|
Russian Federation34 Posts
Dear SC2/HOTS Community~
Disclaimer: I am a mid-Master-level Zerg player, and I originally wrote this bit for my little sister, who has inherited my gaming rig along with [hopefully] the Starcraft bug (pun intended...) Over the course of my journey, I've learned a great deal and have been fortunate enough to compete against many great players who have enriched my understanding of the game and deepened my skill level. Knowing how many aspiring Zerg players there are, I figured it might be a good idea to share it. I must warn you: this post is seriously long (5,000+ words), and that it may be too rudimentary for players towards the upper end of the spectrum, but I sincerely hope it may be of some use to you, and look forward to hearing everyone's feedback. Play well!
Mastering Zerg Mechanics
Note: The following techniques can be looked upon as the basic requirements to achieve Master-level rank. It’s important to understand that Master League is only the beginning of high level play. As such, these requirements may appear to be overwhelming, but as Spanishiwa once said: “The way to get really good is to incorporate one thing at a time and focus on it until it becomes second nature, then add the next thing.” (paraphrased) Therefore, picking skill-level-appropriate actions to focus on and integrate into your play and mastering them is the way to eventually acquire all of these mechanics.
Fundamentals: Overmind Psychology
Each race has its strengths and weaknesses. Understanding the basics of your race psychology is a great way to familiarize yourself with its inherent strengths and abilities, at least in theory. Embracing these concepts will allow you to maximize the effectiveness of your race, as the overall race mechanic very much plays into this style. To play like a Zerg, you must first learn to think like a Zerg.
Reactionary Play
The most important thing to understand about playing Zerg is that it is primarily a reactive race. This means your goal is always to develop its full potential in response to the choices made by your opponent, while building up and biding for map control, a stronger economy, and superior numbers and map presence. There is a simple reason for this: all other races can produce fighting units and workers at the same time, while Zerg relies on its hatcheries to spawn larvae and then use those larvae to produce game-appropriate forces in real time with great efficiency.
When droning, Zerg’s ability to make units is compromised. If producing units, the economy suffers and slows subsequent expansion. Therefore, Zerg relies on map awareness and scouting to determine when it’s safe to drone and when all resources must go towards producing a standing army as quickly as possible. In this way, every unit made early on that is NOT a drone is therefore an indirect setback to the in-game future of the swarm.
It’s no coincidence that Zerg gets the best map-control tools in the game: Speedlings, Overlords, and Creep, or that a Zerg given free reign will always max out at 200 supply substantially faster than the other races. (Terran and Protoss know this, and will pressure you to slow your rate of growth by forcing you to produce units. It’s because they know that if left unchecked you will soon become too much to deal with!)
Your success as a Zerg player therefore depends on being able to absorb any potential damage and persevere in following your development trajectory (see below).
Note: Reactionary does NOT necessarily mean defensive or passive. The greatest Zerg players (Jaedong, Life, Stephano) are quick to exploit an opponent’s weakness with a timely attack, however, any such attack is still built upon the knowledge of what your opponent is doing and where his weaknesses are, which is achieved in part through game sense (at the highest level), and in part through scouting and the resulting decision making.
The Three E’s of Zerg Psychology
The Overmind’s 3 primal instincts should always be to:
- Evolve. Make informed decisions as to which direction to take with your development (which tech to unlock/pursue and in what order, and how to maximize your upgrades), as well as knowing what the appropriate unit counter is.
- Expand. Simply put, to continue to grow your presence and economy until you take the entire map. The Zerg’s goal is to grow exponentially and consume all available resources. “Take the map bro!”
- Engulf. This means become so powerful that you eventually overtake your opponent with sheer force and volume. You should SMASH an attacking force with a swarm of appropriate unit counter.
A good Terran friend of mine conveyed this well when he said “A good Zerg is hard to kill, but a great Zerg is endless.” This “endless” Zerg quality will eventually wear down and consume an opponent who failed to inflict sufficient economic damage.
Note: If you wish to dictate the pace of the game, have a multitude of tech choices and harassment options, play from solid fortified positions, and “take it to him”, consider a different race option.
Fundamentals: The True Cost of a Drone
It’s no accident that one of LiquidTLO’s handles is GameOfDrones. Aside from being exceedingly clever, it perfectly sums up the essence of Zerg play, which is all about the drone. Droning enough and at the right time is the single game mechanic that separates high-level (Diamond and above) play from low-level play (Platinum and below). If I was to ask you how much a drone costs, what would you say? 50 minerals? Yes and no. The correct answer is exponential. A drone mines anywhere between 39-45 minerals per minute (depending on mineral patch proximity and overall saturation). Therefore, an early-game drone that has kept mining for 10 minutes is worth a whopping 440-500 minerals! That’s one bloody expensive drone!
The reason this is important to understand is because the opportunity cost of every drone that you fail to make early on is equal to the amount of minerals that drone would have mined had he been alive. Failing to make enough early-game drones is the biggest thing that will keep you confined to the lower leagues. When learning how to play, it’s OK to over produce drones and die to an attack because you failed to make enough units in time (even though you had 3k minerals). Perfect macro will come with time. What won’t come is the mineral income you would have had if you had achieved minimal baseline saturation (roughly 40 drones on 2 base) by roughly 7 minutes into the game. That lost mineral economy will snowball into a huge economic deficit by the mid-game and put you behind. So, at least in the beginning, try to lose because you over-droned rather than because you didn’t make enough of drones.
The Zerg Macro Mechanic
- Know exactly what supply = 40 drones. This is the zerg baseline of survival. As already mentioned, failing to achieve 40 drones as early as humanly possible spells disastrous economic consequences in the mid-game. Example: 3 queens + 4 sets of lings = 10 supply. Therefore, 40 drones = 50 supply (52 to be safe). Always strive to achieve this supply by 7 minutes. In-game test: If you made 4 queens and 12 lings, but half the lings died in a fight, and your overall supply reads 44, what supply do you need to achieve for baseline survival saturation?
- Overlord timings are 9 (10 if doing extractor trick), 15, 24, 31, and 40x2 (assuming a sacrificial scout). After that, each inject should be immediately followed by the same # of overlords as hatcheries injected (more rationale for this later).
- Replace every drone used to construct a building with 2 drones before constructing the next building. This is not necessarily a must but better than the alternative. Exceptions are: double evo, double gas, or static defense at time of pressure when making units is mandatory. I cannot tell you the number of games I lost because I over-built static defense (indirect economic damage) and then made units to feel safe, which left my mid-game economy in shambles!
- When Macroing, watch for the moment when suddenly the larva bar reads full. That means the injects have popped, and consequently it is time to: a) use them immediately to prevent larvae block (when hatches hold more than 3 and stop producing trickle larvae) b) inject again, and c) produce overlords.
- Pick ONE inject method and stick to it: such as the backspace method, cam position hotkeys, or minimap (not recommended). Using more than one method is a bad idea, as it will slow you down unnecessarily and disrupt your Production Cycle (see below);
- Define and master what is commonly referred to as a Production Cycle or an Inject Cycle. This is akin to a full, start-to-finish Zerg breath. An inject cycle takes crucial actions required for macroing effectively and groups them together, to train muscle memory and pace the game. An effective example used by EGJD is:
- Inject;
- Queue Overlords x # of hatcheries injected (IE 3 hatcheries injected = 3 overlords);
- pre-rally overlord eggs to desired position on mini-map;
- double-tap dedicated creep queen key and drop tumor;
- spread nearby tumors;
- double-tap dedicated scout key and queue up scouting route (can be done with forward lings or main army as well).
Done properly, this takes 10 seconds or less and achieves ALL of the baseline macro objectives, complete with scouting info of opponent’s tech/army comp and what counter is needed, and, most importantly whether you are safe to make drones or need to be making units. Convenient, since the larva will pop in about another 10 seconds and the overlords will spawn in perfect time for you to use up that supply with either units or drones and re-start the Production Cycle.
- ABC: Always be creeping!
- Familiarize yourself and always strive to follow The Zerg Developmental Trajectory, which is a fancy way of saying what Zerg needs to do (and in what order) to realize its full potential in the late game. The timing and order of this trajectory will change slightly depending on what’s happening in-game, but the broad strokes will always remain the same, in every game and every match up.
- Learn how to macro-bind your units to their respective control groups. This is done by CNTRL+clicking the eggs (de-selects the larva, leaving only the eggs selected), and hitting Shift+# where # is the hotkey of the appropriate control group. Example: When spawning zerglings to be grouped to Cntrl group 2, you select larva, hold down Z, the cntrl+click the eggs to de-select larvae, then hit Shift+2. This pre-assigns un-spawned units to join the specified control group before they even hatch, greatly speeding up production, regrouping, and eliminating almost all need for rallies.
The Zerg Developmental Trajectory
Understanding the Tiers:
Every unit at the lower tiers is needed only to help get you to a unit in the higher tiers. This is a good theoretical rule of thumb to follow. Your goal should always be to progress through the tiers (see below), so getting stuck on low-level, un-upgraded units longer than absolutely necessary should be avoided. There are exceptions to this rule (such as when you need to re-max quickly on T2, or include Speedlings with your Ultra army, for example. However, in this case the Speedlings should already be 3/3 with Adrenal glands, and as such, are no longer a true Tier 1 unit.)
The Zerg Tech tree becomes progressively accessible with subsequent hatch mutations. IE
Hatchery tech = T1 Lair Tech = T2 Hive Tech = T3
There are also intermediary tiers here, such as Roach (tier 1.5, as it is armored and requires an additional structure at Hatch tech to produce) and Viper (As it requires no Spire, only Hive to produce. Please note that this last point is widely debated and not set in stone. Liquipedia has an entry on this here: Liquipedia Definitions. While they do refer to a Viper as Tier 3, it requires no Tier 3 structures. I'd like to stress that the actual definition of the Tier is not as important as knowing where in the tech tree your desired tech lies and how to get there in the most efficient way possible.)
It should be the goal of every Zerg player to progress through the Tiers in the quickest and most efficient way possible, thereby unlocking the entire tech tree by the late-mid-game, allowing the proper utilization of the race’s inherent production strengths and immediate reactive counters to opponent’s tech. That’s not to say you will need every unit in every game, merely to illustrate that Zerg is strongest when the entire tech tree is available for utilization. Therefore, there will indeed be games when the entire tech tree needs to be open, and the only question is which order it needs to happen in.
The Trajectory Itself:
(Please note that this is written in broad-strokes with regard to the general progression the race follows from early-to-late game. It is intended to illustrate to lower-level players the way the race's strength can best be unleashed and what to strive for as their skill and level of mechanical self-management begins to grow. Obviously if you are highly skilled you will find your own ways of adopting the trajectory to your unique style and needs in-game.)
- Get to +/- 40 drones ASAP. This is not a whim. AkrhRH, GM and my favorite coach taught me this first.
- Scout your opponent at about 7 minutes or roughly 50 supply with a fly-in (not always necessary in ZvZ);
- Get the Evo chamber down immediately after achieving 2-base saturation, double Evo if your early-game econ is strong and fast, single if it feels weak or compromised via pressure/attack, etc.
- Take additional gas. Know how much gas you will need for what. Example: Defend an early toss push with roaches—2 gas. Offensive roach production: 3 gas. Defensive 1-base baneling play, 1 gas (2 drones), offensive 1-base baneling play: 1 gas, 3 drones. Mass hydra to defend vs phoenix or voidray: 4 gas. Mass muta: 4 gas plus pre-gas third for immediate 6 gas. Look these up on TL or ask higher ranked players for advice on gas timing and never get too much gas too soon (refer to the true cost of a drone). For the purposes of this post, we will say that you will be powering double-evo for melee and armor attacks against Terran. Therefore, your build may look something like this: 2 evo, 2 drones, gas(G)2, drone (rally on G2 = 1/3), G3, drone (rally G2 = 2/3 ), G4, drone (rally G2 = 3/3), three drones (rally G3), three drones (rally G4). Always take your gasses like this unless it’s an emergency. Zerg is the only race with the ability to train new workers onto gas, and this works out perfectly as your drones will hatch and rally just as the gas becomes available, keeping your mineral saturation consistent and allowing the mineral drones to remain dedicated to mining. Obviously, this mechanic is debatable. Do what feels right. I've found that taking/saturating one gas at a time in rapid succession is the most natural way to grow my gas Econ, so experiment with what works best for you.
- Upon gas saturation, we start the double upgrades. If starting a single upgrade, I would opt for Armor (affects all units, including drones and queens). Drop 2nd Evo when the armor is 3/4 of the way done, resume double upgrades (depending on game sense). Make no mistake; upgrades are literally the end-all. (Theory: Zerg units are inherently cost inefficient and rely instead on their mobility and rapid production. The major things deciding whether your will be cost-efficient are: 1) MACRO, 2) UPGRADES, and 3) in-game decision of whether to engage, and if so, how and when. Exceptions: upgrades are delayed if immediately under attack, and all costs must be spent on units (unless poor macro, and you already have evos and 1000+ minerals and gas, in which case screw it, go ahead and upgrade.)
- Take a third*, replace drone, macro hatch, replace drone, then:
- Make some safety Tier 1 units after taking a third and use them for aggressive scouting/prodding the opponent to determine his confidence level and army composition.
- Upon starting upgrades, tech to Lair. Upon starting Lair, position and bind the soon-to-be Overseer to the most advantageous vantage point from where he will be able to scout the remaining tech.
- @Lair tech, make your tech choice and determine if additional gas is needed at the third base to power this tech. (Mutas = yes, 6 gas asap, pre-saturate before the hatch comes up in most cases. Infestor-heavy play = 6 gas. Hydras = 5 gas, mass roach off 3 base = 4 gas, etc etc.
- Start 2/2 upgrades immediately upon finishing 1/1 and start the infestation pit if not already started. Remember this: 2/2 = a great time for Infestation Pit. The reason for this is you will need Infestation Pit to tech to Hive (which you need for Tier 3 units and upgrades) and the time to get Inf. P + Hive is roughly the same as it takes for 2/2 to finish. Therefore, ideal perfect-world macro = 1/1, lair, 2/2, infestation pit, hive, 3/3 and max by the time 3/3 is finished.
*Third timing will vary slightly depending on matchup and game status. Most of all, it depends on your economy. If baseline saturation (+/- 40 drones) is achieved, the macro mechanic will let you know by itself when you’re ready to take a third, as you will not be able to spend your minerals in a single inject cycle off 2 base. Unless saving for specific things like upgrades or units, this is the optimal time to take a 3rd base, followed by a macro hatchery (diamond or above; use discretion. Platinum and under, I would advise to always get a macro hatch as you will often miss multiple inject cycles in a row but will still need the extra larvae a macro hatch provides. The best place to put macro hatchery is in the natural, which tanks damage in the event of a push or all-in, and even if destroyed allows 2-base mining to continue
Fundamentals: Scouting
- Always drone scout on 10, in every matchup except ZvZ (unless on a 2-player map, in which case scouting to prevent all-in until you’re comfortable holding them with drones may be a good idea). I don’t recommend listening to people who say drone scouting is unnecessary on certain maps, etc., until your game sense develops enough to rely solely on your intuition. Drone scouting reduces chances of losing to proxy cheese by nearly 100%. It improves your APM and game awareness, annoys/delays your opponent, and most importantly, achieves immediate map control.
- Always use a dedicated hotkey for scouting. Mine was ~ (tilde). I bind this to early scouter drone, then to the first overlord closest to my opponent’s base to fly in around 40 supply or 7 minutes. Vs Toss, Look for pylon placement (this is where the future tech is going to be!). Whatever the hotkey, use that and ONLY that hotkey for scouting and ONLY for scouting. Why? Because in this way, scouting will become second nature and will never have to be remembered again.
- Upon scouting into opponent’s base at 7 min, reposition/rebind the next overlord to become an Overseer scout.
- Morph overseer scout IMMEDIATELY upon Lair tech and queue his path (if vs Toss, scout past the Pylons scouted earlier as this is likely where the new tech will appear). Queuing saves time and ensures that he will go in, likely get shot, and alert you to what he saw so you don’t have to remember to come back to him as he’s morphing.
- Always spawn-rally overlords to every mineral cluster on the map, starting with the space around your base and then the closest minerals to your base. The exceptions are: original 1st ovie (far scout), 10 ovie (natural, then third, and 15 ovie (scouts edge of main for drop or air).
- Always drop creep on your opponent’s third, and put lings in the mineral line at his 4th+5th.
- In any game, any match up, always and forever fight for control of the towers and post a forward ling. The FWD ling is different from the closest tower in that it goes immediately outside your opponent’s base and stays there to alert you to his moving out/expansion timing. Always replace FWD lings immediately upon being killed. (An effective way of doing this is to select your control group with lings, right click on the location you want them to go, the SHIFT+click on one ling, pull the group back by clicking away on the minimap, and hit Cntrl+# to re-set the control group without the ling in it. Done with practice, all of this takes less than a second.
- Bind a creep queen to her separate hotkey. Use that and ONLY that hotkey for creep and ONLY for creep, and do it at a given time in your inject cycle (IE, for example, immediately after spawn-rallying ovies after inject). In this way, creep will become second nature and will never be skipped or forgotten - because it can’t, since it has become like breathing.
- Don’t neglect PRESSURE as a means of scouting. If you have units that are not immediately defending, they should be actively poking and prodding to elicit a response. This response from your opponent will reveal his composition and confidence level (IE - he will either run, or chase, and that will allow you to know if you should make units or drones. Chasing you? Make units. Running? Make drones. This tug of war is the appropriate way to use your units, NEVER allow un-used units to be inactive, sitting in your base. (The exception here per Shuffleblade in comments is when drop/warp prism play necessitates a small contingency of units in-base for defense purposes. Technically, though, we would not consider those units to be inactive as they are purposefully defending a drop.)
Soft VS Hard Pressure
Soft pressure is an implied threat. Terran sieging up at the edge of your creep is an example of this. It’s a threat that, if left un-addressed, will sooner or later turn into hard-pressure.
Hard Pressure is anything that has the potential to inflict actual and immediate damage. Going off the example above, that same sieged up Terran scanning and pushing in with a few marines to start killing your creep tumors is the beginning of hard pressure. Drops are another example.
The reason these distinctions are important is because you as a Zerg player must master the art of soft-pressuring your opponent. Aside from being one of the best ways of buying time and scouting, it will often provoke your opponent into escalating into hard pressure before he is ready/fully regrouped. This works to your advantage because again, you’re able to re-max so much faster, particularly when you have the defender’s advantage.
Mastering the In-Battle Production Mechanic:
This is a major overlooked factor by most players in Diamond or under. As previously discussed, the hidden power of the Zerg race is in its production capacity and mobility. What does this mean though? It means 2 primary things:
Production capacity allows well-macro’d Zerg to produce units faster than any other race in the game (although beware: late-game imba-toss with 20 chrono-boosted gateways will give it a run for its money :D j/k). This means your ability to remax is unparalleled.
Mobility allows newly spawned units to join the fight faster than any other race (again, with the possible exception of proxy-pylon warp-ins. I believe it was Day9 who [correctly] asserted that, more often than not, Zerg doesn’t win the game with the first army, it wins the game with the 2nd and 3rd army that join the first on the battlefield even before it dies.
The primary way of achieving this unique race mechanic is to learn to differentiate between which engagements you need to micro and which engagements should be left alone for sake of MACRO PRODUCTION (most of them). The biggest Noobie mistake I see is watching the primary army fight while allowing the minerals (and precious time) to pile up, and only going back to production when it’s “safe”. A useful side note here is this one:
Understanding the "RT" in RTS
“But Train, I need to control my army. If I let that control slip, I’ll lose it and lose the game.”
Not so, my young Padawans. The reality of real-time strategy play is that most people will be utterly clueless of the real-time aspect and what it really means. Real-time, for the purposes of this post, means precisely at the time that it is needed.
Here’s some epic nerd wisdom for you in that regard~ “A Wizard is never late. Nor is he early… He arrives precisely when he means to!” (bahah, sorry)
That “never late nor early” is the appropriate way to understand “real-time”.
In terms of re-macro production, you have a very narrow window to make units safely, and that is immediately upon the beginning of the engagement. I say “safely” because any later, and it’s to your detriment. Only this window will allow those newly spawned units to join the engagement before it’s over. Any later than that and they are almost guaranteed to arrive late to the party.
The proper macro mechanic of Zerg production is to prepare for the engagement, inject all your hatcheries before the fight begins if possible, buy as much time as possible by going around and cutting off reinforcements, pre-splitting your units prior to an engagement, and then, once engaged, immediately producing units and re-injecting your hatcheries, in the early moments of the fight if possible, but definitely IN-BATTLE and not after. (Note: Once again, how you know you must inject is your select-larva command brings up a large number of fresh larva. This means the hatches have popped and are ready to be injected again.)
