EPT[D] How not to die in a mine field (ZvT) - Page 4
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EsportsJohn
United States4883 Posts
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govie
9334 Posts
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ManiacTheZealot
United States490 Posts
Ling/Bane/Corruptor/Infestor Since I started skipping mutas I have had to find new ways to deal with medivacs. I found that if I made 4 corruptors early in the game I usually kept most of them for the entire game. Unlike mutas they never get attacked unless they are the only thing for the terran to hit. They have high health and a longer range to keep them out of harms way. So I did this as a way to efficiently keep the terrans medivac count down during fights. The benefits out weighed the costs as long as I didn't make them to early. But with only 4 on the field the terran wasn't phased to much by this it was simply an inconvience for him and mostly just meant he couldn't hang out near my base with medivacs. Sort of like a terran making 1 viking to chase off your overlords. Annoying but not game ending. And they took some time to actually kill medivacs. Regardless it was a nice change over a small group of mutas since they survived much better. Despite this I was still struggling to justify making corruptors over mutas since mutas can attack ground. But someone mentioned how terran medivac counts would get so high that infestors would have little to no effect. Thereby making the infestors somewhat useless if you did not have mutas to keep the medivac count low. And I've seen this before in many games where the terran has a small group of marines and marauders each with their own personal medivac doing way more damage than they should be able to. This got me rethinking my corruptor useage. If I could greatly reduce or even eliminate the terrans medivac count in every engagement his bio/mines+drops strategy would begin to fall apart. You can't stim and run to your mines anytime you feel like it if you don't have a lot of medivacs healing you. So in the test game after the first major engagement I killed all but 2 of his medivacs with fungal/corruptor. I noticed something. He left me alone for a long time. No drops, no pokes at the front of my base. Then I realized he was rebuilding his medivacs. He couldn't do anything without them. So this is definitely a weakness worth exploiting. Ok back to the reasoning behind corruptor over muta for this combo. Pros - Better range - won't die to mines or marine fire - Doesn't have target priority over ground units - Higher health - Higher damage against medivacs + corruption 7.4 dps vs 5.9 - Has more potential later on if you decide you want broods Cons - Cost more 50 more minerals - however I think they end up costing less since they die much less. - Can't hit ground - Slower move speed This also synergizes with a more defensive play style. Mines can't really deal with infestors as some people pointed out in this thread especially when they are behind spines. You just need to kill the medivacs so that the infestors can have their full effect. With no tanks on the field and 10 range fungal this is much easier to do than in WoL. I think I've made a strong case for the corruptor but it needs more testing so time will tell. | ||
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Decendos
Germany1341 Posts
btw: - its corruption - they cost more minerals but same gas as mutas - you are right, corruptor actually have higher DPS than mutas (at least vs medivacs) i think corruptors might actually be a way to kill medivacs while going infestors. JD did this in some games in WoL and it worked out pretty nice since he could keep them alive the whole game. the problem is that this was in times of instant fungal and slower medivacs. especially speedmedivacs will be a huge pain in the ass without mutas. so yeah just post some replays finally  | ||
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ManiacTheZealot
United States490 Posts
On April 22 2013 18:33 Decendos wrote: could you post some replays? btw: - its corruption - they cost more minerals but same gas as mutas - you are right, corruptor actually have higher DPS than mutas (at least vs medivacs) i think corruptors might actually be a way to kill medivacs while going infestors. JD did this in some games in WoL and it worked out pretty nice since he could keep them alive the whole game. the problem is that this was in times of instant fungal and slower medivacs. especially speedmedivacs will be a huge pain in the ass without mutas. so yeah just post some replays finally Cool. good info. I'll get replays as soon as I can. I guess I can post the test game. I was being super lazy cause it was unranked. http://drop.sc/326554 | ||
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Qwyn
United States2779 Posts
