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I. INTRODUCTION
![[image loading]](http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/5050/titlezw.jpg)
A new brand of PvZ.
Since the release of StarCraft II, I have seen a lot of posts from protoss players wondering about how to deal with muta/ling builds in PvZ. The crux of the problem is that, at tier 2, zerg will pursue one of two tech paths, each of which seems to have a completely unrelated counter to the other. Protoss almost needs phoenixes to effectively counter mutalisks, and a protoss player cannot compete against large hydralisk armies without either storm or colossi. I believe that I have found a build that enables protoss to deal with both possibilities. Better yet, this build also happens to transition very well into the late game and enables the protoss player to sustain A LOT of pressure on the zerg at all points in the game.
In a nutshell, the build that is outlined below is a 2-gate zealot pressure opening that transitions first into stargate tech (usually for phoenixes), second into chargelot/dark templar, and lastly into high templar. I’m not going to provide a detailed build order because a rigid build order is useless, for the purposes of this post, beyond building two gateways and your initial gateway pressure force. What you do thereafter is going to going depend upon how the game unfolds after the initial zealot pressure. The crux of this post is to discuss the transition into tier 2 after your expansion is up.
Though this post is going to have a lot of characteristics of a guide, I’m not entirely comfortable calling it a guide right now. The refinement of build orders down to a science isn’t there. However, I think that the basic concept behind the build is strong and important enough to present for further discussion and refinement.
![[image loading]](http://a.imageshack.us/img821/3927/gayestgame.jpg)
Besides, when you get this reaction from another player, you know that you’ve stumbled onto something good. 
II. THEORETICAL FOUNDATION FOR THE STRATEGY
Before I set out the build, I want to describe its theoretical foundation. Given how dynamic PvZ is, especially in the mid to late game, you can’t really understand, use, and appreciate a strategy like this one unless you understand its basis. So let me explain what I was considering when creating this strategy.
+ Show Spoiler +
1. Playing passively against good zerg will result in defeat.
So what makes high level PvZ games different than lower level PvZ games? Conceptually, it’s very simple: good zergs know how to punish protoss players that play passively by leveraging their inherent macroeconomic advantage. A basic tenet of StarCraft II (or most any other RTS), is that resources invested into your economy today means that there will be more money available for bigger, more powerful armies tomorrow. As you know, zergs build all of their units, including workers, from a common larvae pool. Unlike terran and protoss, whose potential worker production is predominantly a function of how many nexii or command centers they have, a zerg’s potential drone production is a function of available larvae. Basically, a zerg can dedicate all of his unit production capacity drones, whereas terrans and protosses cannot. A good comparison to the zerg’s drone production capacity would be a protoss player that could build probes out of his nexus, gateways, stargates, and robotics facilities. Because the zerg can crank out drones so much faster than a protoss, the zerg can make an initial investment of larvae and minerals into drone production early on to quickly create a superior economy to the protoss player. The zerg player can then turn this economy advantage into a superior army that the protoss cannot beat. This is the primary reason why passive play fails. A protoss player must put pressure upon the zerg in order to win.
Guess what? There’s a second problem with playing passively. Zerg can endlessly accumulate larvae while they endlessly accumulate resources. What this means is that if you sit in your base for too long and let the zerg get a 200/200 army, he’ll amass so much larvae that he can instantly rebuild his army after any battle. A protoss simply cannot match that production.
Most protoss players understand these concepts well enough and apply them in the early game by opening against zerg with some kind of early gateway pressure. However, most of those protoss players fail to apply those principles as they transition out of the gateway pressure and tech straight to tier 3: colossi or templar. Getting either of these techs online is very time-consuming and resource-intensive, which gives the zerg a very large window to either attack you or expand his economic advantage. The principle purpose of this guide is to show protoss players how to minimize this window by squeezing a little more juice out of the protoss’s tier 2 tech and by using dark templar.
2. Zerg tech switches can result in instant defeat for ill-prepared protoss players.
Aside from granting zerg the macroeconomic advantage in worker production, the larvae mechanic also enables zerg to tech switch far more easily than either terrans or protoss. So you just killed off that pesky hydra/roach army with your zealot/stalker/sentry/colossus force. Great! Now ultra/ling and corruptors are flying up your ass and you don’t have a proper force to deal with it. Not so great! Zerg tech switches can be absolutely brutal because they often come with no warning. You won’t know what the zerg is building often times until his army shows up at your front door. Protoss has two ways to mitigate this danger.
First, aggressive protoss play can “force” the zerg down certain tech paths, making his force composition predictable. For example, aggressive 2-gate openings will force either massed speedlings, roaches, or banelings, thereby delaying lair tech units and faster expansions. Getting a stargate and building phoenixes will discourage the zerg from building mutalisks and force him to build hydralisks.
However, even aggressive protoss play can’t entirely dictate what the zerg builds. To further mitigate the risk of losing due to a tech switch, the protoss player should build a force that can deal with anything that the zerg throws at him. Fortunately, the protoss player has such an option, which will be discussed below.
3. Spire tech is the most effective and deadly ZvP tech.
Massed mutalisks create huge problems for protoss players. Good zerg players will use the mutalisks to keep an ill-prepared protoss player trapped in his base, giving the zerg unlimited map control, which he will then use to take bases and establish an insurmountable economic lead. Let’s face it: protoss ground-based anti-air sucks. Period. Stalkers simply don’t do enough damage against air units, and they are not mobile enough to keep up with mutalisks, even with blink, when you’re ready to expand beyond your natural. Phoenixes are the only, consistently effective answer to mutalisks that protoss has for reestablishing map control. This threat of mutalisks is one of the primary reasons why this guide advocates building a stargate as the first tech building after a core. By creating an early phoenix force, the protoss player can effectively raise the opportunity cost that the zerg faces in transitioning into spire. In other words, the zerg needs a larger air force than he otherwise might need to effectively the protoss. This dynamic effectively discourages spire tech altogether.
4. Protoss units are at their best in smaller engagements.
This may be the most overlooked characteristic of the protoss arsenal. Because of the general crappiness of stalkers and sentries in terms of raw damage output, and because of the diminishing effectiveness of melee units (zealots) in combat against larger and larger masses of ranged units, the protoss army is not as effective in 200/200 combat as either terrans or zerg. Colossi and storm help level the playing field, but the core gateway units that will form the backbone of the protoss army are very weak in large-scale combat by themselves. This fact two has important implications. First, a protoss player NEEDS either storm or colossi to compete against large zerg ground armies. Second, all other things being equal (like equal production and economy), army trading to reduce the size of each player’s army is a good outcome for the protoss. While 20 zealots will not do well against 20 hydralisks, 10 zealots will absolutely murder 10 hydralisks. The chargelot, in particular, is the king of the late game when the initial large armies have been destroyed. This dynamic further lends to the effectiveness of aggressive PvZ play.
5. Protoss is the map control king of StarCraft 2.
Leveraging warp in, proxy pylons, warp prisms, fairly mobile gateway troops, and very fast stargate units, protoss has all of the tools necessary by the late game to establish and command map control. The warp prism, in particular, may be the most important late game protoss unit. Sneaky warp prism usage can absolutely shut down an opposing player’s late game economy by attacking and harassing expansions. Yes, zerg are pretty fast on their creep highways, but even they cannot compete with the ability to instantly build units in any psi field. This hyper-mobility from warp in arguably makes protoss the strongest late game race. To fully leverage warp in, this guide advocates a strategy that emphasizes gateway units over robotics facility units.
6. Feedback makes it incredibly difficult for a zerg to maintain detection over a battlefield.
This one is self-explanatory. Zerg’s only mobile detection are overseers, and they have energy. They are big, fat, ripe targets for feedback sniping. Once the overseers are gone, the zerg has no detection, giving your dark templar free reign to rape face.
III. THE STRATEGY
1. The Early Game
The real focus of this post is on Tier 2 and Tier 3. However, some discussion of Tier 1 is necessary on what a protoss player needs to do to position himself in the early game for what comes later. The protoss player should have one goal in mind in the early game: securing his expansion. There are a number of ways of going about this.
