Hi all, I have been using mass Swarmhosts in all matchups since early beta, and have had relatively good success. The following guides are designed to help others develop their Swarmhost play, as well as to stimulate further discussion so that we can maximize the potential of this amazing unit.
In ZvP specifically I am confident enough in my play (81% currently vs High Master/GM) to post a build order and short guide.
The vod detailing the build order and executing it live as I explain it can be viewed here:
For those who would rather skip the vod and give the build order a try without further explanation, it is listed below.
Let me know if you have any questions/comments/critique in how I can improve this!
10 - Extractor Trick 11 - Overlord 11 - Spawning Pool 16 - Queen 18 - Extractor Trick 18 - Zergling 19 - Overlord 19 - Hatchery 20 - Queen 22 - Overlord 28 - Queen 28 - Extractor 44 - Lair 44 - Extractor 60 - Spine Crawler 60 - Extractors 3 and 4 60 - Infestation Pit 59 - Overseer 59 - 3 Spores (Depending on what they have shown) 64 - Begin Swarmhost/Queen production, and take 3rd if they are not 2 base all in
From here you are going to go for Queen/Swarmhost aggression eventually mixing Roach/Hydra to support the Queens. Finally for end game 3-6 Vipers can be included to lock the game down.
A few tips to keep in mind:
1. Always keep your Swarmhosts moving! SH have by far the highest skill ceiling of any unit Zerg has, so don't be surprised if it takes you a bit to become comfortable with the way SH change your Zerg play both in macro and micro. As a rule of thumb if your SH have spawned twice or more from the same location, it's probably time to move them (optimally you want to relocate between each spawn).
2. Zerg macro is entirely different when Swarmhosts are involved. Your measure of success is unit efficiency now, rather than superior economy. It is OK to be at 60 drones the entire game if you are keeping a 1:3 resource loss ratio. Vice versa, you will never want to be much higher than 70 drones (definitely not 80) as you will no longer have adequate supply to maintain critical mass (16+) for your Swarmhosts, and still have a supporting army. That said, you can also comfortably stay on equal bases with your opponent (no more +1 rule woohoo!).
3. Likewise, where you put your multitasking needs to change drastically. Optimizing your Swarmhosts is now priority #1 (this includes keeping them alive ^_^). Also, injecting should be entirely discontinued after the initial push begins since your queens will be needed up front, and your larva use is very low. If you suspect that a remax will be needed to end the game feel free to grab 2 or 3 macro hatcheries to make up for the lack of injections, you will have plenty of resources to spare after all!
4. Your second highest priority is creep spread. Drop creep on expansions, aggressively push your creep tumors, and when the time comes make sure to bring plenty of overlords to creep highway to their 3rd. Without this your Queens will most likely be caught out of position, and your Locusts will have significantly reduced efficiency.
5. Drops synergize extremely well with Swarmhost play. Consider loading 8 Hydras into overlords and dropping enemy mineral lines while your main aggression hits their 3rd. This is particularly strong versus double stargate and warp prism opens.
6. Just because they have air, does not mean your Swarmhosts are useless! They are absolutely crucial for cleaning up the ground buffer to allow your Hydra/Viper to take care of their air (see the below VOD for an example).
7. Lastly, as long as you still have a reasonable Swarmhost count, you are still in the game, so don't count yourself out too soon! I have had many games both ZvP and ZvT where my main and all tech were lost, but the game was won due to a slow Spore/Spine/SH crawl across the map to clean up his remaining buildings.
Other casts with further analysis:
ZvP vs Barcode -
ZvP vs Nyb -
ZvP vs LucyPrime -
ZvP vs EGHukRC -
My most recent replay pack (all matchups, but all ZvP should include SH play unless the game ended before midgame): http://snk.to/f-chm0ol8p
For now this section will be used to add some introductory youtube casts so that you guys can see the progress that I am making with ZvT. Eventually this section will feature its own complete guide.
ZvT vs Razuik - Some new elements are added to the early game to allow the SH midgame to occur a bit more organically.
ZvT vs Jacks - One of my earlier ZvT Swarmhost casts that starts to develop some of our initial ground rules for ZvT with Swarmhosts.
Tili - I'd say that SH are far better used offensively than defensively, they tend to be dodged by the opponent when used in a defensive capacity. I've actually had a player walk right past 8 swarmhosts and eat my mineral line with his stalkers before. The moment I take those kinds of games offensive though, the losses I took on the defensive side are paid back 10 fold >:D
On April 03 2013 13:58 Rekatan wrote: Thanks guys, I'm glad it's helped!
Tili - I'd say that SH are far better used offensively than defensively, they tend to be dodged by the opponent when used in a defensive capacity. I've actually had a player walk right past 8 swarmhosts and eat my mineral line with his stalkers before. The moment I take those kinds of games offensive though, the losses I took on the defensive side are paid back 10 fold >:D
Yea, what I've seen on some streams, and am working on myself, is knowing how to leave 1-3 SH home for defense against small or even medium counters/harassment. Knowing how many to break off, an getting the SH in the right position at the right time.... these are very difficult for me.
On April 03 2013 13:58 Rekatan wrote: Thanks guys, I'm glad it's helped!
Tili - I'd say that SH are far better used offensively than defensively, they tend to be dodged by the opponent when used in a defensive capacity. I've actually had a player walk right past 8 swarmhosts and eat my mineral line with his stalkers before. The moment I take those kinds of games offensive though, the losses I took on the defensive side are paid back 10 fold >:D
Yea, what I've seen on some streams, and am working on myself, is knowing how to leave 1-3 SH home for defense against small or even medium counters/harassment. Knowing how many to break off, an getting the SH in the right position at the right time.... these are very difficult for me.
I think the tricky thing there is that now you're tieing up 3, 6, 9, etc supply for static defense, when 90% of those locust spawns will expire without dealing a bit of damage. Swarmhosts are only paying for themselves when the locusts are attacking. Effectively this means that we're tieing up a very expensive unit, and the supply to maintain them, to fill the role that the same amount of resources invested in spines/spores could have done just as well if not better, with no supply commitment.
I've been trying to experiment with aggressive 2-base swarm host openers, but hadn't had too much success with them. Your BO is far superior to what I was using though. Definitely going to give this a shot! Thanks for the guide, looks really good.
My questions are: 1) How does the build match up against 2-base colossus openers? How do you play that out? 2) How does it match up against stargate openers?
Against 2-base tech play, are you looking to take a faster 3rd and play more passively? It seems like if they have VRs out, you can't actually get aggressive until you have creep spread to their half of the map, since queens are your only AA for some time.
On April 03 2013 14:56 JDub wrote: I've been trying to experiment with aggressive 2-base swarm host openers, but hadn't had too much success with them. Your BO is far superior to what I was using though. Definitely going to give this a shot! Thanks for the guide, looks really good.
My questions are: 1) How does the build match up against 2-base colossus openers? How do you play that out? 2) How does it match up against stargate openers?
Against 2-base tech play, are you looking to take a faster 3rd and play more passively? It seems like if they have VRs out, you can't actually get aggressive until you have creep spread to their half of the map, since queens are your only AA for some time.
1.By the time I move out they're typically on 1-2 colossus, so as long as I don't take too much damage from warp prism harass I'm able to pin them down while my 3rd gets comfortably saturated (not too many more drones are needed to accomplish this since my target drone count is so low).
The end result is typically a 2 base all in from Protoss, which Zerg holds very well since your SH are knocking down their wall when they decide to push out - allowing you an easy 4-6 locust spawns as you kite back. Optimally you will want a couple vipers by the time he arrives at your 3rd but even without, by this time his army has been worn down too much by the constant locust attacks.
*EDIT*
2. It tends to hard counter all single stargate openers as long as you can get the creep highway established long enough for queens to get in position. Double stargate openers I like to just pin down with a spore/SH/queen contain and let attrition win the game for me by way of hydra drops and repeated queen/hydra push behind the locust wall (interceptors are baited out by the locusts allowing hydras to clean them up, so this is particularly easy vs carriers). All in all, I'd say actually blink/collo is the toughest to deal with. Skytoss is generally pretty easy though.
very good guide, I could never make swarm host works unless I am smurfing in the lower leagues. It's probably the mind set and the different play style that I just don't quite get yet. Your videos were very detailed and opened my eyes up on some crucial points I never noticed.
a few questions: should I be spawning locust from far distance? when should I press forward?
another is how to burrow and unburrow them effectively? I am having big trouble trying to doing that repeatly for a large swarm host count. some need time to find a location to burrow and so the spawn locust time differs and each wave becomes smaller than what it could have been.
I had a ridiculous win percentage in the beta using a similar Queen/Swarm Host strategy. An alternative, or perhaps addition to, drops is the use of Nydus Canal to more efficaciously navigate the map for increased reinforcement speed and more effective multi-pronged aggression.
Oh god, I think you just ruined my life, making this build even more popular!
In all fairness, I really have no clue how to counter this build as a P player. Continously fighting against free units is so hard, especially because the hosts are burrowed and get the support of many queens and overseers.
On April 03 2013 17:22 ETisME wrote: very good guide, I could never make swarm host works unless I am smurfing in the lower leagues. It's probably the mind set and the different play style that I just don't quite get yet. Your videos were very detailed and opened my eyes up on some crucial points I never noticed.
a few questions: should I be spawning locust from far distance? when should I press forward?
another is how to burrow and unburrow them effectively? I am having big trouble trying to doing that repeatly for a large swarm host count. some need time to find a location to burrow and so the spawn locust time differs and each wave becomes smaller than what it could have been.
Awesome I'm glad they're helping! To answer your questions - You should generally be spawning locusts from a distance. The goal is to consistently take advantage of the high range the SH has. If you are pushing your swarmhosts close enough that the opponent can easily reach them after a locust spawn has been cleaned up, you are giving him an opportunity to kill all your swarmhosts (and by association, autowin the game).
I find for burrowing/unburrowing they tend to manage themselves a bit. They're automatically going to spread out so just keep them on the same control group and you should be able to keep them synched up relatively well. The one thing that can be a bit annoying is one or two swarmhosts will fail to burrow because you must immediately set the locust rally point, so while the straggler is finding its burrow location, the locust rally overrides the burrow command causing him to suicide into the protoss army. Unfortunately this just has to be watched closely and the straggler manually pulled back to be burrowed during the next spawn.
On April 03 2013 20:18 WonnaPlay wrote: Oh god, I think you just ruined my life, making this build even more popular!
In all fairness, I really have no clue how to counter this build as a P player. Continously fighting against free units is so hard, especially because the hosts are burrowed and get the support of many queens and overseers.
Haha sorry! I've had a lot of Protoss players ragequit vs this, I can only imagine how frustrating it is.
An alternative, or perhaps addition to, drops is the use of Nydus Canal to more efficaciously navigate the map for increased reinforcement speed and more effective multi-pronged aggression.
I'd also emphasize this, especially on Akilon Wastes, where you can break the collapsible rocks in the enemy fourth and safely pop a nydus there, with zero chance of it being denied unless P opened with stargate.
Biggest scumbag strategy i've encountered on ladder Fortunally he underestimated double stargate and didnt invest into enough antiair to counter my voidrays ~~.
I used to play with a similar strategy in the beta (mid master), except investing in a nydus for immediate siege.
I really like how you're abusing the swarm host range. I always put my swarm hosts far too close to the protoss, and end up being too close to run away.
The three prong siege is sexy as well. I'm going to have to play with this some more on ladder. I also don't play with solid build orders a lot of the time (But this is because I find that boring), so I think it'll fit me well.
On April 03 2013 20:55 gronnelg wrote: You say one should always be relocating the SH. 1. What triggers you to move? 2. Where do you move to? 3. What triggers you to NOT move?
1. I personally try to relocate between each spawn if possible, unless I've established a spore/spine contain, in which case it's safe to keep them still for a bit.
2. I move either A. Forward (they are retreating from the locusts) B. Backward (they are pushing through the locusts, indicating they want to snipe my Swarmhosts) or C. to another angle, but neither forward or backward (they are neither retreating or pushing, but holding with forcefield/blink micro/collosus). C will often times force them to reposition and deal some guaranteed damage to buildings for the brief moment that they are out of position. The other two are meant to take out army.
3. Typically only if I have spores/spines set up to support my SH, or I'm making my final push and am too occupied with queen/viper micro.
An alternative, or perhaps addition to, drops is the use of Nydus Canal to more efficaciously navigate the map for increased reinforcement speed and more effective multi-pronged aggression.
I'd also emphasize this, especially on Akilon Wastes, where you can break the collapsible rocks in the enemy fourth and safely pop a nydus there, with zero chance of it being denied unless P opened with stargate.
Super late game I definitely can see Nydus play being really great, though I'm trying to develop this strategy very slowly allowing it to "evolve naturally" so that I don't ever allow it to become gimmicky. Early Nydus play unfortunately is very gas expensive so it feels like it turns the build into an all-in, since we're only at 2 base when the pressure begins.
Long term though, I do want to start adding nydus play both ZvP and ZvT, particularly once I've maxxed
On April 03 2013 22:04 InfCereal wrote: I used to play with a similar strategy in the beta (mid master), except investing in a nydus for immediate siege.
I really like how you're abusing the swarm host range. I always put my swarm hosts far too close to the protoss, and end up being too close to run away.
The three prong siege is sexy as well. I'm going to have to play with this some more on ladder. I also don't play with solid build orders a lot of the time (But this is because I find that boring), so I think it'll fit me well.
Ya I find it boring/rigid as well, and sometimes flat out worse for my play because I react poorly to certain things that I didn't expect if I'm stuck on a rigid build order "oh my god I have to defend this without another spine because that'll ruin my build order!"
That swarmhost split is by far my favorite thing in SC2 these days. It feels SO cool when you pull it off, though it's very much a high risk/high reward play, because if they push out when you're moving into position you can easily lose 1/3 - 1/2 of your SH for free.
On April 03 2013 20:37 Rekatan wrote: I find for burrowing/unburrowing they tend to manage themselves a bit. They're automatically going to spread out so just keep them on the same control group and you should be able to keep them synched up relatively well. The one thing that can be a bit annoying is one or two swarmhosts will fail to burrow because you must immediately set the locust rally point, so while the straggler is finding its burrow location, the locust rally overrides the burrow command causing him to suicide into the protoss army. Unfortunately this just has to be watched closely and the straggler manually pulled back to be burrowed during the next spawn.
