10 [10] - Overlord 10 [10] - Single Extractor trick 14 [18] - 179 minerals - Extractor 13 [18] - Spawning Pool 15 [18] - 3 drones to gas 15 [18] - Overlord 15 [18] - 2 pairs of Zerglings 17 [26] - Queen 19 [26] - 88 gas - Pull drones off gas one by one. Send 1 drone to scout 19 [26] - Metabolic Boost 19 [26] - Drone x 2 21 [26] - Start Expansion Hatchery 20 [26] - Drone x 2 22 [26] - 2nd Queen 24 [26] - Drone 25 [26] - Overlord 25 [26] - Drone x 9 29 [34] - Use 2nd queen to spawn creep tumor to connect main with natural. Send queen to natural. 34 [36] - Overlord 34 [36] - Drone x 2 34 [36] - Transfer 6 drones from main to natural and inject larva at natural hatch. Split up 4 zerglings to scout the map. 36 [36] - Overlord 36 [36] - Spine Crawler at natural 35 [44] - Drone x 2 41 [44] - 2nd Spine Crawler 40 [44] - 3 drones on gas 40 [52] - Sacrifice Overlord to scout Protoss main 40 [52] - Drone x 6 44 [52] - Overlord 46 [44] - 3rd Spine Crawler 45 [44] - 2nd Extractor at main 44 [44] - Overlord 44 [44] - Upgrade to Lair 44 [46] - Drone 45 [46] - Extractor at natural 44 [46] - 4th Spine Crawler 43 [46] - Drone x 9 52 [60] - 5th Spine Crawler 51 [60] - Drone sent to empty main for building hidden Infestation Pit 51 [60] - Drone x 8 59 [60] - 6th Spine Crawler 58 [60] - Drone x 2 -- Supply Blocked -- 60 [60] - Overlord 8:16 60 [60] - 4th Extractor 59 [60] - Overlord 59 [60] - Drone 60 [60] - Lair Completes. Drop creep with overlord. 60 [60] - 7th Spine Crawler 59 [60] - Drone 60 [60] - Overlord 60 [60] - Evolution chamber at natural 59 [60] - Speedling production begins 62 [76] - Infestation Pit at hidden creep 67 [84] - Hydralisk Den Cancel Hydralisk Den +1 Melee Pathogen Glands
Detailed Build Order with Timestamps and Other Events + Show Spoiler +
10 [10] - Overlord 0:40 10 [10] - Single Extractor trick 1:04 14 [18] - 74 minerals - probe scouts wrong base (3-player map) 1:38 14 [18] - 179 minerals - Extractor 1:51 13 [18] - Spawning Pool 14 [18] - probe enters base 2:19 15 [18] - 3 drones to gas 2:30 15 [18] - 224 minerals - Overlord 2:41 15 [18] - overlord scouts idle gateway and protoss starts cybernetics core, 2x gas 15 [18] - 2 pairs of Zerglings 3:06 17 [26] - Queen 3:07 19 [26] - 88 gas - Pull one drone off gas back to minerals, 2nd drone to scout, leave 3rd drone on gas 3:18 19 [26] - Metabolic Boost 3:28 19 [26] - Drone x 2 21 [26] - 20 gas - Pulls drone off gas 21 [26] - Expansion Hatchery started 4:02 20 [26] - Drone x 2 22 [26] - 2nd Queen 4:23 24 [26] - Drone 25 [26] - Overlord 4:37 25 [26] - Drone x 9 29 [34] - 2nd Queen places creep tumor to connect main to natural and lumbers to natural 5:19 34 [36] - Overlord 5:43 34 [36] - Drone x 2 34 [36] - Zergling scouts pylon below ramp. probe, 1 zealot, 2 sentry descend ramp, (another sentry almost built) 34 [36] - Transfer 6 drones from main to join returning scouting drone to mine at natural and inject larva at natural hatch. 4 zergling split up to scout the map for forward pylons, hidden tech. At about 5:59 LosirA has scouted ~80% of the map. 36 [36] - Overlord 5:58 36 [36] - Spine Crawler at natural 6:06 35 [44] - Drone x 2 6:13 41 [44] - 2nd Spine Crawler 6:19 40 [44] - 3 drones on gas 6:22 40 [52] - Sacrifice Overlord to scout Protoss main (scouts 2 gates for a total of 3) 3 sentries warp in to kill it 40 [52] - Drone x 6 42 [52] - Spreads creep tumor 6:39 44 [52] - Overlord 6:46 46 [44] - 3rd Spine Crawler 7:00 45 [44] - 2nd Extractor at main 7:01 44 [44] - Overlord 7:02 44 [44] - Lair at main 7:06 44 [46] - Drone 45 [46] - Extractor at natural 7:14 44 [46] - 4th Spine Crawler 7:16 43 [46] - Spread creep tumor 7:17 43 [46] - Drone x 9 52 [60] - 5th Spine Crawler 7:38 51 [60] - Drone sent to empty main for building hidden infestation pit 51 [60] - Drone x 8 58 [60] - Speedling scout 8 sentries, 2 zealots, no forge as nexus finishes. forge is above the ramp. hallucination 75% complete 7:57 59 [60] - Spreads creep tumor 8:02 59 [60] - 6th Spine Crawler 8:03 58 [60] - Drone x 2 -- Supply Blocked -- 60 [60] - Overlord 8:16 60 [60] - 4th Extractor (257 min/244 gas) 8:19 59 [60] - Zergling spots 2 hallucinations made 8:20 59 [60] - Overlord 8:23 59 [60] - Drone 60 [60] - Lair Completes. Overlord at empty main drops creep 60 [60] - 7th Spine Crawler 8:29 59 [60] - Drone 60 [60] - Overlord (3 in production now due to supply block) 8:33 (overlay shows 1 drone and 2 zerglings killed) 60 [60] - Evolution chamber at natural 8:38 59 [60] - 9 pairs of speedlings 62 [76] - Infestation Pit at hidden creep 67 [84] - Hydralisk Den 2 drones then back to speedling production Cancels Hydralisk Den +1 Melee Pathogen Glands but 0 infestors 74 [92] - 3 drones
Infestors are not as good as they should be versus Protoss - IdrA
I wonder if there are ways to adjust to [a fast-expanding Protoss] in an extreme way - Day[9]
If there's just one key thing that can make the Zerg mid-game really strong; that could flip the whole match-up. It only takes one strong thing, that's reliable, and even if your opponent knows it's coming, can't hard counter it safely. That's all it takes to revolutionize a match-up - Tyler
ZvP - Dominate the Mid-Game with Mass Infestors and Speedlings
The reason why Mass Infestors and Speedlings are such a powerful mid-game unit combination is because you have control over the levels of dps they can put out: from very small to extremely high. Fungal Growth prevents Protoss units from escaping to regenerate shields. The fact that Speedlings sometimes cannot get great surface area to deal damage is not as important as keeping Protoss ground units, especially Stalkers without blink, in a tight ball, while not hindering the Infestors from getting into position to cast their spells.
On April 21 2011 02:18 Yogurt wrote: Just tried it for the first time and OMG is it powerful and so much fun. I did a spanishwa style into mass lings and all infestors with some in his mineral line. It's so so so strong even with the awful micro I had
On April 20 2011 17:06 pt wrote: I always open with spanishiwa's opener so that I don't have to get roaches to deal with early attacks. I can just go straight to massing infestors with very fast upgrades and hive tech.
I personally like to use fungal, then neural parasite their colossi, use them to crush force fields, then bring them into the center of my army so that my lings can destroy them.
I find that this works best in open areas. I try to use this as map control and try to stay in open areas as I take the whole map. If the protoss tries to move out into the open areas, he will most likely die. I also combine this with constant baneling drops on his mineral line so that I do not just sit there with 200/200 and wait for half an hour for him to mine out and not be able to expand. This makes me feel like a very dirty player.
On April 21 2011 10:56 MrBitter wrote: So I've been playing around with this all day, and I'm pretty convinced.
Stopping 6 gate is not as trivial as some might lead you to believe, but I think that once you get into a healthy mid-game, this type of strategy is absolutely overwhelmingly powerful against a traditional deathball.
On April 20 2011 21:59 MapleLeafSirup wrote: Hello all. I have tried this strategy twice in high masters and one time it worked, one time it did not...
Protoss can beat it with his standard play, they just have to focus fire all the infestors ASAP... i know this is a lot but you need to get these parasited colossi back ! Afterwards they will melt the zerling waves.
But this strategy has a lot of potential and I think there is a lot room for improvements and refinements to make it even better
Employing heavy use of Neural Parasite will lead to many lopsided games. You either win big, or lose big, it depends on a slew of factors, primarily how many NP's you land, for how long, and on which units.
Micro mistakes with infestors are punished severely and will often lose you the game. This unit composition has a high variance in combat effectiveness. I think the only way to reduce this variance is through practice.
I believe this is primarily the reason that pros have shunned Neural Parasite and infestors in general. They want reliability so that they can consistently win games and tournaments, and fear having a huge lead destroyed by a few seconds of bad micro.
On April 19 2011 12:10 BallsOfSteel wrote: I tend to favor Roach/Corruptor based strategies, but I can see that this has potential. Using Colossi controlled by NP to negate FF usage is a nice touch and I'll try it out. Since you will be getting Melee and Carapace upgrades consistently, this could also transition nicely into a late game with Baneling/Infestor/Ultralisk.
The one thing I see preventing this from being a guide is the lack of opening build(s). From the replays, I would say these are the basic requirements for this mid-game strategy: - At least 2 bases with saturation on both minerals and gas - Lair tech - Enough map control to fight in favorable positions
Since these are requirements for the strategy, they should be the goals for any opening builds that you incorporate. I use two that I think would be ideal for reaching these goals quickly, without giving an edge to your opponent.
1) 11 Pool, 19 Hatch (I picked this up from a replay of EVORekatan) http://www.youtube.com/user/Rekatan#p/u/7/8tStlgu8Tfg - Aggressive style that tries to gain advantage by denying enemy expo - Harder to Pylon block since the Hatchery goes down as 2 sets of Lings spawn - Has the option to forgo the mid-game of Ling/Infestor if you see an opening to end the game sooner - Very good against 1 base play (4Gate, early Robo tech, etc)
2) 15Hatch, 14Pool or 16Hatch, 15Pool (no real difference between the two for me) http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=207017 - A good example - Defensive style that uses Queens and Spines to deal with early pressure (if there is any) - You can stop at 2 Queens and go heavy on Spines if you think a rush is coming or - You can get 2 Spines and go heavy on Queens if you think a rush is coming (preferable, since it also deals with air and doesn't lose as many Drones) - 2 or more Extractors when you have saturation on both mineral lines
On April 19 2011 15:48 Carmine wrote: I don't have any evidence but i think that roach-infestor would be a better unit composition. There are several reasons.
-Roaches cost a little gas. This gives you something to spend gas on other than just infestors/upgrades. This is important because of saturation reasons.
-Roaches can burrow-move similar to the infestor. This gives you more incentive/rewards for researching burrow.
-Roaches and infested terrans both share the same attack upgrade. A synergy you wont enjoy with zerglings.
-Roaches have a ranged attack. This would be more useful against fungaled zealots. Also, less stalkers would be able to attack your army at a time.
-Fungal growth and Neural parasiting Colossi are both going to give you a lot of DPS vs the protoss army, so I think the tankier roaches would compliment this better than the zergling (with high dps, low health.)
I'm not saying you shouldn't get some Zerglings, but i think a very roach heavy army would compliment the infestors more. Also ofc making Zerglings when remaxing could be a good idea because of the fast build time.
On April 19 2011 16:44 nymeria wrote: You bring up a lot of good points.
- Roaches cost a lot of supply. A roach/infestor 200/200 army is weaker than a zergling/infestor 200/200 army.
- I see your Ranged Attack Upgrade synergy argument and raise you a Melee Ranged Unit-Combo synergy.
- A fungaled-but-not-NP'd colossi not safely in the middle of a protoss ball will take damage from outer lings while lings underneath it's legs are attacking other ground units. This is huge.
- Roaches tend to get in the way of your infestors while zerglings do not.
On April 19 2011 16:52 Xanbatou wrote: I think there's a good reason why the OP doesn't get roaches in this build. Infestors are the cornerstones for this build. If you get roaches, you are using up gas that is critical for getting plenty of infestors as well as researching all the upgrades you need. It would really slow you down.
I didn't see this in the replays I watched, but this seems like it would transition nicely into ultralisks if you have plenty of infestors left over after the first major army clash (although the game is often over at that point anyway).
On April 21 2011 01:12 GosuSheep wrote: Roaches not only cost too much food and a NOT insignificant amount of gas, but also get melted by stalkers and immortals. Also, lings prevent the protoss ball from getting a nice concave AND being able to snipe NPing infestors. When you NP a colossus, if you are using roaches, stalkers can just walk up and boop your infestors.
This needs to be combined with banelings. 2,2 or even 3,3 sling/blings murders Protoss balls. When you fungal so they can't move, all your banes hit, especially if on creep.
Also, as a side comment, if the enemy is going heavy air, mutas can be another option, but it seems that infestors still do quite well.
EDIT: Someone mentioned chargelots. They get melted by banes.
On April 21 2011 07:24 AzureD wrote: Ling Infestor is my mid game plan while going to Hive tech. It is just an army that is threatening enough to the Protoss player. Although sometimes I mix it up with Banelings.
Also I do not think Roach Infestor has as much synergy as you would think imo. The Roach has the lowest dps of any Zerg unit. Something that I do not like when used with Infestor abilities other than Infested Terrans which share upgrades. I like the high damage Zerglings more as it kills quickly.
Roaches have durability but lack killing power which does not go as well with Fungal and NP which are short time sensitive abilities. Also Roach Infestor is slower to come out while Ling Infestor is more rapidly prepared. It also does not work as well with my eventual Hive tech plan which calls for upgraded melee from either Ultra or Broodlords.
In addition Roach cuts into gas for upgrades. Although I can see Roaches being more forgiving of mistakes. Maybe a combination of both where Roaches lead the charge and Zerglings swoop in after Infestors have done their job. Roaches do not need the damage upgrades in this case.
On April 19 2011 15:48 DarthXX wrote: I have started using Ling Infestor too recently, and I love it. Infestors beat VRs, they beat phoenixes, since ur not spending ur gas on anything else (like corruptor roach hydra) you can get a shitton of infestors who really do roll collosi, since you get heaps of NPs to burn. Also transitions nicely into Ultras later in the game if you need to since you will laready have melee attack upgrades for ur lings, or if u choose to go BLs the broodlings are updraded too.
Salazay Germany. April 19 2011 22:09. Posts 1 Joined TL.net Friday, 27th of August 2010 tryed it.
awesome!
On April 19 2011 22:28 Antimage wrote: This strategy is awesome. coL.Ryze has perfected the ling/infestor opening and transitions.
As a protoss, the best way to combat this is to get 2-3 colossi before taking your third. From there, TURTLEEEEE until you max, and get a few stargates and a dark shrine. You need to be able to deal with whatever transition the zerg chooses - use halluc to keep scouting their army composition. Be ready with VR's against broodlords and archons against zerglings/banelings, with of course more colossi vs roaches. Use ur gas wisely.
As zerg, to help prevent toss from taking their 3rd too easily, get banelings with speed and be ready to engage as soon as they move out into the open.
The last time I matched against him in ladder, the entire map was taken for a 40 minute long epic macro game where army trades happened all game with many tech switches from both players - definitey much more fun than the stagnant roach/hydra/corruptor vs stalker/sentry/colossus war.
PS i'm at work so no rep available =)
On April 20 2011 01:25 Shinrae wrote: I started doing something similar to this today (before even reading the thread), and havent lost a single game :D
Fungal + Infested Terran spam just cuts through armys like crazy once you get enough infestors (and if sticking to lings, thats a lot of gas for infestors) In one game I snuck the infesters into their main and watched with a banana grin as the infested terran's cleared out all of their tech in a matter of seconds.
Im sure this wouldn't work half as well in a more respectable league, but down here in Plat im not having any problems at all with getting the numbers I need. (Although, Ive not come up against a toss yet... But for what its worth, infestors are now my favourite unit :3)
On April 20 2011 05:50 etceteraetcetera wrote: Lately I've been going ling/roach (if needed) early game into standardish mutaling play midgame to get the econ up and prevent his econ, and as my mutas slowly start to lose their value, anyone who plays mutaling vs protoss knows that point I'm talking about, I start to get infestors out to complement my lings, and i don't think I've lost a single zvp using this where I've gotten to the point where I have about 15 mutas. The rest of the game of keeping their econ stifled with mutas and crushing their army with ling/infestor, brood lord if it goes on long enough, is just ez mode. Sometimes I mix in banelings for fun if I'm at a huge advantage :B So yeah, this definitely works, I've tried it, and it's a blast, and fungal counters the counter to mutaling, blink, and honestly suiciding mutas to pick off high templar if they make them is the best way to deal with them, and if you successfully get all of his templar even losing all your mutas, you pretty much win.
On April 20 2011 07:24 EternaL_9 wrote: Add in mass banelings with this and I have NO idea what to do against it.
I used to deal with baneling / baneling drops by using blink / forcefield / sentry micro (FF wall banelings, blink back, micro back / spread colossei.. but now with fungal being used by every master zerg I can't do any micro, I'm calling it broken but that's fine considering that the infestor will probably be nerfed once it becomes more popularized. Forget mass void rays, a few fungals on them and they're dead
On April 20 2011 07:41 Dudemeister wrote: I do the same thing but I mix in some Hydras and get Ultras afterwards: http://www.emilj.se/zergvtoss.jpg
Look at his army value! 1300 more gas and 1900 more minerals and I smash him! I come out ahead with 40 supply of army left. Ling, hydra infestor. The strength lies in fungal growth. Because the Protoss army clumps up so much, a single fungal can potentially deal ~700 damage
When I get Ultras later I find it really effective to mix in some banes because they just slaughter zealots and forcefields isn't an issue anymore.
On April 20 2011 08:27 Noocta wrote: Getting 10+ Infestors is ridicously strong for zerg atm. Terrans or protoss can't move out until they have the perfect army. If they do, they finish crush and zerg only lost lings as keeping infestor alive is way easier than ppl think ( use burrow, don't group all your infestor when you're poking to FG, spell range 9, etc ) It's way more efficient than a baneling heavy army since you don't have to remake them.
On April 20 2011 08:39 MrCon wrote: Mr Bitter just pwned a protoss deathball on his stream, with this exact build, lings and infestors. The P even had feedback and storm, but it didn't matter, it was a roflstompage. As soon as you have enough infestor to chain 3 or 4 fungals on 2 places at once, and when you neural the colossi, it's just brutal <3
On April 20 2011 08:58 DeltaForce wrote: yeah omg ive been facing this build online and its brutal *sigh* needs a master toss to come along with a counter to this, but im guessing 4 gate with good ground upgrades with 1-2 stargates massing out phinux? i is a sad protoss player as im just getting back into ladder. oh well, back to laddering
On April 20 2011 09:46 Crescend1 wrote: I have tested it today in unit tester vs protoss friend. We were both masters. Generally, its viable, and very strong, but every zerg needs alooot of training with this to make it work. This strategy is entirely about positioning/micro. If u mess anything, you get raped in a hardcore way, and u have no chance to come back. If you do it right, battle is even, or u rape Protoss, depending on minor factors. Also, infested terrans are key to this strategy, as fungals dont stack. So after some point, mass energy increase dps of army only with terrans. It's very very tricky strategy, but it's ridiculosuly strong. Also, this must be supplemented with ultras late game, i think that getting collosus to break ff is crazy hard, u need to make good engagement, u need to fungal like 3-4 segments of P army, neural all collosus, reneural collosus if infestors are killed, throw terrans, and not let infestors die if they charge on enemy, or get too close. Microing single collosus to break 6 ffs, is quite hard, and still slow.
And ultra infestor raped most P armies with easy. Thanks for author for this thread, i tried infestors before, but thought they cant work. I guess getting like 15-20 helps alot to turn tides.
PS. Even with collosus count about 5-7 this strategy is viable. We tested it many times, nearly always with armies about 100-120 supply. Also hts doesnt help too much, same goes for archons.
This is high platinium, both of us. I should have parasite as well, because I was using parasite with bane drop on the protos 200/200( in antoher game)deathball with voids (with success, i got like 50 larva to remax, he had 1 almost dead colo and 6 stalks left), this game i chosed teching to hive and going ultras instead(toss had blink stalkers). Ultras were late anyway
I see a great deal of potential in this unit composition, on my level of skill (plat/dia) toss is struggling with this. Mass high templar can feedback infestors and hard counter this, but almost never toss is going HT even when he know my unit compo and tech.
On April 20 2011 12:00 Knutzi wrote: i always knew this day would come... now im gonna have to work to win in pvz : (
this strategy is crazy strong and there is just so much that can be added to it.. baneling drops zergling drops ultralisks to crush forcefields etc etc
i fear that if the really highlevel pro zergs start practicing this instead of clinging to the outdated roach/hydra and corrupter mix zerg will start to crush protoss
On April 20 2011 12:09 Dommk wrote: Well if anyones watching HuK's stram, CheckPrime is doing this in some way. Roach/Infestor/Ling/Broodlord late game, absoutely crushed a 200/200 3/3/2 upgrade Templar/Colossu/Archon Deathball with the use of Neural Parasite.
Then he switched into Ultra/Ling/Infestor, which he would have won if he didn't sacrifice 8 Ultras/3 Infestors and a bunch of Roach/Ling trying to kill 5 Archons -.-
In other news, Archons with 2 Shield upgrades and 3 attack upgrades are scary
Infested Terrans hard counter Archons
On April 20 2011 15:30 Barrin wrote: Dude I was saying InfestorLing was awesome since the beta! Some people were intrigued but many disregarded it. But I knew. I KNEW IT WAS BALLER. I knew that in time people would figure it out. I was right.
By the way I just throw in some hydras if they try to go air, works like a charm with fungal growth added in.
I also predict Neural Parasite being used more often against terran but also protoss.
good luck zergs, you guys should use moar ultralisks
also this. ultralisks are stronger than people think.
On April 20 2011 17:45 Dommk wrote: This is such a pain in the ass especially when after a battle you go for the push but the Zerg is poping nothing but Infestors and you can't make it up the ramp because everytime a fungal wares off two/three more Infestors pop and keep you in place whilst whittling your army down to nothing :/
This + Mass spine crawlers late game gives me head aches <_>
Most importantly, from what I've seen in the master/GM leagues, this strategy simply doesn't hold weight on its own. Infestors/lings can be very effective together, given the right situations - saying that it hard-counters the death ball is simply incorrect. :-\
That was what Double forge was like for the first 3-4 Months, it really took a few good players--namely Tyler-- to actually start turning heads.
From what I've played on the ladder this seems to work quite well, especially on HUGE maps.
On April 20 2011 18:36 gnutz wrote: I'm a Protoss player, low master league (after reset, before 3k).
And i think Infestors are highly viable. i faced them a few times.
If you play standard InControl style they are ... unfair. Infestor/Ling demolishes Stalker/Sentry and the 2 Colossus you have when you get your 3rd so badly. It feels worse than getting FFed, because you think you can't get anywhere on the map, no Harrass possible, because everytimeyou move out you lose all your sentries and half of your Stalkers die. I really need a whole new gameplan against Ling/Infestor, and still i think i will be the one who is the Terran in BW TvZ.
If you go Cruncher Camping Style, yoou do no damage with your air, ifdefended properly. Then you move out against a 3-or-4-Base Zerg. And what happens? Your unkillable "Deathball" with like 10 VRs, 5 Colossi, rest Stalker/Sentry gets DEMOLISHED by Zergling/Ulralisk/Infestor.
After that game i waslike "wtf? did he have anti-air?"
So i can say. It has to be the right way. Infestors are the future and imo now a must-have against Protoss.
As Protoss you now cannot get a Zerg to T3 anymore. You need timings. Really good timings.And if you miss the first, your next timing will get destroyed by Infestors. Without a way to come back.
You can really turn the tide of any battle, they work insanely well. With NP youre able to be to deal with immortals AND colossi which is a huge advantage over corruptors. I have to experiment more though. (I'm masters league btw)
On April 21 2011 00:46 Alejandrisha wrote: I remember the first time I lost my 200/200 deathball to ling/infestor/ultra/baneling drops. It wasn't even close. Fungal combined with baneling bombs on a toss ball is absolutely retarded strong. Think about it. Toss units get exponentially better the more you have and the tighter they are balled up due to forcefield and the surface area of attackers. You exploit that by bling drops (ya if they have blink they only lose 2.25 speed units if they aren't looking... UNLESS YOU FUNGAL 2X AHHHH) and just cleaving the stalkers to death with ultras.. you only need like 1 or 2 to trample forcefields honestly.
Sure, you have to make sure you're not getting 6gated (and baneling bombs can even be out in time for the 6gate push but you have to wait above a cliff since they won't have an obs to see it coming.
On April 21 2011 03:55 Volka wrote: This is the way to play zvp. I really enjoy the dynamics between Infestor and HT. Screw boring Colossi and Roaches!
On April 21 2011 05:56 phrenzy wrote: I feel like on Cloud[9] at the moment . I just beat a Master Protoss (not off-race btw) on Metalopolis...Close Positions!!!.... I on the other hand just got into Platinum.
All it took was around 5 or 6 infestors.
And I just got back into Platinum from being demoted to Gold (when I played my placement match in Season 2, which I won) after having a really tough time against toss. And being so frustrated, since getting back in ive played no games on the Platinum ladder and have been doing custom games trying new stuff out.
After trying to pylon/cannon block me in when i seen he went forge first i noticed something that i guess a lot of players are noticing. Extremely greedy play.
He still went ahead and tried to fast expand, so i made a bunch of lings and shut it down. He tried it again after no warpgate tech (I think). All he had was zealots but then out came the void rays.
After spreading creep right up to his base unchallenged and with the attempted and failed phoenix/void ray harass, i wondered how much of a ground force he had by poking a ling around his natural. There were two Stargates at the front I saw around 8 or 9 void rays.
Im not the greatest player in the world (obviously) and i knew i wouldn't be good enough to hold a third base, but i think i could get it down in the attempt to catch his army off guard and rush his natural. Well... thankfully it work.
I expanded to the far Gold and those 10 or so void rays strolled right over my bitching creep (clumped together in a nice big ball with a ribbon attached) and the 8-9 infestors that i had couldn't scuttle fast enough to lay down the best fungals ive ever landed.
After a flurry of fungals all but two were left.
The biggest grin ive ever had was on my face and after he GG'd, my smile turned into the biggest laugh iv'e had playing this game. (Even though he played really badly)
Ive been really having a tough time just playing the ladder, i know my apm far exceeds Platinum, probably well past low Diamond (with no spamming) but my mechanics I think are on par with my rank.
And as i said earlier, i don't think i would have been able to hold a third, especially the gold (it wouldnt really matter what expansion i took).
But i think i dont really understand the game that much and maybe for a lot of other players. After watching the replay, i think i could have just busted the front and killed him when i shut the expansion down. So it seems wrong that i didnt.
Question
I guess thats another topic, but can one be aggressive with infestors, there is a lot of talk is about using them when you need to... when they push out, can a zerg initiate a battle when they feel comfortable to instead of holding off what comes at them?
Neural parasite work very well against collosi, because they target the zergling first and you have plenty of time to NP all of them. HT isn't that good. Better than colossi, but without KA, it is very delicate to use.
On April 20 2011 15:30 Barrin wrote: Dude I was saying InfestorLing was awesome since the beta! Some people were intrigued but many disregarded it. But I knew. I KNEW IT WAS BALLER. I knew that in time people would figure it out. I was right.
By the way I just throw in some hydras if they try to go air, works like a charm with fungal growth added in.
I also predict Neural Parasite being used more often against terran but also protoss.
good luck zergs, you guys should use moar ultralisks
also this. ultralisks are stronger than people think.
I knew, and posted about it too! Haha, credit to the @OP though for taking the time to really drive the point home by including the video and the replays. I don't think much was written about Neural Parasiting Colossus, certainly not presented so well. I had done unit tests where I Neural Parasited Colossus, and fungaled the deathball, but usually failed to pull it off in real games, but this was before the fungal buff.
The key to infestor/ling working I think is that mass lings often force the Protoss to go into ball formation and lay down a lot of force fields as the lings charge in.... which sets them up perfectly for fungal and NP. Force fields actually can make Neural Parasite far more effective by keeping the enemy away from your infestors!
Definitely takes some micro skill to pull this off, but I think after a little practice most players can pull this off, and certainly pros can.
I think most of us that have theorycrafted our brains out about infestors have predicted that eventually they would start to be used a lot more, to solve many zerg weaknesses. The same thing has happened, or will happen for Queens, Neural Parasite, and Nydus. We are already seeing more top players utilize that stuff that was ignored for a long time. Even baneling drops used to be a rarely seen tactic, but it is now becoming increasingly more common.
Appendix:
Some pretty long posts I have made about infestors:
My guide to Neural Parasite versus Thor, where I discuss the "damage swing" caused by stealing a Thor, the same type of analysis could be applied to Colossus. (spoiler, by stealing a single Thor, it can cause a 1500-2000 swing in health loss/dealt) http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=144948
Hi there! I’m phrontis, 31 year old korean-american Zerg player. I am a long time reader/lurker of TL.net. Before this thread, I was vying with TSL 1's Liquibet winner BreakEnter for the crown of fewest posts per year.
I started playing BroodWar 1998 with my brother Zelniq. In BroodWar, we played all three races in mostly non-mirror matchups. I partly blame this for our difficulty breaking into B- level on ICCup. If only there was a tournament where players had to play each matchup (best of 9).
Unlike my brother who started playing StarCraft 2 since the beginning of the beta, I only picked it up last November. Here's my sc2rank profile if you're interested. My brother advised me to pick a race besides Zerg to play (i think because he said something about how he feels Blizzard designed Zerg poorly), and thinks I did it just to spite him. Not true. Zerg was my strongest race in BroodWar. Speedlings were just too good. (hmm....) My speciality was only being able to comfortably use 3 hotkeys for Zerg units (Maximum of 12 Mutas on #1, 12 Zerglings on #2, 12 Zerglings on #3...which is only about 28 supply hotkeyed. Yet somehow i was able to manage siege tanks on #4 and vessels on #5. Go Figure). The rest of my units I had to micro without hotkeys. As you'll see in the video above and the replays below, 3-5 unit hotkeys has now become 1. Don't play like I do, just see the strength of what I'm talking about.
Thanks and I'd love to read your comments. And if you're a protoss player who honestly thinks this strategy isn't viable, please feel free to wholeheartedly praise the merits of this build.
Hopefully, an evidence based discussion of how to incorporate mass infestors into your mid-game ZvP. I will review replays posted and attempt to give any advice I can.
Part of the beauty of standard PvZ is Protoss' ability to poke with their army (i.e. see HuK play PvZ) and make good use of the sentry energy they've been building up (instead of letting them sit on max energy). Engaging the protoss army once you have baneling drops or infestors to eliminate the bulk of the sentries will force Protoss to adapt from their standard sentry heavy openings.
"People are starting to realize that Zerg's late game isn't actually that strong. It was just that Terrans and Protoss lacked experience with it. They're gaining that experience. It's kind of kicking in how bad our hive tech units actually are.
The thing you get with big maps is there's this tipping point. If it's too small then we die to rushes because we are the defensive race early on, generally speaking. Protoss and Terran aggressive builds are quite a bit stronger than ours. But if if you make [the maps] too big, then yeah we don't die to rushes but we don't have good creep spread mid-game.
Mid-game is where Zerg has to win right now. You have to get that muta ball up and do a bunch of damage to Terran or you have to be able to engage Protoss and keep their army, especially their Colossus count, down. If you don't have creep, it really becomes nearly suicidal to do that with most units.
So basically we're stuck at this point where yeah we can get up a big economy. But we can never use it aggressively if Terran or Protoss just chooses to defend. Then we get to late game situations where Terran or Protoss have their death balls and we're stuck with Brood Lords hoping they don't see them. The big maps aren't really helping Zerg that much." -- IdrA on SotG EP 30 , March 9, 2011
Here's an analogy: You are regularly presented with a set of 5 doors. The only way you ever get food is by opening the doors. Every time that you opened 5 doors, you got food from at least one of them. You've currently opened 2 doors, but can't figure out how to open any more. Are you going to spend your time trying to open a 3rd door, or are you gonna ponder whether opening all 5 doors guarantees food? How much time will you spend trying to open the 3rd door, and how much time will you spend checking the two opened doors again and again?
Day[9] thinks StarCraft players' only job is to open doors. There is nothing else. Perhaps on your lunch break you can engage in some idle conversation about the metaphysics of the doors and the morality of opening them. But it's just idle conversation. 99% of the time it's just this: open doors, open doors, open doors.
The real argument that would happen between Day[9] and IdrA is about whether or not all 5 doors have been opened. Day[9] thinks they're not all opened. He can see them. Maybe one is cracked, and no one is sure whether food can be smelt on the other side, but it's certainly not open and clear to everyone. This isn't faith or belief or any kind of "balance zealotry." Perhaps people have interacted with the closed doors, but they haven't picked the lock and turned the handle and swung it wide open. Faith comes in if he says "I know you guys worked your asses off to open 4 doors only to be disappointed. And you've spent months trying to open the 5th door. DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT rebel against your circumstances!!! TRUST me. Keep working on opening the last door. When you do, you will get food." Such opinions would certainly constitute faith of a sort. But like we've said at the start, every time that all the doors have been opened, food was in at least one. There's just never been a way to prove that food is guaranteed. Faith would also come in when Day[9] says "Hey, there's definitely a 6th door out there somewhere. It's nowhere in sight, but let's try all sorts of crazy things and see if we come upon it."
IdrA would say he's opened all the doors, or at least inspected the unopen ones well enough to know there's no food behind them. Or he's gonna say how it's easier for his Protoss friend to open his doors.
That's the gist of things. And we can't very well be experts on things that aren't in the open and clear. So that's all Day[9] can say is "hey try getting a ton of infestors in this specific way and see how that works" and I can say "hey, balance your resources toward gas as heavily as possible without dying and see how that works" because those kinds of things are unopened doors to us. And IdrA would have to spend many hours of practice to open them and perhaps find no food behind them, which would be doubly frustrating when that was his suspicion the whole time. But damn it, that's StarCraft. Opening doors is what we do. Being the first to find food is the greatest pleasure a player can have! source
Day[9]: Because if you do - dear Protosses please speak to this truth - It's like unfair. When Zerg has like 12 Infestors, and it's like his whole army.
iNcontroL: They're expensive. It's harder. But you're right. There should be more of them, that's for sure.
