EPTThe updates include:
- Putting more emphasis on spreading creep(with pictures! xD)
- Updating the scouting section with the current debate about zerg scouting.
- Revising the Earlygame, Midgame and Lategame sections.
- Updating the ZvT, ZvP sections with the current trends in play.
- Might need to update ZvZ also again, if roaches become the dominant units.
- Ending the ultralisk debate. The unit is useful to say the least =)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since the beta is all but over, and we are one week from launch, I thought I’d help everyone wipe their tears away and make the wait for the game a little less daunting! Enjoy!
Heart of the Swarm
- a guide to the zerg race
- a guide to the zerg race
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/3bo5g.jpg)
“Bawwwww, these cuddly little animals are so cute =3”
Table of contents:
- Introduction
- The Swarm
- Mechanics, the basics
- Micromanagement
- Macromanagement
- General tips while playing
- Closing thoughts
1. Introduction
Originally, I wanted to write a small article for Teamliquid.net about the zerg, commemorating the release of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. With the release of the game itself, there is sure to be a lot of new people floating towards the site. I wanted to create a thread that could be referred to as a beginner’s guide to playing zerg. During the course of the beta, I saw many little gems posted all around the site. Single posts, threads and discussions that helped me at the time. I wanted to create one place, that stored all that knowledge about the zerg race. Please don’t think about this guide, as a one person’s guide, think about it more as a collective of teamliquid’s knowledge about the race, assembled by one person =)
This guide assumes this is not your first RTS game, that you are already acquainted with the very basics of the game, that can be leant playing through the campaign itself and that you already know the zerg unit roster along with the buildings.
2. The Swarm
"I hope you're prepared for the next encounter. The zerg are coming. The zerg are nature in all her fury. Nature doesn't just adapt. Nature cheats, changes the rules, and slips out the back door with your wallet while you're still trying to figure out what the hell happened."
- Maren Ayers describes zerg evolution
The zerg swarm consists of a lot of different breeds of living creatures, each highly evolved to fill in a certain role in the collective. The units are generally fast, weak and cheap, but they make up for it in numbers. As such, you will need a lot of unrestricted space to overwhelm your opponent. Big open grassy plains or platforms are your friends. I’d advise to stay clear of chokes, ramps, craters and the like. Try to also keep in mind that you can burrow. Roaches, infestors and banelings profit from this trait extremely. It is not uncommon to set up living minefields, cast spells from underground, or to flank your opponent with roaches that you previously moved into position using their ability to move while burrowed.
The zerg are also a reactionary race. They must be flexible. You go into a game with a certain game plan in your head, but you must adapt to what your enemy is doing in the game. You cannot follow 100% through with the plan you had in mind before the match started. You must observe what the opponent is doing and pick a response to that accordingly.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/RK98e.jpg)
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”
3. Mechanics, the basics
The first mechanic we’ll go over is expanding creep. Creep is very important for zerg players. It gives our ground units (except for drones and broodlings) an extra movement speed boost. It’s also one of the mechanics completely reserved for zerg players. Expanding creep will allow for faster transportation between bases. Also, without a creep generator somewhere near, zerg buildings just die by themselves.
!!! I cannot stress enough how important the skill of spreading creep efficiently is becoming. People are arguing if this mechanic is really a bonus or a handicap. Whichever may be the case, one thing is certain – zerg units benefit from being on creep. Zerg users be it in bronze or diamond should work on expanding their creep from the very early stages of the game, in a fast and efficient manner all throughout the game.
There are 2 ways to expand creep in the game, aside from building a hatchery:
1) Using creep tumors. The queen has a special ability that allows her for 25 energy to place a creep tumor on creep, that will expand it further. During the early phases of the game you’ll probably be busy injecting larvae into your hatcheries, but later on, as there is more and more stuff to do you’ll inevitably accumulate more and more energy on your queen. Creep tumors are a great way to speed up your army and burn that excess of energy.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/wdr6F.jpg)
Creating creep highways for the future generations. After all, infrastructure is very important for any empire.
2) The second method becomes available when you advance to tier 2. Once a Lair is finished morphing, your overlords will be able to generate creep. This is a great mechanic for us Zs. It gives the overlords more depth and usefulness. It also allows us to hide our tech! Place an overlord far away from your hatchery, start generating creep there once you can and send a drone to morph into a spire there! I probably should mention also, that spreading creep on unused expansions could halt your opponent’s expanding until he gets rid of your overlord there.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/hWzXt.jpg)
Vomiting has never been so useful before!
The next mechanic I want to tell you about is scouting. Scouting is a very important part of any RTS game. Gathering information on your enemy is vital to your success. As zerg although we don’t have permanently cloaked observers or comsat scans to help us scout we have our own array of scouting methods.
1) Our basic assault unit is fast, agile and cheap. Our beloved zergling! With this unit which can run circles around zealots and marines. Our scouting early game is made very easy. Put 1 or 2 of these at your enemy’s choke and see them move out. Run around the map with them, check for hidden expansions. Take over Xel’Naga watch towers.
Their use is not only limited to early game, later you can always send a few lings into your enemy’s army and based on the number of units you see, decide to attack or fall back.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/9BJXJ.jpg)
He’s doing his part, are you?
