Recently I've been facing a lot of ultra play in ZvZ, and we are seeing it recently in the GSL - Freaky did it a lot, but Nestea tried to do it once, and usually we just see the ling/infestor stage (i dont think we've ever seen it get to ultras, but when people are going ling/infestor/spines, they are planning to go ultras if they don't end the game with mass counter-attacks and burrowed infestors).
I just can't really beat this play at all. I have no clue what to do - everyone says "oh just attack they will be weak when getting infestors" but eventually they will have enough spines and infestors, and if they are good, they will have it in time and kill your entire army.
But they get those ultras so damn quickly, because they don't spend any gas on roaches. I don't even think broodlords is an option, because you'll just be torn apart on certain maps by counter-attacks. I imagine broodlords are great on, say, shakuras, but terrible on a map like cloud kingdom or ohana. Maybe the idea is to use nydus/drops, but that is gimmicky.
Anyways here's a replay of me losing to it. The guy actually went 2 base muta and threw down his infestation pit when his spire popped, and went straight into mass spines and into hive, I guess skipping infestors in favor of mutas to force me not to move out.
The game got really, really laggy when he started attacking, that sucked. I don't know if I would have won if it didn't lag, he had a broodlord switch coming right afterwards.
Here's another replay where someone does it to me, except they did it more standard, just ling/infestor on 2 base into third,mass spine/infestor. I totally thought i was 'ready', and put sooo many banes at home for his counterattacks. And he ran right into all 10 banes. And still had enough lings left over to snipe my third. I did a lot of damage to him, but I knew the game was over when I realized I had not killed his third during my attack.
But I had no clue what to do here. I macro/tech up or turtle essentially, and I die to the ultras. I attack, and well, you see what happened when I attacked.
the thing about ling/infestor is you have to turtle on 3 base behind spine while teching to ultras. there's really no way you can get a fourth, unlike the more "standard" roach/infestor/hydra player, which can get a fourth and get ahead on economy. when you're on 4 base like that the best answer to ultras is just standard roach/hydra/infestor with good upgrades. infestors should be fungalling and messing with the ultra AI with infested terrans, while hydras should be dps'ing down the ultras ( they drop incredibly fast vs 2/2 or 3/3 hydra/roach). just take advantage of the fact that ling/infestor has to turtle behind spines until they get ultras (which again means you can take a fourth).
Pretty much what kane said, but also if someone is going straight infestor/ling they will be super vulnerable to Roach/Bane all-ins since you need Roaches to defend unless some terrible micro happens. It's kind of hard to do this reactively tho unless you see super fast 2 gas at the natural, so it's kind of a gamble. I mean, yeah it is possible to defend with ling/bane + MASS spines but that'll cost them a ton of minerals/drones and allow you to take a 3rd and go into the mid game with an advantage.
What Kane said is definitely right, but one thing you should also consider is trying to nydus into the main. While it is a coinflip, its not that huge of an investment when you are on 3+ bases. If you get into the other zergs main (if there is a viable spot) before he has a ton of ultras out, just spread out your +2 roaches and it should basically be an auto-win.
Main thing also when fighting ultras is microing the engagement. As long as you don't clump horrible to get destroyed by fungals, your IT spam plus roach hydra micro should be able to chew thru the stupid ultras quite cost effectively
Once Ultras are out, if you keep up to par with upgrades with roach/infestor you can counter ultra/ling. Place a IT wall with roaches behind that while fungal on the lings if necessary. While doing this you should be able to secure broodlords out and be able to engage if you want to have a front end engagement.
If you want a different scenario, if you are keeping up with the scouting you will see him doing this. You can camp mutas and just base race.
Another scenario is base race with roach/infestor.
So the first game you had 4000 minerals when he attacked. You attacked out in the open where the Ultralisks were able to get good surface area and you didn't spread your roaches out one bit, instead relying on the pitiful number of infested terran eggs you were able to spawn. Yes, the mutalisk player was behind for perhaps a smidge in the midgame because he couldn't just outright take out your third and win in a war of attricion, but keeping scouting out and not having you move out was more than worth it. On top of the fact that you got in the perfect situation for Ultralisks to do damage, it was not much of a great game to show that Ultralisks were good neccesarily.
I don't have time to review the second replay, but I can give a few simple tips against Ultralisks. In ZvT, how the Terran defeats Ultralisks is using marine spreads to minimalise splash damage and chokes. In ZvZ, those chokes can be created by building evochambers ( only 75 minerals + drone ) in combination with Spinecrawlers that are spread out. If you want to tank Ultralisk damage, Hydralisks and Queens are your best bet. Hydralisks are the bane of Ultralisks in ZvZ because of their rapid fire and light categorisation, while Queens just tank a hell of a lot of damage and can transfuse eachother. You need to spread out your units so they don't all get fungalled and get dealt maximum splash damage by the Ultralisk. Single pockets of 3 or so units tend to work best. If you see a roach/Ultralisk composition, make sure to fungal the roaches so that the Ultralisks just can't move in if they were wrongly placed in the army.
I'd love to give a replay, but the last ultralisks I faced were a desperation move back in february or so, and most of my zerg opponents just tend to die around the 3 base economy kicking in.
Pretty much what kane said, but also if someone is going straight infestor/ling they will be super vulnerable to Roach/Bane all-ins since you need Roaches to defend unless some terrible micro happens. It's kind of hard to do this reactively tho unless you see super fast 2 gas at the natural, so it's kind of a gamble. I mean, yeah it is possible to defend with ling/bane + MASS spines but that'll cost them a ton of minerals/drones and allow you to take a 3rd and go into the mid game with an advantage.
There's no way to reactively roach/bane all-in. You can't tell they are going mutas over infestors until wayyyy late. And even doing that, they just defend with spine+ling anyways... I don't think doing a roach/ling all-in (or bane...) is a good idea,it's like saying 6 pool to counter someone going mutas.
Thanks Kane, i'll remember to take a fourth super quick instead of attack when facing ling/infestor. What do you think of the 1st replay though, where he went mutas first and I defended and got my fourth just fine? He had a ton of spines, so I couldn't really attack. I ended up actually attacking him right when his ultras came (he made zero units, he literally went mutas into infestoation pit when spire finished, hive, and massed spines to be safe until ultras popped).
Main thing also when fighting ultras is microing the engagement. As long as you don't clump horrible to get destroyed by fungals, your IT spam plus roach hydra micro should be able to chew thru the stupid ultras quite cost effectively
By the time I have roach/hydra/infestor, he will have ultras out, because they aren't making any roaches or hydras, and relying on mass spines so all that gas is pure tech.
Have you played against this style?
So the first game you had 4000 minerals when he attacked. You attacked out in the open where the Ultralisks were able to get good surface area and you didn't spread your roaches out one bit, instead relying on the pitiful number of infested terran eggs you were able to spawn. Yes, the mutalisk player was behind for perhaps a smidge in the midgame because he couldn't just outright take out your third and win in a war of attricion, but keeping scouting out and not having you move out was more than worth it. On top of the fact that you got in the perfect situation for Ultralisks to do damage, it was not much of a great game to show that Ultralisks were good neccesarily.
I took my gases late because of fighting the mutas, I wanted to drone up more. I guess I'll work more on gas timings vs muta play, I always feel I either am gas starved for taking gases late, or mineral starved because I take gas too quick and not enough drones due to that.
The game really started to bug out when I pushed out, every time we fought I was hitting huge lag spikes where I couldn't do any micro at all (you'll notice my camera is clearly focused over my army, so it's not like I wasn't aware that I should be micro'ing, and it's not like I can't micro, there isn't much micro involved in kiting ultras, but it was just soooo laggy).
I thought about maybe not posting that rep because maybe you could say "well why post a replay if you clearly only lost because of lag" but I think even if I had kited him, all that would have done is made it so I won that first engagement more, but his second engagement was more than enough. I mean at best, the game would have been even, but him getting his broodlords out while I'm still on lair.
I thought attacking in the open would have been better, as it was off creep. There is no chokes on Ohana except by the bases, where there is lots of creep.
Maybe instead of making infestors so much, I should have heavily went into more roaches? I'm not sure how I'm supposed to know what's going on though with the mutas denying scouting. Maybe pressure is good for scouting, I don't know :X
Maybe thats a side effect of my late gas.
Is no one else playing this style? I seem to run into it a lot. The first guy, who went mutas into ultras, was actually really unique, I have never seen that before, but I'm sort of talking more about the new ling/infestor into ultra play (as shown in the 2nd replay).
"Main thing also when fighting ultras is microing the engagement. As long as you don't clump horrible to get destroyed by fungals, your IT spam plus roach hydra micro should be able to chew thru the stupid ultras quite cost effectively[/quote]
By the time I have roach/hydra/infestor, he will have ultras out, because they aren't making any roaches or hydras, and relying on mass spines so all that gas is pure tech.
Have you played against this style?"
I don't get your point, all i said if microed properly upgraded roach hydra infestor should beat ultra.
Here's another replay where someone does it to me, except they did it more standard, just ling/infestor on 2 base into third,mass spine/infestor. I totally thought i was 'ready', and put sooo many banes at home for his counterattacks. And he ran right into all 10 banes. And still had enough lings left over to snipe my third. I did a lot of damage to him, but I knew the game was over when I realized I had not killed his third during my attack.
No simcity? When he has +1 carapace, banelings won't kill his lings (unless you get +1melee attack), just hurt lots of them, but he can still kill a hatchery with 1 hp zerglings, even if he ran headlong into a baneling. So you need a few units to fight against the 1 hp lings, and more importantly, you need simcity so he can't get a full surround on the hatchery easily. Pretend you are protoss. Spines and evo chambers along the hatch side will take away a bunch of surface area, 2 roaches (or a queen) on hold position between the geyser and a building, etc. Lings are imbalancedly good if you don't try to limit surface area, and that flips to almost useless if they have no surface area.
Looking at the Ohana game, I think it's very important to get a macro hatch when you saturate your 3rd base. This lets you crank out roaches a lot faster, or immediately saturate a 4th base, or build 20 spinecrawlers and replace the drones.
Also, I stand by my suggestion to bring uprooted spines/spores in your army. Make your own chokes. Don't knock it until you've tried it If you're defending, obviously they can stay rooted.
On June 08 2012 08:25 Oboeman wrote: Also, I stand by my suggestion to bring uprooted spines/spores in your army. Make your own chokes. Don't knock it until you've tried it If you're defending, obviously they can stay rooted.
