I was searching for some videos or guides about the early ZvZ but most of them are a bit old so I don't know if I can use that methods in LotV.
My main problem in ZvZ is the preassure of lings-banes, I don't know if it cause my scout, overdrone, micro or everything.
1.-Normally I saturate my main and try to defend my natural with a few lings while I'm droning up, but mostly I lost cause I have less lings than my oponent and can't fight, most of the game I lost in the first push of ling-bane. 2.-Sometimes I can defend that first attack but then I die in the micro battles. 3.-If I survive, I try to get my 3rd but always died cause of lings, and I try to drone up and reach an army like roach, but too late, mutas are in my base! 4.-Only if we my opponent don't push too much and try go macro I normally win the roach vs roach games. If the game wont be like this... look above.
This is a really really wide question, and very much replay dependent to see what you are doing wrong. I mean I can guess from what you are saying thats you are over droning early then being defensive which means you either die early or go into the midgame with a greedy advantage which is why you win the roach fights when you survive but who knows? Maybe your injects just suck or your getting supply blocked on 44 ?
So I think you should check out guides and videos by Pig, neuroswarm and blade555, all of then have done zvz guides in LotV . Pig and neuroswarm did very specific ling bane micro guides you should look up.
You should upload them to a replay anaylysis site like ggtracker or sc2stats, thats way we can review then faster and no offense but I dont trust you enough to download unfiltered files
Well one quick look Later your macro is obviously the issue, you cant have bronze silver level SQ and hope to win at plat. Now ggtracker doesnt show a full build and I dont have my PC until sat. But you seem to fall apart on injects and spending once action starts, make sure to prioratize injects and macro over micro.
Yup, when the ling bane battle start I forget a bit about macro-inject even the supply, but is hard to focus on that while lings/banes are crushing me xD. My ZvP and ZvT is good enough in plat, but my ZvZ sucks.
Since that last games I start feel ladder anxiety :S
With regard to your ladder anxiety, it's just a game man, try not to let it bother you . No one really cares if you have a crappy win/loss ratio. Try to play the game just because it's fun and you enjoy it, not because you want to improve your win/loss.
Personally, that is what worked best for me in overcoming my ladder anxiety. Sure I still get frustrated from time to time but usually that is because of something unrelated to SC2, like I'm having a bad day in general or I'm tired. In those instances, I try to slow down a bit and watch my replays win or lose to try and learn from them. Or just step away from the game for an hour or two, or the whole night even. You'll always have better experiences if you're well rested and in a good state of mind!
Here is the safest economic opening in ZvZ money can buy (I'm Masters 3 and ZvZ is my strongest matchup FYI):
-Instantly on game start, send out a drone scout to the opponent's main (one of your first 12)
-Your planned opening build order is 17 hatch, 18 gas, 17 pool, 19 overlord, 21 two queens and two lings (to scout), @100 gas speed, @50 gas bane nest, 1 spine crawler at natural, two more lings (to save and morph to banes if needed). If you get this far without having to deviate, you are safe to drone to ~32/36 supply (unless you see a flood of lings coming out with your overlord in which case morph banes and get lings), and after that you can branch off to whatever build you are going for (e.g. delayed ling bane pressure / fast 3rd / roach warren / lair, etc).
-On 2 player maps, your drone scout will get to his base just before it's time to build your 17 hatch. Here are your reactions:
-If you see one of his drones heading away from his hatch towards his natural, instantly click your worker into his natural, and attack his drone / deny his hatch for a few seconds (this will negate the loss of minerals you had from sending out such an early drone). You should now be even with your opponent (and if he decides to go pool first because of the harass you're ahead on econ). Do your build as normal. If you fail to deny his hatch you're slightly behind, but no big deal, just bring your worker home.
