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| Iliad Canada. August 21 2012 11:16. Posts 17 | Profile # |
Hey there, I am a gold league zerg, and am having a lot of trouble beating the terran who turtles hard on two bases, taking a third by about 10 minutes, and then just flat out steamrolls me with the maxed out mech army of hellions, thors, with some banshees or tanks thrown in.
I have been trying to punish this turtle when I see the 1 rax fast expand by doing the all - in detailed here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=344272
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=300818
(PS: Is this all-in still viable? It works vs. many low-league players)
That all in fails as you can see in the replay posted below because the natural was heavily walled.
That puts me so behind that I can't win period, usually, unless the terran player has no clue what he is doing.
The other strategy I have tried is to simply out-macro him, because nothing is coming at me for 10+ minutes other than a few marines. I've found I can't beat him in a macro battle, the 20+ hellions just make it so difficult to keep my 5th/4th/3rd alive. I can't outright win in a straight up fight or a base trade - neural parasite infestors die way to fast, and the thors take out whatever broodlords I have. I simply don't have the micro to do it.
How can a gold-leaguer with almost non-existent micro beat this? My other two match-ups are much easier, and have about a 75% win rate in each - I simply out-macro and win. I have a pathetic win-rate vs. terran.
Here is a rather fail game where I try the all-in, fail, then try to quickly tech to BL/infestor, and fail again: http://drop.sc/241569 |
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| furerkip United States. August 21 2012 11:39. Posts 424 | Profile # |
What if you stop all-ining and just macro normally in game? Have you tried that?
User was warned for this post |
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| Savant.GL United Kingdom. August 21 2012 12:17. Posts 457 | Profile # |
Well firstly don't do the all in, it isn't making you better in gold league.
You have the right idea vs mech, they aren't going to attack and this is where you have to drone like crazy.
My favourite style is getting a few roaches out to deflect helions whilst i go straight for 4 bases and lots of drones.
I then aim to max on roach and have roach drops for a huge doom drop at 13~14 minutes.
With this you need to damage everything you can, drop on tanks, drop in the main taking out add ons and armouries, do a push at the third at the same time, with this you can buy time to go for that brood lord army and so when he moves out with hopefully a crippled weak mech army you can mop it up.
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| | RIP TSL. The "swarm" life will be missed. Hyun,Symbol,Revival Hwaiting! |
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| Iliad Canada. August 21 2012 12:19. Posts 17 | Profile # |
On August 21 2012 11:39 furerkip wrote:
What if you stop all-ining and just macro normally in game? Have you tried that?
The other strategy I have tried is to simply out-macro him, because nothing is coming at me for 10+ minutes other than a few marines. I've found I can't beat him in a macro battle, the 20+ hellions just make it so difficult to keep my 5th/4th/3rd alive.
Last edit: 2012-08-21 12:20:09 |
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| dUTtrOACh Canada. August 21 2012 12:29. Posts 1639 | Profile # |
| Seriously, what everyone's saying is true. Attacking into turtling mech is playing into the greatest strength of the play-style. Focus your efforts on denying the 3rd and not taking damage from any harassment, as opposed to trying to end the game. A two-base maxed out mech army is a one-time thing. When the terran is finally frustrated by your persistent denial of the 3rd base and outright avoidance of a head on engagement they will be forced to all in. When they do, counter attack and/or slow the push; your superior economy should prevail. Kill their production, and exploit the weakness of the mech: its immobility and vulnerability to zerg's heavy air. |
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| Savant.GL United Kingdom. August 21 2012 12:33. Posts 457 | Profile # |
| Oh yeh if it is two base mech it is even easier than three base, dont get drops for that just go for drones a few roaches, and then rush to hive, two base mech is just terrible |
| | RIP TSL. The "swarm" life will be missed. Hyun,Symbol,Revival Hwaiting! |
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| xeqwist August 21 2012 12:38. Posts 54 | Profile # |
On August 21 2012 11:39 furerkip wrote:
What if you stop all-ining and just macro normally in game? Have you tried that?
