Zerg Strategies

Well I'm going to start playing ladder games tomorrow and I just wanted to know if you guys could give me any tips as a Zerg player. I know most of you are not Zerg players but coming as an opponent of Zerg, what are strengths and weaknesses you see in Zerg players?

I've also noticed the build orders are a lot more different than SC:BW. Any tips on build orders would be nice too.

I wasn't able to play in the beta so as you can tell my knowledge about SC2 is pretty small.

I haven't played much since retail release (I just finished my placement matches ~20 minutes ago) but I did play a few hundred games in the beta so maybe my findings still count.

As zerg, I tried to fast expand, a lot, and it's pretty tough to do in this game. It's safer to get your pool up around 14 and then expand. Even that can be risky, though. Against T and P it's advisable to get extra queens early, to defend against void ray/banshee rushes while you're powering your economy. Keep in mind that overlords don't detect, so you'll need overseers (require lair) v banshees and dts.

Keeping your creep spread is extremely important. Your units are much, much faster on creep and not having it spread out enough can definitely lose you games, so focus on covering as much of the map in creep as possible.

Mech was getting a lot of talk near the end of beta and I assume it's still considered hard now. I didn't face it alot but I assume it's very similar to how it worked in BW: avoid his army whenever possible. Harass him with drops/counterattacks while you expand everywhere and only engage his army if he splits it up into groups you can manage. Keep in mind that even when you have a ton of units, tanks kill shit really, really, really well. Really, really well. Really, really, really well. Really well.

If you expand quickly versus protoss (like 14 pool/16 hatch or so), you'll generally want to get a roach warren right after your pool finishes and get a few roaches. Keep an eye on him, and if he's not massing up you can pull miners off gas for a bit and stop roach production, but some tosses keep massing and try to hit a minute or so later so don't fall into that trap blindly. Colossi aren't quite tanks, but they're still pretty awesome and have good range (at least with the upgrade) and are best dealt with by corruptors or infestors. Corruptors are especially nice since Brood Lords are a great lategame unit vs protoss.

I don't know if ZvZ has changed from around the end of beta, but it was almost everybody going banelings at that point. If you expand quickly ZvZ you'll need roaches or queens to defend your ramp and either more roaches or spine crawlers to defend your expansion. Note that while roaches don't shoot up, they're still pretty effective vs a muta-ing player because of their high life and armor. I've won several ZvZs by just all-ining with my roaches when I saw their spire and wrecking their econ while I massing spore crawlers/queens at home. That's not a good strategy, but it is a good thing to keep in mind either when you've gone roaches and find yourself in a oh shit situation or you went mutas and see roaches.

Thanks for the input all-great powerful teacher :)

I've been watching replays mostly and trying to perfect some builds down with the computer but the thing I have been mostly having troubles with is spreading the creep. Its really tough for me personally because I do not know if I should be spending queens energy on spreading creep or creating more larvae. Imo, its a hard decision to make early game.

However I have read a few guides on TL.net and they have helped a bit. However, the basic build orders are still pretty much "under construction" for the lack of a better term(atleast for Zerg), but it seems that Zergs are starting to favor a 10 overlord, 14 pool, 16 hatch.

I'll share a link with you guys I found browsing through teamliquid on liquipedia. Its a small compilation of builds for all three races. They seem to be pretty helpful. [url]http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Strategy
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One thing I am having trouble with however is 1 gate -> Cybernetics Core -> Robo Bay. I've read on teamliquid.net that the best counter is going 2 hatch hydra but it seems that the hydras never come out in time to stop the stalker/zealot/immortal push. Any input?

Bobotastic wrote:

the thing I have been mostly having troubles with is spreading the creep. Its really tough for me personally because I do not know if I should be spending queens energy on spreading creep or creating more larvae. Imo, its a hard decision to make early game.

I've played bugger all Zerg, but afaik you don't need to keep spending lots of queen energy on tumours. Once one tumour is down, it can spawn another one, and that one can spawn another one and so on, which means you can build a path to a destination with only a single tumour from a queen. If you need to fork, you will need to use a queen though, as each tumour is only capable of spawning one other tumour.

