Hello everyone, this is a thread to discuss the latest strategies which came to my mind, and also to discuss the latest situation vs Zerg.
Watching a lot of pro matches in TvZ, I was thinking how you can beat Broodlord/Infestor/Corruptor. The biggest problem seem to be ultimately the infestors. While thor/ghost/viking or thor/tank/viking or thor/liberator + some hellbats for support seems to be theoretically good, there are some issues with this strategy:
- Thors are very clumpy. They get bugged if surrounded by broodlings. They also hinder themselves if you have too many (weird pathing), and they are very slow. Finally, they are prone to neural parasite, that is control by infestors. - Ghosts are usually bound to one hotkey, so they can get fungaled very easily by infestors. Personal cloaking is also countered by that and banelings can easily kill a bunch of fungaled ghosts. - The same applies to vikings: They are bound to one hotkey and thus can easily get fungaled and killed by corruptors. - Liberators cannot move once they are on Defender mode (i.e. they attack ground units), similarly to tanks. They need a long time to get away and thus are prone to corruptors. Tanks on the other side are prone to broodlings.
Now there are a couple of things that can be done here: - One thing that hasn't been used so far afaik in combination with thors are battle cruisers with yamato cannon. The latter is defined as follows: Yamato Cannon charges up for 3 seconds, then releases an intense blast of concentrated energy at the target, dealing 240 points of damage. Although the casting range is 10, once the spell has been initiated, the target will be affected within a range of 20. This means we can hit safely from the distance. Battle cruisers also have very high health, a strong regular attack against ground units and tactical jump compensates for slow speed. They are however prone to neural parasite, so here we need ghosts. We can bring 2-3 scvs to repair them and other damaged mech units. - Ghosts can EMP a bunch of infestors, or snipe single ones. Ghosts often get attacked by broodlings, so if the broodlords come too far forward, we need to punish the Zerg by yamatoing/sniping them like crazy. We lose a couple of ghosts, without doubt, but if the corrupter/broodlord base is severly diminished for that, we are fine. Especially infestors are very squishy, so they should always be targeted first. - Ghosts need to be spread out before the fight. We can bind them to one key, but before the fight, we need to spread them in a concave to avoid fungle growth. This makes it very hard, and micro intensive, but we need ghosts to counter infestors. We can also distract the enemy by launching several nukes at the same time (many spots have to be checked, don't underestimate the distraction), preferably several Zerg bases. Nuking the army is too optimistic, because that is the first spot which will normally be checked. Nuking terrain can be good to get into a good position, but I personally would not overdo it, as every nuke is 100/100 in terms of costs. - Vikings need to be spread out as well before the fight, for the same reasoning. I am aware that spreading out units takes huge efforts in terms of micro, but I believe it is the only way to win vs fungal growth.
"run-by's": - A lot of Zergs on high level maneuver Zerglings along the side of the maps to attack the newer bases, that is the 4th or 5th orbital command (often moved from the main once this was mined out). Now there are very few Terrans that play very, very aggressively (for instance Maru often plays like that), who pressure the enemy so hard, that an unprotected orbital command goes through unpunished, because the enemy simply has no units left to sneak by. This however is rarely the case, and if games are longer, run-by's are inevitable. To obviate them, we can obviously use planetaries, but not if we fly our main orbital command to a new spot, or if we are short of money and need to take a risk. Imo a single tank with a few marines prevents almost any Zergling run-by. With the right building protection (e.g. supply depots), it becomes even stronger. For instance Fantasy does that very well in his games. Also Flash did, when he used to play Starcraft 2.
Nydus Networks: - If we spot a nydus, we should take precautions to kill overlords that try to spawn it, or have units in place to quickly kill the nydus. This in my opinion is very dangerous/fragile, because with overlord speed, the Zerg can easily find some places where to spawn it, and if cracklings are in your base it can become quickly very painful. At this time the pace of the game usually increases a lot. I would try to end the game quickly by launching a huge attack after a nydus attack was defended successfully, because otherwise more are to come and at this point the Zerg is rather weak. - A viking patroling at the side + a few tactical missle turrets can prevent overlords to reach your base. If the army consists of mainly slow thors, we have a hard time to react quickly with units. Also, a few hellbats with blue flame can work wonders to defend against cracklings.
