As far as I remember, I already put some replays with shattered Temple; but no one with tal'darim altar. I think that overall longer distances is better (despite that it delays a bit the timing for the hydra push), as it allows you to develop more quietly before, and make things easier with mutas (avoiding counter basically). This is why I would recommend not to break rocks in scrap station.
By the way, I started to test drop possibilities, and it seems really promising: as you are on four gases, you don't have many resources problems. Basically you trade 2 or 3 hydras to nullify any kind of static defense, solve narrow path issues and creep issues, and diminish seriously the efficiency of sentries. So instead of having half an army attacking, you have 100% of a bit smaller army (around 12 hydras and 30 zerglings) to hit at the crucial timing ( a timing which doesn't change with the drop technique, maybe delay the attack by 5 or 10 secs). All this makes it very very interesting. I'll try to post replays later...
Tried this build a couple of times and got stomped hard by protoss who sat on 2 base and massed gateway units. Its probably my failure in macro (couldn't seem to get as many hydra/lings as you suggested in the time allowed) but I couldn't make it work.
I tried this build a few more times, and it shows good potential.
But as you mentioned, I don't feel like it's that good on close positions. It feels like you have to make a bit more zerglings while you wait for the expand, and this would transition better into +1 speed/bane, for the added mobility to safely expand to another main. This is still a nice transition though, but off topic.
One loss I had though was that I didn't clean up the sentries with hydras/lings, only the stalkers, and +2 sentries destroy +1 mutas. You need to have at least 2:1 to effectively engage sentries. But sentries are slow, so I could have won by simply sniping the probes, never engaging and going back for one more hydra/ling push. Live and learn...
yeah, I do these kind of builds too, and from my experience it works damn good on the ladder. It's really nice against P on close positions when he goes 3gate expand and then rushes for colossi. For me it doesnt work against forge expansions, as you cannot ling harrass, and on big maps, as I its pretty hard to attack with hydras there, and even if I do, it's already hard to reinforce even without cutting 4 hydras for the spire. Also good 3gate (fake) pushes followed up by some low tech attack 5gate/robo, 5gate/Stargate, 6gate absolutly destroy me with it on smaller maps, because there it's hard to get the eco for Hydras.
I prefer Roaches with all 3 upgrades. Gonna do a pro and cons on that here:
roaches: + burrow denies Force fields + they are faster and cheaper, so reinforcing is easier + they can tank some damage and they are fast so you can pull back easier + if he gets out a colossus or even has one already, they are way more useful + you can do roach all-in attacks earlier than the timing Im aiming for, which means protoss might shit his pants ^^ + u can do it of 3gas, giving you spare minerals to get a 3rd while you attack, or go for the 4th gas and no only get the spire earlier, but roaches and air dont conflict in the mineral/gas balancing (+) I like burrow microing single roaches (kind of zergish blink micro) +/- roaches get stronger following a kind of linear function, thus it is easy to do damage with smaller counts, and are good at trading units, however if you cant trade them, they cant keep up with the exponential growth of protoss strenght - they need a lot of micro - you need very good lair + roach upgrade timing in your build - you should be sure he doesnt have air - they get outranged by units behind wall ins, so it can be tough to break through smaller chokes - they are cheap, so they cost all your larvae and supply
Hydras: + they are good against most units he should have on the field at that point (GW units, immortals, air) + you force the protoss to tech (at least if he isnt crazy good with Forcefields) + hydras dont require to much micro. make sure they spread out and they will kill their opponents on they're own + hydras are expensive while being costefficient, so you get to have more spare larvae and supply +/- Hydras get stronger exponentially, which means if protoss doesnt get any hardcountering tech on the field (templar, colossi) your army just gets stronger than protoss, BUT hydras in low numbers are easy to kill and dont deal a lot of damage because they die so fast. so good forcefields can kill those expensive units without those small numbers doing a lot of damage +/- they are ground to air, which makes them universal early on, but once you get a spire, your main anti air will be mutas and corruptors, not to mention that zerg air is even gas heavier than mutas, leaving you no choice as to stop hydra production at least for a while - reinforcing is harder due to the slow speed of hydras - you have to go to lair tech to get the hydra den, and only when this finishes you can start the crucial range attack - you cannot retreat with hydras due to slow speed
ofc this list isnt complete, but thats at least everything that comes to my mind right now.
I tried some 10 min zergling/hydra pushes before, but your description gave me a lot more precise. Especially the muta play after the 2nd push great. blings would be nice, too!
