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On June 08 2012 01:29 Insoleet wrote: I have a small question. I loose a lot to terran doing fast 3rd in their base. I think its like auto-win for terran if the zerg doesnt punish it.
How does a zerg know the terran is doing fast 3rd ? Scouting at 6:00 doesnt give enought informations, right ?
Scouting at 6 minute gives enough information, the terran will start his 3 cc (macro cc) between 5:00-6:00. And keep in mind that a CC cost 400 minerals that's a lot of money that can't be spent in units so you should easily be able to spot a terran going for a hard macro style. If you get your overlord shut down before it can scout the terran base just poke with a ling and you should be able to get enough hint to conclude the terran is going for a fast 3base.
That's my platinum answer but you are probably willing to have a better answer from belial.
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Hey Belial, I was wondering if you could add something to the OP that elaborates a little more on how to do the transitions between infestor style midgame play and muta style midgame play. For instance the openers for a muta-oriented build off 2 bases is significantly different than the infestor-style of building up to 44 supply and then diverging into taking a third and massing ling/bane/festor with double upgrades.
I've been using the infestor-style of play and now that I have the speed and feel of zvt a little more down (thanks to your guides!) I'd like to experiment and learn how to use the more pro-active and aggressive muta/bane/ling style. Your guide does touch on how to use the mutas and such but how to obtain proper muta timing, bane nest timing and lair timing is a bit vague. I also have understood from talking to friends in high masters and GM that the evo timings are quite different depending on the two styles and getting gas is also different.
More extensive replays covering different styles would also be very appreciated.
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^ its all in the guide. It intentionally vague because there's nott really a right or wrong, I mean literally replace infestation pit with spire, and 2nd evo with baneling nest. There's replays up of me and pro players using mutas as well. Its up to you how much econ you want to cut to get them out quicker, but it seems most ros going mutas these days do them very, very late, going third before lair much like going infestoor style, with the only difference being 2nd evo being a banelling nest (consequently you get the 2nd evo much llater) and spire instead of infestation.
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^ Ok I'll keep messing around with it. I just feel kind of "lost" when I try to follow the same build I use with infestor openings and try to place a spire on instead. It feels like I'm missing a muta window or something when I get there and they already have defenses set up practically every game.
Like I get up to 44-52 and suddenly I have no real idea what to do and I start doing weird things that aren't quite the same every game.
Oh, also how do you prefer to play vs a super-fast 3 CC build that T have been using?
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Oh, also how do you prefer to play vs a super-fast 3 CC build that T have been using?
I address this a few times in the guide.
First off, I say that roach/bane all-in is an autowin against an unprepared fast third (if not autowin against even a prepared fast third terran).
Secondly, I say you can adjust your play against fast third by being aggressive, or by teching up quicker. In the game flow notes, I mention that zerg takes their third, then defends their third, and then drones up. If terran skips aggression in favor of a third, this allows the game to move on to the next part of the game - when zerg has map control and terran must turtle. You can choose to be hyper-aggressive (terran is being defensive for a reason), such as with ling/bane/muta max, or you can tech up quicker, as terran's 3 base push before your hive tech is coming soon, and you can be better prepared against it.
Personally, I like to make lots of mutas in ZvT, playing that standard style, but when I see terran go fast third and isn't being aggressive, allowing me to kill off his armies, then I'll generally throw down that infestation pit and start teching.
Like I get up to 44-52 and suddenly I have no real idea what to do and I start doing weird things that aren't quite the same every game.
Around 40 supply, you need to throw down your evo/bane if terran is still on 1 base. If Terran expanded, then you need to take your third at 40 supply, 40-45 maybe depending on how you like to take it (standard really seems to be 40). From there, you can either drone up your 3 bases and take lair as late aas 70 supply, or if you think terran is going to be aggressive (or if you want to be aggressive earlier on) you can go lair around 50-60 instead of 60-70.
It really depends what terran is doing. If terran is going to do pressure with, say, stim timing, from a FE 4 rax (or 1 rax FE into 4 rax total), you will need that baneling nest down at ~40, but you still are always safe to take that third at 40 supply. If terran went something like reactor hellion expand, you may be denied from taking a third base and instead have to make that third hatchery a macro hatch, which is whatever. But unless terran went reactor hellion and you can't get creep out to your third to protect it from hellions with queens, you can really drone up to about 60. If terran is making marauders/has no factory, you may want to cut drones in favor of lair (for bane speed, quicker muta/infestor) and army.
You really got to be a little more specific with what you have problems with. Just watch my standard ZvT replays that I have listed of myself playing to see how I play it, and what I'm looking for in my first person view.
