Help needed on zerg noob player

I am a returning player, but I was a noob before and still am now(probably worse than before) .I play zerg, and have trouble fighting my friend(terran). Here is my question

So I read about hold lurker. It recommended that I either group my lurker with a overlord, or attack a building after my lurker are borrowed. My first question is - how come I can't just hold my lurker without the overlord or attacking a build while its borrowed? Follow up on that question, what formation should the lurker be in while I hold them? A box, a line, clumped closely together, or slightly spread out.

Question 2. My lurker micro when attacking opponent sucks. BAD. Some fall behind, borrowing and can't reach opponent damage, while some some rush too head front, dies before borrowing. Any tips on how to micro lurkers? If I have lurker lings to attack, does the lings go infront, or does the lurker goes infront. Added question - which upgrade should I prioritize if I go lurker/ling combo - melee attack, range attack or armor. I tend to go armor first because both lurker and lings benefit from them, and then melee attack.

Question3 - My friends plays terran, and nowadays he does something I check as the SK Terran style, except he does uses tanks, just relatively few. I use 3 hatchery/lurker build and is generally successful fending him off at early game, but I have trouble once it comes to middle and late games. Things that I fumble with - How fast should I get my fourth hatchery. How fast do you guys expand after building 1 hatchery, assuming you're not harassed by your opponents. Do I quickly rush to Hive Tech/Defilers, or expand as early as possible? We played on Luna or Lost Temple.

Related. Question 3b - I don't understand the general 3 larvea and 300 mineral concept written in the zerg strategy. Does it mean - if I have 3 larvae and 300 minerals I need to expand? Or does it mean if I have zero larvae and 300 minerals, I should expand)?

More about my friends - He is a SC fan. He tried to played competitively but couldn't go further. But he has the basic well mastered - scouting, build orders, macro, match ups. He can macro out 200/200 using mostly m&m and few tanks and science vessel while I struggling with a 100 to 150 army at most. He says I failed a scouting his base, but I don't know how to scout his base, since he usually line up his marines at his ramp, and then lay them all across his base, minerals lines and entrances to prevent muta-harass.

Thanks in advance for reading my wall of text questions.

Last edit: 2012-08-18 18:57:57

Flip9 Germany. August 18 2012 19:30. Posts 151

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read liquipedia and this.
You take expansions when you can defend them, and add hatcheries when you need the extra larva.
You should get defiler pretty fast, lurker under dark swarm make for incredible defence and allows you to take your 4th.

kalandra Malaysia. August 18 2012 19:51. Posts 15

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Edit : Nvm it was really a dense question.

That guide is moderately helpful, but my friend doesn't really use siege tank for offense, that mean I won't be facing the terran bio ball until late game where he has science vessel. He tech relatively fast to science vessel for the irridiate and detector against my lurkers. Before he get his science vessels, his method of harassing tend to be dropships play.

And Liquidpedia doesn't really answer the first or second question question. But will try to put some lurker at my opponent base.

Last edit: 2012-08-18 20:55:25

Bakuryu Germany. August 19 2012 00:04. Posts 268

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1) i always make my burrowed lurker attack a building in fog of war. well u make hold lurkers in order for him to walk over your lurker so can kill everything before he has a chance to react. u should burrow your lurker in a way that u can kill his force with the first lurker attack. against really good terran, u will only have this 1 attack before he microes/spreads his mnm

2) "does the lings go infront, or does the lurker goes infront?"
it depends on what u want to survive with.
if u go lurker first, the lurker should buy time for the lings to make a good surround. some lurker dead, some lings dead, enemy army dead.
if u go lings first, the lings will buy time for the lurker to get in a good position. some lings dead, lurker in good position, mnm retreat, sieged tanks dead.
i would go lurker first in small battles where u can manage to surround with lings, and lings first in bigger battles or in battles where u buy time for defiler.
upgrades: armor first, then add 2nd evo chamber for +2 armor and +1 melee (or +2 armor and +1 missile if u want to go hydra/lurk)

3) if u go 3 hatch lurker, u normally have enough money for 4th hatch about the time u morph your lurkers.
once u have hive (defiler and/or ultras) just try to keep 1 hatch making drones (= easiest solution)
i normally go hive after i made my first lurkers after i go 3 hatch muta, so u can go hive after your first lurkers or a little later when u have like 10-12 lurker.

as for 3b) just dont think about it, expand when u have the money, add on drones when u have time to do so.

