That map is huge though and if I dont have tabs on both watch towers its so dangerous to just move out gah.
get flanked by banelings dang.
see sometimes I do just go ahead and move out then I get flanked and die.
Tanks really destroy banelings very easily. At that point it's about making sure the tanks don't get pushed by lings, so having the thors up front, marines in the middle and tanks in back help. If he pushes, tanks hit the banes, pull the rines back and have them take the lings/banes without getting it, thors are just fodder since marines can handle the mutas plenty well.
It's all about surviving that first battle - if you manage that, he can try and counter, but ultimately you're going to push his base in faster with your army than he is going to with his muta.
Also, I don't really think big when I think of xel naga.
But anyway - I guess the point is you need to be scouting more/keeping tabs on him either through aggression or through prohibitively expensive scans. Or fly a rax over (150 mins is cheaper than a 200+ scan).
So TL:DR:
Scouting
and
Positioning
Positioning is only possible through scouting - he more or less knew where you were at all times...or more importantly, where you weren't.
I didn't really watch the first battle so maybe I miss controlled it. or maybe he had like every base except that gold I kept scanning.
I felt like I couldnt do any drops because he had mutas out so soon.
I think if you open up 2rax then you want to do at least a little early poking with your Marines and maybe an SCV. As it turns out he did end up making a dozen lings, but they could've been forced earlier had you applied pressure. I don't think killing his gas steal was critical.
It's still true until he had Mutas, I think. You want to be pushing out a bit with your Marines, clear the watchtowers, try to kill a morphing creep tumour or two. You need to at least give the illusion of a threat, or else they'll just Drone up like he did and get away with not many lings or spines.
The first battle didn't actually go so terribly (his Banelings were blocked by his lings). You were just 30 food and 15 workers behind at that point and his creep was spread all the way to your natural. Tanks might've been a better choice than Thors though, I dunno.
You also have a bunch of idle SCVs.
I'd also re-evaluate how many production buildings you need. I'm not sure but I don't think you can support 4 rax, 2 factories and 2 starports, all with addons, plus double engineering bays, on two bases.
If you open 2 rax, you are perfectly fine to expand. Just the fact that zerg was forced to make 10 lings that could've been 5 drones makes the opening worthwhile.
The number one rule of pvz and tvz is to never engage on creep. You needed to be active with using your army to clear the watchtowers and push his creep back from your side of the map. (To be fair, though, his creep spread was impressive). This was why your push at 17:00 was stuffed so hard and coincidental where you effectively lost the game. Also not having any tanks in your composition doesn't help matters at all which is equivalent to protoss pushing with a gateway-only army against roach/hydra.
Instead of pushing at that point, you needed to be building a tank backbone while getting ready to take a third. During this, you need to be harassing by sharking off-creep with your army as sev mentioned. Also, you can't be afraid of dropping zerg even though they have mutas out. Drops keep zerg from massing economy and also keep mutas off your back allowing you get the favorable position with your army that you need. For example, at 13:00 minutes, you know his mutas are harassing your main. You can sneak a octodrop or a blue flame drop into his main by the west border and force those mutas back, all the while doing good damage.
EDIT: also, when you scan a fresh lair like that and see that zerg is going spire before baneling speed, you have an opportunity to punish him hard if you have a sizable marine force. You just need to be active about pushing back creep and microing marines.
Is it worth dropping when there are mutas on the field though? I mean it's guaranteed that i'm going to lose all those units which makes me uncomfortable.
I switch to tanks only after the first engagement. before I thought the thors would be enough to handle the banelings but nah
I just never felt like I had any opportunity to do anything.
Even taking my third felt too dangerous.
also I never build marauders what do you guys think about that.
It's absolute worth considering dropping with mutas roaming the map. At the very least, you will force the mutas back to give you time to get ample defense up and force zerg to consider making units instead of drones. At best, your drop will do big damage because the zerg is out of position and your dropship will get out alive (if they are marines) because you can always drop the marines and engage the mutas in a cost-efficient battle.
The old saying about TvZ is still true imo. You make mutas to force terran to make thors and not tanks. If they get to mass a critical number of tanks, then you are hosed. It's difficult to push out in the mid-game without risking your army unless you have some tanks.
And yeah, again, zerg is strongest in the mid-game when their production kicks in before you have a cost-efficient army, so you should be worried about taking your third. But it is essential in the match-up (unless you're going for a silly two base timing) so your focus has to be building up a force to do it safely. A protoss or terran on 3 bases (and the macro to back them up) can be a scary thing for zerg.
Marauder/blue-flame hellion timings are becoming popular now where you aim to hit before spire (capitalizing on the fact that zerg will likely want to take baneling speed first). Personally I think they are less stable than marine/tank/thor compositions since zerg can overrun marauder/hellion with pure ling/baneling assuming they get a good on-creep engagement. But they are yet another thing that zerg has to prepare for.
