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http://www.gomtv.net/2012gsls3/vod/67559/?set=2&lang=
http://www.gomtv.net/2012gsls3/vod/67559/?set=3&lang=
Final Engagement in 2nd example (3rd set) of Symbol vs Parting using Ultras before Broods vs 3+ colossus 3 base deathball tosss push (youtube)
Spoilered so you dont have to leave this page if you want
+ Show Spoiler +
(Sorry, you will need a pass to watch either game)
So in both of these games, Symbol made ultras in ZvP. We all know that ultra/baneling can rape any Toss army, but the problem is cost efficiency at a stage in the game where cost efficiency starts to become really important for Zerg.
In modern ZvP, Zerg uses roach/ling to defend 2 base aggression, and then goes for mutas/infestors after Toss gets his third. You can't make them earlier or you'll die to the 2 base all-in (you can't even start a spire/infestation pit and 5th+6th gas or you just won't have enough), but ideally you want to start infestation pit/infestors asap against macro Toss. Mass roach style is a lot less popular nowadays as maps and Toss just are too strong against it (but is still viable, of course - in the 2nd set, 1st game listed, he goes mass roach aggression in the midgame).
You need to have broodlords against 3+ colossi from 3 base Toss, when that push comes, but the problem is not the cost, but rather the tech time to do this. At the moment, Toss tends to do this 3+ colossus push when Zerg may have hive done, but the greater spire isn't done, et cetera, so Zerg needs to delay Toss from killing them by using either mutas or mass spine+infestor+corruptor or roach aggression, which leaves an uncomfortable timing that does rely on many factors, such as skill, builds, and the flow of the game, but irregardless, there is a timing when Toss is pushing out and Zerg simply isn't ready. It's very uncomfortable.
Symbol solves this with Ultralisks, something we are actually seeing in the other 2 match-ups as well (vZ, vP) - using Ultralisks as a sort of 'tier 2.5' unit to use when lair tech isn't strong enough, but going broodlords is too vulnerable, so Zerg can safely hold 3 base deathball pushes (150+ Terran rine/tank push when only infestors/mutas are not enough, and mass roach/hydra/infestor would kill you).
In these games, Symbol goes for Hive, and then baneling nest and Ultra cavern. He goes for Hive somewhat quicker than most Zergs seem to, and actually does not make many infestors. Using Ultras and slowbanes, you run over forcefields and kill off the sentries and colossus at a time when Toss will not have HT from 3 base (Toss can't afford HT unless he fought off mutas) and has to push before Zerg has broodlords. He defends the 3+ colossus 3 base push using ultras, and then transitions into mass broodlords as most zergs do, when he's safe because Toss does not have an army.
The 'problem' of cost efficiency is solved because you simply need to make sure that 3 base 3+ colossus/sentry push doesn't hit you, because like ultras are very good at, you kill the Toss army, and you are just using Ultras temporarily (like in the other 2 match-ups) so you can go into Broodlords.
He goes Ultras in 2 very, very different ways in both of the games though, which is extremely interesting and I think warrants this thread since it's clear Symbol knows what he's doing here.
1. Symbol made a lot of roaches in this game on Daybreak, to do roach aggression (with drops, actually). He fails miserably with his roach aggression, and this does put him behind - which makes ultras all the better a choice rather than mass muta/infestor into broodlords after his roach aggression failed.
Parting does his 3 base 3+ colossus/sentry push, and Symbol has mass roach/ling. Symbol goes right into Hive as soon as he knows his aggression isn't working and his drops won't work, which is a lot quicker than most Zergs, who would instead mass infestors and spines or mutas instead.
He lets Parting come all the way across the map uncontested, but instead of the "oh shit just give me 2 minutes for my broodlords, I have the money and the GS is morphing I swear!" moment, he has 5 Ultras popping and a ton of banelings morphed from his lings, with no speed (but speed on the way) or chitinous plating (again, on the way).
Symbol very well could have waited until baneling speed finished, it wasn't far off, and Parting wasn't all up in there yet - but Symbol knew he didn't need to. He used the Ultras to smash the forcefields, and the banelings do a ton of damage and kill off the sentries so his mass roach army could push back the stalkers.
From here, Symbol had 2 choices. In this game, he goes with the choice of "Stay on lower tech, be more aggressive" much like Zergs mass roaches instead of infestors/mutas. He ends the game with Ultra/speedbane, and starts adding infestors. He would have eventually gone for Broodlords, but he knew the game was his already, so he went for more aggression.
2. Symbol gets roach speed, +1, lots of roaches on 3 base vs 2 base Toss, all the normal stuff. But what's different here, is that Symbol really found the answer vs a Toss who takes a fast third - Symbol completely cut roach production, went for infestors, and made lots of lings instead of roaches (you still need an army of course). He got NP, and a quick hive, but did not mass spines like most zergs would here. He made very, very few roaches, he literally did not make any more when he saw Parting take a very fast third on Cloud Kingdom.
Now most of Zergs just hate when Toss does this. Wtf are you supposed to do, and there is still going to be that uncomfortable "just give me a sec bro I have broodlords coming!" no matter how fast you tech or how greedy you play.
Symbol does not make too many infestors, but he did make some, unlike the last game. In this game, he got NP, something he did not do last game. I assume that if you don't make lots of roaches, you need NP. You only mass roaches if you fear aggressoin, or want to do aggression, but in this game Symbol decided not to go for roaches due to the fast third of Parting.
Just like in ZvT and ZvZ quick hive, short lair style into ultra, you can only get Ultras quickly if you did not make many roaches.
So Parting does his 3+ Colossus 3 base deathball push. In this game though, he got run over when he moved out as Symbol had Ultra/speedbane/NP ready, as he teched quickly when he saw the fast third, and got this army out while Broodlord/infestor would never have been ready.
He NP'd the 4 colossus and crushed everything. He made NP useful, which was interesting.
He clearly went for a macro game instead this game, and instead of making more Ultras and speedbanes to follow-up and close the game, he had a spire already morphing when he started ultra production, and a greater spire morphing during the fight.
The game ended before he made any corruptors though, but it was obvious what his intent was.
I imagine there's some vulnerabilities to this - if Toss knows you are cutting roaches in favor of Ultras, or going quick hive Ultras after mass roach instead of mutas/infestor, he would probably make HT and take a fourth and be more passive instead of pushing. But fortunately for Zerg, we can rely on Toss' instinct to all-in and push out with his 3+ colossus 3 base deathball for a long time ^^
Seriously though, I imagine the 'answer' for Toss is to sit back and take a fourth and HT tech instead of push out, and get archons, zealots, and storm before pushing, which shouldn't take too long (relatively), and then push out with an army that can really kill the ultra based army really efficiently. He should probably get mothership during this heavier HT/archon/zealot push.
The biggest vulnerability I really see in this style, is that Toss could take that fourth and go archon/HT/zealot before pushing, and because he's on 4 bases, he could much easier transition into Carrier/HT/Archon at the same time you are making those broodlords. But I think it'll be a long time before we see that in a pro game...
TLDR Just like in recent metagame shifts in ZvZ/ZvT, in ZvP, zerg can cut out mass roach in midgame if Toss goes fast third, or cut out infestors/mutas if you went mass roach, and go ultras before broodlords so you can handle the 3 base deathball push of the opponent, so you can safely hold this deathball push when broodlord/infestor would be uncomfortable and lair tech would not be enough.
In all 3 match-ups, Ultras are amazing to use as a sort of 'tier 2.5' unit to use when lair tech isn't enough, and broodlords is too greedy, so you can safely transition into that ideal BL/Infestor army while giving Zerg another chance to possibly end the game with lower tech aggression.
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This is a pretty incredibly write-up. Thanks for all the insight. As someone who is just starting to switch to Zerg I can't comment too much on this but Symbol's play was truly incredible as it has been for the past month or so. I love that he's bringing new builds into the Zerg metagame and it seems like he has a much higher understanding of the game than a lot of other players out there in Code S right now. I'm looking forward to seeing Symbol as the next GSL champion.
Using ultras has been long overlooked in ZvP and I'm glad Symbol found a way to not only successfully use them, but dominate with them in a fashion we haven't seen in a long time.
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Good post, although Ultras still got their flaws in ZvP, the 2.5 thingy maybe the answer to our complaints regarding the role of them. I especially like the synergy with MorroWs/Dimas Ling/Bane - Style, which makes the roach looking like an obstacle in your flow to the later stages of the game (At least in any games without a strong and early 2Base All-In).
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Not another option for zerg!
Stop this!
It's hard enough as is on ladder in P v Z.
Thanks for adding content to TL though, this looks so strong.
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United States8476 Posts
The counter for this as toss is extremely passive turtle play. A unit composition consisting of some combination of mainly archon/immortal/colossi/templar is the best. Zealots are pretty much worthless except for reinforcements after all banelings die, and you want as few stalkers as possible, as they don't really contribute much to the fight. Leftover sentries should be used to hallucinate archons. Fortify all your bases with spread out cannons. Basically just turtle like no other. If you reach a maxout with this composition, baneling/ultra cannot touch you. Double upgrades are also really bad versus this style cause all the main units(banelings and ultras) don't really care much about armor.
In the 2nd game, Parting got a huge lead, but was just overly aggressive. In the 3rd game, Parting was just caught off guard. He didn't get to use hallucination or spread out his army. Both games are good demonstrations of this style, but in both games I feel like Parting just wasn't used to facing it enough and made huge blunders.
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WOW this is EXACTLY the post I was looking for... consider myself a fan of yours, herr doktor Belial. Have been wondering for a long time how to make ultras viable zvp
Edit:
On June 20 2012 15:22 NrGmonk wrote:
The counter for this as toss is extremely passive turtle play. A unit composition consisting of some combination of mainly archon/immortal/colossi/templar is the best. Zealots are pretty much worthless except for reinforcements after all banelings die, and you want as few stalkers as possible, as they don't really contribute much to the fight. Leftover sentries should be used to hallucinate archons. Fortify all your bases with spread out cannons. Basically just turtle like no other. If you reach a maxout with this composition, baneling/ultra cannot touch you. Double upgrades are also really bad versus this style cause all the main units(banelings and ultras) don't really care much about armor.
In the 2nd game, Parting got a huge lead, but was just overly aggressive. In the 3rd game, Parting was just caught off guard. He didn't get to use hallucination or spread out his army. Both games are good demonstrations of this style, but in both games I feel like Parting just wasn't used to facing it enough and made huge blunders.
Aww man, you mean this ISN'T another nearly-unstoppable death strategy? xD I wonder what you would recommend in turn to beat the turtling strategy? Brood lords perhaps?
