Thursday, September 30, 2010

Baneling Bust



Here's another effective build/strategy against Protoss and Terran that you can use. Personally I was having trouble while I was in gold league and thought, How can I improve my play?
Well what I did was went to my league and looked for the highest ranked Zerg player which presumably was rank 1!
So I looked through the matches he won and his build order.
and saw that he had 8 or so banelings, so I gave this build a go and tada!
This build pretty much got me into Diamond.. It's not so valid in Diamond league though.
Anyway enough blabbering, here's the build.

9 Overlord
14 Gas Extractor
14 Supply pool
15 Overlord
16 Queen, 2 Zerglings + metabolic boost.
As soon as the Queen comes out inject larvae! and create another Overlord.
@50 gas build a Banelings nest.

Your metabolic boost and banelings nest should be up at around the same time, so start moving your Zerglings close to your opponents base but no where close to his cliff edge otherwise he'll see what you're doing.
Morph your Zerglings into banelings ( 6 - 10 banelings ) ( Morph = 25 min 25 gas )
Once your banelings up move them along with your zerglings to attack the supply depot or massed up zealots.
Right before getting in there pull your zerglings back so that your banelings can move in and explode.
After that rush your zerglings in to surround the opposing players units.
Sometimes they don't even have much units and I find that some Terran players have bad position and let their marines get splashed on by the banelings that blow up on the supply depots
If the game doesn't end then tech up and learn burrow and hide your banelings on the choke of your base and try mass up t2 units depending on your opponents units.
Once the player runs their units over the banelings press X to explode them.
Yes, this can be done while burrowed!

Counters for this build would be: Mass barracks to block, Bunkers (depending on amount behind) and Sentries (Forcefield).

Also a chart of how many banelings it takes to blow up a structure/unit.
4-5 banelings > 1 supply depot, 5 if you want to blow it up without waiting.
5 banelings > 1 pylon
4 banelings > 1 zealot
1 baneling > 1 marine

26 comments:

  1. Damn, i wish i had this help when i wa playing starcraft, but sadly grew bored of it, nice guide!

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  2. thanks for the tips, ill definately try em out :)

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  3. Starcraft looks fun as shit but sadly my laptop won't support it.... :(

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  4. That sucks!
    Well if you ever get the chance to play, you should take it :)

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  5. very interesting, cant wait for more :D

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  6. Yes those banelings are very damaging! Especially to us Terrans!
    Mesty =)

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  7. Baneling bust currently is quite an effective strategy, it's really a strong and fast build. I'm a diamond 1v1 protoss player here and still see it working, pretty interesting indeed. There are few counters for it though so make sure your guys baneling nest doesn't get scouted!

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  8. Agreed SkyHighClaw, the main counter is scouting it as a toss, which at a high level I doubt will happen because the player will kill your scout before it sees the baneling nest at the rear the most effective would be force field though.

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  9. how has this game changed from the first starcraft?

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  10. Sure is a badass, game changing unit imo.

    @RainingPips: I have no clue as I haven't played Starcraft 1.
    One change is there is no lurkers.

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  11. I'm getting starcraft tomorrow, once I've gotten used to it I'll be sure to try this out man!

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  12. this is probably my least favorite strategy; I hate banelings. (I play protoss)

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  13. i cannot play with my trial version anymore so i have to wait for sc2 to deliver :/

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  14. I actually use this opening against terran and MM balls

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  15. Thanks for the strategy tips! I will be sure to use them =]

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  16. MAAAAN i want to play it so bad!
    but im going to save my money for d3 :D

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  17. I'll be making a new blog post after I come back from swimming :)

    @Waldo09: Diablo 3 Comes out next year so you have enough time to get sc2 and play and still buy D3 :)

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  18. This looks like a good build. I hope it will work for me...

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  19. Awesome, I tried it, and this build really helped. Thnx for the help!

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  20. i really wish i could find a zerg player who uses banelings. in all my game i havent seen it once.

    If anyone plays protoss check my blog out :)

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  21. MLG Dallas had TLO using Banelings as mines against his teamate Huk. it was really creative and the first time i had seen burrow used that way in a high level match!

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