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Hi all,
High masters / on my way to GM this season on SEA as Zerg. I'm looking for a discussion on the optimal response to scouting barracks / single gas which is typically characterized by a reasonably fast hellion follow up. Where I'm starting to have issues with is with the range of options T can follow up with, and how I can respond with difficultly scouting. These include:
1) 'Standard' two hellions poking in
2) More common four hellions
3) Mass hellions (6+)
4) BFH around 4-6 into mech play
5) BFH into bio follow up
Optimally the plan is to stick with speedlings and banelings dealing with bio into the mid game. If you know what they are doing, speedlings and a spine / queens can typically handle 1) and 2). If I don't get roaches however I can suddenly be faced with 3, 4 or 5 which you really (in my opinion) need roaches to deal with, and get caught out facing mass damage to the drone line.
My build order feels so awkward trying to get roaches out early to deal with hellions and typically cuts a few drones which I want to avoid. I admit it gives you a nice timing attack option in response, but I still feel its awkward.
So I suppose my question is at what point do you typically get roaches out against T and what happens when you're surprised by seeing the blue flame? What's the optimal way to deal with the harass? Holding it off isn't a problem, I'm just trying to find the 'best' way for it.
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I have some of the same problems. Obviously a well placed evo w/ 1 or 2 spines, as well as your queen and lings can hold off 1) and 2).
But at that point, you lose map control and it can be difficult to scout for 3, 4 or 5... I try to send my first OL to scout the main around the 5 - 6 minute mark but if they have one or two well-placed marines, they can completely shut down that form of scouting.
Maybe it'd be good to keep 1 or 2 lings hidden outside of your base so that even if his hellions take map control in front of your natural, you can still poke them in to look for multiple factories / tech labs or any other indication of where they are headed tech-wise. I don't do this much, but I should probably work on it.
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I would really like an answer to this. The 2 hellion poke is OK for me, but any heavy hellion commitment pretty much destroys me. 50% of the time I die to the 4 hellions because even though I know the exact time they hit (around 5:30), always have my sim-city done (2 spines, evo or roach warren to block certain paths, 2 queens), the terran always manages to micro them into a position where they autokill so many drones... all the queen micro leads to missed injects, and if they get up the ramp into my main its basically gg (which is their immediate goal when they see me turtled up with a 'stephano wall')
I personally think roaches aren't a good answer... although you can stop the initial hellions, it very often leads into an immediate banshee switch because the rest of your tech is delayed, and the game generally gets silly from there.
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In my experience a good simcity of 2 spines, 1 evo 2 queens or 2 evos and 1 queen can hold all of the variations you stated except #3. I think if double reactor hellion becomes more popular people will have to start getting extra roaches or spines blindly.
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Using a sim city, and even just a few lings, you should be able to defend this. I dont notice many terran committing with the two or four hellion run byes. if you block them as they run in it is a massive bonus for you.
The 6+ and blueflame hellion play usually will require a roach warren if you want to be able to push out and get your third and you have to be on the ball with your sim city to not lose drones. here one misclick can lose the fight
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Like you, I hate to go roaches. On open natural maps like metal or xel'naga, I feel that roaches are almost mandatory. 2 spines barely covers your base and you can't really sim city either. When I'm forced to go roaches, I usually go for a 7 roach+speedling semi all-in.
On other maps with easier to defend natural, I usually build 1 spine and 4 queens to be able to catch up in creep spread and defend against BFHs. If I see an uneven number of hellions, like 3,5,7. I always assume 2 fac BFH and go roach.
There is no way to be safe against any terran follow up to 4 hellions. You have roll the dice and hope your build counters his.
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1) 'Standard' two hellions poking in
2) More common four hellions
3) Mass hellions (6+)
4) BFH around 4-6 into mech play
5) BFH into bio follow up
1. Queens and one spine is fine.
2. two queens and speedlings
3. Banelings. Banelings is the best response if they are not trying to contain you, but trying to kill drones. 5 lings at your ramp and 3~6 banes can kill all his hellions if he tries to go up the ramp.
