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We all know what it looked like in WoL, mutalisks, zerglings, and banelings all swarming en masse towards terran bio, the zerglings absorbing as many tank shots as they could, banelings chasing the marines as they split and ran to avoid maximum damage, while mutalisks attempted to clean up any tanks or medivacs that were available targets.
Well, I am watching the GSL and it seems that even top level zergs like DongRaeGu think this is still a valid concept vs widow mines. Watching it, it seemed so simple to me after that battle:
Why doesnt DRG just send in 10-12 lings at first, to just soak up the widow mine cool downs? or perhaps 1-2 mutalisks at the same time as well? Or maybe even make a few roaches, research burrow movement and spread out a few roaches underground while moving towards the terran army, unburrow within widow mine range, cancel out all the VERY LONG cool downs, and then do the classic zerg swoop in. both of those seem extremely cost effective measures to counter widow mines, hopefully zergs can catch onto this as I think it will be the new metagame.
What are your thoughts? Do you think this is the way the metagame is headed? Do you think I'm an idiot? Discuss!
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I've tried this type of thing, but if you're fighting a terran's main army than usually if you send a few units first they'll be killed before you set off the cooldowns.
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I dont think the lings would survive long enough for it to work since usually terrans army is usually ontop or infront of the mines. or at least they are when I play lol
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Really difficult to pull those things off in the middle of a battle...
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I'm seeing these micro moves more and more, but I still think Zerg needs more time to get a good grip on it.
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Zergs are just very bad at it at the moment. I'm sure someone looking back at the games one year from now would facepalm quite a lot at all those unnecessary widow mine hits.
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On April 09 2013 20:04 Sated wrote:
If the Terran army is near their Mines then their army will kill 10-12 Zerglings or 1-2 Mutalisks before the Mines get triggered.
Just accept it. Mines are a broken unit, both design wise and balance wise.
Word yo, you ever think about faking the "swoop in" , therefore making the bio move back behind the mines, but then having a 10-20 lings on a diff control group, or some shift clicks on some roaches, and then move your whole army back, sans that special kamikaze force right at the last second, you could easily get into mine range because the terran is running back behind the mines as he thinks youre ready to attack. it requires some thought.
I don't think Hots has been out long enough for anyone to really say that. vulture bike anyone?
On April 09 2013 19:52 Soda wrote:
Really difficult to pull those things off in the middle of a battle...
I don't think the game's supposed to be easy!
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On April 09 2013 19:47 Dubz wrote:
(as burrow is given for free now)
Well no offense meant but I stopped reading right there...
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On April 09 2013 20:13 Xylocaine wrote:Well no offense meant but I stopped reading right there...
none taken its 7 am here been up all night made a silly i don't play zerg i forgot it was just switched to hatchery tech
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The problem is target need to stay 1,5 seconds in widow mine range. It's very hard to do against decent terran because bio can easily sit on or infront of widow mines and just move little once attack starts. In the end its best just run up and hope splash will hit forward zerglings together with marines. If it hits banelings, you are dead.
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You can control the mines manually, pick targets manually.
You can also even keep holding the S button so they won't fire, very effective.
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On April 09 2013 20:22 kaluro wrote:
You can also even keep holding the S button so they won't fire, very effective.
Wrong.
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They surely makes lings obsolete, unless you can make it to the Marines and do friendly splash damage.
Think you need either Roaches, Swarm Host, Ultras, Infestor to shoot in a couple of infested terrans first or a bunch of overlords with your army to soak up some of the Widow Mine damage.
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The best thing to lure out Widow Mine shots are speed overlords. I wonder when pro players will realise that.
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On April 09 2013 20:26 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2013 20:22 kaluro wrote:
You can also even keep holding the S button so they won't fire, very effective. Wrong.
So glad this can't happen too, that shit would be BW lurker OP 
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On April 09 2013 20:30 TeeTS wrote:
The best thing to lure out Widow Mine shots are speed overlords. I wonder when pro players will realise that.
Was it Life who did that to Flash at MLG or was it Ret? It was so sick.
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On April 09 2013 20:26 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2013 20:22 kaluro wrote:
You can also even keep holding the S button so they won't fire, very effective. Wrong.
if that wouldn't work, you can manually keep changing targets with your widow mines every <1,5 seconds and they won't fire, or just keep right clicking the same target, same effect.
