On September 25 2011 09:07 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Now can you explain what happens if he gets both infestors and mutas, or starts to sit 1 infestor at each of his bases like Leenock does?
On September 24 2011 23:27 elemental523 wrote: It's stupid how terran wins with three units. Good thing GOOD zerg players can just get queens and early upgraded ling/bling to counter this entire build. Burrow and hooks will also destroy you. Then they can tech to mutas or festors. Festors you can go Destiny style hit squad drops and and maybe a fungal here and there and marines will just turn to goo.
It's stupid how people think that 3 unit compositions aren't diverse.
Let's see, it's stupid how zerg can just go muta ling bling. Hey that's 3 units right there. ??? Or according to what you said, zerg can mass 2 units (ling bling) and kill terran, who uses three units.
???
Not to mention that the races are different, so you can't compare them like that. Unlike Protoss, Terran's tech tree is designed to be more split up, so that you can (though not to as much extent as you could in BW) go pure bio, go pure mech, etc. Now with Protoss obviously you cannot go pure Robotics units or pure Stargate units, nor even mainly. But with Terran you can.
it's how the races are made, stop qq'ing
Even if you meant to type 2 units, since this guide is marine/medivac, it's still illogical.
I think the correct response to a zerg that hunkers down with infestors is to take bases and then swap into tanks. In fact, its probably a good idea to go mass marine opening so you can expand and then throw down like 6 fact and turtle into a massive marine/tank army.
On September 25 2011 09:07 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Now can you explain what happens if he gets both infestors and mutas, or starts to sit 1 infestor at each of his bases like Leenock does?
On September 24 2011 23:27 elemental523 wrote: It's stupid how terran wins with three units. Good thing GOOD zerg players can just get queens and early upgraded ling/bling to counter this entire build. Burrow and hooks will also destroy you. Then they can tech to mutas or festors. Festors you can go Destiny style hit squad drops and and maybe a fungal here and there and marines will just turn to goo.
It's stupid how people think that 3 unit compositions aren't diverse.
Let's see, it's stupid how zerg can just go muta ling bling. Hey that's 3 units right there. ??? Or according to what you said, zerg can mass 2 units (ling bling) and kill terran, who uses three units.
???
Not to mention that the races are different, so you can't compare them like that. Unlike Protoss, Terran's tech tree is designed to be more split up, so that you can (though not to as much extent as you could in BW) go pure bio, go pure mech, etc. Now with Protoss obviously you cannot go pure Robotics units or pure Stargate units, nor even mainly. But with Terran you can.
it's how the races are made, stop qq'ing
Even if you meant to type 2 units, since this guide is marine/medivac, it's still illogical.
I think the correct response to a zerg that hunkers down with infestors is to take bases and then swap into tanks. In fact, its probably a good idea to go mass marine opening so you can expand and then throw down like 6 fact and turtle into a massive marine/tank army.
Ok thanks. So basically the build/style still works, but eventually you need to transition out of it eh?
It depends on how well just shoving marines down his throat is working. However, you're going to have to figure out how to beat a zerg that entrenches with defilers and the ez solution to that is taking expo and getting tanks/Thors (due to NP nerf) before he gets enough infestors to support BLs/Ultras or switch to muta.
.. Unless you want to figure out how to put down 2 extra ports to make banshees or something so you can have a Sair/Reaver-like flying ball of pwn :p.
Actually, I'm kinda curious, how many gas geysers do you need to support mass marine/medivac with upgrades? 3?
If that's the case that speeds up your expand ability a fair amount.
Strategies like this are the reason I stopped playing zerg . You have to be an expert in every play style or you just lose to something you haven't seen before. No offense to the OP, you are a great player, but this is gimmicky as shit. It requires a very different response from zerg then marine tank though, which is probably why it works so often. If I had to guess,. playing around with it, the best way to beat it would be to sit on two bases for a sec and go roach/ling/bling, punish terran if they get greedy with a third, and then take a lot of bases once you have the mutas to cover drops. Roach/ling/bling/muta/infestor just has every tool imaginable to stop this, so I can't imagine this would carry well at all into the late game.
This is all per Halby, the master's league guys discussed before, but if they make Mutas it's pretty much an auto-win. Maybe if they are really REALLY patient with their Mutas they can be helpful, but get caught just once with them out of position vs. Stimmed 3/3 Marines and they turn into bloody fireworks. In fact, Halby does lots of small "annoyance" drops before he's really trying to push out just to make them waste money on Mutas.
