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PvZ, a concept that is considered somewhat unbalanced, is very hard for any beginning novice to learn or any mediocre player to master. Although I disagree with the PvZ imbalance, I would like to put out some words of advice.
PvZ takes intuition, experience, and a knack for aggressive play. This isn't something you learn from watching replays, it is something you gain from playing the game. With this in mind, I thought that I would start a forum topic that would help people become more familiar with the PvZ matchup. Although I had just stated that PvZ is learned through countless hours of experience, I remember a time, approx 2 years ago, when 강민.. or Nal_Ra literally taught me the timings of lurkers, mutalisks, and basically how to counter builds (including builds such as 4 hatch-hydra). I'd like to pass down this knowledge with experiences of my own.
Note: From this point on, this guide will be a long read… For most good players this post may seem like common sense, but you’d be surprised how many people do not know the basics of pvz.
PvZ is the most feared match-up for most, if not all, protoss players. Before I enter the more complicated parts of this post, I’d like to mention the importance of being calm and confident. After learning the basics of PvZ, the second most important concept is learning to stay calm. If you are facing a zerg player and are frantically worrying about “What build is he going to use next?” “He just has mass hydras, but what happens if he switches to lurker/hydra build?” “Protoss is so imbalanced in this matchup, how am I going to win?”, most likely you will be staying inside your base scared of all of his different tech builds. Doing this will only allow the zerg to obtain uncontested map control, rather, play more aggressively trying your best to take any advantage, whether this is a surprise dark templar attack on expos, or frequent high templar drops, protoss should do everything possible to take the momentum. The worst thing to do in PvZ is to actually believe that PvZ is imbalanced. This will only lower your confidence. The trick I use when playing against a zerg is that I tell myself that ZvP is imbalanced in favor of the protoss. Confidence to push out, contest expos, and the ability to stay calm enough to act intelligently rather than frantically is the key to any PvZ, no rather, to anything in life.
__Taking Expansions__
A common mistake made by protoss is that they believe that an early/mid game expo should be taken while playing defensively. “Keep your units near your expo so that even if he tries to attack it, I will protect it” that is the mindset of many protoss players. If a protoss player tries to stay inside his base securing his expo, a good zerg with match your expo, with one or more of his own and have the time to sufficiently gain an advantage. Instead, when taking an expo, use your force not to defend, but to attack or harass. This does not mean that you mindlessly send out your units into the 5 sunken colonies + unit defense that the zerg has created. Rather, either harass his force or attack a newly created expansion, this forces the zerg to play defensively, while giving you the time to create your expansion fortified with 4-5 cannons and a couple high templars. The attack force works as a distraction in which the zerg will focus on your attack, giving you plenty of time to complete your nexus. This attack, if lucky may even allow you to attack unprotected hatcheries and drones. This attack working in conjunction with your expansion provides the needed distraction and may even give you an early-mid-game advantage as you inflict mediocre damage to zerg economy and unit count.
.__Guessing Zerg Tech/Build__
Many players often wonder, why is it that protoss professionals can almost guess the tech build of the zerg opponent. Rather, a zerg’s actions are a very strong telltale sign of their build. Although some guessing is still involved, proper scouting provides sufficient information to almost guess the zerg’s build. This is done through either probe or corsair. However, a good zerg is good when he forces the protoss to eventually guess the build that he is planning to use.
Questions to ask:
How many hatcheries does zerg have?
When is he getting his gas?
What tech is he going? Hydra den up? Evolution chamber?
How many drones?
Of course, this requires good probe micro. If you are going to go early 1 sair stargate, keep probe alive until the sair is built.
Scenarios…
Zerg is dangerous from early game all the way to the end game. The most overlooked scouting principle is looking at the number of drones. Make sure that you see the general count of drones, if you see that the zerg is investing money on early drone, it means that that money is not going into unit production. If you see that the zerg has a low drone count, it means that they are using that money for early unit production, meaning you should watch out for any early game rush.
If a zerg is going two hatcheries, with early gas up aiming for early lair, you should check to see if a den is around. *If however, your probe dies before you are able to see the den or spire, prepare for both for it is certain that he is going to tech. In the zerg viewpoint, he is sacrificing an economy for early tech. If a protoss can block the initial attack, he will be in a great advantage.
A zerg going 3 hatcheries, this is the most common zerg build that is seen today. However, this means that a zerg will have a later tech than a 2 hatchery build. Simply put, you are given the chance to prepare later for mutas or lurkers. However, putting your guard down is a very bad idea…the three hatch build may delay earlier tech, but it provides that delayed tech in large numbers while also having a strong economy that will lead to a solid mid-game. Seeing a three hatchery with gas and lair points to a tech, but if you see hatcheries with later gas without lair, make sure that you are prepared for a hydra only build.
These are some examples of a number of scenarios. There are a large number of things to look for within a zerg, although it would become a long list when trying to explain each and every one. Even so, it is still very difficult to guess PvZ builds. This, in my opinion, is the reason why many people state that PvZ is unbalanced. The majority of games will force the protoss to prepare for both muta, lurk, and even hydralisks. This becomes quite tiresome, but a protoss who successfully guesses and defends against the build that zerg uses, will have the momentum to either prepare for midgame with an expansion, counter the expansions of zerg, or if the situation calls for it, to counter the zerg main itself.
__Countering Zerg Tech__
The Zerg Tech consists a focus on either Mutalisks, Lurkers, Cracklings (into the feared Ultra/ling), and Hydralisks.
These tactics are used by a large number of pros and are specific to their ZvP style.
Countering Mutalisks—
If you find that the zerg is teching into a spire, a protoss has a number of choices. Assuming that you are attempting a build other than a reaver/sair build, an archon with the help of 1-3 cannons at main and expo, should take care of a mutalisk harass. If he continues to increase his mutalisk numbers, increase your archon numbers as well as the number of templars. Otherwise, you should be in a good situation, if you have successfully countered the mutas without much damage to your economy.
