[TADivinity]

Originally Posted by neozxa

Ouch. Was just giving my opinion, mate, nothing more or less. A Gold league Terran could only know so much about the game...



Which means that when you switch to mutas, the terran would be really vulnerable to it, since he wasn't expecting it, thus he wasn't ready for it one bit.



Yes you (probably) can. But it wouldn't hurt to try them once in a while, especially when you've reached late game.

No dude, I mean I was blind shit-talking, not you! >,<.

The problem with the late game muta-switch is gas. Its just simply better to go Broodlords and 3/3 upgrades for melee units.

[Peleus]

The other issue is supply and swapping your high T3 units for the ability to switch to fragile T2 units. When you mass muta the ghost / marine / tank composition can often just roll you because of your comp.

Nydus is something to try, but often not effective because they can literally land often kill it off before it pops with SCV's, and even then it's super slow unload speed makes it quite easy for your army to be trapped when the fragile worm is sniped by the responding army with only half unloaded.

Not to hijack but here is another example of what Eldrid is talking about with the hopelessness of late game ZvT beyond a certain point - http://drop.sc/95338

[faithHunter]

Originally Posted by TADivinity

No dude, I mean I was blind shit-talking, not you! >,<.

The problem with the late game muta-switch is gas. Its just simply better to go Broodlords and 3/3 upgrades for melee units.

Hooray for misunderstanding. Retracted my post. Sorry mate :P

But well, Brood lords get sniped by Ghosts a BIT too quickly, so I thought that Broods weren't viable as well as Ultras.

Just one thing that I just thought of: Despite how awfully powerful Snipe can be vs Zerg, it STILL costs energy. If you could just Neural 1 Ghost and EMP the other ghosts with them, you can leave them energy-less. QxCDestiny () did this once versus a Turtling Terran on stream, but well, it's really a coin flip and you could lose your entire Brood Lords AND Infestors to awfully quick Quickscopes should it fail.

But yeah, I think vs that kind of unit composition, I think sufficient Lings would be enough to kill that unit composition.

Nydus is something to try, but often not effective because they can literally land often kill it off before it pops with SCV's, and even then it's super slow unload speed makes it quite easy for your army to be trapped when the fragile worm is sniped by the responding army with only half unloaded.

I think Nydus Worms needs a buff so that they can unload the exact amount of units at a time based on how many of 1 kind of unit that can fit in an Overlord (8 lings, 4 roaches, 4 Hydras, 1 Ultra, etc) This has been suggested in the Blizz forums, but I don't know what's the link to the thread. But maybe 8 lings is a bit exaggerated, maybe half of the amount of the 1 kind of unit that can fit in an overlord? (4 Lings, 2 Roaches, 2 Hydras, 1 Ultra)

Once in a ZvP (I was the Z) I went up against a Protoss with a turtle-ish playstyle. I tried summoning more than one Nydus Worms to the toss's main so that they can unload multiple units at a time.

[Eldrid]

Lol +1 div.

I think getting more than 2 overseers helps, but i fungalled after my overseers died in this game. In a different scenario where perhaps he gets better EMP's sooner, more overseers yes. I still dont think that was the game changing issue.

Nuke is basically area control which, due to MULE's (late game) is free. 150/100 or something every 30-60 seconds ... you dont even feel that on super huge econ. That applies to any unit comp... it could be super late game TvP where theyre going MMMG And have 10~ O/C's, they can just keep nuking during any engage... And nuking expo's and stuff. You can spine / spore every base up sure. but with 1 nuke (150/100) they can kill a whole bunch of static D way cost efficiently.

Pretty strong stuff.

[Eldrid]

Originally Posted by neozxa

Which means that when you switch to mutas, the terran would be really vulnerable to it, since he wasn't expecting it, thus he wasn't ready for it one bit.



Yes you (probably) can. But it wouldn't hurt to try them once in a while, especially when you've reached late game.

