Searched a bit around the forum and didn't find anything about this build. Was watching ForGG's stream earlier and noticed that he was practicing this build apparently as he opened the same way every game vs Z unless he was 2 rax/bunkering.
Build goes something along the lines of hellion expand/harass standard etc etc into 2+ cloak banshee. If that doesn't do the trick, follow up with blue flame hellions + 4 thors + scv pull all in.
Seen zerg after zerg fall to this strategy, the only time I've seen it fail so far was when oGsCezanne (a teammate) blind countered with spore crawlers and mass queens when all he had scouted were hellions.
*Edit That was dumb of me, forgot to post my question. The question is how do you stop this as zerg (leaving out blind countering and luck)? Being a relatively new starcraft player myself, this build looked scary good. Drones and lings die to the hellions, queens to the cloak banshees, and muta's if they even get out in time to the thors.
It was really cool because he sends in 4 hellions so you think it's reactor hellion, and then has 2 banshees with cloak come in. You have to scout that second gas either with an overlord or drone, and realize that if he's taking 2 gas that early it's a tech build. So he's either 1/1/1'ing you or doing some kind of dumb siege expand (which no one should do TvZ because it isn't economical).
Basically you need to see it, and drop an evo chamber OR get a quick lair (I would go with Evo). Wall off your natural to block the hellions (So use the evo + queen + spines). I would recommend getting queens to deal with the banshees and hellions to hold off the 1/1/1 aggression. He expands immediately behind this from what I've seen, but if he does that all-in, you need to scout it and go lingbling or some roach composition afaik. I can't exactly comment because I didn't see the zergs hold it off (They just left immediately lol)
ForGG was only playing on masters, so you won't find any tip-top level decision making there. Except for ZvZs, zergs have begun going for faster evo chambers and lair tech as of late, to prevent banshees and DTs. to be perfectly honest, ForGG looked like he was using a delayed 2port banshee build, which probably caught a lot of the zergs offguard because of the expo. Sending in an overlord would be killer, as im pretty sure ForGG only had 2-3 marines the entire game, so no way to deny the scout.
On December 09 2011 14:28 aviator116 wrote: ForGG was only playing on masters, so you won't find any tip-top level decision making there. Except for ZvZs, zergs have begun going for faster evo chambers and lair tech as of late, to prevent banshees and DTs. to be perfectly honest, ForGG looked like he was using a delayed 2port banshee build
1) He played and won IdrA (and, I guess, several other GM Zergs) with that strategy, so it may work beyond "average Master level". 2) It's not 2-port banshee, it's 2 cloaked Banshees out of one Starport after going the regular Reactor Hellion.
On December 09 2011 14:28 aviator116 wrote: ForGG was only playing on masters, so you won't find any tip-top level decision making there. Except for ZvZs, zergs have begun going for faster evo chambers and lair tech as of late, to prevent banshees and DTs. to be perfectly honest, ForGG looked like he was using a delayed 2port banshee build, which probably caught a lot of the zergs offguard because of the expo. Sending in an overlord would be killer, as im pretty sure ForGG only had 2-3 marines the entire game, so no way to deny the scout.
Actually he's rank 1 masters routinely faced against GMs, in fact he's still streaming and he's on a rampage current at 10-1 or something on the Korean ladder. 30 minutes ago he was matched up with oGs.TOP and curb stomped him making him look like a diamond scrub.
As for the actual question, I've been watching his stream too and I think blind countering it is the only option really, given no sneaky lings/overlords gets into the T base because at those stages of the game, they shouldn't be able to. Another option would be some sort of super fast ling/bling bust aimed at busting down the terran wall when the hellion numbers are low, overwhelming hellions with slings and killing marines/scvs with blings.
Which makes me to consider the possibility that TvZ might become heavily T favored in the very near future once other top Terran catch up in executing the build and perhaps even making scarier variations. It's just not fair for the zerg player to be totally blind and forced to make the guess between "is my T opponent making banshees after hellions? Or is he making an expanding command center in base?", where the effect of guessing wrong is dying to banshees or slipping seriously behind economically from making evo + spores, as opposed to the effect of guessing right is merely being on equal footing with the opponent. That seems like a fundamental design flaw to me.
On December 09 2011 14:28 aviator116 wrote: ForGG was only playing on masters, so you won't find any tip-top level decision making there. Except for ZvZs, zergs have begun going for faster evo chambers and lair tech as of late, to prevent banshees and DTs. to be perfectly honest, ForGG looked like he was using a delayed 2port banshee build
1) He played and won IdrA (and, I guess, several other GM Zergs) with that strategy, so it may work beyond "average Master level". 2) It's not 2-port banshee, it's 2 cloaked Banshees out of one Starport after going the regular Reactor Hellion.
my bad, i didn't see his ranking, just the master symbol, and i also didn't see exactly how many starports he did, just thought one game he was producing 2 at a time.
On December 09 2011 14:41 HardMacro wrote: Which makes me to consider the possibility that TvZ might become heavily T favored in the very near future once other top Terran catch up in executing the build and perhaps even making scarier variations. It's just not fair for the zerg player to be totally blind and forced to make the guess between "is my T opponent making banshees after hellions? Or is he making an expanding command center in base?", where the effect of guessing wrong is dying to banshees or slipping seriously behind economically from making evo + spores, as opposed to the effect of guessing right is merely being on equal footing with the opponent. That seems like a fundamental design flaw to me.
Or you could just build an early and well-placed Evolution Chamber to defend against Hellions raids, and get a third Queen for extra safety and creep spread (and the possibility to wall off). There you go, for 225 mineral which won't even be wasted if he does not go for Banshee play, you will be able to resist those kinds of follow-ups.
Which makes me to consider the possibility that TvZ might become heavily T favored in the very near future once other top Terran catch up in executing the build and perhaps even making scarier variations. It's just not fair for the zerg player to be totally blind and forced to make the guess between "is my T opponent making banshees after hellions? Or is he making an expanding command center in base?", where the effect of guessing wrong is dying to banshees or slipping seriously behind economically from making evo + spores, as opposed to the effect of guessing right is merely being on equal footing with the opponent. That seems like a fundamental design flaw to me.
QQ is for the bnet forums. just think about this: if youre a terran, and use this strat, you ALWAYS run the risk of being roach-rushed or baneling busted, because contrary to popular belief, banshees and hellions cant kill roaches by themselves. it's just not fair for the terran player to be totally blind and forced to make the guess between "is my Z opponent making roaches/banelings after zerglings? or is he tech-switching/expanding?" where the effect of guessing wrong is dying to roach/bling bust or slipping seriously behind economically or techwise from making extra bunkers and cutting into scvs production, as oppposed to the effect of guessing right is merely being on equal footing with the opponent. that seems like a fundanmental design flaw to me.
On December 09 2011 14:49 TheDwf wrote: Or you could just build an early and well-placed Evolution Chamber to defend against Hellions raids, and get a third Queen for extra safety and creep spread (and the possibility to wall off). There you go, for 225 mineral which won't even be wasted if he does not go for Banshee play, you will be able to resist those kinds of follow-ups.
The problem I see here is the spores will have to be up almost preemptively for the zerg to avoid taking unacceptable damage from the banshee followup. The zergs I saw all threw up panic spores (if they had the evo chamber) in response to the cloak banshees but often by the time the spores were up, the banshee's had killed 2-3 queens, and any number of drones. Also I noticed that ForGG switches between the hellions and banshees. 4 hellions to start into 2 banshee into 6-8 hellions into blue flame/medivac or blueflame/thor all in. So hard to predict and counter unless I'm missing something?
Why can't people just accept the fact that maybe, JUST MAYBE that you need the same level of execution to defend that? Why do people always ask "hey, what build order do I have to do and how many workers should I make and how many units should I make to defend against this?" when what forgg does is a very technical rush that is heavily based on micro.
On December 09 2011 14:49 TheDwf wrote: Or you could just build an early and well-placed Evolution Chamber to defend against Hellions raids, and get a third Queen for extra safety and creep spread (and the possibility to wall off). There you go, for 225 mineral which won't even be wasted if he does not go for Banshee play, you will be able to resist those kinds of follow-ups.
The problem I see here is the spores will have to be up almost preemptively for the zerg to avoid taking unacceptable damage from the banshee followup. The zergs I saw all threw up panic spores (if they had the evo chamber) in response to the cloak banshees but often by the time the spores were up, the banshee's had killed 2-3 queens, and any number of drones. Also I noticed that ForGG switches between the hellions and banshees. 4 hellions to start into 2 banshee into 6-8 hellions into blue flame/medivac or blueflame/thor all in. So hard to predict and counter unless I'm missing something?
once again. scout. scout for those gases, which isnt something that i saw the zergs do. they saw the CC, and thought it would be standard play. so scout his main a while when the CC is finishing. if you have to, send in two overlords from different directions. it may seem like a waste, but really <30 clicks is a good price to pay for scouting.
On December 09 2011 14:58 Itsmedudeman wrote: Why can't people just accept the fact that maybe, JUST MAYBE that you need the same level of execution to defend that? Why do people always ask "hey, what build order do I have to do and how many workers should I make and how many units should I make to defend against this?" when what forgg does is a very technical rush that is heavily based on micro.
On December 09 2011 14:55 lambac0re wrote: The problem I see here is the spores will have to be up almost preemptively for the zerg to avoid taking unacceptable damage from the banshee followup. The zergs I saw all thew up panic spores (if they had the evo chamber) in response to the cloak banshees but often by the time the spores were up, the banshee's had killed 2-3 queens, and any number of drones. Also I noticed that ForGG switches between the hellions and banshees. 4 hellions to start into 2 banshee into 6-8 hellions into blue flame/medivac or blueflame/thor all in. So hard to predict and counter unless I'm missing something?
Looks like you can run a bit in order to minimize damages. Besides, the Terran has a later expand because of the Banshee follow-up, so even if you lose some stuff it may end up even.
On December 09 2011 14:58 Itsmedudeman wrote: Why can't people just accept the fact that maybe, JUST MAYBE that you need the same level of execution to defend that? Why do people always ask "hey, what build order do I have to do and how many workers should I make and how many units should I make to defend against this?" when what forgg does is a very technical rush that is heavily based on micro.
also this without micro, this build is dead.
I hear you. But the question is still valid I believe. Because while I certainly lack the execution to defend such a push from ForGG, I think I would have a reasonable chance against another ladder nub my level attempting the same build if I had a solid counter ready based from what I can scout.
Certainly the GM players that ForGG have been playing don't lack in execution? For what I hear players like Idra are incredibly mechanical etc etc.
What is sounds like is a 1/1/1 with a reactor build on the rax, swapped to the factory while a tech lab is built on the barracks to switch with the starport, as for the followup i am unsure exactly what goes on but in regards to the first.
1. to deal with the hellions you can go speedling with a spine + sim city [use macro hatch, evo chamber and spine placement] this should deal with hellion harass.
2. For the banshees, i usually get a early 3rd queen for creep spread so there is no reason you cannot make queens on reaction to defend. After seeing a late expansion (after 7:00) i would immediately get suspicious. Throwing down 1 spore in each base is not a bad idea if you are worried because a terran on 1 base up to 7 minutes wont be way ahead if you toss down 2 spores. Now after confirming banshee production you can add more spores and queens on reaction.
Idk how he follows it up so no more comments from me.
