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Top 50 Master Zerg here. ZvT use to be my best matchup but lately I am having a lot of trouble dealing with turtle play from Terran.
I like to go ling - infestor - ultra with quick upgrades. I can usually get a pretty good advantage and deny the terran expansion for a bit, but once I get to the late game I feel like groups of 6-8 marines can be sent all over the map and take out all my expos (and drops all over too). It usually goes super late game until 3 of my bases are mined out and I'm starved out of minerals because I can't keep a fourth.
I've been trying a number of things to deal with it:
-Splitting my army and leaving chunks at expansions to deal with harass.
-Getting a group of 12-14 (sometimes more) muta's late game to deal with drop ships.
-Building lots of spines at expansions
-overlord spread everywhere to spot drops early
None of this seems to be effective enough once it get's late game with 3-3 marines, and then sometimes ghost's and nukes start coming. I also have a lot of trouble denying the terran expos late games because a couple tanks + planetary make it really hard to attack into.
TLDR: How do I deal with late game multi pronged aggression from terrans?
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I'm having the same exact problem and I haven't found a full proof solution. But i usually just spread overlords and leave some banelings and lings at each base in case of drops.
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Tech to broods instead of ultras. I've found that, with broods, you can coax a T to put his army in danger...'cause they want those broodlords dead so bad!
Since broodlord/infestor is so strong in and of itself, it doesn't hurt you to just send packs of lings from your main army to deal with drops at bases that should have 4-5 spines (or just pull back entirely, deal with the drops, then continue attacking with broodlord/infestor while you remake the drones/tech he killed)
Not to mention broods first into ultras is really useful 'cause it forces T to make so many vikings.
I haven't dealt with ghosts in a while...so I can't help you there.
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Generally you may want to put the TLDR at the beginning, since I already read it. Also, replay would make it a little easier to see other problems we may be missing. Like above post, overlord spread is your best bet for knowing if there is a drop on the way. Creep spread is important. You could leave a few spines in your base to deal with drops as well to hold it down til your lings can get there.
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Whenever i find myself with a fully uppgraded ultra/ling/infestor army vs a really turtly terran, i camp my army outside his base in a big open field so i can sorround and fungal his whole army if he moves out. Then i throw down double spire, reserch drop and overlord speed and basicly doomdrops his main while switching into festor/brodloord.
Ultra/ling is basicly and army for the early lategame, for the late lategame you need siege units, and since zergs only have 1 it's quite obvious witch one to go for.
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United States829 Posts
I would tech to brood lords. Brood Lords are only really countered by vikings and maybe ghosts with nukes(although it is pretty hard to defend with just nukes). Ultras on the other hand can be countered by most ground units (except marauders and hellions). In a base race Brood Lord, Infestor, Ling will definetly beat out the terran with proper spine defense.
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I would say the key is overlord/creep spread but I'll assume yours is decent enough as it's kinda common sense and you are high masters.
I like using 3 different hotkeys (even if my unit comp is only ling-infestor) and I leave 3-4 infestors with each hotkey and try to distribut the lings some what evenly. Just lings will merely deflect drops and buy you time, infestors shut them down. You can't have all your infestors on one hotkey, it's too hard to deal with several drops all at once.
For the late-end game, spines and spores are really good but it depends on the layout of the base. They are really good on cloud kingdom (especially at the natural) and I've had moderate success with it on antiga. On i.e. metalopolis you would need like >5 at each base since there are too many places they can drop micro.
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Looks like Brood's are the suggestion for late lategame. I'll give that a shot.
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I think when you are that late game you shouldnt hesitate to put a lot of spines at every base, especially as you start moving toward adding in broodlords. You say you've tried mass spines, but if you have a few lings, there is no reason you shouldn't be able to respond in time with spinecrawlers to at the very least delay.
edit: also about broodlords, there is nothing wrong with using ultras, but you want broodlord tech in preparation as soon as you are maxed and have the gas. This is because Ultras are pretty weak against 3-3 marines. Your ultimate army if you can't kill them with ultras is ling baneling infestor ultra broodlord corruptor. It sounds almost too expensive an army to exist, but you can get to it if the terran is turtling.
