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ZvZ at the speed of 3.75
Hello everyone, I am back with a new guide. Just in time for Christmas! The link is here:
http://raa-media.nl/blog/starcraft2/zvz-glaive .
This time I'm explaining the ways of a fast moving harassment focussed Zerg versus Zerg style relying on Mutalisks. Lately on the ladder and in tournaments there has been a lot of stir up from the sudden re-emergence of 2 base Mutalisk. But not as a one off, but more as a standard way to transition.
Mutalisks have become a lot safer lately due to the Infestor nerfs. And because they give you some nice mapcontrol, you can drone up way fast behind it. It is the unit that embodies everything that Zerg wants, getting more drones and twisting the opponents ankles over and over by harassment. While Roaches are great units to trade with, Mutalisks are great even in relatively small numbers.
This macro advantage gives you an edge over +1 Roach pushes or other varients of Hatch or late lair type plays. Turning the tables on your opponent quickly and making their life just a little tougher.
Here's a small excerpt out of it
Defending versus Hydralisk Pushes![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/RrxiT.png) The most common follow up to this sudden need of anti-air is the Hydralisk. Here I will explain how to deal with that option. Now this is one of the money decisions you can force your opponent to make. Everybody loves to make fun of the Hydralisk and this guide won't skimp on that. It would be better to train a dolphin to swim in creep and suddenly pounce up in the air to slap the Mutalisks and die when it hits the ground than to make Hydralisks. The largest strength of our army is mobility. Hydralisks are really immobile compared to the rest of the Zerg army. This stark contrast with the blazingly fast Mutalisk ups our chances to harass and keep his push back. The longer you delay his push and delay his third, the more you will get ahead simply by having an economic advantage. Unlike you, he HAS to attack to even out the score. You can actually just stall for a long time because his push will eventually become weaker and more all inish by every passing second. The Hydralisk has a couple of unfavourable traits to it that I would like to dub the “Hydra-effect”. What this simply entails is this: - Hydralisks need to be in a large group to be effective, a single Hydra won't throw the battle around in your favour.
- Hydralisks cost a lot of gas, so you can't tech and get a large group of Hydralisks at the same time.
The Stalker suffers from the same kind of traits but it has other advantages in return. Because Hydralisks delay tech, you are basically safe knowing that he won't have Mutalisks or Infestors out of his own. Knowing that Infestors can't be out fast, you can be sure that our Banelings will not get stopped from rolling. Double awesome is that Hydralisks aren't really on good terms with Banelings. It takes only 3 Banelings to one-shot a Hydralisk pack even if they are upgraded to 3/3. So you can effectively trade your opponent's gas with yours almost instantly. Unupgraded Roaches take 8 Baneling hits to die, so it isn't all that cost effective unless you hit a large pack with Hydralisks mixed in. Regardless, the extremely fast weakening of the opponents force will balance out the upgrade advantages he has. Stopping at the golden 12 to 14 Mutalisk number will give you enough money to tech towards Baneling Speed, which allows us to close in towards the squishy underbelly of the opponents force much faster. It doesn't matter if you overproduce on Banelings because all you have to do is kill off his attack once to get an insurmountable advantage. Transitioning into your own Roach warren and just pumping out Roaches before the opponent moves out will give you a nice buffer that the opponents Roaches can't cut through quickly. The longer the fight goes on, the more it goes in your favour due to the Mutalisks. You just produce more Banelings after he pushes out of his base, they will be done in time for his push to hit. Even if he still has a large force of Roaches left after all the Hydralisks have evaporated, they can't shoot up. Keeping them still with your Roaches while bombarding them with Mutalisk glaives will whither his push considerably disallowing him from inflicting major economic and structural damage. The Push "All those things seem nice, but eventually he will knock on my door. How do I engage in the right way?" Well this actually isn't all that hard to perform really. Your main objective here is to move your Banelings into the Hydralisks and let them have a hay-day with 'em. Because the Roaches can't surround the Hydralisks fully, you can set up some Baneling flanks and obliterate him by attacking from the back. Hydralisks tend to stay at the back of the army due to the unitspeeds anyway, but good players actually put the Roaches in front of the Hydralisks to tank damage. Putting up a flank with Banelings will help a lot, but choosing where to engage is also a really important decision. Do you engage near the Spinecrawlers with Roaches or do you just move out? You really need to save your third in this play, so whenever he attacks your third you immediately need to spring into action to prevent him from taking it out. Don't let him get a favourable position though, with your faster units you can't let him get the better concave or a high ground position while you engage. The next question is his exact army composition. If it is pure Hydralisk or a high Hydra to Roach ratio you can easily roll through his force with Banelings. When he goes for more Roach focus with some Hydralisks mixed in, you just roll in and attack with all your forces including your Mutalisks to take him down. When his push is down to the size that it won't ever kill off your Spines and you are losing your Roaches, simply retreat with them and destroy him with the next wave of units. If he goes for some Banelings mixed in though, you need to be more careful with your engagement. Two stray Banelings can kill off a LOT of yours if you mismicroed them. So keep your Banelings back and see if they move forward into your Roach army. Just take out as many as you can ( within reason ofcourse, no need to use all your Roaches to snipe off retreating Banelings ) before you use your Banelings. If his push is delayed enough you can simply drone up and get more and more Roaches. He will probably go for a Roach/Hydra/Infestor composition but you can harass him a lot and get a much higher economy and unit count than him with your third, so you shouldn't really lose to this kind of all in desperation push. If it takes long enough just get out Infestors and a large Spinecrawler wall and win by starving your opponent out. If you follow these steps and don't overcommit in your counter attacks, you should win here as long as your transitions are crisp and well executed.
Again, the link is:
http://raa-media.nl/blog/starcraft2/zvz-glaive
Hopefully this guide will help you understand the underlying thoughts of opening in a 2 base Mutalisk fashion. And perhaps persuade you into trying it out for yourself to see what results you get. I have been loving this build the second I started to play it instead of rage at it about how 'all in' it was.
Thank you all for reading and Merry Christmas to the Strategy Forum people :D!
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Against muta my answer is to go infestors then hydras. Make 4-5 infestors that will be there in time to defend against the mutas. He cant kill any drones if you play well because he cant stack his mutas and he cant send them by two or something (queens and spores). Defend well and dont panick.
Take a third when you have a few hydras after your initial spawn of infestors and max out on 3 bases adding roaches then a-move. Mutas player usually cant defend it (3-4 infestors made early in the game will be at full energy, ready to rape mutas or banelings or roaches) unless they transition into something non standard like ultras or broodlords (you basically cant scout anything at all when he has the mutas). Of course when you leave ur base you make sure you are protected against zerglings counter attacks (spines, 1-2 bane every base).
You could eventually add burrowed banes in the guide if you see no overseer. They kill infestors and hydras easily. Works better then speedbanes if there are infestors on the field.
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Please please please dont stop these guides, I love them so much and even as a masters Zerg, they help me tons.
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On December 25 2011 00:37 Natalya wrote:
Against muta my answer is to go infestors then hydras. Make 4-5 infestors that will be there in time to defend against the mutas. He cant kill any drones if you play well because he cant stack his mutas and he cant send them by two or something (queens and spores). Defend well and dont panick.
Take a third when you have a few hydras after your initial spawn of infestors and max out on 3 bases adding roaches then a-move. Mutas player usually cant defend it (3-4 infestors made early in the game will be at full energy, ready to rape mutas or banelings or roaches) unless they transition into something non standard like ultras or broodlords (you basically cant scout anything at all when he has the mutas). Of course when you leave ur base you make sure you are protected against zerglings counter attacks (spines, 1-2 bane every base).
You could eventually add burrowed banes in the guide if you see no overseer. They kill infestors and hydras easily. Works better then speedbanes if there are infestors on the field.
The problem with that style is that your third will be super delayed. I can basically camp over your third with a bunch of Mutalisks while getting my own up much faster and saturate it really quickly. By the time your Hydralisks come out to claim the third the Mutalisk player should have upgrades for the ground on the way and the ability to mass Roaches a lot.
If played correctly, the Mutalisk player will still win. Of course if the Mutalisk player is bad you will win with that attack, otherwise you will have a tough time dealing with that macro disadvantage you had during the time I had a third and you didn't. Not saying that your style can't deal with Mutalisks, just that there is no definitive hard counter build to a reactive Mutalisk player.
On December 25 2011 00:44 Lebzetu wrote:
Please please please dont stop these guides, I love them so much and even as a masters Zerg, they help me tons.
I don't really have anything to write about as of yet though, I might make one about playing against Mech but otherwise I have no clue what specialized guide I could make from my own experience. Thanks for liking them though! 
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On December 25 2011 00:47 Chaosvuistje wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2011 00:44 Lebzetu wrote:
Please please please dont stop these guides, I love them so much and even as a masters Zerg, they help me tons. I don't really have anything to write about as of yet though, I might make one about playing against Mech but otherwise I have no clue what specialized guide I could make from my own experience. Thanks for liking them though!
Yeah I really like what you do, just making guides as the metagame changes.
Though one question...
In ZvZ, what if he goes Hydra AND infestor when you go mutalisks? I know its gas dependant but I have seen it been used and its really effective.
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On December 25 2011 00:47 Chaosvuistje wrote:
If played correctly, the Mutalisk player will still win.
i agree. imo preventing mutas is always more expensive in terms of pure costs than going mutas on your own in zvz.
preventing mutas as well requests a higher apm; like moving overlords or drones from/to mineral line/gas, split your army, arrange your queens/spores for defense...=more apm for restructuring the mess the mutas cause
you dont have to overcommit to mutas, just around 2 hands full for mapcontrol and safety....take one more base, saturate it, upgrade and tech to roach-inf-broodlord or just kill your opponent if you killed enough drones during harrasment. pretty safe win.
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On December 25 2011 01:07 Lebzetu wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2011 00:47 Chaosvuistje wrote:On December 25 2011 00:44 Lebzetu wrote:
Please please please dont stop these guides, I love them so much and even as a masters Zerg, they help me tons. I don't really have anything to write about as of yet though, I might make one about playing against Mech but otherwise I have no clue what specialized guide I could make from my own experience. Thanks for liking them though! Yeah I really like what you do, just making guides as the metagame changes. Though one question... In ZvZ, what if he goes Hydra AND infestor when you go mutalisks? I know its gas dependant but I have seen it been used and its really effective.
If he goes Hydralisk AND Infestor at the same time, you go ahead and macro up like a madman because he can't attack you any time soon. You stop Mutalisk production when you get around 12 and don't get any upgrades for them, while double upgrading your ground army and getting up means to go mass mass roach, while transitioning into Infestor yourself.
If he attacks before he is maxed, you win because you can simply build a lot of Roaches and Spinecrawlers and defend his push regardless. If he attacks when he's maxed you should already have Infestors of your own up and should have maxed with a better economy way before him.
This happens all the while you deny his third and harass him everywhere you want.
Roach/Hydra/Infestor is very strong, but extremly slow and rigid. It's a deathball that has to kill outright, but that doesn't really happen if you have good reinforcements and injects off of a macro hatchery. Roach/Hydra player loses all control over the game and has to rely on one big push, while the Muta player just calmly transitions into what works best.
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Great guide 5/5. Always look forward to you stuff :D
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Wow, so it really does seem like Mutalisks are the way to go in ZvZ.
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On December 25 2011 01:26 Lebzetu wrote:
Wow, so it really does seem like Mutalisks are the way to go in ZvZ.
...which is a real shame because Roach/Hydra/Infestor had so much more of a dynamic to it than Muta/Ling/Bling. The unfortunate side-effect of Mutas being so powerful now is that either the metagame has to shift somehow to make Roach/Hydra/Infestor more viable... or everyone and their mother does the 1-a-ez-train of ling/bling/muta until HotS where Hydra's get the speed upgrade. 
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On December 25 2011 00:47 Chaosvuistje wrote:
The problem with that style is that your third will be super delayed. I can basically camp over your third with a bunch of Mutalisks while getting my own up much faster and saturate it really quickly. By the time your Hydralisks come out to claim the third the Mutalisk player should have upgrades for the ground on the way and the ability to mass Roaches a lot.
I totally disagree. Once infestors are out, you cant camp anywhere on the map, because one fungal is GG. Since my ennemy dont know where my infestors are, most of the time he'll stop harassing, preferring not to eat a letal fungal. Sometimes when my tech didnt get scouted, the first mutas eat a fungal and the game looks really bad for my opponent. I make hydra den while making infestors. Infestors will spawn at the same time muta does, so that your third will be like max 1 minute before mine (unless you take a third before lair or something, but then I can do the same). Not that much of a big deal considering how better my composition is. In order to deny my third you would need lings together with your mutas, you have few chances to win that engagement given that you already took an expo and maybe droned behind mutas.
You are talking about maxing on roaches. My point here is that a low eco infestor play can beat a high eco play (unless the high eco player also start with infestors) because my infestors will be early, stacking up energy and totally shuting down muta harass. Since you started by throwing so much ressources in muta, you kinda cant catch up unless I let you take 4 bases or something.
For instance 4 infestors at full energy can kill 20 roaches with fungal/infested terrans. I'll be ahead on upgrades since I started them earlier. And well, you will be playing SO risky if you take a third while stopping muta production and transition to roaches and upgrades or even infestors. If u want to go infestors you are still behind my fungal count given that i made them earlier (those early infestors are really a super big deal) and can decide to keep making infestors (you could have an earlier third but you invested 1400 gas in 12 mutas...). If you let me max out, you've lost the game since i have better upgrades, better infestor count (in most of those games vs mutas I end up with 16 infestors), and you basically have your super expensive and super useless mutas in a straight up fight. Unless, of course, you decide to go for the base trade.
