We're venturing down that crazy, unexpected road again.
Hi everyone. I've been thinking about different ways to use units and different abilities that we take for granted sorted by race. I'll be updating the list as I get my creative juices flowing. Some things will have videos showing the usage of things I list, other things I will ask that you provide VODs using these strategies so I can half-way validate them. : D
Hellion splash can kill invisible units Got a DT wacking away at a building or next to a mineral line? Simply attack the building at an angle and watch the DT evaporate! Warning: Not responsible for misclicks involving deaths of SCVs.
Mule bombs Are your 30 tanks staring at your opponent's 30 tanks across the map? Are you tired of these stalemates? Simply drop a few mules down on your enemy tank lines and watch them wreak havoc on each other! Guaranteed to entice BM!
On August 31 2010 06:10 ltortoise wrote: You can do a similiar MULE bombing trick by dropping them in front of banelings to reduce their number.
Fry and burn:
On August 31 2010 06:01 ltortoise wrote: TvP: Ghost/Hellion drop. (blue flame hellion)
Drop ghost, EMP probes, drop hellion, proceed to 1-shot all probes.
On August 31 2010 06:48 figq wrote: - Lift buildings for faster repair. In case you didn't know, each building/unit has its own repair rate, and turns out that repair of lifted buildings is faster. Also terrans should always activate auto-repair (alt+R) on every SCV they produce, which ensures better survivability from harass, and pairs of nearby SCVs can even live through multiple fungal growths, because of it. The other defense from harass which I almost never see is to load 5 SCVs in the command center. By the way load/unload works on flying cc too, so if you move it through dangerous area you could unload midway for some repair, load and continue the flight, without landing. Another little trick I don't see much is to have a repair team of SCVs+Medivac. The combo repairs/heals anything, including each other - when the medivac gets hit, the SCVs repair it; when the SCVs get hit, the Medivac heals them, and they repair each other. The combo could be targetted simultaneously and still survive. - Manual Heal. Use the Medivac manually, when you can spare some APM on this, to quickly heal a little bit of multiple units and save them all; instead of fully healing one unit, while the rest die from cheap shots.
HSM Drag:
On August 31 2010 09:42 Smurfz wrote: Use HSM (or several) on your own cloaked banshee and fly it over enemies.
Protoss: (Many of these involve hallucination as I think its an underused spell)
Fake warp prism drops. Are you tired of that damn marine marauder ball annihilating your base while your zealots get melted? Hallucinate a warp prism, watch as your enemy pulls all his forces back into his base and calmly walk up and trap him in the base with a forcefield while killing off his expo.
Fake probe transfer Want to completely mindfuck the opponent? If you notice the enemy moving out, hallucinate a couple batches of probes to one of the mains to fake a probe transfer, and, like above, laugh and lock them in with a forcefield while killing their main.
Protoss curtain Say you're going for DT tech. Lets also say you want to make the most out of your DTs. Hallucinate an immortal right as your DT is about to get to their base and group them together. Move the DT towards the mineral line and bring the immortal along and just Shift-que a bunch of SCVs. One immortal really doesn't seem like its that big of a threat, right? So I'd expect the terran to bring his army down instead of pulling away ALL of his scvs. He kills the immortal and hes like WTF. This makes your DTs more effective since it gives you more time to kill workers. This also works if you drop a sentry into your opponents base and hallucinate up some zealots and go after the buildings. : D
Vortex plus nuke...without the nuke:
On September 02 2010 10:01 Chronopolis wrote: Not my idea, but the archon vortex has too much potential to be ignored. Basically, vortex enemy units (preferably a lot), and send archons in. At the moment the vortex collapses, the archons will splash-attack all the units with 100% damage at once for 1 attack. This can evaporate a bioball, a zerg army, or even help deal with capital ships like the bcs, if you have enough archons.
Fun forcefield trick:
On August 31 2010 06:16 awesomoecalypse wrote: If you've got some ranged units like Stalkers and Sentries surrounded by T1 melee (aka Zerglings or Zealots), have the Sentries throw up a forcefield box against your own units--you'll be able to shoot away at the surrounding melee units with impunity while they hammer away uselessly.
Quick cannon reinforcement:
On August 31 2010 06:25 Plexa wrote: One cool thing about warp prisms is that you can warp in buildings when they are deployed. Pretty damn obvious if you think about it, but makes for hilarious cannon pushes (or for cannoning up cliffs really quick - note that the building WILL continue to warp in once the prism is in transport mode so you can whack down 2 cannons and a pylon then run away again).
