This replay pack has 9 replays from custom and ladder games using the ling/bane style of play against Protoss. The build I use in them is not very refined as I've only been using this style for about a week now, but they are a good indication of how you can utilize high mobility units to abuse the Protoss' immobility.
If you would like some more analysis of this style you can check our MrBitter's 12 Weeks With the Pros cast with me filling in for a very busy iNcontroL here: Week 7: A New ZvP Style with Aquanda
The premise of this build is using low cost units in order to maximize your larva production by having more hatcheries than you would going roach, and therefor a potentially higher drone count earlier into the mid game. As displayed in several replays, early pressure is no harder to defend using ling/bane that it is using roach, and gives you the option of a potent counterattack due to the fast speed of Zerglings.
Since some Protoss players have asked me how to deal with this I'll simply suggest DT into Archon which will take back map control temporarily from the Zerg, as 2 base Templar is a risky move and will get rolled with a simple Roach switch. Proper scouting and adjusting your unit composition to the Zerg is essential in order to apply pressure successfully.
absolutely killer ling/baneling build. i havent found a protoss on ladder that can stop it short of really really fast stargates (if scouted in time, queen at every hatch is nice :3] thanks for posting the replay pack, i pm'ed you eariler and i knew you would deliver!
also, wanted to edit a cool protips i found in when using this build.
bait forcefields if he tries to early pressure off a sentry expand. he only has so many forcefields that early.
backstab, if wants to attack your third, use lings to attack his natural.
macro hatches, i usually get one after my second is saturated because lings are cheap as hell.
upgrades, lots of them. +1 is important.
don't skimp on banelings.
(most of this can be learned via mrbitters 12 weeks video, but not all of us have 1/2 hours to watch it)
I've been looking forward to it since I watched the show on 12 weeks and started playing with it. Just had a few questions from watching the replays except those against kcdc. Save those until after tonights 12 weeks episode is complete.
1. Any thoughts on pulling drones off gas earlier? Say 14 pool, 14 gas, pull 2 drones off gas at about 80 since you seem to get ling speed later? I was thinking any excess minerals from a hatchery block can go into the second queen/drones.
2. Are there any triggers for when you get your baneling nest? In some games, it wasn't until after the 4th hatch (seemed to be mainly against stalker heavy compositions) and sometimes it is before the 3rd hatch (zealot heavy games it seems).
3. Have you had any experience trying this in ZvT? I've seen posts here and there about it being effective against T as well but I'm not sure how it seems quite susceptible to hellions.
Ideally I'd like to get the 100 gas early just in case it's close position and I'm scared of early pressure, in which case I'd delay my second queen and get speed faster. Lately I've just been getting used to using a build I'm not familiar with so my tendency is to just go through the motions to acclimate myself. I think to streamline the build I would get my gas after I start my hatchery, but there are many ways Protoss can abuse a late gas build by Z if they scout it.
You would have to reference specific games for me to answer this correctly, but some things which make me build the baneling nest later would be: I know the player is passive and I won't need early banelings for defense; he is going for a super fast nexus with few units, so I can either make a baneling nest and try to win early (not my style) or use that money for something else and delay my baneling nest. Generally if I see him making a healthy army size while he's expanding I will get the baneling nest at the normal time (before 3rd hatch).
I haven't tried this much in ZvT simply because it's much harder to predict what the Terran is doing, and most Terrans are opening with Rax/Gas builds which tells me just about nothing. I think against 2 Rax play it can be very effective, but I just feel like the presence of Muta on the map gives you both the information and pressure you need to choose your tech path.
On March 01 2011 15:02 darkrage14 wrote: First off, I LOVE this build and its idea of actually swarming something with lings (its about time ). But I have a couple of questions:
1) How does this build deal with blink stalkers, won't the stalkers be able to kite the lings until they reduce them to insignificant numbers?
2) How does this build deal with the current popular VR-Collosus deathball off 2 or 3 base? Is it possible for you to get a replay of this?
One base or two? One base is retardedly hard to stop no matter what build you choose, and two base comes late enough where you can simply overwhelm the stalkers with +1/1 lings.
It depends on the opener from Protoss and how the mid game plays out. Once you scout that he's going for VR/Collosus ball expand like crazy and build up a large Corruptor ball while getting tons of ling/bling and eventually ultra. This ball is also very vulnerable to base trades, since he can't simply split half his army in order to save his base - it's all or nothing. You can overdrone in this situation because the goal is to engage with ling/bling/corruptor and because ling/bling is much cheaper than roach/hydra you will have more gas to spend on corruptors, which is what you really need to deal with the ball.
On March 01 2011 15:02 darkrage14 wrote: First off, I LOVE this build and its idea of actually swarming something with lings (its about time ). But I have a couple of questions:
1) How does this build deal with blink stalkers, won't the stalkers be able to kite the lings until they reduce them to insignificant numbers?
I played against a 4 gate blink stalker build just a little while ago on Xel Naga which this build crushed.
I went for the standard third hatch at around 7min into +1 mass speedling once I scouted the blink stalker and cut drones around 28. The third hatch really helped with production.
On March 01 2011 16:35 kedinik wrote: This build seems to have a big window of vulnerability to pressure that hits around the 8 minute mark or sooner.
Have you tested this against a protoss who fakes a 3-gate expand into a zealot heavy 4-gate?
If the Protoss hasn't expanded (as in built the Nexus) by ~6:00 you need to sac an overlord, build defenses, and stop drone production. I have a lot of experience playing with standard Roach play and that fake FE into 4/5 Gate rush is deadly no matter what build you use.
On March 01 2011 16:35 kedinik wrote: This build seems to have a big window of vulnerability to early zealot pressure, when you're spending lots of money on drones and hatches, and you don't have roach tech or very many larva yet.
Have you tested this against a protoss who fakes a 3-gate expand into a zealot-centric 4-gate? That seems like it would pose the biggest problem.
