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Hey all,
First off, the replay: http://drop.sc/259355
I'm a diamond Terran who is having a hell of a time beating Zergs once they start amassing infestors in TvZ. In general, my playstyle is pretty turtly; I almost always go mech and try to get the most gas-dense army possible, while taking bases aggressively and doing light harass with hellions.
However, once infestors are out, I feel like they just counter any unit I make. I can't harass or deny creep with hellions anymore, because they'll all get caught and chain fungaled. I can't play for an air game against broodlords, because infestors are so good against vikings. I can't mass units like thors or battlecruisers because of NP and infested terrans. It even gets hard to turtle and defend my base because lobbing infested terrans can kill planetaries easily - even if I have a turret detecting infestors while they shoot them + tank backup.
Basically, I want to find a unit composition or strategy that will just crush zergs who build infestors. I like playing a macro game but right now it feels like the zerg has inevitability in the lategame. In that game, I felt like I started by outmacroing him pretty badly - supply was 150 to 100 before any major engagements, and I still managed to keep even in supply after my army got wiped the first couple of times. But I just crumbled to his infestors eventually, so I'm confused on what I'm doing wrong.
Thanks!
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On September 30 2012 06:49 Zoomacroom wrote:
However, once infestors are out, I feel like they just counter any unit I make.
Have you tried making ghosts? I hear EMP/snipe is pretty good against other casters
User was warned for this post
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I don't think there is a strategy that crushes zergs who go infestors. That's kinda why it's standard play. You do it right, you don't lose.
Anyways, a good way to kill burrowed infestors when going mech is to get a raven, or at the very least missile turret up the locations where you'll be defending and sieging at. You don't, you die. As for the main reason you lost, well you were never where you needed to be. He always managed to find the holes in your defense and you never found his. You got like one halfway decent runby, but it was too late to matter and it didn't even kill that many drones. He basically outplayed you.
Also holy shit that banshee could have done SO much more than it did! You might have actually managed to do irreparable damage right then and there.
Anyways, watch some Lucifron games. The guy loves mech and is crazy good with it. There's a reason he got so high in WCS Europe.
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Guys you really need to watch the replay in order to comment.
Your map vision is horrible, and it really shouldn't be going hellion/banshee. You don't even take your tower, and as such you constantly get surprised by his attacks and yours get surrounded and killed.
You have a great push going on at 18:30 but you ruin it by just attack moving and thus having your army arrive at 3 separate times. Try and keep your army together, even if it does mean moving at a slower speed.
Having the hellions scout in advance is good, but try to scout all around not just in one place. Firstly this gives the zerg advance warning of when and where you will attack, but it also leaves you open to flanks and counter attacks.
Try to seige up earlier than you think you ought to. You can always bunny hop seige tanks forward, but it's very hard to recover from losing your army unseiged.
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I don't think there is a strategy that crushes zergs who go infestors. That's kinda why it's standard play. You do it right, you don't lose.
Anyways, a good way to kill burrowed infestors when going mech is to get a raven, or at the very least missile turret up the locations where you'll be defending and sieging at. You don't, you die. As for the main reason you lost, well you were never where you needed to be. He always managed to find the holes in your defense and you never found his. You got like one halfway decent runby, but it was too late to matter and it didn't even kill that many drones. He basically outplayed you.
Also holy shit that banshee could have done SO much more than it did! You might have actually managed to do irreparable damage right then and there.
Anyways, watch some Lucifron games. The guy loves mech and is crazy good with it. There's a reason he got so high in WCS Europe.
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On September 30 2012 07:17 Willzzz wrote:
Guys you really need to watch the replay in order to comment.
Not really. His question was in regards to countering fungal and his primary complaint was that fungal countered all of his units, except he forgot to mention one, the ghost. My post was both serious and comical. He mentioned every other Terran unit except the ghost. If he is refusing to use the Terran anti caster to counter casters, then I see no reason to actually comment on the replay.
If you're not using the right tools for the job, then there's no point in criticizing the craftsmanship.
User was temp banned for this post.
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Yeah, I have played around with ghosts before, maybe I should try them more. My micro is pretty poor in general which is why I go mech, and typically what happens when I get ghosts is that I lose them all in a catastrophic mismicro. I do find it pretty hard to land good EMPs on infestors - they're so big that you don't hit very many of them. Snipes are something to play around with I guess.
Another problem I have with building ghosts is that while they're good against infestors, they're bad against pretty much every other zerg unit except like, mutalisks. So I have been in the situation before where I get the money EMP on his infestors, he loses them all, but then a wave of ultralisks shows up and I'm like uhhhhh great. It's true that I should experiment with them more though.
