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On January 20 2012 03:16 ODKStevez wrote:
This would be really powerful with so many terrans going Hellion expand. Trouble is banshees completely shut this down.
It's true that 1/1/1 all-ins can be tough to deal with, but it's pretty rare that Terran go banshees with no expansion. And if they're spending that 550 Minerals on an orbital, that cuts into their defense a lot. Often, I end up breaking into the main and killing all their SCVs even if they have 1-2 banshees. Keep in mind, too, that if your roach/ling push denies their expansion and you have one, you're ahead - you just need to hold their bnashee play and since you already have 2 queens and the ability to double-produce queens, you can probably get 4-6 queens out before they even get to your base. Throughout this time, too, you can be droning because you know he's not going to hit you with ground forces for a long time.
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On January 20 2012 02:53 Pulimuli wrote:
viOLet goes roach/ling/baneling "allin" off 2 bases in 90% of his ZvT's and it works surprisingly well vs high level terrans.
He did get raped by MarineKing but thats because of the skill difference
No, it was because that was the worst game in the world and it was obvious viOLet didn't care about it. MarineKing should have died.
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On January 23 2012 03:51 Pokebunny wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2012 02:53 Pulimuli wrote:
viOLet goes roach/ling/baneling "allin" off 2 bases in 90% of his ZvT's and it works surprisingly well vs high level terrans.
He did get raped by MarineKing but thats because of the skill difference No, it was because that was the worst game in the world and it was obvious viOLet didn't care about it. MarineKing should have died.
I don't think viOLet would "not care" about a game against MarineKing, does anyone have a replay link? I'd like to see some examples of viOLet's build.
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Tang, it really is an all-in when if you don't do enough damage. Delaying their expo is not good enough reason to cut that many drones so early. However it does do a lot of damage when the terran over extends himself. And this build has been around for a while, nothing new, but thanks for making a guide about it I spose. A lot of terrans at the high masters/gm level I have been playing have been doing the quick expo marauder/hellion push, which this build completely dies to. So i suggest doing this build when the situation seems right, when he terran is being too greedy.
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On January 25 2012 00:49 Terrifyer wrote:
Tang, it really is an all-in when if you don't do enough damage. Delaying their expo is not good enough reason to cut that many drones so early. However it does do a lot of damage when the terran over extends himself. And this build has been around for a while, nothing new, but thanks for making a guide about it I spose. A lot of terrans at the high masters/gm level I have been playing have been doing the quick expo marauder/hellion push, which this build completely dies to. So i suggest doing this build when the situation seems right, when he terran is being too greedy.
If he's doing a marauder hellion push and you die, I think it's more a problem in your execution because this build is VERY safe to any terran ground pressure - and if he's all-in, you can just spam 2hatch worth of lings until you hold and then you're far ahead. And if he pulls his marauder/hellion back to defend his expansion, you can often counterattack immediately.
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I just want to say that, regardless of whether it's viable at high levels of play, this build has helped to solve a huge problem for me.
Ever since release, TvZ has always looked and felt (to me) like, frankly, bullying. That's not to say the matchup isn't statistically balanced, or that I personally don't have a reasonable win-rate. It's just that from a... I want to say a narrative perspective, Terrans fit the profile of 'villain'. It's always seemed as though they get to sit there, all nice and safe, with no nasty tech surprises or hard build-counters for them to worry about, and essentially do their level best to abuse the innate vulnerabilities of an opponent who's obliged to be no threat to them whatsoever for the first ten to fifteen minutes.
I'm absolutely not saying Terran is 'easy-mode'. It's nothing to do with how easy or hard it is to play the races or ultimately win the match - the challenges for each player are very different and can't be directly compared. I'm saying that if your typical TvZ were a blockbuster 'hero' movie, it would be showing on Zerg cinemas, not Terran ones.
The problem is, I've been taking that narrative with me into my ladder games. I'm the good guy; he's the bad guy. When he picks his moment to attack and I hold it off, narrative imperative tells me that ought to be the end of the story, because in a story that's when the good guy wins. But in reality he might be gearing up to attack again just as I make a round of drones, or I might misjudge a counterattack, or miss a drop, and end up losing despite being at four bases to his almost-mined-out two. That's when I start having unhelpful thoughts along the lines of "Jesus, how many times do I have to win in a TvZ to end the game? And he just has to win once. That's such bullshit. Blah blah blah."
