Is it possible to beat zergs?

Hello, fellow terrans!
I have been on the fence of quiting sc2. The mainly reason is when i play against zerg matches.
I like to play bio, but watching and ask heromarine stream and the chat they told me that is quite impossible to play bio because of banelings…
Ok then! Lets play mech!
Mostly of the matches i can make some good harassment, many siege tanks or thors to counter baneling.

But zerg race can change betwen units just too fast! Mass zergs to mass hydras too quickly! When i realize that my thors, liberators and other mechs are not doing well, i have no more time to build barracks, addons and upgrades for bio again. And if i can be able to change to bio, they just go mass zergling+banelings, they a-move me, and i am not capable to do so much splits to avoid their attack…

Also i am not likely to cheese. For me it has been very frustrating. What do u guys think? Any tips?

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No, it’s literally impossible to beat Zerg. Tons of Terrans appear to have TvZ as their best match up because their profiles are all bugged. Don’t worry about your losses, it’s 100% because of balance and not because of your lack of skill.

3 Likes

You can play bio.

Heromarine plays on an entirely different level.

As for tech switches, just add more tanks. That fixes everything

Try to limit the zergs gas income.
no gas = only zerglings & queens (which will trade horribly vs. hellbat/thor)

Your profile says silver / gold league so your macro is simply bad.
(mainly splash damage missing and upgrades, and workers probably)

Try out vibelol’s youtube series (new one coming out in december and feel free to post your replays here or on vibe’s discord server).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=2KNgJvbqs3M
(Do start with the bronze video because there will probably be a lot of small things you can learn from that.)

https://discord.gg/g8p359D

Good luck!

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Thanks a lot man! U r tottaly right!
I have been watching this Vibe’s and is helping A LOT!
I just now realize how dumb my macro is. I think i am watching too much Lowko and Winterstacraft videos and those fancy micro style r not for a silver golden league for someone like me yet!
I am improving a lot more now.
Thank u so much man!

4 Likes

Just play mech and go cyclone/hellion/liberator, and pickup your free wins. Check out this replay and copy as I do. You will hit plat easy mode.

https ://sc2replaystats.com/replay/12488124

Heya!
Masters Terran here, lunatic that plays bio, and solidly has TvZ as his best matchup, here to help.

Alright so I’m just going to give you a few general tips I can think of, off the top of my head.

  1. When asking for help, always think critically.
    –> What this means is that whenever someone says something, ask why they are saying that, what is the purpose of this? Why do I build a bunker at X time and at location Y? This also really helps when looking at replays which is a 100% must. Looking at replays you gain game-sense because you understand what the opponent may or may not have, how they play and you can begin thinking what works and why. For instance, if you lose to a banebust, you can look at the replay and see if they macroed out or not, and when the game was lost.

  2. When asking for help on the forums, ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS post replays. Sc2replays works well enough, and is free and I think you can directly upload replays from sc2 although I’ll probably be corrected by some forum ninja, that claims Twitch Gm. Anyhow, they’ll provide huge insight into how you play for someone like me, I’ll see, Oh. You overmicroed here, you forgot to make production, too few workers, unoptimal build locations, poor multitasking ect… Then, I can begin to construct why you should / should not do something, and that is hugely beneficial to both of us (You’d be surprised how much you can learn from lower level players, we’re not good until like GM :frowning: )

  3. Here’s some solid advice. Take basically anything from sc2 forums with a heap of salt, unless they give huge analysis and are pretty nice, and or open minded. Chances are, people are opinionated and biased. In my limited experience of forum browsing, I’ve seen plenty of trolls and other kinds of people claiming to know what is right and what is wrong, but fail to hold up, under any amount of scrutiny.

:anger: :anger: :anger: :anger: :anger: :anger: :anger: :anger: :anger: :anger: :anger: :anger: TRIGGER WARNING :anger: :anger: :anger: :anger: :anger: :anger: :anger:

  1. Never. Ever. Blame. Balance. You. Complete. Banana.

As a mid masters, who occasionally takes a game or two off of GM’s I’m not even eligble to say what is balanced or not, because ultimately, I suck at the game. like 99% of the time, when I lose it’s because I messed up a positioning, took a bad fight, was floating resources for several minutes (mainly because I personally have a vandeta against supply depos, just check my average time supply blocked >.< 2 minutes or so :frowning: )

Balance is not the cause of your loss, in any regard. Especially in the lower leagues, you can make so many mistakes. I’ve yet to see a game that I’ve genuinely lost because of balance, and not some mistake I’ve made. That’s how this game works. Now, I’ve been from bronze to masters climbing all the ranks, over the last few years. So, I’d recon my experience somewhat valid but I’m probably mistaken. Anyhow I digress.
Just see what you could have done, you won’t impact balance regardless. Find a way to combat whatever you have done and trust me, sooner or later you’ll whoop your opponents posterior (A ss aint allowed for some reason). :smiley:

  1. I’m going to give you TvZ specific tips now.

If you’re running 2-1-1, 16 marine stim timing, You do not under any circumstance trade your drop. I’m the lunatic that still uses it to kill GM’s and that’s basically the only way. If you lose the medivacs or too many marines, the zerg can instantly drone to like 80 drones and then you’ve lost. Critical mass basically, unless they’re really bad. Other than that, 2-1-1 works due to the ability to outmultitask, if you can’t outmultitask your opponent you’re severely behind because it’s borderline all-in. Not enough army, not enough workers.

