“I've seen pros do a lot of different things like sticking with ultra/ling, going hydra/lurk/defiler, going lurk/ling/defiler, going queens, going mutas, etc. What are the cost/benefits of each, and what is the correct response to mech transition? Also, when should we get additional evo chambers for upgrades. At the very least, a general idea of how to think about ZvT against mech transition would help immensely because at the moment, I don't think I understand this part of the match up at all.”
Don’t get ultra ling. Don't get mutas after the usual mid game amount. Don't get guardians (as a late game switch) Don't get ultra drops.
Do get ling lurk defiler scourge. Go to 4 bases. Stay on 4 bases. Start mixing in hydras. Drop 2 lurkers at each of terrans new mining bases. Do not doom drop. Start mixing in queens. Your final unit composition is mainly hydras, with ling lurk defiler scourge and overlord support and a squad of queens too.
So lets assume you defended the 1 vessel 3 tank mnm attack using lurk ling defiler scourge and are planning/using this build:
3 hat spire 4th hat (at 3rd base) Den Queens Hive Evo Defiler mound Nydus canal 5th hat (at main) 2nd evo 6th hat (4th base) 7th hat (at 3rd base) 8th hat (at 3rd base)
You get your 4th online using only ling lurker defiler scourge. After your 4th is online you go up to 8 hatcheries. You are still on ling lurk defiler scourge. Hydra upgrades are started in the evos but you are not mixing them in yet. You are mainly concerned with mnm tank vessel busts (which are controlled using the lurkers under darkswarm) and mnm drops (which are controlled using the scourge mainly, but ofcourse ling lurk swarm can clean up if they get through).
Terran is meanwhile moving up to 5 bases, 2 armouries, and 8 factories over time. You don’t need to see his main to know this. The simplest clues are his vessel count is low, and his marines are on 1-1. Just from his actions you can tell if he is being passive or not though. He has an MnM army outside one of your bases and is threatening busting at any moment using irradiate on your defiler and then stim attacking with tank support. He can bounce from one natural to the other quite quickly, but you have nydus canals so you can react. He probably wont actually commit to an attack though. If he loses that MnM army too early, he is weak so he will remain passive at your entrance. You can make him pull back half a screen using ling lurk defiler pokes. But don’t try to get map control more than that yet. From these pokes you confirm he has mech switched or not. Next, you want to start hydra speed and range and also drop tech. You start mixing in hydras now. You are clearing minefields either with lings or with hydra and overlords outside your naturals. Do not try to take a 5th base. You stay on 4 bases for a long time. Start pushing terran back to the halfway line. You are massing lings, lurkers, hydras, defiler now. If you want to move decisively into the middle of the map, use lings out in front to clear minefields. Its best to be patient and not lose lurkers or hydras to mines. Remember, lurkers under swarm are invincible and irradiate takes ages to kill them.
You have control of half the map. Your frontline is lurkers under swarm with overlords and hydras behind. Lings and scourge are supporting too. Drop tech is ready, and you are also now in a position to drop 2 lurkers at each terran mining base. Do not get tempted to do a ‘doom drop’. From this position, you launch several waves of attacks, all from 4 bases. This is an important attack phase for you. You goal is forcing ccs to lift, and maintaining control of half the map. If you can push your frontline forward so that terrans resupply lines have to go through your army then you have an advantage. During this offensive phase, you are getting your queen upgrades and looking to start your 5th and 6th base. Its important to put overlords at the 5th and 6th base so that if vult raids come in, you can pick up your drones. Note that sunkens don’t have the dps to protect drones at the 5th and 6th base, you will need hydras there aswell, don’t try to skimp on this. Also note that you are only mining from 4 bases at any one time. This is very important.
