While discussing Muta/Ling is nothing new on these forums, I don't really feel like the topic have been given the treatment it deserves. I hope that this thread can shed a lot of light on the issue at hand. As such, if you have any muta/ling replays on hand it would be appreciated if you could upload them - both games where P wins and ones where Z win.
No longer the solution
It is not very difficult for a Protoss and a Zerg to enter the midgame on even footing. Hell, more often than not I would say the Protoss is able to attain an advantage. But once the game goes into mid game, things change. Zerg have a number of formidable options at the their disposal - hydra, roach, nydus, aggressive expansion, muta etc. Of all of these, as a Protoss I fear Muta/Ling more than anything.
In true Zerg style, Muta/Ling offers Zerg unparalleled map control and presence on the map. For simplicity, let us restrict our discussion to Lost Temple since that seems to be the benchmark map at the moment. Speedlings are an excellent unit to control Xel'Naga towers, couple this with good overlord placement and the Zerg player essentially knows what's going on everywhere on the map. A good Zerg will not let a Protoss sneak a third - he will have to earn it.
In the midgame, 2vs3 base is the common scenario. With gas being such a limited resource those extra two geysers are critical. They allow the Zerg to begin to REALLY pump Mutalisks which not only give the Zerg a really good way to harass the Protoss, but they're also surprisingly difficult to kill - i.e. they're useful in defence as well. Part of the reason they are so effective is because they are able to focus fire on units so well, meaning key units can be removed from a protoss army since protoss no longer have an effective splash unit. Focus fire is also the best way to attack - thus making mutalisks that much more effective.
So what is a Protoss to do? It is nearly impossible to be able to match the Zerg in economy given the mobility and awareness speedlings offer the Zerg. The flow on effect from this is that when the P engages the Z, his army will cost less gas and hence lose the battle. Perhaps Stalker/Sentry in equal gas is able to effectively repel mutas, but without those two extra geysers - you won't be able to catch up to the Zerg.
Here are the options protoss have at the moment - Archons; as a shadow of their former selves, and a massive gas sink, not really a viable option against a zerg who keeps massing muta - Stalker/Sentry; need to have equal economy for this to work, and incredibly weak to speedlings - Phoenix, Zerg just doesn't go mutalisks immediately, instead builds hydralisks as per the proper counter, once phoenix are removed - build mutalisks and the protoss will never be able to catch up (phoenix need to be about equal resources to fight muta) - Storm; doesn't deal enough damage quick enough, Zergs can easily move out of storm wasting 75 energy
So yes, as it stands I don't see how a good Protoss will be able to beat a good Zerg in the mid game. While I am not a tournament level player (at least I dont consider myself such), I offer you three replays demonstrating various aspects of Muta/Ling (and would have offered up more if I could find the rest of my mutaling games)
Game 1 - this was born out of testing blink stalkers as an opening against Saracen. Perhaps I was far too behind after the opening, but in any case it demonstrates how badly speedlings destroy stalkers Game 2 - this was me trying a Zeal/Archon combination to try and overcome ling/muta. You can be the judge of how effective it is. 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. Game 4 - Brink vs Xiaozi, fairly interesting use of Mutalisks. Results in a gg, so you mayaswell watch it anyway.
All three games (I think) the Protoss is never able to get ahead in the resources spent in army. I am confident that with equal resources spent on army that Protoss are able to fight Mutalisks on even ground. However, getting to that point seems impossible. Further, Saracen isn't even using the full force of the Zerg tech tree (nydus etc) which just scares me even more to think what a better Zerg can do. I am eager to hear TLs take on this.
I'm only plat, but i recently had a game on lost temple, i started out with forge fe and scouted he was going muta/ling, i cannoned up my minerals on main and natural and had several blink stalkers, when he came he was easily repelled by the cannons and blinks stalkers so he goes mass expand crescent, i shut down all his bases besides main and natural with dts, just after doing this he decided he needs to do something so he comes in with a redic amount of mutas and sweeps up my main and natural. apparently he'd just been making mutas the whole time, who knew the answer to a hefty amount blink stalkers and cannons was simply more mutas? i was left wondering whether he's really just dumb or pretty smart.
edit: response: cant upload because it got erased with the 10 replay limit, didn't think it would be of any value.
It would be appreciated if you could upload your replay somewhere while I'm sure there are a lot of mistakes in your play and my play, there are equally as many mistakes in the Zerg play. The more information we have about muta at all levels can only help the discussion. Plus that situation sound incredibly familiar to me as a protoss player
As long as the protoss has an expansion and scouts the spire while it is being constructed, the protoss should be fine (which is why I prefer robo first builds against zerg). Put down a couple cannons at each mineral line, build two stargates, and crank out phoenixes to take care of the mutas. If you get +1 weapons early, your zealots will shred the zerglings. The real trick is to properly time a transition into either colossi or templar to deal with the inevitable tech switch to hydras.
I'm a firm believer that relying upon ground units to beat mutalisks is a bad idea for toss. The mobility of the mutalisks will just rape you, and your stalker/sentry force doesn't do enough damage to compensate for its relatively slower move speed.
I've actually played against mutaling twice on lost temple in the past few days and they were both ridiculously annoying (I lost both in the late game). I played xiaozi once and he seemed quite good at this style. Zerg gets free islands via mutalisk + nydus worm and start spamming sunkens so you cannot touch his other expos. It gives a really strong transition into corrupter broodlord since you have air upgrades going and the center becomes a no protoss ground unit zone.
On July 18 2010 14:28 xDaunt wrote: As long as the protoss has an expansion and scouts the spire while it is being constructed, the protoss should be fine (which is why I prefer robo first builds against zerg). Put down a couple cannons at each mineral line, build two stargates, and crank out phoenixes to take care of the mutas. If you get +1 weapons early, your zealots will shred the zerglings. The real trick is to properly time a transition into either colossi or templar to deal with the inevitable tech switch to hydras.
I'm a firm believer that relying upon ground units to beat mutalisks is a bad idea for toss. The mobility of the mutalisks will just rape you, and your stalker/sentry force doesn't do enough damage to compensate for its relatively slower move speed.
See Game 3 of the uploaded replays. It's also really tricky to scout the spire given that speedlings are controlling the map. In game 3 hwani just predicts that Sara is going mutalisk and goes dual stargate. After game, we kinda felt like Protoss's best chances are two stargates with a transition into stalker/colo. Although neither of us know the solution to when Zergs get 20 mutalisks.
On July 18 2010 14:30 kNyTTyM wrote: I've actually played against mutaling twice on lost temple in the past few days and they were both ridiculously annoying (I lost both in the late game). I played xiaozi once and he seemed quite good at this style. Zerg gets free islands via mutalisk + nydus worm and start spamming sunkens so you cannot touch his other expos. It gives a really strong transition into corrupter broodlord since you have air upgrades going and the center becomes a no protoss ground unit zone.
This sounds incredibly scary. Have any reps you can share?
On July 18 2010 14:12 Anon06 wrote: edit: response: cant upload because it got erased with the 10 replay limit, didn't think it would be of any value.
To get past this, go to your SC2 Beta replay folder.
On windows 7 it looks like this:
C:\Users\<user name>\Documents\StarCraft II Beta\Accounts\########\#-S#-#-######\Replays\Unsaved
Where ######## and #-S-#-#-###### are random numbers assigned by Blizz.
In that folder are ALL your unsaved replays up to around 50 or so, maybe more. Move them all to your \Multiplayer folder in the \Replays directory and you should be able to find it.
I can't view the blink stalker replay. Is it from phase 1?
I was hoping to see your stalker vs zerglings battle, because I've seen some gorgeous blink macro that slowly pecked at speedlings and it seemed to work pretty well. You need to pick the location of your fights though.
Check out the last replay in this pack from Tozar called "PvZ intense micro". He abuses a cliff by blinking one stalker at a time up a cliff and bringing it back after its shields are down.
He also doesn't just blink away during open battles. He blinks units individually as soon as they are surrounded.
Anyway, you might already do all those things. Like I said, can't view the replay it seems
On July 18 2010 14:36 Back wrote: I can't view the blink stalker replay. Is it from phase 1?
No it was played today, I'm not sure what issue you could be having since it works for me just fine
Blinking stalkers against speedlings doesn't really work, at least it doesn't work well. The issue is once you blink away the speedlings just run up to you again and surround you with regular lings you dont have this problem. Anyway, thats an issue for another thread
On July 18 2010 14:36 Back wrote: I can't view the blink stalker replay. Is it from phase 1?
No it was played today, I'm not sure what issue you could be having since it works for me just fine
Blinking stalkers against speedlings doesn't really work, at least it doesn't work well. The issue is once you blink away the speedlings just run up to you again and surround you with regular lings you dont have this problem. Anyway, thats an issue for another thread
Yeah it sounds like you blink your entire Stalker group at once after being surrounded. That's what I do too because I'm not quick enough but it seems to work 100x better to constantly blink the front to the back.
You really should check out the replay I mentioned.
On July 18 2010 14:36 Back wrote: I can't view the blink stalker replay. Is it from phase 1?
No it was played today, I'm not sure what issue you could be having since it works for me just fine
Blinking stalkers against speedlings doesn't really work, at least it doesn't work well. The issue is once you blink away the speedlings just run up to you again and surround you with regular lings you dont have this problem. Anyway, thats an issue for another thread
Yeah it sounds like you blink your entire Stalker group at once after being surrounded. That's what I do too because I'm not quick enough but it seems to work 100x better to constantly blink the front to the back.
You really should check out the replay I mentioned.
I'll check it out, but blinking one stalker is pretty useless if the zerg is making a decent amount of speedlings if you dont blink the other stalkers they die because they're surrounded. I know the trick you are talking about with stalker micro and it only really works when you have at least 10 stalkers and they're not able to get a proper surround off on you.
I just watched Game 3. The toss didn't tech properly. After expanding, he blindly built two stargates and started building phoenixes. This initial investment wasn't that bad because the zerg built a spire and a den. However, after seeing hydras being built, the toss did not make an immediate tech switch to either colossi or templar. The inevitable end result was that he pushed out with phoenixes/zealots/stalkers/sentries and got flattened by hydra/ling/roach, putting him hopelessly behind for the rest of the game. Yes, the toss did get charge, but that's not enough against a large hydra force. I think the toss would have been ok if he threw down an immediate templar archives upon seeing the hydras.
Hey. I have been using Muta-ling as my strategy almost exclusively in ZvP for the last 3 months abusing it's power to the full extent. Unfortunately this composition is not broken in any way as proven by my Protoss practice partner who manages to succsessfully beat with ease any muta ling based play within the first 15 minutes of the game. The 'usual' builds protoss use are simply not the correct direction in my belief to approach a zerg who can potentially Muta-ling, although are not neccessarily completely helpless. I'm not sure my Practice partner will want me sharing a Rep Pack of him vs me, i'll have to ask him first. But believe me, once protoss' start approaching this MU correctly you will see it's far from broken.
One thing i can add however, is that from all my experience in the last 3 months, Archons are the way to stop muta ling. No questions asked. If your examples of Archons failing against muta ling come from any situation in which the Zerg has managed to produce over 20 Mutalisks against low archon counts, it is illogical to expect the archon to be at all effective. Archons are the viable solution to this build, but it simply comes down to not letting the Zerg Mass those Mutalisks.
Heh, I actually enjoy this topic. It's a nice change from complaining against Terran.
Let me see where to begin.. a 2 base mutalisk build, and we'll just assume for the sake of argument that the 4 gate didn't work because of good roach/ling micro and placement. Now, a 2 base muta play can actually be one of the hardest things to deal with for a protoss, and one of the easiest things as a zerg to go with. Let me start by saying that it is not going to take a simply mixture of 2 units to beat. Lings destroy most of the decent air hitters. I.E archons and stalkers. And by destroy, I am quite literally meaning no contest. Especially given that lings require no gas, where as stalkers and archons do. I can tell you it is beatable, just exceptionally hard compared to a ground build against toss. I think this comes from the flaw that while phoenix is supposed to be an anti air, it barely fills that role to its purpose.
Now, with that out of way, we can work on unit composition. I'll use one of my own favorite builds as a zerg with is a double extractor, 3 per after the queen pops, and simply amass lings from there. Barring anything except a four gate, this will keep me safe throughout most of the beginning game. It lets me easily expand, I can an excess of spine crawlers for those nosy little zealots and stalkers trying to interrupt my mining time, and can easily saturate a second base while continually making overlords, drones, and lings. This is done simply because I am saving up every bit of gas towards a large onslaught of muta lisks around the 11-13 minute mark. In the area of 16-20, depending on my hatches larvae pop, how many lings I actually need, etc.
So, what has been done to beat me in this build? A similar strategy by the toss. Triple up on the pylons powering static defenses. Nothing makes me smile more than seeing one pylon powering 5 cannons.What you need is gas, so use the minerals to get a decent static defense. Use zealots to form a wall in that crevice at the early stage. Trust me when I say it's absolutely infuriating trying to break that with lings. Now I know, lots will say, but what about banelings, or roaches, or hydras. I'm not counting those is this case, I'm trying to work with the problem he has. So please, bare with me on this and avoid the 'what if' parts. Use them to get a nice saturation And before it finishes, try and time a double assimilator there as well. Get that going before you get your minerals saturated. Do an upgrade when you can afford it. My opponent went for 2, though he also used a 2 gate to make that zealot wall very early. He had a total of 5 sentires when I pushed. 2 were used to put up shields against the lings, giving him time to focus on the mutas. 2 were using forcefield, one would pop one off just as another's lowered, and 1 made a few phoenix's. He had 2 high templar, which zapped the lings as I sent in my mutas towards his economy. He killed about 15 of them, since I was at the time trying to focus fire down the pylon defenses to get rid of the cannons. He also had 2 archons, which, I did not know at the time, do splash damage. I'll be the first to tell you that this had me shocked when 2 archons quite literally destroyed 7 mutas. Combined with 5 stalkers, I quickly fled back.
Then he pushed out, got my spire, the static defenses kept me from killing too many probes at any one time. Certainly not worth the price of 700 mins and gas. I apologize for not having the replay, but I do hope that this can be mildly helpful. I think the total gas was about 1350 for him, maybe 1550? It was rather high, but no less expensive than my 1600/1600 muta costs, and the 100 per muta thereafter. I guess in closing all I can say is that unlike myself, my opponent had to use a salvo of units to defeat it. It's not nice, it isn't pretty, but it sure did the job effectively. Those archons with their vs bio bonus and splash damage wrecked my world. That, and the great use of forcefield, made the zealots that much more effective. I realize it isn't always this easy, and probably won't always work this way as you begin to throw in the 'what if's', but I hope this post at least made it a bit easier for you to have a way to deal with the mutalisk speedling combination that's been giving you grief. Best of luck gaming.
When I tried muta/ling against a decent toss (500-level diamond in phase 1), archons were the answer, and they shut me down good. Archons have splash...it's a line-splash, and it's not very big, but it's there, and 3-4 archons will easily tear up 16-20 mutas, and can take on near-infinite amounts of zerglings with proper force field placement.
2 base archons + gateway units > 2 base muta/ling. You can get the archons out before zerg gets their 3rd up and running. Mass muta is definitely NOT the way to go against toss, I usually stop muta production around 8-12 mutas, and switch over to something else (hydra against mass gateway units/stargate, roach against HT/archon, corruptor against colossus).
I wish I could show you the replay, but there's no way to view phase 1 replays
On July 18 2010 15:01 BlasiuS wrote: When I tried muta/ling against a decent toss (500-level diamond in phase 1), archons were the answer, and they shut me down good. Archons have splash...it's a line-splash, and it's not very big, but it's there, and 3-4 archons will easily tear up 16-20 mutas, and can take on near-infinite amounts of zerglings with proper force field placement.
2 base archons + gateway units > 2 base muta/ling. You can get the archons out before zerg gets their 3rd up and running. Mass muta is definitely NOT the way to go against toss, I usually stop muta production around 8-12 mutas, and switch over to something else (hydra against mass gateway units/stargate, roach against HT/archon, corruptor against colossus).
I wish I could show you the replay, but there's no way to view phase 1 replays
I completely disagree that 3-4 archons will tear up 20 mutalisks. And in my experiences, and in the replays provided, 3-4 archons just lose that fight. In the OP I think I covered that I think with equal economy that Protoss should be able to fight off Muta/ling reasonably (i.e. better player wins). However, throw in the third base then you've got an issue. When the Zerg has you out gassed its difficult to keep up no matter what unit composition you go with.
On July 18 2010 14:54 MooiSh wrote: Hey. I have been using Muta-ling as my strategy almost exclusively in ZvP for the last 3 months abusing it's power to the full extent. Unfortunately this composition is not broken in any way as proven by my Protoss practice partner who manages to succsessfully beat with ease any muta ling based play within the first 15 minutes of the game. The 'usual' builds protoss use are simply not the correct direction in my belief to approach a zerg who can potentially Muta-ling, although are not neccessarily completely helpless. I'm not sure my Practice partner will want me sharing a Rep Pack of him vs me, i'll have to ask him first. But believe me, once protoss' start approaching this MU correctly you will see it's far from broken.
One thing i can add however, is that from all my experience in the last 3 months, Archons are the way to stop muta ling. No questions asked. If your examples of Archons failing against muta ling come from any situation in which the Zerg has managed to produce over 20 Mutalisks against low archon counts, it is illogical to expect the archon to be at all effective. Archons are the viable solution to this build, but it simply comes down to not letting the Zerg Mass those Mutalisks.
I'm less concerned with Muta/Ling as a build, rather Muta/Ling as a midgame transition - which is where I think the power of this combination really shines. If the Protoss invests all his gas into Colossus/Sentry/Zealot then a timely muta tech switch is almost instant GG. Archons do work, I agree, but you need to keep up in gas for them to be able to win in the end (at least in my experiences).
I'm interested to see what you think the "correct" way for protoss to approach the matchup is.
On July 18 2010 15:01 BlasiuS wrote: When I tried muta/ling against a decent toss (500-level diamond in phase 1), archons were the answer, and they shut me down good. Archons have splash...it's a line-splash, and it's not very big, but it's there, and 3-4 archons will easily tear up 16-20 mutas, and can take on near-infinite amounts of zerglings with proper force field placement.
2 base archons + gateway units > 2 base muta/ling. You can get the archons out before zerg gets their 3rd up and running. Mass muta is definitely NOT the way to go against toss, I usually stop muta production around 8-12 mutas, and switch over to something else (hydra against mass gateway units/stargate, roach against HT/archon, corruptor against colossus).
I wish I could show you the replay, but there's no way to view phase 1 replays
I completely disagree that 3-4 archons will tear up 20 mutalisks. And in my experiences, and in the replays provided, 3-4 archons just lose that fight. In the OP I think I covered that I think with equal economy that Protoss should be able to fight off Muta/ling reasonably (i.e. better player wins). However, throw in the third base then you've got an issue. When the Zerg has you out gassed its difficult to keep up no matter what unit composition you go with.
I should clarify that you don't simply have your 3-4 archons by themselves, but near your stalkers and especially near your sentries (for guardian shield).
3-4 archons is all you need to complement your already existing army of stalker/sentry/zealot, and yes they work. And you can definitely hit zerg before they get their 3rd base up & running.
On July 18 2010 15:16 Plexa wrote: I'm less concerned with Muta/Ling as a build, rather Muta/Ling as a midgame transition - which is where I think the power of this combination really shines. If the Protoss invests all his gas into Colossus/Sentry/Zealot then a timely muta tech switch is almost instant GG. Archons do work, I agree, but you need to keep up in gas for them to be able to win in the end (at least in my experiences). .
If the zerg has the resources to tech switch rapidly into muta/ling after going hydra/roach, then I think that the protoss is going to lose no matter what the zerg does.
Agree here, if zerg can save up to 1000+ gas while going hydra and/or roach and make a "timely muta tech switch" then the protoss player got seriously outplayed.
On July 18 2010 15:16 Plexa wrote: I'm less concerned with Muta/Ling as a build, rather Muta/Ling as a midgame transition - which is where I think the power of this combination really shines. If the Protoss invests all his gas into Colossus/Sentry/Zealot then a timely muta tech switch is almost instant GG. Archons do work, I agree, but you need to keep up in gas for them to be able to win in the end (at least in my experiences). .
If the zerg has the resources to tech switch rapidly into muta/ling after going hydra/roach, then I think that the protoss is going to lose no matter what the zerg does.
Also, off of two bases, and assuming that the protoss went colossi first, the toss army should be more stalker heavy by the time that the zerg makes the tech switch into mutas. Stalker/sentry should be able to hold their own against the mutas long enough for phoenixes to come out in response to the switch.
I have hard time seeing why mutaling was somehow hard to counter. Pure gatespam beats it, while puregate doesn't beat roach mass. It's just playing straight to opponent's hands who skip robo imo.
FF hard counters lings so harshly. Blink stalkers own air and lings in small amounts (<50). Also roach+corruptor(+hydra) definately handles the ultimate stalker/colo army better than muta+ling.
It might be I just play roaches more effectively than avg - I've heard from many tosses that they rarely see mass burrow roaches, and it shows in how rarely anyone actually makes a single immo. If I was to play pvz, I'd definately try to find out what his massed unit is before mindlessly going for something else than immos. I've tried masslings to ultras/broods and it's not even funny how bad lings are raped by FF. Also he's not punished for making lots of zlots with minerals if you do lings.
From original pointlist I can't agree on anything Mutas feel damn vulnerable to anything, sentry/stalker definately being enough, and I don't see why few phoenixes wouldn't do good also if you just use them near your stalkers/cannons. And HTs don't "waste 75 energy" if it ticks even once on some mutas, it's worth it. Because "some" translates to half of the bunch, muta swarm can't just run from storm to another.
Broods are nice in lategame, but I don't think muta upgrades are playing big part there. It's cheaper switch also to go for broods from already made corruptors, that you used as anti-colo.
I also don't see how you could switch TO lingmuta. Lings require upgrades to have any efficiency mid/late, and if they don't have even +1melee they're just cannon fodder. I could however see starting off with fakemutas, killing bunch of probes, making opponent go more stalker/sentry heavy army, then eat him with roach(/ling). But imo that makes you less likely to defend 3rd properly.
Iv struggled hard against Mutas and im trying to find a decent build to counter some kind of muta build. what iv started to do is once i get my FE up i make a Stargate + Phoenix to scout with, if theres no sign of a muta build i put down robo and gates and if i do see somethings lurking around the corner i keep pumping phoenixes + Stalkers. the thing is i get pinned to my base so badly when i get harassed by the mutas so its impossible for me to expand becouse of the constant ling harass. Late/midd game i just simply get out expod and at some point he just crushes me with eather MASS MUTA or X900000 Hydras from the transition, and theres liturally nothing i can do with it. ofc the Harass from mutas wont be that Effective, but i cant move out eather so he just takes 2-3 expos and finishes me off.
If anyone does have something to "counter" this then Please do share, becouse its a really annoying place to be in fortunally i havent seen alot of players go this yet. just a couple here and there.
Very very strong
Zerg players should try going muta builds more so we can actully test this to see its full potential.
The only reliable way to deal with Mutalisks is making enough Pheonixes. Blink Stalkers will allow you to defend yourself if you keep them at your base, but not without economy damage. I try to keep pressure on my opponent to keep him from getting Mutalisks because they are simply too difficult to deal with if you are playing defensively.
Day9 recently did an episode on HuK's phoenix play. He simply shut down the zerg econ and forced hydras. I think that's a pretty good way to beat mutas, considering your phoenixes will be out before he has any mutas whatsoever. It's hard to explain, you should watch the cast!
Phoenix is the ultimate. I thought ZvP was easy. But ive beeen getting trounced by anyone who opens Phoenix. Try it. Theres nothing i could do. Ive tried roaches. 3 of them die to phoenix on their way to the toss base for the early attack. theres usually only 3 zlots and a cannon tho. speedling/ bling bust gets anhilated by the cannons.....
Game 3 actually is an example of why muta switches wouldn't work, imo, see how Saracen had to pump hydras first to respond to the phoenix, and then to the mass gateway units? Should Hwani had transitioned into colossus sooner, he would've been able to force Z to react again by trying to hive for ultra or going corruptors. It is simply too hard to try to switch to mutes without the opponent being already at a disadvantage. Like Blasius said, if a Z can have a 1k gas surplus while matching P production, the P is in trouble even without mutes.
On July 18 2010 14:54 MooiSh wrote: Hey. I have been using Muta-ling as my strategy almost exclusively in ZvP for the last 3 months abusing it's power to the full extent. Unfortunately this composition is not broken in any way as proven by my Protoss practice partner who manages to succsessfully beat with ease any muta ling based play within the first 15 minutes of the game. The 'usual' builds protoss use are simply not the correct direction in my belief to approach a zerg who can potentially Muta-ling, although are not neccessarily completely helpless. I'm not sure my Practice partner will want me sharing a Rep Pack of him vs me, i'll have to ask him first. But believe me, once protoss' start approaching this MU correctly you will see it's far from broken.
One thing i can add however, is that from all my experience in the last 3 months, Archons are the way to stop muta ling. No questions asked. If your examples of Archons failing against muta ling come from any situation in which the Zerg has managed to produce over 20 Mutalisks against low archon counts, it is illogical to expect the archon to be at all effective. Archons are the viable solution to this build, but it simply comes down to not letting the Zerg Mass those Mutalisks.
Im sure he wont mind if you upload a recent, representative replay to back your statements.
My Experience with Muta/Ling so far has been that it only works if i either get quite far ahead at the beginning, or if my opponent is inferior to me. Against a standard 10 pylon 10 gate into forge FE opening you do little damage and just die to the 8 gate push.
I think the most realistic way to fight this is with gateway units. You'll need blink stalkers, guardian shield, and zealots with +1 or +2 (whatever you need to 2 shot lings). While using blink and forcefields to stave off the zergling surrounds on your stalkers, use the zealots as a meatshield and focus fire the mutas. Best chance, a stargate switch most likely won't work.
The archon splash is the same. TI just try in the unit tester and if u pack mutas together, archons kill them all instantly. The only thing that make archon not be the anwser to muta anymore is the fact that u don't stack muta.
As a zerg player, i used to go exclusively muta-ling in the midgame, the only reason I don't is if the protoss gets two stargates up before you get your spire up there is no way in hell you are going to be able retain air control, ive lost to protoss players scouting my spire, then in response throwing down two stargates and pumping phoenixes, if they are microed well enough you do not need more than 1 phoenix per 3 muta.
I find muta ling to be a great opener because it forces the protoss to not go colossus (if they do you should have enough mutas to kill the stalkers and then eat the colossi at your leisure).
If they go stargate just do a tech switch to hydra (which is a pretty easy switch I find) and keep your mutas back a little. Remember also that phoenixes have to be somewhat microed vs muta unless he has lots of them (in which case that becomes a ton of resources wasted with the hydra switch).
What it comes down to is that mutas are better against most things than phoenixes are against anything but mutas and the switch from stargate to colossus is much harder than the switch from muta to hydra. Zerg are adaptable, so adapt, if ever the phoenixes are taken down (because of over committing them or losing them while harassing) make sure to have a few mutas harass to force more of them out.
The other option is to just make 3 corruptors and run them with the 6ish mutas. They are the death of phoenixes and there is no tech cost for you.
Yet another thing to bear in mind is that if you force colossi out you already have the spire to make corruptors meaning that there is no tech cost there either.
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
I can just watch the 4th game which is imho not very significant. Btw an idea against these Spine Plants may be an observer with VR to snipe the tumors.
Although I can understand the problem and responses here, I wonder why so much ppl persist on their Stalker/Colossi/Sentry Ball of Death.
Currently PvZ is my absolute favority matchup, with the following build:
10 Gate Zealot Pressure into FE wall in at the 4:00 Min Mark followed by Double Gas. Stargate with the first 150 Gas and CB a Phoenix to scout your opponents Transition (pops around 7:00). Generally get more Phoenixes and Transition to Speedzealot+HT asap. Upgrade Ground Weapons, Air Weapons and SHIELDS every time you can afford it. The Reason for it is that Armor is virtually useless to your Archons while all your Units benefit from Shields and in addition it bolsters the durability of your wall.
