Protoss – Dealing with Mutalisks

Posted by BLaM | Posted in Protoss, Protoss Strategies, Zerg Units | Posted on 07-02-2012-05-2008

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From the Forum…

Beating Mutalisk Play

Unread postby Whitewing » Tue Jan 24, 2012 1:09 am

Hello, Masters Protoss here with a brief tutorial and guide on how to defeat mutalisk play from zerg, something that gives a lot of players an incredible amount of trouble at all levels, and especially at the higher levels. This guide assumes you are using a forge fast expand. If you are not, you are going to be in a lot of trouble, you will not have the economy needed to defend without a special trick. Generally speaking, if you are not going to forge fast expand, you should do a 2 gate/stargate expand, as it allows for a void ray to hold off a bust on your expansion and to build phoenixes early enough to crush fast mutas. Do not go responsive phoenix however, unless you already have some out.The first and most important tip I can provide is active scouting, and understanding of how zerg plays. Typically, mutalisks come into play off 2 bases with a spinecrawler wall in order to protect himself while he stockpiles minerals and gas to build the mutas. The spire build time takes a long time. In this play style, the zerg will usually pop 8-10 mutalisks and send them straight to your base.

Against this style of mutalisk play, you have pretty much two options, and one of them is scouting dependent. Unless you spot the spire building with an observer or hallucinated phoenix, this option is blind and risky, so I suggest avoiding it. If you do spot the spire building, the strategy is to do an all-in off of a fast expansion with pure gateway units, usually 6-8 gateways. Fast +2 weapons and blink is a very strong variant that will usually win the game in this case. Alternatively, zealot/archon off of 8 gateways is EXTREMELY potent against this. Either way, you must have a twilight council, it should generally be built rather quickly in this matchup. Regardless, for this strategy to work, you need to hit right before the mutas pop, to do sufficient damage before they are out. Usually this involves killing all the spinecrawlers and the zerglings. By themselves, the mutas when they first pop will not be sufficient to defend, and you win right then. However, this variant is dependant on a couple of factors. Some zergs have started throwing down a roach warren just in case, and deciding not to build the mutas if they detect an all-in. If you start seeing roaches, you should back off and expand with your army, you should be able to defend, and you’ve got the tech to deal with mutas.

The second variant of muta play is when the zerg responds to your fast expansion with a fast third of his own, then opens roaches to defend, while building the spire. He doesn’t stockpile money, so fewer mutas pop out, but with the income of that third base they very quickly get to the same muta count as they’d have off two bases. This variant is extremely hard to kill with an all-in, but if you can snipe one of the bases you’ll be in great position.

The second and safer way of battling mutas requires a lot of careful maneuvering. Essentially, you are going to turtle in your own base. If you wish to use this option and you scouted the spire building, you should immediately take a third base if the mutas aren’t out yet, and throw down a couple of cannons at each base. Get blink ASAP if you don’t have it, and defend with stalkers. As soon as you can afford it, put down a second forge. If you couldn’t get the third base, you’ll have a harder time of it, but your strategy is the same, cannons at each base, blink stalkers ASAP, get second forge, and turtle until you can take your third. 2 forges is very potent against ling/muta, but not good against other zerg strats, that’s why it’s reactive.

All while doing this, you should be building probes, leaving stalkers in a good position to defend the mineral lines (generally in a middle position or split up with another group able to reinforce quickly), and attack mutas when they show up. Try to blink as they run away if you can, although if you’re out of position you can blink in to attack to prevent damage. Your goal at this point is to get to high templar and research storm as fast as possible. Once you get high templar with storm, you are able to finally leave your base, although you should still aim for around max supply. You want to leave 1-2 templar in each base and storm mutas when they show up. 1-2 storms will usually chase the mutas out of your base for a long time, since they’ll be so low on hit points your stalkers will annihilate them. If they take 3-4 storms, you’ll likely wipe them all out entirely, which puts you way ahead.

The entire time you are doing this, you should be scouting, particularly for a greater spire. You must know brood lord timings, if he hits you with brood lords when you don’t have a mothership, you’re in a lot of trouble. If you detect a greater spire, get a mothership ASAP.

