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Most current replays.
http://drop.sc/329079
http://drop.sc/328301
http://drop.sc/329360
http://drop.sc/329431
http://drop.sc/329588
http://drop.sc/329656 - if ravens ever get popular it's going to be such a pain to play vs terran.
http://drop.sc/331031
http://drop.sc/331411
http://drop.sc/331634
http://drop.sc/332068 - best example of infestor/ultra/corruptor I think
http://drop.sc/334802
http://drop.sc/339317 - latest replay
Note that the title is not "How to kill a mine field". It's "How not to die in a mine field". Which is a confusing poorly worded title lol 
This video illustrates the problem very well. Flash wins the game based on mechanics alone. No fancy play no tricky unit combos just straight up macro and micro. Despite actually coming out ahead in a number of engagements the zerg can never take advantage of it due to the volatile nature of his unit combo, the mine field and the constant threat from the terran. A couple times he does risk taking his mutas around to the terran base but pays for it each time.
Flash vs BBoong TvZ
So I got to thinking about it and here was the answer I came up with.
How not to die in a mine field? Know it's there and don't walk into it. No one is stupid enough to do that right? Clearly we are.
Why do we do this? We're chasing the terran. Why doesn't the terran turn around and fight us? Because bio doesn't beat ling/bane. It never has. Before mines terrans used sieged tanks to kill the banelines off remember? They would run backwards and focus fire the tanks onto the banes. We went mutas to force stims and snipe tanks. And to have something that would survive the carnage down below because tanks can't shoot up.
In WoL terran invested heavily in their pushes. Tanks built slowly and cost a lot. They had to make them work. They could not afford just to trade cost effectively. They had to win convincingly. Mines build faster, cost less, burrow(siege up) faster. They are invisible and they shoot air units. But what can't they do? Mines aren't siege units. They control ground. They don't take ground from stationary defense.
If you haven't guessed it yet. Spinecrawlers. Now before you come up with all the reasons why spines wouldn't fill a much needed role in this fight think back to the game you just watched. The zerg was dumping all his minerals into zerglings. Desperately trying to keep the mines from moving into his base. He had no way to control that space between his expansion and the terran. It was not efficient at all. The problem is the mines.
You can't advance past spinecrawlers with mines. The spines out range the bio so they can't run foward and backward trying to draw you out. And if they commit to killing the spines your banelings will wreck them since the mines aren't in range.
So where do these excess minerals come from so we don't get overrun by an attack coming down another path without spines on it yet? I would say our best option is to begin building infestors and/or vipers while doing this. Gas heavy units that cost very little minerals will continue to grow and improve our army while we use excess minerals on spines.
So give me your feedback. Let's force terran to make tanks again.
PanzerElite summed this up very nicely. We desperately need to take the fight on our terms because mines are extremely cost effective for the terran.
On April 21 2013 03:55 PanzerElite wrote:
Seriously the OP is just telling to fortify your base in the lategame instead of wasting your minerals on lings that you just run into a minefield and get slaughtered without doing any damage. Instead of chasing down bio, just regroup add static defense and take the next fight on your terms, instead of running your units into a minefield.
Edit: Replays up top. A lot of the ideas came from the thread. I want to make a case for a odd unit combo. That is very effective.
Ultra/Corruptor/Infestor /w switch to broodlords after medivacs die.
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 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.
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Well if you invest in stationary defenses, Terren drops will become so much more painful to deal with. Mines are a pain though. Hydra roach seems like the best composition to deal with bio mine. once they switch to tanks it might become a little harder to deal with.
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On April 21 2013 00:01 KaiserKieran wrote:
Well if you invest in stationary defenses, Terren drops will become so much more painful to deal with. Mines are a pain though. Hydra roach seems like the best composition to deal with bio mine. once they switch to tanks it might become a little harder to deal with.
Roach/Hydralisk feels so inefficient vs. Bio/Mine, and it is certainly way less mobile. I think Zergling/Baneling/Infestor is good, later on a couple of Vipers are good for Blinding Cloud, you also have the upgrades if you want to go Ultralisks later on.
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On April 21 2013 00:01 KaiserKieran wrote:
Well if you invest in stationary defenses, Terren drops will become so much more painful to deal with. Mines are a pain though. Hydra roach seems like the best composition to deal with bio mine. once they switch to tanks it might become a little harder to deal with.
On the contrary having stationary defense will make it easier to deal with drops since its less of a risk to split off part of your army to deal with it. I also must be clear that I'm not talking about building spines instead of an army. I'm talking about making enough to stabilize against the steady stream of MMMM coming to your base instead of spamming loads of zerglings which ultimately die without doing much damage.
Tanks will actually make the combo easier to deal with because they are such a costly, time consuming investment which will give you a window of opportunity anytime he loses tanks or needs to make them to attack.
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my take on it so far has been to not make banelings. Go straight from mutas into infestors. Overmake lings and crawlers to stay safe. It sets you up badly in terms of economy for a short while (3base vs 3base), but it sets you up beautifully in terms of tech and upgrades and allows you to fungal and IT harass a Terran.
Imo, you don't want to make banelings ever unless you want to bust. At all other times, making banelings vs MMMM means that the Terran can push you over and over again from 2-3bases without ever having to spread out further, because each time he pushes against lairtech he is costefficient. He doesn't damage you, but he forces you to play 2-2 ling/bling vs 3-3 MMMM pushes+ drops forever, until you either just lose because you fuck up your control vs mines or you miss 1-2 drops and everything snowballs.
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On April 21 2013 00:14 Big J wrote:
my take on it so far has been to not make banelings. Go straight from mutas into infestors. Overmake lings and crawlers to stay safe. It sets you up badly in terms of economy for a short while (3base vs 3base), but it sets you up beautifully in terms of tech and upgrades and allows you to fungal and IT harass a Terran.
Imo, you don't want to make banelings ever unless you want to bust. At all other times, making banelings vs MMMM means that the Terran can push you over and over again from 2-3bases without ever having to spread out further, because each time he pushes against lairtech he is costefficient. He doesn't damage you, but he forces you to play 2-2 ling/bling vs 3-3 MMMM pushes+ drops forever, until you either just lose because you fuck up your control vs mines or you miss 1-2 drops and everything snowballs.
I agree I go straight to hive asap. And I also try not to over make banelings. But I think trying not to over make zerglings could be a drastic improvement as well. They are cheap but largely ineffective in many situations. And they don't do much to stop the mines from advancing. Buying enough time for your tech to kick in may just mean placing some spines to take advantage of the lack of tanks in the terran army. Unfortunately on the mutas I'm unsure as to whether or not they are skipable since I've never faced flash or fantasy level drop play. I do like to make 4 corruptors with my army to kill off medivacs. They do the job better than mutas because I don't need to tell them to attack the medivacs and they have a long range and better health/armor and they don't get priority targeting by marines so they die less.
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On April 21 2013 00:14 Big J wrote:
my take on it so far has been to not make banelings. Go straight from mutas into infestors. Overmake lings and crawlers to stay safe. It sets you up badly in terms of economy for a short while (3base vs 3base), but it sets you up beautifully in terms of tech and upgrades and allows you to fungal and IT harass a Terran.
Imo, you don't want to make banelings ever unless you want to bust. At all other times, making banelings vs MMMM means that the Terran can push you over and over again from 2-3bases without ever having to spread out further, because each time he pushes against lairtech he is costefficient. He doesn't damage you, but he forces you to play 2-2 ling/bling vs 3-3 MMMM pushes+ drops forever, until you either just lose because you fuck up your control vs mines or you miss 1-2 drops and everything snowballs.
The problem with skipping banes though is that if the terran pushes before your 2/2 finishes and before mutas are out, you simply don't have enough larvae to pump out enough pure ling to defend bio/mine. I like the flexibility that a baneling nest gives in terms of defense because if you see the push coming you can instantly morph most of your lings into banes while more lings are popping. So maybe build a baneling nest but not make banes unless hits that timing I'm talking about.
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On April 21 2013 00:25 Uhh Negative wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 00:14 Big J wrote:
my take on it so far has been to not make banelings. Go straight from mutas into infestors. Overmake lings and crawlers to stay safe. It sets you up badly in terms of economy for a short while (3base vs 3base), but it sets you up beautifully in terms of tech and upgrades and allows you to fungal and IT harass a Terran.
Imo, you don't want to make banelings ever unless you want to bust. At all other times, making banelings vs MMMM means that the Terran can push you over and over again from 2-3bases without ever having to spread out further, because each time he pushes against lairtech he is costefficient. He doesn't damage you, but he forces you to play 2-2 ling/bling vs 3-3 MMMM pushes+ drops forever, until you either just lose because you fuck up your control vs mines or you miss 1-2 drops and everything snowballs. The problem with skipping banes though is that if the terran pushes before your 2/2 finishes and before mutas are out, you simply don't have enough larvae to pump out enough pure ling to defend bio/mine. I like the flexibility that a baneling nest gives in terms of defense because if you see the push coming you can instantly morph most of your lings into banes while more lings are popping. So maybe build a baneling nest but not make banes unless hits that timing I'm talking about.
Ya definitely I always get baneling nest and baneling speed even if I don't make a ton of them. You just have to have it to react quickly enough.
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bio can beat ling baneling as long as they are well upgraded, micro'd and enough medivac.
that's why tanks were always used to target the banelings and infestors; to protect the bio. there were terrans using siege tanks to block of lings and banelings from getting close to the bio.
The problem with your recommendation is that if you invested too early, a high bio count will just kill the spines no problem.
If you invested too much, you will be dropped to where your spines and spores are not.
the mines also have lower attack priority compared to bio, the spines will auto target the bio ball first.
honestly you can't play this matchup without muta at all, if you rush to hive, you will get crushed before you reach there. any other unit composition without muta get dropped like hell, your resources won't be there to support your hive tech
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On April 21 2013 00:14 Big J wrote:
Imo, you don't want to make banelings ever unless you want to bust.
