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Hello everyone, I am a platinum level zerg with a very solid understanding of the game but I am having some issues figuring out my own playstyle/army compositions in all matchups.
I favour ling infestor in ZvT and ZvP but I am having a lot of trouble with "deathball" situations. ZvZ is not so much of a problem at the moment.
To be more specific: I would like people's opinions on what unit compositions I can safely tech to, and when(if) to add certain units to deal with the situation. I am not particularly looking for the absolutely min/max best unit comps as I am not good enough yet to push them to their best use and instead look for unit comps that will help me avoid "auto losses" if possible.
For example: ling infester is great vs almost any protoss army until templar, when roaches or hive tech become pretty necessary.
One final thing: I like to tech fairly quickly and take lots of bases and so I greatly prefer avoiding missile attack upgrades as reaching Ultras/Broodlings with 3/3 melee upgrades feels much leaner.
Any advice would be great and would also appreciate it if you could tell me which league you are in so I know what is working well and where 
Thanks a bunch!
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IMO ling/infestor is a pretty difficult composition to use, you need a bazillion larva to make enough lings to survive, you need to tech to infestor quick as hell and engagement will be autolose if you're not engaging in very open spaces, which is why it seems very common for people who use ling/infestor to rely on constant counter-attacks (something I find very hard to do effectively). Personally I go ling/bling/muta vsT and mass roach or mass muta vsP.
That said, I think the two interesting transitions from ling/infestor is either getting broodlords or getting ultralisk. Broodlords are way harder to tech to, but obviously way stronger once attained. vsP, I don't even think getting ultralisk is even viable at all.
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you can effectively reach 2-2 ugrades on 2 base while still maintaining a good infestorling army. once you take your third you should start hive. you will struggle to get all the hive upgrades and ultralisks on 3 base so you will have to choose one or the other. spend extra minerals on spines and spores to defend against drops. if you can mine from 8 gas geysers then you can afford 3-3 crackling and ultralisks
broodlords are more effective vs toss so you should probably be making spines in the middle of the map rather than in your bases
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![[image loading]](http://i51.tinypic.com/2dglufr.jpg)
This one is pretty accurate... :D
In all seriousness, you can play ling style with which you will use lings to tech into infestor or muta, this can be hard versus marine or zealot pushes. You'll have to get banelings or roaches to counter those tactics.
You can tech roach into infestor or muta vs protoss. Both are good tactics, if you're feeling daring you can try to tech from roach up to broodlords by taking a few bases first.
Roach hydra almost always ends up in roach hydra corruptor (vs protoss with colossi) or roach hydra infestor, which both will eventually transition into roach hydra (infestor) BL, or just infestor/BL.
The ultimate composition is infestor/BL with a few corruptors vs vikings or carriers for instance. In my opinion at least.
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Hi Raamah,
I faced similar difficulties fighting against deathball situations in ZvP. The most important thing I found when going against protoss that goes gateway+collosi/Templar is:
1) Macro Hatch early on/ Close to perfect injects- If your minerals every hit around 1k and don't immediately drop down to 0 you just flat out die to any 7 gate balls
2) A spire in event of collossi/ Roach in event of mass templar. If uncertain you may need both.
building corruptors to fight collosi with infestor ling is nice because you'll have them for broodlords later.
3) DROPS- at some point just making a lot of lings is not enough. you need to drop them in all of his bases to make them more cost effective and buying you time to get to broodlord/ultra/infestor (i.e. some composition that can actually damage his deathball)
4) Make spines- Infestor spine is ridiculously good at defending and infestor ling is good for surrounding. If his deathball is coming you can drop with a lot of lings in his main and expos while defending with infestor spine( think 10-15 spines )
5) Remember that lings are mobile, and lings+ overlords drops . Always poke and pressure his expos. Counter attack as much as you can. Tell the protoss "How DARE you leave your base" every time he even thinks of moving out.
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On March 02 2012 04:07 cywinr wrote:
you can effectively reach 2-2 ugrades on 2 base while still maintaining a good infestorling army. once you take your third you should start hive. you will struggle to get all the hive upgrades and ultralisks on 3 base so you will have to choose one or the other. spend extra minerals on spines and spores to defend against drops. if you can mine from 8 gas geysers then you can afford 3-3 crackling and ultralisks
broodlords are more effective vs toss so you should probably be making spines in the middle of the map rather than in your bases
(top 30 masters zerg)
Ive been working on a ZvP build that quickly gets a 3rd base very early, simular to how stephano plays. 3rd base around 26 food, then just power drone up and get roach den + 2 evos, adn lair around then 40-50 food mark, then power upgrade all roach upgrades (burrow, speed +2+2). After +1 is up throw downa infestor pit and quickly get infestors out as you should be around 150 food roach. Try get around 8 or so infesotrs making sure to not lose them.
