Something that doesn't come up often in games, but seems problematic for ZvP to me.
How do you deal with mass high templar that are supported by the standard zealot, stalker, sentry, observer army? (maybe even some Archons or immortals mixed in).
Things people have suggested to me: (Burrowed) banelings. Burrowed roach movement. Zerglings. Mutalisks. Tier 3. Neural Parasite.
For the first 2 suggestions, it relies on a bad player not having an observer. Maybe If I had scourge, I could snipe the obs then snipe the temps. But I guess I'd have to get 4+ muta or corruptors to snipe an ob. And even then they could easily be rolling with 3 or more obs if this became a standard thing. Also, If I have to make a lot of air, then that kinda defeats the purpose- might as well just use the air by itself. Even speed banelings on creep have to navigate around the rest of the toss army and not get stormed (30hp) on their way to the pile of templar. So imo, this is out.
Remember in broodwar when you could snipe templars somewhat easily with lings because they would get stuck/walled up by their own units. Well there is this new thing called swarm AI where your units will move out of the way of your units. So trying to pick off temps with lings doesn't really work very well anymore.
Mutalisks are pretty trash units vs protoss these days. Stalkers tank and do more damage to mutas than goons ever could and they have blink, good luck trying to dart in and out when it effectively doubles your stalker count damage wise. Archons are still pretty damn strong and totally underrated (especially since that swarm AI thing I mentioned). Sentries have their G shield which helps and they are like meatier marines themselves. Fenix annihilate. etc. So you'd really only get mutas for the sole purpose of sniping templar. Which seems to be the best option out of all these, but it's much much weaker than it was in BW imho.
Tier 3, Broodlords and Ultras. Yea ultras can tank storms, but they can't get to the templar to snipe them behind the line of zeals. Broodlords, again blink stalkers are really good vs them, and just like HT vs Guardians in BW. You really don't wanna send these costly behemoths at some templars if you're going to trade or even lose them without killing all the templars. It's risky and inefficient to say use BL at the least. And besides, this is tier 3 stuff while templar are much easier to get.
NP, in theory it sounds great. NP a Templar and storm their templar before they get too many storms off! Too bad templar come equipped with feedback and your infestor is owned.
Hydras in small numbers worked pretty well in BW, but now they are too slow. Roach range is too small for a similar method.
This is not a whine or imbalance thread. So don't make it one. Really just trying to brainstorm some ideas as I couldn't think of any face value unit. Maybe some trick or tactic I'm skipping over.
PS- I was thinking of trying to get a couple of infestors to fungal the templar from different angles but I believe it would take 3? full fungals to do this. And that's not an easy thing to do imo. It seems like a more luck based tactic.
Mutalisks actually work really well, paricularly against a Templar heavy army (not likely to have that many stalkers and you need quite a few Stalkers to deal with Mutas).
Banelings are pretty good too, particularly if they (Templar) are clumped up at the back off the Toss army.
Ultras don't need to kill the Templar, they can just ignore them and waltz right through the rest of the Toss army. Templar = likely no Immortals. If there are Templar and Immortals out, you are either being outmacroed (sp?) or you should have a shitload of Broodlords, which destroy everything Protoss except Blink Stalkers and air units. Blink Stalkers are the only viable ground unit vs Brood Lords, but they still don't classify as good. Either they blink away and leave the rest of the army to die or they stay as part of the army and die.
NP works great on Templar because if you don't get the NP off it's because the Toss feedbacked you - thereby usually missing the chance to storm (upgraded Temps only spawn with 75 energy).
If it's super-late game and the Protoss player has Immortals, Stalkers, Sentries, Chargelots, Templar & Observers, then select your massive force of Ling/Hydra/Brood Lord and attack move your way right over him.
EDIT: Forgot to say, Banelings and Infestors need to perform a flank on the enemy army to be effective, otherwise they are almost useless (except against Lots/Sentry/Templar armies, which they rape for cost, assuming you catch them in the open and don't get blocked out with Forcefields).