My preferred method is 2-gating, particularly when the zerg base is not too far away. The point of a 2-gate opening isn’t to the kill zerg early, though stupid zergs that go for a greedy fast expand build probably will die to your 2-gate opening. There are two main objectives when 2-gating. The first is to delay the zerg expansion. The second is to force the zerg to build roaches or zerglings instead of drones.
My preferred 2-gate opening is pylon on 9, gate on 12, gate on 14, pylon on 15-16, zealot on 16, and pylon on 18 => chronoboost 4 additional zealots out. Send your first five zealots over to the zerg base. Afterwards, start a 6th zealot for clogging the choke, start your first gas, and start a core. Getting the core is important at this point is important if the zerg reacts to your pressure with roaches. You’ll need the stalkers out ASAP to protect your zealots. Scouting on 9 is preferable so that you can check if the zerg is at a very far cross-position on a 4-player map. If he is, then you’ll want to skip 2-gating and opt for a fast expand build.
There is no precise timing for when you expand other than doing it when you have a decent force to defend the expansion. Of course, “decent” is a relative term that depends upon how many troops the zerg is building. Accordingly, you’ll need to keep tabs on what the zerg is doing by scouting semi-often.
If the zerg is committing to some kind of all-in, tier 1 roach, speedling, or baneling attack, then stay on one base, start your second gas, start your forge, and start a stargate as soon as you have enough gas. When the stargate is done, chronoboost out two void rays. If the zerg has a really big army at this point, consider throwing down a cannon or two to buy some additional time. Use the void rays to crush the zerg army at your base and then snipe the expansion that the zerg likely started. You should have an opening to take your expansion at this point.
On a side note, I build a forge before I expand to help guard against speedlings, especially on maps with open naturals. I also start my +1 weapons right away.
2. Transitioning into Tier 2 Aggression
Here’s where the fun begins. Assuming that you have just expanded, your tech path now is to build a stargate, immediately followed by a twilight council. When your stargate is finished, chronoboost a phoenix and immediately send it to the zerg base to see what he is doing. If you see hydra tech, cut phoenix production just long enough so that you have enough gas to start charge (chronoboost it) and begin a dark shrine. Afterwards, resume phoenix production until you have about 5-6 phoenixes. If you see spire tech or otherwise suspect muta/ling, thrown down a second stargate and keep pumping phoenixes. In both cases, begin increasing your gateway count as minerals allow. On a related note, your +1 weapons should be finishing about now. Go ahead and start +2 once your twilight council is done.
I’m not going to talk too much about fighting muta/ling. With chargelots and phoenixes being pumped from 2 stargates, you should have it perfectly countered and the zerg will probably switch into hydralisk tech fairly quickly.
So let’s talk about what happens when you have phoenixes and the zerg gets hydralisks. Now, when the zerg sees your phoenixes, he’s probably going to smile and start thinking , “hah! I have the perfect counter to this newb’s build!” Well, fortunately for you, he is sadly mistaken.
Assuming that you were proactive with timely starting your dark shrine and charge upon seeing the hydralisk tech being started, you should have a sizeable chargelot force, 5-6 phoenixes, a few dark templar, plus a few sentries/stalkers in support by the time that the zerg has enough hydralisks and roaches to be frisky. You should be fairly safe from attack with this force.
Once you have 3-4 dark templar, it’s time to go on the offensive, preferably attacking the zerg’s third if he has started it. Believe it or not, you should actually have army superiority at this point even though you do not have either colossi or storm. Why? Because the zerg probably will not have more than 1 overseer readily available, which you can easily snipe down with your phoenixes and sentry/stalkers. From there, just use your dark templar, mixed with your chargelots, to take down the zerg’s ground army. The trick is to mix the dark templar in with your main force of chargelots. This makes the dark templar hard to notice and target. Even if you lose everything except your dark templar and phoenixes in exchange for wiping out the zerg’s ground army, that’s ok. However, that outcome is unlikely unless the zerg has stayed on 2 bases and focused on massing troops.
After this initial battle, you should be taking your third and researching storm tech to prepare for the late game. Make sure that you sustain your phoenix force. Keep at least 5-6 at all times to discourage tech switches to mutalisks.
3. A New and Improved Tier 3 Protoss Deathball
![[image loading]](http://a.imageshack.us/img227/9915/popgoestheoverseer.jpg)
Let's play a game called "Pop Goes the Overseer."
Perhaps the best part about this build is that it cleanly and easily transitions into an army that is incredibly difficult for a zerg to counter. Your late game army will be composed primarily of chargelots, dark templar, phoenixes, and high templar, with varying numbers of sentries, stalkers, and archons in support. As at tier 2, the dark templar are the key to making this composition work. Utilizing your phoenixes and feedback from your high templar, any number of overseers will be dead at the beginning of any battle, giving your dark templar free reign. This means that, unlike stalker/sentry/colossus deathballs, you will be impervious to ultralisks (dark templar take down ultralisks VERY quickly). In fact, this composition is so effective that it is almost unfair. Just watch the replays below.
Because your army is gateway-based, you can really abuse your mobility with warp in as the game drags on and players have to take expansions that are further from their mains. If you can, remember to make one phase prism for this very purpose. Keep the pressure up on the zerg and make him earn every expansion. If you can, hit him in multiple places at once by sending your phase prism to one spot and your main army to another.
Lastly, don’t forget to use your dark templar to camp expansion sites!
IV. FAQ
+ Show Spoiler +Q: What inspired this build? A: I developed the build backwards. While playing against a friend, I stumbled onto the effectiveness of using dark templar while sniping overseers with feedback. From there, it was just a matter of figuring out how to get to the point where you can field the tier 3 army described above. More importantly, I hate 4-gating and refuse to play that way in any matchup other than PvP (where I have no choice sometimes). This build, unlikely 4-gating, is inherently badass and fun to use. Q: Where are the colossi? A: Honestly, I don’t like colossi that much for the same reason that many other players don’t like them: they’re boring. More importantly, however, I think that colossi are too easy to counter at higher levels of play. Zerg have gotten very good at exploiting the time that it takes to build 3-4 colossi to get a huge economic advantage. Also, zerg are very good at getting enough corruptors to absolutely shut down colossi. For these reasons alone, I prefer high templar and storm tech. Q: Can zerg counter this? A: I’m rated at about 1050 in diamond league. Once I get into tier 2, I basically never lose to zerg when I use this build. I think part of the problem is that most zerg haven’t seen this type of build before (all they see is stupid 4-gate play or colossus-centric stuff) so they don’t know how to respond. Q: Do infestors counter this? A: There are a couple of games included in the replays where the zerg gets infestors. The infestors don’t really make a difference. Q: Won't roaches counter this? A: Not necessarily. Roaches will give anything that is zealot/chargelot reliant a lot of problems. However, you can easily adjust your composition to deal with roaches by adding some sentries, stalkers, immortal, and/or void rays. All of these are readily available units that you can build on the fly. Q: Won’t the zerg be able to kill you before you get high templar if he brings multiple overseers? A: I don’t think so. Each overseer is a very large investment. Think about it this way: for every overseer that the zerg builds, he will have 2 less hydralisks in his army. Thus, 3 overseers roughly equals 6 hydralisks. That’s a very significant investment. Specifically, it’s an investment that a zerg will not make unless he knows that there are dark templar on the field. Even if the zerg does build those three overseers, he will have a significantly smaller hydralisk force. This means that your chargelots will be more effective against his ground forces (see principal #5 above). In short, early dark templar, when combined with phoenixes and chargelots, create a very ugly mid-game Catch-22 for the zerg. Q: So what are you going to do when zerg learn to burn all of the mana on their overseers? A: I’ll counter by either getting faster blink on my stalkers, increasing my phoenix count, or adding a void ray or two to burn down the overseers faster. Q: Your Tier 1 discussion sucks because.... A: As I explicitly state in the discussion of the build, what happens at Tier 1 isn't important. This build is about the Tier 2 and Tier 3 transitions. These transitions are triggered once you secure your expansion. How you get to that point is up to you. I included my 2-gate opening as a preferred method of getting the expansion up. If you think that you have something better, go for it. I personally don't believe that there is a 1-size fits all Tier 1 build order PvZ. FE, 2-gating, and 1-gate core all have their uses depending upon the map and proximity between bases. Q: When should I get my robotics facility? A: I usually forego the robotics facility until after I have templar tech online. Observers aren’t that critical in PvZ when you already have phoenixes. The phoenixes can scout what the zerg is doing. You only need observers if you think that the zerg is looking to abuse burrowed/tunneling roaches. That said, it is nice to have observers to kill off creep tumors. Q: I can't make this build work!!! A: Yes, this can be a difficult build to use. Anything that involves phoenixes requires practice and finesse. Keep trying it and you'll eventually get the hang of it. Q: You don’t even have phoenixes in half of your replays!!!! A: Yeah, those are my earlier games when I was still tinkering with the build and focusing upon getting storm out faster. However, I included those replays anyway because they have good late-game demonstrations of how the build operates at tier 3 (sans phoenix, of course). Q: Dude, the zergs in your replays suck.... A: Unless you’re like 1100+ Diamond, the zergs that you’re playing aren’t much better (I’m sitting at about 1050 right now). That said, I reviewed all of the replays and noticed that I fairly consistently had more workers than my zerg opponents. The two-gate opening, in particular, often resulted in me having a nearly 10 worker lead early on. Nevertheless, the point of this isn’t to highlight how good (or crappy) of a player I am. The point is to showcase a very strong PvZ build. Because, in MOST of the battles, the army sizes were fairly similar (I had trouble keeping my minerals down at times), you have a good opportunity to see how effective the build is. Besides, I want players who are better than me to take the ideas from this post and expand upon them. That's the whole point of this post. Q: [From Joe Zerg Player] I hate you for posting this. A: Hey, let’s focus the hate on terrans. 
