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So, I've made a thread before discussing the use of Banelings and most people have said the same things: I'd rather go roaches.
I want to talk to you about my recent usage of Banelings in ZvP and why I find them to be incredibly effective overall. I can't say how effective this will be in the Master's League as I personally am a diamond league player; however, I have to imagine it'd be equally effective.
So, How am I using Banelings? Well if you're protoss opponents are anything like mine, at the early stages of the game, when you scout him, most of the time, you'll see a gateway, a pylon, and soon a cybernetics core being placed down right at his ramp. The first zealot coming out let's call it 3:50. The zealot clogs the hole, and whether or not the guy is going 3 gate expand, 3 gate robo, 2 gate robo, 4 gate, or some cheesy stargate build, he's keeping that zealot blocking the gap, and will make generally speaking a sentry or a stalker out as his second unit. Well and good. Meanwhile, the protoss scouts me. What am I doing? Being a typical zerg. 14 hatch, 15 pool. Standard FE. No super early ludicrous gas. He's thinking: He's going speedlings, he's not making some big troops.
Most of the time, that observation is 100% correct. He'll check out one more for tech, and if there's no Roach Warren, he's preparing for a ling/muta game. If you think about it, you would too. But as speed is finishing, I'm throwing down a baneling nest. Why? Well let's talk about the points of the map and the thoughts of the player:
1) Protoss POV: He's scouted, he's seen the FE. He's seen no roach warren, no early gas, there's absolutely no reason to think some mega amount of slings are going to be produced. Why would they? He's got the gap blocked by a zeal, most likely has a sentry for a FF. There's no point!
2) Zerg POV: I've got 2 bases, I've got 2 queens and I can easily support loads of lings off a smaller amount of drones. Plus I won't need much gas to support the baneling numbers.
3) Zerg POV: If I bust through that first wall, without taking shots, or having to worry about FF getting me on the ramps, my sling numbers can overwhelm and I can end this game.
So. You scout again. You see let's say 6:30, and you scout 1 zealot, 1 stalker, and you see 3 gateways being made. 1 warp gate's finished. It's a 4 gate! Meanwhile speed is 30 seconds from finishing, your baneling nest is 7 seconds from finishing, and you've got 20 lings morphing as we speak rallied to his natural. Now it's 7:30, he's got 2 stalkers, and the rest zealots and sentries. You morph 10 banelings, leaving you with 32 slings to fight with once they explode. Now it's 8 oclock, you've baneling busted, you hit 2 pylons so he's food capped. There's a GAPING hole as you're 32 slings fly in. You've got maybe what? 7 zealots to clean up before you've killed everything? You basically get a full surround as you get to enter his base.
Needless to say, you won. But that's a 4 gate. That's the most aggressive build the protoss will ever do, meaning the MOST units will be out during that time with that specific build. What if it's a 3 gate expand? Or a 2 gate robo? There's no way he has as many units as that 4 gate. Doesn't matter, you'll still swarm your banelings in, time out one second because I need to address skeptics about FF: I don't care if he has sentries. 1) He's not always selecting them, there's no way he'll FF in time. And 2) If he does, you just back up. If you're any decent at micro, you won't lose them all. right anyways, you break in, clean up his army, and now you get to keep funneling slings into his base as you kill every last worker.
So let's get to the big questions. Why on earth does it work?
Well, it's based on a couple of things.
1) If you ever see a 14 hatch 15 pool as Protoss, you, much like a Zerg when he sees a FFE, thinks: this is going to be a macro game. Units CANNOT and WILL NOT be made from that side in large numbers.
2) Roaches don't do immediate damage. They WILL get forcefield every time as protoss has plenty of time to react. He'll just FF them out, outrange with stalkers, and GG sad Zerg.
3) Protoss who play against Zergs other than the aggressive ones who like ending it early like me feel very comfortable having little units if they know Zerg doesn't have a Roach Warren. He knows that plugging that hole up with a Zealot truly deters any attacks from a Zerg.
