PvZ Trouble - Zerg 2 base ling + Baneling drops!. - Page 3

On March 14 2011 06:25 Elean wrote:

8min mark, is when you can first scout with hallucination.

army tab : 41 drones, 2 queens, 1 ling at 25health with no upgrade.
I know lings are scary they have claws and stuff, but come on.

On March 14 2011 06:30 WhiteDog wrote:
When I go heavy ling baneling build into mass expand / something, I usually love when the opponent push me early (before the 10 minute mark) because he have no colossi and I can crush his sentries. Even if the fight is not that cost effectiv for me, killing the sentries is always the good step to victory.
Against that kind of tech, I have difficulties against protoss who turtle up, have good army management (you need to split stalker/use sentry well/make a wall of zealot which is good since he did not had any baneling in his army on the ground), and tech up to colossi/templar (I have a lot of difficulties against player that lure me into colossi and switch to templar).

3k2 master zerg on EU.

And yes, you would have killed him if you had pushed before, because he had only 2 hatch, that's not enough larva to pump out a good zergling army.

On March 14 2011 17:39 Amandil wrote:
I feel i should probably post in this thread since i'm the zerg here. I've been playing with baneling drop for a couple months now and came up with this strat to mostly counter sentry heavy compositions (3 gate expands). Dont worry papoolee, your not alone. Most protoss who 3 gate vs me die to this. This post probably will help you out as well as frustrate other protosses out there since i will try to give my build to other zergs on how to execute it as well.

The early game isn't particularly important for the zerg, just get ling speed before lair, expand and start your lair around 6 minutes. After you hit lair get your second gas up and drone to around 36-42 drones (16 on both bases + 6 on gas is a good number), after which pump lings till you move out. To be safe from "sharking" just make sure to have 1-2 spines if you feel they might try to harass. You can make this call depending on how many lings you have out on the field and spawn position. Threatening a counterattack with 12 lings can keep you safe quite often. Get drop immediately on lair followed by ovie speed and baneling nest in no paticular order. When drop finishes you should have enough gas for around 12 banelings, Load up 1-3 ovies for a drop in his main, a mixture of ling/bling works well since the banelings will leave the probe 1 hit from death. Load up 10-12 banelings for the frontal assault, and take 2-3 empty ovies to take fire. Aim for sentries and probes or if they ball up there army you can just blow it up and let lings finish up.

The purpose of this attack is to cause economical damage and reduce the count of expensive sentries. It is not all in (but you do have to do damage) since after you move out one round of drones will saturate both bases and you can proceed to transition how you choose, however since lings are larva heavy you will most likely need to throw down a macro hatch or third pretty soon.

6 Gates will counter your aggression, however 6 gates are also reliant on sentries to give them power. If you scout a large amount of gateway, make sure to delay any attack until drop is up ( there is a very small window where they can hit before drop is finished, but threatening a counterattack can negate this), then fight it at your base and crush it and continue the game to your discretion.

Stargates are a tossup. If they catch your ovies moving out you will probably lose, but if your ovies make it to there base before they scout it you'll do fine since stargate tech doesn't kill lings or banelings particularly well

Collosus just wont be out in time to deal with the attack, unless you cut defense, which isnt smart.

The hardest part of dealing with it for the protoss is knowing its coming. But if it is coming make sure to either have a couple stalkers or 1-2 cannons protecting your main. That will shut down alot of the damage. As for the frontal assault Make sure your not skimping on gateway units, forcefield off the lings and micro and split like a madman. +1 on zealots pretty much make lings easy to cleanup once the ovies with banelings are taken care of.

There...now my secrets are out.

On March 14 2011 07:39 PaPoolee wrote:


Please keep your lame "humor" out of the strategy discussion section, i had 5 sentries and a zealot and he could have easily made lings with 6-7 larvae and killed all my sentries which would have led me to my loss, + he had two spinecrawlers, and believe it or not spinecrawlers do very well against sentries!.

