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Hey all this is almost a qq zerg thread....
3000 diamond here...So my win ratio is usually around 55% which is average I guess. ZvP I'm pretty comfortable with until late game Collosus ball etc..but that will just need to be smoothed out and dealt with.
ZvZ I rock all the time...which leads me to believe that I have a better understand of the Zerg race than most zergs at my level since I hardly ever lose to other zergs.
ZvT however I am at loss for words. Whether it be long map, short map, pool first, hatch first, cheese, late macro game. I just can't seem to win. With any combination.
Muta/ling/bane infestor/ling/ultra broods etc, just ANYTHING I throw at them is just absolutely terrible.
AM I DOING IT WRONG? I'll upload replays at the bottom of thread to show some typical ZvT games.
So first off....
Every time I expand, theres that bunker rush. It feels like they're cheesing me since he has like 6 marines and 2 scvs up there building buildings near me but it's definetly not cheese since every terran does it and can recover economically so well from it, even if it completely fails. Whenever I see this I don't panic or anything, send 4 drones to get surrounds on the marines if they are still walking across map and all I can stop it well enough, but if I do happen to miss it, it's instant gg.
There's always that early-mid game push when I'm trying to tech up to something better than just lings/banes. if i have crawlers, they MELT under rapid fire of a few marines. Queen's likewise. Creep spread is also pointless early game against marines as you can get a nice surround on marines, but banelings still get kited by even non-stimmed marines on creep. I played 7 games in arow today where all my terran opponent did was make marauders and marines and just harass me early on. If i do crush this harass I'm not really in any sort of lead. If i try to expand another attack comes sweeping my way shortly even before the hatch is finished building, or the terrran expanded behind his pressure or to some far off corner with a PF with turrets (HONESTLY HOW DO U BREAK THAT DEFENSE?)
so half the time I don't make it past this early-mid game stage. When I do however I try to take the map and keep him on one base. This is usually succesful, I will have a nice fat 200/200 army of early tier units out with decent upgrades and PLENTY of drones. He comes at me with anything really. Thors> mutas, marines>mutas. So if I see that he has no tanks basically, I steer clear of mutas. Thor + marines, i like to go infestors and lings....unless I engange terran PERFECTLY...and I mean fucking perfectly like when i go back to the rteplay and watch it i'm like DAMN one second later on my flank and I woulda gotten raped....I will get stomped to all hell.
Tank/marine/medivac....alright mutas are ok here, I can go around trying to harras workers/tanks/seldomly medivacs as they are well protected by marines. Easy as hell for them to get like 2 thors if they see me have a slight edge on my muta numbers...or even to just pump more marines. then it's all a matter of taking his entire army to my base and finishing me off.
Man...I feel like I'm just talking nonsense theres so many things wrong with my ZvT I don't even know how to begin. The most frustrating thing is that I stomp Master Zergs, and I can even hold my own against Master Protosses and my mechanics are not bad at all! However when I face a terran who has barely played for a days STILL roflstomp me...it's just sucha mindfuck and a morale killer.
I just feel so afraid facing terran, and everything that I do is just so cost effective for terran.
is it like this for all zerg? I know a ton of people that have just been like "I'M DONE WITH ZERG, THATS IT" I don't want to be one of these...Zerg seems to be sucha powerful race when excecuted properly, but I can't even seem to get out of the early game against terran let alone hold up any kind of lead against them. Whenever a terran gets a slight lead against me, it's done. Even if I hold him to one base all game I sometimes still manage to lose.
k now that I'm done raging about this matchup. Plz Help meee:D
Where do I even begin to get better?
Replays:
+ Show Spoiler +
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First off, it'll be better once you have replays. But if you are constantly dying to early pressure than make more lings or make another spine crawler. And if you always lose with mutas, then don't go mutas. Try double upgrades w/ Infestors or anything else. You don't have to do just 1 strat. Personally I've been doing insanely fast upgrades with ling/bling only, then teching pretty fast to BL's (I get 3/3 + adrenal glands + BL's in under 20 minutes easily), and I'm just taking the Terran army sieged up and head on as he goes to slow push me.. I've actually been winning a lot.