Ghost Cannons:
On August 31 2010 06:48 figq wrote: You can put a mothership on the high ground (invisible from the valley), which covers with invisibility a whole bunch of unpowered cannons on the low ground. And when your prey enters the trap, power up the cannons with warp prisms. For them it would look like they just walk past the valley, and suddenly a ton of invisible cannons near them start firing from behind/front/everywhere, simultaneously. Or alternatively - no mothership - simply use a lot of cannons on the ledge, unpowered, untill the enemy has fully entered the area, and then power them at once for stronger fire and more difficult retreat. - seems more practical, I think it has serious application and wonder why it isn't used more
Keep away with big lasers:
On August 31 2010 09:42 Smurfz wrote: A speed-upgraded warp prism moves faster than infantry, even with stim on. Put colossi in warp prism, and do 1337 drop micro with colossi, who also outrange infantry. Doing this, you can outrange and outrun infantry at the same time!
I've tried to mention this in every single post that I've made but I have never seen this being used as intended.
How to do this:
Scatter your banelings around the map (1 or 2 in choke points where forces are likely to be in) and burrow them, then right cluck unburrow, setting it as autocast. The banelings will pop up right after the first line of units walks over them, splashing a huge amount of units.
How NOT to do this Put 6-8 banelings tightly packed together in a choke and manually detonate them.
Reasons: 1. Manually detonating them means you have to be constantly watching a spot. 2. Spreading banelings out actually deals greater damage. 3. Using auto cast on unburrow makes them pop up, and since banelings explode even when they die, it does damage AND stops a push for a second. 4. Your opponent now has to get a detector or waste scans in every choke point. 5. You now can get map control easier, and expand easier. 6. It shows you when a push is coming sooner rather than when they hit your creep. 7. It makes banelings more cost effective than trying to run them in, as they'd die before getting in splash damage range. 8. Banelings overkill, ALOT. If you want the most out of your banelings you're going to want to place them so they're slightly overlapping in their splash radius. The video above shows how big the splash radius is. Its about as big as the thor model I believe.
Spread the love:
On September 01 2010 02:30 claricorp wrote: To set up more efficient baneling minefields, set two patrol points for the banelings at the choke, they will spread out automatically and quickly, takes a bit of practice though.
Proxy creep tumors. Lets say you want to be really annoying to a Terran thats turtling up in his base. Start moving out a queen to his natural expansion, when you have enough minerals take a drone and send it to the natural. Build a hatch then cancel it, and have the queen spam creep tumors on it. Put creep tumors everywhere around the natural and start spreading it up the ramp. This makes the terran waste SO MANY SCANS trying to clear the creep from getting into his base. If you think about it a proxy hatch cancel costs 75 and a queen costs 150, while a terran scan costs 275 minerals. Making him scan once means that you've already succeeded. Making him scan multiple times means you're very far ahead from doing this.
Proxy evo chambers in ZvZ
On August 31 2010 05:37 monitor wrote: Proxy evo chambers in ZvZ. As soon as you can, build an Evolution Chamber in the opponents mineral line or gas geyser.
It's really funny, and sometimes works because when it dies, lots of broodlings come out to wreak havoc on the drone line.
Creep Abuse:
On August 31 2010 06:31 Kraz.Del wrote: Putting queens in an overlord and putting creep tumors all over the map can completely cover the map in creep in no time.
Foot in the door:(Validity under review)
On August 31 2010 09:39 vica wrote: Cast [Contaminate] with your Overseer on a lowered Supply Depot at the ramp. Then laugh when you run into his main with a bunch of Zerglings.
Infested offensive line DEBUNKED. Does not work!
On August 31 2010 09:39 vica wrote: With two fully energized Infestors and good micro, you can cast enough Infested Terrans that they block every retreat path of workers in the mineral line. if you Hold Position them.
Proxy banleling nest before lair tech (TvZ):
On August 31 2010 08:23 MrKozi wrote: Wanna hide your baneling nest form terran scan? Make hachery and cancel it that place creep tummor and bulid structure. Other way without creep tummor is also possible but baneling nest will die without creep in few min.
That's one nasty clog...:
On August 31 2010 09:42 Smurfz wrote: Drop 2(+) infestors and units of your choice into enemy main. When reinforcements come, fungal growth units on ramp. He won't be able to respond until infestors are out of energy, buying you a lot of time.
Put in any creative ideas that you have and I'll add them into the OP. Happy brainstorming TL!
On August 31 2010 05:33 TLOBrian wrote: Mule bombs Are your 30 tanks staring at your opponent's 30 tanks across the map? Are you tired of these stalemates? Simply drop a few mules down on your enemy tank lines and watch them wreak havoc on each other! Guaranteed to entice BM!
Stupid MULE tricks!
Could you do this in conjunction with a scan? Say you scan and catch a MM ball by some tanks ... drop a mule, and ka-boom? Or scan your opponent's main, drop a mule, then use the diversion to do a push or drop?
On August 31 2010 05:37 monitor wrote: Proxy evo chambers in ZvZ. As soon as you can, build an Evolution Chamber in the opponents mineral line or gas geyser.
It's really funny, and sometimes works because when it dies, lots of broodlings come out to wreak havoc on the drone line.
