EPTHow to counter Stalker Collosus combo as Zerg?
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DarkSeerTurbo
United States105 Posts
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Scarlan
Sweden3 Posts
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liaf
Norway318 Posts
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Oleksandr
United States227 Posts
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FiWiFaKi
Canada9858 Posts
Collosis are effective s all ground against ultralisk, so the options are: -make mass muta to kill stalkers and collosis -hydra/corruptor -ultraling these are the main counters, usually stalker/collosis is pretty hard to do since collosis is so gas heavy you can't make enough stalkers. | ||
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fdsdfg
United States1251 Posts
Generally once you hit T2, you need to choose whether to get Hydra, Infestor, or Spire - you can't go for more than one because it's too much gas. I go Hydra if I'm seeing 4gate / starport, or Spire if I see a robo bay. If I see a twilight council I usually go Spire out of familiarity, but that's not common. Colossi are answered pretty eaisly with corruptors and a whole lot of lings for the stalkers. Either the stalkers shoot the lings or they shoot the corruptors, in either case Protoss is going to lose at cost. If lots of zealots are thrown in there, then micro gets really hard because the lings want to avoid them and the zerglings are not going to survive as long (the zealots don't have to choose what to attack). I've heard banelings works well in this situation, but I haven't tried that. Neural parasite is good, but it's a lot of gas investment in a really bad gamble. If the stalkers don't move forward and kill your infestor, and the Colossus doesn't happen to kill it during the tether animation, you still have to give the colossus back in 15 seconds - and it's hard to say that was worth all the time and resources put into infestor / NP tech when you could have had a few corruptors or mutas instead. So basically, corruptors. Mutas are also fine. | ||
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phyre112
United States3090 Posts
If you can't survive in the game to the point at which you have ultras, you're right in that the correct counter should be corruptors. They'll eat through these things ridiculously quickly due to their bonus against massive units, and the increased damage through the spell contaminate if you have the spare APM. The key here is that you need to get them to attack at a time in which your opponents collo are exposed. Consider it much like attacking a terran army. You don't want to come in when his tanks are all seiged up, but rather when he is moving and exposed. Fortunately, this is easier to do because of the P's inability to leapfrog things like a T does with tanks. Try your best to snipe the collossi when they are exposed. A P moving into position, going through a choke, or a mismicroed collossi that steps up onto high ground at the wrong time. These are all excellent opportunities that you need to be ready to take advantage of. Corruptors are relatively mobile flying units. Pull a flank. Come around from the back even. Once the collossi are down, Pure stalker melts to hydra fire, to enough lings/roaches, or to just about whatever else you want to throw at them with the exception of mutas. I'm a P player, but this is generally the way that my collo are taken out when I lose - through some micro accident of my nub self. Just be ready to capitalize when the opportunity is presented. Perhaps some Z player can come through and give you tips on how exactly to be ready for that. GL! | ||
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Sevaur
42 Posts
I mostly use a roach/hydra/corrupter mix, and try to make sure that separated roaches take the brunt of the colossus damage, hopefully leaving stalkers vs hydras. Also, ultras are great -- you can't have them out for the first big engagement, but even a couple mixed into the second major battle will do wonders unless they micro it really well. | ||
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Botwin_ca
Canada8 Posts
I still lose to the stalker colossus push sometimes but it's always my fault for not setting up the appropriate hydra concave/ling flank. The second the collossi are down the stalkers just get wrecked soooo hard by hydra ling and they never have the stalkers to deal with a pack of 10-15 mutas after that point | ||
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SaikOuLighT
Canada742 Posts
In short, i find that if you cannot get ultras out in time, you simply need to macro up a bigger force and try and whittle his push down enough so that the ultras clean up once they get out, as your ultra cavern should be done at the time he attacks you. Or you could try and delay his push if you don't think your army stands a chance with backstabs and nydus. I don't really like getting corrupters against collosi unless I am at a huge economical lead, as they are very costly and your ground army will be a lot weaker. | ||
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BlasiuS
United States2405 Posts
