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Greetings Team Liquid.
I ran into a very atypical Terran today who went for a style I never saw before. Naturally this might be part of what cost me the game, but even so I would like to hear any help you guys have to offer.
Replay:
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/164407-1v1-terran-zerg-shakuras-plateau
Basically I go hatch first, he goes command center first. I manage to harass and delay it some, and I feel I get a good drone advantage despite my silly mistake of completely forgetting spawning pool 
Then he comes with his blueflame hellions but I manage to throw moneylings at the issue. I grab some mutas, get roach warren and infestor tech down to aim for hive units since I know this is a big macro game and I need to be cost effective. Meanwhile he starts to mass up a ball of thors and hellions, and my ultralisk tech comes out barely too late to save my third, though I do manage to repel him. The game goes into mass macro mode with me throwing waves of roaches at him to try and soften him up a bit, but he is massing up a gigantic "death ball" if you will of thors, marauders and ghosts. My question is; what unit composition would work against this? Banelings will never be cost efficient, speedlings will be roasted by his already researched blueflame hellions. My roach waves get smashed, my mutalisk flocks get spamsniped while trying to magicbox the thors, ultralisks get blasted to pieces by his already marauder heavy backbone and even brood lords wont do well against those blasted snipes. The guy suggested infestors to me, but when he already has ghosts out, going for an infestor based play seems like suicide.
Help me out here guys. I know I should have tried harass, drops, nydus etc around the map to stall for time but even so - if I cant beat his ball head on, what good is harass when I will lose a base or two every time he pushes out.
Again I am in a game situation where I feel going for T3 cost me the game. Had I been 200/200 when his first push came on pure roaches I would have repelled it easily and could counterattack on a remaxed roach ball, but ultras are so slow to get out that it makes me want to cry. Is raw T2 OR a fast eco baneling or roach bust on his fast expo really my only choices here?
Any help appreciated, thanks!
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Tbh, I have had the same thing happen to me. I tried broods/ling/bling, and tbh it worked pretty well. But in the end I still lost. =[ You're not the only one having probs with this
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In that composition, I see nothing that is particulary good against speedbanes. Ghosts, unless sniping constantly, will die costeffectively just like the marauders and hellions.
The thors will be left over for your zerglings to pick off.
Going into specifics, losing your third lost you that game. You should absolutely get speedbanes up and saturate that third, because the bigger your economy gets, the sooner the game becomes like a ticking timebomb for the terran. If you kept that third alive, it doesn't matter that banelings are , according to you, not cost-effective ( even though they clearly are against clumped up... well.. everything ). If you have more resources than him then you can afford to LOSE more than him, thats the whole philosophy behind getting extra bases up anyway.
If I don't see tanks, he will have NOTHING to stop the banelings from hitting his army. And because you saturate your third sooner, he will have to push before his perfect unit composition is reached.
Watching the replay, you clearly SAW he was going to go for a CC and then a rax wall off. You could have gone for an eco-banelign bust right there. He only had 5 marines to protect him for goodness sake. Meanwhile, you spot the hellions in the middle ( after scouting the techlab on the factory, so you know he has blueflame ) and you proceed to send your entire zergling army towards him to make the ground smell more like barbeque. You only lost 1500 resources by doing that, aka a big fricking deal.
After you were dealing with the hellions, NO scouting on what his unit composition was. You only managed to see the thors once you flew your mtualisks over them, which is kinda not a great timing.
20 minute mark, he had 4 thors and 8 marauders. You had 29 roaches and 5 ultralisks. You didn't counter attack whatsoever.
After you massed ultralisks, you procceeded to go mass roach even though he went for a marauder thor composition to counter your ultralisks, you then procceeded to go mass mutalisk against his 3/3 thors with ghost backup, which he made to counter your ultralisks and infestors.
There were clear points in the game where you had won, but you just used an insanely silly unit composition to attack the opponent. You also NEVER mixed in banelings even though you knew he went for a bio-mech style without tanks.
In short, if you want to go for an ultralisk lategame, go for ultralisk/baneling/infestor. Not Ultralisk roach ( where the ultras might get stuck behind the roaches, and they are both countered by the same unit ). And if you want to switch into mass roach, make sure you don't make a unit before that that has the exact same counter to it.