Is this because you are just using rightclick to set the rally instead of the rally command? I know the rally option is not visible when they SH is not burrowed, but what about R (to burrow) then Y (when it becomes available to rally) Shift-Leftclick? I will play around with this when I get home tonight but I would assume that this would work.
On April 04 2013 15:24 Insoleet wrote: How do this work against double robo colossus ?
Everytime i try to go swarmhost against a protoss, he starts double robo colossus and i get wrecked...
Top 8 masters here, same thing. I boil it down to not having my swarmhosts in proper position and not scouting it in time, but I also seem to be quite economically behind when this hits. I think I'm just really new to this time of zerg macro, I find managing my macro with swarmhosts are super weird.. i float various amounts of minerals/gas and those 3supply bastards supplyblock me like crazy, specially with churning out queens at the same time.
Down to practise I guess, we'll see if experience can anwser the 2robo collosi.
Shouldn't you be able to get tons of collosi kills with vipers for free? Sure, you might have to pull back a couple times, but they gotta have a ton of collosi to survive 3 waves of locusts + abducts.
On April 04 2013 17:20 d07.RiV wrote: Shouldn't you be able to get tons of collosi kills with vipers for free? Sure, you might have to pull back a couple times, but they gotta have a ton of collosi to survive 3 waves of locusts + abducts.
My hive is never fast enough.. you reckon i should go hive as soon as my third is up?
This is a really cool guide I watched the three vods in the guide and one question I have is why you never use corruptors, even against the carriers on neo planet S.
Is this just something that happens in those specific games? Or do you just prefer hydras and then rushing vipers versus collosi/air? It just seems like theres a timing where a big collosi push could be really hard to deal with with the unit comp you have before vipers.
If there is a point where you throw down a spire when is it? When you start Hive? after taking a fourth?
My hive is never fast enough.. you reckon i should go hive as soon as my third is up?
If you suspect he's massing collosi or any kind of air, then yes, that would be a good time to do that. Two bases give you barely enough gas for swarmhost production, so a third is very handy. There is no way he should be able to get a lot of collosi before that, because you start applying pressure so early.
This is a really cool guide I watched the three vods in the guide and one question I have is why you never use corruptors, even against the carriers on neo planet S.
Is this just something that happens in those specific games? Or do you just prefer hydras and then rushing vipers versus collosi/air? It just seems like theres a timing where a big collosi push could be really hard to deal with with the unit comp you have before vipers.
If there is a point where you throw down a spire when is it? When you start Hive? after taking a fourth?
Hive is cheaper than spire and takes the same time to complete, so why bother? Vipers have great synergy with swarmhosts against any unit comp, and corruptors are only good against collosi (against air they will draw fire instead of locusts, which is definitely not what you want).
@Rekatan - what do you do if you anticipate a push before SHs are out? Simply put up a lot of spines and continue with the plan? What about immortal push, wouldn't that hit just before SHs?
My hive is never fast enough.. you reckon i should go hive as soon as my third is up?
If you suspect he's massing collosi or any kind of air, then yes, that would be a good time to do that. Two bases give you barely enough gas for swarmhost production, so a third is very handy. There is no way he should be able to get a lot of collosi before that, because you start applying pressure so early.
This is a really cool guide I watched the three vods in the guide and one question I have is why you never use corruptors, even against the carriers on neo planet S.
Is this just something that happens in those specific games? Or do you just prefer hydras and then rushing vipers versus collosi/air? It just seems like theres a timing where a big collosi push could be really hard to deal with with the unit comp you have before vipers.
If there is a point where you throw down a spire when is it? When you start Hive? after taking a fourth?
Hive is cheaper than spire and takes the same time to complete, so why bother? Vipers have great synergy with swarmhosts against any unit comp, and corruptors are only good against collosi (against air they will draw fire instead of locusts, which is definitely not what you want).
@Rekatan - what do you do if you anticipate a push before SHs are out? Simply put up a lot of spines and continue with the plan? What about immortal push, wouldn't that hit just before SHs?
From watching other zergs do different styles of swarm host play, a standard three hatch, double gas @ 6min, will get hosts out in time for Immortal allins.
is nydus ever a good addition? Im thinking being all over the place with SH would be a good thing but I dony play zerg. Lets say on maps where the third is a bit off
On April 03 2013 20:37 Rekatan wrote: I find for burrowing/unburrowing they tend to manage themselves a bit. They're automatically going to spread out so just keep them on the same control group and you should be able to keep them synched up relatively well. The one thing that can be a bit annoying is one or two swarmhosts will fail to burrow because you must immediately set the locust rally point, so while the straggler is finding its burrow location, the locust rally overrides the burrow command causing him to suicide into the protoss army. Unfortunately this just has to be watched closely and the straggler manually pulled back to be burrowed during the next spawn.
Is this because you are just using rightclick to set the rally instead of the rally command? I know the rally option is not visible when they SH is not burrowed, but what about R (to burrow) then Y (when it becomes available to rally) Shift-Leftclick? I will play around with this when I get home tonight but I would assume that this would work.
Hmm I've never tried that, I just burrow and then right click. I know when I first started using them I tried to burrow + shift right click in order to queue up the locust rally to occur the moment the burrow was completed, and it resulted in the first locust spawn sitting idle. I'll play around with it some more though to see if that's changed.
On April 04 2013 15:24 Insoleet wrote: How do this work against double robo colossus ?
Everytime i try to go swarmhost against a protoss, he starts double robo colossus and i get wrecked...
Very well, if he attempts double robo collo on 2 base just close the gap ASAP and get that army pinned in his natural. While he's building up the deathball tech to viper and save 9 supply for them. He'll be taking losses the entire time, and will have lost his upgrading forge, possibly even his cyber core. When he finally does all-in you'll have 3 vipers ready for him, and he won't have blink or ht to respond, so 6 abduct later, he GGs :D
If he attempts to go up to double robo on 3 base, then he most likely loses his 3rd just straight up, and GGs out shortly after.
The biggest threat is probably blink stalkers into double robo, as the blinksters can really put the hurt on your SH if you aren't watching your flanks, and buy him time to get the mass established on his collos. I find that top notch SH management still deals with this though, as it is still on you to screw up and allow him a window to snipe your SH, so if you are paying close attention to them and managing them perfectly, he never is given an opening and you still win :D
On April 04 2013 17:35 Roblin wrote: this looks really cool and I would love to see more, do you stream by some schedule?
I stream every Saturday and Sunday (except for D&D or Monster Hunter night once a month or so). Weekdays are pretty much whenever I can find the time, but are always evenings since I work 9-5. I also update my twitter and facebook when I know I'll be streaming. You can follow me @rekstarcraft and facebook.com/rekatansc2
On April 04 2013 17:20 d07.RiV wrote: Shouldn't you be able to get tons of collosi kills with vipers for free? Sure, you might have to pull back a couple times, but they gotta have a ton of collosi to survive 3 waves of locusts + abducts.
My hive is never fast enough.. you reckon i should go hive as soon as my third is up?
If your hive is never fast enough it is likely because you aren't starting the pressure soon enough. Hive immediately after 3rd is up is a solid timing (sooner if you are delaying 1/1) so I'd say that's good to stick with. Make sure from 10 minutes on though, he's eating locusts. That's really the key. If you sit back and try to play defensively with your swarmhosts he'll be at your door 4-8 minutes earlier than if you are shoving 40 locusts down his throat repeatedly *gross*.
On April 04 2013 19:49 ultrakiss wrote: This is a really cool guide I watched the three vods in the guide and one question I have is why you never use corruptors, even against the carriers on neo planet S.
Is this just something that happens in those specific games? Or do you just prefer hydras and then rushing vipers versus collosi/air? It just seems like theres a timing where a big collosi push could be really hard to deal with with the unit comp you have before vipers.
If there is a point where you throw down a spire when is it? When you start Hive? after taking a fourth?
Thanks! I'm glad you like it.
I haven't made a corruptor in probably 2-300 ZvP. Even before SH was released I only made them because I needed broodlords. Post HoTS though they are just flat out a terrible unit which needed attention from blizzard long ago. If they're into collo, I'd rather vipers. If they're into air, he can just select his stargates and press the V button a few times to nullify infinity corruptors.
That said, whenever you think "Corruptor" versus Protoss, think "Hydra+Viper" from now on, and you'll be a much happier Zergy :D
My hive is never fast enough.. you reckon i should go hive as soon as my third is up?
If you suspect he's massing collosi or any kind of air, then yes, that would be a good time to do that. Two bases give you barely enough gas for swarmhost production, so a third is very handy. There is no way he should be able to get a lot of collosi before that, because you start applying pressure so early.
This is a really cool guide I watched the three vods in the guide and one question I have is why you never use corruptors, even against the carriers on neo planet S.
Is this just something that happens in those specific games? Or do you just prefer hydras and then rushing vipers versus collosi/air? It just seems like theres a timing where a big collosi push could be really hard to deal with with the unit comp you have before vipers.
If there is a point where you throw down a spire when is it? When you start Hive? after taking a fourth?
Hive is cheaper than spire and takes the same time to complete, so why bother? Vipers have great synergy with swarmhosts against any unit comp, and corruptors are only good against collosi (against air they will draw fire instead of locusts, which is definitely not what you want).
@Rekatan - what do you do if you anticipate a push before SHs are out? Simply put up a lot of spines and continue with the plan? What about immortal push, wouldn't that hit just before SHs?
The only push that will hit before SH are out is going to be certain cut-probes gateway timings. These require the protoss player to go gateway first, so that is my first tell. By 8 minutes I like to have at least 2, probably 3 spines up. I find 3 can reliably hold long enough for a few SH to pop, without losing any drones.
Once in a while forge first will surprise me, but I've gotten into the habit of checking the nexus for chrono boost/probe count at least once before my OV leaves, and that has solved that issue.
On April 04 2013 21:15 anatase wrote: i played with this (different bo), but basically reaching same sh time, so far i had fairly solid results, thanks for the videos!
Sure thing! Thanks for watching!
On April 04 2013 21:57 Snusmumriken wrote: is nydus ever a good addition? Im thinking being all over the place with SH would be a good thing but I dony play zerg. Lets say on maps where the third is a bit off
Late game Nydus is an amazing addition that I hope to eventually implement (once I feel the other aspects of my play such as drops and multiprong are as clean as can be).
Nydus immediately after lair will cut your swarmhost count by 3 though, which makes the push itself weaker AND puts you all-in. I think the addition of a nydus to the initial push makes the difference between stable pressure-based macro, and gimmicky all in. That said, there's a time and a place for nydus/sh/queen all in, but it's not a very reliable standard.
Ok guys I tried to get all questions responded to. If I missed something feel free to call me names and demand I respond immediately or be flogged!
You're going to make me lose my god damn ladder points.
Hahaha in all seriousness this is pretty well thought out. I think a little bit more of addressing different situations you might run in to as a SH user would be good, but other than that good job!
On April 04 2013 17:35 Roblin wrote: this looks really cool and I would love to see more, do you stream by some schedule?
I stream every Saturday and Sunday (except for D&D or Monster Hunter night once a month or so). Weekdays are pretty much whenever I can find the time, but are always evenings since I work 9-5. I also update my twitter and facebook when I know I'll be streaming. You can follow me @rekstarcraft and facebook.com/rekatansc2
thanks! I'll tune in when possible, also: you earned yourself a 490th subscriber
You're going to make me lose my god damn ladder points.
Hahaha in all seriousness this is pretty well thought out. I think a little bit more of addressing different situations you might run in to as a SH user would be good, but other than that good job!
Hahaha sorry!!! I'll get around to that dieing thing when I have a chance ^_^
I appreciate the feedback. I'm going to do a version 2 of this in a month or so once I have a mic that doesn't butcher my SSSSS sounds, and I've had a chance to develop the "what to do when you see X" a bit more.
On April 04 2013 17:35 Roblin wrote: this looks really cool and I would love to see more, do you stream by some schedule?
I stream every Saturday and Sunday (except for D&D or Monster Hunter night once a month or so). Weekdays are pretty much whenever I can find the time, but are always evenings since I work 9-5. I also update my twitter and facebook when I know I'll be streaming. You can follow me @rekstarcraft and facebook.com/rekatansc2
thanks! I'll tune in when possible, also: you earned yourself a 490th subscriber
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.
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
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 ?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 ^_^
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.
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.
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.
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
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 ?
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 ^_^
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%.
I really enjoyed the vods, was very nice to see solid demonstrations of Host play at a high level, haven't seen much of it on streams recently.
Couple of questions: - around when do you normally research Drops in your games? Is it there anything that a toss would be doing that would make you not get drops?
- Have you considered late game nydus use on maps like Whirlwind later on defensively since the Hosts are so extremely slow?
On April 07 2013 09:52 Fliparoni wrote: Love what you've done here. A few things.
After how many SH's do you start your 1/1 upgrades? I've been trying SH's and often times I think I started 1/1 too early which cut into my SH count.
Also, how many SH's should I mass before starting to add support units like queens/hydras etc.
What is a critical mass of SH's for the end game? Sometimes I feel like I mass too many SH's and don't have any room for support units.
I would also love to see a video on how you utilize SH's against Terran Bio+Mine.
It depends on what I'm up against, but generally speaking I like to wait until at least 8 to 10 SH before I drop the evo chambers.
Support units should be added immediately, even your initial 3-6 queens should be brought along for the start of your push, to begin getting the creep established on their side of the map.
16 - 24 is a healthy critical mass for your SH. I like to go well above 30 but anything more than 24 requires that you begin to multiprong your attacks. This is extremely demanding on the multitasking.
I finished recording a biomine ZvT just haven't uploaded it yet. I'll link it in this thread's OP when it's on youtube!
On April 07 2013 10:15 CrueltY wrote: I really enjoyed the vods, was very nice to see solid demonstrations of Host play at a high level, haven't seen much of it on streams recently.
Couple of questions: - around when do you normally research Drops in your games? Is it there anything that a toss would be doing that would make you not get drops?
- Have you considered late game nydus use on maps like Whirlwind later on defensively since the Hosts are so extremely slow?
Thanks in advance
Double stargate often has me going into drops fairly quickly. Other than that I often will grab drops if my opponent has reached 4 bases and I still have not been able to snipe a nexus with my swarmhosts.
I do like the idea of late game nydus play, but I'm hammering out the other aspects of my late game first before I add a new element.
Awesome guide Rekatan! How would this build fair against something like a 7 gate attack? Also how do you normally deal with the early pressure a lot of Protoss seem to be doing (such as 2 Stalkers + 1 Zealot with MSC)? As these kind of early pressures are the builds that I have most problems with.
