Swarmhosts vs swarmhosts. And they said hellbats were bad.
And it gets worse the longer the game goes on:
tempest vs tempest is blord vs blord zvz
There is probably only one solution to improve ZvZ.
ZvZ needs hellbats
thanks @Dreamhack Livereport threads for the awesome quotes.
ZvZ has been in a wild state since the Spore Crawler buff. Many compositions and transitions seem viable. Therefore I tried to compile all my knowledge about the most prominent ZvZ styles and transitions into one graphic to get a better overview. (this is by no means a complete information about everything that can be done, and there are surely situations in which a violation on the chart's guidelines can be worthwhile)
How to interprete the graphic: orange means ranged tech green means melee tech blue is everything else Consistent arrow means that this transition is always viable at some point of the game. The doted arrow means that this transition is restricted by your opponents choices.
I really, really like this idea. There's only one thing left to do, hit the ladder with this chart in head. See what happens. If win% goes up, probably means you're right.
Just wondering, is ultralisk really viable vs hydra -> swarmhost -> broodlord? Have any replays of that?
it depends on the map. on big maps it is viable since you are able to counter attack although vs really big spine walls you need either SH/BLs yourself or drop him if he has few AA.also banes kill locusts insanely fast so if you are able to kill all locusts instantly with some banes you will then be able to roll over roach hydra and the locustless SHs since his infestor and viper (which he shouldnt get vs ultraplay) wont do anything.
On June 17 2013 15:07 Incognoto wrote: I really, really like this idea. There's only one thing left to do, hit the ladder with this chart in head. See what happens. If win% goes up, probably means you're right.
What league/rank are you?
I have been long time master, but only played unranked since the start of HotS (against masters). Then I started playing ranked during the lock of the last season, so I was only diamond at the end of the season (and was soon playing only masters/high masters who wondered why they had to play a diamond ). So as a conclusion I'd say I'm probably a midmaster player. http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/987923/1/Jay/
On June 17 2013 14:50 hearters wrote: Nice!
Just wondering, is ultralisk really viable vs hydra -> swarmhost -> broodlord? Have any replays of that?
The point is that I don't think you can go into a (roach-)hydra-swarmhosts-broodlord army against either of the ultralisk transitions. Like, if you follow the chart, the ways to go ultalisks are:
you go fast melee upgrade ling/bling/infestor against melee upgrades or mutalisks.
you open mutalisks and then play mutawars until infestors shut them down and then you go into ultralisks.
In neither of those scenarios he should transition into swarmhosts as he gets
either overrun/outexpanded by superior ling/bling numbers
or overrun/outexpanded by mutalisk/ling/bling with his main antiair being inferior mutalisk numbers.
So if he gets up to swarm hosts and you are on melee/mutalisks, it means that you went down a wrong road or didn't emphasize on a transition mistake from him.
Regardless, it may sometimes happen anyways. I believe ultralisk/baneling/infestor/queen support can compete with roach-hydra-swarmhost-infestor in direct engagements prebroodlord and broodlords are actually quite bad if you add vipers/hydras and just pull them into your antiair. However as neither I myself have ever really played/played against the endgame of an ultralisk style, nor seen a such, most of this is guesswork (which is why I didn't put any transition from ultralisks into the sheet). Usually you can end the game with ultralisks if you reach them from the melee style. + Show Spoiler +
generally: Ultralisks stomp any zerg ground composition - including swarm hosts and at least one wave of their locusts - in an amove battle. Infestors as support should make sure to force a such. Banelings work great against hydralisks, locusts and swarmhosts and help you close the distance.
The questions with those compositions are: How many spines are you engaging into? Can you get the fungals off? How much have you lost before engaging, due to constant streams of locusts, vipers (pulling ultras) and enemy fungals (on banelings).
I'd say the situation is not favoring any side generally, but it's much easier for the ultraliskplayer to fuck up.
An example for a swarmhost vs ultra game would be Roro(SH) vs Dimaga(Ultra) from the WCS finals. In which Dimaga lost way too much stuff to locusts over and over again and allowed Roro to go Swarmhosts despite him opening mutalisks. Mainly because he only made 3mutalisks, which basically turned out in him wasting 500/500 to kill 2 ovelords.
I somewhat disagree with the no melee upgrades vs roach.
Quite often I beat out roach with upgraded lings, and later even add infestor in, which makes it even easier. You just have to choose where to fight properly so you can surround, and obviously have enough lings.
On June 18 2013 02:56 JohnJohnson wrote: I think this is really cool.
I somewhat disagree with the no melee upgrades vs roach.
Quite often I beat out roach with upgraded lings, and later even add infestor in, which makes it even easier. You just have to choose where to fight properly so you can surround, and obviously have enough lings.
It's true it is not impossibleif you get it off the ground. But roach and roach/baneling pushes in the early midgame/midgame are close to unstoppable. At least, from my experience and from what I have heard the pros say (that ZvZ meta episode for example). I think that's the reason why people stopped doing this back in Wings.
On June 18 2013 02:56 JohnJohnson wrote: I think this is really cool.
I somewhat disagree with the no melee upgrades vs roach.
Quite often I beat out roach with upgraded lings, and later even add infestor in, which makes it even easier. You just have to choose where to fight properly so you can surround, and obviously have enough lings.
It's true it is not impossibleif you get it off the ground. But roach and roach/baneling pushes in the early midgame/midgame are close to unstoppable. At least, from my experience and from what I have heard the pros say (that ZvZ meta episode for example). I think that's the reason why people stopped doing this back in Wings.
yeah if they definitely start incorporating the banes in the pushes vs 1-1/2-2 ling, you HAVE to have fungals by that time or you're screwed.
I would never want to go infestor -> viper -> brood lord but I could imagine going infestor -> brood lord -> viper. Fungal and blinding cloud seem to synergize if you get attacked at the transition point infestor -> viper but your army should significantly weaker than your opponent and the opponent could probably power through. So going brood lord first would be safer, imo.
On June 18 2013 04:07 Elldar wrote: I would never want to go infestor -> viper -> brood lord but I could imagine going infestor -> brood lord -> viper. Fungal and blinding cloud seem to synergize if you get attacked at the transition point infestor -> viper but your army should significantly weaker than your opponent and the opponent could probably power through. So going brood lord first would be safer, imo.
Of course you are allowed to disagree with me on this. And especially towards the lategame with the roach route a lot of transitions become possible. But the reason why I think you should build vipers first is that they don't have any techcosts and there is hardly any reason to not have a Viper around against any composition, even if it is just a single one. Abduct is simply too good against any hightier unit: infestors, broodlords, ultralisks, swarm hosts, vipers... Just having 1-2 vipers with full energy around can put on a lot of pressure on any enemy composition. And of course blinding clouds are nice tool that can win a mirror engagement or force a disengage as well as the said fungal synergy.
On Broodlords. I'm not too sure about broodlords in ZvZ currently. They are really vulnerable too vipers and can be completely shut down by locust rally.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/8p6vWYl.jpg)
