On July 21 2013 11:17 LordYama wrote: What's the best counter against someone who masses ravens? Spores? Mutas or Corruptors? Infestors? How do you keep from losing massive amounts of units to seekers or having your attacks neutralized by PDD?
Unless You're Facing ketroc, theres a reason nobody does that in high leagues; very hard to obtain and extreme cost. Kill them before they get it. If they do manage to get them, you can methodicaly go spore/viper/swarm host(some SHs so no ground units surprise you) and pull in the ravens. He will be forced to lose a lot of groun dand you can expand a lot. That, or you can even chain fungal him, neural a raven and HSM the chain fungaled group. Very cost effective if you have the APM for it.
On July 22 2013 01:29 mXWPRIME wrote: Im still losing vs mass muta in ZvZ i usually manage to get ahead in the early-midgame but then i struggle to get the killing push with my roach hydra (sometimes infestors)
this is so annoying because i really try to avoid playing mass muta myself in this matchup.
You didn't really get ahead on early mid game. You only thought that. Most of the time you were just even. The key turning point of that battle was that you lost your entire army by running it across the map and only managed to kill a spire. At that point he lost 2000 resources, you lost 4000. Just because he goes muta, does not mean you just sac your army. Muta doesn't even do much now because of spore crawler buff (maybe you didn't know about it). You should make a bunch of spores, saturate your third, mass up roach and hydra, then push. After you lost your roach army, he was so far in the lead and banking so much resources that he could have made whatever he wanted and still won.
It's all related to your playstyle. I play very aggressively on low/mid eco. Terrans are generally better at surviving unless you finish them off completely, and they are superior in really low economy situations. While protoss (from experiernce) has a much harder time staying ahead in early/mid aggressions.
And in ZvZ... it's always 50/50 when going ling/bling wars or roach aggression etc. :p
If you're dying to storm/immortal/msc, try to switch things up and attacking earlier? I mean, having both storm as robo tech out takes quite a while. And if you don't/can't, try working on your control or army compositions.
Can you give more info on your compositions or details on why you keep losing?
Vortix is facing grubby. Grubby takes a hidden 3rd which is NEVER spotted the entire game, grubby is way ahead on economy. Grubby has archon/storm/colossus/immortal and gateway cannon fodder, which seems to be the compositions you have trouble with.
Vortix is going Ultralisks (yup), lings, roach, hydra, viper. Vortix continues to win the game, even after losing his 3rd and 4th to DTs multiple times, and not spotting grubby's 4th.
Ultralisks tank incoming storms/damage quite well, while the rest of your army can go to town on his army, I was surprised how well that composition worked.
On July 22 2013 01:29 mXWPRIME wrote: Im still losing vs mass muta in ZvZ i usually manage to get ahead in the early-midgame but then i struggle to get the killing push with my roach hydra (sometimes infestors)
this is so annoying because i really try to avoid playing mass muta myself in this matchup.
You didn't really get ahead on early mid game. You only thought that. Most of the time you were just even. The key turning point of that battle was that you lost your entire army by running it across the map and only managed to kill a spire. At that point he lost 2000 resources, you lost 4000. Just because he goes muta, does not mean you just sac your army. Muta doesn't even do much now because of spore crawler buff (maybe you didn't know about it). You should make a bunch of spores, saturate your third, mass up roach and hydra, then push. After you lost your roach army, he was so far in the lead and banking so much resources that he could have made whatever he wanted and still won.
rewatched the replay twice. thanks a lot for this quick response!
soo, i should basically sit on 3 bases and wait for the push until i have 200supply full of roach hydra infestor?
On July 22 2013 01:29 mXWPRIME wrote: Im still losing vs mass muta in ZvZ i usually manage to get ahead in the early-midgame but then i struggle to get the killing push with my roach hydra (sometimes infestors)
this is so annoying because i really try to avoid playing mass muta myself in this matchup.
