EPTThe HotS Zerg Help Me Thread - Page 261
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OtherWorld
France17333 Posts
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SummitSC2
Austria8 Posts
On June 09 2015 01:51 OtherWorld wrote: Hey guys, former Diamond Zerg here. The last time I played seriously was last summer, and now that I'm coming back, I find that while I'm comfortable with either 10:30 1/1 Roaches or standard ling/bling/muta in ZvT and with mass Roaches in ZvZ, I have no idea what to do in ZvP now that the old SH is gone (I used to go 1/1 ling into SH). So what's the cool shit in ZvP nowadays? best build for me is the 10.30 hydra ling timing that you can find here on the forums just search for "aggresive zvp" you also can try to make a ling bane bust from 3 bases that hits at about 8min. can work really good if you catch your oppnonent off guard (not recommendend on vani research) for mid/late game you are best with roach hydra viper and a muta switch once you reached 5 bases. but i agree, it can be really frustrating without the old swarmhosts. | ||
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GGuMake
United States74 Posts
I'm going to include some replays for a reference point. I scout the aggression both times, and both times i'm still unable to stop it. In one game I scout a baneling nest by 440 and the lings start streaming around 550. In the other game he takes a very late expansion and blocks the ramps with 2 queens. I make 8 lings to try and cancel his expansion but I pull back. Game 1: http://drop.sc/399953 Game 2: http://drop.sc/399954 Both were played back to back  I was watching the replay and was thinking maybe I should just open 3 queen, bane nest at 515 safety banes block ramp. Straight into roaches?? Not sure, kinda lost. Really looking for some Masters - GM insight or diamond league if knowledgeable. This is high diamond/low masters (currently rank 3 in diamond). | ||
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velvex
Germany226 Posts
There were also inefficiencies in your opener. Quite a few delayed drones, overlord should be before queen etc. Edit for Game 2: Yeah, the overlord thing again. Your second overlord must be watching the entrance to the enemy natural in the early game. If you don't have it there, you'll never an idea what's really going on. (Only against gasless play, you should move it away early, or else queens will kill it.) Your third or fourth overlord should watch the space outside your own natural, so you can see banelings morphing. If you had sene his lings moving out and his banes morphing, you would have been fine as long as your opponent's micro isn't vastly superior to yours. On another note, you saw a delayed hatch around 4:00 and no lings. This confirms 14/14 without banes. Eight lings is a good number to make against that, but you can't move out since your opponent will have speed earlier. Do you feel comfortable against 14/14 and know how to get ahead against it? You really don't have to change your opener. Two queens, speed, banes and spine are the most solid way of opening in ZvZ. | ||
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Aocowns
Norway6070 Posts
On June 09 2015 05:02 GGuMake wrote: This seems to be my Achilles heel right now. Everyone seems to want the "free" win and just all in at this level in ZvZ. Usually in ZvZ I open: 15 pool 15 hatch 16 gas 15 overlord 17 drone 17 2 queens 21-23 overlord 1 pair of lings to scout baneling nest around 530(earlier if I scout aggression). I'm going to include some replays for a reference point. I scout the aggression both times, and both times i'm still unable to stop it. In one game I scout a baneling nest by 440 and the lings start streaming around 550. In the other game he takes a very late expansion and blocks the ramps with 2 queens. I make 8 lings to try and cancel his expansion but I pull back. Game 1: http://drop.sc/399953 Game 2: http://drop.sc/399954 Both were played back to back I was watching the replay and was thinking maybe I should just open 3 queen, bane nest at 515 safety banes block ramp. Straight into roaches?? Not sure, kinda lost. Really looking for some Masters - GM insight or diamond league if knowledgeable. This is high diamond/low masters (currently rank 3 in diamond). I'll drop my highish master opinion and thoughts: Looking at that first game you reacted perfectly up until the 30ish supply mark. That 36supply block is an awful time to be supply blocked for this exact reason(unable to make reactionary lings until too late), and you also did not have an ovie outside his nat to see the lings as they pushed out. The fact that you made those 6 drones and had a supply block was what lost you the game. When you scout gas before pool and a pretty fast banenest its a lot better to just commit to that defense instead of halfassing it, and then just counter attacking if it