Zerg Strategy Discussion

UPDATED FOR HEART OF THE SWARM!

Zerg’s General Concepts​

Your number of hatcheries – Are you doing a 1base strategy, a 2base strategy or a 3base strategy?

Larva production and management – use Inject Larva often.

Spawn a Creep Tumor from your second Queen to reach between your main and your expo ASAP!

Creep production and creative uses - “Creep Highway” Zerg units cruise on it.

Try and have one or more expansions than your opponent, wihile denying expansions.

Changelings and Overseers take scouting to a whole new level, use them when Overseers have the energy.

Use Nydus Worms. They are effective in your opponents blindspots.

Swarm Hosts - the new Zerg unit. This unit is defenseless and has no attack by itself, but when burrowed, it will release two Swarm Locusts that have the attack speed and damage of a Hydralisk - FOR FREE... after the 200 minerals and 100 gas for each of the Swarm Hosts.

Vipers - the new Zerg unit. This unit can leash an enemy unit (including massive I believe) to where the Viper that casted it is. This is good for pulling important enemy units into your army, or onto cliffs to make them helpless.


Recommended StarCraft Commentators to watch and learn from:
HuskyStarcraft, HDStarcraft, Day[9], HunterStarcraft, ROOTDestiny’s Livestream

1v1 Strategies
(These are not all of the 1v1 Strategies possible, but probably the easiest to pull off)​

ZvX 6Pool / 5 Drone / 10 OL – Cheese
After your pool begins building, you can afford to build one drone while waiting for 150 minerals / Pool completion.

ZvX 8Pool / 8 OL / Lings to 11 – Economic Cheese
Make two drones and make your Pool. Create your Overlord and wait for 150 minerals / Pool completion - then make 6 Zerglings.

ZvX 10Pool / 10 OL – A standard Ling opener OR 9 OL / 10 Pool – A standard Ling opener
If you want Speedlings, get Gas at 9. Pull Drones off of gas once you hit 100 Gas. @100 Gas, upgrade Speed. Pump Speedlings.

ZvX 10Pool / 13 Gas / 15 OL / 15 Queen – A flexible build that aims for Speedlings or early Roaches.
Follow the steps above and drop down the Roach Warren at 18 supply by your mineral line. This window is crucial. Make sure you have 14 spaces in supply to make 7 Roaches for a 7 Roach Rush. Hit as soon as they hatch, then drone up. This can also be altered, so when you hit 100 gas, upgrade Zergling speed and spam Zerglings. You can also transition into Banelings or Lair tech with an expansion. This is a very flexible build.

ZxT or ZvP 15Hatch / 14 Pool / 13 Gas / 15 OL / xx Queen - The Fast Expand Economic Build (Dat FEEB)
Scouting is required with your 10th Drone to make sure your opponent is not going to cheese. If you expect cheese, drop your Pool ASAP instead of your Hatchery. You can also try dropping a Hatchery at 13 Drones, but it is not as economic. The goal is to make a Drone with every Larva until you are comfortable with your mineral and gas saturation.

I won't be posting Muta or Hydra builds in this strategy forum, yet. Most games change too much to follow it straight-forward. Your experience and knowledge from playing many games is what helps you feel more comfortable with tech gameplay.

2v2 Strategy Temporarily Removed


Gosu Knowledge:
(Recommended Read)​

ZERGLINGS INSIDE A DEFENDED MINERAL LINE: Run your Zerglings into the workers anyways and press “H” for HOLD POSITION. Your Zerglings will attack the nearest army unit or drone next to it, they will not automatically run for an offensive unit. You will kill way more workers than Attack-Clicking. This is especially useful if your main goal of your Zerglings in his base is to do economic damage.

SCOUTING: Always know what your opponent is up to with an Overseer when your in-game timer reaches 8 minutes and 30 seconds (StarCraft 2 Faster Game Setting Time).

SATURATION: This is automated now. You can see how close you are to having 24/24 Drones on Minerals thanks to a recent patch. Gas is always 3/3, but the game shows you now. Also, mine the minerals that appear closer to your Hatchery first, your income will noticeably pick up pace by doing so.