On April 08 2013 01:06 Kaoswarr wrote: Awesome guide Rekatan! How would this build fair against something like a 7 gate attack? Also how do you normally deal with the early pressure a lot of Protoss seem to be doing (such as 2 Stalkers + 1 Zealot with MSC)? As these kind of early pressures are the builds that I have most problems with.
I'm Mid master EU
First of all, I'm mid master EU as well. I hope Rekatan doesn't mind me trying to answer this question, and please correct me if my answer is completely off ^^!
I haven't been playing this style at all yet, but since you have 3 queens on the map and connected your two bases with creep it shouldn't be a problem holding 2 stalkers, 1 zealot and MSC if you add 1 spine crawler. I don't really think you need to do more than that.
From what I've gathered so far when looking the vods and checking some replays of Rekatan, you generally have SH in production at 9.00ish. This is also the time where you take up your queen production again. A 7 gate doesn't hit until...like 11-12 minutes something? Which means you have 2-3 more minutes of constant SH and Queen production. Since the Protoss doesn't have any detection you should be able to hold it fine using some spines as backup.
Since your SH will be out well before his push you could potentially apply pressure to him while he is trying to walk over to your base, which means that you won't only delay his push a bit but also damages his units for free. Need to be cautious not to lose any SH though ^^!
On April 08 2013 01:06 Kaoswarr wrote: Awesome guide Rekatan! How would this build fair against something like a 7 gate attack? Also how do you normally deal with the early pressure a lot of Protoss seem to be doing (such as 2 Stalkers + 1 Zealot with MSC)? As these kind of early pressures are the builds that I have most problems with.
I'm Mid master EU
First of all, I'm mid master EU as well. I hope Rekatan doesn't mind me trying to answer this question, and please correct me if my answer is completely off ^^!
I haven't been playing this style at all yet, but since you have 3 queens on the map and connected your two bases with creep it shouldn't be a problem holding 2 stalkers, 1 zealot and MSC if you add 1 spine crawler. I don't really think you need to do more than that.
From what I've gathered so far when looking the vods and checking some replays of Rekatan, you generally have SH in production at 9.00ish. This is also the time where you take up your queen production again. A 7 gate doesn't hit until...like 11-12 minutes something? Which means you have 2-3 more minutes of constant SH and Queen production. Since the Protoss doesn't have any detection you should be able to hold it fine using some spines as backup.
Since your SH will be out well before his push you could potentially apply pressure to him while he is trying to walk over to your base, which means that you won't only delay his push a bit but also damages his units for free. Need to be cautious not to lose any SH though ^^!
Edit: Grammar.
Yeah that's true, I didn't take that in to consideration with the spine I've had 7 gate timings hit as early as 9 mins sometimes which could be quite problematic. Also i've been encountering really heavy zealot 7 gate timings and these seem to hit ALOT earlier.
On April 08 2013 01:06 Kaoswarr wrote: Awesome guide Rekatan! How would this build fair against something like a 7 gate attack? Also how do you normally deal with the early pressure a lot of Protoss seem to be doing (such as 2 Stalkers + 1 Zealot with MSC)? As these kind of early pressures are the builds that I have most problems with.
I'm Mid master EU
First of all, I'm mid master EU as well. I hope Rekatan doesn't mind me trying to answer this question, and please correct me if my answer is completely off ^^!
I haven't been playing this style at all yet, but since you have 3 queens on the map and connected your two bases with creep it shouldn't be a problem holding 2 stalkers, 1 zealot and MSC if you add 1 spine crawler. I don't really think you need to do more than that.
From what I've gathered so far when looking the vods and checking some replays of Rekatan, you generally have SH in production at 9.00ish. This is also the time where you take up your queen production again. A 7 gate doesn't hit until...like 11-12 minutes something? Which means you have 2-3 more minutes of constant SH and Queen production. Since the Protoss doesn't have any detection you should be able to hold it fine using some spines as backup.
Since your SH will be out well before his push you could potentially apply pressure to him while he is trying to walk over to your base, which means that you won't only delay his push a bit but also damages his units for free. Need to be cautious not to lose any SH though ^^!
Edit: Grammar.
Since a immo sentry all in moves out at 8:50, a 7 gate will hit waaay faster than 11-12 min. I don't know exact timings here, but a standard no gas 3 base opener will be able to have SHs out in time to defend immo sentry, so a 2 base version should definately be in time to defend any ground focused 2-base all in.
Oh, guess I was way off then lol ^^! Anyway, you will be able to scout the 7 gate with ease since you go for the quick Pneumatized Carapace and an overseer. When recognizing a 2 base all in I've seen Rekatan throw down a Hydra Den as well and Hydras pretty much cruches gateway units if they have lings/roaches to soak the damage.
Just thinking out loud here now, but I think this approach could work. Not really sure how it is with economy though, since you are two base and can no longer stay cost efficient due to not having free units from the SH it might not work. You might have to do a trade off between SH's and Hydras. Maybe 4-5 SH's could be enough and Hydras the rest, not really sure.
From what I've gathered so far when looking the vods and checking some replays of Rekatan, you generally have SH in production at 9.00ish. This is also the time where you take up your queen production again. A 7 gate doesn't hit until...like 11-12 minutes something?
It depends on the 7 gate. 7gate does not tell you anything other than an attack with 7 gateways - A HuK style 8gate can warp 8 zeals to a proxy pylon before 8:00 if you only build 2 units before that and are able to get pylons up outside of the safety of your FFE wall - Some unfortunate zergs at low master i've seen let a pylon get far too close to them and then they have 10 units with +1 attack hitting the third before 8:15 - but this is very scoutable. I mean he builds only 1 or 2 gateway units before the 8 minute warp - he has to drop all gates before 7 minutes (so starts at like 6:10 and drops as money comes in) and typically there's either 1 gas, or 2 gas with some probes pulled off - and a low probe count, as low as 35 or 36. You will NOT hold your third against this kind of attack with hydralisks, swarm hosts or 3 hatch muta - period, unless you read him like a book, cut drones early, kill the probe/s trying to proxy pylon multiple times, basically. Trying to defend a third with a lair tech unit is a strategical bad move against this specific kind of all in - you can't do it unless you have leads in the game (like you fuck up his timings) and trying will just lead to you getting overwhelmed completely. An 8gate of this style, i mean 9 +1 zeals a stalker and a mothership core at 8 mins at the closest pylon he has, you kinda dont want hydras at all. Hydra's are very bad against zealots in low numbers - Swarm hosts come too late, and Muta's require too much of a commital to hold the third. It's typically a roach ling queen spine defense, or a sack-third-without-competition, save drones, build a small or large spine wall and play 2 base vs 2 base because he has no tech, 36 workers and mostly zealot/stalker on the ground.
Edit: And im an idiot, this is 2hatch lair play. I knew that because i already read the entire OP, but failed to connect it to that post.. *facepalm*
However there are so many wildly different variations of 6-9gates that it's impossible to give any advice without much more specific information and scouting.
Immo sentry all in, with correct execution (at least WOL mode) will leave at ~8:50 and hit before 10:00 if he moves fast, plays zeal heavy and you dont delay him - most people take 12 mins though, even at low-mid master, or some higher up.
From what I've gathered so far when looking the vods and checking some replays of Rekatan, you generally have SH in production at 9.00ish. This is also the time where you take up your queen production again. A 7 gate doesn't hit until...like 11-12 minutes something?
It depends on the 7 gate. 7gate does not tell you anything other than an attack with 7 gateways - A HuK style 8gate can warp 8 zeals to a proxy pylon before 8:00 if you only build 2 units before that and are able to get pylons up outside of the safety of your FFE wall - Some unfortunate zergs at low master i've seen let a pylon get far too close to them and then they have 10 units with +1 attack hitting the third before 8:15 - but this is very scoutable. I mean he builds only 1 or 2 gateway units before the 8 minute warp - he has to drop all gates before 7 minutes (so starts at like 6:10 and drops as money comes in) and typically there's either 1 gas, or 2 gas with some probes pulled off - and a low probe count, as low as 35 or 36. You will NOT hold your third against this kind of attack with hydralisks, swarm hosts or 3 hatch muta - period, unless you read him like a book, cut drones early, kill the probe/s trying to proxy pylon multiple times, basically. Trying to defend a third with a lair tech unit is a strategical bad move against this specific kind of all in - you can't do it unless you have leads in the game (like you fuck up his timings) and trying will just lead to you getting overwhelmed completely. An 8gate of this style, i mean 9 +1 zeals a stalker and a mothership core at 8 mins at the closest pylon he has, you kinda dont want hydras at all. Hydra's are very bad against zealots in low numbers - Swarm hosts come too late, and Muta's require too much of a commital to hold the third. It's typically a roach ling queen spine defense, or a sack-third-without-competition, save drones, build a small or large spine wall and play 2 base vs 2 base because he has no tech, 36 workers and mostly zealot/stalker on the ground.
Edit: And im an idiot, this is 2hatch lair play. I knew that because i already read the entire OP, but failed to connect it to that post.. *facepalm*
However there are so many wildly different variations of 6-9gates that it's impossible to give any advice without much more specific information and scouting.
Immo sentry all in, with correct execution (at least WOL mode) will leave at ~8:50 and hit before 10:00 if he moves fast, plays zeal heavy and you dont delay him - most people take 12 mins though, even at low-mid master, or some higher up.
Yeah, you confused me quite a bit with 3 bases there for a while ^^, but what you are saying is completely true and I thank you for that information - it will help me. I just did the build flawlessly(more or less ) against the AI and at 10.00 I have 5 SH's, 4 more in production 50% done, 7 queens, 2 spines with a bank of 400 minerals for additional spines. A 10 minute push should be no problem. But earlier than that might be a huge problem. You do get an overseer out at 7.30 and you can scout immediately after that. You can even scout before you get an overseer since the Pneumatized Carapace will be done at around 7.00ish if you want to be extra careful. If you see the HuK build you can probably throw down a few extra spines in time - not sure though.
I also have a question for Rekatan: When I watch your replays you pretty much always goes up to 55-60 drones immediately. Since you are still on 2 bases won't 44 suffice? As a rule of thumb I have 16 drones on minerals and 6 in gases on each base. You seem to be going way above this number making as much as 16 more drones, is there a specific reason for this?
How do you deal with counter attacks? They seem to just go for a counter attack with 1-2 collosi and some gateway warpins while I am on my way to their base/nearly at their natural.
From what I've gathered so far when looking the vods and checking some replays of Rekatan, you generally have SH in production at 9.00ish. This is also the time where you take up your queen production again. A 7 gate doesn't hit until...like 11-12 minutes something?
It depends on the 7 gate. 7gate does not tell you anything other than an attack with 7 gateways - A HuK style 8gate can warp 8 zeals to a proxy pylon before 8:00 if you only build 2 units before that and are able to get pylons up outside of the safety of your FFE wall - Some unfortunate zergs at low master i've seen let a pylon get far too close to them and then they have 10 units with +1 attack hitting the third before 8:15 - but this is very scoutable. I mean he builds only 1 or 2 gateway units before the 8 minute warp - he has to drop all gates before 7 minutes (so starts at like 6:10 and drops as money comes in) and typically there's either 1 gas, or 2 gas with some probes pulled off - and a low probe count, as low as 35 or 36. You will NOT hold your third against this kind of attack with hydralisks, swarm hosts or 3 hatch muta - period, unless you read him like a book, cut drones early, kill the probe/s trying to proxy pylon multiple times, basically. Trying to defend a third with a lair tech unit is a strategical bad move against this specific kind of all in - you can't do it unless you have leads in the game (like you fuck up his timings) and trying will just lead to you getting overwhelmed completely. An 8gate of this style, i mean 9 +1 zeals a stalker and a mothership core at 8 mins at the closest pylon he has, you kinda dont want hydras at all. Hydra's are very bad against zealots in low numbers - Swarm hosts come too late, and Muta's require too much of a commital to hold the third. It's typically a roach ling queen spine defense, or a sack-third-without-competition, save drones, build a small or large spine wall and play 2 base vs 2 base because he has no tech, 36 workers and mostly zealot/stalker on the ground.
Edit: And im an idiot, this is 2hatch lair play. I knew that because i already read the entire OP, but failed to connect it to that post.. *facepalm*
However there are so many wildly different variations of 6-9gates that it's impossible to give any advice without much more specific information and scouting.
Immo sentry all in, with correct execution (at least WOL mode) will leave at ~8:50 and hit before 10:00 if he moves fast, plays zeal heavy and you dont delay him - most people take 12 mins though, even at low-mid master, or some higher up.
Yeah, you confused me quite a bit with 3 bases there for a while ^^, but what you are saying is completely true and I thank you for that information - it will help me. I just did the build flawlessly(more or less ) against the AI and at 10.00 I have 5 SH's, 4 more in production 50% done, 7 queens, 2 spines with a bank of 400 minerals for additional spines. A 10 minute push should be no problem. But earlier than that might be a huge problem. You do get an overseer out at 7.30 and you can scout immediately after that. You can even scout before you get an overseer since the Pneumatized Carapace will be done at around 7.00ish if you want to be extra careful. If you see the HuK build you can probably throw down a few extra spines in time - not sure though.
I also have a question for Rekatan: When I watch your replays you pretty much always goes up to 55-60 drones immediately. Since you are still on 2 bases won't 44 suffice? As a rule of thumb I have 16 drones on minerals and 6 in gases on each base. You seem to be going way above this number making as much as 16 more drones, is there are specific reason for this?
From what I've gathered so far when looking the vods and checking some replays of Rekatan, you generally have SH in production at 9.00ish. This is also the time where you take up your queen production again. A 7 gate doesn't hit until...like 11-12 minutes something?
It depends on the 7 gate. 7gate does not tell you anything other than an attack with 7 gateways - A HuK style 8gate can warp 8 zeals to a proxy pylon before 8:00 if you only build 2 units before that and are able to get pylons up outside of the safety of your FFE wall - Some unfortunate zergs at low master i've seen let a pylon get far too close to them and then they have 10 units with +1 attack hitting the third before 8:15 - but this is very scoutable. I mean he builds only 1 or 2 gateway units before the 8 minute warp - he has to drop all gates before 7 minutes (so starts at like 6:10 and drops as money comes in) and typically there's either 1 gas, or 2 gas with some probes pulled off - and a low probe count, as low as 35 or 36. You will NOT hold your third against this kind of attack with hydralisks, swarm hosts or 3 hatch muta - period, unless you read him like a book, cut drones early, kill the probe/s trying to proxy pylon multiple times, basically. Trying to defend a third with a lair tech unit is a strategical bad move against this specific kind of all in - you can't do it unless you have leads in the game (like you fuck up his timings) and trying will just lead to you getting overwhelmed completely. An 8gate of this style, i mean 9 +1 zeals a stalker and a mothership core at 8 mins at the closest pylon he has, you kinda dont want hydras at all. Hydra's are very bad against zealots in low numbers - Swarm hosts come too late, and Muta's require too much of a commital to hold the third. It's typically a roach ling queen spine defense, or a sack-third-without-competition, save drones, build a small or large spine wall and play 2 base vs 2 base because he has no tech, 36 workers and mostly zealot/stalker on the ground.