Done properly, this can be observed in-replay as an opponent’s supply dropping at the onset of the fight, while the Zerg supply stays the same or even climbs (!) during the engagement. This allows those units to reinforce the main army immediately upon spawning.
If you smashed your opponent’s army and have units remaining AND units in the way, this is the time to go for an immediate counter. Note: immediate means RIGHT NOW. Not when your new units spawn, not when you’ve taken the next step in tech (though by all means, flex that APM!), not in 10 seconds. "Now" means GO! Do not stop, do not slow your roll, convert your immediate advantage into hard pressure and make your opponent pay!
The Rules of Engagement
- Never fight up a ramp, there is nothing to gain and everything to lose. Ramps are narrow, and Zerg thrives on open spaces and effective surrounds. The ramp negates these possibilities while greatly exaggerating the effectiveness of forcefields, fungals, and splash damage from tanks, widow mines, and seeker missiles, etc, due to excessive unit clumping. Treat each ramp as a death trap, and always, whenever possible, scout with one unit before ascending with the whole group.
- Engage on creep whenever possible. Creep gives you vision of your opponent’s position, greatly improves Zerg mobility, and acts as a psychological deterrent - ask any [good] Terran if he feels like sending his clump of marines deep into the creep without a scan… Going onto creep signifies a big commitment from your opponent, and requires an equal commitment from you.
- Take a note from [those pesky] Terrans - pre-split your units. Spreading out clumped units reduces the effects of splash damage, allows them to get closer and attack more evenly (especially important with large, bulky units like roaches), and increases the chances of a full surround. Whenever possible, attack from multiple angles. The worst thing you can do is “a-move” into your opponent's army from only one direction. This should only be done when you know you’ve got the superior numbers to overrun him, and best not done even then.
- Exploit your mobility, go around! One noob mistake is to fall back with your entire army to the natural and “build up” when you know your opponent is coming. This is fatal. I call it “the shrunken zerg syndrome” and it results in a particular type of agony when you lose games to pushes that you know your position could have held with ease and been macro’d out of. Sound familiar? Have no shame, we’ve all suffered through them, so I want to address how to deal with that once and for all. The answer is simple: GO AROUND! By cutting off your opponent’s main army from home, you simultaneously accomplish several important objectives:
- You are no longer playing “shrunken zerg”, which instantly elevates your status as a player to at least Platinum level, at least in terms of your engagement mechanics.
- You cut off your opponent’s army from his base, threatening that run-by and thereby creating soft pressure.
- You risk entrapping his reinforcements which have been caught out on the map without the support of the main fighting force (this is particularly important vs Terran, who relies on rallies to reinforce his forward position).
Ever slept or jumped on a water bed? If you’ve never had the pleasure, allow me to summarize it for you: it always goes out from under you to where you aren’t. Think of the Zerg race as a liquid mass that ebbs and flows just like the water bed. This principle, in conjunction with proper production timing (see Understanding RT in RTS) is the single most-important rule of engagement. Whenever possible, go where your opponent isn’t and threaten him, creating uncertainty and forcing him to turn back and defend, thereby giving you time.
Note: If you fail to macro (that is: produce and appropriately macro-bind your units back at home) while you are running around the map, your efforts will be in vain and may end in ***(
For the lower leagues:
Get good at recognizing when you’re about to get owned. If you herp-derped (affectionate term coined by Destiny, referring to A-moving blindly into a superior force) all your roaches into a Protoss immortal death ball, got FF’d and split in half and the forward half of your army killed off, by all means pull back and regroup. Don’t give him the rest of your units for free! Whenever there’s a question of whether you can take a good fight, pull back and let your reinforcements join the fight. Remember, you’ve got the best production and mobility in the game, so use them to your advantage. Half an army can become a whole army in a few seconds (regroup) or stay half an army if you let it die and the dwindling reinforcements run into the meat-grinder. The majority of lower-league engagement mistakes come from not differentiating between the fights you should take and the fights you should pass on. (Likewise, always check your opponent's upgrades before committing to an engagement. If they are better, pull back unless you know you have enough. There is no extra credit for heroics.)
PS - if you adopt the rule of always buying time for your reinforcements whenever possible, you will automatically correct more than half of poor engages that would have otherwise been made in haste.
It’s about freaking time! (aka playing the long-game)
If I was to ask you what your single most critical objective as Zerg is, what would you say?
If you said “to win”., realize that answer is self-apparent and therefore not constructive. If you said “to macro”, you’re getting warmer. If you said “to macro and max before my opponent does”, you’re awfully close to what I’m looking for but haven’t quite hit the nail on the head.
The best universal answer to this question is: to buy more time. Time for what? For all of the above!
Recognize that beyond early-game cheese and lower-league skill discrepancies, every game you play is likely to be very evenly matched, or, in the case that you’re still improving rapidly, your opponent might be slightly better (props to Blizzard for the ingenious MMR system).
Therefore, as you progress, you are less and less likely to win the game with one big engagement, which happens primarily in the lower leagues. As you work your way up to mid-diamond and above, your opponent’s macro and resilience will improve dramatically, as should yours.
Therefore, the Zerg should always and whenever possible be playing the long-game. This means absorbing whatever pressure you can to buy yourself time to continue to macro, produce units, spread creep, gain map control, climb the tech tree, gain upgrades, unlock higher-tiered units and allow for your bank to a) convert into a maxed out army of the proper composition as soon as possible, and then b) build up as quickly as possible for your future re-max.
Remember the 3 Es:
All of these things require the one hidden and most critical resource: time!
The semi-beginning player should resist the urge to end the game early. Until you’ve gotten so good at scouting and game sense that you know exactly what your opponent has to defend with, you are likely to become overextended and lose the game.
Miscellaneous Master-level Mechanics
Baneling landmines: setting up baneling landmines by: Right-click desired location + Shift + R (default hotkey for burrow), unclick desired number of banleings from the control group by holding down shift and clicking on the group window, right-click away from that location to get the remainder of the units to pull back (the unclicked units will go and burrow at said location independently), then reset the control group of new units (to so as to exclude the un-clicked units from the control group and not have them obey the next move command for the control group, which would thereby erase the burrow command.) This takes practice, but with time will become so easy you can set up baneling landmines in multiple locations on the minimap in seconds.
CREEP SPREAD: This mechanic is huge. Learning the approximate timing of creep spread and re-initiating tumors with every inject cycle represents a quantum leap in the skill level of a Zerg player. The best players in the current meta don't stop at one extra creep queen. If you observe players like Snute, Jaedong, and Scarlett, you will notice that queens are continued to be produced off of 2 base and sent out to hang out at the edge of creep in every direction. The first tumor is always laid outside of the natural, prioritizing creep spread in the direction to the third and outward over creep spread between the main and natural (also very good). Creep queens are grouped together and continue re-initiating tumors even after engagements have taken place and some of the creep has been cleared off. Incidentally, queens are great early game fighting units and can ward off early pressure, tank in a defensive hold, and transfuse weakened structures (and each other). Achieving the consistency of producing extra queens early and keeping them alive and active will instantly elevate your map control and mid-game potential, and is worth investing in during practice.
Forcefield Baiting - practice timing so as to force Protoss to expend forcefields early. Do this by looking like you're going to engage, then backing off at the last second. If you lose a unit or two it’s ok - the time you buy for continued production will most likely be worth many units. (Hint: do this by hanging out near his base when he moves out, not when he’s already knocking on your door!)
Separate hotkey baneling move command - group banelings separately from lings and move them (not a-move) past the clusters of marines or lings or zealots. As they get killed, their splash damage will affect the surrounding units. This will also prevent them all from herp-derping on 1 unit and costing you the game. :D
Static reinforcement (dropping walls of static when your minerals skyrocket) - Recognizing when your minerals have piled up and spending them on dropping static (or opening up supply by making a large number of overlords) on insecure locations. (Remember to always replace those drones!)
Drop mechanics - learn to drop! Aside from burrow, it is the only tech in the Zerg arsenal that cannot be scouted while researching. Therefore, it’s a great surprise attack which can also be used to fake your opponent by flying in with empty overlords (once you’ve showed drop) Note: move-command overlords and hit “d”, then click forward overlord, click “d”, then click next forward overlord, etc. Using this d-click d-click method, you can shift-queue the ovies to move out of danger and let them get out of dodge on their own, leaving you free to micro the units dropped off and—more importantly—macro back at home to remax your lost units as quickly as possible.
Contaminate (name changed? The Overseer ability...) - keep the scouting overseer alive and corrupt critical structures such as upgrade buildings or robotics bays/starports. This translates into tremendous time-winning potential as the game progresses.
Corruption (name changed? The Corruptor ability...) - when fighting with corruptors, always corrupt high-priority target units such as Colossus or Mothership cores, medivacs, ravens, Thors, etc. This increases the damage by 20%, the equivalent of instantly getting +3 air attack!
Upgrade before unit - always start a specified unit upgrade prior to making the units themselves, unless immediate unit production is required. Examples: Ling speed before making lings, roach speed before making roaches, +1 air attack/armor before Mutas or corruptors, pathogen glands before Infestors (start making when upgrade is 30 seconds in to ensure they spawn with the extra energy). Possible exception: enduring locust upgrade. Rationale: the 200 gas required for it is a whole 2 swarm hosts (4 locusts/volley). Since they take a long time to build, and are quite slow, it’s better to build a rudimentary group of Hosts first (let’s say 6-8) and then start the upgrade, since by the time they spawn, rally over, burrow, produce the locusts, and the locusts reach their first target, you will have had plenty of time to begin the endurance upgrade.
Burrow expand/expand deny - Good players will often spawn-rally a drone to their 4th/5th/etc long before the expansion timing comes around. They will burrow 2-3 ahead of time, ensuring that an instant expo timing is available when called for. The same mechanic can be used to deny expansions (burrowed lings in place of expo). Never under estimate how bloody infuriating it is for your opponent! I recommend binding a special key for the expansion drone egg (the drone that's destined to expand). I use Capslock for this purpose, which allows me to grab the drone (double tap) and expand quickly without clicking on the minimap.
Remember, at the high-level of play these are all intuitive basics which will come naturally with time. The most important thing to have is the psychology of continuous incremental improvement, not being discouraged by losses and consistently analyzing loss replays to learn from your mistakes.
May these tools help you better learn the game and keep PWNING noobs on your way to Grandmaster League!
GLHF!
|
It's mighty long, but definitely worth the read. It's because of these mechanics I've jumped two leagues in two days, no BS.
|
On May 02 2014 15:47 TheZov wrote: -Don’t neglect PRESSURE as a means of scouting. If you have units that are not immediately defending, they should be actively poking and prodding to elicit a response. This response from your opponent will reveal his composition and confidence level (IE - he will either run, or chase, and that will allow you to know if you should make units or drones. Chasing you? Make units. Running? Make drones. This tug of war is the appropriate way to use your units, NEVER allow un-used units to be inactive, sitting in your base.
Just want to comment that having "un-used/inactive" units sitting in your base is actually very important at times for drop defence. If you have your whole army out on the map pressuring then the threat of for example a double pronged medivac drop could actually do game changing damage.
The same principle is true vs a protoss that you for example know have a warp prism on the map.
Otherwise I think its a very well written guide for improving, I feel that it was a very useful read for me and I will probably use it for my own practise for a while. Really liked the 40 drone rule, never heard that before and it sounds like it really makes sense.
Thank you for taking the time writting it and sharing it with us here on TL.
Very good job =)
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
|
Thank you very much ! this is very well written and interesting. My question : you emphasize a lot on the true cost of a drone and how it is important to have the maximum amount of drone mining for the maximum amount of time. And then, you suggest to drone scout on 10. Does not those two piece of advice contradict themselves ? By scouting on 10 I'm basically giving away 1/10 of my total mining force, even though I've got "the best map control tool in the game" to scout : zerglings, overlords and such. Then my mechanics are terrible and I'm not good enough to know how much this 10 scout is going to snowball later. So I'm asking all the good players there, should I scout on 10 ?
|
On May 02 2014 19:12 SpawnMoarOverlords wrote: Thank you very much ! this is very well written and interesting. My question : you emphasize a lot on the true cost of a drone and how it is important to have the maximum amount of drone mining for the maximum amount of time. And then, you suggest to drone scout on 10. Does not those two piece of advice contradict themselves ? By scouting on 10 I'm basically giving away 1/10 of my total mining force, even though I've got "the best map control tool in the game" to scout : zerglings, overlords and such. Then my mechanics are terrible and I'm not good enough to know how much this 10 scout is going to snowball later. So I'm asking all the good players there, should I scout on 10 ?
I was wondering about this myself, I already rally my second overlord to the most obvious (closest) proxy locations and then later poke out with a drone a bit to check for bunkers around my natural. I 14 pool vs Toss and I feel I can hold 2 gate proxies if they're not as close as my 2nd ovie would have seen.
That said drone scouting is still underrated in terms of annoying your opponent. Blocking a cybercore for a few seconds or forcing it to be placed off wall can be very useful later.
Well written piece, definitely picked up a thing or two having just switched to Zerg. I might have missed it but I think the guide should mention the 16 drone optimal mineral saturation. For me it's a useful guide to make sure I have 16 drones on minerals and to replace 1 for every building I make, or transferring to fresh bases.
PS. You wrote this for your little sister? o_O
|
Ty very much, very well written guide.
I litterely got promoted 1.5 hours after reading this guide. no bs.
Ive been struggeling to get promoted to gold for a long time. I never could point a finger on something specific though.
I realised that i did most of the things in this guide, BUT i never did it consistently and systematic. All of the sudden i could see the big plan for my race, which was a huge skilljump for me. I litterely feel like i just leveled up in zerg :-)
Again, ty very much
|
Well there really isn't anything in this guide that I didn't already know. But there is a difference between knowing and putting it into practice. I'm going to have another go at master league and this has provided much needed motivation, thanks! =D
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
Great comments guys, thanks! Pertaining to drone-scouting, I can only say that IMHO, the technical advantage gained from that early game information and the ability to know that a cheese/all-in is coming is arguably well worth the 100 minerals or so that it will take from your economy. (Let's remember that Zerg is the first race to 12 workers!). Given, this point is debatable. What I've found, however, is that drone scouting all the way into Master league and beyond is a great way to continue improving your game awareness, APM, and harassment potential. It's just a good all-around basic to work on for someone climbing the lower leagues. You are of course welcome to exclude it. I think, though, that the mineral loss from drone scouting can be mitigated by microing your remaining drones to ensure that the closest mineral patches are being mined first and that remaining drones aren't bouncing around from patch to patch (that is, effectively mining x2/ patch)
Saechiis - you're right! Adding saturation stats into the macro section, ty!
Cheers!
|
On May 02 2014 19:12 SpawnMoarOverlords wrote: even though I've got "the best map control tool in the game" to scout : zerglings, overlords and such.
And there I thought scan and invisible, cheap flying things were good...
Anyway, thanks for the writeup OP. Good to reread that stuff again from time to time... although most Zergs know most of that stuff, it's good to keep it in mind again.
|
United States248 Posts
I liked it! It quantifies a lot of the stuff that you are internalizing in high masters, which is useful for thoughtful practice. I would definitely stress better formatting, as I definitely found myself inadvertently skipping over chunks on accident. Formatting this to make it more pleasing to the eye and easier to read would go a long way.
My biggest content critique is that I think you get bogged down too much in specifics. Specifics are good for build orders and certain tips, not very good when describing stuff as vague as you are here.
For example, "The trajectory" in the early portions of the article. I think this is probably too specific of information. It doesn't apply to every game, maybe even to most games. I would rather there be higher stress on the importance of lopsided advantages (eco vs tech vs army) and how to utilize each advantage you have when they don't match up vs what your opponent has.
|
Very very informative,thank you very much !!! I learned alot and now I have to start using it in real games.
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
On May 03 2014 01:22 Jowj wrote: I liked it! It quantifies a lot of the stuff that you are internalizing in high masters, which is useful for thoughtful practice. I would definitely stress better formatting, as I definitely found myself inadvertently skipping over chunks on accident. Formatting this to make it more pleasing to the eye and easier to read would go a long way.
My biggest content critique is that I think you get bogged down too much in specifics. Specifics are good for build orders and certain tips, not very good when describing stuff as vague as you are here.
For example, "The trajectory" in the early portions of the article. I think this is probably too specific of information. It doesn't apply to every game, maybe even to most games. I would rather there be higher stress on the importance of lopsided advantages (eco vs tech vs army) and how to utilize each advantage you have when they don't match up vs what your opponent has.
Jowj, thanks for your feedback. My bad on the format, guys! Not a web-savvy person... With regard to your last point, I would argue that a clear understanding of the trajectory of development is absolutely applicable to every game, as all economic development, tech choices, engagements, tempo, and game plan will always depend on where in that trajectory you find yourself at any given time.
Therefore, learning to develop it in a steady, efficient, and balanced way is the only way to achieve high level play. As one reader said, it's helped him see his overall "race plan" much better, which was the intended point. Anyone not wishing to get bogged down in specific examples is welcome to skip them, but for players exploring the concept of having a structured development path in Zerg play for the first time, I figured it was worth including. There is, after all, a reason for why we don't get double gas immediately upon the beginning of a match (overly simplifying here for sake of illustration). That reason is there's a right time and place for everything, and while it does depend on the specific circumstances of the game, it helps to have an overall big-picture understanding of what we're trying to achieve. That said, we might not follow 100%, 80% or even 50% of that trajectory in any given game (we may win or lose long before that point), but I've personally found that it is informative to keep in mind that as long the game continues, there are always a number of critical objectives to be met.
Cheers
|
Awesome guide!!! I used to be mid-master then had to take a couple semesters off cause college served to be much harder than highschool lol but now I am starting to get back into SC and this really helped shake off the rust and remind me of what it was that used to come second hand!!
Thank you very much for the guide! Much Appreciated!
|
Nice writing. For a casual diamond gamer, this gives a good reminder on what you should attempt to do in every game. In particular, I tried to put a mental note on the 'creep at the 3rd and lings at the 4th and the 5th' part. That is something I fail to remember. Burrow play would be something to be added to the list of useful tactics that are often forgotten. I think burrowed lings at opponents future bases and burrowed roach raids are highly helpful to 'buy some time' in mid level games.
|
On May 02 2014 15:47 TheZov wrote: Hatchery tech = T1 Lair Tech = T2 Hive Tech = T3
There are also intermediary tiers here, such as Roach (tier 1.5, as it is armored and requires an additional structure at Hatch tech to produce) and Viper (Tier 2.5, as it requires no Spire, only Hive to produce).
So you say that hatch/lair/hive are tier 1/2/3 respectively. You say that adding a building in said tier adds 0.5 to it (Roach = Tier 1.5, since it's tier 1 + 1 building). So mahmetics wise:
Value: Hatchery(tier 1) = 1 lair(tier 2) = 2 Hive(tier 3) = 3 Building = 0.5
Then you state that vipers are tier 2.5, while it's hive tech, which you said is tier 3. While Hive = 3, so where does it substract -0.5? Hive tech = Tier 3, Hive tech + building (e.g. Ultralisks) = Tier 3.5 So shouldn't viper be tier 3, instead of tier 2.5, according to your own mathmetics?
You say it's tier 2.5 because it requires no spire, but it indirectly requires an infestation pit, which is also a tier 2 structure, because it's a pre to get to hive. So according to your logic/mathmetics, viper is tier 3, not 2.5
|
On May 04 2014 00:38 kaluro wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2014 15:47 TheZov wrote: Hatchery tech = T1 Lair Tech = T2 Hive Tech = T3
There are also intermediary tiers here, such as Roach (tier 1.5, as it is armored and requires an additional structure at Hatch tech to produce) and Viper (Tier 2.5, as it requires no Spire, only Hive to produce).
So you say that hatch/lair/hive are tier 1/2/3 respectively. You say that adding a building in said tier adds 0.5 to it (Roach = Tier 1.5, since it's tier 1 + 1 building). So mahmetics wise: Value: Hatchery(tier 1) = 1 lair(tier 2) = 2 Hive(tier 3) = 3 Building = 0.5 Then you state that vipers are tier 2.5, while it's hive tech, which you said is tier 3. While Hive = 3, so where does it substract -0.5? Hive tech = Tier 3, Hive tech + building (e.g. Ultralisks) = Tier 3.5 So shouldn't viper be tier 3, instead of tier 2.5, according to your own mathmetics? You say it's tier 2.5 because it requires no spire, but it indirectly requires an infestation pit, which is also a tier 2 structure, because it's a pre to get to hive. So according to your logic/mathmetics, viper is tier 3, not 2.5 Dude, please.
|
Essential reading for any zerg.
|
I would delete your section on "THE ZERG DEVELOPMENTAL TRAJECTORY" which is just serves as a block of text with no real purpose and "The Three E’s of Zerg Psychology" which is the kind of mess that happens whenever an idea is forced into a contrived acronym.