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The counter for this as toss is extremely passive turtle play. A unit composition consisting of some combination of mainly archon/immortal/colossi/templar is the best. Zealots are pretty much worthless except for reinforcements after all banelings die, and you want as few stalkers as possible, as they don't really contribute much to the fight. Leftover sentries should be used to hallucinate archons. Fortify all your bases with spread out cannons. Basically just turtle like no other. If you reach a maxout with this composition, baneling/ultra cannot touch you. Double upgrades are also really bad versus this style cause all the main units(banelings and ultras) don't really care much about armor.
In the 2nd game, Parting got a huge lead, but was just overly aggressive. In the 3rd game, Parting was just caught off guard. He didn't get to use hallucination or spread out his army. Both games are good demonstrations of this style, but in both games I feel like Parting just wasn't used to facing it enough and made huge blunders.
The problem with turtling is that you have no 4th. As shown in the 2nd game, against Parting on Cloud Kingdom, if you attempt to play passive, you will be forever denied your fourth while Zerg gets his broodlord/infestor army (now, with ultra support...).
I don't think it's as easy as you make it out to be. It's like you are saying 'mutas are easy' and to which I'd say "no, mutas are not easy, but there is a way you are supposed to fight against them and it's still a challenge"
Upgrades are still useful against the roaches or lings the player will still have massed (in game 1, mass roaches were still present, in both games, mass ling) as well as the eventual broodlord/infestor. Armor is also useful on certain units, bane vs archon and immortal for example.
Aww man, you mean this ISN'T another nearly-unstoppable death strategy? xD I wonder what you would recommend in turn to beat the turtling strategy? Brood lords perhaps?
'Standard' play hasn't been made unviable by any means - I still go mutas in ZvT, and many in the GSL do (with more success statistically than infestors I might add) still. You can still do the old mutas/infestor+mass spine/roach aggression play. On daybreak, Symbol did the classic mass roach aggression and then went ultras (it was a great way to catch up from behind though, as his aggression didn't work and if he went broods he clearly would have died) but on game 2 he very much did something novel.
WOW this is EXACTLY the post I was looking for... consider myself a fan of yours, herr doktor Belial. Have been wondering for a long time how to make ultras viable zvp
Thanks. I wrote a guide a while back about ultras in zvp, but it only worked because I was diamond back then (its still a neat guide imo though, well written - just dont follow it, although it does sound like dimaga did something like that guide, i havent seen what games he did that everyone is talking about). Really interesting how ultras are being introduced into all match-ups at the moment.
Makes me laugh at how back in the day people would use ultras for tech switching (like in zvt vs viking/marauder) such as bl to ultra (to lose). It took 2 years for people to finally start learning ultras (here's hoping blizzard doesn't watch these games and not change ultra in hots). ah, we were so terrible 2 months ago.
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Nice work belial. I know you Hang out in our channel. Maybe we need a coach like you 
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Wow, awesome post. I would just like to say I am glad to see ultralisks used (and having a role in ZvP), instead of just BLs all the time. Even if it only works in the current metagame briefly, it is refreshing to see them again, as ZvP seems to have gotten a bit stale with the same BL/infestor/mass-spine vs mothership/deathball
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United States8476 Posts
On June 20 2012 15:44 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +
The counter for this as toss is extremely passive turtle play. A unit composition consisting of some combination of mainly archon/immortal/colossi/templar is the best. Zealots are pretty much worthless except for reinforcements after all banelings die, and you want as few stalkers as possible, as they don't really contribute much to the fight. Leftover sentries should be used to hallucinate archons. Fortify all your bases with spread out cannons. Basically just turtle like no other. If you reach a maxout with this composition, baneling/ultra cannot touch you. Double upgrades are also really bad versus this style cause all the main units(banelings and ultras) don't really care much about armor.
In the 2nd game, Parting got a huge lead, but was just overly aggressive. In the 3rd game, Parting was just caught off guard. He didn't get to use hallucination or spread out his army. Both games are good demonstrations of this style, but in both games I feel like Parting just wasn't used to facing it enough and made huge blunders.
The problem with turtling is that you have no 4th. As shown in the 2nd game, against Parting on Cloud Kingdom, if you attempt to play passive, you will be forever denied your fourth while Zerg gets his broodlord/infestor army (now, with ultra support...). I don't think it's as easy as you make it out to be. It's like you are saying 'mutas are easy' and to which I'd say "no, mutas are not easy, but there is a way you are supposed to fight against them and it's still a challenge" Upgrades are still useful against the roaches or lings the player will still have massed (in game 1, mass roaches were still present, in both games, mass ling) as well as the eventual broodlord/infestor. Armor is also useful on certain units, bane vs archon and immortal for example.
Of course, this strategy isn't easy to beat. It's about as difficult as pretty much every other Zerg strategy. I was just saying what steps Protoss has to take to mitigate the potential damage.
Yes, it is difficult to secure a 4th. But Parting would have had an easy time in game 2 if he didn't suicide his entire army by being too aggressive. And Parting just played badly in game 3.
Also, armor upgrades are completely useless as a vast vast majority of the dps from this composition comes from banelings and ultras, not lings and roaches. You can use forcefields and blink to act as armor versus lings and roaches if you have to. Armor helps archons and immortals versus banelings??? The resources required to upgrade would be much better spent on additional cannons or archons.
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^ Ah okay. yea i can't tell how well he played, thanks for the insight.
Nice work belial. I know you Hang out in our channel. Maybe we need a coach like you
what channel. thanks.
Thanks Yoshi. ZvP will still be stale, it's just the staleness will happen later now on.
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Symbol is such a beast lately 
I watched the games live and i was just like "Holy [censored]"
He made Parting looking like a noob.
Ultras are great since release the problem with them is their ridicilous bad path-finding. You need amazing Unit-Control to make them efficient. And i like the idea to use them as a gapcloser to get your BL/Festor out more safe.
PvZ felt a bit random lately,since P was pushing out when his obs scouted that Hive is starting (win/lose)
or pushed when BL were morphing (if you hit the timing win / if you don't like 70% lose becauseyou are in an awful fight position)
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Does he go for double evo before Lair? And if so, Does he upgrade ranged or melee?
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Honestly it worked because Parting fucked that up
He had no archons, didnt pressured the 4th, let the creep spread, and above all kept his colossus in the front where they got neuraled/ultrarolled
I dont think it have any chance against a protoss that just know what to do
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One important part of the succes that had symbol with this strat pointed out by Artosis is that even in late game, Symbol still perfectly hit his inject, which made him able to remax several time on Speedling.
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Is the ultralisk cavern build time significantly shorter than the GS morphing time? Never realized that ultra cavern was quicker
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Actually the funniest thing about the second game is:
In the main engagement at the end where he NPed the collossi, he actually wasted like 30 banes into one archon, and it didn't matter. Watch and behold.
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after watching it over and over, i still think this was mostly due to Parting not having any storms and the mass baneling cleaning the vast majority of the protoss army (with fungal to prevent blink). At that point about any unit that can attack ground should have been able to clean that up, even queens
Sure, ultras were nice to prevent forcefields, but i don't think they did as much damage as they get credit for.
To sum it up, perfect engagement for Symbol as he cought Parting's army off guard (not even in a choke, it was already on open terrain, all clumped up), landed good fungals, banelings roll in for the kill, ultras have easy cleanup time. No storm, no feedback, no air units from protoss whatsoever.
Why hasn't this been done earlier by zergs? Because if Protoss has Storm, does not walk up a ramp into the open blindly and storms the ramp twice when zerg attacks, there are suddenly no banelings left and those ultras do literally nothing at all except for the largest burning animation in game
So this thread should be about the banelings in ZvP in my opinion, and just mentioning ultras as forcefield-braker (which are not even necessary. If I'm not mistaken Dimaga did a ton of baneling stuff in Dreamhack against Protoss with great success, cleaning up armies just with banelings, surpassing force field walls with good flanks, sometimes even use drop play). Plus the obvious weakness to this strategy, Storm and any kind of air play (or perfect forcefields in an attack before ultras are out)
On June 20 2012 16:46 SolidMustard wrote:
Is the ultralisk cavern build time significantly shorter than the GS morphing time? Never realized that ultra cavern was quicker
not really, and if you factor in the upgrade for ultras they need more time to be ready for fight than brood lords.
BUT: if you don't have a spire when you hit hive, and if you don't have corruptors when the greater spire is done morphing, brood lords take a ton longer to prepare for. Thus if you want to get them in time you need to prepare early and invest a lot in them (double spire when starting hive, air upgrades, building corruptors while greater spire morphs). This is a huge investment, and often you die before they are finally ready (often just because you didnt have any of the prerequisites ready and thus delayed it). Whereas going ultras, you place that ultra cavern as soon as you get hive, you don't need any air upgrades, and if you get attacked before you can get them out you did not already waste 70% of your money into useless corruptors, buildings and upgrades. Instead you can just go for a ton of lings or roaches or whatever to hold off the attack.
So on paper, BL would be faster, but it requires huge investments to do so, opening timings for you to die (and if you do not play high risk style you will have to delay stuff as building second spire, double upgades, getting corruptors out, thus your BL come way later than ultras would). Going ultras is much safer that way and in most cases faster
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I enjoy your posts a lot Belial and next time I reference anything related to this information I will source you Thanks for a great read.
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ive always liked ultras but honestly..i think the reason why symbol is that good and why he won is his strong mechanics, terran might be the most micro intensive race but with overall great mechanics you benefit most from them as a zerg player...
i mean..symbol sure is a smart player - its impossible to do that well against the top players without beeing - but i never was inspired by his decisionmaking like i was by nestea's. i think his great mechanics will get him very far tho i look forward to watch him play again
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Honestly it worked because Parting fucked that up
He had no archons, didnt pressured the 4th, let the creep spread, and above all kept his colossus in the front where they got neuraled/ultrarolled
I dont think it have any chance against a protoss that just know what to do
Toss is not supposed to have archons against Zerg. If I see you make HT tech on 3 base AND getting the 3+ colossus off 3 base, I'm going to go straight into broodlords and just own you when you push out and my broods are already done. And in many cases, like the game on Daybreak, Symbol is doing the mass roach aggression - good luck getting HT while you need the robo tech and are barely survivng the roach aggression. Or, good luck getting HT when you fast expand like the game on cloud kingdom and I skip roaches and just tech up.
Maybe the way it will work out, is that now, zergs will go ultras if they see you go HT on 3 base (as well as the obviously necessary 3+ colossus or just mass roach/infestors, we already have roach speed), and go straight BL if they see you go HT tech, and then like we'll have games where zerg thought you were going HT tech but you actually weren't and vice versa.
Not all of the colossus were up front that he NP'd, and he won the battle pretty convincingly.... even if Parting played 'correctly', Symbol had the GS morphing already and would have denied the 4th with his ultras, then parting gets his zealot/archon/ht, and then the broods are done and GG.
But I'm glad you've already seen or played games where this sort of ultra play didn't work against Toss, as opposed to just saying something you just guess based off what you know of the game when Symbol has clearly practiced this and done what he did for a reason!
