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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.
Diamond Zerg/Diamond Random NA
So the Protoss deathball and ZvP in general has been a source of large frustration to Zerg players. It's not so much strategy, but the unit composition that just sucks. Forcefields just prevent Zerg from doing anything, and Colossi just make roaches and hydras horrible. In fact, I used to think it was ridiculous when Protoss ever opens stargate - don't they know why their race is OP? So I decided to set out a new style of ZvP, because the status quo just sucked - and what I found was that the Zerg deathball is much stronger than the Protoss deathball, that Roaches, hydras, and broodlords suck - and now any time I see Protoss going for a deathball, I smile because I know it's an easy win.
The first step is the unit tester, because roach/hydra is just horrible , and here are some interesting findings:
For equal supply, Roach/hydra/Corrupter just gets owned not only by equal supply Stalker/Colossi, but 160 vs 200 style armies. At best, you have Corruptors left over that are useless. Corrupters just take up way too much supply. In other words, you might as well go pure roach against mass void rays (mondragon games aside of course).
So Roach/Hydra/Corrupter is bad... so what, just a bunch of QQ? Well here's some interesting stuff:
Ultralisks own Protoss deathballs. In fact, at 70% supply they still own. 70% Ultras will even beat a Voidray/Colossus with any variation of gateway units, as Void rays can't even kill Ultras with ridiculous armor fast enough to prevent not only their ground army from being wiped out, but a Nexus or two going down before they are all killed. Broodlords, on the other hand, don't do enough damage, and if you don't have sufficient Corrupters, the Colossi will live long enough to roast your ground army - the only time Broodlords are good in combat is very, VERY ideal situations where somehow you got a huge supply lead. So the conclusion there is that Ultralisks are the end-game goal over Broodlords, but we all know Hive is very late... So how do you stay alive until 4 bases?
![[image loading]](http://images.wikia.com/starcraft/images/c/c9/Ultralisk_SC2_Rend1.jpg)
Ultralisks: The hard counter to Void Rays and Deathballs!
Ling/Infestor handles standard gateway compositions pretty well. The key is massing upgrades, and if the opponent goes for a hardcore 2 base timing attack, like 6 gate, you really won't be able to sustain the pressure without mass spine crawlers - which is very viable, but macro will be discussed later...
Ling/Bling/Infestor, is just as strong as Ultra deathballs. You can pretty much wipe out any Protoss ground army with Ling/Bling/Infestor - you will need over 6 Infestors if he goes heavy air play (either chain FG, IT, or NP), and I would say best results are more infestors to 'counter' more air play (12 being the most you really need in any situation). Now NP generally won't work in midgame because a lack of both energy and infestor count, but the Protoss won't have a crazy t3 deathball of VR/Colossi or lots of air units anyways at that early in the game. The hard counter, however, is sentries - which we will discuss later.
![[image loading]](http://michaelkrukar.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/steezy2.jpg)
Colossus: The Hard Counter to Colossus
Finally, upgrades are amazing. 1/1 vs 0/0 is no competition.
So the conclusions in unit tester, while simple, seem to give results that not many are utilizing. Thus:
Ultras are amazing - once you have about 10, the game is over.
Infestors are amazing, as is NP - with a melee based army, you can feasibly pull off NP because of the 9 range and the melee units preventing the infestors from being sniped.
Ultra+Infestor w/NP is the core of a Zerg lategame deathball, Ling/Infestor into Ling/Bling/Infestor w/FG is the core of a midgame Zerg deathball.
Roaches are horrible in ZvP
Hydras are horrible in ZvP
Broodlord/Corrupter is not great in ZvP
The Zerg deathball trashes any Protoss deathball for both supply and cost
Banelings are bad in ZvP, unless in mass - in which case they are amazing.
Zerglings are amazing in ZvP
Upgrades are amazing
So how to apply this in actual gameplay? Well, a neat way is to just sit on 3 or 4 base, turtle hard, and roll out with the deathball a la Cruncher... but here's a more in-depth way.
The biggest problem this build can have is 2 base all-in midgame timing attacks (like 6 gaet) and sentries. So here are way to deal with it:
1. The popular 3 gate Sentry expand leaves a huge opening for speedlings at around 30+ supply. Going with about 4 larva injects worth of speedling at this point, or mass speedlings after 30 supply, will cripple Protoss. This is around the time they try to expand, if the Protoss doesn't play super greedy, just don't make the speedlings. But as soon as he's trying to push it, a large number of speedlings from 30-45 supply will be unmanageable by the 3 gate expand. He will be forced to cancel, or lose not just all the energy on his sentries, but risk losing them completely (which puts you in a great position for your ling/bling/infestor army). I usually find it completely worth the huge sacrifice in economy and tech doing this does, if I know the Protoss is going 3 gate expand.
2. 2 Base all-in's simply cannot be held off without roaches (ie as we know, 6 gate is 'countered' by burrow roaches). To defend against such a push, you really need to mass spines. With the low gas cost of this build (all 4 of your gas is going to infestors, save for the first 100 for speed), you can easily afford mass spines and mass queens. If you know the opponent is going for such a doom-push, you can never make too many spines. Continue teching to infestors - they are generally too late to stop a 6 gate, but if you have mass spine, you can delay the push to make 4-6 infestors viable, which will shut the 6 gate down. Tech to speed banes/bane drops on 2 base, and you will be in a great position to take a third or push back.
3. With the speed of lings, you really need to force the Protoss to waste forcefields by constantly prodding him and trying runbys. Use the lings like mutalisks - he will be forced to turn around to deal with the lings, while they are essentially free to you in being only minerals and larva (a macro hatch is necessary, which will be addressed later). The ideal situation is to get Hive before banelings, but if you sense the Protoss may be aggressive, you will want to go for ling/bling/infestor. Fungals can kill sentries in 3 shots, and baneling drops are very useful in the midgame before mass stalkers w/blink are out. And of course, if he comes into a spinefield, the sentries will have a very hard time.
Macro
The best execution I've found is 14 gas 14 pool 15 hatch. Pretty simple, take drones off gas and get ling speed, and sort of go 'Spanishiwa' afterwards. The problem with this build is you are very weak in the early mid-game, so you have to rely on mass spines and queens until infestors are out. It is imperative to have a macro hatch, and I generally throw one down after lair, very quickly - I almost always get a macro hatch before 3rd, even if I know I can grab a third uncontested (which I just grab immediately afterwards). With the tech straight to infestors, and no gas used on roaches or hydras or spire, you can get Hive pretty quickly. You can't really mass ultras until 4 bases, so you need to figure out if you can either go Ultra/Infestor w/NP, or ling/bling/infestor on 2 base to get your third (and from there either end the game or grab the 4th and get Hive).
The idea is that the Zerg deathball is way stronger than the Protoss deathball, to use gas solely for upgrades, infestors, and get a fast hive, and to prevent the usage of roaches and hydras which the Protoss can easily handle with Colossi.
There are a few different ways to really 'get there', but here is what I can gather so far:
* Spanishiwa's "Ice Fisher": The weakness is the complete lack of aggression early game, allowing Protoss to match you in economy when you are playing a style that usually involves a late third due to the relative frailty of the composition before Hive tech or 8+ Infestors - which is very deadly, particularly considering the strength of 2 base timing attacks against this composition. The lack of aggression also allows the sentry count/energy to get too high to deal with until Ultras are out, which may be too much to ask for against an aggressive Protoss. Also, the big problem with the Ice Fisher build is the late tech, or lack of tech. Put simply, the build is extremely vulnerable to tech - blink stalkers, or Immortals. The Ice Fisher will lose to a 1 base Immortal or blink push because of the sore lack of tech from the Zerg.
*14 gas: With speedlings you are able to take advantage of any time the Protoss gets too greedy, moves out of position, or doesn't have enough units. Given that forcefields are the only way for Protoss to survive against ling/bling/infestor, it is absolutely crucial you are able to harass his sentries and waste their energy going into the midgame. Also, a Protoss recognizing a Spanishiwa style can easily win if they go for Immortals or blink stalkers, but speedlings handle both Immortals and Blink stalkers fairly well, particularly when combined with lots of spines. If you know the Protoss will not be as aggressive, you can also forego the mass queens to be more greedy, or even be more aggressive, but I prefer following up with a late Lair and 4 queens a la Spanishiwa due to the inevitable weakness before Infestors. However on larger maps with small chokes, such as Tal Darim, speedlings may be nullified quite easily, and an opening like FFE will put the Protoss ahead in economy and pretty much makes sure 14 gas puts you further behind.
* 'Standard': The weakness with 'standard' play is that you are extremely weak until your first infestors arrive. You absolutely need either mass spines, queens, or even both, if you are going to hold any early aggression. However on larger maps that are quite defensive like Crevasse, this may be best if you know the Protoss will have a harder time being aggressive.
By combining Spanishiwa's extremely defensive play and the 14 gas, you will have the tech to deal with Immortals or blink, to ability to be aggressive and seize upon openings or mistakes, and a better defense. The downside is the lack of economy compared to pure Ice Fisher, but the upside is you can be more aggressive to counteract that cost, and be even more defensive should you need to be. This is of course up for discussion, and there is a lot more to a build.
I am not here to glorify this composition, and the key difference is when you are strong. Roaches/Hydra is extremely strong, but is pretty much almost completely rendered useless with the introduction of 2+ Colossi, whereas my proposed composition is weak until the time 2+ Colossi are out (which is the time you will have 6+ Infestors with energy).
Composition
The 'big deal' about what I've found here, in my opinion, is the composition. I was extremely frustrated with how 'imba' ZvP was because roach/hydra just sucks so much, and so I decided there MUST be a better composition and hashed it out in the unit tester. I rarely saw baneling, infestor, ling, or ultra play in ZvP, and after my findings, I realized the biggest problem was execution (Hive is a long ways away). Recently, we are seeing Zerg's using these units with seemingly miraculous success, and when employed it is usually to the surprise of everyone. We saw Sen use roach/banelings in the NASL to great effect, and we see Losira try NP. In almost every instance of bling, infestor, or ultra play, it is a complete shock, but I envision a day when they will become standard.
So there's 2 different compositions which I've been referring to all thread long, the lair tech and the hive tech. Both are amazing, and both have their strengths and weaknesses. Here I will address what I've gained a small semblance of understanding in how and when with each Zerg unit. Knowing that Ultralisks are amazing doesn't really help much considering it's pretty hard to get that far, and many Zerg go roaches before lair - so if I'm able to contribute anything, it's at least how to get there. You generally stick with lair tech, and only go for Hive if the opponent is massing up a t3 scary ball of lots of Colossi and/or Void rays.
Hatchery
Roaches - 2 gate Zealot, proxy gates, mass zealot rushes, that's pretty much it.
Lair
Speedlings - If the Protoss goes for an Immortal or Blink push, you will want lots of speedlings to complement a bunch of spines. In battles, the less Colossi/Templar the opponent has, means the more speedlings you should have.
Banelings - if the Protoss is heavy on gateway units, you need lots of banelings. If the opponent is heavy on Colossi, you need lots of banelings too. Lots of banelings.
IFungal Growth - Fungal Growth is important in dealing damage and preventing micro. Ling/Bling is enough to kill deathballs by itself, but it won't work against good positioning and micro. Use FG to deal with zealots, air, and prevent micro.
Hydras On smaller maps or against an opponent who has lots of feedback, you may want to go for Hydras to deal with Void Rays instead of more infestors - but only if the Colossi count is lower. With how fast lings die though, I advise against hydras until you have ultras to keep the targeting AI busy.
Hive
Ultralisks Weak against Zealots
Banelings For the weakness of this composition, zealots. A baneling or two that go off is all it takes to make Ultras crush Zealots.
Neural Parasite NP is important in dealing with Void Rays, Immortals, and Colossi. While not necessary, it will do a lot to minimize losses. NP was for a long time not seen as viable, because it isn't good when used with ranged units like roaches and hydras. When used in conjunction with melee units, Colossi targeting AI will focus on the Ultras that never die, and prevent gateway units from pushing forward to snipe them out. It is possible for Protoss to FF the Infestors, but the idea is you will have enough infestors to make that pretty hard and useless.
Due to how weak Hive is against zealots, a desperate opponent at the late game who has no chance of winning may just spam his mineral bank into zealots, and have a few void rays or immortals which will just completely prevent you from counterattacking, as ridiculous as it may be. In this instance, just going mass roach/hydra or corrupter can be useful in delivering the killing blow.
Why no roaches?
By abandoning roach/hydra, the idea is to use Zergling's extreme mobility, infestor harass, and baneling drops to harass Protoss extremely effectively. Of course, one may think to themselves "so Ultras and Infestors and banelings are awesome, why not go roach/bling or roach/infestor?" Well, opening roaches will make both a third and infestors very late. The idea is that in the early to mid game, all of your gas is going into infestors, and upgrades. That's it. You generally have saved up enough to get 4 infestors right away, but you want to keep getting infestors until you have about 8. You really can't have too many infestors, although 12 is around the sweet spot for mass NP and any ridiculousness that occur throughout the entirety of the game.
Once you have 12 infestors, you can go for roaches and hydras if you like, but that would be pretty hard to do even on 3 base. The light mineral cost of infestors allows for a lot of zerglings, and the gas isn't hard expensive so you'll have enough for banelings which I believe is better than roaches or hydras. Of course, ultras and lings may have trouble against a hard turtle, so once you clear his army out, you can tech switch to roaches to break mass cannons and defenses.
I wanted to see the discussion on this, and there are a few things still open:
1. A lack of offensive capability. Zealots do extremely well against lings, ultras, and infestors in the end-game, and prevent you from simply running into his base after you destroy his army. Banelings can wipe out zealots obviously, but sometimes you can't simply a-move to the enemy base like you can with roach/hydra after a decisive victory in a battle.
2. When are roaches, hydras, and spire necessary? Hydralisks can be extremely useful against air heavy templar instead of Colossus armies, but are slow and costly (making them bad on large maps like Taldarim, but good on maps like Shakuras or XelNaga), but are also bad against late game mass zealots.
3. When is it best to get baneling drops and banelings (ie before or after ultras, before or after a third, in response to what kind of decisions from Protoss).
Replays
Of course, here are some replays:
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replay-videos/1440
Can't quite break the opponent due to zealots beating Ultra/Infestor, but at no point in the game did I feel threatened. As soon as I saw he was just massing up a deathball, I was extremely confident. I had 8 infestors up and that's all I really needed to have the game in the bag. I may have been vulnerable going to Hive but it was pretty clear to me I'd win when I saw his army was too small.
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/173977-1v1-protoss-zerg-shakuras-plateau
Templar/VoidRay
This and above replay probably best examples of play.
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=209387
Protoss was pretty bad, I massed spines because I 'scout' 4 gate (1 gas, stalker first) and then he makes fun of me for letting him expo, but he did 4 gate just didn't attack. Anyways pretty BM guy, game is pretty poor play but I use hydras with Ultras, and is a pretty textbook example of how the compositions play out if nothing else. He just sits on 2 base and tries to a-move, which would have worked against roach/hydra, but not against this special composition he had never seen before. Good to understand Zerg isn't screwed against the deathball, and a few funny things happen. 
