Bodzilla
March 14th, 2011, 08:38 AM
Being an avid zerg player, and a massive cry whore over the bullshit easyness of some of the other races play style's i've often found myself batting my head against the wall because of simple mistakes, loosing to them and not being able to punish the other races for it.
Looking over at zerg, they have a number of benefits, such as cheap fast units, low supply , fast production ect.
but they've always had some GLARING problems which in many peoples opinions cause them to acheive less then they deserve.
the 3 major things that come to mind is this,
Gas, you need more, constantly.
Cost efficiency, one of the big things about zerg is always having to have an extra expansion, simply because you need the income to support your much weaker army to stay even.
higher Macro mechanics causing you to be less focussed on battles, and more on larvae injects, because if you miss them your dead.
so i set about devising something to counter it, and to help my zvz as well.
a one size build to make it easier for me to survive, do damage and worry more on battles.
righto, now the first thing is, a 10 pool.
"but thats a major economy rush... blah blah"
no it's not.
1. with a 10 pool it allows you to be aggressive and punish zerg 14 gass 14 pools in close positions, by getting to their base before lings, queens, or spines can pop, taking all but 3 of your drones allows you to try to get up a spine and do massive damage to their economy, sometimes you'll be able to end it there, other times you dont, just know when to fall back with the drones and leave the lings to tank for you while you continue back to your base with a better econ.
2. If you dont want to rush or it's not close positions fine, drone till 12 and start getting queens as soon as possible, continue making queens till you have about 5-6 of them, while droning up and spreading creep like a madman, they also allow you to hold off ANY quick drops, voids, shees ect and will continue to be useful through the game.
if they push you throw down some spines and transfuse's and you'll hold off anything they throw at you, if it's a zerg going for a baneling speed rush, block the ramp with your queens and use transfuse's to cripple the attack and your good to continue.
3. Next thing you wanna get a reasonably fast baneling nest, and ling speed as well as bain speed and all those other essential upgrades, just get them when you think you can.
4. At about 30 drones you want to start your natural, tech to lair and take your third gas. next get a double evo and just pump upgrades as fast as you can, while still going for as many drones as you can, hold off aggression continue spreading creep and you should have INSANE map vision by now giving you ample time to prepare.
5. take your 4th gas and at around 50-60 drones stop making them entirely and switch to ling production, get 2/2 as soon as you can and then take a third and throw down infestor pit, because your going to hive tech. continue with lings when you can, dump all excess gass into banes.
6. Get that hive up and your third base. Get an ultra den, armor adrenal glands 3/3 and continue to build lings and banes
and pepper your army with a hand full of ultras. It's important to not over commit to ultras get a few more drones and gas if you feel you need it and throw down a spire for some insurance from a tech switch.
7. using your vision and creep spread, surround and destroy any ground army they send at you.
now the reasons why this works,
with terrans they do insane damage, and with seige's bunkers, PF's and thors they're hard to attack into, because your army just doesnt last that long.
P's are pretty similar with the death ball blob, where time after time engaging it meant instant death and hardly any damage against them.
and the reason is this, zergs units are short ranged weak units that arnt surviving long enough to do the damage, or if it's melee, hit the front line with the lings banes and ultras and the ranged units such as roached and hydras where actually blocking your melee units from engaging properly unless you had good flanking on their army.
no matter their army zergs upgrades benefit them more then any other, because it allows you to hit their front line properly and fastly so your banes ling and ultras come into their own and do their potential.
their army is only as good as the length of time it's alive to do damage.
They're costly, slow and hard to replace, but your banes do that much damage it doesnt matter. you can replace yours relatively quickly and cheaply.
you have map vision, loads of creep spread so surround work better and your army is having a a field day.
your queens help you against any form of early or late game harassment and force them into longer games.
your army's cost efficient and replaceable, your supply is lower, you have less to worry about macro wise because you only need your 3 hatch's to pull this off.
your able to engage armies directly.
now my experience with this.
i've been able to successfully shut down 4 gates, 6 pools, 3rax, siege tank rines, attack into PF and win, destroy Mech, bio and the protoss death ball.
It's something else when you engage a protoss death ball with 120 supply vs their 150
and you crush through it instantly.
if they have voids your queens can hold them off if they continue to push, and the only thing they have to fire on is ultras, which take a long time to die, and manage to get your army to the front lines by stomping forcefields. your army lasts long enough to do the incredible damage banes are capable of while the ling surrounds disable retreat.
now credit for the strat.
a while back i saw a thread about people crunching the numbers on upgrades, carapace vs attack for mutas, and there was a discussion about how mass upgrades could help zergs efficiency but detract from the size of the muta flock.
i also watch alot of Day9 and have seen his dailys on mass queen and the beauty of the insane creep spread, army size benefits, the benefits of avoiding multiple tech routes.... and a heap of other stuff.
and another thread on TL about a different approach to using ultras, rather then reinforce because of the times, using them to engage armies directly.
I'm also an avid Ultra man, who decided for luls to go for ultra fast ultra drops and see how far i could get in 4v4, and after reaching diamond easily in 4v4 i decided to think about it some more, and see if anything from it could be transferred into 1v1. I've been hoping for quite sometime that Day[9] would actually do a funday monday where the restrictions where the zerg couldn't attack until he had ultras and a third base, but seeing as i havn't seen that coming any time soon i decided to try it out for myself.
well i hope you guys have enjoyed this, if you talk to me about it and ask questions i'll be able to go into more detail, and the reasonings behind it, because this is just a short preview for it.
