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Requizen
United States33802 Posts
By the original post, it seems that this was designed to combat the Deathball (which it seems to quite handily), but Gateway armies will tear through Zerglings and Banelings do little vs Archons and Storms can cut them to shreds. They also get Blink very quickly, which can stop drops cold if you go heavily into Bane drops. What are your thoughts on this? | ||
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B34ST
United Kingdom150 Posts
I lose to pushes I don't scout and dark templar. If I lose to a standard gateway army is due to his macro being better then mine, not the composition. I double expand, some times single depending on the situation, at 40 food (try it, you can afford it) which lets me keep up with my money spending as well as uber saturating if need be.. one cycle of injects can fully saturate a 3rd.. Archons and collosus I don't have any problem with, just get neural parasite.. gaurantee all those who have trouble with this unit composition have 1 or these 3 problems. 1. Bad macro, not able to spend the money, being supply blocked (I do a lot, fucks me over) 2. Bad scouting, pretty obvious, zerg is a scouting race.. 3. Not sharking with zerglings, backstabbing and doing counter attacks wins games. Especially against protoss.. | ||
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QTIP.
United States2113 Posts
On July 19 2011 01:04 Requizen wrote: So how do you think this holds up to the newer Protoss style of Mass Gateway builds? I've been seeing a lot of streams/replays where Protoss have their force consist of mostly Zealot/HT/Archon with mass upgrades, holding out for Colossi until 4 bases. By the original post, it seems that this was designed to combat the Deathball (which it seems to quite handily), but Gateway armies will tear through Zerglings and Banelings do little vs Archons and Storms can cut them to shreds. They also get Blink very quickly, which can stop drops cold if you go heavily into Bane drops. What are your thoughts on this? From my experience mass gateway builds such as (7 Gate / Blink / Observer) timings get destroyed by infestor / ling unless you hit right before infestors pop. Obviously, it will come down to forcefields / fungal and blink control. However, zealot / HT / Archon does much better against this, but its very difficult for Protoss to "transition" into this from any other opening. Sorry if I didn't really answer your question, but what I meant to say is mass gateway timings do get beat by infestor ling. If you manaage to double / fungal a group of sentries during their timing attack, you will crush the attack. | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
So how do you think this holds up to the newer Protoss style of Mass Gateway builds? I've been seeing a lot of streams/replays where Protoss have their force consist of mostly Zealot/HT/Archon with mass upgrades, holding out for Colossi until 4 bases. it absolutely crushes mass gateway style. FG is the only counter Zerg has against blink stalkers, particularly upgraded blink stalkers, and FG is quite good on zealots, although in end-game, mass chargelot can rape infestors. Archons can be quite deadly, if they hit as a timing push, you can die outright, as Zerg's only 'counter' to archons is Ultralisks, which take a while to get. Usually the timings work out, as in early game they number too small that NP or roaches can handle them. 7 gate/6 gate all-in type of play gets crushed by this. Zerg needs mass spines to hold off such pushes until infestors pop, at which time Zerg can just push back and win and deny the third of Protoss and take their own, even if there's was denied for a short while. While Protoss' best answer when going 7gate charge/7 gate/6gate+1 is to sit around and deny the third of Zerg's while taking their own third immediately, and then backing off when infestors pop, they are so far behind in tech that Zerg can just push back and force a cancel, or at least have such an overwhelming tech advantage that they auto-win. The 'best' kind of play is something like 5 gate robo, ie normal play, in which case Protoss denies Zerg from a third until infestors pop, and then backs off and guards their fast third. From there the game is pretty even, or perhaps advantaged to Protoss. I really disagree with archon play being better against it though. The best way to beat infestor play is good macro - take a super fast third due to zerg's complete lack of aggression. Normally zerg can attack when having 2 bases up, but with infestor play, you absolutely either need hive tech, or mass gas for baneling/infestor, which requires at minimum 3 bases, if not 4. If Protoss stays on even bases and mass expands against a slow infestor army, they just roll it. While smaller colossi numbers can be NP'd, when colossi count goes over 6+, infestors just got 1-shoted and melted. The hardest armies I ahve trouble with is not templar play, but very, very normal protoss play that take a super fast third and get HT with it for FB when they recognize infestors as lacking any aggression until 4 bases. Once storm/HT are out, Zerg needs hive tech, which is hard to get. Infestors just rape gimmicky play like deathballs, mass blink stalker, archon builds, but do a little less good against very normal play. It's still better than anything else though ;/ | ||
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QTIP.
