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Yeah, it is very frustrating having 3 spines in your main to be dropped just a little bit by the side and either losing all tech buildings instead of the drones, or having the spines sniped one by one. If they where like cannons that also hit air it would be different .
Besides, it just gets worse with upgrades. At first you can defend with spines, but once the marines being dropped are 2-2 or more then it is almost worthless.
The hairy thing is that the typical units you will use to defend drops are the fastest ones that suffer a lot from being used below critical mass, so you need to accumulate them close to the enemy units and only then engage.
So the only really good solution is DON'T LET THEM DROP. Which means great overlord spread, and having lings in the most common drop paths.
It gets really shitty when they drop twise at the same time and also push forward with their main army. You have to quickly think how many and how of the three fights you will pick :S
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Mid-Masters Z here.
I've seen both methods of drop prevention (Groups of lings vs Spines) used by pro players to some effectiveness. For example, Vibe almost always leaves 2 groups of 10 lings at each front to prevent drops from sniping vulnerable hatcheries. This is an entirely viable way of dealing with drops, provided we're not talking about a situation where the Terran can drop outside of the base, then go in with 8 marines and a medivac. In that situation, those 10 lings aren't going to do anything, and won't buy you as much time as a spinecrawler (although they might be able to take down more marines). Some maps where this is in play: Antiga Shipyard, Tal'darim, ESV Cloud Kingdom, ect.
Personally, I don't think Cost Effectiveness in this situation is even an issue. By the time Zerg is moving into Tier 3, and expanding all around the map in ZvT, minerals should be at over 1000 and you should be going for those geysers. It's perfectly acceptable to trade 750 minerals per base (5 spines) in order to ensure that the vital gas income is protected. By this time, you should have enough macro hatcheries that the extra drone larva won't affect you substantially, and those 5 spines will basically ensure that the Terran not only has to drop away from the hatchery and geysers, but that they have to kill 1-3 spines in order to get shots off at the hatchery. By the time that this happens, you'll fully be able to react with enough zerglings to deal with the problem.
One other problem with the 10-20 ling strategy that I find relevant is the fact that in a late-game scenario, especially while using Ultra-Ling, that's 10 supply that's entirely out of your army at the time of the engagement. While 20 Lings might seem entirely negligible in a late-game scenario, you have to consider that 20 3-3 cracklings can easily turn the tide of the battle if it's close. In contrast, Spines cost no supply, and only highly expendable minerals, which make them a better alternative in my opinion.
As for why people don't do it more often, I feel as though it might be an APM issue. While building an army, upgrading, setting up hatcheries, responding to Terran pushes, ensuring you take the valuable geysers, it's very easy to simply forget to put them down. Personally, I always send drones to the geysers, then make any remaining ones into spine crawlers (up to 5).
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Advantage: Costs no suppy, free damage lategame.
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also, you can just put lings on patrol, spread your ovies, and scout the drop way before it even gets there... spines are just a bonus unless you can't spread your ovies
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On March 20 2012 04:40 Jermstuddog wrote: The thing about spines is... They're just not THAT good.
Building 2 spines is 300 minerals and will not hold off a drop without extra support.
Building an aditional hatch is 350 minerals and provides benefit immediately.
In all, while spines can be nice for delaying a drop from killing a base, you are risking double the minerals for the ability to buy yourself a few extra seconds.
If 2 spines could hold off a Terran drop, they might be a go-to thing, but in their current state, they're generally just too ineffective to be worth it.
This isn't really true...
Say you don't build spines, and they kill your hatchery. Your lings get there and chase them off. You rebuild your hatchery immediately... but you now have 100 in-game seconds where you're no longer mining from that base. If that base was saturated, you're literally looking at 16 drones * ~40 minerals/minute * 1.66 minutes = 1062.4 minerals that you missed, not to mention the ~300 gas that you're also not getting.
Instead, you build 2 spines, lets say they kill them, but your lings get there soon enough to save the hatch (for the sake of the argument, lets assume that without the spines, your hatch would have fallen, as in it has ~600 health left).
You now can continue mining... in 100 seconds you have more than made those spines worth it.
