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Return of the Swarm: a BL/infestor-less style of ZvP This is more of a guide than a discussion, but I’m not quite sure I’m qualified to put on a [G] tag for this =P
UPDATE 12/01/12: Added some replays that address the archon/immortal transition from toss (and the roach/hydra counter) in the replay section. Also added some analysis of GSL Code S games in the "similar strategies" section from similar strats/ideas.
Inspiration: + Show Spoiler +Hello everyone! I’m a masters Z player who has played the game since launch. When I stopped playing for a 6-month period back in March, the Zerg was a swarming, fast race that required a lot of attacking, counterattacking, and macro/micro.
When I returned to the game a couple of months ago, my beloved Zerg had changed. I was shocked to see that the metagame was about massive spine crawlers, equal bases with the opponent, and a deathball comparable or even better than that from protoss: BL/infestor. Obviously this is a strong composition, but beyond everything else, people from all races and all levels seem to have the general consensus that this is boring. I do not have the patience for it, it’s just not as fun for me, and it’s not very “swarm”-y.
As such, I wanted to work on a strategy that could handle today’s current metagame while bringing the idea of the “swarm” back to the Zerg race. I hope you enjoy, and constructive criticism and improvements are appreciated =)
Earlygame/Opening Build: + Show Spoiler +The opening for this build is the current standard. I’ll include the rough build order for completeness sake:
14p/15h/21h Double gas at 5:45~6 OL sac at 6:15~6:30ish – if you see chrono on cyber/no double gas at natural, or gateways going down, throw down a roach warren immediately and prepare for gateway pressure/allin. If you see a robo and no chrono on the cyber, no double gas, it’s fine to delay roach warren and evo until 7 minutes. There’s a lot of other things to consider in the opening, but I won’t go too in-depth on this as it is covered in other guides. This guide is more oriented towards once protoss takes a 3rd.
Lair at first 100 gas, add 3rd and 4th gas, ling speed with 2nd 100 gas, +1 carapace with next 150 gas. Throw down macrohatch while lair is morphing, add 2nd evo and +1 melee when you’re comfortable (sometimes I don’t get this if he’s going for immo/sentry allin and opt for more units instead).
Everything above is pretty standard. Here is where things start to deviate: At lair completion, instead of spending 100/100 on roach speed, throw down a hydra den.
Now if you didn’t stop reading because of the previous sentence, please let me explain: first of all, we will build the hydra den but not actually get any hydras, unless they’re needed. It is more for “safety.” Since we aren’t using infestors with this strategy, we need some kind of anti-air/high dps unit for various protoss 2-base allins. I will discuss the immo/sentry allin in depth below, and how to use hydras to beat it straight-up, but the hydra den is also useful for blink allins as well as stargate allins for obvious reasons. It’s a very small investment for a potentially significant boost to your army, and also will come into play much later in the game. Lastly, if he scouts your hydra den, he’s (even more) inclined to go colossi, which is what you want. If he has a robo bay already building when you scout him or he’s taking a fast 3rd, you can skip the hydra den since you won’t be using it for a long time.
Now if he hasn’t taken a 3rd, keep building units (probably primarily lings with a few roaches, unless he’s going for a stargate allin, then you can start getting hydras and getting the range upgrade). Saturate your 3base fully when you can, but stay on 4 gas. At this point if he allin’s you the game is pretty much over one way or another; otherwise, if he’s leaning towards a 3rd, you can transition to the midgame.
Midgame: + Show Spoiler +Main idea: Tech to drops, and use roach/ling drops to buy time for T3.
So the toss player has maybe done some light aggression (4gate +1) or just gone safe with some immortals and sentries and taken a 3rd base. At this point, we want to transition into the late game and buy as much time as possible for our “ultimate” composition, which is going to be ultra/ling/bane.
Once you feel safe (either seeing 3rd nexus go down or just the potential for a delayed push), start researching drop and take your 5th and 6th gas. Also, research roach speed. When he takes his 3rd, take a 4th. Make an overseer over your army to snipe any observers; then, when drop finishes, you’re going to unleash a 3-pronged attack, at around the 12:30 mark.
Load 6 overlords with roach/ling. Send 3 to his main and 3 to his 3rd. Make sure you’ve sniped the observer over your army. At the same time, move out with your main army towards his nat. As best as you can, drop both his main and his 3rd at the same time and hit his front.
This is a very powerful attack that requires him to be completely on top of his multitask and army splitting to handle. It hits at a time where he’s just getting a couple of colossus up and is not ready to move out with a 3-base timing, so even if he has a superior army, he will have a very difficult time dealing with the multipronged threats due to the immobility of his army, and you’re dropping enough stuff that just 1 warpin is not able to handle it (especially in two locations).
Note that this is NOT an allin. The main goal here is to buy you a little time. Be judicious with your main army; if you can’t do any damage to his natural, just rely on your drops, which are pretty expendable. Don’t just throw your main army away.
So what’re we buying time for? When you’re about halfway done with drop, throw down a baneling nest and an infestation pit. Once drop finishes, start building your hive and researching baneling speed. Also make sure you’re keeping up on your melee upgrades; start 2/2 ASAP. This is a lot of gas, but since your main army is so gas-light, it should not be a problem.
Mid-to-lategame transition: + Show Spoiler +So at this point, you either have done significant damage with your drops and you’re well on your way to T3, or your opponent is a total boss and has defended your 3-pronged attack perfectly, but you still have a decent standing army (or you remade one). If the former, then the game is more or less over; if the latter, he may be wanting to get some payback for being a pain in his neck and roll out with his 3-base army, and your T3 isn’t ready yet. So how do you defend?
This is the most vulnerable part of the strategy, but you have drops, and you have banelings. Morph all those lings into banes, and get a solid roach army. If your micro is good enough, then defend his attack with bainrain; if not, then try to flank from 2 sides with your roach/bane army and hold him off. You don’t have to engage him; just try to push him back and buy time for your ultras.
Lategame: + Show Spoiler +Main idea: Get your endgame army comp of ultra/ling/bane.
At this point, you’ve delayed him enough to get the T3 unit of choice for this strategy: ultras. Once ultras are out, you are pretty safe against any sort of stalker/colossus ball as long as you engage properly (like, not in a small choke). Transition into a pure ultra/ling/bane army and get 3/3, adrenal, and ultra armor. You should have started building ultras around 15:30ish. Try not to get more than 6 ultras or so; the ultras are mainly there to break forcefields and tank for your banelings. You want a TON of banelings with your army at this point (like 40+). They will serve as your primary DPS in any engagements. Ultra/bane completely WRECKS stalker/colo, which is likely what he’ll have at this point in the game.
Also once ultras are out, you want to split up your remaining roach army from your ultra/ling/bane army. It is very easy for ultras to get stuck on roaches, so either attack one of his bases with your roach army and one with your ultra/ling/bane army, or drop them somewhere. For the immediate future you will not be building roaches.
At this point, your army may not be as powerful as the BL/infestor combo, but here is what you do have:
1. A highly mobile, pretty powerful army able to stand toe-to-toe with most protoss compositions 2. An army that can reinforce quickly 3. Drop tech, which allows for multipronged harassment/attacks 4. Baneling drops (as they’re +2 or +3 at this point, they will 1-shot probes) 5. Just a more fun army =)
Basically at this point your goal is to attack him and engage appropriately and pull advantages when you can. Also, either after you finish 3/3 or from a 3rd evo when your hive is morphing, you want to start upgrading +1ranged ASAP for a possible transition (see next section on “Protoss counters”).
Protoss counters, and Zerg responses: + Show Spoiler +EDIT: These are covered beautifully in-depth in this TL guide on PvZ just released today: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=383628#3.2.3This guide far (far) outclasses anything I could do here, but I hope this is still somewhat of a contribution given that it's from the Zerg point of view =) Archon/immo: The main counter for this build is archon/immo/temp, maybe with some zeals for mineral dump. This fares very well against ling/bling/ultra. Zerg counter: First of all, he will likely not be going for this unit comp after seeing your roach/ling/hydra tech, since archon/immo is not very good against this. However, it is likely that after the first engagement, he will start to switch into his composition. Remember that hydra den you threw down? Now is the time to start building some. The best switch after losing that kind of army vs archon/immo is just pure roach/hydra (with hydra range). Unfortunately your ranged attacks will be slightly lagging, but you can also reinforce with some flanking lings on the immos for DPS on them. Kite the archons/zeals with your army, build about 12-15 hydras MAX, and the rest roach. Reinforce with roaches as long as your hydras are alive. This army comp is very strong against anything without colossi and as long as you’re able to not get stormed too hard, you should be in good shape. If toss goes straight for archon/immo/temp from the outset, you need to catch wind of this fast and stay on roach/hydra (you already have the tech buildings in place, right?) Void rays/stargate: Well, none of your army can shoot up, so this is another path he can go. Zerg counter: Once again, hydras fare very well against voids, especially with ultras and lings to tank for them. Also, voids are not that great vs lings (though quite good vs ultras). If he goes carrier, however, you will need corruptors. You should be able to spot this in plenty of time though with proper scouting. On the mothership: Vortex is a VERY dangerous spell to use against this strat. You’re going against mass banelings, which will obliterate any army that goes in the vortex. It’s nice to have if used well (recall is still good), but vortex won’t do too much against this army comp. Warp prism harass: AA is pretty light with this strat, so drops can rule the day. Zerg counter: The usual: fast reaction times and static defenses, with properly placed spores. You can get some hydras at each base as well, but it is probably not worth it. Your army is very fast, so if you react properly and have good OL spread, you should be able to deal with the drops. Basically both sides need to try to stay on top of the opponents’ tech switching and react accordingly.