Why does there always have to be someone coming with some dumb comment like this?
I usually try to prevent them from taking a third with roaches while I macro up and get Hive techLast edit: 2012-08-21 12:41:50 |
| | xeqwist.195 EU | ♥ BitByBit ♥ MarineKing ♥ | Marine good unit. |
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| CTSChao United States. August 21 2012 12:52. Posts 44 | Profile # |
I've found I can't beat him in a macro battle, the 20+ hellions just make it so difficult to keep my 5th/4th/3rd alive.
Spine crawlers, queens, roaches are extremely strong vs mass hellions. If you see that many hellions that means he has either a low thor or low tank count. Take advantage of that and either go into mutas or get more roaches.
if your a zerg and can't out macro a turtleling opponent... find a new race.
On a more serious note, perhaps if you attempt to analyze why your macro is so bad, you might make actual progress on your skill level. For example, are you getting supply blocked? or are you not droning up enough? are your mechanics (ie injects) subpar for gold? Try practicing vs the AI: simply practice injecting, openers, and not getting supply blocked.
Zerg is the least micro intensive of the races (except zvz, which is absolutely crazy). Macro is much more important than micro. The whole idea of zerg is to overwhelm your opponents with a MASSIVE amount of units, not to outcontrol them.
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| RaiZ France. August 21 2012 13:10. Posts 2507 | Profile Blog # |
The allin was kinda good, but you could've waited a little more when you saw that he walled off with 3 raxes. You could've brought your ling back and made more banes while still reinforcing with more ling / roach.
That aside, what disturbed me the most was your corruptor count. Why so many ? You were basically playing blind and hoped for the terran to come that late until you'd get your BLs except that with all those corruptors invested and your bases killed, you had no more gas left. Anyway that game was kinda dead since that failed allin, but you had definitely another chance if you played differently (read more bases faster but it was kinda a do-or-die's strat anyway, or a few roaches, and scout more). |
| | Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. |
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| Iliad Canada. August 21 2012 13:38. Posts 17 | Profile # |
Tried suggestions. Lost again. Played horribly anyways, getting supply blocked like no tommorow:
http://drop.sc/241599
Last edit: 2012-08-21 13:39:51 |
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 Belial88 United States. August 21 2012 14:11. Posts 5217 | Profile Blog # |
On August 21 2012 12:38 xeqwist wrote:
Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 11:39 furerkip wrote:
What if you stop all-ining and just macro normally in game? Have you tried that?
Why does there always have to be someone coming with some dumb comment like this? I usually try to prevent them from taking a third with roaches while I macro up and get Hive tech
How is your comment any better? rofl.
Not only does your comment offer advice without watching the replay, just like that comment, but your comment is actually just straight up terrible advice - unlike that guy, who actually gave very solid advice; if your all-in fails, you will lose the game.Last edit: 2012-08-21 14:11:53 |
| | How to build a $500 i7-3770K Ultimate Computer:http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=392709 ******** 100% Safe Razorless Delid Method! http://www.overclock.net/t/1376206/how-to-delid-your-ivy-bridge-cpu-with-out-a-razor-blade/0_100 |
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| Iliad Canada. August 21 2012 14:22. Posts 17 | Profile # |
Now I lost to drop harrassment in another zvt.
I just don't want to play against terran any more. They have too many options and are impossible to scout. I've lost 10 of the past 11 games versus terran.
