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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.
The build is completely different, and you don't use roaches unless he 4 gates and you want to respond with going 2 base burrow to end the game and scout it early enough. If you read the guide/thread, you'll see that I specifically say use spinecrawlers to delay until infestors are out. A good 6 gate timng push will come too early for infestors, but less than a minute, so by delaying with spines you'll have an army of either baneling rain or ling/infestor that can easily overrun gateway armies.
So saying "maybe use roaches against midgame pushes" is like saying "I know your going Stalker/Colossi, but throw in High Templar if he's high bio". No, you make do with the build, gameplan, and composition your using, and 'tilt' your army ratio depending on what you scout. If you truly do need roaches, then this build, post, and guide is a complete failure.
As the OP and through my experience, I'm saying it's not. If you want argue otherwise, I'm all ears.
Also, baneling rain is actually very bad if they aren't using sentries or forcefields. The idea is to kill off the sentries and keep the pressure so he can't remake them, in the early game. Ling/Baneling or ling/infestor will destroy 6 gate armies and forces the opponent to tech to stay in the game.
It's not theorycrafting, there's actual practice and replays here...
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
With the way of how cheap Zealots are, and how many gateways protoss will have in end game and how reliant their units are on gas rather than minerals, Zealots may not be a 'theorycraft' counter, but are an extremely good practical counter. In fact, in my experience, Zealots are much more dangerous than Immortals. it's important you have banelings with your ultras because of this, especially since chargelots own infestors and zerglings as well.
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.
Right. I discuss the weaknesses - it's not an all-in 2 base timing attack that's strongest at the time before 2 colossi are out. I appreciate criticism here, but don't write this build off without more than just your general intuition. I believe going either ling/infestor or ling/baneling drop is THE best way to open in ZvP, although right now I'm a bit split on which and when is better. I think ling/baneling drop may be better for early aggression and ling/infestor better against more macro play or deathball play.
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.
I appreciate a higher level players input! However, I feel that 6 gate comes before ling/infestor, much less ling/baneling/infestor. And when sentries are out, you NEED baneling drops - so getting energy upgrade, speed, and banelings drops is a huge investment (200/200 just for overlord drop itself!). That's why I said you NEED spinecrawlers to delay those crucial 20 seconds for infestors to pop. So I'm a bit confused on this. You have to go either ling/baneling drop, or ling/infestor, with spines, to stop early 2 gate attacks.
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.
Neural Parasite has a range of 9, same as colossi. Using ranged units, like range 4 roaches, makes it so it sucks. But if you are using range 0 melee units, NP is amazing. You need to use lings to prevent sniping. Please get your facts straight and read the thread, if you are reading this and have never done it or read the thread or watched the replays, I can understand why you may doubt this. But there are no roaches used in this build, ever, and a lot more effort went into this thread and OP than your post.
Maybe if you try things new instead of not doing strats and writing things off because you the wrong facts, you'd learn something exciting! Not to be an ass, but I personally wrote off NP for the longest time because I thought the range made it so Colossi would laugh at them, until I realized they have the same range but can snipe them if you use ranged units instead of 0 range melee units.
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.
You need the spinecrawlers to delay early game 2 base all in pushes (read: simple 4 gate robo pushes don't warrant spines, only huge pushes like 6 gate + robo/forge). You need them to delay for those crucial ~20 game seconds where a 6 gate +1 attack comes and infestors are still hatching. Once those 6+ infestors pop, you will easily take map control and can prevent Protoss from getting a third.
If they are playing more macro oriented, you grab your third and he grabs his, and your army gets extremely strong. Ling/Infestor can go straight into Ling/Banelingdrop/Infestor if he doesn't do early pressure, and you can easily grab many more bases, if not win the game outright. If he turtles hardcore with cannons, then you need to get Ultras and neural parasite and win with 4 bases.
The only thing that handles them really efficiently are immortals.
FFA is different, but in practical games, Immortals have never been a problem due to how easily they are dealt with using a relatively small support of zerglings, transfuse, hydras, FG, NP, et cetera. That's like saying Zerg shouldn't make mutalisks because Battlecruisers rape them. Yes, maybe, but you will have upgraded counters already in your army that easily deal with a unit that's hard to mass anyways.
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
I just had to bold this. Preventing a Protoss from getting a third or trying to end the game in early-midgame seems pretty poor and all-innish to me. By going ling/baneling/infestor, you have a much more stable and solid build that is very strong from midgame on. I mean you might as well 6 pool if you are going to try to win with roaches because you want to prevent the game from going into midgame.
And ultras dont counter void rays, however they do do okay against a ground army but not in comparison to other comps.
Please watch the replays and read the thread. Or go into unit tester and see how 10 VR + 10 Colossi + 2 Nexii do against similar supply Ultralisks.