Day[9]: It's like, I hardly wanna build anything that costs gas except for [Infestors].
iNcontroL: Brood Lord, Corruptor, Infestor, and anything to support them is invincible, actually.
Day[9]: I've been saying this to tons of people lately.
and a little bit later Tyler brings up one of the most poignant points of the episode:
Tyler: The other thing about Nydus Worms is like, Zerg will say "Well, it can be stopped." That's why they say it's too expensive, I think. They're like, "It's not high enough success rate." But it's not that bad. Let me tell you a story about this game called StarCraft 1... In TvZ, dropships are going around the map nonstop, and Zerg had these units called Scourge. Which are faster than dropships. And pretty much flying everywhere from any decent Zerg playing ZvT.
Day[9]: And Scourge are flying banelings! That don't do 30 damage, they did 110 damage per hit!
Tyler: You got a pair of them for 25 minerals and 75 gas. You just fly 'em around in pairs. Any time a dropship was spotted by your billion overlords everywhere, You're just like...Oh! kill the dropship easily. And yet, you can't play TvZ without threatening to drop, and actually dropping all game long.
Tyler: That's when we saw nonstop drops in high-level TvZ. High-level TvZ is like, just drops! And Scourge exist! It's like, if this happened if where we were in StarCraft 1 like we are at with StarCraft 2 right now, we would tell Terrans, "Hey, you need to drop more." And they're like, "Uhh, are you dumb? Zerg have scourge. You can't do drop play against Zerg." But it's like, that's not how StarCraft works! You can't just say, "There's this way to stop it. Easily. And my opponents are always gonna stop it." There's ways to force things. That's what pro players have to do.
- From SotG - EP 34, segment begins at 57:30 mark. Every Zerg should listen to that discussion. iNcontroL is not happy with how immobile current Zerg styles are.
Make Zerglings. You will need macro/expansion hatches to afford all the larva you'll need for this strategy. Having good inject mechanics is very helpful here. At the same time you begin researching Pathogen Glands, start one round of Infestors as well. Start another round of Infestor production at about the halfway mark of research. This timing is to allow your second round of Infestors to start with 75 energy instead of 50. Any Infestors you started at the beginning of Pathogen Glands research will have 70 energy. Research Neural Parasite to counter Colossus Tech.
Now that you have Speedlings and Infestors, you can control the open middle of the map. I will try to map out suggestions for what to do with your units soon.
After you've established your lead, you can tech to some finishing Hive-Tech units. I am still quite underwhelmed with Ultralisks, but in the right situations, I'm sure they are a good thing to have. I prefer Broodlords, and think they might be necessary to break some Protoss static defensive positions.
20 Reasons Why Zergs Should Go Zergling-Infestor + Show Spoiler +
The mid-game is your playground
No over/under-making a unit anymore(roaches, corruptors, banelings, etc.)
Fungal is psi storm + ensnare that only hits enemy units.
Neural gives you their units for 15 seconds. 15!
You can dispel forcefields with your colossi.
An infestor can cast as many as 8 infested terrans to complement your fungals and zerglings.
No hive tech needed.
Scouting is almost pointless now.
Fungal catches phoenixes.
Fungal attacks and reveals cloaked units.
Unlike banelings, you get to keep your infestors after a battle.
Infestors can move while burrowed (and they are faster than burrowed roaches).
A fungaled colossi cannot be micro'd away.
Two fungals or one fungal and one terran to kill an observer. (goes well with 13)
If you decide to sac your hive/lair, all you need to do before it dies is rebuild an infestor pit somewhere else on the map. Now you are fully teched up again.
Learning how to win ZvP now is just learning how to most effectively use the zergling and the infestor.
You have plenty of zerglings at all times for harassment, scouting, blocking nexuses.
Zerglings typically require little or no micro to be effective.
Zerglings have the shortest build-times. New!
Void Rays cannot build up a charge vs Zerglings. (credit: theMarkovian)
Zerglings can quickly reinforce an army; they get there before the battle ends. (credit: Yoshi Kirishima)
The early game is different and possibly tougher than current standards.
Zerglings require a lot of surface area to be effective on their own, making chokes and well placed force fields problematic for engagements. i.e. low surface area rocks unit blocking an entrance/exit low surface area cannons
Zerglings are larva heavy. You need extra hatches. Injects are more important than with other current builds.
Infestors have only 90 hp, no armor, and take longer to build than any other lair tech unit. They’re also more valuable to your army than any other type of unit. Make more than you need.
New! Infestors off creep are slower than fast roaches, but faster than hydras. Sentries, Zealots, Colossi are slower but Stalkers can chase them down.
Tips for engaging any composition of Protoss units: + Show Spoiler +
Do not fall into one-hotkey syndrome. Your Infestors will charge into the Protoss units instead of making use of their superior range 9 spells.
Use Zerglings to deal and take damage.
Keep Infestors safe near the back of your lings.
Use 2-3 fungals to take out their clustered sentries or high-templar.
Use neural parasite to add colossi to your forces.
Experts-only: walk your colossi closer towards your army before letting them engage, not only to dispel any forcefields but if you should lose your NP'ing infestors somehow, your fungals will keep the colossi in the open where your lings can attack them.
Use fungals when their army is clumped and infested terrans when they are not.
I don't usually do this but I suppose it makes sense: after all their units are dead and only your colossi remain, instead of letting your zerglings finish them off, NP them again and have them attack each other. Do not try this in the battle because the splash damage no longer affects the other protoss units.
I followed your suggestions but I still lost the battle! + Show Spoiler +
Did you do your best to flank their units with Speedlings while casting your spells from afar?
Did the battle end with Infestors not expending all of their energy on spells?
If they blocked your Zerglings with force fields, did you have to continue the engagement or could you back away and wait for the force fields to disappear(15 seconds)?
So far, I haven't had to transition away from Zergling-Infestor, maybe because my opponents are used to rolling zergs using Colossi-centered strategies and have been slow to adapt.
Taking a page from standard BroodWar ZvP, I might transition to a flock of 9 Mutas to one-shot them. (credit:etceteraetcetera)
On April 21 2011 03:37 BlasiuS wrote: I've watched most of the replays and...wow, you really show the potential of ling/infestor -> ling/bane/infestor/ultra.
Almost every game your opponent has more workers, more bases, bigger army supply, higher army cost, and your macro is generally poor (you regularly have 1k/1k resources banked) and yet you still roflstomp them into the ground with pure ling/infestor. Very impressive. I'd like to see this build done in the hands of a more skilled player.
However your protoss opponents aren't as good as they could be. For one, their FFs are not very good. The only opponent I saw who wasn't afraid of using FF was LeafBlower on shakuras, but even then he wasn't able to actually wall off with FF, he just spammed FF to reduce surface area.
Secondly, you never actually fought against a proper maxed deathball. By 'proper' I mean a maxed army with at least 6-8 sentries, 5-6 colossus, lots of void rays (like 8+) and the rest stalker. This is the scariest deathball protoss can make. In the game on scrap & shakuras, protoss did make a maxed army, but it wasn't a void/colo army. I'm interested to see how well mass infestor performs against a maxed void/colo army.
In my opinion against HT, since you already have lots of zerglings and a baneling nest (and melee/carapace upgrades)you should get drop, and morph enough banelings to kill his HT (probably 10-15). Fungal the HT and drop the banes on them.
In fact, any ZvP strategy that uses banelings should also use baneling drops.
Good Forcefields are not the answer: http://drop.sc/6705 (skip to 14 min mark to see why. eventually i stop playing seriously to see if he can figure out a solution to my approach)
Winning w/o using NP vs a less than stellar void ray/colossus ball http://drop.sc/6706
17 min mark: workers even at 85 a piece. 72-104 army supply. one minute later: 41-40. this despite terrible micro from me http://drop.sc/6707
http://drop.sc/6701 this game shows what poor decision making, poor macro, an inferior economy, and disasterous micro can look like with this build.
http://drop.sc/6702 fast forward to the 25 min mark to see how i failed at the key moment of the game. had i won this battle i think i could have come back to win.
I would like to add replays of all levels here. Please post replays to the thread for analysis and discussion and we can put up some good examples here. Thanks!
love the thread, but as a protoss player i am not too happy =P. But no really infesters are a pretty baller unit and i am really happy you made this thread. =D
I've been playing a style similar to this lately, and have had pretty good success with it. Knowing when and where to engage is probably the hardest part of it. However, you can't rely on pure lings imo. When I play, I use ling/bane with fungal, and use baneling drops on army to kill rest. Baneling dropping on p is highly underrated. The drop tech also opens up room for baneling drops on mineral lines later in game. Once you hit 2-2 melee upgrades, you can get hive to get adrenal, 3-3, and ultralisks. It's really effective on maps like xelnaga where there are open centers and multiple routes for lings to run around for counters and whatnot. Also, you definitely need macro hatches when doing this build, as minerals will shoot up. I usually get a third hatch at nat before taking my 3rd. You can defend most early pushes with just lings, spine/queen if necessary. The only weaknesses to this build that I've encountered so far is if P opens with some type of stargate play, or uses a predominately heavy air army.
On April 19 2011 10:11 allowicious wrote: I've been playing a style similar to this lately, and have had pretty good success with it. Knowing when and where to engage is probably the hardest part of it. However, you can't rely on pure lings imo. When I play, I use ling/bane with fungal, and use baneling drops on army to kill rest. Baneling dropping on p is highly underrated. The drop tech also opens up room for baneling drops on mineral lines later in game. Once you hit 2-2 melee upgrades, you can get hive to get adrenal, 3-3, and ultralisks. It's really effective on maps like xelnaga where there are open centers and multiple routes for lings to run around for counters and whatnot. Also, you definitely need macro hatches when doing this build, as minerals will shoot up. I usually get a third hatch at nat before taking my 3rd. You can defend most early pushes with just lings, spine/queen if necessary. The only weaknesses to this build that I've encountered so far is if P opens with some type of stargate play, or uses a predominately heavy air army.
I'm curious to see if Ling-Baneling-Infestor is better than just Ling-Infestor.
The tech is cheaper (no baneling nest, no centrifugal hooks, no pneumatized carapace, no ventral sacs) the only added expense is neural parasite.
The micro is easier. You don't have to load and then drop banelings.
Fungal accomplishes the same goal of killing sentries early on.
On April 19 2011 10:11 allowicious wrote: I've been playing a style similar to this lately, and have had pretty good success with it. Knowing when and where to engage is probably the hardest part of it. However, you can't rely on pure lings imo. When I play, I use ling/bane with fungal, and use baneling drops on army to kill rest. Baneling dropping on p is highly underrated. The drop tech also opens up room for baneling drops on mineral lines later in game. Once you hit 2-2 melee upgrades, you can get hive to get adrenal, 3-3, and ultralisks. It's really effective on maps like xelnaga where there are open centers and multiple routes for lings to run around for counters and whatnot. Also, you definitely need macro hatches when doing this build, as minerals will shoot up. I usually get a third hatch at nat before taking my 3rd. You can defend most early pushes with just lings, spine/queen if necessary. The only weaknesses to this build that I've encountered so far is if P opens with some type of stargate play, or uses a predominately heavy air army.
I'm curious to see if Ling-Baneling-Infestor is better than just Ling-Infestor.
The tech is cheaper (no baneling nest, no centrifugal hooks, no pneumatized carapace, no ventral sacs) the only added expense is neural parasite.
The micro is easier. You don't have to load and then drop banelings.
Fungal accomplishes the same goal of killing sentries early on.
I think the banes are definitely necessary. My issue with fungal vs. colussus is that, it's a single unit target. If your infestor dies, then the colossus is back under P control. However, fungal is an aoe spell, which affects multiple targets, and can be casted multiple times by a single infestor, which is why it is much more cost effective. In terms of tech costs, the only gas you are spending until hive tech will be on upgrades (melee, carapace, pathogen glands, ovie speed, ventral sacs) and banelings/infestors. You will definitely have the resources to support it early-mid game.
Since it seems this composition relies heavily on neural parasite, perhaps you could patrol a large clump of overlords over your infestors to increase their survivability.
On April 19 2011 10:19 HelloThere wrote: I can't help but feel like against a decent protoss they will shut this attack down in two ways:
1) Much better forcefields before the lings arrive greatly reducing surface area 2) Focusing down the infestor that has the colossi NPed
1 -- This is more theory before evidence. In my experience, I do not lose to well placed forcefields that do exactly what you say.
2 -- This also is theory before evidence. Another idea that seems to make some sense until you try it in a game.
There's just so much to say about both arguments here that I don't know where to start.
Well here goes anyway. ---1--- Forcefields You can cancel them with a colossus or an ultralisk. You don't have to continue the engagement. They prevent his army from advancing forward. A completely isolated protoss army means none of their zealots can hit any of your zerglings. Your zerglings take shots while your infestors can still fungal. Your 2-3 fungals will kill all of their sentries.
--2-- Targeting A Channeling Infestor Feedback tickles. Are they using their entire army to focus down the infestor? just the chargelots? just the stalkers? so all 16 stalkers target your infestor...does that mean 7 shots were wasted on overkill? the range of np is 9. i don't think stalkers match that. Are you using the fungaled void rays w/ less range to chase down each infestor? In my experience, it's just too difficult/costly for them to go after my thiefs.
Thank you finally someone did it :D. Btw use different control groups is pains me sometimes to see Infestors just run past the fight cause you a moved with them to see them picked off. Just keep moving them back so they don't get picked off.
And as the guy above said the clump of overlords sound good.
Also big thanks for the videos was nice to see :D. And I don't see anything wrong with the Bane clip you adapted to the situation and it was late game hence Ultras. Its good to show the build can progress and adapt as the game goes on rather than being some Mid Game one punch build.
Just from actual experience, I see two problems (though its obviously worth further testing).
1) A strong sentry push before infestors cannot be stopped with pure ling. Is this why you argue for the spanishiwa style? Are you going mass spine crawler?
2) Similar to dealing with ling, bling pvz, a maxed protoss that turtles and upgrades will reach a number of sentries that can forcefield donut your army. Maybe you can fungal enough of the sentries that they can't, but that seems unreasonable.
Cool idea. I will try it, but those are two problems I see from experimenting with ling, bling and ling, bling, infestor
On April 19 2011 10:34 Beef Noodles wrote: Just from actual experience, I see two problems (though its obviously worth further testing).
1) A strong sentry push before infestors cannot be stopped with pure ling. Is this why you argue for the spanishiwa style? Are you going mass spine crawler?
2) Similar to dealing with ling, bling pvz, a maxed protoss that turtles and upgrades will reach a number of sentries that can forcefield donut your army. Maybe you can fungal enough of the sentries that they can't, but that seems unreasonable.
Cool idea. I will try it, but those are two problems I see from experimenting with ling, bling and ling, bling, infestor
1) I'm not sure what are good openings for this strategy.
2) I have no experience with it. so they still come out in a ball correct? can't you just send a few infestors forward to fungal a wild sentry count?
On April 19 2011 10:34 Beef Noodles wrote: Just from actual experience, I see two problems (though its obviously worth further testing).
1) A strong sentry push before infestors cannot be stopped with pure ling. Is this why you argue for the spanishiwa style? Are you going mass spine crawler?
2) Similar to dealing with ling, bling pvz, a maxed protoss that turtles and upgrades will reach a number of sentries that can forcefield donut your army. Maybe you can fungal enough of the sentries that they can't, but that seems unreasonable.
Cool idea. I will try it, but those are two problems I see from experimenting with ling, bling and ling, bling, infestor
By the time both reach maxed armies, the z should at least have 1 or maybe 2 ultras in his army, which can break the forcefields.
These are some of my recent games. First 2 games are practice games versus one of my friends lagrangian. He wrote a few guides on TL, such as the speed ray pvz, double forge pvt, and standard pvz. Both of those games involve max zerg vs max p army, with the compositions listed in this thread.
2nd game was a random ladder match. P opened with air, so it kind of forced a hydra mid game composition, but it switches back late game (at one point, he has 9 colossus).
I tend to favor Roach/Corruptor based strategies, but I can see that this has potential. Using Colossi controlled by NP to negate FF usage is a nice touch and I'll try it out. Since you will be getting Melee and Carapace upgrades consistently, this could also transition nicely into a late game with Baneling/Infestor/Ultralisk.
The one thing I see preventing this from being a guide is the lack of opening build(s). From the replays, I would say these are the basic requirements for this mid-game strategy: - At least 2 bases with saturation on both minerals and gas - Lair tech - Enough map control to fight in favorable positions
Since these are requirements for the strategy, they should be the goals for any opening builds that you incorporate. I use two that I think would be ideal for reaching these goals quickly, without giving an edge to your opponent.
1) 11 Pool, 19 Hatch (I picked this up from a replay of EVORekatan) http://www.youtube.com/user/Rekatan#p/u/7/8tStlgu8Tfg - Aggressive style that tries to gain advantage by denying enemy expo - Harder to Pylon block since the Hatchery goes down as 2 sets of Lings spawn - Has the option to forgo the mid-game of Ling/Infestor if you see an opening to end the game sooner - Very good against 1 base play (4Gate, early Robo tech, etc)
2) 15Hatch, 14Pool or 16Hatch, 15Pool (no real difference between the two for me) http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=207017 - A good example - Defensive style that uses Queens and Spines to deal with early pressure (if there is any) - You can stop at 2 Queens and go heavy on Spines if you think a rush is coming or - You can get 2 Spines and go heavy on Queens if you think a rush is coming (preferable, since it also deals with air and doesn't lose as many Drones) - 2 or more Extractors when you have saturation on both mineral lines
On April 19 2011 10:19 HelloThere wrote: I can't help but feel like against a decent protoss they will shut this attack down in two ways:
1) Much better forcefields before the lings arrive greatly reducing surface area 2) Focusing down the infestor that has the colossi NPed
i might ask you 2 things, if the stalkers are fungaled with a range of (6) and neural parasite has a range of (9) there is no way to focus fire it. You may say colossi but if he does it properlly there shouldn't be any collosi left.
On April 19 2011 10:34 Beef Noodles wrote: Just from actual experience, I see two problems (though its obviously worth further testing).
1) A strong sentry push before infestors cannot be stopped with pure ling. Is this why you argue for the spanishiwa style? Are you going mass spine crawler?
2) Similar to dealing with ling, bling pvz, a maxed protoss that turtles and upgrades will reach a number of sentries that can forcefield donut your army. Maybe you can fungal enough of the sentries that they can't, but that seems unreasonable.
Cool idea. I will try it, but those are two problems I see from experimenting with ling, bling and ling, bling, infestor
If they make more than 8 sentries which is standard then there is a glaring weakness in there composition because you do not really need to be effective with your army as zerg, if all he accomplishes is killing all of your sentries (3 fungals) then he will have NO problem with the rest of your army. This is essentially the spanishiwa style - the baneling drops and the nydus. I am also fairly sure that spanishiwa gets ultras eventually which just like nped colossi break forcefeilds, so i don't think it is as big of a deal as you make it out to be. And forcefeild donuting SLINGS, well i would love to see mc do that....
Its great to see this new style being used more and more. What I'd like to see though is a zerg composition that will fare well against that toss army with a few void rays thrown in.
Sorry I noticed a replay with the composition mentioned, ignore my post..
Agreed...the getting to this is the serious issue in ZvP
Also it seems to me that the sheer micro and energy requirements are too high...if you are looking to be fungling and neuraling repeatedly, you're gunna need a TON of infestor. Also accounting for any infestors being sniped off means you need even MORE, Where's this gas coming from?
Thanks for sharing, and the youtube video was fun to watch xD must have been rare to get that far into the game with such big and diverse protoss deathballs (the last one was so fun to watch :D).
Anyway, here's another advantage:
Zerglings move super fast so they are very good at reinforcing an army; they get their before the battle ends.
On April 19 2011 10:19 HelloThere wrote: I can't help but feel like against a decent protoss they will shut this attack down in two ways:
1) Much better forcefields before the lings arrive greatly reducing surface area 2) Focusing down the infestor that has the colossi NPed
1 -- This is more theory before evidence. In my experience, I do not lose to well placed forcefields that do exactly what you say.
2 -- This also is theory before evidence. Another idea that seems to make some sense until you try it in a game.
There's just so much to say about both arguments here that I don't know where to start.
Well here goes anyway. ---1--- Forcefields You can cancel them with a colossus or an ultralisk. You don't have to continue the engagement. They prevent his army from advancing forward. A completely isolated protoss army means none of their zealots can hit any of your zerglings. Your zerglings take shots while your infestors can still fungal. Your 2-3 fungals will kill all of their sentries.
--2-- Targeting A Channeling Infestor Feedback tickles. Are they using their entire army to focus down the infestor? just the chargelots? just the stalkers? so all 16 stalkers target your infestor...does that mean 7 shots were wasted on overkill? the range of np is 9. i don't think stalkers match that. Are you using the fungaled void rays w/ less range to chase down each infestor? In my experience, it's just too difficult/costly for them to go after my thiefs.
Just a couple things in response-
It's important to note that ALL colossi really should be hit with NP (assuming they have thermal lance at this point). I keep my colossus in a separate control group than my army so that if one of them is NP'd, I can have them target the infestor, because both abilities have the same range. If all of them are NP'd then the lings and fungals that tie up the stalkers/sentries/zealots and keep the infestors safe for a longer period of time.
I'll try to get some replays to back this, but this is through my experience as a protoss player in masters (not to sound snarky- I'm no pro).
I was playing a game earlier today where he had the deathball coming to me (6 void rays, 4 colossus, gateway units). I used fungal 8 times on the army: in the end, only void rays and colossus survived and he killed me with these.
Yeah I died, but I realized that fungal can really help you buy time to prepare for the incoming push and kill the annoying sentries.
On April 19 2011 12:53 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Thanks for sharing, and the youtube video was fun to watch xD must have been rare to get that far into the game with such big and diverse protoss deathballs (the last one was so fun to watch :D).
Anyway, here's another advantage:
Zerglings move super fast so they are very good at reinforcing an army; they get their before the battle ends.
I just call them protoss balls now. Like the big colorful ones people bring to ballparks.
Agreed...the getting to this is the serious issue in ZvP
Also it seems to me that the sheer micro and energy requirements are too high...if you are looking to be fungling and neuraling repeatedly, you're gunna need a TON of infestor. Also accounting for any infestors being sniped off means you need even MORE, Where's this gas coming from?
Check out my video/replays to see how poor micro still crushes protoss armies. The gas comes from not making anything that requires gas.
On April 19 2011 10:19 HelloThere wrote: I can't help but feel like against a decent protoss they will shut this attack down in two ways:
1) Much better forcefields before the lings arrive greatly reducing surface area 2) Focusing down the infestor that has the colossi NPed
1 -- This is more theory before evidence. In my experience, I do not lose to well placed forcefields that do exactly what you say.
2 -- This also is theory before evidence. Another idea that seems to make some sense until you try it in a game.
There's just so much to say about both arguments here that I don't know where to start.
Well here goes anyway. ---1--- Forcefields You can cancel them with a colossus or an ultralisk. You don't have to continue the engagement. They prevent his army from advancing forward. A completely isolated protoss army means none of their zealots can hit any of your zerglings. Your zerglings take shots while your infestors can still fungal. Your 2-3 fungals will kill all of their sentries.
--2-- Targeting A Channeling Infestor Feedback tickles. Are they using their entire army to focus down the infestor? just the chargelots? just the stalkers? so all 16 stalkers target your infestor...does that mean 7 shots were wasted on overkill? the range of np is 9. i don't think stalkers match that. Are you using the fungaled void rays w/ less range to chase down each infestor? In my experience, it's just too difficult/costly for them to go after my thiefs.
Just a couple things in response-
It's important to note that ALL colossi really should be hit with NP (assuming they have thermal lance at this point). I keep my colossus in a separate control group than my army so that if one of them is NP'd, I can have them target the infestor, because both abilities have the same range. If all of them are NP'd then the lings and fungals that tie up the stalkers/sentries/zealots and keep the infestors safe for a longer period of time.
I'll try to get some replays to back this, but this is through my experience as a protoss player in masters (not to sound snarky- I'm no pro).
I'm also no pro and in masters too. lets play sometime. NA server - phrontis.572
On April 19 2011 13:14 drcatellino wrote: I was playing a game earlier today where he had the deathball coming to me (6 void rays, 4 colossus, gateway units). I used fungal 8 times on the army: in the end, only void rays and colossus survived and he killed me with these.
Yeah I died, but I realized that fungal can really help you buy time to prepare for the incoming push and kill the annoying sentries.
next time try NP on all four colossi, fungal, and throw out tons of terrans. should clean that composition right up.
Hmmm, sounds pretty interesting. I can't wait to try this out when I play a ZvP.
I have one question:
Do you think that this could work with a lower Infestor count(maybe just only matching the colossi numbers, maybe a little more) and a more Roach heavy composition?
Roaches are better in holding the line and do decent against a Gateway army and with a "meatier" it would be harder for the P to snipe your Channeling infestors?
Anyways, good to see some people not giving into QQ and trying new stuff, hopefully this can help Zergs
In the ZvP matchup theres been so much discussion on how to overcome it. I still will always stick by baneling drops because I feel theres just nothing that depletes it faster than baneling drops. Also it opens room up for mineral harass which are really hard to defend as protoss.
This seems viable but also very volatile way to play it. Infestors are so delicate and depending on NP just seems really risky. I also wonder if you've ever faced a complete 200/200 death ball with ~5-6 colossi, 6-7 void rays, and stalker + sentry support. I can watch all your replays because Im on my laptop right now, but the one youtube clip the protoss didnt have much.
I still really prefer baneling drops. Nothing wipes the protoss clean quite like these
This strategy kind of works before colossus but I really feel like neural parasite just doesn't cut it for dealing with them. Normally I get great NP's by using cliffs but Colossi see up cliffs. Also colossi are almost always safely in the back, meaning your Infestors can be attacked by the gateway units, and your lings are guaranteed to take damage from the colossi.
All in all, I like going this route but I think you just have to get Ultralisks or Corruptors/Brood lords anyways. Infestors with neural parasite are just not reliable enough, too micro intensive, to fully counter colossi and forcefields. however the rest is true, a straight ling infestor build is great against any non-colossi comp. If you can't get a surround with your lings though (maybe a nasty choke or forcefield donut) you pretty much lose the game.
On April 19 2011 14:09 windsupernova wrote: Hmmm, sounds pretty interesting. I can't wait to try this out when I play a ZvP.
I have one question:
Do you think that this could work with a lower Infestor count(maybe just only matching the colossi numbers, maybe a little more) and a more Roach heavy composition?
Roaches are better in holding the line and do decent against a Gateway army and with a "meatier" it would be harder for the P to snipe your Channeling infestors?
Anyways, good to see some people not giving into QQ and trying new stuff, hopefully this can help Zergs
less infestors means less fungals available for protecting your channeling-neural-parasite infestors. i believe idra and others are trying to work out roach-infestor, so im sure they have some hope for that. roaches also crowd up some of the space infestors would like to reach when NP'ing/fungaling/terraning.
I can't bear to watch anymore "standard" ZvP games. They all look old-fangled to me.
On April 19 2011 14:17 Chinesewonder wrote: In the ZvP matchup theres been so much discussion on how to overcome it. I still will always stick by baneling drops because I feel theres just nothing that depletes it faster than baneling drops. Also it opens room up for mineral harass which are really hard to defend as protoss.
This seems viable but also very volatile way to play it. Infestors are so delicate and depending on NP just seems really risky. I also wonder if you've ever faced a complete 200/200 death ball with ~5-6 colossi, 6-7 void rays, and stalker + sentry support. I can watch all your replays because Im on my laptop right now, but the one youtube clip the protoss didnt have much.
I still really prefer baneling drops. Nothing wipes the protoss clean quite like these
I'll post any replays of those compositions that i can find. To me, 6 colossi + 7 void ray + 200/200 army doesn't scare me in the least. (send your 100+ lings first[flanking would be ideal], fungal if the beach-ball tries to run away, np at least 5 colossi if it doesn't, while keeping as many units in the ball fungaled throughout the battle, cast terrans all around to support and wipe up the mess. if you micro poorly like i do, you probably left 1-2 hurt void rays alive)
I've heard of people succeeding with baneling drops to complement ling-infestor. Seems much harder to me than what I'm trying to do.
On April 19 2011 14:23 darkscream wrote: This strategy kind of works before colossus but I really feel like neural parasite just doesn't cut it for dealing with them. Normally I get great NP's by using cliffs but Colossi see up cliffs. Also colossi are almost always safely in the back, meaning your Infestors can be attacked by the gateway units, and your lings are guaranteed to take damage from the colossi.
All in all, I like going this route but I think you just have to get Ultralisks or Corruptors/Brood lords anyways. Infestors with neural parasite are just not reliable enough, too micro intensive, to fully counter colossi and forcefields. however the rest is true, a straight ling infestor build is great against any non-colossi comp. If you can't get a surround with your lings though (maybe a nasty choke or forcefield donut) you pretty much lose the game.
everyone worries too much about lings evaporating to colossi but it just hasn't been true for me. send them in first and your infestors will come in safely from behind to NP. unless the protoss runs their colossi away. win-win scenario.
i tray to play Zergling infestor also gainst T and it dammed works, with good ling upgrade and NP and good agression. keep the Toss at 2 bases and drop and contain. its working wonders XD
Feedback or a competent protoss who can snipe the NPing infestors would be pretty effective against this. Seems like it would be almost a hard counter?
On April 19 2011 15:18 PopoChampion wrote: Feedback or a competent protoss who can snipe the NPing infestors would be pretty effective against this. Seems like it would be almost a hard counter?
Feedback only hurts you for whatever energy you have remaining after you neural parasite. Chances are you were close to full health but not close to full energy with the infestor you used to NP. Stalkers & Void Rays cannot snipe NPing infestors with their short range weapons.
I have started using Ling Infestor too recently, and I love it. Infestors beat VRs, they beat phoenixes, since ur not spending ur gas on anything else (like corruptor roach hydra) you can get a shitton of infestors who really do roll collosi, since you get heaps of NPs to burn. Also transitions nicely into Ultras later in the game if you need to since you will laready have melee attack upgrades for ur lings, or if u choose to go BLs the broodlings are updraded too.
I don't have any evidence but i think that roach-infestor would be a better unit composition. There are several reasons.
-Roaches cost a little gas. This gives you something to spend gas on other than just infestors/upgrades. This is important because of saturation reasons.
-Roaches can burrow-move similar to the infestor. This gives you more incentive/rewards for researching burrow.
-Roaches and infested terrans both share the same attack upgrade. A synergy you wont enjoy with zerglings.
-Roaches have a ranged attack. This would be more useful against fungaled zealots. Also, less stalkers would be able to attack your army at a time.
-Fungal growth and Neural parasiting Colossi are both going to give you a lot of DPS vs the protoss army, so I think the tankier roaches would compliment this better than the zergling (with high dps, low health.)
I'm not saying you shouldn't get some Zerglings, but i think a very roach heavy army would compliment the infestors more. Also ofc making Zerglings when remaxing could be a good idea because of the fast build time.
That video is deceiving. The only time it was 200 vs 200 was the last part and the zerg didn't have ling-infestor. He had lings, banelings, infestors, and ultralisks while the toss had like 5 immortals. I'd like to see how it does vs a real deathball of 5 colossus and 7+ voids with ground support,
What I have found, trying to go Ling(/Bane)/Infestor is that, to survive midgame pushes, you need Burrow just as you would get Burrow for heavy Roach styles, and Banelings. 6Gate is though, as it always is, but with Burrow you can engage with your Ling/Bane army, he will have to forcefield himself into a wall to not die to the banes, which means you can Burrow your entire army and wait for reinforcements. He can't move due to forcefields (and after forcefields, can only retreat, as there are baneling mines in your natural choke). Once your reinforcements pop, engage again and repeat until the push is dead.
All other one-base pushes and early two-base pushes can be dealt with with Ling/Spine (maybe an emergency Roach Warren), Queens or Burrow/Bane. For Two-base Colossus timings, you will have Fungal and drop.
Banelings are essential in any melee focussed midgame IMO and are nice tech to have if the Protoss decides to go heavy Zealot/Sentry in response to your Lings. If he goes pure Stalker/Colossus(/Void) lategame, just don't make any more Banelings. Also, +2 Banes are awesome when dropped on mineral lines.
Just make sure you have Burrow in time, start mining gas at 5.00-5.30 (if you aren't already) and start Lair at 6.00-6.30 and you'll have Burrow in time for any 6Gate.
On April 19 2011 15:48 DarthXX wrote: I have started using Ling Infestor too recently, and I love it. Infestors beat VRs, they beat phoenixes, since ur not spending ur gas on anything else (like corruptor roach hydra) you can get a shitton of infestors who really do roll collosi, since you get heaps of NPs to burn. Also transitions nicely into Ultras later in the game if you need to since you will laready have melee attack upgrades for ur lings, or if u choose to go BLs the broodlings are updraded too.
I'm afraid of the upcoming nerfs to zerg because of this. Then I'll have to relearn what roaches were like.
On April 19 2011 15:48 Carmine wrote: I don't have any evidence but i think that roach-infestor would be a better unit composition. There are several reasons.
-Roaches cost a little gas. This gives you something to spend gas on other than just infestors/upgrades. This is important because of saturation reasons.
-Roaches can burrow-move similar to the infestor. This gives you more incentive/rewards for researching burrow.
-Roaches and infested terrans both share the same attack upgrade. A synergy you wont enjoy with zerglings.
-Roaches have a ranged attack. This would be more useful against fungaled zealots. Also, less stalkers would be able to attack your army at a time.
-Fungal growth and Neural parasiting Colossi are both going to give you a lot of DPS vs the protoss army, so I think the tankier roaches would compliment this better than the zergling (with high dps, low health.)
I'm not saying you shouldn't get some Zerglings, but i think a very roach heavy army would compliment the infestors more. Also ofc making Zerglings when remaxing could be a good idea because of the fast build time.
You bring up a lot of good points.
- Roaches cost a lot of supply. A roach/infestor 200/200 army is weaker than a zergling/infestor 200/200 army.
- I see your Ranged Attack Upgrade synergy argument and raise you a Melee Ranged Unit-Combo synergy.
- A fungaled-but-not-NP'd colossi not safely in the middle of a protoss ball will take damage from outer lings while lings underneath it's legs are attacking other ground units. This is huge.