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On February 21 2011 09:50 FortyOzs wrote:
First off, it'll be better once you have replays. But if you are constantly dying to early pressure than make more lings or make another spine crawler. And if you always lose with mutas, then don't go mutas. Try double upgrades w/ Infestors or anything else. You don't have to do just 1 strat
Yeah actually I used to have success with the regular old muta/ling/banes however Terran have gotten very good at nullifying muta harass which is essentially what they're good for. They melt on any army vs army confrontation and are merely support fire I find. I've also tried roaches for a bit which failed HORRIBLY. Roaches initially seem to do well against marines, they're armored, deal decent damage compared to a marines health, however in larger numbers they truly suck against all terran units. Marines with stim just shoot way faster than roaches and the slow rate of fire of the roaches, as well as their insuperior range just make them melt especially when there are maruaders (+to armored) and tanks (+ to armored)....and i was advised to steer clear of roaches in ZvT. I whole heartedly agree now.
Many people suggested infestors and lings...http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=193058....this thread to be precise. And I tried it with mixed success, however if they simply just push during all my teching i am cannon fodder to any combination of terran units. So yeah, it's not like i havent deviated from just one build. I'm really struggling with the entire terran race as awhole 
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umad?
User was temp banned for this post.
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On February 21 2011 09:57 Zedders wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2011 09:50 FortyOzs wrote:
First off, it'll be better once you have replays. But if you are constantly dying to early pressure than make more lings or make another spine crawler. And if you always lose with mutas, then don't go mutas. Try double upgrades w/ Infestors or anything else. You don't have to do just 1 strat Yeah actually I used to have success with the regular old muta/ling/banes however Terran have gotten very good at nullifying muta harass which is essentially what they're good for. They melt on any army vs army confrontation and are merely support fire I find. I've also tried roaches for a bit which failed HORRIBLY. Roaches initially seem to do well against marines, they're armored, deal decent damage compared to a marines health, however in larger numbers they truly suck against all terran units. Marines with stim just shoot way faster than roaches and the slow rate of fire of the roaches, as well as their insuperior range just make them melt especially when there are maruaders (+to armored) and tanks (+ to armored)....and i was advised to steer clear of roaches in ZvT. I whole heartedly agree now. Many people suggested infestors and lings...http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=193058....this thread to be precise. And I tried it with mixed success, however if they simply just push during all my teching i am cannon fodder to any combination of terran units. So yeah, it's not like i havent deviated from just one build. I'm really struggling with the entire terran race as awhole
What I've personally been doing is going only ling/bling/queen with incredibly fast upgrades without any pause, and it works great. You can take on a marine/tank army head on, all the gas that used to go to mutas can now go straight to upgrades. Because I have the hive tech so quick for the upgrades, I also add in the spire/greater spire and go to broodlords when I have the gas. And it's susceptible to banshees/drops because no mutas, so I always have like 5-8 extra queens around, plus they transfuse the BL's later and spread creep. Once the game goes past 20 minutes, you have 3/3 lings/blings/broodlings, queens to transfuse and take out the vikings, and insane creep spread. At that point I usually just attack him head on and win.
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First, please don't have an all caps thread. Beside that, you need to realize that if he's not investing in tanks, he's not going to do well at all vs muta/ling/bane or infestor/ling. If he's blindly just making mass rines/thor to counter mutas, back up on your muta count and make a lot of lings/banes, keep upgrading and throw down that infestor mound and upgrade pathogen glands. Make a lot of banelings, fungal and go. Use the mutas to harass, as normal. If they are getting tanks, you need to be smart with your mutas, and depending on weather you're doing mass muta or mass ling bane, you can snipe basically any stray unit with that giant flock of mutas. You can easily take on A thor and a few marines with magic boxing and make a cost effective trade. Attack when he's unsieged. I assure you he's not positioning anywhere near as perfectly as you're making it sound, and even if he is, you can defeat it.
Early game you should have a spine at your natural any time you think you're getting 2 raxed and just have good scouting. The 2 rax push isn't all that intimidating unless he brings a lot of scv's, and then you can just pull drones to deal. Don't forget to start ling speed when you're getting bunker rushed, as the only way you can shut it down for good is with speed (vs a good opp)
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On February 21 2011 09:50 FortyOzs wrote:
First off, it'll be better once you have replays. But if you are constantly dying to early pressure than make more lings or make another spine crawler. And if you always lose with mutas, then don't go mutas. Try double upgrades w/ Infestors or anything else. You don't have to do just 1 strat. Personally I've been doing insanely fast upgrades with ling/bling only, then teching pretty fast to BL's (I get 3/3 + adrenal glands + BL's in under 20 minutes easily), and I'm just taking the Terran army sieged up and head on as he goes to slow push me.. I've actually been winning a lot.
