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On February 14 2011 10:22 Siraz wrote:
FF>Baneling. However, I think banelings are really strong and underused in this matchup. I've recently had success using them early game to stop 4 gate pressure. I've also used them to great effect late game. But midgame before you get OV speed/drop or ultralisk I feel banelings just get dominated by forcefields. For this reason I really think midgame zerg needs something more then banes.
I'm sure FF>zerg in general lol... ever see how much damage 12 roaches that are in front of FF do? crap. The other 2/3 of your army is doing the derp dance behind the FF while getting wailed on by the collosi once the front roach army is toast, in theory at least centrifuged banelings get to take out nearly all the front stalkers, which forces him to go zealots which have to hit the banelings lol.
I'm also positive OP's baneling build is just to drone hard, and not to smash his army, but keep his deathball low by constantly running banelings into his ball until your 3rds economy kicks in.
Because I've had 160 ish food and roach/hydra out, and my 3rd just got saturated, and I get stomped, at the score screen I'm only 1000 minerals ahead since my 3rd did nothing.
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I don't understand, from personal experience colossus destroy my banelings and forcefields don't exactly help the cause.
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This was so refreshing and fun! (Might not be a totally "new" concept, but the replays were entertaining!) I registered here to post on this thread (finally :p). Thanks a ton, Sluggy.
I've been testing out races and trying out all kinds of builds and playstyles to see which I am most comfortable with. I think this kinda baneling/brood lord/ultralisk play could be good. I am pretty much a 2v2+ player, so I need solid responses and branches for various race combinations and I have a protoss friend who plays around stalker + phoenix. I'm excited!
Also, a request to the OP: Could you post replays where you had some 1 base early aggression from your toss opponent?
Another, lower priority and off topic request: Do you use this much against Terran as well? Replays here too please!
Thanks and Cheers!
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On February 14 2011 19:43 FabledIntegral wrote:
I don't understand, from personal experience colossus destroy my banelings and forcefields don't exactly help the cause.
This is exactly why you use overlord drop banelings instead.
I want to comment that you under estimate the ability to have a standing army to clean up the left overs from your banelings. If you use banes/infestor alone, and it doesn't kill everything, then you're in trouble.
These days I will have a roach hydra army to engage the protoss deathball while baneling dropping.
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Wouldn't a standard army of gateway/robo army destroy this? The only light units would be zlots/sentries. Sentries could just FF and pick off blings as they struggle to get through to the deathball and colossi with their range of 9 would act like slightly gimped siege tanks while immortals could tank a ton of the damage.
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I had someone try this against me, and i just spammed zealots and congolined them to the win
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the main problem I can see with this is forcefields make banelings extremely hard to use vs P 
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I incorporate ~25 baneling in drops all the time. Mass banes might work... but if you misclick once your screwed bc its kind of like a one shot deal
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Couple things: 2-2 lings destroy unsupported colossus really fast, especially when their shields are already dented. Getting drops and overlord speed are recommended as soon as lair finishes to deal with forcefield. You aren't going to panic when he tech switches to colossus. You are going to say fuck you i'm making more drones, upgrades, infestation pit and expanding twice. The idea is to take advantage of the fact that he is going heavy tier 3 on a unit that takes 3 hours to build. Morph banelings as needed. Make like 40 of them if he stayed on two base for his big colossus attack. When you are comfortable just keep bane dropping his mineral lines.
Once your economy is 3+base and you have 4-7 infestors, you are going to want to switch to either hydras, hive units, roaches, or whatever you want. 4 base zerg with already upgraded ground can make any units they want. If he wants to expand with cannons take advantage of the fact that you researched drops as one of your priorities.
On February 15 2011 04:48 bsrealm wrote:
This was so refreshing and fun! (Might not be a totally "new" concept, but the replays were entertaining!) I registered here to post on this thread (finally :p). Thanks a ton, Sluggy.
I've been testing out races and trying out all kinds of builds and playstyles to see which I am most comfortable with. I think this kinda baneling/brood lord/ultralisk play could be good. I am pretty much a 2v2+ player, so I need solid responses and branches for various race combinations and I have a protoss friend who plays around stalker + phoenix. I'm excited!