If he goes mass roaches (all in'ish), build stalker to repel them at your wall, CB a VR after some phoenix, rush his base with your Air-Units, lift up his queens and kick his Hatch/Lair -> gg If he goes fast Hydras repel them with your initial Phoenixes and Groundunits, finish your HT Transition and win due superior upgrades, storm and a crapload of Units. If he goes Muta/Ling just continue Zealot/Phoenix/HT production and you might be fine. If he goes Hydra/Roach switch to Stalker/HT and win again due superior upgrades, storm and a crapload of Units. In any circumstances if he is going for Broodlords it opens you an excellent timing window to punish him, because corruptors cant catch phoenixes and have no colossi to kill, so they are pretty useless until their morph is finished. If he is going for Ultralisks, just continue Zealots and HT(Archons). Ultralisk are not the flavor of the month against this composition. Infestors should not be a huge problem aswell, just lift them up while engaging, or feedbeck em. And also important is, to make use of your phoenixes. Harass his Drones/Queens, kill overlords, deny XelNaga Scouts, scout for enemy expansions etc Also spread Pylons around the map, to warp in small zealot harassments and let them join your army afterwards if possible.
The responding transitions of this build are such so smooth and efficient, its so flexible, mobile and strong, I cant even understand why Colossi/Stalker/Sentry is so favored.
I did not play SC1, but I heard a lot about the PvZ Evolution and i think there is a reason, the FE into fast Corsair Play became Standard and therefore cant understand why so few ppl give it a try at this game. At least I am _possessed_ by this idea and therefore I am glad that I found a way to make it work, at least in Plat League right know and hopefully with some refinement and improvement, soon in Diamond League (65% Winrate & Rank4 but no Promotion yet ).
First off, I'd like to say that most of you that are saying that Muta/Ling is incredibly easy to deal with have not actually faced a zerg who executes it well or are confusing it with some early muta/ling push. Plexa is talking about mid to late game mass speedlings with 20+ mutalisks. Mutalisks in SC2 are much more resilient than in SC1, and can take down stalkers and archons with relative ease in such large numbers. MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY, they allow the zerg complete map control, containing the protoss and allowing them to mass expand. Trying to keep up with zerg production on fewer bases will result in the P not being able to get enough stalkers/pheonix/archons to deal with the mutalisks.
Therefore, I completely agree with Plexa in that P is basically at the mercy of Muta/ling should the Zerg reach critical mass with his mutas. However, I believe I have a solution.
The gist of the build goes like this: Forge Fast Expand (2 Cannons -> Nexus -> Gate), then quick Cybercore, then Stargate and robo. Pump CB Pheonixes out. The zerg, unless going some crazy 1 hatch muta build, will not have enough mutas to deal with the pheonixes. Scout with your pheonixes and do a little harassment, but it is IMPERATIVE that you do not let your initial Pheonixes die. Remember, there are no scourge in SC2, so a little time and management will allow you to keep most of your Pheonixes alive. Remember, however, that you need to use the Pheonixes as a scout primarily and a harassment unit secondarily. Scout for tech switches and EXPANSIONS.
Zerg usually responds in the following way.
1. Zerg correctly switches to hydras in order to counter the Pheonix threat.
What I like to do when I see the Hydralisk Den going is to start getting Collossi with Stalkers. The stalkers are there just incase the zerg also makes corruptors. Build a Twilight council and begin researching charge, adding zealots to your army as well. When the zerg finally tries to push and gain a third base, you should have an ideal unit composition to crush the zerg army, or at least win by the skin of your teeth. Use this powerful midgame army to expand yourself, for your pheonix should still allow you to have MAP CONTROL.
2. Zerg decides to continue to get mutas and turtles.
Take the map while continuing to produe hydras. The protoss now has map control, for the zerg cannot simply send mutas out to destroy expansions, as the high pheonix count will render that impossible for a very long time, until the protoss economy becomes too strong.
Basically this strat revolves around quick scouting in order to get the ideal composition to gain a substantial lead in the early-mid game. Use this lead and the mobility of the pheonixes to secure an economic edge as well that will carry on into the late game.
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.
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?
I agree that muta-ling is very strong, but I honestly run into it very rarely. On maps like LT, I'm usually able to get my natural slightly before Z can get his, and then launch a quick 7-warpgate push with +1 weapons. The only Zergs that have stayed alive when I've been able to properly execute that timing attack (only been working on it for about a week, so it's not quite smooth yet....Z gets early map control with 6 or so speedlings, so my biggest problem has been getting a proxy pylon down on time) have done it with a bunch of spine crawlers and some hydras.
Anyway, it seems like a good way to prevent zerg from going 3 base 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.
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.
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.
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).
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?
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.
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...
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.
I will keep an eye on that zerg response, thank you.
Mutas in general are giving me a lot of grief, i feel your pain Plexa. 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
Saracen, can you post a rep of that 4base game? Of all the reps from Plexa that I can watch, they all feel like that you were simply given a chance to have free transition into muta. I personally can't remember many games where I am on equal footing with the toss and am still allowed to mass mutes.
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.
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.
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.
I was D/D- on ICCUP (Diamond in the beta), but I only have two scenarios where I have difficulty with mutas. The first is when the mutas go unscouted and arrive in my base in decent numbers (5-6). Usually this will get me contained and the zerg can do whatever he wants as long as he protects himself from a push (Which would be all in and open to a counter attack).
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?
I love mutaling. To death bro, to death. All of you saying that archons rape mutalisks and zerglings - you're right! But then, why would a zerg player suicide their army like that? Phoenix? Zerg will most definitely have scouted that and just build hydras first, or even have spore crawlers, instead of going spire first.
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.
This is interesting actually. I have literally NEVER faced a muta/ling zerg since Nony demolished moonglade in the HDH. Interesting that everyone gave up. Sure I've seen people go muta but they always switched out when I got pheonix.
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?
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.
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.
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,
Just tossing out my opinion on the matter, but Muta/Ling is not effective against toss as it used to be, but is still rather good. Allowing for an easy anti-air transition against toss and a pretty decent ground game. Haven't played in a patch or two, so I do not have any replays, but here is my experience as a zerg player.
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.
I'm a platinum player, and have done pretty decent against Muta/ling(I guess some of my opponents have been bad). What I've done, is building a whole bunch of cannons, with stalker reinforcement. If you have 3-4 cannons at the nexus and you'll do fine. Building stalkers and slowly teching for colo have been my resolution. When you have a number of stalkers which is great enough, you move out. (Only if the Zerg doesn't mass muta like crazy, then you'll need storm as well).
Well, I guess this only works against "okay" players. As soon as you meet the top foreigners, this will be stomped.
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.
I do not wanna sound bitchy but can you somehow enforce the need for replay rule somewhat harder? Its so annoying piling through threads that have a good discussion going and having to read posts by ppl that think plat and low rank diamond league (or even gold) means something and that they know what they are talking about. I know a few names only on the forums I would take seriously and that I "listen to" and it makes it hard for me to each any conclusions. And you watch replays finally posted and realize that it must be from gold league or smth by the poor play.
I was diamond phase 1 and I consider myself a pretty bad player. I do not think ppl realize how bad the play is below diamond. All you need to get to diamond is good macro and decent micro, how you do it (what build) matters very little up until that point. Or you can have a decently OP build and just do that over and over, that will also take you far. Doesn't mean its good on high level play though
back on topic.
I couldn't watch replay 1-3 again it says its game version 0.21?
Game 4 - Brink vs Xiaozi, fairly interesting use of Mutalisks. Results in a gg, so you mayaswell watch it anyway.
I do not see how the mutas helped him winning this game at all? I think he was lucky that going mutas didn't completely cost him the game. He killed something like 1 pylon with them? Am I missing something?
I love love love muta ling. I don't even play Zerg but when I play against muta ling I feel so helpless. I won't pretend to have the insight to criticize the OP or his practice partner, but I love muta ling and I hope to see it used more. When I'm Terran it keeps me contained to two bases while they expand like crazy. When I'm Protoss i often open phoenixes against Zerg and it works well, but that's platinum so it doesn't mean a whole lot. What I like about the Phoenix opening is that it gives you map control which is awesome agaist Zerg, but the better players get infestors and FG them. I don't think anyone has mentioned that yet but FG really hurts.
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.
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.
Mineral surplus is good but 5 cannons actually doesn't cover your whole main. You also have to cannon up the natural just as hard. Zerg's response to any kind of aggression is spam sunkens before mutalisks even start harassing. It is something xiaozi did and I am pretty sure it was due to people trying to mass gateway counter him. Shifting pressure onto the zerg is probably the hardest thing against a heavy mutalisk opponent.
I thought this was a good scbw video that relates. It is savior vs free on zodiac back in gom s3 msl. You can see what a mass mobile mutalisk ball does without unlimited select, increased storm strength, and better archons + Show Spoiler +
On July 19 2010 06:44 hwanikani wrote: Hi, I am HwaNi who played Saracen in game 3.
I think I should have transitioned to robo earlier, and I think I could had that game.
I really think the only solution for that build is to go pheonix first, forcing zerg to get hydra, then switch to robo.
But, muta/ling is still tricky for me, and I am bad.
Can quick phoenix do well against an outmacroing zerg though? It seems that even though phoenixes beat mutas flawlessly on paper, but fall to zerg players who micro their mutalisks due to phoenixes being generally outnumbered.
On July 19 2010 04:50 Izzachar wrote: I do not see how the mutas helped him winning this game at all? I think he was lucky that going mutas didn't completely cost him the game. He killed something like 1 pylon with them? Am I missing something?
I couldn't move out because mutalisk counter was always on my mind. Think of it like brood war Terran versus Zerg. The original purpose of 3 hatch mutalisks was to contain until you got lurkers and a 3rd while forcing as many turrets as possible. In the rep he bounced in and out so I feared counters and put up extra cannons + left templars at home. Meanwhile he expands and continues harassing.
Here is a zvp I played today using mutalisks on LT.
Won't Collo + Stalker + Sentry own this build? Sentries can throw up force fields while stalkers shoot down mutas and collo micros away from lings. Trust me, collo will own anything on the ground, and since it has fairly high HP, it can tank a lot of shots and get more shots down before it dies.
On July 19 2010 04:50 Izzachar wrote: I do not see how the mutas helped him winning this game at all? I think he was lucky that going mutas didn't completely cost him the game. He killed something like 1 pylon with them? Am I missing something?
I couldn't move out because mutalisk counter was always on my mind. Think of it like brood war Terran versus Zerg. The original purpose of 3 hatch mutalisks was to contain until you got lurkers and a 3rd while forcing as many turrets as possible. In the rep he bounced in and out so I feared counters and put up extra cannons + left templars at home. Meanwhile he expands and continues harassing.
Here is a zvp I played today using mutalisks on LT.
Thanks for reply (and replay)! =) (annoyingly pach 18 hasnt seeded on EU?! so I cant watch)
Ah I first thought that the cannons and leaving a HT or 2 behind would have been enough and you could have just moved out a bit earlier and it would have hurt him more at that point. But I totally disregarded the fact that you obviously do not know if there are more mutas coming to reinforce and that could have meant loosing your probe line I guess.
Problem listed arises when you let Z expand unharassed in early game. Good use of gate units (including DT or HT & blink stalkers) early will put you in much better mineral shape and able to compete using your blink stalkers, a few pheonix/cannons, and you can morph your early HT/DT investments into archons if he really commits to mutas.
On July 19 2010 08:36 Bair wrote: Can quick phoenix do well against an outmacroing zerg though? It seems that even though phoenixes beat mutas flawlessly on paper, but fall to zerg players who micro their mutalisks due to phoenixes being generally outnumbered.
At least that is my personal experience.
Phoenix micro >>>>>>>>> muta micro.
Phoenix move faster than mutas, and can shoot while running away. I've been doing very well with a 1-base mutaling build against protoss (expand just after my first batch of mutalisks is out, which is usually 5-6 mutas), but earlier today played against a protoss who built an early startgate. My first 5 mutas lost one and were unable to kill his pheonix, even though I caught him by surprise from behind while he was overlord hunting. This was really the first time I'd seen anybody build a lot of phoenix against me, and people who build not very many phoenix have been killed pretty handily in the past, so I kept building mutas expecting to be able to overwhelm him. He just threw down a second stargate (we were both on 2 bases at this point, with my 3rd going up). Every phoenix/muta clash, I came out a pretty big loser. He'd have to start running first, but then I'd have to stop chasing cause he was still shooting at me while running, and I couldn't ever catch up. So although it felt like I should have had map control, I really didn't, because even though he couldn't stand and fight, I couldn't chase.
I would have to say it appears phoenix can do VERY well against mutas even if they're signifcantly outnumbered.
On July 19 2010 08:36 Bair wrote: Can quick phoenix do well against an outmacroing zerg though? It seems that even though phoenixes beat mutas flawlessly on paper, but fall to zerg players who micro their mutalisks due to phoenixes being generally outnumbered.
At least that is my personal experience.
Phoenix micro >>>>>>>>> muta micro.
Phoenix move faster than mutas, and can shoot while running away. I've been doing very well with a 1-base mutaling build against protoss (expand just after my first batch of mutalisks is out, which is usually 5-6 mutas), but earlier today played against a protoss who built an early startgate. My first 5 mutas lost one and were unable to kill his pheonix, even though I caught him by surprise from behind while he was overlord hunting. This was really the first time I'd seen anybody build a lot of phoenix against me, and people who build not very many phoenix have been killed pretty handily in the past, so I kept building mutas expecting to be able to overwhelm him. He just threw down a second stargate (we were both on 2 bases at this point, with my 3rd going up). Every phoenix/muta clash, I came out a pretty big loser. He'd have to start running first, but then I'd have to stop chasing cause he was still shooting at me while running, and I couldn't ever catch up. So although it felt like I should have had map control, I really didn't, because even though he couldn't stand and fight, I couldn't chase.
I would have to say it appears phoenix can do VERY well against mutas even if they're signifcantly outnumbered.
I would actually say that muta micro and phoenix micro are about even early on. The mutalisks run, the phoenixes follow, and the mutas double back and get a focused shot on a phoenix before the p player can react. Rinse and repeat. Never ever chase phoenixes. Go for his base and force him to come to you.
Mutalisks are the bigger threat as far as harassment goes as well. I will gladly let 6phoenixes run free in my base if I have 6 mutas running free in his. Mutalisks can even fight off static d by taking out pylons and cannons.
Phoenix with their moving shot are not the iwin button many players seem to think.
On July 19 2010 08:36 Bair wrote: Can quick phoenix do well against an outmacroing zerg though? It seems that even though phoenixes beat mutas flawlessly on paper, but fall to zerg players who micro their mutalisks due to phoenixes being generally outnumbered.
At least that is my personal experience.
Phoenix micro >>>>>>>>> muta micro.
Phoenix move faster than mutas, and can shoot while running away. I've been doing very well with a 1-base mutaling build against protoss (expand just after my first batch of mutalisks is out, which is usually 5-6 mutas), but earlier today played against a protoss who built an early startgate. My first 5 mutas lost one and were unable to kill his pheonix, even though I caught him by surprise from behind while he was overlord hunting. This was really the first time I'd seen anybody build a lot of phoenix against me, and people who build not very many phoenix have been killed pretty handily in the past, so I kept building mutas expecting to be able to overwhelm him. He just threw down a second stargate (we were both on 2 bases at this point, with my 3rd going up). Every phoenix/muta clash, I came out a pretty big loser. He'd have to start running first, but then I'd have to stop chasing cause he was still shooting at me while running, and I couldn't ever catch up. So although it felt like I should have had map control, I really didn't, because even though he couldn't stand and fight, I couldn't chase.
I would have to say it appears phoenix can do VERY well against mutas even if they're signifcantly outnumbered.
I would actually say that muta micro and phoenix micro are about even early on. The mutalisks run, the phoenixes follow, and the mutas double back and get a focused shot on a phoenix before the p player can react. Rinse and repeat. Never ever chase phoenixes. Go for his base and force him to come to you.
Mutalisks are the bigger threat as far as harassment goes as well. I will gladly let 6phoenixes run free in my base if I have 6 mutas running free in his. Mutalisks can even fight off static d by taking out pylons and cannons.
Phoenix with their moving shot are not the iwin button many players seem to think.
The whole point of the phoenix is to shoot down your mutalisks. Phoenixes are incredibly good at this on a cost for cost basis. If anything, this advantage is accentuated at smaller numbers of mutas/phoenixes. Harassment is a secondary objective after the mutalisk force has been destroyed.
Also, I'm not sure how you think that your mutas are going to get a focused shot on a phoenix without taking serious damage. The protoss player doesn't even have to react; his phoenixes will shoot at your mutalisks automatically. If the protoss player is paying attention, you won't be able to run away after getting that one shot off, and you'll lose all of your mutalisks if you don't have a vastly superior force.
My two cents - If you are going muta/ling against zealot/archon, throw some banelings into the mix. 10-15 banelings will pretty much eat up the zealots, and only cost 8 supply if its a maxed out situation.
On July 19 2010 08:36 Bair wrote: Can quick phoenix do well against an outmacroing zerg though? It seems that even though phoenixes beat mutas flawlessly on paper, but fall to zerg players who micro their mutalisks due to phoenixes being generally outnumbered.
At least that is my personal experience.
Phoenix micro >>>>>>>>> muta micro.
Phoenix move faster than mutas, and can shoot while running away. I've been doing very well with a 1-base mutaling build against protoss (expand just after my first batch of mutalisks is out, which is usually 5-6 mutas), but earlier today played against a protoss who built an early startgate. My first 5 mutas lost one and were unable to kill his pheonix, even though I caught him by surprise from behind while he was overlord hunting. This was really the first time I'd seen anybody build a lot of phoenix against me, and people who build not very many phoenix have been killed pretty handily in the past, so I kept building mutas expecting to be able to overwhelm him. He just threw down a second stargate (we were both on 2 bases at this point, with my 3rd going up). Every phoenix/muta clash, I came out a pretty big loser. He'd have to start running first, but then I'd have to stop chasing cause he was still shooting at me while running, and I couldn't ever catch up. So although it felt like I should have had map control, I really didn't, because even though he couldn't stand and fight, I couldn't chase.
I would have to say it appears phoenix can do VERY well against mutas even if they're signifcantly outnumbered.
I would actually say that muta micro and phoenix micro are about even early on. The mutalisks run, the phoenixes follow, and the mutas double back and get a focused shot on a phoenix before the p player can react. Rinse and repeat. Never ever chase phoenixes. Go for his base and force him to come to you.
Mutalisks are the bigger threat as far as harassment goes as well. I will gladly let 6phoenixes run free in my base if I have 6 mutas running free in his. Mutalisks can even fight off static d by taking out pylons and cannons.
Phoenix with their moving shot are not the iwin button many players seem to think.
The whole point of the phoenix is to shoot down your mutalisks. Phoenixes are incredibly good at this on a cost for cost basis. If anything, this advantage is accentuated at smaller numbers of mutas/phoenixes. Harassment is a secondary objective after the mutalisk force has been destroyed.
Also, I'm not sure how you think that your mutas are going to get a focused shot on a phoenix without taking serious damage. The protoss player doesn't even have to react; his phoenixes will shoot at your mutalisks automatically. If the protoss player is paying attention, you won't be able to run away after getting that one shot off, and you'll lose all of your mutalisks if you don't have a vastly superior force.
Nonono, you misunderstand me. Phoenixes are indeed one of the best counters to mutalisks in the game, but the presence of phoenixes on the field does not make mutalisks powerless, that is all I am saying.
You can micro mutalisks to be able to hit a phoenix (and get a single hit, maybe two depending on lag and reflexes) as a way to combat phoenix with mutas. Generally the damage is balanced by the fact that the nix's are outnumbered.
On July 19 2010 10:57 RMmanlots wrote: My two cents - If you are going muta/ling against zealot/archon, throw some banelings into the mix. 10-15 banelings will pretty much eat up the zealots, and only cost 8 supply if its a maxed out situation.
That's why you need storm, storm > banelings big time.
On July 19 2010 10:57 RMmanlots wrote: My two cents - If you are going muta/ling against zealot/archon, throw some banelings into the mix. 10-15 banelings will pretty much eat up the zealots, and only cost 8 supply if its a maxed out situation.
The Archons would soak up a lot of the baneling damage being so fat and non-light however. Not sure if it'd be cost effective.
But on topic while definitely in a vacuum phoenixes do very well vs mutas, zergs ability to tech switch quickly means you have to be very careful not to overproduce phoenixes. If you were already going for a phoenix build sure, make a few more but tossing down 2 stargates and massing phoenixes as a reaction to mutas isn't all that effective if they tech switch. Blink generally far more cost effective
There's really 2 things you have to keep in mind if you see zerg massing mutas:
1) Make it dangerous for them to attempt harass either via blink stalkers or phoenixes who can pick off a couple of mutas here or there as they run away, coupled with a few cannons if necessary.
2) Don't let yourself be contained and give up map control as this will be your death sentence. You don't have to always move out with your entire army. Leave a few stalkers/sentries back with some cannons. Remember that mutas aren't great in head-to-head battles, you can get by w/ not bringing your entire army.
It is one of the reasons I like going for phoenixes on scrap station since it is hard to deny their FE and very tempting to go 2-base muta. Going quick phoenixes discourages that, and then I can transition into HT or colossi as they usually end up going mass hydra.
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.
I do not wanna sound bitchy but can you somehow enforce the need for replay rule somewhat harder? Its so annoying piling through threads that have a good discussion going and having to read posts by ppl that think plat and low rank diamond league (or even gold) means something and that they know what they are talking about. I know a few names only on the forums I would take seriously and that I "listen to" and it makes it hard for me to each any conclusions. And you watch replays finally posted and realize that it must be from gold league or smth by the poor play.
I was diamond phase 1 and I consider myself a pretty bad player. I do not think ppl realize how bad the play is below diamond. All you need to get to diamond is good macro and decent micro, how you do it (what build) matters very little up until that point. Or you can have a decently OP build and just do that over and over, that will also take you far. Doesn't mean its good on high level play though
While I don't profess to be an excellent player, I do believe that muta/ling is playable on both sides of the matchup. This is regardless of rank. I wish more people would upload replays to back up what they are saying - both the winning games and the losing ones. The only way to truly understand protoss vs muta/ling (from both sides of the matchup) is if people are prepared to post up their games and we can discuss the strengths and weaknesses of their approaches.
For instance, at the moment I am trying to work blink stalkers as my main PvZ build, with a 1gate pressure into VR as my variant. From the blink build, I'm finding that zergs really shy away from Mutalisks even if they have a spire out. Using blink the idea is to not lose stalkers and they build up to critical mass, and then with sentry/colo you're able to deal with anything the zerg is able to throw at you on the ground. While Zergs don't go muta/ling (which I think would still be valid against this) they really try to avoid it at all cost since blinking stalkers (as they build in numbers, hence why so important not to lose any) really rape any kind of mutalisk switches.
I would upload the replay, but there isn't much point since he doesn't actually build mutalisks and it's a fairly standard game (if there is interest, i will though).
This doesn't *solve* mutaling, but gives you a playstyle which Zergs tend to not make mutalisks against you.
I'm still thinking about blink stalker into DT/expo as an opening as well. This would be a lot stronger against muta/ling builds, but I'm a little concerned about Hydra with this. No zerg practice partners on atm so I can't test this.
I'm still pretty sceptical about phoenixs. At the moment it feels like stalker/sentry/colo is as solid as phoenix against muta/ling - however phoenixs really do not fit with my style. SC2 is still at a point where style matters a lot (for instance, you can't play a VR build unless it's in your style else you'll die).So yea, phoenix works for players like Nony, they don't for me - with that said theres still a lot of discussion from both sides about this. Both Zerg vs Phoenix and Phoenix vs Zerg.
Whynot just go zealot+ blink stalker and attack his base rather than get phoenixes.. works for me. Guy went mutaling vs me last game and unpowered everything in my base but my cannons protecting probes so I went to his base and owned him was an easy win since zealot beat zerglings and stalkers beat mutas. I only watched game 3 but if hwanni wouldve just spent his stargate+phoenix money on gateway units and attacked a little sooner wouldve been an easy win just like mine was.
If you get your bases up at same time then protoss will always be ahead till he gets another.. and then if he does just go attack at that time since you will still have your lead for a bit..
I used to go 1 base phoenix vs zerg to contain him while I expand but that gives him such an economic lead to the zerg if he defends it good.. but now I am liking the 10 gate zealot pressure to forge FE. Wont let him expand before you but gives him map control.. just dont let him macro up by making early attacks with small armies just to keep pressure / checking to make sure he isnt expanding everywhere or something..
While I see the build being annoying, I would think that any outright push would destroy the Zerg. The build gives you the best map control but a weak army. Couldn't a Protoss go Mass Blink Stalker + Colossi and push out when he has +2 Weapon Upgrade to one shot Zerglings with Colossi. He might not even need the upgrade.
Colossi with +2 upgrade indeed destroy lings and stalkers/sentry can do a decent job against corruptors and muta, it's about even i'd say. Also muta can easily be stopped by phoenix as phoenix with the shoot and scoot method easily kill muta even if they are outnumbered. With their speed you can always abuse their shields as well as muta's automatically spread out their damage against the phoenixes.
Muta's are just not smart to mass as they are a bad combat unit. Muta's are a good harass / map control weapon that can help a bit in battle, but really focussing on muta/ling as your army is a bit weak as that means mass ling + a few muta which can be countered quite well.
Game 3 replay: The problem isn't ling/muta versus protoss. You literally devoted yourself to a semi-all in attack with tons of zealots, and then instead of continuously attacking, you sat back and decided to try to expand to out-macro your zerg opponent.
Zealots rip apart zerglings, that's the counter to this whole debate. =/ if you see a Zerg seriously massing lings, why don't you just keep massing zealots and kill them? Throw in stalkers to kill the 3 mutalisks that pop out after 9 minutes of harass.
On July 19 2010 15:49 Powster wrote: I used to go 1 base phoenix vs zerg to contain him while I expand but that gives him such an economic lead to the zerg if he defends it good.. but now I am liking the 10 gate zealot pressure to forge FE. Wont let him expand before you but gives him map control.. just dont let him macro up by making early attacks with small armies just to keep pressure / checking to make sure he isnt expanding everywhere or something..
My alt PvZ build is the 10gate pressure, but instead of forge FE follow up I go Void Ray. It kills noob zergs something terrible because they overcommit on lings and dont tech up. Getting 2 VR out gives you back map control and harass potential (as well as the ability to scout the zerg) and THEN you can expand. Typically works pretty well.
On July 19 2010 15:49 Powster wrote: Whynot just go zealot+ blink stalker and attack his base rather than get phoenixes.. works for me. Guy went mutaling vs me last game and unpowered everything in my base but my cannons protecting probes so I went to his base and owned him was an easy win since zealot beat zerglings and stalkers beat mutas. I only watched game 3 but if hwanni wouldve just spent his stargate+phoenix money on gateway units and attacked a little sooner wouldve been an easy win just like mine was.
If you get your bases up at same time then protoss will always be ahead till he gets another.. and then if he does just go attack at that time since you will still have your lead for a bit..
I used to go 1 base phoenix vs zerg to contain him while I expand but that gives him such an economic lead to the zerg if he defends it good.. but now I am liking the 10 gate zealot pressure to forge FE. Wont let him expand before you but gives him map control.. just dont let him macro up by making early attacks with small armies just to keep pressure / checking to make sure he isnt expanding everywhere or something..
My response to this, (sinec you always have a huge mineral surplus doing muta/ling) is a lot of crawlers and a lot of speedlings. Kinda takes away the possibility of a base trade.
On July 19 2010 13:07 Bair wrote: You can micro mutalisks to be able to hit a phoenix (and get a single hit, maybe two depending on lag and reflexes) as a way to combat phoenix with mutas. Generally the damage is balanced by the fact that the nix's are outnumbered.
