How to micro with zerg (i.e. surrounding, kiting, & stationary unit demolitioning)?

Question

Surrounding (speedlings) What's the most efficient way to surround a kiting bio ball (i.e. marines, marauders, medivacs)? Would I click far ahead of the group to force my speedling group to clump up, as opposed to lining out into a single file formation, then time the "stop" command? How do I repatch my surround once I've halted the bio ball? Right-click the center unit and click "hold-position"? Assuming in this case I had banelings, would I move them in after the surround?

Kiting (roaches with speed) What's the most efficient way to kite? Right-click far ahead and hit "stop" or "hold position"?

Stationary unit demolitioning (mutalisks vs turrets) What's the most efficient way to destroy stationary air defense with mutalisks? Stacking mutalisks with the patrol command, then moving barely into range and moving out of range (i.e. +7 mutalisks)?

Answer 1

Surrounding

The problem that you have with the kiting bio balls is that it moves away from your army, surrounding the army is a proper remedy and disallows him to kite further or run away. So, instead of the default way of attacking, you will want to get a good surround first. Move your units past his army, and once they are in a surrounding formation just perform an attack move.

This is demonstrated in this video, you will first see the Speedlings attacking them in a default way but then he properly surrounds it by walking past the army and attacks again which denies kiting.

The same counts for Banelings, as long as you don't kill your own Zerglings in the action. ;-)

Another thing that can help is spreading creep, because you can surround faster on creep...

A word of caution about Zerglings against a Bio Ball, which is the opposite for Banelings:

Because they require so much surface area attacking a large MMM ball (or an entrenched position) is rarely a good idea. Instead, find opportune moments to run your Zerglings into his mineral line, or kill of proxy pylons, or attack his MMM ball when its spread out. You'll find your Zerglings are far more effective and do a lot more damage.

— Tzenes' Answer on "Importance of Zerglings to the Zerg armies"

Kiting

Also known as stutter stepping, can be done in different ways, and is a personal choice.

In this thread, a video and map can be found to practice stutter stepping.

Your proposal looks fine enough. I usually switch between "attack move" and "move"...

Stationary unit demolitioning

Stacking Mutalisks and attacking when they are all in range is efficient, watch out for Thors though!

Answer 2

You may want to watch this video:

• Zerg Strategy - How to Engage a Terran Army

I think it contains a lot of helpful tips for how to engage and "counter" terran bio balls and mech units, even if they would normally "counter" your unit composition.