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Drops are the best response imo, but quick ones, as in you get ovie speed before any other upgrade besides ling speed.
Burrow is mostly used to scout, and with lings, all over the map and at expansions especially, intercepting with burrowed groups of hydras depends on luck and its only worth it vs shuttles, so if he has no shuttles, usually the best way to kill his corsairs is to force him to attack, as in when youre dropping or to scare him away at the sight of your hydras protecting your overlords and then hit him with scourges right when he is turning away.
Ive never had any decent results with going mass air vs mass air, with mutas, even if you upgrade them you can never be sure if youre going to beat his corsair mass and its harder for you to make ground units than it is for him. Also, you absolutely need a queen with mutas because the only chance you got at killing his corsairs is when hes far from his own bases, and mutas alone wont do the trick if he can simply run away. Honestly however, i have never seen a good player get more than a single stargate right from the beginning, its very easy to play against it if you know how, if hes only on one stargate then a switch to muta when the +1 carapace is almost done can work better.
Some people think drops are just bad vs corsairs, but here is why it should be the standard response (and as far as i know its like that with progamers). Despite his corsairs being a threat to your ovies if they are unsupported, he cant be all over the map with them, if you get drop asap, with a standard 3 hatch spire, 5 hatch hydra build, your drop and hydra upgrades will be finishing by the time he starts cannoning his 3rd on a map such as medusa or gods garden while his only response to drops is possibly slow zealots or a pair of reavers which are in his nat. Also, with a well timed hydra build even if its a little delayed like the standard 3 hatch spire into 5 hatch hydras, as long as the first dozen hydras come asap, you should force some cannons because he will have at most a reaver, especially if you could snipe his shuttle with scourges and lings.
So, your ovies can move wherever your hydras can reach, for every corsair you can have 2 hydras and your ovies will be completely safe from harm, and you will send some hydras and ovies just below his main cliff for example, if he scouts that then it works to your advantage because he cant harass you for fear that he will get dropped and he doesnt have the ground army yet to fight a drop without corsairs, also sending your hydras out of your base can force him to cannon his nat more, as well as to place his ht there. If he goes to harass, you simply drop his main or his 3rd. He wont have an army until a little after he has saturated his 3rd, so you need drop before that.
Overexpanding is only plausible vs newbies who get 2-3 stargates from the opening (and you will only see decent players getting that many stargates when you open lurkers). Yes, you can expand once more right after you see a robotics bay instead of a citadel, but stay on 4 bases because he might just make a pair of reavers and then harass with light drops and then pretty soon after come out with a good number of zealots, a pair of reavers and hts, and you wont have shit because youve been droning like an idiot.
Placing 1 or 2 spores in each base can work nicely to help mostly vs dt drops, because while it isnt worth it to suicide all of his corsairs to kill a clump of ovies, it will be worth to suicide a couple of corsairs for killing nearby ovies and then coming with 4 dts and killing 2 or 3 buildings and your drones before the ovies from your nat can even reach your main.
Sunkens in mineral lines are not worth it vs reavers, but again, can be worth it vs dts and zeals if your base is completely naked, a single one is enough, and you neednt have more than 6 or so hydras to defend each base unless hes going nothing but reavers and corsairs.
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good P players always expect a drop esp when your overlord speed is upgraded and all their sairs are roaming around the map looking for holes on your defenses and stray overlords.. even if you manage a drop your sacrifing those overlords and it wont do much damage bec reavers are there and some cannons, chances are P is still in good shape and might kill you in late game.
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On July 14 2009 23:47 Stimpacked wrote:
good P players always expect a drop esp when your overlord speed is upgraded and all their sairs are roaming around the map looking for holes on your defenses and stray overlords.. even if you manage a drop your sacrifing those overlords and it wont do much damage bec reavers are there and some cannons, chances are P is still in good shape and might kill you in late game.
"ok"
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United States43817 Posts
I trust Cloud here. Also even if you expect drops it's often hard to stop them when there is a wide area he could hit from.
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The threat of drops can be enough to pressure a Protoss into making mistakes.
Use speedy ovies to make moves towards his base and you can be sure he will send his corsairs to take it out as a priority target. If those Overlords are escorted by scourge, then you can quickly lower his Corsair count, while putting him on the back foot, gaining good intel as well as map control.
If you can dictate where your opponent sends his Corsairs, like this, then you've already limited what he can do with them.
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United States8167 Posts
great advice cloud 
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If you think the corsair mass is starting to build up, get flyer carapace and put a spore or two. Maybe get overlord speed earlier. You might even consider devourers if it's getting out of hand.
Mass corsair too early = contain, zerg the map, sunken up where necessary and throw in a spore, deny a third base.
Remember, the corsair is merely an air superiority fighter.
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On July 14 2009 15:25 sixghost wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2009 11:59 Gogleion wrote:
In later game devourers and guardians are very good for what you're describing.