But that one or two hits you get go to his shields, which will regenerate very quickly, while every single hit you take stays for a much longer time. You have to have a LOT of mutas for that one hit to really count for anything at all, and if he's keeping up any sort of phoenix production, you'll end up taking more damage than you manage to deal.
I only made it through a few pages, but just let me say:
Archons are not the solution to muta. I used to think so too, but that was before I started playing zergs that knew how to harass. Archons are not mobile enough, are easily stuck, and need to be in significant numbers to deal with a muta pack. You need to keep a sentry around too... You simply can't afford to have 3 archons + 1 sentry at every possible angle he could attack at. He will dance around until he catches one alone and obliterate it. He will take out pylons, probes, cannons, and random stalkers... Wherever you are weakest. You might be able to hold on one base, but as soon as you move to two, good luck defending muta harass. You also have to keep both your ramp and your expos mineral line well protected for a speedling surprise. The combination, even if you manage to hold off his harass, is that you give him the entire map. Your army may very well be able to kill his, but if you push, your best case is a base trade (but with less bases!)
Mass phoenix is the only thing I've seen that comes close to defending muta, but a tech switch on his part will ruin your whole plan.
Okay, there are a ton of misconceptions in this thread that I want to clear up. The biggest misconception is that muta/ling is limited to harassing. This is absolutely not true. It can take a Protoss army head on, the reason being that as long as you play it right, you will have a nice gas advantage. That means the lings will tank a good deal of stalker hits while the mutas clean up all of the ground units. As long as you engage him out in the open (i.e. not inside your base), you kill all of the anti-air attacks with your ling/muta, and then clean up with your remaining mutas, further securing your gas advantage because you just killed all of his anti-air attackers (gas units). At this point, there's pretty much no way the Protoss can come back.
That said, please either watch the replays (especially game 2) or post your own, because given the replies in this thread so far, I'm willing to bet that a vast majority of you have not come across a halfway decent muta/ling player yet.
On July 20 2010 02:39 Saracen wrote: Okay, there are a ton of misconceptions in this thread that I want to clear up. The biggest misconception is that muta/ling is limited to harassing. This is absolutely not true. It can take a Protoss army head on, the reason being that as long as you play it right, you will have a nice gas advantage. That means the lings will tank a good deal of stalker hits while the mutas clean up all of the ground units. As long as you engage him out in the open (i.e. not inside your base), you kill all of the anti-air attacks with your ling/muta, and then clean up with your remaining mutas, further securing your gas advantage because you just killed all of his anti-air attackers (gas units). At this point, there's pretty much no way the Protoss can come back.
That said, please either watch the replays (especially game 2) or post your own, because given the replies in this thread so far, I'm willing to bet that a vast majority of you have not come across a halfway decent muta/ling player yet.
Certainly muta/ling is a decent unit comp in a head-on battle, but I don't think anybody can say its ability to harass isn't its main strength. In a head-on battle an equal food/cost mix of zealot/stalker/sentry would decimate muta/ling. I don't think I've ever seen a zerg player try to attack a protoss ball head-on w/ muta/ling w/o having a sizable army advantage.
On July 20 2010 02:39 Saracen wrote: That said, please either watch the replays (especially game 2) or post your own, because given the replies in this thread so far, I'm willing to bet that a vast majority of you have not come across a halfway decent muta/ling player yet.
I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case. I played about 100 games during Phase 2, and maybe 10 of those games were against zerg (I really have no idea why the matchmaker decided that I don't get to play PvZ). Of those games, the zerg went for muta/ling once, which was on scrap station. I shut it down pretty easily with 2-stargate phoenixes and heavy zealots. For some reason, the zerg decided to double down on air and transition into corruptors as opposed to making the usual tech switch into hydras. Needless to say, he got trashed pretty badly by my ground troops (which included templar). However, I think I was well-positioned and prepared for a hydra switch anyway, having templar and storm ready to go fairly quickly.
Anyway, I guess my ultimate point is that not a lot of zerg are doing muta/ling anymore. Even in phase 1, I stopped seeing much mutalisk play in PvZ after Blizzard gave phoenixes the movable attack. I think a big reason for this is that protoss players figured out how to stop mutalisks cold with good phoenix play. Maybe now that protosses are going heavy ground, we'll see more mutalisk builds. It'd be nice to see something other than hydra/roach again.
On July 19 2010 13:07 Bair wrote: You can micro mutalisks to be able to hit a phoenix (and get a single hit, maybe two depending on lag and reflexes) as a way to combat phoenix with mutas. Generally the damage is balanced by the fact that the nix's are outnumbered.
But that one or two hits you get go to his shields, which will regenerate very quickly, while every single hit you take stays for a much longer time. You have to have a LOT of mutas for that one hit to really count for anything at all, and if he's keeping up any sort of phoenix production, you'll end up taking more damage than you manage to deal.
Phoenixes are fragile, and if you have the lead in unit count, like I said in that bit you just quoted from me, you can afford the trade because you have better macro, production capabilities, and numbers.
Any zerg's wanna play muta/ling vs my P on ladder before beta goes down? I just want to see someone actually abuse it like it's supposedly possible to do.
On July 20 2010 04:52 Floophead_III wrote: Any zerg's wanna play muta/ling vs my P on ladder before beta goes down? I just want to see someone actually abuse it like it's supposedly possible to do.
I'm at work right now, but I'm definitely up for some games when I get home. PM me your info.
On July 20 2010 04:41 Bair wrote: Phoenixes are fragile, and if you have the lead in unit count, like I said in that bit you just quoted from me, you can afford the trade because you have better macro, production capabilities, and numbers.
My point is that it's *much* easier to micro phoenixes to not take much damage at all from the mutas than it is to actually deal damage with the mutas. You'll *always* have the lead in unit count, but it simply doesn't matter if you can't do enough damage.
My original example was being completely unable to take down a single phoenix with 5 mutas, and losing a muta trying, despite catching him at least somewhat by surprise. The phoenix did take quite a bit of hull damage in that instance, but I got at least one shot off that I wouldn't have if he had been expecting that number of mutas and been able to react faster, and it still got away and was able to regen its shields.
Numbers simply don't matter until you have enough mutas to one-shot past the shields, and even if you have that many, they likely have enough phoenix that you're still taking quite a bit more damage than you're dealing, due to the phoenix ability to shoot while scooting.
On July 20 2010 04:41 Bair wrote: Phoenixes are fragile, and if you have the lead in unit count, like I said in that bit you just quoted from me, you can afford the trade because you have better macro, production capabilities, and numbers.
My point is that it's *much* easier to micro phoenixes to not take much damage at all from the mutas than it is to actually deal damage with the mutas. You'll *always* have the lead in unit count, but it simply doesn't matter if you can't do enough damage.
My original example was being completely unable to take down a single phoenix with 5 mutas, and losing a muta trying, despite catching him at least somewhat by surprise. The phoenix did take quite a bit of hull damage in that instance, but I got at least one shot off that I wouldn't have if he had been expecting that number of mutas and been able to react faster, and it still got away and was able to regen its shields.
Numbers simply don't matter until you have enough mutas to one-shot past the shields, and even if you have that many, they likely have enough phoenix that you're still taking quite a bit more damage than you're dealing, due to the phoenix ability to shoot while scooting.
In your experience, how often are you able to hit that magic number before the number of phoenixes hit that critical mass?
In general, I am able to field enough mutas (if I FE'd) to hit that magic number of mutas, and the micro to hit phoenixes is not hard, especially with latency, and very much so if the P player is trying to maximize damage done.
This kind of micro is cake compared to BW muta micro
With same resources spent (bit more gas on zergs part compared to P but I didnt count in cost for lance so I think it was ok) I went all stalker vs muta. The stalkers win. But if you mix in 2-3 colossus the muta can either snipe off all colossus and make it out ok or they can kill off all the stalkers and make it out decently (meaning they can kill off the colossus no problem at all). So going colossus against ling/muta is maybe a bad idea cause it eats into your gas that you really need on air defense? Adding lings to the test I do not think would mean that much as P could have equal resources of zealots and we know how that ends.
What about going just stalkers, zealots and a few sentries for both FF to negate lings and shield to negate mutas. All your gas is AA then, spare minerals you dump on zealots as zerg does on lings and you should come out on top in both the air battle and the ground battle. The colossus makes you own the ground battle but it also makes you loose the air battle.
In how many of the posted replays did P go colossus? Being at such a huge gas disadvantage in regards to air dominance should put stress on you. I mean lance and 3 colossus in 1100 gas you do not have invested in anti air!
Point is gas vs gas P wins vs muta if they spend it equally on anti air no matter if its stalkers or phoenix. I do not think the argument I tried mass blink stalkers and failed to lings is a good argument as you can simply dump as much mins in zealots as he does in lings and then you counter the lings as well. I also think that phoenix is useless as hydras own phoenix is bad. Phoenix will counter mutas in equal cost. So its a good unit, you can also harass with phoenix, not as good as muta but a fair price to be able to win the air battle?
Zerg could tech switch to hydras ofc and own ure gate army but then you can add HTs to this mix instead of collo they can even be effective against both mutas and lings wheres collo only helps against lings which might make it a better investment?. You can still add on collo later if needed. The investment in storm and HT tech is about the same as investment in lance and collo tech. If Z wants to switch he needs hydra den (which is cheap) but he also wants range upgrade and maybe +1 range. So this approach might make it more expensive for Z then P?
Maybe it is really Ps being so horny about colossus thats the real problem thinking its the all end solution to all Z armies? Maybe you shouldn't expect to get away with your stalker, zealot, sentry mix ball with 3 colossus walking on top off it against all Zs unit compositions? Maybe its smarter to mix in HTs instead?
Sure muta harass is still a problem and maybe you need some phoenix on top to stop that? But I think a first step could be letting go of your colossus?
This is just an idea I'm having that the P compo might not be well suited to start with.
I do not play P. Im as I said only plat and do not consider myself that good. But I think the reasoning makes sense. When I think about it now and that P puts 1000+ gas on colossus in most games I find it totally unreasonable that they should win against muta spam as this essentially should counter 1000+gas not spent on anti air. I also realize how stupid I am for not going pure muta if I see a robo bay. Whats your take on this?
Adding lings to the test I do not think would mean that much as P could have equal resources of zealots and we know how that ends.
You absolutely can't count lings out when fighting a Protoss ball. They're crucial to absorbing stalker hits for your mutas, which means that your mutas will be able to survive and kill the anti-air while the lings are busy meatshielding away, as I mentioned in my previous post. Also, please watch the replays. In game 2, I'm pretty sure no gas was spent on colossi. And I have played games where my opponent forced a hatch cancel at my natural with 2 forward gates, got up his expansion uncontested, moved out at around 100 supply with a pure gateway army (zeal/sentry/stalker), and still got completely demolished by muta/ling.
The concept of "Muta/Ling" is too large for a sensible discussion.
You can't seriously say that "Muta/Ling" is unstoppable. If you started a game saying "I'll go just Muta/Ling" you would get hideous rolled. OK, I'll open cannon-wall infront of my expo into 2 then 3 stargate Pheonix. Once my expo kicks in I'll add a bunch of gateways and use the minerals to mass a load of Zealots. Pheonixes hard counter Mutas making them useless and all my minerals goes into Zealots which stomp your Lings.
Obviously you didn't mean a rigid MUST GO MUTA/LING build, but then you're effectively talking about the whole of PvZ; which comes back to my point that it's too varied a concept.
If you want advice on mid-game PvZ... it's remarkably like Broodwar :The Protoss ball vs the maneuverable Zerg. You of course need to utilise the AoE units to become cost effective in big battles. Storm is actually very good against mutalisks and coupled with Stalkers/Zealot/Sentry you have your mid-game ball. If Zerg goes Hydras then you use Collosus instead. If you opened with Stargates (which I believe to be strongest) then you have the option of adding Voidrays and Pheonixes too; especially good against Roaches of course.
On July 20 2010 09:20 Klive5ive wrote: If you want advice on mid-game PvZ... it's remarkably like Broodwar :The Protoss ball vs the maneuverable Zerg.
Actually, I think that SC2 will eventually be very different from Brood War in this respect. Off creep, zerg are nowhere near as fast as they were in Brood War. On the flip side, protoss can play a VERY fast game by fully leveraging warp in. Probably my favorite PvZ game that I played during the beta was on metalopolis where I went phoenix => templar tech. Sneaking pylons and phase prisms around the map, I found that I could be all over the map almost simultaneously, with the only limitations being resources and my own limited APM. In short, the zerg wasn't really able to keep up with my constant attacks and whittling of his expansion. I think some pro protosses will eventually adopt a similar style of play, particularly on larger maps. It should be a helluva lot of fun to watch if nothing else.
On July 20 2010 09:20 Klive5ive wrote: Storm is actually very good against mutalisks and coupled with Stalkers/Zealot/Sentry you have your mid-game ball.
I'm not so sure I agree with this. The storm seems to be too small to really be effective against mutas. Like I said, I've been doing a 1-base mutaling build quite a bit lately, and it seems like every time protoss has come at me with templars, I easily dodge, take very minimal damage, snipe the super-easy kills, and giggle like a little girl a little bit as the massive control group of zerglings comes in.
On July 20 2010 07:07 Bair wrote: In your experience, how often are you able to hit that magic number before the number of phoenixes hit that critical mass?
In general, I am able to field enough mutas (if I FE'd) to hit that magic number of mutas, and the micro to hit phoenixes is not hard, especially with latency, and very much so if the P player is trying to maximize damage done.
This kind of micro is cake compared to BW muta micro
I have no clue what that number even is, and I'm certainly not hitting in anywhere near as quickly as somebody who fast expands into mutas.
All I know is that I've been doing very well on 1-base mutaling vs protoss, but ran into a game where the protoss started with very small numbers of phoenix, and eventually moved to 2 stargates worth, and it didn't feel like there was a damn thing I could do against them with mutas. And yes, I suck, so I kept building them, thinking I was bound to start overwhelming him at some point, but it never happened. Even as I hit upwards of 24 mutas (I never got more than that because his phoenix were simply doing so much damage), I came out a *massive* loser in every single exchange, because he wouldn't engage directly, and rarely took more than one volley of muta fire. So yeah, some fights I might get a phoenix, but he was killing mutas a whole hell of a lot faster than I was, and he was in perma-disengage mode, making it hard to get any kills at all, but still taking damage from the shoot-n-scoot.
So my experience is mostly limited to that one game, but I did watch the replay a number of times to figure out what the hell was going on, because I felt like I should have had air control by miles and miles (pretty sure I had at least 3x as many mutas as he had phoenix at every point of the game), but was getting wasted by that far inferior number of phoenix. Of course, the game actually came down to a massive fuckup on my part, running my mutas into his army on attack-move searching for expansions, but before that point I was losing way more than him anyway. I was watching the units lost tab, and with losses being mainly mutas and phoenix, I was at 5k resources worth of units lost when he was barely touching 1500.
Do any of these replays include the protoss going for medium numbers of phoenix after seeing heavy muta? Guess I could just download them all and watch, stop being lazy.
Ok, I guess the third replay is supposed to be showing how to beat a protoss who does go phoenix (like duh, my version, trying to just overwhelm them, obviously doesn't work)
What it really showed though was how to beat a protoss who enters a major battle with 1/3 to 1/2 of his army milling around in the back not shooting due to poor positioning. With a better arc, or better micromanagement so that there aren't so many units not doing anything for so long, I'm pretty sure protoss wins that first big battle hands down, leading to expansion death and likely loss of the game for zerg.
Edit again:
Since I'm watching them anyway, here are my comments on the other games.
Game 1: Protoss was 1 base behind at every point, and engaged an army that was 50% larger in both supply and resources. And yeah, lings are pretty damn good against stalkers.
Game 2: Again, 2 bases to 1, 3 bases to 2, 4 bases to 3. Saracen wasn't saturating all his bases, but was gassing at them, which is HUGE. After the first good-sized fight at Saracen's second, where the expansion lived by a mere 17 hp, the zerg was extremely far ahead in army resources and food at every point.
Game 3: Already commented on that one a little. I exaggerated a little, but there were 7-9 stalkers and or sentries not actually attacking through most of that battle. Towards the end, almost a third of the entire force was simply not attacking. 33% damage boost change anything maybe?
I couldn't get Game 4 to play. Old replay version maybe?
Anyway, what I'm really seeing here is that if you let a really good zerg player get a large macro advantage on you, or let a big part of your army hang out not attacking in battle, the zerg is probably going to win. I'm not convinced the protoss would have won any of these games no matter what the zerg's composition was. Well, the zealot/archon mix just might have omgwtfpwned a pure zergling army, but any reasonable mix is going to be pretty strong when spending 2-3x the resources on it.
On July 20 2010 09:02 Saracen wrote:Also, please watch the replays. In game 2, .
I can't So I just have to end my discussion there. But just wanna add cant you just shift queue stalkers on the mutas and ignore the lings? Let the sentries FF and zealots deal with the lings.
In my own experience, like others have said before me, archons are very good versus both lings and mutalisk. They do not rape every mutalisk or ling in sight like in brood war, but they are still quite good. You have to make sure your anti-air is actually targeting the mutalisk, this business of lings taking hits for the mutalisk is ridiculous because you should be targeting with your archons & stalkers.
I don't have any recent replays, I just know I never had any problem against that type of play. Also for those saying how you cannot leave your base, the entire point is that you want to fight his army, so you have to be aggressive. If you move out and he backstabs with mutalisk just keep going. Your cannons and warp in archon/stalkers should be enough to hold him off and then he will be forced to return to fight you on your terms.
This is a great post. Mutalisks are so versitle when you're not against some ridic anti air army. Opens up so many doors getting a fast hive and spire instead of roach warren/hydra den.
I'm only silver though. I'm still pretty firm in my belief that silver players simply don't know how to handle air well enough so they just get stomped. I certainly am one of those players as well.
I hate how muta/ling are so versatile vs protoss, mutas keep u contained constantly, even though i find blink stlakers good in defending, thats gas you wont be using on the defence on the speedlings which shut down any expo you then try taking other then ur natural... Its true though that you need to be mroe agrresive,e its just ahrd when you knwo the mutas will be back harassing any outlaying units or tkaing down the 3 cannons at the main or expo if you try to push out... Id prefer to play a zerg with hydra or anything else as I normally lose from my own errors then.
I know its a rebump but i seriously just have to reiterate
i am sick and tired of this build
REALLY sick and tired
Every single game its 1 mutalisks into some crazy contain
Ive pretty much summed up that you CANNOT 2gate FE vs any sort of 1 base muta play, as you WILL get contained on 2 bases, you WILL lose a lot of your probes with the initial harass, and you WONT have time to tech up to phoenix (or archons lol) before the game is at a decided loss
attempting to stay on gateway units is basically asking to lose to lings. This isnt SC1, where you can have "critical mass ranged" - its the other way around, and people need to realise this Its critical mass speedlings where once they get enough you are going to get surrounded and attacked with mutas at same time and lose your entire air attacking army and you can basically type gg right there.
I really dont understand why more pros don't do mutalisk openings instead of hydra. Is there some timing window or something im missing? Yeah, my initial 2gate will force him to make crawlers or lings but its not like there is some timing for me to attack before he has mutalisks out
The ONLY way ive seen that even comes close to defending this opening a blind stargate after you expand as your first tech, and even then you are going to be playing 1 phoenix vs 6 mutas so you are STILL going to take heavy econ harass. Obviously, if you lose your phoenix just type GG
I would really, REALLY like to hear some high level opinions on this (im 600 rating atm on EU) I really just cannot and out of the 10 or so times ive played vs it recently i havnt managed to win once#
edit: oh and seriously i HATE it when people tell you to ignore the harass and push out lol... Thats basically his chance to "make 30 lings and win the game right there" - kill all your econ, get mutas back in time (easy) and then surround with lings 500 minerals worth of lings can easily kill a 1k protoss army without a problem so dont give me that bs about cost efficiency because mutas force you to go heavy stalker sentry
On August 02 2010 09:25 BrTarolg wrote: I know its a rebump but i seriously just have to reiterate
i am sick and tired of this build
REALLY sick and tired
Every single game its 1 mutalisks into some crazy contain
Ive pretty much summed up that you CANNOT 2gate FE vs any sort of 1 base muta play, as you WILL get contained on 2 bases, you WILL lose a lot of your probes with the initial harass, and you WONT have time to tech up to phoenix (or archons lol) before the game is at a decided loss
attempting to stay on gateway units is basically asking to lose to lings. This isnt SC1, where you can have "critical mass ranged" - its the other way around, and people need to realise this Its critical mass speedlings where once they get enough you are going to get surrounded and attacked with mutas at same time and lose your entire air attacking army and you can basically type gg right there.
I really dont understand why more pros don't do mutalisk openings instead of hydra. Is there some timing window or something im missing? Yeah, my initial 2gate will force him to make crawlers or lings but its not like there is some timing for me to attack before he has mutalisks out
The ONLY way ive seen that even comes close to defending this opening a blind stargate after you expand as your first tech, and even then you are going to be playing 1 phoenix vs 6 mutas so you are STILL going to take heavy econ harass. Obviously, if you lose your phoenix just type GG
I would really, REALLY like to hear some high level opinions on this (im 600 rating atm on EU) I really just cannot and out of the 10 or so times ive played vs it recently i havnt managed to win once
so what, is your 2gate being beaten back by lings?
can i ask that you post a replay of exactly what is happening?
is ur 2gate getting in their base at all? can you see their buildings? if they have 2gas and only1base and are lairing i would still expand and go a little overboard with cannons and back those up with stalkers
like, 2 cannons behind your gates and then 2-3 more cannons behind those protecting your exp minerals then 2 cannons at nat and stalkers
after the cannons are up bring out the robo while making more stalkers
On August 02 2010 09:25 BrTarolg wrote: I know its a rebump but i seriously just have to reiterate
i am sick and tired of this build
REALLY sick and tired
Every single game its 1 mutalisks into some crazy contain
...
This^
I'm a mid diamond and i'm having terrible problems with this build as well. As he mentions you really have to go blindly towards some kind of archon/phoenix build if you're going to have any chance. Lately, I've teched stright towards phoenix after the FE, for scouting purposes and harassing any dislocated OV's. I havn't faced any who have teched muta after seeing the phoenix though.
On August 02 2010 09:25 BrTarolg wrote: I know its a rebump but i seriously just have to reiterate
i am sick and tired of this build
REALLY sick and tired
Every single game its 1 mutalisks into some crazy contain
Ive pretty much summed up that you CANNOT 2gate FE vs any sort of 1 base muta play, as you WILL get contained on 2 bases, you WILL lose a lot of your probes with the initial harass, and you WONT have time to tech up to phoenix (or archons lol) before the game is at a decided loss
attempting to stay on gateway units is basically asking to lose to lings. This isnt SC1, where you can have "critical mass ranged" - its the other way around, and people need to realise this Its critical mass speedlings where once they get enough you are going to get surrounded and attacked with mutas at same time and lose your entire air attacking army and you can basically type gg right there.
I really dont understand why more pros don't do mutalisk openings instead of hydra. Is there some timing window or something im missing? Yeah, my initial 2gate will force him to make crawlers or lings but its not like there is some timing for me to attack before he has mutalisks out
The ONLY way ive seen that even comes close to defending this opening a blind stargate after you expand as your first tech, and even then you are going to be playing 1 phoenix vs 6 mutas so you are STILL going to take heavy econ harass. Obviously, if you lose your phoenix just type GG
I would really, REALLY like to hear some high level opinions on this (im 600 rating atm on EU) I really just cannot and out of the 10 or so times ive played vs it recently i havnt managed to win once
so what, is your 2gate being beaten back by lings?
can i ask that you post a replay of exactly what is happening?
is ur 2gate getting in their base at all? can you see their buildings? if they have 2gas and only1base and are lairing i would still expand and go a little overboard with cannons and back those up with stalkers
like, 2 cannons behind your gates and then 2-3 more cannons behind those protecting your exp minerals then 2 cannons at nat and stalkers
after the cannons are up bring out the robo while making more stalkers
I was going to write a longer reply but it simply is just difficult to articulate all the problems with this No, there is no scouting issue, and you make it sound like 2gate is an autowin vs lings. Any decent zerg will make lings to defend. If he gets speedlings, then you will at some point or another, lose all your zealots to a critical number of lings unless you continually spam zealots and hinder your own economy (i.e not expanding and giving him MORE time for his lair to pop) Yes, i see the lair, i see the double gas, i see the lings (or some zergs like to make 2 crawlers and minimal lings instead this works fine too)
Your cannon suggestion is almost rediculous... 1k minerals on cannons when the first 7 mutas pop? Esp given that the mutas can snipe the cannons since they are only 2 at a time. You would have to do some SERIOUS probe cutting in order to place that many cannons, god forbid if you manage to get any stalkers out.
---
Really, economically wise its not a terrible situation for protoss, it ios simply that as the game goes on longer, the more powerful mutas and lings become and the more that zerg can abuse this advantage to either completely overrun and outharass you or take over the whole map and take complete econ advantage
Once again, ihmo blind stargate is the only way to seriously defend this if you plan on FE
edit: just to reiterate with the cannons, even if you had the minerals to place all of those cannons at that point in the game, the more mutas he makes the more cannons you are going to have to make or the more stalkers you will have to make, and as the game goes on longer the more likely he will hit critical mass to be able to demolish one of your cannoned areas without taking casualties. You have to make sure that all 3 areas are defended equally to avoid losing the game, and that all 3 areas have sufficient mutalik defence. Cannons being immobile, whilst cost effective, are not cost effective if you have to have 3x the usual amount compared to when defending with just one base. And basically, going stalkers is just absolute suicide vs lings lol
I don't really liek going mutalisks against protoss mostly because of the huge gas investment and my super ability to play against every protoss that all-ins at some weird timing with gateway units.
Hydra/roach or hydra/ling with infestor support if they have robo bays is usually what i get against Protoss.
Ironically the best equipped to deal with mutalisks in large numbers is terran and i find myself more often than not going muta against Terran to abuse the mech immobility and just be a general pain in the ass (returning the favor for hellion harass).
Theoretically a small group of stalkers and a sentry or two should be able to dispatch of a muta harass force. I haven't found mutalisks particularly effective against gateway units and Stargates in general and if Protoss opts for robo bay I prefer infestors to corruptors.
On August 02 2010 09:25 BrTarolg wrote: I know its a rebump but i seriously just have to reiterate
i am sick and tired of this build
REALLY sick and tired
Every single game its 1 mutalisks into some crazy contain
Ive pretty much summed up that you CANNOT 2gate FE vs any sort of 1 base muta play, as you WILL get contained on 2 bases, you WILL lose a lot of your probes with the initial harass, and you WONT have time to tech up to phoenix (or archons lol) before the game is at a decided loss
attempting to stay on gateway units is basically asking to lose to lings. This isnt SC1, where you can have "critical mass ranged" - its the other way around, and people need to realise this Its critical mass speedlings where once they get enough you are going to get surrounded and attacked with mutas at same time and lose your entire air attacking army and you can basically type gg right there.
I really dont understand why more pros don't do mutalisk openings instead of hydra. Is there some timing window or something im missing? Yeah, my initial 2gate will force him to make crawlers or lings but its not like there is some timing for me to attack before he has mutalisks out
The ONLY way ive seen that even comes close to defending this opening a blind stargate after you expand as your first tech, and even then you are going to be playing 1 phoenix vs 6 mutas so you are STILL going to take heavy econ harass. Obviously, if you lose your phoenix just type GG
I would really, REALLY like to hear some high level opinions on this (im 600 rating atm on EU) I really just cannot and out of the 10 or so times ive played vs it recently i havnt managed to win once#
edit: oh and seriously i HATE it when people tell you to ignore the harass and push out lol... Thats basically his chance to "make 30 lings and win the game right there" - kill all your econ, get mutas back in time (easy) and then surround with lings 500 minerals worth of lings can easily kill a 1k protoss army without a problem so dont give me that bs about cost efficiency because mutas force you to go heavy stalker sentry
Hydras FEEL like a safer way to play against Protoss to me because they demolish every unit the protoss can get with the exception of high templar and colossus. I don't typically go mutalisks unless they two gate and put a lot of early pressure and I know they wont have the gas to defend against it.