It all comes down to personal execution though. This build doesnt sound new but with the level of execution that he has + macro it can seem intimidating but remember, if your new to the game so will your opponent and the attack WILL be later/not as well controlled/supported with less macro.
Also remember, knowing how to defend doesnt = 100% defense. Even against a familiar cheese, when two skillfull players go at it, alot can happen due to a couple seeminly minor things that can swing the fight so just cause irda lost on ladder to it doesnt mean he/other pros could never defend it. It simply means it is a viable option that can fail and suceed and depending on individuals execution defending/attacking
On December 09 2011 15:04 lambac0re wrote: Certainly the GM players that ForGG have been playing don't lack in execution? For what I hear players like Idra are incredibly mechanical etc etc.
IdrA left every game against fOrGG without even trying... (Except for the Antiga game, maybe, but I did not see it entirely.)
What this guy said, dont take ladder play among pros to seriously. They arnt exactly giving it their 100% all day every day
On December 09 2011 14:58 Itsmedudeman wrote: Why can't people just accept the fact that maybe, JUST MAYBE that you need the same level of execution to defend that? Why do people always ask "hey, what build order do I have to do and how many workers should I make and how many units should I make to defend against this?" when what forgg does is a very technical rush that is heavily based on micro.
also this without micro, this build is dead.
I hear you. But the question is still valid I believe. Because while I certainly lack the execution to defend such a push from ForGG, I think I would have a reasonable chance against another ladder nub my level attempting the same build if I had a solid counter ready based from what I can scout.
Certainly the GM players that ForGG have been playing don't lack in execution? For what I hear players like Idra are incredibly mechanical etc etc.
then they execute it badly and you don't need to micro super brilliantly to stop it.
compared to forgg most korean sc2 pros have diamond level mechanics...
On December 09 2011 15:04 lambac0re wrote: Certainly the GM players that ForGG have been playing don't lack in execution? For what I hear players like Idra are incredibly mechanical etc etc.
IdrA left every game against fOrGG without even trying... (Except for the Antiga game, maybe, but I did not see it entirely.)
On December 09 2011 15:09 TheDwf wrote: IdrA left every game against fOrGG without even trying... (Except for the Antiga game, maybe, but I did not see it entirely.)
The game your referencing to, Idra shut down the hellion/cloak banshee play (with 5? muta I think) but then left after he saw the 4 thor + blue flame + scv all in.
Anyways I guess there isn't too much left to analyze here then. Basically the consensus appears to be scout gas, and prepare evo chamber spores/extra queens ahead of time with sim city to block as many hellions as possible.
this kind of opening has used a lot by gumiho recently, who first showed it at WCG and beat Nestea on taldarim
the opening's idea is to get reactor hellion expand (CC first if u want) and get banshees + hellions to contain and harass the zerg
because of hellion and banshee being able to defend against all early zerg busts, like zerglings and banelings and roaches, and because mutas don't come until like at least 10:30 usually, you will have your third set up at 9:10-9:30 and have lots of time to get thors/turrets up. Because of this, the opening allows terran to take a very fast third base (or in this case, get a lot of factory production and tech going) safely while the zerg has to stay on 2 base until he can connect the creep to his third so he can defend his bases with queens + spines.
from what i saw, forgg built 2 more factories before the CC instead of the other way like gumiho does, and he likes to get cloak banshees and i haven't seen him get ravens after the first 1-2 banshees like gumiho sometimes does
the thor hellion push is just one of the many options that you can follow up the opening with
As to how to deal with this kind of opening, you stay on 2 base and drone up a lot and get lots of queens and make sure u can wall off the nat from hellions (buildings and/or queens). Roaches are not safe because you don't know how many banshees he's getting or the exact build he's doing; on big maps like tal'darim especially, the 1-2 banshees will stop any kind of roach bust. If your roach bust happens to survive and deal a lot of damage to terran, it means that your econ (zerg) will be very very behind since you pumped so many roaches.
Reason why I say drone up a lot is so that you can saturate your third ASAP once you finally get it, or else if he takes a fast third you will be very behind economically.
Now I'm not too familiar with forgg's build but i saw it on his stream. I would say that after the queens, you simply add roaches. Roaches beat thors and hellions efficiently as long as it's not a 200/200 situation, and you should have queens to defend against banshees. Forgg's thor hellion push followup will punish zergs who go muta (and possibly infestor, im not sure about the timing of fungal though) as a response to the hellion/banshee contain/harass. (Even if terran takes a quick third instead, he will have thors + turrets up in time to deal with mutas since you build your third at 7:30).
On December 09 2011 15:04 lambac0re wrote: Certainly the GM players that ForGG have been playing don't lack in execution? For what I hear players like Idra are incredibly mechanical etc etc.
IdrA left every game against fOrGG without even trying... (Except for the Antiga game, maybe, but I did not see it entirely.)
Ugh I hate how people keep misusing the terms "metagame" "gimmicky" "mechanics" and others. Idra has strong macro. Any pro should have good mechanics. Heck any serious Masters player should know all the useful mechanics that pertain to his race and its matchups. Mechanics are not what you do but how you do them. For example, to have good macro is to inject your hatcheries all the time. To have the mechanics to do that, you know how to use a method that allows you to do that, for example backspace method. Knowing that you can shift-queue commands for units is also mechanics, so on. It would be quite embarrassing for a progamer to not know how to, for example, stutter step, or rally your workers on your mineral lines, or to a-click the ground to home in on units instead of right clicking an enemy's army.
1.( used with a singular verb ) the branch of physics that deals with the action of forces on bodies and with motion, comprised of kinetics, statics, and kinematics. 2.( used with a singular verb ) the theoretical and practical application of this science to machinery, mechanical appliances, etc. 3.( usually used with a plural verb ) the technical aspect or working part; mechanism; structure. 4.( usually used with a plural verb ) routine or basic methods, procedures, techniques, or details: the mechanics of running an office; the mechanics of baseball.
If you're a basketball player, if you have good mechanics it means that you have good form, posture, footwork, etc. It does not refer to how good you are at scoring points or stealing balls or passing, etc.
On December 09 2011 15:19 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: + Show Spoiler +
this kind of opening has used a lot by gumiho recently, who first showed it at WCG and beat Nestea on taldarim
the opening's idea is to get reactor hellion expand (CC first if u want) and get banshees + hellions to contain and harass the zerg
because of hellion and banshee being able to defend against all early zerg busts, like zerglings and banelings and roaches, and because mutas don't come until like at least 10:30 usually, you will have your third set up at 9:10-9:30 and have lots of time to get thors/turrets up. Because of this, the opening allows terran to take a very fast third base (or in this case, get a lot of factory production and tech going) safely while the zerg has to stay on 2 base until he can connect the creep to his third so he can defend his bases with queens + spines.
from what i saw, forgg built 2 more factories before the CC instead of the other way like gumiho does, and he likes to get cloak banshees and i haven't seen him get ravens after the first 1-2 banshees like gumiho sometimes does
the thor hellion push is just one of the many options that you can follow up the opening with
As to how to deal with this kind of opening, you stay on 2 base and drone up a lot and get lots of queens and make sure u can wall off the nat from hellions (buildings and/or queens). Roaches are not safe because you don't know how many banshees he's getting or the exact build he's doing; on big maps like tal'darim especially, the 1-2 banshees will stop any kind of roach bust. If your roach bust happens to survive and deal a lot of damage to terran, it means that your econ (zerg) will be very very behind since you pumped so many roaches.
Reason why I say drone up a lot is so that you can saturate your third ASAP once you finally get it, or else if he takes a fast third you will be very behind economically.
Now I'm not too familiar with forgg's build but i saw it on his stream. I would say that after the queens, you simply add roaches. Roaches beat thors and hellions efficiently as long as it's not a 200/200 situation, and you should have queens to defend against banshees. Forgg's thor hellion push followup will punish zergs who go muta (and possibly infestor, im not sure about the timing of fungal though) as a response to the hellion/banshee contain/harass. (Even if terran takes a quick third instead, he will have thors + turrets up in time to deal with mutas since you build your third at 7:30).
On December 09 2011 15:04 lambac0re wrote: Certainly the GM players that ForGG have been playing don't lack in execution? For what I hear players like Idra are incredibly mechanical etc etc.
IdrA left every game against fOrGG without even trying... (Except for the Antiga game, maybe, but I did not see it entirely.)
Ugh I hate how people keep misusing the terms "metagame" "gimmicky" "mechanics" and others. Idra has strong macro. Any pro should have good mechanics. Heck any serious Masters player should know all the useful mechanics that pertain to his race and its matchups. Mechanics are not what you do but how you do them. For example, to have good macro is to inject your hatcheries all the time. To have the mechanics to do that, you know how to use a method that allows you to do that, for example backspace method. Knowing that you can shift-queue commands for units is also mechanics, so on. It would be quite embarrassing for a progamer to not know how to, for example, stutter step, or rally your workers on your mineral lines, or to a-click the ground to home in on units instead of right clicking an enemy's army.
1.( used with a singular verb ) the branch of physics that deals with the action of forces on bodies and with motion, comprised of kinetics, statics, and kinematics. 2.( used with a singular verb ) the theoretical and practical application of this science to machinery, mechanical appliances, etc. 3.( usually used with a plural verb ) the technical aspect or working part; mechanism; structure. 4.( usually used with a plural verb ) routine or basic methods, procedures, techniques, or details: the mechanics of running an office; the mechanics of baseball.
If you're a basketball player, if you have good mechanics it means that you have good form, posture, footwork, etc. It does not refer to how good you are at scoring points or stealing balls or passing, etc.
When we say mechanics we mean the practice of making what you want to happen in the game, happen.
Not only Cezanne stop it, DreamZenith stop it too. He deny the hellion harass and then went roachs + infestor.He barely hold off the thor+tank+scv+hellions all-in push and won the game.
I watched forGG stream and i highly recommended you practice build many times first.Cuz, from what i see this build is very tight and your execution with the 4 hellion harass and 2 banshees with cloak must be VERY GOOD.You must not get supply-blocked at anytime and your multi-tasking must be very very very good to execute this build.
On December 09 2011 15:19 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: this kind of opening has used a lot by gumiho recently, who first showed it at WCG and beat Nestea on taldarim
the opening's idea is to get reactor hellion expand (CC first if u want) and get banshees + hellions to contain and harass the zerg
because of hellion and banshee being able to defend against all early zerg busts, like zerglings and banelings and roaches, and because mutas don't come until like at least 10:30 usually, you will have your third set up at 9:10-9:30 and have lots of time to get thors/turrets up. Because of this, the opening allows terran to take a very fast third base (or in this case, get a lot of factory production and tech going) safely while the zerg has to stay on 2 base until he can connect the creep to his third so he can defend his bases with queens + spines.
from what i saw, forgg built 2 more factories before the CC instead of the other way like gumiho does, and he likes to get cloak banshees and i haven't seen him get ravens after the first 1-2 banshees like gumiho sometimes does
the thor hellion push is just one of the many options that you can follow up the opening with
As to how to deal with this kind of opening, you stay on 2 base and drone up a lot and get lots of queens and make sure u can wall off the nat from hellions (buildings and/or queens). Roaches are not safe because you don't know how many banshees he's getting or the exact build he's doing; on big maps like tal'darim especially, the 1-2 banshees will stop any kind of roach bust. If your roach bust happens to survive and deal a lot of damage to terran, it means that your econ (zerg) will be very very behind since you pumped so many roaches.
Reason why I say drone up a lot is so that you can saturate your third ASAP once you finally get it, or else if he takes a fast third you will be very behind economically.
