It's finally time! I've had a lot of people asking for a guide to a safe and solid opening in ZvZ and I've figured it's finally time to throw it up. It might be a little rough at first as it's mostly just a copy paste of my own notes and I often ignore details I take as assumed knowledge. However I plan to edit and add to the OP as people ask questions and hopefully within a few days to a week of it being posted it's super fleshed out.
Opening
17 hatch 17 pool 16 gas
@100gas ling speed
@50gas baneling nest
3rd queen immediately from main, main queen walks to natural
@50% bane nest - 4-6 safety lings
40-44 3rd base
46-50 4th queen (or spine)
@3rd base at 8 drones OR if 3rd base not finished, 2nd base on 24 drones- drop 2xgas, roach warren, evo and Lair. (You CAN go for Lair earlier @18 drones on your natural, earlier overseer for scouting)
4th gas soon after.
@3rd base saturation add 5th and 6th gases
ALTERNATELY for muta play off this opening go for a 3:45 Lair, add 3xgas @2-base saturation and play it out as you normally would with mutas just with the nice safe fast 3rd base
Midgame Notes:
ovie speed every game
set up pairs of ovies on each side of his base ready to make dropships - load these up and use them like terran drop harass to pull your opponent apart while threatening the front.
set your overlords to patrol to dodge ravager bile
4xravager squad as early as safely possible and start sniping overlords.
Speed up the 4th and maybe 5th gas when you’re ahead for faster ovie speed and ravager squad
OR you can just commit to a huge roachspeed attack with only a few ravagers off 55 drones, 5xgas when ahead (best on short rush distance)
The more pressure you put on and the more you multiprong, the easier it is because you don’t need to defend at the same time
Once they have opportunities to use burrow roaches or roach drops/runbys you need at least 1 spine per base and you need to constantly replace ovies on the map and be ready to respond to counters.
Ideally you keep them on their side of the map and dictate the pace of the game
Resources:
The Evo chamber episode where I show a very rough version of the build and talk about many key points in defending efficiently.
Example of opening into Mutas in passive game (sorry for the audio being muted due to copyright)
I'll Upload some of my games over the next week to Youtube and link them here to show this style in its more refined form.
FAQ:
How to Defend 13/12 or 14/14 1-base ling-bane attacks? + Show Spoiler +
EDIT: I now strongly advise the gasless defence method where you just pull off gas instantly and build a spine on the edge of creep in the main, start lings + queens and pull drones to defend the natural and place a 2nd spine on the lowground ASAP. Because they have so few units any trades early on mess them up, but if they don't trade you'll get queens on the ramp and spines next to the hatch and they'll be boned. Takes some practice to get the fast reaction and nice micro down but it's super solid.
It's discussed in the video. Bane nest before ling speed if you see it in time, spine in mineral line, 2nd queen asap. Hold position micro and sim city to block off your mineral line, split drones if need be but better to just lock them out of your line while queen/spine does work. Retake natural asap and you're even, ahead or slightly behind depending how well you micro
I skip the bane nest every game and instead build a roach warren @50 gas... have you tried this? What do you think of it? Should Banes kill me? + Show Spoiler +
I think you should get behind on many maps but it won't lose you the game. On dusk towers and Orbital shipyard where there's only 1 area to defend you can get away with this. On other maps, and even on these ones to some extent, the issue is that roaches are slow to build, slow-moving units. So if you see 20 lings coming across the map if you have just 2-banes you know you can buy time and stop them getting up your ramp until your reactive 10-14 lings are out. But with roaches you NEED to have ~5 or so roaches out by the time they hit or everything can fall apart very quickly. So you have to commit earlier to more defence just incase there's aggression, so if you're opponents greedy they get ahead. Also you can't then pressure with this overcommittal of units to force units out of your opponent due to how slow they are, whereas ling-bane can always dart across a big map and force a big response or do big damage.
Your style is good on super close spawns on central protocol/lerilak etc because you can walk out with slow roaches to force a reaction, and just walk home without committing. On a huge distance no-one gives a shit about seeing a few slow roaches walking towards them, but on close spawns that shit forces a big reaction. I'm a big fan of doing it on these spawns.
I've always wanted to try roach builds, but i just don't know how to deal with mutas when going for roach. so how exactly do you deal with mutas? + Show Spoiler +
Drone up hard focusing on minerals and delaying extra gas. Go spores as late as safely possible, 2-3 extra queens. As you hit 3-base saturation drop your missing gases and hydra den + infestation pit. Go Hive and roach hydra. Vipers for fighting mass muta or lurker or roach hydra transitions. Roach-hydra timing to hit before Hive kicks in if they're teching fast off just lingbanemuta.
If you see an extremely fast third hatch from the opponent zerg. Would you recommend going for a ling bane all in, or just taking your third earlier and trying to compete with there economy? + Show Spoiler +
Change absolutely nothing your early droning will be more efficient and you'll end up at most slightly behind in the midgame. The more you refine the opening the more you can ignore greed from them as you're so efficient.