4) im not an expert in 3 hatch lurker, but basically u "can" scout him based on his mnm count, otherwise spread ovis around your base, scout lings at all the bases and then your good to go.

3FFA United States. August 19 2012 01:42. Posts 2651

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The reason you can't hold lurkers burrowed without the overlord is because there is no command for it. As a result, by having them hold position with an overlord (select overlord and lurkers together-> Hold Position) they don't attack, when your opponent moves over the lurkers all you have to do is hit 'S' (Stop) with the lurkers selected and BOOM AHH! AHH!! enemy units get ambushed by lurker spines

I no longer expect the best in people. Sadly, I am beginning to expect much worse.

pyrogenetix China. August 19 2012 09:37. Posts 5043

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Hold lurker because that's just how sc was made lol nothing you can do about it.

Q2: usually if your lurks are fresh you should charge them in first to take a bit of damage and then burrow while right clicking your lings behind the retreating marines to catch them, then when they turn to fire you run again.
later when your lurks are damaged then you might want to run your lings in first, but you should always try to flank him in open ground.
upgrades you should go armor if he goes SK because you can block more. ideally you should double tech range and armor, and you should have the money since you are not transitioning mutas.

Q3: again, if he goes tanks late then you dont need muta clump to snipe tanks, just make 6-8 scourge and block dropship routes and snipe his vessels, also for suiciding into his base to see his tech.

you take 4th as soon as you feel confident you can hold it. be aware of where his army is and army movement. hmm if he goes SK terran you should be able to fight him with lurkers... I also suggest you go ultras and skip defilers because I'm assuming your apm is lower and at lower levels ultras are better.

just keep your upgrades running and you should be fine lategame. get nydus and put some spore and sunkens here and there as the game progresses and you have the money.

Yea that looks just like Kang Min... amazing game sense... and uses mind games well, but has the micro of a washed up progamer.

BroodKingEXE United States. August 20 2012 12:15. Posts 794

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Expand when you have zero larvae and three hundred minerals. Make sure to try and tech as fast as possible. Scouting wise if you know he has marines build lurkers and tech to defilers. Sacrificing an ov is fine in the midgame to get a good scout.

Dont be a crazy.

kalandra Malaysia. August 20 2012 14:50. Posts 15

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So that what it meant in Liquidpedia zerg strategy? Ok, got it.

That whole bit was just worded weirdly IMO.

quirinus Croatia. September 01 2012 05:07. Posts 1705

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1.
I find it best to attack a building in the fog of war.
You can't hold the lurkers when they're burrowed because you can't make ANY ranged unit not attack when something's in their range. Unless you spam S for stop.
Formation depends on the number of your lurker and the size of your opponents army and probably on the way you assume his army is going to run into the lurker trap.

To elaborate:
If he has a small MM force and you have 2-3 lurkers, you want the lurkers as close as possible.
If he has a bigger army and you have more lurkers, you should spread your lurkers a bit so you can hit as much of his army in one shot as you can, but still being able to kill units in 2 shots (so not too spread out).

If he's going to come in a conga line towards you then you obviously spread your lurks perpendicular (in a line) to the marine line.
But don't worry to much about that, just clumping them all together works well in most cases. There's more details, but that's just nitpicking.

Also, if you have 2 lurkers on top of a ramp, don't put them right on the end of the ramp, put them a bit further back, so they can't be sniped from below the ramp. Don't spread them much. If he has tanks you can spread them a bit.