2) Overlords are useful for scouting. Overlords are incredible, cheap scouts. They can be sent to your opponent’s base to scout him, see him moving out, or to just watch over the map’s places of interest such as high yield mineral expansions or common attack routes.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/42rXf.jpg)
I spy with my little eye…
3) Changelings. The overseer spawns a creepy looking blob that can move around. When it comes into contact with your opponent’s army, it quickly changes shape into that of a marine, zergling or zealot. He cannot attack, but he also will not be attacked automatically by the enemy. Your opponent will have to issue the order to fire on it himself.
Lately, this topic has been very controversial. In high level play scouting is all the more important, but also a lot harder to do, especially for us zergs. The common overlord scouting routs have been discovered, and terrans often send out 1-2 marines to take down overlords which is quite the setback this early on in the game. The maps aren’t also very overlord friendly, being designed without safe routes for our overlords to take or ledges to sit upon. This puts additional pressure on zerg users, making them often have to outright guess the enemy’s army composition during a game. Later on, with vikings patrolling the skies, and blinkstalers, scouting with overlords may become very costly if your opponent will be persistent with denying it.
4. Micromanagement
“Micro is the ability to control your units individually, in order to make up for pathing or otherwise imperfect AI. For example, controlling only two marines to kill a lurker, or being able to kill multiple scourges with mutalisks is considered "micro". The general theory of micro is to keep as many units alive as possible. For example it is better to have four half-dead dragoons after a battle, rather than to have two dragoons at full health and two dead ones.”
- a direct quote from Liquipedia. I love you guys <3
While it is true that the AI has certainly improved since StarCraft: Brood War, the AI we have in Starcraft 2 is far from perfect. There is always something to improve upon, there is always something to get better with.
That’s all dandy for both protoss and terran players, whose units have abilities. The zerg don’t really rely on unit abilities. The only unit you’ll be using abilities with yourself will probably be the infestor. To a much lesser extent roaches with burrow, corruptors with corruption and overseers with contaminate or spawn changeling.
While the other races have active abilities that help their units, the zerg make up for it with flanking, surrounding, backstabbing. Here’s a short definition of these terms, taken of course, from Liquipedia!
Surrounding
The technique is the positioning of melee units around and amongst the opponent's units. This is essential when using zerglings against marines or stalkers. The two main effects are:
The units deal more damage. By surrounding the enemy, the player has more surface area from which to attack. This increases the damage dealt by the zerglings, for example, because more of them are in contact with the enemy.
It spreads the enemy's ranged damage more evenly over the zerg player's units. This keeps the zerg player's units alive longer and therefore allows them to do more damage.
Flanking
Flanking involves positioning part of the zerg player's army away from his or her main force. When the player engages with his or her main force, the player uses the flank force to attack from a different angle. Coupled with an element of surprise it can maximize the effectiveness of the player's units in the battle. Flanking has several effects:
It prevents the enemy from retreating. This is particularly important against terran players because they can keep backing away, greatly reducing the damage they take from lurkers and making a zergling surround difficult.
It can create a surrounding effect.
It can catch valuable and fragile units from the rear while the bulk of the army that protects them lies in front. An example of this is catching siege tanks or high templar off guard.
All your units attack (instead of them waiting for the front units to die, so they can be in range to shoot).
Helps avoiding storms on hydras/lings due to better spread.
Backstabbing
Backstabbing involves waiting for the main enemy army to move out of the main base, then quickly attacking the enemy's undefended or lightly defended main base. Zerg is the most effective at backstabbing because of the high speed and damage per second of its units, particularly the zergling. Once the zerg player's units enter the opponent's base, he or she must quickly determine how to do the most damage before the main army returns. The best targets are usually the workers, which are essential to the enemy's economy, or the tech buildings, which are essential to the strategy of the enemy.
The majority of the zerg ground arsenal is limited to melee combat with the hydra being the only real exception having decent range. Remember to create effective arcs with your ranged units, so that you’ll maximize the number of units attacking. This is especially important for hydralisks and roaches.
With the advent of better pathing, the units don’t bump into each other so much. They use every spare tile of the map they find to move from one place to the other. This phenomenon and the unlimited unit selection, created the “ball effect”. Units bunch up every closely together. This has the potential to kill absurd amount of units with AoE damage.
To avert this catastrophe from every taking place within your own ranks there is one effective solution. Read on about it below!
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/Se3YW.jpg)
The ball effect in action.
This is where I’d like to talk about hotkeys. Hotkeys allow you to make control groups of units to better control them. Instead of just selecting every unit you have and attack-moving everything into your enemy, you can create arcs and surrounding the opponent more effectively and faster than the computer.
Hotkeying units and creating squads, will greatly improve the performance of your army. The fragile spell casters won’t suicide into your opponent’s army, the slower tank units, will be permitted to enter combat first to soak up the damage, the fragile yet powerful glass cannons will stay behind your tanks and deal the damage they’re supposed to.
This reduces the ball effect, and lets you have more direct control over what is happening over the battlefield.
Now the number of hotkeys you’ll have for your units is entirely up to you, but anything over five hotkeys would be going overboard. More on this in the section below!
5. Macromanagement
Macro is your ability to produce units, and keep all of your production buildings busy. Generally, the player with the better macro will have the larger army. The other element of macro is your ability to expand at the appropriate times to keep your production of units flowing. A good macro player is able to keep increasing his or her production capability while having the resources to support it.