Your end game unit composition is required now. You have a squad of queens with energy, and you have hydra bulk with ling lurker defiler scourge and overlord support. The lurkers and defilers hold the line. Be patient when moving the lurkers and defilers, don’t suicide them into minefields or tanklines, let the terran come to them. To break lines, use queens to snipe tanks first. Lings go out in the front. Then move the hydras and cast swarm over them. Finally, move the lurkers up and burrow them under the swarm. Now retreat the hydras to behind the lurker line. From this forward position look for opportunities to get more mini 2 lurker drops in.
Lets get super theoretical now. Let me state now that 99 percent of all starcraft games wont get to this stage: Lets now imagine you have not been able to gain a significant advantage. It is 6 bases vs Terran’s 5. There is one empty base left. You can try 2 things. One is to play the defense game and try to trade as cost efficiently as possible. This style generally favours the terran though. My advice is to instead save up a little, then use 3 waves of dedicated army sniping. The idea is to snipe many tanks in a short period of time, significantly reduce the enemies core army size and then use your bank of resources to receive a huge resupply army. Your second wave attacks the enemy army again (not his bases) to hold his army count down. Then your 3rd wave comes in finishes off his army for good. The key is crippling the enemy backbone of siege tanks. Your gameplan revolves around getting that count down and holding it down long enough to win. In the perfect game of starcraft, neither player ever fully commits an attack. Instead, their entire gameplan is to get to a split map scenario. In the non mirror matchups, that doesn’t mean 6 bases each. In ZvT a split map is Zerg on 7 bases and Terran on 5. This can technically be even but depending on how the game went so far, either player could have an advantage at this late late stage of the game. Due to the nature of the game, Terran is stronger defensively so generally the onus is on Zerg to attack. The perfect strategy is to delay committing to this attack until the last possible moment. The last possible moment is as I described above; after Zerg is on 6 bases, has all upgrades and has a small reserve of money in the bank to be able to rapidly resupply. If Zerg waits any longer then he will run out of fresh expansions to take. It is the rules of the game that dictate he must attack. If maps were bigger than 128x128 and had more expansions then the perfect strategy would have an even later timing attack. It is these restrictions and rules that define what starcraft is. And over starcrafts lifetime, we the players have collectively decided that 128x128 maps lead to games that are of a certain average length of time that is desirable and also forces a certain amount of interaction that is the right mix of ‘exciting action’ compared to ‘defensive reaction time’.
Action vs Sea Ground Zero (note he gets guardians to defend the 3 tank 1 vessel attack, which generally I don’t support. However, it was vs a 5 rax and close air spawns so its allowed. After that, it’s another pretty good example. At the very end, Action gets ultras which I also don’t support, but he is only using them to seal the deal so its ok) http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/korean/games/106021_Action_vs_Sea/vod
Also note that the above two games are both excellent examples of how Zerg beats terran 5 rax (which a few people have been asking about recently). The key is getting the extra zerglings and using them to completely wipe out the first mnm squad with muta ling. Also note these two KT zergs both generally favour getting the 3rd base before the hydra den too. Can make a separate thread for that though if you want.
Also, I know this post is only about the hydra queen style. If you want I can talk more about the ultra drop style which I believe is not as effective. But Ive spent long enough writing for now so that will be later.
there are many different ways of playing vs late mech, depending on map, how your and your enemy's build was, how many units each player has left, and what style u want to play.
he basically listed 1 of those ways to play. basically vs latemech, use his transition time to either get a good economy for lategame or to attack him while he is transitioning. when u go for good lategame economy, u have to do something vs his mines, u have to do something vs camping tanks and u have to do something to deny/harass his bases and prevent him from getting too many turrets. how u do all that depends on ....*check first sentence*
he already mentioned the standard good stuff vs late mech, lurker/defiler drops on mineral lines or lurker/defiler defence because of low vessel count, using drops to attack terran army to bomb his tanks because of his relatively low count of antiair units.
One thing I find an issue for zergs is Mutas in late game vs mech. Mutas are a solid opener vs terran but eventually you must transition out into a more cost effective army. So to combat mech you transition into lurkers and defend until dark swarm is out.
