I'm trying to help my wife improve in her zerg play, and I just have a question for you. With the two first queens, do you inject with both first, or put down 2 tumors between main, nat and 3d? I learned in WoL or Hots, I can't remember, to put the tumors first, since you could not afford to use the larvas quick enough anyway, but now I don't know which is more optimal.
whats the ideal time for zerg to take a 3rd against terran when going roach ravager
going for mutas in zvz when should i be taking gasses?
depends on what your saturation is, how much gas you already have etc. I usually take all remaining gases when I start my lair. Even if you float some extra gas this way (usually you won't) your gas count will soon be depleted when you start making mutas.
I'm trying to help my wife improve in her zerg play, and I just have a question for you. With the two first queens, do you inject with both first, or put down 2 tumors between main, nat and 3d? I learned in WoL or Hots, I can't remember, to put the tumors first, since you could not afford to use the larvas quick enough anyway, but now I don't know which is more optimal.
Thx for any help.
It depends on your larvae count. I will most often take the most-forward naturally base (the third on maps like Dusk) and Tumor from the main toward it, and then inject at the natural. This gives you more larva closest to where they need to be (if you're droning the natural) and it connects your bases and lets you start extending right away.
I do, however, double inject if scouting tells me to be greedy.
On February 17 2016 01:48 Gunjam wrote: Hey, protoss main, zerg alt here!
I'm trying to help my wife improve in her zerg play, and I just have a question for you. With the two first queens, do you inject with both first, or put down 2 tumors between main, nat and 3d? I learned in WoL or Hots, I can't remember, to put the tumors first, since you could not afford to use the larvas quick enough anyway, but now I don't know which is more optimal.
Thx for any help.
first queens always inject first. You can if you are really worried and want creep lay a tumour with the second queen at your natural on the second inject. You get less larvae in LotV then hots so you can't really afford to be tumouring.
On February 17 2016 04:23 Incognoto wrote: I'm off racing zerg at the moment.
ZvZ is literally ALWAYS ling/bling? I thought that went out of style.
Short answer? Yes.
There are some very fast roach warren builds on maps with tiny ramps and a back door expansion but those are both limited by map and not even that good on those maps. So yeah, you should almost always open ling/bling. You can try skipping bling and going roach and if you pull it off and get good use out of your roaches then you should be in a large lead but early roaches put you behind economically and actually get punished by lings if you try to get aggressive.
Well I personally like ling/bling, I used to be OK at it. Not anymore though and today if every zerg is doing it I need a lot of practice in order to get be "competitive" at it again. Fancy that.
On February 17 2016 17:15 Incognoto wrote: Well I personally like ling/bling, I used to be OK at it. Not anymore though and today if every zerg is doing it I need a lot of practice in order to get be "competitive" at it again. Fancy that.
the thing is most people are going speed expand for safety and you can't OL scout hatch timings properly anymore so if you skip ling bane you can just die. but most people still want to transition. as long as you're watching your overlords to spot massive allins you can just grab 2 banes and a spine and just play for the midgame
On February 17 2016 17:15 Incognoto wrote: Well I personally like ling/bling, I used to be OK at it. Not anymore though and today if every zerg is doing it I need a lot of practice in order to get be "competitive" at it again. Fancy that.
the thing is most people are going speed expand for safety and you can't OL scout hatch timings properly anymore so if you skip ling bane you can just die. but most people still want to transition. as long as you're watching your overlords to spot massive allins you can just grab 2 banes and a spine and just play for the midgame
Or you can try a gasless 4-5 queen build, adding spines if you scout allins and go straight for roach timing push or muta. Just make baneling nest after lair and get 3-4 banes to kill nydus play.
Don't know about higher leagues but it's more then viable in diamond. In fact this is what carried me into diamond thanks to large population of zergs on ladder.
To be honest. I hated ling/bling in ZvZ. I sucked at it hard and lost every battle. I tried multiple ways of getting around it and a lot of them were okay. However, in the end I resided myself to the fact that I needed to learn how to do the ling/bling dance. I am still very average at it, however, I am improving. I think you are better off facing your weakness and just making it an area of improvement then avoiding it. Because it will make you a far more well rounded player in the long run.
Hmm, I'd like a bit more ling bane vs ling bane micro.
That video is mainly showing that if you have banes in his base and the other guy doesn't, and he runs 20 lings into one of your banes, you win. And that 2 banes alone doesn't beat 2 queens and a spine. The zoning with the banes is a good point I guess.
I'd like to know how to handle a scenario where I have 20 lings and 5 banes, trying to attack up a wide ramp vs maybe 10 lings, 3 banes, a queen and a spine. And how I defend in the same scenario. I know pre-splitting is good, but once I have to move up the ramp, the pre-split goes away mostly. And even defensively, after a few fakes and single lings or single banes diving in to bait, i find it hard to maintain the pre-split in a good way. I'd like a slow-motion first person view with commentary on how every next click is selected, which actions are most important (as you don't have time to do them all), and so on.
On February 18 2016 22:09 straycat wrote: Blink allin off two base. Is roach/ravager too costly? How many drones on third? 3 or 4 gases?
Edit: Do I go lair and/or +1, or is that too greedy asw?
its been a long time since ive seen a blink allin in zvp, but in hots i defended with roach/ling on 2-3 gases. with fewer larvae in lotv you might want to go 3 gas and heavier on roaches. ravagers would be much too expensive and you'd never land a corrosive bile against blink. personally i would want lair and roach speed because blink stalkers can outmicro slow roaches really badly. spines are a good way to buy time if you don't have the unit mass to engage/prevent stalkers from chipping your third hatchery
sorry for theorycrafting but protoss are rare on ladder and blink allins are even rarer
On February 18 2016 22:09 straycat wrote: Blink allin off two base. Is roach/ravager too costly? How many drones on third? 3 or 4 gases?