- Roaches tend to get in the way of your infestors while zerglings do not.
On April 19 2011 15:48 Attica wrote: That video is deceiving. The only time it was 200 vs 200 was the last part and the zerg didn't have ling-infestor. He had lings, banelings, infestors, and ultralisks while the toss had like 5 immortals. I'd like to see how it does vs a real deathball of 5 colossus and 7+ voids with ground support,
I agree that the video right underneath the thread title infers that you'll see battles of 200/200 Zergling-Infestor crushing 200/200 Protoss. I'm still searching through my replays to find examples of just that. I'm working on a new video that only shows battles of Zergling-Infestor vs Protoss.
But since I'm only mid-masters level, what I'd really like to see is what a professional can pull off with this unit-composition.
The colossus/void ray ball is among the easier compositions to defeat with this build.
On April 19 2011 15:52 theMarkovian wrote: What I have found, trying to go Ling(/Bane)/Infestor is that, to survive midgame pushes, you need Burrow just as you would get Burrow for heavy Roach styles, and Banelings. 6Gate is though, as it always is, but with Burrow you can engage with your Ling/Bane army, he will have to forcefield himself into a wall to not die to the banes, which means you can Burrow your entire army and wait for reinforcements. He can't move due to forcefields (and after forcefields, can only retreat, as there are baneling mines in your natural choke). Once your reinforcements pop, engage again and repeat until the push is dead.
All other one-base pushes and early two-base pushes can be dealt with with Ling/Spine (maybe an emergency Roach Warren), Queens or Burrow/Bane. For Two-base Colossus timings, you will have Fungal and drop.
Banelings are essential in any melee focussed midgame IMO and are nice tech to have if the Protoss decides to go heavy Zealot/Sentry in response to your Lings. If he goes pure Stalker/Colossus(/Void) lategame, just don't make any more Banelings. Also, +2 Banes are awesome when dropped on mineral lines.
Just make sure you have Burrow in time, start mining gas at 5.00-5.30 (if you aren't already) and start Lair at 6.00-6.30 and you'll have Burrow in time for any 6Gate.
I'm hoping that I or someone else can figure out a way to avoid wasting any gas on baneling nest/burrow/pneumatized carapace/ventral sacs and then banelings themselves just to hold off early 2 base attacks.
A good protoss can always run their probes from baneling drops. You can't run from fungal. If he has cannons protecting his probes use lings to take the damage while casting your fungals.
Do me a favor and try transitioning from your baneling opening to only making zergling-infestor afterwards. Post replays here and I'll add them to the OP (or i could make videos of them).
On April 19 2011 15:48 Carmine wrote: I don't have any evidence but i think that roach-infestor would be a better unit composition. There are several reasons.
-Roaches cost a little gas. This gives you something to spend gas on other than just infestors/upgrades. This is important because of saturation reasons.
-Roaches can burrow-move similar to the infestor. This gives you more incentive/rewards for researching burrow.
-Roaches and infested terrans both share the same attack upgrade. A synergy you wont enjoy with zerglings.
-Roaches have a ranged attack. This would be more useful against fungaled zealots. Also, less stalkers would be able to attack your army at a time.
-Fungal growth and Neural parasiting Colossi are both going to give you a lot of DPS vs the protoss army, so I think the tankier roaches would compliment this better than the zergling (with high dps, low health.)
I'm not saying you shouldn't get some Zerglings, but i think a very roach heavy army would compliment the infestors more. Also ofc making Zerglings when remaxing could be a good idea because of the fast build time.
I think there's a good reason why the OP doesn't get roaches in this build. Infestors are the cornerstones for this build. If you get roaches, you are using up gas that is critical for getting plenty of infestors as well as researching all the upgrades you need. It would really slow you down.
I didn't see this in the replays I watched, but this seems like it would transition nicely into ultralisks if you have plenty of infestors left over after the first major army clash (although the game is often over at that point anyway).
Question for the OP: I know you talked about this a bit already, but can you talk more about your thoughts on more banelings vs more infestors? There is another thread with a similar strategy that focuses more on banelings than infestors. I feel like infestors are a better choice because they don't compete for melee space with the zerglings and are reusable. On the other hand, I think that banelings can be used very effectively in this build after +2 melee is done, because they can then one-shot probes. However, that requires getting drop tech. Do you think that's feasible with this build? On that note, do you research overlord speed with this build?
On April 19 2011 15:48 Carmine wrote: I don't have any evidence but i think that roach-infestor would be a better unit composition. There are several reasons.
-Roaches cost a little gas. This gives you something to spend gas on other than just infestors/upgrades. This is important because of saturation reasons.
-Roaches can burrow-move similar to the infestor. This gives you more incentive/rewards for researching burrow.
-Roaches and infested terrans both share the same attack upgrade. A synergy you wont enjoy with zerglings.
-Roaches have a ranged attack. This would be more useful against fungaled zealots. Also, less stalkers would be able to attack your army at a time.
-Fungal growth and Neural parasiting Colossi are both going to give you a lot of DPS vs the protoss army, so I think the tankier roaches would compliment this better than the zergling (with high dps, low health.)
I'm not saying you shouldn't get some Zerglings, but i think a very roach heavy army would compliment the infestors more. Also ofc making Zerglings when remaxing could be a good idea because of the fast build time.
I think there's a good reason why the OP doesn't get roaches in this build. Infestors are the cornerstones for this build. If you get roaches, you are using up gas that is critical for getting plenty of infestors as well as researching all the upgrades you need. It would really slow you down.
I didn't see this in the replays I watched, but this seems like it would transition nicely into ultralisks if you have plenty of infestors left over after the first major army clash (although the game is often over at that point anyway).
Question for the OP: I know you talked about this a bit already, but can you talk more about your thoughts on more banelings vs more infestors? There is another thread with a similar strategy that focuses more on banelings than infestors. I feel like infestors are a better choice because they don't compete for melee space with the zerglings and are reusable. On the other hand, I think that banelings can be used very effectively in this build after +2 melee is done, because they can then one-shot probes. However, that requires getting drop tech. Do you think that's feasible with this build? On that note, do you research overlord speed with this build?
I haven't had much experience using banelings vs Protoss. I really like not having to decide on how many banelings to make.
That's a good point about not competing for melee space with zerglings. Knowing me, my lings in front will have to die before the speedbanes can roll in ... oh wait ... nevermind ... he just blocked them with forcefields.
It makes me sad to see that my overlords w/ banes are too slow to catch up to the fleeing probes. A fungal drop seems more effective. Though I suppose if the opponent knew you had baneling tech you could fake a drop to force some probe evacuations.
I sometimes get overlord speed, I sometimes don't. In general it seems like the right thing to do, despite not needing the scouting info as much anymore. It's nice for scouting/escaping from anything that flies, as well as dropping creep on potential protoss expos (double it up with a burrowed zergling). I've had a lot of opponents wait for pylon then cannon to clear overlord/zergling. (since they didn't make or they lost their observers).
this may work agasinst colossi but would fail quite hard against any sort of ht comp against a player with any sort of micro. storm would rape all the lings you can throw and feedback would prevent any np. the protoss should also have blink (he has ht after all) so he will be able to easily snipe infestors should they get nps off with a few stalkers. you also lack anti air so the protoss would be able to nearly always see your infestors with obs, if you chose to fungle them then you would have less energy for battles.
On April 19 2011 17:05 Kaniwani wrote: Not to be a naysayer, but the thing that stood out most to me in your video was a complete lack of competent forcefield use from the Protoss players.
What level are you and what level are the opponents that your steamrolling? They all look pretty bad...
Naysay away my friend. I'm working on another video with more clips of different kinds of battles (including good forcefields).
according to sc2gears, in games since i started working on this build where i made at least 25 infestors and researched neural parasite, i am 21-8 versus Protoss.
On April 19 2011 17:10 mR.bONG789 wrote: this may work agasinst colossi but would fail quite hard against any sort of ht comp against a player with any sort of micro. storm would rape all the lings you can throw and feedback would prevent any np. the protoss should also have blink (he has ht after all) so he will be able to easily snipe infestors should they get nps off with a few stalkers. you also lack anti air so the protoss would be able to nearly always see your infestors with obs, if you chose to fungle them then you would have less energy for battles.
Feedback >> Neural Parasite Fungal > Feedback I agree what you say makes some sense in theory. In the real world, things are not quite the way you think they are. Are you a zerg or protoss player who has experienced this in real games? Feel free to post replays, I will update the OP with anything interesting you can find.
im facing infestors more and more in my experiance blinkers shut this down pretty hard. Blink a small gorup to the infestors and focus fire them heavy zealot army will kill the lings np with collo sentry support. only problem is gracklings with the 20 procent dmg speed upgrade they seem to rip off my small taskforce of blinkers ot fast ^^
You do realize, that the video and screenshot u posted showcases a Protoss army with 2 colossi, 0 VRs and it's not even close to maxed? Ling ifestor is cool, it definetly does not crush the Protoss deathball, actually it wont kill a single unit vs a well shaped P deathball with good FFs, what infestor ling is good for is to stall the P long enough to rush out the hive units/ surround-stun it in order for Baneling drops to work perfectly
On April 19 2011 17:16 Shadowcloak wrote: im facing infestors more and more in my experiance blinkers shut this down pretty hard. Blink a small gorup to the infestors and focus fire them heavy zealot army will kill the lings np with collo sentry support. only problem is gracklings with the 20 procent dmg speed upgrade they seem to rip off my small taskforce of blinkers ot fast ^^
Please post your replays vs pure Zergling-Infestor. (wins and losses are fine).
On April 19 2011 17:31 Geo.Rion wrote: You do realize, that the video and screenshot u posted showcases a Protoss army with 2 colossi, 0 VRs and it's not even close to maxed? Ling ifestor is cool, it definetly does not crush the Protoss deathball, actually it wont kill a single unit vs a well shaped P deathball with good FFs, what infestor ling is good for is to stall the P long enough to rush out the hive units/ surround-stun it in order for Baneling drops to work perfectly
I do realize this. I'm working on a better video of all the ways this counters everything protoss has thrown at me.
The battle you're referring to in the video is between 20 speedlings, 7 infestors, and 5 queens vs 14 stalkers, 11 sentries, 2 zealots, and 2 colossi. Protoss is at 139/180 and I am at 86/116. He's advancing to finish me off after my failed spine push with close positions on Metalopolis. It is what it is.
Zerglings cannot do any damage to a walled-off deathball. You can dispell the forcefields with your Colossi if you really feel you have to engage in that situation. Typically in my games, there aren't many sentries left after the first pokes out (i fungaled them). Also, I suspect you have no experience of what you're talking about and are just theorizing based on what you think you know (please post replays of zergling-infestor failing to destroy Protoss deathballs). The strength of this vs a ball of Protoss units is obvious to me because even with poor micro I crush these old-fangled balls with ease. This is definitely not just a way to stall for hive units, you can sit on lair tech as long as you like. (as long as you have more of the map than he does).
On April 19 2011 17:16 Shadowcloak wrote: im facing infestors more and more in my experiance blinkers shut this down pretty hard. Blink a small gorup to the infestors and focus fire them heavy zealot army will kill the lings np with collo sentry support. only problem is gracklings with the 20 procent dmg speed upgrade they seem to rip off my small taskforce of blinkers ot fast ^^
Fungal Growth stops Blink. I'd love to see some Sentries get NP'd actually. Counter productive Force Fields ahoy!
I did this in a game recently and it got stomped ridiculously by zealot-colossus. There was a lot of colossus and a lot of zealot.
I think this works as long as the colossus numbers are kept below like 5-6, and/or there is a large component of stalkers or immortals. Obviously I know zealot-colossus is vulnerable vs air (but air is not part of this build).
When you get past 6 colossus it start to get close to a point where zerg can get ultralisk, but it still takes time, which leaves zerg vulnerable, and even with ultralisks, zealots do very well against them. As long as zealots are kept around colossi, they can do quite well (protoss would probably want to get some VR and/or immortal for good measure anyway though)
I also found void rays to be quite problematic as well. While the fact that they are air makes for nice fungals, you need to plant down SO MANY (6, or more if shields regenerate) fungals, and the void rays DPS the infestors down SO FAST it's hard to do it without loosing 80% of the infestors. Also when fungaling the VRs, they can oftentimes be spread out (or just have 1-3 in a different position than where teh ground force is, meaning you need to fungal 12-18 times instead of 6.
On April 19 2011 17:31 Geo.Rion wrote: You do realize, that the video and screenshot u posted showcases a Protoss army with 2 colossi, 0 VRs and it's not even close to maxed? Ling ifestor is cool, it definetly does not crush the Protoss deathball,
On April 19 2011 16:44 nymeria wrote:I'm hoping that I or someone else can figure out a way to avoid wasting any gas on baneling nest/burrow/pneumatized carapace/ventral sacs and then banelings themselves just to hold off early 2 base attacks.
A good protoss can always run their probes from baneling drops. You can't run from fungal. If he has cannons protecting his probes use lings to take the damage while casting your fungals.
Do me a favor and try transitioning from your baneling opening to only making zergling-infestor afterwards. Post replays here and I'll add them to the OP (or i could make videos of them).
I don't see how you can hold off a good timed 6Gate without Burrow Roach or Burrow Banes. I'll do some practice testing tonight, but these are my thoughts: You don't have the critical mass of Infestors (3-4 I think?), which means that he can retreat, reinforce, regen shields a bit and push in again. Good forcefield usage will negate your lings at the 6Gate timing. Yes, you can hold it off with just Ling/Infestor, but that means you will have to pump units earlier (and thus scout it earlier). With Burrow and Banes, you can reactively make units and drone harder, at the expense of somewhat later Infestor.
I don't think the investment into Burrow (100/100) and a Baneling Nest (100/50) is too much for the droning advantage you get. It's 4 Lings and an Infestor. You can skip Banespeed (and maybe drop) until you are certain he is going some kind of heavy Zealot/Sentry deathball.
I don't know much about holding 2 base Colossus timing with Infestors, it might be possible to hold it without drop, which would free up 200/200 in the midgame for Infestors, tech, etc. In that case, drop tech can come later, as a harass tool.
I am only thinking about surviving the early/midgame, because I definitely agree that LOTS of Infestors (with upgraded Lings and later Ultra's/Broodlord) are the key to killing standard Stalker/Colossus/Voidray) deathballs.
As said, I'll experiment some tonight with pure Ling/Infestor. I've been doing Ling/Bane for a while now and just started using Infestors in the midgame (instead of Corruptors), so let's stop theory and see in practice what can and cannot be held off with pure Ling/Fungal. I am not as skilled as you are though
On April 19 2011 18:04 Xapti wrote: I did this in a game recently and it got stomped ridiculously by zealot-colossus. There was a lot of colossus and a lot of zealot.
I think this works as long as the colossus numbers are kept below like 5-6, and/or there is a large component of stalkers or immortals. Obviously I know zealot-colossus is vulnerable vs air (but air is not part of this build).
When you get past 6 colossus it start to get close to a point where zerg can get ultralisk, but it still takes time, which leaves zerg vulnerable, and even with ultralisks, zealots do very well against them. As long as zealots are kept around colossi, they can do quite well (protoss would probably want to get some VR and/or immortal for good measure anyway though)
I also found void rays to be quite problematic as well. While the fact that they are air makes for nice fungals, you need to plant down SO MANY (6, or more if shields regenerate) fungals, and the void rays DPS the infestors down SO FAST it's hard to do it without loosing 80% of the infestors. Also when fungaling the VRs, they can oftentimes be spread out (or just have 1-3 in a different position than where teh ground force is, meaning you need to fungal 12-18 times instead of 6.
On April 19 2011 17:31 Geo.Rion wrote: You do realize, that the video and screenshot u posted showcases a Protoss army with 2 colossi, 0 VRs and it's not even close to maxed? Ling ifestor is cool, it definetly does not crush the Protoss deathball,
Somewhat/partially agree with this
Hi Xapti. Could you send me the replay of the game you're talking about?
With only colossi and zealots, he has nothing to target your NP'ing infestors. There are no forcefields. You will melt his fungaled zealots as fast as he melted your zerglings. And if he does commit to that many colossi, I suppose you could build a spire if you doubt me. I think professional zerg players would be happy to transition away if they scouted someone going purely zealot/colossus. You could make 4 overseers(overseers cost no food) per robotics facility and permanently goop them rendering them useless.
Void Rays have a range of 6. Fungal Growth is range 9. You're in no danger. Complement your Fungals with Infested Terrans (range 9 as well) and the void rays melt. Come on man, I expected more from you. Don't tell me in your 31 ladder games this season that you've really been letdown by mid-game Zergling-Infestor vs Protoss.
infestors get really ugly to deal with as Protoss on ladder good infestor usage with neural parasite is actually really strong against deathballs
the thing is if you keep colossus in the back Infestors can easily Neuralparasite Immortals and wreak havoc (outside of the range of Colossus) if the army is fungaled P can't do shit to deal with it. beside Colossus nothing has enough range to even reach the Infestors that are protected by other units. if you move your colossus forward, you still have the risk of also getting your Colossus NP.
this strategy works really well if Infestor count > Immortal+Colossus count (obviously it won't work if infestor count is low.)
If you get colossus as P you pray that they deal their damage before they die, or you will be left with alot of useless Stalkers against a way superior mix.
Fungal prevents any Stalker micro, which is the only advantage Stalkers have to make them at least not suck for costs.
People say P Deathball is easy mode, but that is only true if Zerg let P get their Deathball uncontested.
On April 19 2011 16:44 nymeria wrote:I'm hoping that I or someone else can figure out a way to avoid wasting any gas on baneling nest/burrow/pneumatized carapace/ventral sacs and then banelings themselves just to hold off early 2 base attacks.
A good protoss can always run their probes from baneling drops. You can't run from fungal. If he has cannons protecting his probes use lings to take the damage while casting your fungals.
Do me a favor and try transitioning from your baneling opening to only making zergling-infestor afterwards. Post replays here and I'll add them to the OP (or i could make videos of them).
I don't see how you can hold off a good timed 6Gate without Burrow Roach or Burrow Banes. I'll do some practice testing tonight, but these are my thoughts: You don't have the critical mass of Infestors (3-4 I think?), which means that he can retreat, reinforce, regen shields a bit and push in again. Good forcefield usage will negate your lings at the 6Gate timing. Yes, you can hold it off with just Ling/Infestor, but that means you will have to pump units earlier (and thus scout it earlier). With Burrow and Banes, you can reactively make units and drone harder, at the expense of somewhat later Infestor.
I don't think the investment into Burrow (100/100) and a Baneling Nest (100/50) is too much for the droning advantage you get. It's 4 Lings and an Infestor. You can skip Banespeed (and maybe drop) until you are certain he is going some kind of heavy Zealot/Sentry deathball.
I don't know much about holding 2 base Colossus timing with Infestors, it might be possible to hold it without drop, which would free up 200/200 in the midgame for Infestors, tech, etc. In that case, drop tech can come later, as a harass tool.
I am only thinking about surviving the early/midgame, because I definitely agree that LOTS of Infestors (with upgraded Lings and later Ultra's/Broodlord) are the key to killing standard Stalker/Colossus/Voidray) deathballs.
As said, I'll experiment some tonight with pure Ling/Infestor. I've been doing Ling/Bane for a while now and just started using Infestors in the midgame (instead of Corruptors), so let's stop theory and see in practice what can and cannot be held off with pure Ling/Fungal. I am not as skilled as you are though
I haven't figured out a solid method to survive the early game Protoss attacks. Sometimes speedling counters work. Sometimes i rely on queens and spines. Speedlings and Queens alone seem to not be sufficient (transfusing a queen just isn't the same as transfusing a spine). There is a synergy between having many spines and many queens early in the game. You can use the spines to help you secure the middle and your queens are used to help generate larva for your larva-hungry zerglings from either your many macro hatches (if you're bad at injects like me) or from your many expansion hatches.
When someone maps out a solid opening for this build I will add it to the OP.
On April 19 2011 18:45 Knuppe wrote: This is going way OT people.. stick to the topic which is Z deathball vs P deathball please.
I am sorry but I didnt see a max Z beating max P in any of the replays or videos with ling-infestor.
Because the SC2 Strategy Section has lots of misinformation and misguided ideas that turn many masters and grandmasters level player away from reading thread here, I chose to go ahead and post a sampling of what Zergling-Infestor looks like vs Protoss even in the hands of someone with bad micro. I want this thread to be seen and heard all the way to the IM Team house so that hopefully my boy IMLosira can take away oGsMC's $85,700. Let any and all challengers step up and prove me wrong.
On April 19 2011 19:06 freetgy wrote: infestors get really ugly to deal with as Protoss on ladder good infestor usage with neural parasite is actually really strong against deathballs
the thing is if you keep colossus in the back Infestors can easily Neuralparasite Immortals and wreak havoc (outside of the range of Colossus) if the army is fungaled P can't do shit to deal with it. beside Colossus nothing has enough range to even reach the Infestors that are protected by other units. if you move your colossus forward, you still have the risk of also getting your Colossus NP.
this strategy works really well if Infestor count > Immortal+Colossus count (obviously it won't work if infestor count is low.)
If you get colossus as P you pray that they deal their damage before they die, or you will be left with alot of useless Stalkers against a way superior mix.
Fungal prevents any Stalker micro, which is the only advantage Stalkers have to make them at least not suck for costs.
People say P Deathball is easy mode, but that is only true if P doesn't let Zerg get their Deathball uncontested.
It seems like a lot of people are moving away from roach hydra midgames into this sort of stuff. I briefly tried infestor/ling in ZvP without much success but looking at your games it seems clear I didn't have enough infestors.
Since then I was trying a pure ling/baneling style while rushing to ultras (I got that idea here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=211687) and it works quite nicely. If you check the replays in the thread that I linked you will also see deathballs being crushed, even with a supply advantage (it even worked against void rays :o)
Here we go, finally zergs are getting creative and adaptive Good writeup, I expect to get major problems with infestors in the nearby future.. that is; until we protoss players find a way around it again
With this composition, how do you put any pressure on the Protoss? Toss can do Cruncher style mass cannons and every expo will be safe from harass. And the Toss main army is completely safe from any harassment at all. So basically, the ideology of this unit composition is to tell the Toss "I am going to let you get your deathball and perfect composition to try and roflstomp me." I suppose if Zerg can roflstomp the Toss consistently with this then I suppose its fine, so, I would say glhf to that.
Edit: I have also realised that it seems that Neural Parasite is the main killer here. It really makes you think that the Fungal Growth buff was simply a way of Blizzard "get your asses off the couch and think"
On April 19 2011 19:50 Micket wrote: With this composition, how do you put any pressure on the Protoss? Toss can do Cruncher style mass cannons and every expo will be safe from harass. And the Toss main army is completely safe from any harassment at all. So basically, the ideology of this unit composition is to tell the Toss "I am going to let you get your deathball and perfect composition to try and roflstomp me." I suppose if Zerg can roflstomp the Toss consistently with this then I suppose its fine, so, I would say glhf to that.
This is exactly what the OP is suggesting, that Infestors in a critical amount with upgraded Lings would kill any deathball. If that is true, and you can get to that stage of the game reliably, drops/nydus/harass becomes an afterthought, a way to come even further ahead and/or to outplay your opponent.
Three things need to be figured out: 1) Does mass Infestor really beat/trade with any deathball? Is there a way for protoss to micro his deathball/parts of his ball to beat this? AKA, is this a true Zerg deathball? 2) How do we get to the mass Infestor stage without dying to 1/2 base gateway pressure, early colossus timings, etc. etc. AKA, how to survive the early/midgame. Protoss buy time with Sentry/FF to get their ball up, what does Zerg do? 3) If 1) is true and 2) is solved, what are problematic responses from Protoss to this. AKA, what is problematic for Zerg?
Just got roflstomped by this as P.... what an amazing strat! Maybe the Zerg complaints will stop now... EDIT: The banelings didnt work though --> FF The zerg had more infestors than I had collossi, so target fire on them did only turn the battle even more in his favour, as my stalkers were bitten to death by the lings why they tried to shoot the infestors. I feel that the attack timing is very important, it seems to be very effective when P has 2-3 Collossi. If you pull the collosi back your army up front will be killed too fast I think.
the problem is, vs good protoss you cant rely on neural parasite vs colossi, NP range is 9 and colossi range is 9 and that simple doesnt work, they get killed off before they are all NP'd. the high level zergs wouldv done this already. you can see some mess around with it here and there but you still need corrupters.
On April 19 2011 19:45 barrykp wrote: It seems like a lot of people are moving away from roach hydra midgames into this sort of stuff. I briefly tried infestor/ling in ZvP without much success but looking at your games it seems clear I didn't have enough infestors.
Since then I was trying a pure ling/baneling style while rushing to ultras (I got that idea here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=211687) and it works quite nicely. If you check the replays in the thread that I linked you will also see deathballs being crushed, even with a supply advantage (it even worked against void rays :o)
I will try more infestors and see how it goes.
Just be sure to not be stingy when it comes to using up their energy. The worst thing you can do is not keep casting fungals & infested terrans during the battle thereby leaving a leftover extremely damaged yet now quite dangerous army to have free reign on your undefended infestors. (burrow!)
On April 19 2011 19:45 Flummie wrote: Here we go, finally zergs are getting creative and adaptive Good writeup, I expect to get major problems with infestors in the nearby future.. that is; until we protoss players find a way around it again
Nice thread
Thanks! I think a certain famous zerg player's very vocal complaints about the match-up sparked the flame for me. I started thinking about this build while watching my brother's (Zelniq) ascent up the open brackets at the last MLG. In recent months he lost to iNSoLeNCE in back to back TSL-open qualifiers and to iNcontroL in the HD World Tournament. I hope he believes in my message and continues to try to figure out how to make it work at the grandmaster level.
Knowing what I know now, I can't barely stand to watch standard ZvPs. I didn't even tune in for Morrow's match in the TSL(seen too much of Morrow's ZvP, I'm afraid. I had to tune in for CrunCher though...I've been a believer since watching his stream following his qualifier open win. I was rooting for CrunCher to overcome the aggressive approach Mondragon was successfully using to punish him for trying to expand to far away bases, and it was a surprise to me when he did.).
At worst, I hope that zerg's incorporate neural parasite into their strategies to counter the strength of colossi. I just don't think they are open-minded enough with the idea of sacrificing lings to all those blazing lazers in order to allow their infestors to do the heavy lifting.
I have used a similar style vs protoss in my last ~40 or so zvp and am currently ~30-10. Instead of mass infestors I go mass banes with 2-3 infestors and 2-3 ultras per army. Therefore, my final army is roughly 130 lings, 50 banes, 2-3 infestors, 2-3 ultras. It is important to get ov speed, drops, bane speed and spire. This comp obliterates most P ground armies with decent control. Just send in the banes / ultras first (with FG for more effectiveness) then follow up with the lings. (in the meantime drop ~24 lings in main). If he has air left over reinforce with mutas (you will have plenty of resources if you waited for him to max). Against mid game pushes before infestor / ultra mass ling bane works exceptionally well as long as you don't get stupid and press a bad attack (he threw down 12 ff's....screw it, attack!) As far as turtling toss once you are maxed with a strong economy just keep throwing banes / lings at his bases (use drops to spread him out).
I've watched the first 3 replays now and I have to say: game1: 2base colossus rush from protoss on short distance and you went pretty much all-in (because you neither had the production nor the income to recover if you would have lost your army) LOOOOTS of builds (can) counter a 2base colossus rush (muta rush, burrow roach push, hydra drops, hydra/ling push, spinecrawler/hydra push, roach all-in, speedling all-in)
game2: I stopped watching after I've seen the "Protoss build" after expanding: 7gate+robo+stargate
game3: well, I can see this working on Teldarim, but I really have to say, if Protoss would just Forcefield better or didnt let you mindcontrol his colossi you would be in lots of trouble
I do think that this build has some potential against deathballs, but you simply lose to a 5 or 6gate pushes (which hit before infestors are out and you cant hold them with pure speedling/spinecrawler without getting seriously behind), massive air rushes before you can get your infestors out, protoss maxed armies with 6-10 colossi(from what I've seen the Protoss never was close to maxed), templar play (psi storm vs zergling, feedback vs infestor)
Neural parasite work very well against collosi, because they target the zergling first and you have plenty of time to NP all of them. HT isn't that good. Better than colossi, but without KA, it is very delicate to use.
On April 19 2011 19:50 Micket wrote: With this composition, how do you put any pressure on the Protoss? Toss can do Cruncher style mass cannons and every expo will be safe from harass. And the Toss main army is completely safe from any harassment at all. So basically, the ideology of this unit composition is to tell the Toss "I am going to let you get your deathball and perfect composition to try and roflstomp me." I suppose if Zerg can roflstomp the Toss consistently with this then I suppose its fine, so, I would say glhf to that.
Edit: I have also realised that it seems that Neural Parasite is the main killer here. It really makes you think that the Fungal Growth buff was simply a way of Blizzard "get your asses off the couch and think"
Blizzard might be smarter than I originally thought them to be capable of.
On April 19 2011 19:50 Micket wrote: With this composition, how do you put any pressure on the Protoss? Toss can do Cruncher style mass cannons and every expo will be safe from harass. And the Toss main army is completely safe from any harassment at all. So basically, the ideology of this unit composition is to tell the Toss "I am going to let you get your deathball and perfect composition to try and roflstomp me." I suppose if Zerg can roflstomp the Toss consistently with this then I suppose its fine, so, I would say glhf to that.
This is exactly what the OP is suggesting, that Infestors in a critical amount with upgraded Lings would kill any deathball. If that is true, and you can get to that stage of the game reliably, drops/nydus/harass becomes an afterthought, a way to come even further ahead and/or to outplay your opponent.
Three things need to be figured out: 1) Does mass Infestor really beat/trade with any deathball? Is there a way for protoss to micro his deathball/parts of his ball to beat this? AKA, is this a true Zerg deathball? 2) How do we get to the mass Infestor stage without dying to 1/2 base gateway pressure, early colossus timings, etc. etc. AKA, how to survive the early/midgame. Protoss buy time with Sentry/FF to get their ball up, what does Zerg do? 3) If 1) is true and 2) is solved, what are problematic responses from Protoss to this. AKA, what is problematic for Zerg?
BUMP!
On April 19 2011 20:09 Warrice wrote: the problem is, vs good protoss you cant rely on neural parasite vs colossi, NP range is 9 and colossi range is 9 and that simple doesnt work, they get killed off before they are all NP'd. the high level zergs wouldv done this already. you can see some mess around with it here and there but you still need corrupters.
You zerglings are sacrificed to get close enough with your infestors to NP all their colossi. It is a huge blunder to walk your infestors in first.
I can't be the first SC2 player in the world to commit this heavily to this style, could I? I know the game isn't popular in S.K. yet, for various reasons, but at least the ex-bw-turned-sc2-pro's have the creativity and gumption to experiment with such an obvious unit combo (lings only cost minerals, infestors cost a lot of gas)...right?
Edit: I have also realised that it seems that Neural Parasite is the main killer here. It really makes you think that the Fungal Growth buff was simply a way of Blizzard "get your asses off the couch and think"
But it makes no sense to reduce FG time and increase its damage for this purpose. The fungal is there not just to kill enemy units but to snare them so they can't get to your infestors. If anything, the infestor change and armored damage buff just made us zergs realize infestors are usable in ZvP as well.
Back to OP: I love this strategy, have been trying to work infestors into my ZvP builds forver, I guess I just wasn't committing to them enough because from the replays I watched they're definitely viable. However I feel they're much more important to hold off the mini-deathball coming from a 6-gate, or thermal lance timing than the ultimate deathball of voids/colossii and assorted gateway units.
I think this build is viable, but it would be cool to see whether infestor/ling with maybe 2-3 ultras can actually do well against a maxed toss deathball with upgrades. Maybe you could make another video of just unit tester or something to see what happens?
Fungals only last 4 seconds now and due very minimal damage. Hydras would in my opinion would be more effecient against that army as soon as the colussuses are shot down by corruptors or neutral parasited by 1/2 infestors.
On April 19 2011 21:08 Olsson wrote: Fungals only last 4 seconds now and due very minimal damage. Hydras would in my opinion would be more effecient against that army as soon as the colussuses are shot down by corruptors or neutral parasited by 1/2 infestors.
The problem is that with only 1-2 infestors you don't have the ability to both fungal and do 1-2 neurals on his colossii. I don't see why you would make anything other than lings (but perhaps cut some infestors in favor of ling upgrades). Besides, hydras are not really viable for counter-attacking, in case you do get his army down and feel you could finish the game right there and then with a counter.
On April 19 2011 21:08 Olsson wrote: Fungals only last 4 seconds now and due very minimal damage. Hydras would in my opinion would be more effecient against that army as soon as the colussuses are shot down by corruptors or neutral parasited by 1/2 infestors.
Well right now all pros going roach/hydra/corruptor loose badly.
The mass ling and infestor works best.
I've been promoting this strategy for almost a month now on teamliquid chat and stuff and I'm glad people like Spanishiva and the OP are promoting it more.
Its just so good against protoss and even Terran, of course sometimes you need to mix it up, add some roaches or hydras, but in 8 out of 10 situations ling and infestor work.
And defending to 6 gate push is hard to defend as zerg even with roach and hydras and I've find it that 4 spines with mass lings and 5-6 queens and you can defend until infestor comes out and then you instantly win, there is no way protoss can recover after he looses the push after that 6 gate.
I've been working on a roach infestor ZvP, protoss who respond with immortals when they see the mass roach just die to NP on the immortals, I'm having a bit more trouble with smart protoss who go colossi and target the infestors first from behind the stalkers. I never tried with lings instead of roaches though, I'll give this a try.
After running into trouble using my upgrade-centric ZvP build versus 6 gates, I've started experimenting with infestors. Since fungal hits loads of clumped up sentries and kills them in 2 hits, and since its the only option that outranges the forcefield casting range before broodlords.
I've had reasonable success against these 6 gate pushes, but I found that missing a fungal just made me lose games. Then I came to a revelation. If I cut out the energy-upgrade, I could have another infestor out before the push, and have 3 infestors that can fungal rather than 2 infestors that spawn with enough energy using the same amount of gas. Now that I had one more fungal to my disposal, I could make a bit more mistakes in my fungal placement and still snipe the sentries. But oftentimes my standing army was still too small and I had too much minerals in the bank that I couldn't spend.
After further testing, I built an extra macro-hatchery in my base. This gives me enough larva to pump out insanity amounts of zerglings, enough to completely swarm the protoss 6gate push while fungalling the sentries.
