiculously quick. When a diamond toss went forge fast expand I was thrilled, but when the master league guys did it I was getting outdroned... so I would have to say the difference between diamond and master toss is macro macro macro.

I think the biggest thing for me getting to master was scouting. When I was low diamond my scouting was terrible and I didn't really know what I was looking for anyway. After watching all of the Mr. Bitter VOD's my ZvP scouting is insanely good (and I usually win ZvP). However, I have no idea what to look for when scouting T and my ZvT is VERY bad.... if you could have different ratings for different matchups I'd probably be 3000 master ZvP and 3000 Diamond ZvT honestly.

whomybuddy

United States620 Posts

February 15 2011 21:47 GMT

#66

Not master but Always balance your mineral and gas. Try to always have 1000mineral and 1000gas even if it's late game wtih 5+ base.

SovSov

United States755 Posts

February 17 2011 11:07 GMT

#67

i wish there was a list of timings for zvp and zvt. as far as i know there isn't, but could anyone make a quick list?

like, when does 6 gate pressure come if they went 3gate expand, when to overlord scout in the beginning (to see what route they're going), when to expect a 4rax all in after scouting it, 2base banshee, blue flame hellion, etc.

these to me seem like the real difference between diamond and masters. zerg is all about staying alive and if you dont know the timings (which is what makes scouting useful) then you will die.

aebriol

Norway2066 Posts

February 17 2011 11:43 GMT

#68

A master zerg is better at chosing when to build drones, and when to build army.

That's basically it.

Build army as needed. Otherwise, build drones.

I have low APM, low skill. But, I manage to get two bases saturated pretty well most games.

When watching diamond replays, it's depressing how often they end up playing a fair bit of the game with two bases, and .. somewhere between 18 and 28 drones. On two bases. Without being aggressive. Just ... being safe from whatever could maybe happen.

A master zerg knows that yeah, it's good to have 32-48 drones mining minerals from two bases. And manage to do so quite early in the game.

That's ... mostly it. Oh, and I used to not be able to do so ... when I was stuck in diamond.

Underdroning combined with too defensive a mindset is mostly the problem.

If you are making an army, you should use it as zerg. It's nearly always better for a zerg to kill off his whole army, if he kills off the whole army of the opponent as the same time. T and P get stronger in stronger balls. Zergs like surround. If you are going to mass up an army to defend, and you note he is not attacking ... then you need to attack, because you are now behind since you were building army and not economy. At least pressure some.

Juice303

United States42 Posts

February 19 2011 16:11 GMT

#69

this is more zvt related. At masters lvl I see mostly 2 raxx or helion openings(reactor or blue flame) into expansion. But that doesn't mean the Terran opponent can't still open banshee, open tank/marine, open 15 CC. They have lots and lots of opening is my point

.

so your a Zerg , IMO standard opening consist of always finding a way to get that hatchery down ASAP. sometimes 14gas/14pool is needed, mostly its 14 or 15 hatch tho. Your real opening comes after these Pre-openings IMO

- helions, pressure back with roaches instead of just dropping static D and playing defensive

- 2 raxx, get a decent amount of lings, don't try to break his main but hold his natural and delay expansion as long as possible, maybe force a All in if you delay it long enough.

- 1/1/1 banshees, pressure with enough banes to knock down a supply depot + enough lings to clean up the 4-5 marines at his wall and a few workers.

these are ways to put pressure back on a terrans opener instead of just sitting back defensively and defending their opening. They will force the Meta game you want in the mid game and make terrans get unit comps they or extra defense they did not plan, hence not allowing them to execute their cookie cutter builds perfectly. Or the terran is simply not ready for it and dies.