Now here is where the issue occurs. Late game comes around, the tank/vulture army is quite big and suddenly mutas become a really good unit to use. The problem is all your focus before this point was on ground and you forgot to get +2/+2 on your mutas. This means the natural progressing of the mech army and all the upgrades that come with it are far too strong. Just a few goliaths with range eat your muta flock. But if you focused on air upgrades throughout the game even without using mutas, then the transition into mutas later is much better for once those massive terran pushes start rolling toward your bases.
On June 22 2013 02:22 BisuDagger wrote: One thing I find an issue for zergs is Mutas in late game vs mech. Mutas are a solid opener vs terran but eventually you must transition out into a more cost effective army. So to combat mech you transition into lurkers and defend until dark swarm is out.
Now here is where the issue occurs. Late game comes around, the tank/vulture army is quite big and suddenly mutas become a really good unit to use. The problem is all your focus before this point was on ground and you forgot to get +2/+2 on your mutas. This means the natural progressing of the mech army and all the upgrades that come with it are far too strong. Just a few goliaths with range eat your muta flock. But if you focused on air upgrades throughout the game even without using mutas, then the transition into mutas later is much better for once those massive terran pushes start rolling toward your bases.
Well that was just a thought to consider.
:S the problem isn't often so much goliaths and upgrades as vessels.
When terran opens mech, he doesn't typically get vessels because they are too gas heavy, but with a mech switch he has the vessels left over to counter mutas. Of course, if the zerg manages to snipe them all, then mutas can be viable, but it's very situational.
Part of the strength of the mech switch is that the terran can go tank vulture because he has the vessels to protect him from mutas.
On June 22 2013 02:22 BisuDagger wrote: One thing I find an issue for zergs is Mutas in late game vs mech. Mutas are a solid opener vs terran but eventually you must transition out into a more cost effective army. So to combat mech you transition into lurkers and defend until dark swarm is out.
Now here is where the issue occurs. Late game comes around, the tank/vulture army is quite big and suddenly mutas become a really good unit to use. The problem is all your focus before this point was on ground and you forgot to get +2/+2 on your mutas. This means the natural progressing of the mech army and all the upgrades that come with it are far too strong. Just a few goliaths with range eat your muta flock. But if you focused on air upgrades throughout the game even without using mutas, then the transition into mutas later is much better for once those massive terran pushes start rolling toward your bases.
Well that was just a thought to consider.
This could work very well if the Zerg goes offensive enough on the ground to force nonstop Vulture production. Then a surprise Muta switch and all the tanks go poof. The timing window is still before ultra late game though, since by then the turret defense would sufficient, even with a low-count goliath and high-count tanks ^ Also what Kerpal said
I've been planning to experiment with muta assisted drops, once terran turtles a main with tanks and turrets, the turrets would auto-target the mutas right? so the drop could get through and kill the stuffs.
zergs just need to do a few things like, as soon as you get hive -> overlord speed : check for mech, if yes can do drops, etc, if not it wasnt that big an investment. also for the love of god get burrow after defiler den, it will solve all eraser problems.
On June 22 2013 03:49 kerpal wrote: I've been planning to experiment with muta assisted drops, once terran turtles a main with tanks and turrets, the turrets would auto-target the mutas right? so the drop could get through and kill the stuffs.
isn't it better to use more overlords since they A: are cheaper B: have 80 more hp
On June 22 2013 03:49 kerpal wrote: I've been planning to experiment with muta assisted drops, once terran turtles a main with tanks and turrets, the turrets would auto-target the mutas right? so the drop could get through and kill the stuffs.
isn't it better to use more overlords since they A: are cheaper B: have 80 more hp
But mutas took 13 turret hits to die w/o upgrade, overlords took 11
Don’t get ultra ling. Don't get mutas after the usual mid game amount. Don't get guardians (as a late game switch) Don't get ultra drops.