It's not about what Zerg wants to do, it's about what Zerg is forced to do. Zergs do not morph Banelings out of pleasure, but because otherwise they will simply lose to critical mass of Marines in a tight formation. Your plan to jump straight to Infestors from Mutalisks without conceding any Baneling has major flaws; you will have severe issues defending the first Medivac push (particularly if Terran manages to land his troops behind mineral lines), and you will be in a world of pain if Terran hits you with 40+ Marines in a ball before you have Infestors out.
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Im not sure that you have found the solution. The only thing that I see this doing is preventing terran from moving his mines into forward positions, spine crawlers need a lot of creep for that to be significant. Maybe you could get overlords to poop creep or somethings. Also drops are gonna be a pain for you to deal with, and spending larvae on remaking drones after making spines isnt what you really wanna do either.
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On April 21 2013 00:32 ETisME wrote:
bio can beat ling baneling as long as they are well upgraded, micro'd and enough medivac.
that's why tanks were always used to target the banelings and infestors; to protect the bio. there were terrans using siege tanks to block of lings and banelings from getting close to the bio.
The problem with your recommendation is that if you invested too early, a high bio count will just kill the spines no problem.
If you invested too much, you will be dropped to where your spines and spores are not.
the mines also have lower attack priority compared to bio, the spines will auto target the bio ball first.
honestly you can't play this matchup without muta at all, if you rush to hive, you will get crushed before you reach there. any other unit composition without muta get dropped like hell, your resources won't be there to support your hive tech
this sums it up perfectly.
and to add to your OP: you dont have excess minerals...in your replay posted the zerg dies with no min and over 1k gas. in fact vs a good terran that always pressures you will have to constantly build units or die. and depending on mapsize you will literally need sth. like 50 spines to makes this work...never ever will you have 7,5k min for 50 spines ^^
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On April 21 2013 00:32 ETisME wrote:
The problem with your recommendation is that if you invested too early, a high bio count will just kill the spines no problem.
If you invested too much, you will be dropped to where your spines and spores are not.
the mines also have lower attack priority compared to bio, the spines will auto target the bio ball first.
You have to find the sweet spot. Obviously building a bunch of spines to early will result in bad things happening. You need to wait until you have excess minerals and only make an appropriate amount for the situation. This should stop you from dying to MMMM streaming across the map trying to push mines into your base.
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On April 21 2013 00:25 Uhh Negative wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 00:14 Big J wrote:
my take on it so far has been to not make banelings. Go straight from mutas into infestors. Overmake lings and crawlers to stay safe. It sets you up badly in terms of economy for a short while (3base vs 3base), but it sets you up beautifully in terms of tech and upgrades and allows you to fungal and IT harass a Terran.
Imo, you don't want to make banelings ever unless you want to bust. At all other times, making banelings vs MMMM means that the Terran can push you over and over again from 2-3bases without ever having to spread out further, because each time he pushes against lairtech he is costefficient. He doesn't damage you, but he forces you to play 2-2 ling/bling vs 3-3 MMMM pushes+ drops forever, until you either just lose because you fuck up your control vs mines or you miss 1-2 drops and everything snowballs. The problem with skipping banes though is that if the terran pushes before your 2/2 finishes and before mutas are out, you simply don't have enough larvae to pump out enough pure ling to defend bio/mine. I like the flexibility that a baneling nest gives in terms of defense because if you see the push coming you can instantly morph most of your lings into banes while more lings are popping. So maybe build a baneling nest but not make banes unless hits that timing I'm talking about.
well, that's why you don't want to fall behind in upgrades. Basically something like hatch first into 1-1 into third into 2-2 and muta. Then pathogen glands with the first 150gas after 10mutas is what I'm aiming for. 4hatcheries with at least four queens on 3bases to have enough larva.
+ Show Spoiler +I have gotten mixed results with it so far. But I'm hardly playing Z these days - with the Muta vs Muta crap going on in ZvZ - so I can only talk about a handful of games so far. I believe that if I made a build out of it, I would actually have quite good success against Terrans who don't use tanks.
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On April 21 2013 00:36 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 00:32 ETisME wrote:
bio can beat ling baneling as long as they are well upgraded, micro'd and enough medivac.
that's why tanks were always used to target the banelings and infestors; to protect the bio. there were terrans using siege tanks to block of lings and banelings from getting close to the bio.
The problem with your recommendation is that if you invested too early, a high bio count will just kill the spines no problem.
If you invested too much, you will be dropped to where your spines and spores are not.
the mines also have lower attack priority compared to bio, the spines will auto target the bio ball first.
honestly you can't play this matchup without muta at all, if you rush to hive, you will get crushed before you reach there. any other unit composition without muta get dropped like hell, your resources won't be there to support your hive tech this sums it up perfectly. and to add to your OP: you dont have excess minerals...in your replay posted the zerg dies with no min and over 1k gas. in fact vs a good terran that always pressures you will have to constantly build units or die. and depending on mapsize you will literally need sth. like 50 spines to makes this work...never ever will you have 7,5k min for 50 spines ^^
You're missing my point. The zerg had great macro. He dumped all his minerals into zerglings and many times having a lot of zerglings only resulting in him losing a lot of zerglings to mines. And in fact he did have spines down covering the shorter root into his expansion which the terran completely avoided. It would not have been difficult for him to continue making them throughout the game to fortify his position and force the terran to take a less optimal route in my opinion.
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Marauders plaster spinecrawlers really easily, and you'll be hard-pressed to ever find a base layout/engagement where you can kill mines with spines alone (I think they take what - 3 or 4 spine hits?). I think to do what you're describing, you actually just want "long ranged attacks", which is one of the areas where Zerg falls short by design. Broodlords and fungal growths are both great at pushing back mine-centric armies - it's just too bad they're at the end of the tech tree and mines are at the beginning.
At the risk of sounding like a nut, I'd like to see high-level players (who can survive to the very late game against biomine by trading single lings and sniping mines with mutas) start to mass-contaminate factories and construct timing attacks around that. This sorta ties in with what you said about siege tanks - if someone is turtling in their base with tanks, it's very difficult to engage without broodlords, but if they're turtling with mines and producing mines, those only shoot every 40 seconds..
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Maniac has a great point. Tanks were a big reason standard became standard in WoL. It's time to rethink our style.
But the key isn't *just* static defense, though I totally agree with him about a mid-game spine wall between nat / 3rd. That really keeps the mine push at bay while your power units deal with his M&M.
The key is infestors. The idea you can't skip mutas is simply wrong. Infestors shut down mine-marine hard - they even hit and expose burrowed mines, and static + infestor deals with drops long enough for troops to come in.
People forget, though nerfed, fungal still works great vs mass marine. The only reason not to build infestors *was* tanks. Tanks are the reason you needed mutas. Mutas are good for counter pressure, drop defense and sniping tanks. For the investment, you needed all three for them to be worthwhile making a unit that is useless in a head-on engagement. With tanks out of the picture, throw away the mutas and go straight to roach/infestor. You will stop his front pressure hard, and give you enough time to go to tier 3 and get whatever you want to close the game out (ultra brood mass-swarm viper).
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On April 21 2013 00:44 ManiacTheZealot wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 00:36 Decendos wrote:On April 21 2013 00:32 ETisME wrote:
bio can beat ling baneling as long as they are well upgraded, micro'd and enough medivac.
that's why tanks were always used to target the banelings and infestors; to protect the bio. there were terrans using siege tanks to block of lings and banelings from getting close to the bio.
The problem with your recommendation is that if you invested too early, a high bio count will just kill the spines no problem.
If you invested too much, you will be dropped to where your spines and spores are not.
the mines also have lower attack priority compared to bio, the spines will auto target the bio ball first.
honestly you can't play this matchup without muta at all, if you rush to hive, you will get crushed before you reach there. any other unit composition without muta get dropped like hell, your resources won't be there to support your hive tech this sums it up perfectly. and to add to your OP: you dont have excess minerals...in your replay posted the zerg dies with no min and over 1k gas. in fact vs a good terran that always pressures you will have to constantly build units or die. and depending on mapsize you will literally need sth. like 50 spines to makes this work...never ever will you have 7,5k min for 50 spines ^^ You're missing my point. The zerg had great macro. He dumped all his minerals into zerglings and many times having a lot of zerglings only resulting in him losing a lot of zerglings to mines. And in fact he did have spines down covering the shorter root into his expansion which the terran completely avoided. It would not have been difficult for him to continue making them throughout the game to fortify his position and force the terran to take a less optimal route in my opinion.
thats the point. he HAS to make lings or will die. those 4 spines were great yeah....but you cant make 50 spines...you need lings or will just die to everything. if he does 1-2 drops while attacking...hf defending that without lings^^
On April 21 2013 00:53 DaemonX wrote:
Maniac has a great point. Tanks were a big reason standard became standard in WoL. It's time to rethink our style.
But the key isn't *just* static defense, though I totally agree with him about a mid-game spine wall between nat / 3rd. That really keeps the mine push at bay while your power units deal with his M&M.
The key is infestors. The idea you can't skip mutas is simply wrong. Infestors shut down mine-marine hard - they even hit and expose burrowed mines, and static + infestor deals with drops long enough for troops to come in.