Now I'm not too familiar with forgg's build but i saw it on his stream. I would say that after the queens, you simply add roaches. Roaches beat thors and hellions efficiently as long as it's not a 200/200 situation, and you should have queens to defend against banshees. Forgg's thor hellion push followup will punish zergs who go muta (and possibly infestor, im not sure about the timing of fungal though) as a response to the hellion/banshee contain/harass. (Even if terran takes a quick third instead, he will have thors + turrets up in time to deal with mutas since you build your third at 7:30).
On December 09 2011 15:04 lambac0re wrote: Certainly the GM players that ForGG have been playing don't lack in execution? For what I hear players like Idra are incredibly mechanical etc etc.
IdrA left every game against fOrGG without even trying... (Except for the Antiga game, maybe, but I did not see it entirely.)
Ugh I hate how people keep misusing the terms "metagame" "gimmicky" "mechanics" and others. Idra has strong macro. Any pro should have good mechanics. Heck any serious Masters player should know all the useful mechanics that pertain to his race and its matchups. Mechanics are not what you do but how you do them. For example, to have good macro is to inject your hatcheries all the time. To have the mechanics to do that, you know how to use a method that allows you to do that, for example backspace method. Knowing that you can shift-queue commands for units is also mechanics, so on. It would be quite embarrassing for a progamer to not know how to, for example, stutter step, or rally your workers on your mineral lines, or to a-click the ground to home in on units instead of right clicking an enemy's army.
1.( used with a singular verb ) the branch of physics that deals with the action of forces on bodies and with motion, comprised of kinetics, statics, and kinematics. 2.( used with a singular verb ) the theoretical and practical application of this science to machinery, mechanical appliances, etc. 3.( usually used with a plural verb ) the technical aspect or working part; mechanism; structure. 4.( usually used with a plural verb ) routine or basic methods, procedures, techniques, or details: the mechanics of running an office; the mechanics of baseball.
If you're a basketball player, if you have good mechanics it means that you have good form, posture, footwork, etc. It does not refer to how good you are at scoring points or stealing balls or passing, etc.
Not necessary,Cezanne hold off his 2 cloak banshee and hellions harass with lings queens and spores and spine .After that forGG went for the banshee+hellions+thor with scv pulls against cezanne.cezanne crushes the push with lings and mutas.
DreamZenith also barely hold off the 2 cloak banshee and hellions harass with only lings and he had a third base.This time forGG went for a push with tanks+hellions+banshees+thors with scv pull again.DreamZenith barely hold it off with roaches + infestor and won the game.
The key to defeat forGG build is to not let the hellions and banshee do so much dmg.Getting an evo and lair is key to holding off the banshees harass and thors push later on.More queen is also necessary early on to deal with hellions and banshee along with couple of spore.
I think these guys are just not used to the level of play ForGG is bringing to the table. The constant harass/tech switches in addition to macro'ing up. Very scary, tried it out earlier and the rapid tech switches even when done poorly (at least I thought I could have improved alot) are very hard for zerg to counter.
ummm guys stop complaining about this hellion into cloak banshee and how its "unbeatable". you need SUPERB micro to pull that off into a win. actually if anyone watches GSL, ogs top used this exact build (reactor hellion into cloak banshee) in super tourney and that was a whiiillleee back. this build is holdable
Actually, reactor hellions into cloack banshee was very popular during beta, when people were one basing way more than today. The problem with this build, you get your expo so late ( around 7:30 ) that you could probably kill 20 drones and still be behind in workers. I saw Happy do it against en european zerg, he killed 24 drones in total, both the hellion harass and the banshee killed a tons of stuff, but after that ? You have almost no marines, you don't have tanks, no stim, no shield. Zerg can just take a third and drone non stop for 3min because you can't apply any pressure.
I used to do this build pretty much every TvZ and it stopped working for me around high-Master on NA ladder. I was always extremely behind if I didn't do a ton of damage, but I would win many games from the Zerg just leaving straight up after losing too many drones to either hellions or cloaked banshees.
It is undoubtedly better with pro BW micro but if they get spores up and don't lose that many drones to hellions, you are ridiculously behind with your expo; it's almost all-in.
Oh, and the build is just a reactor hellion opening but you get a 2nd gas (and a depot) after the factory, get a starport after factory finishes, and make a tech lab on the rax after swapping it for reactored hellions (which then gets swapped with factory -> get cloak, make banshee, etc.).
On December 09 2011 17:21 Noocta wrote: Actually, reactor hellions into cloack banshee was very popular during beta, when people were one basing way more than today. The problem with this build, you get your expo so late ( around 7:30 ) that you could probably kill 20 drones and still be behind in workers. I saw Happy do it against en european zerg, he killed 24 drones in total, both the hellion harass and the banshee killed a tons of stuff, but after that ? You have almost no marines, you don't have tanks, no stim, no shield. Zerg can just take a third and drone non stop for 3min because you can't apply any pressure.
Pretty sure that's why Idra rage quit because "you can't apply any pressure"?
This build is not very good against a good number of queens and standard evo/spines/etc. I saw a game earlier against I believe it was ZenexLife, who completely crushed every stage of the build. That was close air on metalopolis, so scouting was easier, but it completely fell apart against him. It's worth noting that there is absolutely nothing remarkable about the build and people have been doing it since beta, it's just that most people stopped doing it because zergs counter it really easily now and it also requires a lot of micro in order to actually do sufficient damage. As people have said as long as the zerg can kill off the harass units they can easily drone up and stabilize, while the terran's economy is really poor.
On December 09 2011 13:59 lambac0re wrote: Searched a bit around the forum and didn't find anything about this build. Was watching ForGG's stream earlier and noticed that he was practicing this build apparently as he opened the same way every game vs Z unless he was 2 rax/bunkering.
Build goes something along the lines of hellion expand/harass standard etc etc into 2+ cloak banshee. If that doesn't do the trick, follow up with blue flame hellions + 4 thors + scv pull all in.
Seen zerg after zerg fall to this strategy, the only time I've seen it fail so far was when oGsCezanne (a teammate) blind countered with spore crawlers and mass queens when all he had scouted were hellions.
*Edit That was dumb of me, forgot to post my question. The question is how do you stop this as zerg (leaving out blind countering and luck)? Being a relatively new starcraft player myself, this build looked scary good. Drones and lings die to the hellions, queens to the cloak banshees, and muta's if they even get out in time to the thors.
If you see a delayed expansion from terran, build one spore crawler. 4 Thors should never come out before mutalisks. Thors won't move out for a while because your mutas will shred terran's base apart. Always connect bases with creep. Thats it.
On December 09 2011 17:21 Noocta wrote: Actually, reactor hellions into cloack banshee was very popular during beta, when people were one basing way more than today. The problem with this build, you get your expo so late ( around 7:30 ) that you could probably kill 20 drones and still be behind in workers. I saw Happy do it against en european zerg, he killed 24 drones in total, both the hellion harass and the banshee killed a tons of stuff, but after that ? You have almost no marines, you don't have tanks, no stim, no shield. Zerg can just take a third and drone non stop for 3min because you can't apply any pressure.
Pretty sure that's why Idra rage quit because "you can't apply any pressure"?
The build is either win right away with the harass or be behind if zerg didn't take ENORMOUS amount of damage.
ForGG style works because forGG is fucking amazing at getting full value out of each unit. There's subtleties in his control that other Terrans do not have which is why he can mise so many wins with such a hyper aggressive opening.
It did seem like a lot of his Zerg opponents were being affected by a stupid ray though. I mean how often does idra lose to just the first 4 hellions?
I played a few games with this style. It's hard to pull off quite like he does it with the control. It's all about good control. If the Zerg tries to open aggressive though it's really fucking amazing. Zerg has to play super passive and turtley against it and fewer Zergs open like that compared to when this was popular like 6 months ago or whenever. But my conclusion is that you're essentially mising a victory.
It's also possible ForGG wasn't trying a completely serious TvZ style and just wanted to show off his baller control to thousands of viewers.
On December 09 2011 13:59 lambac0re wrote: Searched a bit around the forum and didn't find anything about this build. Was watching ForGG's stream earlier and noticed that he was practicing this build apparently as he opened the same way every game vs Z unless he was 2 rax/bunkering.
Build goes something along the lines of hellion expand/harass standard etc etc into 2+ cloak banshee. If that doesn't do the trick, follow up with blue flame hellions + 4 thors + scv pull all in.
Seen zerg after zerg fall to this strategy, the only time I've seen it fail so far was when oGsCezanne (a teammate) blind countered with spore crawlers and mass queens when all he had scouted were hellions.
*Edit That was dumb of me, forgot to post my question. The question is how do you stop this as zerg (leaving out blind countering and luck)? Being a relatively new starcraft player myself, this build looked scary good. Drones and lings die to the hellions, queens to the cloak banshees, and muta's if they even get out in time to the thors.
If you see a delayed expansion from terran, build one spore crawler. 4 Thors should never come out before mutalisks. Thors won't move out for a while because your mutas will shred terran's base apart. Always connect bases with creep. Thats it.
No; sorry, but I don't agree at all. The kind of muta numbers we're talking about won't 'shred' anything. Don't forget we're talking about Thor/BFH/SCV-pull - there's no economy to harrass; it'd be a base race and there's no way a handful of mutas are going to win that versus thors, especially when there are SCVs with the thors that could build a barracks right next to them if it looked like a close thing.
I'm not saying you can't go muta and win, I just disagree that the threat of mutalisks in his base is in any way meaningful or will slow him down even slightly.
On December 09 2011 15:09 TheDwf wrote: IdrA left every game against fOrGG without even trying... (Except for the Antiga game, maybe, but I did not see it entirely.)
The game your referencing to, Idra shut down the hellion/cloak banshee play (with 5? muta I think) but then left after he saw the 4 thor + blue flame + scv all in.
Anyways I guess there isn't too much left to analyze here then. Basically the consensus appears to be scout gas, and prepare evo chamber spores/extra queens ahead of time with sim city to block as many hellions as possible.
What games are you guys referring to? Can I watch them anywhere?
I don't know how stable this build really is tbh. It's relying 100% on the metagame that says zergs only want to make drones the first 7 minutes of a game. I understand he gets some scouting with the hellions, but I also saw him get completely smashed by zergs who made units and a couple of extra queens in the early game.
(it was pretty freaking sick though when he pulled it off, and he did pull it off a lot more than he didn't)
Seems that with enough queens and means of early detection the banshee + hellion pressure shouldn't be hard to deal with. THe answer to me seems just 2 base tech to muta, with either spores or overseers for detection (depending how fast you tech) and then with the muta the harass should be stopped and you should get an idea what t is doing. If you see continued hellion and thor production you should immediately get roaches then and I think you can hold it off just fine.
The first build was straight forward, a fast banshee build into siege tank push. which he used to clear the Spores and push into the natural. The second game was a 2 rax pressure into 2 fac blue flame, which devastated a ling bling all-in.
The first game was very clever and needs some practice to get the timings down. The second one was just lucky to be honest, has he gone roach then it would have been a 2 fac siege tank build, but he hadn't taken his natural gases fast enough for that.
On December 09 2011 13:59 lambac0re wrote: Searched a bit around the forum and didn't find anything about this build. Was watching ForGG's stream earlier and noticed that he was practicing this build apparently as he opened the same way every game vs Z unless he was 2 rax/bunkering.