I see what you're saying, but good T always get turrets even with scouting just because they may miss a spire and its impossible to scout every single bit of creep a zerg has. also proxy spire (overlord drops creep -> spire).. they should -always- get turrets.

therefore a muta switch later on, when T will likely be 2-2 with 3-3 inc will only slow down your 3-3 adrenal glands and broodlord tech, and be worthless.

10 muta doesnt really kill anything, it can barely take on 1 turret without losing a muta. 20 mutas is 2000 gas and you just cant afford it. This is not viable.

The nydus thing is good, but again, a good T who watches his minimap will see it and maybe kill it, if not you will get a few units out before they do. If you go ultras first, (or even if you unload your whole army into his base without him killing your nydus) he gets there relatively quickly due to stim, and his sim city with his rax/factories makes his MMG very very potent. lots of chokes, not able to surround basically.

If you multi prong his 3rd/4th during this, his tanks will still be there. It could do damage, but i dont see it being hugely cost efficient.

Drops would be good, but again, people that play this style (and not just once for lol's, lose because theyre not used to it, and go back to standard) get sensor towers and watch for this stuff. The style is very rare and ive probably played it ~10 times ever, but its extremely strong.

I know it seems like im writing off your ideas, i just dont think any of them would be "do this and win", not that im saying there should ever be a "do this and win" button, but should terran react well (not perfectly, just well) he will always hold these types of attacks cost-efficiently and get ahead. Leaving us with the option of going for a late game huge broodlord type army... :|

[Eldrid]

Originally Posted by PeleusSPR

The other issue is supply and swapping your high T3 units for the ability to switch to fragile T2 units. When you mass muta the ghost / marine / tank composition can often just roll you because of your comp.

Nydus is something to try, but often not effective because they can literally land often kill it off before it pops with SCV's, and even then it's super slow unload speed makes it quite easy for your army to be trapped when the fragile worm is sniped by the responding army with only half unloaded.

Not to hijack but here is another example of what Eldrid is talking about with the hopelessness of late game ZvT beyond a certain point - http://drop.sc/95338

this is actually the exact same thing. +1 to you for finding such a similiar replay, and its funny how you say pretty much the same as me at the end of your game :P (Except nicer, basically ^^)

The only difference is this guy didnt O/C spam & sac SCV's. But yeah

You basically cant attack into him because of his PF/Tank wall & ghost means you cant rly ever be cost-efficient (trade energy for units) and he just wins after 50min when everything is mined out on the map. If you look at units lost you had lost like 40% more than him @ the end.

[PiG]

I spoke to idra a bit about this at IEM. I was hoping he would have an answer. All he did was share my misery :s. He told stories of how players like Major would get in unloseable situations vs him and then run 20 vikings into fungal allowing him to win games he had no right to. He had no answer to ghostmech builds or super-lategame Terran.

He went on to destroy Puma 3-0 including a game where Puma went ZERO aggression besides blue flame harass and just macro'd up an enormous army adding in all sorts of units and Idra managed to win by dual-nydusing multiple locations continually for about 2 minutes. By this time Puma had lost just 1 expo and was still looking unstoppable but his army was now spread across all his bases denying nydus and Idra charged and wiped out his main army and won the game.

Afterwards I mentioned that if Puma just walled off with some planetaries, barracks or even bunkers the primarily ultra-composition would never have been able to overwhelm even 1/3 of Puma's army. Dimaga and Idra both readily agreed that the Terran has to make a mistake, in theory, for the Zerg to win this sort of situation. Planetaries are pretty much free mainly minerals and he was floating quite few thousand so he could have defended alot better.

So yeah, I totally agree you shouldn't let the game go past a certain point. This is because:

1) You should have a superior economy as zerg and whilst your units suck individually, your production makes them all-powerful.
2) "If you aren't attacking, you're probably losing" -QXC ... I think there's so much that can go on in this game and that if there is little interaction between the players forces then leads can be lost, losses can be avoided and an advantageous battle at max can quickly turn sour.
3) "Zerg units shit" - Dimaga = Zerg units are bad. They get worse as your opponent gets better shit.

