|
Hi all,
I'm a platinum zerg player and I'm currently having a problem against air attacks. The problem is that every game -- and I literally mean, every single game -- the enemy rushes for either banshees, mutalisks or voidrays, just to kill me before I get my spores or hydralisks out, mainly because I never get my lair early enough. Now the thing is that often they put early pressure with zealot+stalker or lings + blings so I have to get out spinecrawlers and ground units to defend, and then suddenly the air units appear out of nowhere and my 30 drone lead doesn't really win me the game.
So is there a very effective way to deal with the impending air attacks? Should I just get lair as soon as I have enough gas after zergling speed, or should I just get a lot of queens out and hope it's enough? Or should I instead be counter-attacking with my ground units when I notice he's teching up for air?
Thanks for any suggestions in advance,
Hibernicus
|
Wow. 30 drones is pretty huge.
If you suspect air (scout), you shold get evo and spores or/and get more queens.
Anyway if you'd post a replay answers will be more clear.
If by rush you mean get to air REALLY fast, then terran will go 1-1-1.
And toss will sac his gas intensive units (less sentry, more zealots), also the unit count should be low.
If toss is playing FFE, then stargate is common follow-up u should be ready 4 that.
Anyway sacrificial overlord should be able to scout this, if I'm not wrong.
|
It totally depends what kind of airplay they are going for.
stargate opening, you need queens and depending what he uses it for, either get more spines ready for a 3 gate stargate all-in or just defend with queens and spore if necessary
2 stargate off a FFE, you need spores and non-stop queen production to defend if you went for fast 3rd. If you went for a 2 base tech play, then you should have lair and could get hydras out asap.
2 port banshee, you need some spores and good amount of queens ready and non stop queen production as well and do a baneling bust. Or if you can, get lair asap and tech for muta. But it really depends on what time it hits. If it hits early, you can bust down easily.
Muta, it depends, if you don't have lair finished, you will have to defend with spores and queens until you get infestors/muta/hydra to deal with them effectively.
All-in all, Queens and spores for earlier ones, Muta if you can get them out because they allows you to harass them back. Hydras aren't so ideal unless you know when to hit the toss before he gets HTs or Colossus out.
But the key is scouting. Get an evo chamber at around 6min or so if you honestly don't have any scouting information. Get an earlier 3rd queen can help as well.
It sounds like you aren't so familiar with some timings yet. The timing to lair totally depends on you, nowadays most pro get less gas, delay lair to get an earlier 3rd down plus more drones. Basically, more gas = less drones, better tech, later third.
30 drone lead can be dangerous if you don't scout and have no idea what he is up to. Droning like this is like gambling only
|
replays would help.. umm in general best way to deal with air
Voidrays- extra queens into mutas or hydras or infestors
banshee- queens spores for detection (hydras if proxy 2 port banshee are safest bet) get mutas and continue with normal game
mutas- spores queens to defend till you get hydras and infestors or go muta yourself carapace first tossing in a few corrptors can help but not recomended your better off just starting infestors
BC's-queens to defend BC rush then get corruptors
mass vikings-hydras(if its mass vikings only) otherwise mutas will do fine
phenoix's- basically spores and drones are your counter here (the theory is just drone like crazy and get a sick econ and then you can make a roach corrupter or roach hydra corrupter army and phenoixs are worthless infestors and corrupters are the "counters" hydras are decent once u get enough and only if they dont just tech switch
carriers- basically if u see a carrier and just make corrupters and laugh at him
ravens- anything that hits air works here just make sure to split if he has missiles
broods-infested terrans, and corrupters are good choices here, hydras are ok on creep if u target them down
i think that about covers how to deal with each unit, ur best early defense to any air rush is queens and spores fight with the spores use tranfuse and micro. queens are hands down amazing anti-air early game, also a few well placed spores protects from alot of harass learn to zone out the air units with spores watch any pro zerg game against stargate expand and ull see some good play agaisnt air.