All of these can work, it's just not something you can do every time, it's something that should be in your repetoire as a possbillity
Guardians can fuck the terran over big time if he's too greedy with his gas and doesn't get enough vessels. Mutas can be good when, again, the terran is too gas greedy for the tanks and doesn't get enough vessels / goliaths both for picking off tanks but also for picking of scvs at the 3rd /4th which many terrans only defend with a small group of mnm, with mines or not at all since they have "map control". Ultra ling can end the game early if you can hit the right timing (you have to be slightly ahead though), ultras do REALLY well vs vulture tank as when the tanks are spread out over the entire map (which would counter hydras). you just have to be smart about it and not run 12 ultras in a minefield and ultra ling drops works as an extension of this
I can't be too specific with it though; I know how zerg works out in lategame but I have no idea on the specific variations of the mech switch (which there are plenty of), I am however pretty sure that some variations are weaker than others.
also, don't get me wrong, I agree that your method is the "surefire" way, you just have alot more options than that, especially since the style you suggests makes for long and often turtly games, which alot of people do not want
On June 22 2013 03:49 kerpal wrote: I've been planning to experiment with muta assisted drops, once terran turtles a main with tanks and turrets, the turrets would auto-target the mutas right? so the drop could get through and kill the stuffs.
I know this guide isn't talking about pure mech openings, but in fantasy vs ggplay, ggplay does a muta assisted drop with 2 overlords filled with hydras. Fantasy had no turrets and his army was half way across the map, but the nature of mech allows for small amounts of tank Goliath to wreck small amounts of hydra muta, and then fantasy just crushed him with the superior army.
i really prefer the guardian combo because its much less risky than going for drops which he can quite easily defend from if he is able to scout the map correctly
killer is the "master" of the lurker/ling/defiler into ultra/ling defiler combo vs late mech. literally the moment he knows his defiler will be in time, he upgrades overlord speed then drop in his hive. he directly goes for lurker/defiler drops on terrans natural or 3rd base, while the terran is still busy setting up his 3rd and even 4th bases, just starting to get extra tanks and has rather few turrets to stop the harass. ultra/ling/defiler is very good when the terran does not have the time to set up enough tank/turret defences with big mine fileds. with that fast ovispeed + drop upgrade, u basically circumvent every mine field on the map, and more or less just move your army in those overlords. because of the lacking antiair, u often can directly drop on him or, drop in front of his base then just attack normally. the fact that u dont need extra hatches (compared to hydra oriented style), because ultras take a big amount of money, makes it easier to turn all money into ultra/defiler/ling (with hydra style, u first have to w8 for all new hatches to finish).
the style basically has a timeframe where it works very good, (for example, ultras with 2+2 armor vs "only" +1 tanks). in the game 4 in killer vs sea SRT final, which went into lategame with late mech, shows, that when u are behind in your eco + tech, it is very hard to use this style (without hydras), since lurker/defiler drops arent that effective anymore since he already has turrets + more tanks/vessel (in that game killer didnt even try to lurker/defiler drop him). if the terran manages to get on 5 bases (with tank/turret defence) while u are still "only" on ultra/ling/defiler drops without hydra upgrades, it gets rather hard, since then all new mines and turrets will be placed out on the map and they will soon be too much to handle for pure ultra/ling/defiler style. (in game 4 killer vs sea, killer should have taken the left and middle expo way sooner, because he basically let sea take 5 bases for free and then couldnt hold the base at 3 [which was predictable, killer just didnt have enough ressources to fall back to])
btw i have no idea if trutacz thinks that way, but this is my explanation of that style.
edit2: the hydra oriented style is easier to play (but it requires normally more bases because it takes slightly longer to be ready to attack). it is also a slightly more defensive version. u are allowed to make small mistakes. with ultra/ling, losing an ultra costs u way more, making a bad attack which makes 6 ultras explode to mines/tanks hurts u way more. u walk around with melee units vs range units only. it is harder to defend vulture harass.
EPT