You didn't really get ahead on early mid game. You only thought that. Most of the time you were just even. The key turning point of that battle was that you lost your entire army by running it across the map and only managed to kill a spire. At that point he lost 2000 resources, you lost 4000. Just because he goes muta, does not mean you just sac your army. Muta doesn't even do much now because of spore crawler buff (maybe you didn't know about it). You should make a bunch of spores, saturate your third, mass up roach and hydra, then push. After you lost your roach army, he was so far in the lead and banking so much resources that he could have made whatever he wanted and still won.
rewatched the replay twice. thanks a lot for this quick response!
soo, i should basically sit on 3 bases and wait for the push until i have 200supply full of roach hydra infestor?
it comes down to spores destroy mutas and roaches in a choke, aka between a base or in a ball, do well vs lings so its hard for them to attack into you. a good muta playing zerg is going to take the map faster then you but at the end of the day your army is better and turtle favors you.
now if you wait TOO long they will tech swap to SH or broods which actually will destroy your roach ball so be careful
So, I may just be insanely stupid and bad in ZvT but I have REALLY a lot of problems in this MU. Unfortunately I have no replays, but I think I can describe a prototypical game quite well:
Let's take Neo Planet S as an example, because that happened just yesterday (but I can't find the replay). The game starts of quite normal, Ling/Bane/Muta to keep up against the Bio/Mine pressure. Everything works out okay, not really cost efficient, but since I'm able to establish 5 bases I thought I'd be alright. On the other hand he also expands behind it, I can't really pressure these expansions because I need all my units to defend. However, it works out, I reach my Hive Tech, get my Ultralisks out, Greater Spire (To be prepared for a lot of marauders), 3/3 tech.
Now the problem: At some point I got to attack. I sacrificed my mobility for an army that stands a chance against a late game Terran army in a direct engagement. As soon as I attack, lets say to the bottom of the map and the Terran sees it, he just takes all his units, moves to the top and avoids my army and maybe drops his units on different locations. I'm mid map with my army, now I got to decide: I either go back, might be able to defend in the end, but I'll definitely lose a lot of my tech. Or I go for the counter, might destroy his tech, but will probably not be able to kill his army in the end. I tried to counter, but his reinforcements did enough dmg to kill me in the end with his main army which returned to the party as soon as he killed the tech in my main.
The main problem I face is therefore: How long is it worth staying on Muta/Ling/Bane for the mobility and when is it worth it to sacrifice the mobility to be able to face the army? All the ZvT's I win are over in the mid game while I got my mobility, as soon as I need my Hive tech, my win% is probably lower than 10% because I don't know how to react to drops/Counter attacks etc. with the slower hive-tech units. I already thought about leaving some parts of my army behind to be able to defend, but then I'll probably just get crushed on both fronts. Spine Crawler's might be a way to do it, but the Bio-army kills these Spines so fast...
On July 22 2013 22:15 Swisslink wrote: So, I may just be insanely stupid and bad in ZvT but I have REALLY a lot of problems in this MU. Unfortunately I have no replays, but I think I can describe a prototypical game quite well:
Let's take Neo Planet S as an example, because that happened just yesterday (but I can't find the replay). The game starts of quite normal, Ling/Bane/Muta to keep up against the Bio/Mine pressure. Everything works out okay, not really cost efficient, but since I'm able to establish 5 bases I thought I'd be alright. On the other hand he also expands behind it, I can't really pressure these expansions because I need all my units to defend. However, it works out, I reach my Hive Tech, get my Ultralisks out, Greater Spire (To be prepared for a lot of marauders), 3/3 tech.
