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Moshikaro
135 Posts
This is the replay: http://www.sc-replay.com/replay/14-07-11/118898-Gen-VS-Peter.html I'd like some general advice of zvZ too, when to get roach warren, what to expect when I see him pulling guys of gas. I really am embarrased that I have to ask but it's one matchup that I lose all the time. | ||
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GloPikkle
United States197 Posts
Basically, you lost that game because you didn't scout a ling/bling push and didn't react to it properly. ZvZ is a very scouting-intensive match-up. You need to always be poking with lings, getting good OL spread, and checking their saturation. If you want to be aggressive, you want to cut drones while he's droning, mass up units and push. If you want to be defensive, you want to drone just past the point where he's cut drones and then build units. Same kind of logic applies for teching. If they're teching AND droning, that means they have no army and you can do a round or two of units and push and kill. If they're teching AND building army, they have no economy so if you hold off their incoming push, you should win the game given that your macros are even roughly. With ZvZ, you have to be able to scout the three main pressures: Econ, Army, and Tech and either match them (if you're confident that you're a better macro player) or do a timing push (if you're confident in your scouting). Early ZvZ is definitely the most volatile. If they're doing some iteration of gas first, and they're still mining gas after speed starts, then it's ling/bling. If they go pool then gas, most likely roach play. Hatch first, they're not attacking you for some time and trying to push into the mid-game. In general though, be consistent with scouting and react accordingly. | ||
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Overswarm
United States62 Posts
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onionchowder
United States137 Posts
From my experience, ZvZs either end up as crazy zling/bling fights or a drawn out roach/hydra/infestor mid-game. Personally, I 11 overpool and react according to what I see. If there's a FE with no gas, I'll go zling/bling and throw units at him until I kill his expansion or I lose. If I see some sort of aggressive early pool, I'll get defensive banelings (no zling speed) and transition into roaches. Otherwise, I'll get speedlings and then roaches when I can, take an expo when I can, and macro up for the mid-game. | ||
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Olsson
Sweden931 Posts
1. Earlygame: A - Aggressive. Often ling banelings you must react with either roaches or spinecrawlers. To scout this you need to make a zergling runby or just see if he is still mining gas after metabolic speed boost, but then its abit of a coinflip you dont know if he's going roach or baneling. B - Economical. This is the passive drone as much as I can style which means you must scout every 30 second because of the larvae mechanic. If he has more troops than you, you need to make it up to his army standard too. | ||
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Pillage
United States804 Posts
Scouting is very important in Z v Z unless you have good game sense and solid micro. 12 pools are pretty much the norm in z v z unless you have scouted him close positions air and have an overlord hovering over his main. Quick gas is also essential for zergling speed. Some scouting tips: - You always want to check their gas timing. - Gas before pool indicates some fast speedling play - Gas after pool indicates a more economical play initially, which will likely transition into roach play. - Spread overlords all over the map, so you can catch any zergling counter attacks. - Use overseers to contaminate hatcheries and scout for tech. - Have an overlord hiding behind each enemy mineral line to check for saturation. Low saturation means aggression is coming soon. - If you scout him expanding, don't panic and try some desperate attack if you're not prepared for it. Instead, drone your @ss off and expand shortly after. - Check to see if he is building spines, if he is, drone hard. It means he is going to be passive for awhile and you can sneak in a wave of drones to help your economy. Now back to the gas issue. After you see him get gas, scout again with a zergling. Is he still mining gas with relatively poor saturation? Get ready for banelings. You can combat banelings by either getting banelings of your own, where it then becomes a tedious micro war, or by building another queen to block off the ramp with your first one, while you wait for roaches. If you choose the second option, poop out a creep tumor with a queen and place a spine at the edge of your main cliff to cover the ramp. Once you have enough roaches to hold a decent amount of lings, expand. After you get the expo up it pretty much turns into a roach / infestor war. Here's my build for Z v Z. Perhaps you can practice it and it will help you. 9 overlord 13 gas 12 pool 16 overlord Queen @ 100% pool 2 sets of lings for scouting 22 overlord zergling speed @ 100 gas, return gas drones to minerals. From here, scout for gas mining / army comp / army size. I prefer not to scout with a drone initially, but that's entirely up to you. Also practice fighting against zerglings with drones. You want to surround the zerglings with your drones, and select any weak drones and send them back to mining. You may get to the point where you don't lose any drones to a 6 pool. Hope this helped! | ||
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KimJongChill
United States6429 Posts
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BrassMonkey
Canada84 Posts
Here is the link to the game game 3, won't play if you don't have an account  Of course all Nestea zvz you could find would be helpful, sc2 reps etc. gl! | ||
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thane
United States407 Posts