Be aware that zerg will likely take the entire map during this time. Your goal should be to warp in zealots in various locations and snipe bases if possible. You can use DT’s, but their cost makes it very hard, and if you lose them without killing bases, you’re in a lot of trouble. If you do not think you can manage it (don’t want to risk a warp prism with mutas out and no pylons on the map), you’ll have to let zerg have the bases, if you go after them with your army you’re dead by counter attack, and if you go after them with just zealots walking from your base you’ll lose them. At this point, your goal should be to go straight for the zerg main and kill off the tech structures, while bringing some high templar with your army. Kill the tech, and it doesn’t matter how many bases he has, he can’t make fighting units.

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This is Getting Creepy

Posted by Knightmare | Posted in General Strategy, Zerg, Zerg Buildings, Zerg Strategies, Zerg Units | Posted on 26-01-2012-05-2008

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Creep is a living Zerg organism. It has a purple coloration  and feels thick and slimy. Creep is psionically-sensitive and may be influenced and controlled by psionic entities.  It is used to nourish Zerg structures and larvae.

Creep may be deposited in a number of ways. Some zerg structures, such as Hatcheries, serve as a home for creep growth. In the initial stages of infestation Hatcheries started the spread but through evolution Zerg creatures have gained the ability to spread creep as well; overlords by direct secretion, and indirectly by queens through laid creep tumors that can reproduce by themselves.

If left unchecked, creep can consume an entire planet within days.

Most zerg structures can only be created upon the creep. Terrans and Protoss cannot build structures on creep. Terran buildings may not land on the creep, however they may lift-off if constructed prior to creep spreading underneath them. The creep will expand to fill the vacated space over the course of a few seconds.

In Starcraft, creep is intended to be used as a resource, and zerg players will want to invade the map with creep. It will dissolve in 30 seconds if not supported.

Most Zerg units move 30% faster on creep. Drones are an exception along with all air units. Spine and spore crawlers, as well as hydralisks and queens, move considerably faster on creep. Creep does not “climb” or “fall” down cliffs, but does flow down ramps. If a carefully positioned overlord drops creep on the edge of a cliff, it will expand on the hill and the lower ground simultaneously. Creep can also be poured onto ramps from an Overlord, but Tumors can’t fixate to the ramps (note creep is as i said a resource that both players can use, meaning if it is ZvZ both Zergs benefit on each others creep.)

Creep only dies if the nearby generator dies and it is on the edge of a patch. Creep inside a large patch, but deprived of generators, will not die. A ring-shaped patch will not automatically expand to cover the “empty” center without the normal assistance of generators. In short, Infest the planet and thrive.

 

Good Luck, Have Fun

OpGKnight

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Zerg Build, Lings, Banes, Mutas – ZvT

Posted by BLaM | Posted in Zerg, Zerg Build Orders, Zerg Strategies | Posted on 06-12-2011-05-2008

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This is common ZvT build that is quite effective against the standard Terran bio builds. While Infestors are getting more and more play these days this classic cannot be ignored because of it’s macro superiority that plays well with the strong Zerg economy.

Plus, everyone hates Mutas :D

9 – Overlord

15 – Hatchery

15 – Spawning Pool

15 – Extractor

16 – Overlord

18 – 2x Queens

24 – Evolve Metabolic Boost

* – Spend 1st of each Queen’s energy on Spawn Larvae, 2nd set of energy on Creep Tumors

26 – Overlord

32 – Lair

32 – Evolution Chamber

31 – 3x Extractors

28 – Baneling Nest

40′ish – Train Zerglings, Evolve 30% to Banelings

* – Evolve Melee Attack

* – Once secure from any attack:Spire

 

@ 100% Spire – Evolve Flyer Attacks

* – Mass Mutas until gas depleats, spend remaining minerals on Zerglings from here on out

* – Decide whether to attack or secure 3rd expansion

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Building Blocks

Posted by Knightmare | Posted in General Strategy, Zerg, Zerg Build Orders | Posted on 27-11-2011-05-2008

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Ever wonder where builds come from? Why is 14gas/14pool considered “standard” in ZvP? What makes 15hatch16pool better than, say, 13h/19p, or some other arbitrary number?