Now the problem: At some point I got to attack. I sacrificed my mobility for an army that stands a chance against a late game Terran army in a direct engagement. As soon as I attack, lets say to the bottom of the map and the Terran sees it, he just takes all his units, moves to the top and avoids my army and maybe drops his units on different locations. I'm mid map with my army, now I got to decide: I either go back, might be able to defend in the end, but I'll definitely lose a lot of my tech. Or I go for the counter, might destroy his tech, but will probably not be able to kill his army in the end. I tried to counter, but his reinforcements did enough dmg to kill me in the end with his main army which returned to the party as soon as he killed the tech in my main.
The main problem I face is therefore: How long is it worth staying on Muta/Ling/Bane for the mobility and when is it worth it to sacrifice the mobility to be able to face the army? All the ZvT's I win are over in the mid game while I got my mobility, as soon as I need my Hive tech, my win% is probably lower than 10% because I don't know how to react to drops/Counter attacks etc. with the slower hive-tech units. I already thought about leaving some parts of my army behind to be able to defend, but then I'll probably just get crushed on both fronts. Spine Crawler's might be a way to do it, but the Bio-army kills these Spines so fast...
Very annoying play style to face, I will admit. If they're massing marauders at that point, stay with mass ling; ultras are near-worthless and broods are extremely immobile. If he's investing everything into countering, retreat and pull some units off to kill his infrastructure and economy. You will force him to retreat as he can't engage you, but he should be retreating to a weak economy and less infrastructure. Reinforcements will kill your squadron of counterattackers, but if you have an ultra or two there he will lose a lot. For a planetary, counter that will ultras, and keep some banes for when he repairs. Hell, go straight for scvs. DON'T LOSE YOUR MUTAS at ANY point in the game until absolute end game. They help clean up drops and small counters so well If that doesn't work, spine the sh*t out of one or two expos, get some infestors and/or vipers/SHs there to reinforce defense and he can't kill your countering army (which if you're doing this should be everything), and he will/should lose all his economy while you have one base left running. If he floats, well, you got mutas. Very tedious to play against. Spreading creep is very very useful for this.
On July 22 2013 01:29 mXWPRIME wrote: Im still losing vs mass muta in ZvZ i usually manage to get ahead in the early-midgame but then i struggle to get the killing push with my roach hydra (sometimes infestors)
this is so annoying because i really try to avoid playing mass muta myself in this matchup.
You didn't really get ahead on early mid game. You only thought that. Most of the time you were just even. The key turning point of that battle was that you lost your entire army by running it across the map and only managed to kill a spire. At that point he lost 2000 resources, you lost 4000. Just because he goes muta, does not mean you just sac your army. Muta doesn't even do much now because of spore crawler buff (maybe you didn't know about it). You should make a bunch of spores, saturate your third, mass up roach and hydra, then push. After you lost your roach army, he was so far in the lead and banking so much resources that he could have made whatever he wanted and still won.
rewatched the replay twice. thanks a lot for this quick response!
soo, i should basically sit on 3 bases and wait for the push until i have 200supply full of roach hydra infestor?
it comes down to spores destroy mutas and roaches in a choke, aka between a base or in a ball, do well vs lings so its hard for them to attack into you. a good muta playing zerg is going to take the map faster then you but at the end of the day your army is better and turtle favors you.
now if you wait TOO long they will tech swap to SH or broods which actually will destroy your roach ball so be careful
So, should I go for a roach hydra infestor push, or push with....roach spore? Or can I even go for some roach queen nydus play, which is pretty gimmicky.
I'm part of the US Navy, and have been underway for the last 3-4 months. I haven't had the opportuninty to play ladder since leaving, but have been keeping up to date on TL to understand what the norm is. I heard about Stephano's turtle style and was curious as to having SH's being Nydus'ed all over an opposing players multiple bases, nydus through, burrow for some free units to snipe as many worker kills as possible, and Nydus away to another expo trying to casue as much economic damage as possible while also attacking multiple places at once.
On July 22 2013 01:29 mXWPRIME wrote: Im still losing vs mass muta in ZvZ i usually manage to get ahead in the early-midgame but then i struggle to get the killing push with my roach hydra (sometimes infestors)
this is so annoying because i really try to avoid playing mass muta myself in this matchup.