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you gotta have good overlord positioning to scout drops (don't be afraid to get ovie speed), good creep spread so your army is mobile, and good multitasking to defend more than one drop at once. don't be afraid to get a couple spines/spore at your bases if the terran is harassing.
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in my experience zerg dies from not having enough larve, not because they're starved. Because of this, you can afford to spend a lot of money into spines. 3/3 marines deal with 1 or 2 spines, but I've played against people who get like 4-6 spines, and it makes breaking expansions really inefficient for terran. Mass spines to free food, get up broodlords, and if you push cautiously I think breaking positions isn't that hard, since bls counter tanks.
Also if you have money, nydus worms also work really well late game for reinforcing. you don't have to put them inside their base (although effective) but even at the edge of your creep is nice, esp if you reinforce with a unit like the roach.
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the most cost effective thing terrans can drop are marines.
I always put 1 spine/ 1 spore and 3 banelings at each expansion.
It helps soooo much.
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One thing you can do is to put spores in smart places and they can usually pick off medivacs before they drop all of their units. Combine that with spines and drops do almost no damage. An infestor can slow it down even more to allow time for your units to get there. Unfortunately you have to multitask to deal with good drop play but finding anyway to slow them down before they can do damage should be the goal.
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On April 10 2012 06:26 BroodKingEXE wrote:
I would tech to brood lords. Brood Lords are only really countered by vikings and maybe ghosts with nukes(although it is pretty hard to defend with just nukes). Ultras on the other hand can be countered by most ground units (except marauders and hellions). In a base race Brood Lord, Infestor, Ling will definetly beat out the terran with proper spine defense.
Not sure where you got that broodlords are going to win a base-trade but typically that's not true at all, especially against a terran with buildings flying everywhere. Also, ultras are countered by marauders. Anyways, to the OP. I am a high masters terran and find that the zergs who are able to stop drops late-game typically have a large number of spines at each expo. Keep in mind the spines are not there to completely deny the drop but to buy time. You should have enough time to react with lings provided you have 3 or 4 spines at expos late-game. I wouldn't advise having 12-14 mutas for drops late-game unless you opened muta instead of infestor as that is a large amount of supply for units that aren't great in straight up engagements. Against a turtle terran you really want to get greedy if you know what they are doing. For example, if you see a terran trying to pull off a double orbital build against you there are 2 good options. The first is simply to all-in as it will be difficult for him to hold.
The other is to get extremely greedy yourself as he will not be able to punish you for a while. Take a couple more bases upon seeing this, double evo chamber, greedy droning and think about teching to brood lords instead of ultras.
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Hi OP, would you have a replay on this? many thx
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Always get Brood Lord Tech when you go to Hive, even if you intend to go mass Ultra's and Infestors. The tech switch is insanely powerful for the lategame, as each composition requires a specific counter.
Here's something I think that might help, if you have the APM to do it. If not, go with spines and then react with lings.
I always throw down a spire along with the Hive, so you can start greater spire immediately after Hive finishes. After that, get like 4-5 mutas, and make sure to not engage with your army until you can recoup that 500 gas. Use the group of mutas to deny any dropships that you scout with overlord spread and xel naga vision. And by all means, keep these mutas alive, if the terran drops the marines and starts fighting, then run away with the mutas. The drop itself already lost the majority of it's potential damage.
It's extremely micro intensive, but it works quite well. Easy to defend against the annoying Bomber style counter to Ultras.
I'm a mid masters level Zerg and this tends to work for me.
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Top 25 masters.
Here's the best solution for me. (This isn't as successful against mech) The nydus worm.
One thing you have to think about, when trading armies in the late game, the terran player is always going to be most efficient assuming he does some sort of marine splits to minimize baneling casualties. And when I say efficient its because of the rate minerals can be mined by a terran player late game due to the mule.
