Need Help with The Zerg

[Kaloth]

Hi, i'm having great difficulties in b.net against opponents of any race as Zerg, i hardly gain any wins, and both of my bnet accounts have about 3x amount of losses compared to wins. Usual maps i play on are BGH, or Lost Temple(just the stock Blizzard BGH or LT, no custom maps).

I cannot match people on micromanagment no matter what i do, if i micromanage my troops i find my tech & resource gathering falling behind thus i eventually get beaten, if i tech up i get slaughtered by superior numbers. i just cannot handle doing 2 or 3 diffrent things at the same time, i get easily distracted, and most of all people with great micro have no trouble picking my swarms apart with fewer units with worse upgrades.

I have great trouble against Protoss, and Zerg in particicular. I always find my Zerg opponents ahead of me on the resource gathering front, despite the fact i'm always building drones non-stop, but by the time i have 7 or 8 drones, they already have something along lines of 12, thus i fall behind on resources, and troops and upgrades. Protoss manage to always beat off my initial rush(6 pool or 9 pool depending is it LT, or BGH). Then they come at me with huge number of Zealots, wich i cannot counter with my workers, any attacking units i have at that point, and the few sunkens i have.

I also have great trouble trying to expand, and attack at the same time as my troops get depleted at a rapid amount, then they attack me when i'm still restocking on troops. I also have a hard time pulling off attacks on 2 fronts, for example putting a lurker drop on the enemys workers, while my hydra's and lings distract them on their front door.

Also one of the biggest Terran strategies i have trouble countering, is M&M even when i have a great amount of lurkers, and hydras awaiting him, and a few sunkens.

Does anyone have good Zerg strategies, besides Mutaling, or Hydra & lurker, or Ling & Ultralisk, or Ling, Hydra & Defilers?

And do you have anykind of tips on how to improve poor micromanagment, while not requiring too great reflexes?

I'll try finding a replay i could attach here..
[edit]Okay heres 3 replays, Replay 1 shows me & my ally(both Zerg) loosing vs a Toss, and Zerg on Lost Temple. Replays 2 & 3 show me winning on BGH, but they still show some of the mistakes i make. http://www10.brinkster.com/villem/Kaloth%20Replays.zip

[Siege_Commander]

Okay. NEVER play BGH

[own3d0406]

Yeah, never play BGH, looks like the sites to your replays dont work, microing and macroing on zerg is the hardest of any race, so I suggest maybe switching your race.

I have great trouble against Protoss, and Zerg in particicular. I always find my Zerg opponents ahead of me on the resource gathering front, despite the fact i'm always building drones non-stop, but by the time i have 7 or 8 drones, they already have something along lines of 12, thus i fall behind on resources, and troops and upgrades. Protoss manage to always beat off my initial rush(6 pool or 9 pool depending is it LT, or BGH). Then they come at me with huge number of Zealots, wich i cannot counter with my workers, any attacking units i have at that point, and the few sunkens i have.

I also have great trouble trying to expand, and attack at the same time as my troops get depleted at a rapid amount, then they attack me when i'm still restocking on troops. I also have a hard time pulling off attacks on 2 fronts, for example putting a lurker drop on the enemys workers, while my hydra's and lings distract them on their front door.

Also one of the biggest Terran strategies i have trouble countering, is M&M even when i have a great amount of lurkers, and hydras awaiting him, and a few sunkens. Yes, I think you should definitly switch your race.

[Kaloth]

Yeah, never play BGH, looks like the sites to your replays dont work...Try opening the link in a new window, i know Brinkster doesn't fancy direct linking sometimes. or try save-as.

And as to your suggestion of switching race, i have tried Terran, and Protoss in the past, and i found gameplay with terrans rather micro intensive, relying on fast movement of medics, and stimpacking of marines in heat of battles, and aggressively mining with vultures, and tank pushing, not to mention lack of anykind of early detector unit, so comsat station is in huge use. Protoss suffer of samekind of weakness, not to mention the cost of units, and somewhat huge specialization in certain fields, making early game microing the decisive thing between loosing, and winning.