Kambing on
@TwitchTV, @Youtube: master-level zerg ladder/customs, commentary, and random miscellany.
Everyone says that you should be pressuring Zerg, but I usually like to be the one who is out-expanding and out-macroing my opponent and it seems I just don't have that option in TvZ. You have to constantly worry about Z growing out of control, but you can't push unless you really know what you're doing. Drops are also super risky because a good Z will usually have full map control and a super mobile army mid-game.
The battles are so quick and easy to mismanage (especially from T's side) that a game can be over in a second.
It's a good match-up, but it also feels the hardest for me right now. Unless I'm abusing cliffs or something, I always feel like I'm fighting an uphill battle TvZ.
well, there's no doubt that tvz can be tremendously difficult too. But out-macroing is not necessarily contingent on out-expanding someone; you can fully expect a zerg to take 1 or 2 or 3 more bases than you but still barely be able to hold off a well-executed 2-base push, behind which you can continue to take more of your own expansions.
I've played plenty of zvts where I'd crush a guy's forward force of marines and tanks, only to see thirty more marines rallying toward me, causing me to think "well that's some dumb fucking terran horseshit."
It might be worth watching replays of your losses and identifying when you could have moved out and punished the zerg's build if he made a lot of drones, and in future games simply guessing and moving out at that time to see how it goes. However, I don't think you need some kind of crack timing to succeed; positioning your tanks well and having extremely quick reaction time with your marines (as well as spreading them out a bit before an expected encounter) go a loooooooong way toward mitigating a lack of precise timing knowledge.
Just try to bear in mind that the zerg player you're fighting against is probably thinking "god these zerglings suck," "these mutas can't do crap in a straight-up fight," and "great i killed his whole army with banelings, but now my whole fucking army is gone." Helps to have a nice mental cushion to ease back on if the match-up is stressing you out too much.
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
edited February 2011
What do you guys think of a 1gate-core-forge-2cannons opening in PvP to force games into the macro stage instead of having to tailor every build vs a 4gate
response just did it on his stream, i'm not sure if he was getting 4gated but it did discourage a lot of early aggression
the dumb thing about bnets custom games you cant name them so theres no way to find a player of a certain race to play against unless you know them
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
edited February 2011
Not being able to name and host your own games is also a way to ensure that anything past the first, maybe second page of the games list will never get played.
An opponent on Grack's stream is doing a ghost drop versus zerg.
You snipe the queens repeatedly and insta gib drones with four ghosts in a medivac. I would smack my head off the keyboard versus this. Pretty cool idea.
edit: he handled the ghosts but then the tank push killed him opponent says "Me win grack.". Idra called him a joke and said fk you blizzard then logged off with 4000 people watching, what a nice young man, this is how memes are born.
An opponent on Grack's stream is doing a ghost drop versus zerg.
You snipe the queens repeatedly and insta gib drones with four ghosts in a medivac. I would smack my head off the keyboard versus this. Pretty cool idea.
And Idra just rage quit.
"Terran is a fucking joke, fuck you Blizzard."
That build is sick. Early hellions can prompt the zerg to get roaches, delaying spire tech.
Then you drop the ghosts and it takes four snipes to instakill a queen. A lack of larvae due to mising queens probably forces more roaches in order to spend your resources.
Then the mid-game tank push down the center of scrap station is much too strong to stop with not enough ling/bane/muta.
It made scrap station look non-zerg favoured at all. You can't block the extra large ramp with queens so hellions are pretty decent versus speedling there.
Granted a typical spine crawler defence could have saved it, but the way the expo on scrap is tucked to the side crawlers over there don't help defend the main so you need about four, then if its a typical push up the front you are probably screwed.
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VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
edited February 2011
watching Dan, has to be about artosis right?
edit - brilliant
edit - damn did I miss classic IdrA rage? it's a bonus cause I enjoy his stream anyway
the guy in the video pronounces idra like idra does, not like artosis does
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VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
edited February 2011
1-2 so far, but the win was a nice one.
actually I might be 2-2. I remember starting strong. yup 2-2 tonight, something like 1-4 earlier
loss was to void ray harass that I handled but overreacted to, and when I thought I might be ahead because I stopped it he already had colossus. I felt manhandled.
then I bumped into same guy, same map (blistering sands) and I actually spotted a proxy! felt awesome. but though I took down the citadel he got a dark shrine going in his base before I took it out. uh oh.
luckily I had some scans and I was at his base when he revealed them so I had time to gather energy as I ran back, and got some turrets down so he couldn't get in.
got a raven, attacked him again only to find COLOSSUS! luckily only one was out and I sniped it. as the second popped I retreated and started pumping vikings.
theeeeen I attack again and get -very- lucky. since I had sniped his colossus den I thought he'd have one, maybe two, but somehow he had three (I think he had one and was double roboing so the second to came right in). unlucky for him the rallied right by my troops hitting his back door while my vikings danced around front. them going down is probably what won it for me. then I cleaned up his army and was out myself but I had spent way way less on tech so I was able to get more units out and eventually overwhelm. he was damn damn good though, I'm glad I got to play him twice.