You didn't really get ahead on early mid game. You only thought that. Most of the time you were just even. The key turning point of that battle was that you lost your entire army by running it across the map and only managed to kill a spire. At that point he lost 2000 resources, you lost 4000. Just because he goes muta, does not mean you just sac your army. Muta doesn't even do much now because of spore crawler buff (maybe you didn't know about it). You should make a bunch of spores, saturate your third, mass up roach and hydra, then push. After you lost your roach army, he was so far in the lead and banking so much resources that he could have made whatever he wanted and still won.
rewatched the replay twice. thanks a lot for this quick response!
soo, i should basically sit on 3 bases and wait for the push until i have 200supply full of roach hydra infestor?
now if you wait TOO long they will tech swap to SH which actually will destroy your roach ball so be careful
i strongly believe mutas into swarm hosts aren't very good in zvz if you counter them perfectly. there's the cheap way to just build up a hidden muta ball while pressuring on 4 bases but the potentially best way imo is a big 3 base low drone count attack with roach lots of hydra full energy infestor + speedblings.
supposed to work like this: fungal the locusts and keep them out of range, kill bases. move where swarm hosts aren't. chances are he spread lots of creep for locusts, use that to your advantage. if you're going for a big fight be sure to have at least 3 overseers and be as close as possible to his swarm host position as possible. blow up the locusts with speed blings! but you have to be very decisive here: you will have to know that you're in a position to rush in after killing the locusts, backing out would just mean throwing away ressources. charge in very quickly and chain fungal the next wave of locusts outside of attack range while hydras dps down everything.
that's of course a lot harder to execute than rallying locusts and maybe some burrow micro here and there but i really believe that swarm hosts are supposed to lose vs perfect execution of that tactic.
On July 23 2013 00:31 IvDfission wrote: Speaking of Nydus play, I have a question.
I'm part of the US Navy, and have been underway for the last 3-4 months. I haven't had the opportuninty to play ladder since leaving, but have been keeping up to date on TL to understand what the norm is. I heard about Stephano's turtle style and was curious as to having SH's being Nydus'ed all over an opposing players multiple bases, nydus through, burrow for some free units to snipe as many worker kills as possible, and Nydus away to another expo trying to casue as much economic damage as possible while also attacking multiple places at once.
Would this style sound viable at all?
no cause nydus sucks balls and gets hard countered by workers. but it does sound awesome. wish nydus would get some kind of redesign that would make it viable.
On July 22 2013 01:29 mXWPRIME wrote: Im still losing vs mass muta in ZvZ i usually manage to get ahead in the early-midgame but then i struggle to get the killing push with my roach hydra (sometimes infestors)
this is so annoying because i really try to avoid playing mass muta myself in this matchup.
You didn't really get ahead on early mid game. You only thought that. Most of the time you were just even. The key turning point of that battle was that you lost your entire army by running it across the map and only managed to kill a spire. At that point he lost 2000 resources, you lost 4000. Just because he goes muta, does not mean you just sac your army. Muta doesn't even do much now because of spore crawler buff (maybe you didn't know about it). You should make a bunch of spores, saturate your third, mass up roach and hydra, then push. After you lost your roach army, he was so far in the lead and banking so much resources that he could have made whatever he wanted and still won.
rewatched the replay twice. thanks a lot for this quick response!
soo, i should basically sit on 3 bases and wait for the push until i have 200supply full of roach hydra infestor?
it comes down to spores destroy mutas and roaches in a choke, aka between a base or in a ball, do well vs lings so its hard for them to attack into you. a good muta playing zerg is going to take the map faster then you but at the end of the day your army is better and turtle favors you.
now if you wait TOO long they will tech swap to SH or broods which actually will destroy your roach ball so be careful
So, should I go for a roach hydra infestor push, or push with....roach spore? Or can I even go for some roach queen nydus play, which is pretty gimmicky.
