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Aotearoa39261 Posts
From a Protoss perspective, PvZ was drasitcally altered by patch 1.1.2. Many players found themselves struggling with this matchup, despite being fine pre-patch. What caused this change isn't entirely clear - did Zerg's learn how to play properly? Or was the +1 Roach range really that significant? Arguably, it was a mix of both, but that isn't important. What is important is that now many Protoss players do not understand this matchup and, without doubt, Protoss do not understand the lategame of this matchup in the least.
This thread hopefully will change that. I would hope that any high level players would read this and agree with what is written here while lesser players might learn a thing or two from it. At the very least it can be cut and converted into something useful for liquipedia. The purpose of this thread is to educate, not cause a balance riot, nor to give the latest build orders for the matchup. Hopefully it will explain the concepts and themes running through the early, mid and late game of this matchup. It's unlikely that if you are 2k+ Diamond that you will gain anything from this thread, except maybe the comments about upgrades and the late game.
Maybe I'll add some pictures to this tomorrow, this turned into quite a wall of text!
Early Game
For the purposes of this thread, early game refers to the period of the game where Zerg is trying to establish his economy while the Protoss is trying to respond to that. This is characterised by the Zerg taking his natural expansion, beginning his tech, and building up a large number of drones (or trying to). Once this foundation is established, the Zerg player is able to begin army production. While Zergs can 7RR, 5RR, baneling all-in, 6pool etc. these builds are not being considered here. On the whole these builds are shut down fairly easily by Sentries and appropriate cannon use. Further, macro games are where the strengths of Zerg shine so many Zergs are eager to play the economy game.
The Protoss early game is primarily concerned with not falling behind. Just leaving the Zerg to his own devices while taking a slow expansion off of 3 gateways is a sure fire way to lose to any competent Zerg (your economy will be too weak to compete, and he will eventually overpower you). Before the game begins you should have decided how you want to respond to the inevitable Zerg expansion - either 15 Nexus or Pressure.
The 15 Nexus option pretty much eliminates the early game phase of the game. Both you and the Zerg will be focusing on economy and neither player should be able to break the other (assuming you're responding correctly to any all ins). The only important thing to remember about this build is that scouting is essential - either via 2 Stargate Phoenix or Hallucination. Hallucination favours a ground based army follow up while Phoenix gives you the option of harass. The information you want to get from scouting is whether or not he has taken a really fast third and what his lair tech choice is (spire vs hydra den). This will be dealt with in the mid game section.
If you do not 15 Nex, then you must pressure the Zerg. The reason is simple, 15 Nex allows you to keep your probe production matched with his drone production. If you don't expand at 15, then he will have more drones since he will be powering all those larvae into drones. Pressuring the Zerg prevents that - he has to use those extra larvae on units, and not drones, which keeps his drone production in check and means you aren't falling behind. Of course, you are expanding behind your pressure (generally) and this allows you to transition into the midgame on even footing.
There are two key units in the Protoss early game - the Stalker and the Sentry. While these units are the most important, Zealots also have their place. I will devote the next few paragraphs to them and their role in this phase of the game before expanding on the types of pressure builds you can implement.
The Stalker is the strongest early game unit in this matchup - on either side. It's speed is unparalleled, until lings get speed. As such Stalkers are able to kite Zerg units very effectively and thus will be the core of any pressure attempts. (Zealot pressure is obsolete now due to Roaches). Their effectiveness peaks when you are able to get blink and pressure the Zerg with 3-4 gateways - ala Liquid`Nazgul. If you don't get Blink, then simply using hit and run micro (like Dragoons from Brood War) will generally be very effective. The most important thing to remember when pressuring with Stalkers is that you CANNOT lose them. Sure, you can lose one or two here or there, but if you lose the lot - that's it, game over. Stalkers are only a threat in numbers and at this stage of the game you cannot afford to rebuild an army (this will become a common theme...).
On November 11 2010 01:05 sleepingdog wrote: I can't stress enough how CRITICAL it is to get the timings right. NEXGenius lost a game vs Leenock on Metalopolis (into ragequit lol) because he started retreating his 2 initial stalkers just a few seconds too late. I think the user "Friend23" or sth like that posted the timings some days ago, if you scout the gas you have about 3:15 ingame until you are up against speedlings. To extend my thoughts from there: I think you should emphazise more that the scouting of the gas early on is THE most aspect in the whole PvZ early game matchup. Of course you will scout for early expo..duh..that's standard. But many fail to realize how important it is to scout how early zerg goes for gas.
Because if he does NOT go for early gas this means he intends to play economicly greedy and you HAVE to do "something" or get outmacroed like roflwhat. Opposed to this, if you see early gas you can play it more safe (zealot/sentry-expand) because zerg sacrifices mineral-mining in order to get "something" that isn't a drone. Be it speedlings, be it roach, it won't matter much because it means that you can now play it more safely. A 3 gate sentry-expand should do fine if zerg goes for fast(er) speedlings and also does very fine vs any sort of standard 2 hatch roach play (as seen from Nony vs Idra, where Nony stomped over Idra's roach-push-attempt close positions on lost temple).
The main objective with Stalker pressure is to make them spend larvae on things other than drones. From the Zerg side the best response is speedlings/ Even though Roaches got that extra range, they still get eaten by Stalker mobs. Speedlings, however, are able to shut down Stalker pressure by surrounding the Stalker mob and removing their mobility from them. Without their mobility - Stalkers are useless. It is imperative that you don't let your Stalkers get surrounded by speedlings and it takes some practice to gauge how many speedlings your mob of stalkers can take - e.g. quick 2 stalker pressure should retreat as soon as speed is finished but a 14 stalker timing attack can micro against a decent number of speedlings. Another important aspect of Stalker control is keeping the mob together - having gaps in the mob allows Stalkers to become isolated, surrounded and picked off.
In brief, you always want to keep your Stalkers moving in a mob and you want to retreat before they have enough speedlings to surround you. Being able to pick off overlords, drones and queens is a massive bonus. Being able to kill them outright is brilliant, but you shouldn't expect this in most cases.
The Sentry, conversely, is the greatest defensive unit in the early game. Further it is essential to build a decent number of these guys the moment you start your expansion (unless you are able to kill them with more Stalkers). Pure sentry with cannon support can hold off almost any type of all in with proper forcefield use. The forcefield ability is incredibly powerful and makes your defences unbreakable. While you are chronoboosting probes from two bases and building up gateways/tech it's usually a good idea to spam pure sentry since they cost so few minerals and their use won't diminish for a long time. Obviously, add Stalkers if you see them prepare drops/worms - sentries are too immobile to deal with these threats.
In general, you can't attack with Sentries in the early game. It is true that they augment your attack power, but the issue is that they are very slow and have limited mana at this stage in the game. Further, they are a significant investment which means that if you lose them - game over. It is much better just to sit back, play passive and gear up for the midgame.
Let's briefly talk about the role of Zealots. Zealots have amazing DPS and soak hits better than Stalkers and thus can be employed in a few timing attacks to combat Spine Crawler heavy Zerg users. Also, if the Zerg is playing speedling heavy then you will want a few Zealots - either on offence or defence. Stalkers don't really kill lings fast enough and will often be left floundering around, having a few Zealots can alleviate most problems Speedlings will give you. This remains true for most of the rest of the game as well - Zealots are an effective way of nullifying speedling heavy unit compositions.
If you are taking a reasonably fast expansion (e.g. after 2 stalkers) then Hallucination is essential to get immediately after Warp Gate. If you are playing a more pressure based approach (i.e. 4gate blink stalker) then you might be able to skip Hallucination since you can probably guess what tech he's going - nevertheless it's a useful upgrade. You want to get this upgrade because it allows you a 100 mana maphack. If you have 6+ sentries, this is essentially a free maphack. Knowing what the Zerg is doing is absolutely critical thoughout the game and having Hallucination allows you to see what he is up to whenever you like. In this stage of the game, in particular, Hallucination is great for determining whether he is teching mutalisk, hydra or roach or if he's going fast hive, fast expand etc. He can't keep any secrets from you with Hallucination!
To summarise the flow of the early game it goes something like this; - pressure with stalkers - expand behind pressure - add sentries to avoid being over run by all ins - get hallucination to scout what he's up to - get +1 weapons when you have the gas for it
I'll explain why you want +1 in the midgame section, since it's more relevant there.
So let's have a look at the metagame of pressure builds. The cold hard truth is that every single pressure build by the Protoss can be countered by Zerg if he knows it's coming. Ample hidden speedlings crush any Stalker pressure builds, period. Even Nazgul's blink stalker build will die to ample speedlings. So then why bother pressuring at all? It's simple, if he's building that many lings to counter you he isn't building drones, and that means you end up at least equal in the midgame! The key to these builds is being unexpected. If he over drones, he dies to a well executed pressure build - i.e. Idra at Dalas over the weekend. Thus the trick is to be be using timing pushes which are not trendy in the metagame (i.e. Blink Stalkers are getting weaker because more and more Zergs are expecting it). Thus it is important to have a vast repertoire of openings so that you are able to keep the Zerg on his toes - he should be forced to have to read your build, rather than rely on the metagame, to counter what you are doing.
Here comes in the Sentry expand build. Earlier I said that late expansions without pressure make you end up behind - and generally that is true. But if the metagame is such that all Zergs are preparing for Blink Stalkers, simply feinting a Blink Stalker opening and going into a sentry expand build instead tends to fool the Zerg into running his "counter blink stalker.bat" file and cease droning - i.e. mission accomplished without risking your army. Thus, in my opinion, if you are playing a Sentry/Expand opening you should mimic whatever pressure build is trendy at the moment for maximum effectiveness.
This should be sufficient to give you an outline of the basics of the PvZ Early game. I have obviously made omissions, for instance I haven't discussed the hugely popular gate/forge opening with the double pylon block. It would be impossible to give a complete account of the early game, which is rather unfortunate, but this should be enough to give you an idea about what is "standard" in this matchup. At the end of the early game you should have a comparable probe-drone count, both of you should have an expansion and decided on your tech path - and generally you will have had at least one hallu phoenix scout pass over his base. And now, we arrive at the midgame.
UPDATE: as of right now on the ladder, on the whole I think Zergs are making a lot more units before pumping drones. In particular speedlings seem to be gaining popularity - as such most Stalker based pressure builds are becoming weaker. Zealot/Stalker based pressure will likely be more effective than pure Stalker (albeit, less mobile). Just make sure you're only trading Zealots and not Stalkers since not wasting gas units is critical.
Your alternative to mixing in Zealots into pressure is to Sentry expand which should put you on even footing or ahead if he commits to lings too hard.
Mid Game
As stated above, the beginning of the midgame is where you choose your tech and commit to an army. This is where the real war begins. Towards the end of the early game, good Zergs will plant either one or two evo chambers and begin upgrading - one evo chamber tends to correlate to muta/ling play while 2 evos is usually hydra/roach. Upgrades are going to be incredible important during the midgame - more so than 99% of people realise. You should have started +1 Attack during the early game as well, you will need this so you do not fall behind. I would say the midgame ends when the Zerg maxes (it shouldn't take too long). By this time he will usually have the following - A third, looking for a fourth - 2-2 or 2-1 Upgrades - Hive started, or completed Your goal during the midgame is to keep his expansions in check while securing your third and fourth and keeping up (if not leading) in upgrades. If you are able to do this you will avoid being overrun by wave upon wave of maxed Zerg armies. Yay.
You have two main army composition choices - Stalker/Sentry/Colossus or Immortal/Stalker/Templar. Each has its pros and cons. It is possible to play a third style - 2stargate phoenix but on the whole those styles are more difficult to execute well.
Stalker/Sentry/Colossus (SSC) is the standard go-to army for Protoss against most things. Primarily you will want to use this against Hydra/Roach based armies. While not entirely horrible, Muta/Ling tends to do better against this army composition since there is no way to keep the mutalisk numbers in check once they grow past 12-14. Nevertheless, 8-10~ Sentries pack a huge punch against Mutalisks and guardian shield is invaluable so you can still fight a muta transition, but I would never willingly fight a muta/ling build with this.
Against Hydra/Roach however, this is the army you want to use. Typically they will mix in Corruptors to counter the Colossus. When microing these battles, your goal is to wall off half of the Zerg army, retreat a little bit then attack. This way the forces trapped behind the FFs won't be able to reach your SSC ball and you can safely pick off half of his army. Indeed, haivng a large sentry count is essential for this composition to work - if you lose sentries be sure to replace them!! Your forcefielding skills will, essentially, determine the success of your battles. Further, being able to ff, retreat, snipe corruptors all before your colossi die will often turn the game drastically in your favour.
Guardian Shield, or Gshield, is an incredibly important part of this unit composition.Using Gshield when engaging the Zerg; you would be surprised at how often Protoss don't do this! Gshield actually is incredibly important as it makes +2 Roaches do their base damage once again (assuming equal upgrades) and that makes mass Roach armies beatable. It is also invaluable against Muta armies since it drastically reduces their damage output.
If you notice that the Zerg is committing a lot of resources to Corruptors (i.e. in excess of 10) then make sure you slap down a Templar Archives and transition into a IST composition. It's essentially impossible to stop your Colossus from being killed by the Corruptors and once that happens he will have established air control and succeeded in controlling your Colossus count (analogous to how Zergs needed to control Science Vessel count in SC1). You shouldn't be able to get a Colossus ball going again in the game, that's why it's important to be able to transition into templar! That way you won't lose to the next round of Hydralisks that the Zerg produces.
As the game creeps on, this unit composition becomes worse, and worse and then down right terrible. This is because of upgrades. Indeed, understanding this is absolutely essential to understanding the last half of this matchup. Stalkers scale terribly with upgrades. Their measily +1 damage and lack of shield upgrades simply doesn't compare to the +2 for Roaches and the insane DPS of Hydras. +1 armor from the Zerg completely mitigates the +1 from Protoss on the Stalker and Sentry meaning their effectiveness, damage wise, against Roaches doesn't change throughout the game with equal upgrades. Meanwhile, a +2 Raoch has +4 damage, meaning they are dealing 4 more damage to shield and 2 more damage to HP (6 to shield/3 to HP at +3!). Thus, Stalker balls get crushed by Roach balls - particularly when burrow is thrown into the mix. So despite being the king of the early game, the Stalker becomes progressively worse throughout the game. Indeed for the most part, you will want to avoid stalkers in the late game, but we'll get to that later.
The Immortal/Stalker/Templar (IST) unit composition fares a lot better against Muta/Ling than the CSS composition. However, it does slightly worse against Hydra/Roach since Storm comes out so late - but it's still playable (as Mana points out time and time again). Invariably, your Stalkers will have blink to deal with Mutalisks. The above point about upgrades still holds for this composition - particularly against a full Roach switch. While Immortals are great at killing them, you really need to pump them out to be competitive against them (which 99% of the time isn't the case). Storm is good against Hydra, not against Roaches. And as discussed, Stalkers get worse against Roaches as more and more upgrades kick in. If using IST, it is important to realise when Roach switches occur so you can add another Robo and pump more immortals because without them, you will die. Zealots can be useful in this composition if the Zerg is building a number of Speedlings as they are they are much better at killing Zerglings than Stalkers/Immortals.
Playing IST against a Roach/Hydra composition is all about stalling for Storm while using forcefield/gshield and Immortals to fend off any Roach/Hydra pushes and punish any quick expansions. Immortals are surprisingly durable against small numbers of Hydralisks so don't be too afraid! When Hydras start getting scary you should have storm ready and be able to mince them up no problem. While you still have sentries in your army it I find it useful to keep Templar in a separate control group to my Sentries so that I can quickly cast forcefield then spam storm.
Don't be afraid to merge Templar into Archons, they are incredibly strong in this matchup. If Protoss weren't so strapped for gas we would make armies of pure archons, but unfortunately that's not possible. However the supplement both the CSS and IST armies exceptionally well, and are also can be key units in the late game. So don't forget them!
In either case, both unit compositions get progressively weaker as Zerg upgrades come into play. If you are lucky enough to be playing a Zerg who isn't upgrading (while you are) then you can stick with these unit compositions and still be incredibly successful. If a Zerg is upgrading, you will need to transition into a suitable late game army. Part of the reason Protoss is struggling so much in this matchup is that they don't understand just how effective upgrades are and continue to make these unit compositions and consequently get destroyed. I haven't see a Protoss defeat a Zerg post-patch in a long game where the Zerg has been religious with his upgrades - in all cases where a Protoss is able to win with these compositions are cases where the Zerg has failed to upgrade. Just check any replay site for verification of this.
I'll give a brief mention to the 2gate Phoenix builds. Generally, the idea behind this is to take control of the air and punish any Zerg going Mutalisk. Generally you want to get up to around 8-10 Phoenix for them to peak in effectiveness. Once you get to this count, you should be able to dominate his Mutalisk count. Just remember not to lose Phoenix and use "swoop micro" - i.e. swoop in with your Phoenix, pick off one or two mutalisks, then retreat. This way you should minimise losses while keeping his Mutalisk count in check.
If the Zerg is playing Hydra/Roach you need to firstly punish any stray overlords, and secondly make sure he doesn't get a base up on you. Most of the time a Protoss will lose against the Zerg when using 2gate Phoenix against Hydra/Roach because he lets the Zerg establish 3 bases and just sits there. Use Phoenix to harass drone lines and switch into dual robo Colossus once your economy is strong. If the Zerg does get a quick third you either need to get an expansion yourself, or punish it with a well timed Colossus timing attack - most Protoss prefer the latter. It is possible to expand since you can be confident that he will be committing most of his forces to dealing with your Phoenix - just make sure you've got an eye on him at all times!
As hinted at, the Zerg also have two key unit compositions - Hydra/Roach and Muta/Ling - both have their pros and cons. I won't go into these, but I will give an outline to the counter for each style.
Against Hydra/Roach they will be looking to play an economic game and thus will likely be expanding and mostly playing passive with solid creep spread. Of course they can timing attack you and whatnot, but generally that shouldn't be an issue since Sentries are a really good deterrent. Given the mobility issues of this composition, you can usually take your third around the same time he takes his. This feels really unnatural as a Protoss since in BW this was NEVER the case. However, in SC2 I'm fairly confident that this timing is sound. If he hasn't taken his expansion by the time you have 100 food, chances are he's noob, so take your expansion then of course keep an eye on his with hallucination just to make sure he's not going for a timing attack.
It is often a good idea to pressure similar to the early game while expanding (alternatively, you can forego expanding and timing attack off of two base). The same principles to this pressure apply as before - don't lose units, your objective is to force units, not drones and if you can end the game, great. Again, using Hallucination is an excellent way of determining the best course of action (ie. you see he is really massing drones and has no army, then you can eaily walk in an win righ there). I can't stress this enough, using many many hallucinations to completely understand what the Zerg is doing is one of the most effective ways of winning PvZs. Not only do they tell you what he is doing in the game you are playing, but it also helps build up your intuition of what to expect in the matchup - meaning you will use less and less Hallucinations as you improve and understand the matchup more. So yes, plese use hallucination and base your play off of that.
The unit composition of choice against this is the CSS composition, but it's very likely you will begin to stockpile minerals towards the end of the midgame. That's okay! That's completely normal. Sadly enough, you are completely reliant on gas units and will always be limited by your gas collection as opposed to your mineral collection. It's not worth pumping a mass of Zealots - they get minced by Roaches/Hydra. So you have two options - cannons or expand. Cannons are useful, because they do good damage and cost no gas even though they're stationary. Expanding can be risky, but what else are you going to do with those minerals. It's possible that you can get your 4th before he does, although usually they will also be around the same time.
It is imperative that you catch when he transitions into Hive tech - you will need to be prepared for that. If he is able to discretely tech to hive and get ultras or BL then the game is over since the CSS composition dies to both of them really really hard. Ultras render Sentries useless and BLs require a very specific counter. Exactly what to do when you scout the transition will be discussed in the late game section.
In summary, playing against Hydra/Roach retains a lot of the key themes from the early game. Either expand when he does, or pressure him with your ground forces to force units and not drones while expanding yourself.
Muta/Ling is the complete opposite of Hydra/Roach - it focussed on mobility and swarming you with many weak units abusing the fact that Stalkers fire so goddam slow. The most effective way to deal with this style is to timing push before it is ready - typically they will be low on units, or only have speedlings to defend. Thus a well timed push off of 5-6 gates often can end the game then and there. I cannot stress enough just how important putting pressure on a Zerg right before his Mutas are ready is. If you can kill any amount of drones with this pressure it gives you the breathing room you need to transition into your mutalisk counter of choice. However, if you can't finish him or simply would prefer to defend the Muta harass then you're definitely going to need blink. You shouldn't be able to get a third until you move out, which is really annoying but is just something you'll have to deal with.
Your objective with blink is to kill Mutalisks. The strength of Mutalisks is that they are able to come in and pick off a stalker while only suffering damage - i.e. not losing mutalisks in the process. This means that the mutalisk death ball never decreases in size while your Stalkers do. So the moral of the story is don't let Stalkers get killed stupidly (i.e. to lings) and use Blink to kill off hurt mutalisks (easier said than done). Don't use Blink to engage Mutalisks as this will just lead to them being hurt, and not killed.
Using Phoenix to counter Mutalisks can be very good, or it can be very bad. If you opened with Phoenix, great! You should be able to keep the Mutalisk death ball under control or even force him into a ground army. If you scout the spire and then start building your two stargates it will be very difficult to keep up with his mutalisk production. The key to making this successful is applying pressure with your ground forces which either will kill drones or force spinecrawlers (which also reduces his drone count) - that way he spends a few rounds of larvae on drones and not mutas allowing your phoenix count to catch up.
I would definitely opt for the IST unit composition against this for a few reasons. Firstly, it naturally provides you with Blink for your stalkers. Secondly, Immortals are great for taking out Roaches (which usually get tossed into the mix these days) and provide a good counter for Ultras later on. But most importantly, it gives you access to Storm. Storm is the key part in countering this style. While it seems that Mutalisks can just move out of the Storm and avoid most of the damage, in practice this is not the case. Typically storms can do up to 40 damage to a clump of mutalisks (thats 33% of their health). 3-4 Storms over cloud of mutalisks will put most of them in the red - and if he's got 24 red mutalisks he isn't going to come harassing you in fear of losing them all. This allows you to move out etc and win.
The moment you are able to move out you should expand, and consider expanding again. If the Zerg has 4 bases by the time you move out the game should be over, unless you are able to kill him right there. Otherwise, do what damage you can (kill as many of those blasted mutalisks!) and secure bases and map control. Further, prepare for the lategame tech transition than will undoubtedly come. As with CSS vs Hydra/Roach, you will likely become gas starved and mineral heavy - so as before either cannon, expand or maybe dump some money into Zealots - since they aren't terrible against Zerglings
Regardless of what the Zerg does, you should add a second forge and upgrade armour. If you fall behind in upgrades you should lose, particularly if he is upgrading. Since most Zergs dual evo, the second forge becomes crucial in keeping up. Further, since you have Chronoboost (and probably aren't spending it... be honest!!) you can dump your CB onto the upgrades. I strongly believe that the difficulties Protoss have in the latter half of the game are directly attributed to the strength of Zerg upgrades and the lack of Protoss upgrades, so please, upgrade religiously, you won't regret it!
A small tip is to make sure you keep a diligent eye on when he takes his third. This isn't BW, Zergs being a base up on you means you are behind (unless you get a base up yourself soon after). It also means that generally if he's taking a really quick expansion you can move out and force a cancel or even kill it since he won't have the units to defend. I would advise thinking about Zerg and expanding in the following way - treat a Zerg expansion like you would an expansion in any other matchup! If they get it up and get it fully saturated before you have an expansion fully saturated then you are behind - pressure and all ins keep Zergs and their expansions honest. The same applies to the Zergs 3rd and 4th etc. Moral of the story - don't fall behind in bases and punish Zergs for being greedy!
Oh and one last piece of advice that is true no matter what unit composition you run with:
On November 13 2010 08:42 adrift wrote: I like the post. I think you should put in bold somewhere that you can not under any circumstances lose your army (or any non-minimal amount of it) without doing economic damage to them. You kind of mentioned it in some parts but I think that is one of the most important things in PvZ.
Do not push out later mid-game/late-game unless you think you can kill their army and have enough left over to actually damage their economy. If you lose your expensive gas units and don't hurt their economy you are probably dead.
Late game
Okay, you've exchanged some severe blows and survived. You're both on multiple bases and haev approximately half the map each. Upgrades are almost 3-3 on both sides and the Zerg has his Hive up. Ladies and Gentles, we are in the late game.
This section is probably going to sound like a massive balance whine - well, it is and it isn't. Neither the CSS or IST unit compositions are cost effective in this stage of the game mostly because Stalkers suck incredible hard now. If Protoss had any other easily massable ranged unit we would make them, but we dont, and we absolutely need those ranged attacks (i.e. against broods) so we are stuck with these garbage units. So in this respect, Stalkers are really under powered now. Further, Sentries are obsolete - Ultras trample through forcefields and Broodlords just lol at them. The only thing they are good for are a few last minute hallucinations to soak damage.
So basically, once you hit lategame you need to change up your unit composition. That's fine, us Protoss players will just have to cope with a core unit of ours being terrible but necessary. Bleh.
Okay so once you scout that he's going hive you need to decide on what Late game unit composition you want to strive for. Really, there are only two options - Void Rays or Immortals. Immortals hard counter Ultralisks so if you know your Zerg opponent is going to go Ultralisks, slap down 3 robos and pump immortals, research charge, and mass Zealots. If you were using the IST unit composition keep making Templar and cease Stalker production. If you were using the CSS unit composition, try not to lose Colossus and cease Stalker/Sentry production - consider mixing in DTs if possible. Ultimately though, I feel that Immortals are not flexible enough for the late game since a good Zerg should switch back to Mutalisks or Hydralisks and roflstomp your late game army - plus immortals suck against Broodlords for obvious reasons.
2 Stargate VoidRay, however, is the future of PvZ late game in my humble opinion. Hasuobs was the first to really use this in high pressure situations, as far as I can recall. Of course I am referring to his Go4SC2 Final against Haypro, in particular his game on Lost Temple. Void Rays, or rather, Speed Rays are incredible late game units for the following reasons - Zerg has nothing good to kill them with (muta expensive, corruptor lol, hydras die to everything) - They do full damage to Ultra and Broods - Are really useful against both Broods and Ultras - Speedrays are amazing harass tools (can shut down expos, kill drones, tech etc) - They force hydras/mutas which are both gas intensive, the zerg wants to be spending that gas on ultra or BL
To top it all off, they complement a CSS or IST army really well independently of late game so around 150 food you can slap down two stargates and pump Voids without worrying about whether they will be countered by something (because there isn't an excellent counter to them!). If the Zerg is going Ultra, cut Stalkers and add Zealots and if he's going Broods continue the Stalker production. Also, getting speed unlocks the mighty Mothership. Laugh all you want at how useless you think it is, but getting a Mothership forces the Zerg to either a) target fire the Mothership before killing your army (i.e. a 400/400 PDD which has vortex) b) Get overseers (which is annoying) In either case the Mothership augments the power of your Zealot/Colossus/Stalker/Void Ray or Zealot/Stalker/Immortal/Templar/Void Ray ball tenfold. It can make all the difference in a 200/200 fight, trust me.
If the Zerg is able to crush your army, chances are the game is over since he will likely be able to replenish very quickly. So make sure you are moving out with either a maxed or near maxed army or that you can see a clear window of opportunity to attack. Otherwise, use speedrays to harass the Zerg while making sure you have the last few bases secured and mining. Once you reach 200/200 (ideally with Mothership) you should be able to crush any army that the Zerg throws at you with minimal losses - and from there the game should be yours.
You can be confident that without Hive tech, a 160 Supply Protoss army should crush anything the Zerg can throw at it. With Hive tech this isn't necessarily true! Unfortunately there isn't much more to add to this other than play cleverly, the late game is so poorly understood by Protoss at the moment that it's difficult to give better advice. However, this should serve as a good grounding for your own experimentation in the matchup.
Hopefully you understand the basics of PvZ now, obviously there are a number of areas which I have neglected since this is meant to serve as a basis for standard PvZ. If you have any questions, this is a good thread to ask them in and hopefully other good Protoss players will be able to help out as well This is the best matchup in SC2 as far as I am concerned, and every Protoss should be able to appreciate the beauty of it.
Happy hunting!
UPDATE: I've included a few really good replays that I think demonstrate these points well below:
Sorrow vs Orz - Excellent example of a number of these principles - hallu scouting, pressure, good FF use etc.
inNirvana vs bly - Despite the dubious P opening (it would crumble to roach pressure) he moves out at an unorthodox time and is able to pressure the Zerg - Zerg builds a lot of spines which delay muta and is a massive tell that he is going muta - P's pressure tells him that mutas are coming (without using hallu) and double stargates and forces the zerg to commit drones to static defense - As a result, the Zerg isn't able to get a decent muta count up and the Phoenix overpower him - The Protoss isn't afraid to expand - the expansion to 12 was perfect seeing as he knew the Zerg wouldn't be able to pressure him any time soon
Idra vs Minigun - Unconventional timings on Miniguns attacks really put a macro zerg off his game!
Macseed vs Some Zerg - One thing to note about this game is that the Taiwanese metagame is such that Zerg like to play really aggressive openings. This means, automatically, that they are not droning as hard as NA/EU/KR Zergs are. Pressure as a Protoss on this server is often not necessary. As long as you're not losing units to his Zerglings (or roaches) - you're okay. - This replay demonstrates perfect use of sentries. He uses Hallucination religiously to get complete information about the Zergs strategy. And his forcefield and micro during the major fight south of the Zergs gold is sublime - he traps half the army, moves back with his army, then engages again - exactly as described in this guide. It really makes the sentry look broken to be honest!
mOOnGlade vs Lotze - This replay isn't an example of a Protoss playing well. Lotze, despite being a top 64 GSL Protoss, plays this game completely wrong. Glade on the other hand, does everything right. - Lotze opens with forge/gateway pressure which is a fair good opening, but isn't able to end the game there so expands (so far so good) - Lotze doesn't apply pressure and literally just sits there while Glade drones up on three bases - Lotze doesn't get his third nearly fast enough - Lotze doesn't focus on upgrades, Glade gets a quick 2-2 and the difference shows - Lotze's unit composition is completely wrong - you can't counter Roaches with blink stalkers. His VR switch comes far too late. - Zergs, play like Glade does. Protoss, don't play like lotze.
Some Korean Protoss vs etdrevtime - This is a perfect game from the Protoss. - He opens with one of my favourite builds, the double stalker pressure. He's clever about it though. He uses the Stalkers to snipe off wandering overlords while the Zerg sees this and spends larvae on lings/overlords to defend. However, he never actually sends the Stalkers and instead expands safely. - Zerg tries to get greedy taking the gold, and the Protoss pressures with a good number of sentry and stalker, the zerg has no units, and the expo dies - The zerg takes a reasonably fast third after that but is unable to saturate it because the Protoss pressure forces him to make units and not drones - The Protoss expands a little bit after the zerg does meaning he's going to be miles ahead in economy (since he's well saturated at this point) - He also has great army composition (stalker/immortal/sentry) and has great forcefield micro - The protoss does exactly what he needs to do, when he needs to do it, and never lets the Zerg play the game he wants to play. It's beautiful.
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Very informative and great write up! I found this invaluable as a Zerg, as it gives great insight into the Protoss point of view.
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Holy wall of text!
Awsome compilation, will comment on specific issues shortly!
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Awesome read Plexa, thank you. PvZ is by far my worst matchup, and I'll be bookmarking this for future reference.
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TY for the nice writing! I only play Toss but i dislike Rays however One question came to my mind regarding air upgrades now. What would be the ideal point to start upgrading air dmg/armor when you havent already made some phenix play in early/mid game? Just a bit before you pump Rays? As of at this point i would think i spend all my CBs on the Rays and not on the 2+ cybernetics.
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Wow thanks for the writup. I've always struggled with this matchup regardless of patch (I never 4 gated back when that worked) so stuff like this is very informative. Nice work
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Wow, thanks for the write up. That was a very insightful read. I can't wait to get home and put some of this into practice :D
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 11 2010 00:30 Thaddaeus wrote:TY for the nice writing! I only play Toss but i dislike Rays however One question came to my mind regarding air upgrades now. What would be the ideal point to start upgrading air dmg/armor when you havent already made some phenix play in early/mid game? Just a bit before you pump Rays? As of at this point i would think i spend all my CBs on the Rays and not on the 2+ cybernetics. I would start +1 the moment you have the gas after you've put down your two stargates. Normally you're starved for gas so you'll probably only get to about +2 weapons at most, but it's not overly important for VRs since their strength is that when charged they own and the fact they are really mobile.
If you are a normal Protoss, you will have enough CB for everything haha. By then you'll have at least 3 Nexus and plenty of CB lying about so it's not really an issue
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Nice write-up. I agree with just about everything. I'd be really really nice if Blizz would patch the stalker's weapon upgrades to keep pace roaches. It's not like stalkers are going to be OP against marauders, battlecruisers or collosi....
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Very very nice. I didn't realize upgrades were that important until I saw TT1 get it really fast every game dring MLG.
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Also, after the roach range buff, I don't think the 15 nexus is worth it except on super-long rush distances. 1-base roach pressure into expansion means you have to cut probes to crank out 3-5 cannons, and even expansion into 2-base early roach pressure forces you to cut probes to get 2-3 cannons and a lot of stalkers ASAP. You can keep up with Z's economy if you constantly build probes, but I don't think you can afford to do that unless you have a full scout on Z which is usually impossible. I've had a lot more success keeping up w/ Z's economy constantly chronoing probes on 1 base and sentry expanding. The expansion is later, but it's safe, allows you to apply a little pressure, and the probe count is good once your expansion finishes.
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On November 10 2010 23:49 Plexa wrote: Note also that unless you open with Phoenix, Phoenix are not a good counter to Mutalisks. They are good to prevent the Mutalisk death ball from starting, but they are not good at controlling the deathball once it gets large. So if you were already building phoenix, great! If not, don't transition into it because you will just be way too behind in numbers to deal with the Mutalisks effectively.
While I understand the idea behind this, in practice how do you defend multiple expos against muta harrass without Phoenix? Do you split your stalkers into multiple groups, thus weakening your main force? I know blink will help stalkers get to your mineral line quickly but a deathball of mutas will already have done serious damage before that happens.
There's really been nothing I have tried that worked once Z got 10+mutas.
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I don't get it. You claim that there are two viable late game toss strategies: immo+zealot or mass-void. However, you say immo+zealot is bad since the zerg can transition back into mutas and win, then you say mass-voids are good because the zerg can NOT transition back into mutas and win?
Mutas might be expensive, but so are voids, and in a late game situation, it's very easy to mass mutas WAY faster than protoss can mass voids.
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Can you elaborate more on knowing when to stop the early pressure against zerg? I have a tendency to over commit to my early pressure and consequently either lose or win very early on. How do I know when I've curtailed his "power-droning" enough?
Also, I'm alittle surprised by the lack of discussion in phoenix's, or air dominance in the early/midgame sections. But I don't know nearly enough to contribute there, only that (at my level) it seems limiting myself to only SSC or IST would feel overly restrictive.
Very nice write up.
::Edit:: I have similar experiences as Shadrak, and tend to open up with Phoenix play to head it off at the pass.
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What do you think about DT tech late-game? They have the dps to deal with ultras (bad choice against broods, obviously). I imagine this would come down to a micro-battle against his overseers.
I've been experimenting with reasonable success with a Sangho style 15 nexus opening into 2 stargates. A common response to the protoss FE is a roach bust, and if you have 2 stargates up, you can chrono out 2 voidrays. This really tends to crush the roach push. The phoenix scouting informs you on the timing of collosi or HT tech. (I always use colossi...the tech path is faster and cheaper, and I'm playing to win in the air, anyway).
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One thing you didn't talk about that I've found really useful is throwing a few DTs into your army in lategame. Usually zergs right now are running with really low overseer counts, and DTs do ridiculous damage (45 per swing) and scale very well with weapons upgrades (+5 per upgrade), so if you can pick off whatever overseer happens to be with their army a few DTs can definitely turn the battle in your favor.
Edit: Oh hi guy above me.
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Excellent write-up, thanks for taking the time to lay this out so nicely in one place.
I wonder if you view a 9 scout, 10 gate + forge if late pool opening as viable? Your 1st CB zealot gets there very fast to help out your early cannon and the Z does not have zerglings yet. I know a calm zerg can take care of any cannons with drones only, but you can always cancel and rebuild it, and usually get a few drone kills as well. Again, your goal is to slow down the Z econ and if things go OK to try to take out the expo.
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Wow.. that was an excellent guide Plexa thank you.
Great write-up that covered every aspect of the PvZ matchup in brilliant detail and depth.
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On November 11 2010 00:56 Tobberoth wrote: I don't get it. You claim that there are two viable late game toss strategies: immo+zealot or mass-void. However, you say immo+zealot is bad since the zerg can transition back into mutas and win, then you say mass-voids are good because the zerg can NOT transition back into mutas and win?
Mutas might be expensive, but so are voids, and in a late game situation, it's very easy to mass mutas WAY faster than protoss can mass voids.
In either case, you want to keep pumping HT/archons. I don't think Plexa intends that you completely cut the other units you'd been using--you still need stalkers and collosi/storm--but in late game, you need to start making zealots to tank ultras, and you'll probably want void rays as well or you'll die to brood lords. You need a lot of storms on the field to support void rays tho because voids die instantly to hydras.
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Ok, here are some comments, I hope you forgive me for being a bit critical, but I think it's more profitable for everyone if I only comment on stuff that I think needs further attention (I could praise 90% of your post though: excellent)
e.g. quick 2 stalker pressure should retreat as soon as speed is finished
I can't stress enough how CRITICAL it is to get the timings right. NEXGenius lost a game vs Leenock on Metalopolis (into ragequit lol) because he started retreating his 2 initial stalkers just a few seconds too late. I think the user "Friend23" or sth like that posted the timings some days ago, if you scout the gas you have about 3:15 ingame until you are up against speedlings. To extend my thoughts from there: I think you should emphazise more that the scouting of the gas early on is THE most aspect in the whole PvZ early game matchup. Of course you will scout for early expo..duh..that's standard. But many fail to realize how important it is to scout how early zerg goes for gas. Because if he does NOT go for early gas this means he intends to play economicly greedy and you HAVE to do "something" or get outmacroed like roflwhat. Opposed to this, if you see early gas you can play it more safe (zealot/sentry-expand) because zerg sacrifices mineral-mining in order to get "something" that isn't a drone. Be it speedlings, be it roach, it won't matter much because it means that you can now play it more safely. A 3 gate sentry-expand should do fine if zerg goes for fast(er) speedlings and also does very fine vs any sort of standard 2 hatch roach play (as seen from Nony vs Idra, where Nony stomped over Idra's roach-push-attempt close positions on lost temple).
Note also that unless you open with Phoenix, Phoenix are not a good counter to Mutalisks. They are good to prevent the Mutalisk death ball from starting, but they are not good at controlling the deathball once it gets large.
I'm sorry, I really value your opinion as one of the highest of all ppl here, but this is just wrong imho. Phoenixes kill Mutas INCREDIBLY cost-effectively, although - as with every zerg-unit - the effectiveness decreases with upgrades on both sides. I really hope you take this critique not personally but try to test it in the unit-tester. The protoss-player has the micro-advantage, so nothing is lost by just a-moving the units into another, if anything, protoss profits more if both players know how to micro. Just a simple example: with 20 phoenixes (3000/2000)vs 25 mutas (3000/2000) both unupgraded the ridiculous number of 11 phoenixes survives. Take upgrades into account and mutas do better because the average "profit" from upgrades is higher. Still doesn't change the fact that zerg can NOT, like NEVER rely on pure mutas vs pure phoenixes. You can keep up production-wise due to chrono-boosting both stargates, you only have to be careful to not lose phoenixes early when you are outmatched in numbers. Also zerg cannot really expand safely because mutas are slower than phoenixes, you can always lift off some drones/queens, zerg can NOT defend three bases without any ground-support like more queens than needed or spores, which further decreases the effectiveness of the overall zerg-gameplay. Maybe I'm wrong, but the maths disagrees and since phoenixes are so easy to micro I've never seen a game where a protoss would lose air-control with phoenixes vs mutas. EDIT: Forgot to mention that the perfect replay for what I mean would be Sen vs Socke on Desert Oasis. Socke goes for a 5 gate timing attack, does NOT win outright (but deals serious damage) and gets 2 stargates immediately after he sees the first mutas. This shut down Sen COMPLETELY, Sen went hydras and got stomped into the ground by colossi/HT (one of Socke's strongest games at MLG). So I think it's fair to say that going phoenixes later on is also very possible even if you didn't open with them.