If I see at any point that you are stopping muta production, I can make a handfull of raoches and go kill you because I'll be suspecting that you are droning and transitioning at the same time, which is a super greedy play. Spines are useless unless you make 5+ spines at both your natural and your third. On most maps, spines cant defend both expos unless you make spines in the middle of the map, where i can still fight them one at a time because they will ahve to be spread out unless you have like 20.
To say it shortly, mutas are great if you can make your opponent feel like he cant leave his base. But once i have 4 infestors and 5 hydras i feel free to move our personnaly. It comes down to who plays it the better, but i really dont think mutas themselves gives you an advantage.
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On December 25 2011 02:13 Natalya wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2011 00:47 Chaosvuistje wrote:
The problem with that style is that your third will be super delayed. I can basically camp over your third with a bunch of Mutalisks while getting my own up much faster and saturate it really quickly. By the time your Hydralisks come out to claim the third the Mutalisk player should have upgrades for the ground on the way and the ability to mass Roaches a lot. I totally disagree. Once infestors are out, you cant camp anywhere on the map, because one fungal is GG. Since my ennemy dont know where my infestors are, most of the time he'll stop harassing, preferring not to eat a letal fungal. Sometimes when my tech didnt get scouted, the first mutas eat a fungal and the game looks really bad for my opponent. I make hydra den while making infestors. Infestors will spawn at the same time muta does, so that your third will be like max 1 minute before mine (unless you take a third before lair or something, but then I can do the same). Not that much of a big deal considering how better my composition is. In order to deny my third you would need lings together with your mutas, you have few chances to win that engagement given that you already took an expo and maybe droned behind mutas. You are talking about maxing on roaches. My point here is that a low eco infestor play can beat a high eco play (unless the high eco player also start with infestors) because my infestors will be early, stacking up energy and totally shuting down muta harass. Since you started by throwing so much ressources in muta, you kinda cant catch up unless I let you take 4 bases or something. For instance 4 infestors at full energy can kill 20 roaches with fungal/infested terrans. I'll be ahead on upgrades since I started them earlier. And well, you will be playing SO risky if you take a third while stopping muta production and transition to roaches and upgrades or even infestors. If u want to go infestors you are still behind my fungal count given that i made them earlier (those early infestors are really a super big deal) and can decide to keep making infestors (you could have an earlier third but you invested 1400 gas in 12 mutas...). If you let me max out, you've lost the game since i have better upgrades, better infestor count (in most of those games vs mutas I end up with 16 infestors), and you basically have your super expensive and super useless mutas in a straight up fight. Unless, of course, you decide to go for the base trade. If I see at any point that you are stopping muta production, I can make a handfull of raoches and go kill you because I'll be suspecting that you are droning and transitioning at the same time, which is a super greedy play. Spines are useless unless you make 5+ spines at both your natural and your third. On most maps, spines cant defend both expos unless you make spines in the middle of the map, where i can still fight them one at a time because they will ahve to be spread out unless you have like 20. To say it shortly, mutas are great if you can make your opponent feel like he cant leave his base. But once i have 4 infestors and 5 hydras i feel free to move our personnaly. It comes down to who plays it the better, but i really dont think mutas themselves gives you an advantage.
It's your logic against mine, I personally feel that I can deny your third for way logner as long as I spread my Mutalisks out. I'll be willing to go for a Bo5 to set aside our views that way however.
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On December 25 2011 01:26 Lebzetu wrote:
Wow, so it really does seem like Mutalisks are the way to go in ZvZ.
Not necessarily. You can play whatever way you feel better suits your style and personal enjoyment.
Mutas are hitting a heyday it seems. They were always present in pro ZvT, hit the scene in ZvP in the fall, and seem to take over ZvZ. Like every metagame shift there is a gap where everyone loses to it because they don't know how to react. If you want to see alternative styles of play then go to drop.sc, download masters and gm zvz's, filter out the replays without a spire using sc2gears, and watch. Most will be muta replays, but you start to see elements that work.
I've seen pros successfully go hydra and infestor (ret at mlg orlando vs slush and spanishiwa on his stream), but the common elements are delayed expansions and forced tech. I've been having a lot of success recently with the delayed third, maxing on roaches, a few hydra, and a handful of infestors, getting 2-1 quickly, and outright attacking. My opponent will have more supply tied up in workers and mutas, so their army will be weaker, less upgraded, and the gas advantage from the third base hasn't yielded a million infestors. This is all assuming they went roach/infestor after the muta harass, but if they keep going zergling/baneling/muta then they have to be careful with how much gas they're spending on what (since banelings and muta are so gas-heavy). If they're going all-out muta then roaches and infestors will do a lot given fungals and a lower ling count. The roach army won't survive, but it will take out at least one base.
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Why dont you just post that guide straight up using the TL forums? For some reason I'm unable to view the guide.
Edit: The guide loaded(after quite a while...). Splendid guide!
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On December 25 2011 03:27 Corridor wrote:
Why dont you just post that guide straight up using the TL forums? For some reason I'm unable to view the guide.
For formattting and table of content reasons, it wouldn't look good to have a guide that long in a TL post. Also I have more control over how the mobile version looks. Which is why I prefer to host my guides my own server rather than spam you with quote and spoiler tags.
Maybe try again later, there don't seem to be any problems on the server side of things.
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On December 25 2011 02:17 Chaosvuistje wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2011 02:13 Natalya wrote:On December 25 2011 00:47 Chaosvuistje wrote:
The problem with that style is that your third will be super delayed. I can basically camp over your third with a bunch of Mutalisks while getting my own up much faster and saturate it really quickly. By the time your Hydralisks come out to claim the third the Mutalisk player should have upgrades for the ground on the way and the ability to mass Roaches a lot. I totally disagree. Once infestors are out, you cant camp anywhere on the map, because one fungal is GG. Since my ennemy dont know where my infestors are, most of the time he'll stop harassing, preferring not to eat a letal fungal. Sometimes when my tech didnt get scouted, the first mutas eat a fungal and the game looks really bad for my opponent. I make hydra den while making infestors. Infestors will spawn at the same time muta does, so that your third will be like max 1 minute before mine (unless you take a third before lair or something, but then I can do the same). Not that much of a big deal considering how better my composition is. In order to deny my third you would need lings together with your mutas, you have few chances to win that engagement given that you already took an expo and maybe droned behind mutas. You are talking about maxing on roaches. My point here is that a low eco infestor play can beat a high eco play (unless the high eco player also start with infestors) because my infestors will be early, stacking up energy and totally shuting down muta harass. Since you started by throwing so much ressources in muta, you kinda cant catch up unless I let you take 4 bases or something. For instance 4 infestors at full energy can kill 20 roaches with fungal/infested terrans. I'll be ahead on upgrades since I started them earlier. And well, you will be playing SO risky if you take a third while stopping muta production and transition to roaches and upgrades or even infestors. If u want to go infestors you are still behind my fungal count given that i made them earlier (those early infestors are really a super big deal) and can decide to keep making infestors (you could have an earlier third but you invested 1400 gas in 12 mutas...). If you let me max out, you've lost the game since i have better upgrades, better infestor count (in most of those games vs mutas I end up with 16 infestors), and you basically have your super expensive and super useless mutas in a straight up fight. Unless, of course, you decide to go for the base trade. If I see at any point that you are stopping muta production, I can make a handfull of raoches and go kill you because I'll be suspecting that you are droning and transitioning at the same time, which is a super greedy play. Spines are useless unless you make 5+ spines at both your natural and your third. On most maps, spines cant defend both expos unless you make spines in the middle of the map, where i can still fight them one at a time because they will ahve to be spread out unless you have like 20. To say it shortly, mutas are great if you can make your opponent feel like he cant leave his base. But once i have 4 infestors and 5 hydras i feel free to move our personnaly. It comes down to who plays it the better, but i really dont think mutas themselves gives you an advantage. It's your logic against mine, I personally feel that I can deny your third for way logner as long as I spread my Mutalisks out. I'll be willing to go for a Bo5 to set aside our views that way however.
Bo5 would not prove much seeing that there could still be discrepancy between your respective skill levels..
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in my experiences mutas are map dependent in zvz. they are great on maps like shattered and tal darim where the third is far away or harder to take. on maps like antiga, i believe roach/hydra/infestor is better because the third can be taken extremely early and easily.
mutas is NOT the only way to go zvz, and if you don't believe me go watch ret's stream for a couple hours and look for his zvz's; his roach/hydra is extremely strong and hard to play against even with mutas (i know from experience).
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On December 25 2011 01:37 Promethium wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2011 01:26 Lebzetu wrote:
Wow, so it really does seem like Mutalisks are the way to go in ZvZ. ...which is a real shame because Roach/Hydra/Infestor had so much more of a dynamic to it than Muta/Ling/Bling. The unfortunate side-effect of Mutas being so powerful now is that either the metagame has to shift somehow to make Roach/Hydra/Infestor more viable... or everyone and their mother does the 1-a-ez-train of ling/bling/muta until HotS where Hydra's get the speed upgrade.
This is sarcasm, right? Roach/hydra was REALLY 1a, and infestor usage isn't hard in the slightest.
If you 1a muta ling bling you'll lose against a decent player that targets the banelings with tanks in TvZ, and in ZvZ it's 10x as bad. You have to make sure that you get his hydras with your banelings, that you split your mutas/banes vs. fungal, etc.
And if it ends up being muta/ling/bling vs. muta/ling/bling its about as micro intensive as Zerg gets, so I don't see how you could say it's 1a.
With that being said, I'm glad you mentioned getting carapace/melee upgrades and then transitioning into ultras, it's honestly the reason I feel the ling/muta/bling style is so strong. They want to get roaches to absorb the blings for the hydras and infestors for fungal, but both units are awful against ultras.
On December 25 2011 02:13 Natalya wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2011 00:47 Chaosvuistje wrote:
The problem with that style is that your third will be super delayed. I can basically camp over your third with a bunch of Mutalisks while getting my own up much faster and saturate it really quickly. By the time your Hydralisks come out to claim the third the Mutalisk player should have upgrades for the ground on the way and the ability to mass Roaches a lot. I totally disagree. Once infestors are out, you cant camp anywhere on the map, because one fungal is GG. Since my ennemy dont know where my infestors are, most of the time he'll stop harassing, preferring not to eat a letal fungal. Sometimes when my tech didnt get scouted, the first mutas eat a fungal and the game looks really bad for my opponent. I make hydra den while making infestors. Infestors will spawn at the same time muta does, so that your third will be like max 1 minute before mine (unless you take a third before lair or something, but then I can do the same). Not that much of a big deal considering how better my composition is. In order to deny my third you would need lings together with your mutas, you have few chances to win that engagement given that you already took an expo and maybe droned behind mutas. You are talking about maxing on roaches. My point here is that a low eco infestor play can beat a high eco play (unless the high eco player also start with infestors) because my infestors will be early, stacking up energy and totally shuting down muta harass. Since you started by throwing so much ressources in muta, you kinda cant catch up unless I let you take 4 bases or something. For instance 4 infestors at full energy can kill 20 roaches with fungal/infested terrans. I'll be ahead on upgrades since I started them earlier. And well, you will be playing SO risky if you take a third while stopping muta production and transition to roaches and upgrades or even infestors. If u want to go infestors you are still behind my fungal count given that i made them earlier (those early infestors are really a super big deal) and can decide to keep making infestors (you could have an earlier third but you invested 1400 gas in 12 mutas...). If you let me max out, you've lost the game since i have better upgrades, better infestor count (in most of those games vs mutas I end up with 16 infestors), and you basically have your super expensive and super useless mutas in a straight up fight. Unless, of course, you decide to go for the base trade. If I see at any point that you are stopping muta production, I can make a handfull of raoches and go kill you because I'll be suspecting that you are droning and transitioning at the same time, which is a super greedy play. Spines are useless unless you make 5+ spines at both your natural and your third. On most maps, spines cant defend both expos unless you make spines in the middle of the map, where i can still fight them one at a time because they will ahve to be spread out unless you have like 20. To say it shortly, mutas are great if you can make your opponent feel like he cant leave his base. But once i have 4 infestors and 5 hydras i feel free to move our personnaly. It comes down to who plays it the better, but i really dont think mutas themselves gives you an advantage.
If someone stops harassing because you have a few infestors they are bad with mutas. Period. You split them up and have a spotting muta so that 1 fungal is NOT gg. That + bringing an overseer to kill creep tumors (thus making hydras l0l slow to defend 3 bases) and you can definitely keep them in their base longer. If a muta player plays the style correctly on a good muta map he'll only lose to a really strong (and well-controlled) push pre-ultra (usually while the hive is morphing). At least with the builds we're seeing today, obviously everything is subject to change, especially with the coming expansions.
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On December 25 2011 04:15 Malstriks wrote:
in my experiences mutas are map dependent in zvz. they are great on maps like shattered and tal darim where the third is far away or harder to take. on maps like antiga, i believe roach/hydra/infestor is better because the third can be taken extremely early and easily.
mutas is NOT the only way to go zvz, and if you don't believe me go watch ret's stream for a couple hours and look for his zvz's; his roach/hydra is extremely strong and hard to play against even with mutas (i know from experience).