[own3d0406]

Now it looks like Im forbiden to go to the site, whatever that means. Anyway, if you truly want to play zerg, you should try hotkeying. Hotkeying helps keep your units in order and helps when you have to fall back. Instead of building spawning pool at 6 or 9, build either hatchery or spawning pool at 12. Again, microing and macroing zerg is the hardest, you have to constantly expand. When your microing, you dont need to keep a constant eye on your units, use attack move, scroll back to your base, click a drone, and make the building you need, takes about 2 seconds. Those are some noob things, Im pretty sure someone better could help you out more. Again, I think you should switch your race.

[Ahzz]

Hi, i'm having great difficulties in b.net against opponents of any race as Zerg, i hardly gain any wins, and both of my bnet accounts have about 3x amount of losses compared to wins. Usual maps i play on are BGH, or Lost Temple(just the stock Blizzard BGH or LT, no custom maps).
just about any newbies have that win/loss ratio at the start. Don't worry about stats, they don't mean much. Don't play BGH, since it got unlimited resources and completely imbalanced, so it makes learning pointless and stuff..
I cannot match people on micromanagment no matter what i do, if i micromanage my troops i find my tech & resource gathering falling behind thus i eventually get beaten, if i tech up i get slaughtered by superior numbers. i just cannot handle doing 2 or 3 diffrent things at the same time, i get easily distracted, and most of all people with great micro have no trouble picking my swarms apart with fewer units with worse upgrades.
This, you learn by time. At first people will prolly keep beating you rather easily since they're better or have more experience. At first concentrate on macro. just get alot of units. Cover your micro at the start by doing alot of upgrades, maybe two evolution chambers fairly fast upgrading will grant you the advantage on the battle even if you won't micro much. This is, as long as you can do atleast as fast or faster upgrades than your opponent.
I have great trouble against Protoss, and Zerg in particicular. I always find my Zerg opponents ahead of me on the resource gathering front, despite the fact i'm always building drones non-stop, but by the time i have 7 or 8 drones, they already have something along lines of 12, thus i fall behind on resources, and troops and upgrades. Protoss manage to always beat off my initial rush(6 pool or 9 pool depending is it LT, or BGH). Then they come at me with huge number of Zealots, wich i cannot counter with my workers, any attacking units i have at that point, and the few sunkens i have.
your build order is exactly the reason you fall behind. 6 or 9 pool is quite easy to beat, and your economy is screwed unless you get to do some major damage, which needs alot of micro. and if you start doing alot of micro, your macro will screw up which is worse than having a bad micro. Improve your build order by not trying to pointlessly do faster rush than is needed or no rush at all. Make 9 drones at first, then overlord, and then 3 drones more. if you wanna take it fairly safe, do spawning pool next, then maybe hatchery, a few more drones and extractor. This way you will get quite good economy pretty fast, and still get units. Now you won't have to do much more drones, you can do zergling speed or/and lair next, and keep making some lings. scout his army, if you think you'll win, attack, but if chances are you could lose, don't waste the lings. Prepare a flank with the lings and possibly take an expansion while teching forward, making a few more drones and more lings. Start lurkers or mutalisks or something and keep expanding. if he's terran or protoss, try to have atleast one more expansion than him. Preferably even more. If you're going to make lings at the start, don't bother wasting your minerals on sunken colonies. Rather just make them to your expansion if you think you need them. this way it will cover you main, and your expansion..
I also have great trouble trying to expand, and attack at the same time as my troops get depleted at a rapid amount, then they attack me when i'm still restocking on troops. I also have a hard time pulling off attacks on 2 fronts, for example putting a lurker drop on the enemys workers, while my hydra's and lings distract them on their front door.
Likr I said earlier, while you're at that level try to minimize your troop wasting unless you have a high chance of winning. Also, don't just keep staring at your units while they die. keep building units more and more while doing so. Often attacking is also protecting a new expansion, so you usually get pretty free hands on atleast one expansion while you attack. he shouldn't have much units left after the attack, so the units you kept making while attacking should be enough for defending the expansion. The way I micro and make units the same time is hotkeying my hatcheries 0,9,8,7 etc. This way while watching over my troops and microing them all I gotta do is press 0sh9sh8sz7sz etc. In that example I made hydralisks from 2 hatcheries and zerglings from two.
Also one of the biggest Terran strategies i have trouble countering, is M&M even when i have a great amount of lurkers, and hydras awaiting him, and a few sunkens.

