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The purpose of this post is to acquire some advice on how to properly harass workers (in particular with speedlings). Right now I am a zerg player in the gold league, and something I have noticed is that many times speedling runbys do not end in my favor simply because I am unable to pick off enough workers.
The biggest problem it seems is that after directing the lings into the mineral line and telling them to attack, any time a enemy unit comes close the lings choose to go after the attacking unit instead of continuing to pick off workers.
The two solutions I have found are to manually target and shift click workers however I find this very slow and cumbersome since the many of the lings will not help the attack and miss-clicking proves disastrous.
The other method I have employed is to simply spam auto-attack on the mineral line to draw the lings back. This method is flawed for me at least because I can't multitask fast enough to continue macroing and focusing on ling positioning, and because the lings waste time disengaging the workers and reengaging them allowing the to be whittled down easier.
So in conclusion, I was hoping to find out if there is a better method for this sort of harass with zerg or with any of the races or do I simply need to improve my ability to multitask before this strategy will become effective.
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On June 02 2010 09:01 Rajay wrote:
The purpose of this post is to acquire some advice on how to properly harass workers (in particular with speedlings). Right now I am a zerg player in the gold league, and something I have noticed is that many times speedling runbys do not end in my favor simply because I am unable to pick off enough workers.
The biggest problem it seems is that after directing the lings into the mineral line and telling them to attack, any time a enemy unit comes close the lings choose to go after the attacking unit instead of continuing to pick off workers.
The two solutions I have found are to manually target and shift click workers however I find this very slow and cumbersome since the many of the lings will not help the attack and miss-clicking proves disastrous.
The other method I have employed is to simply spam auto-attack on the mineral line to draw the lings back. This method is flawed for me at least because I can't multitask fast enough to continue macroing and focusing on ling positioning, and because the lings waste time disengaging the workers and reengaging them allowing the to be whittled down easier.
So in conclusion, I was hoping to find out if there is a better method for this sort of harass with zerg or with any of the races or do I simply need to improve my ability to multitask before this strategy will become effective.
I'm almost positive this isn't true. Doesn't auto target value workers over all other units?
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On June 02 2010 09:04 im a roc wrote:Show nested quote +On June 02 2010 09:01 Rajay wrote:
The purpose of this post is to acquire some advice on how to properly harass workers (in particular with speedlings). Right now I am a zerg player in the gold league, and something I have noticed is that many times speedling runbys do not end in my favor simply because I am unable to pick off enough workers.
The biggest problem it seems is that after directing the lings into the mineral line and telling them to attack, any time a enemy unit comes close the lings choose to go after the attacking unit instead of continuing to pick off workers.
The two solutions I have found are to manually target and shift click workers however I find this very slow and cumbersome since the many of the lings will not help the attack and miss-clicking proves disastrous.
The other method I have employed is to simply spam auto-attack on the mineral line to draw the lings back. This method is flawed for me at least because I can't multitask fast enough to continue macroing and focusing on ling positioning, and because the lings waste time disengaging the workers and reengaging them allowing the to be whittled down easier.
So in conclusion, I was hoping to find out if there is a better method for this sort of harass with zerg or with any of the races or do I simply need to improve my ability to multitask before this strategy will become effective. I'm almost positive this isn't true. Doesn't auto target value workers over all other units?
Nope, it only targets workers over other, more aggressive targets, IF THE PERSON MAKES THE PROBES ATTACK.
If they aren't commanded to attack and a zealot appears on the edge of the screen, lings stop hitting workers and will go crazy to swarm the zealot if they aren't micromanaged. Best thing to do is select 3-4 lings at a time and shift attack queue probes
say you have a group of 20 lings, run them to min line, hit S to let them auto acquire and just box select 3-5 at a time, shift+a a few, select more lings, repeat. Keeps the swarming over 1 target down, yes its more action intensive. People wanted more micro in sc2 right? :p
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^that is sort of what I was afraid of since I don't think i can pull that off all to quickly. When selecting 3-4 lings is it better to have each group hotkeyed before the assault or is it effective at higher skill levels to split them during the attack. If so how could one do that fluidly.
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afraid anything else than boxing them will just prove more time consuming if anything
you can probably bind 3 groups of 4 or something to unused hotkeys and try it out for a few games, might work out (but will take more time before the harass).
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If its early game I will split my lings into multiple groups, but once you start using more than lings and maybe a small group of banes, its not worth the effort IMO.
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1) move group of lings somewhere near enemy base, but out of their vision
2) morph 3-4 of them into banelings
3) Run past enemy army
4) Run past enemy mineral line like this:
banes->..lings-->probes
banes->..probes...lings-->
EXPLODE!
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i usually split my lings or try to lure the army out of the base i always manage a good 10 kills which does make a difference
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Usually when I drop dts into a zerg mineral line, the dts automatically attack the queen. I don't think there is a way around this, so manually attacking workers seem to be the best option.
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1. Morph Banelings
2. Burrow them in the mineral line of untaken expos (although not to block off the HQ placement)
3. ????
4. Profit!
It always gives me a chuckle.
As for EXISTING bases, research OL drop and make them go all "WAIT Overlords have drop now?" Abuse it before people start to seriously use it.
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sometimes you can split your lings up and cause a distraction with half, then run the other half to the mineral line. then try to keep your distracting lings alive so when they run their army to their mineral line you can attack something else like an expansion or important building.
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I do the shift attack thing and try to click all of the workers I can, helps if you split your lings into more than one control group.
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I've found myself facing the exact problem. Actually, an even worse situation is when there is static defences in the mineral line. If they are properly placed, then my lings can't get a decent surround on it and only one third or so of the lings can attack it while the rest of my harassing army just runs mindlessly around like headless chickens without attacking anything. Then it takes my lings ages to take down the static defence and by that time the defender has had plenty of time to respond and draw his army back to defend.
Actually I have found this particulary scenario so annoying that I've been starting to use it myself when facing Z opponents. You only need one well placed (one edge on your town hall, other edge on other building if possible) photon cannon or spine crawler in your mineral line, and you will be forever safe from whatever ling run-by that can come. Well except from insane APM-spammers, but given my league then I'm not facing those opponents quite yet.
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Focus firing the workers is what you should be doing if he has attacking units coming at you. Depending on the ling count you have, probes that attack you are very favorable to you.
If focusing probes manually is too hard, you need to increase your APM. Focusing down the nearest open probe when enemy attacking units are present is a must.
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EPT