Since adopting this build (at least in outline), I've been enjoying myself a lot more - win or lose - because I've broken out of that 'being bullied' mind-set. I'm planning to be aggressive, or at least considering it. And I'm not trying to pull some sneaky tricky bad-guy 6/7 pool; I'm facing him as an equal. If I decide to go for a thin defence and lots of economy instead, that's now my choice. It's my choice to try and fend off his attacks while building up an unassailable lead, and that makes all the difference in the world to the narrative. When I fend off three attacks, get five bases and then fuck up my counter-aggression, I can see it for what it is: me fucking up my chosen strategy, either by not actually getting ahead as much as I'd planned, or by simply mishandling my army. I no longer feel robbed of a win to which I was entitled.
Concerning the build itself, what I've been doing is using it as a baseline or springboard, rarely actually committing to the full 60 food push.
I drone-scout at 9 and steal a gas (yes, I'm sure this is bad but it's a corner I can cut later when I'm better at reading other tells).
If I scout a gas and anticipate hellions I'll carry on right up to the warren at 28 and then take another look.
If I don't think a push would pan out I'll make fewer roaches for defence and rock-busting, use the gas I've already mined to get an upgrade or a lair, and turn the 44-60 food of lings into drones instead. I build a macro hatch for production and sim-city, a spine to hold the front so I can keep my roaches handy vs drops in the main, and when I'm ready to take my third the roaches can again keep it clear of hellions. There are other opportunistic decisions I can make too, like delaying his natural or putting together a big 2-base bane/roach bust. I just feel a lot more flexible and prepared. I know it's nothing super-refined, but it's a plan, which is something I've never had before in ZvT.
So, thanks very much for this; it's completely changed my outlook on the matchup.
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Glad it's helped add some structure to your play, Umpteen - and like you mention, it's not always about sticking exactly to the build, it's just nice to plan to put on some aggression and see how the game develops from there.
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Can I use this as a roach/ling all in zvp vs FFE? or is another roach all in better?
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I've been using a very slight variant of this build on ladder and it's serving me very well. Tang, I like your style. Keep up the good work.
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On January 31 2012 14:43 Mysteric, Hysteric wrote:
Can I use this as a roach/ling all in zvp vs FFE? or is another roach all in better?
I think if you're gonna all in FFE, you should 1base roach/ling like Zenio or 1base Ling/bane like Julyzerg
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Thanks so much for putting time into this thread. Its very very useful and I because you explained it so thoroughly I actually understand it instead of just copying what you do and not knowing why i'm doing it.
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On January 25 2012 00:49 Terrifyer wrote:
Tang, it really is an all-in when if you don't do enough damage. Delaying their expo is not good enough reason to cut that many drones so early. However it does do a lot of damage when the terran over extends himself. And this build has been around for a while, nothing new, but thanks for making a guide about it I spose. A lot of terrans at the high masters/gm level I have been playing have been doing the quick expo marauder/hellion push, which this build completely dies to. So i suggest doing this build when the situation seems right, when he terran is being too greedy.
I think it depends on the opponent's build. Think about it: Some terran players open with 4-8 hellions - that's 400-800 minerals! If you're doing this roach/ling push, you're going to kill those hellions or at the very least make them useful for a while. The ability to shut down any terran pressure early - and even potentially threaten to win the game with just roach/ling - makes the opening viable imo. You definitely don't "completely die" to hellion marauder, I actually think ling/roach holds that type of early push extremely well and your counter attack can devastate him if he doesn't have 2-3 bunkers well positioned with scvs ready.
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Hi Tang,
So, pages 8 to 10 I was giving my opinion about this build. Now, I have a replay to back this opinion. I just met the build you're advocating here. I did not know my opponent, so I did not know beforehand that he would use this build.
http://drop.sc/115043
Level is high Master on Europe.
My opponent seems to use this build as an answer to my expansion being built on the low ground. Upon scouting this, he cancels his Spine and gets a Roach Warren. This delays a bit his Roach Warren, but he's still in front of my natural by the 7'30 mark, as seen in your examples in the first post, so apparently he's not late.
Since my first Hellions scouted some Speedlings and a Roach Warren, I know he was likely doing this build. He could have built his Roach Warren in base, but having that many Speedlings as early means agressive play anyway, so I would have built a Bunker as well. Shortly before he comes at my natural, my Hellions confirm Roach play. My bunker is complete and my second Marauder is coming soon.