Every build has a weakness, which is why I am constantly aware of what's going on below the Protoss ramp. If he isn't building a nexus what units does he have that I can see? How many? Is he chronoboosting his Cyber nonstop? I only build my 3rd hatchery at another base once I've seen the Protoss expand, and even then I'm keeping an eye on how many units he's producing. The 'Huk' style 3 gate FE into pressure is pretty common so as long as you notice he's delaying tech in order to produce more units you can adjust your army size accordingly (or just pool some larva since you have enough hatches to do so).
On a map as big as Xel'Naga if you see him coming at you with a 4 gate sized force you morph as many banelings as possible and make some spines. You can delay with lings long enough for the spines to finish and after that it's a matter of time before his force will die to ling/bling.
Sorry about the confusing edits; I figured that your first response answered both versions of my post pretty well, so I changed it back to what I originally posted.
It's definitely a general problem, the fake expand into 4/5 gate.
I have the most trouble, regardless of build, when they seem to gear up for an all-in but instead expand 1-2 minutes late. And then I have some defenses, a low drone count and a big army that can't really attack into their army. Ah well.
hmmm I actually ''tried'' to go this build when getting Zerg (Random'ing currently lol) vs Protoss, but I actually skipped the Baneling part... I went Ling +1 attack as fast as possible (AKA after speed and then getting 100 gas etc.)...
It kind of worked a lot of times (Then again, I do get opponents through the range of gold through Diamond lol) and the fun thing about it is, you can pretty much get any tech route you want. In one game, I went Ling Ultra. Another game, I went Ling Muta and so forth...
I'll definitely give this a try, i really like this mass expansion style and it's a great alternation to roach/hydra/corrupter. So thanks a lot for sharing this with us!
Aquanda, or someone else who's familair with this strategy, could you please write more of a guide regarding this build? Like; when to get the second expansion? when to get the macro hatch? when to get the first and second evo chamber? when to get gas? how agressive should you play? etc
I've been practicing this build vs a few friends and I really like it. The games I've lost have been to games where he aggressively turtles with great simcities and to 6 (or more lol) gating where he lays down just greaaatt forefields and splits his army up real well like he was a terran player (What can you do vs a toss player who splits perfectly). Still... When I was still learning 6 gate defense a while ago when it was still new, I would die as soon as I made a little more than 40 drones. Overdrone by just a few and I'd die immediately. At least in these games I died cause I overdroned by like 40.... Seriously, 80 ish drones by that mark lol... Not used to so many minerals and bases that early on. I just like how everything is timed out in this build like how you pull drones off gas after speed and upgrade +1 and get a bling nest as the gas slowwwllyy builds up from then on. Really allows you to drone like crazy. Really looking forward to tinkering with this build.
It's a very cool style of play. I have a few casts from the Seattle LAN where aquanda did this play pretty successfully I believe against LG's RaNgeD. I'll post onto youtube soon so you can update it onto your thread aquanda =]
On March 01 2011 20:22 magha wrote: Aquanda, or someone else who's familair with this strategy, could you please write more of a guide regarding this build? Like; when to get the second expansion? when to get the macro hatch? when to get the first and second evo chamber? when to get gas? how agressive should you play? etc
Do it yourself.
He was nice enough to post these reps for us and went on to MrBitter's stream.
You got 9 reps now as well as the Vods on Bitter's channel. Not hard to just note down the timing on a piece of paper zzz.
If you can't be bothered looking at his rep, then why should he (or anyone) be bothered writing you a guide?
On March 01 2011 20:22 magha wrote: Aquanda, or someone else who's familair with this strategy, could you please write more of a guide regarding this build? Like; when to get the second expansion? when to get the macro hatch? when to get the first and second evo chamber? when to get gas? how agressive should you play? etc
I play it a bit safer than aquanda with a later 3rd and earlier lair for drops. If you want to play more like him just get later gas. and an earlier macro hatch
I caught your style on Mr. Bitter's stream and enjoyed watching you melt the high-tech Toss with lowly (upgraded) lings. Thanks for the reps. I'm looking forward to watching them.
I haven't watched the reps in this pack, so maybe you're doing this now, but Aquanda, you gotta find a way to work in drops and OL speed. It seems like the only thing that gives you trouble is sentries, and 4 banelings in an OL cleans out all their sentries instantly. Instead of making 20 banelings and hoping he eventually misses a forcefield so that 4 of them hit, you could make 4 banelings and hit the first time. Having drops would make you invincible until colossi/templar, but I dunno how you'd get it in time for 6 gate. If you're going banelings vs P, you definitely want drops eventually tho.
On March 02 2011 05:09 kcdc wrote: I haven't watched the reps in this pack, so maybe you're doing this now, but Aquanda, you gotta find a way to work in drops and OL speed. It seems like the only thing that gives you trouble is sentries, and 4 banelings in an OL cleans out all their sentries instantly. Instead of making 20 banelings and hoping he eventually misses a forcefield so that 4 of them hit, you could make 4 banelings and hit the first time. Having drops would make you invincible until colossi/templar, but I dunno how you'd get it in time for 6 gate. If you're going banelings vs P, you definitely want drops eventually tho.
Agreed with this man right here.
Sentries are the centerpiece of the protoss army. Be it the gateway, gateway/immortal, gateway/collosus or voidray/collosus mix. Destroying that weak link by dropping on top of them ( which is really easy, overlords are about as fast as sentries and most of all because of your upgrades you will 2 shot them when +2 finishes ) is definitely going to bolster your army by so... so much. I keep having to repeat myself on baneling bombs, and I will keep advising people to try them out until everyone can actually have a legit verdict about it. START DOING IT ZERGS.
Personally I go for a more reactive build. Getting only one evo chamber before lair and getting +1 melee and +1 range to have a meaning to upgrade both roaches and zerglings depending on what my opponent wants to do. Your build is a great macro build that basically screams to the protoss "Come at me bro!" to force him to come out of his protective shell. I use a more baneling bomb harrassment style to induce the same kind of behavior. ( I will shamelessly put the link to that build here, I hope you don't mind : http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=196518 , if you do, I'll gladly remove it ).
6 gates are pretty hard to stop though with just lings and banelings, hence my more reactive build. But nonetheless this has some real potential. Thanks for the replay pack .