How to keep up in supply: Playing bio, every now and then, even in pro games, the Terran builds a proxy barracks, or uses a barracks to fly around just to scout. Now imagine having the barracks at home, constantly building marines. You could even use one barracks (or one factory that is not of use) to build reactors all the time, to make production literally explode. Works also for mech by the way: Here the barracks builds mostly tech labs, or also reactors if required.
Scouting all-ins (e.g. roach/ravager) Checking what your enemy does in their base at the beginning/mid game is very important. Now while I do not think it is worth to throw away for instance a barracks or a factory for that purpose (and for the above reason) after a failed proxy rush for example, a reaper, or a few hellions supported by a medivac, are good for the job.
The latter two points are more general than just in TvZ. Let me know what you think of the strategy and what can be improved in your opinion.
Thanks for the post. Well, I have decent success with thors, hellbats, ghost, vikings and a lower count of tanks. However, I do believe that the solution to beating that specific zerg composition is how you engage, how you micro and how you split. I don't think there is a specific modification of the composition (ex. add BCs) or one singular modification (ex. Yamato) that will do the trick.
I think it is one of those cases where it comes down to positioning and how the player handles the engagement. Which is fine by me as this type of decision making is inherant to SC2.
Thanks for your comment. I agree that micro should ultimately be the deciding factor if the match is balanced, but a lot of people think it is currently not in endgame TvZ. For my part, I think the most expensive unit (BC) is not used enough to justify its strength. You can for instance also teleport two BCs in two different Zerg bases and just snipe Drones down with shift click. The BC has enough hit points to survive one spore for a very long time. But that just at a side note; I think Yamato can be strong too, because it is one of the abilities which can be used endlessly (with a timer). If you do it right, you can shoot units and teleport away before you get abducted/neutral controlled.
You guys are way ahead of me... i have a hard time just microing my Marine Tank. If i add anything more then medivacs to that shit just goes down the drain real fast, so my games against Zurg tend to be these petty slugfests against lingbling/Roachhydra with a huge ass T3 doom timer over my head.
On September 10 2019 04:51 lifecanwait wrote: - One thing that hasn't been used so far afaik in combination with thors are battle cruisers with yamato cannon. The latter is defined as follows: Yamato Cannon charges up for 3 seconds, then releases an intense blast of concentrated energy at the target, dealing 240 points of damage. Although the casting range is 10, once the spell has been initiated, the target will be affected within a range of 20. This means we can hit safely from the distance. Battle cruisers also have very high health, a strong regular attack against ground units and tactical jump compensates for slow speed. They are however prone to neural parasite, so here we need ghosts. We can bring 2-3 scvs to repair them and other damaged mech units.
Thors together with BCs are not really good because: - the combination costs too much resources and supply - both are bad against infestors (neural resp. fungal)
- Ghosts can EMP a bunch of infestors, or snipe single ones. Ghosts often get attacked by broodlings, so if the broodlords come too far forward, we need to punish the Zerg by yamatoing/sniping them like crazy. We lose a couple of ghosts, without doubt, but if the corrupter/broodlord base is severly diminished for that, we are fine. Especially infestors are very squishy, so they should always be targeted first.
Easier said then done. Fungal still outranges (the upgraded) EMP and then ghosts just get killed by broods or ground-forces. (Its better though than pre patch, and can help if the zerg f’s up.) Snipe still gets stopped by fungal, so that isn’t that good of an option either. Also infestors are often burrowed and can even cast most of their abilities while being burrowed.
- Vikings need to be spread out as well before the fight, for the same reasoning. I am aware that spreading out units takes huge efforts in terms of micro, but I believe it is the only way to win vs fungal growth.
well there might come changes to vikings in the future
"run-by's": - A lot of Zergs on high level maneuver Zerglings along the side of the maps to attack the newer bases, that is the 4th or 5th orbital command (often moved from the main once this was mined out). Now there are very few Terrans that play very, very aggressively (for instance Maru often plays like that), who pressure the enemy so hard, that an unprotected orbital command goes through unpunished, because the enemy simply has no units left to sneak by. This however is rarely the case, and if games are longer, run-by's are inevitable. To obviate them, we can obviously use planetaries, but not if we fly our main orbital command to a new spot, or if we are short of money and need to take a risk. Imo a single tank with a few marines prevents almost any Zergling run-by. With the right building protection (e.g. supply depots), it becomes even stronger. For instance Fantasy does that very well in his games. Also Flash did, when he used to play Starcraft 2.