2 Stargate VoidRay, however, is the future of PvZ late game. Hasuobs was the first to really use this in high pressure situations, as far as I can recall. Of course I am referring to his Go4SC2 Final against Haypro, in particular his game on Lost Temple.
This is something that cannot be emphazised enough, good God I'm SO glad somebody with a clue posted this so ppl will believe what he says (I never dared to post a lategame PvZ-guide because...well...I'm stuck with a bad internet and can't play, so nobody would probably take my input that seriously). Yes, Hasuobs was also as far as I can remember one of the first to really discover the strength of voidrays in late PvZ, I've still got some voidray-reps of him pre-go4sc2 vs haypro where he used voidrays heavily as well. As you perfectly explained, voidrays are so good because they hard-counter BOTH the ultralisk AND the broodlord, if you go 2-3 stargate voidrays lategame you FORCE zerg to AGAIN rely on hydras or mutas, both of which can be played against far more effectively with colossi, templar, stalkers, phoenixes, etc. Very few PvZs you see going to lategame and I firmly believe that you are 100% right, VoidRays are indeed the go-to-unit for Protoss at this stance!
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After the expansion how fast do you guys usually get your robo or twilight? Lately I've been trying to push at 9 min with pure warp gate (3 gate exp, once expo is up make two more gates) units.
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You say in the article "don't get zealots, they'll get minced by roach/hydra, etc". If you send in chargelots after everything else is engaged they'll do fine.
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I'm a Zerg Player and this thread provides in-depth information about Protoss - this thread serves Zerg and Protoss equally well. Very well written (only noticed like 3 typos ^^), really a great guide. Maybe a strong Zerg player should write a ZvP guide as long as this so either sides get the same quality of information. ps: ZvT is far more interesting
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I do think that PvZ is my weakest matchup after the patch. The roach range has made zergs aware of how f-ing good roaches really are and im pretty much scared constantly from mid to late game. The amount of roaches he can pump on 2base 3 hatch is very scary and only countered with great ff's (and v-rays of course ). I guess what i really have to do more effectively is keeping my early stalkers alive.
Very, very nice write up plexa! you sir, are awesome
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On November 11 2010 01:00 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 00:56 Tobberoth wrote: I don't get it. You claim that there are two viable late game toss strategies: immo+zealot or mass-void. However, you say immo+zealot is bad since the zerg can transition back into mutas and win, then you say mass-voids are good because the zerg can NOT transition back into mutas and win?
Mutas might be expensive, but so are voids, and in a late game situation, it's very easy to mass mutas WAY faster than protoss can mass voids. In either case, you want to keep pumping HT/archons. I don't think Plexa intends that you completely cut the other units you'd been using--you still need stalkers and collosi/storm--but in late game, you need to start making zealots to tank ultras, and you'll probably want void rays as well or you'll die to brood lords. You need a lot of storms on the field to support void rays tho because voids die instantly to hydras. Well, I'm just speaking from my thoughts here, I'm not good enough to have any real insight into high level PvZ late game, but wouldn't most Zerg players be quite happy to fly in with a group of mutas, pick of a void or two, then fly away as soon as storm hits? It will keep the storms away from the rest of the army while keeping the void count low (and voids are pretty useless in low numbers). It seems to me that in a situation where a protoss has HTs and is going voids, any Zerg would start massing mutas and use them to halt void production while sniping HTs.
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I can agree with everything in your guide. Especialy on the upgrade part!
However, you do not say much about the phoenix harass and transitions. Here is where you shouldnt neglect chargelots. They do more dps than roaches and have about the same durability plus they cost less and free up gas. If you fight with chargelots+phoenix against mutaling and are ahead with upgrades then you can add gateways and all-in the shit out of the zerg. If you fight against roach hydra then your countered in a ball vs ball army but not tactically because you can force him to defend his queens/ovis/drones while you send packs of chargelots+1/+2 into his expansions or vice versa. If he all-ins then throw down a bunch of cannons and start pumping out voidrays/sentrys/stalkers and try to flank him with your zealots. however it IS hard to defend against hydra roach with phoenixes and chargelots but its possible.
however iam blabbering alot here about chargelots being effective and whatnot but to me they feel damn strong. If you have explenations of you neglecting them then it would be very helpful if you can bring them.
The mothership is a very strong lategame transition as soon as you commit to a timing attack from my experience. I used it a ton in the beta and it made PvZ look easy. Even made a thread back then. however: its a commitement nontheless. I dont have much experience with lategame voidrays so I shut my mouth about them. I can imagine they are strong if you upgrade the shit out of them and have a decent number. I tend to go carrier lategame but it gives Z the option to counter them with corruptors, so I definitely try voids next time.
thx for the nice guide
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I <3 plexa, thanks for the guide. Alot of my builds got killed by roach range so i guess its colossus time.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 11 2010 00:55 kcdc wrote: Also, after the roach range buff, I don't think the 15 nexus is worth it except on super-long rush distances. 1-base roach pressure into expansion means you have to cut probes to crank out 3-5 cannons, and even expansion into 2-base early roach pressure forces you to cut probes to get 2-3 cannons and a lot of stalkers ASAP. You can keep up with Z's economy if you constantly build probes, but I don't think you can afford to do that unless you have a full scout on Z which is usually impossible. I've had a lot more success keeping up w/ Z's economy constantly chronoing probes on 1 base and sentry expanding. The expansion is later, but it's safe, allows you to apply a little pressure, and the probe count is good once your expansion finishes. 15 Nexus is really only viable on Shakuras, I don't even think its viable on Jungle basin tbh! One base sentry expand works as long as the Zerg doesn't think you are sentry expanding haha. Sentry expand means you can't do any pressure what so ever, so a maphacking Zerg will just sit and mass drones until ~50, which you can't keep up with. That's why I think it's important to be a varied player, well, at least in tournament/series situations (ladder doesn't matter).
On November 11 2010 00:55 Shadrak wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2010 23:49 Plexa wrote: Note also that unless you open with Phoenix, Phoenix are not a good counter to Mutalisks. They are good to prevent the Mutalisk death ball from starting, but they are not good at controlling the deathball once it gets large. So if you were already building phoenix, great! If not, don't transition into it because you will just be way too behind in numbers to deal with the Mutalisks effectively. While I understand the idea behind this, in practice how do you defend multiple expos against muta harrass without Phoenix? Do you split your stalkers into multiple groups, thus weakening your main force? I know blink will help stalkers get to your mineral line quickly but a deathball of mutas will already have done serious damage before that happens. There's really been nothing I have tried that worked once Z got 10+mutas. Few cannons in the minlines helps, but you can only defend 2 bases max with Stalkers alone. Thats why, imo, you're breakout attack needs to thin muta numbers or win the game outright. If you can't hurt that muta flock you're fucked
On November 11 2010 00:56 Disda wrote: Can you elaborate more on knowing when to stop the early pressure against zerg? I have a tendency to over commit to my early pressure and consequently either lose or win very early on. How do I know when I've curtailed his "power-droning" enough?
Also, I'm alittle surprised by the lack of discussion in phoenix's, or air dominance in the early/midgame sections. But I don't know nearly enough to contribute there, only that (at my level) it seems limiting myself to only SSC or IST would feel overly restrictive.
Very nice write up.
::Edit:: I have similar experiences as Shadrak, and tend to open up with Phoenix play to head it off at the pass. For early pressure, I haven't got an exact ratio worked out - I just feel it.. which isn't much help. When his speedling fleet is big enough to surround your Stalkers then it's time to get out of there! i.e. for 2 stalkers 6 lings is usually enough to isolate one of them and kill it off. But against 8 stalkers, 6 lings can barely surround 1/3 of your stalker mob.
I'm not big on Phoenix play in PvZ. I appreciate that it works for a lot of people, but I can't help but feel that there are massive massive timing windows which leave you vulnerable. If it works for you, great. But I wouldn't advise people learning protoss to try pick up those kinds of builds because you need to be able to read the zerg perfectly to stop him from hitting those timing windows.
On November 11 2010 00:57 Chemist391 wrote: What do you think about DT tech late-game? They have the dps to deal with ultras (bad choice against broods, obviously). I imagine this would come down to a micro-battle against his overseers.
I've been experimenting with reasonable success with a Sangho style 15 nexus opening into 2 stargates. A common response to the protoss FE is a roach bust, and if you have 2 stargates up, you can chrono out 2 voidrays. This really tends to crush the roach push. The phoenix scouting informs you on the timing of collosi or HT tech. (I always use colossi...the tech path is faster and cheaper, and I'm playing to win in the air, anyway). DTs are great to mix in. Unfortunately you're nearly always strapped for gas... I often mix them in when going for IST styles since it's close enough to justify getting them (despite the fact that the dark shrine takes longer to build than a nexus....). Mixing in 4-5 can be really really useful in thinning number or harassing.
Actually, here's a neat tip. If you spam a ton of DTs and if you have +2 attack, sending 4 DT per hatchery should be enough to kill the hatch before an overseer finishes really nice for comeback games
On November 11 2010 01:05 sleepingdog wrote:Ok, here are some comments, I hope you forgive me for being a bit critical, but I think it's more profitable for everyone if I only comment on stuff that I think needs further attention (I could praise 90% of your post though: excellent) I can't stress enough how CRITICAL it is to get the timings right. NEXGenius lost a game vs Leenock on Metalopolis (into ragequit lol) because he started retreating his 2 initial stalkers just a few seconds too late. I think the user "Friend23" or sth like that posted the timings some days ago, if you scout the gas you have about 3:15 ingame until you are up against speedlings. To extend my thoughts from there: I think you should emphazise more that the scouting of the gas early on is THE most aspect in the whole PvZ early game matchup. Of course you will scout for early expo..duh..that's standard. But many fail to realize how important it is to scout how early zerg goes for gas. Because if he does NOT go for early gas this means he intends to play economicly greedy and you HAVE to do "something" or get outmacroed like roflwhat. Opposed to this, if you see early gas you can play it more safe (zealot/sentry-expand) because zerg sacrifices mineral-mining in order to get "something" that isn't a drone. Be it speedlings, be it roach, it won't matter much because it means that you can now play it more safely. A 3 gate sentry-expand should do fine if zerg goes for fast(er) speedlings and also does very fine vs any sort of standard 2 hatch roach play (as seen from Nony vs Idra, where Nony stomped over Idra's roach-push-attempt close positions on lost temple). Good points, I'll add that to the OP.
Show nested quote +Note also that unless you open with Phoenix, Phoenix are not a good counter to Mutalisks. They are good to prevent the Mutalisk death ball from starting, but they are not good at controlling the deathball once it gets large. I'm sorry, I really value your opinion as one of the highest of all ppl here, but this is just SO wrong. Phoenixes kill Mutas INCREDIBLY cost-effectively, although - as with every zerg-unit - the effectiveness decreases with upgrades on both sides. I really hope you take this critique not personally but try to test it in the unit-tester. The protoss-player has the micro-advantage, so nothing is lost by just a-moving the units into another, if anything, protoss profits more if both players know how to micro. Just a simple example: with 20 phoenixes (3000/2000)vs 25 mutas (3000/2000) both unupgraded the ridiculous number of 11 phoenixes survives. Take upgrades into account and mutas do better because the average "profit" from upgrades is higher. Still doesn't change the fact that zerg can NOT, like NEVER rely on pure mutas vs pure phoenixes. You can keep up production-wise due to chrono-boosting both stargates, you only have to be careful to not lose phoenixes early when you are outmatched in numbers. Also zerg cannot really expand safely because mutas are slower than phoenixes, you can always lift off some drones/queens, zerg can NOT defend three bases without any ground-support like more queens than needed or spores, which further decreases the effectiveness of the overall zerg-gameplay. Maybe I'm wrong, but the maths disagrees and since phoenixes are so easy to micro I've never seen a game where a protoss would lose air-control with phoenixes vs mutas. EDIT: Forgot to mention that the perfect replay for what I mean would be Sen vs Socke on Desert Oasis. Socke goes for a 5 gate timing attack, does NOT win outright (but deals serious damage) and gets 2 stargates immediately after he sees the first mutas. This shut down Sen COMPLETELY, Sen went hydras and got stomped into the ground by colossi/HT (one of Socke's strongest games at MLG). Okay it's important to realise there are two scenarios here. Firstly, if you have a stargate and are making phoenix already then yea, you can keep up with his mutalisk production. At the very worst, it's an even game between you two. e.g. replay the protoss beats the zerg with 3 stargate phoenix in a 44 minute game. However, if you scout mutas (i.e. after spire is around 50% complete) and then add phoenix, you will never be able to match his mutalisk count. He will always have superior numbers and you won't win. Phoenix are an excellent preventative measure, but aren't a reactionary measure - if you understand what I mean.
Basically, you'll never get to the point where you have equal cost phoenix vs muta because he'll be ahead of you if you start phoenix production after scouting spire.
On November 11 2010 01:08 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 01:00 kcdc wrote:On November 11 2010 00:56 Tobberoth wrote: I don't get it. You claim that there are two viable late game toss strategies: immo+zealot or mass-void. However, you say immo+zealot is bad since the zerg can transition back into mutas and win, then you say mass-voids are good because the zerg can NOT transition back into mutas and win?
Mutas might be expensive, but so are voids, and in a late game situation, it's very easy to mass mutas WAY faster than protoss can mass voids. In either case, you want to keep pumping HT/archons. I don't think Plexa intends that you completely cut the other units you'd been using--you still need stalkers and collosi/storm--but in late game, you need to start making zealots to tank ultras, and you'll probably want void rays as well or you'll die to brood lords. You need a lot of storms on the field to support void rays tho because voids die instantly to hydras. Well, I'm just speaking from my thoughts here, I'm not good enough to have any real insight into high level PvZ late game, but wouldn't most Zerg players be quite happy to fly in with a group of mutas, pick of a void or two, then fly away as soon as storm hits? It will keep the storms away from the rest of the army while keeping the void count low (and voids are pretty useless in low numbers). It seems to me that in a situation where a protoss has HTs and is going voids, any Zerg would start massing mutas and use them to halt void production while sniping HTs. It doesn't really work like that. Muta switches that late in the game won't make more than 9-12 Mutalisks. Thats still a manageable number! Stalkers can still safely deal with that and VRs are surprisingly durable against Mutalisks (and do more damage than you would expect). So all in all, he'll end up worse off from the exchange and he would have sunk 12k gas into non-ultra/BL which is a win for me.
On November 11 2010 01:21 clickrush wrote: I can agree with everything in your guide. Especialy on the upgrade part!
However, you do not say much about the phoenix harass and transitions. Here is where you shouldnt neglect chargelots. They do more dps than roaches and have about the same durability plus they cost less and free up gas. If you fight with chargelots+phoenix against mutaling and are ahead with upgrades then you can add gateways and all-in the shit out of the zerg. If you fight against roach hydra then your countered in a ball vs ball army but not tactically because you can force him to defend his queens/ovis/drones while you send packs of chargelots+1/+2 into his expansions or vice versa. If he all-ins then throw down a bunch of cannons and start pumping out voidrays/sentrys/stalkers and try to flank him with your zealots. however it IS hard to defend against hydra roach with phoenixes and chargelots but its possible.
however iam blabbering alot here about chargelots being effective and whatnot but to me they feel damn strong. If you have explenations of you neglecting them then it would be very helpful if you can bring them. Chargelots actually destroy Hydras really well, they just suck so hard against Roaches that its not funny like I said earlier, I'm not very experienced with Phoenix builds so I left them as a passing note. There are far better players to be explaining the intricacies of those styles since they are drastically different to what is presented here, although they're still viable of course (esp. on scrap).
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On November 11 2010 00:55 kcdc wrote: Also, after the roach range buff, I don't think the 15 nexus is worth it except on super-long rush distances. 1-base roach pressure into expansion means you have to cut probes to crank out 3-5 cannons, and even expansion into 2-base early roach pressure forces you to cut probes to get 2-3 cannons and a lot of stalkers ASAP. You can keep up with Z's economy if you constantly build probes, but I don't think you can afford to do that unless you have a full scout on Z which is usually impossible. I've had a lot more success keeping up w/ Z's economy constantly chronoing probes on 1 base and sentry expanding. The expansion is later, but it's safe, allows you to apply a little pressure, and the probe count is good once your expansion finishes.
15 nex is perfectly defendable on LT, Shakuras, Jungle Basin though. And slightly more difficult on Steppes of War. Don't think I would do it on any other map because the nat is impossible to defend. Would have to go with sentry expand.
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On November 11 2010 01:22 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 00:55 kcdc wrote: Also, after the roach range buff, I don't think the 15 nexus is worth it except on super-long rush distances. 1-base roach pressure into expansion means you have to cut probes to crank out 3-5 cannons, and even expansion into 2-base early roach pressure forces you to cut probes to get 2-3 cannons and a lot of stalkers ASAP. You can keep up with Z's economy if you constantly build probes, but I don't think you can afford to do that unless you have a full scout on Z which is usually impossible. I've had a lot more success keeping up w/ Z's economy constantly chronoing probes on 1 base and sentry expanding. The expansion is later, but it's safe, allows you to apply a little pressure, and the probe count is good once your expansion finishes. 15 Nexus is really only viable on Shakuras, I don't even think its viable on Jungle basin tbh! One base sentry expand works as long as the Zerg doesn't think you are sentry expanding haha. Sentry expand means you can't do any pressure what so ever, so a maphacking Zerg will just sit and mass drones until ~50, which you can't keep up with. That's why I think it's important to be a varied player, well, at least in tournament/series situations (ladder doesn't matter). Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 00:55 Shadrak wrote:On November 10 2010 23:49 Plexa wrote: Note also that unless you open with Phoenix, Phoenix are not a good counter to Mutalisks. They are good to prevent the Mutalisk death ball from starting, but they are not good at controlling the deathball once it gets large. So if you were already building phoenix, great! If not, don't transition into it because you will just be way too behind in numbers to deal with the Mutalisks effectively. While I understand the idea behind this, in practice how do you defend multiple expos against muta harrass without Phoenix? Do you split your stalkers into multiple groups, thus weakening your main force? I know blink will help stalkers get to your mineral line quickly but a deathball of mutas will already have done serious damage before that happens. There's really been nothing I have tried that worked once Z got 10+mutas. Few cannons in the minlines helps, but you can only defend 2 bases max with Stalkers alone. Thats why, imo, you're breakout attack needs to thin muta numbers or win the game outright. If you can't hurt that muta flock you're fucked Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 00:56 Disda wrote: Can you elaborate more on knowing when to stop the early pressure against zerg? I have a tendency to over commit to my early pressure and consequently either lose or win very early on. How do I know when I've curtailed his "power-droning" enough?
Also, I'm alittle surprised by the lack of discussion in phoenix's, or air dominance in the early/midgame sections. But I don't know nearly enough to contribute there, only that (at my level) it seems limiting myself to only SSC or IST would feel overly restrictive.
Very nice write up.
::Edit:: I have similar experiences as Shadrak, and tend to open up with Phoenix play to head it off at the pass. For early pressure, I haven't got an exact ratio worked out - I just feel it.. which isn't much help. When his speedling fleet is big enough to surround your Stalkers then it's time to get out of there! i.e. for 2 stalkers 6 lings is usually enough to isolate one of them and kill it off. But against 8 stalkers, 6 lings can barely surround 1/3 of your stalker mob. I'm not big on Phoenix play in PvZ. I appreciate that it works for a lot of people, but I can't help but feel that there are massive massive timing windows which leave you vulnerable. If it works for you, great. But I wouldn't advise people learning protoss to try pick up those kinds of builds because you need to be able to read the zerg perfectly to stop him from hitting those timing windows. Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 00:57 Chemist391 wrote: What do you think about DT tech late-game? They have the dps to deal with ultras (bad choice against broods, obviously). I imagine this would come down to a micro-battle against his overseers.
I've been experimenting with reasonable success with a Sangho style 15 nexus opening into 2 stargates. A common response to the protoss FE is a roach bust, and if you have 2 stargates up, you can chrono out 2 voidrays. This really tends to crush the roach push. The phoenix scouting informs you on the timing of collosi or HT tech. (I always use colossi...the tech path is faster and cheaper, and I'm playing to win in the air, anyway). DTs are great to mix in. Unfortunately you're nearly always strapped for gas... I often mix them in when going for IST styles since it's close enough to justify getting them (despite the fact that the dark shrine takes longer to build than a nexus....). Mixing in 4-5 can be really really useful in thinning number or harassing. Actually, here's a neat tip. If you spam a ton of DTs and if you have +2 attack, sending 4 DT per hatchery should be enough to kill the hatch before an overseer finishes really nice for comeback games Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 01:05 sleepingdog wrote:Ok, here are some comments, I hope you forgive me for being a bit critical, but I think it's more profitable for everyone if I only comment on stuff that I think needs further attention (I could praise 90% of your post though: excellent) e.g. quick 2 stalker pressure should retreat as soon as speed is finished I can't stress enough how CRITICAL it is to get the timings right. NEXGenius lost a game vs Leenock on Metalopolis (into ragequit lol) because he started retreating his 2 initial stalkers just a few seconds too late. I think the user "Friend23" or sth like that posted the timings some days ago, if you scout the gas you have about 3:15 ingame until you are up against speedlings. To extend my thoughts from there: I think you should emphazise more that the scouting of the gas early on is THE most aspect in the whole PvZ early game matchup. Of course you will scout for early expo..duh..that's standard. But many fail to realize how important it is to scout how early zerg goes for gas. Because if he does NOT go for early gas this means he intends to play economicly greedy and you HAVE to do "something" or get outmacroed like roflwhat. Opposed to this, if you see early gas you can play it more safe (zealot/sentry-expand) because zerg sacrifices mineral-mining in order to get "something" that isn't a drone. Be it speedlings, be it roach, it won't matter much because it means that you can now play it more safely. A 3 gate sentry-expand should do fine if zerg goes for fast(er) speedlings and also does very fine vs any sort of standard 2 hatch roach play (as seen from Nony vs Idra, where Nony stomped over Idra's roach-push-attempt close positions on lost temple). Good points, I'll add that to the OP. Show nested quote +Note also that unless you open with Phoenix, Phoenix are not a good counter to Mutalisks. They are good to prevent the Mutalisk death ball from starting, but they are not good at controlling the deathball once it gets large. I'm sorry, I really value your opinion as one of the highest of all ppl here, but this is just SO wrong. Phoenixes kill Mutas INCREDIBLY cost-effectively, although - as with every zerg-unit - the effectiveness decreases with upgrades on both sides. I really hope you take this critique not personally but try to test it in the unit-tester. The protoss-player has the micro-advantage, so nothing is lost by just a-moving the units into another, if anything, protoss profits more if both players know how to micro. Just a simple example: with 20 phoenixes (3000/2000)vs 25 mutas (3000/2000) both unupgraded the ridiculous number of 11 phoenixes survives. Take upgrades into account and mutas do better because the average "profit" from upgrades is higher. Still doesn't change the fact that zerg can NOT, like NEVER rely on pure mutas vs pure phoenixes. You can keep up production-wise due to chrono-boosting both stargates, you only have to be careful to not lose phoenixes early when you are outmatched in numbers. Also zerg cannot really expand safely because mutas are slower than phoenixes, you can always lift off some drones/queens, zerg can NOT defend three bases without any ground-support like more queens than needed or spores, which further decreases the effectiveness of the overall zerg-gameplay. Maybe I'm wrong, but the maths disagrees and since phoenixes are so easy to micro I've never seen a game where a protoss would lose air-control with phoenixes vs mutas. EDIT: Forgot to mention that the perfect replay for what I mean would be Sen vs Socke on Desert Oasis. Socke goes for a 5 gate timing attack, does NOT win outright (but deals serious damage) and gets 2 stargates immediately after he sees the first mutas. This shut down Sen COMPLETELY, Sen went hydras and got stomped into the ground by colossi/HT (one of Socke's strongest games at MLG). Okay it's important to realise there are two scenarios here. Firstly, if you have a stargate and are making phoenix already then yea, you can keep up with his mutalisk production. At the very worst, it's an even game between you two. e.g. replay the protoss beats the zerg with 3 stargate phoenix in a 44 minute game. However, if you scout mutas (i.e. after spire is around 50% complete) and then add phoenix, you will never be able to match his mutalisk count. He will always have superior numbers and you won't win. Phoenix are an excellent preventative measure, but aren't a reactionary measure - if you understand what I mean. Basically, you'll never get to the point where you have equal cost phoenix vs muta because he'll be ahead of you if you start phoenix production after scouting spire.
Why not Jungle Basin? The main ramp and nat side entrance are sufficiently far apart by ground that the only thing that can threaten attacking both are speedlings, and you can shut down the main ramp with a sentry or two - and if his roaches show up there, your nat is effectively threatened by lings alone, which, while still dangerous, you can defend by blocking half the nat entrance with a gateway, so you can easily ff against baneling.
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Can't read it now but thanks for writing this. I've been super clueless about how I should play PvZ and I've been looking for some kind of big picture guide rather than the couple of BOs that are in liquipedia 2 right now.
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Great post! Can you do the same for PvT and PvP now
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
Why not Jungle Basin? The main ramp and nat side entrance are sufficiently far apart by ground that the only thing that can threaten attacking both are speedlings, and you can shut down the main ramp with a sentry or two - and if his roaches show up there, your nat is effectively threatened by lings alone, which, while still dangerous, you can defend by blocking half the nat entrance with a gateway, so you can easily ff against baneling. I dont understand why Zergs just don't attack the Rocks in your natural with Roaches. It's the same with Blistering - it forces cannons in two places which is a massive mineral sink.
On November 11 2010 01:28 flyguy wrote:Great post! Can you do the same for PvT and PvP now PvP is easy. The winner of a PvP is the person who can build the most Colossus without dying to mass units
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Adding some pictures make a guide more presentable, but all of them show the same action going on. If you add pictures, connect them with the content where you place them.
Something like an example for good FF placement, choke usage or army formation.
Nevertheless, thanks for the work.
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I've been experimenting with carriers late game (1900+ diamond). I've found that very late game if you can support 3/4 stargates of carrier production, meaning being on atleast 4 bases then zerg really won't have any counter to it.
Zerg ground gets absolutely raped by carriers, as do mutalisks. The key is just not dieing during the first production cycle, when you're expecting your first 4.
Usually i start upgrading +1 air weapons when i think that I might be going in to carrier mode, because they scale ridiculous with air weapons.
What do you think?
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I have a question, you said that a 3gate expo comes to late to play an economic game. Should i pressure with gateway units before i expand when i decide to 3gate then?
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 11 2010 01:29 Ada wrote: Adding some pictures make a guide more presentable, but all of them show the same action going on. If you add pictures, connect them with the content where you place them.
Something like an example for good FF placement, choke usage or army formation.
Nevertheless, thanks for the work. I thought they were connected, albeit semi-loosely, to the text
On November 11 2010 01:30 Hakker wrote: I've been experimenting with carriers late game (1900+ diamond). I've found that very late game if you can support 3/4 stargates of carrier production, meaning being on atleast 4 bases then zerg really won't have any counter to it.
Zerg ground gets absolutely raped by carriers, as do mutalisks. The key is just not dieing during the first production cycle, when you're expecting your first 4.
Usually i start upgrading +1 air weapons when i think that I might be going in to carrier mode, because they scale ridiculous with air weapons.
What do you think? I've always been worried about Corruptors left over from the midgame killing any carrier transitions (since they're massive). That and the immobility of carriers has been a deterrent for me.. I'll give it a shot next time I get a chance though
On November 11 2010 01:31 Gecko wrote: I have a question, you said that a 3gate expo comes to late to play an economic game. Should i pressure with gateway units before i expand when i decide to 3gate then? It depends! If he's making units to counter your 3gate, then no. If he's not making units to counter your 3 gate, then yes! One of the key themes in PvZ is not letting Zerg play the way he wants to, so if you can do anything to disrupt his game (i.e. putting down a pylon in his natural to delay his first exp) then that's a good thing. Pressuring off of a 3gate can often catch Zergs unaware, esp. if they're used to the 3gate sentry expand thats popular atm.
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On November 11 2010 01:28 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +Why not Jungle Basin? The main ramp and nat side entrance are sufficiently far apart by ground that the only thing that can threaten attacking both are speedlings, and you can shut down the main ramp with a sentry or two - and if his roaches show up there, your nat is effectively threatened by lings alone, which, while still dangerous, you can defend by blocking half the nat entrance with a gateway, so you can easily ff against baneling. I dont understand why Zergs just don't attack the Rocks in your natural with Roaches. It's the same with Blistering - it forces cannons in two places which is a massive mineral sink. Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 01:28 flyguy wrote:Great post! Can you do the same for PvT and PvP now PvP is easy. The winner of a PvP is the person who can build the most Colossus without dying to mass units
It's not the same as Blistering though. On Blistering, the distance defending both your back rocks and your nat is greater than the distance attacking them, so the zerg can easily swap between the two without you being able to defend effectively. Furthermore, you have to defend your nat which is not particularly narrow and is not a ramp that you can deny vision on.
Whereas on Jungle Basin, the distance attacking is far, far greater than the distance defending, so once the roaches commit to one direction, they have no threat of appearing at the other for a long time - a time during which you can switch over and defend easily, and any pressure at the ramp is easily shut down by a cannon and a sentry, and later you will have stalker. Of course you will have to invest in more cannons/sentry than on a map with one entrance, but not really that much. The only real threat imo if you don't screw up (which I do sometimes ~_~) is at your nat rocks, so it's not as bad as Blistering.
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PvP is easy. The winner of a PvP is the person who can build the most Colossus without dying to mass units
lol yeah im starting to see this
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On November 11 2010 01:30 Hakker wrote: I've been experimenting with carriers late game (1900+ diamond). I've found that very late game if you can support 3/4 stargates of carrier production, meaning being on atleast 4 bases then zerg really won't have any counter to it.
Zerg ground gets absolutely raped by carriers, as do mutalisks. The key is just not dieing during the first production cycle, when you're expecting your first 4.
Usually i start upgrading +1 air weapons when i think that I might be going in to carrier mode, because they scale ridiculous with air weapons.
What do you think?
Well, I haven't used carriers, but don't hydras murder interceptors since they don't auto repair?? And then leftover corruptors would kill your carriers. Or even neutral parasite, since carriers are very good at killing carriers, but I suppose to do that effectively you'd need a lot of infestors.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 11 2010 01:33 EtherealDeath wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 01:28 Plexa wrote:Why not Jungle Basin? The main ramp and nat side entrance are sufficiently far apart by ground that the only thing that can threaten attacking both are speedlings, and you can shut down the main ramp with a sentry or two - and if his roaches show up there, your nat is effectively threatened by lings alone, which, while still dangerous, you can defend by blocking half the nat entrance with a gateway, so you can easily ff against baneling. I dont understand why Zergs just don't attack the Rocks in your natural with Roaches. It's the same with Blistering - it forces cannons in two places which is a massive mineral sink. On November 11 2010 01:28 flyguy wrote:Great post! Can you do the same for PvT and PvP now PvP is easy. The winner of a PvP is the person who can build the most Colossus without dying to mass units It's not the same as Blistering though. On Blistering, the distance defending both your back rocks and your nat is greater than the distance attacking them, so the zerg can easily swap between the two without you being able to defend effectively. Furthermore, you have to defend your nat which is not particularly narrow and is not a ramp that you can deny vision on. Whereas on Jungle Basin, the distance attacking is far, far greater than the distance defending, so once the roaches commit to one direction, they have no threat of appearing at the other for a long time - a time during which you can switch over and defend easily, and any pressure at the ramp is easily shut down by a cannon and a sentry, and later you will have stalker. Of course you will have to invest in more cannons/sentry than on a map with one entrance, but not really that much. The only real threat imo if you don't screw up (which I do sometimes ~_~) is at your nat rocks, so it's not as bad as Blistering. Sure it's safer than a lot of the maps around at the moment, but the layout of the natural is just begging for blink stalker abuse - why would you give that up ! Also, if the Zerg actually commits to a Roach push he can pressure both the front and the back and although it's rare, I hate gambling on that possibility
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Fantastic write up thanks plexa :D
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Thanks for the help plexa, what you said about not letting the zerg play the way he wants to is something i really need to start doing. I usually 3gate sentry expand but i will try stalker pressure next time i scout Z not making units to deal with it
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 11 2010 01:38 Gecko wrote:Thanks for the help plexa, what you said about not letting the zerg play the way he wants to is something i really need to start doing. I usually 3gate sentry expand but i will try stalker pressure next time i scout Z not making units to deal with it Chances are you will lose the first few games since the timings and stuff will be all weird - but don't lose heart! Once you get those timings down it makes you that much more of a dangerous player. Protoss is soooo reliant on the metagame it's not funny being able to play around with that is really important imo.
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On November 11 2010 01:37 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 01:33 EtherealDeath wrote:On November 11 2010 01:28 Plexa wrote:Why not Jungle Basin? The main ramp and nat side entrance are sufficiently far apart by ground that the only thing that can threaten attacking both are speedlings, and you can shut down the main ramp with a sentry or two - and if his roaches show up there, your nat is effectively threatened by lings alone, which, while still dangerous, you can defend by blocking half the nat entrance with a gateway, so you can easily ff against baneling. I dont understand why Zergs just don't attack the Rocks in your natural with Roaches. It's the same with Blistering - it forces cannons in two places which is a massive mineral sink. On November 11 2010 01:28 flyguy wrote:Great post! Can you do the same for PvT and PvP now PvP is easy. The winner of a PvP is the person who can build the most Colossus without dying to mass units It's not the same as Blistering though. On Blistering, the distance defending both your back rocks and your nat is greater than the distance attacking them, so the zerg can easily swap between the two without you being able to defend effectively. Furthermore, you have to defend your nat which is not particularly narrow and is not a ramp that you can deny vision on. Whereas on Jungle Basin, the distance attacking is far, far greater than the distance defending, so once the roaches commit to one direction, they have no threat of appearing at the other for a long time - a time during which you can switch over and defend easily, and any pressure at the ramp is easily shut down by a cannon and a sentry, and later you will have stalker. Of course you will have to invest in more cannons/sentry than on a map with one entrance, but not really that much. The only real threat imo if you don't screw up (which I do sometimes ~_~) is at your nat rocks, so it's not as bad as Blistering. Sure it's safer than a lot of the maps around at the moment, but the layout of the natural is just begging for blink stalker abuse - why would you give that up ! Also, if the Zerg actually commits to a Roach push he can pressure both the front and the back and although it's rare, I hate gambling on that possibility
Wait what, missed this somehow (had Jungle Basin thumbed down for a long time practicing other maps). Which direction in the nat is the abuse begger? Next to rocks closest to gas?
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Great job Plexa. Now you have to do other articles on different match up
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On November 11 2010 00:43 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 00:30 Thaddaeus wrote:TY for the nice writing! I only play Toss but i dislike Rays however One question came to my mind regarding air upgrades now. What would be the ideal point to start upgrading air dmg/armor when you havent already made some phenix play in early/mid game? Just a bit before you pump Rays? As of at this point i would think i spend all my CBs on the Rays and not on the 2+ cybernetics. I would start +1 the moment you have the gas after you've put down your two stargates. Normally you're starved for gas so you'll probably only get to about +2 weapons at most, but it's not overly important for VRs since their strength is that when charged they own and the fact they are really mobile. If you are a normal Protoss, you will have enough CB for everything haha. By then you'll have at least 3 Nexus and plenty of CB lying about so it's not really an issue
TY ! I do stack CB of course (at least to a certain degree in mid/late game) so i take the normal toss as a compliment On a sidenote i would also read that you suggest getting rather the + armor ups (in the described case) to neglect the corruptor a bit more.?
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 11 2010 01:40 EtherealDeath wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 01:37 Plexa wrote:On November 11 2010 01:33 EtherealDeath wrote:On November 11 2010 01:28 Plexa wrote:Why not Jungle Basin? The main ramp and nat side entrance are sufficiently far apart by ground that the only thing that can threaten attacking both are speedlings, and you can shut down the main ramp with a sentry or two - and if his roaches show up there, your nat is effectively threatened by lings alone, which, while still dangerous, you can defend by blocking half the nat entrance with a gateway, so you can easily ff against baneling. I dont understand why Zergs just don't attack the Rocks in your natural with Roaches. It's the same with Blistering - it forces cannons in two places which is a massive mineral sink. On November 11 2010 01:28 flyguy wrote:Great post! Can you do the same for PvT and PvP now PvP is easy. The winner of a PvP is the person who can build the most Colossus without dying to mass units It's not the same as Blistering though. On Blistering, the distance defending both your back rocks and your nat is greater than the distance attacking them, so the zerg can easily swap between the two without you being able to defend effectively. Furthermore, you have to defend your nat which is not particularly narrow and is not a ramp that you can deny vision on. Whereas on Jungle Basin, the distance attacking is far, far greater than the distance defending, so once the roaches commit to one direction, they have no threat of appearing at the other for a long time - a time during which you can switch over and defend easily, and any pressure at the ramp is easily shut down by a cannon and a sentry, and later you will have stalker. Of course you will have to invest in more cannons/sentry than on a map with one entrance, but not really that much. The only real threat imo if you don't screw up (which I do sometimes ~_~) is at your nat rocks, so it's not as bad as Blistering. Sure it's safer than a lot of the maps around at the moment, but the layout of the natural is just begging for blink stalker abuse - why would you give that up ! Also, if the Zerg actually commits to a Roach push he can pressure both the front and the back and although it's rare, I hate gambling on that possibility Wait what, missed this somehow (had Jungle Basin thumbed down for a long time practicing other maps). Which direction in the nat is the abuse begger? Next to rocks closest to gas? You can blink in from pretty much any direction ;o
Plus you can blink out of his main from any corner. It's not as abusable as Kulas or Xel Naga, but it's up there imo.
On November 11 2010 01:42 Thaddaeus wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 00:43 Plexa wrote:On November 11 2010 00:30 Thaddaeus wrote:TY for the nice writing! I only play Toss but i dislike Rays however One question came to my mind regarding air upgrades now. What would be the ideal point to start upgrading air dmg/armor when you havent already made some phenix play in early/mid game? Just a bit before you pump Rays? As of at this point i would think i spend all my CBs on the Rays and not on the 2+ cybernetics. I would start +1 the moment you have the gas after you've put down your two stargates. Normally you're starved for gas so you'll probably only get to about +2 weapons at most, but it's not overly important for VRs since their strength is that when charged they own and the fact they are really mobile. If you are a normal Protoss, you will have enough CB for everything haha. By then you'll have at least 3 Nexus and plenty of CB lying about so it's not really an issue TY ! I do stack CB of course (at least to a certain degree in mid/late game) so i take the normal toss as a compliment On a sidenote i would also read that you suggest getting rather the + armor ups (in the described case) to neglect the corruptor a bit more.? For VRs? Usually not worth it. Corruptors quickly leave the battlefield once VRs come into play (VRs deal full damage to them) and Corruptors only get +1 attack from upgrades anyway (and Zerg rarely get those unless they muta/ling). Typically the only upgrades my VRs have are +weapons and any +shield that I have
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Awesome guide, very well-written and informative. Gives great insight into both sides of the matchup.
There is one point I don't agree with though:
On November 10 2010 23:49 Plexa wrote: Void Rays, or rather, Speed Rays are incredible late game units for the following reasons - Zerg has nothing good to kill them with (muta expensive, corruptor lol, hydras die to everything)
pre-patch rays really did lol at corruptors, as they did insane damage vs armored units. However after the patch void rays are now not nearly as strong vs armored units, like the corruptor. In addition, corruptors lost their energy, making them immune to feedback.