Not as easy as it sounds (and it doesn't sound easy) but absolutely ideal.
I was always under the impression that roaches dealt with ultras cost-effectively if upgrades are even? You have to focus fire quite a bit though and spread your roaches some. My experience is that if my opponent is going ultras I can deny their fourth for a very long time, and by the time they have ultras out my fifth tends to be done and I can simply throw roach/infestor at them until they die.
I'm mid-masters zerg on EU so take my observations with a grain of salt. I watched the cloud kingdom game: Really crisp third timing =] After handling the ling pressure at your third and getting out a bunch of roaches I feel like these should be put to use, other than a handful of infestors your opponent didn't have that much in defense, he was being pretty damn greedy. I feel like an attack inbetween 10-12 minutes by you would have been devastating. Since you didn't attack however, and you scouted his upgrades you should have (and probably did) concluded ling/ultra coming, and since ultra means hive and generally 3-3 you have quite a big window, at the very least take a 4th during this!
I don't feel it was the ultras per se as it was that your opponent was way greedier than you. This is hard to see during a game especially when he's running around with 30 lings on the map, but try to recognize it and give a poke!
On June 08 2012 08:01 Belial88 wrote: There's no way to reactively roach/bane all-in. You can't tell they are going mutas over infestors until wayyyy late. And even doing that, they just defend with spine+ling anyways... I don't think doing a roach/ling all-in (or bane...) is a good idea,it's like saying 6 pool to counter someone going mutas.
I specifically said you can't do it reactively and that it is a gamble, I was just pointing out one of the weaknesses of the straight infestor/ling style. Also, if someone is defending Roach/Bane with pure Ling/Spine then you are doing something wrong, Roach/Ling yeah, but definitely not a 38 Drone 2 gas Roach/Bane. Only way someon can hold Roach/Bane with pure Ling/Bane is if you throw so many Spines down that now you are super behind from wasted resources on static defense and loss of drones.
lose my infestors carelessly and still manage to kill him with a maxed timing
Care to watch my replays then? Specifically, the first 1? Do you think I could have won if I wasn't hit with a huge lag spike during the battles?
I don't feel it was the ultras per se as it was that your opponent was way greedier than you. This is hard to see during a game especially when he's running around with 30 lings on the map, but try to recognize it and give a poke!
You are telling me 2 things and your post makes me want to tear my hair out tt.
Take a fourth or do pressure? And him being so greedy allows him to mass spines. Ugh. I think I need to deny his fourth, take my fourth, not pressure, just deny his fourth... and get ultras of my own. I don't know. get 3/3 quickly maybe.
I'm thinking whatever the answer is, I should not get infestors.
What did i do wrong?
I keep playing these people who I KNOW I'm better than - like I get my third up very quickly, I do it safely even against them massing lings against me, I deny run-bys, I drone up hard and stay alive against ling/bane pressure, I'm on 3 bases way before them. And it's like they are going "okay, well, fuck it, I'll just turtle this herpderp deathball, eventually take my third with a million lings/infestors/spines, and then make ultras!" and there's no way to beat it. Reminds me of something completely broken a year ago that had to be patched and totally overhauled every match-up with a new unit...
Anyways thanks for the compliment of my nice third timing. I crush people who try to do 2 base lair speedroach all-ins even. But I'm going to stick with 2 base play for a while now until I see a way to beat this new ultra style, and go either 2 base ling/infestor/spine into fast ultras myself, or muta into quick infestor, hive like that guy did to me in the first game. I was extremely good in ZvZ when 2 base muta was king and my win rate stopped when people figured out how to beat it, but I haven't seen anyone figure out a way to beat this so... can't beat them, join them. Maybe it's the future of zvz.
You beat him with a roach bust. it didn't get to the ultra part of the game. And he didn't make spines well and he teched too hard and didn't have enough ling/infestor.
Interesting game though. I'll take away from it that maybe I can just bust with roaches, and if I see infestors (without roaches), I'll just max out on roaches and attack. And I guess leave lots of roaches at home to deal with runbys.
On June 08 2012 05:58 Kryptonite wrote: Pretty much what kane said, but also if someone is going straight infestor/ling they will be super vulnerable to Roach/Bane all-ins since you need Roaches to defend unless some terrible micro happens. It's kind of hard to do this reactively tho unless you see super fast 2 gas at the natural, so it's kind of a gamble. I mean, yeah it is possible to defend with ling/bane + MASS spines but that'll cost them a ton of minerals/drones and allow you to take a 3rd and go into the mid game with an advantage.
roach bane allin will not work against mutas, which the OP said his opponent opened muta. The mutas will shoot all the banes as you walk to the base. A pure ling spine infestor mix does sound like it would struggle with roach bane ..
I don't feel it was the ultras per se as it was that your opponent was way greedier than you. This is hard to see during a game especially when he's running around with 30 lings on the map, but try to recognize it and give a poke!
You are telling me 2 things and your post makes me want to tear my hair out tt.
Take a fourth or do pressure? And him being so greedy allows him to mass spines. Ugh. I think I need to deny his fourth, take my fourth, not pressure, just deny his fourth... and get ultras of my own. I don't know. get 3/3 quickly maybe.
I'm thinking whatever the answer is, I should not get infestors.
What did i do wrong?
I keep playing these people who I KNOW I'm better than - like I get my third up very quickly, I do it safely even against them massing lings against me, I deny run-bys, I drone up hard and stay alive against ling/bane pressure, I'm on 3 bases way before them. And it's like they are going "okay, well, fuck it, I'll just turtle this herpderp deathball, eventually take my third with a million lings/infestors/spines, and then make ultras!" and there's no way to beat it. Reminds me of something completely broken a year ago that had to be patched and totally overhauled every match-up with a new unit...
Anyways thanks for the compliment of my nice third timing. I crush people who try to do 2 base lair speedroach all-ins even. But I'm going to stick with 2 base play for a while now until I see a way to beat this new ultra style, and go either 2 base ling/infestor/spine into fast ultras myself, or muta into quick infestor, hive like that guy did to me in the first game. I was extremely good in ZvZ when 2 base muta was king and my win rate stopped when people figured out how to beat it, but I haven't seen anyone figure out a way to beat this so... can't beat them, join them. Maybe it's the future of zvz.
Honestly in that game you should have been able to kill him before the point he go ultras. He had like 5 spines at 3rd plus 24 lings and 7 mutas.
There is no way you should let that base live, and you also allowed him to take a 4th before you.
As for winning the engagements there wasn't a ton you could do because i feel like you let him get to 4 base ultra basically for free
while it isn't what you are looking for in the Ultra category just another showing of how good a +2 roach plus infestor maxed timing is against this style.
Maps where something like this probably wouldn't work would be shakuras or entombed
I don't feel it was the ultras per se as it was that your opponent was way greedier than you. This is hard to see during a game especially when he's running around with 30 lings on the map, but try to recognize it and give a poke!
You are telling me 2 things and your post makes me want to tear my hair out tt.
Take a fourth or do pressure? And him being so greedy allows him to mass spines. Ugh. I think I need to deny his fourth, take my fourth, not pressure, just deny his fourth... and get ultras of my own. I don't know. get 3/3 quickly maybe.
I'm thinking whatever the answer is, I should not get infestors.
What did i do wrong?
I keep playing these people who I KNOW I'm better than - like I get my third up very quickly, I do it safely even against them massing lings against me, I deny run-bys, I drone up hard and stay alive against ling/bane pressure, I'm on 3 bases way before them. And it's like they are going "okay, well, fuck it, I'll just turtle this herpderp deathball, eventually take my third with a million lings/infestors/spines, and then make ultras!" and there's no way to beat it. Reminds me of something completely broken a year ago that had to be patched and totally overhauled every match-up with a new unit...
Anyways thanks for the compliment of my nice third timing. I crush people who try to do 2 base lair speedroach all-ins even. But I'm going to stick with 2 base play for a while now until I see a way to beat this new ultra style, and go either 2 base ling/infestor/spine into fast ultras myself, or muta into quick infestor, hive like that guy did to me in the first game. I was extremely good in ZvZ when 2 base muta was king and my win rate stopped when people figured out how to beat it, but I haven't seen anyone figure out a way to beat this so... can't beat them, join them. Maybe it's the future of zvz.
Sorry if my post was a bit of a mess it was quite late at the time. ^^ Like I said I feel with your current third timing you have a nice clean window to kill this style seeing as he cannot both have double upgrades and a ton of stuff to defend and a third between the 10-12 min mark.
What I tried to say is you took the middleground on everything where your opponent was like: pure lings to pressure, pure drones and third, double upgrade and lair, pure drones and spines, 3-3 and ultras. A more extreme response by you would have punished this, in which case you have two real options: -Some really strong pressure (or call it an all-in if you must, I disagree off-of 3 base saturation) -Some greedy 4th timing.
Hope that clears it a bit up. Again, take it with a grain of salt though.
edit: Something to try is when you do a push at ~12 minutes against this style is to get burrow so that if he's trying to hold with infestor spine, if he ever lets up on the fungals you pull back a bit and burrow to regenerate that health, then come back full health with reinforcements against low energy infestors, have fun!
I don't have time to watch both replays but I watched the second.
You did a great job holding your fast third against his heavy ling/bane pressure, but he did manage to get a runby in that did a good amount of economic damage and screwed up your attack timing by making you produce 2 rounds of drones instead of 2 rounds of roaches. I think if that had been denied you could have done a push to deny his 3rd for quite a long time.
I don't know about the hydra choice; when I play against this style I tend to go up to infestors ASAP so I can fungal his lings. I don't feel like much is gained by using hydras against this style.
Still, if you had killed his 3rd and pulled back with that significant clump of units you would have been fighting Ling/Ultra without infestor support, which roach/hydra on equal upgrades should win in a defensive position.
This guy also had the sickest overlord spread, so he knew the second anything was going to happen and knew where he could send his units to counter safely and what the optimal time to run-by was.
Against this style I usually win if I go fast third into +2 roach/infestor timing, it hits well before ultras and usually around the time they are getting their 3rd up and running. Ling counters are super annoying to deal with and I still haven't found the best method, but banelings and a few roaches in key positions tend to do quite well. I will see if I can find a replay.
CK is a bitch to attack the third on in ZvZ, especially against infestors, so I understand your pain.