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On September 30 2012 07:53 Zoomacroom wrote:
So I have been in the situation before where I get the money EMP on his infestors, he loses them all, but then a wave of ultralisks shows up and I'm like uhhhhh great. It's true that I should experiment with them more though.
This is the case with any caster, they're only good as long as a) the correct target is around and b) they have energy. It's one of those things were you have to gauge roughly how many infestors your opponent has and make an appropriate amount of ghost because, in the reverse of your situation, once their infestors have no energy, they're army dies to just about anything.
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On September 30 2012 08:22 shadogi wrote:Show nested quote +On September 30 2012 07:53 Zoomacroom wrote:
So I have been in the situation before where I get the money EMP on his infestors, he loses them all, but then a wave of ultralisks shows up and I'm like uhhhhh great. It's true that I should experiment with them more though. This is the case with any caster, they're only good as long as a) the correct target is around and b) they have energy. It's one of those things were you have to gauge roughly how many infestors your opponent has and make an appropriate amount of ghost because, in the reverse of your situation, once their infestors have no energy, they're army dies to just about anything.
While the energy bit is true for all casters minus HTs and DTs (Archons), the first part of your statement is incorrect.
A Zerg can literally win most 200/200 against Terran with just infestors lol. Since they can spawn at least (at full energy) 8 Infested Terran, seeing as they are simply better but slower stimmed Marines. They can literally out number opponent's 200/200 Marine army. This is not including fungal which allows 1 full energy infestor to completely annihilate almost 10-15 Marines at once. Tanks are no use when you can jus mass drop infested terrans onto the tanks themselves as you first send a few to tank the initial shots. Infestors also counter all forms of air with IT and Fungal and even Neural Parasite on BCs and friends.
Tbh, only mass ravens can counter Infestors if micro'd at best to avoid fungals but then again, nothing is stopping them from splitting their infestors up and neuralling one raven to clean out your whole army.
TLDR; Infestors can counter nearly every Terran unit in the game. (assuming is on full energy)
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My suggestion would be learn gosu splitting and play bio in TvZ, thats what I do and I have a lot of success with it.
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On September 30 2012 09:33 Espy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 30 2012 08:22 shadogi wrote:On September 30 2012 07:53 Zoomacroom wrote:
So I have been in the situation before where I get the money EMP on his infestors, he loses them all, but then a wave of ultralisks shows up and I'm like uhhhhh great. It's true that I should experiment with them more though. This is the case with any caster, they're only good as long as a) the correct target is around and b) they have energy. It's one of those things were you have to gauge roughly how many infestors your opponent has and make an appropriate amount of ghost because, in the reverse of your situation, once their infestors have no energy, they're army dies to just about anything. While the energy bit is true for all casters minus HTs and DTs (Archons), the first part of your statement is incorrect. A Zerg can literally win most 200/200 against Terran with just infestors lol. Since they can spawn at least (at full energy) 8 Infested Terran, seeing as they are simply better but slower stimmed Marines. They can literally out number opponent's 200/200 Marine army. This is not including fungal which allows 1 full energy infestor to completely annihilate almost 10-15 Marines at once.
My statement is not incorrect, if the Terran army isn't around, then IT are just wasted energy. Assuming a 200/200 infestor army, if the Zerg just blows energy on IT, then the Terran army can just move back and let the IT timer run out and now you have 200/200 energy of useless infestors. This is also why a tank line needs to be deep and not wide. Tanks are useless if they are stacked on top of each other and infestors throw eggs to tank shots, but if the tank line is deep, then only the front line or two of tanks will shoot at the eggs.
On September 30 2012 09:33 Espy wrote:
Tbh, only mass ravens can counter Infestors
TLDR; Infestors can counter nearly every Terran unit in the game. (assuming is on full energy)
Infestors are hard countered by ghosts. Mass ravens may be good too, but ghosts are designed to counter casters. Why is it that Terrans are so against making them? You use them in TvP to snipe and EMP HT (also for the army as well). Yeah, snipe was nerfed against T3, but is still just as good against casters. Sounds like nothing more than a refusal to do something different to me.