Adrenals are not worth the 200/200 in starcraft 2
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The only thing I have a problem with is terrans who do that bunker rush shit. They're basically retarded if they don't do it, it ruins zerg and there's no way to stop it/counter it without taking huge losses in time and minerals gathered in the early game - let alone forcing you to make static D or whatever else. For something which costs the Terran hardly ANYTHING, it totally influences the Zerg's tech tree choices for the whole game. Worse, they tend to deploy this, expand and tech rather than just all-in, so once they salvage those bunkers they probably have a new command center with 4 mules at their natural.
I really don't know what to do about it, even pulling drones to fight marines puts me way behind and having to watch/patrol my ramp so that I don't get blocked in is terrible too.. Again, costs Terran nothing, costs me time and money.
Would like to see a real solution to this problem.
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On February 21 2011 10:12 Raymund wrote:
umad?
beyond mad bro
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to OP : I feel exactly the same. I am wondering if I'm going to switch to T, because it seems so freaking easy to recover from many mistakes, where Z is always dealing with many "do or die" choices.
I'm 3100 Z player, and I have the same win rate you have : good ZvP, balance miror ZvZ of course, and a terrible, really terrible win rate in ZvT. Litterally, I'm winning 80% of ZvP and 10% of my ZvT for the few last weeks.
I guess it's because T have a lot of tech routes, where Z don't have many. So I guess T are faster to learn how to defeat a Z than a Z to defeat a T. Also, T can force many different defenses for a Z, and it's very easy to overreact. You've scout a factory with reactor and 2hellions heading your base. You're kinda forced to go few roaches in case he's pumping a lot more. But the T can at any moment prevent scouting, and choose to continue mass hellion if you don't react enough, or in the other case : if he sees you already over reacted, just switch back to marines banshees.
It's never a big deal for terran, because many of his units are harassement based, and when bunched together, it forms a deadly mix. No weak units (like mutas). You can harass with 4 hellion, where you can't do the same with roaches. You can harass with 1 banshee, where you can't with 1 muta. And all this harass provides a TON of scouting, for a cheap price. And you can always choose to continue or stop the production of a unit, and start / stop the production of the counter of the defense.
So, just to sum up : I don't think Z are weaker than T. It's just a kinetic problem, where it's much longer to figure out how to kill a T. Sometimes it's depressing, I acknoledge. I'd like to play terran more, to see where are the weaknesses. I guess it's the best way to understand the match up. I want to be beaten by Z players, while I'm playing T. So I will loose like 20-30 games soon and start over with T. I'll see what will be my winrate in TvZ. I guess I'll learn a lot from this experience. Then I'll be back to playing Z.
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So what you're saying is you're trying every build but not getting used to, or good with any of them? Seems if you're just trying random shit without a play every game you're going to lose.
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On February 21 2011 10:16 darkscream wrote:
The only thing I have a problem with is terrans who do that bunker rush shit. They're basically retarded if they don't do it, it ruins zerg and there's no way to stop it/counter it without taking huge losses in time and minerals gathered in the early game - let alone forcing you to make static D or whatever else. For something which costs the Terran hardly ANYTHING, it totally influences the Zerg's tech tree choices for the whole game. Worse, they tend to deploy this, expand and tech rather than just all-in, so once they salvage those bunkers they probably have a new command center with 4 mules at their natural.
I really don't know what to do about it, even pulling drones to fight marines puts me way behind and having to watch/patrol my ramp so that I don't get blocked in is terrible too.. Again, costs Terran nothing, costs me time and money.
Would like to see a real solution to this problem.
You should play terran and actually do a marine/scv bunker rush. YOu would see that what you have said is simply not true. Pulling drones before they bunker your ramp will wipe the floor with them, and you so many more workers that you really arent behind at all. The only time you will get behind is if he happens to get those bunkers up. But if you scout it and pull 5-6 drones + your first 6 lings, you should be able to hold it pretty easily. The terran will have like 12 workers when he pulls 4-5 scvs plus his first few marines.
