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On August 15 2014 06:52 mewithoutDrew wrote: Hello TL Strategy!
Why don’t zergs evolve to tier 3 quicker in ZvT?
I am a mid/high masters P player. I watch a lot of pro games and have decent knowledge of all races.
It seems like the disparity between T level 3/3 upgrades vs Z level 2/2 upgrades is much too great in current late game ZvT when Z gets stuck on muta ling/bane and lair tech.
Furthermore, in pro games where the Z reaches tier 3 and (even if they are sticking on muta bane/ling) reaches 3/3 upgrades with Adrenal, the game can quickly swing back into their favor.
Especially with the new patch, T seems very, very strong in TvZ, especially with the upgrade disparity. It seems kinda shitty that Z has to upgrade to a Hive to access more upgrades, but T and P do not.
Honestly, at the highest level, it looks like T should never lose vs Z. Not only has T learned to macro as efficiently as Z, they also have the upgrade disparity if Z gets stuck on lair tech (which is very common), and T has (what seems like) more tactical weapons at their disposal.
What are some of your thoughts on this?
Is it possible for Z to climb the ladder tree more quickly and match the T 3/3 upgrades without losing macro and army cost efficiency?
I’ve been thinking about this for a long time and, since I don’t play the race at a high level, I can’t figure out a decent reason. Seems like Z just needs to build the damn infester pit a lot sooner and get that Hive…
You need that gas to not die in the midgame.
In WoL, you used to be able to rush Hive because Infestors were OP. In the current setup, you NEED Banelings to deal with bio. Ling+Infestor doesn't do the job anymore. With Infestors, you could just make a big early investment into them, then as long as you didn't lose them, then the only thing you would need to replenish is your Ling count, which only costs minerals and larvae. As a result, if you kept your Infestors alive, you didn't need to spend any more gas into Lair tech than the initial investment into Infestors. You can spend your incoming gas on getting Hive tech (and you already invested into the Infestation Pit).
However, the way Banelings work, is that they die even if they kill something. So you can't really "keep your Banelings alive". They require a constant investment of gas in order to protect you. And seeing as nothing else really cost-efficiently defends against Bio, you have no choice but to keep sinking your gas to deal with bio pushes, which takes away from the gas you could use to get advance your tech.
In Protoss terms, imagine it's WoL again (so no MSC), and Sentries die after using Force Fields. So essentially, to play a pure macro game, you'd have to constantly invest your gas into Sentries to not die to bio pushes. But that costs a LOT of gas, which means you have a lot less gas to get either High Templar or Colossi (and if you don't trade perfectly, you basically NEVER have the gas to get them).
And Zerg needing to unlock Lair and Hive for level 2 and 3 upgrades isn't even remotely a problem. Given their production strength in the midgame, it would be absurd if you could rush 3/3 as Zerg and have a massive army at the same time.
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On August 16 2014 20:38 einduden wrote: IMO the costs are not the real problem. Sure u will have less Banelings, sure u will have a Few less Mutas, but u can handle that by only taking engagements on creep. The worst problem is the TIME u need. Hive takes al long as a Hatch to finish. then u have to build an additional building (greater spire or Ultra cavern) and then u can build units that will take their time as well (about 60sec) so u need about 3 ingame minutes to have ur T3 Untis out, while trading with the T. during that time u can not get agressive, because u need all ur forces to defend. That means u give the T a window of 3 Minutes where he has 3/3 already done or near completion and he can do whatever he wants. Harass, Multidrop, Paradepush, expand ando so on.
Time is money ;-)
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On August 16 2014 04:40 Liquid`Snute wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2014 06:52 mewithoutDrew wrote: Is it possible for Z to climb the ladder tree more quickly and match the T 3/3 upgrades without losing macro and army cost efficiency?