Even if I scout a stargate, this hatchery will allow me to get so much production that I can just get entire armies of zerglings ready to be dropped into the main, which will be relatively defenseless due to the money spent on stargate units.
However, in the lategame I find that just zerglings and infestors aren't the greatest combination. Rather, I focus on getting baneling drops and roaches, and use my leftover infestors from the midgame to pin the protoss in place while dropping their ball and attacking the leftovers with my roaches, reinforcing with whatever unit the protoss army is weak against ( either mass zerglings or mass roaches, sometimes mass mutalisks ). Just infestors and zerglings are too fragile in this match up because HT's will ruin your day ( even though HT's are hardly ever in the toss death ball composition until lategame ). And I really do not like neural parasite in this match up due to the range of toss units and blink.
Thats my input about infestor ling. Great in the midgame, diminishing in the lategame.
There is no 100% win build in my eyes. You will always have to differentiate between the use of lings or roaches to pair up with infestors in mid game. Some protoss pressure builds simply require roaches to defend it, especially when the toss makes no mistakes in moving his stalkers.
Relying on neural parasite is just so... gimmicky. It may work in ladder games when your opponent has never played against it before, but if this strategy ever became popular Protoss players would quickly learn how to slap it down. And your YouTube video doesn't do you any favours - telling everyone you've invented a miraculous anti-deathball strat and then showing you beating exactly 0 deathballs isn't particularly convincing. Basically...
- Neural parasite takes time to hit. I've no real experience with playing Protoss, but I distinctly remember one TvZ game I played in which I went for a thor deathball and my opponent countered with mass infestor. I simply went 1a into him and every infestor either died the instant the parasite landed, thus freeing the thor, or died before the parasite even landed. Collosi are longer ranged and do even more damage, especially in large numbers. Yes, you can try to shield with lings, but if the Protoss actually targets the infestors rather than just letting them autoattack you will die. - Even if they do survive the collosus fire, your strategy relies on hitting every single collosus with neural parasite. In the first battle in the YouTube video, you NPed about half the collosus and won thanks to the damage from the stolen collosi. During the entire 15 second duration there were three collosus within range of your NPing infestors, all of which were conveniently forming a line. If your opponent had just double clicked his collosus and then ordered them to attack the middle infestor your entire infestor army would have been bzarped instantly and you would have lost. - If you do hit every single collosus with neurals, you then rely on the Protoss player being unable to deal with them with anything else. You are therefore relying on catching every single blink stalker with fungals. If the Protoss spreads his stalkers before the fight, just like Terran spreads their marines, that simply won't happen. Your fungals and NPs pop, then all the mobile stalkers blink into your infestors and kill them, freeing the collosi. - Your anti-HT play relies on spending all your infestor energy instantly to become feedback-proof. Unfortunately storms are really really good against infestors, especially when they've just used neural parasite and are unable to move. Storms also have enough range to hit the infestors even if you do fungal the entire Protoss army. If the storms land at around the same time as your fungals, every infestor will die immediately after the second fungals land. The moment the collosi are freed forcefields will once more work and your lings will melt. - Infestors can be sniped. Blink stalkers, DTs, void rays, phoenix and collosi can all dart in and pick off infestors before the battle, rendering your army useless. HTs can run out slightly in front of the Protoss army to feedback infestors before the fight begins. - You can be harassed to death with void rays. With nothing that can actually attack air you rely on infestors, which are horrendously inefficient unless they can hit multiple voids at once. If your opponent just sends one void ray at a time at your infestors you'll either drain all your energy in seconds or simply lose the infestors.
This style can work against the 1a deathball, but against slight amounts of micro it will fail. There are just way to many ways for the Protoss player to beat it. Neural parasites, just like seeker missiles, are crazy expensive, clunky and generally bad if your opponent knows how to react.
To people saying that you can cast forcefields BEFORE lings get there to minimize surface area, and therefore make this less effective, that's where you back out. If the forcefields are cast just before engagement, you can usually retreat while only sacrificing a few lings. I often do this on purpose to bait them into wasting energy, I'm not really sure if its effective but I make it a point to snipe sentries early game anyway.
I'm only high diamond so I don't know if higher levels of play have better answers to that little technique. Most players at my level don't seem to. Diamond is mainly a cheese fest these days anyway.
I feel this is exactly right place to ask this question about ling infestor lategame.
Are you able to cast the fungals in shift queue and whats ur setup? Trying not to make gallup but I'd like to know how much better comp i need for using infestors in late game. 1-2fps wont cut. Myself: radeon hd 4670 AMD phenom x3 3gb ram -good temperatures. -settings on low, resolution on 1280 x 1024 (i don't think i can play on lower reso after getting used to these + the mouse sensitivity would fuck up hardcore)
This strategy is awesome. coL.Ryze has perfected the ling/infestor opening and transitions.
As a protoss, the best way to combat this is to get 2-3 colossi before taking your third. From there, TURTLEEEEE until you max, and get a few stargates and a dark shrine. You need to be able to deal with whatever transition the zerg chooses - use halluc to keep scouting their army composition. Be ready with VR's against broodlords and archons against zerglings/banelings, with of course more colossi vs roaches. Use ur gas wisely.
As zerg, to help prevent toss from taking their 3rd too easily, get banelings with speed and be ready to engage as soon as they move out into the open.
The last time I matched against him in ladder, the entire map was taken for a 40 minute long epic macro game where army trades happened all game with many tech switches from both players - definitey much more fun than the stagnant roach/hydra/corruptor vs stalker/sentry/colossus war.
cant wait till tonight ... this and spanishiwa combined shuold be pretty funny ... cant say i enjoy banelings (well no thats a lie, i cackle like a madman), infestors are far more my sick sense of humor.
On April 19 2011 22:44 Rob28 wrote: Don't know if this has been brought up yet, but IMO this build may run into some problems if protoss goes voidray heavy with his ball.
Thoughts?
Please, this is not thread-worthy because all of this as been already debated on my guide on week ago
On April 19 2011 22:36 -_- wrote: Does this counter ling infestor?
1) Normaly sentry, stalker, coli comp.
2) Take 3rd.
3) Tech to templar.
I've been having a ton of trouble with this stat, and I this is my only idea.
No, because ling/infestor is relatively gas efficient. To combat it you also have to be gas efficient. They'll transition to baneling or roach or muta or broodlords. Your best bet is to react accordingly - archon/stalker for the most part while stopping at ~3 colossi or get VR's vs broodlords. Templar are a little bit gas heavier so I tend to go dark shrine to get DT's out to do some harass with warp prisms at the same time morphing some at home to archons.
Templar do well vs infestors but broodlord tech would destroy that - also u dont have the gas to keep up with storms as zerg re-maxes on a different unit composition.
On April 19 2011 22:44 Rob28 wrote: Don't know if this has been brought up yet, but IMO this build may run into some problems if protoss goes voidray heavy with his ball.
Thoughts?
Fungal growth the void rays - and if u have armored units, walk back so the VR's arent within range and pick off other parts of his army.
Voidrays are terrible against Zerglings, which means the ball dies very quickly. The remaining Voidrays can be dealt with with Infested Terrans and Fungal. If he sticks his Voids with the ball, it's not very hard to deal with.
I don't know about an aggressive Voidray(/Pheonix) force, that roams the map harassing.
On April 19 2011 22:28 Antimage wrote: This strategy is awesome. coL.Ryze has perfected the ling/infestor opening and transitions.
As a protoss, the best way to combat this is to get 2-3 colossi before taking your third. From there, TURTLEEEEE until you max, and get a few stargates and a dark shrine. You need to be able to deal with whatever transition the zerg chooses - use halluc to keep scouting their army composition. Be ready with VR's against broodlords and archons against zerglings/banelings, with of course more colossi vs roaches. Use ur gas wisely.
As zerg, to help prevent toss from taking their 3rd too easily, get banelings with speed and be ready to engage as soon as they move out into the open.
The last time I matched against him in ladder, the entire map was taken for a 40 minute long epic macro game where army trades happened all game with many tech switches from both players - definitey much more fun than the stagnant roach/hydra/corruptor vs stalker/sentry/colossus war.
I can't be the first SC2 player in the world to commit this heavily to this style, could I? I know the game isn't popular in S.K. yet, for various reasons, but at least the ex-bw-turned-sc2-pro's have the creativity and gumption to experiment with such an obvious unit combo (lings only cost minerals, infestors cost a lot of gas)...right?
No, I prefer heavy infestor play in all matchups. I do like to mix in banelings with my lings as well.
The thing is though, this style works in game but on this forum it doesn't. Because, you know, 'it doesn't work at high levels'.
I was seriously thinking of going for just straight ling/infestor in my next ZvP because I never hit the new infestor THAT hard, now I have a guide and replays to look at for subtle tweaks as I play with the build.
well its mostly going for the currently favored style off mass stalker (they were needed before for sudden muta switches and are very good against roaches with blink and upgrades). if i would see alot of lings and infestors i would go for chargelots and hts (mostly for the archon and to feedback on occassion) or carriers (since i love phoenix opening and if you spread your phoenix fungal isn't that bad) The evil option would be if you still have some sentrys, put down some halluzinations to distract the lings for some time. (archon wall x3). But since the zerg will float alot of gas there is always the threat of 30 mutas (or a few broodies)at once if you only have zealots and archons out.
Other then that you can simply get some phoenix to lift the infestors and negate their damage (like people did vs marauder ghost combinations in beta), of course not from one angel that one fungal is enough heh.
But yes upgraded cracklings are way better then roaches vs toss atleast once tunneling claws isn't working anymore because of to much dps. (and the way lings attack colossi don't do alot of damage ^.^)
Hope this will bring back the ht and the archons x3 way cooler to watch.
On April 19 2011 23:22 branflakes14 wrote: We may see Ling/Infestor versus Zealot/Templar in ZvP yet!
this is what I was thinking. zealot/templar sees to be the best counter to this as fungal does nothing really to lots and its pretty hard to fungal the small templar compared to the colosi. Also, I think this will be a rise of dts in the toss army as a major damage dealer.
I would just like to thank you for this post you have great insights and a fun attitude.
That being said, I think zealot (even tough they become fungaled) are pretty good and too many colossus means you don't get neurals in. I'm not saying this to make it less viable, I'm just saying, I'm gonna try it but with roaches too. I feel they are too important (and good ) against protoss, because of their ability to fountain of health at any time. This will help against storm too. Good luck!
On April 19 2011 23:38 -MoOsE- wrote: Also, I think this will be a rise of dts in the toss army as a major damage dealer.
This is exactly why this strat is so good. Fungal reveals DTs as well.
Not to say DTs will be useless, they'll still be good for poking at expos, but they won't fare any better vs the main army than anything else toss can make.
On April 19 2011 23:22 branflakes14 wrote: We may see Ling/Infestor versus Zealot/Templar in ZvP yet!
this is what I was thinking. zealot/templar sees to be the best counter to this as fungal does nothing really to lots and its pretty hard to fungal the small templar compared to the colosi. Also, I think this will be a rise of dts in the toss army as a major damage dealer.
Since the build relies heavily on ling/bane, you will not be very gas starved, which means you can easily afford a few overseers in your army if necessary. Also, if the protoss gets a more zealot heavy mixture, then just adjust your army composition by adding more banelings, which clean up the zealots quite easily. Storms aren't necessarily the best choice, since the lings are very quick. The zerg can just bait storms and run away while taking minimal damage. If you use storms, you'll definitely need some sentries at least to forcefield and hold lings in place. But even then, that is incredibly gas heavy. Plus, zealot/templar has no way of countering baneling dropping then
How to do you handle 6 gate or 5 gate robo timing? If they push once it can be handled. If they keep reinforcing I lose every time, ling/bane is too inefficient. Banes are good against zealots but you're still trading gas for minerals which you will not be able to keep up with in the long run, on top of the huge larva cost and the time required to morph banes.
Eventually he whittles me down and starts doing economic damage while taking an expo I can't punish at all because I'm barely even keeping up with the constant flow of gateway units.
6-gate is very easy to handle with ling/bane already.
You should have +1 finished or finishing as the push comes.
You should have 3-4 spines for defense, preferably far enough forward that he cannot get to your nat or force-field your ramp without getting well within their range (creep spread is important here), if you were just going to defend with lings/queens/spines.
The banes are more of a finishing move, unless P comes at you with +1 himself, then you need to make sure you have enough to at least significantly damage all his zealots.
Basically you need to flank with a large enough number of lings that when P pushes in to your natural, you can cut off his retreat with a wall of lings, forcing him to fight in range of the spine crawlers. At the same time, you can't move ALL your lings out of the natural, as P could just rush up your ramp, dropping force-fields behind him. 50/50 split is what you should be aiming for.
From there, I would just make a handful of banes in your nat, 5 or 6 should be plenty. Always aim the banes towards his sentries and forget about them, focus on shaping your ling wall/transfusing with queens.
As far as numbers goes, you need to have 4 lings to every zealot/stalker. The risk in fighting a 6-gate is barely losing. If you have enough lings to kill the push, you'll find yourself with 20 lings left over, if you are just 5-10 lings too short, you'll find the protoss with 5-6 stalkers left and 6 zealots warping in behind it, rarely does a head-on fight vs 6-gate end without one side having a major army advantage.
Producing nothing but lings isn't terrible, as your econ should be floating enough minerals to eventually get a 3rd hatch.
Easy 6-gate management with no more than 400 gas spent on units/upgrades.
Interesting style that I've been seeing used more and more often. I happened to notice in your video that in every single engagement, you were fighting on creep. I don't know if it affects the outcome in a huge manner, but I'd like to see the difference between them.
Will definetely start trying this. Currently I've been doing that 9pool build agianst toss, but I could certianly mix it up with this ling-infestor build. Thanks heaps
I want to see a top zerg do this style in a tournament to see if it can be pulled off at the highest levels. I hope they're experimenting with this in practice so they feel confident enough to try it in tournaments.
I honestly do not have replays fighting build like this, but I think going for Air (especially with a large number of Pheonix) can give you a run for your money as after killing the infestors the protoss is safe to go for more gateway units or robo units.
Very nice strat and covers every aspect of a deathball. Only thing that's bad was replay nr 2, absolutely horrible play by both teams. 13:40 worst forcefields I've seen in my entire life. 35 drones on 2 base for 15 minutes and no 3rd while the P FE'd. Other than that gj
When I saw the first few battles I was all "meh" but the last battle, holy shit. I've been looking for a solution to that for ages. HT\Stalker\Imo in late game is just terrible to fight against. Cheers a million for this! I suddenly got an urge to start grinding out games with zerg again!
I started doing something similar to this today (before even reading the thread), and havent lost a single game :D
Fungal + Infested Terran spam just cuts through armys like crazy once you get enough infestors (and if sticking to lings, thats a lot of gas for infestors) In one game I snuck the infesters into their main and watched with a banana grin as the infested terran's cleared out all of their tech in a matter of seconds.
Im sure this wouldn't work half as well in a more respectable league, but down here in Plat im not having any problems at all with getting the numbers I need. (Although, Ive not come up against a toss yet... But for what its worth, infestors are now my favourite unit :3)
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.
TT1 roflcoptered all over Sen just now on Sen's stream in this exact (the OP's) situation on Tal D'arim. It wasn't until Sen got roaches and broods to complement his infestors did he have a successful attack. Infestors are a great unit and need to be implemented more, but I wouldn't take this as zerg's only answer to the deathball, and I wouldn't say that this turns the deathball into the beach ball. This strategy has some weight if you have a map (and opponent) that allows you to engage in an open area, but if they have control over a choke-point, or can create one with FFs..you can pretty much hang it up without something more robust.
I had a player do this against me yesterday on ladder. It was not very effective. My collossi fried the zerglings and I had a ton of blink stalkers to complement which meant sniping the infestors was not too difficult. Didn't even matter I lost all my sentries to banes or that I lost a lot of probes in a baneling drop.
Against a true late-late-late game deathball, you need banes and/or ultras. I sparred a bit in the unit tester with a friend, but couldn't beat Stalker/Colossus/Voidray (with good upgrades) with just Ling/Infestor (equal supply, much cheaper) but killed all support units and leaves the colossus/voids exposed, resulting in a battle of reinforcement. Forcefield hampered this style even more. Throwing in some banelings did the trick though, and 2-3 ultras to kill forcefields also improved things a great deal. Equal resources/supply, Zerg wins.
How does this fare against the High Templar/Immortal/Archon deathball with chargelots/blink stalkers to support?
I'd imagine the fungals would do really big damage, but with good micro they might snipe infestors with feedback before you get your spells off, and storm+archons would destroy lings (and blink stalker micro to pick off infestors using neural).
Seems like it would be a micro battle that could go either way.
On April 19 2011 10:19 HelloThere wrote: I can't help but feel like against a decent protoss they will shut this attack down in two ways:
1) Much better forcefields before the lings arrive greatly reducing surface area 2) Focusing down the infestor that has the colossi NPed
Pretty much this, I think. I had someone actually try to do this same thing to me. Honestly, Roach + Infestor works better. He switched from mass lings + infestor to mass Roach + Infestor and the subsequent battles were close fights, whereas fighting vs pure ling + infestor was just a slaughter. Like HelloThere said, intelligent forcefield use allows your Collossi Zeals whatever to mop up a lot of lings, and when a Collossus (or more) gets NPed, it's not hard to focus the infestor with Stalkers or whatever you have. Especially true if you have spare Sentry energy left after FFing to block the lings; you can box in the infestors and rape them if you have enough energy to box them in and throw Zeals/stalkers at them.
I think as long as Z doesn't scout a 2 base timing such as 5 gate or 6 gate, they can survive with just a handful of roaches on 2 base and get some infestors out on 3 base. I played Ret the other day and he just smashed me with roach/infestor/baneling drop/speedling. I got a pretty quick 3rd up but he was able to pick me apart while I am trying to defend multiple locations. I'll upload the replay in exactly one hour and twenty minutes when I am home. Clearly a great replay to watch to show how to own passive toss.
I've been trying to use this midgame and always panic during some timing attack and make a bunch of blings... nice to know that that gas is better spent on infestors
On April 20 2011 03:21 SirJebadiah wrote: I've been trying to use this midgame and always panic during some timing attack and make a bunch of blings... nice to know that that gas is better spent on infestors
Don't be afraid to make panic banelings to survive midgame timings, you always load them up and carpetbomb some probes or use them for two-pronged attacks. Distract at the third with lings, run into the natural minerals. What are you going to do, lose your nat or lose your third? If you don't do damage, pull back, lings/banes are cheap and expendable. If Mondragon can lose so many roaches dropping all over Shakuras, you can lose some lings and banes trying to be aggressive.
On April 20 2011 03:21 SirJebadiah wrote: I've been trying to use this midgame and always panic during some timing attack and make a bunch of blings... nice to know that that gas is better spent on infestors
Don't be afraid to make panic banelings to survive midgame timings, you always load them up and carpetbomb some probes or use them for two-pronged attacks. Distract at the third with lings, run into the natural minerals. What are you going to do, lose your nat or lose your third? If you don't do damage, pull back, lings/banes are cheap and expendable. If Mondragon can lose so many roaches dropping all over Shakuras, you can lose some lings and banes trying to be aggressive.
On April 19 2011 12:10 BallsOfSteel wrote: I tend to favor Roach/Corruptor based strategies, but I can see that this has potential. Using Colossi controlled by NP to negate FF usage is a nice touch and I'll try it out. Since you will be getting Melee and Carapace upgrades consistently, this could also transition nicely into a late game with Baneling/Infestor/Ultralisk.
The one thing I see preventing this from being a guide is the lack of opening build(s). From the replays, I would say these are the basic requirements for this mid-game strategy: - At least 2 bases with saturation on both minerals and gas - Lair tech - Enough map control to fight in favorable positions
Since these are requirements for the strategy, they should be the goals for any opening builds that you incorporate. I use two that I think would be ideal for reaching these goals quickly, without giving an edge to your opponent.
1) 11 Pool, 19 Hatch (I picked this up from a replay of EVORekatan) http://www.youtube.com/user/Rekatan#p/u/7/8tStlgu8Tfg - Aggressive style that tries to gain advantage by denying enemy expo - Harder to Pylon block since the Hatchery goes down as 2 sets of Lings spawn - Has the option to forgo the mid-game of Ling/Infestor if you see an opening to end the game sooner - Very good against 1 base play (4Gate, early Robo tech, etc)
2) 15Hatch, 14Pool or 16Hatch, 15Pool (no real difference between the two for me) http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=207017 - A good example - Defensive style that uses Queens and Spines to deal with early pressure (if there is any) - You can stop at 2 Queens and go heavy on Spines if you think a rush is coming or - You can get 2 Spines and go heavy on Queens if you think a rush is coming (preferable, since it also deals with air and doesn't lose as many Drones) - 2 or more Extractors when you have saturation on both mineral lines
Since map control is a huge part of this build, wouldn't the 14/14 be a more favorable opening when compared to early hatches? Having 6 speedlings roaming the map early will keep the Protoss turtled for a while (unless the Protoss goes 4gate).
How would a good amount of phoenixes do lifting up the infestors? I've been using phoenixes to lift up infestors if I don't have HT's to feedback/storm.
On April 19 2011 22:44 Rob28 wrote: Don't know if this has been brought up yet, but IMO this build may run into some problems if protoss goes voidray heavy with his ball.
Thoughts?
Please, this is not thread-worthy because all of this as been already debated on my guide on week ago
You can find all the response you need about Zergling, baneling, infestor, high templar, void ray, etc.
Saying that Zergling-Baneling-Infestor-Ultralisk is the same as Zergling-Infestor is like saying Bio-Mech is the same as SKTerran.
Infested Terrans were left out of your guide completely. They are much more powerful than you think.
You say three infestors is enough -- This is a mass infestor idea.
You claim infestors are weak to feedback -- When you only make three of them I might agree but if you have lots of them feedback is no problem at all. Fungal is an aoe spell and cancels the feedback commands of each of the high templar that it hits. In real games, whether you are bronze league or playing in the GSL, your infestors will triumph over his high templar.
You claim infestors are weak to phoenixes -- When they come at me with phoenixes I just fungal them and cast a few infested terrans to clear them up. Committing to phoenix and or void rays vs mass infestors is a blunder.
You say to switch to hydralisks to finish void rays after killing their ground army -- Both fungal and infested terrans have a range of 9 while void rays have a range of 6.
Just tested this today vs a maxed protoss with stalkers and colussus. This is just redicolously overrated, it isn't good. If youre against a protoss thats smart he will just target fire the infestors easily and take them down. I had 20 infestors, about 120 supply lings. Lings in first, infestors in after but they got melted with 3 armor upgrade and their 90 hp -.-
Great job getting the strat out there for the community! ^^ One thing i would like to point out that you can add to disadvantages is that how reliant you are on infestors. You NEED those infestors alive, so you need to protect them. Now im a 3300+ masters so when i see this comp (most likely im going to have blink with HT or close to having HT) near max what i do is i dont fully engage until i see i can do it without that many infestors alive. I would send it my ht alone to feedback as much as possible. I would sac about 4 stalkers to blink forward and snipe as many infestors as i can. Also i blink and snipe if i see neural parasite. So just watch out for getting you infestors sniped, because if you lose half of them before the fight even starts then you will most likely lose the fight if the toss has decent enough micro to target infestors with Feedback or blink stalkers. Other than that have fun and practice this awesome strat! ^.^;;
Honestly the toss would have won if he knew how to control his units well...if you noticed he was focusing the overseer for some reason and those forcefields...well they weren't even decent.
On April 20 2011 04:57 Olsson wrote: Just tested this today vs a maxed protoss with stalkers and colussus. This is just redicolously overrated, it isn't good. If youre against a protoss thats smart he will just target fire the infestors easily and take them down. I had 20 infestors, about 120 supply lings. Lings in first, infestors in after but they got melted with 3 armor upgrade and their 90 hp -.-
You mean 60 supply of lings and 40 supply of infestors, right? You can NP his colossi before they can kill your infestors.
Flanking colossi and siege tanks is often the difference between winning and losing.
Please post your replay so I can see what went wrong.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Can the Automaton2000 beat a 200/200 protoss army with only Infestors?
On April 20 2011 04:57 Olsson wrote: Just tested this today vs a maxed protoss with stalkers and colussus. This is just redicolously overrated, it isn't good. If youre against a protoss thats smart he will just target fire the infestors easily and take them down. I had 20 infestors, about 120 supply lings. Lings in first, infestors in after but they got melted with 3 armor upgrade and their 90 hp -.-
I think infestors are suppose to be spead out and you are suppose to have ultras or broodlords by then. Also it depends if you are attacking the toss in an open area or not. I think ling/infestor is a good mid game vs toss until you can get hive tech up and 3rd or 4th up safely because it is so fast on creep.
On April 19 2011 12:10 BallsOfSteel wrote: I tend to favor Roach/Corruptor based strategies, but I can see that this has potential. Using Colossi controlled by NP to negate FF usage is a nice touch and I'll try it out. Since you will be getting Melee and Carapace upgrades consistently, this could also transition nicely into a late game with Baneling/Infestor/Ultralisk.
The one thing I see preventing this from being a guide is the lack of opening build(s). From the replays, I would say these are the basic requirements for this mid-game strategy: - At least 2 bases with saturation on both minerals and gas - Lair tech - Enough map control to fight in favorable positions
Since these are requirements for the strategy, they should be the goals for any opening builds that you incorporate. I use two that I think would be ideal for reaching these goals quickly, without giving an edge to your opponent.
1) 11 Pool, 19 Hatch (I picked this up from a replay of EVORekatan) http://www.youtube.com/user/Rekatan#p/u/7/8tStlgu8Tfg - Aggressive style that tries to gain advantage by denying enemy expo - Harder to Pylon block since the Hatchery goes down as 2 sets of Lings spawn - Has the option to forgo the mid-game of Ling/Infestor if you see an opening to end the game sooner - Very good against 1 base play (4Gate, early Robo tech, etc)
2) 15Hatch, 14Pool or 16Hatch, 15Pool (no real difference between the two for me) http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=207017 - A good example - Defensive style that uses Queens and Spines to deal with early pressure (if there is any) - You can stop at 2 Queens and go heavy on Spines if you think a rush is coming or - You can get 2 Spines and go heavy on Queens if you think a rush is coming (preferable, since it also deals with air and doesn't lose as many Drones) - 2 or more Extractors when you have saturation on both mineral lines
Since map control is a huge part of this build, wouldn't the 14/14 be a more favorable opening when compared to early hatches? Having 6 speedlings roaming the map early will keep the Protoss turtled for a while (unless the Protoss goes 4gate).
Sure, 14gas/14Pool would be a good opening that denies an enemy expansion for a while and takes early map control. However, it only really matches up well with one of the three basic goals for an opening build (Edit: The three basic goals that I identified, that is. The OP may decide there are more or less).
The early Speedlings build is good at gaining map control, but isn't so good at quickly saturating two bases or getting sustainable Lair tech all that fast. In order to support upgrades and Infestors, you need to be mining from all the gas on at least two bases, which doesn't happen all that fast.
This is where the early Hatch builds come in. They don't get map control as quickly (although 11Pool, 19Hatch takes it much faster than Hatch first), but they do attain saturation faster with a stronger push into Lair tech. Since you won't need total map control until just before you move out with Infestors, this is acceptable.
Here's a replay of me using Ling-Infestor in a ladder game and it utterly failing (but I still won the match). I attribute this build to evening the playing field of the Protoss Deathball--by no means countering it.
Lately I've been going ling/roach (if needed) early game into standardish mutaling play midgame to get the econ up and prevent his econ, and as my mutas slowly start to lose their value, anyone who plays mutaling vs protoss knows that point I'm talking about, I start to get infestors out to complement my lings, and i don't think I've lost a single zvp using this where I've gotten to the point where I have about 15 mutas. The rest of the game of keeping their econ stifled with mutas and crushing their army with ling/infestor, brood lord if it goes on long enough, is just ez mode. Sometimes I mix in banelings for fun if I'm at a huge advantage :B So yeah, this definitely works, I've tried it, and it's a blast, and fungal counters the counter to mutaling, blink, and honestly suiciding mutas to pick off high templar if they make them is the best way to deal with them, and if you successfully get all of his templar even losing all your mutas, you pretty much win.
for people who are having concerns with their opening:
i have had some success with burrow+bane as they are relatively low cost and come out quickly enough to punish straight gateway aggression off a hallu scout. showing burrow tech and banelings will force toss into robo+obs and while this might just be a low masters thing, i have found that the time that buys me is enough to start the infestor train rolling.
and if they're just too stupid to notice, sometimes they walk over your banes. thats fine too.
On April 20 2011 02:48 Alejandrisha wrote: I think as long as Z doesn't scout a 2 base timing such as 5 gate or 6 gate, they can survive with just a handful of roaches on 2 base and get some infestors out on 3 base. I played Ret the other day and he just smashed me with roach/infestor/baneling drop/speedling. I got a pretty quick 3rd up but he was able to pick me apart while I am trying to defend multiple locations. I'll upload the replay in exactly one hour and twenty minutes when I am home. Clearly a great replay to watch to show how to own passive toss.
It's been more than 1:20 since this post. I'd really like to see this replay
Verrrrrrrry interesting! I've theorycrafting up a different (from what I've been doing) ZvP style that starts with ling baneling (the Aquanda style), and then transitions into infestor and baneling drop and finally to ultra. I had a question though: did neural parasite get buffed from 12 seconds to 15? I remember it being 12 for some reason.
I can see this style forcing protoss into templar tech. In the video, the closest battle was the second one at 27 seconds, where the toss used feedback on a lot of your infestors, but didn't use any forcefields, so your lings destroyed him. A toss with no collosi, but templar/zealot/sentry could do well against this. His lack of collosi makes it so you can't destroy forcefields, which could be a problem. That is gonna take some perfect execution by the toss though. I suppose you would be able to deal with that comp with baneling drops pretty well also, as both templar and sentries are light and slow, and kill overlords poorly.
I'll DEFINITELY be incorporating with mass infestor with NP into my ZvP
Edit: at the OP: how fast are you getting infestors? In a similar vein, how are you attempting to defend against 4 and/or 6 gate attacks? You mentioned very specifically to ONLY get lings and infestors, but I'm not sure that's actually safe against early gateway pressure.
On April 19 2011 17:31 Geo.Rion wrote: You do realize, that the video and screenshot u posted showcases a Protoss army with 2 colossi, 0 VRs and it's not even close to maxed? Ling ifestor is cool, it definetly does not crush the Protoss deathball, actually it wont kill a single unit vs a well shaped P deathball with good FFs, what infestor ling is good for is to stall the P long enough to rush out the hive units/ surround-stun it in order for Baneling drops to work perfectly
Please read his comments in the thread before you say this... OR maybe watch his replays but idk.....
How does this fare against forge FE into 7-gate stalkers with boosting upgrades? Once he gets enough stalkers and +2 weapons to make your lings die in three hits instead of four your lings will get murdered, and I'm not sure infestors are enough to turn the tide. He can always blink forward the second he sees infestors, even if you get fungal off at this point you're still going to lose the infestors and then are left with a mass of zerglings that are really ineffective against a giant stalker ball.
Add in mass banelings with this and I have NO idea what to do against it.
I used to deal with baneling / baneling drops by using blink / forcefield / sentry micro (FF wall banelings, blink back, micro back / spread colossei.. but now with fungal being used by every master zerg I can't do any micro, I'm calling it broken but that's fine considering that the infestor will probably be nerfed once it becomes more popularized. Forget mass void rays, a few fungals on them and they're dead
I've had great success all day with this build around the 2-3 colossi mark. Any more than that and your infestors melt before you are able to do any damage. And you're left holding the bag without a spire.
This gets difficult late game with a really high colossus count, but it's definitely doable even then. If you have 15 Infestors they don't really get sniped in time and you can get off a ridiculous amount of fungals. If you go for the mass ling build it is more vulnerable to high templars, but if you can still fungal their army that doesn't matter either. The most trouble I've had is against smart players who try to sneak in and pick off individual infestors without exposing too much of their army.
Look at his army value! 1300 more gas and 1900 more minerals and I smash him! I come out ahead with 40 supply of army left. Ling, hydra infestor. The strength lies in fungal growth. Because the Protoss army clumps up so much, a single fungal can potentially deal ~700 damage
When I get Ultras later I find it really effective to mix in some banes because they just slaughter zealots and forcefields isn't an issue anymore.
I won all three, but the third was the most difficult. He had a lot of colossi, and he focus-fired on the infestors that were NP'ing his units. Very close game. There were several points at which he could've won if he had pushed out.
I really like the idea of adding a few hydras into the mix (someone mentioned this on the first page of the thread). I have so much trouble with air units that pop up, and if I could clean them out faster that would help a ton.
I find that I really have to be proactive in searching for the proxy pylon of the 4-gate during the early game, though. If I didn't make enough lings or place my spines correctly, it's hard to hold off.
On April 20 2011 07:23 Xequecal wrote: How does this fare against forge FE into 7-gate stalkers with boosting upgrades? Once he gets enough stalkers and +2 weapons to make your lings die in three hits instead of four your lings will get murdered, and I'm not sure infestors are enough to turn the tide. He can always blink forward the second he sees infestors, even if you get fungal off at this point you're still going to lose the infestors and then are left with a mass of zerglings that are really ineffective against a giant stalker ball.
Seriously? Dude... lings RAPE Stalker balls. U should be even upgrades with him so dont worry abou that too much, and if hes going for +2 wep, hes most likely not gonna have armor. Check out the replay i just posted and see how easy it is to get +2/2 for ling fairly early. And stalkers blinking really is not a bother, fungal holds most of them and the ones that do acctully blink, maybe kill 2 infesotrs before getting devoured by lings. And you should have lik 110+ lings, at that amount everything just gets ripped apart.
On April 20 2011 07:24 EternaL_9 wrote: Add in mass banelings with this and I have NO idea what to do against it.
I used to deal with baneling / baneling drops by using blink / forcefield / sentry micro (FF wall banelings, blink back, micro back / spread colossei.. but now with fungal being used by every master zerg I can't do any micro, I'm calling it broken but that's fine considering that the infestor will probably be nerfed once it becomes more popularized. Forget mass void rays, a few fungals on them and they're dead
Its funny you mention this, but fungal with banelings used to be stronger LAST patch because you need half as many infestors to keep an army still for the same amount. Kinda interesting on how things are playing out in the overall scheme of things.