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Thanks for your replies Belial, you're really helping me address specific issues in my play. I'm right on the cusp where I am being pit against top8 diamond and low masters players with my MMR even though I'm still in plat and I'm trying to refine my play up to that level where I can really start belonging in those upper leagues. I'm going over all your "standard" labeled replays now.
*Edit* Perhaps I should not have just said I was playing vs them due to my MMR. I'm actually managing about a 50% winrate against the higher leaguers.
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^ The system right now pits you against a wide range of players. This was a change that was to be implemented, then was scrapped, but then re-done and has now been implemented. Just because you are playing masters, does not mean you are masters level. it means the system is simply testing you out against much higher and lower ranges than before, to shorten match-making searches and provide for more variety in play.
You are in plat because you belong in plat. Don't worry too much about your ranking, it really means nothing. But as day9 has said, you are in the league you belong in. If you are truly diamond material, you'll be in diamond. A large portion of people in diamond aren't really supposed to be in diamond anyways, but the system doesn't want to promote/demote people based on the results of just 1-3 games.
Just truck along, if you are platinum you are doing fine. Don't worry about being greedy at the lower levels, I'd recommend stick with a quicker lair style of taking that third before lair but only droning up the 2 bases then getting a lair, instead of completely droning up 3 bases then lair. You'll recognize soon enough how much greedier you can be, what you need to identify to allow you to be greedier, and macro opponents giving you trouble because you aren't greedy enough. At your level, really work out on smoothing out those supply blocks and idle larva, and scouting just the basics (did he expand? okay. evo and bane nest at 50, unless I can somehow scout to make sure I can delay them).
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Belial, I've come with another question because I've encountered an all-in build not covered in your guide. This guy was a diamond Terran who used a sort of fast 2 factory with a few hellions as an opener. He shows me just enough hellions so I think its a normal hellion expand. I know I probably did a bad thing by going for the Stephano-style roach/bane/ling push but I'm asking not to focus on that and more the build the T did since I don't see it covered like.. anywhere.
Essentially what he did was get 2 facts, tech lab on both and then tech lab on his rax. He then showed me 4 hellions and acted like a normal hellion expand, but then he builds a lot of mauraders, 3 thors and a bunch more hellions. After my attack utterly fails to do any damage to his push (again, ignore than I'm a moron and blindly made a push against someone who ended up doing a 2gas 1 base build), he pulls a buttload of scvs for repairing his thors and hellions. He continues to reinforce his push with mauraders and hellions as he makes his way across the map. Had I not made a push to begin with, I think he would've arrived at my base somewhere around the 9 minute mark.
How on earth do you hold this? mass hellions crushes lings and thor/maurader was extremely effective against roaches and had the main battle been at the front of my base, I'm sure the spines would not have faired well either. Also the sheer amount of scvs he brought with him made it almost impossible to bring the thors down, and he surrounded the mech so that any auto-attack just bugged out because of the scvs making a barrier around them.
Replay Zv1-base Mech all-in
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^ Your overlord scout routes are weird.
Learn how far you can get away with your initial overlord on each map. It's okay if you lose your first overlord in a few games the first time you see on each map, or watch a pro ZvT on each map and see where they send their overlords, or just see how far you can get your overlord by the timing marines come out, which was 3:18 in this game (so realistically a little longer due to travel time and you can take a few shots on your overlord if its a really good spot and its okay if he doesnt build buildings around it, like if its watching the entrance to his base to monitor army movement).
On Daybreak, you should send your overlord to like terrans natural gas, and then along the back of the map, and then in that space behind the natural between his 2 bases. It's perfect to see expo timing, if he's building an expo at natural or at the cliff or in his main by his CC, as well as poke to see what's at his wall-in and get back before 2-3 marines can kill it in time.
So that right there is weird, now you can't tell really if T expanded or not.
make your overlord at 26, not 25. You made your overlord too early there. Kind of hurts.
Because you didn't move your initial overlord int he right spot, you have no idea if he expanded or not. Really, i can say that's the sole reason you lost, bad overlord placement. But even then, you still could have known.
When your initial lings arrived at his base, you should have thought it was weird a single hellion attacked your lings. You NEVER see hellions that early. Have you EVER seen a hellion that early? I'm sure you play a lot of games, and every single game, you make lings when your pool pops, and see terran's wall-off. This must have been the first time you ever ran into a hellion with your initial lings. Right? Don't you normally have it where you lings run up, and see the reactor factory churning?
So right then and there you should be saying "whoa wtf how does he have a hellion that fast?"
Secondly, you should be asking "why is there only one hellion instead of 2?"