People forget, though nerfed, fungal still works great vs mass marine. The only reason not to build infestors *was* tanks. Tanks are the reason you needed mutas. Mutas are good for counter pressure, drop defense and sniping tanks. For the investment, you needed all three for them to be worthwhile making a unit that is useless in a head-on engagement. With tanks out of the picture, throw away the mutas and go straight to roach/infestor. You will stop his front pressure hard, and give you enough time to go to tier 3 and get whatever you want to close the game out (ultra brood mass-swarm viper).
well...no  3 things that are horrible for infestors: fungal very slow (stim bio very fast...you hit much less units than in wol), no extra damage vs armored (this is a smaller one but still notable) and speedmedivacs are insanely fast which in combination with slower fungal = ling infestor is horrible on most maps where you will just get dropped to death. it might be possible on some maps though. we will see. but doesnt change anything against the main problem which are mines. you will still need to send in your ling bling to kill stuff...fungal wont kill stuff...it will hold stuff in place, not more + once T gets 8+ medivacs your fungals are pretty much useless.
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On April 21 2013 00:53 DaemonX wrote:
Maniac has a great point. Tanks were a big reason standard became standard in WoL. It's time to rethink our style.
But the key isn't *just* static defense, though I totally agree with him about a mid-game spine wall between nat / 3rd. That really keeps the mine push at bay while your power units deal with his M&M.
The key is infestors. The idea you can't skip mutas is simply wrong. Infestors shut down mine-marine hard - they even hit and expose burrowed mines, and static + infestor deals with drops long enough for troops to come in.
People forget, though nerfed, fungal still works great vs mass marine. The only reason not to build infestors *was* tanks. Tanks are the reason you needed mutas. Mutas are good for counter pressure, drop defense and sniping tanks. For the investment, you needed all three for them to be worthwhile making a unit that is useless in a head-on engagement. With tanks out of the picture, throw away the mutas and go straight to roach/infestor. You will stop his front pressure hard, and give you enough time to go to tier 3 and get whatever you want to close the game out (ultra brood mass-swarm viper).
Ya I agree. And ya the spines aren't the complete picture. I just wanted to highlight that part because I've seen so many zergs die unnecessarily due to strategies they held over from WoL.
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Fungal will reveal and damage mines. Infested terrans will set off mines. Infestors can harass bases that don't have tanks guarding them, whereas mutas can still just die to random mines and stimmed marines.
Even if fungal is a projectile now, the bio units have to stay in a certain area relative to where the mines are placed. It's not *that* hard to hit a big chunk of them unless you're playing EU-KR with huge lag or something like that.
I don't think he's saying "never use mutas" or "make purely infestors with your gas" - just that infestors can answer a lot of the fundamental strengths of bio/mine armies. When terrans start mixing in tanks, we're screwed, though!
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On April 21 2013 00:34 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 00:14 Big J wrote:
Imo, you don't want to make banelings ever unless you want to bust. It's not about what Zerg wants to do, it's about what Zerg is forced to do. Zergs do not morph Banelings out of pleasure, but because otherwise they will simply lose to critical mass of Marines in a tight formation. Your plan to jump straight to Infestors from Mutalisks without conceding any Baneling has major flaws; you will have severe issues defending the first Medivac push (particularly if Terran manages to land his troops behind mineral lines), and you will be in a world of pain if Terran hits you with 40+ Marines in a ball before you have Infestors out.
yes. But all Terrans I meet go for mines blindly these days.
Basically what I believe is: If Terran goes for a macro game (3CC with double upgrades), any form of marine/mine/medivac push/drop before 12mins can be held without banelings. If he goes for a two base play... just do whatever works to hold it with 3bases.
And for drops I go mutas. And then I try to not fuck up and let him drop me too heavily. Else I wouldn't go mutas and just open infestors to begin with. I don't believe in investing heavily into drop denial and then assuming that I need a lot of ground dropdefense as well.
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On April 21 2013 00:56 Decendos wrote:
thats the point. he HAS to make lings or will die. those 4 spines were great yeah....but you cant make 50 spines...you need lings or will just die to everything. if he does 1-2 drops while attacking...hf defending that without lings^^
You don't need 50 spines. Like you said those 4 spines were great. And you don't need to completely stop making zerglings either. So you won't be "defending without lings". Don't take it to extremes look at how it can be cost effective if you place them in the right spots at the right times.
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On April 21 2013 01:08 ManiacTheZealot wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 00:56 Decendos wrote:
thats the point. he HAS to make lings or will die. those 4 spines were great yeah....but you cant make 50 spines...you need lings or will just die to everything. if he does 1-2 drops while attacking...hf defending that without lings^^
You don't need 50 spines. Like you said those 4 spines were great. And you don't need to completely stop making zerglings either. So you won't be "defending without lings". Don't take it to extremes look at how it can be cost effective if you place them in the right spots at the right times.
4 spines to block the small attack path to the 4th...another 6 where flash attacked then and 3 or so do fight off drops. thats already 13 for 1 base...
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On April 21 2013 01:29 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 01:08 ManiacTheZealot wrote:On April 21 2013 00:56 Decendos wrote:
thats the point. he HAS to make lings or will die. those 4 spines were great yeah....but you cant make 50 spines...you need lings or will just die to everything. if he does 1-2 drops while attacking...hf defending that without lings^^
You don't need 50 spines. Like you said those 4 spines were great. And you don't need to completely stop making zerglings either. So you won't be "defending without lings". Don't take it to extremes look at how it can be cost effective if you place them in the right spots at the right times. 4 spines to block the small attack path to the 4th...another 6 where flash attacked then and 3 or so do fight off drops. thats already 13 for 1 base...
So let me get this straight you're advocating for no spines at all unless you can build 50 of them and defend everything at once?
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allright dude what EXACTLY are you arguing for? 10 spines to stop the 13-15 minute aggression period for terran? 4 to stop the initial medivac moveout? you keep making these arbitrary statements that really dont mean anything at all unless you clearly explain what you are advocating and what problems it will solve. saying "spines are good against terran because they kill mines" doesnt help at all, we need details. What are the right places and times?
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On April 21 2013 01:54 ManiacTheZealot wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 01:29 Decendos wrote:On April 21 2013 01:08 ManiacTheZealot wrote:On April 21 2013 00:56 Decendos wrote:
thats the point. he HAS to make lings or will die. those 4 spines were great yeah....but you cant make 50 spines...you need lings or will just die to everything. if he does 1-2 drops while attacking...hf defending that without lings^^
You don't need 50 spines. Like you said those 4 spines were great. And you don't need to completely stop making zerglings either. So you won't be "defending without lings". Don't take it to extremes look at how it can be cost effective if you place them in the right spots at the right times. 4 spines to block the small attack path to the 4th...another 6 where flash attacked then and 3 or so do fight off drops. thats already 13 for 1 base... So let me get this straight you're advocating for no spines at all unless you can build 50 of them and defend everything at once?
i am saying 1-2 spines/spores per base vs drops is fine. just like every Z does as standard play.
i dont really get what YOU mean. first you say " build spines vs mines instead of lings"...which you would need 30-60 depending on map. then you say, build 4....at 1 base...and basically play like bbong vs flash and build mass lings?! now how many spines would you say do you need in ZvT to stop the 11+ min attack that never stops. how would you balance the spine/ling ratio? how many spines/spores as drop defense? give us some numbers because right now it seems you had an idea "spines are good vs mines" but no practical clue on how to do it. if it is that good please give us a replay of you doing this mass spine style vs MMMM so we get a feeling for the number and positioning of spines you mean.
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On April 21 2013 02:09 Decendos wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 01:54 ManiacTheZealot wrote:On April 21 2013 01:29 Decendos wrote:On April 21 2013 01:08 ManiacTheZealot wrote:On April 21 2013 00:56 Decendos wrote:
thats the point. he HAS to make lings or will die. those 4 spines were great yeah....but you cant make 50 spines...you need lings or will just die to everything. if he does 1-2 drops while attacking...hf defending that without lings^^
You don't need 50 spines. Like you said those 4 spines were great. And you don't need to completely stop making zerglings either. So you won't be "defending without lings". Don't take it to extremes look at how it can be cost effective if you place them in the right spots at the right times. 4 spines to block the small attack path to the 4th...another 6 where flash attacked then and 3 or so do fight off drops. thats already 13 for 1 base... So let me get this straight you're advocating for no spines at all unless you can build 50 of them and defend everything at once? i am saying 1-2 spines/spores per base vs drops is fine. just like every Z does as standard play. i dont really get what YOU mean. first you say " build spines vs mines instead of lings"...which you would need 30-60 depending on map. then you say, build 4....at 1 base...and basically play like bbong vs flash and build mass lings?! now how many spines would you say do you need in ZvT to stop the 11+ min attack that never stops. how would you balance the spine/ling ratio? how many spines/spores as drop defense? give us some numbers because right now it seems you had an idea "spines are good vs mines" but no practical clue on how to do it. if it is that good please give us a replay of you doing this mass spine style vs MMMM so we get a feeling for the number and positioning of spines you mean.
Please don't quote things that I didn't say. Also note that this is a discussion topic not a strategy guide. It would be pointless to tell you how many to make as that would change from game to game depending on the situation. Telling you where to put them would be map specific. The topic for discussion is how to defend against this slow push use of the mines. And yes you can boil it down to spines can kill mines but that's vastly over-simplified.
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then elaborate please.. you seem to be doing everything except explaining what you mean with these statements
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Seriously the OP is just telling to fortify your base in the lategame instead of wasting your minerals on lings that you just run into a minefield and get slaughtered without doing any damage. Instead of chasing down bio, just regroup add static defense and take the next fight on your terms, instead of running your units into a minefield.
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Why has noone mentioned Swarm Hosts?
Lately when I see enemies going for heavy mine/bio I have been getting SH/Roaches with spellcaster support and it has worked great so far.
Locusts basically make the mines irrelevant, and then you can send Roaches in to take initial aggression and clean up the mines. Locusts are great vs Marines as well, and infestors (or vipers if it goes that late) can nullify the infantry.
