I am looking for some inputs from higher level players regarding a strategy that I've developed for late game ZvP. This isn't a help thread, my ZvP winrate is quite high using this. This is a suggestion for late game ZvP and I am wondering if any pros can point of its weaknesses.
Intro
The strategy of mass spinecrawlers/infestors was popularized by Stephano early this year, in particular, his match against Grubby during Shoutcraft Invitational as seen here
Basically, you control the map with speedlings early game, while you spine up and tech to infestors. You usually will keep adding spines and infestors, add banelings to stop mass zealots as you tech to broodlords.
This strategy is potent because it prevents the protoss from attacking the much weaker zerg army as the zerg techs up. There is absolutely no cost effective way for Protoss to break a spine wall.
How the hell does protoss break this in the midgame?
Immortals and Archons can be neuraled behind the spinewall. Collosi is the only ground unit that outranges the spines, but they do pretty shit damage to 300HP spine crawlers, all while zergs can chain fungal stuff to death. Going mass void rays won't help because how strong fungals are against low HP air units. Going carriers is just suicide. Warp-prisms can work but it's a gamble, if the zerg spine/spores up their bases, the strategy is nullified.
This mass spine/infestor/bling/brood strategy effectively forces protoss to get a mothership and hope their archon toilet works. Toileting the zerg army can be effective as shown by SlayersBrown vs Losira in GSL November 2011.
Anti-Mothership
So how do Zergs get around ZvP late game without fear of losing to an archon toilet. Let's consider the following.
-If enough banelings are thrown into a vortex, it can destroy the ground protoss army inside as they pop out. That only leaves stalkers left. -If Zerg turtles the infestor/bling/brood behind a giant spine wall. It effectively limits how much damage the stalkers can do. Just keep your infestors behind the spinewall and you can fungal stalkers to death.
So basically I am advocating that Zerg should not "attack" the protoss head on in a 200/200 army...just because Zerg has way better position at their spines( which you can uproot and slow spinepush the protoss). Broodlord armies are so slow that it also becomes easy to be out maneuvered by your opponent and get into a dangerous base race scenario.
What Zerg can do instead, is harass with drops, particularly baneling drops.
Harassment
The strength of the protoss late game is how deathball-y it is, but as the game progresses, protoss gets more spread out, leading them to become more and more vulnerable to drops. Since the protoss ball cannot be everywhere at once, unless they make a crap ton of cannons (which are insanely expensive and will cut into their late game production line), they will not be able to deal with drops.
Right as you get hive, you would want to research drops/overlord speed as well. As you are building broodlords, the protoss should be on his third or forth base, exactly when drops become invaluable.
As with all drop tactics, you want to hit at least two places at once.
Summary: -Keep infestor/brood/banes behind a slowly creeping spinewall, do not attack directly until you have a definite advantage. -Harass with drops.
-Map Dependent: Does not work well on maps that are too open or expansions that are out of the way
Good Maps: Shakuras, Ohana, Entombed, Metalopolis, Antiga (4th base at the gold, control the center). Ok Maps: Cloud Kingdom, Metropolis Bad Maps: Taldarim, Korhal
Please critique constructively. Every comment is much appreciated.
I am a casual player on the North American ladder. My ranking wildly shifts between platinum and silver because I have recently started quitting all my zvzs lol + Show Spoiler +
....in favor of developing better ZvT and ZvP matchups
It's not bad, but there are 2 holes in your theory: 1. You say warp prism play can be negated by spine/spore. Similarly, baneling drop harass can be negated by mass cannon. 2. You discount carriers too soon. Carriers are the solution to this.
On April 28 2012 11:33 NrGmonk wrote: It's not bad, but there are 2 holes in your theory: 1. You say warp prism play can be negated by spine/spore. Similarly, baneling drop harass can be negated by mass cannon. 2. You discount carriers too soon. Carriers are the solution to this.
When do you think the protoss should transition to carriers? It obviously has to be after mothership, archons and collosus. But, after it just seems to take too long and if zerg comes with a giant BL ball and splits properly there doesn't seem to be anyway to actually kill it cost efficiently to do a transition fast enough.