Edit: It's worth checking out the game Freaky played vs Life in the GSTL. Freaky was about as mobile as you can be with infestors due to good nydus play, but Life used his superior map presence and a quick tech to infestors to force Freaky out of ling production and onto the defensive. While he definitely made some stupid moves and lost a battle he was up by 80 supply in, he ended up starving Freaky out, which I think is key. Freaky also never had the chance to tech up to ultras since he was constantly being traded with. This style can definitely be called a "deathball" since you can be so behind in eco and supply for so long but still win pretty easily with it, but I think it adds flavor to ZvZ beyond that of Roach/Infestor/Hydra macro wars.
On June 08 2012 12:02 Belial88 wrote: I'll take away from it that maybe I can just bust with roaches, and if I see infestors (without roaches), I'll just max out on roaches and attack. And I guess leave lots of roaches at home to deal with runbys.
On June 08 2012 12:02 Belial88 wrote: Moosegills I watched your replay.
That's not really fair ;/
You beat him with a roach bust. it didn't get to the ultra part of the game. And he didn't make spines well and he teched too hard and didn't have enough ling/infestor.
Interesting game though. I'll take away from it that maybe I can just bust with roaches, and if I see infestors (without roaches), I'll just max out on roaches and attack. And I guess leave lots of roaches at home to deal with runbys.
if he takes an undefended fourth thats fine, but its a badddd idea to attack with roach/infestor into infestor/spine unless you get a good position.
On June 08 2012 12:02 Belial88 wrote: Moosegills I watched your replay.
That's not really fair ;/
You beat him with a roach bust. it didn't get to the ultra part of the game. And he didn't make spines well and he teched too hard and didn't have enough ling/infestor.
Interesting game though. I'll take away from it that maybe I can just bust with roaches, and if I see infestors (without roaches), I'll just max out on roaches and attack. And I guess leave lots of roaches at home to deal with runbys.
if he takes an undefended fourth thats fine, but its a badddd idea to attack with roach/infestor into infestor/spine unless you get a good position.
Hit waaaaay before max. By the time you're maxed he'll have 8 infestors with full energy which when coupled with spines basically kills infinity roaches.
Ling Infest (with sometimes a little bit of roach as in ZvT) into Ultra is actually a build that Stephano is practising right now, he did that against Violet at RedBul Lan and a lot on his stream where he played a lot against a lllllllll acount which was Scarlet apparently. I don't know if he will stick with it as his standard ZvZ but he was doing very well with it. I'm not sure there is an obvious weakpoint that you can exploit, I'll said you're gonna need some defensive banneling at your third and fourth base and force him to make a lot of spine and to stay on 3 base. Then it's all depending on your unit control and good engagment, you should always fight on choke point if you can. I don't feel right now that this style is better or worse thant roach/Hydra/Infestor, but it is somehow new so it's harder to play against right now.
So I was thinking okay, maybe the way to play against this is assume it's muta right, because it looks the same, 2 base lair 4 gas no roaches. And so you 'respond' to the mutas with infestors. Oops, its not mutas, its infestor/ling.
But that isn't really working for me either. The infestor tech time makes it so when i max out on 2/2 roach/infestor, they have ultras out.
I can't beat this style at all. I play so many people where I'm just so far ahead in the early and mid-game, and then they get the ultras and I lose. Maybe I'm not kiting well, maybe my micro is bad, I don't get it. I can even deny their fourth but once they get ultras its just impossible to deal with, because there's no tech I can use against it. With IT spam, they back off (and they have more infestors anyways). Roaches are okay, but won't work when he's on 3/5 ultras with infestor/ling support.
I just hate losing games where I'm ahead, and I know I'm ahead, but I can't solidy that lead into a win. The majority of my ZvZs tend to go to 4+ bases, so this is really causing me a lot of losses.
It's very hard to secure the third in the mid game with ling into infestor. Abuse this or simply play greedier as their army is only good at counter attacks, so you can get out lots of BL/infestor before they have all the ultras, especially if you are able to harass their third at all.
There are a variety of ways to get a fast 3rds with lings, before you even need spines to defend a roach counter. I havent played much of the ling infestor style vs roach in the midgame so I can't comment on that portion, but I expect counters would help you keep the 3rd alive.
On June 12 2012 06:25 chebhe wrote: Drop their main. That is how you beat a huge number of spines. If you think that's gimicky it's no surprise why you're losing.
It's gimicky because it's not just spines, it's also infestors. A one liner is not going to solve this problem.
This style seems to be the trend in zvz lately and I'm having trouble with it as well lategame. For me I have a built in roach timing off of 3 bases that kills this style outright. If you really want to have a 30 min zvz against this style I can only imagine sim-citying against ultras with spines with small gaps, and then teching to broodlords? Not quite sure.
In the ohana game, i think that your max out on roach infestor was very late because of how late you took your gases in your nat, you should try grabbing that 3rd gas at around 50 supply in that game and then the rest as you continue to drone,
when i play against koreans in zvz normally the point they max out with the roach infestor and sometimes hydra comp is between the 14-15 minute mark and this is normally when you'd want to hit your timing, that NASL vod with catz vs idra is a good example of how you can engage before the ultras as well.
another thing to not is that he is getting away with quite alot in that game only making 3 mutaslisks and only have 1 spine and no defensive banelings at all, while you were morphing lots of defensive banelings which also slightly delayed your own lair timing.
you should be trying to be as agressive as you can with speedlings early on seeing that his lair is that much faster than your and delaying roaches as much as possible.
and i just want to say again that he only made 3 mutalisks and you made 3 spores at your 3rd and 2 in each base. if you can pressure him before his tech really comes into play this allows you to delay your own spores and tech faster yourself.
in short I think you were just already behind by the time it got to the midgame and there wasnt much you could do by then because of how much greed he got away with.
those games of idra vs catz is wayyy different. Catz went 2 base infestor, so he had a ton of infestors. I am generally playing fast third style... and I can tell there's no way I'd have that many roach/infestor that quickly.
Maybe i should stop playing 3 base and start going 2 base?
On June 12 2012 11:23 zmansman17 wrote: Under what circumstances would someone go Ultra in ZvZ? I can see it if you're already way ahead, but beyond that not really.
Ling with fast upgrades into infestor, super defensive with counter attacks > fast hive 3-5 upgraded ultras are amazing. Half of my late game zvz's end up with my opponent doing this nowadays.
On June 08 2012 17:45 Vanadiel wrote: Ling Infest (with sometimes a little bit of roach as in ZvT) into Ultra is actually a build that Stephano is practising right now, he did that against Violet at RedBul Lan and a lot on his stream where he played a lot against a lllllllll acount which was Scarlet apparently. I don't know if he will stick with it as his standard ZvZ but he was doing very well with it. I'm not sure there is an obvious weakpoint that you can exploit, I'll said you're gonna need some defensive banneling at your third and fourth base and force him to make a lot of spine and to stay on 3 base. Then it's all depending on your unit control and good engagment, you should always fight on choke point if you can. I don't feel right now that this style is better or worse thant roach/Hydra/Infestor, but it is somehow new so it's harder to play against right now.
The account you are referring to was actually idra
Your response should be 2/2 Roaches with nydus and multi pronged attacks. 2/2 Roaches will always 2 shot lings and are pretty hard to kill. You can do this pretty fast on 2 base while not risking to take a 3rd with all those ling runbys
On June 12 2012 21:13 FuriousEgg wrote: Your response should be 2/2 Roaches with nydus and multi pronged attacks. 2/2 Roaches will always 2 shot lings and are pretty hard to kill. You can do this pretty fast on 2 base while not risking to take a 3rd with all those ling runbys
The OP is asking specifically about his replays. He has also mentioned several times he would like to stick with his fast third playstyle.
On June 12 2012 21:13 FuriousEgg wrote: Your response should be 2/2 Roaches with nydus and multi pronged attacks. 2/2 Roaches will always 2 shot lings and are pretty hard to kill. You can do this pretty fast on 2 base while not risking to take a 3rd with all those ling runbys
da heck? 2/2 nydus "fast" off 2 base??
i think unit sim city actually helps a lot, wedging 4roaches and queen between mineral line, and use hold position with drones around your units. meawhile your roaches attack front line, newly spawned roaches should be capable of cleaning up mas ligns
The funny bit is that the build I posted Belial hardcounters this crap. Your Roaches will have +2/1 faster than the lings will have +1/1, and it hits before he can secure his third.
You can simply swap into the timing push reactionary depending on when your opponent takes his two gas. If he doesn't, don't make the lair and take a third off of +1 slow roaches. If he does, get lair and go with a massive roach push at 10-11. Thats the easiest way I found to deal with mass ling styles.
^ You didn't really post a build, you posted an opening. Your opening is more like gasless hatch first, and most importantly, you can't take a fast third with your opening.
I'm asking how to beat ling/infestor using standard, fast third play. I would prefer not to do a 2 base roach all-in like your build does, which no pro currently seems to do in ZvZ.
However, it does seem more and more like maybe I should go with 2 base lair style play, which your build does do well. It just seems quite all-in.
And the problem isn't the mid-game anyways. The problem is the late-game, and so far no one has given me an answer better than 'just all-in them'. Thanks, but not every time your all-in works. Not to mention I can't really all-in if I took a fast third. So what do I do when we both took our thirds, and I may or may not have done a lot of damage with roach pressure but the opponent is still alive, finally gets his third with ling/infestor/spine, and now has ultras out.
On June 13 2012 02:56 Belial88 wrote: ^ You didn't really post a build, you posted an opening. Your opening is more like gasless hatch first, and most importantly, you can't take a fast third with your opening.
I'm asking how to beat ling/infestor using standard, fast third play. I would prefer not to do a 2 base roach all-in like your build does, which no pro currently seems to do in ZvZ.
However, it does seem more and more like maybe I should go with 2 base lair style play, which your build does do well. It just seems quite all-in.
And the problem isn't the mid-game anyways. The problem is the late-game, and so far no one has given me an answer better than 'just all-in them'. Thanks, but not every time your all-in works. Not to mention I can't really all-in if I took a fast third. So what do I do when we both took our thirds, and I may or may not have done a lot of damage with roach pressure but the opponent is still alive, finally gets his third with ling/infestor/spine, and now has ultras out.
The only reason I said this was because on the Cloud Kingdom game specifically your opponent was being super greedy which you cannot let them get away with zvz.
I have some issues with this style as well but generally I can kill my opponent off of 3 base saturation with 5 gas, if it seems my opponent will hold such a thing I've been trying broodlords lately with some success. They're very slow though so during the transition spines are a must.
