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A look at Losira's Roach/Ling/Bling style in ZvT
The humble roach
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/6/62/Roach.png)
Roaches, although generally viewed as a highly useful unit in ZvP and the backbone ZvZ revolves around, have been maligned in ZvT. The general zerg consensus would seem to be that roaches give up map control and are not worth the gas since they die horribly to both bio and tanks when massed.
How roaches came to be reviled in ZvT
Roaches in ZvT are viewed as either a cheesy rush/all-in option, a necessary evil to ward off mass hellions or reapers, or a necessary evil when fighting thor-heavy meching terrans. In fact, builds like 5rax reaper pretty much revolved around baiting the zerg into making a lot of roaches, and then suddenly transitioning into mass marauders for an easy win against a zerg who committed too heavily to roaches.
Since this, a lot of things have happened, and it seems like we need to take a fresh look at roaches.
The development of the matchup and how muta/ling/bling became the standard
Why should we take a new look at roaches? Well, a number of changes have happened both in the game in the form of patches and in the meta-game with new strategies popping up.
First of all, reapers were nerfed first by increasing their build time and finally by making reaper speed require factory. Since massing a ton of reapers early game was no longer seen as a viable option, the 5 rax reaper into 5 rax marauder style all but disappeared.
Secondly, barracks were modified to require a supply depot, which meant zergs started going hatch first with inpunity. Eventually, terrans found out that a 2rax rush is highly effective against this, and a style of 2rax into mass bio or later 2rax into marine/tank developed as the standard terran strategy in ZvT.
Zergs seemed somewhat defenseless against this style at first. The only cost-effective response to marines seemed ling/bling, which forced the terrans to add in tanks. Since tanks were able to completely decimate ling/bling -numbers, mutas were used to snipe the tanks. This became a more or less even game, until the 2rax 2-base tank-marine stim/siege push was refined to the point where the siege push was at the zerg doorstep before the necessary numbers of mutas were out on the field.
The problem with muta/ling/bling
The highly refined tank/marine timing push led to a look of ZvT where the Zergs were desperately flailing about trying to use their tiny muta count to cut off reinforcements, harass SCVs and try to force the marines to stim, while simultaneously massing a huge swarm of lings and blings. The survival of the zerg often came down to single engagement - if all the marines died to the banelings and lings, the surviving tanks could me mopped out. If all or most the tanks died, but a handful of marines were left over, the remaining mutas had to fall back, and the zerg player was left praying, hoping for his next batch of banelings to morph in time before he lost his hatch.
Since getting a critical number of mutas out before the tank/marine push seemed hard if not impossible, some players started going pure mass ling/bling to hold it. This of course prompted a response where hellion openers started being more popular. Since roaches were still seen as something to be avoided, zergs seemed to prefer reacting to hellion openers with pure lings and spines while getting quicker mutas, with roaches seen as a last resort.
The drawbacks of ling/bling/muta, although still a potent and viable build, are obvious, which has prompted zergs to look elsewhere.
Alternatives to muta/ling/bling
Infestor/ling with quick upgrades is one promising development solving some of the drawbacks of ling/bling/muta. Infestors buy time and more or less shut down mass marine play, while upgraded lings can deal the damage. Since every last bit of gas is not going to mutalisks, the zerg can teach quicker.
Another style is using ling/bling with quick upgrades to fast-track to ultralisks + banelings. Ultralisk/baneling is a very potent combo because both ultralisks and banelings move at the same speed. Instead of ultra/ling, where the lings run ahead of the ultralisks and block everything, in ultra/bane, ultralisks provide excellent tanking for banelings, enabling the banelings to follow the ultralisks to deal their damage. However, actually getting to ultralisks is quite challenging.
Dimaga for a long time used roaches, lings and blings with added infestors later to augment his army, which seemed quite successful. Recent games in the GSL have taken this idea and developed it further, which has left me very excited.
The proud new roach and how roaches can help out
In patch 1.1.2 Roaches got a +1 range buff, which changed how ZvP and ZvZ was played almost overnight. However, the new roaches were not seen as much in ZvT. The reasoning seemed correct and obvious - in high numbers, marines are very cost-effective against roaches, with added siege tank support only making things worse.
This still holds true - roaches still trade with marines evenly at about 2 marines per roach, the trade being worse the higher the number of marines. Hardly cost-effective for the zerg-player. However, the true value of roaches is their synergy with zerglings and banelings - like ultralisks, roaches move at roughly the same speed as banelings provided both have the same speed upgrades, letting them tank shots and allow the banelings to connect and deal their damage.