1. once you get your expo up and running, get muta to contain while you go for 3rd. Then, mass tunneling speedroach + muta 2. if you opened with hydra, get corruptors at least at a 2:1 ratio to colossus. 3:1 ratio is preferable and can be done with equal supply. Better make sure you have a creeproute to your opponent's base otherwise your hydras won't be as effective. Get hive -> greater spire so that once you kill all of the colossus you can turn your leftover corruptors into BLs. 3. tech up to hive and get cracklings/ultra. Crackling/ultra just destroys stalker/colossus. | ||
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Markwerf
Netherlands3728 Posts
The only good answer is corruptors and that works fairly well. When you do have corruptors ultraling gets really good again but without it ultraling just dies to stalker/colossi/immortal | ||
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Kpyolysis32
553 Posts
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NB
Netherlands12045 Posts
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Arrian
United States889 Posts
for what it's worth, to back up what I've said, I'm ~400 pt Diamond on US server and I haven't lost to stalker/colossus since phase 1 of the beta using this strategy | ||
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Markwerf
Netherlands3728 Posts
The only good answer is corruptors and that works fairly well. When you do have corruptors ultraling gets really good again but without it ultraling just dies to stalker/colossi/immortal | ||
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Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
And yeah if u get to them, ultras own collossus/stalker. And brood lords just own protoss in general. | ||
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PrinceXizor
United States17713 Posts
On August 18 2010 05:06 Markwerf wrote: Ultra's are not really a good answer, if the P is going colossi (presumeably from 2 robo's as is often the case against zerg) then P can easily switch to immortal stalker. Immortal, stalker with some leftover colossi absolutely rapes ultraling. Stalkers do quite well against ultra as long as there is a other unit to soak damage for them and immortals + zealots do that quite well. The only good answer is corruptors and that works fairly well. When you do have corruptors ultraling gets really good again but without it ultraling just dies to stalker/colossi/immortal this is only true in theory craft. zerg can produce ultralisks faster than protoss can make immortal out of 2 robo, and ultraling beats immortals as long as you don't just 1a into eachother and let the immortals deal damage without being hit. ultralisks also beat immortals alone in numbers of 3v3 or more. | ||
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Craton
United States17247 Posts
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Fistdantilus
United States136 Posts
Roach/Corruptor/ling all the way. Make roaches/corruptors and fill with lings when you run out of gas. Roaches have enough HP to where they can survive until the corruptors take 1-2 down and make the fight more even. | ||
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a176
Canada6688 Posts
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ohN
United States1075 Posts
If he has stalker collusus and you get like 5 ultras, all his shit's dead. Ultras are amazing late game vs 'toss, just don't forget to upgrade them. Huge difference between 5/3 ultras and 0/0 ultras. I, personally, don't like corrupters because while you can probably kill of all his collusus with them, they're pretty expensive and his non-collusus army will kill you half the time because your ground army will be significantly weaker. They are good though if you don't have ultra tech yet and you're ahead in econ. | ||
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Markwerf
Netherlands3728 Posts
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Melt
Switzerland281 Posts
Add Corruptors to deal with the Colossi. Lategame, Ultra/Hydra or Broodlord/Hydra are really nice. Ultras (if upgraded properly) will take nearly no Damage from Zealots, the only stupid thing is they shouldn't attack the zealots either because you should use their +armored damage potential. Only engage on open Fields where you can run to the Stalkers and Colossi. | ||
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bobcat
United States488 Posts
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BlasiuS
United States2405 Posts
On August 18 2010 05:33 Markwerf wrote: Anyone suggesting ultraling without corruptors really needs to check their strategies. Against a proper protoss who switches to immortals and has a few zealots as buffer your ultra's just suck. So much crap advice in this thread... then zerg just switch to muta, and now your immortals + few zealots just suck. See that? Zerg can switch a lot faster than toss. This thread isn't about how to deal with tech switches, it's about how to counter stalker/colossus, and ultra/ling does just that. | ||
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Xizorz
93 Posts
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Subztance
United States139 Posts