3-3 roaches hold up well against 3-5 ultras if you split well and don't get fungaled to death.
no need to max out, no need infestors even. ( he couldve tech infestors instead of OL drop)
even if ultras do pop 2 main and natural were dead already. (if he relocated all spines to natural then our beloved zerg player can nydus a place close to the third.
So I just had this game. I had an emergency at the end where I had to leave, I wasn't bm'ing in return to the guy who was bm.
I take a fast third, I see his mass spine/hive plan, so I deny his fourth with roaches before his ultras come. Then he has a huge ultra/infestor/queen/ling army, and I barely survive against it and push him back, but he's on 4 bases. I deny his 5th base, I have 5 bases running, but he just turtles hardcore, masses up another army of mass ultras, and wins. I go for broodlord tech but decide not to because it would be too spread out.
I don't know how to beat this in lategame at all. He just turtles up an ultra deathball and beats me.
I can only comment on how my games go. If he's turtling on two bases till hive, you've got plenty of ways of denying his third base, no?
Keep a roach burrowed, keep attacking it, but for the love of god don't let him get to 3 bases when he's on hive tech. Its exactly like dealing with the Protoss 2base turteled Deathball, except you now have to deal with his speedlings. - At least thats the easiest way of doing things.
8 minutes into the game he's just ahead in everything. He's got more speedlings, more drones, a slightly later third. I don't see him turtelling up behind a wall, I see him outmacroing you. You choose to suicide a crapton of lings for absolutely nothing. About 12 drones worth of resources given to his SLOW LINGS for free.
At 10 minutes his upgrades are equal to yours. Since you've delayed +1 missiles, you cannot get out +2 fast enough for any ling attacks, making them extremely cost effective with even just slightly decent surrounds.
At 12 minutes you see a done hive. You know you cannot attack as your upgrades are behind what they should be. You've been behind in the drone count, and even if he's tossing up a spinecrawler wall, you're still only even. If he had played Roach/Infestor perfectly from this position, he had crushed you aswell.
At 17 minutes you've let him get up bases to mine from 4 extra gasses than what you've currently got mining.
At 19 minutes he's attacking into infested Terrans where he could just walk back. Not only that, he also chose to engage just before his upgrades finished. ( He was being bad ) This gives you a fairly decent trade - but he's been mining on extra bases while you've just gotten your 4th gasses up. You know what it means to be so far behind in gas, especially when you're outmatched army wise...
So it comes down to you not having an answer when your opponent takes a fast third because you cannot put on pressure, that or you being unable to reliably secure a fast fourth against it. The fact that you had not scouted his 5th for 5 minutes doesn't help.
He's not turtling on 2 bases to hive, he's turtling on 2 base until infestors, then turtling on 3 base with spine/infestor/ling/counterattacks until ultras.
There's nothing wrong with someone taking a fast third in zvz. it's how it's 'supposed' to be played, once you have baneling tech you can take your third provided the opponent isn't doing a roach/ling all-in with 25 drones, which is pretty easy to stop on it's own and easy to identify (which is why no one does it anymore). There's not realy much pressure you can do against a fast third besides hoping the opponent didn't morph 4 banes there. You can however deny the third if he takes it and you go third, and then he doesn't make roaches while you get speedroaches, as you'll hit before his infestors are out. But if he takes his third when his infestors are out, he's good, and then he gets hive, ultras, and deathball wins.
Anyways, I've started playing like this myself, because I don't see any way to beat it. I've just been crushing everyone. It's such a terrible way to play, you don't give a shit what the opponent is doing. Oh your doing a roach/ling all-in? it's okay, I'm massing spines anyways on 2 base. Oh you are taking a fast third and playing standard and now I'm way behind economically? It's okay, I'll just get lots of infestors and spines and eventually take my third and get ultras. Oh you are going mutas? It's okay, I got infestors coming out at the same time.
I haven't lost at all doing this myself, even when playing clearly better opponents. As long as you make enough spines to hold any sort of pressure, you'll get 3 bases, and then you win because with 3 bases you can get that ultra/infestor/ling army out that's just unstoppable by anything except another ultra/infestor army.
I don't think I'll even go hatch first anymore in ZvZ. what's the point of going hatch first if economy isn't even important in zvz anymore.
On June 08 2012 12:09 chebhe wrote: roach bane allin will not work against mutas, which the OP said his opponent opened muta. The mutas will shoot all the banes as you walk to the base. A pure ling spine infestor mix does sound like it would struggle with roach bane ..
Roach/Bane hits before mutas are out which is why its so strong vs muta openers
Your mineral dump is worthless compared to theirs. Less drones = faster gas, more army food + hit at earlier timing. 63-65 drones sweet spot for roach-based army.
Emphasis on +2 range, roaches 2 shot lings regardless of armor upgrades.
Banelings seem the easy way out for defending runbys, but they are not efficient (can't even 1 shot +1 armor lings). Rely on pre-split army and fungals for defence.
Go heavy on hydras, they shred lings, spines, infested terrans, ultras. Infestors are just used as support units for fungaling lings.
DO NOT let the game get to the stage where they have full energy infestors with upgraded ultras. You should be able to hit the timing comfortably before ultras pop, or at least force them to use up all their energy. It's not that tight of a timing either. Do not give in to the temptation to move your whole army back to defend once you decide to move out. The game will most likely turn into a scrappy base trade, but you will have the advantage in your army.
The hard part is pretty much minimizing damage so that you can hit at the desired timing. Personally, i have experimented with ling infestor but switch back to roaches after figuring out the limitations of the build. Never once, i have felt roach/hydras/infestors to be inferior to ling/infestors. If i lost, it's always due to being too far behind, or making mistakes myself especially during the base trade.
Large maps like daybreak/metropolis are different though. Ling/infestors are damn bloody strong there, shown by korean's preference to use them in recent televised matches. But still they are not yet the automatically go-to build on those maps.
tbh quiet enjoying this style of ling/infestor into ultra zvz. Don't know the best way to fight 5/3 ultra's and hard to engage him before ultra's pop due to infestors stopping you if he fungels right.
On June 14 2012 17:30 blade55555 wrote: tbh quiet enjoying this style of ling/infestor into ultra zvz. Don't know the best way to fight 5/3 ultra's and hard to engage him before ultra's pop due to infestors stopping you if he fungels right.
I'm having trouble surviving 2 base roach in the mid game before my infestors are out with this style.
On June 14 2012 12:40 Belial88 wrote: He's not turtling on 2 bases to hive, he's turtling on 2 base until infestors, then turtling on 3 base with spine/infestor/ling/counterattacks until ultras.
There's nothing wrong with someone taking a fast third in zvz...
Dude, his third is placed at 8 minutes and his Infestation pit is placed at 9.15. His Glands upgrade + the first infestors are out at 10:50 earliest. If you LET him do that and complain about "economy not mattering" you're just being biased and blind. The funny bit is, he even delayed his Infestors till 12 min. "Turtles on two base till Infestor" I don't quite see that.
I did update my thread with all the reactions. I do not believe you can play roach styles against this without denying that third till at least 10 minutes where the first infestors pop out, as he later in the game always has the counterattack option. Just for the record, at the time my 25 +1 roaches hits at his third, he'll have 30 lings, no upgrades on them for the next minute and the creep has only just started spreading, meaning no spines. Heck, he only HAD two spines and was being super duper greedy!..
And while he was being greedy, you placed a ton of extra spines. If anything those minerals should've helped you take your fourth way way way earlier.
noob question, has anyone considered opening 15 gaz 15 pool and get the speed really fast (then hatch at 21, and 1rst evo at 21) for the lings/infestor to ultra style? I feel like it's better than hatch first as it really confuses the opponent. Im only a plat but it seemed to work very well against the masters with whom i played. I always manage to get a queen, a few drones killed or sneek into the main only to keep my lings delaying his harvesting for a minimum cost. When then he comes with baneling/lings or roaches iam already bunkered with one evo (the 21 evo is in my main), few spines and lots of 1/1 lings. I dunno, to me it sounds like a logical opening to go into a 1/1 lings before reaching the mid game. I might be missing something essential or putting myself at risk but give it a though, im curious to know what you brains think of this opening in the zvz ultras gameplay.
Honestly i hope this ultra thing ill become the meta game, i used to be really good in zvz but now i am so lost i don't get it anymore.
You might have talked about it previoulsy but i didn't have the time to read all the thread sry if it's the case.
I've also been going up against this ling/infestor/ultra style recently.
The way I've dealt with it is, turtle the same way you do against mutas, play for pure defense at the start.
Once you have at least 4-5 infestors to support your roaches, thats when you attack.
Roach/Infestor > Ling/Infestor before Ultralisks hit.
The zerglings melt, while your roaches stay alive (micro them to increase effectiveness vs their fungals).
You can't just rely on making a roach/baneling attack if your banelings get fungaled, always good to fight infestor with infestor.
Just keep the pressure on with constant roaches from there, while you expand behind it and add hydralisks to the mix.
If you get to the point where I belive they have well over 5 Ultralisks with a decent infestor count, you can't attack any longer. When I'm usually in this situation, I spine up my own bases, spread them out as much as I can and play defensive once again until I got Roach/Hydra/Infestor maxed out (Play cost effective). Adding in 4-5 Broodlords helps.
Kite those fat asses and drop IT bombs as much as you can at home, when you got the edge, you make your attack.
On June 15 2012 01:41 Keyz1 wrote: I've also been going up against this ling/infestor/ultra style recently.
The way I've dealt with it is, turtle the same way you do against mutas, play for pure defense at the start.
Once you have at least 4-5 infestors to support your roaches, thats when you attack.
Roach/Infestor > Ling/Infestor before Ultralisks hit.
The zerglings melt, while your roaches stay alive (micro them to increase effectiveness vs their fungals).
You can't just rely on making a roach/baneling attack if your banelings get fungaled, always good to fight infestor with infestor.
Just keep the pressure on with constant roaches from there, while you expand behind it and add hydralisks to the mix.
If you get to the point where I belive they have well over 5 Ultralisks with a decent infestor count, you can't attack any longer. When I'm usually in this situation, I spine up my own bases, spread them out as much as I can and play defensive once again until I got Roach/Hydra/Infestor maxed out (Play cost effective). Adding in 4-5 Broodlords helps.
Kite those fat asses and drop IT bombs as much as you can at home, when you got the edge, you make your attack.
