[PTSZ]

So I've been losing to 1 base terran plays lately (diamond league). I always open hatch first vs terran.

Problem 1 - Terran denies overlord scouting with marines after I scout a gas opening. Then I scout a barracks with a tech lab and a few marines at his ramp with my first set of lings. 1 reaper pops into my natural and gets pushed away by queen. I check his ramp again and see a hellion. I make roaches and lings in preparation for the first push, with 1 spine crawler at my natural. I'm anticipating some sort of SlayerS style blue flame drop.

Then he hits at 8.30 - 9.00 with 7 or 8 marauders with concussive shell, some marines, 8-10 blue flame hellions and a few scvs for repair. I barely hold the push, and he retreats with the majority of his hellions still alive (I have no roach speed yet). 1.30 - 2 minutes later he pushes again with his blue flamers, more marauders and 2 thors with scvs repairing and crushes me because I don't have enough drones to replenish my army to the amount needed.

Later I check the replay and see he hid his marauders after the barrack-tech lab opening, followed with 2x factory, with armory and second tech lab building as he moves out for the first push.

What should I be looking for to deal with this? I know an all in is coming as an expansion doesn't go down. But after him denying OL scouting it could be 2 starport banshee for all I know... So scout the ramp more often? And when should I start producing units in order to be able to hold and still have enough drones to follow up? Maybe get a lair sooner and try for mutas? I'm clueless here.

Problem 2 - This happens on maps like Xel Naga Caverns or close positons on Shattered Temple. Terran opens 2 rax, delays it slightly, and hits at around 5.30 with 7 or 8 marines, some scvs with the threat of bunkers. Usually my spine crawlers are about 75% done, so he can sometimes slip past and into the mineral line, or he can just sometimes kill a sole spine crawler by focus firing. But usually the ling numbers and queens are able to hold this off with minimal losses.

Then he transitions into 2 port banshee with cloak, hitting just after 9.00. I can scout this sometimes and put down 1 or 2 spore crawlers by each hatchery and try to get up 4 queens, which delays my lair. If the terran has poor control, I can defend this. But the terrans with good control - they start to snipe anything out of range of the spore crawlers - either the gas geysers or spine crawlers at the front of the base. As I move my spores to defend, they start to snipe queens without the aid of detection - 4 banshees can 2 shot a queen and then pull away. He continues to harass and then hits at around 11-12 minutes with a mass of marines, some hellions, a medivac and his 5-6 banshees. I'll have usually teched to muta by this time, but the numbers are too small to do anything worthwhile, and lings get minced by the ground force. Baneling numbers are low due to a lack of gas.

Help pls? These Terran high-DPS and high HP units are proving to be really difficult without the macro advantage zerg needs.

[oo0zula0oo]

This happens a lot recently with terran, and I know that it is very annoying to deal with.. The first thing i strongly suggect is always get a Bane nest against terran. You might feel as if its not needed but against the first push of marauders, marines BF hellions it does wonders aslong as you have sufficient amount of lings aswell!
If you know its going to be an all in then there is no point in trying to drone so hard as for if you can hold then even if you lose your hatch you will be further ahead if you keep your drones alive and take out his whole army!
Thors are useless if the support is not there so banes are key to taking out the scvs the marines and also the hellions, lings can clean up the rest~ also try getting a fast evo chamber is always very good, i like to get an early +1 for ling attack and it can also work well when you see banshees incoming.
Getting a fast lair is also very good, you can go mutas but i suggest building the spire but not building mutas until you've held off the first push then you can start harassing once the terran is stuck in his base you can freely drone up~ if you see the thor at his base then while building drones build lings aswell to prepare for the all in attack!
What really is needed here is for you to dominate the first attack not barely defend because if you can dominate that then it will take him much longer to attack you.

Against a 2 port banshee its the same.. for me when I see this I feel like I'm already ahead! firstly build 2 more queens at each hatch and get well place spores on both hatches plus 1 in between both hatches to give your queens some defence as they run around once the queens are done make 1 more queen at ur natural and get a lair in your main. and just keep droning up for now.
Once there are 4 banshees then you know that you are ahead in drones so start by placing down 2 spines and a spore in front of your natural, put down a bane nest and get +1 ling attack and try to spread the creep as much as you can while defending. once the lair is done get an infestation pit and keep making lings while making 1 or 2 drones. send a ling out to the xelnaga towers to see the timing of the big attack and from there make the amount of banes needed because once you beat that army you queens can clean up the rest. this usually scares the terran when I play them.