Ignoring the above, which would cut the post down to half, is an interesting collection of the broader game knowledge and understanding and usage of time management of Zerg.
|
On May 04 2014 00:52 Surkein wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2014 00:38 kaluro wrote:On May 02 2014 15:47 TheZov wrote: Hatchery tech = T1 Lair Tech = T2 Hive Tech = T3
There are also intermediary tiers here, such as Roach (tier 1.5, as it is armored and requires an additional structure at Hatch tech to produce) and Viper (Tier 2.5, as it requires no Spire, only Hive to produce).
So you say that hatch/lair/hive are tier 1/2/3 respectively. You say that adding a building in said tier adds 0.5 to it (Roach = Tier 1.5, since it's tier 1 + 1 building). So mahmetics wise: Value: Hatchery(tier 1) = 1 lair(tier 2) = 2 Hive(tier 3) = 3 Building = 0.5 Then you state that vipers are tier 2.5, while it's hive tech, which you said is tier 3. While Hive = 3, so where does it substract -0.5? Hive tech = Tier 3, Hive tech + building (e.g. Ultralisks) = Tier 3.5 So shouldn't viper be tier 3, instead of tier 2.5, according to your own mathmetics? You say it's tier 2.5 because it requires no spire, but it indirectly requires an infestation pit, which is also a tier 2 structure, because it's a pre to get to hive. So according to your logic/mathmetics, viper is tier 3, not 2.5 Dude, please.
Right back at you, please don't waste frontpage space on something as irrelevant as "Dude, please.". I asked him why a viper is tier 2.5 and not 3 and overall gave a good constructive comment on how to improve a part of his very insightful post. Then you come around saying "Dude, please." What good does that do, really?
On topic: Almost done reading it all, looking very insightful so far - I'm loving it. ♥
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
Great comments and questions guys, here is my response:
Kaluro - thanks for pointing out the discrepancy. Here is what the language of the post should have reflected:
Lair tech - unlocks tier 2 access Hive tech - unlocks tier 3 access
The thing to remember about Hive is that you cannot make the Tier 3 units (Ultralisk and Broodlord) directly upon reaching Hive, you still need to construct additional structures. Since this is not true of the Viper, we can legitimately consider it an intermediary unit between Tier 2 and Tier 3, because you cannot produce it at Lair tech, even with a structure, but you do NOT require a separate structure to produce it at Hive tech. That's why, being in the middle, I called a Tier 2.5 (btw, this idea does not belong to me but was actually discussed in IPL).
Dangermousecatdog - you are welcome not to read any sections that you don't agree with or consider essential. The reason they're included is because a multitude of lower-league players still struggle with the understanding of how the Zerg race works and what its inherent strengths and weaknesses are. If you are a higher level player (let's say Platinum and above in this case), obviously the info is rudimentary. I do not necessarily agree with the contrived acronym point, though it is a valid opinion of course, as sometimes simple, clear, and basic abbreviations like that can help us to remember what might otherwise be too broad in scope to articulate. As it stands, I've had a lot of PMs from Bronze/silver players who have claimed to jump 1-2 full leagues within hours of getting this, so I hope you'll understand and forgive me for leaving it in
Cheers guys
|
On May 04 2014 00:38 kaluro wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2014 15:47 TheZov wrote: Hatchery tech = T1 Lair Tech = T2 Hive Tech = T3
There are also intermediary tiers here, such as Roach (tier 1.5, as it is armored and requires an additional structure at Hatch tech to produce) and Viper (Tier 2.5, as it requires no Spire, only Hive to produce).
So you say that hatch/lair/hive are tier 1/2/3 respectively. You say that adding a building in said tier adds 0.5 to it (Roach = Tier 1.5, since it's tier 1 + 1 building). So mahmetics wise: Value: Hatchery(tier 1) = 1 lair(tier 2) = 2 Hive(tier 3) = 3 Building = 0.5 Then you state that vipers are tier 2.5, while it's hive tech, which you said is tier 3. While Hive = 3, so where does it substract -0.5? Hive tech = Tier 3, Hive tech + building (e.g. Ultralisks) = Tier 3.5 So shouldn't viper be tier 3, instead of tier 2.5, according to your own mathmetics? You say it's tier 2.5 because it requires no spire, but it indirectly requires an infestation pit, which is also a tier 2 structure, because it's a pre to get to hive. So according to your logic/mathmetics, viper is tier 3, not 2.5
Wtf?
|
Yes Viper is tier 3. Muta would be an example of tier 2.5
|
United States248 Posts
On May 03 2014 09:29 TheZov wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2014 01:22 Jowj wrote: I liked it! It quantifies a lot of the stuff that you are internalizing in high masters, which is useful for thoughtful practice. I would definitely stress better formatting, as I definitely found myself inadvertently skipping over chunks on accident. Formatting this to make it more pleasing to the eye and easier to read would go a long way.
My biggest content critique is that I think you get bogged down too much in specifics. Specifics are good for build orders and certain tips, not very good when describing stuff as vague as you are here.
For example, "The trajectory" in the early portions of the article. I think this is probably too specific of information. It doesn't apply to every game, maybe even to most games. I would rather there be higher stress on the importance of lopsided advantages (eco vs tech vs army) and how to utilize each advantage you have when they don't match up vs what your opponent has. Jowj, thanks for your feedback. My bad on the format, guys! Not a web-savvy person... With regard to your last point, I would argue that a clear understanding of the trajectory of development is absolutely applicable to every game, as all economic development, tech choices, engagements, tempo, and game plan will always depend on where in that trajectory you find yourself at any given time. Therefore, learning to develop it in a steady, efficient, and balanced way is the only way to achieve high level play. As one reader said, it's helped him see his overall "race plan" much better, which was the intended point. Anyone not wishing to get bogged down in specific examples is welcome to skip them, but for players exploring the concept of having a structured development path in Zerg play for the first time, I figured it was worth including. There is, after all, a reason for why we don't get double gas immediately upon the beginning of a match (overly simplifying here for sake of illustration). That reason is there's a right time and place for everything, and while it does depend on the specific circumstances of the game, it helps to have an overall big-picture understanding of what we're trying to achieve. That said, we might not follow 100%, 80% or even 50% of that trajectory in any given game (we may win or lose long before that point), but I've personally found that it is informative to keep in mind that as long the game continues, there are always a number of critical objectives to be met. Cheers Hey sorry for the late response, been busy (i'm at lSC this weekend!)
Basically, I agree with the idea of having a game plan, a "trajectory" if you want to call it that, but I don't think it should be lined out in this way, because its so malleable, I guess. I think it might be better to establish each players "dream composition" and have them work backwards from there in each game, like a "how do I get there" type thing. But still, I think we are quibbling on details, good write up
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
On May 04 2014 17:51 ThunderGod wrote: Yes Viper is tier 3. Muta would be an example of tier 2.5
Let's put this to rest as it's not a very essential topic. Here's a Liquipedia description of Tiers which addresses this exact question:
-------- T1, T2, T3 Evolution level of Zerg main building (1, 2, or 3). Very often wrongly used instead of refering tech as low/mid/high for terran's a protoss'es techs. Zerg - T1 = Hatchery, T2 = Lair, T3 = Hive Sometimes people will refer to a half-tier, such as "T1.5". This means a unit requires more tech than one tier but not as much tech as the next tier. For example, a Baneling requires a Baneling Nest which requires a Spawning Pool, so a Baneling is T1.5 because it requires more tech than a Spawning Pool but not as much tech as a Lair. The definitions including half-tiers are not clear-cut and subject to some debate, but can be broadly considered to be: Tier 1 - Zergling, Queen (Spawning Pool) Tier 1.5 - Roach (Spawning Pool + Roach Warren); Baneling (Spawning Pool + Baneling Nest) Tier 2 - Hydralisk (Lair + Hydralisk Den); Infestor, Swarm Host (Lair + Infestation Pit); Mutalisk, Corruptor (Lair + Spire) Tier 3 - Ultralisk (Hive + Ultralisk Cavern); Brood Lord (Hive + Greater Spire); Viper (Hive)
(Source http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Definitions)
Once again, I referred to Viper as tier 2.5 (IE, not a true T3) only because it does not require any Hive-level structures. If this bothers you, please feel free to call it a true T3, as that does not bother me in the slightest. I've since amended that definition in the article. Cheers!
|
@TheZov Thank you SO MUCH for creating this guide. This is exactly what I needed as an intermediate-ish level player. I've developed a good understanding of the basics on my own and did make it into Platinum, but got demoted again into Gold as player skill has been increasing and mine hasn't (also took a break, which slowed me down). Your guide is something I threw into a word document on my other monitor to use as a guide for my own development - I pick a paragraph and focus on it. As I get comfortable, I'll grab another topic and focus on that one.
I'm very grateful for a guide that is oriented toward mentality and general understanding, as I personally have shifted my play-style from learning builds to playing out games from a sensory standpoint. I like trying to read a game and making real time decisions, instead of deciding immediately to go for a 3 base roach all-in or something based on my map and match-up. Personally, I find this more fun, and your guide will help me get the most out of a play-style that I enjoy.
The only addition I would personally benefit from would be key scouting observations - it is mentioned of when to scout, what overlords, where to send them and such... but little of what to look for, other than your opponent's tech path for unit counters. Is there other indicators that you look for? Does a statement such as, "At X minutes if he has four gases and no third, he's probably going to all-in" make sense, or is gas counting more situation-specific? Are there subtle things you look for to tell you whether or not to make drones, or is it simply just "he is making units so I will make units"?
|
This looks brilliant!! :D Def gonna read this after my work ends. very long post tho. Considered adding spoiler tags? Anyways, great write up!! Thank you!
|
On May 04 2014 04:50 TheZov wrote: Dangermousecatdog - you are welcome not to read any sections that you don't agree with or consider essential. The reason they're included is because a multitude of lower-league players still struggle with the understanding of how the Zerg race works and what its inherent strengths and weaknesses are. If you are a higher level player (let's say Platinum and above in this case), obviously the info is rudimentary. I do not necessarily agree with the contrived acronym point, though it is a valid opinion of course, as sometimes simple, clear, and basic abbreviations like that can help us to remember what might otherwise be too broad in scope to articulate.
Really lol? Because people have a magical ability to know whether or not a section is valuable before reading it. I am telling you those sections are pointless and uninformative and only serves to pad out an already long post as advice. Other people are pointing out that very same thing.
Like your three E's rubbish which is just bizarre an can be applied to every race ust by changing he words to suit the roleplaying, or your tiers thing, which you use the idea of the descriptor of the timing of a tech ree, so is irrelevent.. And the rest is a messily written build order that shouldn't be included under the guise of THE ZERG DEVELOPMENTAL TRAJECTORY whatever that is supposed to mean. You had fun writing this out, I get it. Asking people to not read your post to the sections that they think need not be included roleplaying is just...beyond words to decribe.
|
United States4883 Posts
Here's updated formatting! This is an excellent guide and deserves some love, so I decided to handle that for you!
+ Show Spoiler +Dear SC2/HOTS Community~ Disclaimer: I am a mid-Master-level Zerg player, and I originally wrote this bit for my little sister, who has inherited my gaming rig along with [hopefully] the Starcraft bug (pun intended...) Over the course of my journey, I've learned a great deal and have been fortunate enough to compete against many great players who have enriched my understanding of the game and deepened my skill level. Knowing how many aspiring Zerg players there are, I figured it might be a good idea to share it. I must warn you: this post is seriously long (5,000+ words), and that it may be too rudimentary for players towards the upper end of the spectrum, but I sincerely hope it may be of some use to you, and look forward to hearing everyone's feedback. Play well! Mastering Zerg Mechanics Note: The following techniques can be looked upon as the basic requirements to achieve Master-level rank. It’s important to understand that Master League is only the beginning of high level play. As such, these requirements may appear to be overwhelming, but as Spanishiwa once said: “The way to get really good is to incorporate one thing at a time and focus on it until it becomes second nature, then add the next thing.” (paraphrased) Therefore, picking skill-level-appropriate actions to focus on and integrate into your play and mastering them is the way to eventually acquire all of these mechanics. Fundamentals: Overmind Psychology
Each race has its strengths and weaknesses. Understanding the basics of your race psychology is a great way to familiarize yourself with its inherent strengths and abilities, at least in theory. Embracing these concepts will allow you to maximize the effectiveness of your race, as the overall race mechanic very much plays into this style. To play like a Zerg, you must first learn to think like a Zerg. Reactionary Play The most important thing to understand about playing Zerg is that it is primarily a reactive race. This means your goal is always to develop its full potential in response to the choices made by your opponent, while building up and biding for map control, a stronger economy, and superior numbers and map presence. There is a simple reason for this: all other races can produce fighting units and workers at the same time, while Zerg relies on its hatcheries to spawn larvae and then use those larvae to produce game-appropriate forces in real time with great efficiency. When droning, Zerg’s ability to make units is compromised. If producing units, the economy suffers and slows subsequent expansion. Therefore, Zerg relies on map awareness and scouting to determine when it’s safe to drone and when all resources must go towards producing a standing army as quickly as possible. In this way, every unit made early on that is NOT a drone is therefore an indirect setback to the in-game future of the swarm. It’s no coincidence that Zerg gets the best map-control tools in the game: Speedlings, Overlords, and Creep, or that a Zerg given free reign will always max out at 200 supply substantially faster than the other races. (Terran and Protoss know this, and will pressure you to slow your rate of growth by forcing you to produce units. It’s because they know that if left unchecked you will soon become too much to deal with!) Your success as a Zerg player therefore depends on being able to absorb any potential damage and persevere in following your development trajectory (see below). Note: Reactionary does NOT necessarily mean defensive or passive. The greatest Zerg players (Jaedong, Life, Stephano) are quick to exploit an opponent’s weakness with a timely attack, however, any such attack is still built upon the knowledge of what your opponent is doing and where his weaknesses are, which is achieved in part through game sense (at the highest level), and in part through scouting and the resulting decision making. The Three E’s of Zerg PsychologyThe Overmind’s 3 primal instincts should always be to: - Evolve. Make informed decisions as to which direction to take with your development (which tech to unlock/pursue and in what order, and how to maximize your upgrades), as well as knowing what the appropriate unit counter is.
- Expand. Simply put, to continue to grow your presence and economy until you take the entire map. The Zerg’s goal is to grow exponentially and consume all available resources. “Take the map bro!”
- Engulf. This means become so powerful that you eventually overtake your opponent with sheer force and volume. You should SMASH an attacking force with a swarm of appropriate unit counter.
A good Terran friend of mine conveyed this well when he said “A good Zerg is hard to kill, but a great Zerg is endless.” This “endless” Zerg quality will eventually wear down and consume an opponent who failed to inflict sufficient economic damage. Note: If you wish to dictate the pace of the game, have a multitude of tech choices and harassment options, play from solid fortified positions, and “take it to him”, consider a different race option. Fundamentals: The True Cost of a Drone
It’s no accident that one of LiquidTLO’s handles is GameOfDrones. Aside from being exceedingly clever, it perfectly sums up the essence of Zerg play, which is all about the drone. Droning enough and at the right time is the single game mechanic that separates high-level (Diamond and above) play from low-level play (Platinum and below). If I was to ask you how much a drone costs, what would you say? 50 minerals? Yes and no. The correct answer is exponential. A drone mines anywhere between 39-45 minerals per minute (depending on mineral patch proximity and overall saturation). Therefore, an early-game drone that has kept mining for 10 minutes is worth a whopping 440-500 minerals! That’s one bloody expensive drone! The reason this is important to understand is because the opportunity cost of every drone that you fail to make early on is equal to the amount of minerals that drone would have mined had he been alive. Failing to make enough early-game drones is the biggest thing that will keep you confined to the lower leagues. When learning how to play, it’s OK to over produce drones and die to an attack because you failed to make enough units in time (even though you had 3k minerals). Perfect macro will come with time. What won’t come is the mineral income you would have had if you had achieved minimal baseline saturation (roughly 40 drones on 2 base) by roughly 7 minutes into the game. That lost mineral economy will snowball into a huge economic deficit by the mid-game and put you behind. So, at least in the beginning, try to lose because you over-droned rather than because you didn’t make enough of drones. The Zerg Macro Mechanic- Know exactly what supply = 40 drones. This is the zerg baseline of survival. As already mentioned, failing to achieve 40 drones as early as humanly possible spells disastrous economic consequences in the mid-game. Example: 3 queens + 4 lings = 10 supply. Therefore, 40 drones = 50 supply (52 to be safe). Always strive to achieve this supply by 7 minutes. In-game test: If you made 4 queens and 12 lings, but half the lings died in a fight, and your overall supply reads 44, what supply do you need to achieve for baseline survival saturation?
- Overlord timings are 9 (10 if doing extractor trick), 15, 24, 31, and 40x2 (assuming a sacrificial scout). After that, each inject should be immediately followed by the same # of overlords as hatcheries injected (more rationale for this later).
- Replace every drone used to construct a building with 2 drones before constructing the next building. This is not necessarily a must but better than the alternative. Exceptions are: double evo, double gas, or static defense at time of pressure when making units is mandatory. I cannot tell you the number of games I lost because I over-built static defense (indirect economic damage) and then made units to feel safe, which left my mid-game economy in shambles!
- When Macroing, watch for the moment when suddenly the larva bar reads full. That means the injects have popped, and consequently it is time to: a) use them immediately to prevent larvae block (when hatches hold more than 3 and stop producing trickle larvae) b) inject again, and c) produce overlords.
- Pick ONE inject method and stick to it: such as the backspace method, cam position hotkeys, or minimap (not recommended). Using more than one method is a bad idea, as it will slow you down unnecessarily and disrupt your Production Cycle (see below);
- Define and master what is commonly referred to as a Production Cycle or an Inject Cycle. This is akin to a full, start-to-finish Zerg breath. An inject cycle takes crucial actions required for macroing effectively and groups them together, to train muscle memory and pace the game. An effective example used by EGJD is:
- Inject;
- Queue Overlords x # of hatcheries injected (IE 3 hatcheries injected = 3 overlords);
- pre-rally overlord eggs to desired position on mini-map;
- double-tap dedicated creep queen key and drop tumor;
- spread nearby tumors;
- double-tap dedicated scout key and queue up scouting route (can be done with forward lings or main army as well).
Done properly, this takes 10 seconds or less and achieves ALL of the baseline macro objectives, complete with scouting info of opponent’s tech/army comp and what counter is needed, and, most importantly whether you are safe to make drones or need to be making units. Convenient, since the larva will pop in about another 10 seconds and the overlords will spawn in perfect time for you to use up that supply with either units or drones and re-start the Production Cycle.
- ABC: Always be creeping!
- Familiarize yourself and always strive to follow The Zerg Developmental Trajectory, which is a fancy way of saying what Zerg needs to do (and in what order) to realize its full potential in the late game. The timing and order of this trajectory will change slightly depending on what’s happening in-game, but the broad strokes will always remain the same, in every game and every match up.