On August 02 2010 09:25 BrTarolg wrote: I know its a rebump but i seriously just have to reiterate
i am sick and tired of this build
REALLY sick and tired
Every single game its 1 mutalisks into some crazy contain
Ive pretty much summed up that you CANNOT 2gate FE vs any sort of 1 base muta play, as you WILL get contained on 2 bases, you WILL lose a lot of your probes with the initial harass, and you WONT have time to tech up to phoenix (or archons lol) before the game is at a decided loss
attempting to stay on gateway units is basically asking to lose to lings. This isnt SC1, where you can have "critical mass ranged" - its the other way around, and people need to realise this Its critical mass speedlings where once they get enough you are going to get surrounded and attacked with mutas at same time and lose your entire air attacking army and you can basically type gg right there.
I really dont understand why more pros don't do mutalisk openings instead of hydra. Is there some timing window or something im missing? Yeah, my initial 2gate will force him to make crawlers or lings but its not like there is some timing for me to attack before he has mutalisks out
The ONLY way ive seen that even comes close to defending this opening a blind stargate after you expand as your first tech, and even then you are going to be playing 1 phoenix vs 6 mutas so you are STILL going to take heavy econ harass. Obviously, if you lose your phoenix just type GG
I would really, REALLY like to hear some high level opinions on this (im 600 rating atm on EU) I really just cannot and out of the 10 or so times ive played vs it recently i havnt managed to win once
so what, is your 2gate being beaten back by lings?
can i ask that you post a replay of exactly what is happening?
is ur 2gate getting in their base at all? can you see their buildings? if they have 2gas and only1base and are lairing i would still expand and go a little overboard with cannons and back those up with stalkers
like, 2 cannons behind your gates and then 2-3 more cannons behind those protecting your exp minerals then 2 cannons at nat and stalkers
after the cannons are up bring out the robo while making more stalkers
I was going to write a longer reply but it simply is just difficult to articulate all the problems with this No, there is no scouting issue, and you make it sound like 2gate is an autowin vs lings. Any decent zerg will make lings to defend. If he gets speedlings, then you will at some point or another, lose all your zealots to a critical number of lings unless you continually spam zealots and hinder your own economy (i.e not expanding and giving him MORE time for his lair to pop) Yes, i see the lair, i see the double gas, i see the lings (or some zergs like to make 2 crawlers and minimal lings instead this works fine too)
Your cannon suggestion is almost rediculous... 1k minerals on cannons when the first 7 mutas pop? Esp given that the mutas can snipe the cannons since they are only 2 at a time. You would have to do some SERIOUS probe cutting in order to place that many cannons, god forbid if you manage to get any stalkers out.
---
Really, economically wise its not a terrible situation for protoss, it ios simply that as the game goes on longer, the more powerful mutas and lings become and the more that zerg can abuse this advantage to either completely overrun and outharass you or take over the whole map and take complete econ advantage
Once again, ihmo blind stargate is the only way to seriously defend this if you plan on FE
edit: just to reiterate with the cannons, even if you had the minerals to place all of those cannons at that point in the game, the more mutas he makes the more cannons you are going to have to make or the more stalkers you will have to make, and as the game goes on longer the more likely he will hit critical mass to be able to demolish one of your cannoned areas without taking casualties. You have to make sure that all 3 areas are defended equally to avoid losing the game, and that all 3 areas have sufficient mutalik defence. Cannons being immobile, whilst cost effective, are not cost effective if you have to have 3x the usual amount compared to when defending with just one base. And basically, going stalkers is just absolute suicide vs lings lol
in what way did i make it sound like 2gate is auto win vs lings? what?
and you're already making 2 cannons behind ur gates anyways right? i am simply advocating 4-5 more cannons. with stalkers it should be very easy to hold vs mutas and your 2base vs 1 base advantage will kick in quite quickly
it kind of depends on the map but the maps id advocate 2gate ---> fe the FE is right next to the choke so im actually defending 2 or 2ish spots, not 3. when u have a 2nd base up and he's been on one im not advocating attacking with stalkers... you mass stalkers to go with collossus while your resource advantage kicks in. you won't lose any cannons because you've been massing stalkers to help you defend. then you move out with some collossus and a crapload of stalkers and a couple sentries. sure he can hit your base when you move out but u just keep pressing forward and run him over.
So I'm just now finding this thread... Clicking through the pages I'm seeing lots of really interesting stuff, but most these posts are from beta. So that leaves me with questions:
For starters, I never go muta vP. Basically every game for me is Gas, Pool, Expand, Hydra/Roach/Ling.
How well does this 1 base muta play work against the flavor of the month 4 warpgate Protoss player? I can't help but feel like he's going to have an ample amount of stalkers in plenty of time to deal with the muta.
Is anyone still actively using this build post retail? I'd love to see a BO.
I've not downloaded any of the older replays yet either... Can I even play them with the retail version of the game?
On August 02 2010 11:22 MrBitter wrote: So I'm just now finding this thread... Clicking through the pages I'm seeing lots of really interesting stuff, but most these posts are from beta. So that leaves me with questions:
For starters, I never go muta vP. Basically every game for me is Gas, Pool, Expand, Hydra/Roach/Ling.
How well does this 1 base muta play work against the flavor of the month 4 warpgate Protoss player? I can't help but feel like he's going to have an ample amount of stalkers in plenty of time to deal with the muta.
Is anyone still actively using this build post retail? I'd love to see a BO.
I've not downloaded any of the older replays yet either... Can I even play them with the retail version of the game?
Thanks in advance.
Problem with that comp is colossi/HTs eat it alive. I go Muta/Ling with an eventual transition to BL + Corruptor.
i find that as soon as zerg gets his 3rd running. Its game over. Theres no easy way for me harass or attack the 3rd on a big map even with warp in. Nor can i get my 3rd cos of that force. More and more i am going for dark templar. Since its easy to defend 2 bases with a ground army but impossible to move out. Hopefully the dts will force the zerg to get lazy with his mutas and i can move out but yeahhh.. not my preffered style of play.
On July 18 2010 14:28 xDaunt wrote: As long as the protoss has an expansion and scouts the spire while it is being constructed, the protoss should be fine (which is why I prefer robo first builds against zerg). Put down a couple cannons at each mineral line, build two stargates, and crank out phoenixes to take care of the mutas. If you get +1 weapons early, your zealots will shred the zerglings. The real trick is to properly time a transition into either colossi or templar to deal with the inevitable tech switch to hydras.
I'm a firm believer that relying upon ground units to beat mutalisks is a bad idea for toss. The mobility of the mutalisks will just rape you, and your stalker/sentry force doesn't do enough damage to compensate for its relatively slower move speed.
This makes alot of sense to me. Another important thing is u need to pressure Z's economy aswell, letting them power up 3 bases is like a auto gg. 2 gate openings into exp+tech transitions are really strong imo.
Im a zerg player and I think what the protoss player was getting at here is that mutas force you to multi-task and defend many points at once. Vs Terran I always go banelings and protoss I always go Mutalisks. Yes there are many variable factors but in general mutas work well.
Ill give an example of why they work well. Lets say the map is lost temple and the protoss is on the left hand side 9 oclock and im at the 12. This is a game I recently played. I will fly to the expo from the top and try to attack his probes, if he has defence I will fly away and then fly from the bottom to get his main probes. if that is defended as well, I will fly in from the right and attack his gateways, stargates etc.
The guy was talking about the harrassments and not being able to move out. Yes in a perfect game u would have mass pheonix or whatever u need. Also I find pheonix really hard to fight with mutas. For Zerg players I have found baiting them works quite well. What I mean is if pheonix fly back so I can't hit them, i will star attacking a building etc so they come back and attack me, at that point I will target the pheonix with all my mutas and I get a chance to attack. Also if the pheonix hurt ur mutas, when ur regrouping with ur new mutas heal them with your queens.
The main point is really Mutas give Zerg players scouting as they can fly all around the map checking for expos and when u hit the base u can also see what the protoss is going. I have lost going mutas but find as a zerg player Mutas vs protoss and Banelings vs Terran as the main units I use.
Also I have not come across a protoss player who has used archons / storm on my mutas yet.
Mutalisk are not the way to go against a protoss player. It absolutely doesnt contain the protoss player (me atleast). When the protoss sees your mutalisk he immediately puts up some cannons at one of his bases, transfers his probes to that base (this is done really quickly). He then pushes out with his whole army and destroy the zerg who only has spines and zerglings. Mutalisk are so awful is combat that they get utterly destroyed when they come back to defend.
i think the way to beat mutaling is a collosus sentry stalker timing push that is really well prepared and designed to hit RIGHT before the zerg gets ultras. maybe something even like an archon gateway push.
right now mutalisks feel so good against p and t, for me, but against p they have no definitive answer against it so it just grants you a 3rd base. you can take a 3rd or 4th while macroing a strong mutaling army and get ultras. now the transition between ultra and mutaling is the part where the toss can push the zerg. it all comes down to how effective the harass was or how well the zerg can react to this and tech up to ultras faster, and etc.
hydra roach is more of a robust build atm, and it's just solid. mutaling is very good but i don't think it's unbeatable.
i think the way to beat mutaling is a collosus sentry stalker timing push that is really well prepared and designed to hit RIGHT before the zerg gets ultras.
lol.That is actually what all protoss players do: a timing attack with that unit composition.
Im a zerg player and I think what the protoss player was getting at here is that mutas force you to multi-task and defend many points at once. Vs Terran I always go banelings and protoss I always go Mutalisks. Yes there are many variable factors but in general mutas work well.
Ill give an example of why they work well. Lets say the map is lost temple and the protoss is on the left hand side 9 oclock and im at the 12. This is a game I recently played. I will fly to the expo from the top and try to attack his probes, if he has defence I will fly away and then fly from the bottom to get his main probes. if that is defended as well, I will fly in from the right and attack his gateways, stargates etc.
The guy was talking about the harrassments and not being able to move out. Yes in a perfect game u would have mass pheonix or whatever u need. Also I find pheonix really hard to fight with mutas. For Zerg players I have found baiting them works quite well. What I mean is if pheonix fly back so I can't hit them, i will star attacking a building etc so they come back and attack me, at that point I will target the pheonix with all my mutas and I get a chance to attack. Also if the pheonix hurt ur mutas, when ur regrouping with ur new mutas heal them with your queens.
The main point is really Mutas give Zerg players scouting as they can fly all around the map checking for expos and when u hit the base u can also see what the protoss is going. I have lost going mutas but find as a zerg player Mutas vs protoss and Banelings vs Terran as the main units I use.
Also I have not come across a protoss player who has used archons / storm on my mutas yet.
This kind of thing is what really gave me trouble, and is now why i normally open pheonix against zerg. While it's true that you can protect your probes with some cannons, it's nearly impossible to stop mutas from getting in your base at all. Zerg takes advantage of this map control to expand and whore drones when they run out of gas, but by then it just feels like I've been out macro'd so badly that my main army is nothing compared to his.
I also got some huge problems ZvP when the zerg goes muta/ling....
Too many stalkers and you die to lings, too few stalkers and more zelots/sentry and the mutalisks rape you in 5 seconds....
But, what im going to try is to defend the early muta harass with stalkers + cannons and tech to colossi and when I got 2-3 colossi, attack. Im going to have atleast 4 sentrys to block of most of the lings and let the colossus kill the lings while my stalkers shoot the mutas, might work... but probably not, the mutalisks will probably just rape my stalkers in seconds with their bouncing bazooka shots
Am I the only one that goes roach/corruptor/ling? It is very versatile.
No detection? Burrow the roaches. Enemy walls in? Morph banelings. Need a finishing move? Morph brood lords. P has a hard time with corruptor/brood lord as it is.
Collossi/Carriers get owned by corruptors Immortals get owned by lings Corruptors can go tail to tail with Phoenix and can increase their damage against Phoenix.
The only counter I see to this are high templar as they can feedback overseers necessary for detection and feedback corruptors needed for anti-air.
Against mutaling, is it viable to take a hasty third and over-cannon (which means as many cannons as you need)? Zealot cannon (pheonix or archon), is a pretty sick defense. You take away the zerg's threat of totally outdroning you in exchance for a (temporary) contain. If the zerg mass expands, you theoritically should be able to amass a 3 base economy force of some sort take it out. If you're know you are going to lose most map control with mutas, why not go into lockdown mode?
Note: I haven't played sc2 since phase 2 and against mutaling for even longer, just putting ideas out, muta/ling is a bitch.
I forge FE'd and managed to repel the mutas with a mix of cannons/stalkers/archons but I lost it when i had my forces at the front to fight off his push and he came in with broodlords in the back of my main.
Looking back, i probably could've held the front with just zealots/templar and kept my archons/stalkers in the back. But still at that point I was on 2-base and he already had the gold for quite some time.
Okay so I tried a muta/ling build in the BO tester a few times and this is what I used:
9 overlord 12 extractor 13 pool 15 overlord 15 Queen + ling speed 17 zergling keep droning Lair when queen pops out (around 20) 20 Extractor Drone until 24 Lings until 30+ 30 Spire then build 2 overlords and like 6-8 lings and then when your spire pops you should have ~ 800/500 and you can queue 5 muta and expand.
I got pressured with some early zealots on Steppes of war but i basically walked over this protoss with that strat because he got gas so late.
My macro at the end was pretty terrible because i wasn't used to this strategy but i made short work of his probes and got enough lings to bust his front and finish it.
On August 03 2010 12:50 Backpack wrote: Hey guys! I figured it out!
If you 4-gate them, you win! :D
-_- it actually worked, but they went fast mutas and just skipped spine crawlers all together
Yeah. Always a good build to rely on, but I've done this before and I lose to spine crawlers. If he has enough spines with a good amount of speedlings and a queen or two to transfuse, it's either lose all your units or fall back. This easy composition only requires minerals, and the gas he can save up for mutas.
Opponent went fast 4 gate stalkers with fast blink and walled off, his stalkers couldnt catch my mutas and put pressure at the same time. I eventually won with a muta/ling bust on the gateway that was forming the bulk of the wall and overran him.
Opponent went fast 4 gate stalkers with fast blink and walled off, his stalkers couldnt catch my mutas and put pressure at the same time. I eventually won with a muta/ling bust on the gateway that was forming the bulk of the wall and overran him.
Toss didn't even cannon up after losing 1/2 his drones and then decided to leave home looking for harass. Barely even decided to get a forge after losing the majority of his drones a second time.
Just played a bunch of games against Muta/Ling. I think the key in fighting them is warp prisms (see game 1 for why that is) and Dark Templar - to merge into Archons (50 gas less than HT) (see game 4 for this).
On August 03 2010 09:56 Fiel wrote: Am I the only one that goes roach/corruptor/ling? It is very versatile.
No detection? Burrow the roaches. Enemy walls in? Morph banelings. Need a finishing move? Morph brood lords. P has a hard time with corruptor/brood lord as it is.
Collossi/Carriers get owned by corruptors Immortals get owned by lings Corruptors can go tail to tail with Phoenix and can increase their damage against Phoenix.
The only counter I see to this are high templar as they can feedback overseers necessary for detection and feedback corruptors needed for anti-air.
Someone tried that against me yesterday and I absolutely wrecked him with stalker-heavy force with some sentry and templar support. I'd have to look at the replay to see what happened with the food count, but the army value graph showed me losing ~15-20% of my army in the big battle compared to him losing 90%.
I'll share some additional thoughts on what I've been doing in PvZ (~550 diamond) with a good degree of success.
As I see it, the optimal strategy for toss early on is to pressure the zerg and prevent muta/ling or hydra/roach from becoming an issue at all. Towards this end, 2-gate pressure where you get stalkers reasonably quickly (start core after 5th zealot to deal with roaches) can really mess with a zerg if you're in close positions and often end the game outright.
Eventually, however, you will have to tech. My preferred techpath in PvZ has been to build a stargate followed immediately by a twilight council. The stargate produces a phoenix as soon as its complete, then I go check on the zerg's tech. If I see mutas, then I'm good to go because Phoenixes are far and away the best solution to mutas (note that you may want to throw down a second stargate). If I see hydra/roach, then I already have my twilight council up and can spend the gas on charge and templar tech. I like to get charge first just so that I can put some early pressure on a zerg if he decides to be greedy and snatch a third. Chargelots are brutal against smaller numbers of hydras.
I don't really have this locked down into a concrete build order yet and I'm still feeling it out. However, it seems promising so far.
XDaunt, I'd be interested in seeing some replays of this approach. I've been doing 12gate 14gate pressure into core as an opening. Usually I follow up with a robo & observer ... see the spire and warp in stalkers + cannon my mineral line + get council for blink. Against good muta harass, they find something to kill before blink is done researching.
I'll give skip-robo approach and scout with phoenix a few tries.
I just made a thread about this and what I have been reading to be the best solution is early pressure but on larger maps like 3 v 9 metal or desert oasis it is very difficult to be aggressive early
xDaunt's pressure into blind Phoenix (for scout during the lings-rule-the-map time) instead of blind robo ->obs seems to be superior. I'm set with chrono'd phoenixes if I scout the spire, and I catch the hydras in time to go chargelots into HT's.
My micro with lots/charge seems to not work against the better macroing Zergs who just throw enough hydras & roaches at the problem to win, but I'm fairly sure that's my skill as a player rather than an inferior plan for the hydralisk den.
On August 06 2010 21:29 Plexa wrote: Just played a bunch of games against Muta/Ling. I think the key in fighting them is warp prisms (see game 1 for why that is) and Dark Templar - to merge into Archons (50 gas less than HT) (see game 4 for this).
watched #4: he is just a really bad zerg. the fact that your main is untouched without a single cannon or attack unit is unbelievable when somebody using mutas the 3rd cannon as your nat was overeacted bc u could easily hold position 2 remain stalker at the front and the 2 cannons will do the dps => u got ur nexus way earlier (yeah, your nexus is too delayed). mostly when one go cyber, they have a delayed forge or forge and delay cyber. getting both like you really hurt urself economically. a good Zerg would have a overseer(for speed) after 2 queen is out just to scout your base and if he see more than 1 cannon, he should get his 3rd base already.
about the archon: first battle at your 3rd, they easily got stuck and simply become useless. mutas out range them and since they are air, micro can be done quite easy. there was a few time they shine with +2 attack +1 shield but mostly because Zerg upgrades has been delayed. the fact that he tried to switched to ultra out of 3 bases (main is almost out) is retarded. getting +1 melee attack b4 the amour is something i see bad Z hv done a lots. amour not only gv to Zerglings but also to spine and queen and hatch and drones which can gv him MUCH MORE defend adv.
in the end, i just want to say that the true key to counter lings muta is upgrades. as you have +2, stalkers melts mutas faster than ever. also the fact that u can get +2 means you hv the council which bring the chance of getting blink to counter the mobility of mutas. what about lings? colossi, get 3 of them and start push out while getting storm up.
for more information, watch HuK recents PvZ replays on metro.
On August 19 2010 16:25 Mykill wrote: I've noticed that mainly stalker/zealot army with colossi is good. add a few sentries for force fields i might just be playing crap zergs though
Nice anti air you got there, probably works wonders versus mutas
I am a low level diamond player. My APM is around 50-60, so keep that in mind - I am far from being able to execute perfect strategies, simply because I find I can't keep up. The way to beat it, at my level, imho, is going for pretty early push against zerg, and deny at least third expansion, while teching to storm.
Phoenix sounds good ... but once you have critical mass of mutas, they function mostly as a speed bump. Having 3, or 4 bases, using all gas for mutas or spire upgrades, you can mass them pretty fast, but you get to have a ton of minerals left over.
When I am successfull with this, as a zerg, I don't build much speedlings. Against Terran, sure, but not against protoss. Yes, I have lings at each expansion and overlords at islands, but, I use extra minerals mostly for spinecrawler defense and extra overlords I move in front of my mutas when I attack (soak up damage, I leave them behind to die when I run).
I find that moving from base to base, constantly, once you have a good force, while just building more mutas and upgrading from 2 spires (am I the only zerg who builds 2 spires for upgrades?), will slowly but surely tear down a protoss that waits too long with pushing out. Wasting your mutas, ie, letting them die before you have massed enough, will lose me the game, as will not building crawlers at expansions.
didn't read the whole thread, but it's madness, i scouted the spire when it was building (50%). i immediatly throw down a stargate and spammed stalker sentries only, i also had 2 cannons at my mineral lines, but when i realised, that he's going mass muta, i added a 2nd stargate and more cannons.. but cannons are worth nothing, they don't do enough dmg and die too fast, i wasn't even able to be a threat to these mutas eventhough i had constant phenix production from 2 stargates and 5 warpgates pumping stalker sentry, in the meantime he had his 3rd up and ~20spinecrawlers. i wasn't able to get a force up that can deal with this amount of mutas since he kept the pressure up and killed all units as soon as they entered the battlefield.
i cannot see another solution then to end the game before he gets +12 mutas.
Played a game tonight where I went up against Muta/Ling on Lost Temple...pretty much textbook from his point of view, although he could have been more active with his mutas.
I was originally planning on Zealot/Collossi, but that is straight up owned by Muta/Ling even if you have lots of Stalker/Sentries. Anyways, I managed to survive for awhile with Stalker/Setnry/Collosus (not the best mix obviously but I had the Robo Bay already..) but eventually got beaten when he added in Ultras (which I didn't scout so I didn't have immortals out in time.
I hate Muta/Ling. I'm going to try opening 2 Gate/Stargate against Zerg, but that's pretty much going to be countered by the other popular strategy - Roach/Hydra. (Which Collosus do so well against!)
And there isn't any tell tale sign when you're looking at the Zerg's base early game with your scouting probe to find out if it's Muta/Ling vs Roach/Hydra.
Just played a bunch of games against Muta/Ling. I think the key in fighting them is warp prisms (see game 1 for why that is) and Dark Templar - to merge into Archons (50 gas less than HT) (see game 4 for this).
Interesting. Curious what you use the warp prism for, I'll be sure to check out the replay tomorrow.
What about matchin his muta production with ur archon production? U allredy mentioned that 3-4 archons are not going to stop 20 mutas. And that is fine because 20 mutas cost 2000 gas and 2000 minerals. The rest o the minerals he can only spend on speedlings couse he wont have for anything else. Now for 2100 gas u can get 7 archons and also make them upgraded and the rest of minerals u put into zlots. U will have far more minerals to spend on zlots than he will have for his speedlings so that should take if he might be on more bases than u. Dont forget also spinecrawlers cost alot of minerals too and he needs extra wueens to keep up with the production out of say 3 hatcheries. So try doin this combination while slowly techin to storm because u allredy have tech to counter possible transition to hydras.
The point im tryin to make here is if he is having a critical mass of mutas (by critical i mean hes able to 1-2 shot ur archon) u have to have also a critical mass of archons and the upgrades scale much better for archons (for 1+w u get like +15 to dmg to bio).
Now i know what u will say. The problem with this clever aproach is that he will have superior mobility and avoiding facing ur army directly while harrasing ur expo or ur third or if ur main army is out of possition ur main.
Dont attack him head on and turtle while waiting storm to finish. Now move out and by the time ur movin out u should have a couple of cannons (2-3 for each of ur base) and is he wont engage ur army directly while ur moving out to his base just warp in a couple of templars at whatever hes attacking u. Combined with cannons and a few stalkers u can afford, HT will repel this harassment. And also he cant harass u and letting his main base be killed. In this way he will be forced to pull back his mutas and then u have a perfect counter advantage but numerical and attacking disatvantage (he is defending so count spine crawlers and also he has slighly larger numbers) and then it all comes down to micro.
I tried today going 3 gate robo against mass muta-ling and failed horribly That build is no longer valid against smart zergs. __________ LOL this is my 100 post on TL
On August 06 2010 21:29 Plexa wrote: Just played a bunch of games against Muta/Ling. I think the key in fighting them is warp prisms (see game 1 for why that is) and Dark Templar - to merge into Archons (50 gas less than HT) (see game 4 for this).
I watched these and wasn't particularly impressed by Z's play. In 1 of the games he gets completely WORKED by early zealots making it a foregone conclusion, and gets severely hampered by a 2-gate in another. In the 4th game he completely forgets about defensive upgrades for his lings, and then bizarrely goes for ultras when your composition is zealot/archon/templar. Umm... what? BL's would have made infinitely more sense there.
On several of the replays, he has overlords covering the map but somehow can't see drops coming. =(
Unfortunately the only saved phoenix win or loss I have vs. muta ling isn't of highest quality, but here it is alas (both diamond players).
In this first game, there wasn't much early aggression with speed lots. Because the zerg player didn't early expand, I assumed tech (either hydra to infestor, then ultra or muta/ling). For scouting and anti-roach early aggression purposes, I went phoenix. The zerg player sent 5 mutas to my base, and encountered my 3 phoenixes with a few stalkers/sentries. I lost 1 phoenix, he lost 5 mutas (neither of our micro was good). It went downhill for the zerg player after that initial lost of investment. Even worse, he then switched to hydra AND expanded.
The problem is really muta/ling works pretty well vs standard 3-gate robo, and if you don't stop his FE and aren't able to scout him until your observer pops you're going to be fighting an uphill battle.
The solution is either early aggression i.e. 2-gate to stop the FE or 4-gate timing push to wipe out the expo, or FE yourself and toss down a stargate and scout w/ your first phoenix and if see a spire quickly toss down another stargate or 2 and start massing phoenix and upgrade air weapons. If you survive until you get enough phoenix you can regain map control and contain the zerg until he transitions out of mutas into most likely hydras. You can then counter this with chargelots plus either HTs and/or DTs as you can use your phoenix to snipe the overseers.
Against zerg, unless i scout roach warren or hydra den, it's too dangerous to make a push because a decent zerg can scout my troops moving out and then he can conjure up a sizable speedling army which by the time my troops get to his base, he'd have enough to surround and kill every single one of my units. The only way to do it successfully is good use of sentry's forcefield which is still difficult and risky. I think I'm going to work on a 1gate to starport build to force zerg to get hydra or antiair and then transition to colossus/chargelots while also doing my best to harass with phoenixes coming out of 1 stargate the whole game. If i'm not doing that, then figuring out a way to FE without dying is the next evolution of my PvZ game.
long thread, not sure if its been mentioned: as a zerg player i love 2 base mutaling against toss. i would say though that the 4/5 warpgate timing push is equal in difficulty to hold off for the zerg as mutaling is for the toss.
i think the solution for the toss player once it gets to mutaling is actually dt's. thats what i fear as a zerg player. dts double as both archon defense and force the zerg to spend money; at best in overseers at worst in static d, or even delaying muta attack. if done at the critical time this can mean a couple less muta, enough to put a 4 or 5 gate toss over the edge in terms of stalker firepower.
I too am having a great deal of trouble with this build, even though I pretty much anticipate muta-ling and go fast stargate to start building phoenix, it still does not work - because the zerg just builds like 5-6 corruptors mid-game and all my phoenixes are void. I find no way as protoss to have air superiority in this matchup. Apparently Void Rays counter corruptors, but since phoenix relies on heavy micro to damage the mutas without taking damage themselves you just can't build void rays, and if you do they get focused and killed by the mutas in one blow long before they can charge up on the corruptors. Even if I pump phoenix off two-base with three stargates I am still outnumbered in the muta department because phoenix are so expensive. (1.5x the minerals) - and if I don't build zealots I don't need to tell you what happens. As soon as you're in this situation it's pretty much gg, the Z will keep expanding until he outmacroes you,
I've glanced some at this thread, but has anyone given any actual solid builds that actually work? Cheers!
I too am having a great deal of trouble with this build, even though I pretty much anticipate muta-ling and go fast stargate to start building phoenix, it still does not work - because the zerg just builds like 5-6 corruptors mid-game and all my phoenixes are void. I find no way as protoss to have air superiority in this matchup. Apparently Void Rays counter corruptors, but since phoenix relies on heavy micro to damage the mutas without taking damage themselves you just can't build void rays, and if you do they get focused and killed by the mutas in one blow long before they can charge up on the corruptors. Even if I pump phoenix off two-base with three stargates I am still outnumbered in the muta department because phoenix are so expensive. (1.5x the minerals) - and if I don't build zealots I don't need to tell you what happens. As soon as you're in this situation it's pretty much gg, the Z will keep expanding until he outmacroes you,
I've glanced some at this thread, but has anyone given any actual solid builds that actually work? Cheers!