On April 20 2011 07:37 Axel.Bowex wrote: So does anyone know how to properly counter this build?
If you go Phoenixes you can lift the Infestors in battle since there will be very few hydras. Even with FG etc just lifting them up with 6 or so phoenixes really changes the outcome of the battle. It wrecked me at least especially when you lift the ones that are trying to neural the collossi.
On April 20 2011 07:23 Xequecal wrote: How does this fare against forge FE into 7-gate stalkers with boosting upgrades? Once he gets enough stalkers and +2 weapons to make your lings die in three hits instead of four your lings will get murdered, and I'm not sure infestors are enough to turn the tide. He can always blink forward the second he sees infestors, even if you get fungal off at this point you're still going to lose the infestors and then are left with a mass of zerglings that are really ineffective against a giant stalker ball.
Thing is, 1 Stalker ~= 6 lings cost-wise. So if it takes 3 shots to kill 1 ling, that's still 18 shots for 1 stalker to beat its equivalent zerg mineral amount. And if those lings have any attack upgrades (which they should if they're doing a Ling-Infestor build), they will tear through stalkers like butter. Generally, stalkers are not the solution to lings.
Getting 10+ Infestors is ridicously strong for zerg atm. Terrans or protoss can't move out until they have the perfect army. If they do, they finish crush and zerg only lost lings as keeping infestor alive is way easier than ppl think ( use burrow, don't group all your infestor when you're poking to FG, spell range 9, etc ) It's way more efficient than a baneling heavy army since you don't have to remake them.
On April 19 2011 09:51 nymeria wrote: As much as I like bumping this thread to respond to any theorycraft criticisms, please try to have replays to backup your arguments. Thank you.
lol... good luck with that disclaimer OP. I tried to put a disclaimer like that in one of my threads... It reached 1000 posts of pure, 100% Columbian theorycraft despite the fact that the whole purpose of the thread was to provide actual data instead of resorting on pointless mental guesswork. TL has very little respect for facts and a strong desire to think up reasons to tell someone who puts ten times the amount of effort into their posting that they are wrong.
Mr Bitter just pwned a protoss deathball on his stream, with this exact build, lings and infestors. The P even had feedback and storm, but it didn't matter, it was a roflstompage. As soon as you have enough infestor to chain 3 or 4 fungals on 2 places at once, and when you neural the colossi, it's just brutal <3
yeah omg ive been facing this build online and its brutal *sigh* needs a master toss to come along with a counter to this, but im guessing 4 gate with good ground upgrades with 1-2 stargates massing out phinux? i is a sad protoss player as im just getting back into ladder. oh well, back to laddering
Ive been facing this build recently and the real problem I have is the dmg from the fungals. FF stop the lings and if you dont get a high or even no collosi than you should be fine if you survive the fungals
Yeah, and then the protoss sees what you're doing, stops going collosus and instead goes sentry/high templar, your units get zoned out and every storm he casts does 1k minerals worth of damage.
I think this is going to spark a new more careful Protoss ( not just double stargate, double robo lolololcollvossoidraywin) I like it. I'm a little worried as a toss, but shit ... Anything that makes the game more fun i'm all for. I actually think that hallucinations are going to heavily come into play now, faking out with hallucinated colossi ( can't NP then all?) ... using hallucinated immortals to tank baneling damage after fungal. Thank you! Might get my offrace on and test this out ^_^
Couldn't templar be effective against this? Only one of the games in the video had the protoss with templar, and zerg had ultras and a maxed army with banes, infestor + ling didn't really win that one. An aggressive protoss style with templar could pose problems for a build that relys on getting good fungals on his army.
On April 20 2011 09:08 jdr_ wrote: Yeah, and then the protoss sees what you're doing, stops going collosus and instead goes sentry/high templar, your units get zoned out and every storm he casts does 1k minerals worth of damage.
By the time he get storm out after seing what you're doing, you should be T3 as well. Broodlords don't really care about storm. Ultra either but archons ruin the day.
People that go "OMG zerg nerds, this is not a 100% win strategy get a life" (or something along those lines, I'm not fluent in Trollish) need to realize that whenever us zergs find a strategy that gives us a fighting chance it's a win strategy. We're usually very reactionary, but it's nice to actually get into a game and be able to plan your strategy beyond the 28 food mark.
So what happens when the toss sits back and does a 6 colossus push? Once people figure out what you are doing they aren't going to push out with just 3 colossus. And any good player isn't going to let you NP his colossus for very long before your infestors get focused down.
I have tested it today in unit tester vs protoss friend. We were both masters. Generally, its viable, and very strong, but every zerg needs alooot of training with this to make it work. This strategy is entirely about positioning/micro. If u mess anything, you get raped in a hardcore way, and u have no chance to come back. If you do it right, battle is even, or u rape Protoss, depending on minor factors. Also, infested terrans are key to this strategy, as fungals dont stack. So after some point, mass energy increase dps of army only with terrans. It's very very tricky strategy, but it's ridiculosuly strong. Also, this must be supplemented with ultras late game, i think that getting collosus to break ff is crazy hard, u need to make good engagement, u need to fungal like 3-4 segments of P army, neural all collosus, reneural collosus if infestors are killed, throw terrans, and not let infestors die if they charge on enemy, or get too close. Microing single collosus to break 6 ffs, is quite hard, and still slow.
And ultra infestor raped most P armies with easy. Thanks for author for this thread, i tried infestors before, but thought they cant work. I guess getting like 15-20 helps alot to turn tides.
PS. Even with collosus count about 5-7 this strategy is viable. We tested it many times, nearly always with armies about 100-120 supply. Also hts doesnt help too much, same goes for archons.
I've been thinking about this build alot. Ideally I would want a 10 corruptor, 30 ish roach, 15 hydra, and mass baneling drop army. However this isn't really viable against early pressure. I've been trying to cut corruptor and hydra and going mass roach and baneling drops then transition into hydra corruptor. But I've been having problems finding the right numbers or roach to get.
I think I'll give this a try, but also add in baneling drops. I cant watch all replays b/c im on laptop ATM but in the youtube clip I noticed there weren't many FF laid down. I think a competent protoss could out FF mass lings and depending on positioning you might not be able to get NP in which is something this build hinges on. That's why I think mass baneling drops would complement this so well. If the protoss boxes himself in with FF you could fly over with baneling drops and wreck his shit. Not to mention FG would hold him in place. I've always wanted to add infestors with my baneling drops to hold the army in place, but never really knew how to fit in that much gas. This just might be what Im looking for.
I've seen and lost to this style many many times over the last couple of days in master league ladder games. I can verify that this is an incredibly strong style that seems very hard for toss to actually hold off.
Probably the number one thing that really destroys me when I face this style is baneling bomb drops. There's no way to run from 20 speed overlords with your deathball, and no way to shoot down the 10 of 20 that actually are loaded with banes. It's like guaranteed damage that I have had absolutely no luck whatsoever in stopping. Usually I lose a lot of my sentries, and often my other gas heavy units are weakened. If a few infestors and some lings join the party while these bane bombs happen, I find it extremely hard to get a cost effective battle.
Not only are the baneling bomb drops good for confrontations between main armies, but they are far and away and best harassment drop any race can do, in my opinion. You HAVE to spot the drop before it gets close to your mineral line, and pull all your probes away, or you're gonna lose the majority of the probes at your base. Baneling drops are on the same effectiveness level of like storm drops for toss or blue flame hellion from terran. The damage is instant, and massive.
I think toss really has to play against this style as if it's a terran going bio. You need stalkers at the back of every one of your bases to catch drops, and you probably should get double forge/mass gateway with very few sentries and a ton of high templar. It's also possible that hallucination could be useful against this composition to fake out neural parasite, but I have no experience trying this.
Here's a replay of one of the first times I'd encountered this, and getting absolutely ruined, lol. Actually, this guy doesn't even use infestor. He just owns me with the baneling drop and mass ling, and finishes with ultralisks. http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/166249-1v1-protoss-zerg-gutterhulk
This is high platinium, both of us. I should have parasite as well, because I was using parasite with bane drop on the protos 200/200( in antoher game)deathball with voids (with success, i got like 50 larva to remax, he had 1 almost dead colo and 6 stalks left), this game i chosed teching to hive and going ultras instead(toss had blink stalkers). Ultras were late anyway
I see a great deal of potential in this unit composition, on my level of skill (plat/dia) toss is struggling with this. Mass high templar can feedback infestors and hard counter this, but almost never toss is going HT even when he know my unit compo and tech.
i always knew this day would come... now im gonna have to work to win in pvz : (
this strategy is crazy strong and there is just so much that can be added to it.. baneling drops zergling drops ultralisks to crush forcefields etc etc
i fear that if the really highlevel pro zergs start practicing this instead of clinging to the outdated roach/hydra and corrupter mix zerg will start to crush protoss
Well if anyones watching HuK's stram, CheckPrime is doing this in some way. Roach/Infestor/Ling/Broodlord late game, absoutely crushed a 200/200 3/3/2 upgrade Templar/Colossu/Archon Deathball with the use of Neural Parasite.
Then he switched into Ultra/Ling/Infestor, which he would have won if he didn't sacrifice 8 Ultras/3 Infestors and a bunch of Roach/Ling trying to kill 5 Archons -.-
In other news, Archons with 2 Shield upgrades and 3 attack upgrades are scary
On April 20 2011 12:09 Dommk wrote: Well if anyones watching HuK's stram, CheckPrime is doing this in some way. Roach/Infestor/Ling/Broodlord late game, absoutely crushed a 200/200 3/3/2 upgrade Templar/Colossu/Archon Deathball with the use of Neural Parasite.
Then he switched into Ultra/Ling/Infestor, which he would have won if he didn't sacrifice 8 Ultras/3 Infestors and a bunch of Roach/Ling trying to kill 5 Archons -.-
In other news, Archons with 2 Shield upgrades and 3 attack upgrades are scary
archons are scary to every zerg unit, they just cost sooo much
i mean seriously 50 damage a shot with splash + decent attack speed lolwat.
Also im starting to believe as i see more and more(and practice it myself) that baneling drops are going to be the way to deal with protoss now. see Idras stream for more, + Show Spoiler +
sheth did this in TSL(spoilers?)
i very much think this will be the way ZvP will be played once it catches on.
This is another game I played today where the zerg guy tries to do ling/infestor. I was able to thwart it initially, and you can see that blink stalker and just gateway units works fairly well if there aren't banelings in the mix. I'm able to chase down retreating infestors, and have the exchanges go more into my favor. The other thing I'm noticing it that against this strategy, you don't actually need to get a ton of colossus necessarily, so this frees up time to pump out observers and warp prism. These help you spot incoming baneling drops on your mineral lines and also to put harassment on the zerg.
It's kind of a lame game because I actually end up getting a bit ahead and I just throw it away by double expanding and neglecting to scout ultra tech. Even if I had scouted the ultras though, I'm not positive how well I can deal with them. It's interesting to see them showing up again in the match up. Protoss will need to have very good control with their army to make sure immortals are able to deal damage to ultras, and get not get surrounded by the 100 lings.
On April 20 2011 09:08 jdr_ wrote: Yeah, and then the protoss sees what you're doing, stops going collosus and instead goes sentry/high templar, your units get zoned out and every storm he casts does 1k minerals worth of damage.
So are you saying that if someone reacts and tries to counter your build you might not win 100% of the time?
On April 20 2011 05:49 Dum wrote: Here's a replay of me using Ling-Infestor in a ladder game and it utterly failing (but I still won the match). I attribute this build to evening the playing field of the Protoss Deathball--by no means countering it.
I think it would be educational for others to see what went wrong.
a couple of notes, when you slipped that many lings into his base, forcing mass probe evacuation, you need to quickly make a decision on how best to use them (chasing the probes wouldn't have been a good idea).
try to target a tech structure where you can get a good surround on it, but since you had so many lings in there, try to use only enough lings to cover that structure, and likewise use your remaining lings on other structures.
the burrow movement of all your infestors to his natural and casting all those infested terrans was a blunder. you did not get enough return on your infestment of all that infestor energy. i suggest instead to bring your lings along and poke at the protoss army, attempting to take out as many sentries as you can with fungals.
i don't advise getting a spire until the late game.
in the engagement with the colossi, you had a poor angle, the cliff got into the way, the forcefields got into the way, and he kept his army way way back where even 9 range infestors couldn't target the colossi standing up against the forcefields. no reason to engage him there. just wait till he comes out into the open, or if you really have an overwhelming force and just want to finish him right there, you need to walk safely around the forcefields, and come at him from the middle of the map where a forcefield wall will be much harder for him to pull off. if he walks his colossi away up onto that cliff, then pull back and wait till he gets close enough to fungal/np.
don't give up on this just yet. i think you'll find that you'll quickly learn how to best engage protoss armies with this army composition.
On April 20 2011 09:45 SaviorSelf wrote: INSTEAD OF TRYING TO PICK IT APART HOW ABOUT TRYING TO MAKE IT BETTER?
if you all did that instead, maybe zerg wouldn't be in such a shitty position?
I've been staring at this for a long time now. Can anyone help me decipher it?
lol.... he means instead of ridiculing and bashing the build, offer constructive suggestions to make it better.... if people did this then zerg as a whole would benefit much more, and be better off
There is a way to beat this, chargelots sentry and high templar, just figured it out and tried it in a few ladder games.
Chargelots are hard as HELL to catch with fungal, you still can cast them but its way harder for zerg. Storms will melt lings in 2 seconds. Feedback can elimiate the threat of Fungals easily, and also you can storm moar units ^.^ Sentries do their thing, use them to FF up those infestors so they cannot run from you ^.^
if you can throw in DTs or colosus or some air units and that will help you guys counter this stuff cause it will get way harder for zerg and also force zerg to spend gas on other things than infestors.
good luck zergs, you guys should use moar ultralisks
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.
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.
On April 20 2011 09:45 SaviorSelf wrote: INSTEAD OF TRYING TO PICK IT APART HOW ABOUT TRYING TO MAKE IT BETTER?
if you all did that instead, maybe zerg wouldn't be in such a shitty position?
I've been staring at this for a long time now. Can anyone help me decipher it?
lol.... he means instead of ridiculing and bashing the build, offer constructive suggestions to make it better.... if people did this then zerg as a whole would benefit much more, and be better off
this.
it goes for everything. it's not just zerg that's in a bad position strategy wise, it's protoss too. people post strats to show effectiveness of said build/unit comp. there is no need to 100% theorycraft against every strategy shown on this website.
yes, we all know mass carriers beats almost everything. yes, we all know mass bcs beats almost everything. yes, we all know mass infestors beats almost everything.
BUT, did you know that you're theorycrafting does NOTHING to help said strategy develop and get better/faster/more powerful?
stop saying you know the perfect "counter" to the strategies on here and start trying to make them better. no one cares if your 3 roach + 10 drone all in will kill this strategy, or whatever it is you genius' think is so important that you must explain exactly why this strategy is "shit" or fail to see the potential in the strategy.
every strategy ever (past, present, future) WILL have flaws, thats a given, any hatch first will be easy to put early pressure against, etc, etc. we all know this, so stop talking about it. no one should care about that. people should care about making the strategy more effective. if you have nothing to contribute, then don't post anything at all. seriously. some people have no idea how much time and effort are put into these guides on here and they just keep posting all the flame "LOL U LOSE TO ANY SPEEDLING OPENER" come on guys. don't you want starcraft to get more interesting?
EDIT: OH, and if you don't like the strategy or you think it's shit, DON'T USE IT. just don't post your retarded comments that do nothing for this community. and don't come QQ'ing when you can't beat it either.
well i support your idea to change the thread title to "[D] Mass Infestors - Dominate ZvP Mid-Game because as it was said and proven repeditly in here ling infestor in itself is perfectly useless against proper deathball or deathball with FFs
On April 20 2011 13:52 BlinkGosu wrote: 14. A fungaled colossi cannot be micro'd away.
fungal growth doesn't immobilize collosus/thor/ultra (and the air units, i know)
Uh... double negative? it DOES immobilize. As in, collosus/thor that is fungaled can not move. Ultras (not all massive) have a specific passive ability that they can not be rooted. Sorry if that is what you meant.
On April 20 2011 15:43 Geo.Rion wrote: well i support your idea to change the thread title to "[D] Mass Infestors - Dominate ZvP Mid-Game because as it was said and proven repeditly in here ling infestor in itself is perfectly useless against proper deathball or deathball with FFs
My vote is to change the thread title to: " Mass Infestors - Sometimes a good strategy in ZvP"
This thread is going the way of most other non-polished, over-hyped strategy threads here. Example: + Show Spoiler +
Title: Strategy G, using Units A and B are completely invincible in XvX! OP (Proof): I used units A and B in my gold league, and won 3 straight. Consider XvX now broken! As further proof, here's a replay or two of when one or both of those units in my strategy were effective. (link) Reader : Well, what about in this situation in XvX? I'd just use unit C to counter units A and B Author: Simple - I'd then use some different units than I mentioned in the OP.
this continues on for a few pages, and after all the theorycrafting and back-tracking/amending by the author, it hits us all that the original idea of Strategy G isn't the gamebreaker it was hyped to be. In fact, we realize that while the units involved are good in different situations and that, perchance, we might actually be able to adapt in an RTS and actively play vs what your opponent is doing instead of going for the blind build of Strategy G every time you get a certain matchup.
Kind of surprised this thread has stayed open for this long. It'd be preferable, and for me, taken more seriously, if the title wasn't as ridiculous as it currently is. There are no strategies that are going to dominate in every instance of a midgame - the game is too fluid and variable for that to happen. If you were to say "Implementing ling/infestor can be an effective strategy vs Protoss", that's fine. Most importantly, from what I've seen in the master/GM leagues, this strategy simply doesn't hold weight on its own. Infestors/lings can be very effective together, given the right situations - saying that it hard-counters the death ball is simply incorrect. :-\
I always open with spanishiwa's opener so that I don't have to get roaches to deal with early attacks. I can just go straight to massing infestors with very fast upgrades and hive tech.
I personally like to use fungal, then neural parasite their colossi, use them to crush force fields, then bring them into the center of my army so that my lings can destroy them.
I find that this works best in open areas. I try to use this as map control and try to stay in open areas as I take the whole map. If the protoss tries to move out into the open areas, he will most likely die. I also combine this with constant baneling drops on his mineral line so that I do not just sit there with 200/200 and wait for half an hour for him to mine out and not be able to expand. This makes me feel like a very dirty player.
This is such a pain in the ass especially when after a battle you go for the push but the Zerg is poping nothing but Infestors and you can't make it up the ramp because everytime a fungal wares off two/three more Infestors pop and keep you in place whilst whittling your army down to nothing :/
This + Mass spine crawlers late game gives me head aches <_>
Most importantly, from what I've seen in the master/GM leagues, this strategy simply doesn't hold weight on its own. Infestors/lings can be very effective together, given the right situations - saying that it hard-counters the death ball is simply incorrect. :-\
That was what Double forge was like for the first 3-4 Months, it really took a few good players--namely Tyler-- to actually start turning heads.
From what I've played on the ladder this seems to work quite well, especially on HUGE maps.
I would love to try this build, but I just die before I get to Infestors. The problem arises where if I am constantly pressured I can't populate my bases, as I end up spending minerals on queens, spines and lings. And then there is never enough income to get as far as Infestors. It seems that as vs Terran, there is a window where you are very vulnerable against an attack, before you get to Infestors. Except it for me is easier to deal with terran by just using lings.
I know it is my own problem, I simply don't know how to properly get to your step 1: "1. Safely get to Infestor Tech"
I just wanted to say: This is what an OP should be on Teamliquid. Really nice post.
Just to throw in my 2 cents. I lost my first game playing this build against a P who turtled HARD, came out and killed me with a massive colossus archon void-ray army backed by zealots and immediately after the loss I kicked myself. If I'd morphed my zerglings into banelings (I had enough income to do this several times over) I'd have annihilated him. So consider mass banelings against an ultra-turtle protoss.
I'm a Protoss player, low master league (after reset, before 3k).
And i think Infestors are highly viable. i faced them a few times.
If you play standard InControl style they are ... unfair. Infestor/Ling demolishes Stalker/Sentry and the 2 Colossus you have when you get your 3rd so badly. It feels worse than getting FFed, because you think you can't get anywhere on the map, no Harrass possible, because everytimeyou move out you lose all your sentries and half of your Stalkers die. I really need a whole new gameplan against Ling/Infestor, and still i think i will be the one who is the Terran in BW TvZ.
If you go Cruncher Camping Style, yoou do no damage with your air, ifdefended properly. Then you move out against a 3-or-4-Base Zerg. And what happens? Your unkillable "Deathball" with like 10 VRs, 5 Colossi, rest Stalker/Sentry gets DEMOLISHED by Zergling/Ulralisk/Infestor.
After that game i waslike "wtf? did he have anti-air?"
So i can say. It has to be the right way. Infestors are the future and imo now a must-have against Protoss.
As Protoss you now cannot get a Zerg to T3 anymore. You need timings. Really good timings.And if you miss the first, your next timing will get destroyed by Infestors. Without a way to come back.
On April 20 2011 18:16 Fishermang wrote: I would love to try this build, but I just die before I get to Infestors. The problem arises where if I am constantly pressured I can't populate my bases, as I end up spending minerals on queens, spines and lings. And then there is never enough income to get as far as Infestors. It seems that as vs Terran, there is a window where you are very vulnerable against an attack, before you get to Infestors. Except it for me is easier to deal with terran by just using lings.
I know it is my own problem, I simply don't know how to properly get to your step 1: "1. Safely get to Infestor Tech"
I think you are over thinking it. It's just as easy to get to infestor tech as to hydra or muta and I asume you can get to that... just play your normal early game but when your lair is done build an infestor pit right away. It's not more expensiv on gas than any other lair tech, I would even say its less expensiv because you can pretty easily fit in +1 carapase and attack before lair is done if you go infestors as you only need around 3 at first, one to defend each basse.
IdrA doesn't play terran and I don't think people can quote him on things he said weeks or months ago.
On topic, yes, Infestors are very strong, have great synergy with the zerg army, can stall time and soften those stalkers up which helps tremendously.
Yesterday I've used them to great success winning a 30min long ZvP (everyone should know how hard that is). I'll definitely use them a lot more often now and keep experimenting with them.
On April 20 2011 13:52 BlinkGosu wrote: 14. A fungaled colossi cannot be micro'd away.
fungal growth doesn't immobilize collosus/thor/ultra (and the air units, i know)
actually, it does. it will immobilize EVERYTHING(even air units, that thig was supposed to be nerfed, but they didt do it afterall) except ultras(frenzy passive skill).
Hello all. I have tried this strategy twice in high masters and one time it worked, one time it did not...
Protoss can beat it with his standard play, they just have to focus fire all the infestors ASAP... i know this is a lot but you need to get these parasited colossi back ! Afterwards they will melt the zerling waves.
But this strategy has a lot of potential and I think there is a lot room for improvements and refinements to make it even better
On April 20 2011 14:01 LanTAs wrote: There is a way to beat this, chargelots sentry and high templar, just figured it out and tried it in a few ladder games.
Chargelots are hard as HELL to catch with fungal, you still can cast them but its way harder for zerg. Storms will melt lings in 2 seconds. Feedback can elimiate the threat of Fungals easily, and also you can storm moar units ^.^ Sentries do their thing, use them to FF up those infestors so they cannot run from you ^.^
if you can throw in DTs or colosus or some air units and that will help you guys counter this stuff cause it will get way harder for zerg and also force zerg to spend gas on other things than infestors.
good luck zergs, you guys should use moar ultralisks
There should always a way to beat something. Nobody is saying this is unbeatable but the point is to defeat protoss deathballs not to have an unbeatable strategy. There is no unbeatable strategy because that would make the game insanely imbalanced tbh. Everything is beatable and so is this strategy.
On April 20 2011 15:30 Barrin wrote: Dude I was saying InfestorLing was awesome since the beta! Some people were intrigued but many disregarded it. But I knew. I KNEW IT WAS BALLER. I knew that in time people would figure it out. I was right.
By the way I just throw in some hydras if they try to go air, works like a charm with fungal growth added in.
I also predict Neural Parasite being used more often against terran but also protoss.
good luck zergs, you guys should use moar ultralisks
also this. ultralisks are stronger than people think.
I knew, and posted about it too! Haha, credit to the @OP though for taking the time to really drive the point home by including the video and the replays. I don't think much was written about Neural Parasiting Colossus, certainly not presented so well. I had done unit tests where I Neural Parasited Colossus, and fungaled the deathball, but usually failed to pull it off in real games, but this was before the fungal buff.
The key to infestor/ling working I think is that mass lings often force the Protoss to go into ball formation and lay down a lot of force fields as the lings charge in.... which sets them up perfectly for fungal and NP. Force fields actually can make Neural Parasite far more effective by keeping the enemy away from your infestors!
Definitely takes some micro skill to pull this off, but I think after a little practice most players can pull this off, and certainly pros can.
I think most of us that have theorycrafted our brains out about infestors have predicted that eventually they would start to be used a lot more, to solve many zerg weaknesses. The same thing has happened, or will happen for Queens, Neural Parasite, and Nydus. We are already seeing more top players utilize that stuff that was ignored for a long time. Even baneling drops used to be a rarely seen tactic, but it is now becoming increasingly more common.
Appendix:
Some pretty long posts I have made about infestors:
My guide to Neural Parasite versus Thor, where I discuss the "damage swing" caused by stealing a Thor, the same type of analysis could be applied to Colossus. (spoiler, by stealing a single Thor, it can cause a 1500-2000 swing in health loss/dealt) http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=144948
On April 20 2011 21:59 MapleLeafSirup wrote: Hello all. I have tried this strategy twice in high masters and one time it worked, one time it did not...
Protoss can beat it with his standard play, they just have to focus fire all the infestors ASAP... i know this is a lot but you need to get these parasited colossi back ! Afterwards they will melt the zerling waves.
But this strategy has a lot of potential and I think there is a lot room for improvements and refinements to make it even better
Employing heavy use of Neural Parasite will lead to many lopsided games. You either win big, or lose big, it depends on a slew of factors, primarily how many NP's you land, for how long, and on which units.
Micro mistakes with infestors are punished severely and will often lose you the game. This unit composition has a high variance in combat effectiveness. I think the only way to reduce this variance is through practice.
I believe this is primarily the reason that pros have shunned Neural Parasite and infestors in general. They want reliability so that they can consistently win games and tournaments, and fear having a huge lead destroyed by a few seconds of bad micro.
I tried this out on ladder last night and its surprisingly hard to execute.
I would start the fight out great, but at some point all my lings would evaporate and my infestors would have to high-tail it out of there. None-the-less I managed to at least cripple the death-ball long enough and influence a mass-zealot tech switch, to which i answered with late mutas for map control, broods, infestors, and queens poking at his front, and about 50 lings cleaning up his expos.
It definitely takes a lot of practice to get the ling/infestor control down to a point where you can engage a deathball properly and not lose 2/3 of your army while you're still taking control of the colossi, also those few shots the colossi get off between NPs really cuts down on your ling force at a ridiculous rate. By no means is this an easy fix to the deathball, but it does have some effectiveness to it.
You can really turn the tide of any battle, they work insanely well. With NP youre able to be to deal with immortals AND colossi which is a huge advantage over corruptors. I have to experiment more though. (I'm masters league btw)
I remember the first time I lost my 200/200 deathball to ling/infestor/ultra/baneling drops. It wasn't even close. Fungal combined with baneling bombs on a toss ball is absolutely retarded strong. Think about it. Toss units get exponentially better the more you have and the tighter they are balled up due to forcefield and the surface area of attackers. You exploit that by bling drops (ya if they have blink they only lose 2.25 speed units if they aren't looking... UNLESS YOU FUNGAL 2X AHHHH) and just cleaving the stalkers to death with ultras.. you only need like 1 or 2 to trample forcefields honestly.
Sure, you have to make sure you're not getting 6gated (and baneling bombs can even be out in time for the 6gate push but you have to wait above a cliff since they won't have an obs to see it coming.
Roaches not only cost too much food and a NOT insignificant amount of gas, but also get melted by stalkers and immortals. Also, lings prevent the protoss ball from getting a nice concave AND being able to snipe NPing infestors. When you NP a colossus, if you are using roaches, stalkers can just walk up and boop your infestors.
This needs to be combined with banelings. 2,2 or even 3,3 sling/blings murders Protoss balls. When you fungal so they can't move, all your banes hit, especially if on creep.
Also, as a side comment, if the enemy is going heavy air, mutas can be another option, but it seems that infestors still do quite well.
EDIT: Someone mentioned chargelots. They get melted by banes.
On April 21 2011 00:46 Alejandrisha wrote: I remember the first time I lost my 200/200 deathball to ling/infestor/ultra/baneling drops. It wasn't even close. Fungal combined with baneling bombs on a toss ball is absolutely retarded strong. Think about it. Toss units get exponentially better the more you have and the tighter they are balled up due to forcefield and the surface area of attackers. You exploit that by bling drops (ya if they have blink they only lose 2.25 speed units if they aren't looking... UNLESS YOU FUNGAL 2X AHHHH) and just cleaving the stalkers to death with ultras.. you only need like 1 or 2 to trample forcefields honestly.
Sure, you have to make sure you're not getting 6gated (and baneling bombs can even be out in time for the 6gate push but you have to wait above a cliff since they won't have an obs to see it coming.
This is very accurate.
Also, the youtube clip you have posted looks like you the toss a-clicked moved and left the room while the zerg is microing. In reality, even diamond toss players would micro better than what was shown in that youtube video. Not only that, there would be more sentries and those blings do not just roll in there nor do you get a surround on anything.
Recently, the only way I've seen to implement blings is to bling drop them, which as the quoted poster said, is very strong.
I have been experimenting with the Spanishiwa style of opening without gas and defending with spines+queends. After this I transition into burrowed roaches and drops during the midgame. Meanwhile I tech to Hive for 3/3/3 upgrades and ling attack speed upgrade, which is really good together with roaches.
My endgame composition is 1-2 ultras + slings + blings + roaches + 4-8 queens and 1-3 infestors. I don't think infestors can be handled very effeciently above those numbers and a few infestors with a huge ground army is better than 4-10 infestors with lesser ground units to back them up. It is also less reliant on neural parasite which can be a real coin flip and extremly bad on maps with narrow alleys where the ball can prevent any infestors to reach the collosi.
Just tried it for the first time and OMG is it powerful and so much fun. I did a spanishwa style into mass lings and all infestors with some in his mineral line. It's so so so strong even with the awful micro I had
I'm beginning to think that in anticipation of going Ling/Infestor, it may be beneficial to focus on armor upgrades instead of ranged attack upgrades even if you are going roach in the midgame, which is often the case. Does anyone have experience with this?
On April 21 2011 01:28 Retrospecd wrote: In reality, even diamond toss players would micro better than what was shown in that youtube video.
I really hate comments like this...
This is the same bullshit argument that I see time and time again to dismiss a strategy and you're just insulting decent players.
Implying that any given strategy sucks because the Master League player on the other side "micro'd like he was in silver" is the stupidest argument that shows up on this forum and I see it over and over.
Shit like this makes discussing tactics on the strategy forum here not fun.
I've watched most of the replays and...wow, you really show the potential of ling/infestor -> ling/bane/infestor/ultra.
Almost every game your opponent has more workers, more bases, bigger army supply, higher army cost, and your macro is generally poor (you regularly have 1k/1k resources banked) and yet you still roflstomp them into the ground with pure ling/infestor. Very impressive. I'd like to see this build done in the hands of a more skilled player.
However your protoss opponents aren't as good as they could be. For one, their FFs are not very good. The only opponent I saw who wasn't afraid of using FF was LeafBlower on shakuras, but even then he wasn't able to actually wall off with FF, he just spammed FF to reduce surface area.
Secondly, you never actually fought against a proper maxed deathball. By 'proper' I mean a maxed army with at least 6-8 sentries, 5-6 colossus, lots of void rays (like 8+) and the rest stalker. This is the scariest deathball protoss can make. In the game on scrap & shakuras, protoss did make a maxed army, but it wasn't a void/colo army. I'm interested to see how well mass infestor performs against a maxed void/colo army.
In my opinion against HT, since you already have lots of zerglings and a baneling nest (and melee/carapace upgrades)you should get drop, and morph enough banelings to kill his HT (probably 10-15). Fungal the HT and drop the banes on them.
In fact, any ZvP strategy that uses banelings should also use baneling drops.
EDIT: Someone mentioned chargelots. They get melted by banes.
Come on, was that incredibly obvious point really worth editing your post over? I think everyone reading the strat forum gains nothing from hearing these obvious counters over and over. You can get the same information from the in-game Help option.
On April 21 2011 03:55 TheGreatWhiteHope_ wrote: Do phoenix gravity beam interrupt infestor while they are NP a target?
This is one of those amazing questions that you wonder why you don't know the answer to, similar to when Protoss players were trying to work out how to crack Siege Tank lines and discovered you could lift them. Allow me to actually go and check this.
My main issue trying this stuff out is thee 5 6 gate push stuff where I really feel I needburrowed roaches to defend. You can absolutely melt deathballs I find, especially bling drops, but its getting there that's hard.
On April 21 2011 04:22 dave333 wrote: My main issue trying this stuff out is thee 5 6 gate push stuff where I really feel I needburrowed roaches to defend. You can absolutely melt deathballs I find, especially bling drops, but its getting there that's hard.
i agree with you completely, finding a safe way to get there is the real challenge imo
This build is really good against collosi death ball builds it seems (I play toss.) However I dont think against templar tech is good because archons and storm are sooo good against this composition along with zealot stalker. Also pheonix seem good against it as you can pick up the infestors or have them waste fungals. Other than that it seems to be a good way to shut down the collosi ball if done properly with engaging in an open field
I read this post yesterday and thought, WOW this is really going to change the way I ZvP and PvZ...
Its not working to well in my ZvPs, and every time it has been tried on me in PvZ I smash it. Problem is the guys you are showing in the replay have no idea how to micro or engage. If you command your death ball properly, and have your colo placed securely in the back with proper engage of zealots before stalkers, and FF on the sides, the lings melt, fungal does nothing, and the only thing you can neural is gateway units. Moving to fungal a colo results in a quite snipe of an infestor by either a well timed colo attack or a few stalkers. Also having 2-4 DTs in the mix qued up to snipe all infestors rock this.
Going to be hard to convince me this works at high masters, because for me doing it in ZvP and fighting it in PvZ it has been failing.