No, not on average, rushing for Hive is almost always unreasonable. The benefits from rushing to hive are too small to outweigh the deficit in the midgame, the muta cloud is worth a lot more on average than faster hive. The problem isn't about starting the Infestation Pit and the Hive - it's fairly cheap - it's just that you need roughly 1000 gas to get all the benefits from the hive rolling. And that's not something you really afford until you've been on 4base 8gas for a while. And to get there, you need 3base 6gas 2/2 Muta Ling Baneling, and lots of it. 3/3 Zerglings in particular aren't very effective until the army sizes of Terran drop below a certain threshold. The same is kind of true for Ultralisk - they are good, but not very amazing without Mutalisk support. Zerglings act as cannon fodder and 2/2 is good enough for having your army survive long enough - THEN after making a ton of Mutas you can finally start the hive. Zerg as a race is focused around the Mutalisk vs T. It's the only unit type to usually survive a fight - the rest are traded away, almost always cost-inefficiently. Ultralisk+Queen with transfusions is the exception to this, but its sustain over time compared to the Mutalisk is nowhere close. In short, a bigger cloud of Mass Muta is way more useful than a handful of Ultralisk. Since infestors were nerfed in HotS, Zerg pretty much depends on Mutalisk to take somewhat decent trades - the other units simply just die and don't trade efficiently enough. In general Zerg doesn't have a lot of units that trade cost-efficiently with 4M, especially after the widow mine revert. This is why we've been seeing more counter-attacks post-patch to avoid actual confrontation with the Terran army and less straight-up pure defensive play. The new Muta/SH combination style that I showed at Gfinity G3 vs JJAKJI and MMA is the exception to this - it's capable of trading neutrally to positively, but it's still mostly unexplored among other pros. Until that possibly becomes a thing, you will almost always see Zerg win in modern ZvT by making counter-attacks with Mutalisks, 2/2 Ling/bane, Baneling defense on creep at home - or by huge army momentum gains from amazing defensive engagements or mistakes from Terran. Rushing Hive has no reason to be common because of the reasons mentioned above. It's too expensive, too slow, not enough sustained power in your army. ZvT is simply not built around it. It is possible to rush to fast 3base 6gas ultras, but in the end without Mutalisk support it serves the same purpose as an extra fat roach and one could just as well play 3base roach/hydra.
Thanks for the insights! It's really great learning from someone who is the top % of Zerg players! Thanks for the post.
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On August 16 2014 04:40 Liquid`Snute wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2014 06:52 mewithoutDrew wrote: Is it possible for Z to climb the ladder tree more quickly and match the T 3/3 upgrades without losing macro and army cost efficiency?
No, not on average, rushing for Hive is almost always unreasonable. The benefits from rushing to hive are too small to outweigh the deficit in the midgame, the muta cloud is worth a lot more on average than faster hive. The problem isn't about starting the Infestation Pit and the Hive - it's fairly cheap - it's just that you need roughly 1000 gas to get all the benefits from the hive rolling. And that's not something you really afford until you've been on 4base 8gas for a while. And to get there, you need 3base 6gas 2/2 Muta Ling Baneling, and lots of it. 3/3 Zerglings in particular aren't very effective until the army sizes of Terran drop below a certain threshold. The same is kind of true for Ultralisk - they are good, but not very amazing without Mutalisk support. Zerglings act as cannon fodder and 2/2 is good enough for having your army survive long enough - THEN after making a ton of Mutas you can finally start the hive. Zerg as a race is focused around the Mutalisk vs T. It's the only unit type to usually survive a fight - the rest are traded away, almost always cost-inefficiently. Ultralisk+Queen with transfusions is the exception to this, but its sustain over time compared to the Mutalisk is nowhere close. In short, a bigger cloud of Mass Muta is way more useful than a handful of Ultralisk. Since infestors were nerfed in HotS, Zerg pretty much depends on Mutalisk to take somewhat decent trades - the other units simply just die and don't trade efficiently enough. In general Zerg doesn't have a lot of units that trade cost-efficiently with 4M, especially after the widow mine revert. This is why we've been seeing more counter-attacks post-patch to avoid actual confrontation with the Terran army and less straight-up pure defensive play. The new Muta/SH combination style that I showed at Gfinity G3 vs JJAKJI and MMA is the exception to this - it's capable of trading neutrally to positively, but it's still mostly unexplored among other pros. Until that possibly becomes a thing, you will almost always see Zerg win in modern ZvT by making counter-attacks with Mutalisks, 2/2 Ling/bane, Baneling defense on creep at home - or by huge army momentum gains from amazing defensive engagements or mistakes from Terran. Rushing Hive has no reason to be common because of the reasons mentioned above. It's too expensive, too slow, not enough sustained power in your army. ZvT is simply not built around it. It is possible to rush to fast 3base 6gas ultras, but in the end without Mutalisk support it serves the same purpose as an extra fat roach and one could just as well play 3base roach/hydra.