On April 22 2013 15:30 ETisME wrote: ^the reason why zerg has to be one base ahead is because their units will be eventually becomes more cost inefficient as upgrade gets closer. You have to have higher tech units that cost a lot of resources to commit. what zerg struggles the most is the drops. the drops give a lot of map control for the terran, they will have a great macro advantage and contain. Dealing with early mines is not the biggest problem, flanking for a surround can actually make the engagement quite effective for the zerg. What is hard is the eventual non stopping drops due to the high economy and once the mines, medivac and bio count hit very high, if you don't have the economy and army, you will just get roll'd with very little opportunity to put pressure back onto the terran (because you have to keep denying drops, small pushes etc) you can't have both early roach warren and early 3rd because both combined are tonnes of minerals investment and hellions are only used initially after reaper (to scout for all in while they get a macro in base 3rd cc), roach just scales horribly later on. The reason why people go for early roach is exactly to abuse this build order, but then it also means you are sac-ing your economy to do so. what you are suggesting is almost impossible because you can't have so many upgrades, with muta, a fast hive and ultra, viper. you just won't be able to keep up with the terran advantage A lot of zerg adds spine crawlers when they can afford it, zerg had always been doing so in wol. The problem is that you can't do it in a tight economy situation. You can only start adding when you have enough drones or else you are putting your macro even more behind. The other unit composition is recommended by dimaga to Ret, one that I am experimenting a lot with as well, which is ling hydra into fast viper ultra. I personally add banelings in mid game but the gas allocation is proving to be a huge problem. I've been using ling hydra a lot lately too, and it's a super lean composition which makes it a lot of fun. You have to have good engagements to make it work though - and there is a period pre-lair where you are vulnerable. You can afford roaches off of early three hatch - the key is not over making them. 1:4 is a good ratio - they add a bit of extra supply and dps to your count and keep you even. Part of why the 4M composition is so powerful is that it is so lean. Pretty cool. | ||
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DBS
515 Posts
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EsportsJohn
United States4883 Posts
On April 23 2013 08:43 DBS wrote: I'm a terran and i see 1 major flaw: tech switches, yep terran can do that too. Lets say i'm playing against you, i have 7 rax (3 reactors 4 techlabs) and two factories (Both reactor) and i'm going bio mine. I see you drop 10 spinecrawlers at your front. I'm going to swith my factories w/ my TL rax, and now i have a pretty good set up to go marine tank for the rest of the game, and i can delay my push 90 seconds and push 2/ 4 tanks, shred your spine wall, and even if you switched to mutas right away your mutas wont be in time, and you will be hit with a spire 3/4 done and a bunch of useless spines. ...what are you talking about? | ||
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random_user07
Canada10 Posts
On April 23 2013 08:57 SC2John wrote: ...what are you talking about? I believe the poster is referring to the fact that any 'solution' to bio-window mine has to deal with a possible tech switch to a marine-tank composition, thus mass spine crawlers are a bad idea. This is why i suggest a roach/infestor/ling composition with a delayed 4th for a fast hive for 3/3/3 and adrenal glands since you can easily obtain vipers in case of tanks. | ||
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DBS
515 Posts
On April 23 2013 10:04 random_user07 wrote: I believe the poster is referring to the fact that any 'solution' to bio-window mine has to deal with a possible tech switch to a marine-tank composition, thus mass spine crawlers are a bad idea. This is why i suggest a roach/infestor/ling composition with a delayed 4th for a fast hive for 3/3/3 and adrenal glands since you can easily obtain vipers in case of tanks. It's not a BO win, but if you go spines that means less lings which means more powerful drops, especially cause you are recommending an army whose only AA is infestor, which is now somewhat unreliable, especially vs turbovacs. So i would start droping all over the place (probably the 3rd and the main), while pushing the front the way that one would normally in WOL but this time Zerg has spent a bunch of minerals on spines. To be entirely honest i still prefer marine tank comps because i feel like fungal is strong vs the mines and I've always had great tank positioning/target-firing, so i don't want to waste it. I'm not saying it's insta-loss, just that it pust the zerg in a worse position than usual vs a bio-tank push. I also just get some ghosts if my opponent goes viper (1.5 ghosts per viper) and snipe/emp the vipers in order to protect my tanks, so the Z can never get more than 1-2 of my tanks, as long as i don't mess up and clump my tanks. | ||