Last edit: 2012-08-21 14:23:35 |
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| AgentW United States. August 21 2012 16:02. Posts 2389 | Profile Blog # |
| I'm a turtling mech player at about your level and what I've found is that making the 3rd hard to take using roach/ling, droning hard, and a quick hive (can someone who's a better player confirm/reject this?) can smash the meching player, especially if the mech player forgets that he has hellions which are really good at keeping the drone count down (I almost always forget to keep harrasing with them). Remember that the meching player is slow, so hit him in various locations, potentially a runby at his natural while denying third etc. Also, I've found the BL/Ultra switch is very hard to deal with if you can catch the meching player with his pants down and without enough vikings. Corrupters/infestors own vikings and thors aren't great against BL, so it's trouble for Terran. I've found that, as always with Terran, if you don't have the right composition against the Zerg superarmy, you're in big trouble with mech because it takes so long and so much to build up. |
| | Who's the bigger scrub, the scrub, or the scrub who loses to him? |
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| kill619 United States. August 21 2012 16:24. Posts 182 | Profile # |
On August 21 2012 16:02 AgentW wrote:
I'm a turtling mech player at about your level and what I've found is that making the 3rd hard to take using roach/ling, droning hard, and a quick hive (can someone who's a better player confirm/reject this?) can smash the meching player, especially if the mech player forgets that he has hellions which are really good at keeping the drone count down (I almost always forget to keep harrasing with them). Remember that the meching player is slow, so hit him in various locations, potentially a runby at his natural while denying third etc. Also, I've found the BL/Ultra switch is very hard to deal with if you can catch the meching player with his pants down and without enough vikings. Corrupters/infestors own vikings and thors aren't great against BL, so it's trouble for Terran. I've found that, as always with Terran, if you don't have the right composition against the Zerg superarmy, you're in big trouble with mech because it takes so long and so much to build up.
You're correct about the rush to hive thing. Generally, in standard not super turtely games, once you hit a number of thors(~7 or higher) coupled with their upgrade advantage they should have over BL's they support viking pretty well vs Currupters and tanks and hellions can always pick off infestors. As far as i can tell(high diamond Mech only tvt and tvz'er) thors do better against ultras than tanks do as long as their spread out. The only thing that really shits on a high Thor count in a direct engagment is mass roach or mass upgraded brood lords.
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| yevoc United States. August 21 2012 17:05. Posts 30 | Profile # |
I had originally written a very long response, as I'm a diamond level Terran who just came over to Zerg and have now been on both sides of this battle. However, after watching the replay in the OP, I don't think we need to get so bogged down in metagame and/or matchup detail. Focus on mechanics and build execution. Don't think that your strategy is at fault. It was a fine approach.
Your original push was actually a very good counter to the 2-base play he enacted, and it would've ended the game, but the build's execution is too rough around the edges. Opting to do an all-in is fine, but you have to scout several times along the way to know what you're up against. Instead, your push sends all of your zerglings up the ramp to take damage and block your banelings because you didn't once scout the enemy front in the minutes beforehand.
Next time...
1) Place the OL scout near enough so you can see his natural mineral line and geysers being taken
2) Poke up the ramp with a zergling every once in a while (don't let him die, just run up and then back down, that's it)
3) Fill your gas geyser the moment it finishes, especially with a gas heavy all-in timed push build like this
4) Get those 2 OLs out sooner so that you aren't supply blocked at 44 for as long
5) Get that second geyser so that you have double the amount of banelings
6) Get zergling speed sooner so that your ramp scouting is more effective (and rallying happens sooner for the push)
7) This isn't mandatory, but I'd scout his base before you decide to go banelings. You'd have seen the heavy wall and could've decided to go pure roach/ling instead. (With the extra range, your roaches could've picked off the barracks with far fewer losses, and your timing attack would've hit 1m30s earlier. If you had the right number of banelings, this wouldn't be an issue either way.)
8) Scout with a single zergling, then pick a building to explode, and send the banelings in first.
9) Once you've broken through, see if the zerglings can speed into the main and kill his SCVs. If not, immediately attack his SCVs at the natural with zerglings while the roaches absorb the damage and try to take down the wall to the main. You're trying to cripple his economy with this first push, not eliminate every building along the way.
10) DONT FORGET TO MACRO DURING/AFTER YOUR ATTACK!!! An all-in push ALWAYS needs reinforcements as quickly as they can arrive!