-Yes, even more Liquipedia
Now, this section will probably be the most important section in this whole guide. The zerg race is built on macromanagement. Managing larvae, queen injections, drone count knowing when to build drones and when to build units and the like, is the absolute ESSENCE of this race. When you lose, you most likely lost because you had bad macro.
Larvae management is essential to your understanding of the zerg race. One hatchery generates 1 larvae every 20 seconds up to a total of 3 larvae. After that it’s the queen’s injections that bring the total of larvae higher than 3. The queen has the ability to inject larvae into a hatchery for 25 energy. After 40 seconds, 4 additional larvae spawn at your hatchery. There is no recharge time for this ability, but it takes roughly 40 seconds for a queen to gain back 25 energy for another injection. Ideally you’d want no more than 7 larvae swarming around your hatchery at any given time (3 natural, and 4 artificial provided by queens). Any more is a waste. But that level of management is unreachable for most of us. Even the pros would be hard pressed to keep this up all game long.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/t5VAO.jpg)
More vomiting goodness.
I feel like Day[9]’s quote from one of the tournaments he commentated on fits well with this section =)
*A queen is running back from the natural to the main of a player’s base, to inject larvae into the hatchery there*
“Ohh yeah, after running a little I vomit too, just like the Queen”
– Day[9], we all love you.
Now that you know a little about larvae let’s move on to using them. A trademark of a good player is to use up all his resources, keep his production lines busy, and expanding when the time is right as said in the Liquipedia quote. For the zerg additionally to keeping your resources low, you must also realize that the larvae are as much as a resource as supply, gas and minerals. If you can’t use up all your larvae that you have at your hatcheries, consider putting down a creep tumor instead.
While our terran and protoss counterparts have separate facilities for training workers and assault units, we share the same resource between these two units: the larvae.
Every unit you make, comes from a larvae. Drones, overlords, assault units. You must learn to juggle around all 3 of those simultaneously. This is one of the harder aspect of playing zerg, knowing when to build what.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/7yULC.jpg)
This is bad macro.
“When is the right time to build drones?” I was once asked. I replied; “When you know your opponent can’t punish you for doing so”
If you see 1 gate core or a 1 rax CC, it’s safe to whore drones. If you see 4 gates and no other tech, or 2 facts 1 with tech lab and the other with a reactor, you’d best be building roaches or lings.
Try not to get supply blocked. Make overlords in advance. If you’re 2-4 food away from your limit, make overlords next.
Now you’re probably thinking “well OK, I get it, but how to macro?”
Well, remember when I said not to go overboard with hotkeying units? That’s because the other hotkeys will be your macro hotkeys. Hatcheries, queens. How you do it is up to you. I’ll just provide you with the 3 techniques that are generally the most popular due to their ease of use and speed (execution is everything!). Remember you can mix and match or develop your own style. How you play is entirely up to you:
Technique 1: The simple way
Hotkeys 1-2-3(-4) = Units.
4 (or 5) All of your hatcheries.
Next hotkey is: main hatchery + main queen
Next one after that is: nat(short for natural) hatchery + nat queen
Next: 3rd hatch + 3rd queen.
…
What you do is press 5(or 6) two times, press v and target hatch. 66v+target hatch 77v+target hatch. You press 4 (or 5) s(for select larvae) and then d(drones) z(zerglings) t(mutalisks) etc.
In conclusion you have 55v*click*66v*click*77v*click*(…)4sdzttttttttttddzzzzzzdhhhhh etc.
Technique 2: Backspace + Shift
1. Put all queens on 1 hotkey.
2. Select queens.
3. Press Spawn Larvae hotkey (v)
4. Press Backspace once to center on a hatch.
5. Hold Right Side Shift. DO NOT RELEASE.
6. Spam left mouse click + Backspace
7. All hatches are injected.
Watch this video:
Technique 3: Minimap injection
1. Put all queens on 1 hotkey.
2. Select that hotkey (and all your queens with it)
3. Press v once and hold left shift.
4. Target your hatcheries on the minimap and left click. DO NOT LET GO OF SHIFT.
5. All hatcheries injected.
6a. Macro out of your hatches either by putting them all on 1 hotkey and selecting them and doing all the sddddddddddddddddddzzzzzzzzzzzzhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhtttttttttt
6b. Macro out of your hatches by putting each separate hatch on 1 unique hotkey doing 5sddd6szzz7sttt8sddd9sddd0shhh (old school StarCraft 1 style)
I’d also like to point out you DON’T have to press a shortcut three times. You can just keep it pressed down if you want to build only one unit type.
Remember to maynard (transfer workers from one base to another, usually from a more saturated base to a less saturated base) workers, especially to a gold expansion. If not properly scouted, it will give you an immense economical advantage. This will spread your workers more evenly between the bases, and subsequently between the number of minerals you’re mining from. This will permit you to:
1) Bolster your income. Remember that income is based on the number of mineral patches you’re mining from, and not directly from the number of workers you have. It’s better to mine 15 patches with 50 workers, than 8 patches with 70 workers.
2) It allows you to spread your workers more evenly, keeping your original mineral patches “alive” longer, and thus spread the income more evenly throughout time.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/YzxUs.jpg)
Maynarding to a gold expansion. A potential game ender right there.
Now, the last point in this section will be: “When is the right time to expand?”
The right time to expand would be either after winning a big battle to further secure the lead you have over your opponent, or, when after macroing, starting your upgrades, teching, you are still left in an excess of cash.
