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Hello guys and yes I am writing another guide! Now that I have so much free time I have been able to play a bit more with styles that I don't use or new styles and this one is a new style that I imagine is getting pretty popular but I could be wrong. This is ling/infestor double upgrades into ultra the build stephano has been using and yes this build is that except my own timings (I don't know stephano's timings and the timings I use are probably very similar).
This guide will have plenty of replays (5 to start out with more being added within the week) and will show many different scenarios, roach/ling/bane aggression, roach pressure, 2 base roach attacks, etc. So there will be many scenarios that you can see how I defend vs certain builds!
For those curious on my other guides you can locate them here:
+ Show Spoiler +
--------Introduction--------
Ok so I am going to explain the concept of the build and your overall game plan. The basic way to explain is it go mass ling with upgrades into infestors into hive into ultralisks. Simple way to explain it. I saw stephano do this style and have been messing around with it for about 2 weeks I think? Maybe a week in a half but I have literally only done this style so that I can perfect it and add it to my zvz arsenal of builds. I have found this build insanely strong and have been having fun doing this.
I can't remember what zerg stephano did this to in a tournament, but I heard about it and watched him stream and do the build and I found I liked it. It's a zvt concept in zvz. That is when I decided I was going to start learning it and I am very confident in my ability to do this build now.
The replays will showcase zvz at high masters on both na/kr server. Now this build doesn't matter if you 14/14 or hatch first so I am not really going to go into huge detail on going either.
So now to the build order!
--------Build order--------
9 - overlord 9 - drone scout (I only do this on 2 player maps to block their hatch if they go hatch first and go hatch first myself) 15 - hatchery 14-16 - gas/spawning pool (if other player hatch firsts 16 gas then pool, if 14/14 15 pool 15 gas) 16 or 17 (your preference) - overlord 1st 100 gas - metabolic boost (speedling upgrade) 5:00 - 5:25 - baneling nest(defensive purpose) 5:30 - 6:00 - spine (I would recommend a spine but don't have to) 6:45 - 7:00 - 2 evo chambers 7:10 - add 2nd and third gas start lair after starting +1 melee/carapace with next 100 gas. No time on this because any sorts of aggression can happen in zvz after lair starts - fourth gas (or right before) infestation pit and get 2/2 as soon as lair finishes add spines to third/natural as needed (more in explanation section) 4 or so infestors then hive hive finishes - start 3/3, ultra cavern
--------explanation and anaylsis--------
+ Show Spoiler +Now to explain it in a little more detail. That's the basic build order but now to explain this in more detail. The drone scout is just what I like to do, you do not have to do this and won't change the game other then playing blind (which I hate). Now again the hatch first 14/14 is up to you, this doesn't change the timings to much on what you need. I didn't add 2 queens when hatcheries finish because that is common knowledge I hope now of days . So the spawning pool is very dependant or you do it blindly. Not much needed to explain this as I said it in there. The baneling nest is defensive, although you can be aggressive if you choose to be. I get this to defend vs possible ling/bane all ins or any sort of mass ling play. The spine is good because you need defenses vs roach anyway and it helps vs ling/bane all ins, most zergs get 1 spine so this isn't anything new. Now the 2 evo chambers I have found that 6:45-7 minutes is a good timing. You will probably see replays where I get it earlier, but I believe this is the best timing from doing this build many, many times. I have found getting the 2nd and third gas later is better as you should have a stockpiled gas off of the 1 gas unelss you have been making a ton of banelings. Now if you have been doing mass ling/bane because that's what you had to do to defend then I would get a 2nd gas so you can start 1/1 once you stabalize or whatever. Now the third base timing can be up to you completely and can be situational as well. I would try to get it before starting lair. You can just stay on 2 base as it does make it easier to hold off all ins, but I would try to get that third before lair so that you can get spines there as spines are very crucial with this build. You will die if you don't get spines to mass roach play as mass roach/ling attacks will hit before infestors. Now you should get your 5th and 6th gases once you drone up a little bit, once your third is getting drones is when I would start getting those gases. Your hive should start fairly quickly, literally after you start 2/2 and get some infestors your hive should be going. Upgrades are very crucial with this build so you should make sure to start 3/3 and ultra armor upgrade before ultra production. Upgrades are very strong, especially since the player going roach/infestor, roach/hydra, etc won't be going fast lair and won't have 3/3 anywhere near as fast as you do. Now if your opponent is doing the same build as you, you don't need as many spines. You should only make a couple at natural/third/etc as you don't need to many since youb otha re getting the same unit composition.
--------Holding off roach aggression--------
+ Show Spoiler +Now when you do this build and your opponent realizes it there is a good chance he will do a timing with roach/ling. Again you need spine crawlers. You should also try to engage in a good spot with your lings. You want to go for a surround, if you can't surround him and are only hitting 5-6 of his roaches with your mass ling you are going to lose, pull back and wait for a opening. Do not engage stupidly, this is very crucial. Another way you can do this is go roach/ling yourself but I don't really recommend this as that will take a lot of gas and hurt your upgrade timing or ultra/infestor count. What I would recommend is having 3-5 spines at third + natural. This is a good amount and with mass ling/infestor you should be able to hold unless you are very behind or something then you shouldn't do this. You should be doing counter attacks with some lings as well when he attacks. There will be times when you can't defend your third, so make sure you can kill his. Remember lings are incredibly fast, you can kill his third and with spine + infestor support keep your natural safe to. Losing your third if you supply block, forget to make spines, etc you can lose the third to early roach/ling aggression. This is not the end of the world, but it is avoidable. There will be a few replays showcasing me losing my third .
--------Holding off Mutalisks--------
+ Show Spoiler +Now ling/infestor is actually a good counter to mutalisks. You should put 1-2 spores at all bases and make sure to get infestors, you will want more then 4 and you will most likely be delaying your hive by about a minute which is fine. You should either have a third before his mutalisks pop, if not you will have to wait until infestors. Try to sneak some lings to deny/kill his third if possible as you should have a decent amount of lings.
There is not much else to really say about this sort of aggression.
--------Holding off roach/speed bane attacks-------- + Show Spoiler + So there is a replay down below if you want an example of beating the roach/speedbane especially before infestors pop. The best way to beat this style is to have at least 2-3 spines and some banelings of your own.
The reason you want banelings of your own is so that the banelings that get past can be taken down with your banelings (and you will have upgrades for them and he won't). Do not get speed bane, slow banes will do just fine. When you see his banelings coming up pre-infestor timing make sure you have some banelings to intercept. This is the real threat is the first pre-infestor timing roach/speed bane attack. If you hold it, you should be just fine because infestors should be out any second.
You have to be very careful vs speed bane play as you do not want to lose all your lings to them, this is very critical and you will want to baby sit your lings a little bit and split them so that if speed banes are going to hit them they won't kill them all. Since you will have upgrades your lings should be able to take a hit without dying (not recommended still). But this makes it not as bad if only one hits compared to 2 and they all die.
This is probably going to be people's biggest problem is beating this after they figure out the infestor timing, if you can remember to make banelings of your own and spines you should be just fine. don't forget to watch your mineral line to!
--------The Advantages--------
+ Show Spoiler +Good upgrades, overall ling/infestor is strong vs almost any composition
Has a great transition into late game with upgrades intact which if you can get to hive and to ultras and he isn't doing the same build you are going to be in a great position.
Very defensive style, you counter attack with some lings, but overall defensive. For players who like a strong build that can get them into late game this is a good style for them.
Ultralisks are incredibly strong with 5/3 upgrades vs all ground army especially with infestor support.
--------The Disadvantages-------- + Show Spoiler + Your opponent will have map control over you if he is going roach play or mutalisk play. This is fine but is a disadvantage.
Your opponent should be able to secure a fourth a little faster then you with roach play. This gives him a slight eco advantage, but you won't be to far behind him as you will be getting utralisks with good upgrades, but a disadvantage non the less.
Defensive style. This is both disadvantage and advantage because some people don't like defensive, even if it's for 15 minutes of the game. You don't want to be to aggressive and you really can't vs roach/infestor until ultralisks are out.
If there are more I'll be sure to note it.
--------FAQ-------- + Show Spoiler + I played vs roach/speedbane and it hit before infestors and I died. How can I defend this?
To defend vs a roach/speedbane, you should have at least 3 spines at this point which will help a lot vs this, but you also will want some banelings on your own. Not speed banelings obviously, but you will want a few of your own to connect with his to kill them before they can touch your lings. This timing is really only worrisome before infestors come out, once infestors pop you should be fine.
--------Replays--------
These replays will be both from the NA and korean server. Both will be high masters from the server, so this isn't me vs low or bad players, this will showcase it vs high masters players. This will showcase some muta play, roach, etc. I will be adding more within the week!
http://www.mediafire.com/?qtsybe1q3wzk1bg http://www.mediafire.com/?aipawnb51ko2p15 (both of these games showcase early heavy ling/bane pressure but I still continue doing the build while dealing with it) http://www.mediafire.com/?hph80ghbgo48f8i (this game showcases this style vs mutalisks) http://www.mediafire.com/?vf666vq4aw4l5n4 (2 replays show casing roach/ling/infestor into ultralisks an easier way to execute this build)
--------Commentated ling/infestor into ultra vs roach/speedbane-------- + Show Spoiler + (First video) + Show Spoiler + (2nd video) + Show Spoiler + (Mr bitters version)
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Thank you so much for this, i was just typing a thread asking for this when i saw it :D
I have a question though, probably because of my horrible understanding of zvz : why not drop a spire with the hive and directly go to broodlords ? Aren't they better than ultras, and also faster to get thanks to morphing already existing units ?
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bookmarked, definetly interested in trying this out. Great guide, as always
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On June 15 2012 05:57 ArcticRaven wrote: Thank you so much for this, i was just typing a thread asking for this when i saw it :D
I have a question though, probably because of my horrible understanding of zvz : why not drop a spire with the hive and directly go to broodlords ? Aren't they better than ultras, and also faster to get thanks to morphing already existing units ?
Hmm broodlords are a slow unit and while they are better in fights due to only hydra/infested terrans able to hit them the other zerg can go for a base trade style. Also you spend more gas as you have to get the spire 200/200, start greater spire 150/150 (I think), then you have to get corruptors 100/150 and then morph them which is 150/150? (can't remember bl cost).
If going ultra's you just get armor upgrade 200/200, then start making ultras. That is why I find it superior to broodlords and again base trade styles and all that.
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Ultra cavern + armor upgrade => 450/350 Spire + Greater Spire => 350/350
In the end the infrastructure costs the same so there's only the basetrade problem ? If so i think that going broodlords first to repel anything he might throw at you then switching to ultras as he gets his spire up might be more effective - especially since a heavily upgraded ling army with plenty of spare minerals to keep building proxy hatches & extractors should have the edge i feel.
But then this is only theorycraft - i'll try to do it your way as well as possible before trying to change things.
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Very interesting style. I've been tired of SCII as of late, trolling around in the very low end of master league doing weird builds that sometimes work only because the opponent must be going "the HELL???". This could be what gets me back in the game
And @ the brood lord tech option from the opponent; imo this is a giveaway. If he stays on roach only or roach with few infestors, you KNOW he is getting T3 (or some dodgy muta play). You know it aint ultras cos their synergy with roaches is terrible. If he makes many many infestors, or adds many hydras too, he wont be able to afford broods. But if you spot the giveaway of few gas intense units, simply pop down a spire and stay active on the map? Its not a huge investment, and if you see broods while attacking his base, you pull back, queue 10 corrupters and laugh as you spread out to avoid fungals, and whack his super expensive broods while they do no damage.
One question on the actual build though. How does this handle a very defensive roach/infestor mass eco player? If you wanna be agressive before ultralisks it costs a lot of larvae and he will probably be ahead in economy. If he can afford to make half and half roach/hydra with just some 4-5 early infestors to lock down many zerglings with fungal... With better econ surely this will give you a hard time - assuming he opts for turtle rather than timing attack when/if he sees what you are doing.
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Was this what Idra tried doing against Monster in the recent clan war? Monster did some weird speed bane runbyes, and Idra lost pretty badly. A one off, or is speed bane something that can work against this unless you are prepared for it?
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Interesting. I will still stick to my spire style, but I will read up on this to maybe get a new techswitch option should I scout something from my opponent.
Thanks for writing and testing
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I have been being beaten by this build all day so I'm adopting it! First game was an easy win against a similar ling/infestor style. Thanks for the write up! I've bookmarked it.
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On June 15 2012 06:54 Aocowns wrote: Was this what Idra tried doing against Monster in the recent clan war? Monster did some weird speed bane runbyes, and Idra lost pretty badly. A one off, or is speed bane something that can work against this unless you are prepared for it? I saw that game, that was a very strange style and one i don't think idra was prepared for. You have to have really good control and reaction speed to hold that off with this style I expect. Maybe use small groups of lings to attack the banes while running your drones away? Or maybe just counterattack, because the banes+research for speed banes might put him behind in actual army.
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I faced this build on the ladder the other day, it really confused me, locked down my roach-timing and then just humiliated me with the ultras. I was puzzled to say the least. But it really feels like a far too turtlish build, it will be interesting when this strategy has been tested more.
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On June 15 2012 06:54 Aocowns wrote: Was this what Idra tried doing against Monster in the recent clan war? Monster did some weird speed bane runbyes, and Idra lost pretty badly. A one off, or is speed bane something that can work against this unless you are prepared for it?
Don't know but one of the replays I uploaded show cases a guy going roach/speed bane and tries to kill me (this was played today to).
On June 15 2012 06:30 ArcticRaven wrote:Ultra cavern + armor upgrade => 450/350 Spire + Greater Spire => 350/350 In the end the infrastructure costs the same so there's only the basetrade problem ? If so i think that going broodlords first to repel anything he might throw at you then switching to ultras as he gets his spire up might be more effective - especially since a heavily upgraded ling army with plenty of spare minerals to keep building proxy hatches & extractors should have the edge i feel. But then this is only theorycraft - i'll try to do it your way as well as possible before trying to change things.
Don't forget - corruptors - broodlords. You have to make the corruptors and then morph them so it costs more gas .
But I mean it really is super easy to counter broodlords which is why ultras are better ^^.
On June 15 2012 06:31 Thraundil wrote:Very interesting style. I've been tired of SCII as of late, trolling around in the very low end of master league doing weird builds that sometimes work only because the opponent must be going "the HELL???". This could be what gets me back in the game And @ the brood lord tech option from the opponent; imo this is a giveaway. If he stays on roach only or roach with few infestors, you KNOW he is getting T3 (or some dodgy muta play). You know it aint ultras cos their synergy with roaches is terrible. If he makes many many infestors, or adds many hydras too, he wont be able to afford broods. But if you spot the giveaway of few gas intense units, simply pop down a spire and stay active on the map? Its not a huge investment, and if you see broods while attacking his base, you pull back, queue 10 corrupters and laugh as you spread out to avoid fungals, and whack his super expensive broods while they do no damage. One question on the actual build though. How does this handle a very defensive roach/infestor mass eco player? If you wanna be agressive before ultralisks it costs a lot of larvae and he will probably be ahead in economy. If he can afford to make half and half roach/hydra with just some 4-5 early infestors to lock down many zerglings with fungal... With better econ surely this will give you a hard time - assuming he opts for turtle rather than timing attack when/if he sees what you are doing.
With this build you aren't trying to be aggressive until ultralisks are out. You want to do ling runby's and stuff but no all out aggression as it won't work unless he is out of position or something.
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On June 15 2012 06:30 ArcticRaven wrote:Ultra cavern + armor upgrade => 450/350 Spire + Greater Spire => 350/350 In the end the infrastructure costs the same so there's only the basetrade problem ? If so i think that going broodlords first to repel anything he might throw at you then switching to ultras as he gets his spire up might be more effective - especially since a heavily upgraded ling army with plenty of spare minerals to keep building proxy hatches & extractors should have the edge i feel. But then this is only theorycraft - i'll try to do it your way as well as possible before trying to change things.
In ZvT zergs stoped useing broods because marines can outrun you on the map ---> Zerg units are faster than terran bio, equals Broodlords are bad ZvZ. just like that. better stay roach/hydra/infestor
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On June 15 2012 08:11 Sapp wrote:Show nested quote +On June 15 2012 06:30 ArcticRaven wrote:Ultra cavern + armor upgrade => 450/350 Spire + Greater Spire => 350/350 In the end the infrastructure costs the same so there's only the basetrade problem ? If so i think that going broodlords first to repel anything he might throw at you then switching to ultras as he gets his spire up might be more effective - especially since a heavily upgraded ling army with plenty of spare minerals to keep building proxy hatches & extractors should have the edge i feel. But then this is only theorycraft - i'll try to do it your way as well as possible before trying to change things. In ZvT zergs stoped useing broods because marines can outrun you on the map ---> Zerg units are faster than terran bio, equals Broodlords are bad ZvZ. just like that. better stay roach/hydra/infestor
I wouldn't say broodlords are bad zvt at all, they are still incredibly strong. I just think going ultras first then going into bl's is stronger though now of days.
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nooooo! now everyone is gonna be doing this
great write up
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I worked out almost an identical build to this today too based on the style I saw at MLG. I gotta say that you really feel the strenght of this build once you get a hang of it. After infestors are out there is nothing that can bust you if you have a spine wall unless you fell behind early. Also any time you see him going for one of your bases you can pretty much get a guarranteed snipe on one of his bases unless he has them littered with banes. You can really force a roach player to stay defensive with just continuous counters and runbys.
Excellent potential in this build imo. As an example I ran by with 12 lings when he was going for my third with all his units. Those 12 lings killed all his 3 queens since they were 2-2 and he only had 1 armor. Then I got some drones and an evo. This happens all the time. It forces the roach player to realise that his attack will be an all in.
The only problem I faced was roach/bane all ins before infestors pop. You need a lot of spread spines to defend this but you also need the spines somewhat close together to kill the roaches as they are going to be your main source of dps while the lings soak damage. The problem comes when the banes get close to your spines. They will blow up your spines if you let them get too close. But if you try and run after them with banes of your own then he will back off and snipe them with roaches. A neat trick I found that is really hard but worked sometimes for me is that you manually detonate your own banes to catch his banes right outside of spines range. This is tricky but if you succeed you will have used the range of bane explosion to save the lives of your spines and you'll win the battle.
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On June 15 2012 05:57 ArcticRaven wrote: Thank you so much for this, i was just typing a thread asking for this when i saw it :D
I have a question though, probably because of my horrible understanding of zvz : why not drop a spire with the hive and directly go to broodlords ? Aren't they better than ultras, and also faster to get thanks to morphing already existing units ?
Broodlords take longer and cost more, there is no way you can get broodlords off of only 3 bases. However, you can get ultras, as long as you didn't make roaches or hydras. If you do this style, of getting 3 base ultra, vs someone going broodlords, you just snipe all his bases, broodlords are too slow and don't kill ultras fast enough. If he's doing something like roach/hydra/bl, then you just add a few corruptors into your army. It's literally just a superior unit composition of ling/ultra/infestor. it's the zvz deathball, just turtle on 3 base, get ultras, gg.
i really don't think anything can beat this, and that this will be the new standard in zvz. 2 base lair infestor blind counters 2 base muta, and before no one did that because it was assumed your third being so late, you would be screwed with your roach/hydra transition, but seeing as you never go to roach/hydra, it doesn't matter...
I think this build is a ton of fun, I've even won a game where I hadn't even gotten infestors, and I had totally droned up my 2 bases, I wasn't aggressive or anything, and I was playing someone who went standard fast third before lair roach on condemned ridge (where the 3 bases were far apart), and I literally just focused down all 3 of his bases at the exact same time just with the amount of lings I made off 2 base 3 hatch, and then my infestors popped when he did his desperate roach all-in with his bases being revealed lol.
It's also pretty... lame, imo. I really think it's kind of lame that it doesn't matter how good or bad the early or mid-game goes, you just turtle on 2 bases with ling/infestor, and eventually take your third with mass spines, infestors, and lings and get hive and ultras, and any sort of roach based play will get owned because broodlords suck against this (and you can't get nearly enough out in time against this fast hive style), and mass roach gets owned by ling/infestor/spine. The upgrades are incredible too, just putting 5 banelings on your ramp doesnt work if 1 baneling doesnt kill a ling anymore. You can focus down people's bases so quickly with this style.
It's literally just turtle on 2 base with spine/infestor so no sort of aggression can hurt you, then you move up your spines to protect you taking a third. Eventually, 6+ infestors with mass spines will secure a third, and then you get ultras and it's gg.
I've started doing this after being extremely frustrated by playing against this style, I found nothing worked and the advice everyone gives of "just roach bust" or "just nydus" or "just drop" solely relies on the ling/infestor player simply being bad or not making enough spines. Now that I've started doing this, I haven't lost a single game yet (out of about 8 games played).
Here's some reps where I did it, and badly.
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)
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In ZvT zergs stoped useing broods because marines can outrun you on the map ---> Zerg units are faster than terran bio, equals Broodlords are bad ZvZ. just like that. better stay roach/hydra/infestor
That's not true, broodlord/corruptor/infestor/queen is still the dream composition in ZvT, and if you stay on lair tech a long time (like the classic ling/bane/muta style) it's still a better idea to skip ultras.
As I state in my ZvT guide, ultras are better seen as a sort of tier 2.5 unit - you make them when teching to broodlords would get you killed because they take so long (ultras are cheaper and come about a minute quicker than broodlords, and are good as support units in small numbers with a large t2 army whereas just 1-3 broodlords is not really helpful at all), but staying on lair tech against the ~160 terran push is uncomfortable.
As blade5555 said, ultras are really good to cover that vulnerable timing against terrans who take a quick third (going ultras is not that great against terrans who stay on 2 base longer though, like they did a few months to a year ago) so you can transition into broodlords. it's a really nice way to play if you prefer a quick hive, ultras, macro passive play, against fast third terrans, instead of an aggressive late hive, longer lair stage play. eg, the 8-12 mutas double ups into quick hive or recent infestor play, as opposed to the classic ling/bane/muta, leenock/line/suhosin style ling/muta double ups, double spire style, etc.
Broodlords are amazing in standard/classic ZvZ, you just have to know how to use them (most people don't). Standard ZvZ right now is fast third, roach/hydra, max out and aggression into roach/hydra/infestor (anyone who goes straight to infestors dies, if not goes roach/hydra/infestor even before maxing out). Then, when both players are maxed on roach/hydra, you go towards 4 base roach/hydra/infestor, and it's a very back and forth game that usually ends with a clutch FG or bad positioning or over aggressiveness or good multi-pronged attacks, but if it doesn't, it then goes to 3/3 roach/hydra/infestor, and then if it still doesn't end, both players slowly start to incorporate a couple broodlords (just maxing on broods will die to mass corruptors, so you need the roach/hydra/infestor to support small numbers of broods that allow you to siege defensive positions). Eventually, the game turns into broodlord/infestor (keyword infestor to stop mass roach attacks), and then eventually, pure broodlord/corruptor (12+ broodlords owns any numbers of infestors, and FG is not that good against 10+ corruptors, and roaches no longer work when both players have split the map on 6+ bases with 30+ spines).
You don't see games go like this often, I dont think any GSL game has gotten to that stage, but that IS how the game is 'supposed' to go. But with this new style of play, you will lose your entire roach army to ultra/ling/infestor deathball, and you can't afford to get 10+ broodlords in near enough time. Standard play gets broodlords in a VERY slow, VERY gradual process (first it's ling/bane, then roach/ling, then mass roach, then roach/hydra, then roach/hydra max out, then roach/hydra/infestor, then 3/3, then just a very, very few number of broodlords, then roach/broodlord/infestor, then bl/infestor, then bl/corruptor/infestor, then pure bl/corruptor, and if you tech too quickly at any given time you just flat out die in whats a very, very aggressive match-up in the first place) so this sort of play just dominates it.
Anyways, nice guide. I was wondering why my upgrades were so late, so you go 1/1 then lair. nice to know, especially the gas timings.
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Hmm cool. I'd been trying to replicate this on my own so this is going to be very helpful. Thanks again Blade.
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NHSFreaky showed this style in both of his opening ZvZ's early on in this seasons GSTL. The two games he does this are free as they are the first games of the match, for anyone else looking for more games to watch of this style. One of the best things these games show is his ability to fungal roaches within range of spine crawlers, while the roaches are not able to fire back, so cost efficient it hurts, and softens them up enough that lings can omnom threw them at a better rate and with better cost of trade.
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On June 15 2012 12:46 TangSC wrote:Haha I just commented in Belial's discussion about this style. Here's a link to a stream VOD of he does zergling/infestor/ultralisk in every zvz: http://www.twitch.tv/mstephano/b/320060897
Yup like I said that's where I got the build :p
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great write-up blade, accidentally i was doing this build for the last 2 weeks too, i think it was stephano vs violet on metropolis @ spring championship, right?
i would not label the build as defensive, more kind of evasive/counterish you have to backstab and attack him as soon as he moves out (caution: banelings!). you pointed that out but i think you really have to underline that stylistic choice. map-awareness and game sense is really needed since it looks sooo stupid losing ur whole army to banes or festors, cause you're not watching.
its kind of a race against time where you will win, as long as you get to hive and ultras and before that, you have to think of ways not to die and doing guerilla tactics where you can!
again, good write-up, thx for the contribution <3
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Ok, thanks for the advice on broodlords. I'll stick with ultras .
I have another question : where is a good place to engage the roach-based army with this ? And also do you break the rocks on Cloud Kingdom ?
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T.O.P.
Hong Kong4685 Posts
I think it's pretty hard to hold a 3rd vs +1 roach with this build, especially if they hit before infestors are done. Where do you put your spines? 2 at nat 3 at main?
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On June 15 2012 16:08 ArcticRaven wrote:Ok, thanks for the advice on broodlords. I'll stick with ultras . I have another question : where is a good place to engage the roach-based army with this ? And also do you break the rocks on Cloud Kingdom ?
I do not break the rocks on cloud kingdom, but I am also wanting small choke points with infestors so that I can really mess him up if he just goes up there.
You want to engage in a more open area so you can get a surround though is preferable ^^.
On June 15 2012 16:19 T.O.P. wrote: I think it's pretty hard to hold a 3rd vs +1 roach with this build, especially if they hit before infestors are done. Where do you put your spines? 2 at nat 3 at main?
I have been trying to get at minimum 2 spines at both natural + third. You will be pretty mineral heavy anyway due to only going lings. I would add more if you think you need them obviously.
In one of my replays for example I played a guy who was doing 3 base roach/ling/speedbane trying to kill me and I made I had 5 at third, 3 at natural? Would have to watch the rep but you'll notice I made a decent amount of spines.
If he's doing +1 is he just doing this off of 2 base? You could go for base trade (or just counter attack with some lings) if you don't think you can hold your third. The great thing about this style is speedlings are fast and you can really make the game go wild if you can't hold your third. At minimum you will deny his third so if he kills yours it's not that big of a deal it just evens the game out instead of you having a little more of an advantage.
As long as you can keep him on 2 bases with you, you are in a better position then he is (at least from experience).
In one (might be 2) of my replays you will notice me knowing I can't hold his attack at my third and counter while keeping my natural defended (infestors popped). I killed his third and I think did some decent damage at his natural and eventually just won the game.
On another note, I realized I forgot to add in the build when to get ling speed, updated that with first 100 gas .
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^ Can you be a little more specific. +1 roaches from a standard fast third play, in which case you should have 1/1 which negates the +1 attack and only take your third once you have infestors out, to which ling/infestor/spine rapes roaches and you put spines up at your third using creep spread (and even then ling/infestor owns roaches I think unless he's 2 base all-inning in which case you should not be taking a third anyways), or a roach ling all-in with +1 which is just a bad roach/ling all-in (which is why people do roach/ling with no attack upgrade and much quicker instead) and you just hold like you normally would regardless of what build you planned to do - make some spines at your nat while teching up to lair on 2 base and then winning with a huge tech advantage against the all-in (mass speed/burrow roaches, mutas, infestors, whatever).
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Thanks Blade, I've really been trying to use this style in ZvZ as it seems so much more fun than the usual style. But up until now, I've just been fumbling around in the dark. This is exactly the type of guide I've needed to take my ZvZ to the next level. Your work is greatly appreciated!
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What I've been thinking is, once I recognize that it's Ling/Infestor, switch to a defensive macro style. By this I mean, my only objective is to deny his 4th and take my 4th AND 5th. It's really greedy, but I think it should work since the Ling/Infestor player isn't aggressive at all until Ultras. I also immediately cut roach production, drop an infestation pit, and rush to broods. With the amount of gas from a 4th and 5th base, I should be able to get enough broods to both attack the the Ling/Infestor player AND defend my bases from the base trades.
It's pretty map dependent though... idk. I just haven't played against it enough times to develop a counter. Belial, wanna play some games today?
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On June 15 2012 19:25 Flonomenalz wrote: What I've been thinking is, once I recognize that it's Ling/Infestor, switch to a defensive macro style. By this I mean, my only objective is to deny his 4th and take my 4th AND 5th. It's really greedy, but I think it should work since the Ling/Infestor player isn't aggressive at all until Ultras. I also immediately cut roach production, drop an infestation pit, and rush to broods. With the amount of gas from a 4th and 5th base, I should be able to get enough broods to both attack the the Ling/Infestor player AND defend my bases from the base trades.
It's pretty map dependent though... idk. I just haven't played against it enough times to develop a counter. Belial, wanna play some games today?
Hm I don't think you can get away with taking a 4'th and 5'th base. I played a zerg on kr (the replay is one of the 5 I believe) on daybreak who did something like that. He went for a 4'th and 5'th base, I denied his fifth easily multiple times and he even made a ton of spines but I eventually won.
I don't see how you'll ever get enough broodlords to defend bases and attack, that takes a lot of time and the zerg going ling/infestor will have ultralisks out by like 15 minutes I think? Don't see that being an effective counter at all.
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How does this deal with Roach/Hydra play? I find it nearly impossible to hold Roach/Hydra armies (typically with +2 attack) in the midgame when doing this style. It's really frustrating and infestor/spine doesn't cut it. Ultras can't be out in time really...
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On June 16 2012 05:25 oOOoOphidian wrote: How does this deal with Roach/Hydra play? I find it nearly impossible to hold Roach/Hydra armies (typically with +2 attack) in the midgame when doing this style. It's really frustrating and infestor/spine doesn't cut it. Ultras can't be out in time really...
Infestor spine should hold it quiet easily as long as you are fungeling right. You should have about 6 or so infestors with a ton of lings, with surround and good fungels and spines attacking you should be able to hold it assuming you are macroing correctly and doing all the timings right. You do need more then 1 spine, 3-5 is what you should be aiming for.
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On June 15 2012 13:16 blade55555 wrote:Yup like I said that's where I got the build :p I know! Just thought others may benefit from another reference
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On June 16 2012 05:55 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2012 05:25 oOOoOphidian wrote: How does this deal with Roach/Hydra play? I find it nearly impossible to hold Roach/Hydra armies (typically with +2 attack) in the midgame when doing this style. It's really frustrating and infestor/spine doesn't cut it. Ultras can't be out in time really... Infestor spine should hold it quiet easily as long as you are fungeling right. You should have about 6 or so infestors with a ton of lings, with surround and good fungels and spines attacking you should be able to hold it assuming you are macroing correctly and doing all the timings right. You do need more then 1 spine, 3-5 is what you should be aiming for. Are there situations you'd consider more than 5 spines?
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This is the same strategy that we saw leenock vs violet do at mlg spring champs. I was curious about it as I haven't really seen it used recently other than that game. How does this build work against somebody going mass infestor? A lot of people that I play with started doing that after NSHS Freaky did his mass infestor spine play. I figured it would be better vs this because fungal > upgrades. Then I guess when the ultras pop it's different, but I'm still not convinced that mass ling is a great choice in zvz.
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On June 16 2012 05:58 TangSC wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2012 05:55 blade55555 wrote:On June 16 2012 05:25 oOOoOphidian wrote: How does this deal with Roach/Hydra play? I find it nearly impossible to hold Roach/Hydra armies (typically with +2 attack) in the midgame when doing this style. It's really frustrating and infestor/spine doesn't cut it. Ultras can't be out in time really... Infestor spine should hold it quiet easily as long as you are fungeling right. You should have about 6 or so infestors with a ton of lings, with surround and good fungels and spines attacking you should be able to hold it assuming you are macroing correctly and doing all the timings right. You do need more then 1 spine, 3-5 is what you should be aiming for. Are there situations you'd consider more than 5 spines?
Not really, I mean if you have a ton of excess minerals maybe, but otherwise no or if he's doing a 2 base all in then yes like earlier one
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On June 16 2012 06:01 TyrionSC2 wrote: This is the same strategy that we saw leenock vs violet do at mlg spring champs. I was curious about it as I haven't really seen it used recently other than that game. How does this build work against somebody going mass infestor? A lot of people that I play with started doing that after NSHS Freaky did his mass infestor spine play. I figured it would be better vs this because fungal > upgrades. Then I guess when the ultras pop it's different, but I'm still not convinced that mass ling is a great choice in zvz.
i saw the game between leenock and violet (link: http://tv.majorleaguegaming.com/events/17-spring-championship#1423/1457/1;89926) its a good example that you loose without spines even when the opponent goes for the same style, cause a roach transition can/will kill you
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There's no way someone on 3 base will have more infestors than you do on 2 base. Mass infestor doesn't really work against this. Roach based aggression of any kind is held by simply making enough spines. A roach transition will not kill you as long as you have enough spines and dont tech too quickly to ultras before making enough infestors.
Only thing I can see beating this is when playing standard fast third roach, you cut roach production asap, go infestors, and similarly tech hive and basically do the exact same thing but with a faster third and a fourth taken with a few roaches and ling/infestor support.