From my experience if you didn't do any early damage with your lings/banelings to delay him a heavy 2 base colossi/stalker/sentry attack is just going to kill you because it hits so fast and with forcefield + 3 colossi he just burns through your stuff ridiculously fast. The potential to damage is there for sure but I feel a good defensive Protoss is going to take minimal losses and your Muta/Hive/whatever follow up won't cut it/won't come out in time.
What's your take on this? because from the reps I watched you always delayed him significantly with your early pressure
And people are suggesting baneling drops but in practice it's really really hard to pull off vs a diligent Protoss. MC vs July on XelNaga is a good example, obviously we're not MCs here but I don't think he did anything incredible yet July's banelings were rendered completely useless
On March 02 2011 05:45 Sybris wrote: From my experience if you didn't do any early damage with your lings/banelings to delay him a heavy 2 base colossi/stalker/sentry attack is just going to kill you because it hits so fast and with forcefield + 3 colossi he just burns through your stuff ridiculously fast
The potential to damage is there for sure but I feel a good defensive Protoss is going to take minimal losses and your Muta/Hive/whatever follow up won't cut it/won't come out in time. I'd love to hear your experiences with this because from the reps I watched you always delayed him significantly with your early pressure
And people are suggesting baneling drops but in practice it's really really hard to pull off vs a diligent Protoss. MC vs July on XelNaga is a good example, obviously we're not MCs here but I don't think he did anything incredible yet July's banelings were rendered completely useless
July's overlords were cut off from his main army through forcefields. He only sent in the overlords he had filled with banelings. He didn't retreat them and the only thing the protoss was able to shoot anyway was the overlords, they would've died without focusfire too.
Thats like taking Socke vs Morrow showmatch -> spoilers ahead + Show Spoiler +
game 1 and saying collosi voidray isn't strong because if your 5 collosi get caught off guard in the open you're gonna lose the game.
Remember back when people thought the archon toilet would never be seen in proffesional play? Right now in current tournaments they have been used to great effect.
Taking one game as an example for a style isn't a good idea. As such you shouldn't just discard this strategy because you saw it lost once.
Stalkers are faster than Overlords so it's hard to retreat once you're position but regardless if you watch that game it's clear July simply has no opening to attack - the path is so small that if July attacks he gets cut up by forcefield which is what happened. And comparing Socke misclicking 5 colossi is stupid.. why are you even bringing that into it?
Fact is baneling dropping isn't new and there hasn't been any amazing success with them at the high levels, the only mild success I saw was with July on Scrap Station where he'd already won the game to be honest. A smart Protoss just won't commit to an attack because the only way Zerg can really pull it off is by surrounding so Protoss' army can't retreat in any direction. Feel free to reference some matches to prove me wrong though, cause ZvP could use a revelation for sure :p
Obviously, you want to pick your spot carefully when baneling dropping the army as you would with any engagement. Aquanda is always forcing Protoss players to forcefield themselves up against a wall. Slow overlords could catch that.
On March 02 2011 05:45 Sybris wrote: From my experience if you didn't do any early damage with your lings/banelings to delay him a heavy 2 base colossi/stalker/sentry attack is just going to kill you because it hits so fast and with forcefield + 3 colossi he just burns through your stuff ridiculously fast. The potential to damage is there for sure but I feel a good defensive Protoss is going to take minimal losses and your Muta/Hive/whatever follow up won't cut it/won't come out in time.
What's your take on this? because from the reps I watched you always delayed him significantly with your early pressure
And people are suggesting baneling drops but in practice it's really really hard to pull off vs a diligent Protoss. MC vs July on XelNaga is a good example, obviously we're not MCs here but I don't think he did anything incredible yet July's banelings were rendered completely useless
but exactly this is the purpose of this strategy to either damage the protoss expansion or defend your base - the advantage compared to roach use is that you need way less overlords and you can get another hatch quickly
in the replay pack many protoss tried to push and therefore a lot of ling/bling was necessary but if it doesnt happen you will save the gas and tech faster
but you are right a very defensive play followed by good timing will be the most challenging issue with this strategy
On March 02 2011 06:04 Sybris wrote: Stalkers are faster than Overlords so it's hard to retreat once you're position but regardless if you watch that game it's clear July simply has no opening to attack - the path is so small that if July attacks he gets cut up by forcefield which is what happened. And comparing Socke misclicking 5 colossi is stupid.. why are you even bringing that into it?
Fact is baneling dropping isn't new and there hasn't been any amazing success with them at the high levels, the only mild success I saw was with July on Scrap Station where he'd already won the game to be honest. A smart Protoss just won't commit to an attack because the only way Zerg can really pull it off is by surrounding so Protoss' army can't retreat in any direction. Feel free to reference some matches to prove me wrong though, cause ZvP could use a revelation for sure :p
I think its accepted that running your zerg army into a choke versus an army that outranges you with splash damage and has the ability to alter terrain is a bad idea regardless of what your unit composition is. You always want to fight in the open and flank no matter the situation. There is no magical unit composition that is ever going to change that.
There have been a couple of baneling drop games in the GSL. I think I have seen morrow use them, and against that opponent of Huk in Code A. A lot of koreans have been experimenting with banelings in ZvP from my eye-accounts. Its definitely less stale than hydra/roach/corruptor and seeing as I have been experimenting with them in that very match up since december last year, I think I'm a good candidate regarding their use.
On March 01 2011 20:22 magha wrote: Aquanda, or someone else who's familair with this strategy, could you please write more of a guide regarding this build? Like; when to get the second expansion? when to get the macro hatch? when to get the first and second evo chamber? when to get gas? how agressive should you play? etc
Do it yourself.
He was nice enough to post these reps for us and went on to MrBitter's stream.
You got 9 reps now as well as the Vods on Bitter's channel. Not hard to just note down the timing on a piece of paper zzz.
If you can't be bothered looking at his rep, then why should he (or anyone) be bothered writing you a guide?
Sorry but some people are just so damn lazy.
I tried the style and failed, thats why I'm not the right person to write it
I've been messing around with this just a tiny bit since co-casting with Edward at the GameClucks LAN. That game on Xel'Naga against Ranged was just awesome, and I had to try it out.