Keep in mind there are exceptions. Don’t expand when you’re being contained. Break the contain first, unless it’s to an island.
6. General tips while playing
In this section I’d like to provide you with some general tips to playing zerg online.
Earlygame
You start out the match with 6 drones, 1 overlord, 50 minerals and 1 hatchery.
Select all 6 of your workers, and send them to mine minerals(preferably the ones closest to your hatchery). While they are on their way, quickly select half of them (that is, 3) and send them to another mineral that is further away. This is called worker splitting. It allows your workers to split between the minerals more efficiently, and start gathering minerals faster. After that, select your hatchery and start making drones.
!!! I strongly advise you to learn all the shortcuts for your race by heart. If you don’t know one, scroll over it with your mouse, and then press the shortcut on your keyboard instead of clicking the mouse. This will have a huge effect on your execution and will greatly affect your gameplay speed making you be able to do things a lot more faster.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/mtHxg.jpg)
A worker split at the start of a game.
Now that we have the workers out of our way, we can concentrate on the overlord. He is your scout for this early part of the game. Send him to the nearest other starting location to you.
If it’s a two player map it’s not much of an issue, but if it’s a four player map, it becomes difficult. The rule of thumb is to scout with your overlord the nearest other starting position to you. If the enemy is not there, send out a drone at a later time. Be aware that your enemy can shoot it down with marines or a queen if he has any of those. Scouting protoss is a lot less daunting since they require a cybernetics core to produce units that can shoot air targets.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/ZIveA.jpg)
Like this, see? The red lines indicate where to send your overlord.
!!! I would strongly advise you to start hotkeying your buildings and units right now and doing that throughout the course of the game. As with the shortcuts, these will have a huge impact on your execution. It’s always good to start acquiring good reflexes from an early point.
It’s also worth to mention that you shouldn’t leave your first overlord at that base if he found nothing. You should send him in between the other two spawning locations over space or water, to later have an easy access to a scout.
Be careful not to lose your first few overlords! On some maps like Steppes of War, or Blistering Sands, it’s safer to send your overlord to their natural instead of their main and wait for the right time to suicide that overlord in.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/W34rg.jpg)
If you don’t find your opponent, don’t leave your overlord hanging in that other base. Send him across the map, in between the other two bases.
With all that done, we can move on to the next part of the game ^^
The Overlord timings you have at your disposal
While all that jazz is happening under your divine guidance, you should be reaching the point where you’re ready to spawn your second overlord.
Although, I think the 9/10 overlord is vastly superior to the other two timings, to remain as much unbiased as possible, I will provide you with all the three popular overlord timings.
The 9/10 overlord
Make drones until you have 9/10 supply
After acquiring 100 minerals, make your overlord
After mining another 50 minerals make the last drone, making your supply 10/10.
! When this tenth drone is hatched, I usually send it to scout the other spawning locations (regardless if it’s a four player map or not). Such an early scout can harass your opponent, and possibly scout an early aggression build giving you time to prepare.
When your overlord hatches, you should have a little over 100 minerals and 2 larvae ready to make anything you want. A few seconds later you’ll have another 50 minerals, and a 3rd larvae will be available.
The extractor trick
Make drones until you have 10/10 worth of supply.
After mining another 50 minerals, send one of your drones to morph into an extractor.
This will bring your food count down to 9/10 once again. Queue up another drone bring the supply to 10/10.
Now, cancel your extractor, salvaging the drone and some money, brining your supply total to 11/10.
Mine 100 minerals and queue up an overlord.
The double extractor trick
Make drones until you have 10/10 worth of supply.
After mining another 75 minerals, send 2 of your drones to morph into extractors.
This will bring your food count down to 8/10 once again. Queue up 2 drones once you have 100 minerals, bring the supply back up to 10/10.
Now, cancel your extractors, salvaging the drones and some money, brining your supply total to 12/10.
Mine 100 minerals and queue up an overlord.
At this point, you’ll probably be done putting down the foundations for your build order =), but more on those later! Let’s continue with the general tips for all the three match ups.
!!!It should also be noted, that instead of injecting a second time, you could very well put up a creep tumor and start expanding your creep right away. This early in the game, you’ll be hard pressed to use those 8 additional larvae from the injections making them a lot less effective. A creep tumor this early in the game can go a long way.
You could(and probably should) also queue up a 2nd queen from your main hatch to already have a 2nd one out when your natural comes up. This second queen will also be a lot of help versus early aggression.
It is not uncommon to have 3-4-5 queens on 2 bases(2-3 hatches). They are your sole anti-air this early on in the game, and can aid in defending the base.
Midgame
Now, since we’ve set up our early game, and have some units on the field, let’s start using them. As your empire grows, so does your number of overlords. As you take your natural, or any other expansions for that matter, always build a queen for that hatchery. Start placing your overlords between your main and your nat, keeping a fair distance between them, and later between your nat and your future third , this will be extremely useful once you get to tier 2.
I image your ground units probably get pretty bored sitting at your rally point, looking at the creep expand. We need to organize them some activities! Preferably something that involves running, so they won’t grow fat ; )
You should keep a part of your units moving. Destroying destructible rocks, scouting expands et cetra. If you have mutalisks they should always be on the move. Never sitting at home doing nothing.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/lAnSw.jpg)
Zerglings engaging in extracurricular recreational activities.