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On June 16 2012 07:29 Belial88 wrote: A roach transition will not kill you as long as you have enough spines and dont tech too quickly to ultras before making enough infestors.
thats exactly what happened in that game, leenock didnt build any spinecrawler at all.
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Thanks for the guide, im definitely going to be trying to use this play style.
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did anyone watch the gstl game between symbol and nestea, where nestea went for this style and lost the game? basically what symbol did, was camping with a shit ton of spines and infestors and teching to broodlords.
he said in the interview afterwards ( http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=342548 ) that he won because he countered nesteas build.
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Just curious, blade or others has anyone every tried getting baneling speed against you when you play this style. Granted fungal "beats" banelings but they still take 2 to kill and banelings own lings and spines pretty hard
Have never done this myself against ling infestor, but i think it is something to note because just a few decent baneling hits and all the lings have no health.
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On June 16 2012 10:52 Moosegills wrote: Just curious, blade or others has anyone every tried getting baneling speed against you when you play this style. Granted fungal "beats" banelings but they still take 2 to kill and banelings own lings and spines pretty hard
Have never done this myself against ling infestor, but i think it is something to note because just a few decent baneling hits and all the lings have no health. Yes one of the replays I uploaded has speed bane against me.
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On June 16 2012 10:52 Moosegills wrote: Just curious, blade or others has anyone every tried getting baneling speed against you when you play this style. Granted fungal "beats" banelings but they still take 2 to kill and banelings own lings and spines pretty hard
Have never done this myself against ling infestor, but i think it is something to note because just a few decent baneling hits and all the lings have no health. That seems to work best if you can get a nice surround with the banelings, otherwise it's a miserable failure. It also comes down to how many infestors you actually have.
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On June 16 2012 11:42 oOOoOphidian wrote:Show nested quote +On June 16 2012 10:52 Moosegills wrote: Just curious, blade or others has anyone every tried getting baneling speed against you when you play this style. Granted fungal "beats" banelings but they still take 2 to kill and banelings own lings and spines pretty hard
Have never done this myself against ling infestor, but i think it is something to note because just a few decent baneling hits and all the lings have no health. That seems to work best if you can get a nice surround with the banelings, otherwise it's a miserable failure. It also comes down to how many infestors you actually have.
Yeah it didn't work to well for him once I got the infestors out, also had a couple banelings myself that I used to kill his so they never touched my lings except when I ran into the middle of the map smack into them when I should have chilled a bit xD.
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Definitely going to be trying this style of zvz in the next few days. I'm in diamond, and still don't really know what the hell I'm doing in the matchup. Thanks for the guide. (:
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LOL what the heck, it feels like every single zerg in masters read this thread or watched the gsl matches with ling infestor.
I am a roach guy, but I decided to try this style out for a few games, and EVERY single game (5 games) I got blindly roach/speedbane all inned at the exact moment my infestors would pop.
Really weird.
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^ what do you mean exactly, what happened in gsl matches, what gsl matches? ive watched the gsl, i didnt see any roach/ling all-ins vs infestor play.
If the opponent is clearly not taking a third, and is making roaches on 2 base, then he's clearly doing an all-in, in which case you need a ton of spines, lings, maybe some banes to deal with his banes, while teching up to infestors behind mass spines. really against roach/ling all-in I just reactively mass spines and tech up quickly to mutas and gg win he's too far behind, but infestors would work, or even mass burrow speed roach, whatever, 50 drone 2 base lair tech > 25 drone 2 base hatch tech. just identify it's a roach all-in because he has no drones, and made roaches before a third base.
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Whats up Blade! (I did enjoy the late night laddering the other day, where you DID do this style, and where you came back from being behind on drones)
I have been doing this style for a long time. And I also feel it has the least amount of holes. However, the largest hole is right before infesters pop out and 1/1 isn't done yet. Because of this, I have been electing to do a macro hatch before my third, using it as a wall with spines at my natural. Once the 1/1 is done, then I like too take my third, while denying theirs.
Now I am not sure this is the BEST way to do things. However, I am really happy that my peers: You Blade, Belial, Tang, ect, are doing this style now. I feel like we should meet up in a few games on NA, play around with a few timing attacks, and see if we can make the style more bullet proof? Thoughts?
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On June 17 2012 01:56 EndOfLine wrote: Whats up Blade! (I did enjoy the late night laddering the other day, where you DID do this style, and where you came back from being behind on drones)
I have been doing this style for a long time. And I also feel it has the least amount of holes. However, the largest hole is right before infesters pop out and 1/1 isn't done yet. Because of this, I have been electing to do a macro hatch before my third, using it as a wall with spines at my natural. Once the 1/1 is done, then I like too take my third, while denying theirs.
Now I am not sure this is the BEST way to do things. However, I am really happy that my peers: You Blade, Belial, Tang, ect, are doing this style now. I feel like we should meet up in a few games on NA, play around with a few timing attacks, and see if we can make the style more bullet proof? Thoughts?
Maybe depends on my mood at the time lol xD. Pretty much from playing on kr the biggest threats are roach timing attacks which you need to have spines for, roach/speedbane has a tiny window where it cank ill you if you let all the speed banes kill all your lings, you need spines and your own banelings to stop this or you will probably lose as they can do 1 timing before infestors are out.
Those 2 are imo the biggest threats so far.
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I saw this style at MLG Anaheim I believe (I think it was Violet vs Leenock) and started looking for a guide on it. Found this and have been using Ling/Infestor/Ultra ever since. Although it's a bit vulnerable in the mid-game, it's just so strong in the late game - 3/3 Cracklings + Ultras + Infestors will straight-up beat anything but itself or Brood Lord/Infestor (whose mobility can be abused). Appreciate the guide, Blade - well done~
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First off thanks for the guide I was interested in this build for a while. So against muta play do you just plan to have a late third I played against a muta player who transitioned into ultra ling infestor. I ended up winning but against mutas do you just wait for infestors to come out before expoing?
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On June 17 2012 06:16 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2012 01:56 EndOfLine wrote: Whats up Blade! (I did enjoy the late night laddering the other day, where you DID do this style, and where you came back from being behind on drones)
I have been doing this style for a long time. And I also feel it has the least amount of holes. However, the largest hole is right before infesters pop out and 1/1 isn't done yet. Because of this, I have been electing to do a macro hatch before my third, using it as a wall with spines at my natural. Once the 1/1 is done, then I like too take my third, while denying theirs.
Now I am not sure this is the BEST way to do things. However, I am really happy that my peers: You Blade, Belial, Tang, ect, are doing this style now. I feel like we should meet up in a few games on NA, play around with a few timing attacks, and see if we can make the style more bullet proof? Thoughts? Maybe depends on my mood at the time lol xD. Pretty much from playing on kr the biggest threats are roach timing attacks which you need to have spines for, roach/speedbane has a tiny window where it cank ill you if you let all the speed banes kill all your lings, you need spines and your own banelings to stop this or you will probably lose as they can do 1 timing before infestors are out. Those 2 are imo the biggest threats so far. I definitely think you need a baneling nest in case your opponent goes for a roach/baneling attack before infestors pop. Even if you don't open banelings, you should make one. I haven't done this enough to really know if a proper roach/baneling timing can be held with this without banelings, but either way it's definitely easier to hold with banelings of your own.
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On June 17 2012 08:42 CajunMan wrote: First off thanks for the guide I was interested in this build for a while. So against muta play do you just plan to have a late third I played against a muta player who transitioned into ultra ling infestor. I ended up winning but against mutas do you just wait for infestors to come out before expoing?
I would try to take the third before it, if not yeah you can wait until infestors. Either way works great to be completely honest ^_^.
On June 17 2012 09:34 oOOoOphidian wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2012 06:16 blade55555 wrote:On June 17 2012 01:56 EndOfLine wrote: Whats up Blade! (I did enjoy the late night laddering the other day, where you DID do this style, and where you came back from being behind on drones)
I have been doing this style for a long time. And I also feel it has the least amount of holes. However, the largest hole is right before infesters pop out and 1/1 isn't done yet. Because of this, I have been electing to do a macro hatch before my third, using it as a wall with spines at my natural. Once the 1/1 is done, then I like too take my third, while denying theirs.
Now I am not sure this is the BEST way to do things. However, I am really happy that my peers: You Blade, Belial, Tang, ect, are doing this style now. I feel like we should meet up in a few games on NA, play around with a few timing attacks, and see if we can make the style more bullet proof? Thoughts? Maybe depends on my mood at the time lol xD. Pretty much from playing on kr the biggest threats are roach timing attacks which you need to have spines for, roach/speedbane has a tiny window where it cank ill you if you let all the speed banes kill all your lings, you need spines and your own banelings to stop this or you will probably lose as they can do 1 timing before infestors are out. Those 2 are imo the biggest threats so far. I definitely think you need a baneling nest in case your opponent goes for a roach/baneling attack before infestors pop. Even if you don't open banelings, you should make one. I haven't done this enough to really know if a proper roach/baneling timing can be held with this without banelings, but either way it's definitely easier to hold with banelings of your own.
Agreed, as you will notice if you watch the replay it is very effective as his 5 speed banes going for my lings died to 2 banes and thus I held :D
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i have been trying this with not much success. i was wondering what u should do vers infestor roach drop? i got hit right before ultras and 3/3 done and counldnt hold with my ling infestor. i also pretty much sacced everthnig in my main and made as many* ultras as i could before engaging idk
*edit
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Great guide. Thank you for the time and effort you put into this. One thing I would like to see is the answer to Roach/BANELING/Ling aggression before infestors pop. This brilliant player gave his idea.
On June 15 2012 08:49 StarBrift wrote: The only problem I faced was roach/bane all ins before infestors pop. You need a lot of spread spines to defend this but you also need the spines somewhat close together to kill the roaches as they are going to be your main source of dps while the lings soak damage. The problem comes when the banes get close to your spines. They will blow up your spines if you let them get too close. But if you try and run after them with banes of your own then he will back off and snipe them with roaches. A neat trick I found that is really hard but worked sometimes for me is that you manually detonate your own banes to catch his banes right outside of spines range. This is tricky but if you succeed you will have used the range of bane explosion to save the lives of your spines and you'll win the battle.
Since you rely primarily on lings and spines + a few defensive banelings for defense with this build, enemy banelings along with roaches must be a big threat before fungal is available. Baneling is good vs both your lings and spines, so a few good enemy baneling hits could be instant gg, although this is kidna true for general early game ZvZ... If insanely good micro for your own defensive banelings and spine target firing is necessary to hold, then maybe this build might be high risk compared to roach builds. I have not tried enough times to give my opinion, so having dedicated section on "Holding Roach/BANELING aggression" might help me and us all further.
Again, thanks for the great guide!!
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If I scouted this I would do an identical build but go spire tech instead of infestor tech, and take advantage of the additional map control I have to take a 4th and maybe a 5th, and then turtle with mass spine, while waiting to go for a base trade / trying to deny 4th. If you're only making 4 infestors initially, I think the muta harass will somewhat effective. Furthermore, I'll be able to have complete map vision by killing your overlords.
I'm uncomfortable with the blind spine and baneling nest. If you're going +1/+1 you won't need the baneling nest. Diligent scouting and very good macro will allow you to always have more lings than your opponent before they get to your base, especially if they have spent 150/50 on a baneling nest and you have not; just never lose contact with the enemies army (engage if they start to build baneling nests). I would only build additional queens and spines if you smell a baneling all-in coming. I would save the baneling nest for builds where your opponent is going +1/+1 earlier than you. Otherwise, get it after you start your lair.
Same deal with the spine. I don't think I've played against an all-in where I've absolutely needed a blind spine crawler. Most roach/baneling all-ins I've played against can be beaten with reactive spines except on maps/positions with particularly small rush distances. The key is delaying by threatening to backstab with lings and then to ensure that you'll have lings in position to surround the roach ball when they attack your base.
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On June 17 2012 22:54 Mauzel wrote: If I scouted this I would do an identical build but go spire tech instead of infestor tech, and take advantage of the additional map control I have to take a 4th and maybe a 5th, and then turtle with mass spine, while waiting to go for a base trade / trying to deny 4th. If you're only making 4 infestors initially, I think the muta harass will somewhat effective. Furthermore, I'll be able to have complete map vision by killing your overlords.
I'm uncomfortable with the blind spine and baneling nest. If you're going +1/+1 you won't need the baneling nest. Diligent scouting and very good macro will allow you to always have more lings than your opponent before they get to your base, especially if they have spent 150/50 on a baneling nest and you have not; just never lose contact with the enemies army (engage if they start to build baneling nests). I would only build additional queens and spines if you smell a baneling all-in coming. I would save the baneling nest for builds where your opponent is going +1/+1 earlier than you. Otherwise, get it after you start your lair.
Same deal with the spine. I don't think I've played against an all-in where I've absolutely needed a blind spine crawler. Most roach/baneling all-ins I've played against can be beaten with reactive spines except on maps/positions with particularly small rush distances. The key is delaying by threatening to backstab with lings and then to ensure that you'll have lings in position to surround the roach ball when they attack your base.
Hm I really disagree with you on pretty much everything.
Vs mutalisks you need more then 4 infestors, I said this I believe in the guide that against mutalisks you need to make a lot more then 4 before going hive. You will make at minimum 4 and then you can go hive but you still add more to your army, it's not like you just make 4 and that's it.
Also going mutalisks, good luck getting a fast 4'th and then a 5'th base. If the zerg going ling/infestor is playing it right he will deny your third until mutalisks pop, do you really think you can go fast 4'th, let alone a 5'th base? You would die to a straight up ling/infestor attack. You can see double evo but lots of players go 1/1 carapace/range and go roaches and not the ling/infestor style (I play a lot of zergs who do this).
They get their roach warren after they start their third and rely on ling/bane to hold it normally as well. So by the time you scout he's going ling/infestor (which you would need to do with an overseer) you wont' be able to reactively go spire.
For your reactive spine crawlers, a lot of the times roach/ling if they just go straight for your base will get there before spine crawlers finish and then you will die. Also with this build you need spine crawlers up anyway even if he doesn't do this because going pure ling/infestor and no spine support will die to roach/infestor timings, roach timings in general.
Also with your no baneling nest, again heaviliy disagree. The best way to hold roach/speedbane/ling all in? spines + your own banelings. Much better then relying on some queens and a few spines to hold 15+ speed banes rolling in. Think those will all die fast to those? No way not if they do a pre-infestor timing (which one of the replays has).
Also you can be more greedy, instead of having to make a ton of lings blindly at times, you can have 2 banes and have both bases saturated before starting mass ling production (unless you see him all inning). Its 100/50, 100 gas if you count the 2 banes you should make. Not going to be a big deal whatsoever. You will notice most zergs (pro ones) also like the one spine crawler at a certain time even when they are doing standard roaches and what not.
On June 17 2012 22:01 Orek wrote:Great guide. Thank you for the time and effort you put into this. One thing I would like to see is the answer to Roach/BANELING/Ling aggression before infestors pop. This brilliant player gave his idea. Show nested quote +On June 15 2012 08:49 StarBrift wrote: The only problem I faced was roach/bane all ins before infestors pop. You need a lot of spread spines to defend this but you also need the spines somewhat close together to kill the roaches as they are going to be your main source of dps while the lings soak damage. The problem comes when the banes get close to your spines. They will blow up your spines if you let them get too close. But if you try and run after them with banes of your own then he will back off and snipe them with roaches. A neat trick I found that is really hard but worked sometimes for me is that you manually detonate your own banes to catch his banes right outside of spines range. This is tricky but if you succeed you will have used the range of bane explosion to save the lives of your spines and you'll win the battle. Since you rely primarily on lings and spines + a few defensive banelings for defense with this build, enemy banelings along with roaches must be a big threat before fungal is available. Baneling is good vs both your lings and spines, so a few good enemy baneling hits could be instant gg, although this is kidna true for general early game ZvZ... If insanely good micro for your own defensive banelings and spine target firing is necessary to hold, then maybe this build might be high risk compared to roach builds. I have not tried enough times to give my opinion, so having dedicated section on "Holding Roach/BANELING aggression" might help me and us all further. Again, thanks for the great guide!!
Yes there is a replay available show casing me defending, but I will update the guide soon to add a section on it since it has been asked a lot ^_^.
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I have been having a lot of success with this style. In Particular I like to open 15 hatch into speedling then the next 150 gas will go to +1 carapace, evo chamber at about 70 gas. Saves alot of gas for infestors and cutting back on gas really helps you drone hard. The early third can be used as a macro hatch. Also the +1 carapace negates +1 missle roach pushes, it is a bit micro intensive against baneling pressure, so you might need to go heavier on the spines. The potential for counterattacks is awesome and once you get a mass of infestors out, large roach hydra infestor pushes will melt, and you can usually have ultras out by then. Ultras and infestors alone are shitty vs roach hydra infestor but with a 50 ling flank they are really awesome. I also like that by going straight into infestor you can really counter any mutalisk play.
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I have another question for you blade. Can you describe you mindset/strategy when your opponent is also going this ling infestor style.
That has been one of the things that have made me reluctant to try this style because it seems like it would turn into a pvp in that once u have both taking your thirds there is literally no attacking until both of you have your super armys, which would seem like a pretty boring way to play.
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You just wrote this two days ago? I swear your inside my head! Thanks a lot dude, good guide, and the replays are a nice touch.
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On June 18 2012 07:50 Moosegills wrote: I have another question for you blade. Can you describe you mindset/strategy when your opponent is also going this ling infestor style.
That has been one of the things that have made me reluctant to try this style because it seems like it would turn into a pvp in that once u have both taking your thirds there is literally no attacking until both of you have your super armys, which would seem like a pretty boring way to play.
Why not mix in Infestor drops? I don't see anything that specifically limits you to turtling. You can also take more bases to force the issue.
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^ It delays your hive, which means your fourth is delayed. It's semi-all-in because you are gas starved and NEED ultras ASAP to survive mass roach/infestor attacks against your 3 base when ling/infestor isn't enough, and you NEED ultras to deny the roach players 5th and hopefully kill their 4th.
Don't do damage, you don't get ultras, don't get ultras, no 4th and opponents gets 5 bases and can overwhelm you or rush pure broodlord.
That said... whatever. Many, many pros do it. There's just obvious costs and benefits associated with it, enough I'd say that it can cost you the game at high level play, but it's also pretty strong so most likely it will never be so extreme that you do zero damage and autolose because the game is that mechanical.
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Man if you want a replay, i have one where i use this build VS roach infest style. It is lower league (diamond) but i think it's good to show that this build can work at different levels. It is not exactly the same but the general mindset is the same. PST me if you want it
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i think a maxxed roach and maybe even couple infestors drop before ultras into the main is a direct counter to this since you are relying on spines to defend properly. drops lets you go anywhere you want and avoid fighting at spines. i would like to know of a way to stop respond to this shouldyou suspect a roach player is going for drops. it will be hard for a roach player to go mass drop unscouted since you will have lots of vision from overlords they arnt able to kill off effectivly so maybe the surface area from getting all your lings under the drop would be enough but im not too sure.
now that i think about it perhaps that does work to defend, getting all your lings under the overlords and uprooting some spines to help defend where they want to fight and then getting some good fungles.
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Id liek to see a player have enough mass roach and good ups (which u need against ling infestor/ultra) and drop and ovie speed and infestors before the ling infestor player has either just killed u and won, or gotten a 4th or gotten hive tech out. In theory going for roach drops is good, but in reality you dont really get all that many roaches, assuming the ling infestor player is competent and didnt let you get an extremely early 3rd which you shouldnt because 1/1 lings > 1/1 roaches in smaller numbers and you need +2 on the rochaes for them to become cost efficient.
Ling infestor is a good build, you just need to make sure you have made a but tonne of spines once you have secured your 3rd/4th on some maps (some maps its to hard to secure 4th behind spines) then get ultras out asap. If you want to put pressure back on your opponent once uve secured ur 3-4 bases going infestor drops is really good to delay him until ultras are out.
Things to be careful of are big 2 base +2 ranged timings or big 3-4 +2 roach hydra timings as hydras are good against ultras strangely enough. The ling infestor build isnt really one where you can say herp derp im gonna do ling infestor now. So much of it relies on what happened early game, how you move your army and counter attack, and just how smart/mechanically good you are. gl hf!
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On June 18 2012 13:50 heyitskez wrote: Id liek to see a player have enough mass roach and good ups (which u need against ling infestor/ultra) and drop and ovie speed and infestors before the ling infestor player has either just killed u and won, or gotten a 4th or gotten hive tech out. In theory going for roach drops is good, but in reality you dont really get all that many roaches, assuming the ling infestor player is competent and didnt let you get an extremely early 3rd which you shouldnt because 1/1 lings > 1/1 roaches in smaller numbers and you need +2 on the rochaes for them to become cost efficient.
Ling infestor is a good build, you just need to make sure you have made a but tonne of spines once you have secured your 3rd/4th on some maps (some maps its to hard to secure 4th behind spines) then get ultras out asap. If you want to put pressure back on your opponent once uve secured ur 3-4 bases going infestor drops is really good to delay him until ultras are out.
Things to be careful of are big 2 base +2 ranged timings or big 3-4 +2 roach hydra timings as hydras are good against ultras strangely enough. The ling infestor build isnt really one where you can say herp derp im gonna do ling infestor now. So much of it relies on what happened early game, how you move your army and counter attack, and just how smart/mechanically good you are. gl hf!
if not a maxxed roach timeing because the other player will have ultras out by then (apparently) why not just a drop timing at any point before that.
i see your point about the gas distributions but i feel like you have neglected the time it takes to tech up to ultras. say the ultra players puts all their tech at the natural so it cant get sniped. the roach drop will still be able to snipe the main hatch and then its just a matter of surviving the ultras they managed to get out before you just overwhelm them
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On June 18 2012 13:19 Belial88 wrote: ^ It delays your hive, which means your fourth is delayed. It's semi-all-in because you are gas starved and NEED ultras ASAP to survive mass roach/infestor attacks against your 3 base when ling/infestor isn't enough, and you NEED ultras to deny the roach players 5th and hopefully kill their 4th.
Don't do damage, you don't get ultras, don't get ultras, no 4th and opponents gets 5 bases and can overwhelm you or rush pure broodlord.
That said... whatever. Many, many pros do it. There's just obvious costs and benefits associated with it, enough I'd say that it can cost you the game at high level play, but it's also pretty strong so most likely it will never be so extreme that you do zero damage and autolose because the game is that mechanical. You missed the context. I was referring to a mirror for this build. You'll have later Ultras by a bit, but if you are able to harass at all it delays your opponent's ultras a lot as well. I feel you should be able to play defensively and not just die when they get ultras out themselves even if they are faster than yours.
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^ Ah I see, but my response is still the same - if you do zero damage, you lose to someone doing a mirror build because they get a quicker fourth and have ultras out quicker (and eventually, he'll have his broodlords out quicker as you transition from ultras to broodlords). As I said, there's a trade off though, and it's unlikely you just do zero damage and it'll be that stark. Infestor drops can be really fucking strong, so there's also just as much chance that you just fucking win the game then and there.
But there's a reason why not everyone does it, because there's a very real cost. I don't know what to tell you. Some people would say "why would i get infestor drops when I can get wayyy quicker hive and ultras and just win the ultra vs ultra race", others would say "i always do at least enough damage to justify the drops so why would you not always get it"...
i think a maxxed roach and maybe even couple infestors drop before ultras into the main is a direct counter to this since you are relying on spines to defend properly. drops lets you go anywhere you want and avoid fighting at spines. i would like to know of a way to stop respond to this shouldyou suspect a roach player is going for drops. it will be hard for a roach player to go mass drop unscouted since you will have lots of vision from overlords they arnt able to kill off effectivly so maybe the surface area from getting all your lings under the drop would be enough but im not too sure.
No.
Why in the world would you think that. Please don't theorycraft like this. Please, give a replay example of someone doing this. Otherwise, it sounds like you are just making stuff up.
As I said in the Ultras in ZvZ? discussion thread I posted discussing this build, the closest I see as a counter to this, when doing standard play of fast third before lair roach based play, is to just not make roaches and make infestors, like you would against 2 base lair play assuming mutas instead of infestors, but then once realizing it's infestors and not mutas, you just not make many more roaches, take your fourth with your roach/infestor/ling, and go for quick hive and double ups on your lings as you go roach/ling/infestor and then ultras but used your few roaches to secure your fourth while the opponent is just getting his third, and getting hive and ultras basically at the same time.
Did you not read the thread at all - maxed roach won't work - moar spines, infestors, and not way you are going to break a 3 base turtle. Making more roaches is the most all-innish thing you can do and won't work against proper play. Roach/infestor will get trashed by ultra/ling/infestor. That makes no sense. Please.
Infestor drops is a gamble. They are extremely costly, and how exactly are you going to do roach/infestor pressure if you just have no infestors? So you are basically just going pure roach against mass spines and infestors... with some drops, that may or may not work. Why don't you just say "Nydus is the counter to everything in ZvZ (as long as they dont spot it and respond poorly).
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Really nice guide, thanks! I tried it myself after seeing Stephano using this style, he also used it against Violet in Red Bul battleground and i really enjoyed it (since i already played ling infest ultra in ZvT). However, I liked to go for a gasles fast expand and 4 Queen, since it really helps at defending your base and spreading your creep, to put spine at the best place. Plus, I liked to go for an handful of roach instead of bannelings to defend my base before the double evo, just as Stephano do in ZvT, do you think it's a good idea?
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On June 18 2012 16:22 Belial88 wrote:^ Ah I see, but my response is still the same - if you do zero damage, you lose to someone doing a mirror build because they get a quicker fourth and have ultras out quicker (and eventually, he'll have his broodlords out quicker as you transition from ultras to broodlords). As I said, there's a trade off though, and it's unlikely you just do zero damage and it'll be that stark. Infestor drops can be really fucking strong, so there's also just as much chance that you just fucking win the game then and there. But there's a reason why not everyone does it, because there's a very real cost. I don't know what to tell you. Some people would say "why would i get infestor drops when I can get wayyy quicker hive and ultras and just win the ultra vs ultra race", others would say "i always do at least enough damage to justify the drops so why would you not always get it"... Show nested quote + i think a maxxed roach and maybe even couple infestors drop before ultras into the main is a direct counter to this since you are relying on spines to defend properly. drops lets you go anywhere you want and avoid fighting at spines. i would like to know of a way to stop respond to this shouldyou suspect a roach player is going for drops. it will be hard for a roach player to go mass drop unscouted since you will have lots of vision from overlords they arnt able to kill off effectivly so maybe the surface area from getting all your lings under the drop would be enough but im not too sure.
No. Why in the world would you think that. Please don't theorycraft like this. Please, give a replay example of someone doing this. Otherwise, it sounds like you are just making stuff up. As I said in the Ultras in ZvZ? discussion thread I posted discussing this build, the closest I see as a counter to this, when doing standard play of fast third before lair roach based play, is to just not make roaches and make infestors, like you would against 2 base lair play assuming mutas instead of infestors, but then once realizing it's infestors and not mutas, you just not make many more roaches, take your fourth with your roach/infestor/ling, and go for quick hive and double ups on your lings as you go roach/ling/infestor and then ultras but used your few roaches to secure your fourth while the opponent is just getting his third, and getting hive and ultras basically at the same time. Did you not read the thread at all - maxed roach won't work - moar spines, infestors, and not way you are going to break a 3 base turtle. Making more roaches is the most all-innish thing you can do and won't work against proper play. Roach/infestor will get trashed by ultra/ling/infestor. That makes no sense. Please. Infestor drops is a gamble. They are extremely costly, and how exactly are you going to do roach/infestor pressure if you just have no infestors? So you are basically just going pure roach against mass spines and infestors... with some drops, that may or may not work. Why don't you just say "Nydus is the counter to everything in ZvZ (as long as they dont spot it and respond poorly).
I'm saying you get drops so you don't have to fight at the spines... And I didn't say anything about the timings of the 3rd before lair or anything.
Edit: to clarify I ment a mass drop into main do some sniping and retreat if possible not just "some" drops.
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I've been playing this style with my ZvZ's since I saw IdRa do it on stream. I like it, great write up.
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I would like to point out my biggest problem with this style, and you probably need to make it more obvious for those who don't know.
+2 ranged attack makes roaches 2 shot lings unless they have +3 carapace.
That simple fact alone wins me virtually all my games I play vs this style. As soon as I identify my opponent is going ling/infestor (easy to indentify because his lings will get 1/1 around the time my +1 range finishes) I simply get +2 weapons going, keep my 3 bases safe, and as soon as the upgrade finishes, I go for a massive trade at his 3rd.
This timing is incredibly hard to hold off as your lings are getting slaughtered and you likely just started infestor production, so you will have a very limited amount of fungals to help out vs the roaches.
If you are going this style, make sure you can deal with the +2 roach attack timing.
If you are going against this style, throw down a 2nd evo as soon as you see he has 1/1, and don't sac your roaches until 2/1 finishes. If you miss this timing, you just threw the game.
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Vs mutalisks you need more then 4 infestors, I said this I believe in the guide that against mutalisks you need to make a lot more then 4 before going hive. You will make at minimum 4 and then you can go hive but you still add more to your army, it's not like you just make 4 and that's it.
Oh I thought you meant you only have enough gas for 4 initial infestors when your upgrade is ready. The harass with the mutas is not mandatory. Their main goal is to clear overlords to gain complete map control, allowing you to take a quick 4th while denying their 4th.
Also going mutalisks, good luck getting a fast 4'th and then a 5'th base. If the zerg going ling/infestor is playing it right he will deny your third until mutalisks pop, do you really think you can go fast 4'th, let alone a 5'th base? You would die to a straight up ling/infestor attack.
How are you going to deny my 3rd if you are getting 2 evos at 6:45 and 2 upgrades? that's a ridiculous amount of gas and minerals devoted to something that's going to take effect in 2 minutes. No matter what I'll have more drones and/or more lings than you. Furthermore, if you're taking your 3rd there's absolutely no way you can deny mine. How are you going to deny my 4th or 5th if your only units that can attack air will be infested terrans? Split mutalisks do great against infestors without spore crawlers. Also, if you're building more infestors you're going to be delaying your ultralisks, which makes my 4th and 5th much safer. Your best bet might actually be to stick to just those 4 initial infestors while rushing hive. Ultralisks would be your greatest asset versus mutalisk play.
You can see double evo but lots of players go 1/1 carapace/range and go roaches and not the ling/infestor style (I play a lot of zergs who do this). They get their roach warren after they start their third and rely on ling/bane to hold it normally as well. So by the time you scout he's going ling/infestor (which you would need to do with an overseer) you wont' be able to reactively go spire.
I personally see 1/1 carapace/range very rarely, mostly because carapace is only okay on roaches. Regardless, I consider 1/1 melee/range a pretty decent response. upgraded lings do alright against roaches, even similarly upgraded roaches (at least before 2/2 roaches). Furthermore, if the zerg is going ling/baneling to take the 3rd and then transitioning to double upgrade roach, I think I can always get muta ready in time. They will always be at least 6 roaches short compared to someone just going +1 because they'll have spent 150 gas on carapace, and I rarely have trouble with people who do +1 range roach timings.
For your reactive spine crawlers, a lot of the times roach/ling if they just go straight for your base will get there before spine crawlers finish and then you will die. Also with this build you need spine crawlers up anyway even if he doesn't do this because going pure ling/infestor and no spine support will die to roach/infestor timings, roach timings in general.
Any roach/ling that goes straight to your base super early is limited by the roach speed. You should be able to determine whether they are going roach/ling all-in by their drone count at their natural, and then build spine crawlers/lings/queens/banelings when you see that they are undersaturated.
Of course, I completely agree with getting spines if you're expecting a roach/infestor timing, but hopefully these are happening after 6 minutes.
Also with your no baneling nest, again heaviliy disagree. The best way to hold roach/speedbane/ling all in? spines + your own banelings. Much better then relying on some queens and a few spines to hold 15+ speed banes rolling in. Think those will all die fast to those? No way not if they do a pre-infestor timing (which one of the replays has).
I did mention that I almost always get baneling nest right after I start lair, and sometimes early if I smell something fishy but this is pretty rare. I think this timing is guaranteed to have a baneling nest ready in time for any speedbaneling timing, considering that they need lair to get speed banelings...
Also you can be more greedy, instead of having to make a ton of lings blindly at times, you can have 2 banes and have both bases saturated before starting mass ling production (unless you see him all inning). Its 100/50, 100 gas if you count the 2 banes you should make. Not going to be a big deal whatsoever. You will notice most zergs (pro ones) also like the one spine crawler at a certain time even when they are doing standard roaches and what not.
But I can be equally as greedy except I won't have spent 50/50 on banes and 150/50 on a baneling nest, not to mention I will have complete map control unless you make lings. My point was the blind baneling nest is a crutch. With very good overlord scouting and ling scouting (especially with those first few) you can reliably determine the intentions of your opponents. This is especially true on maps where you can safely scout one or more mineral lines with an overlord. I very frequently see opponents take defensive postures by building a blind spine and blind banelings, and then with this inherent advantage I can pretty much always take my 3rd first (and then build my baneling nest and spine crawlers). If there's an all-in where you ABSOLUTELY need that blind baneling nest at 5:00 because it's impossible to scout, then I might concede the blind baneling nest.
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On June 19 2012 00:56 Mauzel wrote:Show nested quote + Vs mutalisks you need more then 4 infestors, I said this I believe in the guide that against mutalisks you need to make a lot more then 4 before going hive. You will make at minimum 4 and then you can go hive but you still add more to your army, it's not like you just make 4 and that's it.