1.) pick up coin 2.)Pick heads or tails 3.)flip the coin 4.)hope it lands on the side you picked. No actually if your having trouble with lots of ling based crap I would go: 14 gas 14 pool Baneling nest with next 50 gas take 1 drone off gas drone up and start roach production This has a few advantages 1.)14/14 is ok econwise 2.) You can play defensively with the banes or offensively 3.)You have roaches at an ok time Keys: *Scouting once speed is up and having overlords EVERYWHERE *Making 16 lings at the start to force him to make units *I always make 2 banes and run them at his base. At worst he plays deffensive and you loose 2 banes. At best you kill a bunch of drones. Do not commit to the banes though unless you do a good amount of damage. *Always have 2 banes at your base to kill a bunch of lings if they run by you. | ||
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Arisen
United States2382 Posts
Here's how ZvZ Typically works... Opening This is why most people get frustrated with ZvZ. There are essentially two types of opening. Hatch first, and Gas/Pool. If you can hatch first, I would reccomend doing it. There are some maps and positions on some maps where you can't really go hatch first if your opponent wants to be aggressive, though. Fast hatch can further be devided into roach (most common with a defensible natural) and speedling. Speedling is basically used on maps where it's almost impossible to defend your natural and main at the same time (for instance, Tal'Darim Alter, it's pretty impossible to get a good block from your nat to main, so speedling runbys are very good). The more common opening is FE into roach, as it lets you block your ramp and use a very small amount of larvae making yourself safe from early aggression, allowing you to get your two base economy faster. The basic build is going to be 15 hatch 15 pool and going for a fast double queen 3 sets of zerglings when your pool finishes (in most cases) If you're going speedling, you want gas>pool, If you're going roach, get your roach warren ASAP, I always go for the double queen first, though, as it stops very early ling agression with your lings+queens Use your queens to block the ramp until you can defend it with either speedlings or roaches. Once you feel safe, you need to drone like a mad dog It's very important to note that going hatch first is very safe if played well. It's important to create walls to block your ramp and give you more menuverability when possible (evo's sometimes you can even use your roach warren at your nat to block). The only thing that does really well versus hatch first that isn't an early pool, is +1 speedling all ins, so if you sniff this one out, put down a few spines. When goign hatch first, scout on 9 to see if he's goign some sort of early pool. If he is, go 14/14, if you last scout him and you're not 100% confident in your ability to react to early lings with hatch first, I'd also open up 14/14 Always send one of your innital lings into his base ASAP to see his tech, if he's going for an evo, spine up, if he's going fast lair, respond in kind, if he's massing units...you know. speedling openings is pretty much the only other way to open. 14 gas/14 pool, or some variation on gas/pool. If you're playing against a speedling opening, you need to scout weather he's mined past 100 gas, because if he is, he's probably going for baneling play. If you're going for speedling yourself, that means you need to invest in banelings, and if you're going roach, you're way ahead, just make sure you can defend your ramp/natural. If playing speedling versus another speedling player, always know it's VERY hard to defend baneling play as a speedling player, so if you think he's goign banes, it's best to invest in banes yourself. When playing this style, it's important to know that you want map control. If he's opening roaches, or even speedlings, you need to be active with your lings to scout and force him to make units. You're using this feigned aggression to drone yourself. Midgame The midgame in zvz is Roach/Infestor, with pretty much no deviation. Some people say mutas might make a comeback, but I'd stick with Roach for now if I were you. Your innitial goal in midgame is to get a two base economy. IMO the best way to accomplish your next goal (a third and some drones to support it and get your infestors going) is to do some roach pressure after securing your two base economy. For Me, I go up to 3 gas when starting lair (around 2 base saturation), throw down an evo, and start pumping roaches, making drones with leftover minerals. I do a timing with +1 roaches with speed and burrow that is going to A) Kill him if he's being greedy, or more likely B) Force him to match your roach numbers, and perhaps doing a bit of damage While you're doing this attack you're expanding, powering drones, and starting your infestor tech. Endgame(No, not the Rise Against album) The goal in end game ZvZ is either A) Have more drones and trade armies more effectively, securing you an advantage, or B) Have less drones and more units, being able to more effectively multi prong attack and win big engagements. Use fungal growth when roaches are clumped up and try be active around the map. If you think you can do it, when a big engagement is about to start, send a few roaches to his third's mineral line, and you'd be amazed at how many drones they're goign to kill if he has bad multitask, or if he has good multitasking, it's going to detract from his big army. Other Tips Don't go muta. They may make a comeback, but until someone figures out how to make them a standard play, a lot of the wins you're going to get are going to be gimmicky. Infestor retention if everything. Don't lose your infestors, or a game will quickly snowball on you You don't have to commit when you have speed roaches. If his army is too big, pull back OVERLORDS. Spread them. Zergs love to split up armies, don't be in the dark until there are 6 roaches in your thirds mineral lines. This will alert you to early as well as late game agression. Try to get an overlord behind his main and natural mineral line early, as this will tell you if he's powering drones or units. If he's making units, stay a few drones ahead and just match unit numbers minus a few, using home field advantage. DRONES: The whole premise behind ZvZ is you're trying to get as many drones as possible as fast as possible. If he's not droning, he's making units, and you need to respond in kind. If he's making drones and you're making units, you need to pressure him with those units or you're behind. SPEED: Zerg is fast. Don't commit to stupid attacks If you have any more questions, I'll be happy to help. GL, HF ^^ | ||