Build goes something along the lines of hellion expand/harass standard etc etc into 2+ cloak banshee. If that doesn't do the trick, follow up with blue flame hellions + 4 thors + scv pull all in.
Seen zerg after zerg fall to this strategy, the only time I've seen it fail so far was when oGsCezanne (a teammate) blind countered with spore crawlers and mass queens when all he had scouted were hellions.
*Edit That was dumb of me, forgot to post my question. The question is how do you stop this as zerg (leaving out blind countering and luck)? Being a relatively new starcraft player myself, this build looked scary good. Drones and lings die to the hellions, queens to the cloak banshees, and muta's if they even get out in time to the thors.
Funny things is, NamchiR has been doing something very similar to this from Day 1. He still does it today too. Basically it is bunker pressure, followed by Hellions, followed by 2 Port Cloaked Banshee, into a Thor/Marine/Banshee/Hellion all-in from 2 bases. He once claimed he could beat any Zerg in the world with it a bo9 series.
It is actually a lot more effective than the above VODs I linked. He beat Sheth two out of three games doing that strategy, even know Sheth tells him he knows what he is about to do (you can find those games here: http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays?filter-hidden-top-player-name=namhcir&filter-map= ). If he suspects a blind counter (Mass queens and Spores early), he makes Medivacs with the 2 ports, and does a mass Marine Hellion drop in his opponents base.
I never played (aside from a bunch of BGH vs the AI) or watched any BW games. That said, for all this talk about how good ForGG is, I am not impressed. You can see the same stuff TvZ on NamchiR's stream, and though ForGG has much better overall mechanics, refinement and timing with the build, it is still a very abusive build.
He seems to do it a lot against zerg. But as i just saw, if you don't kill the zerg who's going muta with the first push with 3 / 4 Thors, you're dead. More and more muta will come and only Thors can deal with magic boxed Mutalisks.
As many have said, this opening is vey well suited to forGG's style, allowing him to take drones (and sometimes the game) with his superb micro and incredible in game decision making.
However, being that it is an aggressive opening/build, a Zerg who properly scouts and defends will come out with a very large economic lead. The key issue being scouting.. I constantly watch top players FAIL to scout.. so hard. It's something we are all working on, all the time.
forGG's timings are scary and brilliantly thought out, but like any timing, there are counters and defenses that work with practice and proper application. I'm personally a huge fan of Terran and Protoss doing these aggressive strategies to force Z to make units/defense and limit their drone count. Smart, dangerous play from forGG.. mad props.
I used to do this tvz over a year ago. Eventually zergs started getting prepared for it and when the hellions/banshees did no dmg the push just got crushed. I used to make rines off 1reactor rax though. Forgg goes all hellions.
That loss vs ogs Zerg was the first I'd ever seen Forgg lose in over 20 games including gsl
I was watching last night and the best defense vs it seemed to be queens into roach infestor one of the zenex players absolutely crushed it with this. however it seems if u don't have an evo started before first banshee hits you are pretty much dead and if u do hold your Econ can't hold the blue flame follow up
On December 10 2011 01:33 BronzeKnee wrote: You can see the same stuff TvZ on NamchiR's stream, and though ForGG has much better overall mechanics, refinement and timing with the build, it is still a very abusive build.
Care to elaborate about what is “a very abusive build”?
I saw Stephano (DreAm is his account name) hold it with lings queens and spore too and crush the thor push with Ultra Infestor (with NP) and Zerglings on his stream today. It should be online tomorow and i'll try to link the VOD.
Its a really good build vs. Muta ling, but zergs who hold the initial pressure and spot the thor heavy build just grab infestor or ultra and mass lings. The key is really the helion vs. ling battle, if the zerg is able to shoo away the helions from drone harass without losing too many lings, the eventual push is not nearly as scary because he needs the mass blue flame helions to keep lings off the thors.
The build also only uses 1 factor + reactor to pump hellion, while two additional Facts pump thors, so if during the harass, ForGG is losing helions, his eventual ball is very low on hellion count and has almost no answer for Ling based armies since the thors are expensive and it cuts heavily into his siege tank numbers. (later expand also cuts into the siege tank numbers, and overall meatiness of the force).
I feel like any zerg composition that involves lings + Tier 2/3 unit such as Infestor or Ultra will kill it if the lings are retained and the harass is not too deadly to the zerg's economy.
He really doesn't push off two base every time though, this is not an all in, if he doesn't feel like he has done enough damage, he just switches to siege tank production and throws the extra minerals into an orbital...
On December 09 2011 13:59 lambac0re wrote: Searched a bit around the forum and didn't find anything about this build. Was watching ForGG's stream earlier and noticed that he was practicing this build apparently as he opened the same way every game vs Z unless he was 2 rax/bunkering.
Build goes something along the lines of hellion expand/harass standard etc etc into 2+ cloak banshee. If that doesn't do the trick, follow up with blue flame hellions + 4 thors + scv pull all in.
Seen zerg after zerg fall to this strategy, the only time I've seen it fail so far was when oGsCezanne (a teammate) blind countered with spore crawlers and mass queens when all he had scouted were hellions.
*Edit That was dumb of me, forgot to post my question. The question is how do you stop this as zerg (leaving out blind countering and luck)? Being a relatively new starcraft player myself, this build looked scary good. Drones and lings die to the hellions, queens to the cloak banshees, and muta's if they even get out in time to the thors.
Posting "something along the lines" of a build doesn't help at all. Need a replay or exactly what it was. Read forum guidelines before making any future posts. They're there to benefit everyone.
On December 09 2011 15:19 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: + Show Spoiler +
this kind of opening has used a lot by gumiho recently, who first showed it at WCG and beat Nestea on taldarim
the opening's idea is to get reactor hellion expand (CC first if u want) and get banshees + hellions to contain and harass the zerg
because of hellion and banshee being able to defend against all early zerg busts, like zerglings and banelings and roaches, and because mutas don't come until like at least 10:30 usually, you will have your third set up at 9:10-9:30 and have lots of time to get thors/turrets up. Because of this, the opening allows terran to take a very fast third base (or in this case, get a lot of factory production and tech going) safely while the zerg has to stay on 2 base until he can connect the creep to his third so he can defend his bases with queens + spines.
from what i saw, forgg built 2 more factories before the CC instead of the other way like gumiho does, and he likes to get cloak banshees and i haven't seen him get ravens after the first 1-2 banshees like gumiho sometimes does
the thor hellion push is just one of the many options that you can follow up the opening with
As to how to deal with this kind of opening, you stay on 2 base and drone up a lot and get lots of queens and make sure u can wall off the nat from hellions (buildings and/or queens). Roaches are not safe because you don't know how many banshees he's getting or the exact build he's doing; on big maps like tal'darim especially, the 1-2 banshees will stop any kind of roach bust. If your roach bust happens to survive and deal a lot of damage to terran, it means that your econ (zerg) will be very very behind since you pumped so many roaches.
Reason why I say drone up a lot is so that you can saturate your third ASAP once you finally get it, or else if he takes a fast third you will be very behind economically.
Now I'm not too familiar with forgg's build but i saw it on his stream. I would say that after the queens, you simply add roaches. Roaches beat thors and hellions efficiently as long as it's not a 200/200 situation, and you should have queens to defend against banshees. Forgg's thor hellion push followup will punish zergs who go muta (and possibly infestor, im not sure about the timing of fungal though) as a response to the hellion/banshee contain/harass. (Even if terran takes a quick third instead, he will have thors + turrets up in time to deal with mutas since you build your third at 7:30).
On December 09 2011 15:04 lambac0re wrote: Certainly the GM players that ForGG have been playing don't lack in execution? For what I hear players like Idra are incredibly mechanical etc etc.
IdrA left every game against fOrGG without even trying... (Except for the Antiga game, maybe, but I did not see it entirely.)
Ugh I hate how people keep misusing the terms "metagame" "gimmicky" "mechanics" and others. Idra has strong macro. Any pro should have good mechanics. Heck any serious Masters player should know all the useful mechanics that pertain to his race and its matchups. Mechanics are not what you do but how you do them. For example, to have good macro is to inject your hatcheries all the time. To have the mechanics to do that, you know how to use a method that allows you to do that, for example backspace method. Knowing that you can shift-queue commands for units is also mechanics, so on. It would be quite embarrassing for a progamer to not know how to, for example, stutter step, or rally your workers on your mineral lines, or to a-click the ground to home in on units instead of right clicking an enemy's army.
1.( used with a singular verb ) the branch of physics that deals with the action of forces on bodies and with motion, comprised of kinetics, statics, and kinematics. 2.( used with a singular verb ) the theoretical and practical application of this science to machinery, mechanical appliances, etc. 3.( usually used with a plural verb ) the technical aspect or working part; mechanism; structure. 4.( usually used with a plural verb ) routine or basic methods, procedures, techniques, or details: the mechanics of running an office; the mechanics of baseball.
If you're a basketball player, if you have good mechanics it means that you have good form, posture, footwork, etc. It does not refer to how good you are at scoring points or stealing balls or passing, etc.
When we say mechanics we mean the practice of making what you want to happen in the game, happen.
Yes, which is knowing things like shift queue and control keys to help you do what you want. Macro and micro help you win but they are not mechanics themselves but the result of your mechanics.
On December 09 2011 15:19 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: this kind of opening has used a lot by gumiho recently, who first showed it at WCG and beat Nestea on taldarim
the opening's idea is to get reactor hellion expand (CC first if u want) and get banshees + hellions to contain and harass the zerg
because of hellion and banshee being able to defend against all early zerg busts, like zerglings and banelings and roaches, and because mutas don't come until like at least 10:30 usually, you will have your third set up at 9:10-9:30 and have lots of time to get thors/turrets up. Because of this, the opening allows terran to take a very fast third base (or in this case, get a lot of factory production and tech going) safely while the zerg has to stay on 2 base until he can connect the creep to his third so he can defend his bases with queens + spines.
from what i saw, forgg built 2 more factories before the CC instead of the other way like gumiho does, and he likes to get cloak banshees and i haven't seen him get ravens after the first 1-2 banshees like gumiho sometimes does
the thor hellion push is just one of the many options that you can follow up the opening with
As to how to deal with this kind of opening, you stay on 2 base and drone up a lot and get lots of queens and make sure u can wall off the nat from hellions (buildings and/or queens). Roaches are not safe because you don't know how many banshees he's getting or the exact build he's doing; on big maps like tal'darim especially, the 1-2 banshees will stop any kind of roach bust. If your roach bust happens to survive and deal a lot of damage to terran, it means that your econ (zerg) will be very very behind since you pumped so many roaches.
Reason why I say drone up a lot is so that you can saturate your third ASAP once you finally get it, or else if he takes a fast third you will be very behind economically.
Now I'm not too familiar with forgg's build but i saw it on his stream. I would say that after the queens, you simply add roaches. Roaches beat thors and hellions efficiently as long as it's not a 200/200 situation, and you should have queens to defend against banshees. Forgg's thor hellion push followup will punish zergs who go muta (and possibly infestor, im not sure about the timing of fungal though) as a response to the hellion/banshee contain/harass. (Even if terran takes a quick third instead, he will have thors + turrets up in time to deal with mutas since you build your third at 7:30).
On December 09 2011 15:09 TheDwf wrote:
On December 09 2011 15:04 lambac0re wrote: Certainly the GM players that ForGG have been playing don't lack in execution? For what I hear players like Idra are incredibly mechanical etc etc.