There are of course a million things that posters can tell you about high level strategy and/or metagame, but the best thing you can do for yourself is to watch your own replays when you're calm and able to see your own mistakes. If you then focus on one problem at a time until your execution of a plan is solid, you'll be able to go very far. If you get too down on yourself or on the particular matchup, it'll be very hard to improve.
Don't fret. Your overall approach seems fine. You're using a very powerful, tried-and-true build that basically worked despite everything. If you'd made one or two fewer mistakes, you'd have gotten a gg at 9:30. |
| | "If they have some strange build going on, just go %$#ing kill them" - Day9 |
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| ellaguru United States. August 21 2012 17:16. Posts 28 | Profile # |
all your problems can be solved by droning and massing static defense. a terran that doesnt attack you directly should lose the game. (turtling, or doing only drops)
-keep an eye on what hes doing, if he is truely turtling, then get to 80+drones as quick as you can, since he will not pressure.
-deny the third as long as you can. ling roach is pretty good against mech before they get to 200/200. send in roaches, if they dont micro their hellions and just use them as fodder, then you can send a wave of lings to kill naked thors and tanks.
-if its going to lategame, go for a +2 base lead, and maybe 100 drones. get a good creep spread, mainly over your own bases, dont worry so much about spreading creep toward his base. its just for vision and to put down mass spines.
use your economy and overdroning to create massive walls of spines in front of your bases.
-if he moves out, abuse the immobility of mech to do runbys. attack his factories, and then he is all-in.
-in all these situations, brood lords will be your unit of choice. they stall a mech army a long time, which gives you time to make more spines or do more runbys.
-just pick away at the deathball any way you can. brood lords, roaches, burrow roaches, baneling drops, mutas, ultras. he cannot be prepared for everything, unless he is actually got mech + skyterran, which would probably require at least 4-5 bases. pick away at the deathball with your main force and attack the factories with a small side force, and you will win the battle of attrition. tons of spines is important. and keeping as many bases around the map as you can, since he cant be everywhere. if you lose one base you should have another one somewhere far away you can send the drones to.
assuming its a big map like condemned ridge, emtombed valley, antiga, tal darim, and somewhat cloud kingdom. these are all good maps to spread your bases around and abuse the immobility of mech. maps like ohana, daybreak, and shakuras are difficult because the immobility of mech is really mitigated by how tight these maps are. destroy rocks and use nydus worms to give you better mobility to do runbys and spread bases.Last edit: 2012-08-21 17:23:23 |
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| Iliad Canada. August 21 2012 17:26. Posts 17 | Profile # |
On August 21 2012 17:05 yevoc wrote:
I had originally written a very long response, as I'm a diamond level Terran who just came over to Zerg and have now been on both sides of this battle. However, after watching the replay in the OP, I don't think we need to get so bogged down in metagame and/or matchup detail. Focus on mechanics and build execution. Don't think that your strategy is at fault. It was a fine approach.
Your original push was actually a very good counter to the 2-base play he enacted, and it would've ended the game, but the build's execution is too rough around the edges. Opting to do an all-in is fine, but you have to scout several times along the way to know what you're up against. Instead, your push sends all of your zerglings up the ramp to take damage and block your banelings because you didn't once scout the enemy front in the minutes beforehand.
Next time...
1) Place the OL scout near enough so you can see his natural mineral line and geysers being taken
2) Poke up the ramp with a zergling every once in a while (don't let him die, just run up and then back down, that's it)
3) Fill your gas geyser the moment it finishes, especially with a gas heavy all-in timed push build like this
4) Get those 2 OLs out sooner so that you aren't supply blocked at 44 for as long
5) Get that second geyser so that you have double the amount of banelings
6) Get zergling speed sooner so that your ramp scouting is more effective (and rallying happens sooner for the push)
7) This isn't mandatory, but I'd scout his base before you decide to go banelings. You'd have seen the heavy wall and could've decided to go pure roach/ling instead. (With the extra range, your roaches could've picked off the barracks with far fewer losses, and your timing attack would've hit 1m30s earlier. If you had the right number of banelings, this wouldn't be an issue either way.)