Awesome to see a top-tier pro answer a question like this! Super insightful =)
Also ultra as extra-fat roach... LOL
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On August 16 2014 20:38 einduden wrote: IMO the costs are not the real problem. Sure u will have less Banelings, sure u will have a Few less Mutas, but u can handle that by only taking engagements on creep. The worst problem is the TIME u need. Hive takes al long as a Hatch to finish. then u have to build an additional building (greater spire or Ultra cavern) and then u can build units that will take their time as well (about 60sec) so u need about 3 ingame minutes to have ur T3 Untis out, while trading with the T. during that time u can not get agressive, because u need all ur forces to defend. That means u give the T a window of 3 Minutes where he has 3/3 already done or near completion and he can do whatever he wants. Harass, Multidrop, Paradepush, expand ando so on. Dude, why is that "during that time u can not get agressive, because u need all ur forces to defend"?
Thats because of the costs, which ARE the real problem.
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I think most people already mentioned the huge amount of gas it takes to get tier 3 to be effective. Just a minor point is that since Zerg is a reactive race, it is more important for the Zerg player to conserve the gas depending what he sees on the field. If he sees a big marine force coming down his base in mid game, he needs to pump that gas to banglings and/or mutas. If he is caught while teching to hive, he would be a dead zerg.
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This thread is gold! Thx OP.
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IF terran goes tank, then maybe you can go faster hive and trade well on creep. But with bio widowmine, you can not skip on the muta ball count
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I've been experimenting with fast hive in ZvT in Diamond league. What I've been doing is going 15-Hatch, 14-Pool then when the pool finishes, 2 queens and 8 lings. Deny the natural and keep the Terran on 1-base as long as possible. if his CC finished, as soon as you spot Hellions, drop your 3rd. From there, it's pure ling/bling defense while teching to Hive. Completely skipping mutalisks. It's definitely all-in and has a lot of weakness vs Banshee, but I've got about a 60% win-rate with it. So in my experience, fast hive is viable until mid-high Diamond, but it's got too many weaknesses, I feel, to get you into Masters.
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Great post by Snute. Keep in mind, that's at the tip top highest level. You can still make fast hive work if you want to. One way to do this is skip mutas to rush out ultras. Lowkotv had a great tutorial on it. Can't find it atm though.
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I am a high master terran player and i want to ask kinda the same question but a little bit differntly:
Why don't you TECH UP faster? I don't mean to get to hive + ultras + 3/3 + adrenal but just to hive at a resonable time this cists you like what 3 mutas? These are no gamechanger in my games 90% of the time. And after you hold a strong push start 3/3 or even just one upgrade. Why does have to be everything at once?
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On August 25 2014 22:44 TheCzarOfAll wrote: I've been experimenting with fast hive in ZvT in Diamond league. What I've been doing is going 15-Hatch, 14-Pool then when the pool finishes, 2 queens and 8 lings. Deny the natural and keep the Terran on 1-base as long as possible. if his CC finished, as soon as you spot Hellions, drop your 3rd. From there, it's pure ling/bling defense while teching to Hive. Completely skipping mutalisks. It's definitely all-in and has a lot of weakness vs Banshee, but I've got about a 60% win-rate with it. So in my experience, fast hive is viable until mid-high Diamond, but it's got too many weaknesses, I feel, to get you into Masters.