Also, a request to the OP: Could you post replays where you had some 1 base early aggression from your toss opponent?
Another, lower priority and off topic request: Do you use this much against Terran as well? Replays here too please!
Thanks and Cheers!
Hey man I'm glad you enjoyed the replays. I just played a ZvT last night close positions on temple that used some of the same principles except he was super aggressive with drops on my cliff so we were both 2 base the entire game.
ZvT w/ early drops
I don't have any replays saved of getting 4 gated but my general plan to handle it is to get ling speed, and at another 50 gas build a baneling nest and leave just one on gas. By the time it finishes you have enough for 4-5 banelings which is enough to dent the zealots to help your lings clean up. Just stall as long as possible, constant lings. If it is an ongoing struggle, make sure to squeeze out a drone every once in a while so you can get 2-3 on gas for more banelings and keep a constant production flow. If you don't die, eventually his units become useless and he will either try to expand or panic and go void rays or dt or something. If he is doing a delayed 4 gate you can try to get 25ish drones + 3 hatch + 3 queen and +1 melee before pulling drones off gas. These builds are harder to read. If you think 1 base void ray shennanigans are going to occur don't skip on the queens. Also 4 banelings kill a dt so you can use that as a panic if you don't have lair or spores yet.
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Awesome video. Worst-case replays are always the best :D
Been having some great success with this overall. Every encounter feels so end-of-the-worldy. Will the banelings get good positioning, surround, dropped, etc. This makes it so exciting and rewarding to pull it off. And there is a lot less sentry action in 3v3s. Just a couple for initial defense and guardian shield.
I think its crucial to get a strategy that fits your style and I think this is it for me. When I just started out SC2 I tried this kinda thing, but wasn't good enough on micro, didn't really focus on picking a style and didn't stick with it for long enough. Now, I am ready!
I played only 3v3s today and didn't really need the infestors much. Had lots of room to move around on most maps. Ground/melee upgrades are the bomb. And with the banelings-on-demand stance, you get gas to usually hit up all upgrades and tech early which makes it even better. Most, heck all, of my opponents don't even have upgrades on.
I also like the overall "patience" and "lazy response" of this style. Now I dont care if I cannot prevent the opponent from macroing up too much, because I know (from those 10 videos, and a couple of my own games) that you can take care of pretty much anything :D. This does make me a bit too passive at times (which cost us a couple of games where we were clearly ahead, but didn't control the map as much as we should have).
I can't tell you how pleased I am to have discovered this post. Do keep sending me tough/close games versus all races (even if its via PMs so we dont annoy people here). Do you keep this up versus zerg? What if they go banelings/zerglings as well?
@DTs: I saw you use the 4 banelings in a couple of your videos whilst the overseer mutated/walked in.
@4gate/other early pressure: In a couple of 3v3 matchups today, I dominated early pushes (if they didnt attack me, hehe. One of my teammates just sucks, we are pretty much handicapped if the going gets tough). I had so much room to move around and I picked off reinforcements and such while my terran/toss team mates held off using sentries and the usual blocks. Cut on the expansion to get some crawlers to stop their lings from harassing me and once the early units were dead, I expoed up. A few banelings did help as you suggested. Pretty much stopped all drone production and had a couple on gas.
@Air: In 3v3, there is an increased chance that you get air from someone. My toss ally goes stalkers + phoenix in most cases and with a couple of corruptors and extra queens (love 'em for base AA), its fine.
Once again, awesome stuff, keep sending in the replays! Perhaps you should have a DropBox or something of your replays folder so I can just pick them up as you play games :D
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This sounds very similar to what I've been trying, thanks for putting it into words better than I could  I love massling + upgrades and I always morph banes when I see him pushing out. I love how it allows for aggression if you see an opening and how free your gas feels to get upgrades like ovy, seer, burrow, hive (for 3/3 and adrenal)
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The argument that all protoss has to do is split up his army because zerg has no way to take advantage of this seems to be forgetting that banelings are morphed from zerglings. The zerg isn't required to morph 100% of them into banes. A split up army is tasty pickings for zerglings
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Pure theorycrafting on my part as I do not have a chance to try this (low masters for what it is worth) but due to the prevalence of colossi over HTs in ZvP, FF might be a non-issue if you use a NP'd colossi to destroy any FFs your opponent puts down. Combined with the immobility of FG, and you are set to melt a deathball.