This strategy is very dependant with the brainless protoss that goes deathball everygame. A protoss that rush to templar after scouting the infestor pit and stay behind his canon will most likely win ? He does not even need storm, just feedback and archon, but since protoss never play reactionnary because they have a lolmao death ball, this might work until they figure it out.
Still I was already adding on a bunch of infestor mid game, but never researched NP, just using FG. Now I will try it, seems good.
A zealot/immortal/HT/air composition would and does wreck mass infestor. Feedback is effin godly, Storms rip apart both infestors and lings, zealots (especially charge lots) decimate lings.
Immortals have 300 hp so its gonna take quiteeee a few fungals to kill them, meanwhile they're doing 20+ damage a pop.
You planning on NP my immortals? Let me lift them with my phoenix and make you waste energy. You're gonna run away? Let me lift your infestors and kill them in 9 volleys.. Plenty of obs to go around if you want to go and borrow them.
Banelings are absolutely necessary against this composition, but there goes all that gas you were not spending on other gas units :/
I'm sure this works phenomenally well against the tried and boring "death" ball that has colossi and stalkers, but please, your title is so wrong. You are not going to dominate much else with those two units. Do not assume every protoss is going to build what you want them to build.
On April 21 2011 05:00 mamuto wrote: A zealot/immortal/HT/air composition would and does wreck mass infestor. Feedback is effin godly, Storms rip apart both infestors and lings, zealots (especially charge lots) decimate lings.
Immortals have 300 hp so its gonna take quiteeee a few fungals to kill them, meanwhile they're doing 20+ damage a pop.
You planning on NP my immortals? Let me lift them with my phoenix and make you waste energy. You're gonna run away? Let me lift your infestors and kill them in 9 volleys.. Plenty of obs to go around if you want to go and borrow them.
Banelings are absolutely necessary against this composition, but there goes all that gas you were not spending on other gas units :/
I'm sure this works phenomenally well against the tried and boring "death" ball that has colossi and stalkers, but please, your title is so wrong. You are not going to dominate much else with those two units. Do not assume every protoss is going to build what you want them to build.
But a Zealot/Immortal/HT/Air combo dies to Roach/hydra/Corruptor Its not like we have to adapt and change according to what we scout, especially since a good number of the high tech units Toss have take a long time to build and don't work well without support
That's actually not true, storm the hydras, immortals take care of the roaches. Zealots tanks. Voidrays are better than corruptors, and mop up roach and t3
Realized I never got around to releasing any replays on how to go about beating this, but I'll release a replay pack either late tonight or tomorrow - will just have to sift through my autorep list to take out the ones where I was really BM =)
On April 21 2011 05:10 mamuto wrote: That's actually not true, storm the hydras, immortals take care of the roaches. Zealots tanks. Voidrays are better than corruptors, and mop up roach and t3
Dance to waste storms, lings to immortals or roach micro against the zealots (better if they have charge because they'll follow you back), corruptors spit on the VRs and hydras will make quick work of them and the immortals. VR Immo HT is also insanely gas heavy and would take a while to produce.
I mean, we can theorize all we want but it comes down to how you micro and react. Obviously if I scout and see this composition I am gonna think of what would be best. If I am wrong I lose, but it is in no way unstoppable. Even the infestor/ling build can work against it if blings are properly placed for zealots, FG hits properly (doesn't it stop skills so storm and feedback could be delayed?) and you reinforce.
Just thinking here, my friend has a good +1 ling build. Would that be a good opener for infestors? If you think so let me know and I will talk to him about specifics/my right to post his build xD
On April 21 2011 04:38 Owarida wrote: Its not working to well in my ZvPs, and every time it has been tried on me in PvZ I smash it. Problem is the guys you are showing in the replay have no idea how to micro or engage. If you command your death ball properly, and have your colo placed securely in the back with proper engage of zealots before stalkers, and FF on the sides, the lings melt, fungal does nothing, and the only thing you can neural is gateway units. Moving to fungal a colo results in a quite snipe of an infestor by either a well timed colo attack or a few stalkers. Also having 2-4 DTs in the mix qued up to snipe all infestors rock this.
I found the same thing.
I went into a unit tester because of it. and did zealot-colo vs infestor- ling equal resource/supply, and infestor-zling always dies, even with adrenal glands and without microing the protoss army at all. tried with protoss both 2-1-0 and zerg 1-2 , and protoss 3-2-0 and zerg 2-3.
Obviously colossus-zealot is vulnerable to air, but if zerg might be getting air, protoss can just get a cost-effective anti-air army of units like void rays or stalker.
On April 21 2011 05:10 mamuto wrote: That's actually not true, storm the hydras, immortals take care of the roaches. Zealots tanks. Voidrays are better than corruptors, and mop up roach and t3
Dance to waste storms, lings to immortals or roach micro against the zealots (better if they have charge because they'll follow you back), corruptors spit on the VRs and hydras will make quick work of them and the immortals. VR Immo HT is also insanely gas heavy and would take a while to produce.
Do you play zerg? It's not impossible to win vs a immortal VR HT zealot composition, but it is strong, especially with good micro. Zerg can win if they have an advantage aready such as very high and superior resource count, income, and production. 1. Unless you're on creep, hydras can't dodge storms that well, and the latency in SC2 is terrible for that anyway. Smart-casting of storms puts the nail in the coffin, since when you cast 4 storms, hydras can't move anywhere. 2. Lings won't get to immortals when zealots are still in front — since you said it's a gas heavy build, it just means more zealots for tanking and protecting. Also if there does happen to be a ton of lings, storm will cut that number down very fast. 3. Corruptors loose against Void Rays even when they corrupt, and hydralisks can't kill void rays when they are trying to dodge storm — they have like 4-6 seconds of shooting before the hydralisks die, that's not enough to kill void rays.
you guys realise that even if this build is going to shift the whole matchup and make Zerg OP protoss will just start going for templar and you have the same problem
same with spanishiwas BL infestor queen...both infestors and queens just lose instantly against enough templars and you can't even "counter" them like collossi with corruptors..
edit: immortal + high templars was a composition you could see way back in the beta sometimes where nobody even used infestors and it just lost against the colossus.. but now with infestors this composition will get better
I feel like on Cloud[9] at the moment . I just beat a Master Protoss (not off-race btw) on Metalopolis...Close Positions!!!.... I on the other hand just got into Platinum.
All it took was around 5 or 6 infestors.
And I just got back into Platinum from being demoted to Gold (when I played my placement match in Season 2, which I won) after having a really tough time against toss. And being so frustrated, since getting back in ive played no games on the Platinum ladder and have been doing custom games trying new stuff out.
After trying to pylon/cannon block me in when i seen he went forge first i noticed something that i guess a lot of players are noticing. Extremely greedy play.
He still went ahead and tried to fast expand, so i made a bunch of lings and shut it down. He tried it again after no warpgate tech (I think). All he had was zealots but then out came the void rays.
After spreading creep right up to his base unchallenged and with the attempted and failed phoenix/void ray harass, i wondered how much of a ground force he had by poking a ling around his natural. There were two Stargates at the front I saw around 8 or 9 void rays.
Im not the greatest player in the world (obviously) and i knew i wouldn't be good enough to hold a third base, but i think i could get it down in the attempt to catch his army off guard and rush his natural. Well... thankfully it work.
I expanded to the far Gold and those 10 or so void rays strolled right over my bitching creep (clumped together in a nice big ball with a ribbon attached) and the 8-9 infestors that i had couldn't scuttle fast enough to lay down the best fungals ive ever landed.
After a flurry of fungals all but two were left.
The biggest grin ive ever had was on my face and after he GG'd, my smile turned into the biggest laugh iv'e had playing this game. (Even though he played really badly)
Ive been really having a tough time just playing the ladder, i know my apm far exceeds Platinum, probably well past low Diamond (with no spamming) but my mechanics I think are on par with my rank.
And as i said earlier, i don't think i would have been able to hold a third, especially the gold (it wouldnt really matter what expansion i took).
But i think i dont really understand the game that much and maybe for a lot of other players. After watching the replay, i think i could have just busted the front and killed him when i shut the expansion down. So it seems wrong that i didnt.
Question
I guess thats another topic, but can one be aggressive with infestors, there is a lot of talk is about using them when you need to... when they push out, can a zerg initiate a battle when they feel comfortable to instead of holding off what comes at them?
On April 19 2011 10:19 HelloThere wrote: I can't help but feel like against a decent protoss they will shut this attack down in two ways:
1) Much better forcefields before the lings arrive greatly reducing surface area 2) Focusing down the infestor that has the colossi NPed
I'm not sure about 2, there were so many infestors that that doesn't seem feasible but I know that by the time I have an army like that I'm not throwing down like 3 force fields I have enough to circle that army a couple times with force fields and he couldve used a large number of force fields to either keep out the lings or keep the infestors back while he killed the lings. I'm not saying this would be easy to do or it would be easy to beat that army, but I think it's definitely possible and these opponents were not at the same point that some other toss players could be by then.
On April 20 2011 15:43 Geo.Rion wrote: well i support your idea to change the thread title to "[D] Mass Infestors - Dominate ZvP Mid-Game because as it was said and proven repeditly in here ling infestor in itself is perfectly useless against proper deathball or deathball with FFs
My vote is to change the thread title to: " Mass Infestors - Sometimes a good strategy in ZvP"
This thread is going the way of most other non-polished, over-hyped strategy threads here. Example: + Show Spoiler +
Title: Strategy G, using Units A and B are completely invincible in XvX! OP (Proof): I used units A and B in my gold league, and won 3 straight. Consider XvX now broken! As further proof, here's a replay or two of when one or both of those units in my strategy were effective. (link) Reader : Well, what about in this situation in XvX? I'd just use unit C to counter units A and B Author: Simple - I'd then use some different units than I mentioned in the OP.
this continues on for a few pages, and after all the theorycrafting and back-tracking/amending by the author, it hits us all that the original idea of Strategy G isn't the gamebreaker it was hyped to be. In fact, we realize that while the units involved are good in different situations and that, perchance, we might actually be able to adapt in an RTS and actively play vs what your opponent is doing instead of going for the blind build of Strategy G every time you get a certain matchup.
Kind of surprised this thread has stayed open for this long. It'd be preferable, and for me, taken more seriously, if the title wasn't as ridiculous as it currently is. There are no strategies that are going to dominate in every instance of a midgame - the game is too fluid and variable for that to happen. If you were to say "Implementing ling/infestor can be an effective strategy vs Protoss", that's fine. Most importantly, from what I've seen in the master/GM leagues, this strategy simply doesn't hold weight on its own. Infestors/lings can be very effective together, given the right situations - saying that it hard-counters the death ball is simply incorrect. :-\
I haven't had to transition away from mass Infestors at all in Masters. I was just suggesting that if people do find Psi Storm to be a hard counter to mass Infestors, they could build a spire, make 9 Mutalisks, and hunt down High Templar. Don't transition away from mass Infestors.
Actually, in Starcraft Vanilla, I believe Mutalisks did dominate in every instance of the mid-game. Hence, all the new anti-Mutalisk units in BroodWar (Medics, Valkyries, Corsairs, Devourers).
On April 21 2011 05:10 mamuto wrote: That's actually not true, storm the hydras, immortals take care of the roaches. Zealots tanks. Voidrays are better than corruptors, and mop up roach and t3
Dance to waste storms, lings to immortals or roach micro against the zealots (better if they have charge because they'll follow you back), corruptors spit on the VRs and hydras will make quick work of them and the immortals. VR Immo HT is also insanely gas heavy and would take a while to produce.
Do you play zerg? It's not impossible to win vs a immortal VR HT zealot composition, but it is strong, especially with good micro. Zerg can win if they have an advantage aready such as very high and superior resource count, income, and production. 1. Unless you're on creep, hydras can't dodge storms that well, and the latency in SC2 is terrible for that anyway. Smart-casting of storms puts the nail in the coffin, since when you cast 4 storms, hydras can't move anywhere. 2. Lings won't get to immortals when zealots are still in front — since you said it's a gas heavy build, it just means more zealots for tanking and protecting. Also if there does happen to be a ton of lings, storm will cut that number down very fast. 3. Corruptors loose against Void Rays even when they corrupt, and hydralisks can't kill void rays when they are trying to dodge storm — they have like 4-6 seconds of shooting before the hydralisks die, that's not enough to kill void rays.
I do play Zerg. I realized most of that but I was talking more about pretending to commit so that your lings look like they're going in but pull back. Same as baiting FFs. I mean a lot of players won't fall for it but it is worth doing because you lose a few lings for a potentially huge gain.
Agree with creep, I never even thought of hydras being so slow. I am used to people only casting a few poorly placed storms (I don't play often, I am in Plat. Probably under 20 games in 1v1 this season).
Lings COULD get there if the point at which you attack is open enough or you swing around like in X'el Naga Caverns. Again, like I said, theorize all we want but it ultimately comes down to a lot of player and situational variables (although yes it is a beastly composition that if each side a-clicked and cast P would easily, EASILY win).
I actually don't see a lot of voids a lot so I was thinking along the lines of like 5 and me having 10 - 15ish corruptors, which would probably beat it.
Overall I agree with you but again, it'd come down to the specific situations right. I've done it/had it done to me when I played Toss early on. Man I just wanna play now, stupid exams.
Ling Infestor is my mid game plan while going to Hive tech. It is just an army that is threatening enough to the Protoss player. Although sometimes I mix it up with Banelings.
Also I do not think Roach Infestor has as much synergy as you would think imo. The Roach has the lowest dps of any Zerg unit. Something that I do not like when used with Infestor abilities other than Infested Terrans which share upgrades. I like the high damage Zerglings more as it kills quickly.
Roaches have durability but lack killing power which does not go as well with Fungal and NP which are short time sensitive abilities. Also Roach Infestor is slower to come out while Ling Infestor is more rapidly prepared. It also does not work as well with my eventual Hive tech plan which calls for upgraded melee from either Ultra or Broodlords.
In addition Roach cuts into gas for upgrades. Although I can see Roaches being more forgiving of mistakes. Maybe a combination of both where Roaches lead the charge and Zerglings swoop in after Infestors have done their job. Roaches do not need the damage upgrades in this case.
I have been saying this was the answer to P death ball since game came out but Z's dont like to micro. Roach A move. Ling A move. Hydra A move. etc etc etc just about every Zerg unit is A move by design but the powerful infestor with 3 powerful spells. A move invariably fails against a microing protoss who FF's to cut up army & blinks in to kill remaining or storms the stationary FF'ed units. easy peasy quick destruction and makes P look imba . Not anymore. Your replays show the opposite - Z looking like masters of quick destruction and I can't wait to see pros using it rather than same old boring roach/hydra/corruptor combo attempting to deal with P death ball.
Real problem though is 4/5/6 Gate timing pushes with this build maybe that's why pros don't risk it.
On April 20 2011 21:59 MapleLeafSirup wrote: Hello all. I have tried this strategy twice in high masters and one time it worked, one time it did not...
Protoss can beat it with his standard play, they just have to focus fire all the infestors ASAP... i know this is a lot but you need to get these parasited colossi back ! Afterwards they will melt the zerling waves.
But this strategy has a lot of potential and I think there is a lot room for improvements and refinements to make it even better
Employing heavy use of Neural Parasite will lead to many lopsided games. You either win big, or lose big, it depends on a slew of factors, primarily how many NP's you land, for how long, and on which units.
Micro mistakes with infestors are punished severely and will often lose you the game. This unit composition has a high variance in combat effectiveness. I think the only way to reduce this variance is through practice.
I believe this is primarily the reason that pros have shunned Neural Parasite and infestors in general. They want reliability so that they can consistently win games and tournaments, and fear having a huge lead destroyed by a few seconds of bad micro.
If your lead is huge, can't you just drop a couple fungals (minimal risk to your infestors - only 1-2 have to expose themselves) and then carpet-bomb the opposing army with Infested Terrans?
I feel like Infested Terran falls by the wayside in a lot of discussions of Infestor-heavy play, which confuses me. It seems a lot more stable and reliable than Neural Parasite.
Ok, so the horde of forumcrafters who ruins every strategy thread is here now. I'm sure some of them don't play zerg or protoss, and I'm sure most of them haven't even tried the strategy or faced it.
What you guys are saying is, because protoss can make a theoretical ideal composition against it, it's not viable. I should not explain why this reasoning is flawed (it's obvious), but if your theorycraft goes that far, why not take one step ahead and say that the ideal composition the protoss have to make can not work because there's an ideal zerg composition that counter it ? There is no difference. More, this composition is to be used when the protoss goes deathball. It's a reaction. So theorycrafting this does not work because the P will always be omniscient and change his composition from what every protoss does 95% of the time in vZ to a perfect counter is bad, you should stop ruining every thread with this crap. Strategy and builds like this are what make matchups evolve. People like you who always say in everythread "this doesn't work in my perfect world" are what make matchup stagnate.
I'm watching Sen do this on his stream right now. His opponent blinks forwards small groups of stalkers and snipes the infestors, or lifts them with pheonixes. I tuned in late, but we're onto 200/200 round number 3 (at least) against the Protoss stalker/collosus blob! Corruptors added this time.
(Update: And despite 8 broodlords, Protoss wins!)
It doesn't look any better than roach corruptor to be honest.
On April 21 2011 09:20 Dragar wrote: I'm watching Sen do this on his stream right now. His opponent blinks forwards small groups of stalkers and snipes the infestors, or lifts them with pheonixes. I tuned in late, but we're onto 200/200 round number 3 (at least) against the Protoss stalker/collosus blob! Corruptors added this time.
(Update: And despite 8 broodlords, Protoss wins!)
It doesn't look any better than roach corruptor to be honest.
Do you mean the game just now on Shakuras Plateau? He was at top left, Protoss started top right.
In that game, he maxed out on many roaches and some infestors. When his handful of infestors went in to NP the colossi, the protoss just picked them up with phoenixes to cancel the spells.Because roaches fire from a distance, and he didn't fungal the Protoss army, the stalkers blinked/walked forward to snipe off infestors. 200/200 roach/infestor just doesn't cut-it.
Zergling-Infestor would have crushed what the Protoss had (At the Protoss third base in front of his natural).
I just tried this build , opening with spanisiwas opening into infestor lings with fast upgrades, The first time I faced the deathball I had 15 infestors 3 ultras and rest lings with a splattering of banelings. and i totally fucked up my macro but still just about killed him , I said to him " shit man if i had of neuraled all your collosi you of got spanked" and he just said " yeah right" next engagement i got the neural off and he was destroyed. That + bane drops on his 3rd and nat was awesome :D Thanks for this build OP more lolz for me in a match up I hate so much.
What I think is unfair, the zerg has to have perfect timing all around, like 1 or 2 key supply blocks and you're screwed pretty much. It's also so stupid that zerg has to micro the surround, micro under ff's, micro FG's and NP and macro up the 300 food army AND drop banelings with moving overlords all while trying to attack the protoss deathball. and don't even get me started on the setup of where to engage as well. Where as the protoss hits f, click, click, click, click, click, and a-move.
Once the protoss adds in more than 10 voids you're screwed with this strat unless you have ultras, broods, and TONS of corrupters. And get the perfect fungals off at least three times and hold colos for full length of time with NP each time.
The whole problem with zerg vs protoss deathball is the amount of micro skill it takes for zerg and how little it takes for protoss to just a-move and crush everything the zerg has.
It's almost like if there was a race that revolved solely on stutter stepping their units (aka, if you didn't stutter step, you would auto lose no matter what)
that's pretty much what it is like, if you don't micro absoloutley perfect against the deathball, and macro reinforcments perfectly you're going to get stomped. end of story.
On April 21 2011 10:40 SaviorSelf wrote: What I think is unfair, the zerg has to have perfect timing all around, like 1 or 2 key supply blocks and you're screwed pretty much. It's also so stupid that zerg has to micro the surround, micro under ff's, micro FG's and NP and macro up the 300 food army AND drop banelings with moving overlords all while trying to attack the protoss deathball. and don't even get me started on the setup of where to engage as well. Where as the protoss hits f, click, click, click, click, click, and a-move.
Once the protoss adds in more than 10 voids you're screwed with this strat unless you have ultras, broods, and TONS of corrupters. And get the perfect fungals off at least three times and hold colos for full length of time with NP each time.
The whole problem with zerg vs protoss deathball is the amount of micro skill it takes for zerg and how little it takes for protoss to just a-move and crush everything the zerg has.
It's almost like if there was a race that revolved solely on stutter stepping their units (aka, if you didn't stutter step, you would auto lose no matter what)
that's pretty much what it is like, if you don't micro absoloutley perfect against the deathball, and macro reinforcments perfectly you're going to get stomped. end of story.
Yea thats how all us zergs feel, but TBH complaining about it wont do anything. We gotta come up with something.
So I've been playing around with this all day, and I'm pretty convinced.
Stopping 6 gate is not as trivial as some might lead you to believe, but I think that once you get into a healthy mid-game, this type of strategy is absolutely overwhelmingly powerful against a traditional deathball.
On April 21 2011 10:56 MrBitter wrote: So I've been playing around with this all day, and I'm pretty convinced.
Stopping 6 gate is not as trivial as some might lead you to believe, but I think that once you get into a healthy mid-game, this type of strategy is absolutely overwhelmingly powerful against a traditional deathball.
its pretty good, the only thing i dont like is having to deal with early aggression with alot of stalkers/zealots and still being a race to get your infestors out so you don't die from 1 tiny push
The last vid was a bit bad. If you take all of a protoss' colossi ( in this case a close to sufficient 2) and use it against them while it is surrounded, it takes a no brainer to tell that the splash will do hordes of damage and the toss will lose the ifght if you have an army of any kind. Also, the fact that fungal growth is there too, it is overkill. Now what if you fungalled then pulled the colossus in your range so it's even more one sided, hmmmm
On April 21 2011 12:40 KhAlleB wrote: YAY as a toss im happy to see that all the zerg cry was for nothing, if of course this is as viable as it look like.
Kind of Ironic how littler people used to make Infestors, and then they turn out to be the solution to pretty much all of Zergs mid to late game worries in every matchup.
Yeah so I'm finding this extremely strong once you get all nice and set up, have drops and upgrades, etc. Against any balls this thing wrecks like mad, and I am killing balls that are 2x 3x more resource heavy, sometimes I'm even down in supply. And once you hit hive with ultras it just becomes trivial. It's also easy to prevent the big balls because of how strong baneling drops are.
The issue is getting there safely against 5/6 gate all in. Spanishiwa style stops the 4 gate all nice, but I just really really feel like I need roaches the majority of the time I face 5/6 gates. I've stopped a few of them, but it was incredibly difficult and I feel like I needed him to mess up with the FFs. Even 4 gate on maps like xel naga or close positions on some maps is pretty tough to hold without roaches.
Essentially I'm finding it difficult to survive against earlier aggression without roaches. Quite the opposite of the deathball problem.
Mass mass void rays is yet to be an issue I've had yet. Constant ling aggression means that he always needs to be making sentries/stalkers etc. so he can't make a lot of void rays. I basically just used a spore crawler and some queens to fight most void rays. I imagine against mass void rays a muta switch might be viable; delayed muta/ling sounds pretty interesting, especially with some baneling drops to smash sentries.
Clearly, this isn't what I'm advocating for. This thread is about mass infestors to secure the map in the mid-game.
he doesn't research neural parasite. starting hive off two base at the 9:49 mark. spire at 10:28. greater spire at 12:08. 94/150 supply, 4 infestor and 31 lings. (both of you are turtling) first blood at 12:55. One of the two dt's you send to separate bases kills 10 drones. corruptor production begins at 13:15. He has 4 infestors and three bases (vs your two base) on a map with 14 bases. (backwater gulch) morphing to brood lords at 14:07. 136/158 supply.
16:23 - 9 brood lords, 2 corruptors, 4 infestors poke at your 21 blink stalker, 7 sentry, 3 colossi, 1 dt, 3 zealot force at your ramp to the middle (173/192 to 150/150, 66-67 workers. Army supply of 100-83) He's floating 1160/720 vs your 700/421. Immediately after casting two fungals(whoa, no cooldown on casting fungal?), your colossi roast it(it was at half health from a random dt in the middle). a full health, 200 energy infestor casts one fungal before your entire army one shots it. As his 42 lings arrive in single file line heading straight at the lazers attacking his third infestor, he casts another fungal on 7 stalkers, leaving 12 to blink forward and snipe two brood lords. Meanwhile, he has sent 52 lings to attack your third, but your simcity is good and the lings cannot get good surface area on the cannons so they retreat. He has 50 energy remaing (enough energy for 2 infested terrans but no fungal). You retreat to the safety of your cannons (11 stalkers, 3 colossi, 3 sentry, 1 dt, and 1 zealot) and bait 10 of his non-hotkeyed lings into them. He regroups his forces (63 lings, 7 brood lords, 2 infestors) in the middle.
Supply 139-118, Army Supply 66-51. I'd say that battle was about even. The problem is he wanted to deny your third, and during the heat of the battle, started production of 38 zerglings.
I want to see that engagement again but with him flanking your army with all of his lings and neural parasiting your three colossi after casting fungals. He also is 25% on upgrading +2, not ideal for such a major engagement.
There's 12 more minutes left in the replay that I'll let others watch so they can see how you turn 3 base turtle Protoss into a win vs fast hive tech.
I'm gonna skip watching the Spanishiwa replay. That's a different style than Mass Infestors, from what I've seen on his stream and heard.
Being a featured Strategy Forum poster, I'd be more careful about going around saying "How to beat this..." with any proposed build.
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.
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.
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).
If you meant no 3rd hatch, no +1, or no burrow, then I misunderstood and yes I agree a sentry heavy 5,6 gate is near impossible without lots of static defenses or roaches.
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.
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.
The only thing I don't like about this thread is how it says "Basics on how to inject properly" and has a video to the backspace inject method like that is the way you are supposed to inject (I'm at work so the links are messed up and it makes the whole page look weird so you could have 2 different videos there and I wouldn't know). As far as I know 99% of pros don't use the backspace method and I used it for months and am finally switching away from it b/c it's cost me so many games.....
Yeah so anyone who can tell me how I actually beat this? Its insane and suddenly turns the scales HEAVILY into the favor of the zerg (mapcontrol + army stronger than protoss max + ability to take mass bases while protoss cant).
It suddenly just feels that the dynamic of the matchup is gone and now zergs playstyle of macro and now when a zerg army can stand up to the protoss deathball AND be able to be replentished in seconds, it just feels retardedly overpowered. Anyone who actually lost a macro game?
On April 22 2011 06:33 Neo.NEt wrote: The only thing I don't like about this thread is how it says "Basics on how to inject properly" and has a video to the backspace inject method like that is the way you are supposed to inject (I'm at work so the links are messed up and it makes the whole page look weird so you could have 2 different videos there and I wouldn't know). As far as I know 99% of pros don't use the backspace method and I used it for months and am finally switching away from it b/c it's cost me so many games.....
Please backup your claim of 99% of pros don't use the backspace method. If you mean 99% of featured live user zerg streamers, I might agree with that. Being a featured streamer does not mean your mechanics are the right mechanics. Think about how mechanics in BroodWar from 1998-2002 have evolved into today's standards. It's a bit of a stretch, but saying the backspace (pros remap the "Base Camera" to more convenient hotkeys such as ` and Q) method cost you so many games is akin to someone saying grouping up mutalisks with an overlord to force them to stack better cost them so many games because their overlords kept flying into Terran units/turrets.
[On 2010-05-17 12:54:16 Zelniq wrote: [Base Camera method] is ridiculously fast multiple spawn larvaes, all zergs should immediately start doing this, can be off microing a battle and spend less than 1 second to inject 5 hatches.
On April 15 2011 09:25 Day[9] wrote: v shift backspace! everyone's already said it but, because i know about it, i want to participate and seem knowledgeable
On February 24 2011 02:57 Sv1 wrote: conclude is that the [injects] missed from your MIWs (Missed Injection Windows) are esentially units that will not enter the game
On April 22 2011 06:54 Daimai wrote: Yeah so anyone who can tell me how I actually beat this? Its insane and suddenly turns the scales HEAVILY into the favor of the zerg (mapcontrol + army stronger than protoss max + ability to take mass bases while protoss cant).
It suddenly just feels that the dynamic of the matchup is gone and now zergs playstyle of macro and now when a zerg army can stand up to the protoss deathball AND be able to be replentished in seconds, it just feels retardedly overpowered. Anyone who actually lost a macro game?
plz dont start -_- we enough said to zerg player to ry to beat toss why will we start crying imba now ?
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.
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.
credit to etceteraetcetera
goons didnt have blink in bw
archons don't have maelstrom in sc2
okay lets allow other Z players to have the delusion that muta sniping in sc2 will be effective as it was in sc1
On April 22 2011 06:54 Daimai wrote: Yeah so anyone who can tell me how I actually beat this? Its insane and suddenly turns the scales HEAVILY into the favor of the zerg (mapcontrol + army stronger than protoss max + ability to take mass bases while protoss cant).
It suddenly just feels that the dynamic of the matchup is gone and now zergs playstyle of macro and now when a zerg army can stand up to the protoss deathball AND be able to be replentished in seconds, it just feels retardedly overpowered. Anyone who actually lost a macro game?
plz dont start -_- we enough said to zerg player to ry to beat toss why will we start crying imba now ?
Thats why I'm asking for help and not yelling imba...
On April 22 2011 06:54 Daimai wrote: Yeah so anyone who can tell me how I actually beat this? Its insane and suddenly turns the scales HEAVILY into the favor of the zerg (mapcontrol + army stronger than protoss max + ability to take mass bases while protoss cant).
It suddenly just feels that the dynamic of the matchup is gone and now zergs playstyle of macro and now when a zerg army can stand up to the protoss deathball AND be able to be replentished in seconds, it just feels retardedly overpowered. Anyone who actually lost a macro game?
6gate beats every non roach or hydra opening, if done properly, because it hits before infestors are out. If you cant beat speedling/baneling with 6gate you have to train your forcefields.
Well if you want to beat it in a longer game: high temps to feedback the infestor and storm the trapped lings will instakill this composition, but it requires a lot of micro. Archons are great too.
I could see carrier work too, if you can snipe his infestors with blink, so he cant mindcontrol...
On April 22 2011 06:54 Daimai wrote: Yeah so anyone who can tell me how I actually beat this? Its insane and suddenly turns the scales HEAVILY into the favor of the zerg (mapcontrol + army stronger than protoss max + ability to take mass bases while protoss cant).
It suddenly just feels that the dynamic of the matchup is gone and now zergs playstyle of macro and now when a zerg army can stand up to the protoss deathball AND be able to be replentished in seconds, it just feels retardedly overpowered. Anyone who actually lost a macro game?
Have a basic / standard death ball composition. Make sure colo are far in back. Colo have 9 range, NP is 9 rage. They can never catch you with an NP. Use FF and lings do nothing but melt to colo,t hen all thats left is a couple infestors. Pretty much auto win if you know how to micro your army and don't just 1a2a3a
Just wanted to say thanks! The stalker/colossus deathball had made ZvP by far my worst matchup, but this has worked great. It seems to turn ZvP into some fun back and forth tech switches to counter one another's counters
I still need to experiment with the best build to get to this (6 gate is my only real concern), but I have some ideas that I'll try.
I didn't read the whole 15 pages, but as a toss players (500 master) whenever i see a zerg going for lots of lings, lair and doesn't have a roach warren i will simply go 6 gates and start teching to zealots/archons/templars because it beats any tech patch the zerg decides to go at this point (mutas, hydras, or infestors). From the experience i've had the zealot/templar/archon decimate the ling/infestor/ultralisk combo.
On April 22 2011 12:17 Opponent wrote: I didn't read the whole 15 pages, but as a toss players (500 master) whenever i see a zerg going for lots of lings, lair and doesn't have a roach warren i will simply go 6 gates and start teching to zealots/archons/templars because it beats any tech patch the zerg decides to go at this point (mutas, hydras, or infestors). From the experience i've had the zealot/templar/archon decimate the ling/infestor/ultralisk combo.
Yeah this composition is a lot stronger than the Colossus one against the likes of Ling+Infestor+Ultra.
Although it does not have lasting power because once those Templar run out of energy the Protoss ball loses a lot of firepower and can be killed on the remax.
Also this strategy is less effective when he keeps the Colossus separate from his army. The tighter the ball he keeps his army in the stronger Ling + Infestor becomes.
From a PROFESSIONAL standpoint I do not belive the fights shown in the youtube video to be an accurate viewing of the sucess of ling/infestor.
In the first Fight: IF YOU LOOK really really closely... you can see 8 stalkers are target firing the overseer for some incredibly strange reason..... bypassing all of the zerg units even getting caught on their way there... strange why target the overseer there weere no DT's in the picture either..? had they have no been target firing the overseer the protoss composition would have easily won. Am I the only one who SEES THIS?
The second video contains a secrect gem trick that the protoss player might not have thought/known about but the counter was right in front of his eyes. When the zerg meet with the protoss army he had a free phoneix with 200 energy... The phoneix could have graviton beamed the infesters that were targeting the collusus with nueral parasite. It had enough to stop 4 infestors parasites which would have swung the battle largely in the favor of the protoss.
The third fight clearly shows and overwhelming zerg cost army 17 infestors and fought on the zerg creep it came as no surpise to me that the zerg won.
And the last fight I must give credit where credit is due... pure brillance by the zerg. Although it was on has own creep it shows the power of ultralisks stepping over forcefields so that the banelings and fungal growth can get to their prize. Creep makes a diffrence.
All in all I was amazed really of the last video show in the youtube clip in the OP. That clearly showed the power of Infestors IMO.
However all of these videos seemed to show zerg with ~190ish pop going against a protoss with slight more 195~ pop with IMO seems to be more of a LATE game composition then a MID game compositon in which the OP seems to says it dominates. However I must agree that Infestors were gaining alot more viablity in the patch and more usefullness. But I do not belive it is "overwhelmingly powerful" as the OP describes.
wow either these protoss players failed quite a lot or this build is really strong considering that zerg had far less workers in all 4 games
it also makes me think that this strategy has always been viable but none tried as the dps of fg didnt seem to be the critical thing but having enough infestors to fungal multiple times and riskless neuraling for colossi
Now practising this more, I have made it into a success. +3+3 Lings is a really stronge force, and making sure to engange in areas which are open and can more easily be surrounded makes it fantastic.
I am wondering, which order is it best to micromanage such a battle? What goes first? Lings, followed by fungals, followed by neural parasite?