Oh I'm definitely not calling it the absolute best way to go, just that it is not as 'all inish' as most people assume it is. In the cons of the style I've also noted that you should deny the third at all costs. If you let the Roach/Hydra opponent get the third up 2 base mutalisk is obviously not going to work. So on certain maps, Mutalisks are not a favoured style. Like on maps where the third is really easily taken and where the rush distances aren't all that far.
Both Roach based styles and Mutalisk based styles depend on the map to a certain extent. But the current map pool gives more advantages to a Mutalisk based style over a Roach/Hydra based style.
And in general I am not convinced about 2 base Infestors styles. If I spread out well enough that fungalling my Mutalisks won't be worth it, I can still do my damage. Sure if I clump up all my Mutalisks and you fungal them 5 times, I'm going to lose everything. But you should be able to spread them out far enough that Infestor players will have to wait until consistant anti air units like the Hydralisk or the Queen move to that area. If I delay your third long and not fly into Sporecrawlers in the main or natural, I would still enjoy my drone advantage.
There have been many instances where I had infestors and fungalled roach after roach, and then have an army of 40 30 health Roaches plow through my stuff anyway because he had better upgrades. I find that 2 base Infestor styles give up too much even against a regular 'roach spam' ZvZ and make your play much more inflexible.
If a Bo5 won't accomplish anything, I would greatly appreciate replays of a 2 base Infestor style beating a good expanding 2 base mutalisk style and post my thoughts on them here.
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Thanks Chaos great to see another guide of yours
I am reading it asap, nice theme, we want adrenaline!!
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Guys, watch someone like Idra stream muta play ZvZ. He makes infestors look pretty awful at dealing with mutas. He spreads them to the extent that 4 fungals are being used to kill around 5 mutas. In fact, if you get your 12 mutas at the same time they get their 5 infestors, you can often just kill him outright unless he has spore queen backup.
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United States8476 Posts
There was a very recent game in the GSL where two zergs mirrored each other for the first 6-7 minutes, camping on 2 base each with 2 spines and a few banelings for a super fast lair. They diverged when one player put up an infestation pit and the other put up a spire. Now, I know 2 base fast lair infestors isn't standard by any means, but the infestor play seemed to do pretty well against this 2 base muta, taking a third by relying on creep spread with queens plus his infestors. This doesn't mean I think standard 2 base infestor against muta is any good, because you usually get your lair much later than your opponent with infestors vs muta. But anyways, I think the game was yugioh vs july on belshir beach, group E of up/down, if you're interested in checking that out.
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hehe a really nice written guide covers so much, liked mutas before in zvz, but i dislike the 2 base play. poor hydras though their only advantage over queens as anti air is their speed/cost and the only advantage over roaches is nothing really. Currently i love to go heavy on upgrades and queens, because in roach wars a queen with full energy is worth 3ish reinforcement roaches and provides long range anti air. Someone that commited on to many mutas doesn't really stand a chance. Zergs generally tend to throw questionmarks at me when i play zerg ... guess i win because i play so strange (so ignore my comments). But it still feels like a really underdeveloped matchup, should change now though with so many zergs on ladder.
Anyway who fears muta harass forgot that there is the perfect muta conter available at lair for the cost of one muta. If you don't know what i mean, watch broodwar zvz. And seeing no creepspread from hydra going players is just .... I wonder if people know that you can kill your own tumors, but people don't really like to use creep to their advantage alot, especially when going hydras where creep is important for the attack.
Well 2012 is near, maybe then.
But the guide is really impressive and well written i am amazed !
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On December 25 2011 04:30 Skwid1g wrote:
If someone stops harassing because you have a few infestors they are bad with mutas. Period. You split them up and have a spotting muta so that 1 fungal is NOT gg. That + bringing an overseer to kill creep tumors (thus making hydras l0l slow to defend 3 bases) and you can definitely keep them in their base longer. If a muta player plays the style correctly on a good muta map he'll only lose to a really strong (and well-controlled) push pre-ultra (usually while the hive is morphing). At least with the builds we're seeing today, obviously everything is subject to change, especially with the coming expansions.
How are your splitted mutas going to do damage when i have a few queens, some spores and a few hydras? 2-4 mutas are not going to do it against a single spore well placed in my mineral line, my overlords are well positionned if i play right (which is not always the case ofcourse) and so what do you have left to attack given that i play defensively? Remember, you cant attack with more than a few mutalisk at a time (or else you need some crazy ass micro that you could still show but that i didnt see at my high master level). Like if I move back my hydras, mutas are going to clump to attack them if your micro is not godly. And you do not want anyway to attack hydras with mutas. I honestly do not see your mutalisk doing much damage before a big fight happens, and they shouldnt deny my third either. Also I'm not saying a better muta player couldnt kill me, I'm just saying his mutas dont gives him any advantage over my infestors play.
That being said, you can agree or not with them but I remember during the gsl this week one of the casters quoted Day9 saying that fast infestors bo are the hard counters to muta bo and that we start to see more infestors rush on the ladder. And as someone else said, yes infestor rush is vulnerable to a fat roach all in pre-lair. But I see it as the only counter, personnaly.
Also, about mutalisk transition: I used to transition out of muta after 5 (not 12) of them. It's enough to kill ov, to force spores, to, most of the time, make your opponent overreact and make a ton of hydras. Then you come with mass roaches and eat his hydra for free :D
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On December 25 2011 04:30 Skwid1g wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2011 01:37 Promethium wrote:On December 25 2011 01:26 Lebzetu wrote:
Wow, so it really does seem like Mutalisks are the way to go in ZvZ. ...which is a real shame because Roach/Hydra/Infestor had so much more of a dynamic to it than Muta/Ling/Bling. The unfortunate side-effect of Mutas being so powerful now is that either the metagame has to shift somehow to make Roach/Hydra/Infestor more viable... or everyone and their mother does the 1-a-ez-train of ling/bling/muta until HotS where Hydra's get the speed upgrade. This is sarcasm, right? Roach/hydra was REALLY 1a, and infestor usage isn't hard in the slightest. If you 1a muta ling bling you'll lose against a decent player that targets the banelings with tanks in TvZ, and in ZvZ it's 10x as bad. You have to make sure that you get his hydras with your banelings, that you split your mutas/banes vs. fungal, etc. And if it ends up being muta/ling/bling vs. muta/ling/bling its about as micro intensive as Zerg gets, so I don't see how you could say it's 1a. With that being said, I'm glad you mentioned getting carapace/melee upgrades and then transitioning into ultras, it's honestly the reason I feel the ling/muta/bling style is so strong. They want to get roaches to absorb the blings for the hydras and infestors for fungal, but both units are awful against ultras.
It's like you didn't even read my post, or read it in a way that makes you seem like you know what you're talking about. Roach/Hydra/Infestor is much more micro intensive in an actual battle than Muta/Ling/Bling. Yes, you 1a the roaches. Then you micro your hydras either back away from banes or to attack the incoming mutas. You have to fungal the banes with your infestors, you have to fungal the Mutas with your infestors. What does the Muta/Ling/Bling player have to do? 1a your lings. 1a the mutas and spread them a bit. Move command your banes. The Roach/Hydra/Infestor player is the Terran microing his marines away from the banes and target firing with his tanks if you want a comparison.
As for Muta vs Muta. It's a bunch of clicking and making sure you can get potshots. That's nothing very micro intensive about that because the ling/bling never actually comes into play. One player tries to attack a hatch or a flank and gets instantly dissolved by the defensive banes. Once one player gets too many mutas, he wins. Hardly a very big micro heavy play.
With that being said, I never mentioned Ultralisks. You should really proofread your posts.
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On December 25 2011 07:49 NrGmonk wrote:
There was a very recent game in the GSL where two zergs mirrored each other for the first 6-7 minutes, camping on 2 base each with 2 spines and a few banelings for a super fast lair. They diverged when one player put up an infestation pit and the other put up a spire. Now, I know 2 base fast lair infestors isn't standard by any means, but the infestor play seemed to do pretty well against this 2 base muta, taking a third by relying on creep spread with queens plus his infestors. This doesn't mean I think standard 2 base infestor against muta is any good, because you usually get your lair much later than your opponent with infestors vs muta. But anyways, I think the game was yugioh vs july on belshir beach, group E of up/down, if you're interested in checking that out.
I think I have seen that game actually, although I didn't take notes on it and I don't have a GSL pass so I'm unable to watch the VODs ( yes, even the up and down ones, sadly ).
On December 25 2011 09:58 Natalya wrote:
That being said, you can agree or not with them but I remember during the gsl this week one of the casters quoted Day9 saying that fast infestors bo are the hard counters to muta bo and that we start to see more infestors rush on the ladder. And as someone else said, yes infestor rush is vulnerable to a fat roach all in pre-lair. But I see it as the only counter, personnaly.
Also, about mutalisk transition: I used to transition out of muta after 5 (not 12) of them. It's enough to kill ov, to force spores, to, most of the time, make your opponent overreact and make a ton of hydras. Then you come with mass roaches and eat his hydra for free :D
Don't believe anything casters say simply because they are famous. Artosis says Mech is the way to go in TvP, and I can't say many terrans bar the fanboys of artosis believe it is. I mean ask Goody, the actual mech god, and HE will tell you that mech doesn't work in TvP. Also I wouldn't believe D9 to say the word 'hard counter' in any way shape or form unless he is joking due to him believing it is a bad word.
As for the Mutalisk transition, maybe against a fast Infestor player you have to transition out of them faster, like at 5 or 7. But it certainly doesn't impede the Mutalisking player from getting map control and an uncontested third and maybe even a fourth. While the Infestoring player will have to fight for his third to get up while staying at home. I mean think of the things I can do to annoy your Infestors for a minute:
- Send a small pack of Zerglings to intercept them and do damage to them. You have to protect them using your own lings or even waste a fungal.
- Send random Mutalisks out to attack your Infestors, which you have to back up with Queens or be forced to retreat back.
- Send Zerglings and Banelings to attack the third, have you fungal them or attack them with Zerglings and Banelings of your own, and later come in with Mutalisks once you expended some energy.
And I could go on and combine all of these just for the heck of it. I'm saying that while it might be possible to hold your third against a good Mutalisk player, it takes far, far more skill to pull it off than the Mutalisk player has to pull off. You need to have good fungals, you need to not have your Queens sniped, you can get your Infestors intercepted, you need to worry about counter attacks while I harass the third, you need to spread creep for your queens and protect it otherwise they will be slow as hell... It is far, far easier to mess with the Infestoring player as a Mutalisk player than it is the other way around where you fungal some of my Mutalisks and kill them. Plus the thing you can lose as the Infestor player can be Infestors, your third and stray Queens. These are far more important and gamechanging than a couple of Mutalisks could ever be.
Fast Infestor styles do have these troubles, because any aggressive opponent, either with a lot of Roaches, Zerglings or Mutalisks, will get the third up faster. It takes a lot of fungals to kill off Roaches, and you can't really be certain that they will clump up. The only advantage I see from a fast Infestor player is that he can have a large Infestor ball up faster for sniping bases and the like. It doesn't give economic safety that Roach based or Mutalisk based styles do provide, while still hinging everything on the control of the Infestor player. It's not forgiving in the least.
I use this midgame Spire style simply because I want to get a third up safely and without much unit making beforehand. Mutalisks are the perfect unit for that as they are amazing against pretty much everything Zerg uses in the early game, aside from mass Queens. Getting the third up and saturated fast is the only reason I even left my old timingattack based Roach style behind in favour of this. Mutalisks simply allow you to freely saturate your base within reason without having to worry about balancing unit vs drone all that much.
I'm not a firm believer that there is such a thing as a hard counter for someone that goes Spire in the midgame of ZvZ where people have droned up almost equally. That includes Infestors, if played correctly and transitioned fast enough. Perhaps if I go for 12 Mutalisks as my style against Infestors, I will lose painfully to a push coming later. But I refuse to believe that if a Spire player is smart and transitions well, that he would still lose because the other player went 2 base Infestor. And even then I feel that the 2 base Infestor player relies more on the opponent going for Mutalisks than the Mutalisk player relying on the opponent to do anything.
On December 25 2011 09:58 Promethium wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2011 04:30 Skwid1g wrote:On December 25 2011 01:37 Promethium wrote:On December 25 2011 01:26 Lebzetu wrote:
Wow, so it really does seem like Mutalisks are the way to go in ZvZ. ...which is a real shame because Roach/Hydra/Infestor had so much more of a dynamic to it than Muta/Ling/Bling. The unfortunate side-effect of Mutas being so powerful now is that either the metagame has to shift somehow to make Roach/Hydra/Infestor more viable... or everyone and their mother does the 1-a-ez-train of ling/bling/muta until HotS where Hydra's get the speed upgrade. This is sarcasm, right? Roach/hydra was REALLY 1a, and infestor usage isn't hard in the slightest. If you 1a muta ling bling you'll lose against a decent player that targets the banelings with tanks in TvZ, and in ZvZ it's 10x as bad. You have to make sure that you get his hydras with your banelings, that you split your mutas/banes vs. fungal, etc. And if it ends up being muta/ling/bling vs. muta/ling/bling its about as micro intensive as Zerg gets, so I don't see how you could say it's 1a. With that being said, I'm glad you mentioned getting carapace/melee upgrades and then transitioning into ultras, it's honestly the reason I feel the ling/muta/bling style is so strong. They want to get roaches to absorb the blings for the hydras and infestors for fungal, but both units are awful against ultras. It's like you didn't even read my post, or read it in a way that makes you seem like you know what you're talking about. Roach/Hydra/Infestor is much more micro intensive in an actual battle than Muta/Ling/Bling. Yes, you 1a the roaches. Then you micro your hydras either back away from banes or to attack the incoming mutas. You have to fungal the banes with your infestors, you have to fungal the Mutas with your infestors. What does the Muta/Ling/Bling player have to do? 1a your lings. 1a the mutas and spread them a bit. Move command your banes. The Roach/Hydra/Infestor player is the Terran microing his marines away from the banes and target firing with his tanks if you want a comparison. As for Muta vs Muta. It's a bunch of clicking and making sure you can get potshots. That's nothing very micro intensive about that because the ling/bling never actually comes into play. One player tries to attack a hatch or a flank and gets instantly dissolved by the defensive banes. Once one player gets too many mutas, he wins. Hardly a very big micro heavy play. With that being said, I never mentioned Ultralisks. You should really proofread your posts.