8) Scout with a single zergling, then pick a building to explode, and send the banelings in first.
9) Once you've broken through, see if the zerglings can speed into the main and kill his SCVs. If not, immediately attack his SCVs at the natural with zerglings while the roaches absorb the damage and try to take down the wall to the main. You're trying to cripple his economy with this first push, not eliminate every building along the way.
10) DONT FORGET TO MACRO DURING/AFTER YOUR ATTACK!!! An all-in push ALWAYS needs reinforcements as quickly as they can arrive!
There are of course a million things that posters can tell you about high level strategy and/or metagame, but the best thing you can do for yourself is to watch your own replays when you're calm and able to see your own mistakes. If you then focus on one problem at a time until your execution of a plan is solid, you'll be able to go very far. If you get too down on yourself or on the particular matchup, it'll be very hard to improve.
Don't fret. Your overall approach seems fine. You're using a very powerful, tried-and-true build that basically worked despite everything. If you'd made one or two fewer mistakes, you'd have gotten a gg at 9:30.
Thanks for such a helpful response. I wonder why no one does this at the pro level.... is it because a well-executed all-in straight up counters it? I saw MVP doing this style of play, but with the straight 3cc and straight up dominated the whole IEM open bracket and went on to get 1st place.
I still can't seem to win versus any terran right now without an all-in. I've tried to go through belial's zvt guide, and there's an overwhelming amount of information on how to deal with just about anything, which is counterproductive to anyone below diamond who just wants to know some simple timings, and some basic counters (mass marine maurader/tank/marine maurader), and how to deal with multi-prong medivac drops (the most annoying thing ever.) |
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| exog Norway. August 21 2012 20:51. Posts 248 | Profile # |
I am also struggeling with this. In order to make an expansion so that 3-6 BF helions/banshees cant get 20 kills before they are destroyed, you must use 500-1000 minerals in crawlers/spores. This crushes your ability to out-expand your opponent.
Tank range and deathball mobility also makes it so the terran often can circumvent spinecrawler woods or just siege them away if you have a few crawlers at each base...
You never get to 4 bases with BL/Ultra and just getting third is insanely hard when both Banshees and helions harrass. Again you must spend 500 in crawlers/spores before building the base...
Oh and if you ever get into a fight, the meat of your army, roach or ling, gets hardcountered by thor/tanks/banshees or helions.
I loose all games vs terran atm and am getting frustrated. Havent tried all-ins and will test it, but wanted to vent and show my issues with the matchup. |
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| yevoc United States. August 22 2012 01:51. Posts 30 | Profile # |
Now that I've switched from T to Z, I wholeheartedly agree that if your mechanics and macro aren't strong enough, Z has the clear disadvantage, as just a little bit of micro/harass from T can really throw you off your game.
HOWEVER, if you can manage to improve your mechanics, macro, and map awareness, ZvT will become a very fun matchup, as the pressure will be on T to become very active in wresting map control from you, and you will have many options to shut him down at every turn, be it speedlings, mutas, banelings, or infestors (don't forget burrow either, T doesn't handle burrow well until Masters level).
Because Zerg has historically leaned toward establishing this total map control with super-macro, the Terran (and Protoss) metagame has evolved into macroing super hard as a counter. This is precisely why you're now seeing Zerg all-in builds starting to make a comeback. Until the metagame shifts away from all 3 races going super greedy, early pressure builds will work fairly well. However, keep in mind that early pressure won't outright kill a sufficiently good Terran, so make sure you've practiced a transition from the timed push into a more macro-heavy follow up. What unit composition you choose is highly dependent on what units you're most comfortable microing together. Just make sure the composition you aim for makes sense. If you can't find anyone having reliably used your chosen mid/end-game unit composition at a high level, something's wrong.