Basically if you're ever just sitting there letting a T or P take bases you're playing zerg wrong. You need to use your units constantly and trade with your opponent. Does this mean attack an entrenched position repeatedly? No. But make use of your economy to force your opponent into expanding aggressively and take the good engages that present themselves. This is hard. It's really hard to guage if an opponent is just gunna sit there or attack.

How to identify if he's this dude:

You Tube

You Tube

1) Count production + scout expansions THE MOMENT they start building
2) Learn ways to push your economy harder
3) Learn ways to clean up his pressures and pushes faster and more efficiently
4) Learn to not overreact to "sharking" around the map with his army to force you into building units you didn't want nor need

Sounds easier in point form eh...

Honestly though the best advice I can give is follow stephano's stream religously. He almost never loses from an economic advantage. What I learn from it every day:

Sure tech switches are great. But each wave needs to be doing significant damage otherwise you're just hoping your opponent screws up. The answer rarely lies in composition but usually in positioning and economy.

Quick Comments

	mGGDaedalus:	stephano's micro is so gosu
	Maynarde:
	syfChadMann:	+1 for the turtle...
	iM yang:	you're a !@#$ champ
	Dox:	legendary post
	VoxMSI.Rogue:

[QEDMazaire]

Originally Posted by PiG

Basically if you're ever just sitting there letting a T or P take bases you're playing zerg wrong. You need to use your units constantly and trade with your opponent. Does this mean attack an entrenched position repeatedly? No. But make use of your economy to force your opponent into expanding aggressively and take the good engages that present themselves. This is hard. It's really hard to guage if an opponent is just gunna sit there or attack.

All of this having been said in regards to the ZvT matchup, do you feel it is a mistake based on zergs mechanics to take a fast 4th/5th when a terran takes a relatively fast third, or do you feel that at this point is would be better to start putting large amounts of pressure on?

A zerg can keep equal upgrades with a terran player, so do you feel that a trading 200/200 armies with a terran a more of a stylistic choice? or a mistake at lower levels of play? or just a case of a zerg being even greedier than his T (or P for that matter) counter part?

[PiG]

Originally Posted by QEDMazaire

All of this having been said in regards to the ZvT matchup, do you feel it is a mistake based on zergs mechanics to take a fast 4th/5th when a terran takes a relatively fast third, or do you feel that at this point is would be better to start putting large amounts of pressure on?

A zerg can keep equal upgrades with a terran player, so do you feel that a trading 200/200 armies with a terran a more of a stylistic choice? or a mistake at lower levels of play? or just a case of a zerg being even greedier than his T (or P for that matter) counter part?

Uh, I think when learning the game (so like, anyone not a progamer, and most progamers also... I still learn every day how bad I am..) it's best to play defensive. so taking a quick 4th in reaction to T 3rd is good. You don't really need superior economy to terran by much until lategame so in this midagme stage you want to atleast maintain parity (~15 drone lead cos of mules) and crush any armies whenever possible, not letting him shark.

That being said macro is a tricky balance so it's really up to the individual. Generally speaking attacking a Terran is a bad idea 95% of the time. That 5% though it's often really simple to just kill them. If a terran goes helion expand into fast 3 CC into reactor medivacs and double engi bay then you know he has a tiny or nonexistant tank count.

This is what Nestea realised crossmap entombed valley vs MVP in i think ro32 GSL this season. He has ~8 mutas out, morphed 20 banes as his bane speed finished and rolled in with BUTTLOAD of stuff off 2-base. MVP got crushed as he had only like 1-2 tanks up at this point and his marines didn't have much space to run. The thing is, as always nice positioning and simcity can hold this so it comes down to how greedy the T is.