MASSING EXAMPLE: Instead of pressing "R" (or clicking) for Roaches multiple times, you can press and hold "R" to quickly produce Roaches in mass faster. This works for any Zerg Larva unit hotkey.

INFESTORS: Infiltration. Fungal Growth. Infested Marines are effective and are also a scare tactic. It makes your army look bigger than it actually is with these free timed marines. It’s a free marine reinforcement for your Zerg Army and is extremely useful. To become Masters or Grand Masters, you will HAVE TO KNOW HOW TO USE INFESTOR’S!

EXPANSIONS: The most important resource for a Zerg player is the Gas for tech and tier of their army units. Also, prepare making Drones for your expansion before it has completed for a quick resource deployment.

FOOD SUPPLY: Watch your Supply. Supply Block is easy to avoid with taking a fast glance in the corner of your screen. If you need Overlords, make them ahead of time. You'll be making a lot of units.

OVERLORDS: Put Overlords in blind spots on the high ground so you can see your enemy coming and they don’t know they’ve been seen. This is useful on Breakable Debris or Destructible Rocks as well. They are not just meant for Food Supply, they are meant for effective scouting, too.

BURROW: Upgrade Burrow for your Roaches and Infestor’s. Infiltration can have game changing events if your opponent lacks proper detection.

Thank you and please rep me if this post was helpful to you!​

 

i find it's a waste to make a queen at 10 as you have 3 larva at the point reaching the max a hatchery can make. At this time you need to decide to make before you get the queen. Usually drones or lings w/e floats your boat. You want to utilize as much larva as you can since your army is limited by the amount of larva generated at the hatchery. If you build a queen, you would be stuck at 3 larva for the longest time since you just spent all your money on the queen. However, if you opt to get lings/drones, you can get the queen around 15 where your larva count starts to drop as your economy grows. At this point, the hatchery cannot keep up with your production rate, and you have enough extra money for a queen and enough cash flow for a few units as the larva keeps coming. This won't put you at 0 larva very much at any time, therefore utilizing your larva and economy to the maximum potential.

 

That inspired some deep thinking for this strategy. If I remember correctly, though, you have 250 minerals by the time the Spawning Pool completes to make that Queen and then another 100 to turn 2/3 larva into something such as Lings or Drones as you said. Then right when that Queen finishes, you can Inject Larva into the Hatchery, having a huge boost in flexibility in this strategy.

Thanks for your input, I will give it a try and make another strategy response here.

 

Been going 10/9/10 for the last couple games, and even though I have been doing it rather sloppily, I still come out much better economy wise, and although for a short time I am more vulnerable to early rushes, I very, very quickly can mass lings and almost double the size of a ling army I would have going 10/10/10.

With the amount of minerals you bring in you have a TON of options, leaving you opportunities for nearly anything.

Really, the only problem is maybe some very early worker harassment, and if you notice it and get them out of there, you should have 15-20 lings ready.

 

Thanks for posting your feedback, Ragels, it really helps me out making the perfect strategy. My friend and I are trying all kinds of variations of Zerg builds. Please let me know if you encounter any more issues and I will make adjustments to this build order as needed. :]

 

That's very interesting considering that people still do not, to this day, realize that the 10 pool, lord, 10 hatch, which gives 50 minerals exactly when pool gets done, is the perfect standard build order.

You still get off natural expo before making lings, and the timing of the attack is still early. merely 2 lings makes all the difference.

which would be

10/pool
9/lord
10/hatch

But gas trick is essential and impossible to do with out, using this b.o.

It is in fact the best.

 

That is an interesting thought. I have tried many BOs-to-date.

The 8pool
The 10overlord/12pool
The 10pool/9overlord/10queen
The 10pool/9overlord/defensive tech (tech strat needs work)

I have never tried a Hatchery at 10 after the 9overlord. Infact, I will try that in that next match and I will post a response with a thanks to you, AtlasMeCH.

