Just wrote up a build order on stream for a student as well as a staged learning plan to improve at it (Masters 3 EU student). I think this is a great way to learn aggressive, solid ZvZ. Will update more later!
Build Order
Note this build doesn't have any info about early pools. If you prefer to play pool-first for safety go ahead, just make sure your gas is no later than 1:10 and you can still follow the same sort of build order
Hatch-gas-pool 2 lings to scout 2:50 (50 gas) - bane nest 33 - 3rd base 32 overlord 34 - 44 - lings Lingbane pressure 4 banes (your preference) Drone behind it Eventually roach warren + 2nd gas (10 drones on natural + fully saturated main is a good marker - but be flexible) Evo + Lair + 3rd gas not too far behind this Or roach-bane or ravager-ling timing Sometimes skip upgrades and go straight to mutas, only cut roaches as the spire is finishing so you still have good defence with mass unupgraded roach
Notes:
Control Group Stealing makes your life a LOT easier:
Make sure you scout with 2-4 lings to see if it's gasless or they're skipping ling speed. If going all-in on lingbane might still work, but otherwise just drone super hard to about 3 gases, and 2.5 base mineral saturation then pump roaches while scouting what they're doing..
Always leave a safety bane or two at home
If they’re committing to huge ling-bane you might need to as well
If you ever get stuck in a big ling-bane war remember that the aggressor is usually the favoured player - try to keep the fight on his side of the map
If you ever swap into a defensive stance - add a queen or two and bring your queens to the front - that’s your defensive anchor (ranged dps to be efficient)
Stages of learning:
Stage 1 - ling-bane all-in. Just nonstop rally those zerglings from 33 supply and make as many banes as you can and hit relentless waves of aggression - no transition. Stop hotkeying new lings, just rally to outside base (camera hotkey on rally pt if you can. You can still hotkey as normal if you're not a high-level player)
Stage 2 - roach timing - stop droning at 2 mineral lines, 2-gases. Hit a big all-in timing.
Stage 3- full macro build
Micro pointers Need to micro the banelings once they get into the mineral line Shift click them on the drones!
Keeping banes up at all times will allow your attack to keep on going forever - any moment caught without banes you lose a lot of momentum
If you do lose all your banes try to hide lings for a counter or a surprise aggressive morph out of vision to keep up pressure
The idea here is to learn 2 very strong waves of aggression, one at a time, and only then transfer into trying to play a more "reactive" or "macro" oriented style of play
As with most things ZvZ, aggression is often the answer, yes?
That is, you put down a RW while you are trading on the other side of the map. That is how I play it anyway. When I play this build defensively I often lose because I under-build banes and it also feels I have less space to micro when attacked, even with extra queen defense.
On August 09 2016 19:23 LoveTool wrote: As with most things ZvZ, aggression is often the answer, yes?
That is, you put down a RW while you are trading on the other side of the map. That is how I play it anyway. When I play this build defensively I often lose because I under-build banes and it also feels I have less space to micro when attacked, even with extra queen defense.
the problem is that both players want to be in the role of the aggressor
On August 06 2016 00:43 Railgan wrote: The difficult part is:
"Eventually roach warren + 2nd gas"
When do you think is the best time to put down the Roach Warren?
I think it's especially hard while defending.
As LoveTool said - Aggression is the answer.
If your opponent floods out with more lingbane than you, you add more to stay even in numbers and use your lingbane to zone and keep him back for a time without throwing units away. You're skipping queens/spines that can't contribute offensively so you can put all your money into offense and hit very powerful pressures/timings. That often means leaving 2-4 lings at home to morph into banes incase you get routed and always having a bit of extra supply free so you don't headbutt into your supply cap at a bad time.
It's always based on feel - but generally you want to squeeze out a few more drones and then head into it - whilst controlling the map.
Stop hotkeying new lings, just rally to outside base (camera hotkeys)
Why not hotkeying?