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On September 30 2012 10:11 shadogi wrote:Show nested quote +On September 30 2012 09:33 Espy wrote:On September 30 2012 08:22 shadogi wrote:On September 30 2012 07:53 Zoomacroom wrote:
So I have been in the situation before where I get the money EMP on his infestors, he loses them all, but then a wave of ultralisks shows up and I'm like uhhhhh great. It's true that I should experiment with them more though. This is the case with any caster, they're only good as long as a) the correct target is around and b) they have energy. It's one of those things were you have to gauge roughly how many infestors your opponent has and make an appropriate amount of ghost because, in the reverse of your situation, once their infestors have no energy, they're army dies to just about anything. While the energy bit is true for all casters minus HTs and DTs (Archons), the first part of your statement is incorrect. A Zerg can literally win most 200/200 against Terran with just infestors lol. Since they can spawn at least (at full energy) 8 Infested Terran, seeing as they are simply better but slower stimmed Marines. They can literally out number opponent's 200/200 Marine army. This is not including fungal which allows 1 full energy infestor to completely annihilate almost 10-15 Marines at once. My statement is not incorrect, if the Terran army isn't around, then IT are just wasted energy. Assuming a 200/200 infestor army, if the Zerg just blows energy on IT, then the Terran army can just move back and let the IT timer run out and now you have 200/200 energy of useless infestors. This is also why a tank line needs to be deep and not wide. Tanks are useless if they are stacked on top of each other and infestors throw eggs to tank shots, but if the tank line is deep, then only the front line or two of tanks will shoot at the eggs. Show nested quote +On September 30 2012 09:33 Espy wrote:
Tbh, only mass ravens can counter Infestors
TLDR; Infestors can counter nearly every Terran unit in the game. (assuming is on full energy) Infestors are hard countered by ghosts. Mass ravens may be good too, but ghosts are designed to counter casters. Why is it that Terrans are so against making them? You use them in TvP to snipe and EMP HT (also for the army as well). Yeah, snipe was nerfed against T3, but is still just as good against casters. Sounds like nothing more than a refusal to do something different to me.
Because you can just "move back" when the infested terrans are in your base right? Because unseiging tanks and then moving away, won't lose you ground right? Because you can move back with FUNGAL GROWTH on top of your army right? What makes infestors so hard to counter is because of their spells that are insanely cost effective and when cast along each other can annihilate nearly any composition. Sure infestors are therefore expensive but with the macro mechanics of Zerg. They can mass produce them at one given time instead of slowly transitioning into them which is what Terran has to do. This allows the Z a massive timing window to just overrun the opposition as he "transitions".
It takes two EMPs to erase one Infestor's FULL energy. EMP can hit at most 2-3 Infestors if Zerg is dumb enough to let that happen by clumping their units; while hypocritically telling Terran to split up theirs to avoid Fungal.
EMP doesn't KILL units.
Fungal KILLs units.
EMP doesn't cause the unit to be stuck and killed off by other units.
Fungal ROOTS them so if fungal itself doesn't kill them off, lings or other units will.
Fungals are literally a deathwish upon any unit that befalls it. EMP simply renders the unit HALF crippled (EMP = 100 energy gone). In the case of two EMPs, it just fully cripples the unit for about 200 seconds, not completely remove it from the game (killing it) like Fungal does.
Snipe can two shot infestors, however the delay in sniping 10 infestors allow infestors to Fungal and at least protect half of its brethren and chain fungalling the rest or simply send lings forward to deal with the Ghosts. The Snipe nerf earlier made this even more unviable since it leaves the Ghosts susceptible to the Ultras and Broods that protect the infestors.
EMP is used in TvP because HTs are slow, unlike the infestors which move twice as fast and twice as big causing less to be EMP'd at once. EMP also removes shields, effectively "damaging" and helping to kill off the Protoss army. If I EMP a Broodlord, the broodlord would literally just laugh.
We can't just press S then spam G and make 10 Ghosts at once like Zerg does with infestors. Hence switching to Ghosts can be detrimental. Not to mention like I said before Infestors are useful in almost all situations. Ghosts have only 1 purpose, kill Infestors.
Mass ravens provide a harder counter because it KILLs and doesn't insta lose to anything except Ultras. They are also an air unit so higher mobility than a ground based Ghost. However one raven can only release 1 Seeker Missile rather than 2 Fungals, so it is still less effective than an Infestor but it's the best we Terrans have.