V. REPLAYS
+ Show Spoiler +
As I said at the beginning, I'd love to hear feedback on how to refine and improve this build. Hearing a zerg's perspective would be great, too.
UPDATE - 9/2/10
I've updated the FAQ.
Thanks to everone for the constructive feedback. I'd like to see more protoss players try this out so that we can refine it. With patch 1.1 coming, we need to give zergs something else to cry about! >
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this is pretty sick ^^ i like the transitions in it...i hope you dont mind if i lift this off of you to try it out myself as i hate Colossi/4gating and love 2gating/DT 
as for the possible problem of the overseers not dying fast enough a handful of blink stalkers could work wonders if you cut a few stalkers to get the gas for the upgrade and if he is going hydra those extra zealots would be very useful ^^
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A strategy relying on dark templars as a combat unit is too much a risk for my liking. Phoenixes don't really kill overseers quickly and feedback on overseers isnt a garanteed kill against someone just burning up his energy.
DT play gets alot of free wins even up till the subtop but then it hits a ceiling imo. DT's are glass cannons so as long as the zerg has enough redudancy in revealing your DT he should really be able to kill them really quick.
Colossi, how boring you may find them, are just a great unit against zerg. They combine extremely well with stalkers and sentries which are all great units against zerg. Corruptors aren't that great off a counter either because they are so narrow and take lots of gas. Templar are just not what you want imo against zerg as a first choice of tech because they are so gas heavy and basically need to be combined with zealots. Zealot HT is so vulnerable to all kinds of tech switches (muta's, ultra's) and just weaker then colossi stalker that I'm not really a fan of any strat based on them against zerg.
Also I find that more and more zerg know how to play against stargate these days. The ideal response is forcing them into hydra's so you can expand fairly safe with map control. Smart zergs know that protoss air sucks against zerglings though and will just defend with queens while still being aggresive with lings. Phoenixes only give pseudo-map control, you can fly around the map freely and kill ovies but he can still use lings to attack your expansions. Phoenixes are also pretty much a waste to make much off in PvZ because they suck hard in battle's but at low numbers they suck at harassing, ie. phoenixes without him making muta's is not so smart in my opinion. If you seek to kill overseers later your better off with extra blink stalkers imo.
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I know it's counterintuitive, but I've never really had a problem killing overseers, even without feedback. Thus, having your dark templar on the frontline rarely is a problem. And yes, you should have some AA units other than overseers in your army. I typically have several sentries/stalkers supporting the army. 2-3 sentries, 2-3 stalkers, and 4-5 phoenixes will kill an overseer very quickly.
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This looks really interesting, the only part I didn't like is the part where you're making phoenixes and a dark shrine and starting charge at the same time. That's a LOT of gas even if you take all 4 gases really quickly.
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I haven't had a chance to look at replays, but have you tried sending 1 or 2 DT's directly to the mineral lines as you push out? At the same time have your phoenix force scout around and snipe overseers (if there are any) while you are attacking with DT's, all of this while your main army pushes one of their expos.
If their army is too large to overcome you can retreat with FF while your DT's still do damage, or if they split their army and have some go after the DT's (which shouldn't be a problem with the phoenix killing overseers) Then you can probably deal with their main army.
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Nicely done, I forgot that Overseers have energy, feedback + DT = win
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On September 01 2010 12:31 phant wrote:
I haven't had a chance to look at replays, but have you tried sending 1 or 2 DT's directly to the mineral lines as you push out? At the same time have your phoenix force scout around and snipe overseers (if there are any) while you are attacking with DT's, all of this while your main army pushes one of their expos.
I would do this, but most zerg players build spore crawlers at each of their mineral lines as soon as they see the phoenixes.
On September 01 2010 12:31 Weasel- wrote:
This looks really interesting, the only part I didn't like is the part where you're making phoenixes and a dark shrine and starting charge at the same time. That's a LOT of gas even if you take all 4 gases really quickly.
You're not really doing it all at the same time, and you don't really need to. If you see hydra tech with your first phoenix, then you cut phoenix production temporarily to start charge and your dark shrine. Once those are going, then you can resume phoenix production. You will only need to save gas again for the DTs when the shrine is done. On 2 bases, you can fairly easily support this.
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The problem I have with DT's against Zerg is that often they sneak an ovie in your base so it's like a bit of a hit or miss on whether they scout it. If they do, generally most Zerg do NOT only get one overseer if I have a stargate.
PS. that said, great reproduction of the classic DT/sair
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On September 01 2010 12:47 KissBlade wrote:
The problem I have with DT's against Zerg is that often they sneak an ovie in your base so it's like a bit of a hit or miss on whether they scout it. If they do, generally most Zerg do NOT only get one overseer if I have a stargate.
I'm pretty sure that in most of the replays that I posted below the zerg knew exactly what I was doing and had an overseer with his army. It didn't really matter that they saw what I was doing.
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One thing I want to make clear: I think that the reason why keeping the DTs on the frontlines with your zealots works is that the DTs seem to have a relatively low AI-targetting priority. In other words, the zerg's units won't auto-target your DTs instead of the zealots. Blizzard may change this.
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I like this strategy, I hope it's viable against muta/ling or discourages it, because if there's one thing that a Z consistently does that fucks me over, it's start hydra then go massive tech switch to muta/ling. It feels like bullshit every time I lose to it.
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Hey, ~850 diamond toss here. I've been having a lot of problems against zerg, so I figured I'd try this strat out. Just played a game and dominated. I always feel like zerg is in control and I have to react, but this time it seemed as though the zerg was reeling on their back foot the whole game.
With the pheonixes I was able to hold his intial roach push, as they're not nearly as scary when they're in the air. He had a spire but didn't use it after I killed the first few mutalisks. He went with a big push of hydras, whom I obliterated with DTs because he didn't realize I had them yet. After that he rolled hydra/ling with detection, to decent effectivness. But with my pheonix squard harassing and HTs helping my army, I was able to keep map control, deny an expansion and just out-macro him for the win.
tl;dr: I quite liked this. Thank you good sir.