Countering Lurkers—
The countering of Lurkers has been a controversial topic. When I notice that zerg is going into a fast lurker build, I build a robotics facilities as soon as I possibly can (Edit: Yes, normally after a templar archives). If you were unable to stop the initial lurker attack, I spend some time investing into a good combination of zeal/goon/templar. This is in hopes of being able to break through the contain and having a large force. If your containment break has good timing, you are able to inflict sufficient damage as a zerg would be spending money on a tech to (usu.) to Ultra/ling rather than working in unit production.
My style of PvZ is very, very aggressive. When I build up a sufficient force, I do not stay in my base, rather, I push out early and put early pressure on zerg expansions, forcing the zerg to use their lurkers as defense rather than a containment. Even without an observer, small harassment to lurkers as you retreat and attack unburrowed lurkers, provides enough time for your observer to come and turn the momentum to your favor.
Countering Cracklings---
Cracklings are a telltale sign that the zerg is attemping to tech into a powerful and earlier 3-3 Ultraling. My personal counter for this build is a well rounded combination of zeal/archon/temp. Even so, it is very hard to micro against 100 psi worth of zerglings. Well placed stormed and good archon/zeal micro will allow you to succeed. Good upgrades on your part should allow you to efficiently counter the situation. This strategy to me, is like killing two birds with one stone as I am reducing ling numbers, harassing expos, while at the same time producing a well rounded number of archons in order to counter the Ultra/ling situation.
Countering Only Hydra—
Only Hydra is a very common situation and requires very good micro on the part of protoss. In this case, I enter a combination of zealots/temps and sometimes even adding a few goons or archons into the mix. The only suggestion to this is well placed storms, while also scouting to make sure that zerg expos are kept to a minimal level.
Countering the Infamous Ultra/Ling---
There are a lot of strategies that can be used against this deadly build… among these include
1) Dark Templar/Corsair—This strategy focuses on zerg’s inability to protect against air allowing you to pick off overlords by killing zerg psi and providing the freedom of using the darktemplar’s cloak
2) Zealot/Archon--- The most common strategy against the Ultra/ling situation. This strategy uses zealots as units to take hits from numerous for zerglings while the archons (and a few High templars) provide the artillery. This situation is a macro-based situation. Whoever wins these Ultra/ling vs Archon/Zealot battles will be able to momentarily hold map control giving about a minute of freedom to take out expos.
3) Archon/Dark Archon--- Although used in a number of famous pro-games, it has remained one of the least popular counters against the ultra/ling situation. Although I have used this strategy quite successfully numerous times, it is a very risky build. The reasoning behind this strategy is to use the Dark Archon’s Maelstorm ability to momentarily freeze parts of the zerg Ultra/ling force, while archons and a few templars take out the zerg army. This is very reliant on the ability to prepare for this build early and to have sufficient Dark archons with good mana count.
With this, I would like to conclude this topic… for my hands hurt from typing such a long post. I would like to ask the TL-net community to comment, and if possible, correct any mistakes or add onto the topics that are within the post. I hope this thread can be of help to a number of players ^^. Thanks for taking the time to read to this thread.
-BlueIris
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Wow, thank you very much
This should be put in the recommended strategy thread, it's Nal_ra's knowledge 
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Hahaha I love this line:
After learning the basics of PvZ, the second most important concept is learning to stay calm.
It makes it sound like protoss players are facing a disaster situation or something lol.
Great post. I don't even play PvZ but I read through it
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Not bad at all.
I overlook a lot of these points, nice to know the theory behind people's actions.
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the archon + cannons against mutas seems weird
the gas required for even one archon is just immense >_<
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On December 12 2006 18:24 Pressure wrote:
the archon + cannons against mutas seems weird
the gas required for even one archon is just immense >_<
Most protoss players attempt to an early tech into citadel of adun, into a templar archives. If you are already in this situation, one archon worth 100 minerals and 300 gas is a small exchange for protecting your probes from taking damage that may amount to 500+ minerals from dead probes. Archons also kill muta in 4-5 hits. Against zerg players that stack mutas, one hit from one archon amoounts to about 30 damage to a approximately 9 mutalisks. That is 270 damage from one strike. Some games, an archon may even kill 9 mutalisks due to a micro mistake.
Cannons also provide stationary defense against mutalisks giving your archons enough time to reach the mutalisks before any probe damage can be inflicted. A zerg usually invests about 900/900 minerals/gas on mutalisks, this is not counting the tech required to achieve a spire. 400 minerals and 300 gas (cannon + archon cost) is a cost efficient way to deal with the very valuable mutalisks.
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I think you need to specifiy situations, you can't say, when you expo, attack and harass instead of defending, the only times when zerg would expo is if they can protect it, either with lurkers or muta/ling. The only times when you could attack and expo is if zerg is down or you're sending in a zealot army while mutalisks are harassing your base, even then it would be risky. Most tosses don't have problems with what to do once mutas or lurkers are out, it's guessing and reacting that's hard. A lot of zergs will lay down both a den and spire and there's usually no way you can guess what he's going until you see a lurker egg or spire. Even then zerg can go lurker to muta which usually catches toss offguard.
It's also not a good idea to build a robo asap once you see lurkers unless the asap is after templars and storm. Getting robo before storm is a bad idea vs good zergs because you will die easily to a muta switch.
Fast cracklings means zerg is not dropping and is not switching to mutas and in most cases gets very late spire. It doesn't mean for certain that ultras is following up unless the zerg has a good economy. Usually when zerg gets really fast hive he doesn't have much gas for ultras unless he really skimped on lurkers.
When toss sees two hatch tech the first thing he should do is think about attacking and making the zerg waste larvas on zerglings or sunken up. An extra sunken can delay whatever tech zerg is going for by a lot. No zerg will go 2 hatch lurkers unless it's vs fe maybe, for two hatch muta usually you'll need a lot of sairs to defend.
Also if you see lurkers and come out to stay aggressive, you can very easily get countered and if zerg gets a lurker in your nat before cannons are done warping, your nexus is gone. Whenever 1 base toss comes out to expand, protect your expansion in all cases, zerglings are much more mobile than zealot goon.