Would you go 28-32 hatch if you want to go ling bane aggressive first? I like dropping the earlier hatch for the larva, I feel like I have so many more options and I'm slightly ahead vs if they go later third. + Show Spoiler +
If you want to do a lingbane attack then yeah the extra larva is super useful, but then you get stuck in a much more fast-paced game where it's very hard to have the same sort of reliable, safe and exact transition. However if you're defending with this build even vs an all-in you only need to build a fraction of their lingbane due to your early anchor making you incredibly efficient. You can just add a spine and a good round of extra lingbane to absorb endless waves.
With this hatchery timing your early droning is smoother and you saturate 2-bases much faster whilst being 100% safe so you're not behind. But it doesn't lend itself to early aggression as much
how do you properly deal with earlier, more all-in 2base Roach timings, like those 10-16~ Roaches with mass Speedling and sometimes banes? Would you cancel your third and just mass ling-bane-spine? + Show Spoiler +
For big roach-bane timings you've gotta play a bit different on like ulrena and close spawn lerilak etc and maybe delay the evo or lair or whatever while scouting harder (or hitting your own big timing). Generally just ling scouts and ovie pokes on mineral lines to try and see what they're up to. Early warning makes it easy as you just prioritize roaches and slow down tech/droning to have a defendable lead.
Those timings hit quite late so you can easily defend the 3rd and have your own roaches out unless they've massed units off like 20 drones. In which case its super easy to scout because they have no drones on the natural.
I've just edited in a bunch of FAQ from reddit at the bottom of the thread! Info for vsing mutas, why this 3rd base timing over a faster one and how you're still not behind, how to defend early ling-bane timings and more.
Goddamit I love you pig, made my ZvT go from scrub to beast, I don't find I struggle too much in ZvZ (netting 50% at least) but this shit looks solid, gonna try it out.
I was wondering why you go pool before gas? I do basically the same build but always go gas first because it just feels a bit safer vs those early pools. Like vs 13/12 it gets pretty intense and seems to go to whoever micro's better. With the later gas it seems like you have even more of a disadvantage. Just wondering what your thoughts are on that choice?
On January 29 2016 10:49 Perpetuella wrote: I was wondering why you go pool before gas? I do basically the same build but always go gas first because it just feels a bit safer vs those early pools. Like vs 13/12 it gets pretty intense and seems to go to whoever micro's better. With the later gas it seems like you have even more of a disadvantage. Just wondering what your thoughts are on that choice?
I mix it up these days. Earlier pool puts you in a much stronger spot vs a gasless 12 or 13 pool into expand build (getting very popular) whereas the faster gas does tend to help a little more vs a 13/12 by allowing faster banelings. Overall though I think the pool first is the more generally safe option as faster queens and spine is usually the most important part in defending 13/12 too.
I've already using it from the Zerg help me thread where someone advice to use hatch first on ZvZ.
This build seems to hold when you can spot the lings with your ovie, but when they hide lings and get around overlord, it seems a lot of harder. Dunno if the second overlord must be sent in a weird way, on 2 players maps to spot the lings.
I have some questions, apologies if they are answered in the videos or above, I have read/watched both but might have missed something.
- What are your thoughts on always going nest b4 speed?
- What's your strategy to retake/replant first expansion? Let's say opponent went 14/14 or even earlier gas/pool, and you defended first attack. I find that getting the queens in position at the ramp and moving spine is a bit of a risky move while simultaneously trying to not get the exp hatch sniped. Defender's disadvantage, somehow, if you know what I mean.
How do you handle opponent going lurkers? I find that I often lose vs lurkers.
-Am I playing too passive if they have the opportunity to get 6-7 lurkers in addition to their roaches? - Do you constantly prod and poke so much that you detect a seemingly constant roach count (which would indicate time to attack in a "before lurkers" timing attack)?
- Supposing that the opponent was given enough peace of mind and time to build up a sick lurker count, how do I best handle it? With patience and some kind of flight tech, or with sick corrosive bile targeting?
On January 29 2016 16:01 Tyrhanius wrote: I've already using it from the Zerg help me thread where someone advice to use hatch first on ZvZ.
This build seems to hold when you can spot the lings with your ovie, but when they hide lings and get around overlord, it seems a lot of harder. Dunno if the second overlord must be sent in a weird way, on 2 players maps to spot the lings.
Ah yeah if they hide it can be hard, though if you send queens straight to the ramp when they spawn and put down bane nest right on 50 gas I think you can often still hold with good micro, though it is very close. Also on 4-player maps if you don't scout them early you can choose to go bane nest before ling speed (can do this on 2 player maps too) to be super safe. But you lose scouting potential and the chance to be aggressive with the hugely delayed ling speed so I prefer not to play so scared personally. There's always a bit of risk in ZvZ, however if you react well you can largely mitigate it
On January 30 2016 01:47 straycat wrote: I have some questions, apologies if they are answered in the videos or above, I have read/watched both but might have missed something.
- What are your thoughts on always going nest b4 speed?
- What's your strategy to retake/replant first expansion? Let's say opponent went 14/14 or even earlier gas/pool, and you defended first attack. I find that getting the queens in position at the ramp and moving spine is a bit of a risky move while simultaneously trying to not get the exp hatch sniped. Defender's disadvantage, somehow, if you know what I mean.
