EPT
The HotS Zerg Help Me Thread - Page 102
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DjayEl
France252 Posts
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UltiBahamut
United States102 Posts
On August 22 2013 01:31 Defenestrator wrote: Honestly vs a good cannon rusher you probably end up behind - Revival is pretty much the only player I've seen who has recovered well vs ocannon'ing, and I think he clearly understands the timings of the build if he does get ocannon'd. The main reason I have started doing it is simply because few toss's open forge-first nowadays, and hatch-1st is pretty much the best opener vs anything that's not ocannoning. I think the main reason pros started going back to hatch-first is because protosses started opening gate-first or nexus-first, often without probe scouting, when HOTS came out. Also I think it's very possible to defend vs proxy 2gate with hatch-first, as long as you open 15h 14p, but I haven't done it in so long it's hard to say =P The bottom line is that if you DO want to be safe vs any opener, opening 14p/15h is the way to go. 15h is a risk. It depends on how many drones the zerg pulls and if the toss delays nexus or no and if it was successful or not, if zerg defends it by only pulling a few drones like 4-6 and toss delays nexus then zerg is ahead. (Which is probably what happened with the revival thing :D). Catz does it all the time as well since he loves hatches before a pool. Even idra says that if you defend your nat and the toss delays their nat you're ahead, it just comes down to how you defend it. :3 There are other things like i've watch TLO do a 3 hatch before pool and get his natural cannon rushed, the toss delayed nat, and TLO canceled his nat and went on to easily win the game with the third hatch and he just remade his 2nd hatch at his other third. (This was on WW). He just got lucky that the toss followed the drone to the other third and didn't notice his third hatch till it was too late  It is possible, just really really hard since the toss will easily have at least 4 zealots out before any zerglings pop, and drones vs zealots is just laughable :D (hence why it relies on getting a spine up which the toss should be searching for). and no problem DjayEl, this is what this thread is for :3 | ||
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DjayEl
France252 Posts
I am top diamond and have major issues with multitasking as Zerg. You may say it is not race-specific, but in this situation I feel that is, and I clearly identified this as the "glass ceiling" that prevents me from upping league. In a nutshell, let's say I have good BO's, okayish decision making (not the best but I does not matter that much usually) and good mechanics (like 180 apm trough the game, without spamming). Even if I'm minorly disrupted, I hit my benchmarks pretty good and my overall macro is ok (always low minerals, supply pretty close to what I see from the pros or what I should hit with this or that build). Little disruption (hellion, phoenix) does not do much to me and I can do nice attacks while macroing, but there is one situation that clearly make me lose the game outright by totally messing up my production, it is when Terrran starts to attack me in multiple fronts (let's say drops, but not exclusively). I'm watching streams, pro plays, etc., but I just don't UNDERSTAND what am I supposed to do. I've tried sending units and not looking at the outcome while keeping up with optimal production, and then my army (or attacked drones) would just die to a mine or be finished off, or my mutas arrive before the lings and be killed, etc. So I must spend considerable amount of time microing these small engagements just to make sure everything is not dying, and I totally lose momentum. I know Terran drops are made for this, this is the point of multi pronged attacks : our brain may not be used to react to that. I too try do do runbies and stuff. But I'm playing since the beta, did all the training I could and still I freeze like a bronzie the second I see 2 medicacs at 2 different locations. Sometimes it does this to me with DT, but not that much, and warp prism harass for example is nothing in comparison. Vs Terran, I just never know how much units I need to send, if it's too few it will do nothing and if I send too much he would just push my front and I don't have enough to defend. This, plus all the harass/attack/pressure I was doing must stop, because there is just no way pressuring, defending, injecting, producing and spreading creep at the same time. So maybe I missed something. Maybe I should train one specific skill here. Question is : what should I do, really? I've seen some guys leaving lings+banes every time what at bases 1 and 3, say, but when I tried they will not react good to drops or will explode only killing half of the marines and the rest will just kill my 16 drones. Should I try again with more units ? Do pros whatch their engagements but switch very fast between situations, or do they just blindly attack and resume macroing? I can't see that in the replays. There must be some mental pattern to implement to avoid this horrible feeling of "shit I'm screwed" everytime I face this. What do you guys think? :/ | ||