! I’m including this, because a lot of people asked me this question, the time to add your second gas (and possibly a 3rd at your natural, depending on your economy) would be when you’re teching to Lair or around 35-ish supply.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/9HEul.jpg)
See that green circle? That’s where your mutalisks should be trying to poke in relentlessly.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/wol7r.jpg)
This is what the map should look like at this point in the game.
Remember when I talked about expanding creep? Well, it’s time to put the theory into practice =) By midgame you should have a few overlords spread out. Overlord speed is an essential upgrade that should be upgraded as soon as you get Lair. If you followed my instructions you preemptively spaced out your overlords between your main and nat, and your nat and your future 3rd. Now just go to every one of them and hit “g” every time, to start generating creep. Keep in mind that you can also place creep tumors to further expand creep, which you should have been doing from the very start of the game already.
The midgame, will also probably determine the tech you will put down and use for the remainder of your game. I very strongly suggest mutalisks to be your opening tech versus every race, unless it’s a protoss with stargates. It should also be the time you start upgrading. Once overlord speed is done, send out all your unused or extra overlords to scout around the map and spread creep. The places where you should put your overlords are: island expansions, unused expansions, around your enemy, along the major attack routes, et cetra.
! A good time to put down evolution chambers is once Lair is finished, or once you hit 50 supply. Your economy should be stable and be able to support it.
Your 3rd and the general direction in which you’ll be expanding should be chosen wisely. If you decide to put it close to you, it will be much easier to defend. Normally, it is not advised to expand towards your enemy.
Another popular thing to do nowadays is, putting your third hatch in your main instead of a third expand. This is often done if you spawn vertically to your opponent and will generally have a hard time getting a third expansion up. Provided you have a stable economy, a third hatch could help you drone up even more, or provide extra larvae to morph into units if you have any excess minerals.
Lategame
By this time, you should be on 3-5 bases, have a booming economy and a large army to defend everything. The lategame really isn’t that much different from the midgame. You try to take more expansions, keep up with the upgrades, keep spreading creep, keep injecting your hatcheries, macroing, and trying to defeat your opponent. In lategame, your most powerful tech becomes available. Corruptors can morph into Broodlords, Infestors can acquire the neural parasite spell which is essentially a channeled mind control spell for a fixed duration of time and you’ll be able to train Ultralisks along with upgrading some vital upgrades for your other units such as Adrenal Glands for zerglings.
! I’d like to say here that zerg usually take their expansion for the extra vespene gaysers they provide and to a lesser extent, the mineral patches. The zerg have many great units, that require a lot of gas compared to those of the other races. That’s why when you’ll be expanding the 1st thing you’ll want to do in a new base (starting from your 3rd) is start using your extractors.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/NMTU9.jpg)
This is what the map should look like ideally. Look at those creep tumors
! When you put down an expansion, don’t think that you’re automatically ahead. The expansion needs time to pay back for itself with mining time. You start profiting from your expansions only when they’ve payed for themselves and the mining time lost transferring the drones. This applies to your opponents as well. When you see them expanding, don’t panic, don’t do anything rash.
Other tips for zerg:
- Generally, cross spawn positions on maps like Lost Temple or Metapolis favor you. They allow you to expand in a safe manner, in a crescent like form away from your opponent.
- A longer “rush” distance between your main and your enemy’s, generally favors you in most cases. It allows you to see him moving out and gives you time to train more troops.
- Maps with a lot of high ground terrain and lots of chokes, work to your disadvantage. An example of such a map would be Kulas Rivine.
- Maps with open middle and generally few chokes and cliffs, favor you.
- Maps where your natural is far away, open from a lot of sides, and generally hard to defend is a bad map for zerg. An example would be Desert Oasis.
- Maps where the 3rd and 4th are far away and wide open, generally are also bad for you.
- Know which upgrade corresponds to which unit: zerglings and banelings both profit from the carapace upgrade and melee attack upgrade, while both hydralisks and roaches profit from the ranged attack upgrade and carapace!
Build Orders
The build orders branch into many variations of the basic 3 overlord timings, each having a goal of it’s own, providing either an economic advantage or safety.
There is no rule saying you can’t use this or that build order in a certain match up, but the build orders themselves are tailored to provide you with the best opening possible taking
into consideration your opponent’s possibilities. As the zerg, the terran and the protoss are fundamentally different races all across the board in StarCraft, each build is unique, developed to suit each of these opponents =)
I won’t include any Build Orders in this guide. I’ll just simply link to a site which will have stable builds posted, as time goes by.
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Zerg_Strategy
The Match Ups
In this last section of this guide I would like to talk a little about the currently most common unit mixes for each race. Here you’ll find a description of the typical armies you will meet while laddering and what the pros use to counter them.
ZvP
The most common openings for protoss are:
- 4-gate. A very good 1-base opening that works wonders on natural open maps like Xel’Naga Caverns or metapolis where you need a lot of spines to defend. The usual follow up is taking the natural.
- 2-gate pressure. This build usually aims at killing your natural as it goes up, since zealots excel at fighting lings. If he chronoboosts his gateways, you might find yourself quickly outnumbered and overwhelmed (and dead sometimes).
- Fast Expand. On maps like Lost temple, Scrap Station, Metapolis or Shakuras plateau, the protoss can put down a wall with cannons in the back giving him time to set up a very early expansion.
Now for the army composition:
- Gateway units + mass Colossi.