Really neat style, and extremely fun to play. I think it will be a while before I figure out how to utilize it, but it's much less all-in than high economy ling/bane all-in I was using against 3 gate forge expanding Protoss before, and it's more versatile against other expand builds as well.
It also transitions nicely into mass muta, and if you do enough damage with your ling/bling early, you can get to that point where Protoss can't get enough anti-air to deal with your muta ball.
pretty much undefeated at a high diamond/low masters level in ZvP with this build. no idea how it will scale once i get into mid/high masters though! so much fun to play. backstabs/basetrading/baneling drops. very fun build <3
I think the answer to this is to cut down on sentries, take a faster 4th gas, sim city your bases, and tech to blink + HT. Aquanda has a couple of wins over me with this build though so I'm not sure about exactly what to do.
+1 5 gates and 6gates seem to be a complete diceroll for me at the moment, sometimes ill just die and look stupid and other times the ling pump will just be there before i have to give up a critical piece of ground and it will be glorious.
incorporating the 1 drone 75 gas evo chamber into +1 helped a tad, but i'm still having difficulties i feel need to be ironed out. has anyone else experienced similar issues, and perhaps, resolved them?
ive been thinking about drop + bane, but i have no idea if thats viable quickly enough.
what i love about this build is that you have the ability to pressure. so whether they are going to 3 gate FE or 4 gate push, you will have an army and will never be surprised. works really well against those early sentries and zealots. and speedlings, of course, destroy those 4 gate pushes.
So how does this actually work versus collosus sentry stalker or even good forcefields? What's the transition? Do you make a spire if he makes collosus? (Corrupters or mutas?) What about voidray collosus? I just played a game where I barely won. I couldn't really attack him (on scrap) cause yeah... narrow chokes, FFs, so he just turtled till he got a bunch of collosus. My response was to get a quick hive and tech to ultras. He killed my first force quite easily, and it took a lot of stalling with his army in my nat before I had a critical ammount of ultras.
From what I've gathered, in a standard game you aim to start hive at 11 minutes, where you have a 4th already and upgrading from 2 evo's. However i'm not too sure of the spire timing yet - in one game I forgot to build a spire completely so rushed ultra's and managed to fend his attack off as he waited a bit too long before attacking.
Infestors are a nice addition later on since you have a lot of gas anyway
has anyone ever tried to combine the bling drop with roaches and infestors?im talking about the possibility to fg and drop then and maybe even np remaining colossi?
this is just theorycrafting as im not sure how to build up your game based on this especially when unexpected things occur
This baneling style isn't as powerful as roach/hydra/corruptor once the Protoss replies by cutting back on sentries, imo.
But, the above is only true if you can fight in a wide open area. I imagine baneling drops will be standard on maps such as Typhoon Peaks where you pretty much fight in a choke no matter where on the map you're fighting.
If the Protoss forgoes sentries in the early game he won't survive until the mid game. This is evidenced by the many, many times I see a low sentry count early on because the Protoss elects to go for faster Pheonix/Voidrays/DTs and my reaction is to simply overrun his expansion with ling/bane. If instead he went for less sentries and more zealot/stalker, that would be even worse. Banelings do awesome against zealots and decent against stalkers, and lings do good against both. Sentries and good forcefields with a sim city are simply necessary to survive imo.
On March 09 2011 09:20 Gigaudas wrote: This baneling style isn't as powerful as roach/hydra/corruptor once the Protoss replies by cutting back on sentries, imo.
But, the above is only true if you can fight in a wide open area. I imagine baneling drops will be standard on maps such as Typhoon Peaks where you pretty much fight in a choke no matter where on the map you're fighting.
Wrong. You need sentries to fight this unless you have templar tech. However, you are right in that this strategy is very map-dependent. It's amazing on wide open maps like Shattered Temple, but doesn't work as well on Typhon Peaks.
On March 09 2011 09:20 Gigaudas wrote: This baneling style isn't as powerful as roach/hydra/corruptor once the Protoss replies by cutting back on sentries, imo.
But, the above is only true if you can fight in a wide open area. I imagine baneling drops will be standard on maps such as Typhoon Peaks where you pretty much fight in a choke no matter where on the map you're fighting.
Wrong. You need sentries to fight this unless you have templar tech. However, you are right in that this strategy is very map-dependent. It's amazing on wide open maps like Shattered Temple, but doesn't work as well on Typhon Peaks.
absolutely right. doing this is so hard on typhon peaks because of the easy third for the toss, and CHOKES FUCKING EVERYWHERE. metal is an okay map for it, every zvp is this build on shattered is really good.
On March 09 2011 09:20 Gigaudas wrote: This baneling style isn't as powerful as roach/hydra/corruptor once the Protoss replies by cutting back on sentries, imo.
But, the above is only true if you can fight in a wide open area. I imagine baneling drops will be standard on maps such as Typhoon Peaks where you pretty much fight in a choke no matter where on the map you're fighting.
Not really, banelings kind of do well against all units except thor, immortal, and archon. They work wonders on colossus balls because units hide under the col making them really cost efficient.
how have other people here been managing their gas when aiming for early drops?
drops seems to work out fine if toss waits for an observer to push, but if he doesnt my economy suffers. in this game i was unable to begin saturating my third or start working on my double ups before toss arrived, so clearly i have alot of work on the economy front if i want to preserve this drop based defense. i tried burrow/speed in a few games, but i seem to have bad luck predicting where toss wants to go.
On March 09 2011 09:20 Gigaudas wrote: This baneling style isn't as powerful as roach/hydra/corruptor once the Protoss replies by cutting back on sentries, imo.
But, the above is only true if you can fight in a wide open area. I imagine baneling drops will be standard on maps such as Typhoon Peaks where you pretty much fight in a choke no matter where on the map you're fighting.
Wrong. You need sentries to fight this unless you have templar tech. However, you are right in that this strategy is very map-dependent. It's amazing on wide open maps like Shattered Temple, but doesn't work as well on Typhon Peaks.