Yes I just realized that yesterday! Haha. I felt like a nubcakes when I found out :).

Hmm, 1 gate robo (and immortals, I assume) seems a little early to be relying on hydras, to me. You should be getting zergling speed with your first 100 gas or so, and that situation is part of the reason why. If he goes some early push that doesn't revolve around zealots, you can slam out a buttload of lings and you should be able to crush it.

If you early expand and get a queen at each expo, there's a point where you can only use the larvae from one queen. You should use the other (generally I use the one in my main so I can link up my bases ASAP) to drop a creep tumor and start spreading creep from that. Past that, focus on spawning larvae and if you end up with excess energy you can drop a creep tumor or five. If you're staying on one base you either won't need to expand creep as early or, if you're going roaches, you'll again have a period where you can't spend all your larva and can instead drop a creep tumor with no ill effects.

It'll take several games of "oh shit, I'd have won if I had had creep spread out and could move fast" before you really start to remember to stay on top of it, though. It's really super important with hydras and roaches, though, so at least try to pound it into your brain that if you want to use those units you really need to focus on the creep spreading.

Well you gave me 2 possible counters to countering the protoss build I shared earlier: Roaches or Speedlings.

I've read plenty of strategy threads on Zerg that agree that 2 hatch hydra is the best counter to that build. Out of the 5 or 6 times I've played on Ladder and dozens of times I've played it on Insane difficulty vs CPU, I've only been successful once. I know there has to be a better counter to it but I have not found it.

And on a side note, I miss defilers :(.

Well it's probably not the best idea to test your strats against the insane AI, since it gets free minerals (thus an inaccurate representation of timings on their half)

LuckySword wrote:

Well it's probably not the best idea to test your strats against the insane AI, since it gets free minerals (thus an inaccurate representation of timings on their half)

Wow, the AI cheats to that extent, WTF!? I would have thought the only cheating they would have restricted it to would be being able to see through the fog of war. But free minerals? Shit, that's nasty.

Ratfink wrote:

LuckySword wrote:

Well it's probably not the best idea to test your strats against the insane AI, since it gets free minerals (thus an inaccurate representation of timings on their half)

Wow, the AI cheats to that extent, WTF!? I would have thought the only cheating they would have restricted it to would be being able to see through the fog of war. But free minerals? Shit, that's nasty.

Yeah that's how it comes at you with over 9000 units in the first 2 seconds of the game basically.

Well that makes sense. A lot of sense. I began to think I was that horrible at the game now I couldn't beat the CPU, knowing the counter.

Roaches aren't too strong vs robo tech. They're very good for defending an early expansion vs zealots, but if you see/suspect him of switching to robo then you should focus on lings. Basically, if they're being aggressive early with zeals, you want roaches to fight back but if they aren't pressuring then you want to focus on drones and queens (to handle void rays/spread creep) and drop some spine crawlers if he's not expanding (assuming you've taken your own expansion, that is).

P has more or less 3 options to attack after the early, early phase (expo/zeal rush) period is over: warp gate push, quick robo push and void rays. Additional queens are good against all 3, speedlings and/or spine crawlers are good against the first two while roaches aren't especially great against any of them. You're much better off stopping roaches when he stops/if he's not pushing with zealots, and just focusing on economy/teching and planning on spine crawlers/speedlings for an "oh shit" defense.

Unless we're talking about a quick 1 robo build after an expansion by P, I still don't think 2 hatch hydra is the better option for countering it, but I admit I haven't faced that build much, if at all, either during beta or post retail so I'm not 100%. It really sounds to me like it would require you to gimp something to get hydras out early enough.

I sent a couple (well, 4) ZvP replays to your email. Not too sure they'll be helpful, but maybe they will.

maareek wrote:

It really sounds to me like it would require you to gimp something to get hydras out early enough.

This is not really the case imo. Sure you might have to stop droning for a little bit but in most cases after your 3rd hydra pops (also not forgetting you probably have 2 queens already), the toss isn't likely to dedicate to making enough voidrays to kill you. So after a few hydras are out you can go back to pumping drones more. It's just kind of a flip in the order.

