If you don't go Ice Fisher or Roach, then you're pretty screwed against any kind of 4-6 gate all in. (4gate is ok with ling but not 6gate with sentries).
With ling infestor (adding some roach & bane for dps purposes), I had a fairly good amount of success (upgrading ling) after reading that post. When he had on some zealot, I just add the banelings. But I have a few problem with infestor/ling mid game against a protoss that know how to use sentries, I think baneling bombs are a must have ?
On April 21 2011 16:22 WhiteDog wrote: If you don't go Ice Fisher or Roach, then you're pretty screwed against any kind of 4-6 gate all in. (4gate is ok with ling but not 6gate with sentries).
With ling infestor (adding some roach & bane for dps purposes), I had a fairly good amount of success (upgrading ling) after reading that post. When he had on some zealot, I just add the banelings. But I have a few problem with infestor/ling mid game against a protoss that know how to use sentries, I think baneling bombs are a must have ?
Edit your post to include a replay of your problems with force fields and I'll discuss it here. Easy to drag and drop the replay here: http://drop.sc/
On April 21 2011 16:22 WhiteDog wrote: If you don't go Ice Fisher or Roach, then you're pretty screwed against any kind of 4-6 gate all in. (4gate is ok with ling but not 6gate with sentries).
Wrong.
You do not need 4queens/spine crawlers or roaches for any of the given gate timings.
4 gate can be held with lings. Sometimes spinecrawlers or banelings are necessary.if it is very zealot heavy.
The key to 5-6 gate is engaging far away to drain energy or take advantage of missed forcefields.
5 gate 2 base can be held with lings/banelings by engaging close to his base, backing off, re engaging. 6 gate can be held similar to 5 gate. Also, the easiest I've ever held off a 6 gate was with burrowed banelings.
Source: Titan and Aquanda on 12 weeks with the pros
this is the strategy i've been using since the infestor buff. the one problem i have is a timing push with 5-6 gate that hits just as you get your infestors out, i won't have enough of a army to stop it and have to go into making spines to defend which means he can choke me in on 2 bases until i can push out and this delays my third for a very long time (or just outright kill me right there)
On April 21 2011 16:22 WhiteDog wrote: If you don't go Ice Fisher or Roach, then you're pretty screwed against any kind of 4-6 gate all in. (4gate is ok with ling but not 6gate with sentries).
Wrong.
You do not need 4queens/spine crawlers or roaches for any of the given gate timings.
4 gate can be held with lings. Sometimes spinecrawlers or banelings are necessary.if it is very zealot heavy.
The key to 5-6 gate is engaging far away to drain energy or take advantage of missed forcefields.
5 gate 2 base can be held with lings/banelings by engaging close to his base, backing off, re engaging. 6 gate can be held similar to 5 gate. Also, the easiest I've ever held off a 6 gate was with burrowed banelings.
Source: Titan and Aquanda on 12 weeks with the pros
I'm a master's zerg by the way.
I'm a 3k5 master zerg on eu pre reset, I tell you, if the protoss is good enough with force field, it's really hard to defend a 6 gate all in with ling bling, not saying it's impossible, but the protoss can do massive damage. Now yes, burrowed bling might be a good choice. Aquanda is very different, he is fast expanding (3rd between 5 & 6min ?) and making a shitload of ling bling with upgrade (fasty +1), that's delaying the infestor by quite a few time: you might not have it in time to counter the 6gate.
I think my pb comes from my bo, I did not get infestor fast enough to kill the sentries with FG (which is great).
Just won a 50minute ZvP, we almost mined out the whole map well, he did, he had 10k more ressources), but my infestor based army was just being more cost efficient. Mind controlling his key units and fungaling all his stalkers really teared him apart. You don't really need to scout all the time anymore, cause immortal <-> colossi tech switches are both easy to handle with infestors. Infestors really solve a lot (not all) problems with ZvP, especially late game.
This ling/infestor thing is not going to break meta. It works against bad players, we can all agree on that. 50% of master level protoss are terrible players, who don't deserve masters. They can turtle their way to 200/200 2/2 and A attack and beat majority of their zerg counterparts.
The other 50% that actually understand their race and the game a bit will understand how to properly command the death ball and how / when to engage. That will lead to a quick and smashing defeat of the infest army.
The meta game of zerg, I think, is going to quickly shift to a very cheesy/all in race vs protoss that is focused around stopping them from hitting 200/200. I have a feeling its going to move to a very sacrificial style, because if the protoss gets 200/200 and his not a complete tard, you pretty much auto lose as zerg.