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
edited February 2011
So I've been racking my brain trying to think of a way to make ZvZ less of a crapshoot for me.
I've finally settled on something. Its a little poorly refined so far, but its working okay. In essence, its an 11 pool 18 hatch build, getting gas before pool, so that as soon as the pool finishes I have the 100 gas, then moving to drop down a roach warren, evo chamber, and lair for roach speed and +1 attack.
Its good because roaches are the safest opening in ZvZ. They counter speedling and baneling builds, and anything involving roaches you can win with an 11pool 18 hatch because its second in economy only to 15hatch, and not by much. It can be tricky if the opponent goes for a 1base roach attack like in this replay, but you can hold.
After that you just have to be prepared for the inevitable muta transition with spore crawlers and then hydras, and you'll be fine.
I'm obviously not coming at this from the point of view of a Master Zerg player, I'm still only in Platinum as Zerg, but I'm getting more and more comfortable with it.
Zerg is actually a lot of fun and not as skill intense as I thought it would be. I haven't played protoss since I switched but I think my toss play have improved A LOT from playing zerg because it really gives you a whole new perspective on the matchup.
I tried terran but I can't get into it. Macro is annoying although not difficult and the entire race just feels off to me.
Posts
get flanked by banelings dang.
see sometimes I do just go ahead and move out then I get flanked and die.
Tanks really destroy banelings very easily. At that point it's about making sure the tanks don't get pushed by lings, so having the thors up front, marines in the middle and tanks in back help. If he pushes, tanks hit the banes, pull the rines back and have them take the lings/banes without getting it, thors are just fodder since marines can handle the mutas plenty well.
It's all about surviving that first battle - if you manage that, he can try and counter, but ultimately you're going to push his base in faster with your army than he is going to with his muta.
Also, I don't really think big when I think of xel naga.
But anyway - I guess the point is you need to be scouting more/keeping tabs on him either through aggression or through prohibitively expensive scans. Or fly a rax over (150 mins is cheaper than a 200+ scan).
So TL:DR:
Scouting
and
Positioning
Positioning is only possible through scouting - he more or less knew where you were at all times...or more importantly, where you weren't.
It's okay Iowa...I don't know how to play against zerg either.
It's absolute worth considering dropping with mutas roaming the map. At the very least, you will force the mutas back to give you time to get ample defense up and force zerg to consider making units instead of drones. At best, your drop will do big damage because the zerg is out of position and your dropship will get out alive (if they are marines) because you can always drop the marines and engage the mutas in a cost-efficient battle.
The old saying about TvZ is still true imo. You make mutas to force terran to make thors and not tanks. If they get to mass a critical number of tanks, then you are hosed. It's difficult to push out in the mid-game without risking your army unless you have some tanks.
And yeah, again, zerg is strongest in the mid-game when their production kicks in before you have a cost-efficient army, so you should be worried about taking your third. But it is essential in the match-up (unless you're going for a silly two base timing) so your focus has to be building up a force to do it safely. A protoss or terran on 3 bases (and the macro to back them up) can be a scary thing for zerg.
Marauder/blue-flame hellion timings are becoming popular now where you aim to hit before spire (capitalizing on the fact that zerg will likely want to take baneling speed first). Personally I think they are less stable than marine/tank/thor compositions since zerg can overrun marauder/hellion with pure ling/baneling assuming they get a good on-creep engagement. But they are yet another thing that zerg has to prepare for.
The battles are so quick and easy to mismanage (especially from T's side) that a game can be over in a second.
It's a good match-up, but it also feels the hardest for me right now. Unless I'm abusing cliffs or something, I always feel like I'm fighting an uphill battle TvZ.
I promise you that zvt feels exactly the same against a good Terran.
Maybe, I just don't know what intense micro has to do when engaging TvZ, it seems like their dilemma is more about picking the perfect time to attack.
I've played plenty of zvts where I'd crush a guy's forward force of marines and tanks, only to see thirty more marines rallying toward me, causing me to think "well that's some dumb fucking terran horseshit."