- Gateway units + robo units (a mix between Colossi and Immortals)
- Gateway units + stargate units (phoenixes and void rays), this is becoming more and more rare, and more of a counter to mutalisk builds more than a desired unit composition. Usually into robo, but sometimes templars.
In the early game, zerglings should be sufficient defense if you want to save on gas, if however the protoss chooses to be very aggressive with many zealots I'd suggest putting down a roach warren. In midgame there is a shift from a small number of ranged units that the toss can produce, to a primarily ranged gateway army composed mostly of stalkers and sentries with zealots now acting only as meatshields, and not the damage dealers. That’s why in midgame you should think about transitioning into a well mixed hydra/roach army (but I’d advise to open with mutalisks either way unless it’s versus phoenixes). This army is very flexible, because large amounts of hydras can take on large amounts of gateway units, while the roaches tank and absorb damage for the fragile hydras. You might also want to add corruptors if you see colossi, but be careful not to go overboard with them. Remember that once the colossi are dead, the corruptors become dead weight.
Against FE you have 3 choices as of 1.1.2
1) Either you go roaches to pressure his wall and make him build units instead of probes
2) Or you double expand yourself to not lose the economic advantage
3) You can also do a risky spine crawler push if you’re in vertical positions.
![[image loading]](http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn118/Pauru_2008/Screenshot003.jpg)
Picture stolen from some teamliquid thread xP
! Also, try to keep up with the Ps upgrades. If zerglings and zealots are on equal upgrades, it takes 3 hits from a zealot to kill a zergling. If however, the zealots have more attack upgrades than the zerglings have carapace upgrades, that number of hits goes down to 2. Beware of the +1 attack timing pushes, your zerglings will melt.
Before, the infestors were also a nice counter to Colossi, with their neural parasite with infinite duration, but now the duration is only 12 seconds so, I’d advise you to favor corruptors in this match up versus colossi. But keep in mind infestors can be worth getting because they have fungal growth which is an incredible spell to use on bunched units in any situation.
It’s not uncommon to find high templars mixed into the fray late game, so when that happens, be prepared to mix in bigger roach numbers(or ultraslisks for that matter) into your army composition. Speeding up your army with creep is also very important in this situation.
A very standard protoss lategame army is composed of a high number of stalkers and a decent amount of colossi. Ultralisks deal with this army composition superbly. If you already have corruptors on the field, you can aim for Broodlords, which aren’t a bad choice either. Just make sure to keep them with your main army to protect them.
Stargate units are an entirely different enemy. While you still get hydras to counter them, phoenixes can be very annoying especially when you have a low number of hydras. They will fly in in groups of 5-6, lift up your queen, drones and even hydras that spawned if you don’t have a large enough group of them, kill them and run away before the rest of your hydralisks make it back in time to defend. If you survive these few initial attacks without taking a too huge a hit to your economy, you probably wont have to worry about them again. If he is persistent with his phoenixes, put down a few spore crawlers around your resource lines, and get corruptors. Mutalisks are not a good unit to get against phoenixes since they are lightly armoured and phoenixes have the moving shot.
Void rays, especially those chronoboosted, can arrive in your base extremely fast. It is very important to scout these. For the initial 1 or 2 void rays that come, you should have 2-3 queens to fend them off until hydralisks or mutalisks come into play. Make use of the queens transfusion spell to keep them alive for as long as possible.
This might become less and less common since patch 1.1.2 nerfed void rays pretty bad.
ZvT
The terran has really a multitude of possible openings he can do against a zerg opponent ranging from
The most important part of this match up is scouting. You have to know if he’s doing some kind of 3 barracks aggression or if he’ll be opening up with a factory.
While the odds are seemingly stacked against you, you do possess some advantages over the terran. Your forces are quicker, and more agile than his, meaning flanks are possible and almost a necessity, and your forces can be easily transported from one place to another via the nydus network. Researching drops and loading overlords with banelings should prove to be effective as well.
Ultimately, you can try to just out muscle him, using your superior economy and the inherent zerg ability to expand easily.
The most common openings are:
- 1 base reactor hellions. After patch 1.1.2 (and even a little before) this opening has been dominating the match up. Hellions, hellions, hellions. Normal reactor hellions, blue-flame hellions, medivac drop in main hellions. Take your pick. This is currently without a doubt the standard.
- Hellions into banshee. This build is as old as the game itself. Both units exploit the zerg’s weaknesses.
- 2/3 rax mnm push. An aggressive build with a flexible army. Can be easy or hard to stop depending if you have banelings or not.
- 1 rax(+bunker) expand
The follow ups:
- Expand into dropship harras and macroing up. Again, the most standard thing in the world. Using the terran’s natural ability to turtle up and defend, coupled with the great synergy bioballs/medivacs share, this build is very good. It aims to out macro the zerg while denying greedy play and being overall annoying and efficient with the units you have. Plays well to terran’s strengths and to zerg’s weaknesses.
- 1-base big push. Opening transitions into 5-6 raxes(or 4 raxes and 1-2 factories) pumping units for 1 big push (sometimes, while taking an expand themselves). Can catch zerg off guard with the timing, and punish greedy zergs that skimped on units.
- If it was 1 rax expand, he'll make a push before taking a 3rd. Terran should be comfortable on 2 bases for quite a long time. Transitions include mass raxes-ground-push, mass raxes-dropship harrass, more mass bio with tank support and banshees or vikings.