Oh I thought you meant you only have enough gas for 4 initial infestors when your upgrade is ready. The harass with the mutas is not mandatory. Their main goal is to clear overlords to gain complete map control, allowing you to take a quick 4th while denying their 4th. Show nested quote + Also going mutalisks, good luck getting a fast 4'th and then a 5'th base. If the zerg going ling/infestor is playing it right he will deny your third until mutalisks pop, do you really think you can go fast 4'th, let alone a 5'th base? You would die to a straight up ling/infestor attack.
How are you going to deny my 3rd if you are getting 2 evos at 6:45 and 2 upgrades? that's a ridiculous amount of gas and minerals devoted to something that's going to take effect in 2 minutes. No matter what I'll have more drones and/or more lings than you. Furthermore, if you're taking your 3rd there's absolutely no way you can deny mine. How are you going to deny my 4th or 5th if your only units that can attack air will be infested terrans? Split mutalisks do great against infestors without spore crawlers. Also, if you're building more infestors you're going to be delaying your ultralisks, which makes my 4th and 5th much safer. Your best bet might actually be to stick to just those 4 initial infestors while rushing hive. Ultralisks would be your greatest asset versus mutalisk play. Show nested quote + You can see double evo but lots of players go 1/1 carapace/range and go roaches and not the ling/infestor style (I play a lot of zergs who do this). They get their roach warren after they start their third and rely on ling/bane to hold it normally as well. So by the time you scout he's going ling/infestor (which you would need to do with an overseer) you wont' be able to reactively go spire.
I personally see 1/1 carapace/range very rarely, mostly because carapace is only okay on roaches. Regardless, I consider 1/1 melee/range a pretty decent response. upgraded lings do alright against roaches, even similarly upgraded roaches (at least before 2/2 roaches). Furthermore, if the zerg is going ling/baneling to take the 3rd and then transitioning to double upgrade roach, I think I can always get muta ready in time. They will always be at least 6 roaches short compared to someone just going +1 because they'll have spent 150 gas on carapace, and I rarely have trouble with people who do +1 range roach timings. Show nested quote + For your reactive spine crawlers, a lot of the times roach/ling if they just go straight for your base will get there before spine crawlers finish and then you will die. Also with this build you need spine crawlers up anyway even if he doesn't do this because going pure ling/infestor and no spine support will die to roach/infestor timings, roach timings in general.
Any roach/ling that goes straight to your base super early is limited by the roach speed. You should be able to determine whether they are going roach/ling all-in by their drone count at their natural, and then build spine crawlers/lings/queens/banelings when you see that they are undersaturated. Of course, I completely agree with getting spines if you're expecting a roach/infestor timing, but hopefully these are happening after 6 minutes. Show nested quote + Also with your no baneling nest, again heaviliy disagree. The best way to hold roach/speedbane/ling all in? spines + your own banelings. Much better then relying on some queens and a few spines to hold 15+ speed banes rolling in. Think those will all die fast to those? No way not if they do a pre-infestor timing (which one of the replays has).
I did mention that I almost always get baneling nest right after I start lair, and sometimes early if I smell something fishy but this is pretty rare. I think this timing is guaranteed to have a baneling nest ready in time for any speedbaneling timing, considering that they need lair to get speed banelings... Show nested quote + Also you can be more greedy, instead of having to make a ton of lings blindly at times, you can have 2 banes and have both bases saturated before starting mass ling production (unless you see him all inning). Its 100/50, 100 gas if you count the 2 banes you should make. Not going to be a big deal whatsoever. You will notice most zergs (pro ones) also like the one spine crawler at a certain time even when they are doing standard roaches and what not.
But I can be equally as greedy except I won't have spent 50/50 on banes and 150/50 on a baneling nest, not to mention I will have complete map control unless you make lings. My point was the blind baneling nest is a crutch. With very good overlord scouting and ling scouting (especially with those first few) you can reliably determine the intentions of your opponents. This is especially true on maps where you can safely scout one or more mineral lines with an overlord. I very frequently see opponents take defensive postures by building a blind spine and blind banelings, and then with this inherent advantage I can pretty much always take my 3rd first (and then build my baneling nest and spine crawlers). If there's an all-in where you ABSOLUTELY need that blind baneling nest at 5:00 because it's impossible to scout, then I might concede the blind baneling nest.
You will be very surprised how many lings you can get even when starting 1/1. You don't have 4 gases as that would be silly to get 4 gases so early and you get a ton of minerals to be able to do both, now if we both take a third most likely I won't be able to deny it unless you are droning. If you take a third before I even attempt it, I am going to make lings and deny it.
Again do you really think you can get a 4'th and 5'th and not die to a standard ling/infestor timing? Sure splitting mutalisks work great, but not when they are at your natural destroying you. Like that is just so greedy I could kill you with anything as long as I have anti air. I just don't get how you even think that can be viable at all vs this style >>.
for spine crawlers, it's not like I am making spines at 6 minutes, I may make one but that's it. It's not like I am throwing down 6 spines that would be stupid and a waste of money (unless he is doing an early roach/ling timing). Having 1 down early isn't a problem, most pro's do this as well.
Baneling nest, still like it before you have no idea how useful it is not only vs mas ling all ins, but if I accidently let him get a speed bane goign up the ramp it dies and gets no knowledge of what I am doing .
Also guys here is a video show casing this style that I commentated vs a roach/speedbane and getting ultralisks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHxfYZ3Zcn8&feature=youtu.be
On June 18 2012 07:50 Moosegills wrote: I have another question for you blade. Can you describe you mindset/strategy when your opponent is also going this ling infestor style.
That has been one of the things that have made me reluctant to try this style because it seems like it would turn into a pvp in that once u have both taking your thirds there is literally no attacking until both of you have your super armys, which would seem like a pretty boring way to play.
Hm to be honest I have only seen it once, but I was ahead the whole game in terms of upgrades so I was able to kill him fast, my hive was faster to. But just go counter attacks and that's how the game will go if both players are doing this style.
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Although it was a nice example of this style I don't feel that roach bane timing was very indicative of what might happens. That attack can hit before infestors are out and the difference is huge. I understand you make banelings to stop his but with proper control he should trade them evenly and have more than you.
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How many spines should I have around 15 minutes if my opponent is going for a maxed out 2/2 roach attack with infestors? I got hit right before 3/3, adrenal glands, and ultralisks. I didn't have enough infestor/ling to really stop it and only 5 spines, while he attacked me with 6 banes, 5 infestors, and 43 roaches. I had 6 infestors and a ton of lings - do I need more infestors and more spines before I go for ultras if I see this?
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On June 19 2012 04:37 Clarity_nl wrote: Although it was a nice example of this style I don't feel that roach bane timing was very indicative of what might happens. That attack can hit before infestors are out and the difference is huge. I understand you make banelings to stop his but with proper control he should trade them evenly and have more than you.
Hm don't forget 5 spines, you can hold just fine with banes of your own and his timing wont' be that big. You have to realize if he is doing this off of 3 base, his lair is going to be delayed. If he does this off of 2 base it can sit faster, but if you go 2 base lair as well he still won't have much of a timing. You have to remember he has to get lair to, he has to upgrade baneling speed and then he has to walk the lings across the map. It all evens out and is going to be hard to hit to much before infestors unless he is doing a low drone count roach/speedbane all in.
On June 19 2012 06:10 oOOoOphidian wrote: How many spines should I have around 15 minutes if my opponent is going for a maxed out 2/2 roach attack with infestors? I got hit right before 3/3, adrenal glands, and ultralisks. I didn't have enough infestor/ling to really stop it and only 5 spines, while he attacked me with 6 banes, 5 infestors, and 43 roaches. I had 6 infestors and a ton of lings - do I need more infestors and more spines before I go for ultras if I see this?
Well you should be adding spines once you start getting that heavy mineral count. What should be happening is you do want to have at about 6-8 infestors (8 if possible) and try to only fungel when he moves up a ramp to attack one of your bases. Spreading the lings is very critical to due to 2 fungels killing them regardless of upgrades.
I would keep adding spines until ultralisks are out, not like a ton at once, but just adding them. I have only faced that timing once and I died because I heavily supply blocked myself and only had 1-2 spines.
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I see. I definitely wasn't droning enough that game, but I was curious what would be better anyway assuming I had the money. I split my lings pretty well, but he just had too many roaches in the end. I'll keep trying and if I hit that again hopefully I'll have better macro to deal with it. I think in particular if you're on 50-60 drones you can't take 6-8 gas like I was trying. Should we be aiming for higher drone counts?
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On June 19 2012 06:18 oOOoOphidian wrote: I see. I definitely wasn't droning enough that game, but I was curious what would be better anyway assuming I had the money. I split my lings pretty well, but he just had too many roaches in the end. I'll keep trying and if I hit that again hopefully I'll have better macro to deal with it. I think in particular if you're on 50-60 drones you can't take 6-8 gas like I was trying. Should we be aiming for higher drone counts?
Yeah you do want to get a good amount of drones so you can afford to throw spines like they were lings. I just haven't faced the push enough to know the bets response to that timing only once and that was when I had been just starting out trying out the build.
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This style feels very potent, especially if you manage to hold of any timings. Whenever I use it though, I have a hard time really knowing how to use my army after I get ultras. It just seems like they're able to keep up with the ultras and eventually manage to even out in tech and upgrades. I also feel like there's an odd time where I have to bank a lot of resources as I'm getting hive, even though I have the wall of spines down. Here's an example http://drop.sc/200622 In this game I eventually lose due to not droning enough. Is there an issue with my timings, or should I simply be more greedy before ultras come out so I can have more?
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Thank you for adding Holding roach/baneling attacks section that I asked before. It is very helpful This OP responds so quick and answers almost all questions we ask. If only people work this diligently in real life...
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On June 20 2012 07:29 Orek wrote: Thank you for adding Holding roach/baneling attacks section that I asked before. It is very helpful This OP responds so quick and answers almost all questions we ask. If only people work this diligently in real life... Blade is a great guy, he earned the blue poster thing (whatever that matters anyway). I've been using this style a lot lately and it has improved my ZvZ so much.
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On June 20 2012 06:20 Sigil wrote:This style feels very potent, especially if you manage to hold of any timings. Whenever I use it though, I have a hard time really knowing how to use my army after I get ultras. It just seems like they're able to keep up with the ultras and eventually manage to even out in tech and upgrades. I also feel like there's an odd time where I have to bank a lot of resources as I'm getting hive, even though I have the wall of spines down. Here's an example http://drop.sc/200622 In this game I eventually lose due to not droning enough. Is there an issue with my timings, or should I simply be more greedy before ultras come out so I can have more?
The reason your money is getting so high is you forget to inject quiet a bit and you do need a macro hatch as well once you have 3 saturated bases you will have more then enough minerals.
So I would work on larva injects as that is why your money gets so high for a lot of that game. Also on shakuras if you have a big bank like you did, you can take a fourth faster then on most maps. Unless they do drop play or something there is no way they can deny your fourth.
Once ultralisks are out that is the time you want to start being aggressive, obviously don't attack dumb if you need to retreat do, if you think his army might be to strong retreat. He may have gotten ultras with 5 armor, but they had 0 melee. So your ultras were still a lot stronger.
Also your third base was barely saturated (3 drones mining at it). You want a lot more on that, that is why you were kind of broke late game was due to lack of drones at other bases.
Your first attack with ultra's you forgot to bring 3 of them, so you lost 2 carelessly. Can't be doing that, need to keep your army together (obviously you don't need all your zerglings together, but ultras should be together).
Also with ultras you do want ling support, ultras alone are strong, but with ling support they are much much stronger.
don't be afraid to add some more infestors, you should eventually have 10 infestors in a long zvz with ultra support, especially if you have excess gas and low minerals.
In general you need to work on engaging, bringing an overseer with you always and you need more lings as well. Just pure ultras is a lot easier to counter, but when a ton of lings + ultra's come it's very powerful. You had that game, but just threw away ultras carelessly at times and that hurts a lot as they are not cheap units.
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On June 21 2012 11:12 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2012 06:20 Sigil wrote:This style feels very potent, especially if you manage to hold of any timings. Whenever I use it though, I have a hard time really knowing how to use my army after I get ultras. It just seems like they're able to keep up with the ultras and eventually manage to even out in tech and upgrades. I also feel like there's an odd time where I have to bank a lot of resources as I'm getting hive, even though I have the wall of spines down. Here's an example http://drop.sc/200622 In this game I eventually lose due to not droning enough. Is there an issue with my timings, or should I simply be more greedy before ultras come out so I can have more? + Show Spoiler +The reason your money is getting so high is you forget to inject quiet a bit and you do need a macro hatch as well once you have 3 saturated bases you will have more then enough minerals.
So I would work on larva injects as that is why your money gets so high for a lot of that game. Also on shakuras if you have a big bank like you did, you can take a fourth faster then on most maps. Unless they do drop play or something there is no way they can deny your fourth.
Once ultralisks are out that is the time you want to start being aggressive, obviously don't attack dumb if you need to retreat do, if you think his army might be to strong retreat. He may have gotten ultras with 5 armor, but they had 0 melee. So your ultras were still a lot stronger.
Also your third base was barely saturated (3 drones mining at it). You want a lot more on that, that is why you were kind of broke late game was due to lack of drones at other bases.
Your first attack with ultra's you forgot to bring 3 of them, so you lost 2 carelessly. Can't be doing that, need to keep your army together (obviously you don't need all your zerglings together, but ultras should be together).
Also with ultras you do want ling support, ultras alone are strong, but with ling support they are much much stronger.
don't be afraid to add some more infestors, you should eventually have 10 infestors in a long zvz with ultra support, especially if you have excess gas and low minerals.
In general you need to work on engaging, bringing an overseer with you always and you need more lings as well. Just pure ultras is a lot easier to counter, but when a ton of lings + ultra's come it's very powerful. You had that game, but just threw away ultras carelessly at times and that hurts a lot as they are not cheap units.
In general, basic mechanical issues like usual. However, this does answer the questions I had with the macro hatch, ling numbers and infestor count. Thank you for both the answers and the analysis!
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time to listen to belial argue why ultras beat everything and that this and this is not true.
or listen to tang's urge to do a roach nydus into their main, or do a roach baneling timing before infestors.
Will be an interesting conversation!
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On June 21 2012 15:34 ThePlayer33 wrote: time to listen to belial argue why ultras beat everything and that this and this is not true.
or listen to tang's urge to do a roach nydus into their main, or do a roach baneling timing before infestors.
Will be an interesting conversation!
Huh? What are you talking about lol.
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On June 21 2012 15:42 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2012 15:34 ThePlayer33 wrote: time to listen to belial argue why ultras beat everything and that this and this is not true.
or listen to tang's urge to do a roach nydus into their main, or do a roach baneling timing before infestors.
Will be an interesting conversation! Huh? What are you talking about lol. I think he's pointing out that you already answered all the questions in the thread and the inevitable future is for belial to start a flame war about ultralisks and tang to theorycraft about all-ins.
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On June 21 2012 18:42 oOOoOphidian wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2012 15:42 blade55555 wrote:On June 21 2012 15:34 ThePlayer33 wrote: time to listen to belial argue why ultras beat everything and that this and this is not true.
or listen to tang's urge to do a roach nydus into their main, or do a roach baneling timing before infestors.
Will be an interesting conversation! Huh? What are you talking about lol. I think he's pointing out that you already answered all the questions in the thread and the inevitable future is for belial to start a flame war about ultralisks and tang to theorycraft about all-ins.
Actuallly quite amusing, got a chuckle out of me anyway.
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Thanks Blade for this guide! I am trying to learn the strat; I have to say that my first games were quite painful, due to my inexperience; but it makes ZvZ much more interesting, diverse (regarding units) and dynamic (with counters, infestor play, etc.) than Roach vs Roach endless fights...
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On June 21 2012 19:12 Macpo wrote: Thanks Blade for this guide! I am trying to learn the strat; I have to say that my first games were quite painful, due to my inexperience; but it makes ZvZ much more interesting, diverse (regarding units) and dynamic (with counters, infestor play, etc.) than Roach vs Roach endless fights...
Yeah I find myself enjoying zvz more with this to. It takes a few games, once you know the timings that can kill you and figure out how to defend it then this strat is great. Takes quiet a bit of practice :D
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Do you find that you can make it to the stage where you get ultras pretty consistently with this build? As in, you don't find yourself susceptible to ling/baneling all-ins and the like? I have a real problem with the early game in ZvZ sometimes, particularly when I just get flooded with speedlings. If this build works well when playing against that, I'd be very excited to try it. I know you get a baneling nest, but do you usually find that it is in time? I also realize that scouting in ZvZ is paramount, particularly checking with a couple lings every larvae inject. Does this build give you the tools to react properly if you can sniff out a lot of units coming at you?
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On June 22 2012 03:26 TFS wrote: Do you find that you can make it to the stage where you get ultras pretty consistently with this build? As in, you don't find yourself susceptible to ling/baneling all-ins and the like? I have a real problem with the early game in ZvZ sometimes, particularly when I just get flooded with speedlings. If this build works well when playing against that, I'd be very excited to try it. I know you get a baneling nest, but do you usually find that it is in time? I also realize that scouting in ZvZ is paramount, particularly checking with a couple lings every larvae inject. Does this build give you the tools to react properly if you can sniff out a lot of units coming at you?
Yes, most of the time I can get to ultralisks easy now that I have figured out most of the timings. I do have a baneling nest so I can deal with ling/bane all in as well and it's not hard to switch into defensive ling/bane if he's going aggressive (or you can be aggressive if you see you can). So far my baneling nest has always been on time ^^.
And again if you are on top of your scouting, make more spines if you feel he is going to do a 2 base timing or something. Spines are very nice and mass ling with a few spines will counter any 2 base all in pretty nicely ^_^
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On June 22 2012 03:32 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2012 03:26 TFS wrote: Do you find that you can make it to the stage where you get ultras pretty consistently with this build? As in, you don't find yourself susceptible to ling/baneling all-ins and the like? I have a real problem with the early game in ZvZ sometimes, particularly when I just get flooded with speedlings. If this build works well when playing against that, I'd be very excited to try it. I know you get a baneling nest, but do you usually find that it is in time? I also realize that scouting in ZvZ is paramount, particularly checking with a couple lings every larvae inject. Does this build give you the tools to react properly if you can sniff out a lot of units coming at you? Yes, most of the time I can get to ultralisks easy now that I have figured out most of the timings. I do have a baneling nest so I can deal with ling/bane all in as well and it's not hard to switch into defensive ling/bane if he's going aggressive (or you can be aggressive if you see you can). So far my baneling nest has always been on time ^^. And again if you are on top of your scouting, make more spines if you feel he is going to do a 2 base timing or something. Spines are very nice and mass ling with a few spines will counter any 2 base all in pretty nicely ^_^
Right on, man. I'm gonna try this out for sure. I've been looking for a solid ZvZ build to use since I'm still at the stage where I'm working on mechanics/macro/etc., and this looks like it will fit the bill quite nicely. Thank you for the writeup.
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Hi Blade -
Great guide. The +2 roach timing / trade that Jerm talked about on page 4 has proven difficult at times for me. Do you have anything to add on that? I'm mid-masters...decent but still pretty bad. I'm wondering if it's just bad macro on my end (likely).
Another question: your initial 3 drones on gas -- do you take them off after initial 100 for speed to get your economy rolling? Or leave them on to bank gas for ensuing 1/1 research?
Thanks.
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On June 22 2012 04:00 IPA wrote: Hi Blade -
Great guide. The +2 roach timing / trade that Jerm talked about on page 4 has proven difficult at times for me. Do you have anything to add on that? I'm mid-masters...decent but still pretty bad. I'm wondering if it's just bad macro on my end (likely).
Another question: your initial 3 drones on gas -- do you take them off after initial 100 for speed to get your economy rolling? Or leave them on to bank gas for ensuing 1/1 research?
Thanks.
I leave them on so I can bank resources to get the 1/1. To hold the +2 timing you do need at minimum 6 infestors (you will be able to get 8 easily if you invest) and try to engage him at a ramp so you can fungel everything (with spine support obviously). If you can't do that, just try to get a full surround with lings and fungel. If you hold off this timing (which you should with proper spine count + infestor + ling surround) you will win the game most likely unless you mess up.
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Hi. Great post. This style has been getting a lot more popular on the ladder as of late and it really is very strong. I was wondering what players did to counter this style/its weaknesses as it feels kind of impenetrable (to kill them before hive) and then unstoppable (when they get their ultras out) when playing against it with a more traditional roach style. I don't really want to start off a game playing roach then switch into this style once i see that's what they're doing since i will be behind on upgrades and infestor tech. Or is there a way to transition into it while carrying an advantage in a praticular area ( deny third base/eco).
Thanks
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On June 22 2012 04:28 Actinium_ wrote: Hi. Great post. This style has been getting a lot more popular on the ladder as of late and it really is very strong. I was wondering what players did to counter this style/its weaknesses as it feels kind of impenetrable (to kill them before hive) and then unstoppable (when they get their ultras out) when playing against it with a more traditional roach style. I don't really want to start off a game playing roach then switch into this style once i see that's what they're doing since i will be behind on upgrades and infestor tech. Or is there a way to transition into it while carrying an advantage in a praticular area ( deny third base/eco).
Thanks
I wouldn't say this is a counter, but this is probably the most effective way to win is to do a +2 +1 carapace timing with roaches. Or just +2 range. It's a pretty effective timing and if the other zerg is being to greedy (not enough spines/infestors) then you will probably win. But that's the best shot to win, otherwise I can't really think of any hard counter.
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Can you talk about what triggers you think about when to take a 3rd? I can't figure out a good situation timing.
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On June 22 2012 04:39 andeh wrote: Can you talk about what triggers you think about when to take a 3rd? I can't figure out a good situation timing.
I take it when my opponent takes his (if he does it before lair I will do the same). If he doesn't I don't. The reason I don't is because a 2 base roach timing would kill it and potentially kill me anyway.
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On June 22 2012 04:42 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2012 04:39 andeh wrote: Can you talk about what triggers you think about when to take a 3rd? I can't figure out a good situation timing. I take it when my opponent takes his (if he does it before lair I will do the same). If he doesn't I don't. The reason I don't is because a 2 base roach timing would kill it and potentially kill me anyway. I think after you have a decent count of infestors you should be able to take the 3rd, right?
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On June 22 2012 04:43 oOOoOphidian wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2012 04:42 blade55555 wrote:On June 22 2012 04:39 andeh wrote: Can you talk about what triggers you think about when to take a 3rd? I can't figure out a good situation timing. I take it when my opponent takes his (if he does it before lair I will do the same). If he doesn't I don't. The reason I don't is because a 2 base roach timing would kill it and potentially kill me anyway. I think after you have a decent count of infestors you should be able to take the 3rd, right?
You can take it before, obviously if you get lair and get infestors out then you can take your third to. If you don't take it early, you can take it fine right as soon as lair finishes and you get infestors.
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Oh, also if you scout double gas at the natural and spines I feel it's pretty safe to take a third, provided you account for a handful of lings they may use to deny it. Is that pretty much correct? Seems like 20~ lings is the typical number a muta or infestor player will send at your third before lair gets up.
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On June 22 2012 06:27 oOOoOphidian wrote: Oh, also if you scout double gas at the natural and spines I feel it's pretty safe to take a third, provided you account for a handful of lings they may use to deny it. Is that pretty much correct? Seems like 20~ lings is the typical number a muta or infestor player will send at your third before lair gets up.
Yeah if you see that you want to get your third down before mutalisks and you should be able to do it quiet safely as well .
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Hi again!
I have a couple of questions that I couldn't find answers to in the thread: - Regarding maps, how do you deal with those maps where infestors cannot go from nat to third without going in the open space beyond the spines. I am thinking here mainly of shakuras. My problem is that i can't have my infestors covering both 2nd and 3rd, supposing that my spines are up the ramp. So what do you do? do you make 2 squadrons of infestors to cover both places? do you make spines on low ground (but then they are very spread out, aren't they?) do you stay on two bases? or do you take another third, like the one close to xel naga towers?
- also, I can't figure out a rule of thumb for ling production. Cause you don't try to make as many zerglings as possible, from what I saw in your commentated replay, do you? so you make "some amount" considered standard depending the stage of the game, and then spam as many as possible when you face some timing push?
Thanks again !
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I recommend taking a closer third and having your spine wall cover an area around your natural and third. I personally veto Shakuras and I don't know if it's a good map for this style.
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On June 22 2012 16:34 Macpo wrote: Hi again!
I have a couple of questions that I couldn't find answers to in the thread: - Regarding maps, how do you deal with those maps where infestors cannot go from nat to third without going in the open space beyond the spines. I am thinking here mainly of shakuras. My problem is that i can't have my infestors covering both 2nd and 3rd, supposing that my spines are up the ramp. So what do you do? do you make 2 squadrons of infestors to cover both places? do you make spines on low ground (but then they are very spread out, aren't they?) do you stay on two bases? or do you take another third, like the one close to xel naga towers?
- also, I can't figure out a rule of thumb for ling production. Cause you don't try to make as many zerglings as possible, from what I saw in your commentated replay, do you? so you make "some amount" considered standard depending the stage of the game, and then spam as many as possible when you face some timing push?
Thanks again !
I haven't played a zvz on shakuras in forever because I have had that map veto'd for a long time xD. But what I would do is just leave 2-3 infestors over at the third and the rest in your natural or have overlords spread creep so that spines cover both third and natural and force an engagement there.
For lings you do need quiet a bit. You want to be doing counter attacks in multiple spots when he moves out. If I am not making drones I am making lings or ultras (or infestors). You will have quiet a few lings but you definitely don't want to max out on them or anything obviously but should have a lot.
Saving money for ultras is something I would only do once the ultra cavern starts, reason being is you do want all the lings and units in general you can get. Most zergs that are doing a roach based strategy should be doing a push before ultras are being started and you will die if you are saving a ton of money for it to only have quiet a few lings but only 5 infestors..
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On the topic of taking a third in ZvZ, I take it about when my natural is just about saturated, assuming my opponents is as well. (If they are only half saturated then I assume they have stopped drone production to prepare for an all-in)
The downside to taking the third is that you are 300 minerals behind the other player if they were to be aggressive. With almost 2 saturated bases you can make up that difference in about 15 seconds. Since their army should be (travel time) behind yours, if you can make up that resource difference in that time frame, then your armies should meet at equal strength.
~Edit Trying to find a way to delete the post. Thought it was general zerg topic and not the ling/ultra one. Lings are much more mobile and can take advantage of a 300 mineral difference much faster than roaches. The above is assuming they are going roaches.
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Maybe its different at masters, but at gold on the Korean server most zergs open either 6 or 10 pool and the very macroest zergs open 14 gas 14 pool. So using the suggested opening (with hatch first) only ever leads to all ins really early in the game (most of which I die to). How would you open if you had to start with 14 gas 14 pool? And when would you suggest taking the natural from a 14/14 to lead into this build? Thanks very much.
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On June 23 2012 08:02 General_Winter wrote: Maybe its different at masters, but at gold on the Korean server most zergs open either 6 or 10 pool and the very macroest zergs open 14 gas 14 pool. So using the suggested opening (with hatch first) only ever leads to all ins really early in the game (most of which I die to). How would you open if you had to start with 14 gas 14 pool? And when would you suggest taking the natural from a 14/14 to lead into this build? Thanks very much. You can hold anything other than 10p baneling all-in with a hatch first, so I recommend practicing it even if your micro and crisis management aren't good enough yet. You can go 14/14 and play pretty much the same for this build, though, so it's mostly down to what you're comfortable with. I would recommend the standard ~20 hatch off a 14/14 and only make 2-4 lings.
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On June 23 2012 08:02 General_Winter wrote: Maybe its different at masters, but at gold on the Korean server most zergs open either 6 or 10 pool and the very macroest zergs open 14 gas 14 pool. So using the suggested opening (with hatch first) only ever leads to all ins really early in the game (most of which I die to). How would you open if you had to start with 14 gas 14 pool? And when would you suggest taking the natural from a 14/14 to lead into this build? Thanks very much.
I am mid masters eu/us
u can try out 15p/15h/16g almost as economic and safe vs everything with proper micro
gl sir!
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Will definitely try this build to break those boring zerg/baneling all-in match-ups that is zerg metagame thanks alot !~
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I see no reason to ever take your third before your opponent with the exception of mutas, or if he's playing the same style as you. Since you're getting double upgrades and infestors (both get better with time) you're extremely cost effective. If I'm on 2 base saturation and my opponent has not taken a third I just throw down spines until he does or he tries to attack me and I hold. When I take my third I transfer half my spines (drop creep with your ovies, don't wait for the hatch) and you're great.
If your opponent has a late third I feel it's always worth it to sack some lings to deny it.
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On June 24 2012 11:32 Clarity_nl wrote: I see no reason to ever take your third before your opponent with the exception of mutas, or if he's playing the same style as you. Since you're getting double upgrades and infestors (both get better with time) you're extremely cost effective. If I'm on 2 base saturation and my opponent has not taken a third I just throw down spines until he does or he tries to attack me and I hold. When I take my third I transfer half my spines (drop creep with your ovies, don't wait for the hatch) and you're great.
If your opponent has a late third I feel it's always worth it to sack some lings to deny it.
Well if your opponent goes same style as you, gets a third before you and well you'll get behind in every way. Also the faster you get it up the more time you have to get spines and make sure a roach timing wont' kill you. That would be why to take it before him ^_^
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You know, if you are out set to do this build, and you see an opponent gassing up and has 2 evo chambers (2 evo = infestor, as opposed to muta, which this builds looks like in all ways except the 2 evos) and starts putting down spines, just take your third.
It's like going gold first on metalopolis when you know the opponent is going hatch first on close air - since you are basically doing mirror builds, he can't punish you for it.
Also, a lot of people nydus against this, so I've been patrolling 2-3 lings on each side of my main once I take my third against roach play, since nydus can be so deadly and well I'm a scrub and will likely not spot the nydus (besides, better to be active with your army than have to pull it all back if they do nydus, so still better to patrol 2-3 lings imo).
I've been really, really thinking a lot about this style of play, and how to respond to opponents.
So if they go 2 base muta, you should just take your third immediately right? Since you will have roughly similar lair timings, and just use quick creep from an overlord to set a spore or two down at the third, you should be good? And if they switch into roach/infestor, you just mass spines I guess.
I'm really thinking that a strong 'counter' to this play is just play standard fast third ~45 supply with roaches, and then when you see it's this ling/infestor style with double evo, just dont make many more roaches (still get roach speed), get infestors, maybe double evo too, and get hive quicker than the opponent, while using your roach/ling/infestor army to secure your fourth, and be defensive until ultras pop. You won't need spines, just keep your army at home right. Maybe if I just practice with someone on this...
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i won 4/4 of my ZvZ using this.. its incredible.. i m not at high level, just top diamond but i found really difficoult to make damage for opponent in the mid game when u have lot of spines and infestors.. and the army mass upgraded can destroy pretty everything.. i crushed 2 times roach/hyra, 1 time raoch infestor and 1 time roach, infestor and broodlord (just 4-5 BL but they are so slow compared to ultra/ling/infestor). I love this style, thanks for the guide!
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http://drop.sc/208140
here is a replay doing the anti-build I described + Show Spoiler +I'm really thinking that a strong 'counter' to this play is just play standard fast third ~45 supply with roaches, and then when you see it's this ling/infestor style with double evo, just dont make many more roaches (still get roach speed), get infestors, maybe double evo too, and get hive quicker than the opponent, while using your roach/ling/infestor army to secure your fourth, and be defensive until ultras pop. You won't need spines, just keep your army at home right. Maybe if I just practice with someone on this...
The idea is the same I brought up earlier if you face someone doing the same thing as you - where you see they are going 2 base ling/infestor too, you just 'counter' their spines with taking your third and proceeding with mass upgraded lings as normal.
In the end I lost, and I could have beat him because of a huge lead I got mid-game but I teched too quickly to broodlords (and lost to that mass roach play when I dont have enough infestors with my broods), but focus on the moment when my infestors pop and I'm taking my third.
He didn't even make a roach warren, I'm not sure why, maybe he saw the double evo and knew what was up right away, but focus on that moment. He's getting infestors just a little later than me, and we're basically in the same spot except his third is much, much earlier, and he can go take his fourth with ling/infestor vs my ling/infestor.
The problem with this 2 base ling/infestor play is you can't deny thirds, and you can't deny fourths much either.
The guy also gets a nydus in extreme lategame, but I keep 4 lings patrolling on both sides of my main to counter it - it's better to have 4 lings patrolling then having to bring back your entire army due to it, and in all 3 cases I spot the nydus just fine, but the lings really help out.
He transitions into mass roach after ling/infestor, which is really weird and dumb imo, and I completely crush him with ultra/ling/infestor and kill his 4th and 5th, but I lose the game because I go to broodlords, instead of just getting more ultra/ling/infestor against someone who clearly is way too behind to get broodlords himself. But he should have won in the first place... only reason he almost lost was because of the same reason he won, he went mass roach, but that time I lost most of my ultra/infestor.
I still haven't really seen someone counter this 2 base ling/infestor style properly, but I think I'm going to go back to fast third zvz, and if I see someone going ling/infestor, just do the same thing and beat it.
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Well you should get a fast third there is no reason not to. The only time I wouldn't go get a fast third is if my opponent has roach tech and is staying on 2 bases. If he is taking a third, I am going to take my third. There is no way for him to pressure my third as he would lose all his units unless I am caught droning.
I imagine there is a hard counter to this build if you know its coming before the game even started, but I haven't really faced any hard counters yet on ladder . Nydus is a somewhat popular response I have seen lately as well which is something to look out for when doing this build.