4. Best response here is roach. Take back the mapcontrol and expand. Two things that are good versus mech.
5. Banes. Same as 3rd option. BFH into bio is usually made of a marine hellion drop, and a possible early push 7~11 instead of 9~13 when going tank-bio. Banes are good vs both hellions and marines for defense.
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I play terran and I use hellion openers almost exclusively. What I fear most from a zerg is really fast upgrades. Hellion openers delay your upgrades a bit because you need to add on production before engineering bays. I would highly recommend going for a quick +1 attack and armor to defend the probable marine tank push. If they do a mech transition I wouldn't recommend this because BF hellions own lings no matter the upgrades. You definitely have to scout the terrans transition to be safe to everything.
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I typically open 15h into speedling, and usually have 2 queens + 1 spine at my expo by the time the first two hellions arrive. Naturally, the spine crawler doesn't go down if I don't scout gas first, or if my first zergling doesn't see a reactor fac.
If they're making a lot of hellions (not just a few to poke), I get a second spine crawler and simcity it up. If it's a LOT of bf hellions, yes, make a roach warren -- but good ling positioning, queens, and a few spines can hold most standard hellion openings I've encountered. With the evo I usually get +1 melee (though I've been leaning towards +1 armor because tanks can't 1 shot +1 armor lings), get three more gasses, and go lair.
At about this point (~9m) I like to sac an overlord, maybe two (depending on the map and the ease of getting ovies into position).
If I see tank/marine + expo, I get a baneling nest.
If I see factories + expo, I get a spire. There's a nice little window of opportunity where terran won't have thors and a few mutas can do well. If you want to handle this with roaches, this is where I'd throw the warren down.
If I don't see an expo I make a baneling nest and a ton of units.
If I cant scout because marines kill my overlord, I do a headcount of marines. Usually if there are enough marines to kill a lord (or two) before they can scout, baneling nest goes down and I prepare for tank-marine style. A mech player doesn't (in my experience) have enough marines to deny the scout.
It's also worth noting that on some maps, like Xel Naga Caverns and Metalopolis, a few zerglings can slip out of the numerous entrances/exits to the natural, and you can scout a little bit that way as well.
Hope that helps!
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Keep lings hidden around the map (like toss with their probes) and periodically try to run one up his ramp to see when he swaps the reactor back to a barracks.
It's not guaranteed to get you information, but it's always worth trying.
The worst moment is always when there are 4 hellions on the edge of your creep.
When you need to get lings out of your natural, bring two queens to the edge of the creep to push the hellions back a few steps, and sneak lings out. You can use them to get another scout of his natural (looking for a siege tank or more hellions basically), or use them as a flanking group to trap and kill the hellions.
At this point, if there's any indication he is going mass hellion, I will throw down the roach warren.
I stop elevator play by spreading creep in my main and shooting the medivac down with 3 queens.
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facing (3) on the ladder more and more. mass hellions even own roaches because of their splash damage. I am somewhat clueless on how to counter this style, i can't scout, can't take my 3rd and the roaches (need 8+ in order to defend mass hellions) delay my mutas. The Terran expands behind that and prepares a tank marine push. Before pushing he suicides his hellion flock and always does massive drone damage (even if I defend with +8 roaches, not enough DPS). SInce i need to instantly replace my drone losses, i lose badly to the following tank marine push.
Anybody was successful with a baneling/ling counter ?
To me it seems like banelings are the only unit to kill the suicide mass hellion raid fast enough. Again this delays your 3rd + mutas severely
(see Happy vs DRG on GSL recently)
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It'd be really helpful if you supplied replays.
Against reactor hellion, you should always sac an overlord. While 90% of the time it's just standard macro follow-up into rine/tank jazz, if they throw an extra factory down, you need to know and an overlord will see it, as if they commit to hellions, they won't have more than 2 marines and you should get a clue (double gas, tech lab fact, no marines, no tech lab on rax, etc).