Against mass m&m if you're doing hydra lurk you've got to make alot of upgrades. I like to do two evoltion chamber missile + carapace upgrading. This way I will not be behind, I could even be ahead in upgrades which is really a huge advantage if you're going hydras. All you gotta do with great numbers of hydra lurk vs m&m is flank them from many directions at the same time. Don't try to burrow the lurks too early, but not too late either. This way if you flanked him well he doesn't really have many directions to run from the spines and you might get alot of m&m with the needle spines lurk shoots.
One advice tho, I don't recommend doing hydra lurk against m&m + mass tanks. Hydras really get slaughtered by them. What I like to do is at the start flank with lings and lurks, but attack only if needed. it's important not to burrow too early vs mass tanks. Later on I add defilers and also do fairly fast guardian tech. if you do it fast enough, he will hardly have vessels to get them since he spent his gas doing tanks, and they should be very effective. Tho, If I've managed to get enough expansions, I just will go ultra and leave guards out, usually.
Does anyone have good Zerg strategies, besides Mutaling, or Hydra & lurker, or Ling & Ultralisk, or Ling, Hydra & Defilers?

And do you have anykind of tips on how to improve poor micromanagment, while not requiring too great reflexes?
Watch replays of progamers and look build orders and starts from them. Micromanagement improves by experience. Once you get faster and better at multitasking, it will automatically improve. Watching some replays of good people microing helps a bit too.


Well, that was quite long piece of text. I'll probably look your replays tomorrow and give you more advice.

And Don't listen to the people here. They don't know a shit what they're talking about. You won't do better switching your race, different and more problems than with zerg will just keep occuring, so leave that out. just practise doing zerg unless it feels really boring and you really WANT to switch race. Otherwise no.

[Kaloth]

Heres 1 replay to accompany the others, shows me & my teammates winning in a other map than BGH or LT. Tried to apply your suggestions to my strategy, Ahzz.

http://www10.brinkster.com/villem/Kaloth%20Replay%204.zip

[Ahzz]

No problem with LT. It's a great map and usually newbies should learn it well before moving to next

[GroG]

Also with zerg, you should remember when to "power" (make drones) and when to produce troops, since they are made from the same building, hatcheries. Going 6 pool is risky since it hurts your econ, same as a 9 pool. A safer build is 10 pool/11 hat, 12 pool/11hat, or any variation there. 9 pool is fine too, but it's main intent is an earlier harass build where you can also expand. If you are playing team games, and your ally says to "rush" or something, you can usually 9 pool and arrive at the same time your opponent does.

Also, remember to scout. If you scout your opponent turtling, power. If he's building a lot of units, match those (or hope a tech completes in time to get tech units). Zergs expand a lot more, make around 2 drones per patch at each expansion, but you can't expand unless you contain or are harassing them in some way, which is why you see a lot of zergs lurk contain -> double expand, or muta harass into expand.

Suiciding ovies every so often is not a bad idea, lets you see unit numbers and tech. But not too often.

Micro/Macro no one can tell you how, you just need to play a ton more. Go play on PGTour or WGTour or something.

[Alexisonfire]

just about any newbies have that win/loss ratio at the start. Don't worry about stats, they don't mean much. Don't play BGH, since it got unlimited resources and completely imbalanced, so it makes learning pointless and stuff..

This, you learn by time. At first people will prolly keep beating you rather easily since they're better or have more experience. At first concentrate on macro. just get alot of units. Cover your micro at the start by doing alot of upgrades, maybe two evolution chambers fairly fast upgrading will grant you the advantage on the battle even if you won't micro much. This is, as long as you can do atleast as fast or faster upgrades than your opponent.

your build order is exactly the reason you fall behind. 6 or 9 pool is quite easy to beat, and your economy is screwed unless you get to do some major damage, which needs alot of micro. and if you start doing alot of micro, your macro will screw up which is worse than having a bad micro. Improve your build order by not trying to pointlessly do faster rush than is needed or no rush at all. Make 9 drones at first, then overlord, and then 3 drones more. if you wanna take it fairly safe, do spawning pool next, then maybe hatchery, a few more drones and extractor. This way you will get quite good economy pretty fast, and still get units. Now you won't have to do much more drones, you can do zergling speed or/and lair next, and keep making some lings. scout his army, if you think you'll win, attack, but if chances are you could lose, don't waste the lings. Prepare a flank with the lings and possibly take an expansion while teching forward, making a few more drones and more lings. Start lurkers or mutalisks or something and keep expanding. if he's terran or protoss, try to have atleast one more expansion than him. Preferably even more. If you're going to make lings at the start, don't bother wasting your minerals on sunken colonies. Rather just make them to your expansion if you think you need them. this way it will cover you main, and your expansion..