Since doing this composition, I have never lost to Protoss if it got to end game or more than 2 bases. I was in Platinum (the last replay I believe was Plat vs Diamond) and while completely dominating in ZvZ and ZvT (over 70% easily), my ZvP was horrid. Once I started to think outside the box, I shot to high Diamond within a couple weeks. I am by no means a top level player, but I believe my macro and play should be sufficient, and what I'm saying be understood.
The execution is obviously the most difficult part, but the biggest point of this thread is the unit composition: Ling Infestor into Ling/Bling Infestor into Ultras, are all amazing units, and that roaches, hydras, corrupters, and broodlords are bad. Maybe everyone knows this now, but from what I hear and see and watch, I don't think many really grasp a full understanding of Zerg units in ZvP.
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I didn't read most of it i must confess but this is basically my overall strategy in ZvP also. I also think ultralisks are quite under-rated at the moment.
EDIT, I found ling drops (from 3-5 overlords) and multi-prong ling drops really really effective in this style of play.
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Masterleague zerg here. I've been working with zergling-infestor a LOT. And it does pretty bad against the new archon fad. Since you don't have anything to fight off archons if you go pure zergling/infestor/baneling, you're pretty much dead in the water.
Also, I disagree with the statements you are saying. ( Mainly the line that says 'Ultralisks counter voidrays', I mean what? ).
Roaches are NOT bad, at all. Infact, Roach infestor works just as well as zergling infestor, ifnot better in certain circumstances.
The thing with ZvP is that on the protoss side, anything goes composition wise. Heck, rediculous unit compositions involving tons of phoenix work against zerg. Archons now work wonders because they don't die quickly and deal damage FAST. Mass sentry in some occasions work. Due to this variety, there is no midgame composition from zerg that will ALWAYS work. This is why you have to be careful. The HARDEST decision you will have to make in a ZvP is your midgame composition based on his army. Because its this decision that turns a ZvP into something winnable versus something that looks like a buildorder loss.
Also, ultras as your main army composition is not very good against a reactionairy protoss. Unlike your recommendations, voidrays still kick big ultralisk ass. Immortals do an amazing job against them and archons tank their damage well. Even a random zealot in the path of the ultralisk can make sure there won't be any splash damage on the core stalkerball.
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Ive been using this unit comp for quite some time, the only issue that I find sometimes is that ill get stomped early game cause i get greedy myself  even with spines.
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Amazingly detailed writeup of what should be the new standard for Zerg in ZvP.
As for the "few things still open" part, heres my opinion on them:
1. A lack of offensive capability. Zealots do extremely well against lings, ultras, and infestors in the end-game, and prevent you from simply running into his base after you destroy his army. Banelings can wipe out zealots obviously, but sometimes you can't simply a-move to the enemy base like you can with roach/hydra after a decisive victory in a battle.
This is true, but as some pro once said:
Protoss has the abitlity to decide when to fight and zerg has the ability to decide where to fight.
You can send groups of lings around and deny expos, snipe proxy pylons and just be annoying, but forcefields deny everything else. Also if the protoss doesn't have detection which is unlikely, you can send 2 burrowed infestors with full energy to a Nexus and throw 16 infested terrans, which are enough to kill an entire probe line plus nexus.
2. When are roaches, hydras, and spire necessary? Hydralisks can be extremely useful against air heavy templar instead of Colossus armies, but are slow and costly (making them bad on large maps like Taldarim, but good on maps like Shakuras or XelNaga), but are also bad against late game mass zealots.
I think hydras are very situational but roaches can be pretty useful lategame if you are on the verge of defeating the protoss, have mins/gas banked but need some ranged, larva efficient units to deal the finishing blow.
3. When is it best to get baneling drops and banelings (ie before or after ultras, before or after a third, in response to what kind of decisions from Protoss).
Baneling drops on the protoss army are really good, also you can just keep overlords filled with banelings in your base and just queue a drop command on every expansion the protoss has when he moves out. The timing may be a bit questionable, but I personally don't rely on baneling drops to win, I just use them as an extra lategame when it doesn't matter if I research drop or train one infestor and two banelings for 200/200.
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To Chaosvuistje: Go into unit tester and see how Colossus/VR/Gateway deathball does against Ultras - the ultras will kill everything and then have enough life and number to kill a nexus before the Void rays finish them off.
It's not so much that roach/infestor is bad, the problem is how hard it can be to sustain economically, In ZvZ it works because of the nature of mirror match-ups and how you generally sit on each base for a very long time before expanding. We saw Sen use roach/bling to great effect, so I may be a bit dramatic, but I just think that ling/bling/infestor is much stronger than roach/bling or roach/infestor against Protoss deathballs.
Yes, archons can be a problem. Ultras do well against archons - not great, just well (Husky has a videon on Archon vs Ultra....). Just adding archons won't allow Protoss to win though, and it's pretty hard to mass archons as Protoss unless they have a huge number of bases, as they aren't particularly cost effective? Zealots are probably the biggest problem, but banelings and infestors/ling can make short work of them.
The thing with ZvP is that on the protoss side, anything goes composition wise. Heck, rediculous unit compositions involving tons of phoenix work against zerg. Archons now work wonders because they don't die quickly and deal damage FAST. Mass sentry in some occasions work. Due to this variety, there is no midgame composition from zerg that will ALWAYS work. This is why you have to be careful. The HARDEST decision you will have to make in a ZvP is your midgame composition based on his army. Because its this decision that turns a ZvP into something winnable versus something that looks like a buildorder loss.
With a core army of infestors, you can pretty much handle any composition Protoss throws at you. With lings,you can easily morph mass banelings if that is better. Void Rays can be handled pretty easily with infestors even in mass, and zealots can be dealt with FG and banelings.
Also, ultras as your main army composition is not very good against a reactionairy protoss. Unlike your recommendations, voidrays still kick big ultralisk ass. Immortals do an amazing job against them and archons tank their damage well. Even a random zealot in the path of the ultralisk can make sure there won't be any splash damage on the core stalkerball.
I don't believe Void Rays do enough damage against Ultralisks and are too susceptible to infestors. You really need mass zealots or double robo immortals for Ultralisks. Ultra/Ling wil make short work on Immortals, and banelings and/or FG will deal with zealots. I'm not sure what composition Protoss can do to beat this, but I imagine strong macro and mechanics, expanding a lot instead of sitting on 2 or 3 base instead of trying to a-move a deathball, and a mass of zealot/HT for both FB & Storm as a core with Immortals vs Ultras or sentries vs banelings combined with maybe carriers would be the best.
A core 'best' setup is somewhat still in the air, but I find the pure roach based armies of late to be horrible against Protoss that so many Zerg stick to so stubbornly, even with supplement of hydras, corruptors, or broodlords.
edit: that archon/zealot guide looks scary 
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On May 16 2011 22:01 Belial88 wrote:
To Chaosvuistje: Go into unit tester and see how Colossus/VR/Gateway deathball does against Ultras - the ultras will kill everything and then have enough life and number to kill a nexus before the Void rays finish them off.
Oh I wasn't argueing that ultralisks are bad against the cookiecutter deathball of collosus and voidrays, I was just saying that a protoss that reacts to you by scouting will fend off ultralisks quite handily, and they are such a large investment that you cannot just techswitch into whatever the hell you want right after. Which is a big problem in the lategame versus protoss
On May 16 2011 22:01 Belial88 wrote:
Yes, archons can be a problem. Ultras do well against archons - not great, just well (Husky has a videon on Archon vs Ultra....). Just adding archons won't allow Protoss to win though, and it's pretty hard to mass archons as Protoss unless they have a huge number of bases, as they aren't particularly cost effective? Zealots are probably the biggest problem, but banelings and infestors/ling can make short work of them.
That video was of archons versus ultralisks in a vaccuum. On top of that, it was just a blob versus blob battle, in which case the guy with the biggest splash wins. Which at that moment in time ( pre-splash nerfs ) was the ultralisk.
The biggest problem with ultralisks in ZvP is that they HAVE to do splash to be effective. Since archons will move infront of your stalkers due to their range, they will be infront, sometimes only one at a time. And ultras dont do any bonus damage versus archons OR zealots. But indeed, zealots are easier dealt with than archons due to their weakness versus banelings.
On May 16 2011 22:01 Belial88 wrote:
A core 'best' setup is somewhat still in the air, but I find the pure roach based armies of late to be horrible against Protoss that so many Zerg stick to so stubbornly, even with supplement of hydras, corruptors, or broodlords.
Well yes, PURE roach compositions won't do well unless you heavily upgrade them. And even then they only perform against simular to smaller army sizes.
The thing is you mix in roaches with infestors, or roaches with baneling drops. In which case the roach becomes a much, much stronger unit. Because unlike zerglings, roaches can beat down walls and thus enter the protosses production. Whereas zerglings will fall if there is a gateway simcity with cannons behind it.
And yes, that new PvZ archon style that has an attack pretty soon is REALLY deadly to any large zergling force. Going mainly upgraded lings myself I've raged my fair share of games against it.
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Hmm... Sounds viable, going to try it on ladder today. But somehow, I never seem to use my infestors to their full potential against toss. Probably just lack of mechanics on my side
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On May 16 2011 22:35 Chaosvuistje wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2011 22:01 Belial88 wrote:
To Chaosvuistje: Go into unit tester and see how Colossus/VR/Gateway deathball does against Ultras - the ultras will kill everything and then have enough life and number to kill a nexus before the Void rays finish them off.
Oh I wasn't argueing that ultralisks are bad against the cookiecutter deathball of collosus and voidrays, I was just saying that a protoss that reacts to you by scouting will fend off ultralisks quite handily, and they are such a large investment that you cannot just techswitch into whatever the hell you want right after. Which is a big problem in the lategame versus protoss
Even if the Protoss hard counters you with Zealot/Archon/HT and forces you to switch up your composition having 2 or so Ultralisks will always be good. They soak up a lot of damage, draw Colossus fire to them, break force fields, etc.
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I was working on this style for a while, but there are actually a ton of problems with your build:
-Your speedling assessment is wrong about 3-gate expo. They can hold that pressure just fine with well placed forcefields, maybe this doesn't happen at diamond level, but at high masters you're just hoping for a lag spike, you can build maybe 16 speedlings if you want to pressure and just force some forcefields with some dart-in's, but I woudln't do this every game as if you lose those speedlings, against a good enough player, you've almost lost the game right there.
-Opening pure speedlnigs without being willing to get roaches is risky. You say you need spines to defend, which isn't really true except you're forcing yourself to need spines to defend by refusing to adjust your build.
-There's a big question you have to answer when you see templar builds, what are you going to do about them? Archon+stalker is very strong against this composition (neither fungal or banelings do bonus damage), so unless you can scout it and rush straight to broodlords pretty quickly, you might have some trouble, and dt openings actually make a lot of sense against this type of build so there's a second (although less good way) of getting archons there as well.
Some pros you don't really talk about:
If you work a lot on doing harassment with infestors, baneling drops, speedling drops, speedling runby your multitasking will get a ton better and the skill cap on being able to multi-task all those things is pretty high.
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It is very similar to the build I use, but one glaring weakness is the 6gate push. Mass Spinecrawler will defend it but that also means your third will die 100%. So either you don't your third, defend with mass Spines and you're behind in economy or you take your third and pray you can barely hold it with units, since spines will simply be ignored.
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On May 16 2011 23:23 Kraelog wrote:
It is very similar to the build I use, but one glaring weakness is the 6gate push. Mass Spinecrawler will defend it but that also means your third will die 100%. So either you don't your third, defend with mass Spines and you're behind in economy or you take your third and pray you can barely hold it with units, since spines will simply be ignored.
Yeah I've had similar problems with the build. Started going mass Roach again as default and try to transition into Infestor/Bling/Ultra, but you'll end up investing a lot in tech you might not use for the rest of the game and perhaps not even needed in the first place.
Also a lot of pro Zergs seem to be going for muta's again and I really love(d) Muta in ZvP. Atm I'm just completely lost, it wasn't so long ago when Roach/Hydra/Corruptor was the only build considered as viable and nowadays theres a lot of different builds you can do.
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I was working on this style for a while, but there are actually a ton of problems with your build:
-Your speedling assessment is wrong about 3-gate expo. They can hold that pressure just fine with well placed forcefields, maybe this doesn't happen at diamond level, but at high masters you're just hoping for a lag spike, you can build maybe 16 speedlings if you want to pressure and just force some forcefields with some dart-in's, but I woudln't do this every game as if you lose those speedlings, against a good enough player, you've almost lost the game right there.
-Opening pure speedlnigs without being willing to get roaches is risky. You say you need spines to defend, which isn't really true except you're forcing yourself to need spines to defend by refusing to adjust your build.
-There's a big question you have to answer when you see templar builds, what are you going to do about them? Archon+stalker is very strong against this composition (neither fungal or banelings do bonus damage), so unless you can scout it and rush straight to broodlords pretty quickly, you might have some trouble, and dt openings actually make a lot of sense against this type of build so there's a second (although less good way) of getting archons there as well.
Some pros you don't really talk about:
If you work a lot on doing harassment with infestors, baneling drops, speedling drops, speedling runby your multitasking will get a ton better and the skill cap on being able to multi-task all those things is pretty high.
- Okay, I can concede maybe making those speedlings are pointless. Just drone and play like normal then. I guess you can spanishiwa it then too. I feel more comfortable with ling speed first for some semblance of map control.
- I'd be more than willing to adjust based on scouting, but generally speedling + spine is enough to hold 4 gate, the most pressure you could face anyways.
- Archon/Stalker... Ultra/Infestor could take that on with FG and speedlings, and ling/bling/infestor with more speedlings or even hydras could work too. It's not that Ultra/Infestor is the best of the best, Ling/Bling/Infestor is absolutely amazing. Ultras just do better against heavy colossi and aren't negated by sentries. This build isn't about a mad dash to Hive, since Ling/Bling is extremely strong by itself. Ultras are just more cost effective I feel.
It is very similar to the build I use, but one glaring weakness is the 6gate push. Mass Spinecrawler will defend it but that also means your third will die 100%. So either you don't your third, defend with mass Spines and you're behind in economy or you take your third and pray you can barely hold it with units, since spines will simply be ignored.
I don't think anyone gets a third if they scout a 6 gate coming. As I said, yes 6 gate will be a hard attack to hold, in which case you need to get mass spines up and a macro hatch. The point of the spines is to delay delay delay until the 4-6 infestors can FG everything. It's pretty tight, but 6 in general is pretty hard to hold no matter what you are doing as Zerg. I think if you don't have mass spines or burrow roach it's pretty much auto-loss.
HT arent the greatest with FB since you can usually get NP and FG off before the FB, and you usually have a lot of infestors, more than the Protoss would have HT. Anyways I'm not the highest level player, I merely wanted to bring up a discussion of a composition and how to get there. Hopefully other players can get a lot from this.
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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
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On May 16 2011 23:23 Kraelog wrote:
It is very similar to the build I use, but one glaring weakness is the 6gate push. Mass Spinecrawler will defend it but that also means your third will die 100%. So either you don't your third, defend with mass Spines and you're behind in economy or you take your third and pray you can barely hold it with units, since spines will simply be ignored.
