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On May 18 2011 15:40 MrBitter wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2011 14:44 Belial88 wrote:
This is just getting crushed by mass zealot/archons... this sucks. Roach + infestor while teching to broods plays similarly, and does much better vs zealot archon.
I used to think the same but with Immortals in the mix it's hard to kill anything with Roaches. That isn't the actual problem, however. Blink Stalkers can warp right into all your infestors, making their range pointless, and also do the same with Brood Lords.
Also, I know Stalkers + Immortals + Archons is a lot of gas, but many maps like Tal'Darim allow the Protoss to turtle with Forge FE, and when they move out even with a superior economy you can't do anything against his infinitely more cost efficient army. I feel like the only real counter is some all-in attack like Hydra Doom Drop, the problem is it's not like Forge FE into Stargate where your army is squishy. You will have a shitload of gateway units to deal with any attacks. As for Ling + Infestor, it gets melted away because with a large amount of beefy units such as Archons, you'll need a lot of Neural Parasites, meaning you won't have many fungals to spare for Blink Stalkers.
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i've been using this as well and whenever i see archons i NP them, they can really help annihilate zealots in matter of seconds, i've been doing this since i saw dimaga doing it 
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couldnt agree more with ultras being underused. im a toss player myself and from my experience ultras could be a real shut-down since they make force fields completely useless. would also be fun to see more t3 units from zerg players, feels like every zerg gets stuck on t2 units.
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I rape with ling infestor in ZvP, its not even close.
I had a few timings mind you.. I open Spanishiwas no gas fe every game.
Double expand when I put my 4 gases down + 1 more queen built.
2 evos as I get my lair + ling speed (ling speed is done between the 10min and 11min mark depending on how execution was).
Infestation pit as soon as Lair is done, as well as burrow.
Infestor energy as soon as Infestation Pit is complete, Infestors when upgrade is at 30seconds in. Get Neural Parasite straight after.
Continuous ling production until my first lot of infestors pop (normally 4-5), then Hive and saturate 3rd and 4th.
Ultra Den when Hive is done, normally got 3-3 upgrading at this point, and crackling upgrade.
Then rape faces.
I really don't see how people find Archons such a big problem, Neural Parasite is the answer and always will be in my eyes.
Only been beat by it once and that was before I used Neural parasite, since then I only ever lose to very early pressure which is what the no gas fe is weak against.
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On May 19 2011 09:49 Walls wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2011 23:39 freetgy wrote:
infestor play is really really strong, without HT it almost impossible to win a battle because you can't micro at all.
and just die to vs. mass upgrades.
+ you have complete mapcontrol due to mass zerglings.
+ Baneling drops into the ecoline force the P to do something
"you cant micro is not really a good reason. Its like saying, because i cant macro at all starcraft is bad.
Um sir, you are misunderstsanding. Fungal growth prevents micro and does a lot of damage. This lets LINGS destroy your army.
Archon/HT is great vs this composition, however, but takes QUITE a while to get to a nice force.
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Anyways coming back to this thread, I still play this style and have done a lot of testing around with it, and here's what I've toyed around with:
1. Archon/Zealot can be dealt with - you really need Ultralisks to deal with archons. As far as archons go, the only way Zerg can deal with them is a la Rock/Paper/Scissors style and just make Ultras to match his archons. The real problem with Archon/Zealot is Zealots, in which case you just need to have banelings to deal with. Really, any X/Zealot play will handle this well, the only reason zealots aren't used much in ZvP is because of roaches, but once you aren't using roaches, zealots become a big problem due to their cost effectiveness and how cheap they are.
Using NP on Archons is okay if they are in smaller numbers, but archon/zealot will really mess up NP with the chargelots beating on the infestors. It's okay in mid game but when you see the opponent going for archons you really need to go going for those ultralisks.