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I just did this on the ladder; worked pretty good, even though I butchered the start (didn't get stargate until much later, let minerals pile up at one point due to microing the battle, etc. FYI, ~700 diamond toss)
Replay incoming below.
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/69349-1v1-protoss-zerg-scrap-station
Things to note
Dark templar pretty much saved my ass. Lots of mistakes, such as not microing (was attempting to macro) and letting my zealot/DT force get eaten up once the overseer arrived, and not getting HT out since I pushed back and killed off his expo, denied his 3rd, and with him tossing mutalisks in the mix, I figured he'd be too gas starved to really replenish any amount of overseers that I kept killing off.
(p.s. DTs rock hydralisks so hard so fast. lost 2 gateways, but completely destroyed his attacking force once I got rid of his overseer)
EDIT: I just realized how BADLY I roasted the guy's econ after going through the replay. Like, very very very badly lose you the game bad (and if I had actually pushed with more zealots, I would have ended the match there)
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Hey! thanx for the tips. Ive been trying to tweak this strat to my play style. Im not as high in diamond as you but i also only get about 4-6 games in a day atm.
I tweaked your strat in a PvT match as well, basically trading the starport for a robo bay. it worked out well but i did utilize 2 collos
but the DTs were a nice touch, running them in there while my observer watched his tank just set up there siege mode, ran 4 DTs in just ahead of my army and POOF there went his tanks, i had to take the oppurtunity i had right then, i had just strated storm so i didnt get to utilize it however i did pop my 2 HTs mana on his medivacs then archon'd them.
Anyway im not exactly sure what advice i can give so far on your strat, your game-play is really good there were a few points i wanted to make but they were minor mistakes where obviously you were pre-occupied so nothing huge.
Anyway ill post back here once i get a chance to try it vs zerg a little more but in theory this seems to work and muta-ling is a terrible strat to face as protoss. it really plays to our weakness. the best way ive found to beat muta-ling is to do a early stargate into pheniox and "force" hydra.
but my micro isnt at the point yet where i can controll 6 pheniox's harassing and engage his army at this same time, hopefull with more practice though.
But i am glad to see DTs being used in diamond, and im greatfull for your strat so ill do what i can to help
thnx again
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I like the idea behind your build, I play a similar army with no phoenix, because I like to abuse the ground upgrades. I usually get the forge and get +1 before any tech, getting the citadel on half the upgrade, so I can get the +2ground right away.
I also start pressuring with 3 zeas from one gate instead 5 from 2.
I also make DT before HT.
However, now that I read your post I think I am going to add some phoenixes, maybe later on, because with the forge I get an expansion, with gate-core-gate, citadel and +2 half the way done. Maybe I could squeze the stargate if I make less stalker/sentry while pressuring the zerg with my 2 gate +1 ground. Later I tell you how it went.
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On September 01 2010 12:52 xDaunt wrote:
One thing I want to make clear: I think that the reason why keeping the DTs on the frontlines with your zealots works is that the DTs seem to have a relatively low AI-targetting priority. In other words, the zerg's units won't auto-target your DTs instead of the zealots. Blizzard may change this.
i sure hope they don't given that my immortal won't stop hitting the worker to hit the tank or the stalker or the roach
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Long been an advocate of Dark Templar and Phoenix, good to see someone post about it in a big way. Thumbs up!
I would see Roaches and Banelings (not together, but just as being the lynchpin of the response) being the proper Zerg response. This is not saying that is sucks, but I don't think it's undefeatable.
Banelings can splash onto the Dark Templar and you Phoenix can't really do much. You probably won't be able to lift them all either in a Bane/Zergling army. With speed upgrades it's possible that they would be able to force a base trade, which would not be in your favor since static detection is easy to get.
Roaches can just kite the Zealots and can run and burrow against Dark Templar. They are also fairly gas light so you still get to have a healthy array of Mutas/Hydras, not to mention that they are meaty taking 4 (with regen I think) Dark Templar hits to kill one of them.
5. Protoss is the map control king of StarCraft 2.
Leveraging warp in, proxy pylons, warp prisms, fairly mobile gateway troops, and very fast stargate units, protoss has all of the tools necessary by the late game to establish and command map control. The warp prism, in particular, may be the most important late game protoss unit. Sneaky warp prism usage can absolutely shut down an opposing player’s late game economy by attacking and harassing expansions. Yes, zerg are pretty fast on their creep highways, but even they cannot compete with the ability to instantly build units in any psi field. This hyper-mobility from warp in arguably makes protoss the strongest late game race. To fully leverage warp in, this guide advocates a strategy that emphasizes gateway units over robotics facility units.
This really is true, but only when you use these units. Whenever I go into a map control game, I go Stargate and Dark Shrine. Robotics and Templar Archive are for when you want to push the enemy hard or are needing to defend.
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Very interesting! Whenever I creep around the protoss strategy threads I can always count on xDaunt making worthwhile contributions. This post is no different. Well thought out and explained.
Out of the three replays I watched it seemed none of the zerg players really expected or knew how to deal with your unit composition. I will certainly test this type of thing out, it seems to have potential. Thanks for all your ideas!
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Yea, the ideal response to this (if they don't get trashed by the 2-gate) would be roach/ling/bling, with a hint of hydralisks to snipe off phoenixes before they get the overseers, and dodging the hell away from storms.
Speed on 'lings and blings would be essential to splash away those zealots/DTs while roaches tank.
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It looks like a SC2 version of the Bisu build. xD
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On September 01 2010 15:24 ReCharge wrote:
It looks like a SC2 version of the Bisu build. xD
Pardon, but what's the BW Bisu build?
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This build looks very solid and I agree that colossi feel very vulnerable. I do not mind them mixed into an extremely late game build for some back up fire but aside from that they feel so fragile when they're on the field.
Downloading the replays now.
*Edit - Watched the replays. Overall it looks very strong. If your opponent had ran the speedlings in after the baneling bust on Xel'Naga Caverns, the game would have ended right there. That's aside from the point though. I very much enjoyed watching ultras get shredded as they have caused me some problems lately when I do not have two robos up late game for a quick ultra switch.
My concern with this build is the same as most shared here. Detection. In a couple of the metalopolis games in particular I saw 3-4 idle overseers on the field at the same time. If all of these are brought into the fray at low energy and actually WITH the ultras (one opponent in particular loved running his army with zero or one overseer) the phoenixes will have trouble dealing with them fast enough. I suppose when the army composition was roach/ultra this may be less of a problem. And I said the phoenixes because the stalkers aren't getting anywhere near overseers with the ultras on the field.
One other thing to note. In nearly every game, by the time it was approaching the mid-game you had a significant food advantage already from the zerg players either throwing away units or failing to macro properly because of the early two gate pressure. I think this points to a degree at a failure on their part as any success of this build. Two gate is fairly standard pvp/pvz.
I'll give this a try and see how it works out for me on the ladder and thanks for the build.
tl;dr Optimistically hopeful this can work as in reality as shown in the replays.
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Lol this is epic, i tried it today ...not exactly because i was having mouse error for 15sec at the beginning of the game.... so my worker went AFK
![[image loading]](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4130/4947736928_01099d3436.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-144919.jpg)
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On September 01 2010 15:26 tetramaster wrote:Show nested quote +On September 01 2010 15:24 ReCharge wrote:
It looks like a SC2 version of the Bisu build. xD Pardon, but what's the BW Bisu build?
Its a super harass build, corsairs kills ovies, DT kill everything else outside of detection. Particularly the workers.
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Ah, then yes, I completely see how this build is extremely similar to that.
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I often go stargate opener vs zerg if I FE. FE is a completely viable opener on some maps, and IMO preferred over 2-gate again, on particular maps. For example I would prefer to FE on a map like Scrap Station. You can absolutely keep up with the zerg's drone count if you chrono your workers. I usually transition into robo after stargate for Colossi (and Immortals if needed). The reasoning is the hydra timing push can really catch you with your pants down since you invested early into phoenixes and you can get Colossi up faster than HT. Phoenixes also play a role in killing the Corruptors that you know are coming when they see you went Colossi.