Phoenix and corruptors are pretty close in a straight up battle, but the key to turning the tide in your favor is +1 air weapons.
Also if you're going up against mutas and corruptors I would definitely just focus fire his mutas down first. Even if you end up losing the engagement chances are you'll really damage his army due to mutas being so expensive and corruptors won't be able to counter push you since they have no ground attack.
Lastly, blink stalkers are a great compliment to an air force, especially if you eventually transition into carriers. Carriers still can do very well vs mutas, hydras, and even corruptors if you can manage to outpace their armor upgrades with your weapon upgrades.
What's the disadvantages of going completely zeal+archons by the time u get temp archives? Add in immortals/colossus depending on their units. Seems like it counters muta/ling, but what counters zeal/archons during midgame for Z?
I pretty much open blind stargate every game now after expansion as my first tech
If they go mutas i pretty much striaght up win with a colossus push, if they open hydras then i get to do SOME harass, at leasdt i can kill stray overlords etc.
Recently I have been trying out a 2 gate zealot > stargate build, with interchangable forge/expo.
Some observations so far: - I enjoy using my early zealots to harass a little, I know if I can force out roaches it would delay his spire/lower his muta count by a little. If he concentrate on roaches too much a pair of VRs nds the game. Cannons can be used to fight roaches. Wall off with zealot is mandatory as zergling runby is very deadly... - I rely on cannon for detection if I suspect tunneling claws. - I have to be rather aggressive with phoenixes (sp?) once i get 3-4 of them for overlord hunting. (opponent might bring home mutas while he get spores up). In PvZ I feel I would lose the moment I let them have complete map control with mutas so I must fight that. - ~8 phoenix can deal with a small number of hatching hydras. - Guardian shield + FF on ramp is very important when you attack.
- I have no clue how to deal with mutas+corruptors w/o relying too much on stalkers... corruptors with their 2 armor eats phoenix alive =/. I saw the use of feedback to deal with corruptors so maybe I can try that... but it takes such a long time to get a templar archive running =/.
I totally agree with Hikari. Getting Zerg to build a lot of lings/roach in the beginning is good, but most smart player (plat league here) just build up a lot of lings which they can then use later on in their muta-ling build. It's pretty much impossible to take down a Z player with as much as three gates pushing zeals even if he doesn't get roaches.
And I completely disagree that +1 air does a lot, I always research it well in advance and find it does very little difference. And with phoenix costing more than corruptor/muta, even on equal economy they will still have more of those units than you.
I guess my real beef is that Corruptors are so good against phoenix. imho nerf is needed, either to range, or armor. It's just too easy to get a few corruptors in the muta mix and do terrible, terrible damage.
On August 21 2010 17:23 b_unnies wrote: What's the disadvantages of going completely zeal+archons by the time u get temp archives? Add in immortals/colossus depending on their units. Seems like it counters muta/ling, but what counters zeal/archons during midgame for Z?
The disadvantage is that your army size will be very small because Archons are insanely expensive (between 300-400 gas per unit, more than a colossi!) and you won't afford additional gas units such as colossi even on two-base. On three, maybe, but you need to be super-aggressive with your army, and I'm not sure it's viable, since much like stalkers they're very immobile and you're constantly subject to muta harass.
4gate isn't viable against zerg anymore. i just lost to 2 base mass muta its all they make and stalkers do shit. you need to hit them with void rays first and force them into hydras.
I also have trouble dealing with Muta/Ling. I manage to get my expo up and running without building mass cannons. Most of the time i try to rely on stalkers/sentry to shut any mutaharrass down. If i do that i always lose to ultras later on. I cant build immortals because mutas and lings just overwhelm me. If i add Colossi i can handle the lings but not the mutas and most of the time im not even able to kill more than 1 ultra. I think that there is very little i can do when zerg gets that unitmix. However, i can hardly prevent them from getting there. It's not like i dont macro enough. Usually zerg and i both sit on two bases and as soon as he makes use of his mapcontrol to get a third, i have to make a move. I cant suprise him because he scouts everything with his mutas and so hes always prepared for whatever i throw at him when i move out. When i go for more than one stargate, i usually dont have enough stuff and just die to his ground army. Just ignoring 3-4 phoenixes and go in for the kill seems to be a good counter for zergs against me, since my apm are very limited and i cant really make use of forcefields/zealotwalls to stay alive.
Phoenix rely on heavy micro, but as soon as he builds 3-4 corruptors you are completely inferior in the air, so if you go phoenix you have to have a followup.
On August 26 2010 03:32 Stutte wrote: Phoenix rely on heavy micro, but as soon as he builds 3-4 corruptors you are completely inferior in the air, so if you go phoenix you have to have a followup.
this is true. Have been trying phoenixes DTs lately and realize overseer and overlords are armored units which means it takes ages for phoenixes to kill them. also Muta can come with mass number once you got 3 phoenixes out and they simply will rape you in air battle. the best answer to muta lings is not air tech but stalker and without cannons at 1 of the 2 bases, stalkers cant keep up with the mobility
On August 26 2010 03:45 travis wrote: I have a question for ya pvz theorycrafters out there
Say you open phoenix, see Z building a spire so you know those annoying corruptors are gonna come and ruin your phoenixes
what's the viability of putting up a 2nd (or if u have expo) even a 3rd stargate and running phoenix/void ray ?
well if he goes corruptors he's gimping himself so heavily it's not even funny
since stalkers are already more cost efficient then mutas a warpgate attack is just brutal for zerg if he has like 20 stalkers handful of zealots and sufficient sentires to shield and ff. by going phoenixes you're destroying what mutas do best, harass and be mobile. he needs a ton of mutas to be able to beat your stalkers, about a 5:4 ratios which is pretty bad for zerg. and by going corruptors he's just asking to be rolled by a ground army.
phoenix void ray is not very good against zerg as you have to micro so much just to stay alive from the muta/corruptor.
I'm not that great of a player but i've found a certain build very effective against zerg.
I open with zealots while teching to stargate. Around the time their second is up, I have three gates and a stargate. I then harass with the void ray forcing either spire or hydras and a lot of queens. Since zerg is on the defensive, i have the opportunity to expand. Only, make sure you have a lot of zealots as zergling runbys are incredibly hard to deal with with just air. Make sure you expand with a forge as you will need the cannons for muta defense. Once you see mutas, start pumping pheonix and start on blink tech. It should pretty much put you in the advantage here because he'll have to expand to even the match up. Take that timing window when he expands to attack with blink stalkers/zeals/pheonix.
On August 26 2010 03:45 travis wrote: I have a question for ya pvz theorycrafters out there
Say you open phoenix, see Z building a spire so you know those annoying corruptors are gonna come and ruin your phoenixes
what's the viability of putting up a 2nd (or if u have expo) even a 3rd stargate and running phoenix/void ray ?
Never tried it, but I'm guessing it wouldn't be that strong. Voids are slow and need 7 seconds to charge, so phoenix-void ray will cede a big micro advantage to muta-corruptor. If we could just talk the mutas and corruptors into standing still while the charged voids blast the corruptors, however, I think we might have something.
i feel like voidray harrass (aka the antimage build) does not force hydras. voids < mutas and no amount of phoenix can compete with corruptors.
@ travis: voidrays are only good when charged, and you cant keep them charged all game. so if corruptors catch you uncharged its over (corruptor + muta).
I go blink stalker-HT almost every game vs Z and it seems to be okay vs Z. I typically open up with an early gateway composition to apply some pressure and force spine crawlers. If I'm able to keep most of those units alive after the poke to force crawlers and slow droning, I'll be able to set up my expansion pretty efficiently, and I'll usually be able to keep Z on two bases. If I lose my early pressure force, however, Z will set up his 3rd base and I'll be behind the whole game. I will say that storm is surprisingly good vs mutas. One good storm softens them up really nicely so that a blink-under will actually kill a good chunk of them.
Blink stalkers are the thing that bother me the most as zerg, because they destroy the cost relation in picking of units. You pick of X unit, fall back, and the stalkers blink right beneath you, costing you 2 or 3 mutas.
Has anyone really tested the viability of just mass archon & zealot versus muta/ling? If you threw up a forge and teched archons once you a scouted a spire, you could probably get +1 or +2 weapons and small pile of zealot/archon. Zealots are very effective versus lings, and if you can get +1 or +2 on them, you can take them out in 2 hits.
I agree that archons aren't exactly stellar versus mutalisk, but if you have the weapon upgrades, you have to remember that you can have a lot of zealots, and one archon for every three mutalisk.
On August 26 2010 04:19 Salv wrote: Has anyone really tested the viability of just mass archon & zealot versus muta/ling? If you threw up a forge and teched archons once you a scouted a spire, you could probably get +1 or +2 weapons and small pile of zealot/archon. Zealots are very effective versus lings, and if you can get +1 or +2 on them, you can take them out in 2 hits.
I agree that archons aren't exactly stellar versus mutalisk, but if you have the weapon upgrades, you have to remember that you can have a lot of zealots, and one archon for every three mutalisk.
i tried... archons just aren't as good... mutas can crush em up and they can super harrass ur base while u get em cuz u don't have any stalkers
On August 26 2010 04:19 Salv wrote: Has anyone really tested the viability of just mass archon & zealot versus muta/ling? If you threw up a forge and teched archons once you a scouted a spire, you could probably get +1 or +2 weapons and small pile of zealot/archon. Zealots are very effective versus lings, and if you can get +1 or +2 on them, you can take them out in 2 hits.
I agree that archons aren't exactly stellar versus mutalisk, but if you have the weapon upgrades, you have to remember that you can have a lot of zealots, and one archon for every three mutalisk.
I am a noob but there is rarely a ZvP where i will get ground armor slower than P get ground weapons, lings are too precious :D
FE into 6 warpgates seems pretty good against zerg. Your push will come before he can mass up units if going spire... using hallucinations to scout is not as stupid as you think.
On August 26 2010 03:45 travis wrote: I have a question for ya pvz theorycrafters out there
Say you open phoenix, see Z building a spire so you know those annoying corruptors are gonna come and ruin your phoenixes
what's the viability of putting up a 2nd (or if u have expo) even a 3rd stargate and running phoenix/void ray ?
Well first of all Z never counters phx w/ corruptors. Sure corruptors beat phx in a straight up battle, but they both do pitiful damage to each other and take forever to kill. It's just not very cost efficient. Z almost always goes hydras. I wouldn't say it forces Z to go hydras because they can do stuff like mass speedlings, I'm just saying this is the usual Z response. I think I saw corruptors like once ever, and all I did was pick off the mutas and then run my phoenixes away. It doesn't matter if I can't kill the corruptors b/c corruptors can't harass my base.
Void Ray/Phx just makes you even more susceptible to a hydra push, so I don't know why you would bother. Like I said, you don't need to counter the corruptors, they are a useless unit vs toss other than vs collosi or carriers.
So Archons are a good counter to mutalings due to their "splash" but since the splash is so small how does it tackle the muta's "magic box". I find this muta problem a lot with my toss laddering and am just thinking of this possible problem. Maybe the archon splash works differently than the thor's.
against muta ling THE ANSWER IS. templar with storm. lol. storm completely rapes both units whats left to discuss. cannons are also great for holding off both units untill templar hit the scene.
A big problem with zelaot stalker, is that you also end up with left over useless zealots. Sentries are too fragile to really justify getting them, besides guardian shield.
I have found that adding a stargate and going stalker/zealot pheonix broodwar style, peforms really well. Chronoboost the stargate to get as many pheonixes as possible. This compositions has the benift of deterring the zerg player from raping you economy as you move out for a big push. You just hover around the mutas attacking your cannons, probably with 4-5 vs his 14-20, but enough to make him pay for staying to take out the cannons. If the zerg takes ~9 in-game seconds to take out your 3 cannons, on paper, you can do ~800 damage to his mutas, a pretty good exchange, seeing that you will force an engagement as his natrual as soon as your push arrives.
On September 25 2010 10:55 charlie420247 wrote: against muta ling THE ANSWER IS. templar with storm. lol. storm completely rapes both units whats left to discuss. cannons are also great for holding off both units untill templar hit the scene.
Whats left to discuss is it is impossible to get out sufficient amounts of storm before the initial muta harass hits, and it is impossible to hold off that harass without mass stalkers if you're rushing storm. You have to have some kind of stopgap measure to handle that period if you're going storm.
I have a lot of trouble with muta/ling. I generally do 1-2 gate + forge fast expand. While expanding I get hallucinate to scout and go up to 4 warpgates. I can use my 4 warpgates to pressure the zerg but unless they aren't paying attention and drone pump too hard I usually end up standing outside their spinecrawlers trying to contain and pick off whatever random units I can.
At this point I will have scouted the spire and gone up to 6 gates + council. I'll start getting +2 and blink but this is where it goes downhill. Once enough mutas are out I lose map control completely and I don't know how to get it back.
I try very hard to use my mass gateways with blink and +2 to keep pressure and not let him take a third but it usually ends up badly for me. A lot of the time I win the first engagement or at least force him to fall back but end up still not being able to actually damage his third due to reinforcements and/or spinecrawlers.
I don't lose every game or anything but I just seem to have so much more trouble with muta/ling than anything in any other matchup. So here are some questions:
I'm teching storm so should I just turtle on two bases and then do a big timing push with blink stalker/zealot/storm? I really hate doing plays like this because if the zerg is good he will have expanded to 3 or 4 bases so sitting on two bases so long makes this pretty all in for me.
I can never get the right army composition. I either have too few zealots and my stalkers get raped by lings or too many zealots and my stalkers get focused down by the mutas before I can kill them. I have at least one sentry for guardian shield and try to forcefield the lings ECT, What kind of zealot:stalker ratio do you go for assuming he is doing the normal of putting all his gas into mutas and using lings to dump minerals (usually with an extra hatch)?
In the fights I try to focus fire the mutas with my stalkers but its hard with the mobility. It also seems hard to fight with good positioning ever again because of the mobility and the fact that I'm the one on the offensive. This is why I'm starting to think that pushing before storm might be a bad idea but I just hate to surender map control completely.
Archons: They seem strong in small numbers but never worth making more than a few because of their terrible range and huge hitbox (and huge gas cost). I do start to add more in if the game continues to the zerg making ultras though.
PS: I'm looking for help using a standard kind of early forge FE into gateways build. I do not like stargate even when I scout spire because hydra is such an easy transition for zerg whereas storm or collossus is a much slower transition for me.
On September 26 2010 22:34 adrift wrote: PS: I'm looking for help using a standard kind of early forge FE into gateways build. I do not like stargate even when I scout spire because hydra is such an easy transition for zerg whereas storm or collossus is a much slower transition for me.
Here's a great match between oGsInCa and Fruitseller (Cool), both are in the top 8 of the GSL.
InCa beats Cool seemingly effortlessly. Cool plays well though. It seems he has this nice BO were he can scout his opponents main with the first 2 zerglings and that's about when he gets his first 100 gas so if his opponent has expanded he goes lair and if not he goes zergling speed. It also allows him to get a much faster expo. I guess this build is motivated by the zealot rush nerf.
Notice how he gets 6 gateways all at once so that they finish about when warp gate tech finishes. Also, make not of his upgrade and blink tech timings (he goes +2 attack). He gets a monstrous amount of probes so fast lol.
How are people dealing with it when Zerg goes expansion before pool? Ive seen it a bunch lately, but I dont have any replays. I got absolutely stomped by it. He produced a ton of speedlings to apply pressure and still had his expo/second hatch before pool. Mutas followed up really early and I was stuck in base. How are you guys opening up when you've seen hatch before pool? I've only beaten this once and it was in an extremely epic and long match, but it was his match to lose. Mutas just give so much control. I even opened phoenix and the mutas kept me locked down.
On September 28 2010 02:11 Jayrod wrote: How are people dealing with it when Zerg goes expansion before pool? Ive seen it a bunch lately, but I dont have any replays. I got absolutely stomped by it. He produced a ton of speedlings to apply pressure and still had his expo/second hatch before pool. Mutas followed up really early and I was stuck in base. How are you guys opening up when you've seen hatch before pool? I've only beaten this once and it was in an extremely epic and long match, but it was his match to lose. Mutas just give so much control. I even opened phoenix and the mutas kept me locked down.
What exactly is the difference of going hatch first that I'm missing here, other than being more economy-focused for the zerg player? To me my basic response is the same, either a timing push on 1 base or to FE yourself. Obviously going hatch first makes them more vulnerable to 2-gate openings.
I do not suggest going phoenixes off 1-base unless you plan to incorporate them into your timing push. Any 1-base/non-FE play forces you to try to do a timing push to end it otherwise zerg will just outmacro you.
On September 25 2010 10:55 charlie420247 wrote: against muta ling THE ANSWER IS. templar with storm. lol. storm completely rapes both units whats left to discuss. cannons are also great for holding off both units untill templar hit the scene.
i've never had good luck defending these attacks with storms. if the zerg player is good, the storm does like 1 tick of damage.. both types of units are so blazing fast.
I wish I had saved the replay, but did not. The 1 less zealot you get out of a 2 gate or the delay is enough for them to easily hold, it seems. Its like they were going to produce a huge speedling ball anyways for an early breakthrough attempt so you arent really setting them back with pressure and once they get the speed upgrade its super easy to surround whatever you send. Ive done FE's with some success but its just so hard to take a 3rd with the mobility mutas give them... especially on certain maps like blistering sands.
I have a simple 3 stage plan against Zerg, which really doesn't allow them to do anything but Muta/Ling, which I know is completely countered by high templar. Here is the replay... I haven't uploaded any new replays because the site is, up until now, not accepting new 1.1 replays, but I do this 3-step strategy quite a bit, and my best matchup is by far PvZ.
This is an older replay of what I have refined much more. I cut a lot of probes for the opening, but I really do want to strike first. I think that against Zerg, you have to show your initial cards to force their hand, which is why I show fast stalkers to get them to do speed... Lair tech I want to delay enough so my Phoenixes have time to accumulate. 1st stage: Fast stalker harass - can force a gg if you do enough damage... I target overlords now exclusively. 2nd stage: Phoenix harass to hold them in their base/scout... There is a point here where you can win the game with 1 void ray if your harass is that effective. 3rd stage: Expand and HT tech... This is the final stage of the strategy that will allow you to go high templar, but also have the economy to be flexible and responsive to the Zerg player if they come with any weird stuff
(I haven't read the entire thread, but I have read some of the posts.)
I have had much success with Muta/ling. In fact, its one of the only strats I use verses protoss. I remember one game distinctly (I lost ), the protoss massed stalkers then used high temps with storms. Seriously, temps OWN muta ling. Also, phoenix are a very good counter as they can outmicro mutas.
On September 28 2010 03:24 DamageInq wrote: Open phoenix>Pick off drones/queens/overlords>Force Zerg to get hydras>tech to 2 robo collosi.
You'll need to constantly scout with your small group of phoenix, killing off overlords and watching for drops and nydus networks.
the problem with opening pheonix off a fast expand is that you'll die to many aggressive builds from the zerg (2 base quick hydra for example)
I like to go for a 6warpgate push, which isnt great vs muta/ling but the timing attack allows me to see the sunkens and still apply pressure-or defend until i can build 2 stargates and gain map control once i have a good pheonix count.
I'm happy to announce that lately I have been winning more then 75% of my ZvP games. I have found the counter to protoss 4 gate (the only build toss use) and now manage to smash toss all day. When a toss goes 4 gate its pretty much an all in. Some try to stay and take there and they may or may not succeed, but after a failed 4 gate push they will never take a 3rd. Because they have no third they will never compete with zerg's gas, therefore they die.
4 gate is a thing of the past, learn a different build. I transition into Muta/Ling after holding off the 4 gate push and try to keep the toss contained to 1 base if he manages to take a 2nd i take a 3rd and mass muta then its GG. Both Phoenix and blink stalkers rape my Muta/Ling if you have = army value if you don't of course your gonna lose. The reason the toss never has = army value is cause of to much 1 base all in play.
It would be helpful to know what level you are playing at. Also, what can toss do to muta ling when they dont 4 gate? I personally dont 4-gate except in team games. I think the only MU I have 4-gated in since starting playing SC2 is PvP if I see them go Gate Robo Gate 4 gates beats that pretty hard with a forward pylon.
On September 28 2010 04:05 RoboSnail wrote: I'm happy to announce that lately I have been winning more then 75% of my ZvP games. I have found the counter to protoss 4 gate (the only build toss use) and now manage to smash toss all day. When a toss goes 4 gate its pretty much an all in. Some try to stay and take there and they may or may not succeed, but after a failed 4 gate push they will never take a 3rd. Because they have no third they will never compete with zerg's gas, therefore they die.
4 gate is a thing of the past, learn a different build. I transition into Muta/Ling after holding off the 4 gate push and try to keep the toss contained to 1 base if he manages to take a 2nd i take a 3rd and mass muta then its GG. Both Phoenix and blink stalkers rape my Muta/Ling if you have = army value if you don't of course your gonna lose. The reason the toss never has = army value is cause of to much 1 base all in play.
What's your defense against 4-gate, and do you know what kind of 4-gate it is? What units attack you?
Im switching to Zerg from Toss and I've been hatch-firsting if I don't scout a 2gate, into crawlers and speed lings to defend-- doing my best to have the lings kill stuff not named Zealot first. My last game, I held off a pure zealot/sentry push just using queens/lings/crawlers. Probably the scariest 4gate that coulda come and it was fairly easy to hold off.
After holding off the 4gate I grab all my gas and go ling/muta, teching to Ultras as fast as possible. If for some reason they have phoenixes, once you've already committed to this, add corrupters. Otherwise go 2 hatch hydra and win.
If first harrass is successfully, take a third. Keep track of how many cannons they add to deal with your mutas, how many pylons you snipe, etc, and it becomes increasingly safe to take a 4th and 5th.
Its the only time I, as Zerg, feel completely safe and that I'm going to secure a win well in advance.
Keep spotter lings throughout the map so that when a surprisingly strong push comes (it always does) you can macro up ground army to deal with it.
On September 28 2010 03:14 Jayrod wrote: I wish I had saved the replay, but did not. The 1 less zealot you get out of a 2 gate or the delay is enough for them to easily hold, it seems. Its like they were going to produce a huge speedling ball anyways for an early breakthrough attempt so you arent really setting them back with pressure and once they get the speed upgrade its super easy to surround whatever you send. Ive done FE's with some success but its just so hard to take a 3rd with the mobility mutas give them... especially on certain maps like blistering sands.
Personally when I go FE I either go with some 6 or 7-gate all-in off 2 base and try to end it before they can mass muta (obviously very similar to 4-gate so it works better on maps where their natural is more exposed), or play the long game and open phoenix into double robo colossi. Phoenix allows you to regain map control and even counter harass.
On September 28 2010 03:24 DamageInq wrote: Open phoenix>Pick off drones/queens/overlords>Force Zerg to get hydras>tech to 2 robo collosi.
You'll need to constantly scout with your small group of phoenix, killing off overlords and watching for drops and nydus networks.
the problem with opening pheonix off a fast expand is that you'll die to many aggressive builds from the zerg (2 base quick hydra for example)
I like to go for a 6warpgate push, which isnt great vs muta/ling but the timing attack allows me to see the sunkens and still apply pressure-or defend until i can build 2 stargates and gain map control once i have a good pheonix count.
There's a timing push for hydras before you can get that critical number of colossi w/ range for sure, but by no means is it a hard counter. Sometimes I am forced to throw down a few cannons, but as long as you don't get caught w/ your pants down you should be perfectly fine.
i am in plat and playing against a lot of diamond players and that is probably the hardest build for me to deal with out of all races i really have no solution for that i think the only way to deal with it is to somehow not let the zerg get the insane amount of mutas maybe put very early pressure and snipe the spire or anything of this sort
i just cant seem to kill a zerg with mutas on LT/Meta, its seriously close to impossible for me, i think im 1-30 against it on the ladder on those maps. im 1600+ Diamond...... iv gone Stalker/HT, DT/Stalker/Archon.
i guess i could open blindly Phoenix or something, but ill fall soooooooooo far behind if he just doesnt go Muta, and even then he has the advantage of just takeing out 2 corruptors or with the larvaa mechanic just outproduce my mutas.
iv scimmed trough this thread like 10-20 times, and have yet to find something usefull that deals with muta.. its come to the point where i compare Reapers and Mutas... pre nerf.
I was just remembering some of Bisu's old style where he get dark templars to contest the zerg expansions. If you produce a few DT's you can contest his expansions (kill drones or buildings) and his map control aswell as stay in your base to defend from the mutas with stalkers (assuming you fast expand or get it fairly fast) until your ready to push. A zerg response would be to either get a lot of overseers and to spread out his lings around his bases limiting his map control, or to get a overseer at his army and 1 at each bases and a spine crawler at each bases, though this should delay or reduce his muta count.
If and this is getting very situational, he has all his defence up and your DT's cannot do any direct damage you can get archons and bolster your army. There is not really a amazing counter as in broodwar, so relying on other techniques is nessesary.
On September 28 2010 21:43 Morgynia wrote: i just cant seem to kill a zerg with mutas on LT/Meta, its seriously close to impossible for me, i think im 1-30 against it on the ladder on those maps. im 1600+ Diamond...... iv gone Stalker/HT, DT/Stalker/Archon.
i guess i could open blindly Phoenix or something, but ill fall soooooooooo far behind if he just doesnt go Muta, and even then he has the advantage of just takeing out 2 corruptors or with the larvaa mechanic just outproduce my mutas.
iv scimmed trough this thread like 10-20 times, and have yet to find something usefull that deals with muta.. its come to the point where i compare Reapers and Mutas... pre nerf.
I am also having alot of trouble vs muta/ling combos. Even after getting into the midgame economically ahead.
I have gotten really fast ups, like +2attack+2 armour and still have been cleaned out by unupgraded mutas.
I have also gotten a few gaurdian sheilds, but it doesnt help when im still getting out massed 2-1 mutas to stalkers.
I tried mixing in an archon or 2, but the gas commitment just isnt worth it. It really cuts into the stalker/sentry count. Mutas just don't stack like they used to, they spread way too much in a-moves to justify the archon splash. The 300 gas just isnt worth it when you could just have more stalkers.
Also trying to get to ht's is a bit iffy. I havn't tried it, but there is a really long time span to get the first templar archives, get 200 more gas for the research, then another 300 just for 2 temps. Thats 600 gas timewise u have to sit through with 0 attacking potential. In this time, i just feel like mutas can pick me apart if i don't keep up with my stalker production.
It would be nice if a REALLY good P enlightend us. Not just plat suggestions that simply don't work.
I'm just platinum league, but i had some success against muta/ling with blink stalkers + psi storm. Mutalisks can run out of the storm but this means that he gets a few more shots from the stalkers without being able to shoot back.
Also stalkers have a higher range than mutalisks, so by blinking damaged mutalisks back you can kill them without too many losses.
In this replay he built a little too few zerglings at the end, he might have had more success against my stalkers with 20-40 lings more. Oh, and i play random, i'm not that good as toss, so this strategy might not apply to diamond or pro level.
I think I got a decent suggestion. Watch the replays, and see when its possible to scout, and what can be done then. As in whats the fastest the mutas come out. A one base push ( youd decide that from what you scout) with plus 1 attack should be enough to handle with gateway units.
I think the problem with everyone looking for solutions is they all happen after the mutas are roaming around. If you get in there before either the spire or as the mutas are getting made, shouldnt be dealing with too many ling. Of course depending on how fast the persons going for them.
In a straight up fight this stuff isnt all a bad idea, but it seems like solutions to a problem that couldve been stopped earlier. Also the problem doesnt really exhist in some cases. Yeah enough archons might be good in a straihgt fight with the mutas, but they arent good running back and forth between main and natural chasing the things all over the place. The solution shouldnt be to prepare for it, it should be to react soon as you can see it. Most of the solutions im reading just take too much time to be reactions. If you like opening with the stargate, then thats cool, you probably dont have to worry much about this.