Even if you attack before ultras hit, a good opponent's fungals and spinewall will be more than enough to hold (couple GSTL examples already this season). He can simply patiently fungal roaches while spines do sick damage, and then mop up your red and yellow oranges with 1/1 or 2/2 lings. It's not as easy as a timing push solution (or so it seems to me at the moment)...
On June 15 2012 02:37 IPA wrote: Even if you attack before ultras hit, a good opponent's fungals and spinewall will be more than enough to hold (couple GSTL examples already this season). He can simply patiently fungal roaches while spines do sick damage, and then mop up your red and yellow oranges with 1/1 or 2/2 lings. It's not as easy as a timing push solution (or so it seems to me at the moment)...
Dunno about that, I've never sent my full army of roaches into a spine crawler wall for no reason, you can easily scout it with 1 unit and then attack a different area. If he's spining up so much and playing turtle, it doesn't stop you from doing the same.
If you attack once you have a decent infestor count, you can eliminate the spinecrawler threat with enough infested terrans in different spots, right before you engage with your roaches.
Bottom line, if you stay on a bad composition too long in that matchup (keep making only roaches), or have a bad defense set up, you'll just lose.
I do agree with the fact that you have LIMITED timings, when you can actually make a full out attack, and if it's not possible, like I stated before, defense until you got the right composition is probably the best option.
Ex. If you win an engagement, and he's remaking Ultralisks, it's the perfect timing to destroy one of his expansions, and then back to defense. I think with an Ultralisk base, if you're stuck on 3 bases, you probably won't be able to do more than 1-2 pushes because of the gas.
Like some posters said, some +1 timing can outright deny his third forever or just kill him. There is not only 1 way to secure your third. There are builds that involve faster +1 and secure your third while using your army to pressure. Even with your 'standard' fast third timing, there are times when you can just go kill his third by pumping roaches reactively if he is greedy with his third timing.
On June 14 2012 17:30 blade55555 wrote: tbh quiet enjoying this style of ling/infestor into ultra zvz. Don't know the best way to fight 5/3 ultra's and hard to engage him before ultra's pop due to infestors stopping you if he fungels right.
I'm having trouble surviving 2 base roach in the mid game before my infestors are out with this style.
Will with the build you have to have spines or get roaches. I have been going spine crawler route with ling/infestor and you can hold. If you don't get spine crawlers and don't have infestors out it is very hard to hold a 2 base roach push, it might even be impossible if the other zerg didn't mess up much and got a ton of them.
On June 15 2012 03:25 oZe wrote: If it's unbeatable plz post a guide with timings ^^
I plan on posting a guide on it soon, just want to have as much practice with it to know I have it figured out before posting a guide . I have faced many things that I have died to then vs the same person same strategy defended, so working out a lot of the kinks in the build.
I'm having trouble surviving 2 base roach in the mid game before my infestors are out with this style.
moar spinz
noob question, has anyone considered opening 15 gaz 15 pool and get the speed really fast (then hatch at 21, and 1rst evo at 21) for the lings/infestor to ultra style? I feel like it's better than hatch first as it really confuses the opponent. Im only a plat but it seemed to work very well against the masters with whom i played. I always manage to get a queen, a few drones killed or sneek into the main only to keep my lings delaying his harvesting for a minimum cost. When then he comes with baneling/lings or roaches iam already bunkered with one evo (the 21 evo is in my main), few spines and lots of 1/1 lings. I dunno, to me it sounds like a logical opening to go into a 1/1 lings before reaching the mid game. I might be missing something essential or putting myself at risk but give it a though, im curious to know what you brains think of this opening in the zvz ultras gameplay.
Against a good player you should not be able to do that. Evo at 21 is ridiculously fast too, that makes no sense. Banelings are better than upgrades lings for both defensive and offensive purposes in the early game.
Like some posters said, some +1 timing can outright deny his third forever or just kill him. There is not only 1 way to secure your third. There are builds that involve faster +1 and secure your third while using your army to pressure. Even with your 'standard' fast third timing, there are times when you can just go kill his third by pumping roaches reactively if he is greedy with his third timing.
People fail to understand - when infestors pop, you cannot deny the third against mass ling/infestor/spines, no matter how many roaches you have from 3 base (if it's 2 base, well, you are better off with the higher tech).
There's a huge problem with fighting against this style - it's that it's literally a ticking time-bomb. Yes, you may deny the third for a long time with mass roach, but eventually, they WILL get their third up with enough infestors, which means they can then get their hive and ultras and you can't beat ultra/infestor with anything but ultra/infestor. It's a ticking time bomb.
Secondly, infestor/ling/spine is extremely strong against roaches. There is no way you are going to bust that with roaches.
If it's unbeatable plz post a guide with timings ^^
2 base lair infestor, macro hatch (~35 2nd gas, 3rd and 4th gas in 40s and double evo, 1/1 and lair, macro hatch in 50's, a couple spines if the opponent is doing 2 base roach all-in, a couple queens or spores if he's going quick muta, get 2/2 and tons of lings after saturating 2 base and make infestors, take third when infestors pop and make about 5 spines if opponent is making a roach based army, when your third is up make hive, ultra, 3/3, gg).
sorry for not reading thoroughly through this thread but i wanted to get my idea out there and get some feed back. i was under the imppresion that ultras were good because they come out very fast, are very tanky, great splash against fungled units, fast, and arent stopped by fungle. i was also under the impression that having alot of high energy infestors with burrow was a counter to brood lords if they have support because they can spawn an army of infested terrans beneath the broods. I feel like if u get enough brood lords then they start to counter ultralisks (though ultras have lots of mobility and with drop/nydus they could counter broods), so i was thinking to counter infestors spamming infested terran under your broods you would have a handfull of banelings behind your army to clear out any IT spam before they even do any damage. this allows you to hold your ground with broods. these banelings would be unstoppable by enemy infestors because of brood lord range. am i missing a key factor or could this become a thing?
perhaps a game of ZvZ should evolve from using queens and ultras to stay alive and tech into broodlords and then use your own nydus defensively with ultras to counter enemy nydus and then you can use bane brood infestor spine to start zoning the map very slowly. i know this is a really extreme case and probably untouchable for a very long time but i think the banelings to kill infested terrans beneath broodlords is very viable and worth while at lower levels where players arnt able to abuse mobility so much (low master kinda level).
Stephano does a really sick ultralisk style in ZvZ: http://www.twitch.tv/mstephano/b/320060897 probably 10 ZvZs in here with him doing it, I've been experimenting but I straight up die to a lot of roach timings.
. i was also under the impression that having alot of high energy infestors with burrow was a counter to brood lords if they have support because they can spawn an army of infested terrans beneath the broods. I feel like if u get enough brood lords then they start to counter ultralisks (though ultras have lots of mobility and with drop/nydus they could counter broods), so i was thinking to counter infestors spamming infested terran under your broods you would have a handfull of banelings behind your army to clear out any IT spam before they even do any damage. this allows you to hold your ground with broods. these banelings would be unstoppable by enemy infestors because of brood lord range. am i missing a key factor or could this become a thing?
No way. Maybe with just a few unsupported broods, yea, but once you have about 10-12+ broodlords, any amount of infestors gets owned by them. The 13 range on them is just sick, when you have 12+ broodlords spewing broodlings everywhere and doing that much damage, no infestors is getting anywhere near those broodlods.
Also, pure broodlord/corruptor is way stronger than broodlord/infestor. It's just a matter of hitting that critical mass of broodlords where suddenly infestors become useless. Which is the rub of 'standard' roach based zvz in lategame - make too many infestors, and you will get owned by mass broodlords that come quite quickly if the opponent realizes you are making lots of infestors and then 'counters' by just banking up and going straight for mass broodlords, make too few infestors and you get owned by mass roach, especially if you go just roach/hydra into broodlords.
Yes, enough broodlords can 'counter' ultras, but there are 2 huge problems with this: 1. To get that many broodlords that can kill ultras in anything less than 6 seconds (the time an ultra will ran into range and then past the broodlord, roughly), takes 6+ bases, and while you can be greedy against this sort of ling/infestor/ultra play, you just simply cant mine gas fast enough to get that many broodlords in time to fight against just 3-5 ultras with mass ling/infestor. 2. Ultras just run past your broodlord army and kill off your new bases. If you ever try to attack with your broodlords, the ultras just go kill your bases.
Broodlords can be okay against this style on maps like metal or shakuras where you can split map it really easily and mass spines, but there's a problem with this too - the ultra player will just add a spire, and get some corruptors. Yea, maybe you will have your own corruptors too, but the ultra player will have map control, he'll have better melee/carapace upgrades on his ultras and broodlings when he gets broodlords himself, and finally he'll have a bigger infestor count to support his corruptors too.
Banelings are not a counter at all to IT. The same unit that casts It can also cast FG, and he'll have ultras and upgraded lings, which will laugh at unupgraded banes (good luck getting 3/3/3, mass roach, broodlords against someone who only needs 3/3, ultras, and didnt make roaches).
Yea, you are definitely missing it.
here's some replays where I go this ling/infestor into ultra play. In one of the games, I actually get mass broodlords, since you will eventually need to transition out of ling/infestor/ultra into pure broodlord/corruptor, but you should have already won the game by that point.
http://drop.sc/197897 (i eventually transitioned into broodlords, to bust his mass spine wall, so I had a pure bl/ultra/infestor crazy army. but once I had ultras out, I denied the opponent's 5th base, and even killed his 4th. it was only as close as it was because he got a clutch double fg and killed like 12 of my infestors all at once. he was a better player than me for sure though)
http://drop.sc/197898 (didnt make enough spines. epic base trade where my ultra/ling army was just way more mobile than roach/hydra. i screwed up by not making enough spines and losing too many infestors though, and not enough ultras because i had to remake infestors)
http://drop.sc/197899 (vs mutas, he had a lead but this style is just so epic i dont give a fuck how far ahead you are, bitch i get 3 bases and then its ultras gg)
http://drop.sc/197900 (focused 3 hatches down, and i wasn't being overly aggressive or anything, the opponent played standard fast third roach, and I completely droned up 2 bases and was teching to infestors before making any lings, but it was that map condemned ridge where the 3 bases are all far apart and wide open so I just split up my lings into 3 parts and focused his 3 bases down before my infestors even popped, and when he counterattacked I had mass spine and infestors so its pretty obvious you can handle any mass roach attack with this style)
since they cost 300/300 and can be easily stopped if he has good overlord spread.