Dealing with the infamous Immortal/sentry – reactionary hydra: + Show Spoiler +Main idea: Use that hydra den to hold him off with hydra/ling. Build hydras only when he moves out and don’t get range (you’d rather spend that money on units). This is mostly a compilation from my posts on this topic from the ZvP immo/sentry allin thread. OK, so you scout him with your overlord, you see a robo and no twilight, his probe count is relatively low, and immos are coming out. He’s probably going for the infamous immo/sentry allin. At this point, you should be stopping drones at 55ish and making pure lings if you suspect the push, and just start pumping lings. I also like to get about 4 roaches since they add significant beef to your army. If he has a good build and is moving out at the 9:00 mark, you should be in a position where your lair just finished and your hydra den is building. As soon as it finishes and when you see him moving out, start pumping hydra/ling. If you have the APM, take the lings that you have and try to delay him (DO NOT commit with them, just fake-surround), but this is not entirely necessary. Only build hydras if he pushes out. Skip the range upgrade; you want those resources for units. Spend all your gas on hydras (4 gas) and the rest of the money on lings. Your hydras take 33s to build, so they will finish in time for his push if your build is clean. If he is heavy on zeals, reinforce with some roaches as well, preferably from the hatch at your 3rd if you can manage it since they don’t have speed. If he doesn't push, drone up and continue as above. Here are some replays of this vs masters toss. Note that in all these games, I build hydras AFTER he pushes out: http://drop.sc/270235 - This is vs high masters with a 9:00 moveout on Ohana. I don't even flank. http://drop.sc/276966 - On Cloud Kingdom, pretty normal game. http://drop.sc/276967 - On Cloud Kingdom again. I have to pull drones, but I mop up pretty easily with reinforcements. http://drop.sc/276964 - On Daybreak. An example of a game where I have about equal drones with his probes (I had to drone pull) after the fight, but because I'm able to resupply drones quickly and tech switch I win pretty easily. http://drop.sc/276968 - A loss on Ohana. My hydras don't have enough of a meat shield this game because I overcommitted and didn't pull drones appropriately. With hydras, your build still has to be very clean, and if all your ling/roach die, you HAVE to pull drones to tank for your hydras, or pull back to wait for reinforcements. Never let your hydras fight alone. Also the typical things you should do against this build still apply: fake ling surrounds, great creep spread, flanking, etc. Still, if you engage smartly you don't have to do any of those things and you can still win. A typical criticism of going hydra is that he can just retreat and go colossi. However, colossi take SO long to get that you can easily transition to corruptor and max out in time, while droning and getting to 6 gas (if he goes to 2base). Here is an example: http://drop.sc/277488 - He sees my hydra/ling army and retreats. I immediately drone and scout him. When I see the robo bay, I drop a spire and max out on roach. He pushes with 3 colossi and I crush it pretty easily. He ends up basically basetrading with me because I handle his warp prism harass really poorly, but I'm so flushed with cash that I max out and have to build a ton of spines to free up supply for corruptors. I engage horribly, especially when attacking into him, and nearly ignore his harass, don't get infestors or tech to hive, but I win because I'm miles ahead. If he goes to 3base, it's like the game resets where you have 55 to 45 workers and slightly more tech with equal armies. Drone up, get your drop tech, and continue the game as you would above.
What about infestors?: + Show Spoiler +While I came up with this playstyle with the idea of not using infestors, they are, well, a good addition to pretty much ANY army comp. Infestors with your ultra/bane can lock down his retreating army and allow you to plow through it, along with providing AA, etc.
The one downside with using infestors is that it takes away gas that could be used on ultras and banelings, and they can slow down your tech. Still, they’re a fine addition to your army, though I would argue not necessary, given all your other attack options.
Replays: + Show Spoiler +All replays are against masters protoss opponents. UPDATE: new replays 12/01/12http://drop.sc/280467 - On Daybreak. Really fun, pretty close game. For people asking about the archon/immo/temp counter, I think this is a decent showcase. My opponent was a little used to my style by now so he played against it fairly well I think, but I manage to pull it out in the end. Drops get handled pretty well, though they set him off-kilter a little, and they allow me to take 5 bases. I transition to ultra/bane and attack into strong positions at his 3rd, trading decently while taking a lot of bases. Seeing a lot of archon/immo, I remax on roach/hydra. In retrospect, I should have put in 1 more ultra along with some more banes to soften up his army, with slightly less roach. Some of my engagements aren't great; I don't really flank (really would be useful) and I sit under some storms, but eventually I'm able to overwhelm with ultra/ling/bane/hydra and some roach. He says at the end of the game that he didn't have enough templar, which I agree with. This could have turned the tide in what was a close game. However, flanking would mitigate the effect of storm somewhat. Still it does merit some further testing. http://drop.sc/280468 - On Cloud Kingdom. This is a fairly one-sided game (he forgot warp gate =( ), but I wanted to show the last two engagements, which should have been very favorable for him. He has 5 archons, 7 immortals, and 2 colossi vs ultra/bane in a pretty narrow choke. He manages to chew through a lot of my army, but once again at the end it's just not enough and I clean up against what is basically the hard-counter to my army comp. Mass banes = good. http://drop.sc/280469 - On Cloud Kingdom again. This was not a particularly well-played game on either side, but I include this one because he has a mothership with vortex, as well as some archons in his army. I engage a 4-colossi 3-archon/stalker/sentry deathball army with 9 ultras (I got a little ultra-happy this game) and 66 banes. Result: 8 ultras left. Archons are nice, but in an open field vs that many banes it's not nearly enough. He also vortexes me later on, but I just send in all my banes and my ultras in. I lose some banes carelessly when the vortex ends, but he wisely keeps most of his forces out of the vortex (since he knew he'd lose them). http://drop.sc/278773 - On Metropolis. The multiple drops ends the game early as I kill all but 9 probes. http://drop.sc/278769 - On Daybreak. Once again, I do enough damage with the multiple drops to end the game quickly. http://drop.sc/278771 - On Daybreak. Drops do little damage, he moves out to kill me before ultras pop. I hold him off with banelings (ideally should have loaded them up and banerain’d), and he retreats while I get ultras. Ultra/bane wins fairly easily after killing his 4th. http://drop.sc/278770 - On Cloud Kingdom. Probably the worst map for this strat since the bases are so close together. A really fun game that has a lot of back and forth, with multiple mistakes made on both sides. Lesson learned: don’t flank with pure baneling =P Still after a long game, I manage to win with 1.5 bases mining and lings killing his probes. http://drop.sc/278772 - On Cloud Kingdom again. Because it is hard to do multipronged aggression on this map, I keep the drops small just to buy time for fast ultras. Once I have ultras I engage and roll his stalker/colo ball. He transitions to archon/immo, and I mop this up with roach/hydra.
Similar strategies: + Show Spoiler +UPDATE: GSL similar strategy game analysis 12/01/12Symbol vs Parting on Entombed - Symbol goes for drops, but decides to try a doom drop and for some inexplicable reason decides to fly right by where he knows Parting's warp prism is, enabling Parting to be in position to fend off the drop. The game then goes into a well-timed 3-base push by Parting. Symbol tries to hold it off with roach/bane drops, but Parting is patient and waits. Symbol delays ultras too long (18 minutes and no ultras), and as a result gets rolled. One reason for this is because he gets a couple of infestors, delaying his ultra tech. I think a multipronged drop and earlier ultras (without infestors, they did little in this game) would have been able to turn the tide in his favor. Squirtle vs Hyun on Metropolis - Once again, Hyun goes for a couple of doom drops and multipronged attacks. I'm not a big fan of doom drops, but maybe people react fast enough at that level that it's better that way, not sure. Hyun does OK with his drops, but he has no transition and overbuilds hydras, so Squirtle wins fairly easily with a colossus push. Symbol vs Seed on Ohana - Symbol opens roach/ling and goes into ultra/bane. In the first engagement he doesn't keep his ultras in front, which leads to a pretty bad engagement. In the second, however, Seed tries to run but Symbol has his ultras in front, and no running can really help against the ultra/bane army. Symbol has a similar style. Belial discusses it in-depth here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=346535The midgame varies though, and unfortunately I can't watch the games. Also, Symbol does get infestors. Also, this is really sick: EDIT: Upon further looking into this thread, there's a lot of great high-level discussion on ultra/bane. However, as Insoleet says below, there's not a lot of discussion about roach/hydra as a counter to this. Currently I think the best counter with this style to archon/immo/HT is ultra/bane/roach/hydra, preferably with a flank (and maybe without roaches). Ultra/hydra is compliment each other fairly well because every toss unit will target the super-tanky melee ultras first, letting the hydras sit in the back and do DPS. Banes are just good overall DPS, and I think should always be included with the army. Also you have drop, which allows you to force engagements in somewhat favorable positions/spread out his army. SeinGalton’s “Neo-Sauron ZvP” has many similar ideas to what I’ve posted here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=335035However the guide is slightly outdated and there are some large differences in our styles in the midgame. I did not build on these guides but I ran across them recently and wanted to give credit where credit is due =) Also, this guide (released today) on PvZ addresses almost all of what I discuss here from the protoss side: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=383628#3.2.3If you know of other guides that are similar to this one, please let me know and I will link them.
NOTE: I would appreciate it if you would be respectful in your criticism of the protoss players in the replays provided (if you have any). They are nice enough to be my practice partners, and I would like to see them not be disparaged in a demeaning way for their play.
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Thanks a lot for this [G/D]. Very interesting, i was thinking about how to play something else than the boring turtlefestor strategy recently, this one looks complete. I'll try it asap.