I was still focusing on the robo push. Void rays are a different story and really depend on too many factors to make a definite statement (when did he tech; was he chrono boosting the void rays or other things; did he expo first; did he wait for more than 1 void ray; did the z expand; etc). I will say, though, that if he's getting void rays as fast as he can and you've gotten hydras to stop them, you have hurt you economy unnecessarily and need to get some added use out of those hydras - specifically, you'll need to add in a few extra hydras and delay his expansion attempt before you turn back to drones. If he happens to not be expanding, you're in an even tenser situation where you still need to add more drones to catch up with his saturation and make enough hydras to defend against whatever attack he's looking to make. Plus, 2-3 queens easily handle a voidray (or two) and cost you zero larva along with giving you tons of flexibility throughout the game. Not to mention not getting super early hydras enables you to delay extra gasses, meaning more minerals for even more drones to fund either an expansion if the P tries to expand or spine crawlers if he's looking to attack.

One thing that I should have already mentioned but forgot is this: you should set up one overlord outside one side of the protoss's base and then another on another side. That way, if you're really at a loss for what he's doing, you can send them both in to scout out his buildings. Between the overlords and the ling you'll have outside his front it should be very hard to get caught off guard by any tech or to miss a massing army.

This may be a little off topic but I got a question about countering Mech Terrans. I know the answer is kind of vague I do not know what better to ask it... what is the best UNIT counters for Mech terrans, for example what should my army composition be if I see helions, Thors, and Tanks with a few(but not many) M&M.

EDIT: Actually just found this awesome thread on TL.net. Apparently mass Mutas/Speedling/Roach Feint are great against Mech Terrans. They have a few replays in the thread to back it up. I'll share it with you guys. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=143825&currentpage=4

Yeah muta/ling is good vs mech because it's really mobile. Also the part where mutas can't be hit by tanks is nice, but the biggest thing is the mobility. The main idea for Z against mech is to avoid a straight up fight. Run around and harass him, stop his expoes, expand everywhere, drop him, whatever you have to do to not actually fight his forces. In the lategame when it starts to become impossible to avoid a confrontation, you have to start adding roaches and ultras in to absorb the damage. You still want to avoid a fight until you have an overwhelming economy, though, because even ultras and roaches won't be even remotely cost effective vs mech.

Actually doing all that is more than just a little difficult, though. SC2 ZvT against mech is kinda like BW PvT ... except without arbiters. Or storm. Yeah, I think that's a really accurate description. In theory, it should definitely be possible, but it's really freaking tough to actually do. It's no wonder Z's all over are bitching about it.

If we had defilers it wouldn't be so tough. Yesterday was just a horrible ladder day for me. Played 7 games and lost all of them. :(. 4 games were against Zerg, my worst MU, and 3 games against Mech Terrans.

Would you say 2 base muta is the best opening against meching Terrans? And usually what buildings give it away that a Terran is going to use Mech units? Does it have to be scouted with an overlord or are there certain things that a terran can do that can give it away?

Like for example in BW if a Zerg saw a Protoss blocking his ramps with Zealots he could easily assume he was going Sairs. Or if a Terran only made 1 barracks a Zerg could assume Terran is goes for a fast expansion. Is there anything of that sort that give a Zerg a hint that Terran is going mech, before actually ever seeing the army?

EDIT: Btw maar thanks for the reps. Helped out a lot.

Bobotastic I'm a +1k Zerg player form beta and been playing alot of retail (not as much 1v1 more 2v2) but id be happy to 1v1 with you ZvZ so you can practice your worst MU. Most players find there worst MU is there own race because they cant determine the best time to tech transition because it feels so even matched. I can tell u now a simple early +1 can mean the whole world of difference.


Let me know champ ^^.~

i have both US and SEA account btw ^

Sounds sweet. I don't know your user info to add you to my friends list but my contact info is in the IDs and Server thread. Add me there and we can get a few games going.

Personally I've been doing pretty well in ZvZ lately but more practice will only do me better.