In addition to this, roaches are very larva-efficient: 5 roaches are much better at holding off 10 supply worth of terran aggression/harass than 10 zerglings would be, even though they both use up exactly 5 larva. Getting some early roaches to stay safe therefore allows us to drone harder and makes the hellion-openers that give those massing lings so much trouble an absolute non-issue.
Since upgraded lings have proven to be highly effective, we can see how roaches with upgraded lings and blings could indeed be a potent combination that avoids most of the pitfalls of ling/bling/muta. If after an engagement you are left with 5 mutas against 10 marines, you are forced to fall back and hope for the next batch of lings to arrive quickly. If on the other hand you are left with 5 roaches instead, you can clean the rest of the marines up - and since roaches are so much cheaper in gas, we can have more roaches, more upgrades and more banelings than we would if we were to fast-track for mutas.
Studying recent GSL games and stealing a build
How can these ideas be put into practice? Losira showed us how this can work in a high-level ZvT in the Code A finals. The style seems very solid against most forms of early pressure, and seems to rely on roaches and ling/bling with a quick +1 melee to ward off a two-base timing push. Since the two-base tank/marine timing push with stim and siege is so popular, it makes sense to present how the build seems to work in the face of that opening.
Based on the bo7 played in the finals, I tried to glean what his build was, and how it worked. Here's what I found:
The plan:
-Open hatch first or speedling expand depending on the map and spawn positions.
--Defend 2rax rushes with lings/drones and a single spine as one usually would.
-@100 gas get ling speed. Get queens for both bases.
There is a number of deviations here based on what the terran does.
+ Show Spoiler +-In response to scouting some form of early pressure (hellion/marine, blue-flame hellions, or even reapers), start your roach warren earlier. In these cases the roach warren seems to go down at 36 food.
-If you scout banshees, put down spores and make an extra round of queens. Get lair + spire ASAP.
-If the terran is keeping you in the dark about his tech, put down a roach warren, an evo chamber and a single spine just in case, but try to avoid actually making any roaches before you see what is coming out.
-If the terran is staying on one base, stop droning and start making units at the usual time, i.e. at about 24-30 drones depending on what you scout. Roaches and lings are preferred to lings and banelings - once you have a handful of lings though, you can add more banelings.
If none of the above deviations are triggered and everything points towards a tank/marine push, the build proceeds normally:
-50 food: Add a second gas and an evo chamber
-@evo chamber, get +1 melee
-60 food: Put down a roach warren and a baneling nest.
-70ish food: Add third gas, start lair.
-@lair: baneling speed, roach speed and +2 melee and +1 carapace.
Usually, the terran biomech siege/stim push would hit before your lair finishes.
-If terran does go for a two-base stim/tank push, defend it with roaches, lings and banelings. Preferrably, one should flank with the speedlings while the main punch consists of roach/bane, with roaches leading in to tank siege tank fire for the banelings.
-Once you survive the tank/marine push, get a third. If you have a lot of roaches left over, go for a counter-attack but do not throw away units needlessly. If you like to, spire is a tech option after repelling the terran push. Because you reset the marine-count, your mutalisks will fare much better.
-Add 4th, 5th and 6th gases when saturation allows it. Strive to stay at least a base up on the terran. Getting a 5th and a 6th gas allows you to tech to hive. Losira uses his hive to get +3 attack, +2 carapace, adrenal glands and finally +1 ranged attack. Greater spire also seems to be a valid option.
If the terran is expanding quickly, we respond by expanding ourselves. Ideally we would like to stay a base up as much as possible. Here's how Losira responded to terrans expanding sooner than normal:
+ Show Spoiler +-If the terran goes for a third instead of going for some sort or two-base timing push with tanks, take a third yourself, and drone more. The baneling nest can be delayed in this case with roaches taking care of any pre-stim hellion/marine pokes. You can take the gases much earlier if you are allowed to drone up in peace . Losira seemed to prefer spending this excess gas to get double evo chambers running and getting all the same upgrades and tech faster, instead of spending all the excess gas on mutalisks.
-If terran goes for a fast expand in the form of CC first, Losira went for a quick third helped by a gas steal before even starting his pool. Since the terran stayed on two bases, losira did not add a lot of gases, but stayed on hatch-tech on three bases and three gases instead and even got a 4th macro-hatch before starting lair.