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Excellent guide. You're explaining everything in gratifying detail - a great deal better than I did, and your build is a lot more intelligently constructed. I'll be reviewing the replays when I get home, no doubt there is a lot for me to learn here. Made my day sir, and thanks for the plug too!
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I was wondering what happened to this style of ZvP. It had a lot of potential when i saw Symbol play it. Seems one hell of a lot more fun to watch/play than the standard broodlord/infestor style. Hope we see this more often, good job on the guide :D
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On November 26 2012 17:43 Fragile51 wrote: I was wondering what happened to this style of ZvP. It had a lot of potential when i saw Symbol play it. Seems one hell of a lot more fun to watch/play than the standard broodlord/infestor style. Hope we see this more often, good job on the guide :D
It is, but a lot harder to win with.
Symbol said he stopped using it because protosses figured it out and he lost most of the time when he used it. He said this in an interview quiet awhile ago.
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Interesting to see a zerg without infestors
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On November 26 2012 18:01 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 26 2012 17:43 Fragile51 wrote: I was wondering what happened to this style of ZvP. It had a lot of potential when i saw Symbol play it. Seems one hell of a lot more fun to watch/play than the standard broodlord/infestor style. Hope we see this more often, good job on the guide :D It is, but a lot harder to win with. Symbol said he stopped using it because protosses figured it out and he lost most of the time when he used it. He said this in an interview quiet awhile ago.
Damn, that's a shame... hopefully it'll see a resurgence, i remember seeing this back then (i think even before symbol) and thinking to myself "hurray, new strategies once again! and this time it's a more mobile lategame zerg composition than BL/infestor)
i wonder then if the style is simply very weak, unforgiving, APM intensive, or maybe just unviable (where certain counter strategies just outright destroy it), or a combination...?
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On November 26 2012 18:01 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 26 2012 17:43 Fragile51 wrote: I was wondering what happened to this style of ZvP. It had a lot of potential when i saw Symbol play it. Seems one hell of a lot more fun to watch/play than the standard broodlord/infestor style. Hope we see this more often, good job on the guide :D It is, but a lot harder to win with. Symbol said he stopped using it because protosses figured it out and he lost most of the time when he used it. He said this in an interview quiet awhile ago.
But Symbol was not doing roach / hydra when protoss were going immo/archons. And thats probably why he lost a lot.
With good macro, zerg techswitches are powerful. They are in ZvP, they can be powerful in ZvP. And its better than the BL/Infestor combo.
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looks awesome, i try to avoid infestor/brood as much as possible.. i just really dislike playing the style and slow moving deathballs as a zerg. But against protoss been feeling lost (am plat though so hardly a strategy alone issue :p) for a while, will be trying that and see if i can mix nydus also on the lategame engagements/drops.
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Italy12246 Posts
I feel like any composition by the Zerg that isn't Infestor/Broodlord is beatable by gateway/templar/immortal honestly, but then again other styles right now are so unused it's hard to tell. It would definitely be really cool if it was viable, zerg flying deathballs are just boring.
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On November 26 2012 19:05 Teoita wrote: I feel like any composition by the Zerg that isn't Infestor/Broodlord is beatable by gateway/templar/immortal honestly, but then again other styles right now are so unused it's hard to tell. It would definitely be really cool if it was viable, zerg flying deathballs are just boring.
But a composition which is not beatable is quite boring isnt it ?
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I tried this for some time, but then I ran into people who were smart enough to get HT with storm. Your possible-Protoss-response-section seems to not cover this as well. A few well-placed storms wreck your banelings, and without them, the Ultras are just dead weight. Fall back plan Roach Hydra? Storm. Also, if you go Bling Ultra, you will invest heavily in those melee upgrades, so whenever you switch to Roach Hydra suddenly you lack attack upgrades (at least in my experience).
If you have found a clever way to deal with HT with this unit composition I would be glad to hear =)
On November 26 2012 19:12 Insoleet wrote:Show nested quote +On November 26 2012 19:05 Teoita wrote: I feel like any composition by the Zerg that isn't Infestor/Broodlord is beatable by gateway/templar/immortal honestly, but then again other styles right now are so unused it's hard to tell. It would definitely be really cool if it was viable, zerg flying deathballs are just boring. But a composition which is not beatable is quite boring isnt it ?
Actually, in ZvT Muta Ling Bling (+Ultra) vs MMMV + Tank is one of the least boring matchups you can imagine, and both sides seem have an army that is nearly unbeatable (at least uncounterable).
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On November 26 2012 19:12 Cirqueenflex wrote: I tried this for some time, but then I ran into people who were smart enough to get HT with storm. Your possible-Protoss-response-section seems to not cover this as well. A few well-placed storms wreck your banelings, and without them, the Ultras are just dead weight. Fall back plan Roach Hydra? Storm. Also, if you go Bling Ultra, you will invest heavily in those melee upgrades, so whenever you switch to Roach Hydra suddenly you lack attack upgrades (at least in my experience).
If you have found a clever way to deal with HT with this unit composition I would be glad to hear =)
After reading the thread on Symbol's play, I am not sure since no replays were provided. In my experience storm is just not very good vs roach, and based on what he scouts midgame, templar tech will most likely be a tech switch for him post-colossi (I think).
It's very important to start getting your attack upgrades as soon as you get wind of his tech switch. They will be behind, but your roaches are still pretty tanky with +3 carapace fairly early. Also unless maybe he's max'd, roach/hydra is pretty darned cost efficient vs his army, and very cheap to replace at this stage in the game. Even without heavy attack upgrades they're still not bad. If you do catch on that he's going archon/templar/immo too late and you just have a ton of ultra/ling/bane, then you will most likely lose.
However in the current meta, it just seems like no one opens this way, and ultras come quickly enough from this strat that he won't have a lot of templar/archon by the time you're engaging his army, giving you time to trade off your (superior) army for his and transition.
Also, if he has just HT/archon with a low immo count (pretty rare, I think), then ultra/hydra is another option. I don't have enough experience against this comp to say how effective it is though. If I get a chance to test some of this stuff out I'll update the OP.
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On November 26 2012 19:05 Teoita wrote: I feel like any composition by the Zerg that isn't Infestor/Broodlord is beatable by gateway/templar/immortal honestly, but then again other styles right now are so unused it's hard to tell. It would definitely be really cool if it was viable, zerg flying deathballs are just boring.
My experience on this comes from long ago, when protoss didn't know how to use colossi that well. Roach/hydra just decimated pretty much any protoss composition cost effectively as long as you didn't have too many hydras, ran out from under storms, and were moderately aggressive (you can't sit on a 200/200 roach/hydra max like you can on BL/festor, obviously; you need to force engagements). This is completely phased out of the current meta though pretty much, so I am not sure how it would fare now, with people being much better with their spellcasting/control and knowing their unit comps.
Also on the viability front, it probably depends on what level you're at; I can't really speak at the high masters level, but with good multitask/multipronged attacks I would think the foundations of the build would lend it to having viability at high levels of play with a high skill cap.
Also I'm not arguing that it is better than BL/festor, more that it's viable and it's more fun =)
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A topic from 2010 discussing about the HT threat.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=142164
Basically, its all about flanking and microing. As high templars are slow, when an engagmeent occurs, they will almost always be behind. Flank with a ling/bane force while fighting with ultras/ling/bane in the front, and you'll win.
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I watched the game against SolidLuck.
I know you asked not to berate too harshly upon the play of your opponents, but when you post a strategy, you have to demonstrate viability against high level play. This is not high level play. His pre-Hive push comes at 17 minutes, and then he decides not to commit to it and take a 4th base on 7 gate ways, no mothership tech, late templar... and gets crushed. You could have even gotten BL tech if you wanted instead of Ultras against such a late push, which ruins the entire point of the strat since the selling point is supposed to be the faster availability of ultra/ling/bane against the pre-Hive push, rather than the slower BL/tech due to the cost of Infestors.
Symbol made this work a few times but... I can't see it as a solid style unless you know without a doubt your opponent is committing to a 3 base push. Protosses that take a fast 4th after fending off your drops can murder this with a chargelot archon HT transition.
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I have a LOT of problems against this composition as I think it is far better to hold 3 base timing attacks - especially after some light Muta harassment in the midgame to buy time of the hive tech.
I will try this one with my smurf in ZvP, sounds pretty interesting.
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Ahm... what is exactly the point in not using infestors ? Because this style isn't very safe compared to roach into infestor ones and even statistically blord infestor will pretty much obliterate anything late game and will defend most of the time against 3 base pushes if done correctly. I can see this being better vs certain immortal-less and archon-less 3 base pushes like the colossus blink stalker thingy but it's very situational.
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On November 26 2012 22:38 Aterons_toss wrote: Ahm... what is exactly the point in not using infestors ? Because this style isn't very safe compared to roach into infestor ones and even statistically blord infestor will pretty much obliterate anything late game and will defend most of the time against 3 base pushes if done correctly. I can see this being better vs certain immortal-less and archon-less 3 base pushes like the colossus blink stalker thingy but it's very situational. sometime, people are playing to have fun before being sure to win. its not better than the turtle test tactic, but so much less boring...
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Eventually you just come to the realization that if you want to win, this isn't the way to go. There are a lot of things that I wish Zerg could do, but ultimately the efficiency of Toss units trumps this style every single time.
If you want to win lategame WoL, you have to go broodlord/infestor. There is no other way .
Sadly HOTS isn't shaping up to change this.
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Hey everyone, high master Z here. I've tried to play like about 10 games with those melee upgraded units, and what i've found, as a great surprise, is that the vortex is totally undodge-able with this unit composition. I didnt use roach hydra midgame because there is no reason to not go ling only midgame, and as soon as protosses saw ling upgrades + infestors, they assumed i was going broods. Then they got a mothership.