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zylog
Canada943 Posts
14 gas 14 pool drone to 15 15 overlord metabolic boost, queen and 2 pairs of lings when the spawning pool finishes That's a pretty standard opening, it can be done in ZvP and ZvT as well. However, in those matchups you would typically go back to making drones after the first 2-4 lings. However, let's consider what happens if one guy continues to make lings while the other one switches to drones: 15 drones, 4 lings vs 15 drones 4 lings 15 drones 6 lings vs 16 drones 4 lings 15 drones 8 lings vs 17 drones 4 lings ... 15 drones 14 lings vs 20 drones 4 lings etc. Both players should be able to support constant ling production, so the extra income from more drones doesn't impact army size until that player gets another hatchery. In the meantime, if the lings fight he's forced to pull back because his lings are more likely to get a poorer surround due to inferior numbers. If he pulls back he doesn't know what his opponent is doing in his base (could be still making lings, or maybe catching up in drones. The one who made the units can run in, threaten his opponent and see what is going on there, so he can respond to what he sees. So, if your opponent makes 1-2 drones more than you, he might get a slight economic edge over you at the expense of some map control. If he makes 5 more drones than you, you can run in and do damage to equalize things or even come out ahead. This is how I see early game ZvZ - constantly building units and threatening your opponent, punishing him if he plays too greedily. From that basis, you can figure out how to play a macro game. If the map has a narrow ramp relatively close to the natural, you can maybe do a hatch first. You'll be late to get lings out, so your hatchery might get attacked for a bit, but it is possible to fend off those initial lings once yours are out. From there, you both play it out the same way, you'll have the edge from getting that hatch first build down. Roaches can be very good vs lings if positioned well. 1 base roach will shut down ling/bling really well, but a good player can exploit your immobility and lack of map control to get an economic lead over you, leaving you behind in the midgame. I only like 1 base roach builds when I get close positions. If you fast expand, you want to make lings early on to defend vs your opponent's lings, but also transition to roaches so you don't die vs banelings (or make banelings yourself if you want to counter). Little advantages can make a difference in a mirror matchup like ZvZ. Let's say you made lings early, your opponent is then playing defensive using roaches and can't scout you. So, you take that time to make a couple drones, get your +1 attack, then start making roaches. Let's say that this gives you +1 15 seconds before your opponent. If you attack your opponent right when the upgrade finishes, you get a period of bonus damage vs him. That extra damage might lead to a few extra units killed, so after those 15 seconds are up, you'll have an army advantage. As a result, you end up winning the fight. If you can find these ways to gain little edges that will tip things in your favour, you should have an advantage over players who don't understand the timings. | ||
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alonth
Israel36 Posts
gas then pool means speedling with or without banelings, pool then gas usualy means 1 base roach or some time slowlings with banes. u got to keep scouting to see what hes doing(poke in with overlord, lings or idk) cus u can see stuff like expansion timing or evo chamber or fast lair, and zvz is all having a build that can react to many diffrent things. (if i forgot any scouting indications add them pls) | ||
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Kornholi0
Canada634 Posts
Basically what it means is, if you are not correct in how you start off the game/how you react to something you see, you auto-lose. Such as rushing for roaches if your opponent goes mass ling because you thought he was going banelings. Or such as rushing for baneling because your opponent is going mass ling when in fact they go banelings themselves or roaches. Or going drones because you wanted an econimcal game (what were you thinking?) Basically once you get through all the bull that is Pre 10:00 ZvZ you can get to the much more exciting turtle-macro game that is worse than TvT. Basically both players sit on 2-3 bases (btw whoever takes their 3rd first generally either has a bigger army = win or has to take a risk = lose). At least in TvT both players can take a decent amount of bases and it becomes a mexican standoff and that it is all about being 1-step ahead of your opponent, in ZvZ its just a brawl. You hurl units at each other until the other person runs out of resources, if you wait too long one player gets broodlords before the other (or ultralisks if they are bad) and you lose, if you attack too often they get the defenders advantage and you lose, if you trade armies but they keep tech units you lose and if you don't tech and they tech you lose. Again, the most fun match up ever period -.-. | ||
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Marsupian