He tries to pick a fight off creep (wants Zergie to see him going for a 15 minute 3rd) and then plans to lose the first couple fights. But with constant, constant reinforcement over the course of a few minutes, your lings/roaches/whatever are dead and your Infestors are low/out of energy. Rally outside of their base and keep fighting a small battle CONTINUOUSLY so they are forced to create nothing but army and defend that spot to survive. The whole goal is to Larva-lock the zerg, and with decent splits and small fights bling/infestor just aren't cost-effective, especially after the FG nerf. It's not hard for even a gold scrub like me to split 10-15 marines at a time as they join the fight.
If they commit with a big base attack, just base trade, as 3/3 Marines will waste multiple Zerg bases far faster than Zerg can kill yours.
It's not a "deathball" strategy, it's making that "units lost" figure creep higher and higher for Zerg from 15 minutes on until they collapse under the weight of it. Pure attrition.
Little extras he throws in to make it more effective.
One Starport making Banshees to go Infestor hunting. The more infestors the more Banshees. They do a great job at it and you aren't spending gas on much else besides Medivacs. A couple Banshees is a terrible trade for Infestor energy. If they make anti-air to kill them it's just more easy meat for your marines.
He's been opening with some hellion and Marauder pressure (poking off creep & killing tumors), which keeps Zerg defensive, delays blings, and encourages fast Mutas. All solid-gold responses for mass upgraded Marines. If they barely defend, he all-ins with SCVs.
Patrol and carpet-bomb spreads everywhere. Not hard to do quickly and very effective.
Again, I am just passing on what he talks about, but it works almost every single time for me in Gold (only really lose when the build comes off too slow and they go Ultra) and Halby just kills with it in Masters. Give it a chance and watch HalbyStarcraft, it's his highest win % by far and he's beaten #1 ranked Master Zergs.
Watched those replays, and WOW. Many times I keep thinking you're just going to lose and there's no way you can break him, but then there'll be a single engagement when his Infestors are out of energy or he didn't morph any banelings in time and he just takes so much damage while your momentum has been constantly building all game long and he folds.
When I used to play Zerg in Master league, I had this strat used on me three times: first time I was going Infestor/Ling into Ultra and got crushed by drop play. Second time, I was diligent about static defense with the same strat, still lost. Third time I went Ling/Bling/Muta and thought I was safe, but his attacks were non-stop and just kept getting stronger, I could not expand, couldn't keep my Muta count very high, and couldn't keep up with upgrades so I couldn't engage his army without Banelings so I eventually just crumbled.
Now that I play Terran in Diamond, I can't wait to try this out. Will post feedback here when possible.
Okay, tried the build multiple times yesterday on ladder. It's very interesting because im finding after any 1 or 2 rax FE almost every Zerg goes for an economic baneling bust, but when they don't I can often catch them playing greedy.
Also, im finding a lot of success doing mass double-drop play against zergs who skip mutas. Infestors or roach/baneling compositions simply can't stop drops from doing damage effectively. Even infestor broodlord isn't exceptionally tough to deal with if you suicide groups of marines in.
I think the only way to beat this style is to be able to not only crush an attack completely with muta/ling/bling, but to counter attack and do damage in return to prevent the terran from being able to support their marine production.
I like the look of this. I find tanks terribly tedious and boring. I'm only bronze but I'd imagine the pressure from the constant drops and reinforcements will be too much for most zergs around my level.
On September 29 2011 02:26 crocodile wrote: Okay, tried the build multiple times yesterday on ladder. It's very interesting because im finding after any 1 or 2 rax FE almost every Zerg goes for an economic baneling bust, but when they don't I can often catch them playing greedy.
Also, im finding a lot of success doing mass double-drop play against zergs who skip mutas. Infestors or roach/baneling compositions simply can't stop drops from doing damage effectively. Even infestor broodlord isn't exceptionally tough to deal with if you suicide groups of marines in.
I think the only way to beat this style is to be able to not only crush an attack completely with muta/ling/bling, but to counter attack and do damage in return to prevent the terran from being able to support their marine production.