2. So what most people do is go Ling/Infestor, and go for a late lair and then 4 gas for that crucial 4-6 infestors, using spines to hold. The problem is that on certain maps, I still feel your third can be delayed too long with ling/infestor. There's also players like Destiny who don't even use banelings. As others have said before, going baneling drop is around the same cost and time. So here's a few macro things I've figured out:
- You need to throw a 3rd hatch around 65-75 food. If you can grab a third, great, but if not you need a macro hatch. Pretty much, regardless of if you can get a third or not, you'll need a macro hatch and 3rd queen - either 2 base 3 queen 3 hatch, or 3 base 4 queen 4 hatch. To spend the money, you need a macro hatch starting around 65 food.
- The reason for baneling drops is sentries. Usually you'll have a first engagement with lots of sentries, the midgame push. If you are going ling/infestor opening, you will have to kill his sentries with the infestors and then go for speed banes. If you are going ling/baneling drop, after the first attack, you don't need to load up your overlords anymore (unless the opponent replaces sentries en mass, which is rare). Of course, you don't need baneling speed if you are dropping, and after the first engagement when the sentries/forcefields are gone, you get baneling speed and infestor.
- Ling/Bling/Infestor itself is very strong, so Ultralisks aren't always necessary. Banelings also fare quite well against Colossi. It's definitely not ideal, but in a tight situation, an opponent going heavy on the Colossi (double robo colossi perhaps, and you thought it was for immortal maybe) going pure baneling can win against Colossi in slightly higher supply and cost. As in 70 Supply banes > 60 colossi. Point being, is that you may want to stick with baneling/ling/infestor.
Here's a replay where I open with baneling drop instead of infestor. As in both openings, you need spinecrawlers, but with baneling drop I feel you need less (on this map, close position BS, I still needed 6, but had it been normal positions I wouldn't have neeeded any spines). After his first push is wiped out with baneling drops, I stop using drops. You really only need to watch the midgame push, after that he 2 base all-ins and plays pretty poorly, really bad macro so it doesn't matter - just wanted to demonstrate the baneling drop opening vs infestor.
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-215759.jpg)
. And I just have to say, I really think you should mention how much APM this strategy requires to pull off. A player of my level, which was like mid-diamond last season, has a lot of difficulty with executing this strategy because all your units require a ton of baby-sitting.
I don't know. It's not Protoss if that's what your saying, and while Roach/Hydra/Corruptor is much easier to use, it's not really 'easier' if your losing. Roach/Hydra is a timing attack based build that is stopped at 2 Colossi and nullified at 4, Idra shows that is really needs drop play to work. Which is a lot of gas, and best done as a 2 base all in pretty much.
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Why would you use ultralisks to deal with chargelot/archon? Ultralisks are really bad against units that aren't armored. You would be better off with 4 roaches a lot of the time.
The bigger threat of chargelot/archon is feedback, which prevents NP entirely (since feedback is instant and NP is not.)
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The most important thing to remember with ling/infestor against zealot/archon/HT is that there are a few ways to engage.
The first way is to recklessly swarm in with lings, preventing the HT from moving close enough to feedback. Then quickly neural all the archons and they will proceed to melt the zealots and HT. Then you just make them attack each other. This will lead to losing your lings to storm though.
The second way is to be more strategic, and wait for the protoss to enter a place where HTs cannot hit the infestors with feedback while they neural a few archons at a time on the edge of the ball, their army numbers slowly dwindling.
By far the best way is to just get a fungal off on the army. Then neural the archons and keep fungaling so the HTs can't get in range and the melee units cannot fight at all. You can then attack with the lings at any time, but if you are super good with your micro, and have enough infestors to keep things fungaled, you won't even need the lings, and maybe roaches would be better here since they are ranged.
And as a side note, roaches are actually cost effective against zealots, archons, and HTs so they would almost always be a better choice than lings against this army composition.
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Dimaga uses and has been using ling infestor forever in both ZvP and ZvT. I've always wondered why more zergs do not use this. Its strong.
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Why would you use ultralisks to deal with chargelot/archon? Ultralisks are really bad against units that aren't armored. You would be better off with 4 roaches a lot of the time.
The bigger threat of chargelot/archon is feedback, which prevents NP entirely (since feedback is instant and NP is not.)