Edit: And im an idiot, this is 2hatch lair play. I knew that because i already read the entire OP, but failed to connect it to that post.. *facepalm*
However there are so many wildly different variations of 6-9gates that it's impossible to give any advice without much more specific information and scouting.
Immo sentry all in, with correct execution (at least WOL mode) will leave at ~8:50 and hit before 10:00 if he moves fast, plays zeal heavy and you dont delay him - most people take 12 mins though, even at low-mid master, or some higher up.
Yeah, you confused me quite a bit with 3 bases there for a while ^^, but what you are saying is completely true and I thank you for that information - it will help me. I just did the build flawlessly(more or less ) against the AI and at 10.00 I have 5 SH's, 4 more in production 50% done, 7 queens, 2 spines with a bank of 400 minerals for additional spines. A 10 minute push should be no problem. But earlier than that might be a huge problem. You do get an overseer out at 7.30 and you can scout immediately after that. You can even scout before you get an overseer since the Pneumatized Carapace will be done at around 7.00ish if you want to be extra careful. If you see the HuK build you can probably throw down a few extra spines in time - not sure though.
I also have a question for Rekatan: When I watch your replays you pretty much always goes up to 55-60 drones immediately. Since you are still on 2 bases won't 44 suffice? As a rule of thumb I have 16 drones on minerals and 6 in gases on each base. You seem to be going way above this number making as much as 16 more drones, is there are specific reason for this?
When you do get your third you can drone xfer.
Yeah, but in the first VOD on Daybreak he says that you should add in saturation on the 3rd after the 3rd is taken and it feels safe. He also states in the VOD that you should add in drones together with units - not full drone cycles and that he went a bit overboard with the saturation on two bases. Even if I also think it's to saturate the 3rd instantly once it goes up, this contradicts what he says in the VOD.
The positive reasons I see to go for the 60 drones are:
1. You add the extra drones because you CAN. You have the larva and the minerals to do so. 2. You can instantly saturate your 3rd once it goes up. 3. Later your Queens won't be on inject duty which means that you will not saturate the 3rd as quickly and during the saturation of the 3rd you will most likely have no larvae for units.
The downside I see to having 60 drones on two bases is that you will mine out quicker. Depending on when your 3rd is taken you might need to be taking a 4th base since both your mineral lines could be a bit starving for minerals. I saw this a bit in the VOD against HuK. Rekatan was being denied taking his 3rd for a while and when he finally did it didn't take long until his main was mined out. He later needed a 5th base as well once the natural went dry, but didn't get one up. I'm not saying this is necessarily the case, I'm just curious to see if Rekatan has taken this under consideration and determined it to not be a problem.
I want to hear Rekatans motivation for those extra 16 drones since he's been toying around with this since the beta. The build also changes between replays and VODS which are either alterations made due to analysis or to forgotten timings. When I study the build in depth it's kind of hard to know if alterations between replays are intentional or not.
Edit: I just checked out Sheth's saturation guide, it's written way back so I'm not sure if still applies, but apparently 24 drones on minerals is better than having 16 on minerals. Which would be 24+24+6+6 = 60(2 bases of saturation with gases). Not sure why I've always thought that 16 was the magic number on minerals...?
swarmhosts definately have their uses but I don't like this strat of rushing for them on 2 bases. There's basically nothing stopping protoss from just going really quick third behind stargate, at which point you can of course get a third too but I feel you're behind. As for fighting this I guess the key is to abuse the mobility of stalker/colossus/voidray. If you're splitting your waves protoss should be able to crush through one and kill the swarmhosts over there. Perhaps even just use his voidrays since you likely have a bunch of swarmhosts unprotected.
Overall swarm hosts have felt a bit lackluster compared to other options and I don't feel using them this way helps very much with laser toss or air toss.
On April 08 2013 01:06 Kaoswarr wrote: Awesome guide Rekatan! How would this build fair against something like a 7 gate attack? Also how do you normally deal with the early pressure a lot of Protoss seem to be doing (such as 2 Stalkers + 1 Zealot with MSC)? As these kind of early pressures are the builds that I have most problems with.
I'm Mid master EU
Generally 7 gate it does great against (hard counters basically) it's those super fast 5 gate attacks, or even 1 base 4gate, that can be trouble since you're left with nothing but spines and queens to defend.
Just make sure you allow yourself to sac an overlord if necessary. I have lost a TON of games because I was too greedy and thought "pfft only 45 seconds until overseer can morph!" but those 45 seconds that I was wondering lost me the game...
*PS* Thanks Clockwise for helping answer some questions! I'm a bit overwhelmed lately with all the Q&A these threads have brought about ^_^
On April 08 2013 05:46 Zheryn wrote: How do you deal with counter attacks? They seem to just go for a counter attack with 1-2 collosi and some gateway warpins while I am on my way to their base/nearly at their natural.
Your positioning is critical, you need to always be thinking "where are they, and where do I need to be relative to them". It's this constant back and forth where you are trying to anticipate their movements to ensure that your locusts make contact. If their army is outside of their base, the army is your target (rather than their base) so never bypass their army in favor of pressuring buildings (This only applies to ZvP).
On April 09 2013 06:31 BuiBui wrote: Yo rekatan! I have been trying your swarm host build over mine recently. And I really really like how your build flows.
So far I have a 90% win rate at the 1000point master lvl.
The only difference is. if I see air from the toss. I get a nydus. pop at their third. and lay down 5 spores.
Cool! I like the variation - may give it a try sometime!
From what I've gathered so far when looking the vods and checking some replays of Rekatan, you generally have SH in production at 9.00ish. This is also the time where you take up your queen production again. A 7 gate doesn't hit until...like 11-12 minutes something?
It depends on the 7 gate. 7gate does not tell you anything other than an attack with 7 gateways - A HuK style 8gate can warp 8 zeals to a proxy pylon before 8:00 if you only build 2 units before that and are able to get pylons up outside of the safety of your FFE wall - Some unfortunate zergs at low master i've seen let a pylon get far too close to them and then they have 10 units with +1 attack hitting the third before 8:15 - but this is very scoutable. I mean he builds only 1 or 2 gateway units before the 8 minute warp - he has to drop all gates before 7 minutes (so starts at like 6:10 and drops as money comes in) and typically there's either 1 gas, or 2 gas with some probes pulled off - and a low probe count, as low as 35 or 36. You will NOT hold your third against this kind of attack with hydralisks, swarm hosts or 3 hatch muta - period, unless you read him like a book, cut drones early, kill the probe/s trying to proxy pylon multiple times, basically. Trying to defend a third with a lair tech unit is a strategical bad move against this specific kind of all in - you can't do it unless you have leads in the game (like you fuck up his timings) and trying will just lead to you getting overwhelmed completely. An 8gate of this style, i mean 9 +1 zeals a stalker and a mothership core at 8 mins at the closest pylon he has, you kinda dont want hydras at all. Hydra's are very bad against zealots in low numbers - Swarm hosts come too late, and Muta's require too much of a commital to hold the third. It's typically a roach ling queen spine defense, or a sack-third-without-competition, save drones, build a small or large spine wall and play 2 base vs 2 base because he has no tech, 36 workers and mostly zealot/stalker on the ground.
Edit: And im an idiot, this is 2hatch lair play. I knew that because i already read the entire OP, but failed to connect it to that post.. *facepalm*
However there are so many wildly different variations of 6-9gates that it's impossible to give any advice without much more specific information and scouting.
Immo sentry all in, with correct execution (at least WOL mode) will leave at ~8:50 and hit before 10:00 if he moves fast, plays zeal heavy and you dont delay him - most people take 12 mins though, even at low-mid master, or some higher up.
Yeah, you confused me quite a bit with 3 bases there for a while ^^, but what you are saying is completely true and I thank you for that information - it will help me. I just did the build flawlessly(more or less ) against the AI and at 10.00 I have 5 SH's, 4 more in production 50% done, 7 queens, 2 spines with a bank of 400 minerals for additional spines. A 10 minute push should be no problem. But earlier than that might be a huge problem. You do get an overseer out at 7.30 and you can scout immediately after that. You can even scout before you get an overseer since the Pneumatized Carapace will be done at around 7.00ish if you want to be extra careful. If you see the HuK build you can probably throw down a few extra spines in time - not sure though.
I also have a question for Rekatan: When I watch your replays you pretty much always goes up to 55-60 drones immediately. Since you are still on 2 bases won't 44 suffice? As a rule of thumb I have 16 drones on minerals and 6 in gases on each base. You seem to be going way above this number making as much as 16 more drones, is there are specific reason for this?
When you do get your third you can drone xfer.
Yeah, but in the first VOD on Daybreak he says that you should add in saturation on the 3rd after the 3rd is taken and it feels safe. He also states in the VOD that you should add in drones together with units - not full drone cycles and that he went a bit overboard with the saturation on two bases. Even if I also think it's to saturate the 3rd instantly once it goes up, this contradicts what he says in the VOD.
The positive reasons I see to go for the 60 drones are:
1. You add the extra drones because you CAN. You have the larva and the minerals to do so. 2. You can instantly saturate your 3rd once it goes up. 3. Later your Queens won't be on inject duty which means that you will not saturate the 3rd as quickly and during the saturation of the 3rd you will most likely have no larvae for units.
The downside I see to having 60 drones on two bases is that you will mine out quicker. Depending on when your 3rd is taken you might need to be taking a 4th base since both your mineral lines could be a bit starving for minerals. I saw this a bit in the VOD against HuK. Rekatan was being denied taking his 3rd for a while and when he finally did it didn't take long until his main was mined out. He later needed a 5th base as well once the natural went dry, but didn't get one up. I'm not saying this is necessarily the case, I'm just curious to see if Rekatan has taken this under consideration and determined it to not be a problem.
I want to hear Rekatans motivation for those extra 16 drones since he's been toying around with this since the beta. The build also changes between replays and VODS which are either alterations made due to analysis or to forgotten timings. When I study the build in depth it's kind of hard to know if alterations between replays are intentional or not.
Edit: I just checked out Sheth's saturation guide, it's written way back so I'm not sure if still applies, but apparently 24 drones on minerals is better than having 16 on minerals. Which would be 24+24+6+6 = 60(2 bases of saturation with gases). Not sure why I've always thought that 16 was the magic number on minerals...?
16 is optimal mining, while 24 is maximum mining. That said, I do (if I don't feel pressured) like to go to 60 drones on 2 bases. Sometimes I'll allow my main to mine out, but if I'm playing clean I'll pull 6-8 off main and nat to help my 3rd establish, and push that one up to 20+ if need be, since it has more time left on it. Thanks for the reminder btw I've been forgetting to do that lately! That said, an issue I always have is consistency, so don't be afraid to assume "he forgot" or "his build changed unintentionally". I am by no means a precision player like Stephano who can repeat the same build order every game down to the second. It's just not in my blood and I find I actually play worse when I do it. That said though, I always aspire to become more consistent without stifling creativity/flexibility :D so hopefully this gradually continues to improve.
On April 09 2013 08:05 Markwerf wrote: swarmhosts definately have their uses but I don't like this strat of rushing for them on 2 bases. There's basically nothing stopping protoss from just going really quick third behind stargate, at which point you can of course get a third too but I feel you're behind. As for fighting this I guess the key is to abuse the mobility of stalker/colossus/voidray. If you're splitting your waves protoss should be able to crush through one and kill the swarmhosts over there. Perhaps even just use his voidrays since you likely have a bunch of swarmhosts unprotected.
Overall swarm hosts have felt a bit lackluster compared to other options and I don't feel using them this way helps very much with laser toss or air toss.
Fast 3rd on stargate topples instantly to swarmhost play. You don't even need to bother with the 3rd, you can just creep highway straight to their natural and wait for the GG. It's not even remotely viable so it's kind of hard for me to respond to this because it just feels like theorycrafting without any experience. I hope this doesn't come across as rude, it's just, in practice what you're describing isn't remotely how it plays out.
On April 09 2013 11:31 H2OSno wrote: Why don't you ever make 1-2 infestors to Fungal Growth units and not let them escape? Seems a good way to force trades.
^- This is a really good question, although it will be too much micro for me too handle xD
16 is optimal mining, while 24 is maximum mining. That said, I do (if I don't feel pressured) like to go to 60 drones on 2 bases. Sometimes I'll allow my main to mine out, but if I'm playing clean I'll pull 6-8 off main and nat to help my 3rd establish, and push that one up to 20+ if need be, since it has more time left on it. Thanks for the reminder btw I've been forgetting to do that lately! That said, an issue I always have is consistency, so don't be afraid to assume "he forgot" or "his build changed unintentionally". I am by no means a precision player like Stephano who can repeat the same build order every game down to the second. It's just not in my blood and I find I actually play worse when I do it. That said though, I always aspire to become more consistent without stifling creativity/flexibility :D so hopefully this gradually continues to improve.
Ah, okay so my 16 wasn't way off ^^ and now I also understand why you got to 60 drones, awesome! And yes, I do see changes in your build, but so far I've labled them as unintentional changes. I chose to learn the build from a replay where you sit steadily at 2 bases and just macros without being pressured or pressuring yourself.
On April 09 2013 11:31 H2OSno wrote: Why don't you ever make 1-2 infestors to Fungal Growth units and not let them escape? Seems a good way to force trades.
This is an interesting point. To me it seems like you don't really "need" infestors. You will eventually nibble the opponent down anyways and he has to constantly reposition his army and make trades against free units anyway. I think infestors could probably end the game quite quickly if you get two good fungles off, but it also seem very micro intensive since the SH's alone(not to mention no rally point on queens) takes a lot of effort as it is.
But, I agree with H2OSno here, I'd really like to see Rekatan add in an infestor or two and analyze the result :D
On April 09 2013 11:31 H2OSno wrote: Why don't you ever make 1-2 infestors to Fungal Growth units and not let them escape? Seems a good way to force trades.
