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So uh let me rephrase my first post... After going 0-6 in PvZ today I'm thinking a lot about the matchup.
Two games I literally killed the guy's fast expand and end up still getting totally rolled as if killing his expansion had NO effect.
What I'm curious about is this: zerg can mass a retarded amount of units off 1 hatch, let alone if they have an expansion. How in th hell are you supposed to deal with this as Protoss?
I feel like in order to keep up with their mass, you need to cut probes and purely pump units. But if you do that, there are 0 tier1 protoss units that can deal with roaches (especially after zeals got nerfed); so at some point you need to tech to immortal or colossus. However, the robo bay is around 200-200 (or is it 200-100?), and an immortal is 250-100, and Colossus is 300-200 (or something retarded, and it builds hella long).
So let's say he's going mass hydra / roach and you want to not die... how can you safely tech to robo units without totally getting run over?
It literally will take you about 3 minutes from starting your robotics until your first colossus is out. In that time you need to make sure you're having enough money to build the robo facility, the support bay, and the colossus (that's about 700 minerals and 500 gas or something). So pretty much that's 7 less zealots you can produce in that span.
How can you possibly hold off a hydra/roach attack in that window ? The most you can possibly have are around 7-10 zealots and 1-2 sentry... if you're lucky enough to just be camping in your main maybe you can block the ramp enough for the colossus to come out... but then if you're just sitting in your main you let the Zerg expand and get 2x the units... if you try to be aggressive you will get run over before your robo units are out.
How the hell are you supposed to play against zergs at a decently high level, I just don't get it.
**edit**
On another note.. I'm just generally annoyed how fucking fast buildings die... In one of the games I lost after killing his nat, I had my own nat up and I was containing him well. I had phoenix's kill his queen and he attacked with hydras; I was dumb and lost all my units at his front, but outside my expand I had 5 cannons and 3 zealots. He comes in with around 10 hydras , and just kills my pylon in 2seconds and I lose. In BW that attack would have EASILY been fended off and I would have won.
SDFLKSDJFSKLDFSDKL
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sentries
User was warned for this post.
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both of those games I had 2 sentries and they didn't do shit O_O.. as I said in the post (seriously why would you write a 1 word retarded reply), even if you have sentries and you can force field your ramp or w/e so they can't get up, then you're just trapping yourself in your base to stay alive... and that puts you in a shitty position.
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First off, you're completely wrong about the 0 units that can deal with roaches thing. I usually mass sentry/zealot (spend all gas on sentries and remaining excess mins on zealots) and this easily counters roaches especially with guardian shield.
It's fairly easy to hold off the initial roach push and then tech to colossi while expanding.
Also have you been chrono boosting your colossi? I always keep them on as constant as possible of a chrono boost to help with their build times.
PvZ early/midgame is quite balanced imo, I don't know what you're talking about o_O. It's the end game if they get ultralisks (aka imbalisks) or broodlords that isn't balanced and you should be complaining about imo lol.
Also, threads like this are always better with replays because you provide anecdotal examples in which you probably made mistakes that could have been righted if we could see the replay.
edit: As for the trapping yourself in your base putting you in a shitty position, I think it's definitely worth it to buy time for another production cycle or two.
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Funny because the same thing happened to me except the protoss rolled me over after i took out his nat with 4 collosi and 5ish zealots.
I looked at the rep and turns out my economy was behind even though i took out his nat(not enough drones), maybe you are having the same problem?
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sentries have another ability. and roaches have ranged damage.
ur right the one word reply was jerkish...my bad... but seriously.. I've wrecked zergs with half the army size as them with 2 sentries in the mid/back for the ranged dmg shield
Edit: I can't spell aparently
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I always chrono boost my colossus, the zergs I've been playing have micro'd well so even though I have zeal + sentry in my early pushes, they just die after I kill the nat expand or I have to run back to my main
I use guardian shield but it doesn't do that much... (do guardian shields stack?)
I feel like I have to cut so many probes in order to mass enough to not die... I notice in my recent PvZ games that I have WAY less probes than I'd normally have..
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On March 09 2010 14:28 Xeris wrote:
I use guardian shield but it doesn't do that much... (do guardian shields stack?)
Good question... Anyone know for sure? I'm assuming it doesn't.
Xeris, do you have any replays?
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Guardian shields don't stack but it's effectively making it like you're up by 2 on armor upgrades against your opponent which is huge.
Plus sentries do WAY more damage than most people expect them to at first. For a spellcaster they're hella powerful. Add this to the fact that they're ranged so they can't be kited like your zealots and you've got a win/win combination right there.