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Mornox
Germany5 Posts
On August 22 2013 16:40 DjayEl wrote: Hi guys, I am top diamond and have major issues with multitasking as Zerg. I can recommend the "multitasking trainer" arcade map (zen) to specifically practice multitasking. You'll have to build your base (any race/bo), constantly move a scouting probe with limited waypoints (chased by zergling), defend attacks and drops, while rescuing a unit with any transport and being bound to not exceed energy and mineral limits. It helps. For normal games: A big thing about drops is to see them coming. the more time you have to react, the easier it will be. so creep spread and overlord spread is as crucial as an open eye on the minimap. I sometimes differ from my standard hotkey setup and make 2 or 3 groups of equal amounts of lings+banelings to be able to split easier in this situation. I did not encounter any terrans who would time 2 drops with a front push simultaneously on top diamond, this case is obviously more difficult to deal with. for the general harrassment its not too bad to lose a few drones here and then, just redrone. watching pro replays we usually see a few minutes of desperate drop defense with minor losses on most drops until zergs army is big enough for a push (reinforcements often go to defend counterdrops). Another way of buying time is slight static defense at every base. it won't stop the drop but gives you time. and its better to lose a spinecrawler and a spore than to lose 3-5 drones in the same time. i tend to implement minor multitasking in every game now. i do scout drone harrass, always have an extra queen for creep spread, try to scout the map with lings while of course not letting macro drop. | ||
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Decendos
Germany1341 Posts
On August 22 2013 16:40 DjayEl wrote: Hi guys, I am top diamond and have major issues with multitasking as Zerg. You may say it is not race-specific, but in this situation I feel that is, and I clearly identified this as the "glass ceiling" that prevents me from upping league. In a nutshell, let's say I have good BO's, okayish decision making (not the best but I does not matter that much usually) and good mechanics (like 180 apm trough the game, without spamming). Even if I'm minorly disrupted, I hit my benchmarks pretty good and my overall macro is ok (always low minerals, supply pretty close to what I see from the pros or what I should hit with this or that build). Little disruption (hellion, phoenix) does not do much to me and I can do nice attacks while macroing, but there is one situation that clearly make me lose the game outright by totally messing up my production, it is when Terrran starts to attack me in multiple fronts (let's say drops, but not exclusively). I'm watching streams, pro plays, etc., but I just don't UNDERSTAND what am I supposed to do. I've tried sending units and not looking at the outcome while keeping up with optimal production, and then my army (or attacked drones) would just die to a mine or be finished off, or my mutas arrive before the lings and be killed, etc. So I must spend considerable amount of time microing these small engagements just to make sure everything is not dying, and I totally lose momentum. I know Terran drops are made for this, this is the point of multi pronged attacks : our brain may not be used to react to that. I too try do do runbies and stuff. But I'm playing since the beta, did all the training I could and still I freeze like a bronzie the second I see 2 medicacs at 2 different locations. Sometimes it does this to me with DT, but not that much, and warp prism harass for example is nothing in comparison. Vs Terran, I just never know how much units I need to send, if it's too few it will do nothing and if I send too much he would just push my front and I don't have enough to defend. This, plus all the harass/attack/pressure I was doing must stop, because there is just no way pressuring, defending, injecting, producing and spreading creep at the same time. So maybe I missed something. Maybe I should train one specific skill here. Question is : what should I do, really? I've seen some guys leaving lings+banes every time what at bases 1 and 3, say, but when I tried they will not react good to drops or will explode only killing half of the marines and the rest will just kill my 16 drones. Should I try again with more units ? Do pros whatch their engagements but switch very fast between situations, or do they just blindly attack and resume macroing? I can't see that in the replays. There must be some mental pattern to implement to avoid this horrible feeling of "shit I'm screwed" everytime I face this. What do you guys think? :/ at first what you should do is play overly safe. meaning build spores and spines at locations where you can be dropped, leave 12 lings, 2 banes and 1 infestor at each outer base and start from there. since you have good macro etc. you should still be able to defeat Ts army even with those units split off. from there once you have the feeling that you are safe try less spines, then less lings and banes, until you are at like 2 spores + 1 spine per outer base mineral line and nothing else. spreading creep and overlords will also help you at spotting them earlier. often its not only a thing of multitasking but also of good vision (both by spreading creep and overlords but also actively looking at minimap every 2-3 seconds at least). | ||