Likr I said earlier, while you're at that level try to minimize your troop wasting unless you have a high chance of winning. Also, don't just keep staring at your units while they die. keep building units more and more while doing so. Often attacking is also protecting a new expansion, so you usually get pretty free hands on atleast one expansion while you attack. he shouldn't have much units left after the attack, so the units you kept making while attacking should be enough for defending the expansion. The way I micro and make units the same time is hotkeying my hatcheries 0,9,8,7 etc. This way while watching over my troops and microing them all I gotta do is press 0sh9sh8sz7sz etc. In that example I made hydralisks from 2 hatcheries and zerglings from two.

Against mass m&m if you're doing hydra lurk you've got to make alot of upgrades. I like to do two evoltion chamber missile + carapace upgrading. This way I will not be behind, I could even be ahead in upgrades which is really a huge advantage if you're going hydras. All you gotta do with great numbers of hydra lurk vs m&m is flank them from many directions at the same time. Don't try to burrow the lurks too early, but not too late either. This way if you flanked him well he doesn't really have many directions to run from the spines and you might get alot of m&m with the needle spines lurk shoots.
One advice tho, I don't recommend doing hydra lurk against m&m + mass tanks. Hydras really get slaughtered by them. What I like to do is at the start flank with lings and lurks, but attack only if needed. it's important not to burrow too early vs mass tanks. Later on I add defilers and also do fairly fast guardian tech. if you do it fast enough, he will hardly have vessels to get them since he spent his gas doing tanks, and they should be very effective. Tho, If I've managed to get enough expansions, I just will go ultra and leave guards out, usually.

Watch replays of progamers and look build orders and starts from them. Micromanagement improves by experience. Once you get faster and better at multitasking, it will automatically improve. Watching some replays of good people microing helps a bit too.


Well, that was quite long piece of text. I'll probably look your replays tomorrow and give you more advice.

And Don't listen to the people here. They don't know a shit what they're talking about. You won't do better switching your race, different and more problems than with zerg will just keep occuring, so leave that out. just practise doing zerg unless it feels really boring and you really WANT to switch race. Otherwise no.i agree

[PrestonBurke]

6 or 9 pool? Thats your reason for having a slow rescource gather rate.

It should be: 12 pool and hatchery. Start your overlord at 8. Hotkeying your hatcherys is very helpful also, 2 hatcherys per base should be suffcient to continuslay throw troops at your enemy.

I havent played B.net in a while, so i'm trying to scrounge up strats. And dont play BGH either, it kills your MP skills since your so use to having uber rescources.

[B.A.Baracus]

Start your overlord at 8.
Why would you do that?

[MidnightGladius]

Yeah... drones til 9, ovie on 9. Then 3 drones and either pool or hatch, depending on how close the starts are.

[Superiorwolf]

8 Overlord isn't good? I watched someone on a replay do it so they could have constant drone production

[GroG]

there really is no difference between 8 overlord and 9 overlord. especially at average skill level, and probably not even at pro level.

[Superiorwolf]

Ok, so 8 ovie is okay?

[Ahzz]

yes, but 99% prefer 9 ovie cuz its more simple

[U-238]

And you can always do an extractor trick and end up with 10/9 drones with the 10 drone finishing just before the ovy's done.

[GroG]

i highly doubt 99% of all zergs go 9 overlord. it's just a preference, like how some T's build their depots below their minerals in that space and others build them above, etc.

[MidnightGladius]

Actually, most Ts that I've seen build their first few depots either to:
- wall
- block off space behind minerals (so enemy scouts can't run back and forth behind the minerals)

It's been some time since I've seen a first depot right in the middle of the main.

[GroG]

notice how I didn't say "first few" depots, I said depots. Like when you are macroing midgame.

I'm not a newb. Insinuating that I am is funny to me.

[MidnightGladius]

I didn't say that you were, or insinuate that you were. I was merely listing my observations.