For me, I struggled against mutas the most as a Terran, so that's my immediate fallback now as Zerg when a timed push doesn't gg. If you have map control with overlords, it's VERY hard for T to not lose a ton of money on failed drops due to muta interception, as you can see drops coming a mile away. (Yes, this does require you to have good minimap mechanics. It's worth practicing) The other big problem I had with mutas as T was them destroying my gas refineries, which significantly slows down a T's mech macro. (Terran rarely defends the gas properly until they're first destroyed)
Also, don't forget that base trading is OK! If you can't stop a Terran drop/push from killing your expo, chances are you'll be able to kill any 3rd/4th base of his just as easily with a quick backstab. Losing a Terran base is so much more devastating than losing a hatchery. It may feel like you're turning into a punching bag with all of T's nonstop sneaky aggression, but as long as you make him pay for everything he takes, he isn't winning from it. However, if he does manage to take out a base without receiving any clear punishment from you in return, something is wrong with your mid-game approach and merits a replay analysis.
Trust me, Terrans have just as much of a hard time with good Zergs as you are having with Terran. ZvT/TvZ is my favorite (and most stressful) matchup.Last edit: 2012-08-22 01:52:16 |
| | "If they have some strange build going on, just go %$#ing kill them" - Day9 |
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| Iliad Canada. August 22 2012 07:47. Posts 17 | Profile # |
On August 22 2012 01:51 yevoc wrote:
Now that I've switched from T to Z, I wholeheartedly agree that if your mechanics and macro aren't strong enough, Z has the clear disadvantage, as just a little bit of micro/harass from T can really throw you off your game.
HOWEVER, if you can manage to improve your mechanics, macro, and map awareness, ZvT will become a very fun matchup, as the pressure will be on T to become very active in wresting map control from you, and you will have many options to shut him down at every turn, be it speedlings, mutas, banelings, or infestors (don't forget burrow either, T doesn't handle burrow well until Masters level).
Because Zerg has historically leaned toward establishing this total map control with super-macro, the Terran (and Protoss) metagame has evolved into macroing super hard as a counter. This is precisely why you're now seeing Zerg all-in builds starting to make a comeback. Until the metagame shifts away from all 3 races going super greedy, early pressure builds will work fairly well. However, keep in mind that early pressure won't outright kill a sufficiently good Terran, so make sure you've practiced a transition from the timed push into a more macro-heavy follow up. What unit composition you choose is highly dependent on what units you're most comfortable microing together. Just make sure the composition you aim for makes sense. If you can't find anyone having reliably used your chosen mid/end-game unit composition at a high level, something's wrong.
For me, I struggled against mutas the most as a Terran, so that's my immediate fallback now as Zerg when a timed push doesn't gg. If you have map control with overlords, it's VERY hard for T to not lose a ton of money on failed drops due to muta interception, as you can see drops coming a mile away. (Yes, this does require you to have good minimap mechanics. It's worth practicing) The other big problem I had with mutas as T was them destroying my gas refineries, which significantly slows down a T's mech macro. (Terran rarely defends the gas properly until they're first destroyed)
Also, don't forget that base trading is OK! If you can't stop a Terran drop/push from killing your expo, chances are you'll be able to kill any 3rd/4th base of his just as easily with a quick backstab. Losing a Terran base is so much more devastating than losing a hatchery. It may feel like you're turning into a punching bag with all of T's nonstop sneaky aggression, but as long as you make him pay for everything he takes, he isn't winning from it. However, if he does manage to take out a base without receiving any clear punishment from you in return, something is wrong with your mid-game approach and merits a replay analysis.
Trust me, Terrans have just as much of a hard time with good Zergs as you are having with Terran. ZvT/TvZ is my favorite (and most stressful) matchup.
That muta advice simply shut down drops when I tried using them. I FINALLY BEAT A TERRAN!
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