So, he made 8 Roaches and 29 Zerglings, after which he started droning again. But see the damage he did? I lost some mining time and he killed 4 SCVs. That's all. The only thing he forced was a bunker (I get Marauders anyway with this build) and two more Hellions. Definitely not worth it.
True, he should not have committed with his units, and his macro slipped while he was microing Roaches. But still, why would you use more than 20 larvae in the early game to do that little damage? As I was saying before, all it takes is one bunker, one or two Marauders, and the Zerg cannot do much. Marauders outrange Roaches, and Speedlings cannot be used with Hellions near/behind the bunkers, so one Bunker with good building positioning means you will do very little damage.
Now, another blatant weakness of the build—since the Terran was building SCVs during the push, you have to “overdrone” to catch up in your transition part. This means timings in which you're vulnerable, because you will lack larvae to deal with pushes. You can see this too in the replay (yes, his macro/multitask sure could have been better, but still). Any decent Terran will not let you drone freely after your push failed to deal sufficient damage. You will have to deal with drops, you will have to make units again to deal with whatever push the Terran uses, which means that each time you will catch up workers-wise, you will lack larvae to deal with the next push. Your tech will be delayed, which means you will have to use slowbanes for a while, and your Mutalisks (or Infestors) won't be out before a long time, while the Terran tech was not delayed at all if he used this simple defence. Basically, it is very likely that the Terran will have the edge both in economy and technology, and more importantly he will have the initiative. Wasn't it one of your arguments, that for once you want to be the one who sets the pace in the game? Well, with proper defence, unfortunately it's quite the contrary that will likely happen.
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On February 19 2012 13:01 TheDwf wrote:Hi Tang, So, pages 8 to 10 I was giving my opinion about this build. Now, I have a replay to back this opinion. I just met the build you're advocating here. I did not know my opponent, so I did not know beforehand that he would use this build. http://drop.sc/115043
Well that wasn't exactly the build I'm suggesting. He got is gas and his warren late, so he didn't have the 8 roaches by 7:15. He also built a bunch of lings before his roaches delaying them further. Also, his transition wasn't very refined.
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On January 06 2012 09:17 UmiNotsuki wrote:
Gonna be honest, just like all of your guides this one makes me uneasy. I feel as if you're looking at the game differently from me. I'll explain:
StarCraft II consists of games and sets of games; that is, you can think within the context of a single game, or within the context of your overall win-loss ratio. To me, it seems that you're more concerned with the latter than the former, and that truly bothers me. A good player should be able to, with rather strong consistency, beat someone significantly worse than himself (if only by one league or so.) For instance, a solid platinum player should almost always win against a solid gold player because the platinum player is simply more refined and all-together better at the game. But, your guides seem to be focused on builds for which this is not true. Let me discuss this specific guide in that way:
You suggest that you should have "8 roaches and 16+ lings at the 7:15 mark" when executing this build. Lets look at the cost of that, assuming the minimum number of zerglings.
1 roach = 75 minerals, 25 gas, 2 supply and 1 larva
1 zergling = 25 minerals, 0.5 supply and 0.5 larvae
8 roaches = 600 minerals, 200 gas, 16 supply and 8 larvae
16 zerglings = 400 minerals, 8 supply and 8 larvae
Subtotal = 1000 minerals, 200 gas, 24 supply and 16 larvae
4 gas = 5 minerals (based on value of one resource return)
200 gas = 250 minerals
Total = 1250 minerals, 24 supply and 16 larvae
That's 16 drones with 800 minerals (not including what those extra drones mine) and 8 supply left over (the exact value of one overlord, so 100 minerals worth)
So, what you are suggesting is that we sacrifice 16 drones worth of mining and 900 minerals for this attack. In order for it to pay for itself relative to simply droning up, as is safe to do with rather minimal defense, we'd have to kill:
More than 12 supply depots,
25 marines, or
25 SCV's
or some combination thereof. Note that these numbers STILL don't include the huge count of minerals that the extra 16 drones mine up to this point.
I think you're crazy if you think you can deal that much damage reliably. Therefore, the only way this build is any good when compared to a macro zerg style is if it wins, right then and there. "Significant damage" won't cut it because there's simply no way that you could deal enough damage for this to pay for itself and not win outright.