2.
Usually you go in with lurkers first, and try to hit him a bit from the side with them, and lings from other side(s) to trap them and do more damage. That way, since lings are faster, they hit almost at the same time and lurkers don't get stuck far behind because the lings aren't in their way.
Try to position lurkers and ling groups in a line or semicircle around the spot you'll engage his army, so it's easier to get a good surround and to avoid lurkers getting stuck behind.
As someone said, you can decide to go in with lings first sometimes to prevent injured lurkers to die too soon. (they cost a ton of gas/time/attention to make, and that is scarce in ZvT)

In later engagements, when you have lots of units, you can divide lurkers in 2 clumps so you can skewer him from 2 sides to get a bigger area effect damage and to make it harder for him to avoid getting killed. (eg. trapping him) That also counters the problem where half of your lurkers get stuck behind because you have too many of them.

Get Carapace first, as you explained. Then, if you went muta first, in most cases you'll go for Melee upgrades, since you won't have too many lurkers (no gas).
If you go straight lurkers, then I'd go just +1 Ranged attack and then go +1 +2 +3 melee attacks after that.

With no upgrades, Lurkers kill marines in 2 shots. If terran has +1 armor, lurkers take 3 shots. When playing vs Lurker first, good players will get +1 armor faster, so +1 Ranged attack counters that.
Then you go Melee after that because lurkers won't benefit much from more ranged attack since it takes +3 armor on marines to survive 2 shots from +1 lurkers, and that's far down the line. And once you get there, you won't have mass lurkers anyway, since you'll have defilers and maybe ultras.

3.
4th hachery as in 2nd expo or 3rd expo?
If it's 3rd expo (4th base), then I'd suggest doing it when you get swarm or a good advantage/map control.
If you mean the 2nd expo, then you get it asap when you've pushed him back - send 2 lurkers on top of the expo ramp and expand, he can't break soon.

Now the path diverges depending on what he's doing, the map and what you want to do.
On normal maps and most cases, it's best to go to hive/defilers as soon as you start the 2nd expo.
Other than that, I'd go with: if terran techs faster -> you tech faster, if he tech slower, you tech slower.

But sometimes if he techs too fast you can just macro out a bigger army and crush him instead of going tech/upgrades or if he's going tech too late you can rush to tech and defend with just few units to get far ahead - these two are rather situational though and require experience to judge if it's resonable to do, so I advise always going defilers asap untill you get good enough to see when something else might be better to do.

Remember to start queens nest ASAP when you start the 2nd expo and morph hive ASAP when queen's finishes and start defiler mound ASAP and consume/defilers ASAP. Lower level players don't start things on time and then wonder why they lost, when doing things ASAP would make it so that they defend/win easily.

3b.
As other people said, expend when you can defend it, or will be in that position very soon and you think you can get away with it. Otherwise if you have extra money (300 mins and 0 larva) just place hatches in your base. Also, place hatches in advance when you see you'll need more larva in the near future or if you think you'll get lots of unspent minerals soon (ie. you just saturated a new base with drones). You can sometimes try hidden expos, but don't make it a habit, as solid play is better.

Don't worry too much about supply, zerg is supposed to be behind in supply almost aways in ZvT. 2 lurkers and a swarm make it so you don't need a big ass army/supply.

If you go muta, you can easily scout him. Just poke in and see the barracks/mm count, if it's big, he's not teching fast. If you see fast tech, he's obviously not making lots of mm. If he's keeping marines too close to a cliff so you can't see anything in his base, he's bad and should die to muta harras. Also you can scout things even before mutas with the overlors and a few lings in front of his base, try to see his marine count, 2nd gas and comsat/medic timing - that should give you an idea.

Good luck.

Team Fox - http://www.iccup.com/starcraft/teams/58162.html | God's punch line is killer.

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