Yeh, I've never seen so many banelings hugging a forcefield wall and being sliced apart by colossi before. I don't know what I'm doing wrong but whenever I try this the protoss just turtles up with their sentries untill they have colossi and then just attack and own me. I was hoping this style might be a solution and tilt the favors of the matchup slightly less to protoss but so far it's not working for me .
On March 09 2011 09:20 Gigaudas wrote: This baneling style isn't as powerful as roach/hydra/corruptor once the Protoss replies by cutting back on sentries, imo.
But, the above is only true if you can fight in a wide open area. I imagine baneling drops will be standard on maps such as Typhoon Peaks where you pretty much fight in a choke no matter where on the map you're fighting.
Wrong. You need sentries to fight this unless you have templar tech. However, you are right in that this strategy is very map-dependent. It's amazing on wide open maps like Shattered Temple, but doesn't work as well on Typhon Peaks.
Yeh, I've never seen so many banelings hugging a forcefield wall and being sliced apart by colossi before. I don't know what I'm doing wrong but whenever I try this the protoss just turtles up with their sentries untill they have colossi and then just attack and own me. I was hoping this style might be a solution and tilt the favors of the matchup slightly less to protoss but so far it's not working for me .
By then you should have ultralisks. You kind of need to rush them. As in, infestor pit right when lair finishes, and hive right when that finishes, and ultra cavern right as hive finishes.
On March 09 2011 09:20 Gigaudas wrote: This baneling style isn't as powerful as roach/hydra/corruptor once the Protoss replies by cutting back on sentries, imo.
But, the above is only true if you can fight in a wide open area. I imagine baneling drops will be standard on maps such as Typhoon Peaks where you pretty much fight in a choke no matter where on the map you're fighting.
Wrong. You need sentries to fight this unless you have templar tech. However, you are right in that this strategy is very map-dependent. It's amazing on wide open maps like Shattered Temple, but doesn't work as well on Typhon Peaks.
Yeh, I've never seen so many banelings hugging a forcefield wall and being sliced apart by colossi before. I don't know what I'm doing wrong but whenever I try this the protoss just turtles up with their sentries untill they have colossi and then just attack and own me. I was hoping this style might be a solution and tilt the favors of the matchup slightly less to protoss but so far it's not working for me .
By then you should have ultralisks. You kind of need to rush them. As in, infestor pit right when lair finishes, and hive right when that finishes, and ultra cavern right as hive finishes.
Yeah, I feel that's what the problem is, I don't know where to go with this build. I see these replays of people using the style succesfully but depending on the map, opponent and personal preference they either go muta's, broodlords, roaches, ultras or w/e. I just end up losing with ling baneling
On March 09 2011 07:48 aquanda wrote: I've have been going muta much less lately, bane drops seem to be much more effective.
Have you also tried getting a few infestors as well and trying to fg chain the sentries? I've had some success with drops + fg versus collosus compositions but I'm having most trouble with mass gates off 2 bases where the toss just spreads his units out very well. Even when I do drop his stalkers and zealots are so spread out that the bling splash doesn't do enough damage. So against mass gates a transition into roach + bling drops makes sense to me, because it'll take too long to tranistion into hive and maybe even infestors.
Anyone know how to finish games vs this style without it going for 30mins? It is driving me nuts, I win some and lose some, that is fine, but every goddamn game is 30-50mins long, not even the fun kind, I just turtle the entire game because the moment I step out I die...
On March 11 2011 10:41 Dommk wrote: Anyone know how to finish games vs this style without it going for 30mins? It is driving me nuts, I win some and lose some, that is fine, but every goddamn game is 30-50mins long, not even the fun kind, I just turtle the entire game because the moment I step out I die...
2 base ling/bane all-in. if ur under 2600masters, works fine vs sentry expands.
On March 09 2011 07:48 aquanda wrote: I've have been going muta much less lately, bane drops seem to be much more effective.
Have you also tried getting a few infestors as well and trying to fg chain the sentries? I've had some success with drops + fg versus collosus compositions but I'm having most trouble with mass gates off 2 bases where the toss just spreads his units out very well. Even when I do drop his stalkers and zealots are so spread out that the bling splash doesn't do enough damage. So against mass gates a transition into roach + bling drops makes sense to me, because it'll take too long to tranistion into hive and maybe even infestors.
I have been getting Lair a little faster and I begin researching OL Drop + Speed as soon as it's done. Fungal Growth helps if they go for early blink stalkers or it's late game and their ball is so big it's hard to make baneling drops effective if they FF + spread units when they see the OLs of death flying at them.
Mass gateway is hard early, you just have to be more aggressive with your ling counters. It's very easy for you to counter his main with 30 zerglings while simultaneously swarming his army, but it's difficult for him to defend both places at once effectively. You don't need hive or even lair to defend against mass gateway units. Once you get OL Drop + Speed any gateway heavy composition he throws at you should melt.
Also something I don't think many people know is that banelings with +2 attack 1 shot probes. It's kind of disgusting.
On March 11 2011 10:41 Dommk wrote: Anyone know how to finish games vs this style without it going for 30mins? It is driving me nuts, I win some and lose some, that is fine, but every goddamn game is 30-50mins long, not even the fun kind, I just turtle the entire game because the moment I step out I die...
2 base ling/bane all-in. if ur under 2600masters, works fine vs sentry expands.
I think he meant from a Protoss perspective, not a Zerg.
I don't have an answer for you, if you want fast games you can just 4 gate? Although 30-50 minutes seems a bit extreme. If he doesn't go for Mutas you can always use the Warp Prism + DT harass. Once you get Archons + Collosus + Ball you should be safe to move out vs standard ling/bane, the Archons are basically the all-kill unit against every melee Zerg unit.
I don't have the credentials of a lot of the posters here, but I wanted to echo the sentiment that this style is tough to pull off on Typhon Peaks. I'm still stubbornly trying it by engaging the toss army as they move through the middle of the map. But it's hard. I think it might be possible if I can use all the small pathways to my advantage by flanking from 3 or 4 of them--tough to pull off.