I love going ling/bane/festor/ultra as well. So open normally. And assuming you've reached the late game 16-20 min mark. I'm hoping your're on 3-5 bases, and assuming the terran is on 3-4 with possibly 2 macro orbitals. Late game a terran player can produce 3/3 marines much faster than you can produce banelings, making it very hard to push through his base.
Heres where the nydus canal comes in. A terran is only strongest when all of its production buildings are functioning. So your best bet is to forget about the expansions and workers and go for the production. When attacking his main army or defending a drop, this is your best time to be planting 1-3 nydus canals all in his base or at different locations. After dealing with his army/distracting, you should be able to over run his main base with at LEAST lings and banes. This will cause your opponent to have to either lift off or try to defend at home, leaving them out of position. This is your crucial time to be pushing extremly hard, where the terran player's production is going to be at a minimum, all of their units will be coming out one at a time, and if the terran player does decided to lift off, it will be at least another 30 seconds for a techlab/reactor before the player can really build anything you need to worry about.
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Take an extra expansion and get Broods to start a slow siege.
Taking the whole map against Terran is pointless as you can neither use all the bases nor defend them. It ends up being a waste of thousands of minerals as the drop play will eat you apart. Just take 2-3 more bases than the Terran has and spread your drones out evenly. Make extra macro hatches at your expansions to keep your larva up. This is easier to defend than having every base.
For tech, you should have 3/3 ground units, don't worry about ranged attack, it's fairly useless. Emphasize air carapace over air attack. The important thing for air upgrades is to make sure your brood lords live longer, not necessarily do more damage with them, the broodlings can take care of that. Make sure you don't forget chitinous plating, adrenal glands, and bling speed, all are important as long as you can afford them.
As far as your ideal army composition now that you are doubling his economy, you want 3-4 ultras, 5-7 queens, 7 or so broods, maybe 10 infestors, and enough corruptors to fight whatever he has flying (default to a minimum of 5 to deal with medivacs and add more as he adds more vikings). Fill the rest in with as many banelings as you can afford, it's ok to just have lings though. Make sure your creep is spread as far forward as possible and throw down some spines if you want.
For the engagement, put your ground army on hold position with banelings way in the back, ultras in front of them, and queens among your ultras, infestors just behind them. Poke up with your corruptors and brood lords. Far enough forward that you can attack whatever, but not so far forward that you can't pull back into your army without issue. You want to force the fight on terran, not sacrifice your army pointlessly. Use your infestors to fungal marines or large packs of vikings. Use your queens to attack vikings and transfuse brood lords. Once Terran runs out of options and charges into you, make sure you send your ultras in first, don't move your banelings until the ultras are already getting shot, don't move lings until the banelings are exploding. Don't forget to heal your ultras with your queens as well. All your reinforcements should be lings rallied to the front as you're trying to crash through his front quickly, not continue the slow siege, that is just to open the door.
Don't rush the engagement. The longer T turtles, the more ahead you are. It's more important to have the RIGHT army to engage with than applying pressure... he's not going anywhere.
If you end up out of units, just rebuild your army, he should be out of units too. He should be waiting for you to attack to counter drop, that's ok. You can afford to lose a few bases, as long as you save your drones. Just pull all the drones away from that base and keep attacking. Build another base somewhere else.
Eventually, he should run out of money as MULEs mine patches pretty damn fast. 3 base Terran can be strong, but they can't be strong for long.
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The problem you have is many marines dropping you everwhere and you can't engage while this is happening as siege tanks so strong. And waiting for Brood takes too long and if you do it too early you die to a push
So you start with your ling infestor with melee/armour upgrades that's good it keeps you safe and you can take/deny bases. There will then be a point where you have 4th base and he's sitting back taking more bases while dropping you etc pretty standared
Infestors are best kept for defense with spines you dont want to move out without broods but you can't tech straight to broods. So get drop its really underused, get drop and get roaches there cheap, little gas, make many of them. Now you can drop a large amount in each base, if you have infestors spare then take 1 or 2 along the Infested terrens can garentee you get the CC kill but really all your doing is what he was trying to do to you stall for time and keep him focused in his base.