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EsportsJohn
United States4883 Posts
On April 23 2013 10:28 DBS wrote: It's not a BO win, but if you go spines that means less lings which means more powerful drops, especially cause you are recommending an army whose only AA is infestor, which is now somewhat unreliable, especially vs turbovacs. So i would start droping all over the place (probably the 3rd and the main), while pushing the front the way that one would normally in WOL but this time Zerg has spent a bunch of minerals on spines. To be entirely honest i still prefer marine tank comps because i feel like fungal is strong vs the mines and I've always had great tank positioning/target-firing, so i don't want to waste it. I'm not saying it's insta-loss, just that it pust the zerg in a worse position than usual vs a bio-tank push. I also just get some ghosts if my opponent goes viper (1.5 ghosts per viper) and snipe/emp the vipers in order to protect my tanks, so the Z can never get more than 1-2 of my tanks, as long as i don't mess up and clump my tanks. This thread seems to be getting a little far away from the main topic and I want to avoid skewing the content too much. All I need to say about marine/tank is that zerg can deal with it the same way they always have and it's almost no different from playing against 4M except that 4M is WAY more mobile, aggro, and overall a lot better. In the case of spine crawler walls, you would NOT go for a slow, direct tank push, you'd start dropping like crazy. As you said, ironically. All in all, muta/ling does quite well against BOTH marine/tank and 4M. I don't think there is a question about this. The main question here is how zerg can safely take a 4th and get to hive tech before getting starved to death by constant 3-base aggression. I think what Maniac was originally suggesting was making small spine walls around the map to prevent easy movement of 4M. And random_user has been advocating this bizarre 3/3/3 style with a delayed 4th. I personally think the simplest solution is to just get infestors faster paired with auxiliary upgrades (burrow, overlord speed, 2/2 flyer upgrades). However, all of these solutions deal just as well with marine/tank as they do with 4M, so that's not really an issue. I'd be open for more ideas. I know we also had a few people pushing hydra/ling and the possibilities there. How does hydra/ling work? Anyone have replays or a good understanding of it? | ||
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DBS
515 Posts
On April 23 2013 10:44 SC2John wrote: This thread seems to be getting a little far away from the main topic and I want to avoid skewing the content too much. All I need to say about marine/tank is that zerg can deal with it the same way they always have and it's almost no different from playing against 4M except that 4M is WAY more mobile, aggro, and overall a lot better. In the case of spine crawler walls, you would NOT go for a slow, direct tank push, you'd start dropping like crazy. As you said, ironically. All in all, muta/ling does quite well against BOTH marine/tank and 4M. I don't think there is a question about this. The main question here is how zerg can safely take a 4th and get to hive tech before getting starved to death by constant 3-base aggression. I think what Maniac was originally suggesting was making small spine walls around the map to prevent easy movement of 4M. And random_user has been advocating this bizarre 3/3/3 style with a delayed 4th. I personally think the simplest solution is to just get infestors faster paired with auxiliary upgrades (burrow, overlord speed, 2/2 flyer upgrades). However, all of these solutions deal just as well with marine/tank as they do with 4M, so that's not really an issue. I'd be open for more ideas. I know we also had a few people pushing hydra/ling and the possibilities there. How does hydra/ling work? Anyone have replays or a good understanding of it? I actually just got off of a game where he put spines at his base and my marauders tore right through them, the game was fairly onesided from the begining though, My major point here is if you only use a few sporcrawlers it will barely slow down the bio mine and anything more is to significant an investment to stop a marine tank push/lots of dropping | ||
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random_user07
Canada10 Posts
