Zergling-Infestor. Crush Any 200/200 Protoss

[Genopath]

I've had some success using this unit combination on ladder. I thought I should share this with you guys.

Original Post by: nymeria from the TL Strategy Forum

On April 19 2011 09:51 nymeria wrote:

Short video of some Zergling-Infestor battles vs Protoss (not 200/200)

Please read this before criticizing the video and/or replays:

Hidden Content:

I can't help it if the Protosses I've played so far impatiently attack w/ less than 200/200 armies in my ladder games. That's why I haven't posted many examples of what the title of this thread claims. I'm only one person with limited time to play this game (and i started working on this strategy only 2 weeks ago). There were a couple of days where it seemed impossible to get a any sort of rhythm going because all my opponents were Zergs and Terrans. And the biggest problem I have is that the early game for the build is still a mystery to me. This reduces the number of positive experiences I've had with Zergling-Infestor vs Protoss.

These clips only hint at the possibilities. With mediocre micro you can do so much more.
(please ignore the last clip with the banelings for this topic)

I am working on another video that has more clips and examples of what I'm learning is the best way to win vs Protoss. Oftentimes in my games where protoss does reach a max army, my opponent has already lost some battles earlier on. The lopsided way in which those earlier battles turned out intimidates them into keeping a safe distance away from my army and I often didn't feel the need to engage until I had brood lords. Now I know I could have been more aggressive with my Zergling-Infestor armies; those situations were tense enough at the time that I didn't want to risk it until I had some brood lords to accompany my forces.

At mid-masters on the NA server, there's probably nothing I can do to convince you that this works at the highest skill levels. For all you naysayers, I refer you to this post by LiquidTyler: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...page=712#14228

Before: Protoss Death-Ball


After: Protoss Beach-Ball


About me:

Hidden Content:

I am a long time reader/lurker of TL.net. Before this thread, I was vying with TSL 1's Liquibet winner BreakEnter for the crown of fewest posts per year.

Played BroodWar since 1998 with my brother [tlpd#players#1639#Z#sc2-international]Zelniq[/tlpd]. In BroodWar, we played all three races in mostly non-mirror matchups. I partly blame this for our difficulty breaking into B- level on ICCup. If only there was a tournament where players had to play each matchup (best of 9).

Unlike my brother who started playing StarCraft 2 since the beginning of the beta, I only picked it up last November. Here's my sc2rank profile if you're interested. My brother advised me to pick a race besides Zerg to play (i think because he said something about how he feels Blizzard designed Zerg poorly), and thinks I did it just to spite him. Not true. Zerg was my strongest race in BroodWar. Speedlings were just too good. (hmm....) My speciality was only being able to comfortably use 3 hotkeys for Zerg units (Maximum of 12 Mutas on #1, 12 Zerglings on #2, 12 Zerglings on #3...which is only about 28 supply hotkeyed. Yet somehow i was able to manage siege tanks on #4 and vessels on #5. Go Figure). The rest of my units I had to micro without hotkeys. As you'll see in the video above and the replays below, 3-5 unit hotkeys has now become 1. Don't play like I do, just see the strength of what I'm talking about.

Thanks and I'd love to read your comments. And if you're a protoss player who honestly thinks this strategy isn't viable, please feel free to wholeheartedly praise the merits of this build.

The Four Steps To Winning Any ZvP

1. Safely get to Infestor Tech
2. Get only Infestors and Zerglings. Tip: Building Infestors at the same time you start the Pathogen Gland research means those infestors will have 70 (instead of the optimal 75) energy when the research completes. To optimize the rest of your infestors, start building them around the halfway mark of Pathogen Gland research. For many Colossi, you need Neural Parasite.
3. Take the Map
4. Use a few brood lords to mop-up if necessary.

Hidden Content:

There is only one "counter" to Zergling-Infestor that I can think of. cannons and psi storm

20 Reasons Why Zergs Should Go Zergling-Infestor
1. The zerg army will always crush a same-sized or bigger protoss army.
2. No over/under-making a unit anymore(roaches, corruptors, banelings, etc.)
3. The tech is cheaper.