Finally, the ordering for the upgrades always seems to be the same from game to game:
+ Show Spoiler +- Ling speed,
- +1 melee
- Lair
- baneling speed/roach speed (at the same time)
- +2 melee
- +1 carapace
- Infestation pit for hive
- (spire) (optional)
- Hive
- +3 melee
- +2 carapace
- cracklings
- (greater spire) (optional)
- +1 ranged attack
- (ultralisks) (optional)
Exactly when these upgrades are taken seems to vary from game to game based on how many units are made, but the ordering seems identical from game to game.
It's worth noting that Losira's plan seems to involve finally killing the terran with an absolutely ludicrous amount of banelings. The roaches are there to let him survive and to tank shots for the banelings, but it's the mass banelings that finally deal all the critical damage.
Replays
Obviously, it would be preferrable to watch Losira in action, so I shall link his games at first. The Code A finals between Losira and oGsSuprnova are an excellent source for study: http://www.gomtv.net/2011gslsponsors2/vod/62599
You do not have to be a pro to pull this off though.
Here's a Diamond-level replay: http://replayfu.com/r/LHcmSc
Pros of the build
- The zerg can take a third as fast or faster than when going for mutas.
- The zerg is far safer against early timing attacks.
- Getting the expansions up and defending a push opens up the door for a highly effective muta transition.
- Far more larva can be used for drones
Cons of the Build
- Drops are somewhat problematic to deal with before you get infestors or mutalisks out.
- Banshees are also somewhat of a problem if they do surprise you. The fact that you get an early evo chamber does help - but it would seem prudent to get an extra set of queens if one suspects banshee play.
- High siege tank counts are problematic. In his GSTL games, Losira does frequent pushes with roach/ling against a sieged up terran to keep the tank-count down.
Further developments
Sicne the build hit, infestors have been buffed. It might be worth looking at infestors as a viable next steb after getting three bases and a lair. However, the new infestors do not invalidate mass baneling play at all.
Closing thoughts
I am but a humble mid-diamond zerg, but I found it very refreshing to take a look at a new style of play and see how easily it can be adapted to my level. I would recommend anyone to take the time to just blindly copy what a pro is doing and trying it out if you like it. By doing so you will gain your own understanding of how the build works and/or doesn't work.
The thing that really mostly has broken me while trying this build out is heavy mech play. It would seem that it should be easy for me to adapt this build to cope with it by foregoing banelings and instead fast-tracking to hive, much like Losira did in his game on Terminus RE vs oGsSuprnova.
I'd like to invite everyone to try this style out and post your own experiences and/or thoughts below.
Finally, being somewhat unfamiliar with how to make forum posts make pretty, I'd be happy if someone could lend me a hand with formatting this post so that it can reach the high quality standards one would hope every post to reach here 
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just like to note that the build times of the baneling speed and roach speed are actually identical, so possibly (a very far-fetched idea) we could have timings based on both bane and roach speeds finishing (with/without +1 on attack/caraspace to start earlier?) at the same time. (though I'm just a silver/gold player so what do I know)
(I play a somewhat similar style at least when I was playing around against the very hard ai, when going hatch first, I was trying to do macro games, and I came up with that style to beat the ai's strange pushes, and then I see it later in progames so *shrug*) (of course my style is less refined and such but just a thought/whatever o.o)
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On April 08 2011 19:37 zhurai wrote:
just like to note that the build times of the baneling speed and roach speed are actually identical, so possibly (a very far-fetched idea) we could have timings based on both bane and roach speeds finishing (with/without +1 on attack/caraspace to start earlier?) at the same time. (though I'm just a silver/gold player so what do I know)
Yes, Losira does indeed start roach/bane speed at the exact same time. The +1 attack starts before lair, obviously. I've amended the post to make this more clear. Thanks
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Fantastic write up. Perhaps I will look into this style as an alternative to the usual muta or infestor play. I especially like the idea of a late 3 base muta switch after defending pushes. Cheers.
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Thanks for the details and replay links. I have been wanting to try out Losira style against terran, but I lack some sort of overall plan, of when it is best to build what, when to upgrade etc. Your writing provides this
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I have been playing with this for a while, although my reasoning is that roaches allow me to be safe while staying on 1 gas much longer than usual, so I take a much faster 3rd (typically as soon as I confirm that T is expanding). I'm not sure about getting the warren at 60 food, it seems way too late to me.