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Adding on to whats already been said, you were behind from the first wave of hellions. He killed your entire army of speedlings off creep, and then you let him in to your main. There were a few times in the game where you had a chance to come back due to your opponents horrid macro, but you let his blue flame hellions work your economy over multiple times in the game, and then when you finally did engage him (the first push at your 3rd) you didn't attack with alll your units at once. You just kind of streamed them on one unit type at a time. You need to attack with everything at once. Somehow you managed to hold off that push despite throwing a ton of units away...
Then again after a major engagement near his base where it actually looks like you have a chance of coming back, you thought it would be a good idea to send 20+ clumped up mutas into his 4 thors+ghosts... with nothing else. Most of the game where you had mutas on the map, you didnt really do anything with them. Thors are incredibly slow, and his 4th+5th base had 2 turrets each... you could have been harassing his 4th+5th a lot more, and then when you DO want to use your mutas... magic box them... WITH THE REST OF YOUR ARMY...
Also there were a few points where you took forever to remax. It doesn't really matter what his unit composition is, or what your unit composition is, if you throw 40-50 supply worth of units against a ball of 120 supply, hes going to have enough left over for your next THREE or more batches of 40 supply armies. Your loss in this game had very little to do with unit composition, and very much to do with your macro, your engagements, and lack of harassment. Not to mention your inability to defend against blue flame hellions.
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Well thanks for the comments.
My macro is under work so lets leave it at that.
Any pointers on how to actually defend against blueflame hellions? I could throw up some spines but against many blueflamers spines wont stop them from dealing the damage they are sent there to deal... At least that is my own impression when I mess around with terran.
And to your point of me needing to counterattack sooner; Yep, this is a known weakness of mine. When I hold an attack I cant shake the feeling that he will have remade the units during the fight just like I do, I keep forgetting the other races dont produce as fast as Zerg - a clear mistake of mine and you cannot point that out enough, because I need to improve a lot on that.
Speedbanes vs marauders and thors? I guess I'll give it a shot, as well as work some nydus into my game when it drags out for that long.
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That composition is trash.
Ghost don't make much sense, because they eat up a lot of gas, that could have been spent on tanks.
Mass roach+ling into broodlords(maybe not even necessary).
Block chokes points early with roaches, defensively don't overproduce them. Meanwhile mass drone + expand to safe location (choke friendly).
Spread creep and mass 200/200, deny his expansions and flank his 200/200 attack.
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On April 15 2011 20:40 Thraundil wrote:
Well thanks for the comments.
My macro is under work so lets leave it at that.
Any pointers on how to actually defend against blueflame hellions? I could throw up some spines but against many blueflamers spines wont stop them from dealing the damage they are sent there to deal... At least that is my own impression when I mess around with terran.
And to your point of me needing to counterattack sooner; Yep, this is a known weakness of mine. When I hold an attack I cant shake the feeling that he will have remade the units during the fight just like I do, I keep forgetting the other races dont produce as fast as Zerg - a clear mistake of mine and you cannot point that out enough, because I need to improve a lot on that.
Speedbanes vs marauders and thors? I guess I'll give it a shot, as well as work some nydus into my game when it drags out for that long.
The best way of defending versus blueflame hellions is to not overreact and mass roach. Get a spinecrawler or two in the natural and camp some banelings on top of a ramp. Hellions can't look up the ramp and it works basically like a shrubbery that obscures vision. They will simply drive right into them.
Even then , if you scouted him ( and saw lots of gas geysers being taken ) you should have some queens around incase of drops or banshees. Queens can block hellions quite effectively and you can even put them right next to the ramp, makign it look like the ramp isn't blocked. Reaction?
Terran: Hot damn :D he is going to rage so hard if I run these hellions into his main and roast his mineral line.
*after he drives into the baneligns that are strategically placed just out of his vision*
Terran: I am a complete and total idiot, I am ashamed of me and my family and I would do anything to be able to fall off a cliff right now. i wish I had self respect and picked zerg instead.
( these reactions are slightly overexagerrated to amplify emotions ).
Please make sure you don't use speedlings against hellions in the open. The best situation for speedlings vs hellions is that they are hugging the walls because you can pin them against it.
