EPT![[image loading]](http://www.wallpaperez.net/wallpaper/games/StarCraft-2-concept-617.jpg)
A terrifying image of Protoss Nightmares
Hello all my fellow shield toting, Zergling slicing, Marine mashing, mothership techers out there! It is a pleasure to fight alongside you, even if it is on separate battlefields.
I am Zanez... my in-game name is Thrasymachus. Don't bother looking it up, seriously... you will be unimpressed. My points are not high, and my win-rate is meh and my ranking in diamond is questionable. But I have been touring around the forums giving advice to many people for a while now. I have watched just about every high level game there is, and I have analyzed hundreds, if not thousands of replays since I began playing in early beta. Wait until you hear what I have to say before you press the back button due to my ladder ranking...
I tour these forums virtually every day, looking for Protoss to help out, and as of late I have noticed an increase in people having trouble with a certain individual strategy in PvZ...
Muta-Ling (often transitioning into Ultralisks). I have posted advice on a case by case basis, responding to replays and specific individual problems, but since I keep needing to post the same things over and over again, I felt it would be a good idea to write a more comprehensive guide.
The Guide
I am not a mathematician, or any kind of whiz with numbers; not by a long shot. I am currently attending college for writing, so I am about as far away from using numbers in my every day life as one can possibly be. Because of that, I tend to steer clear of the idea that SC2 is an exact science. I have never followed a build order guide based on food values, and I have created 95% of my builds by myself through trial and error. If asked to recall a build order outside of the game, I will stammer and stutter and avoid the question. I believe a guide that locks you into a specific build order, or that uses mathematics will be difficult to recall on the fly.
Because of this fact, I will be avoiding numbers in this thread. There will be no build orders, and no advanced damage calculations (except maybe 1). I want you to be able to go through this guide and take something away from it that you can recall in a game when your brain is closed and you are focusing greatly. So I promise you, everything you read here will be so ridiculously simple, you may well be shocked.
So without further stalling for time, let's get into the meat.
The Zerg
I suppose this is pretty important to explain, as many of you (and indeed me) do not play Zerg regularly or at a high level. I feel that no other strategy is such an all-encompassing perfect example of how Zerg works as much as Ling/Muta - Ultra. So let's explain how they work from a theoretical standpoint.
Zerg use Larvae. Simple enough. Because of this they have a hard-cap on the amount of units they can make per hatchery. This includes Drones, Overlords, Buildings and troops. Now this is damn obvious and everyone knows this, but what are the implications of this? Well this means Zerg can build units far faster than any other race. This includes drones. But it also means that every soldier that the Zerg builds means they are not building a drone, and every drone they build is not building a soldier. These are both important concepts to realize, and are so simple it hurts.
A Zerg wants to make as many drones as he can get away with. This means that a Zerg who is left alone can make so many drones that their economy runs away and they are pretty much unstoppable. You, as his opponent, want to stop this...
Since Zerg have the unique challenge of choosing between Soldiers and Drones, you, as their opponent have the unique advantage of being able to limit the Zerg's drone production by forcing him to build units. Pretty much, what this means, is that Zerg are unstoppable when left to their own thing, and are very vulnerable to pressure. If you force them to keep building units by picking off troops, standing outside their base, and doing minor attacks, you slow them down immensely. This doesn't mean you ever attack them head on, but means you keep them THINKING you will attack them head on. This is not always easy...
Muta-Ling Mindset
![[image loading]](http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100827104532/starcraft/images/f/f3/Drone_SC2_Art1.jpg)
You can never have enough...
The purpose of Muta-Ling is to supplement this idea for the Zerg. Both Zerglings and Mutalisks are excellent at harass, and this unit combo works very well at keeping their opponents in their base in a defensive position. While defending, you cannot possibly be attacking or pressuring, and the longer you are defending, the longer the Zerg has to drone like a mofo. It is amazing how as few as five Mutalisks can keep an entire army on the defensive, while the Zerg has nothing but a few spine crawlers defending.