Alarm bells should be going off now. Personally, assuming I did bad overlord placement like you did, if I saw a single hellion like that, so quickly, and a rax at the wall-off still, I would have assumed a banshee rush because there is no add-on at the rax so he isn't going reactor hellion, and a single hellion that quick means he made a quick factory. In this case, the guy made a single hellion, then add-ons, but I would have guessed a single hellion out of a factory he made and then a starport. Either way, you should be thinking "WTF IS GOING ON?!" because you only see 1 hellion and a rax at the front. Immediately, you would have alarm bells going off clueing you in to prepare for 1 base play.
You are also at 30 supply. In my guide, I specifically state, if you do not explicitly see an expansion, you need to sac the overlord then and there, so by 40 supply you see what's up. You would have seen he clearly had no expansion, he only had 1 marine. Remember - if he's making lots of hellions, then it means no marines. No marines, means you get to see everything. You would have seen his entire base and saw exactly what the guy was doing - double gas, 2 factories. Double gas means either 1 base starport (banshee 95% of the time, bfh drop 5% generally) OR double factory mass hellions.
Making a single spine against a single hellion is a weird response. You have 5 range boss queens now. Don't make a spine unless it's clearly reactor hellion (you see reactor hellion at wall off, hellion isnt that quick, and it's 2 by 2 hellions, not a single hellion super fast), and even then, people prefer to use 4 queens these days against hellions (although reactor hellion does force you to make a macro hatch instead of third still, no idea why T dont use the build anymore, whatever). You also went super, super fast speed. Either take that gas later, at about 22-28 supply, or dont make a spine.
Why are you making a spine if you are planning to all-in anyways. That's weird. I get you need something against hellion pressure,but you clearly see he isn't doing reactor hellion, so why did you make a spine. I guess you need a spine, but you should have made a single spine instead of a third queen, or make 1-2 extra queens right away and no spine. you also make the queen before roach warren, that delays the roach warren by a good 5 seconds there.
If you are doing a weird build like roach/bane all-in, I'd recomend you put the gases in separate bases so a single scan doesnt reveal 100% what you are doing when terran sees you have 2 geysers actively mining at ~35 supply when most zergs dont get more than 1 gas until 50+ supply, and usually remove from the single gas they have until at least the 40's anyways.
Your overlord sac was in a terrible spot. Terran isn't protoss, they dont put buildings in a weird spot like that. A starport, 7 rax, or 2 factories, aren't going to be located behind terran's mineral line. they are going to be inside his base somewhere. You should have had that overlord by that little light rectangle around the middle instead of the bottom (i hope that makes sense, just look at the map, youll see the square of light). Why would you send your overlord from such a weird spot. You aren't going to see anything going in that way -_-
And if you had your initial overlord in a proper spot, you would have said HOLY SHIT WHY IS THERE NO EXPO YET BY 50?!?! FUCK! IM DEAD! MAKE ALL THE SPINES AND LINGS! and you would have easily held but seriously. No expo by 30 supply means alarm bells should be going off, and they clearly didn't.
Oh. you just never sac an overlord. i dont get why you are showing me this replay. you dont even check to see for an expo, which would have told you everything you needed to know.
If you are all-inning, don't make a 3rd queen. use some common sense man. eliminate the body fat. I guess you do need something against hellions, but according to what you scout, there is only 1 hellion out on the map. i guess it's 'lucky' that you made a spine, but if you had scouted better you would have known to make that spine later. your build just doesnt make sense. You should have sent out a few lings too to see what was up, then when they are fried by 2+ hellions when terran clearly isn't going reactor hellion, should have set off more alarm bells.
5 overlords is WAY too many. Try 3.
Going for a roach/bane all-in only works if terran goes fast third, and maybe if he expanded. it will never work against a 1 base terran. You should have seen an expansion before committing to this all-in.... it's a strong all-in, but you still can't just do it blindly.
You always need to focus fire thors. If you had focus fired the thors, you would have won the battle, won the game right then and there. ezpz.
You clearly saw terran is 1 base all-inning. Cancel that fucking third.
WHy in the world did you make 2 evolution chambers when you are all-inning, and then when you realize terran is all-inning. You won't have 1/1 in time, they take nearly 3 minutes to research each. You gonna die in about 30 seconds.
Why are you making a lair, and a third, and 2 evo chambers, and drones, when terran is on 1 base. You need to learn to PANIC THE FUCK OUT!
You just never scout. As soon as you had speed you should always have the watch towers. if terran has hellions, then you learn what's up, and would have know he was 1 basing, and thus make a ton of defense and units.
