[frozen_water92]

Hey guys! Its been awhile since I last posted in this forum

I'm supposed to be sleeping right now because my enlistment date is tmr morning but I figured, "Hey! Since I won't be able to play this kickass game(starcraft 2 duh) for the next 2 weeks, why not post smth here as a going away present before I go for army."

First of all, I would like to apologise if there is another post similar to this one but I am really excited to share my own experience in ZvT for everyone here to read and comment.

Alright. Zerg players out there! Dread everytime you are faced with a Terran player? Tired of seeing your mutas melt away while you weren't paying attention and they fly above a ball of marines or/and thors? Sick of seeing your banelings being blasted by siege tanks during a bad engagement? Just think that marine micro is too IMBA against lings off creep?

Well I may have a solution for you! Change this style of gameplay. What I mean is CHANGE YOUR UNIT COMPOSITION. Recently, after playing much ZvZ with roaches and infestors, it hit me. Why not try roach/infestors in ZvT since that UNIT COMP is feasible in another matchup?

So that's what I started doing and guess what? ZvT has never been fun-er to play. Here's some reasons why a roach/infestor composition can be good in a ZvT:

1) In the early game, roaches are good against marines because they kill them so fast and have a good amount of HP to absorb their fire. Also, say if your opponent decides to go for fac+reactor and starts pumping hellions, they can be easily shut down if you scout that out and good positioning of your roaches. (I know how hard it can be to defend against hellion harrass with just lings especially if you go FE and have no spine crawlers up in time, besides spines are immobile)

2) Mid game, you can face 2 possible outcomes. Either your opponent goes for the stardard marines, medivac tank maybe thor build OR they are forced to go with mech because they know you're going roaches which makes their army highly immobile, thus allowing you to do some other shinanigans such as drop play and so forth. The beauty with roach/infestor build is that if they come at you with marines, you just fungal them twice and they die, leaving the tanks vulnerable to mass roach attacks. As compared to ling/bling mutas, the marines can just stim and run back to their tanks while the tanks blast your lings. And rmb, unless you have good control or have time to remake those blings, you know you're screwed. Whereas with roaches, its different. You can instantly rebuild them when your economy is strong and keep the pressure going.

3) Infestors not only can be used to kill marines fast, they can also burrow into the mineral lines and do some heavy economic dmg. Who wouldn't like free scv kills? That, of course, is on the assumption that he has no detection but isn't it good to know that that option is available if you go roach/infestors?

4) Upgrade-wise, if you decide to get the range and carapace upgrades for your roaches, your infested terrans will also get the bonus and can snipe expansions faster or just add that little bit more DPS or absorb some hits to put you on top of the battle.

5) Late game if say things get really heated up, a couple of neural parasited thors or tanks can be helpful in fights. Either that or go for broodlords. I know this part is kinda off but there's no doubt that broodlords are definitely the way to go in late game.

Okay. I think that's about it for now. I know that some of my points can seem as tho I didn't really put much thought or consideration into them when I make some claims(eg. ghosts can emp the infestors and that's gg) but again I'm just sharing my ZvT experience to everyone here. Tell me what you guys think of roach/infestor into broodlords in ZvT. Or if you have better points to add onto this, go ahead and share. Anyways I'm off to serve my country in a few hours and just thought I should do so by contributing a bit to this site.

[LennX]

What if you are playing against a turtling Terran? How will you go past his 2 base defensive siege line that most likely will have turrets too to guard against possible muta harass? If a Terran decides to go for drop play, how will you react especially if your army is out of postion?

Going into more details on roaches and infestors specific upgrades will help too. Maybe one or 2 general BO also.

Posting some replays will help as it will be easier to get your point across since the action is actually happening right in front of us.

[Cosmos]

GL in BMTC

[Monk]

Hmmm.. I agree with some of your points, but I never get a lot of infestors in ZvT, for the sole reason of their uselessness for harassment. Most people will have turrets prepared for mutas.

I disagree with your Roach Infestor in regards to tanks and marines. I go ling muta if I see this, and I draw out his marines with my lings and snipe some tanks while he isn't in position, having roaches take all the tank fire can turn the game around in the terrans favor. But if he hasn't got detection just make his sieges blast his marines or the other siege tanks with infested terrans, but generally I go for ultra ling queen when he goes marine tank, broodlords get sniped so easily from Marines, and once he starts making vikings then your broods are deemed useless, so they're the real 'Do or die' unit, while ultras are ALWAYS useful(unless he goes mass bc or something stupid).