6 gate actually isn't an issue at all I've found. You can defend it like you defend 4gate--just with mass ling, now with upgrades. I typically use my second hundred gas for +1 melee and then go lair on my third hundred gas. If I see chrono on the forge or just extra gateways no tech, I go for a quick extra evo for +1 armor (helps if he's zealot heavy), cut drones a bit and mass lings. Then you just surround, kill the 6 gate army, and counter.
Being sure and scouting it is 6 gate is the trick though. If you're wrong, he expos or templar show up, it's bad. Also hitting his army at the right time and pulling out if the FFs are too brutal (if he FFs all around his army, it gives you breathing room to remacro since he can't push out too, don't overcommit--you can lose 10 to 20 lings to FF in lieu of losing them all). Some maps make this harder to do (typhon, xel'naga) since there aren't great place to engage but on others it's extremely easy (shattered, tal'darim).
If you did scout wrong and are behind, try to harass/drop/nydus while you econ and tech to get back in the game. If you were right though, you will shit on his army and he won't be able to take a third due to ling denying it while you get your economy/infestor ball/upgrades/ultras rolling.
Zealot/archon/templar is a problem for this build though I've found.
(masters zerg)
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^ Actually takes +3 armor (against 0 weapons) to make it 4 hits instead of 3.Just being even in armor is all you need. I'm really surprised you say you can kill a 6 gate army with just lings, I don't think it's really possible to take on 6 gate without spines or burrow roaches? I'd love to see replays or something if you still have them around, 6 gate is really hard for Zerg imo.
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Well, i did some checking on 6 gates, 5 gates, and bstalkers 5 gates, i can say it appears you can defend it quite well if you have perfect timings. But you NEED like 3 spines (tested on those bad spine maps, like meta or xel naga). But it looks like then you just mass lings and stall for infestors, i was able to defend all those gateway 2 base attacks with this build, whicle teching to infestors and upgrading.
BUT i don't think zerg has any room for +1 malee, its awesome upgrade, but you can't fall behind in armor vs zealot attacks upgrade, or your lings stop doing damage. So i think only +1 armor is right safe choice. Yeah, you can see forge upgrading, but if you see it, it means it has started already, usually like 10-50 seconds ago. WIth chrono, you wont be able to get +1 in time if its timing. And then his pure zealot army will rape any number of speedlings
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How could you not love ZvP. Im a high diamond protoss player that literally gets autolossed every time I face a decent zerg player. I am switching to zerg. lol
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This is just getting crushed by mass zealot/archons... this sucks.
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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.
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I have recently been improving my ZvP a lot opening with the spanishiwa build. I find that I can hold any sort of mid game aggression by massing ling/bane off 3 base and adding in infestors, and if they are massing up going straight to hive and ultra as you suggest.
You suggested that a switch to roach hydra corrupter in the end game to clean up was powerful. I've actually found that after my end game engagement sometimes depending on positioning there will be some Voidrays left over and maybe even a colossus or two but most of the stalkers dead I also have a lot of gas stockpiled at this point
I have just been putting out as many mutas as I can afford as my army dies
Mutas will clean up all his void rays and colossus easily and allow you to do some harass while you mass back up your ling/ultra. Will also prevent this mass zealot dump you suggested as he will need to spam as many stalkers as he can.
I've even started doing air attack upgrades when I get maxed in preparation for this. On my iPhone atm, but I'll upload a replay or two if I can find one
700 pt Masters zerg EU
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I remember you made a 6gate thread a while back. Does this build solve your 6gate problems?
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Hold 6gate with pure ling bling i hard because you won't hav enough larvaes for it ithout 3 or even 4 hatchery.
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b4 i finished reading this i just wanted to say that once u hit broodlords colossi shouldnt evan hit ur ground army if ur using broods right, broods are amazing but also very exspensive u should protect them with your life
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On May 19 2011 01:35 Noocta wrote:
Hold 6gate with pure ling bling i hard because you won't hav enough larvaes for it ithout 3 or even 4 hatchery.
I have become solid enough at holding 6 gate with ling/bling that I actually welcome them doing it as it gives me a clear lead in the game. It all comes down to having good timings, you have to be ready for it before it moves out, if you try to prepare after he is on the way to your base, you will not have enough larva. As long as you have 3 hatch (one macro), a queen dedicated to creep so that it spreads to at least the middle of the map, and lots of ling/bling made BEFORE he moves out, you can hold it just fine.
The creep is essential because you won't have ultras or infestors out to deal with mass FF play, so it is essential that your make him waste energy several times on the way to your base, or best case engage him in an area so open even FF cannot save him (best example is the middle of shattered temple, they have to do a full circle of FF to protect against blings). Just keep rushing in and backing off to waste FF, and be careful to lose as few blings as possible. With this composition it is very important to deal a decisive blow to his army when you commit to losing blings, if you don't you will never be able to mass enough of them after losing that first wave. So if you don't have enough to kill it right then and there, wait, it's not like roach/hydra where you can win with reinforcements, because blings lose all of their power and efficiency if they are in small numbers.
If they don't move out with a 5 or 6 gate timing, it is okay that you made a standing army blindly, you can use it to pressure/deny his 3rd while safely taking a 3rd and 4th, topping off on drones, and teching up to hive. With this style throughout the whole beggining/mid-game you want to stay as even as possible on standing army and worker count, so that you have enough to hold back any push without falling behind economically. You are waiting for that first confrontation where you can win and then use that advantage to drone and expand like a madman.
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How does this build react to Storm/archon transitions (mixed w/ colossi)? Doesn't storm/feedback shut this down?
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On May 19 2011 04:23 101toss wrote:
How does this build react to Storm/archon transitions (mixed w/ colossi)? Doesn't storm/feedback shut this down?
Templar and archons are both really good against this but it really depends on what happened before the transition. Storm completely owns lings but blings can at least make it through one storm and deal full damage so if zerg can make it to ultra/ling it isn't really that big of a deal it's just a matter of who has more stuff. The templar will not survive a losing engagement with fungal and banelings so to use them effectively toss needs some kind of advantage like a better standing army or the zerg stupidly attacking into his choke. Feedback is also really good against infestors, but toss is also dumping a lot of gas just to be able to do that and it will cut into his storms, and he still has to deal with the primary zerg army. Also because feedback is single click vs. fungal aoe, I think with equal speed players some fungals will ALWAYS go off before all of the infestors can be feedbacked.
So I think it mostly comes down to who was ahead before the tech switch. As long as zerg is not falling behind economically or with standing army (always trading armies), he will always be able to out tech switch and reinforce with roaches or whatever is needed to deal with the templar tech - it's really a question of can he afford to get the units he needs. In the same way as long as toss is not falling behind with his standing army and efficient engagements, he will always be able to get the tech needed to hold off any zerg tech.
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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.
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what about hallu collo+overseer snipe?
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Ling infestor just suck ballz, archons + ht hard counter the shit out of it.ppl are just not aware of it and they try going for stalker + colossus + vr against it ( which works at some level but not really good ).
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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.
Can you go for colossus vr "standard" death ball play and just crush roach infestor by just keeping the colossus in the front and roasting the infestor in 2 shots then retreating and letting the zealot meat shiled + vr do the job ?
Edit : 2x post -_- sry, could mods merge/delete one of em pls ?
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The problem for me using lots of lings in ZvP is that Lings are countered by a LOT of Protoss units (Zealots, Archons, Collossi, HT) and some of those units melt 70 supply of Zerglings in an instant. HT is worst and Collossi close 2nd. It's even effective for P to storm into close combat against mass Zerglings.
So, I feel that Lings are very very unforgiving in this matchup which is their major fault. Roaches don't just die to a mismicro, storm or even Immortals so fast you can't just move away, burrow, or just focus fire Immortals with a few Roaches. Roaches are insanely tanky.
To sum up: I feel just as Terran doesn't have a real counter to Slings, I feel P doesn't have a real counter to mass Roach (+some infestors, ultras, banes, whatnot). Because the only halfdecent counter comes out of the same facility that collossi come out, so it's even one or the other.
But being unforgiving is even adding to the fact that we are the most unforgiving race in the first place, so anything that enhances "unforgiveness" in any way should be avoided. It's really no matter if Ling/Infestor is great on paper when all your lings die because at the start of the battle your infstors are 2sec slightly out of position or whatnot.
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As with all strategy forum threads, people are theorycrafting hardcore here with tons of hypothetical scenarios. "You can storm lings and feedback infestors so this is bad."
Just like other solid playstyles, you still need to outplay your opponent to win. Yes, the OP is talking about some deathball that he believes will destroy any Toss deathball (I don't agree with much of OP's claims in this regard), but the basic idea of Infestors + Lings is solid. Yes, archons and zealots are good, but good zergs can punish toss for moving out with lings and do other things to tip it in his favor. Toss can be clever as well, so it still comes down to who can outplay who.
I would like to see how OP defends 6 gate with spines while stalling for the infestors. I have a feeling the people who have 6 gated you didn't do it very well if you were able to "buy time" with spines and somehow still be ok economically compared to Toss. My point here is that at anything below tip top level, it comes down to playing smart and executing properly more so than intense consideration of unit comps. I think it's more useful for people trying to get to masters and grandmasters to worry about their macro and reacting intelligently to scouting than unit compositions.
Example: I got into Diamond just by going ling muta a lot against Protoss, a composition that many claim is worthless and easily punishable by Toss (maybe at the pro level it is bad). I refined it and learned how to respond to the inevitable 2 base all in timed with my Spire completion, Psi Storm, mass blink stalkers, and everything else that people say turned ling muta obsolete. I won most games as Toss doing this, and even the ones I lost I saw simple mistakes in the replays that could have won me the game. I'm just trying to point out how much more important the basics are than any of this type of theorycrafting until you have really mastered the basics. I still don't worry much about unit compositions and try to work on my macro, and I feel I improve quickly because of this.
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Ling bling infestor ultra is will wreck any gateway/collosi or gateway/collosi/voidray ball. Against a high temp army it should lose but since your army attacks so fast its quite possible to kill his army before he reacts in time to get storms off.
This composition dies to archons though....big time (.
So once you destroy his initial death ball, you either MUST kill/cripple him right after with massreinforcing lings + remainder of your army or switch into some heavy roaches (I always forget the roach switch).
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This is a pretty common strategy in ZvP now... zealot archon immortal crushes it though. In this case though just choosing broodlords over ultra helps immensely.
Also broodlords arent bad at all, corruptor broodlord infestor is the ultimate endgame for ZvT and ZvP in my opinion, it is amazingly strong in any army fight. Its only weakness is immobility so its good to have a decent mobile force of roaches or speedlings floating around to deal with attacks and to backup your broods.
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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've been playing a bit in unit tester, and I find Ultralisks actually crush Archons - it even says so on the Starcraft 2 Game page (I know, but it's more useful than you'd think). In general, this composition is weak to mass zealots, something you always need to keep an eye on, in which case you match with banelings. FG + Ultra vs zealots also isn't too bad. You definitely need to match archons with ultras though, in which case you should work really hard to deny a third against such an immobile army that's somewhat weaker around that time.
As for like a 2 base zealot/archon before ultras come out, that's a bit hard to deal with and ultras can't be out yet. So I'm not really sure, I'm still trying to figure it out.
Mutas will clean up all his void rays and colossus easily and allow you to do some harass while you mass back up your ling/ultra. Will also prevent this mass zealot dump you suggested as he will need to spam as many stalkers as he can.
Really interesting. I think if you can mass bling to push you may be better off, you can easily suicide into his infrastructure and be safe since you killed his army, deal with mineral dump zealots, and not be held off by something ridiculous like a single colossus or few void rays and cannons.
Forcefield really is the biggest trouble with this before ultras are out (i've had quite a few games where I'm about to lose to mass FF and then that 1 ultra pops and it's rally point straight to the army breaking every FF and the blings and lings just clean up).
I remember you made a 6gate thread a while back. Does this build solve your 6gate problems?
Against something like 6 gate you have to make mass mass spines. On some maps it's harder than others, like in Xel naga I've had quite a few people just go through the secret hallway to bypass the spines, in which case you need to be on top of that and reposition them. The key is to delay delay delay, personally I prefer going ling/infestor instead of ling/bling, and once those 4-6 infestors with energy are out, you stop 6 gate pretty cold. I like to prepare a macro hatch early too, if I sense a 6 gate. But yes it does.
b4 i finished reading this i just wanted to say that once u hit broodlords colossi shouldnt evan hit ur ground army if ur using broods right, broods are amazing but also very exspensive u should protect them with your life
Maybe you should finish reading it first.
Hold 6gate with pure ling bling i hard because you won't hav enough larvaes for it ithout 3 or even 4 hatchery.
If I scout a 6 gate I try to throw a macro hatch very quickly. I also rely on mass spines to delay the 6 gate, until I can get 4-6 infestors out. 4-6 infestors with energy will hold off 6 gate. I don't use banelings until endgame, as forcefield will rip apart ling/bling and trying to get speed+drops for overlord for a 6 gate will take too long and is too expensive that early.
How does this build react to Storm/archon transitions (mixed w/ colossi)? Doesn't storm/feedback shut this down?
I usually have more infestors than templar. It's a bit ridiculous if Protoss has mass high templar, but mass infestor for zerg is not ridiculous at all and is quite powerful. Against storm I usually just back off, with archon/colossi I just NP everything or use ultras to rip everything apart. Not a big problem.
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Can you go for colossus vr "standard" death ball play and just crush roach infestor by just keeping the colossus in the front and roasting the infestor in 2 shots then retreating and letting the zealot meat shiled + vr do the job ?
Yea roach/infestor will lose to deathball. You need melee units for NP otherwise they won't be out of range of opponent.
The problem for me using lots of lings in ZvP is that Lings are countered by a LOT of Protoss units (Zealots, Archons, Collossi, HT) and some of those units melt 70 supply of Zerglings in an instant. HT is worst and Collossi close 2nd. It's even effective for P to storm into close combat against mass Zerglings.
I wouldn't say zealots necessarily counter lings, they just do really well against them in certain situation. Lings do really well against stalkers and immortals which are a big problem in ZvP.
I feel P doesn't have a real counter to mass Roach (+some infestors, ultras, banes, whatnot). Because the only halfdecent counter comes out of the same facility that collossi come out, so it's even one or the other.
Unmicro'd, they lose to zealots 1v1, they are bad against mass stalker and blink stalker, immortals, and 4+ colossi just instantly negates them. They have their place - i will rush roach if I see Protoss going fast colossi (ie 3 gate robo) but I find in general they are not good units, they take up way too much supply and are a bit too slow.
But being unforgiving is even adding to the fact that we are the most unforgiving race in the first place, so anything that enhances "unforgiveness" in any way should be avoided. It's really no matter if Ling/Infestor is great on paper when all your lings die because at the start of the battle your infstors are 2sec slightly out of position or whatnot.
No it's not an easy composition, and most of the time you need to rely on baneling drops as a good Protoss won't let you take a third without a fight. I don't really think your criticism is that valid - you say it's unforgiving, well yes, it's not an easy strat, but it's better than losing. Roach/hydra/corruptor is very easy to pull off, but it also loses to very standard play. I'd rather win with a hard strat than lose always with an easy one.