Hidden Content:

Zergling-Infestor (w/ np): 400/400 + 1 drone

Roach-Muta/Corruptor: 600/450 + 2 drones
Roach-Infestor (w/o np): 650/500 + 2 drones
Baneling-Infestor(w/o np): 700/650 + 2 drones
Roach-Hydra-Corruptor: 850/700 + 3 drones

Zerg Tech Costs

Hidden Content:

bane nest 100/50
roach warren 150
hydra den 100/100
spire 200/200
glial reconstitution 100/100
tunneling claws 150/150
grooved spines 150/150
centrifugal hooks 150/150
pneumatized carapace 100/100
ventral sacs 200/200
infestation pit 100/100
pathogen glands 150/150
neural parasite 150/150

4. Fungal is psi storm + ensnare that only hits enemy units.
5. Neural gives you their units for 15 seconds. 15!
6. You can dispel forcefields with your colossi.
7. An infestor can cast as many as 8 infested terrans to complement your fungals and zerglings.
8. No hive tech needed.
9. Scouting is almost pointless now.
10. Fungal catches phoenixes.
11. Fungal attacks and reveals cloaked units.
12. Unlike banelings, you get to keep your infestors after a battle.
13. Infestors can move while burrowed (and they are faster than burrowed roaches).
14. A fungaled colossi cannot be micro'd away.
15. Two fungals or one fungal and one terran to kill an observer. (goes well with 13)
16. If you decide to sac your hive/lair, all you need to do before it dies is rebuild an infestor pit
somewhere else on the map. Now you are fully teched up again.
17. Learning how to win ZvP now is just learning how to most effectively use the zergling and the
infestor.
18. You have plenty of zerglings at all times for harassment, scouting, blocking nexuses.
19. Zerglings typically require little or no micro to be effective.
20. Zerglings have the shortest build-times.
New! 21. Void Rays cannot build up a charge vs Zerglings.

Disadvantages

Hidden Content:

1. The early game is different and possibly tougher than current standards.
2. Zerglings require a lot of surface area to be effective on their own, making chokes and well placed force fields problematic for engagements.
i.e. weak vs low surface area rocks
weak vs a unit blocking an entrance/exit
weak vs low surface area cannons
3. Zerglings are larva heavy. You need extra hatches. Injects are more important than with other current builds.
4. Infestors have only 90 hp, no armor, and take longer to build than any other lair tech unit. They’re also more valuable to your army than any other type of unit. Make more than you need.

Guide:
1. Use lings to deal and take damage.
2. Keep infestors safe behind your lings.
3. Use 2-3 fungals to take out their clustered sentries or high-templar.
4. Use neural parasite to add colossi to your forces.
5. Experts-only: walk your colossi closer towards your army before letting them engage, not only to dispel any forcefields but if you should lose your NP'ing infestors somehow, your fungals will keep the colossi in the open where your lings can attack them.
6. Use fungals when their army is clumped and infested terrans when they are not.
7. I don't usually do this but I suppose it makes sense: after all their units are dead and only your colossi remain, instead of letting your zerglings finish them off, NP them again and have them attack each other. Do not try this in the battle because the splash damage no longer affects the other protoss units.

from BallsOfSteel:

The one thing I see preventing this from being a guide is the lack of opening build(s). From the replays, I would say these are the basic requirements for this mid-game strategy:
- At least 2 bases with saturation on both minerals and gas
- Lair tech
- Enough map control to fight in favorable positions

Since these are requirements for the strategy, they should be the goals for any opening builds that you incorporate. I use two that I think would be ideal for reaching these goals quickly, without giving an edge to your opponent.