Usually if I see a zerg going roaches I laugh to myself because zealot/sentry can definitely beat it and so many zergs seem to assume roaches are OP and end up doing sloppy things like attacking in losing battles because they don't realize how good sentries are. I've won a ton of games by just rolling over the roach push and killing a zerg.
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On March 09 2010 14:28 Xeris wrote:
I use guardian shield but it doesn't do that much... (do guardian shields stack?)
No, Guardian shields do not stack (I could see it being pretty OP if they did ^^).
In response to how fast buildings die - I believe this is a by-product of overall increased damage from some units (roaches do quite a bit, surprisingly), as well as the unit-clumping we have been seeing so much of. I really feel like this should be a gigantic issue right now.
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where are my replays anyways? i don't even know where it find them
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On March 09 2010 14:35 Xeris wrote:
where are my replays anyways? i don't even know where it find them
C:\Users\you\Documents\StarCraft II Beta\Replays
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My Documents>Starcraft II Beta>Replays>
From there if you went into your replays in sc2 and saved it as a name it will be in the Multiplayer folder or if you didn't save it as a name it will be in the recent folder
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lol xeris i feel your pain.... its so annoying to play pvz. really 2gate is useless, you can kill their expo but if they get 4+ roaches out your dead
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On March 09 2010 14:49 likeaboss wrote:
lol xeris i feel your pain.... its so annoying to play pvz. really 2gate is useless, you can kill their expo but if they get 4+ roaches out your dead
as a protoss player I have the most fun with pvz lol....
every pvp is a dumb proxy pylon fest and every pvt is a dumb emp fest. At least PvZ can be different each game 
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On March 09 2010 14:21 Xeris wrote:
On another note.. I'm just generally annoyed how fucking fast buildings die... In one of the games I lost after killing his nat, I had my own nat up and I was containing him well. I had phoenix's kill his queen and he attacked with hydras; I was dumb and lost all my units at his front, but outside my expand I had 5 cannons and 3 zealots. He comes in with around 10 hydras , and just kills my pylon in 2seconds and I lose. In BW that attack would have EASILY been fended off and I would have won.
Compared to SC1:
* Cannons buffed to 125 shields, 125 health (up from 100/100)
* Pylons nerfed to 200 shields, 200 health (down from 300/300)
Anything more than 2 cannons per pylon and it's better to snipe the pylons in SC2. For 5 cannons you should've at LEAST had 2 pylons providing power, if not 3.
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a safe build against zerg is usually gate gas/core gate gas robo. The robo lets you build a quick(ish) observer, and 2 warpgates are enough to hold off a zerg push if he isnt cheesing early and if you are constantly pumping units. Then you can adjust your build depending on what your ob sees.
You add a third gate if he is going hydra/roach, chrono an immortal asap if he is going pure roach and mass sentries with gas and cannon up main if he is going muta (depending on how many muta he sends to attacks, you counter push with sentries may be possible while he gets denied by cannons).
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id say im pretty good in pvz
i like 2 gate as well (map permitting)
if you see an early roach warren, stop your zealot production (usually around 3 at this point). you will have more probes than drones than he will, so you are slightly ahead. at this point throw up a nexus first and then forge and start cannons. sac a probe to see his roach count. i usually stop probes around this time to get ample cannons.
once your tech is up and running, get an obs out first (always chrono your robotics) then straight to collosus. throw down 3 more gates. attack when your first collosus comes out, and go mass zeal if hydra/ling, or some stalkers if you see a spire. this push will kill him if he made too many roaches early game. send a probe with your attack so you can have reinforcements instantly.
in general im a big fan of doing some fast expand into mass push in the early mid game. its been pretty successful so far.
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the fun thing about zerg is that with the queen zerg now has 2 hatcheries without the eco of two which is totally fine because zerg is cheap in terms of units.
1gate robo is the kinda of build you should be doing if hydra/roach is biting your ass, maybe opt to go for a 2gate build into robo? punish him if he's feing and defend if its a roach/hydra rush is about the only thing i can think off
pylons and cannons are A LOT weaker then BW, please for your own safety do not refer to BW units and buildings, you will pay the price 2 pylons per 4 cannons is like mandatory cause of the new hp.
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I've had decent luck with both 2-gate and 1-gate core builds vs Z; I prefer the latter as it feels a bit more stable, it's just a matter of having reasonable followup plans.