People play thousands and thousands of games of SC2 every day, and the way that builds are optimized are by trying to cut as many corners as possible, while still retaining the “key” element of the build you had in mind.

For example, in 14g/14p, you want to get 4 lings out to destroy the Protoss pylon so you can expand immediately after. You also want to start ling speed as soon as the pool finishes so you can retain map control with your lings to prevent the Protoss from laying down any pylons in proximity to your base (“proxy” pylons).

So there are two “key” elements to this build – starting ling speed as soon as the pool finishes, and getting out 4 zergling to clear any pylons built to prevent you from expanding. For the purposes of these two ideas, the build is pretty much perfect. If you did 12g/12p, you would have earlier lings, and you could start your speed as soon as your pool finished, but you would have a large delay between when your 4 lings come out and when you can expand. Hence, you could have instead waited longer to put the pool down, gathered more resources, and expanded later. If you build your gas on 17 and your pool on 17, you’ll find yourself with a large amount of resources that you’re unable to spend for quite a while.

Not every “build” is perfect, though. Builds can be tweaked in two ways – either by adjusting timings to match your “key elements” that you want your build to achieve, or by adjusting the key elements themselves. For example, with the 14g/14p build, perhaps you decide that you only want speed to counter 4gate, but you don’t feel like you need it initially because you’d rather have the extra resources to build your economy faster. You would find out via replays (or customing with a friend) that warpgate tech finishes ~6:30/7:00, then plan your build out so that you would have ling speed finished at, say, 6:15, just to be safe. So with your timings, maybe you can afford to put down your pool at 13 to clear the pylon in your natural, then expand, then take the gas afterward. So your “modified” 14g/14p would turn into something like 13p/15queen/18hatchery/17gas, or something of the sort (I’ve never actually tested these numbers before, careful!).

Experiment, make new builds, have fun. Just be “smart” about it! New builds don’t come from people randomly trying stuff, they come from people attempting to achieve very specific goals, and then modifying their builds accordingly!

Now this was compiled from an interview with Col.Firezerg as well as Destiny, hope it helps guys. Good Luck, Have Fun

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Diamond Zerg Thought Process

Posted by BLaM | Posted in Zerg, Zerg Strategies | Posted on 30-10-2011-05-2008

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The following post was pulled from the forum (why haven’t you checked those out yet?) by StarCraft2Strategy.com member Augphlosion.

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Diamond Zerg thought process

Postby Augphlosion » Sun Oct 30, 2011 8:17 am

Hello forums. This is my first post here, so I’m just going to talk about my play, and what I think about while playing. It is 3:00 AM right now, so i will take an extra minute to say sorry for any mistakes I make or say in this post; I really want to sleep. Ok. Getting into this, I might post a replay in the comments below to show a game of me playing at my average. It seems to vary day to day, and you have probably experienced this too. This first part applies to all players, but Zerg is the one race that must pay the most attention to this;

DRONING:I cannot stress how important it is to build drones. You need a good economy if you want to win. Simply stated as such, you can’t stop or forget to make workers. ESPECIALLY at the beginning of the game. Droning is the #1 priority. Not typing, or looking around the minimap, Droning. Sure, if you just made a drone and rallied the cocoon manually (This makes the drone go to the mineral patch slightly faster) you can focus on the exact spot your scouting overlord is going, or look around at the watch tower, but you MUST Drone precisely. I’ve seen so many games come down to that one second where one drone would have made the difference, whether it be meat shielding, or in terms of minerals for getting units out. Next Topic.

INJECTS:NesTea once said, “If you miss injects as a competitive Zerg, you will lose the game.” This is almost always true at the higher levels of play, and if you want to get there, listen to NesTea. There’s a reason why he is one of the top 3 Korean players. Now if you are a newer Zerg and you are missing injects, it is really no big deal. But as you progress, you will see the importance of it. A few strategies you can try to remember injects with are paying attention to the left side of the screen every so often, where it tells you what units have completed, what upgrades are done, as well as when an inject pops. Another fairly common strategy is to remember the time of the inject, and 40 seconds later, injecting again. Now on to HOW To hotkey queens/hatches to properly execute injects. You could set your hatch(s) at a specific hotkey, and have your queens all on different hotkeys. Then you double tap each hotkey, hit v, and click the hatchery. Another way is to have your hatches separate and do the same thing above, but instead go to the hatch, and then click on the queen to inject. Next Topic.