Wait for him to build a gas or finish it, then place it so the corner of the evo touches the corner of the min patch closest to the evo. Drones will travel around the patch, inhibiting gas mining to a ridiculous extent. I do this every game, and havent seen an opponent deal with it well. My speed finishes way before, and i have banelings morphing before his nest is half done. If he tries to get smart and cancel his gas, just cancel your evo and stall the other one appropriately.
I was thinking about how effective contaminate ZvZ would be. It stalls spawn larvae for 30 seconds increasing the total time a player has to wait to 70 seconds, while also preventing normal larvae spawn.
Since there are usually quite a few hydras and mutas in ZvZ, I don't think it'd be too hard to get a couple overseers, and cycle contaminate on their hatch.
Hahaha I love the idea of MULE bombing. I really want to see this in a game now. XD However MULEs are worth about 350 minerals, right? I'm not sure if using them to draw siege tank fire would be the best move unless you planned to kill a lot of stuff (or break a critical point in their defense which will allow you to deal huge amounts of damage).
On August 31 2010 06:07 alexanderzero wrote: Hahaha I love the idea of MULE bombing. I really want to see this in a game now. XD However MULEs are worth about 350 minerals, right? I'm not sure if using them to draw siege tank fire would be the best move unless you planned to kill a lot of stuff (or break a critical point in their defense which will allow you to deal huge amounts of damage).
You can do a similiar MULE bombing trick by dropping them in front of banelings to reduce their number.
If you've got some ranged units like Stalkers and Sentries surrounded by T1 melee (aka Zerglings or Zealots), have the Sentries throw up a forcefield box against your own units--you'll be able to shoot away at the surrounding melee units with impunity while they hammer away uselessly.
Another handy trick against T1 melee, especially zerglings, is simply to put your guys' back against the wall. A few marauders with their backs up against a cliff so they can't be surrounded can kill an ungodly number of zerglings.
One cool thing about warp prisms is that you can warp in buildings when they are deployed. Pretty damn obvious if you think about it, but makes for hilarious cannon pushes (or for cannoning up cliffs really quick - note that the building WILL continue to warp in once the prism is in transport mode so you can whack down 2 cannons and a pylon then run away again).
I'm not sure if it counts for creativity or is just standard, but I haven't seen people using those much: - Hallucination for higher ground vision. Especially if you only have gateway units at this point. You can either use colossus, because it takes more hits before it dies, or an air unit, if the units on the high ground don't attack air - eg: vs tanks on the ledge. - Lift buildings for faster repair. In case you didn't know, each building/unit has its own repair rate, and turns out that repair of lifted buildings is faster. Also + Show Spoiler +
terrans should always activate auto-repair (alt+R) on every SCV they produce, which ensures better survivability from harass, and pairs of nearby SCVs can even live through multiple fungal growths, because of it. The other defense from harass which I almost never see is to load 5 SCVs in the command center. By the way load/unload works on flying cc too, so if you move it through dangerous area you could unload midway for some repair, load and continue the flight, without landing. Another little trick I don't see much is to have a repair team of SCVs+Medivac. The combo repairs/heals anything, including each other - when the medivac gets hit, the SCVs repair it; when the SCVs get hit, the Medivac heals them, and they repair each other. The combo could be targetted simultaneously and still survive.
- Manual Heal. Use the Medivac manually, when you can spare some APM on this, to quickly heal a little bit of multiple units and save them all; instead of fully healing one unit, while the rest die from cheap shots.
You can put a mothership on the high ground (invisible from the valley), which covers with invisibility a whole bunch of unpowered cannons on the low ground. And when your prey enters the trap, power up the cannons with warp prisms. For them it would look like they just walk past the valley, and suddenly a ton of invisible cannons near them start firing from behind/front/everywhere, simultaneously. Or alternatively - no mothership - simply use a lot of cannons on the ledge, unpowered, untill the enemy has fully entered the area, and then power them at once for stronger fire and more difficult retreat. - seems more practical, I think it has serious application and wonder why it isn't used more
On August 31 2010 06:25 Plexa wrote: One cool thing about warp prisms is that you can warp in buildings when they are deployed. Pretty damn obvious if you think about it, but makes for hilarious cannon pushes (or for cannoning up cliffs really quick - note that the building WILL continue to warp in once the prism is in transport mode so you can whack down 2 cannons and a pylon then run away again).
This is so underused. Also with Zerg You can deny depo going up if You get a Roach/Infestor here (other units will be scanned and killed obviously) Also getting Nydus Worm for 100/100 as entrance for an expo is cheaper than building another for Network for 200/200 =p This might work: False Baneling Trap Burrow 2-3 Banelings while enemy is pushing,but in front of them place small ambush force. Explode Banelings on purpose. He'll waste scan to check what's ahead. He won't expect backstab.
If you are playing against Marine Tank as Zerg and get to Infestors, you can sneak up to their marines while burrowed and spam a ton of Infested Terrans all over his bio-ball for his tanks to shell.