4) There's loads of rooms to adapt your build. If you're the Zerg and you see anything that makes you think "Wow, I really don't want to try to break that". You don't have to. You've set yourself up fine on 2 bases. You can just lair, grab your second gas, and power drones out.
5) Everyone's been so use to Zergs being the reactionary race that nobody feels their going to "set the pace" with aggression. Honestly, nobody finds Zerg's early game scary except for early pools and roach rushes. If he sees a Fast Expand, he feels comfy.
My conclusion: Banelings are DAMN powerful in the early game at truly either ending the game or causing some great havoc for a protoss. Whether he is doing a 2 gate, 3 gate FE, (I haven't tried this against a FFE yet, and I don't intend to as that's not what this build punishes people for), 4 gate, 2 gate/3gate robo, or stargate build. They all tend to have the same units, in the same position, and they're all equally vulnerable to this attack.
Now I'm going to dig up a few (unfortunately 2 different replays), both on the levels between 1600-3k Diamond level players where I've done this either in ladder or custom games to end the game early. And the maps range from Xel'Naga to Shakuras so it's pretty diverse.
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/144417-1v1-protoss-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/144419-1v1-protoss-zerg-shakuras-plateau
I'll try to make more, but unfortunately StarJewled and experimentation in ZvT has led me to not be able to find all of them. At any rate, they give you a rough idea about what I'm talking about, the vulnerabilities, and I'd like for you all to look at it, really watch the replays before you make final judgments, and see if we can get a good discussion going about my findings.
I hope I didn't waste all of your time by writing this 
~Jeffbelittle
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The fact is that with good micro, forcefields shut baneling busts down cold. It's possible for P to FE and hold this with virtually no losses, so you're counting on him screwing up. Sometimes they will miss a decisive forcefield, but as you face better players, it'll happen less often. If you really love you bling busts, tho, Scrap Station is the map to do it on. The 2nd entrance to the natural makes the defensive micro MUCH more difficult, and you're a lot more likely to find an error to punish.
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Yeah agree with kcdc. Baneling strategy depends on how good his FF are. Recently I was using early baneling nest to defend 4 gate or similar pushes and if toss has good amount of sentries you can't really do much.
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So. You scout again. You see let's say 6:30, and you scout 1 zealot, 1 stalker, and you see 3 gateways being made. 1 warp gate's finished. It's a 4 gate!
Hmm, shouldn't 4 gate already be enroute @ 6:30 ?
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Guys, I think I thoroughly went over that sentry numbers are simply not large enough at the stage of the game where this strikes for FF's to be a big deal. Not to mention: until it comes, all scouting has been denied to see any banelings.
Please just watch the replays and see that at the time of the attack, there is absolutely no way that sentry FF is too much of a threat.
Nodule: Most of the time, they don't attack until the 8 minute mark.
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Calgary25986 Posts
1. Who walls with Pylons? It's gong to be a Zealot by a Gateway and Core.
2. What if he puts a Stalker in the gap instead of a Zealot? You just lose?
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On February 26 2011 05:52 Jeffbelittle wrote:
Guys, I think I thoroughly went over that sentry numbers are simply not large enough at the stage of the game where this strikes for FF's to be a big deal. Not to mention: until it comes, all scouting has been denied to see any banelings.
Please just watch the replays and see that at the time of the attack, there is absolutely no way that sentry FF is too much of a threat.
Nodule: Most of the time, they don't attack until the 8 minute mark.
This is pretty plainly false. 14 hatch 15 pool won't have zergling speed till ~6 minutes. A persistent Protoss can probe scout your baneling nest. Moreover, P should harass you with his first stalker to get more scouting information, and when he sees way too many lings than you'd need for defense chasing (but not catching) his stalker, he will follow that stalker with at least 2 sentries and turtle with forcefields. Yours is a build that relies on your opponent being bad. It will work sometimes in diamond. It won't work often at high Masters.
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Your timings seem a bit off. You aren't giving the protoss player enough credit for how quickly they can get units out. With something like a 3gate/sentry expand, the baneling bust will do absolutely nothing.
And if you one base that long, you are going to be at a serious economic disadvantage. Banelings seem more viable in the late game if they have a heavy zealot/HT mix.