I dont get why you just drone up and tech up and take a third when you saw terran push out with all his scvs, and thors. I guess you didnt even bother to check for an expo, but you clearly lack the gamesense to realize that when terran has 20 SCVs out on the map, and 3 thors, at the 9:00 mark, it's because he's all-inning, because no way in hell can you afford that if you expanded, and no way you are going to have 20 scvs out on the map in a normal game.
I get you are diamond, you aren't high level. But there is a LOT of weird shit going on in terran's end, and even with your complete lack of scouting and complete rejection of my guide on a metaphysical level, you saw enough weird shit to know that hey, weird shit is coming, PANIC AND MASS SPINES AND UNITS. Your all-in was weird and poorly performed too, but you should have realized oh shit terran had a ton of stuff taht is impossible to have after expanding and just really weird, I need to back up and mass defense.
Terrible baneling control. You need to hit the SCVs.... not thors. You could have easily held that push if you blew up the SCVs instead, and hung back a little longer before attacking. Why were you not throwing down 7 spines right now?
dont pull drones against blue flame hellions like that.
You basically lost to 2 thors at the 11:00 mark. That's just a reality of how off your macro was, and how off your scouting was. Until you learn to scout better, you need to take more precuations in your play - just go 2 base lair, and make a macro hatch and 2 spines at 40 supply and a baneling/evo at ~40 and take the towers and check for his natural and if he's being fishy make 2 extra queens, 2 spores, and some units until you figure out what's up or the expo is floated down.
Don't mean to be mean... but this would have been really easy to hold. it's a bad all-in that you don't see in the high levels because it just completely falls on it's face to good macro. At high level, anyone playing completely blind and assuming the Terran is playing standard, would have taken a third and lair by now, and then had a handful of speedlings to shoo away small numbers of hellions and when they saw there was no expo still they would have massed units (if not simply not take their third and expo).
Compare how much shit I have in my relpays and the vods listed, to what you had at 11:00. Also, you did an all-in and failed, generally if your all-in fails you lose the game.
supply block at 82/84 was bad, your all-in was kind of late. Your macro kind of falls apart after your all-in.
There's not much to this, dont mean to be mean. You need to sac an overlord at 30 if you see no expo still, your initial overlord needs to go to a better place, and you saw a lot of weird shit but never responded to it. could have done better execution with the roach/bane bust, and in particular, better baneling control. Just focus fire thors always with roaches, and never let banes blow up on thors, only on SCVs or marines. If you had done that, you would have won. There are million little things you could have done to win. After all is said and done though, you basically lost to just 2 thors at the 11:00 mark (2 hellions and a marauder dont do shit, especially at 11:00, and he would have won without the SCVs anyways).
Just learn to panic more. and it's weird to ask for help when your all-in fails.
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Hello there
What is the counter to bio army with mass medivac ? Like MKP did to stephano in MLG. Its so cost effective, i cant manage to beat this...
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Bio play is a timing attack, like I state in my guide. It tends to lose steam when Zerg gets really established on 3 bases with 70+ drones, but it will kill you if you try to go to 60+ drones after taking your third, like you can normally get away with in macro play or rine/tank.
You simply need to make enough ling/bane to hold off the initial marine/marauder/hellion/etc stim timing, and THEN drone up (and even if you hold it off, it doesnt necessarily mean you can just completely drone up since terran may have another army at home instead of having taken a third).
If you can hold the first push, and the more convincingly you hold it the better, you will be in a good position, and it's simply a matter of your tech - mutas or infestors - coming out that will swing the tide of the game in your favor.
Also, mutas are stronger against this bio play instead of infestors. With ling/bane support, 20+ mutas just shred bio as they have to stim and kite against the banelings and have no tanks to blast them apart with, as well as constantly killing his medivacs.
Here's a recent replay of me beating a bio push on ladder. It's pretty short, but you get the idea. I like to throw down a 2nd evo against bio play, since you aren't going to go hive annnytime soon against it.
http://drop.sc/201990
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Added a section on 6 queen opening. Oddly enough, I haven't seen anyone put any sort of guide on it, so I made one. i guess, it's quite simple. added a VOD of drg doing it as best as I could (seems to be the most textbook of the games ive seen of people doing 6 queen, although the game turns out anything but).
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Thanks, just what i needed ^_^
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Do you really just stop using injects late game with BL/Infestor? I mean yes the army mix is very larva efficient, but you also need to make drones for spines/spores and lings to deal with drops and harass his expos. Do you just build a lot of extra macro hatches or something?