Holy crap, nice thread! I was looking for some zvp help!
Thanks! You will be completely surprised at the results of how well this build does in ZvP. It saddens me when I see players like Idra using horrible units and compositions in ZvP, and losing when he is clearly the better player. Roaches get 'countered' by Stalkers, Sentries, Zealots (when forcefielded, have charge, or roaches not micro'd), Colossi, Immortals, VoidRays... why would anyone ever use them?
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I just went to the unit tester
All units fully upgraded except shields, which is kept at 0.
10 Ultralisks (3000/2000) loses convincingly to 7 archons, 23 zealots (3000/2100)
6 Ultras/60 lings (3100/1200) loses convincingly to 4 archons/27 zealots (3100/1200)
In fact
4 Ultras loses to 20 zealots but beats 16 zealots.
Most combinations of equal cost ultraling vs zealot/archon is heavily in favor of toss.
Edit: No micro was used. I didn't really bother testing banelings since I couldn't think of a fair way to engage. Banelings in a-move situations are very rare, but it didn't seem fair for me to micro one side but not the other.
For reference banelings beat just about any unit in the game cost for cost if you just a move an army of banelings at them. The obvious exceptions are things like siege tanks/colossi at critical mass/air. That's the reason why zerg players like to use baneling drops onto stalker/colossi ball even though nothing there is classified as light.
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ling/infestor has been my standard for quite some time now. I really feel it gives my map pressence, along with using spanishiwa's late gas and a few queens I feel invulnerable to stargate play. I too believe this should be the standard ZvP for ladder. I can't talk for pros, Im only mid masters.
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I've been playing ling/baneling/infestor but using broodlords as my hive tech transition instead of ultralisks. broodlord/infestor/zergling feels pretty much invincible.
I go roaches against DT rush or anything else that will lead to very early archon timings, otherwise it's ling baneling infestor up to hive.
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Hightemplars,chargelots, and archons mixed into the standard Protoss deathball is really killing me. It doesn't help that pretty much everything in the Zerg force is bio. I dont think NP can be of much use to the archons. You'd have to make the choice" oh should i go for the archons or the colossus". High templars feedback screw over infestors as does storm, soon as energy is gone, forms archon, and you have a bio pusher and a wall of 350+ shields... Plus the main army to back it up.
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On June 19 2011 13:06 Oboeman wrote:
I've been playing ling/baneling/infestor but using broodlords as my hive tech transition instead of ultralisks. broodlord/infestor/zergling feels pretty much invincible.
I go roaches against DT rush or anything else that will lead to very early archon timings, otherwise it's ling baneling infestor up to hive.
Trust me, ultra.bane.ling with infestor can a-move roll protoss army, and feels so much better than babysitting broods. Try it.
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Good storms can kill the blings before they land crucial hits, and ultraling loses to compositions that are light on stalkers.
The reason why Ultralingbling seems so powerful when you a move at a toss army is because you have a baneling heavy compositions that can bypass forcefields. The kiting issue is lessened because blings are faster than overlords, but it doesn't change the fact that your banelings are vulnerable before they get into melee range.
I've found fungal + bling drop to be more useful than ultras + blings once storm is out.
Edit: Some numbers:
Banelings have 30 health and about 2.9 movement speed.
Overlords have 200 health and 1.8ish movement speed
Storm does 80 damage over 4 seconds.
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I just went to the unit tester
All units fully upgraded except shields, which is kept at 0.
10 Ultralisks (3000/2000) loses convincingly to 7 archons, 23 zealots (3000/2100)
6 Ultras/60 lings (3100/1200) loses convincingly to 4 archons/27 zealots (3100/1200)
In fact
4 Ultras loses to 20 zealots but beats 16 zealots.
Most combinations of equal cost ultraling vs zealot/archon is heavily in favor of toss.
Edit: No micro was used. I didn't really bother testing banelings since I couldn't think of a fair way to engage. Banelings in a-move situations are very rare, but it didn't seem fair for me to micro one side but not the other.
For reference banelings beat just about any unit in the game cost for cost if you just a move an army of banelings at them. The obvious exceptions are things like siege tanks/colossi at critical mass/air. That's the reason why zerg players like to use baneling drops onto stalker/colossi ball even though nothing there is classified as light.
Right... we already went over this. Zealots do very well against ling/infestor and Ultra/infestor. That was the reason for the initial "does archon/zealot own this?". That's why you need banelings. You only need a few banelings to detonate on the zealot army, not mass baneling. FG, then just 5-10 banelings.
Archon/Zealot does much better than 'standard' or 'deathball' compositions, but with good macro and play you can keep even with it. The issue with archon/zealot is that archon require a lot of bases, enough that you can field Ultras by then.
Try Ultra vs Archon instead. Or Equal Cost/Supply Ultra vs Archon and equal cost or supply banes vs zealots, with favor in zealots/archon.