I honestly don't see what Mutas provide vs this match up that SH compositions don't do better, aside from discouraging drops a bit? (which can be handled with static defenses and roaches)
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United States4883 Posts
In my personal experience, the best way to stop mines from creeping up to your front door is just constant counterattacks with muta/ling. Life has a lot of success with this, and I've been trying to copy a lot from him. Basically, you can defend the first parts of terran aggression with your muta/ling and start putting up static defenses at your base and then just go balls to the wall counterattack aggression which will stop the inevitable widow mine fields in the middle of the map from being dangerous.
In addition, if you can keep terran pinned back away from the mines, it's no problem to run a handful of lings over the mines, set them off, and then clean them up with mutas. Essentially, it works the same way as a terran clearing creep after distracting zerg with a drop or 2.
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On April 21 2013 04:02 Spyridon wrote:
Why has noone mentioned Swarm Hosts?
Lately when I see enemies going for heavy mine/bio I have been getting SH/Roaches with spellcaster support and it has worked great so far.
Locusts basically make the mines irrelevant, and then you can send Roaches in to take initial aggression and clean up the mines. Locusts are great vs Marines as well, and infestors (or vipers if it goes that late) can nullify the infantry.
I honestly don't see what Mutas provide vs this match up that SH compositions don't do better, aside from discouraging drops a bit? (which can be handled with static defenses and roaches)
so where exactly do you get your gas? do you go roach ling bling into SH and then add infestors and static? or infestor first and then add SH and static?
basically you go muta because otherwise T will drop you a lot and worst of all: his medivac count will get out of hand very fast. like in 5 min he will have 10-12 medivacs which means he can outheal fungal at which point you have a problem. especially doomdrops with 4-5 medivacs are insanely hard to deal with if you go SH without muta.
you guys need to post replays and not just theorycraft about this.
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On April 21 2013 04:11 SC2John wrote:
In my personal experience, the best way to stop mines from creeping up to your front door is just constant counterattacks with muta/ling. Life has a lot of success with this, and I've been trying to copy a lot from him. Basically, you can defend the first parts of terran aggression with your muta/ling and start putting up static defenses at your base and then just go balls to the wall counterattack aggression which will stop the inevitable widow mine fields in the middle of the map from being dangerous.
In addition, if you can keep terran pinned back away from the mines, it's no problem to run a handful of lings over the mines, set them off, and then clean them up with mutas. Essentially, it works the same way as a terran clearing creep after distracting zerg with a drop or 2.
I've been experimenting with this as well. However I've been using drops and nydus to do it to avoid the widow mines and wall off. Once my lings get adrenal glands I load up a bunch and drop them in his base while pushing with the rest of my army. The drop itself is very cheap and cost very little supply but can do significant damage with the adrenal glands upgrade. Killing scv's and production facilities will slow him down a lot. Nydus can do this without risk of being out of position and you can take a larger part of your army but it's harder to get down. I think this is definitely the way we need to play to beat MMMM. Putting pressure on the terran without having to attack into his mine field is definitely the way to go.
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On April 21 2013 04:02 Spyridon wrote:
Why has noone mentioned Swarm Hosts?
Lately when I see enemies going for heavy mine/bio I have been getting SH/Roaches with spellcaster support and it has worked great so far.
Locusts basically make the mines irrelevant, and then you can send Roaches in to take initial aggression and clean up the mines. Locusts are great vs Marines as well, and infestors (or vipers if it goes that late) can nullify the infantry.
I honestly don't see what Mutas provide vs this match up that SH compositions don't do better, aside from discouraging drops a bit? (which can be handled with static defenses and roaches)
The reason I don't use swarmhosts mid game is because I get melee upgrades first against terran. I feel like the aoe from banelings and ultralisks is something you can't live without against bio. Late game if the terran tries a switch to something like say raven/bc I think swarmhosts can win the game for you with some multi pronged attacks taking advantage of his weaker ground army.
I haven't tried the hydra/roach timing attacks against bio yet. Those might synergize with a swarmhost switch more.
Someone asked for a replay. Here's the best I can do on short notice. The terran wasn't as aggressive as I would have liked him to be in the example so I didn't make a lot of spines. But the ones I did make paid for themselves.
http://drop.sc/325983
Here's another a bit more aggressive, more spines used. http://drop.sc/325988
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On April 21 2013 01:03 yeastiality wrote:
Fungal will reveal and damage mines. Infested terrans will set off mines. Infestors can harass bases that don't have tanks guarding them, whereas mutas can still just die to random mines and stimmed marines.
Even if fungal is a projectile now, the bio units have to stay in a certain area relative to where the mines are placed. It's not *that* hard to hit a big chunk of them unless you're playing EU-KR with huge lag or something like that.
I don't think he's saying "never use mutas" or "make purely infestors with your gas" - just that infestors can answer a lot of the fundamental strengths of bio/mine armies. When terrans start mixing in tanks, we're screwed, though!
3-5 infestors are good in mid-game onwards mine sweepers role.
That makes muta/ling/bling into muta/ling/bling/infestor.
Blizzard is really making it hard. Separates the pros from the amateurs. I like it.
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I will expand on my points earlier on. The problem is not your plat/diamond league, I am not having a too big big trouble against terran at diamond league either with just ling micro and good defense against drop and I am playing a ling baneling hydra combo into ultra viper.
The main issue is the lower league who doesn't try to donate the mine before entering first AND the GM/Pro level where the balance issue really shines.
This is what I heard from Ret when I was watching from his stream, something along this line:
you can get dropped to death and zerg can't put on aggression back onto the terran because they have total map control with the new medivac. They also have a great defensive capability because of the mines. Korean Zerg basically beat mines by having really good ling control and drop defense.
Spines will do nothing against marauder drops/run by which can snipe a hatch within around 10 seconds. Every spine you lose is losing one more drone and one less larva that needed for something else.
What he means is that in order to shut down drops and have some form of map control, you can only rely on muta but even with muta, it is much harder to kill medivac, making the eventually bio mine push much more powerful because a high medivac, mine and upgraded bio can *only* be beaten but a strong hive tech army backed with infestors.
Not to mention nowadays terrans are relatively safe to do a quick in base 3rd CC. With no ability to put back pressure onto the terran due to reaper, hellions, big maps and eventually the mines and drops, zerg will be at a macro disadvantage.
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As a terran player I would simply stim my 2-2, or worse 3-3, maruaders with a medivac or two up to the spines. They then die in about .5 seconds. I don't really know how you would stop this..if there are mines right behind the marauders good luck getting close to them and they would probably kill the spines before you could react anyway. Interesting theory crafting but I do no think it could work.
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On April 21 2013 12:37 ETisME wrote:
I will expand on my points earlier on. The problem is not your plat/diamond league, I am not having a too big big trouble against terran at diamond league either with just ling micro and good defense against drop and I am playing a ling baneling hydra combo into ultra viper.
The main issue is the lower league who doesn't try to donate the mine before entering first AND the GM/Pro level where the balance issue really shines.
This is what I heard from Ret when I was watching from his stream, something along this line:
you can get dropped to death and zerg can't put on aggression back onto the terran because they have total map control with the new medivac. They also have a great defensive capability because of the mines. Korean Zerg basically beat mines by having really good ling control and drop defense.
Spines will do nothing against marauder drops/run by which can snipe a hatch within around 10 seconds. Every spine you lose is losing one more drone and one less larva that needed for something else.
What he means is that in order to shut down drops and have some form of map control, you can only rely on muta but even with muta, it is much harder to kill medivac, making the eventually bio mine push much more powerful because a high medivac, mine and upgraded bio can *only* be beaten but a strong hive tech army backed with infestors.
Not to mention nowadays terrans are relatively safe to do a quick in base 3rd CC. With no ability to put back pressure onto the terran due to reaper, hellions, big maps and eventually the mines and drops, zerg will be at a macro disadvantage.
This is exactly how I feel. Muta/ling/bling for me is completely lacking in sustainability and if you don't open up a window for you to secure your 7/8th gas and transition into ultralisk it's going to be very difficult for you to win.
What is the most aggravating about the new medivac is that if terran controls well then the drop cannot be punished. They can simply pick up and fly away! Even if you have mutas chasing the drop down - the medivac will manage to get more than halfway across the map before the mutas can even BEGIN to catch up with it at normal move speed (which opens up your ling/bling to a push from bio/mine). This, in combination with bio/mine allowing terran to take map control against your much more fragile composition, means that terran can easily expand on par with the zerg player.
This is where it gets frustrating. For a zerg to compete, he needs to be up a base or more. If terran is on an equal number of bases (4+ is the rage inducing number), which they CAN take with bio/mine, then mules enable them to have a severe macro advantage and snowball out of control.
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On April 21 2013 13:05 AlexanderDebois wrote:
As a terran player I would simply stim my 2-2, or worse 3-3, maruaders with a medivac or two up to the spines. They then die in about .5 seconds. I don't really know how you would stop this..if there are mines right behind the marauders good luck getting close to them and they would probably kill the spines before you could react anyway. Interesting theory crafting but I do no think it could work.
Do you know what else also dies in .5 seconds? All your marines and marauders while they try to kill off the spines. Why would the zerg let you walk up to his spines and kill them all for free? This sounds like a mistake from the zerg, not a good play by the terran.
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On April 21 2013 14:40 ManiacTheZealot wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 13:05 AlexanderDebois wrote:
As a terran player I would simply stim my 2-2, or worse 3-3, maruaders with a medivac or two up to the spines. They then die in about .5 seconds. I don't really know how you would stop this..if there are mines right behind the marauders good luck getting close to them and they would probably kill the spines before you could react anyway. Interesting theory crafting but I do no think it could work. Do you know what else also dies in .5 seconds? All your marines and marauders while they try to kill off the spines. Why would the zerg let you walk up to his spines and kill them all for free? This sounds like a mistake from the zerg, not a good play by the terran.
nothing kills maunders within .5 seconds unless you kill them with pure banelings or a whole pack of muta...not even with ultras
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On April 21 2013 13:05 Qwyn wrote:
For a zerg to compete, he needs to be up a base or more. If terran is on an equal number of bases (4+ is the rage inducing number), which they CAN take with bio/mine, then mules enable them to have a severe macro advantage and snowball out of control.
