EPTI am strongly in favour of a well-regulated forum. I detest forum clutter. I PM people who make stupid posts that contribute nothing. I hate arguments within a thread about the validity of the thread. If you don't like the thread, don't post in it. It's popularity speaks for itself. If the mods don't like it, they'll eradicate it.
I try to lead by example and contribute in the face of this noisome bickering. The policy is to ignore ignoramuses, right? The light will shine past. Anyway, I think archons in PvZ is an interesting topic and I went to some effort to relay what I know about it for those less worldly than I. I don't consider my personal opinion worthy of a new strategy thread, so I am inaugurating my blog on TL out of utility. Feel free to treat this as a second class strategy thread, vis a vis post stupid shit and argue off topic.
The OP focused on combating mass ling/bane in early-mid PvZ.
Verbatim copy paste below.
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I don't understand the first page of this thread at all. Moving on, I also don't understand the posters who say archons aren't good verse other zerg compositions. Have they extensively tested archons in PvZ in various situations?? The blanket conclusion of "ranged > melee" is sophomoric, and it's also wrong in this case, and it's also technically incorrect, because archons have longer range than melee allowing you to shoot over zealots in front.
Now, I don't have a ton of experience with archons in PvZ because it's not something you can commit to early unless the situation specifically calls for it. Unless the game goes long, it's not something I incorporate very much. But I want to share my experience using archons for others to build off it if they like.
Against early zergling/baneling, it's an incredibley strong choice. Obviously archons alone are good against those units, but more importantly your composition and tech path are well suited to how the game develops from there, as long as you have a good command of game sense and keep track of the information you're getting.
+ Show Spoiler [Typical early game] +
Like any PvZ, you need to apply pressure (sometimes you don't commit to the attack, just move out and pull back), preferably asap after your 3gate expo. The following is typical of my games: I move out with a minimum of sentry/zealot/stalker while my simcity goes up at home. Once I'm on their creep, I see mass lings and banelings, possibly requiring some self-surround forcefield, buying enough time to get home while they hatch another wave. Get to DT shrine. Make DTs to harass and set up your 3rd with cannons, put the nexus down if you have the minerals. Try to avoid sacrificing the DTs, aka pull them out if you see a seer hatching or just come home if he has spores. Get about 3-4 archons and attack. This usually breaks them if they're still on purely ling/bane, letting you kill their 3rd while maintaining much of your army and wiping out much of theirs. You can win a short or long game from here depending on their style and yours. Against better players you might have to go home and transition to additional tech.
+ Show Spoiler [How your army works] +
Once you have a few archons with your gateway mix, your staying power (especially with some pylon support) is manifold. The worst part about banelings is that your zealots get melted leaving your anemic stalker count easy pickings for their lings. Archons either absorb all the banelings, or they're left standing to tank the lings and dish out juicy splash damage. Their damage is highly synergistic with all your gateway units because you can't target fire, but they provide such good oomph for taking out batches of lings with small increments of damage on top of splash.
Tactically, you don't have to be cowed by a wave of ling/bane and have impeccable forcefields. If you're on top of your micro, you can punish them really hard with a FF-split because the archons will tank the banes, whereas before that would be an even trade against just half their army. You can also just a-move if you think better macro can push you ahead, because archons will always last long enough to give you a good army trade, and they are efficiently replaced by warping forward DTs. Really you combine with whatever gateways units you want because any of them are so much more effective with archon support. If you can spare the attention and the units, pull back your low archons and take them out of the hotkey. Just put them at your pylon or a watchtower to heal up. If you can get to a silly number like 8, you should just win because they do amazing overlap damage, and they annihilate spines. In any number, you should use them like mobile forcefields to shape the fight and prevent banelings from getting in where you don't want them.
+ Show Spoiler [Come at me bro] +
Subsection dedicated to attack formations:
Ideally, I like to have my stalkers and sentries in the back, with the sentries spread out so they can't be killed by a baneling clump in one go. Half my zealots in front of that, then archons, then the other zealots leading the charge. This will soak up initial banelings, and then the reserve zealots will prevent the archons from being surrounded. You can use forcefields anyway. Hopefully you start the fight in the lead, and use forcefields to cut off or cup their lings so they can't retreat and regroup. If you can get a good amount of these free kills, you should be able to stomp subsequently.
If you get charge up, just a-move with the archons in front. The zealots will trickle in randomly from the back, minimizing group losses to banelings.
