[D]ZvT Infestor vs Medivac: Optimizing Energy Use

>that feel when the terran leaves behind a gift for you *glop*

This method is going to be our benchmark. This is probably the least efficent method vs a single medivac - It requires at least 2 infestors, a lot of energy and requires your attention every 4 seconds for 16 seconds. It's fairly simple - It takes 4 fungal growth to kill a Medivac. You can even clip a little bit, since medivacs only have 150hp. However this method is also the safest - You could say 2 infestors is the "hard counter" to a medivac drop. And sometimes, all you've got is infestors and nothing else. If you can catch more than 1 medivac in the initial fungal though, this method is the best bar none. However, double or triple drops in a single spot aren't that common vs infestor play for this very reason. Our goal is to find more efficient methods than this for single or well-spread medivacs.

Summary: 4+ supply, 300 energy, 16 seconds of multitasking.
Pros: Potential to kill infinite number of medivacs if stacked. Virtually guaranteed kill after first fungal.
Cons: Highest cost, highest supply, highest tax on multitasking

>Queen's air attack is made out of shark teeth or something

Another pretty common method - slightly more risk for less energy cost. The risk here is that you might lose your queen, or you might delay/desynchronize your larva injects. The reward, however, is 7dps, or an additional 28 damage during each fungal growth cycle. This cuts the energy cost, and multitasking cost, to shut down the drop by a staggering 50%. Assuming the queen starts attacking when the first fungal hits, the medivac will have 14HP remaining when the second fungal ends - And you'd have to have terrible luck or positioning not to get the final shots off with the Queen's impressive 7 range. The supply cost is technically the same, however the queen would have been staying home anyways. Not every expansion will have a queen available, but for defending our core bases this method seems pretty good - we only need to leave 1 infestor behind provided it has enough energy to fungal growth twice. A good tactic is to leave the infestor burrowed, auto-following the queen, so if you are caught off guard the infestor stays hidden and safe.

Summary: 4(2) supply, 150 energy, ~8 seconds of multitasking.
Pros: Cost efficient, makes use of supply normally tied up at home anyway
Cons: Minor Macro disruptions, risk losing queen

>Okay, so I couldn't actually find a picture of 1 infestor+1corruptor vs 1 medivac. Close enough!

While methods 1 and 2 will keep us safe before our hive/spire timing, At some point we're gonna have corruptors. While corruptors are sort of bad at everything, they do at least fly faster than medivacs so even though they're not the greatest unit they do have some tactical value against drops. With corruption, their DPS is nearly the same as a Queen's, and corruption enhances the damage of Fungal Growth as well. If corruption is on cooldown though, its a little worse than the queen solution. Within 2 fungal growths a corruptor only adds about 54 damage, leaving the medivac with 16 HP (which still will die in 1 extra corruptor attack). However with corruption, the medivac will die before the 2nd fungal expires. This is more likely to be used in the midfield or at a frontier expansion than at home, as leaving a corruptor behind for defense doesn't seem too practical - except perhaps if you were going Ultralisks and not brood lords but still bought a couple corruptors for air control. Of course it's worth noting, chances are you will have more than a single corruptor - The stats listed below assume only 1, but if you have several corruptors (likely) then you can probably kill the medivac with only 1 fungal, or even 0.

Summary: 4 supply, 150 energy, ~8 seconds of multitasking.
Pros: Grants air vision, can chase into airspace, cost efficient
Cons: Corruptors doing anything but turning into broodlords immediately

>Wasted energy, Wasted potential

So, method #1 is primarily used if you only have infestors in position and nothing else. However, you can defend purely with infestors using less energy than the 4-chain fungals. By dropping infested terrans you can save some energy, but how many is the correct amount? Each infested terran adds the same amount of DPS that a queen would (Slightly more actually). They take 5 seconds to hatch though, so even if you cast them as your first fungal hits, they don't contribute until the medivac is mobile again. But they last 30 seconds, so its okay to pre-emptively launch one. Since we know a queen + 2 fungals will take out a medivac in time, 1 infested terran is enough assuming we hatch it ahead of time - This seems to be the best solution to kill a medivac with pure infestor. In fact, a single full energy infestor should be all we need assuming we micro perfectly, and the infested terran begins attacking when our first fungal growth lands. The drawback is that we need to place an infested terran egg 5-10 seconds before the drop is in range, so while its more energy efficient than method #1, it still taxes our multitasking about the same amount. Still a decent mid-field solution.

Summary: 2 supply, 175 energy, ~13seconds of multitasking.
Pros: Cost/Supply efficient, Makes you look gosu
Cons: Micro intensive, Only good against single medivac drops, Tactic is countered by killing/avoiding the IT

>Dropship Hero (noun): A player who queues up more drops than they can properly manage with their multitasking, hoping that you can't multitask either.

I was watching IdrA's stream the other day, and he's finally started to go infestors instead of Mutalisks. I watched intently, because I hoped perhaps he would have a fresh take on the strategy. I was not disappointed. Idra suggested something that should seem obvious - Spore crawlers are pretty good against drops! If we consult the stats, we find that spore crawlers actually deal an IMPRESSIVE 16.2 dps against medivacs, that's twice the dps of a queen for half the mineral cost and no supply. Assuming you can land a fungal growth the moment a medivac starts being hit by the spore, The medivac will have around 50hp when the first fungal growth expires - Another fungal will definitely finish it but its a bit overkill. The trick is, a lot of times the medivac will take a few spore hits before you cast your fungal. If you are very lucky, sometimes you'll kill it only using 75 energy.

Summary: 2 supply, 150 energy, 4 seconds of multitasking
Pros: Very low cost and multitasking requirement
Cons: Requires terran to blindly walk into static defense (you'd be surprised how often it will happen though)

Method #5b: Poorly positioned spore + fungal

Fun fact, did you know a spore crawler takes 6 seconds to root? This means that you can actually move a spore underneath a medivac while it is approaching or snared. While obviously not optimal, the fact that Zerg static defense isn't actually static should be used more often. It's hard to math out exactly how much damage will be dealt because it really depends on how prepared you are. Assuming you have 5 seconds ahead of time to react (which we assumed earlier with Method #4), you can still probably kill the medivac within 2 fungals.

Summary: basically just a worse version of 5a, but feels cool if you pull it off

>Sometimes referred to as the "Manner Neural". Built a CC, SCVS, barracks and ghosts that game, too. Manner Neural.

This only works on an empty Medivac, but it's also a guaranteed kill for 100 energy as long as you have pretty much anything nearby to attack air. One cool thing is that it lets you check for drop decoys - occasionally terrans will just send an empty medivac to try to make you waste energy. If you can neural, it's empty. That said, you can also just neural after the cargo is unloaded, use the medivac in combination with whatever else to kill the units it dropped while suiciding it into a nearby queen or spore crawler. Although neural parasite only has a range of 7 to cast, Once controlled a unit will not free itself unless it moves more than 12 range away from the infestor. This method is actually one of my favorites for midfield - It feels really good to heal brood lords with medivacs. Neural Parasite is highly underrated since the range nerf.

It's not quite as satisfying as the manner MULE, but it gets the point across.

Summary: 2 supply, 100 energy, Almost no multitasking with nearby anti-air
Pros: Single infestor, Extremely low energy cost, MAKES YOU LOOK FUCKING GOSU
Cons: Requires research, Requires additional anti-air to finish the job, Infestor has to take a risky position