- Learn how to macro-bind your units to their respective control groups. This is done by CNTRL+clicking the eggs (de-selects the larva, leaving only the eggs selected), and hitting Shift+# where # is the hotkey of the appropriate control group. [blockquote]Example: When spawning zerglings to be grouped to Cntrl group 2, you select larva, hold down Z, the cntrl+click the eggs to de-select larvae, then hit Shift+2. This pre-assigns un-spawned units to join the specified control group before they even hatch, greatly speeding up production, regrouping, and eliminating almost all need for rallies.[/blockquote]
The Zerg Developmental Trajectory
Understanding the Tiers:Every unit at the lower tiers is needed only to help get you to a unit in the higher tiers. This is a good theoretical rule of thumb to follow. Your goal should always be to progress through the tiers (see below), so getting stuck on low-level, un-upgraded units longer than absolutely necessary should be avoided. There are exceptions to this rule (such as when you need to re-max quickly on T2, or include Speedlings with your Ultra army, for example. However, in this case the Speedlings should already be 3/3 with Adrenal glands, and as such, are no longer a true Tier 1 unit.) The Zerg Tech tree becomes progressively accessible with subsequent hatch mutations. IE Hatchery tech = T1 Lair Tech = T2 Hive Tech = T3 There are also intermediary tiers here, such as Roach (tier 1.5, as it is armored and requires an additional structure at Hatch tech to produce) and Viper (As it requires no Spire, only Hive to produce. Please note that this last point is widely debated and not set in stone. Liquipedia has an entry on this here: Liquipedia Definitions. While they do refer to a Viper as Tier 3, it requires no Tier 3 structures. I'd like to stress that the actual definition of the Tier is not as important as knowing where in the tech tree your desired tech lies and how to get there in the most efficient way possible.) It should be the goal of every Zerg player to progress through the Tiers in the quickest and most efficient way possible, thereby unlocking the entire tech tree by the late-mid-game, allowing the proper utilization of the race’s inherent production strengths and immediate reactive counters to opponent’s tech. That’s not to say you will need every unit in every game, merely to illustrate that Zerg is strongest when the entire tech tree is available for utilization. Therefore, there will indeed be games when the entire tech tree needs to be open, and the only question is which order it needs to happen in. The Trajectory Itself:(Please note that this is written in broad-strokes with regard to the general progression the race follows from early-to-late game. It is intended to illustrate to lower-level players the way the race's strength can best be unleashed and what to strive for as their skill and level of mechanical self-management begins to grow. Obviously if you are highly skilled you will find your own ways of adopting the trajectory to your unique style and needs in-game.) - Get to approximately 40 drones ASAP. This is not a whim. AkrhRH, my favorite GM coach to date, taught me this early on.
- Scout your opponent at about 7 minutes or roughly 50 supply with a fly-in (not always necessary in ZvZ);
- Get the Evo chamber down immediately after achieving 2-base saturation, double Evo if your early-game econ is strong and fast, single if it feels weak or compromised via pressure/attack, etc.
- Take additional gas. Know how much gas you will need for what. Example: Defend an early toss push with roaches—2 gas. Offensive roach production: 3 gas. Defensive 1-base baneling play, 1 gas (2 drones), offensive 1-base baneling play: 1 gas, 3 drones. Mass hydra to defend vs phoenix or voidray: 4 gas. Mass muta: 4 gas plus pre-gas third for immediate 6 gas. Look these up on TL or ask higher ranked players for advice on gas timing and never get too much gas too soon (refer to the true cost of a drone). For the purposes of this post, we will say that you will be powering double-evo for melee and armor attacks against Terran. Therefore, your build may look something like this: 2 evo, 2 drones, gas(G)2, drone (rally on G2 = 1/3), G3, drone (rally G2 = 2/3 ), G4, drone (rally G2 = 3/3), three drones (rally G3), three drones (rally G4). Always take your gasses like this unless it’s an emergency. Zerg is the only race with the ability to train new workers onto gas, and this works out perfectly as your drones will hatch and rally just as the gas becomes available, keeping your mineral saturation consistent and allowing the mineral drones to remain dedicated to mining. Obviously, this mechanic is debatable. Do what feels right. I've found that taking/saturating one gas at a time in rapid succession is the most natural way to grow my gas Econ, so experiment with what works best for you.
- Upon gas saturation, we start the double upgrades. If starting a single upgrade, I would opt for Armor (affects all units, including drones and queens). Drop 2nd Evo when the armor is 3/4 of the way done, resume double upgrades (depending on game sense). Make no mistake; upgrades are literally the end-all. (Theory: Zerg units are inherently cost inefficient and rely instead on their mobility and rapid production. The major things deciding whether your will be cost-efficient are: 1) MACRO, 2) UPGRADES, and 3) in-game decision of whether to engage, and if so, how and when. Exceptions: upgrades are delayed if immediately under attack, and all costs must be spent on units (unless poor macro, and you already have evos and 1000+ minerals and gas, in which case screw it, go ahead and upgrade.)
- Take a third*, replace drone, macro hatch, replace drone, then:
- Make some safety Tier 1 units after taking a third and use them for aggressive scouting/prodding the opponent to determine his confidence level and army composition.
- Upon starting upgrades, tech to Lair. Upon starting Lair, position and bind the soon-to-be Overseer to the most advantageous vantage point from where he will be able to scout the remaining tech.
- @Lair tech, make your tech choice and determine if additional gas is needed at the third base to power this tech. (Mutas = yes, 6 gas asap, pre-saturate before the hatch comes up in most cases. Infestor-heavy play = 6 gas. Hydras = 5 gas, mass roach off 3 base = 4 gas, etc etc.
- Start 2/2 upgrades immediately upon finishing 1/1 and start the infestation pit if not already started. Remember this: 2/2 = a great time for Infestation Pit. The reason for this is you will need Infestation Pit to tech to Hive (which you need for Tier 3 units and upgrades) and the time to get Inf. P + Hive is roughly the same as it takes for 2/2 to finish. Therefore, ideal perfect-world macro = 1/1, lair, 2/2, infestation pit, hive, 3/3 and max by the time 3/3 is finished.
*Third timing will vary slightly depending on matchup and game status. Most of all, it depends on your economy. If baseline saturation (+/- 40 drones) is achieved, the macro mechanic will let you know by itself when you’re ready to take a third, as you will not be able to spend your minerals in a single inject cycle off 2 base. Unless saving for specific things like upgrades or units, this is the optimal time to take a 3rd base, followed by a macro hatchery (diamond or above; use discretion. Platinum and under, I would advise to always get a macro hatch as you will often miss multiple inject cycles in a row but will still need the extra larvae a macro hatch provides. The best place to put macro hatchery is in the natural, which tanks damage in the event of a push or all-in, and even if destroyed allows 2-base mining to continue Fundamentals: Scouting
- Always drone scout on 10, in every matchup except ZvZ (unless on a 2-player map, in which case scouting to prevent all-in until you’re comfortable holding them with drones may be a good idea). I don’t recommend listening to people who say drone scouting is unnecessary on certain maps, etc., until your game sense develops enough to rely solely on your intuition. Drone scouting reduces chances of losing to proxy cheese by nearly 100%. It improves your APM and game awareness, annoys/delays your opponent, and most importantly, achieves immediate map control.
- Always use a dedicated hotkey for scouting. Mine was ~ (tilde). I bind this to early scouter drone, then to the first overlord closest to my opponent’s base to fly in around 40 supply or 7 minutes. Vs Toss, Look for pylon placement (this is where the future tech is going to be!). Whatever the hotkey, use that and ONLY that hotkey for scouting and ONLY for scouting. Why? Because in this way, scouting will become second nature and will never have to be remembered again.
- Upon scouting into opponent’s base at 7 min, reposition/rebind the next overlord to become an Overseer scout.
- Morph overseer scout IMMEDIATELY upon Lair tech and queue his path (if vs Toss, scout past the Pylons scouted earlier as this is likely where the new tech will appear). Queuing saves time and ensures that he will go in, likely get shot, and alert you to what he saw so you don’t have to remember to come back to him as he’s morphing.
- Always spawn-rally overlords to every mineral cluster on the map, starting with the space around your base and then the closest minerals to your base. The exceptions are: original 1st ovie (far scout), 10 ovie (natural, then third, and 15 ovie (scouts edge of main for drop or air).
- Always drop creep on your opponent’s third, and put lings in the mineral line at his 4th+5th.
- In any game, any match up, always and forever fight for control of the towers and post a forward ling. The FWD ling is different from the closest tower in that it goes immediately outside your opponent’s base and stays there to alert you to his moving out/expansion timing. Always replace FWD lings immediately upon being killed. (An effective way of doing this is to select your control group with lings, right click on the location you want them to go, the SHIFT+click on one ling, pull the group back by clicking away on the minimap, and hit Cntrl+# to re-set the control group without the ling in it. Done with practice, all of this takes less than a second.
- Bind a creep queen to her separate hotkey. Use that and ONLY that hotkey for creep and ONLY for creep, and do it at a given time in your inject cycle (IE, for example, immediately after spawn-rallying ovies after inject). In this way, creep will become second nature and will never be skipped or forgotten - because it can’t, since it has become like breathing.
- Don’t neglect PRESSURE as a means of scouting. If you have units that are not immediately defending, they should be actively poking and prodding to elicit a response. This response from your opponent will reveal his composition and confidence level (IE - he will either run, or chase, and that will allow you to know if you should make units or drones. Chasing you? Make units. Running? Make drones. This tug of war is the appropriate way to use your units, NEVER allow un-used units to be inactive, sitting in your base. (The exception here per Shuffleblade in comments is when drop/warp prism play necessitates a small contingency of units in-base for defense purposes. Technically, though, we would not consider those units to be inactive as they are purposefully defending a drop.)
Soft vs Hard PressureSoft pressure is an implied threat. Terran sieging up at the edge of your creep is an example of this. It’s a threat that, if left un-addressed, will sooner or later turn into hard-pressure. Hard Pressure is anything that has the potential to inflict actual and immediate damage. Going off the example above, that same sieged up Terran scanning and pushing in with a few marines to start killing your creep tumors is the beginning of hard pressure. Drops are another example. The reason these distinctions are important is because you as a Zerg player must master the art of soft-pressuring your opponent. Aside from being one of the best ways of buying time and scouting, it will often provoke your opponent into escalating into hard pressure before he is ready/fully regrouped. This works to your advantage because again, you’re able to re-max so much faster, particularly when you have the defender’s advantage. Mastering the In-Battle Production Mechanic:This is a major overlooked factor by most players in Diamond or under. As previously discussed, the hidden power of the Zerg race is in its production capacity and mobility. What does this mean though? It means 2 primary things: Production capacity allows well-macro’d Zerg to produce units faster than any other race in the game (although beware: late-game imba-toss with 20 chrono-boosted gateways will give it a run for its money :D j/k). This means your ability to remax is unparalleled. Mobility allows newly spawned units to join the fight faster than any other race (again, with the possible exception of proxy-pylon warp-ins. I believe it was Day9 who [correctly] asserted that, more often than not, Zerg doesn’t win the game with the first army, it wins the game with the 2nd and 3rd army that join the first on the battlefield even before it dies. The primary way of achieving this unique race mechanic is to learn to differentiate between which engagements you need to micro and which engagements should be left alone for sake of MACRO PRODUCTION (most of them). The biggest Noobie mistake I see is watching the primary army fight while allowing the minerals (and precious time) to pile up, and only going back to production when it’s “safe”. A useful side note here is this one: Understanding the "RT" in RTS
“But Train, I need to control my army. If I let that control slip, I’ll lose it and lose the game.” Not so, my young Padawans. The reality of real-time strategy play is that most people will be utterly clueless of the real-time aspect and what it really means. Real-time, for the purposes of this post, means precisely at the time that it is needed. Here’s some epic nerd wisdom for you in that regard~ “A Wizard is never late. Nor is he early… He arrives precisely when he means to!” (bahah, sorry) That “never late nor early” is the appropriate way to understand “real-time”. In terms of re-macro production, you have a very narrow window to make units safely, and that is immediately upon the beginning of the engagement. I say “safely” because any later, and it’s to your detriment. Only this window will allow those newly spawned units to join the engagement before it’s over. Any later than that and they are almost guaranteed to arrive late to the party. The proper macro mechanic of Zerg production is to prepare for the engagement, inject all your hatcheries before the fight begins if possible, buy as much time as possible by going around and cutting off reinforcements, pre-splitting your units prior to an engagement, and then, once engaged, immediately producing units and re-injecting your hatcheries, in the early moments of the fight if possible, but definitely IN-BATTLE and not after. (Note: Once again, how you know you must inject is your select-larva command brings up a large number of fresh larva. This means the hatches have popped and are ready to be injected again.) Done properly, this can be observed in-replay as an opponent’s supply dropping at the onset of the fight, while the Zerg supply stays the same or even climbs (!) during the engagement. This allows those units to reinforce the main army immediately upon spawning. If you smashed your opponent’s army and have units remaining AND units in the way, this is the time to go for an immediate counter. Note: immediate means RIGHT NOW. Not when your new units spawn, not when you’ve taken the next step in tech (though by all means, flex that APM!), not in 10 seconds. "Now" means GO! Do not stop, do not slow your roll, convert your immediate advantage into hard pressure and make your opponent pay! The Rules of Engagement
- Never fight up a ramp, there is nothing to gain and everything to lose. Ramps are narrow, and Zerg thrives on open spaces and effective surrounds. The ramp negates these possibilities while greatly exaggerating the effectiveness of forcefields, fungals, and splash damage from tanks, widow mines, and seeker missiles, etc, due to excessive unit clumping. Treat each ramp as a death trap, and always, whenever possible, scout with one unit before ascending with the whole group.
- Engage on creep whenever possible. Creep gives you vision of your opponent’s position, greatly improves Zerg mobility, and acts as a psychological deterrent - ask any [good] Terran if he feels like sending his clump of marines deep into the creep without a scan… Going onto creep signifies a big commitment from your opponent, and requires an equal commitment from you.
- Take a note from [those pesky] Terrans - pre-split your units. Spreading out clumped units reduces the effects of splash damage, allows them to get closer and attack more evenly (especially important with large, bulky units like roaches), and increases the chances of a full surround. Whenever possible, attack from multiple angles. The worst thing you can do is “a-move” into your opponent's army from only one direction. This should only be done when you know you’ve got the superior numbers to overrun him, and best not done even then.
- Exploit your mobility, go around! One noob mistake is to fall back with your entire army to the natural and “build up” when you know your opponent is coming. This is fatal. I call it “the shrunken zerg syndrome” and it results in a particular type of agony when you lose games to pushes that you know your position could have held with ease and been macro’d out of. Sound familiar? Have no shame, we’ve all suffered through them, so I want to address how to deal with that once and for all. The answer is simple: GO AROUND! By cutting off your opponent’s main army from home, you simultaneously accomplish several important objectives:
- You are no longer playing “shrunken zerg”, which instantly elevates your status as a player to at least Platinum level, at least in terms of your engagement mechanics.
- You cut off your opponent’s army from his base, threatening that run-by and thereby creating soft pressure.
- You risk entrapping his reinforcements which have been caught out on the map without the support of the main fighting force (this is particularly important vs Terran, who relies on rallies to reinforce his forward position).
Ever slept or jumped on a water bed? If you’ve never had the pleasure, allow me to summarize it for you: it always goes out from under you to where you aren’t. Think of the Zerg race as a liquid mass that ebbs and flows just like the water bed. This principle, in conjunction with proper production timing (see Understanding RT in RTS) is the single most-important rule of engagement. Whenever possible, go where your opponent isn’t and threaten him, creating uncertainty and forcing him to turn back and defend, thereby giving you time. Note: If you fail to macro (that is: produce and appropriately macro-bind your units back at home) while you are running around the map, your efforts will be in vain and may end in ***( For the lower leagues:Get good at recognizing when you’re about to get owned. If you herp-derped (affectionate term coined by Destiny, referring to A-moving blindly into a superior force) all your roaches into a Protoss immortal death ball, got FF’d and split in half and the forward half of your army killed off, by all means pull back and regroup. Don’t give him the rest of your units for free! Whenever there’s a question of whether you can take a good fight, pull back and let your reinforcements join the fight. Remember, you’ve got the best production and mobility in the game, so use them to your advantage. Half an army can become a whole army in a few seconds (regroup) or stay half an army if you let it die and the dwindling reinforcements run into the meat-grinder. The majority of lower-league engagement mistakes come from not differentiating between the fights you should take and the fights you should pass on. (Likewise, always check your opponent's upgrades before committing to an engagement. If they are better, pull back unless you know you have enough. There is no extra credit for heroics.) PS - if you adopt the rule of always buying time for your reinforcements whenever possible, you will automatically correct more than half of poor engages that would have otherwise been made in haste. It’s About Freaking Time! (AKA Playing the Long Game)If I was to ask you what your single most critical objective as Zerg is, what would you say?
If you said “to win”., realize that answer is self-apparent and therefore not constructive. If you said “to macro”, you’re getting warmer. If you said “to macro and max before my opponent does”, you’re awfully close to what I’m looking for but haven’t quite hit the nail on the head.
The best universal answer to this question is: to buy more time. Time for what? For all of the above! Recognize that beyond early-game cheese and lower-league skill discrepancies, every game you play is likely to be very evenly matched, or, in the case that you’re still improving rapidly, your opponent might be slightly better (props to Blizzard for the ingenious MMR system). Therefore, as you progress, you are less and less likely to win the game with one big engagement, which happens primarily in the lower leagues. As you work your way up to mid-diamond and above, your opponent’s macro and resilience will improve dramatically, as should yours. Therefore, the Zerg should always and whenever possible be playing the long-game. This means absorbing whatever pressure you can to buy yourself time to continue to macro, produce units, spread creep, gain map control, climb the tech tree, gain upgrades, unlock higher-tiered units and allow for your bank to a) convert into a maxed out army of the proper composition as soon as possible, and then b) build up as quickly as possible for your future re-max. Remember the 3 Es:All of these things require the one hidden and most critical resource: time! The semi-beginning player should resist the urge to end the game early. Until you’ve gotten so good at scouting and game sense that you know exactly what your opponent has to defend with, you are likely to become overextended and lose the game. Miscellaneous Master-level Mechanics
Baneling landmines: setting up baneling landmines by: Right-click desired location + Shift + R (default hotkey for burrow), unclick desired number of banleings from the control group by holding down shift and clicking on the group window, right-click away from that location to get the remainder of the units to pull back (the unclicked units will go and burrow at said location independently), then reset the control group of new units (to so as to exclude the un-clicked units from the control group and not have them obey the next move command for the control group, which would thereby erase the burrow command.) This takes practice, but with time will become so easy you can set up baneling landmines in multiple locations on the minimap in seconds.
Forcefield Baiting - practice timing so as to force Protoss to expend forcefields early. Do this by looking like you're going to engage, then backing off at the last second. If you lose a unit or two it’s ok - the time you buy for continued production will most likely be worth many units. (Hint: do this by hanging out near his base when he moves out, not when he’s already knocking on your door!)
Separate hotkey baneling move command - group banelings separately from lings and move them (not a-move) past the clusters of marines or lings or zealots. As they get killed, their splash damage will affect the surrounding units. This will also prevent them all from herp-derping on 1 unit and costing you the game. :D
Static reinforcement (dropping walls of static when your minerals skyrocket) - Recognizing when your minerals have piled up and spending them on dropping static (or opening up supply by making a large number of overlords) on insecure locations. (Remember to always replace those drones!)
Drop mechanics - learn to drop! Aside from burrow, it is the only tech in the Zerg arsenal that cannot be scouted while researching. Therefore, it’s a great surprise attack which can also be used to fake your opponent by flying in with empty overlords (once you’ve showed drop) Note: move-command overlords and hit “d”, then click forward overlord, click “d”, then click next forward overlord, etc. Using this d-click d-click method, you can shift-queue the ovies to move out of danger and let them get out of dodge on their own, leaving you free to micro the units dropped off and—more importantly—macro back at home to remax your lost units as quickly as possible.
Corruption (name changed? The Overseer ability...) - keep the scouting overseer alive and corrupt critical structures such as upgrade buildings or robotics bays/starports. This translates into tremendous time-winning potential as the game progresses.
Corruption (name changed? The Corruptor ability...) - when fighting with corruptors, always corrupt high-priority target units such as Colossus or Mothership cores, medivacs, ravens, Thors, etc. This increases the damage by 20%, the equivalent of instantly getting +3 air attack!
Upgrade before unit - always start a specified unit upgrade prior to making the units themselves, unless immediate unit production is required. Examples: Ling speed before making lings, roach speed before making roaches, +1 air attack/armor before Mutas or corruptors, pathogen glands before Infestors (start making when upgrade is 30 seconds in to ensure they spawn with the extra energy). Possible exception: enduring locust upgrade. Rationale: the 200 gas required for it is a whole 2 swarm hosts (4 locusts/volley). Since they take a long time to build, and are quite slow, it’s better to build a rudimentary group of Hosts first (let’s say 6-8) and then start the upgrade, since by the time they spawn, rally over, burrow, produce the locusts, and the locusts reach their first target, you will have had plenty of time to begin the endurance upgrade.
Burrow expand/expand deny - Good players will often spawn-rally a drone to their 4th/5th/etc long before the expansion timing comes around. They will burrow 2-3 ahead of time, ensuring that an instant expo timing is available when called for. The same mechanic can be used to deny expansions (burrowed lings in place of expo). Never under estimate how bloody infuriating it is for your opponent! I recommend binding a special key for the expansion drone egg (the drone that's destined to expand). I use Capslock for this purpose, which allows me to grab the drone (double tap) and expand quickly without clicking on the minimap. Remember, at the high-level of play these are all intuitive basics which will come naturally with time. The most important thing to have is the psychology of continuous incremental improvement, not being discouraged by losses and consistently analyzing loss replays to learn from your mistakes. May these tools help you better learn the game and keep PWNING noobs on your way to Grandmaster League! GLHF!