Another note regarding evo chamber. With the HP it takes longer to take down so usually players wont attack it straight away and once it finishes building you have full rain on what that player is doing in ZvZ without any real loses. It's great for knowing when he's droning or making lings. Take advantage of that and you can just drone until necessary.
Proxy banleling nest before lair tech (TvZ): Wanna hide your baneling nest form terran scan? Make hachery and cancel it that place creep tummor and bulid structure. Other way without creep tummor is also possible but baneling nest will die without creep in few min.
On August 31 2010 05:33 TLOBrian wrote: How NOT to do this Put 6-8 banelings tightly packed together in a choke and manually detonate them.
Reasons: 1. Manually detonating them means you have to be constantly watching a spot.
I disagree with this. If you auto cast burrow, then the Banelings might hit Marauders which are usually in the front or you might not get the desired High Templar snipes. I would manually do it to get maximum damage.
Also, here are some little tricks to add.
Whenever you do drops, add 2 or 4 Banelings in the mix and just simply burrow them in a corner of the base. Wait a minute and just blow up his mineral line. He most likely won't be able to respond.
Go to a likely future expansion of your opponent and burrow 2 or 4 Banelings inside or behind the mineral line. After a while, when it becomes fully saturated, destroy the mineral line. If this ever becomes popular, everyone will be forced to search expansions before expanding. If you want to do this again in the same game/match, put the Banelings in a corner where they won't be seen.
It seems that people only use Banelings for raping a mineral line in ZvZ. They need to use this in ZvT and ZvP! It is like a melee Reaver.
Edit: This should become the "official" creative plays thread. IIRC, they had maybe 1-3 in Beta with pretty much the same content =/
In TvZ, if they wall, block off their wall with a proxy hatch into evo chamber. Get two proxy evo chambers if you want. Then go for Lings and when the eco chambers die you will have broodlings. Time it right and you got 8 broodlings and 6 lings in your opponents main x)
Zerg. Cast Corruption with your Overseer on a lowered Supply Depot at the ramp. Then laugh when you run into his main with a bunch of Zerglings.
Zerg. With two fully energized Infestors and good micro, you can cast enough Infested Terrans that they block every retreat path of workers in the mineral line. if you Hold Position them.
MULEs do not "cost" anything. Cost implies you are losing money. You cannot lose money you have not made yet.
Terran: Use HSM (or several) on your own cloaked banshee and fly it over enemies.
Zerg: Drop 2(+) infestors and units of your choice into enemy main. When reinforcements come, fungal growth units on ramp. He won't be able to respond until infestors are out of energy, buying you a lot of time.
Banelings out of overlords, obviously.
Protoss: A speed-upgraded warp prism moves faster than infantry, even with stim on. Put colossi in warp prism, and do 1337 drop micro with colossi, who also outrange infantry. Doing this, you can outrange and outrun infantry at the same time!
On August 31 2010 09:42 Smurfz wrote: Terran: Use HSM (or several) on your own cloaked banshee and fly it over enemies.
Why not just use it on enemy units? >.<
Because then there is a huge risk of raven dying and with HSM's short range, its hard to hit in the middle of a blob of units for maximum splash. This isn't meant to do in the heat of battle, you might as well cast it on their units then. This is a stealthy harassment type thing to do on their army.
On August 31 2010 09:42 Smurfz wrote: Terran: Use HSM (or several) on your own cloaked banshee and fly it over enemies.
Why not just use it on enemy units? >.<
Because then there is a huge risk of raven dying and with HSM's short range, its hard to hit in the middle of a blob of units for maximum splash. This isn't meant to do in the heat of battle, you might as well cast it on their units then. This is a stealthy harassment type thing to do on their army.
the main reason, is so that the player can't dodge the missile, if they can see which unit the missile is targeting, they can just run that unit away. Also like it was said, it gives the HSM effectively longer range, kind of like mine dragging your own spider mine (theoritically).
*Banshees with cloak and a few vikings is surprisingly strong in TvP, because you can scan, snipe the ob, and destroy half his army before he manages to build another one. *Sensor towers are amazing against blink stalker builds. *4 fast vikings can snipe ovis in 2 rounds of fire, allowing you to do massive amounts of damage with minimum investment. *If you are terran, and you and your opponent are hunting down each others last buildings, only partially construct buildings, because this way you can cancel them and recoup most of the cost if your opponent discovers them, while partially constructing a new building elsewhere. *Hallucination is one of the best spells in the game, with it you can confuse your enemy, or just use them to soak up extra damage. Against zerg, when you go for a midgame push with 3-4 colossus, to avoid losing them to corrupters, hallucinate 6-12 colossus, then instantly engage his army. Also, you can make the opponent think your going down a different tech path, for instance, by revealing a midgame army composition with colossus, you can make your opponent waste money on vikings, or, if you have a stargate and went voidrays, in midgame, constantly build voidrays or phoenixes, but cancel them and restart them before they finish, and occasionally hallucinate carriers, fly them just in sight of his base, then run away, so that he goes down the completely wrong tech path.