On March 24 2011 04:17 Darkkal wrote: Macro should be a byproduct of your trained ability to use game mechanics well. It shouldn't be a concentration, nor should it be luxury. You need great macro skills, but macro should be subconscious. If you are saying that you should give up production for army value, then you aren't taking into consideration of certain situations. If he ISN'T attacking, there should be no reason to attack (unless of course you can just end the game right there with whatever you have). Zerg really isnt an aggresive race in zvp. If you try to be the aggresor, you are going to fall way behind in economy and the toss player can easily wipe out whatever units you pump out with a smaller army.
How do you counter the Protoss Death Ball if you spend your time waiting for 200 pop ?
Macpo, this is awesome. I played around with it a bunch yesterday, first against the AI to get used to the build and then vs a practice partner to see how well I could pull it off against a real opponent. I went 2-2 against him with this build. I tried it 4 times straight, just to give it a shot, without caring what build my practice buddy was using. I even told him I was going to use this build every time, and he still lost to it twice(he thought I was joking about doing this a bunch). He said 15+ hydras and lings were a real shock because other zergs just don't do this kind of thing.
The ling harass is a great idea, and I'm trying it, but maybe I'm just not good enough yet to do it properly. Lings always seem to get shut down early by the presence of cannons or sentries. I will say though, I feel alot safer in the early game with more lings than I'm used too. The map control, vision, synergy with the hydra attack, and ability to take down rocks early on for a possible later third base, make their cost(in my opinion), highly worth it.
I like the extra queen thing, glad someone else posted about that. The creep is nice, but not really necessary. I mean, so far I haven't had too much trouble needing to retreat for any reason especially because I know all those mutas are on the way. Also, the walk distance with hydras off creep just isn't terrible on maps like shattered temple. I'm really diligent about creep spread anyway, so that helps some. The other thing an extra queen helps out with is fending off an early void ray, or some warp prism drop harass(which my friend is very fond of lol).
I gave this build a shot on scrap station too! I wasn't sure how it would go, but from the loading screen I decided I would delay the spire just a bit in order to nydus lings and hydras into his base. This worked out really well because my opponent happened to go for fast dt's into expand. I knew he'd have a small army. I think it's possible that this build could make use of some more offensive nydus experimentation. It'd be great also for getting hydras across a large map quickly, or even for retreating them. I'll play around with this some more and see if I can fit a nydus in more efficiently in future games.
Finally, as soon as I tried this build out the first time I started to wonder if it'd be great vs terran too with some modification: Keep the basic BO, but throw down a baneling nest, and instead of a hydra den +range, get an infestation pit +energy ups. Instead of using all that gas on hydras you can get a decent amount of banes and a couple fast infestors ready to fungal right out of the egg. The spire seems like it could hit the same timing. I mean, I'll have to try it before I say anything else, but I wonder if this would work out well in ZvT.
Anyway, I'll play with this build some more. I love how the early lair and high economy helps this be so versatile and mean. Let's be aggressive zergs :D
This is a great strategy, and also a great start for ZvP. Zerg finally goes back into the aggressive harassment mode it's been known for, instead of dronedrone. =D
On March 26 2011 02:52 ZombiesOMG wrote:The ling harass is a great idea, and I'm trying it, but maybe I'm just not good enough yet to do it properly. Lings always seem to get shut down early by the presence of cannons or sentries.
If there is a forge, take a quick third. If you see 2+ cannons it is entirely safe. If you don't, it is still generally safe, because he won't attack before his +1 is done, and you'll need the extra larvae by then anyway.
As for sentries, if there's only a few of them, keep dancing with the hope that he'll waste precious forcefields. If he has a lot (8+, MC-style), any other tech is delayed, thus you can delay your hydra push slightly to have that critical mass that won't care about forcefields.
If he is turtling hard on his natural (warpgate wall, 2+ cannons), I think you can skip the spire, get drop, and just go fucking kill him. Sac a fast OV/make an overseer to see his tech/goo his robo, and take a brief moment to figure out the best spot for the doom drop.
If we're talking about a forge-FE, then it requires another opening entirely, but I find these pretty straightforward to beat.
tryed your Strat in a game on Xelnaga and it worked wonders!
first attack when speed was finished, i killed nearly 5 sentrys when his exp was up and 3 Zealots, run by into his main and killed a total of 10 workers.
the wirst hydra push dealed just some dmg, becouse i did alot of shit and got forcefielded, (the new pack of nearly 6 sentrys delayed his robo so much insane!)
then i build up a nice army mixed hydras lings and mutas. he attacked my third, was up and started droning up. he forcefieldet my Hydras away but my ling muta count was to much for him after the 15 sec of force field my hydras could attack his high stalker count and he "tryed" to run home, no chance against muta ling.
i got all my mutas attacked the main base workerline. whyle my hydra ling pack attacked his expansion. then GG
i missed just 2 or 3 injects so its okay for my 24 Diamond XD
Having yet to try it, I think it's great to think out of the box. The one-dimensional play style of Zerg isn't fun to me anymore, and maybe there's a colorful world of ravaging Zerg armies and scared Protoss armies cowering in their bases that still needs to be discovered. Will try as soon as possible. Props, dude.
