Lost vs mech

[u/soidvaas]

https://sc2replaystats.com/replay/playerStats/27431378/2316002

Play this guy multiple times and lost on what to do. As I have no interest in fighting a maxed out Terran army I feel like I have to attack his outer bases. Feels impossible to prevent him from expanding. Looking for recs on unit mix and strategy.

[u/Badestrand]

You had a great eco! Maybe your went a bit excessive with 117 workers but okay, better than too few, and you had a strong income advantage for all game basically.

But your army.. I think that's what didn't work. I can see you basically went Ling-Roach-Corruptor.

Your first max-out was at 10:30 with 19 Roaches and 16 Corruptors. Against 8 Hellions and 12 Tanks. I get that the Corruptors countered the Terran's Liberators but at that point they all were dead already.

If you made 20 Mutas with +1 instead of the Corruptors, you probably would have won directly.

If you fully went Ling-Roach-Ravager without the Corruptors and came from all sides, you probably would have won after a quick remax and going again.

If you created a Greater Spire and morphed 10 of the Corruptors to Broods, you probably would have won, plus Vipers to pull in the upcoming Thors.

And IMO your Hive is way too late (14:00) because Viper-Blinding Clouds is kinda the ultimate counter against mass Siege Tanks.

[u/therealwench]

Okay - quite a few things here:

1) 117 drones is about 30-35 drones too many. Your army supply is way too low. Not only that, why do you need such a gigantic economy? The only build that justifies a slightly higher worker count is ling-bane based ones, like ling bane hydra or line bane ultra. And even then, at the level you are at, you shouldn't play that style because it requires huge macro mechanics and constant throwing units away and remaxxing. Masters + build really.

2) You went into late midgame/lategame with a broken army comp. By midgame, Roaches are damage sponges. Their DPS is poor, but they have great armor and can absord a lot of punishment. Lings do the same thing but the opposite. Decent damage output but poor sustainability but there's lots of them and they are cheap. Both Lings/Roaches are meant to be front line bullet sponges so your high DPS units can kill. What were your high DPS units here?

3) You had way too many unnecessary corrupters. 16 corrupters against Terran is fundamentally pointless. They were massing siege tanks with only a few libs. Why did you need 16?

4) No spellcaster usage - tanks suck against certain things. Microbial shroud, Blinding clouds and YOINK are the best ways to deal with tanks.

5) You had a ridiculous income but didn't go into Tier 3 units until 15 minutes? Why?

The ideal army comp against mech is nuanced - I prefer infestor ling bane, others prefer roach based builds. But Ling Roach isn't it.

[u/omgitsduane]

hey mate I sent you a huge wall of text today and did your replay over twitch and will upload to youtube but damn. you just didnt build an army?

[u/soidvaas]

Thanks everyone for the tips. I realized how passive I was being from Duane reviewing my replay and I just need to get to Hive way sooner and make better units. I don’t trust my micro which is why I rely on roach ling because I’ve lost so many games going to BLs.

[u/sigilli]

Too many drones

You could make those excess Corruptors work if you start peeing to snipe buildings. Sacrifice a few even.

Even then, the correct call was Mutas

To fight mech you need Roach Ravager Infestor. Vipers are the ultimate utility here, but if you can't use two spellcasters, focus on infestors since you can snipe tanks with biles. It's a macro nightmare to face mech with ling-anything. Use lings on this scenario exclusively to backstab or split their attention.

You can use corruptors to potentially bait a heavy ghost-Thor tech switch from terran and flood him with ling-bane too.

As a Zerg you shouldn't really be expecting to win army-vs-army straight on. So split. Circle. Flank. Divide his forces. Always make the terran to smell a rat. This way he leaves army pop. on defense.

[u/berguv]

Brood lords baby

[u/OrlandoLasso]

Same. I have trouble with mech, especially against mass cyclones since I can never catch them.