In theory yes, but sometimes you need all your forces for the push. Also on the new maps you would need to keep back to many units to defend (because they are so open and big) and hence Our push isn’t that good anymore.
Nydus Networks: - If we spot a nydus, we should take precautions to kill overlords that try to spawn it, or have units in place to quickly kill the nydus. This in my opinion is very dangerous/fragile, because with overlord speed, the Zerg can easily find some places where to spawn it, and if cracklings are in your base it can become quickly very painful. At this time the pace of the game usually increases a lot. I would try to end the game quickly by launching a huge attack after a nydus attack was defended successfully, because otherwise more are to come and at this point the Zerg is rather weak. - A viking patroling at the side + a few tactical missle turrets can prevent overlords to reach your base. If the army consists of mainly slow thors, we have a hard time to react quickly with units. Also, a few hellbats with blue flame can work wonders to defend against cracklings.
mostly true^^
How to keep up in supply: Playing bio, every now and then, even in pro games, the Terran builds a proxy barracks, or uses a barracks to fly around just to scout. Now imagine having the barracks at home, constantly building marines. You could even use one barracks (or one factory that is not of use) to build reactors all the time, to make production literally explode. Works also for mech by the way: Here the barracks builds mostly tech labs, or also reactors if required.
LOL what do you think one does, if one doesn’t cheese ... thats just normal macro play ... and if one proxies you usually don’t have as good scouting, hence one often has to use the proxied rax for it and a cheese every once in a while is good, so you aren’t as predictable (cheese only as some players do is bad though)
as a terran you can’t keep up in supply if the zerg macros correctly and doesn’t receive lots of damage in the early to early-mid game.
Scouting all-ins (e.g. roach/ravager) Checking what your enemy does in their base at the beginning/mid game is very important. Now while I do not think it is worth to throw away for instance a barracks or a factory for that purpose (and for the above reason) after a failed proxy rush for example, a reaper, or a few hellions supported by a medivac, are good for the job.
That’s exactly what everyone that plays a proper macro game does. Usually then one pokes with the reaper and 6 hellions together.
Thanks, interesting comments, but you should work on your attitude. Leave out the unnecessary "LOL" for example - if you disagree, there is no reason to discredit someone else. I think we have different perspectives on some of the units abilities/potential, but that's totally fine. Constructive critique can improve the strategic approach, that's ultimately why I have posted here. Just one thing: I think ghosts are the ultimate counter to infestors and you just need them if the Zerg mass produces Infestors. You could also run into the Zerg cloaked just to get some EMPs off into the bulk - even if you lose the ghosts in the process. If you attack afterwards, there will be no more mana left for neural.
On September 10 2019 07:54 lifecanwait wrote: Thanks for your comment. I agree that micro should ultimately be the deciding factor if the match is balanced, but a lot of people think it is currently not in endgame TvZ. For my part, I think the most expensive unit (BC) is not used enough to justify its strength. You can for instance also teleport two BCs in two different Zerg bases and just snipe Drones down with shift click. The BC has enough hit points to survive one spore for a very long time. But that just at a side note; I think Yamato can be strong too, because it is one of the abilities which can be used endlessly (with a timer). If you do it right, you can shoot units and teleport away before you get abducted/neutral controlled.