Very useful post, read the thread please, or hell, just read the post, or you could even go into unit tester or read online information about the archon or ultralisk. A lot of what's discussed here is based on some interesting findings in the unit tester, things that are very counterintuitive, so I would appreciate you didn't just post here with a "WHAT THATS RIDICULOUS?!?" post without reading, opening up unit tester yourself, or watching the replays.
On Blizzard's website, the Ultralisk is listed as the counter to the Archon. Now of course, this game is not rock papper scissors, but upon trying it out, you'll see that Ultralisks do very well against Archons. Now granted, it's not like Immortals vs roaches awesome, or banelings vs unmicro'd marines, but it's the best Zerg has, and ultras also do well against everything Protoss has except zealots (immortals aren't that great unless your an idiot attacking a wall-in with immortal, and are easily handled with ultra+Anything).
As I said in previous posts, the problem with archon/zealot is how amazing zealots are against infestors, banelings, zerglings, and ultralisks, and considering how cheap they are, this is a problem (it's not like another composition that, say, is sole weakness is to the BC, because that unit is fairly hard to get). However archons are quite expensive, so it's not unreasonable to go with ling/infestor against archon/zealot, and then keep banelings on hand to deal with archon/zealot and use ultras as the backbone of the army. Once you get that key 10+ ultras, you've won the game.
The first way is to recklessly swarm in with lings, preventing the HT from moving close enough to feedback. Then quickly neural all the archons and they will proceed to melt the zealots and HT. Then you just make them attack each other. This will lead to losing your lings to storm though.
More often than not, the storms do more damage to the opponent. Lings are easily replaceable, and if you have zerglings surrounding their templars and they respond with storm, you just pull out and they've killed all their HT.
And as a side note, roaches are actually cost effective against zealots, archons, and HTs so they would almost always be a better choice than lings against this army composition.
They are extremely supply ineffective though. I prefer not to use roaches against that composition, and you'll see in Archon/Zealot guides and replays, that roaches actually get owned by it. Just a few immortals added in helps immensely, and chargelots do fairly well against roaches (although roach + FG can do well). Either way, a roach based play is completely different than what I'm talking about here. You might as well say "Well Hydra/Muta is a great composition". Yea, it may be, but that's not what this topic is about.
Dimaga uses and has been using ling infestor forever in both ZvP and ZvT. I've always wondered why more zergs do not use this. Its strong.
Dimaga seems to go for a lot of Ultralisk/NP play, which is a lot of what this build is about. But there's a lot of strength in the ling/bling/infestor army, so much so that you may not even need ultralisks. Ultralisks are necessary if the opponent starts to make lots of Colossi, Archons, deathball type units.
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Despite much theorycrafting, ling/baneling/infestor is very very strong against Protoss, in specific situations. Obviously you have to play reactively as Zerg and work with your mid game unit composition, throwing in roaches against 5/6 gate timings and hydras against stargates....
However, the endgame is to get 3/3 cracklings, a bunch of overlords loaded with banelings, and 4-6 infestors... Fungal his army, NP the colossus, drop banelings on everything, remax on ultras that have 6 armor.
Just like any build, it has its weaknesses, but it sure is strong at overcoming the problems most Zergs are having with gateway/colossus unit compositions.
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Ultralisk are very good against Archons, maybe not in 1vs1 but the moment the numbers grow (>2vs2) it heavily shifts in favor of Ultralisk.
Zealots don't help much either, cause your usually so far ahead in upgrades that Zealots do pitiful damage, with the 2*(8-5)+Att Ups
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My general ZvP as a Masters zerg is..
13 hatch into 15 pool, get gas around 20~, quick lair and then ling speed with the 100 gas. Grab the other 3 gas as I feel im reaching a good mineral saturation, usually having all 4 gas before lair is finished.
Throw down infestation pit immediately and grab the energy upgrade as soon as it finished, while doing this either take a 3rd or grab a macro hatch in the main (necessary with zergling heavy armies i find) and morph an overseer when gas permits, earlier than later preferably.