Get siege and 2 tanks from your factory and you will be able to hold it if it is a problem. What sort of sim city do you do to hold with just marines?
This kind of build is easy for me to counter, I'm usually well defended against drops because of my overlord placement covers all the areas I would normally see drops coming in from. Or if I was to forget which I really normally will or if I'm scared terran kills them off before dropping then I'll just placed a small force of lings near the edge of my base to intercept drops coming in then I'll have the lings follow the dropships to kill marines as they drop, easy enough. If marines want to charge my front door, I'll have plenty of banelings lying in wait. I've become so annoyed with drops and mass marines killing me in the lower leagues that before promoting to silver and gold, I made sure to step up my game to deal with that kind of play with help from my gold and platinum level terran friends.
It sounds like it could be a good build, but I think the marine/tank build trumps over only marines if you're patient and advance your tanks slowly across the map with thor and marine support. But I am by no means a diamond, master, or grandmaster so I can't really go and say "oh this build will never in a million years kill me" it could, but at the gold level I'm in, it works only 3/10 games they try any huge drop play.
Nice build. But what do you do vs 3/3 ling ultra? Infestors at every base will kill the drops and stall till ultra tech. Just tried this vs HayprO and didn't really go well.
I have also developed basically the same startegy also from Hansk's opening, completely independently!
-Key points are:
-Never let your drops die to ling/bling, just pikc up fly away and then go back a bit later preferably when your second drop hits the third (or send first drop to 3rd and have 2nd drop hit main again) - even better split up the first drop to go to the 3rd and then send one medivac back to the natural while your second drop team is hitting the main....most zerg crumble under this sort of thing immediately. -this part is SO important if you let your drops die needlessly the strat becomes SO MUCH WEAKER - this matters more then anything else except maybe pumping constant marines.
-Make sure after your medivacs and upgrades are running you go up to 7+ rax on 2 base and 10+ on 3base
-Take your 3rd quickly, you need more marines!
-make sure you get an armory so you can start 2/2 asap!
- you can delay the gas on your second for a bit, but once you have 7rax up you need to get those gas so that you can maintain upgrades and mass reactor medivacs.
-its still a good idea to mix some tanks in since you have a factory and they are good for the on the ground pushes against banelings - you can support a factor reactor starport and upgrades off 4 gas. As long as you cut a few tanks/medivacs here and there
On October 08 2011 01:57 Gyro_SC2 wrote: I know the best counter to this strategy! Mass zergling!!!
Zergling are better to kill mass marine than bandeling in the first 12 minutes.
The thing is, even if you get upgraded lings, you have to be very good at knowing how many lings u need to handle each threat, like if you send 20lings after a 2 medivac drop, say goodbye to your lings and meanwhile the terran lost nothing. So what I am saying is that it is difficult to split your lings to defend 2/3 places and have each split be of large enough size to defend properly and each time you miscalc u lose all your lings whereas terran can just pick up and leave where the big group of lings is esp if you don't have banelings.
On October 08 2011 01:57 Gyro_SC2 wrote: I know the best counter to this strategy! Mass zergling!!!
Zergling are better to kill mass marine than bandeling in the first 12 minutes.
Uh..... Not necessarily my friend
If the marine count is small enough that there isn't an actual ball, then yes, zerglings counter marines. Even then, you need at least three times as many speedlings as marines. If he has stim and shield, then it's more like 4 or 5 times the count. When a ball starts to form, then yes, you need blings. But you'll still need a lot of slings to stop kiting and marine splits.
You also need to learn how to recognize a troll @FinestHour
After many off account ladder games I still think that eventually we have to throw in sometihng on the ground that either tanks for the marines (marauders) or deals aoe damage (tanks). Going ravens against mass ling bling style is fucking suicide X_X. (HSM ling, see it run into your army. HSM explode on your army.)
EPT
. You have to be an expert in every play style or you just lose to something you haven't seen before. No offense to the OP, you are a great player, but this is gimmicky as shit. It requires a very different response from zerg then marine tank though, which is probably why it works so often. If I had to guess,. playing around with it, the best way to beat it would be to sit on two bases for a sec and go roach/ling/bling, punish terran if they get greedy with a third, and then take a lot of bases once you have the mutas to cover drops. Roach/ling/bling/muta/infestor just has every tool imaginable to stop this, so I can't imagine this would carry well at all into the late game. 