I am playing this on a platinum level, and it works great. As mentioned earlier in this thread, only because this may not work on a Grandmaster level, doesn't mean it isn't a good strategy. Afterall, the majority of the sc2 players are below that level.
Here is a motivator image. Previously, deathball was scary. Now it's fun! This, I think, accurately describes what happens if this strategy succeeds. Remains of a deathball running away!
On April 22 2011 22:11 Fishermang wrote: Now practising this more, I have made it into a success. +3+3 Lings is a really stronge force, and making sure to engange in areas which are open and can more easily be surrounded makes it fantastic.
I am wondering, which order is it best to micromanage such a battle? What goes first? Lings, followed by fungals, followed by neural parasite?
Was wondering the exact same thing. If you could get the micro down on a thing like that I'd say the deathball just becomes another strategy you can pick apart if you know how...
I'm glad to hear Z has an answer to P finally. However, I feel like blizzard is going to have to find another solution. As it stands, the infestor is too versatile. Every one of its spells is devastating and game changing. In ZvT especially, it counters every unit the T has except the marauder / medivac.
I'm happy Z is finally playable, but it relies too heavily on the one unit.
On April 22 2011 06:33 Neo.NEt wrote: The only thing I don't like about this thread is how it says "Basics on how to inject properly" and has a video to the backspace inject method like that is the way you are supposed to inject (I'm at work so the links are messed up and it makes the whole page look weird so you could have 2 different videos there and I wouldn't know). As far as I know 99% of pros don't use the backspace method and I used it for months and am finally switching away from it b/c it's cost me so many games.....
because it cost you games ?
please explain how on earth it cost you games.... I am really curious.
On April 22 2011 06:33 Neo.NEt wrote: The only thing I don't like about this thread is how it says "Basics on how to inject properly" and has a video to the backspace inject method like that is the way you are supposed to inject (I'm at work so the links are messed up and it makes the whole page look weird so you could have 2 different videos there and I wouldn't know). As far as I know 99% of pros don't use the backspace method and I used it for months and am finally switching away from it b/c it's cost me so many games.....
Please backup your claim of 99% of pros don't use the backspace method. If you mean 99% of featured live user zerg streamers, I might agree with that. Being a featured streamer does not mean your mechanics are the right mechanics. Think about how mechanics in BroodWar from 1998-2002 have evolved into today's standards. It's a bit of a stretch, but saying the backspace (pros remap the "Base Camera" to more convenient hotkeys such as ` and Q) method cost you so many games is akin to someone saying grouping up mutalisks with an overlord to force them to stack better cost them so many games because their overlords kept flying into Terran units/turrets.
[On 2010-05-17 12:54:16 Zelniq wrote: [Base Camera method] is ridiculously fast multiple spawn larvaes, all zergs should immediately start doing this, can be off microing a battle and spend less than 1 second to inject 5 hatches.
On April 15 2011 09:25 Day[9] wrote: v shift backspace! everyone's already said it but, because i know about it, i want to participate and seem knowledgeable
On February 24 2011 02:57 Sv1 wrote: conclude is that the [injects] missed from your MIWs (Missed Injection Windows) are esentially units that will not enter the game
So you linked to Zelniq talking about how good this inject method is 11 months ago, day 9 saying it's cool, and 1 pro player who uses it. How exactly does that prove it's the right way? Vibe is actually the only pro I've ever heard of that does this and every single other pro I've seen play (which is enough to say 95% of pros don't use the base camera method) either does the hotkey each individual queen method or they hotkey individual hatcheries and just click on the queens. If you actually have a queen at every single hatchery then yeah this is great, but if you don't and you aren't using the fancy new follow camera thing then the base camera thing is far more trouble than it's worth.
And even watching 5 pros streaming and seeing that none of them use the base camera method is still more evidence than you showed...
And your overlord example is completely different to what I'm talking about. It's almost like you've either never used the base camera method or you know something that I don't.
On April 22 2011 06:33 Neo.NEt wrote: The only thing I don't like about this thread is how it says "Basics on how to inject properly" and has a video to the backspace inject method like that is the way you are supposed to inject (I'm at work so the links are messed up and it makes the whole page look weird so you could have 2 different videos there and I wouldn't know). As far as I know 99% of pros don't use the backspace method and I used it for months and am finally switching away from it b/c it's cost me so many games.....
because it cost you games ?
please explain how on earth it cost you games.... I am really curious.
If you've ever watched Mr. Bitter's vods on Blip.tv you've probably seen this happen to him a million times. Imagine you are on Shakuras and you have pretty much all of the bases on your side of the map, let's go with 5 and you have a queen at each hatchery. Right now, the base camera method is great. Now let's say your 6th hatch just finishes and you don't have a queen there (maybe you're maxed, or maybe it's just not done yet). If you try to do the base camera method, one of your queens is going to try to inject that hatchery so she's going to slowly walk all the way over there. The same thing will happen with macro hatches when the closest queen runs out of energy.
If I was home right now I'd post a replay of me losing with 3k minerals and no larva and if you watched the replay it's pretty obvious I would have won pretty easily if my queens weren't running wild around the map. I have plenty of other games like this as well, including a game at MLG that I think would have gone a lot better if I injected like a normal person (which I started doing after that game).
There's some way that you can use the follow camera button and this problem wouldn't happen but the camera does some weird wobble thing and I could never really get into it... some guy named Chef made a thread about it on here if you want to check it out.
On April 22 2011 06:33 Neo.NEt wrote: The only thing I don't like about this thread is how it says "Basics on how to inject properly" and has a video to the backspace inject method like that is the way you are supposed to inject (I'm at work so the links are messed up and it makes the whole page look weird so you could have 2 different videos there and I wouldn't know). As far as I know 99% of pros don't use the backspace method and I used it for months and am finally switching away from it b/c it's cost me so many games.....
Please backup your claim of 99% of pros don't use the backspace method. If you mean 99% of featured live user zerg streamers, I might agree with that. Being a featured streamer does not mean your mechanics are the right mechanics. Think about how mechanics in BroodWar from 1998-2002 have evolved into today's standards. It's a bit of a stretch, but saying the backspace (pros remap the "Base Camera" to more convenient hotkeys such as ` and Q) method cost you so many games is akin to someone saying grouping up mutalisks with an overlord to force them to stack better cost them so many games because their overlords kept flying into Terran units/turrets.
[On 2010-05-17 12:54:16 Zelniq wrote: [Base Camera method] is ridiculously fast multiple spawn larvaes, all zergs should immediately start doing this, can be off microing a battle and spend less than 1 second to inject 5 hatches.
On April 15 2011 09:25 Day[9] wrote: v shift backspace! everyone's already said it but, because i know about it, i want to participate and seem knowledgeable
On February 24 2011 02:57 Sv1 wrote: conclude is that the [injects] missed from your MIWs (Missed Injection Windows) are esentially units that will not enter the game
So you linked to Zelniq talking about how good this inject method is 11 months ago, day 9 saying it's cool, and 1 pro player who uses it. How exactly does that prove it's the right way? Vibe is actually the only pro I've ever heard of that does this and every single other pro I've seen play (which is enough to say 95% of pros don't use the base camera method) either does the hotkey each individual queen method or they hotkey individual hatcheries and just click on the queens. If you actually have a queen at every single hatchery then yeah this is great, but if you don't and you aren't using the fancy new follow camera thing then the base camera thing is far more trouble than it's worth.
And even watching 5 pros streaming and seeing that none of them use the base camera method is still more evidence than you showed...
I don't know about convenience, but it's optimal. It will get you the fastest injects and, since they all happen within a second, you're minimizing wasted time between subsequent injects.
I don't know why pro's don't use it as much but if it's done properly, it's clearly superior.
On April 22 2011 06:33 Neo.NEt wrote: The only thing I don't like about this thread is how it says "Basics on how to inject properly" and has a video to the backspace inject method like that is the way you are supposed to inject (I'm at work so the links are messed up and it makes the whole page look weird so you could have 2 different videos there and I wouldn't know). As far as I know 99% of pros don't use the backspace method and I used it for months and am finally switching away from it b/c it's cost me so many games.....
because it cost you games ?
please explain how on earth it cost you games.... I am really curious.
If you've ever watched Mr. Bitter's vods on Blip.tv you've probably seen this happen to him a million times. Imagine you are on Shakuras and you have pretty much all of the bases on your side of the map, let's go with 5 and you have a queen at each hatchery. Right now, the base camera method is great. Now let's say your 6th hatch just finishes and you don't have a queen there (maybe you're maxed, or maybe it's just not done yet). If you try to do the base camera method, one of your queens is going to try to inject that hatchery so she's going to slowly walk all the way over there. The same thing will happen with macro hatches when the closest queen runs out of energy.
If I was home right now I'd post a replay of me losing with 3k minerals and no larva and if you watched the replay it's pretty obvious I would have won pretty easily if my queens weren't running wild around the map. I have plenty of other games like this as well, including a game at MLG that I think would have gone a lot better if I injected like a normal person (which I started doing after that game).
There's some way that you can use the follow camera button and this problem wouldn't happen but the camera does some weird wobble thing and I could never really get into it... some guy named Chef made a thread about it on here if you want to check it out.
A player making mistake is different from something being fundamentally bad.
Nony famously forgot to research storm in TSL 2 (I'm pretty sure it was the 2nd one).
That doesn't make storm drops bad.
If queens bug out because you're using backspace injects, its not because backspace injects are bad. It's because you're not good enough at managing them.
It is hands down the fastest way to inject, and, especially late game, is the simplest way to manage injects while still spending the majority of your focus on your army.
edit:
And for clarification, the reason that most famous Zergs hotkey queens or hatcheries individually isn't because its "best". Its because its been hard-wired into their fingertips after 11-12 years of playing Broodwar.
On April 22 2011 06:33 Neo.NEt wrote: The only thing I don't like about this thread is how it says "Basics on how to inject properly" and has a video to the backspace inject method like that is the way you are supposed to inject (I'm at work so the links are messed up and it makes the whole page look weird so you could have 2 different videos there and I wouldn't know). As far as I know 99% of pros don't use the backspace method and I used it for months and am finally switching away from it b/c it's cost me so many games.....
because it cost you games ?
please explain how on earth it cost you games.... I am really curious.
There's some way that you can use the follow camera button and this problem wouldn't happen but the camera does some weird wobble thing and I could never really get into it... some guy named Chef made a thread about it on here if you want to check it out.
clarification here, this technique no longer works, in patch 1.3 a change was made: the "follow selected unit" toggle no longer overrides the base camera hotkey.
You can read more info in the last couple of pages on Chef's thread here (he also updated the OP saying the technique no longer works)
On April 22 2011 06:33 Neo.NEt wrote: The only thing I don't like about this thread is how it says "Basics on how to inject properly" and has a video to the backspace inject method like that is the way you are supposed to inject (I'm at work so the links are messed up and it makes the whole page look weird so you could have 2 different videos there and I wouldn't know). As far as I know 99% of pros don't use the backspace method and I used it for months and am finally switching away from it b/c it's cost me so many games.....
because it cost you games ?
please explain how on earth it cost you games.... I am really curious.
If you've ever watched Mr. Bitter's vods on Blip.tv you've probably seen this happen to him a million times. Imagine you are on Shakuras and you have pretty much all of the bases on your side of the map, let's go with 5 and you have a queen at each hatchery. Right now, the base camera method is great. Now let's say your 6th hatch just finishes and you don't have a queen there (maybe you're maxed, or maybe it's just not done yet). If you try to do the base camera method, one of your queens is going to try to inject that hatchery so she's going to slowly walk all the way over there. The same thing will happen with macro hatches when the closest queen runs out of energy.
If I was home right now I'd post a replay of me losing with 3k minerals and no larva and if you watched the replay it's pretty obvious I would have won pretty easily if my queens weren't running wild around the map. I have plenty of other games like this as well, including a game at MLG that I think would have gone a lot better if I injected like a normal person (which I started doing after that game).
There's some way that you can use the follow camera button and this problem wouldn't happen but the camera does some weird wobble thing and I could never really get into it... some guy named Chef made a thread about it on here if you want to check it out.
A player making mistake is different from something being fundamentally bad.
Nony famously forgot to research storm in TSL 2 (I'm pretty sure it was the 2nd one).
That doesn't make storm drops bad.
If queens bug out because you're using backspace injects, its not because backspace injects are bad. It's because you're not good enough at managing them.
It is hands down the fastest way to inject, and, especially late game, is the simplest way to manage injects while still spending the majority of your focus on your army.
edit:
And for clarification, the reason that most famous Zergs hotkey queens or hatcheries individually isn't because its "best". Its because its been hard-wired into their fingertips after 11-12 years of playing Broodwar.
I'm not sure I would call this the same situation as forgetting to research storm. I think you know how easy it is to forget to hit "s" after you spawn larva every time to stop your queens. I do the same thing all the time. And sometimes hitting s doesn't really even solve the problem b/c one of your queens might have been running to a different hatchery and the hatchery she was supposed to inject never even got done.
If people were perfect then yeah this is the best way but I'm sure you've lost games (and everyone else has as well) because you had queens running everywhere (I know incontrol likes to yell at you about it on your blip.tv vods) and nothing was getting injected. I think this method is similar to infestors/HT's in the sense that if you mess up once it could really cost you. When you get 8 ht's and you have them bunched up and they get emped or you just amove your whole army and they run to the front and get owned without doing anything well... you're in trouble. If you go colossi instead that will never happen. If you are perfect that HT thing won't happen to you but from what I've seen... nobody is perfect.
As far as the BW reference goes sure pros are used to using every hotkey but it's not like their brain was programmed to 55 66 77 88 99 00 for queens because they had been doing it for brood war for 10 years or anything.
Love your stream by the way, but I'm sad you're going to teach those dirty protosses how to play. They're hard enough to beat as it is as they don't even know what they're doing!!!!
I used it for awhile and ran towards the 'queens running everywhere in map' problem because I have basically 3 queens for injectin (or 4 if I know i need those larva) and one for creep spread.
Now I usually have then about 5 hatches atleast in lategame so how do I inject with backspace? I binded it to space so its just like spamming space and shift-v. However backspacing doesn't go to the hatches that have queen, it goes to every hatch and not always in direct order (queenless, queen, queen, queenless etc).
I feel like I'm largely alone in my "hotkey each individual hatchery and don't hotkey queens". Hmm, I would like to switch, but I'm too comfortable with my method.
k, clearly the BEST strategy for larva injection is using indivdual hotkeys for each queen, then when you have GOOD/GREAT creepspread, and many bases/hatches (aka late game), you hotkey all your queens to one hotkey, and have your base camera bound to side mouse button, or scroll wheel, or w/e you want, back mouse button is sick on the xai though. and you use the backspace method in the lategame. early game it gets tough to use the backspace method and it's actually quite bad especially when you are getting your 3rd up and have the random wandering queen
what did I do wrong? I made fuckton of infestors but the problem is still collosus melt the lings too fast and the voidrays only dies to 5 fungals iirc and so all my infestors die while all the voidrays survive with red HP and shields.
Ughh as a Protoss player, it's really hard to deal with the continous stream of speedlings, and eventual cracklings. Instant damage to half your army also doesn't help much.
what did I do wrong? I made fuckton of infestors but the problem is still collosus melt the lings too fast and the voidrays only dies to 5 fungals iirc and so all my infestors die while all the voidrays survive with red HP and shields.
please take a look at the replay.
Should I just made corruptors? .__.
Tough loss. At first glance, I feel like you could have won had you tweaked a few things. Versus 3 Stargates, I think making Ultralisks might not be the best option (not trying to be funny).
17:47/35:44 Player: Zerg Protoss Minerals 1485 3070 2x as much banked Gas 311 536 Food 184/200 199/200 Army Supply 92 118 26 Supply Difference Worker Supply 91 81 Income (min) 2060 2340 Income (gas) 704 832 Harvesters 77 81 Resources Lost 475 1000 Army (min) 3975 7700 3725 more mineral cost Army (gas) 2900 3900 1000 more gas cost Zerg Production: Hatchery, Hive, 26 Zerglings, 3 Infestors, Centrifugal Hooks, Ventral Sacs, Pneumatized Carapace, Melee Attack 2 Protoss Production: Nexus, Air Armor 1 Zerg Units: 75 Zerglings, 18 Infestors, (3/7 Queens nearby 7 Spines) Protoss Units: 7 Zealots, 16 Stalkers, 14 Void Rays, 5 Colossi Zerg Upgrades: Metabolic Boost, Pathogen Glands, Neural Parasite, Melee +2, Carapace +1 Protoss Upgrades: Blink, Extended Thermal Lance, Ground +1, Air +1
Looks tough, and I think you micro'd pretty well considering the odds. The main threat is the 14 Void Rays. I think instead of engaging by the rocks, it would have been better to stay behind your spines. If he uses the Void Rays to attack the spines, use fungal/queens. If he uses the Colossi to outrange the spines, NP them. I'm not sure what to do if he charges in with everything. Ideally, you'd want to fungal(range: 9) the void rays (range: 6), NP the colossi, and slow the zealots and stalkers from killing your infestors with your zerglings, spines, queens, more fungals, and infested terrans. I'm not sure how hard this would have been to pull-off in that game.
A lot of people underestimate how strong Infested Terrans (range: 9) are. With 18-21 Infestors, it might be too hard to maximize their potential in battle...maybe it's good to preemptively cast Infested Terrans in that situation. Also, since you made a Baneling Nest (I advocate skipping Banelings until you are banking large amounts of gas), it might have been useful to turn 12 of your Zerglings into Banelings. Even though you did not have Centrifugal Hooks yet (17 minutes in!), you were defending on Creep, and he had 0 sentries. Fungal would prevent his Zealots and Stalkers from escaping. 21 Infestors, 12 Banelings, 89 Zerglings, and 3 Queens defending at your 7 spines on Creep would have probably been able to kill that army.
Would cancelling some/all of your upgrades to use that gas for Banelings have worked? I wonder.
Maybe someone with a better understanding of the game than I could help you here.
On April 23 2011 18:01 Washow wrote: Only way to beat infestor lings as toss is to hit them early before they have enough mana to use several fungals. (In my case)
Btw what's up with the Korean translation in OP? Obviously you used the English -> Korean translator but why?
A 3gate into 6gate timing push is too late to beat an infestor zergling player to fungal growth. So no, going to try and beat them soon enough is like walking right into the zergs hands.
The very best way to deal with an infestor ling player is, as previously stated, High templars while getting a third. Or teching to voidrays and making sure his third never gets up.
Oh, and I have to agree on the korean, though it might look cool, I can't even make sense out of it grammatically. And I read KR BNET forums occasionally to brush up on it.
what did I do wrong? I made fuckton of infestors but the problem is still collosus melt the lings too fast and the voidrays only dies to 5 fungals iirc and so all my infestors die while all the voidrays survive with red HP and shields.
please take a look at the replay.
Should I just made corruptors? .__.
Tough loss. At first glance, I feel like you could have won had you tweaked a few things. Versus 3 Stargates, I think making Ultralisks might not be the best option (not trying to be funny).
17:47/35:44 Player: Zerg Protoss Minerals 1485 3070 2x as much banked Gas 311 536 Food 184/200 199/200 Army Supply 92 118 26 Supply Difference Worker Supply 91 81 Income (min) 2060 2340 Income (gas) 704 832 Harvesters 77 81 Resources Lost 475 1000 Army (min) 3975 7700 3725 more mineral cost Army (gas) 2900 3900 1000 more gas cost Zerg Production: Hatchery, Hive, 26 Zerglings, 3 Infestors, Centrifugal Hooks, Ventral Sacs, Pneumatized Carapace, Melee Attack 2 Protoss Production: Nexus, Air Armor 1 Zerg Units: 75 Zerglings, 18 Infestors, (3/7 Queens nearby 7 Spines) Protoss Units: 7 Zealots, 16 Stalkers, 14 Void Rays, 5 Colossi Zerg Upgrades: Metabolic Boost, Pathogen Glands, Neural Parasite, Melee +2, Carapace +1 Protoss Upgrades: Blink, Extended Thermal Lance, Ground +1, Air +1
Looks tough, and I think you micro'd pretty well considering the odds. The main threat is the 14 Void Rays. I think instead of engaging by the rocks, it would have been better to stay behind your spines. If he uses the Void Rays to attack the spines, use fungal/queens. If he uses the Colossi to outrange the spines, NP them. I'm not sure what to do if he charges in with everything. Ideally, you'd want to fungal(range: 9) the void rays (range: 6), NP the colossi, and slow the zealots and stalkers from killing your infestors with your zerglings, spines, queens, more fungals, and infested terrans. I'm not sure how hard this would have been to pull-off in that game.
A lot of people underestimate how strong Infested Terrans (range: 9) are. With 18-21 Infestors, it might be too hard to maximize their potential in battle...maybe it's good to preemptively cast Infested Terrans in that situation. Also, since you made a Baneling Nest (I advocate skipping Banelings until you are banking large amounts of gas), it might have been useful to turn 12 of your Zerglings into Banelings. Even though you did not have Centrifugal Hooks yet (17 minutes in!), you were defending on Creep, and he had 0 sentries. Fungal would prevent his Zealots and Stalkers from escaping. 21 Infestors, 12 Banelings, 89 Zerglings, and 3 Queens defending at your 7 spines on Creep would have probably been able to kill that army.
Would cancelling some/all of your upgrades to use that gas for Banelings have worked? I wonder.
Maybe someone with a better understanding of the game than I could help you here.
thx man. I think I should've slammed out 20 corruptors, and later turn them into broodlords would've helped. Say 6 infestors and 20 corruptors... I was having some trouble spending the minerals actually, I think corruptors would've helped alot. Should probably do massive overlord crackling drops, they're cheap anyways...
And in general scouting out his overall army composition would've been nice... should probably invest in some overlord speed/drop mid-game as part of the gameplan...
why has the discussion gone terribly off topic discussing inject larva?
advantage of backspace method = slightly faster disadvantage of backspace method = small chance of botching up
it's good practice to visit your base every 30 seconds at least anyway - to manage your overlords, tech, keep an eye on drone count/saturation. if you're not doing crazy harrass micro that requires 99% focus, then backspace method is uneccessary risk.
on topic though, i totally love this strategy and i really hope a variation of this can reduce the dominance of colossus deathball in PvZ.
Sen has already showed great infestor play in ZvP on his stream. Do rely on some spines for defence in the early game, especially against 6 gates since you won't have burrowed roaches to defend.
Your main spell to break apart toss' defence is infested terrans, not fungals. What you want to do is play aggressively and engage at the most ideal place possible - their bases (they cant run from infested terrans). Use burrowed infestors for multi-pronged attacks, while your main army engages. Spamming infested terrans does not only kill probes and delay mining, more importantly they force the protoss deathball to split or they risk losing more buildings.
Have 2 macro hatches (5 hatches in 3 bases) since you will be mainly spawning lings and microing infestors are apm sink. Always have some roaches instead of pure lings. This will maximize damage dealt with at least 1 row of roaches attacking behind lings. Spam infested terrans inside the wall while your army attack from the outside. Use neural parasites on any voidrays, collosus and immortals, fungals on stalkers and sentries.
I'm not sure on the best way to upgrade. For me personally, i would upgrade all of melee,ranged,armor slowly. Since you would want to transition into a mainly roach army when hts are out, and melee upgrades also affect broodlords. I'm also not sure whether ultras or broodlords would be better, but what i observed from Sen's play is, broodlords infestors with ground army support is quite micro intensive.
On April 23 2011 21:45 IPS.Mardow. wrote: Lol I tried this and got totally owned -_-
My opponent opened up with mass phoenix, then went void ray/stalker/colossi/high templar. Didnt stand any chance with any infestor combination.
yeah i think the meta game is changing as a result of this... I don't really see lots collosus/voidray on ladder as frequently now...
I believe mondragon's way to overrun enemy with roaches and drops is the best if protoss open up with mass pheonix instead of void rays. What you want to do is drone through your damage and saturate 3 bases asap. Then, focus on pure roaches production and put on constant pressure before toss can get a standard army.
You could also produce hydras but not over-committing on them, then transition into infestors to catch phoenixes. This is what Sen usually does.
I have been meeting a 2 stargate build quite often on the ladder now where they eventually transition into carriers. And my conclusion is that both hydras and corruptors suck against carriers unless you spot the carriers early enough and doesn't let them grow in numbers. The best solution if P has more than 6+ carriers is to setup for a base race. Because they will have 2-3 bases while you have 5+.
On April 24 2011 01:52 nymeria wrote: this is a fail strategy. i keep losing to mass warp prism-sentry.
they rape me with sentry drops at all my bases. my drones are trapped by forcefields, my zerglings can't attack, and my infestors are useless.
You, go back to the future, it isn't 2013 yet People aren't supposed to use warpprisms!
The way I transition out of infestor/ling if they go for HT's is baneling bombs and roaches. Because baneling drops are super effective on high gas low hp units, you can basically tear apart their sentries and high templar. While the roaches clean the leftovers up.
did anyone watch the ZvP matches on the most recent craftcup? with imbalowely vs underdark? he does infestor/ling and completely dominates a toss. replays are on sc2rep.com. copy the builds yo.
I would like to see a few more examples of this play in the original post. When watching those games, as amazing as it was, I saw the protoss sitting at 2,000 plus minerals.
Being said, I tried it myself and it is quite incredible. The infestor is finally becoming a cornerstone unit in zerg matchups. Fungal, neural parasite, and zergling combo is incredible.
I think that you want zergling over roach because of the upgrades. Playing this style, you, as a zerg player, should expect to get Ultralisk. Ultralisks plow through armored units, of which the majority of the Protoss Deathball is made up of.
Best way to counter is ht, if you have decent enough micro, you can feedback snipe infestors before they cause any real damage, and then your death ball can clean up rest. The trouble is reacting to the build and getting the high templar while still maintaining a strong death ball.
I've been having huge sucess with a build like this the last few days.
what i do is open without gas, drone hard until 40/50 supply and take the 4 gases at once (spanishiwa style) immediatly get a lair, +1melee and +caparace and ling speed. after lair i get something like 6 infestors to help my lings to defend. I get my 3rd and my 4th right after that.
I was having trouble dealing with stalker zealot and colossus until i started getting banelings wich annihilated everything.
then i was having trouble with a 1/2 stargate builds until i started adding mutas into the build when i saw 1 or 2 stargates.
later on i add ultras so i don't need to Neural any colossus to deal with forcefields.
I'm really happy to beat protoss once again =D
I usually don't get more than 6 infestors and i try to keep them on that number.
Here is a small video i've made to show the power of ling bling infestor to a friend against protoss:
God, I have been getting my ass whipped by every Zerg going infestors in PvZ. Fungal Growth is very very strong against the Protoss Death Ball. Together with Banelings and Speedoverlords, Zerg can easily take down all the Sentries and even Death Ball without much of a problem. Unscouted Baneling Drops in mineral lines is a GG. I am currently losing too much to this type of strategy.
On April 23 2011 21:45 IPS.Mardow. wrote: Lol I tried this and got totally owned -_-
My opponent opened up with mass phoenix, then went void ray/stalker/colossi/high templar. Didnt stand any chance with any infestor combination.
I will kill 2 birds with one stone in this post. A Spanishiwa style opening will stop any sort of Stargate harass and will allow you to take map control soon after by taking a fast third. He will die before he ever gets to High Templar. Stargate, Templar, and Colossi pretty much requires every tech path to get there which means he has no army at all for a long time.
Also by overproducing Queens it is harder to mess up the backspace method of injections because you always have a Queen for every hatch even though you might end up marching one across the map even though you should have been marching her there anyway.
On April 23 2011 21:45 IPS.Mardow. wrote: Lol I tried this and got totally owned -_-
My opponent opened up with mass phoenix, then went void ray/stalker/colossi/high templar. Didnt stand any chance with any infestor combination.
I will kill 2 birds with one stone in this post. A Spanishiwa style opening will stop any sort of Stargate harass and will allow you to take map control soon after by taking a fast third. He will die before he ever gets to High Templar. Stargate, Templar, and Colossi pretty much requires every tech path to get there which means he has no army at all for a long time.
Also by overproducing Queens it is harder to mess up the backspace method of injections because you always have a Queen for every hatch even though you might end up marching one across the map even though you should have been marching her there anyway.
Just wondering, how the Spanishiwa build does against a forge FE or nexus first build? If zerg takes no gases there's no way he can pressure a toss. It's a very defensive oriented build, so what happens if the toss just expands real quick and takes his third as well (Probably just not do a spanishiwa build and take a fast third yourself I reckon)? From the replays I've seen the zerg tends to underdrone in the midgame in order to gain a massive zergling count. But what if the toss just builds a really good simcity? How are you supposed to pressure his third?
Sorry I didn't read through all 17 pages but I didn't find the answer forthcoming on this or the first page. Has anyone tried mixing in a few archons? Archons seem a decent counter to infestors, the shield can regen as infestors run out of energy and the AE attack is decent against ling surrounds. I don't believe the archon is armored... This is more of a late game build around when the deathball might roll out on like 3 base of course.
Probably transition off something like 5 gate robo where citadel was dropped for ups and DT shrine mayb for base deny / harass until force moves out. Might also be possible of some kind of 6 gate pressure, double forge, with templar for late game crowd control... I realize this is somewhat gas intensive but if you build obs/use halluc phoenix and see nothing but lings/infestors maybe??? Just wondering if anyone tinkered with archond as a unit counter to infestor/ling/baneling. I'm not advocating MASS archon, just as many as resources can reasonably allow. Dts have a decent mineral to gas ratio so it might help you not float tons of minerals (mass z's prob won't help too much). I guess might be useful off HTs after FB/storms are dropped but I am assuming fungal -> deny those abilities so the intent is to make the archons before the battle begins... It might not work at all but I was wondering if anyone tried it.
Edit: I realize that this thread is about "midgame" pressure, but there is also mention of a 200/200 deathball more than once and this is more or less the timing I am referring to
On April 25 2011 15:44 kamui8899 wrote: Sorry I didn't read through all 17 pages but I didn't find the answer forthcoming on this or the first page. Has anyone tried mixing in a few archons? Archons seem a decent counter to infestors, the shield can regen as infestors run out of energy and the AE attack is decent against ling surrounds. I don't believe the archon is armored... This is more of a late game build around when the deathball might roll out on like 3 base of course.
Probably transition off something like 5 gate robo where citadel was dropped for ups and DT shrine mayb for base deny / harass until force moves out. Might also be possible of some kind of 6 gate pressure, double forge, with templar for late game crowd control... I realize this is somewhat gas intensive but if you build obs/use halluc phoenix and see nothing but lings/infestors maybe??? Just wondering if anyone tinkered with archond as a unit counter to infestor/ling/baneling. I'm not advocating MASS archon, just as many as resources can reasonably allow. Dts have a decent mineral to gas ratio so it might help you not float tons of minerals (mass z's prob won't help too much). I guess might be useful off HTs after FB/storms are dropped but I am assuming fungal -> deny those abilities so the intent is to make the archons before the battle begins... It might not work at all but I was wondering if anyone tried it.
Edit: I realize that this thread is about "midgame" pressure, but there is also mention of a 200/200 deathball more than once and this is more or less the timing I am referring to
Archons should be fairly good, Fungal growth doesn't hurt them too much and when NP'd they won't deal bonus damage as Protoss isn't biological. However, it should be a late game transition that comes from HT's running out of energy after feed backing.
Im having tons of trouble countering mass infestors as terran or protoss (I play both). You have to kill them before the count gets to high, but infestors counter just about every terran unit (whether its through fungal or neural parasite) and the protoss ball while less susceptable to the fungal spam, will still take an almost ridiculous amount of damage while advancing before even engaging the zerg units.
I actually find its less my infestors but more the banelings that are the most effective. Baneling drops are so damn good because there's no running, and the dmage they do with a fungal is unbelievable.
Late game crackling drops are insane, as they're a very easy way to do multiprong attacks.
I don't lose to turtling toss much at all anymore, its the 5/6 gate that gets me. I'm trying to figure out a roach transition right now that keeps me safe without needing spines.
Anyway, here's a small replay pack of some of my ling/bling games. The xel naga replays I mostly lose/struggle; I told my friend to be really aggressive with fakes and stuff, and I find I struggle against that, especially on xel naga.
But I hope you can take some time to look at a few of these and see how I play it out, what I can improve on. I especially need help refining the early game build. I dislike hatch first, and I don't like ice fishing.
Tried this build twice, and got rofl stomped by early pressure/6 gate. Got destroyed by a gold league player who had a couple sentries and went early colossus all in pretty much, other time was 6 gate with 5 sentries... Killed maybe 2 stalkers. It seems to be good mid game, but then again I dont know how to transition out of it into late game to avoid HT.
Any advice on this? I've been looking for something new and I want to try and make it work, but dealing with early pressure just seems so damn hard even when you get the first couple of infestors out
Ling infestor is very strong against standard protoss deathball but once toss start to incorporate archons into their army it will become much less powerfull.
Good post. Been looking to change my ZvP build for a while now and I'll give it a try. I'll still try to get some baneling drops in after infestors for the extra dps
Yerp... Infestors are pretty good ZvP. At 800+ Master level I now almost never use Hydras since Infestors have much higher potential DPS, the ability to split/impede/NP armies, and the utility of revealing cloaked units, all at a comparatively lower mineral cost.
Honestly I'm not a fan of infestors of ZvT. It's just too fragile, and sometimes you just end up with like 8 infestors and nothing to back them up. I much prefer roach ling bling muta, as mutas also keep medivac numbers way lower which helps with the eventual brood lord transition since then they'll have to pick between vikings/medivacs. I find when I skimp out on mutas the ball of medivacs seems to get bigger and bigger.
Everyone today is doing this on the ladder >.< ! It is working well against me I've found the most success going chargelot / high templar. A normal collosus push after 3 gate expand seems to be fine as long as you get blink and snipe the infestors.
Going air off of a forge FE opening also works pretty well as long as you get there before infestors come out.