Maybe ultras are crap, but it's too early to tell. But, seeing them in these games, I do think it warrants discussion, symbol clearly felt that ultras were good in practice, thats why he did it.
One important part of the succes that had symbol with this strat pointed out by Artosis is that even in late game, Symbol still perfectly hit his inject, which made him able to remax several time on Speedling.
its because he does the backspace inject method, as opposed to what most pro koreans do, the single queen per hotkey with only 3 queens injecting, and each injecting individually. You aren't just going to have 3x the larva of much more established zergs without doing something totally different. It has it's own drawbacks as well (less control, harder to make larva out of a specific hatch without having to actually uniquely go to it), but I do it and I think it far outweighs the costs, of having 50+ larva consistently in early lategame and beyond.
Is the ultralisk cavern build time significantly shorter than the GS morphing time? Never realized that ultra cavern was quicker
Sort of. With hive done:
Ultra Den (65) + Ultra (55) = 120
Greater Spire (100) + Broodlord (34) = 134
But there are key differences.
1. Just 3-5 ultralisks is much, much more useful than 3-5 broodlords. If the 3+ base colossus push comes at you and you try to fight it head on with 3-5 broods, you die. But 3-5 ultras, with NP or mass roach that you already got in mid-game, will crush such an army. The difference is that ultras are much, much less cost efficient than broodlords, especially when its' 10+ ultras compared to 10+ broodlords, but you aren't staying on ultras forever is the point. As symbol used them in daybreak, he only had 4, and he specifically used them just to break forcefields, manuevering them to break them more than fighting with them.
2. It's never as simple as 134 seconds for greater spire. Even if you have the corruptors ready when GS pops, you generally need to move the corruptors somewhere useful first, they are very slow. Id say the difference is probably closer to 30-40 seconds in an actual game, which is a big deal, as even with ultras, toss has pushed out, but the difference is toss just at creep (like in daybreak and cloud kingdom) vs in your base, or being defensive with broods vs straight up attacking first with the ultras, in a favorable location.
3. The problem with broodlords isn't the cost. The problem is time. Ultras come out quicker, and like I said, 3-5 ultras is very game changing, 3-5 broodlords dont mean much, toss can still engage, and he can also just back off just fine and get what he needs. You need 8+ broods before it becomes a problem for toss, but 3-5 ultras can chase you all the way back home and ultimately deny the 4th. broods are MUCH slower, so yea maybe you can eventually harass the 4th that's starting rather than being denied, but you need more support for broods than with ultras. Ultra/ling or 5ultras+5infestors is a hell of a lot stronger than the equal amount of pure broodlord without support or roaches+3-5 broods.
But yea it is a significant time difference actually, especially when you factor in things like the speed of broods vs ultras, that its rarely as straightforward as "yup, my 10 corruptors are all in the perfectly safe and aggressive forward position ready to be morphed the second GS pops", and that ultras allow you to be aggressive and have map control when if you went broodlords, Toss has map control because 10+ broods take a long time and need a lot of support whereas ultras just go fuck shit up.
after watching it over and over, i still think this was mostly due to Parting not having any storms and the mass baneling cleaning the vast majority of the protoss army (with fungal to prevent blink). At that point about any unit that can attack ground should have been able to clean that up, even queens
Like I said, if you go storm on 3 base and 3+ colossus that you need for that push, Zerg can go straight broodlords safely and confine you on 3 base. I think the proper thing is that you need HT/chargelot tech only against ultras, but you have to make sure you dont get it against someone who skips ultras. So it's a balance that you need to play.
I dont think any toss would be happy if they were told "Okay, zerg is getting his mass broodlords right now, but you can't attack him, and no, your expansion is going to be hard to take too"
Banelings were not the issue. Banelings can be easily stopped by sentries. Which parting would have done, if it wasnt for those 3-5 ultras smashing the forcefields (tahts their primary role). Also, in the game on cloud kingdom, Symbol did not use banelings, but instead relied on infestors.
This hasn't been done earlier because Zergs didnt understand ultras before. Before, Zergs always thought "Ultras vs Broodlords" or "Tech switch between the two'. No shit, broodlords are WAY better than ultras, in every matchup and every army! The difference is that Zergs realize "Hey, ultras are not as good as broodlords, but they come quicker and allow me map control when normally I'm dying just before my broods pop out - if I use this map control to both deny the opponent's push and future bases while getting my broodlords out, I can easily win!"
We see ultras being used a lot now in all of the match-ups, all with the same intent - be aggressive instead of defensive vs a 3 base deathball push, and THEN get broodlords once you defend that push which is impossible to beat aggressively with lair tech (you have to be passive using infestor/spine or mutas to force him to stay in his base rather than using the mutas to fight) and impossible to get broodlords in time against.
and ultras come significantly quicker, and are game changing in much smaller numbers, and most improtantly, are much much faster than broodlords. big difference.
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Only problem I experience with ultras. Is that the skill required to control them increases exponentially with how many you have. Using a few as a stepping stone. Seems to be a nice side step of the infinite skill needed to control 6+ ultras. When I go mass ultra they always try to hump each other.
I also agree with how banes go good with ultras. Had a game recently where I went ling->inf->ultra against a terran who went mostly MMM with a few tanks and a thor. He was denying me a win until I realised I needed some banes. Game ended being pretty close but I think if I had banes when I started attacking. It would have been an easy win.
Best thing with ultras is that you get your upgrades for free if you went ling infestor ^^
Ps. Belial88 you put in a lot of work, kudos!
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my point is, Brood Lords are the core of a BL late game army, with infestor/corruptor/spine/roach/hydra/whatever as support besides them to cover for their blind spot
whereas Ultras in most cases are not the core of the army, they are first of all just a support in form of crushing forcefields and tanking damage for your real damage dealing units (banelings) to close the gap. So they are not the core unit you try to get as fast as possible, they are rather the support units you want to have to make your banelings more viable. Which is basically the very same thing as dropping banelings onto a protoss army. Note that in both cases you need infestors to keep stalkers in place anyway. Also this composition is mainly based on banelings, not on ultras, since if you snipe the ultras the banelings can still kill the entire protoss army, whereas if the banelings are dead before arrival, your ultras will not do much at all, assuming protoss does not fight split up in the open
watch the linked youtube video again. Sure, there are like 15 banelings wasted on one archon. But before that, banelings blow up ~15+ Stalker, plus ~5-10 Zealots, plus two immortals, plus the sentries (and they would have killed the colossi too if it wasn't for the NP). And they did so cost-efficient. This was the real core of the zerg army to win that fight. About any composition of the same supply as the ultras would have cleaned up afterwards. The ultras just allowed the banelings to negate forcefields.
So to sum it up, this is not a decision between Brood Lords and Ultras, this is a decision between Brood Lord turtle and Baneling aggression to crush Protoss armies, in which the latter can profit from Ultras to get better hits in. Again, with those fungals and that positioning i could bet on Symbol winning that fight even if all his Ultras were Hydras or Roaches and he would have dropped the banelings onto the fungaled mass Stalker. Thus this threads name should be "Banelings in ZvP (Symbol style)", pointing out how great he chose his engagements, how perfect his fungals were and noting that he went ultralisks to complement his baneling based army, not vice-versa. At least in my humble opinion.
Oh and again, HT tech route screw this type of army composition, not because Zealot/Archon does good against Ultras, but because the storms kill the real damage dealing units (banelings) with one or two good storms before they do anything.
Except maybe against pure Stalker/Colossus Ultras are never a good unit on their own, and even then it is doubtful. Ultras get crushed hard by immortal-based armies, Stargate-based armies and even Gateway-heavy armies (Zealots as a meatshield, Stalker have bonus dmg vs armored) can fare well against Ultras.
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Only problem I experience with ultras. Is that the skill required to control them increases exponentially with how many you have. Using a few as a stepping stone. Seems to be a nice side step of the infinite skill needed to control 6+ ultras. When I go mass ultra they always try to hump each other.
I dont agree. Just keep lings on a separate hotkey from the ultras. In both games, symbol actually just a-moves the ultras. Not much control required. But spreading them a bit with a patrol move, just like spreading ling/bane, is very helpful. or any sort of spreading of the melee units.
just in case you didn't know, broods also immensely benefit from melee/carapce upgrades as well. they get more dps added by going melee upgrades than air attack (due to broodlings). Both ultra and bl benefit from same upgrades, really.
whereas Ultras in most cases are not the core of the army, they are first of all just a support in form of crushing forcefields and tanking damage for your real damage dealing units (banelings) to close the gap. So they are not the core unit you try to get as fast as possible, they are rather the support units you want to have to make your banelings more viable. Which is basically the very same thing as dropping banelings onto a protoss army. Note that in both cases you need infestors to keep stalkers in place anyway. Also this composition is mainly based on banelings, not on ultras, since if you snipe the ultras the banelings can still kill the entire protoss army, whereas if the banelings are dead before arrival, your ultras will not do much at all, assuming protoss does not fight split up in the open
I don't know, I really think the ultras are important. I guess speedbanes are really helpful though.
I think like with mutas with going bl vs banes, its a choice of passive teching up, or aggression(or defense if its really tight i gues, like symbol on daybreak).
But cant just make speedbanes without ultras. You need the ultras to break the forcefields, and you are using ultras to combat colossus-stalker, the real core of the toss 3+ colossus 3 base push (he will have less immortal/sentry/zealot/archon than stalker/colossus).
Yea, I imagine if you open mutas, you should not go this symbol style Ultras because Toss will have HT, as a mid-stage transition for broodlords. I guess you can as aggression (i recall seeing a few games where zergs went ultras on entombed in lategame vs toss, but i think it lost so...play macro!).
But if Toss goes for HT, you can just not make many ultras and go for broods much quicker, or at least delay the fourth long enough to set up.
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On June 20 2012 18:41 Belial88 wrote:
But cant just make speedbanes without ultras. You need the ultras to break the forcefields, and you are using ultras to combat colossus-stalker, the real core of the toss 3+ colossus 3 base push (he will have less immortal/sentry/zealot/archon than stalker/colossus).