Scout the protoss, if hes gearing up for a 6 gate style ill grab a baneling nest just incase, especially if you scout templar archives as it signals zealot/archon 6 gate. Ling/bane/infestor can shut down zealot/archon, and ling/festor shuts down all other standard 6 gates with ease.
When the 3rd mining base has been secured, I add a spire and go ling/infestor/mutalisk, as that allows me the mobility to harass and defend while doing something with my gas income (you wont need more than 8 infestors the whole game if you can keep them alive), and ling/festor/muta is an extremely potent combo i find in zvp. Against HT you run into some issues and its nice to transition to either broods or ultras by that stage.
But the general idea of hatch first into zergling, into fast infestors (have 6~ popping w/ energy in time for a 9 minute~ 6 gate) into mutalisk for harassment and another competent unit against most army comps, into ultras or broods late game if it permits has been a very solid way for me to play zvp and I consider it my best match up for some time.. been doing this style for a long time.
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This tactic is quite imo... more then 100 ling won't be able to attack in the same time no matter how spread the op army is, the more spread his army is the less dmg your fg does, colossus has a range of 9 while mc 7 and last but not least ht immortal counter this due to storm + feedback while the immortal can take ultras/roach/ling if you decide to tech switch into something else + they can 1 shoot your hatches/spines.
Sure it can work like in the marrow vs whowasthath guy match casted by day9 if you get to 100 drones and then only pomp lings but its bad in a normal match if your opponent can target fire the infestor with clossus or feedback them.
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Isn't the point of this composition about mobility, map presence and counter attacking, surely throwing down tons of spine crawlers for early defense is basically game over then. Protoss has map control, can take a third, can contain Zerg to 2 bases and take an easy win. I believe a well executed 6 gate will be troublesome.
Anytime a Zerg responds "I beat this timing with mass spine crawlers", I feel the Zerg has lost the game at this point. You are saying, "my standing army is worse than his, the only time I will win a fight is when he fights right at my natural." Furthermore, when you do break the contain, what are you gonna do? A defensive turtling protoss who scouts well on 3 bases has emerged.
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I understand op put a lot of work into the analysis but a lot of things zvp are counter intuitive and there's a reason no top players are going ultra against p and consistently doing well. Broodlords are better.
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Thanks OP, whenever I said that and ultras slaughter protoss I got laughed at. I'm a protoss who rarely plays zerg admittedly, but in FFAs (yes I know it isn't 1v1, but it is still relevant, I'm talking about composition, and in a 1v1 if he has 7 colossi and 9 void rays you can afford a few ultras) I go zerg very often and just pray I end up alone with a protoss, cause I know that ultras just rape them. And something I've never seen anyone say about them; they're incredibly larva efficient. You can get 9 ultras, then have a ton of spare minerals and larva for lings (which I'd make into cracklings late game). Also, stomping force fields is a huge bonus. Colossi aren't even that good against them because there's no splash. Zealots are almost completely nullified by the armor, especially after you get chitinous plating. Sentries deal no damage, carriers (if they mysteriously appear) do no damage, and it even makes stalkers about 30% less effective. Void rays don't kill them quickly enough. The only thing that handles them really efficiently are immortals.
And infestors are good too, but I don't see why anyone would argue that. There are few situations where I wouldn't want an infestor around. And neural parasite is possible; contrary to popular belief. Not all your infestors will magically get insta-sniped by the colossi. And fungals...ouch lol
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Amazingly detailed post, however in my eyes some of the conclusions are very basic.
One cannot assume that roaches are bad. sure they take up a fair amount of supply, but in zvp they surprisingly do amazing in mass with infestors, just requires movement micro into his deathball, Usually if the P gets 3-4 collossi and some sentries sure they can be pretty poor, but the aim is to end the game before then, and prevent your opponent getting his third base. Also BL are deffinetly not good alone, however with hydras/infestor they become the optimized comp against any toss army, as long as u lead with the BL. And ultras dont counter void rays, however they do do okay against a ground army but not in comparison to other comps.
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Holy crap, nice thread! I was looking for some zvp help!
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EPT