Most terrans have no clue how to deal with this, they reposition all there tanks marines run about roaches are pretty tanky if you have armour upgrades on the marines so while this is going on you are free to hold off the one drop that will prolly hit your 4th or main and take more bases and drone and tech broods and you can also keep sending drops in and eventually you win
Its pretty simple and requires no real micro to do just load up shift click and drop, they have to deal with it and if you have good upgrades lings tear through buildings so fast
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Not really relevant but is there a thread of a general guide to TvZ? I just got into plat and I realised none of my builds are really refined beyond getting a 15 hatch and getting a baneling next at 30 odd food. if i dug up a thread a couple months old would it still be relevant?
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On April 10 2012 22:26 Frisco wrote:
Not really relevant but is there a thread of a general guide to TvZ? I just got into plat and I realised none of my builds are really refined beyond getting a 15 hatch and getting a baneling next at 30 odd food. if i dug up a thread a couple months old would it still be relevant?
I'd say so. At Platinum (me also) Terran is still mostly marine-tank or occasionally mass mech. You'll need to learn to handle bunkers at your nat if you haven't already. Metagame hasn't shifted that much so old threads should still be relevant.
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On April 10 2012 20:46 RimJaynor wrote:
Top 25 masters.
Here's the best solution for me. (This isn't as successful against mech) The nydus worm.
One thing you have to think about, when trading armies in the late game, the terran player is always going to be most efficient assuming he does some sort of marine splits to minimize baneling casualties. And when I say efficient its because of the rate minerals can be mined by a terran player late game due to the mule.
I love going ling/bane/festor/ultra as well. So open normally. And assuming you've reached the late game 16-20 min mark. I'm hoping your're on 3-5 bases, and assuming the terran is on 3-4 with possibly 2 macro orbitals. Late game a terran player can produce 3/3 marines much faster than you can produce banelings, making it very hard to push through his base.
Heres where the nydus canal comes in. A terran is only strongest when all of its production buildings are functioning. So your best bet is to forget about the expansions and workers and go for the production. When attacking his main army or defending a drop, this is your best time to be planting 1-3 nydus canals all in his base or at different locations. After dealing with his army/distracting, you should be able to over run his main base with at LEAST lings and banes. This will cause your opponent to have to either lift off or try to defend at home, leaving them out of position. This is your crucial time to be pushing extremly hard, where the terran player's production is going to be at a minimum, all of their units will be coming out one at a time, and if the terran player does decided to lift off, it will be at least another 30 seconds for a techlab/reactor before the player can really build anything you need to worry about.
I was actually going to suggest this. Every lategame pro TvZ I see, T only loses when the Z manages to get into his production. Crackings take down add-ons so fast.
It also seems to me that some old fashioned Destiny-style infestor hitsquad could be pretty effective. A couple fungals pretty much kills of a mining base. Terrans don't seem to build missile turrets at all anymore if they see Zerg isn't going muta-ling. Like seriously, its crazy.
I'm Protoss primarily (I offrace maybe 1 in 5 games though), so Idunno.
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If you're opening Ling/Infestor and then into Ultras, you're going to struggle with drops. Get used to it. Spines and a spore at every base lategame, and good overlord spread mid-game are about as good a solution as you need. Also, lategame, if T drops and kills and expansion, just remake it.
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Ling/Infestor, fast upgrades, fast tech to broods with like 15 infestors. 3 Spines and a spore at each base and send 3 sets of lings to each of your mineral lines. Morph those lings into speedbanes and you're almost perfectly safe, only well microed double drops may do some damage. From there you just play like a toss, mass broodlords, corrupters, keep massing spines around your bases and just deathpush then. Your endgame army is stronger.
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EPT