You did a good job covering what you should do once you see a certain unit, but in pvz you have to anticipate because nine times out of ten, once you see something it's usually way too late to react and you'll already be down.
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also i advise against one base citadel to archive to expand without stargate especially on luna because mass zerglings or 3 hatch hydra or any build that gets mass units early will kill the build 100% assuming zerg has an ovie near by that doesn't die. Toss just won't have enough units to expand, dt is the only thing you can use to protect your warping nexus.
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nice post. very helpful considering im a p user and have troubles more so with this matchup than any other. good job
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Nice post man. Thanks.
I just switched from T to random, Im learning P and Z now, and this has been helpful to me. Because thought we learn the P set, we also understand some of the Z choices =)
PS: I had just gone Ultra/lings vs Dt/sairs and lost. Now I know why lol
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Against Crackling/Ultra Reaver/Shuttle could be devestating provided u have some sairs to go scourge picking
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Taiche
France1963 Posts
On December 12 2006 18:24 Pressure wrote:
the archon + cannons against mutas seems weird
the gas required for even one archon is just immense >_<
Then what do you do when you see mutas ? You go zeals +1 ? 
Anyway, the problem with archons is not the cost but their clumsiness. Like all large units in BW, Archons are very difficult to move and have trouble chasing mutas on maps where the mutas can stand behind the min line to shoot at the probes. And once the archon makes it behind the mineral line, the mutas are gone harrassing the other base T_T
That's why I like having sair instead of archon to support the cannons on this kind of map.
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There are some other important PvZ basics, such as always staying +1 attack ahead of the Zerg's Carapace, because zealots then take out zerglings in two hits instead of three, keeping a probe with your zealots before your +1 attack upgrade to deal that 5 damage to a ling (making it two hits again, instead of three), etc. It's very important not to let the zerg dictate the flow of upgrades.
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Sweden33719 Posts
Very good post, you and I seem to think the exact same things about PvZ (I've been fighting for the 'pvz isn't imbalanced' side for years and written several enormous pvz posts with similiar content to yours).
Nice to have you here!
I disagree about the 1-3 cannons if muta tho - 1 cannon and an archon probably can't even beat 4 or 5 mutas, they'll just kill it then run around hitting your probes.
3 is really the minimum if he really invests in mutas.
And also I kind of like to get storm instead of more archons whenever possible, as a hydra switch or him taking out your cannons with your archons stumbling through a probe line.. is very annoying.
(I also like sair openings for this reason, since you can camp it on top of your nexus with cannons around it ;p).
And expanding without aggression is OK IMO - if the expo is very early, the act of expanding is aggression enough. However, if it's not super early then I agree that it's good to put some pressure while your nexus is warping.
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United Arab Emirates5091 Posts
oh ok so thats why i suck at pvz
i can never stay calm
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Exactly, I think storm+cannon is a lot better than Archon, because he is slow and his range is smaller than mutas.
Also I can't say I've ever seen Archons+DA in a solid play.
If you have a replay or some ground to support it please post, otherwise I think reaver is still better(cheaper, but needs shuttle to be mobile) option to go.
Watching Draco's, Nal_ra's replays make me think you should have pointed more value on storms vs Ultra+Ling.
Your army composition till then is mostly zeal+goon+temp and you should focus on storming(even though your zealot/goons if necessary) in order to kill all possible lings and keep storming ultras to minimise their HP.
Zeal+Archon is doomed to good flank and/or nasty defiler's swarm, without a good storm usage of course.
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I find it handy to have some Darch Archons around. It seem to me they scare Zerg players a bit and they do often, in one way or another, try to focus fire on it to eliminate the threat. Even if they succeed the maelstorm should have already been cast.
I'm kinda new to PvZ, but I find the match up fun. Only TvT is funnier.
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As I said, I am grateful for this comment and I appreciate the feedback. However, I would like to disagree with some of the points made by zulu for purpose of clarification and disscusion. I would like to put up some rebuttals.
I think you need to specifiy situations, you can't say, when you expo, attack and harass instead of defending, the only times when zerg would expo is if they can protect it, either with lurkers or muta/ling. The only times when you could attack and expo is if zerg is down or you're sending in a zealot army while mutalisks are harassing your base, even then it would be risky. Most tosses don't have problems with what to do once mutas or lurkers are out, it's guessing and reacting that's hard. A lot of zergs will lay down both a den and spire and there's usually no way you can guess what he's going until you see a lurker egg or spire. Even then zerg can go lurker to muta which usually catches toss offguard.
I would like to apologize for not being able to clarify in deep detail about people learning to react. But I believe that learning to react cannot be taught in words, it is something done with instinct, and taught through experience. Most of these tactics and strategies work only with certain builds, my focus was built on a FE build, or a 2 gate zealot build, where you have a decent force to have a decent harass, etc.
Well, as I stated before, a perfect scout is the best situation a protoss can ask for. It is true that the majority of games will force the protoss to "guess" the zerg build and I will not argue against that point. But I made sure to state that in my post, if you would kindly read that section again ^^.
Your rebuttal to my "harass instead of defend tactic" actually supports my argument. Yes, the zerg will only make expos that it can protect. Thats exactly what you want. Your only aim for harass is to bother the zerg long enough to set up 4-5 cannons and a few temps... a solid defense for early game. If you send an attack to an expo, "the only times when zerg would expo is if they can protect it, either with lurkers or muta/ling", wouldn't that mean that the zerg is sending their units back to stop YOUR harrass rather than using their units to harass you? That is exactly what you want. You want the zerg to send back their units, providing you the time to set up and maintain any early/mid game expo. What you really want is something to keep zerg busy, if one dark templar will do the job, then that’s even better for you. If you would like, I can provide a number of replays of either my pvz or a large number of pro games to help clarify. Although a player should pick and chose when to play aggressively and non-aggressively (based on situation), I tend to play a bit more aggressively due to my style.