Colossi are sort of boring yes, but they are still an incredibly solid unit in this match-up. You should definitely consider adding some Colossi into your army mix in very late games, even if you already have HTs as HTs are the counter to the counter of Colossi (Corruptors and Infestors).
I think you're catching a lot of zerg off-guard with the unit comp. Storm is great vs hydras, but terrible vs roaches when they get all their upgrades, so you need robo units to deal with that. Roaches can just burrow and move away and be back at full health in seconds. I'm also skeptical about relying too much on DTs in your main army. At the end of the day it all comes down to micro, so if you can outmicro them I can see it working but hard to say. Phoenixes or stalkers trying to chase down overseers will get riped up by zerg players who kite their overseers over their hydras. One well-placed fungal growth can also cause big trouble for your DTs.
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also known as commando build in bw - Legionnaire :D
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If zerg makes quite a few roaches and a smaller number of Hydra's it's quite hard to win with this.
I used phoenix/zealot for quite a while on the ladder and it just isn't cost effective against a large enough number of Roaches with some hydra's.
Maybe you've worked out a better version though
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I liked the Idea to DT/Overseersnipe from the very beginning and Ive tested it with success but I dont really use it in laddergames, maybe I'll give this a try.
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Looks like nice strat, but I don't think Roach/hydra army will have huge problems with this build.
Gonna watch replays to see what can I improve vs. this build as Zerg
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I'm a Zerg, but it's always nice to see a well thought through strategy like this! I bet this was a lot of work, nice job man!
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Congratulation for this one, theoretical support, replays support and so on, great full comprehensive guide on PvZ. Excellent.
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After trying it a couple times I still think this can work well. I failed at it but in all honesty I spent too much time thinking and not enough playing the match so my overall macro/micro suffered to a large degree. In my last game, the zerg mass produced overseers, bringing six into the last engagement and kept them rather far back from the templar.
I really think it came down to my lack of early and mid game aggression though. I needed the DTs quicker in order to push back the roach/hydra army and put him on his heels during a stage of the game where he cannot afford to make excessive overseers. I'll keep trying it a bit. I'll upload the replay tomorrow.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
I don't think much of the early game stuff your outlining is very good, or near optimal but I'll leave that alone because I think the unit composition you outlined in your FAQ is pretty exciting. I don't think you really need to open anything special to get to that point since you need twilight council for upgrades so you're going to have access to templar tech if you want it (and you always need something to transition into if he wins the corruptor/colossus war).
You know what you are talking about though, everything you outlined in the spoilers etc is all correct up to my own understanding. I suppose the difference in opinion over the earlygame stuff is mostly due to stylistic differences between us, so I hope that doesn't bother you too much. But anyway, using feedback on overseers is pretty clever, definitely going to have to try this out!
One thing worth noting is that DTs can kill lairs really quickly and if the opponent doesn't have a lair - he can't rebuild detection. I had a friend lose a game to a mothership recall (which sniped his hive/pool) and mass DT because he couldn't rebuild his overseers once they died.
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The couple replays i DLed really don't demonstrate your build in writing at all. Can you reccomend one from the ones you posted?
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What happens if they get burrow, since it doesn't look like you'll be getting any detection in the entire game.
Also is it possible you are relying too much on feedbacking overseers since its so easy to deplete the energy?
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I always go phoenix into chargelots into HTs vs zerg, Ill see if I can upload some replays later of a simmilar style to this. With this composition I like adding immortals since zergs most likely tech switch is to roaches and/or ultras.
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That's just theory, but what would you do if zerg would try to retake air control by throwing some corruptors ( amount similiar to phoenixes) into mix of his air units, phoenixes are pretty bad vs corruptors.
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Didnt read it all but will definitely when I have the time.
Thanks for your long and well structured post! I will comment on the replays when I watched them and read through your whole post
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On September 01 2010 20:40 mx99 wrote:
That's just theory, but what would you do if zerg would try to retake air control by throwing some corruptors ( amount similiar to phoenixes) into mix of his air units, phoenixes are pretty bad vs corruptors.
Corruptors usually die to feedback.
Very interesting and nasty strategy I must say. Very hard to handle and will definitely be played more once more P get aware of it.
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I just get back into SC2, and I see a guide like this. Very nice, xDaunt.
I would complain about the way you've talked about tier 1 and the early game, since there's a few topics you can cover about how the Zerg player sets up against 2-gate in the first ten minutes (ling to ling/bane, the transition period from ling to ling/muta, jumps to hydra, P building at nat for expo to force decisions on Zerg, etc). But I think I can intuit enough from what you've already said.
Will keep some of your info in mind.
Edit: Oh, for those of you with (valid) complaints about the viability of DTs in the front, keep in mind that there's nothing stopping you from hotkeying your DTs to one group and your other forces to another, continually teasing and moving back with the main force and leaving your DTs to soften up your opponent's forces. Often with off-creep units, you end up creating flanks on the fly as the enemy sifts through to get to your visible force. Just make sure to always have some force (HTs, stalkers, air units) a keystroke away to pop overseers before or during the battle.
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Can't wait to try this out! I'm so sick of 4 gate pushes against Zerg.
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I'm a zerg player and I'm wondering, what if I brought all of my overlords into the battle along with 2 overseers to prevent it from being sniped? I mean.. it's going to be hard to click on the overseers when theres 30 overlords surrounding it.
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Thank you for the feedback, everyone. Here are some thoughts on some of the issues that you've raised. I think we need to come up with a name for this build, because the name in the title is too clunky. How about the "Neo-Bisu build?"
Regarding the tier 1 discussion: I purposefully skimped on the tier 1 discussion. The guide is more about tier 2 and tier 3 transitions. Also, I'm not sure how tier 1 is going to work with the upcoming zealot nerf. 2-gating may be phased out in favor of FE builds.
Regarding roaches as a counter: I agree that roaches will do well against zealot-heavy compositions, and in the late-game replay that I included, I definitely had some issues with the roaches at first. However, I don't think that roaches will stop this build cold because the protoss only needs to include a few extra sentries, immortals, and/or void rays to incorporate some very hard counters to the roaches into his unit mix. The zerg is still going to be left with the fundamental problem of having to fight DTs without detection.
Regarding banelings as a counter: A friend of mine (who is a good zerg player) talked with me about this, and we agreed that banelings could do well if used properly. The splash can kill dark templar even if there is no detection. However, I don't think that this is necessarily a permanent solution for the zerg. A protoss can adjust by cutting back on zealots and increasing his stalker and sentry count. Again, the beauty of this build is that you can be very flexible. The only units that you will not have immediate access to are the colossus, carrier, and mothership.
Regarding corruptors: This is where I think that the build may run into problems. If the zerg pumps corruptors to retake air control, you're going to have a little more difficult sniping overseers. However, here's the problem for the zerg: if he dumps a lot of money into corruptors (which you can feedback as well btw) then he'll have less money to spend on roaches, hydralisks, and ultralisks, especially in the short term. So even if the zerg kills your phoenixes, you can still run him over with your superior ground army (I believe that this happens in one of the games on Xel'Naga caverns). That said, there was one game on Delta Quadrant that I lost where the zerg had a ton of money and built an army of ultralisks/corruptors/broodlords. I think that I could have handled it better by getting void rays (especially because I knew what he was doing the whole time and I had more money than he did for most of the game). Nevertheless, it's a very instructive loss. Here's the replay:
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-144977.jpg)
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@xDaunt - Thanks for answer. I will look at replay. I believe that putting reasonable amount of corruptors will give zerg ability to stay alive enough to get to third layer units, where the real strength of swarm is dreaming, and retake at least some air control to expand safetly and deffend. Corruptors are slow so you can stil abuse mobility of phoenixes to just move and snipe ovies or mutas.
I also see big opportunity to use infestors FG as backup for detectors, and to help retake air from phoenixes.
