[ToRXypha]

I came accross this build last night, i poorly scouted it too so by the time i reacted he had a decent thor count, scouted the helions and on scrap station was just expecting him to helion drop then tank/rine push through the rocks and cut my bases apart. but he didnt instead he kept harassing and i kept droning, and when i realised what was going on i wasnt ready.

I thought about the game after and realised due to not seeing this strat for many months, that in the past i never came up with a solid counter, more a counter to stop him getting the high thor count.

I responded poorly and dished out roachs, with claws and burrow at least but yeah, and mutas of all things, /Facepalm. im wondering how other zergs deal with it if you failed to scout it coming.
i was thinking roaches to tank, hydras(Maybe) a few banes but NP Infestors to win the fight.
Logic here is Roach to tank the helion damage. banes to kill the helions and NP the thors to take out maruaders and the hydras to help the dps on the maruaders. It just feels way to gas heavy to manage.

(Other option i guess is nydus around the joint and take advantage of the slow moving thors by attacking scvs every time he pushes)

[PiG]

If someone is doing this they have very low mobility so on a map like scrap they are confined to 2 bases. I would simply mass muta and get some carapace upgrades to make sure the thors don't 2-shot them. You can take 4 bases, cover the map in ovies to scout incoming drops ahead of time. Force heaps of turrets + thors in each base to defend your harass and slowly swap to NP infestors with your 50 mutalisks and just zergling bane on the ground will probly do fine.

Just send the banelings after the blue flame helions or any grouped up units, even thors. If your banelings are xploding on 4 thors its actually VERY cost effective. Magic box your mutas over the thors and just rally in more lings. Shouldn't be too hard a fight as long as your mutas and lingbane engage at the same time.

Alternatively just go roach infestor but you'll need alot of infestors so you can fungal marauders to death whilst NP on thors. And yeah some banes to remove the helion wall is always good.

Main thing is theyve gone a clunky build that takes a shitload of infrastructure: Barracks with tech labs building only 1 marauder at a time, a hell of alot of factories too. You can take 4 base easily and whichever unit comp u choose u can pown. So yeah the most important thing is to scout constantly and identify this early.

[crAzerk]

I didn't know that mutas could handle this as well, heh. But yea I've faced this occasionally too and the most crucial part of this is to scout it - by noting that he has multiple Factories with tech labs.

This push typically comes just off two base, so you need to be macroing well (with early Roaches probably to handle blue flame hellions) beforehand without losing too much to Hellion harass, preferably be on 3 base already.

I usually handle this with Roach infestors - if he comes before NP is done, his Thor numbers shouldn't be that great yet and so if you have been macroing decently (without getting drone-raped by hellions) you should be able to mass up enough Roaches to hold off the first push. And as mentioned, banelings are awesome for clearing the hellion wall (and also SCVs on mass repair to the thors, which is quite common).
If he comes after NP is done, it's just a matter of micro and positioning. You should win the battle easily (I've won battles where I was 30-40 behind just because of NP).

If the push is coming and you're gas blocked (likely because of Infestors) just spam zerglings, once your banes have cleared the hellions, lings do really well against Thors and draw fire for your Roaches too.

[ToRXypha]

Cool, thanks for that, it was along these lines i thought, main problem for me was i didnt scout it, i saw helions expected the drop then for it to go standard tank/rine push, and just assumed.

[crAzerk]

Whether its a hellion drop or just normal blue flame hellion harass, having a small bunch (5-6) of roaches early in the game is always good to fend them off, so I always get them.

And yup just need to scout for the multiple factories+techlabs for a telltale sign of mass thors.

[Monk]

>_< This is a hard combo to crack, but PiG tells you how to perfectly fend it off.

However I find this combination a lot harder to deal with: Thor, Hellion and Ghosts.

Cloaked EMP's and then Snipe in your neuraling infestors and mutas, hellions cook your lings and thors well.. Destroy everything. I haven't found a way to actually beat this combination, PiG or crAzerk any ideas?

[crAzerk]

Oh god, I hate that EMP so much It's retarded how one ghost can nullify like ten infestors if I had them bunched up.
Remember this picture?

Blue puff of smoke is the EMP going off

+ Show +

This was from one of my blog entries

The thing about THor/Hellion/Ghosts is that
1) It is very very gas heavy, including the upgrades for Ghosts
2) It comes in mid-late game

Point #1 means the Terran probably needs 3 bases and it probably wont be included in a 2base thor push that Terrans like to do. Also, if they do get ghosts it means less Thors (gas once again), so Roaches can do fairly well.

And point #2 means you have time to get up upgrades! I can't stress how important upgrades are, because if the Terran is doing such a mech push he definitely will upgrade his Thors and you NEED to keep up to par with those upgrades (if possible go ahead in upgrades)

What you have posed is a fairly hypothetical scenario and so it would be good if you had replays of you losing to that combination and we can have a look to provide feedback. But in general, just try to keep your macro up, upgrades up, and if possible spread your infestors

[PiG]

Yeah i totally agree with what crazerk said.

Like, terran will find it really hard to get ghosts in with that mix till very lategame.

I would suggest keeping your opponent on 2 base is severely going to limit their ability to get such a mix.

Buy hypothetically fighting it you would need alot of overseers cos they're gunna keep sniping them and just to spread your infestors and snipe ghosts as they come forward with your units. mass roach would be ideal for dealing with it just fat waves of them should do ok

[Silver Pharaoh]

I recall a game where the zerg player would scout and NP the ghost to emp the other ghosts. Fairly good idea.