If you are playing standard fast third play, you simply won't have enough roaches in time. By the time you have drop tech, he has infestors out, so he'll have mass infestor/ling, which will just be stronger than the roaches you can afford if you massed them off 3 base vs someone who is staying only on 2 base, and was given the time to get infestors out (since you had to research drop tech, and went lair much, much later).
Obviously, there is a lot you could probably do if you do some sort of 2 base lair roach all-in against this, but that's simply a matter of "hey, look, he's all-inning, I should make more spines and units and pay attention to drops/nydus".
i was asking how to beat it by playing a standard, fast third before lair, roach based game, and quite frankly i don't see any way to beat it. Which is why I've completely converted to playing this way, and so far, i haven't lost at all in zvz (about 10 games so far, oddly havent run into who did it also yet). macro simply doesnt matter when you play like this, its just derping a deathball and making sure you make enough spines/lings to hold aggression.
Here's a very interesting replay where I play this style against someone playing standard fast third before lair roach style.
So there were definitely problems in what I was doing, as I'm still new to this. He actually ended up getting a lair quicker than me, simply because I made so many drones so early on (i guess i was playing how I play 2 base muta in zvt vs reactor hellion expands that force macro hatch), and there was a key period I could have killed him, and I probably lost the game because I let him FG all my infestors that I oddly left wayyyy out on the map away from my army or anything, and I could have taken a quicker third and fourth (maybe not, but I should have attempted to and just cancelled if a push came).
But his response I think is worth noting.
he sees what I'm doing, so he does a few things. First, he throws a 2nd evo for double evo right away, drones up his third, and he does get roach speed and +1 attack like normal, but he makes very, very few roaches, just a few so he can secure his third against mass upgraded lings. He then goes straight for infestors, and a very quick hive, morphing his just a few seconds later than I did. With his roach/ling/infestor army with heavy upgrades, he takes a fourth before me. Now he goes for broodlord tech and mass spines, and at this point I could have just killed him (i denied his fifth over and over but I should have just straight up killed him), so I guess what he did there would not have worked normally, but if he had gone for ultras instead, I think he would have had a good chance (i mean.. a good chance against a good player whos doing this build right).
I'm going to keep doing this build, but I think the concept the guy had was the right idea - play normal, if you see this infestor shenanigans, you just transition into double ups ling/infestor, don't make any more roaches, and go for ultras.
Seeing as you identify it's a 2 base lair build early on, you aren't making roaches against mutas or infestors, and you are going infestors anyways in case of mutas (and imo as best response against infestor openings too). Then just get lots of upgrades, take your fourth, then get ultras and spines I guess. I guess your ultras will be later than the fast infestor player, but with spines maybe you buy enough time.
I don't know. There were a lot of mistakes, I was way ahead, but I played the broodlord/corruptor/infestor part of the game completely wrong. he did some drops, and they didn't do too much damage, i handled them pretty well for the most part. But something to note - I think if you play this style, you should re-root your spines that you massed when taking your third, when your ultras pop, to be around your bases to deal with roach drops or harass, something I failed to do but probably would have helped a ton and let me push out and kill him instead of dealing with drops.
There were mistakes in my play, i should have just killed him, i bungled the bl/corruptor part when I had a clear lead, i should have expanded quicker, and I definitely should have teched a lot quicker. But maybe this guy was on to something with his cut roaches, go for upgrades, infestors, fast hive style.
I'm also going to do some testing in unit tester, to see how important upgrades really are. I know with lings generally upgrades are useless a lot of the times (ie +1 carapace is great against +0 mech, but +1 or more mech doesnt care if you have 0 or 3 armor, +1 thors dont care what armor your mutas are unless they are +3, and +2 vikings dont care if its +2 or +3 carapace on broodlords, for example) to see if we can maybe cut some of the upgrades out. 2/2 costs a ton.
Note, when 2 melee units fight, whichever unit was issued an attack command first, will get the first hit off. So 1/0 lings and 0/1 lings are equal against eachother based on this. I tested how lings may be better by testing with issuing commands first to both sides, and if one side wins even if it gets last hit, that's clearly a better ling. + Show Spoiler +
+1 armor vs +0 banelings, ling survives with 1 hp +Any armor vs +1 banelings, ling always dies (even +3 armor vs +1 attack)
4 0/0 lings beat a 1/0 roach 3 1/1 lings beat a 1/0 roach still takes 3 1/1 lings to beat a 0/0 roach, so there's not a huge 1/1 timing to hit (i mean obviously it will be stronger with more numbers, but it's not some super huge critical timing, like +1 attack is for roaches vs lings)
+1 roaches will 2 shot a 0 armor ling, but +1 roaches will kill any armor ling in 3 shots (1 to 3 carapace wont matter if he has +1 attack on roaches). From then on, as long as the roach player keeps up in attack upgrades, he will 2 shots the lings. So.. +2 roach takes 3 shots to kill +3, 2 shots to kill +2.
So maybe armor isn't as useful if playing against a roach style, besides +1 carapace (which is extremely useful, 1 more shots for both banes and roaches). It's unlikely you will hit +3 armor before a roach player gets +2 attack, since they always go 2/0 before 1/1 (and generally focus on upgrades anyways).
It still takes 3 3/3 lings to kill a 1/0 roach, but it leaves it at very low life.
So +1 carapace just counteracts +1 missile. But +2 armor does not counterattack +2 missile. +3 armor counteracts +2 missile. So dont rush +2 armor? but get it and 3/3 eventually.. just maybe after hive? Melee is of course always useful.
tldr, 1/1 is great, further carapace upgrades dont seem that great, attack upgrades are cool but dont add any important critical numbers, although Im sure is useful when you have a mass of lings. So I guess get 1/1 quickly, but 2/2 and 3/3 isn't super important (ie maybe get that hive or more infestors out quicker instead of upgrades, get ultra den before 3/3). Attack upgrades are probably always useful, but not so much on carapace
You are getting 2/2 3/3 not for the lings, but for the ultra's. Ultra's with 5/3 upgrades are fucking powerful and that is your goal when going this style. It doesn't matter if it doesn't benefit zerglings that much, you are aiming for ultralisks and trust me 5 armor upgraded ultras are incredibly powerful. You don't want to skimp on upgrades because you don't think it's worth it for lings
yea i should test with the ultras. I do think the upgrades are very important, but what I took away from the tests was maybe get that infestation pit before 2/2, get the ultra den before 3/3. Maybe get attack upgrades, but delay the carapace. (ie get 1/1, then get attack upgrade and infestation pit, carapace, hive, attack + ultra den then +3 carapace).
. i was also under the impression that having alot of high energy infestors with burrow was a counter to brood lords if they have support because they can spawn an army of infested terrans beneath the broods. I feel like if u get enough brood lords then they start to counter ultralisks (though ultras have lots of mobility and with drop/nydus they could counter broods), so i was thinking to counter infestors spamming infested terran under your broods you would have a handfull of banelings behind your army to clear out any IT spam before they even do any damage. this allows you to hold your ground with broods. these banelings would be unstoppable by enemy infestors because of brood lord range. am i missing a key factor or could this become a thing?
No way. Maybe with just a few unsupported broods, yea, but once you have about 10-12+ broodlords, any amount of infestors gets owned by them. The 13 range on them is just sick, when you have 12+ broodlords spewing broodlings everywhere and doing that much damage, no infestors is getting anywhere near those broodlods.
Also, pure broodlord/corruptor is way stronger than broodlord/infestor. It's just a matter of hitting that critical mass of broodlords where suddenly infestors become useless. Which is the rub of 'standard' roach based zvz in lategame - make too many infestors, and you will get owned by mass broodlords that come quite quickly if the opponent realizes you are making lots of infestors and then 'counters' by just banking up and going straight for mass broodlords, make too few infestors and you get owned by mass roach, especially if you go just roach/hydra into broodlords.
Yes, enough broodlords can 'counter' ultras, but there are 2 huge problems with this: 1. To get that many broodlords that can kill ultras in anything less than 6 seconds (the time an ultra will ran into range and then past the broodlord, roughly), takes 6+ bases, and while you can be greedy against this sort of ling/infestor/ultra play, you just simply cant mine gas fast enough to get that many broodlords in time to fight against just 3-5 ultras with mass ling/infestor. 2. Ultras just run past your broodlord army and kill off your new bases. If you ever try to attack with your broodlords, the ultras just go kill your bases.
Broodlords can be okay against this style on maps like metal or shakuras where you can split map it really easily and mass spines, but there's a problem with this too - the ultra player will just add a spire, and get some corruptors. Yea, maybe you will have your own corruptors too, but the ultra player will have map control, he'll have better melee/carapace upgrades on his ultras and broodlings when he gets broodlords himself, and finally he'll have a bigger infestor count to support his corruptors too.
Banelings are not a counter at all to IT. The same unit that casts It can also cast FG, and he'll have ultras and upgraded lings, which will laugh at unupgraded banes (good luck getting 3/3/3, mass roach, broodlords against someone who only needs 3/3, ultras, and didnt make roaches).
Yea, you are definitely missing it.
you say the infestors cant get close enough to broods to spam infested terran (which i disagree with since they are burrowing under roach/ultra which tank) and then you say that banes cant be used against infested terran since infestors will fungle them. these two point contradict a bit. i think you should acknoledge that infested terran are actualy a threat to broods and i feel the best way to deal with this as the brood lord player is to have either a handfull of banes or a hand full of infestors. (the banes being much more effective). In this situation unburrowed infestors from the non brood palyer will be prioritised by broods so they wont be able to fungle the banes.
this method kills brood lord very effectively and even with infestors to fungle the infested terran they will still kill a decent amount of broods and then you can run at the cost of almost nothing while broods take forever to morph. i feel like broods need banelings to kill infested terran spam.
i agree with ultras being the best hive tech unit in ZvZ and i have been using them late game ZvZ since i can remember. i feel though that i could definatly have lost some games to brood players that had they gotten banes to kill infested terrans (though this ignores the fact that ultra+nydus/drop is so good)
^ if you have an overseer or some FG, you can't burrow infestors like that under the broodlords.
I'm not exactly sure what you are saying.
The end-game goal for zvz is definitely pure broodlord/corruptor, but ultras are better to get first, according to this style. In one of the replays you can see I go bl/corruptor after mass ultras, as you need a couple broodlords to break mass spines
On June 16 2012 07:40 Belial88 wrote: ^ if you have an overseer or some FG, you can't burrow infestors like that under the broodlords.
I'm not exactly sure what you are saying.
