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I played a game today that really made me mad. I don't ever get mad about losing because everybody loses and it's usually because I did something stupid. But this time I had great macro and pretty good army composition and still lost. Basically I lost because I couldnt break his cannon defense. Here is what happened.
Its a PvP on Desert Oasis and he tries to sneak a pylon in my base and make a gateway, I chronoboost a zealot and pull some probes off and manage to kill the pylon and probe and the threat is solved. I try to push with 6 zealots to take advantage of his failed cheese but he has cannoned up (curse that awful walking distance). I see 3 or 4 cannons powered by multiple pylons and run away.
By the mid game, I have 6 warpgates 1 robo and I have blink and charge. I have my natural fully saturated and my 3rd base is warping in. I have something like 12 stalkers 10 zealots and 6 sentries. I saw that he was only on 2 bases and I assumed he was just macroing up an army. I couldnt get an obs anywhere because of all the cannons. Then he hits me with 4 void rays with speed. Im out of position because im trying to attack his expansion before it goes up but he gets like 6 cannons by the time I get there and is making more. I warp in stalkers under the void rays and kill 2 of them but my main nexus goes down and he leaves. Luckily he didnt see the third base going up.
Its been like 20 minutes and he keeps pumping voidrays and suiciding them to kill my nexus at my main or natural or the third which he eventually found. I had a huge army of like 30 stalkers 20 zealots and some sentries and I have had enough of the stupid void ray harass all game. I go to his base to find that he has virtually no ground units, just over 20 cannons in each of his 2 bases. He had 3 immortals and some zealots in his main but nothing in his natural. I push into his natural and manage to kill a bunch of stuff but while Im doing that, he just kills all my bases with like 10 more void rays. I run back with all I have left but he just ignores my army and focuses down the nesuses (nexi?) My army is melted away by his cannon army and I eventually run out of buildings for his void rays to eat. GG.
Is there any way to kill a cannon army like this if you are Protoss?
Should I have gone mass cannons also to stop the void rays?
His pylon coverage was perfect, almost every cannon was powered by more than one.
The only thing that can outrange cannons in the protoss army is the upgraded colossus and carriers which I didnt get because he was running around with 10 void rays with upgraded speed...
All I can say is... boy I wish I had Corsair/Disruption Web right about now...
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He shouldn't have been able to secure an expo w/ no army, especially on maps like Desert Oasis where the expos are so wide in the open. I imagine there should have been quite a few opportunities for you to harass as well given how easy it is to blink or dropship into their main on Desert Oasis, but w/o a replay I can't really say. But on maps like Desert Oasis make use of the 3 middle watch towers so you don't get surprised by drops and air units like you did. There should be no excuse since you had the army and map control.
You can also make Phoenixes to counter the voids. When players go all-in void rays it's hard to counter even w/ blink stalkers b/c voids eat up stalkers unless you have a lot of stalkers, but then that means you are essentially contained in your base. Phoenixes allow you to chase down voids and are fast enough they can respond to surprise attacks.
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Immortals eat cannons for breakfast, and if he is cannoning up hard, then get sentry stalker and expand. Alternatively you can go for Pheonix Zealot and easily contain him, but this is very risky against blink stalkers or DTs.
What I do if the player cannons up hard is I tech up quickly and get detection, usually in the form of cannons. This lets me have a stronger army, because I have tech but I didn't waste money on excessive cannons, and I won't lose to Dark Templar or Void Rays.
I personally think that going Robo tech for observers, immortals in case of fast blink stalkers, and Colossi for the late game is the safe option, but is a difficult micro battle against Void Rays, because often your stalker and sentry count will be low because of the gas invested in tech.
Pheonixes and zealots or cannons are tough to use against standard compositions, but they crush Void Rays and you should have an army advantage against the heavily cannoned opponent which can also allow you to expand early on. The problem I have with Pheonix builds is that you lack detection, and getting cannons yourself removes a lot of the army advantage you had over your opponent.
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Can we get a replay? It's kind of hard to give good advice without one even though you gave a general overview of the game.