First time I try this strat the Toss goes 4gate no warpgate and pumps out mass Zealots, fuck yeah I love how no matter what I do I get directly countered. By the time I got roaches my expansion was dead and he was in my base.
I counter attacked because he didn't block his wall but he's toss so A move probes and my lings were useless.
On April 21 2011 22:13 Owarida wrote: This ling/infestor thing is not going to break meta. It works against bad players, we can all agree on that. 50% of master level protoss are terrible players, who don't deserve masters.
This is rather ridiculous, and I'm sure not all will agree on that. If you're talking about a few players exploiting bugs/hacks, fine, they may get to masters without "deserving it".
Saying that half of protoss does not deserve it is ridiculous. Masters is what Blizzard defines, not what your arbitrary standard decides -- *you* don't decide who "deserves" to be masters or not; you may not feel that they are skilled, but they are _by definition_ good enough to be in masters, at this point.
The other 50% that actually understand their race and the game a bit will understand how to properly command the death ball and how / when to engage. That will lead to a quick and smashing defeat of the infest army.
The meta game of zerg, I think, is going to quickly shift to a very cheesy/all in race vs protoss that is focused around stopping them from hitting 200/200. I have a feeling its going to move to a very sacrificial style, because if the protoss gets 200/200 and his not a complete tard, you pretty much auto lose as zerg.
You provide no arguments whatsoever in your post, and as such it's pretty OT in this thread. This thread is about dominating the midgame partly to stop the toss from easily getting to 200/200, and (especially earlier on) also about a possible new way of combating that deathball. Just arbitrarily spouting things like "[if] his [sic] not a complete tard, you pretty much auto lose as zerg" without any reference to all the previous discussions and examples is neither constructive nor interesting.
On April 21 2011 22:20 Sensator wrote: First time I try this strat the Toss goes 4gate no warpgate and pumps out mass Zealots, fuck yeah I love how no matter what I do I get directly countered. By the time I got roaches my expansion was dead and he was in my base.
I counter attacked because he didn't block his wall but he's toss so A move probes and my lings were useless.
Such a good game this is, oh wait.
Yes, this strategy relies on you being able to hold your ground until you have infestors, the OP has pointed this out explicitly, and there were various discussions on how to do so. So I'm not sure what you're trying to contribute :-)
4-gate no warp gate and just mass zealot should be very easy to scout. He can't chase away your overlord, and your ling pokes should show that something funky is up. At that point you really don't want to focus on mass infestor; since you'll know he's going for some non-standard 1-base push you should focus on surviving that first. (Mass infestor/ling is much easier if you see him FE or even take a third, since you have more time to drone and tech safely.) So, yeah, this build isn't about countering what he did, it's about the more standard mid-game (/deathball) compositions.
IMLosira played ling infestor today against Genius (and lost) showing that those strategies are playable. Still I want to point out that other than the OP says Ling/Infestor is FAR away from dominating a deathball. Genius kept on sniping infestors and lings with blink and Forcefields and even though Losira managed to mindcontrol 2 colossi in a major battle, he could neither kill the deathball or the colossi!
One thing I want to point out for learning this strategy: Losira did drone pretty hard in the beginning and relied on spinecrawlers for defense, getting his speed late! So if you watched the games from the OP: he was not in all in mode, while the replays in the OP are pretty much all-ins from the zerg with very low drones counts and late expansions to get his huge lingcount. Just saying this, because the OP must kill the deathball AND kill the opponent with his lings, while IMLosira would be in phenomenal shape if he just trades with the deathball.
One more thing I want to add: This strategy requires strong decision making (you have to be able to surround and maybe even to basetrade), strong mechanics (forgetting 2-3injects might just kill you because you will have 16-24 zerglings less), and good micro (your infestors are precious and your zerglings must not get traped and have to sourround very fast), so dont give up after 1-2 loses but keep on practicing it!
On April 21 2011 22:20 Sensator wrote: First time I try this strat the Toss goes 4gate no warpgate and pumps out mass Zealots, fuck yeah I love how no matter what I do I get directly countered. By the time I got roaches my expansion was dead and he was in my base.
I counter attacked because he didn't block his wall but he's toss so A move probes and my lings were useless.
Such a good game this is, oh wait.
Yes, this strategy relies on you being able to hold your ground until you have infestors, the OP has pointed this out explicitly, and there were various discussions on how to do so. So I'm not sure what you're trying to contribute :-)
4-gate no warp gate and just mass zealot should be very easy to scout. He can't chase away your overlord, and your ling pokes should show that something funky is up. At that point you really don't want to focus on mass infestor; since you'll know he's going for some non-standard 1-base push you should focus on surviving that first. (Mass infestor/ling is much easier if you see him FE or even take a third, since you have more time to drone and tech safely.) So, yeah, this build isn't about countering what he did, it's about the more standard mid-game (/deathball) compositions.