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On September 30 2012 10:47 Espy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 30 2012 10:11 shadogi wrote:On September 30 2012 09:33 Espy wrote:On September 30 2012 08:22 shadogi wrote:On September 30 2012 07:53 Zoomacroom wrote:
So I have been in the situation before where I get the money EMP on his infestors, he loses them all, but then a wave of ultralisks shows up and I'm like uhhhhh great. It's true that I should experiment with them more though. This is the case with any caster, they're only good as long as a) the correct target is around and b) they have energy. It's one of those things were you have to gauge roughly how many infestors your opponent has and make an appropriate amount of ghost because, in the reverse of your situation, once their infestors have no energy, they're army dies to just about anything. While the energy bit is true for all casters minus HTs and DTs (Archons), the first part of your statement is incorrect. A Zerg can literally win most 200/200 against Terran with just infestors lol. Since they can spawn at least (at full energy) 8 Infested Terran, seeing as they are simply better but slower stimmed Marines. They can literally out number opponent's 200/200 Marine army. This is not including fungal which allows 1 full energy infestor to completely annihilate almost 10-15 Marines at once. My statement is not incorrect, if the Terran army isn't around, then IT are just wasted energy. Assuming a 200/200 infestor army, if the Zerg just blows energy on IT, then the Terran army can just move back and let the IT timer run out and now you have 200/200 energy of useless infestors. This is also why a tank line needs to be deep and not wide. Tanks are useless if they are stacked on top of each other and infestors throw eggs to tank shots, but if the tank line is deep, then only the front line or two of tanks will shoot at the eggs. On September 30 2012 09:33 Espy wrote:
Tbh, only mass ravens can counter Infestors
TLDR; Infestors can counter nearly every Terran unit in the game. (assuming is on full energy) Infestors are hard countered by ghosts. Mass ravens may be good too, but ghosts are designed to counter casters. Why is it that Terrans are so against making them? You use them in TvP to snipe and EMP HT (also for the army as well). Yeah, snipe was nerfed against T3, but is still just as good against casters. Sounds like nothing more than a refusal to do something different to me. Because you can just "move back" when the infested terrans are in your base right? Because unseiging tanks and then moving away, won't lose you ground right? Because you can move back with FUNGAL GROWTH on top of your army right? What makes infestors so hard to counter is because of their spells that are insanely cost effective and when cast along each other can annihilate nearly any composition. Sure infestors are therefore expensive but with the macro mechanics of Zerg. They can mass produce them at one given time instead of slowly transitioning into them which is what Terran has to do. This allows the Z a massive timing window to just overrun the opposition as he "transitions". It takes two EMPs to erase one Infestor's FULL energy. EMP can hit at most 2-3 Infestors if Zerg is dumb enough to let that happen by clumping their units; while hypocritically telling Terran to split up theirs to avoid Fungal. EMP doesn't KILL units. Fungal KILLs units. EMP doesn't cause the unit to be stuck and killed off by other units. Fungal ROOTS them so if fungal itself doesn't kill them off, lings or other units will. Fungals are literally a deathwish upon any unit that befalls it. EMP simply renders the unit HALF crippled (EMP = 100 energy gone). In the case of two EMPs, it just fully cripples the unit for about 200 seconds, not completely remove it from the game (killing it) like Fungal does. Snipe can two shot infestors, however the delay in sniping 10 infestors allow infestors to Fungal and at least protect half of its brethren and chain fungalling the rest or simply send lings forward to deal with the Ghosts. The Snipe nerf earlier made this even more unviable since it leaves the Ghosts susceptible to the Ultras and Broods that protect the infestors. EMP is used in TvP because HTs are slow, unlike the infestors which move twice as fast and twice as big causing less to be EMP'd at once. EMP also removes shields, effectively "damaging" and helping to kill off the Protoss army. If I EMP a Broodlord, the broodlord would literally just laugh. We can't just press S then spam G and make 10 Ghosts at once like Zerg does with infestors. Hence switching to Ghosts can be detrimental. Not to mention like I said before Infestors are useful in almost all situations. Ghosts have only 1 purpose, kill Infestors. Mass ravens provide a harder counter because it KILLs and doesn't insta lose to anything except Ultras. They are also an air unit so higher mobility than a ground based Ghost. However one raven can only release 1 Seeker Missile rather than 2 Fungals, so it is still less effective than an Infestor but it's the best we Terrans have.
The day a zerg goes pure infestor and wins is the day a terran goes pure ghost and wins post nerf. If you have tons and tons and tons of gas, go ahead, make pure infestor. And then watch as it gets wiped off the map by a well-balanced terran force.
Siege tanks, a raven or two, marines and marauders rape pure infestor cost for cost and supply for supply. If pure infestor was so good, Destiny would be a lot better off than he is now.
Infestors simply have no staying power. They're like ultra-expensive banelings: once they launch their initial attack, they're dead weight for a few minutes. Good terrans don't give you a few minutes. You need well balanced forces to fight optimally. Marines are fucking awesome, but no one goes pure marine/medivac because marines have weaknesses.
Also, a mass infested terran attack, especially if that's your ONLY attack, is fucking retarded. Marines are good, but stimmed marines with medivac and tank support is far, FAR better. Your assault will be wiped off the map rapidly while only taking an expansion and some units at best, leaving you at the mercy of his counter attack.
In short, you overestimate infestors by many orders of magnitude. Infestors are only a single cog in the well oiled machine of the zerg army. A central cog, but only a single cog nonetheless.