The kicker is you have to run in with lings, NP'd the colossi, then FG the ball (else the colossi will be FG'd and cannot break FFs) then run the banelings in all in a rather short period of time.
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Did a massive overhaul on the original post and added an analysis of a pro level game.
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So i have to bump that thread. Imo it deserve way more attention.
I'm very curious about those new ZvP that we saw recently and this strat in particular seems to me the most solid. No rushes to Ultra without upgrades, no investment in potential useless teck, and most of all a solid eco and drone count.
And now we have the new modification on PTR, fungal seems to get back to instant cast but with the buff on damage ( shorter duration and bonus to armoured ). This could make that strat even stronger.
Regarding the Acquanda thread, it's not as specific. I see more that as a very aggressive eco playing where Sluggy wants to have his T2 sooner to have drop and speed bane. But both use the same army comp.
Either way this is how i feel ZvP should be played, Roaches and hydra are more of a support unit considering that their not as supply effective as a bane/ling composition. Obviously the terrain is freaking important with that strat.
Sluggy in the OP there are some "Supplementary Replays" but it's seems like the one i had. Do you have more to share ?
I would be glad to have some as a top diamond kind of casual, i find some situation pretty hardy to handle without any model. Mostly the 2 stargate opening where the protoss harrass a tone. I guess that i don't make enough ling at the mid game, you seems to always produce a good amount and maybe you can answer those heavy air investment by some ground aggression. I'm kind of lost when i'm facing that i have to say.
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As a protoss player, fungal growth on my blink stalkers is very tough to deal with. Im sure overlord bane drops on top of other would be very difficult.
Hydra drops are so deadly against protoss. Many protoss (including me) use blink stalkers to counter zerg drop play, as our composition is usually colosis and gateway units. Unless a stargate is mixed in. But as we know, hydras are pretty good against stalkers without colosis. You have to catch the colosis out of position though, otherwise the colosis will have time to reach the drop location.
Finally, you are vulnerable to sentry based attacks before drops come in to play, which is why it is critical to have drops done around the time a typical 6 gate timing hits.
This is exactly what I was going to say. The 'HuK' style 3 gate FE with sentry is very popular. A 5-6 gate timing is very popular follow up to that. I heards drops cost 300/300? Even if you drop his main, will you have enough army in general to win in a base trade?
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I wouldn't be surprised if either he or xog saw this thread and they started messing with it. Two days after the OP was made i see mr. bitter posting about how aquanda and xog are using this in some KOTH. There have been posts popping up about zerg-jesus Sheth using versions of this as well, so that answers questions about validity^^
super_bricklayer: Thanks for your comments, and I completely agree about these fast hive builds being too flimsy. Right now what is happening is protoss are on auto-pilot, using an 'incontrol' standard style every game, regardless of what the zerg is doing. That works great when zerg is going roach/hydra/corruptor, but this destroys it. I have played many games of protoss doing expand(or sometimes even just 1 base) in to 2 stargate openings. I'm not sure if I have any saved. It is easy to get caught off guard and lose a bunch of overlords to this, but it is also completely manageable by skipping drops and getting infestors first. Meanwhile you should be forcing cannons with your lings and killing destructible rocks while calmly droning and preparing to take your 3rd.
I know I have few games of close positions on slag pits that can be awkward but winnable. I still have plans to extend this thread a bit to show what can go horribly wrong and how to fix it. I have some more games against void/col and non-colossus openings as well that I will organize and upload when I get home.
Quaffle: I initially use drops defensively just so I can happily keep my econ/tech going when he is doing a big sentry/col timing. After that phase is over it is on to baneling dropping mineral lines and later on doing hydra drops wherever his army isn't. I think it's perfect because you can send off 8-12 hydras for a drop harass and still have sufficient baneling/infestor/ling in case he counters, so I don't really get in to base trade situations. Another thing that fits in to this is following the drop with a nydus for a super fast retreat if needed, or reinforcements if there is potential for more damage.
The combination of drops + nydus in the late game has a ton of possibilities and gets around the shitty situation where the toss just kills all nydus attempts with probes.
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EPT