Depending on his opening, you have to get zerglings or roaches. If he goes bio ( many barracks) I’d prefer lings/bling(/roach), later on infestors.
If he goes mech (factory and starport) units I’d personally try my chances with roaches and later on transition into roach/mutalisk/infestor.
If he goes bio mech (a mix between the two) you would probably be better off with roach/bane with a fair amount of lings or mutalisks.
!!!Here is where I would like to mention the magic box, and subsequently the fall from grace of the mech builds in this particular match up. EG.IdrA showed us at the 2010 IEM Cologne that, mutalisks ARE in fact, the counter to terran mech.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/D7mcp.jpg)
The image that shook the very foundations of beta ZvT.
With the mutalisks overcoming their natural enemy – the thor, the ZvT match up has been changed forever.
Keep in mind your ultimate unit goal – Ultralisks. They do extremely well against both bio balls (tanking for banelings) and versus mech (dealing the damage). Coupled with infestors and fungal growth, the are a very good unit choice.
If you see a factory, you should immediately think “hellion harass”. These units specialize in killing lightly armored units such as zerglings, drones or hydralisks. To prevent hellion harass, keep your speedlings on creep, put up spine crawlers at your natural (1 or 2 will do fine, don’t go overboard), or switch tech to roaches(depending on your control and whether you want to save gas or not) . Four, is the magic number of hellions he needs, to 1 shot drones. This is when they become really dangerous to your economy and your zerglings. Deal with them quickly, try not to lose too many drones. You should also, block your ramp with a few zerglings or both queens as to not allow the hellions access to your main’s drones.
You should also make a 3rd Queen to counter any banshees that he might make after the initial hellion harass. Try to fight 1 banshee with 2 queens, or 2 banshees with 3 queens etc. like versus the void rays, use transfusion to your advantage until you get mutalisks or hydralisks. Keep in mind that they can cloak, so if you see banshees, get an overseer ASAP or even 2 for your bases.
Lategame, you’ll need to pull out the heaviest artillery you have: The broodlords or the ultralisks. Only these behemoths were shown to effectively mount a resistance against those dreadful balls of death. Both are excellent units that can supplement your forces. Keep in mind that ultralisk would probably be a better choice, because of how fast the terran can get a high number of vikings.
! Unfortunately, the terrans have their vikings. These, with their, 9 range in fighter mode, can easily snipe your broodlords from afar. It is advised to keep corruptors, mutalisks or infestors near broodlords to help fend off vikings.
The number of banelings you have should be proportional to the amount of marines he has. If he’s going marine heavy, you go baneling heavy. If he goes marauder heavy, you go ling/muta heavy.
Of course, there are players like Dimaga, that have very good results with pure lings early/mid game. You should find your own style and play with what you are comfortable with.
!! Against bioballs, infestors are a must at some point. Fungal growth will help you immensively against stim making your banelings connect.
! I cannot stress enough how important upgrades are in this match up. The terran will absolutely steamroll you if you fall behind on upgrades. Carapace and melee or ranged attack upgrades are vital to your success.
That about wraps up the ZvT section. I’sure in time, more options will become available and more build orders will be tailored for this particular match up.
ZvZ
And finally, here we are, the mirror match up. =)
This is probably the most chaotic, the most APM demanding, the most mechanically difficult, match up for any zerg player. But there is also 1 good thing about this match up: There are no imbalances that your enemy can exploit ^_~
First thing first: The build orders are a sort of Russian roulette. Place your pool too early and be behind economically. Place your pool too late, and you’ll find yourself with your opponent’s zerglings tearing apart your drones.
The openings range from 8 pool, passing through overpool and 10pools to the very late 14 pool. Expands are generally accepted too, but be prepared to be on the defensive until you gain the economical advantage over your opponent.
The weapons of choice in this match up are: zerglings, banelings and mutalisks.
And to a lesser extent: roaches, hydralisks, corruptors and infestors.
Well, the most common openings are:
- 12 pool speed
- 13 pool 15 hatch,
- 14 pool speed
- Some form of fast roaches
You should also take note that early ZvZ revolves around zergling wars. Ling speed is crucial in these encounters. The one who won’t get speed, is at a massive disadvantage if caught in the open field. Zerglings with speed can run circles around those without it.
If you choose to opt for roaches or 1 base play, any reason really to skip speed, here’s how to defend your ramp:
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/fgmYe.jpg)
How to defend your ramp until speed kicks in or you get your tech out.
Notice the arc at the top. In zergling wars positioning is very important. The person who has a bigger arc with his zerglings wins.
To quote Chill’s words here: “When you have zergling speed and an arc advantage over your opponent’s zerglings, they kill more enemy units than it is mathematically possible.”
The next step in ZvZ are banelings. When just minutes before zerglings were at each others’ throats, now they run away and cower in fear. The game shifts from all out zergling wars, to sniping banelings, minimizing the damage done to your lings and drones, and using your own banelings to maximize their effectiveness.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/pIjpK.jpg)
This is precisely why zerglings cower in fear.
Always try to kill a baneling with one zergling. Two zerglings for a baneling is also a good bargain. Three zerglings is fair, while any more above that, is a loss for you. Likewise, always try to kill as many zerglings with your baneling as you can.
As you can see, this quickly turns into a mechanics and control war. Whoever has better control usually comes out on top, and wins the game right there.