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On April 09 2013 20:31 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2013 20:30 TeeTS wrote:
The best thing to lure out Widow Mine shots are speed overlords. I wonder when pro players will realise that. Was it Life who did that to Flash at MLG or was it Ret? It was so sick.
I don't know. I can't remember seeing it yet in a pro game, but it's just totally reasonable. They tank 2 shots, are not cleaned up fast by marines. They fly!!! they don't take up any supply, so you lose actually 0 of your army and you don't have to commit army to that job. It's kinda expensive, I see that, but at some point you can totally afford it as zerg.
On April 09 2013 20:33 kaluro wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2013 20:26 TheDwf wrote:On April 09 2013 20:22 kaluro wrote:
You can also even keep holding the S button so they won't fire, very effective. Wrong. Yes you can, and if that wouldn't work, you can manually keep changing targets with your widow mines every <1,5 seconds and they won't fire.
yeah. It's not that you have anything else to do as terran. 
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I have seen Life did this. It's completely doable.
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On April 09 2013 20:48 Wildmoon wrote:
I have seen Life did this. It's completely doable.
Ok then I forgot this haha ^^. It kinda gives the impression, that only Life seems to understand Zerg really good xX
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On April 09 2013 20:33 kaluro wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2013 20:26 TheDwf wrote:On April 09 2013 20:22 kaluro wrote:
You can also even keep holding the S button so they won't fire, very effective. Wrong. Yes you can
No. Holding the S key while Mines are burrowed has zero effect. Stop spreading misinformation.
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Well as most of the people already said before: Often Times the lings will just die or maybe get 1 Widow Mine hit out of sometimes 8+ Mines. and like 10 Lings (250 Minerals) is not costefficient at all for 1 (free ) Mine.
It surely is doable, but it is much much harder for the zerg and requires a lot of multitasking and might not even work for basically nothing from the terran. It is the possibility of 1 Mine killing 15 banes/Drones/Lings that makes me think whether this unit should really stay the way it is, but since this is not the topic and I don't want to get banned I have to make something up to come back to the real topic.
You can do that, especially roaches are pretty good, but if you go for ling bane muta, roach warren plus roaches (and maybe even roach speed) is still pretty expensive and widow mines are just really frckin cost efficient.
Love your write-up btw, especially the last line. Sorry for bad english/mistakes. gl hf.
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On April 09 2013 20:04 Sated wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2013 19:47 Dubz wrote:
We all know what it looked like in WoL, mutalisks, zerglings, and banelings all swarming en masse towards terran bio, the zerglings absorbing as many tank shots as they could, banelings chasing the marines as they split and ran to avoid maximum damage, while mutalisks attempted to clean up any tanks or medivacs that were available targets.
Well, I am watching the GSL and it seems that even top level zergs like DongRaeGu think this is still a valid concept vs widow mines. Watching it, it seemed so simple to me after that battle:
Why doesnt DRG just send in 10-12 lings at first, to just soak up the widow mine cool downs? or perhaps 1-2 mutalisks at the same time as well? Or maybe even make a few roaches, research burrow movement (as burrow is given for free now) and spread out a few roaches underground while moving towards the terran army, unburrow within widow mine range, cancel out all the VERY LONG cool downs, and then do the classic zerg swoop in. both of those seem extremely cost effective measures to counter widow mines, hopefully zergs can catch onto this as I think it will be the new metagame.
What are your thoughts? Do you think this is the way the metagame is headed? Do you think I'm an idiot? Discuss! If the Terran army is near their Mines then their army will kill 10-12 Zerglings or 1-2 Mutalisks before the Mines get triggered. Just accept it. Mines are a broken unit, both design wise and balance wise.
lulz. Life did exactly that at MLG (vs Polt, Flash, Last), timing attack with billion ling/bling, but withotu mutas. Properly timed and micro-ed, it hard counter bio-mine (coz u had like few mines for 50 speed banes ), and terran need some simcity / tanks on cliff to hold that.
Btw, when zerg micro correctly+ know how to abuse his mobility, like we see in Kr (and not like do nothing -> run into perfect positioned landmines ala patchzerg foreigner ), mines seems weak.
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Zergs need to start teching faster to Ultra ling infestor when terrans go widow mine/bio, Ultras soak up the mine hits so well + they destroy terran bio now.