Ling bling infestor ultra is will wreck any gateway/collosi or gateway/collosi/voidray ball. Against a high temp army it should lose but since your army attacks so fast its quite possible to kill his army before he reacts in time to get storms off.
This composition dies to archons though....big time
High templars are not a problem. They are better than colossi but not a problem. You just back off, banelings are the major damage dealer so banelings being stormed doesn't really help if they blow up by the army. Well placed storms can go a long way, but I haven't had a problem with a Protoss going HT instead of Colossi, as seen in the reaplys.
As for archons, Ultralisks clear them out very easily. The problem is a 2base archon/zealot push before ultras are out, but I'm still working on that.
This is a pretty common strategy in ZvP now... zealot archon immortal crushes it though. In this case though just choosing broodlords over ultra helps immensely.
Also broodlords arent bad at all, corruptor broodlord infestor is the ultimate endgame for ZvT and ZvP in my opinion, it is amazingly strong in any army fight. Its only weakness is immobility so its good to have a decent mobile force of roaches or speedlings floating around to deal with attacks and to backup your broods.
First off this is about ZvP, not ZvT. Both t3 units are amazing in ZvT. As for ZvP, I do think broodlords have a place against a zealot/archon/immortal, I'm still working on it.
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On May 21 2011 12:47 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +Hold 6gate with pure ling bling i hard because you won't hav enough larvaes for it ithout 3 or even 4 hatchery. If I scout a 6 gate I try to throw a macro hatch very quickly. I also rely on mass spines to delay the 6 gate, until I can get 4-6 infestors out. 4-6 infestors with energy will hold off 6 gate. I don't use banelings until endgame, as forcefield will rip apart ling/bling and trying to get speed+drops for overlord for a 6 gate will take too long and is too expensive that early.
Just wanted to clarify here, drop upgrade and infestation pit + pathogen upgrade take the same amount of time (130 seconds), so you can have banelings in overlords ready to drop at the same time as popping 4-6 infestors ready to fungal.
There's 2 different lair techs you can do if you decide to go melee+infestor:
1) ling/infestor - get infestation pit as soon as lair finishes, start pathogen immediately and make your infestors when the upgrade is 31/80.
2)ling/bane with drop - start overlord drop as soon as lair finishes, followed shortly by overlord speed + baneling nest.
I prefer going ling/bane w/ drops, it delays infestors but it allows you to safely take your 3rd much more easily, and it holds off 5/6gate just as easily as ling/infestor does. Also if for whatever reason the enemy attacks earlier than you expected, you can at least morph banelings and defend with ling/bane while waiting for drop to finish, as opposed to only ling if you decide to go infestors as your first lair tech. Another thing, going drops means you have speed overlords very quickly and can scout protoss base, keep tabs on expansions, and generate creep around 8-9 min. into the game. Lastly, bane drops on mineral lines. 2 overlords dropping banelings on both protoss bases at the same time, while your main army either defends an attack or attacks the front of the nat, is virtually guaranteed to net a ton of probe kills and possibly win the game right there. And once you have +2 melee, banelings 1-shot probes; if you drop correctly, you can clear out an entire mineral line with 2 +2 banelings. Once your 3rd is up you can then get infestors, FG + bane drop is extremely strong vs protoss, especially HT which would normally counter ling/bane with storm and counter infestors with feedback.
However ling/infestor is also viable, I just think that ling/bane with drops is more mobile, can destroy protoss' economy in just a few seconds, and is more flexible than ling/infestor (you can wait until protoss moves out before morphing banes, letting you drone harder and get your 3rd up quicker). They both end up with the same unit composition, it's just a matter of choosing one or the other as your first choice when you get lair.
It's good to get burrow for your infestors also, if protoss doesn't make any cannons at natural you can use 2-3 infestors and wipe out all of protoss' probes (Spanishiwa likes to do this whenever he can). Even if protoss makes an obs, you can make an overseer, and then all it takes is 1 FG + 1 IT to kill an obs, then you're free to burrow your infestors and engage (watch this Spanishiwa game for an example of this). It's also good to get NP fairly soon after your infestors come onto the field, since you'll be wanting to NP any immortals, colossus, or archons.
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you know, I feel there is a fatal flaw in this build:
Because of the reliance on spine crawlers in the transition to mid-game, an opponent can simply contain you and prevent you from taking a third. Although this buys you time for increased power via getting overlord drop and macro hatch'd mass ling/bling, it really puts you in a losing position. I've been having a very tough time against mass sentry/stalker play, not necessarily 6 gating, although 6 gates are tough, but against an opponent who has a mass army off 2 base with lots of sentries and just prevents you from taking a third.
It really hurts on maps like Shakuras where they can easily take their natural, and prevent you from trading lings in the early game for sentries and sentry energy. Sentries really hard counter this, and my bain rain micro isn't pro (something that obviously is a big source for improvement and almost 100% necessary for this build), I feel like by the time you have enough banelings to destroy an entire mass stalker/sentry army a competent protoss can grab a third and prevent yours for enough time for you to be just too far behind in the game.
Some thoughts I'm thinking about to combat extremely aggressive 2 base Protoss play that just instead contain and expand instead of trying to break you when your on 2 bases:
1. If you see someone going for 2 base play, like FFE or 1 gate FE, ie you see a super fast expand, then you should skip upgrades (or armor maybe) in lieu of super fast hive for a single ultralisk to break forcefields.
2. Hidden expo.
3. Going for banelings or bane rain first, instead of infestors (I think getting those 3-4 infestors is better against maybe robo, blink, or stargate play but worse against mass gateway or non-colossi single robo or single stargate opener for harass only). Someone above mentioned the timing and resources are similar.
I don't know. I feel like against a competent opponent who notices the mass spines and immediately backs off instead of trying to fight the mass spines and queens and just takes a fast 3rd and even fourth, you'll lose because of how far behind you'll be put because of this. A roach based build on the other hand, has the power to let you grab a third (although I feel you are almost certainly screwed going past the mid game due to composition). Maybe I'm just venting about mass stalker even after they opened mass DT or stargate and failed 100% with it they still win with it. Anyways, maybe a roach/bling drop style might be better?
I've been doing a lot of ling focused play recently, relying almost exclusively on zerglings and either banelings or a small number of infestors, *especially* against when I recognize an aggressive opponent (my rational is to stick to what I have instead of trying to tech in the face of incoming aggression), that I go a macro hatch before third or tech. I'm talking games where I throw a macro hatch around 50 food, and I go pure ling with just a few infestors or banelings, before I even consider heavy tech into more infestors or hive. It seems pretty good on ZvT (i know, off topic) and it's been what I've been trying out in ZvP, and a macro hatch early on just seems necessary. I almost always get my macro hatch out before their 2 base timing attack starts, is my point basically.
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I have played this strategy before. 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.
This is why I still prefer roach in ZvP. It's much more forgiving. If you mismicro with a zergling army, it can cost you the game, but if you mismicro with a roach army, it often is not that big of a deal in comparison.
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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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United States1021 Posts
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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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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On May 16 2011 21:50 Chaosvuistje wrote:
Masterleague zerg here. I've been working with zergling-infestor a LOT. And it does pretty bad against the new archon fad. Since you don't have anything to fight off archons if you go pure zergling/infestor/baneling, you're pretty much dead in the water.
Also, I disagree with the statements you are saying. ( Mainly the line that says 'Ultralisks counter voidrays', I mean what? ).
Roaches are NOT bad, at all. Infact, Roach infestor works just as well as zergling infestor, ifnot better in certain circumstances.
The thing with ZvP is that on the protoss side, anything goes composition wise. Heck, rediculous unit compositions involving tons of phoenix work against zerg. Archons now work wonders because they don't die quickly and deal damage FAST. Mass sentry in some occasions work. Due to this variety, there is no midgame composition from zerg that will ALWAYS work. This is why you have to be careful. The HARDEST decision you will have to make in a ZvP is your midgame composition based on his army. Because its this decision that turns a ZvP into something winnable versus something that looks like a buildorder loss.
Also, ultras as your main army composition is not very good against a reactionairy protoss. Unlike your recommendations, voidrays still kick big ultralisk ass. Immortals do an amazing job against them and archons tank their damage well. Even a random zealot in the path of the ultralisk can make sure there won't be any splash damage on the core stalkerball.
Have you tried NP on archon? Though yes I agree -- there are quite a few timing issues surrounding the strat up to NP.
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So I've been having an issue with this build:
Recently I've been going ling/baneling drop instead of ling/infestor because I think it may be better for early aggression. However gas starts to really pile up when I do that, as in I can't spend my gas fast enough. I was wondering if I should only grab 3 geysers with that opening, or what. I never get bane drop + infestor until after I hold off the mid-game pressure, although I may just get speedbanes if they don't have any sentries for some reason.
Also wondering maybe ling/infestor is a better opening because of early blink aggression play. Here's an interesting replay where I have trouble massing up gas. The guy I'm against is so terrible, he even misses his nexus, cancels, and puts it down again because his buildings block it. He fails DT so I think I'm safe for a third, I didn't particularly expect his push to come so soon since he went DT, I thought that would delay it a lot, but you'll see in the replay I have trouble with the blink. I even cancel infestation pit and go for baneling rain instead. But I pile huge amounts of gas.
I take the gases on my 3rd without having necessary tech units to spend that much gas on, but by the time my third goes up I'm already banking huge gas. I forgot to get 2/2. I don't know, this game sucked. Really aggravating game, I macro'd pretty well I think and he played like a total scrub. I think the supply was 60 vs 30's at one point.
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-216700.jpg)
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Roaches will perform better vs deathballs. Lings provide better mobility but roaches are one of the fastest ground units in the game as well. Protoss units attack with high damage infrequently. What this means is that a lot of lings die instantly in the first few seconds of combat regardless of how strong the neural and fungal micro is. With roaches, they can survive the first hit and will be able to sustain combat much better. A roach has 135 hp compared to the 35 hp of a ling iirc. 4 Lings is about the cost of a roach and have 140 hp combined so health wise they are very similar. However when those 4 lings take 35 damage on 1 their dps is cut by a quarter while the roach is fine. The second 35 hp of a ling down brings it down by 50%.
Against zealots, colossi, and archons roaches are a necessity.
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^ I disagree? I mean its not how much theorycraft you got going on there, but after about 4 Colossi, roaches just get completely nullified. Add in just a little ground support or forcefields, or void rays, or normal gateway and stalker support, and deathballs own it.
I mean it's pretty obvious roaches suck, I don't know what your trying to say. Are you saying pure roach is better than pure ling? Because that's not really relevant...
Banelings, by the way, do better than pure roach against pure colossi. Actually, I think pure ling even does better than pure roach against pure colossi.
The idea is to use the low gas cost of lings to get higher tech units. The fundamental basis is that you aren't going to kill a high tech protoss army using low tier roaches or lolhydras, but by going zergling you are using extremely cost efficient banelings and have lots of gas left over for tech like ultras or infestors.
Roaches are horrible against chargelots/zealot+FF, colossi, and archons.
yea i dont know what your trying to say... we know that pure roach just sucks, and deathball play like VR/Colossus was made to pretty much hard counter roach play of any sort. Pure roaches get owned by any sort of colossi build. They also get owned by gateway armies before or after mid game (when supply is an issue). I mean if you look on paper roaches are 'awesome' against Terran, but in reality they suck.
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i dunno about pure roach getting owned by any colossi build. the average 2 base colossus build (which has been thankfully phazed out now-a-days, i hated doing it) has a good minute or two timing window before the first two colossi pop where a zerg can flood a stalker sentry ball with swarms of burrowed roaches - we're talking like 30 to 50 against an 8 sentry stalker ball of about 40 supply. i do agree that when colossi reach critical mass that roaches are not viable anymore, but it's only at that stage of 4+ colossi or greater. any map in the current blizzard map pool that's not tal darim or shakuras prevents protoss from being able to hide behind a 2 base wall and power straight to colossi, and even on these maps where it is possible zerg can still identify this build and deny map presence / contaminate for long enough until they have a bunch of corruptors.
the only time i ever get colossi off of 2 base anymore are when i see a very fast hydra den, and that's assuming i don't have enough time (either due to walking distance or me spotting it late) to attack right away before hydras become a factor.
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On June 22 2011 10:33 TheFavorite wrote:
Roaches will perform better vs deathballs. Lings provide better mobility but roaches are one of the fastest ground units in the game as well. Protoss units attack with high damage infrequently. What this means is that a lot of lings die instantly in the first few seconds of combat regardless of how strong the neural and fungal micro is. With roaches, they can survive the first hit and will be able to sustain combat much better. A roach has 135 hp compared to the 35 hp of a ling iirc. 4 Lings is about the cost of a roach and have 140 hp combined so health wise they are very similar. However when those 4 lings take 35 damage on 1 their dps is cut by a quarter while the roach is fine. The second 35 hp of a ling down brings it down by 50%.
Against zealots, colossi, and archons roaches are a necessity.
Against a pure zealot/colossus/archon army? Yeah, perhaps. Against any one of those being heavily represented? Definitely not.
In my experience, archons are what really scare me if I'm going for bling drops. If I'm going for ling/bling/infestor into ultra, it's mass HT (+gateway, no collosi needed) that scares me most.
I assume people here area also aware of the somewhat older, but very detailed guide on playing mass infestors in the mid-game. If not, here's the link -- check it out:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=214187
(I think that might be pre-infestor buff, but the idea holds just as well now. And yeah, as several people noted, it's a high-variance build: Small engagement details can make a *huge* difference in the outcome of the combat, either way. This is in contrast to roach-heavy armies, which usually have a much higher "guaranteed" damage output, though a much lower "ideal" damage output, for the same supply of ling/infestor.
Except good force fields, those can really wreck roach-heavy armies hard.)
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Yea I've lost quite a few games when I should have clearly won because I move commanded my army somewhere for about half a second too long when I should've a-moved or sat around, not having my dozen hotkeys set up because a push comes a bit earlier than I'm prepared for, because I miss a hotkey, et cetera. Not having my hotkeys set up is one of the biggest reason I lose with this build.
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So I just saw the first two games where a pro did this build!
At Dreamhack, there was GGNaugrim vs oGsMC Metalopolis:
http://sc2casts.com/cast4421-oGsMC-vs-Naugrim-Best-of-3-DreamHack-Summer-2011-Group-Stage
Game 1
At the GSL last night! ZENexCoCa vs SlayerS_Alicia GSL Code S Ro32 Group D (It's the first game so you don't need a ticket):
http://www.gomtv.net/2011gslsponsors4/vod/65655
As you can see in the games, once the midgame passes where the Zerg is very weak, once they get 3 bases up and running, they are invincible. In both of these games, Zerg gets into later midgame, and you can immediately tell that they've won the game, and Protoss doesn't have a chance. Yet despite that, the game drags for 30 minutes, because the one problem with this build is the lack of punch like roaches, hydras, and mutas have.
In CoCa's game, I felt like he made a few mistakes, composition wise. His first big engagement was 1 by 1 streaming ultras, into lings, into infestors, into baneling rain. If he had engaged all at once, he would have won the game right then and there, but you have to have those infestors there to root, or you get kited like he did in the first engagement.