If you run hellion opener, do not trade your hellions for drones, A drone run-by is always risky, you’ll leave yourself exposed to ling counter attacks if you lose your hellions. Just circulate and kill creep, if they’re exposed, then ofc dive and kill some drones, just beware that you should pull back before you lose anything. It’s better you get 2 drones and keep your 4-8 hellions than lose all of them for 10-15. Because then you’ve got nothing at home at you’ve likely also overmicroed. And then GG zerg imba threads come :frowning:

Aside from that, 6-8 medivacs is golden, if you’re dropping, if they have mutas scan ahead or know where they are so that you can safely drop.
LBM(ling bane muta) -> Go mines
RR/RH/HL/LBH -> Go tanks (Roach ravager, Roach Hydra, Hydra lurker, Ling bane hydra)

When attacking your opponent, always remember to pre-split your marines vs banelings, and poke with 5-6 marines and a medivac to the hatcheries or whatever, with tanks sieged + covering with the rest of your army pre-split. With a presplit, you’ll basically always trade super well, and they have to take a fight on your terms. They send a few banelings, you just snipe em, They send a ton? Just run back into tank fire. They engage fully? Then you have tanks + stimmed pre-splits, even with surround that aint pretty. Otherwise, you can pickup + just leave or if they don’t engage you’ve sniped the base. Basically always a win.

Aside from that, Kite banelings off-creep.
If they’re speed + in high quantity or on creep (espec with speed) you gotta split.

basically all I can think of man, if you want some more help, always happy to help

Mabadi#2380 NA or EU although I’m only on NA really. Just hit me up and I’d be happy to help <3

Happy hunting!

5 Likes

dude!
This guy is silver / gold.
Why would a silver player want to micro 5-6 marines?!
Bio doesn’t work well if you have bad macro as bio gets worse the bigger the bio ball is. (lurkers, banelings, infestors counter it hard)

TL;DR:
LBM (ling bane muta) --> Go mines
RR/RH/HL/LBH --> Go tanks (Roach ravager, Roach Hydra, Hydra lurker, Ling bane hydra)

Good advice!
Together with how to build a wall / training the first 5 minutes and production with 3-4 base income = easy d3.
THEN you can try out bio. (marine split challenge, splitting up runbys/drops, and using shift a lot in general, rather no splits vs. banes but pre-splitting and setting up tanks/mines).
Once you’re d2 or d1, read the post again in full and compare it to other high lvl advice.

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Don’t try to win vs zerg, just use it for training against terran/protoss. Because your ranking is based on all the races… don’t just leave vs zerg.

To the training:
If you are newer, start off with more simple units… those are macro (there is a ton of guides for macro in sc2, this is most priority)*-> factories /turets -> tanks -> thors. If you feel like pushing earlier… bats are very useful (…). You want yourself to auto-fight as much as possible this insolves a tank in your main base (vs nydus) and of course in far away expands that you can’t reach quickly and turrets to limit drop possibilities, don’t over do defenses, just slowly add stuff when theh game is dragging. The earlier you get your next base = macro, the more defense you will have later, and the sooner you will have a good “simple” army.

In the beginning bunkers at each mineral line (you want to have some mariners to start of with) will help a ton. NOT TO WIN, but vs any harasses. so that you can transition into tank and then thors easier.

TBH everyone should be able to get a good 3 base build (pure macro defensive) early, which you can look up.

You can train that, the difficult stuff comes with interaction and multitasking and still macroing.

Summary:
Basically make yourself familiar with the game as much as possible, macro is one, the other can be a unit tester, so you know how stuff behaves, what to expect, how to counter some stuff… etc etc. Of course there are tons of helpful training maps as mentioned by others. Vs AI can also be quite fun if you are newer.

PS: If you don’t like to train or concentrate on macro ; I suppose the 1on1 ladder mode is not for you, it is the most essential. However there are many other modes to play, which I will not elaborate on since this post asked for ladder.

Haha this… with all due respect to Lunatic. I feel (actually I know) that mastered players (in any game) don’t have the best didactics - it is similiar to school and stuff (the better the worse their teaching). You have awesome knowledge and competence, but for the very topic… It is difficult to give a good tip to someone of relative bad skill.

But overall I think it has been adressed in the topic.

1 Like

blocking your entry way into you natural with a barracks and supply depots then building a factory behind and training hellions prevents zurgling rushes fairly well and keeps them from scouting then I tend to go hellion cyclone.

If you can’t beat them join them. Join the Swarm when your able to handle real power.

I do not recommend tech switching for you. it isn’t efficient. You want to keep making what you established mid game and make it work somehow.
Hellion cyclone with bc harass is good vs some zergs.
if they go ling heavy, get blue flame
if they go roach heavy, keep making hellions and battlecruisers and decide if you need either tanks or more cyclones.
if they go hydra heavy it’s probably gg for you because hydras and vipers are strong against mech in general. but try to multi prong with a hellion runby to kill workers, snipe a hatchery with 4-5 cyclones… even 3 will kill a hatchery, run bcs in or teleport 1-2 per hatchery and keep them away from spore crawlers if you can, otherwise shift-queue your bc to kill drones/queens, you want them to remake drones instead of more army units.
after your 3rd cc, start making planetary fortresses for your 4th and 5th and so on

The thing you should remember on your climb up the ladder is that some people can beat any style you throw at them, or maybe you just don’t know the style they’re weak against.
Zerg is particularly strong in my opinion and I think they get too much larvae. I finished m2 last season.

My ZvT this season is 21%, but Zerg’s the problem.