From the zerg side, I think corruptors are the answer to late-game speed rays. Late-game zerg already has greater spire, which means they are already making, or about to make broodlords, so they already have the corruptors. All zerg has to do is either make more corruptors, or cut back slightly on the # of corruptors that they morph into broodlords. Corruptors will not be easy to pick off, as stalkers will have to blink into a wall of crackling/ultra to get to them. Also corruptors & void rays have the same range, 6, so you can't really use your void rays to attack from behind your army like you can with range 9 colossus.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 11 2010 01:44 BlasiuS wrote:Awesome guide, very well-written and informative. Gives great insight into both sides of the matchup. There is one point I don't agree with though: Show nested quote +On November 10 2010 23:49 Plexa wrote: Void Rays, or rather, Speed Rays are incredible late game units for the following reasons - Zerg has nothing good to kill them with (muta expensive, corruptor lol, hydras die to everything)
pre-patch rays really did lol at corruptors, as they did insane damage vs armored units. However after the patch void rays are now not nearly as strong vs armored units, like the corruptor. In addition, corruptors lost their energy, making them immune to feedback. From the zerg side, I think corruptors are the answer to late-game speed rays. Late-game zerg already has greater spire, which means they are already making, or about to make broodlords, so they already have the corruptors. All zerg has to do is either make more corruptors, or cut back slightly on the # of corruptors that they morph into broodlords. Corruptors will not be easy to pick off, as stalkers will have to blink into a wall of crackling/ultra to get to them. Also corruptors & void rays have the same range, 6, so you can't really use your void rays to attack from behind your army like you can with range 9 colossus. Okay perhaps lol'ing at corruptors is a bit overkill, but the fact is that Corruptors aren't useful at dealing with my ground army (besides colo) and they're expensive. I think at the very worst it's an even fight between Corruptors/Speed Rays which is exactly the way it should be. Both sides should have options in the lategame which are viable. From what I've seen, though, the real strength to speedrays is their ability to pop up somewhere kill a bunch of drones and a hatch then leave again without being touched by Zerg.
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On November 11 2010 01:44 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 01:40 EtherealDeath wrote:On November 11 2010 01:37 Plexa wrote:On November 11 2010 01:33 EtherealDeath wrote:On November 11 2010 01:28 Plexa wrote:Why not Jungle Basin? The main ramp and nat side entrance are sufficiently far apart by ground that the only thing that can threaten attacking both are speedlings, and you can shut down the main ramp with a sentry or two - and if his roaches show up there, your nat is effectively threatened by lings alone, which, while still dangerous, you can defend by blocking half the nat entrance with a gateway, so you can easily ff against baneling. I dont understand why Zergs just don't attack the Rocks in your natural with Roaches. It's the same with Blistering - it forces cannons in two places which is a massive mineral sink. On November 11 2010 01:28 flyguy wrote:Great post! Can you do the same for PvT and PvP now PvP is easy. The winner of a PvP is the person who can build the most Colossus without dying to mass units It's not the same as Blistering though. On Blistering, the distance defending both your back rocks and your nat is greater than the distance attacking them, so the zerg can easily swap between the two without you being able to defend effectively. Furthermore, you have to defend your nat which is not particularly narrow and is not a ramp that you can deny vision on. Whereas on Jungle Basin, the distance attacking is far, far greater than the distance defending, so once the roaches commit to one direction, they have no threat of appearing at the other for a long time - a time during which you can switch over and defend easily, and any pressure at the ramp is easily shut down by a cannon and a sentry, and later you will have stalker. Of course you will have to invest in more cannons/sentry than on a map with one entrance, but not really that much. The only real threat imo if you don't screw up (which I do sometimes ~_~) is at your nat rocks, so it's not as bad as Blistering. Sure it's safer than a lot of the maps around at the moment, but the layout of the natural is just begging for blink stalker abuse - why would you give that up ! Also, if the Zerg actually commits to a Roach push he can pressure both the front and the back and although it's rare, I hate gambling on that possibility Wait what, missed this somehow (had Jungle Basin thumbed down for a long time practicing other maps). Which direction in the nat is the abuse begger? Next to rocks closest to gas? You can blink in from pretty much any direction ;o Plus you can blink out of his main from any corner. It's not as abusable as Kulas or Xel Naga, but it's up there imo.
Mm nice, gotta try this out later tonight.
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lol nice guide. Only problem is, you made it public D:
mmm didn't realise how badly stalkers damage scaled with ups. Gonna have to try and abuse that more now.
How am I gonna get my PvZ wins now?? =[
Saracen should post something like this for Z :D
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I've had success with a pre-spire +1 chargelot timing attack, with a few sentries/stalkers. Charged zealots are really good against all zerg ground.
What do you think about relatively early charge? It just makes zealots so efficient that I always seem to want it PvZ.
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Hm, I usually go for DTs in the late game instead of void rays since the fleet beacon is so expensive, but I will try out void rays instead. There are some things I'd like to say in defense of DTs though. It's not just their hatchery-killing abilities and harassment that make a dark shrine really useful in the late game. It's the ability to completely shut down the first nydus worm or overlord drop, which almost certainly won't come with an overseer. And then either they stop doing these drops or you know they have the ability to use these tactics and can plan accordingly.
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On November 11 2010 01:56 iamke55 wrote: Hm, I usually go for DTs in the late game instead of void rays since the fleet beacon is so expensive, but I will try out void rays instead. There are some things I'd like to say in defense of DTs though. It's not just their hatchery-killing abilities and harassment that make a dark shrine really useful in the late game. It's the ability to completely shut down the first nydus worm or overlord drop, which almost certainly won't come with an overseer. And then either they stop doing these drops or you know they have the ability to use these tactics and can plan accordingly.
I've found that DTs get absolutely wrecked by pretty much everything zerg has. Even if he doesn't have detection he can just run zerglings past your DTs and harass probes/pylons.
Though i have been experimenting using 4-5 phoenixes to snipe overseers while harassing with DT's. I've only found success with it late game though, where his overseers and army might put significant distance between them. as phoenix's are very slow at killing overseers. I wouldn't expect such mis-micro from any higher level zerg though.
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One of the most informative write-ups I've seen posted in a while. Thanks for taking the time to share this with the community
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Wow, I have did not think zerg was in a good position late game versus protoss. Whenever I see a zerg going from mid too lategame, protoss almost always crush them. Perhaps it was just because protoss with some nice early and midgame make zergs come into the lategame stages at disadvantage, I dont know.
If someone know any replay showing how hard protoss has it lategame, please tell me. All I have seen is zerg getting stomped.
Zerg perspective: + Show Spoiler +Also, from a zergs perspective. I watched Sen vs Socke from MLG, on Lost Temple. I know static defense is bad and all, but is it seriously not worth it to have 3 drones go make 3 spines at an expansion that is hard to defend like the 9 oClock from Sen? He constantly lost so much shit at that expansion. And also for zerg, why not have 6 spines, which you can kind of walk to the next expansion you take? They are surely not as static as it may seem. What is your thoughts on static defense? Is zergs static defense really that bad going into lategame vs toss?
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This is an ok guide. Decent writeup but i think it omits a lot of stuff and has some huge strategic flaws in it as well.
First of all I agree mostly on the early game: FE yourself or pressure them. It would be nice if people stop calling a FE a 15 nexus though, it rarely ever is 15 nexus and in lot of cases 17 nexus is the prefferred timing to expand actually. The exact timings differ as you need to scout their position and pool timing but rarely is 15 nexus correct. It's similar to 13 hatch for example, it's just a probe too early.
One thing i disagree about bigtime in the early game is your general use of hallucination for scouting. I used to use it alot but rarely ever do so anymore, the cost of the tech and it's use is simply too high for what you get imo. It's a 110 sec, 100m 100g tech that also depletes lot's of energy from your sentries. Further more it's good for scouting but not nearly as good as a real phoenix and usually a bit worse then a observer as well because the hallucinated phoenix lasts relatively short. Also hallucination gets quite crap in the lategame as often you won't have sentries with enough energy to use it anymore. Finally the combat use of hallucination is practually zero, there is almost no situation where you would want to use hallucination instead of forcefields. Most times it is simply better to put down a stargate or robo for scouting instead of getting hallucination. The cost is nearly the same and timing wise it is usually better as well. Initially it might cost a little more but a stargate or robo is nearly always useful vs Z if not only to deter tech switches / be able to respond to them. On small maps a 'blind' robo does very well as muta/ling is really rare on them. On big maps a 'blind' stargate does really well as muta/ling play is very likely on them and phoenix harass is very good on big maps (even if they do go roach/hydra).
As for the midgame compositions, i think you are grossly simplifying it by saying you can only go 'CSS' or 'IST'. Either of those compositions is pretty terrible against muta/ling play as templar take way too much time to get out against a muta/ling player. You simply need to get phoenix against proper muta play as otherwise you are never able to get a 3rd expansion going safely and 3 or 4 base mutaling play gets far ahead against 2 base 'IST' play. Templar are just quite expensive to get going on 2 bases in conjunction with stalkers, it is more a 3 base tech in that regard. The proper way to fight muta/ling IS with phoenix or a proper timing push. On small maps a timing push is obviously strong, on bigger maps phoenix play is usually advised. Take this replay of Socke vs Sen. http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/replays/39512 Socke tries to beat muta/ling play without phoenix here but even though he uses blink stalkers and gets templar eventually he is FAR behind before he gets to counter the muta. Only because Sen makes some horrible micro mistakes and general sloppy play later on does this game continue for so long as Socke was basically lost since the moment he didnt defend muta/ling play properly. The good way to counter muta/ling play (especially on maps that favor muta/ling play) is by going phoenix, stalker, zealot, sentries. Even though you won't be able to get a sufficient number of phoenix to kill muta on their own, you don't need too. You simply need phoenix to a) help defend his harass along with your stalkers b) harass and scout him c) help win a 'big' fight that will usually happen at his 3rd or 4th. Getting robo units makes you horribly slow against muta/ling and they are only a waste of gas. Simply invest in attack upgrades for your ground (as that is another way to counter lings) and get a good zealot/stalker/phoenix force. Lings get decimated by quick 2-0 stalker/zealot (as you will always be able to get 2-0 way before they have 0-2 as 2-0 is cheaper AND you can chronoboost whereas he can not) and with the help of phoenix and sentries it easily takes care of muta as well. Chargelots with attack upgrades also do fine against roaches which he can't get in big numbers anyway when using muta. A replay of this exact method of muta counter is this one of Artosis vs Renihour (also covered in a day9 don't know which): http://www.sc2rep.com/replays/show/id/2503 Reniehour does go phoenix quite fast but going it a bit later really is no problem either, for example you can start with 1 stargate and then add a 2nd if you scout a spire. Even going double stargate after seeing a spire works, you simply don't need a phoenix fleet that can beat their muta on their own, you only need a sufficient number to help stop harass and harass back.
For the rest the midgame section is quite ok. I disagree with rebuilding sentries so much though, getting a lot early on is good but later on it is rarely good to rebuild alot of them as they are too gas heavy at that point. Early on sentries rock as they are a gas outlet while minerals are the limiting factor early on but later on you usually have better ways to use the gas. For example when using the 'CSS' composition I would advise to simply not replenish your sentries later and in fact go with colossi, stalker, immortal. It is less gas heavy meaning you won't get such a big mineral surplus (it is simply not always possible to expand to spend your minerals) and rebuilding sentries later on tends to suck. You won't have the energy build up that your early sentries have and because lategame it usually gets to 3 or 4 base play they are not as great defensively anymore either as the Z can be dropping, nydusing or simply attacking bases where your sentries aren't. Build sentries early on as they are great to defend (and great offensively with energy buildup) but eventually phaze them out your army as you are better off getting something else later (such as more immortals).
As a final remark, that statement about speedrays being a great endgame composition, i'm not so sure. Voidrays are a great transition when you were already on 2 stargates, for example you went phoenix to counter muta but he transitioned into roach/hydra so you transition into speedray, lot, templar. As a straight up late transition when you don't have prior tech it sucks imo. Starting speedrays when you don't have any tech in it yet is VERY expensive (2 stargates, fleet beacon, flux vanes and +1 air attack) before you even get 1 out and regardless of their harass potential hydra's still stomp them in a fight (also upgraded queens are quite ok against small numbers of them).
Overall, nice setup for a guide but tons of errors (ofcourse in my humble opinion).
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Thank you, sir. Thank you.
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Liked it a lot, PvZ will evolve a lot though. We will see quite many warpprism harass and the DT will be part of a lategame army. Feedback Oversiers + focuss them with Stalker and then let DT´s do there work is just so strong.
A DT does 60(!) dmg per 1 hit fully upgraded? Thats insane, its the strongest unit in the game, u just have to protect it as good as possible.
I also do not think, that speed voids will be a part of a lategame composition, since there is a timing window until u get like 6 where you miss all the other stuff u could have gotten.
I mostly have 1 robo immos + gateway units and templar. Once i hit 150 supply i add a seconds robo for mass immos with psi. I also like mass stalkers at lategame since theydont get rolled by ultras anymore through the mass immortal, they counter blords and mutalisk as long as you have enough storms.
For me is adding 8-10 DT´s/a Warpprism to this mix worth more than 6-7 voids... should be about the same cost.
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Thanks, I needed something like this.
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Amazing write up, thank you Plexa!
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Hey this thread seems like where I need to be! Thanks for another great write-up Plexa =)
I have a map-specific question for the people of this thread:
PvZ on Xel'Naga Caverns, I'm having a really hard time here. I don't feel safe going 15nex but I can't seem to mount any pressure instead.
At ~1700 diamond (means nothing), I'm facing a lot of different builds, from Banelings to fast-pool Roach rushes. When they hatch first, I'm able to force some lings with Zealot + Stalker and I can usually save them. I guess vs Hatch first I don't have much of a problem, it's any Pool first opening, whether standard (13/14) or early (8-10).
I've attached a replay with sort of what I'm talking about. I make a lot of mistakes for sure but I would appreciate any insight/criticism!
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Thanks Plexa, great post! Though I learned a few things, what you did most for me was confirm what I had thought about this matchup with a credible voice! Often the late game tech switches are tough for either P or Z to handle against the other, because the unit compositions are so opposite as you said (muta/ling is very different from hydra/roach) and each handle SSC or IST in very fundamentally different ways. I wholeheartedly agree with the effectiveness of the void ray late game, and I am one of those players who do phoenixes early to just stop the muta option alltogether, because it is harder to deal with than hydra/roach personally.
A note on most P's understanding of PvZ late game: I wouldn't say it is easy so much as it is frequent that in PvZ the matchup is won due to the many timing windows that are able to be exploited, from early game to tech transitions, to expansion timings and the like. I think this is the reason that PvZ late game is unfamiliar to many P players, while Zs most likely have more experience with the late game in their encounters with Terrans.
I have a lot of experience with IST, going back to beta, and feel that both in PvZ and PvT that templar are the better option than colossus (opinion). To the curious players out there who want to explore IST, that in my experience, hydra/roach can be effectively dealt with Zeal/Stalker/Templar, but it is much more situational and this composition is not recommended. The hard counter to Templar, which is the unit that this composition is based on, is burrowing roach. It is next to impossible to handle burrowed roach with Templar, and that is why in many of my games that go late, I feel that Templar prompt a roach-heavy reaction which in turn allows me to switch to Void Ray, which is one thing that Plexa mentioned. This is because if you imagine this point in the game, where you have reached a void ray/x army vs mostly roach, that any attempt to pump out a cycle of hydra will be met by a quick round of templar, which come out favorably in a fight between these two unit compositions. Hydra are great units but when the Protoss player is able, through good macro, to get out a sizeable amount of void rays in a small amount of time into what is already a good army composition with templar, that no Zerg reaction will suffice. This has been especially true since the void ray BUFF that occurred in the recent patch, where void rays are now slightly more powerful not as building smashers but as meaty units that can more effectively be combined with a gateway army. Getting speed, as Plexa says, is just SO useful for VRs that even hydra are not really a threat anymore because of air mobility and the newfound speed.
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Great write-up Plexa!
On November 11 2010 02:32 Markwerf wrote: One thing i disagree about bigtime in the early game is your general use of hallucination for scouting. I used to use it alot but rarely ever do so anymore, the cost of the tech and it's use is simply too high for what you get imo. It's a 110 sec, 100m 100g tech that also depletes lot's of energy from your sentries. Further more it's good for scouting but not nearly as good as a real phoenix and usually a bit worse then a observer as well because the hallucinated phoenix lasts relatively short. Also hallucination gets quite crap in the lategame as often you won't have sentries with enough energy to use it anymore. Finally the combat use of hallucination is practually zero, there is almost no situation where you would want to use hallucination instead of forcefields.
Hallucination is cheaper and comes out faster than Robo/Observer or Stargate/Phoenix at the cost of slowing your Warp Gate research. The Phoenix easily lives long enough to take a nice trip around most maps and give us a good picture of Zerg's base. If we see Zerg massing for a big attack, we've committed fewer minerals/gas to scouting it so we're in a better position to fend it off.
As for the combat use of Hallucination, a single hallucinated colossus is easily worth it. Since most Zergs will focus fire it as soon as possible, it's an almost guaranteed +175 HP buffer for my army. Immortal is probably more cost effective, but Colossus triggers everyone's "OMG MUST KILL" instinct. Granted an overseer will hurt this strategy, but as long as you don't expose a dark shrine Zerg usually won't build that many overseers.
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I didn't read through all the posts here, so if someone has already said this, just ignore it.
From the time zerg throws down their first extractor, it takes 3:15 to finish extractor/mine 100/upgrade speed.
Also, from the time the pool starts, you have 2:55 before lings will come out from the 1st larva inject, and 3:40 till the next one (these might be a little off since I'm in my office and not my apartment where I have the larva inject timings written down).
Anyway, sometimes it's not important to run away before speed if, for example, your opponent went 13 gas/13 pool and you have 1 zealot/3 stalkers or something. You will be perfectly fine until the speedlings from the 2nd larva inject are out.
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On November 11 2010 02:32 Markwerf wrote: As for the combat use of Hallucination, a single hallucinated colossus is easily worth it. Since most Zergs will focus fire it as soon as possible, it's an almost guaranteed +175 HP buffer for my army. Immortal is probably more cost effective, but Colossus triggers everyone's "OMG MUST KILL" instinct. Granted an overseer will hurt this strategy, but as long as you don't expose a dark shrine Zerg usually won't build that many overseers. Combat use of Hallucination is sometimes effective, but it really depends on your opponent. A lot of players, depending on where you are in the ladder, are just bad in general and are willing to sacrifice their army instead of play smart and pull back. These bad players, interestingly enough, blunder through hallucinations that should have made them turn back, and end up in a favorable position despite going into the fight in what seems like a bad position. It's funny how that works. Here is a replay of hallucination in PvP that won the game, but only because of the reaction it caused in my opponent. Just forward to the end where I confront him at his base.
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/96678-1v1-protoss-metalopolis
This example shows the risky nature of including hallucinations in your army for trickery. I do recommend them as meat shields though, especially against hydra
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On November 11 2010 03:43 yarkO wrote:Hey this thread seems like where I need to be! Thanks for another great write-up Plexa =) I have a map-specific question for the people of this thread: PvZ on Xel'Naga Caverns, I'm having a really hard time here. I don't feel safe going 15nex but I can't seem to mount any pressure instead. At ~1700 diamond (means nothing), I'm facing a lot of different builds, from Banelings to fast-pool Roach rushes. When they hatch first, I'm able to force some lings with Zealot + Stalker and I can usually save them. I guess vs Hatch first I don't have much of a problem, it's any Pool first opening, whether standard (13/14) or early (8-10). I've attached a replay with sort of what I'm talking about. I make a lot of mistakes for sure but I would appreciate any insight/criticism! You had 2 gateways way too long. Should've at least gone for a 2 gate/robo or 3 gate. Don't bother with a forge that early, unless you're building cannons. Upgrades are great, but fending off the attack should've been first prio. A gateway would've helped you more than the forge.
You had the robo-bay, you knew he was going mass roach, yet you didn't make one single immortal? Immortals are extremely good against roaches.
Also, one void raid would pretty much ment GG. Though, that's quite risky, so I wouldn't have gone down that road ;D
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Whoops, lost my comment in posting, and don't have time to retype. To sum up, I agree that cannon expanding is viable on Shakuras, but I don't like it on any other map in the ladder pool.
I disagree that sentry expand allows no pressure. If I'm going to gateway expand into 3-5 gate pressure, I want to have 5-6 sentries in my composition to allow me to isolate and pick off units, and still have forcefields leftover to retreat if necessary. You might as well get the sentries first because it allows an earlier expansion and more time to save energy. IMO, you can get pretty decent pressure with 3-gate sentry expand, add 2 more gates and a few stalkers, push out to secure a forward pylon, and adding just enough meaty right before you attack.
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While it seems that Mutalisks can just move out of the Storm and avoid most of the damage, in practice this is not the case.
Nooo... I smile every time a toss says templar are worthless against mutas. Don't ruin it for everyone.
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Thanks for the writeup. I have been opening up with phoenixes and transitioning to dark templars versus zerg. This does not seem to be very common and often it makes the zergs I play sit in their base and expand much slower than they otherwise would. My biggest problem is dealing with hydras though. I wish I could make this work better by finding a way to get colossi as well. Does anyone have thoughts on this?
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This will surly one day become the bible of PvZ great write up.
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Am I the only person who was surprised by the distinct lack of chargelots in both of the mid-game compositions? I had always treated chargelots as the backbone of my mid-game army vz Z but now it seems I've been doing it wrong all along? Learn something new every day I guess.
(1600 P)
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The problem with using chargelots is that having melee units negates a lot of the point of Forcefields since you can't abuse the positioning as effectively. For that reason, stalkers as a core unit are more viable, despite their cost-ineffectiveness in the mid/late game.
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On November 11 2010 05:56 Dfgj wrote: The problem with using chargelots is that having melee units negates a lot of the point of Forcefields since you can't abuse the positioning as effectively. For that reason, stalkers as a core unit are more viable, despite their cost-ineffectiveness in the mid/late game.
Well, forcefield placement is probably my weakest point with toss at the moment. I guess that's why I've shyed away from CSS type builds, but probably also why I'm around a 1/3 win rate vz Zerg.
From the picks that Plexa posted, it looked like he had 0 zealots out. Literally nothing but stalker/collosus/sentry. I never would have thought that was in any way viable because of the crap DPS stalkers/sentries do but I suppose collosus makes up for that? Stalkers do have high HP and can blink back so I guess they are the real tanks in this setup?
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I will probably half answer my own question here, but why hallucination scouting over robo and obs?
Is it just better to scout for "free" and simply tech properly from the information you gain than to blindly robo and find you don't need it?
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On November 11 2010 06:46 LazyMacro wrote: I will probably half answer my own question here, but why hallucination scouting over robo and obs?
Is it just better to scout for "free" and simply tech properly from the information you gain than to blindly robo and find you don't need it? Hallu is useful with a number of builds because if you're expanding after core, you have scouting information on Zerg's tech path at the point your 2-base econ is kicking in.
This means you can go 6gate timing / 2star / 2robo reactively to zerg making a tech choice, rather than being 100% blind. Observers just come out substantially later and the last thing you want to do is run a timing attack into the maw of a build that isn't actually weak at that timing. Or go robo-heavy vs mutas.
@Shadrak:
The reason you don't make zeals is because the Protoss army generally cannot fight the Zerg army in the open. You're going to rely on forcefields limiting the amount of Zerg that can attack your SSC ball, while the entire ranged Protoss mass can fire back, thus putting you at advantageous situations. Having zealots defeats the purpose of this, as units that were trapped out of range by forcefields can still shoot at the zealots, thus increasing the amount of damage your army is taking.
Stalkers are basically your tanks because they're the standard ranged units. Sadly, they're also godawful units, but that's what you've got - and what you pretty much need to transition out of as Plexa brings up.
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This is such an amazing post, thanks for your input, keep the info coming :D
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Possibly one of the best MU guides I've seen so far for SC2.
I would absolutely kill for a PvT/PvP guide as well =D
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Are phoenix openings a completely different beast then? You talk about them like they are viable to you but don't go into much information on them.
I've been playing phoenix as my main build in PvZ, something like 1 gate stargate constant phoenix (VR to ward away roach stuff if that comes up) into forge and expansion. Is that too uneconomical against good players or too vulnerable to mass speedling or hydra busts (I'm not sure if my normal pattern of rushing to colossus tech after expanding handles that done efficiently)?
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This guide inspired me. Just played a few games v my practice partner, skipping zealots bar the initial 1 for wall off seems to be pretty good. We played on LT. I 15 nexus into 2 SG, pump out some phoenix do some damage then slam down my gold expo and a total of 6 gateways, dumped excess minerals into expos and cannons, took my 4th really soon aswell. He went roach/hydra and we kept trading armies (2nd forge fast and chronoed up to 3/3). Anytime I had extra money I expoed and just put down more cannons, lol. I pretty much always fought at an expo of mine with 4-5 cannons behind blinking sections of stalkers back if I could. Transitioned into storm/speed rays on 4 base (my main wasn't mined out) and though I made like 120 probes, managed to pull it out of the bag by denying his 4th and 5th with rays.
In retrospect I should probably have gotten more immortals but with the ground I had to cover I preferred stalkers even if they were much less cost efficent.
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thank you very much for this post plexa. nice read.
id be very thankful if you could go into the phoenix play a bit more. i blindly open with phenix in pvz so i rarely have to deal with mutalisks. maybe if you could cover that too your thread would almost cover everything regarding PvZ? =) ...
pleeeeeaaaaaaaassssse ) =)))
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"15 Nex allows you to keep your probe production matched with his drone production"
Um this is totally wrong. People have the idea that Zerg can drone up with impunity. The key to TvZ and PvZ is to make them build units instead of drones. Make them build zerglings and spine crawlers - the earlier the better. Make them build roaches as you go air. If you do even a minimal amount of pressure and achieve this, T and P econ actually match Zerg's.
The problem is a lot of noobs think you either have to go hard econ or attack and nothing inbetween. I've won so many games by sending a pair of marines or a single zealot super early and seeing how the zerg responds. Their correct response is to build four zerglings. If they build 2, they lose the battle. If they build 6-12 they're going to be way behind in econ and all I need is a bunker or stalkers with probes on standby to hold off a dozen zerglings trying to walk across the map.
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On November 11 2010 08:58 oprandom wrote: "15 Nex allows you to keep your probe production matched with his drone production"
Um this is totally wrong. People have the idea that Zerg can drone up with impunity. The key to TvZ and PvZ is to make them build units instead of drones. Make them build zerglings and spine crawlers - the earlier the better. Make them build roaches as you go air. If you do even a minimal amount of pressure and achieve this, T and P econ actually match Zerg's.
The problem is a lot of noobs think you either have to go hard econ or attack and nothing inbetween. I've won so many games by sending a pair of marines or a single zealot super early and seeing how the zerg responds. Their correct response is to build four zerglings. If they build 2, they lose the battle. If they build 6-12 they're going to be way behind in econ and all I need is a bunker or stalkers with probes on standby to hold off a dozen zerglings trying to walk across the map.
The idea and the concept behind 15 nexus is that, if you aren't putting much early pressure such that one or two spines can handle it, you're not doing much to force the zerg to produce much. By the time you're getting units out, chances are the zerg's econ is booming, and so is yours. Hence, forgoing the "early game".
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My 2nd question: for hallucinate usage you describe, does hallucination come before warp gates or after? That wasn't clear.
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Much thanks for the guide, Plexa. I look forward to reading and re-reading it.
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Really great post, and spot on IME. I know you didn't want to QQ/"imba," but you did hint on it and I feel the same way re: muta balls and late game PvZ. Either some revolutionary metagame shift will have to occur or a patch is needed, but PvZ is imba right now due primarily due to how handcuffed toss is against Mutas and how weak Toss late game is vs Zerg. To win a macro game, it almost seems like Toss either has to guess the perfect army composition or hope his Zerg opponent makes serious mistakes. Zerg mobility/map-control superiority is also a serious concern IMO.
I think the roach buff was part of the problem, but the bigger reason why PvZ feels different nowadays is because Zerg is starting to realize how to play their race effectively (against P and T). Blizzard really needs to stop patching the game so fast and creating new issues without giving the game time to mature.
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On November 10 2010 23:49 Plexa wrote: While Zergs can 7RR, 5RR, baneling all-in, 6pool etc. these builds are not being considered here. On the whole these builds are shut down fairly easily by Sentries and appropriate cannon use.
Could you expand on this (perhaps in a different thread)? My experience has been if I don't have Stalkers out already (or at least 2 warpgates) when roach pressure hits, I instantly lose no matter how many sentries I have, unless the Z makes a mistake. This is not so much an issue with 7RR/5RR and 6pools, because those are scouted and you'd be pretty retarded to 15nex vs that after you scouted it, but I'm thinking more reactive roach all-in's.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 11 2010 02:32 Markwerf wrote: One thing i disagree about bigtime in the early game is your general use of hallucination for scouting. I used to use it alot but rarely ever do so anymore, the cost of the tech and it's use is simply too high for what you get imo. It's a 110 sec, 100m 100g tech that also depletes lot's of energy from your sentries. Further more it's good for scouting but not nearly as good as a real phoenix and usually a bit worse then a observer as well because the hallucinated phoenix lasts relatively short. The key difference between Hallucination and Observers is that Hallucination costs 50 more minerals and can be used at any stage of the game while Observers can be sniped - and building a second one already makes it worse than Hallu. I always have an obs with my army, I should probably include that somewhere in the guide... You need that detection to kill creep highways and whatnot and most of the time you want to be pumping colo/immo out of your robo and you'd rather not waste time building a second obs. That's why I believe Hallu is better, and the Koreans tend to agree with me on that
Also hallucination gets quite crap in the lategame as often you won't have sentries with enough energy to use it anymore. Finally the combat use of hallucination is practually zero, there is almost no situation where you would want to use hallucination instead of forcefields. Most times it is simply better to put down a stargate or robo for scouting instead of getting hallucination. The cost is nearly the same and timing wise it is usually better as well. Initially it might cost a little more but a stargate or robo is nearly always useful vs Z if not only to deter tech switches / be able to respond to them. If you're going stargate play, then sure Hallu is obsolete I agree. But if you're going robotics play then I would still prefer hallu for the reasons cited above. Sentries in general are crap in the lategame, but a few hallucinated immortals/collossus are a lot better than sentries just sitting there getting butchered by Ultralisks! Sentries, as with stalkers, become progressively worse as the game goes on.
On small maps a 'blind' robo does very well as muta/ling is really rare on them. On big maps a 'blind' stargate does really well as muta/ling play is very likely on them and phoenix harass is very good on big maps (even if they do go roach/hydra). No arguments here, hell I would say you want a robotics against Muta/ling anyway since Roach transitions are getting more and more common.
As for the midgame compositions, i think you are grossly simplifying it by saying you can only go 'CSS' or 'IST'. Either of those compositions is pretty terrible against muta/ling play as templar take way too much time to get out against a muta/ling player. You simply need to get phoenix against proper muta play as otherwise you are never able to get a 3rd expansion going safely and 3 or 4 base mutaling play gets far ahead against 2 base 'IST' play. Templar are just quite expensive to get going on 2 bases in conjunction with stalkers, it is more a 3 base tech in that regard. The proper way to fight muta/ling IS with phoenix or a proper timing push. On small maps a timing push is obviously strong, on bigger maps phoenix play is usually advised. Take this replay of Socke vs Sen. http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/replays/39512Socke tries to beat muta/ling play without phoenix here but even though he uses blink stalkers and gets templar eventually he is FAR behind before he gets to counter the muta. Only because Sen makes some horrible micro mistakes and general sloppy play later on does this game continue for so long as Socke was basically lost since the moment he didnt defend muta/ling play properly. Phoenix are only good as a preemptive counter to muta/ling, as I've said before. If you're playing catchup then you're going to lose the game. If you have a strong ground army then the correct followup is Blink Stalker/Storm - yes it's not as strong as pure phoenix - but it does work.
The socke/sen game actually illustrates why Storm is so good against Muta/ling Socke made some crucial errors in that game though. For instance, he moved out with only 2 templar - that's not enough to kill off muta/ling - and as a result lost half his army. Further, he would use blink to engage the mutalisks, not chase them - and as a result he would only hurt the mutalisks and not kill them (which is exactly what the Zerg wants). Blink should be used to give chase rather than open fire. Muta/Ling is so unforgiving when you play ground based - lose half your army without taking out significant numbers and the game is almost over. Socke was just lucky to get good storms off later which saved the game for him (illustrating just how effective storm is). After that it was a case of whose lategame was better.
The good way to counter muta/ling play (especially on maps that favor muta/ling play) is by going phoenix, stalker, zealot, sentries. Even though you won't be able to get a sufficient number of phoenix to kill muta on their own, you don't need too. You simply need phoenix to a) help defend his harass along with your stalkers b) harass and scout him c) help win a 'big' fight that will usually happen at his 3rd or 4th. Getting robo units makes you horribly slow against muta/ling and they are only a waste of gas. Simply invest in attack upgrades for your ground (as that is another way to counter lings) and get a good zealot/stalker/phoenix force. Lings get decimated by quick 2-0 stalker/zealot (as you will always be able to get 2-0 way before they have 0-2 as 2-0 is cheaper AND you can chronoboost whereas he can not) and with the help of phoenix and sentries it easily takes care of muta as well. Chargelots with attack upgrades also do fine against roaches which he can't get in big numbers anyway when using muta. I'm sorry but you don't know what you're talking about. You're correct in saying that +1 attack is important against muta/ling, but thats only half the story. If you are not equal or ahead in upgrades, Mutaling will over run any ground army - you also need to be upgrading armour and arguably shield (ugh why does it cost so much..) because that reduces muta splash and zergling damage significantly. Further, in practice +2 is delayed not by resources, but by the speed at which you get your twilight council. If you have a Stargate you won't be getting that for a while and thus the Zerg will be able to catch up.
The composition you describe will counter 12 mutalisks no problem, but once they get 20+ your army will be decimated. You have no effective way of dealing with that many mutalisks since you dont have enough Phoenix to fight them and Stalkers suck against mass muta. Protoss don't have a problem beating 12 mutalisks, pure stalkers can do that, Protoss have a problem beating mass mutalisks - the only counters are 3 gate Phoenix (see the replay I linked earlier) or Storm.
A replay of this exact method of muta counter is this one of Artosis vs Renihour (also covered in a day9 don't know which): http://www.sc2rep.com/replays/show/id/2503Reniehour does go phoenix quite fast but going it a bit later really is no problem either, for example you can start with 1 stargate and then add a 2nd if you scout a spire. Even going double stargate after seeing a spire works, you simply don't need a phoenix fleet that can beat their muta on their own, you only need a sufficient number to help stop harass and harass back. This doesn't demonstrate your point and indeed supports what I'm saying. Preemptive phoenix is fine against muta, hell it's desirable. Reactionary phoenix just isn't quick enough to deal with mass mutalisks.
For the rest the midgame section is quite ok. I disagree with rebuilding sentries so much though, getting a lot early on is good but later on it is rarely good to rebuild alot of them as they are too gas heavy at that point. Early on sentries rock as they are a gas outlet while minerals are the limiting factor early on but later on you usually have better ways to use the gas. For example when using the 'CSS' composition I would advise to simply not replenish your sentries later and in fact go with colossi, stalker, immortal. It is less gas heavy meaning you won't get such a big mineral surplus (it is simply not always possible to expand to spend your minerals) and rebuilding sentries later on tends to suck. You won't have the energy build up that your early sentries have and because lategame it usually gets to 3 or 4 base play they are not as great defensively anymore either as the Z can be dropping, nydusing or simply attacking bases where your sentries aren't. Build sentries early on as they are great to defend (and great offensively with energy buildup) but eventually phaze them out your army as you are better off getting something else later (such as more immortals). You have no idea what you are talking about. Without forcefield midgame armies are overrun by masses of Roach/Hydra - you have no way of controlling their movements or being able to retreat. No sentries is just asking for a beating, they are a key to playing strong PvZ and is the sole reason why escjung was a PvZ gosu (dno what's happened to him recently though). Once you appreciate this, PvZ becomes a lot more manageable.
As a final remark, that statement about speedrays being a great endgame composition, i'm not so sure. Voidrays are a great transition when you were already on 2 stargates, for example you went phoenix to counter muta but he transitioned into roach/hydra so you transition into speedray, lot, templar. As a straight up late transition when you don't have prior tech it sucks imo. Starting speedrays when you don't have any tech in it yet is VERY expensive (2 stargates, fleet beacon, flux vanes and +1 air attack) before you even get 1 out and regardless of their harass potential hydra's still stomp them in a fight (also upgraded queens are quite ok against small numbers of them). Simply saying "it sucks" doesn't really help anyone - why do you think it sucks? You can't play a midgame army against T3 Zerg, you just die. Stalkers get completely decimated by Ultralisks and they are the core of all midgame armies. Thus you need to transition into something. Sentries are obviously obsolete at this point and you little in the way of crowd control meaning your colossus can be picked off easily. As far as I can tell, VRs are the most versatile lategame option a Protoss has - immortal/chargelot/storm, however, is the best counter against Ultralisks.
On November 11 2010 04:58 kcdc wrote: Whoops, lost my comment in posting, and don't have time to retype. To sum up, I agree that cannon expanding is viable on Shakuras, but I don't like it on any other map in the ladder pool.
I disagree that sentry expand allows no pressure. If I'm going to gateway expand into 3-5 gate pressure, I want to have 5-6 sentries in my composition to allow me to isolate and pick off units, and still have forcefields leftover to retreat if necessary. You might as well get the sentries first because it allows an earlier expansion and more time to save energy. IMO, you can get pretty decent pressure with 3-gate sentry expand, add 2 more gates and a few stalkers, push out to secure a forward pylon, and adding just enough meaty right before you attack. Yeah you're right. There are a bunch of timing pushes which are possible after a sentry expand but for the most part I consider them midgame timing pushes rather than an early game push, purely because they are either exploiting the window before mutas or are punishing a quick third. I should add stuff about that.
On November 11 2010 05:38 Shadrak wrote: Am I the only person who was surprised by the distinct lack of chargelots in both of the mid-game compositions? I had always treated chargelots as the backbone of my mid-game army vz Z but now it seems I've been doing it wrong all along? Learn something new every day I guess.
(1600 P) Chargelots are great against lings and hydras (to a point, then you need storm as well) but royally suck against Roaches. Roaches tend to be the core unit of a Zerg midgame army thus I find Zealots obsolete. You will eventually have a ton of minerals and zero gas and I have tried powering all of that into Zealots. All it does is make you max out faster without adding any real benefits to your army. If you are using forcefields well, Zealots kinda defeat the purpose since they rush forward into range and die. The idea is to use FF to split the army then pick off half of it from a distance, something which Zealots just dont do.... better to invest those minerals into an expansion or cannons imo.
On November 11 2010 06:06 Shadrak wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 05:56 Dfgj wrote: The problem with using chargelots is that having melee units negates a lot of the point of Forcefields since you can't abuse the positioning as effectively. For that reason, stalkers as a core unit are more viable, despite their cost-ineffectiveness in the mid/late game. Well, forcefield placement is probably my weakest point with toss at the moment. I guess that's why I've shyed away from CSS type builds, but probably also why I'm around a 1/3 win rate vz Zerg. From the picks that Plexa posted, it looked like he had 0 zealots out. Literally nothing but stalker/collosus/sentry. I never would have thought that was in any way viable because of the crap DPS stalkers/sentries do but I suppose collosus makes up for that? Stalkers do have high HP and can blink back so I guess they are the real tanks in this setup? Colossus are the real damage dealers in the mix. The idea is to forcefield half of his army off, pull back a bit, then snipe off the isolated half from a distance. Any hydras should be stuck behind the FF so all of your units will be out of their range. Further, your army has significantly more range than the Zerg does and using FF basically turns that extra range into a tangible advantage. The mobility and "damage from a distance" of CSS makes it so strong.
On November 11 2010 06:46 LazyMacro wrote: I will probably half answer my own question here, but why hallucination scouting over robo and obs?
Is it just better to scout for "free" and simply tech properly from the information you gain than to blindly robo and find you don't need it? You will want to build 1 obs and you won't want to build anymore (unless you have to). You want that obs to be able to snipe off creep highways. I used to use obs to scout Zerg, but they usually get an overseer, scout it, and pick it off and there goes 50/100 for nothing. Hallucination is better since it's flexible and in most cases cheaper than using Observers to scout.
On November 11 2010 07:55 ZapRoffo wrote: Are phoenix openings a completely different beast then? You talk about them like they are viable to you but don't go into much information on them.
I've been playing phoenix as my main build in PvZ, something like 1 gate stargate constant phoenix (VR to ward away roach stuff if that comes up) into forge and expansion. Is that too uneconomical against good players or too vulnerable to mass speedling or hydra busts (I'm not sure if my normal pattern of rushing to colossus tech after expanding handles that done efficiently)? Yeah I think they are significantly different from ground based games. I do really badly with phoenix play but I do know that they are a viable choice from the many replays I've watched. I don't know the specifics of the builds so I can't really give any more advice on them unfortunately
On November 11 2010 08:58 oprandom wrote: "15 Nex allows you to keep your probe production matched with his drone production"
Um this is totally wrong. People have the idea that Zerg can drone up with impunity. The key to TvZ and PvZ is to make them build units instead of drones. Make them build zerglings and spine crawlers - the earlier the better. Make them build roaches as you go air. If you do even a minimal amount of pressure and achieve this, T and P econ actually match Zerg's.