In the 2nd/final engagement, he didn't have his infestors! I don't know where they went, but that's a critical reason why he lost it when he should have won. He also had no banelings, and that was pretty bad too. But he really needed his infestors, when Protoss just has a small number of strong units like archons and Colossi, you need to NP them all. He also engaged in a choke. Obviously, it didnt matter, he knew he already won so that's fine.
I always get a hydra den and roach warren in end game now with this build, because I sometimes will just remax on roaches just to put the final nail in the coffin. Also may need hydras if they end up hiding a million void rays, and for some reason you lose your infestors.
Now what's *REALLY* Interesting about the ZENexCoCa game was his opening, his build going into midgame. He made a super fast lair on 2 gas, and then went 3, then 4 gas, and went infestors very quickly. My assumption was how weak this build opens up, and you need spines, but when I saw how fast he went lair and got infestors I was like "This is ridiculous, he can't support it and needs spines" - but he actually pushed out! And he attacked and crushed the opponent! I was very surprised, I assumed with this build you need to sit back and 'take' the push, and then get your third.
The Protoss did exactly what I thought he should do, he was going to take a super fast third. But CoCa actually pushed out with his earlier infestors, and denied protoss their third! This was a really crazy game for me to watch, I did not think that would work at all. I think because he knew CoCa went FFE, instead of 4 gate Expand or something aggressive like that between the timings of 6 gate and 4 gate, he could pressure the Protoss instead. This goes against everything I thought my build was - that you were weak to early pressure and could lose to a macro protoss who takes a fast third and denies yours. Instead, CoCa showed you can put on early aggression with super fast infestors, with just a handful of lings. That was amazing, to me.
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Problem with ling infestor is that it is extreamly cost heavy on larva, i've been doing alot of roach infestor lately.
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I would consider getting mutalisks instead - I think they are underrated. But it requires some apm but forces more than enough from your opponent, so you can expand safe etc. You just need to defend the 6 gate if it ever happens or equal.
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Problem with ling infestor is that it is extreamly cost heavy on larva, i've been doing alot of roach infestor lately.
Yes. You need to make a hatchery at 60 supply, if you can't take a third you must make it an inbase hatch. At at least 90 supply you need to be throwing another hatch down, either your macro hatch, or your third.
I don't think Roach/Infestor is that good, because as we have seen a few months ago, Deathball turtling on just 3 base will destroy roach based play. Infestors 'counter' colossi and voidrays with NP, but only in conjunction with melee units. With ranged roaches, the range goes from 9 to 9-4=5. I mean maybe - infestors aren't the damage dealers imo, but in roach/infestor, they are.
I'd love to see some replays though of how you pull it off.
I would consider getting mutalisks instead - I think they are underrated. But it requires some apm but forces more than enough from your opponent, so you can expand safe etc. You just need to defend the 6 gate if it ever happens or equal.
Actually recently there's been a few replays of ling/infestor/muta. I really disagree with it, I think you need banelings for the damage. Ling/Muta is really strong, as we've seen during the beta due to stalker AI, but I feel even with just getting 3-4 infestors and the rest of gas on mass muta just doesn't give the punch that banelings and ultras would. It's a bit harder to harass with mutas as well given the nature of warp gates, blink, and storm too.
You could defend the 6 gate with a ling/infesto opening, just keep those 4-5 infestors alive and go mass muta. I'm not sure. There's a lot of freedom with not going roaches and hydras though, that's for sure.
Anyways, I'm still so amazed by the ZENexCoCa game where he actually pushed out against Protoss. I almost want to say infestors are imbalanced now lol, because my whole philosophy revolved around the idea that if Protoss just denies your third for 2 minutes and grabs your own, you lose, and that's a huge weakness to infestor openings. That game was just so amazing, maybe it only worked because Protoss only had 5 gates,no robo or 6 or 7 gate, or was going for a super fast third instead of pressuring, then third.
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On July 01 2011 07:56 eYeball wrote:
I would consider getting mutalisks instead - I think they are underrated. But it requires some apm but forces more than enough from your opponent, so you can expand safe etc. You just need to defend the 6 gate if it ever happens or equal.
wtf Mutalisk infestor? or Mutalisks instead of Infestors?
Belial I actually open like Cocoa does on bigger maps (like tal darim) going quick lair and infestors (allows infestors out to hold a timing attack) and if no attack comes move out to deny their 3rd.
I usually get lair off 1 gas, get another, ling speed, get another gas, +1melee infestation pit when lair pops and my last gas, then get some lings up, energy obviously take down rocks for my 3rd and move out with a group of lings and 5-6 infestors.
Normally Protoss does not have much at this time and you can win the game at this point if they are careless (and especially if you do what Coca did and get every single sentry.)
I'm at 1400 Masters currently.
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^ So I practiced a bit with the CoCa build, and here's my conclusion:
It only works against FFE. If the opponent does a 1 gate expansion into 4 gate, or 3 gate sentry expand, you will autolose because of early game pressure. The CoCa build is reacting to the FFE, and knowing you are safe until the 10 minute mark at least, meaning you can not only drone hardcore, but tech as well. Against, say a 3 gate sentry expand, you can drone up, but you at least need a couple spines and a handful of units if he pushes.
I'm thinking if I see FFE, I'll get ling speed, leave a guy in gas, drone up, then make lair as soon as I can afford it and throw a geyser down every 20 seconds from there.
I'm also thinking it may be impossible to win with infestor openings against 3 gate Sentry Expands into pressure before your infestors let you grab your third, while Protoss grabs their third. However at Diamond level, most Protoss just think to end it on 2 base, or try to kill you, and realize they can't break through your spines, then they expand, as opposed to expanding as they move out. I'm seriously considering only opening infestors if the opponent FFE, and that it can't work if they go 3 gate Expo or gateway expo.
As for mutalisk/infestor, I forgot what game I was watching where someone did it. I think it was a Huk vs NEX??? on ladder, it's basically ling/muta, except you open ling/infestor like we are discussing here, grab your third, then get lots and lots of mutas and just keep those original infestor alive to make your ling/muta ball much stronger. As with ling/muta, protoss just laughs and a-moves to your base, defends with warp gate tech and stalker blink.
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On July 02 2011 01:14 Belial88 wrote:
^ So I practiced a bit with the CoCa build, and here's my conclusion:
It only works against FFE. If the opponent does a 1 gate expansion into 4 gate, or 3 gate sentry expand, you will autolose because of early game pressure. The CoCa build is reacting to the FFE, and knowing you are safe until the 10 minute mark at least, meaning you can not only drone hardcore, but tech as well. Against, say a 3 gate sentry expand, you can drone up, but you at least need a couple spines and a handful of units if he pushes.
I'm thinking if I see FFE, I'll get ling speed, leave a guy in gas, drone up, then make lair as soon as I can afford it and throw a geyser down every 20 seconds from there.
I'm also thinking it may be impossible to win with infestor openings against 3 gate Sentry Expands into pressure before your infestors let you grab your third, while Protoss grabs their third. However at Diamond level, most Protoss just think to end it on 2 base, or try to kill you, and realize they can't break through your spines, then they expand, as opposed to expanding as they move out. I'm seriously considering only opening infestors if the opponent FFE, and that it can't work if they go 3 gate Expo or gateway expo.
As for mutalisk/infestor, I forgot what game I was watching where someone did it. I think it was a Huk vs NEX??? on ladder, it's basically ling/muta, except you open ling/infestor like we are discussing here, grab your third, then get lots and lots of mutas and just keep those original infestor alive to make your ling/muta ball much stronger. As with ling/muta, protoss just laughs and a-moves to your base, defends with warp gate tech and stalker blink.
Against 3 gate sentry expands you go spling/bling/infestor.
Against 3 gate expand I open with ling speed then lair then +1 melee and hen drop a baneling nest and 2-3 spines and mass lings as I get lair. Like maaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssss. Lots of speedlings. And then its just a matter of when the Protoss moves out, bait FFs all the way to your base. They cant break their own Forcefields either so they have to wait or walk around. If they commit to an attack off 3 gates morph some banelings at your base and its pretty much collect win if you have done well kiting along the whole map.
The best thing about Spling/Infestor is it does not require high saturation very quickly. Lings are only 50 minerals and Infestors and upgrades take care of gas. A lot of games I am behind on workers for a long time in the early midgame - midgame and only catch up and pass around when I start Hive. Which is normally off of 3 bases and I take my 4th and/or 5th when I start Hive. Which is also around when +2 melee is half way done.
It feels really uncomfortable not droning like nuts at first but it works very well. Of course against FFE you can drone like nuts first which works out even better.
Another thing to watch out for against FFE is a stargate because thats standard to prevent your 3rd. So be sure to connect creep fast and have extra queens. (2 is usualy good, and then you have 3 bases with Queens and 1 for creep spread.)
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^ Actually in the Destiny vs Naniwa game where he won, on Tal Darim, its a 3 gate Expand into mass gate (6 gate?) pressure. If you watch the game, it all sounds very exciting when Destiny has 100 speedlings running into Naniwas base the second he moves out, but if you watch the production tab, he's been only making speedlings since he started lair, and he actually has less workers than Naniwa after all his lings are cleared out - which is after he kills a ton of probes and even Naniwa's main.
Just like in the first part of my post where I said make mass speedling against 3 gate expo, I think this also primarily capitalizes on an opponent making a mistake. But, it takes advantage of a crucial time when P can't scout (either he doesnt because he plans to 2 base mass gateway all-in basically, or doesnt have obs/hallu yet).
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i dont think OP means this to be the be all end all of ZvP so all the comments on this counter that blah blah are pointless. Theres a counter to everything thats just part of the game. This stands up fine to a standard protoss deathball. If the toss is doin something else obviously you should change tactics as well.
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Read all of it.
I had a game last night using a similar strategy. Just wanted to add that if larvae count is going down because of infinite stream of speedlings you're producing, don't be afraid to use offensive queens. Creep spread + tranfusing ultras is a deadly combo.
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I think your premise that roach/hydra is worthless is just inherently wrong. I use roach hydra+drops to good effect (ZvP is my best MU) at master league level. I also enjoy the heavy ling/bling style, but roach hydra can be done for sure.
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Did anyone see Destiny's games vs. Bomber (T)? He does exactly this, with a few variations here and there (a couple Mutas for harass, Ultras and Brood Lords depending on the situation, etc). Here's a cast of Game 1 (http://youtu.be/7xoE5LrIP2c) + Show Spoiler +where he's able to get back into the game after what should have been a death blow from Bomber just by massing lings and infestors
Warning: 40 minute epic
Anyways, this looks like an awesome build, and you can hear how absurdly cool Day9 thinks it is. Awesome post too.
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there are still alot of pro players that play with hydras and roaches and do really good against protoss i guess its al situational and there is just more then 1 working playstyle that works for this matchup
also hightemplar archon chargelot is pretty effective against this unit comp if controlled wel
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On July 07 2011 03:04 zerker2strong wrote:
there are still alot of pro players that play with hydras and roaches and do really good against protoss i guess its al situational and there is just more then 1 working playstyle that works for this matchup
also hightemplar archon chargelot is pretty effective against this unit comp if controlled wel
True, you can literally win against ling/infestor with just stormless HT and zealots. In mid masters I play against this from time to time and it is the least threatening army comp against Protoss I've ever seen. It's bad for standard play because of the strain on larvae it causes, and your infrastructure has to support it.
Since an engagement with this kind of army usually happens on 2-3 bases, Protoss already has around 6 gates, they just pull back, add 2 more gates and a TA, and are up and running 60 seconds later. Zerg changing to muta never seemed to be a good idea either because if Zerg doesn't go for muta in the first place, if they tech switch to it P already have counters in place or can warp them in quickly. In my opinion this build structure for zerg doesn't leave them with a lot of options and confines them into a really tight space where if Zerg trades armies with Protoss and can't win the game, the zerg will need macrohatches and queens in place to remax, and the Protoss doesn't have to do anything different. You'll be left with either half the lings/infestors you had when you traded, or if you switch to muta or roach, you will have such a small number of them that they won't be effective either.
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So I've been using this strategy in ZvP lately. I learned a very important lesson last night:
It is of utmost importance to find a way to deal with HT. If you just waltz in and engage his army when he's got a ton of HT, you will lose horribly. You should use a suicide infestor to FG a group of HT when his army is on the move or something because feedback and storms will wreck you.
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On July 07 2011 03:04 zerker2strong wrote:
there are still alot of pro players that play with hydras and roaches and do really good against protoss i guess its al situational and there is just more then 1 working playstyle that works for this matchup
also hightemplar archon chargelot is pretty effective against this unit comp if controlled wel
While there is more than 1 working playstyle, I feel the future is in Infestor heavy play, whether with Roaches or Lings. Hydralisks (unless you scout heavy air) become useless after a certain point in the game (when Protoss gets AoE out.)
High Templar/Archon/Chargelot is not that effective. What you do is leave your infestors way back, fungal the chargelots and NP the Archons. After an Infestors NPs it rarely has enough energy to be killed by feedback. The Archons get +dmg to Chargelots, as well as your blings (which you need vs chargelots) and you clean up everything and if you have time kill the archons if not I fungal them and drop Infested Terrans so I don't lose an absurd amount of lings trying to kill them.
Pure Chargelot/HT is better IMO. You have nothing to NP (unless you grab a couple HTs and feedback each other) but this is much harder to do since feedback is instant and NP has to travel. Not to mention HTs are significantly smaller targets than Archons.
On July 07 2011 02:22 imPERSONater wrote:
I think your premise that roach/hydra is worthless is just inherently wrong. I use roach hydra+drops to good effect (ZvP is my best MU) at master league level. I also enjoy the heavy ling/bling style, but roach hydra can be done for sure.
Roach/Hydra at max is significantly less volatile than Ling/Bling drops.
You say you use drops to good effect, I say ling/bling drops can decimate probe lines in an INSTANT, while ling drops and especially crackling, take out buildings sooooo quickly.
While the Protoss pulls back spling counter attacks are the fastest and best at taking out probe lines and/or buildings.
Roach/Hydra leaves no gas for Infestors until later in the game, while spling/bling leaves plenty and upgrades don't cut into your army count. In fact the only real limitation with spling/bling/infestor is larvae. Supply cap is laughable, all your units cost 1/2 supply! Money? Spling/Bling is the most cost effective combo in the game, while infestor vs armored DPS is ridiculous (and fungal makes banelings even more cost effective!)
Roach/Hydra's skill ceiling is much lower than spling/infestor. I have said this before and I will say it again.
I used to be a roach/hydra/corruptor rager but now I love seeing "Protoss" when my loading screen comes up.
I'm gonna play tonight if I get some replays I'll post em.
1400 Masters
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I thought I was alone in loving zvp :')
I have like an 80% win rate vs P.
I fuckin love infestors. The four festor kill squad then runs around burrowed harrassing with fungals and infested terrans is so fun and awesome :D
Then chuck a nydus into the mix and its so fun and effective
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I think your premise that roach/hydra is worthless is just inherently wrong. I use roach hydra+drops to good effect (ZvP is my best MU) at master league level. I also enjoy the heavy ling/bling style, but roach hydra can be done for sure.