And for the record, we really don't need to argue over the semantics of "tiers". Tiers are conceptional and refer mainly to which stage of the game they're useful in; therefore, we can all agree that vipers are generally going to be more useful EARLIER than Utralisks or Brood Lords (as well as synergizing well with lair units), making them a somewhat tier 2.5ish unit. But let's not get caught up on numbers. The point is: recognize the time period at which that unit comes into play and how it relates to the overall trajectory of Zerg play.
EDIT: There....may or may not be some non-uniformity issues with that formatting, but it looks pretty good for the most part lol. If you want to change it around some by removing some indents or changing the text size (via the [ big] tag), feel free to do whatever .
EDIT: I updated the formatting to be more correct. Unless you're happy with the current version of the OP, you can copy/paste the stuff in the spoilers to look a little bit better.
|
Italy12246 Posts
I'm going to edit it SC2John's updated formatting in the OP and add this to the recommended posts. Nice thread
|
Really well-written guide. ^_^ It was really nice to read. Can't wait to get home from work and implement it.
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
On May 05 2014 22:41 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2014 04:50 TheZov wrote: Dangermousecatdog - you are welcome not to read any sections that you don't agree with or consider essential. The reason they're included is because a multitude of lower-league players still struggle with the understanding of how the Zerg race works and what its inherent strengths and weaknesses are. If you are a higher level player (let's say Platinum and above in this case), obviously the info is rudimentary. I do not necessarily agree with the contrived acronym point, though it is a valid opinion of course, as sometimes simple, clear, and basic abbreviations like that can help us to remember what might otherwise be too broad in scope to articulate. Really lol? Because people have a magical ability to know whether or not a section is valuable before reading it. I am telling you those sections are pointless and uninformative and only serves to pad out an already long post as advice. Other people are pointing out that very same thing. Like your three E's rubbish which is just bizarre an can be applied to every race ust by changing he words to suit the roleplaying, or your tiers thing, which you use the idea of the descriptor of the timing of a tech ree, so is irrelevent.. And the rest is a messily written build order that shouldn't be included under the guise of THE ZERG DEVELOPMENTAL TRAJECTORY whatever that is supposed to mean. You had fun writing this out, I get it. Asking people to not read your post to the sections that they think need not be included roleplaying is just...beyond words to decribe.
Dangermousecatdog~ The overwhelming feedback has been that the length/content of the post is constructive and generally useful for setting the context for high level play. Once again, if you feel that there are parts that aren't interesting or useful, you are at total liberty to cut them out and focus on the things that are applicable to you. Regards
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
On May 05 2014 23:25 SC2John wrote:Here's updated formatting! This is an excellent guide and deserves some love, so I decided to handle that for you! + Show Spoiler +Dear SC2/HOTS Community~ Disclaimer: I am a mid-Master-level Zerg player, and I originally wrote this bit for my little sister, who has inherited my gaming rig along with [hopefully] the Starcraft bug (pun intended...) Over the course of my journey, I've learned a great deal and have been fortunate enough to compete against many great players who have enriched my understanding of the game and deepened my skill level. Knowing how many aspiring Zerg players there are, I figured it might be a good idea to share it. I must warn you: this post is seriously long (5,000+ words), and that it may be too rudimentary for players towards the upper end of the spectrum, but I sincerely hope it may be of some use to you, and look forward to hearing everyone's feedback. Play well! Mastering Zerg Mechanics Note: The following techniques can be looked upon as the basic requirements to achieve Master-level rank. It’s important to understand that Master League is only the beginning of high level play. As such, these requirements may appear to be overwhelming, but as Spanishiwa once said: “The way to get really good is to incorporate one thing at a time and focus on it until it becomes second nature, then add the next thing.” (paraphrased) Therefore, picking skill-level-appropriate actions to focus on and integrate into your play and mastering them is the way to eventually acquire all of these mechanics. Fundamentals: Overmind Psychology
Each race has its strengths and weaknesses. Understanding the basics of your race psychology is a great way to familiarize yourself with its inherent strengths and abilities, at least in theory. Embracing these concepts will allow you to maximize the effectiveness of your race, as the overall race mechanic very much plays into this style. To play like a Zerg, you must first learn to think like a Zerg. Reactionary Play The most important thing to understand about playing Zerg is that it is primarily a reactive race. This means your goal is always to develop its full potential in response to the choices made by your opponent, while building up and biding for map control, a stronger economy, and superior numbers and map presence. There is a simple reason for this: all other races can produce fighting units and workers at the same time, while Zerg relies on its hatcheries to spawn larvae and then use those larvae to produce game-appropriate forces in real time with great efficiency. When droning, Zerg’s ability to make units is compromised. If producing units, the economy suffers and slows subsequent expansion. Therefore, Zerg relies on map awareness and scouting to determine when it’s safe to drone and when all resources must go towards producing a standing army as quickly as possible. In this way, every unit made early on that is NOT a drone is therefore an indirect setback to the in-game future of the swarm. It’s no coincidence that Zerg gets the best map-control tools in the game: Speedlings, Overlords, and Creep, or that a Zerg given free reign will always max out at 200 supply substantially faster than the other races. (Terran and Protoss know this, and will pressure you to slow your rate of growth by forcing you to produce units. It’s because they know that if left unchecked you will soon become too much to deal with!) Your success as a Zerg player therefore depends on being able to absorb any potential damage and persevere in following your development trajectory (see below). Note: Reactionary does NOT necessarily mean defensive or passive. The greatest Zerg players (Jaedong, Life, Stephano) are quick to exploit an opponent’s weakness with a timely attack, however, any such attack is still built upon the knowledge of what your opponent is doing and where his weaknesses are, which is achieved in part through game sense (at the highest level), and in part through scouting and the resulting decision making. The Three E’s of Zerg PsychologyThe Overmind’s 3 primal instincts should always be to: - Evolve. Make informed decisions as to which direction to take with your development (which tech to unlock/pursue and in what order, and how to maximize your upgrades), as well as knowing what the appropriate unit counter is.
- Expand. Simply put, to continue to grow your presence and economy until you take the entire map. The Zerg’s goal is to grow exponentially and consume all available resources. “Take the map bro!”
- Engulf. This means become so powerful that you eventually overtake your opponent with sheer force and volume. You should SMASH an attacking force with a swarm of appropriate unit counter.
A good Terran friend of mine conveyed this well when he said “A good Zerg is hard to kill, but a great Zerg is endless.” This “endless” Zerg quality will eventually wear down and consume an opponent who failed to inflict sufficient economic damage. Note: If you wish to dictate the pace of the game, have a multitude of tech choices and harassment options, play from solid fortified positions, and “take it to him”, consider a different race option. Fundamentals: The True Cost of a Drone
It’s no accident that one of LiquidTLO’s handles is GameOfDrones. Aside from being exceedingly clever, it perfectly sums up the essence of Zerg play, which is all about the drone. Droning enough and at the right time is the single game mechanic that separates high-level (Diamond and above) play from low-level play (Platinum and below). If I was to ask you how much a drone costs, what would you say? 50 minerals? Yes and no. The correct answer is exponential. A drone mines anywhere between 39-45 minerals per minute (depending on mineral patch proximity and overall saturation). Therefore, an early-game drone that has kept mining for 10 minutes is worth a whopping 440-500 minerals! That’s one bloody expensive drone! The reason this is important to understand is because the opportunity cost of every drone that you fail to make early on is equal to the amount of minerals that drone would have mined had he been alive. Failing to make enough early-game drones is the biggest thing that will keep you confined to the lower leagues. When learning how to play, it’s OK to over produce drones and die to an attack because you failed to make enough units in time (even though you had 3k minerals). Perfect macro will come with time. What won’t come is the mineral income you would have had if you had achieved minimal baseline saturation (roughly 40 drones on 2 base) by roughly 7 minutes into the game. That lost mineral economy will snowball into a huge economic deficit by the mid-game and put you behind. So, at least in the beginning, try to lose because you over-droned rather than because you didn’t make enough of drones. The Zerg Macro Mechanic- Know exactly what supply = 40 drones. This is the zerg baseline of survival. As already mentioned, failing to achieve 40 drones as early as humanly possible spells disastrous economic consequences in the mid-game. Example: 3 queens + 4 lings = 10 supply. Therefore, 40 drones = 50 supply (52 to be safe). Always strive to achieve this supply by 7 minutes. In-game test: If you made 4 queens and 12 lings, but half the lings died in a fight, and your overall supply reads 44, what supply do you need to achieve for baseline survival saturation?
- Overlord timings are 9 (10 if doing extractor trick), 15, 24, 31, and 40x2 (assuming a sacrificial scout). After that, each inject should be immediately followed by the same # of overlords as hatcheries injected (more rationale for this later).
- Replace every drone used to construct a building with 2 drones before constructing the next building. This is not necessarily a must but better than the alternative. Exceptions are: double evo, double gas, or static defense at time of pressure when making units is mandatory. I cannot tell you the number of games I lost because I over-built static defense (indirect economic damage) and then made units to feel safe, which left my mid-game economy in shambles!
- When Macroing, watch for the moment when suddenly the larva bar reads full. That means the injects have popped, and consequently it is time to: a) use them immediately to prevent larvae block (when hatches hold more than 3 and stop producing trickle larvae) b) inject again, and c) produce overlords.
- Pick ONE inject method and stick to it: such as the backspace method, cam position hotkeys, or minimap (not recommended). Using more than one method is a bad idea, as it will slow you down unnecessarily and disrupt your Production Cycle (see below);
- Define and master what is commonly referred to as a Production Cycle or an Inject Cycle. This is akin to a full, start-to-finish Zerg breath. An inject cycle takes crucial actions required for macroing effectively and groups them together, to train muscle memory and pace the game. An effective example used by EGJD is:
- Inject;
- Queue Overlords x # of hatcheries injected (IE 3 hatcheries injected = 3 overlords);
- pre-rally overlord eggs to desired position on mini-map;
- double-tap dedicated creep queen key and drop tumor;
- spread nearby tumors;
- double-tap dedicated scout key and queue up scouting route (can be done with forward lings or main army as well).
Done properly, this takes 10 seconds or less and achieves ALL of the baseline macro objectives, complete with scouting info of opponent’s tech/army comp and what counter is needed, and, most importantly whether you are safe to make drones or need to be making units. Convenient, since the larva will pop in about another 10 seconds and the overlords will spawn in perfect time for you to use up that supply with either units or drones and re-start the Production Cycle.
- ABC: Always be creeping!
- Familiarize yourself and always strive to follow The Zerg Developmental Trajectory, which is a fancy way of saying what Zerg needs to do (and in what order) to realize its full potential in the late game. The timing and order of this trajectory will change slightly depending on what’s happening in-game, but the broad strokes will always remain the same, in every game and every match up.
- Learn how to macro-bind your units to their respective control groups. This is done by CNTRL+clicking the eggs (de-selects the larva, leaving only the eggs selected), and hitting Shift+# where # is the hotkey of the appropriate control group. [blockquote]Example: When spawning zerglings to be grouped to Cntrl group 2, you select larva, hold down Z, the cntrl+click the eggs to de-select larvae, then hit Shift+2. This pre-assigns un-spawned units to join the specified control group before they even hatch, greatly speeding up production, regrouping, and eliminating almost all need for rallies.[/blockquote]
The Zerg Developmental Trajectory
Understanding the Tiers:Every unit at the lower tiers is needed only to help get you to a unit in the higher tiers. This is a good theoretical rule of thumb to follow. Your goal should always be to progress through the tiers (see below), so getting stuck on low-level, un-upgraded units longer than absolutely necessary should be avoided. There are exceptions to this rule (such as when you need to re-max quickly on T2, or include Speedlings with your Ultra army, for example. However, in this case the Speedlings should already be 3/3 with Adrenal glands, and as such, are no longer a true Tier 1 unit.) The Zerg Tech tree becomes progressively accessible with subsequent hatch mutations. IE Hatchery tech = T1 Lair Tech = T2 Hive Tech = T3 There are also intermediary tiers here, such as Roach (tier 1.5, as it is armored and requires an additional structure at Hatch tech to produce) and Viper (As it requires no Spire, only Hive to produce. Please note that this last point is widely debated and not set in stone. Liquipedia has an entry on this here: Liquipedia Definitions. While they do refer to a Viper as Tier 3, it requires no Tier 3 structures. I'd like to stress that the actual definition of the Tier is not as important as knowing where in the tech tree your desired tech lies and how to get there in the most efficient way possible.) It should be the goal of every Zerg player to progress through the Tiers in the quickest and most efficient way possible, thereby unlocking the entire tech tree by the late-mid-game, allowing the proper utilization of the race’s inherent production strengths and immediate reactive counters to opponent’s tech. That’s not to say you will need every unit in every game, merely to illustrate that Zerg is strongest when the entire tech tree is available for utilization. Therefore, there will indeed be games when the entire tech tree needs to be open, and the only question is which order it needs to happen in. The Trajectory Itself:(Please note that this is written in broad-strokes with regard to the general progression the race follows from early-to-late game. It is intended to illustrate to lower-level players the way the race's strength can best be unleashed and what to strive for as their skill and level of mechanical self-management begins to grow. Obviously if you are highly skilled you will find your own ways of adopting the trajectory to your unique style and needs in-game.) - Get to approximately 40 drones ASAP. This is not a whim. AkrhRH, my favorite GM coach to date, taught me this early on.
- Scout your opponent at about 7 minutes or roughly 50 supply with a fly-in (not always necessary in ZvZ);
- Get the Evo chamber down immediately after achieving 2-base saturation, double Evo if your early-game econ is strong and fast, single if it feels weak or compromised via pressure/attack, etc.
- Take additional gas. Know how much gas you will need for what. Example: Defend an early toss push with roaches—2 gas. Offensive roach production: 3 gas. Defensive 1-base baneling play, 1 gas (2 drones), offensive 1-base baneling play: 1 gas, 3 drones. Mass hydra to defend vs phoenix or voidray: 4 gas. Mass muta: 4 gas plus pre-gas third for immediate 6 gas. Look these up on TL or ask higher ranked players for advice on gas timing and never get too much gas too soon (refer to the true cost of a drone). For the purposes of this post, we will say that you will be powering double-evo for melee and armor attacks against Terran. Therefore, your build may look something like this: 2 evo, 2 drones, gas(G)2, drone (rally on G2 = 1/3), G3, drone (rally G2 = 2/3 ), G4, drone (rally G2 = 3/3), three drones (rally G3), three drones (rally G4). Always take your gasses like this unless it’s an emergency. Zerg is the only race with the ability to train new workers onto gas, and this works out perfectly as your drones will hatch and rally just as the gas becomes available, keeping your mineral saturation consistent and allowing the mineral drones to remain dedicated to mining. Obviously, this mechanic is debatable. Do what feels right. I've found that taking/saturating one gas at a time in rapid succession is the most natural way to grow my gas Econ, so experiment with what works best for you.
- Upon gas saturation, we start the double upgrades. If starting a single upgrade, I would opt for Armor (affects all units, including drones and queens). Drop 2nd Evo when the armor is 3/4 of the way done, resume double upgrades (depending on game sense). Make no mistake; upgrades are literally the end-all. (Theory: Zerg units are inherently cost inefficient and rely instead on their mobility and rapid production. The major things deciding whether your will be cost-efficient are: 1) MACRO, 2) UPGRADES, and 3) in-game decision of whether to engage, and if so, how and when. Exceptions: upgrades are delayed if immediately under attack, and all costs must be spent on units (unless poor macro, and you already have evos and 1000+ minerals and gas, in which case screw it, go ahead and upgrade.)
- Take a third*, replace drone, macro hatch, replace drone, then:
- Make some safety Tier 1 units after taking a third and use them for aggressive scouting/prodding the opponent to determine his confidence level and army composition.
- Upon starting upgrades, tech to Lair. Upon starting Lair, position and bind the soon-to-be Overseer to the most advantageous vantage point from where he will be able to scout the remaining tech.
- @Lair tech, make your tech choice and determine if additional gas is needed at the third base to power this tech. (Mutas = yes, 6 gas asap, pre-saturate before the hatch comes up in most cases. Infestor-heavy play = 6 gas. Hydras = 5 gas, mass roach off 3 base = 4 gas, etc etc.
- Start 2/2 upgrades immediately upon finishing 1/1 and start the infestation pit if not already started. Remember this: 2/2 = a great time for Infestation Pit. The reason for this is you will need Infestation Pit to tech to Hive (which you need for Tier 3 units and upgrades) and the time to get Inf. P + Hive is roughly the same as it takes for 2/2 to finish. Therefore, ideal perfect-world macro = 1/1, lair, 2/2, infestation pit, hive, 3/3 and max by the time 3/3 is finished.
*Third timing will vary slightly depending on matchup and game status. Most of all, it depends on your economy. If baseline saturation (+/- 40 drones) is achieved, the macro mechanic will let you know by itself when you’re ready to take a third, as you will not be able to spend your minerals in a single inject cycle off 2 base. Unless saving for specific things like upgrades or units, this is the optimal time to take a 3rd base, followed by a macro hatchery (diamond or above; use discretion. Platinum and under, I would advise to always get a macro hatch as you will often miss multiple inject cycles in a row but will still need the extra larvae a macro hatch provides. The best place to put macro hatchery is in the natural, which tanks damage in the event of a push or all-in, and even if destroyed allows 2-base mining to continue Fundamentals: Scouting
- Always drone scout on 10, in every matchup except ZvZ (unless on a 2-player map, in which case scouting to prevent all-in until you’re comfortable holding them with drones may be a good idea). I don’t recommend listening to people who say drone scouting is unnecessary on certain maps, etc., until your game sense develops enough to rely solely on your intuition. Drone scouting reduces chances of losing to proxy cheese by nearly 100%. It improves your APM and game awareness, annoys/delays your opponent, and most importantly, achieves immediate map control.
- Always use a dedicated hotkey for scouting. Mine was ~ (tilde). I bind this to early scouter drone, then to the first overlord closest to my opponent’s base to fly in around 40 supply or 7 minutes. Vs Toss, Look for pylon placement (this is where the future tech is going to be!). Whatever the hotkey, use that and ONLY that hotkey for scouting and ONLY for scouting. Why? Because in this way, scouting will become second nature and will never have to be remembered again.
- Upon scouting into opponent’s base at 7 min, reposition/rebind the next overlord to become an Overseer scout.
- Morph overseer scout IMMEDIATELY upon Lair tech and queue his path (if vs Toss, scout past the Pylons scouted earlier as this is likely where the new tech will appear). Queuing saves time and ensures that he will go in, likely get shot, and alert you to what he saw so you don’t have to remember to come back to him as he’s morphing.
- Always spawn-rally overlords to every mineral cluster on the map, starting with the space around your base and then the closest minerals to your base. The exceptions are: original 1st ovie (far scout), 10 ovie (natural, then third, and 15 ovie (scouts edge of main for drop or air).
- Always drop creep on your opponent’s third, and put lings in the mineral line at his 4th+5th.
- In any game, any match up, always and forever fight for control of the towers and post a forward ling. The FWD ling is different from the closest tower in that it goes immediately outside your opponent’s base and stays there to alert you to his moving out/expansion timing. Always replace FWD lings immediately upon being killed. (An effective way of doing this is to select your control group with lings, right click on the location you want them to go, the SHIFT+click on one ling, pull the group back by clicking away on the minimap, and hit Cntrl+# to re-set the control group without the ling in it. Done with practice, all of this takes less than a second.
- Bind a creep queen to her separate hotkey. Use that and ONLY that hotkey for creep and ONLY for creep, and do it at a given time in your inject cycle (IE, for example, immediately after spawn-rallying ovies after inject). In this way, creep will become second nature and will never be skipped or forgotten - because it can’t, since it has become like breathing.
- Don’t neglect PRESSURE as a means of scouting. If you have units that are not immediately defending, they should be actively poking and prodding to elicit a response. This response from your opponent will reveal his composition and confidence level (IE - he will either run, or chase, and that will allow you to know if you should make units or drones. Chasing you? Make units. Running? Make drones. This tug of war is the appropriate way to use your units, NEVER allow un-used units to be inactive, sitting in your base. (The exception here per Shuffleblade in comments is when drop/warp prism play necessitates a small contingency of units in-base for defense purposes. Technically, though, we would not consider those units to be inactive as they are purposefully defending a drop.)