And there is NOTHING u can do against a mothership with ultra bane infestors... Unless you get a lucky NP you shouldnt get, think about it for a second : if you fight with ur melee army, he'll vortex half of it, rape the other half. I think you cant split your army like you would split your broodlord army, because, well, you need to attack with everything at the same time and your army is melee!! If your army shoots from afar, you can kind of dodge vortex (split) and fight at the same time. With ultras, you can flank etc, but at some point it will come down to a big a-move and if it comes to that you cant dodge a vortex. You would basically have to make a ton of corruptor and suicide them against the mothership, which is the so-bad way of dealing with it Z first tried when mothership appeared.
Ironically, it took the broodlord abuse to make protosses realise how good mothership is. But I think melee composition are gone forever in zvp because of vortex.
Hope i made myself clear. Good afternoon
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here's what protoss players can do against ultra-bane that always gave me trouble:
- avoids stepping into the open so he controls which angle the engagement comes from - leave a thin screen of zealots in front of his army and takes a step back with the ranged units (either by micro or if he has charge, a-move can work too) - drops storm on banelings and target fire with colossus - warp in mass zealot for fighting ultra-ling, preferably at a warp prism in the dead centre of the battle, not at a pylon half a screen away
if you are really skipping infestors, I'd expect to see them zealot bombing your banelings as well.
The thin zealot screen turns around the battle so drastically, it's not even funny. You'd think that the banelings counter zealots, but still they hang up the ultralisks just long enough and waste just enough banelings that it goes from being a complete massacre for zerg to a complete massacre for protoss. it's a simple matter of army positioning.
You really do need to flank, and a lot of this depends on the protoss making himself vulnerable by moving into a bad position without being aware of your army movements.
If you include baneling dropping (which is also amazing) you are much less vulnerable to storms because your banelings have 200hp, but more vulnerable to simply being kited - you still need infestors. you lose a lot of the mobility which is the strength of the style.
Ironically, it took the broodlord abuse to make protosses realise how good mothership is. But I think melee composition are gone forever in zvp because of vortex. I think the best thing you can do is to just dive into the vortex to wait it out, and have your banelings on a hotkey so that you can spam move command to prevent autodetonation on an archon (depending on whether or not he stuffs the vortex I guess). I don't know if it ends favourably or not. The problem is that vortex makes it impossible to flank him, and that's a big problem.
Like every other ultralisk based composition, you should use a nydus worm to bring queens along as well.
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I think most of the criticism here forgot something. this army is very fast. it means you can have a lot of bases and deny the protoss ones. with a lot of macro hatcheries, you can lose your first straight up fight against the protoss but destroy him with your insta repop 2nd army.
whereas with the broods, its so slow and long to build that the protoss can just take all the bases from his side of the map.
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Tried this build against both T and P, just to play some games that weren't the 'ol BL/winfestor comp. Worked great (against plat/diamond), and I really love the feel of the army and micro. Multi-pronged drops and ling runbys just feel much more... Zergy than turtling until giant slow a-move deathball.
I started using some of my idle Hydras in my drops for the dps, if I'd made them to hold off early aggression- they chew through probes
One thing I noticed was the banes and ultras share movespeed, and they just wash over the opposing army like a wave. Very cool.
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On November 26 2012 23:33 Insoleet wrote: I think most of the criticism here forgot something. this army is very fast. it means you can have a lot of bases and deny the protoss ones. with a lot of macro hatcheries, you can lose your first straight up fight against the protoss but destroy him with your insta repop 2nd army.
whereas with the broods, its so slow and long to build that the protoss can just take all the bases from his side of the map.
Yeah this is a very important point, I think;
In my modest experience with this style, it very much operates on a one-two punch kind of engagement. You'll lose most of your banes and lings in the first fight, and probably a few ultras too. After Ultra spawn times were decreased in a previous patch, this kind of engagement logic became viable, and it's very rare for me to take the game on the first engagement. Which is why I like to call it a Neo-Sauron style - after the first engagement you just keep on flooding with cheap, quick units and hit as many locations as possible.
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On November 26 2012 22:57 Natalya wrote:Hey everyone, high master Z here. I've tried to play like about 10 games with those melee upgraded units, and what i've found, as a great surprise, is that the vortex is totally undodge-able with this unit composition. I didnt use roach hydra midgame because there is no reason to not go ling only midgame, and as soon as protosses saw ling upgrades + infestors, they assumed i was going broods. Then they got a mothership. And there is NOTHING u can do against a mothership with ultra bane infestors... Unless you get a lucky NP you shouldnt get, think about it for a second : if you fight with ur melee army, he'll vortex half of it, rape the other half. I think you cant split your army like you would split your broodlord army, because, well, you need to attack with everything at the same time and your army is melee!! If your army shoots from afar, you can kind of dodge vortex (split) and fight at the same time. With ultras, you can flank etc, but at some point it will come down to a big a-move and if it comes to that you cant dodge a vortex. You would basically have to make a ton of corruptor and suicide them against the mothership, which is the so-bad way of dealing with it Z first tried when mothership appeared. Ironically, it took the broodlord abuse to make protosses realise how good mothership is. But I think melee composition are gone forever in zvp because of vortex. Hope i made myself clear. Good afternoon
This is pretty surprising to me. It has been awhile, but last time I've played against this I sent banelings into the vortex and cleaned up pretty easily. Did you send banelings into the vortex?
Depending on the engagement, it's probably best to also send your whole army in or just not engage with half your army and just send banelings in (if he sends in his forces).
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On November 26 2012 21:04 Flonomenalz wrote: I watched the game against SolidLuck.
I know you asked not to berate too harshly upon the play of your opponents, but when you post a strategy, you have to demonstrate viability against high level play. This is not high level play. His pre-Hive push comes at 17 minutes, and then he decides not to commit to it and take a 4th base on 7 gate ways, no mothership tech, late templar... and gets crushed. You could have even gotten BL tech if you wanted instead of Ultras against such a late push, which ruins the entire point of the strat since the selling point is supposed to be the faster availability of ultra/ling/bane against the pre-Hive push, rather than the slower BL/tech due to the cost of Infestors.
Symbol made this work a few times but... I can't see it as a solid style unless you know without a doubt your opponent is committing to a 3 base push. Protosses that take a fast 4th after fending off your drops can murder this with a chargelot archon HT transition.
Taking a 4th on most maps is very tough vs this composition. There will almost certainly be vulnerabilities in his bases which allow you to either get a good flank or attack him where his army is not, doing damage. This is a very high-DPS, fast composition. It is not, however, the BEST siege-breaking army comp you can use (BL's are the best siege unit in the Z army, of course). The typical way Z has been played up in the past though is to bait his army on one side with some forces, or just know where he is and attack where he's not, then move back when he comes to engage or use him moving out of position favorably. It requires a lot of creativity and aggression IMO that is largely absent from today's BL/infestor.
No question that I do get very favorable engagements in some of the games, and yes they're not at the highest level (not from my side either, mind you), which is one reason for the [D] tag =P With cleaner play I would use a lot more flanks and drops than I do. Also he could have pushed with everything instead of taking a 4th, but one reason he is slowed down is the drop play (which is the point). I can't say how much this would slow down a pro, and it can leave you vulnerable to a pre-hive timing.
Also, the strat is map-dependent. This will not work nearly as well on a map like CK vs Daybreak or Ohana, where the bases are more spread out.
And on your criticism: I just was hoping to avoid "well that toss was a total noob" type of comments. Your post is more constructive than that =)
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I get the same endgame army but with a ling infestor midgame. Basically, get +1 carapace, then +1 melee +2 carapace at the same time, infestation pit as soon as lair is finished, 6 infestors then hive then neural. Then banelings and ultras, upgrading melee all along.
It works great, you hit your ultra army around 15:00 at most and infestors keep you safe from anything before that. But if the nerf of fungal not working against psionic passes it won't work anymore. Not fungaling sentries is huge.
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On November 26 2012 23:03 Oboeman wrote:here's what protoss players can do against ultra-bane that always gave me trouble: - avoids stepping into the open so he controls which angle the engagement comes from - leave a thin screen of zealots in front of his army and takes a step back with the ranged units (either by micro or if he has charge, a-move can work too) - drops storm on banelings and target fire with colossus - warp in mass zealot for fighting ultra-ling, preferably at a warp prism in the dead centre of the battle, not at a pylon half a screen away if you are really skipping infestors, I'd expect to see them zealot bombing your banelings as well. The thin zealot screen turns around the battle so drastically, it's not even funny. You'd think that the banelings counter zealots, but still they hang up the ultralisks just long enough and waste just enough banelings that it goes from being a complete massacre for zerg to a complete massacre for protoss. it's a simple matter of army positioning. You really do need to flank, and a lot of this depends on the protoss making himself vulnerable by moving into a bad position without being aware of your army movements. If you include baneling dropping (which is also amazing) you are much less vulnerable to storms because your banelings have 200hp, but more vulnerable to simply being kited - you still need infestors. you lose a lot of the mobility which is the strength of the style. Show nested quote +Ironically, it took the broodlord abuse to make protosses realise how good mothership is. But I think melee composition are gone forever in zvp because of vortex. I think the best thing you can do is to just dive into the vortex to wait it out, and have your banelings on a hotkey so that you can spam move command to prevent autodetonation on an archon (depending on whether or not he stuffs the vortex I guess). I don't know if it ends favourably or not. The problem is that vortex makes it impossible to flank him, and that's a big problem. Like every other ultralisk based composition, you should use a nydus worm to bring queens along as well.