I dont get the part where you deny the Terran natural. If it is reaper first, 8lings are quite easy cleaned up off creep. If it is CC first, CC+bunker should be done. At best you get him to lift for a tiny periode after OC is done.
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On August 26 2014 00:30 forsakeNXE wrote: I am a high master terran player and i want to ask kinda the same question but a little bit differntly:
Why don't you TECH UP faster? I don't mean to get to hive + ultras + 3/3 + adrenal but just to hive at a resonable time this cists you like what 3 mutas? These are no gamechanger in my games 90% of the time. And after you hold a strong push start 3/3 or even just one upgrade. Why does have to be everything at once? try playing the race first bro. saying "oh its three mutas" doesn't outweigh a bunch of people all explaining the details of why it doesn't work including liquid snute whom you may have just seen in wcs and red bull :p
even if you squeeze hive in then you still need to find 2-3 hundred gas to start any of the upgrades. you're imagining that it's easier than it is because you don't have experience actually playing and needing all the min/gas you can get literally the entire time terran is pushing you. it's literally safer to spend that money on army and go kill him instead of letting him mule up 100 more marines
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On August 26 2014 00:32 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On August 25 2014 22:44 TheCzarOfAll wrote: I've been experimenting with fast hive in ZvT in Diamond league. What I've been doing is going 15-Hatch, 14-Pool then when the pool finishes, 2 queens and 8 lings. Deny the natural and keep the Terran on 1-base as long as possible. if his CC finished, as soon as you spot Hellions, drop your 3rd. From there, it's pure ling/bling defense while teching to Hive. Completely skipping mutalisks. It's definitely all-in and has a lot of weakness vs Banshee, but I've got about a 60% win-rate with it. So in my experience, fast hive is viable until mid-high Diamond, but it's got too many weaknesses, I feel, to get you into Masters. I dont get the part where you deny the Terran natural. If it is reaper first, 8lings are quite easy cleaned up off creep. If it is CC first, CC+bunker should be done. At best you get him to lift for a tiny periode after OC is done.
Ah, yeah, needed to say that better. With reaper expo, you just rally your lings straight across ignoring the reaper and try to cancel the expo. Your queens will be out just a tiny bit after the reaper arrives at your base, so you might have to build a temp spore to save 1-2, but basically, he has to either 1. pull back his reaper to deal with the lings or 2. build an additional reaper and even though 8 lings do get cleaned up pretty quickly, all they are meant to do is throw off your opponent and get the lift or cancel if possible on the CC. If your lings can delay him long enough to prevent him building 3 SCVs, they're completely worth it. Like I said, about to high-Diamond, Terrans will get their build order thrown off or at the very least be super delayed with this rather easily.
I USUALLY get 1 SCV kill and the lift and as long as you keep your lings under the CC, you're just getting ahead droning uncontested at home. In Plat, I was getting the cancel about 50% of the time, but I don't think I've gotten a cancel in Dia so far. Almost always get a lift though.
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On August 15 2014 18:58 SC2John wrote: Adrenal glands is >>>>>>>>>>> 3/3.
Always always always get adrenal glands before 3/3.
This is very false, if you are equal on upgrades, adrenal will add 1.3 dps, less than +1 attack will with 1.4. If you have 2/2 and the terran has 3/3, +1 attack will be way stronger 1.4 vs 1.0 dps ! Never mind the effect of 3/3 on ultras or other units. Liquipedia has the info.
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On August 15 2014 18:58 SC2John wrote:
Adrenal glands is >>>>>>>>>>> 3/3.
Always always always get adrenal glands before 3/3.
This is not actually true, sadly. With only 20% increase, a +1 upgrade is better for lings than adrenal. That's why in BW it was a 50% upgrade, making it actually worth it to get hive.