I've been moving to hive fast for adrenal glands as much as ultras. This upgrade seems key to mucking up the deathball.
this strategy is soo much better than everything else that has been tried up to now
even when its not that good on typhon peaks its chances are still better than roach/hydra/corruptor and it offers soo much flexibility for everything and you can combine it with everything on tier2 or even go tier3
today i played zvp on shattered temple which is obviously a promising map for but i even won when my drop failed miserably but it let me safely tech to corruptors and broodlords from 3 bases - its not only the strategy itself but also the flexibility it offers to you
you just have to imainge how many resources roaches, hydras and corruptors are eating and its still not able to beat protoss army and you cant even move out before you have corruptors because roaches and hydras just loose even with much higher food cap
now you do more or at least the same damage for much lower resources
On March 15 2011 02:25 Alphasquad wrote: this strategy is soo much better than everything else that has been tried up to now
even when its not that good on typhon peaks its chances are still better than roach/hydra/corruptor and it offers soo much flexibility for everything and you can combine it with everything on tier2 or even go tier3
today i played zvp on shattered temple which is obviously a promising map for but i even won when my drop failed miserably but it let me safely tech to corruptors and broodlords from 3 bases - its not only the strategy itself but also the flexibility it offers to you
you just have to imainge how many resources roaches, hydras and corruptors are eating and its still not able to beat protoss army and you cant even move out before you have corruptors because roaches and hydras just loose even with much higher food cap
now you do more or at least the same damage for much lower resources
Roaches are also very expensive supply wise. This build is very fun to play.
I'm just curious how you hold a 4-gate, do you just drop down the roach warren/baneling nest and put back on gas? I find that if they just go for a heavy zealot 4-gate it's actually quite hard to hold.
ling/bling can beat 4 gates quite fine - if its zealot heavy your blings are even better because toss can spam forcefields but they dont have the ranged firepower to effectively kill them
i find this way better than ling/roach because its so supply friendly and you can really mass and remass quickly
It's just that when they hit, I usually haven't put down a baneling nest, or even put my drones back on gas, and just speedling spinecrawler can't hold off 4-gate on a lot of maps.
If I think it's a 4 gate I stay on 2 hatch, get 3 drones back on gas, and defend with ling/bling. I usually still make ~2 spines as well. Pure ling mass used to be my preferred way to deal with 4 gate, but without banelings the zealot/stalker style crushed it. Add in banelings and it's much easier to defend, just make sure you micro the banes well so they aren't blowing up on the stalkers.
Also, me and Xog were really proud last night while watching Idra's stream and seeing him completely destroy a 3 base Protoss using ling/bling/corruptor. I think in the hands of a high level player with perfect mechanics this style is just as effective, if not more so, than roach/hydra/corruptor. He didn't even need to utilize baneling drops, which make this style infinitely more potent.
BloomFilter: Thanks! But now I almost feel obligated to update the replay pack with better games
On March 17 2011 03:02 terr13 wrote: It's just that when they hit, I usually haven't put down a baneling nest, or even put my drones back on gas, and just speedling spinecrawler can't hold off 4-gate on a lot of maps.
This really comes down to scouting then. You need to recognize the rush and put drones back on gas as soon as possible in order to get your baneling nest up as fast as possible. Obviously stop drone production and begin ling production. If you haven't scouted his rush by 5:00 it may be too late, and by 6:00 you're probably already dead. If it's a 2 gas 4 gate with zealot/stalker/sentry you have more time and will have your 3rd hatch in production by the time he hits, but also can throw down a lot more spines and just swarm him with zerglings by that point.
Hey Aquanda, I just uploaded the casts from the GameClucks Seattle SC2 Lan from last month to Youtube (I was really lazy), but you could probably use the following videos as demonstration:
Are you going to the one next week? If you haven't seen the thread, you need to search for "GameClucks". =]
Just so you know this build was popular in Korean servers since December, I've encountered numerous of Korean diamond players back then and masters nowadays do this. Mostly ling/bane/corruptor ...
can u make a post wich shows thebuild order after u refined it cus im trying to make a build of this instead of going for a feeling game and thats realy hard for me (:
Hi Aquanda, and thank you so much for this build/style that has increased my ZvP tremendously !
I was wondering : it may be a little early to give the community a feedback about this, but to what extend the Infestor buff has changed your playstyle?
Do you rely more heavily on infestor mid-game, and thus delaying the hive transition, in order to trade a 140-ish food army of the protoss in your favor?
Do you still make as much infestors as he has collosi, since you rely mainly on Neural Parasite?
alonth: I am changing my "build order" daily. The framework for the build is similar to almost every other build order out there, but here it is: 15 Pool 15 Gas 17 OL (Drones off @ 100) 4 Lings Queen Drone until 21 supply 2nd Queen 23 OL Zergling Speed (3 Drones back on gas) Drone constantly, ensuring you're staying on top of your OL timings from here on out Evo @ ~30 gas Begin +1 Melee Baneling Nest with next 50 gas
From here on out you really need to just respond to what the Protoss is doing. I've started to work in an early Roach Warren in order to punish the Zealot/Sentry pushes that I've been seeing. I feel like Ling/Bane/Roach in the mid game is the future of this style, but I'm still experimenting.
Ahelvin: I have been using the Infestor a lot more, but not for NP. I feel like relying too much on it can easily kill you (as well as bad positioning) and rather use the Infestor to soften up Sentry/Stalker balls as I bane drop them. The amount of AoE damage banedrop+infestor can dish out is simply insane.
You can rely simply on ling/bane/roach to counter Collosus until the count gets to ~4+, at which point you need to have Corruptors (or NP I suppose) to deal with them.
I suppose to summarize the 1.3 changes to my style, I actually use Infestors as a core asset to my army, instead of a "well I guess I could make a few" sort of thing.
Good work, aquanda - cool to see that ling/bling/roach styles are being considered and developed...I've used ling/bling openers myself a few games and was surprised at how badly they trash early P pressure (as long as you dodge FF's and stalker micro). It's amazing how many P units a bling ball can take out - they're so much more larva efficient than roach/hydra it's hard to believe.