I've always liked this type of pressure as it seems the toss player is doing 3 things at once while getting that death ball, which is probing(economic), units and tech. It usually is a obscure combination of all 3, this type of pressure lets us control what type of a game we want, and it's completely acceptable as we can have both our naturals saturated by the time their nexus goes up. I started to do builds which had me saturate, get 3 gas, get third/lair, and push with plenty roaches and force the player to make immortals instead of colossus, allowing me to go hydra and attacking finally as my third saturated. Idra does this aggressive play too as well, as we are familiar of how he attacks speedling speedroach as 4 gaters expand if their 4 gate fails. (against macroing, taking third and still having a great chance of winning)
Yet, we can still argue that scouting/droning, and getting the perfect moment to start producing units is ultimately better than having these timed attacks, its completely up to your individual playstyle. As I see myself, I'm always scared of doing this type of stuff, as I know if I make this mistake it will cost me the game. I'd say though, that the pressure will allow you to slow down their tech at the best, and in terms of meta game, have them feel like turtling. This is great for zergs who would rather think like "I have better economy"let me win" then those who say "I am winning, let me secure it by making more drones".
Also, as we see much more openings and balls from toss players that we can't just reinforce as we see them move out, and win due to sheer larva management, this will let us control the game, if not let us feel like we are.
Glad to hear that it works for you guys. I would be really happy to see replays from you, to see how you do it and take good things from it! it would be really instructive for me...
I've been doing a very similar strategy and I am so glad that zergs are learning that the 10 to 11 minute window is very scary for toss to deal with when they are going colossus tech. You say that the hydra ling push shouldn't be game changing but in my opinion if you see the robo bay there should be no reason to not send more lings in to win the game. As long as hydras have range and you have lings putting pressure on the gateway units its gg
i just watched some of the replays, it seems to me that the transition from a hydra force to trade out some of his ground army into a quick muta follow up is really good. it seems to me that u are bound to lose all ur hydra force in that attack there though but generally i like this aggressive build, thanks for sharing.
For the last two days, I have been testing the hydra drop version of the build, and I am very enthousiastic with it!
My main problem with the build, until now, was a strong forcefield defense against the hydra push. But as Moja suggested to me (big thanks to him), to droppify the build makes it much stronger, as it solves this problem. It works absolutely wonderfully (did 5 games, won all of them, including against slightly favored opponents - I am in Master league).
Basically, the trade is the following: 3 hydras less, vs drop tech.
You can still drop with 10/12 hydras and 30 zerglings or so, and what you get from it is:
1. nullify static defense. 2. almost nullify forcefields (maybe the most important). 3. have a much better unit positioning, as you welcome the toss units on his narrow ramp (very important too!). 4. you can do huge damage by sending some zerglings on the probes.
Definitely worth 3 hydras imho. Mutas coming a little while after just finish the job. you still have around the same number of mutas.
Also timings for gas are a bit clearer: when you see 3 gate expand, go for lair tech; put your three guys back in gas, and build another gas. produce as many drones as you can. When lair tech is finished, build the other gases, and it should be fine. Overall, 40 drones is a good number, although not absolutely necessary.
Start the drop tech and hydra range at around 7:30/ 8; overlord speed at 8:30/8:45.
you can fill in the overlords in your base, or close to his base, depending on how you feel I guess.
On March 27 2011 02:23 Tumor wrote: the drop option is a very good solution in this MU
i do it very often most of the time on Temple, Meta when we have close air or at Scrap station. it does wonders that u cant achieve with a Hydra "run"
the drop cost 300/300 what is about 6 Hydras in Gas or 3 Mutas later on. but the dmg u can do is it worth. most of the time its a game winner.
thx again for sharing this ZvP strat
Wouldn't you get overlord speed for scouting anyway? Unless you scout with an overseer, but I don't see why you can't scout with speed if you plan on dropping.
Plus, fighting under overlords spreading creep will make your hydras that much more effective, easily making up for the extra 200/200. With proper drop micro, you might even be able to cut hydra range out of the build, simply because forcefields won't be nearly as effective.
Plus you can drop lings to assist your muta followup... Gonna watch those replays now.
EPT