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On September 30 2012 11:10 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 30 2012 10:47 Espy wrote:On September 30 2012 10:11 shadogi wrote:On September 30 2012 09:33 Espy wrote:On September 30 2012 08:22 shadogi wrote:On September 30 2012 07:53 Zoomacroom wrote:
So I have been in the situation before where I get the money EMP on his infestors, he loses them all, but then a wave of ultralisks shows up and I'm like uhhhhh great. It's true that I should experiment with them more though. This is the case with any caster, they're only good as long as a) the correct target is around and b) they have energy. It's one of those things were you have to gauge roughly how many infestors your opponent has and make an appropriate amount of ghost because, in the reverse of your situation, once their infestors have no energy, they're army dies to just about anything. While the energy bit is true for all casters minus HTs and DTs (Archons), the first part of your statement is incorrect. A Zerg can literally win most 200/200 against Terran with just infestors lol. Since they can spawn at least (at full energy) 8 Infested Terran, seeing as they are simply better but slower stimmed Marines. They can literally out number opponent's 200/200 Marine army. This is not including fungal which allows 1 full energy infestor to completely annihilate almost 10-15 Marines at once. My statement is not incorrect, if the Terran army isn't around, then IT are just wasted energy. Assuming a 200/200 infestor army, if the Zerg just blows energy on IT, then the Terran army can just move back and let the IT timer run out and now you have 200/200 energy of useless infestors. This is also why a tank line needs to be deep and not wide. Tanks are useless if they are stacked on top of each other and infestors throw eggs to tank shots, but if the tank line is deep, then only the front line or two of tanks will shoot at the eggs. On September 30 2012 09:33 Espy wrote:
Tbh, only mass ravens can counter Infestors
TLDR; Infestors can counter nearly every Terran unit in the game. (assuming is on full energy) Infestors are hard countered by ghosts. Mass ravens may be good too, but ghosts are designed to counter casters. Why is it that Terrans are so against making them? You use them in TvP to snipe and EMP HT (also for the army as well). Yeah, snipe was nerfed against T3, but is still just as good against casters. Sounds like nothing more than a refusal to do something different to me. Because you can just "move back" when the infested terrans are in your base right? Because unseiging tanks and then moving away, won't lose you ground right? Because you can move back with FUNGAL GROWTH on top of your army right? What makes infestors so hard to counter is because of their spells that are insanely cost effective and when cast along each other can annihilate nearly any composition. Sure infestors are therefore expensive but with the macro mechanics of Zerg. They can mass produce them at one given time instead of slowly transitioning into them which is what Terran has to do. This allows the Z a massive timing window to just overrun the opposition as he "transitions". It takes two EMPs to erase one Infestor's FULL energy. EMP can hit at most 2-3 Infestors if Zerg is dumb enough to let that happen by clumping their units; while hypocritically telling Terran to split up theirs to avoid Fungal. EMP doesn't KILL units. Fungal KILLs units. EMP doesn't cause the unit to be stuck and killed off by other units. Fungal ROOTS them so if fungal itself doesn't kill them off, lings or other units will. Fungals are literally a deathwish upon any unit that befalls it. EMP simply renders the unit HALF crippled (EMP = 100 energy gone). In the case of two EMPs, it just fully cripples the unit for about 200 seconds, not completely remove it from the game (killing it) like Fungal does. Snipe can two shot infestors, however the delay in sniping 10 infestors allow infestors to Fungal and at least protect half of its brethren and chain fungalling the rest or simply send lings forward to deal with the Ghosts. The Snipe nerf earlier made this even more unviable since it leaves the Ghosts susceptible to the Ultras and Broods that protect the infestors. EMP is used in TvP because HTs are slow, unlike the infestors which move twice as fast and twice as big causing less to be EMP'd at once. EMP also removes shields, effectively "damaging" and helping to kill off the Protoss army. If I EMP a Broodlord, the broodlord would literally just laugh. We can't just press S then spam G and make 10 Ghosts at once like Zerg does with infestors. Hence switching to Ghosts can be detrimental. Not to mention like I said before Infestors are useful in almost all situations. Ghosts have only 1 purpose, kill Infestors. Mass ravens provide a harder counter because it KILLs and doesn't insta lose to anything except Ultras. They are also an air unit so higher mobility than a ground based Ghost. However one raven can only release 1 Seeker Missile rather than 2 Fungals, so it is still less effective than an Infestor but it's the best we Terrans have. The day a zerg goes pure infestor and wins is the day a terran goes pure ghost and wins post nerf. If you have tons and tons and tons of gas, go ahead, make pure infestor. And then watch as it gets wiped off the map by a well-balanced terran force. Siege tanks, a raven or two, marines and marauders rape pure infestor cost for cost and supply for supply. If pure infestor was so good, Destiny would be a lot better off than he is now. Infestors simply have no staying power. They're like ultra-expensive banelings: once they launch their initial attack, they're dead weight for a few minutes. Good terrans don't give you a few minutes. You need well balanced forces to fight optimally. Marines are fucking awesome, but no one goes pure marine/medivac because marines have weaknesses. Also, a mass infested terran attack, especially if that's your ONLY attack, is fucking retarded. Marines are good, but stimmed marines with medivac and tank support is far, FAR better. In short, you overestimate infestors by many orders of magnitude. Infestors are only a single cog in the well oiled machine of the zerg army. A central cog, but only a single cog nonetheless.