If you get blink first, a-move leading with stalkers. They'll waste their banes on them first. If they hold back on the banelings, you can forcefield calmly to lock them out from the back. This is an awesome formation because you get the power of stalker range at the forefront, poking and maneuvring, then just blink behind your guys.
If you have both charge and blink, anything goes. I like to have half my zealots behind or too the side, then charge them in from a flank. If the fight goes poorly this provides an alternate wall of guys to blink behind / combine with forcefields.
+ Show Spoiler [Transitions and other tech] +
First, just note that you have a fundamental flexibility and strategic element by virtue of DT / archon production. You threaten them with a superior army composition and you also have devastating harass at your disposal, which will be valuable for the rest of the game. If you want to, you can play very tactically / micro-oriented and get tons of value out of this.
Anyway, if you aren't substantially ahead after 12-15 minutes as described above, you need to account for what their next tech will be. If they incorporate roaches, you should be fine for a while with just forcefield traps to abuse good archon damage. Eventually you should have obs regardless, so mass roach shouldn't be a problem by adding in immortals, which are incidentally nice to have againt banelings anyway. (At times I've had nearly pure archon/immo, which is a special level of power and hilarity.)
If they get roach/hydra (with possible ling/bane component) up and running, you can do okay if you pick your terrain and position yourself well. Obviously it's way easier with colo, which you can easily incorporate over time if you make sure to preserve your army. Alternatively, you can get HT and combine them with some immortals, which is a style in its own right. This is a meaty composition that relies on good storms to turn the tide against hydras; this style can go the other direction too by starting robo and adding HT and then archons.
I always worry about mass muta after a protracted period of ling/bane, so I tend to favor HT. Archons are nuts here too, obviously.
Whatever you add, you basically outgun the zerg as long as you control how the fight happens. If you minimize your losses you start to look invincible as the game progresses.
Lastly, make sure you are chrono'ing your attack upgrades. You get "insanity damage" out of +3 archons. This is one of the keys to giving you enough power in your early game composition to transition comfortably. If you notice you have a huge upgrades lead, you can even just mass gateway units with council upgrades.
The above recommendations shouldn't be read as a guide. It's a presentation of what has worked for me in my PvZ where archons were prominently featured. I would estimate I have < 30 games, so it's not meant to be the answer, but I think you'll find it helpful if you don't have any experience of your own.
I can summarize it like this: if you ever feel fragility as a protoss, that's a horrible feeling in PvZ. Archons are essentially a tonic that removes that feeling. They are not an insignificant investment, but if you manage it well they give you a measure of fortitude you can't really have outside of an endgame deathball.
+ Show Spoiler [Bonus anecdote] +
If you get the chance, I highly recommend going carriers, just for the rush. I have had a couple really long games on Shattered Temple where we split the map but I didn't want to try to kill him because he can remake off his bank faster than me, even though I had a better economy. I added carriers as my supply dipped under 200 during harass and attack defense. Note: carriers suck at cleaning up ling/ultra. Gotta warp in zealots for that shit. He wiped out my colo/gateway ball with a huge bane drop ultra ling infestor attack, which succeeded in part because I had 30 supply in constructing carriers. Once he realized what was up, he went mass hydra. I had epic mineral surplus so I dumped into outrageous amounts of chargelots, and the hydras weren't really that effective, but it was wasting my zealots while I got better carrier numbers. A wave of mass corrupters killed a lot of my fleet, so I added the magic ingredient: archonuuu. Have you seen what air units do when they target fire? They clump. I had 3 archons. Usually corrupters evaporate carriers, but it took about 15 seconds for as many corrupters to die. Dump your minerals into chargelots to tie up hydras, who get eaten by carrier DPS. Use your archons vs corrupters like stalkers vs vikings in PvT. It's pretty good. Just watch out for neural parasite. =)
I have no idea about shield upgrades, I never get them. Theoretically I guess it could be worth it verse exclusively ling/bane, or ling/bane/muta, because it gets you 20% damage reduction vs lings, or 17% verse +1 lings, and armor/shields is not bad vs muta. However, not only is it quite expensive (so it's hard to start it early like +1 attack), but you can't stack them as well for the same reason. Level 3 is 900/900 total spent. But level 1 might be worth it as a tempo play. You could synergize well with mass blink stalkers (blink when shields gone), but thats about it. Attack upgrades always help, and make your colossus way better.