What I really need is some form of forum moderation or someone to change the title of this post to be Zerg Strategy Discussion or Zerg 10/9/10 Rule. I will give this post some time to develop ahead of time.

Thanks for reading and viewing! Please submit more feedback!

 

Title change, and 10/9/10 works great, I've actually won a few games doing this...And I don't win much.

 

Thanks, Fenix! And I am happy to hear that you are doing well.

 

No prob. And I ain't doing well, I'm pretty much horrid at this game

Also, don't quote the post right above yours, we all know who you're talking to

 

"Roaches will counter Marauders" ...what? It's the other way around. Marauders are basically built for taking down Roaches.

I tend to 12-pool, extractor and queen immediately after.

Against Terran, I basically always go for the Zergligng speed upgrade, then a Baneling nest. At 26/26, I send all of my Zerglings to the enemy base, morph 5 Banelings, blow up the pair of depots and rush in. The upgrade usually finishes just before the attack. I can usually take out any defense and make a dent on the economy before the Zerglings die. By the time the last Zergling is down, the second wave of ~12 Zerglings hits.

I'm kinda meh vs Z and P, as Zerg.

 

Neon, What would you do if they made a bulkier wall(like three Barracks, two besides each other and one behind them)?

 

I don't know about him personally, but I would just wait a bit for some more Banelings and blow up a barracks....

If it was a bunker however, I may think twice. I am not sure how much health they have, and I have never had to go up against a Terran that used on at a choke.

 

Ragels,

If the wall is made up of Barracks, it is best to just cancel the Baneling rush plan and place them aside for when the Terran attacks. Banelings deal massive damage to Marines and Marauders alike. Change your strategy up and focus on making more Zerglings, Banelings and you will most likely need Roaches and Hydras later.

Late-game, use Corrupters to Broodlords with Speedlings to prevent the Terran from microing.
Hydralisks are insane when upgraded, too. 12 Damage a shot with a high attack rate, perhaps the strongest DPS unit the Zerg has in their arsenal.



10-Neon,

I was wrong about the Roaches countering Marauders, the best choice to counter Marauders( t1.5) is Zerglings (t1). You'll need a lot of them.

Zerglings and Banelings counter the MMs. Not Roaches. I never touched base on the Infestor... The infestor has a plague ability for 75 energy that can snare and deal damage over time to a large clump of units. It almost kills all Marines it hits by itself. When the units are slowed down, they cannot micro and with many Zerglings, they will surround and deal the last 1-2 hits for a kill. Marauders will take 1/3 of their HP away from this spell, and the Zerglings will also clear them off the map.

I typed my strategies when it was like 5am, and forgot Roaches were armored units aka. the Zerg tank unit.

 

Ah, alright.

I personally haven't gone up against a Terran that used a double barracks wall yet, at least not in 1v1, and I generally don't go for the Terran in 2v2.

Thanks for the tip in advance though. It is certainly a better idea to just leave banelings out of sight for when he decides to leave his base.

 

really like the 10/9/10, though I'm still having . Used it in ths gam, in fact -interesting end, my best game yet so I had to advertise

http://sc2.nibbits.com/replays/view/970/zvz-perfect-timingshocking-end

 

Great read guys. Been focusing on Protoss so far, but the 10/9/10 gives me a real good early zerg build to follow and branch off from. Seems that using the larvae at hatcheries is going to be important.

 

Can someone go a little in depth on hydras.

What do they counter, when are they good, etc. Are they good vs zealots / immortals?

 

Hydras are a good all around unit really.

They counter zealots if you can even micro them a little bit, because they have a large range, and are probably Zergs best air defense.

That said, with the recent nerf to their HP, they crumble even quicker under fire than they used to, so for them to be effective you have to use them in masses.

 

Hydras are much worse now, They can get one shot by a thor easily now, and almost die to a storm. They have no armor, considered light. Basically they are MUCH more squishy now.

Zerg needs a unit that does bonus dmg to armor like seriously...