Soft vs Hard PressureSoft pressure is an implied threat. Terran sieging up at the edge of your creep is an example of this. It’s a threat that, if left un-addressed, will sooner or later turn into hard-pressure. Hard Pressure is anything that has the potential to inflict actual and immediate damage. Going off the example above, that same sieged up Terran scanning and pushing in with a few marines to start killing your creep tumors is the beginning of hard pressure. Drops are another example. The reason these distinctions are important is because you as a Zerg player must master the art of soft-pressuring your opponent. Aside from being one of the best ways of buying time and scouting, it will often provoke your opponent into escalating into hard pressure before he is ready/fully regrouped. This works to your advantage because again, you’re able to re-max so much faster, particularly when you have the defender’s advantage. Mastering the In-Battle Production Mechanic:This is a major overlooked factor by most players in Diamond or under. As previously discussed, the hidden power of the Zerg race is in its production capacity and mobility. What does this mean though? It means 2 primary things: Production capacity allows well-macro’d Zerg to produce units faster than any other race in the game (although beware: late-game imba-toss with 20 chrono-boosted gateways will give it a run for its money :D j/k). This means your ability to remax is unparalleled. Mobility allows newly spawned units to join the fight faster than any other race (again, with the possible exception of proxy-pylon warp-ins. I believe it was Day9 who [correctly] asserted that, more often than not, Zerg doesn’t win the game with the first army, it wins the game with the 2nd and 3rd army that join the first on the battlefield even before it dies. The primary way of achieving this unique race mechanic is to learn to differentiate between which engagements you need to micro and which engagements should be left alone for sake of MACRO PRODUCTION (most of them). The biggest Noobie mistake I see is watching the primary army fight while allowing the minerals (and precious time) to pile up, and only going back to production when it’s “safe”. A useful side note here is this one: Understanding the "RT" in RTS
“But Train, I need to control my army. If I let that control slip, I’ll lose it and lose the game.” Not so, my young Padawans. The reality of real-time strategy play is that most people will be utterly clueless of the real-time aspect and what it really means. Real-time, for the purposes of this post, means precisely at the time that it is needed. Here’s some epic nerd wisdom for you in that regard~ “A Wizard is never late. Nor is he early… He arrives precisely when he means to!” (bahah, sorry) That “never late nor early” is the appropriate way to understand “real-time”. In terms of re-macro production, you have a very narrow window to make units safely, and that is immediately upon the beginning of the engagement. I say “safely” because any later, and it’s to your detriment. Only this window will allow those newly spawned units to join the engagement before it’s over. Any later than that and they are almost guaranteed to arrive late to the party. The proper macro mechanic of Zerg production is to prepare for the engagement, inject all your hatcheries before the fight begins if possible, buy as much time as possible by going around and cutting off reinforcements, pre-splitting your units prior to an engagement, and then, once engaged, immediately producing units and re-injecting your hatcheries, in the early moments of the fight if possible, but definitely IN-BATTLE and not after. (Note: Once again, how you know you must inject is your select-larva command brings up a large number of fresh larva. This means the hatches have popped and are ready to be injected again.) Done properly, this can be observed in-replay as an opponent’s supply dropping at the onset of the fight, while the Zerg supply stays the same or even climbs (!) during the engagement. This allows those units to reinforce the main army immediately upon spawning. If you smashed your opponent’s army and have units remaining AND units in the way, this is the time to go for an immediate counter. Note: immediate means RIGHT NOW. Not when your new units spawn, not when you’ve taken the next step in tech (though by all means, flex that APM!), not in 10 seconds. "Now" means GO! Do not stop, do not slow your roll, convert your immediate advantage into hard pressure and make your opponent pay! The Rules of Engagement
- Never fight up a ramp, there is nothing to gain and everything to lose. Ramps are narrow, and Zerg thrives on open spaces and effective surrounds. The ramp negates these possibilities while greatly exaggerating the effectiveness of forcefields, fungals, and splash damage from tanks, widow mines, and seeker missiles, etc, due to excessive unit clumping. Treat each ramp as a death trap, and always, whenever possible, scout with one unit before ascending with the whole group.
- Engage on creep whenever possible. Creep gives you vision of your opponent’s position, greatly improves Zerg mobility, and acts as a psychological deterrent - ask any [good] Terran if he feels like sending his clump of marines deep into the creep without a scan… Going onto creep signifies a big commitment from your opponent, and requires an equal commitment from you.
- Take a note from [those pesky] Terrans - pre-split your units. Spreading out clumped units reduces the effects of splash damage, allows them to get closer and attack more evenly (especially important with large, bulky units like roaches), and increases the chances of a full surround. Whenever possible, attack from multiple angles. The worst thing you can do is “a-move” into your opponent's army from only one direction. This should only be done when you know you’ve got the superior numbers to overrun him, and best not done even then.
- Exploit your mobility, go around! One noob mistake is to fall back with your entire army to the natural and “build up” when you know your opponent is coming. This is fatal. I call it “the shrunken zerg syndrome” and it results in a particular type of agony when you lose games to pushes that you know your position could have held with ease and been macro’d out of. Sound familiar? Have no shame, we’ve all suffered through them, so I want to address how to deal with that once and for all. The answer is simple: GO AROUND! By cutting off your opponent’s main army from home, you simultaneously accomplish several important objectives:
- You are no longer playing “shrunken zerg”, which instantly elevates your status as a player to at least Platinum level, at least in terms of your engagement mechanics.
- You cut off your opponent’s army from his base, threatening that run-by and thereby creating soft pressure.
- You risk entrapping his reinforcements which have been caught out on the map without the support of the main fighting force (this is particularly important vs Terran, who relies on rallies to reinforce his forward position).
Ever slept or jumped on a water bed? If you’ve never had the pleasure, allow me to summarize it for you: it always goes out from under you to where you aren’t. Think of the Zerg race as a liquid mass that ebbs and flows just like the water bed. This principle, in conjunction with proper production timing (see Understanding RT in RTS) is the single most-important rule of engagement. Whenever possible, go where your opponent isn’t and threaten him, creating uncertainty and forcing him to turn back and defend, thereby giving you time. Note: If you fail to macro (that is: produce and appropriately macro-bind your units back at home) while you are running around the map, your efforts will be in vain and may end in ***( For the lower leagues:Get good at recognizing when you’re about to get owned. If you herp-derped (affectionate term coined by Destiny, referring to A-moving blindly into a superior force) all your roaches into a Protoss immortal death ball, got FF’d and split in half and the forward half of your army killed off, by all means pull back and regroup. Don’t give him the rest of your units for free! Whenever there’s a question of whether you can take a good fight, pull back and let your reinforcements join the fight. Remember, you’ve got the best production and mobility in the game, so use them to your advantage. Half an army can become a whole army in a few seconds (regroup) or stay half an army if you let it die and the dwindling reinforcements run into the meat-grinder. The majority of lower-league engagement mistakes come from not differentiating between the fights you should take and the fights you should pass on. (Likewise, always check your opponent's upgrades before committing to an engagement. If they are better, pull back unless you know you have enough. There is no extra credit for heroics.) PS - if you adopt the rule of always buying time for your reinforcements whenever possible, you will automatically correct more than half of poor engages that would have otherwise been made in haste. It’s About Freaking Time! (AKA Playing the Long Game)If I was to ask you what your single most critical objective as Zerg is, what would you say?
If you said “to win”., realize that answer is self-apparent and therefore not constructive. If you said “to macro”, you’re getting warmer. If you said “to macro and max before my opponent does”, you’re awfully close to what I’m looking for but haven’t quite hit the nail on the head.
The best universal answer to this question is: to buy more time. Time for what? For all of the above! Recognize that beyond early-game cheese and lower-league skill discrepancies, every game you play is likely to be very evenly matched, or, in the case that you’re still improving rapidly, your opponent might be slightly better (props to Blizzard for the ingenious MMR system). Therefore, as you progress, you are less and less likely to win the game with one big engagement, which happens primarily in the lower leagues. As you work your way up to mid-diamond and above, your opponent’s macro and resilience will improve dramatically, as should yours. Therefore, the Zerg should always and whenever possible be playing the long-game. This means absorbing whatever pressure you can to buy yourself time to continue to macro, produce units, spread creep, gain map control, climb the tech tree, gain upgrades, unlock higher-tiered units and allow for your bank to a) convert into a maxed out army of the proper composition as soon as possible, and then b) build up as quickly as possible for your future re-max. Remember the 3 Es:All of these things require the one hidden and most critical resource: time! The semi-beginning player should resist the urge to end the game early. Until you’ve gotten so good at scouting and game sense that you know exactly what your opponent has to defend with, you are likely to become overextended and lose the game. Miscellaneous Master-level Mechanics
Baneling landmines: setting up baneling landmines by: Right-click desired location + Shift + R (default hotkey for burrow), unclick desired number of banleings from the control group by holding down shift and clicking on the group window, right-click away from that location to get the remainder of the units to pull back (the unclicked units will go and burrow at said location independently), then reset the control group of new units (to so as to exclude the un-clicked units from the control group and not have them obey the next move command for the control group, which would thereby erase the burrow command.) This takes practice, but with time will become so easy you can set up baneling landmines in multiple locations on the minimap in seconds.
Forcefield Baiting - practice timing so as to force Protoss to expend forcefields early. Do this by looking like you're going to engage, then backing off at the last second. If you lose a unit or two it’s ok - the time you buy for continued production will most likely be worth many units. (Hint: do this by hanging out near his base when he moves out, not when he’s already knocking on your door!)
Separate hotkey baneling move command - group banelings separately from lings and move them (not a-move) past the clusters of marines or lings or zealots. As they get killed, their splash damage will affect the surrounding units. This will also prevent them all from herp-derping on 1 unit and costing you the game. :D
Static reinforcement (dropping walls of static when your minerals skyrocket) - Recognizing when your minerals have piled up and spending them on dropping static (or opening up supply by making a large number of overlords) on insecure locations. (Remember to always replace those drones!)
Drop mechanics - learn to drop! Aside from burrow, it is the only tech in the Zerg arsenal that cannot be scouted while researching. Therefore, it’s a great surprise attack which can also be used to fake your opponent by flying in with empty overlords (once you’ve showed drop) Note: move-command overlords and hit “d”, then click forward overlord, click “d”, then click next forward overlord, etc. Using this d-click d-click method, you can shift-queue the ovies to move out of danger and let them get out of dodge on their own, leaving you free to micro the units dropped off and—more importantly—macro back at home to remax your lost units as quickly as possible.
Corruption (name changed? The Overseer ability...) - keep the scouting overseer alive and corrupt critical structures such as upgrade buildings or robotics bays/starports. This translates into tremendous time-winning potential as the game progresses.
Corruption (name changed? The Corruptor ability...) - when fighting with corruptors, always corrupt high-priority target units such as Colossus or Mothership cores, medivacs, ravens, Thors, etc. This increases the damage by 20%, the equivalent of instantly getting +3 air attack!
Upgrade before unit - always start a specified unit upgrade prior to making the units themselves, unless immediate unit production is required. Examples: Ling speed before making lings, roach speed before making roaches, +1 air attack/armor before Mutas or corruptors, pathogen glands before Infestors (start making when upgrade is 30 seconds in to ensure they spawn with the extra energy). Possible exception: enduring locust upgrade. Rationale: the 200 gas required for it is a whole 2 swarm hosts (4 locusts/volley). Since they take a long time to build, and are quite slow, it’s better to build a rudimentary group of Hosts first (let’s say 6-8) and then start the upgrade, since by the time they spawn, rally over, burrow, produce the locusts, and the locusts reach their first target, you will have had plenty of time to begin the endurance upgrade.
Burrow expand/expand deny - Good players will often spawn-rally a drone to their 4th/5th/etc long before the expansion timing comes around. They will burrow 2-3 ahead of time, ensuring that an instant expo timing is available when called for. The same mechanic can be used to deny expansions (burrowed lings in place of expo). Never under estimate how bloody infuriating it is for your opponent! I recommend binding a special key for the expansion drone egg (the drone that's destined to expand). I use Capslock for this purpose, which allows me to grab the drone (double tap) and expand quickly without clicking on the minimap. Remember, at the high-level of play these are all intuitive basics which will come naturally with time. The most important thing to have is the psychology of continuous incremental improvement, not being discouraged by losses and consistently analyzing loss replays to learn from your mistakes. May these tools help you better learn the game and keep PWNING noobs on your way to Grandmaster League! GLHF! And for the record, we really don't need to argue over the semantics of "tiers". Tiers are conceptional and refer mainly to which stage of the game they're useful in; therefore, we can all agree that vipers are generally going to be more useful EARLIER than Utralisks or Brood Lords (as well as synergizing well with lair units), making them a somewhat tier 2.5ish unit. But let's not get caught up on numbers. The point is: recognize the time period at which that unit comes into play and how it relates to the overall trajectory of Zerg play.EDIT: There....may or may not be some non-uniformity issues with that formatting, but it looks pretty good for the most part lol. If you want to change it around some by removing some indents or changing the text size (via the [ big] tag), feel free to do whatever . EDIT: I updated the formatting to be more correct. Unless you're happy with the current version of the OP, you can copy/paste the stuff in the spoilers to look a little bit better.
SC2John~ Thank you so much for your help and input. I love the TL community for this reason - finding support from people who are willing to pitch in to make it better for everyone. Your effort is greatly appreciated and I will continue to clean up/format the content as time goes. Cheers and thanks again <3
|
Wow. This is amazing guide. I want one for Protoss
|
John swearing allegiance to the Swarm, Overmind 1:0 Tassadar xD
Great guideman, been meaning to reclaim that Nr 1 Gold place xP will help a lot when I get at it, thanks!
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
Haha, thanks guys! Can't help with the Protoss one but maybe if people want to fund a research project I can get some pro-gamers to comment
McRatyn - I'm confused... but you're awesome anyway! GLHF!
|
On May 06 2014 12:05 TheZov wrote:Haha, thanks guys! Can't help with the Protoss one but maybe if people want to fund a research project I can get some pro-gamers to comment McRatyn - I'm confused... but you're awesome anyway! GLHF!
Now I know 2 things I'm bad at SC and jokes) lol Gl hf
|
Wow. Really nicely done, good read! Even tho I'm not a zerg, I had fun reading this. Good work
|
On May 04 2014 01:53 kaluro wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2014 00:52 Surkein wrote:On May 04 2014 00:38 kaluro wrote:On May 02 2014 15:47 TheZov wrote: Hatchery tech = T1 Lair Tech = T2 Hive Tech = T3
There are also intermediary tiers here, such as Roach (tier 1.5, as it is armored and requires an additional structure at Hatch tech to produce) and Viper (Tier 2.5, as it requires no Spire, only Hive to produce).
So you say that hatch/lair/hive are tier 1/2/3 respectively. You say that adding a building in said tier adds 0.5 to it (Roach = Tier 1.5, since it's tier 1 + 1 building). So mahmetics wise: Value: Hatchery(tier 1) = 1 lair(tier 2) = 2 Hive(tier 3) = 3 Building = 0.5 Then you state that vipers are tier 2.5, while it's hive tech, which you said is tier 3. While Hive = 3, so where does it substract -0.5? Hive tech = Tier 3, Hive tech + building (e.g. Ultralisks) = Tier 3.5 So shouldn't viper be tier 3, instead of tier 2.5, according to your own mathmetics? You say it's tier 2.5 because it requires no spire, but it indirectly requires an infestation pit, which is also a tier 2 structure, because it's a pre to get to hive. So according to your logic/mathmetics, viper is tier 3, not 2.5 Dude, please. Right back at you, please don't waste frontpage space on something as irrelevant as "Dude, please.". I asked him why a viper is tier 2.5 and not 3 and overall gave a good constructive comment on how to improve a part of his very insightful post. Then you come around saying "Dude, please." What good does that do, really? On topic: Almost done reading it all, looking very insightful so far - I'm loving it. ♥ What he tried to mean is that some ppl are just too nit picky with this tier crap. It doesn't matter what tier Viper is, we all know it's after Hive. There's simply no need to make a huge ass posts with "math" to prove that he's wrong or whatever, it's a waste of time >_<
|
It's Contaminate for the Overseer, Corruption (natch) for the Corruptor.
|
TheZov,
I just came back to sc2 from about a year hiatus, an this thread is certainly an amazing tool to get back on track. A question: I understand what you mean about about being like water (you may know the analogy is a famous one in martial arts and boxing). I do not, however, understand what you mean about the "shrubken zerg syndrome". If my opponent is coming to attack, and I go around leaving my base vulnerable, won't he take advantage by attacking my undefended base?
If you could, i'd like some examples of when you think a run-arond is a good choice, and examples where "gathering strength" is a better move".
Much appreciated!
|
On May 07 2014 01:15 Ninjury_J wrote: TheZov,
I just came back to sc2 from about a year hiatus, an this thread is certainly an amazing tool to get back on track. A question: I understand what you mean about about being like water (you may know the analogy is a famous one in martial arts and boxing). I do not, however, understand what you mean about the "shrubken zerg syndrome". If my opponent is coming to attack, and I go around leaving my base vulnerable, won't he take advantage by attacking my undefended base?
If you could, i'd like some examples of when you think a run-arond is a good choice, and examples where "gathering strength" is a better move".
Much appreciated! hopefully the OP doesn't mind me answering, but one of the keys to knowing when to counterattack as a zerg player is having good map vision and keeping tabs on your opponent's army. a great example is if you have a lot of roach/ling out on the map against a protoss player who's on a gateway/robo composition and he starts to move out across the map. if you know exactly where his army is, you can wait until he is dead in the middle of the map and go hit his natural. if you execute this correctly, because your forces are significantly faster than his, your opponent is put in the awkward position of either taking massive damage and going all-in to kill you (which is very hard because you can spread hatcheries and extractors and also bring your army back to sandwich his) or recalling and giving you a huge amount of time to continue teching and expanding while simultaneously putting him on the back foot. this philosophy also works fairly well in roach vs roach zvz and against terran mech. against bio it's tougher to do because of their mobility, but it's still possible to do by running behind his bio ball with small groups of lings or ling/bane. this is why you see the best terran players putting up a lot of supply depot/bunker sim city at vulnerable expands
|
What he means by "shrunken zerg" is that the zerg simply stays on their side of the map and moves back whenever the opponent pushes him. For the most part this is ok, but this never utilizes the real mobility of the zerg army. What he means by "running around" is that it's better go to around behind the opponent's army and attacking back towards your side. This allows you #1 to cut off reinforcement and #2 attacking the opponent towards your creep where you have an advantage. That is, if your intent is trying to kill the opponent's army. There is also #3 to threaten a ling run by or base trade.
What Zov is trying to say is that the zerg should be trying to surround the opponent's army and stay mobile, not to attack it from one side. If the opponent is trying to fight you in a choke, the worst idea you can have is to engage him in that choke as a zerg. You mentioned that if that will leave your base vulnerable? Yes, if you take your entire army it could. But if you split it into two then you can surround the enemy in the choke from the front and the back. If it's a terran you're surrounding, they can't away run away or split. If it's a protoss you're surrounding, they'll need twice as many forcefields.
I don't think "gathering strength" is a good way to put it. As a zerg, you only want to make as many units to equal the opponent's army so that you don't die, then continue droning. Then once you're significantly economically ahead, you can crush the opponent's army through pure mass.
But then again, I'm just another masters zerg so I don't really know anything.
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
Thanks to Waise and Bulgogi (Mmm, now I'm hungry...) for elaborating!
Quick note on "gathering strength" — referring to when the pressure begins and it's game ON, so to speak, IE time to make as many units as possible so we don't die to the attack. I agree with the "just enough" approach with the exception of an aggressive mid-late game scenario where all economies have been established and now a continuous series of engagements unravels to decide the winner. This is probably not as applicable until high-D/low-M but nevertheless worth mentioning. At some point, a time will come when you just have to fight to the death.
Much of our Zerg attack psychology is counter-intuitive in that you have to do things that make you feel somewhat exposed. I say shrunken zerg because it's easy to give into the fear of pressure and collapse back into oneself, losing map control, army ground, and initiative (think 'tempo' as in chess, where it is the attacker who dictates the pace of development, and the defender who is forced to respond). I've coached several Silver-Platinum players who exhibit this common tendency when an imminent attack threat is present. They all tend to: -Fall back to base, -Give up control of the towers, uncontested (where applicable), -Protect their overlords by rallying them into the main/natural, and, worst of all, -Play in the dark for some period of time until either the fight is over or, worse, doesn't happen because they got faked out of a dozen drones by aggressive posturing.