On April 28 2012 11:33 NrGmonk wrote: It's not bad, but there are 2 holes in your theory: 1. You say warp prism play can be negated by spine/spore. Similarly, baneling drop harass can be negated by mass cannon. 2. You discount carriers too soon. Carriers are the solution to this.
Thank you for your respectable input.
I would like to reply to your points as follows:
1. Spines/spores can move, if a particular base is prone to being attacked, the zerg can reallocate a portion of their spinewall to that area.
2. I think you may be right. But carriers are difficult to pull off right now because nobody knows the correct timing to hit zergs with carriers yet.
Consider that early carriers requires you to have - a third base -active anti scouting
If zerg sees that early third, he can harass with infested terran/lings. Or just build an earlier spire out of suspicion.
If you go later carriers, zerg can just keep a bunch of corruptors instead of morphing them into broodlords.
I have beaten carrier builds before using this strategy, the transition into a ton of corruptors isn't difficult ...but neither myself or my opponents are any good. I guess what I am saying is...carrier builds' are a tough feat to pull off.
On April 28 2012 11:33 NrGmonk wrote: It's not bad, but there are 2 holes in your theory: 1. You say warp prism play can be negated by spine/spore. Similarly, baneling drop harass can be negated by mass cannon. 2. You discount carriers too soon. Carriers are the solution to this.
Thanks for your respectable input.
I would like to reply to your points as follows:
1. Spines/spores can move, if a particular base is prone to being attacked, the zerg can reallocate a portion of their spinewall to that area.
2. I think you may be right. But carriers are difficult to pull off right now because nobody knows the correct timing to hit zergs with carriers yet.
Consider that early carriers requires you to have - a third base -active anti scouting
If zerg sees that early third, he can harass with infested terran/lings. Or just build an earlier spire out of suspicion.
If you go later carriers, zerg can just keep a bunch of corruptors instead of morphing them into broodlords.
I have beaten carrier builds before...but neither myself or my opponents are any good. I guess what I am saying is...it's a difficult task to pull off.
1. I'm not sure you understand my point here. I'm saying that spines/spores can defend bases perfectly, but toss can use cannons to defend baneling drops as well. Both can be stopped by appropriate defenses. It seems from your post that the reason your baneling drops worked was that your opponents didn't have appropriate defenses. 2. I'm not talking about carrier builds at all. Actually, I'm talking about carriers off of 4+ base. It's a very late game transition that occurs only after you've hit max with colossi/archon/mothership and have at least 4 bases. So basically standard play into carriers on 4 base. I can link you to some games if you would like.
1. I'm not sure you understand my point here. I'm saying that spines/spores can defend bases perfectly, but toss can use cannons to defend baneling drops as well. Both can be stopped by appropriate defenses. It seems from your post that the reason your baneling drops worked was that your opponents didn't have appropriate defenses. 2. I'm not talking about carrier builds at all. Actually, I'm talking about carriers off of 4+ base. It's a very late game transition that occurs only after you've hit max with colossi/archon/mothership and have at least 4 bases. So basically standard play into carriers on 4 base. I can link you to some games if you would like.
Would you please? I am interested on how protoss beats this as well. Even a carrier transition seems complicated.
Things I want to know are:
How many stargates does a protoss build? considering how slow carriers are..I imagine you need at least 4-6.
Pure carriers is still trash, so what ratio between blink stalkers/carriers/archons would a protoss need?
1. I'm not sure you understand my point here. I'm saying that spines/spores can defend bases perfectly, but toss can use cannons to defend baneling drops as well. Both can be stopped by appropriate defenses. It seems from your post that the reason your baneling drops worked was that your opponents didn't have appropriate defenses. 2. I'm not talking about carrier builds at all. Actually, I'm talking about carriers off of 4+ base. It's a very late game transition that occurs only after you've hit max with colossi/archon/mothership and have at least 4 bases. So basically standard play into carriers on 4 base. I can link you to some games if you would like.
Would you please? I am interested on how protoss beats this as well. Even a carrier transition seems complicated.