On August 18 2010 05:33 Markwerf wrote: Anyone suggesting ultraling without corruptors really needs to check their strategies. Against a proper protoss who switches to immortals and has a few zealots as buffer your ultra's just suck. So much crap advice in this thread... Given how slowly collosi/immortals move compared to ultras or zerglings, its likely that your zerg opponent will be able to choose where to engage your army when it moves out. a few zealots will only be an effective buffer at a ramp, anywhere else the ultras can just run around your zealots. and like another poster said, if you get too many zealots and immortals, the zerg can switch to mutas quickly given that he most likely already built a spire during lair tech. Edit: I almost forgot.... how would corruptors help against a player who switches to immortals and zealots O_o | ||
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greenkid
114 Posts
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hizBALLIN
United States163 Posts
On August 18 2010 06:06 BlasiuS wrote: then zerg just switch to muta, and now your immortals + few zealots just suck. See that? Zerg can switch a lot faster than toss. This thread isn't about how to deal with tech switches, it's about how to counter stalker/colossus, and ultra/ling does just that. So what you're saying is tech to ultra and then back teching to spire is an all around superior strategy than teching to spire and then potentially teching to ultra? I wish you could see the "you can't be serious" face I'm making right now. Given the excruciating tech time for both spire and ultra, you're better off picking up spire prior to ultras, since Spire is only three steps (spawning pool, lair, spire) with the option of potentially winning the game right there since robo units can do literally nothing against them, versus teching to ultra (5 steps: pool, lair, infestor, hive, ultra, and it sucks without at least being 2/2 with armor upgrade), getting countered by robo units, and then back teching to spire (which has a 100 second build time alone, and you're already rough on gas from making ultras), while he's had time to tech to templar tech, and counter your mutas (since he'll have an observer lurking around). The plan with less steps is probably inherently superior in both ease of execution and timing, since robo units show up en masse far faster than you can get ultras out. | ||
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Carefoot
Canada410 Posts
On August 18 2010 08:06 Subztance wrote: Given how slowly collosi/immortals move compared to ultras or zerglings, its likely that your zerg opponent will be able to choose where to engage your army when it moves out. a few zealots will only be an effective buffer at a ramp, anywhere else the ultras can just run around your zealots. and like another poster said, if you get too many zealots and immortals, the zerg can switch to mutas quickly given that he most likely already built a spire during lair tech. Edit: I almost forgot.... how would corruptors help against a player who switches to immortals and zealots O_o I hope your question on the edit isn't serious. Corruptors morph into Broodlords. Also try using queens on creep vs. Collusi, with proper concave their air to ground attack should be fairly effective. Roach queen in my opinion with transfuse would be the simplest way. Just throw in some hydras once the queen #s match the roach #s or when the army is heavier on the stalkers keep some lings on masse for cleanup | ||
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Gedrah
465 Posts
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wizard944
194 Posts
On August 18 2010 04:03 Skillz_Man wrote: It's important to not go overboard with corruptors, one and a half for each collosis is a good rule of thumb. It's very important to snipe with corruptors before you engage with a ground army. Collosis are effective s all ground against ultralisk, so the options are: -make mass muta to kill stalkers and collosis -hydra/corruptor -ultraling these are the main counters, usually stalker/collosis is pretty hard to do since collosis is so gas heavy you can't make enough stalkers. mass mutas, against stalkers? I don't quite follow your logic here, mutas are incredibly inefficient in straight up battles, which is almost always how you would be fighting stalkers. The other two options I definitely agree with though | ||
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Sixes
Canada1123 Posts
On August 18 2010 04:04 fdsdfg wrote: If it's lategame enough for ultras, that's great, but colossi can come way before ultras. Generally once you hit T2, you need to choose whether to get Hydra, Infestor, or Spire - you can't go for more than one because it's too much gas. I go Hydra if I'm seeing 4gate / starport, or Spire if I see a robo bay. If I see a twilight council I usually go Spire out of familiarity, but that's not common. Colossi are answered pretty eaisly with corruptors and a whole lot of lings for the stalkers. Either the stalkers shoot the lings or they shoot the corruptors, in either case Protoss is going to lose at cost. If lots of zealots are thrown in there, then micro gets really hard because the lings want to avoid them and the zerglings are not going to survive as long (the zealots don't have to choose what to attack). I've heard banelings works well in this situation, but I haven't tried that. Neural parasite is good, but it's a lot of gas investment in a really bad gamble. If the stalkers don't move forward and kill your infestor, and the Colossus doesn't happen to kill it during the tether animation, you still have to give the colossus back in 15 seconds - and it's hard to say that was worth all the time and resources put into infestor / NP tech when you could have had a few corruptors or mutas instead. So basically, corruptors. Mutas are also fine. I think Muta-Ling works. I quoted the above because it points out the key variable : the number of zealots. Lots of zealots means your mass of mutas can just kill stalkers and clean up the rest (you can spend almost all your gas on mutas, they take care of stalkers decently when massed). Few zealots means you need to attack with the lings and mutas, mutas take out colossi, lings get stalkers. | ||