When a Zerg is going Ling/Muta he is (1.) minimizing his unit production while (2.)maximizing his damage and (3.)keeping the pressure off the base so he can make a million drones and tech. As a Protoss, the key to dismantling this strategy is to stop one or all of these goals. This means you want to maximize his soldier production (therefore minimizing his drone production) and/or minimize his damage and/or keep pressure on his base. If you are able to do one of these, you will be ok, if you are able to do two of these, you are in seriously good shape and if you are able to pull off all 3, then you have easily won.
So how do we do this?
Well where do we begin?
Scouting
How do you even know if you are fighting Ling/Muta? The last way you want to find out is to see a bunch of Mutalisks in your Probe line. Well simplest way is obviously to scout him with workers or units, but this can be extremely difficult if the Zerg player is on the ball.
First and foremost, you need to keep a mental tally of his gas spending. This will not tell you with 100% certainty that he is going Muta/Ling, but it WILL tell you with 100% certainty that he is NOT going for fast Mutalisks. If you see a lot of non-speed Zerglings, and nothing else, then you know he is minimizing gas spending. If you see a ton of Zerglings with speed he has spent 100 gas. If he has Roach Warren or Baneling nest, he has spent a good chunk of gas that will harm the speed of his Mutalisks. Evolution chambers that are working have spent gas. If you see very little gas spending, this could definitely mean Mutalisks. If you suspect Mutalisks, I recommend NOT getting a Robo Facility for observers to confirm it... I recommend researching Hallucination to scout. Hallucination is cheaper than a Robo Facility + Observer, and because of the lack of Zerg cloaking units, is almost as effective as one when used properly, and has the added benefit of leaving your tech options more open. Hallucination will come out just in time to see the Spire or Hydra Den going up, and if Roaches are on the field, a Robo Facility is just a couple clicks away.
If you see the Spire going up, he is almost assuredly going Ling/Muta. Once you see this, you want to work for Blink and Archons... but not too fast, because if you b-line for it, you won't have the gas and forces to be able to fight his Zerglings.
Upgrades
This is probably the most important part of fighting Ling/Muta... Not an ability upgrade like Psistorm or Extended Thermal Lances, or even Warp Gates, but it is weapons and armor upgrades that will win it for you. Upgrades are relatively expensive, and most Zerg's who go Ling/Muta overlook early upgrades in favor of a quicker Lair, Spire or additional Mutalisk, making your army significantly more deadly than his.
Lings do small damage fast and Mutalisks do a x3 bounce attack. This means that armor is super effective against the whole army. Also important to note is that this is further magnified with the effect of Guardian Shield. While GS doesn't affect Zerglings' damage, an armor upgrade + GS makes Mutalisks little more than flying paperweights. Stalkers and Sentries come with a base 1 armor, add a second for an upgrade, and a Guardian Shield, and you end up reducing Mutalisk damage by 4 per hit (reducing total damage from 13 down to 7... that is almost HALF of their base damage). While armor upgrades are extremely valuable, what is far more important however, is that you remain 1 attack upgrade above the Zerg's armor upgrades. This is not to fight the Mutalisks (Mutalisks are already terrible at engagements), but rather to fight the Zerglings. This brings me to my next point...
Zealots
![[image loading]](http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Big-X/Dogs-of-War/dogsofwar1.jpg)
He knocked his block off!
Zealots are probably the MOST important unit for fighting Muta/Ling.
After watching a ton of replays, I find one of the problems people have is that they warp in a ton of Stalker/Sentry to handle the Mutalisks, and when they finally get the situation under control, they move out to attack and get completely overrun by Zerglings the moment they leave their base. This is a very common occurrence, and is very easy to avoid. Even a few Zealots destroy Zerglings in large numbers simply by keeping them off your Stalkers, but since Zealots are fairly slow, vulnerable and do nothing against Mutalisks, you want to minimize your Zealot numbers, and for this, you need +1 attack upgrade for your Zealots. It still surprises me just how many Zerglings can be held off by even four or five Zealots with the upgrade, since it changes the number of hits required for a Zealot to kill a Zergling from 3 to 2. Remember that whenever you see Mutalisks, you need to warp in some Zealots... this may seem pretty... dumb, but it will save you many many losses.
