• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 16:39
CEST 22:39
KST 05:39
  • 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
[ASL22] Ro24 Preview: Siren's Call8[ASL22] Ro24 Preview: Summer's End9Serral wins HomeStory Cup 2915Serral wins Maestros of the Game 244ByuL, and the Limitations of Standard Play3
Community News
New 3v3 BGH Ladder (and more) on ShieldBattery!30Weekly Cups (August 17-23): Zerg dominate the week5Weekly Cups (August 10-16): SHIN doubles2GSTL Returns in 2026!45Weekly Cups (Aug 3-9): Protoss get shut out7
StarCraft 2
General
SC4ALL II: SC2 Player Announcement 6/8 - Maru SC2 best pvp 2026 game hypothesis Balance hotfix patch 5.0.16b (July 16) Weekly Cups (August 17-23): Zerg dominate the week Starcraft2 player guess game is Coming~!
Tourneys
Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament 2026 GSTL Announcement IntoTheTV X SOOP SC2 League : Weekly & Monthly PIG STY FESTIVAL 8.0! (13 - 23 August) WORTEX 2026 - Hungarian SC2 Finals Budapest
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
Nexus Wars 2021 GUIDE [M] (2) Industrial Park
External Content
Mutation # 540 Dodge This The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 539 Thunder Dome Mutation # 538 Media Blackout
Brood War
General
New 3v3 BGH Ladder (and more) on ShieldBattery! BW General Discussion [ASL22] Ro24 Preview: Siren's Call Farewell Beloved Starcraft (Youtube Videos) BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/
Tourneys
[ASL22] Ro24 Group F Escore Tournament - Season 3 KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3 [ASL22] Ro24 Group E
Strategy
Game Theory for Starcraft Replay Review Process - What do you do? Odyssey Mineral Stack Saturation Fighting Spirit mining rates
Other Games
General Games
Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Nintendo Switch Thread General RTS Discussion Thread Anyone here play Quakeworld back in the day? EVE Corporation
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
[TL LoL EUW IHs] Teemo shall perish 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
Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine US Politics Mega-thread Canadian Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Dating: How's your luck?
Fan Clubs
MarineLorD Fan Club The Creator Fan Club The ShoWTimE Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Movie Discussion! Anime Discussion Thread
Sports
Football (Soccer) Thread TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 MLB/Baseball 2023 NBA General Discussion
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List Northern Ireland Global Starcraft
Blogs
Violent Games and Crime Rate…
TrAiDoS
LOCKPICKING NOOB
LUCKY_NOOB
Cathedral Of CS And NY pizza a…
FuDDx
Please support my new stand…
Peanutsc
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 5836 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
Next event in 3h 21m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
EnDerr 37
JuggernautJason21
StarCraft: Brood War
Britney 14849
Calm 2745
Dewaltoss 84
910 35
Sexy 22
Dota 2
Pyrionflax119
Counter-Strike
fl0m1811
shoxiejesuss380
Heroes of the Storm
Liquid`Hasu350
Other Games
Grubby1705
Liquid`RaSZi1159
FrodaN396
RotterdaM58
Mew2King44
Hui .41
ArmadaUGS39
XaKoH 14
ViBE2
[ Show 12 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• Migwel
StarCraft: Brood War
• Pr0nogo 1
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• WagamamaTV344
Other Games
• imaqtpie729
• Shiphtur418
Upcoming Events
Replay Cast
3h 21m
Escore
13h 21m
IntoTheTV X SOOP
14h 21m
RotterdaM Event
19h 51m
Korean StarCraft League
1d 5h
GSL
1d 14h
Replay Cast
2 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
2 days
WardiTV Weekly
2 days
Afreeca Starleague
3 days
[ Show More ]
GSL
4 days
PiGosaur Cup
5 days
Replay Cast
6 days
The PondCast
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

CSL Season 22: Qualifier 1
PiG Sty Festival 8.0
META DYMY #4

Ongoing

KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3
K-JUNGMAN
ASL Season 22
Super Anchor Qualifying S3
CSL Season 22: Qualifier 2
RSL Revival: Season 6
Light Tournament 2026
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
Esports World Cup 2026: LCQ
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026

Upcoming

BSL 2026 LAN: Kraków
CSL 2026 AUTUMN (S22)
Acropolis #5
Acropolis #5 - TRS
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
Acropolis #5 - GSA
Acropolis #5 - GSB
HSC XXX
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
RSL Offline Finals
Calamity Invitational
Big Dog Cup 2026 Div 1
IEM Beijing 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 5
PGL Masters Bucharest 2026
Thunderpick World Champ. '26
ESL Pro League Season 24
Stake Ranked Episode 4
1win Private Club #1
Logitech G Play Connect 2026
SL StarSeries Fall 2026
FISSURE Playground #3
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.