If youre opening includes a robo, get that early observer. Should be able to scout whats up in time to attack and end the game right there. Likely if you cant end the game there then he spent too much on other stuff, and wouldnt be able to mass them fast enough--you'd probably have time to get phoenixs out. If you feel like you have to wait till you have two bases till you attack/poke, and the first time you know he has mutas is when you see 12 of them you might be screwed.
If you let someone mass something (without knowing soon enough) and youre trying to play catchup youre probably screwed. Especially if its against a real mobile air unit. So yeah an early observer then maybe some aggresion is my suggestion.
As a zerg player, in my practice I have been unable to beat a protoss that goes Gate>Core>Stargate and pumps phoenix. When I 15 hatch, their stargate is done with my second queen, and it's quite difficult to be 3-5 phoenixes that early. Thats with a super fast lair, and them continuing to pump phoenix. Trust me, they're quite good.
mass stalkers with sentries demolishes zergling-muta. Stalkers beat mutas cost effectively, and when you add sentries in forcefield and guardian shield makes them demolish both lings and mutas even better.
The reason fantaprime switches to roaches in that game is because it is nearly impossible to mass enough lings to deal with so many stalkers, and even when you do, blink becomes a big issue, or forcefield.
Not only does forcefield make stalkers strong vs zlings, not only does blink make stalkers strong vs zlings, but when you have a large enough army... mass stalkers vs mass lings, stalkers will win with NO MICRO AT ALL. (although obviously things would likely be different if it's a mixed force of mutas and zlings
On October 04 2010 06:08 Xapti wrote: mass stalkers with sentries demolishes zergling-muta. Stalkers beat mutas cost effectively, and when you add sentries in forcefield and guardian shield makes them demolish both lings and mutas even better.
The reason fantaprime switches to roaches in that game is because it is nearly impossible to mass enough lings to deal with so many stalkers, and even when you do, blink becomes a big issue, or forcefield.
Not only does forcefield make stalkers strong vs zlings, not only does blink make stalkers strong vs zlings, but when you have a large enough army... mass stalkers vs mass lings, stalkers will win with NO MICRO AT ALL. (although obviously things would likely be different if it's a mixed force of mutas and zlings
Stalker sentry may beat muta/ling head on, but the problem protoss is, there is nothing you can do to protect your mineral line when you move out after the mutas reach a critical mass. So when you do move out, most of the time it ends up being an all-in attack, and if the zerg knows this, he can usually defend quite fine.
Sentries are essential, but they are slow, and can be sniped by mutas.
On October 04 2010 06:08 Xapti wrote: mass stalkers with sentries demolishes zergling-muta. Stalkers beat mutas cost effectively, and when you add sentries in forcefield and guardian shield makes them demolish both lings and mutas even better.
The reason fantaprime switches to roaches in that game is because it is nearly impossible to mass enough lings to deal with so many stalkers, and even when you do, blink becomes a big issue, or forcefield.
Not only does forcefield make stalkers strong vs zlings, not only does blink make stalkers strong vs zlings, but when you have a large enough army... mass stalkers vs mass lings, stalkers will win with NO MICRO AT ALL. (although obviously things would likely be different if it's a mixed force of mutas and zlings
Stalker sentry may beat muta/ling head on, but the problem protoss is, there is nothing you can do to protect your mineral line when you move out after the mutas reach a critical mass. So when you do move out, most of the time it ends up being an all-in attack, and if the zerg knows this, he can usually defend quite fine.
Sentries are essential, but they are slow, and can be sniped by mutas.
Well, I don't see how any other strategy would counter this either, except possibly HTs + some cannons in your base.
I'm thinking that there are only two answers to mutas:
(1) Open 1-base phoenix and harass and expand your way into midgame.
(2) Open with expansion and/or gateway pressure and rely on blink stalkers in midgame.
Since phoenixes are bugged out right now, I'm using option #2. (1 gate + forge expand into 6-gate adding twilight for blink during push) I think that adding a single stargate to build a few phoenixes to support your stalkers would be a good choice, but the micro is REALLY hard. The phoenixes can die almost instantly if you engage away from your stalkers.
Why not just open pheonix? I'm only diamond and not a pro but I've been opening phoenix since early beta and fast hydra doesn't usually break me. I generally get +1 zealots with a few sentrys for guardian, though still with a focus on zealots. If hes slow enough I can even get charge. If I don't get a queen or few drones and overlords then I can reinforce my choke with a few cannons for the inevitable push, or if there is a nice cliff or river a voidray with proper micro can dominate. (phoenixs should obviously be lifting hydras)
With that strategy the thing that generally gives me trouble is when the zerg doesn't attack, because then my expo is behind. I'd post a replay, but I mostly play zerg now and the best ones are beta so they don't work
I used to lose to this combo a lot but it's not really very hard to defend for me once i just started sending my zeals to my nat with cannons, and keeping my stalkers in my base. Then i can successfully mass a game ending army while he does very little damage with his extremely expensive mutas.
I believe this is the type of Game we are all having trouble with. Muta's Just Reach a critical mass, and since we 'wall off' we leave the Zerg's economy unchecked and it implodes Into a group of 30+ Mutalisks and 60+ Zerglings which no amount of Stalkers can deal with effectively.
A strategy I have been testing against zerg is a cannon walled off quick expand into two gate two stargate pheonix+blink stalker play. I havn't been saving replays but it reeally is something to look into if your ahving problems with this.
On October 04 2010 22:32 pm_squad wrote: I believe this is the type of Game we are all having trouble with. Muta's Just Reach a critical mass, and since we 'wall off' we leave the Zerg's economy unchecked and it implodes Into a group of 30+ Mutalisks and 60+ Zerglings which no amount of Stalkers can deal with effectively.
wow, if it were'nt on a totally different level of skill this could've been one of my replays - it's EXACTLY how I lose nowadays vs zerg
I'm really choking right now when playing against mutas, as day9 would put it, I "don't have a plan" as to how I should play; this game from huk vs artosis is perfect, it shows precisely all of the problems I have too against this:
a) high ling-count: as opposed to slow "plz kite me" roaches, lings "do" scare off blinked stalkers when in high numbers; the cooldown of blink is too high to constantly keep blinking away from speedlings; without force-fields you effectively can't apply any kind of pressure in mid-game; but then again sentries can't blink which kinda negates your blink/stalker-advantage
b) pinned down on two bases: I generally have no problems defending two bases against muta-harass; I just group my stalkers up in 2 groups and blink accordingly when there's incoming harass; nevertheless I'm NEVER capable of establishing my third "somewhat safely"; while the zerg happily mass-expands throughout the map (artosis didn't even do this "that" good, he could've taken the right side much earlier to be able to just sack the left one without engaging and massing more mutas)
c) applying pressure without sacrificing probes: as we've seen, huk tried to push out multiple times, but was always forced to pull back with more stalkers because the mutas reached a critical mass where they could snipe cannons; this is exactly what happens to me too, all the time; always when I'm feeling "ok, now he definitely won't have ultras, I can rush out with my stalker/sentry-heavy force" I move out and once I'm a few steps away from my base the mutas fly in, snipe 1-2 cannons and force me to retreat if I don't want to all-in;
d) this is something we didn't see in the game: hive/ultralisks; when I'm able to hang on a bit longer and maybe win 1-2 battles, there comes this crucial turning point where the ultra-tech is done; here a HUGE tech-switch is required, if I haven't been preparing already, I have a really hard time getting immortals out in the numbers that are needed
ok, before anybody gets the wrong impression: I'm definitely NOT saying "QQ zerg > protoss"; I know that it's my flawed play that prevents me from getting the upper hand; I'm just wondering how you do it? interestingly, I haven't seen "that" many pro ZvP games where the Z goes for ling/muta.....why? there has to be a reason for that which I'm missing; does protoss have some sort of "unstoppable" timing push that just kills zerg with high win-%? so that pros don't even bother going mass ling/muta vs P? I think the most important point in the game is when I've established my 2nd (and secured it against ling-runbys too....xel naga and metalopolis come to my mind on this one) while the zerg is just on the way of running of 3 bases; if I don't do critical damage here, the 6 gas vs 4 gas won't end well for me;
I'd be thankful for any kind of advice that doesn't involve early (!) phoenixes (I love them, but their bug is just so annoying right now....) but what I'd call "standard-play"; would you go very early DT? fast tech to HT? I think the fast HT is at least "possible", because muta/ling can't attack straight out; lately I even started to think about heavy turtling while taking bases rather quickly; meaning, you defend you 2 bases with just the necessary amount of stalkers while throwing up LOTS of cannons; then you straight away take your third (gold) again, throwing up TONS of cannons; then - theoretically - with 6 gas you should be able to afford the necessary amount of templars to deal enough damage to be able to deal with ultras later on, even if your initial stalker-count isn't "that" high;
also I'd really appreciate any reps that show how to play vs this (possibly no all-in BS); and yes, I know the game of tester vs fruitseller, but the master of the fruit decided to switch into roaches due to a reason unknown to me
i find that toss can control what tech paths zerg has to go down. A standard 2 gate usually forces a roach warren and early phoniex/void ray forces hydras and if you do both you can pretty fuch force roach/hydra tech instead of muta/ling.
I also am having so much trouble against this build, because in the LA server, there are barely any Zergs in the 1000-1200 diamond range where I'm at now, it's all PvT and PvP like 90% of the time, and I don't have a practice partner in LA . I have bluffed a 2 Gate pressure to force a Roach Warren and at least delay the inevitable Mutas, but that was one game out of the 20 or so I've lost like this.
I've just pretty much given up on going for late game against Zerg's and much rather do a 4gate all in before they can even tech to Muta's.
I'm having a lot of trouble with muta/ling. I've read through the post, with a lot of players citing to force roaches to slow it down so you can make a 6 gate timing push etc. Most of this information was relative to the beta/release.
With the various changes since then: Zealot build time slowed down, roach range increased, and many players throwing down shameless amounts of spine crawlers so they don't use gas, I feel it much more difficult to put that necessary pressure on early. I try to open very standard 2 gate/robo every game especially with the prevalence of heavy roach builds too. Keep the scout alive as long as possible until I get an Obs out then I react from there depending on what I see. So let's assume I see lair tech going up with no roach warren, double gas. Sometimes I can make a timing push and shut down the player right after they get lair. That seems to be your strongest chance to break them. However, if you can't do enough damage fast enough or get in there to cancel the spire, you still aren't in too bad of a position so I don't feel like you lose the game there. You pretty much guarantee at least near equal damage with a zealot/stalker/immo push, but it's luck of the draw if you actual come out ahead or not, a huge factor being if it is cross positions or not.
I feel the first 6 muta are pretty easy to deal with if your attack fails. I can spread pylons maybe make an extra obs for vision since I'm no longer making Immo with the muta/ling out. Then I get a forge out for the weapons upgrades for my zealots to deal with the lings. If the muta numbers continue to climb into 12 or more. That's when I try to get a few cannons to help and get blink.
But actually keeping the muta numbers down is the hard part. I can't get a 3rd unless the zerg makes a pretty big mistake (which I shouldn't rely on happening), and once his numbers are around 15, that's when he starts to break me. Because the stalkers have to be spread out to cope with the hit and run, and any given time he is fighting 1/4 of my army, before the rest of my units can get there, he can pick them off.
I can't get vision (especially if he makes overseers) or map control to tell if he is going more muta or ling heavy. So if I overrespond with stalkers, I lose to the ling, more zealots, screwed by muta etc. Even if he never does any damage, as long as he doesn't lose his muta, I can't take a 3rd but he can expand as many times as he wants. If you try to get for a death ball, he can tech anything he needs too as long as he is smart enough to fight you at your own front door when you move out. That buys him too much time to make anything else.
If you try to just bust out and attack his base it is complete luck. Most higher level zerg have creep spread and overlords placed well so it is no surprise what you are doing so they will attack your probes until right before you reach their base, try to stall for time, then they will run back and fight you.
I haven't been running SC2 gears the last couple of weeks, I'll try to play some PvZ soon and get some replays up. Thanks for the read, please continue this discussion if at all possible. This strat is hurting my soul.
I myself am having extraordinary issues with Muta/Ling. I cannot for the life of me come up with a way to bring down Ling/Muta, outside of 1 base Phoenix openers and the like I don't see a real solution. And as I have found out, if the opponent goes anything other than Muta that my Phoenix opener has screwed me over with intensity.
I'm at a loss as to how to properly fight it, sure Blink Stalkers can hurt them, but there's the whole issue of instant map control and being able to macro and take over the map with ease. Is there a way, other than being super aggressive to stop this? Should I go any anti Muta build (which is required to survive any muta/ling strats) I will find myself being stomped by whatever they unleash. I'm heavily contemplating switching to Zerg at this point.
As silver Zerg player I've only had tough time with muta/ling against toss is when they go zeal ht stalkers. Usually they screw it up going way over on either of those. Also blink is very nice when they first storm the mutas, blink away from that ling surround somewhere near mutas and finish them off. Don't know how toss economy works to support all that though.
Fast forward to 25:08. Everything before that is just me setting up the stream, warming up, etc.
Haven't watched the whole thing, but I don't agree with InControl's commentary near the beginning. It's not necessary to hit a timing window with 5-6 gate pushes. There are at least 2 other styles that can deal with muta/ling well that I've seen. Scouting well and getting 2 stargates if you see that they are going muta works very well. Also, I've seen some (top foreign level) players beat muta/ling with storm and blink.
I've hit a wall just now (~1800 diamond) where muta/ling just roflstomps me even when I pump their "counters". I've been doing some sort of FE, 2 gate, forge, etc etc, then tossing a stargate and scouting with a phoenix. If I see a spire, I'll throw down another stargate and start pumping phoenix stalker zealot as much as I can afford. The problem isn't the army, since I can kill their ling/mutas with my army, it's that I have no map control. Whenever I move out, mutas attack my mineral line and don't even care about the cannons there. I put down 3-4 cannons, but even that many cannons can't stop 12+ mutas from wrecking your mineral line.
The only way I can see is just to all-in at his natural and pray for the best.
On November 03 2010 00:45 0mar wrote: I've hit a wall just now (~1800 diamond) where muta/ling just roflstomps me even when I pump their "counters". I've been doing some sort of FE, 2 gate, forge, etc etc, then tossing a stargate and scouting with a phoenix. If I see a spire, I'll throw down another stargate and start pumping phoenix stalker zealot as much as I can afford. The problem isn't the army, since I can kill their ling/mutas with my army, it's that I have no map control. Whenever I move out, mutas attack my mineral line and don't even care about the cannons there. I put down 3-4 cannons, but even that many cannons can't stop 12+ mutas from wrecking your mineral line.
The only way I can see is just to all-in at his natural and pray for the best.
Sounds like you have an issue with splitting up your army effectively. Phoenixes should allow you to regain some map control as you can scout, harass, and respond to harassment quite effectively with them. Split your stalkers/sentries b/w your bases mineral lines and if he attacks toss up GS and fly your phoenixes back to defend and the zerg player will take more losses than you.
On October 04 2010 23:21 Zeroes wrote: i find that toss can control what tech paths zerg has to go down. A standard 2 gate usually forces a roach warren and early phoniex/void ray forces hydras and if you do both you can pretty fuch force roach/hydra tech instead of muta/ling.
so what your saying is protoss players should go 2 gate into phoenix harass to force roach hydra. from a zerg standpoint, i wish they would! lol!
btw the answer imho is to use storms and stalker sentry and later on stalkers with blink. what makes this so potent against muta ling is the sentries shield that negates the hell out of muta fire. combo this with stalkers to keep the muta ling army from engaging. and just to keep your bases safe. storms and stalkers cause the zerg player to just not engage and instead expand. at this point you should be working yourself up to blink tech with upgrades on your stalkers. when you get to like 1/1 and blink its time to rape some face. at this point if the zerg hasnt gotten to ultras hes done. if he does have ultras mutas and lings your in a for a bumpy ride. micro is all you can do against an ultra as toss since they pretty much wreck every unit head on. so at this point the big thing that will give you the win is simply having more stuff!
At low diamond, I am finding 1 gate stargate with 2 void rays asks them to get hydra's instead of muta's and I keep a lone phoenix on patrol over the map for scouting, if I see a spire go up, I either suicide in some void rays to take it out or I drop another stargate and pump phoenix. Got to be careful not to overcommit to air thought, which is why I stop at 2 VR and 1 nix, and transition into ground.
The only success i had as Protoss against ling/mutas is my traditional wall at start with zealot.
Quickly get a stargate up and cb that first phoenix, used to scout that zerg base, as probe die too fast to lings
Whilst building that phoenix, i build second SG, and waypoint to the first phoenix, if the zerg hides his overlords i snipe and scout, if not just scout, when the 2nd & 3rd comes, i take out the queen and focus solely on the overlords, then i make sure i build zealots generally 2-3 at base to handle the ling rush he does when they attack base and use FF to protect the gateway.
So i focus i reducing his supply so its hard for him to go mutas, and by the time he transitions to hydra, i will have a fair few phoenix up (5-6 atleast) and just take out purely overlords.
Mind you im a pretty low player, reached gold when game first came out, then stopped playing, and only started 2 weeks ago again, this time im in low silvers.
But i find simply trying to match numbers against mutas is too hard, if he tries to take out my probe i have a few cannons there taking out what i can and keep the overlord harass on him to make him stop droning/zergling and simply build overlords count up, i ignore the drones at this stage as if i can force his supply down, the drones will only supply block him.
When i tried using the phoenix to come back to base to defend against the 3-6 mutas he has at this point will result in their death or his transition into hydras and raping me
Thanks for the link MrBitter, I'm going to check it out. But a lot of this advice is dependent on getting a stargate up and using phoenixes as a blind counter. If they go hydra after lair, instead of muta then you are putting yourself in a bad position. Especially if you reveal those phoenixes while scouting. It sounds sketch but I mean I'll give it a try, it's not like I'm winning doing it my way lol. I just like to play standard and try to deviate from there, instead of trying to do something completely different for the sake of countering 1 potential build.
I've recently had a lot of success against muta-ling by going double gas 3-gate sentry expand, adding 2 more gates and pushing out with a small sentry-stalker push to slow droning, and adding a robo and a twilight council during the push. The robo keeps you safe if they go roach/hydra, and you can quickly research blink if you see them defending with crawlers and lings, indicating mutas are going to pop shortly. When I see the speedling/crawler defense, I chrono out blink and get 1 cannon in each mineral line, and split my stalkers into 2 control groups. Once you get the timings down, it's possible to get the poke done and be back in time to lose little to nothing to muta harass. At this point, you need to rush out psi storm as quickly as possible as you really can't leave your base without it, and Z will most likely be setting up his third while you're contained on 2 bases. Fortunately, sentry/blink-stalker/stormer is ridiculously efficient against muta-ling, and a timing push at completion of storm should deal big damage. I wouldn't recommend trying to take your third until Z has committed his units to defense as it will be a free kill if you start the nexus while you're setting out. You'll also want to check mid-game upgrades on the lings and mutas as this will give you a good idea whether Z will favor ultras or broodlords in the late game.
The basic gameplan is 3-gate expand/pressure -> defend with blink stalkers -> push with psi storm and take 3rd -> add immortals/void rays to deal with Z T3.
Also, feel free to storm your own units if the mutas sit on top of you. The mutas will be more clustered than your units, are more expensive than your units, have lower health than your units, and you know where the next storm will be making storm dodging easy. Even if you just land 3 storms and each does the minimum damage before the mutas move out, your blink stalkers will easily clean up.
I don't play much protoss anymore unfortunately haha...
Post patch i would pretty much say that the only sensible way to beat muta ling (due to massive indirect nerfs of other builds because of such superior roach play pretty much destroying any kind of mass T1.5 AND templar play) is just to some stupidly abusive timing attack when he gets them
My intention is pretty much to fake an expand now and catch him with their pants down for being greedy asses and teching to mutas in the first place
Either that or do a real expand and then just do some super all in 2 base early timing with +1 as mutas pop
Fast forward to 25:08. Everything before that is just me setting up the stream, warming up, etc.
I can't get this to play at all. It starts out with the audio fine, but then a video ad comes up ( with sound ) then when the ad is done the sound is gone.
As I was never a big supporter of FFE and especially not since the last patch, my play heavily depends on timing pushes and aggression. For that, I am using mainly two strategies:
1. 2 Gate Robo with CB Immortals, which gives u a nice defense against roaches and some chances against spine crawlers. Additionally, there is a good potential of sniping vital tech structures. From that point u can expand.
2. 3 Gate Blink Stalker, which depends on my mood if I play it like an all-in or an expand while pressuring the zerg. And with mood I don't mean my mental state, but if my push "feels" very strong or just not as good. For example, as the zerg throws down a lot of spines, the push kinda always feel not as strong, from my point of view.
3. 3 Gate Stalker/Sentry into expand, which is really just about pressuring the zerg while throwing down a safe expansion without even trying to end the game quickly. In this strategy, the FF's are crucial, as u can just block stalkers and sentries from lings and to get a lot of uncontested shots while using guardian shield against roaches.
So, those are my strategies in the beginning, aiming to pressure the zerg. And this is a very important way to get a feeling for the current matchup, because as u put pressure on the front of the zerg, u get a lot of information and can tell a lot of things right off the bat. For example, as the zerg is throwing down a lot of spines for defense, it's viable that he will transition after the push from ling/spines to mass muta, just because he needs to get the mobility and map control back he lost due to a lot of defensive structures. And if that happens, I like to throw down one stargate immediately, just to abuse the fact he has to sit on his ass and I can harass him a lot and get every information possible simultaneously. If I see a spire, I can just throw down another stargate and constantly produce phoenixes until he abandons his plan.
If u didn't scout the spire in time, it can be really tough to deal with when u have no stalkers with blink at all, as it leaves u vulnerable for some time because u can't pressure and prevent him from droneing up at all. And transitioning to nixes AFTER he has got his mutas already is a bad idea because u simply won't keep up in production at all to have enough nixes. So, you just need to split up ur stalkers in different control groups and defend for some time, until blink is ready to rumble.
And after u got ur blink stalkers, u have to try to snipe some mutas and watch out for the timing window where he has to pull back for a second, so u can try to push him while blinking up in the main and sniping tech and drones, especially on small maps or short ground spawns, and while that u probably have to transition to HT's, because they're pretty strong against muta and ling.
So, all in all, the game plan is the following: 1. Pressure the zerg a lot, just to get a feeling what he's doing (a lot of spines are a good indicator for mass mutas later) 2. Get deeper scout information fast after ur push (Observer/Phoenix/Hallucination). 3. If u scout the spire getting thrown down, keep up producing nixes and forcing him to abandon his plan. 4. If u didn't scout the spire and he goes for mass muta/ling, defend with splitted up stalkers and try to get blink and HT's, try to find a timing to abuse blink stalker harassment.
Result: Be aggressive and scout his frikkin front. SCOUT! Scout! Scout...
On November 06 2010 13:19 kcdc wrote: I've recently had a lot of success against muta-ling by going double gas 3-gate sentry expand, adding 2 more gates and pushing out with a small sentry-stalker push to slow droning, and adding a robo and a twilight council during the push. The robo keeps you safe if they go roach/hydra, and you can quickly research blink if you see them defending with crawlers and lings, indicating mutas are going to pop shortly. When I see the speedling/crawler defense, I chrono out blink and get 1 cannon in each mineral line, and split my stalkers into 2 control groups. Once you get the timings down, it's possible to get the poke done and be back in time to lose little to nothing to muta harass. At this point, you need to rush out psi storm as quickly as possible as you really can't leave your base without it, and Z will most likely be setting up his third while you're contained on 2 bases. Fortunately, sentry/blink-stalker/stormer is ridiculously efficient against muta-ling, and a timing push at completion of storm should deal big damage. I wouldn't recommend trying to take your third until Z has committed his units to defense as it will be a free kill if you start the nexus while you're setting out. You'll also want to check mid-game upgrades on the lings and mutas as this will give you a good idea whether Z will favor ultras or broodlords in the late game.
The basic gameplan is 3-gate expand/pressure -> defend with blink stalkers -> push with psi storm and take 3rd -> add immortals/void rays to deal with Z T3.
Also, feel free to storm your own units if the mutas sit on top of you. The mutas will be more clustered than your units, are more expensive than your units, have lower health than your units, and you know where the next storm will be making storm dodging easy. Even if you just land 3 storms and each does the minimum damage before the mutas move out, your blink stalkers will easily clean up.
This is great advice, I'm a zerg player and when I go muta/ling this is the strategy that is the most effective against it.
On November 06 2010 13:19 kcdc wrote: I've recently had a lot of success against muta-ling by going double gas 3-gate sentry expand, adding 2 more gates and pushing out with a small sentry-stalker push to slow droning, and adding a robo and a twilight council during the push. The robo keeps you safe if they go roach/hydra, and you can quickly research blink if you see them defending with crawlers and lings, indicating mutas are going to pop shortly. When I see the speedling/crawler defense, I chrono out blink and get 1 cannon in each mineral line, and split my stalkers into 2 control groups. Once you get the timings down, it's possible to get the poke done and be back in time to lose little to nothing to muta harass. At this point, you need to rush out psi storm as quickly as possible as you really can't leave your base without it, and Z will most likely be setting up his third while you're contained on 2 bases. Fortunately, sentry/blink-stalker/stormer is ridiculously efficient against muta-ling, and a timing push at completion of storm should deal big damage. I wouldn't recommend trying to take your third until Z has committed his units to defense as it will be a free kill if you start the nexus while you're setting out. You'll also want to check mid-game upgrades on the lings and mutas as this will give you a good idea whether Z will favor ultras or broodlords in the late game.
The basic gameplan is 3-gate expand/pressure -> defend with blink stalkers -> push with psi storm and take 3rd -> add immortals/void rays to deal with Z T3.
Also, feel free to storm your own units if the mutas sit on top of you. The mutas will be more clustered than your units, are more expensive than your units, have lower health than your units, and you know where the next storm will be making storm dodging easy. Even if you just land 3 storms and each does the minimum damage before the mutas move out, your blink stalkers will easily clean up.
Do you have some replays of this? I'd definitely love to take a look. Thanks!
We have no answer to mutas, I know I didn't play perfect that game, but I outmined him by 6k and was just crushed by 1-0 mutas compared to 3-1, everything.
Well, I am a 1400 point diamond zerg player, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt; however, I will tell you what has worked in the past to prevent muta/ling success:
I open 14 pool, 15 hatch; however, when the 9 scout reaches my base at about 4, the protoss makes damn sure it's a hassle to get the hatch down. Furthermore: he opens by putting 2 pylons and a cannon at the bottom of my natural. If the zerg wanted to creep tumor his way to his ramp, then build a crawler, to deal with this, this would delay his 2nd base far too much. So: with time on his mind, I, the zerg, build a roach warren. BING BING BIGN you have an advantage.
See if I go roach warren, I have to make roaches to make it useful. Roaches cost gas. So if you keep zealot pressure up, he will need to make roaches to counter you. Now what you may ask? Well now he still hasn't gotten his lair, still is on one to two gas, and most importantly: you now have a stargate. Phoenix harassment killing the overlords causes a major stop in the economy as he can't power any units out if you kill his overlords. Believe me, this happens every game, I know that this remains true.
So: what position are we in now? a 1-2 base protoss with tier 2 tech vs. a zerg who is on 2 bases that are only partially being mined and frantically building overlords to cope with your phoenixes, not to mention lairing for hydralisks so that he can get your damn phoenixes out of there. I think you can handle the game from there. Fact of the matter is you dictate his playing dramatically by doing these things.
On November 08 2010 03:25 Jeffbelittle wrote: Well, I am a 1400 point diamond zerg player, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt; however, I will tell you what has worked in the past to prevent muta/ling success:
I open 14 pool, 15 hatch; however, when the 9 scout reaches my base at about 4, the protoss makes damn sure it's a hassle to get the hatch down. Furthermore: he opens by putting 2 pylons and a cannon at the bottom of my natural. If the zerg wanted to creep tumor his way to his ramp, then build a crawler, to deal with this, this would delay his 2nd base far too much. So: with time on his mind, I, the zerg, build a roach warren. BING BING BIGN you have an advantage.