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I am only platinum and have some issues with this. There is a timing when he goes roach infestors and you have ling infestors(I have 2-3 more infestors than him) and are teching to ultras that i can't seem to get past. His infestors just nullifies my lings.
Do you have any good tips on what i am doing wrong?
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mid-master replay http://drop.sc/208362
I'm not sure what I did wrong doing this build. He was pretty all-iny with 2 base roach with upgrades (no infestors or hydra). I died before I could get my ultras out. Anyone have suggestions?
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ Thanks for the reply, that helps a ton.
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On June 27 2012 01:37 hivemind-swe wrote: I am only platinum and have some issues with this. There is a timing when he goes roach infestors and you have ling infestors(I have 2-3 more infestors than him) and are teching to ultras that i can't seem to get past. His infestors just nullifies my lings.
Do you have any good tips on what i am doing wrong?
Yes I do actually. Something you need to do is spread out your lings before engaging. If you do not spread out your lings it makes holding off the roach/infestor attack near impossible even with 5-6 spines. I would definitely recommend spreading your lings maneully then engaging that makes it so he has to use more then 1 fungel to catch a lot of lings.
On June 27 2012 03:49 err wrote:mid-master replay http://drop.sc/208362I'm not sure what I did wrong doing this build. He was pretty all-iny with 2 base roach with upgrades (no infestors or hydra). I died before I could get my ultras out. Anyone have suggestions?
You did a good job doing counters that is good, keep doing that that's for sure.
If you see your opponent not taking a third and just staying 2 base, you should make more spines. The fact he is on 2 base so long means you have to hold his attack and then you win. If you are on a situation where you don't think you can hold your third, go kill his. You kill his third and stay on even bases favors you as you are going to have ultralisks at some point soon and if you are both on 2 bases you both are going to be starving for resources, but you will be able to trade a lot more effeciently.
So the counter attack to kill his third, good decision.
This is where your first major mistake lies. You let all of his bunched up roaches go up the ramp and you didn't cast a single fungel until they were all up. Not only that but your first 2 fungels got a grand total of 5 roaches as you mis fungleed pretty badly. That is the whole reason you lost that game really was your bad handling of his main attack, you could have fungeled his whole army on the ramp and the spines + lings would have crushed that push really really badly. So work on that as you get fungels ont hat roach army on ramp, you would have held that so easily you would have laughed
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Well you should get a fast third there is no reason not to. The only time I wouldn't go get a fast third is if my opponent has roach tech and is staying on 2 bases. If he is taking a third, I am going to take my third. There is no way for him to pressure my third as he would lose all his units unless I am caught droning.
That's interesting, I've started to do that as I realize I take my third way too late when I've been doing this. Just take it when the opponent takes theirs, basically. Spreading creep pre-emptively with overlords I think is super important though, in case they decide to just not drone their third and mass roaches for the win, you need those spines up in time.
But you are still making lair before third right?
http://drop.sc/208864
Here's a game I won doing this style. Nothing in particular about it, but imo a really interesting game of this style - it turns into a really long game and ends in an epic base trade
. I made a lot of mistakes I think, but basically, I screwed up by losing my queen as the start but whatever, I go 2 base infestor while he goes 2 base muta, I hold the mutas easily and trap all of his mutas with chain FG while taking my third asap when I see his spire, while he takes a quick third too behind his mutas. He transitions into mass roach, I go ling/infestor/spine into ultras. I engage his roach/hydra/infestor army when he comes toward me, outside of my mass spine, because I thought I could take it but it was a bad idea (you'll see a common theme in this game that I'll engage with just 1-3 ultras thinking I'll win but I lose the battle).
Description + Show Spoiler + With lots of ling counterattacks because he insists on being aggressive, I keep him on 4 bases or less at all times, and I never really lose bases but I have trouble taking a fourth, mainly because I insist on losing my entire army over and over instead of just staying back, building up my deathball behind my safe mass spine wall, and then taking it.
The game ends in a pretty epic basetrade when I basically kill his 4th for the 5th time and snipe a few other bases too, and I stupidly overcommit into his main. His buildings become revealed and I didnt see anything so I go for it, but when I finish off all his buildings in his nat and then my entire main army is dead, I realize he has an extractor I didn't finish off at that 4th, with about 15 hp.
I unburrow a single ling I had left, that I had to block his 5th, and send all my mining drones (i had 1 mining base at the time) to attack it, and I win ^^
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^ 2 evo chambers. A lot of zergs will use the double evo as a wall-in, because it's amazing to have double evo wall, but that's a huge giveaway on what's going on.
If you got raped by 100 lings, that has to do with early game, not infestors vs mutas, since a muta player can make 100 lings too. You should have banelings, you need a baneling nest in early game zvz.
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Why would you make roaches earlier if you knew it was ling/infestor? You want to cut out the roaches if you know it's ling/infestor.
I just got raped by suddenly 100 lings running everywhere and anywhere, simply wasnt prepared.
That's pretty all-innish of the opponent, you should have realized he still hasn't taken a third when he could have safely done so. In ZvZ you take your third, and you don't drone up your third until after making lots of units or figuring out exactly what's going on because of the way larva inject is, you can instantly saturate your third when your opponent first takes his, and you will need lots of units to defend things like this.
You should have taken your third with 4 banelings, when you saw him suddenly stream out 100 lings from his base, you should have been morphing more banes and either made a bunch of roaches, or lots of lings yourself if you chose to skip roaches because you realizae he's going ling/infestor.
It just sounds like an early game mistake on your part.
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Hi!
I played a game where my opponent went 3-base roach infestor that left me quite confused on how I should attack/engage using this build. We had several more or less maxed engagements throughout the game but I wasn't even close to being cost efficient so I think I'm doing something wrong here. He would basically fungal my lings and then throw up a ton of infested terran eggs in front of his roaches, blocking my ultras so the roaches could shoot from behind.
I made quite a few errors early/mid game but I'm pretty sure what I should have done differently and we ended up fairly even anyway I think. Still, this part was pretty sloppy by me but since he didn't commit to any big attack early I think I got away with it this time. Please correct me if I'm wrong. What I'm curious about is that once I got my ultras out I was ahead, right? More drones, 1 more base, better tech (although the melee upgrade was delayed since I didn't notice +2 failing to start due to low resoureces), slightly smaller army but his had mostly roaches. What am I doing wrong to mess up all these engagements?
Here is the replay, feel free to skip the first 15 minutes to get to the part I'm confused about: http://drop.sc/213985
He stuck to roach infestor and we kept trading several times. At 27 minutes my resources lost is almost 60% higher, 27k to his 17k. Those are ZvP numbers! I had my 4th earlier which kept me in the game despite the trades being heavily in his favor for the most part. I thought he would transition into broods so I wanted to try and kill him before that. From the replays I've seen you should attack pretty much right away when you have your ultras out, right?
Here are my descriptions of the main engagements:
17:30 - basically max ultra/ling/inf vs max roach/inf. I attack into him and he has 3 spines to support. Spines act as retard magnets for my lings and I lose 2500 more army value than him. At this point I got quite confused as I thought I would smash what he had there regardless.
20:00 - Here he intercepts my infestors while I'm moving my army and looking at my base so I have to fight. Both about maxed and I come out at -4000 army value. This was obviously a bad engagement by me as it wasn't on purpose..not much to say I guess, well done by him.
21:00 - 160vs200. Here we actually come out even. I guess it's because he doesn't have much infestor energy left to make IT walls with.
23:30 - 140vs200. Here he attacks into the spines at my 4th and I attack him from behind. This is the only engagement where it looks like in the OP replays with ultras going nom nom nom on the roaches, +2000 despite his supply advantage.
27:00 - Game deciding maxed battle. He spams IT's again, making my ultras look like SC1 dragoons. I lose this one big time, -5000 resources including my 5th base. He managed to sneak up a 5th of his own that I failed to scout and at this point I think the game is over.
From here it goes on for a while longer with me trying some base trading and brood lords but it was too late anyway. As I understood it I'm supposed to switch to broods earlier but I'm trying to get a feel for this style and stuck to ultras to try and break his roach/infestor. I actually made more ultras by mistake when finally deciding o go broods but nevermind, I had prob lost already anyway.
So..how do I fight him without him attacking into a bunch of my spines and what are the main reason I'm losing these battles so decisively? Poor infestor usage, clumped up lings, poorly chosen locations, not doing proper surrounds etc..? Guess I could have tried backing out but do I want to trade all my lings for infestor energy?
Is my army comp OK or should I have had more ultras or something? Didn't really make banes because I was scared of fungals.
Don't be shy pointing out errors. Thanks in advance!
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Hey just thought I would let you know I did read your post and will reply to it just not today. I will tomorrow just to tired right now but again just letting you know I will look at it.
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Hey Blade,
just a quick question, whenever you have time for it! How much should I commit to lings run bys? I feel it's always a big temptation (from mid game) to send like thirty zerglings in his main when he is out of position, but the outcome of such move is often somewhat uncertain. So would you have rules of thumb as to when doing it and when not doing it?
Thanks!
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On July 04 2012 16:53 Macpo wrote: Hey Blade,
just a quick question, whenever you have time for it! How much should I commit to lings run bys? I feel it's always a big temptation (from mid game) to send like thirty zerglings in his main when he is out of position, but the outcome of such move is often somewhat uncertain. So would you have rules of thumb as to when doing it and when not doing it?
Thanks!
I would always commit to ling counter attacks. That's the strength of this style. What I would recommend is making sure you have a few lings go in front and not them all bunched up when doing a run by in the main. The reason being if he does leave banelings you don't want to lose them all to 2 when you could take them out with 4 lings instead ^^.
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On July 04 2012 16:17 blade55555 wrote: Hey just thought I would let you know I did read your post and will reply to it just not today. I will tomorrow just to tired right now but again just letting you know I will look at it. Thanks, no rush!
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This is a fantastic build but the problem for me is 3rd timing. What is the proper time to put down a 3rd? And when putting down the 3rd how do you defend it easily?
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^ Depends.
- If the opponent is going 2 base infestor/muta (ie no roach warren, 4 gas on 2 base), take a third - If the opponent takes a third, you take your third
That's when you take a third. If the opponent is going 2 base lair roach, don't take a third (i know, a very bad build that you will never see at higher level play, but sometimes you might have someone planning to go mutas, and sees what you are up to and sees you take a third, and he'll reactively go roach).
You are always safe to take your third once you plant your infestation pit, since your infestors will pop in time to stop mass roach. It's just a matter of planting enough spines in tim e and not droning up too hard.
I recommend that you start spreading overlords in front of your third/nat so when lair is done, you can instantly drop creep down and plant down a spine wall. With infestor/spine, you can stop any mass roach attack.
Basically, you are safe to take a third when the opponent takes a third. Taking a third against 2 base lair infestor/muta, is simply you sort of understanding the game very well, and taking the third because you understand what's going on (good scouting = you can be greedier), but if you aren't sure what's going on, just wait until the opponent takes their third. Really, the 'blind' way to play this build is just get infestors on 2 base, then take the third and mass spines against roach players.
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On July 04 2012 17:14 chlindell wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2012 16:17 blade55555 wrote: Hey just thought I would let you know I did read your post and will reply to it just not today. I will tomorrow just to tired right now but again just letting you know I will look at it. Thanks, no rush!
Ok here are your mistakes and why you lost:
Defensive banelings, you don't need to make 4 that is more then you need. 2 is fine, but don't make 4 unless you know he is doing some sort of ling pressure.
Your timings were a bit off, both evo's should be placed at 6:30-6:45 (there was no pressure this game so these shouldn't have been so late). You also have almost 1k minerals which is way to much. You should never be that high. You should always be making drones or make a round of lings and get a third, but yeah should never get so many minerals so early in the game.
Just to point out again you still have a ton of minerals, if you aren't making drones you should be making lings/spines. Should be trying to keep that money as low as possible, a macro hatch also.
Need to start 2-2 as soon as lair finishes you waited quiet awhile.
You don't make enough lings. You were going hive at 12 minutes but with only 8 lings and 68 drones, it's nice to have all those drones but you could have also had a lot more lings. Lings are very important for counter attacking as if he had pushed with a roach push at 9 minutes you might have died as 3 spines and 8 lings, while waiting for reinforcments might have killed you or worse. You should always be throwing in lings as lings aren't like roaches where you can make them last minute and be fine. Since lings are so weak (especially compared to roaches) you need masses of them and want to always be making them.
Before your first should you should have waited for the 5 other ultralisks. You had them in production, should have chilled and waited for them and done a 200/200 push yourself.
When you see the other zerg throwing down a ton of IT's, run away and wait for them to die. Unless you have such a superior army just wait as you want to engage just the roaches, mass IT support will kill your army so just retreat and wait until they die off before engaging again (then his infestors will have little energy and you will be able to kill him).
Banelings were a waste of gas, no need to make them unless they are going roach/hydra. Then you can start going ling/bane/ultra/infestor.
At 20 minutes, you had his army. You would have crushed him had you been paying attention. 2-3 fungels would have gotten all his roaches and you had a lot of roach/ling support. The fact that you lost a lot of infestors and 1/4'th your army really hurt you.
Then again you also pushed a little premature, while you would have won that battle anyway had you been paying attention you would have beat that, but still should have waited for all your ultra/lings to be out before attacking.
I don't agree with your transition into bl's either, that was kind of a waste of money and gave him a huge timing. When he's only on roaches you should just keep going ultra/ling/infestor.
Also try doing ling counter attacks to kill drones, possibly snipe an expansion. Always good to do especially when you have a ton of lings .
In general your army control is pretty bad. You don't use enough fungals and you have a ton of infestors, had you been using fungals you would have been killing his army's a lot easier and probably won this game. In general I would work on army control a lot and using fungals. Lots of battles of not using fungals just hurts to much as why have 11 infestors if you aren't going to fungal a lot (or throw IT's down at least) xD.
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I just lost 2 games doing this, with the following:
1. http://drop.sc/215676 Guy goes 2 base muta. I take a third, knowing he's going mutas (or infestor, either way, take third right?). He takes a third, and tech switches to roaches. I recognize he's massing roaches, i even see them with my overseer in his base, and that he isn't droning up his third at all. I try to mass spines in the middle of Shakuras Plateau between third/nat, to get a wall going, but the mutas just kill the morphing spines, and when my infestors pop, I'm greeted by mass roach (which would have been okay, but there were mutas killing the spines)
2. http://drop.sc/215679 Guy goes 2 base lair, probably going toward mutas. I recognize this, and take a third. The opponent realizes what I'm doing, sees my third, and takes his own third, and then just masses roaches, basically going 2 base mass roach with a third taken.
Should I just not ever take a third until infestors pop, due to mass roach transitions? I mean, I recall fighting 2 base infestor/ling as a third before lair, roach player, and yea, I would deny the third of the opponent for a long time with roaches, and I recall he would only be able to take it with infestors.
I see you say if he tries to kill your third, you go kill his, which I could always do, but I never mass spines in my nat, and instead lose them all out trying to defend the third. Maybe the problem is I should mass spines in my natural instead, and take a third, and if he tries to kill it with roaches I just go kill his third and all is good?
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For the muta play on shakuras ling/infestor might not be the best map. I have that map veto'd and haven't played it in a very long time but with the pretty big distance from third to natural seems like mutalisks would be hard to fight with this style. In general not sure dont play shakuras.
If he goes to kill your third and you can't defend it or dont' think you can yes go kill his. Make sure you have at least 3 spines at natural (which you should already have them done) and if he tries to attack there, your lings should be on the way back (after killing his third) and you should be able to flank his roaches and sandwitch them and then eat them.
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I've been loving this style of late, and though it really puts it upon you to hold off a huge variety of all-ins with limited room for error, once you get to the late game it's a really tough composition to stop. I've even managed to pull off some insane comeback games (mid-masters level) after having lost my 3rd to a push I hadn't seen coming etc, once you get to 200/200, nothing he has can kill it cost efficiently if you're smart. Also a cute tip, if he doesnt have detection near his broods if he has managed to reach that stage, burrow your infestors, get underneath and spam infested terrans. once they pop, fungal the broods and watch him ragequit when all his broodlords die.
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I am starting to feel this strategy isn't very good on maps without major choke points. On Condemned Ridge fungals are almost worthless. Maybe I just don't make enough infestors or get them early enough to have a ton of energy, but I am always dying to 3 base roach/hydra/baneling attacks. ~6 spines aren't enough. Even if I kill off all their banelings and hydras, the leftover lings and spines can't kill a decent chunk of roaches before I can get Ultralisks out.
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^ yea of course 6 spines aren't enough. You should have like 10+ spines! Wayyyy more than 6 duh!
If you suspect a roach timing, you need to get more infestors. But you still need hive asap, so I'd say just go more like 10-12 rather than 6-8, it will just mean a lower ultra count. it's a balance, but you need ultras before he really gets the benefits of his fourth. So if you see his taking his fourth, you probably want to cut the infestor production, similarly if he's getting hive or infestors himself, and if he's making a ton of roaches, not getting infestors, no fourth, etc, you will want more spines and infestors and later/less ultras for the time being.
You want the ultras to kill his fourth off, and to secure your own fourth. The only way he can take his fourth is with mass spines himself with lots of infestors, or his own ultras, in which case you'll either have the higher ultra count, or you can take your fifth and start going broodlords (or more ultras, depending on how his infestor count is and how late the game is).
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On July 07 2012 03:32 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 04 2012 17:14 chlindell wrote:On July 04 2012 16:17 blade55555 wrote: Hey just thought I would let you know I did read your post and will reply to it just not today. I will tomorrow just to tired right now but again just letting you know I will look at it. Thanks, no rush! Ok here are your mistakes and why you lost: Defensive banelings, you don't need to make 4 that is more then you need. 2 is fine, but don't make 4 unless you know he is doing some sort of ling pressure. Your timings were a bit off, both evo's should be placed at 6:30-6:45 (there was no pressure this game so these shouldn't have been so late). You also have almost 1k minerals which is way to much. You should never be that high. You should always be making drones or make a round of lings and get a third, but yeah should never get so many minerals so early in the game. Just to point out again you still have a ton of minerals, if you aren't making drones you should be making lings/spines. Should be trying to keep that money as low as possible, a macro hatch also. Need to start 2-2 as soon as lair finishes you waited quiet awhile. You don't make enough lings. You were going hive at 12 minutes but with only 8 lings and 68 drones, it's nice to have all those drones but you could have also had a lot more lings. Lings are very important for counter attacking as if he had pushed with a roach push at 9 minutes you might have died as 3 spines and 8 lings, while waiting for reinforcments might have killed you or worse. You should always be throwing in lings as lings aren't like roaches where you can make them last minute and be fine. Since lings are so weak (especially compared to roaches) you need masses of them and want to always be making them. Before your first should you should have waited for the 5 other ultralisks. You had them in production, should have chilled and waited for them and done a 200/200 push yourself. When you see the other zerg throwing down a ton of IT's, run away and wait for them to die. Unless you have such a superior army just wait as you want to engage just the roaches, mass IT support will kill your army so just retreat and wait until they die off before engaging again (then his infestors will have little energy and you will be able to kill him). Banelings were a waste of gas, no need to make them unless they are going roach/hydra. Then you can start going ling/bane/ultra/infestor. At 20 minutes, you had his army. You would have crushed him had you been paying attention. 2-3 fungels would have gotten all his roaches and you had a lot of roach/ling support. The fact that you lost a lot of infestors and 1/4'th your army really hurt you. Then again you also pushed a little premature, while you would have won that battle anyway had you been paying attention you would have beat that, but still should have waited for all your ultra/lings to be out before attacking. I don't agree with your transition into bl's either, that was kind of a waste of money and gave him a huge timing. When he's only on roaches you should just keep going ultra/ling/infestor. Also try doing ling counter attacks to kill drones, possibly snipe an expansion. Always good to do especially when you have a ton of lings . In general your army control is pretty bad. You don't use enough fungals and you have a ton of infestors, had you been using fungals you would have been killing his army's a lot easier and probably won this game. In general I would work on army control a lot and using fungals. Lots of battles of not using fungals just hurts to much as why have 11 infestors if you aren't going to fungal a lot (or throw IT's down at least) xD.
Thanks! That's a lot of input, much appreciated.
Yeah my macro was slipping a lot there early on, it happens sometimes when they keep poking at me but usually not this bad. I'll try to preemptively make more lings and add another control group for runbys.
Aww, I did have 5 ultras still in production there, can't believe I missed that! That's 30 supply of prime meat and it would probably have won me the fight. Guess I'm not used to the ultra build time yet, not really been using them in any matchup before. I'll try to be more patient before attacking..and less patient before retreating if he blows a lot of infestor energy! Wasn't sure if it was ok to trade a ton of lings for infestor energy so was reluctant to back out and curious about how it would turn out.
I agree that my army control was bad, I was too busy staring at the fights expecting to walk all over his roaches and then trying to figure out what was happening with everything turning green. That and me being slow as molasses. Hopefully it will improve as I get more used to this style.
Do you have any rough guidelines for if/when/how to transition into broods? It's not really mentioned in the guide unless I missed it but you did refer to going ultras into broods as super strong.
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Do you have any rough guidelines for if/when/how to transition into broods? It's not really mentioned in the guide unless I missed it but you did refer to going ultras into broods as super strong.
Depends entirely on the map. On a map like Antiga Shipyard Broodlords are super strong, since you can more or less wall with spinecrawlers at the chokes, while your Broods shut down any movement in the middle. However, there's plenty of maps where going Broodlords instead of Ultralisks should never happen. It also depends heavily on your opponents build, but I find Broodlords shouldn't be used heavily in this matchup. They're just not worth the immobility versus such a fast opponent. Condemned ridge is a prime example of a map where Broodlords are terrible. Broodlords are too slow to attack a base in any of the corners. The second you move to attack, the enemy Zerg is going to run right into your main bases with Ling/Ultra. Then its just a matter of mopping up the broodlords with a round of corrupters afterwards for an easy gg.
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Do you have any rough guidelines for if/when/how to transition into broods? It's not really mentioned in the guide unless I missed it but you did refer to going ultras into broods as super strong.
When you've secured a lead. It depends a lot on what the opponent does, but in my games generally I get broodlords when I've completely denied the fourth of my opponent a long time with ultras, and EVENTUALLY the opponent gets his fourth (instead of straight up dying to mass ultra/ling/infestor) with mass spines and infestors, with an infestor count too high to deal with using straight ultra, and sometimes if the opponent gets his own ultras, and I'm sort of leading the ultra battles, but then he masses spine/ultra/infestor behind mass spines on 4 bases, you will need a couple broodlords to siege the mass spines, and give you a little edge when both of you are around equal ultra counts and you are on 5+ bases.
Basically, when the opponent has finally secured 4 bases, you have a lead, map control, and he's starting to get a lot of infestors or ultras and ultras alone on your side just won't break through. It should be obvious - you are dominating, he is struggling to get his fourth up, you already have a pretty much pure ultra/infestor army.
It's not like you are going broodlords instead of ultras. It's just he has mass spines, won't leave the game, secured his fourth, and it's just common sense that you will need a couple broods to break through.
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Thank you for the strat..I read over it and I am going to have to give it a try.
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Ok thanks guys, seems I had misunderstood the broods a bit!
In my late game army, is the goal to have like 10 infestors and then just make as many ultras as I can afford or should I always keep a decent ling count in my main army for the DPS? (before broods) Ultras tend to get stuck on each other but on the other hand you can't fungal them and they are super tough. Guess it varies based on his composition but not sure how as it rarely gets late enough for me to experiment with it. If I even get a ZvZ in the first place, just getting terrans atm.
Here are my n00b guesses, feel free to correct me where I'm wrong. Trying to understand this..
vs roach/infestor -> 10 infestors, mass ultras vs roach/hydra/infestor -> 10 infestors, mass ultras, some banelings against the hydras vs ling/ultra/infestor -> 10 infestors, mass ultras, some banelings against the lings vs lots of mutas -> add more infestors, possibly a few hydras for cleaning up? not sure if anyone makes mutas in the late game though vs mass infestor with whatever -> add some broods and make sure to spread vs anything with broods -> same as usual but add corruptors
..and if I'm low on gas I top off with lings. How's that?
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On July 07 2012 21:06 chlindell wrote: Ok thanks guys, seems I had misunderstood the broods a bit!
In my late game army, is the goal to have like 10 infestors and then just make as many ultras as I can afford or should I always keep a decent ling count in my main army for the DPS? (before broods) Ultras tend to get stuck on each other but on the other hand you can't fungal them and they are super tough. Guess it varies based on his composition but not sure how as it rarely gets late enough for me to experiment with it. If I even get a ZvZ in the first place, just getting terrans atm.
Here are my n00b guesses, feel free to correct me where I'm wrong. Trying to understand this..
vs roach/infestor -> 10 infestors, mass ultras vs roach/hydra/infestor -> 10 infestors, mass ultras, some banelings against the hydras vs ling/ultra/infestor -> 10 infestors, mass ultras, some banelings against the lings vs lots of mutas -> add more infestors, possibly a few hydras for cleaning up? not sure if anyone makes mutas in the late game though vs mass infestor with whatever -> add some broods and make sure to spread vs anything with broods -> same as usual but add corruptors
..and if I'm low on gas I top off with lings. How's that?
I'm his student(such a good coach) and I recall when he was going over it with me during a live game, ultimately I wanted to get like all ultras with a good infestor count(8-10) whenever I could have afforded it, but blade was telling me to still make lings as a supplement since with adrenal glands they do their share in fights or sniping bases. I always noticed quite a few still live after a major fight. This all works for me since that day, but he can always come in and confirm it a loooooot better than I can with credibility.
TL;DR(From at least what I gathered my lesson and it works for me) make ultras when you can and abuse the quick 5/3 to be aggressive, sprinkle in cracklings and take bases.
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He wasn't doing it at all...
He died because he went infestors, not because of doing 'this build', and he was actually going roach/infestor.
If he had went ling/infestor, his infestors would have popped out in time, and he could have massed spines and potentially held what was just a very minor pressure.
You rarely ever see pros go infestors before hydras in ZvZ (except against muta/infestor 2 base play), but Leenock was probably trying to capitalize on the large map size and be greedier.
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Thank God for Blade. This is a ton of fun and I want to try it out asap!
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First off, I love this build. Second, I defend roach/speed banes all ins by investing some stockpiled gas into burrow.
Burrowed banelings are honestly stupidly good. They arent used much in ZvZ, but a group of 7ish banes and clumps of 2 or 3 make dealing with all ins surprisingly easy. Only do this if you scout the All in though, because it does put you behind in gas for the ultras and upgrades.
Just my perspective. And again, thanks for the build and timings.
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Thanks a lot for this guide, this build made zvz way more fun!
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I don't think this can work ... why upgrades first , if the other player goes for muta your dead. Drone scouting at 9 is bullshup , go hatchfirst everygame. Even with lot of runby/harassment you CANNOT get soo far to beat a roach/infestor army. I wonder if this is an ultra rush(ish) build , on passive games could work but otherwise not really. Learning roach infestor is not hard. Do it guys ! :D
User was warned for this post
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On July 11 2012 16:03 SmuZ wrote: I don't think this can work ... why upgrades first , if the other player goes for muta your dead. Drone scouting at 9 is bullshup , go hatchfirst everygame. Even with lot of runby/harassment you CANNOT get soo far to beat a roach/infestor army. I wonder if this is an ultra rush(ish) build , on passive games could work but otherwise not really. Learning roach infestor is not hard. Do it guys ! :D
Please be a bit more cautious with your assumptions. This strat is played at the highest level, with success (Stephano); so I guess you should be the one learning how to play it, not the other way round.
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On July 11 2012 16:03 SmuZ wrote: I don't think this can work ... why upgrades first , if the other player goes for muta your dead. Drone scouting at 9 is bullshup , go hatchfirst everygame. Even with lot of runby/harassment you CANNOT get soo far to beat a roach/infestor army. I wonder if this is an ultra rush(ish) build , on passive games could work but otherwise not really. Learning roach infestor is not hard. Do it guys ! :D
Um what? How would mutas kill me if I get upgrades first? You do realize that I got this build from the best foreign zerg stephano right? I watched him play high GM players on EU and win vs mutalisk, roach/infestor, etc. Like he's beaten koreans pros with this strategy, he took a game off of symbol (think it was symbol) and beat violet 2-0 or something.
It's not hard to know how to do both styles ^_^. In short you should probably know what you are talking about before saying "just learn roach/infestor this style doesn't work!"
Also again guys I do read all comments here and I do appreciate the nice feedback and everything <3.
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that guy should be banned for such a stupid post. he didn't even watch the reps, watch the reps before you post your criticism.
I've been having trouble with this build when the game is like, he opens early pool, I'm way ahead. One game I lost he went tons and tons of mutas, like a ridiculous amount, but I think I messed up by not taking his 4 gas at like 30 supply seriously or making my gas quick enough to get enough infestors, and another I think I lost because i had my third established, so did he, and he attacked and I went for a counterattack when I could have kept the lings at home, cleaned his army up, then killed his third.
I think against roach play, you really need to mass a ton of spines in your natural, and when third is taken, lay them at third (like make 20 spines at nat). I've been having some loses because I would move out the spines pre-maturely, resulting in a loss when a counterattack, sac my third, and kill his third would have kept me ahead, or not making enough spines at the third. Counterattack if you are setting up your third, defend if your third is up.
I still dont really see a solid way to beat this. 1 guy did something where he massed spines with a roach play, and rushed hive quicker than me, so I think it's important to get super super fast hive, I think that was just a mistake on my part not getting hive quick enough...
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On July 11 2012 16:38 Belial88 wrote: that guy should be banned for such a stupid post. he didn't even watch the reps, watch the reps before you post your criticism.
I've been having trouble with this build when the game is like, he opens early pool, I'm way ahead. One game I lost he went tons and tons of mutas, like a ridiculous amount, but I think I messed up by not taking his 4 gas at like 30 supply seriously or making my gas quick enough to get enough infestors, and another I think I lost because i had my third established, so did he, and he attacked and I went for a counterattack when I could have kept the lings at home, cleaned his army up, then killed his third.
I think against roach play, you really need to mass a ton of spines in your natural, and when third is taken, lay them at third (like make 20 spines at nat). I've been having some loses because I would move out the spines pre-maturely, resulting in a loss when a counterattack, sac my third, and kill his third would have kept me ahead, or not making enough spines at the third. Counterattack if you are setting up your third, defend if your third is up.
I still dont really see a solid way to beat this. 1 guy did something where he massed spines with a roach play, and rushed hive quicker than me, so I think it's important to get super super fast hive, I think that was just a mistake on my part not getting hive quick enough... When I do this I always get hive around 11 minutes in a passive game. I guess you can delay it a little bit if you really need a lot of infestors ASAP, but otherwise you can do this most of the time.
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Yesterday while practising with another zerg he did this build on Condemned Ridge. It's a very powerful build but you have to hold out till the ultras have popped.
I advice this build only on large maps such as Condemned cross position, with mass lings (they don't cost gas) you can pressure and keep mapcontrol while you tech up to the ultras.
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^ Why would you say that? It's great on any map, you just herp derp mass spines. You lost a game? it's because you didnt make enough spines or got hive too late.
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On July 11 2012 19:46 Belial88 wrote: ^ Why would you say that? It's great on any map, you just herp derp mass spines. You lost a game? it's because you didnt make enough spines or got hive too late.
Most of the games I lose with this style are because my expansion timing is off compared to any other build. I think it's a bit too general to say: "This build is so good there's only 2 reasons you could have possibly lost"
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It's my opinion right now, after playing standard third before lair in zvz for like a year now, and suddenly losing every time in zvz against ling/infestor. So i stopped playing good macro oriented, and started doing this, because it's stupidly strong. Unlike 2 base lair in every other scenario, you dont have to do damage, because fast ultras are just ridiculous.
You don't need to rush your third with this style. this is what I've found to work:
If your opponent takes, a third, take your own third. If your opponent makes roaches, don't expect to hold it - mass spines in your natural, like 10+, because you are going to re-root them to your third when it's done (this is a lot easier if you spread creep well or spread your overlords so you can instantly creep everything when lair is done). If your opponent attacks, your mass lings go counter-attack and kill his third, since someone making roaches will need his third much more than you will.
Once your third is up, you probably shouldn't ling counterattack much unless you really see a good opportunity to, because you really need your lings to defend your established third. If the opponent doesnt go for hive or a fourth, you should probably add a lot more spines. You should probably start hive right around when your third finishes or you know it's going to finish.
Most games I lose with this style is just not making enough spines, or moving out my spines too early. It's a 2 base style for a reason, and you really need lots of spines. It's not so bad if the opponent goes third before lair, but if the opponent goes 2 base roach, you really need to make a shitton of spines because he'll have a ton of roaches. Which, although is a really bad build you should never see at higher level play, you will probably encounter a lot when the games get really weird because you snipe his third over and over, he snipes your third over and over.
I also used to think 'just mass lings after 50 supply ezpz go sac and focus hatches' but as players seem to be more defensive, I think that it's not a good idea, because you really need those lings at home, or they could have been more spines = faster third, hive.
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In my experience the roach/infestor player still has some option. Hydra are very good against ultra, and if he reacts and scout what you're doing he should get his 4 th before you.
Now i can't be sure of what i'm saying here cause i'm not a pro, so my practice and timings are off, but i think that if he didn't make too much roaches and swith to hydra he should handle the push ( with IT to mess with the big ultra AI ). Then go to +3+3 and they usually go Brood lord.
I guess the ultra/ling player has try to attack the hydras with baneling without loosing them on roaches. Also more importantly abuse of his mobility, maybe nydus ( attack the expend, and get away with nydus when his army arrive, then go to the 4 th etc... ). And get some corruptor to catch the brood isolated.
It's hard, but damn it's nice to have an other option in ZvZ !