United States2113 Posts
On July 19 2011 04:04 Belial88 wrote: it absolutely crushes mass gateway style. FG is the only counter Zerg has against blink stalkers, particularly upgraded blink stalkers, and FG is quite good on zealots, although in end-game, mass chargelot can rape infestors. Archons can be quite deadly, if they hit as a timing push, you can die outright, as Zerg's only 'counter' to archons is Ultralisks, which take a while to get. Usually the timings work out, as in early game they number too small that NP or roaches can handle them. 7 gate/6 gate all-in type of play gets crushed by this. Zerg needs mass spines to hold off such pushes until infestors pop, at which time Zerg can just push back and win and deny the third of Protoss and take their own, even if there's was denied for a short while. While Protoss' best answer when going 7gate charge/7 gate/6gate+1 is to sit around and deny the third of Zerg's while taking their own third immediately, and then backing off when infestors pop, they are so far behind in tech that Zerg can just push back and force a cancel, or at least have such an overwhelming tech advantage that they auto-win. The 'best' kind of play is something like 5 gate robo, ie normal play, in which case Protoss denies Zerg from a third until infestors pop, and then backs off and guards their fast third. From there the game is pretty even, or perhaps advantaged to Protoss. I really disagree with archon play being better against it though. The best way to beat infestor play is good macro - take a super fast third due to zerg's complete lack of aggression. Normally zerg can attack when having 2 bases up, but with infestor play, you absolutely either need hive tech, or mass gas for baneling/infestor, which requires at minimum 3 bases, if not 4. If Protoss stays on even bases and mass expands against a slow infestor army, they just roll it. While smaller colossi numbers can be NP'd, when colossi count goes over 6+, infestors just got 1-shoted and melted. The hardest armies I ahve trouble with is not templar play, but very, very normal protoss play that take a super fast third and get HT with it for FB when they recognize infestors as lacking any aggression until 4 bases. Once storm/HT are out, Zerg needs hive tech, which is hard to get. Infestors just rape gimmicky play like deathballs, mass blink stalker, archon builds, but do a little less good against very normal play. It's still better than anything else though ;/ This is a much more detailed explanation of what I meant to say lol. Turtletoss is the best way to play against this style. | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
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Oboeman
Canada3980 Posts
gaurantee all those who have trouble with this unit composition have 1 or these 3 problems. ... 3. Not sharking with zerglings, backstabbing and doing counter attacks wins games. Especially against protoss.. I agree this is a very important part of my gameplay in PvZ. If I just sit on ling infestor and let him do his thing while I do my thing, there is going to be a huge fight with a highly volatile composition which I may win, but if I mismicro I get stomped. but I don't let him sit and do his thing. constant ling counterattacks, and I don't care if he builds gateway walls and cannons, cracklings tear them down and if he moves his army, I run (or drop) into his main and natural. there is always something for zerglings to kill. Always. It also gives you a constant scout of his composition so you know when templar are being added, etc. Keeping your zerglings active is very important in my opinion. | ||
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FindMuck
63 Posts
On July 18 2011 19:22 Belial88 wrote: I'll see if I can find better replays, I wasn't the highest Diamond when posting this thread. But my response is morph more of my lings into banerain, or get ultralisks. Using roaches instead of lings, and going roach/banelingrain/infestor wouldn't be a bad idea either actually. It really sucks losing to FB, it can lose a winning game for you very, very quickly, so if you are in a fight and suddenly see unexpected HT, just pull them all back. But what happens to me normally is that I mass up on lings, and I scout the high templar too late. i already have a sizable ling army, and i roaches are no longer an option anymore (invested in melee upgrades, they are a supply sucker). Remaxing with ultras/ roaches isnt viable either. ling/bane/infestor armys tend to either kill really fast, or die really fast. This means that you either have a large amount of your army left, or you did no damage at all ( some gosu storms, etc). Now what you have is maybe 50 or so raoches scrambling from 5 different places, and they just get picked off by the new archons. Would you recommond a total switch to roaches right when you scout infestors? Because I tend to get upgrades quite quickly, and that they normally get storm and the such when 2/2 is either researching hafl way, or already researched, and I have a good amount of lings too. | ||
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FindMuck
63 Posts