It might be worth watching replays of your losses and identifying when you could have moved out and punished the zerg's build if he made a lot of drones, and in future games simply guessing and moving out at that time to see how it goes. However, I don't think you need some kind of crack timing to succeed; positioning your tanks well and having extremely quick reaction time with your marines (as well as spreading them out a bit before an expected encounter) go a loooooooong way toward mitigating a lack of precise timing knowledge.
Just try to bear in mind that the zerg player you're fighting against is probably thinking "god these zerglings suck," "these mutas can't do crap in a straight-up fight," and "great i killed his whole army with banelings, but now my whole fucking army is gone." Helps to have a nice mental cushion to ease back on if the match-up is stressing you out too much.
This is actually genius.
Why is he wearing gloves though? That was really weird.
response just did it on his stream, i'm not sure if he was getting 4gated but it did discourage a lot of early aggression
the dumb thing about bnets custom games you cant name them so theres no way to find a player of a certain race to play against unless you know them
Edit: He gets scouted and immediately leaves the game. Oh Idra!
Make me an offer own3d.tv, think of all the pennies I could be earning if I move to justin.tv.
You snipe the queens repeatedly and insta gib drones with four ghosts in a medivac. I would smack my head off the keyboard versus this. Pretty cool idea.
edit: he handled the ghosts but then the tank push killed him opponent says "Me win grack.". Idra called him a joke and said fk you blizzard then logged off with 4000 people watching, what a nice young man, this is how memes are born.
And Idra just rage quit.
"Terran is a fucking joke, fuck you Blizzard."
PSN: Robo_Wizard1
I would imagine he was just trying not to scream. He cut the stream and probably went and killed a kitten.
Then you drop the ghosts and it takes four snipes to instakill a queen. A lack of larvae due to mising queens probably forces more roaches in order to spend your resources.
Then the mid-game tank push down the center of scrap station is much too strong to stop with not enough ling/bane/muta.
It made scrap station look non-zerg favoured at all. You can't block the extra large ramp with queens so hellions are pretty decent versus speedling there.
Granted a typical spine crawler defence could have saved it, but the way the expo on scrap is tucked to the side crawlers over there don't help defend the main so you need about four, then if its a typical push up the front you are probably screwed.
edit - brilliant
edit - damn did I miss classic IdrA rage? it's a bonus cause I enjoy his stream anyway
actually I might be 2-2. I remember starting strong. yup 2-2 tonight, something like 1-4 earlier
loss was to void ray harass that I handled but overreacted to, and when I thought I might be ahead because I stopped it he already had colossus. I felt manhandled.
then I bumped into same guy, same map (blistering sands) and I actually spotted a proxy! felt awesome. but though I took down the citadel he got a dark shrine going in his base before I took it out. uh oh.
luckily I had some scans and I was at his base when he revealed them so I had time to gather energy as I ran back, and got some turrets down so he couldn't get in.
got a raven, attacked him again only to find COLOSSUS! luckily only one was out and I sniped it. as the second popped I retreated and started pumping vikings.
theeeeen I attack again and get -very- lucky. since I had sniped his colossus den I thought he'd have one, maybe two, but somehow he had three (I think he had one and was double roboing so the second to came right in). unlucky for him the rallied right by my troops hitting his back door while my vikings danced around front. them going down is probably what won it for me. then I cleaned up his army and was out myself but I had spent way way less on tech so I was able to get more units out and eventually overwhelm. he was damn damn good though, I'm glad I got to play him twice.
your favourite kellymilkies is casting atm
what is echoic's tvt build? I need something in that matchup... although I tend to lose either on bad control OR someone drops in my base.
seems like whoever gets the first best drop wins a lot of tvt, both that I've played and watched.
but I need something!
That'll get me into master class right?
Nope.
I've finally settled on something. Its a little poorly refined so far, but its working okay. In essence, its an 11 pool 18 hatch build, getting gas before pool, so that as soon as the pool finishes I have the 100 gas, then moving to drop down a roach warren, evo chamber, and lair for roach speed and +1 attack.
Its good because roaches are the safest opening in ZvZ. They counter speedling and baneling builds, and anything involving roaches you can win with an 11pool 18 hatch because its second in economy only to 15hatch, and not by much. It can be tricky if the opponent goes for a 1base roach attack like in this replay, but you can hold.
After that you just have to be prepared for the inevitable muta transition with spore crawlers and then hydras, and you'll be fine.
I'm obviously not coming at this from the point of view of a Master Zerg player, I'm still only in Platinum as Zerg, but I'm getting more and more comfortable with it.
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=186532
Zerg is actually a lot of fun and not as skill intense as I thought it would be. I haven't played protoss since I switched but I think my toss play have improved A LOT from playing zerg because it really gives you a whole new perspective on the matchup.
I tried terran but I can't get into it. Macro is annoying although not difficult and the entire race just feels off to me.