2-Gate: This allows for a lot of early pressure, forcing them to get a lot of early units, and thus damaging their economy. If they're doing a sprint tech to Lair or a fast expand, they have a very good chance of just dying; surviving means pumping either a *lot* of lings or a more modest number of roaches/banelings. Hence, the plan with a two-gate is not to kill them with just those two gates; the plan is to use the pressure to do something else good. My preference is to build the two gates in my natural, followed by dropping an extra pylon and a couple cannons to defend it followed by an early expansion behind it. Since they're stuck in T1 defending your rush, you don't have any immediate risk of hydras or mutas, which is what they need to crack a decently walled cannon defense. And at that point, you have a nice, safe, two base vs whatever they're doing position to continue into midgame. Day[9] did a Daily on this a week or two back, and I've found it works decently well in practice.
1-Gate-Core: goal here is generally to aim for a fast zealot/immortal push, adjusting as necessary based on what they're doing. Assuming perfect execution, you can move out with around 7 zealots and 2 immortals around the 6:15 mark, and it basically means that they've done anything but *mass* tier 1 or fast tech to hydras, they're in serious trouble. Almost all fast expo builds (save ling-allin variants) just get run over, roach rushes get pushed back pretty effectively, and if done with proper timing you get there in time to kill all sorts of stuff they'd rather not lose before mutas hatch (at which point you can cannon up your mineral line and be safe from muta harass while you transition into sentry/stalker and/or phoenixes).
Hence, the only build that's particularly likely to make it through the opening in stable fashion is 1-base hydras, which, in my experience, isn't really a threat to break your front before you get collosi. I mean, yeah, if you threw away all your zealots and immortals trying to push in anyway you're going to be in trouble, but if you retreat most of them and add on a few sentries, you generally wind up with a very stable position where you can easily take your natural, get observers to watch for their continued tech pattern, research charge + Colossus range to deal with hydras, and so on.
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maybe these 2 replays will help you??
http://himan.pl/download.php?id=76
http://himan.pl/download.php?id=77
Basically if I scout roach warden then I go for fast Immortal/sentry/zealot push
if I scout hydra I go for fast colosus etc.
The thing u said about the xpand, its TOTALLY correct!!! see in the LT replay I break his exp 2 times and still we have almost close supply. I lost a game to mass muta after breaking a Zerg's expansion but I truly understood what I did wrong in that game, it was my army composition that fucked up later on the game. hope it helped abit.
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iNfeRnaL
Germany1908 Posts
You should really fast expand on any map that allows to do so.
Having 2 gas really helps to deal with anything for example you can afford colossi + enough sentry's to be muta safe as well etc...
Without having an expo its really much of a guessing game for P.
Go robo and be super vulnerable to muta or go mass and be super vulnerable to mass hyd roach...
I personally think the trend PvZ is showing will definitely require more maps like LT Meta Kulas etc where you can expo somewhat fast, while maps like Desert Oasis make up for total all in based play of P...
And if Z is good at reading the opponent, allin is always easily solved IMO, because there's not much of a choice what to do without an expo close enough.
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On March 09 2010 18:15 iNfeRnaL wrote:
You should really fast expand on any map that allows to do so.
Having 2 gas really helps to deal with anything for example you can afford colossi + enough sentry's to be muta safe as well etc...
Without having an expo its really much of a guessing game for P.
Go robo and be super vulnerable to muta or go mass and be super vulnerable to mass hyd roach...
I personally think the trend PvZ is showing will definitely require more maps like LT Meta Kulas etc where you can expo somewhat fast, while maps like Desert Oasis make up for total all in based play of P...
And if Z is good at reading the opponent, allin is always easily solved IMO, because there's not much of a choice what to do without an expo close enough.
if he roach rushes you, say you have 3 cannons, he breaks 1 out of 3 and breaks into your main eating probes, thats a huge economic disadvantage, you need to time early on so you can be safe from a roach rush or a rush in general, then what u gonna do vs mass hydras?? and what u say about robo is totally wrong, I mean going robo is the key vs mass hydr roach. also about muta dont u also have 3 warpgates pumping out sentries/stalkers to deal with them? I personally go 1 gate / robo upgrade warp tech then if I scout roach/hyd i make colosus and 2 more gateways, then attack. if i see muta i might go stargate dont make colosus and make phoenix + sentry stalker etc.
I dont know about the FE expand, i like the idea of it but dunno if its really viable to a zerg that knows exactly how to counter it.
PS: its funny a clanmate of yours mTwHorror tried FE'ing vs a friend yesterday that shares my account and he got roach rushed into hydras and lost.
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iNfeRnaL
Germany1908 Posts
Then my clanmate horror didn't make enough cannons.