WIth fungal growth lasting such a short duration now, I'd rather more swarmhosts and earlier vipers. If it lasted the old 8 second duration though, would totally be worth it.
If the Protoss commits to Colossi, I find Spire tech for Corruptors usually seal the deal much better than Hydras. This is because, to me, Hydras are great at shredding Gateway units and defending against most Stargate play. However, SHs are already very cost-efficient against Gateway and Queens accomplish the same thing against air. By adding in Corruptors, you gain the ability to snipe the Colossi quickly and remove a significant chunk of DPS for the Protoss, which is pretty crucial against Locusts. With the high number of Queens for Transfuse, the Corruptors become extremely durable and effective.
The one problem I have had with this is it leaves your SHs vulnerable between Locust spawns because you lack supporting units on the ground. To help against this, I use Speedlings as a buffer between the Protoss and SHs. I use them as a kind of fleshy Force Field to keep Stalkers and Zealots off of the SHs until the next batch is ready. Once the next Locust spawn is up, I just move them back and replace what was lost.
And this is just a side note about your replay with Huk. Early in the game when he was shooting his own Nexus with the Cannon, he was trying to get your Overlord. If you shoot the Overlord immediately, the Zerg just moves it back with no harm done. If you shoot the Nexus and let the Overlord get on top of the Cannon (no " your forces are under attack" warning), the Zerg won't always notice there is a Cannon there until it's too late.
On April 10 2013 00:41 BallsOfSteel wrote: If the Protoss commits to Colossi, I find Spire tech for Corruptors usually seal the deal much better than Hydras. This is because, to me, Hydras are great at shredding Gateway units and defending against most Stargate play. However, SHs are already very cost-efficient against Gateway and Queens accomplish the same thing against air. By adding in Corruptors, you gain the ability to snipe the Colossi quickly and remove a significant chunk of DPS for the Protoss, which is pretty crucial against Locusts. With the high number of Queens for Transfuse, the Corruptors become extremely durable and effective.
The one problem I have had with this is it leaves your SHs vulnerable between Locust spawns because you lack supporting units on the ground. To help against this, I use Speedlings as a buffer between the Protoss and SHs. I use them as a kind of fleshy Force Field to keep Stalkers and Zealots off of the SHs until the next batch is ready. Once the next Locust spawn is up, I just move them back and replace what was lost.
And this is just a side note about your replay with Huk. Early in the game when he was shooting his own Nexus with the Cannon, he was trying to get your Overlord. If you shoot the Overlord immediately, the Zerg just moves it back with no harm done. If you shoot the Nexus and let the Overlord get on top of the Cannon (no " your forces are under attack" warning), the Zerg won't always notice there is a Cannon there until it's too late.
Ah very cool note regarding huk shooting his nexus. That was very confusing :D . I more and more am feeling that some corruptors would be good vs opponents who have not opened stargate. I'm reluctant to get corruptors if I already see the possibility of voidrays though, since they melt them so so fast.
Still though, more and more as players are improving vs SH I am finding double robo+blinksters difficult to deal with once they are 6+ colossus, so I may be moving into some corruptors when necessary as much as I hate the unit to the core of my soul!
I'm finding that hydras are almost useless if you can get more queens. Sure, they're much harder to build, but getting 200/200 of SH/viper/queen is so much better than having hydras in the mix. On the other hand, hydras are great for remaxing because with macro hatches you should have stockpiled a huge amount of larva (also remember to inject every time you collect new queens).
Can't wait to see how you use it vs terran, I can't imagine how you deal with drops using this strategy.
Also, gotta love when toss makes a mothership.. abducting it always makes me lol.
i'm interested to see his solution to drops by terran as well. i've been playing this a lot the last few days and i've finally started to win games vs MMM with SH/hydra/infestor. leaving 4-8 hydras where terran can drop and playing very defensively. fungal + locusts really wrecks the bio ball. vs mech you just go for vipers instead of infestors and pull their expensive units into your locusts.
On April 10 2013 01:38 d07.RiV wrote: I'm finding that hydras are almost useless if you can get more queens. Sure, they're much harder to build, but getting 200/200 of SH/viper/queen is so much better than having hydras in the mix. On the other hand, hydras are great for remaxing because with macro hatches you should have stockpiled a huge amount of larva (also remember to inject every time you collect new queens).
Can't wait to see how you use it vs terran, I can't imagine how you deal with drops using this strategy.
Also, gotta love when toss makes a mothership.. abducting it always makes me lol.
I've found that hydras add some much needed DPS behind the locust spawns though, queens kind of tend to tickle things to death.
And ya mothership abducts are hilarious :D . I wonder if blizzard knew how comical that would look.
On April 10 2013 02:48 meijin wrote: i'm interested to see his solution to drops by terran as well. i've been playing this a lot the last few days and i've finally started to win games vs MMM with SH/hydra/infestor. leaving 4-8 hydras where terran can drop and playing very defensively. fungal + locusts really wrecks the bio ball. vs mech you just go for vipers instead of infestors and pull their expensive units into your locusts.
Updating with a link to my first of many ZvT casts as I begin to develop this into a ZvP & ZvT guide
On April 09 2013 11:31 H2OSno wrote: Why don't you ever make 1-2 infestors to Fungal Growth units and not let them escape? Seems a good way to force trades.
WIth fungal growth lasting such a short duration now, I'd rather more swarmhosts and earlier vipers. If it lasted the old 8 second duration though, would totally be worth it.
Maybe not before you have 15+ swarmhosts. It seems after that, infestors would be more effective for forcing trades than more swarmhosts.
On April 09 2013 11:31 H2OSno wrote: Why don't you ever make 1-2 infestors to Fungal Growth units and not let them escape? Seems a good way to force trades.
WIth fungal growth lasting such a short duration now, I'd rather more swarmhosts and earlier vipers. If it lasted the old 8 second duration though, would totally be worth it.
Maybe not before you have 15+ swarmhosts. It seems after that, infestors would be more effective for forcing trades than more swarmhosts.
Ya you're probably right, a couple might really pay off well pre-ht
On April 09 2013 11:31 H2OSno wrote: Why don't you ever make 1-2 infestors to Fungal Growth units and not let them escape? Seems a good way to force trades.
WIth fungal growth lasting such a short duration now, I'd rather more swarmhosts and earlier vipers. If it lasted the old 8 second duration though, would totally be worth it.
Maybe not before you have 15+ swarmhosts. It seems after that, infestors would be more effective for forcing trades than more swarmhosts.
Ya you're probably right, a couple might really pay off well pre-ht
And obviously vipers have been discussed as being exceptionally efficient for forcing trades. But with making infestor/viper/swarm host, you come up with one of the most cost efficient, but also gas expensive compositions in the game. And truly, by the time you can amass such a large army, the game will probably have progressed past the point where swarm hosts are most useful.
On April 11 2013 00:07 H2OSno wrote: And truly, by the time you can amass such a large army, the game will probably have progressed past the point where swarm hosts are most useful.
Care to elaborate? Rekatan is clearly demonstrating that swarm hosts can work well all game long - I'm not sure why you are saying that they become less useful as the game progresses.
As far as "infestors vs vipers" goes, he covers this in his casts; the short version is Infestors vs bio, Vipers vs mech.
On April 09 2013 11:31 H2OSno wrote: Why don't you ever make 1-2 infestors to Fungal Growth units and not let them escape? Seems a good way to force trades.
WIth fungal growth lasting such a short duration now, I'd rather more swarmhosts and earlier vipers. If it lasted the old 8 second duration though, would totally be worth it.
Maybe not before you have 15+ swarmhosts. It seems after that, infestors would be more effective for forcing trades than more swarmhosts.
Ya you're probably right, a couple might really pay off well pre-ht
And obviously vipers have been discussed as being exceptionally efficient for forcing trades. But with making infestor/viper/swarm host, you come up with one of the most cost efficient, but also gas expensive compositions in the game. And truly, by the time you can amass such a large army, the game will probably have progressed past the point where swarm hosts are most useful.
With this in mind, vipers or infestors? IYO.
EDIT: Spelling.
I don't really feel that there's ever a point (in ZvP) where you want less than 16 swarmhosts. That tends to lose games from my experience, since viper/queen/hydra is SO dependent on that buffer.
That said though, viper/infestor/sh/queen would be pretty amazing if you have the APM for it haha.
On April 11 2013 00:07 H2OSno wrote: And truly, by the time you can amass such a large army, the game will probably have progressed past the point where swarm hosts are most useful.
Care to elaborate? Rekatan is clearly demonstrating that swarm hosts can work well all game long - I'm not sure why you are saying that they become less useful as the game progresses.
As far as "infestors vs vipers" goes, he covers this in his casts; the short version is Infestors vs bio, Vipers vs mech.
I just meant that the principle effectiveness (cost efficiency) degrades over time because larger armies will clear the waves of locusts faster. As the game progresses, the larger armies and options for harass means slow swarmhosts will take a backseat against more traditional zerg endgame armies. At least that's what it seems to me, unless you prevent the protoss from taking a third completely.
I still think swarmhosts become "weaker" (not weak, just not AS strong), as the game progresses. Is that a fair statement?
Regardless, 2 infestors or vipers might be better for forcing trades than 3 more swarm hosts after you have a large swarmhost brood. You get more effectiveness and cost efficiency out of the viper or infestor because you get to kill units (abduct, fungal growth) that would other be able to escape the slow locusts.
On April 11 2013 00:07 H2OSno wrote: And truly, by the time you can amass such a large army, the game will probably have progressed past the point where swarm hosts are most useful.
Care to elaborate? Rekatan is clearly demonstrating that swarm hosts can work well all game long - I'm not sure why you are saying that they become less useful as the game progresses.
As far as "infestors vs vipers" goes, he covers this in his casts; the short version is Infestors vs bio, Vipers vs mech.
I just meant that the principle effectiveness (cost efficiency) degrades over time because larger armies will clear the waves of locusts faster. As the game progresses, the larger armies and options for harass means slow swarmhosts will take a backseat against more traditional zerg endgame armies. At least that's what it seems to me, unless you prevent the protoss from taking a third completely.
I still think swarmhosts become "weaker" (not weak, just not AS strong), as the game progresses. Is that a fair statement?
Regardless, 2 infestors or vipers might be better for forcing trades than 3 more swarm hosts after you have a large swarmhost brood. You get more effectiveness and cost efficiency out of the viper or infestor because you get to kill units (abduct, fungal growth) that would other be able to escape the slow locusts.
I think the whole idea behind Rekatan's build and use of SH is to constantly keep the opponent's army fairly small through the use of control locust trading mixed with fungal or abduct. That being said, there really shouldn't be a time when your opponent's army gets "too large" for SH to handle. And at that point, Rekatan generally indicates that you should start doing multi-pronged SH attacks to slowly starve your opponent. In other words, if you're trading well with your opponent while constantly shutting down your opponent's bases, you should never run into a mass colossus/archon/void ray ball.
As a little idea, Rekatan, you should try doing the 4-infestor hitsquads in the late lategame; it's the same as splitting off a few swarm hosts, but less supply.
@H2OSno: It's true that as your enemy gains a larger and/or higher tier army, your swarm hosts by themselves will become less effective. However, as you go into lategame your army composition changes too; you will be gradually swapping the swarm host "support" part of your army for higher value units (eg swapping roaches out for infestors), and very lategame even swapping drone army supply out for alternatives. Your army "maturing" in this way keeps the swarm hosts relevant.
On April 11 2013 03:03 Hairy wrote: @H2OSno: It's true that as your enemy gains a larger and/or higher tier army, your swarm hosts by themselves will become less effective. However, as you go into lategame your army composition changes too; you will be gradually swapping the swarm host "support" part of your army for higher value units (eg swapping roaches out for infestors), and very lategame even swapping drone army supply out for alternatives. Your army "maturing" in this way keeps the swarm hosts relevant.
^ I couldn't have said it better myself!!!
As for infestor hit squads, I like it! It's definitely true that when it comes to sniping a nexus 4 full infestors will do the job quicker, more reliably,and with less supply tied down, than swarmhosts.
Good call! One more reason I should get just a few infestors each game.
Hey rekatan and everyone else who answered my question. I forgot to say thank you Also, when do you typically stream rekatan? These VODS are really fun to watch. I want to see more Swarm Hosts!
On April 12 2013 20:53 ultrakiss wrote: Hey rekatan and everyone else who answered my question. I forgot to say thank you Also, when do you typically stream rekatan? These VODS are really fun to watch. I want to see more Swarm Hosts!
Most every saturday and sunday for at least 4-6 hours. Also once or twice a week for a couple hours.
As for specific times, I update my twitter - rekstarcraft and facebook - rekatansc2 when I know for certain!
On April 12 2013 21:55 Hairy wrote: Thought I should mention that Day[9] is covering swarmhost-based ZvP by CatZ in episode #570. Interesting to compare and contrast...
Ya, truthfully it makes me sad because CatZ spent most of beta telling everyone to not make swarmhosts because they're terrible, and these days uses them in a gimmicky all-in capacity. Oh well such is life.
how do you beat this as protoss. i don't come across SH very often as P (dunno why), but i alwasy just seem to lose when they get them en masse. i know to get colossi, but it becomes so hard if they swap to muta since you need to swap to phoenix production and they usually have so many mutas so fast that its so hard to defend.
also its quite frustrating since i feel like i have to micro constantly to avoid significant damage to my own units whereas zerg is just burrow and move attack.
On April 12 2013 21:55 Hairy wrote: Thought I should mention that Day[9] is covering swarmhost-based ZvP by CatZ in episode #570. Interesting to compare and contrast...
While their builds are totally utterly different, and the mid-game style far different, the same points about endgame are made by both. HTs killed by locusts, static D, viper, etc.
On April 13 2013 03:03 dreamsmasher wrote: how do you beat this as protoss. i don't come across SH very often as P (dunno why), but i alwasy just seem to lose when they get them en masse. i know to get colossi, but it becomes so hard if they swap to muta since you need to swap to phoenix production and they usually have so many mutas so fast that its so hard to defend.
also its quite frustrating since i feel like i have to micro constantly to avoid significant damage to my own units whereas zerg is just burrow and move attack.
I think blinksters + colossi is a must. 90% of my losses probably are a result of really good blink micro and 6-8 colossi.
Also warp gate zealot harass is incredibly strong vs this.