[GroG]

That's nice of you. Also, most T's don't wall anymore, they float rax TvT to scout, and they don't wall TvZ, and some don't wall TvP anymore (they build a few rines), so I'd say less than 1/3 still wall these days.

[Sambo83]

9 overlord is economically superior. Extractor trick is economically harming.. it's only useful if you want to go 10/9 hat in expo for an early hat expo build zvp (so you can get a sunken down fast to stop zeal rush).

[blupp74]

9 overlord is economically superior. Extractor trick is economically harming.. it's only useful if you want to go 10/9 hat in expo for an early hat expo build zvp (so you can get a sunken down fast to stop zeal rush).

How is it economically harming? Do you lose minerals for the cancelled extractor? You get one more drone while you wait for the overlord to finish...so unless cancelling loses you money...how does it harm?
(I'm not a Z player, so I don't know much about it...just curious)

[Sambo83]

yea you don't get a full refund for cancelled buildings.. i don't remember offhand, but someone figured it out like 3 years ago (at least that's when i remember a bunch of bs about it... im sure someone figured it out before that but who cares :P) that it wasn't better than just goin with 9 drones till the ovie is done.

[blupp74]

yea you don't get a full refund for cancelled buildings.. i don't remember offhand, but someone figured it out like 3 years ago (at least that's when i remember a bunch of bs about it... im sure someone figured it out before that but who cares :P) that it wasn't better than just goin with 9 drones till the ovie is done.

Then again...how MUCH do you lose?
If the drone saved from cancelling the hatch can collect more minerals than you lose, in the time it takes the overlord to finish, you're still ahead.

Hmm...someone who cares should test this, and report.
Does anyone care? Anyone? Hello?

[Sambo83]

It was tested like a billion times I'm sure. That's what my point was.. you make up less than the minerals you lose.. only good reason to do the extractor trick is to make a building.

I used to do 9 OL, extractor trick, 11 gas 10 pool in zvz.. but ehh.. looking back not sure if that was even the best way to do it.. but it lets u get the gas and pool in a bit earlier and still have the same number of drones as if you hadn't extractor tricked.

I'm sure somewhere along the line, a newbie saw a replay of something like that and thought the extractor trick was a good way to get an extra drone to harvest. That's probably how it caught on.

[GroG]

You get something like 2/3 or 3/4 return on cancelled building, not sure. You have the extra drone for enough time to maybe mine enough minerals to make it worthwhile (or maybe not).

As for 9 ovie economically superior, when you 8 ovie you are just moving the gap of time where you can't produce units a bit earlier, so, no it's not. At our level of play (as I said before), 8 ovie and 9 ovie make no difference.

[Sambo83]

well it depends on your exact build..
9 pool 8 ovie is better than 9 pool 9 ovie.. but 9 ovie 12 hatch is better than 8 ovie 12 hatch.. whether having an extra drone harvesting for 4-5 seconds "matters at your level" is up to you I guess..

Personally, since it's not at all difficult to do and carries no risk, I'll take the very slightly better economy over not taking it.

[GroG]

But you seem to forget, your 10th drone will come later if you 9 overlord (as opposed to 8), so you lose 4 seconds there. So no, you gain nothing, just reapportioning with 1 more or less drone.

[Sambo83]

O_o you'd be right with any other race, but because of how zerg works u aren't.. cuz at 9/9 supply then when the ovie hatches you can make 2 drones immediately and like 1 more drone like 2 seconds later because the larvae collect there.. so if you make an over at 8/9 you basically lose "100 minerals worth" of harvesting time from 1 drone.. i.e. however long it takes your 8 drones to gather 100 minerals for that overlord is the amount of time that you'll have had 1 less drone harvest..

you won't be able to make up for it after the ovie pops because your larvae generation rate is the same.. i.e. with either build you'll have 12 drones at the same time, but with 9 ovie, you had 9 drones earlier.

[ShadeZ]

You lose a bit of time with 9 ovie at end because you don't build your 2nd larvae as fast as it spawns but the time is made up because the time you lose on 8 ovie is much greater, meaning 9 ovie has maximum yield

[Ahzz]

8 or 9, it doesn't make a real difference, except that 9 is simpler and easier to pull of if you get even a bit careless.