Things I want to know are:
How many stargates does a protoss build? considering how slow carriers are..I imagine you need at least 4-6.
Pure carriers is still trash, so what ratio between blink stalkers/carriers/archons would a protoss need?
Off the top of my head, 2 games in which carriers really mattered were Ret vs Naniwa on daybreak from the redbull lan and Hero vs Dimaga on Shattered from IEM Kiev. You're gonna have to find the vods yourself, but if you use this, it shouldn't be hard. Hasuobs is known for incorporating carriers in all his late game PvZs and Hero is consistently up with that too. There are also tons of games where carriers were made but didn't end up mattering in the game, including that lucky vs brown game you reference.
Carriers are better than you give them credit for. Their biggest strengths is outranging broodlord/spine, so you force corruptors into archon/storm/stalker/vortex range. They're also quite good for fighting straight up with upgrades, being the highest dpsing unit in the game. Carrier/mothership/archon/templar is actually the strongest composition you can have in PvZ, but it's impossible to get basically. Somewhat realistically, you want as many carrier/archon/templar as possible and as few stalkers as possible.
The weakness of carriers is, of course, transitioning to them, which takes at least 4+ bases.
Nice guide. I wrote off banelings into a vortex as kind of useless, so ill try it out. It'd be nice to use banerain on probes again (I used to play banerain inzvp for over a year) and have a way to kill off lategame toss being able to constantly refill on archons and ht
so I ran some tests on how well banelings deal with archons.
A friend and I did this for an hour where where made archons/banelings and broods
These broods survive unscratched, need to get a better pic later
I. vortex II. throw units in the vortex. III. watch what happens.
here are some results, probably need someone else to confirm.
1. Banelings will always attack immediately after out of vortex. Archons may or may not have delays in their attacks, completely random.
2. You need about 20 banelings for every 5 archons to wipe them out instantaneously before broodlords get hit. About 40 banelings can destroy 10 or less archons immediately.
3. More than 10 archons will cause too much spread for 40 banes to kill, more banelings will help, but with diminishing returns.
4. If protoss throws in zealots along with their archons, everything gets vaporized much faster!!
5. If zerg throws in more units other than banelings/broods, banelings will not work as well against archon
I did alot of messing around with the archon toilet as a masters zerg player. You need to surround vortex with Infested terran to reduce archon spread and have your 25 bane lings or so inside the toilet. Having your broods hot keyed and spam moving them back away from your army helps them keep from taking half health splash. This method is hard to pull off but results in ALL of your broodlords surviving. The IT's keep the archons from spreading out enough to negate baneling splash. try it in any unit tester if you don't believe me. This is the key to escaping the diminishing returns you speak of. .
Wow, thanks a lot you two. Really cool testing. I always felt banelings maybe took up too much suply or infestors were better. I guess as long as you kill 4 archons, you can justify 40 banes.
Reddragon, I always ghought IT sppam was so even if they got toilet off, you made sure their army got vaporizdd in the process.
On April 28 2012 16:25 Belial88 wrote: Wow, thanks a lot you two. Really cool testing. I always felt banelings maybe took up too much suply or infestors were better. I guess as long as you kill 4 archons, you can justify 40 banes.
Reddragon, I always ghought IT sppam was so even if they got toilet off, you made sure their army got vaporizdd in the process.
I think in a real game people usually have 5-10 archons around if they're good. You can fungal the archons and throw banelings into the vortex. 40 banelings costs 20 supplies. it's worth it late game, since zerglings's useless in a big engagement like that.
By that point in the game I would have pure bl infestor. I always thought NP on its own was enough for mothership, but toss are starting to smarten up to it, and certain maps like shakuras don't allow you to sneak around an infestor behind his army. I've actually been having trouble with toilet recently.
On April 28 2012 16:25 Belial88 wrote: Wow, thanks a lot you two. Really cool testing. I always felt banelings maybe took up too much suply or infestors were better. I guess as long as you kill 4 archons, you can justify 40 banes.