I understand what your saying, and I agree to some degree, however you have to admit the fact that Infestor IS a better spell caster than Ghosts, there's a freakin reason, simple one at that, why pros don't, even up to now, use ghosts post nerf in TvZ... It is always better and easier to have Infestors than Ghosts. Likewise can be said with Zerg, by the way. Infestor Brood Lord Corruptor shreds any army not mass Raven. you can not deny this fact at all. Marines and Marauders rape infestor cost for cost and supply for supply if Zerg is stupid enough to not use a Fungal to stop this or place it in the front lines. I'm talking about infestor as one solid unit. If you say Marine Marauder Medivac and Tanks counter it. I can simply say chuck a few Broodlords in and your entire army is forced to retreat or be laid waste.
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Hi. I'm a high diamond Zerg and I have a different approach to countering infestors. If you want to beat an infestor, you attack with too few units to fungal. This sounds really weird, but the worst thing ever when you're using the infestor is 2 marines shooting it. It requires positioning but when you get how it works, it is really effective. Basically you always want to be chasing / attacking the infestor ball with very low amounts of units, but constantly. Making the Z waste APM on constantly controlling 2+ groups of units to keep the infestors alive and not have to waste energy on fungaling 2-3 units at a time. The cool thing is, any terran unit is good for this. 1-2 hellions? I dont want to fungal that. 2-4 marines? That either. 1 tank? Nope. 2 marauders? God dammit. Try it out some time.
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On September 30 2012 11:17 Espy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 30 2012 11:10 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:On September 30 2012 10:47 Espy wrote:On September 30 2012 10:11 shadogi wrote:On September 30 2012 09:33 Espy wrote:On September 30 2012 08:22 shadogi wrote:On September 30 2012 07:53 Zoomacroom wrote:
So I have been in the situation before where I get the money EMP on his infestors, he loses them all, but then a wave of ultralisks shows up and I'm like uhhhhh great. It's true that I should experiment with them more though. This is the case with any caster, they're only good as long as a) the correct target is around and b) they have energy. It's one of those things were you have to gauge roughly how many infestors your opponent has and make an appropriate amount of ghost because, in the reverse of your situation, once their infestors have no energy, they're army dies to just about anything. While the energy bit is true for all casters minus HTs and DTs (Archons), the first part of your statement is incorrect. A Zerg can literally win most 200/200 against Terran with just infestors lol. Since they can spawn at least (at full energy) 8 Infested Terran, seeing as they are simply better but slower stimmed Marines. They can literally out number opponent's 200/200 Marine army. This is not including fungal which allows 1 full energy infestor to completely annihilate almost 10-15 Marines at once. My statement is not incorrect, if the Terran army isn't around, then IT are just wasted energy. Assuming a 200/200 infestor army, if the Zerg just blows energy on IT, then the Terran army can just move back and let the IT timer run out and now you have 200/200 energy of useless infestors. This is also why a tank line needs to be deep and not wide. Tanks are useless if they are stacked on top of each other and infestors throw eggs to tank shots, but if the tank line is deep, then only the front line or two of tanks will shoot at the eggs. On September 30 2012 09:33 Espy wrote:
Tbh, only mass ravens can counter Infestors
TLDR; Infestors can counter nearly every Terran unit in the game. (assuming is on full energy) Infestors are hard countered by ghosts. Mass ravens may be good too, but ghosts are designed to counter casters. Why is it that Terrans are so against making them? You use them in TvP to snipe and EMP HT (also for the army as well). Yeah, snipe was nerfed against T3, but is still just as good against casters. Sounds like nothing more than a refusal to do something different to me. Because you can just "move back" when the infested terrans are in your base right? Because unseiging tanks and then moving away, won't lose you ground right? Because you can move back with FUNGAL GROWTH on top of your army right? What makes infestors so hard to counter is because of their spells that are insanely cost effective and when cast along each other can annihilate nearly any composition. Sure infestors are therefore expensive but with the macro mechanics of Zerg. They can mass produce them at one given time instead of slowly transitioning into them which is what Terran has to do. This allows the Z a massive timing window to just overrun the opposition as he "transitions". It takes two EMPs to erase one Infestor's FULL energy. EMP can hit at most 2-3 Infestors if Zerg is dumb enough to let that happen by clumping their units; while hypocritically telling Terran to split up theirs to avoid Fungal. EMP doesn't KILL units. Fungal KILLs units. EMP doesn't cause the unit to be stuck and killed off by other