UNITS:My Protoss friend once played a game as Zerg against me and told me that we only had two cool units; Infestors and Mutalisks. To an extent, this is true. Hydras suck until Heart of the Swarm comes out and they aren’t as slow as Motherships Pre 1.4 patch. (Kekekekeke). Ultras are also going to be awesome when HotS comes out, but until then, we will have to work with what we have. So in terms of Infestors, Go insane. They are THE most useable unit in the game. Infested Terrans, Fungals (Nerfed OFC), Neural parasite (Also Nerfed, OFC), There are so many options. You can deny so many bases, kill a lot of clumped units, and take out their most powerful DPS units until the fight is over. To be honest, I don’t know why I never used Infestors in Bronze, Silver, or Gold league. Now on to Mutalisks. The scariest thing a Terran will ever see is 50 Mutalisks knocking on their door; Sadly, There is no such thing as four hundred supply, where 50 Mutalisks would be ok. Mutalisks are pretty much the only unit we have that can win games if you micro them like Jae Dong. By that I mean, If you have just lost all your bases but your main, and your Terran buddy is on 4 base ready to end the game, You could win with 30 mutalisks (as long as you can hide many expo’s, drones, and queens :3). I’ve literally contained a Protoss so hard with Mutas, He just left the game before I even made any pokes with my Lings. This is after his 4 gate succeeded and killed my expo. This just goes to show the raw power of Mutas. If you see a Thor, Archon, or Infestors, STAY THE F@%# AWAY OR YOU WILL LOSE ALL OF THEM. Unless you can split your Mutas without multiple control groups (Another Jae Dong reference), You will lose against 5 fungals if timed properly. If you can magic box a Thor or Archon, Go for it. (Magic boxing refers to move commanding past the unit, then when you are directly over it, you hit the h or hold button). Next Topic.

SCOUTING:This is one thing I still need A LOT of work on. I have recently been doing a much better job doing it thanks to a few practice partners/master Zerg friends. Take the towers with Zerglings. No excuses. Zerglings are the most cost efficient unit in the game, a two for one (larvae) for 50 minerals. If he has a zealot there, Move 8 lings to kill it and leave one there. If there is an army there, take the tower immediately after you fight or after they back up. Don’t only take the towers, send in a ling every now and then to see their army composition, or better yet, to scout expo’s and maybe (If you are the luckiest Zerg on the planet) get past the front and all units to scout tech. If you see an opening where a base is not defended, Send 10 or so lings to kill workers there. Who knows, maybe he will plant his DT Shrine there? ;). Another thing with scouting is overlord spread. There are so many maps with open pockets of space screaming, FILL ME WITH OVERLORDS!!! Overlord spread helps you spot drops, air harass, and even just unit compositions in general. Especially in ZvZ (Because Zerg sucks and doesn’t have a tier 1 ranged unit that can shoot up), overlord spread is something you NEED to win. When your lair finishes, train yourself to get 2-3 overseers. One for your army, one for your bases, one for scouting. Changelings are almost always overlooked by low level players and not spotted. When you get to my level, its a little bit harder to use them to scout, but it is still possible. Burrow lings at expansions, use the overlords Spread creep ability to allow your creep spread to flourish, etc etc. Next Topic.

CREEP SPREAD:Just like I said above, Overlords creep spread ability is pretty awesome. But the thing is, that isn’t enough. Creep spread is a great mechanic that Zergs don’t utilize like they should. Its very important for crushing Terran, Zerg, and Protoss armies alike. Oh, and did I mention that you need it to BUILD YOUR TECH?? DID I ALSO MENTION IT GIVES YOU VISION?!?! DID I ALSO MENTION IT GIVES ALMOST ALL OF YOUR UNITS A SPEED BOOST WHILE ON IT?!?!?!?!?! Ok, I think you get the point. Even with other factors, like stopping Protoss and Terran from building on it, its almost always the underlooked, unused mechanic that Zerg has. Surrounds on hellions, stalkers, as well as all armies are so much easier. It also makes Hydras NOT AWFUL!!! :O (Although they are still pretty terrible since there is no speed upgrade for them yet). Still though, Creep spread is easy, because of the fact that it almost perfectly lines up with injects. I’m not saying to over prioritize creep spread over everything, but just use it a little more, and you will see how cool it really is. Next Topic.