On August 31 2010 09:25 Akuemon wrote: In TvZ, if they wall, block off their wall with a proxy hatch into evo chamber. Get two proxy evo chambers if you want. Then go for Lings and when the eco chambers die you will have broodlings. Time it right and you got 8 broodlings and 6 lings in your opponents main x)
Doesn't work on many maps, try it on Steppes of War and you will find your opponent is still able to complete his wall-off, trust me, I've tried.
This one isn't a new idea, but it's something I'd like to see more of:
When doing a strong early timing push as Terran, proxy one barracks and float it up the ramp for vision. Furthermore, upon busting the ramp, build the bunker directly beneath the barracks so they cannot see it. Finish the wall-off with the barracks, and start producing some more marines.
I hope people see hallucination as a cool way to move into mid-game.
I've been trying to get a good replay of me using them in a mix of my army via immortals since they still have the shield ability though its double and it still does pretty well. It scares people if you don't over-do it.
I thought of something about a week ago... Using Hallucinatied void rays and dark templar to attack a base, make it look like the void rays are doing the damage.
The Little One sometimes does this trick with zerglings where he'll attack with an army, run away, burrow half the army while's doing it, and then when the enemy gives chase, wait till they pass over the burrowed forces and unburrow them for a perfect surround.
Fill an overlord with queens and drones. Drop queen and drone on cliff of your liking, create tomor, spores and spines. If you want you can leave a queen for additional transfuses and air defense. Very hard to deal with, except when they outrange the crawlers with tanks or colossus.
The expansion denier double whammy: Overlord creep and burrowed zergling. Requires something that can shoot air and something that can detect to clean it up. And it's not obvious immediately. A terran that drives the overlord away with marines, will have to wait until the creep is gone to notice the zergling there, then has to scan and bring forces back to shoot it.
Fully automated baneling drops with shift click and the minimap. Works only with stationary targets obviously.
Early Hatchery on top of ramp. Especially good LT where the natural is unusable for zerg because of the cliff. Fast creep spread, fast queen production, fast teching, more larvas, if you scout a big army coming, just drop an evo for a complete wall off and get some (or already have prepared some) spines. On LT you can even get the gas from your natural for quick mutas or nydus off one base.
Also good in combination with the previous tactic, use Nydus networks to connect island expansions. If you get the island next to your natural, the cliff is no problem anymore, and you have dibs on the gold too.
Terrans should exploit more that their buildings can be placed anywhere. Hide tech buildings etc.
So, I just wanted to test if EMP destroys hallucinations, and it doesn't. So I feel like Hallucinations can do a lot in a fight more than people think.
Mixing it up with your main army if you have a lot of sentries soaks up damage even if they can detect it. Kinda hard to just focus fire the ones that aren't hallucinations when there's a mix of both. Hence, you can put a bunch of fake immortals up front to soak up damage, more-so than guardian shield sometimes. Just sometimes. I find that they act as good scares if they can't notice the difference anywho. Can buy you time, or completely change the tide of battle even if your actually half the size of his army because I believe most of the time the hallucinations won't be noticed. At least until it starts getting used more. Eh? Eh? :D
Queen Drops. 4 of them fit into an overlord, you can use creep from said overlord so that they arent terribly slow, and spam transfuse on them or roaches.... or ultras, or mutas, or whatever.
I use this in Doom Drops in ZvT sometimes, mostly with a ling/infestor/ultra build to ward off Vikings.
ALSO I just did the math on the Proxy Evo... It gains ~+21 regeneration when it's building, and drones do 3.3333333 dps, so you'd need 7 of them drilling the thing to kill it. If nothing else that will seriously hamper your economy, while the guy doing the proxying can just macro away I really need to try that one....
Here's my Zerg strategy, actually did it in a game during the beta:
For ZvT,
If T has a sensor tower, Send a lot of overlords to one area of his base (so it looks like you're pushing with units) This will cause him to move his entire army to that area, He is out of position so send your army to the other side and attack.
To abuse the Terran sensor tower, you can line up your army like drones/probes/svcs would and move them to an expansion. When the Terran comes to destroy your "new expansion", he would be expecting close to no army so he'll send a fraction of his usual force. Then ambush him and take advantage of his separated forces with your combined, dense army.
proxy evo zvz? when would you put this up? like right away? because once they get enough drones, making a 3x3 building in the drone line is literally impossible
If you're terran playing 2v2, 3v3 or 4v4 and your protoss ally went for mothership, assign 8-10 SCV's to follow it with auto-repair on. It would increase the survivability of the mothership and the SCV's are unlikely to be killed as they are cloacked, not to mention, it would be end game and you probably have plenty of SCV's to spare. Also in 2v2/3v3/4v4. You can also have Range Hydra/Medivac combos against gateway/rax/T1 zerg units, placing the medivacs behind the hydra line protected from being sniped.