This seems to be a commonly held opinion of zergs who stay on lair tech to long. As you can see in the video simply trying to out produce terran at teir 2 is no longer possible. I'm pretty sure that nobody thinks flash and bboongs macro was lacking. IMO faster hive could solve this problem.
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On April 21 2013 14:48 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 14:40 ManiacTheZealot wrote:On April 21 2013 13:05 AlexanderDebois wrote:
As a terran player I would simply stim my 2-2, or worse 3-3, maruaders with a medivac or two up to the spines. They then die in about .5 seconds. I don't really know how you would stop this..if there are mines right behind the marauders good luck getting close to them and they would probably kill the spines before you could react anyway. Interesting theory crafting but I do no think it could work. Do you know what else also dies in .5 seconds? All your marines and marauders while they try to kill off the spines. Why would the zerg let you walk up to his spines and kill them all for free? This sounds like a mistake from the zerg, not a good play by the terran. nothing kills maunders within .5 seconds unless you kill them with pure banelings or a whole pack of muta...not even with ultras
By .5 seconds I meant "fast" which I'm sure is what you meant as well considering I've never seen all my spines die in .5 seconds either.
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On April 21 2013 14:58 ManiacTheZealot wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 14:48 ETisME wrote:On April 21 2013 14:40 ManiacTheZealot wrote:On April 21 2013 13:05 AlexanderDebois wrote:
As a terran player I would simply stim my 2-2, or worse 3-3, maruaders with a medivac or two up to the spines. They then die in about .5 seconds. I don't really know how you would stop this..if there are mines right behind the marauders good luck getting close to them and they would probably kill the spines before you could react anyway. Interesting theory crafting but I do no think it could work. Do you know what else also dies in .5 seconds? All your marines and marauders while they try to kill off the spines. Why would the zerg let you walk up to his spines and kill them all for free? This sounds like a mistake from the zerg, not a good play by the terran. nothing kills maunders within .5 seconds unless you kill them with pure banelings or a whole pack of muta...not even with ultras By .5 seconds I meant "fast" which I'm sure is what you meant as well considering I've never seen all my spines die in .5 seconds either.
you can snipe spine crawlers with marauders, I think it get one shoted by around 5 or 6 upgraded marauders
I am sure you have experience with it if you ever played against a marauder hellion push
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United States4883 Posts
On April 21 2013 14:40 ManiacTheZealot wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 13:05 AlexanderDebois wrote:
As a terran player I would simply stim my 2-2, or worse 3-3, maruaders with a medivac or two up to the spines. They then die in about .5 seconds. I don't really know how you would stop this..if there are mines right behind the marauders good luck getting close to them and they would probably kill the spines before you could react anyway. Interesting theory crafting but I do no think it could work. Do you know what else also dies in .5 seconds? All your marines and marauders while they try to kill off the spines. Why would the zerg let you walk up to his spines and kill them all for free? This sounds like a mistake from the zerg, not a good play by the terran.
This is a bad point, please stop talking. MMMM > spines/ling/bling with no infestors. Zerglings have an attack range of ZERO. Again, you have yet to make a solid point in this thread aside from the vague indication that spines might be good at stopping mines.
On April 21 2013 13:05 Qwyn wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 12:37 ETisME wrote:
I will expand on my points earlier on. The problem is not your plat/diamond league, I am not having a too big big trouble against terran at diamond league either with just ling micro and good defense against drop and I am playing a ling baneling hydra combo into ultra viper.
The main issue is the lower league who doesn't try to donate the mine before entering first AND the GM/Pro level where the balance issue really shines.
This is what I heard from Ret when I was watching from his stream, something along this line:
you can get dropped to death and zerg can't put on aggression back onto the terran because they have total map control with the new medivac. They also have a great defensive capability because of the mines. Korean Zerg basically beat mines by having really good ling control and drop defense.
Spines will do nothing against marauder drops/run by which can snipe a hatch within around 10 seconds. Every spine you lose is losing one more drone and one less larva that needed for something else.
What he means is that in order to shut down drops and have some form of map control, you can only rely on muta but even with muta, it is much harder to kill medivac, making the eventually bio mine push much more powerful because a high medivac, mine and upgraded bio can *only* be beaten but a strong hive tech army backed with infestors.
Not to mention nowadays terrans are relatively safe to do a quick in base 3rd CC. With no ability to put back pressure onto the terran due to reaper, hellions, big maps and eventually the mines and drops, zerg will be at a macro disadvantage. This is exactly how I feel. Muta/ling/bling for me is completely lacking in sustainability and if you don't open up a window for you to secure your 7/8th gas and transition into ultralisk it's going to be very difficult for you to win. What is the most aggravating about the new medivac is that if terran controls well then the drop cannot be punished. They can simply pick up and fly away! Even if you have mutas chasing the drop down - the medivac will manage to get more than halfway across the map before the mutas can even BEGIN to catch up with it at normal move speed (which opens up your ling/bling to a push from bio/mine). This, in combination with bio/mine allowing terran to take map control against your much more fragile composition, means that terran can easily expand on par with the zerg player. This is where it gets frustrating. For a zerg to compete, he needs to be up a base or more. If terran is on an equal number of bases (4+ is the rage inducing number), which they CAN take with bio/mine, then mules enable them to have a severe macro advantage and snowball out of control.
For those of you that feel like muta/ling/bling is lacking, I'd like to suggest a few ideas that I've been using in my muta/ling/bling play:
1) Less mutas. In WoL, it was all about making a big muta pack and cutting off reinforcements, etc., etc. In HotS, you want to make 8-12 mutas and STOP. Use the remaining gas to get infestors, upgrades, and hive tech up faster.
2) Be more aggressive with lings. Mass counterattacks will do well as long as you're continually sweeping for mines. Getting up overlord speed and burrow early means that you can do double blocks on terran and stress their multi-tasking to do double drops, clear creep, clear expansions, deal with runbys, etc.
3) Invest in more static defense and play defensively with a pack of lings. You should have 2 spores and spines at pretty much every base; this shuts down drops pretty hard or at least gives you plenty of time to catch up to it with your lings/mutas. In addition, it's become more and more obvious to me that you need to have 2 control groups of ling/bling. Having 2 control groups allows you to deal with drops in multiple locations, defend frontal pushes easier, set up flanks, etc., etc.
Basically: There's more actual multi-tasking involved with muta/ling now, but it's quite effective in the early parts of the midgame. It's always been the same way with muta/ling: you eventually have to switch to infestors to survive against terran pushes anyway. The only difference in HotS is that you need to switch a little faster. Also, ultras are stupid good now, as long as you can survive the midgame.
I believe that, as good as mutas are now, there's pretty much no reason not to make them now. I don't think there's any midgame solution as viable except perhaps crazy roach aggression.
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I feel like Im the only terran who doesnt use mines at all in this world
Fuck
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On April 21 2013 15:11 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 14:40 ManiacTheZealot wrote:On April 21 2013 13:05 AlexanderDebois wrote:
As a terran player I would simply stim my 2-2, or worse 3-3, maruaders with a medivac or two up to the spines. They then die in about .5 seconds. I don't really know how you would stop this..if there are mines right behind the marauders good luck getting close to them and they would probably kill the spines before you could react anyway. Interesting theory crafting but I do no think it could work. Do you know what else also dies in .5 seconds? All your marines and marauders while they try to kill off the spines. Why would the zerg let you walk up to his spines and kill them all for free? This sounds like a mistake from the zerg, not a good play by the terran. This is a bad point, please stop talking. MMMM > spines/ling/bling with no infestors. Zerglings have an attack range of ZERO. Again, you have yet to make a solid point in this thread aside from the vague indication that spines might be good at stopping mines.
Sorry to have wasted your time. I'll leave you to whatever it was you were doing before my post got in the way of your cursor. I tried to explain myself clearly. I offered examples and replays if there's anything else I can do for you let me know. I wanted to offer my ideas but also to get yours.
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Russian Federation216 Posts
i've seen the game, and seen how casters noticed (several times) taht zerg doesnt inject larvae. why u blame mechanics while terran just outmacroed zerg? :O
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On April 21 2013 14:56 ManiacTheZealot wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 13:05 Qwyn wrote:
For a zerg to compete, he needs to be up a base or more. If terran is on an equal number of bases (4+ is the rage inducing number), which they CAN take with bio/mine, then mules enable them to have a severe macro advantage and snowball out of control.
This seems to be a commonly held opinion of zergs who stay on lair tech to long. As you can see in the video simply trying to out produce terran at teir 2 is no longer possible. I'm pretty sure that nobody thinks flash and bboongs macro was lacking. IMO faster hive could solve this problem.
Faster hive without a 4th base solves nothing. You can't mass produce ultras off of 6 gas - you have to get that 7/8th gas in order to begin producing hive tech without being completely drained of gas for upgrades. If you start dumping all your money into ultras on 3 bases you're setting yourself up to get steamrolled. If you dump all your gas into hive tech upgrades you do not have enough gas to hold off constant terran aggression that occurs from the 11-14 minute mark and beyond. Your sole goal needs to be to secure the 4th so that you have enough gas to get hive tech upgrade dump and be producing the units you need to survive.
Staying on lair tech on three bases lends itself to the same problem - you are gas starved and get cut off on 2-2 while the mineral heavy terran is free to dump all his gas into upgrades.