- what are we making up to 60? pure drones? :O
- 60 is too late for any type of hellion pressure, and if there is none / we plan to survive with ling/spines until the 2 base push, I think the warren is unnecessary. we could defend 2 base pushes by getting a faster lair and going pure ling/baneling with speed.
The way I do it (against rax-gas) is getting a warren after the first 2 queens (around 25 food), then make 3 blind roaches unless the rush distance is long enough. (obviously I don't make any spines). I think this is reasonable because, typically, roaches are much stronger than lings against terran's early pressure, and you usually are not able to scout hellions in time to reactively throw down the warren. It then transition nicely into a roach/ling/bling midgame.
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You might want to check the MLG Dallas replay pack for some relevant replays. I didnt watch all Zerg replays but I saw that Vibe, Sheth, Slush, etc, all go for Roaches in ZvT and eventually go for some big Roach/Bane push around 10-12 minutes.
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Interesting magha, I will try that! The only thing that seems to cripple me in this play-style is drops, since I don't have mutas to deal with them 
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On April 09 2011 22:26 Fishermang wrote:Interesting magha, I will try that! The only thing that seems to cripple me in this play-style is drops, since I don't have mutas to deal with them
I dont think this is much of an issue, by the time you have 3 or more bases and you need mutas to defend drops you'll have the mutas.
The roaches dont delay the mutas by that much, in fact, I usually feel safer to drone up and sometimes end up with more mutas earlier.
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The roaches don't delay the mutas if you cut banelings, however, the whole point of going roaches is having a muscular core unit army instead of a cutsie one. I usually get mutas after getting my 6th geyser.
I watched some of the MLG replays. Sheth plays it very similar to how I do it, with warren immediately after the 2nd queen and 5 or so roaches to put pressure. The problem I have with walking slow roaches across the map is that even if they opened e.g. reactor hellion, unless you overcommit they can usually hold no problem with a repaired wall and the hellions can counterattack and kill all your drones that's why I prefer to make less roaches if I can and use them only for defense until I have speed.
One thing he does that I'll steal is, I think he times an evo chamber for the possibility of banshees and gets +1 carapace, which to me makes much more sense than the +1 melee all the koreans are doing.
I think it's worth mentioning that a roach based army has good offensive potential and it's not just a way to not die to 2base timings. The biggest plus I've found with this style is that terran cannot expo with PF+a few turrets and be perfectly safe, you can engage planetaries pretty easily, and speed roaches are still more mobile than tanks so you can retreat and do multi-pronged attacks and so on.
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The +1 melee is there to give the lings and banelings extra oomph. The idea is that the roaches are tanking anyhow, so the carapace upgrade is not as critical anyway. +2 melee banelings in particular are nasty stuff.
The +1 carapace upgrade would make sense, sure. It lets the lings survive an extra tank shot until +1 mech attack, and it also makes the roaches that much beefier against marines. This would seem to make a lot of sense if you went heavier on the roaches.
Certainly worth testing.
On April 09 2011 20:26 dementrio wrote:
I have been playing with this for a while, although my reasoning is that roaches allow me to be safe while staying on 1 gas much longer than usual, so I take a much faster 3rd (typically as soon as I confirm that T is expanding). I'm not sure about getting the warren at 60 food, it seems way too late to me.
60 is too late for any type of hellion pressure, and if there is none / we plan to survive with ling/spines until the 2 base push, I think the warren is unnecessary. we could defend 2 base pushes by getting a faster lair and going pure ling/baneling with speed.
The implicit assumption for this branch of the build is that the terran player is going 2rax expand or rax/fact expand. If he does this, 60 food is indeed what losira does and it seems to hold nicely. As for what he makes up to that food count - he makes drones and lings depending on what he scouts much like any zerg would. I did not write up the amount of lings he made, because it varied too much from game to game. However, the roach warren timing seemed to be the same regardless of how many lings he was forced to make. Generally when the 9-10 minute siege/stim timing push hits, losira is sitting at about 44-48 drones on two bases.
If the terran stays on one base for longer, the roach warren gets moved up in the build order, as outlined in the post and just as you yourself have been doing. In my (albeit limited and certainly not high-level) experience you don't have to make roaches in advance blindly. Lings, queens and spines are enough to stall until you get roaches out to negate the hellion pressure. If the terran is onebasing here's what I do: I throw up a blind roach warren and evo if indeed I am completely in the dark. When my spotter ling sees his hellions moving out, that's when I start the roach production.