turns out he didnt commit to the attack As for the second game, 14/14 can get weird. You should never ever move out your lings like that though, thats basically suiciding them against the very fast speedlings, and it leaves you no free lings at home to morph banes asap. Personally, I like doing bane nest before speed and just taking a defensive posture, spine is fine too. Bane nest first, 6 cautionary lings with 4 of them instamorphing to banes when possible, and the rest pushing out to poke at opponents nat to confirm ling flood or not, and be wary of how you spend your larvae, dont just mindlessly spam all drones if youre not sure where the game is going. TL;DR: your opening is perfectly fine beyond some refining, theoretically gives you options to hold pretty much everything. Overlord positioning, mindful use of larvae and always keeps 2 lings at home in case you need to morph banes | ||
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GGuMake
United States74 Posts
On June 09 2015 05:44 velvex wrote: Game 1: You make drones while your opponent is running lings across the map. What you want to do is to match your opponent's ling count. As long as you know you have a comfortable drone advantage (~5), there's no reason to go for an even bigger drone advantage – it's an unnecessary risk. As long as you have more drones and both players pump and trade units evenly, you will get ahead substantially, even if the economy difference is just a couple of drones. And if your opponent tries to surprise you by droning up, you'll be able to put on counter-pressure, which is pretty dangerous for the other player since he won't have a spine crawler after committing to the ling/bane aggression. There were also inefficiencies in your opener. Quite a few delayed drones, overlord should be before queen etc. Edit for Game 2: Yeah, the overlord thing again. Your second overlord must be watching the entrance to the enemy natural in the early game. If you don't have it there, you'll never an idea what's really going on. (Only against gasless play, you should move it away early, or else queens will kill it.) Your third or fourth overlord should watch the space outside your own natural, so you can see banelings morphing. If you had sene his lings moving out and his banes morphing, you would have been fine as long as your opponent's micro isn't vastly superior to yours. On another note, you saw a delayed hatch around 4:00 and no lings. This confirms 14/14 without banes. Eight lings is a good number to make against that, but you can't move out since your opponent will have speed earlier. Do you feel comfortable against 14/14 and know how to get ahead against it? You really don't have to change your opener. Two queens, speed, banes and spine are the most solid way of opening in ZvZ. On June 09 2015 05:55 Aocowns wrote: I'll drop my highish master opinion and thoughts: Looking at that first game you reacted perfectly up until the 30ish supply mark. That 36supply block is an awful time to be supply blocked for this exact reason(unable to make reactionary lings until too late), and you also did not have an ovie outside his nat to see the lings as they pushed out. The fact that you made those 6 drones and had a supply block was what lost you the game. When you scout gas before pool and a pretty fast banenest its a lot better to just commit to that defense instead of halfassing it, and then just counter attacking if it turns out he didnt commit to the attack As for the second game, 14/14 can get weird. You should never ever move out your lings like that though, thats basically suiciding them against the very fast speedlings, and it leaves you no free lings at home to morph banes asap. Personally, I like doing bane nest before speed and just taking a defensive posture, spine is fine too. Bane nest first, 6 cautionary lings with 4 of them instamorphing to banes when possible, and the rest pushing out to poke at opponents nat to confirm ling flood or not, and be wary of how you spend your larvae, dont just mindlessly spam all drones if youre not sure where the game is going. TL;DR: your opening is perfectly fine beyond some refining, theoretically gives you options to hold pretty much everything. Overlord positioning, mindful use of larvae and always keeps 2 lings at home in case you need to morph banes Thanks guys for taking the time to give me some really really insightful tips! I really do appreciate it, really helped it a lot  . I vs'd the same thing a few games later and was able to hold it because of your help! Thanks guys! | ||
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OtherWorld
France17333 Posts