Reddragon, I always ghought IT sppam was so even if they got toilet off, you made sure their army got vaporizdd in the process.
Banelings are the most supply efficient unit.... ever, except for maybe marines. Especially when you add overlords with speed/drop to the equasion, then there's a chance they become cost effective too.
I usually start producing a few carriers whenever i'm on 3 bases, even before mothership. To discount them as suicide is premature imo. Most of my PvZ end up going to a split-map scenario where its my mothership/4+ carriers/2-3 colo/6+ ht/archons/stalkers vs their infestor/corruptor/brood lord/spine wall. From here, it just comes down to micro and who's traded more cost effectively throughout the game.
As for banelings in ZvP, they are incredibly good when you drop them on a standard sentry/stalker/colo ball if the protoss is out on the map. If the protoss turtles, it's not as effective but buys you a ticket into the late game. Baneling drops on workers can be really good, but they can also be useless depending on how good your opponent is. They're obviously best if the protoss never sees them before the first drop on workers, but once you show banelings, a good player wont lose any workers because there will be one cannon in a mineral line, and they'll have the fear in their mind to be looking for the bling drops.
I like the style, and i think more zergs should play around with bane-rain. I also think that hitting a 12-13 minute timing with roaches, then tech switching into mutas does effectively the same thing. I'm not saying one style is better than another, but that yours might be a bit more difficult to use.
I can post some replays of my games with carriers if you'd like.
Edit: I'm masters protoss and zerg, but main as protoss for what it's worth
On April 28 2012 12:37 NrGmonk wrote: 1. I'm not sure you understand my point here. I'm saying that spines/spores can defend bases perfectly, but toss can use cannons to defend baneling drops as well. Both can be stopped by appropriate defenses. It seems from your post that the reason your baneling drops worked was that your opponents didn't have appropriate defenses.
I think it's also a mistake to equate baneling drops to any other drops in the game. No other unit in the game deals damage as quickly or deals the same level of damage when it dies... The reaction time it takes to recognize a baneling drop is happening is significantly smaller than those needed for any other drops. Constant map awareness using observer, preemptively leaving a few stalkers at each mineral line is probably the best way to stop these harassment. At which point the zerg can drop lings or roaches along with banes.
Do not forget that zerg drops are better than terran drops against protoss. Overlords cannot be fedback by templars. And late game zerg will have more overlords than they can count. A handful of overlord filled with banelings can destroy even mass cannons.
Maybe I need to try the fabled ultralisk drop harassment next XD
On April 28 2012 12:37 NrGmonk wrote: 1. I'm not sure you understand my point here. I'm saying that spines/spores can defend bases perfectly, but toss can use cannons to defend baneling drops as well. Both can be stopped by appropriate defenses. It seems from your post that the reason your baneling drops worked was that your opponents didn't have appropriate defenses.
I think it's also a mistake to equate baneling drops to any other drops in the game. No other unit in the game deals damage as quickly or deals the same level of damage when it dies... The reaction time it takes to recognize a baneling drop is happening is significantly smaller than those needed for any other drops. Constant map awareness using observer, preemptively leaving a few stalkers at each mineral line is probably the best way to stop these harassment. At which point the zerg can drop lings or roaches along with banes.
Do not forget that zerg drops are better than terran drops against protoss. Overlords cannot be fedback by templars. And late game zerg will have more overlords than they can count. A handful of overlord filled with banelings can destroy even mass cannons.
Maybe I need to try the fabled ultralisk drop harassment next XD
Well the difference is that the banelings need to get into the mineral line to do damage, so having like 6 cannons per mining base seems like it would essentially nullify and baneling drops, unless zerg is willing to send in like 6 overlords per drop to tank damage. With a terran drop, you can always re position your units away from the static d and find weak spots. I'm not discounting the effectiveness of baneling drops, but it's true that if lategame zerg spams 8 spines around a base, then so can toss.
On April 28 2012 12:37 NrGmonk wrote: 1. I'm not sure you understand my point here. I'm saying that spines/spores can defend bases perfectly, but toss can use cannons to defend baneling drops as well. Both can be stopped by appropriate defenses. It seems from your post that the reason your baneling drops worked was that your opponents didn't have appropriate defenses.