Roach/Hydra/Infestor might be more micro intensive if it is pitted against Muta/Ling/Bling, but there really isn't any micro aside from pre-battle positioning and fungalling against one another. It is boring in the way that there is almost no harassment, counter attacks or in-battle micro going on at all. It's just unit trading and postiioning and large army clashes until one player succumbs from economic disadvantage. Boring for spectators that don't understand ZvZ and slow for players that want to micro a lot.
Now imagine Mutalisk versus Mutalisk, now there is nothing but harassment, counter attacks and defences going on. Once Infestors are transitioned into, Mutalisks can't roam the map uncontrolled or they face getting fungalled hard. So now you can just go on double Muta harass to evade the large muta flock of your opponent while still being safe with Queens and Infestors at home. There are so many bases being taken and so many being taken out by counter attacks that there really shouldn't be a time in the midgame where there isn't any action going on. It relies far far less on deathball versus deathball than Roach/Hydra does which is why I prefer to watch and to play it.
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I think that going fast third is superior to 2 base muta. While 2 base muta can fight with roach/hydra/infestor 3 base on larger maps (just take far third), on smaller maps it's questionable.
If I see someone spining up and no roaches, I just go fast third (like always in ZvZ, I go third before lair, but maybe a bit faster so I can get creep for spores quicker), then defend with spores and get my own spire and push back with a superior economy.
Kind of like if 2 people both go 2 base muta, the person who went lair later generally wins (provided they don't get hurt too much and defend adequately with spores and get lair in reasonable time, about 10-15 supply after the 2 base muta player).
But this is vulnerable to lair tech roach busts, so I think a lot of ZvZ's can turn into roach/hydra vs roach/hydra in such scenarios.
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On December 25 2011 18:23 Belial88 wrote:
I think that going fast third is superior to 2 base muta. While 2 base muta can fight with roach/hydra/infestor 3 base on larger maps (just take far third), on smaller maps it's questionable.
If I see someone spining up and no roaches, I just go fast third (like always in ZvZ, I go third before lair, but maybe a bit faster so I can get creep for spores quicker), then defend with spores and get my own spire and push back with a superior economy.
Kind of like if 2 people both go 2 base muta, the person who went lair later generally wins (provided they don't get hurt too much and defend adequately with spores and get lair in reasonable time, about 10-15 supply after the 2 base muta player).
But this is vulnerable to lair tech roach busts, so I think a lot of ZvZ's can turn into roach/hydra vs roach/hydra in such scenarios.
I have fought many fast third Zergs with my Mutalisk style, and as long as I stay active and disallow that third, we will be on even grounds again. But certainly the person that gets the third up sooner has a slight advantage. I will gladly play some games with anyone that wants to experiment versus this style a lot sometime in the new year though.
And I don't really believe that later spire = being ahead. I believe that the person that saved up the most gas and has not expended it on Banelings or Roaches as much will be ahead of the opponent. As long as you mined more gas or conserved more gas you will be ahead of a muta-opponent. But the advantage will be a single mutalisk or 2 at most, not gamechanging anyway unless you are fighting a bad opponent that somehow has a 7 mutalisk disadvantage because of bad gas management.
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^ You can't possibly deny the third with 2 base muta, your mutas won't be out in time. I'm talking about a faster third, as soon as I see spines I put up the third. I'll have 3 spores in time.
I'd play some games with you. Belial.869.
And I don't really believe that later spire = being ahead. I believe that the person that saved up the most gas and has not expended it on Banelings or Roaches as much will be ahead of the opponent. As long as you mined more gas or conserved more gas you will be ahead of a muta-opponent. But the advantage will be a single mutalisk or 2 at most, not gamechanging anyway unless you are fighting a bad opponent that somehow has a 7 mutalisk disadvantage because of bad gas management.
Later spire means more econ, but if you aren't mining the gas then you aren't macro'ing properly. Have to get that gas quickly obviously.
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On December 25 2011 19:11 Belial88 wrote:^ You can't possibly deny the third with 2 base muta, your mutas won't be out in time. I'm talking about a faster third, as soon as I see spines I put up the third. I'll have 3 spores in time. I'd play some games with you. Belial.869. Show nested quote +And I don't really believe that later spire = being ahead. I believe that the person that saved up the most gas and has not expended it on Banelings or Roaches as much will be ahead of the opponent. As long as you mined more gas or conserved more gas you will be ahead of a muta-opponent. But the advantage will be a single mutalisk or 2 at most, not gamechanging anyway unless you are fighting a bad opponent that somehow has a 7 mutalisk disadvantage because of bad gas management. Later spire means more econ, but if you aren't mining the gas then you aren't macro'ing properly. Have to get that gas quickly obviously.
I'm not talking about Mutalisks attacking your fast third, that obviously won't happen in the least. I'm talking about hard Zergling counter attacks with Baneling support.
But I'll add you once my gaming computer is back online, had a pretty severe crash last friday. But with Christmas and holidays coming up I'll delay the formatting and reinstalling to after the new years . My handles are Eik.995 , but I only own an EU account. Judging from your country I think you have an NA client, but it would be great if you had an EU account to boot ^^!
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Chaosvuistje always top quality guides, thank you!
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On December 25 2011 17:33 Chaosvuistje wrote:
Don't believe anything casters say simply because they are famous. Artosis says Mech is the way to go in TvP, and I can't say many terrans bar the fanboys of artosis believe it is. I mean ask Goody, the actual mech god, and HE will tell you that mech doesn't work in TvP. Also I wouldn't believe D9 to say the word 'hard counter' in any way shape or form unless he is joking due to him believing it is a bad word.
As for the Mutalisk transition, maybe against a fast Infestor player you have to transition out of them faster, like at 5 or 7. But it certainly doesn't impede the Mutalisking player from getting map control and an uncontested third and maybe even a fourth. While the Infestoring player will have to fight for his third to get up while staying at home. I mean think of the things I can do to annoy your Infestors for a minute:
Send a small pack of Zerglings to intercept them and do damage to them. You have to protect them using your own lings or even waste a fungal.
Send random Mutalisks out to attack your Infestors, which you have to back up with Queens or be forced to retreat back.
Send Zerglings and Banelings to attack the third, have you fungal them or attack them with Zerglings and Banelings of your own, and later come in with Mutalisks once you expended some energy.
Day9 may not have said "hard counter", but something like "in answer to the recent shift in zvz metagame, some players began to use some infestor build". I personnaly translate that into infestors being the hard counter. So that if you manage to get an edge over me, I think it comes from your better execution rather than from your build. Whatever.
And well, about your harass possibilities, I feel confident they are not so dangerous because unlike, for instance, a terran going for push and drops at the same time, you cant face my army if it's positioned relatively well. I can answer everything you could be doing, at least in theory. It means, according to me, that going muta do not gives you any edge over me, it would rather be the other way around. It's like going 14-14 against hatch first. I take 14-14 to be weaker, still you can surely win with it.
So I can have a spine or two at my natural, queen block my choke and have roaches at my third, so that zerglings should not be able to find a weak spot. And have a few hydras to deal with "random" infestors. My mindset in sc2 has always been to be as passive as possible, to make just enough defense against any frontal push or harass and drone as hard as possible, mainly focusing on improving my macro and the execution of my defense. For instance against terran I dont use mutalisk to defend against drops but I rather have two control groups of zerglings to defend double drops, freeing gas for fast infestors broods. I'm quite comfortable in that position of passive macro player.
You said muta is your unit of choice to drone your third freely. I'd say i'm safer as the infestor player as you have to face the threat of me moving out at any point. If you transition to roaches you lose the mobility advantage.
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Extremely well written guide, I love the other ones too .
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I'm not talking about Mutalisks attacking your fast third, that obviously won't happen in the least. I'm talking about hard Zergling counter attacks with Baneling support.
Roaches, and my own banelings. This is just completely separate from mutas, it's basically about how to defend against early mid-game game ling/bane aggression, to which you use roach/bane, and win with higher cost efficiency. Obviously early roaches kill your econ, but you take the third around 40ish supply and if you try to attack it with ling/bane, I'll have roach/bane to stop you. This will just delay your mutas more, or your push will be weaker than my defense if you go lair sooner.
I don't think it's that revolutionary to say after 50 supply you just use 5-10 roaches with baneling support to prevent ling/bane from killing your third, or just completely killing you for that matter.
Ah, I'm only on NA, so I suppose we'll just have to stick to discussion ;/
Well, there is a reason that Nestea and all the pros go roach/hydra in ZvZ recently. You can't defend 2 base lair speedroach with mutas, obviously - you know you use spines to defend against such aggression when going 2 base muta. So, you need roach/hydra to defend against 2 base roach when going fast third, so then naturally the game turns into roach/hydra vs roach/hydra. Fast third is just king in ZvZ though, so that's why all the koreans are going toward roach/hydra recently, since someone is usually aggressive.
If both players take a fast third though, then yea, the game should go muta vs muta, but even then if one player is using roach aggression, it may be safer to just go roach/hydra.
I mean, literally, all I'm arguing is I see you put up 3 spines, so I put up a hatchery. Then I simply do the exact same thing you do, except on 3 bases, and on 5 and eventually 6 gas, and just defend with a few spores. I then have a higher econ and gas amount to just push you back once I've defended. You can't make lings when going 2 base muta in any substantial amount, and if you don't put up the spines, you are vulnerable to roach aggression. As in Nestea vs Slush, we saw that just making 10 roaches to push a 2 base muta player who doesn't have any spines is enough to do a ton of damage, so you have to make those spines, and then those lings can't really come out. Then your drone count is even further behind, and it's perfectly fine if I even make 6 spores, because once my 6 gas mutas come out, you are pretty screwed.
So I can have a spine or two at my natural, queen block my choke and have roaches at my third, so that zerglings should not be able to find a weak spot. And have a few hydras to deal with "random" infestors. My mindset in sc2 has always been to be as passive as possible, to make just enough defense against any frontal push or harass and drone as hard as possible, mainly focusing on improving my macro and the execution of my defense. For instance against terran I dont use mutalisk to defend against drops but I rather have two control groups of zerglings to defend double drops, freeing gas for fast infestors broods. I'm quite comfortable in that position of passive macro player.
You said muta is your unit of choice to drone your third freely. I'd say i'm safer as the infestor player as you have to face the threat of me moving out at any point. If you transition to roaches you lose the mobility advantage.
Infestors take way too long to get enough energy to threaten mutas. By that point the muta player has 4 bases while you secure your third. If you have less than 10 infestors, I simply just pick off the infestors and force you to waste energy by sending single mutas at you to snipe them, and if you have hydra support, that takes even longer to get up and means your army is way smaller. Basically, by the time you have any credible force, the muta player is 200/200 and will just thrash you. Hell, then can even just make 8 mutas, force you to give up map control and go 2 base infestor, and then they just go 3 base mass roach. 2 base infestor gets stomped by mass roach play, and there's a reason in the higher levels it never works to rush infestors on 2 base in ZvZ anymore. You see in the GSL players will mass over 150 in roaches before getting infestation pit even, if not 200/200.
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On December 25 2011 19:51 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +I'm not talking about Mutalisks attacking your fast third, that obviously won't happen in the least. I'm talking about hard Zergling counter attacks with Baneling support. Roaches, and my own banelings. This is just completely separate from mutas, it's basically about how to defend against early mid-game game ling/bane aggression, to which you use roach/bane, and win with higher cost efficiency. Obviously early roaches kill your econ, but you take the third around 40ish supply and if you try to attack it with ling/bane, I'll have roach/bane to stop you. This will just delay your mutas more, or your push will be weaker than my defense if you go lair sooner. I don't think it's that revolutionary to say after 50 supply you just use 5-10 roaches with baneling support to prevent ling/bane from killing your third, or just completely killing you for that matter. Well, there is a reason that Nestea and all the pros go roach/hydra in ZvZ recently. You can't defend 2 base lair speedroach with mutas, obviously - you know you use spines to defend against such aggression when going 2 base muta. So, you need roach/hydra to defend against 2 base roach when going fast third, so then naturally the game turns into roach/hydra vs roach/hydra. Fast third is just king in ZvZ though, so that's why all the koreans are going toward roach/hydra recently, since someone is usually aggressive. If both players take a fast third though, then yea, the game should go muta vs muta, but even then if one player is using roach aggression, it may be safer to just go roach/hydra. I mean, literally, all I'm arguing is I see you put up 3 spines, so I put up a hatchery. Then I simply do the exact same thing you do, except on 3 bases, and on 5 and eventually 6 gas, and just defend with a few spores. I then have a higher econ and gas amount to just push you back once I've defended. You can't make lings when going 2 base muta in any substantial amount, and if you don't put up the spines, you are vulnerable to roach aggression. As in Nestea vs Slush, we saw that just making 10 roaches to push a 2 base muta player who doesn't have any spines is enough to do a ton of damage, so you have to make those spines, and then those lings can't really come out. Then your drone count is even further behind, and it's perfectly fine if I even make 6 spores, because once my 6 gas mutas come out, you are pretty screwed.