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ive seen a high lvl TvZ with the Terran going for a similar composition (basically mech with ghosts to counter broodlords)
the zerg still went broodlord heavy and used infestors to neural-parasite a ghost and emp his friends
super heavy micro battles were the result with ghosts emping and sniping infestors and broodlords and infestors np-ing ghosts to emp, also countering cloak with fungal growth
whenever an emp vs his ghosts works your broodlords can go in uncontested and force him to retreat, it was quite close but in the end the zerg won with this
heres the game:
http://www.youtube.com/user/HDstarcraft#p/search/1/J0j2xQtzFUw
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It seems to me that that comp is only gonna really get dangerous if you aren't putting pressure on. His blue-flames were doing a good job of keeping you reactive, and saved the gas banshees would have used to get the ghosts. Well-micro'd Ghosts will shut down Brood Lords, Ultralisks, Infestors... all the really key units that Zerg fields late game. I'd say keep up a solid spine-crawler defense (As long as you can escape with enough of your drones, they need to keep replenishing dead hellions, as they need a fair count to keep incinerating your speedlings, and you aren't completely screwed.)
Infestors would have been good early, as they can shut down the hellion harass; they won't be as much good vs. the rest of the army once he gets his ghosts out, but the hellions are there to buy time at first. If you can stop the hellions, it's fairly simple to win back map control, at which point you can just harass and counterattack at will, preventing the Terran from getting that super gas-heavy Thor/Ghost combo, which is what smashes hive tech.
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Hi, old post, but my question not totally answered and fits into this thread 
you recommend Speedling and Baneling. But what about Hellions?? They do splash against baneling and speedling. It's not even funny.
Im just Platin, so can you tell me what Unit composition is good? Vs Thor Hellion (with few bio)
Keeping into account that I haven't teched any air, and he has a good tech in mech, so mass Muta wouldn't be my choice...
I read your answers carefully, but that wasn't answered. Thanks in advance.
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Ultra/Bane + some infestors but i think Ultra bane will be enough I mean 6 or 8 ultras 5/3 + mass banelings 3/3... around min 22 maybe
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Unless that guy is not deadly with snipe, try to fungal and bling rain that army;
also neural parasites on those thors with good placement will help substantially
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I just lost to this,
Fist of all, marauder eat roaches alive and hellions in critical mass can one shot a ball of baneling while kiting them.
Ghost lock down muta harass, they deal so much DPS and your overseers die in no time, 4 ghost can hold 2 bases. EMP also nuters infesters.
Speed banelings can't close on hellions,
You can't move out to deny his 3rd, hellions take map control they can rost you when you try to move out with speedling/baneling. you can't move out with roaches, they just die so fast and hellions will counter any time you move out.
I am at a loss as not how to deal with it.
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From what I've seen of pros play against hellions, is get a spine or two, get a third queen (so that two queens can block the ramp and a queen can still be at your main injecting), and just be careful with the lings.
As for the composition: Jeez I dunno. I would say mutas but I don't actually know how well ghosts do against them. Maybe baneling drop to kill hellions/marauders? A flank/spread will be good at minimizing the hellion damage as much as possible.
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United States15275 Posts
On October 12 2011 07:59 Infleto wrote:
I just lost to this,
Fist of all, marauder eat roaches alive and hellions in critical mass can one shot a ball of baneling while kiting them.
Ghost lock down muta harass, they deal so much DPS and your overseers die in no time, 4 ghost can hold 2 bases. EMP also nuters infesters.
Speed banelings can't close on hellions,
You can't move out to deny his 3rd, hellions take map control they can rost you when you try to move out with speedling/baneling. you can't move out with roaches, they just die so fast and hellions will counter any time you move out.
I am at a loss as not how to deal with it.
From a theorycrafting perspective, mass roach-bane with flanking from multiple sides will clear this up. Only the hellions have AOE damage, and it's not radial damage either so they are not very effective against the banelings. Not to mention thor-marauder-ghost-hellion is a very gas-intensive and awkward build weak to muta map control.
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By the middle of the replay you were on even bases with the Terran the entire game. You might not be a fan of Mutas but Mutas would have helped you a ton. He had his whole army defending his third and only 2 turrets in his mineral lines meaning his production facilities were wide open. Even his 4th and 5th bases only had 2 turrets each. It goes without saying that Thors are extremely immobile and defending that many expansions with Thors as your only AA is near impossible unless he decides to plant a Thor in each mineral line. Instead you suicided your Mutas into a Thor Ghost composition hoping that your 1-0 Mutas would beat his 3/2 Thors and Ghosts with snipe.