IdrA left every game against fOrGG without even trying... (Except for the Antiga game, maybe, but I did not see it entirely.)
Ugh I hate how people keep misusing the terms "metagame" "gimmicky" "mechanics" and others. Idra has strong macro. Any pro should have good mechanics. Heck any serious Masters player should know all the useful mechanics that pertain to his race and its matchups. Mechanics are not what you do but how you do them. For example, to have good macro is to inject your hatcheries all the time. To have the mechanics to do that, you know how to use a method that allows you to do that, for example backspace method. Knowing that you can shift-queue commands for units is also mechanics, so on. It would be quite embarrassing for a progamer to not know how to, for example, stutter step, or rally your workers on your mineral lines, or to a-click the ground to home in on units instead of right clicking an enemy's army.
1.( used with a singular verb ) the branch of physics that deals with the action of forces on bodies and with motion, comprised of kinetics, statics, and kinematics. 2.( used with a singular verb ) the theoretical and practical application of this science to machinery, mechanical appliances, etc. 3.( usually used with a plural verb ) the technical aspect or working part; mechanism; structure. 4.( usually used with a plural verb ) routine or basic methods, procedures, techniques, or details: the mechanics of running an office; the mechanics of baseball.
If you're a basketball player, if you have good mechanics it means that you have good form, posture, footwork, etc. It does not refer to how good you are at scoring points or stealing balls or passing, etc.
Not necessary,Cezanne hold off his 2 cloak banshee and hellions harass with lings queens and spores and spine .After that forGG went for the banshee+hellions+thor with scv pulls against cezanne.cezanne crushes the push with lings and mutas.
DreamZenith also barely hold off the 2 cloak banshee and hellions harass with only lings and he had a third base.This time forGG went for a push with tanks+hellions+banshees+thors with scv pull again.DreamZenith barely hold it off with roaches + infestor and won the game.
The key to defeat forGG build is to not let the hellions and banshee do so much dmg.Getting an evo and lair is key to holding off the banshees harass and thors push later on.More queen is also necessary early on to deal with hellions and banshee along with couple of spore.
This is quite an old transition from back in beta with a fast push to force roaches into pew pew banshees, can't touch me with roaches.
Its also a good follow up to a failed quick push that forces roaches since you can hold the roach counter with only a single banshee (or tank) and enough buildings in the way.
On December 10 2011 01:33 BronzeKnee wrote: You can see the same stuff TvZ on NamchiR's stream, and though ForGG has much better overall mechanics, refinement and timing with the build, it is still a very abusive build.
Care to elaborate about what is “a very abusive build”?
I believe Idra introduced the word "abusive" to Starcraft. He uses it as a deprecative word for clever strategies.
On December 10 2011 01:33 BronzeKnee wrote: You can see the same stuff TvZ on NamchiR's stream, and though ForGG has much better overall mechanics, refinement and timing with the build, it is still a very abusive build.
Care to elaborate about what is “a very abusive build”?
I believe Idra introduced the word "abusive" to Starcraft. He uses it as a deprecative word for clever strategies.
I'm not at all a fan of Idra, but sometimes the dude was 100% right - as in IEM finals vs. Morrow's use of the 5-rax reaper.
Even as a Terran player at the time, watching Zergs try to hold that entirely broken strat was just painful, albeit, pretty funny.
On December 10 2011 05:32 loginn wrote: I saw Stephano (DreAm is his account name) hold it with lings queens and spore too and crush the thor push with Ultra Infestor (with NP) and Zerglings on his stream today. It should be online tomorow and i'll try to link the VOD.
Ultra Infestor...?
I'm pretty sure the 4 thor all in comes WAY before Ultras, lol....
On December 10 2011 01:33 BronzeKnee wrote: You can see the same stuff TvZ on NamchiR's stream, and though ForGG has much better overall mechanics, refinement and timing with the build, it is still a very abusive build.
Care to elaborate about what is “a very abusive build”?
I believe Idra introduced the word "abusive" to Starcraft. He uses it as a deprecative word for clever strategies.
I'm not at all a fan of Idra, but sometimes the dude was 100% right - as in IEM finals vs. Morrow's use of the 5-rax reaper.
Even as a Terran player at the time, watching Zergs try to hold that entirely broken strat was just painful, albeit, pretty funny.
today the old reapers wouldn't even do anything to zerg, and the only thing reapers really did was lock the zerg inside their base *looks for today* oh it seems hellion do exactly the same. Never understood why people thought that reapers were such a problem. The maps were heavily favoring reaper play and even then they were not really a problem (except if you went for speedlings like everyone at that time). It was more a omg zerg is so weak thing, with 1 thor beating endless amounts of mutas qq and other things like that. I miss the old reaper things. They went for reapers tryed to kill you, went for marauders to kill your roaches. went for thors to kill your mutas. and gged out after thors actually not even killed a muta in the engagement. And today reapers work better then ever against zerg, because they forgot the roach in tvz :p.
Abusive build for me is something that takes not alot to do compared to your opponent, i actually never had to micro alot against reapers. magic boxing mutas for example is an abusive thing i would say since it involves no micro to magic box them. But i guess everyone sees that a bit different ^^.
Anyway on topic. banshees in general aren't expected often anymore, just like the raven, that makes them quiet good currently. People stopped using them because they did their damage run, enemy put up defense and done. Unit was lost somewhere in battle, but since it delayed expansions and expansions are actually easier to set up early even if the opponent does play one base, these sort of things went into the basket. But people started to keep them alive or use them for their pushes, after the damage was done and delay them of course since the opponent themself delay their tech to get out more eco etc. So it allows you to do more mind games.
Basically zerg atm prefer to stay 2 base then to build roaches and clear those pesky hellions, because they feel save to hold up anything the terran throws at them even without knowing what comes, because reactor hellion + expansion doesn't allow alot. Alot of terrans started abusing this, so we will soon the zerg try breaking the hellion contain, or tech faster to speed ovis, delaying ling speed, since they don't need it anyway. But until then i guess december winrates will look bad for zerg.
Drewbie has been using a variation of this for a while. Lz showed it to me in our last coaching session. Only one banshee with no cloak, but still REALLY effective.
On December 10 2011 07:23 AKomrade wrote: Only one banshee with no cloak, but still REALLY effective.
This follow-up is absolutely pointless. Without Cloak, going Lab Starport and building a sole Banshee = wasted resources since the Zerg will easily fend off that Banshee with his Queens.
On December 10 2011 01:33 BronzeKnee wrote: You can see the same stuff TvZ on NamchiR's stream, and though ForGG has much better overall mechanics, refinement and timing with the build, it is still a very abusive build.
Care to elaborate about what is “a very abusive build”?
I believe Idra introduced the word "abusive" to Starcraft. He uses it as a deprecative word for clever strategies.
It often seems that way. And he is infamous for using that word. However, most of the builds he calls abusive change from a patch in the nearby future.
This is so so hard to do at low levels, if you ever find it, just scout for early gas and reactor ed factories. Place 3 spores, 1 at your main 1 at the natural and 1 in between. This requires too much micro to be effective and almost no micro to defend, if you are diamond or bellow, you should be safe.
Now, most of the Zergs he plays easily hard counter his build order. One or two spines at natural, Evolution Chamber, extra queen(s), spores when Banshees come, Roach (possibly with banes to deal with SCVs repair) then Muta switch. Since his build relies on dealing some early damage, his follow-up gets dismantled when the Zerg player defends correctly simply because of economic disadvantage.
I am 4-1 with this build today. I beat two high diamonds and two low masters so it seems viable at this level. The only problem is that zergs will catch on to it and it seems easy to beat.
The roach nydus seemed to work well, I was watching that and I just don't know how you can stop it. If you deal with the hellions and banshee harass without losing TOO much it seems like a roach counter, especially with nydus, might just win you the game. As Mondragon would say, the counter to banshee is just roaches.
On December 10 2011 13:29 Deezl wrote: Based on the notes you gave, fast 2-base mutas with overseer would be auto-win?
If the initial harassment was at all successful, the muta's will be significantly delayed. By the time 5-7 muta's pop, Terran is already up to thor tech. Based from what ForGG did with his build, it would usually be a 4 thor blue flame scv pull all in.
On December 10 2011 01:33 BronzeKnee wrote: You can see the same stuff TvZ on NamchiR's stream, and though ForGG has much better overall mechanics, refinement and timing with the build, it is still a very abusive build.
Care to elaborate about what is “a very abusive build”?
Sure, but remember that since you are allowing me to define it, it can be mean what I want it to mean, and thus as long as it makes sense in the context I wrote it, I cannot be wrong.
The definition of abusive for me is play that either misuses units (such as using cannons or bunkers offensively) or when a player uses a build that depends more on their opponent making mistakes than their own skill.
Bunker rushing fits the former, 2 Port Banshee fits the latter. If you scout 2 Port Banshee and prepare, you should hold it easily, but if you don't, you die. And thus, these guys go into these big Thor all-ins with Marines if it fails, which is yet another abusive transition because it depends on their opponent making mistakes.
hey ive gotten proxy-hatched/mass spine crawler rushed before, doesn't that count as abusive since hes 'misusing' a unit? every player makes mistakes. the real skill is determined in the amount/size of those mistakes. then again, a baneling bust is also pretty abusive, since it relies on terrans making mistakes in their building placement. =P or idk, i don't play zerg a lot.
The problem for the zerg is if its a map where you couldn't get an overlord in position it looks like a standard 4 hellion opening into expo. Even if zerg has an evo up the build time of spore means he will sustain quite a decent amount of dmg. If the zerg opts for mutas after taking damage he won't be able to defend the thors.
Also many top players, especially zergs love to not overlord scout to kind of cheat economically a bit. Seems many zerg just assume the terran will play a macro game.
On December 09 2011 14:49 TheDwf wrote: Or you could just build an early and well-placed Evolution Chamber to defend against Hellions raids, and get a third Queen for extra safety and creep spread (and the possibility to wall off). There you go, for 225 mineral which won't even be wasted if he does not go for Banshee play, you will be able to resist those kinds of follow-ups.
The problem I see here is the spores will have to be up almost preemptively for the zerg to avoid taking unacceptable damage from the banshee followup. The zergs I saw all threw up panic spores (if they had the evo chamber) in response to the cloak banshees but often by the time the spores were up, the banshee's had killed 2-3 queens, and any number of drones. Also I noticed that ForGG switches between the hellions and banshees. 4 hellions to start into 2 banshee into 6-8 hellions into blue flame/medivac or blueflame/thor all in. So hard to predict and counter unless I'm missing something?
once again. scout. scout for those gases, which isnt something that i saw the zergs do. they saw the CC, and thought it would be standard play. so scout his main a while when the CC is finishing. if you have to, send in two overlords from different directions. it may seem like a waste, but really <30 clicks is a good price to pay for scouting.