On March 15 2011 02:15 Validity wrote:


Wait so basically you could have walked to his base/a xel naga tower, made him make 12-14 lings instead of 6-7 drones, then walked back home safely?

Also, he had 41 drones when you had 5 sentries and 1 zealot? Holy crap? Did he open like 1 set of lings entire game + you got supply blocked or something?

Edit: +2 baneling drops on multiple bases midgame are freaking ridiculous and I have no idea why people complain about storm drops in comparison.

On March 14 2011 23:39 PolSC2 wrote:
Instead of going robo tech, what would happen if you went star tech and got 6+ Pheonix? You'd be able to get more gateway units out, and if you kept an eye on your scouting, could have cut his overlords off from dropping you. This way, you'd just have to worry about him busting his way through your front gate.

In my opinion, you don't need T3 to counter T1 units. But you do need pheonix to counter T1+Overlord drops.

On March 15 2011 01:57 Lobber wrote:
Archons, 1 hitting banelings and zerglings, takes what? 15 banelings to kill one?

Open heavy sentry zealot with +1, transition into 2 base zealot archon while continuing upgrades.

On March 15 2011 09:18 PaPoolee wrote:


I'm sorry but did i not make it clear enough with the bold letters in the OP that you should watch the replay before posting? stop posting in the strategy forum, your post is terrible and is not helpful in any way!.

On March 15 2011 09:38 Validity wrote:


When the reason you lost has a lot to do with the fact that the zerg was so far ahead that he was able to completely switch into aggression mode at such an early time and crush you, it is completely relevant to point out gameplay mistakes.

I don't think you're one to tell other people to stop posting in a strategy forum. 3600 masters does not make you superior in a strategy even though it puts a context to your posts (btw i'm playing at a higher level than you on ladder).

If you let a zerg go into midgame with 41 workers at the 8 minute mark because you did not pressure at all and that zerg chooses to play super aggressive then you will have trouble. I've found that ling baneling is very susceptible to early pressure because of how strong FF is against a pure melee composition--even banelings--and the ling baneling player wants to hit a suitable amount of drones as quickly as possible so they can begin to be aggressive without destroying their economy.

Going vr/immortal/gateway while teching to templars works well as VRs kill overlords a lot faster than phoenix (front can be defended fine with proper ff so VR's can defend in main against drops). Although baneling drops on your templars and sentries is a total bitch.

Edit: you're 3600 masters and you think a ling surround on your army midgame is hard to deal with? I'm actually really confused by this. Also you can get the VR's/phoenix to deal with the overlords fine as long as you don't tech straight to colossi. And PvZ can be played fine without colossi.

On March 15 2011 13:38 Eleaven wrote:
I've played this style as Zerg, and played against it as Toss. As with anything the key is to scout it out asap. Hallucination after gateway should be standard or your just being greedy and deserve to lose.

3gate stargate is pretty common so grab a void ray or 2, Use sentries to defend your nat, voids will clean up any attack on the main.

Hotkey each base' probes to something you don't use, or maintain good vision and just box w/ quick reactions.

as soon as they have wasted banes against your FF's and lost a couple overlords they will likely just have lings out, and be trying to morph banes for round 2, check any hidden secret hallways with a probe, whilst carefully pushing out of your nat to find the morphing banes.

Once you get to this point its basically an autowin as you add in more stalkers and just use FF to choke any more bane attempts.


- It may be possible to fill your mineral line with FF to stop the banes landing as a worst case scenario. Start the FF's from the outside and work in so you dont propel your probes outside
______

Disclaimer - The above guide assumes you are better than your opponent in terms of multi task and speed, if you aren't just work on that. Macro better react faster, scout better. Note down the timings and be wary of them. If your the sort of toss to use 1 hotkey for army and hover below 100apm all game, your going to have problems with strategies that play on the multitasking of their opponents.

In short, deal with it.
______