Roach/Hydra is effectively just a timing attack, and as soon as 2 colossi are out, your at a huge tech disadvantage. It also opens extremely strong, so if you can do early game damage, you can easily secure a third. The problem is that it ends very weakly, and BL is not good in ZvP (if you could go to 250 supply, roaches would be better even) and roach/hydra doesnt not work well with ultras.
Did anyone see Destiny's games vs. Bomber (T)? He does exactly this, with a few variations here and there (a couple Mutas for harass, Ultras and Brood Lords depending on the situation, etc). Here's a cast of Game 1 (http://youtu.be/7xoE5LrIP2c) + Show Spoiler +
where he's able to get back into the game after what should have been a death blow from Bomber just by massing lings and infestors
. Anyways, it looks like this has the potential to work against more than Protoss.
Warning: 40 minute epic
Anyways, this looks like an awesome build, and you can hear how absurdly cool Day9 thinks it is. Awesome post too.
First off, Bomber was Terran. Secondly, he had clearly never seen the style before, so was just thrown off. I would imagine if Bomber had practiced against it more, he would easily beat it. He made some pretty silly mistakes that, had he been more prepared, I'm sure he would have won.
I think Ling/Bling/Muta is much better in ZvT, but Bomber had just never seen that style before. Infestors allow for awesome comebacks, and had Destiny gone mutas, he would've lost due to being too far behind.
He also doesn't do 'exactly this', as he gets Broodlords - which are absolutely necessary since ling/infestor does nothing against siege tanks - and doesn't use banelings (which aren't necessary in ZvT ling/infestor since infestors handle the bio).
also hightemplar archon chargelot is pretty effective against this unit comp if controlled wel
Anything 'controlled wel' is great. Hightemplar/Archon/Chargelot is actually not effective at all against this composition, Ultralisks tear apart archons and HT, and while chargelots can prevent you from ending the game, Protoss can't end the game either. Once you morph 5 banelings, you clear out the zealots and win. You absolutely need ultras to deal with the archons though, and just making some mass roach will easily win too.
It is of utmost importance to find a way to deal with HT. If you just waltz in and engage his army when he's got a ton of HT, you will lose horribly. You should use a suicide infestor to FG a group of HT when his army is on the move or something because feedback and storms will wreck you.
You need to time t3 with HT. Baneling rain easily takes care of HT though.
I fuckin love infestors. The four festor kill squad then runs around burrowed harrassing with fungals and infested terrans is so fun and awesome :D
While P cry, and infestors are our only good Lair tech unit against P right now, I'm thinking that infestors, or rather FG, is not that important. It can be important for holding mid-game timing pushes like 6 gate, but that's in instances when mass spine+hydra would do better than mass spine+infestor (unless you go CoCa style super fast infestor rush, which as we saw, owns midgame gateway pressure). I feel that NP and baneling rain is much better, and FG is not really important to this build at all.
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Ehhhh FG is very important against Blink Stalker/Colossi imo. Which is still very common.
FG in general is important against blink stalkers or any air play. As well as an important as an aid for Baneling Drops, and the DPS against armored is significant.
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I really think roaches are just such horrible units. The only time they are useful imo is against 2 gate zealot openers or 4 gate, in which case you just mass roaches with burrow or speed and crush the opponent. Even 4 gate expand will get rolled by it. But other than that, I just feel roaches are such useless units in PvZ. They are so damn supply inefficient. In late-game it seems any situation where roaches would be useful, ultras or even BLs would be way better.
I see Destiny goes ling/infestor - but he NEVER gets banelings. To those who watch him more than me - and I watch almost all his vods on sc2casts, what exactly does he do? How does he hold off simple midgame pressure stalker/colossi? And what does he do, just use ling/infestor all game or what?
I hear him make comments like "ultras are bad" or "i dont like banelings", and he makes roaches against HT (I always see him lose those games too, where he uses roaches). Oh well.
Roach/Infestor is such a horrible unit combo imo.
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@Belial88, I have to disagree. I think Roaches are fine units, but not in all situations. Early game, I think they're probably the best thing to use vs Protoss timing attacks cost-for-cost.
However, as the game goes on, they lose effectiveness. They're tough and easy to replace, which is a plus, but Ultras are tougher and Lings are easier to replace. They fill in that "jack of all trades" role of just being a filler unit.
Destiny mainly wins by massive Infestor play in ZvP. He'll have an absurd number, like 10 Infestors, then lay down huge Fungals and NP every Colossus in sight. He also plays a very harass-heavy style with Ling runbys, Roach (with speed) to snipe expansions, and Infestor drops. This lets him stay way ahead, which is how he keeps his advantage.
Roach/Infestor is, like every other composition, good where it is intended to be. It has good burst and decent survivability, plus sneakiness with burrow-move. It's probably the closest thing to a straight-forward ground fighting force the Zerg has, as it doesn't rely on a lot of flanking or positioning to work, which is why a lot of people like it. It doesn't work in every situation, especially when there's HTs involved or a high number of Colossi, but small Colossi and Gateway armies can melt to it.
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Roaches are really good vs ht oriented builds once you have tunneling claw research done. Mass infestor/ling vs ht/archon/chargelot is not easy by anymeans, I usually switch to mass roach and cut the infestor count if my opponent is going the ht route. Also, roach infestor is not bad vs stalker/colossi at all, make roach/ling/infestor is even more effective.
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Hi, master protoss player here.
I am bumping into more and more of this ling/infestor style recently, and I just don't know how to deal with it. I understand that I have to go for heavy upgrades, so upon scouting it, I usually throw down 2 forges and start chronoboosting upgrades.
My main problem comes from the composition I should use, I feel like NP is just shutting down all the intuitive play like zealot-collosi or zealot-archons. I have been thinking to get a couple phoenix to lift off the infestor that are using NP since this composition is lacking AA, I tought it might work well. Also, should I go for more storms or feedbacks, I dont think getting archons is worth it unless all infestor are dead or that they don't have energy anymore (hence the feedback) but storm on the counterpart just kills a lot of shit.
Any help would be appreciated, thanks
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On July 16 2011 01:59 SpiZe wrote:Hi, master protoss player here. I am bumping into more and more of this ling/infestor style recently, and I just don't know how to deal with it. I understand that I have to go for heavy upgrades, so upon scouting it, I usually throw down 2 forges and start chronoboosting upgrades. My main problem comes from the composition I should use, I feel like NP is just shutting down all the intuitive play like zealot-collosi or zealot-archons. I have been thinking to get a couple phoenix to lift off the infestor that are using NP since this composition is lacking AA, I tought it might work well. Also, should I go for more storms or feedbacks, I dont think getting archons is worth it unless all infestor are dead or that they don't have energy anymore (hence the feedback) but storm on the counterpart just kills a lot of shit. Any help would be appreciated, thanks
Best is using ht for feedback, range 9 same as np, you can kill many infestors quickly or at least deplete their energy. Storm is also very good vs lings. Scariest composition I face when using ling/infestor is ht/archon/chargelot.
Alternative route is sniping the infestors, same stalker/colossi combo, focus firing any infestor in range, if infestor got your colossi and is not in range, blinking a few stalkers forward in a suicide style to snipe those infestors that have np activated, all the while keeping your colossi as far back as possible to force infestors to get close, so you can snipe them. Not nearly as easy as using feedback, but I have lost to this.
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On July 16 2011 01:59 SpiZe wrote:Hi, master protoss player here. I am bumping into more and more of this ling/infestor style recently, and I just don't know how to deal with it. I understand that I have to go for heavy upgrades, so upon scouting it, I usually throw down 2 forges and start chronoboosting upgrades. My main problem comes from the composition I should use, I feel like NP is just shutting down all the intuitive play like zealot-collosi or zealot-archons. I have been thinking to get a couple phoenix to lift off the infestor that are using NP since this composition is lacking AA, I tought it might work well. Also, should I go for more storms or feedbacks, I dont think getting archons is worth it unless all infestor are dead or that they don't have energy anymore (hence the feedback) but storm on the counterpart just kills a lot of shit. Any help would be appreciated, thanks
I seriously have no problem with ling/infestor, I rarely use colossus and this Z unit comp happens to be kind of a joke to my unit comp. I either open DT or Phoenix with same build order, then expand... It handles most everything except early early pressure which forces you to change your bo anyway.
If Zerg doesn't rush infestor, when you hit them they will have either too few or not enough energy to really do anything useful. I most of the time start with DT expand and then follow with archons to end it or just deny the third. If you keep them on 2 bases for long enough you shouldn't have a problem unless you get outmanuevered
This isn't that high though, only 1450 Masters so I'm sure it will change when I get higher
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Hi, master protoss player here.
I am bumping into more and more of this ling/infestor style recently, and I just don't know how to deal with it. I understand that I have to go for heavy upgrades, so upon scouting it, I usually throw down 2 forges and start chronoboosting upgrades.
My main problem comes from the composition I should use, I feel like NP is just shutting down all the intuitive play like zealot-collosi or zealot-archons. I have been thinking to get a couple phoenix to lift off the infestor that are using NP since this composition is lacking AA, I tought it might work well. Also, should I go for more storms or feedbacks, I dont think getting archons is worth it unless all infestor are dead or that they don't have energy anymore (hence the feedback) but storm on the counterpart just kills a lot of shit.
Any help would be appreciated, thank
Post a [H] thread with a few replays and I'll be willing to help you out.
Personally, I feel Protoss can auto-win against infestor openings, I just think the metagame isn't there yet. Too many people either ignore the infestors completely, or "Okay he made Rock, I need to make Scissors". You have to realize what infestors ARE:
1. Extremely slow
2. Total lack of offensive capability
3. Destroys gateway units, and is Zerg's only counter to blink.
The critical time to scout Zerg is after lair pops, to see where he is going (if you are good enough, you can actually tell by his gas timings, generally mutas require extremely fast 4 gas, infestors are usually 1 gas around 30 until you get enough for lair, then add the next 3 over course of lair morphing, fairly quickly). But as soon as you know Zerg is going for infestors, you need to expand and take a third immediately, as early pressure will likely be rolled by the infestors (you can still feint, most of the time they will need mass spines until infestors pop, which really hurts Zerg's ability to expand). From there, you wan to be taking bases every 2-4 minutes against infestor play, and cannon up expansions against lings.
The hardest part about infestor play is against Protoss who just split the map and put cannons down.
Also HT FBing is viable, very viable even against 10+ infsetors. You have to realize that energy is actually a crucial part of infestors, I'm sure much like energy management on storm is against bio. And high colossi counts with gateway support melt infestors as well. Gateway armies, or gateway with a few colossi, or deathballs, infestors owned. But 6+ colossi, and suddenly infestors are destroyed. In that case Zerg either needs pro baneling rain micro (which you can out-micro with FF and blink and kiting) or Ultralisks, which may not yet be viable since it costs much more than the protoss army does.
The post above me is also really good case in point. It's not about what units you use though, I'd recommend you stick with what you know, or stalker/colossi, but the idea is move out and pressure before infestors pop, deny the third, and take a super fast third of your own.
Archons are good against infestor play, but you have to hit before Ultras come out, which will tear apart archons.
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On July 16 2011 14:08 Belial88 wrote:
1. Extremely slow
The infestor has a speed of 2.25, which is equal to the ghost and faster than the high templar. 2.25 is the "standard" speed. The infestor has a speed of 2.93 on creep. The infestor is just "slow" compared to the roach and speedling.
Vs Infestors I have been trying to play really defensively and getting to max supply as fast as possible with expansions and cannons like you said. My unit composition is void ray/colossi+gateway units. I push with my main army while I use a warp prism to warp in a bunch of zealots into his main to possibly take down his infestation pit and evolution chambers.
I try not to engage him directly during this because of fungals, but if I see that he is out of position due to my harass, I'll just push in with my main army and punish him.
On maps like Shattered you have a free third. Usually I get my 3rd at around 10 minutes, but on this map I get it at around 8.
There are other maps that have easy to defend 3rds and it's always good to expand quickly on those maps vs infestors.
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Well I just wanted to drop this replay (1755 ~ master) where my opponent goes for an 11 minute storm high templar timing attack... I never faced this before and I was sooooo clueless on what to do... I think this is a good build if you know for sure that your opponent is going infestors (my opponent just did it blindly so I guess it's his timing attack).
Anyways here's the replay
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-221530.jpg)
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The infestor has a speed of 2.25, which is equal to the ghost and faster than the high templar. 2.25 is the "standard" speed. The infestor has a speed of 2.93 on creep. The infestor is just "slow" compared to the roach and speedling.
Right. And the infestor is infinitely more slower than mutalisks and roaches. Also, you can't really kill anything with ONLY 6-12 infestors, you need roach or ling support, which means your push will come much later than if you want only roaches, or roach/hydra, or ling/bane. Meaning you have time to take a fast third.
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Zerg is a reactionary race, protoss is not. Ultras are effective vs. a mass stalker, collosus composition especially if the guy doesn't know how to micro. In principle he can feedback the infestors and blink micro the ultras but that at least requires some skill. And yes there are obviously builds that hard counter this but that would only work if protoss knows exactly what your doing which is kind of the beauty of zerg. As a zerg you can switch to another unit composition quicker than the other races and surprise your opponent. I don't believe in the idea of a unique composition that is just good against everything. At least it shouldn't be like that and I don't think it is.
I also find it quite surprising that the game isn't more tested in programs like unit tester. Should be easy to do especially for pros who don't do anything else (at least it seems to me as a spectator that unit compositions aren't tested enough).
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^ Yea it really drives me crazy when Protoss keep making Colossi when Terran has mass vikings or Thors or Zerg has mass ultras. Immortals are such amazing units, but apparently Protoss never think that. Like i CONSISTENTLY see Protoss do that, Tyler, Genius, etc.
It's surprising how bad some units are and how awesome others are. Banelings, Ultralisks, and Zerglings do surprisingly well sometimes (80 supply +1 lings move commanded through colossi then attack, which don't block ground unts, beats 70 supply colossi) while other units are surprisingly bad (Broodlords and Corruptors are way too weak to kill units before they wipe out your entire ground army already, roaches are way too weak and die too fast to heavy deathball play and siege tanks, and cost way too much supply).