This is sort of like the Zerg anti-psychology, and a good opponent will abuse you by forcing you to play in the dark or split up into multiple locations. The flip-side is what Bulgogi described as going behind to get 360 degree surrounds and/or threaten run-by counters. It's also nipping at your opponent's army's heels, making them feel unsafe to push out.
Great examples of these concepts can be found in the recent Violet(Z) VS Huk(P) series at Lone Star Clash 3 lat weekend. Zerg players will generally agree that roaches suck heavy-duty when going up against a balanced mid-game Protoss composition (Sentry Stalker Immortal Colo). Link: http://www.twitch.tv/lonestarclash/b/525449584 Match starts around 4hr15min into the stream.
Violet displays tremendous game sense and tempo control by abusing the mobility of his multi-prong roach packs (WAY too small and light-hitting to cause any serious damage to a Protoss ball) to keep Huk a) split up and b) defensive. Game 2 is a powerful example of this, though he unfortunately got outplayed by Huk's creative (and unusual) counters, which are all based on the same concept we're talking about. Nevertheless, that mechanic is exceptionally well illustrated in that series, which Violet went on to win. Note how active he is with his lower-tier units, never taking a direct fight if he can help it.
(He also CONSTANTLY clawed his way up the tech tree to reach that state of variability that allowed him to make tech switches on a whim.)
PS - immediately following, Jaedong vs State (zvp) is another great series. Starts @ 5hr45min into the stream.
|
I think I understand. I especially like the idea of attacking towards the creep and manufacturing a surround. I've definitively given up vision for "security" and lost because of it before, so this will be a good place to try and improve once I am less rusty.
Thanks for the answers everyone.
|
Great article and I learned/refreshed myself on a number of things. I have two suggestions:
1) This paragraph is completely unclear to me: "Know exactly what supply = 40 drones. This is the zerg baseline of survival. As already mentioned, failing to achieve 40 drones as early as humanly possible spells disastrous economic consequences in the mid-game. Example: 3 queens + 4 lings = 10 supply. Therefore, 40 drones = 50 supply (52 to be safe). Always strive to achieve this supply by 7 minutes. In-game test: If you made 4 queens and 12 lings, but half the lings died in a fight, and your overall supply reads 44, what supply do you need to achieve for baseline survival saturation?"
By the way, 4 lings = 2 supply, so your queen + ling supply math is a little off. What does 40 drones = 50 supply mean?
2) When you go through a general build order, I think you should take all 4 gasses by about 45 supply vs protoss, not just one additional gas as you mention. Sure, if they are pressuring with zealots you may only have 2 gasses up by then, but you really need as much gas as possible for protoss 2 base timing attacks (and you should probably have a 4th macro hatch as well to pump as many roaches out as possible).
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
There are a number of assertions here, let me see if I can address them tactfully.
First off, 4 lings = 4 sets of lings in this case (since they spawn by two, but are not made by two, if that makes sense.) So 3x2+4 does in fact = 10 supply. In the example above, striving for 2-base saturation of 40 drones, the solution looks like this: 4x2+12-6=14 (army supply) 44-14 = 30 (drone supply). That means that for 40 drones, you will need to reach 54 supply, respectively. So to answer your question, "40 drones = 50 supply" simply means that assuming 3 queens and 4 sets of lings (for a total of 10 supply), the correct supply count to signify 40 drones is 50.
With regard to your gas timing, I would have to disagree. Please understand that I'm here to help, not to argue. 45 supply assuming even 2 queens and 2(sets) lings = 39 drones. More realistically you're looking at 3 queens and 3 sets of lings = 36 drones. The math is 3x2+3 = 9, and 45-9=36. Let's say 1 gas is already taken which leaves 33 on minerals. By taking 3 more gasses, you are dumping a colossal investment of drones (12, counting extractors), which, even if you replace the ones used to build the extractors themselves, will leave you with 24 drones on minerals. That kind of under saturation will almost guarantee that you will get obliterated by any decent 2-base timing attack from Protoss (per your example), or, alternatively, will fall behind economically in the mid game. Not to mention that you will not be able to sustain a macro hatch and certainly nowhere near 3-base + macro hatch roach production off 24 drones, and your gas would stockpile.
Refer to Trajectory section, 2nd to last bullet point which discusses how much gas is needed for what. Assuming 2-base play from Protoss, your build should *roughly* follow: 15p 16h (or 14p 15h, slightly more conservative), 3rd hatch @ 24 supply, double gas at 6:00, followed by roach warren and evo at approximately 50-55 supply, followed by Lair at approximately 60-65 supply. Additional gas can be added once Lair and ling speed are started, which I would personally do according to the method described, IE, one gas at a time, training new drones onto each gas until full before taking the next gas and so on. Granted, much of this will depend in game but this trajectory coined by Stephano in ZvP guarantees that you will have a baseline economy of 36-44 drones on minerals which also happens to be the absolute minimum required to produce roaches off 3-base.
I have no way of knowing what level you are playing at but I suspect that you are possibly handicapping yourself quite severely by taking too much gas too soon and under-producing drones in the first 7 minutes of the game. This can be determined rather easily by checking how many drones you have at 7 minutes in 10 random replays (excluding zvz). If you are under 40 in at least half of them, then your early game macro needs work. Cheers
|
Standard macro zerg flowchart:
1. Scout what they are doing. 2. Produce the maximum number of drones and tech possible while staying alive. 3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you satisfy the following condition:
Win condition: Your economy and tech is sufficient relative to your opponents that a committal to army will win the game.
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
Thanks Kaiser.
We can also go shorter: "Win"
8)
|
What a great guide. I haven't been able to play SC2 much anymore due to an injury, but reading this really motivated me and piqued my interest to start playing again.
|
Thanks for your guide, it's awesome.
I'd like to think of a way to refer to it ingame. I could alt-tab but the article is long, it's not really practical. If you guys have some ideas please share.
|
@renkin
Honestly you probably have enough to think about in-game already, so yes, having the entire article or even select paragraphs ready to be read during a game wouldn't be practical.
I read this article a few days ago so I may have misremembered, but I believe it mentioned the commonly accepted wisdom that you should choose one thing to work on at a time. Then, once that one thing becomes a little closer to second-nature, or a habit, you can move on to something else to work on.
For that reason, I'd recommend keeping the article handy, but choose just one thing from it. Then put that one thing in your own words and focus on just that for several games. Even at the expense of your short-term win-rate.
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
I'm with Jtype on this—one thing at a time. Even if you just practice...
inject inject, overlord overlord inject inject inject, overlord overlord overlord
...you will quickly eliminate all supply blocks and your macro will improve noticeably in a very short time. That's where I started, then added new actions to the production cycle. Works wonders once it is internalized to the point of muscle memory!
|
Made it to masters as Zerg with just these words:
Spit
Spend
Creep
Attack
|
United States4883 Posts
On May 08 2014 03:55 loft wrote: Made it to masters as Zerg with just these words:
Spit
Spend
Creep
Attack
Pretty much. I like to call playing Zerg the "Inject/creep spread game".
|
On May 08 2014 03:55 loft wrote: Made it to masters as Zerg with just these words:
Spit
Spend
Creep
Attack
I think this is pretty spot on actually.
|
Love the point about dedicated hotkeys for scout and for creep queen(s). I've used a hotkey that was shared for both, and its probably part of my lack of midgame scouting.
Also I have a question about rallying. Say you're on 3 bases, and your nat is getting pushed slowly (ie a terran is sieging up between your third and your nat, preparing to push). How do you rally your reinforcements so that they don't suicide into the attacking units?
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
On May 08 2014 04:30 Lobotomist wrote: Love the point about dedicated hotkeys for scout and for creep queen(s). I've used a hotkey that was shared for both, and its probably part of my lack of midgame scouting.
Also I have a question about rallying. Say you're on 3 bases, and your nat is getting pushed slowly (ie a terran is sieging up between your third and your nat, preparing to push). How do you rally your reinforcements so that they don't suicide into the attacking units?
See last point under Zerg Macro Mechanic:
Learn how to macro-bind your units to their respective control groups. This is done by CNTRL+clicking the eggs (de-selects the larva, leaving only the eggs selected), and hitting Shift+# where # is the hotkey of the appropriate control group. [blockquote]Example: When spawning zerglings to be grouped to Cntrl group 2, you select larva, hold down Z, the cntrl+click the eggs to de-select larvae, then hit Shift+2. This pre-assigns un-spawned units to join the specified control group before they even hatch, greatly speeding up production, regrouping, and eliminating almost all need for rallies.[/blockquote]
Alternatively, if Terran has already split your bases, you will have to re-set rallies on your hatcheries to keep reinforcements from running past the Terran army. IE - main to ramp, natural to mineral line, third to third, etc. This is pretty APM intensive. You'll have to select all the units and engage along with your main army. For this reason, I prefer macro-binding so any unit made is automatically included in a control group before it hatches.
|
United States4883 Posts
On May 08 2014 04:30 Lobotomist wrote: Love the point about dedicated hotkeys for scout and for creep queen(s). I've used a hotkey that was shared for both, and its probably part of my lack of midgame scouting.
Also I have a question about rallying. Say you're on 3 bases, and your nat is getting pushed slowly (ie a terran is sieging up between your third and your nat, preparing to push). How do you rally your reinforcements so that they don't suicide into the attacking units?
There's probably no good way around this other than either re-rallying your hatcheries and stop relying on egg rallying OR selecting the hatcheries from the split-off bases and egg-rallying to a separate hotkey.
|
On May 08 2014 05:09 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2014 04:30 Lobotomist wrote: Love the point about dedicated hotkeys for scout and for creep queen(s). I've used a hotkey that was shared for both, and its probably part of my lack of midgame scouting.
Also I have a question about rallying. Say you're on 3 bases, and your nat is getting pushed slowly (ie a terran is sieging up between your third and your nat, preparing to push). How do you rally your reinforcements so that they don't suicide into the attacking units? There's probably no good way around this other than either re-rallying your hatcheries and stop relying on egg rallying OR selecting the hatcheries from the split-off bases and egg-rallying to a separate hotkey. Ah. That's the answer I was looking for. In the past I've momentarily stopped binding eggs to groups and reset rally points, but it's not great. I suppose I could use camera hotkeys to produce from each hatch and bind reinforcements from the separated hatch to a "flank" control group.
|
On May 08 2014 04:38 TheZov wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2014 04:30 Lobotomist wrote: Love the point about dedicated hotkeys for scout and for creep queen(s). I've used a hotkey that was shared for both, and its probably part of my lack of midgame scouting.
Also I have a question about rallying. Say you're on 3 bases, and your nat is getting pushed slowly (ie a terran is sieging up between your third and your nat, preparing to push). How do you rally your reinforcements so that they don't suicide into the attacking units? See last point under Zerg Macro Mechanic: Learn how to macro-bind your units to their respective control groups. This is done by CNTRL+clicking the eggs (de-selects the larva, leaving only the eggs selected), and hitting Shift+# where # is the hotkey of the appropriate control group. [blockquote]Example: When spawning zerglings to be grouped to Cntrl group 2, you select larva, hold down Z, the cntrl+click the eggs to de-select larvae, then hit Shift+2. This pre-assigns un-spawned units to join the specified control group before they even hatch, greatly speeding up production, regrouping, and eliminating almost all need for rallies.[/blockquote] Alternatively, if Terran has already split your bases, you will have to re-set rallies on your hatcheries to keep reinforcements from running past the Terran army. IE - main to ramp, natural to mineral line, third to third, etc. This is pretty APM intensive. You'll have to select all the units and engage along with your main army. For this reason, I prefer macro-binding so any unit made is automatically included in a control group before it hatches. This is exactly what I wanted to know and was about to ask somewhere on these forums. Have been pondering how people put the eggs directly into contro, groups once you start banking larvae. Thanks TheZov, this post really helped me out. =D
|
On May 08 2014 17:13 Shuffleblade wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2014 04:38 TheZov wrote:On May 08 2014 04:30 Lobotomist wrote: Love the point about dedicated hotkeys for scout and for creep queen(s). I've used a hotkey that was shared for both, and its probably part of my lack of midgame scouting.
Also I have a question about rallying. Say you're on 3 bases, and your nat is getting pushed slowly (ie a terran is sieging up between your third and your nat, preparing to push). How do you rally your reinforcements so that they don't suicide into the attacking units? See last point under Zerg Macro Mechanic: Learn how to macro-bind your units to their respective control groups. This is done by CNTRL+clicking the eggs (de-selects the larva, leaving only the eggs selected), and hitting Shift+# where # is the hotkey of the appropriate control group. [blockquote]Example: When spawning zerglings to be grouped to Cntrl group 2, you select larva, hold down Z, the cntrl+click the eggs to de-select larvae, then hit Shift+2. This pre-assigns un-spawned units to join the specified control group before they even hatch, greatly speeding up production, regrouping, and eliminating almost all need for rallies.[/blockquote] Alternatively, if Terran has already split your bases, you will have to re-set rallies on your hatcheries to keep reinforcements from running past the Terran army. IE - main to ramp, natural to mineral line, third to third, etc. This is pretty APM intensive. You'll have to select all the units and engage along with your main army. For this reason, I prefer macro-binding so any unit made is automatically included in a control group before it hatches. This is exactly what I wanted to know and was about to ask somewhere on these forums. Have been pondering how people put the eggs directly into contro, groups once you start banking larvae. Thanks TheZov, this post really helped me out. =D have you seen TheCore custom hotkey layout thread? It's never too far from the top in the strat forum. One of the things that layout does is change ctrl from "create control group" to "add to control group", which makes adding morphing eggs to control groups only take 2 simultaneous buttons rather than 3. Just something to consider.
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
Sure thing buddy, it's even good in the beginning of the game, too. Once the muscle memory's there, it only takes a half second. I don't think I've built a single unit that I haven't bound in two years. Cheers
|
This is an awesome post. It inspires me to get infested :D
I am a struggling low level player, since starcraft 2 got released. Highest league being gold.
My questions are:
1. How much does APM count towards being a good zerg player? 2. How much APM do think is sufficient per league? (if there is such a thing.) Or 3. How much APM do think is ok to play plat for example. 4. What is your suggestion on improving APM?
The reason i say this is that you mention in your production cycle a few things that according to you if done well takes 10 seconds... I think t takes me about double that if not more.(will have to go watch replays to determine though.
Here is the reason I ask. My APM on average now in gold league is about 75. (source on limited data but all i have atm: http://ggtracker.com/players/981766/ZedraC#?race=zerg&page=1) Edit 1:, after posting i tested the link and it does not seem to work properly, but believe me it was accurate stats, in fact it was an ave of 76.8 APM)
A friend of mine averages about 45 (also as zerg) and cannot get out of silver.
A lot of the time during a game I realize : "what i should be doing" but it always seems like i am to slow to get to it.... then everything starts grumbling apart.
Edit 2: I tried to extract this info (ave APM per league) from ggtracker, but there does not seem to be an easy way.
|
Lovely reading, will only take a few days to get thru :D Thanks for the guide, really well done and much appreciated!
|
United States4883 Posts
On May 20 2014 00:00 ZedraC wrote:This is an awesome post. It inspires me to get infested :D I am a struggling low level player, since starcraft 2 got released. Highest league being gold. My questions are: 1. How much does APM count towards being a good zerg player? 2. How much APM do think is sufficient per league? (if there is such a thing.) Or 3. How much APM do think is ok to play plat for example. 4. What is your suggestion on improving APM? The reason i say this is that you mention in your production cycle a few things that according to you if done well takes 10 seconds... I think t takes me about double that if not more.(will have to go watch replays to determine though. Here is the reason I ask. My APM on average now in gold league is about 75. (source on limited data but all i have atm: http://ggtracker.com/players/981766/ZedraC#?race=zerg&page=1) Edit 1:, after posting i tested the link and it does not seem to work properly, but believe me it was accurate stats, in fact it was an ave of 76.8 APM) A friend of mine averages about 45 (also as zerg) and cannot get out of silver. A lot of the time during a game I realize : "what i should be doing" but it always seems like i am to slow to get to it.... then everything starts grumbling apart. Edit 2: I tried to extract this info (ave APM per league) from ggtracker, but there does not seem to be an easy way.
The truth about APM, honestly, is that it doesn't REALLY matter. My APM floats around 200 most of the time. I have friends who average ~120, 160, 230, even one friend who plays at about 70-80 APM. But we're all around the same top diamond/masters level. You can easily attain 200+ simply buy getting used to spamming and having a lot of useless actions; it's surprisingly not that hard.
The secret to speed and efficiency is just making sure you're doing everything you need to be doing at the right times. If your individual actions are too slow to attain this goal, your overall speed takes a dramatic dip. That said, for Zerg, just practice "the macro cycle" until you can comfortably constantly inject, spend larva, and spread creep without any hiccups. I highly suggest practicing on the "Inject/creep spread" custom map every day before laddering. Beyond this basic macro, everything boils down to game plan and decision making; that is, knowing what you want to do going into the game and reacting immediately to your opponent without having to think. Once you get to know more about the game, what you're planning on doing, and how to deal with certain pressures and responses, your speed is going to increase. I personally place more emphasis on the mechanics portion because mechanics are rather easy to practice and think through and will automatically help you achieve everything else you need to achieve.
EDIT: If you're still getting used to the macro cycle, I highly recommend breaking it down and doing only two things at a time (i.e. start with ONLY injecting and spending larva, don't even worry about creep spread).
|
Thank you SC2John.
I usually don't spam and feel the only advantage of spamming as warming up your hand. I do however hold down my create ovie or drone button though.
I am going to practice the macro cycle more and see how it goes. Maybe my problem is game sense. Like the OP said, maybe i am engaging wrong or at the wrong times. Maybe i should just work on my scouting...
Anyways. Thanks for the answer.
|
Nice work, its a good write-up. Will definitely put some of that in my play. I am top diamond, but I never ever thought of the fact that it could be handy to produce overlords directly after injects..
Thanks for this. I'm sure to regularly come back here and see if I am forgetting anything!
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
I agree with SC2John's assessment that it's all about execution of decisions. It is, however, also about the elimination of certain decisions. Another way to say this is that APM is actually a reflection of your thinking more than the mechanical button-mashing itself. As you learn to think several actions ahead, those actions will come with less delay. Obviously, practice makes a big difference here (apm spamming is largely pointless IMHO). Over time, certain actions will self-organize into groupings accessible almost entirely through muscle memory. Example: Inject, make overlords, spawn-rally overlord eggs, tend to creep tumors, scout, spawn. Depending on the stage of the game this grouping (let's say on 3 base) this could be 50-100+ individual keystrokes, or actions. However, because you're performing them largely intuitively and without thinking, they can be executed very quickly. The difference between a player who practiced it over a course of several thousand games and a beginner is that a beginner has to narrate to himself: "Ok, gotta remember to inject. Gotta remember to make overlords. What's next? Oh, I should rally them. I need to creep spread. What am I forgetting?.." This is like reading by pronouncing each letter; doable, but ineffective.
A master performs these actions subconsciously. Keep in mind that players of the highest caliber "express" their race's dynamic perfectly without ever having to think about specific actions. The same with musicians - they don't think in terms of notes or chords, only in terms of progressively longer and more complex sequences. (Actually, even lower level players can learn this. By the time you're splitting your armies and macroing/injecting during engagements + microing your fighting units al at the same time, your APM will have gone up substantially). The biggest difference between, say 80 APM and 150 APM is mostly about "reading" ahead into your game plan and thereby eliminating the thinking pauses about what's next. Playing at 150APM is surprisingly attainable even to lower level players once game sense is sufficiently developed. Another useful analogy may be to think about it in terms of "lag", that is, the lag behind the game being played in your BRAIN vs the game being played on your SCREEN. The higher the APM, the less lag there is. The lower the APM, the more delay between thought and execution. Therefore, one interested in self-improvement should focus primarily on in-game pattern recognition, correct decision making, and following the developmental trajectory.
Once you see your play in terms of a series of such groupings, your execution of the individual commands will necessarily accelerate. That's because actions take less time to execute in groups than they do by themselves.
Think about issuing a separate command for spawning an overlord on three separate occasions at random times in the game. IF you have to a) remember about supply, b) check your supply, c) spawn overlord each time, you're going to be both slow and probably supply-blocked. Alternatively, if you make them all at once (4 s vvv) after you inject 3 hatcheries, and you do it automatically, you've not only eliminated the decision-making that goes into having to decide to make overlords each time, but you've also PRE-spawned the supply limit for your future round of larva, allowing you to mass-produce. And anytime you can hold down the production button as opposed to trickle-building individual units, your APM average goes up substantially.