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11B
United States188 Posts
And a slight side note ^^, good mechanics is not APM dependent. My friend has worked his way up from low to Mid Masters with 70-80 Apm. His creep suffers a bit but everything else is pretty damn good. Would he be better with 150+ ?? Probably lol, but it's not the end to all ends of how to improve your game. Maybe he should be a Protoss player instead, LOL: | ||
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UltiBahamut
United States102 Posts
On August 22 2013 16:40 DjayEl wrote: Hi guys, I am top diamond and have major issues with multitasking as Zerg. You may say it is not race-specific, but in this situation I feel that is, and I clearly identified this as the "glass ceiling" that prevents me from upping league. In a nutshell, let's say I have good BO's, okayish decision making (not the best but I does not matter that much usually) and good mechanics (like 180 apm trough the game, without spamming). Even if I'm minorly disrupted, I hit my benchmarks pretty good and my overall macro is ok (always low minerals, supply pretty close to what I see from the pros or what I should hit with this or that build). Little disruption (hellion, phoenix) does not do much to me and I can do nice attacks while macroing, but there is one situation that clearly make me lose the game outright by totally messing up my production, it is when Terrran starts to attack me in multiple fronts (let's say drops, but not exclusively). I'm watching streams, pro plays, etc., but I just don't UNDERSTAND what am I supposed to do. I've tried sending units and not looking at the outcome while keeping up with optimal production, and then my army (or attacked drones) would just die to a mine or be finished off, or my mutas arrive before the lings and be killed, etc. So I must spend considerable amount of time microing these small engagements just to make sure everything is not dying, and I totally lose momentum. I know Terran drops are made for this, this is the point of multi pronged attacks : our brain may not be used to react to that. I too try do do runbies and stuff. But I'm playing since the beta, did all the training I could and still I freeze like a bronzie the second I see 2 medicacs at 2 different locations. Sometimes it does this to me with DT, but not that much, and warp prism harass for example is nothing in comparison. Vs Terran, I just never know how much units I need to send, if it's too few it will do nothing and if I send too much he would just push my front and I don't have enough to defend. This, plus all the harass/attack/pressure I was doing must stop, because there is just no way pressuring, defending, injecting, producing and spreading creep at the same time. So maybe I missed something. Maybe I should train one specific skill here. Question is : what should I do, really? I've seen some guys leaving lings+banes every time what at bases 1 and 3, say, but when I tried they will not react good to drops or will explode only killing half of the marines and the rest will just kill my 16 drones. Should I try again with more units ? Do pros whatch their engagements but switch very fast between situations, or do they just blindly attack and resume macroing? I can't see that in the replays. There must be some mental pattern to implement to avoid this horrible feeling of "shit I'm screwed" everytime I face this. What do you guys think? :/ This is actually a very very hard question since it is very situational but i would say the biggest issue is that you freeze. The best way by far to get over this is simply find a friend or make a friend that does this in like every TvZ and play against him 10000000 times, it is what allowed me to beat it and i can promise you i lost a LOT, i think it took 10 games before i beat him the first time lol. This will help a lot more than any sort of multitask trainer because those can't simulate unknown in game scenarios that you get while laddering. You just need to get yourself mentally prepared on facing multipronged attacks. However there are several things that you can do to GREATLY help vs multipronged drops, the best one by far is try to spot the drop long before it hits your base. You are zerg, you should have vision over most of the