Demuslims new style hes been playing with looks like it could be scarey though, instead of marauders he builds hellbats to Destroy ling/bane while tanking hits with widow mines/marines the lings die so fast you cant get surrounds to help ultras so need the money shot fungals
On April 09 2013 20:04 Sated wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2013 19:47 Dubz wrote:
We all know what it looked like in WoL, mutalisks, zerglings, and banelings all swarming en masse towards terran bio, the zerglings absorbing as many tank shots as they could, banelings chasing the marines as they split and ran to avoid maximum damage, while mutalisks attempted to clean up any tanks or medivacs that were available targets.
Well, I am watching the GSL and it seems that even top level zergs like DongRaeGu think this is still a valid concept vs widow mines. Watching it, it seemed so simple to me after that battle:
Why doesnt DRG just send in 10-12 lings at first, to just soak up the widow mine cool downs? or perhaps 1-2 mutalisks at the same time as well? Or maybe even make a few roaches, research burrow movement (as burrow is given for free now) and spread out a few roaches underground while moving towards the terran army, unburrow within widow mine range, cancel out all the VERY LONG cool downs, and then do the classic zerg swoop in. both of those seem extremely cost effective measures to counter widow mines, hopefully zergs can catch onto this as I think it will be the new metagame.
What are your thoughts? Do you think this is the way the metagame is headed? Do you think I'm an idiot? Discuss! If the Terran army is near their Mines then their army will kill 10-12 Zerglings or 1-2 Mutalisks before the Mines get triggered. Just accept it. Mines are a broken unit, both design wise and balance wise.
MINES are not the problem the player is, not adapting to new units and expect to be able to a move into aoe fire.
Life does fine vs widow mines as people have already mentioned since he actually micros against the mines
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On April 09 2013 20:58 MisterTea wrote:
MINES are not the problem the player is, not adapting to new units and expect to be able to a move into aoe fire.
Life does fine vs widow mines as people have already mentioned since he actually micros against the mines
Totally agree, still some zergs have to learn that the game consists of more than pressing the Z button hard until it breaks.
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Northern Ireland461 Posts
I'm just waiting for Zergs to understand that infestors are still good vs MMMM, and Ultras are amazing
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Couldn't you make a few corruptors to just suicide towards the army and trigger the mines before you engage? If you have enough they could even kill the marines by flying over them when the mines go off.
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Overlords can tank pretty well don't they? But you'd need speed. I haven't tried it. But maybe that could be a solution in the future.
And zergs never spread. Their banelings almost always form a small ball. That would be bad vs tanks also.
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On April 09 2013 21:13 MHT wrote:
Couldn't you make a few corruptors to just suicide towards the army and trigger the mines before you engage? If you have enough they could even kill the marines by flying over them when the mines go off.
As everyone else said, Overlords are cheaper and do the same thing.
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On April 09 2013 20:34 TeeTS wrote:yeah. It's not that you have anything else to do as terran.
It can do wonders right before a big engagement where the zerg leads with a few units, I've seen DeMuslim do this a lot in big fights and get great hits off.
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its hard. most of the time the this is the answer to such questions. its not that easy to judge the right amount of lings to use, spread them accordingly and send them to right places, espacially in middle of macro frenzy, espacially against more mobile army of mine marine medivac instead of tank marine medivac.
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Life can deal with mines just fine apparently.
Other zergs need to step it the fuck up, much like terrans were told to step up to taeja/mvps level of play.
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On April 09 2013 21:26 Cuce wrote:
its hard. most of the time the this is the answer to such questions. its not that easy to judge the right amount of lings to use, spread them accordingly and send them to right places, espacially in middle of macro frenzy, espacially against more mobile army of mine marine medivac instead of tank marine medivac.
I don't like to repeat myself, but: USE DAMN OVERLORDS. They have the best hitpoint/cost ratio in the game and are flying units that don't cost any supply. You won't get anything better for the job!
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On April 09 2013 21:27 Hypemeup wrote:
Life can deal with mines just fine apparently.
Other zergs need to step it the fuck up, much like terrans were told to step up to taeja/mvps level of play.
Lol interesting that you say that. I recall most Terrans saying "Just because MVP is beating Zerg doesn't mean we can play like him. Be realistic".
Now it's "Life is doing fine, Zerg step up".
I think it may be a bit too early to say, but the widow mine is definitely way too easy to use as opposed to what Zerg has to do to minimize it. A bit more time, we'll see what happens.
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On April 09 2013 21:34 Flonomenalz wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2013 21:27 Hypemeup wrote:
Life can deal with mines just fine apparently.