The end-game goal for zvz is definitely pure broodlord/corruptor, but ultras are better to get first, according to this style. In one of the replays you can see I go bl/corruptor after mass ultras, as you need a couple broodlords to break mass spines
I assume detection. I did some unit testing and I was able to break 8 ish spines 12 broods 2 spores and 2 overseers that where spread decently with I think 8 full energy infestors and 25 ish roaches. Though I wasn't microns the broods after I set it up. Both sides had full upgrades including air attack/armor. Next time my friend is on I'll get him to play the other side but I'm not sure it will make much difference. If I added in hydras it was very easy to break. If the brood lord player had infestors then it's not pure brood lord corrupt.
I don't have mouse click bound to my mouse wheel for instant mass infested Terran but I still came out on top killing everything and having ~5 infestors and ~20 roaches each time.
This test also had much less gas invested into the Infestor player ~1000 less and also had about ~2000 minerals left. But I don't think the minerals count since its defensive spines. Not to mention the amount of gas that went into tech and upgrades for the broods. I think if the brood player keeps a few infestors and about 10 bane lings behind their army then I wouldnt even be able to kill 1 brood lord.
So now I ask how is a player to get such a large number of broods when they have roach hydra Infestor with eventually ultra or perhaps ling ultra Infestor attacking them. Also nydus/drop and ultra will kill all the production of the brooding player should they get too many broods. I think broods still have a place in ZvZ as a game ender once your ahead but I feel that ultra+queen and Infestor is much better if your ahead.
Also to clarify my infestors aren't exactly burrowing under the broods they are just getting close enough (whilst staying under the roaches) to launch infested Terran into range of the brood lords.
I'm not sure whether this is exactly a solution to the problem, however the premise of the ultra fast ultra build i thought was to get to lair fast to keep upgrades going, then wouldnt it be pretty weak while transitioning into lair since the upgrades wouldn't have kicked in? Some sort of roach bane timing would be really all in but wouldnt it effectively beat the build, since they would have nothing but lings and banes and some spines, without upgrades? If they don't have enough spines its a win, and if they do have spines u could attempt to run by them, or if there is a small army just take them down. I mean realistically, it seems that spending gas into roaches would put u very far behind tech and upgrade wise, unless u somewhow find a way to bypass that gas shortage by maybe cutting ling speed and using defensive banes, but that seems like a pretty stupid idea as there is no definite way of knowing that they are going this build until too late into the game, where ling speed would be necessary o.o.
I assume detection. I did some unit testing and I was able to break 8 ish spines 12 broods 2 spores and 2 overseers that where spread decently with I think 8 full energy infestors and 25 ish roaches. Though I wasn't microns the broods after I set it up. Both sides had full upgrades including air attack/armor. Next time my friend is on I'll get him to play the other side but I'm not sure it will make much difference. If I added in hydras it was very easy to break. If the brood lord player had infestors then it's not pure brood lord corrupt.
This sort of unit testing makes absolutely no sense at all. You use broodlord/corruptor only to 'counter' broodlord/infestor, and you need infestors to 'counter' mass roach. You don't go pure broodlord/corruptor or 12+ broodlords if the opponent is only on mass roach or roach/infestor, broodlord/corruptor isn't really that good against mass roach due to counterattacks and base denial and eventually massing enough corruptors because he's still mining and then just kills you with more corruptors eventually while you arne't mining.
What I was saying, is that once you have 12+ broodlords, infestors don't work anymore. I didn't say roaches, I said infestors. You can't go pure infestor and beat 15+ broodlords, you can't use FG or IT spam to beat 15+ broodlords. You just won't get in range at all, and it's not cost efficient at all as you maybe kill a couple broodlords while the rest just fly away and then you have no energy at all, not to mention lost a ton more infestors in the process.
I don't really want to continue this discussion, sorry. I think it's kind of absurd. I'm wrong, you are right. I don't know what level you are, I'm 1.2k points masters zerg last season, and my average zvz game length is 17:58 minutes long so i run into broodlords and infestors and hive tech a lot.
Once you have just a critical mass of broodlords, infestors don't work anymore. Broodlord/infestor gets owned by pure broodlord/corruptor once the pure broodlord/corruptor army meets a critical mass of 200/200 pure 12+ broodlord and the rest in corruptors.
And no micro involved is ridiculous. The whole point is the broods just back off if you spam IT's, and then the infestors no longer have energy and you push when the ITs are gone.
That's all I really have to say on this subject. You are correct, I am wrong. Thanks.
So now I ask how is a player to get such a large number of broods when they have roach hydra Infestor with eventually ultra or perhaps ling ultra Infestor attacking them. Also nydus/drop and ultra will kill all the production of the brooding player should they get too many broods. I think broods still have a place in ZvZ as a game ender once your ahead but I feel that ultra+queen and Infestor is much better if your ahead.
The whole point of this discussion is that roach/hydra play sucks and this new ling/infestor 2 base into 3 base mass spine/ling/infestor into quick 3 base hive ultra/infestor just owns standard fast third roach based play (as well as any sort of roach based play, including muta play into roach/hydra/infestor/bl or muta into speedbane/ling/muta/ultra). So no, there is no way to get a critical mass of broodlords in time against the ultra player. You probably shouldn't be making so many infestors to 'counter' the broodlords though, it's better to just make quicker ultras so you can deny the roach players 4th and 5th bases while securing your own, and then add a spire to deal with the broodlord/infestor army or roach/hydra/infestor/broodlord.
I'm not sure whether this is exactly a solution to the problem, however the premise of the ultra fast ultra build i thought was to get to lair fast to keep upgrades going, then wouldnt it be pretty weak while transitioning into lair since the upgrades wouldn't have kicked in? Some sort of roach bane timing would be really all in but wouldnt it effectively beat the build, since they would have nothing but lings and banes and some spines, without upgrades? If they don't have enough spines its a win, and if they do have spines u could attempt to run by them, or if there is a small army just take them down. I mean realistically, it seems that spending gas into roaches would put u very far behind tech and upgrade wise, unless u somewhow find a way to bypass that gas shortage by maybe cutting ling speed and using defensive banes, but that seems like a pretty stupid idea as there is no definite way of knowing that they are going this build until too late into the game, where ling speed would be necessary o.o.
That has nothing to do with this build, that would be like saying "maybe a 6 pool can counter this?"
Roach/ling (btw more roaches > banes, and mass banes will just get owned by 6 defensive banes and well placed spines) will just get owned by any good player, who realizes the opponent cut drones at like 28 and thus has an empty mineral line compared to yours. You just handle it like you would handle any roach/ling all-in - you don't take a third, and tech up to lair, defend with mass spines (maybe a few roaches or lings or queens even), and then counterattack for a complete win with mutas/mass speed roach with burrow/infestors.
4 gate doesn't counter fast third play because the zerg won't take a third against it, and will just beat the 4 gate easily as zergs nowadays know how to. Similarly, roach/ling all-in is terrible and isn't a 'counter' to this. it's early game aggression that is handled specifically by teching up and turtling behind spines, using a tech advantage since you can't take a third but you do still have an econ advantage by drone count.
Basically, from what little I saw.. He massed ling/bling.. And he played really defensively, droning up quite heavily and getting to three fully saturated bases while getting quick upgrades. The ultimate intention was to win with the ultra push, I think.
I use the word 'passive' quite lightly, he used his lings to deny expansions etc.. but not to outwardly kill him. That was never the intention (I think)
Ultimately, you make a lot of spines back at home, ling/bling infestor w/quick upgrades into 5/3 ultras, the engagement was basically ultras in the front and fungal growth to keep the opponents roaches still, and then lings to surround.
It's a fun strat to use, but from my experience you're playing a big risk not getting roaches, imo.
I assume detection. I did some unit testing and I was able to break 8 ish spines 12 broods 2 spores and 2 overseers that where spread decently with I think 8 full energy infestors and 25 ish roaches. Though I wasn't microns the broods after I set it up. Both sides had full upgrades including air attack/armor. Next time my friend is on I'll get him to play the other side but I'm not sure it will make much difference. If I added in hydras it was very easy to break. If the brood lord player had infestors then it's not pure brood lord corrupt.
This sort of unit testing makes absolutely no sense at all. You use broodlord/corruptor only to 'counter' broodlord/infestor, and you need infestors to 'counter' mass roach. You don't go pure broodlord/corruptor or 12+ broodlords if the opponent is only on mass roach or roach/infestor, broodlord/corruptor isn't really that good against mass roach due to counterattacks and base denial and eventually massing enough corruptors because he's still mining and then just kills you with more corruptors eventually while you arne't mining.
What I was saying, is that once you have 12+ broodlords, infestors don't work anymore. I didn't say roaches, I said infestors. You can't go pure infestor and beat 15+ broodlords, you can't use FG or IT spam to beat 15+ broodlords. You just won't get in range at all, and it's not cost efficient at all as you maybe kill a couple broodlords while the rest just fly away and then you have no energy at all, not to mention lost a ton more infestors in the process.
I don't really want to continue this discussion, sorry. I think it's kind of absurd. I'm wrong, you are right. I don't know what level you are, I'm 1.2k points masters zerg last season, and my average zvz game length is 17:58 minutes long so i run into broodlords and infestors and hive tech a lot.
Once you have just a critical mass of broodlords, infestors don't work anymore. Broodlord/infestor gets owned by pure broodlord/corruptor once the pure broodlord/corruptor army meets a critical mass of 200/200 pure 12+ broodlord and the rest in corruptors.
And no micro involved is ridiculous. The whole point is the broods just back off if you spam IT's, and then the infestors no longer have energy and you push when the ITs are gone.
That's all I really have to say on this subject. You are correct, I am wrong. Thanks.
So now I ask how is a player to get such a large number of broods when they have roach hydra Infestor with eventually ultra or perhaps ling ultra Infestor attacking them. Also nydus/drop and ultra will kill all the production of the brooding player should they get too many broods. I think broods still have a place in ZvZ as a game ender once your ahead but I feel that ultra+queen and Infestor is much better if your ahead.
The whole point of this discussion is that roach/hydra play sucks and this new ling/infestor 2 base into 3 base mass spine/ling/infestor into quick 3 base hive ultra/infestor just owns standard fast third roach based play (as well as any sort of roach based play, including muta play into roach/hydra/infestor/bl or muta into speedbane/ling/muta/ultra). So no, there is no way to get a critical mass of broodlords in time against the ultra player. You probably shouldn't be making so many infestors to 'counter' the broodlords though, it's better to just make quicker ultras so you can deny the roach players 4th and 5th bases while securing your own, and then add a spire to deal with the broodlord/infestor army or roach/hydra/infestor/broodlord.