Also if you see lurkers and come out to stay aggressive, you can very easily get countered and if zerg gets a lurker in your nat before cannons are done warping, your nexus is gone. Whenever 1 base toss comes out to expand, protect your expansion in all cases, zerglings are much more mobile than zealot goon.
I would also like to rebut this argument. If you had a sufficient force, assuming that you either are aiming for late 1st expansion, or looking for enough time for that 2nd expansion after a FE build, your force would be able to create quite a commotion to a zerg player. Assuming that a zerg player decided to be smart and place one lurker at your base, I would think that a protoss player would be equally smart enough to take care of that lurker with 2 storms or 1storm + zealot hit, etc…
Other than this, I would like to thank you for your addon to this post for everything that I have not rebutted, I believe is a very good addition to this post and I thank you for that. ^^
Note: A lot of my tactics are based on the FE build, and may not work on all situations ><
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Sweet guide man!
Are you some sort of semi-pro or something? Kang Min taught you timing?
Anyways this was an interesting read even for me who isn't a toss user.
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if anybody out there was less confidently or cognitavely doubtful about your original post, zulu might've just spelled it out for you, helpful whether they're right or not.
nice guide by the way.
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Yeah, I've figured out and learnt a lot of these things through losing countless games. I think it's good to have this down in words, and for beginners to look at. Give them something to think about when they lose
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I'd just like to point out that there's no good reason to compare the cost of your counters to the cost of what you're countering so that you can conclude your counter is good if it costs less. The only situation where it is good to look at costs is if you have an equal economy as a zerg, or if, in the end, you plan to have mined the same amount as the zerg (by splitting the map). Otherwise, the costs are quite irrelevant and it's better to look at function.
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On December 13 2006 07:53 BlueIris wrote:
Your rebuttal to my "harass instead of defend tactic" actually supports my argument. Yes, the zerg will only make expos that it can protect. Thats exactly what you want. Your only aim for harass is to bother the zerg long enough to set up 4-5 cannons and a few temps... a solid defense for early game. If you send an attack to an expo, "the only times when zerg would expo is if they can protect it, either with lurkers or muta/ling", wouldn't that mean that the zerg is sending their units back to stop YOUR harrass rather than using their units to harass you? That is exactly what you want. You want the zerg to send back their units, providing you the time to set up and maintain any early/mid game expo. What you really want is something to keep zerg busy, if one dark templar will do the job, then that’s even better for you. If you would like, I can provide a number of replays of either my pvz or a large number of pro games to help clarify. Although a player should pick and chose when to play aggressively and non-aggressively (based on situation), I tend to play a bit more aggressively due to my style.
I don't know if there is a specific answer for this but it's good to discuss.
Situation #1: Toss one base expands on two gates and comes out with a good number of zealots, I don't know exactly how many, I'm not that familiar with toss rush builds. The speedlots can be +1, or paired with dts or even a range goon rush on three gates. In this situation assuming zerg is going 3 hatch lurkers. The aggressive zerg will stop drone production earlier than usual and mass speedlings. He will sunken up and have most of his lings to backstab when toss comes out. At this point if zerg has an ovie near the toss natural, there's nothing you can do but turn back and confront that force unless you want to trade bases which in most cases would not be wise. Even if you went sair and a dt or two to defend, your cannons will not be up in time and you're still in danger of losing your nexus. If you choose to turn back, lurkers will soon follow and if at this point you don't have a good number of cannons up, you may lose them and possibly get some lurkers stuck in your nat. There's no one base toss ground rush that can't be stopped with a couple sunkens and a group of lings maybe except for 3 gate goons which in that case you'll need to sunken smarter and get more lings or some hydras. The point is, when one base toss comes out, you can always exploit that time window in one way or another because protoss simply does not have the mobility and flexibility to attack and expand. You need to have cannons up to protect vs lurkers, but cannons take long to warp and you need something to protect them while they're warping. I'm not a toss player, but out of all the tosses i've played, no one 1 base rushes anymore unless they're damn sure it'll work. Getting your expo up early and safely should be your main priority.
Situation #2, this is much more vague, but it's when toss gets a third expansion after FEing. Naturally you'll want to do as much damage as you can with those +1 speedlots. And after you come out, if you're feeling risky you can expand but it's not recommended. I don't know when is the best time for the 3rd expo. It differs from toss to toss. If you expand too early that expo will die because you won't have enough units to protect it. Expand too late and you'll be down. I usually match caraspace so after I kill zealots I immediately go for 3rd expo and followed by lurkers or if toss has all his units there to defend, I counter nat or just contain and expo myself if toss is good. I really don't have a point here because every game is different when toss FEs. But I guess my argument would be that, don't attack when you're expanding unless you're sure you won't get backstabbed. And that's not a decision most of the time because zerg will backstab you.
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I'm writing most of this because zvp is just a lot easier to theorycraft from the zerg side than toss. So as easy as I make it sound, it's really not that easy to play vs tosses who have good execution and a clear mind. One important thing I will stress again is that toss is very weak whenever he comes out to expand from one base. One of the first things I learned about zvp is that if zerg plays it right he should be able to gain a sizeable advantage or win everytime during that time window.
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Yeah that was nice. I dont even play P either and I thought that guide was great! I am thinking about it though ^_~
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we need more tosses in the world
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if there is one unit that toss should base on in pvz then it's reaver. the best possible unit for that mu. pretty much all strategies combined with reavers prove to be extremely hard to beat.
(something like terran focusing his army on backing up the tanks only in this case we rarely see 8+ reavers :D as often as we see 10+ tanks)
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This is a really good guide
Interesting read. Very descriptive
Recommended for Featured and Recommended Threads
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On December 13 2006 06:35 FrozenArbiter wrote:
Very good post, you and I seem to think the exact same things about PvZ (I've been fighting for the 'pvz isn't imbalanced' side for years and written several enormous pvz posts with similiar content to yours).
Nice to have you here!
I disagree about the 1-3 cannons if muta tho - 1 cannon and an archon probably can't even beat 4 or 5 mutas, they'll just kill it then run around hitting your probes.