On April 13 2013 03:03 dreamsmasher wrote: how do you beat this as protoss. i don't come across SH very often as P (dunno why), but i alwasy just seem to lose when they get them en masse. i know to get colossi, but it becomes so hard if they swap to muta since you need to swap to phoenix production and they usually have so many mutas so fast that its so hard to defend.
also its quite frustrating since i feel like i have to micro constantly to avoid significant damage to my own units whereas zerg is just burrow and move attack.
I think blinksters + colossi is a must. 90% of my losses probably are a result of really good blink micro and 6-8 colossi.
Also warp gate zealot harass is incredibly strong vs this.
Hahaha, I love the term "blinksters" lol. That actually just made my night, Rekatan :D.
I have been messing with swarm hosts vs terran after I watched a few of your reps.
I am having a hard time with bio + mass tanks timings before Vipers. Do I need mass lings to counter to buy time? MORE swarm hosts? swarm hosts + drops so I can keep the terran on this side of the map?
On April 13 2013 23:57 BuiBui wrote: I have been messing with swarm hosts vs terran after I watched a few of your reps.
I am having a hard time with bio + mass tanks timings before Vipers. Do I need mass lings to counter to buy time? MORE swarm hosts? swarm hosts + drops so I can keep the terran on this side of the map?
On April 13 2013 23:57 BuiBui wrote: I have been messing with swarm hosts vs terran after I watched a few of your reps.
I am having a hard time with bio + mass tanks timings before Vipers. Do I need mass lings to counter to buy time? MORE swarm hosts? swarm hosts + drops so I can keep the terran on this side of the map?
Any time they're into bio you'll want banelings or infestors, rather than vipers. I find on larger maps that muta/baneling/queen will be a strong compliment to your SH, and on smaller 2 player maps you can go straight into infestor with great succcess.
Actually tried to follow your build exactly as it was on the site here and realized that you left out overlord speed. Just letting you know, Rekatan! Otherwise, very well structured build, I like how the economy works out!
I just got your replay pack. but i have a question.
What do you do vs void ray openings into collosus, where they just mass these two units essentially with some zealots and do a big push off like 3 bases?
In your vods in the OP in my opinion you face every stargate unit BUT voids lol and every time i try to use swarm hosts this is the composition i face
On April 14 2013 09:32 UltiBahamut wrote: I just got your replay pack. but i have a question.
What do you do vs void ray openings into collosus, where they just mass these two units essentially with some zealots and do a big push off like 3 bases?
In your vods in the OP in my opinion you face every stargate unit BUT voids lol and every time i try to use swarm hosts this is the composition i face
Since voids are so badly countered by queens, and are really slow to kill locusts, there isn't a lot of challenge to that composition. If they're going from void straight into colossus they typically don't live long enough for the transition to be completed. If I run into it again I'll record a video of it, but I don't see it too terribly often - they typically move out of voids once they see my queen count.
On April 14 2013 12:50 UltiBahamut wrote: I guess i just need to work on my transfuses then lol. Thanks.
I agree. As long as you're nailing your transfuses, a few high-energy queens should pretty much demolish an equal number of void rays (unless we're about like 10+), but even then....
I've had mixed success with this strategy, most notably against players who decide to do these weird gateway timings with MsC...messes up the contain a little bit, but it seems possible to deal with it as long as you deflect it with some SH micro and destroy any hidden proxy pylons. I don't seem to get to vipers very much; most Protoss players I've played fall apart during the contain lol.
I agree. As long as you're nailing your transfuses, a few high-energy queens should pretty much demolish an equal number of void rays (unless we're about like 10+), but even then....
I ran that on unit tester, 20 queens can handle 20 voids with practically no losses, as long as voids focus fire the queens, because it is so so so much easier to spam transfuse on a single queen, and nearly impossible if half your queens are taking damage at the same time (keep in mind that in this case most transfuses will do overhealing so you will run out of energy very quickly).
I don't seem to get to vipers very much; most Protoss players I've played fall apart during the contain lol.
Actually I found vipers to be extremely important to have if they try to transition into collosi (which they will most likely do when they see your SH numbers). If you get them too late, the collosi mass will simply walk over you.
What do you do if they transition into tempest? Queens are pretty useless against those, as they simply get oneshot with no chance for transfuse, and if they can hold the locust off long enough for tempests to chew through your queen/hydra, there is no way to stop them with this comp. Should I drop a spire and be ready to mass corruptors when I see a fleet beacon? They should do fine vs carries too.
I'm currently watching your Terran VODS, more specifically the first one in this thread, and I just want to throw in a note here. You get the quick burrow for your aggression and to block the expansions, which is awesome, but I would also recommend using it for your own mines. I've won a ton of games due to nicely placed burrowed banelings and since you get that very quick burrow you might as well start burrowing your banelings. If you can have a contain long enough you can probably place them very close to the opponents base which will minimize the chance of them getting scanned.
Just wanted to point that out and maybe you already do that, but I heard no comment on it in the first VOD(as stated, I haven't seen the other one yet :D), well...going to continue watching now, great stuff as always :D!
I agree. As long as you're nailing your transfuses, a few high-energy queens should pretty much demolish an equal number of void rays (unless we're about like 10+), but even then....
I ran that on unit tester, 20 queens can handle 20 voids with practically no losses, as long as voids focus fire the queens, because it is so so so much easier to spam transfuse on a single queen, and nearly impossible if half your queens are taking damage at the same time (keep in mind that in this case most transfuses will do overhealing so you will run out of energy very quickly).
I don't seem to get to vipers very much; most Protoss players I've played fall apart during the contain lol.
Actually I found vipers to be extremely important to have if they try to transition into collosi (which they will most likely do when they see your SH numbers). If you get them too late, the collosi mass will simply walk over you.
What do you do if they transition into tempest? Queens are pretty useless against those, as they simply get oneshot with no chance for transfuse, and if they can hold the locust off long enough for tempests to chew through your queen/hydra, there is no way to stop them with this comp. Should I drop a spire and be ready to mass corruptors when I see a fleet beacon? They should do fine vs carries too.
I still like queen/hydra vs tempest until their numbers are really high. I find drop play to be very good too, since tempest don't do well once split up.
On April 14 2013 23:37 Rekatan wrote:I still like queen/hydra vs tempest until their numbers are really high. I find drop play to be very good too, since tempest don't do well once split up.
In that particular game P was pretty much maxed out on tempest, even though I was at his door around when he started building them, I sniped a few with abduct but they quickly outnumbered me and I couldn't do anything at that point. Toss was at 3 bases and his 3rd was rather late, so I'm not sure what I could do there. Also it was on neo planet so I couldn't quickly switch to his third as that would involve going around the entire map.
On April 13 2013 03:03 dreamsmasher wrote: how do you beat this as protoss. i don't come across SH very often as P (dunno why), but i alwasy just seem to lose when they get them en masse. i know to get colossi, but it becomes so hard if they swap to muta since you need to swap to phoenix production and they usually have so many mutas so fast that its so hard to defend.
also its quite frustrating since i feel like i have to micro constantly to avoid significant damage to my own units whereas zerg is just burrow and move attack.
I think blinksters + colossi is a must. 90% of my losses probably are a result of really good blink micro and 6-8 colossi.
Also warp gate zealot harass is incredibly strong vs this.
I do this build and I love it . I often forget to do viper, and it still works most of the time (they really need a huge amount of collosus to deal with it)
My main problems are : -phenix openings. When they do that, I loose most of my mapcontrol (remove the OV of the map, and I need to do spores. If it's cross position Wirlwind, I have the impression it's really hard to prevent the protoss from expanding a it everywhere and keep track of his bases. -Good army positioning. Well I mostely encountered it on belsirh (and I removed the map after this). The main army goes around, snipes tumor, makes me relocalise, and so on. I loose all mapcontrol and can't really make economic damages. -Warp prism/zealots harass. Goes into your main, warp 10 zealots (or dts), and ravage everything. Queens and SH are too slow to defend this well, and making a spire or a big amount of static defense seems to expensive for the early game.
Now I just let 1-2 SH in my main to defend this kind of things (they will not kill everything instantly, but will kill them eventually (protoss won't have any detection), before they ravage everything, and you don't have to send things to defend. I think on a big map it can be a good idea to have SH squads (probably dropped from an OV) that harras expands on other locations that the one you are pushing right now (well most of the time I have a main push). This way it uses some protoss APM, and it's arguably better than other drops (he have to bring detection).
-Warp prism/zealots harass. Goes into your main, warp 10 zealots (or dts), and ravage everything. Queens and SH are too slow to defend this well, and making a spire or a big amount of static defense seems to expensive for the early game.
Hydras do very well against this sort of harass though, a couple spines should buy enough time for hydras to spawn. If you're maxed out, perhaps its a good time for nydus.
First off i love the guide, i have been practicing with it vs a friend of mine, we are both low to mid masters. The problem is i have lost every game we have played when i go for this style. once he sees the swarm hosts, he just techs to blink stalkers and walks around and destroys my base behind me.
I think i may be moving out too soon with the swarm hosts. My questions to you are:
When at what time should you move your swarm hosts to start attacking with them, like how many should you have? 3, 6, 10, etc etc?
Second is how do you deal with blink stalkers? I was thinking if you see them go blink stalkers, don't mass queens like normal, but get speedlings instead, because they can actually keep up with the blinksters, and kill them.
I believe Munk that i can answer this. But if i do it wrong i'm sure reketan will correct me or expand on my post
But i feel as though Reketan answered this is one of his videos and i've had the same experience. When you get the overlord speed when lair finishes around 7-8 minutes you should obviously scout. If you see the twilight council researching it is probably safe to assume its blink. What you have to do against this is play defensive, get up a couple more spines and wait until you get a higher number of swarm hosts.
Personally against this i just take my third and play defensive until i get up to about 16-20 swarm hosts or i see them leaving before i really start pushing out and start putting pressure back on them. Due to the mobility of blink stalkers you NEED to have vision along every pathway, changlings work well for this. so if you start seeing him run by you can go back to defend or go into a base trade mode
But when i move out against any other style i personally wait until i have about 8-10 swarm hosts. But i think that this is just my preference lol.
Munk, one of the reasons for the Queens is to snipe the Observer(s) which P will HAVE to have. I don't know if you were intending to eliminate Queens from the comp, or just reduce the quantity in favor of lings, but you need some to snipe observers and don't forget that queens don't need larva while lings need lots. Keeping up on injects to produce lings will distract from SH micro, which is the top priority, keeping them safe.
so if you start seeing him run by you can go back to defend or go into a base trade mode
Bad idea, SH are by far the slowest base killers, so unless you have a good amount of hydras you will die a painful death.
Munk, one of the reasons for the Queens is to snipe the Observer(s) which P will HAVE to have. I don't know if you were intending to eliminate Queens from the comp, or just reduce the quantity in favor of lings, but you need some to snipe observers and don't forget that queens don't need larva while lings need lots. Keeping up on injects to produce lings will distract from SH micro, which is the top priority, keeping them safe.
You will have (or at least I tend to have) a TON of minerals floating, even though I double expand almost right as SHs come out. Queens also take 50 seconds to pop so you can inject at that interval, collecting new queens as you do this. That said, getting hydras instead of lings works fine - sure, they can't chase down blinkstalkers, but they are even better at protecting SHs, and don't require a separate upgrade.
By the way a neat trick to have a nearly finished creep highway by the time SHs come out is to bring the third queen out about 1/3 of the way and do a hatch cancel.
I think a few people have mentioned this point, but the hardest thing for me is microing the SH.
Is there a way to queue move, burrow, rally? I constantly queue move + burrow and then jump around to do macro/econ or deal with something else only to come back to a bunch of half timer locusts just standing there not attacking because I couldn't queue their rally.
On April 20 2013 03:45 PsychoBob wrote: Is there a way to queue move, burrow, rally? I constantly queue move + burrow and then jump around to do macro/econ or deal with something else only to come back to a bunch of half timer locusts just standing there not attacking because I couldn't queue their rally.
Nope. I wish you could, but you can't.
Bearing that in mind, any time that I'm reinforcing or building up my swarm host numbers I manually control them. Ctrl+click hosts on front line, burrow, and spam rally+click. Don't shiftmove+burrow your hosts, just burrow them without a queue. This ensures all hosts will burrow simultaneously, enabling you to actually set the rally. If you shiftmove + burrow them, they will all burrow at different times and it's really messy. Swarm hosts may look passive at first glance, but there's actually a lot of micro involved.
Seems like backdoor ling/roach drops during the middle stages of this build would open up the player and end the game sooner. Especially considering you already have lord speed.
As far as protoss goes, observers aren't going to cut it. You need oracles to do that reveal to deal with the zerg AA
Munk, one of the reasons for the Queens is to snipe the Observer(s) which P will HAVE to have. I don't know if you were intending to eliminate Queens from the comp, or just reduce the quantity in favor of lings, but you need some to snipe observers and don't forget that queens don't need larva while lings need lots. Keeping up on injects to produce lings will distract from SH micro, which is the top priority, keeping them safe.
You will have (or at least I tend to have) a TON of minerals floating, even though I double expand almost right as SHs come out. Queens also take 50 seconds to pop so you can inject at that interval, collecting new queens as you do this. That said, getting hydras instead of lings works fine - sure, they can't chase down blinkstalkers, but they are even better at protecting SHs, and don't require a separate upgrade.
By the way a neat trick to have a nearly finished creep highway by the time SHs come out is to bring the third queen out about 1/3 of the way and do a hatch cancel.
I have to disagree with this one. SH base trade extremely well due to their survivability. I find often that they do well at pushing against the opponent while your support units pull back and stall/repel the opponent's army. This works particularly well vs Terran, since you can often cut off their production entirely and end the game outright the moment terran is forced to pickup and retreat.
On April 20 2013 12:13 MarlieChurphy wrote: Seems like backdoor ling/roach drops during the middle stages of this build would open up the player and end the game sooner. Especially considering you already have lord speed.
As far as protoss goes, observers aren't going to cut it. You need oracles to do that reveal to deal with the zerg AA
Absolutely, drops synergize with this really well. I haven't had any replays recently demonstrating it but I do like to mix in hydra drops actually with this. Roach/ling could work as well though, so I suppose it's just a matter of preference (I find hydras+1queen to be the most efficient drop composition if micro'd well).
Munk, one of the reasons for the Queens is to snipe the Observer(s) which P will HAVE to have. I don't know if you were intending to eliminate Queens from the comp, or just reduce the quantity in favor of lings, but you need some to snipe observers and don't forget that queens don't need larva while lings need lots. Keeping up on injects to produce lings will distract from SH micro, which is the top priority, keeping them safe.