I think it's also a mistake to equate baneling drops to any other drops in the game. No other unit in the game deals damage as quickly or deals the same level of damage when it dies... The reaction time it takes to recognize a baneling drop is happening is significantly smaller than those needed for any other drops. Constant map awareness using observer, preemptively leaving a few stalkers at each mineral line is probably the best way to stop these harassment. At which point the zerg can drop lings or roaches along with banes.
Do not forget that zerg drops are better than terran drops against protoss. Overlords cannot be fedback by templars. And late game zerg will have more overlords than they can count. A handful of overlord filled with banelings can destroy even mass cannons.
Maybe I need to try the fabled ultralisk drop harassment next XD
Well the difference is that the banelings need to get into the mineral line to do damage, so having like 6 cannons per mining base seems like it would essentially nullify and baneling drops, unless zerg is willing to send in like 6 overlords per drop to tank damage. With a terran drop, you can always re position your units away from the static d and find weak spots. I'm not discounting the effectiveness of baneling drops, but it's true that if lategame zerg spams 8 spines around a base, then so can toss.
I think the fact that the Damage is dealt all in one blow is kind of important to, While broodwar players might be used to drops decimating mineral lines in seconds with reavers or storm, in sc2, people are used to having 1-2 seconds mroe time to react then do you with a baneling drop, just two overlords with banelings in sent on a shift move to drop the main before you initiate a major engagement, and unless they have pre-emptively beuilt 4-5 cannons at each base, which is unlikely, you will either do massive damage, or force them to miss their forcefields/run away due to looking at their bases to pull probes.
And lategame, even if they have a ton of cannons around their mineral line, load up two overlords with cracklings and just shift-queue them to drop in the corner of the enemy main before you move in for an engagement, cracklings eat buildings alive.
A large advantage of zerg drop play is you can easily shift click it into their mineral line/main and then it will do damage if both players ignore it, whereas protoss drop play generally needs a bit more focus (for storm drops/warp prism warpins) so zergs can easily force a protoss to split his attention before going in for a micro intensive battle. (While this might not matter at grandmaster level, i'm pretty sure mid masters would have trouble dealing with two drops and microing a battle at the same time.)
Its also worth noting that the protoss army needs,very much so, to stick together in a death ball to be supply effective. This means that 16 cracklings in your main is going to be quite hard to deal with without assigning more supply then the 8 those cracklings will take up, to deal with the drop. This leaves the zerg with a larger supply of units in the middle of the field.
neo i dont really agree with your analysis of banerain. banerain costs a lot of gas, 100 gas to each mineral line that you can't re-use. When I went banerain, I would send 1 overlord to 3 bases all at once, while pushng forward (id get banerain to time with 200/200). It's actually best played against someone who is being defense, if he's in a choke he can't run anywhere. And toss can easily deal with it, you just pull your probes away quickly. but many toss may not expect it or just suck.
Its also worth noting that the protoss army needs,very much so, to stick together in a death ball to be supply effective. This means that 16 cracklings in your main is going to be quite hard to deal with without assigning more supply then the 8 those cracklings will take up, to deal with the drop. This leaves the zerg with a larger supply of units in the middle of the field.
p can warp in zealots, and will generally have cannons around. I don't really find crackling drops useful in zvp.
banerain is great and all, but the tech is so goddamn expensive. You are literally trading going for broodlords, with banerain, and it's a no brainer which one of those is better. The upside to banerain play is that it comes quicker than broodlords, but zergs have learned much better ways to buy time these days (maxing in 11 minutes and trading, mass spine + infestor, mutas) than spending the same amount of gas that could just get you broodlord tech. It's definitely not worth the gas of 300/300 + 300 gas in at least 9 banelings for 3 minerals lines.
If, say, you opened banerain just to drop 3 overlords, toss will just push out and kill you because you didnt spend your gas on tech. That was a huge problem I had with the style. The only way to justify it, is if you are actually going banerain as part of your army, and you get late.
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