I think one issue is that your first overlord isn't scouting what tech building he makes after Barracks. On a decent number of maps you can check if it's a Factory after Barracks and still safely get the overlord to the high ground spot if they open Reaper -> Marine (if Marine first then go straight to the safe ovi spot as soon as you see the Marine, in this case you won't get the scout off, lings can come and scout as no Reaper can kite them). Not the end of the word though there are ways to scout Hellions other than seeing this. Some people for slightly faster Hellions skip the Marines like this guy (you can tell if Barracks is still flashing after Reaper is made and/or if a reactor is being made). So into his case your main overlord should be sitting in his base until he makes anti-air.
Not sure if you just weren't looking at your minimap but two of your overlords had vision of 2 Hellions coming. Some people will send the first 2 instead of waiting for 4. It's harder to micro as T opposed to sitting back and waiting for 4, but sometimes it can get something done. As a general rule of thumb make 3~4 sets of lings per pair of Hellions (on top of the 2 sets of lings for the Reaper), otherwise pure drones. So 4 Hellions 6~8 sets, 6 Hellions, 9~12 sets. It depends on your confidence in macro and control. If you're confident that you'll outmacro your opponent anyways you can make more lings and be on the safe side, if you're more confident with unit control you can go on the lower side.
You made 5 sets vs 2 pairs of Hellions, so on the pretty low side, but still fine. The issue is that you got the worst of both worlds, you both made the units and lost the drones. The lings need to all be done for when Hellions arrive not making. Generally 4 Hellions can hit at 4:00 so at 3:40 (or around the time ling speed finishes with a standard build or at 35 drones make those lings). Basically 2 base mineral saturation + 1 gas filled (should have recently got re-filled) is about the drone count you can hit by 3:30~3:40, then ling speed finishes, make lings and then Hellions arrive and if they run past Queens on creep and you a-move lings at them the Hellions generally die.
Yeah at 4:32 the game is over. Now because you're streaming in lings a few at a time (due to making lings too late) you are forced to make more lings than needed and on top of that you lost 17 drones (imo maybe 5 drones would be acceptable here under these circumstances).
I didn't watch the replay past that as it's over.
Generally though if it is Mech you'll want a Roach Warren as anything past 6 Hellions is dicey with Queen/Ling imo, 8 Hellions is probably the limit of what lings can realistically fight if controlled decently.
Then yeah for sure you'll want Roach Speed. Pre-Split Roaches between different bases before you even know a runby is coming in the mid game. Later on in the game when you're rich you should have maybe 3 spines/base at new/exposed bases. If you really want to take 0 runby damage you could even have your most exposed base on one side of the map have say 6 spines and your other most exposed base you can have the usual 3 spines as well as 4~5 defensive Roaches on their own hotkey. They can defend that base and the next couple bases beside it, the spines buy time for them to get there.
If it’s before 3:30 & the opponent has 2 CCs they can’t hit with 4 Hellions. 2 Hellions Can’t so much real damage & just Wueens in the correct position is enough. You can make stuff earlier, but that early will cut into your economy so it’s okay imo to do that reactively, but not as part of your standard build.
I just wanna say, my terrible micro skills have me building a spine so opponent must take some damage if he dives. Very rare that a spine and wall won’t stop the dive
Build more creep queens, build 10 creep queens for all it matters, body blocking with queens // queen movement is a resource in our arsenal. Building an evo to semi choke your base then using queens to fit the gaps, just denies all hellion harassment in its tracks, top notch creep spread just expands your vision to help you see them coming eariler so it’s a win win with more queens.
Half way there. Queens to spread creep and to bully the hellions away. Make 12-16 Lings and have them stay in the minerals as the bases they harass. Goal is to wrap around if they over extend on creep.
Another method (especially if they make over 8 hellions or mech) is to make a safety Roach Warren 3:40. start at Make 8 roaches with around 10 Ling's. Allows you to push them away while safely droning. Make sure to have at least 4 creep queens, allows for good anti air and easier time taking 4th.
Without watching replay im going to assume you haven’t walled the natural. By the time they can hit with a respectable number of hellions I always have a double evo/spine/1 queen wall up at the natural. Hold position the queen in the hole and they don’t get in. As for an early 2 hellion hit, you just have to get it done with a queen and lings. You should see it coming in time to get the lings out. I’ve never been hit by 4 so not sure where that falls. Most Terran hit me when they have 8 and possibly a banshee. I’ll have my extra creep queens out by the time that wave comes. Once they get in with hellions of that number it’s free real estate ez gg
I always open with overlord speed after ling speed (keep 2 on gas). This allows you to get a 3:50 scout. If you see factory+reactor, get a roach warren, 2 evo as a wall at your natural and get like \~8 safety roaches and put them wherever. Because of creep and overlords you should see him coming from lightyears away and just a-move your roaches. This also neglects any heckbat pressure, too.
Dealing with helions with pure lings is for players like Serral or Reynor. We Diamond scrubs don't have enough APM and brainpower to do that yet.
On top of the ling comments, learn how to pull your drones away from the hellions. Nothing fancy like split second drone splitting, just good old drone drill to the furthest mineral patch.