So, here's what I like to do. First off, you have to identify what your opponent is doing. Lots of Muta players use a group of mutas to cover for their teching, in order to make sure that you can't move out. So you have to figure out this; A) My opponent is massing mutas entirely, and seems not to be prioritizing tech builds B) My opponent is getting 10-15 mutas, and then switching to Ultras.
One of the biggest tells of teching, usually to Ultras, is going double evo. If your opponent has seemed to stop producing mutas/air uprades, then he's probably trying to get to Ultras.
If your opponent is getting 20-30 mutas and continuing to get upgrades, they're probably going for a muta based style.
So, in situation A, I prefer a 160 supply 1/1 Roach Speed/Burrow timing attack to hit right before any sort of Ultra tech is in play. Continue to rally groups of roaches to his 3rd/4th/5th to kill economy, as well as splitting a handful of them off from the original group, and go into the natural/main to snipe tech and drones. As he brings his mutas to kill your roaches, burrow them and focus on another group. Once the other group is attacked, burrow and then unburrow the others. In the chaos, it's likely your opponent may forget or misplace overseers entirely, allowing you to do huge damage. This attack, if performed correctly, will set their economy far enough behind that they won't be able to afford any Ultra tech, and you may even be able to take out the Hive or Ultra Cavern. After that attack, provided your opponent doesn't just leave, start 2/2 upgrades, as well as Hydra speed, and remax on Roach/Hydra for a killing blow.
Situation B is a little more tricky. Hydras are highly vulnerable to banelings, and it's likely he'll be getting that tech to deal with any sort of roach hydra push. This means that you absolutely need 3-4 infestors to lock the banelings in place, as well as an overseer to ensure that they don't burrow them and destroy your army. As long as they're not getting Ultras, and you use fungals to control the ground, Roach/Hydra/Infestor will simply crush a Muta/Ling/Bane composition.
The key is accurate scouting, because if you wait to max out on Roach/Hydra/Infestor, and he's got Ultras out to meet you, you're probably going to lose the game. Use changelings constantly, and never be afraid to throw away groups of lings to scout expansions and tech.
I would love to give you a replay of the style, but unfortunately I cannot remember the last time someone went mass muta against me. If I come across a replay, I'll be sure to post it here.
On July 23 2013 00:31 IvDfission wrote: Speaking of Nydus play, I have a question.
I'm part of the US Navy, and have been underway for the last 3-4 months. I haven't had the opportuninty to play ladder since leaving, but have been keeping up to date on TL to understand what the norm is. I heard about Stephano's turtle style and was curious as to having SH's being Nydus'ed all over an opposing players multiple bases, nydus through, burrow for some free units to snipe as many worker kills as possible, and Nydus away to another expo trying to casue as much economic damage as possible while also attacking multiple places at once.
Would this style sound viable at all?
Actually, some players have begun using similar styles to this.
Highlight #1 shows Snute using Nydus/Swarmhost to defend his third, as well as put pressure on Alicia's front. It seems pretty viable on larger maps, as long as you can have reasonably good scouting of where your enemies army is.
On July 22 2013 01:29 mXWPRIME wrote: Im still losing vs mass muta in ZvZ i usually manage to get ahead in the early-midgame but then i struggle to get the killing push with my roach hydra (sometimes infestors)
this is so annoying because i really try to avoid playing mass muta myself in this matchup.