On April 23 2013 10:28 DBS wrote: It's not a BO win, but if you go spines that means less lings which means more powerful drops, especially cause you are recommending an army whose only AA is infestor, which is now somewhat unreliable, especially vs turbovacs. As has been said by others and myself, you still need to get 8 mutalisks to force some anti-air and help deny/defend drops before transitioning into infestors. You also have 3/3 queens for anti-air and infestors. I also just get some ghosts if my opponent goes viper (1.5 ghosts per viper) and snipe/emp the vipers in order to protect my tanks, so the Z can never get more than 1-2 of my tanks, as long as i don't mess up and clump my tanks. There is a problem with this. Vipers cost 100/300 and 3 supply, take 3-4 snipes to kill and can do 2 blinding clouds thanks to consume. Tanks are 150/125 and 3 supply, ghosts are 200/100 and 2 supply. It's not possible to make enough tanks to counter the roach-infestor and have 1.5 ghosts per viper to prevent the vipers from countering the tanks because it costs way more resources/supply than the zerg. The zerg just needs to make about 1 viper every 2-4 tanks in response to scouting tanks to hard counter them. For those who who don't the idea of going roach/zergling/infestor, how about go zergling/baneling/infestor with 8 initial mutas for drop defence / force a few turrets (as has been suggested) but in addition delay that 4th for and early hive for adrenal glands and 3/3 (as well as potential vipers in case of tanks), while skipping air upgrades? Edit: One weakness of the zergling/baneling over the zergling/roach is it's more vulnerable to some kind of techswitch by terran into mech or bio-mech. In broodwar, the strongest tvz strategy involved opening 2 base bio vs zerg with an early ebay (for +1 weapons to help counter mutalisks and later +1 armor to let marines take 1 more hit from lurkers), putting a lot of pressure on zerg to force defilers/ultras and slow down their economy, before taking 1-2 more bases and switching to mech to counter the hive tech and to be able to hold those extra bases. In HoTS, it's okay to go muta-ling-baneling vs terran right now cause they are mostly doing either pure bio/widow mine or pure mech. Luckily vipers, broodlords and a lack of goliaths make mech a lot weaker than it was in broodwar. But given how badly hellbats counter lings I think it's only a matter of time before terrans figure out they can do 2 bio-widow mine to heavy pressure the zerg, while expanding to a 3rd and 4th, before switching into a bio-mech style where they start adding hellbats and thors to the mix to counter muta-ling-bane even harder. | ||
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DBS
515 Posts
On April 23 2013 11:54 random_user07 wrote: As has been said by others and myself, you still need to get 8 mutalisks to force some anti-air and help deny/defend drops before transitioning into infestors. You also have 3/3 queens for anti-air and infestors. There is a problem with this. Vipers cost 100/300 and 3 supply, take 3-4 snipes to kill and can do 2 blinding clouds thanks to consume. Tanks are 150/125 and 3 supply, ghosts are 200/100 and 2 supply. It's not possible to make enough tanks to counter the roach-infestor and have 1.5 ghosts per viper to prevent the vipers from countering the tanks because it costs way more resources/supply than the zerg. The zerg just needs to make about 1 viper every 2-4 tanks in response to scouting tanks to hard counter them. For those who who don't the idea of going roach/zergling/infestor, how about go zergling/baneling/infestor with 8 initial mutas for drop defence / force a few turrets (as has been suggested) but in addition delay that 4th for and early hive for adrenal glands and 3/3 (as well as potential vipers in case of tanks), while skipping air upgrades? 1.5:1 is ideal, however, if you get mobeious reactor you can have a freshly spawned ghost insta-kill a viper (it takes precisely 3 shots) before they ever get in range of your front tank (9 range vs. 10 range) and even if the terran messes up and let's zerg get off some blinding clouds Z isn't gonna get the majority of them thanks to spreading. Also my main point here is that if Z goes spine crawler wall vs Bio-mine, T can easily switch into tanks, and be ahead of where T is normally because Z wasted money on a bunch of spinecrawlers that are now useless. It isn't insta-win; it's just an advantage T wouldn't normally have | ||
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EsportsJohn
United States4883 Posts
On April 23 2013 11:54 random_user07 wrote: Edit: One weakness of the zergling/baneling over the zergling/roach is it's more vulnerable to some kind of techswitch by terran into mech or bio-mech. In broodwar, the strongest tvz strategy involved opening 2 base bio vs zerg with an early ebay (for +1 weapons to help counter mutalisks and later +1 armor to let marines take 1 more hit from lurkers), putting a lot of pressure on zerg to force defilers/ultras and slow down their economy, before taking 1-2 more bases and switching to mech to counter the hive tech and to be able to hold those extra bases. In HoTS, it's okay to go muta-ling-baneling vs terran right now cause they are mostly doing either pure bio/widow mine or pure mech. Luckily vipers, broodlords and a lack of goliaths make mech a lot weaker than it was in broodwar. But given how badly hellbats counter lings I think it's only a matter of time before terrans figure out they can do 2 bio-widow mine to heavy pressure the zerg, while expanding to a 3rd and 4th, before switching into a bio-mech style where they