Good points. Definitely agree on the zealot thing; zeals make this a lot more complex due to naturally spacing out the protoss army and being fairly good vs ultras. At a high level I think infestors may be necessary in small numbers for a couple of key fungals, but I think you can make up for this via flanking.
On OL drops: this style, because you have a lot of gas (each infestor is worth 6 banelings), you can get A LOT of banelings. I think in one of the replays posted I get 60+. With this many, you can load some into overlords (8-12) and keep the rest with your main army, and focus micro'ing the ones for drops to add to your attack. I do not have the micro to do this but in this way you don't really lose the mobility you are referring to with this comp while forcing him to deal with another part of your force.
Also with so many banelings, you will kill anything that goes into a vortex with them. It has been a long time since I've done this (not sure if it was pre- or post-patch, I believe post-patch), but this includes archons with enough banes. Has anyone done this more recently? I'll see if I can address this in a unit tester later, but I feel like the data is out there on this.
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Sorry but I am quite skeptical. You have no anti-air in your army. Personally if I saw this I would just switch to full air with 4-5 stargates carriers+void rays. You said you can go hydra, but I can ensure you that hydra are easily countered with 2-3 colossi or some HTs in the composition. Corruptors against carriers are also a bad idea, some archons/HTs will clean them up easily. The only good zerg's AA is infestor, because they can either fungal void rays from the distance and trade infested terrans (free) for interceptors (paid).
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On November 26 2012 23:48 SeinGalton wrote:Show nested quote +On November 26 2012 23:33 Insoleet wrote: I think most of the criticism here forgot something. this army is very fast. it means you can have a lot of bases and deny the protoss ones. with a lot of macro hatcheries, you can lose your first straight up fight against the protoss but destroy him with your insta repop 2nd army.
whereas with the broods, its so slow and long to build that the protoss can just take all the bases from his side of the map. Yeah this is a very important point, I think; In my modest experience with this style, it very much operates on a one-two punch kind of engagement. You'll lose most of your banes and lings in the first fight, and probably a few ultras too. After Ultra spawn times were decreased in a previous patch, this kind of engagement logic became viable, and it's very rare for me to take the game on the first engagement. Which is why I like to call it a Neo-Sauron style - after the first engagement you just keep on flooding with cheap, quick units and hit as many locations as possible. Yeah that's the idea. BL/festor is probably the best comp for direct engagements, but very slow and very slow to reinforce.
On November 27 2012 01:31 KingAlphard wrote: Sorry but I am quite skeptical. You have no anti-air in your army. Personally if I saw this I would just switch to full air with 4-5 stargates carriers+void rays. You said you can go hydra, but I can ensure you that hydra are easily countered with 2-3 colossi or some HTs in the composition. Corruptors against carriers are also a bad idea, some archons/HTs will clean them up easily. The only good zerg's AA is infestor, because they can either fungal void rays from the distance and trade infested terrans (free) for interceptors (paid). With correct play I don't see how you could have time to get this composition. It is on the Z player to force engagements. Such a strat requires a 4th, introducing some vulnerabilities in your bases, which the Z player is responsible for identifying and exploiting. Walls are of small consequence to this army if there is no army there; ultras and banes chew through walls in seconds.
Also if a Z players sees this, he can react accordingly. Obviously you shouldn't stay on ultra/ling/bane if your opponent has VR/carrier =P This style does require good scouting on Z's part, especially if he makes the (easier) switch to immo/archon/temp.
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On HOTS, a protoss tried mass air against my ultra/ling/bane/viper composition. I just amoved from all his bases since he had nothing on the ground to hold my army.
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This is a fun style to play and thats pretty much it. You can never be aggresive with you army other than drops (which a good player will deflect) because ultralisk/ling/bane simply countered by a wall. Whats most likely gonna happen is toss camping on 3 or 4 bases building the army of doom that will absolutely stomp you
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On the topic of banelings and motherships, don't take my word for it... this is from the new PvZ guide:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=383628#4.1
They're really thorough and address a lot of how to counter what I discuss here, and at a much higher level.
On November 27 2012 03:07 syriuszonito wrote:This is a fun style to play and thats pretty much it. You can never be aggresive with you army other than drops (which a good player will deflect) because ultralisk/ling/bane simply countered by a wall. Whats most likely gonna happen is toss camping on 3 or 4 bases building the army of doom that will absolutely stomp you Can they really stop you from breaking through walls, especially if you split your army? Ultra/bane destroys walls, especially with a lot of banes. Turtling on 4base is not very easy when you bring the brunt of your army to where the toss player is not. You have a lot more mobility than he does.
And also I guess I'm okay with it just being a fun style to play =P That's mostly the point; also given the current meta, I think it can be a pretty good ladder style. For example I never could pull a game off of SolidLuck going BL/festor because 1. I'm not very good with the comp and 2. he's faced it a billion times and plays against it very well. Strats outside the current meta can be very strong if well-executed because your opponent is not used to them. This is far from an endorsement of how "good" the strat is at a pro level, though.
With respect to tournament play, I can see the vulnerability of something like this as being your main style. Toss can just blind-counter it if they know it's coming, something that's not as possible with BL/festor (there is no (timely) hardcounter). You can still recover and react if you see what he's doing in time, but it's more difficult. However, I think it's possible to mix this in with the typical BL/festor in a few games.
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I think this strategy is pretty good. One thing that should be noted regarding baneling vs storm is that if Protoss has a good number of templar, he has a lot of zealots and a low stalker count. This means he has little AA, so you can safely drop banelings from OL's, which protects them from storms. It requires a lot of APM to constantly cycle banelings in and out of OL's, but if you have the APM, it keeps banelings useful after storm comes online.
Another aspect that makes this strategy stronger than it appears on first glance is that the midgame from the Protoss perspective is constantly defending ling-bling harassment, so Protoss winds up focusing on producing gateway units and colossi. When the ultras pop, Protoss really wants to have 5 or 6 immortals to provide DPS while the zealots tank, but since Protoss doesn't produce immortals in mid-game, the ultras have great survivability and do a ton of damage in the first ultra-push. Protoss could adapt by starting immortal production earlier, but (1) it would be harder to deal with the ling-bling phase, and (2) Protoss would be in worse shape against a BL transition which is much more common and is equally well-supported by double melee upgrades in mid-game.
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well i dont think its a terrible strat, but i dont think its a good one either.
i would propose that a ling/infestor/corruptor army accomplishes what u are trying to do, only better. with it, the gas u save on banelings goes into air upgrades and allows for later broodlords than the current meta, and when u get them they are well upgraded and dont get pewpew'd by stalkers.
also, u say walls arent great, and although thats true, ultras are only effective in open spaces. if his army is there, your gonna get crushed. if his army is elsewhere, its probably in your base and id hate to be baseracing if half my army was made up of banelings. if he goes late late game carriers, i cant imagine you being able to counter that. u have no range or air upgrades, and no infestors. 2/0 carriers will beat 0/0 corruptors.
in the current meta that toss builds up a semi-deathball and pushes before broodlords, i can see u hitting your ultras before he gets there and cleaning him up, and then having an advantage and winning the game, but if he instead takes a 4th and plays for the late game, thats where u run into trouble.
in comparison, ling/infestor/corruptor can attack into a turtling protoss with infested terran spam, and with swarms of lings theres no chance of losing your infestors and lings are dirt cheap to rebuild, and anything he had in the air dies to corruptors before they go on home to become broodlords at a later date.
and instead of standard broodlord infestor where u are super immobile and cant rebuild, staying with a zergling heavy army and not getting too many broods, your army isnt that expensive and if u take a bad fight, u just revert back to ling/infestor/corruptor, or u can even pop 30 mutas if he doesnt have an answer to it since u can easily afford double spire upgrades with ling/infestor/corruptor, as opposed to broodlords where u are lucky if u can keep a single spire upgrading unless u are maxed and you are both just derping around like...well...im not going out there...
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On November 27 2012 03:56 chris2423 wrote: also, u say walls arent great, and although thats true, ultras are only effective in open spaces. if his army is there, your gonna get crushed. if his army is elsewhere, its probably in your base and id hate to be baseracing if half my army was made up of banelings. if he goes late late game carriers, i cant imagine you being able to counter that. u have no range or air upgrades, and no infestors. 2/0 carriers will beat 0/0 corruptors.
in the current meta that toss builds up a semi-deathball and pushes before broodlords, i can see u hitting your ultras before he gets there and cleaning him up, and then having an advantage and winning the game, but if he instead takes a 4th and plays for the late game, thats where u run into trouble.
I don't know much about ling/festor/corruptor style, and I'm also a big believer in multiple viable strats, at least up through the high pro level. It seems like ling/festor/corruptor is pretty viable, but it's a little fragile for my tastes.
As far as your wall comment, you don't have to baserace him, but you do have to have map control. If he moves out to basetrade you, you can get a pretty favorable engagement and most likely crush his army (also your army is really fast; can't really do this with BL's). His likely army composition at this point in the game is only good if you're trying to break through a wall with him sitting in the back. Otherwise it's fine to engage.
Also it's very tough to take a 4th, as discussed before. It's important to not let him get up a 4th easily and at least trade off some units, buying you time for a transition, if necessary. This strat relies on a lot of aggression and hitting on multiple fronts; you absolutely cannot sit on this army. However, on 4 bases I don't think there is any way he will be able to defend on all fronts vs your fast max'd army without you being able to force some decent engagements. When this does happen to me, I just concede that my opponent outplayed me and I'm pretty okay with losing games like that =P
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On November 27 2012 03:48 kcdc wrote: I think this strategy is pretty good. One thing that should be noted regarding baneling vs storm is that if Protoss has a good number of templar, he has a lot of zealots and a low stalker count. This means he has little AA, so you can safely drop banelings from OL's, which protects them from storms. It requires a lot of APM to constantly cycle banelings in and out of OL's, but if you have the APM, it keeps banelings useful after storm comes online.