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On July 11 2012 21:35 Super_bricklayer wrote: In my experience the roach/infestor player still has some option. Hydra are very good against ultra, and if he reacts and scout what you're doing he should get his 4 th before you.
Now i can't be sure of what i'm saying here cause i'm not a pro, so my practice and timings are off, but i think that if he didn't make too much roaches and swith to hydra he should handle the push ( with IT to mess with the big ultra AI ). Then go to +3+3 and they usually go Brood lord.
I guess the ultra/ling player has try to attack the hydras with baneling without loosing them on roaches. Also more importantly abuse of his mobility, maybe nydus ( attack the expend, and get away with nydus when his army arrive, then go to the 4 th etc... ). And get some corruptor to catch the brood isolated.
It's hard, but damn it's nice to have an other option in ZvZ !
I don't think broodlords are the way to go in zvz at any point. I feel burrowed infestors spamming IT below them will kill them if needed, but more often than not the more mobile ultra/ling army will just fight where the broodlords aren't.
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In my experience the roach/infestor player still has some option. Hydra are very good against ultra, and if he reacts and scout what you're doing he should get his 4 th before you.
Now i can't be sure of what i'm saying here cause i'm not a pro, so my practice and timings are off, but i think that if he didn't make too much roaches and swith to hydra he should handle the push ( with IT to mess with the big ultra AI ). Then go to +3+3 and they usually go Brood lord.
I guess the ultra/ling player has try to attack the hydras with baneling without loosing them on roaches. Also more importantly abuse of his mobility, maybe nydus ( attack the expend, and get away with nydus when his army arrive, then go to the 4 th etc... ). And get some corruptor to catch the brood isolated.
It's hard, but damn it's nice to have an other option in ZvZ !
If you go hydras and it's so late in the game that I'm on 3 base with ultras, I'll get speed for my banelings and just roll you. Hydras are okay for mid-game aggression against ling/infestor when they are trying to take their third (i mean it's kind of all-in but whatever) but against a zerg with ultras, it's terrible...
Against ultras you just have to constantly split and stutter step. Something you can't exactly do with hydras, and when you put speedbanes in the equation along with FG, there's just no way you are running away. There's been times where someone had hydras and yea, raped my ultras, but I learned after that and now every time I faced someone trying to go roach/hydra vs my ultras, my speedbanes own them.
Ultras just destroy any roach based army. I've lost about 3 games in lategame with this style, and none of them involved a roach based army (and i think they were just more mistakes on my part anyways).
I always patrol lings in my base to make sure no one can nydus, and I spread overlords to spot for drops. If the opponent does some drops, I'll re-root a few spines to cover mineral lines against any sort of drop harass.
I don't think broodlords are the way to go in zvz at any point. I feel burrowed infestors spamming IT below them will kill them if needed, but more often than not the more mobile ultra/ling army will just fight where the broodlords aren't.
Pure broodlord/corruptor with 1-2 infestors at most, is the best army in zvz lategame, but is extremely expensive and the game almost never gets to that point. But yea, ultras are becoming better than broodlords now in zvz. I dont think infestors are very good against broodlords though... you aren't going to get in range to IT spam against 10 broodlords that are killing every infestor and flooding broodlings, especially if he has his own infestor support. Infestors are terrible against broodlords and ultras, unless you get a ridiculous 15+ mass of them.
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On July 11 2012 23:40 Belial88 wrote: Infestors are terrible against broodlords and ultras, unless you get a ridiculous 15+ mass of them.
Generally I end up with this many infestors after my 3-3 is done since I still like to build plenty of lings, not pure ultra. Maybe that's the wrong way to go about it though? not sure. I like my infestors =]
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On July 11 2012 23:40 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +In my experience the roach/infestor player still has some option. Hydra are very good against ultra, and if he reacts and scout what you're doing he should get his 4 th before you.
Now i can't be sure of what i'm saying here cause i'm not a pro, so my practice and timings are off, but i think that if he didn't make too much roaches and swith to hydra he should handle the push ( with IT to mess with the big ultra AI ). Then go to +3+3 and they usually go Brood lord.
I guess the ultra/ling player has try to attack the hydras with baneling without loosing them on roaches. Also more importantly abuse of his mobility, maybe nydus ( attack the expend, and get away with nydus when his army arrive, then go to the 4 th etc... ). And get some corruptor to catch the brood isolated.
It's hard, but damn it's nice to have an other option in ZvZ ! Pure broodlord/corruptor with 1-2 infestors at most, is the best army in zvz lategame, but is extremely expensive and the game almost never gets to that point. But yea, ultras are becoming better than broodlords now in zvz. I dont think infestors are very good against broodlords though... you aren't going to get in range to IT spam against 10 broodlords that are killing every infestor and flooding broodlings, especially if he has his own infestor support. Infestors are terrible against broodlords and ultras, unless you get a ridiculous 15+ mass of them.
Actually i disagree. I think Broodlord infestor with few corruptors beats BL/corruptor with few infestors, because fungal + ITs are very effective against corruptors and they are renewable with energy, which is important in long drawn out late game fights.
Generally im not a very big fan of broodlords anymore tho, because the transition is very hard to make, and you need huge amounts of spines at every base to defend against drops when your army becomes less and less mobile.
Question about the guide: how do you defend against simply mass roach from 3 bases? this is basically what i always lose to when i play the kind of style described here. And thats also how i often win against it. It seems like the critical point is whether the roachplayer takes damage from lings rather early on or whether he can stabilize and prepare for a big push (hitting before there are many infestors out).
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On July 12 2012 01:21 DarKFoRcE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2012 23:40 Belial88 wrote:In my experience the roach/infestor player still has some option. Hydra are very good against ultra, and if he reacts and scout what you're doing he should get his 4 th before you.
Now i can't be sure of what i'm saying here cause i'm not a pro, so my practice and timings are off, but i think that if he didn't make too much roaches and swith to hydra he should handle the push ( with IT to mess with the big ultra AI ). Then go to +3+3 and they usually go Brood lord.
I guess the ultra/ling player has try to attack the hydras with baneling without loosing them on roaches. Also more importantly abuse of his mobility, maybe nydus ( attack the expend, and get away with nydus when his army arrive, then go to the 4 th etc... ). And get some corruptor to catch the brood isolated.
It's hard, but damn it's nice to have an other option in ZvZ ! Pure broodlord/corruptor with 1-2 infestors at most, is the best army in zvz lategame, but is extremely expensive and the game almost never gets to that point. But yea, ultras are becoming better than broodlords now in zvz. I dont think infestors are very good against broodlords though... you aren't going to get in range to IT spam against 10 broodlords that are killing every infestor and flooding broodlings, especially if he has his own infestor support. Infestors are terrible against broodlords and ultras, unless you get a ridiculous 15+ mass of them. Actually i disagree. I think Broodlord infestor with few corruptors beats BL/corruptor with few infestors, because fungal + ITs are very effective against corruptors and they are renewable with energy, which is important in long drawn out late game fights. Generally im not a very big fan of broodlords anymore tho, because the transition is very hard to make, and you need huge amounts of spines at every base to defend against drops when your army becomes less and less mobile. Question about the guide: how do you defend against simply mass roach from 3 bases? this is basically what i always lose to when i play the kind of style described here. And thats also how i often win against it. It seems like the critical point is whether the roachplayer takes damage from lings rather early on or whether he can stabilize and prepare for a big push (hitting before there are many infestors out).
Yeah I heaviliy dislike broodlords in zvz. I used to like them but even before I started doing this build broodlords stopped working for me eventually and it was a super big pain in the ass when the player would just run around them and counter attack, base trade style so I stopped with that.
Defending against mass roach 3 base style requires at minimum 5 spine crawlers at natural/third which you should be able to afford quiet easily unless you just make them all at once. What I do is have at least 5 spines at each (preferably at the top of the ramp if it's a map like entombed for aexample).
To get the spines up earlier so if they decide to do an early attack once I hit lair I will put a couple overlords at the edge of the ramp to spew creep and get some spines there. I also split my infestors so that no matter which side he tries to go on I will be able to fungel him and i'll try to do a surround with lings if possible or at least wait until he's in more open ground before attacking full on with lings while I use infestors.
I don't know if I have any replays in the OP atm but I know I played a game on the kr server vs a zerg that did a 3 base roach push but I can't remember if he did it good or if he was just bad i'll make sure to look at some replays and upload them as I can't remember if any are in the OP or not.
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Had a 36 kill ultralisk against a roach/hydra player earlier... quite a fun style when it gets to hive, especially as you'll usually have hive faster than your opponent unless they did the same style. I'm definitely getting the hang of the number of spines and infestors needed to hold heavy roach/hydra attacks. I still feel it's only really viable on maps with chokes at the 3rd and natural, as the infestors are way more important than the lings, so open areas only help so much.
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Very awsome guide, this is very viable, even if they go broods it still dominates (Spit a bunch of infested terrans and fungal the broods) This is now my new ZvZ Keep up the good work!
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On July 12 2012 01:21 DarKFoRcE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2012 23:40 Belial88 wrote:In my experience the roach/infestor player still has some option. Hydra are very good against ultra, and if he reacts and scout what you're doing he should get his 4 th before you.
Now i can't be sure of what i'm saying here cause i'm not a pro, so my practice and timings are off, but i think that if he didn't make too much roaches and swith to hydra he should handle the push ( with IT to mess with the big ultra AI ). Then go to +3+3 and they usually go Brood lord.
I guess the ultra/ling player has try to attack the hydras with baneling without loosing them on roaches. Also more importantly abuse of his mobility, maybe nydus ( attack the expend, and get away with nydus when his army arrive, then go to the 4 th etc... ). And get some corruptor to catch the brood isolated.
It's hard, but damn it's nice to have an other option in ZvZ ! Pure broodlord/corruptor with 1-2 infestors at most, is the best army in zvz lategame, but is extremely expensive and the game almost never gets to that point. But yea, ultras are becoming better than broodlords now in zvz. I dont think infestors are very good against broodlords though... you aren't going to get in range to IT spam against 10 broodlords that are killing every infestor and flooding broodlings, especially if he has his own infestor support. Infestors are terrible against broodlords and ultras, unless you get a ridiculous 15+ mass of them. Actually i disagree. I think Broodlord infestor with few corruptors beats BL/corruptor with few infestors, because fungal + ITs are very effective against corruptors and they are renewable with energy, which is important in long drawn out late game fights. Generally im not a very big fan of broodlords anymore tho, because the transition is very hard to make, and you need huge amounts of spines at every base to defend against drops when your army becomes less and less mobile. Question about the guide: how do you defend against simply mass roach from 3 bases? this is basically what i always lose to when i play the kind of style described here. And thats also how i often win against it. It seems like the critical point is whether the roachplayer takes damage from lings rather early on or whether he can stabilize and prepare for a big push (hitting before there are many infestors out).
Really?
Broodlord/infestor will beat any attempt to get pure broodlord/corruptor for a long time. You can't really go straight into BL/Corruptor, at all, and most games will end 'early' with both players 'only' on pure bl/infestor. I've had less than 10 games total go like this, but there have been very, very cases where I've had games where it was pure broodlord/corruptor vs bl/infestor.
I think it only happens on shakuras plateau, although I do recall it happening once on Metalopolis when we both took the golds. So it requires at least 6 bases to do this.
But I'm talking about 200/200, with 80 or whatever drones, and your army has zero roaches or lings or anything like that in it, the person with pure broodlord/corruptor with maybe 1-2 infestors, will beat someone with pure broodlord with like 10 infestors. With both sides having at least like 13 broodlords.
Yes, infestors are okay against corruptors, but when you get in a situation where both players have 3/3 air and like 14+ broodlords, infestors just can't really get in range, you have enough broodlords that you can just back off if the other players spams IT, and you have so many corruptors that just kill broodlords so quick.
I'm not at all recommending here don't make infestors, before you can get to this stage of the game, you both need to have a broodlord/infestor army, as you can't just not get infestors and go straight into broodlord/corruptor, or you'll get owned (mass roach owns broodlord/corruptor before you have about 50+ spines everywhere too, another reason you can't just do that).
So I'm not saying it's as simple as "bl/corruptor > bl/infestor'. What I'm saying is that, when the game gets to 6+ bases, both of you have 3/3 on air (how many games have you had 3/3 air in a zvz? exactly), there are over 50 spines on each side that prevent mass roach from just trolling past, and both of you had 15+ broodlords, pure bl/corruptor is better than bl/infestor. It's a very, very rare situation though, and I only say this after I lost a couple games going bl/infestor against pure bl/corruptor in extreme lategame.
I mean that's how I've always experienced the game. You can't really afford to go bl/corruptor with 3/3 much earlier than 5-6 bases, and bl/infestor will definitely own you if you dont have enough infestors. Maybe test it out in unit tester? It's a very rare thing though, before it gets to this stage, bl/infestor owns for sure. It's just, once the game gets to that point, you can't just have a back and forth of bl/infestor vs bl/infestor, the player who replaces his infestors with more broodlord/corruptor, will get ahead, as once you have 15+ 3/3 broodlords, infestors just aren't really that good anymore as you can't get in range to FG the broodlords or spam IT under them. Hence why you'll start to need like 10+ corruptors.
Sounds like not enough spines though (in regards to losing to roach).
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If you go for this very defensive style, why would you upgrade Metabolic Boost before getting defensive Banes?
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^ That's a very early game thing... but if I see my opponent get banes before speed (ie has banes super early, clearly gotten before speed, or didn't open gas), then I just go greedy as fuck because I know there will be zero ability from him to pressure without ling speed.
And it's not like, say, opening 14/14 to 'trick out' Terran, ling/bane is a very real threat in ZvZ because of larva inject.
I don't think skipping speed/bane is an option in early game ZvZ. I've heard of 4 queen 2+ spine defense in ZvZ, but I don't think that cost effective and every time I've faced it I just go greedy as fuck in the early game, and then at like 40+ I just mass ling/bane, bust their evo chamber defense, focus their hatch, win.
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I've been having an issue with hatch-first into ling/festor/ultra style lately against the lower leagues. That problem being that they plain old don't move out when they're supposed to with roach/bane or roach/hydra or roach/ling.
In your replays your opponents use proper timings and their roach/whatever army to pressure or try to kill you at the third or natural. My question is what should I do if they DON'T use a proper timing with the roach/whatever army and rather use it to take a third and possibly go for a really late (probably bad) muta switch timing (they do get out more mutas this way) or they just go for a timing very similar to the second roach army move-out I saw in your replays but with the army of the first timing added onto the timing of the second push.
Is a ton more spines the answer? I've tried 5-6 spines even and its just not enough once they have over 80 supply of army even with fungals. Should I just use the extra time they give me to drone up faster and push along the tech while making 10-12 spines at each vulnerability in my bases?
I realize what they're doing is probably considered "bad", but at lower leagues that is ALL you face. Pushes that look scarier and have more durability because of basically doing less and waiting for what pros would consider "bad" timings. Its tough to discern proper responses to these weird attacks.
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On July 15 2012 20:55 sCCrooked wrote: I've been having an issue with hatch-first into ling/festor/ultra style lately against the lower leagues. That problem being that they plain old don't move out when they're supposed to with roach/bane or roach/hydra or roach/ling.
In your replays your opponents use proper timings and their roach/whatever army to pressure or try to kill you at the third or natural. My question is what should I do if they DON'T use a proper timing with the roach/whatever army and rather use it to take a third and possibly go for a really late (probably bad) muta switch timing (they do get out more mutas this way) or they just go for a timing very similar to the second roach army move-out I saw in your replays but with the army of the first timing added onto the timing of the second push.
Is a ton more spines the answer? I've tried 5-6 spines even and its just not enough once they have over 80 supply of army even with fungals. Should I just use the extra time they give me to drone up faster and push along the tech while making 10-12 spines at each vulnerability in my bases?
I realize what they're doing is probably considered "bad", but at lower leagues that is ALL you face. Pushes that look scarier and have more durability because of basically doing less and waiting for what pros would consider "bad" timings. Its tough to discern proper responses to these weird attacks.
If they aren't pushing out at all that's fine. I have played some zergs who don't push out either (not very common though). Just do your usual thing, add in spines when needed, drones and get hive at normal time. Get ultra cavern/upgrades and don't stress if he's not attacking just a free win for you then when you get ultralisks. If he does a late muta tech switch you already have infestors (should have about 8 at least by the time hive finishes) and you will easily hold it off.
You should be able to get a lot of excess minerals which you can use to add more then 5-6 spines. You should have lots of lings though as well as spine support + infestors and you should have a pack of lings to do a counter attack as well.
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On July 16 2012 02:57 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 15 2012 20:55 sCCrooked wrote: I've been having an issue with hatch-first into ling/festor/ultra style lately against the lower leagues. That problem being that they plain old don't move out when they're supposed to with roach/bane or roach/hydra or roach/ling.
In your replays your opponents use proper timings and their roach/whatever army to pressure or try to kill you at the third or natural. My question is what should I do if they DON'T use a proper timing with the roach/whatever army and rather use it to take a third and possibly go for a really late (probably bad) muta switch timing (they do get out more mutas this way) or they just go for a timing very similar to the second roach army move-out I saw in your replays but with the army of the first timing added onto the timing of the second push.
Is a ton more spines the answer? I've tried 5-6 spines even and its just not enough once they have over 80 supply of army even with fungals. Should I just use the extra time they give me to drone up faster and push along the tech while making 10-12 spines at each vulnerability in my bases?
I realize what they're doing is probably considered "bad", but at lower leagues that is ALL you face. Pushes that look scarier and have more durability because of basically doing less and waiting for what pros would consider "bad" timings. Its tough to discern proper responses to these weird attacks. If they aren't pushing out at all that's fine. I have played some zergs who don't push out either (not very common though). Just do your usual thing, add in spines when needed, drones and get hive at normal time. Get ultra cavern/upgrades and don't stress if he's not attacking just a free win for you then when you get ultralisks. If he does a late muta tech switch you already have infestors (should have about 8 at least by the time hive finishes) and you will easily hold it off. You should be able to get a lot of excess minerals which you can use to add more then 5-6 spines. You should have lots of lings though as well as spine support + infestors and you should have a pack of lings to do a counter attack as well. I think he's talking about the same timings I have trouble with. Roach/Hydra 2-3 base all-ins with typically 2-2 upgrades can hit right before you have hive tech as you are getting adrenal, 3/3, and ultras, killing you as the ultras begin to pop. The best way to deal with this seems to be 10+ spines and a ton of infestors, while also forcing you to delay hive tech a bit. If they wait until your ultras pop it's an easy win, though.
I still only have success with defending this when it's on a map with very narrow chokes at natural and third bases, like Entombed Valley.
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http://drop.sc/222601
Hey here's a game where I did this, and the guy beat me playing standard roach. I think I'm going to stop using this style because I think it's counterable.
So in this game, the guy played standard third before lair, roach based. he used roaches to deny my third for a long time, and had mass spines at third to prevent counterattacking (and make new roaches at home).
Then he took a quick fourth and rushed hive.
The game had some up and downs, I miscalculated how many lings he made at the start and lost my queen because of it, but I think the game was fairly even early game because of him overmaking lings.
He also does some infestor drops. i don't think they were very useful, but killing my ultra cavern made my ultras late, although I don't think it matters because he put mass spines at his fourth too.
I think him going drops and hydras wasn't really good on his part, so I imagine if he rushed hive he would have done even quicker.
I'm also curious if maybe just going straight into ultras instead of broodlords, as a counter to ling/infestor 2 base, would be a good idea, but this is the 2nd time I've lost to someone doing this (the last time I wasn't sure, I think I made enough mistakes that I wasn't sure if it was the answer). But basically, mass spines at third, rush hive, use a handful of roaches to delay third for a long time.
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How would you guys deal with mass roach doom drops? Assuming that I don't fall behind to run-bys or sacced roaches for no reason, I don't see how this can hold off 40+ 2-2 roaches dropped before ultras are out.
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On July 16 2012 08:25 Belial88 wrote:http://drop.sc/222601Hey here's a game where I did this, and the guy beat me playing standard roach. I think I'm going to stop using this style because I think it's counterable. So in this game, the guy played standard third before lair, roach based. he used roaches to deny my third for a long time, and had mass spines at third to prevent counterattacking (and make new roaches at home). Then he took a quick fourth and rushed hive. The game had some up and downs, I miscalculated how many lings he made at the start and lost my queen because of it, but I think the game was fairly even early game because of him overmaking lings. He also does some infestor drops. i don't think they were very useful, but killing my ultra cavern made my ultras late, although I don't think it matters because he put mass spines at his fourth too. I think him going drops and hydras wasn't really good on his part, so I imagine if he rushed hive he would have done even quicker. I'm also curious if maybe just going straight into ultras instead of broodlords, as a counter to ling/infestor 2 base, would be a good idea, but this is the 2nd time I've lost to someone doing this (the last time I wasn't sure, I think I made enough mistakes that I wasn't sure if it was the answer). But basically, mass spines at third, rush hive, use a handful of roaches to delay third for a long time. I don't think the strategy is the problem this game. You got outmacrod pretty hard. Take the third much earlier and if your opponent is playing that defensively, you can afford to drone up and later make spines to defend any roach aggression. You also build too many lings which is why you have no minerals for Ultras. The drops he did were cute, but in those situations you can typically just attack them with your ultra/infestor as they wasted a lot of their infestor energy. Don't attack into 16 spines with roaches and infestor/BL supporting. You can easily take out other bases instead and if it turns into a base race you have mass ling which are very strong there.
It can be hard to approach games like that rationally after you just played them, but you need to be able to look at a game like that and recognize how poorly you played.
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On July 16 2012 08:25 Belial88 wrote:http://drop.sc/222601Hey here's a game where I did this, and the guy beat me playing standard roach. I think I'm going to stop using this style because I think it's counterable. So in this game, the guy played standard third before lair, roach based. he used roaches to deny my third for a long time, and had mass spines at third to prevent counterattacking (and make new roaches at home).
He didn't deny your 3rd with roaches - he hadn't made a single roach until his 3rd base was completely saturated. If you tried taking your 3rd, there would have been ling baneling fights for it, but I think that's what you have to do. If he takes a 3rd base and you don't, you have to at least fight over his with the units you have, to prevent him from saturating it so quickly.
I think you need to take the 3rd much much faster - if it's not possible, than maybe you are right, but I'm pretty sure it is very possible to hold the 3rd, or at the very least, trade 3rds.
If you really are forced to infestor turtle on 2 base, you can't be that late on your 2/2 upgrades or your infestors.
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Just want to thank both of you for looking at it for me, not going to lie just got off work and tired and didn't feel like watching it to pin point mistakes xD.
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How would you guys deal with mass roach doom drops? Assuming that I don't fall behind to run-bys or sacced roaches for no reason, I don't see how this can hold off 40+ 2-2 roaches dropped before ultras are out.
Overlord spread. Drops and nydus are actually quite deadly, since you are relying 90% on spines, so your infestors should never be massed in a ball like you do with typical play, but instead they should be spread out, at least half at main and half at third (I'd even recommend putting your lair and tech in the most 'central', least droppable place, ie on shakuras or daybreak, your natural).
I also put 2 lings on patrol on each side of my main to deal with nydus as well, as soon as my opponent's lair done basically.
You could also just be good, spread overlords, scout well, and be aware, but fuck that.
Once drops start happening, I'd recommend you re-root your mass spines to behind your mineral lines as well. That makes you pretty drop-proof. Usually if the opponent went drops, he won't be doing any sort of mass roach push so you won't need them in the front (and if he does, you'll see him move out and can re-root, or your ultras should pop if he wasted tech time on drops).
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I don't think the strategy is the problem this game. You got outmacrod pretty hard. Take the third much earlier and if your opponent is playing that defensively, you can afford to drone up and later make spines to defend any roach aggression. You also build too many lings which is why you have no minerals for Ultras. The drops he did were cute, but in those situations you can typically just attack them with your ultra/infestor as they wasted a lot of their infestor energy. Don't attack into 16 spines with roaches and infestor/BL supporting. You can easily take out other bases instead and if it turns into a base race you have mass ling which are very strong there.
It can be hard to approach games like that rationally after you just played them, but you need to be able to look at a game like that and recognize how poorly you played.
Do you think I was too far behind from the start or something?
So I should take a quick third the same time the opponent takes a third, and then mass spines in my natural and counterattack? He seemed to have a lot of spines at home, and was defensive, but at the same time was pushing with a small group of roaches. I didn't feel like I had enough lings to take out his third, and he had enough roaches that I couldn't take my third. Or was my infestors too late?
He had put spines at his other bases, and his 4th was at a really forward location so I had trouble getting around to his other bases if I wanted to do that.
He didn't deny your 3rd with roaches - he hadn't made a single roach until his 3rd base was completely saturated. If you tried taking your 3rd, there would have been ling baneling fights for it, but I think that's what you have to do. If he takes a 3rd base and you don't, you have to at least fight over his with the units you have, to prevent him from saturating it so quickly.
I think you need to take the 3rd much much faster - if it's not possible, than maybe you are right, but I'm pretty sure it is very possible to hold the 3rd, or at the very least, trade 3rds.
If you really are forced to infestor turtle on 2 base, you can't be that late on your 2/2 upgrades or your infestors.
so... take the third the same time the opponent does, and then mass spines? What I try to do is mass spines, and then take the third, since I had trouble against people who would go fast third and mass roaches.
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If you see your opponent take a third you should take a third. If he decides to not drone his third and goes for a roach timing go kill his third and he won't be able to bust your natural.
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On July 16 2012 08:45 Crilmon wrote: How would you guys deal with mass roach doom drops? Assuming that I don't fall behind to run-bys or sacced roaches for no reason, I don't see how this can hold off 40+ 2-2 roaches dropped before ultras are out. Here's a replay of how I did it. Basically just see it coming and camp it with all your lings, fungal as they are dropped. With spines or units positioned elsewhere you can also deal with multiprong drops (this game I expected nydus, so I had spines in my main.
http://drop.sc/222619
It's one of the first times I did the build, actually, and I accidentally took the 4th base when I intended to take my third, but it really doesn't give me any advantage or affect the game, as I just used it for a macro hatch when I realized my mistake.
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What do you think of getting a roach warren, and building like 10-20 roaches to help defend your third if required? Like, not intending to get roaches, but if you see him massing roaches, just getting some to support your ling/spine army?
Obviously it cuts into your gas and you don't benefit from upgrades, but I think it could fill the hole before your infestors pop against e.g. speedbane-roach. If you're going to get banes anyway to defend such an attack, you could be getting roaches.
Just a thought..
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You could but that is going to dealy your upgrades/hive a lot and probably isn't worth it because he won't be all in. So you may defend but now he is going to have better upgrades (in terms of his roaches will have range attack as well) your hive will be a lot later as he'll probably attack again with roaches so then when hive finishes you won't be getting 3/3 and ultra cavern.
don't think it's really worth it but it might be, I know I won't be doing that though.
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On July 16 2012 09:38 blade55555 wrote: If you see your opponent take a third you should take a third. If he decides to not drone his third and goes for a roach timing go kill his third and he won't be able to bust your natural.
How would you transition from this and get your own 3rd eventually? he still has a bunch of roaches outside your base threatening your 3rd, and once he has enough roaches back in his base he can just retake his 3rd and keep some of them there to defend it. Are you forced into 2-base ultras in this situation or would you be relying on a lucky fungal once you have infestors or what?
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The zerg player holding his roaches at your third while you have your lings denying his will only give you more of an advantage. Once your infestors pop mass ling with infestors will crush his roaches and then you can retake the third. Honestly it wouldn't be very smart of the other zerg player to keep his whole army of roaches there as then neither player gets a third which favors you.
I think I was in that situation once and just did that and I won pretty easily. As long as he can't secure his own third (and by the time he can secure his you can secure yours) the ling/infestor player is in a great position.
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DRG used this style last night, except he played very strangely and made some weird queen attack vs leenock's mutas on Atlantis Spaceship (longest map...)
http://www.gomtv.net/2012gstls2/vod/67621/?set=9&lang=
He actually takes his 3rd a lot later than I would against 2 base lair players, but I think it's just because his scouting wasn't good early game and you can't see the natural's gas on this map. All that said, he gets to late game and just makes big mistakes, so he actually could have won despite any early mistakes.
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Keep in mind ling infestor isn't a build, its a strategy. There are many different styles you can do with infestor ling.
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On July 21 2012 09:37 oOOoOphidian wrote:DRG used this style last night, except he played very strangely and made some weird queen attack vs leenock's mutas on Atlantis Spaceship (longest map...) http://www.gomtv.net/2012gstls2/vod/67621/?set=9&lang=He actually takes his 3rd a lot later than I would against 2 base lair players, but I think it's just because his scouting wasn't good early game and you can't see the natural's gas on this map. All that said, he gets to late game and just makes big mistakes, so he actually could have won despite any early mistakes.
I know!
He made WAY too many infestors, he made 20 of them! As a result, his hive is just ridiculously late. He also didn't make near enough spines. I don't know wtf was up with that, even when he saw the mass roaches came he didn't add any more spines and he had more than 500 minerals. Then he tried to take his fourth before ultras, which is cool, you just cancel it if he comes at you, but the problem was that the opponent was clearly pushing and he didn't cancel it... just a lot of problems.
It was rather obnoxious the casters clearly had no idea what was going on though. They kept saying the dumbest things, like 'oh hes got banelings there's no way he will be able to damage' when non-upgraded banes don't do shit against upgraded lings, et cetera. God, ling/infestor has been out for a while, why do casters always seem so confused on builds that came out a long time ago. DRG is far from the first pro to use this strat.
But very cool validation of this strategy to see DRG using it on the last set of a GSTL game, despite losing. He just made wayyyyy too many infestors, if he simply stopped at 8-12 and gotten hive quicker, he definitely would have had ultras out in time and easily won the game. He didn't make near enough spines either. I'm guessing he went with infestors instead of spines for defense, relying on units instead of static defense, which is an interesting idea, but I think it shows a lack of understanding (that sounds terrible to say about DRG), because the whole point of the build is to turtle out ultras, so spines is fine because you don't plan to move out, mass infestors aren't going to do any aggression anyways. In the end he just flopped because although his choice to go 20 infestors instead of spines meant he survived the roach aggression, it just meant his ultras were too late to prevent leenock from having his fourth or getting his own hive tech (although broodlords in that game would have been useless, i think leenock was a bit confused himself).
Keep in mind ling infestor isn't a build, its a strategy. There are many different styles you can do with infestor ling.
Sort of... you do a build to get there though, 2 base lair, and unlike going mutas, you make 2 evo chambers and get 1/1 first, and your lair is significantly later than with 2 base muta because of that. You can scout at ~40+ and deduce if someone is going ling/infestor or not. You can't go ling/infestor after doing a fast third before lair strategy, because you need tech (roaches/infestors/mutas) to secure your third and when going fast third, you won't have your tech out in time.
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On July 17 2012 03:41 blade55555 wrote: The zerg player holding his roaches at your third while you have your lings denying his will only give you more of an advantage. Once your infestors pop mass ling with infestors will crush his roaches and then you can retake the third. Honestly it wouldn't be very smart of the other zerg player to keep his whole army of roaches there as then neither player gets a third which favors you.
I think I was in that situation once and just did that and I won pretty easily. As long as he can't secure his own third (and by the time he can secure his you can secure yours) the ling/infestor player is in a great position.
But I'm talking about when he's splitting up his roaches. Suppose he has 2/3 of his roaches behind the mineral line at your 3rd and 1/3 of his roaches walling off his own 3rd with his reinforcement roaches going there too. You wouldn't be able to get a 3rd because you can't get surface area with your lings and he has +1, whereas he can take his own.
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^ I think when taking your third, if the opponent moves out you want to go for a trade, and take his third out in the process (and make sure he can't straight up kill you with spine/infestor at the natural), but once your third is up, you want to focus on keeping it. If the opponent has most of his roaches at your third, you should easily kill them with your ling/infestor/spine army (most losses are just not enough spines... like when drg lost), and then you'll have a commanding lead since he split up his army, and you can then just waltz to his third and kill the rest of his roaches (or just keep playing, whatever, your ultras should be out soon and then you can definitely kill him).
Also, if he has 1/3rd of his roaches at home, you should easily be able to focus fire it down with 2/2 lings, and 2/3rd of his roaches should not be able to bust your wall (even 100% of them shouldn't).
You'd be surprised how strong ling/infestor is straight up vs pure roach. Once your infestors pop, your army should win straight up vs his. Spines, queens, and creep helps, but it's really not necessary. Basically, if the opponent takes a third, he can't afford enough roaches to straight win vs ling/infestor, and then you should start spining up your third (having overlords spewing creep, which you positioned for that reason early in the game), as any 3 base mass roach attack, even 200/200, cannot take 8+ spines, lings, and infestors. Or even just 8 spines and infestors, really. If he's on 2 base, that's fine, you will have a huge tech advantage, and simply make enough infestor ling to eventually secure your third.
Maybe provide a rep? It's pretty simple - if the opponent takes his third, you take yours. You can't do that as much with mutas because it's pivotal you get those mutas asap because you are being aggressive, but taking a momentary hit in infestor production to take your third is fine, since you know he won't be doing a mass roach attack yet. If he does, it will come after your third is up, which you started spining up immediately when you see him going roaches.
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I'm facing this style more and more on ladder and it's really incredible strong and there doesn't seem to be a real counter. o
I wonder how the game goes when both players go for this style which should happen quite often?
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On July 21 2012 21:11 roym899 wrote: I'm facing this style more and more on ladder and it's really incredible strong and there doesn't seem to be a real counter. o
I wonder how the game goes when both players go for this style which should happen quite often?
I've played this mirror before. It's.... volatile.