You will have (or at least I tend to have) a TON of minerals floating, even though I double expand almost right as SHs come out. Queens also take 50 seconds to pop so you can inject at that interval, collecting new queens as you do this. That said, getting hydras instead of lings works fine - sure, they can't chase down blinkstalkers, but they are even better at protecting SHs, and don't require a separate upgrade.
By the way a neat trick to have a nearly finished creep highway by the time SHs come out is to bring the third queen out about 1/3 of the way and do a hatch cancel.
I have to disagree with this one. SH base trade extremely well due to their survivability. I find often that they do well at pushing against the opponent while your support units pull back and stall/repel the opponent's army. This works particularly well vs Terran, since you can often cut off their production entirely and end the game outright the moment terran is forced to pickup and retreat.
Woah, seriously? I was about to reply in favour of that guy's comment when I saw your post. I've found SHs to be *awful* in trades, they are SO slow at clearing out a base since you have to wait for spawns instead of just going from structure to structure like with regular units.
Unless you mean *attempted* trades, in which case static at home + pumping out reinforcements + sending your whole support crew home and saving the base works great as you proved in your games...but I'd have to see a replay of an all-out, 'fuck it' base trade work before I'd believe it.
On April 20 2013 23:29 DaemonX wrote: Welcome back Rek! Been using your build all week and even when it doesn't wreck, it's fun and intense as hell and always provokes BM ^_^
Munk, one of the reasons for the Queens is to snipe the Observer(s) which P will HAVE to have. I don't know if you were intending to eliminate Queens from the comp, or just reduce the quantity in favor of lings, but you need some to snipe observers and don't forget that queens don't need larva while lings need lots. Keeping up on injects to produce lings will distract from SH micro, which is the top priority, keeping them safe.
You will have (or at least I tend to have) a TON of minerals floating, even though I double expand almost right as SHs come out. Queens also take 50 seconds to pop so you can inject at that interval, collecting new queens as you do this. That said, getting hydras instead of lings works fine - sure, they can't chase down blinkstalkers, but they are even better at protecting SHs, and don't require a separate upgrade.
By the way a neat trick to have a nearly finished creep highway by the time SHs come out is to bring the third queen out about 1/3 of the way and do a hatch cancel.
I have to disagree with this one. SH base trade extremely well due to their survivability. I find often that they do well at pushing against the opponent while your support units pull back and stall/repel the opponent's army. This works particularly well vs Terran, since you can often cut off their production entirely and end the game outright the moment terran is forced to pickup and retreat.
Woah, seriously? I was about to reply in favour of that guy's comment when I saw your post. I've found SHs to be *awful* in trades, they are SO slow at clearing out a base since you have to wait for spawns instead of just going from structure to structure like with regular units.
Unless you mean *attempted* trades, in which case static at home + pumping out reinforcements + sending your whole support crew home and saving the base works great as you proved in your games...but I'd have to see a replay of an all-out, 'fuck it' base trade work before I'd believe it.
Ok ya I suppose I should elaborate a bit. In a perfect world their base trades will always become the *attempted* variety. In the event that they don't though, bring all spores and spines as well as any remaining army you have to your swarm hosts. This is where they actually become REALLY strong in a base trade. They WILL clear your base first, but as long as your spore/spine count at your SH is substantial enough, you now have a mobile base that doubles as defense for your swarmhosts. In most basetrade situations they are extremely gateway unit (or bio) heavy, so don't be surprised if they eventually come to the harsh realization that they physically can't break your positioning, and just leave once their production structures go down.
Terran can fair a bit better in this situation due to liftoff, but if you have a few infestors you can often just catch their army and clean it up with locusts when they try to head off your push.
This style is stupid, I don't know why anyone would use this. Rekatan doesn't know what he's talking about. Look how terrible my winrate has been when using his dumb strategy:
(ZvP games featuring swarm hosts)
(Swarm host game summary)
Just kidding. This kicks so much ass I've just got promoted to Masters for the first time ever, YAY! :D :D :D Protoss don't know what hit 'em.
On April 20 2013 23:29 DaemonX wrote: Welcome back Rek! Been using your build all week and even when it doesn't wreck, it's fun and intense as hell and always provokes BM ^_^
Munk, one of the reasons for the Queens is to snipe the Observer(s) which P will HAVE to have. I don't know if you were intending to eliminate Queens from the comp, or just reduce the quantity in favor of lings, but you need some to snipe observers and don't forget that queens don't need larva while lings need lots. Keeping up on injects to produce lings will distract from SH micro, which is the top priority, keeping them safe.
You will have (or at least I tend to have) a TON of minerals floating, even though I double expand almost right as SHs come out. Queens also take 50 seconds to pop so you can inject at that interval, collecting new queens as you do this. That said, getting hydras instead of lings works fine - sure, they can't chase down blinkstalkers, but they are even better at protecting SHs, and don't require a separate upgrade.
By the way a neat trick to have a nearly finished creep highway by the time SHs come out is to bring the third queen out about 1/3 of the way and do a hatch cancel.
I have to disagree with this one. SH base trade extremely well due to their survivability. I find often that they do well at pushing against the opponent while your support units pull back and stall/repel the opponent's army. This works particularly well vs Terran, since you can often cut off their production entirely and end the game outright the moment terran is forced to pickup and retreat.
Woah, seriously? I was about to reply in favour of that guy's comment when I saw your post. I've found SHs to be *awful* in trades, they are SO slow at clearing out a base since you have to wait for spawns instead of just going from structure to structure like with regular units.
Unless you mean *attempted* trades, in which case static at home + pumping out reinforcements + sending your whole support crew home and saving the base works great as you proved in your games...but I'd have to see a replay of an all-out, 'fuck it' base trade work before I'd believe it.
Ok ya I suppose I should elaborate a bit. In a perfect world their base trades will always become the *attempted* variety. In the event that they don't though, bring all spores and spines as well as any remaining army you have to your swarm hosts. This is where they actually become REALLY strong in a base trade. They WILL clear your base first, but as long as your spore/spine count at your SH is substantial enough, you now have a mobile base that doubles as defense for your swarmhosts. In most basetrade situations they are extremely gateway unit (or bio) heavy, so don't be surprised if they eventually come to the harsh realization that they physically can't break your positioning, and just leave once their production structures go down.
Terran can fair a bit better in this situation due to liftoff, but if you have a few infestors you can often just catch their army and clean it up with locusts when they try to head off your push.
Ok, MIND = BLOWN. Please link a rep of this occurring!
One final query - I just saw your new PvZ, that's one of the best games I've seen this year. But I have ta, gotta ask - as insane as the control, decision and micro of you two guys was, surely there was a way to get a little bank once he veered off Void production into the colosus / tempest / HT army and smash out 15 corruptors? Feedbacks don't hurt Corrs, Coll don't shoot up, and both they and temps are massive units...can you say free clean up? I mean, I don't see myself ever surviving an encounter with that army like you did, but just resorting to a hard unit counter seems a way out.
Was all that fancy footwork really necessary, or was there simply no way to get 1k gas clear when under that much pressure?
On April 20 2013 23:29 DaemonX wrote: Welcome back Rek! Been using your build all week and even when it doesn't wreck, it's fun and intense as hell and always provokes BM ^_^
Munk, one of the reasons for the Queens is to snipe the Observer(s) which P will HAVE to have. I don't know if you were intending to eliminate Queens from the comp, or just reduce the quantity in favor of lings, but you need some to snipe observers and don't forget that queens don't need larva while lings need lots. Keeping up on injects to produce lings will distract from SH micro, which is the top priority, keeping them safe.
You will have (or at least I tend to have) a TON of minerals floating, even though I double expand almost right as SHs come out. Queens also take 50 seconds to pop so you can inject at that interval, collecting new queens as you do this. That said, getting hydras instead of lings works fine - sure, they can't chase down blinkstalkers, but they are even better at protecting SHs, and don't require a separate upgrade.
By the way a neat trick to have a nearly finished creep highway by the time SHs come out is to bring the third queen out about 1/3 of the way and do a hatch cancel.
I have to disagree with this one. SH base trade extremely well due to their survivability. I find often that they do well at pushing against the opponent while your support units pull back and stall/repel the opponent's army. This works particularly well vs Terran, since you can often cut off their production entirely and end the game outright the moment terran is forced to pickup and retreat.
Woah, seriously? I was about to reply in favour of that guy's comment when I saw your post. I've found SHs to be *awful* in trades, they are SO slow at clearing out a base since you have to wait for spawns instead of just going from structure to structure like with regular units.
Unless you mean *attempted* trades, in which case static at home + pumping out reinforcements + sending your whole support crew home and saving the base works great as you proved in your games...but I'd have to see a replay of an all-out, 'fuck it' base trade work before I'd believe it.
Ok ya I suppose I should elaborate a bit. In a perfect world their base trades will always become the *attempted* variety. In the event that they don't though, bring all spores and spines as well as any remaining army you have to your swarm hosts. This is where they actually become REALLY strong in a base trade. They WILL clear your base first, but as long as your spore/spine count at your SH is substantial enough, you now have a mobile base that doubles as defense for your swarmhosts. In most basetrade situations they are extremely gateway unit (or bio) heavy, so don't be surprised if they eventually come to the harsh realization that they physically can't break your positioning, and just leave once their production structures go down.
Terran can fair a bit better in this situation due to liftoff, but if you have a few infestors you can often just catch their army and clean it up with locusts when they try to head off your push.
Ok, MIND = BLOWN. Please link a rep of this occurring!
One final query - I just saw your new PvZ, that's one of the best games I've seen this year. But I have ta, gotta ask - as insane as the control, decision and micro of you two guys was, surely there was a way to get a little bank once he veered off Void production into the colosus / tempest / HT army and smash out 15 corruptors? Feedbacks don't hurt Corrs, Coll don't shoot up, and both they and temps are massive units...can you say free clean up? I mean, I don't see myself ever surviving an encounter with that army like you did, but just resorting to a hard unit counter seems a way out.
Was all that fancy footwork really necessary, or was there simply no way to get 1k gas clear when under that much pressure?
I'll make sure to cast or post the next time I have this crazy situation arise! It happened a LOT in beta, but lately I have been able to head off base trade attempts before it's necessary.
Ya, I actually just started experimenting with corruptors after some replays one of my stream viewers sent me of a corruptor/swarmhost open he has been working on. I think they're going to help a LOT, but I need to be careful that they aren't into voids.
On April 21 2013 00:05 Hairy wrote: This style is stupid, I don't know why anyone would use this. Rekatan doesn't know what he's talking about. Look how terrible my winrate has been when using his dumb strategy:
(ZvP games featuring swarm hosts)
(Swarm host game summary)
Just kidding. This kicks so much ass I've just got promoted to Masters for the first time ever, YAY! :D :D :D Protoss don't know what hit 'em.
You won a Diamond/Masters ZvZ using Swarm Hosts? :D
On April 21 2013 14:09 Wafflelisk wrote: You won a Diamond/Masters ZvZ using Swarm Hosts? :D
It was a really weird game. Normally I'd go the standard ling/bling into 2 base muta etc etc etc, but he was actually rushing mutas on 1 base. I saw it, did a TERRIBLE attempt at a bust and got way behind. Instead of competing in the muta race (as I would have been permanently behind) I went roach hydra and swarm host.
I caught on to this style about a week ago, and have had pretty awesome results. I'm not high level (highish Plat), but it works wonderfully at my level as well. This style is actually why I'm moving up the ladder because Protoss is no problem at all now, even some Terrans get rolled with a variety of this. As long as I am smart enough to make Vipers or something other than Hydras when I see mass Colossus, it's easy peasy. So, thanks Rekatan, and for anyone not sure about the success of the style at different levels, see below:
hey Rekatan, I have always enjoyed using swarm hosts, and done decently with them in zvp, and plan on using your build order to refine their use. for zvt though, I have problems, and it seems like you delay them longer than in zvp, understandibly, but I am struggling with it still, so I was wondering if you have any idea when you will be able to work on putting a zvt build order together?
I wonder if you can answer these questions, and potentially add them to the first post:
1) How many queens/swarm hosts do you typically move out with? It seems like you are taking your 3rd at the same time that you have just started swarm host/queen production, so at that point you have 3 queens. Do you move out with only a few swarm hosts and 5ish queens? Do you have a "time" or supply that could be used as a benchmark?
2) When do you get Overlord speed? Is it right after Lair is started (ie, next 100 gas)? I'm assuming that you get it eventually.
3) How do you handle phoenix openings? It seems like moving out with queens off-creep doesn't work super well. They seem to be able to have 5+ phoenixes when I push out with my 5 queens, and it seems like that ends up beating my queens. Also, how do you deal with the phoenixes when they attempt to cut off reinforcements?
4) When do you begin to drone up your 3rd? I seem to only be able to support constant queens/swarm hosts off 2 bases, and I never have a chance to make drones at my 3rd.
5) If they take a fast 3rd, do you typically pressure it, or just go straight for the natural?
6) When do you mix in roaches/hydras, and in what situations?
Just came here to say thanks for your vids, my new favourite youtuber . After watching how you build and after you telling me i didn't need queens at home once you go into this style of play my SH play has gotten amazingly better and i reckon it's the reason i am now in diamond.
Also, for anyone reading this and who likes playing team games: use this build on Green Acres. I have used it the three times i have played on that map and managed to beat all three armies by myself while my team mates just teched and kept away the obs. Hilarious.
On April 22 2013 15:58 Vildar wrote: hey Rekatan, I have always enjoyed using swarm hosts, and done decently with them in zvp, and plan on using your build order to refine their use. for zvt though, I have problems, and it seems like you delay them longer than in zvp, understandibly, but I am struggling with it still, so I was wondering if you have any idea when you will be able to work on putting a zvt build order together?
Unfortunately I would say I'm still a long way from having ZvT figured out with swarmhosts or otherwise. Every time I think I have things sorted out and start to eek towards 50% I run into something that makes me go "huh? Why is it ok that they can do that?"
That said, for the time being...
No comment =P
On April 23 2013 10:03 TheSambassador wrote: I wonder if you can answer these questions, and potentially add them to the first post:
1) How many queens/swarm hosts do you typically move out with? It seems like you are taking your 3rd at the same time that you have just started swarm host/queen production, so at that point you have 3 queens. Do you move out with only a few swarm hosts and 5ish queens? Do you have a "time" or supply that could be used as a benchmark?
2) When do you get Overlord speed? Is it right after Lair is started (ie, next 100 gas)? I'm assuming that you get it eventually.