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On July 17 2011 11:36 Belial88 wrote:
Broodlords and Corruptors are way too weak to kill units before they wipe out your entire ground army already, roaches are way too weak and die too fast to heavy deathball play and siege tanks, and cost way too much supply
dude. you're missing out on how brood lords and roaches work when you have both. i go mass roach with double ups, into broods asap. i right click the roaches so they follow a brood lord, and then a move the brood lords where i want to attack. this combo is so deadly.
this combo works well against force fields (with burrow move roaches which are awesome), storm, blink, archons, and collosus. immortals and air are the only things that make me deviate from this plan (hydras if no aoe, or more corrupters, which can corrupt the immortals, or lings if nothing is going to instantly kill them after i make em), and rarely blink micro makes me get infestors.
the broods shell whatever from siege range and the roaches are there to protect the broods. you just stomp through his bases.
he is left in a bad spot if he only has a ground army. if the stalkers shoot the broods, then roaches will kill him, or vice versa. its crucial to keep a good handle on the units tho, as its the combination that is so powerful, not either unit by itself.
i also like this style because you max super fast and can go attack (or more likely meet his approaching army halfway), because u maxed so early you have been building up resources and can remax instantly over and over. i end zvp games with ~8k\4k routinely because im always maxed. being maxed on roaches is fine, as long as the toss isnt maxed too. after the first battle where we more or less trade armies (im at 200, hes around 150), im going to remax 200/200 roaches in one production cycle and along with surviving brood lords be at your expo asap. if i killed his entire army in the first battle then he will be ~75 food, and will only have the production capacity to be back to ~150 at the aboslute most, and if he made 10+ gateways.
this style seems much more solid and less gimicky then relying on my opponent to be a noob and not make templars if i go ling infestor. seriously. i played a few customs the other day to try out ling infestor and lings just dont cut it against protoss for me, they are too fragile. i had a maxed army of ling infestor ultra, and my 40ish supply of lings was fried instantly by storm.
and this is only against toss if that wasnt clear, i try not to make roaches against terran if possible.
and the brood lords arent there for their dps, they are there because they have siege range and mess with targeting ai and force the stalkers to focus on one group of units or the other, and the one they arent shooting at will kill them. its the same idea behind corrupter/ roach/hydra. either the collosus are going to get shot down, or the roach hydra will decimate his stalker number.
3\3 roaches do a surprising amount of damage, and can take a surprising amount as well. you should try it.
edit: and wtf is up with your ling collosus comparison. Protoss ALWAYS have collosus supported by gateway units. you cant run your lings straight to the collosus and start attacking.
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wtf is up with your ling collosus comparison. Protoss ALWAYS have collosus supported by gateway units. you cant run your lings straight to the collosus and start attacking.
Right. Maybe you should read the posts? I was responding to someone saying people should play in the unit tester more. In unit tester, 80 supply +1 lings beat 70 supply pure colossi. Obviously, it's not a real world scenario. But it's something that's definitely counter-intuitive. I'm glad you were already aware of that.
I'm glad you like Broodlords, but Idra, Morrow, and many other pros have come out and said Ultralisks are almost always better against P than BLs. If you don't like the composition and prefer Roach/BL, great for you. But don't knock it just because you don't like it.
they are there because they have siege range and mess with targeting ai and force the stalkers to focus on one group of units or the other, and the one they arent shooting at will kill them. its the same idea behind corrupter/ roach/hydra. either the collosus are going to get shot down, or the roach hydra will decimate his stalker number.
If you play around in unit tester, Roach/Hydra/Corruptor/Broodlord, in any ratio to eachother, get owned by normal gateway/Colossi or deathball play. I'm glad you can make it work, but every pro Zerg now don't use that composition anymore because they think it's bad. I don't use it anymore because I think it's bad. If you like it, great, some find it too micro intensive and hard. Personally, I don't like a composition that sucks. With stalker blink or VRs, BL's become useless, and roaches just melt away to colossi when they have enough.
Templars can't just pop out immediately, and while a non-newb protoss can easily FB all of them, that's the timing when you need to be making ultralisks and baneling rain and moving away from lings and infestors.
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i had a rebuttal typed out but nevermind.
ill sum it up thusly: not even close to all pros use ling bling infestor, especially in tournaments (hello ret). brood lords are only bad if you dont have 50 roaches sitting under them. and a maxed toss army will beat a max zerg army. thats why you attack when YOU max, because you will get there sooner then he does, plus reinforcing after the first battle is MUCH easier with larva effecient units like roaches as opposed to lings.
i bet if i played your style more i would find some things to like and vice versa. until then we'll just have to agree to disagree.
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^ What pro still goes roach/hydra/corruptor? No, not all go ling/bane/infestor, but just about every pro knows now that you either need infestors, or baneling rain in ZvP for your damage dealer, and that hydras and BL's aren't as good as Banelings/Infestor or Ultras.
We see a lot of variety right now, I'm not sure if it's a metagame thing or what. Sen really, really loves roaches, but in the games I see from him he could get away with what he's doing using lings for the most part (there are timing differences between the two, roaches being better early on, lings better later on generally).
A lot of pros still use roach/hydra, or mass roach, but they use it exactly as it always was: As an all-in timing attack that leaves you extremely far behind in tech and will get smashed once colossi count gets up, but is extremely deadly until then, and is a very easy way to simply seal shut a game in less than 20 minutes with the aggressive 'punch' these units have compared to lings and infestors and banelings, which are completely staved off by forcefields, wall-ins, or die en mass every battle, win or lose. If Protoss lets lings slip in the early game on a FFE, Zerg can just mass roach to end the game, whereas ling/infestor will be a 30+ minute game, always, no matter how far ahead you are.
You have to have a macro hatch with ling play, obviously. Yes, it's much harder, but it's not really 'easier' if you are just losing.
The problem with roach play is the Protoss can just mass a deathball and a-move on 2 bases, and roll you no matter how many bases you have. There's also a huge 'timing window' before your 6+ broodlords pop where your vulnerable to getting rolled. Also just because you have 10 BL's and the rest in roaches, doesn't mean you'll win the battle, as a Protoss army with about 40 less supply can still beat it with blink stalkers, immortals, FF, and high colossi count, which isn't hard for a midgame protoss army.
You have to significantly outplay the Protoss to make roach play work, or use it as roaches are intended, as a deadly timing attack before robo tech kicks in. If you don't do either of these, you'll get rolled. The advantages to roach play is huge power in the early game and an ability to kill Protoss if you wipe out his army, whereas ling/infestor or ling/bane play is very vulnerable and must rely on spines early game but has huge power late game, although you can roll the Protoss army many times but still you can't end the game due to cannons and wall-ins, which can be very frustrating.
But at least ling/bane or ling/infestor play will reward you for outplaying your opponent. With Roach play, it's not always the better player who wins, as we saw from lots of idra's games.
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roaches do fine as your damage dealer as long as they are attacking. with burrow move they can attack en masse. especially if you are ahead on upgrades. i start +1 attack before lair instead of ling speed, which also gives me an advantage if the toss does any kind of earlier timing pushes.
to deal with a FFE i take a third around 4 or 5 minutes and start making roaches around 8-9 minutes. you can make enough to beat any ground push he does. it MIGHT take reinforcements to clean up, but thats a staple of zerg play anyway. what if the toss pushes before over lord drop or infestors are out in your style. with good FF you just roll over and die. that is not a solid way to play.
i would absolutely agree that hydras are the worst. idra's roach hydra armies get rolled because he spends too much of his supply on hydras that do next to no damage in any fight with collosus or storm. i spend that extra gas on burrow move, upgrades, more roaches, and corrupters for collosus.
a protoss on 2 base that starts creeping towards max is more and more all in. and what dont you understand about FF and burrow move roaches. they are the best counter to forcefields in the early to mid game. if the toss makes immortals instead of collosus THEN you make hydras and you will easily roll him. you cant have sentries immortals and collosus on 2 base, at least not in enough numbers to make me worried.
a max zerg army with upgraded roaches and 10 corrupters CAN fight fairly evenly against sentry blink stalker collosus around 150 supply. you will have so many roaches he will be forced to retreat or lose his whole army, especially when you are making more as soon as one dies and rallying them to the fight. there is no way he can keep up with the unit production, ESPECIALLY on two base vs my 3+. lol.
i dont understand how you can say lings are better late game. collosus and storm shit on lings so hard (one hit kills which means they do no damage). as the game goes on and i get 3\3 roaches they do actually grow in power. you can eat storms (burrow again), and collosus do not one hit roaches, which means they get to do damage.
pretty much any game i win goes 25 - 30 minutes. I never do any kind of roach timing attacks. i have nightmares of forcefields. really this build came out of wanting to find something that did well against the two most obnoxious protoss tools: forcefield and collosus. roaches do not instantly die against collosus, and with burrow move they suddenly make the toss army MUCH weaker. all the resources he spent on sentries are now wasted. collosus are trivialized even more when you have 10 corrupters and can either outright kill them all, or force a retreat. its all about buying time for the greater spire to finish. once it does youre good.
"There's also a huge 'timing window' before your 6+ broodlords pop where your vulnerable to getting rolled. "
that is absolutely not true. you are maxed on roach\corrupter. i wouldnt want to fight a maxed toss army with mainly roaches, almost every game a toss will be pushing out around the time the corrupters are popping (its like clockwork), but his ARMY IS NOT MAXED YET, if it is then something went wrong earlier in the game or your macro is awful. if you are ahead on upgrades, have burrow move to get under forcefields, and have corrupters to chase collosus you win that battle. every time. stalkers are shockingly bad against roaches when they are behind on upgrades and outnumbered.
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Good combo imo!
I always preferred ultras and not broodlords, but it can really smash a deathball without problems!
Even a 3-base protoss isn't such a huge enemy (:
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You know what's really helped me recently.
Having your ground army and overlords on the same hotkey. I always assumed you needed 3 separate hotkeys, which often times led to infestors not FGing or overlords just being kited by blink stalkers if one of the control groups had a critical issue going on, like having to avoid a storm or flank for NPs on colossi that are in the back.
I don't remember who it was (It was ZvP close by air bottom side of Metal, P at 9 Z at 6, P opened stargate, Z made hydras, P got lots of sentries and Colossi, it goes back and forth with P winning, and then Z gets baneling rain and moves in with ling/hydra/baneling rain and rolls him). It's on the tip of my tongue. But anyways, he had everything on 1 control group, and that really surprised me!
But it turns out, it's much smoother. You have it all on 1 hotkey, command your ground army as necessary for surrounds, and it's very easy to ctrl+click the overlords and to start them dropping before they are in range so the motherload hits right on target.
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Ever since zergs figured out to use ling-infestor, PvZ has been infinitely more fun and challenging. Blink Stalker-HT-Archon-Chargelot vs. Infestor-Ling-Bling is infinity billion times more fun than Colossus-Void Ray-Stalker vs. Roach-Hydra-Corrupter
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I just have to bump this as a great thread. I used to constantly lose to colossus/stalker balls with any combination of roaches and hydralisk.
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I used to have the same problems getting a decent enough army to even match the deathball regardless of collosi count or VR count, with ling/infestor with upgrades and NP it's really a joke even if we trade i come out ahead and I'm usually ready to tech switch if needed or just remax. I love the versatility
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I've been having a lot of trouble with it recently due to the lack of 'punch' it has. Your lings and banelings almost always all die no matter how one sided the battle, so you can't just go kill him. And then a simple wall-in or cannons just completely shut down lings and infestors once a certain number is reached in a cute wall-off. Infested Terrans are the best way to 'bust' people with it.
I think what I may do now on is always have a roach warren and upgrading it as soon as I get ahead, and then go mass roach for the killing blow. A big problem is that infestors are your lifeblood, and losing your infestors is just as bad as Protoss losing their colossi, but the problem is with the short range of FG and low HP, against colossi based builds your GONNA lose infestors no matter what.
Very attriticious way to play. I think if Protoss identifies ling/infestor, they can just go for a split map scenario, divide half the map with cannons, and just win when your mined out. I guess you go Broodlords, obviously, but I feel broodlords just aren't that safe. Voidrays and blink stalkers will just melt them away, and while you can fungal, if they have colossi support, your simply going to lose too much for it to be cost efficient.
Kind of like BL/infestor in ZvT. It's a great combo, but it's nowhere near sustainable, and on equal bases it loses.
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Usually when it gets to the trade army point im already tech'd to hive and have ultra cavern down and ready to pump ultras for a ling/infestor/ultra remax and can usually just move in and bust the wall with ultras while sending in reinforcements during it all
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On July 18 2011 08:30 Belial88 wrote:
I've been having a lot of trouble with it recently due to the lack of 'punch' it has. Your lings and banelings almost always all die no matter how one sided the battle, so you can't just go kill him. And then a simple wall-in or cannons just completely shut down lings and infestors once a certain number is reached in a cute wall-off. Infested Terrans are the best way to 'bust' people with it.
vVvTitan kinda did this to me. He used blings to hurt my economy (double ling drop while pushing my natural with a lot of lings). He massed roaches and overran me once he found out that he did damage with the drops. You need an even economy to deal with massssssssssss roaches (they're cheap, so if your economy gets hurt, you won't have the higher tech units).
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What do you do against templar play?
they feedback infestors and they storm your lings.
EDIT: watched replay on mass voidray templar. There was not one storm, and maybe 2 feedbacks.
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Even though you're getting the upgrades for melee you can still make roaches. If you can scout them going archon, ht, zealot you should be able to adjust your army comp. Roaches will still benefit from the armor upgrades. The roaches can function as your "tanks" until you can get ultras. When going sling, bling, infestor you usually don't want to directly engage their army. By using backstabs/drops you can punish them for trying to move out.
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I have been practicing engaging similar food armies with my friend on unit tester and i cant seem to do any decent damage to a collosi sentry heavy deathball because he just kites my infestors with forcefields and runs from the overlords that are dropping.
can anyone help me with engaging a toss that is trying to kite away from your overlords trying to drop on his army?
i guess in an actual game he would be trying to push me so he wouldnt be kiting ( and if he was kiting then ultras would arive and he misses a decent timing) but im still interested in ways to engage offensivly.
by the way he is a diamond and i am plat but it was really really onesided the whole time
edit; sorry to clarify i was practicing without ultras
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Destiny has been taking games off the likes of Bomber and other korean GMsincluding Huk with infestor ling. I've noticed he goes 11 overlord 18 hatch though to keep him safer from 2rax and other early pressure. You're actually not that behind because queen kicks in about 15-16. Then you can drone like a mad or hold off early all ins.
It's gonna be fucking scary for P&T when Koreans "catch up". I know that's bad to say but only Coca uses infestor ling to any appreciable degree.
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On July 18 2011 15:13 tdt wrote:
It's gonna be fucking scary for P&T when Koreans "catch up". I know that's bad to say but only Coca uses infestor ling to any appreciable degree.
I have seen coca use infestor ling as well, but in his latest GSL games against Genius he doesn't use it. I think the reason is because the build is very counterable by protoss with proper positioning, where lings cant get any surface area, and composition. For a lot of protoss compositions, the only answer is to wait until ultra, and waiting is not always a good option. Also relying on counter attacks? Protoss doesn't always let that happen.
Also i don't know if this happens to other people, but a max infestor ling army gives me really bad lag... Too many ling.
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On May 17 2011 06:45 jacobmarlow wrote:
I am switching to zerg. lol
Attaboy!
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On July 18 2011 15:39 kushm4sta wrote:
Also i don't know if this happens to other people, but a max infestor ling army gives me really bad lag... Too many ling.
If you got a bad computer, mass speedlings is pretty hard to handle for your CPU/GPU. You can use lower settings or buy a new computer. You can also close useless programs while you are playing (msn/aim/irc/skype, web browsers ...).
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On July 07 2011 11:27 Trufflez wrote:
I thought I was alone in loving zvp :')
I have like an 80% win rate vs P.