On June 09 2015 02:38 SummitSC2 wrote: best build for me is the 10.30 hydra ling timing that you can find here on the forums just search for "aggresive zvp" you also can try to make a ling bane bust from 3 bases that hits at about 8min. can work really good if you catch your oppnonent off guard (not recommendend on vani research) for mid/late game you are best with roach hydra viper and a muta switch once you reached 5 bases. but i agree, it can be really frustrating without the old swarmhosts. Thanks, I'll give it a shot | ||
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AssyrianKing
Australia2123 Posts
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zerge
Germany162 Posts
On June 08 2015 14:51 Ej_ wrote: I open 1/1 roaches a lot and actually am almost always happy to see people make tanks. You can easily transition out of roaches into ling/bane/(roach)/muta and Terran is left with nearly useless tanks (gas from which could have been spent on marauders, medivacs or upgrades [so many people forget/cut them in tvz seriously]). The real bane of roaches are people who make 2+ banshes, but then you can just sit back and hit the aforementioned 2/2 roach/hydra timing so that kind of evens out.. And I definitely recommend all kinds of muta->0/0 or 1/1 speed baneling busts. Very fun builds and if they open with heavy hellion/banshee it gets incredibly easy to kill them. From my experience 2-3 banshees alone don't do much against a 25 1-1 speedroaches between 9:45 and 10:00 minutes. Maybe my opponents are just not good enaugh (high-ish masters eu). It's a pretty simple build so it might just fail when i hit better opponents since i can not improve the timing that much. | ||
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FlyingBeer
United States262 Posts
On June 10 2015 22:21 AssyrianKing wrote: How to defend a hellbat/marine or hellbat/marauder rush ? It depends on scouting. Vs factory before cc they can hit an earlier timing. A standard expansion timing from terran is less dangerous. You should be suiciding an overlord at 7:00 to scout their main; 6:30 if they expanded late. I check for tech lab at starport which means banshees and if they have a third cc which means less danger. I ignore gas; too many players have incorrect gas timings at all levels of play. I always have four queens and a roach Warren started around 6:00. I'll get 2-4 roaches depending on how much danger I'm in depending on scouting. 2 roaches is for 3 fast cc builds. 4 is for late expansions. What you build to defend will depend on your build order. You'll either need a baneling nest or a roach warren up in time to defend; a roach Warren is easier. Do not lose your early units. Kite back and pull drones out of the natural if necessary until more roaches arrive. Obviously you should be producing non stop units as soon as you scout 8 hellions. | ||
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brickrd
United States4894 Posts
On June 11 2015 02:25 FlyingBeer wrote: I ignore gas; too many players have incorrect gas timings at all levels of play. i disagree completely, this is a crazy attitude. you need a minimum amount of gas to make certain techs (armory, cloak banshee, etc.) and there's no magical way to get around that. the point of scouting gas is to know if you need to be prepared for a tech or not. and if their gas timing is early and you invest in defense anyway, well you're fine because you're playing against someone with an awful build, but at least you don't die to things that can happen off of 2 gas. and if their gas is late then the build is going to suck, it's the same reason you don't have to scout for proxy rax on the other side of the map. maybe in gold league there are better things to FOCUS on, but even at lower levels gas tells you something. it tells you what's POSSIBLE. furthermore from how you describe your play you are just an extremely safe player who uses a defensive build - not everyone wants to play blindly safe. sure if you make roaches and lots of queens every game you'll be safe, but that's not the optimal way to play for everyone or everyone's preferred style, and it's never wrong to learn how to scout better | ||
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TRaFFiC
Canada1448 Posts
I got many questions. Do you need to spread with "s" or do mutas just spread naturally? When you fly over the enemy army and then hold position, do you then target some thors? Otherwise you're wasting shots on the rest of the army. Which upgrades should I get? +1 carapace negates +2 attack (so thors can't 2 shot mutas). worth it to get it after +1 attack? Other tips? 2) Where a good place to get high master/gm replays these days? Any places where you can find targeted replays (several replays show casing the same build)? | ||
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velvex
Germany226 Posts
