EPTYour problem isn't that you went archons. Your problem is you didn't go archons + storm.
[D] PvZ Muta/Ling - Page 3
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Floophead_III
United States1832 Posts
Your problem isn't that you went archons. Your problem is you didn't go archons + storm. | ||
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Brazen[six]
Canada203 Posts
I understand the ling/muta combo is more of a mid game strategy to employ, so might it be more advisable to save the resources for initial defense vs early agression and just grab two evo chambers after the sucessful defense? | ||
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kcdc
United States2311 Posts
Anyway, it seems like a good way to prevent zerg from going 3 base muta/ling. | ||
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knyttym
United States5797 Posts
On July 19 2010 02:27 Floophead_III wrote: I've done testing a long time ago before people realized that muta/ling was even viable. The solution is zealots+ht/archon. Yes, 1 archon doesn't beat 15 mutalisks. But 1 archon will obliterate 3. They're very cost effective, decimate lings, and when army sizes grow the addition of 3-4 storms from just 2 HTs is enough to turn the tide so massively in favor of protoss it makes muta/ling worthless. Your problem isn't that you went archons. Your problem is you didn't go archons + storm. What exactly do you do with that army? The annoying thing about fast mutalisks is you are forced to keep forces in your main to defend counters. Cannons are ok to buy time but if 15 mutalisks start bouncing in and out of your main they are going to find stuff to kill. This forces you to leave a templar at home because there just isn't any way you can get back fast enough especially if your main antiair is an archon. So the result is protoss sitting at the natural until he can spare 1-2 templar at his main and then he takes his 3rd which he must sit his main army at until he gets cannons + a ht. Otherwise mutalisks run in, kill it and leave. All the while zerg should have fully saturated 3 bases and taking the fourth at the island. | ||
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xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
On July 19 2010 02:45 kNyTTyM wrote: What exactly do you do with that army? The annoying thing about fast mutalisks is you are forced to keep forces in your main to defend counters. Cannons are ok to buy time but if 15 mutalisks start bouncing in and out of your main they are going to find stuff to kill. This forces you to leave a templar at home because there just isn't any way you can get back fast enough especially if your main antiair is an archon. So the result is protoss sitting at the natural until he can spare 1-2 templar at his main and then he takes his 3rd which he must sit his main army at until he gets cannons + a ht. Otherwise mutalisks run in, kill it and leave. All the while zerg should have fully saturated 3 bases and taking the fourth at the island. This is precisely why 2 base => 2 stargate phoenix is the best counter for mutas. A good zerg will never let you leave your main and natural with his mutas if you only use gateway units, allowing him to take the map and tech switch into a massive hydra/roach force (or whatever else fancies him). | ||
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Brazen[six]
Canada203 Posts
On July 19 2010 02:37 Brazen[six] wrote: As zerg, what initial upgrades would you suggest for your lings? Would it be more advisable to get the carapace first, so you can utilize roaches along with your lings to hold off any initial protoss agression? Or instead should you go straight for the melee attack? I understand the ling/muta combo is more of a mid game strategy to employ, so might it be more advisable to save the resources for initial defense vs early agression and just grab two evo chambers after the sucessful defense? Actually I think I answered my own question here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=116789 | ||
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Saracen
United States5139 Posts
On July 19 2010 00:44 done wrote: I dont see your point at all. In my experience nearly EVERY damn thing beats muta/ling.. even some decently microed stalkers with few zeals and storm do fine.. I've come to the conclusion, that mutas are dead in my zvp matchup, if I cant surprise my opponnent. They are way too weak to do anything to a decently formed protoss army plus phoenix rape them hard (mutas dont even hit them, if you micro half decent) so imo your problem is selfmade and should be solved by just playing better This is an excellent example of a terrible post. Plexa posts a wonderful and detailed OP, and includes analysis and replays, and you simply dismiss all of that based on your gold-level experience. It doesn't even cross your mind to watch the replays, much less even possibly consider the fact that the OP might be a decent player, and that your limited experience might be, well, limited. But no! The only logical conclusion is that both Plexa and HwaNi are such bad Protosses that they lose to muta/ling. On July 19 2010 02:27 Floophead_III wrote: I've done testing a long time ago before people realized that muta/ling was even viable. The solution is zealots+ht/archon. Yes, 1 archon doesn't beat 15 mutalisks. But 1 archon will obliterate 3. They're very cost effective, decimate lings, and when army sizes grow the addition of 3-4 storms from just 2 HTs is enough to turn the tide so massively in favor of protoss it makes muta/ling worthless. Your problem isn't that you went archons. Your problem is you didn't go archons + storm. I recently played a ZvP with ReSpOnSe where he even was able to take 4 bases and spend all of his gas on templar/archon, and I still won with pure muta. Just approach it like in SC:BW and don't keep all of your mutas on one hotkey. Have like 10 sitting around to snipe the templar. | ||