You didn't really get ahead on early mid game. You only thought that. Most of the time you were just even. The key turning point of that battle was that you lost your entire army by running it across the map and only managed to kill a spire. At that point he lost 2000 resources, you lost 4000. Just because he goes muta, does not mean you just sac your army. Muta doesn't even do much now because of spore crawler buff (maybe you didn't know about it). You should make a bunch of spores, saturate your third, mass up roach and hydra, then push. After you lost your roach army, he was so far in the lead and banking so much resources that he could have made whatever he wanted and still won.
rewatched the replay twice. thanks a lot for this quick response!
soo, i should basically sit on 3 bases and wait for the push until i have 200supply full of roach hydra infestor?
it comes down to spores destroy mutas and roaches in a choke, aka between a base or in a ball, do well vs lings so its hard for them to attack into you. a good muta playing zerg is going to take the map faster then you but at the end of the day your army is better and turtle favors you.
now if you wait TOO long they will tech swap to SH or broods which actually will destroy your roach ball so be careful
So, should I go for a roach hydra infestor push, or push with....roach spore? Or can I even go for some roach queen nydus play, which is pretty gimmicky.
So, here's what I like to do. First off, you have to identify what your opponent is doing. Lots of Muta players use a group of mutas to cover for their teching, in order to make sure that you can't move out. So you have to figure out this; A) My opponent is massing mutas entirely, and seems not to be prioritizing tech builds B) My opponent is getting 10-15 mutas, and then switching to Ultras.
One of the biggest tells of teching, usually to Ultras, is going double evo. If your opponent has seemed to stop producing mutas/air uprades, then he's probably trying to get to Ultras.
If your opponent is getting 20-30 mutas and continuing to get upgrades, they're probably going for a muta based style.
So, in situation A, I prefer a 160 supply 1/1 Roach Speed/Burrow timing attack to hit right before any sort of Ultra tech is in play. Continue to rally groups of roaches to his 3rd/4th/5th to kill economy, as well as splitting a handful of them off from the original group, and go into the natural/main to snipe tech and drones. As he brings his mutas to kill your roaches, burrow them and focus on another group. Once the other group is attacked, burrow and then unburrow the others. In the chaos, it's likely your opponent may forget or misplace overseers entirely, allowing you to do huge damage. This attack, if performed correctly, will set their economy far enough behind that they won't be able to afford any Ultra tech, and you may even be able to take out the Hive or Ultra Cavern. After that attack, provided your opponent doesn't just leave, start 2/2 upgrades, as well as Hydra speed, and remax on Roach/Hydra for a killing blow.
Situation B is a little more tricky. Hydras are highly vulnerable to banelings, and it's likely he'll be getting that tech to deal with any sort of roach hydra push. This means that you absolutely need 3-4 infestors to lock the banelings in place, as well as an overseer to ensure that they don't burrow them and destroy your army. As long as they're not getting Ultras, and you use fungals to control the ground, Roach/Hydra/Infestor will simply crush a Muta/Ling/Bane composition.
The key is accurate scouting, because if you wait to max out on Roach/Hydra/Infestor, and he's got Ultras out to meet you, you're probably going to lose the game. Use changelings constantly, and never be afraid to throw away groups of lings to scout expansions and tech.
I would love to give you a replay of the style, but unfortunately I cannot remember the last time someone went mass muta against me. If I come across a replay, I'll be sure to post it here.
thank you so much im sure this will help me a lot in the future!
RE: FAQ's response to reacting to 10 pool when you opened 15pool
"You can identify whether it's a macro 10 pool if you opponent takes a hatchery (your first scouting overlord should be parked at the natural). If your opponent does not take a hatchery at a reasonable time (I will edit in the exact time stamp tomorrow, I'm tired), then immediately do NOT inject with your queens and pull both to the ramp. Build a spine in your main, at the edge of the creep closest to the ramp. If you took gas, build a baneling nest before speed. Get ready to hit some snap transfuses are banelings crash into your queens. As long as you can buy time for your own banelings to come up, you're in good shape.
Constantly sink your money into lings, and when possible, a few extra queens never hurt anyone."
A 10pool will hit before 2nd queen is up.
I generally open gasless (roaches), and usually spot the cheese at the time of laying down my hatchery since I drone scout at 10. The thing is I'm clueless at how to react to that information.