map or at least have a line across the middle of the map that he can't pass without you seeing. You HAVE to send your overlords out across the map, i always send my first 3 out to get into the hardest spots around the terran base and send the rest along safe routes along the map edges to spot along there while i ALWAYS fight for xel naga control and if there are paths those can't see then put a single ling there. If you do this you be able to see what is coming and give you time to get over that Oh shit! factor and get into action. But to make this work make sure you are constantly watching your minimap, if a blip of red on it comes on you need to know IMMEDIATELY. Next you really can't always watch your minimap, and you can't spot EVERY drop. its impossible, we're human and terrans like to say LOOK HERE with their army then drop you. (Even pros get caught by this ) The next best line of defense is static defense. Most pros go with like 1 spore and 2 spines, or 2 spores and like 3-4 spines depending on how deep into the game they are. Realize, i'm sure you know, that these WILL NOT kill the drop unless the terran drops directly on top of them lol. However it buys you time, and as a zerg you need to be good with time. You should get your lings there before the last static D goes down (If you're lucky). This is why creeping up all your bases is a must it cuts down travel time dramatically. Now personally, i put my first creep tumor in my main and push creep along the edges and line it up with like 4 spores, spaced so that if they flew between then 2 spores would hit the medivac since terrans wont fly directly over one lol, and have like 2 spines around the base itself to clean up. This did a lot more in WoL as they couldn't boost over it but in HotS they can, but this will still do more than the 2 spores around the base itself imo as the terran just keeps the medivac away from them anyways. But this is just my preference. Now for the last part, how do you actually engage these multipronged stuff. You need to look at both armies and make a judgement call of how many units do you send and which one do you control? Terran players are pro at this decision as they can only micro one battle, so they just que up the other units and let them do whatever other than jumping to them to stim and attack. So as a zerg you have to decide, do i need to pay attention to this army coming to my third, or the drop in my main? This one is easy as it should be the army, but you still need to send enough units to defend the main. When it comes to deciding the amount of units you need to make a snap decision, the best way to do this is to make sure you know what is coming. IF YOU EVER get a chance to look at the terran army or whatever is coming, LOOK AT IT. if you don't inform yourself, then you can't make a good decision. If it is something like a double medivac drop at your third and main then send half your army at one and the other half at the other. Make sure there are a few banes with both to solidify the fact the terran units will die if they don't lift. If it is a single drop in the main and an army pushing your third then you need to send at least 2 banes to the main and like 15-20 zerglings as a terran drop is super cost effective. and if there are more medivacs being dropped then you need to send more banes and lings. Again this is just something you need to play against to get a feel of how much you need. But i always feel like i need to super overwhelm a drop else they don't die. Now when it comes to control you will focus on one battle, the bigger and more important one usually, But that doesn't mean you don't check up on the other group. jump there and make another snap decision, Is it going well or are all of your lings trying to fight 1 by 1 through a mineral line choke If that happens then micro really quick to get a better engagement and go back to the other fight. Where your high micro units are will also determine where you need to be focusing, i usually always follow my mutalisks since they need to be babysat else they die in a second. Now i watch a lot of streams and i'm pretty sure that pros do it all this way as well, though there might be preference differences. But i hope that this helped, now i'm going back to work :D | ||
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11B
United States188 Posts
it is when Terrran starts to attack me in multiple fronts (let's say drops, but not exclusively). Here's some pretty good ways to help from my favorite Sc2 you tuber: | ||
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DjayEl
France252 Posts
Thank you all, I will take a close look at all of this intel and work on my game. I guess I must overcome my psychological issues first before I see any improvements, but I'll do my best. | ||
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fdsdfg
United States1251 Posts
