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Props to StrikerX22 who somehow found a copy of this guide. It will save me alot of time from re writing it. I'll still revise it a little when I get time, but this really saved a lot of time.
I actually wrote this as an advice to another thread, but hell, so much time was put into it might as well be a guide.
What to practice to improve ZvT. Do the following in the order given.
1. survive to hive with good econ
2. secure and defend 4th 5th gas with swarm
3. sneak units out to harass T's expo attempts
4. with good plague, clean up whatever T has near your bases
5. non-stop expoing.
Step 1, survive till hive with good econ is the most crucial, mastering survival to hive with a good econ will get you all the way to B-. Most lower level Z has a hard time in hive because their early mistakes pile up, hive play is hard enough by itself, trying to play catch up in hive is impossibly difficult without mastering steps 2-5. So work on your survival skills first, a good early mid game will make your hive play a lot easier.
For early defense, lings are superior to sunkens for the possibility of a counter. vs 1 rax FE I make 8 lings to force a bunker and use those lings to deny scout. Pure drones until 27 supply, when overlord comes I make 4 more lings, and 1 sunken, with spire on the way. Any early push attempts can be punished with a speedling counter + 2 more sunken at nat. If he doesn't push then no more than 1 sunken is needed.
9 mutas when spire finishes. The downside of this opening is that your 4th hatch (expo) will have to go down right after mutas, whereas if you only made 2 lings early and 10 lings after 27 supply, those early drones would afford you a 4th hatch when spire is 2/3 finished, and you will still have 900/900 for mutas. So 8 lings early pressure comes at the cost of slower 4th hatch.
Your muta micro is fine imo. But keep in mind that mutas serve the primary purpose of buying time for lurkers, so keep them alive even if you don't do as much damage. Get that den after mutas and lurker right away, make 3 drones 1 overlord and then 3 hydras, when hydras come out send them to the ramp of your third, when they get there your lurker aspect will finish, that is the correct timing to set up your defenses. After the initial 3 hydras you can power more drones, you have 1 group of mutas and 1 group of lings, that's plenty to buy you time.
If your muta harass didn't pay off, and T pushes out with m&m early. It's not a big deal, let him pass and counter his main with muta/ling. Go straight for the rax area to shut down his m&m reinforcement entirely. Most likely you'll draw him back and those 3 hydras on ramp will be lurkers in time. If he is persistent in sacrificing his main...add 2 more sunkens (5 total) and transfer your expos drones back to your nat, sac that expo. Trading an empty hatch for his main is a good deal, and those m&m can't break 5 sunkens.
Assume non of that has happened, your muta harass was good at delaying him, and your lurkers came out in time to defend ramp. You should have enough drones to almost saturate 3 bases, with your 3rd lacking a few. If T was good at muta defense, you probably won't be able to lurker contain him. What is important here is to get as much of your army outside as possible before T gets to your nat, so you can have the biggest flank. You can do the leap frog lurker trick to delay his push, but if you don't have enough lurkers (he came out really fast), then just go around him and cut his reinforcements and use those 5 sunkens to buy time. Meanwhile make only lurkers and few lings with excess minerals. There is no need to attack before he kills all your sunkens. At that point, provided that he got no reinforcement, even if your defiler is not out you should be able to break that push with a good 2 sided attack. All depends on how many units you sneaked out before T got there (size of your flank).
Steps 2-5 are all hive play, which is the most difficult to master as Z but at the same time most rewarding. All those T's complaining about us defiler whores for a good reason .
Step 2, secure 4th and 5th with swarm defense.
Although Day[9] said the goal of defilers is to push into T's nat, (instant gg) that is not very easy to do if T is good and aggressive. Your opponent had his entire army sitting at his choke, so you got to push him, vs better T who roams in the middle and irradiates all your defilers in the middle, and those who plant mines to counter lurker/ling/defiler, its better not to focus your play on pushing him, but rather focus on getting 4th and 5th gas.