I've been playing ling/baneling/infestor but using broodlords as my hive tech transition instead of ultralisks. broodlord/infestor/zergling feels pretty much invincible.
Ling/Bling/Infestor itself is an extremely strong composition, that only has a problem really against Stalker/Sentry/Colossus in mass (enough stalkers to prevent drops essentially and FF to ensure drops are needed) and mass colossus or archon play. In which case, you need to bust out the ultras to seal the deal. I feel that Ultras are much stronger against Colossi, Archons, Immortals, Void Rays, Carriers, Motherships, HT, than Broodlords are, and those are the only units that ling/bling/infestor has trouble with. ling/NP owns deathballs pretty well, unless he goes insane colossi numbers or has a normal stalker/colossi army.
Hightemplars,chargelots, and archons mixed into the standard Protoss deathball is really killing me. It doesn't help that pretty much everything in the Zerg force is bio. I dont think NP can be of much use to the archons. You'd have to make the choice" oh should i go for the archons or the colossus". High templars feedback screw over infestors as does storm, soon as energy is gone, forms archon, and you have a bio pusher and a wall of 350+ shields... Plus the main army to back it up.
From what I've gathered so far, the only way for Zerg to deal with archons is Ultralisks. It's listed as the counter on the Blizzard Units page, and as far as I know, they are the only units that work efficiently. Mass lings do okay versus archons, but zealots kind of change that. Ling/Bling/Infestor will work in mid-game against archon/zealot but you really need Ultras against that sort of composition.
Good storms can kill the blings before they land crucial hits, and ultraling loses to compositions that are light on stalkers.
The storms will detonate the banelings... right as the zealots are charging in there. Doesn't matter. Protoss with good micro will prevent this, in which case it's a pretty even, if not zerg favored imo, micro and army control battle. Ultraling of course loses to certain compositions, that's why you need Ultra/Baneling/NP.
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You can't base an argument around the idea that toss will mess up and charge zealots into banelings. You're forcing a composition into basically its counter. If it's not zerg favored, in your opinion, then why not do what most people suggest against zealot/archon and go mass roach.
NP by the way, is very very risky to use on Templar play. I won't say useless, since it's a micro war, but it takes about a second or two before the NP hits and you can die to feedback in that time. It's actually not that bad for toss to have templars in the front of his army because the only real threat of them being sniped is actually just infestors who can be dealt with using feedback.
Again, your belief on the strength of ultralisks is largely based on how much damage the banelings are doing. Similarly, chargelot/archon isn't a build revolving around archons. It's a build to support mass chargelot play. Sure, ultralisks can beat archons unit for unit, but they synergize worse with lings than how well archons synergize with zealots (in terms of ratio of cost and also just range + melee vs melee + melee.)
A large number of Ultra/Bling is a very very optimistic endgame. Similarly I could say that a Roach heavy army supported by 6 broodlords is very difficult for Toss to engage straight on. You've expressed confusion over why top players like Idra seemingly stick to a bad unit composition against the protoss deathball, but it's largely because the timing to get a large number of Hive units just don't work out.
Consider the build time on ultralisk and the sheer amount of resources you need to stockpile to use this composition. Similarly, what stops even a Colossi using toss player from just sniping your first few ultralisks (before you have a large number of them) and just force fielding the rest of your army to death. You can't reasonably expect to be in a safe position while stockpiling even 1200/800 and then having to wait 70 seconds before any gain.
I'm just not convinced that Ultralisks are anything but a way to convert a fairly large lead into a victory in the matchup.
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Versus mass zealot archon, i take advantage of their immobility. I bane drop their lines/small ling drops and i never fight that army without the spine wall. just banes on the zealots, and NP the archons.
Vs early archon timings just play defensive and delay your third a bit.
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hi, i am a top bronze player, soon to go to silver / gold as i beat silver / golds all the time.
I beat them since i used ling infestor, baneling and ultra.
The thing is i am dead in the early game with a decent push.
Any advice to early game where i have no infestors yet???
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You can't base an argument around the idea that toss will mess up and charge zealots into banelings. You're forcing a composition into basically its counter. If it's not zerg favored, in your opinion, then why not do what most people suggest against zealot/archon and go mass roach.
Because if toss can't charge in his zealots, the Ultralisks will clean everything up. If he tries to move in, banelings blow them all up. Banelings also are much faster and cheaper than zealots. And most archon/zealot compositions include Immortals to deal with roaches, and roaches get squashed pretty hard by sentries, immortals, and chargelots.
It's not an a-move composition, if that's what your asking, but if Protoss does not use mass zealots to take down the ultras they will die pretty quickly. Storming your own zealots isn't exactly the best idea either.
I'm just not convinced that Ultralisks are anything but a way to convert a fairly large lead into a victory in the matchup.