Well I can definitely see your point in taking a fast third and defending it well with Roach/Bane against someone going for 3 spines at his nat. But the real question is, what stops me from getting my own third up while getting Roaches of my own? If all goes well I can do with less Roaches and Banes and respond with a round of that and be on even econ again.
I think that if it is 2 base versus 2 base, the Mutalisking player will be able to saturate and drone more than a Roach player. If he goes for a quick third with a small hitsquad to prevent large counter attacks, then I will get my own third up as well knowing that you are going to macro up like I am. Then it becomes a question of what is the best unit comp for dealing with someone that has a delayed lair and a small force of Roach/Bane and a fast third, which I think is just a question of droning up more and mirroring him better, or even go Mutalisks off of 3 bases faster to get map control.
Not directed at you or anything, but I feel that I need to clear things up for future replies.
This guide is aimed at a 2 base versus 2 base situation, and denying of thirds. Not a 2 base versus fast 3rd base or fast 3 bases versus fast 3 bases situation( unless either player go muta ).
Here are some of the replays I have collected so far, contains versus Muta play and versus roachhydra play: http://www.mediafire.com/?k235a6f6j1y9h9q
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Well I can definitely see your point in taking a fast third and defending it well with Roach/Bane against someone going for 3 spines at his nat. But the real question is, what stops me from getting my own third up while getting Roaches of my own? If all goes well I can do with less Roaches and Banes and respond with a round of that and be on even econ again.
Duh, nothing ^^
It turns into a real macro game. It's sort of borderline where to go - you can go mutas, and that's the more macro oriented way of playing, but on smaller maps, or maps with harder to defend naturals/thirds (like Dual sight, for example), it's very possible you go into roach/hydra vs roach/hydra. There's nothing stopping someone from taking their third, then making only roaches from 40 supply, and if you went mutas against that you'd be screwed, or at least have a difficult time (you can scout to see drone counts and roaches at the front obviously).
Also, you generally can't really take a third in ZvZ without roaches. If you don't have your own roaches, then the other player can simply push with is 5-10 defensive roaches with 5-10 banelings as support, so you have to have roaches of your own to defend your third.
That's kind of why it turns into roach/hydra vs roach/hydra at the top level right now. You make a number of defensive roaches, enough defensive roaches that you can really hurt someone going 3 base muta who isn't getting roach tech.
But in an 'ideal' ZvZ, both players sit back, make 5 roaches and banes for their third, and then drone up and go mutas, particularly on larger maps.
But the real question is, what stops me from getting my own third up while getting Roaches of my own? If all goes well I can do with less Roaches and Banes and respond with a round of that and be on even econ again.
As a muta player? Roaches just kill your gas count, and leaves you little money to make spines. Your mutas will come late.
But of course, nothing is stopping you from making a few roaches to defend your third or pressure the opponent's third if he goes without roaches, and then simply going mutas after just making 5-10 defensive roaches. Duh, that's why I'm saying that's the future of ZvZ!
You can see Nestea vs Slush as an example of that, where Nestea makes some roaches to defend, and apply pressure against someone without roaches and going 2 base muta, and then he goes mutas himself - he defends with spores, eventually gets mutas out, and then crushes slush with a bigger econ muta ball. There were some mistakes in the game, and it wasn't quite as smooth as that, but you can see what Nestea was trying to do.
I think that if it is 2 base versus 2 base, the Mutalisking player will be able to saturate and drone more than a Roach player.
Of course. 2 base muta stomps 2 base lair roach pretty hard. Defend with mutas and spines, then push back and take a third with total map control and deny the 2 base roacher from his. But what's better than 2 base muta, is going 3 base muta vs 2 base muta OR 3 base roach/hydra vs 2 base roach. Against someone else going 3 base, you can go either way.
If he goes for a quick third with a small hitsquad to prevent large counter attacks, then I will get my own third up as well knowing that you are going to macro up like I am.
Not necessarily. If you don't have any roaches, then the 5-10 roaches with baneling support will shut down your third and force a cancel. There's a reason you don't go 3 base muta vs 2 base lair roach, because your only line of defence when going muta is spines.
I mean, if I see someone take a fast third, with no roaches, I'll just go 2 base roach and force a cancel, BEFORE throwing down my own third.
Yes, 5-10 roaches and a few banes (which should be leftover from early game) does a small hit on the econ, but it can do a lot of damage. You simply can't really hold it without your own roach warren, or spines. Can't put spines at a third yet.
Then it becomes a question of what is the best unit comp for dealing with someone that has a delayed lair and a small force of Roach/Bane and a fast third, which I think is just a question of droning up more and mirroring him better, or even go Mutalisks off of 3 bases faster to get map control.
The delayed lair is more macro, so he'll have more drones than you, who took a fast lair. You should realize that going lair cuts your drone count by about 10-20, so just going lair before I do means I will just naturally have a better economy, barring other factors of the game.
Again, you can't secure that third without roach/bane or a HUGE amount of ling/bane. So you are forced to make roaches if you want to play an econ game.
However, it's entirely possible if you see someoen go third, and you went third, you just go mutas. Nothing wrong with that. 3 base means not as many roaches like a 2 base speedroach player. You have to be careful, because if the other player just makes the third and only makes roaches, he has a good chance to simply kill you or kill your third, and then defend with spores at home. He can then go 3 base roach/hydra on smaller maps, or just mutas on 3 base vs your 2 base muta.
So that's the rub. If you both go third, the game can go either way. If someone is massing roaches, yea, you could go mutas, but you'd be much, much safer by going hydra to defend. If someone isn't massing roaches, and droning up, I'd say mutas are the better way to go.
I'd hesitate to say that 3 base roach/hydra is better than 2 base mutas, since 2 base muta can just take a faraway third, but on shorter maps, 3 base r/h can definitely beat muta, and roach/hydra can definitely win if they deny the third over and over. I think the muta player just gets map control once they get mutas out and beats 3 base r/h, so.... I just think mutas are better. I agree with you on that.
I'm just saying 3 base > 2 base. If I see someone going 2 base muta, I just take my third, make spores, get lair 10 supply later than you, then push you back with twice as many mutas and win. If someone is going 2 base speedroach, you can't go both third and mutas, and I think 3 base roach/hydra is a better response to 2 base roach instead of 2 base muta, because the roacher can just take a fast third, or he can spore it up at home.
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+ Show Spoiler +On December 25 2011 21:11 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +Well I can definitely see your point in taking a fast third and defending it well with Roach/Bane against someone going for 3 spines at his nat. But the real question is, what stops me from getting my own third up while getting Roaches of my own? If all goes well I can do with less Roaches and Banes and respond with a round of that and be on even econ again. Duh, nothing ^^ It turns into a real macro game. It's sort of borderline where to go - you can go mutas, and that's the more macro oriented way of playing, but on smaller maps, or maps with harder to defend naturals/thirds (like Dual sight, for example), it's very possible you go into roach/hydra vs roach/hydra. There's nothing stopping someone from taking their third, then making only roaches from 40 supply, and if you went mutas against that you'd be screwed, or at least have a difficult time (you can scout to see drone counts and roaches at the front obviously). Also, you generally can't really take a third in ZvZ without roaches. If you don't have your own roaches, then the other player can simply push with is 5-10 defensive roaches with 5-10 banelings as support, so you have to have roaches of your own to defend your third. That's kind of why it turns into roach/hydra vs roach/hydra at the top level right now. You make a number of defensive roaches, enough defensive roaches that you can really hurt someone going 3 base muta who isn't getting roach tech. But in an 'ideal' ZvZ, both players sit back, make 5 roaches and banes for their third, and then drone up and go mutas, particularly on larger maps. Show nested quote +But the real question is, what stops me from getting my own third up while getting Roaches of my own? If all goes well I can do with less Roaches and Banes and respond with a round of that and be on even econ again. As a muta player? Roaches just kill your gas count, and leaves you little money to make spines. Your mutas will come late. But of course, nothing is stopping you from making a few roaches to defend your third or pressure the opponent's third if he goes without roaches, and then simply going mutas after just making 5-10 defensive roaches. Duh, that's why I'm saying that's the future of ZvZ! You can see Nestea vs Slush as an example of that, where Nestea makes some roaches to defend, and apply pressure against someone without roaches and going 2 base muta, and then he goes mutas himself - he defends with spores, eventually gets mutas out, and then crushes slush with a bigger econ muta ball. There were some mistakes in the game, and it wasn't quite as smooth as that, but you can see what Nestea was trying to do. Show nested quote +I think that if it is 2 base versus 2 base, the Mutalisking player will be able to saturate and drone more than a Roach player.
Of course. 2 base muta stomps 2 base lair roach pretty hard. Defend with mutas and spines, then push back and take a third with total map control and deny the 2 base roacher from his. But what's better than 2 base muta, is going 3 base muta vs 2 base muta OR 3 base roach/hydra vs 2 base roach. Against someone else going 3 base, you can go either way. Show nested quote + If he goes for a quick third with a small hitsquad to prevent large counter attacks, then I will get my own third up as well knowing that you are going to macro up like I am. Not necessarily. If you don't have any roaches, then the 5-10 roaches with baneling support will shut down your third and force a cancel. There's a reason you don't go 3 base muta vs 2 base lair roach, because your only line of defence when going muta is spines. I mean, if I see someone take a fast third, with no roaches, I'll just go 2 base roach and force a cancel, BEFORE throwing down my own third. Yes, 5-10 roaches and a few banes (which should be leftover from early game) does a small hit on the econ, but it can do a lot of damage. You simply can't really hold it without your own roach warren, or spines. Can't put spines at a third yet. Show nested quote +Then it becomes a question of what is the best unit comp for dealing with someone that has a delayed lair and a small force of Roach/Bane and a fast third, which I think is just a question of droning up more and mirroring him better, or even go Mutalisks off of 3 bases faster to get map control. The delayed lair is more macro, so he'll have more drones than you, who took a fast lair. You should realize that going lair cuts your drone count by about 10-20, so just going lair before I do means I will just naturally have a better economy, barring other factors of the game. Again, you can't secure that third without roach/bane or a HUGE amount of ling/bane. So you are forced to make roaches if you want to play an econ game. However, it's entirely possible if you see someoen go third, and you went third, you just go mutas. Nothing wrong with that. 3 base means not as many roaches like a 2 base speedroach player. You have to be careful, because if the other player just makes the third and only makes roaches, he has a good chance to simply kill you or kill your third, and then defend with spores at home. He can then go 3 base roach/hydra on smaller maps, or just mutas on 3 base vs your 2 base muta. So that's the rub. If you both go third, the game can go either way. If someone is massing roaches, yea, you could go mutas, but you'd be much, much safer by going hydra to defend. If someone isn't massing roaches, and droning up, I'd say mutas are the better way to go. I'd hesitate to say that 3 base roach/hydra is better than 2 base mutas, since 2 base muta can just take a faraway third, but on shorter maps, 3 base r/h can definitely beat muta, and roach/hydra can definitely win if they deny the third over and over. I think the muta player just gets map control once they get mutas out and beats 3 base r/h, so.... I just think mutas are better. I agree with you on that. I'm just saying 3 base > 2 base. If I see someone going 2 base muta, I just take my third, make spores, get lair 10 supply later than you, then push you back with twice as many mutas and win. If someone is going 2 base speedroach, you can't go both third and mutas, and I think 3 base roach/hydra is a better response to 2 base roach instead of 2 base muta, because the roacher can just take a fast third, or he can spore it up at home.
Fair enough, I see where you are coming from. Although I've been straying away from Roaches for some time now in favour of Zergling Baneling. As I find that if the Roach/Bane player messes up and his baneling support has vanished, I will get a commanding lead as his Roaches will be overwhelmed.
As a previous 2 base speedroacher myself, I have faced too many a game where I was simply thwarted a third because the spores were sniped off while he was at home defending with mass spines and Mutalisks if I did make an attack. Sure his third is delayed, but my Roaches were completely forfeit if I didn't get through the Spinecrawler wall. So I have strayed away from that style in favour of an, in my opinion, more reactive and reliable 2 base Mutalisk style.
We are pretty much on the same page though, I agree that 3 base Roach/Hydra is superior to 2 base later third Mutalisk play. It's all about the map layout and if you can deny that third from going down long enough to overwhelm him.
I will continiue to play this style until I hit a solid brick wall against a certain strategy. Who knows what that will be. But I think that eventually everything will come down to 3 base versus 3 base in ZvZ as you said. It's all about stylistic choices on how to get that third though, and 2 base Mutalisk is one of them .