Another aspect that makes this strategy stronger than it appears on first glance is that the midgame from the Protoss perspective is constantly defending ling-bling harassment, so Protoss winds up focusing on producing gateway units and colossi. When the ultras pop, Protoss really wants to have 5 or 6 immortals to provide DPS while the zealots tank, but since Protoss doesn't produce immortals in mid-game, the ultras have great survivability and do a ton of damage in the first ultra-push. Protoss could adapt by starting immortal production earlier, but (1) it would be harder to deal with the ling-bling phase, and (2) Protoss would be in worse shape against a BL transition which is much more common and is equally well-supported by double melee upgrades in mid-game. Good points; the drops make it harder to transition to templar quickly, and this strat was developed with the current meta in mind.
And as you say, while I don't use BL's much, I think they're a potential transition after a drop-heavy midgame. I can't really comment on this too much, the transitions are not going to be as smooth as infestor/spine styles, but the style forces toss to respond correctly as well.
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On November 26 2012 22:38 Aterons_toss wrote: Ahm... what is exactly the point in not using infestors ? Because this style isn't very safe compared to roach into infestor ones and even statistically blord infestor will pretty much obliterate anything late game and will defend most of the time against 3 base pushes if done correctly. I can see this being better vs certain immortal-less and archon-less 3 base pushes like the colossus blink stalker thingy but it's very situational.
It's just people are on the crying rant on infestors and are jumping and assuming the test map nerfs to infestor will go live.
This kind of play is very weak vs any decent protoss, and infestors are still zergs backbone. To any new player reading this I suggest stick to normal infestor play and ignore the QQ rants as most of it is non sense. There is a reason this does not work in 2012, these old 2010 styles will never work vs a protoss with common sense.
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I think you need to play this more on ladder or something and get a greater corpus of replays. Otherwise you are just really showcasing that Solidluck is weak versus this style. There was not much variety in Solid's play, and on ladder you will run into more variety. What happens if they open phoenix, for example? Do you still try to drop? And I think you will see some more responsive protosses on ladder. Not all of them, obviously, but enough to highlight weaknesses in the strategy, which is something the current replays lack.
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This is entirely theorycrafting, but have you tried getting a spire some point in the midgame for just a couple mutalisks to hunt down warp prisms and observers. For all the talk of carriers, Warp prisms are really scary for this style and Denying scouting can only be a good thing, and it also gives you the option to go broodlord later on instead of ultras. At the very least the Protoss has to account for potential broodlords and not try to hard counter ultras.
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Nice write up Defenestrator. Glad to see you post it on TL. I think your hydralisk opener has the potential to play out with a ling muta transition as well. Zerg can sit on lair tech for a while and transition to muta/ling while mass expanding into spine infestor. I realize this isn't the way your guide plays out, but I think you've hit on a strong zerg opener that could be the basis for many strategies.
Between mutalisks, drops, and nydus it's possible to go for a high drone count and trade armies frequently. A key part of this would be getting overlord speed and using multiple overseers to always know where the enemy army is. With the mobility of zerg's army, opponents are hard pressed to do anything other then deathball push into spine/infestor.
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It is way more fun not using infestors and games are much more satisfying , but honestly I've had many more frustratingly long games where you loss your maxed army over and over to as little as 3 colossus or 5 tanks or infestors themselves.
I have to say I been playing this game since forever and I've always challenged myself on not using the infestor but at the end of the day sadly everything else in the zerg army is just so cost inefficient.
I'm finding more and more that your opponenet will dictate if you can or cant go infestors. for example terran goes mmm you pretty much should end up with infestors. Zerg goes mass roaches. Protoss goes blink stalkers (and pretty much everything else protoss does owns zergs units unless u have infestors at some point.
What I've learnt from not using infestors in every match up and every game I pretty much play is that you can get away with it for awhile but eventually you wana get at least a few or you will be inappropriately abused by you opponent.
I'm finding drops, as the OP mentioned, a useful tool for defending yourself mid game and getting to late game. bit of topic but the swarm host in HOTs is pretty nice to use instead of infestors and gets you to the late game occasionally. since they only cost 100 gas its a pretty nice transition.
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I think this build will be fun to mess around with on ladder. I love using Ultras vs Toss, and I do love vortexing banelings, so this sounds right up my ally. Thanks!
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On November 27 2012 04:48 orBitual wrote: I think you need to play this more on ladder or something and get a greater corpus of replays. Otherwise you are just really showcasing that Solidluck is weak versus this style. There was not much variety in Solid's play, and on ladder you will run into more variety. What happens if they open phoenix, for example? Do you still try to drop? And I think you will see some more responsive protosses on ladder. Not all of them, obviously, but enough to highlight weaknesses in the strategy, which is something the current replays lack. I have tried this strategy beyond the replays shown with success. At first I actually used some infestor and ultra/hydra, but I found that ultra/hydra is nowhere near as good as bane/ultra, at least initially. These replays are the result of my progress on developing the strat so far, though I agree it can be refined.
Vs stargate openers/phoenix, the game changes pretty dramatically, and I haven't worked out how I would respond with this style vs that kind of opener. Usually in this situation I go for aggressive roach/hydra play, which is very easy to transition into given the opener (which includes a hydra den mainly for immo/sentry and stargate openers). Drops are very risky vs phoenix openers due to his map control, as you imply. Roach/hydra openings, however, are very strong vs phoenix play, and you have generally have a nice window of vulnerability where you can attack the toss with this comp (I think there's a recent game with Hyun vs Parting that showcases this, for example).
If you were to try to do this vs phoenix, I would probably suggest opening roach/hydra to stabilize/hopefully snipe the phoenix before transitioning to drop tech. If you're pushing with roach/hydra and dropping to get a favorable engagement, it can be useful, but I realize that all of this is theorycrafting. I will see if I can test it out in more depth, though I have limited time nowadays =/ It should be noted though that I think any opener that is not robo-based is at least a little vulnerable to roach/hydra timings; it's just that no one really does this nowadays so phoenix openers can do a lot of damage vs people who go infestor because of how much longer infestors take to get compared to hydras. Usually people at my level crumble with a good roach/hydra timing after phoenix.
Also although Solid doesn't have a lot of variety in the replays shown, his play is very standard in the current meta (he does do a few other openers outside this). Most protoss I have played have styles similar to this.
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On November 27 2012 05:30 Kaz_Coaching wrote: Nice write up Defenestrator. Glad to see you post it on TL. I think your hydralisk opener has the potential to play out with a ling muta transition as well. Zerg can sit on lair tech for a while and transition to muta/ling while mass expanding into spine infestor. I realize this isn't the way your guide plays out, but I think you've hit on a strong zerg opener that could be the basis for many strategies.
Thanks Kaz. This is exactly the point! I mainly hope for this guide to serve as a starting point rather than an authoritative guide on the style (I'm nowhere near a level necessary to be able to do that). Given the responses I think it's much better that I put a "[D]" tag instead of "[G]" =P
As you say, out of the opener there are many possible transitions. I've highlighted my favorite one, but I also use this opener to transition into 3base muta/roach/ling play and sometimes hydra, depending on the protoss opener.
There are also things that I think can be refined here with this style; one is adding a 3rd evo at hive to start going for +1ranged earlier for a roach-based transition, so by the time you trade off your first army you're nearing +2 with your ranged.
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On November 27 2012 04:50 MstrJinbo wrote: This is entirely theorycrafting, but have you tried getting a spire some point in the midgame for just a couple mutalisks to hunt down warp prisms and observers. For all the talk of carriers, Warp prisms are really scary for this style and Denying scouting can only be a good thing, and it also gives you the option to go broodlord later on instead of ultras. At the very least the Protoss has to account for potential broodlords and not try to hard counter ultras. I haven't tried this out; usually when I go muta I throw out drops. There're a few guides on using muta/ling with drop floating around TL.
The main issue with this is the gas requirement and tech delay, and I think getting ultras early on is very important. You also generally want all your gas for ultra/bane to be able to engage him directly. There may be room for mutas here, but I'm not sure what the best timing would be.
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On November 27 2012 06:06 Defenestrator wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2012 04:50 MstrJinbo wrote: This is entirely theorycrafting, but have you tried getting a spire some point in the midgame for just a couple mutalisks to hunt down warp prisms and observers. For all the talk of carriers, Warp prisms are really scary for this style and Denying scouting can only be a good thing, and it also gives you the option to go broodlord later on instead of ultras. At the very least the Protoss has to account for potential broodlords and not try to hard counter ultras. I haven't tried this out; usually when I go muta I throw out drops. There're a few guides on using muta/ling with drop floating around TL. The main issue with this is the gas requirement and tech delay, and I think getting ultras early on is very important. You also generally want all your gas for ultra/bane to be able to engage him directly. There may be room for mutas here, but I'm not sure what the best timing would be.
imo going drop with muta is pretty pointless since if defending muta and defending drops takes the same type of defense/positioning.
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wow great write up! Def going to try it out tonight!
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I think this will be a nice place to start the new Meta from what can only be a impending Festor Nerf, all the balance maps have brought changes and the main point of this one is the festor, so working on this is a nice way to almost get ahead of the meta, so you might lose a few with this now but maybe the festor hit is a large one and this can become almost standard until something is thought of from either side and the festor and reactions to it are dealt with
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I used to do Ling/Bling/Infestor/Ultralisk for a while, but it just stopped working as Protoss started to macro. Until they move out on the map, and sometimes even then, you can't really touch them because of the way bases and maps are choked up these days. Your Ling/Ultra just can't get the required surface area it needs and one good Colossus swipe or Storm ends all your Banelings uselessly.