Roach is easily stopped by 4-5 cannons.
If you worry about runby's I suggest you should learn to use a better building placement.
I don't even know what kind of FE strategy horror played, there's many of them, right after 2g with no zeal, after 2g and some zeal, before 2g, with forge, after some teching etc.
What I'm going to do vs Hydras?
Hmmm, let me think a second, storm or colossus MAYBE?
That's why I said you have gas to make those AND be air safe with an expo.
Long story short it doesn't really matter WHEN you get it, but you HAVE to get it rather quick, else Zerg will simply overpower you or tech-switch you to death.
You don't get an expansion up before - say the 7-8 minute mark, you're quite doomed IMO.
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haha I meant what u do against mass hydras when a good rush has done some short of eco damage. like the example.
ofc vs mass hydras u go colosus colosus rape hydra anyways, I guess ur right with the right placement its easily doable  also its a nice fact that zerg's nowadays rely on 1 base first with queen and then expand.
btw what BO do you do? I havent done much experimenting, I have done the normal SC1 way it worked ok but with low level players i guess and also in a rep of WhiteRa i saw something really strange, he went something like 13-14 nexus with no gateway forge then made gateway then forge. kek. really risky imo...
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its not risky, he scouted and saw what the other player was doing (likely a fast hatch) and made a nexus.
the real toss up for me is a player who denys scouting information and just does a 1 base into nydus at your main. not sure quite yet how to deal with that.
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On March 09 2010 18:15 iNfeRnaL wrote:
You should really fast expand on any map that allows to do so.
Having 2 gas really helps to deal with anything for example you can afford colossi + enough sentry's to be muta safe as well etc...
Without having an expo its really much of a guessing game for P.
Go robo and be super vulnerable to muta or go mass and be super vulnerable to mass hyd roach...
I personally think the trend PvZ is showing will definitely require more maps like LT Meta Kulas etc where you can expo somewhat fast, while maps like Desert Oasis make up for total all in based play of P...
And if Z is good at reading the opponent, allin is always easily solved IMO, because there's not much of a choice what to do without an expo close enough.
Do you have replays showing good sim cities for maps with open nats or wide chokes? I'm drawing a blank there and the lack of gas really makes getting sentries and tech up hard.
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On March 09 2010 15:27 esla_sol wrote:
id say im pretty good in pvz
i like 2 gate as well (map permitting)
if you see an early roach warren, stop your zealot production (usually around 3 at this point). you will have more probes than drones than he will, so you are slightly ahead. at this point throw up a nexus first and then forge and start cannons. sac a probe to see his roach count. i usually stop probes around this time to get ample cannons.
once your tech is up and running, get an obs out first (always chrono your robotics) then straight to collosus. throw down 3 more gates. attack when your first collosus comes out, and go mass zeal if hydra/ling, or some stalkers if you see a spire. this push will kill him if he made too many roaches early game. send a probe with your attack so you can have reinforcements instantly.
in general im a big fan of doing some fast expand into mass push in the early mid game. its been pretty successful so far.
I've been doing this too, encountered roach after three zeal, went back and immediately expoed with 2-3 cannons, but i still get outmassed by hydra/roach/ling armies, even after spending all my money, chrono boosting colossi and getting forge upgrades
seriously, no matter what I do as toss, the only thing that seems to work is an allin 1 base timing push with immortals, and thats only if he went roach, which you cant force if you dont 2 gate
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If you kill the zerg's fast expo you should immediately expand yourself with canons, or even do it as soon as it becomes obvious that you will be able to kill his fast expo. He won't be able to attack you since you'll have enough minerals to get tons of canons if necessary while still getting sentries and teching to whatever. The Z's best bet is to re-expand at that point, which puts you at a pretty big advantage and forces him to play catch up. Unless you make mistakes or completely fail to counter his unit composition (expect lots of hydras, if he goes mutas you should be able to beat that easily), you should be able to win from that position.
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Why do people say Toss has 0 Tier 1 units that can deal with Roaches? This is one of the few matchups where Stalkers are actually good. They are much faster than roaches, they have a longer attack range than roaches, and they do bonus damage to roaches. Proper micro and a zealot or two with 4 Stalkers can hold off 8+ roaches while your Robo Bay finishes and you get your first CB'd Immortal out.
Generally, if it's PvZ and I scout the Z going fast Roach Rush, I go:
Pylon
Gate
Gas
Core
Pylon
Gate
Robo
Build zealots until your Core finishes, make some stalkers, hold your choke, get immortal, end roach push.
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EPT