Edit: Do I go lair and/or +1, or is that too greedy asw?
its been a long time since ive seen a blink allin in zvp, but in hots i defended with roach/ling on 2-3 gases. with fewer larvae in lotv you might want to go 3 gas and heavier on roaches. ravagers would be much too expensive and you'd never land a corrosive bile against blink. personally i would want lair and roach speed because blink stalkers can outmicro slow roaches really badly. spines are a good way to buy time if you don't have the unit mass to engage/prevent stalkers from chipping your third hatchery
sorry for theorycrafting but protoss are rare on ladder and blink allins are even rarer
Thanks for your thoughts. I've had it happen three times in a relatively short time. It is particularly annoying since every time I've scoutrd it WELL in advance (as a change to my usual scouting prowess haha fml) but somehow have managed to be too greedy/unprepared anyway. Bah!
Hmm, I'd like a bit more ling bane vs ling bane micro.
That video is mainly showing that if you have banes in his base and the other guy doesn't, and he runs 20 lings into one of your banes, you win. And that 2 banes alone doesn't beat 2 queens and a spine. The zoning with the banes is a good point I guess.
I'd like to know how to handle a scenario where I have 20 lings and 5 banes, trying to attack up a wide ramp vs maybe 10 lings, 3 banes, a queen and a spine. And how I defend in the same scenario. I know pre-splitting is good, but once I have to move up the ramp, the pre-split goes away mostly. And even defensively, after a few fakes and single lings or single banes diving in to bait, i find it hard to maintain the pre-split in a good way. I'd like a slow-motion first person view with commentary on how every next click is selected, which actions are most important (as you don't have time to do them all), and so on.
I remember someone explaining almost all of it, don't remember who (might even be Day[9] at the time, or maybe TLO? Bad memory is bad), but there are several point you have to do all the time: -Split before hand, and make use of hold position, so if a bane comes all your lings will not want to hug him while you are away injecting or whatever, this gives you more time to come back to it. -When big lings + many banes (>5) wars, always have your banes moving in pairs. Not one bane alone, and mostly not 5 of them at once. The reason is that you need 2 banes to kill one (or 10), so if one of you stack them, they all get killed by only 2. This is the most efficient to be quite safe and be able to seize those kind of opportunities. -As Lowko said, don't use banes on drones. If you kill the lings of your opponents (same if they cannot attack yours), you can take all your time to kill the drones with your lings, and it's free. So use them to zone the lings (killing is a plus). -Don't be so afraid to over-bane. Sure you can make it with 35 lings and 5 banes, but better make it 25 lings and 10 banes There will be some miss control on both side, better have more ammo. The better you get, the fewer baneling you make. -Going up a ramp ('mirror' this point if you are the one defending), you will want to check with one ling first. Then try baiting banelings detonations with one or two lings at a time, or even moving two banes up if you see a possibly unwatched pack.
With a video this would be much better, but I hope you get the points!
How do you guys play against Terran? I'm a plat Zerg but I loose all my ZvT's. No matter what the opponent does, or what his league is. Im opening speedling and try to take a 3rd after reapers are pushed away, but I will die 100% against the incoming push. Be it Libs, Widow mines, standard marine tank, mass banshee, hellbat timing or whatever. I used to play LingBaneMuta succesfully in Hots but now i dont even waste resources for Mutas and still get rolled over every game. My confidence in this MU is completely broken and I would like to know how you guys generally try to handle T since I have obviously no clue except the usual macro better, micro better, scout better.
On February 20 2016 01:43 jackacea wrote: How do you guys play against Terran? I'm a plat Zerg but I loose all my ZvT's. No matter what the opponent does, or what his league is. Im opening speedling and try to take a 3rd after reapers are pushed away, but I will die 100% against the incoming push. Be it Libs, Widow mines, standard marine tank, mass banshee, hellbat timing or whatever. I used to play LingBaneMuta succesfully in Hots but now i dont even waste resources for Mutas and still get rolled over every game. My confidence in this MU is completely broken and I would like to know how you guys generally try to handle T since I have obviously no clue except the usual macro better, micro better, scout better.
No problem, at the beginning my confidence was low against Terran but after some great Teamliquid advice from the upper ladder beasts I'm sitting pretty at 80% win rate at high diamond/low master.
When you open speedling, keep 1 drone on gas, really spread that creep towards your third, I like to use both my first Queens initial energy for 2 quick tumors while building 2 more. Third base goes down around 3:00 and around 3:30 you need to put 2 drones back on gas whilst taking 2 more gas at your natural/evo chambers.
I only like to put down a baneling nest if I see he's being super passive with his Hellions as that's almost always an indicator that a hellbat push is coming. Or if when you scout you see no third CC, your definitely getting attacked, but I like to follow Pigs "rule of 1 gas" and push for a very mineral heavy opening with at least 3 Queens for defense. So yea, only drop banes nest before Lair if you scout the attack or if your just really paranoid.
Ling Bling works just fine but you need to start streamlining your tech to not STAY on Lin Bling Muta. Build your initial 8 Mutalisks to help control the drops, immediately plant a Infestation Pit while saturating a 4th and rush for those Ultralisks.
I feel the key to beating Terran is to take their harass with very minimal drone losses, be ready for that Liberator, be ready for the Hellbats or the sneaky Banshees. Shut them down hard and secure a stronger economy with LOTS of creep spread.
Keep practicing, and post replays us Zergies gotta stick together.