Usually, you don't target while magic boxing because that would lead to clumping, but there may be cases where it's beneficial, e.g. because it saves time and allows you to escape from arriving reinforcements. Magic boxing is quite easy to learn because you don't need an opponent to practice it. You can just go into a unit tester and figure it out until you feel comfortable. Not entirely sure about the upgrade question. I would usually prefer attack over carapace in ZvT by a large margin because your mutas fight so often without anything shooting back, but my experience in mutas vs mech is also very limited. | ||
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OtherWorld
France17333 Posts
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WirdenSC2
France4 Posts
On June 13 2015 02:17 OtherWorld wrote: What is the answer to a scouted 14/14 when opening gasless hatch first? I tried to spread creep with the 25 first energy on my queen at the nat in order to wall-off in time and then defend with the 4 queens until I get roaches out, but they always kill my wall before I get roaches out You just can't go for roaches when you scout 14/14. Take your gas, use it to make your Baneling Nest and morph some when you can. Keep your queens on the ramp and have a look on your opponent's natural. When he expends, then drones. And you should be ahead. | ||
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velvex
Germany226 Posts
On June 13 2015 02:17 OtherWorld wrote: What is the answer to a scouted 14/14 when opening gasless hatch first? I tried to spread creep with the 25 first energy on my queen at the nat in order to wall-off in time and then defend with the 4 queens until I get roaches out, but they always kill my wall before I get roaches out Watch this video by Fenner. It's old, but 14/14 hasn't changed since. On June 13 2015 02:36 WirdenSC2 wrote: You just can't go for roaches when you scout 14/14. Take your gas, use it to make your Baneling Nest and morph some when you can. Keep your queens on the ramp and have a look on your opponent's natural. When he expends, then drones. And you should be ahead. I wouldn't go gas reactively against a 14/14. Your gas can be as late as 4:00, and your banelings may not finish before your opponent has speed. It can and will often work, but the gasless defence is more reliable and pretty much foolproof. | ||
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WirdenSC2
France4 Posts
The gasless defense is more than reliable. It works perfectly. But a gas with 2 drones can make you win by progressing in the tech tree (roaches, speedling, banelings, T2 ... ). It depends on your opponent. Coz if its just an opening speedling into B2, 5-10 lings to map control and fast B3, you'll not be able to punish him with queens, spines and drones and you'll fall behind. That's why, i like to have my gas. It costs "nothing" and prepare you for the middle game. | ||
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velvex
Germany226 Posts
Dealing with 14/14 eco is simply about not over-committing to defence, while still being prepared for random waves of lings. That's pretty much independent of your tech choice. | ||
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TRaFFiC
Canada1448 Posts
On June 12 2015 21:13 velvex wrote: Mutas spread naturally as long as they're stacked and are not receiving repeated move commands in the middle of the muta ball. So the stop command as used by Lowko in the video is just a means of canceling the clumping caused by a previous move command. You can use the hold position command just as well or simply do nothing and wait until your mutas have unstacked. Usually, you don't target while magic boxing because that would lead to clumping, but there may be cases where it's beneficial, e.g. because it saves time and allows you to escape from arriving reinforcements. Magic boxing is quite easy to learn because you don't need an opponent to practice it. You can just go into a unit tester and figure it out until you feel comfortable. Not entirely sure about the upgrade question. I would usually prefer attack over carapace in ZvT by a large margin because your mutas fight so often without anything shooting back, but my experience in mutas vs mech is also very limited. Thx for the tips man. I've always been a more of a fan of roach/hydra/viper vs mech, but I've been trying the 2 base muta build and find it transitions nicely into roach/muta. | ||
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SummitSC2
Austria8 Posts
i just played a game where a terran stayed on 1 base for 17 mins going for pure hellbats, medivacs,banshees and later on thors and mines. how would you recommend defending this? its just so frustrating seeing a player who has 1600 minerals at the 10min mark just run over me like its nothing, banshees are just a joke you need at least 3 spore crawlers to defend a base properly (just look how i lost my 3rd at 12.00) http://ggtracker.com/matches/6034343 ps: i might should have went for roaches but most of the times i can defend a 1 base all in with ling and bling (diamond btw) | ||
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