That's fine, there are plenty of replays you can watch here. The OP was made when deathball play was popular, and you need Ultras to deal with deathball play, but now that it isn't so popular anymore, it's more about the build: Which is using ling/baneling/infestor.
You only need ultras for that extra 'punch' if the opponent makes a ton of archons, colossi, HT, or other high tier heavy hitting 'deathball' units. They are by no means a way to secure an already won game (although they can be), and are absolutely necessary if the opponent makes such units. Broodlords and Corruptors are just too supply inefficient and weak compared to Ultralisks, and I don't see any situation in ZvP where Broodlords is a better choice than anything else, primarily Ultralisks as the t3 choice, but anything else as well.
The thing is i am dead in the early game with a decent push.
Any advice to early game where i have no infestors yet???
You need spines. Once infestors pop you can take back map control, deny a 3rd and grab your own.
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On June 20 2011 05:58 Belial88 wrote:
Storming your own zealots isn't exactly the best idea either.
I strongly disagree.
Protoss could care less about storming his own Zealots.
What are the options?
Option 1: Zerglings run away, still take some damage, Zealots run away too, taking some damage from storm, but none from Zerglings.
Option 2: Zerglings stay, get damage from storm and Zealots (killing them), Zealots take damage from Zerglings and storm, surviving.
Who's in the better position now?
It actually doesn't matter if the storm or the Zerglings deal damage to the Zealots.
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have not read all but somehow looks like my build i postet a few month ago -_-
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Storm kills banelings in 1.5 seconds. Your banelings aren't in threat of being hit by storm when they approach, they're in threat whenever templars are anywhere close to them.
That is, sending your ultra/ling in front of your blings will get your blings killed by storm before they even reach the front line.
Archons are also plenty fine with tanking banelings. Toss just has to send zealots back when you send blings in and storm.
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Ling/Infestor, or How I grew to hate PvZ
=/
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Also, banelings being "much faster" than zealots is somewhat false.
It's something like 2.95 versus 2.75. A difference smaller than that between stim marines and banelings.
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Thanks for the guide Belial88. I've been winging my own terrible rough version of this, and I'm glad there's a more detailed writeup for practice in my gold league and I have a few questions. Normally a normal speedling opening for me is 14 gas @ 100 min, 14 pool, drone to 15, 15 OL and ling speed, queen, and a few lings are all built almost same time
However, I can't get 14g 14p 15h to be smooth. After hatch goes down, I'm at a bit of a bind. By this timing pool usually hatches quite soon, and the 100 gas is almost finished, but I can't afford everything. What's the priority for OL, lings, queen, speed? I know this seems like a small detail, but I feel like I'm doing something wrong or something.
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have not read all but somehow looks like my build i postet a few month ago -_-
Please, link! I'd love to see it.
What are the options?
Option 1: Zerglings run away, still take some damage, Zealots run away too, taking some damage from storm, but none from Zerglings.
Option 2: Zerglings stay, get damage from storm and Zealots (killing them), Zealots take damage from Zerglings and storm, surviving.
Who's in the better position now?
Zealot vs Zergling is a loss, doesn't matter if he storms or not. What I'm saying is baneling vs storm+zealots, the storm makes banelings detonate, zealots die from banelings blowing up. Or he preemptively storms to prevent banelings from coming in, you back off, he stormed his own zealots. You win.
However, I can't get 14g 14p 15h to be smooth. After hatch goes down, I'm at a bit of a bind. By this timing pool usually hatches quite soon, and the 100 gas is almost finished, but I can't afford everything. What's the priority for OL, lings, queen, speed? I know this seems like a small detail, but I feel like I'm doing something wrong or something.
I don't know, I see a lot of pro replays where they are awkwardly at like 16/26. I prefer a 16 hatch, I think it makes it much smoother with larva and the overlord. I think your supposed to get queen, THEN ling speed. Which makes me wonder if maybe like, 14 pool 14 gas is better.
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Counter to Ultras
- Mix in some DTS/Immortals/Stalkers
If zerg didn't bring any overseer they will ahve to fall back, if they did blink and kill the ov your DTs will do everything else
No seriously....
Ling/roach, Banelings (drops), infestors, corruptor
The way you want to go engage is simple...
Get every units on #1, every overlords on #2 and infestors on #3
1+amove
2+move far behind ennemy line + shift move back to base
3+f-shift click click click
when overlords are above just click DDDDDDDDDDD on overlords and you'll banelings bombs! the fungal'd units!! 
Rince and repeat till protoss leaves the game
Lings will mostly get past FF and die, while roache will tank the damage and than banes will just wreck the army. The few corrupters that you have (3-5) will chace colossus giving you free reign on the map. At this point you want to start lings everywhere and keep making banes and roaches
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EPT