See if I go roach warren, I have to make roaches to make it useful. Roaches cost gas. So if you keep zealot pressure up, he will need to make roaches to counter you. Now what you may ask? Well now he still hasn't gotten his lair, still is on one to two gas, and most importantly: you now have a stargate. Phoenix harassment killing the overlords causes a major stop in the economy as he can't power any units out if you kill his overlords. Believe me, this happens every game, I know that this remains true.
So: what position are we in now? a 1-2 base protoss with tier 2 tech vs. a zerg who is on 2 bases that are only partially being mined and frantically building overlords to cope with your phoenixes, not to mention lairing for hydralisks so that he can get your damn phoenixes out of there. I think you can handle the game from there. Fact of the matter is you dictate his playing dramatically by doing these things.
Patrol a drone at the bottom of your ramp, man. Letting P pylon/cannon your ramp is a good way to lose ZvP every time.
We have no answer to mutas, I know I didn't play perfect that game, but I outmined him by 6k and was just crushed by 1-0 mutas compared to 3-1, everything.
I was on the stream when you played that. It was painful to watch.
We have no answer to mutas, I know I didn't play perfect that game, but I outmined him by 6k and was just crushed by 1-0 mutas compared to 3-1, everything.
Do you feel like if you had gone phoenix a bit earlier, possibly even before blink stalkers first you could have controlled the air a bit better, or do you think ht/blink stalkers is superior early/mid game?
We have no answer to mutas, I know I didn't play perfect that game, but I outmined him by 6k and was just crushed by 1-0 mutas compared to 3-1, everything.
Do you feel like if you had gone phoenix a bit earlier, possibly even before blink stalkers first you could have controlled the air a bit better, or do you think ht/blink stalkers is superior early/mid game?
Phoenix's aren't a realistic counter to a decent zerg, I was just desperate, nothing else was working.
There are many reasons but you can probably figure it out.
I have found that you basically just have to do a well timed 9 minute 5 warpgate push on two bases.
I've kind of given up on lategame PvZ. I've been able to salvage my PvZ winrate by just 4 gating against Z every time, denying expos with FFs, and hoping he isn't somehow able to hold it off.
But now I feel like a shitty mid-diamond player who 4 gates all the time, even if it is only one match up.
Phoenix openings are too unreliable at this point, too much micro, really weird expenditure of resources, and too easy to lose phoenixes.
We have no answer to mutas, I know I didn't play perfect that game, but I outmined him by 6k and was just crushed by 1-0 mutas compared to 3-1, everything.
Reinforcing your initial push with a proxy pylon,
OR
possibly taking out his main + spire instead of his natural
I don't typically save my replays, so I didn't have any of my 3-gate stalker/sentry expo into blinker/stormer vs muta-ling till a Zerg on ladder obliged me just now. My macro slips horribly as soon as I start trying to deal with mutas because I suck, but it turns out to be a pretty easy win. Note that I had 2 cannons at each base and I kept a stormer back to make it a little more costly for him to counter attack.
I'm just curious why Phoenix's are such a horrible choice. I'm about 1300 Zerg, and everytime I start to see Phoenix's, I almost immediately switch out of Mutalisks, since just a couple Phoenixes shred through my mutas, as well as forcing me to withdraw my OLs, and put up extra defenses for my Queens.
Jesse do you want to address the people of what revelation you found out last night?
On November 08 2010 14:11 terr13 wrote: I'm just curious why Phoenix's are such a horrible choice. I'm about 1300 Zerg, and everytime I start to see Phoenix's, I almost immediately switch out of Mutalisks, since just a couple Phoenixes shred through my mutas, as well as forcing me to withdraw my OLs, and put up extra defenses for my Queens.
Phoenixes work best vs mutas in low-mid range muta numbers (so 1 control group or so max). If you go muta and they start going so many phoenix to counter that, throw up some spores and go mass hydra. They cannot spend their remaining money on anything to counter hydras effectively.
This means that the ideal phoenix number is definitely <15, and 15 can deal with around 30 mutas very good, but that's about the ceiling. It gets to a point where mutas deal damage so fast through splash and the fact that they stack and can just focus fire every phoenix.
So phoenix work best in preventing mutas from ever becoming a problem, but if you see them going mutas and you start going phoenix afterwards, you are gonna have alot of trouble.
On November 08 2010 14:11 terr13 wrote: I'm just curious why Phoenix's are such a horrible choice. I'm about 1300 Zerg, and everytime I start to see Phoenix's, I almost immediately switch out of Mutalisks, since just a couple Phoenixes shred through my mutas, as well as forcing me to withdraw my OLs, and put up extra defenses for my Queens.
From my experiences, phoenixes can only be used as reactionary to mutas, not to prevent mutas. If I build 4 phoenixes blindly off one stargate, I will lose straight up to any roach play. I can only go phoenix if I know that mutas are coming. Now if I know mutas are coming, phoenixes are so slow to pump out that I won't be able to respond in time so I will take pretty heavy damage.
On November 08 2010 14:11 terr13 wrote: I'm just curious why Phoenix's are such a horrible choice. I'm about 1300 Zerg, and everytime I start to see Phoenix's, I almost immediately switch out of Mutalisks, since just a couple Phoenixes shred through my mutas, as well as forcing me to withdraw my OLs, and put up extra defenses for my Queens.
From my experiences, phoenixes can only be used as reactionary to mutas, not to prevent mutas. If I build 4 phoenixes blindly off one stargate, I will lose straight up to any roach play. I can only go phoenix if I know that mutas are coming. Now if I know mutas are coming, phoenixes are so slow to pump out that I won't be able to respond in time so I will take pretty heavy damage.
I disagree it's harder to use phoenix as a reactionary measure as by the time you can throw down a stargate and pump any significant amount of phoenixes mutas will have done their damage.
You do have to somewhat build a stargate blindly, but there are signs such as a large amount lings and/or spine crawlers. Roaches for me aren't a problem when I open stargate as I can hold them off with cannons and stalkers. Hydras are the real issue. If you guess wrong and they tech straight to hydras I've found you pretty much need multiple cannons or you won't be able to hold off the push as you won't have colossi in time. You're forced to turtle until colossi come up so you end up fighting a somewhat uphill battle unless you are really active with picking stuff off with your phoenix.
That said I haven't seen stargate openers work off 1 base vs a 2 base zerg, it's almost always followed by protoss' own FE.
edit: You can also just build 1 void ray to shut down any early roach play.
I usually go 3 gate expand and i pressure to see if there is any roaches, if there is none i go 2 gate phoneixes. If zerg STR8 tech to hydra, i am most probably screwed, but usually hydras without tanks can be surprsingly easy to take out. I always keep 5-6 phoneixes in play, and i tech to robo after i get the 5-6 phoneixes without hesitation, you need to get it out asap. Pump out as many gateway units as you can while u harrass before u tech to collosus and push before zerg starting building a lot of corruptors, or u can choose to go templars which requires more apm.
It just seems protoss have to do so much more than zerg to get a victory now. Zerg dont really need to scout, or they have easy ways to scout. I just feel the complete removal of 15 nexus FE BO due to roach range buff plays a huge role. Toss has to pressure early, guess the tech, constantly scout to make sure zerg is droning and not pumping units out of 2 bases, so many things to do. Is a huge skill lvl to climb, I am not saying it is impossible, it is just harder. A less skilled zerg can well win a more skilled toss. BUT i believe the protoss beyond my skill level will find scouting a norm. My inability to macro/micro/multitask makes me feel zerg is freaking OP now, cause is so god damn hard to play against them. And i refuse to admit all zerg that beats me with attack move roaches or mutalisk harrass and having 2k minerals left over is better than me
We have no answer to mutas, I know I didn't play perfect that game, but I outmined him by 6k and was just crushed by 1-0 mutas compared to 3-1, everything.
Well he was very heavy on mutas with not so many lings, and when the game was starting to turn in Cellawerra's favor you ended a few battles with him having no lings, several mutas, and you had 10 zealots. After two or three battles of being wiped out then you were just playing catch-up which is hard to do if he keeps massing mutas (which any sensible player would do).
I know I'm looking in perfect hindsight, and it's not anything that a gold leaguer couldn't point out, but I figured if you asked for advice I'd say gauge how muta heavy his mutaling army is going to be and increase the number of blink stalkers you make accordingly. Your HTs may have scared off his push a couple times, but I can't help thinking those resources invested in some more stalkers would have been more beneficial than storming your own zealots (because you have to, it wasn't bad playing by you).
One last thing is that you had 86 probes at your peak with only 2 bases. I know muta harass means you can lose bases and workers easily if he splits up his lings and mutas (which he did to take out your 9'o'clock expo) but I feel like you could have also used those resources on more gates/stalkers/zealots/motherships.
You played well, ignoring the outcome, especially killing his expos three times.
Just did a 9 min timing push.... a bit all in while expending with zealot and heavy sentry army. The game is going into the later stage where i go mass blink stalker with a lot of sentry and eventually lose while trying to go storm.
Just for reference... Blink stalker +2 and sentry with shield dont beat muta/ling. (he had 0/0 for 3/4 of the game)
Btw: I know i was a bit behind economically after the push...
On November 08 2010 16:44 Yokoblue wrote: Im a 2000 Diamond Protoss player.
Just did a 9 min timing push.... a bit all in while expending with zealot and heavy sentry army. The game is going into the later stage where i go mass blink stalker with a lot of sentry and eventually lose while trying to go storm.
Just for reference... Blink stalker +2 and sentry with shield dont beat muta/ling. (he had 0/0 for 3/4 of the game)
Btw: I know i was a bit behind economically after the push...
Stalker/sentry has no DPS. You can defend chokes with it because the lings will be neutralized, but you'll never be able to push out with that composition. You need storm, collosi, archons or enough stalkers to beat the mutas AND enough zealots to beat the lings. P needs a much larger force to beat muta-ling if they don't have good AoE damage.
On November 08 2010 16:44 Yokoblue wrote: Im a 2000 Diamond Protoss player.
Just did a 9 min timing push.... a bit all in while expending with zealot and heavy sentry army. The game is going into the later stage where i go mass blink stalker with a lot of sentry and eventually lose while trying to go storm.
Just for reference... Blink stalker +2 and sentry with shield dont beat muta/ling. (he had 0/0 for 3/4 of the game)
Btw: I know i was a bit behind economically after the push...
Stalker/sentry has no DPS. You can defend chokes with it because the lings will be neutralized, but you'll never be able to push out with that composition. You need storm, collosi, archons or enough stalkers to beat the mutas AND enough zealots to beat the lings. P needs a much larger force to beat muta-ling if they don't have good AoE damage.
Zealot/Sentry/Phoenix destroys muta/ling. The problem with HT/colossi is they come out too late; muta/ling will already have harassed you to do death and/or contained you enough where they have complete map control and outmacro you.
That's really the issue with muta/ling, if you're on a gateway only army it forces you to make stalkers, which in turn get destroyed by lings (similar to the marine/banshee/raven builds, where the banshees forces stalkers only to get owned by the marines and raven). Certainly you can make a mix of gateway armies to beat muta/ling in a straight confrontation but then they can just contain you with the mobility of their army. The only option left is to be the aggressor and push his base and force him to defend with his army, which is of course completely viable, but pretty all-in.
That's why I am a fan of phoenix (unless you are going for a timing push) vs mutas as it stops harass, prevents them from gaining complete map control and allows you to harass as well while you tech. You are in driver's seat. The problem with phoenix is you (sort of) have to blind tech and if they quick tech hydras you're probably going to have to cannon up a bit, but at least you still can harass somewhat.
I've played with phoenixes quite a bit, and I feel like opening phoenixes to deal with muta is too much of a tightrope act. As soon as the spire finishes, Z will put ~8 mutas on the field, while P can only make phoenixes 1 at a time (2 if you have 2 stargates), so P needs to get the stargate blind and really early. It's very difficult to open phoenixes and take a reasonably timed expansion that would be safe against hydras/roaches. And if you're lucky enough to blindly open phoenix and have Z go spire, you need to get a second stargate and constantly chrono out phoenixes from both stargates in order to compete for air control. Meanwhile, Z can stop muta production at any time, take as many bases as they want, and defend with roaches/spore crawlers/queens and you can't do shit about it because you're chronoing out units that can't shoot ground. I think P can win air control if they really commit to it, but P has to invest too heavily, and Z's production mechanic allows Z to punish the over-investment with a quick, nearly free tech switch. In order to match Z's tech switch to roaches, P needs to abandon use of his 2 stargates, build 2 robos and a support bay, and research collosus range.
On November 09 2010 05:16 kcdc wrote: I've played with phoenixes quite a bit, and I feel like opening phoenixes to deal with muta is too much of a tightrope act. As soon as the spire finishes, Z will put ~8 mutas on the field, while P can only make phoenixes 1 at a time (2 if you have 2 stargates), so P needs to get the stargate blind and really early. It's very difficult to open phoenixes and take a reasonably timed expansion that would be safe against hydras/roaches. And if you're lucky enough to blindly open phoenix and have Z go spire, you need to get a second stargate and constantly chrono out phoenixes from both stargates in order to compete for air control. Meanwhile, Z can stop muta production at any time, take as many bases as they want, and defend with roaches/spore crawlers/queens and you can't do shit about it because you're chronoing out units that can't shoot ground. I think P can win air control if they really commit to it, but P has to invest too heavily, and Z's production mechanic allows Z to punish the over-investment with a quick, nearly free tech switch. In order to match Z's tech switch to roaches, P needs to abandon use of his 2 stargates, build 2 robos and a support bay, and research collosus range.
Uhh I don't have this experience at all. Phoenix play for me absolutely murders muta and is by far the best way to counter it. Blind phoenix play is pretty good at large maps, where hydra pushes are practically not an issue, as just by harass they tend to pay themselves back anyway even if Z doesn't go spire at all (which is very likely they will on big maps). Sure you won't ever be able to make as many phoenix as he makes muta's or even sufficient phoenix to directly counter the muta with them but you don't need to. The phoenix are only needed to defend the muta harass and to counterharass at the same time.
As soon as I see a spire and don't have a stargate yet i just put down 2 stargates and pump non-stop phoenix along with a stalker/sentry/zeal army. If he really keeps making muta i just defend, harass a bit with phoenix and get blink stalkers, 2-0 attack, 1-0 on phoenix and a load of stalkers/zealots in addition to the phoenix. Just attack when 2-0 ground attack finishes and you will steamroll over muta/ling. If he switches to roach you simply add 2 robo's, get some immortals and tech to templar at the same time. It's not smart to go colossi against a player who opened spire imo as they will have the counter available already.
On November 09 2010 05:16 kcdc wrote: I've played with phoenixes quite a bit, and I feel like opening phoenixes to deal with muta is too much of a tightrope act. As soon as the spire finishes, Z will put ~8 mutas on the field, while P can only make phoenixes 1 at a time (2 if you have 2 stargates), so P needs to get the stargate blind and really early. It's very difficult to open phoenixes and take a reasonably timed expansion that would be safe against hydras/roaches. And if you're lucky enough to blindly open phoenix and have Z go spire, you need to get a second stargate and constantly chrono out phoenixes from both stargates in order to compete for air control. Meanwhile, Z can stop muta production at any time, take as many bases as they want, and defend with roaches/spore crawlers/queens and you can't do shit about it because you're chronoing out units that can't shoot ground. I think P can win air control if they really commit to it, but P has to invest too heavily, and Z's production mechanic allows Z to punish the over-investment with a quick, nearly free tech switch. In order to match Z's tech switch to roaches, P needs to abandon use of his 2 stargates, build 2 robos and a support bay, and research collosus range.
I only open blind stargate (not completely blind since you should have a "feeling" that he'll be going mutas do to his army comp, early 4x gas, mass spines, etc.) when I FE myself. If I scout a spire with my first phoenix I then upgrade air weapons and pump more phoenix. When they hit with their initial 6-8 mutas I generally have 2-3 phoenixes with stalker/sentry support, which easily repels their mutas. The trick here is flank their mutas with the phoenixes (i.e. sandwich them b/w your stalkers and phoenix), which is very easy due to phoenix speed, to inflict as much muta losses as possible.
The thing with phoenixes is you have to treat them as the support units they are, not to have so many that you overwhelm them. That's why I only make 1 stargate. They are simply there to deter harass (by forcing muta losses anytime they attempt to harass), and their ability to scout and harass themselves is just gravy. You pick when and where you engage the mutas as phoenix has the speed advantage over mutas. It's also why I laugh when zerg responds to phoenixes with corruptors because I then just mass a gateway army and run them over.
On 1-base however I do agree you don't need phoenix. Detering harass isn't as much of an issue when you only have to defend 1 base, but if you're on 1 base you pretty much have to be very aggressive and keep them defending their own bases.
On November 09 2010 05:47 Markwerf wrote: It's not smart to go colossi against a player who opened spire imo as they will have the counter available already.
I have often transitioned into colossi after phoenix and it's perfectly fine. In fact it's a way to extend the use out of your remaining phoenixes as now they have air units phoenixes can actually attack in battle (if you already killed their mutas of course). Corruptors beat phoenixes cost-for-cost (more of a soft counter than a hard one) but at that stage in the game it's likely that your phoenixes have already paid for themselves, so anything else is just gravy. Plus it forces them to actually micro their corruptors to target your colossi as phoenixes will be higher on the corruptors target priority, otherwise phoenixes will soak up corruptor damage.
On November 09 2010 05:16 kcdc wrote: I've played with phoenixes quite a bit, and I feel like opening phoenixes to deal with muta is too much of a tightrope act. As soon as the spire finishes, Z will put ~8 mutas on the field, while P can only make phoenixes 1 at a time (2 if you have 2 stargates), so P needs to get the stargate blind and really early. It's very difficult to open phoenixes and take a reasonably timed expansion that would be safe against hydras/roaches. And if you're lucky enough to blindly open phoenix and have Z go spire, you need to get a second stargate and constantly chrono out phoenixes from both stargates in order to compete for air control. Meanwhile, Z can stop muta production at any time, take as many bases as they want, and defend with roaches/spore crawlers/queens and you can't do shit about it because you're chronoing out units that can't shoot ground. I think P can win air control if they really commit to it, but P has to invest too heavily, and Z's production mechanic allows Z to punish the over-investment with a quick, nearly free tech switch. In order to match Z's tech switch to roaches, P needs to abandon use of his 2 stargates, build 2 robos and a support bay, and research collosus range.
Uhh I don't have this experience at all. Phoenix play for me absolutely murders muta and is by far the best way to counter it. Blind phoenix play is pretty good at large maps, where hydra pushes are practically not an issue, as just by harass they tend to pay themselves back anyway even if Z doesn't go spire at all (which is very likely they will on big maps). Sure you won't ever be able to make as many phoenix as he makes muta's or even sufficient phoenix to directly counter the muta with them but you don't need to. The phoenix are only needed to defend the muta harass and to counterharass at the same time.
As soon as I see a spire and don't have a stargate yet i just put down 2 stargates and pump non-stop phoenix along with a stalker/sentry/zeal army. If he really keeps making muta i just defend, harass a bit with phoenix and get blink stalkers, 2-0 attack, 1-0 on phoenix and a load of stalkers/zealots in addition to the phoenix. Just attack when 2-0 ground attack finishes and you will steamroll over muta/ling. If he switches to roach you simply add 2 robo's, get some immortals and tech to templar at the same time. It's not smart to go colossi against a player who opened spire imo as they will have the counter available already.
Yes, phoenixes are good against mutas. The problem is that if you build enough to deal with mutas (even in a support role), you don't have enough of a ground army to punish a player that stops building mutas and mass expands with roaches/queens/spore crawlers.
On November 09 2010 05:16 kcdc wrote: I've played with phoenixes quite a bit, and I feel like opening phoenixes to deal with muta is too much of a tightrope act. As soon as the spire finishes, Z will put ~8 mutas on the field, while P can only make phoenixes 1 at a time (2 if you have 2 stargates), so P needs to get the stargate blind and really early. It's very difficult to open phoenixes and take a reasonably timed expansion that would be safe against hydras/roaches. And if you're lucky enough to blindly open phoenix and have Z go spire, you need to get a second stargate and constantly chrono out phoenixes from both stargates in order to compete for air control. Meanwhile, Z can stop muta production at any time, take as many bases as they want, and defend with roaches/spore crawlers/queens and you can't do shit about it because you're chronoing out units that can't shoot ground. I think P can win air control if they really commit to it, but P has to invest too heavily, and Z's production mechanic allows Z to punish the over-investment with a quick, nearly free tech switch. In order to match Z's tech switch to roaches, P needs to abandon use of his 2 stargates, build 2 robos and a support bay, and research collosus range.
Uhh I don't have this experience at all. Phoenix play for me absolutely murders muta and is by far the best way to counter it. Blind phoenix play is pretty good at large maps, where hydra pushes are practically not an issue, as just by harass they tend to pay themselves back anyway even if Z doesn't go spire at all (which is very likely they will on big maps). Sure you won't ever be able to make as many phoenix as he makes muta's or even sufficient phoenix to directly counter the muta with them but you don't need to. The phoenix are only needed to defend the muta harass and to counterharass at the same time.
As soon as I see a spire and don't have a stargate yet i just put down 2 stargates and pump non-stop phoenix along with a stalker/sentry/zeal army. If he really keeps making muta i just defend, harass a bit with phoenix and get blink stalkers, 2-0 attack, 1-0 on phoenix and a load of stalkers/zealots in addition to the phoenix. Just attack when 2-0 ground attack finishes and you will steamroll over muta/ling. If he switches to roach you simply add 2 robo's, get some immortals and tech to templar at the same time. It's not smart to go colossi against a player who opened spire imo as they will have the counter available already.
Yes, phoenixes are good against mutas. The problem is that if you build enough to deal with mutas (even in a support role), you don't have enough of a ground army to punish a player that stops building mutas and mass expands with roaches/queens/spore crawlers.
I'm not sure I follow. Phoenixes can be effective in detering muta harass even in small numbers, thus you've committed less resources compared to the zerg player who went mutas, thus your ground army will be larger. Overproducing phoenixes can and will hurt you, but that's why I mentioned it's best to use phoenixes in a support role rather than to mass for air dominance.
Phoenixes are also incredibly effective scouts due to their speed so you should be able to easily spot expos and tech and before hydras pop unit compositions.
Phoenixes (after FE) are a way to prevent the contain threat of mutas and to delay/stop the zerg's 3rd expo (since you're playing relatively passive after FE), a critical point in most PvZ's going past the mid-game. In 9 out of 10 games I transition out of Phoenixes very very quickly either into colossi or mass gateway. Like I said above if you're 1-basing until mid-game I don't recommend stargate openers either as the playstyle is completely different (i.e. very aggressive early and mid-game).
Phoenixes only stop mutas in relatively small numbers. It's extremely difficult to stop mass mutas with phoenixes in later game, and absolutely impossible once infestors are out and about. Toss REALLY needs an AA AoE unit.
One stargate will never deter muta builds from a good zerg player. Two late stargates won't either (and even if it does, their fast tech switch is killer). Mutas will achieve critical mass much faster than you can build phoenixes that can deal with them. And again, this is assuming fungal growth isn't a factor.
Right now, archons/temps do the best against mutas IME, but they're immobile (certainly compared to mutas), gas-intensive, slow to get, and significantly negated by good zerg micro (dodging storm, sniping HTs, magic box).
On November 09 2010 05:16 kcdc wrote: I've played with phoenixes quite a bit, and I feel like opening phoenixes to deal with muta is too much of a tightrope act. As soon as the spire finishes, Z will put ~8 mutas on the field, while P can only make phoenixes 1 at a time (2 if you have 2 stargates), so P needs to get the stargate blind and really early. It's very difficult to open phoenixes and take a reasonably timed expansion that would be safe against hydras/roaches. And if you're lucky enough to blindly open phoenix and have Z go spire, you need to get a second stargate and constantly chrono out phoenixes from both stargates in order to compete for air control. Meanwhile, Z can stop muta production at any time, take as many bases as they want, and defend with roaches/spore crawlers/queens and you can't do shit about it because you're chronoing out units that can't shoot ground. I think P can win air control if they really commit to it, but P has to invest too heavily, and Z's production mechanic allows Z to punish the over-investment with a quick, nearly free tech switch. In order to match Z's tech switch to roaches, P needs to abandon use of his 2 stargates, build 2 robos and a support bay, and research collosus range.
Uhh I don't have this experience at all. Phoenix play for me absolutely murders muta and is by far the best way to counter it. Blind phoenix play is pretty good at large maps, where hydra pushes are practically not an issue, as just by harass they tend to pay themselves back anyway even if Z doesn't go spire at all (which is very likely they will on big maps). Sure you won't ever be able to make as many phoenix as he makes muta's or even sufficient phoenix to directly counter the muta with them but you don't need to. The phoenix are only needed to defend the muta harass and to counterharass at the same time.
As soon as I see a spire and don't have a stargate yet i just put down 2 stargates and pump non-stop phoenix along with a stalker/sentry/zeal army. If he really keeps making muta i just defend, harass a bit with phoenix and get blink stalkers, 2-0 attack, 1-0 on phoenix and a load of stalkers/zealots in addition to the phoenix. Just attack when 2-0 ground attack finishes and you will steamroll over muta/ling. If he switches to roach you simply add 2 robo's, get some immortals and tech to templar at the same time. It's not smart to go colossi against a player who opened spire imo as they will have the counter available already.
Yes, phoenixes are good against mutas. The problem is that if you build enough to deal with mutas (even in a support role), you don't have enough of a ground army to punish a player that stops building mutas and mass expands with roaches/queens/spore crawlers.
I'm not sure I follow. Phoenixes can be effective in detering muta harass even in small numbers, thus you've committed less resources compared to the zerg player who went mutas, thus your ground army will be larger. Overproducing phoenixes can and will hurt you, but that's why I mentioned it's best to use phoenixes in a support role rather than to mass for air dominance.
Phoenixes are also incredibly effective scouts due to their speed so you should be able to easily spot expos and tech and before hydras pop unit compositions.
Phoenixes (after FE) are a way to prevent the contain threat of mutas and to delay/stop the zerg's 3rd expo (since you're playing relatively passive after FE), a critical point in most PvZ's going past the mid-game. In 9 out of 10 games I transition out of Phoenixes very very quickly either into colossi or mass gateway. Like I said above if you're 1-basing until mid-game I don't recommend stargate openers either as the playstyle is completely different (i.e. very aggressive early and mid-game).
Let's say you blindly open phoenix and they go muta. You have ~2 phoenixes when their first 8 mutas pop. You continue chronoboosting out of one stargate, but soon, it's 20 mutas against 5 phoenixes. Your phoenixes are now useless against mutas because if they give chase, the mutas turn around and 1-shot a phoenix. Your mobility problems are worse than they would have been had you skipped the phoenixes for blink.
Next time, you blindly open phoenixes and see he goes mutas, but you decide you need more phoenixes or you'll lose to mass muta again, so you build a second stargate. It gets to 12 mutas against 5 phoenix and you're feeling close to winning air control. Do you keep producing phoenixes? If you stop, you lose air control, but if you continue, you have no ground army or tech that will work against roach/hydra. Z already has a roach warren, so the tech switch would be free for him, but you're on gateways and 2 stargates. To deal with a roach/hydra force, you need to start 2 robos, a bay and collosus range from scratch. And when you get there, Z already has the tech for corruptors. Good luck.
Phoenixes are good against mutas, but they're bad against every other Z unit, and phoenix harass is easily shut down by a queen and a spore crawler in each base. P needs major infrastructure investments to deal with other Zerg compositions while Z's tech switches will be nearly free. I think it's much better to shoot for blink+storm to defend mutas because it works nearly as well against pure mutas, but sets you up much better for the mid-to-late game. All you need is a robo and maybe a dark shrine and you've got everything you'll need in the late game.