That was the point i was trying to make. From the few games i was able to watch from DH, i saw Dimaga crush Protoss pushes with banelings without ultras over and over. He just chose his engagements wisely, got good flanks with banelings, used overlord drop, and he made it through a lot of really good protoss players into the finals of DH. Sure, when you get to that point in the game, you add ultras to your composition to further increase effectiveness of your banes, but it still is not the core of your army. And in the game Symbol vs Parting, the banelings killed at least two third of the protoss army (colossus-stalker!), the ultras did only kill ~7 Stalker (who blinked INTO the ultras to snipe all infestors!). I guess i made my point clear enough, it is not the ultra-heavy play that won Symbol the games, it was the baneling-based play in which he used ultras as support. Dimaga used baneling-based play as well, just that he dropped them instead of running them in. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Partings main mistake was not to get storm (which you absolutely need when you see that many banelings), even though i don't know how the game got to this point i think it is viable to have Storm when you try to take your fourth base as protoss
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That was the point i was trying to make. From the few games i was able to watch from DH, i saw Dimaga crush Protoss pushes with banelings without ultras over and over. He just chose his engagements wisely, got good flanks with banelings, used overlord drop, and he made it through a lot of really good protoss players into the finals of DH. Sure, when you get to that point in the game, you add ultras to your composition to further increase effectiveness of your banes, but it still is not the core of your army. And in the game Symbol vs Parting, the banelings killed at least two third of the protoss army (colossus-stalker!), the ultras did only kill ~7 Stalker (who blinked INTO the ultras to snipe all infestors!). I guess i made my point clear enough, it is not the ultra-heavy play that won Symbol the games, it was the baneling-based play in which he used ultras as support. Dimaga used baneling-based play as well, just that he dropped them instead of running them in. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Partings main mistake was not to get storm (which you absolutely need when you see that many banelings), even though i don't know how the game got to this point i think it is viable to have Storm when you try to take your fourth base as protoss
It is viable to get storm when you try to take your fourth, but it is not viable to get storm against infestor openings from zerg and be able to push them when they try to go straight from infestors to mass broodlords, as you won't do your 3+ colossus push in time. Thus there's a very clear - get templar tech vs ultra/bane, and don't get templar tech vs broodlord, and if you dont do the right thing vs either play, you are behind.
So it's a game to play, much like toss needs to to the 'right' thing based on whether zerg is going mutas (templar tech) or infestors (robo tech), and similarly, will fall behind. you go HT thinking mutas against mass roach and you lose.
I'll try to check out dimaga in dreamhack, but I believe his style revolved around using ling/bane aggression against Toss - not using ultra/bane to survive the deathball push. What dimaga did is more like just not taking a fast third, thus he can skip roaches, and basically using a really strong ling/bane composition as a means of aggression against toss. Completely different, and completely different purposes to both - that's comparing getting marauders early game against zerg for aggression and stim timing as to getting ultras to fight infestors or ultras (yea... really bad example).
It didn't remind you of Belial's ZvP Guide: Ling/Infestor, or How I grew to Love ZvP?
tt
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On June 20 2012 15:22 NrGmonk wrote:
Leftover sentries should be used to hallucinate archons.
Why wait? Hallucinate the moment you see Ultra/Bane/ling attacking, because otherwise you lose energy and can't do anything else usefull with it anyway.
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United States8476 Posts
On June 20 2012 22:13 -Kira wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2012 15:22 NrGmonk wrote:
Leftover sentries should be used to hallucinate archons. Why wait? Hallucinate the moment you see Ultra/Bane/ling attacking, because otherwise you lose energy and can't do anything else usefull with it anyway.
Isn't that what I said/meant?
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I can see this Ultra/Baneling style becoming the trend in near future.
Over time, protoss will learn to adapt to this style and try to scout it. Seeing baneling nest and ultralisk cavern in zerg base with observer is not the hardest thing in the world after all.
Then, protoss will learn what the best unit composition vs Ultra/Baneling is. Heavier HT/Immortal than current typical protoss ball will be probably it. Protoss players might put more practice time into splitting like terran players currently do.
Whenever somewhat new strategy come out of 1 race, that race dominates with the strategy. After several weeks or sometimes months, the other race come up with the counter strategy. At that point, the original strategy gets old and becomes far less effective than it was when it first came out. I love this cycle and how game evolves over time. I am a zerg player, so I am obviously happy to see this new style from pro zerg player. At the same time, I would love to see pro protoss player literally demolish this style in coming weeks of months. Then another new strategy will come out...so exciting!!
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But I'm glad you've already seen or played games where this sort of ultra play didn't work against Toss, as opposed to just saying something you just guess based off what you know of the game when Symbol has clearly practiced this and done what he did for a reason!
Maybe ultras are crap, but it's too early to tell. But, seeing them in these games, I do think it warrants discussion, symbol clearly felt that ultras were good in practice, thats why he did it.
I dont really understand what you mean about the Parting/Symbol game, if you were trying to be ironic or not, so i'll just say that i did see a lot of people try to make it work and failing pretty bad at it, primarly because Archon/zealot/HT shred that army comp, and for various other reason, like the need for an open wide area and the colossi being able to just go up a cliff against a 100% melee army.
Also, protoss isnt "supposed" to get Archon against zerg but if they scout a heavy Ling/bling/Ultra comp they may very well want to add them
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Irregardless isn't a word. Other than that, it's an interesting play against that scary stalker/colossus timing before BL tech. Might have to try this out on certain maps.
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I think the main thing that makes this comp good for zerg is a protoss with no or very few zealots. If they just have stalkers and colossus mostly Ultras should roll over that army(assuming a semi favorable engagement).
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On June 20 2012 21:54 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +That was the point i was trying to make. From the few games i was able to watch from DH, i saw Dimaga crush Protoss pushes with banelings without ultras over and over. He just chose his engagements wisely, got good flanks with banelings, used overlord drop, and he made it through a lot of really good protoss players into the finals of DH. Sure, when you get to that point in the game, you add ultras to your composition to further increase effectiveness of your banes, but it still is not the core of your army. And in the game Symbol vs Parting, the banelings killed at least two third of the protoss army (colossus-stalker!), the ultras did only kill ~7 Stalker (who blinked INTO the ultras to snipe all infestors!). I guess i made my point clear enough, it is not the ultra-heavy play that won Symbol the games, it was the baneling-based play in which he used ultras as support. Dimaga used baneling-based play as well, just that he dropped them instead of running them in. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Partings main mistake was not to get storm (which you absolutely need when you see that many banelings), even though i don't know how the game got to this point i think it is viable to have Storm when you try to take your fourth base as protoss It is viable to get storm when you try to take your fourth, but it is not viable to get storm against infestor openings from zerg and be able to push them when they try to go straight from infestors to mass broodlords, as you won't do your 3+ colossus push in time. Thus there's a very clear - get templar tech vs ultra/bane, and don't get templar tech vs broodlord, and if you dont do the right thing vs either play, you are behind. So it's a game to play, much like toss needs to to the 'right' thing based on whether zerg is going mutas (templar tech) or infestors (robo tech), and similarly, will fall behind. you go HT thinking mutas against mass roach and you lose. I'll try to check out dimaga in dreamhack, but I believe his style revolved around using ling/bane aggression against Toss - not using ultra/bane to survive the deathball push. What dimaga did is more like just not taking a fast third, thus he can skip roaches, and basically using a really strong ling/bane composition as a means of aggression against toss. Completely different, and completely different purposes to both - that's comparing getting marauders early game against zerg for aggression and stim timing as to getting ultras to fight infestors or ultras (yea... really bad example). It didn't remind you of Belial's ZvP Guide: Ling/Infestor, or How I grew to Love ZvP? tt
he was taking a fast third in all the games i watched(4min ish) and there were games were he used it as aggresion(went all-in vs mana in one of the games) and in some of the games he used it to crush pushes, while eventually teching up to broodlords, he totally crushed some 3 base collosi pushes, but looked vunerable to naniwa's double robo collosi push(he lost his natural and his third, but had a 4th at that time, although he did win that game by going into corruptors just in time and going up to bls after that).
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Would it be beneficial to perhaps go 3 (just a theory instead of 4) gas roach/ling with melee upgrades to defend the two base timing? Or are we stuck just going +1 roaches and then switch to melee upgrades? Lings will be amazing with the upgrade and it will translate into the late game perfectly.
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It's fun to get ultras at first but then not making anymore unless they go super stalker heavy. It's a great unit zvp for a few moments during that big push that toss does to stop bl's, if you can neural the immortals/archons (if he has any) and make sure banelings connect with zealots you will crush his push :D
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Are there any free/accessible vods that show pro zergs executing this? Considering all the countless times we've seen Ultras get roflstomped in the matchup I'd be very interested to see how it played out since I can't quite picture Ultras being this useful. Makes sense, but there's gotta be a replay with this that we can see without a GSL pass.
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I'm using ultras in pretty much every match up, when we talk ZvP they are really powerful but most people use them wrong and throw them away like expensive lings
Ultras are weak on there own and need to be used like Protoss use there colossus, you don't keep a moving when theres no gateway units around they just would die and so you should never send ultras to fight if theres no lings and banelings around to support. And you certainly don't lead the charge with ultras on red health the same as not leading the charge with a red health no shield colossus you would wait for shields to regenerate same with healing ultras up.
In a standard ZvP game Zerg goes 3 base Protoss will go 2 base immortal and either all in or take a 3rd, the powerful part of that army is there ability to control engagements through the use of forcefields. There are options you can get drop to rain hell upon them or try out manoeuvre them by attacking on more than 1 front and that can work, but the protoss still has the better army and if you tech straight into broods they can find there way into a position to kill you before that happens, but by opting for ultras first the Protoss suddenly loses the ability to control the engagement the way they want and so there army strength drastically drops. This gives you time to tech into broodlords so you can build that zerg deathball that's pretty strong.
Queens are also important in playing safely towards that deathball with queens (same cost as 6 lings but only 2 supply!) you can use transfuse to keep ultras alive longer in a fight so they tank even more damage and if you transfuse right you can win fights when you are outnumbered and behind if they lack sufficient splash damage to kill the lings and then when all other units are dead you can fall back and wait for reinforcement lings etc but your opponents deathball will have taken much more damage and won't be able to engage again and you don't need to rebuild the ultras you save so much gas and you have also freed up supply to make broodlords woo.
Also if you have ultra broodlords queen infestors you don't lose ever. there's nothing that beats this deathball as queens can keep everything alive, you let broodlords do the damage from distance and hold the ultras back if they try to blink in and kill the broodlords the ultras + infetor will kill all of them and they will only get 1 broodlord at most with the first volley (that can even be transfused if you hit it in time)
tldr: You use ultras against high stalker sentry count and broodlords against a high zealot, archon and immortal count, tech ultras first only fight with supporting units using queens to keep all the gas expensive units alive. Doing all this on a high drone count till you get to the perfect Ultra Broodlord Infestor Queen deathball.
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I've been doing this vs FFE on ladder for ages (mid-masters). the thing is I've been going ling/hydra in the early game to fend off gateway timings, and the fast lair sets up for fast hive pretty well too. In addition this pretty much makes him go collossus because toss who see hydras go "OM NOM NOM", and stop making immortals.
Three problems with this style that I can see:
1. What to do if he DOESN'T attack (ie third at 9-11 minutes), I'm not quite sure if this build can put pressure on and or deny his third.
2. There is a 3 base collossus push that comes JUST before ultras pop (if they pop at 16 minutes). Most of the time I just let him kill my fourth and sometimes third, and just roll over him once ultras pop. This does work but its still scary.