Fact is that your tactic can be really difficult to defend - micro intensive and really gas consuming for zerg.
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I prefer calling it the xDaunt Build because even though it sounds a lot like Bisu build, the way you use it can be very different.
Because as far as I can remember, the Bisu Build is harass with sair + dt/ht drops (both or dt) while building up. This build however may have the same concept of killing detection and making use of DTs, the build concentrates more of owning Z with mass army with DT and using everything else with detection.
Anyway I tried it out earlier with my clanmate. Here's the replay.
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-144995.jpg)
It was pretty hard to constantly produce everything.
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On September 02 2010 00:13 ReCharge wrote:I prefer calling it the xDaunt Build because even though it sounds a lot like Bisu build, the way you use it can be very different. Because as far as I can remember, the Bisu Build is harass with sair + dt/ht drops (both or dt) while building up. This build however may have the same concept of killing detection and making use of DTs, the build concentrates more of owning Z with mass army with DT and using everything else with detection. Anyway I tried it out earlier with my clanmate. Here's the replay. It was pretty hard to constantly produce everything.
I don't think that it's an easy build to just pick up and use. Anything that involves phoenixes requires some finesse. Also, I think it takes a few tries to really understand how the transitions work and where the important timings are. It takes a little bit of "game sense" if you catch my drift.
As for the Bisu build, I initially resisted that name for the reasons that you pointed out. The Bisu build was a FE => into mass harassment. This build doesn't necessarily start with a FE, and the tier 2 play is less about harassment and more about overpowering the zerg. Of course, these differences can't really be helped given that PvZ in Starcraft 2 is a different beast than in BW.
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Maybe this thread is not the best place to discuss, but I do not really get what the point of 2 Gate is if you intend to establish a quick expansion.
The Zealot-Timings for single 10 Gate are: [1] 2:51 / [2] 3:14 / [3] 3:37 / [4] 4:00
The Zealot-Timings for 12/14 Gate are: [1] 3:08 / [3] 3:41 / [5] 4:03 / [7] 04:36 / [9] 05:09
So 2 Gate gains the lead just with the 5th zealot but you have to cut probes in order to afford further zealot production and as far as I read it here on TL most players dont even produce more than 5 Zealots. In addition I cant see a way to afford constant production out of 2 gateways while you saturate your expo and transition to next Tech-Tier.
So pls someone tell me whats the secret with 2 Gate into Expo?
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Point of 2-gate is to discourage/punish early expanding zerg players, while still leaving the option of pumping stalkers out of 2 gates if they attempt to go with a roach all-in counter to your 2-gate. (1 gateway doesn't really produce enough stalkers in my experience to halt a roach all-in) Also, whoever said it was constant production? It is not a BIG problem if you need to stop production for a bit so that you can get the expansion running quickly; just produce out of 1 gateway until things start to kick in.
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On September 02 2010 00:30 Xanatoss wrote:
Maybe this thread is not the best place to discuss, but I do not really get what the point of 2 Gate is if you intend to establish a quick expansion.
The Zealot-Timings for single 10 Gate are: [1] 2:51 / [2] 3:14 / [3] 3:37 / [4] 4:00
The Zealot-Timings for 12/14 Gate are: [1] 3:08 / [3] 3:41 / [5] 4:03 / [7] 04:36 / [9] 05:09
So 2 Gate gains the lead just with the 5th zealot but you have to cut probes in order to afford further zealot production and as far as I read it here on TL most players dont even produce more than 5 Zealots. In addition I cant see a way to afford constant production out of 2 gateways while you saturate your expo and transition to next Tech-Tier.
So pls someone tell me whats the secret with 2 Gate into Expo?
The 2-gate forces the zerg to prepare for a larger rush than what you may actually be planning to do. If the zerg see only 1-gate, he knows that there is a limited amount of pressure that you can put on him, which means that he has the green light to fast expand. A zerg cannot safely do that against a 2-gate opening. This forces the zerg to react in certain, predictable ways that you can later exploit.
Also, the extra gateway gives you some flexibility in the early game. If the zerg is open to early pressure, you can take advantage of it and attack him.
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On September 02 2010 00:22 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 00:13 ReCharge wrote:I prefer calling it the xDaunt Build because even though it sounds a lot like Bisu build, the way you use it can be very different. Because as far as I can remember, the Bisu Build is harass with sair + dt/ht drops (both or dt) while building up. This build however may have the same concept of killing detection and making use of DTs, the build concentrates more of owning Z with mass army with DT and using everything else with detection. Anyway I tried it out earlier with my clanmate. Here's the replay. It was pretty hard to constantly produce everything. I don't think that it's an easy build to just pick up and use. Anything that involves phoenixes requires some finesse. Also, I think it takes a few tries to really understand how the transitions work and where the important timings are. It takes a little bit of "game sense" if you catch my drift. As for the Bisu build, I initially resisted that name for the reasons that you pointed out. The Bisu build was a FE => into mass harassment. This build doesn't necessarily start with a FE, and the tier 2 play is less about harassment and more about overpowering the zerg. Of course, these differences can't really be helped given that PvZ in Starcraft 2 is a different beast than in BW.
I'm glad we agree in this. I couldn't just pick this build up because of what you just said, plus the fact that you need to be aggressive AND be producing something in your base consistently is my weakness. Although after a few games I'm getting the hang of it, especially because I've trying to use Phoenixes like they did in SC:BW since I started playing PvZ so it was easier for me to use them.
Although, getting a lot of phoenix (around 6~8) can let you skip a type of unit (usually HT) because of gravitic beam, you can FF the overseer, then gravitic beam the hydras 1 at a time, making them useful even after killing the overseer. I'm not saying that you might not need HT's at all, I'm just saying that you can delay it a bit because of that and make other units/ expand first.
Anyway great build and it should be stickied or something.
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Going to take me a while to grok this whole thing. But this looks freaking awesome. Great work, xDaunt.
-Cross
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I really like the versatility of the build - I won't go into the many things I like about your build (especially the fact that you NOT totally rely on colossi to begin with) nevertheless at the beginning of midgame it seems as if you'd invest a pretty large amount into different tech trees
just let me tell you what I've been trying lately to clarify my point: I usually get my core early, get 2nd gate before 2nd gas and get 2-3 stalkers + 2 zealots + 2 sentrys and push + expand; depending on what I can detect there are two ways my tech proceeds - I either go stargate + phoenix + more gates + later robotics + bay when scouting ling/mutas; or I go twilight-council for blink + dark shrine + more gates + later archives when I scout hydras
getting both the stargate AND the twilight council basicly at the same time seems to be a little bit unnecessary to me to be frank; the most important point: when you get a twilight council early, you can get blinked stalkers for harass - although not nearly as good as phoenixes for mapcontrol and harass they totally own hydras in lower numbers due to ridiculously easy micro; they also allow for fast overseer-snipes, especially when attack-upgraded;
more importantly, blinked stalkers means he won't SWITCH to mutalisks, which means you can get your templars out
on the other hand, when I go phoenixes I get the feeling of being more succesful with a transition into colossi, because he mostly gets a ton of zerglings....I don't know, don't want to take away anything from your build, it's really amazing; uses all the strength protoss has vs zerg
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The only issue I see with going colossus is that the zerg player WILL produce corruptors to kill that sonofabitch, and that means you're probably staring down Broodlords when hivetech comes out if you don't kill off the corruptors ASAP (if the game lasts that long)
(Anything that discourages a zerg player from going Broodlords is a good thing IMO.)
Getting the TC out asap and getting the dark shrine really allows you to wipe any ground forces the zerg player will have, which will be plenty if you go phoenix. You won't need more than 6 anyways, unless they insist on trying to overpower you with mutalisks, in which case you can opt to just get more phoenixes.
Also, on 2-bases, getting both branches of tech is sustainable anyways.
