[D] The State of Mutalisks in ZvT - Page 9

On March 27 2012 17:45 Belial88 wrote:
I don't completely agree. Zerg doesn't need to be ahead of bases in Terran as desperately as they do in ZvP - they can survive with even bases, they just have to get their next base quicker than the opponent (or saturate it quicker, in case of fast third T). But banes are so cost efficient, and mutas are quite good at dealing damage, it's very easy for zerg to completely roll a T army, especially if they aren't perfectly sieged up or focus fire banes in time. Zerg can just outproduce terran so quickly.

I have lots of games as lingbanemuta where I just completely stomp terran armies, simply by going lings instead of that extra 10 drones.

I completely disagree. When playing muta style, upgrades aren't that important at all for lings. Getting +1 carapace before Terran gets +1 vehicles is very important (not as important as baneling speed, but close), but otherwise, upgrades on lings throughout the course of the game are not that important. Until you reach 4 bases or 200/200, you are better off spending that gas on more mutas or banelings. Banelings and mutas are the huge damage dealers, not lings. There are no critical hit numbers after 0/1 - +1 tanks or thors kill lings in same number of shots no matter what armor they are after +1 vehicle is on. As for marines, +1 attack or carapace is just an extra hit, for both marines and lings, against the other.

Lings rape marines 1 v 1, in the open, pretty hard, but it gets to be a numbers game for the most part, but if you have a bunch of lings, you will win even with upgrade disadvantage (not saying 40 lings vs 20 marines, but just having enough lings, in the open). Now what really changes everything, is siege tanks, which basically ignore armor after +1, and medivacs, which 3/3 adrenal won't cut through marine+medivac 0/0. But with muta or baneling support, it will.

Once you get 4 bases or 200/200, yea, definitely go double evo, it really helps out broodlings. I'm not saying don't get upgrades. I just disagree with the idea that upgrades are 'extremely important' due to siege tanks, medivacs, and banelings and mutas.

They melt with upgrades too. That's not how you should be engaging with mutas. Mutas should not really be hit, or choosing when they engage against small groups of defending marines.

I did a bunch of testing with upgrades on mutas in:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=312419

Double spire isn't necessary, basically.

With ling/bane support, mutas do fine. And upgrades aren't the problem.

2 FG to kill marines, same as before. You just need to be more careful about clipping, and micro your FG better.

Yea, thors have never been a problem for me as Zerg. Whenever I see them, and I always go mutas, I am happy because it's less tanks, and less marines, and less medivacs. The thor is just so useless against the real meat of my army, the ling/bane. I just magic box over the thor, snipe it quickly, then focus the tanks down while the thors did nothing to stop the mass of ling/bane.

The terrans I have trouble with most, are the ones that stay just on marine/tank/medivac, macro well, and just continually send waves of marine/tank/medivac to my further and further apart bases while I have to dedicate my entire army to each half of their's they send, to which one will kill a hatch unimpeded.

I don't agree at all with your assessment of "bases" in ZvT. Mules change absolutely everything, which is why you need n+10 drones mining minerals where n is the terran's number of scv's. However, minerals aren't as important is the gas income - the zerg army requires so much more gas than the terran army to be cost effective when you're going muta ling bane. Infestor ling is more sustainable on even numbers of geysers because lings don't actually cost anything. What I don't understand about the current trend of ZvT is why more zerg's dont play fast third while opening a few roaches to completely shut down hellion harassment and early marine timings. (If you've never tried this, roaches are ridiculously good against marines before they get reasonable numbers of medivacs out.) I've been doing this lately and it just feels so incredibly smooth instead of that time where you're on 2 bases and just sitting there staring at your spire waiting for it to finish so you can go take a third base.

What is clipping?

I'm actually super shit at engaging terran armies with thors in it. If you click on tanks then two thors kill every muta in two hits, and if you attempt to magic box then terran stims and kills all your mutas anyway.

On March 28 2012 01:14 Belial88 wrote:


I'm not going to say you're wrong man, sure.

I just don't see it as pressing of an issue as in ZvP. I mean, what do you do if T goes reactor hellion double cc? do you automatically lose because it's impossible to take third vs hellions? No. You just eventually secure 3rd after droning up 2 bases, and then after making enough speedling and 2 base lair, you just completely saturate 3rd.

My problem with going roaches to get third, is that it just hurts your econ so much I feel. And then you get a third around 40 supply, and then your lair is just sooo impossible late. But whatever, it's been shown to be viable recently.