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MforWW
United States157 Posts
mass hydra + corruptors (and a couple of roaches thrown in for spice) works wonders for me. /ZvP is my best matchup, by far. i don't think i've lost to protoss in about 7 games... //also, ultras can be nice if you can quickly get them in contact with the stalker ball. but if they have sentries, they'll FF. if they have zealots, they'll get picked off before hitting the stalkers. if there's a choke, they won't do anything. if there are immortals, you're screwed. in other words, there are so many potential caveats it's usually not worth it to get ultras. my last ZvP game went to tier 3 and i just got broodlords... an excellent investment no matter what the situation is. unlike ultras, when is the last time when broodlords DIDN'T pay off? | ||
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Ndugu
United States1078 Posts
If you can have your units hitting the Collosi, they die fast and you win. Otherwise, get to Ultras. | ||
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Carefoot
Canada410 Posts
On August 18 2010 10:22 MforWW wrote: as a 500 rating diamond zerg player, i'm really confused by all of these people suggesting that you go muta against stalkers... mass hydra + corruptors (and a couple of roaches thrown in for spice) works wonders for me. /ZvP is my best matchup, by far. i don't think i've lost to protoss in about 7 games... //also, ultras can be nice if you can quickly get them in contact with the stalker ball. but if they have sentries, they'll FF. if they have zealots, they'll get picked off before hitting the stalkers. if there's a choke, they won't do anything. if there are immortals, you're screwed. in other words, there are so many potential caveats it's usually not worth it to get ultras. my last ZvP game went to tier 3 and i just got broodlords... an excellent investment no matter what the situation is. unlike ultras, when is the last time when broodlords DIDN'T pay off? I fully agree broodlords are under utilized in this matchup. | ||
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NeoLearner
Belgium1847 Posts
On August 18 2010 13:59 Carefoot wrote: I fully agree broodlords are under utilized in this matchup. After reading this thread I was thinking exactly the same thing. Why balance on the edge of "Do I have enough corrupters to not roll over to his collossus right now?" and then tech the other way for ultras? If you go broodlords in tier3, you can go slightly overboard with corrupters as Travis said and still have a use for those units in the late game. Bonus is that you'll be a bit "safer" against collosus in the mid-game. You'll have to be a bit less hydra heavy but more hydras die to collosus fire than to stalker fire anyway. So if the collosus are out, you'd need less hydras anyway. Another additional bonus is that the counter for Ultralisk, Immortals, is not even a tech switch away while all air units used to counter your broodlords are already countered by your hydras and left over corrupters. True, blink stalkers would still hurt your broodlords. But it would mean the Protoss has to blink into your hyda's arch range... EDIT: For being less wall-y | ||
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BlasiuS
United States2405 Posts
On August 18 2010 09:23 hizBALLIN wrote: So what you're saying is tech to ultra and then back teching to spire is an all around superior strategy than teching to spire and then potentially teching to ultra? I wish you could see the "you can't be serious" face I'm making right now. Given the excruciating tech time for both spire and ultra, you're better off picking up spire prior to ultras, since Spire is only three steps (spawning pool, lair, spire) with the option of potentially winning the game right there since robo units can do literally nothing against them, versus teching to ultra (5 steps: pool, lair, infestor, hive, ultra, and it sucks without at least being 2/2 with armor upgrade), getting countered by robo units, and then back teching to spire (which has a 100 second build time alone, and you're already rough on gas from making ultras), while he's had time to tech to templar tech, and counter your mutas (since he'll have an observer lurking around). The plan with less steps is probably inherently superior in both ease of execution and timing, since robo units show up en masse far faster than you can get ultras out. rofl? I never said wait until after you have ultras out before making spire -_- "switching to muta" ≠ "making spire" how the hell did you come up with that. you should always have a spire before you reach hive | ||