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Well, I am sorry if my timings are a bit off, I was basing them simply off the high diamonds actual replays. And given it says 0 of the replays have been downloaded by anyone I can pretty safely affirm nobody has checked it out to see if I'm right =/
At any rate, I don't really think it relies on opponent being "bad" at all. To answer your question Chill: If you honestly think you can't break you, that's fine! The whole idea is if you SCOUT this type of predicament, you can capitalize on the situation. That's all I was saying. I've just been saying, and these are part of the conclusions I made, that Baneling busting is very effective at dealing with certain Protoss openings. Also: They don't have to wall off with the pylons (though many protoss do), you may have noticed I morphed 10 banelings, not 5, which is more than enough to blow down additional structures/units.
The purpose of this thread at any rate is to discuss banelings usage in the early game, which are what my conclusions touch on specifically. Nothing else
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Calgary25986 Posts
On February 26 2011 06:08 Jeffbelittle wrote:Well, I am sorry if my timings are a bit off, I was basing them simply off the high diamonds actual replays. And given it says 0 of the replays have been downloaded by anyone I can pretty safely affirm nobody has checked it out to see if I'm right =/ At any rate, I don't really think it relies on opponent being "bad" at all. To answer your question Chill: If you honestly think you can't break you, that's fine! The whole idea is if you SCOUT this type of predicament, you can capitalize on the situation. That's all I was saying. I've just been saying, and these are part of the conclusions I made, that Baneling busting is very effective at dealing with certain Protoss openings. Also: They don't have to wall off with the pylons (though many protoss do), you may have noticed I morphed 10 banelings, not 5, which is more than enough to blow down additional structures/units. The purpose of this thread at any rate is to discuss banelings usage in the early game, which are what my conclusions touch on specifically. Nothing else
Yes, if you scout that a baneling bust would work and you've gone a baneling bust build, then you should probably do it. You may have noticed that 10 banelings does 800 damage to builds and 200 damage to units. A gateway has 1000 life, a cybernetics core has 1100, and a stalker 160. So you will be able to kill a stalker.
My question is: How often will a baneling bust work versus how far behind will you be if it doesn't?
The answer is: Not often and significantly.
Hence, this is typically a bad idea, unless you can prove that a) it does work often or b) it's simple to recover from if ineffective early on.
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Baneling busts are definitely good and viable against toss.
But theres a couple of key things: a good protoss will be looking at his ramp, and will FF in time to cut off a managable chunk of your army, and not get over run.
And they wont have 2 pylons at the front ready to get supply blocked, they will have a gateway and cybercore and zealot at the front, with the pylon further back.
To baneling bust into his main, you really need to get there before he has warpagates, sentries, and double gas up, because then he can FF indefinitely, and you are screwed.
Even on scrap station, he can wall off with like double gate cybercore, and still only have a 1 unit space that you can reasonably bust through, and thats easy for him to FF.
Your scouting drone is kinda vital for these kind of strategies. Keeping it alive, and running around his base will often encourage the toss to make a stalker first, instead of a sentry, that gives you more time until he has forcefields.
Stealing the gas, and repeatedly canceling and remaking it can also be a ton of help, it encourages him to make zealots and stalkers to actually kill the always building extractor (sentries have low dps), it encourages him to have his units further back, so if he attacks it with a sentry, that sentry wont be able to forcefield in time, and it also limits his gas, so again, making it harder for him to get lots of sentries.
As you can see, Im focusing a lot on sentries here, since they are the key unit that allows a protoss to shrug off all aggression.
Personally though, Id recommend against trying to bust into his main.
On the other hand, with lots of speedlings and some bling, what is nice to do if you want to be aggressive, is to deny his expansion on open nat maps (xelnaga and metalopolis for example)
If he is going for a 4gate, and you crush it with speedling or sling-bling, its relatively easy to walk to his nat, and deny him his expo. You are on 2 bases, getting more income, and his units arent really cost effective against yours, so you can force a cancel quite easily, and delay it until he built up a really sizable force to take his natural.