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United States4883 Posts
On April 22 2013 07:19 Qwyn wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 14:56 ManiacTheZealot wrote:On April 21 2013 13:05 Qwyn wrote:
For a zerg to compete, he needs to be up a base or more. If terran is on an equal number of bases (4+ is the rage inducing number), which they CAN take with bio/mine, then mules enable them to have a severe macro advantage and snowball out of control.
This seems to be a commonly held opinion of zergs who stay on lair tech to long. As you can see in the video simply trying to out produce terran at teir 2 is no longer possible. I'm pretty sure that nobody thinks flash and bboongs macro was lacking. IMO faster hive could solve this problem. Faster hive without a 4th base solves nothing. You can't mass produce ultras off of 6 gas - you have to get that 7/8th gas in order to begin producing hive tech without being completely drained of gas for upgrades. If you start dumping all your money into ultras on 3 bases you're setting yourself up to get steamrolled. If you dump all your gas into hive tech upgrades you do not have enough gas to hold off constant terran aggression that occurs from the 11-14 minute mark and beyond. Your sole goal needs to be to secure the 4th so that you have enough gas to get hive tech upgrade dump and be producing the units you need to survive. Staying on lair tech on three bases lends itself to the same problem - you are gas starved and get cut off on 2-2 while the mineral heavy terran is free to dump all his gas into upgrades.
Perhaps I can lend an explanation. Maniac actually has a good point in that zerg eventually gets run over trading on 3 bases with terran. Part of this is due to how good and cost efficient mines can be coupled with the ease of constantly producing 4M and doing drops and pushes, etc.
I think you're right that a faster hive without a 4th base is weak. There's no way in hell you can afford to stay on 3 base against terran on 3 base with muta/ling, or you'll just eventually starve. However, spending more on other upgrades to make muta/ling better and getting a few infestors (tier 2) will allow you to stay on muta/ling for a bit longer and stay safe. Basically this means that you should be cutting a few mutas in favor of +2/+2 flyer upgrades, burrow, and overlord speed as well as getting 3-4 infestors.
In HotS, you don't need many mutas anymore because of how good their survivability is now. Generally, you should be making 8-12 and STOPPING, spending the rest of your gas on additional upgrades and faster infestors. Faster infestors allow you to deal with frontal assaults better while your mutas allow you to continue controlling drops. Muta upgrades allow a small flock of mutas to take on drops better. Burrow and overlord speed allow you to block terran expansions, do baneling landmines, force scans, and stress the multi-tasking of the terran player.
Also, sidenote: as Maniac kind of vaguely hinted at in the OP, try to replace a few lings with static defense at each base to prevent or delay drops. (Also, replace mutas if you lose them, but don't exceed ~16 at any point; I feel as if this is implied).
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I forsee mines being a huge b:tch for Blizzard to balance.
Zerg at the top, top level can micro to somewhat neutralize them but casual players will never be able to accomplish that..
Hell, even mid-level pros can't.
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On April 22 2013 11:43 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2013 07:19 Qwyn wrote:On April 21 2013 14:56 ManiacTheZealot wrote:On April 21 2013 13:05 Qwyn wrote:
For a zerg to compete, he needs to be up a base or more. If terran is on an equal number of bases (4+ is the rage inducing number), which they CAN take with bio/mine, then mules enable them to have a severe macro advantage and snowball out of control.
This seems to be a commonly held opinion of zergs who stay on lair tech to long. As you can see in the video simply trying to out produce terran at teir 2 is no longer possible. I'm pretty sure that nobody thinks flash and bboongs macro was lacking. IMO faster hive could solve this problem. Faster hive without a 4th base solves nothing. You can't mass produce ultras off of 6 gas - you have to get that 7/8th gas in order to begin producing hive tech without being completely drained of gas for upgrades. If you start dumping all your money into ultras on 3 bases you're setting yourself up to get steamrolled. If you dump all your gas into hive tech upgrades you do not have enough gas to hold off constant terran aggression that occurs from the 11-14 minute mark and beyond. Your sole goal needs to be to secure the 4th so that you have enough gas to get hive tech upgrade dump and be producing the units you need to survive. Staying on lair tech on three bases lends itself to the same problem - you are gas starved and get cut off on 2-2 while the mineral heavy terran is free to dump all his gas into upgrades. Perhaps I can lend an explanation. Maniac actually has a good point in that zerg eventually gets run over trading on 3 bases with terran. Part of this is due to how good and cost efficient mines can be coupled with the ease of constantly producing 4M and doing drops and pushes, etc. I think you're right that a faster hive without a 4th base is weak. There's no way in hell you can afford to stay on 3 base against terran on 3 base with muta/ling, or you'll just eventually starve. However, spending more on other upgrades to make muta/ling better and getting a few infestors (tier 2) will allow you to stay on muta/ling for a bit longer and stay safe. Basically this means that you should be cutting a few mutas in favor of +2/+2 flyer upgrades, burrow, and overlord speed as well as getting 3-4 infestors. In HotS, you don't need many mutas anymore because of how good their survivability is now. Generally, you should be making 8-12 and STOPPING, spending the rest of your gas on additional upgrades and faster infestors. Faster infestors allow you to deal with frontal assaults better while your mutas allow you to continue controlling drops. Muta upgrades allow a small flock of mutas to take on drops better. Burrow and overlord speed allow you to block terran expansions, do baneling landmines, force scans, and stress the multi-tasking of the terran player. Also, sidenote: as Maniac kind of vaguely hinted at in the OP, try to replace a few lings with static defense at each base to prevent or delay drops. (Also, replace mutas if you lose them, but don't exceed ~16 at any point; I feel as if this is implied).
A couple things that I've been doing:
1. Taking a much earlier 4th and macro hatch. The gambit with an earlier 4th is that you have to be confident in your ability to defend terran aggression.
2. Sprinkling in roaches to inflate my supply in the midgame. I stop producing them around when my spire pops, as they're shitty against mass bio. But it greatly helps to offset the fragility of a ling/bane composition (especially since earlier terran aggression will consist mainly of mines and marines).
3. Since I'm getting the spire, I will go early hive straight into greater spire. I find broodlords to be far more powerful at dealing with bio/mine than ultras (which eat all the mine shots and then get focused down by marauders, as well as being poor to engage off creep).
4. Spreading creep to the edge of my main/borders of bases and sticking a few spores at the outer extremities (I'm not talking right by the hatch, I'm talking at the very edge of a terrain level). Far more effective at zoning drops.
5, I prefer to use a small pack of ling/bane with minimum crawlers. Reason being that two well placed spores and a queen will snipe the turbovac on the way out. Issue with mutas denying turbovacs is that you need them to hold off 10 minute aggression (I use roaches to pad against this first push, works well), not to mention the fact that they cannot close until after turbo-boost is out, leaving them out of position.
6. Burrowed ling and creep drop deny is also a very good practice, I have made a habit of getting an earlier burrow as well.
7. As for baneling landmines, yes, I use them, but I still cannot help but feel they are still somewhat of a gimmick. Mines lend themselves to a completely different dynamic since the entire 4M army is ranged.
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I saw jeadong and other zergs do heavy zergling/roach which worked pretty well today. he kept a couple of roaches+overseer as a hit squad to assist at his base. I dunno if he made alot of static defence. If they ever release vods/replays u could try if it suits your playstyles. He didnt seem to have any trouble with 4m.
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Hi,
I'm more of a warcraft 3 player (top 8 on na ladder) but I watch the starcraft 2 games and have a pretty good understanding of rts so perhaps i can contribute. (don't judge me too harshly QQ)
The biggest change from WoL to HoTS in TvZ is that terrans now go bio-widow mine instead of marine tank. The widow mine is a lot more flexible than siege tanks and terran can't really go tanks vs zerg anymore due to vipers. Bio-widow mine is stronger against zerglings, banelings and mutalisks than marine tank, but weaker against roaches, hydras, infestors, spine crawlers and queens. Yet most zergs insist on going zergling-baneling-mutalisk vs bio-widow mine, this seems to be the root of the problem.
Now i know that pro-zergs can make zergling-baneling-mutalisk-overseer work up to a very high level but even they seem to be struggling and it takes far more multitasking from the zerg player to deal with the widow mines than it does from the terran player to place them. Perhaps widow mines are slightly overpowered, but that is more for a balance issue and this seems to be a discussion about what zerg should do to deal with bio-widowmine.
Some have suggested hydra-roach-infestor, but i feel that this is just not cost effective enough once medivacs are out and has issues with drop play. Not to mention this is a very gas intensive strategy and dies if they have siege tanks (though siege tanks can be countered by vipers).
I feel like another problem is that many people are in this somewhat false mentality that zerg must always have 1 more base than the terran that originated from starcraft 1 (the main reason zerg had to do this in sc1 was because larva were extremely limited so zerg had to concentrate on larva efficient units like hydralisks, mutalisks or lurkers rather than drones or zerglings; a 3 base zerg would often have a lower mineral income and a higher gas income than a 2 base terran or protoss). This mentality is reflected in HoTS where we see zergs insisting that they have to go muta-baneling-zergling and trade cost-ineffectively in order to establisht their 4th base.
Here is my suggestion (please tell me why it won't work):
- Zerg should get the fast 3 bases as they do now (such as the 12 hatch into 4 queen build with zergling speed into 3rd).
- Zerg should get their roach warren to deal with hellion play as they do currently.
- However, instead of transitioning into either zergling-baneling or roach-hydralisk as the mineral dump, the zerg player goes roach-zergling (say at a 1:4 ratio) for the majority of the game to deal with terran upgrades. This also is very easy to transition into as you already have the infrastructure established and you get to avoid spending 450/400 for the hydralisk den + upgrades or 300/200 for the baneling-nest + ugprades. The zerglings allow the composition to be cost effective vs marine/marauder and the roaches will help vs hellbats, hellions or widow mines (the roaches are effective vs the widow mines since their range naturally separates them from the zerglings, they can take a mine hit without dying and their large radius helps them avoid splash).