Other zergs need to step it the fuck up, much like terrans were told to step up to taeja/mvps level of play. Lol interesting that you say that. I recall most Terrans saying "Just because MVP is beating Zerg doesn't mean we can play like him. Be realistic". Now it's "Life is doing fine, Zerg step up". I think it may be a bit too early to say, but the widow mine is definitely way too easy to use as opposed to what Zerg has to do to minimize it. A bit more time, we'll see what happens.
I think everyone can aggre that the game should be balanced for the highest level of play.
And I did not say terrans were happy being told this, but Zergs still loved to spout it all the time.
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Use your overlords, zergs.
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Overlords are slow, yes even with speed they are slow and waiting for a long time for 2 widow mine shots that you COULD MAYBE TRIGGER before they die is not really worth it. I agree with many of you that zerg players just need to get used to it and you can do okay against them when playing perfectly against them.. but a units strength is not only about the pure damage (which can already be really insane) but also the effort, the oppponent has to put in to defend it. It's kind of like drops, especially with speed now: They're easy to pull off but really hard to defend.
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i think once zergs learn to accept that fungal growth is gonna take a bit more skill to use, they will finally realise that there is no reason why fungal growth with ultra or BLord shouldnt work fine vs MMMM, u can argue about immobility but corrupters and static defense are really good vs medivac drops in the late game.
i honestly think zergs are just saying to themselves... well fungal got nerfed to shit, and we got new stuff, lets use the new stuff since fungals weak now... when really they should start experimenting with infestors and fungal again in addition to the new compositions...
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On April 10 2013 20:09 GeOnoSis wrote:
Overlords are slow, yes even with speed they are slow and waiting for a long time for 2 widow mine shots that you COULD MAYBE TRIGGER before they die is not really worth it. I agree with many of you that zerg players just need to get used to it and you can do okay against them when playing perfectly against them.. but a units strength is not only about the pure damage (which can already be really insane) but also the effort, the oppponent has to put in to defend it. It's kind of like drops, especially with speed now: They're easy to pull off but really hard to defend.
"Overlords are slow" - You won't adapt if you keep thinking in your traditional patterns. But then don't look for excuses in balance whining.
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On April 09 2013 21:36 Hypemeup wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2013 21:34 Flonomenalz wrote:On April 09 2013 21:27 Hypemeup wrote:
Life can deal with mines just fine apparently.
Other zergs need to step it the fuck up, much like terrans were told to step up to taeja/mvps level of play. Lol interesting that you say that. I recall most Terrans saying "Just because MVP is beating Zerg doesn't mean we can play like him. Be realistic". Now it's "Life is doing fine, Zerg step up". I think it may be a bit too early to say, but the widow mine is definitely way too easy to use as opposed to what Zerg has to do to minimize it. A bit more time, we'll see what happens. I think everyone can aggre that the game should be balanced for the highest level of play. And I did not say terrans were happy being told this, but Zergs still loved to spout it all the time.
I seriously doubt everyone can agree on that. Sure it is important that is balanced, but that doesnt mean lower levels should be ignored. However that is another discussion.
Btw problem of delaying fire by giving mines constantly new targets is mainly what happens when you stop giving them new targets? Correct me if wrong, but won't all your widow mines attack the last target, resulting in enormous overkill? Unless you can retarget every single widow mine in 1.5 seconds manually.
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Just transition into Infestors as fast as possible and fungal everything to death 
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If terran has pure marine as his bio units and a decently low medivac count then fungals do fine against this. Despite the nerf its still hard to dodge the fungal.
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On April 09 2013 20:29 ejozl wrote:
They surely makes lings obsolete, unless you can make it to the Marines and do friendly splash damage.
Think you need either Roaches, Swarm Host, Ultras, Infestor to shoot in a couple of infested terrans first or a bunch of overlords with your army to soak up some of the Widow Mine damage.
I think this is a very nice idea, specially because it returns the festor to a pivotal role against bio.
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On April 10 2013 22:26 Sissors wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2013 21:36 Hypemeup wrote:On April 09 2013 21:34 Flonomenalz wrote:On April 09 2013 21:27 Hypemeup wrote:
Life can deal with mines just fine apparently.