This works quite well against a 3gate expand, or a 3 gate robo, or stargate play, and so on too.
Oftentimes, with a 3gate expand, he will have a couple of sentries, and a couple of zealots, and while the sentries there can delay the invevitable for 15 seconds, if you have a bunch of sling and some bling, its not really going to be enough, he cant kill off your force and take over his nat, you can force the cancel, or wait for it to pop and then kill it. He is in a terrible spot at that point, since he has a small weak army, threw up some more tech or gateways which he cant support off 1 base, has too many probes to saturate a single base, and just lost a nexus.
Same thing happens with stargate, or robo. Except in that case, he also invested a lot of money into something that doesnt help him take his nat. Observers, immortals, phoenixes, or void rays are all really bad against sling/bling, and wont do much to help his nexus actually stay alive.
The upside to denying the expo, is that you can do it quite easily, good forcefields there can delay, but wont actually save his expo, and you dont need to all-in, you can easily match him on worker count and still have a sizeable sling army. Its overall a whole lot more solid imo.
The downside though, is that you are just putting him behind, getting into a great spot to take an early third, and so on, but arent actually winning the game outright as the bling bust into the main would.
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Chill: To answer your two points, I'm trying to prove it works consistently as I've done it in all games I've found the situation applies and have basically won most of them. As for how hard it is to come back, I wouldn't say hard at all. You're on 2 bases, and have totally scouted everything he is doing. You can simply power out drones, and keep your extra slings as defense until you get back to square one.
Let me make myself very clear: I don't want anyone to think that this has it's place in a good deal of protoss games. I am saying specifically, if you scout these type of situations, here is a good use for the previously shadowed baneling. (From what I've found at my area, which admittedly is only about 2800 diamond players)
I just don't want to make myself seem out to be defensive. I understand that there are definitely flaws, but I'm relatively certain that my success using banelings as such in these circumstances have greatly improved my game.
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On February 26 2011 06:08 Jeffbelittle wrote:Well, I am sorry if my timings are a bit off, I was basing them simply off the high diamonds actual replays. And given it says 0 of the replays have been downloaded by anyone I can pretty safely affirm nobody has checked it out to see if I'm right =/ At any rate, I don't really think it relies on opponent being "bad" at all. To answer your question Chill: If you honestly think you can't break you, that's fine! The whole idea is if you SCOUT this type of predicament, you can capitalize on the situation. That's all I was saying. I've just been saying, and these are part of the conclusions I made, that Baneling busting is very effective at dealing with certain Protoss openings. Also: They don't have to wall off with the pylons (though many protoss do), you may have noticed I morphed 10 banelings, not 5, which is more than enough to blow down additional structures/units. The purpose of this thread at any rate is to discuss banelings usage in the early game, which are what my conclusions touch on specifically. Nothing else
You seem like a nice guy. The answer is that banelings are okay against Protoss throughout the game, but they run into problems against forcefields. They're exceptionally fragile for cost (75 resources with 35 health--compare to a roach with a similar cost and 145 health), so if you can't get your banelings in range to do damage immediately, you're going to lose a lot of resources. That said, if you do get the banelings in range, they immediately clean out the sentries making the Protoss army more or less useless.
So banelings are good if you can find a way around the forcefield problem. If you're trying to bust a choke with banelings, you're just crossing your fingers and hoping P screws up. That will win some games, but it's not solid. By running into a choke, you're playing to the strength of the forcefields. You'd be better off making less zerglings and banelings and using them defensively in open areas where P can't forcefield well. Or use them in the midgame when you have drops researched so you can baneling bomb over the forcefields. Or use them in the late game when you have ultras to break the forcefields.
There's a lot of solid, stable ways to use banelings in ZvP, but skipping drones to baneling bust and hoping he doesn't forcefield in time isn't one of them.
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If you're saying that baneling busting a 3gate sentry expand works, you are straight up wrong. Even on an extremely wide open map like Xelnaga, I have enough forcefields to keep your banelings away from my pylons while I (and my cannon) pick your banelings off. Also, if you think you can bust a 4gater's ramp with banelings, you're going to be sorely disappointed.
