I have been trouble dealing with Z... I'm not sure what to get for the right situation and scouting their tech. The main problem is that I've been trying to deal with hydra/roach/infestors. I've always ended up going baneling/ling/mutas against it, hoping the banelings and lings would mop up the hydras and the mutas would get rid of the roaches, but it all gets crushed by the infestors with their fungal growth and having the hydras/roachs outrange everything.
What's the most efficient way of dealing with this? Thanks

Here's a replay of a recent game where this happened. I admit i wasnt playing as good as i could have, but it was the first game of the day This is in the diamond league too.

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Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Oct 12 2010, 3:18 am by xYoshix.

I don't know much about zvz, although I'll take note of what I know you did wrong, even though my responses are limited.

• You didn't do much with your first four lings. When you get them, immediately send them out to do something.
  
• A single spine crawler is a good investment, especially right after your first round of lings.
  
• Bad overlord placement. You should place overlords on travel paths from your base to his, as to see any unit movement.
  
• I didn't see early banelings, but a good response to early banelings is a lot of spine crawlers.
  
• Get a lot of queens. They are good for transfusions, as well as massive creep spreading between your expansions.
  
• Should have expanded at 6:30, while you were attacking.
  
• Morph an overseer and place it outside his main. Constantly fly in and contaminate his hatchery//lair to delay lair, or anything else.
  
• Once your mutalisks popped out, you should immediately run to the enemy base and harass everything you can. This will will most likely cause him to overreact to your mutalisks.
  
• Banelings late game suck. Once roaches are in play banelings' efficiency is vastly reduced.

This game is pretty much worthless to watch after 10 minutes, as you made some major mistakes before hand that render watching the rest of the game pointless. You should have expanded after applying pressure around the 6:30 mark, and followed it up with some spine crawlers. You could then tech to mutas, harass, and possibly expand again. Once he gets hydras, you need hydras to match it. Roaches aren't going to cut it. You also need to transfer drones when you expand.

Your roaches weren't going to win straight up against hydras, and especially not without your mutas. You attacked and killed your roaches, and then sent the mutas in. Attack with everything all at once. You lost because you expanded at terrible times, stopped teching after mutas, and didn't properly harass with mutas. If you have mutas, use them to delay his hydralisk push so you can pump out hydras. If he has spore crawlers, go wherever the spore crawlers aren't -just delay his hydralisk attack. You should also probably get a second queen before your second expansion goes up.

...and this is supposed to be a limited response??

Not everybody is diamondz Cecil.

haha i see.. So it really was my fault for failing the entire game before the fight.... I do admit that i made a large amount of mistakes in this game... so is the only way of beating this combo with my own hydras? but by the time i start massing them, won't he have more hydras than me, along with his fungal growth? I didn't expand as quick because i was afraid of him attacking me. I waited for muta harrass because 2 mutas cant do much against drones. I waited until i could do more damage to his economy, but he outnumbered my mutas by then. In the fight, i didnt attack with my roaches. He attacked me. Before I noticed, my whoel army was fungal growthed and dying. By the time the mutas reached the army, it was too late. oh well... i guess i just sucked too much that game

I don't know exactly if you needed hydras to match his hydras, because I don't play zerg. I do know however, that you needed hydras to be the main bulk of your army, with roaches as support, because I've seen high level players do that. I mean, there may be other unit compositions that beat straight up hydra//infestor, but from the high level zvz I've seen I see mainly hydras, with roaches as support, along with infestors. Ultras can overrun hydras, but if he has a ton of hydras the ultras will just melt due to the increased effectiveness of the hydralisks all firing at once, while only some of your ultras are hitting some of the hydras.

I suggest you watch some more zvz at a website like sc2casts.com.

I just watched the replay. The one thing I saw you do extremely wrong was no GG.

On a more serious note, it all comes down to income and aggression. He had consistently more drones than you for the first 13 minutes of the game - and this is when you started to harass him with your mutalisks. Even so, you don't overtake him until about 15-16 minutes, by which point he's already poured 1500m and 800g into his army.

My one tip would be to use shock-tactics with your mutalisks. I noticed that you had 4 of them from the first batch, and you didnt use them until the second batch was completed. Four Mutalisks can do a hell of a lot of damage to an opponents economy used early, than 20 mutalisks can do when you give your opponent even 2 minutes of the knowledge that you have Mutalisks.

As for countering Hydra/Infestor/Roach - I remember a game I had ages ago, in which my 20% Roach 80% hydra force was crushed by a guy burrowing 50% of his all-out roach force and tunneling behind my hydras. His zerglings poured in and finished everything off.

Don't beat yourself up too much about this game, if you watch the replay and watch your opponent (Minty, i beleive) carefully - he is pretty skilled. The two-queen tells you a lot about a Zerg player who doesn't take any nonsense.

The ultimate mistake, was as Cecil said in his post - when it comes down to an all-out battle. The last thing you want to do is send 50% of your troops in first, then the other 50% two seconds later. The reason his Fungal Growth was so effective was that he took the Xel'Naga watch tower and scouted your troops sitting there idle. So he thought, hmm he's probably looking the other way - and he pounced.

gg

Actually 30% roach and 70% hydras is really good for me, roaches tank dammages like crazy. If it is possible, speedlings used to attack the enemy's flank while both armies collide is of huge help.

You should try the lingmuta build. Note that it owns hydra roaches, but not hydra roach infestors. When you see infestor, you pull them back, avoid fights, and stall for ultralisks. That should do the trick. But most of the times, ling mutas overrun roach dras before they even have a chance to get infestors out.

On a side note, ling muta strategy revolves around a few number of possibilities.
Dra roach is usually a 2 hatch build. They have to get the nat first before massing up. So you have a chance with early zerglings to harass and harm the nat, and destroy it if lucky. If you destroy it, you have game.
If they don't go nat and go roach, then you have game- but if you went two hatch, then you might be in trouble.

Also, when you're using Zerglings for really good- then you should keep upgrading. Armor first.

Keep in mind that the expansion can come later in ZvZ, the one delaying the most while being aggressive can easily win the game. You need to trap the infestors and focus fire them. They only have 80 hp, shouldn't be too hard.