When swarm finishes take your 4th and 5th, I take the nat of my third and the other main with lurkers on ramp. If you are not confident in your multitask then just take the nat of your third. It's easy to defend, just get a nydus up and always make sure you have a defiler with full energy. Use defilers like templars if you will. At least 1 defiler at each nat at ALL times. If you have spares send 1 per main to defend drops is a good idea. As much as defense goes, there is nothing T can do to you if you just do the above with constant swarm.
Edit: props to Resonance for reminding me of vessels
When using a defiler plus a few lurkers/lings to defend, you can do small scale swarm pushes when T gets close. If he uses siege tanks you will be forced to do this as part of the defense anyway. But if he just camps outside with m&m and vessels, you can still push him a bit and try to scourge the vessels right when the swarm is cast. The marines will be running, and even if they shoot, the AI will target ground units like lurkers and lings (protected by swarm) and you have a good chance of getting a vessel or two.
When plague finishes. Vessel hunting becomes easier, because his protection units are too weak to fight when plagued. So add scourging vessels into your "plague -> swarm clean up" move. I'll talk about plagues in step 4 below.
Edit: Quoting Zerg-Legend
"If a map does not have another main/nat that can be camped up for 4 gases off 2 chokes, there is often other chokes in the middle of the map that be defended. On Destination for example, you make camp up your 5/11 base with one group lurk/defiler/ling, and another group stationed in-between your main and 8/2 base should be able to reach both these bases in time to defend them. On rare occasions you will be pressured by three different armies at the same time, but microing that will be just as hellish for him as for you. Another possibility for Destination would be to get the 5/11 base than then the related high group exp. Defend the high ground exp with a swarm on the outer ramp and defend the rest with an army in the middle of your half."
Step 3, sneak units out to counter T's expo attempts
Even if you get contained it's not a big deal, leave 1 defiler and a few lurkers, then nydus the rest of your army and go out the other exits, Z has so many exits linked via nydus T can't contain everyone of them. With the army you sneaked out go harass T's expos. 2 base T will run out of minerals completely at 20-21 min if he macros properly. So just keep preventing him from using his third and he'll collapse on himself.
Counter his nat if you can pull it off, with swarm its very devastating. Imagine if you are T, your big army is outside of Z's nat, and all of a sudden you find a counter army in your nat with swarms... That is ideal, but again, good T will always have his units in the middle to protect his nat. It is often much easier to sneak around and attack those T expos than it is to push into his nat.
Step 4, use plague followed by swarm push to clean up whatever gets close to your bases.
This is the step that I'm currently practicing on primarily, getting down the previous 3 steps got me all the way to B+ last season, if I get step 4 down I think I'll make A- this season.
Eventually u do have to deal with T's containing armies. Use swarm to defend until you have plague, (while countering T's expos). As soon as plague comes out, it's time to clean up whatever is near your bases. Use swarm to push out a little bit so you can get plagues off while T retreats. As soon as plague is cast, refill your defilers immediately and attack with everything you have there. Don't worry if T has a much bigger army, plagued units die fast when they are under swarm, no matter how many units he has...trust me. You just have to remember to attack right away with swarm immediately after plague, cuz if you don't the plague will wear off and he'll heal. This is easier said than done, cuz you'll have 4-5 bases to manage and you have to keep up the macro, the sheer multitasking required at this stage is not easy at all. My advice is to kill those plagued units first, even at the cost of missing some macro.
Edit:
When you are cleaning up the plagued T units, this will be a good time to scourge those vessels cuz their protection units are getting owned. Also, it's good to plague the vessels themselves if you can, then add a couple mutas into your clean up army, those vessels die fast. I guess also on the same subject, you can build a spore colony at your nats, plagued vessels can't get close to irradiate your units, and even healthy vessels will have to take damage to cast an irradiate. Good move in general.
If you can do steps 1 through 4 mechanically, meaning you got it down with repetition so that you don't have to "think" about what to do. Your ZvT will be in the B+ range at least.