Too me, Roaches do so little damage that I only get them in mass if I'm going roach ling, which is often the case early game, else I try not to mass roach because of their low dps. Baneling Infestor Ling is a better composition because if you get a few fungals off then gg to marines and lings can clean up tanks/thors. You generally want to get a lot of lings especially if their going mech just because of the immobility of the mech units, and their slow rate of fire. Roach drops are just ridiculous too, they take forever to kill a building usually ending up with the opponent reacting and getting your roaches in time, Ling or hydra drops are much more effective(referr to KiWiKaKi vs MorroW NASL for how slow and painful roach drops are, and then IdrA vs KiWiKaKi IPL Finals to see how good hydra drops are)


So in short,

ZvT
Marine Tank - Ultra Ling Queen / Ling Muta
Bioball - Ultra Ling Queen/ Infestor Baneling Ling
Mech Heavy - Ultra Ling Queen/ Heavy upgraded Lings with drops into Ultra Ling


I'll go into detail:
My standard build for ZvT is a very hard unit composition to crack if you fight your battles wisely. I open up with 14 hatch 14 pool 13 gas if I see no 2-rax play, then get a roach warren in case of hellion or really early pressure. Then I get ONE evo chamber and the 3 other gasses, and start with ground carapace(so it benefits my roaches too) and keep upgrading Melee/Ground Carapace. Then I get to lair tech stopping all upgrades, then I'll get Mutas to harass him, which is my gas sink leaving no gas for upgrades(BUT if you're doing really well with your Muta harass, then you can get an upgrade or two on your mutas), while making drones with my minerals, then get an infest pit, then Hive tech. I stop making mutas here, and start massing up lings and they generally won't move out just because of the potential of muta harass, and then start upgrading again, getting a second evo chamber. I'm usually 1/2 when this happens, and 2/2 when Hive is done. As soon as Hive finishes I get an ultra cavern, while Hive is getting made I make queens non-stop from my hatcheries also spreading creep like a mad man, I also throw down a nydus network (or two if he is on a lot of spread out bases) then I pump Ultralisks, not forgetting to get chitinous plating. I sac all my mutas into trying to kill as many scvs as I can with target firing, freeing up A LOT of supply for my Ultras(they cost 6 food )

HOWEVER! I only do this if I'm very far ahead in the game, Ultras take A LOT of money to produce but are generally unstoppable with some transfuses. You have to be very delicate with your Ultras making sure they don't run too far ahead of your queens. Your creep spread should be good enough to reach his base without your queens being too slow, however if it isn't, just throw a nydus down where creep spread ends. I usually throw a nydus exit at any bases I took that aren't connected via creep so I can just unload ultras and queens. I then throw a nydus in his base, while also simultaneously attacking an expo or engaging his army elsewhere, when the troops come just load back into your nydus network so even if all your ultra queen gets taken out from the army engagement/other expo battle they were in, you still should have a few ultras and queens that you loaded back in. Your AA should be easily dealt with queens. This build is all about making your generally immobile units(queens ultras) mobile using Nydus and creep. But then people are asking, Ultras.. Immobile? They get stuck a lot, making them not as efficient, thus having to split up your ultras. I generally attack with 4-5 ultras at once in one place, any more and they dance around the ass of each other. This is very apm and multi-tasking heavy. A few missed transfuses could spell disaster.

You say.. Ghosts EMPing the queens will make you lose? No. They'll generally be so immobile with their army because of the Nydus and multi-tasking that they'll be turtling like mad, so you can just scoot on out with your queens and ultras into nydus networks. I generally throw a nydus network behind my queens just in case he brings out some type of crazy unit comp that cracks this(I lose this army, not the game to mass(200/200 in just that unit) bc and banshee) but wait.. You have your spire still! Just mass corrupters, Corrupters fly faster then Banshees, and do extra damage to BCs, coupled with your mass queens, and corruption from the corrupters you will be absolutely fine.

I have yet to lose with this unit comp but I'm sure there will be flaws pointed out.

I generally take my 3rd as soon as I see them expand because I know if I hold off any pressure they give me then I'll have the advantage because they'll be setting up their 2nd. I just generally out-expand my opponent whenever I scout them expanding. Great overlord placement for nydus's is great, and I even sac overlords(if there is missile turrets) to put a nydus down in their base.

This chews up Bioballs, Marine Tank and it's on equal footing against heavy mech. But generally I get more lings then ultras if they're playing heavy mech.

I'll just give you guys a rough food count that I have at a healthy number of units

~80 drones
10-12 queens
10 ultras
~80 lings
I leave 1-2 queens back at home for 2-3 hatcheries worth of injects, but generally if you're 200/200 with ultra ling queen you will have like 4-5 bases so injecting isn't really a problem.

[PiG]

I've been using losira style usually of late:
http://www.sc2sea.com/showthread.php?t=1314