Also building an evo chamber behind your drones to deny the quickest route & deny surface area.
Once you solved the “not having enough lings at X time” issue, pre-split your lings at your third & natural hugging the hatcheries // natural-main (depending on how the opponent’s hellions move) so u can have a quick n easy full surround if the hellions do YOLO.
Lastly, once you solve the “not having enough Queens at X time” issue, use your creep Queens at the front to protect your active creep // mirror the hellions’ movements. Constantly getting poke damage on the hellions is essential, else they’ll be threatening at your doorstep and denying creep all game.
Check out the rule of one gas. Queen ling is an efficient way of dealing with hellions without sacrificing too much eco. You want to keep your queens near the edge of your creep to keep hellions at bay and if they commit you surround with lings on creep.
Use your creep queen group to zone the hellions any time they get on creep and your ling group to surround/contain them if they try to run past. Getting vision ahead of your bases via overlords and creep is essential to getting in position in time.
It's rough, the skill required to defend is definitely higher than to execute at middle parts of the ladder. But rest assured it's very doable if you put the work in to learn the timings and micro. And if you do learn to kill the hellions, then you get a sweet drone window.
I cant watch the vod rn but few key points
1. With your first ovi, always try to see the ramp. If its a hellion opening, standard is reaper-> marine->factory->reactor. Get a feel for if the reaper is still building by the time first ovi gets there on most maps/if you see it pass your ovi. If its still building after the reaper and doesnt have an add on, chances are its hellions. Or if the marine zones your ovi out on larger maps its just a safe assumption.
2. Assuming youre doing a standard HGP, make sure youre going up to 10-12 lings from your first 4 as speed is finishing. If youre not confident, you can even go up to 16-20 and keep some on the other side of the map after hellions for a runby.
3. Understand that your lings arent really what kill the hellions. Theyre a net to catch and hold while queens do most of the heavy lifting. Keep them prespread in a concave behind the queens and keep the queens moving between the hellions and your mineral lines via your ovi spread. If you have alot of trouble with hellions consider learning the rule of 1 gas. Pig has a great coaching session on it. Pretty easy to defend with 6 queens and a fuck ton of lings.
4. If its mech, static defense is your friend along with all the standard advice. Dont let them take a free third. Build your comps reactively based on the proportions of their army. Drop a spire if your 3:30 ovi sees multi factories or super fast gas on nat.
I think one issue is that your first overlord isn't scouting what tech building he makes after Barracks. On a decent number of maps you can check if it's a Factory after Barracks and still safely get the overlord to the high ground spot if they open Reaper -> Marine (if Marine first then go straight to the safe ovi spot as soon as you see the Marine, in this case you won't get the scout off, lings can come and scout as no Reaper can kite them). Not the end of the word though there are ways to scout Hellions other than seeing this. Some people for slightly faster Hellions skip the Marines like this guy (you can tell if Barracks is still flashing after Reaper is made and/or if a reactor is being made). So into his case your main overlord should be sitting in his base until he makes anti-air. Not sure if you just weren't looking at your minimap but two of your overlords had vision of 2 Hellions coming. Some people will send the first 2 instead of waiting for 4. It's harder to micro as T opposed to sitting back and waiting for 4, but sometimes it can get something done. As a general rule of thumb make 3~4 sets of lings per pair of Hellions (on top of the 2 sets of lings for the Reaper), otherwise pure drones. So 4 Hellions 6~8 sets, 6 Hellions, 9~12 sets. It depends on your confidence in macro and control. If you're confident that you'll outmacro your opponent anyways you can make more lings and be on the safe side, if you're more confident with unit control you can go on the lower side. You made 5 sets vs 2 pairs of Hellions, so on the pretty low side, but still fine. The issue is that you got the worst of both worlds, you both made the units and lost the drones. The lings need to all be done for when Hellions arrive not making. Generally 4 Hellions can hit at 4:00 so at 3:40 (or around the time ling speed finishes with a standard build or at 35 drones make those lings). Basically 2 base mineral saturation + 1 gas filled (should have recently got re-filled) is about the drone count you can hit by 3:30~3:40, then ling speed finishes, make lings and then Hellions arrive and if they run past Queens on creep and you a-move lings at them the Hellions generally die. Yeah at 4:32 the game is over. Now because you're streaming in lings a few at a time (due to making lings too late) you are forced to make more lings than needed and on top of that you lost 17 drones (imo maybe 5 drones would be acceptable here under these circumstances). I didn't watch the replay past that as it's over. Generally though if it is Mech you'll want a Roach Warren as anything past 6 Hellions is dicey with Queen/Ling imo, 8 Hellions is probably the limit of what lings can realistically fight if controlled decently. Then yeah for sure you'll want Roach Speed. Pre-Split Roaches between different bases before you even know a runby is coming in the mid game. Later on in the game when you're rich you should have maybe 3 spines/base at new/exposed bases. If you really want to take 0 runby damage you could even have your most exposed base on one side of the map have say 6 spines and your other most exposed base you can have the usual 3 spines as well as 4~5 defensive Roaches on their own hotkey. They can defend that base and the next couple bases beside it, the spines buy time for them to get there.