3. A 2 base collossus push can kind of blind counter this, and I haven't figured out how to deal with this yet. My suspicion is to go mutas. but I feel like it just doesn't get there fast enough.
The build order roughly:
Opener:
9 overlord
14 pool
15-21 hatch
15-21 queen
15-21 2 sets of lines
15-21 overlord
24-28 hatch
24-28 overlord
24-28 queen
5:30-5:45: gas
6:00 to 6:15: gas
6:30: Scout P gas at natural,
NO gas: you can either make a roach warren and do standard defense, OR get ling speed with first 100 gas and FLOOD lings when necessary.
1 gas: go lair @ 7:00 but prep for 4gate +1 and send ovie to third and make more queens lol.
Second 100 gas goes to ling speed.
2 Gas: Lair, Evo chamber, and hydra den once lair finishes. Get ling speed and +1 melee. Get gases at natural
7:00: Scout his base with other ovie.
8-11 minutes crush his timing attack with ling/hydra, you can make around 8-10 hydras and the rest lings. Scout for third. Make second evo chamber if it looks like hes taking a third.
If he takes a third, you can take fourth and fifth. and just keep an eye on his army size. Take 2 more gas at third, and go Infestation pit + hive.
You should be getting +2 at this point if its not already done.
Once hive is started go BANELING NEST and BANELING SPEED. If it looks like he is going to hit you with some kind of bs attack just make the appropriate units (ie banelings or infestors depending on what you see).
I generally make a sizable group of banelings in case of emergency, you should line them up with bane speed.
At this stage if he tries to move out with a deathball try and do ling runbys and counter attacks to prevent him from getting to you before ultras pop. If he does get to you before Ultras pop just sacrifice your fourth and try some ling counter-attack stuff. It's really fine to lose a few bases with this style, just save drones and take a different base etc.
You can actually bait him into overcommitting by showing your ling/hydra and then backing into your bases. Once you're ultras pop you can literally just A-move them into his shit, let them get in front to deal with force fields and then watch as his army dies. This will obliterate ANY deathball that is a response to hydras.
The other possible scenario is that he doesn't attack you and goes for mamaship. He will try and take a fourth here. Try and deny but don't lose anything in the process. Just keep him afraid and pinned back. Stay active with lings.
He should have a reasonable collossus count so you can't really engage him at this point. STILL GET BANELING NEST but do NOT morph banes. This time you want infestors with that gas instead, and even grab NP. Once he gets mothership he'll attack but you should have an army consisting of Ultras Hydras Banelings and Infestors ready to meet him. If you can NP the mothership, great, just vortex and run all your banes in. If HE goes for archon toilet... do the same thing. It's hilarious. Like you will literally be amazed at how dead as shit his army is.
One last tip, always run with an overseer in your army. With hydras you he won't be able to use observers to keep track of you.
Any feedback on the issues that I still have with this build would be appreciated. If anyone wants to see replays I'll post them up just message me.
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United States8476 Posts
I usually don't do this, because it takes forever to respond to your posts, but a large amount of your posts have some fallacies in them. However, this one was especially bad, as your assertions in this thread are just especially plain wrong and I don't want people getting the wrong idea.
On June 20 2012 17:23 Belial88 wrote:
And in many cases, like the game on Daybreak, Symbol is doing the mass roach aggression - good luck getting HT while you need the robo tech and are barely survivng the roach aggression. Or, good luck getting HT when you fast expand like the game on cloud kingdom and I skip roaches and just tech up.
It's perfectly viable to get HT tech versus roach aggression: See puzzle versus lucky on daybreak from gstl and puzzle versus true on cloud kingdom from gsl. You only need to extreme dedication to roach defense if you know for sure it's Stephano style roaches or tunneling claw roaches. If you scout an incorrect number of gas from Zerg or other tech building, you must start teching to something.
Toss is not supposed to have archons against Zerg. If I see you make HT tech on 3 base AND getting the 3+ colossus off 3 base, I'm going to go straight into broodlords and just own you when you push out and my broods are already done.
Maybe the way it will work out, is that now, zergs will go ultras if they see you go HT on 3 base (as well as the obviously necessary 3+ colossus or just mass roach/infestors, we already have roach speed), and go straight BL if they see you go HT tech, and then like we'll have games where zerg thought you were going HT tech but you actually weren't and vice versa.
You'll rarely see colossi AND templar tech versus a Zerg who's going broodlords. Protoss should only get both techs if they see something specific from Zerg, such as ultras or heavy ling/baneling. Also, going reactive ultralisks just because you saw colossi isn't viable. Ultralisks MUST combine with banelings to be effective, so it takes a long time to plan and you basically have to base your entire build on getting ultralisks.
Past the mid game, especially if Protoss took a relatively passive third, it is usually always Zerg who dictates tech, not Protoss. Templar openings also do completely fine versus broodlord tech: See ace vs bbongbbong from gsl on cloud, squirtle vs stephano on entombed from red bull, and vines vs bigs on entombed from egmc.
Not all of the colossus were up front that he NP'd, and he won the battle pretty convincingly.... even if Parting played 'correctly', Symbol had the GS morphing already and would have denied the 4th with his ultras, then parting gets his zealot/archon/ht, and then the broods are done and GG.
I dont think any toss would be happy if they were told "Okay, zerg is getting his mass broodlords right now, but you can't attack him, and no, your expansion is going to be hard to take too"
This is a huge over-simplification. In game 3, Parting played extremely badly in many ways even before really bad fight, which put him in that terrible position.
1. Just 3-5 ultralisks is much, much more useful than 3-5 broodlords. If the 3+ base colossus push comes at you and you try to fight it head on with 3-5 broods, you die. But 3-5 ultras, with NP or mass roach that you already got in mid-game, will crush such an army. The difference is that ultras are much, much less cost efficient than broodlords, especially when its' 10+ ultras compared to 10+ broodlords, but you aren't staying on ultras forever is the point. As symbol used them in daybreak, he only had 4, and he specifically used them just to break forcefields, manuevering them to break them more than fighting with them.
Completely disagree with this. 3-5 ultras by themselves are pretty useless. You just let Protoss have a really effective mineral sink in zealots. You MUST combine then with banelings, as I said before, just because zealots exist.
Like I said, if you go storm on 3 base and 3+ colossus that you need for that push, Zerg can go straight broodlords safely and confine you on 3 base. I think the proper thing is that you need HT/chargelot tech only against ultras, but you have to make sure you dont get it against someone who skips ultras. So it's a balance that you need to play.
It's almost impossible to definitively scout colossi/templar in time and then re-actively transition into broodlords. Templar archives often means just getting archons for archon toilets, so you don't get any information from that. You literally have to see something like high energy templar with storm research, and by that time it's too late. Also, templar tech, in combination with a mothership, is completely fine versus broodlords, as evidenced before. Also, chargelots won't do you any good versus ultras, except as reinforcement units, because they will always be paired with banelings.
Banelings were not the issue. Banelings can be easily stopped by sentries. Which parting would have done, if it wasnt for those 3-5 ultras smashing the forcefields (tahts their primary role). Also, in the game on cloud kingdom, Symbol did not use banelings, but instead relied on infestors.
Banelings, in combination with the ultras are the issue. Either alone will not deal well with a late game Protoss army.
But you cant just make speedbanes without ultras. You need the ultras to break the forcefields, and you are using ultras to combat colossus-stalker, the real core of the toss 3+ colossus 3 base push (he will have less immortal/sentry/zealot/archon than stalker/colossus).
Speedbanes are a completely viable unit without ultras; they just become much better with ultras. Ling/baneling with/without drop, Roach/baneling with drop, or muta into speed banes are very common and viable compositions. You can either use drop to circumvent forcefields or rely on mutas to snipe sentries beforehand. Pure templar is not very good versus banelings in a flank on creep.
It is viable to get storm when you try to take your fourth, but it is not viable to get storm against infestor openings from zerg and be able to push them when they try to go straight from infestors to mass broodlords, as you won't do your 3+ colossus push in time. Thus there's a very clear - get templar tech vs ultra/bane, and don't get templar tech vs broodlord, and if you dont do the right thing vs either play, you are behind.
So it's a game to play, much like toss needs to to the 'right' thing based on whether zerg is going mutas (templar tech) or infestors (robo tech), and similarly, will fall behind. you go HT thinking mutas against mass roach and you lose.
Again, you don't need colossi versus infestors. They just happen to be the more common choice. Especially versus fast 15 minute broodlords, both templar/colossi tech are extremely viable.
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with this build, do u get melee upgrades for the ultras and banes? or is it one of those "in the moment" builds to deal with 3 base pushes and no upgrades are needed past bane speed and chitinous plating?
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On June 20 2012 15:22 NrGmonk wrote:
The counter for this as toss is extremely passive turtle play. A unit composition consisting of some combination of mainly archon/immortal/colossi/templar is the best. Zealots are pretty much worthless except for reinforcements after all banelings die, and you want as few stalkers as possible, as they don't really contribute much to the fight. Leftover sentries should be used to hallucinate archons. Fortify all your bases with spread out cannons. Basically just turtle like no other. If you reach a maxout with this composition, baneling/ultra cannot touch you. Double upgrades are also really bad versus this style cause all the main units(banelings and ultras) don't really care much about armor.
In the 2nd game, Parting got a huge lead, but was just overly aggressive. In the 3rd game, Parting was just caught off guard. He didn't get to use hallucination or spread out his army. Both games are good demonstrations of this style, but in both games I feel like Parting just wasn't used to facing it enough and made huge blunders.
What you say is absolutely true, but if Protoss is NOT going for the typical 3-base colossi push you can skip ultras and go straight to broodlords and infestors, which IMO still favours the Zerg. Your broodlords will be slower, but with hardcore turtle-toss that's not too much of an issue. Of course you still can lost to the crappy mechanic that is the archon-toilet because Toss will for sure have time to get there, but that basically comes down to control and I feel confident as Zerg once I get to that level. Spread and a-move my brood/roach/ling control my infestors directly with fungals, infested terran where needed and attempt to neural the mothership.
No strategy is perfect, but this seems a great way to easily not die to what is a pretty scary timing push from Protoss.
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For protosses defending this push, try hallucinating immortals and putting them in front instead of using forcefields. It's very strong.
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Ultralisk are okay. In these games they are basically only used to crush forcefields - they are good but actual damage dealers against deathball is the baneling. Neural parasite is amazing if the protoss herp derps his army and gets caught by fungal/Neural, but if the protoss army has a good arc infestors get killed really easy. The solution to this seems to be symbol just massing up a huge baneling army that doesn't allow the protoss army to stand still without getting obliterated. Ultralisks tank colussus really good though.
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when P learns to scout this and react they will not attack, take a fourth, start chrono out immortals and get lots of archons and templars + storm and then some collosi maybe just for the lulz...
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nrgmonk hates replying to me
1. Yes, Toss can get HT tech on 3 base, but if you don't have colossus, then you won't break 10+ spines and infestor/ling support. You need colossus to siege the mass spines.