I'm not sure whether this is exactly a solution to the problem, however the premise of the ultra fast ultra build i thought was to get to lair fast to keep upgrades going, then wouldnt it be pretty weak while transitioning into lair since the upgrades wouldn't have kicked in? Some sort of roach bane timing would be really all in but wouldnt it effectively beat the build, since they would have nothing but lings and banes and some spines, without upgrades? If they don't have enough spines its a win, and if they do have spines u could attempt to run by them, or if there is a small army just take them down. I mean realistically, it seems that spending gas into roaches would put u very far behind tech and upgrade wise, unless u somewhow find a way to bypass that gas shortage by maybe cutting ling speed and using defensive banes, but that seems like a pretty stupid idea as there is no definite way of knowing that they are going this build until too late into the game, where ling speed would be necessary o.o.
That has nothing to do with this build, that would be like saying "maybe a 6 pool can counter this?"
Roach/ling (btw more roaches > banes, and mass banes will just get owned by 6 defensive banes and well placed spines) will just get owned by any good player, who realizes the opponent cut drones at like 28 and thus has an empty mineral line compared to yours. You just handle it like you would handle any roach/ling all-in - you don't take a third, and tech up to lair, defend with mass spines (maybe a few roaches or lings or queens even), and then counterattack for a complete win with mutas/mass speed roach with burrow/infestors.
4 gate doesn't counter fast third play because the zerg won't take a third against it, and will just beat the 4 gate easily as zergs nowadays know how to. Similarly, roach/ling all-in is terrible and isn't a 'counter' to this. it's early game aggression that is handled specifically by teching up and turtling behind spines, using a tech advantage since you can't take a third but you do still have an econ advantage by drone count.
User was warned for this post
Oh, Belial. Warned again? What was it this time? I'm guessing the "I'm right you're wrong" sarcasm/humor (can't tell) or was it some kind of strategy guideline violation...?
;O you provide so much insight but always seem to be running into trouble o.o
On June 16 2012 22:22 Rewdant wrote: I saw this today on Idra's stream.
Basically, from what little I saw.. He massed ling/bling.. And he played really defensively, droning up quite heavily and getting to three fully saturated bases while getting quick upgrades. The ultimate intention was to win with the ultra push, I think.
I use the word 'passive' quite lightly, he used his lings to deny expansions etc.. but not to outwardly kill him. That was never the intention (I think)
Ultimately, you make a lot of spines back at home, ling/bling infestor w/quick upgrades into 5/3 ultras, the engagement was basically ultras in the front and fungal growth to keep the opponents roaches still, and then lings to surround.
It's a fun strat to use, but from my experience you're playing a big risk not getting roaches, imo.
You are talking about Idra doing this, right? Or the opponent doing it? And if the latter, who was he? Thx in advance
Because im the blue poster TL deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll hunt him. Because he can take it. Because he's not a blue. He's a loudmouth guardian, a memberator. An oft warned and temp banned knight.
On June 16 2012 22:22 Rewdant wrote: I saw this today on Idra's stream.
Basically, from what little I saw.. He massed ling/bling.. And he played really defensively, droning up quite heavily and getting to three fully saturated bases while getting quick upgrades. The ultimate intention was to win with the ultra push, I think.
I use the word 'passive' quite lightly, he used his lings to deny expansions etc.. but not to outwardly kill him. That was never the intention (I think)
Ultimately, you make a lot of spines back at home, ling/bling infestor w/quick upgrades into 5/3 ultras, the engagement was basically ultras in the front and fungal growth to keep the opponents roaches still, and then lings to surround.
It's a fun strat to use, but from my experience you're playing a big risk not getting roaches, imo.
It's only a risk if you don't get spine crawlers. Seriously you will not die to a roach push if you have at minimum 5 spines and have 6+ infestors with spread out zerglings. (I say spread out because if they are all bunched up fungel destroys them).
On June 20 2012 18:48 Belial88 wrote: Because im the blue poster TL deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll hunt him. Because he can take it. Because he's not a blue. He's a loudmouth guardian, a memberator. An oft warned and temp banned knight.
When people seem to ask questions you do seem to have this air of arrogance around you usually. Even this reply has it.
That's not to say you don't contribute, you do that more than most posters. But it would be nice to not see you reply in the zerg help me thread with: "Sigh, does no one read my guides?!?! *linklink*, seriously stop asking dumb questions." A bit of an exaggeration but you get the point.
Anyway I don't mean to derail the thread, so on topic! I've been playing around with this style alot and the only thing that really kills me is a better player playing the same style, or some kind of roach/bane timing off of 2 base as I'm taking my third (maybe I shouldnt take one before the roach player ever). These hit just before infestors pop out and I only really hold it if I get some lucky banes on his off, otherwise my lings just get destroyed. I guess with better scouting I can go from 6 spines (since I wanna transfer em to third that I now cancel) to 10 or so? Hard to scout though, maybe put less emphasis on his buildings and more his army size/drone count.
I actually don't see how you can win against this style with your 3rd hatch before lair style Belial, maybe with perfect roach spread and you can take a 4th? Seems rough.
On June 22 2012 02:19 Belial88 wrote: do you get banes off of this? i never get banes. i mean in early game i get a few banes but not like speed banes.
Nah, only in early game (or mid if he tries roach/speedbane). I will add speed bane to my composition if he goes roach/hydra though, but if just roach/infestor nope.
That's not to say you don't contribute, you do that more than most posters. But it would be nice to not see you reply in the zerg help me thread with: "Sigh, does no one read my guides?!?! *linklink*, seriously stop asking dumb questions." A bit of an exaggeration but you get the point.
I've literally written out the answer for "How do I deal with drops in ZvT?" 10 times in that thread. It's gotten to the point, where I've answered every question that comes up, already, 10 times before, in that exact thread, as well as elsewhere. It's bad enough people don't even bother searching, or even searching the thread they are posting in, but the point of those guides would be so people wouldn't have to keep flooding those questions anymore.
And I get it - most of those people are new, TL doesn't exactly have the most intuitive search engine (content, content+title? im still lost on all that).
But come on.
So I don't know what your problem is with such replies - shouldn't you be more bothered people don't search at all? I mean really, my guides give the answer on "How do i deal with drops in ZvT?" in an entire section, bolded. I could just not answer them at all, but I think being helpful is better than... not being helpful, i guess.
I've been playing around with this style alot and the only thing that really kills me is a better player playing the same style, or some kind of roach/bane timing off of 2 base as I'm taking my third (maybe I shouldnt take one before the roach player ever). These hit just before infestors pop out and I only really hold it if I get some lucky banes on his off, otherwise my lings just get destroyed. I guess with better scouting I can go from 6 spines (since I wanna transfer em to third that I now cancel) to 10 or so? Hard to scout though, maybe put less emphasis on his buildings and more his army size/drone count.
When I see someone doing the same thing, ie 2 evos and 2 base lair/gassing up, I take a third and just proceed as normal.
As for roach/bane timing off 2 base... I don't know what that is, I've never heard of that. Why would you go roach/bane when you could just make another roach. Defensive banes own offensive banes. A roach/bane all-in is just later, or weaker, than a roach/ling all-in.
You should not be proceeding as normal, you should realize the opponent is doing a 2 base hatch tech all-in, and respond appropriately - mass up spines on 2 base, and win with a huge econ advantage with double the drone count. You could go infestors still, or even mass speed roach, but I like mutas to close the game. But whatever. Doesn't matter. You are just having problems with an early game all-in, and you should just make more spines and more units, basically.
Roach/ling all-in autowins if you take a fast third. Since you aren't going fast third with 2 base lair play like infestors (or mutas), this build is basically a blind counter to roach/ling all-in. If you macro well and are pumping out drones, you should be able to place enough reactive spines to hold easily. It's quite obvious to see a roach/ling (or roach/bane) all-in - his mineral line looks empty when you observe it with the overlord you ALWAYS place by their mineral line in ZvZ, he hasn't taken additional gas at his natural nor a third by 50 supply (so no fast third, no lair), he made roaches before taking a third, you sac an overlord into his main (if you watch GSL, about half of all pro zergs do this, at least, that's picked up by the observer) and clearly see no evo, no extra gases besides just 1, roaches coming out or larva being stockpiled, ie no production of drones...
it's like a toss 4 gating. You don't continue with the 'stephano style fast third roach max' against someone who is 4 gating. No, you own the 4 gate, ezpz, close out the game.
I actually don't see how you can win against this style with your 3rd hatch before lair style Belial, maybe with perfect roach spread and you can take a 4th? Seems rough.
Well that's the thing...
You don't take a third when the opponent is clearly doing a roach/ling all-in. It's an autowin against it, but it's quite easy to scout a roach/ling all-in. Really, think of it like this - 4 gate is autowin against a zerg taking a fast third, but a 4 gate is super easy to detect, so you don't take the fast third when someone looks to be 4 gating. There's a reason no one 4 gates in the GSL, and likewise, no one does roach/ling (or roachbane) all-ins in ZvZ at the pro level either.
Also, you shouldn't be playing standard fast third before lair with this. You are specifically doing a 2 base lair build.
Hence, why this build is so OP - you are clearly cutting economy so you can rush tech, and even if someone is playing standard fast third before lair, they will still have a hard time even when they know exactly what you are doing. It's quite stupid, really, which is why I've started doing this build myself, because it's so goddamn OP imo (if you can't beat them, join them).
And it's not 'my' fast third before lair style, it's the standard (or was, slowly dying out to this new style of play) of ZvZ - everyone goes fast third before lair in ZvZ (unless they go mutas or 2 base infestor or all-ins).
you lost that second game before the Ultras were even out. you are VERY vulnarable to mass ling styles because you have no walls anywhere, i think you had only 1 spine, and you made hydras which are very slow.
Banes are good and you had an advantage for most of the game. but the longer the game went on the more your defense broke down.
try to stay away from hydras, they are slow and take so much damage from fungals. also, if you would have attacked his natural there was only 1 spine there. all the spines were at the third. once you figure out whats wrong with your early/mid game you can worry about the ultras later.
EPT
If you're defending, obviously they can stay rooted.
. I have faced many things that I have died to then vs the same person same strategy defended, so working out a lot of the kinks in the build.