3) How do you handle phoenix openings? It seems like moving out with queens off-creep doesn't work super well. They seem to be able to have 5+ phoenixes when I push out with my 5 queens, and it seems like that ends up beating my queens. Also, how do you deal with the phoenixes when they attempt to cut off reinforcements?
4) When do you begin to drone up your 3rd? I seem to only be able to support constant queens/swarm hosts off 2 bases, and I never have a chance to make drones at my 3rd.
5) If they take a fast 3rd, do you typically pressure it, or just go straight for the natural?
6) When do you mix in roaches/hydras, and in what situations?
1. minimum 8 SH, queens will depend on what I see - anywhere from 3 to 10 depending on if I expect stargate play
2. Overlord speed as soon as I reach 100 gas, while lair is finishing
3. I generally find that phoenix open is one of the easier to deal with as long as you are quick with your transfusions. That said, if you are having trouble you are either moving out too early, or you are missing transfusions
4. I can usually find an opening to make 5-10 drones for my 3rd once the swarmhost pressure has started actually damaging buildings/units, anything more than that is too many drones anyways, and should be transferred from main/nat
5. Both, depending on where their army is relative to my most recent swarmhost spawn. Sometimes both at the same time >
6. Roaches can be a helpful added buffer vs single robo collo, and hydras are helpful to augment your anti-air production if you can't produce queens quickly enough to react to an air transition
Just came here to say thanks for your vids, my new favourite youtuber . After watching how you build and after you telling me i didn't need queens at home once you go into this style of play my SH play has gotten amazingly better and i reckon it's the reason i am now in diamond.
Also, for anyone reading this and who likes playing team games: use this build on Green Acres. I have used it the three times i have played on that map and managed to beat all three armies by myself while my team mates just teched and kept away the obs. Hilarious.
thanks again man.
Quester.
Awesome, congrats on Diamond!!
Sure thing, happy to be your new favorite youtuber ^_^
So something i've been having an issue with is very active protoss players.
These are the protoss that will scout when you move out and simply counter like on daybreak if you go through the bottom path they will go on the top path. Do you always go back and defend or during this do you go for the attempted base trade of continuing your swarm hosts forward and pulling queens back while throwing up static defense? Ultimately i'm wondering what determines whether or not you go back and defend or not. I know in the most recent one you put up you made the comment that if you see voids mixed in you'll pull back and defend so i'm just curious.
But i've had issues with these protoss who keep it up even if i go back do defend, they simply will try to control where my locusts go by once again on Daybreak will keep constantly just going up then back down which keeps scaring me into sending my locusts that way so they simply dont push down and kill all my swarm hosts/4th etc. So because of this constant movement i feel as though i can never put any pressure onto the protoss so they can simply just build up anything they want while i'm trying to defend.
I think ultimately i could use this by splitting up my locusts and take a risk and try to get half of my locusts to flank them or to simply kill their fourth while the other half goes towards their army to defend mine.
On April 23 2013 13:23 UltiBahamut wrote: So something i've been having an issue with is very active protoss players.
These are the protoss that will scout when you move out and simply counter like on daybreak if you go through the bottom path they will go on the top path. Do you always go back and defend or during this do you go for the attempted base trade of continuing your swarm hosts forward and pulling queens back while throwing up static defense? Ultimately i'm wondering what determines whether or not you go back and defend or not. I know in the most recent one you put up you made the comment that if you see voids mixed in you'll pull back and defend so i'm just curious.
But i've had issues with these protoss who keep it up even if i go back do defend, they simply will try to control where my locusts go by once again on Daybreak will keep constantly just going up then back down which keeps scaring me into sending my locusts that way so they simply dont push down and kill all my swarm hosts/4th etc. So because of this constant movement i feel as though i can never put any pressure onto the protoss so they can simply just build up anything they want while i'm trying to defend.
I think ultimately i could use this by splitting up my locusts and take a risk and try to get half of my locusts to flank them or to simply kill their fourth while the other half goes towards their army to defend mine.
You might want to consider using Nydus to a safe place near their expansion, but not one where they will immediately see it and deny it. This way you can use the Nydus to send one round of locusts at one of his expos, and be back where you need to be to defend.
Also, hydra drops where the enemy army isn't are also effective.
On April 23 2013 13:23 UltiBahamut wrote: So something i've been having an issue with is very active protoss players.
These are the protoss that will scout when you move out and simply counter like on daybreak if you go through the bottom path they will go on the top path. Do you always go back and defend or during this do you go for the attempted base trade of continuing your swarm hosts forward and pulling queens back while throwing up static defense? Ultimately i'm wondering what determines whether or not you go back and defend or not. I know in the most recent one you put up you made the comment that if you see voids mixed in you'll pull back and defend so i'm just curious.
But i've had issues with these protoss who keep it up even if i go back do defend, they simply will try to control where my locusts go by once again on Daybreak will keep constantly just going up then back down which keeps scaring me into sending my locusts that way so they simply dont push down and kill all my swarm hosts/4th etc. So because of this constant movement i feel as though i can never put any pressure onto the protoss so they can simply just build up anything they want while i'm trying to defend.
I think ultimately i could use this by splitting up my locusts and take a risk and try to get half of my locusts to flank them or to simply kill their fourth while the other half goes towards their army to defend mine.
You might want to consider using Nydus to a safe place near their expansion, but not one where they will immediately see it and deny it. This way you can use the Nydus to send one round of locusts at one of his expos, and be back where you need to be to defend.
Also, hydra drops where the enemy army isn't are also effective.
I think the nydus is ok if they are anywhere other than threatening my bases. But if we are on daybreak and he is on the lower path where he can easily move to kill my fifth or fourth and my locust wave starts hitting his third he should be smart and simply kill both my fourth and fifth because there is a good chance i wont be back in position in time and then he can just run from the locusts. While it isn't the end of the world i'm generally not the biggest fan of trading bases like that. Even though i just saw a crazy game of reketan's last night :D
Hydra drops would be nice in the mid to late game. But when i'm still building all of my army and economy up is when i'm having these issues with highly active protoss. Because behind this they are building up a large sky-toss/collosus/high temp army.
On April 24 2013 05:59 zJayy962 wrote: You need to hurry up and figure out your ZvT. Tired of your shit Rekatan. Whats the point of a 90%+ winrate versus protoss and a 40% winrate vs T.
LOL!!!
If you want to make something happen on your own you're welcome to take the hit instead =P
On April 24 2013 05:59 zJayy962 wrote: You need to hurry up and figure out your ZvT. Tired of your shit Rekatan. Whats the point of a 90%+ winrate versus protoss and a 40% winrate vs T.
That balances out to an overall 65% vs non-mirror. Not good enough?
Thanks a lot for your research into SH, Rekatan! Every once and a while, a situation that favors Swarm Hosts over roaches comes up and I can easily transition into it using the general rules you've laid out for SH play.
I just got out of a ZvT where the terran did this funky fast hellion build into a hellion/mine contain and kept me on 2 bases for a while. I got out 6 queens and some speedlings to deny any kind of hellion runbys or hellion/marine plays. From this point, I realized I was stuck on 2 bases until lair tech against a terran on 2 bases with a lot of queens, so I just started teching up, fully saturating my mineral lines, grabbing burrow and overlord speed. Using the double blocks, I was able to cut off any attempts to get an early third and I broke out of my natural with a few roaches/queens/zerglings and started to transition into SH.
So I got an idea. It seems that swarm host play favors terran openings that invest heavily in gas early on and get a late expand. Using this thought process, is there a way to open with something like a REALLY early roach bust into SH? Or is there any way to force a very gas-heavy response very early?
Hi Rekatan, I've been trying this build out and quite like it. A lot of Protoss at the Master level though when they scout infestation pit/swarm host will usually throw down double robo and pump non-stop colossi. Even if they cut down the number of supporting units 3-4 colossi will burn through the locust and queen fast enough so that transfusion doesn't work well. I'm curious what the proper response/transition to this should be?
On April 25 2013 12:17 jade8472 wrote: Hi Rekatan, I've been trying this build out and quite like it. A lot of Protoss at the Master level though when they scout infestation pit/swarm host will usually throw down double robo and pump non-stop colossi. Even if they cut down the number of supporting units 3-4 colossi will burn through the locust and queen fast enough so that transfusion doesn't work well. I'm curious what the proper response/transition to this should be?
On April 25 2013 11:14 SC2John wrote: So I got an idea. It seems that swarm host play favors terran openings that invest heavily in gas early on and get a late expand. Using this thought process, is there a way to open with something like a REALLY early roach bust into SH? Or is there any way to force a very gas-heavy response very early?
On April 24 2013 05:59 zJayy962 wrote: You need to hurry up and figure out your ZvT. Tired of your shit Rekatan. Whats the point of a 90%+ winrate versus protoss and a 40% winrate vs T.
That balances out to an overall 65% vs non-mirror. Not good enough?
On April 25 2013 12:17 jade8472 wrote: Hi Rekatan, I've been trying this build out and quite like it. A lot of Protoss at the Master level though when they scout infestation pit/swarm host will usually throw down double robo and pump non-stop colossi. Even if they cut down the number of supporting units 3-4 colossi will burn through the locust and queen fast enough so that transfusion doesn't work well. I'm curious what the proper response/transition to this should be?
I think you just have to scout it, and get vipers. Hive is 100 sec and 200/200 away, it's pretty much the price of a robo bay. And he will need range, and enough collossus (with only 3-4 I doublt you push back SH that fast). So as long as you scout it, you have enough time for vipers I think. Problem if he goes double robo is that he will make a warp prism if he's good and pump zealots everywhere -_-. But I honestly think the most annoying opening he can do is phenix, because it kill your map control (by killing ovi all over the place), dealy you (you need spores, and make overlord to replace), and scouting becomes harder (you have all your OV at base, so when you want to scout it's a bit longer). And if he follow phenix with double robo, that super annoying ^^
Some things i've been wondering: 1) is the lowish drone/base count (compared to most zerg who whill spam tons of drones and expo everywhere) due to the cost efficiency of swarmhosts (as in, free units tend to die so you don;t need massive income to replace things)? 2) Would it be worthwhile to actually copy some tactical concepts from terran mech styles, such as expanding towards the opponent (instead of the usual expand away style favoured by other zerg builds), or do we need to ensure there's lots of room behind the hosts in case we need to do a hasty retreat? 3) do you have enough gas to go both infestor+viper, or is it essentially pick one caster and get the other much later in the game?
On April 25 2013 12:17 jade8472 wrote: Hi Rekatan, I've been trying this build out and quite like it. A lot of Protoss at the Master level though when they scout infestation pit/swarm host will usually throw down double robo and pump non-stop colossi. Even if they cut down the number of supporting units 3-4 colossi will burn through the locust and queen fast enough so that transfusion doesn't work well. I'm curious what the proper response/transition to this should be?
Ya by this point you optimally want to be into vipers, or if they haven't shown stargate yet corruptors will do. Honestly at only 3-4 colossi you're fine with just swarmhost/queen/hydra, it's not until they're at 7/8 that it's problematic (unless you've fallen behind in upgrades).
On April 26 2013 05:34 Undercroft wrote: Some things i've been wondering: 1) is the lowish drone/base count (compared to most zerg who whill spam tons of drones and expo everywhere) due to the cost efficiency of swarmhosts (as in, free units tend to die so you don;t need massive income to replace things)?
Absolutely. That's exactly why.
Interestingly, I think a lot of protoss struggle against this because so many protoss strategies revolve around preventing, or delaying, zerg's third. Doing this causes a hit to their tech and econ, but this was ok because trades with zerg would be in protoss favour. With swarm hosts, however, protoss trade terribly early on, and so zerg's need for the third is drastically reduced because you just aren't losing units. Personally, what I like to see most is a protoss attempting a "kill the third" timing because I can even sac the expo and still be in great shape, and it's likely I'll kill a bunch of his stuff!
2) Would it be worthwhile to actually copy some tactical concepts from terran mech styles, such as expanding towards the opponent (instead of the usual expand away style favoured by other zerg builds), or do we need to ensure there's lots of room behind the hosts in case we need to do a hasty retreat?
I've been pondering along exactly these lines, but I'm still leaning towards "away" bases, personally. Experiment and see what feels good! A longer attack distance for him means he must go through more waves of locusts to push into you.
3) do you have enough gas to go both infestor+viper, or is it essentially pick one caster and get the other much later in the game?
I'm only confident speaking for ZvP, but most of the time vipers just win hands down. I'd only really think about getting some infestors if the opponent goes blink stalkers, or add on maybe ~3 to an endgame army.
I do actually find myself with an excess of gas, and starved on minerals... but I attribute this to bad economy management, rather than a sign to make more casters! It's not like WoL infestor broodlord where there's no such thing as too many casters; you want just a sprinkling to support your primarily hydra/host army.
Rekatan can likely give a much better answer than me, as I've played only a fraction of his games and at lower level.
On April 26 2013 05:34 Undercroft wrote: Some things i've been wondering: 1) is the lowish drone/base count (compared to most zerg who whill spam tons of drones and expo everywhere) due to the cost efficiency of swarmhosts (as in, free units tend to die so you don;t need massive income to replace things)? 2) Would it be worthwhile to actually copy some tactical concepts from terran mech styles, such as expanding towards the opponent (instead of the usual expand away style favoured by other zerg builds), or do we need to ensure there's lots of room behind the hosts in case we need to do a hasty retreat? 3) do you have enough gas to go both infestor+viper, or is it essentially pick one caster and get the other much later in the game?
1. It's both - you need more supply for the SH so you don't want as many drones, and you're running a very efficient composition so you need less income. Also on a side note, SH is very vulnerable to base harass, so the less bases you have, the less area you have to worry about back home ^_^
2. IMO probably not, when the opponent pushes out you want as much time as possible to wear them down before they reach your economy. Swarmhosts are TERRIBLE on the defensive, so the more time you get between their base and your base, the better.
3. It's generally essential to pick one. Super late game I've gone infestor/viper vs terran, but that's because I recognized a huge gas float so made infestors out of necessity (interestingly enough, it works REALLY well if you can pull it off)
EPT![[image loading]](http://starcraftlictor.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/zerg-vs-protoss-counters.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://starcraftlictor.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/zerg-vs-terran-counters.jpg)
I watched the three vods in the guide and one question I have is why you never use corruptors, even against the carriers on neo planet S. 
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/TNi1NaN.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/210b8bd.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Qt0FMpR.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/VENuDn1.jpg)