Other points:
1. On your first engagement with his army you suicided more units than necessary because you were so concerned about protecting that expansion. As a result all your Ultralisks weren't at in the battle and you suicided 3 Ultralisks as they were streaming in to try and kill the rest of the Thors.
2. You should've immediately thrown down a roach warren once you scouted those 3 factories. That many factories that early is almost a dead giveaway that he's going mech based play.
3. You should've been more aggressive. You basically sat and turtled up to Ultras while he freely took his expansions (see my point on Mutas)
4. Don't immediately abandon ling/bling just because you see Hellions.
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High Masters zerg here,
The answer to most weird encounters in ZvT is mass upgraded lings. I know you might be thinking "what about hellions?" but with a nice surround hellions are very crappy against lings. Watch some games of Stephano, a Terran composition with 3-5 hellions isnt as good as you would think vs mass lings.
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3-5 Hellions doesn't even qualify as the minimum for heavy hellion play aside from the early game. Your record is impressive but you could offer better advice.
This composition is very gas heavy. Thors are 200, Ghosts are 100 and Vikings are a whopping 75.
Do not invest in banelings because they are a gas investment too easily countered by Hellions at critical mass which are a mineral only investment.
All other gas investments are fine but be careful with infestors and mutas. With infestors hellions can still kill these reasonably quickly and EMPs will just ruin your investment immediately. With Mutas they will lose against ghosts in even numbers since all it takes is 75 energy for each ghost to eventually kill each muta. Also mutas lose effectiveness dramatically if the Thor count gets above four.
You need to think about how the terran army looks and stack your army with a composition that he is weakest in gas wise.
Early on he is going to be unbalanced in either Thors or Ghosts.
If he pushes with his army after spending his gas mostly on THors then Ghosts then engage with mutas to force him to snipe. Once his ghosts' energy are depleted move in with your ground army backed up by infestors. If you don't have mutas then I hope you have nydus worm researched because you are both going to engage in maneuver warfare. AS zerg you'll have speed roaches and speedlings vs hellions. I believe you need nydus because roaches are critical to defense and are poor at counter offense against this comp. Zerglings are terrible at defense but are your best weapon for a counter offense. The big draw back is that hellions in this ground match up are great at offense and defense and only cost minerals. With nydus worms you can actually be agile enough to use your roaches as offense and defense.
If he pushes with his army after spending his gas mostly on Ghosts rather than THors then engage with roaches and infestors. If you don't have both units you are in for a rough time IMO.
If he doesn't attack early on then expand like a mad man and shore up your defenses with spine crawlers and a single infestor for each spine crawler group.
You want the spines to alleviate your need to use roaches for hellion patrol duty. You need an infestor nearby each patch of crawlers to have fungals available and thus make it suicidal to attempt run-byes.
Do not over make crawlers. Use overlords to scout out the hellion numbers even if the Terran is being agressive with his viking to control air vision. You need to make enough crawlers to defend properly but you don't want to over commit to them since you'll need the minerals for roaches and even lings under certain circumstances.
By Midgame he is going to reached the critcal mass of Thors, Ghosts and hellions but he won't have the economy or production to support a replacement army.
At minimum he'll have 5 THors 6 Ghosts a flock of Hellions and a near equal amount of Vikings. For that much gas, if you have been defending yourself from the Hellions you'll have an army that can match him. More importantly with the type of gas he has been spending you'll be at max supply while he is sitting around 150.
Split your army in two and have one army bait his army but never commit to an engagement. Use your other half to destroy his production facilities. At some point his main army is too close to your main or very close to coming back to stop your aggression. At that point repositon yourself as fast as possible so you can use both of your armies to attack his deathball and employ enough micro to make it as a cost efficient a loss for yourself as possible.
Once your army has been killed examine what he lost and build what counters what he has left. Regardless use your judgement on whether or not you need to use soft counters that can be trained more quickly because of his proximity to your base.
In the lategame you are probably screwed and should just say GG depending on how poorly the big battle goes down.
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EPT