See the problem is scouting for Zerg costs 100 minerals and 8 supply or in the example you proposed 200 minerals and 16 supply. Regardless of whether your scouting is successful or not, the attempt to scout comes at such a heavy price. And slow overlords can very likely die before seeing anything as you don't get overlord speed until lair, which by then you are likely already dead if the Terran is using this build and using it well with micro. Give Zerg a cost efficient way to scout a walled-in opponent and a lot of Zerg QQ should subside.Heck put overlord speed at hatch tech. All overlord speed at hatch tech gives is a way for Zerg to scout better,
On December 10 2011 15:43 NEOtheONE wrote: See the problem is scouting for Zerg costs 100 minerals and 8 supply or in the example you proposed 200 minerals and 16 supply. Regardless of whether your scouting is successful or not, the attempt to scout comes at such a heavy price. And slow overlords can very likely die before seeing anything as you don't get overlord speed until lair, which by then you are likely already dead if the Terran is using this build and using it well with micro. Give Zerg a cost efficient way to scout a walled-in opponent and a lot of Zerg QQ should subside.Heck put overlord speed at hatch tech. All overlord speed at hatch tech gives is a way for Zerg to scout better,
A zerg that knows exactly what a terran is doing is a zerg that wins. we might not like it but a lot of what goes into making a zerg slow down on the droning is based on the act of being mysterious about your attacks. A lot of games where zergs win is where they managed to get a read on their opponent and perform the exact execution in the early game, then they just close the game out over the next quarter of an hour. and then they lose when their greed gets caught out.
On December 10 2011 15:43 NEOtheONE wrote: See the problem is scouting for Zerg costs 100 minerals and 8 supply or in the example you proposed 200 minerals and 16 supply. Regardless of whether your scouting is successful or not, the attempt to scout comes at such a heavy price.
More drama, please? Scouting comes at a price for all races; if you're not willing to do that minor sacrifice (sorry, an Overlord sacrifice is only “such a heavy price” in the eyes of a biased Zerg—the problem is more about the possibility to see nothing than about to lose 100 minerals and having to avoid being supply blocked, which is not that hard since you decide to sacrifice that Overlord...) to get a possible look at what your opponent is doing, then don't complain if you get crushed by cheeses. Hell, on most maps you don't even have to sacrifice an Overlord to see gas timings or if your opponent took his natural.
On December 10 2011 15:43 NEOtheONE wrote: And slow overlords can very likely die before seeing anything as you don't get overlord speed until lair, which by then you are likely already dead if the Terran is using this build and using it well with micro.
Totally untrue. You can counter this build with safe standard play, i. e. extra Queen and Evolution Chamber to block Hellions (because this build heavily relies on doing economic damage by early game)... But of course, if 100 minerals already is a “such a heavy price,” I guess 275 is something like losing an arm for you. Anyway, after you successfully defend his pressure, you get an Overseer once you reach Lair, scout Factories and react accordingly.
On December 10 2011 15:43 NEOtheONE wrote: Heck put overlord speed at hatch tech.
Might as well give maphack.
On December 10 2011 19:58 decaf wrote: If you know what the terran is going to do (transitioning into mech) I think roach hydra would be the best unit composition to deal with this.
I'm not Zerg, but going Hydras along with Roaches sounds like a terrible idea; I think Roach/Banes (to deal with repairing SCVs, and Hellions to some extent) would be much better.
On December 10 2011 05:32 loginn wrote: I saw Stephano (DreAm is his account name) hold it with lings queens and spore too and crush the thor push with Ultra Infestor (with NP) and Zerglings on his stream today. It should be online tomorow and i'll try to link the VOD.
Ultra Infestor...?
I'm pretty sure the 4 thor all in comes WAY before Ultras, lol....
From a few of the TvZ games where he used this build, it seemed that when zergs went fast muta against this style, they tended to lose (as in, when muta was the go-to response to seeing the banshees) because the first push with ~2 thors tends to hit when the muta numbers are low, and thors are ready to pop back home. The guy who was playing under the name CJentusHydra crushed it in games 2 and 3 against him on the ladder by holding the push with roaches and speedlings, and transitioning to mutas after.
I've been working something like that build you saw but instead of reactor hellions i just do a naked rax/fac and tech lab starport and when i have enough units i'll go for the push. Worked against 4 zerg players so far. I can post a replay(if i remember the site)
I saw this build in the GSL (at least this opening, I don't remember if the T went for thors later), but I don't remember which match it was. It seems the key is to scout the banshee when she leaves the base, which gives you enough time to build a pair of spores (perhaps you'll have 5-10 seconds delay) Reactored hellions to banshees also has a low marine count, which means that overlord scouting is a reasonable option.
I saw Stephano defend it when he played ForGG on the ladder. It's a strong build that requires a lot of multitasking from the terran and even greater multitasking from the Z. The way to defend it is with queens and blocking and drone running + some spines here and there.
This build is incredibly frustrating to play against. You can't push across the map with roaches or the banshees pick them apart, and the hellions roast any lings. They also deny map control and your third base, so it really feels like you're forced into 2 base muta while they get thors out and your mutas can't do jack. Not to say I can't beat the style, I haven't lost to it yet, but still, so annoying :|
On December 11 2011 14:15 Tachion wrote: This build is incredibly frustrating to play against. You can't push across the map with roaches or the banshees pick them apart|
Why would you push across the map when you have a tier2 building which allows you to make them instantly travel to your target?
This build is still sick-- it worked a couple of times against iS.CrazymovinG-- who has qualified for Code A multiple times and is in KR GM. He holds it off with either spores or a fast lair, depending on what his midgame plan is (muta/ling or roach all in usually)
Nice build, we terrans used to do this many times on the ladder : ) (beta times)
There is also a guy on NA that was 1800 masters some seasons ago...he even told viewers he was silver level but thanks to his build he was able to win against NA GM's, i remember watching him win against destiny to times in a row; it was an all in he did against every race, he didnt even scouted until it was time to attack move... blue flame + marine + marauder (stim) + banshee.
What about Stephano's mass Queens and lings build? Use the queens to buy enough time for spores and spines to get up, and sim city your ramp so hellions have to file in slowly?
This build seems to be a coin flip as if the Zerg knows how to counter it, it's impossible for the Terran to win since they're so significantly behind and Thors don't exactly do that well against too many army compositions that Zerg has.
On a side note, I saw SlayersDragon beat SlayersMin yesterday using the same build which further proves it's effectiveness at all levels, given good mechanics and etc.
Going up to 4 queens on two bases can help against this build. It also allows you to push back hellions and take a third potentially without going roaches. Having the two extra queens also lets you expand creep very aggressively. It's a relatively small investment. You of course need to be careful and watch for cloaked banshees.
Maybe turtle into quick lair off 2 base and get mutas. Catch the terran before many thors are produced. If terran do not do enough damage with hellions, I feel best to go mutas for zerg i did not see many pros do this, but i think should be best solution vs mech.
Well FIN is a great player since he has solid BW foundations...i think him and MVP will be dominating until other very good BW players come up. I have not been watching FIN a lot yet, but if you look at MVP closely you can see that is multi tasking is impeccable it seems like he is in 3 locations at a time, and his reaction time is inhuman. This i find many SC2 players lack, they seem to be only able to do with 1 location +home base, but not other locations simultaneously.
The way he plays is extremely technical and micro intensive. He never lets up the aggression, it is basically an agressive 4 hellion opening, into 2 banshee with cloak. Non stop harrassment, adding CC, more hellions, armory, 2fact, keeping up pressure with hellions. Add thor/banshee/tank depending on what opponent has. You need to have amazing multitasking to pull it off and never miss a beat. Your banshees has to be active without dying, the hellions needs to be aggressive without dying cost-inefficently. Something like this is usually how he plays, the exact build numbers is ripped from one of his games on metalopolis. They might not be exactly the same for all games but the timings were pretty fOrGG-like on this specific game... Anyways from watching a bunch of his TvZs this is about the general way he tends to play:
10 Supply depot (Wall) 12 Barracks (Wall) 13 Refinery 16 Marine 17 Supply (Wall) 17 Orbital Command 17 Marine 18 Factory 18 Scout 20 Refinery 20 Reactor 22 Starport (Switch factory to reactor and build techlab with Barracks close to the starport) 22 Supply depot 23 Hellion x2 (When these are done, take watch towers and make 2 more. Start harrass with 4 - VERY AGGRESSIVLY) 32 Switch Starport to techlab and start Cloak resarch ** Cut hellion after the 3rd and 4th Hellion and SCV prodction for a short time to afford supply, cloak and banshee 32 Supply depot 32 Banshee ** Resume SCV production 36 Command Center (OC when done) 36 Techlab on Barracks 38 Banshee ** fOrGG lost hellions, will not continue with supply numbers but ingame time instead ** After 2nd Banshee, start producing Hellions again, dont forget supply depots/scvs etc! ** 9:20 - Fly Orbital Command to natural (Should have 2 banshees and 8 hellions if your first four died during the harrass the 8 hellions should be able to clear out your natural of any lings trying to deny it) ** 9:40 - Build armory ** Lift Starport&Barracks, build 2 more factories on the now two free techlabs ** Keep repairing banshees if they get hurt, they should never die. ** Be agressive with your hellions and just keep producing them. ** 10:25 - One medivac for Hellion drops! ** 10:40 - Two refineries ** When factories are done, get Blue flame upgrade and produce Hellions out of all three! -- It should be timed out that your 2 reactored hellions + your other two hellions from you techlabed factories and your medivac is done at approximatley the same time. Go hellion drop him!
** Get 2 Thors! ** Against mutaling (handful of mutas to harrass and a lot of lings), fOrGG seems to add a viking and more hellions before more thors. ** Against roaches, fOrGG sometimes adds a couple of tanks+siege mode+banshees. I've also seen him not do this and just getting more thors. ** Against heavy muta, more thors. ** Against heavy ling more hellions. ** Eventually he will always build more thors and push when he has 3-4 and then he keeps producing them and reinforces! ** He also tends to add more banshees if Z switches to roach!
The more you watch him play this, the more it seems to develop, it's pretty cool I think.
On December 14 2011 01:47 SnePe wrote: The way he plays is extremely technical and micro intensive. He never lets up the aggression, it is basically an agressive 4 hellion opening, into 2 banshee with cloak. Non stop harrassment, adding CC, more hellions, armory, 2fact, keeping up pressure with hellions. Add thor/banshee/tank depending on what opponent has. You need to have amazing multitasking to pull it off and never miss a beat. Your banshees has to be active without dying, the hellions needs to be aggressive without dying cost-inefficently. Something like this is usually how he plays, the exact build numbers is ripped from one of his games on metalopolis. They might not be exactly the same for all games but the timings were pretty fOrGG-like on this specific game... Anyways from watching a bunch of his TvZs this is about the general way he tends to play:
10 Supply depot (Wall) 12 Barracks (Wall) 13 Refinery 16 Marine 17 Supply (Wall) 17 Orbital Command 17 Marine 18 Factory 18 Scout 20 Refinery 20 Reactor 22 Starport (Switch factory to reactor and build techlab with Barracks close to the starport) 22 Supply depot 23 Hellion x2 (When these are done, take watch towers and make 2 more. Start harrass with 4 - VERY AGGRESSIVLY) 32 Switch Starport to techlab and start Cloak resarch ** Cut hellion after the 3rd and 4th Hellion and SCV prodction for a short time to afford supply, cloak and banshee 32 Supply depot 32 Banshee ** Resume SCV production 36 Command Center (OC when done) 36 Techlab on Barracks 38 Banshee ** fOrGG lost hellions, will not continue with supply numbers but ingame time instead ** After 2nd Banshee, start producing Hellions again, dont forget supply depots/scvs etc! ** 9:20 - Fly Orbital Command to natural (Should have 2 banshees and 8 hellions if your first four died during the harrass the 8 hellions should be able to clear out your natural of any lings trying to deny it) ** 9:40 - Build armory ** Lift Starport&Barracks, build 2 more factories on the now two free techlabs ** Keep repairing banshees if they get hurt, they should never die. ** Be agressive with your hellions and just keep producing them. ** 10:25 - One medivac for Hellion drops! ** 10:40 - Two refineries ** When factories are done, get Blue flame upgrade and produce Hellions out of all three! -- It should be timed out that your 2 reactored hellions + your other two hellions from you techlabed factories and your medivac is done at approximatley the same time. Go hellion drop him!