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I think in mirror it'll come down to nydus and drops if it gets to late game. Infestor drops etc. Hasn't really happened to me recently, though, but I'll post any mirror replays here.
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I think nydus is a big deal in roach vs roach games, but I think when both of you are going fast hive ling/infestor, both sides won't do any harass at all (except maybe some ling runbys), and try to get hive as fast as possible (and maybe some games where one guy tech switches to roaches or just masses ling/infestor for the kill). I've won and lost so many mirror games because of things as small as making the gases at the third before your third popped so you have a 200 gas advantage and thus the ultras come quicker, and a 5 vs 6 ultra fight snowballs really quickly into 1 vs 4 and you lose. Really unforgiving.
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I mostly meant after hive. It seems hard to really engage otherwise.
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Every mirror game I've played, the winner was simply who got ultras first (which usually results in who has more ultras, as you both are on 3 bases, maybe setting up your fourth). Just stupid games where infestors are completely skipped or something.
I'm curious what's more important, 1 more ultra or upgrades. That may be an interesting way to cut corners in mirror. I mean doesn't really seem like it matters anyways, you have ultras when the other person doesn't, doesn't matter if you are 0/0.
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I hate this strategy actually. Everyone I meet is just doing this style. Gives really silly late game scenario's...
Nothing beats ultra's, except more ultra's... That's an obvious game design mistake.
Or am I oblivious to some unit which can actually win fights versus ultra/infestor?
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On July 31 2012 05:28 wcr.4fun wrote: I hate this strategy actually. Everyone I meet is just doing this style. Gives really silly late game scenario's...
Nothing beats ultra's, except more ultra's... That's an obvious game design mistake.
Or am I oblivious to some unit which can actually win fights versus ultra/infestor? I never do this style but when playing against it roach hydra infestors do okey against it. You need good upgrades and really really good position and lob infested terrans infront of the ultras.
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The ultra vs ultra battle gets decided by little things, like infested terran placement, ultralisk concave, and transfuses. it's a weird as hell fight.
There are times where instead of starting another ultralisk that will finish in 55 seconds you want to make a bunch of banelings immediately for taking out infested terrans, zerglings, and doing up front burst damage to get some of his ultralisks out of the fight earlier.
It's weird and generally not very well understood so it feels like it's just massing ultralisks and humping the other guys ultralisks.
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I've been having a lot of trouble recently with zergs who go fast third into mass roaches, they dont' drone up the third at all, especially on maps like condemned or ohana. Should I just make spines at my natural and trade thirds until I can make 20 spines in my natural that I then uproot to cover both bases? or should I worry about getting infestors out more quickly? I've also lost a few times to roach/hydra/infestor pushes, am I just not getting ultras quick enough, or should I be making more spines and infestors? Considering the 50 second build time of ultras, I'm thinking maybe I should be making way more spines?
Just hard to pull this strat off on maps like ohana and condemned ;/
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Wow I have so much success using this strat! I was struggling really bad at ZvZ (Plat league) but now I am doing a lot better. My attack only come at 20mins though. It is often delayed because of lings/banes exchange early on.
I feel that when I get the composition it is unstoppable. My opponents usually get roachs and banes because they see lots of lings on my side. I fungal what I can and I watch his army melt. Only 1 time have I seen another player using the same strat. He had faster ultras so he won.
Wanted to thank you for giving me hope in ZvZ. I was like 10-15% winrate only before
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How do you react against very fast B4 ? Your T3 is not done yet and if you wait until ultra to get B4 your opponent will be so ahead economically that you will never secure a B4.
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On July 31 2012 12:52 Belial88 wrote: I've been having a lot of trouble recently with zergs who go fast third into mass roaches, they dont' drone up the third at all, especially on maps like condemned or ohana. Should I just make spines at my natural and trade thirds until I can make 20 spines in my natural that I then uproot to cover both bases? or should I worry about getting infestors out more quickly? I've also lost a few times to roach/hydra/infestor pushes, am I just not getting ultras quick enough, or should I be making more spines and infestors? Considering the 50 second build time of ultras, I'm thinking maybe I should be making way more spines?
Just hard to pull this strat off on maps like ohana and condemned ;/
Same problem here, probably this strat must be used on long maps (daybreak, metropolis...) and not on maps with a small choke on your natural.
Stephano changed the way he plays this strat. He now go on +1/+1 lings into +1 speed roaches infestors. He uses his 1/1 lings to harass and snipes bases.
Maybe he realized its way too defensive and its easy for the opponent to have a lot of economy if he plays defensively.
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On July 31 2012 12:52 Belial88 wrote: I've been having a lot of trouble recently with zergs who go fast third into mass roaches, they dont' drone up the third at all, especially on maps like condemned or ohana. Should I just make spines at my natural and trade thirds until I can make 20 spines in my natural that I then uproot to cover both bases? or should I worry about getting infestors out more quickly? I've also lost a few times to roach/hydra/infestor pushes, am I just not getting ultras quick enough, or should I be making more spines and infestors? Considering the 50 second build time of ultras, I'm thinking maybe I should be making way more spines?
Just hard to pull this strat off on maps like ohana and condemned ;/
You take a 3rd when he does OR when you get infestors. With infestors, you can get 5 spines at your 3rd (drop creep if necessary) and hold the choke/ramp/whatever. You'll hold cost-efficiently against almost anything. It's hard to imagine needing 20 spines when you have infestors. Maps with a wide 3rd will need a few more spines, true. Even on cloud kingdom I start with 4-5 spines at the ramp, and then later on I'll add a few more spines around the side.
If he takes his 3rd long before this, you take yours, but don't defend it against a committed attack. Trade 3rds if he moves out. Drone your 3rd when he drones his, or when you have infestors. This forces him to stay 2base vs 2 base until you have infestor (which is what you want) or he lets you get your 3rd.
I don't think you can rely on getting ultralisks out in time to stop roach/hydra infestor pushes. Again, what you do is use your spinecrawlers and infestors to defend cost-efficiently, and counterattack with groups of zerglings (not all of them) to put him all in.
can you put down a roach warren, just in case, and crank out a bunch of roaches to help defend just before his push if he does a heavy timing? Maybe, but I don't think it's necessary. If your counter-attacks do damage, it's okay for you to take some damage, and then you have 5/3 ultralisks.
How do you react against very fast B4 ? Your T3 is not done yet and if you wait until ultra to get B4 your opponent will be so ahead economically that you will never secure a B4. Same as B3. Mirror his expansion, and counterattack to trade 4ths if he moves out. If his 4th is defended, maybe you can take out his 3rd instead for the same effect. At least, that is the idea. I don't know if it is always feasible - maybe he can spare leaving enough units behind and still deny your 4th. But you are on a 3 base economy as well, you can afford a lot of spines. Maybe with creep drop you can get a zillion spinecrawlers finished so that you can actually hold the 4th base while counterattacking. This is probably the best response from a roach player. Take a 4th base, keep enough units at home to defend backstabs, delay the opponent's 4th, and then go for ultralisks himself.
Also I have to add that I am finding ultralisk mirrors to be hilarious. You have to get yourself a concave before the fight, and spam infested terrans, and then fungal his lings and his infested terrans. I'm always getting a nydus worm now and keeping queens in it so I can transfuse in every battle, and it's great. The battles are so funny to watch.
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I've played against this 2x and tried it myself. I like it, if the opponent tries to push with a big roach army like I'm sure its in the guide. But the lings can counter opponent base, with a spine wall + infestor fungal and more lings pumping is nice defense at home.
If opponent waits to long you have your Ultra ling infestor comp. I WANT TO play! Damn pc is broke.
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I just played a match with this style against a roach/hydra/baneling timing and managed to hold it off. Every time I play this style I have to see how many kills the ultras get, it's quite hilarious.
Here's a vod for anyone interested: http://www.twitch.tv/ooooophidian/b/327763882?t=42m Thanks again blade.
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On August 08 2012 06:17 oOOoOphidian wrote:I just played a match with this style against a roach/hydra/baneling timing and managed to hold it off. Every time I play this style I have to see how many kills the ultras get, it's quite hilarious. Here's a vod for anyone interested: http://www.twitch.tv/ooooophidian/b/327763882?t=42mThanks again blade.
That's my favorite part to, to see how many kills my ultralisks get. Always fun to see ultras go nomnomnom over roaches and stuff ^_^
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I've been having a hell of a time using this build recently, especially on maps like shakuras and ohana, when the opponent goes third before lair, and then masses roaches (and doesnt drone his third up at all).
I also am really unsure of how to use this build if the opponent just stays on 2 base and never grabs a third. Like say I have a game winning lead in the early game (hold off a 6 pool, he went ling/bane all-in, he's going 2 base lair mass speed roach, whatever)...
Do you need to get the infestors out quickly? I always get 24 drones on each main and nat before I really make many lings or infestors, should I be cutting drones more maybe with this style? What happens if you make 10 spines?
I'm just a little lost on this build, especially on those maps. Like, I'll do the whole trade-thirds thing, but I don't have infestors, and so he walks right past the spines or something, should I be pushing infestors more quickly?
I mean, when he does a late push, or roach max, that's fine, moar spines, moar infestors, whatever. It's these pushes that just kill me when I could have mass spines, or maybe infestors, or maybe lings, but not all 3, and i get screwed.
I'll provide a rep soon. Maybe I should mass the spines in my natural now on... like make 20 spines in my natural on ohana, if he goes for my third, just trade, and then re-root the spines when I have enough infestors or something. Or should I not take a third when the opponent goes fast third? I mean you say take third when he takes it, but the economy doesn't seem to work out right because here I am on 4 gas (maybe 3, if i identify he took a third quick enough and I take it exactly time and I identify I need spines/minerals, but then I have way less infestors...). Maybe I should stick to a 2 base build with this, even against third before lair play, and then just take my third once infestors pop.
just really hard to pull this off on ohana/shakuras/condemned sometimes. I've started to play standard on those maps again recently because of this third before lair into mass roach with no droning of the third play. I never have infestors in time for these attacks, maybe that's the problem.
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You take your 3rd when he takes his 3rd, but you don't actually try to defend your 3rd until you have infestors. Keep your spines at your natural, don't commit any money to spines at the 3rd until you have infestors. The plan is to trade 3rds if he attacks, or surround and kill his army if he divides it too much.
But if you don't try to take your 3rd earlier, he has a macro lead and total control over the game. your 3rd base is aggressive.
If you can't successfully trade 3rds, or can't get infestors in time to hold your 3rd when you need to, then maybe you are overmaking spines to hold your natural? you need a round of speedlings already out on the map before he can push your 3rd, and you can't delay infestors very much. The timings are all pretty sensitive.
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^ Thanks, that makes it clearer.
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Wow your voice is really nice, you're lucky
Anyways, this style seems to be fun for me since i already use alot of Zerglings in ZvZ all game. I think that another advantage you got with this style is like small harassment groups of lings who can take out a queen and some drones if the enemy is out of possition.
btw, thanks for the guide!
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In zvz, I have recently been using mutas midgame and long aggression to make sure my third is well before the opponents, and then transitioning into ultras. I have found that I like the use of aggression more than defense to get to the lategame. I am still able to afford double ups and infestors due to getting a small amount of mutas. I was just curious to hear anyone's thoughts on this...
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On August 10 2012 09:18 sewergoat wrote: In zvz, I have recently been using mutas midgame and long aggression to make sure my third is well before the opponents, and then transitioning into ultras. I have found that I like the use of aggression more than defense to get to the lategame. I am still able to afford double ups and infestors due to getting a small amount of mutas. I was just curious to hear anyone's thoughts on this...
That's fine it just delays ultras by a couple minutes compared to this build. Going muta first isn't a problem as long as you know your transitions and how to defend vs whatever and know when to transition and not die.
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You play the build way different than I do - you get not nearly as many spines as I do (on maps like Ohana I'll make a line of side by side spines...), i think you get a lot more lings instead, and you get hive way quicker. I usually make up to like 8+ infestors if the opponent goes roaches. Ultras just have such a huge timing window to come out I feel like I can't rely on them to come out in time vs roach+tech attacks.
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On August 11 2012 02:55 Belial88 wrote: You play the build way different than I do - you get not nearly as many spines as I do (on maps like Ohana I'll make a line of side by side spines...), i think you get a lot more lings instead, and you get hive way quicker. I usually make up to like 8+ infestors if the opponent goes roaches. Ultras just have such a huge timing window to come out I feel like I can't rely on them to come out in time vs roach+tech attacks.
Just have to use infestors/lings well and counter attacks. I get normally at least 5 per base (in terms of natural/third) and get about 8 or so infestors by the time my hive finishes and that is normally when they will do their timing.
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http://drop.sc/236317
Here is a game of me losing in a somewhat weird game. I felt like I botched my macro primarily and over reacted to mutas. I also threw away the fungals that probably would have kept me alive vs. the impending roach push. I should have put down 5 spinecrawlers to defend my third. Any comments so I can improve my zvz?
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http://drop.sc/236914
Here's a game where we both went fast third, very passive at the start, and then he masses speedroaches after saturating his bases.
I tried to sort of follow what you sort of do, but I just die. I tyhink I should have massed way more spines, maybe I should have delayed my third gas and instead gotten more spines and stuff. I didn't get hive like you do, I couldnt imagine surviving if I had started hive.
I'm just going to stick with my style of maybe not droning up my third and massing spines and infestors and then going hive much later.
I'm guessing this style just isn't viable on maps like shakuras.. (this replay wasn't on shakuras, just an aside)
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My zvz is no longer an auto-loss thanks to this build. Yay! :D
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I wonder if there is any Roach based counter to this build? Just mass roach from 2 / 3 (unsaturated) base? Drops? Nydus? It's so terriible to play against this style. It's like a time bomb and when Ultras are out or even when more then 2 infestors are out you have actually lost the game.
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On August 12 2012 16:19 Belial88 wrote:http://drop.sc/236914Here's a game where we both went fast third, very passive at the start, and then he masses speedroaches after saturating his bases. I tried to sort of follow what you sort of do, but I just die. I tyhink I should have massed way more spines, maybe I should have delayed my third gas and instead gotten more spines and stuff. I didn't get hive like you do, I couldnt imagine surviving if I had started hive. I'm just going to stick with my style of maybe not droning up my third and massing spines and infestors and then going hive much later. I'm guessing this style just isn't viable on maps like shakuras.. (this replay wasn't on shakuras, just an aside)
In that replay you just fell further and further behind in the drone count, I don't think there was a point where you were even at drones and that's the main reason you had almost nothing while he had an actual army in the end.
First, why such an early spine when you scouted he went for the ~14pool ~16hatch build and only at about 3:45 he started gas. Generally you can start your spine(s) 2 minutes after he takes his 1 gas. Second, why would you get such early gas yourself if you don't want to be aggressive yourself ( and you went baneling nest first?! ) and actually you could have just killed him with mass zerglings cause he had only 2 queens and no spines within a long period of time ( and he didn't scout at all and was playing very risky ) - and this weakness you could have scouted with a pair of lings.
Also, injects aren't as good as they should be - one of the reasons you fell behind in larva and thus fell behind in drones, and the second reason you fell behind in larva is you didn't/couldn't spend larva as soon as it pops (you get larva from hatcheries this way) because you invested so much money in early tech you didn't use ( speed, bling nest ).
If the reason you get early speed and bling nest is you're afraid of early ling bling all-ins, then i'll just say that the best defense is a good offense - but you don't need to commit if the other guy is well defended, just try to force some units, otherwise you'll fall behind vs greedy players like in this replay.
So, as you can see, you would have lost even if you went roaches yourself...
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^ I went baneling first because I've been trying it out as a way to deal with pool first builds in general, but I'll go speed first against pool/hatch builds, for the future.
I don't think my spine and bane nest were unnecessarily early - most pros tend to get their spine/bane nest around 30-35 supply. But they end up banking about 100+ gas too, so I think just getting it on 26 is the better choice, since you don't bank gas and a ling/bane all-in can occur before a 30+ bane nest finishes. But I suppose against pool/hatch builds I'll remove 2 off gas or something from now on.
I suppose I could have killed him with ling/bane, but it's not like I was able to scout reliably that he was being that greedy. I think now on against pool/hatch builds though I'll scout with 2 lings right away for that though, i think that's an interesting idea.
I'll work on optimizing my build to be a bit greedier against pool/hatch builds. Maybe make the spine way later or something. I really feel a bane nest early on is important, 30+ puts you vulnerable to ling/bane all-ins and isn't honest enough imo, and you end up banking gas so might as well take it 2 supply earlier.
I'll look over the game, see where my macro failed though. thanks.
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On August 12 2012 16:57 gronnelg wrote: My zvz is no longer an auto-loss thanks to this build. Yay! :D
Exactly the same for me, high Platinum player here. I was winning about 10% of my ZvZs before. Now maybe 40-50% with this strat. I found that I get behind on macro sometime I might be missing some injects and all. But when I do get that composition going, it is almost unstoppable. Armies melt so fast it`s not even funny.
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I asked Stephano why he changed up his style:
I'm still having much success myself and don't quite know what blind counters he means, but I thought this might help you guys.
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this build has one problem - its so damn hard hard to get 3rd vs some aware roach player. I often get 4 spines on the ramp to natural and go huge ling offensive to run and wreck his 3rd/natural. If I see his roaches moving to deny my 3rd. And I rally lings to my spines, that way I can defend/wreck his base and often get a slight edge. (lings vs roaches directly can fail sometimes)
I think before going to lair its better to do this - get 1 gas - get speed and start evolution chambers + 2nd gas. Get macro hatch to be able to produce more lings. When you start lair produce mass lings and start your 3rd. Then add aditional gasses when you start infestor tech. Dont rush too fast to get all gas since you will reduce your mineral income which can help a lot when you want to kill roaches with lings + spines.
This build is much more fun then roach wars, but I can tell that it is much much harder to understand. And opponent can much easier secure /make fast 3rd by defending it with baneling/roach then you with lings/banelings only.
I heard some people do get 1 evolution and +1 roach attack then add additional evolution chamber and start dual upgrades meele/carapace. that way they can get 3rd more safe and get to ling/ultra/infestor eventually.
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On August 15 2012 04:48 oOOoOphidian wrote:I asked Stephano why he changed up his style: I'm still having much success myself and don't quite know what blind counters he means, but I thought this might help you guys.
well like everything else there are little exploits. If you know for a fact your opponent is doing this style you can be greedy and take a faster fourth knowing that he can't kill or abuse it since he is going ultralisks.
I mean that's the only thing I can really think of as a blind counter and being super defensive maybe with many spines?
Not sure but I can agree with him if you are a big time player and only do one build, expect it to get blind countered eventually xD
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On August 15 2012 09:43 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2012 04:48 oOOoOphidian wrote:I asked Stephano why he changed up his style: I'm still having much success myself and don't quite know what blind counters he means, but I thought this might help you guys. well like everything else there are little exploits. If you know for a fact your opponent is doing this style you can be greedy and take a faster fourth knowing that he can't kill or abuse it since he is going ultralisks. I mean that's the only thing I can really think of as a blind counter and being super defensive maybe with many spines? Not sure but I can agree with him if you are a big time player and only do one build, expect it to get blind countered eventually xD
I would say that blind counter is roach + baneling + ling attack when opponent has ~50 drones on 2 bases
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i cant find any pro VODS of anyone doing this.
wtf.
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On August 16 2012 11:50 Belial88 wrote: i cant find any pro VODS of anyone doing this.
wtf.
stephano turned all his vods off, but they'll be back after MLG.
check out symbol vs nestea and drg vs symbol for some examples in GSL
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On August 16 2012 12:58 oOOoOphidian wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2012 11:50 Belial88 wrote: i cant find any pro VODS of anyone doing this.
wtf.
stephano turned all his vods off, but they'll be back after MLG. check out symbol vs nestea and drg vs symbol for some examples in GSL
stephano vs some korean zerg in a tournament to.
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On August 15 2012 19:54 M4nkind wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2012 09:43 blade55555 wrote:On August 15 2012 04:48 oOOoOphidian wrote:I asked Stephano why he changed up his style: I'm still having much success myself and don't quite know what blind counters he means, but I thought this might help you guys. well like everything else there are little exploits. If you know for a fact your opponent is doing this style you can be greedy and take a faster fourth knowing that he can't kill or abuse it since he is going ultralisks. I mean that's the only thing I can really think of as a blind counter and being super defensive maybe with many spines? Not sure but I can agree with him if you are a big time player and only do one build, expect it to get blind countered eventually xD I would say that blind counter is roach + baneling + ling attack when opponent has ~50 drones on 2 bases
Couldn't you blind counter by getting fast BLs?
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^ You'd be stuck on 3 bases, while the ultra player takes the map. If it's a map like cloud or or something where you are spread out, you can't defend all your bases from the super mobile ultras either. Not to mention, the ultra player will just see your broodlords, get a spire, and then make a handful of corruptors and roll you, since ultra/infestor is just sooooooo cost efficient against any ground based army zerg can make, they'll have the 'bigger' army in the sense that they'll crush your air army with their corruptor/infestors, and crush your ground army with the ultra/infestor, and then you die. Only possible way I see broods working is if the supply cap didn't exist.
If you mass spines, the ultra player will then simply transition into broodlords himself, except he's been on 5+ bases while you were only on 3 this whole time, so he'll definitely win that battle. He really doesn't need to make broodlords anytime sono since ultra/infestor/ling doesn't care about spines, so he'll kill your entire army, and then finish you up as you are starved on 3 base.
Broodlords are the endgame goal for zerg, but there's just no feasible way to get there. Roach/hydra/infestor armies just counterattack broodlords like crazy (nydus, etc even), while ultras will have too much map control against someone who goes broodlords before ultras.
I don't really know how you blind counter this build, except maybe on certain maps. i dont think you can do this ling/infestor build on maps like shakuras where the third is so far.
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What about that old hatch tech 2-base roach-baneling all-in? it used to be a common build for trying to kill a muta player before the mutalisks are out. When you were going 2 base muta you had to build like 11 spine crawlers, spread out, and try to take out as many of his banes as possible with your own banes. Muta players could win by just barely holding and then using the map control to get way ahead again. You'd defend in the same way, but I don't know if someone going infestor would get as far ahead after making (and losing) that many spinecrawlers, although I suppose you'd have the opportunity to play aggressively instead of defensively.
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Nestea just used this strategy in game 3 at IEM against Violet. The replay should be up soon. He had a very aggressive style, starting with 10 pool, then denying the 3rd, and constantly counter attacking.
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(insert a complication of Artosis quotes about Nestea and how he rules the universe)
While Nestea did some nice counter attacking and burrowed infestor stuff that game, Violet played it out quite horribly imo.
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check out symbol vs nestea and drg vs symbol for some examples in GSL
that was a long time ago though by now. ill recheck them out though.
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Okay, I need a little help with this style. I died to a roach/infestor timing that hit right when ultras popped. He made a 3-man-thick wall of infested terrans at my natural on cloud, my lings died to his roaches. My ultras were in my natural, infestors in my third, and the IT/roach just melted down my 5 ultralisks losing only a few units, if any. I know it was a razer-thin, really lucky timing; my ultras literally popped 10 seconds after he attacked. Was this bad luck, or are people figuring out this style? Full energy infestors can make walls like it's easy, and my ultras derp around and die.
Has anyone else had troubles with this, or is it just my bad macro and timings?
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I had trouble against this build until I found out the solution:
Completely passive Roach-Hydra-Infestor expending style with lots of spines everywhere.
I would fungal his zerglings and spam infested terrans at his face. His army became so cost inefficient and just crashed harmlessly on my defenses. I just kept a good overlord spread and kept a few infestors to fungal ling runbys.
He eventually tried to counter my ITs with ITs of his own, but I had a big upgrade advantage. He quickly ran out of steam and collapsed soon thereafter.
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On August 18 2012 08:44 Mavvie wrote: Okay, I need a little help with this style. I died to a roach/infestor timing that hit right when ultras popped. He made a 3-man-thick wall of infested terrans at my natural on cloud, my lings died to his roaches. My ultras were in my natural, infestors in my third, and the IT/roach just melted down my 5 ultralisks losing only a few units, if any. I know it was a razer-thin, really lucky timing; my ultras literally popped 10 seconds after he attacked. Was this bad luck, or are people figuring out this style? Full energy infestors can make walls like it's easy, and my ultras derp around and die.
Has anyone else had troubles with this, or is it just my bad macro and timings?
My advice would be more spines more infestors the more roach heavy the opponent is. If he's going for a big roach/hydra/infestor or roach/infestor army, I'd recommend getting more infestors, more spines. You should have more infestors than he has, imo. I think it's key that you watch for his 4th and hive timing - if he doesn't go for a fourth or hive, and is making more roaches, you should prepare with more spines, possibly up to even 10 infestors.
I think blade's approach would be quicker ultras, starting hive right when infestation pit is done, and then meeting this sort of attack with maxed out lings, some ultras, and just a few infestors. I personally feel a bit uncomfortable going hive so quickly if I see the opponent making roaches. Maybe blade would get more infestors himself if he sees the opponent is doing this, i can't exactly speak for him, but he seems to get his hive, ultras, really really quickly.
But FG can really tear down IT really quickly. Sometimes you can just end the game if the opponent does like a big roach/infestor/IT spam attack and you just FG his army over and over at a ramp or choke. I think i just play super defensively. if the opponent has no hive done when your ultras are coming, especially with no fourth, then he's deadmeat, so if he's making a lot of roaches, I never hesitate to make more spines, more infestors, so I can survive, because once those ultras pop, you basically win if he doesn't have hive and 4 bases himself, as long as you don't die to such roach bust.
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On August 18 2012 08:44 Mavvie wrote: Okay, I need a little help with this style. I died to a roach/infestor timing that hit right when ultras popped. He made a 3-man-thick wall of infested terrans at my natural on cloud, my lings died to his roaches. My ultras were in my natural, infestors in my third, and the IT/roach just melted down my 5 ultralisks losing only a few units, if any. I know it was a razer-thin, really lucky timing; my ultras literally popped 10 seconds after he attacked. Was this bad luck, or are people figuring out this style? Full energy infestors can make walls like it's easy, and my ultras derp around and die.
Has anyone else had troubles with this, or is it just my bad macro and timings?
Ultras have some sad AI, you should try to avoid fighting in places with a lot of infested terrans with them. Dont go too deep or you will get locked by infested terrans and all your ultras will die. Ultras + lings have huge mobility over infestors + roaches+ hydras. In gsl games I noticed that mass infestor is hard counter to ultras + lings + infestors. I just think you should do that build and see all sides of it. Now I started getting macro hatch before getting 1/1 and doing some epic harass with upgraded lings off from 3 hatches. The more you do the build the better you will become at it. It trully requires a bit more skill to execute than mass roach build. You have mobility vs tankiness. ZvZ is my best matchup and with this build I get ~70% of wins, still I got some holes to fix but I can tell that this build is great.
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On August 18 2012 08:44 Mavvie wrote: Okay, I need a little help with this style. I died to a roach/infestor timing that hit right when ultras popped. He made a 3-man-thick wall of infested terrans at my natural on cloud, my lings died to his roaches. My ultras were in my natural, infestors in my third, and the IT/roach just melted down my 5 ultralisks losing only a few units, if any. I know it was a razer-thin, really lucky timing; my ultras literally popped 10 seconds after he attacked. Was this bad luck, or are people figuring out this style? Full energy infestors can make walls like it's easy, and my ultras derp around and die.
Has anyone else had troubles with this, or is it just my bad macro and timings?
On cloud, you should have spines at the top of the natural ramp so that he can't come up. Plus a lot of spines at the 3rd ramp so that he has to go around, and a few spines in case he does go around.
Infestors should be somewhere between the 3rd and natural, probably split up, and you can chain fungal him any time he tries to go up either one of those ramps. he should not be able to hit your natural - the only somewhat viable attack route is a huge arc hitting the 3rd from both directions.
Any time he spams infested terrans, fungal them. When it looks like a battle is imminent, I start morphing some banelings to use some of my gas. Gas spent on ultralisks or infestors will pay off in 55 seconds, which doesn't matter if you're dead. banelings are for now. Banelings kill infested terrans, splash everything, and make him use more fungals instead of infested terrans.
Also bring queens. they are so good. Whenever I get around to finally attacking I use a nydus worm to bring the queens forward.
whenever possible, counterattack. Many of your zerglings won't contribute very much in a direct fight, so try to keep a lot of your lings active on the map, and use them to either counterattack just before a battle, or bring them in to flank for the battle itself. Flanking is always good, and counterattacking makes it okay for you take damage and still be in the game.
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Hmm I have started changing the way I get to ultras now. Theory wise I thought going roach/ling and then into ultralisks would only be bad but I actually think it's better.
You don't need 10+ spines and have good fungels. It isn't as intense in terms of if you mess up with the lings/infestor by not fungeling right or he gets a good position it is harder to hold.
I still can do it with ling/infestor like this but I think goign roaches is better and a lot more forgiving. You still do the same double evo at same time and get carapace/melee except you also add a roach warren as well. This way it looks normal and you will be going roach/ling/infestor (only making roaches when you see he's making them) and then getting ultra's as normal.
This way is better as well in the fact that you can take a fourth when he does and it's extremely nice. I think it's much better personally and I decided to give it a go after being told I should.
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On August 18 2012 09:22 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2012 08:44 Mavvie wrote: Okay, I need a little help with this style. I died to a roach/infestor timing that hit right when ultras popped. He made a 3-man-thick wall of infested terrans at my natural on cloud, my lings died to his roaches. My ultras were in my natural, infestors in my third, and the IT/roach just melted down my 5 ultralisks losing only a few units, if any. I know it was a razer-thin, really lucky timing; my ultras literally popped 10 seconds after he attacked. Was this bad luck, or are people figuring out this style? Full energy infestors can make walls like it's easy, and my ultras derp around and die.
Has anyone else had troubles with this, or is it just my bad macro and timings? My advice would be more spines more infestors the more roach heavy the opponent is. If he's going for a big roach/hydra/infestor or roach/infestor army, I'd recommend getting more infestors, more spines. You should have more infestors than he has, imo. I think it's key that you watch for his 4th and hive timing - if he doesn't go for a fourth or hive, and is making more roaches, you should prepare with more spines, possibly up to even 10 infestors. I think blade's approach would be quicker ultras, starting hive right when infestation pit is done, and then meeting this sort of attack with maxed out lings, some ultras, and just a few infestors. I personally feel a bit uncomfortable going hive so quickly if I see the opponent making roaches. Maybe blade would get more infestors himself if he sees the opponent is doing this, i can't exactly speak for him, but he seems to get his hive, ultras, really really quickly. But FG can really tear down IT really quickly. Sometimes you can just end the game if the opponent does like a big roach/infestor/IT spam attack and you just FG his army over and over at a ramp or choke. I think i just play super defensively. if the opponent has no hive done when your ultras are coming, especially with no fourth, then he's deadmeat, so if he's making a lot of roaches, I never hesitate to make more spines, more infestors, so I can survive, because once those ultras pop, you basically win if he doesn't have hive and 4 bases himself, as long as you don't die to such roach bust. I think your approach seems good. I wasn't being attacked, or even having any attacks feinted, so I just skipped spines almost altogether. Figure that once ultras pop it's basically GG, because I can expand freely and my army > his army. I guess that I was just really, really, really unlucky and if I had 4 spines at the choke to my nat I wouldn't have lost. Honestly, I was like "What the shit do I do now..."
I can't just back away. IT last 30(?) seconds, and they'd just roll through my double evo + natural. He killed my evos when 3/3 was 80% done aha. I guess this scenario doesn't happen often, I'll make sure to add spines even if he isn't being aggressive. I couldn't fungal IT because my infestors wouldn't make it near the front lines without getting fungalled or chased by roaches.
On cloud, you should have spines at the top of the natural ramp so that he can't come up. Plus a lot of spines at the 3rd ramp so that he has to go around, and a few spines in case he does go around.
Infestors should be somewhere between the 3rd and natural, probably split up, and you can chain fungal him any time he tries to go up either one of those ramps. he should not be able to hit your natural - the only somewhat viable attack route is a huge arc hitting the 3rd from both directions.
Any time he spams infested terrans, fungal them. When it looks like a battle is imminent, I start morphing some banelings to use some of my gas. Gas spent on ultralisks or infestors will pay off in 55 seconds, which doesn't matter if you're dead. banelings are for now. Banelings kill infested terrans, splash everything, and make him use more fungals instead of infested terrans.
Also bring queens. they are so good. Whenever I get around to finally attacking I use a nydus worm to bring the queens forward.
whenever possible, counterattack. Many of your zerglings won't contribute very much in a direct fight, so try to keep a lot of your lings active on the map, and use them to either counterattack just before a battle, or bring them in to flank for the battle itself. Flanking is always good, and counterattacking makes it okay for you take damage and still be in the game. Awesome advice, thanks! I'll keep in mind to do all this.
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On August 18 2012 10:24 blade55555 wrote: Hmm I have started changing the way I get to ultras now. Theory wise I thought going roach/ling and then into ultralisks would only be bad but I actually think it's better.
You don't need 10+ spines and have good fungels. It isn't as intense in terms of if you mess up with the lings/infestor by not fungeling right or he gets a good position it is harder to hold.
I still can do it with ling/infestor like this but I think goign roaches is better and a lot more forgiving. You still do the same double evo at same time and get carapace/melee except you also add a roach warren as well. This way it looks normal and you will be going roach/ling/infestor (only making roaches when you see he's making them) and then getting ultra's as normal.
This way is better as well in the fact that you can take a fourth when he does and it's extremely nice. I think it's much better personally and I decided to give it a go after being told I should.
So how many roaches do you make? Literally as many as your opponent is?