- Zerg goes triple evolution chamber on 3 base. The ranged upgrades will even make the queens stronger against drops.
- Zerg should get the spire, but only get 8 in order to force some turrets and help deal with drops (as has been said by others in this thread). Zerg then transitions into infestor/roach/zergling, this should be the ideal midgame composition vs bio-widow mine.
- Zerg then stays on 3 bases for a while and instead gets a relatively fast hive for 3/3/3 upgrades, vipers and adrenal glands. (3 base ultras or brood lords wont work as said by others in this thread since you do not have enough gas). Since you do not take an early 4th, you are less spread out so it is much easier to deal with drop play. You can probably stay on 3 base for a while as the terran will mine out their main sooner than you due to mules and the terran can't spend all their gas since they have such a mineral heavy composition.
- Zerg can then get a 4th base after 3/3/3 and adrenal glands are started and then transition into either infestor-broodlord or ultra-ling if they want. However, perhaps it might be better to stay on a 3 base economy (only taking a 4th when the main starts to mine out, 5th when natural starts to mine out 6th when 3rd starts to mine out) and just work on denying the terran's 4th or performing roach/ling drops on the main until the terran player starts to mine out.
- As the original poster has said, spine crawler walls to stop a terran bio-widow mine push might be useful, but they are probably not going to be the ultimate solution and might be very map dependant.
- If you are upgrading ranged attack, then is producing 3/3 queens as a mineral dump in order to help deal with drops a good idea? If the zerg player goes infestor-roach-zergling as a composition, has fast upgrades and produces queens from the hatchery, is it possible to avoid spending the 350 minerals on the macro-hatchery? 3/3 queens with transfuse are fairly cost effective against pretty much anything and might open up the possibility of utilizing some late game nydus play (example: placing a nydus worm in the opponent's main to transport queens to combat while doing a roach/zergling drop in the terran's main).
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^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.
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On April 21 2013 00:06 WedRine wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2013 00:01 KaiserKieran wrote:
Well if you invest in stationary defenses, Terren drops will become so much more painful to deal with. Mines are a pain though. Hydra roach seems like the best composition to deal with bio mine. once they switch to tanks it might become a little harder to deal with. Roach/Hydralisk feels so inefficient vs. Bio/Mine, and it is certainly way less mobile. I think Zergling/Baneling/Infestor is good, later on a couple of Vipers are good for Blinding Cloud, you also have the upgrades if you want to go Ultralisks later on.
Standard mm with tank is much stronger against roach / hydra than bio+mine (not counting viper) from my experience. Mine one shots lings and blings, barely does 25% damage to a roach.
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United States4883 Posts
On April 22 2013 14:59 random_user07 wrote:
Hi,
I'm more of a warcraft 3 player (top 8 on na ladder) but I watch the starcraft 2 games and have a pretty good understanding of rts so perhaps i can contribute. (don't judge me too harshly QQ)
The biggest change from WoL to HoTS in TvZ is that terrans now go bio-widow mine instead of marine tank. The widow mine is a lot more flexible than siege tanks and terran can't really go tanks vs zerg anymore due to vipers. Bio-widow mine is stronger against zerglings, banelings and mutalisks than marine tank, but weaker against roaches, hydras, infestors, spine crawlers and queens. Yet most zergs insist on going zergling-baneling-mutalisk vs bio-widow mine, this seems to be the root of the problem.
Now i know that pro-zergs can make zergling-baneling-mutalisk-overseer work up to a very high level but even they seem to be struggling and it takes far more multitasking from the zerg player to deal with the widow mines than it does from the terran player to place them. Perhaps widow mines are slightly overpowered, but that is more for a balance issue and this seems to be a discussion about what zerg should do to deal with bio-widowmine.
Some have suggested hydra-roach-infestor, but i feel that this is just not cost effective enough once medivacs are out and has issues with drop play. Not to mention this is a very gas intensive strategy and dies if they have siege tanks (though siege tanks can be countered by vipers).
I feel like another problem is that many people are in this somewhat false mentality that zerg must always have 1 more base than the terran that originated from starcraft 1 (the main reason zerg had to do this in sc1 was because larva were extremely limited so zerg had to concentrate on larva efficient units like hydralisks, mutalisks or lurkers rather than drones or zerglings; a 3 base zerg would often have a lower mineral income and a higher gas income than a 2 base terran or protoss). This mentality is reflected in HoTS where we see zergs insisting that they have to go muta-baneling-zergling and trade cost-ineffectively in order to establisht their 4th base.
Here is my suggestion (please tell me why it won't work):
- Zerg should get the fast 3 bases as they do now (such as the 12 hatch into 4 queen build with zergling speed into 3rd).
- Zerg should get their roach warren to deal with hellion play as they do currently.
- However, instead of transitioning into either zergling-baneling or roach-hydralisk as the mineral dump, the zerg player goes roach-zergling (say at a 1:4 ratio) for the majority of the game to deal with terran upgrades. This also is very easy to transition into as you already have the infrastructure established and you get to avoid spending 450/400 for the hydralisk den + upgrades or 300/200 for the baneling-nest + ugprades. The zerglings allow the composition to be cost effective vs marine/marauder and the roaches will help vs hellbats, hellions or widow mines (the roaches are effective vs the widow mines since their range naturally separates them from the zerglings, they can take a mine hit without dying and their large radius helps them avoid splash).
- Zerg goes triple evolution chamber on 3 base. The ranged upgrades will even make the queens stronger against drops.
- Zerg should get the spire, but only get 8 in order to force some turrets and help deal with drops (as has been said by others in this thread). Zerg then transitions into infestor/roach/zergling, this should be the ideal midgame composition vs bio-widow mine.
- Zerg then stays on 3 bases for a while and instead gets a relatively fast hive for 3/3/3 upgrades, vipers and adrenal glands. (3 base ultras or brood lords wont work as said by others in this thread since you do not have enough gas). Since you do not take an early 4th, you are less spread out so it is much easier to deal with drop play. You can probably stay on 3 base for a while as the terran will mine out their main sooner than you due to mules and the terran can't spend all their gas since they have such a mineral heavy composition.
- Zerg can then get a 4th base after 3/3/3 and adrenal glands are started and then transition into either infestor-broodlord or ultra-ling if they want. However, perhaps it might be better to stay on a 3 base economy (only taking a 4th when the main starts to mine out, 5th when natural starts to mine out 6th when 3rd starts to mine out) and just work on denying the terran's 4th or performing roach/ling drops on the main until the terran player starts to mine out.
- As the original poster has said, spine crawler walls to stop a terran bio-widow mine push might be useful, but they are probably not going to be the ultimate solution and might be very map dependant.
- If you are upgrading ranged attack, then is producing 3/3 queens as a mineral dump in order to help deal with drops a good idea? If the zerg player goes infestor-roach-zergling as a composition, has fast upgrades and produces queens from the hatchery, is it possible to avoid spending the 350 minerals on the macro-hatchery? 3/3 queens with transfuse are fairly cost effective against pretty much anything and might open up the possibility of utilizing some late game nydus play (example: placing a nydus worm in the opponent's main to transport queens to combat while doing a roach/zergling drop in the terran's main).
I'm just curious why you think roaches are more cost effective than banelings. I mean, yes, they do better against mines, but the biggest issue with mines is hits on banelings. Zerglings have a quick move speed and can avoid a lot of the damage from mines with a little micro; zerglings are actually quite good against mines. Both zerglings and roaches are cost INEFFICIENT against bio, which is why you get banelings and eventually infestors (splash damage). So I'm not quite understanding why roach/ling is better than ling/bling.
As for triple evo chambers, when are you getting these? After you have a sizeable roach/ling army? Or before? How do you afford the roaches then? (How do you afford anything when you're spending so much extra money on upgrades and a roach warren you might be able to skip? That's minerals that could be drones.) Late upgrades mean you'll probably be even or behind on upgrades compared to the terran player (which means you won't be trading very cost-effectively).
You say that after you're on 3 bases for a while, you have 3/3/3 and you get out vipers to secure your 4th while defending the constant pushing of a terran 4M player. Assuming you trade evenly over and over again, you now have vipers which help against 4M by doing...? (Vipers don't add anything to fighting 4M unless you get an incredibly lucky fungal on the entire army followed up by a blinding cloud.) Who is really starving at this point?
I've played some roach/hydra in ZvT some as well. I generally go for a 3-base macro play into a 14-15 minute maxed timing. The key thing is that you need to overwhelm your opponent in numbers EARLY because roach/hydra doesn't trade well against MMM. MMM is MUCH better against roach/hydra than it is against ling/bling. Even against mines, lings do fairly well. The biggest flaw with your theory is that you somehow assume that muta/ling is a bad composition against 4M...but it's actually pretty good as long as you have good control and strong multi-tasking.
The extra base idea in SC2 can be reduced to gas. Simply put, hive tech can't be sustained on only 6 gases. All of zerg's big, gas-heavy units live in hive tech (ultras, broods, vipers, infestors), which can't be sustained on only 8 gases, especially if you aren't able to trade cost efficiently before then. That being said, 3 base terran vs. 3 base zerg CANNOT work unless zerg is using Swarm Hosts to some degree. Terran can just keep pushing with 4M army over and over again until you just starve; if you get an earlier hive tech, terran can just keep trading STILL and slowly starve you out.
So...yeah. No.
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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
I merely wanted to point out that by taking the 4th you are giving up some cost effectiveness since you need to stay on a less cost effective unit composition vs bio-widow mine (muta-baneling-zergling), have to engage in less favorable locations/are more spread out and are spending resources on the expansion that could be used on army or tech. I'm not denying that terran has an advantage in cost-efficiency, but it is possible to close the gap somewhat. Perhaps the current zerg metagame is sacrificing too much cost-efficiency for that early fourth and could benefit by delaying that fourth for an infestor/roach/ling composition and 3/3/3 upgrades, rather than staying on 2/2 and trying to keep 4 bases with muta/ling/baneling?