Other zergs need to step it the fuck up, much like terrans were told to step up to taeja/mvps level of play. Lol interesting that you say that. I recall most Terrans saying "Just because MVP is beating Zerg doesn't mean we can play like him. Be realistic". Now it's "Life is doing fine, Zerg step up". I think it may be a bit too early to say, but the widow mine is definitely way too easy to use as opposed to what Zerg has to do to minimize it. A bit more time, we'll see what happens. I think everyone can aggre that the game should be balanced for the highest level of play. And I did not say terrans were happy being told this, but Zergs still loved to spout it all the time. I seriously doubt everyone can agree on that. Sure it is important that is balanced, but that doesnt mean lower levels should be ignored. However that is another discussion. Btw problem of delaying fire by giving mines constantly new targets is mainly what happens when you stop giving them new targets? Correct me if wrong, but won't all your widow mines attack the last target, resulting in enormous overkill? Unless you can retarget every single widow mine in 1.5 seconds manually.
For what I've seen, WM has some sort of intelligent targeting to avoid overkilling (like Siege-tanks do)
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zerg is used to auto win vs terran, give them time
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I like Infestor bombs against widow mine users, just need to get the opened clumped somewhere and it is like a burrowed instant damage fungal. It is a high energy investment though and usually needs the opponent to have burrowed mines, which is a mistake anyway. Aside from that I plug them out of the ground with Vipers. Just be careful to not get a mine that is currently burrowing. If you ever accidentally lifted one with your phoenix you know what I mean. (don't know if this bug is already fixed)
Can't wait till pros are at the point where they conter the widow mines with spell casters (after every Terran will targetfire with them triggering will be near impossible). So we will see some ghost usage in return as siege tanks don't work anymore for splash vs Zerg.
My favorite against mines is something really gimmicky though. Whenever they are pure Bio/Widow Mine and the Mines are a bit away from the Bio. Unburrow -> Neural -> Image the Oh sh.. expression of your opponent.
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On April 09 2013 20:30 TeeTS wrote:
The best thing to lure out Widow Mine shots are speed overlords. I wonder when pro players will realise that.
It's ok, our secret hero PsY is already on that.
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On April 10 2013 20:09 GeOnoSis wrote:
Overlords are slow, yes even with speed they are slow and waiting for a long time for 2 widow mine shots that you COULD MAYBE TRIGGER before they die is not really worth it. I agree with many of you that zerg players just need to get used to it and you can do okay against them when playing perfectly against them.. but a units strength is not only about the pure damage (which can already be really insane) but also the effort, the oppponent has to put in to defend it. It's kind of like drops, especially with speed now: They're easy to pull off but really hard to defend.
What exactly would the overlords die to in this comp besides the mines? Marines? If the bio steps out onto the minefield to try and get the overlords, then the lings+army can swoop in and and the terran will lose a whole lot just to the splash damage from his own mines and tanks. Admittedly if terran starts to make a large group of vikings they could zone out the overlords, but those aren't usually made preemptively.
It's still better to transition to another composition though, (ultras was a good suggestion), as muta/ling/bane is not made for a straight up engagement; it's made to harass a ton, and only when the enemy is wounded and the army can be overwhelmed does it go in for a fight.
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Zerg players just need to think of a new approach to dealing with Terran. Clearly the old MLB tactic is not working, why not learn to use new unit comps? I hear swarm hosts are pretty good, and vipers as well. Infestors do good against the the current "tankless" style that's so popular nowadays.
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Maybe a stupid idea (I don't play Z) but, if you already have blings, why not play a mine vs mine game? burrow banes and just keep the T pinned with fake muta swoop in? The aim is not to win the engagement (ling-bling-muta is not designed to win engagements anyway) but to make almost impossible for the T to gain ground while teching to hive?
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On April 09 2013 20:31 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2013 20:30 TeeTS wrote:
The best thing to lure out Widow Mine shots are speed overlords. I wonder when pro players will realise that. Was it Life who did that to Flash at MLG or was it Ret? It was so sick.
Life, obviously. Do you think anyone else is capable of doing such things? He was doing stuff like that vs all 3 of this terran opponents.
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On April 11 2013 02:49 LgNKami wrote:
Zerg players just need to think of a new approach to dealing with Terran. Clearly the old MLB tactic is not working, why not learn to use new unit comps? I hear swarm hosts are pretty good, and vipers as well. Infestors do good against the the current "tankless" style that's so popular nowadays.
What's the plan against drops? The one and only reason for going mutalisk is defence against speed medivacs in the midgame. Swarm hosts and infestors are both good and should be added in the late game, but going straight to either as your first lair tech is asking to be picked apart due to lack of mobility.
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EPT