LARVAE:Spending larvae is simple. Make an attacking unit, or make a worker unit. That’s all you can really do. Still, this ties in with injects about spending your larvae (Especially early game) wisely. Lets say you make 6 zerglings at the beginning to defend instead of 4. No big deal, right? Wrong. That is one more drone, which could be mining, making you more money for the long run. You honestly only need 4 lings at the beginning if your opponent is not pressuring you. Hell, I even go with 2 sometimes.
I would go further on this topic, but its 4:00 in the morning, and I want to sleep. I will go over one more topic and wrap it up.

EXPANDING:I am going to close this rant out with probably the easiest topic to cover, because if you do not know about it, then you are probably here wondering why you are losing all of your games. As Zerg, you use your drones to make buildings. Simple, right? But wait, that means 50 minerals are used every time, plus the cost of the building! Well that is ok because someone at Blizzard is bad at math and made our hatcheries cost 300 (+50 of the drone) minerals. That means… 350 minerals!!! Instead of 400?! THAT’S INSANE RIGHT?? Not really… But that is one factor that makes expanding in our favor. It is a lot cheaper than expanding is for Protoss and Terran. Also, it seems our larvae value is DOUBLED if you expand, as well as your mining room, as this doubles your mineral patches, gas geysers, and it also doubles your creep. Expanding is mainly the idea of Zerg because our production shows its true power in the late game. After rolling an army, I usually see a “Zerg OP” message from my opponent as more lings stream in, completely destroying them.

Final thoughts: Practice, practice, practice… If you haven’t thought about one of these topics before that were mentioned above, try them out in game and see how it goes for you. ;) . Leave any questions as a comment and I will get back to you ASAP. Check out my stream at Twitch.tv/augphlosion and follow me. I usually cast tournaments, or even sometimes stream my games on ladder/practice with friends. Thanks for reading. Peace out.

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Dwight from NBC’s The Office Dresses Up As Kerrigan for Halloween

Posted by BLaM | Posted in Zerg | Posted on 28-10-2011-05-2008

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So I’m watching NBC’s The Office tonight and low and behold Dwight dresses up as Kerrigan. Awesome.

The dudes over at SC2Strat.Net already have it online…

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6 Pool Zergling Rush Strategy

Posted by BLaM | Posted in Zerg Build Orders, Zerg Strategies | Posted on 11-06-2010-05-2008

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Zergling Rush

Zergling Rush

6 Pool Zergling Rush Strategy

Overview

The 6 Pool Zergling Rush is a do or die strategy that involves getting Zerglings as fast as humanly possible and crushing your opponent within the very early game. This strategy can be both fun and fiercely effective. It is a very high risk strategy but the reward can be a very early win or a large advantage to yourself should the rush be successful.
The purpose of the 6 Pool Zergling Rush is to kill the enemy early game or do devastating damage to their economy before they have a chance to react with the appropriate counters, if the rush is successful then you have either already won or you are now in a very advantageous position. Should the rush fail though you will be left with a meagre economy, a small sized army or no army at all and quite far behind in tech. So it’s important you use the Zergling rush to maximum effect to get the best results, I shall show you how to do this.