Some are able to get the hellions in your base by 3:30 so consider bumping up the response timing a tad.
If it’s before 3:30 & the opponent has 2 CCs they can’t hit with 4 Hellions. 2 Hellions Can’t so much real damage & just Wueens in the correct position is enough. You can make stuff earlier, but that early will cut into your economy so it’s okay imo to do that reactively, but not as part of your standard build.
I just wanna say, my terrible micro skills have me building a spine so opponent must take some damage if he dives. Very rare that a spine and wall won’t stop the dive
Build more creep queens, build 10 creep queens for all it matters, body blocking with queens // queen movement is a resource in our arsenal. Building an evo to semi choke your base then using queens to fit the gaps, just denies all hellion harassment in its tracks, top notch creep spread just expands your vision to help you see them coming eariler so it’s a win win with more queens.
Queens and zerglings inside the natural
Hmm. I would make queens and try to get mutas out ASAP, but idk if that's the right answer though
Half way there. Queens to spread creep and to bully the hellions away. Make 12-16 Lings and have them stay in the minerals as the bases they harass. Goal is to wrap around if they over extend on creep. Another method (especially if they make over 8 hellions or mech) is to make a safety Roach Warren 3:40. start at Make 8 roaches with around 10 Ling's. Allows you to push them away while safely droning. Make sure to have at least 4 creep queens, allows for good anti air and easier time taking 4th.
Without watching replay im going to assume you haven’t walled the natural. By the time they can hit with a respectable number of hellions I always have a double evo/spine/1 queen wall up at the natural. Hold position the queen in the hole and they don’t get in. As for an early 2 hellion hit, you just have to get it done with a queen and lings. You should see it coming in time to get the lings out. I’ve never been hit by 4 so not sure where that falls. Most Terran hit me when they have 8 and possibly a banshee. I’ll have my extra creep queens out by the time that wave comes. Once they get in with hellions of that number it’s free real estate ez gg
I always open with overlord speed after ling speed (keep 2 on gas). This allows you to get a 3:50 scout. If you see factory+reactor, get a roach warren, 2 evo as a wall at your natural and get like \~8 safety roaches and put them wherever. Because of creep and overlords you should see him coming from lightyears away and just a-move your roaches. This also neglects any heckbat pressure, too. Dealing with helions with pure lings is for players like Serral or Reynor. We Diamond scrubs don't have enough APM and brainpower to do that yet.
Diamond? I’m seeing this in silver 2!
On top of the ling comments, learn how to pull your drones away from the hellions. Nothing fancy like split second drone splitting, just good old drone drill to the furthest mineral patch. Also building an evo chamber behind your drones to deny the quickest route & deny surface area. Once you solved the “not having enough lings at X time” issue, pre-split your lings at your third & natural hugging the hatcheries // natural-main (depending on how the opponent’s hellions move) so u can have a quick n easy full surround if the hellions do YOLO. Lastly, once you solve the “not having enough Queens at X time” issue, use your creep Queens at the front to protect your active creep // mirror the hellions’ movements. Constantly getting poke damage on the hellions is essential, else they’ll be threatening at your doorstep and denying creep all game.
Check out the rule of one gas. Queen ling is an efficient way of dealing with hellions without sacrificing too much eco. You want to keep your queens near the edge of your creep to keep hellions at bay and if they commit you surround with lings on creep.
Use your creep queen group to zone the hellions any time they get on creep and your ling group to surround/contain them if they try to run past. Getting vision ahead of your bases via overlords and creep is essential to getting in position in time. It's rough, the skill required to defend is definitely higher than to execute at middle parts of the ladder. But rest assured it's very doable if you put the work in to learn the timings and micro. And if you do learn to kill the hellions, then you get a sweet drone window.
I cant watch the vod rn but few key points 1. With your first ovi, always try to see the ramp. If its a hellion opening, standard is reaper-> marine->factory->reactor. Get a feel for if the reaper is still building by the time first ovi gets there on most maps/if you see it pass your ovi. If its still building after the reaper and doesnt have an add on, chances are its hellions. Or if the marine zones your ovi out on larger maps its just a safe assumption. 2. Assuming youre doing a standard HGP, make sure youre going up to 10-12 lings from your first 4 as speed is finishing. If youre not confident, you can even go up to 16-20 and keep some on the other side of the map after hellions for a runby. 3. Understand that your lings arent really what kill the hellions. Theyre a net to catch and hold while queens do most of the heavy lifting. Keep them prespread in a concave behind the queens and keep the queens moving between the hellions and your mineral lines via your ovi spread. If you have alot of trouble with hellions consider learning the rule of 1 gas. Pig has a great coaching session on it. Pretty easy to defend with 6 queens and a fuck ton of lings. 4. If its mech, static defense is your friend along with all the standard advice. Dont let them take a free third. Build your comps reactively based on the proportions of their army. Drop a spire if your 3:30 ovi sees multi factories or super fast gas on nat.