Against reactor hellion my response is 2-3 spines. You can come really far ahead in economy against reactor hellion if they do zero damage and make more than 2 hellions.
DRG also has a cute build where at 28 supply, you throw a roach warren down. This relies on you making gas at least at 20 (or continue mining it after speedling opening), and you don't make any more drones (or a few, depending how aggressive you want to be) and push with ~10 roaches popping all at once. Generally you throw down that 28 warren, make 3 overlords, make like 10 roaches with 750/250 banked up and the supply clear at 28/44. If the terran made more than 4 hellions, he WILL take damage, and if he makes too many hellions or no bunkers with marauders quickly pumped out, he will straight up die.
Now I think it's an unreliable, coinflip build. For a short while I always did it against rax/gas, but if Terran only makes 2 hellions, you will get fucking crushed and be soooo far behind since you only have around 23 drones in all of this. You can also end up behind even if he makes lots of hellions, and when you push out he simply swaps and makes a tank and marauder and bunker in time when you arrive, particularly on larger maps. It's a good coinflip though, you'll almost always at least break even, if not come out ahead. Another problem is that your first roaches won't come out in time to meet the first 2-4 hellions, so you will loser drones if you don't make 2-3 spines the same time you make a warren, which further hurts your econ (you could transfer all of them right when warren pops, and then retransfer back to natural when roaches pop to make sure no hellion damage, the timing is very tight).
Anyways, I stopped doing it because I realized "holy shit if I just make 1 spine and add 2 more incrementally and purely drone up, I will be way ahead of a hellion expand". So whatever.
You absolutely need roaches if he has double factory or blue flame. You can confirm this just with an overlord sac, which you MUST do. Always confirm what's going on behind a hellion expand! (Or reaper expand too, he could just not be expanding and going 5 rax reaper, that will kill you if you dont have 5+ roaches out, spines and ling/bane dont hold it even, even after the nerfs).
Also, if he has 'too many hellions' than you are used to seeing (your masters, you should have that sense by now) then get a roach warren and a few spines. You should be able to intuitively tell that "whoa thats more hellions than from a hellion expand, something isn't right here".
3 spines holds off any hellion opening long enough for you to identify 'hey thats' 20 fucking hellions in front of my base' to which you make 2 more, and 5 is enough to really hold anything. There's a game with idra vs.... someone, I think at mlg, where they go triple reactor hellion (i think mkp? i dont recall) and he actually waited for mutas (yea that long) and relied on something like 5-6 spines. Spines do really well against hellions.
I recommend you make a 3nd queen at least before 30 supply, and have her sit on the ramp against hellion play, so if he tries to run up the ramp, you can call your other 2 queens over to block it. Hellion play is largely about getting up the ramp, with 3 queens you should never have hellions run up unless you aren't paying attention, to which it's your own fault.
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On October 30 2011 09:16 DW-Unrec wrote:
1) 'Standard' two hellions poking in
2) More common four hellions
3) Mass hellions (6+)
4) BFH around 4-6 into mech play
5) BFH into bio follow up
1. Queens and one spine is fine.
2. two queens and speedlings
3. Banelings. Banelings is the best response if they are not trying to contain you, but trying to kill drones. 5 lings at your ramp and 3~6 banes can kill all his hellions if he tries to go up the ramp.
4. Best response here is roach. Take back the mapcontrol and expand. Two things that are good versus mech.
5. Banes. Same as 3rd option. BFH into bio is usually made of a marine hellion drop, and a possible early push 7~11 instead of 9~13 when going tank-bio. Banes are good vs both hellions and marines for defense.
That's a good advice.
The problem i had with hellion is that when there are 4 or more hellions on the map i am completelly blind, and i have no idea what's comming. I just defend hellions and build drones but if it's allin comming or something like 2 port banshee i would just die. I don't even know if he took his expansion, cause i can't scout..
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^ It sounds like you have a problem sending your first 2 overlords to useful spots. Work on that, really really work on that. I also take on of the 2 lings I made when pool pops and hide it behind the mineral line so I can spot if he takes his expo. I know terran can float buildings, but if he hasn't landed it by around 7:00, or around when lair is halfway done, something funny is going on and you need to start saccing overlords and making units.
