EPTThe first build I will go over is my zvt composition versus Bio. The build is a ling/bane into corruptor (or muta)/lurker into ultralisks. I will go into further into detail on this below.
Build versus Bio
- 13 – Overlord
- 14 – Drone Scout (player preference)
- 17 – Hatch
- 17 – Gas
- 17 – Pool
- 100 gas – Take drones out
- Spawning Pool finishes – 2x queens + ling speed
- 32 – 3rd base hatchery + overlord + roach warren
- 36 – 2x Queens (creep spread)
- 3:15 – 3:20 – Sacrifice overlord
- 3:15 – 3:30 – take 2nd gas + put drones back on first gas
- 4:30 – 4:45 – Go lair + get 3rd and 4th gas + double evo + Baneling nest
- Get 1/1 (Melee/Carapace unless you scout mech)
- Lair Finishes – Spire
- Get 2/2 as soon as 1/1 finishes
- Once 2/2 is started, get an infestation pit + Hydra den (this will be morphed into a Lurker Den asap)
- Infestation Pit Finishes - Hive
- Lurker Den Finishes - Morph 8-12 Lurkers
- Hive Finishes - Ultra Cavern and 3/3 + adrenaline glands
Further Elaboration on the build
The above is the basics of the build. I am going to go into further detail on it as timings may change based on opponents actions. For starters you can delay the 2x queens until after another drone pump if you want, that is up to you and how you want to do it. The roach warren can be optional as well, but I find a roach warren a must as Terran’s love to do Hellbat timings.
The drone scout I like to do as I would make changes based on what I scout. If the Terran goes CC first, I will react by going 3 hatch before pool, if Terran is going 1 rax FE no gas I will 3 hatch before pool, if I scout gas + rax I will do the 17/17/17. This isn’t mandatory and if you prefer to go blind hatch first or 3 hatch that is up to you.
Once your hydralisk den finishes you want to start the Lurker Den. Now what you can do is start off Mutalisks (10-12) before teching to Lurkers and adding Corruptors later either once you see Liberators being made or adding them later. The main focus of corruptor (or muta) is to defend against drops easier and keeping the medivac count down. You don’t have to get corruptors and you can make them whenever you want, you can make lurkers first and then corruptors or vice versa. Personally I am making mutalisks first before adding in corruptors regardless of what the Terran is doing and transitioning into Lurkers at the same time as Hive. This will depend on the game and whether you think you need them or not.
Hive timing can change. I threw in decent timing that you should be starting hive, but this can change very easily as all games are different. If both players are being super passive, feel free to start it earlier. If he’s being super aggressive and you are barely holding on, delay it until you can regain control and get some breathing room (Normally when Lurkers are finished you will find yourself with some breathing room).
Mid Game and Lurker Usage
Once you get Lair your goal is ling/bane, you want to maintain map presence and know where the Terran is and how greedy he is being. You want to utilize flanks if possible when engaging, but for the most part your goal is to wait for the Terran to attack. If the Terran is expanding a ton, then you want to be aggressive as he won’t be able to hold his mass expansions if that’s all he’s doing. However for the most part you will want to be defensive, once Lurkers are out you want to keep your ling/bane near the Lurkers for support. If left alone it is very easy for a Terran Bio Ball take out your lurkers which you want to avoid.
From my experience using Lurkers, the best way to use them is defensively while getting Hive. The goal is to get to Ultralisks, while you can try being aggressive with them it is very easy to lose them and the game shortly after. They need support and the games I have as replays show them defensively until later.
I also recommend putting a couple lurkers at external bases (such as your 4th) as they are extremely useful against drops and you will find it much easier to move out and not have a drop completely skirt around your static defense. This is again preference, I find doing it has saved my external bases from dying and not losing drones. You want to make at least 10 lurkers if you can. The goal is to use them to keep the Terran back while getting Ultralisks out.
Late Game
Once Hive is done and you have Ultralisks is when you want to start pushing out with Lurkers. They are very good at zone control, for example if the Terran has a 4th on a ramp, preferably you’d like to have the lurkers on top of the ramp while your ultralisks take out the 4th. This prevents the Terran from just charging up the ramp and providing support to his Planetary Fortress(PF). The replays will showcase this in a couple of the games.
Now you can go Broodlords instead of Ultralisks, it would be a fast transition as you already have corruptors, but again this is a stylistic choice. You don’t have to do one or the other. If you decide to go Broodlord/corruptor, make sure to add some vipers as parasitic bomb is extremely useful versus heavy air and makes defending your Broodlords much easier.
Build versus Mech
- 13 – Overlord
- 14 – Drone Scout (player preference)
- 17 – Hatch
- 17 – Gas
- 17 – Pool
- 100 gas – Take drones out
- Spawning Pool finishes – 2x queens + ling speed
- 32 – 3rd base hatchery + overlord + roach warren
- 36 – 2x Queens (creep spread)
- 3:15 – 3:20 – Sacrifice overlord
- 3:15 – 3:30 – take 2nd gas + put drones back on first gas
- 4:30 – 4:45 – Go lair + get 3rd and 4th gas + double evo
- Get 1/1 (Ranged/Carapace)
- Lair Finishes – Spire + Infestation Pit + roach speed
- Soon as infestation pit finishes - Hive
The Mid Game Composition
Fighting mech can be quite difficult due to not being able to attack the Terran on their own turf. The goal as a Zerg is to mass expand, denying Terran bases while teching. The less gas Terran has to mine, the easier they are to deal with. Roach/Ravager is very good at doing this thanks to the Corrosive Bile ability. This can slow down Mech pushes as well as be extremely helpful when engaging the Terran Army.