The reason this works for you is because you beat some players with it, and that percentage is high enough to keep you at your admittedly impressive ladder ranking. However, you are just as likely to lose to a platinum player with the correct counter in hand (even a blind counter) as you are to beat a master player who was just a little too greedy.
I don't like that.
TL;DR: There's no way this can pay for itself without the opponent dying outright, which is simply not reliable or in my opinion a solid way to play.
EDIT: Added a point about lost mining from lack of drones
unless you kill his natural or his production and a lot of scv's, or just flat out force the gg from him. You will be behind... "But i did this build and didn't do damage and i still won"... congrats! you outplayed him badly. I tottaly agree with you here
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On February 20 2012 01:45 TangSC wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2012 13:01 TheDwf wrote:Hi Tang, So, pages 8 to 10 I was giving my opinion about this build. Now, I have a replay to back this opinion. I just met the build you're advocating here. I did not know my opponent, so I did not know beforehand that he would use this build. http://drop.sc/115043 Well that wasn't exactly the build I'm suggesting. He got is gas and his warren late, so he didn't have the 8 roaches by 7:15. He also built a bunch of lings before his roaches delaying them further. Also, his transition wasn't very refined.
I think his point is that you do something stupid like make a bunch of lings and roaches in hope that your opponent isn't playing safe, you should expect to get behind.
The reason that this might work, is that your opponent is then playing from a slightly weird situation, where their opponent did something unusual (and stupid), so they might not know what to do with their advantage, and you might be really familiar with the position you're in (cuz you do it a lot), and then make good decisions (or take more risks) and manage to be in fine shape.
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Theres no reason (to me) to, should you be going allin against a terran with roaches and lings, not include banelings, and delay the timing a little bit. 4 banes makes a HUGE difference against bunkers, etc; Similarly, I don't agree with the overbuilding of units-you need more of that larvae for drones, as its not going to be a build that any decent player will lose to, and then they will follow up with an easy win.
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i've been playing this build very often on the ladder and had alot of success with it. Especially on the KR ladder when you can expect the terran to do some sort of 1 base aggression. (To the people who say this is cheese when it fails.... what isn't cheese if it fails? If terran fails to do damage with his/her 1 base cloak banshee it's GG for him as well. And those plays happen very often).
If you are hesitant about doing this build because it seems all-in to you, I suggest you do the build and focus on doing the stephano style macro by taking your 3rd hatch when you are moving out 52/52 supply. If you execute the build properly you either 1) win out right if terran build 6+ hellions, 2) do damage to be even or ahead 3) see he is fully prepared and just back off. You might think, if you back off you wasted all the larvae/resource for this attack for nothing. Wrong! You backed off because the terran put alot of his resources into defending in which you decided not to engage. Now that you have your 3rd you are free to drone and safe from any terran push for a while. So you just tech and drone. Now you might think your units are useless late game but they're not because you were uprgading melee/carapace the whole time. You will max out alot sooner and if terran tries to move out to take third you should attack him with your ling/roach/infestor.
Edit: @hossinaut here you go http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=306525
Roach/ling isn't all in but that baneling one is
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22-23 drones is not much more than 21 drones.
The build order says drone to 28 with 2 queens and 2-4 lings
28 supply = 28 drones (possible)
-4 supply for queens
-1-2 supply for lings
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22-23 Drones
http://i.imgur.com/NoSv9.jpg
From the roach/ling/bane attack: same story in terms of drones
differences: -100 minerals and -50 gas for bane nest + cost of banes
Overall difference? To me, the primary difference is in the drone count, and the drone count determines the viability to transition and move successfully into the mid to late game.
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On March 17 2012 11:12 Hossinaut wrote:22-23 drones is not much more than 21 drones. The build order says drone to 28 with 2 queens and 2-4 lings 28 supply = 28 drones (possible) -4 supply for queens -1-2 supply for lings ------------------------------------- 22-23 Drones http://i.imgur.com/NoSv9.jpgFrom the roach/ling/bane attack: same story in terms of drones differences: -100 minerals and -50 gas for bane nest + cost of banes Overall difference? To me, the primary difference is in the drone count, and the drone count determines the viability to transition and move successfully into the mid to late game.
The drone count is similar in the two builds, but the roach/ling comes 1 minute before the roach/ling/baneling timing. This means you can transition earlier, and since you're already at about 24 drones, it only takes 8 drones to reach full 2 base mineral saturation (without mining any gas or building additional structures).
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EPT