Currently the strongest comp seen against the zerg late game is Thor Lib Ghost (A mech composition). The idea of it is the thors can focus fire and kill every broodlord or corruptor in the air and the libs will clear the broodlings or prevent infestors from using neural + they can kill the infested marines. The ghost is added in as a way to counter the viper or infestor if the liberator fails or to use nukes as harass to keep the zerg busy and in fights if snipe is good against the broods and ultralisks. The issue though goes back to what you originally said. The thor is big, it is clunky, and it is buggy when moving. The broodlord at the current moment is a very good unit. It is well designed (and I don't mean that ironically) its movement and attacks are very fluid so at high levels (Above masters 2) zerg players can clump and stack their brood lords and focus fire a thor and then walk out of range. Assuming you do this at good angles with spores and or spines supporting them of course with corruptor, infestor and viper support it becomes very difficult for the zerg army. And that is partly due to the fact that the broodlord is better designed than the thor is. But its something you can workaround. Like I said earlier libs can clear the broodlings and other things on the ground and currently thors do out range blords however the next and biggest issue then arises. The infestor, it is a perfect unit. Every spell it has is amazing and can be used effectively in all stages of the game with the only possible useless spell being neural in armies without high tech units (Like the bio mine army) this is a video that goes into amazing detail on why the infestor is so good even with the nerf of infested terrans. But everything aside this isn't meant to be whine that is not the intended point of this thread I just want to finally clarify a few things with some of the ideas you mentioned. The issue people have with making lots of battlecruisers is that they are each 400/300 that is crazy-expensive. Currently based off of what I have seen in korea (gsl) most pros are opting and finding that the ideal number of bc's from the battlecruiser opener is 3. Its not a heavy commitment and it is just enough to constantly go back and forth around the map that it forces a spire to be built or a large commitment of spores. The issue with them in fights is it only takes 1 fungal or neural to render them useless. It is no secret that in TvZ the corruptor destroys the bc so ideally they are best used as very long investment harass units. And while yes you can yamato a blord its very rare you'll get in a position to consistently do that so its just better to go in snipe some drones yamato a couple corruptors (cause they will reach the bc's before infestors) and then tp out. Ghosts are always solid in TvZ but they are way harder to use than people think and splitting them can be difficult as for them to fight you need to bring them close to the opposing army to land snipes. In conclusion I think going mech offers you the highest chance to win vs Zerg in the late game as you have the best army currently to fight blord infestor corruptor which is thorlibghost but as for bio I guess you just need a really sick engage and plenty of great snipes but it feels very hopeless a lot of the time when zerg reaches infestor broodlord corruptor.
Edit: I think a great change that could fix a lot of terrans issues would be to remove the anti-armor missile and add the seeker missile back. (the 2017 version) Cause Terran has no actual damaging splash spells at the moment. Zerg has fungal and parabomb - Toss has storm and the disruptor (if you consider its attack a spell) Terran has mostly single target: Snipe, Yamato, Lockon, and if you consider the mines attack a spell than we have 1 AOE spell. The raven wouldn't be too op anymore either as it no longer has P.D.D - so id much rather have a seeker missile than the anti-armor missile.
On September 11 2019 01:59 lifecanwait wrote: Thanks, interesting comments, but you should work on your attitude. Leave out the unnecessary "LOL" for example - if you disagree, there is no reason to discredit someone else. I think we have different perspectives on some of the units abilities/potential, but that's totally fine. Constructive critique can improve the strategic approach, that's ultimately why I have posted here. Just one thing: I think ghosts are the ultimate counter to infestors and you just need them if the Zerg mass produces Infestors. You could also run into the Zerg cloaked just to get some EMPs off into the bulk - even if you lose the ghosts in the process. If you attack afterwards, there will be no more mana left for neural.
LolOlOlOlllllOoooool
i don´t mean to be mean or anything, but your OP offered relatively little of substance and/or pretty basic and common concepts and/or blatantly bad stuff that has been discussed over and over and over again on this site. So you might be better of just swallowing a LOL then trying to get to a guy that seriously took some time to go through all stuff that again.
On September 11 2019 01:59 lifecanwait wrote: Thanks, interesting comments, but you should work on your attitude. Leave out the unnecessary "LOL" for example - if you disagree, there is no reason to discredit someone else. I think we have different perspectives on some of the units abilities/potential, but that's totally fine. Constructive critique can improve the strategic approach, that's ultimately why I have posted here. Just one thing: I think ghosts are the ultimate counter to infestors and you just need them if the Zerg mass produces Infestors. You could also run into the Zerg cloaked just to get some EMPs off into the bulk - even if you lose the ghosts in the process. If you attack afterwards, there will be no more mana left for neural.
LolOlOlOlllllOoooool
i don´t mean to be mean or anything, but your OP offered relatively little of substance and/or pretty basic and common concepts and/or blatantly bad stuff that has been discussed over and over and over again on this site. So you might be better of just swallowing a LOL then trying to get to a guy that seriously took some time to go through all stuff that again.