The problem is a lot of noobs think you either have to go hard econ or attack and nothing inbetween. I've won so many games by sending a pair of marines or a single zealot super early and seeing how the zerg responds. Their correct response is to build four zerglings. If they build 2, they lose the battle. If they build 6-12 they're going to be way behind in econ and all I need is a bunker or stalkers with probes on standby to hold off a dozen zerglings trying to walk across the map. Um. Why is it totally wrong? 15 Nex is the only build which allows you to match his drone production without pressure. If you read further, you will see I have an entire section dedicated to pressure games? The point is, 15Nex you can compete without pressure, if you like, otherwise you can't.
On November 11 2010 11:06 ZapRoffo wrote: My 2nd question: for hallucinate usage you describe, does hallucination come before warp gates or after? That wasn't clear. I always get warpgate first hallucination second, but I think getting Hallucination first is possible if you are sentry expanding. It's up to whatever suits your style better imo.
On November 11 2010 11:33 whoopadeedoo wrote: Really great post, and spot on IME. I know you didn't want to QQ/"imba," but you did hint on it and I feel the same way re: muta balls and late game PvZ. Either some revolutionary metagame shift will have to occur or a patch is needed, but PvZ is imba right now due primarily due to how handcuffed toss is against Mutas and how weak Toss late game is vs Zerg. To win a macro game, it almost seems like Toss either has to guess the perfect army composition or hope his Zerg opponent makes serious mistakes.
I think the roach buff was part of the problem, but the bigger reason why PvZ feels different nowadays is because Zerg is starting to realize how to play their race effectively (against P and T). I'm a strong believer in finding solutions to problems rather than demanding a patch. Mostly because if a patch does come, that can only strengthen the counters I already have in place. PvZ is imba at the moment because Protoss don't understand what's going on. The roach buff coupled with the fruitdealer revolution lead to old Protoss style becoming obsolete and we had to relearn everything. Before we would 2gate zealot every game into expand and use other variants of that, but with that option gone and stalker pressure getting held off better and better, we really didn't know what to do. Lastly the roach buff really made them difficult to deal with (particularly once upgrades kick in) but people like macseed are working out micro techniques to shut them down.
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I have been a victim of Plexa's PvZ many times, I give this the Megalisk stamp of approval!
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Uh ok... First of all i'm not saying hallu is never worth it but in many cases I simply think getting a stargate or just scouting fast with a robo is more desireable. Forge expanding for example tends to get a cybercore and thus warpgate tech quite late which delays hallu by a lot, in that scenario a blind robo or stargate is much more desireable imo. Saying the koreans 'tend' to agree is also a bit nonsense as hallucination is definately the preferred method of scouting in general if you see stuff like GSL. Proposing to get hallucination before warpgate is completely laughable by the way...
Also what is with this condescending tone about me not knowing about playing vs mutaling play? It's just some big bullshit and your method of just not getting phoenix if you were a bit late with them is just complete nonsense. Sure there are definite cases where not using phoenix to counter muta can be desireable (small map, timing push, having already invested considerably into other tech whatever) but in general phoenixes are the best play to counter it. That 2-3 phoenix you are ahead by not going a stargate preemptively instead of reactively isn't the end of the world if you are going 2 stargates. Alot of it what you are saying is simply bullshit, armor and shield upgrades aren't the end of the world against muta/ling play as they don't even do anything against splash if you are under guardian shield. Guardian shield already reduces splash to it's minimum (exception on your shields which is too expensive to upgrade) so not getting armor is hardly the end of the world. Phoenix stalker can work just as well agianst mass mutalisks (like 30 or so) instead of low numbers for which the reniehour game was a demonstration. Without phoenix it simply is not possible at every map to win vs mutaling, at LT like the socke game it's possible but something like jungle basin a good Z will just outexpand you while harassing non-stop (which blink stalkers don't stop in the way that phoenix + stalker does). Also about the sentries vs roach/hydra. They are quite good (if high on energy) but if you have to choose between getting a mineral build up because of rebuilding too many of them or simply not getting them anymore later and having enough gas to spend all minerals on stalkers i think the latter is better. It is not completely neccesary to box in roach/hydra if you have plenty stalker & immortals instead. Also about your socalled lategame voidrays, i said it sucks if you don't have some tech for it already because it is a VERY costly transition if you don't already have stargates (which according to your guide is not often if ever...). Sure voids can help alot with broodlords but for anything else they are not a neccesity imo. You can get immortal/ht/stalker/zealot at that point afterall which does quite well against any Z unit combo including ultralisks as well... Conveniently there are almost NO replays showing this so called great lategame option whereas for other arguments you do use replays or korean 'trends' to prove your points.
In general I just think you are completely wrong about a few issue's in this matchup. Perhaps I am, there is no way ever to really win a discussion like this of course, but alot of replays and my personal experience just don't show the same picture of PvZ as you do. Most things I agree but I simply don't about your general assessment about how not viable phoenix and zealots are overall. Simply stating I don't know a clue and coming with nonsense arguments won't really help there either.
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If it hasn't been mentioned before, My current favorite PvZ build is the 1 gate void ray FE. The basic idea is get a void out as soon as possible, and go kill just about anything and everything you can get your greedy hands on. Take your natural expo after the second void pops out, you should have 2-3 zeals a stalker and maybe a sentry making or so. Still on 1 gate as well.
Useful hint, vs 1 queen, if you focus drones, a void can kill around 3-4 before its shields are down, also keep your void pack (3-5 is perfect) on a hotkey and CONSTANTLY move them around the map looking for a third base, scout lings/ovies and their army. My favorite thing to do i just park your voids right in range of drones, hit hold position, go do some stuff, come back and some drones are dead. Plus you just pissed him off.
One of the best things about this is some zergs see it as pure all in, as in "if I build like 6 queens and stop the void rays and build some spore crawlers I win". Sadly this is no where near all in cause your main goal is a fast expansion. I recently put some replays of this in action in the replay thread up in General, Go check out my whole page of replays at that site for lots of good PvZ games.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 11 2010 13:17 Markwerf wrote: Uh ok... First of all i'm not saying hallu is never worth it but in many cases I simply think getting a stargate or just scouting fast with a robo is more desireable. Forge expanding for example tends to get a cybercore and thus warpgate tech quite late which delays hallu by a lot, in that scenario a blind robo or stargate is much more desireable imo. Saying the koreans 'tend' to agree is also a bit nonsense as hallucination is definately the preferred method of scouting in general if you see stuff like GSL. Proposing to get hallucination before warpgate is completely laughable by the way... Well put it this way. If you leave the obs in his base to scout it will eventually get picked off, so you have to constantly move the (slow) observer from your army into his main to scout. I think this is inferior to hallucination for all the reasons I've stated before.
Also what is with this condescending tone about me not knowing about playing vs mutaling play? It's just some big bullshit and your method of just not getting phoenix if you were a bit late with them is just complete nonsense. Sure there are definite cases where not using phoenix to counter muta can be desireable (small map, timing push, having already invested considerably into other tech whatever) but in general phoenixes are the best play to counter it. That 2-3 phoenix you are ahead by not going a stargate preemptively instead of reactively isn't the end of the world if you are going 2 stargates. I don't get your point. I've already said that 2 stargate phoenix, at worst, comes out equal against muta/ling. What I am saying is that if you scout the spire too late and throw down 2 reactionary stargates there is no way your phoenix count will get high enough to win. 2 Stargates is quite an investment off of two base (particularly gas) and every other part of your army will suffer. That's what I'm getting at, if you're not going stargate first then don't bother putting it down if you scout spire - get storm instead.
Alot of it what you are saying is simply bullshit, armor and shield upgrades aren't the end of the world against muta/ling play as they don't even do anything against splash if you are under guardian shield. Guardian shield already reduces splash to it's minimum (exception on your shields which is too expensive to upgrade) so not getting armor is hardly the end of the world. Phoenix stalker can work just as well agianst mass mutalisks (like 30 or so) instead of low numbers for which the reniehour game was a demonstration. Without phoenix it simply is not possible at every map to win vs mutaling, at LT like the socke game it's possible but something like jungle basin a good Z will just outexpand you while harassing non-stop (which blink stalkers don't stop in the way that phoenix + stalker does). Guardian shield doesn't affect lings, which if not kept in check will deal ridiculous amounts of damage to your stalker blob. Falling behind in armour upgrades also means that if he decides to transition to ultra or roach or hydra then your units are just like paper. It's a very good idea to stay ahead/equal on upgrades, and the zergs I play with agree (all 2k+).
Also about the sentries vs roach/hydra. They are quite good (if high on energy) but if you have to choose between getting a mineral build up because of rebuilding too many of them or simply not getting them anymore later and having enough gas to spend all minerals on stalkers i think the latter is better. It is not completely neccesary to box in roach/hydra if you have plenty stalker & immortals instead. I guess that's your personal preference, but in my experience having forcefield augments the strength of your army tenfold. And once again, I think if you look to the korean scene you'll see that forcefields are critical in midgame.
Also about your socalled lategame voidrays, i said it sucks if you don't have some tech for it already because it is a VERY costly transition if you don't already have stargates (which according to your guide is not often if ever...). Sure voids can help alot with broodlords but for anything else they are not a neccesity imo. You can get immortal/ht/stalker/zealot at that point afterall which does quite well against any Z unit combo including ultralisks as well... Conveniently there are almost NO replays showing this so called great lategame option whereas for other arguments you do use replays or korean 'trends' to prove your points. Here you go - Hasuobs vs Haypro. Check the other games from that series as well since I'm sure there was another game that went VR as well. I think that was before the VR nerf though, although that doesn't really change the effectiveness at this stage in the game. It's not wildly popular at the moment, mostly because Protoss are winning with midgame timing pushes at the moment and the late game is unexplored but once we work things out a bit more then I'm confident this will become the norm. Further, if you can point me towards a high level game where a Protoss wins a 30+ minute game it would be appreciated - because having seen every PvZ posted (and a bunch of unreleased top reps) there hasn't been a game a protoss has won that has gone into the lategame!
In general I just think you are completely wrong about a few issue's in this matchup. Perhaps I am, there is no way ever to really win a discussion like this of course, but alot of replays and my personal experience just don't show the same picture of PvZ as you do. Most things I agree but I simply don't about your general assessment about how not viable phoenix and zealots are overall. Simply stating I don't know a clue and coming with nonsense arguments won't really help there either. My assessment of Phoenixs are that they are completely viable, but I don't know enough about phoenix openings to write a comprehensive guide. Our point of difference is whether you can scout a spire and then build 2 stargates as a counter - you seem to be saying that this is the correct response, whereas I disagree. I think Zealots are basically useless aside from meatshielding lings and ultralisks. Chargelots are good against hydra, but unfortunately they are usually accompanied by many roaches, which Zealots suck against. I would rather have colossi or storm to deal with those few hydra.
On November 11 2010 13:41 N3rV[Green] wrote: If it hasn't been mentioned before, My current favorite PvZ build is the 1 gate void ray FE. The basic idea is get a void out as soon as possible, and go kill just about anything and everything you can get your greedy hands on. Take your natural expo after the second void pops out, you should have 2-3 zeals a stalker and maybe a sentry making or so. Still on 1 gate as well.
Useful hint, vs 1 queen, if you focus drones, a void can kill around 3-4 before its shields are down, also keep your void pack (3-5 is perfect) on a hotkey and CONSTANTLY move them around the map looking for a third base, scout lings/ovies and their army. My favorite thing to do i just park your voids right in range of drones, hit hold position, go do some stuff, come back and some drones are dead. Plus you just pissed him off.
One of the best things about this is some zergs see it as pure all in, as in "if I build like 6 queens and stop the void rays and build some spore crawlers I win". Sadly this is no where near all in cause your main goal is a fast expansion. I recently put some replays of this in action in the replay thread up in General, Go check out my whole page of replays at that site for lots of good PvZ games. VR openings are viable, but not mainstream, that's why I didn't include them Personally I really like this build that Macseed is using at the moment (basically 2-3 stalker pressure -> expand -> VR) http://rep.sc2.com.cn/detail-3290.html http://rep.sc2.com.cn/detail-3291.html
Both those games demonstrate the style well. I think it's very effective overall
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Excellent write-up. Thanks, Plexa!
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Excellent post, protoss is really struggling at the moment and this will surely help alot of toss players.
I would like to add my opinion regarding the late game transitioning into 2 SG VR, this is something I've actually used couple of times. Depending on how the game progresses/looks i usually make another transition after that, into carriers! If you have the economy, go for it! Also use sentries to hallucinate up few extra carriers before engaging
Thanks for sharing once again.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 11 2010 14:29 WindOw wrote:Excellent post, protoss is really struggling at the moment and this will surely help alot of toss players. I would like to add my opinion regarding the late game transitioning into 2 SG VR, this is something I've actually used couple of times. Depending on how the game progresses/looks i usually make another transition after that, into carriers! If you have the economy, go for it! Also use sentries to hallucinate up few extra carriers before engaging Thanks for sharing once again. Sentries can't hallucinate carriers....
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Wow, great post.
I started reading with the mindset of "lol he's trying to write a guide about all of PvZ? haha let's see how much I can disagree with him." I read the entire thing, and although I can nitpick at details the general concepts are all 100% solid.
I'd like to stress 2 things the the OP mentiond that haven't really been discussed much in the comments - upgrades and expo timing (especially getting your 3rd at about the same time the zerg gets his 3rd). Start upgrading early, and keep upgrading. Use chronos on upgrades. Once you get into mid game with 2-3 expos I find that most players (myself included) don't use all their chronos - spend it on forge upgrades! And getting your 3rd expo up earlier does feel weird if you're used to PvZ in BW. But especially against hydra/roach, it's much safer in SC2 because at that stage of the game, if the zerg wants to attack he basically has to commit to it. With the threat of force fields and the slow off-creep speed, it's actually pretty tough for zerg to be aggressive.
2 gate VR late game is also wonderful. I started doing this myself without being aware of anyone else doing it just to counter brood lords at first. Seriously, there is like no other way to kill brood lords, and I was starting to see brood lords being more popular than ultras late game especially on some maps. Then I realized that VRs are at least decent if not great against other zerg units too, so now I'm pre emptively making them in late game even if I don't scout brood lords. For people saying that it's expensive - you don't have to invest in 2 stargates, a fleet beacon, an attack upgrade, and speed all at once. You can just start with 1 gate void rays, and gradually add on the other tech. Even a small handful of slow void rays can be really useful - I don't know how many times I've faced a late game zerg army that ended up with no anti-air.
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You mentioned that a good reaction to seeing muta/ling play is to get blink stalkers and HT. However, muta harass usually confines the P to 2 bases, which is not enough gas to make sentries/stalkers/blink/upgrades AND HT. How do you go about securing the 3rd base, especially on maps like metal until the HT tech is done? Do you just dump the extra mins into cannons while making sentries/blink stalkers to deal with the harass or is it better to go for a timing push off 2 bases before the mutas get a chance to harass?
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interesting write-up! personally, ive been going 1 gate sentry fe and using the hallu to determine his tech pattern. if i see a roach warren with a lair, then i throw down a robo and get some collo (adding in storm later). if i see a spire, i've been going either 6 gate pressure or double stargate to win the air battle (mixed success with this, a sudden roach switch can screw me over). however, late game i was kinda lost and never even considered void rays as a possible transition. i will definetely be trying that out for games to come. thanks =D
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 11 2010 15:20 Ernzoa wrote: You mentioned that a good reaction to seeing muta/ling play is to get blink stalkers and HT. However, muta harass usually confines the P to 2 bases, which is not enough gas to make sentries/stalkers/blink/upgrades AND HT. How do you go about securing the 3rd base, especially on maps like metal until the HT tech is done? Do you just dump the extra mins into cannons while making sentries/blink stalkers to deal with the harass or is it better to go for a timing push off 2 bases before the mutas get a chance to harass? Metal is surprisingly easy to secure a third on, assuming you're not in close positions. Lost Temple is a map which is really difficult to secure a third. Generally you cut sentries as you transition to templar (you should have atleast 6 anyway) and by doing so you should be able to afford all the tech you need. Once storm is out (depending on how aggressive he's being) you should be able to move out with 3-4 templar and take a base, or if he's being aggressive, you should be able to land a few storms on them and weaken them to a point where the zerg doesn't want to be aggressive anymore. Either way, after storm it's third time!
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Very nice guide, but I'm kind of siding with Markwerf on the phoenixes. I don't think I've seen too many games between good players where the zerg goes muta/ling, and the toss 1) doesn't timing push and 2) goes 2 base templars and ends up winning.
reactionary phoenixes may not be able to match the mutas in numbers but if you're good with micro then your phoenixes shouldn't really die and your phoenix number should keep increasing. With phoenixes I feel you can take a 3rd base without pushing because a couple phoenixes and cannons can do very well against mutas and either chase them away or give you time to send stalkers over.
With 2base templars it just seems like the mutas can pick off your econ as you're moving out, then army trade with you and the zerg will end up way ahead.
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I understand the concept of expanding behind your stalker pressure, but around what supply are you dropping a Nexus? Also, I find it way harder to keep the expo up on a map like XelNaga Caverns as opposed to Lost Temple.
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On November 11 2010 01:48 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 01:44 BlasiuS wrote:Awesome guide, very well-written and informative. Gives great insight into both sides of the matchup. There is one point I don't agree with though: On November 10 2010 23:49 Plexa wrote: Void Rays, or rather, Speed Rays are incredible late game units for the following reasons - Zerg has nothing good to kill them with (muta expensive, corruptor lol, hydras die to everything)
pre-patch rays really did lol at corruptors, as they did insane damage vs armored units. However after the patch void rays are now not nearly as strong vs armored units, like the corruptor. In addition, corruptors lost their energy, making them immune to feedback. From the zerg side, I think corruptors are the answer to late-game speed rays. Late-game zerg already has greater spire, which means they are already making, or about to make broodlords, so they already have the corruptors. All zerg has to do is either make more corruptors, or cut back slightly on the # of corruptors that they morph into broodlords. Corruptors will not be easy to pick off, as stalkers will have to blink into a wall of crackling/ultra to get to them. Also corruptors & void rays have the same range, 6, so you can't really use your void rays to attack from behind your army like you can with range 9 colossus. Okay perhaps lol'ing at corruptors is a bit overkill, but the fact is that Corruptors aren't useful at dealing with my ground army (besides colo) and they're expensive. I think at the very worst it's an even fight between Corruptors/Speed Rays which is exactly the way it should be. Both sides should have options in the lategame which are viable. From what I've seen, though, the real strength to speedrays is their ability to pop up somewhere kill a bunch of drones and a hatch then leave again without being touched by Zerg.
just for the protocol; A Void Ray kills a Corruptor (both un-upgraded) with only shields lost. A-moving 5 vs 5 Rays come out ahead even more. (y, battle situations also include other units etc pp. but the tradeoff seems "fair" to me.)
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First of thanks for the great guide, it really helped me to understand the matchup better.
Now to the scout / Phönix discussion, I think that there is a third possibility between opening Halu -> Robo / Council or 2 Stargate. What about making just one Stargate, boost out a Phönix and scout him with it and react accordingly? - If he goes Muta/Ling than add a second Starport and slowly tech towards Templar. - If he goes Roach and you think he will push soon you can start building a Robo for Immortals and if needed add some Void Rays to your army. - If he stays defensive and builds up Roach / Hydra then go towards Colossus.
The advantage of 1 Stargate is that is solves the scout problem and gives you an easier transition to Speedrays in the late-game. You will have less Phönix than a player who throws down 2 Stargate immediatly, but you are in a better position against other builds. Also if he doesnt go Muta you can just make ~3 Phönix for map control and drone harass.
As a sidenote regarding the Phönix vs Muta efficiency discussion. It sounds like some people asume that their strength is measured in how they can beat Mutas on their own. While others and myself included measure their strength in how well they can support your Gateway army in order to beat Muta together.
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As the game creeps on, this unit composition becomes worse, and worse and then down right terrible. This is because of upgrades. Indeed, understanding this is absolutely essential to understanding the last half of this matchup. Stalkers scale terribly with upgrades.
You are right with your points about the upgrades, but I don't see the problem. Colossi/Stalker/Sentry is not supposed to fight all the Roach/Hydra army at once. You try to cut it in half so their damage output is reduced by alot. Your ball should the able to tank that damage I think. On the other hand stalker damage output does not get better during the game, they get +1 damage, Zerg gets +1 armor. But your colossi gain +2 (on two shots) every upgrade, so they climb from (colossi attack vs roarches armor level, same level) 2*14 -> 28 to 2*17 -> 34 damage. The more colossi your are able to stack, they even start to burn through roaches, hydras get decimated anyway.
In the end I guess stalker upgrade scaling is part of the problem, but more important are the rising army numbers and the danger of being surrounded where you can't handle them anymore with forcefields. Never get caught on open (creep)field.
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On November 11 2010 12:17 Plexa wrote: Phoenix are only good as a preemptive counter to muta/ling, as I've said before. If you're playing catchup then you're going to lose the game. If you have a strong ground army then the correct followup is Blink Stalker/Storm - yes it's not as strong as pure phoenix - but it does work.
I'm not giving up yet
First, let's not talk about blind phoenix openings, because I don't know "too" much about these as well...tried some 2 gate stalker pressure into expo into 2 stargate with the "plan" to harass with phoenixes but also to be able to mass void rays if zerg commits with roaches, but never felt really comfortable. 3 gate sentry-expand into 2 stargate feels better, but then again zerg has the possibility to go fast lair hydras which is not only a direct counter but also a quite good build vs protoss standard-play in "itself" so I encounter it quite often. Still I think we can agree that phoenix-openings are one of those things that haven't been well discovered at all - once you get 4 phoenixes and can kill queens with one lift-off the harass is one of the strongest in the whole midgame of sc2.
Second, I still disagree that going stargates "reactionary" is bad. The reason is, that only recently protoss have started to figure out the timings of 5 gate pushes (be it the more all-in-ish tyler or tt1 ones, or the more conservative socke-play). If done correctly I am convinced that you WILL do CRUCIAL damage before the first mutas are out. I know I'm leaning myself out of the window a bit here, but once protoss has figured out the new PvZ then a protoss player who does not do a painful attack to zerg ~9-10 minutes into the game when zerg goes for muta/ling, then protoss has just screwed up. This was what I tried to "prove" with the socke-rep on desert oasis. Socke made quite some mistakes (notice the multiple supply-blocks early on) and didn't do a nearly as well executed timing push as tyler and STILL managed to decimate sen's army/spine-crawlers crucially before the mutas arrived. At this point you have such an advantage that you CAN go for blink AND double stargate, defending against the harass or keeping the mutas pinned at the zerg-base. I don't want to deny that storm IS stronger vs mutas when you attack zerg and force him to defend, no argument here. The reason why I think it's better to delay storm just "a bit" in order to get a useful phoenix-number to scare off the mutas is, that blinkstalker/storm WILL force you into a timing-attack. Even blinkstalker/storm can only tak you so far, I'd say you can defend 3 bases but that's it. If zerg gets hivetech just in time to have some ultras when your stalker/templar-ball comes, then you have no follow-up. Both immortals and voidrays are miles away and - more crucially - you have no map-control whatsoever, no way to prevent zerg from doing whatever the hell he wants.
What I've been just trying out is going for DTs - DTs will also force zerg into defense and you could merge some into archons for a attack timed before hive (DTs will be out before amulet-templars and are cheaper on gas). Archons just demolish mutas who are "forced" to engage, because you are standing right in the middle of the zerg base. Nevertheless I'm still completely in the dark concerning the timings, so I don't want comment on let alone recommend this any further.
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The PvZ match just shown on gom really sums up this MU. Toss expo'd off one gateway, got sentries/stalkers with few zealots. Pumped out hallucination. Zerg followed up with muta into mass roach to pressure the P until he was multiple bases ahead then effectively GG.
The toss was pumping immortals and colossi out of 3-4 robos, dt drops, etc which did quite well, but just too much of an econ lag to ever really take the match.
Neither player made any critical mistakes. It seems that PvZ, with equally good players, is an uphill battle for toss. Maybe voids are an answer, hard to tell. The biggest problem P seems to face is the fact that muta/ling and later 2 base roach keeps the toss constantly on the defensive then slowly out macro'd. It's really deja'vu in alot of matches.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 11 2010 17:49 moose162 wrote: I understand the concept of expanding behind your stalker pressure, but around what supply are you dropping a Nexus? Also, I find it way harder to keep the expo up on a map like XelNaga Caverns as opposed to Lost Temple. Depends on your build. Blink Stalkers will have you expanding anywhere between 50-70 psi whereas 2-3 stalker pressure will have you expanding closer to 30.
On November 11 2010 19:22 Thaddaeus wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 01:48 Plexa wrote:On November 11 2010 01:44 BlasiuS wrote:Awesome guide, very well-written and informative. Gives great insight into both sides of the matchup. There is one point I don't agree with though: On November 10 2010 23:49 Plexa wrote: Void Rays, or rather, Speed Rays are incredible late game units for the following reasons - Zerg has nothing good to kill them with (muta expensive, corruptor lol, hydras die to everything)
pre-patch rays really did lol at corruptors, as they did insane damage vs armored units. However after the patch void rays are now not nearly as strong vs armored units, like the corruptor. In addition, corruptors lost their energy, making them immune to feedback. From the zerg side, I think corruptors are the answer to late-game speed rays. Late-game zerg already has greater spire, which means they are already making, or about to make broodlords, so they already have the corruptors. All zerg has to do is either make more corruptors, or cut back slightly on the # of corruptors that they morph into broodlords. Corruptors will not be easy to pick off, as stalkers will have to blink into a wall of crackling/ultra to get to them. Also corruptors & void rays have the same range, 6, so you can't really use your void rays to attack from behind your army like you can with range 9 colossus. Okay perhaps lol'ing at corruptors is a bit overkill, but the fact is that Corruptors aren't useful at dealing with my ground army (besides colo) and they're expensive. I think at the very worst it's an even fight between Corruptors/Speed Rays which is exactly the way it should be. Both sides should have options in the lategame which are viable. From what I've seen, though, the real strength to speedrays is their ability to pop up somewhere kill a bunch of drones and a hatch then leave again without being touched by Zerg. just for the protocol; A Void Ray kills a Corruptor (both un-upgraded) with only shields lost. A-moving 5 vs 5 Rays come out ahead even more. (y, battle situations also include other units etc pp. but the tradeoff seems "fair" to me.) Interesting fact! I'll keep that in mind.
On November 11 2010 19:48 puissance wrote: First of thanks for the great guide, it really helped me to understand the matchup better.
Now to the scout / Phönix discussion, I think that there is a third possibility between opening Halu -> Robo / Council or 2 Stargate. What about making just one Stargate, boost out a Phönix and scout him with it and react accordingly? - If he goes Muta/Ling than add a second Starport and slowly tech towards Templar. - If he goes Roach and you think he will push soon you can start building a Robo for Immortals and if needed add some Void Rays to your army. - If he stays defensive and builds up Roach / Hydra then go towards Colossus.
The advantage of 1 Stargate is that is solves the scout problem and gives you an easier transition to Speedrays in the late-game. You will have less Phönix than a player who throws down 2 Stargate immediatly, but you are in a better position against other builds. Also if he doesnt go Muta you can just make ~3 Phönix for map control and drone harass.
As a sidenote regarding the Phönix vs Muta efficiency discussion. It sounds like some people asume that their strength is measured in how they can beat Mutas on their own. While others and myself included measure their strength in how well they can support your Gateway army in order to beat Muta together. Getting a blind stargate isn't a bad thing, it just depends on your style. It serves the same purpose as hallucination but give you some harass options. It also means you are vulnerable to some timing attacks as well. It's a completely different game than PvZ with ground armies and one that I'm not as confident in. Thus I admit the discussion on phoenix in the matchup is lacking, I'll rectify that sooner rather than later.
On November 11 2010 20:05 Ada wrote:Show nested quote + As the game creeps on, this unit composition becomes worse, and worse and then down right terrible. This is because of upgrades. Indeed, understanding this is absolutely essential to understanding the last half of this matchup. Stalkers scale terribly with upgrades.
You are right with your points about the upgrades, but I don't see the problem. Colossi/Stalker/Sentry is not supposed to fight all the Roach/Hydra army at once. You try to cut it in half so their damage output is reduced by alot. Your ball should the able to tank that damage I think. On the other hand stalker damage output does not get better during the game, they get +1 damage, Zerg gets +1 armor. But your colossi gain +2 (on two shots) every upgrade, so they climb from (colossi attack vs roarches armor level, same level) 2*14 -> 28 to 2*17 -> 34 damage. The more colossi your are able to stack, they even start to burn through roaches, hydras get decimated anyway. In the end I guess stalker upgrade scaling is part of the problem, but more important are the rising army numbers and the danger of being surrounded where you can't handle them anymore with forcefields. Never get caught on open (creep)field. Yeah that's standard micro you're describing (I mentioned it in the article). Colossi and Immortals scale well with upgrades, but Colossi also die quicker since the Stalkers can't tanks as much damage. Further, I'm seeing a lot more burrow play lately and that nulls forcefields by quite a bit and can be really frustrating. I stand by the claim that the army composition gets weaker as the game goes on, but it really becomes terrible against Ultra/Ling since you can no longer use forcefield at all.
On November 11 2010 20:10 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 12:17 Plexa wrote: Phoenix are only good as a preemptive counter to muta/ling, as I've said before. If you're playing catchup then you're going to lose the game. If you have a strong ground army then the correct followup is Blink Stalker/Storm - yes it's not as strong as pure phoenix - but it does work. I'm not giving up yet First, let's not talk about blind phoenix openings, because I don't know "too" much about these as well...tried some 2 gate stalker pressure into expo into 2 stargate with the "plan" to harass with phoenixes but also to be able to mass void rays if zerg commits with roaches, but never felt really comfortable. 3 gate sentry-expand into 2 stargate feels better, but then again zerg has the possibility to go fast lair hydras which is not only a direct counter but also a quite good build vs protoss standard-play in "itself" so I encounter it quite often. Still I think we can agree that phoenix-openings are one of those things that haven't been well discovered at all - once you get 4 phoenixes and can kill queens with one lift-off the harass is one of the strongest in the whole midgame of sc2. Agree and disagree! There are some players who swear by Phoenix play in PvZ and they know the builds quite well ^^
Second, I still disagree that going stargates "reactionary" is bad. The reason is, that only recently protoss have started to figure out the timings of 5 gate pushes (be it the more all-in-ish tyler or tt1 ones, or the more conservative socke-play). If done correctly I am convinced that you WILL do CRUCIAL damage before the first mutas are out. I know I'm leaning myself out of the window a bit here, but once protoss has figured out the new PvZ then a protoss player who does not do a painful attack to zerg ~9-10 minutes into the game when zerg goes for muta/ling, then protoss has just screwed up. This was what I tried to "prove" with the socke-rep on desert oasis. Socke made quite some mistakes (notice the multiple supply-blocks early on) and didn't do a nearly as well executed timing push as tyler and STILL managed to decimate sen's army/spine-crawlers crucially before the mutas arrived. At this point you have such an advantage that you CAN go for blink AND double stargate, defending against the harass or keeping the mutas pinned at the zerg-base. I don't want to deny that storm IS stronger vs mutas when you attack zerg and force him to defend, no argument here. The reason why I think it's better to delay storm just "a bit" in order to get a useful phoenix-number to scare off the mutas is, that blinkstalker/storm WILL force you into a timing-attack. Even blinkstalker/storm can only tak you so far, I'd say you can defend 3 bases but that's it. If zerg gets hivetech just in time to have some ultras when your stalker/templar-ball comes, then you have no follow-up. Both immortals and voidrays are miles away and - more crucially - you have no map-control whatsoever, no way to prevent zerg from doing whatever the hell he wants. I can see it working if you are able to do a semi-successful timing attack to stall muta numbers, provided you don't lose too many stalker/sentry (zealots are expendable). That way the Zerg is going to have to spend a few round of larvae redroning and not building mutas giving you a chance to catch up in unit count. In my head when I think reactionary phoenix I think you scout the spire with hallu and go "oh time to build phoenix" and 99% of the time that dies imo. But a timing attack should be enough to give you those extra few seconds to get a decent fleet up. The Reniehour/Artosis game (despite Artosis building corruptors..) shows how to use Phoenix well (even though he went blind 2gate pheonix).
Templar are invaluable defensive tools against mutalisks though. If the Zerg doesn't transition into Roach (which usually doesn't happen) then keeping 2-3 templar by each Nexus is sufficient deterrent to muta harass. Laying down a few good storms over the cloud really hurts them and any counter attack you do will be that much more effective (since the bulk of his army is on 30hp). That way its possible to secure more than 2 bases, its difficult, but possible.
What I've been just trying out is going for DTs - DTs will also force zerg into defense and you could merge some into archons for a attack timed before hive (DTs will be out before amulet-templars and are cheaper on gas). Archons just demolish mutas who are "forced" to engage, because you are standing right in the middle of the zerg base. Nevertheless I'm still completely in the dark concerning the timings, so I don't want comment on let alone recommend this any further. DTs are great against Mutaling as well. I said earlier in the thread that 4 DTs with +2 can kill a hatch before overseers arrive - and that can be critical in not falling behind. With that said, its always a tough decision between killing drones and killing the hatch... I think killing drones is better, but I'm not sure and yeah, Archons with upgrades are great. I just wish we still had depleted geysers or that DTs were cheaper (if they were 250/50 I would be stoked!) so that Archons became a viable unit to base an army around rather than just a support unit you get once you run out of storm.
On November 11 2010 20:42 Applecakes wrote: The PvZ match just shown on gom really sums up this MU. Toss expo'd off one gateway, got sentries/stalkers with few zealots. Pumped out hallucination. Zerg followed up with muta into mass roach to pressure the P until he was multiple bases ahead then effectively GG.
The toss was pumping immortals and colossi out of 3-4 robos, dt drops, etc which did quite well, but just too much of an econ lag to ever really take the match.
Neither player made any critical mistakes. It seems that PvZ, with equally good players, is an uphill battle for toss. Maybe voids are an answer, hard to tell. The biggest problem P seems to face is the fact that muta/ling and later 2 base roach keeps the toss constantly on the defensive then slowly out macro'd. It's really deja'vu in alot of matches. Sounds about right. The metagame is not nice to Protoss at the moment and many players still don't understand the matchup as well as they could. (Yes, even the koreans..). Being a predictable Protoss will only work for a limited time - thats why it's important for top level Protoss to keep mixing it up so that they can't be metagamed. That's one of the reason why Tester and Genius are so good - their builds are unique and their styles drastically different to other Protoss.
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Plexa knows what he is fucking talking about, nearly everything he says here is valuable. I've been through his tough times and anger but he always tries to understand why things happen, so this is good to see a correlation of all of these thoughts.
Also Jesse, you forgot to mention my Roach/Muta/Ling play ;D.
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On November 11 2010 01:22 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +Note also that unless you open with Phoenix, Phoenix are not a good counter to Mutalisks. They are good to prevent the Mutalisk death ball from starting, but they are not good at controlling the deathball once it gets large. I'm sorry, I really value your opinion as one of the highest of all ppl here, but this is just SO wrong. Phoenixes kill Mutas INCREDIBLY cost-effectively, although - as with every zerg-unit - the effectiveness decreases with upgrades on both sides. I really hope you take this critique not personally but try to test it in the unit-tester. The protoss-player has the micro-advantage, so nothing is lost by just a-moving the units into another, if anything, protoss profits more if both players know how to micro. Just a simple example: with 20 phoenixes (3000/2000)vs 25 mutas (3000/2000) both unupgraded the ridiculous number of 11 phoenixes survives. Take upgrades into account and mutas do better because the average "profit" from upgrades is higher. Still doesn't change the fact that zerg can NOT, like NEVER rely on pure mutas vs pure phoenixes. You can keep up production-wise due to chrono-boosting both stargates, you only have to be careful to not lose phoenixes early when you are outmatched in numbers. Also zerg cannot really expand safely because mutas are slower than phoenixes, you can always lift off some drones/queens, zerg can NOT defend three bases without any ground-support like more queens than needed or spores, which further decreases the effectiveness of the overall zerg-gameplay. Maybe I'm wrong, but the maths disagrees and since phoenixes are so easy to micro I've never seen a game where a protoss would lose air-control with phoenixes vs mutas. EDIT: Forgot to mention that the perfect replay for what I mean would be Sen vs Socke on Desert Oasis. Socke goes for a 5 gate timing attack, does NOT win outright (but deals serious damage) and gets 2 stargates immediately after he sees the first mutas. This shut down Sen COMPLETELY, Sen went hydras and got stomped into the ground by colossi/HT (one of Socke's strongest games at MLG). Okay it's important to realise there are two scenarios here. Firstly, if you have a stargate and are making phoenix already then yea, you can keep up with his mutalisk production. At the very worst, it's an even game between you two. e.g. replay the protoss beats the zerg with 3 stargate phoenix in a 44 minute game. However, if you scout mutas (i.e. after spire is around 50% complete) and then add phoenix, you will never be able to match his mutalisk count. He will always have superior numbers and you won't win. Phoenix are an excellent preventative measure, but aren't a reactionary measure - if you understand what I mean. Basically, you'll never get to the point where you have equal cost phoenix vs muta because he'll be ahead of you if you start phoenix production after scouting spire. Random player, i've used phoenixes like crazy ever since i saw Nony first use them.
I'm actually seeing mutas less and less in my PvZ, but when I do i find a reactionary stargate works wonders. I cant stand giving them total map control, and phoenixes counter mutas even if sorely outmatched. Basically i use the chronoboosts on my stargate (usually only one) to get out more phoenix faster. Now its true, you wont ever catch up in numbers, in fact you might fall more behind, but the important thing is phoenix can shoot and kite mutas, so they are unchasable. You cant go muta hunting, but they cant chase down your phoenixes either. So it takes away some of their map control. But more importantly, their DPS is much much much better than stalkers'. You mentioned how important it was to thin the muta ball: phoenixes do a great job, in conjunction with cannons and stalkers the mutas cant fight back so the phoenix get a lot of free shots, and just happen to be the best muta-killers around.
its definitely more micro-intensive, but it works pretty well.
edit: so to clarify the phoenixes are used more defensively; if they really do a good job keeping the pressure on there wont be any actual harass at all. They just a) pick off a few mutas at a time b) take away their perfect map control.
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If you NOT go phoenix to defend against muta you will simply get outexpo'd which is the issue with HT for defense.
Let's suppose you're on 2 base vs zerg 2 base and have some stalkers, sentries and 3 or so gateways. You scout zerg going spire but the spire is already done when you see it. Now according to the guide you should get stalkers, a few immortals from your 1 robo and tech to templar. Then when templar is done (takes a shitload of time to get storm ready templars) you should expo to your 3rd and possibly 4th under the cover of templars apparently. A good zerg will simply harass you non-stop till you have templar ready and expand once or twice. You won't have a way to pressure AT ALL as he has map control + lings to beat any stalker pushing, also because your army composition is extremely gas heavy you will have a mineral build up (which you have to wait with spending before you get that oppurtunity to expo). Then at the point you expo your behind 2 bases and Z can just do a tech switch to ultra and/or roach and you're in trouble. This is exactly what happened in the socke vs sen game.. the game was only close because socke had some great storms / positioning later but he was out of it the moment he didn't get phoenix imo. If you instead go phoenix, even if it's reactionary, you can defend the first wave with just your stalkers. Then you can pump chronoboosted phoenix from 2 stargates non-stop. Those phoenixes are not ment to kill the muta on their own.. they serve to help in fights and keep a check on the muta fleet / harass back. With just stalkers it's insanely hard to stop muta harass as he just flies around and then attacks from some random angle where you're stalkers aren't, with phoenix you can keep track of his muta ball way better and help to pick off a muta everytime he retreats. Phoenix are also alot less gas heavy so won't get such a huge mineral build up. Then if he keeps making muta you just want to push, sure you say zealots suck because of roaches but if you have proper attack upgrades on your lots and perhaps even charge they actually do quite ok against roach (1 chargelot beats 1 roach). Against a player that makes muta/ling and expands greedily a 2/0 stalker/zealot/phoenix timing attack does fantastic. The zealots will 2-shot the lings (as there is no way that he has 2 armor when you get 2 attack) and with blink you can easily blink the stalkers so that the zealots can protect them well. Phoenix combined with stalkers easily mop up muta (though your phoenix will all die probably) and then your remaining stalker + zealots won't have a issue at all with his ground. All you have to do is be weary of a tech switch, which isn't hard to check with phoenix keeping track of their muta. The zealots for a timing push can be warped in last so if he does tech switch you simply expand and get your HT tech going.