- Do you ever drone scout?
Re: Nest before speed see my above response. If you thrive on being 100% safe in the earlygame this is the right decision for you. Personally not my choice but that's just me.
On retaking the natural it does take a while to get queens/spine down to the natural. You don't need to block the ramp just always have one baneling up the top of it ready to stop runbys (on a different hotkey from your regular banes - or not hotkeyd at all). The main focus is on spreading your banes out and keeping them moving around your hatchery whilst your queens move down and snipe lings trying to set off your banes. This dance is a bit micro intensive but your opponent will be very cost inefficient if they pressure for very long so you should be ok as long as you always have a few extra banes alive at any one time.
I don't drone scout - but I think it's a decent choice and there's little reason not to.
On January 30 2016 03:34 straycat wrote: Oh and btw,
How do you handle opponent going lurkers? I find that I often lose vs lurkers.
-Am I playing too passive if they have the opportunity to get 6-7 lurkers in addition to their roaches? - Do you constantly prod and poke so much that you detect a seemingly constant roach count (which would indicate time to attack in a "before lurkers" timing attack)?
- Supposing that the opponent was given enough peace of mind and time to build up a sick lurker count, how do I best handle it? With patience and some kind of flight tech, or with sick corrosive bile targeting?
Hmm I hope this makes sense.
With roach-ravager using drops and being aggressive I do feel your opponent should rarely have a window to get to lurkers. Ofc it will happen sometimes and generally at that point you stop engaging their army and focus on counterattacks - drops, etc whilst going to your own lurkers and vipers. If they ever don't have spores covering their lurkers you can abduct them into your army (unburrows them also) and pick away at them that way. But the key is just to keep defending an economy as you expand more and more which gets very difficult - whilst hitting their economy with lots of counterattacks. Some players like to add broods but since they can be abducted again now they aren't so strong in the longterm.
You don't need to constantly prod with your army, speed overlords on patrol paths will grant you vision of the entire map and allow you to see whats going on. That and the general gameplan of - drop roaches everywhere and attack/snipe bases whenever he's distracted should keep him too busy to transition - as well as give you enough vision of his bases to know what he's up to.
Corrosive bile can certainly pick away some lurkers, but it's not really a long-term solution, more a buying time mechanism (atleast in my experience). Going your own lurkers + spores to create unbreakable areas is key. Ultras + blinding clouds are pretty brutal for breaking into these sort of armies, the trouble is keeping detection alive long enough to clear it all up.
PSA as many ppl are still asking this question and my answer has drastically changed: I just edited the "How to defend 13/12" with:
EDIT: I now strongly advise the gasless defence method where you just pull off gas instantly and build a spine on the edge of creep in the main, start lings + queens and pull drones to defend the natural and place a 2nd spine on the lowground ASAP. Because they have so few units any trades early on mess them up, but if they don't trade you'll get queens on the ramp and spines next to the hatch and they'll be boned. Takes some practice to get the fast reaction and nice micro down but it's super solid.
Ok, I'm dying to mutas like every time I go roach in zvz. I have no idea how to to combat it. I end up making like a pack of 5 queens to try and help defend but eventually once he has muta ups he can just charge in and bully my queens to death , as well as spores, and I feel like I just spend the rest of the game making up what I've lost in drones and queens. I can't ever be super aggressive as he can just snipe ravagers and force me to stay back. Are you supposed to just drop a den and start pumping hydras as soon as you scout spire? Even if you try and move out, once he has like 20 mutas with +1, he can dive your bases and do damage.
On April 28 2016 23:34 WeenMalkov wrote: Ok, I'm dying to mutas like every time I go roach in zvz. I have no idea how to to combat it. I end up making like a pack of 5 queens to try and help defend but eventually once he has muta ups he can just charge in and bully my queens to death , as well as spores, and I feel like I just spend the rest of the game making up what I've lost in drones and queens. I can't ever be super aggressive as he can just snipe ravagers and force me to stay back. Are you supposed to just drop a den and start pumping hydras as soon as you scout spire? Even if you try and move out, once he has like 20 mutas with +1, he can dive your bases and do damage.
Mutas are incredibly powerful right now. You either play very aggressive with roach-ling-ravager/roach-bane to punish this (this game isn't usually vs mutas but you see both players play very aggressively to ensure the other can't get to mutas:
Or you just defend with queen-spore and go straight to double melee ups, and hive for viper-infestor mass ultra.
Ofc you can go your own mutas as standard, even off this or a similar build too. You can also do a reactive nydus worm once you realise this is what they're doing.
I'm on the other side: I played a lot of muta wars back in HotS and developed a good feeling about it, and I wish I can safely do that again in LotV. So far, I've trouble keeping my 3rd base alive if they decide to go full roach to put pressure, whereas in HotS I could just let it die, stay on 2 bases and put 4-5 spines up my ramp if I saw a big roach attacked devised to kill me.
In your opinion, what can I do to protect myself, and is it even possible, or a good roach player would always kill me if he sees I'm going for mutas on time? I'd like to know the safest way to do it as well as the best transitions out of it, if necessary.
EPT
really appreciate it! 