Their response is usually go for the all in still but with fungal growth and researching burrow will help aswell, and banes he wont be able to break it you can build more spines to feel more safe if you want.
Another thing ive seen a terran do is get a lot of vikings to supplement the banshees and expand but that works better for you because he is not so far behind all you have to do now is send out you infestors to fungal and pick off the banshees and vikings and it is upto you whether you want to keep getting infestors or transition into muta harass and take a third because while the banshees are out it is very difficult to take a third.

So what i suggest is always take into account every possibility and thus the need to build an evo chamber just incase or a roach warren just in case and the spine or 2 just incase but i say a bane nest is really key to hold off the first attack with many bio units.

A little sacrifice can go a long way~
hope this helps but I am only in diamond league aswell so hopefully I could help~

[PiG]

Hi PTSZ

Please upload a replay. As informative as your play-by-play analysis is it doesn't give me information on how well you kept up injects throughout the game, where you cut econ to stop his first push, or how many drones you lost to harass/his first push.

Nonetheless here are some pointers:

1) Whenever you scout a gas opener steal the second gas to limit the Terran
players options.

2) Whenever a Terran is defensive at the start pump your econ like mad.

3) Whenever you detect an all-in get roach and bane tech. In my experience roaches are the best for holding marauder-helion all-ins as you simply have the numbers to squash it whereas lings even in huge numbers are bad against 8+ helions.

4) If the opponent is moving out/pressuring this is the perfect time to sacrifice an overlord as most of his units will be out of his base.

5) Always have a ling hidden behind the mineral line of the natural so say if 3-4 marines push out and kill your ling at his ramp and then at the watchtower you can use this hidden ling to run up behind the marines and check they arent covering the advance of an all-in: helions, banshees, thors etc.

6) Against Thor all-in followups like what you describe you need banelings to bust the scvs and make the helions flee while roaches target the thors down. However it sounds like you simply didn't have the economy to deal with it in this situation.

Once again, please post a replay! There's a tab on the right hand side where you can upload them to this site and then edit your OP with the link.

[SLCN.Kez]

With all-ins you need to cut drones at the PERFECT timing, because otherwise like you said you wont be able to replenish. I actually havnt really faced the 2 thor push all in for ages, but yeah pretty much what pig said is your best bet. As for the 2 rax into 2 port banshee, as soon as i scout 2 rax and he hasnt pushed out as my natural hatch is building ill throw down a gas (if you havnt already) and go straight into banelings, (skipping speed) first as speed usually isnt done by the time he comes with around 10 marines anyway, and because you can be way more cost efficient with banelings and they will let you drone up more so you can stop the 2 cloak banshee push later. Also note, with my first energy of queens ill get creep tumours to help the banelings get a bit more speed so they can catch the marines quicker. As for stopping the 2 cloak banshee push directly, i like to use hydras actually. This may or may not be the best option, but against good players i find the spire takes way to ******* long to build, costs to much, and can be easily sniped. Also, if he has anymore than 3 banshees (i think) when he focus fires he will be wasting shots with his banshees as 3 shots will kill a hydra anyway so he is effectively wasting 2 banshees, and hydras to a **** ton of dps if supported by a queen or something as well. oh, and morph an overseer dont bother with trying to move your spores around for detection, and because u skipped spire youll have the gas for it. gl

[PanDMonium]

I've been dealing with something similar: mass marines into banshee.

One thing I've been thinking about after I scout 2 rax is building an immediate macro hatch next to my first. This enables much more ling / drone production, but I feel that my slowness transition into roaches after bane/speed tech is what causes me to loose. Also, I hate loosing my natural hatch because of poor positioning with banelings against marines. If I hold off on building my natural until I am sure it is safe, I have managed to hold out much longer than if I 14 hatch. But don't take this as advice. It's just an idea I'm working on.

[Meatex]

If you see a tech lab on the first rax then you know its a reaper opening and that is very weak against a baneling bust

Whenever I recognise he is doing a strat that will involve late tanks i bane bust and its will usually go quite well

[mGGmetaStatic]

Originally Posted by Meatex

If you see a tech lab on the first rax then you know its a reaper opening and that is very weak against a baneling bust

Whenever I recognise he is doing a strat that will involve late tanks i bane bust and its will usually go quite well

If you see a techlab on my first Rax you're in for a fast seige tank