3 is really the minimum if he really invests in mutas.
And also I kind of like to get storm instead of more archons whenever possible, as a hydra switch or him taking out your cannons with your archons stumbling through a probe line.. is very annoying.
(I also like sair openings for this reason, since you can camp it on top of your nexus with cannons around it ;p).
And expanding without aggression is OK IMO - if the expo is very early, the act of expanding is aggression enough. However, if it's not super early then I agree that it's good to put some pressure while your nexus is warping.
hahah :p Welsh always comes up and say 3 cannons whenever possible ^_^
Agree w/ him thou. If Z has some micro he can kill archon/cannon pretty easily :O(
Stay calm! 
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that's actually a good guide.
i'd like to add something to it if i can. About this part:
Countering the Infamous Ultra/Ling---
There are a lot of strategies that can be used against this deadly build… among these include
1) Dark Templar/Corsair—This strategy focuses on zerg’s inability to protect against air allowing you to pick off overlords by killing zerg psi and providing the freedom of using the darktemplar’s cloak
2) Zealot/Archon--- The most common strategy against the Ultra/ling situation. This strategy uses zealots as units to take hits from numerous for zerglings while the archons (and a few High templars) provide the artillery. This situation is a macro-based situation. Whoever wins these Ultra/ling vs Archon/Zealot battles will be able to momentarily hold map control giving about a minute of freedom to take out zerg expos.
3) Archon/Dark Archon--- Although used in a number of famous pro-games, it has remained one of the least popular counters against the ultra/ling situation. Although I have used this strategy quite successfully numerous times, it is a very risky build. The reasoning behind this strategy is to use the Dark Archon’s Maelstorm ability to momentarily freeze parts of the zerg Ultra/ling force, while archons and a few templars take out the zerg army. This is very reliant on the ability to prepare for this build early and to have sufficient Dark archons with good mana count.
I want to point out that these three can be used in conjunction with each other, and always are in pro games. What you wrote is correct I'm just adding, for the newbies who are going to benefit from this guide, to not think of this as 'ok i have to do 1, 2, or 3 and they are all mutually exclusive' but rather these are three thrusts you can use, three parts of your one strategy. For example, Nal_Ra makes excellent use of sair/dt, but you are never going to see him making only sairs and dts with nothing else. He will always still be working on the meat or backbone of the toss army, which is zealot/archon with a few goons and hts. It's just that, if he invests in corsairs, then he has this new element to work into his game. But he will never be like "ok i'm going sair/dt" and make only sairs and dts for the rest of the game. For a while this confused me, but I've found through experience the most effective way to use sair/dt is in conjunction with zealot/archon.
In the same vein, I don't see archon/da as a strategy in itself that you choose to do either that or zealot/archon. Rather you are going to have a standard army of zealot/archon/goon/ht, and if you want to (in late game when you have enough money) you can start working in DAs. But I wouldn't ever be like ok i'm going to go DA, and make 8 dts morph them into 4 DAs. Rather you do it very gradually. Like at one point you see you have a big army and a lot of money so you research mael and make one DA. Then if things continue going like that you might work in another and another. That is how the pro gamers do it. You often see archon/DA armies at the end of pvz pro games, because the toss has done this, and then in battles lost all the other units except archons and DAs, not because the toss decided ok i'm going archon/da and suddenly made nothing but those units. Besides, gas limitations means zealots are going to be a big part of your army all the time whether you like it or not.
BTW, I commend you on the very good advice of being aggressive and not being all scared and expecting to lose. That is 99% of the problem for most toss players struggling with pvz. If you expect to be beaten up and kicked around the map you will be. Don't just be defensive react to the zerg and play on his terms, make him play on yours as well, by harrassment and constant pressure on his exps. That's the most needed pvz advice I think. Good thread.
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Good guide BlueIris. I'd like to see your pvz, I especially enjoy aggressive toss style. If you could make a little pack of games, I'd appreciate it.
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I often add reavers to my archon/ht/zeal mix. I find them effective killers, for basically any ground unit. Late game, with the +25 dmg and heavy spellcaster mix, it's pretty strong.
Do you use sair/reaver btw? It's a pretty strong build with the right micro, and the gayer way to play pvz 
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I would like to thank the great feedback that this post has recieved. I can only thank the professionalism of the TL-net community. The discussion and well-thoughtout addons have helped clarify mistakes within my post and each comment makes me feel that the time i spent writing this post was worthwhile. Thank you
I would like to apologize about the confusion that has come from the "Mutalisk Counter" Section within this post. A big thanks to Frozen Arbiter, zulu_nation8, and other contributers who have helped clarify statements in parts of the post.
I often add reavers to my archon/ht/zeal mix. I find them effective killers, for basically any ground unit. Late game, with the +25 dmg and heavy spellcaster mix, it's pretty strong.
Do you use sair/reaver btw? It's a pretty strong build with the right micro, and the gayer way to play pvz
Yes, I use the reaver/sair build quite often actually, but just like any other build, it has its advantages and disadvantages. It isn't quite the gayer way to play pvz, but is rather an efficient, but hard to learn, strategy. ^^
I will post a few of my PvZ replays when I can find the time to do so. I hope that comments about this thread will continue, for my joy of the day has now become to surf TLnet Forums ^^. Thanks again
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On December 12 2006 17:57 BlueIris wrote:
Questions to ask:
How many hatcheries does zerg have?
When is he getting his gas?
What tech is he going? Hydra den up? Evolution chamber?
How many drones?
Seeing a three hatchery with gas and lair points to a tech, but if you see hatcheries with later gas without lair, make sure that you are prepared for a hydra only build.
To add to that, these are some things toss players can look for. If zerg builds a lot of sunkens to defend instead of units, it usually means mutalisks since zerg needs to defend vs counter. If zerg is hydra rushing he will usually get gas really early instead of later to research hydra upgrades.