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DW has the right idea in most of those, the only problems I have with hellions in mid-high masters is with the double reactor factor version, that is almost impossible to see coming, they sit outside your base patiently with 6-8 hellions and pump 6-8 more, then push you with 14 or so while throwing up a ton of rax and engi bay, even if your muta timing is good that many hellions can just kill all 3 of your queens and lings and most of your drones if you don't have a lot of roaches. I don't really know what to do vs it at all.
I guess I'll experiment with some banelings and see, my sim city is good and my queen micro is good but that many hellions when you have like 10-20 lings and 3 queens with a spine or 2 is just really hard.
I really hope they add a gas cost to hellions as this becomes more popular, or take away a little hellion health, or maybe give queens a bonus vs light or something, I dunno.
Or maybe I'll find a good solution for it soon, possibly just a faster lair.
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Hey, i think that two spines hold off any type of hellion aggression fine, you just need to put lings around the map b4 he gets the hellions out even if your going hatch first, send your first 4 and split them into places where he wont find it and use 1 for scouting. as long as you don't let them get into your main for this, you should always have a 3rd queen which is spreading creep and when the 3rd queen used its energy just return it to the ramp. Hellions are also terrible on creep vs zergling unless their funneled or BFH so you should be able to clean up 1) 2) 3), with lings from different angles as long as long as you don't send them all in, in a line. 4) and 5), you just need to stall until mutas, if he goes 5) and does not do damage but loses his hellions which most terran players do, when they try to run in to do damage. In this case your pretty ahead in terms of units lost. if he goes 4) and doesn't do damage you can just take bases as mech is immobile and he wont be pushing with a low supply unless he did significant damage. Correct me if im wrong and sorry for bad grammar xD.
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Low Masters NA zerg here so not the best opinion I guess.
But I almost exclusively go 14 gas/14pool extremely ling heavy opening (usually stop droning at 15 for speed, queen 6 lings at same time) then 21 hatch into relatively fast macro hatch to partially wall ramp going for fast +1 melee.
With the initial 6-8 lings, u completely stifle any marine aggression builds but I personally hate going roaches when i see hellions. I usually just throw lings at hellions when they are in low numbers (usually just a 1 a then return to macro) and all that matters is keeping the hellion count low and so i can maintain map control and actually creep spread.
Doubt this is an efficient way of playing but it has made zvt my best match up at a low masters level (usually mid masters terrans)
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1) 'Standard' two hellions poking in
always reactor on the barrack when factory is building
one gas at 13
easily defended with queens
2) More common four hellions
same than 1) for the scouting
block your ramp with queens, spread creep between your bases for easiest queen defense
you can punish him with 7 roach push (hellions cant do shit he must bunker repare and gonna lose scvs)
3) Mass hellions (6+)
Roaches push or banelings (surround the hellions with speedlings and BOOM (on creep))
look for an expand at his natural, if no expand its weird because usualy its hellion fe, put down more defenses!
4) BFH around 4-6 into mech play
usualy terran dont reactor hellion, he pumps hellions on 2 facts, waiting for BF to finish; early double gas.
get roaches against hellions and expand, he cant push that earlier as mech
mech is more gas hungry, so scout for b2 gas i think
5) BFH into bio follow up
scout front and evaluate the amount of bio, no other clues for me if you cant see the middle of his main base...
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Im going to start experimenting with scouting the reactor on the rax and going for roaches right away to do a push, I think if well executed that kind of style might put an end to reactor factory openings.
I will try to work something out and will post again when I manage to get some games in.
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On November 15 2011 19:55 Ksyper wrote:
Im going to start experimenting with scouting the reactor on the rax and going for roaches right away to do a push, I think if well executed that kind of style might put an end to reactor factory openings.
I will try to work something out and will post again when I manage to get some games in.
Doesn't sound like it will be very effective on larger maps though, what's your opinion/experience on that?
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EPT