It seems like if you keep an infestor at each of your mining bases with static D, you can shut down any drop attempts. Fungal helps ling/bane a ton, and infested terran can be used to trigger widow mines. What am I missing that this build can't do? | ||
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11B
United States188 Posts
What am I missing that this build can't do? I agree with you all the way ^. Especially the IT to trigger mines. I'm kinda surprised more people don't actually use Infestor/Roach/Bling. IT trigger mines, fungal units, and then Blings (especially) and Roaches do quite well. | ||
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Code
Canada634 Posts
The problem sometimes is mobility, and on some maps I find Mutas to be much easier to use defending drops. They also allow you to harass a bit. Also...gas Biomine is a tough combo to fight efficiently | ||
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fdsdfg
United States1251 Posts
On August 23 2013 05:36 Code wrote: I've been experimenting with ling/bling/infestor and adding some Hydra vs Biomine. Its nice to be able to pick off medivacs, and use the range vs the mines. The problem sometimes is mobility, and on some maps I find Mutas to be much easier to use defending drops. They also allow you to harass a bit. Also...gas Biomine is a tough combo to fight efficiently I have a lot of trouble vs Biomine, and I do better with mutas than infestors. But I think that's because my infestor control isn't great, and mutas are much easier to control. If I improve with infestors to the point that I can use them in place of mutas, I want to know if there's something obvious I'm missing of why they're not more commonly used. | ||
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UltiBahamut
United States102 Posts
On August 23 2013 04:47 fdsdfg wrote: Why is muta/ling/bane the accepted build against BioMine and not infestor/ling/bane? It seems like if you keep an infestor at each of your mining bases with static D, you can shut down any drop attempts. Fungal helps ling/bane a ton, and infested terran can be used to trigger widow mines. What am I missing that this build can't do? So i kept trying to write a reason as to why muta/ling/bane is better over infestor/ling/bane and i kept finding flaws with it :D But the main reason people PREFER it is that infestors were the main unit of WoL and people A. got really bored with that strat. and B (the main reason actually) infestors are not what they use to be. It is actually really hard to keep the medivac count down and if the terran sees this style they should go 20+ medivacs and cancel out all fungals. (It really does work, its hilarious). Also, muta ling bane is more fun. Its similar to the reasons that no one really tries to go the swarm host style vs toss People just don't enjoy it despite it being *(IMO) a superior strategy if done correctly. You just have to remember that Infested terrans got neutered completely, and fungal deals like half the damage it use to vs armored units. so marauders/medivacs/vikings etc never ever ever die to it anymore But i wouldn't mind seeing zergs mix in infestor styles back into the meta game. | ||
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CivilAnarchy
United States59 Posts
On August 23 2013 04:47 fdsdfg wrote: Why is muta/ling/bane the accepted build against BioMine and not infestor/ling/bane? It seems like if you keep an infestor at each of your mining bases with static D, you can shut down any drop attempts. Fungal helps ling/bane a ton, and infested terran can be used to trigger widow mines. What am I missing that this build can't do? Counter-attacking and keeping the medivac count low. When you have a large muta count you can A) Sit over the rally line to the front, weakening the push B) Snipe Medivacs to ensure they don't reach the 8-10 critical mass C) Counter attack to prevent 4th/5th/6th bases A good player will keep their medivacs towards the back end of their army, making sure that your fungals generally won't hit them, unless you're willing to risk infestors every time to specifically go after them. And if the Terran is able to get 8-12 medivacs at the main front supporting their army, that push is never going to have a respite. They'll be able to apply basically constant pressure, and force you to constantly replace infestors and banelings. The goal of the Biomine push is to delay your Hive tech to the maximum extent. That means that the terran wants you to keep producing gas heavy banelings and infestors, to prevent those Ultras and such. In addition to that, on a number of maps, creating enough static defense to defend against drops will also cut into the progression. For example, if you're playing on Belshir Vestige, you can't get away with placing a spine and a spore in your main, along with a single infestor. Due to the fact that the main front will be around your 4th location, the distance between your army and main will be large enough that you need to place 5+ spines and spores to even delay the drop. So in addition to the lack of counter attacking ability, a single infestor