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i love you now, plexa. that was just what i needed man. plus thanks @sleepingdog for the insightful comment at the end of page one and through the rest of the thread. damn i can't wait to apply that new knowledge
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On November 11 2010 21:27 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 20:10 sleepingdog wrote:On November 11 2010 12:17 Plexa wrote: Phoenix are only good as a preemptive counter to muta/ling, as I've said before. If you're playing catchup then you're going to lose the game. If you have a strong ground army then the correct followup is Blink Stalker/Storm - yes it's not as strong as pure phoenix - but it does work. I'm not giving up yet First, let's not talk about blind phoenix openings, because I don't know "too" much about these as well...tried some 2 gate stalker pressure into expo into 2 stargate with the "plan" to harass with phoenixes but also to be able to mass void rays if zerg commits with roaches, but never felt really comfortable. 3 gate sentry-expand into 2 stargate feels better, but then again zerg has the possibility to go fast lair hydras which is not only a direct counter but also a quite good build vs protoss standard-play in "itself" so I encounter it quite often. Still I think we can agree that phoenix-openings are one of those things that haven't been well discovered at all - once you get 4 phoenixes and can kill queens with one lift-off the harass is one of the strongest in the whole midgame of sc2. Agree and disagree! There are some players who swear by Phoenix play in PvZ and they know the builds quite well ^^
Of course, don't get me wrong on this, I LOVE phoenix-play, when using phoenixes I can really exploit my wc3-micro. What I meant was, that you see "so" few pros using phoenixs vs zerg that I believe that there is still a pretty stony road ahead of us - if I use phoenixes properly on ladder, I either rip through the zerg who can't handle the harass because he isn't used to it, or I lose vs some timing-attack I wasn't prepared for because I haven't seen it before. There are so few reps available so that I'm still quite in the dark concerning the proper build-up (2 gate or 3 gate expand, early 3 gas) and more importantly, how to correctly estimate whether or not my defense will hold vs attacks, be it lings, roach or - most troublesome for me - early hydra-pushs. Perfect example would be sangho vs phoenixwerra. Sangho demolished the zerg, nevertheless it "seemed" like phoenixwerra just hasn't played against a phoenix-build executed "that" perfectly - tbh the game tells us nothing about if the build hasn't some very weak spots a zerg who has played hundreds of games against such stuff will be able to exploit in the future.
Show nested quote +Second, I still disagree that going stargates "reactionary" is bad. The reason is, that only recently protoss have started to figure out the timings of 5 gate pushes (be it the more all-in-ish tyler or tt1 ones, or the more conservative socke-play). If done correctly I am convinced that you WILL do CRUCIAL damage before the first mutas are out. I know I'm leaning myself out of the window a bit here, but once protoss has figured out the new PvZ then a protoss player who does not do a painful attack to zerg ~9-10 minutes into the game when zerg goes for muta/ling, then protoss has just screwed up. This was what I tried to "prove" with the socke-rep on desert oasis. Socke made quite some mistakes (notice the multiple supply-blocks early on) and didn't do a nearly as well executed timing push as tyler and STILL managed to decimate sen's army/spine-crawlers crucially before the mutas arrived. At this point you have such an advantage that you CAN go for blink AND double stargate, defending against the harass or keeping the mutas pinned at the zerg-base. I don't want to deny that storm IS stronger vs mutas when you attack zerg and force him to defend, no argument here. The reason why I think it's better to delay storm just "a bit" in order to get a useful phoenix-number to scare off the mutas is, that blinkstalker/storm WILL force you into a timing-attack. Even blinkstalker/storm can only tak you so far, I'd say you can defend 3 bases but that's it. If zerg gets hivetech just in time to have some ultras when your stalker/templar-ball comes, then you have no follow-up. Both immortals and voidrays are miles away and - more crucially - you have no map-control whatsoever, no way to prevent zerg from doing whatever the hell he wants. I can see it working if you are able to do a semi-successful timing attack to stall muta numbers, provided you don't lose too many stalker/sentry (zealots are expendable). That way the Zerg is going to have to spend a few round of larvae redroning and not building mutas giving you a chance to catch up in unit count. In my head when I think reactionary phoenix I think you scout the spire with hallu and go "oh time to build phoenix" and 99% of the time that dies imo. But a timing attack should be enough to give you those extra few seconds to get a decent fleet up. The Reniehour/Artosis game (despite Artosis building corruptors..) shows how to use Phoenix well (even though he went blind 2gate pheonix).
This is what I meant, I am completely with you that building up a ground army, scouting with hallu and THEN putting up 2 stargates as a "reaction" to the spire will lose because zerg will outproduce you....will basicly always be one step ahead of you all the time. The real question I am asking you and also myself is: how can the zerg-player NOT get behind against a timing attack? Which means that the 5-gate push would be nowhere near all-in because you would just exploit a weakness in the zerg-build that is there "by default", meaning that a muta-ling-playing zerg could never effectively prevent you from doing damage. From my current understanding, I cannot see how zerg without roach could withstand such pressure without getting behind or losing outright. For me the phoenix-play into delayed templar seems to give you a better map-control and also provides the stargates for a voidray-transition. Will definitely post some reps if I get this to work against better opponents myself, the closest game to this yesterday was vs a 1750 zerg, but he just left after he saw he couldn't make a comeback...so not viable for demonstration-purposes.
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Sorry if I'm not directly contributing to the strategy discussion (which is awesome btw) but the gom clan event on atm just showed another PvZ with a 3gate expo into stargate opening against fruitdealer. 1 void and 2 phoenix was enough to force fruit into roach/hydra play. It looked very promising when followed up colossus. But I feel it was very map dependent. Lost temple made it a lot easier for the toss to expand and harass than on, say, sakuras or cross position metal.
Another PvZ coming up. Hopefully I can learn something from it (looks like 3gate blink stalker with voids!)
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Great guide, helps me as a zerg player aslo, but would love to see a ZvP guide posted !
BTW mass void rays are indeed really difficult to stop from a zerg perspective.
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Good job Plexa! Gave me lots of insight and understanding in PvZ!
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Phoenixes work up to the point where either: 1. Zerg has +1 saturated base 2. Infestors are in play 3. Zerg tech switches in a heartbeat.
In other words, they do not work as a Muta counter in late game.
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Beautiful. Voidrays, pure genius. This write up is perfect, thanks for your incites Plexa.
A tear of joy just rolled down my face.
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imo the hardest part is the early game@prevent zerg from dronning and dont fail on speedlings(+roachs) all in. If the toss have a good early, the mid game will be fine (imo).
Nice guide !
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after infinite struggle in pvz, i figured out that the best map to play against zergs are lost temple and metalopolis, if you spawn far away from your opponent, i prefer to go 15 nexus into 15 forge (extremely greedy but safe build) after scouting him and not seeing an early pool, if the positions are close i go 2 gate zealots pressure into 4 gate +1 timing push, works perfectly if executed correctly. i also like pheonix + robo builds - prepares you against mutas and hydras that will counter your phenoixes.
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I think PvZ can be summed up in one word: Pressure.
Or more precisely, constant pressure. Plexa has it dead on: you can't leave zerg to their own devices. If you don't apply pressure every couple minutes, you will be run over. This is probably the most frustrating part for toss players as this isn't true in PvP or PvT (and not true of P play in BW either).
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Wow.
This.
Is.
Epic.
Should be stickied just to improve the overall quality of the Strategy forum. :D Even through I don't play this matchup at all, this is very insightful and well written.
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United States313 Posts
Absolutely fantastic write up Plexa, and damn straight mothership is going to find a role PvZ =)
I am also one of the apparently numerous Phoenix believers, but I cannot echo enough your description as preventative not reactionary. Phoenix are one of the most temporally sensitive units in the game, there is a definite window in the current metagame, but once spore crawlers, extra queens, or any lair tech unit gets established, phoenix potential plummets. The intel, harassment, and brief period of map control they offer can justify their cost, but depending on how prepared the zerg is squeezing out the cost efficiency is not for the faint of heart. Personally I rarely make more than 5-6 phoenix unless the zerg was unprepared or is responding terribly, beyond that number the window closes too quickly; the scouting and soft contain they can put on muta harass is very helpful, but not worth producing more phoenix for. Numerous other openings can accomplish similar pressure often times more safely than the paper planes, and I believe this is the reason phoenix are seldom seen at major events.
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I know you said you weren't going to discuss the 5/7RR but say you're not expecting this(yet) and you put your gate down, then your core, start second gas and then boom your probe scouts roach warren or you dont see an FE.
How do you respond? Cannons, robo, 2 more gates? How bout unit composition? You'll have the initial zealot then get a sentry? stalker?
I just switched to toss so yeah...
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 11 2010 21:49 Markwerf wrote: snip I think sleepingdog has it nailed down right. If you have a ground army and see the spire with whatever you're scouting with, then attacking with that and killing some drones should be enough for you to pump phoenix and not be behind. Simply sitting there, adding two stargates, and making phoenix will probably let the zerg run over you.
On November 11 2010 22:40 Applecakes wrote:Sorry if I'm not directly contributing to the strategy discussion (which is awesome btw) but the gom clan event on atm just showed another PvZ with a 3gate expo into stargate opening against fruitdealer. 1 void and 2 phoenix was enough to force fruit into roach/hydra play. It looked very promising when followed up colossus. But I feel it was very map dependent. Lost temple made it a lot easier for the toss to expand and harass than on, say, sakuras or cross position metal. Another PvZ coming up. Hopefully I can learn something from it (looks like 3gate blink stalker with voids!) Thats generally the idea behind Stargate play - forcing them into hydras which get murdered by Colossi.
On November 12 2010 03:42 whoopadeedoo wrote: Phoenixes work up to the point where either: 1. Zerg has +1 saturated base 2. Infestors are in play 3. Zerg tech switches in a heartbeat.
In other words, they do not work as a Muta counter in late game. They do actually. replay
On November 12 2010 10:45 ThatsNoMoon wrote: I know you said you weren't going to discuss the 5/7RR but say you're not expecting this(yet) and you put your gate down, then your core, start second gas and then boom your probe scouts roach warren or you dont see an FE.
How do you respond? Cannons, robo, 2 more gates? How bout unit composition? You'll have the initial zealot then get a sentry? stalker?
I just switched to toss so yeah... Assuming you're going for a standard 1~3 gate expand build, I would just get out sentries and put down a forge. With good forcefields the roach pressure can't break your ramp (except on blistering...) and then you can expand with sentries/cannons while he plays economy catchup.
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On November 12 2010 12:49 Plexa wrote: Assuming you're going for a standard 1~3 gate expand build, I would just get out sentries and put down a forge. With good forcefields the roach pressure can't break your ramp (except on blistering...) and then you can expand with sentries/cannons while he plays economy catchup.
What if you're going 1gate expo and your first buildings are down your ramp to start a wall with your Nexus >.>
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Thanks, this is by far my weakest matchup. It seems like if I don't win in the first 10 minutes or put a serious hurt on him I won't win.
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If late game void rays is very good against Z late game, how can they arent that good against Z midgame since even in lategame Z can stop ultra/brood compo and switch back to a roach/hydra composition once you have limited stalkers. since you're stopping stalker production, what should P be producing out of gateways ?
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On November 12 2010 13:01 kzn wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2010 12:49 Plexa wrote: Assuming you're going for a standard 1~3 gate expand build, I would just get out sentries and put down a forge. With good forcefields the roach pressure can't break your ramp (except on blistering...) and then you can expand with sentries/cannons while he plays economy catchup.
What if you're going 1gate expo and your first buildings are down your ramp to start a wall with your Nexus >.>
This isn't really safe anymore, it may work on maps where your pylon can cover your ramp and your natural's choke, but otherwise it's tough. You should just put your 2nd gate and forge down there once you move down with your sentries.
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Dominican Republic913 Posts
nice write up man, thanks i will read it on my work xD
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 12 2010 13:01 kzn wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2010 12:49 Plexa wrote: Assuming you're going for a standard 1~3 gate expand build, I would just get out sentries and put down a forge. With good forcefields the roach pressure can't break your ramp (except on blistering...) and then you can expand with sentries/cannons while he plays economy catchup.
What if you're going 1gate expo and your first buildings are down your ramp to start a wall with your Nexus >.> Unless the map is Shakuras, this isn't safe any more and even then I would prefer forge first.
On November 12 2010 13:04 b_unnies wrote: If late game void rays is very good against Z late game, how can they arent that good against Z midgame since even in lategame Z can stop ultra/brood compo and switch back to a roach/hydra composition once you have limited stalkers. since you're stopping stalker production, what should P be producing out of gateways ? It's an option, check out macseed's recent games to see their effectiveness. Generally though, I would prefer powering the gas into Colossi/Templar since they are more useful . Lategame you want to produce Zealots against Ultras and Stalkers against BLs.
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T.O.P.
Hong Kong4685 Posts
I don't agree with void rays being the futures of late game pvz. IMO, archons are much better. They own mutas and against broodlords they work unless the broodlords are on a cliff. The Archon, colossus immortal army is what protoss players should aim for. The Archon acts as a great meatshield since ultras only do 15 damage against them.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 12 2010 13:43 T.O.P. wrote: I don't agree with void rays being the futures of late game pvz. IMO, archons are much better. They own mutas and against broodlords they work unless the broodlords are on a cliff. The Archon, colossus immortal army is what protoss players should aim for. The Archon acts as a great meatshield since ultras only do 15 damage against them. There are two reasons why Archons are limited in use. Firstly, the fact that they cost so much gas. You're already stretched for gas as is building Colossi/Templar and without depleted geysers you dont have that constant trickle of gas which made lategame archons in SC1 so good. Next, you can get 2 VRs for every 1 Archon (gas is the limiting resource, not minerals, and 1 VR = 1 Archon in gas). Now I'm not saying Archons are bad in the lategame, quite the opposite actually, they're very very good. They just can't be massed so definitely merge those templar into archons after storming but I don't think you can really build a viable lategame army around them.
Dimaga vs Hasuobs game 3 from their recent series demonstrates a number of things I raised in this guide: - The brutality of 2-2 upgrades - Why Zealots do not mesh well with Sentry/Colossus - The difficulty in securing a third expansion if you dont pressure
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As a zerg, this thread happened to me today. We got to the late game and he went voidrays colossi sentry and some stalkers... and guess what? the 400/400 pdd aswell. How do I counter these voidrays when they are in the mass? I find that hydralisks are too weak, the same for mutalisks.
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Excellent article, enjoyed the read. :D
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Man plexa, thanks so much for this. I have recently been stomped so badly by zerg, it seemed to me that if a zerg could just get its FE up, and counter your pressure, you would loose. I started getting really frustrated and didnt want to play anymore. Now i am totally inspired again! Thanks man!
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Hmm tried to implement this stuff and it didn't seem to go over too well. Played 12 games tonight, 9 (!) were zerg and I won exactly 0 of those. I guess it takes time to adjust to new strats but PvZ seems to have a hell of a learning curve.
Am I the only one seeing an ungodly amount of zerg on the ladder?
The problem I have with most matches is that I feel like I can never catch my breath to try to tech. I'm either defending a push, or trying to pressure to stop droning and it always seems like if I try to tech I end up either dying to a early/mid game push or having Z get way ahead on econ. Do you have any tips for feeling out when its safe to tech?
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Dang it plexa, you've probably just ruined a large percentage of my easy vP wins. Thanks for the post, it's very informative from a Zerg perspective too . . .
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The Dimaga vs Hasuobs series reinforces my view that 15 nexus/phoenix is really hard to pull off. It was only Ok before Z knew how to react and sort of panicked a bit, if they stay calm and double expand they will slowly pull ahead even if the harass kills many queens/drones.
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Stalkers being slow? Aren't they the fastest unit in the game as they are (no upgrades).
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Thanks for this thread. I, like many others, have a huge problem with PvZ. It used to be my best matchup, now it is by far my worst. I will put everything I read to use.
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May I just say: Thank you very much!
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After reading this, I realize that I am just awful at PvZ. Thanks.
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Excellent post Plexa! I'm over 2k but I still think that there's a lot of great information here for players to use, even on a high level of play. I'd like to add that storm/colossus/voidray is most likely the best unit composition late game, as seen by ret vs naniwa showmatch game 1 on lost temple. Voidrays + a SSC army are great mid/late game transitional army as well.
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Very insightful read, thanks a lot Plexa! You always help my Protoss by a lot!
What I'm wondering is how do most Protosses get their natural expansion? Do you protect a 15 nexus because when I'm playing it always feels dangerous when I expand early versus zerg, esp. against early pools. I don't like to forge FE because it feels map dependent. As you said, 3 gate and then expand feels too late. Also, whats a good time to get a forge in the early game to start that +1 upgrade if you don't forge FE?
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Really good writeup. While I'm terrible, I feel like I definitely learned something.
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On November 12 2010 16:10 cydial wrote: Stalkers being slow? Aren't they the fastest unit in the game as they are (no upgrades). They are not slow, they shoot slow.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 12 2010 14:18 leo23 wrote: As a zerg, this thread happened to me today. We got to the late game and he went voidrays colossi sentry and some stalkers... and guess what? the 400/400 pdd aswell. How do I counter these voidrays when they are in the mass? I find that hydralisks are too weak, the same for mutalisks. I don't think there is a Zerg army that can beat a maxed Protoss with that composition. The reason being that Zerg needs to have more shit than the Protoss but he can't because of the supply cap. Muta/Ultra is your best bet against this composition in my experiences, but it will definitely take more than one wave of attacks to kill that deathball. Actually, now that I think about it I've never lost a game when I got that composition and just to drive the point home:
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa//sc2_reps/0538_Jimdiddy_Plexa_Zv.sc2replay
Jimdiddy is the second best Zerg on SEA afaik behind glade. Fortunately he is a macro player and never likes to go in for the kill, rather expand and make a ton of crap. That gave me enough time to crank out some VRs and crush him.
On November 12 2010 14:37 trueg0x wrote: Man plexa, thanks so much for this. I have recently been stomped so badly by zerg, it seemed to me that if a zerg could just get its FE up, and counter your pressure, you would loose. I started getting really frustrated and didnt want to play anymore. Now i am totally inspired again! Thanks man! Yeah, that's how I felt as well after the patch. Any one of Jimdiddy/Camlito/Microlisk can verify that claim. There is no question that the matchup got a lot harder, but I'm confident that that's because our playstyles became obsolete (I used to exclusively play 2gate into sentry expand which now royally sucks) and we've had to reinvent ourselves. I wouldn't say it's imbalanced because there are a lot of interesting things that haven't been explored yet
On November 12 2010 14:51 Shadrak wrote: Hmm tried to implement this stuff and it didn't seem to go over too well. Played 12 games tonight, 9 (!) were zerg and I won exactly 0 of those. I guess it takes time to adjust to new strats but PvZ seems to have a hell of a learning curve.
Am I the only one seeing an ungodly amount of zerg on the ladder?
The problem I have with most matches is that I feel like I can never catch my breath to try to tech. I'm either defending a push, or trying to pressure to stop droning and it always seems like if I try to tech I end up either dying to a early/mid game push or having Z get way ahead on econ. Do you have any tips for feeling out when its safe to tech? Upload some reps and I'll happily review them. I agree that there is a steep learning curve. Learning how to pressure properly with your stalkers early game, especially after you've been a passive player for so long, is fucking hard - for lack of a better word. It's really easy to lose heart and give up, but if you persevere the rewards will be totally worth it.
On November 12 2010 15:24 citi.zen wrote: The Dimaga vs Hasuobs series reinforces my view that 15 nexus/phoenix is really hard to pull off. It was only Ok before Z knew how to react and sort of panicked a bit, if they stay calm and double expand they will slowly pull ahead even if the harass kills many queens/drones. It's hard to pull off but Hasu didn't get this third anywhere near fast enough. SC2 isn't BW, and Protoss can aggressively expand rather safely. As long as your not losing probes its fine. Same with Zerg actually, if you just take out their hatch without killing any drones they're not that far behind..
With regard to tech, be thankful that Robotics tech is really accessible. Generally after I expand my next few buildings are tech buildings - generally a robotics and a robotics bay. Sentry/Cannons can hold off a lot of funny stuff early on so you can feel quite safe to tech.
On November 12 2010 17:05 Whiplash wrote: Excellent post Plexa! I'm over 2k but I still think that there's a lot of great information here for players to use, even on a high level of play. I'd like to add that storm/colossus/voidray is most likely the best unit composition late game, as seen by ret vs naniwa showmatch game 1 on lost temple. Voidrays + a SSC army are great mid/late game transitional army as well. Thanks! Completely forgot about that game. I remember watching it and going "there is no way nani is going to win this" and then he gets VRs and rapes. xD
On November 12 2010 18:04 FoBuLouS wrote:Very insightful read, thanks a lot Plexa! You always help my Protoss by a lot! What I'm wondering is how do most Protosses get their natural expansion? Do you protect a 15 nexus because when I'm playing it always feels dangerous when I expand early versus zerg, esp. against early pools. I don't like to forge FE because it feels map dependent. As you said, 3 gate and then expand feels too late. Also, whats a good time to get a forge in the early game to start that +1 upgrade if you don't forge FE? These days I always get my natural behind my pressure. Be that after a dual chronoboosted stalker pair or after a 4gate blink push - either way I'll put down my natural once my stalkers are on their way. Either my forge is the last building I build before my Nexus (if im feeling cautious, like after 2 stalker push) or its the first building after my Nexus is started - since after that I'm pretty much only going to be building sentries.
re: Phoenix discussion; this replay further demonstrates that pressure -> 2stargate works wonders against mutaling
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How I wish you played Terran, very good read though
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Just wanted to say a MASSIVE thankyou Plexa, for taking the time to write all that down. I've been struggling so much against Zerg since the patch and there's so many simple things you've written down that I've been neglecting in my game.
It's really got me excited to out and practice a heap using these tips.
Once again thank you so much for contributing such a detailed play guide for us struggling protoss
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Beautifully written as always Plexa.
Just gonna take it a bit further. Assuming you're right and the Voidray with ground army is the desired late game composition of PvZ. Let's take a look at the options available if you open with 1 early stargate. So this is a mid-game transition having secured your expansion in the way you mentioned. Adding the stargate after the 3rd/4th gate.
This takes away roach pressure as chronoing a few VRs should simply end the game there as in Nony vs IdrA on Blistering sands. If the Zerg goes Hydra/Roach take your expo they are immobile and incapable of real pressure. So take an early 3rd expansion and go for the SSC combo you mentioned earlier. The harass option is now in your hands not the Zerg. At this stage you've really taken the initiative from the Zerg and you can justifiably get the +1 air weapons too preparing for the late game.
If the Zerg goes the more popular Muta/Ling route you're still in a good position. Of course you can't harass in the situation because you'll undoubtably be outnumbered. Instead of moving out and harassing with your pheonix use them defensively and alongside your army. The speed and sniping power of the Pheonix will be an incredibly efficient way of shutting down harass while you mass up. Again it allows early +1 air and almost forces the Zerg to maintain the muta-count. This reduces the gas available to the Z for tech and ground upgrades. If the muta-count drops then you can harass yourself and throw in some DTs with your army. The Pheonixes will kill overseers incredibly fast allowing the DTs free reign over the Zerg army. Now I haven't ever seen someone use this alongside an IST combo but perhaps this is something to consider too.
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wouldnt be the best counter against void/coloss/sentry be a heavy corruptor/hydra army? i havent faced that yet but corruptors beat colossi quite fast and do well against voidrays too
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On November 12 2010 20:17 Alphasquad wrote: wouldnt be the best counter against void/coloss/sentry be a heavy corruptor/hydra army? i havent faced that yet but corruptors beat colossi quite fast and do well against voidrays too
Voidrays kill corruptors fast because of their +armoured damage. you're better off using hydra's versus voidrays because you need to outnumber the voidrays by quite a lot if you want to kill them with mutalisks/corruptors.
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On November 12 2010 20:38 Chaosvuistje wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2010 20:17 Alphasquad wrote: wouldnt be the best counter against void/coloss/sentry be a heavy corruptor/hydra army? i havent faced that yet but corruptors beat colossi quite fast and do well against voidrays too Voidrays kill corruptors fast because of their +armoured damage. you're better off using hydra's versus voidrays because you need to outnumber the voidrays by quite a lot if you want to kill them with mutalisks/corruptors. And then of course Hydras get raped by Collosus or Templar. Especially vs Templars off creep mmmm barbecue.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 12 2010 20:15 Klive5ive wrote: Beautifully written as always Plexa.
Just gonna take it a bit further. Assuming you're right and the Voidray with ground army is the desired late game composition of PvZ. Let's take a look at the options available if you open with 1 early stargate. So this is a mid-game transition having secured your expansion in the way you mentioned. Adding the stargate after the 3rd/4th gate.
This takes away roach pressure as chronoing a few VRs should simply end the game there as in Nony vs IdrA on Blistering sands. If the Zerg goes Hydra/Roach take your expo they are immobile and incapable of real pressure. So take an early 3rd expansion and go for the SSC combo you mentioned earlier. The harass option is now in your hands not the Zerg. At this stage you've really taken the initiative from the Zerg and you can justifiably get the +1 air weapons too preparing for the late game.
If the Zerg goes the more popular Muta/Ling route you're still in a good position. Of course you can't harass in the situation because you'll undoubtably be outnumbered. Instead of moving out and harassing with your pheonix use them defensively and alongside your army. The speed and sniping power of the Pheonix will be an incredibly efficient way of shutting down harass while you mass up. Again it allows early +1 air and almost forces the Zerg to maintain the muta-count. This reduces the gas available to the Z for tech and ground upgrades. If the muta-count drops then you can harass yourself and throw in some DTs with your army. The Pheonixes will kill overseers incredibly fast allowing the DTs free reign over the Zerg army. Now I haven't ever seen someone use this alongside an IST combo but perhaps this is something to consider too. This is a style I'm quite fond of and, as I've mentioned throughout the thread, macseed has been employing it with good success recently. Here are three of his replays; http://rep.sc2.com.cn/detail-3289.html http://rep.sc2.com.cn/detail-3290.html http://rep.sc2.com.cn/detail-3291.html In particular, the last game on Xel'Naga shows how he is able to get to the Colossus/VR combination in the midgame and has good success with it.
On November 12 2010 20:17 Alphasquad wrote: wouldnt be the best counter against void/coloss/sentry be a heavy corruptor/hydra army? i havent faced that yet but corruptors beat colossi quite fast and do well against voidrays too With surplus stalkers and a good handful of VRs, and the fact that corruptors only do full damage to massive units, I don't think corruptors are the answer... I could be wrong, late game PvZ is really unexplored!
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On November 12 2010 20:46 Klive5ive wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2010 20:38 Chaosvuistje wrote:On November 12 2010 20:17 Alphasquad wrote: wouldnt be the best counter against void/coloss/sentry be a heavy corruptor/hydra army? i havent faced that yet but corruptors beat colossi quite fast and do well against voidrays too Voidrays kill corruptors fast because of their +armoured damage. you're better off using hydra's versus voidrays because you need to outnumber the voidrays by quite a lot if you want to kill them with mutalisks/corruptors. And then of course Hydras get raped by Collosus or Templar. Especially vs Templars off creep mmmm barbecue.
Exactly.
Single player spoilers inside + Show Spoiler + Anybody remember the protosses last stand mission? What units did you build off to hold off over 2000 zerg units? I'm pretty sure it was collosi into voidrays, into voidray carrier.
The PvZ matchup definitely is volatile. The early and midgame filled with clutch decisions about where to place forcefields, what units to correspond to the zergs unit composition ( mutaling or hydraroach ).
However, when posed the question, if you could have 10 units from the protoss arsenal right now, which one would it be? Some might say 10 collosi, I would definitely go for voidrays or carriers.
People still have the mindset that voidrays are a cheesy unit. And to a certain extent it is true. Going one base voidray clearly wont get them out quick enough with enough defenses for other types of attacks. However, getting about 7 voidrays fully charged will mow through any of the zerg units really fricking fast.
There are five units that can shoot up for zerg. -The queen, which most often wont be massed or have the ability to kill off tons of voidrays. -The hydralisk, which although very strong is pretty immobile especially off of creep. -The mutalisk, which although mobile, is pretty weak unless outnumbering the voidrays ( guessing 2:1 ) -The corruptor, great versus carriers and collosi. But just dont make them against voidrays. -The infested terran. This one can be debated to be the best versus naked voidrays. With a fungal and a couple of IT's, they kill the units pretty darn fast. Costing only energy and enjoying from the attack upgrades. But in a lategame army consisting of collosi and voidrays, this choice has to be the least viable.
This brings us to the conclusion that voidray collosi or voidray carrier is the ultimate zerg killing army. But because of the hard transitioning, cannot be labeled as 'the forbidden word'. In the same way that broodlord/ultralisk/infestor cannot be labeled as 'the forbidden word'.
I thank Plexa for this insight in the match up .
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Really great write up, thanks a lot, I'll finish reading it later today.
Hopefully it can help me a bit to get out of the Zerg struggle I'm in right now(PvZ was my best matchup before this patch.. )
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Plexa, you always come up with such great walls of text, that really puts other posters to shame.
I've been staying off 1v1 for a while because I couldn't deal with zerg, but now, I just might go back =)
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as a zerg player, what kills me is mass collossi with good force fields by sentries. they split up the roaches and hold back whatever b-lings i have. hydras are worthless if the zerg doesnt creep highway, and on some longer maps its nearly impossible to creep highway. if the zerg player creeps out you should use 1-2 zealots to kill as many tumors as you can.
something many many many players overlook is the supply block, use a group of 5-6 pheonix to get his overlords down, especially the ones he uses for scouting. most zerg players have a little pocket of ovies in the corner of the map or behind their main base, depending on the map. find this little pocket and harrass it ruthlessly. if its early game, he has to devote 3-4 hundred minerals just to make drones, and loosing that time, larva, and those minerals puts him a decent way back in both economy and army. now the problem with this is that if you rush into air, you should be ready for a decent size counter of mutas/corrupters, and he will probably keep some hydras in his base for defensive putposes.
in late game, a group of 10 pheonix will DECIMATE his overlord pocket, or as i call it, the ovaries (lol). if hes at the full 200 supply and you knock out 10-12 overlords, it takes not only larvae to restore that, it takes well over 1000 minerals and.... 30 seconds? which if you get a good kiting situation and knock out some roaches/ultras/hydras, then it takes quiet a while for him to reinforce his army. as long as you keep your losses minimal, you should be able to warp in a quick few stalkers/sentries, push art his front door, march your collossi up into his base, crush his choke point from both suides (if the zerg crawlered in), and move in for a full out ass-rape on his tech structures and worker line.
hope this helps!
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On November 12 2010 22:04 sUmdUmgUy wrote: as a zerg player, what kills me is mass collossi with good force fields by sentries. they split up the roaches and hold back whatever b-lings i have. hydras are worthless if the zerg doesnt creep highway, and on some longer maps its nearly impossible to creep highway. if the zerg player creeps out you should use 1-2 zealots to kill as many tumors as you can.
something many many many players overlook is the supply block, use a group of 5-6 pheonix to get his overlords down, especially the ones he uses for scouting. most zerg players have a little pocket of ovies in the corner of the map or behind their main base, depending on the map. find this little pocket and harrass it ruthlessly. if its early game, he has to devote 3-4 hundred minerals just to make drones, and loosing that time, larva, and those minerals puts him a decent way back in both economy and army. now the problem with this is that if you rush into air, you should be ready for a decent size counter of mutas/corrupters, and he will probably keep some hydras in his base for defensive putposes.
in late game, a group of 10 pheonix will DECIMATE his overlord pocket, or as i call it, the ovaries (lol). if hes at the full 200 supply and you knock out 10-12 overlords, it takes not only larvae to restore that, it takes well over 1000 minerals and.... 30 seconds? which if you get a good kiting situation and knock out some roaches/ultras/hydras, then it takes quiet a while for him to reinforce his army. as long as you keep your losses minimal, you should be able to warp in a quick few stalkers/sentries, push art his front door, march your collossi up into his base, crush his choke point from both suides (if the zerg crawlered in), and move in for a full out ass-rape on his tech structures and worker line.
hope this helps!
How well can that actually work? You are spending so much money on Phoenixes by that point.
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I have some thoughts.. Given the insane harass pressure from muta speedling builds, it seems impossible to stop the Zerg from taking his 3rd and maybe even 4th.
Playing against any good Zerg you should just be overrun by the point he has 4 bases running and the game should be over.
So - is the only choice against these muta speedling builds really a timing attack?
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On November 12 2010 22:06 Antisocialmunky wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2010 22:04 sUmdUmgUy wrote: as a zerg player, what kills me is mass collossi with good force fields by sentries. they split up the roaches and hold back whatever b-lings i have. hydras are worthless if the zerg doesnt creep highway, and on some longer maps its nearly impossible to creep highway. if the zerg player creeps out you should use 1-2 zealots to kill as many tumors as you can.
something many many many players overlook is the supply block, use a group of 5-6 pheonix to get his overlords down, especially the ones he uses for scouting. most zerg players have a little pocket of ovies in the corner of the map or behind their main base, depending on the map. find this little pocket and harrass it ruthlessly. if its early game, he has to devote 3-4 hundred minerals just to make drones, and loosing that time, larva, and those minerals puts him a decent way back in both economy and army. now the problem with this is that if you rush into air, you should be ready for a decent size counter of mutas/corrupters, and he will probably keep some hydras in his base for defensive putposes.
in late game, a group of 10 pheonix will DECIMATE his overlord pocket, or as i call it, the ovaries (lol). if hes at the full 200 supply and you knock out 10-12 overlords, it takes not only larvae to restore that, it takes well over 1000 minerals and.... 30 seconds? which if you get a good kiting situation and knock out some roaches/ultras/hydras, then it takes quiet a while for him to reinforce his army. as long as you keep your losses minimal, you should be able to warp in a quick few stalkers/sentries, push art his front door, march your collossi up into his base, crush his choke point from both suides (if the zerg crawlered in), and move in for a full out ass-rape on his tech structures and worker line.
hope this helps! How well can that actually work? You are spending so much money on Phoenixes by that point.
I have to agree - you will leave yourself seriously exposed by produing that many phoenix. The main issue with phoenix is that they're just not a good enough anti-air unit. And while cost for cost they stand up pretty decent to mutas for example, and can kite them to oblivion - you just need to make so many of them to pack a decent punch. The corsair was a more viable counter because you didn't need as many of them to pack a punch, but it just seems making phoenix for anti-air purposes and/or defensive purposes against muta harass isn't very viable.
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sticky>? imo good threads like these need to be complied and linked
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Wow, great read, It gave me some really good insight into the PvZ, which at this time is my worst match up.
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On November 12 2010 22:18 MaD.pYrO wrote: I have some thoughts.. Given the insane harass pressure from muta speedling builds, it seems impossible to stop the Zerg from taking his 3rd and maybe even 4th.
Playing against any good Zerg you should just be overrun by the point he has 4 bases running and the game should be over.
So - is the only choice against these muta speedling builds really a timing attack?
Also to you I can recommend the socke vs sen game on desert oasis at MLG. Not because Socke owns (which he does) but because Socke made some mistakes early, still went through with his timing attack before the mutas could get critical but did NOT end the game there. So this is one of the (few) pro-games where you can actually see a transition after a succesful midgame push....because recently you either see the protoss-player fail, or win outright.
Socke added two stargates AND a TC for blink and fended off the mutas perfectly well. The timing attack allowed him to tech-switch without getting behind. He got a reasonably early third, teched to colossi AND HT and stomped sen into the ground in a surprisingly onesided match overall.
I love this game not only because of the timing-attack that made all the cool transitions, techs and the 3rd expansion possible, but the fact that socke made quite some mistakes and STILL ended up doing good damage. This is what should be encouraging for us "normal" people, that even if you get supply-blocked, allow a unnecessary ling-runby quite early and feel uncomfortable, you still have this window of opportunity for doing a decent push before the mutas are out.
A push that, supported from 5 gates (recently I started adding a forge for +1 early while sacrificing some stalkers) is nowhere near all-in but allows for great transitions both against mutas and against roach/hydra or even roach/muta.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 12 2010 22:18 MaD.pYrO wrote: I have some thoughts.. Given the insane harass pressure from muta speedling builds, it seems impossible to stop the Zerg from taking his 3rd and maybe even 4th.
Playing against any good Zerg you should just be overrun by the point he has 4 bases running and the game should be over.
So - is the only choice against these muta speedling builds really a timing attack? If a Zerg is taking his third before a Muta/Ling transition and you just sit there and do nothing about it then of course you are going to lose. He's taking a massive risk and you're not punishing him for it. To pull this back to a familiar BW scenario, it's like letting a Terran 14CC without pressuring him with Dragoons or expanding quickly yourself - you're not playing to your opponent, you're playing in a world of your own.
If a Zerg is taking his third while harassing with mutas, well thats a different story. You should be pressuring the Zerg before his mutalisks pop and from there make a decision on how you're going to react - phoenix or storm. Blink is mandatory in either case. Most times you're going to have to make a timing attack after your get phoenix/storm and cause some drone damage, killing the hatch isn't going to cut it in most cases. And of course, taking a third yourself. Yes it's difficult, no it's not impossible
@sleepingdog - yet another good post. I suspect in a few weeks the 5gate push, that you describe, won't work as well anymore since Zergs will begin to expect it. And then us Protoss have to change it up yet again (maybe a 6gate push, or playing more greedy, idk!)
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What about archons? 35dmg with splash vs bio (51dmg at +3)
Can it be viable vs a Roach Tech switch if you're already committed to templars/DTs? Or you really should slam down 3 robos and mass Immortals no matter what?
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 13 2010 00:01 Phrencys wrote: What about archons? 35dmg with splash vs bio (51dmg at +3)
Can it be viable vs a Roach Tech switch if you're already committed to templars/DTs? Or you really should slam down 3 robos and mass Immortals no matter what? If you had unlimited gas, archons would be the unit of choice in PvZ hands down. Gas, however, is an extremely limited resource. The 300 gas you spend on an Archon (or 250 if you use to DT route) is not as gas-cost effective as Colossi or anything else. So that's why Archons can't be the core of your army, but will always add value to it as a supplementary unit.
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On November 12 2010 21:10 Chaosvuistje wrote:Single player spoilers inside + Show Spoiler + Anybody remember the protosses last stand mission? What units did you build off to hold off over 2000 zerg units? I'm pretty sure it was collosi into voidrays, into voidray carrier.
Ah, now that's a really good point. I never thought of it this way.
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On November 13 2010 00:03 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2010 00:01 Phrencys wrote: What about archons? 35dmg with splash vs bio (51dmg at +3)
Can it be viable vs a Roach Tech switch if you're already committed to templars/DTs? Or you really should slam down 3 robos and mass Immortals no matter what? If you had unlimited gas, archons would be the unit of choice in PvZ hands down. Gas, however, is an extremely limited resource. The 300 gas you spend on an Archon (or 250 if you use to DT route) is not as gas-cost effective as Colossi or anything else. So that's why Archons can't be the core of your army, but will always add value to it as a supplementary unit.
Exactly this - archons are awsome, sadly they are ridiculously expensive and the DT-path is quite limiting towards your general playstyle. I'd say Archons are good if you see your window of opportunity for a semi-all-in, if zerg eg. doesn't have many spine-crawlers to defend. Then Archons can win the game. Nevertheless Archons are horrible for defense, they are huge, slow balls with a "please focus fire me" written on them.
On November 12 2010 23:54 Plexa wrote: @sleepingdog - yet another good post. I suspect in a few weeks the 5gate push, that you describe, won't work as well anymore since Zergs will begin to expect it. And then us Protoss have to change it up yet again (maybe a 6gate push, or playing more greedy, idk!)
Tbh what I expect is, that either zergs will stop playing it so greedily on the tech-paths, meaning they won't go for mutas as fast as they used to / want to. I think we will see the hydras much more often, much earlier, but not used as a general attack-unit but as a transition-unit that defends against protoss-timing-attacks. The other possibility is, that more zergs will play it like dimaga recently and will build tons and TONS of spine-crawlers to lol at any gateway-ball that tries to break through. I'm much more afraid of this style because mutas are so gas-heavy which means zerg has excess-minerals anyways. All zergs have to do is stop getting a third so fast but sink all their minerals into lots of spines and the muta/ling could still be perfectly valid, even against 5-6 gate pushes.