Assuming this is all off of 3 hatch and vs one base toss on luna. Early zerg gas, like 15 ish, is ideal for low eco lings to lurker to try to break the expo cannon line OR fast mutalisks but usually zerg won't go mutas if it's a 1 base sair build. Later gas could mean anything but less likely mass hydra or mass lings no lair because it'd be easier for toss to defend. Late lair means zerg is using his gas elsewhere either on hydra upgrade or ling speed.
A lot of zergs get a hydra den before lair to make toss think about early hydras, and to protect ovies vs sair. Do not freak out and think this is mass hydras for certain unless you don't see a lair with your sair.
An evo with no den means spore. And in the rare case that toss upgrades +1 from one base zerg may or not try to keep up.
Don't think mutas for sure because of spire or lurkers for sure because of den. Toss players should be looking at drone count, sunken count, tech timing, everything else except for is it den or spire. Usually if zerg doesn't get a lot of zerglings early and sunkens up it would more likely be mutas than lurkers. Other than that there's really nothing you can see that would give you a sure sign. However that doesn't mean you should just wait and see. If zerg tech is late, expand. Boss the middle. Go for the expo. Don't be static.
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Canada7170 Posts
Very nicely done. I've got a few pvz's coming up, and some of the info here is useful. It's a nice little reminder.
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Also, keep your zealots outside of their choke until they reveal their tech. If it's lurks, you'll be able to run back pretty safely, and delay the lurks a bit. If it's lings and hydra, you should be able to fight evenly. If it's muta, you may lose a few zealots, but it won't matter, because they can't hit the mutas anyway, and you're not that far in the hole, plus it gives you a bit of time to get those cannons up if they do a moving hit on your zealots instead of simply going straight for your base. If they do go straight for your base, try to do a drone raid on their expo.
PATROL A DT AT EACH EXPO, IT'S RIDICULOUSLY HELPFUL. DTs aren't used nearly enough in PvZ - it forces the zerg to upgrade speed and keep lords with his army at all times to be effective in fights. Don't let his micro consist of attack-move, force him to pay attention so he can't expand and macro as well.
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On December 13 2006 07:07 pyrogenetix wrote:
oh ok so thats why i suck at pvz
i can never stay calm
Man you need to just relax it.
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On December 13 2006 18:18 zulu_nation8 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2006 17:57 BlueIris wrote:
Questions to ask:
How many hatcheries does zerg have?
When is he getting his gas?
What tech is he going? Hydra den up? Evolution chamber?
How many drones?
Seeing a three hatchery with gas and lair points to a tech, but if you see hatcheries with later gas without lair, make sure that you are prepared for a hydra only build.
Assuming this is all off of 3 hatch and vs one base toss on luna. Early zerg gas, like 15 ish, is ideal for low eco lings to lurker to try to break the expo cannon line OR fast mutalisks but usually zerg won't go mutas if it's a 1 base sair build. Later gas could mean anything but less likely mass hydra or mass lings no lair because it'd be easier for toss to defend. Late lair means zerg is using his gas elsewhere either on hydra upgrade or ling speed.
very true, and if you see all those early lings, you should be teching with lurkers in mind anyway. the zerg will play with pressure at first with lings, and so you'll have enough time to tech to archives, but you should definitely scout often right before and right after your expand is finished to check for lurkers. in fact, if you are zealot scouting and you see neither lurker eggs nor hydra, you should probably just forgo psi storm for the moment and get robo + goon range and maybe 5/6 goons (you have two gas now). your speed zeals + cannons will suppress heavy hydra (the dragoons will keep him from playing hit and run at your cannons or at your zeal) long enough for you to research storm, but without goon/ob lurkers will royally fuck you over with a contain. hell, if you dont have enough cannons to protect from surprise mass lurkling, a common thing i see is for them to try to rush everything into the cannons and target them so as to eliminate your detection, and if that happens and you have no observer, your nexus dies. yes, you might be able to manage getting robo after you see an actual lurker, but if you have the observers and dragoons before he gets there, you're that much more ahead of the game.
it's complicated, but it's all about good scouting. no advice will work the same way in every game. i said to scout for lurker right before you expand, because if you see any hydra at all you might not be able to expand for a little while longer, especially since its 3 hatch which could mean 3 hatch ling into ling/hydra, and the hydra could easily be graded since he's not getting lurker tech. this will force you to get zealspeed sooner, but that's okay really. i notice im usually getting +1 weapons, speedzeal and storm all within the same 2/3 minute timeframe, and its usually during and right after my expand. the order i get them of course depends on the zerg build, but it's just something i try to keep in mind so i don't forget about them.
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Gee...that is very usefull
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Nono you need archives more than goons vs early lurkers.
A few archons and speedlots are more than enough to deal with it...
Just send a few zealots through move or move your archon in the front and rest forces attack-move.
Since unit intelligence tells to attack nearest the spines will hit the front units, but the rest is untouched.
If there are many lings storm may help - probably the front archon will get attacked by lings so storm him.
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A good post with many details and informations.
It's nal_ra's knowledge and you should learn it when you'r Zerg or Protoss.
I guess it's usefull for zerg too. You can fool him then with faked BO's.
But I hope all these lame flaming Topics stop now anyway...
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The aggressiveness is something i've been missing, time to implement it real time
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On December 13 2006 07:46 psychosis wrote:
I find it handy to have some Darch Archons around. It seem to me they scare Zerg players a bit and they do often, in one way or another, try to focus fire on it to eliminate the threat. Even if they succeed the maelstorm should have already been cast.
I'm kinda new to PvZ, but I find the match up fun. Only TvT is funnier.
Does Darch in Swedish mean "Dark"? ^_^
I just read your post and assumed that you just spelled it out as it is in the Swedish version of SC?
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Sweden33719 Posts
Nah, dark in swedish is mörk.
I think he wrote it like that because a lot of the time you just call them DArchons, or DA, and so he accidently wrote the name twice
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On December 13 2006 16:56 evanthebouncy~ wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2006 06:35 FrozenArbiter wrote:
Very good post, you and I seem to think the exact same things about PvZ (I've been fighting for the 'pvz isn't imbalanced' side for years and written several enormous pvz posts with similiar content to yours).