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On August 18 2012 11:37 Host- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2012 10:24 blade55555 wrote: Hmm I have started changing the way I get to ultras now. Theory wise I thought going roach/ling and then into ultralisks would only be bad but I actually think it's better.
You don't need 10+ spines and have good fungels. It isn't as intense in terms of if you mess up with the lings/infestor by not fungeling right or he gets a good position it is harder to hold.
I still can do it with ling/infestor like this but I think goign roaches is better and a lot more forgiving. You still do the same double evo at same time and get carapace/melee except you also add a roach warren as well. This way it looks normal and you will be going roach/ling/infestor (only making roaches when you see he's making them) and then getting ultra's as normal.
This way is better as well in the fact that you can take a fourth when he does and it's extremely nice. I think it's much better personally and I decided to give it a go after being told I should. So how many roaches do you make? Literally as many as your opponent is?
Pretty much yeah as a defensive mechanism. I am going to add replays and I just did a video of it which will be uploaded tonight!
http://www.mediafire.com/?vf666vq4aw4l5n4
Those are 2 replays show casing it (the one on ohana is better to look at).
Will update thread with video later when uploaded.
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On August 18 2012 10:24 blade55555 wrote: Hmm I have started changing the way I get to ultras now. Theory wise I thought going roach/ling and then into ultralisks would only be bad but I actually think it's better.
You don't need 10+ spines and have good fungels. It isn't as intense in terms of if you mess up with the lings/infestor by not fungeling right or he gets a good position it is harder to hold.
I still can do it with ling/infestor like this but I think goign roaches is better and a lot more forgiving. You still do the same double evo at same time and get carapace/melee except you also add a roach warren as well. This way it looks normal and you will be going roach/ling/infestor (only making roaches when you see he's making them) and then getting ultra's as normal.
This way is better as well in the fact that you can take a fourth when he does and it's extremely nice. I think it's much better personally and I decided to give it a go after being told I should.
That feeling of vindication
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Would you get roach speed? or does it depend on how many roaches you're forced into making?
Kind of like in zvt...
and zvp now that I think of it.
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On August 18 2012 13:47 Oboeman wrote: Would you get roach speed? or does it depend on how many roaches you're forced into making?
Kind of like in zvt...
and zvp now that I think of it.
I always get roach speed in zvz, kind of a must imo xD
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On August 18 2012 13:49 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2012 13:47 Oboeman wrote: Would you get roach speed? or does it depend on how many roaches you're forced into making?
Kind of like in zvt...
and zvp now that I think of it. I always get roach speed in zvt, kind of a must imo xD I think what he means is that because your roaches are defensive, are you still getting roach speed.
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On August 18 2012 13:52 Host- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2012 13:49 blade55555 wrote:On August 18 2012 13:47 Oboeman wrote: Would you get roach speed? or does it depend on how many roaches you're forced into making?
Kind of like in zvt...
and zvp now that I think of it. I always get roach speed in zvt, kind of a must imo xD I think what he means is that because your roaches are defensive, are you still getting roach speed.
I meant zvz also. Yes zvz I always do. Didn't mean to say zvt woops.
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On August 18 2012 13:52 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2012 13:52 Host- wrote:On August 18 2012 13:49 blade55555 wrote:On August 18 2012 13:47 Oboeman wrote: Would you get roach speed? or does it depend on how many roaches you're forced into making?
Kind of like in zvt...
and zvp now that I think of it. I always get roach speed in zvt, kind of a must imo xD I think what he means is that because your roaches are defensive, are you still getting roach speed. I meant zvz also. Yes zvz I always do. Didn't mean to say zvt woops. But isn't it kind of a waste of gas if you're only using them defensively, the 100 gas saved could get you to Hive that little bit faster, and sometimes thats the difference between winning and losing.
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On August 18 2012 13:58 Host- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2012 13:52 blade55555 wrote:On August 18 2012 13:52 Host- wrote:On August 18 2012 13:49 blade55555 wrote:On August 18 2012 13:47 Oboeman wrote: Would you get roach speed? or does it depend on how many roaches you're forced into making?
Kind of like in zvt...
and zvp now that I think of it. I always get roach speed in zvt, kind of a must imo xD I think what he means is that because your roaches are defensive, are you still getting roach speed. I meant zvz also. Yes zvz I always do. Didn't mean to say zvt woops. But isn't it kind of a waste of gas if you're only using them defensively, the 100 gas saved could get you to Hive that little bit faster, and sometimes thats the difference between winning and losing.
Yes but in zvz roach speed is very crucial. If you overstep with roaches and you don't get speed you are losing those roaches. If you want to be aggressive as you see you have a window (lets say you just crushed his army) you don't want slow roaches.
It's worth it trust me :D
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On August 18 2012 13:59 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2012 13:58 Host- wrote:On August 18 2012 13:52 blade55555 wrote:On August 18 2012 13:52 Host- wrote:On August 18 2012 13:49 blade55555 wrote:On August 18 2012 13:47 Oboeman wrote: Would you get roach speed? or does it depend on how many roaches you're forced into making?
Kind of like in zvt...
and zvp now that I think of it. I always get roach speed in zvt, kind of a must imo xD I think what he means is that because your roaches are defensive, are you still getting roach speed. I meant zvz also. Yes zvz I always do. Didn't mean to say zvt woops. But isn't it kind of a waste of gas if you're only using them defensively, the 100 gas saved could get you to Hive that little bit faster, and sometimes thats the difference between winning and losing. Yes but in zvz roach speed is very crucial. If you overstep with roaches and you don't get speed you are losing those roaches. If you want to be aggressive as you see you have a window (lets say you just crushed his army) you don't want slow roaches. It's worth it trust me :D Ok fair enough
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On August 18 2012 14:00 Host- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2012 13:59 blade55555 wrote:On August 18 2012 13:58 Host- wrote:On August 18 2012 13:52 blade55555 wrote:On August 18 2012 13:52 Host- wrote:On August 18 2012 13:49 blade55555 wrote:On August 18 2012 13:47 Oboeman wrote: Would you get roach speed? or does it depend on how many roaches you're forced into making?
Kind of like in zvt...
and zvp now that I think of it. I always get roach speed in zvt, kind of a must imo xD I think what he means is that because your roaches are defensive, are you still getting roach speed. I meant zvz also. Yes zvz I always do. Didn't mean to say zvt woops. But isn't it kind of a waste of gas if you're only using them defensively, the 100 gas saved could get you to Hive that little bit faster, and sometimes thats the difference between winning and losing. Yes but in zvz roach speed is very crucial. If you overstep with roaches and you don't get speed you are losing those roaches. If you want to be aggressive as you see you have a window (lets say you just crushed his army) you don't want slow roaches. It's worth it trust me :D Ok fair enough
I would think that we are stepping to some other build if we start using roaches. Isn't the big idea of this thread to go ling infestor into ultra? You are discussing about roach infestor into ultra now which is a bit different.
I try this build in almost each zvz game and I feel that its semi viable. I feel that heavy roach push can be hard to hold with lings + spines only. Against passive zerg player this build is great. How do you people feel when using this buid? Do you feel always in control or you got a feeling that you can slip and loose? Often I feel I can slip to some weird roach + baneling bust.
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On August 18 2012 22:41 M4nkind wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2012 14:00 Host- wrote:On August 18 2012 13:59 blade55555 wrote:On August 18 2012 13:58 Host- wrote:On August 18 2012 13:52 blade55555 wrote:On August 18 2012 13:52 Host- wrote:On August 18 2012 13:49 blade55555 wrote:On August 18 2012 13:47 Oboeman wrote: Would you get roach speed? or does it depend on how many roaches you're forced into making?
Kind of like in zvt...
and zvp now that I think of it. I always get roach speed in zvt, kind of a must imo xD I think what he means is that because your roaches are defensive, are you still getting roach speed. I meant zvz also. Yes zvz I always do. Didn't mean to say zvt woops. But isn't it kind of a waste of gas if you're only using them defensively, the 100 gas saved could get you to Hive that little bit faster, and sometimes thats the difference between winning and losing. Yes but in zvz roach speed is very crucial. If you overstep with roaches and you don't get speed you are losing those roaches. If you want to be aggressive as you see you have a window (lets say you just crushed his army) you don't want slow roaches. It's worth it trust me :D Ok fair enough I would think that we are stepping to some other build if we start using roaches. Isn't the big idea of this thread to go ling infestor into ultra? You are discussing about roach infestor into ultra now which is a bit different. I try this build in almost each zvz game and I feel that its semi viable. I feel that heavy roach push can be hard to hold with lings + spines only. Against passive zerg player this build is great. How do you people feel when using this buid? Do you feel always in control or you got a feeling that you can slip and loose? Often I feel I can slip to some weird roach + baneling bust.
Look at the replays he posted. The basic strategy is exactly the same. If adding in roaches when needed turns out to be superior, he shouldn't recommend that because that would be 'a different build'? The strategy boils down to safely getting 3/5 ultras, and there shouldn't be anything wrong with playing flexibly until that point.
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On August 18 2012 13:59 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2012 13:58 Host- wrote:On August 18 2012 13:52 blade55555 wrote:On August 18 2012 13:52 Host- wrote:On August 18 2012 13:49 blade55555 wrote:On August 18 2012 13:47 Oboeman wrote: Would you get roach speed? or does it depend on how many roaches you're forced into making?
Kind of like in zvt...
and zvp now that I think of it. I always get roach speed in zvt, kind of a must imo xD I think what he means is that because your roaches are defensive, are you still getting roach speed. I meant zvz also. Yes zvz I always do. Didn't mean to say zvt woops. But isn't it kind of a waste of gas if you're only using them defensively, the 100 gas saved could get you to Hive that little bit faster, and sometimes thats the difference between winning and losing. Yes but in zvz roach speed is very crucial. If you overstep with roaches and you don't get speed you are losing those roaches. If you want to be aggressive as you see you have a window (lets say you just crushed his army) you don't want slow roaches. It's worth it trust me :D
Stephano does this exact opening in ZvZ nowadays, double evo with +1 melee and +1 carapace, get roach warren super late (after the third is down). But he stays on roaches after that. I think it is superior in the early game, 1/1 on lings will crush early roach pushes, big mobility allows him to jump between his third and the opponent's third to constantly threaten it and still defend.
Sadly he doesn't have the vods up for KR ladder but if you can catch his stream after MLG maybe he'll show it again.
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On August 18 2012 22:41 M4nkind wrote:Show nested quote +On August 18 2012 14:00 Host- wrote:On August 18 2012 13:59 blade55555 wrote:On August 18 2012 13:58 Host- wrote:On August 18 2012 13:52 blade55555 wrote:On August 18 2012 13:52 Host- wrote:On August 18 2012 13:49 blade55555 wrote:On August 18 2012 13:47 Oboeman wrote: Would you get roach speed? or does it depend on how many roaches you're forced into making?
Kind of like in zvt...
and zvp now that I think of it. I always get roach speed in zvt, kind of a must imo xD I think what he means is that because your roaches are defensive, are you still getting roach speed. I meant zvz also. Yes zvz I always do. Didn't mean to say zvt woops. But isn't it kind of a waste of gas if you're only using them defensively, the 100 gas saved could get you to Hive that little bit faster, and sometimes thats the difference between winning and losing. Yes but in zvz roach speed is very crucial. If you overstep with roaches and you don't get speed you are losing those roaches. If you want to be aggressive as you see you have a window (lets say you just crushed his army) you don't want slow roaches. It's worth it trust me :D Ok fair enough I would think that we are stepping to some other build if we start using roaches. Isn't the big idea of this thread to go ling infestor into ultra? You are discussing about roach infestor into ultra now which is a bit different. I try this build in almost each zvz game and I feel that its semi viable. I feel that heavy roach push can be hard to hold with lings + spines only. Against passive zerg player this build is great. How do you people feel when using this buid? Do you feel always in control or you got a feeling that you can slip and loose? Often I feel I can slip to some weird roach + baneling bust.
It's really not that different. The end result is the same and you still get ultralisks at about the same time (I start hive at 12 minutes).
You can hold roach/baneling bust but you need to have at least 5 spines I think it is and banelings of your own so that you can kill his banes with yours.
Also guys here's a video show casing my slight modification to this build!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOZVu8O7jqc&feature=youtu.be
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Just faced a guy who went roach aggression into roach turtling with mass spine into mass mass brood lord. He skipped infestors. This is probably fairly limited information but what is the best way to react to this?
It was also on Shakuras so defensive spines and brood lord push was really strong and made it impossible to counter.
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On August 20 2012 15:51 AmbitioNsc2 wrote: Just faced a guy who went roach aggression into roach turtling with mass spine into mass mass brood lord. He skipped infestors. This is probably fairly limited information but what is the best way to react to this?
It was also on Shakuras so defensive spines and brood lord push was really strong and made it impossible to counter.
I've never played vs someone who goes mass spine into mass broodlord. Mainly I will attack if I see them trying to spine up. at worst you can just doom drop him since all his spines won't be in his main when you see such heavy spine play.
But the fact he skipped infestors means you should have just attacked once ultras popped (your ultras should be out before hand) or you could have just done a mass roach/ling/infestor attack and won the game. Spines are good, but you would have been able to crush him since he had no infestors, went only roaches and teched to broodlords.
He played greedy and you let him get away with it which would be why you lost unfortunately.
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I keep coming close to beating this style with an odd Mutalisk based style of my own. As if you open mutalisks, he will get ultras out before I can even finish my hive. Ofcourse his upgrades will be better as well, so going for Ultralisk of your own to counter him seems waay too out there. Aside from Ultralisks of your own, nothing on the ground really beats them for cost efficiency.
So what I do is during the time my spire is building ( when I already know that he is going for +1/+1 lings and probably infestors ) I put down my evo chamber and get +1 melee of my own. That'll make my banelings one-shot zerglings again until they finally reach +3/+3, which is way past the time that the usual counter attacks go on. I take my bases and stay defensive while getting drops. The strangest thing against this build is that you have to stay really defensive, even with your Mutalisks, because counter attacks on your bases are just so strong.
Once drop tech finishes, I load up about 6 overlords worth of banelings and spread them out. Infestors are actually really terrible against both overlords and any air unit spread out, so I can easily put them around his fourth base if he took it and snipe it out with mutalisks and zerglings. Once he moves in with lings of his own, you start dropping banes from the overlords that are closest, whiping his army out if he gets too close. Then, when his infestors move in, spread your mutalisks out like mad and start sniping them. The goal is basically to make each fungal so ineffective that he either has to deplete his infestors with infested terran eggs or lose his infestors trying to fungal each of them. If all went well, and he decides to go for a huge attack with Ultras, you should be able to atleast take out the first wave if you can delay the ultras from wrecking your econ too much.
It's pretty tough to do, but since you will almost always take your third and fourth before the ultra-player, you will be ahead economically even if he decides to techswitch into roaches or hydras, while spines are generally really good against those units regardless.
I have some failed attempts of the muta-banedrop play thus far. My actual attack works out really really well, but beforehand I kept getting bases sniped forcing me to stay on the same econ as my opponent. In which case you're pretty much down and out against this infestor-ultra build anyway. They are the closest games I've been able to produce against this style when opening muta anyway, so it's a step in the right direction.
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On August 20 2012 15:51 AmbitioNsc2 wrote: Just faced a guy who went roach aggression into roach turtling with mass spine into mass mass brood lord. He skipped infestors. This is probably fairly limited information but what is the best way to react to this?
It was also on Shakuras so defensive spines and brood lord push was really strong and made it impossible to counter.
As soon as you see someone going broodlords, you should have added a spire. Ultra/infestor/corruptor is insanely supply efficient. Then you can add your own broods to siege his spines.
As long as you don't get caught not knowing he has broods until he has them, you should be fine. If he goes broods like this he can't take his fourth base and you just take every base on the map. On most maps, with ultras vs broods, you just go kill his other bases and go around. On shakuras, just get nydus or drops.
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Alright so here are some games of me playing Muta against this Infestor-Ultra style.
http://drop.sc/241505 http://drop.sc/241506
These two games show the power of the counter attack. Zerglings just shred a base up in seconds so it is absolutely essential to keep up on the defence. This is also why you pretty much need +1 melee so your banelings kill the counter attacks more easily again. There's not really much to talk about in these two replays, mostly just examples of 'defend with your units, any attack is greedy'.
http://drop.sc/241509
This replay shows what I feel you have to do with your army. Make sure you split the mutalisks and overlords out and just set up a perimeter around the opponents fourth with the overlords. Move in with your mutalisks and take care of that hatch. Incase he comes to attack, drop the banelings to ward him off. If his infestors move out too far, you can easily snipe them out with a big magic box.
http://drop.sc/241511
What I consider to be my first true win against this style due to similar skill in my opponent. The big points here are the fact that I walled off the third with evo chambers and just spammed spinecrawlers like there was no tomorrow. Defending any counter attacks with banelings was rather easy, but you have to stay on top with the defense otherwise you will lose your advantage.
Again, the focus of this style is to make sure you deny his fourth for a long time. Overlords with baneligns are essential not because of their damage, but because spread out overlords simply aren't cost effective to fungal. On top of that, if you really want to kill of the overlord, you will have to drop infested terrans out first and then fungal, but you can't move in and the banelings will still kill off the infested terrans once they hatch. Even if the opponent decides to fungal the dropping banes, they would have to do that a ton, wasting energy on cheap units. If you ahve a large enough flock of mutalisks, seconds is all you need to snipe off a hatch, and thats exactly what the overlords give you.
If he decides to counter attack with ultralisks, your insane mutacount should be enough to clean him up. The trick here is to delay his ultras from doing damage to your econ and hatches, that's why you just spam out spinecrawlers when you get your fourth up.
I'll be honest though, this style isn't that easy to execute. You have to constantly babysit your mutalisks and overlords so they don't clump up. The one way you can get absolutely and utterly destroyed is by having your deathflock fungalled in one go. Think of an archon toilet, but much, much sadder to watch.
These replays are all at around 2050-2000 MMR. So take them with a grain of salt if you will.
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If your opponent goes muta and follows up with double evo roach, whats the best way to scout it and it turn deal with it. Assuming mutas do 'normal damage' and you both keep your 3rds.
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^ Your double evo should have been way ahead of his, or, if you went single evo, you should have sufficient tech/army size to make up for it? If mutas don't do any damage, you basically win the game by steamrolling the opponent with a 2/0 roach/hydra/infestor army or roach/infestor army. Even if you have no upgrades, you steamroll the opponent with a huge roach/infestor or roach/hydra/infestor army over his tiny, upgraded army, whatever.
by the way, 2/0 roaches own 1/1 roaches, so you should strive to get +2 first. I think what most people do is get +1, and time it so when lair is done, they start 2/1 as they throw down a later 2nd evo. Or they don't make a 2nd evo until after they get +2 and +1 armor, it's whatever. No carapace upgrade, way more roaches and hydras, etc... Upgrades are important in zvz but missile is really much more dominant than carapace. 2/0, 3/1 vs 2/2, etc.
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On August 21 2012 09:39 Belial88 wrote: ^ Your double evo should have been way ahead of his, or, if you went single evo, you should have sufficient tech/army size to make up for it? If mutas don't do any damage, you basically win the game by steamrolling the opponent with a 2/0 roach/hydra/infestor army or roach/infestor army. Even if you have no upgrades, you steamroll the opponent with a huge roach/infestor or roach/hydra/infestor army over his tiny, upgraded army, whatever.
by the way, 2/0 roaches own 1/1 roaches, so you should strive to get +2 first. I think what most people do is get +1, and time it so when lair is done, they start 2/1 as they throw down a later 2nd evo. Or they don't make a 2nd evo until after they get +2 and +1 armor, it's whatever. No carapace upgrade, way more roaches and hydras, etc... Upgrades are important in zvz but missile is really much more dominant than carapace. 2/0, 3/1 vs 2/2, etc. Whilst using ling festor tho...so I can't scout the roach warren/evo's unless i get a lucky scout, and I cant see the roaches until their at my 3rd. So yea sure I have 4-6 infestors out, but the attack hits just as hive finishes so no ultras, and blindly making roaches when going ling festor is kind of meh.
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On August 21 2012 07:32 Chaosvuistje wrote:Alright so here are some games of me playing Muta against this Infestor-Ultra style. http://drop.sc/241505http://drop.sc/241506These two games show the power of the counter attack. Zerglings just shred a base up in seconds so it is absolutely essential to keep up on the defence. This is also why you pretty much need +1 melee so your banelings kill the counter attacks more easily again. There's not really much to talk about in these two replays, mostly just examples of 'defend with your units, any attack is greedy'. http://drop.sc/241509This replay shows what I feel you have to do with your army. Make sure you split the mutalisks and overlords out and just set up a perimeter around the opponents fourth with the overlords. Move in with your mutalisks and take care of that hatch. Incase he comes to attack, drop the banelings to ward him off. If his infestors move out too far, you can easily snipe them out with a big magic box. http://drop.sc/241511What I consider to be my first true win against this style due to similar skill in my opponent. The big points here are the fact that I walled off the third with evo chambers and just spammed spinecrawlers like there was no tomorrow. Defending any counter attacks with banelings was rather easy, but you have to stay on top with the defense otherwise you will lose your advantage. Again, the focus of this style is to make sure you deny his fourth for a long time. Overlords with baneligns are essential not because of their damage, but because spread out overlords simply aren't cost effective to fungal. On top of that, if you really want to kill of the overlord, you will have to drop infested terrans out first and then fungal, but you can't move in and the banelings will still kill off the infested terrans once they hatch. Even if the opponent decides to fungal the dropping banes, they would have to do that a ton, wasting energy on cheap units. If you ahve a large enough flock of mutalisks, seconds is all you need to snipe off a hatch, and thats exactly what the overlords give you. If he decides to counter attack with ultralisks, your insane mutacount should be enough to clean him up. The trick here is to delay his ultras from doing damage to your econ and hatches, that's why you just spam out spinecrawlers when you get your fourth up. I'll be honest though, this style isn't that easy to execute. You have to constantly babysit your mutalisks and overlords so they don't clump up. The one way you can get absolutely and utterly destroyed is by having your deathflock fungalled in one go. Think of an archon toilet, but much, much sadder to watch. These replays are all at around 2050-2000 MMR. So take them with a grain of salt if you will.
Wow that's great innovation! I found your post really inspiring. I have been a very devout muta player from platinum all the way to masters in ZvZ. I question how useful the bane drops are in the way you describe them but I will be watching your replays when I get home. I think it's great however that you have found such a great use for drops versus this style(to cover your mutas) because I feel like drop play is the biggest answer to punishing someone using this style. Dropping a large amount of zerglings into the main with spread mutas and banerain support sounds like a real nightmare for someone who only has upgraded lings and infestors and a spine wall at the front. If they skimp on the spine wall at the front in favor of more army then you will defiantly be able to creat opportunities to attack by using the bane bombs and mutas to waste the enemy Infestor energy before engaging. I imagine if you get enough mutas they won't be able to do anything if you engage correctly(bane bombs killing infested terrains). This style sounds very challenging but very rewarding and I will be trying it should I face ling Infestor.
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On August 21 2012 09:42 Host- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 09:39 Belial88 wrote: ^ Your double evo should have been way ahead of his, or, if you went single evo, you should have sufficient tech/army size to make up for it? If mutas don't do any damage, you basically win the game by steamrolling the opponent with a 2/0 roach/hydra/infestor army or roach/infestor army. Even if you have no upgrades, you steamroll the opponent with a huge roach/infestor or roach/hydra/infestor army over his tiny, upgraded army, whatever.
by the way, 2/0 roaches own 1/1 roaches, so you should strive to get +2 first. I think what most people do is get +1, and time it so when lair is done, they start 2/1 as they throw down a later 2nd evo. Or they don't make a 2nd evo until after they get +2 and +1 armor, it's whatever. No carapace upgrade, way more roaches and hydras, etc... Upgrades are important in zvz but missile is really much more dominant than carapace. 2/0, 3/1 vs 2/2, etc. Whilst using ling festor tho...so I can't scout the roach warren/evo's unless i get a lucky scout, and I cant see the roaches until their at my 3rd. So yea sure I have 4-6 infestors out, but the attack hits just as hive finishes so no ultras, and blindly making roaches when going ling festor is kind of meh. You won't do it blindly. You should have vision of a lot of the map whether with overlords or lings. You should always keep tabs on his army with changelings and overseer scouting so that you don't do anything blindly.
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On August 21 2012 10:31 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 09:42 Host- wrote:On August 21 2012 09:39 Belial88 wrote: ^ Your double evo should have been way ahead of his, or, if you went single evo, you should have sufficient tech/army size to make up for it? If mutas don't do any damage, you basically win the game by steamrolling the opponent with a 2/0 roach/hydra/infestor army or roach/infestor army. Even if you have no upgrades, you steamroll the opponent with a huge roach/infestor or roach/hydra/infestor army over his tiny, upgraded army, whatever.
by the way, 2/0 roaches own 1/1 roaches, so you should strive to get +2 first. I think what most people do is get +1, and time it so when lair is done, they start 2/1 as they throw down a later 2nd evo. Or they don't make a 2nd evo until after they get +2 and +1 armor, it's whatever. No carapace upgrade, way more roaches and hydras, etc... Upgrades are important in zvz but missile is really much more dominant than carapace. 2/0, 3/1 vs 2/2, etc. Whilst using ling festor tho...so I can't scout the roach warren/evo's unless i get a lucky scout, and I cant see the roaches until their at my 3rd. So yea sure I have 4-6 infestors out, but the attack hits just as hive finishes so no ultras, and blindly making roaches when going ling festor is kind of meh. You won't do it blindly. You should have vision of a lot of the map whether with overlords or lings. You should always keep tabs on his army with changelings and overseer scouting so that you don't do anything blindly. but his mutas have map control, and generally will have killed all my overlords on the map, overseer scouting could work i suppose, with changelings obviously.
Edit: this was my post that belial initially responded too "If your opponent goes muta and follows up with double evo roach, whats the best way to scout it and it turn deal with it. Assuming mutas do 'normal damage' and you both keep your 3rds."
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On August 21 2012 09:42 Host- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 09:39 Belial88 wrote: ^ Your double evo should have been way ahead of his, or, if you went single evo, you should have sufficient tech/army size to make up for it? If mutas don't do any damage, you basically win the game by steamrolling the opponent with a 2/0 roach/hydra/infestor army or roach/infestor army. Even if you have no upgrades, you steamroll the opponent with a huge roach/infestor or roach/hydra/infestor army over his tiny, upgraded army, whatever.
by the way, 2/0 roaches own 1/1 roaches, so you should strive to get +2 first. I think what most people do is get +1, and time it so when lair is done, they start 2/1 as they throw down a later 2nd evo. Or they don't make a 2nd evo until after they get +2 and +1 armor, it's whatever. No carapace upgrade, way more roaches and hydras, etc... Upgrades are important in zvz but missile is really much more dominant than carapace. 2/0, 3/1 vs 2/2, etc. Whilst using ling festor tho...so I can't scout the roach warren/evo's unless i get a lucky scout, and I cant see the roaches until their at my 3rd. So yea sure I have 4-6 infestors out, but the attack hits just as hive finishes so no ultras, and blindly making roaches when going ling festor is kind of meh.
Sorry, I thought your post was in the zerg help me thread, I got a little confused there. Hence why I was thinking you were playing standard.
If the opponent goes roaches, you need to get spines and infestors (enough of them) (or with blade's approach, your hive, ultras should be out in time, so if he goes mutas, you should be starting hive immediately pretty much, as in the muta player made 10 mutas, you get out like 6 infestors and then go hive before the even throws down his roach warren).
Like Chaos does (going muta first), you should scout after the mutas to see what the opponent's transition is, either roaches or quick hive (less common, but damn imo so much deadlier). Sometimes people will go like mutas, and just do a roach all-in follow-up and not drone their third at all. I always get overlord speed and burrow vs muta play, so, you know, just make sure you spot the roach follow-up and start massing spines because you know he won't have hive anytime soon.
It is definitely a pain in the ass when the muta guy literally denies any overlord from getting by. Totally worth it for overlord speed imo.
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On August 21 2012 11:31 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 09:42 Host- wrote:On August 21 2012 09:39 Belial88 wrote: ^ Your double evo should have been way ahead of his, or, if you went single evo, you should have sufficient tech/army size to make up for it? If mutas don't do any damage, you basically win the game by steamrolling the opponent with a 2/0 roach/hydra/infestor army or roach/infestor army. Even if you have no upgrades, you steamroll the opponent with a huge roach/infestor or roach/hydra/infestor army over his tiny, upgraded army, whatever.
by the way, 2/0 roaches own 1/1 roaches, so you should strive to get +2 first. I think what most people do is get +1, and time it so when lair is done, they start 2/1 as they throw down a later 2nd evo. Or they don't make a 2nd evo until after they get +2 and +1 armor, it's whatever. No carapace upgrade, way more roaches and hydras, etc... Upgrades are important in zvz but missile is really much more dominant than carapace. 2/0, 3/1 vs 2/2, etc. Whilst using ling festor tho...so I can't scout the roach warren/evo's unless i get a lucky scout, and I cant see the roaches until their at my 3rd. So yea sure I have 4-6 infestors out, but the attack hits just as hive finishes so no ultras, and blindly making roaches when going ling festor is kind of meh. Sorry, I thought your post was in the zerg help me thread, I got a little confused there. Hence why I was thinking you were playing standard. If the opponent goes roaches, you need to get spines and infestors (enough of them) (or with blade's approach, your hive, ultras should be out in time, so if he goes mutas, you should be starting hive immediately pretty much, as in the muta player made 10 mutas, you get out like 6 infestors and then go hive before the even throws down his roach warren). Like Chaos does (going muta first), you should scout after the mutas to see what the opponent's transition is, either roaches or quick hive (less common, but damn imo so much deadlier). Sometimes people will go like mutas, and just do a roach all-in follow-up and not drone their third at all. I always get overlord speed and burrow vs muta play, so, you know, just make sure you spot the roach follow-up and start massing spines because you know he won't have hive anytime soon. It is definitely a pain in the ass when the muta guy literally denies any overlord from getting by. Totally worth it for overlord speed imo. So I actually need to be teching to hive sooner =0, I've always just cancelled my hive if I see mutas to get more gas for infestors but I guess having ultras out in time would crush it.
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On August 21 2012 11:03 MrBitter wrote: This is my take on ling/infestor. It's a bit different from Blade's, but I like the way the timings line up in my build a little more.
At the end of the day, its just a slight variation on how he plays it: Thanks for posting your video. I'm curious how you would fare against more aggressive play like baneling all-ins that hit off 2 base. Your build in the video doesn't even get speed until very late and you rely on assumptions based on scouting their natural's drone count, but these all-ins hit after 2 base saturation, so that's useless. I find I can hold these only with defensive banes. Even ~4 spines and ~4 queens don't hold when the opponent runs waves of 10 banelings and a lot of lings at you. Have you had to deal with these and what was your approach? Also, obviously the way you are doing it works fine if there is no such all-in coming, but how are you scouting to be safe against it?
I've had similar problems with the roach/ling all-in. My only scouting information is gas timings on the natural and possibly some oddities like very late ling speed and no third base coming up by ~7 minutes. For these you need many spine crawlers and a lot of lings, as well as often a number of banes especially if they mix in any banelings.
Personally I'm just building a baneling nest after speed every game now and keeping 6 lings to morph into banelings in case of certain timings. I don't have any problems at all when an opponent either techs to lair or takes a third, I don't really lose in those situations, but the early timings expose some weaknesses and force you to play safer than what I see in MrBitter's video.
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On August 21 2012 11:40 Host- wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 11:31 Belial88 wrote:On August 21 2012 09:42 Host- wrote:On August 21 2012 09:39 Belial88 wrote: ^ Your double evo should have been way ahead of his, or, if you went single evo, you should have sufficient tech/army size to make up for it? If mutas don't do any damage, you basically win the game by steamrolling the opponent with a 2/0 roach/hydra/infestor army or roach/infestor army. Even if you have no upgrades, you steamroll the opponent with a huge roach/infestor or roach/hydra/infestor army over his tiny, upgraded army, whatever.
by the way, 2/0 roaches own 1/1 roaches, so you should strive to get +2 first. I think what most people do is get +1, and time it so when lair is done, they start 2/1 as they throw down a later 2nd evo. Or they don't make a 2nd evo until after they get +2 and +1 armor, it's whatever. No carapace upgrade, way more roaches and hydras, etc... Upgrades are important in zvz but missile is really much more dominant than carapace. 2/0, 3/1 vs 2/2, etc. Whilst using ling festor tho...so I can't scout the roach warren/evo's unless i get a lucky scout, and I cant see the roaches until their at my 3rd. So yea sure I have 4-6 infestors out, but the attack hits just as hive finishes so no ultras, and blindly making roaches when going ling festor is kind of meh. Sorry, I thought your post was in the zerg help me thread, I got a little confused there. Hence why I was thinking you were playing standard. If the opponent goes roaches, you need to get spines and infestors (enough of them) (or with blade's approach, your hive, ultras should be out in time, so if he goes mutas, you should be starting hive immediately pretty much, as in the muta player made 10 mutas, you get out like 6 infestors and then go hive before the even throws down his roach warren). Like Chaos does (going muta first), you should scout after the mutas to see what the opponent's transition is, either roaches or quick hive (less common, but damn imo so much deadlier). Sometimes people will go like mutas, and just do a roach all-in follow-up and not drone their third at all. I always get overlord speed and burrow vs muta play, so, you know, just make sure you spot the roach follow-up and start massing spines because you know he won't have hive anytime soon. It is definitely a pain in the ass when the muta guy literally denies any overlord from getting by. Totally worth it for overlord speed imo. So I actually need to be teching to hive sooner =0, I've always just cancelled my hive if I see mutas to get more gas for infestors but I guess having ultras out in time would crush it.