I always hotkey - but i'm only Plat on EU
My guess is that offensive banes must be produced each time the former ones blow up. Morphing them shouldn't be done at home, and neither on the battlefield. So you always wan't to have some lings near his base which can be morphed, and the others can be taken for the offense from there. So hotkeying the eggs isn't that good as morphing banes at the rally point and taking the other lings from there (hotkeying them at the point they turn being offensive)
Might be useful for lower ranked players to include seemingly obvious details like you get 2 queens before the 2 lings, and your first 100 gas goes on speed. When I write up my build orders I normally just put a line that says something like
On August 11 2016 02:25 Haighstrom wrote: Might be useful for lower ranked players to include seemingly obvious details like you get 2 queens before the 2 lings, and your first 100 gas goes on speed. When I write up my build orders I normally just put a line that says something like
- 17h, 18g, 17p, 19o, 21qqll, speed
just to avoid any ambiguity.
I pause production at 19o, then get double queen, speed, and 2x lings all at the same time.
Stop hotkeying new lings, just rally to outside base (camera hotkeys)
Why not hotkeying?
I always hotkey - but i'm only Plat on EU
You don't have to listen everything he says. No offense, but you can perfectly be fine by hotkeying new lings. I guess he wants to keep some of them in the base in case something go wrong in the main battle so you may have defensive banelings. You can perfectly do that by simply shift click the eggs.
Stop hotkeying new lings, just rally to outside base (camera hotkeys)
Why not hotkeying?
I always hotkey - but i'm only Plat on EU
This is when you're practicing a ling-baneling all-in. Because some of your lings will be spread in the main, some in the natural, and some banes running into different areas. As a result you want to control things manually rather than relying on hotkeys too much. Otherwise you accidentally will run your reinforce into banelings whilst microing in their main base etc.
You can manually add new lings to hotkeys, morph banes and so on from your rally point (just outside their base) for optimum control in this scenario. Of course this is somewhat a preference thing and for most low/mid-tier players you're probably better off just continuing to hotkey those eggs as normal. But for higher level players this is a good tip
On August 11 2016 02:25 Haighstrom wrote: Might be useful for lower ranked players to include seemingly obvious details like you get 2 queens before the 2 lings, and your first 100 gas goes on speed. When I write up my build orders I normally just put a line that says something like
- 17h, 18g, 17p, 19o, 21qqll, speed
just to avoid any ambiguity.
I kinda agree a bit, however if someone doesn't know that you should always build queens as soon as possible yet they probably can't gain much from this guide.
On September 03 2016 23:17 Najda wrote: What is the transition against mutas? Do you try to get them yourself or go for something like hydra infestor?
I'm only Diamond, so I my transition vs Mutas may not be the best one. In case he commits to a large amount of mutas, then simply queen infestor is a good counter. It requires some micro, but it counters the mutas quite well. Later on vipers counter mutas quite well with PB, but in this stage the other zerg have probably transitioned, so its not necessary.
On September 03 2016 23:17 Najda wrote: What is the transition against mutas? Do you try to get them yourself or go for something like hydra infestor?
ZvZ is pretty cut-throat so often just killing them or getting ahead with your roach timing is pretty integral. However at the muta stage you want to just defend with spore queen and secure a 4th then go hydra infestor OR your own mutas OR lastly viper + infestor turtling until ultras.
Edited for clarity that you don't go all 3 of those options at once.
On September 06 2016 06:06 Divergence wrote: So when going through the "stages" of learning the all-ins is there any point to the 3rd base? Is it needed as a macro hatch?
It seems like it would be better to two base all in, but I'm just a noob so I don't know.
Macro hatch helps a lot. Allows you to transition down the line. So you're practicing the same build as the macro version just committing more. Otherwise you're practicing 2 completely different builds and it's not a stage of learning so much as a different thing altogether.
Also it makes it look like you want to macro so your intentions aren't as transparent about wanting to go for a big attack!
EPT