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United States7166 Posts
edit: re-opened this thread, but please follow the strategy forum guidelines next time
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This is probably the wrong place and time but Zerg's need to start playing the way their race was meant to be played. MOBILITY. Holy crap by far the best mobility in the entire late game - nydus worms. Holy crap, use them. Who cares if their army can roflstomp yours, mobility is everything.
If a terran base has been well fortified with a planetary + turrets (maybe tanks and what not), you really can't break it cost effectively until you get to hive tech. You have to hold back, limit him to as little amount of bases as possible. You can try infestor fungal on the scvs if the map favours such harassment.
Oh and I realize you were joking, but make sure you spread creep 
I know this is all kinda vague, I'd add a lot more but I'd rather do so after you provide a couple of replays.
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I always get 3 fast queens and connect my bases fast. This makes hellions and banshee pretty much a no-problem. If he goes double starport, more queens are obviously necessary. Now there's only the marine/maruder push we've got to worry about. If he doesn't expand and doesn't have a factory, put down the bane-nest before lair and start producing ling/bling.
Midgame, infestor, ling and bling is epic. Mass-upgrades and get ultras right before 3/3 is finished. Still haven't faced a T who's hold my push after that. I'm playing at your level, so should work decently.
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On February 21 2011 10:22 Zelniq wrote:
edit: re-opened this thread, but please follow the strategy forum guidelines next time
Hey thanks for re-opening the thread...
now that my rage has subsided quite a bit I've pretty much realized that it's my macro that's killing me.
I still get supply blocked a lot, and my drone count is WAAAY too low. I just went over a bunch of the replays with a friend and he pointed out a shitload of things wrong with my play. So I'll try to work on these first and then if I still have problems I'll come pester you guys some more 
Thanks for all the helpful pointers tho!
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On February 21 2011 11:52 Zedders wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2011 10:22 Zelniq wrote:
edit: re-opened this thread, but please follow the strategy forum guidelines next time Hey thanks for re-opening the thread... now that my rage has subsided quite a bit I've pretty much realized that it's my macro that's killing me. I still get supply blocked a lot, and my drone count is WAAAY too low. I just went over a bunch of the replays with a friend and he pointed out a shitload of things wrong with my play. So I'll try to work on these first and then if I still have problems I'll come pester you guys some more Thanks for all the helpful pointers tho!
Won't bother uploading da replays since it's painfully obvious now in a lot of my games.
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I'm in the same boat. I generally win my zvp and zvz matchups. In fact I think my MMR has gone down significantly because of the quality of players that I lose to that play terran. I went from masters league to high/mid level diamond. And I feel like I'm outclassing my opponents in other matchups, but I just can't beat terran. I win about 75% of my zvz matchups, about 80% of my zvp matchups and about 10% of my zvt matchups. I'm usually stomping p and z players into the ground, yet for some reason anybody who's somewhat competent at playing this game has a very large chance that they'll beat me if they're terran.
Depending on the map, I'm either losing to all in marine/svc rushes, getting crippled by hellions, crippled by banshees, bunker rushes, thor rushes, mid game tank pushes, mmm armies, thor/hellions, viking/marines, reapers, etc etc
I'm a pretty decent player, so I scout and see these things coming but under most ideal circumstances, i'm sitting there at the 10 minute mark with 30-40 drones, 2 bases, a spire and a handful of lings/blings while my opponent has usually FEd behind his aggression and has a comparable/better economy. Now what, I can make a few mutas to fly around his base and get pinged by turrets to realize that I am going to die as soon as he decides to push out unless I pull off some miraculous micro with my banelings. Then I can decide whether I want to invest in one of many options that will not hold off his army. I can go heavier on mutas - which 90% of the time will not pay off in time because they are pretty much useless in fights and you need like 20 of them to do any significant damage once they get turrets up. Or I can roach , which will result in an embarrassing level of defeat unless I am 2 bases up on him to compensate for their complete lack of efficiency against mech play. I can throw in some infestors too, just so it looks like I tried a bit harder when he inevitable runs me over.
From a terran player's perspective, they think "ok if I make a thor and a few turrets - mutas - problem solved. banelings? I'll just make a few marauders - problem solved." There is no problem solved scenarios for zerg. Right now the meta game completely favors terran. All terran players know how to beat zerg - and there's not much zerg can do about it. I wish there was an answer because I am pretty close to giving up on zerg. Most terran players don't even know how to answer me when I ask them what I could have done to win, because they rarely lose this matchup.