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On December 25 2011 19:51 Belial88 wrote:
Infestors take way too long to get enough energy to threaten mutas. By that point the muta player has 4 bases while you secure your third. If you have less than 10 infestors, I simply just pick off the infestors and force you to waste energy by sending single mutas at you to snipe them, and if you have hydra support, that takes even longer to get up and means your army is way smaller. Basically, by the time you have any credible force, the muta player is 200/200 and will just thrash you. Hell, then can even just make 8 mutas, force you to give up map control and go 2 base infestor, and then they just go 3 base mass roach. 2 base infestor gets stomped by mass roach play, and there's a reason in the higher levels it never works to rush infestors on 2 base in ZvZ anymore. You see in the GSL players will mass over 150 in roaches before getting infestation pit even, if not 200/200.
What are you talking about? Why should I wait so long before pushing? I mean I can max out but I don't have to. 4 Infestors spawn with 75 energy. With a queen helping it's enough to kill every muta if they clump. That's somewhat of a threat. After my third is secure, I can make 7-8 hydras, 15 roaches and push. At that point, your earlier third didnt give you enough of an advantage to compensate for the mutas that will nearly not do any damage at all. You may have a little more roaches than me, but it's likely that i'll have an upgrade advantage, and that I can use one or two fungals on your roaches. It's pretty difficult for you to counter attack if you decided to make roaches because you are not faster than me, and a few spores shut down ur muta haras as well. Unless i do something really wrong I can do good damage with that push, like trade all you raoches for my lower roach count, kill you mutas and sometimes your third.
About infestors being too slow, doesnt really matter since you cant know where my infestors are and so you are taking the risk to lose all your mutas if you attack the wrong way. Unless you move them while constantly spreading them but well, then again queens + a few hydras is ok. I dont have to get out of the protection of my spores at any point if i play it right.
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Chaos, I know. You don't need to be in a rush to get the roaches, I don't even get the warren until after 45 supply. But they are impprtant, if someone attempts to get a third without roaches, Ill force a cancel.
I do agree that 2 base muta is superior to 2 base roach, but a problem is that the roach guy can take a very fast third and defend with lots of spores, I suppose more than you used, and you can't get yours. I think r/h on 3 base as a response to 2 base roach is better, as someone can seee you going W base muta and just go 3 base muta.
When I used to go 2 base muta, I always thought 'damnit' when I saw someone take a fast third. There's just nothing you can do about it.
Natalya, you can only secure your third after infestors come out... that's a really long time. If I saw someone doing 2 base roach infestor though, id go fast third, then pure rooach, and overrun you. I don't know what level you play at but 2 base infestor is a horrible build noww.
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The muta response to roach with a fast 3rd should be taking very fast 3rd and 4th and denying the roach player's 4th, right? Same deal but up a base, which means he can get roach hydra infestor sooner, which means you need to switch out of mutas back to ground earlier, and you're less likely to defend with speed banelings.
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Greatest comprehensive guides, so glad you keep on making them!
Haven't been able to get much success out of mtuas in ZvZ; I seem to be completely unable to win with anything besides roach/infestor. Hopefully this can help shed some light to Nestea's beautiful muta ZvZ; mutas are pretty much the coolest unit in the entire game.
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Regarding spire vs spire games, do explore the possibility of going corruptors, especially when going up against someone who have an economic advantage (can't get fast 3rd nor mutas as response). Have an overseer scout to confirm they are indeed going spire.
The idea is that your anti-air will be more cost effective, thus you can invest more gas into banelings to win the ground battle as well. Pressure heavily with ground forces to force their mutas to engage. Add mutas once you have the air dominance. If you kill enough mutas, they will be forced into an uncomfortable position where they need to switch back to infestor&hydra tech. If you reach this stage, it will be similar to mutas vs 2 base roach situation. Either pressure lightly and grab your own fourth or just simply go kill their third.
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The muta response to roach with a fast 3rd should be taking very fast 3rd and 4th and denying the roach player's 4th, right? Same deal but up a base, which means he can get roach hydra infestor sooner, which means you need to switch out of mutas back to ground earlier, and you're less likely to defend with speed banelings.
You can't take that fast third if someone has 10 roaches with baneling support if you are going mutas though. On larger maps, it is possible to take a faraway third when going 2 base muta against a fast third roacher, and I do think on larger maps it's actually better to play that as opposed to fast third roach/hydra, but I think that fast third roach/hydra is better than going 2 base muta against someone going 2 base lair roach. If both of you go fast third before lair, then the game can go either way, mutas or roaches, and I think the safer option depends on how many roaches you see the opponent make, or in other words, if they go for macro play or aggressive play.
Regarding spire vs spire games, do explore the possibility of going corruptors, especially when going up against someone who have an economic advantage (can't get fast 3rd nor mutas as response). Have an overseer scout to confirm they are indeed going spire.
I really disagree about corruptors. They give up all map control, and corruptors start to do really, really badly against mutas once the muta count goes over about 15.
If you are losing the muta battle, 90% of the time you've pretty much lost, but just spore it up and try to get that muta count to around at least 15, and then go infestors. With lots of spores, hopefully, you can push back the mutas once you have infestors and force the opponent back so you can get another base up, but muta vs muta is pretty damn unforgiving. Generally, if you go infestors against someone constantly making mutas, you will just die as he will overrun you when his muta count gets much larger than yours, but with heavy spore spread, you can maybe make it back if you get the tech advantage with infestors + muta. Really, it just makes it so whoever is winning the macro game, wins immediately, which is kind of how the game should be, but it's quite unforgiving in muta vs muta.
I don't think you should be really spending anything at all into banelings in muta vs muta games, you need to put it into more mutas, or at least towards infestors. You can make a shitton of lings though and hopefully come back with ling counter-attacks, but gas is too important to put into banes at that stage of the game. Once the muta count is above 20, ground control doesn't matter much. You just have to make it so air control isn't an issue anymore by going infestors, and then forcing the opponent to go infestors, to force the game into ground vs ground focused again with ultra/infestor. Hydras, is a horrible response though, banelings just rape them, as do infestor+muta. Hydras are too gas costly.
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You can't take that fast third if someone has 10 roaches with baneling support if you are going mutas though
I don't really think your small ground army with a few banelings can defend your own 3rd and deny your opponent's 3rd simultaneously, not after investing in the hatchery. I'm pretty sure the muta player would happily counterattack to trade 3rds with you, bringing it back to 2 base muta vs 2 base roach.
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I fully understand how muta builds are supposed to work. I've been experimenting with it even before nestea's first muta televised match (because i just happened to see nestea raped sen with mutas on his stream way before that =/)
I'm not talking about adding in corruptors after knowing you are losing in muta count. That's way too late, with the only option left is to turtle while getting infestor support. I'm talking about when both players are making their first batch of air units, you commit fully to corruptors production (not half-assed mutas+corruptors production). While both players are still struggling to get their third up + saturate it, that's when you take advantage of both your air and ground raw firepower to force them to engage or risk economic damage. In fact, you will be the one having full map control.
Assuming both come out even in the early game, fast third will always have an advantage (upgrades+ econmoy) over muta builds. Though i have been saying for ages in previous mutas zvz threads that going mutas is never a pre-game decision. You can only choose to go mutas if you come out at least even in the early game. Of course, longer rush distance = more leeway. However, muta is a very good build to have as it is one of the safest builds going into mid-game while protecting the macro lead you gain from the early game.
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For anyone that is interrested in a VOD of TLO playing against BLY in a muta vs muta game, here it is:
+ Show Spoiler +
You really can't really tell me that Muta vs Muta isn't more exciting than RoachHydra, because with all these attacks and risky engagements, I feel its much better than Roach games.
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I've been going only muta in all my ZvZs on ladder at master level lately, to try and find the limits and timings. Your guide is very nice and I learned a lot I didn't know.
Some things I noticed while playing and might help some people :
One thing I noticed works vs most opponents when you have a superior muta count but they turtle on 3 bases until they catch up is to make a round of lings and send them into his third. Then position your mutas in the path his mutas will have to take coming from your main and intercept his own.
Also on some maps like Taldarim it's better to actually wall your expansions in. For example the third covered by rocks can be walled in with some evos and spines, making you safe from ling runbys to try and snipe your extractors. Which brings me to say your advice about the extractors is perfect, a lost extractor is a huge problem when every muta counts.
Against a roach hydra or roach infestor player, it may sound weird but it's sometimes better to attack yourself. Some of them will try to tech to hydra and infestors before pushing out, meaning you'll have a big eco advantage for a while. Just transitioning into roaches after your third and maxing on them allows you to have a big army very, very fast. Your unit composition will suck, your upgrades will be inferior to his, but you can force the engagement where you want by attacking his expansion, and you'll just flood him with cheap roaches.
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What is your opinion on corrupters in the ZvZ matchup, especially with muta transitions?
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On December 26 2011 20:01 Bswhunter wrote:
What is your opinion on corrupters in the ZvZ matchup, especially with muta transitions?
As I said in the guide, I think they have a limited role as a timing attack unit versus a mirror Mutalisk build. If you are ahead on the spire timing ( and you KNOW he's going spire for sure ) then you can mass up a lot of Corruptors and camp over the hatcheries sniping off Mutalisks as they hatch. But they are not good combat units versus the Mutalisks because they deal similar damage but are much much slower.
Corruptors can be used to snipe off a ton of Overlords if the opponent isn't going Mutalisks, but you will get screwed over hard if the opponent went Hydralisks randomly. You can't mix in corruptors either because they will drag your own Mutalisks down and allow the opponent to harass whereas you have to defend because of the slow movement speed.
In straight up fights, Corruptors are amazing against Mutalisks. Except that's the crutch, if they fight head on. If anything the Mutalisks almost never attack head on unless they have an advantage, else they just fly away in the safety of Sporecrawlers.
So their limited use as an anti-overlord and anti-Muta unit that can only be good in straight up fights, that don't happen, make it a unit that isn't really all that amazing compared to just getting up a lot of Mutalisks yourself for harassment and teching into Infestors later.
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I don't really think your small ground army with a few banelings can defend your own 3rd and deny your opponent's 3rd simultaneously, not after investing in the hatchery. I'm pretty sure the muta player would happily counterattack to trade 3rds with you, bringing it back to 2 base muta vs 2 base roach.
Someone going 2 base lair isn't going to have much ground army. It's possible you can have enough roaches to defend a small army if going 2 base lair, but if you are going muta without roaches, then you won't have roaches to do that.
The muta player won't have enough lings to counterattack in a way that a few at-home banes can't deal with. I won't say that the muta player couldn't try to do that though.
While both players are still struggling to get their third up + saturate it, that's when you take advantage of both your air and ground raw firepower to force them to engage or risk economic damage. In fact, you will be the one having full map control.
The muta player can simply harass way more effectively. Once you end up behind, the other player gets enough of a lead to simply get more mutas and overwhelm those corruptors. Corruptors become pretty deadweight once enough mutas are out.
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On December 26 2011 04:48 Belial88 wrote:
Natalya, you can only secure your third after infestors come out... that's a really long time. If I saw someone doing 2 base roach infestor though, id go fast third, then pure rooach, and overrun you. I don't know what level you play at but 2 base infestor is a horrible build noww.
Lol. I think i'm not going to answer anymore since you dont even read what i posted. Infestors are up at the same as muta does. He take his third after the first spawn of muta, so do I with my infestors. So thatt he has, in the worst case, an expo something like a minute before me. Which is no big deal given that infestors are so much more cost efficient.
And I play at least at the same level as you do given that I'm high master and according to the last replay I saw from you.
Basically, the way you react nearly every time to a post is the following : calling people big names (you're so much of a fool if you never heard about the "belial's floral arrangement of death", and it could even be your first game on sc2 i'm gona keep calling you fool), not giving them any credit compared to the SO AMAZING BELIAL, and, worst of all, not even trying to find any logic or any points behind other peoples's argument. You are acting as if you holded the truth itself within your posts.
So, after trying to discredit me ("I dont know what level you're playing at"), you simply affirm with no argumentation that my build is horrible. LoL. What you said about roaches is no argumentation since you do not take my other posts into account. I'm trying to help you on this one: I talked about 2 base infestor into 3 base as an answer to 2 base muta into 3+ base. How could it be horrible when you're safe against muta harass and when the macro advantage your opponent could have is not a big deal given that you are more cost efficient.
Now I'm still trying to help you reading other people's post for real. I said that my build is weak against mass roaches. So, ask youself, if there is any logic in the way I play, if I'm not a fool as you may think, what does that mean? That maybe I wouldnt play 2 base infestors vs an pre-lair third from my opponent? UNCREDIBLE, my build can makes sens again. As I said in another post, if I see a fast third I can take one myself.
Many people do not like the way you are posting on TL. Maybe it's time to ask yourself why and to work on it. Hope I helped.
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Infestors are up at the same as muta does. He take his third after the first spawn of muta, so do I with my infestors. So thatt he has, in the worst case, an expo something like a minute before me. Which is no big deal given that infestors are so much more cost efficient.
Not really. You need to build up energy on the infestors too. I pop out 10 mutas the same time you get out 6 infestors. You only have 6 FG, and you have to walk slow-ass infestors.
Also, if you are going infestors, it means no ground army. It means I just take my third. You, on the other hand, can't really take your third - sure you can try, but then the mutas pop and just kill it. It would be half okay if you massed roaches, but if you are going infestors, you can't get any roaches.
There's a reason no one goes 2 base infestor anymore in ZvZ. It's why you'll never see Nestea or Losira go 2 base infestor, or any korean for that matter, in ZvZ.