@alpenrahm:
LolOLOLollOLOLOL
@Ryu3600: Thank you, very interesting. I will watch your links. I was also thinking about the missing splash damage, but we have to use what is available. You are right about Liberators, they are very strong. The only issue is the bad mobility, and once they are stuck, they can be sniped so easily by corruptors. I am gonna try out a composition of BCs and Liberators (with thors), using the BCs to yamato Infestors. As the range is longer, that could work better than snipe.
On September 11 2019 01:59 lifecanwait wrote: Thanks, interesting comments, but you should work on your attitude. Leave out the unnecessary "LOL" for example - if you disagree, there is no reason to discredit someone else. I think we have different perspectives on some of the units abilities/potential, but that's totally fine. Constructive critique can improve the strategic approach, that's ultimately why I have posted here. Just one thing: I think ghosts are the ultimate counter to infestors and you just need them if the Zerg mass produces Infestors. You could also run into the Zerg cloaked just to get some EMPs off into the bulk - even if you lose the ghosts in the process. If you attack afterwards, there will be no more mana left for neural.
LolOlOlOlllllOoooool
i don´t mean to be mean or anything, but your OP offered relatively little of substance and/or pretty basic and common concepts and/or blatantly bad stuff that has been discussed over and over and over again on this site. So you might be better of just swallowing a LOL then trying to get to a guy that seriously took some time to go through all stuff that again.
@alpenrahm:
LolOLOLollOLOLOL
@Ryu3600: Thank you, very interesting. I will watch your links. I was also thinking about the missing splash damage, but we have to use what is available. You are right about Liberators, they are very strong. The only issue is the bad mobility, and once they are stuck, they can be sniped so easily by corruptors. I am gonna try out a composition of BCs and Liberators (with thors), using the BCs to yamato Infestors. As the range is longer, that could work better than snipe.
Too expensive, too much supply and too long of a cooldown. Libs may siege but its not as slow as you're making it out to be. They only need to kill infested marines / broodlings / ultras / infestors / hydras. Once those are dead the thors can save them cause the thors will kill broodlords before the corruptors kill your libs
I suspect mass thor isn't good, it just hasn't been figure out. Like you said thor is clunky and weak to both zerg casters.
The problem with viking is that fungal + bomb owns them super hard, but maybe it's still the right choice - you just need to enough ghosts to snipe the corruptors. My guess is that mass ghost will still have to be the answer, there's just no way to ever match zerg efficiency (with mass casters) with noncaster units.
All of this seems to assume perfect play from the Zerg player. In reality no one here will ever face Serral so our Zerg opponents makes plenty of mistakes that makes any Zerg combo beatable.
I regularly roll over Broodlord/Infestor combos with Thor/BC/mine. Would that work against a top pro player? Probably not. Will I ever face an opponent so good that Thor/BC/mine stops working? I really doubt that.
On September 11 2019 18:59 MockHamill wrote: All of this seems to assume perfect play from the Zerg player. In reality no one here will ever face Serral so our Zerg opponents makes plenty of mistakes that makes any Zerg combo beatable.
I regularly roll over Broodlord/Infestor combos with Thor/BC/mine. Would that work against a top pro player? Probably not. Will I ever face an opponent so good that Thor/BC/mine stops working? I really doubt that.
Exactly this. I already offered my two cents on the matter in a post above. But essentially, you should be fine with a few different mixtures of unit composition (most of which you have already presented in OP) if you engage correctly and slow down the zerg sufficiently in early/mid game. I suppose this starts to crumble once you reach Grandmaster level but anything before that you should be fine.
There is no ''One Answer'' that will make you a guaranteed win or a more than 50% win rate versus this comp IMO as SC2 isn't designed that way (thank god). I also think that if you aren't able to slow down the zerg a bit in early game and throughout mid game you should lose late game (I guess it's my Serral side). Every matchup has it's own dynamic and personnaly that's what I enjoy in TvZ. It's a lot of work to slow down the incoming train and if I can't, I get rolled over. It's like you're against the clock.
TL:DR: Practice what you like, focus on harass and macro correctly. No need to go too deep in thought process unless GM
EPT