units. Fungal ROOTS them so if fungal itself doesn't kill them off, lings or other units will. Fungals are literally a deathwish upon any unit that befalls it. EMP simply renders the unit HALF crippled (EMP = 100 energy gone). In the case of two EMPs, it just fully cripples the unit for about 200 seconds, not completely remove it from the game (killing it) like Fungal does. Snipe can two shot infestors, however the delay in sniping 10 infestors allow infestors to Fungal and at least protect half of its brethren and chain fungalling the rest or simply send lings forward to deal with the Ghosts. The Snipe nerf earlier made this even more unviable since it leaves the Ghosts susceptible to the Ultras and Broods that protect the infestors. EMP is used in TvP because HTs are slow, unlike the infestors which move twice as fast and twice as big causing less to be EMP'd at once. EMP also removes shields, effectively "damaging" and helping to kill off the Protoss army. If I EMP a Broodlord, the broodlord would literally just laugh. We can't just press S then spam G and make 10 Ghosts at once like Zerg does with infestors. Hence switching to Ghosts can be detrimental. Not to mention like I said before Infestors are useful in almost all situations. Ghosts have only 1 purpose, kill Infestors. Mass ravens provide a harder counter because it KILLs and doesn't insta lose to anything except Ultras. They are also an air unit so higher mobility than a ground based Ghost. However one raven can only release 1 Seeker Missile rather than 2 Fungals, so it is still less effective than an Infestor but it's the best we Terrans have. The day a zerg goes pure infestor and wins is the day a terran goes pure ghost and wins post nerf. If you have tons and tons and tons of gas, go ahead, make pure infestor. And then watch as it gets wiped off the map by a well-balanced terran force. Siege tanks, a raven or two, marines and marauders rape pure infestor cost for cost and supply for supply. If pure infestor was so good, Destiny would be a lot better off than he is now. Infestors simply have no staying power. They're like ultra-expensive banelings: once they launch their initial attack, they're dead weight for a few minutes. Good terrans don't give you a few minutes. You need well balanced forces to fight optimally. Marines are fucking awesome, but no one goes pure marine/medivac because marines have weaknesses. Also, a mass infested terran attack, especially if that's your ONLY attack, is fucking retarded. Marines are good, but stimmed marines with medivac and tank support is far, FAR better. In short, you overestimate infestors by many orders of magnitude. Infestors are only a single cog in the well oiled machine of the zerg army. A central cog, but only a single cog nonetheless. I understand what your saying, and I agree to some degree, however you have to admit the fact that Infestor IS a better spell caster than Ghosts, there's a freakin reason, simple one at that, why pros don't, even up to now, use ghosts post nerf in TvZ... It is always better and easier to have Infestors than Ghosts. Likewise can be said with Zerg, by the way. Infestor Brood Lord Corruptor shreds any army not mass Raven. you can not deny this fact at all. Marines and Marauders rape infestor cost for cost and supply for supply if Zerg is stupid enough to not use a Fungal to stop this or place it in the front lines. I'm talking about infestor as one solid unit. If you say Marine Marauder Medivac and Tanks counter it. I can simply say chuck a few Broodlords in and your entire army is forced to retreat or be laid waste.
Infestors are better than ghosts, but it isn't because it is better and easier to have infestors. Rather, ghosts have little use outside of fighting infestors. Snipe is useless and nukes are for ballers only.
As for infestor/broodlord/corruptor, it isn't some Jesus comp. that wipes all Terran resistance off the map. Marine/marauder/medivac/tank won't beat it, but marine/medivac/tank/viking can fare pretty decently against it. If broodlord/corruptor/infestor was so good, we wouldn't be seeing any ultra/zergling/baneling/infestor lategames, and yet that seems to be the more common of the two these days.
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I'm just going to ignore the whole infestor OP stuff and focus on a few things you can do to improve.
1. Hellion harass -> You should be doing harassment with about 4 hellions in each group - no more. You still easily one shot drones, and you won't do much more damage with 10 or 12 in a group anyway. When you lose them all (they are meant to be sacrificial units) you lose far less minerals, and it takes more infestor energy to kill them all. You can spend the minerals you save on extra CCs / orbitals and missile turrets.
2. Multitasking -> If you can split your hellions into 2 groups, then all the better for you. Run them into separate bases (e.g. the center base, and the top base), and if he just runs around with one blob of infestors you're going to do a lot of damage. This is also really good for pulling the zerg army out of position. E.g. If you know all his infestors are up at the top end of the map, a push with your main army straight across the middle could get right to his nat choke and seige up without meeting any resistance.