Not to mention that basically everything Protoss beats Ultralisks in one form or another. Blink Stalkers out-kite them. Zealots block, tank, and DPS them. Archons do the same. Immortals do the same without having to actually take any damage since they have range 6. In a roundabout way, High Templar even counter Ultralisks because the Storm will clear all Ultralisks' support in just a couple seconds.
I think this game is quite a prime example of why nobody uses this composition. Leenock versus HasuObs on Tal'Darim Altar. Leenock gets up to 4-5 bases, smashes waves of Ling/Bling/Ultra into HasuObs's army and third and does basically nothing until HasuObs gets enough units to just win.
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On November 27 2012 09:27 Tropical Bob wrote:I think this game is quite a prime example of why nobody uses this composition. Leenock versus HasuObs on Tal'Darim Altar. Leenock gets up to 4-5 bases, smashes waves of Ling/Bling/Ultra into HasuObs's army and third and does basically nothing until HasuObs gets enough units to just win. Thanks for this rep. I think it's a good vid of how to counter this style, but given that, there're some subtle differences in my style that I think can make a difference with correct play. I love Leenock, and he could beat me with one hand tied behind his back, mouse-only, but there're some things I'd like to point out about this game.
1. HasuObs harassment was fairly successful, and he's able to pick off like 6 infestors completely for free. I would argue that he should be ahead at that point in the game given such large pickups early-on, even though his 3rd was late. 2. I don't agree with Leenock's decision to build THAT MANY ultras, especially vs a turtling toss (he has like 10). I would much rather have that gas for banes. He has <20 banes at any one time; you need a lot of banelings and only a few ultras to get in to connect which is why I prefer to get 40-60+. Once again, going (and losing) infestors cuts into this number significantly... 6 infestors is 36 banes. 3. He continually sacrifices good chunks of his army to kill HasuObs 3rd without actually doing any damage to HasuObs army. This keeps him in the game, but HasuObs is able to be very cost-efficient because he engages so well. 4. He uses ultras for "harass" at the 3rd and 4th. Ultras are not a harass unit by any means IMO; they should always be with heavy support. Harass can be done with lings, roaches, or banes (especially with drop). 5. When HasuObs transitions to heavy archon, Leenock just stays on ultra/ling/bane. Vs archon/colo, you need something else, like ultra/hydra or infestors with NP if you want to tackle this army on the ground. At this point I would probably go 3-4 ultras backed by some roach/hydra and try to keep the ultras in front of the roaches, but really he is already behind due to throwing away so many units so cost-inefficiently. 6. No drops. Drops could have opened up a ton of holes for HasuObs, especially on a map like this. I realize HasuObs opens phoenix, but even if he's able to elevator some of his army into HasuObs main, that opens up a lot more ways for Leenock to get a favorable engagement. What I would think would be better than what he did was to instead of engaging at the 3rd, drop 2 ultras with some lings into HasuObs' main while hitting with his remaining ultra/bane army at his 3rd. This would have been MUCH harder to defend.
As a minor point, I think Leenock could have sent half his army up the 3rd ramp and half up the natural ramp to get a good angle on HasuObs. This requires really good control and timing, and I'm not sure how well it would work (HasuObs still has a nice defender's advantage), but I think it would work better than what Leenock ended up doing.
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On November 27 2012 09:27 Tropical Bob wrote:I used to do Ling/Bling/Infestor/Ultralisk for a while, but it just stopped working as Protoss started to macro. Until they move out on the map, and sometimes even then, you can't really touch them because of the way bases and maps are choked up these days. Your Ling/Ultra just can't get the required surface area it needs and one good Colossus swipe or Storm ends all your Banelings uselessly. Not to mention that basically everything Protoss beats Ultralisks in one form or another. Blink Stalkers out-kite them. Zealots block, tank, and DPS them. Archons do the same. Immortals do the same without having to actually take any damage since they have range 6. In a roundabout way, High Templar even counter Ultralisks because the Storm will clear all Ultralisks' support in just a couple seconds. I think this game is quite a prime example of why nobody uses this composition. Leenock versus HasuObs on Tal'Darim Altar. Leenock gets up to 4-5 bases, smashes waves of Ling/Bling/Ultra into HasuObs's army and third and does basically nothing until HasuObs gets enough units to just win.
The game you stated was the most ridiculous game I've seen in a very, very long time.
Holy christ Protoss stuff is... well... good.
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On November 28 2012 08:20 Mahtasooma wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2012 09:27 Tropical Bob wrote:I used to do Ling/Bling/Infestor/Ultralisk for a while, but it just stopped working as Protoss started to macro. Until they move out on the map, and sometimes even then, you can't really touch them because of the way bases and maps are choked up these days. Your Ling/Ultra just can't get the required surface area it needs and one good Colossus swipe or Storm ends all your Banelings uselessly. Not to mention that basically everything Protoss beats Ultralisks in one form or another. Blink Stalkers out-kite them. Zealots block, tank, and DPS them. Archons do the same. Immortals do the same without having to actually take any damage since they have range 6. In a roundabout way, High Templar even counter Ultralisks because the Storm will clear all Ultralisks' support in just a couple seconds. I think this game is quite a prime example of why nobody uses this composition. Leenock versus HasuObs on Tal'Darim Altar. Leenock gets up to 4-5 bases, smashes waves of Ling/Bling/Ultra into HasuObs's army and third and does basically nothing until HasuObs gets enough units to just win. The game you stated was the most ridiculous game I've seen in a very, very long time. Holy christ Protoss stuff is... well... good.
Rofl.
Ok, maybe thats why all ZvP games have to rely on... gglords.
But, maybe if leenock did play more with banes drops and less with mass ultra, he would have been in a better shape... Dunno
Also, the creep spread from leenock is very baaaaaaaaaaad. With a good creespread, his army would be sooo faster. It would have been better for engages.
Also, protecting the colossi behind the army makes the trades always bad for leenock. Hopefully in hots, with vipers you'll be able to destroy colossi without any corruptor.
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This style is amazing. I don't often come here to post (I usually spend my time at the Zerg discussion on the battle.net forums), but Defenestrator reposted his guide there with this link so I wanted to come give my support. I have been using this style in ZvP for a pretty damn long time now, and I've had a TON of success with it in mid-high masters. When I used to play more frequently about 2 seasons ago, I was actually playing against lower ranked grandmaster players on occasion and taking games off of them. I don't think I'm grandmaster quality at this game, I don't play enough, but I think this style of play is so powerful that it allows me to play on a higher level than my current skill.
I believe drops, hydralisk, and banelings are an incredibly powerful style that has yet to be exploited in the current metagame. Protoss players are (imo) unable to defend 2-3 prongs of aggression on 3 bases with only 1-2 colossi, which is when your hydra drop timing should be hitting. With a massive roach/ling army threatening his third and 12-16 hydras in his main, you're pretty much guaranteed to do some sort of damage whether economic, army, or tech based.
During this time you can be creating a baneling nest, upgrading melee, and grabbing a 5th base while feeling relatively safe due to a larger army that is poised to surround him should he move out, and drops to keep him from leaving for fear of crippling damage.
I have also found that this style with baneling drops is incredibly powerful against 16 minute colossus timings. Even when you get hydralisk, you still have time to max out on roach/baneling, and with your drop tech you can simply ruin his army the moment he overextends into your third or 4th base. The most important thing is that you set up a flank to ensure he has to forcefield his army in for your banelings
To be honest, I haven't had a lot of experience with this style post lair. Most of my games end due to the high aggression it brings to the table, and while I might end up with 5+ bases by the end of the game and my main and natural mined out, the Protoss player will rarely have time to tech past archons. It is incredibly difficult for Protoss to secure a 4th base with this style, since the drops are keeping him contained, and moving out into the open leaves him vulnerable to the rest of your army.
I personally don't like to go for ultralisk, I will grab 1-4 infestors and then slowly tech into broodlords if protoss gives me time, and use the infestors to lock his army down for my baneling drops if he leaves his base. That said, I think this midgame style leaves a lot of options in the late game and hydras should certainly not be discounted.
The biggest weakness to this style, in my opinion, is the APM cost. You can always do more - spread creep better, set up more drops, hit your injects better, etc. This style is very apm intensive due to the apm required to make lings into banelings, load them into overlords, constantly scout your opponent, and make the correct units in response. This leaves little time for you to focus on your basic macro mechanics, and I will often find myself floating thousands of resources after a big battle with not enough larvae to make the units that I want. I think if this style was executed by a better player with experience in drops and multipronged aggression it would be undefeatable
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Thanks for the support Nas =) A lot of people have been focusing on the ultra/bane lategame part of this strat, but the drop part is pretty key as well, IMO. As you say, it hits at a time before they have a solid 3-base deathball. I don't cover this in the OP, but it also gives you good scouting information about his unit comp, which is pretty important for this strat.
The drop play and multipronged attacks also let you trade off some units for his. We all know that toss gets stronger as time goes on; it's generally a good idea to trade off units with them so they can't get to that "deathball" status. Delaying that deathball until you have units to deal with his is the idea behind dropping.
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Have an update for you guys =) Will also put these in the OP.