I think Nestea wasn't planning to all-in from the start. He played super safe probably because MVP denied scouting. So he finally gets mutas out, MVP pulls back in the nick of time saving his marines and dropships having already delayed Nestea's 3rd and applied good pressure. Nestea's mutas come and see a 3rd CC already finished dropping mules and double ups going so he was like oohhh crap, I don't even have +1 finished yet and he gunna have 1-1 done soon. He has base higher then me etc etc. Ok, this is an incredibly powerful macro build from MVP and I'm behind, he doesn't have tanks up though, make banes and win. He was forced all-in by his own safe play >.<.

I think it's often vital vs these builds to learn to position lings PERFECTLY to shut down medivac harass without having to rush mutas. This way you can hold a 3rd base, delay your mutas, and then compete with these greedy builds in a macro game.

So is it better to attack or macro up was your question? It comes down to identifying those same turtle factors above:

1) Count production + scout expansions THE MOMENT they start building
2) Learn ways to push your economy harder
3) Learn ways to clean up his pressures and pushes faster and more efficiently
4) Learn to not overreact to "sharking" around the map with his army to force you into building units you didn't want nor need

In this replay:
1) Essentially what Nestea didn't do was get a good early scout off cos it was a massive map and he was playing a Terran who knew his shit.
2) Nestea chose a safe route after having information denied, he failed to push his economy harder.
3) He didn't efficiently defend the medivacs having to rush mutas for safety
4) He didn't even try to build a 3rd as he was afraid of the sharking marine/medivac

So after having scouting denied you might be forced into this position where aggression is your best option but generally if you get the right scouting off then you can make the right decisions with enough practice. (perhaps dead space for overlords to safely reach good position is necessary on all maps).

Gawd another epic post. Why do I come on here after having a few drinks >.<.

Quick Comments

	Navi:
	QEDMazaire:	give pig ALL the reputation!!
	|Erasmus|:	You should drink more often if it makes you that helpful.

[ROOT`iaguz]

PuMa's mistake that game wasn't making enough Pforts or bunkers or w/e. The flaw in his plan is that you cannot play a game that long without doing anything to the Terran. You actually have to do shit to Zerg before you get to that stage.

[simon]

watch some late game thorzain tvz especially on shakuras. should get your spirits up eldrid

[QEDMazaire]

Originally Posted by PiG

Uh, I think when learning the game (so like, anyone not a progamer, and most progamers also... I still learn every day how bad I am..) it's best to play defensive. so taking a quick 4th in reaction to T 3rd is good. You don't really need superior economy to terran by much until lategame so in this midagme stage you want to atleast maintain parity (~15 drone lead cos of mules) and crush any armies whenever possible, not letting him shark.

That being said macro is a tricky balance so it's really up to the individual. Generally speaking attacking a Terran is a bad idea 95% of the time. That 5% though it's often really simple to just kill them. If a terran goes helion expand into fast 3 CC into reactor medivacs and double engi bay then you know he has a tiny or nonexistant tank count.

This is what Nestea realised crossmap entombed valley vs MVP in i think ro32 GSL this season. He has ~8 mutas out, morphed 20 banes as his bane speed finished and rolled in with BUTTLOAD of stuff off 2-base. MVP got crushed as he had only like 1-2 tanks up at this point and his marines didn't have much space to run. The thing is, as always nice positioning and simcity can hold this so it comes down to how greedy the T is.

I think Nestea wasn't planning to all-in from the start. He played super safe probably because MVP denied scouting. So he finally gets mutas out, MVP pulls back in the nick of time saving his marines and dropships having already delayed Nestea's 3rd and applied good pressure. Nestea's mutas come and see a 3rd CC already finished dropping mules and double ups going so he was like oohhh crap, I don't even have +1 finished yet and he gunna have 1-1 done soon. He has base higher then me etc etc. Ok, this is an incredibly powerful macro build from MVP and I'm behind, he doesn't have tanks up though, make banes and win. He was forced all-in by his own safe play >.<.