Build order
This build order is designed as a straight forward build to forming the strategy, it does not consider any of the multiple various enemy threats that you may encounter. You should only deviate away from the build order should you be pressured enough by your opponent into forcing you to build appropriate counters such as an army or static defence to defend yourself against the threat. Try to stick to the build order as best as you can to achieve maximum results.
*Text in BOLD CAPITAL letters – refers to units & buildings that you will build.
*Text in Italics – refers to what action you need to take with the unit or building)
*Text in underline – refers to a mechanic or ability you need to use.
1. Send Drones to Minerals until you have 200 minerals
2. SPAWNING POOL
3. DRONE
4. DRONE (Send this Drone to scout for the enemy base if you are playing on a map that has 4 potential start locations – you can always use this drone to create a spine crawler in your opponents base if they are Zerg (once you have built a Spawning Pool)
5. CREATE 3x ZERGLINGS immediately when your Spawning Pool is finished building and send them towards your opponents base
6. OVERLORD
7. ZERGLINGS (Whenever you have Larva)
8. OVERLORD (Whenever you reach your supply cap)
9. QUEEN (Create a Queen once you have used all possible Larva for Zerglings and you have enough minerals for the Queen)
*Things to Note
[a] Should the rush fail then you will need to start making as many Drones as you can to boost your economy so long as you are under no real threat
[b] The rush is intended to win and if you are unable to finish your opponent with Zerglings then you will need to play on and choose the best tech line that will help you to win the game

Play style
With a 6 Pool Zergling Rush build you should be aiming to play very aggressively, making Zerglings immediately & sending them to your enemy’s main base as fast as possible and killing as many enemy workers or buildings that will help slow down the enemy production rate (such as Pylons). All the while you are doing this you should be trying to avoid taking any damage from enemy army forces unless you can kill those forces without losing the advantage of the early pressure that Zerglings provide.
Remember, you will increase your chances of winning a great deal more by killing workers over army units as this will slow down the enemy economy and do greater overall damage. The other reason for focusing enemy workers over army units with your Zerglings is that should the rush become stoppable by your opponent then at least you will have slowed down their economy enough to reduce their ability to outnumber you with units, although you will have a small economy yourself due to using most of your Larva for Zerglings instead of Drones.
This strategy is very risky as it is and should only really be used on small 1v1 maps so you know where your opponent is. It’s still possible to use this strategy on smallish maps with 4 main base areas but you will need to scout before your Zerglings are made so you know where you need to send the Zerglings. Time is of the absolute essence with this strategy, you must win fast or risk fighting a long uphill battle.

Micro
*Focus on killing workers with your Zerglings
*Hit and run the workers; Attack the workers with your Zerglings and provoke your opponent into dragging all of his workers away from the mineral line to defend himself, at this point you simply run your Zerglings back and wait for him to return his workers to the mineral line, that’s when you strike again with the Zerglings! Rinse & repeat this method whenever possible. This allows you efficiently damage your opponents economy whilst taking as little damage as possible.
*Kill the enemy army units only if you can still put the pressure on after inevitably losing some Zerglings in the process otherwise dodge the enemy army units and harass their workers instead.
* Burrow: See “Upgrades” Section, Point 4.
Macro
*Spawn Creep Tumors and spread them in a straight line heading towards your opponents base to allow Zerglings faster movement between bases
*Spawn Larva whenever possible to increase the number of Zerglings you can create