Yeah was just mad from losing, 4 gate mass zealot happens before you can even get lair, and I did scout it, it's just Zerglings are useless and I threw up a roach warren way too late, so I lost.
IMLosira played ling infestor today against Genius (and lost) showing that those strategies are playable. Still I want to point out that other than the OP says Ling/Infestor is FAR away from dominating a deathball. Genius kept on sniping infestors and lings with blink and Forcefields and even though Losira managed to mindcontrol 2 colossi in a major battle, he could neither kill the deathball or the colossi!
One thing I want to point out for learning this strategy: Losira did drone pretty hard in the beginning and relied on spinecrawlers for defense, getting his speed late! So if you watched the games from the OP: he was not in all in mode, while the replays in the OP are pretty much all-ins from the zerg with very low drones counts and late expansions to get his huge lingcount. Just saying this, because the OP must kill the deathball AND kill the opponent with his lings, while IMLosira would be in phenomenal shape if he just trades with the deathball.
One more thing I want to add: This strategy requires strong decision making (you have to be able to surround and maybe even to basetrade), strong mechanics (forgetting 2-3injects might just kill you because you will have 16-24 zerglings less), and good micro (your infestors are precious and your zerglings must not get traped and have to sourround very fast), so dont give up after 1-2 loses but keep on practicing it!
IMLosira played ling infestor today against Genius
IMLosira opened ling infestor today against MVPGenius.
Still I want to point out that other than the OP says Ling/Infestor is FAR away from dominating a deathball.
He transitioned into Speedbanes with Overlord Speed/Drop. He did not have the number of Infestors and Speedlings required to crush that deathball.
Genius kept on sniping infestors and lings with blink and Forcefields
LosirA was engaging with less than enough speedlings to support his infestors. Massing infestors and speedlings counters blink stalkers trying to snipe your valuable units.
100 gas, 100 minerals. There is no Stargate, well-placed overlords should be enough to spot any warp prisms.
10:15 (11:46) LosirA exchanges ~12 zerglings for 6 force fields
That's 300 minerals and 6 larva for 300 sentry energy. I think LosirA was hoping for a better exchange. Genius was quick with his force fields, and LosirA was lucky that it would have taken ~8 perfectly placed force fields in that position of the map to trap all ~30 zerglings.
10:33 (12:13) LosirA starts a baneling nest
150/150 and a drone. I think we have yet to see if banelings are necessary for accompanying zerglings and infestors vs Protoss in the mid-game.
10:59 (12:48) Hits Protoss natural with 6 infestors and ~15 speedlings
LosirA: 512 min 516 gas 115/174 supply Genius: 795 min 188 gas 121/124 supply
Hits Protoss natural with 6 infestors and ~15 speedlings.
If he made 5 less overlords, to instead be at 115/134 supply, this saves him 500 minerals and 5 larva. Unfortunately, 5 larva only makes 10 speedlings (250 minerals). So unless he had larva to spare, this isn't a direct exchange. If he had the 10 larva needed, the 500 minerals could have been 20 more speedlings (125/134 supply). (Having great timings and macro is why Flash is GodYoungHo)
Trades all of his speedlings for allowing his infestors to cast 3 consecutive fungals on the colossus and some other ground units. 4 sentries are taken out (4 remain). It's hard to determine how much other non-shield damage was done in total.
This all assumes that he could not have cut back on his 7 spines and 1 spore for more units and still have been safe early on.
Again, I don't believe banelings are the correct units to mass vs Protoss mid-game.
To anyone attempting to use this game as evidence of why Mass Infestors has weaknesses, please try to provide details (i.e. timestamps, supply counts, unit #'s) with your commentary.
On April 21 2011 22:13 Owarida wrote: This ling/infestor thing is not going to break meta. It works against bad players, we can all agree on that. 50% of master level protoss are terrible players, who don't deserve masters. They can turtle their way to 200/200 2/2 and A attack and beat majority of their zerg counterparts.
The other 50% that actually understand their race and the game a bit will understand how to properly command the death ball and how / when to engage. That will lead to a quick and smashing defeat of the infest army.
The meta game of zerg, I think, is going to quickly shift to a very cheesy/all in race vs protoss that is focused around stopping them from hitting 200/200. I have a feeling its going to move to a very sacrificial style, because if the protoss gets 200/200 and his not a complete tard, you pretty much auto lose as zerg.