I fuckin love infestors. The four festor kill squad then runs around burrowed harrassing with fungals and infested terrans is so fun and awesome :D
Then chuck a nydus into the mix and its so fun and effective
Note: it's the four-bro-festor-hit-squad  and you need someone to make the soundin the background XD
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What do you do against templar play?
they feedback infestors and they storm your lings.
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.
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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?
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I still use this; successfully.
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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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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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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On July 19 2011 04:04 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +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 ;/
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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^ Exactly. Considering how gas intensive infestor builds are (banelings, hive tech, mass infestors, burrow, upgrades), most Zerg are not afraid of throwing down 10+ spines as early as early-midgame. Zerg understand that massing spines gives you free rein to tech up and drone, so they won't spend any larva on units. It definitely slows down a third, in which case the more spines you can force the more ahead you will be by taking a super fast third as P, but the more spines Zerg needs means the more Protoss is investing in army and not expanding.
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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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On July 18 2011 19:22 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +What do you do against templar play?
they feedback infestors and they storm your lings. 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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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)
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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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On July 20 2011 00:05 Requizen wrote:Show nested quote +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".
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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On July 20 2011 00:05 Requizen wrote:Show nested quote +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".
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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zealot archon immortal + stalker sent support will hard counter this build
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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On July 20 2011 08:38 FindMuck wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2011 00:05 Requizen wrote: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". 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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^ Not really. Composition alone doesn't really beat it. I mean I don't really understand what your trying to say, can you give some elaboration on your league, games played, etc? Obviously you don't just win 100% against Zerg, maybe what works and what doesn't?
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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![[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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I rly like this style, You need to counter a lot with small unit groups and have good micro as you Neural parasite the only ling threat (colossous or archons) then the upgrades lings rape everything!
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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.
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On July 18 2011 19:05 Mackx wrote:Show nested quote +On July 07 2011 11:27 Trufflez wrote:
I thought I was alone in loving zvp :')
I have like an 80% win rate vs P.
I fuckin love infestors. The four festor kill squad then runs around burrowed harrassing with fungals and infested terrans is so fun and awesome :D
Then chuck a nydus into the mix and its so fun and effective
Note: it's the four-bro-festor-hit-squad and you need someone to make the soundin the background XD
And someone to do the baller dance around the extractor!
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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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Alright, I know this is a bit of an old thread, but I've been trying out this style and I've been dying to zealots early game. Would it be advisable to throw down a blind bling nest early game just to be prepared vs heavy zealots? I know it delays tech, but it may be better just to delay tech than to lose the game to like 6 gate heavy zealots or 4gate with lots of zealots.
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Throw up spines. Holding off 6 gates and 4 gates are easy with enough spines. In fact, once you do, it should be easygoing from then on and you should win if you properly macro.
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I find that if the toss goes early pressure, the best way to deal with it is to throw down some spines and then create a wall of lings so the zeals can never hit the spines. I usually open with an 11 overpool btw
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alright thanks guys, i would've posted this in zerg help me thread, but i had a strategy-specific question. i never really thought about the wall of lings cuz i always overdrone xD
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On May 18 2011 14:44 Belial88 wrote:
This is just getting crushed by mass zealot/archons... this sucks.
u NEED a bane nest with this build to deal with almost any number of zlots, and later a roach warren and speed ready for the first hint of archon. is possible to def this way.
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Ling/Infestor with NPed archons destroys zealot/archon and then just drop ITs around the archons so splash can't hit any or keep the archons NPed and kill them.
Chargelot/HT with 1 or 2 archons is much stronger.
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Alright, I know this is a bit of an old thread, but I've been trying out this style and I've been dying to zealots early game. Would it be advisable to throw down a blind bling nest early game just to be prepared vs heavy zealots? I know it delays tech, but it may be better just to delay tech than to lose the game to like 6 gate heavy zealots or 4gate with lots of zealots.
Depends how heavily they commit to zealots. If it's proxy 2 gate, you'll need roaches. If it's some type of 4 gate, you'll need roaches. Otherwise, speedlings help. If you didn't open speedlings though, you'll need roaches or spines.
if you've been dying to zealots early game though, it sounds like you are looking to far forward. Infestors will never come in time to deal with 1 base pushes, so you'll have to play in the moment, and realize they are doing a 1 base pressure, and use spines, speedlings, or roaches as necessary.
Can't really go any deeper than that without replays.
u NEED a bane nest with this build to deal with almost any number of zlots, and later a roach warren and speed ready for the first hint of archon. is possible to def this way.
Yes, it was a frustrated comment made when the patch occured and I was losing a lot to 4 gate into DT into archons and failed DT into mass archon stuff. Which is stilll gay, but holdable.
Ling/Infestor actually owns any sort of archon or HT focused play. Ling/Roach owns 1 base archon/zealot, and going into midgame you simply add in roaches to deal with archons or HT, but KEEP your infestors. I find it's better to stick with your plan than abandon the infestors.
P needs colossi to deal with infestor/ling based armies. Storm works great, but roaches prevent any sort of HT timing attacks (and can even backfire on a P), and allows Zerg the time to get BL, which rapes storm.
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Alright so I tried this out again and I got raped by feedback
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On July 23 2011 16:45 Belial88 wrote:
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.
I just take a third, get 66 drones (assuming forge FE), get ling/infestor/roach, go shut down protoss third, possibly take a fourth and get broodlords
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=230122
here the protoss got greedy and thought he could squeeze out a third early, but I had a larger army and smashed him, he'd have to get collossi out to take his third safely imo
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On September 06 2011 06:03 deathtrance wrote:Alright so I tried this out again and I got raped by feedback
That probably means you positioned your units poorly resulting in your Infestors being too far forward and within range. Getting off a decent FG or two with Speedlings to lock your opponent in place should prevent them from getting close enough to your Infestors if you play it right.
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On September 05 2011 08:27 deathtrance wrote:
Alright, I know this is a bit of an old thread, but I've been trying out this style and I've been dying to zealots early game. Would it be advisable to throw down a blind bling nest early game just to be prepared vs heavy zealots? I know it delays tech, but it may be better just to delay tech than to lose the game to like 6 gate heavy zealots or 4gate with lots of zealots.
First of all IMO you're wrong to see banelings as a good answer to zealot in general. You rarely get a good splash so despite the bonus damage zealots are really good against banelings (and excellent with charge). As a baneling lover in ZvP they're mostly for Stalkers/Sentries balls.
Second, I know it's not what the guide said but from playing a similar style, I'll say against Protoss you need to have a roach warren if you suspect any early push (and I really mean suspect, meaning you should always end up making it IMO). The tech itself is cheap, and will help you make the most of your larva when his army comes.
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I agree with MilesTeg, i love ultry/ling/infestor/baneling too, but for any early push or timing push before hive you should have some roaches.
Just having Melee and ranged units is soooo much better vs those force fields, and with neural parasite your safe from timing pushes with colossus as well till hive. Dont be greedy get that roach warren, you might not have to use it, but it might just save your life and for that, 150 minerals really isnt all that much.
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If we take a fast look at a BL army we can note a few things.
With a BLs army, Zergs is forced in to a "death-ball" style of play. You can look to Protoss in order to see how this army style works. Death-balls are very strong when kept balled up tight and used in a single game ending engagement. They are poor when split up and slow when remaxing. So we deal with death-balls by denying a decisive engagement with a mobile harassing unit mix. Or by the use of "counter units" to snipe off of key death-ball units over many small engagements. When we use either strategy it takes time for the damage to add up and set back the death-ball army . In a sense the "counter" to a death-ball is time.
With the above in mind we can say 2 things.
1, that a BL army is strong when used in a "kill sequence" role.
2, that a BL army is poor when used in a "standing army" role.
Now we can compare that to a Ultra unit mix.
First we should define that a Ultra unit mix is,
+ Show Spoiler +
Ultra army works well in small sizes. So doing drop play, or army splits are favorable to the Ultra army. It is effective at attacking in to a Protoss death ball, or a Arcon zealot/stalker army with the use of Overlord drop to surround. or mass banelings.
However it is not cost effective at trading armies when the Toss has buildings in the way or has the proper units, That being Immortals. Immortals are only effective in mid to large battles vs Ultralisks where they can focuses fire them down before they absorb too many colossi shots. immortals effectiveness can be side stepped for a short time by using aggressive drop harassment to pull apart the Protoss army.
With the above in mind we can say that,
1, Ultra armies are good when used in a "standing army" role
2, Ultra armies are poor when used in a "kill sequence" role
Conclusions,
The decision on which Hive tech to use should depend on how far ahead or behind you are in a match. If you feel like you can break a toss with one solid BL push and kill him with a followup ground army attack. Then BLs are grate.
If you feel like you need another base or are being harassed very aggressively then Ultra tech will keep you in the game until you pull ahead it can also pick apart a Toss with drops if they do not react to Ultra properly.
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I have been using this strategy in ZvP for a few months now. It works really well against the stalker colossus ball and having more NPs ready than the protoss has colossus is always good for a laugh.
I play basically a "no rush 15" style: I open with Ice Fisher and double evo, drone drone drone until I have a 3rd saturated, make a whole lot of speedling/infestor and start looking for a good place to engage. A lot of times I can trade armies and win with the speedling remax (especially once adrenal finishes), otherwise I start adding brood lords.
One friend who I practice with has figured this out and developed a style to counter it. He opens nexus first (since he knows I won't pressure), chronos upgrades on two forges, and moves out with chargelot/archon/feedback around the time I start my hive. He has a good econ that way and equal or better upgrades when we battle. I do my best to surround with speedlings, NP archons, and fungal the rest but so far the battles have been pretty one-sided.
I am really stubborn so I am trying to find a way to make this work even though he knows it's coming. Without a replay (sorry, forgot to have auto-save on, will post as soon as I have one) can anyone suggest ways to make the big battle go more in my favour? I am very much a macro-focused player so I try not to do "cute" stuff (baneling drops, 4 infestor hit squad, etc). I am expecting a lot of "don't be stubborn, make roaches" answers but I would like to beat this hard-counter if it's possible!
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On October 12 2011 08:42 tarpman wrote:
I am very much a macro-focused player so I try not to do "cute" stuff (baneling drops, 4 infestor hit squad, etc).
If you're good at macro, you should be able to harass while macro'ing fine.
Harassment is not 'cute', it's a good way to control the pace of the game.
Edit:
Will need some reps to be able to give specific info, but unless you're much better than your opponent, you DO need to do some adapting (building roaches?).
If you sit there building zerglings, and I sit here building archons, guess who'se gonna win?
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Thanks for the feedback.
On October 12 2011 08:50 Trusty wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 08:42 tarpman wrote:
I am very much a macro-focused player so I try not to do "cute" stuff (baneling drops, 4 infestor hit squad, etc). If you're good at macro, you should be able to harass while macro'ing fine.
Interesting viewpoint. My perspective is more like: If you're good at macro, you shouldn't need to harass. That does require significantly better macro than the opponent of course.
I have auto-save on now but all my games with my friend already disappeared from unsaved. I uploaded a replay of my usual style against a ladder player who went zealot/archon. As you can see I scouted the twilight council but I thought he was getting DTs. My control is always bad but in this battle I think it was a bit worse than usual. The fungals were OK but my zergling surround is usually a little better. I would be very interested in ways of not dying in this situation with these units.
The ladder replay.
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On October 12 2011 11:55 tarpman wrote:Thanks for the feedback. Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 08:50 Trusty wrote:On October 12 2011 08:42 tarpman wrote:
I am very much a macro-focused player so I try not to do "cute" stuff (baneling drops, 4 infestor hit squad, etc). If you're good at macro, you should be able to harass while macro'ing fine. Interesting viewpoint. My perspective is more like: If you're good at macro, you shouldn't need to harass. That does require significantly better macro than the opponent of course. The ladder replay.
So innately, you are relying on your opponent to be bad, or make mistakes.
Not a great strategy to have
A few of my students have had a similar mind-set to you, and what I've said to them is:
It's great to focus on macro from a training perspective, but what you need to realise is that macro is a tool, not a strategy.
If you're playing soccer, you can think of 'macro' as being able to run fast. Running faster than the other player is great, but when you come across a player who can ran AS fast as you, what other tools are you going to use?
I know it's possible to argue that macro can always be improved, but there will be an attainable realistic 'macro-ceiling'. When two players have reached this ceiling, one of them is going to need other tools (harassment, game control, micro, scouting.. whatever) to beat the other.
For 99% of players, this is not something to be concerned about. But for players wanting to be the best they can be, they need to be aware of the fact that macro is a tool, and that their are other tools that can help.
Don't neglect macro, but don't neglect other stuff because of your pre-disposition towards 'other stuff' being lame/easy/cute.
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On October 12 2011 11:55 tarpman wrote:Thanks for the feedback. Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 08:50 Trusty wrote:On October 12 2011 08:42 tarpman wrote:
I am very much a macro-focused player so I try not to do "cute" stuff (baneling drops, 4 infestor hit squad, etc). If you're good at macro, you should be able to harass while macro'ing fine. Interesting viewpoint. My perspective is more like: If you're good at macro, you shouldn't need to harass. That does require significantly better macro than the opponent of course. I have auto-save on now but all my games with my friend already disappeared from unsaved. I uploaded a replay of my usual style against a ladder player who went zealot/archon. As you can see I scouted the twilight council but I thought he was getting DTs. My control is always bad but in this battle I think it was a bit worse than usual. The fungals were OK but my zergling surround is usually a little better. I would be very interested in ways of not dying in this situation with these units. The ladder replay.
If you really don't want to go roaches (don't sure why since roach, infestor, baneling shits all over chargelot archon) Just add some banelings to clean up the zealots. Also the guy above is right. Harass isn't "cute". "cute" is immortal drops to snipe tech. In ZvT, if you go muta you need to harass or your going to get roflstomped. Harass is part of the game that distinguishes a good player and a great player.
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Call me old-fashioned but I still love roach-ling to spire-tech to hive spire-tech.
This style in the OP is really strong though and gaining use. I still feel it has the same vulnerabilities as not having mutas / air in ZvT. If this warp prism craze continues to catch on, this matchup is probably going to feel more like ZvT, and the weakness of this style will still exist.
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On October 12 2011 12:13 Trusty wrote:So innately, you are relying on your opponent to be bad, or make mistakes. Not a great strategy to have
Really? I think it's a pretty good strategy. Especially at diamond level there is no shortage of very bad players (I should know... I'm one of them!) and even into masters I expect that to be the case. Maybe at high master or low GM players start to be less bad but I will never have the time to get myself up there.
On October 12 2011 12:13 Trusty wrote:
Don't neglect macro, but don't neglect other stuff because of your pre-disposition towards 'other stuff' being lame/easy/cute.
Unfortunately I've been focusing on macro for so long that I wouldn't know where to start learning about other stuff... my APM are entirely consumed with spawn larva, make units, make upgrades, spread creep, spread overlords, repeat... if I try to do anything else things go very very badly
Anyway this is a bit off topic... I am happy to debate the relative merits of macro vs other styles but maybe a PM would be more appropriate. What I came in here to ask was whether there is a way for speedling/infestor to beat chargelot/archon/feedback in a fair fight at equal army values and upgrades. Is that possible or am I working at something that is hopeless?
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EPT