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I have this feeling that the thread isn't appealing to "open" because of the title, maybe a mod can change this to "SUPER PVZ ROFLSTOMP BUILD" lol. Joking aside, the title isn't appealing to look at, I only checked it because I saw the word "DT"
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On September 01 2010 20:11 Plexa wrote:
I don't think much of the early game stuff your outlining is very good, or near optimal but I'll leave that alone because I think the unit composition you outlined in your FAQ is pretty exciting. I don't think you really need to open anything special to get to that point since you need twilight council for upgrades so you're going to have access to templar tech if you want it (and you always need something to transition into if he wins the corruptor/colossus war).
You know what you are talking about though, everything you outlined in the spoilers etc is all correct up to my own understanding. I suppose the difference in opinion over the earlygame stuff is mostly due to stylistic differences between us, so I hope that doesn't bother you too much. But anyway, using feedback on overseers is pretty clever, definitely going to have to try this out!
One thing worth noting is that DTs can kill lairs really quickly and if the opponent doesn't have a lair - he can't rebuild detection. I had a friend lose a game to a mothership recall (which sniped his hive/pool) and mass DT because he couldn't rebuild his overseers once they died.
wow plexa the lair thing is actually a great point i haven't thought of
that would have to be SUPER frustrating
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On September 02 2010 01:16 tetramaster wrote:
The only issue I see with going colossus is that the zerg player WILL produce corruptors to kill that sonofabitch, and that means you're probably staring down Broodlords when hivetech comes out if you don't kill off the corruptors ASAP (if the game lasts that long)
(Anything that discourages a zerg player from going Broodlords is a good thing IMO.)
Getting the TC out asap and getting the dark shrine really allows you to wipe any ground forces the zerg player will have, which will be plenty if you go phoenix. You won't need more than 6 anyways, unless they insist on trying to overpower you with mutalisks, in which case you can opt to just get more phoenixes.
Also, on 2-bases, getting both branches of tech is sustainable anyways.
Correct. The other reason why you want the TC to be built at about the same time as the stargate is that your +1 weapons should be finishing about this time. I didn't really discuss it, but I always build a forge before I expand and start +1 weapons right away to get ahead on the upgrades.
Edit: I'll go ahead and add that now.
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I've forced zerg players to go all-in with one overseer over their main army after I snipe their lair/hive due to their lack of detection.
Zerg players should always, always have at least one overseer available to roam and 1 for each base they have, especially if they're against a toss, since DTs just facerape if given 15 seconds to take out the main+x number of tech structures.
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From a Zerg point of view, I think that the proper response to this build is counter-intuitive.
The best counter to Phoenixes are not Hydras, but mass Queens*. Both are slow as hell off-creep, but Queens actually spread that creep, and transition much better into the late game.
The obvious late game transition is into Broodlords. By getting Queens instead of Hydras, you save a lot of gas, get tier 3 faster, plus Queens are absolutely amazing with Broodlords. They can heal them, they have the longest AA range Zerg can get, and they tank a lot better, making a Queen/Brood ball very hard to engage.
Now, you'll claim that HTs feedback Queens to death, and you'd be right, as Queens cannot survive feedback** because they cannot waste their energy. However, while you are feedbacking a cheap 150 min/0 larvae unit, you aren't storming the roaches and lings that are inevitably around, and if Broodlords are out, your HTs need to get dangerously close to perform.
Queens can also help by healing the Overseers being sniped, making your DT tech more of a gamble.
At this point the game is probably decided on the effectiveness of your harass, as Queen/Brood is as immobile as Zerg can get, and Phoenix/Warp Prism/Stalker are the epitome of mobility. Still, Speedlings are always a problem for Toss without colossi, so it should make for some interesting games.
Infestors could also play a role in here. Stalkers can't really snipe Broodlords effectively if they're rooted. Infestors*** are also godlike vs Phoenixes. The problem is that controlling Broodlors + Queens, + Roach/ling + Overseers + Infestors is more than most Z could handle. Good thing that your build is equally hard to use.
I sincerely hope that your build catches on, so PvZ can become the beautiful high-level matchup everyone's been waiting for.
*Most zergs will tell you mass queens can never work, so your build should strive for a long time.
**I think the AI screws zerg again here though, as the smart-cast will use the lowest mana unit to cast, rather than the highest, thus you can not get a beautiful army of 100ish mana Queens.
*** Infestors can also get NP, in case you decide to get those fancy flying ships, and Fungal Growth actually hits DTs even without detection.
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CB definitely helps out with the econ loss, but all in all, zergs production capability is either enhanced or hindered depending on how you look at it. On one hand, zerg can overconcentrate on a single aspect of the game (make only drones, mass lings) and succeed in it better than the other races, but zerg loses the advantage of whatever they did opposite of. For example, as xDaunt already explained, early pressure is necessary against zerg because if he is looking for a huge early econ lead, zerg can do it better than anyone else. However, their army will lack more than anyone elses as an unfortunate side effect of greed.
And xDaunt, i realize that you think putting in a build order other than the basic
9 pylon 12 gate 14 gate 16 pylon 16 zealot 18 pylon, you could be a little more specific? i am only asking because i would find it hard to be able to tightly put together this strategy in certain situations that i am not a good enough player to understand. For example, i dont understand how someone can have so much gas accumulated that they can get charge (200 gas) and DT shrine (250 gas) on a whim.
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Ive been doing this for the past week against zerg, but I leave out the 2 gate pressure to get a faster stargate. I decided I wasn't going to 2 gate pressure zerg since reading the patch notes so ive been doing this phoenix build with great success.. I think ive only lost with it once. I go 1 gate, pump the entire time from it, stargate, throw down second gate, pump phoenix.
I also skip the DT step altogether as its a huge gas sink and feels unnecessary. I'm sure they would be nice in some games, and I have gotten them, but usually its after ive gotten my HT's rolling because they are the hardest unit for hydra zerg to deal with. DTs are good mid-late for map control. I haven't really seen too many spore crawlers at all though in response to phoenix, I think maybe 1 game out of all the zergs ive played last week I saw spore crawlers in response to phoenix. What I have seen as a typical response is either making alot of extra queens (same response you get from a void ray opener) or a quick tech to hydras (which is what you wanted them to do in the first place).
I think there are too many variables in a given game to provide strategies beyond just a nice opener, but I will say that my PvZ games normally all look the same, but with some players dealing with the harass better than others. Phoenix leads to hydra OR causes them to send all their roaches to your front (this is surprisingly common for them to go blind roaches, though I wouldnt count on that after next patch when 2gating will be less damaging other than making them produce units and not drones). My response to hydras is normally high templar but you can go collossuss as well, but either way you need to stop pumping phoenix's to get additional tech (I normally stop at 5 max, but try to make sure I have at least 4 at all times).
I just think its really important to maintain a strong gateway army while doing all of this and to have some sentries for forcefields. You may need to FF your ramp when they send roaches early on and you have food tied up in phoenix. Even in an open field FF shits on roaches.
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I've tried this build, and the biggest obstacle is overcoming baneling aggression. I mean, its a strong build, but a decent response from Zerg is just to get roach/bling + infestors (maybe a few hydras to destroy your phoenix). You're relying on a light-melee heavy army. Whenever I've tried it, that is what the zerg responds with, and I just don't have a timely answer to that. (morphing DT into archons is the only quick and reliable transition you can do).
I haven't had much success with phoenix in mid / late game just because of the infestor. Fungal Growth + hydras (or even queens) ruins your fun.
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On September 02 2010 01:39 truckerdaves wrote:
And xDaunt, i realize that you think putting in a build order other than the basic
9 pylon 12 gate 14 gate 16 pylon 16 zealot 18 pylon, you could be a little more specific? i am only asking because i would find it hard to be able to tightly put together this strategy in certain situations that i am not a good enough player to understand. For example, i dont understand how someone can have so much gas accumulated that they can get charge (200 gas) and DT shrine (250 gas) on a whim.