Epic thread! Genius ideas. It really reminds me to use hallucinate more. So many possibilities that hallucinate almost deserves its own thread with intricate details on their uses and trickery possible, even a sentry build order.
Scout with phoenix, misplace your opponent's army, create more meat-shields (Immortals and those hardened shields work wonders), fool them into a false tech path. Of course the ones already stated, vision for high ground, fake probe transfer. Mass probe ramp block perhaps? Love that fake warp prison trick into FF the ramp. Fake colossi are always a great scare tactic in general. EMP does not kill the hallucinated unit (As said above.) Hallucinate a couple high templar here and there to temp the Terran's ghost to waste some EMPs, or even better, set him up for a feedback ambush.
The faster repair of lifted off buildings has been fixed. Autocasting repair on all your SCVs is not always a good idea. When attack moving they will prefer to repair each other instead of attacking. If you're defending with only scvs they won't even attack the enemy units at all. They will also prefer to repair each other, instead of your wall, and when a few seconds matter, by the time you notice it, it may have cost you the game(it happened once to me). For the time it takes to fully repair an SCV they could repair ~200 hp on a supply depot or ~250 hp on a barracks and you're likely to have a damaged scv from probe/drone harass or scouting
Mule bombs are used in TvT, since you're floating minerals in that matchup, which is not the case in TvZ and 2 banelings suiciding per mule(100/50 vs 270/0) is not effective.
Just dropping extra hellions instead of ghosts, will be a lot cheaper and just as effective.
Walling off with hold position infested terrans does not work. The opponent just has to target another mineral patch and the workers will not be blocked by the infested terrans.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On August 31 2010 09:39 vica wrote: Cast [Contaminate] with your Overseer on a lowered Supply Depot at the ramp. Then laugh when you run into his main with a bunch of Zerglings. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I really disagree with the way you use burrowed banelings.
If there is an MMM ball for example, with 20 marines, 12 marauders and some medivacs for kicks, then 9 banelings burrowed all together and detonated manually at the right spot will kill almost everything (except of the medivacs).
If you scatter them and autocast unburrow, then you will kill just a few, because banelings will unburrow just infront of the ball and when they explode they will only hit the front.
So if you wait for them to go over your burrowed banelings, the aoe of the explosion will hit the core of the ball, thus dealing more damage.
It's also better to have them clumped up and not spread out (If the target is a bio ball).
Can you actually NP a probe and build a nexus with it? I always wanted to know and never got around to testing it cause I'm lazy.
works. fun but useless for sure :D
PvZ.
You're equally matched and its a long macro game, you had sent a probe out to one of your expansions. All of a sudden you see an infestor shoot out its tentacle at the probe.
2 minutes later, theres an army of zealot/roach/hydra knocking down your door.
SCARY.
On August 31 2010 23:26 cryu wrote: I really disagree with the way you use burrowed banelings.
If there is an MMM ball for example, with 20 marines, 12 marauders and some medivacs for kicks, then 9 banelings burrowed all together and detonated manually at the right spot will kill almost everything (except of the medivacs).
If you scatter them and autocast unburrow, then you will kill just a few, because banelings will unburrow just infront of the ball and when they explode they will only hit the front.
So if you wait for them to go over your burrowed banelings, the aoe of the explosion will hit the core of the ball, thus dealing more damage.
It's also better to have them clumped up and not spread out (If the target is a bio ball).
Can you actually NP a probe and build a nexus with it? I always wanted to know and never got around to testing it cause I'm lazy.
works. fun but useless for sure :D
PvZ.
You're equally matched and its a long macro game, you had sent a probe out to one of your expansions. All of a sudden you see an infestor shoot out its tentacle at the probe.
2 minutes later, theres an army of zealot/roach/hydra knocking down your door.
SCARY.
^^ I'd rather have more of those upgraded roaches and hydras (and higher tech units) than 0-0 Zealots.
Can you actually NP a probe and build a nexus with it? I always wanted to know and never got around to testing it cause I'm lazy.
works. fun but useless for sure :D
PvZ.
You're equally matched and its a long macro game, you had sent a probe out to one of your expansions. All of a sudden you see an infestor shoot out its tentacle at the probe.
2 minutes later, theres an army of zealot/roach/hydra knocking down your door.
SCARY.
^^ I'd rather have more of those upgraded roaches and hydras (and higher tech units) than 0-0 Zealots.