Netherlands455 Posts
I like to switch to mutas if I'm really far behind in a ZvZ. I just drop down a ton of spines and make a big ball of mutas and hope my opponent doesn't recognize it. It usually doesn't work but it has gotten me a few wins from an unwinnable situation. | ||
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Arisen
United States2382 Posts
On July 15 2011 19:43 Kornholi0 wrote: Tell someone you know to put a quarter in their hands without you seeing, tell them to open their left hand. If the quarter is in their right hand, that is ZvZ. Basically what it means is, if you are not correct in how you start off the game/how you react to something you see, you auto-lose. Such as rushing for roaches if your opponent goes mass ling because you thought he was going banelings. Or such as rushing for baneling because your opponent is going mass ling when in fact they go banelings themselves or roaches. Or going drones because you wanted an econimcal game (what were you thinking?) Basically once you get through all the bull that is Pre 10:00 ZvZ you can get to the much more exciting turtle-macro game that is worse than TvT. Basically both players sit on 2-3 bases (btw whoever takes their 3rd first generally either has a bigger army = win or has to take a risk = lose). At least in TvT both players can take a decent amount of bases and it becomes a mexican standoff and that it is all about being 1-step ahead of your opponent, in ZvZ its just a brawl. You hurl units at each other until the other person runs out of resources, if you wait too long one player gets broodlords before the other (or ultralisks if they are bad) and you lose, if you attack too often they get the defenders advantage and you lose, if you trade armies but they keep tech units you lose and if you don't tech and they tech you lose. Again, the most fun match up ever period -.-. Come on, this is just bad advice. ZvZ isn't rock paper scissors, or a coin flip, or any of that nonsense. You can make up for a build order disadvantage or else it would be impossible to keep a winning record in ZvZ, and players like Nestea and IdrA disprove that handily. Look, yes, a +1 ling all in build can beat a roach build, but a roach build can smash the shit out of it too. It all comes down to good scouting and good build responses. a roach build can kill any build if played properly. So can a speedling opening, so can a baneling opening. It's the player, not the build. Prepare and it will pay you dividends TL:DR: ZvZ is NOT a coinflip. Don't treat it as such. | ||
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Arisen
United States2382 Posts
On July 15 2011 20:25 Marsupian wrote: Although mutas might be gimmicky you still have to watch out for them. If you are playing passive he might be massing up mutas resulting in an instant GG. If you see your opponent putting down a LOT of spinecrawlers that's usually a sign he is going mutas (or some other tech). I like to switch to mutas if I'm really far behind in a ZvZ. I just drop down a ton of spines and make a big ball of mutas and hope my opponent doesn't recognize it. It usually doesn't work but it has gotten me a few wins from an unwinnable situation. I said don't go mutas, not that mutas don't exist. If they don't prepare at all, yes, you win. If they prepare in ANY way, you lose. That's a bad build | ||
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Gobbles
Canada91 Posts
Edit: also, you don't need a giant flock with your whole strat being based on muta's, about 8 is fine. If they don't get an opportunity to do the damage predicted (drone kills), then run around popping overlords and killing extractors, you now have map control. Take a third, and mass roach w/ double upgrades pumping. | ||
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Requizen
United States33802 Posts
As it moves into midgame, the only real "standard" force is Roach/Infestor. Mutas are used for surprise, then stop being very useful. Hydras can add into a Roach force for extra damage, but don't perform well vs Infestors. So you'll see a lot of Roach/Infestor(/maybe Hydra) balls just run into each other for most of the midgame. If the game makes it to endgame (unlikely), Ultras with upgrades do pretty well, I guess. I haven't seen too many ZvZs last. There's a reason the other races wall off against Zerg, it's because early Ling/Bling/Roach attacks can be deadly without a layer of protection against the sheer numbers Zerg can put out. Without that wall (i.e. ZvZ), early pressure builds from Zerg are crazy. | ||
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PeaNuT_T
Sweden326 Posts
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Insomni7
667 Posts
My normal compositional progression is as follows. It works really well for me in almost every situation speedling->roach+speedling->roach->roach+infestor I will on most maps open gas pool. This is mostly for the scouting power it offers you but it also allows you to build a bunch of units quickly to try to kill a greedy expansion. From there, there are basic reactions I have. When I see banelings I throw down the roach warren and resume mining gas. If i see really fast roaches, I will just try to kill him with speedlings*. If i see a mass ling play, I may delay my expansion and try to set a roach block on the ramp. Also remember to try to build drones whenever you feel safe based on scouting and your tech. For example, if he just ran in with banelings, saw your roaches, and fled, you're probably going to be quite safe for a while. most zvzs if played safely really come down to who has the better income and production. *It is important to note that roaches in small numbers actually provide a lot of surface area for small packs of lings, but roaches in large numbers provide very little surface area for lings. Don't get caught with too many lings when he attacks with a large roach ball. | ||
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