From here you have a couple choices but this style is very safe (excluding proxxy's or 4 gates which are scoutable) and can bring you into the late game fairly well. After the infestoers are out you can pressure the toss's 3rd and start tech to hive.
The usuall progression from here is either ling/ultra infestor or broodlord, where you will need to throw down a spire at the same time as hive, then get greater asap, and start working on melle upgrades. Your roach army is youir back up plan in case they get super agressive, but with infestor/roach you can crush most mid game armies which gives you lots of time to tech to whatever you want.
Either tech path after the mid game requires melle upgrades so as soon as 2/2 roach is done get melle and power gass on all bases, it should be your main priority. If you find you have too many drones, make lots of spines (and 1 spore for detection) so that your safe.
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Vs P I feel like you should be trading armies a lot, and zerg should use ling/roach. I think double spire is the best transition, but seems like your most comfortable with infestors
Vs T Defensive lings, only make 4 banes if you 100% need to to hold off a push and you add your bane nest when you get lair around 8 min. I feel ling bane muta is the ideal mid game unit composition.
Vs Z I feel like banes are they way to go. If they make roaches, save the gas and go lings. If they go ling bane aswell make some banes and micro well. Infestor is definately the best unit to make in the midgame. There has been a lot of muta play recently so you want a hydra den too and mix a few in with your amry.
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Check out Stephano's stream for some solid ZvP. 3-base Roach/Ling into macro dominance into Infestor/Broodlord. Pure ling can work, but unless you throw down enough spines, or manage to connect with slow banelings, early gateway timings are going to hurt. With Roach/Ling you can get more concentrated firepower and won't die to zealot/sentry pressure.
One final thing: I like to tech fairly quickly and take lots of bases and so I greatly prefer avoiding missile attack upgrades as reaching Ultras/Broodlings with 3/3 melee upgrades feels much leaner.
This raises a few flags for me. One, +1 missile attacks is 100/100... "much leaner?" Roaches are good, yo. Missile attack upgrades also help your Queens poke away at Voidrays, Warp Prisms. They help boost the dps of Infested Terrans as well. If I were you I'd drop the aversion towards specific upgrades and just focus on what will help in each game. Two, "teching quickly and taking lots of bases" means your army size will suffer. +2/+2 lings are scary, but not when they're outnumbered by zealots and archons. Understand that both of those goals have long term payoff, but short term risk. If someone hits before your gambles start to pay off, you're going to lose.
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I'm going to keep my response limited to ZvP.
I favour ling infestor in ZvT and ZvP but I am having a lot of trouble with "deathball" situations. ZvZ is not so much of a problem at the moment.
Unfortunately Zealot Archon & Collossus Deathball (which are both fairly popular) will crush your composition. I'd recommend you add banelings against either composition.
In addition, against Zealot / Archon, go broodlords. Against Collossus Deathball, you can go the more efficeint Ultras in combination with bane rain and locking the deathball in place with FG.
That being said, your composition is so fragile that you need very good control or it'll be gone in the blink of an eye. In my opinion, it's very ambitious of you to try to make this work... but props for sticking to what you like... it's workable, just hard to do.
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I would suggest ling/bling/infestor with drop. You can then make adjustments to your build by changing when you get drop, when you get infestors, and when you get banelings.
One of the main issues with ling/infestor is that it can be difficult to put pressure on and it can be difficult to deal with a deathball player (and I'm not sure how you deal with a 6gate but whatever). So get the drop so you can do some harassment with bling drops and ling drops (ling drops are incredibly cheap, so you can go pretty nuts with them). Try it out.
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Thanks for all the excellent feedback guys, @nanoscorp by "much leaner" its more a time issue than the cost as if I only begin my melee upgrades after +2 ranged I will not reach 3/3 until well into hive tech and "revealing" a bunch of ultras/broods already with 3/3 melee armour makes the first push before they can deal with the tech much stronger.
To anyone mentioning ling infestor dying to early gateway timings you are probably right, ling infestor at platinum/diamond maybe isnt half as good as at pro level as most top rate protoss are macroing hard into 7 gates or a third base and skipping them altogether.
I actually have only 25 ladder games played ever lol am one of those people who spend more time watching and contemplating the "find match" button than actually playing lol
To those mentioning a fast third into heavily macro'd roaches: wouldnt that be somewhat vulnerable to most average players around my skill level as they are far more comfortable with early timing attacks they practice than macroing into a lategame advantage?
>Speedling/spine +1 melee
>Roach >+1/1 ranged armor
>3base infestor + safety spire + spines >+2/2/2 melee ranged armor
>4base hive tech>+3/2/3 melee ranged armor.
sound safe enough? I'd also start to mass spine at step 3 when my unit comp started wanting more gas than mins. I listed upgrades too because even though I am adjusting when I get ups based on the game, I feel like its important to have at least close to equal upgrades for your current unit comp for a protoss push at any timing. Is this a "correct" unit progression to learn with or will I still be vulnerable to some common strategies?
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EPT