Well zealots are stronger than zerglings and are only minerals to build the buildings for them AND make. All races are starved for gas and I think Zealots are better than zerglings so late game it could work.
cannon rush over cliff at nature on LT using wrap prism in under used. at top and bottom position, if you place the cannon right, it can hit the nexus/hatch/CC at their nature :D
You can also do something similar to the Terran MULE drop onto armies to abuse Tank splash as Zerg. Whenever I see someone turtling up with sieged tanks at their base, I always send a few burrowed infestors there. You can drop Infested Terrans while burrowed onto their main army and the slash actually does pretty good damage. They wont even know unless if they hear or see it too, since they wont get a notification from friendly fire.
You can also unburrow at the mineral line, Fungal growth, reburrow and then throw up a couple Infested Terrans and leave. The workers will die to the terrans cause they cant run away, and if they try to scan you'll be gone.
Can you actually NP a probe and build a nexus with it? I always wanted to know and never got around to testing it cause I'm lazy.
works. fun but useless for sure :D
PvZ.
You're equally matched and its a long macro game, you had sent a probe out to one of your expansions. All of a sudden you see an infestor shoot out its tentacle at the probe.
2 minutes later, theres an army of zealot/roach/hydra knocking down your door.
SCARY.
^^ I'd rather have more of those upgraded roaches and hydras (and higher tech units) than 0-0 Zealots.
Well zealots are stronger than zerglings and are only minerals to build the buildings for them AND make. All races are starved for gas and I think Zealots are better than zerglings so late game it could work.
more importantly though, you could sac all your drones and use probes for macro instead, allowing you to mass a 200/200 zerg army with purely combat units
edit: that is assuming they still count supply seperately for each race as they did in broodwar
As zerg wait till the enemy has left his base, then take an overseer and drop a changeling on the ramp and make it hold position, then drop the enemy base, unless he notices the changeling (which he probably wont in his panic) he will not be able to get up the ramp
Can you actually NP a probe and build a nexus with it? I always wanted to know and never got around to testing it cause I'm lazy.
works. fun but useless for sure :D
PvZ.
You're equally matched and its a long macro game, you had sent a probe out to one of your expansions. All of a sudden you see an infestor shoot out its tentacle at the probe.
2 minutes later, theres an army of zealot/roach/hydra knocking down your door.
SCARY.
^^ I'd rather have more of those upgraded roaches and hydras (and higher tech units) than 0-0 Zealots.
Well zealots are stronger than zerglings and are only minerals to build the buildings for them AND make. All races are starved for gas and I think Zealots are better than zerglings so late game it could work.
more importantly though, you could sac all your drones and use probes for macro instead, allowing you to mass a 200/200 zerg army with purely combat units
edit: that is assuming they still count supply seperately for each race as they did in broodwar
Can you filter out the stupid ones? This topic has a lot of great potential but walking a Queen to a nat to creep tumor there? On that note what might be doable is get drop as zerg, load up some Queens (you can fit 5 in an ovie!), drop his main, puke creep, place tumors. If you do it in some nook of his base it'll be a bitch to clean up I guess.
On August 31 2010 10:15 ltortoise wrote: This one isn't a new idea, but it's something I'd like to see more of:
When doing a strong early timing push as Terran, proxy one barracks and float it up the ramp for vision. Furthermore, upon busting the ramp, build the bunker directly beneath the barracks so they cannot see it. Finish the wall-off with the barracks, and start producing some more marines.
Wham!
They can rotate their camera to make this not work, sadly.
On August 31 2010 09:39 vica wrote: With two fully energized Infestors and good micro, you can cast enough Infested Terrans that they block every retreat path of workers in the mineral line. if you Hold Position them.
They can just drill out the workers by right-clicking a mineral patch.
Here's a couple that aren't majorly useful, but might come up: Carriers have to get within 8 range to shoot out their interceptors. However, once the interceptors have been shot out, you can back up to range 11 and they'll still keep attacking. This allows you to harass with Carriers without leaving them as vulnerable.
You can Charge-move Zealots if you order them to charge at something, then quickly C-click somewhere on the map (or is it just right-click?). This allows you to more easily flank and get surrounds with them, run by wall-ins to attack a mineral line, and get the jump on kiting Marines and Marauders by sending some of your Zealots behind them.
I've got some ideas for Zerg. Here's my ZvT build I've been trying:
Core concepts Using infestors like lurkers in BroodWar. Keep stalling the Terran by fungal growthing him so it's difficult for him to move out. Use this to stall for fast Ultras.
Early game Keep making Queens, get a 3rd Hatchery up in your maen and use that to make more Queens. Get roaches/banelings to aid fending off early harass. Start +1 armor as soon as possible.
Mid game Once you get your Lair up get a fast spire and build a small number of mutas. Use these to get some map control, see what the Terran has and buy time. Immediately get an infestor pit once you've got your small muta force. Get Hive as soon as possible and make as many infestors as you can to stall.
Late game Get that +3 armor going fast once Hive finishes, get your ultra cavern up and then the +ultra armor. With the spare minerals keep making Queens from all your hatcheries! Now attack as soon as you have full Ultra armor. Bring all your queens and spam heal on your now virtually invincible Ultras. Use fungal growth to lock the enemy in place and take control of tanks/thors with NP.