Devourers have a base armor of 2, meaning that if neither of you upgraded, it would take the corsair 83 hits to take one down (3 damage per hit). Guardians have a greater range than cannons and if his only anti-air attack is sairs, then you can use devourers.
It might take a while to get to this tech, but if he turtles, you could have time to tech up.
EDIT: Fixed my math You are forgetting to take into account how fast sairs attack, and the fact that P will have +1 at the very least, most likely even +2 if they have this many sairs. Especially considering how often this type of play transitions into mass sair reaver carrier. That's not to say they arent good vs sairs, but they aren't the perfect counter.
I intentionally left out upgrades because the zerg can upgrade just as easily to +2 Flyer Carapace. Also the corsair's attack becomes slower with the effect of acid spores (cooldown increased by 1/6 for each acid spore), which is why I didn't factor in the time.
I know that they're not the perfect counter, its just that Guardians are the perfect counter to mass cannons, and since you're at the Greater Spire tech, Devourers are a ready option.
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although what cloud says is pretty awesome in theory and he's probably good enough to do them well...
from my experience- drops are the BANE of my starcraft existence.
never in my god forsaken life haev i ever pulled off a decent drop- and the few times i actually do a crippling blow my entire main gets ravaged by a simple 1a2a3a or something like that.
it took me countless losses to realize , hey, fuck dropping vs sairs! because (imo) there is a huge luck factor when doing these kind of drops vs sair. and my luck is terrible.
however on maps like python or andro if you tech speed+drop asap, you can drop the island ( 3rd gas he's gonna take ) and deny it for a bit, but that's map specific <_<.
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On July 15 2009 03:10 Ideas wrote:great advice cloud
a rep would be dandy about now
i like his idea
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I am going to assume he had to open 2 stargates to be able to get 24 Sairs?? by mid game? If you research burrow and have upgrade hydras, you should be able to deny his third completely.
Killing overlords alone, for that many sairs is not very cost effective, he would have to have some sort of successful DT or Reaver harass in order to take the lead. Thus if you expand again and deter his harass, you should end up 4 bases vs his 2. The longer the game stays that way, the more comfortable your lead becomes.
Everything Cloud said about using drops to your advantage is also correct. Its tough for a toss to, take his third, harass and have an army large enough to defend a drop.
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2 words: sauron zerg.
corsairs can kill overlords, but guess what? they cant kill your buildings. make sure you have a zergling at every expansion once you realize he is going sair/reaver so he cant get any good defense up and even if his sair/reaver force takes out 1 or 2 of your expos you will have 6 more warping elsewhere. hydra/ling control is key vs sair/reaver. then if you somehow still havent won yet, add defilers to the mix.
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On July 14 2009 10:48 ultramagnetics wrote:Hmmm, I'm not a z player but if he is really massing corsairs doing the following things should definitely help ( in no particular order): 1.)Upgrade flyer carapace. 2.)Expand like crazy (he doesn't have an army to 1a2a3a your expos) with multi sunk/spores at expo. 3.) Burrow zerglings throughout the map to maintain map-vision. 4.) Do all you can to stop protoss from getting his third (burrow a zergling at where he would build nexus and maybe above the ramp so you can see cannons warping in. 5.) Make a bunch spore colonies through out your main/natural to ward off sairs. 6.) Don't over-cluster your overlords because he will take them all out while sacrificing only a few sairs- Keep them spread around your main/nat and around spore colonies. 7.) Have a bunch of scourge ready to pick off his shuttle (or corsairs in some situations). Hmmm, that's all I can think of for now. I hope it helps
first 4 is total fail hint
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I have an idea!
Make a bajillion scourge. "Accidentally" leave an overlord or two near a place where Protoss will find them. Send your bajillion scourge in and watch his corsairs exploder monkey.
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On July 15 2009 07:16 UmmTheHobo wrote:
I have an idea!
Make a bajillion scourge. "Accidentally" leave an overlord or two near a place where Protoss will find them. Send your bajillion scourge in and watch his corsairs exploder monkey.
You better have the 400 apm needed to clone to kill 24 corsairs. And even then, after around 6 sairs, unless you totally surround him scourge do nothing any more if they're paying attention at all.
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can someone post a VOD where a protoss goes mass sair-reaver into mass corsairs/disruption web/carriers and the zerg wins? The only ones I know are of Bisu doing it and as far as I know he wins all of those.
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On July 15 2009 09:55 alt.tday wrote:
can someone post a VOD where a protoss goes mass sair-reaver into mass corsairs/disruption web/carriers and the zerg wins? The only ones I know are of Bisu doing it and as far as I know he wins all of those.
I think july might have. Can't remember the game. Also, I know Savior stopped Nal_ra from doing it a few times.
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Whenever a P goes for sair reaver I always try and drop him when his sairs leave his base. That way you don't have to deal with reavers raping your shit
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I would suggest better and more dedicated scouting. Once he has 12-24 Sairs, you're right, there isn't that much you can do. You need to catch him when he has 1-2 and keep scourging them if he decides to keep producing.
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EPT