How long does a marine drop take to kill those 2 spines? Let's assume the marines stim and have +2 attack, and let's assume the spines get 0 kills (unlikely). Marines with +2 attack vs the 2 armor of the spine will do 6 damage per attack. With the natural regeneration of zerg buildings, it takes 51 marine shots per spine... or 102 for both. 8 stimmed marines attack with a cooldown of .8608.
So... you're buying yourself around 10 extra seconds.. probably more, as the spines will get 1-3 kills.
10-20 seconds is plenty of time to react and get lings from across the map over there. There's also the added benefit that marines won't automatically start mowing down drones... they'll attack the spines first.
I would say that for a 3rd or 4th base, 3 spines (ideally clustered so that all 3 can attack marines at the same time) is probably ideal for making sure that bases can stay intact. I even like to place a spore so that the medivac takes damage if they're not careful. Regardless, it's worth keeping your hatch alive, and if you can't have 100% perfect minimap awareness and reaction time, you should do it.
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Problem is if he's dropping with 8 marines that have stim and he can engage the spines one at a time, marines can burn them down easy. Also spines = less drones = less economy = less overall army which is further compounded by the fact that if he attacks your front and you have six useless spines sitting in your main, GG. They definitely have a place but it's by no means a no-brainer else pros would be doing it more (in theory).
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Does no one consider cutting zerglings to build spinecrawlers as an alternative to pulling drones from mining to build them.
They cost the same as 6 lings each and are more likely to make a Terran hesitate to attack a base/choke than small groups of lings are. When you're dumping all your excess minerals into zerglings you're not going to really miss a few for the comfort of knowing you've got a buffer at your expos.
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if they dont drop you are in a very good position
they dont even have to losea any marines to the spines and it is still competely worth it if you dont lose hatches and even more improtantly (imo) drones
but of course you shouldnt do this before you are around 180 or so supply and have a bank of over 1k
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I think one of the best ways to use spines is to discourage cute marine positioning in and around mineral lines. If you get a queen on the medivac, a handful of zerglings and a spine can handle marines better than pure spine or pure ling. Pure spine fails against well-positioned marines who either dodge the spines completely and snipe the hatch, or stim and focus the spines down individually. Pure ling can fail when marines find a spot with minimal surface area and just park there.
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I don't think spines are very effective at protecting a hatchery against drops. The MMM can come in from so many different angles, and the spine as the same range as the marauder. You'd need a ton of spines to protect the hatch from all angles. One spine on the back side of the mineral line can be good to protect against the marines tucking themselves into the minerals and preventing the lings from getting surface area.
I think a more interesting use of spines in lategame ZvT is a spine forest midmap, like NesTea occasionally makes. Those spines only cost minerals, big who cares, and they are quite effective at delaying any big push the terran tries to make. If zerg is banking 3k minerals, I think it's quite a sensible investment to make 10-15 spines and put them out in the map center on maps like Daybreak, where there is a clear central area that restricts enemy movement.
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On March 20 2012 10:03 Agenda42 wrote: I don't think spines are very effective at protecting a hatchery against drops. The MMM can come in from so many different angles, and the spine as the same range as the marauder. You'd need a ton of spines to protect the hatch from all angles. One spine on the back side of the mineral line can be good to protect against the marines tucking themselves into the minerals and preventing the lings from getting surface area. .
First... Marauders have 6 range, spines have 7. Marines have 5.
Honestly, marines attacking from the mineral lines are the main problem. You need to send WAY too many lings to stop a marine drop behind the mineral lines. This, IMO, is the main purpose of the drop.
I think it's a good idea to have 2 spines together placed right next to the hatchery in the mineral line. The main purpose is to discourage behind-the-mineral drops and stop them from auto-mowing down drones. A 1-medivac drop in the open area in front of the hatchery is easily shut down by 20 or so lings, or with a few banelings.
I think it would also be worth it to keep 2 banelings at each base... maybe even burrowed behind the mineral line. If they drop right onto them, blow them up for easy anti-drop. If they are in front, unburrow them when you get some lings there to easily clean up the drop.