Should I macro hatch or expand anyway (in case of a macro 10 even if more often than not it will be a 10/10/10 baneling all-in.) ? If they do cheese and my ramp is blocked, they will inevitably attack my expansion to force me down. Should I just let him bite on it and cancel last minute?
Should I block ramp with Queen+Drones/Zerglings until my 2nd Queen gets there? In this case, should I do my first inject or stack energy? If I'm on 1 base with no injects will I have enough larvae to hold?
Considering I opened gasless, should I take gas ASAP and rush a baneling nest? Keep on focusing lings only? Build more queens? Try to crawl my way up to roaches?
I understand that building the spine at the edge of creep is meant to uproot it down to the natural once its done... but if I had to cancel my expansion, how do I make use of it if it can't reach the ramp? Is it worth the energy to make a creep tumor to bring the spine closer?
Once you get your 2nd queen on the ramp, is there any situation where you would drone up your main while he's camping your natural, or you keep making units until you repel him?
As you can see I'm not comfortable with zerg early game agression. Pretty much why I open gasless into roaches... I'm even crappier at attacking with ling/banes than defending.
"You can identify whether it's a macro 10 pool if you opponent takes a hatchery (your first scouting overlord should be parked at the natural). If your opponent does not take a hatchery at a reasonable time (I will edit in the exact time stamp tomorrow, I'm tired), then immediately do NOT inject with your queens and pull both to the ramp. Build a spine in your main, at the edge of the creep closest to the ramp. If you took gas, build a baneling nest before speed. Get ready to hit some snap transfuses are banelings crash into your queens. As long as you can buy time for your own banelings to come up, you're in good shape.
Constantly sink your money into lings, and when possible, a few extra queens never hurt anyone."
A 10pool will hit before 2nd queen is up.
I generally open gasless (roaches), and usually spot the cheese at the time of laying down my hatchery since I drone scout at 10. The thing is I'm clueless at how to react to that information.
Should I macro hatch or expand anyway (in case of a macro 10 even if more often than not it will be a 10/10/10 baneling all-in.) ? If they do cheese and my ramp is blocked, they will inevitably attack my expansion to force me down. Should I just let him bite on it and cancel last minute?
Should I block ramp with Queen+Drones/Zerglings until my 2nd Queen gets there? In this case, should I do my first inject or stack energy? If I'm on 1 base with no injects will I have enough larvae to hold?
Considering I opened gasless, should I take gas ASAP and rush a baneling nest? Keep on focusing lings only? Build more queens? Try to crawl my way up to roaches?
I understand that building the spine at the edge of creep is meant to uproot it down to the natural once its done... but if I had to cancel my expansion, how do I make use of it if it can't reach the ramp? Is it worth the energy to make a creep tumor to bring the spine closer?
Once you get your 2nd queen on the ramp, is there any situation where you would drone up your main while he's camping your natural, or you keep making units until you repel him?
As you can see I'm not comfortable with zerg early game agression. Pretty much why I open gasless into roaches... I'm even crappier at attacking with ling/banes than defending.
So, I open the same way, gasless until about 44 supply to get roaches/tech. I don't think a drone scout is always necessary honestly, but if you want to do it, feel free :D
First off, you should never have to cancel your expansion when dealing with a 10 pool. The key is to start making lings once you become aware of the 10 pool, and then bring your queen down ASAP. You have defenders advantage, which means that you can get lings out to deal with his pretty easily. Overall, you don't need to take gas or rush roaches. Queens and spines are great at holding ling pressure, as long as you can control them correctly.