On May 04 2011 05:14 dave333 wrote: Honestly I'm not a fan of infestors of ZvT. It's just too fragile, and sometimes you just end up with like 8 infestors and nothing to back them up. I much prefer roach ling bling muta, as mutas also keep medivac numbers way lower which helps with the eventual brood lord transition since then they'll have to pick between vikings/medivacs. I find when I skimp out on mutas the ball of medivacs seems to get bigger and bigger.
with infestor/ling/bling you have actually 2 units to deal with marines and lings for tanks - if you cant downsize the number of marines significantly your mutas are useless
another pretty nice feature of infestors is spawning infested terrans into marines or next to tanks to kill them by friendly fire
it also enables an easier transition to hive as you wont invest as much gas as you would do on mutas
As a protoss in mid-masters, I find that this build really destroys a standard colossus stalker deathball. Usually I go double robo immortal chargelot HT which seems to work quite well. Just have to be very careful to mix in some archons so a air switch will not straight up kill you. DT's are good just to force a few overseers to cut into infestor gas. I can usually snipe about half the infestors with feedback and immortals are quite safe against lings/blings with enough storms. NP'd immortals are not actually that good because you have so many that immortals shooting immortals is pretty useless. Also with the amount of immortals you have left, a roach reinforcement is pretty null and void, quick reinforcements are limited to lings for the most part which can be dealt with by spent HT turning into archons.
The reason that this build works is because it's so supply sufficient in proportion to the dps that's being doled out. If you go roach hydra corruptor with a healthy econ (say 3 base 75 drones) then you're limited to about 62 offensive units on the field as roach hydra and corruptor are all 2 supply. Now if you go bling infestor or just plain ling infestor you can have 200 lings and/or banelings and still have 25 pop to put out infestors with. If you neural parasite the aoe dealers and have good upgrades on your ground army then the deathball simply can't kill fast enough.
It's just really logical in a theory crafting sense and I'm happy to see that it generally works in the actual game as well. Templar are obviously the counter to this as storm is going to melt lings and feedback really takes out infestors (getting fast ultras negates that though). I'm waiting for the high level game where the zerg is neural parasiting templar and feedbacking other templar or storming the protoss army. That would be amazing to see.
Ok so from what I take from this, you pretty much hold early game pressure with spines, queens and lings. Then once your infestors come out you can push out? Anyone tried mixing this in with roaches and baneling drops? I was thinking of using ~20 roaches with lings and infestors while getting some early gas. Then getting baneling drops. I've tried this in a few games and it seems to work well, I jsut need to get the mechanics of it down
On May 08 2011 07:52 Chinesewonder wrote: Ok so from what I take from this, you pretty much hold early game pressure with spines, queens and lings. Then once your infestors come out you can push out? Anyone tried mixing this in with roaches and baneling drops? I was thinking of using ~20 roaches with lings and infestors while getting some early gas. Then getting baneling drops. I've tried this in a few games and it seems to work well, I jsut need to get the mechanics of it down
i have been using spanishiwa's opening into ling infestor
u dont really need to push out immediately. just take a 3rd once u reach max saturation on 2 bases and then make sure hes not taking his as well. if protoss takes a fast third u can do damage. other wise just breaking his push and stalling till hive to get ultras or broods to end it is good imo.
also if u kill off early void ray harrass or dts or shyt without losing much u can double expand infestors kill voids and dts
Whilst unit compositions vs infestor play are debatable (when is the last time anyone saw a corruptor anyway lol), the main choices being colossi or immortal+templar
When you first scout them with your phoenix, and you do NOT see a roach warren (or a hydra den) they are going infestor
Depending on what you see, you have two options here
1. is to 6 gate. This is an extremely strong reaction if you hit them before they get infestors, and is particularly good if they are droning too hard, skipping on spines, trying to take a greedy third etc.
2. chronoboost your probes like crazy and tech up - usually you can't do this since you have to produce stuff out of your 3 gates to survive roach/ling all ins (and more rarely, hydra busts) - however you are in no danger of this when he goes infestor first (before roaches) - allowing you to get your colossi/templar much faster which you need to fight the infestors
The last tip i can give is that you should really, really get some templar as you approach 200/200. Even without the research, i honestly believe you need feedback to win vs infestor
if you want to edit the OP to be more specific, if you start building infestors after 30 seconds of the energy upgrade, they'll finish with the upgrade.
immortal/ht tech just dominates this so badly its not funny, Archons and storm and feedback are just dominant. Infestors are good support but no more then around 5 imo.
Actually it seems like Blizz wanted to buff zerg somehow to be more viable Vs P. But their mind was not enough to take a deeper look at the Zerg race, to figure out what can be changed better. They just took the already most controversial ability in the game (FG) and just buffed it more. Looks like it was done just to calm down all the zerg's whinings in the community and that's it.
Why Spanishuwa's build is so strong? Because of early Zerg high defense ability with the mass queen transfusion support, and further switch to Infestors/lings that smashes everything(bio, mech), that's it. Really blizz, if you don't know what would be best to implement then give community an ability to make balance related changes. Or at lest listen to it.
This looks like a valid idea, however if Protoss turtles until they max with upgrades they can eventually block out your entire army with force fields. Sure by then you should have ultra's but if those get killed off the Protoss just has to put up more fields.
Protoss turtling until they max with upgrades and also having a bunch of sentries... doesn't really happen. You highly underestimate the amount of gas sentries cost, the protoss is going to need to take at least a third base for that. Besides, if the protoss just sits there behind forcefields, you can repeatedly fungal with infestors until they die; the protoss really is forced to attack into you with this composition.
I don't think it is very viable. there is a window where after the initial fungal growth and mind controlled the collosus, the infestors are not really doing much. It is not very effective above around 6 infestors I think, much better if you include some units other than lings and banelings to deal the dps required.
It is also a bit too micro intensive (for me anyway). having 6 infestors with full energy is all that really is needed I think. maybe 8 is the max but you get the point.
I've tried this out a few times (high diamond), and it seems to just get shut down by an immortal/templar/archon composition, and with the archon buffs it's going to be even worse. Has anyone had any success against this composition?
Yea Immorotal/templar/archon is the counter but toss isnt' going to be able to get that army until the very end game you go mass bling infestor he goes that comp u go brood lords just keep tech swithitching him. You can't just blindly go infestor ling/bling you do it if he is going gateway/colli. Obivoulsy if you stay on the same tech he is going to counter you
If the protoss army is spread out, it's vulnerable to ling surrounds, because of more surface area. If it's clumped, it's vulnerable to fungal growth.
I usually cannon FE and go heavy phoenix while I get whatever kind of army I want. Not once has a zerg gotten infestors to shut down the harass, and usually if they pop 9 at a time in the mid-late game, I just pick them all up and kill them while they get 2-3 fungals off on my phoenixes. If the spawning infestors don't fungal all the phoenixes, they'll all die.
In a direct engagement, I'd pick up all the infestors while my colossi/zealots/stalkers took care of the lings. Then I'd go and pick up the lings that are actually attacking my army. If the zerg managed to fungal all my phoenixes, and keep them stunned, he'd shut me down completely. I wonder if this will catch on, it seems pretty solid.
On May 09 2011 04:45 pwadoc wrote: I've tried this out a few times (high diamond), and it seems to just get shut down by an immortal/templar/archon composition, and with the archon buffs it's going to be even worse. Has anyone had any success against this composition?
So if the Protoss scouts you going Ling/Infesotr, and you scout him going Immortal/templar/archon, then you should be a step ahead and be ready to transition.
My preferred transition is Mutalisks, dancing around making them waste storms and try and snipe Immortals so you can more effectively switch to roaches.
And also Ultra/sling/bling/infestor vs Immorta/templar/archon will come down to micro on each side. You can't just A move with either of these compositions.
However if you just transition to Mutalisk harass after seeing him go Immo/Templar/Archon, if you go Broodlords its pretty much game over.
However this is all theory craft and completely pointless.
I have a bunch of replays of myself using this unit composition in the mid game (wins and losses) so I will post them when I get home.
I get wrecked by mass blink stalker/immortal/templar/archon. Infestors are essentially useless vs that combo, except when you get lucky when the stalkers clump, which happens in much less frequency when players know wtf they're doing.
mhh, i played 2 games against a clan mate, and i can admit that it is very strong, but you be able to deal with the infestors with really good HT micro because if he can fungal you HT , you are able to feedback the infestors. Otherwise you have to pay a lot attention or you are really dead...
I was just thinking... since phoenixes naturally spread out, it's pretty hard to fungal growth them all once you get a ball of 15 or so, which is a little more than what I'll have by the midgame.
Phoenixes also give map control: since they're so fast, if they catch your army out in the open, it's easy to pick up and kill all the infestors. Seems like heavy air is a pretty good response to this composition. I'll post here if I come up against any zergs who do this style.
Would it be possible to neural parasite a high templar and feedback the rest? I havent really tried this style yet but was wondering whether this would be viable if the player had good enough micro.
On May 09 2011 05:43 GLiscor wrote: Would it be possible to neural parasite a high templar and feedback the rest? I havent really tried this style yet but was wondering whether this would be viable if the player had good enough micro.
I saw a game where a terran was using ghosts vs brood lords, and the zerg got infestors to NP a ghost and EMP all the other ghosts. It would be a little harder with high templars, but probably more doable than you'd think. The players were pros, I forget who. Might have been TLO.
On May 09 2011 05:52 link0 wrote: Infestors have minimal use against protoss due to blink stalkers and HT feedback.
I played many infestor-styles and they're fucking strong. Blink stalkers can't blink with fungals, and HT can't get in range to feedback because they're too slow and a fungal stops them in place.
So far, the times that I won vs infestors (with either roaches or lings/blings) was by slowly expading and getting the best position and spread possible if he tries to attack. If it's a big map I can probably snipe the infestors with blink stalkers, but if not, it's pretty hard to kill infestors.
My main army composition was stalker/sentry/void ray/colossi (standard pvz deathball) while expanding slowly after the 3rd (6 minutes, 12 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, and mass expand since you're maxed) and getting a SHITLOAD of warp-gates to overpower the zerg once he kills the deathball.
I really liked it, but am not sure how it will fair against early air harass, I don't know if i've got the timings down yet though.
I'd like to see some 6 gate games against this, with the Spanishiwa style, you'll have excess minerals for a while ( when i try it i do anyway :s), so i wonder if a safety roach warren is really that big a deal, i don't think it delays much else ( you'll have 200 minerals less, and i'm not sure if 8 lings is that big a deal).
You should be researching burrow anyway, so the only difference is the lack of +1 range attack at that time.
but yeah if anyone has some reps of a 6 gate timing against this, i'll be really interested in looking into how to either adjust the build, or learn the scout timings.
what is the correct response after scouting Infestors and Mass Zerglings. assuming a standard 3 Gate Expand While i have known for a long time that mass Zerglings are the very strong anyway, not beeing able to micro against them makes P highly cost ineffectiv. i am still lost at how i should become aggressiv against this composition.
You have literally no map control, can't properly expand to a third, and if Infestors got enough energy you can't even fight head on.
The toss put me behind with some super early aggression ( you'll see how far behind... Idra would have quit i'm sure). I held the second attack with just 5 infestors, there's no other zerg unit that's anywhere near as cost efficient against what he attacked me with.
The game ended up going for 40 mins, but after i held his next two or three pushes ( Ultras couldn't have come out at a better time), i started to get ahead.
It's such a huge advantage getting to tier 3 so much earlier as well, as you'll all see.
I made some glaring errors, and so did he, but i think it shows how cost efficient it makes your army.
ps: also because of the early attack the infestors obviously came out a bit later, but at the same time, his tech etc was delayed because of his attack.
Just wondering what you guys do against early phoenix and void ray. I've come across this 3 games, and lost all. I go hydra to counter but then they just seem to mass up ground and go to colossi. I use up all the gas on hydras and dont have enough for infestor. What do you guys do against this? I heard a protoss tell me to just go infestor anyway without hydra, but I dont see how FG can kill off the air especially if they are smart enough to spread out the air units
On May 12 2011 03:26 Chinesewonder wrote: Just wondering what you guys do against early phoenix and void ray. I've come across this 3 games, and lost all. I go hydra to counter but then they just seem to mass up ground and go to colossi. I use up all the gas on hydras and dont have enough for infestor. What do you guys do against this? I heard a protoss tell me to just go infestor anyway without hydra, but I dont see how FG can kill off the air especially if they are smart enough to spread out the air units
Masters zerg. Ling-infestor is my new way to play ZvP and it's working out for me pretty well. I typically go really light on blings.
Off of one base or two? One base is pretty much a free win if they go air against this strat (IF you're ready for it). Two base is more difficult.
I typically scout around 13, if I see super early gas and then a second gas, alarm bells go off and it's probably going to be DTs or air. In either case, I try to sort of guess, but I typically make a third queen and then make an evo use my second hundred gas for +1 melee instead of lair, then drop 2 spores (one at each base, only one if you think you're good enough for it and you can afford to drone a bit more against this but be sure to have lings). This should be able to hold off any fast air rush and then when they try to take their natural, try to deny it with speedlings, force the air army back, take your third while spreading creep to that location so you can defend it against air which will come back. Protoss air is very bad against mass spling so on maps like xel'naga you can delay or deny the natural for a fairly substantial time.
You'll get used to the timings and when to see if it's air or DTs or 4 gate, etc.
If they do something like forge FE/air comes after two base, get the third queen anyway to spread creep towards your third and then take your third somewhat quickly. You have to respect 6 gate here, so be sure they're going air. If they are, just mass some queens while teching to infestors and DRONE--your ground army should be sufficient to deal with their ground army and their ground will be delayed, get some econ up and don't let the harass kill you. The infestors and queens together should be able to hold anything they try off. Try to deny their third with speedlings, but mass infestor should be able to hold this off--you just have to have lots of infestors and very few blings. Throw out some infested marines if you have to.
Regardless, try to harass with your lings because the ground army will be weaker and VRs take forever to kill lings but don't go allin with your lings unless you know you can take out something like a nexus or their whole army while your queens and infestors deal with the air elsewhere. You sort of have to break their air army all at once with fungals and once you do that, they're screwed and exploit them with drops, nydus, ultras. If they turtle too hard or it's on a very defendable map, you might need a spire for corruptors as well (remember corruption + fungal hurts the collosus/VR ball a TON and they should not be able to move much due to fungal).
Templar tech is more difficult to deal with, I hope that helps.
I've been doing a variation of this. I've been doing Roach/Infestor/Baneling Drops. Its been working pretty well for me, but one small micro mistake and I autolose. Quick question. When trying to fungal spam a Toss player's army, do you hold shift while spamming F click on the army or do you spam F click without holding shift. Another unrelated Infestor question, when carpet dropping Banelings, do you highlight all your Overlords, hold shift, and D click all your Overlords individually or do you D click without holding shift. Thanks in advance
On May 12 2011 04:53 raybasto wrote: I've been doing a variation of this. I've been doing Roach/Infestor/Baneling Drops. Its been working pretty well for me, but one small micro mistake and I autolose. Quick question. When trying to fungal spam a Toss player's army, do you hold shift while spamming F click on the army or do you spam F click without holding shift. Another unrelated Infestor question, when carpet dropping Banelings, do you highlight all your Overlords, hold shift, and D click all your Overlords individually or do you D click without holding shift. Thanks in advance
shift F on fungal will be less accurate if he moves away slightly, you might lose ifnestors
On May 12 2011 03:26 Chinesewonder wrote: Just wondering what you guys do against early phoenix and void ray. I've come across this 3 games, and lost all. I go hydra to counter but then they just seem to mass up ground and go to colossi. I use up all the gas on hydras and dont have enough for infestor. What do you guys do against this? I heard a protoss tell me to just go infestor anyway without hydra, but I dont see how FG can kill off the air especially if they are smart enough to spread out the air units
Just make infestors, it takes 5 or 6 fungals to kill clumped air units. In order to make them clump wait for them to attack something.
While hydras shoot up, i find them a waste of gas because you can't use them later.
I think you're better off with queens/ spores, and infestors only.
From a Protoss point of view, it sounds like the weak point of the speedling/infestor build is the early game?? So to counter this as P, should I put more pressure on zerg (e.g. 4 gate) since they are only getting zerglings and trying to tech fast to infestors??
i have been having probles versus this build as protoss aswell. If someone can Fungal and burrow its impossible to defeat, it negates any micro and i cant run from it. No point in having a larger army cuz my units cant attack with the rediculous 9 range.
but how do i stop this strat in midgame? templar wont be out yet. collosi might be out but 1 collosi ranging to infestor (3/4) is impossible. It feels broken in the hands of a good player..
On May 12 2011 14:58 bankai wrote: From a Protoss point of view, it sounds like the weak point of the speedling/infestor build is the early game?? So to counter this as P, should I put more pressure on zerg (e.g. 4 gate) since they are only getting zerglings and trying to tech fast to infestors??
It depends on the opening, but imho 4gate is easy to defend unless the Zerg rushes blindly to infestors. I haven't played on Patch 1.3.3 yet, but it should be even easier now. It all depends on how the Zerg scouts and adapts, if he doesn't, something as simple as a DT rush could kill him anyways as they arrive before infestors are out and possibly even before lair finishes (btw: Fungal decloaks units as long as it lasts, which isn't long, but long enough).
You have to pressure the Zerg to delay infestors, but all-ins are always a risky choice. 3-gate pressure into expand into High templars would be the best choice imho, as a templar can easily kill infestors with feedback, so it becomes quite a heavy micro battle.
PS: Fun can be had for the Zerg with infestors neuraling high templars and feedbacking other templars :p
On May 12 2011 15:25 Eraz0rZ wrote: i have been having probles versus this build as protoss aswell. If someone can Fungal and burrow its impossible to defeat, it negates any micro and i cant run from it. No point in having a larger army cuz my units cant attack with the rediculous 9 range.
but how do i stop this strat in midgame? templar wont be out yet. collosi might be out but 1 collosi ranging to infestor (3/4) is impossible. It feels broken in the hands of a good player..
I think good scouting is key. Keep an eye on their tech with obs. If they're going heavy ling, push in with Zealots early and make them pay for it. If mid game is where they're most powerful, you either have to kill them fast or defend until you have templar and archons.
On May 12 2011 14:58 bankai wrote: From a Protoss point of view, it sounds like the weak point of the speedling/infestor build is the early game?? So to counter this as P, should I put more pressure on zerg (e.g. 4 gate) since they are only getting zerglings and trying to tech fast to infestors??
It depends on the opening, but imho 4gate is easy to defend unless the Zerg rushes blindly to infestors. I haven't played on Patch 1.3.3 yet, but it should be even easier now. It all depends on how the Zerg scouts and adapts, if he doesn't, something as simple as a DT rush could kill him anyways as they arrive before infestors are out and possibly even before lair finishes (btw: Fungal decloaks units as long as it lasts, which isn't long, but long enough).
You have to pressure the Zerg to delay infestors, but all-ins are always a risky choice. 3-gate pressure into expand into High templars would be the best choice imho, as a templar can easily kill infestors with feedback, so it becomes quite a heavy micro battle.
PS: Fun can be had for the Zerg with infestors neuraling high templars and feedbacking other templars :p
By 3-gate pressure, do you mean instead of doing the 3 gate sentry expand like normal, build more zealots/stalkers and pressure, then expand behind the pressure??
This actually dominates Terran ZvT if he goes Marine tank, in mid game leaving your base is pretty scary. Only legit counters to it i've seen is to transition into pure mech or mix in ghost, but because ghosts need to have cloak or they will get swarmed it is really hard for the terran. Im truely suprised i haven't seen any mass infestor play from anyone @ the masters level. Only a few people have done it to me in customs, its very very hard to deal with.
On May 12 2011 14:58 bankai wrote: From a Protoss point of view, it sounds like the weak point of the speedling/infestor build is the early game?? So to counter this as P, should I put more pressure on zerg (e.g. 4 gate) since they are only getting zerglings and trying to tech fast to infestors??
It depends on the opening, but imho 4gate is easy to defend unless the Zerg rushes blindly to infestors. I haven't played on Patch 1.3.3 yet, but it should be even easier now. It all depends on how the Zerg scouts and adapts, if he doesn't, something as simple as a DT rush could kill him anyways as they arrive before infestors are out and possibly even before lair finishes (btw: Fungal decloaks units as long as it lasts, which isn't long, but long enough).
You have to pressure the Zerg to delay infestors, but all-ins are always a risky choice. 3-gate pressure into expand into High templars would be the best choice imho, as a templar can easily kill infestors with feedback, so it becomes quite a heavy micro battle.
PS: Fun can be had for the Zerg with infestors neuraling high templars and feedbacking other templars :p
By 3-gate pressure, do you mean instead of doing the 3 gate sentry expand like normal, build more zealots/stalkers and pressure, then expand behind the pressure??
Either that or sentry expand and then pressure ASAP, though i think earlier pressure is the key as there is only a small timing window before he gets infestors out and your normal army gets crushed.
I'm only a random player in diamond with protoss as worst race, but i think a strong, zealot-heavy attack (remember: No or very late roaches) can do a lot of damage and save you the gas to get faster to high templars. If he spends the gas for banelings you have achieved your primary goal to delay his infestors. Just retreat and continue with normal play while getting your HTs ready to feedback.
Haven't lost a ZvP since I use this. It is awesome!
But I have to say it seems to be mostly a metagame thing since protoss players seem to just make blind stalkers and even immortals sometimes and im like LOLWUT? *attack-move infinite speedlings* and win.
It's amazing how this wins against a colossi deathball. I've defeated 6 colossi and a bunch of stalker/zealot with just lings and infestors, its crazy.
The counter for this is zealots and templars/archons, of course. Feedback is a harsh mistress.
Neutral Parasite and Fungal Gworth are quite scary for P. The only thing is that it needs much much practice, its risky. Many P users have yet to come up with a good counter, so Z's should use that chance
On May 12 2011 20:57 Argus92 wrote: Neutral Parasite and Fungal Gworth are quite scary for P. The only thing is that it needs much much practice, its risky. Many P users have yet to come up with a good counter, so Z's should use that chance
The problem with this is u need to go collosi route 90% of the time vs Z, and u cant switch army like zerg do because we need to much gas to have a good army to fight Z... even u knowing there are infestors comming, and u already have a collosi or 2, u cant go HT because u wont have army to fight him if he attacks u.
I prefer to combine mainly roaches and only a handful of speedlings with the mass (about 6-10) infestor play. Why? - Roaches are effective in more situations than speedlings. You can even overwhelm the opponent in narrow hallway situations -Roaches have insane Hitpoints for their cost. Infestors are the guys for the big damage (depending on the Protoss timing they cast only fungal growth or fungal growth & neural parasite on colossi or immortals), so Roaches are some kind of meatshield, that does even ok damage themselves. -The possibility of burrow micro, which i have not yet played myself though.
I thin Roach/Infestor is a more robust style, while Speedling/Infestor is stronger when it comes to counter attacks and thinning the opponent out.
Lol although this already is pretty powerful, zerg needs to innovate some more. I was playing a game earlier as zerg (instead of my main protoss) against one of my diamond friends (I'm high masters but meh, I'm offracing). I fungal'd his "deathball", NP'd his colossi AND 1 sentry at full energy. I used the sentry to FF his army so he could NOT come back to my infestors. With his colossi NP'd, he couldn't stomp on the FF, and he could not kill the infestors that NP'd his colossi. I honestly don't see how this is stopped mid-game? Toss cannot have blink as well as colossi this early (if they go heavy sentry opening), and this will decimate the army.
What I mentioned above is definitely eventually going to change PvZ. Of course, you can be consciously micro'ing your.... sentries behind, colossi in front to snipe infestors? Some how I see that losing a game for a toss in the lead just cause his colossi have to be in the front, or a flanking infestor rips up ALL the sentries because they are kept behind seems ridiculous. Hello Immortal Templar Archon Stalker =)
Loving this strategy! What do you think about using it against T ? Except for Heavy-Mech-Style, it should really deal with almost anything. Although you're a little bit more vulnerable to drops, if you dont use mutas. An infestor at your mineral should work like a charm, though. For harassing you can use them offensively, burrowing and fungaling their workers like a baller BTT: Is this BO ZvT "viable"?
On May 12 2011 23:38 TigerKarl wrote: I prefer to combine mainly roaches and only a handful of speedlings with the mass (about 6-10) infestor play. Why? - Roaches are effective in more situations than speedlings. You can even overwhelm the opponent in narrow hallway situations -Roaches have insane Hitpoints for their cost. Infestors are the guys for the big damage (depending on the Protoss timing they cast only fungal growth or fungal growth & neural parasite on colossi or immortals), so Roaches are some kind of meatshield, that does even ok damage themselves. -The possibility of burrow micro, which i have not yet played myself though.
I thin Roach/Infestor is a more robust style, while Speedling/Infestor is stronger when it comes to counter attacks and thinning the opponent out.
they're both good, at least in the mid-game.
however for the late-game, as you approach a maxed army, roaches become very weak. Melee is definitely better, for a few reasons:
-higher dps. lings/banelings both have way higher dps/supply than roaches. In fact a single zergling has almost the same dps as a single roach (7.18 for zergling, 8 for roach), but zergling takes up only .5 supply, while roach takes up 2 supply. In fact, after you get full upgrades, a single zergling actually does more dps than a roach (11.49 for a +3 attack zergling with adrenal upgrade, 11 for a +3 attack roach)!
-faster. roaches have decent speed, but ling/bane definitely has much higher speed. This, along with the higher dps, makes zerglings much better for backstabs, responding to attacks, and all-around mobility.
-better with drops. ling drops are devastating late-game (see this recent game to see how devastating a 3-overlord zergling drop can be). Then of course there's baneling drops, where 1 overlord can take out most of the mineral line, and if you have +2 melee, then 1 overlord can take out an entire mineral line.
-better upgrades. both broodlords & ultras take advantage of melee upgrades. But there are no T3 ranged units, so you have to use roach/hydra in order to take advantage of ranged upgrades.
Another thing is, if you go roaches, that will delay your infestors, since roaches use gas, meanwhile zerglings are mineral-only and let you get a bunch of infestors quicker.
On May 13 2011 00:37 joeyBanana wrote: Loving this strategy! What do you think about using it against T ? Except for Heavy-Mech-Style, it should really deal with almost anything. Although you're a little bit more vulnerable to drops, if you dont use mutas. An infestor at your mineral should work like a charm, though. For harassing you can use them offensively, burrowing and fungaling their workers like a baller BTT: Is this BO ZvT "viable"?
Well not particularly same BO, but infestors in ZvT are very good, i have been using only infestors vs terran for like last 3-4 months. Master zerg here
-higher dps. lings/banelings both have way higher dps/supply than roaches. In fact a single zergling has almost the same dps as a single roach (7.18 for zergling, 8 for roach), but zergling takes up only .5 supply, while roach takes up 2 supply. In fact, after you get full upgrades, a single zergling actually does more dps than a roach (11.49 for a +3 attack zergling with adrenal upgrade, 11 for a +3 attack roach)!
-faster. roaches have decent speed, but ling/bane definitely has much higher speed. This, along with the higher dps, makes zerglings much better for backstabs, responding to attacks, and all-around mobility.
This is largely true, but i think it overlooks important facts about base damage. because late game, you're talking about +4 protoss armor, which actually does make a huge difference in the case of zerglings. another consideration is effective DPS, as FF'ed roaches have non-zero DPS whereas zerglings that are FF'ed have zero DPS.
-higher dps. lings/banelings both have way higher dps/supply than roaches. In fact a single zergling has almost the same dps as a single roach (7.18 for zergling, 8 for roach), but zergling takes up only .5 supply, while roach takes up 2 supply. In fact, after you get full upgrades, a single zergling actually does more dps than a roach (11.49 for a +3 attack zergling with adrenal upgrade, 11 for a +3 attack roach)!
-faster. roaches have decent speed, but ling/bane definitely has much higher speed. This, along with the higher dps, makes zerglings much better for backstabs, responding to attacks, and all-around mobility.
This is largely true, but i think it overlooks important facts about base damage. because late game, you're talking about +4 protoss armor, which actually does make a huge difference in the case of zerglings. another consideration is effective DPS, as FF'ed roaches have non-zero DPS whereas zerglings that are FF'ed have zero DPS.
Once you get to tier 3 though you should have either broodlords ( FF's are counter productive, because you have to get under the BL's), or ultras ( smash FF's).
I really feel like lings are alot better because you can also force the Collossi to spread there fire more once they surround.
I guess either way it's situational, i just wonder if the role of the roach dps vs ling is even an issue considering you have Fungal, and tier 3 in the late game.
Ok guys, But anyone knows how actually get infestors? Because title of this thread is Infestors dominate ZvP. Cool. But how the hell can zerg defend while teching to infestors. I guess you need to delay 3rd alot, but what about 6 gate? u cant defend it with pure lings (cause of force fields). Even ling baneling seems luck based, because with good ff you will lose too many lings/banes to crush it. And small spread makes banes much worse too.
If zerg makes million spines, yes, he can get infestors, but then enemy can safely expand to his 3rd, u lose map control, u cant make 3rd easily. And infestors arent going to win game if you have better economy, i think that maybe mutas would be even better, if we are deciding to heavily spine our base, because we can regain map control with mutas. Infestors need alot of lings too for help, so alot of hatches/minerals is also needed.So basicalyl you need those bases above 2, and then spining is quite bad idea i would say.
So anyone has any idea how t oget safely into infestors? Not dying to 6 gate, and still having good upgrades on lings? (speedlings stop working if protoss has +1 attack more than you armor=>> zealots 2 hitting lings)
On May 12 2011 04:53 raybasto wrote: I've been doing a variation of this. I've been doing Roach/Infestor/Baneling Drops. Its been working pretty well for me, but one small micro mistake and I autolose. Quick question. When trying to fungal spam a Toss player's army, do you hold shift while spamming F click on the army or do you spam F click without holding shift. Another unrelated Infestor question, when carpet dropping Banelings, do you highlight all your Overlords, hold shift, and D click all your Overlords individually or do you D click without holding shift. Thanks in advance
shift F on fungal will be less accurate if he moves away slightly, you might lose ifnestors
also shift clicking D to drop doesn't work
What are you talking about? You can use shift click with D to drop. In order to make line drops you shift click to a location shift click D on overlord and shift click in the direction you want to line drop.
Try this trick with 2 Overlords loaded with Banelings and then move you army around near his base or even attack right before the drops get there. It is extremely hard for the Protoss to deal with and I expect only high masters or grandmasters to be able to handle it unless it was scouted first.
This little trick has almost never failed me when he fails to scout it.
so, blink stalker, blinking in to snipe your infestors basically kill you? It doesn't say anything about blink stalkers in this thread, this is why I'm asking. I know zerglings deal with stalkers, but if they kill your infestors, lings are left alone against colossus, zealots and sentries with their FF which are as we all know, OP
I really hate it when GOOD zergs gets infestors. It can completely shut down any type of agression i can put out in the early/mid game. There's nothing worse than seeing a ball of sentries get fungaled and just die.
That being said, I still feel like i can beat this strategy with just careful engagements. I always have something spotting the enemy army so I don't move into a trap, get fungal'ed, and instantly lose all my units. Forcefields are also always really good against any heavy ling type of play.
But usually I'm relieved to see my opponent going for infestors, because then I feel like I'm going to win. Most people that I play against don't micro them well enough for me to be as scared as I should be of them. That's probably why you don't see them used as much as they should be, because they are one of the more micro intensive units out there.
Also, please don't post any guide about how to go ling infestor w/baneling drops... that's one I just can't seem to beat!
I've been getting out 6-8 infestors before getting my third and then going muta/ling/bling. Once you max you have this ridiculous amount of ranged, melee, and AOE DPS that is tough to stop.
umm if they scout mass lings into infestor all they gotta do is a 6-7 gate off 2 base tmiing all in and ur screwed no way u can have enough infesotrs in time and lings will get torn apart by a +1 attack on zealots
On May 25 2011 04:45 Limenade wrote: umm if they scout mass lings into infestor all they gotta do is a 6-7 gate off 2 base tmiing all in and ur screwed no way u can have enough infesotrs in time and lings will get torn apart by a +1 attack on zealots
If you build 4+ spines at your natural you should be in a good position to defend warpgate builds, especially if there is a choke by your natural. Once you get some infestors out you can resume producing mainstay units to break out.
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but at 19 supply where u say to drone scout, if you already have 2 sets of lings out, why don't you use that to scout instead of sacing a drone?
Also are there any more replays other than the vod of losira vs MVP? edit: nvm, finally found it deep within the post, you should put it where it's easier to see.
How does one go ling/infestor against any army with colossus and sentry? The colossus roasts all the lings, and the sentry just ff's the infestors away. I feel like the only way to fight this is getting fast ultras, or somehow killing all their sentries beforehand, or praying that you get neurals off and they don't focus fire. It just seems like whenever I engage all my ground army is instantly evaporated and my infestors are left alone.
On July 25 2011 16:12 KimJongChill wrote: How does one go ling/infestor against any army with colossus and sentry? The colossus roasts all the lings, and the sentry just ff's the infestors away. I feel like the only way to fight this is getting fast ultras, or somehow killing all their sentries beforehand, or praying that you get neurals off and they don't focus fire. It just seems like whenever I engage all my ground army is instantly evaporated and my infestors are left alone.
Infested terran throw over the Ff's spread them out and cast parasite while you wait for the ff's to expire and the lings to run in
If its really bad sentry colossi then baneling drop from overlords is far better and will obliterate his sentry numbers while your lings then kill the colossi.
I'm glad this thread got necroed I think infestors are the revolution the zerg's been wating so long for. The Swarms time has come.
Hmm, maybe go baneling drops first, and then transition into infestors? In my experience, a toss with good army control just makes infestors useless fatties :c
On May 28 2011 12:07 Trakky wrote: Sorry if this is a stupid question, but at 19 supply where u say to drone scout, if you already have 2 sets of lings out, why don't you use that to scout instead of sacing a drone?
drones can get by the blocking zealot by mineral ghosting
On August 04 2011 15:44 lizzard_warish wrote: So with the recent months of playing this, has a consensus been reached? Ling infestor or roach infestor?
it feels like if you see temps you go roaches. i think destiny said u might as well make a roach den and anticipate their tech switch to temps.
On August 04 2011 15:44 lizzard_warish wrote: So with the recent months of playing this, has a consensus been reached? Ling infestor or roach infestor?
it feels like if you see temps you go roaches. i think destiny said u might as well make a roach den and anticipate their tech switch to temps.
in lower leagues the inevitable switch is to colossus if you keep spanking them with lings.
EPT
IMLosirA's Build Order for Two Base Speedling-Infestor
MVPGenius on Xel'Naga Fortress. April 21, 2011 
*sigh* needs a master toss to come along with a counter to this, but im guessing 4 gate with good ground upgrades with 1-2 stargates massing out phinux? 
. I just beat a Master Protoss (not off-race btw) on Metalopolis...Close Positions!!!.... I on the other hand just got into Platinum. ![[image loading]](http://s1.bild.me/bilder/110211/7942210death-star-1.jpg)
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