Edit: just saw that someone posted this before me xD whoops
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On August 26 2014 00:42 brickrd wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2014 00:30 forsakeNXE wrote: I am a high master terran player and i want to ask kinda the same question but a little bit differntly:
Why don't you TECH UP faster? I don't mean to get to hive + ultras + 3/3 + adrenal but just to hive at a resonable time this cists you like what 3 mutas? These are no gamechanger in my games 90% of the time. And after you hold a strong push start 3/3 or even just one upgrade. Why does have to be everything at once? try playing the race first bro. saying "oh its three mutas" doesn't outweigh a bunch of people all explaining the details of why it doesn't work including liquid snute whom you may have just seen in wcs and red bull :p even if you squeeze hive in then you still need to find 2-3 hundred gas to start any of the upgrades. you're imagining that it's easier than it is because you don't have experience actually playing and needing all the min/gas you can get literally the entire time terran is pushing you. it's literally safer to spend that money on army and go kill him instead of letting him mule up 100 more marines I may play with the fire here, but I don't think the terran is necessarily wrong. afterall he's right, it's only "3" mutas to tech up to hive. Thing is most of the zerg players are not properly controlling their army (somewhat understable but still gets on my nerves) like having banes and lings on the same hotkey. When you're moving your army for your banes to land some better hits, you're also losing a LOT of lings' dps. It's especially true when the terran is only 2/2 and most of the time your upgrades are 2/2 aswell.
I just feel like we're really underestimating the lings dps on those fights. Which in return makes you think you need more gas for banes and mutas. And then you never have enough gas for the upgrades which are rather expensive...
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United States4883 Posts
On August 28 2014 02:13 Sleet wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2014 18:58 SC2John wrote:
Adrenal glands is >>>>>>>>>>> 3/3.
Always always always get adrenal glands before 3/3.
This is not actually true, sadly. With only 20% increase, a +1 upgrade is better for lings than adrenal. That's why in BW it was a 50% upgrade, making it actually worth it to get hive. Edit: just saw that someone posted this before me xD whoops
Perhaps I overestimated the power of adrenal glands. Actually, judging by my test runs in the unit tester, I VASTLY overestimated the power of adrenal glands. Either way, I think adrenal/ultras is a smoother transition into ultras. However, one does wonder that perhaps maybe it should +3/ultras -> adrenal/+3.
It would be interesting to hear some discussion on that.
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If you're behind in upgrades +3 is better than AG for lings. If you are ahead in upgrades AG is better than +3 for lings. So in the current meta +3>AG for zerglings and most importantly it works on ALL your melee units. +3 Carapace is similarily strong as +3melee for zerglings vs marines, but if you counted how often zerglings actually attack during the deciding moments of a battle and how often (ranged!) Marines attack, I think you'd come to the conclusion that zerglings are attacked more than they attack. For that reason alone I think +3carapace is better than +3melee (in bigger battles). But then there is also the fact that it helps banelings and ultras much more than +3melee.
Where you put ultralisks in this is somewhat dependend on what you want to achieve witht them. For a Hive rush or in general when your plan is to press ultralisks before he gets the marauder count up, obviously ultras (and maybe even skipping +3/+3 entirely for a timing attack) should have maximum priority. For a type of composition bolstering on the other hand, ultras are rather low priority imo, as they dont really offer something really gamechamging if you dont really press the tech against marines. My personal style is 3/3 muta/ling/bling in the lategame and then trickle in ultras or infestors.
About the "only 3mutas" argument: yes, but lets say you aim for 3/3 from your hive. Than it is actually "8mutalisks", or rather a lot of banelings. What you guys forget in this discussion is that the time you'd make those investments is the strongest pushing phase of Terran. After 2/2 is done for T and when he has the 7 and then 10rax production up is the time you are the most hardpressed. Regardless of whether you are 2/2 or 3/3 after that, I believe if you minimize damage and Terran does not get a 5th running, you should eventually just get a lead through a high enough mutacount. The important part is minimizing damage here, not to have an even stronger lategame.
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Bot edit.
User was banned for this post.
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