Blink Stalkers and Sentry Force Field
Stalkers and Sentries are very important to fighting Mutalisks and Zerglings, but their abilities need to be used properly in order to maximize their effect. Force Fields are tricky to use properly, but you want to use it to funnel the Zerglings into engaging your Zealots. Any surface area you remove from your ball of units is very important. Don't be afraid to Blink behind your own Force Fields if they find their way around them. When fighting Mutalisks, Blink can hugely backfire on you, because of a mix of your choked ramp and Mutalisk Mobility. This is one of the most important things I have learned the hard way for fighting Mutalisks with Blink Stalkers... DON'T USE BLINK TO ENGAGE. USE BLINK TO CHASE. Mutalisks have a way of going up and down cliffs and flying between expansions. On maps like Metalopolis, we have all been in a situation where we blink underneath the Mutalisks at your main and they fly just out of range into your natural, leaving you sitting around with your thump up your ass waiting for the Blink to cool down. Stalkers move fast already, so there is no reason to blink within their range. Save your Blink for when he flies away or goes up/down a cliff. This minimizes his damage and maximizes the area your Blink will cover.
Offense vs Defense
![[image loading]](http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:wFJVKYGiNW8gtM:http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/6024/10keszscnezet2e4.jpg&t=1)
You want to eat the cake, right?
Everything up to this point in the guide has been very simple and common sense that almost everyone knows, but just screws up every now and then. This next point is just as simple as the others, but seems to slip the minds of the majority of people who fight Muta/ling: You cannot counter Mutalisks on the defense. ONLY on the offense.
Since the realization of this concept, I have won more games vs ling/muta Zergs than I ever thought possible. This is where all the advice in this guide comes together creating the ultimate meat of the guide.
Mutalisks are great at attacking. They go up and down cliffs, they can attack weak points, massacre Probes, pick off Pylons, but most importantly they never need to fight your units. They can abuse their speed and sight to avoid any engagement that is unfavorable, including Blink Stalkers and Psistorms. Certainly we have all been in frustrating situations in which we have been chasing around a couple of Mutalisks, and just cannot kill them, because they keep dodging in and out and avoiding confrontation.
However, Mutalisks themselves are ultra expensive, have relatively low HP and do very little damage. They are terrible combat units. This is why they avoid confrontation. If they engaged our army head on, we would win every time... so it is a shame we can't force them to fight our army. Or can we?
Well thankfully, we can! Pressuring and assaulting the Zerg base accomplishes this nicely. But this may not be easy... The Zerg has a ton of Zerglings and Spine Crawlers in his base preventing you from attacking it. So this assault involves a collection of everything I am talking about here... You need efficient, deadly +1 weapon Zealots and if possible an armor upgrade too. This will handle the Lings and Spine Crawlers nicely and easily and will force him to bring back his Mutalisks to defend 95% of the time.
It takes a great deal of willpower and timing to know when to leave your base to attack him. Sometimes his Mutalisks will fly in while you are en route and start picking off Probes or Pylons and it hurts to just let it happen... It feels very base trade-y and all-in, but it really isn't. The damage you will do to him will greatly surpass the damage he does to you since he will be FORCED to leave your base and run back to defend, and it is more than likely you will win the game.
Zerglings take a large amount of Larvae and are easily dispatched in HUGE numbers by Zealots, and Mutalisks are so gas intensive that they won't have many of them in the early-mid game, and they are very bad in general combat. This means that the Zerg's defensive force will almost always be pathetic and flimsy.
Simply put, when you are fighting Ling/Muta, as long as you are in the defensive position, you are in the losing position and the longer you defend, the more hopeless the situation. While defending, you are doing exactly what the Zerg wants you to do. Ling/Muta is a strategy that is essentially screaming Please Don't Attack Me!!!! Don't oblige him...