1) 11 Pool, 19 Hatch (I picked this up from a replay of EVORekatan)
http://www.youtube.com/user/Rekatan#p/u/7/8tStlgu8Tfg
- Aggressive style that tries to gain advantage by denying enemy expo
- Harder to Pylon block since the Hatchery goes down as 2 sets of Lings spawn
- Has the option to forgo the mid-game of Ling/Infestor if you see an opening to end the game sooner
- Very good against 1 base play (4Gate, early Robo tech, etc)

2) 15Hatch, 14Pool or 16Hatch, 15Pool (no real difference between the two for me)
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=207017 - A good example
- Defensive style that uses Queens and Spines to deal with early pressure (if there is any)
- You can stop at 2 Queens and go heavy on Spines if you think a rush is coming
or
- You can get 2 Spines and go heavy on Queens if you think a rush is coming (preferable, since it also deals with air and doesn't lose as many Drones)
- 2 or more Extractors when you have saturation on both mineral lines

Warning - Don't be a noob like me and group your infestors on the same hotkey as your zerglings. This leads to infestors trying to mate with the icky protoss.

How To Use Infestors To Crush Any Protoss army
Colossi Beach-Balls: Neural Parasite & Fungal & Terrans
High Templar: Fungal & Terrans
Zealot/Stalker/Sentry: Fungal & Terrans
Colossi/Void Ray Beach-Ball: Neural Parasite & Fungal & Terrans
Archons: Terrans (Neural Parasite only if you want to taunt them)

Replays from the video
replay of clip 1 on metalopolis
replay of clip 2 on typhon peaks
replay of clip 3 on tal'darim altar
replay of clip 4 on scrap station

More Replays:
- The protoss in this game had no answers at all for ling-infestor: http://drop.sc/6703
- Instant-GG game from the screenshot earlier: http://drop.sc/6704
- Good Forcefields are not the answer: http://drop.sc/6705 (skip to 14 min mark to see why.
eventually i stop playing seriously to see if he can figure out a solution to my approach)
- Winning w/o using NP vs a less than stellar void ray/colossus ball http://drop.sc/6706
- 17 min mark: workers even at 85 a piece. 72-104 army supply. one minute later: 41-40. this
despite terrible micro from me http://drop.sc/6707

here's some replays of me botching this build:

Hidden Content:

http://drop.sc/6701
this game shows what poor decision making, poor macro, an inferior economy, and disasterous micro can look like with this build.

http://drop.sc/6702
fast forward to the 25 min mark to see how i failed at the key moment of the game. had i won this battle i think i could have come back to win.

More replays to come! Post your own and I'll spotlight them here.

[JackhammerIV]

Haven't been laddering much. Saw the original TL post. Maybe have a link to the original post?? But yeah just the sound of it is really really bad if I'm going for a deathball.:P

[RamiZ]

Glad that you've posted this here.

[n00bonicPlague]

This reminds me of a few livestreamed games that Gifted did way back in the beta. There was this handful of Zerg matches that he lost because the players were massing Infestors like hotcakes and simply seizing control of half of his army all of the friggin' time, as well as fungal-ing a lot of his doodz. I think he eventually managed to figure out a strategy against it, but I'm not sure. I know SaharaDrac commentated one of the matches and uploaded it on SCL's old youtube account. I'm gonna see if I can find it . . .

EDIT:

Okay . . . umm . . . they would have been on y'all's old youtube channel, but it got auto-terminated at some point because of multiple third-party notifications of copyright infringement from a few key bodies: http://www.youtube.com/user/StarCraftLegacy I'm not sure when that happened, but that really sucks because that's the only place these videos were, unless y'all have 'em stuffed away somewhere else . . .

[Twilice]

Infestors are even better now with the doubled DPS. I tend to always use a couple of infestors, research burrow and overlord speed + 1 zergling attack. Then go for some nydus distraction.

[Snoopy007]

nice guide, and great use of INfestor man, but personally, I think it's not the most efficient way to win....

[Wankey]

Hmm, yes that seems to be the new norm. However, I think roaches need to be a bit smaller and roach infestor would be OP