The last thing to work on is Step 5. non-stop expoing
The catch here is that the faster you expo, the more demanding your multitasking is. Cuz T will attack everywhere and everything that has a Z written on the wall. and if you have more expos than you can keep up you'll end up losing them. So don't expo too much if you are not confortable with the steps 2-4 above, over extension will hurt you. Follow these 5 steps and practice them in this order. Your zvt will improve very fast.
smi.lols
Last edit: 2009-03-10 03:40:08Last edit: 2009-04-08 06:38:05
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Very nice! I wish this existed when I still played Zerg =/
I also like how it was a guide on steps to improve, not a 'guide on ZvT' in general, because then you would need to list all the BO's and such. I feel this guide can help improves players who have the basic knowledge(D-C'ish players maybe) from current ZvT guides nicely.
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I have a question for ZvT. When I play maps like Medusa, it is really hard to keep the minerals low especially with the extra mineral patches behind the main. I usually get something ridiculous like 2.5k minerals with 0 gas. I tried adding hatcheries and making more lings but it turns out that not only does it makes it a lot harder to use all the extra lings, it makes my micro worse due to spending more time scrolling the lings then attack move(not enough hotkeys). What do you suggest?
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On March 08 2009 17:30 WindCalibur wrote:
I have a question for ZvT. When I play maps like Medusa, it is really hard to keep the minerals low especially with the extra mineral patches behind the main. I usually get something ridiculous like 2.5k minerals with 0 gas. I tried adding hatcheries and making more lings but it turns out that not only does it makes it a lot harder to use all the extra lings, it makes my micro worse due to spending more time scrolling the lings then attack move(not enough hotkeys). What do you suggest?
I hate medusa so I don't play it lol. But if you are getting too many minerals you are probably getting too many drones. Normally 2 gas is 2 base and you have some 20-22 drones on minerals and 6 on gas. On medusa if you saturate all 3 starting bases you will have like 8-10 extra drones, which is why your minerals pile up. That said, just play normal zvt, have 20ish drones on minerals for your starting 3 bases is enough, you should have very nice mining efficiency cuz 1 drone per mineral patch is easy with so many patches. Play as usual.
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really cool! As was said before, this deals with a lot that the regular type of bo guides dont fully cover. This sure is gonna improve my zvat the same time without really knowing how. Thanks! I vote [!]
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Love the specifics and the "how to improve" focus of this guide. Would love to see you attempt a similar guide on ZvP but I know that's a little more freeform even the standard game.
One question. When your pool comes up, do you make 8 lings as fast as you can or sort of interleave them with drones? Or does it really matter? I've noticed in my own play that there is a period between 3rd hatch and spire when I don't really have set thing that I do and I'm thinking I would benefit from a more explicit set of steps. This guide seems a good place to start  Thanks.
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Nice read. I don't know how many times I've lost games where I've lost my mutalisks and then got rolled =( And for some reason, I always forget about hive >_>" What would be an ideal time to get hive? After first batch of lurks/third?
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On March 09 2009 02:37 Strayline wrote:One question. When your pool comes up, do you make 8 lings as fast as you can or sort of interleave them with drones? Or does it really matter? I've noticed in my own play that there is a period between 3rd hatch and spire when I don't really have set thing that I do and I'm thinking I would benefit from a more explicit set of steps. This guide seems a good place to start Thanks.
If you want early ling pressure, then make 8 lings right away, cuz that's the only timing where T has few marines, and you can force a bunker and apply some pressure, if you wait the T will have enough rines that 8 lings won't do anything. I always leave 1 ling to chase the scouting scv, and take the other 7 straight to the T base as soon as they come out.
Between 3 hatch and spire? After 8 lings you make pure drones, get lair at 100 gas, ling speed at next 100 gas, after ling speed, get second gas right away and you'll have 900 gas when spire finish. After overlord finish at 27 supply, I make 4 more lings and a sunken, more drones till 35 supply then send one to my future expo to wait. 3 overlords then 9 muta.