Personally I think ling/bling/corruptor has way more potential than roach/hydra/corruptor - lings and blings can actually kill more P units in less time than roach/hydra, which is funny because lings and blings are cheaper by a long shot. Plus, if you have the APM, you can drop blings in your opponent's mineral lines/on top of their P death ball...I can't think of any easier way to make your opponent's workers disappear in less than 2 seconds.
On top of all that, a critical mass of blings will trash almost any unit combination in the game (barring excessive splash damage - siege tanks, psi storm, etc.). This means that if you have 70+ blings, you can literally 1-A right through the P army (once his FF's are used up) and laugh.
I really wish pros adopted this build so we could see what it's really made of. A lot of zergs seem to be having trouble with protoss but they usually stick to very solid builds. I'd like to see what Morrow or Sen could do with this.
ETA: Any chance you can upload post 1.3 replays aquanda? I'd like to see how you're mixing in drops/infestors/banes together. I mean, you get drops asap but what's your general plan for the midgame? Once they get 2+ collosus do you make infestors to deal with them, corrupters, or do you make them and try to delay till you have ultras/BLs? What do you do versus collosus VR?
I had my first game of the day against jemag in a practice session. It was a long macro oriented game with him opening forge FE and me opening 15 hatch. ZvP (Z)tQaquanda vs (P)jemag on TA
On March 28 2011 17:30 aquanda wrote: alonth: I am changing my "build order" daily. The framework for the build is similar to almost every other build order out there, but here it is: 15 Pool 15 Gas 17 OL (Drones off @ 100) 4 Lings Queen Drone until 21 supply 2nd Queen 23 OL Zergling Speed (3 Drones back on gas) Drone constantly, ensuring you're staying on top of your OL timings from here on out Evo @ ~30 gas Begin +1 Melee Baneling Nest with next 50 gas
On April 01 2011 06:09 aquanda wrote: I had my first game of the day against jemag in a practice session. It was a long macro oriented game with him opening forge FE and me opening 15 hatch. ZvP (Z)tQaquanda vs (P)jemag on TA
Wow, you've really tweeked the build from the original version (You don't even pull drones off gas anymore for an earlier lair and dual ups) but maybe it was even more different because it was on TA. It actually looks a lot like Magulina's pvz, or what he used to do. He'd go roach with bling drops. Of course, how he got there was pretty different from how you get there but it's a similar unit composition.
On March 28 2011 17:30 aquanda wrote: alonth: I am changing my "build order" daily. The framework for the build is similar to almost every other build order out there, but here it is: 15 Pool 15 Gas 17 OL (Drones off @ 100) 4 Lings Queen Drone until 21 supply 2nd Queen 23 OL Zergling Speed (3 Drones back on gas) Drone constantly, ensuring you're staying on top of your OL timings from here on out Evo @ ~30 gas Begin +1 Melee Baneling Nest with next 50 gas
when do you usually expand with this build?
sorry, I forgot to add this in there. I take my natural at 21 supply and my 3rd after I've started my lair.
On April 01 2011 06:09 aquanda wrote: I had my first game of the day against jemag in a practice session. It was a long macro oriented game with him opening forge FE and me opening 15 hatch. ZvP (Z)tQaquanda vs (P)jemag on TA
Wow, you've really tweeked the build from the original version (You don't even pull drones off gas anymore for an earlier lair and dual ups) but maybe it was even more different because it was on TA. It actually looks a lot like Magulina's pvz, or what he used to do. He'd go roach with bling drops. Of course, how he got there was pretty different from how you get there but it's a similar unit composition.
I only hatch first when the protoss hasn't scouted me by 15 supply, which rarely happens, so I don't have a solid hatch first build yet. with the recent trend of protoss doing very early gateway pressure builds I find roach ling bling to be a great counter.
On April 01 2011 06:09 aquanda wrote: I had my first game of the day against jemag in a practice session. It was a long macro oriented game with him opening forge FE and me opening 15 hatch. ZvP (Z)tQaquanda vs (P)jemag on TA
Wow, you've really tweeked the build from the original version (You don't even pull drones off gas anymore for an earlier lair and dual ups) but maybe it was even more different because it was on TA. It actually looks a lot like Magulina's pvz, or what he used to do. He'd go roach with bling drops. Of course, how he got there was pretty different from how you get there but it's a similar unit composition.
I only hatch first when the protoss hasn't scouted me by 15 supply, which rarely happens, so I don't have a solid hatch first build yet. with the recent trend of protoss doing very early gateway pressure builds I find roach ling bling to be a great counter.
Heh, that's what I started to do as well since my practice partner is really good vs this strategy and he usually goes mass gates with lots of good splits and stuff.
I guess the goal in the midgame is to get the lair, get drop asap and see what the toss is doing and react to it (as usual). If it's mass gates roach bling should work, if it's a more typical 4 gate + robobay then you can get a spire, if it's collosus VR then you should probably get a lot of infestors (haven't really played around with them since the patch) or a lot of corrupters.
A lot of folks have been saying that 5/6 gate gives them trouble. Has anyone experimented with burrowed banelings as insurance against those early sentry heavy pushes? I've used it a few times with remarkable success.
Ahelvin: I have been using the Infestor a lot more, but not for NP. I feel like relying too much on it can easily kill you (as well as bad positioning) and rather use the Infestor to soften up Sentry/Stalker balls as I bane drop them. The amount of AoE damage banedrop+infestor can dish out is simply insane.
You can rely simply on ling/bane/roach to counter Collosus until the count gets to ~4+, at which point you need to have Corruptors (or NP I suppose) to deal with them.
I suppose to summarize the 1.3 changes to my style, I actually use Infestors as a core asset to my army, instead of a "well I guess I could make a few" sort of thing.
I'm actually wondering about this as well. I watched your replay and you got a roach warren, evos and a bling nest at the same time. You were also getting tunneling claws and burrow the more popular way of defending against a 5 or 6 gate. But if you're getting all those things at once don't you just die those (To be fair Jemag is pretty passive and does that heabvby turtly style)? Why defend with a typical opening anyway? Is it too hard to defend that with bling sling?