2. If Zerg sees you skip Colossus tech, he will go straight into broodlords, safely.
3. If Zerg sees you get HT tech (with your standard colossus tech), then he knows that 3 base 3+ colossus deathball timing won't hit him before he has broodlords out, so he can safely tech up to broodlords and skip ultra/bane.
4. The big problem a lot of zergs have, is how to safely get broodlords in time for the 3 base 3+ colossus push that will 99% kill you in an even macro game if you go straight to broodlords. By going ultra/bane, you can survive this colossus timing. If toss goes the 'counter' to this ultra/bane by going templar tech, Zerg has a few choices:
a) See the HT archives, or morphing HT/Archons, and know he can skip the ultra/bane and safely go straight to broodlords
b) Perhaps fall slightly behind, but now he has 20+ banes, which many zergs (even pros, and high level players, like blade5555 recommended in his guide) think is necessary to 'counter' the archon toilet, so it's not like he made anything useless, and I think many zergs will tell you they would be much more comfortable in playing a macro game with Toss past 3 base toss, with their precious BL/infestor army out, instead of the very, very nervewrecking gamble where it's win or lose depending if you get those broodlords out in that 30 second timing (and in an even game, you wont have broodlords out comfortably in time before that 3+ colossus 3 base timing does some serious damage)
I'm glad you think it's so simple, and I know you believe a lot in carriers in ZvP and are probably much more comfortable against broodlords than most Toss, but every zerg will tell you that the 3 base 3+ colossus timing is a bitch to deal with, and I think this new ultra/bane play of Symbol's is totally new, something we've never seen before or most zergs would know about (a few non-pros are saying they've been doing it for months, which sounds pretty amazing that they figured that much out before any pros did). But the idea of using ultra/bane to survive the 3 base colossus push, is pretty fucking awesome, and now, Toss will need to check before blindly pushing, and we can kill a Toss who tries to push out, forcing a lot of games where Toss will lose to ultra/bane, or will have to sit back and get HT tech, leaving zerg in a more comfortable position, and allowing them to get broodlords, which most zergs would say is a very comfortable spot to be in.
Assuming a normal macro game, where toss gets a decently timed quick third behind robo tech, Zerg has a really impossibly hard time trying to play out the game, because they know they will just die to that 3+ colossus 3 base push and won't have broodlords out in time unless they really stretch everything out to the last straw, or just outplay toss with roach aggression or mutas. If Toss plays a really quick macro game, there might not even be time to do that, so it's just a realyl uncomfortable spot for a lot of zergs, and now there seems to be a rather simple and easy way for zergs to survive this timing from a macro toss or a defensive toss or even an aggressive toss who just backs off and takes a third after his aggression doesnt end the game and eventually does that killer 3+ colossus timing that you know you won't have broodlords in time for, but you still have to try.
Anyways here's a game I played:
http://drop.sc/208815
Maybe you were right (that guy who said banes more important). In this game, I try to go ultra/bane, but he pushes before I have ultras out. I think he may have been ahead, and I was having huge difficulties due to mouse problems (mouse kept double clicking every time, as evidenced when drones kept all of the sudden not mining anymore 2 times in the start which basically put my opener about 20 seconds behind, and when i constantly kept stopping my drones at the third from mining, and just could never get drones at my fourth for forever).
When the Toss hit, I didn't even have bane speed, but he was on creep way too quickly, and I did take out all his sentries with my roach aggression earlier on (he went fast third off robo tech - i feel like he took it dishonestly quickly, whatever), so he couldn't really forcefield. I traded extremely cost efficiently and just won the game then and there as all my roaches and infestors were still alive and I just walked into his main.
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with this build, do u get melee upgrades for the ultras and banes? or is it one of those "in the moment" builds to deal with 3 base pushes and no upgrades are needed past bane speed and chitinous plating?
It's up to you. You probably want to tech to hive asap instead of getting lots of upgrades, but whatever. I think getting double evo by the time you take your fourth and infestation pit is always a good idea.
For protosses defending this push, try hallucinating immortals and putting them in front instead of using forcefields. It's very strong.
No!
Archons are always better to make than immortals. Yes, there is hardened shield, but immortals are armored, and being hallucinations, they take 20 dmg to shield instead of 10. So the very, very few units (i think 2? immortal and siege tank) that do a single shot of over 20 damage, they also do bonus to armored, of 50 damage, so a siege tank or immortal will 2 shot the hallu immortal when it's shields are gone, which would only take 5 shots to take down anyways, for a total of 7 hits to kill, whereas an archon is not armored, and has 360 life (which means a lot more shots to take down).
Zerg will probably have splash (fg) and an overseer with his army, which will makes the hallu near useless. probably better to just make more forcefields, the ultras can't clear every forcefield, you can ff behind the ultras, and you ff behind you. I mean whatever, if you want to hallu thats fine but archons are better than immmortals, always.
when P learns to scout this and react they will not attack, take a fourth, start chrono out immortals and get lots of archons and templars + storm and then some collosi maybe just for the lulz...
... as zerg safely takes his 5th base, and gets his pure broodlord/infestor army out comfortably instead of being on a ticking timebomb hoping their mass spine wall lasts for just 10 more seconds (now with ultras and banes to nullify archon toilets!) and then some queens maybe just for the lulz...
I know as a Zerg, I'd rather play a long macro game with Toss with 5+ bases and having a pure bl/infestor army, than win or lose 50% on that extremely, thin, thin razor margin where Toss does his 3+ colossus 3 base deathball push that will straight up kill you if you go straight into broodlords if it's a macro game or you are both even and it's anything less than you completely outplaying Toss all game with roach aggression or mutas.
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Thanks for the guide, I think its so funny that its taken 2 years for zerg to realise they can break ff's with ultras as a Z and a P player i've always thought faster ultras is a viable build so its nice to see this finally getting used.
I think zerg are finally starting to realise they dont need to rush for things and they have units to hold pushes if they are played correctly
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But fortunately for Zerg, we can rely on Toss' instinct to all-in and push out with his 3+ colossus 3 base deathball for a long time ^^
so true man, so true :D
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This is something which I have been working on for myself. I really like the idea of ultras as a prebroodlord midtier. The addition of speedbanes is brilliant if you feel like you have a pushable advantage. Ty for the writeup, very thorough. You have to be careful though, ultras don't work against every composition so I wouldn't move toward them blindly. Make sure you know your opponent's composition first.
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When you say that Symbol got NP because he didn't have many roaches, I think that it's not really true. It's half true.
I mean that what he was really doing (which I just found out Artosis and Tasteless actually say on the cast) is taking those Colossi so that he can stop 2-3 of their hits on the banelings and zerglings. The zerglings and banelings get ripped apart by the Colossi, even before they can hit the sentries and stalkers. Now, one could stipulate that he traded those roaches for banelings and zerglings, and so it is true that he got NP due to lack of roaches. BUT, I would say that he would probably have traded those roaches off for Ultras, Infestors, and BLs, and even if he hadn't, NP would be a great addition to this even with a few less zerglings or banelings for roaches, as long as the Colossi are the ultimate backbone to the army.
Just my two cents, it may sound like semantics, but I think Symbol is playing it less by ear than your point on NP made it sound like. I think NP's pretty important to the build.
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I really doubt i could pull this off in a game but hot damn that was sexy play i just watched.
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On June 27 2012 14:05 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +For protosses defending this push, try hallucinating immortals and putting them in front instead of using forcefields. It's very strong. No! Archons are always better to make than immortals. Yes, there is hardened shield, but immortals are armored, and being hallucinations, they take 20 dmg to shield instead of 10. So the very, very few units (i think 2? immortal and siege tank) that do a single shot of over 20 damage, they also do bonus to armored, of 50 damage, so a siege tank or immortal will 2 shot the hallu immortal when it's shields are gone, which would only take 5 shots to take down anyways, for a total of 7 hits to kill, whereas an archon is not armored, and has 360 life (which means a lot more shots to take down). Zerg will probably have splash (fg) and an overseer with his army, which will makes the hallu near useless. probably better to just make more forcefields, the ultras can't clear every forcefield, you can ff behind the ultras, and you ff behind you. I mean whatever, if you want to hallu thats fine but archons are better than immmortals, always.
I think you are forgetting in your calculations that hallucinations take double damage, so any attack over 10 dmg (baneling, roach) gets reduced by hallucinated immortal's hardened shields.
Banelings (20 dmg, +15 v. light):
Hallucinated immortal takes 5 hits (hardened shields) + 5 hits (200 hp / 40) = 10 hits to kill
Hallucinated archon takes 9 hits (360 hp / 40) = 9 hits to kill
Roaches (16 dmg):
Hallucinated immortal takes 5 hits (hardened shields) + 6.25 hits (200 hp / 32) = 12 hits to kill
Hallucinated archon takes 11.25 hits (360 hp / 32) = 12 hits to kill
Roaches with +2 (20 dmg):
Same stats as banelings, 10 hits to kill hallucinated immortal, 9 hits to kill hallucinated archon
So hallucinated immortals are better against banelings and upgraded roaches, and hallucinated archons are better against lings and hydras. Also, hallucinations work well against melee units, even if they are detected they act sort of like a destructible force field if you have em in front (and ultras don't insta-destroy them). Also, being able to take 9-10 baneling hits for energy is pretty huge if it does work out!
Edit: If roaches are attacking your hallucinations, they are probably going to get way over-killed (especially if Zerg focus-fires your immortal or archon), so I'm not sure if the 1 hit difference for +2 roaches is noteworthy.
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Just pulled off this style epicly. Check out my creep spread too, while I neural 4 collo and engage with ling bling ultra:
LOLLLLL
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/5zmjz.jpg)
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I think you are forgetting in your calculations that hallucinations take double damage, so any attack over 10 dmg (baneling, roach) gets reduced by hallucinated immortal's hardened shields.
i think you are forgetting that hallucinations take double damage. A hallucinated immortal's hardened shields only reduces attacks over 20 damage, not 10, because of the double damage factor. It still has hardened shield, but the difference is that hallucinated immortals will take up to 20 damage instead of up to 10.
Because of this, hallucinated archons are always better than hallucinated immortals, except against thors. There are only 4 units in the game that the hardened shield of the hallu immortal still affects - thor, ultra, immortal, siege tank. 2 of the units (tank, immortal) do up to 50 damage due to bonus to armored, so will 1 shot the hallumortal when its shields are down (maing the archon a better choice)
Ultra does 15(no bonus) x 12 x 2(hallu bonus) = 7 hits to kill archon
Ultra does 35(+armored bonus) damage per. with hardened shield (20), its 5 hits to break shield, then 2 more to kill it.
So because of the huge bonus ultras get against armored, this makes archons better than hallumortals as well.