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As a zerg player the late game of this writeup concerns me. It seems like voidrays just win the game at the late stage for the reasons you state, hydra's do well against voidrays but not if they are mixed into the two standard mid game army comps your listing. Also it appears to completely counter our tier3 answers to the toss ball of death that starts to form around 150-160 supply ( for the toss ). I guess I'm a little curious what a zerg player could do against a 160 supply CSS army with 40 supply worth of speedrays, do we just deserve to lose because the toss player reaches 200/200? or am I missing something here.
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The easiest way to stop muta imo is to either do a timing attack into 2 stargates or just start off with a blind stargate to scout and then transition to 2 stargate play.
On small maps there is a very good timing window to attack with mass gateway and a robo against spire play. He will usually have to make roaches, a shitload of spine crawlers or use his muta to defend if he can at all vs a timing push. In either case this will reveal and/or severely limit the number of muta's he gets. Sentry, stalker owns muta quite hard as long as you can force him to fight near a guardian shield, this is quite easy to do on offense but not on defense. Mass gateway + a robo is also very good vs any other form of play as it allows to tech to colossi quite fast if he doesn't play spire. On big maps it is much harder to do a timing push and they can generally tech to muta quite safely. On the other hand there is no risk of a hydra push from them so it's completely safe to throw down a blind stargate. Worst case scenario they went hydra really fast and you simply make 1 phoenix to use for overlord hunting and scouting and go to colossi asap. If they started off with roach/ling you can either make a voidray (if they are pressuring) or go with 4 phoenix which is imo the ideal number for harass (you can kill a queen with 1 lift and drones with 1 volley). If they went with spire you throw down a 2nd stargate and make some phoenix while gearing up for a phoenix, stalker, zealot timing attack.
By this approach you also eliminate the need for hallucination. On small maps you're observer will tell their tech path really quickly and a timing push buys more then enough time to get stargates going (or just kills them). On big maps a phoenix scout tells you everything you need to know and will never be useless either. In general I just find hallucination a bit overcosted. The fact you HAVE to get warpgate tech first and then spend 100m 100g on a fairly lengthy tech to get hallucinated phoenix scouts is not worth it to me. I generally throw down my stargate/robo while i'm still getting warpgate thus it's actually faster for scouting to just not get hallucination. I find that everything you need to know about their tech options can be accounted for by either just being aggresive or taking a very versatile build.
Also about the voidray + colossus combo. Corruptors beat voidrays cost effectively with the use of corruptions and lose slightly without the use of corruption. Given that a P will generally have enough time to get corruption and can by default corrupt all your voids + colossi if they use corruptors for this I don't see the merit in a lategame voidray composition. The fact that I don't like about colossus + voidray either is that you make it very simply for the Z to mass corruptors. If you just go colossi Z is always in a pickle about what number of corruptors they need, if they make too many you can simply switch from colossi to immortals and win on the ground with immortal/stalker. The best lategame composition is imo just immortal/stalker/HT. It deals with everything pretty efficiently and you always put in a couple voids if they get broodlords. I don't see the use for voids if they don't make broodlords though as your colossi generally force them into corruptors already.
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Lalalaland34461 Posts
Amazing read.
Regarding using DT's - most of the time you'll be running with HT's as well at this point. Most zerg players might bring 1-2 overseers and they are usually brimming with energy (changeling/that other ability aren't used very often in the current metagame) so a single Feedback can 1-shot each overseer, leaving your DT's free to wreak havoc.
Other than that, extremely interesting read. I hadn't considered how lousy Stalkers were in the end-game, though by that point I'm too busy spamming chargelots + HT's anyway.
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kinda sad that carriers aren't a late game option .
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in the recent gomtv game tester vs fruitdealer, tester went for the late game void ray build.
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Very instructional guide. I'm a 1700 Diamond and have been playing 15 Nexus over and over again and since the latest patch i've benn losing a lot more than winning.
Any chance you could include some replays where we can watch some of that early game ( especially ) you are talking about ?
Thank you and congrats on keeping up answering after 10 pages
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 13 2010 00:56 Synk wrote: As a zerg player the late game of this writeup concerns me. It seems like voidrays just win the game at the late stage for the reasons you state, hydra's do well against voidrays but not if they are mixed into the two standard mid game army comps your listing. Also it appears to completely counter our tier3 answers to the toss ball of death that starts to form around 150-160 supply ( for the toss ). I guess I'm a little curious what a zerg player could do against a 160 supply CSS army with 40 supply worth of speedrays, do we just deserve to lose because the toss player reaches 200/200? or am I missing something here. Hmmmm. This is pure Theorycraft with minimal testing, but Jimdiddy threw around the idea of a lategame baneling transition. Not that it counters the VRs but they are a supply effective answer to masses of Chargelots and anything else on the ground. Typically after a wave of banes my precious T3 Colossus are exposed and follow up waves can do significantly better. He abandoned that style lately... so maybe its not so good after all
If he goes Mothership - make it a liability - use Neural Parasite followed by Vortex to eliminate half his army and stomp him into the ground (stroggos did this to me once in a friendly match ).
What is probably more solid is Muta/something (probably ultra) as a first wave of attack, and hope that you are able to focus down all his voidrays with the mutalisks. You might lose them all, you might not. I'm not sure, but as long as you dont lose too many ultra (VRs/Colo take a while to kill them), you should be able to retreat, rebuild an army of ultra/ling/bane and use that drop trick on the colossus to kill off any left over ones. idk. That's theorycraft, but it seems plausible. Oh, and don't forget that queens can heal up your injured ultra
On November 13 2010 01:52 Firebolt145 wrote:Amazing read. Regarding using DT's - most of the time you'll be running with HT's as well at this point. Most zerg players might bring 1-2 overseers and they are usually brimming with energy (changeling/that other ability aren't used very often in the current metagame) so a single Feedback can 1-shot each overseer, leaving your DT's free to wreak havoc. Other than that, extremely interesting read. I hadn't considered how lousy Stalkers were in the end-game, though by that point I'm too busy spamming chargelots + HT's anyway. DTs are great in this matchup, really underused. But the only problem with them is is that you are so trapped for gas that you either need to commit to Colossus or commit to DT (or HT). Tester ran around for a while with blinkstalker/DT play. I dabbled with that for a while and it's quite effective against an unsuspecting Zerg but you really need to do damage with that DT harass (and by that, i mean kill drones - killing hatches doesn't cut it unfortunately).
On November 13 2010 02:40 MinD_KonTroL wrote:Very instructional guide. I'm a 1700 Diamond and have been playing 15 Nexus over and over again and since the latest patch i've benn losing a lot more than winning. Any chance you could include some replays where we can watch some of that early game ( especially ) you are talking about ? Thank you and congrats on keeping up answering after 10 pages Thanks! Replays.... let me jump onto my other comp and go through some good replays from the last week or so (I hateeeee switching patches, so I'll only use older games if they're really exemplary).
On November 13 2010 02:13 iloahz wrote: in the recent gomtv game tester vs fruitdealer, tester went for the late game void ray build. Which even was this? I'm curious to see it since I missed it
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I don't have the time to throw in my entire two cents here, so I'll put in my half-penny. The bottom line is, as a Zerg, I have the hardest time with a Phoenix opening by far. I find myself losing most of those games, especially against large numbers of Phoenix. Protoss that are having trouble with Zerg, definitely give it a shot.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 13 2010 01:21 Markwerf wrote: The easiest way to stop muta imo is to either do a timing attack into 2 stargates or just start off with a blind stargate to scout and then transition to 2 stargate play.
On small maps there is a very good timing window to attack with mass gateway and a robo against spire play. He will usually have to make roaches, a shitload of spine crawlers or use his muta to defend if he can at all vs a timing push. In either case this will reveal and/or severely limit the number of muta's he gets. Sentry, stalker owns muta quite hard as long as you can force him to fight near a guardian shield, this is quite easy to do on offense but not on defense. Mass gateway + a robo is also very good vs any other form of play as it allows to tech to colossi quite fast if he doesn't play spire. On big maps it is much harder to do a timing push and they can generally tech to muta quite safely. On the other hand there is no risk of a hydra push from them so it's completely safe to throw down a blind stargate. Worst case scenario they went hydra really fast and you simply make 1 phoenix to use for overlord hunting and scouting and go to colossi asap. If they started off with roach/ling you can either make a voidray (if they are pressuring) or go with 4 phoenix which is imo the ideal number for harass (you can kill a queen with 1 lift and drones with 1 volley). If they went with spire you throw down a 2nd stargate and make some phoenix while gearing up for a phoenix, stalker, zealot timing attack.
By this approach you also eliminate the need for hallucination. On small maps you're observer will tell their tech path really quickly and a timing push buys more then enough time to get stargates going (or just kills them). On big maps a phoenix scout tells you everything you need to know and will never be useless either. In general I just find hallucination a bit overcosted. The fact you HAVE to get warpgate tech first and then spend 100m 100g on a fairly lengthy tech to get hallucinated phoenix scouts is not worth it to me. I generally throw down my stargate/robo while i'm still getting warpgate thus it's actually faster for scouting to just not get hallucination. I find that everything you need to know about their tech options can be accounted for by either just being aggresive or taking a very versatile build While we have argued throughout this thread, I would just like to say that this advice is a valid alternative to playing PvZ. Part of the beauty of this matchup is the options a Protoss has, and being able to switch between styles is going to become more and more important for us as things drag on. So while we disagree on what is most effective for a Protoss to do in the matchup, neither of us is drastically wrong and we are both sending the same underlying messages - if you leave a Zerg to his own devices chances are you are going to get crushed.
On November 13 2010 00:17 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2010 23:54 Plexa wrote: @sleepingdog - yet another good post. I suspect in a few weeks the 5gate push, that you describe, won't work as well anymore since Zergs will begin to expect it. And then us Protoss have to change it up yet again (maybe a 6gate push, or playing more greedy, idk!) Tbh what I expect is, that either zergs will stop playing it so greedily on the tech-paths, meaning they won't go for mutas as fast as they used to / want to. I think we will see the hydras much more often, much earlier, but not used as a general attack-unit but as a transition-unit that defends against protoss-timing-attacks. The other possibility is, that more zergs will play it like dimaga recently and will build tons and TONS of spine-crawlers to lol at any gateway-ball that tries to break through. I'm much more afraid of this style because mutas are so gas-heavy which means zerg has excess-minerals anyways. All zergs have to do is stop getting a third so fast but sink all their minerals into lots of spines and the muta/ling could still be perfectly valid, even against 5-6 gate pushes. This is how Australian Zergs played before I made the switch to NA permanently. Seeing as their flagship good player (mOOnGlade) is an amazing Zerg that's not surprising. Australian Zergs do everything I've outlined in this thread well - they upgrade (usually double evo), they drone hard, they place plenty of Crawler to null aggression and they have some of the scariest muta/ling players around. Its a really tricky style to play against and has influenced my own game a lot meaning I play Protoss wayyy more passive than I should (since I'm use to running into 10spines). This was another reason why I struggled for a long time after the most recent patch
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Awesome guide. Very helpful!
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
inNirvana vs bly - Despite the dubious P opening (it would crumble to roach pressure) he moves out at an unorthodox time and is able to pressure the Zerg - Zerg builds a lot of spines which delay muta and is a massive tell that he is going muta - P's pressure tells him that mutas are coming (without using hallu) and double stargates and forces the zerg to commit drones to static defense - As a result, the Zerg isn't able to get a decent muta count up and the Phoenix overpower him - The Protoss isn't afraid to expand - the expansion to 12 was perfect seeing as he knew the Zerg wouldn't be able to pressure him any time soon
The whole Idra vs Tyler series - Tyler's builds were beautifully constructed to apply pressure at times that Idra didn't expect - Anyone of these builds is great stand alone - Tyler used a 5Warpgate push after expand, a 3 Warpgate push after expand, 4 gate blink stalker etc all designed to hit idra mid-droning. - Most of Tylers builds were timed to hit around the time Idra wanted to take his third, which make them midgame pushes but still, the concept is still the same
Macseed vs Some Zerg - One thing to note about this game is that the Taiwanese metagame is such that Zerg like to play really aggressive openings. This means, automatically, that they are not droning as hard as NA/EU/KR Zergs are. Pressure as a Protoss on this server is often not necessary. As long as you're not losing units to his Zerglings (or roaches) - you're okay. - This replay demonstrates perfect use of sentries. He uses Hallucination religiously to get complete information about the Zergs strategy. And his forcefield and micro during the major fight south of the Zergs gold is sublime - he traps half the army, moves back with his army, then engages again - exactly as described in this guide. It really makes the sentry look broken to be honest!
mOOnGlade vs Lotze - This replay isn't an example of a Protoss playing well. Lotze, despite being a top 64 GSL Protoss, plays this game completely wrong. Glade on the other hand, does everything right. - Lotze opens with forge/gateway pressure which is a fair good opening, but isn't able to end the game there so expands (so far so good) - Lotze doesn't apply pressure and literally just sits there while Glade drones up on three bases - Lotze doesn't get his third nearly fast enough - Lotze doesn't focus on upgrades, Glade gets a quick 2-2 and the difference shows - Lotze's unit composition is completely wrong - you can't counter Roaches with blink stalkers. His VR switch comes far too late. - Zergs, play like Glade does. Protoss, don't play like lotze.
Some Korean Protoss vs etdrevtime - This is a perfect game from the Protoss. - He opens with one of my favourite builds, the double stalker pressure. He's clever about it though. He uses the Stalkers to snipe off wandering overlords while the Zerg sees this and spends larvae on lings/overlords to defend. However, he never actually sends the Stalkers and instead expands safely. - Zerg tries to get greedy taking the gold, and the Protoss pressures with a good number of sentry and stalker, the zerg has no units, and the expo dies - The zerg takes a reasonably fast third after that but is unable to saturate it because the Protoss pressure forces him to make units and not drones - The Protoss expands a little bit after the zerg does meaning he's going to be miles ahead in economy (since he's well saturated at this point) - He also has great army composition (stalker/immortal/sentry) and has great forcefield micro - The protoss does exactly what he needs to do, when he needs to do it, and never lets the Zerg play the game he wants to play. It's beautiful.
And of course, there are the SEn vs Socke games that have been mentioned numerous times
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Very interesting read... also completely different from how I play. I'll have to try this switching it up to stalker pressure and see how I fair. In the mean time, here's a brief description of what I do:
I go 1 stargate phoenixes and rely heavily cannons. The photon cannon is a rather significant upgrade over a stalker. Side by side comparison:
Photon Cannon 150hp/shields 7 range 20 damage 1.25 cooldown
Stalker 80 hp/shields 6 range 10 damage (14 vs armored) 1.44 cooldown
Compare that to the difference between a dragoon and a photon cannon in Broodwar- big difference. Nearly twice as many hp/shields, range, damage, and cool down are all quite a bit better for cannons. They also work with sentries a lot better than stalkers, since its easier to abuse their range with force field. Bit more mineral heavy, but sentries suck up gas anyways.
So I don't really have a problem building a ton of them at the natural to survive, while building up phoenixes and then switching to stalker/sentry into collosi. A lot of people don't like to do this due to the fact that cannons are static, but I'm of the opinion that as long as you get economically ahead, why not? If anything it makes it harder to harass you later, so long as you keep the economy edge, who cares? (I will admit sometimes taking a third is somewhat dicey).
If the zerg is just droning up, you can murder masses of drones with impunity (only limited by energy). If that happens, they usually overreact and then you can bulldoze them with your ground army. If they decide they want to apply pressure on you (because they see the expansion cannons going up before the phoenixes) with roaches, the sentry and cannons help you survive, and your phoenixes can still go to town.
Also, do people generally not go 1 stargate phoenix except for scouting purposes (or is the transition to 2 stargate in the late game and I'm just misunderstanding? because I do that)? I find that surprisingly if so... I can't remember being overrun by muta having gone 1 stargate. I suppose I use a lot more cannons than other people are comfortable with, so maybe that's why I don't have as many problems?
~1100 diamond player, so a lot of my opinions might be horribly wrong. I have been encountering a lot of 1500-1600 zergs and having favorable results though. I am curious if my ideas are just not feasible at higher levels of play though.
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Excellent write up! I have a few questions about your seeming exclusion of my Zealot friends though? When discussing possible mineral dumps while going CSS, you didn't mention warp prism harass with zealots. It's an entirely mineral composition(or slight gas investment if you get prism speed) and can really put the pressure on the zerg.
Let me paint the picture for you. You're in one of those late midgame middle map standoffs that tend to happen where you're constantly poking with your army and the zerg attempts to hold off engaging as long as is possible. Warping a production cycle of zealots into one of his periphery expansions can really force a decision out of the zerg. He'll have to dedicate a decent number of units to defending or risk losing the hatchery. Allowing the Protoss player to perhaps get a opportunity to engage with his main army in some advantageous fashion, or clean up a decent number of drones/maybe deny a expansion with the drop.
Also zealots in the IST composition barely got a footnote which made me a little sad. Yes they definitely do not, "suck" against zerglings, but they also provide some other valuable functions as well. While storm is mostly the ling killer vs a muta linging zerg player. Zealots play a valuable roll of meat shield and escape mechanism. You don't really have any extraneous gas for sentries with force-fields when going any sort of Templar mix. Having the zealots to take hits while you pull back your valuable gas heavy units can usually pay out some sort of dividends.
Obviously against Roach Hydra they certainly aren't as good for the composition, but the still do play the roll of meat shield some what adequately, though cannons/expansion are probably the more valuable choice most of the time. Again though they deserve a mention in the warp prism harass category especially when going templar, as 2 templar and 4/5 zeals warping into a lightly defended zerg expansion can really put the hurt on.
Anyways, just my opinion, but I think warp prisms and zeals can be included a little more than was mentioned in the op. Especially since you already have the robo up and need some way to dump minerals. This seems doubly useful on maps where there is an island expansion, since at some point you'll want to build a warp prism to take advantage of that expo.
Edit: Holy shit I just noticed your icon is waffles damn I never saw that ><.
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On November 13 2010 04:36 zer0das wrote: Very interesting read... also completely different from how I play. I'll have to try this switching it up to stalker pressure and see how I fair. In the mean time, here's a brief description of what I do:
I go 1 stargate phoenixes and rely heavily cannons. The photon cannon is a rather significant upgrade over a stalker. Side by side comparison:
Photon Cannon 150hp/shields 7 range 20 damage 1.25 cooldown
Stalker 80 hp/shields 6 range 10 damage (14 vs armored) 1.44 cooldown
Compare that to the difference between a dragoon and a photon cannon in Broodwar- big difference. Nearly twice as many hp/shields, range, damage, and cool down are all quite a bit better for cannons. They also work with sentries a lot better than stalkers, since its easier to abuse their range with force field. Bit more mineral heavy, but sentries suck up gas anyways.
So I don't really have a problem building a ton of them at the natural to survive, while building up phoenixes and then switching to stalker/sentry into collosi. A lot of people don't like to do this due to the fact that cannons are static, but I'm of the opinion that as long as you get economically ahead, why not? If anything it makes it harder to harass you later, so long as you keep the economy edge, who cares? (I will admit sometimes taking a third is somewhat dicey).
If the zerg is just droning up, you can murder masses of drones with impunity (only limited by energy). If that happens, they usually overreact and then you can bulldoze them with your ground army. If they decide they want to apply pressure on you (because they see the expansion cannons going up before the phoenixes) with roaches, the sentry and cannons help you survive, and your phoenixes can still go to town.
Also, do people generally not go 1 stargate phoenix except for scouting purposes (or is the transition to 2 stargate in the late game and I'm just misunderstanding? because I do that)? I find that surprisingly if so... I can't remember being overrun by muta having gone 1 stargate. I suppose I use a lot more cannons than other people are comfortable with, so maybe that's why I don't have as many problems?
~1100 diamond player, so a lot of my opinions might be horribly wrong. I have been encountering a lot of 1500-1600 zergs and having favorable results though. I am curious if my ideas are just not feasible at higher levels of play though.
re: cannons.
The problem is getting the economic lead. If you make phoenxies to harass and make enough cannons to survive a counter attack, your phoenixes are going to be useless in the defense while doing damage to zerg economy. 5 phoenixes won't have enough energy to justify to 5 cannons+ you need to defend.
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thx plexa
just smashed 3 zerg in a row since i read your thread
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 13 2010 04:36 zer0das wrote: snip If you open one gate phoenix, there is no need to put down hundreds of cannons unless you need to do so to survive a timing attack. By adding cannons at the front, you're not making yourself harder to harass - you're wasting minerals. Mutalisks, for instance, don't care how many cannons you have at the front line and neither does a 200/200 roach/hydra army. Just play to what your opponent is doing, and you'll be fine in that case.
Cannons later in the game are no more than a stall and a mineral dump. 5-10 cannons at an expansion can really act as a deterrent, and if you've got nothing else to spend the minerals on sometimes it can be worth it. (Much better than spamming zealots - especially if it allows you to secure a fourth).
All in all it sounds like you've got more or less the jist of what to do, but try to play more reactionary since you dont want to be wasting money early on on cannons - although I agree, sentry/cannon is amazingly good at defence.
On November 13 2010 05:21 DminusTerran wrote: Excellent write up! I have a few questions about your seeming exclusion of my Zealot friends though? When discussing possible mineral dumps while going CSS, you didn't mention warp prism harass with zealots. It's an entirely mineral composition(or slight gas investment if you get prism speed) and can really put the pressure on the zerg.
Let me paint the picture for you. You're in one of those late midgame middle map standoffs that tend to happen where you're constantly poking with your army and the zerg attempts to hold off engaging as long as is possible. Warping a production cycle of zealots into one of his periphery expansions can really force a decision out of the zerg. He'll have to dedicate a decent number of units to defending or risk losing the hatchery. Allowing the Protoss player to perhaps get a opportunity to engage with his main army in some advantageous fashion, or clean up a decent number of drones/maybe deny a expansion with the drop.
Also zealots in the IST composition barely got a footnote which made me a little sad. Yes they definitely do not, "suck" against zerglings, but they also provide some other valuable functions as well. While storm is mostly the ling killer vs a muta linging zerg player. Zealots play a valuable roll of meat shield and escape mechanism. You don't really have any extraneous gas for sentries with force-fields when going any sort of Templar mix. Having the zealots to take hits while you pull back your valuable gas heavy units can usually pay out some sort of dividends.
Obviously against Roach Hydra they certainly aren't as good for the composition, but the still do play the roll of meat shield some what adequately, though cannons/expansion are probably the more valuable choice most of the time. Again though they deserve a mention in the warp prism harass category especially when going templar, as 2 templar and 4/5 zeals warping into a lightly defended zerg expansion can really put the hurt on.
Anyways, just my opinion, but I think warp prisms and zeals can be included a little more than was mentioned in the op. Especially since you already have the robo up and need some way to dump minerals. This seems doubly useful on maps where there is an island expansion, since at some point you'll want to build a warp prism to take advantage of that expo.
Edit: Holy shit I just noticed your icon is waffles damn I never saw that ><. Well firstly, this is just an overview of the matchup not a complete guide I couldn't include everything. But I dislike warp prism zealot harass, even though I used to use it a lot in this matchup. It really is nothing mother than a minor annoyance. With good creep highways Zergs shouldn't lose anything more than a few tech structures at most (and with the HP buffs recently, don't count your chickens). 4 DTs are significantly better at killing things and doing what you want your warped Zealots to do. But of course, they cost gas... so you're back at square one.
Throwing them into an IST mix is certainly better than CSS, but even then, IST relies on forcefields early on just as CSS does. Typically the mineral surplus starts to accumulate around the time you have 3 bases running and are producing gas intensive units (templar, colossus etc). At this stage of the game you have to make a judgement call on where those minerals are best spent - throwing them into zealots may be just what you need or conversely, it may be better to try and get a 4th up. It completely depends on the situation. I generally try to avoid Zealots since they really are just supply hogs (much like roaches, except worse).
On November 13 2010 05:32 Coraz wrote: thx plexa
just smashed 3 zerg in a row since i read your thread I'm interested in knowing how those games unfolded
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What do you think of archons in lategame? If you went for templar tech and hes masing ultras, dont hey seem a good response? or do you use them in any other circumstances? Great post BTW (hope you dont mind we link it from out site in Latin America sc2la.com)
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United States11390 Posts
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On November 11 2010 00:56 Disda wrote: Can you elaborate more on knowing when to stop the early pressure against zerg? I have a tendency to over commit to my early pressure and consequently either lose or win very early on. How do I know when I've curtailed his "power-droning" enough?
Also, I'm alittle surprised by the lack of discussion in phoenix's, or air dominance in the early/midgame sections. But I don't know nearly enough to contribute there, only that (at my level) it seems limiting myself to only SSC or IST would feel overly restrictive.
Very nice write up.
::Edit:: I have similar experiences as Shadrak, and tend to open up with Phoenix play to head it off at the pass.
You should push out first with two stalkers until he makes a few lings to run them off. Then push once more with 6-10 stalkers depending on the map distance and your gut instinct of what you need. The idea is to force your opponent to stop or at the least heavily curtail his droning to make lings. Once the game has passed the 5 minute mark, the zerg players most limiting resource is his larva. If you can get him to spend those larva on lings.(a unit that can defend well versus stalkers, but is terrible at attacking you and your sentries) You have gotten him to use larva on something other than drones. As long as he is making some units, you can keep up with him econ wise.
As for the phoenix air dominance issue. The only way phoenixes are dominant is if you opened with a stargate In which case a sensible zerg player will not persue muta/ling. A good zerg player will gather up his overlords and keep them safe with hydras/spores. There are ways to have successful stargate openings, but since they are genuinely more work for less return with the exception of the most skilled players, they were omitted from the discussion.
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Thanks so much for writing this plexa
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 13 2010 05:54 Ihsahn wrote: What do you think of archons in lategame? If you went for templar tech and hes masing ultras, dont hey seem a good response? or do you use them in any other circumstances? Great post BTW (hope you dont mind we link it from out site in Latin America sc2la.com) http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=167992¤tpage=9#174
No feel free to link to it! Translate it if you like haha. The only thing I'm not okay with is selling it for profit (and history tells us that shokz will be adding it to his worthless guide).
@Harem - thanks will check it out
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On November 13 2010 05:26 Tossup wrote:re: cannons.The problem is getting the economic lead. If you make phoenxies to harass and make enough cannons to survive a counter attack, your phoenixes are going to be useless in the defense while doing damage to zerg economy. 5 phoenixes won't have enough energy to justify to 5 cannons+ you need to defend.
The thing is... phoenixes never really die until they get hydra/corrupter, and even then you can skirt around hydras easily enough most of the time. They are a constant drain on the zerg economy, so even if you don't even things up immediately, you can slowly leverage your way into having one. They also force certain unit compositions which make it easier to deal with the Zerg.
The only time a Zerg effectively shut down my harass, he severely overbuilt both hydra and spores, which let me overpower him much later in the game.
On November 13 2010 05:51 Plexa wrote:If you open one gate phoenix, there is no need to put down hundreds of cannons unless you need to do so to survive a timing attack. By adding cannons at the front, you're not making yourself harder to harass - you're wasting minerals. Mutalisks, for instance, don't care how many cannons you have at the front line and neither does a 200/200 roach/hydra army. Just play to what your opponent is doing, and you'll be fine in that case.
I would say it is reactionary in a sense- it plays toward what the Zerg will likely do. Once they see phoenixes, the response I most commonly see is an attempt to bust open the front. Especially since roaches are that much stronger these days. But the cannons can stand up to roaches really well, whereas stalkers get chewed up in small numbers. So the cannons let you much more safely take a quick expansion while maintaining the phoenix harass. If they do try the bust and fail, they just ate up a ton of larva and the phoenixes are eating into them as well.
Really the difficult part of 1 gate phoenix is not dying to the initial roach/hydra break, since there is a rather large lag between when your phoenixes are ready and when your ground army starts getting significant. The cannons mitigate what would otherwise be a rather large window of weakness. I'm not saying build 10 cannons blindly, just that going a little heavier on cannons isn't the worst of ideas. And you're right, it is easy to play to what your opponent is doing- the phoenixes let you have a very good idea of what he is building and when he moves out.
I am rather interested in seeing how effective stalker harass is for me though- I'm not an especially high APM player, so I suspect I may have more problems with it than with phoenixes. :>
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Hey Plexa,
I know you mention some pro replays illustrating these points in later posts. But maybe it would be helpful to link a couple of your replays that you feel represent the IST/CSS style builds w/ or w/out stalker pressure openings? I know there are pleanty of pro replays on youtube etc., but I really think a couple of your own might help illustrate the specific things you are talking about.
Thanks again for doing this and for keeping up with the replies. I'm having a hell of a time trying to switch styles but I'm sticking with it 0% win vz zerg while I transition isn't that much worse than the 25-30% I was getting before!
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 13 2010 06:22 Shadrak wrote:Hey Plexa, I know you mention some pro replays illustrating these points in later posts. But maybe it would be helpful to link a couple of your replays that you feel represent the IST/CSS style builds w/ or w/out stalker pressure openings? I know there are pleanty of pro replays on youtube etc., but I really think a couple of your own might help illustrate the specific things you are talking about. Thanks again for doing this and for keeping up with the replies. I'm having a hell of a time trying to switch styles but I'm sticking with it 0% win vz zerg while I transition isn't that much worse than the 25-30% I was getting before! http://home.tlplexa.operaunite.com/file_sharing/ pw: tl123 Take your pick of PvZs The series I just played against Megalisk is quite good in terms of being strategically sound (except the game where I went zealots....)
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The other risk I've seen to a 1 gate pheonix is it gives your zerg opponent the signal to go drone and expansion crazy. They can use low larva options (queens, small #s of hydras or spore crawlers) to minimize damage and just focus larva on drones, more drones, and even more drones.
Great guide though. I learned more about how I want to play zerg ZvP from this post than most posts aimed at helping zerg out.
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On November 13 2010 04:36 zer0das wrote: Very interesting read... also completely different from how I play. I'll have to try this switching it up to stalker pressure and see how I fair. In the mean time, here's a brief description of what I do:
I go 1 stargate phoenixes and rely heavily cannons. The photon cannon is a rather significant upgrade over a stalker. Side by side comparison:
Photon Cannon 150hp/shields 7 range 20 damage 1.25 cooldown
Stalker 80 hp/shields 6 range 10 damage (14 vs armored) 1.44 cooldown
Compare that to the difference between a dragoon and a photon cannon in Broodwar- big difference. Nearly twice as many hp/shields, range, damage, and cool down are all quite a bit better for cannons. They also work with sentries a lot better than stalkers, since its easier to abuse their range with force field. Bit more mineral heavy, but sentries suck up gas anyways.
So I don't really have a problem building a ton of them at the natural to survive, while building up phoenixes and then switching to stalker/sentry into collosi. A lot of people don't like to do this due to the fact that cannons are static, but I'm of the opinion that as long as you get economically ahead, why not? If anything it makes it harder to harass you later, so long as you keep the economy edge, who cares? (I will admit sometimes taking a third is somewhat dicey).
If the zerg is just droning up, you can murder masses of drones with impunity (only limited by energy). If that happens, they usually overreact and then you can bulldoze them with your ground army. If they decide they want to apply pressure on you (because they see the expansion cannons going up before the phoenixes) with roaches, the sentry and cannons help you survive, and your phoenixes can still go to town.
Also, do people generally not go 1 stargate phoenix except for scouting purposes (or is the transition to 2 stargate in the late game and I'm just misunderstanding? because I do that)? I find that surprisingly if so... I can't remember being overrun by muta having gone 1 stargate. I suppose I use a lot more cannons than other people are comfortable with, so maybe that's why I don't have as many problems?
~1100 diamond player, so a lot of my opinions might be horribly wrong. I have been encountering a lot of 1500-1600 zergs and having favorable results though. I am curious if my ideas are just not feasible at higher levels of play though.
The stalker is a rather significant upgrade over the photon cannon if you look at it.
Photon Cannon 150hp/shields 7 range 20 damage 1.25 cooldown Can't Move
Stalker 80 hp/shields 6 range 10 damage (14 vs armored) 1.44 cooldown Can move
The problem with photon cannons is twofold. As you may have read in this forum (OP) if you leave the zerg to their own devices they will out macro you and destroy you. So cannons dont exactly help you prevent this. Now, if you choose to 15 nexus, it is possible to achieve similar economy to the zerg player, but this will leave you open to problem number two.
Cannons aren't ideal defensively. Yes they have 1 more range, yes they do more damage and dont cost gas. A few problems though. cannons rely on a power field. This means, that while a cannon has 7 range, if it is not withing 3 range of the pylon powering it, it will have trouble protecting it from roaches. Also, you have to spread out your cannons, which means they will not all be participating in combat at once. If you are on two bases, you cannot build enough cannons at both bases to stop a full force assault. Also, you are surrendering map control.
As for the phoenixes, they are good, but a higer level zerg player will know how to deal with them. They certainly wont be running around uncontested. Aslo, if you are building cannons to defend and phoenixes to harass, you have no ground army to speak of, and have effectively surrendered map control to any zerg player smart enough to make 20 speedlings.
While many of your opinions are right, keep in mind that Plexa made this as a discussion of where the game is for high level (2100 +) protoss players. Most good zerg wont let you get away with cannons and phoenixes.
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Thanks a bunch Plexa. Your guide really helped me improve this matchup. The whole concept of pressuring to keep in check with zerg and force him to transition into units I want him to or even prevent him from tech switching is something I knew but never applied to my game play.
Normally, I get roflstomped by any zerg higher ranked than me but today was like the 1st time in 2 weeks I won vs someone higher.
tribute to this thread + bragging rights (I feel real good about this game) vs 2200 Zerg
I still don't know how to sense mutas coming. If I forge FE (or 15 nex for that matter), isn't hallucination too late to scout mutas in time? I don't feel comfortable keeping down mutas with anything other than phoenixes yet
Also how do you know if early roach pressure is coming when your mass warpgates haven't finished and no hallucination/no probe scouting allowed?
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On November 13 2010 05:51 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2010 05:21 DminusTerran wrote: Excellent write up! I have a few questions about your seeming exclusion of my Zealot friends though? When discussing possible mineral dumps while going CSS, you didn't mention warp prism harass with zealots. It's an entirely mineral composition(or slight gas investment if you get prism speed) and can really put the pressure on the zerg.
Let me paint the picture for you. You're in one of those late midgame middle map standoffs that tend to happen where you're constantly poking with your army and the zerg attempts to hold off engaging as long as is possible. Warping a production cycle of zealots into one of his periphery expansions can really force a decision out of the zerg. He'll have to dedicate a decent number of units to defending or risk losing the hatchery. Allowing the Protoss player to perhaps get a opportunity to engage with his main army in some advantageous fashion, or clean up a decent number of drones/maybe deny a expansion with the drop.
Also zealots in the IST composition barely got a footnote which made me a little sad. Yes they definitely do not, "suck" against zerglings, but they also provide some other valuable functions as well. While storm is mostly the ling killer vs a muta linging zerg player. Zealots play a valuable roll of meat shield and escape mechanism. You don't really have any extraneous gas for sentries with force-fields when going any sort of Templar mix. Having the zealots to take hits while you pull back your valuable gas heavy units can usually pay out some sort of dividends.
Obviously against Roach Hydra they certainly aren't as good for the composition, but the still do play the roll of meat shield some what adequately, though cannons/expansion are probably the more valuable choice most of the time. Again though they deserve a mention in the warp prism harass category especially when going templar, as 2 templar and 4/5 zeals warping into a lightly defended zerg expansion can really put the hurt on.
Anyways, just my opinion, but I think warp prisms and zeals can be included a little more than was mentioned in the op. Especially since you already have the robo up and need some way to dump minerals. This seems doubly useful on maps where there is an island expansion, since at some point you'll want to build a warp prism to take advantage of that expo.
Edit: Holy shit I just noticed your icon is waffles damn I never saw that ><. Well firstly, this is just an overview of the matchup not a complete guide I couldn't include everything. But I dislike warp prism zealot harass, even though I used to use it a lot in this matchup. It really is nothing mother than a minor annoyance. With good creep highways Zergs shouldn't lose anything more than a few tech structures at most (and with the HP buffs recently, don't count your chickens). 4 DTs are significantly better at killing things and doing what you want your warped Zealots to do. But of course, they cost gas... so you're back at square one. Throwing them into an IST mix is certainly better than CSS, but even then, IST relies on forcefields early on just as CSS does. Typically the mineral surplus starts to accumulate around the time you have 3 bases running and are producing gas intensive units (templar, colossus etc). At this stage of the game you have to make a judgement call on where those minerals are best spent - throwing them into zealots may be just what you need or conversely, it may be better to try and get a 4th up. It completely depends on the situation. I generally try to avoid Zealots since they really are just supply hogs (much like roaches, except worse).
I get the feeling we're on the same page here, but I think I might as well elaborate on my point since you've given me the opportunity.
I wasn't really trying to emphasize that the drop needs to do serious damage. Around the point you're getting your 4th up as protoss in ZvP throwing 6/7 zeals into one of the zergs expansion while you distract him with your army movement can't really be bad. The zealots don't even have to be cost effective, because they're almost free units at that point. I also understand that this is an overall guide, but that's why I think warp prism needs a mention. They aren't actually all that good as a fundamental piece of your overarching strategy, but rather as a use for idle minerals and robotics facilities as you're waiting on gas income. They're harassing your opponents multi tasking abilities more than their actual infrastructure if anything.
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Plexa i love you so much <3
Just need a pvt guide now
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Thank you Plexa! This was needed, I'd love to see more articles like this.
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Very nice read, even though I'm a zerg Its gonna be interesting to see how a zerg can counter the late game vrs.
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I like the post. I think you should put in bold somewhere that you can not under any circumstances lose your army (or any non-minimal amount of it) without doing economic damage to them. You kind of mentioned it in some parts but I think that is one of the most important things in PvZ.
Do not push out later mid-game/late-game unless you think you can kill their army and have enough left over to actually damage their economy. If you lose your expensive gas units and don't hurt their economy you are probably fucked.
You should mention something in the early game part about trying to block their hatch. Microing your probe enough to get them to go pool first is always good. I scout on pylon and pull a second probe at ~11 to check for the overload on maps with the possible close air (Metal/LT)
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Oh yeah, if you are stuck on 2 base against muta/ling and you get storm BE PATIENT. Its really hard to sit there and wait on two bases when he has map dominance and is expanding everywhere but you have to. It is much much better to storm his mutas when they try to come in and harass than to try and move out with a small number of them.
I can't count how many games I have lost trying to take a third too soon with too few templar (2-3). He will rambo his mutilisks to kill them and even though he will lose some and take some damage from storm he will probably annihilate the rest of your army as soon as the storms are gone and win the game.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 13 2010 08:42 adrift wrote: I like the post. I think you should put in bold somewhere that you can not under any circumstances lose your army (or any non-minimal amount of it) without doing economic damage to them. You kind of mentioned it in some parts but I think that is one of the most important things in PvZ.
Do not push out later mid-game/late-game unless you think you can kill their army and have enough left over to actually damage their economy. If you lose your expensive gas units and don't hurt their economy you are probably fucked.
You should mention something in the early game part about trying to block their hatch. Microing your probe enough to get them to go pool first is always good. I scout on pylon and pull a second probe at ~11 to check for the overload on maps with the possible close air (Metal/LT) You're absolutely right. I'll just quote you in the OP that's more eye catching
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On November 13 2010 07:23 StorrZerg wrote: Plexa i love you so much <3 Just need a pvt guide now
i double that :X
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On November 13 2010 07:23 StorrZerg wrote: Plexa i love you so much <3 Just need a pvt guide now
1. Survive. 2. Get temps. 3. ??? 4. Profit.
User was warned for this post
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On November 13 2010 07:14 Heen wrote:Thanks a bunch Plexa. Your guide really helped me improve this matchup. The whole concept of pressuring to keep in check with zerg and force him to transition into units I want him to or even prevent him from tech switching is something I knew but never applied to my game play. Normally, I get roflstomped by any zerg higher ranked than me but today was like the 1st time in 2 weeks I won vs someone higher. tribute to this thread + bragging rights (I feel real good about this game) vs 2200 ZergI still don't know how to sense mutas coming. If I forge FE (or 15 nex for that matter), isn't hallucination too late to scout mutas in time? I don't feel comfortable keeping down mutas with anything other than phoenixes yet Also how do you know if early roach pressure is coming when your mass warpgates haven't finished and no hallucination/no probe scouting allowed?
I end up sac'ing a probe or 2 to get a look at their army comp. Nothing but lings means either mutas, banelings, or perhaps nydus. Obviously if you see roaches then mutas will not be coming or significantly delayed. If you don't go stargate just position your stalkers at each mineral line, then toss a cannon or 2 at each mineral line before you move out. Usually if I don't go stargate then I usually go 8-gate.