How much banerain do you normally go for? I have around 4-5 overlords at max, and that is only 20 banelings, So when you say your response is to morph more lings into banelings, how many is more? Basically, I have trouble when I scout hightemplar after the "point of no return" (upgrades invested, too much supply in lings already, cannot rely on remaxing on roaches) | ||
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Requizen
United States33802 Posts
On July 19 2011 10:59 FindMuck wrote: Sorry double post, i clicked quote instead of edit on my first one by accident. How much banerain do you normally go for? I have around 4-5 overlords at max, and that is only 20 banelings, So when you say your response is to morph more lings into banelings, how many is more? Basically, I have trouble when I scout hightemplar after the "point of no return" (upgrades invested, too much supply in lings already, cannot rely on remaxing on roaches) I wouldn't really say there is a "point of no return". While you're heavily invested into Zerglings, you should still have a lot of armor upgrades, which affect Roaches as well, making them (at least) a good tanky unit. Your macro with this build should also be high enough to mass up some Roaches pretty fast, and the upgrades will work with Ultras, which can eat storms pretty well. Ultra/Roach/Infestor is more gas heavy, but not (in my mind) a bad comp to transition into if your Lings are getting "countered". | ||
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TwistedHelix
United States50 Posts
On July 20 2011 00:05 Requizen wrote: I wouldn't really say there is a "point of no return". While you're heavily invested into Zerglings, you should still have a lot of armor upgrades, which affect Roaches as well, making them (at least) a good tanky unit. Your macro with this build should also be high enough to mass up some Roaches pretty fast, and the upgrades will work with Ultras, which can eat storms pretty well. Ultra/Roach/Infestor is more gas heavy, but not (in my mind) a bad comp to transition into if your Lings are getting "countered". Destiny did a similar style vs HuK in the IPL. + Show Spoiler + He went ling/infestor with ling drop tactics into ultra, then transitioned to roach/ultra as HuK made more zealots and archons. Destiny ended up winning dispite making a number of mistakes. Once he has 3-3 for his zerglings, he started to get the ranged attack upgrade in anticipation of the roach transition. He had a bunch of bases and plenty of gas. | ||
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FindMuck
63 Posts
On July 20 2011 00:05 Requizen wrote: I wouldn't really say there is a "point of no return". While you're heavily invested into Zerglings, you should still have a lot of armor upgrades, which affect Roaches as well, making them (at least) a good tanky unit. Your macro with this build should also be high enough to mass up some Roaches pretty fast, and the upgrades will work with Ultras, which can eat storms pretty well. Ultra/Roach/Infestor is more gas heavy, but not (in my mind) a bad comp to transition into if your Lings are getting "countered". By point of no return, I mean that you have enough zerglings that there is not enough supply to fit enough roaches for them to do anything. And when you engage with a ling/bane/infestor army, everything dies extremely fast, and if they land good storms and feed backs, there isnt enough time to remax on roaches. Yes, you can say that the problem is that I'm not scouting high templar early enough, but does that mean I have to switch to roaches the moment I scout hts? doesnt that make this strategy quite a failure, because the natural response is to get high templars when you see inefstors, specially with the current metagame | ||
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RekU.ekiMera
Canada16 Posts
Feed back storm is enought to beat this build alone untill ultras are out... met this build many times in ladder. and i used to fear it not i think of it as a joke | ||
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Requizen
United States33802 Posts
On July 20 2011 08:38 FindMuck wrote: By point of no return, I mean that you have enough zerglings that there is not enough supply to fit enough roaches for them to do anything. And when you engage with a ling/bane/infestor army, everything dies extremely fast, and if they land good storms and feed backs, there isnt enough time to remax on roaches. Yes, you can say that the problem is that I'm not scouting high templar early enough, but does that mean I have to switch to roaches the moment I scout hts? doesnt that make this strategy quite a failure, because the natural response is to get high templars when you see inefstors, specially with the current metagame Hm, interesting point. However, I think the main strength of this build in the early game is its ability to trade armies. You never really let his army get big enough because you should be constantly running your Lings and Blings in there, making him waste FFs and/or just crashing into his forces. You can re-inforce much easier, and early Speedlings with upgrades should put a lot of pressure on expansions, so you should be ahead economically most of the time. If and when you see HTs in one of these exchanges, adding Roaches to the force is easy enough to do while still teching/expanding. | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