Having a single spine, queens and lings is enough to stall the hellions until your roaches pop. As for scouting the hellion - you should be aware hellions are a possibility as soon as you scout gas before rax with your drones scout.
On April 09 2011 23:30 dementrio wrote:
I watched some of the MLG replays. Sheth plays it very similar to how I do it, with warren immediately after the 2nd queen and 5 or so roaches to put pressure.
I think it's worth mentioning that a roach based army has good offensive potential and it's not just a way to not die to 2base timings. The biggest plus I've found with this style is that terran cannot expo with PF+a few turrets and be perfectly safe, you can engage planetaries pretty easily, and speed roaches are still more mobile than tanks so you can retreat and do multi-pronged attacks and so on.
I'd be very happy if you could link to those replays so that I can add it to the main post. It's indeed very different to play with a roach/ling/bane composition. While flanking is still critical, you can take all but the heaviest siege lines more or less head-on with the units you have. What I saw Losira do in GSTL was that he was unafraid to dart forward with roaches and lings to snipe marines + siege tanks to keep the siege tank count down, until he had enough to overrun everything.
It's also worth nothing that Losira is very active with speedlings to counter-attack and cut off reinforcements - another reason for getting the attack upgrades instead.
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i tried this strategy and the huge advantage is that loosing roaches is way better than loosing mutas because of the cost difference - less mutas also mean more gas for blings
with ling/bling/muta you have to chase and kill the marines until your mutas can be engaged; ling/bling/roach means killing the tanks first and then bring your blings - this way marine spreads are less critical and the chances to trade armies more effectively increases
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Very, very good writeup. One thing I've noticed, experimenting with this style, is that your muta tech switch (if you switch to mutas on 6 gas) can be surprising. Often terrans will overcommit to dropping, and then suddenly have map control removed when your mutas pop. This is compounded by number of initial mutas you can get out on 6 gas.
Though that's well and good, i think there's a period when your third is building where you want to be scouting to decide on your tech (muta, infestor, none).
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I've been using roaches in my ZvT ever since that patch came out (well there was a big 3 month gap where I didn't play).
I find the best thing about roaches is that they let you counterattack very strongly. Unlike lings/mutas, you can actually kill well fortified planetary fortresses, and they are less susceptible to sim cities. Roaches on the counterattack are incredibly powerful because though they are bad against lots of rines, lots of tanks, against small numbers they are super strong and its so easy to remax on them that after a big fight, you can just spam roaches and storm the terran. I usually always grab around 10 mutas right after the initial rine/tank push though, or if I they start trying to do drops.
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Good read even though I am not a zerg player. I do think that infester/roach/ling (no bling) is very effective and hard to deal with as Terran. the reason why this works instead of bling is because of the fact that you are PRAYING to hit something with your banelings (unless you have mass) while siege tanks and micro'd marines are moving about.
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I occasionally play with this style, but I find if you commit to this composition early-mid game they can really hurt you with banshee and drop harass since you have no mutas out to chase them away.
Roach/ling/bling can actually take on maxed Terran armies and win (Unless it is like a pure tank/marauder composition), but you sacrifice the mobility and map control of mutalisks for it.
If you can do it as well as Losira does I guess go ahead, I just don't like being so open to drops.
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One of my prac partners has found a deadly mid-game combo that is crushing my usual rine/tank push. He does Roach+quick OL bane bombs which completely wrecks rine tank as the BL bombs force the rines to back off letting the roaches get tons of free hits on the tanks. This could have some decent synergy with this build.
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+ Show Spoiler +On April 10 2011 04:58 kmh wrote:The +1 melee is there to give the lings and banelings extra oomph. The idea is that the roaches are tanking anyhow, so the carapace upgrade is not as critical anyway. +2 melee banelings in particular are nasty stuff. The +1 carapace upgrade would make sense, sure. It lets the lings survive an extra tank shot until +1 mech attack, and it also makes the roaches that much beefier against marines. This would seem to make a lot of sense if you went heavier on the roaches. Certainly worth testing. Show nested quote +On April 09 2011 20:26 dementrio wrote:
I have been playing with this for a while, although my reasoning is that roaches allow me to be safe while staying on 1 gas much longer than usual, so I take a much faster 3rd (typically as soon as I confirm that T is expanding). I'm not sure about getting the warren at 60 food, it seems way too late to me.
60 is too late for any type of hellion pressure, and if there is none / we plan to survive with ling/spines until the 2 base push, I think the warren is unnecessary. we could defend 2 base pushes by getting a faster lair and going pure ling/baneling with speed.
