• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 11:43
CEST 17:43
KST 00:43
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Serral wins HomeStory Cup 2914Serral wins Maestros of the Game 243ByuL, and the Limitations of Standard Play3Team Liquid Map Contest #22: Results and Winners7Code S Season 2 (2026): RO4 and Finals Preview12
Community News
Neeb returns to progaming; rejoins ONSYDE12Weekly Cups (July 20-26): Early returns on 5.0.16b8IntoTheTV X SOOP SC2 League : Weekly & Monthly4Clem: "I don't have that much hope in Blizzard"9ZeroSpace Early Access is Now Live!42
StarCraft 2
General
Clem: "I don't have that much hope in Blizzard" Neeb returns to progaming; rejoins ONSYDE Weekly Cups (July 20-26): Early returns on 5.0.16b Balance hotfix patch 5.0.16b (July 16) Terran or Protoss
Tourneys
RSL Revival: Season 6 - Qualifiers and Main Event PIG STY FESTIVAL 8.0! (13 - 23 August) Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament IntoTheTV X SOOP SC2 League : Weekly & Monthly INu's Battles#18 - Cure, herO, Rogue & ByuN
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
Nexus Wars 2021 GUIDE [M] (2) Industrial Park
External Content
Mutation # 536 Railroad Switch The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 535 Assembly of Vengeance Mutation # 534 Burning Evacuation
Brood War
General
Making an Online Broodwar Manager Game BW General Discussion ASL22 General Discussion screpdb: new Starcraft reporting tool ASL 22 Proposed Map Pool
Tourneys
2v2v2v2 Tournament [Megathread] Daily Proleagues Star Con San Diego 2026 Escore Tournament - Season 3
Strategy
Fighting Spirit mining rates Odyssey Mineral Stack Saturation Simple Questions, Simple Answers PvT advise for noobs
Other Games
General Games
Path of Exile ZeroSpace Early Access is Now Live! Nintendo Switch Thread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread General RTS Discussion Thread
Dota 2
Looking for a Dota Mentor Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
TSM pausing esports and CLG Dead
Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Power Rank TL Mafia Community Thread NeO.D_StephenKing vs This Guy From 1 Million Dance
Community
General
Russo-Ukrainian War Thread US Politics Mega-thread Artificial Intelligence Thread European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread How to buy a book - shipping from Korea to Europe
Fan Clubs
The IdrA Fan Club The HerO Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
Anime Discussion Thread Movie Discussion! Series you have seen recently... [Req][Books] Good Fantasy/SciFi books
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread 2026-27 Football Thread placeholder TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 Formula 1 Discussion MLB/Baseball 2023
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread Simple Questions Simple Answers FPS when play League Of Legend on laptop
TL Community
Northern Ireland Global Starcraft The Automated Ban List
Blogs
Games, Hormones, and "Dark" …
TrAiDoS
Hello guys!
LIN1s
ASL S22 English Commentary…
namkraft
Poker (part 2)
Nebuchad
An Exploration of th…
waywardstrategy
ramps on octagon
StaticNine
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 17608 users

The role of harrassment in PvZ

Blogs > Felo
Post a Reply
Felo
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Germany392 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-06-05 13:37:37
June 05 2011 13:35 GMT
#1
Disclaimer: 1,1k ML Protoss

This is just something quick and dirty that I posted in a thread that got closed. I liked how it turned out so I decided to conserve it for later usage. Enjoy!


In that Match-Up Protoss isn't in the role of "My Hellions kill 1/3 of your drones". Instead we're trying to achieve something along the line of "I'll scare you so much that you won't even have 1/3 of the drones you'd like to have".

To do that we utilize certain strategies:

0. The Generel Idea of moving out

Biggest fear in the Protoss mind in PvZ is "Oh my god, if I leave my base I get swarmed to death". Well, you are either doing a.) a Stargate opening (Which will make you know whats going on, so you don't have to worry) b.) a DT opening (refer to a.)) or you are going for a sentry heavy expansion.

And in that last case a lot of players are scared to lose their sentries, but actually thats not neccessary. With the FFs from 6+ Sentries you are able to close off your path on nearly any map to make for a safe retreat. So whenever you encounter a zerg army thats too much to handle then just throw down a couple of FFs and retreat. This should give you much more security in moving out of your base and this is really important for whats coming.

1. Deny Map Control

Regularly the Zerg tries to get a good read on what you're doing with spreaded units and Xel'Naga-Towers. Some Zerglings will wait in front of your choke, an Overlord sitts over your third and he's devoted to get the Xel'Naga-Tower. Clear those out! Always dart at least a little bit out of your base, try to clean up every spotter you can find and go to the Xel'Naga-Towers regularly (If the Zerg tries to ambush you then refer to 0.).

What you are doing with this is you're denying the Zerg knowledge - and he needs this knowledge to judge when and how much units he needs to get to be safe from your attacks.

2. Clear out creep


As soon as you get your first Observer it is neccessary that you start to push back the Zergs creep. Try to kill as many of the tumors as possible - I regularly use three stalkers for that with the Observer slightly ahead of those so I can retreat with them quick enough to my army that should be at a utilizable choke (e.g. at Xel'Naga Caverns I leave my army behind the rocks of my gold expansion while my Stalkers clean out the Tumors around the Towers).