Remember that it is OK to defend against ling/muta until you have the forces to attack his base... just remember that the longer you are defending, the better he will be able to defend against you.
Ultralisks
Muta/ling is a build that is typically used to transition into Ultralisks. I won't go into massive detail on countering Ultralisks because games don't always get that far. The Zerg will either die in the timing attack I outlined above, or the Protoss will have been harassed to the point where the Ultralisks are simply the final nail in the coffin.
Since SC2 is still developing, games don't always get this far, but occasionally, you will find both players in a solid position going into the Ultralisk phase.
The key to fighting Ultralisks is two-fold. You must (1) tank the Ultralisks and (2) focus fire the Ultralisks. Zealots are great for this job, if you line them up to minimize splash, but are VERY vulnerable to Banelings... This can cause everything to go very wrong very fast. This is why I recommend Archons for this job. They have high HP and are not considered armored, making them ideal to take the damage. However, any wall being used against Ultralisks is just a countdown on the bomb. When the wall breaks, pain will ensue. This is why you need to take them down quickly. Stalkers and Immortals are the favorite for this, since they do such good damage. I personally prefer Stalkers, because they are so mobile and can reposition themselves nicely if they need to, and can handle their own against Zerglings and Hydras with Blink, whereas Immortals get eaten alive by both of those. But Archons are also great for damage. While a Zealot wall (which does low damage fast in groups of two) isn't so good against heavy armored Ultralisks, Archons (which take +4 damage per upgrade to a total of 47 damage/shot) are capable of laying serious pain on both Zerglings with splash and Ultras with heavy burst, as well as being able to easily 2 shot Hydras if left to their own.
Archons
![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v493/MystLord/Mutalisk%20Guide/MutaliskArchon.jpg)
Still true in Starcraft Two!
A much underused gem, the Archon is a unit I haven't been mentioning too much, because I wanted to emphasize it's strength in this section. Not many people use it, because of all the Archon's negative publicity from Beta and from the mindless sheep on the forums who regurgitate whatever they hear without ever thinking about what they are saying. So take a moment and think about it...
The Archon brutally counters both Zerglings AND Mutalisks, as well as being among the most important unit to build when fighting Ultralisks. This means that the Archon, as a unit singlehandedly dismantles this ENTIRE strategy. (:o)
They do a base damage which 1 shots unarmored Zerglings including splash that dominates the tiny little buggers. Each attack upgrade adds 4 damage to the Archons damage and to it's splash, making Zerglings more and more useless against even a couple Archons. Two Archons and Four Zealots will hold off an enormous amount of Zerglings.
“But Zanez!” everyone says. “I hear Archons suck against Mutalisks!”
False! This is a very common misconception. I already mentioned how Mutalisks can choose their engagements, and no Mutalisks would ever in their right mind engage an Archon. This is why Archons have trouble against Mutalisks. But as I already mentioned there is a way to force his Mutalisks to engage your Archons... and that is to attack his base. It is true that a defending Archon is a useless Archon, but the true strength of the Archon against Mutalisks and Zerg in general lays in it's offensive capability. One Archon will cause ENORMOUS damage to a stack of Mutalisks and two Archons are likely to kill it no sweat. Mixing Archons in with your Stalkers on the offense makes it so the Mutalisks have virtually no choice but to clump up and take shots. Warping in a couple Archons right away when the Archives finish is a strong time to initiate your timing push, since they do not require Psistorm to be effective (unlike raw High Templar).
Also, with Muta/ling slowly changing into Muta/Baneling, Archons do not suffer the same fate as Zealots at the hands of Banelings.
Now I am not saying that you should pack your army with 8 archons... that would be ridiculous. They are so damn expensive, and it is a waste of HT. But since the high splash damage and HP are so valuable, as few as 2 of them can and will change the tide of many many battles, as long as you keep them in the front lines.
So when playing vs muta/ling in the future, I highly suggest some Archons to supplement your force. You may be surprised to see how strong these “useless” units are.