-If your drone scout finds a half completed pool AND gas (this is a 13/12 or similar), do the following: - Go immediate gas/pool, and DON'T take a hatchery - Put your first overlord on his natural so you can see when/if he takes it - Build your pool between your gas and hatchery, leaving a small gap for a queen. It should be a full wall with a queen in it, and shouldn't block gas mining too much (just watch any GSL ZvZ game to see the positioning). - Drone up to 19 supply in drones, then build an overlord on 19 - When your pool completes build Bane Nest first, then Spine in the mineral line, then a Queen, then spend all your money on lings, and get Speed when you can afford it. When your first queen completes, start a second one. When your Bane Nest completes, start 2-3 banes. Keep all your shit in your mineral line, with your units near the edge which isn't fully walled. - Your queen and lings will be out in time for his lings arriving (no chance for him to get damage done), your banes will be out just in time for his banes arriving, you need micro at this point. If you're in Diamond or below you should usually be able to kill all his banes with 2 banes because they will be clumped up. - Put your first queen in the gap between your pool and hatch to full wall that side, use your lings / banes / spine / other queens to defend the other side of your base - he will normally try to send 4-5 banes in this side so you need to be ready, if they get into your mineral line you're dead. Hotkeying your queens with your spine can help you target them. - If you held with no drone losses he will either quit or build a natural. You are AHEAD on drones so it's ok to take your natural slightly later than him. Only go down and take your natural once you have zergling speed, 2 queens, several banelings, and more lings than him. - You are now ahead.
-If your drone scout finds a half completed pool with no gas (this is 12 or 13 pool designed to snipe your natural), do the following: - Go 17 pool, 17 hatch, 17 gas - Let him attack your natural for a while, then as your lings come out, send lings + several drones to see him off. You should save your natural without much trouble (it's important that you build the pool quickly after scouting him as seconds matter). - Carry on as normal. - You are now ahead.
- If your drone scout finds a pool just starting, this is something like 17g 17p 17h - Take your hatch first as normal, you are now ahead economically - He should be taking his natural shortly thereafter, so you can keep your drone in his natural and use it to deny it for a bit - To be safe, get baneling nest before zergling speed, otherwise your build is entirely as planned
- With hatch first or 17 pool first openings from your opponent, getting speed, a bane nest and 1 spine should make most defenses easy. Your first two lings are to send to his base. If he's planning an early rush, they should run into a big pile of zerglings. If you see this get extra queens and units, banelings are your most important unit, keep making them every time you lose them.
- Assuming the game didn't start with cheese, place your baneling nest next to your natural with 1 space between your natural and bane nest. Put your queen in that gap. If he attacks you, put your queen on hold position. This queen is SO HARD to kill for the opponent (he can only attack it with 1-2 lings at each side), especially if you have a spine nearby and several banes.
- When defending ling/bane aggression, try to keep at least one bane alive at all times. It's better to have 1 bane you're not using than kill 6 lings and have no banes left, because then they can attack you without microing. Don't throw banes away unless they can get brilliant hits. Just dance your banes forwards and back while your queens and spine dish out the damage on the opponent. If loads of banes comes in that's the time to use your banelings to stop them. Don't waste them on small handfuls of lings. ALWAYS replace your lost banes.
- Personally I throw down an evo right after my bane nest and follow up with a +1 melee ling attack just after taking my 3rd, but you can do anything from this opener. It's very defensive so you'll fall slightly behind against greedy opponents (e.g. if he skips bane nest and goes fast third), but nothing that can't be overcome if you're better than them. And it's completely safe against everything early. Except on 4 player maps, if you don't scout them first and they're doing 13/12 >:-(
Great post Hailstorm, didn't think about using a super early scout to deny his hatch to catch up on econ, very interesting move , can't wait to try it out. What do you do on large four base maps where you can't be sure where to scout? Just open standard 17h18g17p I guess
on 4 player maps, you just can go 17h 17g 17p. yeah, you dont know, where your opponent spawns, but he doesnt either. so an early pool is a rly big gamble on 4 player maps like frost. if your ovis dont scout each other, hes allrdy behind. when he somehow manage to get his lings to your expo, before your pool finishes and you eventually die to it.. just dont care! this happens maybe on 1-2 cases out of 20 matches on frost.
i believe pig said something like this a while ago "if you loose with your opening to a rare strat.. dont change your opening just because of one strange strat, which happens maybe once or twice every 20-30 games", these are not the exact words, but the meaning of it stays the same
To open in ZvZ, it's best to go 17 hatch, 17 gas and 17 pool. Your goal is to establish map control with speedlings and pressure/defend with Banelings as soon as humanly possible, whilst simultaneously securing a third base. While you do this, build a Roach Warren and take a second Extractor to ensure you have the gas income to make a decent number of Roaches.