On March 09 2009 03:16 candlejackisgonn wrote:
Nice read. I don't know how many times I've lost games where I've lost my mutalisks and then got rolled =( And for some reason, I always forget about hive >_>" What would be an ideal time to get hive? After first batch of lurks/third?
I play a really fast hive style. After lurker research start I get a chamber, when carapace start I get the queens nest. Fast hive forces the T to push early, so it puts more pressure on your muta harass and anti push abilities. If you get queens after first batch of lurkers, your hive is later but you'll have more units to defend, but T can push a little later so his army will be bigger as well. It's a personal preference. I like to get defilers fast and abuse it like a whore.
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When do you get your ultras? As soon as 4th gas is being mined?
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On March 09 2009 05:26 EsX_Raptor wrote:
When do you get your ultras? As soon as 4th gas is being mined?
I'm glad ppl are asking questions , your usual TL threads are full of "you are a noob, no you are a noob, no no you are THE noob" kind of comments...
I try to put down my ultra cavern when plague starts, that way when both ultra armor and speed finish, my +3 carapace will also finish, so I can make 5-2 ultras, with +3 melee attack coming. I guess to answer your question, I start making ultras when most of the upgrades have finished. I feel that to make ultras before those upgrades is a waste of resources, cuz you are not getting the most out of your money, you spend the same 200/200 for less powerful ultras, when that money could go to more defilers/lurkers/upgrades.
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On March 09 2009 05:54 w3jjjj wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2009 05:26 EsX_Raptor wrote:
When do you get your ultras? As soon as 4th gas is being mined? I'm glad ppl are asking questions , your usual TL threads are full of "you are a noob, no you are a noob, no no you are THE noob" kind of comments... I try to put down my ultra cavern when plague starts, that way when both ultra armor and speed finish, my +3 carapace will also finish, so I can make 5-2 ultras, with +3 melee attack coming. I guess to answer your question, I start making ultras when most of the upgrades have finished. I feel that to make ultras before those upgrades is a waste of resources, cuz you are not getting the most out of your money, you spend the same 200/200 for less powerful ultras, when that money could go to more defilers/lurkers/upgrades.
If the terran denies you of your 4th base should you still go ultra off 3 gas?
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On March 09 2009 06:03 SpriteLove wrote:
If the terran denies you of your 4th base should you still go ultra off 3 gas?
Yes. When most of your upgrades have finished, ultras are more economically efficient.
An ultra for the cost of 200/200 is about 2 lurkers. In early end game, those lurkers can hold ramps and kill tanks with swarm, whereas an ultra would not be able to do the same. However, as the game goes on and your upgrades finish, ultras will surpass lurkers in efficiency. At that time, regardless of how many gas you have, ultras provide better returns for your money.
Don't forget that defilers must always be made continuously, neither ultras nor lurkers stand any chance in the late game without defiler support.
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Awesome write-up like usual. Just a question:
On March 08 2009 15:44 w3jjjj wrote:
When swarm finishes take your 4th and 5th, I take the nat of my third and the other main with lurkers on ramp. If you are not confident in your multitask then just take the nat of your third. It's easy to defend, just get a nydus up and always make sure you have a defiler with full energy. Use defilers like templars if you will. At least 1 defiler at each nat at ALL times. If you have spares send 1 per main to defend drops is a good idea. As much as defense goes, there is nothing T can do to you if you just do the above with constant swarm.
If you are basically playing defense on 4 bases or so with a couple defilers and lurkers or w/e, how do you keep his vessel count down from irradiating everything? Since a zerg really isn't attacking @ this point, the vessels can be protected a lot easier I would believe and can just irradiate all the defilers that pop out.
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On March 09 2009 07:13 Resonance wrote:
If you are basically playing defense on 4 bases or so with a couple defilers and lurkers or w/e, how do you keep his vessel count down from irradiating everything? Since a zerg really isn't attacking @ this point, the vessels can be protected a lot easier I would believe and can just irradiate all the defilers that pop out.