Basically Idra mass expanded and harassed InCa with mutas throughout the game and then threw an army of Lings, ultras and mutas at him. Idra's army got annihilated and then Idra proceeded to make a bunch of ultras and that finally did the trick. Doesn’t seem there's a reliable counter to it apart from just playing a lot better than you opponent... and we can't all be Idras :/
best way is just to make a army that isn't too weak against templar, ultra's or muta's are quite good at this. Directly countering the templar isn't really possible.
Ultra/roach. fully upgraded roaches can easily tank storms, and when on creep they can run away and almost completely dodge storm, in addition, what little damage they do take from storms can be quickly negated by burrowing just for a second or two even right during a battle!
Ultra is primarily for stomping force fields, which are really the only problems upgraded roach has with HT/archon/zealot/stalker/sentry, but of course the tanking + damage is useful.
edit: so basically Hydra/roach is an excellent mid-game army for this, as they share upgrades. What I do is go hydra/roach, and then if I see colossus I get corruptors -> broodlord, and if I see HT I go for burrowed roach play to stall/harass until I get hive -> ultra/crackling + whatever roach I have left.
Mutalisks have worked fairly well for me. you need to be careful with them, as you mention stalkers completely pwn them, but they are flying units. Use positioning to your advantage (ie fly over cliffs, snipe a few HT, and run back). The stalkers can't afford to waste DPS trying to kill mutas they can only hit half the time when they have a Hyda/Roach/Ling combo hitting them from the front. Also, it's a nice transition because you need the spire in case the P decides to go Colossi as opposed to HT to counter your army.
I prefer to have my armies split and attack from several sides. This will also solve your issue; if your main army (preferably with 'tanks' ) is holding...your side forces can come from behind and, indeed, snipe the temps that are behind the main toss army. It doesn't have to be a big army - a small force of lings usually do the trick considering their speed.
What worked for me in the last game was big open space engagement with good spread of units. I had lings roaches and hydra. The attacking line was so thin it made storms not really effective. I guess use terrain to your advantage and tech to T3 because when armies get huge you wont be able to use terrain anymore.
I think your best option is to go into that segment of the game with an advantage. If protoss reaches full tech and is even econ with you, you've lost.
With the +5s zealot buildtime, it isn't particularly hard to do. You can 15hatch most maps without a problem, and templar tech means no obs (200 gas just for the obs).
I totally don't agree that Muta are trash vs P, I see pros opening muta most PvZ's as you can contain the P so hard, harass and force many stalkers which are not strong vs ling/ultra later. As a P I cannot ever fight off the muta before moving out as splitting my stalkers will result in half of them dead, so you end up bouncing between nat and main desperately defending harass until you can move out.
Whats important to remember when engaging a HT ball with muta is to magic box the muta and park them directly over the top of the ball the same way you react to thors, never bunch up the muta and attack from the side, as you end up getting stormed to shit.
If you are literally on top of them they cannot storm you without raping their own ball.
On August 22 2010 15:46 althaz wrote: NP works great on Templar because if you don't get the NP off it's because the Toss feedbacked you - thereby usually missing the chance to storm (upgraded Temps only spawn with 75 energy).
If they're massing templars, a good number of them will be at or close to full energy, meaning they can still cast 1-2 storms after 1 feedback on your infestor, so this is a bad idea.
What is easier said than done is to try and set up nice concaves (read 1-2 units thick) with hydras behind your meaty roaches and ultras so that each individual storm only affects a small number of your units, making storms less effective. Sure you'll still take damage, but keep replacing lost units and eventually he'll be out of energy to storm.
Also HTs are slow, so you could try to backstab with mutas or drop in his base while his army is out, sniping any that try to warp-in and storm
Even in BW, zerg would have problems beating a late game protoss army in a head-on fight due to their archons, reavers, corsairs and HTs, but zerg could punish protoss by always attacking where the main army wasn't, using their superior mobility to bounce around, dropping in the main, then hitting a far-away expo
mass roach with burrow micro works quite well in my experience, the tunneling claws (movement while burrowed) allows quick hp regen underground which regens faster then strom hurts the roaches.