You sound like you are venting more than keeping on the discussion. You can PM me, I'm well aware some masters players disagree with me. A lot of masters disagree. I just try to understand what the best players seem to do, like Nestea and Losira, and the rest of the koreans. It's also part personal experience.
This conversation we're having Natalya, is ridiculous anyways, because 2 base muta is a bad build, it's kind of what I was arguing with the OP about, although it's not as bad as 2 base infestor. I was just arguing in defense of the OP, that his 2 base muta build is better than 2 base infestor, so no, you make no sense, but this whole thread is about the OP's 2 base muta build. You are the one that is disagreeing by saying the OP's 2 base muta build is wrong.
If I saw someone go 2 base infestor, I wouldn't go 2 base muta. I never go 2 base muta. I'm simply saying it's the 'better' 2 base build, but I never go lair before third in ZvZ (except against roach/ling hatch tech all-ins). If I see someone going 2 base infestor, I would just take a fast third as you will have zero ground army due to teching to infestors, and then I would mass roaches and just roll over you. That's why at the top level you don't see mass infestors, you see people go 200/200 roaches or roach/hydra before getting infestors, because you can max out on roach way much quicker than getting infestors, while the roaches allow you map control vs infestor play. If you go 2 base roach, I just go 3 base roach/hydra, and hold your all-in basically.
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T.O.P.
Hong Kong4685 Posts
No, 2 base muta is not a bad build. It's a great build unless that map allows a roach hydra user to take an 3rd. I believe that 2 base muta is superior to all 2 base builds because you can take a 3rd and drone up so much faster than the other player.
Chaos, you can't say this guide isn't meant for 2 vs. 3 base situations, because you can't stop him from taking a 3rd on certain maps. When I wake up, I will upload a great replay against VIBE that demonstrates this. Once zerg gets 3 base roach/hydra, his max will beat a muta player's max so bad that it doesn't matter how many bases you have.
I would suggest adding baneling landmines as part of your guide. They are really effective vs bad zerg players. Anyone good would get a overseer to detect landmines and look at baneling count. A good roach hydra user would also add infestors if he sees mass baneling.
Btw, Hydras are not bad units.
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When i get back home from chrismas im gonna have so much fun on ladder thanks to dis guide
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On December 27 2011 00:55 T.O.P. wrote:
No, 2 base muta is not a bad build. It's a great build unless that map allows a roach hydra user to take an 3rd. I believe that 2 base muta is superior to all 2 base builds because you can take a 3rd and drone up so much faster than the other player.
Chaos, you can't say this guide isn't meant for 2 vs. 3 base situations, because you can't stop him from taking a 3rd on certain maps. When I wake up, I will upload a great replay against VIBE that demonstrates this. Once zerg gets 3 base roach/hydra, his max will beat a muta player's max so bad that it doesn't matter how many bases you have.
I would suggest adding baneling landmines as part of your guide. They are really effective vs bad zerg players. Anyone good would get a overseer to detect landmines and look at baneling count. A good roach hydra user would also add infestors if he sees mass baneling.
Btw, Hydras are not bad units.
Yeah but by the time he's max, your goal is to have bl or ultra ! Ofc that if you stay all game long with banelings/lings/muta you're gonna get crushed because your army is less effective than his. But you have map control to get more bases.
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On December 27 2011 00:55 T.O.P. wrote:
No, 2 base muta is not a bad build. It's a great build unless that map allows a roach hydra user to take an 3rd. I believe that 2 base muta is superior to all 2 base builds because you can take a 3rd and drone up so much faster than the other player.
Chaos, you can't say this guide isn't meant for 2 vs. 3 base situations, because you can't stop him from taking a 3rd on certain maps. When I wake up, I will upload a great replay against VIBE that demonstrates this. Once zerg gets 3 base roach/hydra, his max will beat a muta player's max so bad that it doesn't matter how many bases you have.
I would suggest adding baneling landmines as part of your guide. They are really effective vs bad zerg players. Anyone good would get a overseer to detect landmines and look at baneling count. A good roach hydra user would also add infestors if he sees mass baneling.
Btw, Hydras are not bad units.
I gladly recieve feedback and replays so that I can improve, but yes if you allow ( or the map layout is good ) the opposing zerg to get 3 bases up, his third will be saturated before yours and his standing army will be stronger in a stand up fight while I'm probably behind on upgrades. I myself have lost to 3 base RoachHydra simply because I didn't deny the third enough a few times. I think I noted the weakness of a fast third Roach/Hydra in the Concept part of the guide, I might be wrong though.
About the Baneling land mines, I'm not sure about those as I haven't experimented with them myself. But I could see them working in high pressure situations or large flanks. Plenty of Zergs don't get an Overseer out with a Roach/Hydra push, but I just never really needed to try stuff like that against a 2 base Roach Hydra opponent. Perhaps against a 3base Roach/Hydra opponent they could give you a comeback.
Personally I will favour Queens over Hydralisks, but yes with proper support Hydralisks can give you that extra boost. Like in Fungal situations. But I still think that the gas is better spent on an extra Infestor, while reserving the overminerals for a macro hatchery and Queens. I'll have to experiment with that as I haven't felt the need to switch to GtA anti-air in a Muta v Muta situation, I do keep them defensively at home in a larger than normal number, but never used them in offense before.
Thanks for the feedback again, and I'll wait for the replay like a late christmas present
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Please correct me if im wrong but iv always opened with a pretty roach centric style and have really never had a problem with an equally skilled 2 base muta user.
The way I go about dealing with it is applying a lot of pressure with roaches and speedlings at around 7-8 mins. This forces a lot of spine crawlers generally as mutalisks will not be out in time (or if they are he will just die for obvious reasons). It is ofc perfectly possible for the muta user to hold the aggression if they are willing to delay their spire a bit (though quite commonly they just straight up die, but you discussed dealing with things like this in your guide.)
However I ensure all my roaches survive the push, not committing at all if there are too many spines. With my roaches I will not let you get a third until you have a substantial flock of mutas, honestly under 10 mutas my roaches simply do not care about, above that i can extend their life by use of burrow etc before finally retreating. Additionally if the mutas are attacking my roaches I can skimp on turrets just that bit longer to pump more drones/units and if they go for straight for my base their third will be even further delayed.
Using these roaches I can almost always guarantee a MUCH faster third, sometimes even 4th and hold off with spores and queens until my own spire completes. Then a switch into mutas myself, as well as considering I also have useful roach tech, (generally warren+speed+burrow, maybe +1) leaves me way ahead.
Is there something im missing, am i just playing bad people/inexperianced ML users or is this something you just don't really see?
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SO i have a question - would you recommend going mutas to deal with mutas or is sticking with roach hydra infestor still fine... lately i've been having tons of problems against mutas especially because i cannot get my third or fourth up more so on large maps due to lack of mobility. This also forces me to just all in on 2 or 3 base and hope for the best.
Haven't read the guide yet just asking this question before hand. (reading right now).
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On December 27 2011 03:38 Kinshuk wrote:
SO i have a question - would you recommend going mutas to deal with mutas or is sticking with roach hydra infestor still fine... lately i've been having tons of problems against mutas especially because i cannot get my third or fourth up more so on large maps due to lack of mobility. This also forces me to just all in on 2 or 3 base and hope for the best.
Haven't read the guide yet just asking this question before hand. (reading right now).
Yes, I would say that if you have the same trouble as I had ( keep having my third denied ect. ) you should try a Mutalisk build out versus Mutalisk styles. There are other Infestor+Queen+Nydus worm pushes off of 2 base, but I have only seen those work after a large roach push has crippled the Mutalisker.
On December 27 2011 03:27 Iksf wrote:
Please correct me if im wrong but iv always opened with a pretty roach centric style and have really never had a problem with an equally skilled 2 base muta user.
The way I go about dealing with it is applying a lot of pressure with roaches and speedlings at around 7-8 mins. This forces a lot of spine crawlers generally as mutalisks will not be out in time (or if they are he will just die for obvious reasons). It is ofc perfectly possible for the muta user to hold the aggression if they are willing to delay their spire a bit (though quite commonly they just straight up die, but you discussed dealing with things like this in your guide.)
However I ensure all my roaches survive the push, not committing at all if there are too many spines. With my roaches I will not let you get a third until you have a substantial flock of mutas, honestly under 10 mutas my roaches simply do not care about, above that i can extend their life by use of burrow etc before finally retreating. Additionally if the mutas are attacking my roaches I can skimp on turrets just that bit longer to pump more drones/units and if they go for straight for my base their third will be even further delayed.
Using these roaches I can almost always guarantee a MUCH faster third, sometimes even 4th and hold off with spores and queens until my own spire completes. Then a switch into mutas myself, as well as considering I also have useful roach tech, (generally warren+speed+burrow, maybe +1) leaves me way ahead.
Is there something im missing, am i just playing bad people/inexperianced ML users or is this something you just don't really see?
You see, Roaches have the terrible attribute that unless they come in a large enough pack, I'm not forced to build them. Infact, my Spinecrawlers can hold them off just fine with proper Baneling support if they come in small numbers.
Roaches are also very mineral expensive compared to gas, and that cuts into drone production a ton. If you make a lot of Roaches and Zerglings, while I make a lot of Spinecrawlers and react with my own Roaches, I should hold with a better economy. I don't really mind if you stick around my third, as long as I delay yours ( which I should with my own Mutalisks, unless you go for some uber aggressive, almost all inish roach bust ) once so the creep doesn't go there, I know I will have more drones and can afford it.
Hell, if you only have a few Roaches at my third denying it, I will gladly take those free kills before taking it, knowing that I can still drone up behind my spinecrawlers for a later maynard. I could possibly even take them out with a Zergling surround because I will just take my macro hatchery faster.
I found that more often than I lost more Roaches on the way back and got my third denied to boot because my lair was delayed for Roach production, which eventually kept me behind and quickly being out-econed spirals out of control fast in ZvZ.
It's all about the drones, and if I go Muta you can be damn sure that even if you do a Roach pressure and I have some spines, I will be ahead in drones or tech.
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On December 27 2011 03:44 Chaosvuistje wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2011 03:38 Kinshuk wrote:
SO i have a question - would you recommend going mutas to deal with mutas or is sticking with roach hydra infestor still fine... lately i've been having tons of problems against mutas especially because i cannot get my third or fourth up more so on large maps due to lack of mobility. This also forces me to just all in on 2 or 3 base and hope for the best.
Haven't read the guide yet just asking this question before hand. (reading right now). Yes, I would say that if you have the same trouble as I had ( keep having my third denied ect. ) you should try a Mutalisk build out versus Mutalisk styles. There are other Infestor+Queen+Nydus worm pushes off of 2 base, but I have only seen those work after a large roach push has crippled the Mutalisker. Show nested quote +On December 27 2011 03:27 Iksf wrote:
Please correct me if im wrong but iv always opened with a pretty roach centric style and have really never had a problem with an equally skilled 2 base muta user.
The way I go about dealing with it is applying a lot of pressure with roaches and speedlings at around 7-8 mins. This forces a lot of spine crawlers generally as mutalisks will not be out in time (or if they are he will just die for obvious reasons). It is ofc perfectly possible for the muta user to hold the aggression if they are willing to delay their spire a bit (though quite commonly they just straight up die, but you discussed dealing with things like this in your guide.)
However I ensure all my roaches survive the push, not committing at all if there are too many spines. With my roaches I will not let you get a third until you have a substantial flock of mutas, honestly under 10 mutas my roaches simply do not care about, above that i can extend their life by use of burrow etc before finally retreating. Additionally if the mutas are attacking my roaches I can skimp on turrets just that bit longer to pump more drones/units and if they go for straight for my base their third will be even further delayed.
Using these roaches I can almost always guarantee a MUCH faster third, sometimes even 4th and hold off with spores and queens until my own spire completes. Then a switch into mutas myself, as well as considering I also have useful roach tech, (generally warren+speed+burrow, maybe +1) leaves me way ahead.
Is there something im missing, am i just playing bad people/inexperianced ML users or is this something you just don't really see?
You see, Roaches have the terrible attribute that unless they come in a large enough pack, I'm not forced to build them. Infact, my Spinecrawlers can hold them off just fine with proper Baneling support if they come in small numbers. Roaches are also very mineral expensive compared to gas, and that cuts into drone production a ton. If you make a lot of Roaches and Zerglings, while I make a lot of Spinecrawlers and react with my own Roaches, I should hold with a better economy. I don't really mind if you stick around my third, as long as I delay yours ( which I should with my own Mutalisks, unless you go for some uber aggressive, almost all inish roach bust ) once so the creep doesn't go there, I know I will have more drones and can afford it. Hell, if you only have a few Roaches at my third denying it, I will gladly take those free kills before taking it, knowing that I can still drone up behind my spinecrawlers for a later maynard. I could possibly even take them out with a Zergling surround because I will just take my macro hatchery faster. I found that more often than I lost more Roaches on the way back and got my third denied to boot because my lair was delayed for Roach production, which eventually kept me behind and quickly being out-econed spirals out of control fast in ZvZ. It's all about the drones, and if I go Muta you can be damn sure that even if you do a Roach pressure and I have some spines, I will be ahead in drones or tech.
I see your point but I don't actually find this happens in reality. Spines are actually very expensive and you need a lot of them to hold a good pressure, then if i do not commit i have full map control until your mutas are out. In this timeframe i can easily get a third and enough spores to defend it before your third is even cleared. There will be a timing where you get map control but generally i find my lair finishes before the muta players spire or about equal. After i have secured 6 gas i can outproduce you on mutas pretty easily.