Chill: Can something be done about 1400 Diamonds proposing strategies and using 1400 Diamond replays as proof? I'm not being a dick, I just think people who are going against 4gates that come at 8:00 and basing their strategies around that should be asking more questions and making fewer assertions. (Especially if their arguments include "I don't care if he has sentries. He's not always selecting them, there's no way he'll FF in time" quoted verbatim.)
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busts are terrible vs p. also what kind of 4 gate finishes at 6:30.
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Space: Let's not get rude here. I think you're being a tad unrealistic saying now you also have a cannon on your 3 gate expand at the time the bust actually hits. Also: I think you may have just misread the thread, but the baneling bust is only used if these weaknesses are scouted specifically, where you can effectively act on them.
I also know that you didn't watch any of the replays, as I provided with a quick expo going down, and multiple sentries, which do indeed forcefield, get caught by this specific strategy.
And as for proposing strategies: That's not at all what I want to claim I'm doing! I'm horrific. I'm still in mid diamond, so it's really hard to even try to claim my macro is DECENT and my decision making is CLOSE TO solid. This is just an open discussion about findings I've made recently that I wanted to share and talk about. This isn't a [G] guide. I don't want to seem like an expert, I'm just an Average player showing, with replays, what I've been up to lately and why I think it's working. If I knew it worked and I knew why for sure, I'd feel a lot more comfortable teaching rather than informing.
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On February 26 2011 06:43 Jeffbelittle wrote:
Space: Let's not get rude here. I think you're being a tad unrealistic saying now you also have a cannon on your 3 gate expand at the time the bust actually hits. Also: I think you may have just misread the thread, but the baneling bust is only used if these weaknesses are scouted specifically, where you can effectively act on them.
I also know that you didn't watch any of the replays, as I provided with a quick expo going down, and multiple sentries, which do indeed forcefield, get caught by this specific strategy.
And as for proposing strategies: That's not at all what I want to claim I'm doing! I'm horrific. I'm still in mid diamond, so it's really hard to even try to claim my macro is DECENT and my decision making is CLOSE TO solid. This is just an open discussion about findings I've made recently that I wanted to share and talk about. This isn't a [G] guide. I don't want to seem like an expert, I'm just an Average player showing, with replays, what I've been up to lately and why I think it's working. If I knew it worked and I knew why for sure, I'd feel a lot more comfortable teaching rather than informing.
I suspect that the reason that people aren't downloading the replays is that you've described a strategy that any decent Protoss has played against dozens of times. It's an economy-fake baneling bust. It's Zerg's favorite thing in the world to do on Scrap Station because, on Scrap Station, it's actually kind of hard to defend. Good Zergs will mix it in sometimes if the map favors it, but it's always all-in and it's always possible to defend with good standard play.
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It takes 5 banelings to kill a zealot.
It takes 4 zerglings to kill a zealot.
Just saying.
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Although I don't think baneling busts are that strong, I do think that banelings have a lot of untapped potential in ZvP, namely via baneling drops during mid-late game. JookToJung has used mass baneling drops to do heavy damage against your typical protoss ball (even colossus), but even if you just drop a few to kill sentries, that's huge. Also baneling drops on the mineral lines are great too - during an engagement, just load 3 banelings into an ovie and click your opponent's mineral line and forget about it. Costs very little on your attention, small risk, but potentially big reward if you wipe out half your opponent's probes.
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as everyone said, offensive banelings early game rely on the opponent to screw up. they work well against gateway rushes (4 and 6gate) because even when sentries are on the map a lot more ffs are required when there's no simcity, the control is more difficult, especially on creep, and it takes one tiny mistake to lose your sentry ball.
a 2 base bbust works against someone who went forge fe with the intention of teching hard (namely, the infamous 2stargate 1robo) because if they are not spending their gas on sentries they will have a hard time holding and they have no reliable scouting option for the majority of the early game. However, i don't think there is a way to effectively do that after scouting their tech, so it's still a blind allin.
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EPT