On November 09 2010 05:16 kcdc wrote: I've played with phoenixes quite a bit, and I feel like opening phoenixes to deal with muta is too much of a tightrope act. As soon as the spire finishes, Z will put ~8 mutas on the field, while P can only make phoenixes 1 at a time (2 if you have 2 stargates), so P needs to get the stargate blind and really early. It's very difficult to open phoenixes and take a reasonably timed expansion that would be safe against hydras/roaches. And if you're lucky enough to blindly open phoenix and have Z go spire, you need to get a second stargate and constantly chrono out phoenixes from both stargates in order to compete for air control. Meanwhile, Z can stop muta production at any time, take as many bases as they want, and defend with roaches/spore crawlers/queens and you can't do shit about it because you're chronoing out units that can't shoot ground. I think P can win air control if they really commit to it, but P has to invest too heavily, and Z's production mechanic allows Z to punish the over-investment with a quick, nearly free tech switch. In order to match Z's tech switch to roaches, P needs to abandon use of his 2 stargates, build 2 robos and a support bay, and research collosus range.
Uhh I don't have this experience at all. Phoenix play for me absolutely murders muta and is by far the best way to counter it. Blind phoenix play is pretty good at large maps, where hydra pushes are practically not an issue, as just by harass they tend to pay themselves back anyway even if Z doesn't go spire at all (which is very likely they will on big maps). Sure you won't ever be able to make as many phoenix as he makes muta's or even sufficient phoenix to directly counter the muta with them but you don't need to. The phoenix are only needed to defend the muta harass and to counterharass at the same time.
As soon as I see a spire and don't have a stargate yet i just put down 2 stargates and pump non-stop phoenix along with a stalker/sentry/zeal army. If he really keeps making muta i just defend, harass a bit with phoenix and get blink stalkers, 2-0 attack, 1-0 on phoenix and a load of stalkers/zealots in addition to the phoenix. Just attack when 2-0 ground attack finishes and you will steamroll over muta/ling. If he switches to roach you simply add 2 robo's, get some immortals and tech to templar at the same time. It's not smart to go colossi against a player who opened spire imo as they will have the counter available already.
Yes, phoenixes are good against mutas. The problem is that if you build enough to deal with mutas (even in a support role), you don't have enough of a ground army to punish a player that stops building mutas and mass expands with roaches/queens/spore crawlers.
I'm not sure I follow. Phoenixes can be effective in detering muta harass even in small numbers, thus you've committed less resources compared to the zerg player who went mutas, thus your ground army will be larger. Overproducing phoenixes can and will hurt you, but that's why I mentioned it's best to use phoenixes in a support role rather than to mass for air dominance.
Phoenixes are also incredibly effective scouts due to their speed so you should be able to easily spot expos and tech and before hydras pop unit compositions.
Phoenixes (after FE) are a way to prevent the contain threat of mutas and to delay/stop the zerg's 3rd expo (since you're playing relatively passive after FE), a critical point in most PvZ's going past the mid-game. In 9 out of 10 games I transition out of Phoenixes very very quickly either into colossi or mass gateway. Like I said above if you're 1-basing until mid-game I don't recommend stargate openers either as the playstyle is completely different (i.e. very aggressive early and mid-game).
Let's say you blindly open phoenix and they go muta. You have ~2 phoenixes when their first 8 mutas pop. You continue chronoboosting out of one stargate, but soon, it's 20 mutas against 5 phoenixes. Your phoenixes are now useless against mutas because if they give chase, the mutas turn around and 1-shot a phoenix. Your mobility problems are worse than they would have been had you skipped the phoenixes for blink.
Next time, you blindly open phoenixes and see he goes mutas, but you decide you need more phoenixes or you'll lose to mass muta again, so you build a second stargate. It gets to 12 mutas against 5 phoenix and you're feeling close to winning air control. Do you keep producing phoenixes? If you stop, you lose air control, but if you continue, you have no ground army or tech that will work against roach/hydra. Z already has a roach warren, so the tech switch would be free for him, but you're on gateways and 2 stargates. To deal with a roach/hydra force, you need to start 2 robos, a bay and collosus range from scratch. And when you get there, Z already has the tech for corruptors. Good luck.
Phoenixes are good against mutas, but they're bad against every other Z unit, and phoenix harass is easily shut down by a queen and a spore crawler in each base. P needs major infrastructure investments to deal with other Zerg compositions while Z's tech switches will be nearly free. I think it's much better to shoot for blink+storm to defend mutas because it works nearly as well against pure mutas, but sets you up much better for the mid-to-late game. All you need is a robo and maybe a dark shrine and you've got everything you'll need in the late game.
Agreed. If you do an initial push with upgraded zealot sentry, and slowly start adding stalkers, continuing to upgrade the ground army, you should be fine as long as your macro stays up to snuff. If the opponent goes more mutas, you go more stalkers and templar tech. If the opponent switches to hydra/roach, drop that robo and get colossi out. Either way, it is a fun, offensive, and reactive way to play.
On November 09 2010 05:16 kcdc wrote: I've played with phoenixes quite a bit, and I feel like opening phoenixes to deal with muta is too much of a tightrope act. As soon as the spire finishes, Z will put ~8 mutas on the field, while P can only make phoenixes 1 at a time (2 if you have 2 stargates), so P needs to get the stargate blind and really early. It's very difficult to open phoenixes and take a reasonably timed expansion that would be safe against hydras/roaches. And if you're lucky enough to blindly open phoenix and have Z go spire, you need to get a second stargate and constantly chrono out phoenixes from both stargates in order to compete for air control. Meanwhile, Z can stop muta production at any time, take as many bases as they want, and defend with roaches/spore crawlers/queens and you can't do shit about it because you're chronoing out units that can't shoot ground. I think P can win air control if they really commit to it, but P has to invest too heavily, and Z's production mechanic allows Z to punish the over-investment with a quick, nearly free tech switch. In order to match Z's tech switch to roaches, P needs to abandon use of his 2 stargates, build 2 robos and a support bay, and research collosus range.
Uhh I don't have this experience at all. Phoenix play for me absolutely murders muta and is by far the best way to counter it. Blind phoenix play is pretty good at large maps, where hydra pushes are practically not an issue, as just by harass they tend to pay themselves back anyway even if Z doesn't go spire at all (which is very likely they will on big maps). Sure you won't ever be able to make as many phoenix as he makes muta's or even sufficient phoenix to directly counter the muta with them but you don't need to. The phoenix are only needed to defend the muta harass and to counterharass at the same time.
As soon as I see a spire and don't have a stargate yet i just put down 2 stargates and pump non-stop phoenix along with a stalker/sentry/zeal army. If he really keeps making muta i just defend, harass a bit with phoenix and get blink stalkers, 2-0 attack, 1-0 on phoenix and a load of stalkers/zealots in addition to the phoenix. Just attack when 2-0 ground attack finishes and you will steamroll over muta/ling. If he switches to roach you simply add 2 robo's, get some immortals and tech to templar at the same time. It's not smart to go colossi against a player who opened spire imo as they will have the counter available already.
Yes, phoenixes are good against mutas. The problem is that if you build enough to deal with mutas (even in a support role), you don't have enough of a ground army to punish a player that stops building mutas and mass expands with roaches/queens/spore crawlers.
I'm not sure I follow. Phoenixes can be effective in detering muta harass even in small numbers, thus you've committed less resources compared to the zerg player who went mutas, thus your ground army will be larger. Overproducing phoenixes can and will hurt you, but that's why I mentioned it's best to use phoenixes in a support role rather than to mass for air dominance.
Phoenixes are also incredibly effective scouts due to their speed so you should be able to easily spot expos and tech and before hydras pop unit compositions.
Phoenixes (after FE) are a way to prevent the contain threat of mutas and to delay/stop the zerg's 3rd expo (since you're playing relatively passive after FE), a critical point in most PvZ's going past the mid-game. In 9 out of 10 games I transition out of Phoenixes very very quickly either into colossi or mass gateway. Like I said above if you're 1-basing until mid-game I don't recommend stargate openers either as the playstyle is completely different (i.e. very aggressive early and mid-game).
Let's say you blindly open phoenix and they go muta. You have ~2 phoenixes when their first 8 mutas pop. You continue chronoboosting out of one stargate, but soon, it's 20 mutas against 5 phoenixes. Your phoenixes are now useless against mutas because if they give chase, the mutas turn around and 1-shot a phoenix. Your mobility problems are worse than they would have been had you skipped the phoenixes for blink.
Next time, you blindly open phoenixes and see he goes mutas, but you decide you need more phoenixes or you'll lose to mass muta again, so you build a second stargate. It gets to 12 mutas against 5 phoenix and you're feeling close to winning air control. Do you keep producing phoenixes? If you stop, you lose air control, but if you continue, you have no ground army or tech that will work against roach/hydra. Z already has a roach warren, so the tech switch would be free for him, but you're on gateways and 2 stargates. To deal with a roach/hydra force, you need to start 2 robos, a bay and collosus range from scratch. And when you get there, Z already has the tech for corruptors. Good luck.
Phoenixes are good against mutas, but they're bad against every other Z unit, and phoenix harass is easily shut down by a queen and a spore crawler in each base. P needs major infrastructure investments to deal with other Zerg compositions while Z's tech switches will be nearly free. I think it's much better to shoot for blink+storm to defend mutas because it works nearly as well against pure mutas, but sets you up much better for the mid-to-late game. All you need is a robo and maybe a dark shrine and you've got everything you'll need in the late game.
Are you theorycrafting or is this what you actually experience? I ask because you seem to be throwing out some really weird situations here. They can make 12 additional mutas before I make 3 phoenixes? And if they have a roach warren/roaches, that just means mutas are even more delayed. And you seem to believe I won't have enough resources off 2 bases to build a ground force when I'm only producing from 1 stargate? Then you mention roach/hydra when hydras will be delayed significantly from muta production? These scenarios just don't play out that way you describe if you use game sense and scout (at least in my experience).
And again you don't make phoenixes for air control. They are support for your stalkers, they are like a quick response team to muta harass. You don't chase mutas unless you know you can come out ahead. It's entirely up to you when and if you chase down mutas. Like I stated above you flank the mutas retreat path as they retreat from your stalkers. If they stop to fight, they take even more damage from the chasing stalkers.
How it plays out for me is if they go mutas I almost always end up ahead. If my game sense was off and they teched straight to hydras then zerg has the upperhand (but not insurmountable).
How it works is like this, when the mutas come to harass, you are able to inflict more muta losses from your phoenixes than just defending with stalkers. This deters zerg 9/10 times and they attempt a tech switch to hydras. I throw down my robo very soon after my stargate, if only for the observer to eventually kill creep tumors and monitor their unit comp, thus if I scout the den going down the bay is going up (only time I don't really throw down the robo is if there's early roach aggression, meaning delayed hydras so I then opt for mass gateway push or mass blink stalkers).
As far as the corruptors being available, like I said in the post above corruptors isn't a big deal at all. Their ground army will be pitiful due to going mutas/corruptors/hydras you won't even need that many colossi during your timing push if they make a lot of corruptors. Theorycrafting it sounds bad that OMG he has corruptors waiting. In reality it doesn't play out that way.
And the 1/10 times they actually continue making mutas (or make corruptors to obtain "air dominance") I just push with mass gateway. There is a certain timing window here where you should be able to push with ground army and if they try to harass you should be able to either hold it off with phoenixes + 1 round of warp-ins (I usually ~8 gates) or at least do very significant damage to his muta army. Either way it's a base trade he won't win, and he is forced to defend, which will also cause him to most likely lose as well.
edit: And I'm not a fan of storm vs Z, unless it's late game after you already have colossi. Upgraded roaches with burrow/claws causes lots of problems. Blink stalkers are definitely an option to stop mutas harass, but I hope you realize allows the zerg to contain you easier compare to phoenix + stalker.
So far the best opening i have against zerg is Zealot/Sentry with a quick +1 upgrade. then alowly add more Stalkers. But this is easily beaten if the Zerg goes just Roaches before my first wave hits in which case im down for the count already :/
On November 10 2010 05:42 Proto_Protoss wrote: So far the best opening i have against zerg is Zealot/Sentry with a quick +1 upgrade. then alowly add more Stalkers. But this is easily beaten if the Zerg goes just Roaches before my first wave hits in which case im down for the count already :/
Just don't lose to many in the engagement, use FFs to retreat, and start adding higher tech or more upgrades.
On November 09 2010 05:16 kcdc wrote: I've played with phoenixes quite a bit, and I feel like opening phoenixes to deal with muta is too much of a tightrope act. As soon as the spire finishes, Z will put ~8 mutas on the field, while P can only make phoenixes 1 at a time (2 if you have 2 stargates), so P needs to get the stargate blind and really early. It's very difficult to open phoenixes and take a reasonably timed expansion that would be safe against hydras/roaches. And if you're lucky enough to blindly open phoenix and have Z go spire, you need to get a second stargate and constantly chrono out phoenixes from both stargates in order to compete for air control. Meanwhile, Z can stop muta production at any time, take as many bases as they want, and defend with roaches/spore crawlers/queens and you can't do shit about it because you're chronoing out units that can't shoot ground. I think P can win air control if they really commit to it, but P has to invest too heavily, and Z's production mechanic allows Z to punish the over-investment with a quick, nearly free tech switch. In order to match Z's tech switch to roaches, P needs to abandon use of his 2 stargates, build 2 robos and a support bay, and research collosus range.
Uhh I don't have this experience at all. Phoenix play for me absolutely murders muta and is by far the best way to counter it. Blind phoenix play is pretty good at large maps, where hydra pushes are practically not an issue, as just by harass they tend to pay themselves back anyway even if Z doesn't go spire at all (which is very likely they will on big maps). Sure you won't ever be able to make as many phoenix as he makes muta's or even sufficient phoenix to directly counter the muta with them but you don't need to. The phoenix are only needed to defend the muta harass and to counterharass at the same time.
As soon as I see a spire and don't have a stargate yet i just put down 2 stargates and pump non-stop phoenix along with a stalker/sentry/zeal army. If he really keeps making muta i just defend, harass a bit with phoenix and get blink stalkers, 2-0 attack, 1-0 on phoenix and a load of stalkers/zealots in addition to the phoenix. Just attack when 2-0 ground attack finishes and you will steamroll over muta/ling. If he switches to roach you simply add 2 robo's, get some immortals and tech to templar at the same time. It's not smart to go colossi against a player who opened spire imo as they will have the counter available already.
Yes, phoenixes are good against mutas. The problem is that if you build enough to deal with mutas (even in a support role), you don't have enough of a ground army to punish a player that stops building mutas and mass expands with roaches/queens/spore crawlers.
I'm not sure I follow. Phoenixes can be effective in detering muta harass even in small numbers, thus you've committed less resources compared to the zerg player who went mutas, thus your ground army will be larger. Overproducing phoenixes can and will hurt you, but that's why I mentioned it's best to use phoenixes in a support role rather than to mass for air dominance.
Phoenixes are also incredibly effective scouts due to their speed so you should be able to easily spot expos and tech and before hydras pop unit compositions.
Phoenixes (after FE) are a way to prevent the contain threat of mutas and to delay/stop the zerg's 3rd expo (since you're playing relatively passive after FE), a critical point in most PvZ's going past the mid-game. In 9 out of 10 games I transition out of Phoenixes very very quickly either into colossi or mass gateway. Like I said above if you're 1-basing until mid-game I don't recommend stargate openers either as the playstyle is completely different (i.e. very aggressive early and mid-game).
Let's say you blindly open phoenix and they go muta. You have ~2 phoenixes when their first 8 mutas pop. You continue chronoboosting out of one stargate, but soon, it's 20 mutas against 5 phoenixes. Your phoenixes are now useless against mutas because if they give chase, the mutas turn around and 1-shot a phoenix. Your mobility problems are worse than they would have been had you skipped the phoenixes for blink.
Next time, you blindly open phoenixes and see he goes mutas, but you decide you need more phoenixes or you'll lose to mass muta again, so you build a second stargate. It gets to 12 mutas against 5 phoenix and you're feeling close to winning air control. Do you keep producing phoenixes? If you stop, you lose air control, but if you continue, you have no ground army or tech that will work against roach/hydra. Z already has a roach warren, so the tech switch would be free for him, but you're on gateways and 2 stargates. To deal with a roach/hydra force, you need to start 2 robos, a bay and collosus range from scratch. And when you get there, Z already has the tech for corruptors. Good luck.
Phoenixes are good against mutas, but they're bad against every other Z unit, and phoenix harass is easily shut down by a queen and a spore crawler in each base. P needs major infrastructure investments to deal with other Zerg compositions while Z's tech switches will be nearly free. I think it's much better to shoot for blink+storm to defend mutas because it works nearly as well against pure mutas, but sets you up much better for the mid-to-late game. All you need is a robo and maybe a dark shrine and you've got everything you'll need in the late game.
Are you theorycrafting or is this what you actually experience? I ask because you seem to be throwing out some really weird situations here. They can make 12 additional mutas before I make 3 phoenixes? And if they have a roach warren/roaches, that just means mutas are even more delayed. And you seem to believe I won't have enough resources off 2 bases to build a ground force when I'm only producing from 1 stargate? Then you mention roach/hydra when hydras will be delayed significantly from muta production? These scenarios just don't play out that way you describe if you use game sense and scout (at least in my experience).
And again you don't make phoenixes for air control. They are support for your stalkers, they are like a quick response team to muta harass. You don't chase mutas unless you know you can come out ahead. It's entirely up to you when and if you chase down mutas. Like I stated above you flank the mutas retreat path as they retreat from your stalkers. If they stop to fight, they take even more damage from the chasing stalkers.
How it plays out for me is if they go mutas I almost always end up ahead. If my game sense was off and they teched straight to hydras then zerg has the upperhand (but not insurmountable).
How it works is like this, when the mutas come to harass, you are able to inflict more muta losses from your phoenixes than just defending with stalkers. This deters zerg 9/10 times and they attempt a tech switch to hydras. I throw down my robo very soon after my stargate, if only for the observer to eventually kill creep tumors and monitor their unit comp, thus if I scout the den going down the bay is going up (only time I don't really throw down the robo is if there's early roach aggression, meaning delayed hydras so I then opt for mass gateway push or mass blink stalkers).
As far as the corruptors being available, like I said in the post above corruptors isn't a big deal at all. Their ground army will be pitiful due to going mutas/corruptors/hydras you won't even need that many colossi during your timing push if they make a lot of corruptors. Theorycrafting it sounds bad that OMG he has corruptors waiting. In reality it doesn't play out that way.
And the 1/10 times they actually continue making mutas (or make corruptors to obtain "air dominance") I just push with mass gateway. There is a certain timing window here where you should be able to push with ground army and if they try to harass you should be able to either hold it off with phoenixes + 1 round of warp-ins (I usually ~8 gates) or at least do very significant damage to his muta army. Either way it's a base trade he won't win, and he is forced to defend, which will also cause him to most likely lose as well.
edit: And I'm not a fan of storm vs Z, unless it's late game after you already have colossi. Upgraded roaches with burrow/claws causes lots of problems. Blink stalkers are definitely an option to stop mutas harass, but I hope you realize allows the zerg to contain you easier compare to phoenix + stalker.
The problem with single stargate pheonix is that you're up against 3 hatch muta production. You can't make enough phoenixes to remotely contest the muta ball. You'll find yourself going phoenix+stalker w/o blink, and you won't be able to engage the mutas w/o your stalkers. Your immobility problem is worse than it would have been had you skipped the phoenixes and stuck to blink stalkers because you can only defend where the stalkers are. Single stargate phoenix is an invitation for Z to make nothing but mutas and expansions because you're contained the same way you would be w/o the phoenixes, and the stargate+phoenixes delays your tech to units that would allow you to apply pressure.
Yes, phoenixes are good against mutas. The problem is that if you build enough to deal with mutas (even in a support role), you don't have enough of a ground army to punish a player that stops building mutas and mass expands with roaches/queens/spore crawlers.
this.
muta tech is considered very easy to transition out of it. It just is. Its easy to make you overcommit.
Zerg can transition so fast and nullify alot of lategame techs at the snap of a finger. Templar is nullified by roach, collossus are dealt with easily with spire tech, and stargate struggles to hydra AND spire (corruptors). The protoss literally has no choice but to do terrible damage or apply insane pressure to stunt their trip to the late game. If you give zerg 8 minutes unadultered, its auto-loss
Yes, phoenixes are good against mutas. The problem is that if you build enough to deal with mutas (even in a support role), you don't have enough of a ground army to punish a player that stops building mutas and mass expands with roaches/queens/spore crawlers.
this.
muta tech is considered very easy to transition out of it. It just is. Its easy to make you overcommit.
Zerg can transition so fast and nullify alot of lategame techs at the snap of a finger. Templar is nullified by roach, collossus are dealt with easily with spire tech, and stargate struggles to hydra AND spire (corruptors). The protoss literally has no choice but to do terrible damage or apply insane pressure to stunt their trip to the late game. If you give zerg 8 minutes unadultered, its auto-loss
Roaches are really weak in the later stages of the game because they eat up too much supply. If you have storm, stalkers and a few immortals, the only thing you have to worry about is brood lords. If there are brood lords on the field, you need to be careful to engage only where you can blink under them. I often end up playing PvZ as a competition to get to the 20 minute mark with a decent economy. If I've got a big army with storm and immortals and I'm even or down 1 base, I feel like I'll probably win.
On November 10 2010 07:39 kcdc wrote: The problem with single stargate pheonix is that you're up against 3 hatch muta production. You can't make enough phoenixes to remotely contest the muta ball. You'll find yourself going phoenix+stalker w/o blink, and you won't be able to engage the mutas w/o your stalkers. Your immobility problem is worse than it would have been had you skipped the phoenixes and stuck to blink stalkers because you can only defend where the stalkers are. Single stargate phoenix is an invitation for Z to make nothing but mutas and expansions because you're contained the same way you would be w/o the phoenixes, and the stargate+phoenixes delays your tech to units that would allow you to apply pressure.
I'm not a zerg player, but can you even support 3 hatch muta off 2 base? Unless you mean 3 bases, but you will push out before a 3rd's economy really kicks in.
I don't know how you can choose equal resource pure blink stalker over phoenix + stalker over defending muta harass. I don't even know how it's possible you can debate this. You split stalkers b/w your 2 bases, and your phoenixes are fast enough to respond to harass to either base. Phoenixes do more dps/cost to mutas, can shoot while moving, can respond to harass faster than pure blink stalker, and have the option to chase down mutas (if advantageous to you). Think of why blink even helps vs mutas in the first place. It causes more muta losses and allows for quicker respsonse time. Phoenixes are better at doing both those things.
If the zerg continues to make mutas (again, it happens maybe 1/10 of the when after I completely shut down his initial muta harass), it essentially makes my timing push with my ground army that much more effective since one of the key strengths of mutas is to force stalker production, which is not efficient vs lings. With phoenixes you make less stalkers and more zealot/sentry and they will get completely overrun. You basically have the hardest counter to his unit comp possible at that point in the game. This all happens before the zerg's 3rd base's economy kicks in (if he even made a 3rd as often times when muta harass fails they know they do not have you contained enough to throw down a 3rd).
Just to clarify, I'm not saying you open stargate vs zerg every game, because if he techs straight to hydra off a FE then it's not in your best interest to do so (though in that case you wouldn't go blink stalkers either, you'd just tech straight to colossi). I simply open stargate if I FE'ed myself AND I suspect muta play (i.e. if you're faced with roach aggression to break your FE, then I just counter that with 7-8 gate blink stalkers because you know mutas aren't coming anytime soon). The stargate opener allows you to both defend against muta harass and scout and harass yourself. If you suspect muta play and go TC for blink instead, that leaves you w/o an early scout and you are just as susceptible (or perhaps more so due to late scouting) to hydras.
Stargate opener is conducive to a passive FE, build-your-death-ball-and-push-out type of play. If you're more of the smashmouth type player who 1-bases and puts constant pressure on the zerg and expos later on, by all means continue doing that as that is certainly viable.
And this whole zerg tech switching thing is so blown out of proportion. If you wipe out (or do enough damage) his mutas with your phoenixes, your phoenixes have already paid for themselves. The rest (overlord sniping, drone harass, picking off stray units, whatever) is gravy. It doesn't matter if he doesn't make anymore mutas. That's why I said who cares if he has access to corruptors already for your colossi, it extends the useful life of your phoenixes even more. The only problem is if you overproduce phoenixes, which can be easily avoided.
On maps that allow me to do that i go forge expand in PvZ(90% chance Z go mutas). My main plan is to go templar archives with 1gate making warpgate, blink, +1 or if i can +2 ground and sometimes hallucination(for scouting) and charge in the meantime. From initial 1gate produce zeals and sentrys. Add 5-6gates and 2-3 cans near minerals. You should have ~6 stalkers and some sentrys when first mutas arrive. Then you will have energy on templars and blink done to deal with mutas easier. After my army grows And i have about 8templars, 5sentrys, 15stalkers and zeals i go for timing push. Stalker with stormers > mutas and zeals with attack upg >>> lings. If he switch to hydra roach your army composition should still be fine, but force field could become more important. If mutas try to harass my base when army is away, templars with instant storm after warp will deal with them.
This strat is of course possible if zerg go macro mode early. If he is you can attack him with initial 2-3 zeals broodwar style to kill some drones and force lings. If he is trying some sort of bust you should make more canons and faster build gate units delaying tech. If he is playing roach/hydra hts are still good and you dont need to defend your mineral lines.
The best maps for it are LT, Scrap station, Jungle Basin etc - ones with easy exp. Its also possible to transition from 1gate gas even with maps with wide entrance. When you see zerg hatch first you can get probes off gas, add forge(possible cannon rush) and exp safely when he have late pool and is defensive.
I am 1300 diamond player but i play sc2 only for 2 weeks so i dont think its my peak elo I played it only in a few games so timings are not so good but I like playing this way.
There are two games I saw recently that are relevant to this topic. The first is from GSL on shakuras plateau, round of 64 season 2 suhoshin vs freeDSL
I really like Muta/Ling style, for that map control, and these are both games P lost (though for different reasons). Phoenix are great for kiting mutas and taking control back, until he locks them down with fungal growth (game 1). Considering infesters can burrow-move, you always run the risk of getting locked down and muta-swarmed (at which point you're screwed). You can put observers out, but it's a tense battle (and P is the one in a position to loose). At any rate, you can't make too many phoenix, because if he switches out of muta you're stuck with a lot of anti-air that doesn't help much vs zerg ground.
In the second game storm and blink was used to decent effect, but there were many times the wounded mutas couldn't be picked off: having a few pheonix to clean up might have helped, but would working a starport in have been feasible? Protoss really doesn't have good air zoning: zerg can lock down air units and trap them, terran has thors to keep units at range (besides 9 range vikings), but protoss don't have anything comparable. Storm and blink can be effective, but they depend on poor positioning and good terrain for maximum damage; the range of fungal growth is a hard control, and the long range on a thor prevents any casual harass. Its easy, as in game two, to simply run away from storm and blink stalkers without taking too many losses.
Both of these are really large maps, with compounds the strength of muta. From what I've seen, and what people have posed, the best answer seems good pressure before the mutas come out followed up by continued pressure (with enough defense at home to hold off harassment). If you get locked down on a large map it's easy for zerg to get too far ahead (game 2). It's like asking, how do I deal with mass colossus? The best answer is to not let your opponent get 6-8 colossus up, or force him to do so with very few supporting units: they're using a lot of gas to get mass muta, and since protoss doesn't have an easy counter, you're best not getting in that position to begin with. On a big map, I don't know if there's another good way to play it: muta play is so commanding the only good counter is to stop it from getting up and/or pressure incessantly.
On smaller maps, you have more options. I just remembered another good game, Artosis vs ReiniHour on daily 207
Without going back and re-watching it, I recall him dealing with zerg air fairly well (protoss won the game). I know he forced him to make a lot of corrupters later on, but I believe there was some muta harass before that. At any rate, a good game to watch.
EPT
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while I'm sure there are a lot of mistakes in your play and my play, there are equally as many mistakes in the Zerg play. The more information we have about muta at all levels can only help the discussion. Plus that situation sound incredibly familiar to me as a protoss player 
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