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),
I guess the term early is relative. I didn't want to suggest any changes to how zergs currently play the early game in order to establish a 3 base economy with speedlings and roaches. Just that because zergs will usually have these techs available, transioning to roach/ling is cheap.
what you are suggesting is almost impossible because you can't have so many upgrades, with muta, a fast hive and ultra, viper.
Maybe i was unclear because i think you misunderstand me. I specifically said that 3 base ultra ling isn't really viable; i was suggesting that zergs should do 3 base infestor/ling/roach with 8 mutalisks and a hive for 3/3/3 and adrenal glads (as well as the possibility of vipers in case of tanks). By going roaches instead of banelings, skipping mutalisk upgrades and skipping baneling tech you have the gas to get the 3/3/3 and adrenal glands (provided you don't over make infestors).
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United States4883 Posts
On April 22 2013 16:25 random_user07 wrote:
I merely wanted to point out that by taking the 4th you are giving up some cost effectiveness since you need to stay on a less cost effective unit composition vs bio-widow mine (muta-baneling-zergling), have to engage in less favorable locations/are more spread out and are spending resources on the expansion that could be used on army or tech. I'm not denying that terran has an advantage in cost-efficiency, but it is possible to close the gap somewhat. Perhaps the current zerg metagame is sacrificing too much cost-efficiency for that early fourth and could benefit by delaying that fourth for an infestor/roach/ling composition and 3/3/3 upgrades, rather than staying on 2/2 and trying to keep 4 bases with muta/ling/baneling?
The suggestion I've put forward several times in this thread is staying on 8-12 mutas and getting out infestors faster while taking a 4th base, dumping excess minerals into static defense at each base. This solves pretty much all cost-efficiency problems without completely changing the entire way you play the matchup.
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I'm just curious why you think roaches are more cost effective than banelings. I mean, yes, they do better against mines, but the biggest issue with mines is hits on banelings. Zerglings have a quick move speed and can avoid a lot of the damage from mines with a little micro; zerglings are actually quite good against mines. Both zerglings and roaches are cost INEFFICIENT against bio, which is why you get banelings and eventually infestors (splash damage). So I'm not quite understanding why roach/ling is better than ling/bling.
Well roaches are less gas intensive than banelings and you can skip the baneling nest and speed (allowing for faster infestors). Roaches are also better vs widow mines. While roach/zergling isn't cost effective vs bio, it isn't so cost ineffective that you cannot survive off it until infestors are out (though you will have to give up a fast 4th).
As for triple evo chambers, when are you getting these? After you have a sizeable roach/ling army? Or before? How do you afford the roaches then? (How do you afford anything when you're spending so much extra money on upgrades and a roach warren you might be able to skip? That's minerals that could be drones.) Late upgrades mean you'll probably be even or behind on upgrades compared to the terran player (which means you won't be trading very cost-effectively).
When you get the triple evo chamber depends on what the terran is doing. You don't necessarily have to get all 3 chambers at once (might be better to start with 1 for +1 carapace, add a 2nd for +1 melee and +1 range, then add a 3rd and lair for the 3 +2 upgrades simultaneously). Also you don't need the roach warren until after you have a 3 base economy established (unless the terran is doing some crazy aggression, or you want to put on some aggression to punish the terran) so you don't need to delay drones.
You say that after you're on 3 bases for a while, you have 3/3/3 and you get out vipers to secure your 4th while defending the constant pushing of a terran 4M player. Assuming you trade evenly over and over again, you now have vipers which help against 4M by doing...? (Vipers don't add anything to fighting 4M unless you get an incredibly lucky fungal on the entire army followed up by a blinding cloud.) Who is really starving at this point?
Vipers should only be used if the terran goes tanks since tanks counter roaches and infestors. Primarily you are getting the hive on 3 base economy for 4 upgrades: +3 melee, +3 range, +3 carapace, and adrenal glands.
Edit: sorry if i'm completely wrong about this, as said earlier i'm more of a wc3 player than an sc2 player.
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United States4883 Posts
...It's certainly a lot of theorycrafting. I can't wrap my head around this idea you've got, but if you can show me a handful of replays pulling this off at least in part, I'd be interested in watching them and re-evaluating my opinion.
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You should watch the vods/replays of jeadong in the qualifier. He started with zergling/roach and it worked for him.
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I haven't had a chance to read through the new posts yet I'll go back do that after this. I want to make a case for a very odd unit combo. That is strangely effective. I have not had a chance to play with it much but from what I've seen it shows potential.
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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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
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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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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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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.
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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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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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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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United States4883 Posts
On April 23 2013 10:28 DBS wrote:Show nested quote +On April 23 2013 10:04 random_user07 wrote: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. 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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On April 23 2013 10:44 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On April 23 2013 10:28 DBS wrote:On April 23 2013 10:04 random_user07 wrote: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. 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?
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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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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On April 23 2013 11:54 random_user07 wrote:Show nested quote +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. Show nested quote +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?
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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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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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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United States4883 Posts
On April 23 2013 13:02 random_user07 wrote:Show nested quote +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.
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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exactly, once terrans figure out they can start adding hellbats/thors after taking 3-4 bases you are going to be in trouble if you don't have roach upgrades.
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On April 23 2013 13:02 random_user07 wrote:Show nested quote +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?
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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I added another replay http://drop.sc/328301. Showing correct spinecrawler use and some ultra/corruptor/infestor at the end. It also shows optimal use of cracklings late game /w overlord drop. Don't laugh to hard at my infestor control or lack thereof at the end  . 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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http://drop.sc/329079 Another replay added. The late game ultra/corruptor/infestor into broodlord switch is very very strong. And the spines completely shut down his mines aggression.
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I totally agree with the extra static defense. More spines, less lings. Don't overdo it though, find a good balance that will help to deal with drops. Drops are so much better in HOTS.
With that being said, I disagree with using corrupters instead of mutas. Speed and offensive harassment capability are the two HUGE HUGE advantages of the muta. Medivac afterburners and the speed of bio harassment mean that ZvT is even more fast paced than before. You need to be all over the map: mutas are better at this.
If you harass with your mutas, you force him to build turrets and leave mines back home. Once he shows that he's willing to leave mines at home, then you back off. But forcing him to build turrets/mines for defense is a good thing. Corrupters don't pose any offensive threat at all.
3rd thing zergs need to do: more creep spread, it's so important in ZvT.
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On April 30 2013 19:29 vsportsguy wrote:
I totally agree with the extra static defense. More spines, less lings. Don't overdo it though, find a good balance that will help to deal with drops. Drops are so much better in HOTS.
With that being said, I disagree with using corrupters instead of mutas. Speed and offensive harassment capability are the two HUGE HUGE advantages of the muta. Medivac afterburners and the speed of bio harassment mean that ZvT is even more fast paced than before. You need to be all over the map: mutas are better at this.
If you harass with your mutas, you force him to build turrets and leave mines back home. Once he shows that he's willing to leave mines at home, then you back off. But forcing him to build turrets/mines for defense is a good thing. Corrupters don't pose any offensive threat at all.
3rd thing zergs need to do: more creep spread, it's so important in ZvT.
I actually agree with you on this. There is a brief time in the match where mutas are better. But in my experience that time passes so quickly and without much (or any) opportunity to actually harrass the terran with your mutas. I still think that mutas may be worth building for that time alone but I prefer not to.
You are wrong about corruptors not posing an offensive threat though. They are really good at killing medivacs. Especially in combination with fungal. If the terran is losing medivacs every time he goes to engage your army and not actually killing your corruptors (which is most often the case) he's not being cost efficient. Mutas don't really fill this role because their range is to short and they are auto targetted by marines during the fight. Keep in mind this is later in the game. The real strength of corruptors is that once you get the terran pinned you can morph them into broodlords to finish him. Instead of trying to crack his defense with ultralisks which invariably get stuck between buildings and die. Sit your ultras on hold position under your broods and only let them run forward if he tries to snipe your broods with marines. This is very effective.
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There's 2 ways that you encounter mines:
1. Terran is given enough time to set up a staggered mine field
2. Terran is moving his mines with his bio ball, and burrows them when Zerg engages
For #1, it's best to not even let Terran get this situation, by being aggressive enough that they can't just take the time to stagger all of their mines. But even if zerg gets into this situation, they can just run around the mine field, and then pull back and re-engage if/when Terran lifts all their mines
For #2, the best way I have seen to deal with it is to send out 8-10 overlords in front of your army to soak up all the mine damage. That way all of the mines are on cooldown and your army is still untouched. Then run in with your army and win the fight (don't forget 1-2 overseers to spot the mines).
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On May 01 2013 08:05 BlasiuS wrote:
There's 2 ways that you encounter mines:
1. Terran is given enough time to set up a staggered mine field
2. Terran is moving his mines with his bio ball, and burrows them when Zerg engages
For #1, it's best to not even let Terran get this situation, by being aggressive enough that they can't just take the time to stagger all of their mines. But even if zerg gets into this situation, they can just run around the mine field, and then pull back and re-engage if/when Terran lifts all their mines
For #2, the best way I have seen to deal with it is to send out 8-10 overlords in front of your army to soak up all the mine damage. That way all of the mines are on cooldown and your army is still untouched. Then run in with your army and win the fight (don't forget 1-2 overseers to spot the mines).
Counter attacking definitely works. Especially when you're using infestors since they are so incredibly cost efficient against bio/mine when defending behind spines. Countering with your zerglings can put the terran in some awkward situations.
The overlords thing definitely works be careful though you don't want to be supply capped during a fight. If you are already maxed making extra overlords for this purpose would probably work.
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EPT
