EPTPiG Daily Articles
Welcome to the PiG Daily strategy article! The PiG Daily is a show by Jared "PiG" Krensel that focuses on StarCraft 2 strategy and becoming a better player. We've joined forces to create an article series that summarizes his dailies into short, digestible articles that provide insight on builds, tactics and game sense. By combining with Spawning Tool, this series will bring you the most comprehensive learning experience for build orders and strategies.
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We highly recommend using Spawning Tool in order to follow the basics of these builds. The PiG Daily and our strategy articles will serve as supplementary guides to understand the subtleties behind each decision.
This is an all-in build order that has been used by a lot of pros since early January. We’ve seen a real evolution of zerg builds to take advantage of terrans not SCV scouting. Mostly it’s just zerglings dodging reapers and slowing down command centres, but this build is a much simpler “I’m just gunna kill you” adaptation. If terran doesn’t scout with an SCV, it’s nearly impossible to hold. Even if they SCV scout, it’s incredibly hard to defend. There are a lot of complexities to the potential micro due to how ravagers work so I’ll be pointing out some tips in that regard too.
Link to the Spawning Tool Build
1-Base Ravager ZvT
1-base ravager
| 14 | Pool |
| 14 | Gas (0:33) |
| 14 | Overlord |
| 14 | 2nd gas (0:55) |
| 2 drones in each gas | |
| No queen | |
| @100% spawning pool -> roach warren + 2 lings (dodge the reaper and slow down CC) | |
| 15 | Overlord |
| @100% roach warren -> 3x roaches + 3rd drone on each gas | |
| Constant roach production | |
Once the first three roaches complete turn them into ravagers as soon as you can and send them across the map. The first three should hit the enemy natural at the 3 minute mark on small maps like Paladino.
Notes
- You rarely transition from this build. It’s almost completely all-in due to how low your mineral income is and the lack of a queen. If you do happen to try to transition make sure you pull off gas immediately to boost your mineral income.
- Both of your first 2 overlords go straight towards the enemy's ramp to provide high-ground vision — just ensure you don’t walk the 1st overlord into its death.
- Always morph roaches into ravagers ASAP. Ravagers walk faster so they will cross the map quicker if you morph them on your side of the map.
- You should have corrosive bile on rapid fire so when you get up to 7+ ravagers you can instantly drop all their biles on a bunker to 1-shot it. 1-shotting is ideal to reduce the amount of time the terran can repair and delay.
- In open ground situations fighting SCVs and marines, you should kite backwards and use your biles one by one with discretion.
- Pull weakened ravagers to the rear by individually clicking/boxing them and bringing them around the side and rear of your ball.
- Place individual biles at your feet and in front of the marines. As you stutter step they’ll have to dodge biles or eat huge damage whilst trying to close the distance with your superior range and mobility.
Micro-ing Ravagers
Hold Position Micro
- Often you will want to sit out of range of the bunker and blast down the barracks/depots in the wall. In this case you want to hold position your units in range of these, but out of range of the bunker.
- You might need to break this command to target down SCVs or to cast bile whenever you can. Always move back to your ideal position and hold position again so your ravagers don’t accidentally aggro onto the bunkers.
Shift-Bile
If you're sure that the terran isn't going to try and rush your ravagers, you want to use your biles as often as possible to maximize damage (unless you're saving for a 1-shot). Spamming onto bunkers or buildings will draw SCVs and stop them from mining.
Sometimes, the buildings you want to bile will be barely in reach from the lowground. If you just spam bile on all your ravagers, they might try to cram up the ramp and push their way within range of the bunker. You want to avoid taking unnecessary damage (or worse, lose a ravager), so shift-queue your biles. You can use shift-queue to move command ravagers to the casting location, throw up the bile, then move command backwards to safety. Most of the ravagers should fire off their biles and immediately pull back.
The order of actions in a list to make it simpler is:
- Move to ideal casting location
- Shift + Cast corrosive biles on target (using rapid fire)
- Shift + Move back to safety
VODs
There is an alternative build order which opens 12 pool, skips the lings and ends up with 1 less drone but hits with the first 3 ravagers 10-15s faster. However the next few roaches and ravagers are slowed down due to the delayed overlord and early larva inefficiency. I’m still not sure which version is stronger, since hitting faster can potentially lead to a victory —but this is the version most pros are using right now.