Upgrades
With a super fast 6 Pool Zergling Rush there is little chance you will be able to use any upgrades to boost the effectiveness of this strategy, however if the game does continue to play out then this is a list of the preferred upgrades for this strategy should you have the chance to research them.
[Some of the upgrades further down the list may be not be necessary depending upon the units & playstyle you choose to use]
1. Metabolic Boost (Increases the movement speed of Zerglings)
[Requires: Hatchery, Spawning Pool]
This is an exceptional ability that will boost the effectiveness of your Zerglings greatly. They will move much faster and will be able to perform hit and run attacks on workers whilst being able to dodge enemy army units with much more ease. You will gain a lot more control with this upgrade allowing you to really put the pressure on your opponent.
2. Evolve Melee Attacks Level 1 > 3 (Upgrades the attacks of all ground melee units)
[Level 1 Requires: Hatchery. Level 2 Requires: Lair. Level 3 Requires: Hive]
Level 1 of this upgrade will increase your Zerglings damage by 1. This doesn’t sound like much but it’s actually a 20% damage increase for only 100 Minerals & 100 Vespine Gas. Each level of this upgrade increases the Zergling damage by 1 each time.
3. Evolve Ground Carapace Level 1 > 3 (Upgrades the armor of all Zerg ground units):
[Level 1 Requires: Hatchery. Level 2 Requires: Lair. Level 3 Requires: Hive]
Whilst ground armor upgrades don’t tend to be as useful for Zerg units as they are for Terran or Protoss, this upgrade is still worth getting if you can as it will increase the armor of all Zerg units and not just Zerglings.
4. Evolve Burrow (Enables all Zerg ground units to burrow making it invisible unless detected)
[Requires: Lair]
With this strategy this ability is useful for both Zerglings and Banelings in particular. Burrowed Zerglings, if placed carefully, will prevent your opponent from building on the same spot you have burrowed that Zergling. I suggest using this ability with Zerglings at places you expect your opponent to build (like expansion areas) so he will need to go to the effort of detecting your Zergling and killing it before he can build anything.
Burrowed Banelings can act as land mines because you are able to explode them whilst they are burrowed. This can be absolutely devastating if used correctly. The best way to use burrowed Banelings is to spread them out across choke points (most likely your own natural expansion choke point) and wait for your opponent to march his army right over them then highlight the ones in range of his army and press X to explode the Banelings. You can also use burrowed Banelings as a pre-emptive strike, for example, if you suspect your opponent is going to expand then you can burrow several banelings along the gap in between where his expansion and the mineral line is. Then you wait for the appropriate time (preferably when the mineral line is fully saturated) and blow up all of his workers at once. In both cases I suggest you use Banelings in situations where they are unlikely to be detected or if your opponent puts little effort into scouting and detecting.
5. Pneumatized Carapace (Increases the movement speed of Overlords and Overseers)
[Requires: Lair]
This is necessary as you will need to keep checks on your opponent so you can build units/buildings in accordance to how he is playing. Using your Overlords with this upgrade allows you to scout with multiple moderately fast air units (Overlords) which will give you a larger scope of what is happening on the map.
Support
There is very little that can support a 6 Pool Zergling Rush other than more Zerglings. I do have 2 suggestions though if you are able to afford them:
1. If your opponent is Zerg then you may want to send a drone or two to your opponents main. How can this help put the odds in your favour I hear you ask? Well you can attempt to build Spine Crawler(s) at the edge of your opponents Creep either before or during the rush (depending on how confident you feel and how ignorant your opponent might be so they may miss it being built). a Spine Crawler will help provide cover for your Zerglings and should you have the chance to move it within range of your opponents Hatchery then it will deal 30 damage per hit every time it attacks the Hatchery.
2. Should your rush start to fail then try and hide a few Zerglings inside of your opponents main base in the future hope that you can realistically transition them into Banelings should you build a Baneling Nest. Then you simply try and judge the most effective time to send those Banelings into your opponents mineral line trying to take out as many workers as you can.

Counters
Protoss Counters
*If the enemy Protoss gets one Zealot for every 4 Zerglings you have then you will need to focus enemy workers only, unless you can separate the Zealots and pick them off one by one without taking too much damage, otherwise you may need to switch to only harassing with the current Zerglings you have in his base whilst building drones at your own base to boost your economy.
*If the enemy Protoss gets Photon Cannons and you are unable to kill them then you must try and attack whatever you can (preferably workers) providing you are outside the range of the Photon Cannons, otherwise if he has too many then simply stop producing Zerglings and start massing Drones as he will of spent a large amount of his resources on static defence that won’t be useful if you stop attacking and start boosting your own economy.
Terran Counters
*If the enemy Terran manages to wall off his ramp then and it seems unlikely that you can continue the rush then you may need to back off and start building Drones instead for economy
*If the enemy Terran successfully manages to build a bunker inside of his mineral line and houses Marines inside of it then you will be unlikely to hurt the Terran much without losing a greater amount of forces, so just harass whatever you can whilst building Drones at your base for economy.
Zerg Counters
*If the enemy Zerg outnumbers you in army size regarding food cost then you will need to back off and start pumping drones and prepare for a longer game as it is unlikely you will able to kill his Zerglings if he backs them up with Drones.
*If the enemy Zerg successfully builds and finishes a Spine Crawler and you don’t have enough Zerglings to kill it then once again you will need to back off and start pumping drones and prepare for a longer game as it is unlikely you will able to kill the Spine Crawler if he backs it up with Zerglings & Drones.

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