Additionally the roaches honestly barely take damage from mutas, its not even worth retreating against a couple of mutas. Even with 6+ mutas most of my roaches will make it home fine, or stick around to delay your third for as long as possible.
This is my experience anyway.
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On December 27 2011 00:04 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote + Infestors are up at the same as muta does. He take his third after the first spawn of muta, so do I with my infestors. So thatt he has, in the worst case, an expo something like a minute before me. Which is no big deal given that infestors are so much more cost efficient.
Not really. You need to build up energy on the infestors too. I pop out 10 mutas the same time you get out 6 infestors. You only have 6 FG, and you have to walk slow-ass infestors. Also, if you are going infestors, it means no ground army. It means I just take my third. You, on the other hand, can't really take your third - sure you can try, but then the mutas pop and just kill it. It would be half okay if you massed roaches, but if you are going infestors, you can't get any roaches. There's a reason no one goes 2 base infestor anymore in ZvZ. It's why you'll never see Nestea or Losira go 2 base infestor, or any korean for that matter, in ZvZ. You sound like you are venting more than keeping on the discussion. You can PM me, I'm well aware some masters players disagree with me. A lot of masters disagree. I just try to understand what the best players seem to do, like Nestea and Losira, and the rest of the koreans. It's also part personal experience. This conversation we're having Natalya, is ridiculous anyways, because 2 base muta is a bad build, it's kind of what I was arguing with the OP about, although it's not as bad as 2 base infestor. I was just arguing in defense of the OP, that his 2 base muta build is better than 2 base infestor, so no, you make no sense, but this whole thread is about the OP's 2 base muta build. You are the one that is disagreeing by saying the OP's 2 base muta build is wrong. If I saw someone go 2 base infestor, I wouldn't go 2 base muta. I never go 2 base muta. I'm simply saying it's the 'better' 2 base build, but I never go lair before third in ZvZ (except against roach/ling hatch tech all-ins). If I see someone going 2 base infestor, I would just take a fast third as you will have zero ground army due to teching to infestors, and then I would mass roaches and just roll over you. That's why at the top level you don't see mass infestors, you see people go 200/200 roaches or roach/hydra before getting infestors, because you can max out on roach way much quicker than getting infestors, while the roaches allow you map control vs infestor play. If you go 2 base roach, I just go 3 base roach/hydra, and hold your all-in basically.
Here another example. How could 2 base muta be a bad build when a few weeks ago 90% of high master Z would go for it and still many Z are playing it? You really think you can be right while 90% of the ladder is wrong? Common, if people do a build, there must be a reason for it. You should aim at finding that reason instead of sticking to "the ladder is wrong". And i've seen some koreans go 2 base muta in gsl this week and I wonder if I didnt see it also during bliz cup.
Other things proving you do not really try to find the point in my arguments. You say you'll be countering my 2 base infestor by not going muta and going a fast third. But if you take a third after you saw infestor tech it is not a fast third anymore. You cant know if I'm going muta or infestor before u got a lair urself (cant ov scout that late in the game i guess). So how could you counter my build by not going muta or by going fast 3rd? You simply cant.
So I had little to no trouble getting a third vs mutas player, but well, you wont believe me anyway. You say I dont have ground army. If u take a third and go muta, how do you have a ground army of your own?
And well, I can agree on your point that 3 base before lair is good most of the time. About the "it's easier to max on raoches" idea, I'll hapilly wait for your mass of roaches to attack into my spines + fungal. I could have 10 or 15 less roaches at the time you attack and still hold it imo. Imo 3 bases infestors > 3 bases roaches but if you go 3 bases before lair, you will want to be quite mineral heavy and have late gas (due to the fact you need minerals for hatch, queens and drones), and then once you've good saturation it is very tempting to spam roaches (getting three bases then wait for infestors would be too greedy). And if you start making roaches before infestors, you're going to have very few infestors, and too late to build a good energy pool. I think that's why you'll see mass roaches games out of quick 3 bases.
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On ladder you can do any build with decent macro and be fine, I don't know what you are trying to argue. I'm only basing my argument on personal experience, solid analysis, and perhaps mmost influentially, on what nestea and losira always do.
And I would lose 10 times out of 10 playing nestea - not even, destiny, crazymoving, tlo - going fast third vs them, or 2 base muta vs their 2 base r/h.
If you watch koreans though, especially macro players llike losira and nestea, you'll see that fast third is the future of ZvZ.
I'm not saying that 2 base muta is such a bad build you'll autolose. I'm saying when played correctly, against someone of similar skill, its better than any other 2 base build (despite july losing, his build got him ahead of yugioh before yugioh out multitasked him), and that fast third is better than any 2 base lair build, including 2 base muta.
Its not hard to fathom. Take a third and defend with hydras against 2 base roach. Take a third a defend with spores against 2 base muta. Take a third and mass roaches and drones against 2 base infestor.
No, I don't take a third as a response to your infestors. I took the third as a response to you getting 2 base lair - I don't make hydras or mutas but rather mass roaches when I scout you going infestors, and contain you. Even 2 base pure roach is better than 2 base infestor, that's why koreans go roach/hydra instead of quick infestors, and onky get infestors after taking their third.
Your arguing with the wrong person. I'm not the guy who wrote the original post. You should talk to the OP. I just think 2 base muta is the best 2 base build, and I agree with you that its not optimal. I suppose we disagree about 2 base infesot vs 2 base muta, and I don't care to argue it (it would be like arguing 3 rax vs 1 base roach opening as a better macro opener), but in such a case, neither player has a third or ground army, but the muta player gets total map control and get his third much quicker. With decent micro, the muta player will win a fight, but he could just go his own roach infestor with better econ.
When I go fast third vs your 2 base infestor, why would I ever attack you? I contai. You, grab a fourth, and then get my own infestors. Ill get broodlords eventually. The advantage is that. I see you are going infestors instead of a third or mass roach, so I just completely drone up while denying your third. Your 2 base infestor will no way beat 3 base pure roach, particualrly because even if you win the battle, I just remax instantly and trade more with your dying economy. Once I've contained you, or even just significantly denied your third, I get my own infestors, and win.
Hell, its just a matter of I get my third before you, and because you can't kill me for doing so, I'm ahead. That's it, that's all I'm saying, the build ends up ahead. Anything vcan still happen and you can still win, I'm just saying going 3 base before lair is better than 2 base lair.
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T.O.P.
Hong Kong4685 Posts
Here's the replay of VIBE doing a 3 base roach/hydra build. Once he gets 3rd base up I feel like I have to kill that 3rd base or lose. You can't get enough gas to make enough banelings to kill hydras and have enough mutas to stop roaches.
http://drop.sc/79899
On December 27 2011 03:38 Kinshuk wrote:
SO i have a question - would you recommend going mutas to deal with mutas or is sticking with roach hydra infestor still fine... lately i've been having tons of problems against mutas especially because i cannot get my third or fourth up more so on large maps due to lack of mobility. This also forces me to just all in on 2 or 3 base and hope for the best.
If you have 2 base vs a muta user. You should have lost the game. I would do a 2 base roach/hydra or roach/ queen infestor timing attack and get it over with.
On December 27 2011 03:27 Iksf wrote:
Please correct me if im wrong but iv always opened with a pretty roach centric style and have really never had a problem with an equally skilled 2 base muta user.
The way I go about dealing with it is applying a lot of pressure with roaches and speedlings at around 7-8 mins. This forces a lot of spine crawlers generally as mutalisks will not be out in time (or if they are he will just die for obvious reasons). It is ofc perfectly possible for the muta user to hold the aggression if they are willing to delay their spire a bit (though quite commonly they just straight up die, but you discussed dealing with things like this in your guide.)
However I ensure all my roaches survive the push, not committing at all if there are too many spines. With my roaches I will not let you get a third until you have a substantial flock of mutas, honestly under 10 mutas my roaches simply do not care about, above that i can extend their life by use of burrow etc before finally retreating. Additionally if the mutas are attacking my roaches I can skimp on turrets just that bit longer to pump more drones/units and if they go for straight for my base their third will be even further delayed.
Using these roaches I can almost always guarantee a MUCH faster third, sometimes even 4th and hold off with spores and queens until my own spire completes. Then a switch into mutas myself, as well as considering I also have useful roach tech, (generally warren+speed+burrow, maybe +1) leaves me way ahead.
Is there something im missing, am i just playing bad people/inexperianced ML users or is this something you just don't really see?
I can't see how you can take a 3rd with mutas on the map. If you don't make much roaches, spines will easily take care of the threat. If you make a lot of roaches, then they're no way you can afford a 3rd, plus the money it takes to cover your bases with spores. Making spines doesn't hurt the muta user, it doesn't cost any gas.
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On December 27 2011 09:16 T.O.P. wrote:Here's the replay of VIBE doing a 3 base roach/hydra build. Once he gets 3rd base up I feel like I have to kill that 3rd base or lose. You can't get enough gas to make enough banelings to kill hydras and have enough mutas to stop roaches. http://drop.sc/79899
To me, that game shows exactly why knowing that the opponent doesn't have a third is so important. I tend to park a pair of Zerglings there just to intercept early drones, and if he takes a third I should scout it much sooner, before you did anyway. When you scouted it the third was already up and had a ton of creep there, I would've personally contested it harder, but ViBE just gained himself an eco advantage at the start that you had to catch up to and you had no choice but to drone. Which was a very good situation for him.
Once he gets Roaches up and his third is already up with a Sporecrawler, and Hydralisks on the way. Then yes, you will have to play extra hard even things up. I would think maybe harass the extractors for limiting his gas intake some, otherwise you will just get so far behind any frontal attack will just crush you. The third needs to be late or denied by a large Zergling force if it was going down before the lair finished, and perhaps you just needed to get a third at roughly the same time as he had to even things up because he sure wasn't aggressive towards you in the least.
Thanks for showing me a high level replay of 2base -> lateish third Muta versus quick 3 base Roach Hydra though. It really opens my eyes about how a good R/H player should play and how much more you have to defend in that scenario than you can be out there attacking the third with your Mutalisks. <3
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On December 27 2011 09:16 T.O.P. wrote:Here's the replay of VIBE doing a 3 base roach/hydra build. Once he gets 3rd base up I feel like I have to kill that 3rd base or lose. You can't get enough gas to make enough banelings to kill hydras and have enough mutas to stop roaches. http://drop.sc/79899Show nested quote +On December 27 2011 03:38 Kinshuk wrote:
SO i have a question - would you recommend going mutas to deal with mutas or is sticking with roach hydra infestor still fine... lately i've been having tons of problems against mutas especially because i cannot get my third or fourth up more so on large maps due to lack of mobility. This also forces me to just all in on 2 or 3 base and hope for the best. If you have 2 base vs a muta user. You should have lost the game. I would do a 2 base roach/hydra or roach/ queen infestor timing attack and get it over with. Show nested quote +On December 27 2011 03:27 Iksf wrote:
Please correct me if im wrong but iv always opened with a pretty roach centric style and have really never had a problem with an equally skilled 2 base muta user.
The way I go about dealing with it is applying a lot of pressure with roaches and speedlings at around 7-8 mins. This forces a lot of spine crawlers generally as mutalisks will not be out in time (or if they are he will just die for obvious reasons). It is ofc perfectly possible for the muta user to hold the aggression if they are willing to delay their spire a bit (though quite commonly they just straight up die, but you discussed dealing with things like this in your guide.)
However I ensure all my roaches survive the push, not committing at all if there are too many spines. With my roaches I will not let you get a third until you have a substantial flock of mutas, honestly under 10 mutas my roaches simply do not care about, above that i can extend their life by use of burrow etc before finally retreating. Additionally if the mutas are attacking my roaches I can skimp on turrets just that bit longer to pump more drones/units and if they go for straight for my base their third will be even further delayed.
Using these roaches I can almost always guarantee a MUCH faster third, sometimes even 4th and hold off with spores and queens until my own spire completes. Then a switch into mutas myself, as well as considering I also have useful roach tech, (generally warren+speed+burrow, maybe +1) leaves me way ahead.
Is there something im missing, am i just playing bad people/inexperianced ML users or is this something you just don't really see?
I can't see how you can take a 3rd with mutas on the map. If you don't make much roaches, spines will easily take care of the threat. If you make a lot of roaches, then they're no way you can afford a 3rd, plus the money it takes to cover your bases with spores. Making spines doesn't hurt the muta user, it doesn't cost any gas.
Mutas arnt out in time. I take my third at about 7:20 every single ZvZ unless there is a very good reason not too and then do a pressure to cover it. Taking a 3rd once mutas are out is very hard but theres little they can do if you take it before they have mutas out. Also mutas are surprisingly mineral heavy if you go for extremely quick mutas. If you go for a very fast spire you can definitely get mineral blocked if your forced to make spines and lings to hold a push. In addition they also lose a drone for each spine remember. It actually takes a lot of spines to hold off about 10-12 roaches and a pack of speedlings, especially on maps like metalopolis.
By pressuring the muta user like this you can gain an economic and map control (until mutas) advantage even without doing real damage. You also have an opportunity to kill the enemy zerg if they are unprepared for the aggression
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You can take a normally timed 50-60 third against 2 base muta and have spores up in time at the third. I don't like roach/hydra against mutas, I think mutas are the better composition in a straight up battle, but it's 3 base vs 2 base then and probably roach/hydra favored if he can deny the muta's third.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/rRiGh.png)
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