|
Try to never go Hydras vs toss. Most of my toss friends says that the people who only relies on spores + queens are way harder to kill. The ones who goes hydras dies to the colossus push after.
vs Zerg I'd say the same as previous. Try to build spores and queens and get infestors. Infestor Queen is really strong vs Mutas and that's the way koreans deal with them as well. You can mix in hydras vs zerg because they aren't as bad as vs toss / terran if you want to. You can try to run a few lings into their natural to see if they got the gas early. Which in most cases means either muta or infestors.
vs Terran. 1port banshee dies to Queens Spores as well. 2port banshee is more difficult and I deal with it by turtling with overmaking spores until mutas. (which probably is an inefficient way but I never really get the chance to practice vs it because it's rare)
But the most important thing of all is Scouting. If you don't know what's coming you can't prepare for it. Spread overlords, control watchtowers, sacrifice overlords, poke with lings etc. The only way you will ever be able to deal with any strat is to scout.
|
you don't need lair for spores and queens. scout more. ideally you want to be scouting often so u don't get caught off guard.
|
I defend with queens dont worry about overmaking them you can use them for sick creep spread.
|
Queens. Always have at least 1 more queen than you have hatcheries, at least till the late game. In ZvT I usually open with 4 queens on 2bases. They've got 7 range and do the job better than hydralisks for no larva and no gas, available at hatchery tech. Because they are an energy unit, they become more powerful over time - 4 queens and absolutely demolish a dropship full of marines if they have enough to transfusion circlejerk.
Queens aren't great against really fast air like Mutalisks, but in that case you really need infestors or mutalisks of your own, not hydras.
|
A replay would be nice! Usually it's a different problem altogether, if you have a 30 drone lead you shouldn't really lose to any kind of air play, since you can remake drones faster than he can kill them.
|
vs Terran. 1port banshee dies to Queens Spores as well. 2port banshee is more difficult and I deal with it by turtling with overmaking spores until mutas. (which probably is an inefficient way but I never really get the chance to practice vs it because it's rare)
For 2 port banshees I try to build more queens as they are mobile. The spores are to protect the queens and provide detection. The critical thing is to not let the banshees kill your morphing spire (against banshees I build the spire practically in my mineral line.) once mutas pop you are in a huge advantage.
|
There was a thread that I think Sheth posted about zerg and economy in the last few months. One of the things he mentioned was that if you have too much better an economy than your opponent, a good player will kill you with their superior army. I think a 30 drone lead on your opponent is probably too big of an advantage in the earlyish game.
|
|
|
Replays...
also, at platinum level, you don't need anything fancy. The opponents timings aren't brutal enough to really be scary, all you need to do is one thing:
PUMP QUEENS.
Seriously.
Queens are awesome, they don't use larvae or gas, they can heal eachother, and if you make these then when they get targeted down by air units you won't end up missing injects.
0) DON'T GO HYDRAS
1) If you see stargate play, constant queen production till you have 6 or so. Replace any lost.
2) If you lose queens, remake them! There's always a chance someone has 2 stargates and is going all-in, so he will keep coming even if you hold him off twice!
3) You need an evo chamber and spores for detection and a sort of core around which your queens can rally. If you do it properly you can get away with 1 or 2 per base tops, but if you're really getting 30 drones over your opponent, you're at a level where you can afford to spam 3 per base and still make the queens. Queens are the actual linchpin of the defense, not the spores. Void rays LAUGH at spores. 5 transfusing queens around a spore are far less amusing.
4) Against P, target down the voids first, no matter how annoying the lifting is, this is vital. Rely on a spore in your minerals to prevent heavy drone losses to phoenix.
5) DON'T GO HYDRAS
6) If he is a moron and you scout him and he literally has nothing but 3 stargates and no ground army or something retarded, ok make hydras and a-move him. But seriously, don't make hydras, they're fucking awful. I even have a TvZ build where I air harass enough to force a hydra response then just roflstomp with tanks. It only works coz zergs still can be tempted into making those hari-kari units.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