To set up more efficient baneling minefields, set two patrol points for the banelings at the choke, they will spread out automatically and quickly, takes a bit of practice though.
you can also refresh fungal growth on a dense clump of mutalisks, and they will all explode without doing anything!
I remember in the beta you could pick up broodlings, infested terrans and changelings in an overlord and there timers would not go down, havent tested it recently however.
ultralisks can also attack over a single layer of zerglings i you have the micro to split the zerglings and ultras just right.
The "foot in the door" trick doesn't work. I think it used to work back when contaminate was the corrupt ability on the corruptor. It may be a good idea to fact-check every suggestion.
@claricorp: changelings/broodlings cannot be picked up. Infested terrans die inside the overlord.
Don't know if it's been mentioned, but you can call down MULEs for emergency repair situations. For example, I was just watching a game on LT and the terran thor dropped the zerg's natural cliff. The zerg had a few spine crawlers to attack the thor, but the terran just summoned a mule on the cliff to repair it.
Zerg can block ramp with changeling. Not my own idea - someone else lost to this trick and posted about it somewhere.
Broodlords can attack get just 2 broodlings out, then attack those broodlings to produce more broodlings. This allows the Zerg to build up a small group of broodlings to feint and/or absorb damage before engaging in a battle.
Alternatively you can use a hallucination to scout areas you can warp in units without being seen, reveal the prism, scout around his base until he sees you, then he pulls his army away to "stop" the hallucination from warping stuff in, and then put 8 warp prisms in that undetectable spot, warp in and drop HT to psi storm and proceed to archon the shit out of him.
THAT works because the world is an idiot, and assume that once that hallu. has been "defeated" that that tactic has been nullified and that that particular danger has passed, he'll be off his guard once the hallu. has been defeated.
Ok so this is situational but for any zvz you'll probably be facing this a good majority of the time.
I've been working on openings that are safe vs fast speedling/bling because I've found that if I invest a little less into the ling/bling war and get away with it I can come out way ahead economically.
There are two things I've found are really valuable against this early aggression. The first is simply to block your ramp with your first queen after the first larva inject.
The second is a micro trick that takes some practice but works really well in spreading your drones if they manage to get some blings in. This sounds like it takes too much time but it's really not that bad considering you aren't under heavy APM demands this early in the game and playing a more economic defensive style.
Hotkey all your drones under whatever hotkey you prefer. then on your second & 3rd hot key half the drones on each...that's 3 hotkeys used. then either split those in half again on the next two keys or move to individual drones until you run out of hotkeys. When they run in you simply 1 right click 2 right click etc... through 0 really fast in different directions all over the minimap. When your few lings/queen cleans up the blings simply 1 right click mine or get fancy and do the reverse to expert split your drones back onto mins/gas.
This actually works really well and is easy to do if you hotkey correctly and don't reselect the same drones over and over again in the hotkeys. It also looks amazing and super gosu.
Not my idea, but the archon vortex has too much potential to be ignored. Basically, vortex enemy units (preferably a lot), and send archons in. At the moment the vortex collapses, the archons will splash-attack all the units with 100% damage at once for 1 attack. This can evaporate a bioball, a zerg army, or even help deal with capital ships like the bcs, if you have enough archons.
To add on to Plexa's idea of using warp prisms for proxy cannons:
If you want to go DT tech an investment into a warp prism might be worth it to completely avoid it getting scouted: pick up a probe, fly to a location unlikely to be scouted, unload the probe, put the warp prism into phasing mode, place the dark shrine, go back into transport mode, pick up the probe and leave (the shrine will still warp in and work as normal - powering the shrine is useless as there's nothing to research anyway!). Good spots for this are not covered by watch towers and not accessible by / visible to ground units. E.g. on Scrap Station the high ground between the watch towers has such areas; and because the dark shrine has such a small footprint you can even put it on top of the pillars in the middle of Lost Temple! In practice probably any island expansion will do as well, but those might be taken, scouted or scanned sooner or later in the game.
Edit: this might be viable for the fleet beacon / templar archives / twilight council as well if you find a large enough spot and don't care about the upgrades from them or are able to have the warp prism stick around for research.
By the way, I tried the contaminating of supply depots as well, which sadly has no effect :-(
The two Brood Lord attacks have very different strengths: one deals a lot of flyer damage rarely, the other one deals a little melee damage frequently. So, use the Brood Lord's attacks efficiently: attack a high armor unit with the Brood Lord, so it gets hit by the Strikes (20+ damage), but at the same time manually select the broodlings that spawn and tell them to attack units with low armor.
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.australia.edu/images/stories/mba_unexpected_turns.jpg)
(or for cannoning up cliffs really quick - note that the building WILL continue to warp in once the prism is in transport mode so you can whack down 2 cannons and a pylon then run away again).
fucking noobie"