3. Banshees -> Keep your banshees active later in the game too. If you just send one at a time in after his infestors, you'll likely be able to pick off 1 or 2 before they die (and use up more infestor energy).
4. Composition -> I don't mech often, so maybe someone else can comment on this, but I feel like you make too many tanks. I think 5 or 6 tanks is the recommended amount, with plenty of thors to support them (maybe make more tanks if there's a lot of early roach pressure). With fewer tanks, mutalisk switches are less of a problem, as are ultralisks / broods. A raven or two will also help vs the infestors, just due to detection of burrowed units - this is really important for keeping your army safe.
5. Engagements -> As someone else mentioned, your push would probably have been fine if you'd kept it all together and moved in slowly. You wouldn't have alerted him to the push with your hellions sitting on creep 30 seconds in advance (or risk losing them to fungals), and he wouldn't have picked off those two thors with zerglings.
6. Other mistakes -> You lost a lot of SCVs when your third went down. You could have just mineral walked them all to your 4th or nat, and you'd only have lost the planetary and a bit of mining time. Even losing that base you wouldn't have been out of the game because you were definitely ahead in economy up to that point. Map vision wasn't great - take your watch tower and maybe put a banshee at each of the high ground nodes to spot run-bys.
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1. Why do you scout so early? Slows down your CC and everything else following it. If you're worried about a 6 pool, you can either wall off with your CC or just try to defend it when it comes. The early scout doesn't really accomplish much.
2. Your build isn't very well optimised. Either get the first gas after your first barracks or double gas after both orbitals begin construction. If you 14 CC you don't even need the second supply depot so early.
3. You didn't check whether or not the zerg took gas, presumably that's why you built the second bunker, (which you don't actually need considering the fact your hellions get out fast enough).
4. Barracks should be used to build tech lab - not doing this delays your banshee by 25 seconds.
5. 3rd CC timing is awkward. Either play greedier and get it way earlier or delay it for longer so your combat units aren't delayed.
6. Armories need to be much quicker else you'll die to muta plays. Triple factory before armories is pretty pointless - the armories will give you a greater advantage in the long term and hellion/banshee is enough to control the early game.
7. You need to control your banshees better early on i.e. targetting drones, not idly killing zerglings. You also need to be producing more banshees.
8. Supply depots should be utilised in TvZ for wall offs, not just built in your main. You let zerglings into your third at 13:45 as a result of poor walling off.
9. Why do you take your 4th so far away? PF or orbital the middle and rally your units there.
10. +2 mech armor isn't started with +2 mech attack
11. Blind starport production isn't very good; yes hive will be on the way but you should know that he's going broodlords before you start building a load of starports.
12. Pushing out when you spotted hive was good, it also lined up with +2 attack and should've lined up with +2 armor as well. However, you randomly leave three tanks back at home. You target the 3rd base instead of the 4th base. You shouldn't care if you're on equal bases with a zerg. Your mech army is better than his army and you already have a 4th of your own up. You siege up too late and don't focus the infestors quickly enough. With proper targetting, those infested terrans wont get thrown, (at least no in such high numbers). Because you've lost your mech army and not killed his 4th, he's essentially evened out the game after being fairly behind. After taking out your 3rd, he's just put himself ahead.
13. You're not asserting enough control on your half of the map. Rallying to the middle watchtower instead of to your natural is a start. Using hellions on the map more is something else you should be utilising.
14. At 23:30 you lose a lot of hellions for essentially nothing. Split them up and don't attack in the middle where his army is obviously going to be.
15. Make sure you're keeping an eye on how many scvs are mining where. At 26:45 you've got 10 scvs at your natural - that's not where they need to be.
16. Don't neglect upgrades, (especially mech attack) in the late game.
17. Turrets at every base and ravens in your army are the bane of burrowed infestors. There's no reason not to have ravens in your mech army mid or late game.
18. Sloppy army control losing those vikings/BCs around 31:00
19. His army craps all over you in terms of quantity and quality at the end. Trying to kill the 12 o'clock base was an overextention for how small you army was. Don't try moves like that from behind unless you're maxed.
Edit1: If you're concerned about fighting mass infestors in general, you need a lot of tanks and lots of focus firing. You're going to lose some tanks to infested terrans, yes, but the zerg is going to be losing infestors and a significant number of them.
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Thanks for the help everyone!
I actually decided to mix in 6-8 ghosts into my endgame comp and won my very next TvZ. It's amazing how easy it is to win vs. broodlord/corruptor after all their infestors have been EMP'd.
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EPT