start adding hellbats and thors to the mix to counter muta-ling-bane even harder. I generally sac an overlord around 7:30 to get a good idea of what terran is planning on doing. Generally this scout timing is strong enough that I can still open up 1/1 lings into mutas to defend against early pushes while still being fairly uncommitted. When lair finishes, I still make a spire but get roach speed instead of baneling speed and +1 ranged attack instead of +2 melee. Generally I go straight into SH or heavy roach production from here. As for the bio-mech style: I think that's going to be a strong transition once terrans get a better handle on the new units. Right now, 4M is just really lean and really easy to produce, but bio/hellbat actually has a lot of potential. Much like the cool bio-mech games we've seen Mvp do with 2 factory hellion + 3 barracks, HotS has the potential for similar bio-mech builds that are stronger and less risky. | ||
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random_user07
Canada10 Posts
1.5:1 is ideal, however, if you get mobeious reactor you can have a freshly spawned ghost insta-kill a viper (it takes precisely 3 shots) before they ever get in range of your front tank (9 range vs. 10 range) and even if the terran messes up and let's zerg get off some blinding clouds Z isn't gonna get the majority of them thanks to spreading. Doesn't it take 4 shots to snipe a viper since they regen 1 hp? Either way, given that vipers are mobile flying units that can always try to pull ghosts, the effectiveness of ghosts at countering vipers is going to be very position and micro oriented (maybe terrans could start using ghosts in medivacs). Also, by the time you get out sufficient numbers of ghosts and siege tanks after going 2-3 base widow mine, isn't there enough time for zerg to transition into ultra-ling or broodlords? I generally sac an overlord around 7:30 to get a good idea of what terran is planning on doing. You maybe have misunderstood me because i was talking about a much later potential transition terran can do after opening bio-widow mine and obtaining a 3-4 base economy. As for the bio-mech style: I think that's going to be a strong transition once terrans get a better handle on the new units. Right now, 4M is just really lean and really easy to produce, but bio/hellbat actually has a lot of potential. True. Also a couple thors in the late game might help given that thors are decent against mutalisks, corrupts, ultras and broodlords. | ||
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EsportsJohn
United States4883 Posts
On April 23 2013 13:02 random_user07 wrote: True. Also a couple thors in the late game might help given that thors are decent against mutalisks, corrupts, ultras and broodlords. I agree with this. I used to transition into bio/thor when zerg went t3 in WoL (ironically, thors suck against ling/bling/infestor, but rock against everything t3) and then add on BCs and slowly transition into thor/hellion with a handful of BC/raven. So I agree, thors and hellbats would be an excellent way to transition safely into the lategame and take on those ridiculous lategame zerg armies. | ||
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random_user07
Canada10 Posts
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DBS
515 Posts
On April 23 2013 13:02 random_user07 wrote: Doesn't it take 4 shots to snipe a viper since they regen 1 hp? Either way, given that vipers are mobile flying units that can always try to pull ghosts, the effectiveness of ghosts at countering vipers is going to be very position and micro oriented (maybe terrans could start using ghosts in medivacs). Also, by the time you get out sufficient numbers of ghosts and siege tanks after going 2-3 base widow mine, isn't there enough time for zerg to transition into ultra-ling or broodlords? If you use hold fire micro you can do it in 3 (queue up thre shot and then release, then the shots are super nearly instant) but more to the point, the ghost can snipe a viper before it can cast either abduct or Blinding cloud thanks to superior range. Of course, this is assuming perfect terran micro, and as you said it would be very micro oriented. In terms of delaying the push, i think maybe making the adjustment of adding a ghost academy preemptively so you can delay your push 90 seconds and push with 4 tanks+4 ghosts, then it sort of becomes a bomber-esque TvZ situation with relentless agression trying to prevent a successful and safe transition into hive tech. (I normally push at about 11:30-12:00 with bio mine so a 90 second delay would hit only be slightly delayed compared to going straight for tanks, which would be compensated for by their now useless investment into spine crawlers) | ||
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ManiacTheZealot
United States490 Posts
 . The game ended before I could but if he tries to counter my ultras with a ton of marauders I morph the corruptors into broods. | ||
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