** Get 2 Thors! ** Against mutaling (handful of mutas to harrass and a lot of lings), fOrGG seems to add a viking and more hellions before more thors. ** Against roaches, fOrGG sometimes adds a couple of tanks+siege mode+banshees. I've also seen him not do this and just getting more thors. ** Against heavy muta, more thors. ** Against heavy ling more hellions. ** Eventually he will always build more thors and push when he has 3-4 and then he keeps producing them and reinforces! ** He also tends to add more banshees if Z switches to roach!
The more you watch him play this, the more it seems to develop, it's pretty cool I think.
Yes I agree, it is fascinating watching him "experiment" and tweak with this stuff! So much more exciting than "reactor helion". Thanks for this, I am totally stealing it and crediting u . Much appreciated, thank you sir :D
On December 09 2011 14:58 Itsmedudeman wrote: Why can't people just accept the fact that maybe, JUST MAYBE that you need the same level of execution to defend that? Why do people always ask "hey, what build order do I have to do and how many workers should I make and how many units should I make to defend against this?" when what forgg does is a very technical rush that is heavily based on micro.
also this without micro, this build is dead.
I hear you. But the question is still valid I believe. Because while I certainly lack the execution to defend such a push from ForGG, I think I would have a reasonable chance against another ladder nub my level attempting the same build if I had a solid counter ready based from what I can scout.
Certainly the GM players that ForGG have been playing don't lack in execution? For what I hear players like Idra are incredibly mechanical etc etc.
Idra held this when i watched forgg's stream, lost a few queens to the banshees/hellions (no major number of drones, less than 10) then held the thor push very comfortably with roaches.
On December 12 2011 11:38 Thrax wrote: Going up to 4 queens on two bases can help against this build. It also allows you to push back hellions and take a third potentially without going roaches. Having the two extra queens also lets you expand creep very aggressively. It's a relatively small investment. You of course need to be careful and watch for cloaked banshees.
I heard Idra talking about this in his practice sessions. On maps with narrow chokes, he concedes the fact that hellions will contain him and instead powers up on two base, going only minerals till about 40ish supply. Four queens, one spine for D, a few lings for early scout, and the rest on drones.
ForGG really seems to bring a new level of execution to Terran. His hyper aggressive style is reminiscent of the drop play from MMA before that became the operating standard. As others have said though, his build is much more difficult than an A-move win. His micro is impeccable, and he never lets his macro slip. He's truly a terrific player.
To the OP, for clarification (if it hasn't been mentioned yet), ForGG is now known as ogsFin, and for more of his games check out GSL code A. He walked through everyone he played pretty soundly. Super solid mechanics. Super exciting for the scene.
It lets you get tons of Economy, and you can 9 drone scout to see if he gets gas. Plus, it works on all the maps, plus no more close positions on metal or shattered. So, you can afford:
On December 09 2011 17:09 Suichoy wrote: MVP? Great Banshee Expand. MMA? Great Reactor Hellion.
ForGG? Both at the same time.
If you watch the TvZ episode of "The Next 12 Weeks with Mr. Bitter" on blip.tv from several months ago, qxc did this build vs JEcho on their last showmatch of the day. From what I understand, it was popular during the beta. It's an amazingly executed build that's fun to watch, but it's nothing new or special.
I think you can do one of the builds DRG does when he thinks the terran is likely to go pretty much all in but it involves gas (ie, no 2 rax, 6 rax, etc).
It's a somewhat blind counter to: - Marauder hellion all in. - 2 factory hellions. - Delayed banshees.
Basically what you do is open: - 15 hatch - 16 pool - 18 gas - 17 overlord - 2 queens - 2 or 4 lings. - 25 or 27 or so supply, spine at natural (earlier if gas first). - First 100 gas to lair - Take 2nd and 3rd gas - Next 100 gas to ling speed - 50 gas to baneling nest. - On lair completion, spire. - 7 mutas - Baneling speed with next speed.
It should you have starting 7 mutas at 8:00 roughly. But ling speed in that build isn't done before just before 7:30, which gives a timing where you are really weak against a lot of very early all ins. And if identified, the correct response is going all in.
This build was pretty much the conclusion of the Terran one base cheese back when that was the norm. During beta so many player was basically going hellion into cloack banshee into either thor all in or expand. I guess this is a little different since he expands quite early but still does the same thing.
It may sound technical and fancy but the truth is that if the zerg expects it you're completely dead but if they don't they are completely dead. I wouldn't wanna play like that but whatever floats your boat...
I guess it's fine by me since it just means I get my ladder points faster ^_^
Late game Terran isn't exactly a threat either so might as well I guess.
From what I know, and quoting, Dapollo here. When Zerg cannot see exactly what their opponent is doing, you need to be prepared for everything. For example, when I see a hellion push, I know that his gas is being used elsewhere. So I get my evo chamber down ready for some banshees. You just need practice setting up defenses. I personally have a good friend who is top masters and I am mid Diamond and he pulls these builds off on me and that really helps. Maybe find a good practice partner and ask him to go over it with you and even show you replays on him losing to a Zerg. ^_^
Some of the responses to this thread really aren't correct. I'm not saying this to be a dick, but to make sure people aren't listening to incorrect information and starting to believe you need to "hard counter" this build blindly or something.
So, banshee followups are probably the second or third most common followup to reactor hellion epand. I'm not going to give you the timings I use, just the thought process behind them. Now, I haven't watched this build on fOrGG's, stream, but I've seen several people do very similar builds.
The first thing you need to know is that every good zerg hides lings. If terran comes out with reactor hellions and all 4 of your lings get roasted right away, you've got no map vision and you have to sac an overlord very quickly to see if he's going for more stuff off one base or if he's taking a quick CC. Quick CC is probably the safest and most common way to play after reactor hellion, but obviously since he has full map control with his hellions, a quick followup with an all-in is very powerful as the zerg is generally droning behind 3 queens and spinecrawler.
So step one is to take your first 4 lings and put 1 or 2 of them somewhere obscure so you can move them to his natural while he's holding back your creep with hellions to see whats up.
So, if he doesn't go gas first, he should build 2 marines, then a reactor. Hence, if you poke up when the reactor should be building and it's where it should be HP wise and there's 2 marines, you know difinitively that's what's up. If he has less and the reactor is at more HP, he went gas first.
Play the build or watch pro VODs/Reps and figure out when his CC is supposed to start. Send your lings in to his natural and see if he's building it. Now, this isn't surefire because some people build their CC in their main to try to fool you into building more defenses, but don't freak out just yet. Poke up with your ling to see what's at his choke. Typically, the standard build goes rine=OC, fact, 1 more rine, reactor.4 hellions + CC+Tech Lab, switch fact+2 more rax.
If he's not building his CC at his nat and you poke up the ramp, the first thing you look at is that reactor. What's on it? If it's a fact, he's following up with more hellions and dealying his CC. If this is what he's doing, what are your options versus a lot of hellions? Roaches/banes/and queens are the only thing you have before lair tech that can trade cost effectively with hellions; but remember that he could follow up with hellion/marauder, and your roaches are a liablity. In this case, you can afford to build more defense, and maybe sac an overlord if you're really uncomfortable (though I'd wait). You have to know if he's still making hellions, he's got access to a starport, and thus banshees. Remember that cloak doesn't shit out from thesky though, it takes time/resources. Generally if I see one base after reactor hellions, I get a 4th queen and maybe a second spine because I don't want to make roaches if possible.
Time to do more testing! Do the reactor hellion build and find out when a CC in your main gets sent down to your nat. Time to check with those lings again (Your lingspeed is done at this point for sure unless you way delayed your gas or went lair first, so if your hidden lings are dead, you should be able to run past his hellions to check). If he's delayed his CC, he's doing an early attack; either with tech (marine drop, blue flame, banshees, etc), or infrastructure (a fuckton of units). Moar defense; it's ok to sac some econ of your own if he is also saccing econ by delaying his CC.
Keep doing testing to see when he gets banshees when he rushes to them, and see when he gets cloak. Ask yourself if your regular build gives you lair by the time his cloak finishes. No? You need spores. Yes? queens/overseer. Keep scouting! It's OK to sac an overlord if you know he's going for an early attack (especially with tech). If his CC is delayed, sac that ovie!
The important part of the defense here is to know the timings of the typical build (CC into marine+support, weather that be blue flame, medivacs or more typically tanks) and know what that "imaginary player" has. Can he be going for a build like this and have a lot of marines? No, he can't, so if he has very little marine support, think to yourself, "woah, he's investing a LOT in tech, what are his options?"
-Marauders+Hellions -Mech (blue flame, thor and tanks) -Banshees
I'm not going to tell you precisely what to do versus this all in either, because that's not going to help you become a better player. Figure out these timing for when different builds attack. I can say for this particular case the "ideal" unit composition to fight his army is bane/roach/queen, however you can't rush right to that every time you see a delayed CC, can you? The most important thing to know is your own build first. Are you going for mutalisks? What time do you start getting them? Are you going for infestors? When do you get those? After you figure out your OWN timings, you can then look at his build and use those timings of the "imaginary player" to figure out if your normal build works versus what he's doing. Is his cloak going to hit before you have your mutas/infestors? No? Ezpz, his cloak is useless. Yes? What about your lair? Yes? You need spores. No? Queens will do fine holding off the banshees. If he's not building a lot of marines, are you going roaches? If you are, what if he is going for a marauder hellion all-in? Are you going for bane/ling? How can you deal with this hellion/thor thing?
For me, I can say that I go very standard ling/bane/muta off 3 hatch. In a situation like he presents, I might throw down a roach warren but never build any roaches at all becuase he could be doing A, B or C and I need roaches to hold off C but roaches are a liability versus A&B. I'll figure out the timings and if it looks like he's doing C, I'll throw in a few roaches. Remember you can build the building and never make the unit, and all you lost was the 150 minerals. In a case like this, may thought process looks like this (assuming I didn't know timings already). I'd build some more queens because I know he could be building a banshee and if I know cloak is a possibility before lair(test in single player), I'd get spores, if not I'd get an overseer. I'd stick to bane ling and throw down a roach warren when I know he's not going for a marauder/hellion all in. If I still scout a lack of marines, I'd pepper in some roaches while keeping my scouting up and when I see that train of SCV's coming with a thor across the map I'm pumping roaches and banes, because I know all I have to do is hold this all in and I've won the game.
On January 22 2012 23:35 Arisen wrote: Some of the responses to this thread really aren't correct. I'm not saying this to be a dick, but to make sure people aren't listening to incorrect information and starting to believe you need to "hard counter" this build blindly or something.
So, banshee followups are probably the second or third most common followup to reactor hellion epand. I'm not going to give you the timings I use, just the thought process behind them. Now, I haven't watched this build on fOrGG's, stream, but I've seen several people do very similar builds.
The first thing you need to know is that every good zerg hides lings. If terran comes out with reactor hellions and all 4 of your lings get roasted right away, you've got no map vision and you have to sac an overlord very quickly to see if he's going for more stuff off one base or if he's taking a quick CC. Quick CC is probably the safest and most common way to play after reactor hellion, but obviously since he has full map control with his hellions, a quick followup with an all-in is very powerful as the zerg is generally droning behind 3 queens and spinecrawler.