You want to spread out your army as much as possible and hit from as many sides as possible. Flanking will yield a much more cost effective trade than attacking in one direction. If you want you can add Hydra support, but I have found it is not needed and is gas you can use elsewhere for the hive tech that you decide to go to.
The Late Game Composition
Once you get hive, your goal is to get a broodlord/corruptor/viper army. You want around 4 vipers with enough energy to do a parasitic bomb, and enough corruptors to support the Broodlords. If the Terran is turtling on three base and not moving out, you can end the game with this composition. You should be mass expanding against meching players, especially ones that are turtling very heavily. Make sure to spread your corruptors out so that liberators don’t deal splash damage.
Defending the Reaper Allin
A common all in that is on the ladder is a reaper based all in. What the Terran does is make it look like they are doing a standard reaper build, but are actually pumping reapers out of 2-3 rax. Ways to know this is going to happen is the lack of natural as he will not be making another CC when doing this. If you drone scout and scout multiple rax being built is another sign. The best way to hold this is to throw down a roach warren asap, delaying zergling speed and making a few roaches. The amount you make depends how heavily Terran commits to them. If you see 6 reapers, I would keep 2-3 roaches in each base while transitioning. The more reapers there are, the more roaches you want to add.
Hellbat/Banshee Timings
This is a strong timing attack that can easily end a game if not scouted or prepared. This can easily be prepared for with proper scouting. The best way to know this is coming is when sacrificing an overlord at 3:15-3:30 as you will see a lack of 3rd CC, hellions still coming out (most of the time 2 factories with hellions coming out) and a starport. Once you can verify this, roach/queen will hold this easily if you can get the units out in time.
Defending Liberator Harass
To defend against the liberator harass I have found the best way is 1 spore at each base and making 3 ravagers (3 corrosive bile shots = 1 dead liberator). You also want to try and use queens if possible and split where your units are (so 3 ravagers in main/natural area, 2 queens near the third base). This makes it so you can take minimum damage and not waste as much mining time pulling workers away. Spores aren’t a necessity, but they are very good at forcing the liberators to go on the other side, thus your queens/ravagers can be closer rather than switching to both sides on each base.
Dealing with Drop Play
I touched on this briefly with Lurkers, but here is a more detailed version. For starters, the Zerg should have a good overlord spread to see drops coming. The faster you see the drop, the quicker the Zerg can react and get units in position.
When verifying the Terran is dropping, make sure to get some static defense (couple spines at least) and split your army up across all bases so that you can minimize as much damage as possible. When going Lurkers it is a lot easier to defend with a spine or 2 along with 1-2 lurkers at external bases. Once a base starts being mined out, instead of making 1-2 more lurkers at another base, just transfer the ones at the depleted base.
How I came up with the builds
I figured I would add a section on how I came up with these builds. Since even Legacy Beta I wanted to make Lurkers viable in zvt versus Bio. It took a lot of trial and error before I found a build that actually worked (I lost many zvt's trying different compositions).
Originally I tried muta/ling/bane into lurker, but that wasn't very good I found, too much gas on mutalisks and it was near impossible to be given the time to transition to lurkers, let alone it would delay your hive a lot more than if you don't make mutalisks. It was also very hard to engage bio/liberator/widow mine with this composition.
I tried Hydra/ling/lurker and found that wasn't very good (it has potential I think, but for what I want to accomplish not very good). Was easy to get lurkers, but hard to hold off big bio pushes with just hydra/ling. Then upgrades for range/carapace were a must and I found it difficult to engage a liberator/bio ball even with hydra/lurker.
The third thing I tried was doing roach/ravager. At first it seemed promising, but didn't take long before I realized it just wasn't good enough. It's a great rushing strategy, but Roaches end up not scaling well against bio even with Ravager support. This was scratched as it was a lot of gas to get ravagers, let alone lurkers and then trying to tech to Ultralisks. So eventually I decided this wasn't the best option.
I almost gave up on lurkers at this point as I didn't think ling/bane and adding in corruptors for liberators or medivacs would be very good. After testing it with many games I was wrong, this was the perfect strategy to get lurkers with. If this had gone the same as the other things I tried, I don't know what else I would have tried.
For the Mech build that was pretty easy for me to figure out, I remembered the Viper's new ability and how good it was and I had heard from other Zergs that roach/ravager is good versus mech, so tried that and haven't lost to mech yet in Legacy.
Replays
Without further blabbering here are the replays! There should be at least 2 mech games, 2 bio games, 2 reaper all in games in here. I can't remember them all as I named them, but I will add more if requested and I look through my replays to find them.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/abmvfkd10pepj4d/zvt.rar
Another way to do Lurkers:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/x2aqpkcpn5v2yya/zvt_replays_2.rar
Thanks everybody and if you have any questions feel free to ask on here, if you want me to elaborate on anything just respond here and I will do my best
.Thanks to Switch for taking a look and making some edits!