Also what do you think about getting early +1 carapace and rushing for +5 ultras on 3 bases, skipping infestor tech altogether? This is of course against a marine/tank bio player. The extra carapace upgrade will make marines do pretty much nothing should allow you to push him back quite a bit while you take your 4th and get BLs out.
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You can do whatever you want. I don't think I said anything in the guide about it, but personally I make a queen for every hatch (backspace larva inject, wayyy more larva than other methods, and you can control the control issues), so I generally will have up to 6 queens on 5 base eventually, and then once I'm on bl/infestor, yea, I'll stop injecting because I'll have 7+ hatcheries with enough larva production to sustain me (even then, I'll usually inject at a forward hatch, and I often make macro hatches in very aggressive positions lategame so my ball of queens can just inject at it).
Also what do you think about getting early +1 carapace and rushing for +5 ultras on 3 bases, skipping infestor tech altogether? This is of course against a marine/tank bio player. The extra carapace upgrade will make marines do pretty much nothing should allow you to push him back quite a bit while you take your 4th and get BLs out.
I think you'll have a tough time against Terrans who simply push out at the 'wrong' time. He'll probably see you rushing hive so quickly, and take it as his queue to attack. Maybe if you research pathogen glands and reactively make infestors just in case he pushes before ultras pop, and on a really big map.
But you can get your ultras out in time if you just make a handful of infestors or 8-15 mutas for the 3 base push anyways, so why risk it? And you can take your fourth pretty much for free in ZvT, it's not contested. You don't really need anything particular to secure your fourth in ZvT. broodlords on 3 base isn't really a great idea though
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I been planning on switching to Zerg. ZvP is pretty easy, I just 12min Roach Ling Max every game.
ZvZ I just Bling All-in. I hate this match up.
ZvT has been tricky. I usually only win once if Terran lets me macro and tech to infestors. Hopefully your guide will help me get a stable hold of ZvT.
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ZvZ is pretty straightforward, you have a few options. Ling/bane all-ins just stop happening at higher levels because they aren't really that strong (although sometimes they can be good metagame-ish because people like to be greedy, but on ladder you should have a standard, safe build).
Just go: -10 drone scout Hatch First 15h/15p/17g (throw down reactive pool first instead if you see early pool, ie pool is done or green and near done, this is what i do, if you see 14/14 you are ahead, if you see hatch first just go 17g/17p and you'll be way ahead economically unless they blindly go 17g/17p which just never happens and is goofy...) or 15p/15h/17g, either are very safe conservative builds @100 gas speed (if opponent hasn't expanded when queens are like 10% done, or he doesnt have a drone at bottom clearly trying to expand, its a 1 base 14/14 ling/bane all-in, go bane before speed. or you can go speed first and just not inject, lots of ways to hold, but should be very easy, just go 2 queens first, then reactive lings to however many lings the opponent sends out initially, then make a spine in your main to walk to natural, very important to do that, then get baneling nest, or speed first if he is expanding). Take 1 drone off gas when speed is done - 26 Spine, Baneling Nest - 30+ make 6 lings if the opponent hasn't sent out any lings at all and forced you to make lings, go scout with 2-3 of them and leave 3-4 at home (id recommend you morph them into pre-emptive banes until you get to high masters and are quicker and react and scout better - really, just making 4 banes blindly would be good enough)
You can leave 3 on gas to get nest quicker, or take 2 off, but I find that just taking 1 off gas, for a total of 2 in gas, will lead to 50 gas coming at a timing where baneling nest will come soon enough to handle any ling or ling/bane all-in in time (only 1 in gas is susceptible).
ezpz. Ling/bane is a thing of the past. It's like trying to 4 gate in PvZ, it just doesn't happen anymore, if it does it should be easy to hold if you have a safe build order.
Glad you like the guide though.
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This guide is overwhelming! Thank you for taking the time to pass on your experience.
~Spit
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Hey Belial, I have a question regarding Terran Mech play. What shall I do when he opened Banshee but didn't do much of herrass and only keeps it with his army. (not only one but 3 or so) I can't deny the third without loosing tons of Roaches to Banshees. Should I make Mutas? But then he will push out with Thors which kill the Mutas quite fast. I hope you can help me.
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I would recommend drone scouting, but not everyone does it and if you don’t want to do it, that’s fine. A drone scout is just good to see if Terran is doing anything odd. Since Terran can deny a drone scout, it's not something you are relying on, it's just something that helps.
I'm sorry but this is just bad advice, you should always drone scout (by that i mean when you're at 10 supply) because especialy in the lower leagues if you don't you're just gonna get proxy rax all the time. That actually saved me the other when i got to the terran base and saw nothing there : )
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