As for midgame, I'd recommend Roaches, Ravagers, Hydralisks and Lurkers. Lurkers are actually brilliant in this matchup because they are the only ground units that can consistently combat mass Ultralisks.
I really hate to be that guy that says this, but to get better micro, all-in. Just practice ling bane all inning and through time you'll get better at defending it when you play macro.
I just checked this replay. and I can already see massive holes in your play:
1. You went 17 hatch, 18 gas, 18 pool and took the gas and pool later than is standard. 17 hatch, 17 gas, 17 pool is much better for having zerglings out earlier and in greater numbers, while what you did was a riskier economic play which is not very ideal for a 2 player map like King Sejong Station.
2. When your Spawning Pool finished, you were delayed by almost 5 seconds in building Zerglings even though you had 4 Larvae and 150 Minerals in the bank after producing those two Queens. Zergling production is mandatory in ZvZ to establish presence on the map, especially if you have opened hatchery first and are taking an extractor before building your pool.
3. Your zergling production was inconsistent, By the time he killed your natural, you had 6 lings on the map and had started panic producing 10 more.
4. You could have morphed a Baneling Nest much sooner. In the replay I saw you bank almost 100 gas and still have no tech under construction by the time your natural was sniped. Tier 1.5 units are mandatory because you can't hold Banelings or Roaches with Zerglings alone..
5. Further to that, if you drone scouted and established that your opponent was 1 base all inning you, you could have delayed the Metabolic Boost upgrade to get out a Baneling Nest or Roach Warren as soon as possible, since you'd need Banelings or Roaches ASAP to hold such an all-in.
6. Producing queens isn't that great an idea unless you're 2 base all inning and want to saturate your mineral line and maximise larvae ASAP. Those 300 minerals would have been better for producing more units and establishing a third base as soon as you establish map control. You can then take a second gas and go straight for a Roach Warren to prepare yourself for a strong 3 base midgame.
There's lot of extensive answers already for your thread but here's a video up on my own channel showing how I've dealt with early zerg aggression/cheese. The first match I was able to get him to tap out early without having to recover. Second match was early counter and a full recovery into later stages.
Here's the video:
Essentially though I find that it's more of a matter of being very fluid and being able to understand how to react to different things rapidly. Drone control to help your economy recovery if the zerg stays in the game after you wipe his starting waves. Early scouting to know which units you need to transition to the quickest and always having information on what's going on outside your base to react as fast as you can while still planning your harass.
I would say if your biggest problem is that you're finding most the fights on your side of the map you may not be scouting enough to be able to react with your army to poke him back or maybe not using static defense/queens the best you can. Anyway, I hope the video gives you any different ideas.
I found that a good way to think about early-mid zvz is in a MOBA kind of way. Imagine your lings as a creep wave in a MOBA, when they get to your opponents base, you pretty much win. You are in a sort of reverse tug-of-war, with pressure on sides, each one trying to move the fights as far ahead into the other side. Being defensive and turteling is usually a very bad idea in zvz as your opponent can get a base ahead then crush you with a gas advantage. You accomplish the actual pushing by getting better trades with your banes and having better injects and overall macro. Even when holding an early pool you basically want to get your defense up and then start pushing back immediately. Now, the idea isn't to all-in him, but simply to always have a sense of where his army his, what his army composition is, and to make sure he always feels he is being pushed back. There is a Tai Chi exercise that comes to mind called "Sticky hands" - - you want to maintain a constant 'Touch' with your opponent.