Here're 3 replays against masters toss players (not SolidLuck this time):
http://drop.sc/280467 - Really fun, pretty close game. For people asking about the archon/immo/temp counter, I think this is a decent showcase. My opponent was a little used to my style by now so he played against it fairly well I think, but I manage to pull it out in the end. Drops get handled pretty well, though they set him off-kilter a little, and they allow me to take 5 bases. I transition to ultra/bane and attack into strong positions at his 3rd, trading decently while taking a lot of bases. Seeing a lot of archon/immo, I remax on roach/hydra. In retrospect, I should have put in 1 more ultra along with some more banes to soften up his army, with slightly less roach. Some of my engagements aren't great; I don't really flank (really would be useful) and I sit under some storms, but eventually I'm able to overwhelm with ultra/ling/bane/hydra and some roach.
http://drop.sc/280468 - On Cloud Kingdom. This is a fairly one-sided game (he forgot warp gate =( ), but I wanted to show the last two engagements, which should have been very favorable for him. He has 5 archons, 7 immortals, and 2 colossi vs ultra/bane in a pretty narrow choke. He manages to chew through a lot of my army, but once again at the end it's just not enough and I clean up against what is basically the hard-counter to my army comp. Mass banes = good.
http://drop.sc/280469 - On Cloud Kingdom again. This was not a particularly well-played game on either side, but I include this one because he has a mothership with vortex, as well as some archons in his army. I engage a 4-colossi 3-archon/stalker/sentry deathball army with 9 ultras (I got a little ultra-happy this game) and 66 banes. Result: 8 ultras left. Archons are nice, but in an open field vs that many banes it's not nearly enough. He also vortexes me later on, but I just send in all my banes and my ultras in. I lose some banes carelessly when the vortex ends, but he wisely keeps most of his forces out of the vortex (since he knew he'd lose them).
I have, of course, lost with this strategy as well, but I feel like it's usually some error on my part (late drops/ultras so I die to a 3-base timing or something).
I'll also include some analysis of some GSL games from the pvz guide thread from players using similar styles in the OP.
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Man i want to love this style so much, ultras, banes and hydras are the coolest zerg units, but i feel it relies too heavily on your opponent being unfamiliar with the style and reacting wrongly. What would you do if he goes SG and keeps making phoenix when he sees hydra? The drops are your gateway to the lategame, can you really make the style work if they are shut down by air or just good play?
If you look at that daybreak game, the protoss player does this weird warp prism thing that gets completely shut down with no discernable gain for the toss player, then he reacts very badly to your drops+aggression and loses a lot more than he should. For the rest of the game he makes far too many stalkers instead of zealots or immortals and repeatedly refuses to move his collosus out of ultralisk splash damage. It seems like a better player with a safer opening would have come out slightly more ahead than he did with each engagement. If he can make sure the part of his army left standing after each battle is the high tech stuff then gradually he can build up a ball of collo/immo/archon which eventually will roll over anything on the ground. The game really just looked like you straight up outplayed him.
If you have a replay of you winning against a safer player who cleans up the drops relatively well i'd love to see it. I'm just not convinced it can really win against a protoss who takes more care of their high-tech units. This probably wont stop me trying out though ^^
I've tried ultra/bane before and had some success and some failure but your addition of the tech switches to deal with immo/archon compositions is really cool and makes zvp seem more fun to play again. The lack of infestors is interesting, it seems like you'd probably want to get them at some point just because neural and fungal is so good with this style but the question is when and how many?
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On December 01 2012 19:08 Zrana wrote: Man i want to love this style so much, ultras, banes and hydras are the coolest zerg units, but i feel it relies too heavily on your opponent being unfamiliar with the style and reacting wrongly. What would you do if he goes SG and keeps making phoenix when he sees hydra? The drops are your gateway to the lategame, can you really make the style work if they are shut down by air or just good play?
Stargate openers can negate drop play, but I've used it by moving around the phoenixes with overlords. This is pretty risky though, not sure I would recommend it. However vs stargate openers his robo will be delayed, giving you time to transition to T3 a little quicker.
As far as phoenix vs hydra, my experience is that phoenix are good vs hydra in low numbers, but soon hydras start to hit a critical mass (around 8-10 or so) where they start to really overwhelm phoenix. Phoenixes fare all right against hydras but not that well; getting a handful to defend against them and then transitioning can work. It kind of depends on how the game goes as to whether or not to try to drop. Still a toss shouldn't stay on phoenix to counter moderate numbers of hydras.
On December 01 2012 19:08 Zrana wrote: If you look at that daybreak game, the protoss player does this weird warp prism thing that gets completely shut down with no discernable gain for the toss player, then he reacts very badly to your drops+aggression and loses a lot more than he should. For the rest of the game he makes far too many stalkers instead of zealots or immortals and repeatedly refuses to move his collosus out of ultralisk splash damage. It seems like a better player with a safer opening would have come out slightly more ahead than he did with each engagement. If he can make sure the part of his army left standing after each battle is the high tech stuff then gradually he can build up a ball of collo/immo/archon which eventually will roll over anything on the ground. The game really just looked like you straight up outplayed him.
If you have a replay of you winning against a safer player who cleans up the drops relatively well i'd love to see it. I'm just not convinced it can really win against a protoss who takes more care of their high-tech units. This probably wont stop me trying out though ^^
I'm not sure how much he lost, but if you look at the units lost tab throughout he's pretty far ahead. I was able to make up for this deficit via a better economy (which is how Z typically used to deal with less cost-efficient units). I did manage to buy time though with the drops, which is really what I aim for.
He probably should have moved his colossi back, but they were not in a bad position for a lot of the game and I usually had to go through his archons first, which are mighty tanky. This is also where, at a higher level of play, I think flanking would help out tremendously to negate kiting micro. I do agree that zeals may have fared better, but it's hard for me to say since I haven't played against zeal-heavy comps. I'm pretty sure this is something that my practice partners will try, so I'll try to update accordingly.
On December 01 2012 19:08 Zrana wrote: I've tried ultra/bane before and had some success and some failure but your addition of the tech switches to deal with immo/archon compositions is really cool and makes zvp seem more fun to play again. The lack of infestors is interesting, it seems like you'd probably want to get them at some point just because neural and fungal is so good with this style but the question is when and how many?
This is a great question. Personally I don't think getting infestors in the midgame is the answer at all. I saw Symbol do this against Parting (link is in the OP) and I really feel that he would have been much better off getting ultras out more quickly to deal with stalker/colossi effectively.
My feeling on this is probably 3-4 infestors after the first max for fungals and to get favorable engagements, when you can afford them. One reason I'm also hesitant with infestors is that they really cut into your baneling count; each infestor is worth 6 banelings, and the upgrade is another 6. Large numbers of banes gives you a much higher chance of connecting, so you can afford to lose a bunch and still be fine. Also your army is fast enough to generally catch up to his eventually; I don't think kiting works that well, at least in open areas (see Symbol vs Seed, linked in the OP).
Still I've found that I'm very mineral-starved lategame with this strat. I'm not sure why; maybe it's because of poor resaturation once my main and nat run low, so infestors would be a pretty reasonable addition at this point due to low mineral/gas ratio.
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What do you do against a turtling protoss ?
I basically lost to a protoss turtling on bases and going out with archons/immortals/colossi... I got totally shredded with my ling bane ultras haha And i was not able to apply any pressure on him.
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This build wont see a resurgence because it gets wrecked by storm super hard
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On December 01 2012 20:21 Insoleet wrote: What do you do against a turtling protoss ?
I basically lost to a protoss turtling on bases and going out with archons/immortals/colossi... I got totally shredded with my ling bane ultras haha And i was not able to apply any pressure on him.
You don't do this and do BL/infestor. No zerg ground army will ever match a toss army that has turtled for the right unit composition unless the toss player screwed up badly in the engagement. IMO this style only works against aggressive style toss.
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On December 01 2012 20:21 Insoleet wrote: What do you do against a turtling protoss ?
I basically lost to a protoss turtling on bases and going out with archons/immortals/colossi... I got totally shredded with my ling bane ultras haha And i was not able to apply any pressure on him.
Basically you want to take a lot of bases while trading off your power units for his. I think the latest replays show some play against turtling, especially Daybreak. He's near-max (190 supply) at the first engagement with immo/archon/colossus/stalker/sentry. This is not an ideal engagement for me, but I'm able to trade off some of his archons and stalkers for my army and remax; I continue to try to trade off his power units for mine. This is pretty important as if you let him keep a critical mass of power units, then it becomes harder to win.
What I think I could have done better in this game is to consider a large drop (2 ultras with a ton of lings) to pull him out of position while hitting with the rest of my forces at the 3rd. Also, and I'll try to work on this for future games, if I had brought forces up through his nat and at his 3rd for a surround, the engagement would have gone much better.
In your games, what is your baneling/ultra ratio? If you're hitting at the right timing his army shouldn't shred yours, at least not without templar. Can you post a rep? You can PM me the link if you don't want to post it in the thread and I can take a look.
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On December 01 2012 20:59 scph wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2012 20:21 Insoleet wrote: What do you do against a turtling protoss ?
I basically lost to a protoss turtling on bases and going out with archons/immortals/colossi... I got totally shredded with my ling bane ultras haha And i was not able to apply any pressure on him. You don't do this and do BL/infestor. No zerg ground army will ever match a toss army that has turtled for the right unit composition unless the toss player screwed up badly in the engagement. IMO this style only works against aggressive style toss.
I think the drop play and timings on the first max make this difficult to do. In the latest replays my opponents are not particularly aggressive, yet I'm able to pull out wins due to not letting him max on pure archon/colossus/immo/templar. That kind of max may not be feasible to deal with using this comp, I'm not sure (ultra/bane/hydra/ling properly positioned is pretty damned strong though), but I don't see how toss could get this comp unless you're not aggressive enough or he just outplays you.
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