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Immortals dude... one immortal can kill a cannon in 4 shots. Plus they are tough as hell with over 300 HP each
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I'm sorry I don't have a replay folks. That's my fault. Ive been having a lot of technical problems. Thanks for the advice anyway, especially immortals. I guess I underestimated them a lot. I totally did have map control and I guess I should have taken more advantage of it but boy was it annoying when I tried to push in and right as I did he had void rays in my base. That was the worst. Also, I remember that when he killed my nexus, my economy was in shambles because my probes started long distance mining to other bases and I didnt catch it for like 5 minutes. Thanks friends and next time I post a thread I will be sure to have a replay of some kind. Sorry again and thanks for the help.
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I dont play a lot of Protoss but i believe Colosus out range cannons with its upgrade.
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Immortals (+ Stalkers for the Void Rays) seal the deal.
They take 10 damage per cannon shot and deal 50 damage in reverse.
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If he is turtling that hard, take your exp and go dual robo Immortals, then break his expansion which is very exposed on that map.
If he refuses to GG at that point, bring some colossus to deal with the ramp. You should be able to have an army that is large enough to deal with his Void Rays I think. If you are having a lot of problems with them, cannon up some to buy time, or throw in some Phoenix.
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Well, you shouldn't go "mass" cannons ever really. A few at each Nexus will be good enough to delay heavy harass like your opponent's Void Rays, and completely deny any lesser harass.
As for cracking his Photon Cannon line, Zealots were probably a bad choice. Trade two of your six Warp Gates for a Robotics Facility and pump Immortals, those things eat cannons for breakfast.
Also if your opponent is turtling hard, you should have map control. If you have map control, spam expand. You can win with a 200/200 army while your opponent is still 100/200 cause he spent all his money on Photon Cannons.
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From my understanding, it seems that you did not need to go for the kill in that situation. It sounded like you had total map control and that the only threat to you was a mediocre group of void rays. In this kind of situation you should have focused on shutting down his harassment and denying expansions, while you expand and add on more production buildings. Killing your opponent is not the only way of winning, you can simply just starve him out.
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I've seen more annoying cannon rushes, proxy gateway in your base, mass cannon/pylon and he slowly creeps towards your nexus killing your income making it even harder to get Immortals without dying to the void rays which should come soon.
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Stalkers + Blink to rape rays.
Observer to allow blink to snipe his shit.
If all else fails,
Step 1 - watch pro replays and day9
Step 2 - ????
Step 3 - win!
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When someone cheeses like that I like to punish them with their own weapon: make some cannons at each expo get better economy while pumping rays. Than just go to his mineral line with superior numbers and gg. Makes all his cannons useless. The best way to counter static defence is not to attack it. Robo tech is also good but when breaking 20 cannons with void ray support in narrow space you may lose.
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I've lost several games to people just turtling up and massing void rays after their cheese doesn't work.
It's super annoying.
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As everyone else was saying, immortals are fantastic against cannons. This + stalkers against the void rays (and if he ignores your army and goes for your base, you can either blink back or just warp in more stalkers to take out the void rays) should have been a pretty good build against your opponent.
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Please post a replay, or this is probably going to get locked. As per usual, the issue is not dealing with photon cannons, its something different than you could have done. He shouldn't be able to expand without an army!
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immortals do 50 damage to cannons. 3-4 immortals can take down many cannons very quickly. In addition to the immortals you should mass stalkers with blink and a few sentries for guardian shield to handle the void rays.
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Funny, this happened to me sort of.
I went fast mutas against a guy who had something like 3 or 4 cannons in his main and mass stalkers off one base. Felt cheated out of any harassment I should have been able to do, I got more mutas to break his mineral line.
Go in with 9 or 10 mutas only to find that he had added something like another 15 cannons throughout his main. I was just thinking how ridiculous that was, but it caused me to lose because I put so much into my mutas which felt useless for the rest of it.
He of course followed with a pseudo timing push with mass stalkers and won.
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On May 31 2010 07:01 CScythe wrote:
Funny, this happened to me sort of.
I went fast mutas against a guy who had something like 3 or 4 cannons in his main and mass stalkers off one base. Felt cheated out of any harassment I should have been able to do, I got more mutas to break his mineral line.
Go in with 9 or 10 mutas only to find that he had added something like another 15 cannons throughout his main. I was just thinking how ridiculous that was, but it caused me to lose because I put so much into my mutas which felt useless for the rest of it.
He of course followed with a pseudo timing push with mass stalkers and won.
And to think, if you had scouted at all during the game, you would have won easily...
Doesn't Zerg have those flying units that you need for supply?
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You didn't think to fly an overlord over his base?
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EPT