I don't wait for spire to grab third in ZvT. I drone up 2 bases, get lair and macro hatch, and while they are making, make lings after saturating 2 base to shoo away hellions. You take third, no matter how fast T takes third. How much you drone it up though, is decided upon how fast T takes his third.



When your spell, like storm or FG, overlaps. That's why someoen who spams storm or FG is so silly. You see toss do it, I'm sure you have on ladder. It's a waste. Yes, the marines live to shoot 2 more shots off I supose, but it still same number of FG to kill. Because spells don't stack.



He's not going to stim and kill all your mutas. As long as your mutas don't run way ahead of your army, your ling/bane will force the marines to run away while your lings eat the apart the tanks at close range that have no marine support, or they rip apart the marines because he has a smaller marine/tank/medivac army, and then once thor is gone you just ttrash through everything. Whenever I see thors, I just notice T army is just soooo much smaller and I rip it apart so easily as long as I magic box. A lot of times a lot of stuff is under the thor too, so while you kill thor you are hurting tanks or whatever too. It doesn't take long for 25 mutas to rip apart a thor.

On March 28 2012 05:49 Fealthas wrote:
When I am playing tvz and I see mutas I feel relieved on the inside. Mutas are just totally trash units. I will build 10 missile turrets and take another base. I don't think I have taken any significant damage from mutas in my past 10 games. Infestors are much more scary.
Also I don't see why you would get mutas vs terran anymore. Most terrans like me want to get a quick 3rd. They effectively pin themselves to their base for a while, isnt this the purpose of mutas?

On March 16 2012 08:51 FairForever wrote:


If people individually fired banelings with tanks, then you'd need less tanks, and could use extra gas to get more medivacs.

Possible, but highly unrealistic seeing as it is so difficult to split banelings while micro'ing ten other things, similar to how you would never individually target separate lings or banelings with each tank.

On March 16 2012 08:56 romelako wrote:
Mutalisks are definitely going out of style and I think it's just because of the relative "ease" of using infestors, since you can fight the terran army head on and you don't have to constantly be harassing/defending drops with mutalisks. On the other hand, I feel that going infestors means you have less of a grasp on the pace of the game, and you kind of play passively until you can get units that you can actually attack siege lines with.

All in all, I still stick to mutas just because I'm more comfortable using them and can micro pretty well. Although, on certain maps, ling/infestor is the way to go and I really ought to develop that style.

On March 28 2012 01:14 Belial88 wrote:
I'm not going to say you're wrong man, sure.

I just don't see it as pressing of an issue as in ZvP. I mean, what do you do if T goes reactor hellion double cc? do you automatically lose because it's impossible to take third vs hellions? No. You just eventually secure 3rd after droning up 2 bases, and then after making enough speedling and 2 base lair, you just completely saturate 3rd.

My problem with going roaches to get third, is that it just hurts your econ so much I feel. And then you get a third around 40 supply, and then your lair is just sooo impossible late. But whatever, it's been shown to be viable recently.

I don't wait for spire to grab third in ZvT. I drone up 2 bases, get lair and macro hatch, and while they are making, make lings after saturating 2 base to shoo away hellions. You take third, no matter how fast T takes third. How much you drone it up though, is decided upon how fast T takes his third.

When your spell, like storm or FG, overlaps. That's why someoen who spams storm or FG is so silly. You see toss do it, I'm sure you have on ladder. It's a waste. Yes, the marines live to shoot 2 more shots off I supose, but it still same number of FG to kill. Because spells don't stack.

On March 28 2012 10:47 duct_TAPE wrote:


You don't have to play passively with ling/infestor at all, I research overlord drops in ZvT and make multi ling drops when T move out, very fun style I find.

On March 28 2012 12:25 vthree wrote:
Actually, I think the popularity of the ling infestor style might also be an effect of the ghost nerf.

1) Terrans have to make vikings vs BLs so less ghosts which means infestors will have less chance of EMPs

2) More importantly, the meta game for zergs now seems to be playing defensive with ling/infestor and tech to BLs. Previously, they had to keep the terran on lower econ because if the terran got to that critical mass of 12-15 ghosts, they became almost impossible to break. So zergs would have to use mutas to harass to keep the econ low. This opened up a timing for terrans to hit before BLs. Now, without really having to harass as much, zergs can produce ling/infestor and be fairly safe vs the big marine/tank pushes. Although without mutas, zergs are slight more suspectible to drop play. So you see zergs with a good zergling split up and playing more defensive.