Note: with the 1.3 patch and the change in infestors role in zerg having 2 or 3 at your base's will allow you to continue this strat and using the new insane DPS shut down any major tech switch, or late game drop play.
cheers bodzilla
Looking over at zerg, they have a number of benefits, such as cheap fast units, low supply , fast production ect.
but they've always had some GLARING problems which in many peoples opinions cause them to acheive less then they deserve.
the 3 major things that come to mind is this,
Gas, you need more, constantly.
Cost efficiency, one of the big things about zerg is always having to have an extra expansion, simply because you need the income to support your much weaker army to stay even.
higher Macro mechanics causing you to be less focussed on battles, and more on larvae injects, because if you miss them your dead.
so i set about devising something to counter it, and to help my zvz as well.
a one size build to make it easier for me to survive, do damage and worry more on battles.
righto, now the first thing is, a 10 pool.
"but thats a major economy rush... blah blah"
no it's not.
1. with a 10 pool it allows you to be aggressive and punish zerg 14 gass 14 pools in close positions, by getting to their base before lings, queens, or spines can pop, taking all but 3 of your drones allows you to try to get up a spine and do massive damage to their economy, sometimes you'll be able to end it there, other times you dont, just know when to fall back with the drones and leave the lings to tank for you while you continue back to your base with a better econ.
2. If you dont want to rush or it's not close positions fine, drone till 12 and start getting queens as soon as possible, continue making queens till you have about 5-6 of them, while droning up and spreading creep like a madman, they also allow you to hold off ANY quick drops, voids, shees ect and will continue to be useful through the game.
if they push you throw down some spines and transfuse's and you'll hold off anything they throw at you, if it's a zerg going for a baneling speed rush, block the ramp with your queens and use transfuse's to cripple the attack and your good to continue.
3. Next thing you wanna get a reasonably fast baneling nest, and ling speed as well as bain speed and all those other essential upgrades, just get them when you think you can.
4. At about 30 drones you want to start your natural, tech to lair and take your third gas. next get a double evo and just pump upgrades as fast as you can, while still going for as many drones as you can, hold off aggression continue spreading creep and you should have INSANE map vision by now giving you ample time to prepare.
5. take your 4th gas and at around 50-60 drones stop making them entirely and switch to ling production, get 2/2 as soon as you can and then take a third and throw down infestor pit, because your going to hive tech. continue with lings when you can, dump all excess gass into banes.
6. Get that hive up and your third base. Get an ultra den, armor adrenal glands 3/3 and continue to build lings and banes
and pepper your army with a hand full of ultras. It's important to not over commit to ultras get a few more drones and gas if you feel you need it and throw down a spire for some insurance from a tech switch.
7. using your vision and creep spread, surround and destroy any ground army they send at you.
now the reasons why this works,
with terrans they do insane damage, and with seige's bunkers, PF's and thors they're hard to attack into, because your army just doesnt last that long.
P's are pretty similar with the death ball blob, where time after time engaging it meant instant death and hardly any damage against them.
and the reason is this, zergs units are short ranged weak units that arnt surviving long enough to do the damage, or if it's melee, hit the front line with the lings banes and ultras and the ranged units such as roached and hydras where actually blocking your melee units from engaging properly unless you had good flanking on their army.
no matter their army zergs upgrades benefit them more then any other, because it allows you to hit their front line properly and fastly so your banes ling and ultras come into their own and do their potential.
their army is only as good as the length of time it's alive to do damage.
They're costly, slow and hard to replace, but your banes do that much damage it doesnt matter. you can replace yours relatively quickly and cheaply.
you have map vision, loads of creep spread so surround work better and your army is having a a field day.
your queens help you against any form of early or late game harassment and force them into longer games.
your army's cost efficient and replaceable, your supply is lower, you have less to worry about macro wise because you only need your 3 hatch's to pull this off.
your able to engage armies directly.
now my experience with this.
i've been able to successfully shut down 4 gates, 6 pools, 3rax, siege tank rines, attack into PF and win, destroy Mech, bio and the protoss death ball.
It's something else when you engage a protoss death ball with 120 supply vs their 150
and you crush through it instantly.
if they have voids your queens can hold them off if they continue to push, and the only thing they have to fire on is ultras, which take a long time to die, and manage to get your army to the front lines by stomping forcefields. your army lasts long enough to do the incredible damage banes are capable of while the ling surrounds disable retreat.
now credit for the strat.
a while back i saw a thread about people crunching the numbers on upgrades, carapace vs attack for mutas, and there was a discussion about how mass upgrades could help zergs efficiency but detract from the size of the muta flock.
i also watch alot of Day9 and have seen his dailys on mass queen and the beauty of the insane creep spread, army size benefits, the benefits of avoiding multiple tech routes.... and a heap of other stuff.
and another thread on TL about a different approach to using ultras, rather then reinforce because of the times, using them to engage armies directly.
I'm also an avid Ultra man, who decided for luls to go for ultra fast ultra drops and see how far i could get in 4v4, and after reaching diamond easily in 4v4 i decided to think about it some more, and see if anything from it could be transferred into 1v1. I've been hoping for quite sometime that Day[9] would actually do a funday monday where the restrictions where the zerg couldn't attack until he had ultras and a third base, but seeing as i havn't seen that coming any time soon i decided to try it out for myself.
well i hope you guys have enjoyed this, if you talk to me about it and ask questions i'll be able to go into more detail, and the reasonings behind it, because this is just a short preview for it.
Note: with the 1.3 patch and the change in infestors role in zerg having 2 or 3 at your base's will allow you to continue this strat and using the new insane DPS shut down any major tech switch, or late game drop play.
cheers bodzilla