I've been experimenting a lot going 2 stargate opener now and I think I've changed my mind on it. I used to go heavy gateway with 1 stargate after I FE, but I'm finding 2 stargate is affording me a lot of advantages. If I don't know what my opponent is going I make 1 VR and 1 Phx. The VR protects me from any roach aggression and can still be used as an effective harassment tool. Phx gives me the early scout and defense vs mutas. Obviously it is still weak vs a straight tech to hydras though, so you probably will have to cannon up some more in that scenario.
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Had to sign up to say thanks. This was great info to improve my PvZ which seems to be my best matchup.
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I have big big problems with mass roach :| which is the best unit composition to counter it?
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 13 2010 19:13 LuDwig- wrote: I have big big problems with mass roach :| which is the best unit composition to counter it? Either Colossus/Sentry/Stalker or Immortal/Sentry/Stalker both work, you just need to forcefield well!
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I'm just waiting for the day where a giant ball of archons will make your opponent shit his pants (like ultras do now). I think they one-shot lings with +3, right?
Also, what's the best way to merge archons? Everything in this game is smart except merging archons. I wish it'd pick the two lowest mana ones and morph but they don't.
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Thank you, Plexa! Every time I'm in desperate need of Protoss, you post right when I need you most Always enjoy your very intelligent and neatly summarized posts. I thought I was the only one having trouble mid/late game with Protoss especially with all these Blizzard numbers saying Protoss is stomping people....
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Amazingly written post Plexa, best guide I've seen in the strategy forum by far. Covered the PvZ match up in great detail, if only there were PvT and PvP guides like this. (hint hint ) I've always opened with a ramp gate into 3 gate with a little zealot, sentry, stalker pressure and expanding behind that. To be honest it's always seemed to work for me but ever since I've hit about 1500~ diamond level it's definitely been a lot harder. Read your guide and often refer back to it after PvZ games to try and understand more of the theory behind the matchup match up so THANK YOU for your insight and hopefully my PvZ will improve
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United States8476 Posts
PvT and PvP guides, I feel, would have to be structured much differently. PvT and PvP are both heavily based on build order battles where is PvZ is much more linear with just a slight divergence between ground zerg vs muta/ling.
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Wow! This was a very informative guide, Plexa! Thanks for putting your effort into making this, I will be sure to make good use of it (when I start playing SC2...heh...). Just a question, though. Wouldn't it be convenient to put down 2 stargates in most cases? Chances are if you make it to the late game, all you need to do is put down a fleet beacon and start pumping VRs, or is it more so a question of "If I make it, but I don't use it, then it was a wasted investment"?
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Awesome guide, thanks a lot. Very helpful as a random player, for both sides.
I wonder if the solution to having too many minerals is to take several expansions for gas only, expecting to lose some of them. Will have to try it out once I've worked out how to do everything else .
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Hello Plexa, I am about a 1.4k ish diamond zerg player, and I find myself most comfortable in ZvP. What I generally like to do is FE, defend any pressure with roaches, then tech to lair getting hydras, hydra range, roach speed, range attack +1, and push out before colossus or colossus range finishes. Usually, I can pump a very large number of roach/hydra, and I will have a set of lings to bait forcefields. I find this is very effective against a 1base protoss, and even if they have 1 or 2 colossus out, my force can snipe them out and overrun them.
In your opinion, what are the weaknesses/strengths of this kind of zerg 2 base roach/hydra push?
I think it's safe against 4gate, 5gate all-ins, Phoenix play, void rays, and if they forge FE, the attack usually hits just about when their economy kicks in.
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Hmm making sure I stay ahead on upgrades is having some nice dividends. PvZ is still hard on many maps though
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On November 14 2010 14:30 achacttn wrote: Hello Plexa, I am about a 1.4k ish diamond zerg player, and I find myself most comfortable in ZvP. What I generally like to do is FE, defend any pressure with roaches, then tech to lair getting hydras, hydra range, roach speed, range attack +1, and push out before colossus or colossus range finishes. Usually, I can pump a very large number of roach/hydra, and I will have a set of lings to bait forcefields. I find this is very effective against a 1base protoss, and even if they have 1 or 2 colossus out, my force can snipe them out and overrun them.
In your opinion, what are the weaknesses/strengths of this kind of zerg 2 base roach/hydra push?
I think it's safe against 4gate, 5gate all-ins, Phoenix play, void rays, and if they forge FE, the attack usually hits just about when their economy kicks in.
I'm not plexa.
2 base hydra push is pretty scary for protoss in general. Gateway units suck so they're going to turtle. It should hit just as they get their first colossus without range. Expect cannons and a lot of FF's. Just don't go overboard with your attack and expand again when your attack and you'll most likely win economically in the end.
What i've been doing recently is a 3 immortal push with a lot of sentries. It puts a lot of pressure on the zerg as well as forcing hydras/other tech. From my experience, zergs can't just make a lot of lings against immortals because of the sentries or roaches because of immortals. Fast hydras from the zerg is what beats me at that. However, I would already have colossus on the way to kill zerg later after I have expanded.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 14 2010 08:01 sjschmidt93 wrote: I'm just waiting for the day where a giant ball of archons will make your opponent shit his pants (like ultras do now). I think they one-shot lings with +3, right?
Also, what's the best way to merge archons? Everything in this game is smart except merging archons. I wish it'd pick the two lowest mana ones and morph but they don't. Archons are beastly units. They one shot lings without upgrades always, but if lings have +1 armour then you need +1 attack and then you'll always one shot them again. Seeing as you should be upgrading anyway, most times you'll merge archons and they'll kill tons of crap.
Best way to merge archons is manually select them. Being a former BW player means that this is not a problem at all it just takes practice is all.
On November 14 2010 08:41 Deltawolf wrote:Thank you, Plexa! Every time I'm in desperate need of Protoss, you post right when I need you most Always enjoy your very intelligent and neatly summarized posts. I thought I was the only one having trouble mid/late game with Protoss especially with all these Blizzard numbers saying Protoss is stomping people.... Protoss is stomping people.... just with timing pushes. There isn't a Protoss alive that will be able to beat Idra in a macro game since. I dont know how blizzard is going to patch this mess up if you weaken Protoss early game any more Terran will destroy them every game...
On November 14 2010 09:41 4kmonk wrote: PvT and PvP guides, I feel, would have to be structured much differently. PvT and PvP are both heavily based on build order battles where is PvZ is much more linear with just a slight divergence between ground zerg vs muta/ling. You are correct. PvT/PvP after the early game are incredibly simplistic at the moment. Early game is where all the trouble is...
On November 14 2010 10:47 blahman3344 wrote: Wow! This was a very informative guide, Plexa! Thanks for putting your effort into making this, I will be sure to make good use of it (when I start playing SC2...heh...). Just a question, though. Wouldn't it be convenient to put down 2 stargates in most cases? Chances are if you make it to the late game, all you need to do is put down a fleet beacon and start pumping VRs, or is it more so a question of "If I make it, but I don't use it, then it was a wasted investment"? 2 Stargates that you're not using equates to 300 gas that you've wasted. So yea, I would avoid doing that. If you're incorporating SG units into your army (like voids) then that's a different story.
On November 14 2010 13:46 Yukidasu wrote:Awesome guide, thanks a lot. Very helpful as a random player, for both sides. I wonder if the solution to having too many minerals is to take several expansions for gas only, expecting to lose some of them. Will have to try it out once I've worked out how to do everything else . Possibly! Who knows! We'll see how things develop over time.
On November 14 2010 14:30 achacttn wrote: Hello Plexa, I am about a 1.4k ish diamond zerg player, and I find myself most comfortable in ZvP. What I generally like to do is FE, defend any pressure with roaches, then tech to lair getting hydras, hydra range, roach speed, range attack +1, and push out before colossus or colossus range finishes. Usually, I can pump a very large number of roach/hydra, and I will have a set of lings to bait forcefields. I find this is very effective against a 1base protoss, and even if they have 1 or 2 colossus out, my force can snipe them out and overrun them.
In your opinion, what are the weaknesses/strengths of this kind of zerg 2 base roach/hydra push?
I think it's safe against 4gate, 5gate all-ins, Phoenix play, void rays, and if they forge FE, the attack usually hits just about when their economy kicks in. It's a style which crushes pressure, that's for sure. Most of the advice I've laid out in this guide is the complete wrong way to play against that style, it's just not that common on the ladder from what I see though. From a Protoss perspective, I need sentries and cannons and as long as I defend your attack I should be in the lead. It's kinda like a semi-all in timing push, but I think it's pretty versatile overall.
Cannons and Forcefield while stalling for Colossus is the best reaction to this imo. Storm won't be done in time but the Protoss does need to know this push is coming so he can put down cannons accordingly. Gauging the army strength with Hallucination is necessary so you don't over commit to defence. I can't stress just how important good forcefields are against this push, they are completely necessary to cut the army up into bits and let the cannons do their thing. Once the Protoss is able to get 2 Colossus out he should be safe.
It's a tough build to hold, that's for sure!
On November 14 2010 14:59 EtherealDeath wrote:Hmm making sure I stay ahead on upgrades is having some nice dividends. PvZ is still hard on many maps though Yes. I have blistering and scrap thumbed down because they are actually impossible to win pvz on without cheese.
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Why there is not more post like this in TL oh why.
I've made a post in the general forum trying to say that this should be the kind of thing that is in the liquipedia (not only because quality, but especially because the format, because the holistyc approuch) http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=168851
Not seeming to have to much success but i have to try it, i really would love a static state of the art of the matchup like this in a static place and upgraded every few weeks x(.
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Oh and if the PvT and PvP would be THAT simple..please write it man! xP
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 14 2010 18:47 evilK wrote: Why there is not more post like this in TL oh why. I've made a post in the general forum trying to say that this should be the kind of thing that is in the liquipedia (not only because quality, but especially because the format, because the holistyc approuch) http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=168851 Not seeming to have to much success but i have to try it, i really would love a static state of the art of the matchup like this in a static place and upgraded every few weeks x(. This has already been converted into Liquipedia
Draco vs Dalailamer is an example of a typical PvZ. Identifying the mistakes that draco makes in this game should help your own understanding of the matchup tenfold.
Sorrow vs Orz is an excellent example of a number of these principles - hallu scouting, pressure, good FF use etc.
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I'm a 1.4k diamond Protoss, and I've been trying out archons against Mutaling and just played a game where I ended up doing a lot of things you mentioned in this post, some by accident. I scouted the Zerg not expanding and getting a very early roach warren and gas, so I got a forge and one cannon after 1 or 2 gates, but no pressure came so I started 1 attack. When the mutas came, they caught me completely by surprise and I barely had enough stalkers to deter them. With my expansion up, I started teching to HT's while holding off the mutas. Unwisely, the Zerg wasn't trying to outexpand me, so maybe this isn't the best example. He also threw his ball of 30 mutas into my army and got absolutely destroyed by the archons; that was basically game. However I should have gotten hallucination to scout the mutas-I always forget about it.
The key points of this game were getting early upgrades (which happened completely by accident) and getting archons. After 1 attack I got 1 armor, then 2 attack, then 1 shield for the archons, and ended up leading the zerg in upgrades.
As Plexa said, and I agree: Archons are great against zerglings, great against mutalisks (but not great for holding off harass), but they're also pretty good against ultralisks. I haven't tested it in the unit tester, but I just did the math and archons will take more hits from ultralisks: 18 to an immortal's 16. Both units benefit from the shield upgrade, of course, but temps can also be used for storm.
The great thing about archons vs. mutas is that the zerg can't do anything about it. Focus fire and a-move are equally ineffective, and magic box is actually worse! (I'm pretty sure I was doing it right...)
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I really think that you should mention Archons and Drops in there somewhere, and elaborate a little more on DTs. Archons are actually incredibly strong as the game progresses. They scale disturbingly well with attack upgrades (+4 per upgrade to biological? YES PLEASE). They are monsters versus Ultralisks, taking very little damage due to having no typing, and dealing a ton thanks to the fact that their big hits aren't reduced much by the Ultra's terrifying armor. Versus MutaLing, they're surprisingly potent, although you'll probably only be getting them that early as IST. The fact that both Mutas and Lings clump so tightly and have such small range makes their splash very potent, and they are pretty durable, so Mutas can't swoop in and kill them while only taking damage like they can with Stalkers. They're also more effective in drops than one might imagine after you have sufficient attack upgrades to 1-hit drones. In a saturated mineral line, a pair of Archons can kill upwards of 10 drones in just a couple shots. They also require a lot more to defend against than something like dropped Templar, where a handful of speedlings or the queen can force them away after they've put down their storms.
This brings up the next thing I was going to mention, drops. Any Zerg who goes Roach Hydra will have insane amounts of trouble ever killing a warp prism, ever ever ever. Hydras are not very mobile, and Roaches are not very capable of shooting up, so you can basically drop to your heart's content, and only have them able to kill what you drop at best, not ever your prism. As you said, a big part of PvZ is trying to limit the number of Drones they produce, and drops can be used as an overarching strategy, not just an occasional tactic, to accomplish this. There are a wide variety of units that you can drop for this, each requiring a somewhat different response from the Zerg. High Templars are probably the best at killing Drones straight up, but they're also the easiest to defend against, as 6 to 8 lings near every expansion can pick them off as they land, which is pretty expensive. Archons kill Drones pretty well and are also strong, but the Zerg can just run his Drones away until Roaches arrive to mitigate this damage. Zealots/Sentry drops are awesome, because you can FF his ramp and then proceed to stab everything with the Zealot's laser hands, but the Zealots are so much slower than Drones unless you have Charge that these will probably be better for sniping Evo Chambers and tech structures than workers. (I wouldn't recommend dropping any of these other units with Sentries, as appealing as it may sound, because if you mess up and lose the drop, it'll cost you SO MUCH GAS.)DTs can do tons of damage very quickly and require detection, but also can't pursue Drones, so the Zerg can do something similar to avoid damage unless you have enough to kill his hatch before a Seer arrives.
This brings up the last thing I wanted, which is because I don't know much about it. You said that adding DTs was a good idea for CSS in lategame, and it seemed like you meant for something other than harass. Is there an effective way to use them in your army composition? (Perhaps similarly to Archons, for playing against Ultras?) You can also use them to make Archons for slightly less gas than HTs, I suppose, which probably look pretty appealing to CSS, who is always starved. Please do explain, and thanks so much for this guide, it did an awesome job describing PvZ for us right now.
EDIT: Tried to make it look a little more readable.
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Note also that unless you open with Phoenix, Phoenix are not a good counter to Mutalisks. They are good to prevent the Mutalisk death ball from starting, but they are not good at controlling the deathball once it gets large.
I Actually tried this in the Unit tester with 4 Phoenixes (600 minerals/400gas) against 7Mutalisks (700 minerals/700gas) (no micro from either side) and Protoss wins around most of the time. Tested both without any upgrades of either side, and both all upgrades to level3. So, the above statement must be false.
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Ok, I also tried 3 Archons against 7 Mutalisks, and Protoss wins easily 3 Archons against 2 Ultralisks and Protoss wins.
Imho, once Protoss and Zerg both reaches 200/200, Protoss should always win easily. Its Zergs job to prevent this from happening in the first place.
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On November 15 2010 04:05 Aragorn2 wrote: Note also that unless you open with Phoenix, Phoenix are not a good counter to Mutalisks. They are good to prevent the Mutalisk death ball from starting, but they are not good at controlling the deathball once it gets large.
I Actually tried this in the Unit tester with 4 Phoenixes (600 minerals/400gas) against 7Mutalisks (700 minerals/700gas) (no micro from either side) and Protoss wins around most of the time. Tested both without any upgrades of either side, and both all upgrades to level3. So, the above statement must be false.
No, you're completely wrong. Reactionary phoenixes don't counter mutalisks. Phoenixes only work if you opened blind stargate. 4 vs 7 aren't realistic numbers btw, if you got reactionary phoenixes youll get outnumbered 1 to 3-4 in minutes.
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On November 15 2010 04:13 Aragorn2 wrote: Ok, I also tried 3 Archons against 7 Mutalisks, and Protoss wins easily 3 Archons against 2 Ultralisks and Protoss wins.
Imho, once Protoss and Zerg both reaches 200/200, Protoss should always win easily. Its Zergs job to prevent this from happening in the first place.
Archons are too gas heavy too get in large numbers, theyre beasts but come too late, are too expensive and are ineffective at defending vs muta harass.
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United States8476 Posts
The biggest problem with archons early is that they're so gas intensive. Protoss needs to devote all their gas into countering mutas and one archon means 6 less stalkers or 2 less templar. Either 6 stalkers or 2 templar is a better option vs mutas. Also, archons are bad at stopping harrass, easily focus fired, and don't benefit from armor upgrades. Finally, archons are bad vs roaches, which is a common transition from muta. You can't just do these unit tests to simulate a real game. You'll never have a situation where you just have 3 archons vs 7 mutalisks.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 15 2010 02:05 Kpyolysis32 wrote: I really think that you should mention Archons and Drops in there somewhere, and elaborate a little more on DTs. Archons are actually incredibly strong as the game progresses. They scale disturbingly well with attack upgrades (+4 per upgrade to biological? YES PLEASE). They are monsters versus Ultralisks, taking very little damage due to having no typing, and dealing a ton thanks to the fact that their big hits aren't reduced much by the Ultra's terrifying armor. Versus MutaLing, they're surprisingly potent, although you'll probably only be getting them that early as IST. The fact that both Mutas and Lings clump so tightly and have such small range makes their splash very potent, and they are pretty durable, so Mutas can't swoop in and kill them while only taking damage like they can with Stalkers. They're also more effective in drops than one might imagine after you have sufficient attack upgrades to 1-hit drones. In a saturated mineral line, a pair of Archons can kill upwards of 10 drones in just a couple shots. They also require a lot more to defend against than something like dropped Templar, where a handful of speedlings or the queen can force them away after they've put down their storms. It's just not possible to spam archons like you would want to in the late game. And even if you can, once you lose those archons (be it to hydra, BL or Ultra) it's even harder to rebuild your army I've said throughout this thread that Archons are amazing units, but you just can't spam them Further, Archons require shield upgrades which are usually neglected because of their insane cost.
This brings up the next thing I was going to mention, drops. Any Zerg who goes Roach Hydra will have insane amounts of trouble ever killing a warp prism, ever ever ever. Hydras are not very mobile, and Roaches are not very capable of shooting up, so you can basically drop to your heart's content, and only have them able to kill what you drop at best, not ever your prism. As you said, a big part of PvZ is trying to limit the number of Drones they produce, and drops can be used as an overarching strategy, not just an occasional tactic, to accomplish this. There are a wide variety of units that you can drop for this, each requiring a somewhat different response from the Zerg. High Templars are probably the best at killing Drones straight up, but they're also the easiest to defend against, as 6 to 8 lings near every expansion can pick them off as they land, which is pretty expensive. Archons kill Drones pretty well and are also strong, but the Zerg can just run his Drones away until Roaches arrive to mitigate this damage. Zealots/Sentry drops are awesome, because you can FF his ramp and then proceed to stab everything with the Zealot's laser hands, but the Zealots are so much slower than Drones unless you have Charge that these will probably be better for sniping Evo Chambers and tech structures than workers. (I wouldn't recommend dropping any of these other units with Sentries, as appealing as it may sound, because if you mess up and lose the drop, it'll cost you SO MUCH GAS.)DTs can do tons of damage very quickly and require detection, but also can't pursue Drones, so the Zerg can do something similar to avoid damage unless you have enough to kill his hatch before a Seer arrives. Drops are alright, seeing as the goal of this was to provide an over arching look at the match up in it's current form I didn't feel that drops were appropriate. I didn't want to introduce any theorycraft and while I've played around with drops I've never found them to be overly effective (or at least enough to justify the investment).
This brings up the last thing I wanted, which is because I don't know much about it. You said that adding DTs was a good idea for CSS in lategame, and it seemed like you meant for something other than harass. Is there an effective way to use them in your army composition? (Perhaps similarly to Archons, for playing against Ultras?) You can also use them to make Archons for slightly less gas than HTs, I suppose, which probably look pretty appealing to CSS, who is always starved. Please do explain, and thanks so much for this guide, it did an awesome job describing PvZ for us right now.
EDIT: Tried to make it look a little more readable. Just mixing them in with your regular army does wonders. Unless they're bringing along 3-4 overseers you can easily pick off any detection they have and let the DTs rip up their expensive ultralisks. Usually when they start mixing in overseers I morph them to archons because as you pointed out, you get cheaper archons
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I haven't played SC2 very much since 1.1.2 because of the zerg. I was doing PvP and PvT just fine, but PvZ was crushing me (early game).
This guide was very helpful and I greatly appreciate it. My play early play-style was centered around zealots and upgrades, and I've been neglecting both sentries and stalkers in favor of phoenixes. This guide made many things clear, and I'll definitely try some of the things explained here.
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Got to 2000 Diamond a minute ago. Of the 13 games I played today I'm 2-3 Against Zerg, 4-0 against Terran, 3-1 against Protoss. I say this to brag but also because those losses were against FKING ROACHES!!!!#$!# I cannot stand them. I took KiWiKaKi's PvP Socke's PvT and TTOne's 6gate/forge +1 timing push around the 10min mark but I cannot get TTOne's build to work as well as he did =(. I feel like I just can't get the build to work. I also feel like the only other option is blink stalkers. GUHHHHHHHH
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Very nice informative post, Plexa. I'm sure a lot of Protoss users who are struggling will you after reading this. Thanks! ;D
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@ slapmysalami, You might get good results if you change that TTone build of forge FE into a 6 gate +1 push by going 5 gate + robo with +1 push. Just make 1 obs and then immortals from the robo. The push will still be insanely strong against muta/ling play, especially as even muta/ling give a good use for immortals, ie. spine crawlers. Leading with the immortals makes it much easier to beat a huge amount of spine crawlers. Against any play with roaches the push will obviously be very strong as well. Also because you have a obs you can shoot creep tumors and be able to scout roach/hydra play in time, against which it's generally not so good to push. Having the robo up already will also let you get colo much faster when you do need them.
The only disadvantage of that robo imo is that you can't do that TTone push anymore at very big maps then. On big maps you can still do the 6 gate variant then or simply do something else completely like phoenix harass for example.
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i enjoyed this post a lot -- definitely helps to explain the unspoken concepts behind what i've been seeing in several replays
any chance for a follow-up of a PvT post?
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Excellent post. I will have to try alot of this out when I am playing toss. I have so much trouble against zerg it isnt funny.
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On November 14 2010 19:44 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On November 14 2010 18:47 evilK wrote: Why there is not more post like this in TL oh why. I've made a post in the general forum trying to say that this should be the kind of thing that is in the liquipedia (not only because quality, but especially because the format, because the holistyc approuch) http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=168851 Not seeming to have to much success but i have to try it, i really would love a static state of the art of the matchup like this in a static place and upgraded every few weeks x(. This has already been converted into Liquipedia Draco vs Dalailamer is an example of a typical PvZ. Identifying the mistakes that draco makes in this game should help your own understanding of the matchup tenfold. Sorrow vs Orz is an excellent example of a number of these principles - hallu scouting, pressure, good FF use etc.
The other sorrow vs orz game is also an excellent example of how zerg can use muta/ling to completely dominate the crap out of you if you try to just use blinkstalkers to deal with muta.
2 stargate phoenix is almost necessary against a committed muta player, IMO. Only way around it is to have perfect scouting with hallucinations and hit the 3rd with perfect timing. This timing is very thin, though.
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I have had some luck with pylon/canon blocks, but still find it very difficult to commit to an attack against Zerg. If they scout your attack early (which, by all means, they should be able to do) they can build an army to defend fairly well. If you do happen to wipe their army, they are going to answer with a mass of speedlings that will clean up whatever is left of yours. I also have a hard time leaving my base against mutas, since regardless the number of canons around your base, there is always an angle that you are vulnerable from.
I appreciate reading that even the OP thinks it's impossible to beat a Zerg on Scrap Station. I think that's the worst of several maps that defending muta pressure is extremely difficult on. I still enjoyed this guide and it made me feel a little bit better about this matchup. Here's to hoping Blizzard simplifies our tech trees a little bit so our timings match T and Z timings a little better. I'd love to see HT with one or both of their upgrades out of the gate.
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To chime in on stargate openings, in the previous patch I used to FFE into 1 stargate 1 robo which was effective since roaches were rare and most zergs fast tech'ed to hydras off a FE or went mutaling. Nowadays I've really been practicing 15 nex into double stargate openings due to all the early roach play and as AFAIK quick tech to hydras isn't nearly as popular as it was.
The reasoning for double stargate is it allows you to pump out both your initial phoenix and a VR at the same time and the difference is huge. I toss my stargates down ~6 mins (you can afford ~2 cannons beforehand) and I have my Phoenix and VR up before 8 mins which is around when you can reasonably expect any significant roach push off 2 bases (any 1 base roach rush should be easily scouted) and a minute or 2 before mutas will hit.
And while the VR with a few sentry/stalkers/cannons will hold off early pressure, the main thing about the VR is it allows you to immediately go on the offensive, while still building up your ground army. That greedy zerg who took an early 3rd? You make them pay as they have nothing to defend vs your VR/phoenix. The VR makes a huge difference as it can shoot down spores and is not limited by energy for killing drones. This absolutely forces the zerg player to go hydras, so you can blind tech to colossi (not that you need to with phoenix to scout), and now you have a phoenix/VR army to demolish any corruptors that come into play.
I've found this puts you in a very good position in the mid-game. You have good map control, very well defended vs harass, and should have a sizable ground army while you tech as they scramble to pump hydras. Obviously a 2-base quick tech to hydras will cause you problems and you will be forced to toss down additional cannons, but in the current metagame it's becoming rare to see early hydras, at least where I'm at ~1800 diamond.
And I completely agree adding VR's do your death ball late game adds a completely new dimension to your army. They automatically hedge you vs broodlords and ultras plus protects your colossi from corruptors. VR's DPS is also IMO significantly underrated. Their DPS doesn't look great on paper, but in-game it feels completely different due to them being able to position themselves to attack in your 200/200 ball very easily since they are air units, plus their attack mechanic causes them to have very little damage wasted due to overkill, unlike stalkers.
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Just a word to those trying to convert to this kind of playstyle from a zealot heavy or passive approach: its hard but its worth it.
Took me 10 games or so to really get into the stride of it but boy did it pay off. One thing I learned a little late when switching from zealot-heavy builds: you have to tech to Collosi faster. While zealots can handle an early ling or hydra (off creep) push with no problem, stalkers get into real trouble especially if you are on an open nat and FFing is difficult. I found throwing the robo fac down immediately after expanding to be critical.
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Amazing write up! Even as a Terran user, I feel I've gained a lot of knowledge of how zerg functions, which I feel will help me in my future games. Indeed, it seems against zerg now a days, you need to make sure everything you do is not a waste, and everything is well planned.
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+ Show Spoiler + I'm sorry, I really value your opinion as one of the highest of all ppl here, but this is just wrong imho. Phoenixes kill Mutas INCREDIBLY cost-effectively, although - as with every zerg-unit - the effectiveness decreases with upgrades on both sides. I really hope you take this critique not personally but try to test it in the unit-tester. The protoss-player has the micro-advantage, so nothing is lost by just a-moving the units into another, if anything, protoss profits more if both players know how to micro. Just a simple example: with 20 phoenixes (3000/2000)vs 25 mutas (3000/2000) both unupgraded the ridiculous number of 11 phoenixes survives. Take upgrades into account and mutas do better because the average "profit" from upgrades is higher. Still doesn't change the fact that zerg can NOT, like NEVER rely on pure mutas vs pure phoenixes. You can keep up production-wise due to chrono-boosting both stargates, you only have to be careful to not lose phoenixes early when you are outmatched in numbers. Also zerg cannot really expand safely because mutas are slower than phoenixes, you can always lift off some drones/queens, zerg can NOT defend three bases without any ground-support like more queens than needed or spores, which further decreases the effectiveness of the overall zerg-gameplay. Maybe I'm wrong, but the maths disagrees and since phoenixes are so easy to micro I've never seen a game where a protoss would lose air-control with phoenixes vs mutas. EDIT: Forgot to mention that the perfect replay for what I mean would be Sen vs Socke on Desert Oasis. Socke goes for a 5 gate timing attack, does NOT win outright (but deals serious damage) and gets 2 stargates immediately after he sees the first mutas. This shut down Sen COMPLETELY, Sen went hydras and got stomped into the ground by colossi/HT (one of Socke's strongest games at MLG). So I think it's fair to say that going phoenixes later on is also very possible even if you didn't open with them.
I disagree, If you decide to make Phoenix by the time you see mutalisk its already to late if you see the mutalisk there will be somewhere around 5-8 mutalisk in the air. by the time you throw down 2 stargates (If you get your natural up and saturated) it still takes times to get phoenix. Also the investment for phoenix is as follows. 150/150 for stargates x2 300/300 + 150/100 per phoenix 500 gas for the first 2 phoenix meanwhile the Zerg is either taking their third and getting ready for hive tech to Ultralisk. So how do you deal with the mutalisk harass while your Phoenix are getting prepped make more stalkers? Assuming you make the double stargate after taking your natural, your gas supply will be low. your already investing 300 gas for the stargate. By making stargates you are spending gas which means less gas for stalkers or if you just go mass stalkers you wont be able to support Mass stalkers + constant Phoenix production. I also forgot to mention that while you are building your stargate the zerg can just mass mutalisk you used the example 20 phoenix- 25 mutalisk have you tried to do 2 phoenix vs 10 mutalisk? Its very difficult to try micro/macro with phoenix, yea they can kite Mutalisk forever theoretically. While your doing fancy micro with your phoenix the opponent will either get a few corruptors, or just going ultras and bust your Gateway army down.
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Really good guide imo, I think I will build less Zealots now.
A question to those who have actually played according to these guidelines: What is a good time/seems to be a good tim to get Hallucination? If I want to do the usual 3 Gate expand should I get it before/after I expanded, or to any different timing?
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Mr Plexa...this is one of the most amazing threads ive ever seen so far.Very acknoledgeable. And ur right PvZ is the most beatifull matchup atm,when played by 2 players of equal caliber. Its very entartaining to watch.
What i have to add...i dont like mutas,that due to the fact most of our BW anti-muta weapons were removed. I refer here to: -Full splash archons,not the less splashy ones we got now. Also note that due to the fact that geysers in sc 2 are completely depleted,we dont see the giant archon armies in late late pvz like we did in bw. -Also by the removal of Dark Archon(an unit despized by many,but like all BW units,it had its uses) means its no more Maelstrom+Storm combo. -Replacing of corsairs with phoenixes is the most worse design decision in all the sc 2. The corsair had splash,if it was present in sc 2,zergs would at least try to magic box against them like they do against thors not just 1 A with theyr muta clump. Phoenix its an gimicky unit.And dont get me started on Disruption Web. Smart zergs laugh at phoenixes.If u open with stargate,they simply switch to hidras.If u dont and try to keep up with muta numbers u will fail,zerg always can make them faster then u.
Yes,storm hurts them.But remember storm gets too late and from what ive heard,Blizzard wants to nerf storm cause of PvT.So because of marines dieing too fast to storm,we will loose our last viable weapon against mutas.
Whenever i have the chance,i try to end the game before mutas pop.Hidras i can take them.Mass roach is just lol.Speedlings are more of an annoyance.Heck,even ultras and BL are just another unit,if u arrive on late game on EVEN FOOTING. But mutas prevent u from doing that.For me i do what terrans are trying to do,early pressure into killing the zerg fast.I dont want the game to be long,because toss losses. If zerg goes hidra/roach/corruptor ,any self respected toss can handle that,thats most of what ive seen climbing the ladder.That or muta/ling/bane.
Yes,i can try cutesy stuff like DT warp prism drops.Heck i even tryed against an plat zerg buddy doing an speed warp prism collosi drop(similar to reaver drops).It failed lol.What im trying to say,im trying to experiment,but atm,mutas ruin most cutesy stuff.
But the most grievous blow dealt to toss map presence was removing the DT from the templar archives.It was our only true map control unit(along reaver and corsair but those are removed).It made zergs think twice were they went.I think they did that because they removed ovie detection.What they were afraid that toss was going DT rush against zerg? Heck zergs would had adapted and got fast lair for detection or spores and it was ok. That is the most serious blow dealt to PvZ,DT are still an viable unit,but when ur at least on 3 bases.And when u get there,u arent using them like an map control unit,ur more like trying to give zerg an minor annoyance. In a word,they appear later then needed.Having DTs in mid game would had been sweet.
Fluxed vaned voids are the future of PvZ,but ussualy that means u safely arrived in late game.Theyr the answer to ultra/BL,also they will be used to snipe hatches,threathen primary base..or even attempt hive sniping.But remember,having them alone means theyr prone to Fungal .If this becomes the next best thing,rest assured zergs will start having burrowed festors in key locations,w8ting for ur voids to pass and buy time for theyr AA units to come. And yeah,Mothership is still underused,and i think shes better used at PvZ then PvT.
Last,regarding the overflow of minerals .Yes u can build expos and cannons.But if ur APM and multitasking is is up to it (im talking here at least 200-250 average apm) u can do warp prism drops filled with zeals.Nothing annoys the zerg as having an fresh expo,undefended and prone to drops. Toss must start using the prism again.They call it "Paper prism" but it even has a little more health then the shuttle.Shuttle has still flimpsy and toss still used it.Filled with zeals and the ocassional DT,or warping them on site,means the zerg has to watch out in many parts and have his forces spread thin.
Pardon the "i miss BW toss units tone" if it sounded like that in the first part .
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United States8476 Posts
Hey, Plexa. I like your guide, but I want to point out some ways you could improve it. You seem to pigeonhole possible protoss strategies into 2 categories, sentry/stalker/collosi and immortal/stalker/templar. I know this is not your intention, but a noob reading it might take it that way. For example, vs a pure roach or roach ling composition early game, I believe the proper response is immortal/sentry/stalker and then transitioning to deal with the zerg transition. Someone following your guide exactly would think to skip immortals and head to collosi as fast as possible. This player will simply be outmacroed due to his inability to pressure or just be overrun in the time that it takes to get the collosi. Also, someone who sees muta/ling might get immortals when there is not even a roach den in sight. I believe that when fighting mutas, you have to devote almost all your gas into stopping mutas and only get immortals when you actually scout the roaches. My final example would be that someone employing IST might think it's alright not to get sentries on the way to teching to templar, because it's not ISST. Someone like this would get overrun quite quickly.
In addition, I feel you should make a distinction between ling roach -> hydra strategies vs ling hydra -> roach strategies as I believe they play very differently and have different proper responses by the protoss.
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Singapore147 Posts
Hey Plexa thanks for the guide! I think it's brilliantly written! The part about stalkers was something I never realised until I read this thread - I knew they only got +1 from upgrades but I didn't realize roaches got +2 (: I particularly like the late game Void Ray transition, I often use them myself and there really is no really effective Zerg counter to this. If you had phoenix's earlier and have established some sort of air dominance, this can be even more deadly as they're forced into Hydra which will get crushed by your storms or sentry/collo.
Two things I think you could add? I notice your build doesn't mention Infestors at all - I think they're a key part of Zerg late-mid to late game... and can really cause havoc with fungal growth. If I'm not wrong this affects all Protoss, including Colossi? Burrowed Infestors can really punish attempts at using speedrays to shut down the map through harass as a couple of FGs gives enough time for the Zerg army to come over and annihilate them. Likewise they can severely cramp your protoss-ball-of-death's mobility, and basically means if you engage wrongly you can't withdraw without losing a large chunk of your forces. Maybe if you have the time you could write something on how you deal with them? I understand they're gas heavy and crimp on Zerg's ability to transition to Ultra/Broodlord but mixing in a few is really strong :/
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fantastic read, very useful, thank you very much. wish i had something of value to add but as a lowly plat player all i can offer is gratitude =)
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Wonderful writing, I copied and printed it out for reading, and I think it helps me a lot in understanding this matchup.
Well done. Hope to see more articles about P.
^^
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 17 2010 07:42 CruelZeratul wrote: Really good guide imo, I think I will build less Zealots now.
A question to those who have actually played according to these guidelines: What is a good time/seems to be a good tim to get Hallucination? If I want to do the usual 3 Gate expand should I get it before/after I expanded, or to any different timing? Depends on how passive you're playing, if you don't plan on being aggressive at all then get hallucination as soon as warp finishes. If you're planning to pressure/timing attack then it's possible to skip it entirely. It doesn't make much sense to get hallucination if you can get the information you want in other ways!!
On November 17 2010 08:28 4kmonk wrote: Hey, Plexa. I like your guide, but I want to point out some ways you could improve it. You seem to pigeonhole possible protoss strategies into 2 categories, sentry/stalker/collosi and immortal/stalker/templar. I know this is not your intention, but a noob reading it might take it that way. For example, vs a pure roach or roach ling composition early game, I believe the proper response is immortal/sentry/stalker and then transitioning to deal with the zerg transition. Someone following your guide exactly would think to skip immortals and head to collosi as fast as possible. This player will simply be outmacroed due to his inability to pressure or just be overrun in the time that it takes to get the collosi. Also, someone who sees muta/ling might get immortals when there is not even a roach den in sight. I believe that when fighting mutas, you have to devote almost all your gas into stopping mutas and only get immortals when you actually scout the roaches. My final example would be that someone employing IST might think it's alright not to get sentries on the way to teching to templar, because it's not ISST. Someone like this would get overrun quite quickly. Fair comments, I'm going to go over the guide now and add in stuff and I'll take this into consideration when doing the rewrites
In addition, I feel you should make a distinction between ling roach -> hydra strategies vs ling hydra -> roach strategies as I believe they play very differently and have different proper responses by the protoss. Mmm I dont necessarily agree - they're very similar for the most part. But if they're linging hard you typically want to add in Zealots, I think I need to add that.
On November 17 2010 11:49 pigscanfly wrote: Two things I think you could add? I notice your build doesn't mention Infestors at all - I think they're a key part of Zerg late-mid to late game... and can really cause havoc with fungal growth. If I'm not wrong this affects all Protoss, including Colossi? Burrowed Infestors can really punish attempts at using speedrays to shut down the map through harass as a couple of FGs gives enough time for the Zerg army to come over and annihilate them. Likewise they can severely cramp your protoss-ball-of-death's mobility, and basically means if you engage wrongly you can't withdraw without losing a large chunk of your forces. Maybe if you have the time you could write something on how you deal with them? I understand they're gas heavy and crimp on Zerg's ability to transition to Ultra/Broodlord but mixing in a few is really strong :/ Infestors are underused in this matchup. Fungal can dominate stalker heavy armies I haven't included anything on them because Zergs refuse to use them for the most part. I don't understand the best counter to them as it stands because I don't experience it enough! Usually there isn't anything special you can do, except maybe include some temps for feedback.
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I think you should add more information about the early midgame (basically everything between the time they place their tech buildings and when their 3rd is secure). Maybe this just isn't a large component of your PvZ the way it is for me, but I feel like if you are playing a more reactive PvZ style that keeping your opponent honest with how early they take their 3rd is essential to winning the macro game.
For example, if zerg decides to go muta/ling for the midgame, if you let them get away with a 3rd without having spent adequate resources on lings and spine crawlers, it really puts you behind, especially if you are going the blink/storm route. By getting their 5th and 6th geysers so early, they can contain you with muta until you have storm and still get out a large roach army for when you are finally able to break out with the stalker/templar/sentry/zealot ball, making it very hard to win.
If you are diligent with hallucination scouts, you can find a window to make them cancel their 3rd against both muta/ling and roach/hydra fairly often, since zerg players don't know the proper timing for taking the 3rd against various protoss build orders yet.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 20 2010 01:20 PJA wrote: I think you should add more information about the early midgame (basically everything between the time they place their tech builds and when their 3rd is secure). Maybe this just isn't a large component of your PvZ the way it is for me, but I feel like if you are playing a more reactive PvZ style that keeping your opponent honest with how early they take their 3rd is essential to winning the macro game.
For example, if zerg decides to go muta/ling for the midgame, if you let them get away with a 3rd without having spent adequate resources on lings and spine crawlers, it really puts you behind, especially if you are going the blink/storm route. By getting their 5th and 6th geysers so early, they can contain you with muta until you have storm and still get out a large roach army for when you are finally able to break out with the stalker/templar/sentry/zealot ball, making it very hard to win.
