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[D] High Level Mass SH Build with VOD - Page 3

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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anatase
Profile Joined May 2010
France532 Posts
April 04 2013 22:31 GMT
#41
Toyed a bit with the strat, it works like hell it's incredible. Once you have enough SH to pressure him you're almost free to do w/e you want, if you can handle drops vsT it's so good.
Rekatan
Profile Joined December 2008
United States172 Posts
April 05 2013 01:40 GMT
#42
On April 05 2013 07:31 anatase wrote:
Toyed a bit with the strat, it works like hell it's incredible. Once you have enough SH to pressure him you're almost free to do w/e you want, if you can handle drops vsT it's so good.



:D I'm glad it's working for ya!!

I agree it's REALLY good vs T too, went 5:0 vs T tonight (and that was my worst MU at 50% winrate, long adjustment period to SH vs T for me).

I'll be releasing a ZvT version down the road once my ZvT winrate is 60% or higher
SweKenZo
Profile Joined December 2011
Sweden82 Posts
April 05 2013 12:53 GMT
#43
Nice to see that youre back in business Rekatan! I used to watch your stream alot back in WoL before you took your break. Very informative stream! Good luck in HotS!

About the strat: Looks really vs P. do you open differently against t or z? even random ?
Bronze->Silver->Gold->Platinum->Diamond-> ?
schwza
Profile Joined September 2011
67 Posts
April 05 2013 14:06 GMT
#44
Can you talk about why you overpool instead of 15 pool? Is it to get the 3rd queen out faster? How often do you get win / get a big lead against a nexus first?
pingy[wen]
Profile Joined June 2010
United States157 Posts
April 05 2013 14:31 GMT
#45
i really think nydus would improve this build, it allows less costly/static defense, and if you can get in their base, swarm locust and get out without any losses you can really hurt players.
Rekatan
Profile Joined December 2008
United States172 Posts
April 05 2013 16:16 GMT
#46
On April 05 2013 21:53 SweKenZo wrote:
Nice to see that youre back in business Rekatan! I used to watch your stream alot back in WoL before you took your break. Very informative stream! Good luck in HotS!

About the strat: Looks really vs P. do you open differently against t or z? even random ?


Hey thanks! A lot of people have moved on to *that OTHER game* from back in those days :D Good to see there's still some true believers.

I mass SH vs T and Z as well, though with significantly different timings. I plan on releasing a ZvT swarmhost guide eventually, but the adjustment process has been much more difficult for ZvT (I just finally got to 50% winrate) swarmhosts are just so tricky vs bio, but I went 5:0 last night vs terran due to some overhauls of my early game so I think I'll be at my goal of 60% in no time.

On April 05 2013 23:06 schwza wrote:
Can you talk about why you overpool instead of 15 pool? Is it to get the 3rd queen out faster? How often do you get win / get a big lead against a nexus first?


For 2 base open, 11 overpool is automatically superior economy to 14 pool, and 15 pool is more often than not pylon blocked (in which case 11 overpool is also superior economy). Also, if no probe scout then I can make 4 lings rather than just 2 and this will ALWAYS (100%) win vs blind nexus first, and only loses to proxy gateway if I do something silly like accidentally lose my queen for some reason.
Rekatan
Profile Joined December 2008
United States172 Posts
April 05 2013 16:18 GMT
#47
On April 05 2013 23:31 pingy[wen] wrote:
i really think nydus would improve this build, it allows less costly/static defense, and if you can get in their base, swarm locust and get out without any losses you can really hurt players.


The thing is, at highest level Nydus becomes extremely costly to use. At bronze-gold your odds of the first nydus going up successful are probably 50-75%, by GM it will take 4 or 5 attempts (if not more) for any aggressively positioned nydus worms to finish. It's just not worth the 200/200 to then also need to spend upwards of 500/500 before your aggression can even begin.