! Don’t be afraid to try ling/roach or bling/roach once in a while. It can wield some very unexpected results. Also, an early evo chamber for +1 upgrade of your choice can tip the scales in your favor. Hint: +1 ranged attack, makes roaches 2-shot lings.
If however, both players didn’t outright kill each other with these units, the most common follow up are mutalisks.
! As above, don’t be afraid to try infestor/hydra/bling or any other unit mix for that matter. Hydras aren’t as expensive as mutalisks, so in time you might be able to spare some resources for infestors. Infestors absolutely demolish zerglings, banelings and mutalisks with their fungal growth. Just make sure your opponent’s banelings don’t get to your hydras.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/StdEi.jpg)
A potentially very threatening army in ZvZ.
Morphing 1 overlord into an overseer in your base will probably be a good investment (like in every other match up). That way, burrowed roaches won’t surprise you.
Roaches, hydralisks, infestors and corruptors are much more rare, but they can also be effective units when used correctly.
In this last paragraph in this section, I’d like to talk about the importance of drones. Since this is a mirror match up, you have everything at your disposal that your opponent does. Do you know what’s the difference between a 12 pool and a 13 pool? 1 extra drone. This advantage, especially from the early stages of the game, can become a staggering advantage later on. Suddenly 10 minutes later, provided you go head to head in everything else, one player has 500 more minerals than the other! As you can see the 1 extra drone had a huge snowball effect on a player’s economy.
Do you know what’s the difference between a 10 pool and a 14 pool? 10 dead drones for the 14-pooler. Being too greedy, can result in very bad backlash.
What I’m trying to say here is, try to make that one extra drone every now and again. It will repay for itself the longer the game goes.
ZvX
Playing zerg versus random, is like playing any of the other match ups, since the enemy can only be a zerg, a protoss, or a terran. =)
Play safe, don’t do anything stupid like 3 hatch before pool. If you feel really discomforted, scout earlier than you would normally. Have a clear mind, and play with a leveled head!
Cheese builds and All-Ins
There were some excellent threads and posts on teamliquid defining cheese. It is an integral and invaluable part of this game’s and it’s predecessor’s experience. Without the possibility for these types of builds the game would have much less depth, be more stale, and people would quickly grow tired of doing the exact same builds over and over and over… It adds excitement and a lot of fun to the game.
Here’s a quote from Zatic:
“In this topic I will try to provide general definitions to what “cheese” and “all-in” strategies are.
Both terms are regularly used on this forum, and most of the time are being misused.
“Cheese” is probably the worst of the two in terms of how people use it. You see people referring to any kind of rush as cheese. Then you see people complaining fast tech is cheese. You see people just crying cheese because they lost against a strategy they haven’t seen before.
All-in is misused often enough as well. People think it’s the same as cheese. Or they call simply aggressive styles or timing attacks “allin”.
So, let’s have a look at my own definitions:
Cheese
A strategy that relies overwhelmingly or entirely on secrecy. If scouted, the strategy fails and puts the executing player at a severe disadvantage, or right out costs him the game.
All-In
An aggressive strategy aimed at killing the opponent off completely in one attack. All available resources are put into this one attack and no follow-up is being considered. Should the attack fail and the opponent live through it, the game is almost certainly lost to a counter or to superior enemy tech/economy.
A couple of examples:
1. 2gate: Neither cheese nor all-in. A 2gate can be scouted and still put pressure on the opponent. It can do just moderate damage and the executing player can still transition out of it.
2. No lair roach against Z who techs to muta: All-in. The roaches have to win the game, or else the muta will finish the roach player off once your attack is repelled.
3. Fast banshee/void ray/muta: Neither cheese nor all-in. The strategy will almost certainly fail if scouted in time, but it won’t automatically lose the game.
4. Fast reaper (9rax inbase): Neither cheese nor all in. Fails if scouted, sets T back if it fails but doesn’t outright lose the game.
5. Fast reaper (6rax proxy): Cheese and all-in. Fails to kill the opponent if scouted, loses the game if it doesn’t do enough damage to equalize the cut SCV (all-in).
6. 4 gate robo (against 1 base): Neither cheese nor all in
7. 4 gate robo (against expo): Arguably all-in. At some point the expanding player will have the stronger army and the stronger economy – attack has to be effective before.
8. Turtle and tech to guardian / carrier / doom drop / other strong late game strategy: All-in. The late attack has to kill the opponent off or no follow up possible due to build time / resources.
9. 6pool: All-In. Arguably cheese as well, as it is way less effective if scouted early. However the main characteristics of the 6pool is not secrecy but the early attack and the lack of follow up.
As you can see the distinction isn’t always clear, and often enough it’s hard to determine if an attack is all in or not. Also, as with everything in Starcraft those examples don’t have to play out exactly like described.”
An excellent post that should clear up any misunderstandings!
7. Closing thoughts
I wanted to thank Teamliquid.net for being such an awesome site, that made me want to contribute to the community so much that I wrote this! For sharing my passion for a game that came out over 12 years ago, and for keeping the flame burning such a long time.
I also wanted to thank the people that contributed to http://www.liquipedia.net for all the knowledge stored and shared there!
The following sites for providing me with invaluable information about the game:
http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/StarCraft_Wiki
http://sc2armory.com/
http://sclegacy.com/
And lastly, Blizzard for making such awesome games !