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Xanatoss
Germany539 Posts
On July 19 2010 02:54 Saracen wrote:[...] I would like to know, what you think about my approach. | ||
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Saracen
United States5139 Posts
On July 19 2010 03:07 Xanatoss wrote: I would like to know, what you think about my approach, although I am aware of the fact it is no solution to make Colossi/Stalker/Sentry work vs Muta/Ling. I don't know if you've played any really macro-heavy Zergs, but in all honesty, it sounds that your build will get run over by a simple 2 or 3 base hydra/roach. Also, for the Protosses in this thread who think muta/ling is bad, I'll gladly play you to fight for its honor... | ||
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Xanatoss
Germany539 Posts
On July 19 2010 03:17 Saracen wrote: I don't know if you've played any really macro-heavy Zergs, but in all honesty, it sounds that your build will get run over by a simple 2 or 3 base hydra/roach. I will keep an eye on that zerg response, thank you. | ||
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sAfuRos
United States743 Posts
While its not yet a common build (i think it takes a little bit more skill to manage well), mass mutas are a god damn pain, especially if your ground force is zealot/ht, you've got hardly any chance of moving anywhere I've been practicing PvZ with only Phoenix opening builds, to try and learn to play it while having perhaps the only solid counter to mutas (more phoenix), but its not working out well :/ I'm diamond, but i'm not Nony. Gah, i miss sairs so much. Hell, i miss BW...i still feel it was more "engaging", although the graphics are definitely outdated. Edit: And to the zealot/chon/ht build a user above suggested....lol? Maybe if you just camp in your base, but move out and say goodbye to all your probes, because you have the most immobile and terrible air counter army ever. Storm is terrible vs muta in sc2, not only because it does less damage over more time, but because its awkward to target mutas too, the way storm animations work. And chons blow vs mutas. As long as the zerg has a few supporting units | ||
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Ecael
United States6703 Posts
With that said, in the cases where I am allowed to mass mutes, I have found that it is quite difficult for P to make up for the deficit because the map advantage and mobility is so great that I can simply expo all over the place with impunity. Earlier on, some blink stalkers comparable to the number of mutes I have feels decent, but after 12+ or so that starts to feel quite lacking. I have yet to see a truly late game situation with mass mutes though, so haven't even ran into anyone who tries to counter like Plexa did. | ||
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xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
On July 19 2010 03:19 Xanatoss wrote: I will keep an eye on that zerg response, thank you. I've been using a build similar to yours against zerg. What I've found is that you'll be fine against roach/hydra IF you build a twilight council immediately after you start your first stargate. That way, when you spot the hydra/roach tech, you'll already be on your way to getting templar and charge. If you play aggressively with your gateway units, you may be able to keep the zerg from taking a third before you get storm up. It depends upon the map. | ||
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Percutio
United States1672 Posts
The other scenario is when I build up a lot of Templar, Colossi, or otherwise gas heavy units after a hydra midgame. When the zerg tech switches to muta/ling then it can be extremely hard to respond. I find it hard to catch up to the sheer number of mutas that the Zerg can produce. Saracen, how have you done against +attack zealots and stalkers? Do you still find that you can win a straight fight when the Protoss uses his excess minerals to force you away from Mutas? | ||
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a176
Canada6688 Posts
Mutalisk is the ultimate harass unit and once a zerg gets the first 8 out, consider the game over. Any undefended workers, or even buildings, becomes a target for the mutalisks. Thus, Protoss usually become too scared to move their stalkers and etc out, and that represents the beginning of the end. You'll have to brute force push on the zerg to hope they'll stop attacking your base and come back to save theirs, but with spine crawlers and zerglings at their own base, its still very much a gamble. I won't say that its completely unbalanced though. At this stage in the game, Protoss players do not use all the resources available to them. I mean, why doesn't anyone try to do drops or hidden tech or things like that anymore? I see observers trying to scout me all the time but they never seem to try to look for openings for these strategies. Lastly, my solution to PvZ: increase storm damage. please. back to BW level of slaughter. I seriously laugh when I see protoss build HTs. Storm does such little damage, I just don't care about dodging anymore. Okay no, I'll move my units away obviously, but storm does such little damage in that time anyways its virtually useless. Though, I could be wrong, maybe protoss players just don't know how to utilize storm properly in SC2 yet. | ||
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Slayer91
Ireland23335 Posts
