[G] First Overview of HotS Zerg - Page 11

On August 20 2012 17:02 Chaosvuistje wrote:
I keep coming close to beating this style with an odd Mutalisk based style of my own. As if you open mutalisks, he will get ultras out before I can even finish my hive. Ofcourse his upgrades will be better as well, so going for Ultralisk of your own to counter him seems waay too out there. Aside from Ultralisks of your own, nothing on the ground really beats them for cost efficiency.

So what I do is during the time my spire is building ( when I already know that he is going for +1/+1 lings and probably infestors ) I put down my evo chamber and get +1 melee of my own. That'll make my banelings one-shot zerglings again until they finally reach +3/+3, which is way past the time that the usual counter attacks go on. I take my bases and stay defensive while getting drops. The strangest thing against this build is that you have to stay really defensive, even with your Mutalisks, because counter attacks on your bases are just so strong.

Once drop tech finishes, I load up about 6 overlords worth of banelings and spread them out. Infestors are actually really terrible against both overlords and any air unit spread out, so I can easily put them around his fourth base if he took it and snipe it out with mutalisks and zerglings. Once he moves in with lings of his own, you start dropping banes from the overlords that are closest, whiping his army out if he gets too close. Then, when his infestors move in, spread your mutalisks out like mad and start sniping them. The goal is basically to make each fungal so ineffective that he either has to deplete his infestors with infested terran eggs or lose his infestors trying to fungal each of them. If all went well, and he decides to go for a huge attack with Ultras, you should be able to atleast take out the first wave if you can delay the ultras from wrecking your econ too much.

It's pretty tough to do, but since you will almost always take your third and fourth before the ultra-player, you will be ahead economically even if he decides to techswitch into roaches or hydras, while spines are generally really good against those units regardless.

I have some failed attempts of the muta-banedrop play thus far. My actual attack works out really really well, but beforehand I kept getting bases sniped forcing me to stay on the same econ as my opponent. In which case you're pretty much down and out against this infestor-ultra build anyway. They are the closest games I've been able to produce against this style when opening muta anyway, so it's a step in the right direction.

On August 21 2012 07:32 Chaosvuistje wrote:
Alright so here are some games of me playing Muta against this Infestor-Ultra style.

http://drop.sc/241505
http://drop.sc/241506

These two games show the power of the counter attack. Zerglings just shred a base up in seconds so it is absolutely essential to keep up on the defence. This is also why you pretty much need +1 melee so your banelings kill the counter attacks more easily again. There's not really much to talk about in these two replays, mostly just examples of 'defend with your units, any attack is greedy'.

http://drop.sc/241509

This replay shows what I feel you have to do with your army. Make sure you split the mutalisks and overlords out and just set up a perimeter around the opponents fourth with the overlords. Move in with your mutalisks and take care of that hatch. Incase he comes to attack, drop the banelings to ward him off. If his infestors move out too far, you can easily snipe them out with a big magic box.

http://drop.sc/241511

What I consider to be my first true win against this style due to similar skill in my opponent. The big points here are the fact that I walled off the third with evo chambers and just spammed spinecrawlers like there was no tomorrow. Defending any counter attacks with banelings was rather easy, but you have to stay on top with the defense otherwise you will lose your advantage.

Again, the focus of this style is to make sure you deny his fourth for a long time. Overlords with baneligns are essential not because of their damage, but because spread out overlords simply aren't cost effective to fungal. On top of that, if you really want to kill of the overlord, you will have to drop infested terrans out first and then fungal, but you can't move in and the banelings will still kill off the infested terrans once they hatch. Even if the opponent decides to fungal the dropping banes, they would have to do that a ton, wasting energy on cheap units. If you ahve a large enough flock of mutalisks, seconds is all you need to snipe off a hatch, and thats exactly what the overlords give you.

If he decides to counter attack with ultralisks, your insane mutacount should be enough to clean him up. The trick here is to delay his ultras from doing damage to your econ and hatches, that's why you just spam out spinecrawlers when you get your fourth up.

I'll be honest though, this style isn't that easy to execute. You have to constantly babysit your mutalisks and overlords so they don't clump up. The one way you can get absolutely and utterly destroyed is by having your deathflock fungalled in one go. Think of an archon toilet, but much, much sadder to watch.

These replays are all at around 2050-2000 MMR. So take them with a grain of salt if you will.