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Hey all,
Background: I'm a new player to HotS but not SC2. A few years back I played WoL at a high platinum level with all races, but took some time off and just got back into SC2. Right now I'm playing only zerg at a mid gold level.
The matchup I am having the most trouble with is ZvT. In particular I lose every game where widow mines play a large role. I've lost several games to widow mine contains but this is the most recent example
Replay: http://drop.sc/388316
Analysis: I open fairly standard hatch gas pool. Get speed. Start spreading creep. Drone up. Etc. Somewhere in the 5:30 to 6 range I take my third.
He harasses with hellions and I defend with queens and make a few roaches to be safe. While defending with queens my minerals creep up a bit since I'm not able to hit my injects. Then at around 8 he plants some mines outside at the bottom of my ramp and thats basically game.
I'm never able to leave my base or mine from my third which is eventually destroyed. I can't kill the mines with roaches since they cloak. I try teching to overseers to see the mines, but the mines just kill the overseer. After a long time on 2 bases I quit since I'm irreparably behind.
Any suggestions on how to deal with mines or break a contain like this? Thanks
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1. get 1 spore immediately 2. defuse the mines with Zerglings (let them detonate on single lings, to buy yourself some time to safely maynard drones to your 3rd and get units out on the map) 3. scout his followup, namely; Starport, 3rd cc, rax2+3. if you see anything that is NOT a starport, your usual lair timing will allow for timely overseers.
Don't worry too much about his mines, just having 2 sets of lings in your natural, so that he can't just burrow in the min line, and the eventual sporecrawler is enough to keep them in check. The real danger is that you start to turtle up too much and delay the droning of your 3rd / lose stuff there or forget to scout for his followup in the midst of all this. If your apm doesn't allow you to hit all your injects, spread all the creep, micro against the hellions, scout your opponent, manage your eco and tech, defusing the mines, then just focus on the essentials! i.e. cut all low reward duties. Stop creepspreading. Stop microing vs the mines. But hit your injects! take NO drone losses, micro your roaches, and SCOUT.
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You only need 4 lings to fend off a reaper harass before your queens pop. You really really don't need 8 lings. Those could've been drones. Your opponent is really bad for giving you free 2 scvs. Idle drone at 5 minutes, what were you doing? You even saw it with your queen. You didn't scout your opponent at all before you took your third base. He could be 1 base all inning you and you wouldn't even know. You let your lings die at the xel' naga tower, they even had speed and you could've ran away from the hellions. Your queens were supposed to be waiting at the choke to your base, but you almost let the hellions in. That would've been extremely bad but you also lost the rest of your lings. A spore crawler takes 30 seconds to make and you go lair which takes 80 seconds then when you make an overseer that takes an extra 17 seconds. That's 97 seconds of not being able to do anything while waiting for detection. Widow mines cannot target buildings. You could've used your spine crawler and a spore crawler and killed all the mines without take any damage at all. A spore crawler and roaches plus queens are fine too. Widow mines can't do much damage to them. At 10 minutes you lose track of your roaches and let them all get baited into widow mines. At 11 minutes you lose more drones to widow mine shots.
In summary, you let him bully you around all game because you are too scared of widow mines and do not understand them.
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Cant watch the replay atm, but I would suggest you trying a few unranked games as terran and using some widow mines... "Parade pushes" with your bio/mine, widow mine drops, proxy factory widow mine rush (can be pretty good at lower leagues) followed by some kind of contain you experienced. I believe after several games you will get much better understanding of this unit and its capabilities... Even if you loose it will nicely reveal how to counter them. The easiest way to counter any shinanigans from terran is an early spore crawler. It can help you walling off your natural against hellions, since it provides detection its counter to widow mines or banshees and can be replaced at any time, if it doesnt seem like its gonna be useful at the front, move it to your most easily dropable mineral line, you are not gonna regret it
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Just watched the game. It's indeed really bad macro combined with fear. He has like 8 mines at 11:00, and a few helions. If you get contained that much by a terran that has 8 mines, just go spore and macro hatch to flood roaches in a constant stream.
When you gg out, you have 3.5k minerals and 1.5k gas. If this is not in your bank, it's at least 40 roaches in your army. You just would have stomped him with 40 roaches and 2 overseers in your control group. You don't even need to micro.
I know it's a hard thing to do at low level leagues but you absolutely need to find a way to spend your ressources, and for zergs, it means injects and constant production.
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