Just wondering why you go roach/bling/infestor as well, instead of just sling, bling into hive (With delayed infestors). I mean can't you just get infestors after you start morphing to a hive just to feel safe? Seems like the build works especially well against a double robo, stalker/collosus build but what about a toss who just goes double stargate after getting his third (Who stops at 3 collosus), while you've invested all your gas in roach, blings and infestors.
But I know that if the toss really invests into mass gate early on it can be super tough to beat him even if you have drop. He can have a great stalker/zealot split while transitioning into collosus or air builds.
Aquanda you have inspired me to try this strategy. Its looks really effective!
I just tried it out and although I won the game there were many things that I felt didn't seem right. If you can could you check out my replay and give me some pointers?
I found I floated a lot of minerals mid game even of 4 hatch, any suggestions on when to put down extra gas geysers? Should I just expand at will when I am applying pressure to get rid of the minerals or something else?
Some maps like Tal'Darim have rocks blocking the natural, would it be better to expand somewhere else or make extra lings to break the rocks?
I am in diamond so I understand that my mechanics still need improving but any help would be greatly appreciated thanks man.
if you are floating to much minerals, throw down extra hatches.
Mostly at expansions, but in cases you are 100% sure you will lose it, it could also be in base.
The thing is that once you have like 3 saturated bases, it actually can start to become hard to actually have enough larva for all those lings. So make sure, the moment a hatch comes up, you have a queen there to inject.
if your injections aren't up to par, just throw down another hatch. It's much better sinking 450 mins (hatch + queen) into more production and spending those 1k + mins then losing the game because you didn't have enough army. Just make sure you keep working on injections, and it doesn't become a habit of just making to many hatches to compensate.
If you need some lings to break down rocks, just make them.
From my experience this is not a strategy where you see a toss moving out and you suddenly slam down a big army, you always want to have a ling force moving around the map, threatenign stuff, being annoying, etc etc.
So don't feel to bad about making some extra lings to break down rocks, because at some point you will have to do it anyway, and it's much better to do it early when the toss is passive then later.
And don't be afraid to add gass very quickly, with this strategy this allows you to expand really really agrressively, and I feel like the goal isn't so much ling/bane, but just enabling you to expand really agressively to get a boatload of gas. And once you start pumping out muta/infestor/ultra/broodlors, you will be happy that you have that many gas.
Just my experiences on the concerns that you raised.
1. It's pretty map dependent. It works brilliantly on large maps with open naturals because it makes counterattacking very effective. On the other hand it is pretty awful on maps like Typhoon where literally EVERYTHING is a choke and the 2nd/3rd are fairly easy for a toss to defend.
2. Don't get hung up on just lings. You need an intermediary transition as soon as you hit lair pretty much (you'll be able to fund it anyway). When I lose it's because I fall in love with upgraded lings too late into the game and the map or their SimCity doesn't allow effective counterattacking.
On April 12 2011 15:31 TheHedonist wrote: Been testing this build out A LOT recently.
2 things I'd like to note about it.
1. It's pretty map dependent. It works brilliantly on large maps with open naturals because it makes counterattacking very effective. On the other hand it is pretty awful on maps like Typhoon where literally EVERYTHING is a choke and the 2nd/3rd are fairly easy for a toss to defend.
2. Don't get hung up on just lings. You need an intermediary transition as soon as you hit lair pretty much (you'll be able to fund it anyway). When I lose it's because I fall in love with upgraded lings too late into the game and the map or their SimCity doesn't allow effective counterattacking.
1.) About half my games are on Typhon, which means I am forced to allin in the first ~10 minutes of the game or hope my opponent sucks. And yes, lings are awful on this map. I never do this strategy on Typhon.
2.) Since zerg scouting ability is beyond abysmal, you have to have burrow roaches if you somehow suspect a 5/6 gate sentry heavy attack. You simply cannot rely on the Protoss to have dogshit forcefields in order to defend it. There are also a multitude of other timing attacks he can do to negate the effectiveness of slow banes+lings.
To be honest, this style was effective when Protoss weren't aware it existed, but the only way to make banelings effective now is to use them with overlord drops.
Also, I've had to abandon going 15 pool 21 hatch because a 4 gate build will hit before the hatchery is even finished. Imagine that...
The only map you can consider doing this build on is Meta, and maybe Taldarim (although not likely because he can just 3 base turtle and counter attacks are impossible). Every other map in the pool right now has enough chokes or easily defend-able expansions to make it extremely disadvantageous to the zerg.
Hey aquanda I'm wondering what your general style is now then. Is it roach with bling drops? I've been trying to do that lately but if the toss goes VR/phoenix first I find it a little tough to get extra bases without hydra. And I think roach/bling is most effective when you have infestors so his army can't blink/ff/run away. But yeah, only problem is VR/phoenix combos. You can't just use infestors vs that (I don't think so anyway) and getting corrupters seems super expensive (and not that cost effective), so I think just maybe going roach hydra with some blings might be best. You can drop a few hydras here and there, drop harass, and use the blings when you face his army. You'd have hydras for anti-air defense as well. I've seen sheth go this style a lot on his stream (roach bling infestor) but I'm not so sure how he deals with VRs/phoenixes thrown into the mix.
2.) Since zerg scouting ability is beyond abysmal, you have to have burrow roaches if you somehow suspect a 5/6 gate sentry heavy attack. You simply cannot rely on the Protoss to have dogshit forcefields in order to defend it. There are also a multitude of other timing attacks he can do to negate the effectiveness of slow banes+lings.
This may seem like a stupid question, but could you defend a 6 gate with burrowed ling/bling?
2.) Since zerg scouting ability is beyond abysmal, you have to have burrow roaches if you somehow suspect a 5/6 gate sentry heavy attack. You simply cannot rely on the Protoss to have dogshit forcefields in order to defend it. There are also a multitude of other timing attacks he can do to negate the effectiveness of slow banes+lings.
This may seem like a stupid question, but could you defend a 6 gate with burrowed ling/bling?
The trend of Protoss lately is to delay the 6 gate timing in order to get an observer on the field.
EPT
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