However I do think when you get down to it, this composition is easy to beat as P with smart, macro oriented play. I don't think compositions are the answer, I think the way to beat it is take a super fast third, deny Zerg's and force lots of spines, and get HT tech with your third, and just expo expo expo over and over. Get 2 more robos and a fourth for hive tech. Sorry double post, i clicked quote instead of edit on my first one by accident. How much banerain do you normally go for? I have around 4-5 overlords at max, and that is only 20 banelings, So when you say your response is to morph more lings into banelings, how many is more? Basically, I have trouble when I scout hightemplar after the "point of no return" (upgrades invested, too much supply in lings already, cannot rely on remaxing on roaches) Recently what I've been doing, is doing what Destiny does. He doesnt get lair until around 40-50 supply, and when it morphs he makes 95%+ lings, meaning you stop droning around 45 supply (ie you only have around 30-40 drones). Just pump pump pump lings, and then spend all gas on infestors and burrow. Your drone count will be so low you don't usually need a macro hatch, and with your large army you can force Protoss back, and hard, and deny their third if they go for it, which they will. Just mass mass mass infestors, as they can't ahve enough HT to FB yet. With this army, you drone back up, get a third, hive, and skip banes to get Ultras. It's a much more agresive style that forces mid-game to be very short. I don't know how I feel about it yet. Banelings are great, but just cost way too much. It's hard to support both infestors and banelings or anything less than 4 bases. | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-222290.jpg) Heres a good replay of me going ling/infestor. You stop making drones when you go late lair, around 35-40 drones. I open 14/14 so I get speed early to abuse FFE or openings, and I prefer a single evo instead of double so I can save a drone, and I don't think 1/1 is better than 1/0 necessarily that early in the game (zealots will still kill just as fast). So your first gas is speed-+1-Lair, because if you don't go double evo, you have to get first evo earlier. Then I get 2nd evo when +1 is 75% done, so 2/2 is timed perfectly, and you get 2/2 immediately after 1/1. You just pump mass lings, and preferably you deny his third, as a good protoss will just take a third if he sees you open infestors (a 6 gate timing attack will force mass spines, but will put them behind due to lack of tech). You can outright kill P if he tries to push once infestors pop. From there you grab a third and fourth asap, get NP, and go for hive and ultralisk tech. Normally a 3 base push will come before ultras, even if you go fast hive, so you HAVE to either infestor harass (i like burrow same time as lair finishes) or do a ling runby. As you can see in this game, I throw away about 100+ 3/3 crackling when his 3 base push comes, forcing him to deal with it, and freeing up supply for ultralisks, since they take forever (i think it's 2 minutes! for an ultra, it's def over a minute) and you can die waiting for them to pop (there was a gsl game like this, I think coca vs someone on belshir, where they lost when they would've won if ultras came sooner, the game with 50+ kill void ray). Obviously this doesn't work on small maps or close spawn, but we know those are broken anyways. A good mass ling/infestor army can usually crush 3 base armies anyways, unless the colossi count is ridiculously high, in which case a timing attack has killed you. | ||
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JoeAWESOME
Sweden1080 Posts
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Requizen
United States33802 Posts
Back on topic, Belial, at what point do you get Crackling Upgrade generally? Is it high priority as soon as you get Hive, or do you wait until you have extra gas saved up and a decent standing army? It seems to me that this build can be gas-limited (with fast tech, high Infestor count and lots of upgrades), so I'm interested to see when it goes down. It's for sure a very good dps upgrade, but at that point I'm not sure if Lings are your big damage unit over Fungal, NP'd units and Ultralisks. | ||
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KimJongChill
United States6429 Posts
On July 18 2011 19:05 Mackx wrote: Note: it's the four-bro-festor-hit-squad  and you need someone to make the soundin the background XDAnd someone to do the baller dance around the extractor! | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