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I also don't understand why spines mid/lategame are so underused ZvT, it's just great to use as a zerg in the mid/late-game (especially late game), spines are very good at preventing damage, it's less that spines kill the drops but they prevent lots of damage, they pretty much stop 1 medivac drops when you have like 2+. and secondly they don't cost supply which makes it even better, one of the most known players using this is Stephano and does it with great success, so to all you zergs out there, get them spines mid and especially late game since usually the zerg will have a pretty good bank in the first place so in lategame it'll become a non-issue mineral wise.
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On March 20 2012 04:34 sm0b wrote: What I think this comes down to is that some pros are so map aware or at least rely on it being map aware during important games that they don't need the spines. Keep in mind, everything you do in SC2 should be solving a problem or helping you win, if someone needs the extra $$$ or is relying on their map awareness then they don't have a problem that needs to be solved so no spines.
Maybe true in some cases, but Stephano is the perfect counterexample to your point that pros rely on map awareness, not spines, to stop dropes. He's one of the most map aware players I can think of, but still reflexively drops spines and spores on his expos.
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why are we assuming that pros dont use spines in zvt? once they max out on hive tech, almost everybody throws down 10-30 spines to delay pushes and free up supply.
the thing is, cost doesn't matter when you have 5k banked, and drones don't matter when you have 100 of them. they stop drops, give cover to broods, and can even be used offensively if you have baller creep spread. i personally always put spines on my third and main because they serve the same functions as turrets do in ZVT: they buy time for your overwhelming army to get there before taking any major damage
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I like the spines idea, though I seem to forget them a lot. The minerals aren't an issue and there's no harm in using spines AND lings to defend as a mixture. The hatchery lost late game isn't so much a factor of mineral income lost (though it will become important after big fights) but more the gas income whilst teching/making your big important units.
I'd also like to add that placing one spore at the most vulnerable bases (or ones along common drop paths) can be extremely helpful as most terrans don't have the multitask to babysit every drop whilst doing everything else (not a bash it's legitimately hard to do) and so can often shift-queue a medivac fully loaded over a spore and lose it for free.
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I think it's totally worth it to drop some static D at your 3rd/4th to keep the marines from getting behind the mineral line. Most Terrans on ladder will just auto-drop behind the line making it really hard for Zerglings to get a surround. 1 spore behind the line + 2 spines gaurding the most likely angle of attack will buy you the time you need to kill the drop without losing the hatch and all those minerals/gas/ and LARVA.
Totally a worth-while investment.
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it's something that is underdone right now and will become standard as time goes on for sure. the switch to only playing infestor based midgame into hive tech is relatively recent so of course a lot of things haven't been figured out yet. i think even as much as 5 or more spines in every base will become the norm. also spores in a few key locations are really underused i think. think entombed valley where there is practically no air space to maneuver around the main. even keeping him from just being able to shift click on the minimap a few times and then forget about it is totally worth the minerals i think.
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Early game, they're necessary if you're going muta to keep yourself alive from front attacks.
Midgame, when Terran is MULEing like a boss, you want all the drones you can to keep the economic advantage that Zerg SHOULD have over Terran.
Lategame spines are outranged by tanks and die too easily to 3/3 bio stim with a medivac (as in a drop), so they don't really do anything.
I guess that's why. Same reason I don't drop a bunch of cannons - I don't wanna spend a load of money on something that is ultimately ineffective. I usually only use cannons for detection in mid to late game (in case they send a cloaked banshee in or something).
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The question isn't whether zerg should build 30 spines in the lategame. Lategame zerg is very gas-heavy and you're already supply capped. A spine crawler that doesn't cost any supply and doesn't cost any gas might as well be free - which is exactly why pro players build 30 spines/spores in the lategame.
Building spines in the early/midgame is more of a tradeoff. Spending minerals and larva for a defense that doesn't actually kill off drops (it just delays them by 10-20sec) is not as good as having the map awareness to intercept the drop IMO, but for less skilled players is probably still worth it.
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If I'm playing heavy ling infestor then I get 1 spore and 1 spine at the back of each base to stop drops. At my level (Plat), most terrans will actually lose their medivac to the spore crawler so I just have to pull a few lings back to clean up. Also, if I get banelings, I sometimes burrow 1 or two of them in the back of each expo in case of a drop.
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