Nice to have you here!
I disagree about the 1-3 cannons if muta tho - 1 cannon and an archon probably can't even beat 4 or 5 mutas, they'll just kill it then run around hitting your probes.
3 is really the minimum if he really invests in mutas.
And also I kind of like to get storm instead of more archons whenever possible, as a hydra switch or him taking out your cannons with your archons stumbling through a probe line.. is very annoying.
(I also like sair openings for this reason, since you can camp it on top of your nexus with cannons around it ;p).
And expanding without aggression is OK IMO - if the expo is very early, the act of expanding is aggression enough. However, if it's not super early then I agree that it's good to put some pressure while your nexus is warping. hahah :p Welsh always comes up and say 3 cannons whenever possible ^_^ Agree w/ him thou. If Z has some micro he can kill archon/cannon pretty easily :O( Stay calm!
yea definitely. kill the cannon first and then all you have to do is run around the nexus and take potshots at the chon. 3 is the magic # tho =p. nice post btw starter
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thx for that
really helps
although
i might go for a zealot rush against a zerg
it's risky but fun
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OMG ressurecting that old thread is pretty annoying IMO.
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On July 19 2008 06:55 Blu-Ray wrote:
OMG ressurecting that old thread is pretty annoying IMO.
Why? It's a good thread that I, for one, hadn't read before, and when your ZvP is in as dire need of an overhaul as mine, it's amazing how much stuff like this helps.
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I jus\t have bad experience from another forum... :D
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O_O most tosses have trouble with PvZ???? I find that the easiest MU out of any race, any MU. On a scale of my skill level 10 being my best and 1 the worst i find my PvZ a 10/10, PvP 6/10, and PvT 7/10. I really struggled with my PvP and PvT so with 2/3 of my main races' MUs hard for me to play i ended up switching to zerg recently. I've beat multiple korean players and other very good zergs with my protoss when i played it, then played a common protoss or terran player later and lost horribly 
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On July 19 2008 13:41 Grobyc wrote:O_O most tosses have trouble with PvZ???? I find that the easiest MU out of any race, any MU. On a scale of my skill level 10 being my best and 1 the worst i find my PvZ a 10/10, PvP 6/10, and PvT 7/10. I really struggled with my PvP and PvT so with 2/3 of my main races' MUs hard for me to play i ended up switching to zerg recently. I've beat multiple korean players and other very good zergs with my protoss when i played it, then played a common protoss or terran player later and lost horribly
This thread is from 06 where pvz was considered to be imbalanced.
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On July 19 2008 23:26 Xiberia wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2008 13:41 Grobyc wrote:O_O most tosses have trouble with PvZ???? I find that the easiest MU out of any race, any MU. On a scale of my skill level 10 being my best and 1 the worst i find my PvZ a 10/10, PvP 6/10, and PvT 7/10. I really struggled with my PvP and PvT so with 2/3 of my main races' MUs hard for me to play i ended up switching to zerg recently. I've beat multiple korean players and other very good zergs with my protoss when i played it, then played a common protoss or terran player later and lost horribly This thread is from 06 where pvz was considered to be imbalanced.
Even so, PvZ is still a difficult match-up. Maybe you're just really talented Grobyc, but I find my PvZ worse than my PvT for sure. Bisu's Revolution certainly did help, but a lot of the difficulties are still there.
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On July 19 2008 23:26 Xiberia wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2008 13:41 Grobyc wrote:O_O most tosses have trouble with PvZ???? I find that the easiest MU out of any race, any MU. On a scale of my skill level 10 being my best and 1 the worst i find my PvZ a 10/10, PvP 6/10, and PvT 7/10. I really struggled with my PvP and PvT so with 2/3 of my main races' MUs hard for me to play i ended up switching to zerg recently. I've beat multiple korean players and other very good zergs with my protoss when i played it, then played a common protoss or terran player later and lost horribly This thread is from 06 where pvz was considered to be imbalanced.
and suggestions for archon/cannon vs mutas. Nowadays people would favor sairs.
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How do I break out of a Lurker contain? I know the best way to counter this is to not get contained in the first place (and this has been happening less and less often) but when I do get contained it's really hard to break out.
Usually when I see Lurkers I immediately start goon range and get robo up (and sometimes I make a robo even if there aren't any lurkers), but what gets me is that the zerg player will spread his lurkers out in such a fashion that I have to use a storm per lurker, and when I storm, he moves injured lurks back and replaces them. After storming I move in goons first and start picking them off, but of course he either scourges my observer and/or sends in a group of lings and hydras to kill my goons (which I pull back).
Anyways I'll gather my army and try to break out after I've picked off a couple of lurks, however the zerg player once again either scourges my observers during the battle or picks them off with hydras. And by the time I break out I go and attack some expos only to find 1291238 lings and 123839 ultras taking down my army.
I do realize that a lot of this is due to my micro and macro (or lack thereof) and yeah, this usually happens if I open fast expansion with speedy zeals +1 attack, but when I do get contained, are there any tips and tricks to getting out of the contain? I've seen a couple of reps where the protoss player shoots the lurker once with a goon and storms, and how they micro a couple of zealots to go behind the lurks so the rest of the army can fuck them up, but even after doing that I get screwed.
So in short: are there any tips and tricks to breaking out of lurk contains, and does anyone have any reps where they broke out and won (so I can see the timing of when they chose to break out).
My apologies for the long post.
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On December 10 2008 13:38 Bekele wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
How do I break out of a Lurker contain? I know the best way to counter this is to not get contained in the first place (and this has been happening less and less often) but when I do get contained it's really hard to break out.
Usually when I see Lurkers I immediately start goon range and get robo up (and sometimes I make a robo even if there aren't any lurkers), but what gets me is that the zerg player will spread his lurkers out in such a fashion that I have to use a storm per lurker, and when I storm, he moves injured lurks back and replaces them. After storming I move in goons first and start picking them off, but of course he either scourges my observer and/or sends in a group of lings and hydras to kill my goons (which I pull back).