Super late game though, absolutely as ameans of repositioning your army quickly, they will help a lot.
Embraced
Profile Joined January 2013
Germany3 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-04-05 21:26:51
April 05 2013 21:25 GMT
#48
This is really awesome! Thank you very much! Great work, Good livecast : ) keep it up!
Blacklizard
Profile Joined May 2007
United States1194 Posts
April 05 2013 21:43 GMT
#49
Great stuff - I've had my eye on Swarmhosts ZvP for a while. From the P perspective, they've worried me to be honest. When MSC had detection, I figured SH rushes were gone at least and got off my high horse to watch things develope. After MSC lost detection I didn't really have enough time to start to figure it out. But your guides are very good and show much more lategame abilities than I had ever gotten to test... very cool stuff to be honest.

By the way, I love love love your emphasis on micro and keeping them alive. They can be so cost effective, it makes sense to focus on micro.

Very glad you are finding success vs T now.

By the way, Leenock used a Nydas for SHs in one of his spur of the moment builds a few weeks back didn't he? Personally I never use a Nydas ZvP when using Swarmhosts though.
Rekatan
Profile Joined December 2008
United States172 Posts
April 05 2013 21:57 GMT
#50

On April 06 2013 06:25 Embraced wrote:
This is really awesome! Thank you very much! Great work, Good livecast : ) keep it up!


Thanks for watching :D I will!!!


On April 06 2013 06:43 Blacklizard wrote:
Great stuff - I've had my eye on Swarmhosts ZvP for a while. From the P perspective, they've worried me to be honest. When MSC had detection, I figured SH rushes were gone at least and got off my high horse to watch things develope. After MSC lost detection I didn't really have enough time to start to figure it out. But your guides are very good and show much more lategame abilities than I had ever gotten to test... very cool stuff to be honest.

By the way, I love love love your emphasis on micro and keeping them alive. They can be so cost effective, it makes sense to focus on micro.

Very glad you are finding success vs T now.

By the way, Leenock used a Nydas for SHs in one of his spur of the moment builds a few weeks back didn't he? Personally I never use a Nydas ZvP when using Swarmhosts though.


Ya, it's definitely on my list. I want to get my ZvT to 60% or so before I begin trying to push my ZvP too far past where it's currently at. I find if I allow myself to develop one matchup at a time, the improvements sink in and solidify. If I try to change all matchups though, then nothing becomes "standard" for me, and I develop no consistency. That said my next guide will probably be ZvT, and then a ZvP 2.0 that adds nydus play as well as any further developments I've had to what you already see ^_^
meijin
Profile Joined October 2010
United States141 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-04-05 22:37:37
April 05 2013 22:36 GMT
#51
been trying this and it has potential (although i have no clue how you even try to do this vs zerg). vT can be difficult vs good players but if you get a guy that just stubbornly keeps making bio its an easy win as long as you dont' get lazy w/ your swarm host positioning and make enough spores/spines to defend drops.

something i haven't seen mentioned tho, is that there's a number of swarm hosts (>16 maybe >20) where it becomes hard to manage them because locusts that spawn off of the back hosts will block your front hosts when you unburrow and try to reposition. you did mention splitting up your swarm host army but i think you need to emphasize it more. its really necessary once you get a bunch of them.

last thing is that i've been having a ton of success opening with this 2 base swarm host build and transitioning into 3 base ultra to finish the game. ultra is a great transition because you already have a bunch of queens to tranfuse them.

great build!
theMutt
Profile Joined October 2011
20 Posts
April 05 2013 23:55 GMT
#52
Two scenarios I am having trouble with (low-mid masters):

1) toss goes stargate play and proceeds to pump out pheonix, lifting and zapping SH. They are way faster than the SH and even IF queens are able to keep up I just can't find a way to make good, even trades. Hydras were my first thought but there doesn't seem to be enough gas to keep up both before a third goes down.