really isn't going to stop a drop, especially if it's a marauder drop to snipe tech, or a double drop. Also, unlike WoL, where using infestors to hold pushes was more common, pressure is now constant. Infestor energy is highly finite, meaning, you can't just get away with 5-6 Infestors to hold those pushes. If you look at some of scarlett's games where she tries this style, she needs to get anywhere from 9-12 infestors to hold the constant pressure of biomine. Constantly replacing the one's that get picked off is also quite an investment. Finally, using burrowed infestors to try and keep up the same harass as Mutas is mostly useless, considering they're not good at sniping add-ons and other things, and take quite some time to return to your main army. They're also fairly easy to detect, considering most players build turrets at least in their mineral lines, meaning they're simply a higher risk lower reward harassment tool. | ||
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11B
United States188 Posts
So i kept trying to write a reason as to why muta/ling/bane is better over infestor/ling/bane and i kept finding flaws with it :D Agreed again. And, for some reason, I always get run over when I use Muta. My control seems to be slipping.... I typically get 6-8 Infestors out in the 11:30 range, a time when Terran just finishes they're first set of 2 Medivacs. This means the first Terran push will be forced to retreat back to their base or realistically die on the spot (2 Infestors back home for D). However, I'll be the first to admit you're control has to be good and I've lost plenty of games on T's seconds push due to poor unit control. I feel that Roaches give you a little bit more room for error simply because they can take quite a bit of damage. I've been working on throwing in 6-8 Hydra's with range to help snipe mines but at some point you only have so much gas to use.............. I mean, my personal choice, if I had no restrictions on gas would be a unit composition of something like 40% Hydra, 60% Roach, and cheat by throwing in 10% of Infestors lol. Any BIO Terran would have a hard time dealing with 20 Hydra, 35 Roach, and 8 Infestors. Edit: With an Infestor/Roach/and additinal gas unit style you'll be floating a lot of minerals so just keep some groups of speedlings on patrol in suspect drop zones (in conjunction with Infestor/Static D should be fine). | ||
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mizU
United States12125 Posts
Mech pushes are so ridiculous on that map | ||
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ItzShakti
Brazil43 Posts
I tried to do a muta timing(he didnt get a lot of fenixes), but it didnt work. Do I really need to go to roach hydra viper into ultra hydra? Replay : http://sc2share.com/BFw | ||
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Deleted User 261926
960 Posts
On August 23 2013 07:00 ItzShakti wrote: How do I deal with a protoss who goes FFE and gets 2 stargates + fast third and then rushes templar tech? I tried to do a muta timing(he didnt get a lot of fenixes), but it didnt work. Do I really need to go to roach hydra viper into ultra hydra? Replay : http://sc2share.com/BFw I'll check the replay. will edit. -at 7 min you have to scout with your overlords in order to see what tech the protoss is choosing. You do this almost a minute late (at 7:48). -in the engagement at 17:30 you ate a crapload of storms that you could have easily baited out/dodged given that you had a superfast army and you were on creep. -you neglected your muta upgrades (you got +1 carapace and then nothing for a long time, you started +2 carapace at 20min) -I think a massive reason of your loss is the commitment to banelings and lings.. you needed more air force. Storms dismantle banes before they reach zealots often. Don't be afraid to put down a double spire for ugprade when you face this. for reference, I am a high master. | ||
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DilemaH
Canada402 Posts
On August 23 2013 07:00 ItzShakti wrote: How do I deal with a protoss who goes FFE and gets 2 stargates + fast third and then rushes templar tech? I tried to do a muta timing(he didnt get a lot of fenixes), but it didnt work. Do I really need to go to roach hydra viper into ultra hydra? Replay : http://sc2share.com/BFw I don't really need to watch the replay but here's what you can do. When you spot 2 SGs, get a few more queens and check for 7 gates (all in). When you see his expansion, he will have no ground army so I would flood lings and keep him on 2 base if possible, even maybe getting ling ups. If he finally establishes his 3rd, realize his army comp (HT/voids with a lot support). Vs this i would go for swam hosts, leading with locusts to snipe Templar then come in with hydras to do the damages. You can even add in infestors and vipers if you wan, infestors being better. Queen ling infestor or hydra ling infestor if good vs this. | ||
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