Thinks I think are absolutely key: 1: Guardian shield. -4 to each muta shot. (*2: Pheonix; It's so hard to stop a zerg from taking the entire map when theres nothing that can hurt his mutas when he goes into your base.)* 3: Storm. I don't think this is the "counter" to muta ling but i think it helps a TON. Not only does it almost instantly kill lings but it brings muta down to 1/3 hp if he doesn't dodge. If he does you're getting free shots. 4; Having enough stalker/pheonix/archons to actually be a threat to his army so you don't need to rely on storm. *You could argue just to go mass stalker for half the gas and use the excess gas on colossus and attack really fast to kill him if he tries to harass you to death, like white-ra vs sen in that one daily with +2 attack colossus. 2 Stalkers definitely beat 1 muta so gas wise you can win that way. I also think that if you let a zerg get a third up before your natural is up and runing you're already losing. If he has 3 base you need to have a ball of doom prepared. If its a ground army thats stalker/sentry/colossus, if its muta ling I suppose thats 2-3 sentries+2-3 templar+stalker/pheonix [1stargate or 2, rest gas on stalkers] excess minerals on zealots to deal with zerglings. Seems expensive though. Maybe skip templar until you secure a third base? Secure third wit sentry/stalker/pheonix/zealot? | ||
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Floophead_III
United States1832 Posts
On July 19 2010 02:45 kNyTTyM wrote: What exactly do you do with that army? The annoying thing about fast mutalisks is you are forced to keep forces in your main to defend counters. Cannons are ok to buy time but if 15 mutalisks start bouncing in and out of your main they are going to find stuff to kill. This forces you to leave a templar at home because there just isn't any way you can get back fast enough especially if your main antiair is an archon. So the result is protoss sitting at the natural until he can spare 1-2 templar at his main and then he takes his 3rd which he must sit his main army at until he gets cannons + a ht. Otherwise mutalisks run in, kill it and leave. All the while zerg should have fully saturated 3 bases and taking the fourth at the island. You have a gigantic mineral surplus with zealot/HT/archon. You can plop down 5 cannons, and if zerg is really stupid enough to try to backstab with mutas you can push out right for his main and steamroll him. Sure he can spend 10 mutas to kill those cannons making your main useless, but you just killed his entire production. At some point you just have to shift the pressure and if he wants to base trade let him because your army is much much better. A passive protoss is a losing protoss. Also, forgot to mention that when you have instant warpin storms (amulet and storm are researched) you can safely move out because you can just warp in some HT if he tries to backstab and bam his mutas are stormed. | ||
kzn
United States1218 Posts
On July 18 2010 13:40 Plexa wrote: Game 3 - this is Saracen vs HwaNi, a korean Protoss who is also struggling against Muta/Ling (he asked on a Korean forum about how to beat it, the response, build more Stalkers). Despite HwaNi's massive advantage and correctly guessing Sara was building mutalisks - this game shows how a clever Zerg doesn't lose to phoenix. So I'm not particularly good so you can take this with a grain of salt, but when I watched this replay I didn't feel like it was the Mutas that won the game for Saracen - they only came out in time to deny the island expansion and then finish off a fight that was already undertaken with a fairly big food disadvantage. While they did take a retarded amount of damage when they came out, it felt more like the earlier roach/hydra play was the problem for Hwani (which I think he noticed, hence the comment about going robo earlier). If he got a chance to play that exact game again I'd have been interested in seeing what would happen if Hwani tried to take the Gold expo while Saracen was powering drones after he got his Nat up, | ||
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Bair
United States698 Posts
1v1 maps - Muta/Ling is a great deal stronger on these maps since it is easier to apply early pressure if they try to fast expand. Scrap station is a great map against toss (in my experience) a spine and some lings can cover against early pushes/pressure (add roaches as needed) while still getting an FE and the inevitable quick spire. At the same time speedlings can effectively deny the toss an expansion, and thus you enter mid-game with an econ advantage which means GG if the toss tries to counter with phoenixes. On the flip side if toss scouted you and started massing stalkers/lots, you will have problems because until you reach critical mass, a small group of zealots/stalkers can defend against lings or mutas (assuming no critical mass yet) and allows the toss player to expand. You still have the advantage as Z at this point, but it is easier to slip up and lose the game, as toss can effectively transition into a number of things. It goes without saying that quick void rays will hurt you terribly on maps that Muta/Sling is favored on (IZ, SS). Larger Maps - These games will drag on longer than on a 1v1 map 99% of the time. The difficulty of maintaining map control makes it a great deal harder to deny that first expansion, fast expand, or gain an economical advantage. I usually do not go muta/sling on larger maps unless I know the other player is not going quick phoenix/4 gate. On larger maps, it is more of a harass game, and I usually end up pulling a tech switch. Assuming no tech switch (or banelings) I usually find a nydus or drop is required to pull off a clean victory here. Mutas to harass one part of the other player's base while speedlings decimate another he is not looking at. With a tech switch, roach/hydra just eats up anything they could go to counter mutalisks. Also, it should go without saying early game pressure (2 gate, proxies) and solid ground pushes (4 gate) really do decimate this if done right. Cannons are effective so long as you put more than one pylon to power a chunk of them (!!!!), though depending on the map, the minerals might be better spent on zealots. | ||
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Slikk
Norway81 Posts
Well, I guess this only works against "okay" players. As soon as you meet the top foreigners, this will be stomped. | ||
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