2) are you forced to transition out once the colossi numbers get too high? around 6 or so the locusts dont seem to make contact with any significant number of targets.
Frankie Teardrop
Profile Joined March 2013
United States74 Posts
April 06 2013 00:53 GMT
#53
How many queens are we talking, here?
DashedHopes
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
Canada414 Posts
April 06 2013 02:14 GMT
#54
As a Protoss, i am scared
Rekatan
Profile Joined December 2008
United States172 Posts
April 06 2013 02:19 GMT
#55
On April 06 2013 07:36 meijin wrote:
been trying this and it has potential (although i have no clue how you even try to do this vs zerg). vT can be difficult vs good players but if you get a guy that just stubbornly keeps making bio its an easy win as long as you dont' get lazy w/ your swarm host positioning and make enough spores/spines to defend drops.

something i haven't seen mentioned tho, is that there's a number of swarm hosts (>16 maybe >20) where it becomes hard to manage them because locusts that spawn off of the back hosts will block your front hosts when you unburrow and try to reposition. you did mention splitting up your swarm host army but i think you need to emphasize it more. its really necessary once you get a bunch of them.

last thing is that i've been having a ton of success opening with this 2 base swarm host build and transitioning into 3 base ultra to finish the game. ultra is a great transition because you already have a bunch of queens to tranfuse them.

great build!



16 is usually pretty reasonable, but 20+ they do start to trip over their locusts a bit. There's a few things you can do about this. First off, have some overlords following a few of them around dropping creep - this will speed the locusts along a bit and will both increase your locust efficiency as well as allow your SH to unborrow sooner. Second, consider manually splitting them up a bit before each burrow. I know it's EXTREMELY demanding on your apm, but it greatly improves their damage and survivability. Lastly, if you're 24+, it's time to start the multi prong fun!!

3 base ultra transition definitely has some potential, I just always worry about having upgrades for that switch, it doesn't feel too cool to go from 3/3 ,missile to 0/3 melee, so I try to delay any ultra switch till a couple upgrades have finished.


On April 06 2013 08:55 theMutt wrote:
Two scenarios I am having trouble with (low-mid masters):

1) toss goes stargate play and proceeds to pump out pheonix, lifting and zapping SH. They are way faster than the SH and even IF queens are able to keep up I just can't find a way to make good, even trades. Hydras were my first thought but there doesn't seem to be enough gas to keep up both before a third goes down.

2) are you forced to transition out once the colossi numbers get too high? around 6 or so the locusts dont seem to make contact with any significant number of targets.


1. Keep your queens near your SH at all times, SH are armored units so you have a HUGE window to hit your transfuse before you lose one. Often times he just loses phoenix for free as a result.

2. Nope, though I highly recommend having vipers out by this time. I often these days will split up my swarmhosts and just win with multiprong though, 6-8 collossi still have trouble with 200 supply of swarmhost/roach/queen attacking from two angles.
Rekatan
Profile Joined December 2008
United States172 Posts
April 06 2013 02:19 GMT
#56
On April 06 2013 09:53 Frankie Teardrop wrote:
How many queens are we talking, here?


Minimum of 10, as many as 20-30 vs double stargate :D



On April 06 2013 11:14 DashedHopes wrote:
As a Protoss, i am scared


You should be! >:D
theMutt
Profile Joined October 2011
20 Posts
April 06 2013 03:23 GMT
#57
Wow, I obviously underestimated the # of queens you are using!
Sermokala
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
United States13901 Posts
April 06 2013 03:32 GMT
#58
Can you give a little insight into how you are useing swarm hosts in zvz? I can't help but get murdered by anything be it muta ling bling roach hydra is bad against it but the creep makes it so that they just sit on top of them until their overlord cmes ad kills all my hosts

Do you hydra ling start into hosts or what?
A wise man will say that he knows nothing. We're gona party like its 2752 Hail Dark Brandon
Freshpro59
Profile Joined August 2012
7 Posts
April 06 2013 10:40 GMT
#59

For 2 base open, 11 overpool is automatically superior economy to 14 pool, and 15 pool is more often than not pylon blocked (in which case 11 overpool is also superior economy). Also, if no probe scout then I can make 4 lings rather than just 2 and this will ALWAYS (100%) win vs blind nexus first, and only loses to proxy gateway if I do something silly like accidentally lose my queen for some reason.