Thors do no bonus to armored, so it does same damage to both archon and immortal, and does a 2x attack. So 30x2(attacks)x2(hallu bonus)=120 dmg, 3 shot archons
Hardened shield makes it 2.5 shots to break through shields, then does 60 damage to hp, so hallumortal has 40 hp left. So thor technically kills hallumortal in 3.5 shots, round to 4.
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On June 29 2012 12:38 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +I think you are forgetting in your calculations that hallucinations take double damage, so any attack over 10 dmg (baneling, roach) gets reduced by hallucinated immortal's hardened shields. i think you are forgetting that hallucinations take double damage. A hallucinated immortal's hardened shields only reduces attacks over 20 damage, not 10, because of the double damage factor. It still has hardened shield, but the difference is that hallucinated immortals will take up to 20 damage instead of up to 10.
It reduces attacks that would do >20 damage to a hallucination, otherwise known as 10 normal damage.
Let me quote Liquipedia for you: "A hallucinated Immortal does possess the Hardened Shield ability. However, due to the nature of hallucinations taking twice the damage, this results in 20 shield damage."
A.k.a. A roach shot, which would do > 20 dmg to a hallucinated archon, does only 20 shield damage to a hallucinated immortal.
I will await your apology.
Edit:
I think our disagreement also comes from the # of hitpoints an immortal has. An immortal has 200 hp, and 100 shields, not 100 hp and 100 shields.
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Went into unit tester:
Ultralisk
Hallumortal: 8
Archon: 12
Roach:
Hallumortal: 12
Archon: 12
Roach +2:
Hallumortal: 10
Archon: 9
Baneling:
Hallumortal: 10
Archon: 9
I don't think zerg with +2 will be moving towards hive tech soon, I think most zergs get +1 missile and then go towards melee/carapace.
I think I was confused on the hp an immortal has though. I think I knew it was 200, but in my mind said 100 due to double damage, but then would factor the double damage again. So yea, I guess immortals are better against +2 roaches, but I don't think most zergs get +2 missiles ANDS go towards hive, banelings, ultras, etc. It does seem with banelings, immortals are better in a straight up fight. I also didn't think at all about lower tier units, forgetting about their double damage going above 20 when against a hallu.
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Another amazing post from Belial, thanks dude.
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^ thanks
bbongbbong tried to do this in the gsl on ohana. the toss didnt even go for colossi, instead going charge and archons. i think the toss was just an idiot, because he did all of this before any indication of ultra/bane was coming, but it ended up just working out and bbongbbong sadly, got crushed in a game where he was just completely outplaying the opponent all game long, from lings into his base to killing off all his immortals and sentries for free. bbongbbong seems to have some macro issues, like he never took his fourth, and then when he took it, he took the weird one and never, ever took his fifth.
so it just shows the vulnerabilities of this style - don't attack until you have NP out yet, since NP is the only way to deal with mass archons, as well as immortals, and it's just as much up to zerg to go ultras vs colossi and broodlords vs templar tech as it is up to protoss to go templar tech vs ultra/bane and stalker/colossi deathpush vs broodlord.
http://www.gomtv.net/2012gsls3/vod/67577/?set=2&lang=
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http://drop.sc/215439
Here's a game where I did this and won. My ultra/bane was pitiful, but it prevented Toss from pushing out, and he killed my ultra/bane easily, eventually, but at that time I was able to remax on 20 broodlords instantly and won the game when he counter-pushed.
I've been having a mixed bag doing this, but basically, I've been losing for not doing it right. I mean, you REALLY gotta get hive and your fourth QUICK. As soon as Toss takes his third (or you see him going toward third with your overseer seeing his gateway count), you gotta cut roach production (if you made more than 15, gg...), start fourth, infestation pit and hive asap, pathogen then NP asap.
I was having trouble because I wouldn't do this quick enough (when you go 2 base ling/infestor in zvz, similiarly, you start hive like as soon as you get your third up). You should have enough gas during the morphing of hive to get the good 6-10 infestors that you need anyways - I alwasy felt (and in zvz ling/infestor) you should get more infestors vs aggression, hive for macro play, but you can afford 10 infestors even with going hive, it just means you'll have a lower/later ultra tech but that's okay, you gotta get that ultra tech asap.
In this game, I see him get his third, and my hive is done by 13:00. It's all about the ETA concept - when toss goes macro, you go macro with a fourth, and toss getting a third is basically a free pass to go hive for zerg (that or lots of roaches, and lots of roaches suck...). By the time my ultras have popped and I have like 5 ultras, when comparing armies via relpay, I actually have an army to crush him. He made the right move of going templar tech, but my army would have just crushed him if I went for an a-move.
I actually do that, but bad positioning means I don't do so well, and he hallucinated a ton of immortals so I backed off (i had an overseer but I had it hotkeyed with infestors instead of my army, which is a bad thing to do). The point of that engagement was to bleed supply though.
I aggressively expanded, and he took out my 6th and 7th bases, but at this point in the game I only need 5 bases, and I remax in time with 20 broodlords, with my 10 infestors, and just close the game.
Now normally, I think the opponent would have mothership in time, so it's nothing special, but personally, I would much rather go ultras, then 20 broodlords against a 4 base toss with mothership and play the stupid dance of imbalance, rather than sweat my balls off racing the clock of morphing broodlords vs 3 base deathball push.
In this game, I think if I identified templar tech, I would have been safe to go broodlords, but he went templar tech probably as a reaction to my ultras (have to check what he scouted again exactly). But when I saw his templar tech, I quickly cut ultra production and started into broodlords. The game ended immediately, just because he didnt have a mothership and took his fourth too late, but in a normal game I think it just would have been a dance, which is a lot cooler than simply one or the other winning because they hit 10 seconds before/after broodlords pop.
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Lately I was trying a type of style with Baneling, like Dimaga, and then Ultras. I try to avoid to use Roach bcuz I dont like that unit :D, and I try to hurry up melee upgrades.
My build order is something like Dimaga, but with some variation:
In simple words:
14Pool
Hatch when you can, queen 4 ling
24 Hatch
27 Gas 100@gas speedling
44 gas
60 Doble evo chamber, when they're ready I get +1melee +1caparace
70 Gas x2
After I get my upgrades, I get Lair And Bane nest.
80 Gas x2
Then, depends on the map I get Speed for banes, Drops and Speed for ovies, or tech to hive really fast.
When I get drop, I try to do some Ling bane attack with drops meanwhile I'm teching to ultras.
I like to get a fast gas to get speedling and get map control, bcuz I dont wanna make roach to stop a push bcuz I missed I pylon or something like that.
After I get my Ultras I make 2 Spire and attack, with Ling bane ultra and infestor with NP.
In this games I was played vs a Protoss GM in Na (I'm top master), and I executed this build.
http://drop.sc/215472
Sorry for my bad english
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Russian Federation22 Posts
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I do think that symbol is taking steps to use everything zerg has to offer, and he has created a standard from it.
The thing about going this style is if the protoss just skips colo like goes sentry immortal into a third. Then blink and Temp archives. Storm/archons into voids and teching to mothership. Super standard and basic but colo are finally being countered with these types of styles. maybe after a million years protosses will mix it up more. haha :p
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^ right... and he'll be stopped by mass spines+infestor. Zerg can just go straight into broodlords.
It's a back and forth for both players, for zerg to identify if toss is going templar tech (in which case he cuts the ultra and goes quicker broods), and smilarly, for toss to identify if zerg is going ultra/bane (in which case he should be passive, and go templar tech). Like in the game vs bbongbbong, you can be blind countered basically by someone going templar tech (imo the guy just played bad, he was outplayed all game long but did something so goofy i dont think anyone does at the moment), while if you play 'standard', the ultras will do a lot of damage. In the end, regardless of how well toss 'counters' zerg, if you go ultras as zerg, you can prevent dying to that 3+ colossus deathball push, and force the game into broodlords. I think any toss will admit that it's rather uncomfortable to play against broodlords, no matter how far ahead they are.
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On June 20 2012 15:22 NrGmonk wrote:
The counter for this as toss is extremely passive turtle play. A unit composition consisting of some combination of mainly archon/immortal/colossi/templar is the best. Zealots are pretty much worthless except for reinforcements after all banelings die, and you want as few stalkers as possible, as they don't really contribute much to the fight. Leftover sentries should be used to hallucinate archons. Fortify all your bases with spread out cannons. Basically just turtle like no other. If you reach a maxout with this composition, baneling/ultra cannot touch you. Double upgrades are also really bad versus this style cause all the main units(banelings and ultras) don't really care much about armor.
In the 2nd game, Parting got a huge lead, but was just overly aggressive. In the 3rd game, Parting was just caught off guard. He didn't get to use hallucination or spread out his army. Both games are good demonstrations of this style, but in both games I feel like Parting just wasn't used to facing it enough and made huge blunders.
I think void rays would be a pretty good response, they do good damage versus roach, ultra and infestor and of course brood lords. Zergs only aa will be infested terrans and fungals, and later corruptors, so with micro and later on hts and archons they should not be too vulnerable. And of course, when striving for a 200/200 army voids rays are excellent because of their low supply cost relative to their power.
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People stopped using void rays as a 'counter' to Zerg when zergs started to get infestors over hydras. Void rays aren't that useful lategame in ZvP due to infestors.
Why would you say void rays would be a good response? Has a game you played or saw led you to believe that? They do terrible against infestors, and you never see a Toss get void rays as a response to broodlords so they clearly aren't that great, according to pro players.
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I liked this when i first saw it and have used it very well in team games. ultras are somewhat underrated in against p imho.
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On July 07 2012 04:44 Belial88 wrote:
People stopped using void rays as a 'counter' to Zerg when zergs started to get infestors over hydras. Void rays aren't that useful lategame in ZvP due to infestors.
Why would you say void rays would be a good response? Has a game you played or saw led you to believe that? They do terrible against infestors, and you never see a Toss get void rays as a response to broodlords so they clearly aren't that great, according to pro players.
Voidrays are like the Hydra in PvZ. Very situational. And this is NOT one of those situations.
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funny enough, axslav seems to think void rays are great lategame in conjunction with a few carriers. funny how the metagame evolves.
i haven't really been doign this ultra play, i just found it frustrated when i kept losing to toss with huge armies and not really doing much damage. toss can way too easily counter it it seems if they just play macro, ie sit back, grab fourth, templar tech, lots of zealots. there's also a coinflip involved I feel, as toss may simply go archons and zealots blindly (or maybe not blindly, whatever).
if anyone has reps of using ultras to good usage though, i'd love to see it. I've just been finding zvp really easy recently by massing spines, 5 bases really quickly, and if they do a 3+ colossus push I spam IT, that usually more than enough time (and sometimes just erases their army).
I feel like zergs have started to learn recently how awesome IT is over FG/NP. Total switch from when NP was the most important spell. FG isn't even used as much in combat as IT anymore in zvz.