On July 21 2011 23:32 Requizen wrote: As (kind of) an aside, I'm sure you saw (or at least heard) that the Day9 Daily last night had Destiny on it. He was talking about his Infestor heavy ZvP, which struck me functionally the same as this, but without the Baneling drops. Interesting, he's actually a very smart individual when it comes to his strategies. I like how he throws down a Hydra Den and Roach Warren in the situation that the Protoss drops Robo and goes heavy Stargate or HT play (respectively). He gets them very early on, keeping him pretty safe at any point in the game and able to tech switch quickly. Back on topic, Belial, at what point do you get Crackling Upgrade generally? Is it high priority as soon as you get Hive, or do you wait until you have extra gas saved up and a decent standing army? It seems to me that this build can be gas-limited (with fast tech, high Infestor count and lots of upgrades), so I'm interested to see when it goes down. It's for sure a very good dps upgrade, but at that point I'm not sure if Lings are your big damage unit over Fungal, NP'd units and Ultralisks. I haven't watched it, but I'll check it out. I wasn't a big fan of Destiny's infestor play until recently, and that was because I saw a lot of games of him still using roaches, and him *never* using baneling rain, and in almost every instance I saw him lose games because of this. Recently, however, I've appreciated his play - not because of his unit composition, but because of his macro (which is bad, I must say, he never makes a macro hatch and that just kills him!). What I learned most from Destiny, which I've commented about in the last few replies, is making your lair very very late, around 45+ supply, instead of around 30ish supply. While lair morphs, you only make Zerglings, meaning you cut drones around 40, or enough for 2/2, infestors, and pure ling production (infestors and upgrades just requires the 12 drones on gas, really, and you only need about 15 drones on minerals for pure ling production). Destiny does a lot of harass and gets burrow so he can put pressure on P to deny their third, while he takes a super fast lair. This contrasts with my assumptions in the OP about needing mass spines, and having to have 3 geysers running so you can get ling/bane/infestor going. After playing in my experience, I feel you really need 4 gas for baneling rain + infestor, or in other words, you might as well just get hive tech. Which is sad, I really feel maybe baneling cost should be nerfed or something in that regard, I don't know. Baneling rain is absolutely an amazing way to deal with storm based armies, gateway heavy armies, and even colossi heavy armies. Ultras are a bit safer on 4 base than baneling, I feel, because baneling rain is bad against archons and mass colossi, while Ultras are just as good at everything else but zealots (which you can usually just use normal banes for, since storm on a banes with zealots kills the zealots). But I don't know for sure. Crackling upgrade is absolutely essential, it makes runbys much, much more devastating as the lings can focus down a nexi SO fast with adrenals. If the game is winding down, and your about to end it, you may be better off on getting more infestors or ultras or banes. But if it's a neck and neck game, it's essential for the harass it lets you do. In end-game scenarios where 100 lings are 'free' to you, and you've been on top of your larva injects on your 4+ bases and 2+ macro hatches, it's very easy to replace that larva (unlike Destiny, I have a queen at EVERY base, i hotkey every queen, I keep up with injects in late game, and I make a macro hatch around 60ish supply every time, and I make another one at 200 food). It makes me sad seeing Destiny have minerals banked all the time, I don't think I ever bank minerals end game because I keep enough larva to be able to remax on pure lings very quickly. In the endgame I feel FG is no longer the big damage dealer, it's only important for rooting, NP, and ITs. I almost feel that the FG buff is completely unnecessary to this style, and maybe even an hindrance since longer root time is more important. However, the only problem is that you absolutely NEED the high DPS of FG if you want to open FG and survive mass gate pushes. Mass spine is nice, but eventually they will break those walls if you don't do FG damage, and you don't be able to take a third no matter how many lings you eventually get. However, I've also considered that opening hydra is probably a lot better than opening infestors, since they do more damage in early game. You would still need mass spine, since hydras suck ass and die too fast and cost too much to lose, but with mass spine, it would shred anything that came close enough. I could see a Zerg opening hydras the same way they open infestors, behind a mass spine wall, and once you had 10ish hydras, you bust out, roll any P army dumb enough to stick around, and then take your 3rd. The problem is that hydras are so slow, it's impossible to deny P their third with them because, although you could force a cancel, every contain will eventually be busted, and losing gas intensive hydras just hurts you too much, since they are so slow you would inevitably lose them. infestors are fast enough to at least run away, and can burrow too. So you know, there's that. If hydras were a bit faster, or maybe you got overlord drops, maybe opening hydras would be better, and then transition into infestors once you have 3 bases up. | ||
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