I'd like to see some stats on win/loss %s of zvt in the high diamond/low master level because I would bet money on it being completely ridiculous.
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On February 21 2011 16:00 BattRoll wrote:
I'm in the same boat. I generally win my zvp and zvz matchups. In fact I think my MMR has gone down significantly because of the quality of players that I lose to that play terran. I went from masters league to high/mid level diamond. And I feel like I'm outclassing my opponents in other matchups, but I just can't beat terran. I win about 75% of my zvz matchups, about 80% of my zvp matchups and about 10% of my zvt matchups. I'm usually stomping p and z players into the ground, yet for some reason anybody who's somewhat competent at playing this game has a very large chance that they'll beat me if they're terran.
Depending on the map, I'm either losing to all in marine/svc rushes, getting crippled by hellions, crippled by banshees, bunker rushes, thor rushes, mid game tank pushes, mmm armies, thor/hellions, viking/marines, reapers, etc etc
I'm a pretty decent player, so I scout and see these things coming but under most ideal circumstances, i'm sitting there at the 10 minute mark with 30-40 drones, 2 bases, a spire and a handful of lings/blings while my opponent has usually FEd behind his aggression and has a comparable/better economy. Now what, I can make a few mutas to fly around his base and get pinged by turrets to realize that I am going to die as soon as he decides to push out unless I pull off some miraculous micro with my banelings. Then I can decide whether I want to invest in one of many options that will not hold off his army. I can go heavier on mutas - which 90% of the time will not pay off in time because they are pretty much useless in fights and you need like 20 of them to do any significant damage once they get turrets up. Or I can roach , which will result in an embarrassing level of defeat unless I am 2 bases up on him to compensate for their complete lack of efficiency against mech play. I can throw in some infestors too, just so it looks like I tried a bit harder when he inevitable runs me over.
From a terran player's perspective, they think "ok if I make a thor and a few turrets - mutas - problem solved. banelings? I'll just make a few marauders - problem solved." There is no problem solved scenarios for zerg. Right now the meta game completely favors terran. All terran players know how to beat zerg - and there's not much zerg can do about it. I wish there was an answer because I am pretty close to giving up on zerg. Most terran players don't even know how to answer me when I ask them what I could have done to win, because they rarely lose this matchup.
I'd like to see some stats on win/loss %s of zvt in the high diamond/low master level because I would bet money on it being completely ridiculous.
Yeah our situation is not uncommon.
I've heard it time and time again that zerg is 'more difficult' to learn and I think that few people will argue against it.
I also ask terran players what I could have done to win the game and they usually say things like. You could have attacked me at X time and I would have lost.
Thats all very nice and well but it's very hard to see this sorta thing in game.
At the moment the way Terran is played is just much more intuitive to the average player. For instance the seperation of Units and Workers. There is no extra resource, larvae, which has to be divided into making supply/workers/units but rather each building has its own purpose. Just as Terran in Broodwar was once considered the 'weak' race. Boxer/Nada showed everyone their genius and it was in no way considered weak at all.
IN ANY CASE....I actually really like seeing many Zerg struggle with ZvT because eventually from everyone putting so much effort in figuring out the matchup, Zerg will spawn a ton of more cool meta game ideas, which will not only apply to the ZvT matchup, but the others as well.
That Robert Frost poem...the road not taken etc...seems pretty applicable to this situation, or maybe im just an optimist, but I can't wait until something in my play just clicks, and then I'll have the other terran players on the run :D
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On February 21 2011 10:13 Arisen wrote:
Early game you should have a spine at your natural any time you think you're getting 2 raxed and just have good scouting. The 2 rax push isn't all that intimidating unless he brings a lot of scv's, and then you can just pull drones to deal. Don't forget to start ling speed when you're getting bunker rushed, as the only way you can shut it down for good is with speed (vs a good opp)
A spine? lolol, spines take 10 mnutes to build, 2 rax arrives miles before that even finishes. Not to mention that the scv's tank the spine and marines focus it down.
T is infinitely better to play then Z, Z has zero ability to harass a terren at basically any point in the game, sure you can do funny things like burrow infestors, but it rarely works, muta harass rarely works either.
Hellions are just so absurdly strong, don't say roachs because hellions can just run by them. Lings don't work, hellions kite and roast them.
And then we get into things like banshees, terren building CC in his own base, siege tanks, and endless stim marine pushes.
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EPT