I think it's often vital vs these builds to learn to position lings PERFECTLY to shut down medivac harass without having to rush mutas. This way you can hold a 3rd base, delay your mutas, and then compete with these greedy builds in a macro game.

So is it better to attack or macro up was your question? It comes down to identifying those same turtle factors above:

1) Count production + scout expansions THE MOMENT they start building
2) Learn ways to push your economy harder
3) Learn ways to clean up his pressures and pushes faster and more efficiently
4) Learn to not overreact to "sharking" around the map with his army to force you into building units you didn't want nor need

In this replay:
1) Essentially what Nestea didn't do was get a good early scout off cos it was a massive map and he was playing a Terran who knew his shit.
2) Nestea chose a safe route after having information denied, he failed to push his economy harder.
3) He didn't efficiently defend the medivacs having to rush mutas for safety
4) He didn't even try to build a 3rd as he was afraid of the sharking marine/medivac

So after having scouting denied you might be forced into this position where aggression is your best option but generally if you get the right scouting off then you can make the right decisions with enough practice. (perhaps dead space for overlords to safely reach good position is necessary on all maps).

Gawd another epic post. Why do I come on here after having a few drinks >.<.

Thanks for the really really good reply pig .

[Rockstar]

I agree with you. Mules are stupid. I've been saying this since release.

I also agree that snipe is stupid. I've been saying this since season 2...

Nukes..... I haven't ever faced mass nukes. They are rather expensive though, and if he's massing them he's outlayed a lot of cash. I think the real issue lies with the Ghost unit in its current form. The fact that you can mass ghosts, they can take out any zerg unit in the game, they can cloak AND nuke is a bit stupid. The fact that Zergs detector is a giant weakass unit with a bullseye painted on its back doesn't help a lot in this situation. I believe the problem is mainly snipe making an already strong unit ridiculously strong... However I think the problem lies more with zergs inability to engage an entrenched position. Whether it be protoss or terran. Hopefully the changes in HotS help to alleviate this problem.

[aLtNinja]

In Terran vs Zerg especially when you play a ling infestor tech/upgrade focused style the game is very timing based, if you let the terran sit back and build 30 ghosts without ever trading or killing anything they should win if they do it right. So the goal as zerg is to harass scvs, make good trades, or just kill them with a timing before they get enough ghosts out, when they are just starting to build ghosts is when they are most vulnerable which is normally about when zergs are getting ultras out and or having their 3/3 and adrenal glands finish. (terran is behind in upgades because you invested into 2 evo chambers very fast, you have to use the advantage before terran gets 3/3 and mass medvacs with spread or ghosts!

So if we want to hit a timing before they get enough ghosts out, we have to get a lot of gas geysers up early so that we can afford to get all of our units out in time here are some things i noticed that could let you just kill him with ultra ling infestor

When he moved out on the map while adding 3 ghosts academies and then teching to cloak nuke etc while only having 1 tech labbed barracks you just kill his army counterattack and win.

Some things that may have stopped you from being able to do that are - not taking your third at 9:20 right after he gifted you all of his hellions when playing ling infestor style the limiting factor is gas a lot of the time, if you take your third faster you get gas faster if you get gas faster you max faster.

The other thing was building like 10 overseers and only getting like 2-3 continmates off and only building 3 infestors, against a good terran this should kill you. You want to get atleast 6 infestors right when your energy upgrade finishes, some players like tgun keep building more and more but atleast 6 is important because they gain energy ready for your timing with ultras and 3/3, if the terran is moving out anywhere near your creep as you're maxed with a 2/2 upgrade advantage to his 180 supply wasting gas and barracks on techlabs on ghost academies he is suicidal. Bane nest and speed and or delaying 3/3 for faster timing wth 2/4 ultras + speedbanes can work too.

In this game you kill his army anyway and it's:
139 supply with 3270 minerals 1125 gas for you to
133 supply with 2330 minerals 106 gas for the terran
WHY ARE YOU NOT MAXED AND IN HIS MAIN U CAN BUILD STUFF FAST TERRAN CAN'T

Quick Comments

PiG:

[faithHunter]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

I agree with you. Mules are stupid. I've been saying this since release.