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Ndugu
United States1078 Posts
 Especially if its after I've laid down two robos. and started teching extended thermal lance.Now that I'm theory-crafting in my head, I should lay down two starports and micro some phoenixes to retake aerial dominance... and then go with Collosi anyway. But I never do that. Muta/ling into ultras to smite the stalker heavy comp you tricked me into making. | ||
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Phayze
Canada2029 Posts
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kungfu
United States30 Posts
Roaches aren't the 'best' response to colossi but you can mass them up so much faster than ultra's. Couple that with it just takes colossi time to chew through all those roaches and stalkers aren't much better at killing them fast. Only thing that will save the toss with that kind of composition is sentry force fields, allowing him to zone your army. Each sentry means they essentially cut 2 stalkers out of their army, and you can then punish them for that with corrupters. As far as I can tell the hydra's are added in for some increased dps. I'd also like to note that this is only really true while the toss has 3-4 colossi, once they go past that, then the time it takes to burn through roaches stops being a problem. best o' luck mate (~400 diamond protoss) | ||
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viETchicken
United States5 Posts
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Markwerf
Netherlands3728 Posts
Corruptors are an exception to this because they are very efficient for their cost. The only problem with them is that they require a spire (and muta's are often not efficient against protoss) and are bad when you overproduce them. You need enough to kill the colossi fast enough but don't want to get into the situation where the protoss just ignores them and kills your ground with his stalkers instead. In the abstract ultraling is the counter to colossi/stalker but in a real game situation where the protoss will adapt to your ultra tech with immortals it's just not a good choice. Corruptors can actually reach the corruptors while ultra's have all kinds of problems reaching the stalker/colossi if there are also zealots and immortals on the field. | ||
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rockslave
Brazil318 Posts
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fdsdfg
United States1251 Posts
On August 19 2010 01:46 rockslave wrote: if the Colossi are far back, you just stay out of its range killing the Stalkers. If it dives in, you dive in and snipe it. What about when the colossi are in range of you, you're not in range of the colossi, and you can't move forward due to zealots or forcefields? Because this is how the fight is going to end up. | ||
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rockslave
Brazil318 Posts
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teamsolid
Canada3668 Posts
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silencesc
United States464 Posts
On August 18 2010 04:07 phyre112 wrote: Ultralisks tank the Collo splash like a champ. If you can survive the game to the point where you have a handful of ultras, his collos are essentially useless. Use whatever you like to clean up the stalkers - roaches, lings, and hydras are all wonderful at that job, as I'm sure you know. If you can't survive in the game to the point at which you have ultras, you're right in that the correct counter should be corruptors. They'll eat through these things ridiculously quickly due to their bonus against massive units, and the increased damage through the spell contaminate if you have the spare APM. The key here is that you need to get them to attack at a time in which your opponents collo are exposed. Consider it much like attacking a terran army. You don't want to come in when his tanks are all seiged up, but rather when he is moving and exposed. Fortunately, this is easier to do because of the P's inability to leapfrog things like a T does with tanks. Try your best to snipe the collossi when they are exposed. A P moving into position, going through a choke, or a mismicroed collossi that steps up onto high ground at the wrong time. These are all excellent opportunities that you need to be ready to take advantage of. Corruptors are relatively mobile flying units. Pull a flank. Come around from the back even. Once the collossi are down, Pure stalker melts to hydra fire, to enough lings/roaches, or to just about whatever else you want to throw at them with the exception of mutas. I'm a P player, but this is generally the way that my collo are taken out when I lose - through some micro accident of my nub self. Just be ready to capitalize when the opportunity is presented. Perhaps some Z player can come through and give you tips on how exactly to be ready for that. GL! If I see Ultras coming out, I switch to immortals...the tech is already up and immortals essentially rape ultras. I don't see ultras being that useful in ZvP, just because the common build (stalkers/collo) is so easily changed into zealot or sentry/immortals to kill the lings and ultras. | ||
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