Anyways I'll gather my army and try to break out after I've picked off a couple of lurks, however the zerg player once again either scourges my observers during the battle or picks them off with hydras. And by the time I break out I go and attack some expos only to find 1291238 lings and 123839 ultras taking down my army.
I do realize that a lot of this is due to my micro and macro (or lack thereof) and yeah, this usually happens if I open fast expansion with speedy zeals +1 attack, but when I do get contained, are there any tips and tricks to getting out of the contain? I've seen a couple of reps where the protoss player shoots the lurker once with a goon and storms, and how they micro a couple of zealots to go behind the lurks so the rest of the army can fuck them up, but even after doing that I get screwed.
So in short: are there any tips and tricks to breaking out of lurk contains, and does anyone have any reps where they broke out and won (so I can see the timing of when they chose to break out).
My apologies for the long post.
There's not an exact time to break out, you generally want to break out as early as possible or have a good enough unit mass/comination to break out. Since you opt for a +1timing attack you need to pressure the zerg's expansions and preferably deal damage before lurkers come out. I use to have a similar problem as yourself, till I figured out protoss dominates the middle game and if I worked out my multitasking and macro a little bit better I can break out quite easily. Zealots/Archons/Storm/Obs in your case should be enough to break out of an early contain. The tricky part is once you pressure the zerg with speedlots you should by now have a rough idea what the zerg is doing and throw down that robotics as early as possible or start that dragoon range/production that much earlier. Personally, If I for sure know the zerg is doing some kind of 3/4 hatchery lurker build I would throw down the robotics around 50 supply because it's the most important building to break out a contain.However, I feel from what you wrote you take a long while massing up and zerg gets into late game and predominately beat you at this point. You know the tips, you need to work on your macro, awareness and unit combination better. The best way of beating a contain in the worse scenario is to overwhelm it with more units.
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I just have a question for this.
For the PvZ, counter to only hyrdas, I'm having a big problem. You didn't really give that much of a description so here is my question:
My opponent is using only hydras to attack me and I always lose cause I am not prepared for it. I scout of course, but still doesn't help.
Even the psistorms aren't helping because he has so many hydras. I don't know what I should focus on.
Help?
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This thread is incredibly outdated and based on a metagame that has changed very very heavily with the stylings of the Revolutionist, Bisu. None of the advice in this topic should be taken as absolute fact
Please provide a replay, you're probably simply getting outmacro'd but we can't tell without one
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Lol so much advice about staying calm. The opening paragraphs make me think, okay, this is my best matchup, can we get to the part about actually killing the zerg?
But ultra/ling, I find that zeals + temps with reavers works the best for me.
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this guide was made before any of that corsair action was used in play. create your own thread and post your problem then its better to help
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Yeah it sounds super similar to my guide from like 2002... A whole lot of advances have been made in pvz since then. The most important of course being the idea that Protoss can safely and reliably take a super fast forge first expo on many many maps. In my day, the only map you could do that was Guillotine, and for that reason Guillotine was easily my favourite pvz map. Before tosses figured out how to FE vs zerg, pvz was a nightmare, but after that advance pvz has become much more balanced imo. Of course zergs have double exped to counter, but simple math will tell you that 2:3 is way way better than 1:2. My old default pvz build was to 1 gate sair/dt expand, hold the mid game zerg harass/counter (either muta or lurker drops), then try to get to late game with an advantage in upgrades so I could handle the dreaded ultra/crax finisher. In a tourney series I'd sometimes go 2 gate sair with surprise zealot pressure (take out the scouting ovie with your first sair to supply block zerg then surprise him with a group of about 7 or 8 zealots+1goon+1sair with fast +1 upgrade (armour if I scouted has an evo chamber since zerg will get armour for his lings with that chamber and nullify your attack, and +1 armour still rocks against zergling/hydra taking away 20% of their attack power). This would come right before mutas or lurkers and allow you to get a buttload of drone kills in most cases and scout what zerg is doing. And you can still exp safely with enough cannons.
Nowadays with the new 2:3 dynamic instead of 1:2 toss has way more options. Reaver and DA play to hold your third has become viable, storm/reaver drops are now a much more valid option since you can actually afford to send a shuttle out to harass without having to worry about having enough mass at home to not get your front door kicked in by zerg's mid-game mass. You can run 2 or 3 forges much more easily. You can afford enough zealots to contain zerg or enough cannons to hold your third and enough cannons to prevent mutas from messing up all your probe lines. The only new thing zerg has developed is their defiler usage, without which this matchup would definitely be imbalanced in favour of toss right now imo. And honestly as good as defiler spells are can we really say they are better than storm, maelstrom, and reaver scarabs? This matchup has changed so much since I stopped playing competitively.
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Wow, I didn't know you were still around Hautamaki. Remember LaZyScV? ^_^
I learned a lot about SC just from watching the two of you guys play each other, such great games...I wish I still had the replays.
I'd also like to add to the PvZ guide a bit.
1 - DO NOT power your groups of gates with a single pylon!!!!!! The reasons why should be common sense!!!
2 - DO NOT rely heavily on goon based builds...sure, they help against mutas/lurks/hydra hit-and-runs, but there are much better things to spend your cash on most of the time.
3 - Zealot raids OWN. Much like cracks can run up to your nexus and take it down in seconds, so can a pack of 12 zealots. Get leg speed and weapon upgrades, bypass the Zerg army and have him chase you everywhere...take down hatcheries, important tech buildings, etc. You may also consider killing his evo chamber, so that his carapace upgrades fall behind your weapon upgrades, making your zealots own even harder.
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Lazyscv was awesome, we had some fantastic games =] I remember him, and Freak, and Fox^1, The Confessor... yeah, lots of old friends. BW is so awesome =] I wish I still had the replays too =[
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Dan's T macro was godlike, for his time. I'm still friends with him actually, and I've met him irl. He doesn't play much BW these days though.
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EPT