Good question. That is part of the defense step. I'll add this into the guide.
When using a defiler plus a few lurkers/lings to defend, you can do small scale swarm pushes when T gets close. If he uses siege tanks you will be forced to do this as part of the defense anyway. But if he just camps outside with m&m and vessels, you can still push him a bit and try to scourge the vessels right when the swarm is cast. The marines will be running, and even if they shoot, the AI will target ground units like lurkers and lings (protected by swarm) and you have a good chance of getting a vessel or two.
When plague finishes. Vessel hunting becomes easier, because his protection units are too weak to fight when plagued. So add scourging vessels into your "plague -> swarm clean up" move.
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On March 09 2009 07:25 w3jjjj wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2009 07:13 Resonance wrote:
If you are basically playing defense on 4 bases or so with a couple defilers and lurkers or w/e, how do you keep his vessel count down from irradiating everything? Since a zerg really isn't attacking @ this point, the vessels can be protected a lot easier I would believe and can just irradiate all the defilers that pop out. Good question. That is part of the defense step. I'll add this into the guide. When using a defiler plus a few lurkers/lings to defend, you can do small scale swarm pushes when T gets close. If he uses siege tanks you will be forced to do this as part of the defense anyway. But if he just camps outside with m&m and vessels, you can still push him a bit and try to scourge the vessels right when the swarm is cast. The marines will be running, and even if they shoot, the AI will target ground units like lurkers and lings (protected by swarm) and you have a good chance of getting a vessel or two. When plague finishes. Vessel hunting becomes easier, because his protection units are too weak to fight when plagued. So add scourging vessels into your "plague -> swarm clean up" move.
Ah ok that makes sense. Now what about maps in which you really can't take a natural that also defends a main? For example, Carthage is a motw right now, and I was checking out the map and I noticed that the other 3 gas expansions (besides the main and natural of course) really aren't in too close proximity to each other. Would you still recommend going for late game defiler camping on that map since it would be harder to have all units spread out? Or do you think that map would require being a bit more aggressive to defend the expos maybe?
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could you write one about ZvP? I'm C- but I think my ZvP is really holding me back since i dunno the fundamentals of that matchup, i just make 3hatch spire 5 hatch hydra build order and try to macro a lot then pick templars but if they dont do 4gate archon speedlot push i usually get owned
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On March 09 2009 08:08 Resonance wrote:
Ah ok that makes sense. Now what about maps in which you really can't take a natural that also defends a main? For example, Carthage is a motw right now, and I was checking out the map and I noticed that the other 3 gas expansions (besides the main and natural of course) really aren't in too close proximity to each other. Would you still recommend going for late game defiler camping on that map since it would be harder to have all units spread out? Or do you think that map would require being a bit more aggressive to defend the expos maybe?
Hmm, honestly I have no idea lol. I would think that normal nydus/defiler play is till viable. But I would have to check pro VODs to see how gosu zergs handle it. The motw thing, I don't like any this week, so I'll probably python my way out of it lol.
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On March 09 2009 08:12 haz wrote:
could you write one about ZvP? I'm C- but I think my ZvP is really holding me back since i dunno the fundamentals of that matchup, i just make 3hatch spire 5 hatch hydra build order and try to macro a lot then pick templars but if they dont do 4gate archon speedlot push i usually get owned
Well, ZvP is a lot less standardized compared to ZvT. Most T variations can be handled the same way with defiler hive play as long they go bio. P on the other hand, has drastically different options after FE, so there really isn't a standard game to it...
I'll think about it, and see what I can do...
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This thread is just a cover up!
what lols really means is don't suicide your lurk ling army before hive 
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Ah, this was from the thread I made...it's great advice, thanks. (:
EDIT
When do you get a second evo chamber for melee upgrades?
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EPT