High Templar
Now that you have Archons, you have High Templar. Psistorm has a small radius, does less damage than a Mutalisk has HP and is easy to avoid. And it RAPES Mutalisks!!! Some people will say otherwise, but quite simply, don't listen to them. Assuming you have a decent force of Zealots, you will have no need to Psistorm the Zerglings (it does friendly damage), so save your Psistorms for the Mutalisks. If you follow a ball of Mutalisks with a Psistorm you have some heavy guaranteed damage to all of them and you are keeping them moving. Even softening all the Mutalisks into the yellow makes a HUGE difference in the engagement. Just like everything else in this guide, this is massively magnified on the offense where the Mutalisks come to your army, and is significantly weaker on defense.
A few points to remember about Psistorm vs Ling/Muta:
-Mutalisks are great at picking off HT and will always focus them first. You need to be quick with the Psistorms and use it to keep the Mutalisks from being able to get a good shot on your HT.
-Remember, a moving Mutalisk is a Mutalisk that is doing no damage... mostly.
-Mutalisks LOVE to park just above your army so when you Psistorm them, you Psistorm your own army. Be careful with your Psistorms, and while it is OK to hit one or two of your own units in exchange for a strong Psistorm on his entire Mutalisk ball, you want to avoid Psistorming your whole army. If his Mutalisks do that, try Blinking out from under them and laying a Psistorm anyway. Also, if he has critical mass of Mutalisks and you are desperate, it... may be worth it to Psistorm your own troops in order to deal maximum damage to the ball... (you didn't hear it from me).
Protoss Fast Expand
I am going to put this in it's own section because it is very different. Fast expand builds are tricky to fight Ling/Muta, because it allows them to drone like crazy before you are a threat. This allows for them to get extra fast Mutalisks, build extra spine crawlers and maybe even a third base before they are in any danger of any pressure from you, therefore allowing for them to get literally hundreds of Zerglings AND upgrades to overwhelm your attack. (note... as I am writing this, I am watching a game in the GSL that illustrates this EXACT situation. See: CheckPrime vs NewWeRRa) Because of this, I suggest the very obvious choice of Phoenix when Fast Expanding. While I do not recommend it on a single base (because they are useless vs Zerglings and one base can quickly be overwhelmed by masses of Zerglings), Phoenix are very effective on a Fast Expand, because you can support the resources for a strong ground defense. Phoenix reverse the effectiveness of Mutalisks, either forcing them to switch from Muta/Ling to something else (read a different guide) or to mix in Corruptors to fight the Phoenix. It works nicely, because it forces them to spend their larvae on things to stop Phoenix, weather it is Spore Crawlers or Hydralisks, and allows you to pressure them from the air and pick off drones. He should now be on the defensive, and thus, you should be able to pressure him from the ground as well.
Phoenix easily and completely neutralize Mutalisks, and a muta/ling build with no mutas is a terrible terrible recipe for disaster.
I do not recommend transitioning from Phoenix to Colossi, simply because the Spire allows for quick and easy Corruptors.
Emergency Situations
Now, nothing ever goes according to plan, does it? We always get into emergency situations sometimes. In this hypothetical situation, we have been on the defense for so long that we have already pretty much thrown the game. The Zerg has something in excess of thirty Mutalisks and is ducking in and out of your base slaughtering chunks of Stalkers, going in for the kill.
Well in this situation, you have been on defense for too long. Stalkers are really no longer an option for anything other than taking hits. Now you want HT.
![[image loading]](http://fc09.deviantart.com/fs41/f/2009/015/d/4/injured_protoss_zealot_by_bugball.jpg)
Now you will win every time... right?
So anyway, I hope this guide has helped. I like to think I added stuff in there for a large variety of situations, so everyone should be able to take away a little something from this thread.
Disclaimer: No two players are exactly the same, and there are many variations of the ling/muta build. If anyone has any specific problems or if there is something I haven't covered, please post here and I will either reply an answer, or add it to the original post.
Thank you NewWeRRa for illustrating how NOT to fight Muta/Ling
[EDIT] Added Scouting, HT and Emergency Situations
Definitely will try this out next time. 