I mean it's up to you.
Mutas, and whatever the opponent does after, are 2 totally different things. That would be like saying "How do I deal with FFE cannon rush into double stargate?" when the real question(s) is more like "how do I deal with a cannon rush" and "how do I deal with double stargate?".
If someone makes mutas, get spores, queens, and infestors, very straightforward. If they go roaches afterwards, and by all means you need to scout what a muta player is doing next, make spines and infestors. My personal preference, if I see roaches, I will make like 3-4 spines at the natural choke and then just a ton of them at the third (I find that if you lose your spines, you lose the game, so keep the spines alive by making enough of them), like 5-10, and delay hive by getting more infestors and spines.
From watching blade's reps, he seems to play the game way differently, and maybe just his macro is way better, I don't know, but I'd gather his answer (again, I can't presume to speak for him, but this is just my inference from what I've seen of his play) would be get a quicker hive, and more lings.
He goes hive way quicker than I do, he literally starts hive when infestation pit is done (which is a great response to mutas, imo, actually, i think against mutas this would be the better play), so when the roach switch comes he's got a couple ultras coming out. The difference I think is he relies on a couple ultras to survive, and he is okay with losing them to hold, while I rely on spines/infestors - i get my ultras way later and thus the game goes on longer, but I think I stay safer to hold roach aggression (then again, is massing spines really 'safe' if you die in the macro game? but if someone maxes out on roaches, and you have hive eventually, you win basically).
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On August 21 2012 11:03 MrBitter wrote:This is my take on ling/infestor. It's a bit different from Blade's, but I like the way the timings line up in my build a little more. At the end of the day, its just a slight variation on how he plays it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBCbWniJYF4&feature=plcp
Added your video to the OP.
I will say don't like the no baneling next from what I read you don't but always glad to see other people showing their way as some other players may like yours better thanks!
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On August 21 2012 16:21 blade55555 wrote:Added your video to the OP. I will say don't like the no baneling next from what I read you don't but always glad to see other people showing their way as some other players may like yours better thanks!
Yes, no baneling definitely has some vulnerabilities, but I think you can always play around it with good scouting and control.
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On August 21 2012 10:12 Turbogangsta wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 07:32 Chaosvuistje wrote:Alright so here are some games of me playing Muta against this Infestor-Ultra style. http://drop.sc/241505http://drop.sc/241506These two games show the power of the counter attack. Zerglings just shred a base up in seconds so it is absolutely essential to keep up on the defence. This is also why you pretty much need +1 melee so your banelings kill the counter attacks more easily again. There's not really much to talk about in these two replays, mostly just examples of 'defend with your units, any attack is greedy'. http://drop.sc/241509This replay shows what I feel you have to do with your army. Make sure you split the mutalisks and overlords out and just set up a perimeter around the opponents fourth with the overlords. Move in with your mutalisks and take care of that hatch. Incase he comes to attack, drop the banelings to ward him off. If his infestors move out too far, you can easily snipe them out with a big magic box. http://drop.sc/241511What I consider to be my first true win against this style due to similar skill in my opponent. The big points here are the fact that I walled off the third with evo chambers and just spammed spinecrawlers like there was no tomorrow. Defending any counter attacks with banelings was rather easy, but you have to stay on top with the defense otherwise you will lose your advantage. Again, the focus of this style is to make sure you deny his fourth for a long time. Overlords with baneligns are essential not because of their damage, but because spread out overlords simply aren't cost effective to fungal. On top of that, if you really want to kill of the overlord, you will have to drop infested terrans out first and then fungal, but you can't move in and the banelings will still kill off the infested terrans once they hatch. Even if the opponent decides to fungal the dropping banes, they would have to do that a ton, wasting energy on cheap units. If you ahve a large enough flock of mutalisks, seconds is all you need to snipe off a hatch, and thats exactly what the overlords give you. If he decides to counter attack with ultralisks, your insane mutacount should be enough to clean him up. The trick here is to delay his ultras from doing damage to your econ and hatches, that's why you just spam out spinecrawlers when you get your fourth up. I'll be honest though, this style isn't that easy to execute. You have to constantly babysit your mutalisks and overlords so they don't clump up. The one way you can get absolutely and utterly destroyed is by having your deathflock fungalled in one go. Think of an archon toilet, but much, much sadder to watch. These replays are all at around 2050-2000 MMR. So take them with a grain of salt if you will. Wow that's great innovation! I found your post really inspiring. I have been a very devout muta player from platinum all the way to masters in ZvZ. I question how useful the bane drops are in the way you describe them but I will be watching your replays when I get home. I think it's great however that you have found such a great use for drops versus this style(to cover your mutas) because I feel like drop play is the biggest answer to punishing someone using this style. Dropping a large amount of zerglings into the main with spread mutas and banerain support sounds like a real nightmare for someone who only has upgraded lings and infestors and a spine wall at the front. If they skimp on the spine wall at the front in favor of more army then you will defiantly be able to creat opportunities to attack by using the bane bombs and mutas to waste the enemy Infestor energy before engaging. I imagine if you get enough mutas they won't be able to do anything if you engage correctly(bane bombs killing infested terrains). This style sounds very challenging but very rewarding and I will be trying it should I face ling Infestor.
The baneling bombs are there mostly because infestors just kill banelings so cost-effectively. Having them in overlords helps by not having them oneshot by a fungal, which this style has plenty. I really only need the +1 melee banelings to hit, but without ferrying them around fungal will always take them out before they can do any significant damage. They are mostly to take out huge groups of zerglings, but having them harass infestors is a nice bonus.
The other part about infestors is that they really aren't killers for anything flying. Sure they deal great damage against roach-hydra balls and zerglings, but their damage isn't fast enough to actually kill off a mutalisk without having a huge backing of queens or other anti-air. A mutalisk dies in 5 fungals, that's 20 ingame seconds that the infestor has to chain together. If you have a large enough group of mutas, the infestors shouldn't be able to fungal a whole group of 25+ mutas with one or two fungals. Which means you can force the infestors back or milk out a metric ton of fungals. Once you're over the infestors it actually won't matter because they will all die before having enough fungals thrown down. Which you can see in the last two replays. Especially in the last one, where he desperately tries to throw down as many infested terrans as possible, but the mutalisks still kill off the eggs before they hatch.
Any other transition I have played around with has failed. If you transition back into roaches, his zerglings will be superiorly upgraded, and you will need a huge group to even be effective. But by that time, he will have infestors out to fungal. Not only that, if you don't kill him right then and there, the Ultralisks will simply move out and kill everything. Going hydra's wont work either, because the ling-infestor player can just take more bases and focus on counter attacks. You can't have map control with hydras against zerglings anyway. Then there's the infestor transition, he will have more infestors out and once ultralisks are out, you can't actually win against the attack. Finally, you can mirror his build, but every tech will be behind, upgrades, infestor tech and hive tech. And broodlords are just terrible in ZvZ unless you have like 15 corruptors to back them up because any corruptor transition from the ultralisk player will outright kill that advantage off. None other than staying on mutalisks actually gives you any map presence without being vulnerable so you can't rely on a better economy as well.
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I'd like to say that this build is amazing!!!! It catches my roach/Infestor opponents off guard and crush them with absurd ease in the later stages of the game. But its quite a turtlish build but you really need to constantly harass with lings so you can buy time for infestors and LOTS of spines on the nat and your 3rd. I can't seem to afford an extra queen for creep spread. But lategame is just fungal and A-move.
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Blade, have you got any replays of you doing this against muta? with the new roaches instead of spines ect.
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On August 24 2012 02:24 Host- wrote: Blade, have you got any replays of you doing this against muta? with the new roaches instead of spines ect.
I only have one game of me verse muta but he did muta/ling aggression for a lot of the game so I skipped roaches since I knew I would get ultras out before he'd transition out of muta/ling.
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@chaos: So, your "counter" to this style is just to continually mass mutas? Wouldn't that response just fail if he reacts by just making the normal counter to mass mutas? I mean, there is a reason that pros dont do mass muta, and thats because there is a very good counter to it. It seems like if the ling/infestor player just built a spire of his own in reaction to mass mutas and built like 5 corruptors then your style would fail. The mutas wouldnt be able to take out the corruptors without severely clumping up, making them vulnerable to infestors, and the corruptors would also be able to shoo away the overlords with banelings inside. 5 queens could also function in a similar way if you dont want to invest/wait for a spire.
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I tried this and it was a lot of fun! But I think the only reason I played this is because some opponents had bad macro and not enough units.
I was having trouble defending a mass roach into 3rd base build in Ohana. 6 spines in my natural and 6 in the 3rd with a lot of infestors isn't enough. Its so hard to run back and forth to defend both bases.. Maybe I will upload a replay soon.
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On August 29 2012 13:32 Discarder wrote: I tried this and it was a lot of fun! But I think the only reason I played this is because some opponents had bad macro and not enough units.
I was having trouble defending a mass roach into 3rd base build in Ohana. 6 spines in my natural and 6 in the 3rd with a lot of infestors isn't enough. Its so hard to run back and forth to defend both bases.. Maybe I will upload a replay soon. If they are on 2 base, you can gladly stay on 2 base and just secure a large infestor count. After that, Ling/Infestor will demolish roach base armies and you're safe to take a 3rd. I think the proper number is ~10 with a lot of energy. If you conserve your lings and infestors, you'll be fine. Don't throw them away trying to save your 3rd too early.
If people have replays of holding these attacks or losing against them, post in the thread so we can make more sense of how it works.
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Does anyone know if you're supposed to take a third, and if so, when? I guess you could be able to get away with not doing it since your midgame isn't gas heavy...
[EDIT]Nvm, I just read through the explanation section- oops :p
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On August 28 2012 02:54 trevaur wrote: @chaos: So, your "counter" to this style is just to continually mass mutas? Wouldn't that response just fail if he reacts by just making the normal counter to mass mutas? I mean, there is a reason that pros dont do mass muta, and thats because there is a very good counter to it. It seems like if the ling/infestor player just built a spire of his own in reaction to mass mutas and built like 5 corruptors then your style would fail. The mutas wouldnt be able to take out the corruptors without severely clumping up, making them vulnerable to infestors, and the corruptors would also be able to shoo away the overlords with banelings inside. 5 queens could also function in a similar way if you dont want to invest/wait for a spire.
If he delays his tech that much that he will go corruptors instead of Ultras then I won't be facing this style will i?
Corruptors are damn slow and you really don't need to clump up to kill them, magic boxing over them is very easy to pull off and it takes a group of 5 corruptors like 2 rounds of shooting to kill one mutalisk. You would need a hellalot of Corruptors to actually kill off the Mutalisks in the way you describe.
The massing of mutas also only happens after the Baneling drops are done. So you will face around 15 mutalisks flying around the map denying your scouting until your fourth gets sieged up by drops. If you let yourself get scared into such a heavy gas tech that easily then your Ultralisk transition will be way delayed. I've faced the spire transition around twice after infestors, and they all show that if they don't get that huge fungal off, I just take out the anti air and leave nothing but infestors behind.
It has also been my only 'counter' thus far when I went for 2 base muta because the investment is about as much as this style's. You have no hope of transitioning into Ultralisks yourself because you will be giving up every advantage that you have while playing right into his hands.
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Ultras are more mineral heavy than broodlords are (ultras = 300/200, broodlords 250/300). So taking into account that you really need your minerals for lings, I'd say that broodlords are the better choice. But then on the other hand, going for ultras instead of Bls will get you more infestors. Tough decision really, but at the moment I just cannot stand palying with ultras. They're so terrible.
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I find that ultras > broodlords. You can kill low count of broodlords with infested terrans, and against large ammount of broodlords go base trade. Ultras just wreck buildings. Opponents bases are gone before first broods arrive to your natural. And broodlords do not have upgrade advantage most of the time (while with ultras you got 3/3 very fast vs weaker upgraded opponent). If I built spire to counter with mass corruptors I think we would have even air fights. Where as Ultras give insane ammounts of damage on ground fights vs roach/hydra.
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On August 29 2012 17:24 Terkill wrote: Ultras are more mineral heavy than broodlords are (ultras = 300/200, broodlords 250/300). So taking into account that you really need your minerals for lings, I'd say that broodlords are the better choice. But then on the other hand, going for ultras instead of Bls will get you more infestors. Tough decision really, but at the moment I just cannot stand palying with ultras. They're so terrible.
You don't actually want to make any lings once the opponent gets infestors, other than a few for counter attacks. Rest is better spent on spines or pooling for ultras. Your lings will be worth absolutely nothing for defense, and you can't really do anything agressively with them other than counters.
Atleast this is my personal experience with this style, and I have been doing it long before it got popular.
Yours truly, hipster zerg.
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I would like some critique on a game I played on Ohana in low-mid-masters. The guy I played against was favored and I felt he was clearly the superior player, but I managed to get a big advantage in the mid-game and I feel I should have been able to bring it home.
My own thoughts on the replay:
I should've had spines up for his 10:30 roach push, but I cleaned it up pretty well anyway, even cost-efficiently. I was then able to cancel his third while droning up my own at which point I felt I had a fairly substantial lead.
I went for a late roach warren, which may have been a mistake. I felt like I needed units fast to secure my economic advantage, but perhaps the roach warren should have either been earlier or not there at all, as it cut into my ultralisk production just before his attack.
He moves out with a maxed roach/infestor army with me on a paltry 144/200 (did I make a major macro mistake or why was my supply so far behind his? I feel like I probably teched to hive too soon, not having secured a third base, but I didn't want to spend all my gas on infestors either.). I neglect to move in with my ling counter-attack force, which might have slowed him down and bought me time.
The engagement is absolutely horrible for me. I should've moved up my spines and somehow avoided letting him have such a huge concave on me, but even so his army was just way superior to mine, and I don't feel like I could've won it in anyway. Not to mention I lost three full-energy infestors, which is quite painful to watch, sorry about that. I guess I'm just used to playing against weaker opponents because this engagement had me pretty baffled, as I felt I was ahead for most of the game.
Any kinds of mistakes/oversights that you can point out would be much appreciated.
Replay: http://drop.sc/244493
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On August 29 2012 21:40 nkr wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2012 17:24 Terkill wrote: Ultras are more mineral heavy than broodlords are (ultras = 300/200, broodlords 250/300). So taking into account that you really need your minerals for lings, I'd say that broodlords are the better choice. But then on the other hand, going for ultras instead of Bls will get you more infestors. Tough decision really, but at the moment I just cannot stand palying with ultras. They're so terrible. You don't actually want to make any lings once the opponent gets infestors, other than a few for counter attacks. Rest is better spent on spines or pooling for ultras. Your lings will be worth absolutely nothing for defense, and you can't really do anything agressively with them other than counters.
lings are very important to surround your opponent army, else your ultras can't reach opponent army (fungals are not enough).
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I want to post my own way of doing this build. I delay my 2nd and next gasses and get maco hatch + decent saturation. Then I go for 3rd while getting a bunch of lings to deny his/protect mine. If he makes heavy roaches I would get some banelings to make lings more efficient vs roaches. I am open to comments. I think banelings are much better in midgame than roaches with armor only upgrades vs roach attacks. And gass is a bit of excess when you are on 6x gass untill you get to ultras.
http://drop.sc/244544 http://drop.sc/244543
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I have a next to impossible time with pulling this build off on Ohana. Need so many spines ;/
Also, I guess when the opponent goes 2 base lair mass roach (idiot, I know, but sometimes it happens, and it's really frustrating to lose to idiots...), it's pretty hard to fight correctly. I guess you just have to really make a shitttttooon of spines in your nat, like about 15 of them if it is a map like ohana, because he's so 'all-in' with roaches, and can't really get ultras off 2 base. if that makes sense.
This build is just so hard to pull off when it's like a weird game where you have a huge lead but they do a 2 base lair build (mutas, or mass roach, or muta into roach). I don't like doing this build when I have a lead in the game. i guess if you have a lead in the game, what you should do is (really play standard) just mass a shittttooon of spines in your nat so you'll never die, and take your third after making like 12 infestors. Or take it, but leave the shittttooon of spines in your natural, and play the whole trade thirds game a million times until you have 12+ infestors.
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On August 30 2012 09:47 Belial88 wrote: I have a next to impossible time with pulling this build off on Ohana. Need so many spines ;/
Also, I guess when the opponent goes 2 base lair mass roach (idiot, I know, but sometimes it happens, and it's really frustrating to lose to idiots...), it's pretty hard to fight correctly. I guess you just have to really make a shitttttooon of spines in your nat, like about 15 of them if it is a map like ohana, because he's so 'all-in' with roaches, and can't really get ultras off 2 base. if that makes sense.
This build is just so hard to pull off when it's like a weird game where you have a huge lead but they do a 2 base lair build (mutas, or mass roach, or muta into roach). I don't like doing this build when I have a lead in the game. i guess if you have a lead in the game, what you should do is (really play standard) just mass a shittttooon of spines in your nat so you'll never die, and take your third after making like 12 infestors. Or take it, but leave the shittttooon of spines in your natural, and play the whole trade thirds game a million times until you have 12+ infestors.
Why not make a bunch of banelings vs mass roach? you got damage upgrades for them, better use minerals on lings instead of spines and get banelings. And why not get 3rd quite fast while roach count is low and ling count is high? Least you can wreck his base with lings by running to his natural/main and get back in time for defence. If you hold initial attack with any necesarry means you will have a bunch of infestors for the second wave and it will be much easier.
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@chaos: why are mutas more viable against this than against roach/infestor? It seems like the only difference is that if the roach infestor player goes hydras they will have +1 or maybe +2. In any case, you didnt indicate how you would deal with 5ish queens. They have higher dps and can transfuse, so it seems like that would be very cost efficient vs mutas. They would also let you spread creep to your 4th faster to get up spores and spines before the attack.
What if your opponent goes 2 base lair and rushes for drops and doom drops your main with roaches? Will infestors be out in time to defend? If so, what if they spread out their overlords?
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On September 01 2012 00:20 trevaur wrote: @chaos: why are mutas more viable against this than against roach/infestor? It seems like the only difference is that if the roach infestor player goes hydras they will have +1 or maybe +2. In any case, you didnt indicate how you would deal with 5ish queens. They have higher dps and can transfuse, so it seems like that would be very cost efficient vs mutas. They would also let you spread creep to your 4th faster to get up spores and spines before the attack.
What if your opponent goes 2 base lair and rushes for drops and doom drops your main with roaches? Will infestors be out in time to defend? If so, what if they spread out their overlords?
I have never said anything of the sort. I have said that if you go for mutalisks you won't be able to match him with a sufficient roach infestor or indeed infestor ultralisk army because he has all the advantages aside from maybe the economic advantage.
A mutalisk player against this style is in the disadvantage on the ground as the opponent will have +1/+1 out by the time your mutalisks are out. Seeing as the normal transition from mutalisk is double upgrades into 3 base roach, you will be at a massive disadvantage upgradewise and you will have to overcommit on units to compensate. By the time you have a sizable roach army with +2/+2, the opponent will already be ramming down your front door with 3/5 ultralisks with infestor support.
Going for infestors right after mutalisks is very dicy as well, as you will need a metric ton of spines to compensate for the lack of ground army. Not only that, it puts you on the defense with less upgrades and less infestors than the opponent. He gets to expand to a fourth and you can't do jack against it because he has all the possbilities of counter attacking with his well upgraded zerglings.
Queens are very good against mutalisks... if the mutalisks are either out of range or in such a low number that they don't matter. Once you get to the point where you have over 20 mutalisks barreling down on them, they really can't do anything in a straight up fight. They will certainly help if you managed to fungal all but a few of the mutalisks, but the muta player should never allow such a fungal to occur anyway. If I allow the opponent to take a fourth with this style, I'm doomed anyway.
The last paragraph is honestly so far out of context that it isn't even funny. If you are suggesting that someone transitions from +1/+1 zergling/infestor into 2 base roach drop, you are honestly lacking the foresight to even consider that doing such a thing would be so far delayed that I have more than enough mutalisks out to oneshot overlords. If you are suggesting a 2 base lair roach drop timing against 2 base mutalisk, be my guest because I'll gladly take a huge dronelead and watch you dump all your roaches that you invested all your hopes in into my main, because if you don't kill me with that attack I'll win straight up.
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Sorry for the confusion, I should have made it clear that my second paragraph was unrelated to the first. I meant what if you are going ling infestor with spines at the front and your opponent goes for 2 base lair fast drops and doom drops your main with roaches.
As for the mass muta build, like you said, you wont be able to transition very well out of it, so the ling infestor player should just focus on defending versus your mass mutas; it doesnt really matter that his ultras are delayed. As long as he takes his 4th against your style then you probably lose, so if he invests in a whole bunch of anti air it doesnt really matter for him because you are pretty all-in. Putting ling infestor aside for a second, how do pros using standard roach builds deal with mass mutas? It seems like the ling infestor player should just be able to do the same response as if you are doing a roach build.
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On August 29 2012 22:48 Catatafish wrote:I would like some critique on a game I played on Ohana in low-mid-masters. The guy I played against was favored and I felt he was clearly the superior player, but I managed to get a big advantage in the mid-game and I feel I should have been able to bring it home. My own thoughts on the replay: I should've had spines up for his 10:30 roach push, but I cleaned it up pretty well anyway, even cost-efficiently. I was then able to cancel his third while droning up my own at which point I felt I had a fairly substantial lead. I went for a late roach warren, which may have been a mistake. I felt like I needed units fast to secure my economic advantage, but perhaps the roach warren should have either been earlier or not there at all, as it cut into my ultralisk production just before his attack. He moves out with a maxed roach/infestor army with me on a paltry 144/200 (did I make a major macro mistake or why was my supply so far behind his? I feel like I probably teched to hive too soon, not having secured a third base, but I didn't want to spend all my gas on infestors either.). I neglect to move in with my ling counter-attack force, which might have slowed him down and bought me time. The engagement is absolutely horrible for me. I should've moved up my spines and somehow avoided letting him have such a huge concave on me, but even so his army was just way superior to mine, and I don't feel like I could've won it in anyway. Not to mention I lost three full-energy infestors, which is quite painful to watch, sorry about that. I guess I'm just used to playing against weaker opponents because this engagement had me pretty baffled, as I felt I was ahead for most of the game. Any kinds of mistakes/oversights that you can point out would be much appreciated. Replay: http://drop.sc/244493
You lost about 700 gas by not putting drones in that geyser in your natural I think you just needed a bigger infestor count for that battle. Against roach players you can't stop at 4 infestors. You can start your hive after 4, but you need to resume infestor production. In terms of spine positioning, on Ohana you MUST take down your rocks. Keep your natural spines at the top of the ramp, and make a spinewall in a slight concave at your 3rd, and split up your infestors so that you can cover both angles. You can fungal the ramp if he tries to go for the natural, and you can fungal him in your spines if he attacks the 3rd. You need to be more patient and make sure he is always fighting in range of the spines, and your spines need to be positioned for that purpose.
Bigger infestor count, more spines, stronger defensive position, and earlier counterattack. I don't think the roaches hurt you much, but I don't think they helped either, since you had already started ultralisk production.
I was impressed by your hold against his roach push - I thought you were dead without spines, but he hit just before 1/1 finished, so that was very nice for you.
This is unrelated to your specific question, but your early game looks very unstable to me, with no baneling nest and no spine. It seems like it would be hard to reactively defend against many things. If your scouting is good enough that you never take dumb losses, that's great, but I'd be very worried about dumb losses in the early game.
I strongly recommend sneaking a few extra queens in, and sharing the injects around so that queens build up energy. That way any time you are in a tight spot you bring your queens to the fight and win with invulnerable ultralisks. It has gotten me out of tight spots on countless occasions, over and over again. Then when you want to attack you use a nydus worm to bring the extra queens to the fight and heal the ultras.
http://drop.sc/245137 This game shows my defensive set up on Ohana. It's a tough map for it, but this is how I try to do it. It also shows queens
http://drop.sc/245138 bonus game that shows how queens can save your ass in hard times.
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Hey, Diamond zerg here, I'm using this build to great success on the ladder. The only problem I'm having is dealing with 2base roach all ins. I'm having trouble scouting it, and defending adequately against it. What is the general timing for a third base in zvz?
Here are 2 replays, could someone point out the errors in my play? The first game I use roaches to defend; the second I use spine crawlers http://drop.sc/246367 http://drop.sc/246368
Oh, and what's the rough timing for a 2base roach push?
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On September 02 2012 08:27 akuan30000 wrote:Hey, Diamond zerg here, I'm using this build to great success on the ladder. The only problem I'm having is dealing with 2base roach all ins. I'm having trouble scouting it, and defending adequately against it. What is the general timing for a third base in zvz? Here are 2 replays, could someone point out the errors in my play? The first game I use roaches to defend; the second I use spine crawlers http://drop.sc/246367http://drop.sc/246368Oh, and what's the rough timing for a 2base roach push? I'm not qualified to answer any of the other questions, but a roach/ling all-in hits ~9:00-10:00, timing varies a ton depending on early game, if he gets upgrades/lair/macro hatch I figured a good way to do this build was saturate bases -> all larvae on lings, extra money goes into spines pretty much? Not sure, again I'm not qualified
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I wonder wether Roach/Hydra, with quite a few hydras, is actually a good strategy against this? I've just played against this and even though my opponent got some pretty good banelings hits one my hydras, and fungals my whole army while engaging with ultras I'm winning most of the fights. But he didn't do any Carapace upgrades aside from Ultra upgrade. So I'm not sure wether this might have been the reason for this. But if he did those he would have 1-2 less ultras. So I don't think it'd be such a difference.
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On September 03 2012 06:02 roym899 wrote: I wonder wether Roach/Hydra, with quite a few hydras, is actually a good strategy against this? I've just played against this and even though my opponent got some pretty good banelings hits one my hydras, and fungals my whole army while engaging with ultras I'm winning most of the fights. But he didn't do any Carapace upgrades aside from Ultra upgrade. So I'm not sure wether this might have been the reason for this. But if he did those he would have 1-2 less ultras. So I don't think it'd be such a difference.
Actually that makes a huge difference. The fact he only had the ultra cavern uptrades is huge for ultralisks. From experience both from playing with this style and playing against it with roach/hydra, ultras will mop this up easy peasy.
The ultras should be 5/3 and as long as he has infestor support he should be crushing your armies unless he is engaging in a bad position or something.
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From my experience (High Diamond/Low Master), this style autoloses to double upgraded roach. Is there anything better I can do? Or is the only option to put up a roach warren and get roaches yourself.
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On September 04 2012 05:51 xPiwi wrote: From my experience (High Diamond/Low Master), this style autoloses to double upgraded roach. Is there anything better I can do? Or is the only option to put up a roach warren and get roaches yourself.
The easiest solution is to get roaches yourself. The other way is to just make sure you have a lot of spines and obviously ling/infestor and engaging in a good spot while counter attacking.
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^ How many spines would you say? 3-4 5-6? more than that?
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On September 04 2012 07:13 xPiwi wrote: ^ How many spines would you say? 3-4 5-6? more than that?
I would try at minimum 5 if possible ^^.
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On August 29 2012 14:10 oOOoOphidian wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2012 13:32 Discarder wrote: I tried this and it was a lot of fun! But I think the only reason I played this is because some opponents had bad macro and not enough units.
I was having trouble defending a mass roach into 3rd base build in Ohana. 6 spines in my natural and 6 in the 3rd with a lot of infestors isn't enough. Its so hard to run back and forth to defend both bases.. Maybe I will upload a replay soon. If they are on 2 base, you can gladly stay on 2 base and just secure a large infestor count. After that, Ling/Infestor will demolish roach base armies and you're safe to take a 3rd. I think the proper number is ~10 with a lot of energy. If you conserve your lings and infestors, you'll be fine. Don't throw them away trying to save your 3rd too early. If people have replays of holding these attacks or losing against them, post in the thread so we can make more sense of how it works.
I guess this is it. I really have to do something with my lings if he's attacking. I really want this build to work but its so hard.
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Ok so I have a question about this style. If my opponent really commits to killing my third with roach attacks do I defend it or counter and kill his third? I can think of good reasons for both but in practice I never quite know what to do.
The only way I can defend my third is to mass spine but then I fall behind in eco and play from behind, or lose my third and kill his while having faster infestors then him to set myself up for the mid-late game.
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On September 04 2012 22:56 TheMooseHeed wrote: Ok so I have a question about this style. If my opponent really commits to killing my third with roach attacks do I defend it or counter and kill his third? I can think of good reasons for both but in practice I never quite know what to do.
The only way I can defend my third is to mass spine but then I fall behind in eco and play from behind, or lose my third and kill his while having faster infestors then him to set myself up for the mid-late game.
Well you should do a counter to kill his third if you don't think you can engage it. If you can fight it just defend, if you can't just fcounter and kill the third so that he's not ahead in bases
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On September 05 2012 03:18 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2012 22:56 TheMooseHeed wrote: Ok so I have a question about this style. If my opponent really commits to killing my third with roach attacks do I defend it or counter and kill his third? I can think of good reasons for both but in practice I never quite know what to do.
The only way I can defend my third is to mass spine but then I fall behind in eco and play from behind, or lose my third and kill his while having faster infestors then him to set myself up for the mid-late game. Well you should do a counter to kill his third if you don't think you can engage it. If you can fight it just defend, if you can't just fcounter and kill the third so that he's not ahead in bases
This is actually the most crucial moment in the upgraded mass ling vs roach games. It is very IMPORTANT to gauge how many units did he have to attack your 3rd and how many he has to defend his 3rd. This will determine if you should stay and defend OR do a counter attack. So it depends on how you size up his army.
The problem is I don't want to go ultras on only 2 bases. If my opponent denies my third forever, then it will be very hard to get gas for those ultras/upgrades/adrenal glands. It will just be a stale game. Maybe I should max with 2/2lings with my minerals so I can kill the roach army (with good positioning) head on? Because I think I have a lot of minerals already piled.
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Russian Federation81 Posts
1500+ MMR EU Dia. I've been using this style for quite some time already, but I still can't quite get the hang of it. The thing I used to die to most frequently were upgraded roach pushes. I'd defend from the first wave, and the next one would mop me off as I would have almost zero infestor energy and very few lings and spines left. So I've started getting a roach warren about time I morph my lair just like the Blade says in his latest posts. This way I am able to survive the roach push by matching his roach numbers, so it all seems good. But not quite. As I am using my gas on roaches, I can't afford enough (how much is enough? 6? 8? 10? more?) infestors. Later infestors means later ultras. And by the time I am able to start adding ultras to my army, the upgrade difference between my roaches and his becomes fatal.
My biggest fault that comes to mind is getting used to having a LOT of infestors (8+) from ling+spine way and trying to match these numbers while going roaches. How many infestors do you guys get? Now that I think about it, without having a need to lock roaches in place for spines, 4 or so would be enough, or would it?
Another dilemma I've been facing is, do I build lings (not counting a small sized counterattack squad for snipig 3rds and 4ths) for my main army or am I better off with pure roach and using those minerals somewhere else, like building spines. Enemy infestors kinda render my lings almost useless, or at least very fragile. I am talking about the time window when enemy already has a decent amount of infestors and my ultra cavern is not done yet.
In the end I wanted to say that I absolutely love this style, I've had games against much more skilled and highly ranked opponents, which I was obviously losing but was able to come back thanks to ridiculous strength of upgraded ultras against roach based ground armies. I just wish it would be more popular, none of the streamers I watch uses it So here's kinda a request to Blade and other people out there successfully using this.. could you please share some replays? And if you know a progamer using this style constantly could you point me towards them? Thanks!
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/\ this, a thousand times, this!
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Hm I don't have any recent replays since I have been playing almost only hots and yeah. The only ones are in the OP, but maybe some other people will post in here with replays but the ones in the OP are my latest ones !
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Any plans for a HOTS replay pack or streaming HOTS?
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On October 11 2012 18:51 Catatafish wrote: Any plans for a HOTS replay pack or streaming HOTS?
I stream hots quiet a bit, past couple weeks I haven't but plan on doing it again on monday. With being sick for a week then this week been lazy and kinda busy with school. Will be back on monday :D
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Wondering if it would be worth mixing drops into this, doing ling drops could be real destructive while staying defensive? Also infestor drops.
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United States248 Posts
In my opinion, drops aren't worth it until you enter into the lategame where you have your maxed army and you have your upgrades. The reason is otherwise this is 2 less infestors in the midgame, where you almost always need every bit of infestor energy.
Infestors also deal well with drops, and like every zerg midgame has infestors.
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What about if you did ling drops? A bunch of lings dropped when you see someone move out could be pretty destructive, and not to mention taxing on peoples multi-tasking, possibly opening up opportunities to hit 3rd/4ths
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On November 22 2012 15:43 zasg wrote: What about if you did ling drops? A bunch of lings dropped when you see someone move out could be pretty destructive, and not to mention taxing on peoples multi-tasking, possibly opening up opportunities to hit 3rd/4ths
Like the guy above you said, I don't think ling drops would be good. That is also 300 gas you are doing to get overlord speed + drop tech and it's not hard to stop as a zerg, just fungel the overlords. That will also be less infestors and delay the hive probably which I wouldn't want to do personally.
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Blade do you still do this style? I've reverted back to muta play for the most part, and find that although against muta openers this is very strong, against standard play it's been somewhat figured out.
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On November 22 2012 17:29 Host- wrote: Blade do you still do this style? I've reverted back to muta play for the most part, and find that although against muta openers this is very strong, against standard play it's been somewhat figured out.
I haven't played sc2 much in the past 2 months. I know in HOTS zvz is very muta heavy and I don't know how viable this strategy is at higher levels of play anymore.
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