Hi ! First of all thank you for the great guide. I like the early pool that you use in your build. But I can't get how can you get a 100% win against nexus first when you make 4 lings. What are you doing with them , what's the priority ? Kill probes ? pylons? delay mining ? Do you bring more lings ? As a low master, most of the times my opponents won't make the differences between 11 pool and 15 pool ? What do you think of making 2 set of lings instead of one if i can get into his main even if he scouted ?

Thank you !
Rekatan
Profile Joined December 2008
United States172 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-04-06 14:46:39
April 06 2013 14:43 GMT
#60
On April 06 2013 12:32 Sermokala wrote:
Can you give a little insight into how you are useing swarm hosts in zvz? I can't help but get murdered by anything be it muta ling bling roach hydra is bad against it but the creep makes it so that they just sit on top of them until their overlord cmes ad kills all my hosts

Do you hydra ling start into hosts or what?


I open 1/1 ling with fast 3rd and then gradually play into hydra/queen/ling and then finally I max out on swarmhosts (if the game lasts that long, ZvZ ends so much earlier than that).

I'd say that 90% of my games end before the SH stage, since SH are effectively used as my ZvZ end game.

There is also a gimmicky build I've developed to deal with gasless opens. Cancel your metabolic and immediately start lair with the 100 gas. Put drones back on gas and grab one more extractor. Also, begin positioning your overlords in a creep highway position.

Infestation pit immediately at lair's finish, continue droning and grab one more extractor (4 will be too many, 3 will barely keep your spending clean). You should have 2-3 swarmhosts with your first spawn, after grabbing enduring locusts. Immediately send them across the map with all queens you've built up to this point escorting. Believe it or not 2 or 3 swarmhosts will do a TON of damage to gasless opens at this stage of the game, so now you can either continue making more swarmhosts and go all-in, or resume droning and let your initial swarmhost count lock them down for a nice long while.

Lastly, once they have reached the standard gasless muta timing, one spore at your swarmhosts will seal the deal, 1 spore + 3 queens > 8-10 mutas once transfuse is taken into consideration ^_^

On April 06 2013 19:40 Freshpro59 wrote:
Show nested quote +

For 2 base open, 11 overpool is automatically superior economy to 14 pool, and 15 pool is more often than not pylon blocked (in which case 11 overpool is also superior economy). Also, if no probe scout then I can make 4 lings rather than just 2 and this will ALWAYS (100%) win vs blind nexus first, and only loses to proxy gateway if I do something silly like accidentally lose my queen for some reason.


Hi ! First of all thank you for the great guide. I like the early pool that you use in your build. But I can't get how can you get a 100% win against nexus first when you make 4 lings. What are you doing with them , what's the priority ? Kill probes ? pylons? delay mining ? Do you bring more lings ? As a low master, most of the times my opponents won't make the differences between 11 pool and 15 pool ? What do you think of making 2 set of lings instead of one if i can get into his main even if he scouted ?

Thank you !


Sure thing! I'm glad it's working well for you. That's a good question too. 4 lings won't kill the nexus or any buildings (other than a pylon or two) but what 4 lings can do, is over the course of the next 4-5 minutes until he has zealots, deny hundreds of minerals worth of mining >:D . You'll kill 3 or 4 probes in the process (vs GM players) but the important thing is the opponent is constantly having to pull 8+ probes off his mineral line to deal with the threat. Immediately when he stops mining you pull back, once he resumes mining you start noming on probes again. Repeat this process until all of your lings are dead, and you will see a MASSIVE economy advantage in your favor if your macro hasn't slipped at home. Such a strong economy advantage in fact, that many protoss players just GG out the moment they realize how behind they are, but I have NEVER lost from this situation, so I truly can say it's 100%.
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