so attack, surround, and burrow where he storms , unburrow once its gone... this has worked well for me in the past (ultras as well)
some people have argued that fungal growth can be used to control engagement points away from templar, but i have not had extreme sucess with this (might be because when i see t3 toss i FREAK OUT! j/k)
1. Flanks. If you're approaching from just 1 angle its very easy to storm. If you have a full circle around his units, a storm at best hits a couple units... barely even worth it for him, and won't be missed from the battle if you need to micro them out. 2. Creep. Combined with the above. 3. Mixing your armies with his. If you're clearly separated its very easy for him. You want him to be forced to storm his own units too. Or drag his own units through the storm. A little micro goes a long way.. he storms 2 roaches and ends up hitting 5 of his zealots = win for you.
Does anyone not remember how zvp was played a loonng time ago, in starcraft..? Mass hydra vs storm. The zerg had 4 or 5 control groups and did 1a2a3a4a5a and then when toss is about to storm, sometimes even right before, pull back all units, then come back in and engage again 1a2a3a4a5a, then back away. Anyone remember what I'm talking about and I can't remember the name of the progamer who was known for doing this amazingly.
I play Protoss and I almost always go High Templar against Zerg... What I cannot beat with that combination are Ultralisks or Broodlords. If you go Hydra/Roach, you should naturally want to end game it with Ultras. If you go Muta/Ling, you will want to end game it with Broodlords. A protoss player cannot have too much stuff at all if they try to get High Templar, gateway units, AND Immortals.
You shouldn't really worry too much about blink stalkers because in all honesty, they are so frail and the presence of speedlings shuts down many opportunities the stalkers may have had to do damage if the lings weren't present. In my opinion, Zerg tier 3 is the toughest to deal with, because if I don't outmacro you, there's no way any gateway army can deal with Ultralisks or Broodlords. Thin k about it: sure I can warp in High Templar, DTs, Zeals, Stalkers, or Sentries, but the strong units like Colossus/Immortal/Void Rays are all units that need production facilities to get them out. Even with 2 Robos or 2 Stargates there's no way I can produce these heavier units faster than you can given an equal amount of income because all you need is larva.
That being said, don't send in 1-3 of these units hoping they will get very far... Stalkers and zeals aren't the best against them, but chances are I will greatly outnumber you, and in that case, it doesn't matter who hard counters who.
EDIT: I wouldn't recommend any burrow micro or fancy stuff like that... It's more of an annoyance than a concrete strategy to me because the problem is so easily solved by stuff I already have. When in doubt, macro up, but if you stay on hydra/roach too long, you will most likely melt before blanket storms or colossus fire
As some people have already said, there's really no counter. It simply relies on you being able to out play your opponent. Muta sniping is always your best bet. Those templars are slow and people usually 1a them while leaving them open to muta harassment. Also, burrowed roaches tank storms very well. The one thing you should not do is build hydras.
On September 30 2010 06:00 tehemperorer wrote: You shouldn't really worry too much about blink stalkers because in all honesty, they are so frail and the presence of speedlings shuts down many opportunities the stalkers may have had to do damage if the lings weren't present. In my opinion, Zerg tier 3 is the toughest to deal with, because if I don't outmacro you, there's no way any gateway army can deal with Ultralisks or Broodlords. Thin k about it: sure I can warp in High Templar, DTs, Zeals, Stalkers, or Sentries, but the strong units like Colossus/Immortal/Void Rays are all units that need production facilities to get them out. Even with 2 Robos or 2 Stargates there's no way I can produce these heavier units faster than you can given an equal amount of income because all you need is larva.
Stalkers (+blink) with colossus and zealot are extremely strong vs broodlords. I am aware that colossus is not the topic, you just mentioned there is no counter.
Zealots + stalker (+blink), or even immortals dominate ultralisks, then just add an archon and/or storm and/or colossus or two and it kills most zergling/hydra support.
I also disagree with not worrying about blink stalkers, because with the right control, they can defend mutalisks well, kill mutalisks extremely well, and kill hydralisks well (zealots protect from lings). Some people seem to think hydras are like a counter to stalkers, but they are just even, and only when hydras have range upgrade, are on creep, and stalkers don't have blink.
EPT