I also agree that snipe is stupid. I've been saying this since season 2...

MULES on Gold are pretty stupid, good thing that Blizz is removing that feature on the next patch.
Currently, Snipe is REALLY good against High Tech Zerg units, and Blizz is also removing that on the next patch too.

That's why I like this patch so much, it removes unneccesary things that makes the game Terran favored, and also because I thought about these changes (and kept them to myself) a while before the patch was even out, so I'm glad that Blizz made it into an official patch

[iM yang]

i prefer qxc's idea of making ghosts do less damage to massive instead of breaking ghosts for everything else

Quick Comments

HuT:

[faithHunter]

Originally Posted by Eldrid

10 muta doesnt really kill anything, it can barely take on 1 turret without losing a muta. 20 mutas is 2000 gas and you just cant afford it. This is not viable.

Actually, my intention for suggesting Mutas is so that the Terran can spread out his army, preferabbly Ghosts, so that they can defend vs muta harass. But yeah, too gas heavy and mutas become awfully useless late game when the Terran builds Turrets.

Originally Posted by Eldrid

If you multi prong his 3rd/4th during this, his tanks will still be there. It could do damage, but i dont see it being hugely cost efficient.

In the replay I don't think the Terran has thick defenses on his 4th/3rd. You could just downright kill them and force them to lift off. I might be mistaken though, the 4th CC could be a PF instead of an OC, but I kinda forgot :/ And if you manage to kill the relatively undefended tanks with something else besides Mutas, the Terran front will become much weaker due to lack of Tank Splash.

Originally Posted by Eldrid

I know it seems like im writing off your ideas, i just dont think any of them would be "do this and win", not that im saying there should ever be a "do this and win" button, but should terran react well (not perfectly, just well) he will always hold these types of attacks cost-efficiently and get ahead. Leaving us with the option of going for a late game huge broodlord type army... :|

Don't worry about it. Even though at first I posted those things as a "do this and win" option, I then realized that most of the time it won't give you an instant win, it will just give you a better chance of winning.

Also, if the Terran is going Mass Ghosts with Marine support, he will have less Marines since he has to make Tech Labs for Ghosts. Maybe Mass Lings would work, but I haven't tried it out yet.

One more thing that I want to emphasize: Destiny once went against a Terran who turtled and went Mass Ghosts. Destiny somehow Neuraled a Ghost and EMPed the rest of the Ghosts, leaving them with little to no energy.

Regarding the nukes: I think the reason why most of your expansions on the 5 o' clock position got nuked is because you didn't have enough map control and detection. Maybe building more Overseers could majorly affect the game's outcome.

I know that I sound like a know-it-all, but I only want to suggest other things that you could do against this type of play, despite not knowing that it would go either way.

Hope I helped.

[ETL.Branno]

i find the idea of limiting the amount of mules you can have at once interesting just because it would sort of act like queens where you need to be on top of it and if you miss a mule it actually matters but the only way i could see what working is if you only allowed 1 mule per orbital but it doesn't solve the late game mass orbital problem.

Quick Comments

Eldrid:

5 at a time max, no other hinderances.

[FS.Kezz]

So the lesson is; don't let it get to lategame ZvT?

[jasonluxie]

I feel like MULEs are vital in the early game, if Terran didn't have MULEs, they would be screwed.
Late game Terran gets all funny when you start throwing away workers and use MULEs instead. Protoss can't do that, if you lose your army, you're screwed. Zerg can't really do that, but it works a little bit differently than protoss.
I don't know how to balance ghosts, it's really weird. qxc wrote an awesome post on TL about it, but he didn't quite address nukes, it was about the snipe nerf.
Nukes seem to be pretty balanced, if you can find them all, but if they start nuking everyone, then I guess you're screwed unless you have the most ridiculous static defense system ever?