If you are diligent with hallucination scouts, you can find a window to make them cancel their 3rd very often against both muta/ling and roach/hydra fairly often, since zerg players don't know the proper timing for taking the 3rd against various protoss build orders yet. It is an important part of my PvZ just that you can approach it in two different ways - expanding yourself or executing a timing attack. Perhaps I haven't emphasised those points enough but my goal was to give a basic introduction to the matchup for newer players. I'll go over things again and try work more of it in though
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I can't believe how much this guide has helped my PvZ. One thing I'm curious about is steering away from CSS when facing muta-ling. You mention that its viable but not optimum. However, I've had a few games now where I committed to CSS without realizing they were going mutaling (bad scouting on my part) that played out surprisingly well. The order of events pretty much went:
1) I scout a spire that is complete or nearly complete while on 2 expos with a robo bay already down 2) I chrono out my first collosus while warping in as many stalkers as I can afford, using only a few sentries 3) I push with my army right as I see Z move their mutas toward my base to harrass. Usually they have 6-8 at this point.
Now, the opponents I'm facing are only mid diamond (18-1900) but I've found that upon seeing my push they will attempt to defend with everything they have right away. I was surprised to see that one collosus is literally all you need to toast any amount of lings at this stage in the game by the time the mutas have FF'd it down. Perhaps the smarter play would be to move mutas in and take the collosus out while waiting with the lings but I would think this is just asking to have your mutas eliminated.
What would a better Z do to respond to this kind of push?
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Hey Plexa. Great read but I have a quick question
Why would you recommend having immortals in the IST composition against muta lings when immortals don't do anything to those. And why did you not include immortals in the main composition for the CSS against ROACHES! Just seems a little backwards. I know you said against the muta-lings, they will have some roaches...but against a pure roach/hydra army, thats A LOTTA roaches.
Just wanted to clarify. No hate
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Plexa, which build do you prefer? the 3 gate expand with some aggression or the 15 nexus? Also, how do you know which to use with what information you scout? Also, what is your in-game name?
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Dude these are awesome pictures, the person who took screenshots and retouched it is an artist.
Nice read btw !
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I'm a plat toss but PVZ is the only mu that i think i might have some quality insight into. One of the builds I use on certian maps is a dt build. Depending on what the z does: If they fast expo I try to block it with a probe and pylon (if I scout it early enough) and 1 gate core. If they go early pool and it looks like early pressure I 2 gate wall my ramp then drop a core. Either way after my core i drop a citidel and forge and usually put down 1 or 2 cannons depending on if i see roach. At the point of where I put down cannons to defend an early roach push I usually have 1 or 2 zealots and 2 stalkers. I use the 2 or 3 stalkers I have to try to keep suicide lords from seeing my dt tech, then when I have enough gas drop a temp shrine. While the shrine is building I drop 2 more gateways. Optimally I will be able to either proxy a pylon somewhere near their base, or near a cliff in my base so the dts arent coming out the front ramp. you can usually get the 4 dts out right after the shrine finishes. THE KEY HERE IS, do not try to kill drones. I usually go right for their nat hatch with the 4 dts and try to power it down. If they have spores wait until their army moves, and tear it down and go right for the hatch. with 4 dts the hatch will die faster than they can morph a overseer and if they infuse while the overseer is building you may lose 1 or 2 dts before killing the hatch.
There are 2 follow ups to this
Expoing:
Pretty self explanitory, puts you pretty on par with the zerg as they will most likely rebuild their expo hatch, this will delay their third expo timing and give you a window to attack when they attempt to take their late third. If they expo too early punish them for that. Use remaining dts to scout for this.
or
All in:
If the zerg appears weak when you attack with the 4 dts, you MUST start powering up an army out of your warpgates and boost the wgs. Pull back the 4 dts after they kill the hatch and morph archons (if they have overseers). If you take down their hatch then they will be stuck with 1 hatch and w/e larve they have left over from the dead hatch. This is the window where you push with a sizable army, and the 2 archons.
I really like this build and have had success with it. If anyone is interested in this build just post here and I'll upload some replays.
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It is imperative that you catch when he transitions into Hive tech - you will need to be prepared for that. If he is able to discretely tech to hive and get ultras or BL then the game is over since the CSS composition dies to both of them really really hard
What the fuck ? In my experience Ultra gets completely raped by Collosi/Stalker... Is there something wrong with me ?
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 29 2010 00:08 ZaneZaneZane wrote: Plexa, which build do you prefer? the 3 gate expand with some aggression or the 15 nexus? Also, how do you know which to use with what information you scout? Also, what is your in-game name? My in game name is Plexa on SEA and US and I have a smurf on Euro. I prefer 3gate expand to 15 Nexus (in most cases) since I know that 15 Nexus isn't safe on a lot of maps if the Zerg plays right, however many Zergs don't play it right. I draw an analogy to the 1rax FE by Terran against Protoss. This is an incredibly risky build and tbh is unsound. Any time someone does this against me I'm always able to kill it and force them back to one base (I play 1 gate VR in PvT, and if they expand I just add two gates instead of expanding and I can ALWAYS kill it).
Zerg just need to realise what a little bit of Roach pressure is able to do to a FE. Think Idra vs that Protoss he rolled in the GSL - Roaches are amazing against FE
On November 20 2010 06:28 Shadrak wrote: I can't believe how much this guide has helped my PvZ. One thing I'm curious about is steering away from CSS when facing muta-ling. You mention that its viable but not optimum. However, I've had a few games now where I committed to CSS without realizing they were going mutaling (bad scouting on my part) that played out surprisingly well. The order of events pretty much went:
1) I scout a spire that is complete or nearly complete while on 2 expos with a robo bay already down 2) I chrono out my first collosus while warping in as many stalkers as I can afford, using only a few sentries 3) I push with my army right as I see Z move their mutas toward my base to harrass. Usually they have 6-8 at this point.
Now, the opponents I'm facing are only mid diamond (18-1900) but I've found that upon seeing my push they will attempt to defend with everything they have right away. I was surprised to see that one collosus is literally all you need to toast any amount of lings at this stage in the game by the time the mutas have FF'd it down. Perhaps the smarter play would be to move mutas in and take the collosus out while waiting with the lings but I would think this is just asking to have your mutas eliminated.
What would a better Z do to respond to this kind of push? Yeah that's a good timing attack against Mutalisk builds. Only way they can hold it is by massing crawlers since Lings just don't cut it. The whole key for it working is scouting it, as you rightly point out. When I mean CSS isn't great against Mutalisk I mean beyond timing attacks.
On November 28 2010 04:02 DentThat wrote:Hey Plexa. Great read but I have a quick question Why would you recommend having immortals in the IST composition against muta lings when immortals don't do anything to those. And why did you not include immortals in the main composition for the CSS against ROACHES! Just seems a little backwards. I know you said against the muta-lings, they will have some roaches...but against a pure roach/hydra army, thats A LOTTA roaches. Just wanted to clarify. No hate You want Immortals in the IST composition against Muta/Ling because Zergs tend to follow that up with a ton of Roaches - no immortals means you're going to get rolled. You don't need them right away obviously, but you need to have the capabilities to produce them after you get storm out (since that's your first priority after blink). You don't have Immortals generally in your CSS because you're spamming Colossus out of those robos and not immortals Immortals are obviously good, but imo Colossus are better!
On November 29 2010 00:38 MGreeN wrote: Dude these are awesome pictures, the person who took screenshots and retouched it is an artist. thx
On November 29 2010 06:00 UFO wrote:Show nested quote + It is imperative that you catch when he transitions into Hive tech - you will need to be prepared for that. If he is able to discretely tech to hive and get ultras or BL then the game is over since the CSS composition dies to both of them really really hard
What the fuck ? In my experience Ultra gets completely raped by Collosi/Stalker... Is there something wrong with me ? Ultras do full damage against Colossus/Stalker/Sentry and crash through forcefields (which is the whole reason the composition works). Sure mass stalker fares fairly well against Ultras, but generally speaking with an even army Ultras should win.
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Having my own problems with zerg( I admit I don’t know to play them just yet) been reading this thread with quite an interest. So far at game start up Vs zerg I think to GG straight of (LOL). If he is a new zerg or middle zerg I will probably win the game. Anyway. What I wanted to say is this. What if the approach to this PvZ should be looked from the point of view how the zerg produces its units and protoss trying to do the same. 1 hatchery x amount of larva. 2 hatch x+x amount of larva and so forth. In theory having the minerals and gas you can produce x amount of units. Now Protoss is having 4 Gw but maybe 1 robotic facility or 1 stargate. I mean toss can only produce "a" unit from each facility. Where zerg is limited to the amount of larva in hand regardless their own facilities. What if protoss increases the amount of facilities (yes I understand will probably not be able to have a full production cycle + minerals to maintain a 100% (constant) production cycle). Instead goes for intervals of unit productions. Target been to get 2x of Voids or colossus or immortals quicker. Something like this. 1st interval goes of 4 ground units (any unit) 2nd interval goes for 2 immortals. 3rd interval goes for 2 phoenix or void rays Then goes back to 1st step making ground units. Additional expansions can support more tech facilities. So maybe out of 2 expansions one can have like 4 robos 4 stargates 8 gateways and do the productions in intervals /cycles. 1st interval goes of 8 ground units (any unit) 2nd interval goes for 4 immortals. 3rd interval goes for 4 phoenix or void rays
Does it even make any sense?
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
Nope I have no idea what you're trying to say o.o
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He wants to make way too many production facilities for you to support so that Protoss can mimic the tech switching of Zerg, if I understand correctly. Obviously, a bad idea since you waste too much resources on unused buildings if you do that.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
Yeah that's not a good idea =/ you're always going to want to have the core of your army be gateway units and to supplement them with your choice of high tech units.
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i dont agree that protoss gets weaker as time goes on , because the core late game units get a huge boost in damage with updgrades such as immortals and archons, and thats the units u want to have vs those ultras, not stalkers , and the best way to deal with broodlords is voydrays or cariers.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 30 2010 23:55 turbopasca1 wrote: i dont agree that protoss gets weaker as time goes on , because the core late game units get a huge boost in damage with updgrades such as immortals and archons, and thats the units u want to have vs those ultras, not stalkers , and the best way to deal with broodlords is voydrays or cariers. Then you agree with what I said if the core of your army is stalkers then they're going to get weaker as time goes on and you really want to switch out of that come lategame.
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On November 30 2010 14:30 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 04:02 DentThat wrote:Hey Plexa. Great read but I have a quick question Why would you recommend having immortals in the IST composition against muta lings when immortals don't do anything to those. And why did you not include immortals in the main composition for the CSS against ROACHES! Just seems a little backwards. I know you said against the muta-lings, they will have some roaches...but against a pure roach/hydra army, thats A LOTTA roaches. Just wanted to clarify. No hate You want Immortals in the IST composition against Muta/Ling because Zergs tend to follow that up with a ton of Roaches - no immortals means you're going to get rolled. You don't need them right away obviously, but you need to have the capabilities to produce them after you get storm out (since that's your first priority after blink). You don't have Immortals generally in your CSS because you're spamming Colossus out of those robos and not immortals Immortals are obviously good, but imo Colossus are better!
Also Muta/Ling transitions into Ultras, which have CRUSHED my stalker/templar-attacks again and again
I need to say, I find the timing of this transition extremely hard - meaning when you are somewhat "safe" vs muta/ling and can spare ressources to prepare the transition. I've had more success with phoenix-play lately, after I bought some time with the 5 gate +1 attack.
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Nice post. I think one thing that may have already been mentioned is the heavy emphasis on probe counts able to keep up with drone count as long as there is implied (or real) pressure. I play zerg and the toughest thing about protoss for me to handle is a protoss who macros well. Constant chrono boosting probes with either type of pressure usually keeps them ahead of me in harvestor count.
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Few questions (and sorry if im asking the same questions as someone else in the thread - its just too long to read thru )
1) After i 9 scout the zerg, can u tell me a 'general' BO to react to (i) 15 hatch (ii) 1 base zerg going zergling (iii) 1 base zerg going roach (iv) 1 base zerg going baneling bust?? I know a lot of ppl say 'put pressure on zerg if they early expand to stop them droning' but im having trouble translating that into wat i shud be physically doing in terms of building units etc??
2) As zealots are high dps, say i have a mixed army of units and battle against a mixed army of zerg units, is it a better strategy to let all my other units be in the front line (like my stalkers/immortals) then send in the zealots to do the damage (and not die by sitting out the front and taking all the damage)?
Thanks!!
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Plexa I have to disagree with your analysis that a colossus ball cannot be massed if zerg has a sizable fleet of corruptors. Assuming this is lategame and both players are on multiple mining bases, zerg cannot efficiently prevent the protoss from turtling up colossi stalker armies supported by voidrays. Those voidrays makes colossus sniping incredibly difficult, not because they do damage to the corruptors, but that they tank much of the damage that would otherwise be directed at your colossi. In a direct engagement, even involving tier 3 units, zerg armies would still take far too much damage from the colossus such that the remaining voidray stalkers can clean up. Lategame, even in the very late sense of the word, still favours protoss as a critical mass of colossi and voidray in a 200/200 ball is very much unbeatable without suiciding multiple armies into them.
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Sorry forgot another very (noob) question - what is a 3 Gate Sentry expand?? Is this basically having lots of sentries to block off the entrance while u expand??
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On December 02 2010 14:00 5unrise wrote: Plexa I have to disagree with your analysis that a colossus ball cannot be massed if zerg has a sizable fleet of corruptors. Assuming this is lategame and both players are on multiple mining bases, zerg cannot efficiently prevent the protoss from turtling up colossi stalker armies supported by voidrays. Those voidrays makes colossus sniping incredibly difficult, not because they do damage to the corruptors, but that they tank much of the damage that would otherwise be directed at your colossi. In a direct engagement, even involving tier 3 units, zerg armies would still take far too much damage from the colossus such that the remaining voidray stalkers can clean up. Lategame, even in the very late sense of the word, still favours protoss as a critical mass of colossi and voidray in a 200/200 ball is very much unbeatable without suiciding multiple armies into them. Yes and no. I agree that Colossus/VR is the ultimate lategame combination, and I've stated that in the guide. The issue is midgame when the Zerg overproduces on Corruptors. Once you engage him and he knocks out all your Colossus he has established air superiority and you shouldn't be able to mass up an army of Colossus any more. He will have too many corruptors for you to do that. Of course you should win the ground battle in that engagement, but in most cases you won't be able to actually kill the zerg without some AOE support - and that's where the templar transition comes in very useful and is incredibly effective when the Zerg has a lot of supply locked up in Corruptors.
As the game goes on you might be able to whittle down Corruptor numbers and resume colossus production. It all depends on the game really imo.
On December 02 2010 13:48 bankai wrote:Few questions (and sorry if im asking the same questions as someone else in the thread - its just too long to read thru ) 1) After i 9 scout the zerg, can u tell me a 'general' BO to react to (i) 15 hatch (ii) 1 base zerg going zergling (iii) 1 base zerg going roach (iv) 1 base zerg going baneling bust?? I know a lot of ppl say 'put pressure on zerg if they early expand to stop them droning' but im having trouble translating that into wat i shud be physically doing in terms of building units etc?? 2) As zealots are high dps, say i have a mixed army of units and battle against a mixed army of zerg units, is it a better strategy to let all my other units be in the front line (like my stalkers/immortals) then send in the zealots to do the damage (and not die by sitting out the front and taking all the damage)? Thanks!! 1) Watch some of the replays in this thread to get an idea. i) 15hatch; you can pretty much do anything; it's up to you to do something though and remember your goals are to either force non-drone production or match him economically (via quick expo) ii) Take it easy, don't bother with stalker pressure and go for a nice and slow 3gate expand with zealot/sentry iii) Sentries and Cannons are your best friends, but most times you won't have cannons! Sentries + some units (stalker/zealot) clean up very well. Just have accurate FFs and theres nothing the Zerg can do iv) Sentries, and laugh at him for doing a stupid build. Baneling busts are very bad against Protoss (ling/bling however, is an underused combination in the midgame)
In terms of units: - Stalkers are for harassment - Sentries are for defending - Zealots are to mop up lings Adapt as you see fit
2) No, Zealots are dirt cheap and cost no gas. If you happen to have Zealots in your army they're there to tank damage to let your gas units survive (losing gas units = losing the game). If your opponent ignores the Zealots he'll get ripped to shreds by their high DPS, so it gives your stalkers/immortals valuable time to get lots of shots off - which is good (but I prefer using forcefields for this)
On December 02 2010 15:00 bankai wrote: Sorry forgot another very (noob) question - what is a 3 Gate Sentry expand?? Is this basically having lots of sentries to block off the entrance while u expand?? Watch some of the reps from Tyler vs Idra, you'll see what the 3gate expand is.
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First off I'd like to say this guide has definitely helped me to take a different approach against Zergs and know what to do better at any stage of the game.
Before this guide, all I would do against Zerg was 4-Gate AI since I thought Mutalisks were broken and I just couldn't be bothered to go to a middle/late macro game and would rather try and end the game early.
After this guide I tried different new approaches with Phoenix harrass which led to no Muta's being built and quick switch tech to Collosus, better preparation in anticipation of Mutalisks, etc.
PvZ used to be my worst matchup, and it was the 'holding me back' factor that didn't let me break the Top 200 of the LA server. Now during the past few weeks my rating has peaked as I have been able to beat any evenly matched Zerg, along with quite a few slightly favored AND favored Zergs against me. Now I feel very confident in the matchup and am specially excited to play it since I learn something new every game from it.
I wanted to show the following replay where all of my learning from this guide culminates into me beating a Zerg that I remember from the days the first game was out, were with the low points everyone had, this guy was very superior to me, but just yesterday I finally managed to take a game off of him, after not having played against him for a very long time.
Thank you Plexa for this awesome guide!
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Plexa, this was a sexy article! Now please help us protoss players by writing another one vs terran! Totally sweet and thank you for the massive effort in putting this together!
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On December 03 2010 16:34 Kage wrote: Plexa, this was a sexy article! Now please help us protoss players by writing another one vs terran! Totally sweet and thank you for the massive effort in putting this together!
I second that plea. Thanks for the write-up Plexa this should really help me with my PvZ issues. I never knew exactly what to do and always made up strategies and did as I please, which always resulted in a loss. Now I know what to do to defeat the swarm in the name of Aiur!
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2 Stargate VoidRay, however, is the future of PvZ late game in my humble opinion
I knew it! I pretty much win every time I get hive on 3 bases up against a Protoss, as none of them EVER switch to void rays. The other day, as I rolled a Toss with with ultra/ling, I was thinking, "Man, if he had some void rays I would be totally screwed" Can't wait to start dealing with that tech switch...not.
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What is the ideal unit composition for a zerg to have to combat a zealot/colossus/void ray ball? Of course the obvious answer that first pops into my head is mutas, but then it just turns into a tech hopscotch where Toss gets more pheonixes and then zerg gets corruptors then toss get's stalkers etc. Does it really just come down to playing it by ear and there is no general solution?
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I would think corruptor/ultra/ling would be your go-to unit comp late game. Corruptors kill voidrays a bit better than mutas and are obviously great against collosus. They are pretty slow though...Either that or Ultra/Hydra. By late game you can easily have good enough creep spread to use hydras effectively.
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I'm so excited for the phoenix buff in the upcoming patch. You might actually be able to beat mutas 2-stargate phoenix post-patch. I'll be pressure expanding into phoenix-void every game.
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What sort of timing would you use to get to an IST composition? Against Muta-ling it seems like you'd want templar out early, so you can get blink and storm to fight the muta harrass. Against Roach/hydra do you want earlier immortals or templars?
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The phoenix buff will be great for toss against zerg indeed.
I think a fantastic combination post patch will be chargelots + templar + phoenix/voids. Phoenix harass will get much better as you can simply mass them alot faster and there is no more fungal to make you instantly lose all phoenix. By not going colo but templar instead to counter the eventual hydra you won't be giving them a use for their spire either, sure they can go corruptor to counter the phoenix harass but that is very ineffective. Chargelot + templar does amazing against hydra and if roaches come up you can simply add some immortals and voids, same thing with ultra's or broodlords.
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On December 04 2010 10:41 Lobotomist wrote:Show nested quote +2 Stargate VoidRay, however, is the future of PvZ late game in my humble opinion I knew it! I pretty much win every time I get hive on 3 bases up against a Protoss, as none of them EVER switch to void rays. The other day, as I rolled a Toss with with ultra/ling, I was thinking, "Man, if he had some void rays I would be totally screwed" Can't wait to start dealing with that tech switch...not.
Yeah this is so true. Plexa made a damn good prediction on the future of PvZ. Voidrays are amazing late game, and with the upcoming damage buff to massive, it'll hurt Zerg even more. I never would've thought of picking up a mothership until I read Plexa's suggestion, and boy did it save me the game. Came out just when my zerg opponent tries to bum rush me with ultralisks / lings but he had no overseer! Furthermore, at that point already, he was so gas starved he couldn't make enough anti-air and I rolled him over. From now on I'll always produce a mothership late game in PvZ. Just too good.
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Excellent read. You should be a novelist.. lol
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On December 05 2010 15:59 chocoed wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2010 10:41 Lobotomist wrote:2 Stargate VoidRay, however, is the future of PvZ late game in my humble opinion I knew it! I pretty much win every time I get hive on 3 bases up against a Protoss, as none of them EVER switch to void rays. The other day, as I rolled a Toss with with ultra/ling, I was thinking, "Man, if he had some void rays I would be totally screwed" Can't wait to start dealing with that tech switch...not. Yeah this is so true. Plexa made a damn good prediction on the future of PvZ. Voidrays are amazing late game, and with the upcoming damage buff to massive, it'll hurt Zerg even more. I never would've thought of picking up a mothership until I read Plexa's suggestion, and boy did it save me the game. Came out just when my zerg opponent tries to bum rush me with ultralisks / lings but he had no overseer! Furthermore, at that point already, he was so gas starved he couldn't make enough anti-air and I rolled him over. From now on I'll always produce a mothership late game in PvZ. Just too good.
Void rays are insanely awesome in late game. The trick is realizing that while voids aren't particularly cost-efficient, they're extremely supply-efficient.
Void rays cost 250/150 (400 total resources) and 3 supply. That's 133 resources per supply. By comparison, a zealot is 50 reources per supply. Void rays have the highest cost per supply ratio in the Protoss arsenal, and I believe their ratio might also be the highest of any unit in the game. That means a maxed army with void rays can be much more expensive than maxed armies with other compositions. Consider a maxed army of hydra/roach against a maxed army of void/collosus. Assuming 70 workers for both sides, the maxed hydra/roach army will have a value of about 8,000 resources while the void/collosus army will be around 13,000 resources.
In the late game, resource cost is less important. It's all about supply efficiency, making the void ray king.
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First off i'd like to thank you for this awesome thread plexa, i've found it very helpful and very well written and though pvz is still my weakest matchup it is one which has improved a lot after i have read this. However there are a couple of things i'd like to comment on.
My first first thought is i'm wondering why you haven't mentioned dark templar at all? i've found them to be sometimes very good at harassment against zergs, thining out drones, forcing spore crawlers, wasting gas on overseers. a relatively good way of clawing back into a game if you have fallen slightly behind. Also i find them not too bad at killing ultras what is your/or anyone else at a high levels opinion on this?
Secondly the PTR has rendered some of this obsolete, speed rays may have been the future of pvz once but clearly not anymore if that change is introduced... but to look at positives from the patch do you think phoenix can be somewhat viable reactively against mutalisk? or produced from a single starport early game to force hyras while simultaneously being able to tech to collosus, is this doable or too gas intensive? I've recently found some small success with carriers late game against zerg, will this be more viable?
Anyway sorry for lots of questions and theorycrafting the PTR, which obviously cannot be properly answered yet but they are just some thoughts i've had
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On December 10 2010 01:46 rolfe wrote: First off i'd like to thank you for this awesome thread plexa, i've found it very helpful and very well written and though pvz is still my weakest matchup it is one which has improved a lot after i have read this. However there are a couple of things i'd like to comment on.
My first first thought is i'm wondering why you haven't mentioned dark templar at all? i've found them to be sometimes very good at harassment against zergs, thining out drones, forcing spore crawlers, wasting gas on overseers. a relatively good way of clawing back into a game if you have fallen slightly behind. Also i find them not too bad at killing ultras what is your/or anyone else at a high levels opinion on this?
Secondly the PTR has rendered some of this obsolete, speed rays may have been the future of pvz once but clearly not anymore if that change is introduced... but to look at positives from the patch do you think phoenix can be somewhat viable reactively against mutalisk? or produced from a single starport early game to force hyras while simultaneously being able to tech to collosus, is this doable or too gas intensive? I've recently found some small success with carriers late game against zerg, will this be more viable?
Anyway sorry for lots of questions and theorycrafting the PTR, which obviously cannot be properly answered yet but they are just some thoughts i've had
There is no question that dark templars are great for harassment, but they're expensive and costs a lot of gas that you really need for other units, like colossus and sentries. Many players just feel that they're not worth their high investment. Getting dark templars mid-late game would rarely be considered a "bad" move though, so if you like them you should definitely keep playing with them.
The new patch does little to render void rays obsolete. While it's unfortunate that they will no longer be as good with harassing (or killing) late game zerg expansions, it doesn't change the fact that they are still highly effective against all zerg units. The only real counters the zerg has are mutas and hydras, which die easily to many other things (storm, colossus, etc). Void rays are very supply efficient, so they will always be great to incorporate into your late game ball when you are maxing out on supply and have the income for it these expensive units.
Making phoenix reactively against mutalisk has been a hotly debated topic in this thread, and different people have different views. The patch will certainly help (as in make it easier for reactive phoenix to muta), but I still don't think there is a clear cut yes you should or no you shouldn't to this question.
Making phoenix out of a single stargate to force hydras while teching to colossus is done all the time. It works great off any kind of FE strat.
Carriers aren't that bad, but I'd suggest void rays over carriers in almost every late game PvZ situation. I don't know what you can accomplish with carriers that you can't with void rays, but I do know that corruptors counter carriers but not so much void rays. For all the success you've had with carriers, if you had gone void rays instead you probably would have had even more success.
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thanks for the answer, just to clarify one point i didn't mean that void rays were totally obsolete only that lack of the speed upgrade means the multi purpose role plexa suggested in the first post would be far less viable as end game strategy.
The other point i could clarify about the carriers is although you are absolutely right about the corrupters i have personally found carriers more useful against hydras. In the specific cases where i have found the carriers to work i've hidden them until i have 4 or 5 not allowing corrupters to be made until after the carriers have already done their damage.
Also i've only ever made phoenix out of two stargates against zerg. I'm not sure why but i never thought the simultaneous robo + stargate would work and i don't think i've seen that in a match i've watched. i'll have to try that, my collosus have often come out far too late, hence why i do rather poorly in this matchup.
I guess you're right in that DTs are DTs and don't really require much further analysis matchup specifically but i've often found zergs worse at getting decent detection. more than likely this is a reflection of the quality of the opponents i'm facing though.
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On December 10 2010 01:03 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2010 15:59 chocoed wrote:On December 04 2010 10:41 Lobotomist wrote:2 Stargate VoidRay, however, is the future of PvZ late game in my humble opinion I knew it! I pretty much win every time I get hive on 3 bases up against a Protoss, as none of them EVER switch to void rays. The other day, as I rolled a Toss with with ultra/ling, I was thinking, "Man, if he had some void rays I would be totally screwed" Can't wait to start dealing with that tech switch...not. Yeah this is so true. Plexa made a damn good prediction on the future of PvZ. Voidrays are amazing late game, and with the upcoming damage buff to massive, it'll hurt Zerg even more. I never would've thought of picking up a mothership until I read Plexa's suggestion, and boy did it save me the game. Came out just when my zerg opponent tries to bum rush me with ultralisks / lings but he had no overseer! Furthermore, at that point already, he was so gas starved he couldn't make enough anti-air and I rolled him over. From now on I'll always produce a mothership late game in PvZ. Just too good. Void rays are insanely awesome in late game. The trick is realizing that while voids aren't particularly cost-efficient, they're extremely supply-efficient. Void rays cost 250/150 (400 total resources) and 3 supply. That's 133 resources per supply. By comparison, a zealot is 50 reources per supply. Void rays have the highest cost per supply ratio in the Protoss arsenal, and I believe their ratio might also be the highest of any unit in the game. That means a maxed army with void rays can be much more expensive than maxed armies with other compositions. Consider a maxed army of hydra/roach against a maxed army of void/collosus. Assuming 70 workers for both sides, the maxed hydra/roach army will have a value of about 8,000 resources while the void/collosus army will be around 13,000 resources. In the late game, resource cost is less important. It's all about supply efficiency, making the void ray king.
I like how Plexa pointed how stalkers start to become weaker and more inefficient as time goes on. People see then as a core unit but I don't, I always look for ways to avoid making stalkers as I go further into the late game. And with VR's is due to their fast attack speed (less dps lost from overkill) and being an air unit (so they don't have to fight for space in a concave), along with scaling incredibly well with upgrades, makes them a stalker replacement in your late game army. There is no reason to have mass stalkers in your late game army unless you are really incorporting blink play.
It's the same reason why I'm a big advocate of going phoenix instead of stalkers for AA whenever possible (though it is sometimes just not feasible to use phoenix e.g. as a reaction to mutas).
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I've always been interested whether the way attack upgrades work for stalkers is intentional or accidental. presumably it must be the former since its never been corrected but there must be some thought behind it and i've never understood quite what that would be.
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The advice in this post is extremely solid but i'm struggling a bit with the mid-game part.
Your goal during the midgame is to keep his expansions in check while securing your third and fourth and keeping up (if not leading) in upgrades. If you are able to do this you will avoid being overrun by wave upon wave of maxed Zerg armies. Yay.
Does this just mean that in general you should be fairly passive and continuing to expand to stay equal on bases with zerg, and only attacking if you see a huge opportunity or if zerg gets too greedy with expansions?
I've lost a lot of games by moving out to try and pressure zerg's third (while i'm on 2 bases ) only to get steamrolled by a ton of hydras, or have a gang of mutas come have their way with my probes.
Any advice on that particular point would be great. Thanks!
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On December 22 2010 00:43 Nasdrova wrote:The advice in this post is extremely solid but i'm struggling a bit with the mid-game part. Show nested quote +Your goal during the midgame is to keep his expansions in check while securing your third and fourth and keeping up (if not leading) in upgrades. If you are able to do this you will avoid being overrun by wave upon wave of maxed Zerg armies. Yay. Does this just mean that in general you should be fairly passive and continuing to expand to stay equal on bases with zerg, and only attacking if you see a huge opportunity or if zerg gets too greedy with expansions? I've lost a lot of games by moving out to try and pressure zerg's third (while i'm on 2 bases ) only to get steamrolled by a ton of hydras, or have a gang of mutas come have their way with my probes. Any advice on that particular point would be great. Thanks!
This sounds about right. A good roach/hydra zerg will generally be anywhere from 20-40 supply ahead of you in the midgame. Unless you went for a 2 base all in build (such as 6 gates with probe cut), you won't be able to do much damage to all but the greediest zergs.
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Dono if this has been covered quite yet, but I noticed Plexa saying that a 3 gate expo = lose to a competent zerg, then I see a lot of pro protoss doing 3 gate expo vs zerg with 6 sentries, and a few stalkers and zealots (nony style).
From what I understand 3 gate expo is standard against zerg (depending on map of course)
Is it because the protoss player that goes 3 gate expo is pushing out to either apply or feint pressure against the zerg so they arent droning up? Because in early game its either expo or pressure am I right?
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On December 22 2010 04:19 Roblicious wrote: Dono if this has been covered quite yet, but I noticed Plexa saying that a 3 gate expo = lose to a competent zerg, then I see a lot of pro protoss doing 3 gate expo vs zerg with 6 sentries, and a few stalkers and zealots (nony style).
From what I understand 3 gate expo is standard against zerg (depending on map of course)
Is it because the protoss player that goes 3 gate expo is pushing out to either apply or feint pressure against the zerg so they arent droning up? Because in early game its either expo or pressure am I right?
3-Gate expo still pressures once you get your 3 WGs up. If you don't stop mass droning and/or do some damage from this initial push you will be behind economically. How you transition from there varies depending on how your initial push went and what you saw in terms of tech and unit composition. For instance if you see mass lings and crawlers it is almost guaranteed mutaling, so most opt for a follow-up 6-Gate push around the 9 minute mark.
You pretty much have to do some form of early pressure vs a FE Zerg to not get behind economically unless you FE yourself (which is viable on certain maps).
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I've basically gotten hammered over and over again v. zerg unless I 4gate and win outright or do a boatload of damage. I'm about 2100 diamond, so not top top level, but not terrible either. I just find that I simply can not keep up. I feel like 3 gate pressure gets repelled too easily, and passive play is the road to losing.
If I make it to the mid game I will generally lose horribly to ling/muta, or I will win v. hydras if an only if I am able to get 2-3 colossi out early enough. I just feel so at the mercy of a zerg and totally unable to really dictate the direction the game goes unless its the first 5-7 minutes.
I have trouble with phoenix play because my APM is kind of low, this leads to either good phoenix control or good macro, but generally not both at the same time. Is this the key to the matchup, need I just be flat better at the game than I am to play solidly in PvZ right now?
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Does anyone have a replay of 3 gate expand? Particularly where they pressure with the 3 gates and then transition into a 5 or 6 gate push at the 9 minute mark?
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Dunno who bumped this up but .. hey it's PvZ day today on Gisado's GOMtv matchup tournament! And I sure hope it's not a 1 player all kill like yesterday.
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bump for this awesome post
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After reading the OP (btw this is a great post), I have a question.
The mid game describes 2 unit compositions: CSS for roach/hydra and ISS for muta/ling.
I understand that zealots fall very quickly to roach/hydra, but if u do go CSS, cant zerg quickly change to speedlings and decimate your CSS?? It sounds really hard to use effective FF to prevent the CSS army from dying. The same even for ISS, I cant imagine how ISS can hold off mass speedlings without very fast and effectively played FF. Can someone clarify this for me?
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Simple answer: Yes you need (very) fast and effectively played FF. What do you think are the sentries for?
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On January 06 2011 10:39 ABCSFirebird wrote:Simple answer: Yes you need (very) fast and effectively played FF. What do you think are the sentries for?
Woah, tat sounds so risky for someone with terrible micro like me =P
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You don't really need that fast force fields. Even if the speedlings get onto your units you can still force field in front (or on) your units and push the zerglings back.
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Legit. Thanks, I've been weak in PvZ matches. Very Informative, recommend to all who are having trouble with zerg.
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I'm really curious why you would want immortals in a composition vs ling muta. (Yes I get the roach switch thing, but it's ling-muta. Pretty much immortals' worst enemies.
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An excellent guide that covers most of what protoss need to know for the current PvZ metagame.
I'm bumping this because it should be front page for a very long time and I was surprised to find it so buried when I wanted to check some of the things out.
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United Kingdom35819 Posts
Even with the CSS composition, you're probably still gonna have a few zealots around just because of mineral dumping. Should help with the lings.
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With colossi stalker sentry you should be having 0 zealots really. Zealots hardly do a thing with that composition as they only work against your own forcefields and they simply die too fast to even do a thing. Without upgrades zealots are even worse and the CSS style of play shouldn't be focussing on upgrades imo so it saves gas. Upgrades do very little for stalkers and sentries anyway.
Gas economy is very important with CSS but if you do it well and DON"T lose your sentries too much you should be able to do without building a zealot at all. Key to this is carefully managing your economy (ie. make more stalkers instead of sentries if you need extra gas, occasionally make an immortal instead of a colossus etc.). Expanding in time to spend minerals is also key, rather get your 3rd a bit early then a bit late, CSS is really strong on defense so you should be able to get that 3rd quickly after your colo's get out.
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Personally, I think void rays are viable much earlier than lategame. I like to do a 3 gate sentry forge expand with 2 gas immediately, and go robo and stargate as soon as possible. According to what the observer scouts I build cannons, but other than that I start building the colossi/stalker/sentry/void ray death ball right away with upgrades. NOTHING can kill that, really. depending on Z army size I take my third between 100 and 150 supply, of course pressuring Z is necessary if he's solely powering.
For zerg it's ridiculously hard to deal with, say, 5-8 colossi and void rays each with gateway unit support. The main disadvantage of the build is that you can't punish a very early third or even fourth base by the zerg because of you hardcore teching.
BUT: (1) You simply cannot die. (2) You kill absolutely everything once you move out.
The (few) PvZs I've lost with this build were against zergs that macroed hard, i.e. expanded, upgraded, had a good unit mix and then engaged my when at 200/200, lost their army and rebuilt it, slowly decimating my army and taking advantage of the long col/VR building time. In such games it usually simply boils down to whoever is the better player.
Anyway, Col/VR immediately ftw.
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You guys know that scene in the Matrix where Neo learns Karate, well this guide is the Pvz floppy disk! thanks so much for the help!
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Awesome write up. I'll be reading this alot.
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To Byte and ODKStevez: Remember that this is from NOVEMBER of 2010. It's pretty outdated now, particularly the end-game section about speedrays (they don't exist anymore)
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Does anyone have replays for 3gate expand (not FFE on shakuras or tal darim)?
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With this post and the revival of Antimage's PvZ guide I think it's evident we are lacking in current PvZ guides. People seem to be actively looking for help in this matchup and coming up short.
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On June 15 2011 09:59 Perplex wrote: To Byte and ODKStevez: Remember that this is from NOVEMBER of 2010. It's pretty outdated now, particularly the end-game section about speedrays (they don't exist anymore)
Surprisingly (or not) most of this guide still holds. In particular, the 2 main compositions you want to get still are CSS or IST. IST is gaining in popularity with the quick council tech (blink is so useful even when threatened by infestors/fungal) and HTs helping a lot against infestor play which we're seeing more and more from zergs.
Even though speed rays don't exist anymore, void rays are still (imo) essential in the late game if you're going for the CSS composition. Without void rays it's just too difficult to combat corruptor/brood lord armies with just stalkers - stalkers have poor DPS and must struggle to kill corruptors before you lose all your colossus and the brood lords before you lose all your stalkers.
If you're going IST, then late game void rays are still ok, but the general preference is to just spend extra gas you can on additional HT and archons.
As far as early game, 15 nexus is still viable on every map in most tournament map pools. 1 gate expands are gaining in popularity as well, and although you can still always 3 gate FE, I personally think it's a horrible build.
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United Kingdom35819 Posts
Anihc - maybe it's written somewhere, but how do you defend your newly placed expansion against a large group of speedlings with 1 gate expo?
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On June 15 2011 12:50 Automata wrote: Does anyone have replays for 3gate expand (not FFE on shakuras or tal darim)?
These days, people have realized that 3 gate expand is a bad build (like RSVP above me said). It might be ok if the zerg is saccing econ to all-in or semi all-in you, but against any fast hatch and/or heavy droning builds you're ridiculously behind. I'm a huge advocate of forge expands. Very safe against all-ins assuming stargate follow-up. On maps with wide open naturals though (i.e. Xel Naga Caverns, Metalopolis, etc.) the current trend is to sentry expand off 1 gate.
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On June 15 2011 12:50 Automata wrote: Does anyone have replays for 3gate expand (not FFE on shakuras or tal darim)?
3-gate expand just isn't safe anymore. I'd suggest you take a look at MC and Naniwa's replays from MLG Columbus. You almost have to go void-ray expand (or vise versa) or DT expand (or vice versa)
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I like that you included how strong stalkers were against slow lings but I think you could elaborate on how to exploit that. Since if you get a stalker after your zealot against a guy who open speed lings you can pretty much only clear your tower before having to run home.
Perhaps you should specify when you can actually use your stalker(s) to harass. For example, you scout pool-hatch or hatch first. Note the timing of the extractor- you have 3 minutes and several seconds before speed is done from the time it begins construction. You can either just go stalker after the first zealot to harass with a single stalker or do this old build that I've been revisiting lately-
9py 14gate 15gas 16py 17gate (cut a probe) 17core
2 stalkers, cb'd, start wg
pylon expansion 2nd gas forge gate cannon
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On June 16 2011 00:09 sjschmidt93 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 15 2011 12:50 Automata wrote: Does anyone have replays for 3gate expand (not FFE on shakuras or tal darim)? 3-gate expand just isn't safe anymore. I'd suggest you take a look at MC and Naniwa's replays from MLG Columbus. You almost have to go void-ray expand (or vise versa) or DT expand (or vice versa)
you can make it safe. MC also did this 1 gate, 2gas sentry expo --> 3 gates where he chronoboosts out sentries from the one gateway before putting down the nexus. Gates #2/3 are built at the appropriate time for the (now-later) warpgate tech research. I think there is only 1 or 2 chronos on the warpgate research.
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