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Can mass zealots+dragoons work?

Forum Index > Brood War Strategy
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SiarX
Profile Joined December 2021
133 Posts
Last Edited: 2022-04-20 19:53:43
April 20 2022 19:38 GMT
#1
Curious whether mass zealots+dragoons without support of high-tech units like HTs, reavers, arbiters can be viable strategy vs terran or zerg?
MeSaber
Profile Joined December 2009
Sweden1235 Posts
April 20 2022 19:46 GMT
#2
Very map dependant.

If Z get lurker + swarm its game over.

If T get enough tanks its game over.

You would need a great advantage to get away with this kind of play.
-.-
GeneralStan
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
United States4789 Posts
April 20 2022 20:46 GMT
#3
Depends on your definition of viable. Viable enough to win ladder games? Sure, but you're putting yourself at a disadvantage.

Viable in the sense that do you expect to see a pro skipping tech units in a long game? Not very likely. Against Zerg in particular, pure goon zealot loses to basically everything (ling muta, mass hydra). Against Terran, there are good bust timings with pure goon zealot + Obs (obviously you can't get away without obs). But even there, if you're going for a bust timing and you need a robo anyway, you might as well grab a shuttle or 2.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
t2azor
Profile Joined April 2017
32 Posts
April 20 2022 22:43 GMT
#4
NO
JoinTheRain
Profile Blog Joined September 2018
Bulgaria409 Posts
April 21 2022 06:09 GMT
#5
There's the protoss build where they get maxed at around 12 min and push the terran with all their goon/zeal army. And I wouldn't call reaver exactly high-tech unit in the sense the arbiter and the carriers are called. Anyway, you can use this build for ladder games, should work wonders and make terrans baffled.
Versus zerg I see constantly zeal/sair builds and that's the closest to what you imply. There's a build with pure goons, it relies on some timing or is used against a specific zerg opener, that's all I know about it, it's quite rare to see it but when it works it brings tears of joy.
The subject-matter of the art of living is each person's own life.
Liquid`Drone
Profile Joined September 2002
Norway28877 Posts
April 21 2022 11:22 GMT
#6
It's possible to hit some gimmicky timings where you cut probes for a large goon army with a few zealot, like 1 base 4-5 gate goon, in pvz, and this can have success in 1 game, even against high level players. PvT, you can get quite a lot done with just zealot goon obs shuttle.

However, both of these approaches base themselves around your opponent having a flawed response. Both terran and zerg armies will scale incredibly well against pure zealot dragoon - pure zealot dragoon will never beat a maxed terran army with upgrades, and zerg on their end basically just need to avoid dying to the first push.

There's nothing wrong with occasionally using some gimmicky builds that deviate from the norm, but on a long term basis, I think it's a very bad idea to develop your play based on your opponents responding poorly. You'll be much better off implementing storm PvZ, and in PvT, you want to have either mass storm+shuttles, arbiters or carriers. Storm+shuttles allow you to pressure and deal damage against a terran even if he's mostly just defending (difficult to execute as protoss, though), while arbiter/carrier tech put the terran on a timer, forcing him to act.
Moderator
iloveav
Profile Joined November 2008
Poland1483 Posts
April 27 2022 09:57 GMT
#7
I have won a few games this way but it is NOT dependent on your skill but the skill of your opponent.
At some point, when your skill level and your opponents skill level is high enough, it simply stops working (% wise).

The way you can make it work is to midgame your opponent (I have done that vs players much better than me) but it is a "all-in" strategy.

The reason it is an all in strategy is because in order for it to work, you need to "know" how smart and capable of reading you your opponent is to sell him the wrong thing and then hit him when he is not expecting it with a big army.
As you can guess, once this is done a handful of times, people will just figure out a way to tell if you are doing it.

Too many variables need to work together for it to "be viable". In other words, no, it is not viable.

aka LRM)Cats_Paw.
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