Basically, when going gasless you want to do three things. 1) Defend your expansion 2) Get out your queens 3) Wall off your ramp
So first, 1. Defending the expo. Since you drone scout, you should be able to scout the pool before his lings are done. This means that when he gets his first 6, you can start your first 2-4. This is pretty important. Hotkey your main hatchery lings to these few lings, and then run back and forth between the expansion and ramp to keep his lings from attacking your hatchery. This is to buy time for your queen to get down to the ramp, and provide support for your lings. Once that queen is there, you can engage those lings as long as you have at least -3 what they have. Most players at this point will back off and take a natural, or back off to morph banelings, because if you're microing your lings and two queens, you'll eventually just overwhelm the 10 pool with superior larva count. Also, about halfway through your first queen's production, you want to make a spine. You should have an overlord in position to check for the expansion, if there's not one, it's almost always some form of baneling allin. You can now resume droning.
2) Getting out your queens. The most important part of a gasless expand defense is keeping your queens alive, and constantly producing them. Slow lings are terrible defense, and should only be made if you are absolutely about to die, and need them to clean up lings that got past your defense. You shouldn't have more than 6-8 of them in your defense. At the same time that you're making your queens, you want to also be making spines. You should have 2-3 if they're expanding, and as many as your pretty little heart desires if they're not. But really you should make as many as you can afford at that point. Don't be afraid to lose injects on your main hatchery, as the transfuse energy is good. I always go up to 3-4 queens when going roach, but 5-6 are acceptable if you're really far ahead. They're useful eventually anyway, and you'll have a ton more resources than your opponent.
3) Walling off. Double evo/roach warren. If the map isn't Akilon wastes or whirlwind, do not put your spines in your wall. It's stupid and lets them baneling bust a queen and spine at the same time, as most 10 poolers do seem fond of allinning later on in the game as well. Try to tuck it between two evos or something. Once you have your wall off ready, place three queens near the choke, and resume normal roach play.
I don't do so great in this replay, but I'm able to hold off a 10 pool without losing the hatchery and getting queens/a wall up. So the only thing I did wrong here was make far too many lings, mostly due to just not thinking :D You only need 6-8, not like 16 haha. http://drop.sc/350443 The person 10-pooling is a rank 5 Master, so I assume he did it correctly. Dunno, not a 10 pooler.
EDIT: Got 10 pooled again, this game shows you how to use the lings to save the hatchery: http://drop.sc/350445 This guy is only like, rank ~30 masters, but the micro is what's important.
Wow CivilAnarchy that was very helpful. Those games actually looked so easy to defend it makes me wonder why I overthink this problem that much.
Do you have any replays of people going all-in with a 10/10/10 baneling rush, or perhaps mass ling committed attack that hits before queen#2 is out?
For example, I could see the 3-4 early banelings of a 10/10/10 rush being a problem with a 6-8 slowlings defense. Do you just park your queens on the ramp with a spine or two at the bottom and wait for queen #3 and queen#4 to pop for injects?
Also, final question. How do you go about opening gasless on Korhal Sky Island LE when spawning on the 4o'clock and 11'oclock positions?
Thank you very much for your tips!
BTW Nexlux is also fantastic. He helped me a lot as a (free) coach on nerdupgrades.com and he posts a lot on reddit/allthingszerg. I'll make sure to let him know he's featured on TL.
I'm sure this has been asked already but I wouldn't know where to find it in this thread. In ZvP, what do you do when the Protoss pylon blocks your natural? I open 14 pool so do I pull 3 drones to kill it? What if they decide to drop something like a gateway when the pylon is finished? I would be only on 1 base and even a gate-expand can get their natural up even before me
On July 23 2013 11:17 learning88 wrote: I'm sure this has been asked already but I wouldn't know where to find it in this thread. In ZvP, what do you do when the Protoss pylon blocks your natural? I open 14 pool so do I pull 3 drones to kill it? What if they decide to drop something like a gateway when the pylon is finished? I would be only on 1 base and even a gate-expand can get their natural up even before me
No you wait for lings, kill the pylon, take expansion. Nothing you can do about it if they choose to do it. Do note though that this does have a drawback for protoss, this will delay their expansion a little bit (not much) but more importantly their tech will be a little delayed.
EPT