So step one is to take your first 4 lings and put 1 or 2 of them somewhere obscure so you can move them to his natural while he's holding back your creep with hellions to see whats up.
So, if he doesn't go gas first, he should build 2 marines, then a reactor. Hence, if you poke up when the reactor should be building and it's where it should be HP wise and there's 2 marines, you know difinitively that's what's up. If he has less and the reactor is at more HP, he went gas first.
Play the build or watch pro VODs/Reps and figure out when his CC is supposed to start. Send your lings in to his natural and see if he's building it. Now, this isn't surefire because some people build their CC in their main to try to fool you into building more defenses, but don't freak out just yet. Poke up with your ling to see what's at his choke. Typically, the standard build goes rine=OC, fact, 1 more rine, reactor.4 hellions + CC+Tech Lab, switch fact+2 more rax.
If he's not building his CC at his nat and you poke up the ramp, the first thing you look at is that reactor. What's on it? If it's a fact, he's following up with more hellions and dealying his CC. If this is what he's doing, what are your options versus a lot of hellions? Roaches/banes/and queens are the only thing you have before lair tech that can trade cost effectively with hellions; but remember that he could follow up with hellion/marauder, and your roaches are a liablity. In this case, you can afford to build more defense, and maybe sac an overlord if you're really uncomfortable (though I'd wait). You have to know if he's still making hellions, he's got access to a starport, and thus banshees. Remember that cloak doesn't shit out from thesky though, it takes time/resources. Generally if I see one base after reactor hellions, I get a 4th queen and maybe a second spine because I don't want to make roaches if possible.
Time to do more testing! Do the reactor hellion build and find out when a CC in your main gets sent down to your nat. Time to check with those lings again (Your lingspeed is done at this point for sure unless you way delayed your gas or went lair first, so if your hidden lings are dead, you should be able to run past his hellions to check). If he's delayed his CC, he's doing an early attack; either with tech (marine drop, blue flame, banshees, etc), or infrastructure (a fuckton of units). Moar defense; it's ok to sac some econ of your own if he is also saccing econ by delaying his CC.
Keep doing testing to see when he gets banshees when he rushes to them, and see when he gets cloak. Ask yourself if your regular build gives you lair by the time his cloak finishes. No? You need spores. Yes? queens/overseer. Keep scouting! It's OK to sac an overlord if you know he's going for an early attack (especially with tech). If his CC is delayed, sac that ovie!
The important part of the defense here is to know the timings of the typical build (CC into marine+support, weather that be blue flame, medivacs or more typically tanks) and know what that "imaginary player" has. Can he be going for a build like this and have a lot of marines? No, he can't, so if he has very little marine support, think to yourself, "woah, he's investing a LOT in tech, what are his options?"
-Marauders+Hellions -Mech (blue flame, thor and tanks) -Banshees
I'm not going to tell you precisely what to do versus this all in either, because that's not going to help you become a better player. Figure out these timing for when different builds attack. I can say for this particular case the "ideal" unit composition to fight his army is bane/roach/queen, however you can't rush right to that every time you see a delayed CC, can you? The most important thing to know is your own build first. Are you going for mutalisks? What time do you start getting them? Are you going for infestors? When do you get those? After you figure out your OWN timings, you can then look at his build and use those timings of the "imaginary player" to figure out if your normal build works versus what he's doing. Is his cloak going to hit before you have your mutas/infestors? No? Ezpz, his cloak is useless. Yes? What about your lair? Yes? You need spores. No? Queens will do fine holding off the banshees. If he's not building a lot of marines, are you going roaches? If you are, what if he is going for a marauder hellion all-in? Are you going for bane/ling? How can you deal with this hellion/thor thing?
For me, I can say that I go very standard ling/bane/muta off 3 hatch. In a situation like he presents, I might throw down a roach warren but never build any roaches at all becuase he could be doing A, B or C and I need roaches to hold off C but roaches are a liability versus A&B. I'll figure out the timings and if it looks like he's doing C, I'll throw in a few roaches. Remember you can build the building and never make the unit, and all you lost was the 150 minerals. In a case like this, may thought process looks like this (assuming I didn't know timings already). I'd build some more queens because I know he could be building a banshee and if I know cloak is a possibility before lair(test in single player), I'd get spores, if not I'd get an overseer. I'd stick to bane ling and throw down a roach warren when I know he's not going for a marauder/hellion all in. If I still scout a lack of marines, I'd pepper in some roaches while keeping my scouting up and when I see that train of SCV's coming with a thor across the map I'm pumping roaches and banes, because I know all I have to do is hold this all in and I've won the game.
On January 22 2012 21:49 netherh wrote: May not be exactly the same build, but ST_RainBOw was doing something very similar in a couple of playhem tournaments a while ago (early December).
On January 22 2012 23:35 Arisen wrote: Some of the responses to this thread really aren't correct. I'm not saying this to be a dick, but to make sure people aren't listening to incorrect information and starting to believe you need to "hard counter" this build blindly or something.
So, banshee followups are probably the second or third most common followup to reactor hellion epand. I'm not going to give you the timings I use, just the thought process behind them. Now, I haven't watched this build on fOrGG's, stream, but I've seen several people do very similar builds.
The first thing you need to know is that every good zerg hides lings. If terran comes out with reactor hellions and all 4 of your lings get roasted right away, you've got no map vision and you have to sac an overlord very quickly to see if he's going for more stuff off one base or if he's taking a quick CC. Quick CC is probably the safest and most common way to play after reactor hellion, but obviously since he has full map control with his hellions, a quick followup with an all-in is very powerful as the zerg is generally droning behind 3 queens and spinecrawler.
So step one is to take your first 4 lings and put 1 or 2 of them somewhere obscure so you can move them to his natural while he's holding back your creep with hellions to see whats up.
So, if he doesn't go gas first, he should build 2 marines, then a reactor. Hence, if you poke up when the reactor should be building and it's where it should be HP wise and there's 2 marines, you know difinitively that's what's up. If he has less and the reactor is at more HP, he went gas first.
Play the build or watch pro VODs/Reps and figure out when his CC is supposed to start. Send your lings in to his natural and see if he's building it. Now, this isn't surefire because some people build their CC in their main to try to fool you into building more defenses, but don't freak out just yet. Poke up with your ling to see what's at his choke. Typically, the standard build goes rine=OC, fact, 1 more rine, reactor.4 hellions + CC+Tech Lab, switch fact+2 more rax.
If he's not building his CC at his nat and you poke up the ramp, the first thing you look at is that reactor. What's on it? If it's a fact, he's following up with more hellions and dealying his CC. If this is what he's doing, what are your options versus a lot of hellions? Roaches/banes/and queens are the only thing you have before lair tech that can trade cost effectively with hellions; but remember that he could follow up with hellion/marauder, and your roaches are a liablity. In this case, you can afford to build more defense, and maybe sac an overlord if you're really uncomfortable (though I'd wait). You have to know if he's still making hellions, he's got access to a starport, and thus banshees. Remember that cloak doesn't shit out from thesky though, it takes time/resources. Generally if I see one base after reactor hellions, I get a 4th queen and maybe a second spine because I don't want to make roaches if possible.
Time to do more testing! Do the reactor hellion build and find out when a CC in your main gets sent down to your nat. Time to check with those lings again (Your lingspeed is done at this point for sure unless you way delayed your gas or went lair first, so if your hidden lings are dead, you should be able to run past his hellions to check). If he's delayed his CC, he's doing an early attack; either with tech (marine drop, blue flame, banshees, etc), or infrastructure (a fuckton of units). Moar defense; it's ok to sac some econ of your own if he is also saccing econ by delaying his CC.
Keep doing testing to see when he gets banshees when he rushes to them, and see when he gets cloak. Ask yourself if your regular build gives you lair by the time his cloak finishes. No? You need spores. Yes? queens/overseer. Keep scouting! It's OK to sac an overlord if you know he's going for an early attack (especially with tech). If his CC is delayed, sac that ovie!
The important part of the defense here is to know the timings of the typical build (CC into marine+support, weather that be blue flame, medivacs or more typically tanks) and know what that "imaginary player" has. Can he be going for a build like this and have a lot of marines? No, he can't, so if he has very little marine support, think to yourself, "woah, he's investing a LOT in tech, what are his options?"
-Marauders+Hellions -Mech (blue flame, thor and tanks) -Banshees
I'm not going to tell you precisely what to do versus this all in either, because that's not going to help you become a better player. Figure out these timing for when different builds attack. I can say for this particular case the "ideal" unit composition to fight his army is bane/roach/queen, however you can't rush right to that every time you see a delayed CC, can you? The most important thing to know is your own build first. Are you going for mutalisks? What time do you start getting them? Are you going for infestors? When do you get those? After you figure out your OWN timings, you can then look at his build and use those timings of the "imaginary player" to figure out if your normal build works versus what he's doing. Is his cloak going to hit before you have your mutas/infestors? No? Ezpz, his cloak is useless. Yes? What about your lair? Yes? You need spores. No? Queens will do fine holding off the banshees. If he's not building a lot of marines, are you going roaches? If you are, what if he is going for a marauder hellion all-in? Are you going for bane/ling? How can you deal with this hellion/thor thing?
For me, I can say that I go very standard ling/bane/muta off 3 hatch. In a situation like he presents, I might throw down a roach warren but never build any roaches at all becuase he could be doing A, B or C and I need roaches to hold off C but roaches are a liability versus A&B. I'll figure out the timings and if it looks like he's doing C, I'll throw in a few roaches. Remember you can build the building and never make the unit, and all you lost was the 150 minerals. In a case like this, may thought process looks like this (assuming I didn't know timings already). I'd build some more queens because I know he could be building a banshee and if I know cloak is a possibility before lair(test in single player), I'd get spores, if not I'd get an overseer. I'd stick to bane ling and throw down a roach warren when I know he's not going for a marauder/hellion all in. If I still scout a lack of marines, I'd pepper in some roaches while keeping my scouting up and when I see that train of SCV's coming with a thor across the map I'm pumping roaches and banes, because I know all I have to do is hold this all in and I've won the game.
Thank you I'll make a checklist, my goal of getting my zerg into masters.
On January 22 2012 21:59 aebriol wrote: I think you can do one of the builds DRG does when he thinks the terran is likely to go pretty much all in but it involves gas (ie, no 2 rax, 6 rax, etc).
It's a somewhat blind counter to: - Marauder hellion all in. - 2 factory hellions. - Delayed banshees.
Basically what you do is open: - 15 hatch - 16 pool - 18 gas - 17 overlord - 2 queens - 2 or 4 lings. - 25 or 27 or so supply, spine at natural (earlier if gas first). - First 100 gas to lair - Take 2nd and 3rd gas - Next 100 gas to ling speed - 50 gas to baneling nest. - On lair completion, spire. - 7 mutas - Baneling speed with next speed.
It should you have starting 7 mutas at 8:00 roughly. But ling speed in that build isn't done before just before 7:30, which gives a timing where you are really weak against a lot of very early all ins. And if identified, the correct response is going all in.
This is just more or less 100% standard ling/bling/muta, except that it becomes a very late evolution chamber and that lair goes up earlier than ling speed. Overall, this is more or less the build recommended as standard in "The art of zvt".
EPT