3. Fake pushing

Whenever you go to clean out Xel'Naga Towers you can dart in the general direction of the Zerg, utilizing your FFs to get away if he tries to overwhelm you, from time to time it can be a good idea to let the Zerg have a Tower just to let him see how you march in his generel direction (The effect of this gets multiplied when you bring a probe along and slap down a proxy pylon in front of his base).

4. Any Harrassment that your build offers

Phoenix, DT, Blinkstalker, Immortaldrops, you name it. Whatever your build offers you to play around with can be used


*****
EU GML P | Check my Stream (with commentary!) -> www.twitch.tv/xFelo
eTcetRa
Profile Joined November 2010
Australia822 Posts
June 05 2011 15:19 GMT
#2
Very good write-up on the role of harassment in PvZ, it certainly helped me today.

Previously my PvZ win ratio would be about 20-25% compared to my PvT of 80-85%, and nearly as good PvP, and i was stuck in the mindset which you mentioned in point zero. And now i won half my PvZ (ladder games my zerg friend still wrecks me).

Thanks again!
Retired Mapmaker™
Chef
Profile Blog Joined August 2005
10810 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-06-05 15:30:22
June 05 2011 15:29 GMT
#3
That's just a list of a few things you can do (some of which aren't even harassment). It doesn't really talk about the role of harassment. Role of harassment is generally to attack your opponent's concentration, disrupt his game-flow, and overall make the game more interesting.

Think about the word "harassment." It actually means what it means for StarCraft and for the real world. You are trying to be as annoying as possible.
LEGEND!! LEGEND!!
Felo
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Germany392 Posts
June 05 2011 15:57 GMT
#4
Hello Chef,

I guess "Ways of Harrasment" would have been a better title but I always sucked at finding good and descriptive titles ^^

As you said Harrassment is utilized to get the Zerg away from what hes planning to do - that is getting up the strongest possible economy at point X (which is the last moment where he's not threatened) to pump out enough units to hold your push at point Y (Which is when your units arrive at his base).

Harrasing from the Protoss PoV always tries to mess with the timing of X and Y and thus hurting the game plan and the economical plans of the Zerg - instead of going to kill something specific in the Zerg base or instead of diverting away the Zergs army you are trying to cut into his production capabilities to prevent those threats from showing up.

And in that sense everything that gets the Zerg away from doing "his thing" is harrassment in my book.

(Of course all of this is tailored to early game, in the mid- or even lategame a new spectrum of possibilites arises as implied in point 4.)

@Holiver - Thank you, keep up the good work
EU GML P | Check my Stream (with commentary!) -> www.twitch.tv/xFelo
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
OSC
13:00
King of the Hill #257
WardiTV678
EmpressLilyy27
Liquipedia
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
ByuN 521
ProTech73
StarCraft: Brood War
Britney 42430
Calm 7201
EffOrt 1229
Soma 558
Shuttle 411
Soulkey 357
Snow 297
BeSt 279
Rush 210
hero 115
[ Show more ]
ggaemo 78
Hyun 78
Killer 77
Sharp 77
Sea.KH 61
Mind 51
JYJ 47
ToSsGirL 44
scan(afreeca) 33
Sexy 32
Shine 31
HiyA 29
Terrorterran 21
zelot 10
IntoTheRainbow 9
Dewaltoss 2
Mong 1
Dota 2
Gorgc9547
qojqva794
Dendi754
League of Legends
Trikslyr26
Counter-Strike
fl0m3908
x6flipin474
Other Games
FrodaN2480
singsing1642
hiko851
B2W.Neo734
Mlord560
DeMusliM284
uThermal201
ToD195
crisheroes148
QueenE67
BananaSlamJamma57
XaKoH 49
Organizations
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
StarCraft 2
TaKeTV 0
[ Show 13 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• C_a_k_e 3085
• WagamamaTV496
League of Legends
• Nemesis2278
Upcoming Events
Patches Events
1h 18m
Reynor vs Solar
ByuN vs TBD
OSC
1h 48m
Replay Cast
8h 18m
Escore
18h 18m
CrankTV Team League
19h 18m
OSC
1d 6h
Replay Cast
1d 8h
Afreeca Starleague
1d 12h
RSL Revival
1d 17h
ByuN vs SHIN
Solar vs Lambo
WardiTV Summer Champion…
1d 19h
[ Show More ]
Afreeca Starleague
2 days
RSL Revival
2 days
Clem vs Serral
herO vs Rogue
WardiTV Summer Champion…
2 days
WardiTV Weekly
3 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
4 days
PiGosaur Cup
5 days
Replay Cast
5 days
Kung Fu Cup
5 days
Replay Cast
6 days
The PondCast
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2026-07-29
SCTL 2026 Spring
Eternal Conflict S2 Finale

Ongoing

CSL 2026 Summer (S21)
KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3
RSL Revival: Season 6
CranK Gathers Season 4: BW vs SC2 Team League
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 2
CS Asia Championships 2026
Asian Champions League 2026
IEM Atlanta 2026
PGL Astana 2026

Upcoming

Escore Tournament S3: W5
ASL Season 22: Qualifier #1
ASL Season 22: Qualifier #2
Acropolis #5
Escore Tournament S3: W6
Escore Tournament S3: W7
Escore Tournament S3: W8
HSC XXX
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
PiG Sty Festival 8.0
Light Tournament 2026
ESL Pro League Season 24
Stake Ranked Episode 4
Logitech G Connect 2026
SL StarSeries Fall 2026
FISSURE Playground #5
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.