If zerg gets ultras out it is still very powerful, I don't think good deathball control can overcome it. There are 200/200 comps for zerg that are not auto lose.
IMLosira played ling infestor today against Genius (and lost) showing that those strategies are playable. Still I want to point out that other than the OP says Ling/Infestor is FAR away from dominating a deathball. Genius kept on sniping infestors and lings with blink and Forcefields and even though Losira managed to mindcontrol 2 colossi in a major battle, he could neither kill the deathball or the colossi!
One thing I want to point out for learning this strategy: Losira did drone pretty hard in the beginning and relied on spinecrawlers for defense, getting his speed late! So if you watched the games from the OP: he was not in all in mode, while the replays in the OP are pretty much all-ins from the zerg with very low drones counts and late expansions to get his huge lingcount. Just saying this, because the OP must kill the deathball AND kill the opponent with his lings, while IMLosira would be in phenomenal shape if he just trades with the deathball.
One more thing I want to add: This strategy requires strong decision making (you have to be able to surround and maybe even to basetrade), strong mechanics (forgetting 2-3injects might just kill you because you will have 16-24 zerglings less), and good micro (your infestors are precious and your zerglings must not get traped and have to sourround very fast), so dont give up after 1-2 loses but keep on practicing it!
Agreed with the last part. I think it needs to he stressed that just because he lost doesn't mean it isn't viable. Genius just played amazingly well with great attack timings and some incredible splits. If it were any other Protoss, or were the match played on a different day, then it could have easily gone in LosirA's favor just as it had gone in Genius's that particular game
On April 21 2011 22:20 Sensator wrote: First time I try this strat the Toss goes 4gate no warpgate and pumps out mass Zealots, fuck yeah I love how no matter what I do I get directly countered. By the time I got roaches my expansion was dead and he was in my base.
I counter attacked because he didn't block his wall but he's toss so A move probes and my lings were useless.
Such a good game this is, oh wait.
U should not make comments like that about Protoss. If u actually think about it, why not micro your lings to both deny mining time and picking of probes. Also, when you think about it, Zergs are the most A move race in the game, allmost all zergs don't think about the way they engage, and especially in the earlier stages, just in a small ball. On the other hand, you should have prepared for that zealot without warpgate rush, scout it out, and counter it instead of sticking with your pregame plan alltough you know zealot rush hardcounters it, judging by your situation.
I'm absolutely loving this strategy after finding this past a few days ago. I'm diamond so the guys I play against aren't great, but neither am I. I tried it twice yesterday, both times on Tal'darim altar, both times infestors won me the games. (I still do roach/hydra/corrupter on the maps with smaller chokes. I assume this is correct.)
In the first game the protoss just did a two base timing attack that got crushed.
The second game was much better. There were several engagements, the last of which was a full 200/200 protoss death ball with at least 5 colossi and lots of +3 zelots/stalkers/sentries.
I'm sure we both make a ton of mistakes, but at the very least these games proved to me that zerg can kill a protoss death ball quick and efficiently. Thanks for posting this.
On April 22 2011 02:22 hitpoint wrote: I'm absolutely loving this strategy after finding this past a few days ago. I'm diamond so the guys I play against aren't great, but neither am I. I tried it twice yesterday, both times on Tal'darim altar, both times infestors won me the games. (I still do roach/hydra/corrupter on the maps with smaller chokes. I assume this is correct.)
In the first game the protoss just did a two base timing attack that got crushed.
The second game was much better. There were several engagements, the last of which was a full 200/200 protoss death ball with at least 5 colossi and lots of +3 zelots/stalkers/sentries.
I'm sure we both make a ton of mistakes, but at the very least these games proved to me that zerg can kill a protoss death ball quick and efficiently. Thanks for posting this.
The second replay you submitted was really something special!
On April 20 2011 01:26 Ipp wrote: If the Protoss player walks all over your creep and you can queue up the NP, uit makes it easy.
Any Protoss player who has used High Templars before will probably shut this play down. Feed back will ensure you don't get too many fungals/np's off while 4 storms will decimate any ling force.
See HuK v Nestea:
I'd like to see what would have happened if NesTea had waited to engage in the middle where he could have flanked the stalker/ht army instead of charging in from one side.
If I find that Zergling/Infestor alone cannot beat a High Templar backed army, I'm going to add mutas to snipe them, ideally when they're not protected by the stalker ball. I can't believe I didn't think of this before, as it's the standard answer to High Templar in BW.