In any case, don't worry too much about how fast you play because speed will always build incrementally as the overall skill ceiling rises. Try to play as much as you can and have fun doing it, analyze your losses and rehearse certain counters and timings. Then getting faster will just be a positive side effect of play.
|
Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it.
Everything you say makes sense to me. I think for now I am only going concentrate on the sequence of actions to be taken for a week or so (the production cycle), just going through those motions time and time again until I have the muscle memory down going to a-move my armies and not concentrate on the battles at all. Then look at my APM again in a week or two.
I am going to make a mental note to report back in a week or two to let you know whether there has been any improvements. Hopefully there is and maybe it will motivate more peeps to just go and do it.
Go well kind Sir
|
Hi TheZov,
I'm a new zerg player and this has been the most helpful thing I've read/practiced so far
Do you have checking the minimap and minerals etc tied to any part of the cycle to do it subconsciously?
Cheers
|
United States4883 Posts
On May 24 2014 08:12 p3llikan wrote:Hi TheZov, I'm a new zerg player and this has been the most helpful thing I've read/practiced so far Do you have checking the minimap and minerals etc tied to any part of the cycle to do it subconsciously? Cheers
I know you asked TheZov, but I'd thought I'd throw in my thoughts, for what they're worth.
In the past, I have bound together making units/building buildings -> checking the minimap and minerals/supply. If you get into the habit of injecting -> looking at the minimap, spending larva -> spreading creep, etc., you tend to keep on top of things. In addition, it also relates to other races as well since you're constantly making pylons, supply depots, and other buildings all the time.
Then again, my ACTUAL minimap awareness is shit, so maybe I shouldn't be answering hahahaha.
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
On May 24 2014 22:31 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2014 08:12 p3llikan wrote:Hi TheZov, I'm a new zerg player and this has been the most helpful thing I've read/practiced so far Do you have checking the minimap and minerals etc tied to any part of the cycle to do it subconsciously? Cheers I know you asked TheZov, but I'd thought I'd throw in my thoughts, for what they're worth. In the past, I have bound together making units/building buildings -> checking the minimap and minerals/supply. If you get into the habit of injecting -> looking at the minimap, spending larva -> spreading creep, etc., you tend to keep on top of things. In addition, it also relates to other races as well since you're constantly making pylons, supply depots, and other buildings all the time. Then again, my ACTUAL minimap awareness is shit, so maybe I shouldn't be answering hahahaha.
Haha! Mine could be a lot better too... I agree, I think it's just a matter of mastering the creep spread mechanic and then you'll pretty much be watching it all the time
|
This is great Thank you for posting it. I haven't been paying much attention as of late, but I feel that zerg doesn't get much love for massive guides (aside from Blade555) in the TL strat.
|
this is excellent.
THANK YOU
|
On May 02 2014 17:27 Shuffleblade wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2014 15:47 TheZov wrote: -Don’t neglect PRESSURE as a means of scouting. If you have units that are not immediately defending, they should be actively poking and prodding to elicit a response. This response from your opponent will reveal his composition and confidence level (IE - he will either run, or chase, and that will allow you to know if you should make units or drones. Chasing you? Make units. Running? Make drones. This tug of war is the appropriate way to use your units, NEVER allow un-used units to be inactive, sitting in your base.
Just want to comment that having "un-used/inactive" units sitting in your base is actually very important at times for drop defence. If you have your whole army out on the map pressuring then the threat of for example a double pronged medivac drop could actually do game changing damage. The same principle is true vs a protoss that you for example know have a warp prism on the map. Otherwise I think its a very well written guide for improving, I feel that it was a very useful read for me and I will probably use it for my own practise for a while. Really liked the 40 drone rule, never heard that before and it sounds like it really makes sense. Thank you for taking the time writting it and sharing it with us here on TL. Very good job =)
You should never have units in your base EVER (unless when he drops ofc), just by having units there you let your opponent do damage by actually doing nothing, the threat is all in your head and you being scared of a drop makes you lose valuable units that could be a deciding factor in a fight or by doing a sidepush into a *newly taking expansion. You should have overlords in all the airspaces where you can't see without a ground unit or creep (creep always best option, but i rather scatter 4 lings out on vital scouting positions then have 20 of them idling in the base) and then simply use minimap awareness to see when drops are incoming and either pull back or intercept with mutas.
When you have mutas out he can still drop you if you are on the wrong angle of his base so when you're at the wrong angle you should have you're ground army closer to home. There is so much to go into on just this specific topic in general if you want I can explain more to you in private.
Great thread by the way, this is what I've tried to get into so many peoples heads. I couldn't have said it better myself! =)
|
Great post, i enjoyed reading this despite being a terran player .
|
On May 20 2014 00:00 ZedraC wrote:This is an awesome post. It inspires me to get infested :D I am a struggling low level player, since starcraft 2 got released. Highest league being gold. My questions are: 1. How much does APM count towards being a good zerg player? 2. How much APM do think is sufficient per league? (if there is such a thing.) Or 3. How much APM do think is ok to play plat for example. 4. What is your suggestion on improving APM? The reason i say this is that you mention in your production cycle a few things that according to you if done well takes 10 seconds... I think t takes me about double that if not more.(will have to go watch replays to determine though. Here is the reason I ask. My APM on average now in gold league is about 75. (source on limited data but all i have atm: http://ggtracker.com/players/981766/ZedraC#?race=zerg&page=1) Edit 1:, after posting i tested the link and it does not seem to work properly, but believe me it was accurate stats, in fact it was an ave of 76.8 APM) A friend of mine averages about 45 (also as zerg) and cannot get out of silver. A lot of the time during a game I realize : "what i should be doing" but it always seems like i am to slow to get to it.... then everything starts grumbling apart. Edit 2: I tried to extract this info (ave APM per league) from ggtracker, but there does not seem to be an easy way.
APM doesn't really matter past a certain point but if your APM is at the low end it definitely does matter. But this normally just means you aren't doing as much as you could be. For example with 30APM you will be macroing too slowly to spend money efficiently - or if you are that's all you'll be doing. I would say that to comfortably be Diamond ~60APM is required. To be a high Masters player you will need ~80APM for Zerg/Protoss and ~100APM for Terran, as a rough minimum. The increase is more due to micro and positioning, which become a lot more important at Master's level. You don't need more than 60APM for 'perfect' macro, as long as all of your actions are useful.
The key is that if you are thinking about what you should be doing then that is slowing you down, you need to know ahead of time: already know what you will be doing and your hands will learn to keep up. Another tip to increase your APM at low levels is to really try and incorporate more hotkey use, e.g. one ladder session learn the attack/armour upgrade hotkeys, another session learn to seige/unseige with hotkeys. (Don't try to learn all hotkeys at once). Clicking the buttons is slower as you have to move the mouse across the screen and this takes time away from other actions you could be performing.
Hope this helps.
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
Isn't APM just like typing on a keyboard? You can go slow and with 100% accuracy, or you can blaze and make mistakes that cause you to stop and correct it. With time you begin to type faster but with less mistakes... Maybe it's an oversimplification, but it sure seems like worrying about APM going up is not terribly useful. I played at an average of 150 in M, but a Plat friend of mine plays at 180. Does that illustrate it's not a very accurate representative of skill? There's a correlation between skill and speed, sure, but I think learning to think 5 moves ahead is more important than being able to perform those 5 moves very quickly. Physical speed will follow mental speed.
|
reading it all Really inspiring for zerg players I learned a lot
|
On May 31 2014 03:56 TheZov wrote: Isn't APM just like typing on a keyboard? You can go slow and with 100% accuracy, or you can blaze and make mistakes that cause you to stop and correct it. With time you begin to type faster but with less mistakes... Maybe it's an oversimplification, but it sure seems like worrying about APM going up is not terribly useful. I played at an average of 150 in M, but a Plat friend of mine plays at 180. Does that illustrate it's not a very accurate representative of skill? There's a correlation between skill and speed, sure, but I think learning to think 5 moves ahead is more important than being able to perform those 5 moves very quickly. Physical speed will follow mental speed. Yes, train for accuracy. Speed will come with perfect accuracy.
I've spent several hours practicing typing for the last year after teaching myself. My highest scores are my most accurate ones.
Nice guide, very well written. I learned a thing or two.
|
I broke up/reorganized the passage about gas because it was a bit jumpy. Let me know if this is easier to read; I may do more stuff like this.
---
Take additional gas. Never take more gas than necessary; you'll cut into your mineral mining and slow down your build overall (see the true cost of a drone). If in doubt, look up recommended gas timings around TL, or ask higher-level players when they take theirs. Make sure you know how much gas you need for your build. For example, we will say that you will be powering double-evo for melee and armor attacks against Terran. Therefore, your build may look something like this: 2 evo, 2 drones (replace drones from Evo), start G2, drone (G2 #1), start G3, drone (G2 #2), start G4, drone (G2 #3), three drones (G3), three drones (G4). In emergencies, you can take more gas.
More examples:
Defensive roaches: 2 gas. Offensive roaches: 3 gas. Defensive 1-base banelings: 2/3 gas (2 in the single geyser). offensive 1-base banelings: 1 gas. Mass hydra to defend vs phoenix or voidray: 4 gas. Mass muta: 4 gas plus pre-gas third for immediate 6 gas.
Note: As Zerg, you have the unique ability to pre-rally three drones to gas as the geyser is building; this keeps your mineral saturation consistent. Obviously, this mechanic is debatable, so simply do what feels right. Personally I've found that taking/saturating one gas at a time in rapid succession is the most natural way to grow my gas. Experiment to find what works best for you!
(written from the perspective of the OP)
|
So where does make drones or units fall into the macro cycle? Obviously it's timed up with injects popping, so does it go at the start right before going through the cycle again? As a plat player I'm guessing it will take me 20 seconds to go through the cycle, what should I be doing with the remaining time (20ish seconds) until I'm ready to go through the cycle again?
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
Nunnner, I think you're asking when you spawn your units in relation to the production cycle. If that's the case, then you would be doing it at the end, after you've made your injects, overlords, creep tumors, etc. I'm not sure what you mean by "remaining 20ish seconds", but the entire production cycle, once mastered, can happen within the time the larvae is spawning (25 in-game seconds). Obviously, as the game goes on, you will have more actions you need to execute (engagements, scouting, upgrades, etc), your cycles will get further and further apart. That said, you will always return to this macro-based grouping of actions at any point in the game to set yourself up for the next wave of spawned units.
|
Can you say more about why you suggest spawning units at the end of the cycle? It seems to me that it makes sense to spawn them right after the inject pops, so as to make the most out of the natural-spawning larva. The only things I can think of as reasons to wait are 1) you virtually guarantee no supply blocks, focusing on overlords first and 2) scouting information can allow you to decide whether to make units or drones. What's your thought process here?
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
When the inject pops IS the end of the cycle.
|
This is an excellent read. I enjoyed your analogies. It is time for me to get out of Diamond!
|
good read.
this one made me proud, as I've been scouting for years with the exact same method:
Always use a dedicated hotkey for scouting. Mine was ~ (tilde). I bind this to early scouter drone, then to the first overlord closest to my opponent’s base to fly in around 40 supply or 7 minutes. Vs Toss, Look for pylon placement (this is where the future tech is going to be!). Whatever the hotkey, use that and ONLY that hotkey for scouting and ONLY for scouting. Why? Because in this way, scouting will become second nature and will never have to be remembered again.
Scouting constantly while keeping your macro up is definitely the key to success in the lower leagues. Before you start hitting decent players (~ diamond-ish level), macro and decision-making based on scouting win 99% of the games. I've started playing again after a long hiatus, and tried to approach the game more methodically. (I used to get way to emotional during games...) And it worked. Thanks to scouting constantly and macroing my ass off.
|
United States4883 Posts
On July 12 2014 04:21 nunnner wrote: So where does make drones or units fall into the macro cycle? Obviously it's timed up with injects popping, so does it go at the start right before going through the cycle again? As a plat player I'm guessing it will take me 20 seconds to go through the cycle, what should I be doing with the remaining time (20ish seconds) until I'm ready to go through the cycle again?
On July 13 2014 01:57 TheZov wrote: Nunnner, I think you're asking when you spawn your units in relation to the production cycle. If that's the case, then you would be doing it at the end, after you've made your injects, overlords, creep tumors, etc. I'm not sure what you mean by "remaining 20ish seconds", but the entire production cycle, once mastered, can happen within the time the larvae is spawning (25 in-game seconds). Obviously, as the game goes on, you will have more actions you need to execute (engagements, scouting, upgrades, etc), your cycles will get further and further apart. That said, you will always return to this macro-based grouping of actions at any point in the game to set yourself up for the next wave of spawned units.
On July 14 2014 07:20 Ninjury_J wrote: Can you say more about why you suggest spawning units at the end of the cycle? It seems to me that it makes sense to spawn them right after the inject pops, so as to make the most out of the natural-spawning larva. The only things I can think of as reasons to wait are 1) you virtually guarantee no supply blocks, focusing on overlords first and 2) scouting information can allow you to decide whether to make units or drones. What's your thought process here?
On July 15 2014 02:10 TheZov wrote: When the inject pops IS the end of the cycle.
This is very unclear, imo. Although all Zerg's handle this a little bit differently, the order that I use is:
1. Inject hatcheries (~1-2 seconds) 2. Make units (~5 seconds) 3. Spread creep (~10-15 seconds) 4. Do army movement and scouting (remaining time ~20 seconds) 5. Use any additional larva (tend to use this for overlords)
Of course, army movement and scouting are interchangeable with creep spread, depending on how much time you have at any given moment. But the first two steps are vitally important (and also interchangeable). soO literally made it to 3 consecutive GSL finals simply by injecting and spending all of his larva.
It's really important to spend your larva as soon as possible when it pops because every 11? seconds or so that you have more than 3 larva per hatchery, you're "losing" a larva because it won't spawn. Over time over 4-6 hatcheries, this adds up to a lot of lost potential larva.
|
Can't believe you wrote all this for your little sister. Nice post!
|
The 20s came from assuming 20s to run the macro cycle, then there would be 20s left before the injects pop and you can start over.
Following this helps me max out my army much faster, definitely helpful. Once I have my army I have issues engaging properly or even just trading so that I can keep using up my larva.
SC2John I'm guessing #3 you mean Spread Creep.
|
United States4883 Posts
On July 15 2014 22:08 nunnner wrote:
SC2John I'm guessing #3 you mean Spread Creep.
Yes lol. My bad.
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
You guys are awesome! One thing I never mentioned in the article is that sometimes, particularly when learning to play, it helps to talk to yourself about what you're doing and what you're going to do next. It may sound funny but I discovered this one time when showing a friend some strategies first-person, IE while playing. Articulating the thought you're trying to achieve is helpful for bringing focus and getting you to speed up.
"Ok, production time... Inject--check--make and rally ovies--check--spread creep tumors--check--scout--check--listen for the overlords to pop--there they are--spawn units."
Try it!
|
Still using these mechanics, still getting nothing but better. I hope this makes it back to the top for more people to see it!
|
United States4883 Posts
Agreed, worthy of a bump. Looking back on this, it covers pretty much all of the fundamentals that I learned back in January when I was first picking Zerg up, and it helped reinforce a lot of those ideas. The inject cycle is sososososo big...if every Zerg player literally just learned how to get their inject cycles crisp, they would jump up to masters almost instantly.
And now that I'm staff, I can finally fix those formatting errors that have been bothering me since I first wrote up the code!
|
I read this article again when I have to say (maybe again) that it is awesome !
Thanks, it is extremely helpful !
|
|
Since this has already been bumped - can anyone elaborate on that idea of burrowing drones at future expos ahead of time? I mean, I understand the concept obviously, but is that something that you would always do? Or only if you expect to be attacked / contained? How long is "long before"? Given that you're already going to be at saturation (presumably) when you do this, the 50 minerals tied up in the drone really isn't a big deal, so the main reason I could see for not doing this is just if you feel the drone would likely be picked off (obviously most likely if you haven't researched burrow). Otherwise I don't immediately see a reason not to do this as soon as your third is saturated in most cases, but I'd be interested in other opinions.
|
Hi, great guide! I found it super helpful :D
It might be useful to boldface keywords in the steps in the developmental trajectory, so that people can figure it out quickly by just eyeballing it. So you might have something like "next, at mineral saturation you should add your evolution chambers." It might help break up the wall of text.
|
I want to emphasize that the main goal, despite how important and correct the individual points made by the author in the correct context may be, should be to win the game and nothing else.
|
My goal is to get into master with lotv so i thougth start using a macro cycle, Is it a good idea to chnage my Controlgroups around for a better cycle like 1 for injekt, 2 for hatcherys 3 for creepqueens, 4 for scouting and 5 to 7 for army?, right now i didnt have a hotkey for creepqueens and have 123 for armys and 4 for hatcherys and 5 for speacel things. because it feels unperfect for a cycle srly i hae no clue
|
This is actually very very good post! I will study this further, as it has many answers to my usual questions...
|
On November 03 2015 02:03 DERASTAT wrote: My goal is to get into master with lotv so i thougth start using a macro cycle, Is it a good idea to chnage my Controlgroups around for a better cycle like 1 for injekt, 2 for hatcherys 3 for creepqueens, 4 for scouting and 5 to 7 for army?, right now i didnt have a hotkey for creepqueens and have 123 for armys and 4 for hatcherys and 5 for speacel things. because it feels unperfect for a cycle srly i hae no clue
If you want to be fast having keys that you use in succession close together doesn't really help. If you use them with the same finger it acctually slows you down. Regarding control groups you should sort them by how frequently you use them and then use the most accessible keys for the highest prioritys. Also look at what keys you press during each sequence. For example select hatcherys, select larvae, morph drone is a pretty frequent action sequence so you should try to have your hotkeys setup in such a way that you can press each key with a different finger without reaching too much.
|
Amazing piece of work, thanks for putting that together.
|
I'm a GM Zerg and read:
"Burrow expand/expand deny - Good players will often spawn-rally a drone to their 4th/5th/etc long before the expansion timing comes around. They will burrow 2-3 ahead of time, ensuring that an instant expo timing is available when called for."
I am now kicking myself for not having thought of that. It's brilliant! Well done on the article.
|
Woah, thanks man! This one helped me a lot. It's finally fun to play zerg again! :D
|
I just wanted to say that after i started to use macro cycle midgame (Injekt, build units, spread creep build overlrods scout/army movement) my Injekts and my creepspread greatly improved, and i faced a Master player in ladder^^
|
Is the initial post still correct for LotV? I guess the number count of drones (40) might not be correct anymore for LotV. As well as scout timings and may be more things. Would be great if this could be updated.
|
Russian Federation34 Posts
Hey Jume, thanks for checking in. I'll try update the post soon. The 40 drone goal is now 4 minutes and the general overlord scout timing is 3:30.
|
You my Russian friend deserve a medal!
|
Best guide!, the drone count for LOTV is around 44 as magic number
|
Whoever bumped this, thanks. Sooooo good. Thinking of zerg macro as a "cycle" is really helping with supply blocks.
|
On November 01 2016 09:32 Little-Chimp wrote: Whoever bumped this, thanks. Sooooo good. Thinking of zerg macro as a "cycle" is really helping with supply blocks.
Yeah, a great guide! Great bump!
Really starting to feel like I am in a rut now with Zerg, so this has given me some inspiration.
|
On May 04 2014 00:52 Surkein wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2014 00:38 kaluro wrote:On May 02 2014 15:47 TheZov wrote: Hatchery tech = T1 Lair Tech = T2 Hive Tech = T3
There are also intermediary tiers here, such as Roach (tier 1.5, as it is armored and requires an additional structure at Hatch tech to produce) and Viper (Tier 2.5, as it requires no Spire, only Hive to produce).
So you say that hatch/lair/hive are tier 1/2/3 respectively. You say that adding a building in said tier adds 0.5 to it (Roach = Tier 1.5, since it's tier 1 + 1 building). So mahmetics wise:Value: Hatchery(tier 1) = 1 lair(tier 2) = 2 Hive(tier 3) = 3 Building = 0.5 Then you state that vipers are tier 2.5, while it's hive tech, which you said is tier 3. While Hive = 3, so where does it substract -0.5? Hive tech = Tier 3, Hive tech + building (e.g. Ultralisks) = Tier 3.5 So shouldn't viper be tier 3, instead of tier 2.5, according to your own mathmetics? You say it's tier 2.5 because it requires no spire, but it indirectly requires an infestation pit, which is also a tier 2 structure, because it's a pre to get to hive. So according to your logic/mathmetics, viper is tier 3, not 2.5 Dude, please.
It is just wise mahmetics man, come on.
|
|
|
|