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On August 26 2012 16:34 Belial88 wrote:
funny enough, axslav seems to think void rays are great lategame in conjunction with a few carriers. funny how the metagame evolves.
i haven't really been doign this ultra play, i just found it frustrated when i kept losing to toss with huge armies and not really doing much damage. toss can way too easily counter it it seems if they just play macro, ie sit back, grab fourth, templar tech, lots of zealots. there's also a coinflip involved I feel, as toss may simply go archons and zealots blindly (or maybe not blindly, whatever).
if anyone has reps of using ultras to good usage though, i'd love to see it. I've just been finding zvp really easy recently by massing spines, 5 bases really quickly, and if they do a 3+ colossus push I spam IT, that usually more than enough time (and sometimes just erases their army).
I feel like zergs have started to learn recently how awesome IT is over FG/NP. Total switch from when NP was the most important spell. FG isn't even used as much in combat as IT anymore in zvz.
Sure, because by that time you have range (Carriers, feedback, pre-emptive storm) to counter fungal. Chain fungals at that point are risky and relies on the protoss screwing up their positioning.
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Something I have. Something I have been playing with is fast gas. If you take 1 gas after your natural and deny scouting, you can take a 6 min lair and get broods on 4 base by 13 min.
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On August 28 2012 11:17 abefroman wrote:
Something I have. Something I have been playing with is fast gas. If you take 1 gas after your natural and deny scouting, you can take a 6 min lair and get broods on 4 base by 13 min.
Replays please?
There are problems with a fast gas. You pretty much die to most 2 base all ins, because you sacrifice so much economy for such a fast gas. A good fast gas timing is after your /third/, not after your natural. Is a 6 minute lair with 40 drones going to help against a 7 gate +2 blink stalker all-in? Not one bit. You're better off playing standard than doing some fast gas broodlord rushes that die to pretty much every 2 base all in.
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I can get some replays going. But you CAN get70ish supply by 8 min still, and can always get super fast roach speed or infestors for allins.
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On August 28 2012 20:34 abefroman wrote:
I can get some replays going. But you CAN get70ish supply by 8 min still, and can always get super fast roach speed or infestors for allins.
I challenge you to get >70 supply while getting a 6min lair+infestation pit+roach warren+lingspeed
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Ok a couPle things. First I suck and top out at 70 with standard timings. Second, I didn't say you could take a lair at 6 and still get 70. But you CAN take an early gas and use as you please with the option of getting about 70. For ME, I doubt I could top 65. I'm diamond.
The choice is 70ish supply OR 6 min lair I bElieve.
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I just tried ultra-roach in a custom game, where the opponent skipped colossus. Worked pretty good. Totally not representative of anything, but I'll try it more often.
Ultralisks tank and deal damage while roaches just do damage.
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On August 29 2012 04:21 AdrianHealey wrote:
I just tried ultra-roach in a custom game, where the opponent skipped colossus. Worked pretty good. Totally not representative of anything, but I'll try it more often.
Ultralisks tank and deal damage while roaches just do damage.
The funny thing is that roaches are also designed to tank damage, not deal it. Ultra/hydra synergizes okay, but nothing is as good as ultra/ling/bane with infestor support. Roaches don't synergize well. Surprised it worked, and also ultras counter colossus, or are at least decent against them.
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On August 28 2012 21:00 Crypdos wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2012 20:34 abefroman wrote:
I can get some replays going. But you CAN get70ish supply by 8 min still, and can always get super fast roach speed or infestors for allins. I challenge you to get >70 supply while getting a 6min lair+infestation pit+roach warren+lingspeed
opened up 15p16h16ovie
I have a bug where my game starts 10-12 seconds late and i still got 70 supply at 7:33 with a 6:00 double gas, 6:45 evo and 6:45 roach warren. Ling speed first 100 gas then lair started with 2nd 100 gas around 7:25. Roach warren is 90% complete.
Granted im only on 2 gas for the moment. 7:45 2 more gas and a 5th gas at 9:00 led to a 10:55 roach maxout on 73 drones 5 gas, +1 range attack, roach speed, ling speed 3 hatch 3 queen.
This is most ideal scenerio ofcourse where i dont have to scout or build earlygame lings vs AI (i skipped the 1 set at begining that throws off things a little, tho i delayed my 3rd hatch slightly 15 seconds.
Just saying your timings might be somewhat off
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On August 29 2012 04:29 TheGreenMachine wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2012 21:00 Crypdos wrote:On August 28 2012 20:34 abefroman wrote:
I can get some replays going. But you CAN get70ish supply by 8 min still, and can always get super fast roach speed or infestors for allins. I challenge you to get >70 supply while getting a 6min lair+infestation pit+roach warren+lingspeed opened up 15p16h16ovie I have a bug where my game starts 10-12 seconds late and i still got 70 supply at 7:33 with a 6:00 double gas, 6:45 evo and 6:45 roach warren. Ling speed first 100 gas then lair started with 2nd 100 gas around 7:25. Roach warren is 90% complete. Granted im only on 2 gas for the moment. 7:45 2 more gas and a 5th gas at 9:00 led to a 10:55 roach maxout on 73 drones 5 gas, +1 range attack, roach speed, ling speed 3 hatch 3 queen. This is most ideal scenerio ofcourse where i dont have to scout or build earlygame lings vs AI (i skipped the 1 set at begining that throws off things a little, tho i delayed my 3rd hatch slightly 15 seconds. Just saying your timings might be somewhat off
I was replying to the guy saying he got a 6min lair+infestation pit etc, while reaching 70ish supply at 8min. Your build is pretty much the "standard" 3hatch roach, except you get 5gas which is fine if you can drone like a madman. Good input nonetheless
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On August 29 2012 04:28 Mavvie wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2012 04:21 AdrianHealey wrote:
I just tried ultra-roach in a custom game, where the opponent skipped colossus. Worked pretty good. Totally not representative of anything, but I'll try it more often.
Ultralisks tank and deal damage while roaches just do damage. The funny thing is that roaches are also designed to tank damage, not deal it. Ultra/hydra synergizes okay, but nothing is as good as ultra/ling/bane with infestor support. Roaches don't synergize well. Surprised it worked, and also ultras counter colossus, or are at least decent against them.
I am not sure why you would say it doesn't synergize; because both roach and ultra tank pretty well - and is relatively mobile - you have a great synergy. Ultra-hydra doesn't really leave you the option of retreating.
Ultra/ling/bane gets raped by good storms (or at least: that's my experience; but again, the level isn't worth mentioning. It's only diamond.)
There were, obviously, also zerglings into the mix in that army.
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I've been playing this style in masters lately and it works very well, surprised with the results actually. I like to get +1 melee before lair and a roach warren in case of an allin but I won't make any unless absolutely necessary. What I found to work as well is 6 infestors once pathogen glands is finished, second evo timed to start +2/+1 at the same time, NP as soon as I have the gas after the infestors and then hive. Hive usually starts around 12:00 and is in time for anything I got thrown at me.
It also seems you need 7 gas to be able to get the ultra cavern, baneling nest, adrenal and +3 melee as the hive pops. That is if you do stop at 6 infestors, I feel more gas is better invested in ultras and banelings but it might depend on playstyle. Positioning is huge when playing like this, the outcome completely changes.
Also NP is energy better spent past the first 2/3 fungals because banelings will wreck the protoss army so fast the damage over time is not really worth it compared to grabbing a couple colossi or archons. Only time I feel I really need it is against blink.
Overall very fun style that actually works.
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Ok I actually tried something just a bit different. (note: I have a bug where I start games 15 secs late...so everything here i subtracted 15 secs)
Standard timings for everything except:
1) double gas at 5:15 (note: only 2 in gases)
2) lair with 1st 100 gas, speed with 2nd 100
So, the timings work out:
-lair done at 8 min
-hive done at 11 min
-broods morphing at 13
-maxed on roach/ling/infestor/brood at 13:30
So, I guess my point is that this seems like a pretty damn good way to legitimately counter the 3 base protoss pushes. In addition, this build will get infestors out in time to deal with a heavy tech all in (sentry/immortal).
I am willing to bet also that if you scout a crazy gateway allin with cut probes, you could cancel the lair and flood roaches to hold it. THe timings work out quite nice....a bit before 8 min is when you would scout that out and want to make a decision on making units. You have till 8 min to cancel the lair, and use the money for defense. If I'm not mistaken, speed finishes at a similar time also.
I have this feeling that the standard stephano timings are goiong to eventually be refined a bit...and the changes will be considered standard. Perhaps not mine of course...but his timings were always really to line up with a mass roach/ling flood to shut down a third. I find it hard to believe those timings are optimal for all other options. As zergs get away from roach allins on 3 bases...timings will/should change some.
I attached a replay below. I still hit 65 drones at 8 min...in spite of a supply block right there. I am willing to bet better players could easily surpass 70 with gas at the same times.
replay: http://drop.sc/244330
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What do you mean 'standard stephano timings'? Why do people say that ~_~
And mass roach/ling is just an all-in off 3 base to kill Toss or do crippling damage, like kill their third. If you don't do serious damage, as in at least kill the third or Toss' army with roach/ling, you are pretty much going to lose the game because your infestors will be too late (hyun vs mana is a perfect example of this), and your broodlords won't be out in time against 3+ 3 base colossus pre-broodlord timing.
Zergs these days dont' make any roaches if they want to play a macro game, the symbol games noted in the OP are a perfect example of how quickly you can get hive if you don't make any roaches. The difference is that symbol is opting to use ultras to straight up fight the 3+ colossus push, instead of using mass spines to buy a little more time, so that you can effectively and safely transition into broodlords. This ultra style is a lot more aggressive than massing spines and turtling to get broodlords. It has it's weaknesses and strengths, just like turtling with mass spines does. This style is strong against a Toss who pushes out pre-broodlord, which is what massing spines is struggling to fight against, and is also strong if Toss just takes a fourth, something massing spines kind of sucks against.
If you hit 65 drones at 8:00, that would be fucking amazing. You sure you don't mean 65 supply? There's a big difference between the two, as even if you purely drone, and hit 80 supply, you won't be past 55 drones since much of that supply will be tied up in morphing drones, not to mention queens, lings, roaches even, etc.
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I'd like to think of the Stephano style xax roach-ling as a defensive response to a mass warpgate push (obsolete) instead of a build order win. I usually go for an massive attack on his 3rd with the objective of denying the 3rd as long as possible. I usually win the game at this point. I also don't reinforce with roaches because I'd rather spend them on infestors. I create more lings if I feel I can go for the kill.
The point in any ZvP is get to the point of infestors and broodlords. Going Ultras is an absolutely great idea to get there. So toss won't decide to push you until you get broodlords. The important thing to note is
ONLY MAKE ENOUGH ULTRAS AND BANELINGS TO DEFEND YOURSELF FROM ANY ATTACK
the main objective here is still get to BL/Infestor.
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EPT