The implicit assumption for this branch of the build is that the terran player is going 2rax expand or rax/fact expand. If he does this, 60 food is indeed what losira does and it seems to hold nicely. As for what he makes up to that food count - he makes drones and lings depending on what he scouts much like any zerg would. I did not write up the amount of lings he made, because it varied too much from game to game. However, the roach warren timing seemed to be the same regardless of how many lings he was forced to make. Generally when the 9-10 minute siege/stim timing push hits, losira is sitting at about 44-48 drones on two bases. If the terran stays on one base for longer, the roach warren gets moved up in the build order, as outlined in the post and just as you yourself have been doing. In my (albeit limited and certainly not high-level) experience you don't have to make roaches in advance blindly. Lings, queens and spines are enough to stall until you get roaches out to negate the hellion pressure. If the terran is onebasing here's what I do: I throw up a blind roach warren and evo if indeed I am completely in the dark. When my spotter ling sees his hellions moving out, that's when I start the roach production. Having a single spine, queens and lings is enough to stall the hellions until your roaches pop. As for scouting the hellion - you should be aware hellions are a possibility as soon as you scout gas before rax with your drones scout. Show nested quote +On April 09 2011 23:30 dementrio wrote:
I watched some of the MLG replays. Sheth plays it very similar to how I do it, with warren immediately after the 2nd queen and 5 or so roaches to put pressure.
I think it's worth mentioning that a roach based army has good offensive potential and it's not just a way to not die to 2base timings. The biggest plus I've found with this style is that terran cannot expo with PF+a few turrets and be perfectly safe, you can engage planetaries pretty easily, and speed roaches are still more mobile than tanks so you can retreat and do multi-pronged attacks and so on. I'd be very happy if you could link to those replays so that I can add it to the main post. It's indeed very different to play with a roach/ling/bane composition. While flanking is still critical, you can take all but the heaviest siege lines more or less head-on with the units you have. What I saw Losira do in GSTL was that he was unafraid to dart forward with roaches and lings to snipe marines + siege tanks to keep the siege tank count down, until he had enough to overrun everything. It's also worth nothing that Losira is very active with speedlings to counter-attack and cut off reinforcements - another reason for getting the attack upgrades instead.
I noticed in a recent tournament where Sheth was playing against pretty much ROOT players that Sheth opens with versus T with a pretty early 5 roach push. Most Terrans don't expect this at all and with just 5 roaches, Sheth is able to decimate the wall off and force pulling of SCVs, etc. He never made anymore than 5 and transitioned into pretty normal ling/bling play after that. In small numbers, roaches are so cost and larvae efficient. Only 150 min for the warren and 75 min 25 gas for each roach.
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I agree with most of the OP in that Roaches are really good and underused in ZvT, However, the fundamental problem that a lot of Zerg players have is going into ZvT with a fixed build in mind. I generally go into the match up with the notion of going Muta/Ling/Baneling. However, the timing of when I get everything changes once I scout the Terran build. If I see 1-2 Rax into Expo, that's no real reason to get Roach because I know that Terran aggression is not likely to come in the next two minutes. If I see 2 Fac Hellions, yes, I might get Roaches, but it's important not to over react.
Mutalisks are still, I believe, the best unit the Zerg can get in the mid-game. Roaches and Infestors supplement Mutas, not replace. This is because Mutalisks can continuously pressure the Terran while you can't really expect to attack into a Terran base with Roach/Ling/Baneling and come out with a cost-effective victory. I feel like you have to play for the late game just in case the Terran doesn't do a one base or two base timing attack with Tank Marine. Just expanding and getting Banelings while waiting for the Terran to eventually attack doesn't feel very aggressive to me, but that could just be a difference in style.
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Yeah, mutas are great to put pressure back on terrans, going for quick mutas (off two base pretty much right after lair) has been sort of...figured out by terrans. Marine/tank pushes are pretty much standard for tvz right now, and they do quite well against the muta/ling/baneling. On certain maps and certain spawn positions (close positions) going for mutas isn't really viable, and a roach style is a good alternative. Drop harass is really quite awful when you don't have anything that shoots up though.
Anyway, I just got off a hiatus from sc2 and ill be laddering, and probably using either this or an infestor build for my standard zvt. It'd be really nice to be able to do losiras style, infestor style and muta style all well, and know when to use each.
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EPT