It's hard offering a specific build order beyond what I offered because of how dynamic PvZ is after the first 5 minutes of the game. As for the gas to get charge and the dark shrine almost simultaneously, that comes from cutting gas expenditures after you produce your first phoenix. You should be on 4 geysers by that point, so during that 60-90 second period in which you build your first phoenix and scout the zerg, you should be able to accumulate plenty of gas to either start charge and the shrine or lay down a second stargate to pump phoenixes.
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Good writeup, xDaunt. The combination of units works very well together, it avoids the high mineral gas units that die to counters, immortals, voidrays, collosi, which while useful at times, severly impact your army size. The emphasis on all the gateway units is good. It allows for mobility and quick army rebuild and you can structure the composition easily to counter whatever the zerg decides to go for.
I just never figured out how to transition properly from one thing to the other and haven't refined anything like you have.
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I think the counter to this, without getting too cute with mass queens etc. are spore cawlers. Get those spores at all your expos for the phoenix and dts, and keep the overseers over your army instead of at the expansions. I think the typical roach/hydra ball, with the focus on roaaches into tier 3 is best.
Although, dt drops and overseer/overlord killing is about the most annoying thing you can do as protoss, and it makes me (without high apm) sad because I start to make more mistakes (queen larva etc.)
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There are a few issues I have with this build. First, the build moderately relies on sniping the overseer to improve dps drastically (a la dts). What is stopping the zerg from over expanding and defending with roach hydra spinecrawler/sporecrawler. You simply can not afford to engage with dts when the zerg has detection, unless you have the definite larger army because they are such a glass cannon unit. You certainly don't want 4-5 dts evaporating in the first 4 seconds of the battle.
Especially dangerous is during the lategame battles with ultralisks...If the opponent even gets an overseer out for a short while (5 seconds) all the dts will melt to splash damage. While your unit compisition may stop a zerg from ultra/ling 'ing , it does a little less well against the popular hydra ultralisk composition.
However I do agree that this build offers incredible oppurtunity for harrassment, similiar to how WhiteRa warp prism harrasses in almost every pvt game.
Second is the gas cost, but I have a suspiscion gas is only an issue if you are forced to one base tech AND make gas units.
I'm going to watch the replays next, got good hopes for this.
Oh yes, and...props for not naming the build after your self ^^
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On September 02 2010 01:59 Brutus wrote:
I think the counter to this, without getting too cute with mass queens etc. are spore cawlers. Get those spores at all your expos for the phoenix and dts, and keep the overseers over your army instead of at the expansions. I think the typical roach/hydra ball, with the focus on roaaches into tier 3 is best.
Although, dt drops and overseer/overlord killing is about the most annoying thing you can do as protoss, and it makes me (without high apm) sad because I start to make more mistakes (queen larva etc.)
Yeah, I typically see spore crawlers all over the zerg bases as soon as the phoenixes show up. This makes DT harassment ineffective.
However, keeping a lot of overseers alive over your army is much easier said than done. First of all, feedback has a long range. Second, if you're busy microing your overseers away from attacking phoenixes and stalkers, you're probably not microing your hydralisks and roaches out of psi storm. It's a very difficult balancing act.
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Sorry im not sure how this double-posted. sorry about that
***EDIT**** SHIT! triple post! i think i hit quote when i ment to press edit!!!
DOH! so sorry lmfao !
sorry kinda new to this forum and first time i used once of these ** [ ** /img ** ] type replays
[/img]![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-145013.jpg) [img]
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I have had this tried out against me the last week, and it was not hard to counter imo.
Firstly, vs the kind of ground army you describe, banelings do terrible terrible damage. And for such a gas heavy army (stalker for 50, sentry for 100, dt for 125 I think) with so many light units (zealot, sentry, dt), you won't have the number of sentries you need while still having a healthy number of real combat units. Add in burrow (to wait out forcefields) and the gas-friendly roach, and before you have HT, there is no reliable way to deal with this force. Using the methods you describe. 2 gate can be hard to deal with, but 2 gate is not guarenteed vs an FE.
The second issue is phoenix are great units for harass and against muta, but can't do a thing to corruptors. I usually go ling/muta in ZvP, and if they go blind stargate, I just go roach/corruptor and laugh since you need roughly 2 phoenix to kill 1 corruptor. This means in your uber gas heavy build you have to double my gas investment to win the air battle, and if you do you lose the ground battle.
Third issue is rather minor since this is my personal taste. When my lair morphs, first thing I do is drop 100 gas for an overseer, both for scouting (usually scout a stargate before the first phoenix is out) and detection for observer hunting. As more zerg start doing this due to the prevalence of robo builds, DT harass becomes more difficult.
Just my 2 cents as a zerg player.
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Here's one thing that I want to point out to those thinking that the zerg can hard counter this build by going roaches, banelings, corruptors, or any mixture of the three. What you're doing is not a hard counter to the build. At best, you're putting yourself on even footing with the protoss player by unlocking techs that can allow you to counter whatever force composition that the protoss eventually assembles. What makes this build so strong is its flexibility. When the initial phoenix flies over the zerg base, the protoss won't have committed heavily to any tech path or unit composition at that point. If the protoss sees roaches and banelings, he could very easily skip charge and get blink stalker/sentry instead.
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I have a stupid question, but do spore crawlers retain their detector status once uprooted? If so, it is problematic for fairly obvious reasons. Only thing might be that they are a touch slow without creep.
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On September 02 2010 03:10 ZXRP wrote:
I have a stupid question, but do spore crawlers retain their detector status once uprooted? If so, it is problematic for fairly obvious reasons. Only thing might be that they are a touch slow without creep.
They do not.
This build looks really awesome and fun. I've been looking for a good plan for PvZ (my worst MU by far), and I'll give this a go tonight.
The issue in my mind are spore crawlers, as previously mentioned. The zerg could just expand all over the map with spore crawlers at each base. The proper response is probably to abandon DTs except for defending any mid-game push, and try to pump out a large zealot/stalker/HT army. I guess it comes down to whether or not you've invested in too many DTs...
Edit: maybe blink stalkers for sniping spore crawlers?
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On September 02 2010 03:04 xDaunt wrote:
Here's one thing that I want to point out to those thinking that the zerg can hard counter this build by going roaches, banelings, corruptors, or any mixture of the three. What you're doing is not a hard counter to the build. At best, you're putting yourself on even footing with the protoss player by unlocking techs that can allow you to counter whatever force composition that the protoss eventually assembles. What makes this build so strong is its flexibility. When the initial phoenix flies over the zerg base, the protoss won't have committed heavily to any tech path or unit composition at that point. If the protoss sees roaches and banelings, he could very easily skip charge and get blink stalker/sentry instead.
This is mostly correct. Roach/baneling/corruptor is a soft counter to this build, and protoss have no comitted to any particular tech, but the beauty of it is that roach/corruptor is still strong against most toss compositions and zerg has not comitted to any particular tech either.
Corruptors shut down colossi (and can usually take colossi out before they die to stalkers), roaches are a good all around unit for any composition while allowing agressive play the slower hydra does not, and banelings are a vasty underused unit against P (though not completely without reason).
Mix in some infestors (at the cost of cutting banelings if needed) and let the fun begin!
This strategy seems to rely on a complete denial of scouting which is unrealistic since zerg has the best scouting in the game, and the assumption that the zerg will primarily mass one unit (hydra or muta, which is true of many zergs) without an attempt in unit diversity.
In short, my issue with this build is that it seems the primary merit behind it is it gets wins through the zerg player's lack of skill, not because it is a overly strong PvZ build (though I will not deny it is solid).
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On September 02 2010 03:43 Bair wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 03:04 xDaunt wrote:
Here's one thing that I want to point out to those thinking that the zerg can hard counter this build by going roaches, banelings, corruptors, or any mixture of the three. What you're doing is not a hard counter to the build. At best, you're putting yourself on even footing with the protoss player by unlocking techs that can allow you to counter whatever force composition that the protoss eventually assembles. What makes this build so strong is its flexibility. When the initial phoenix flies over the zerg base, the protoss won't have committed heavily to any tech path or unit composition at that point. If the protoss sees roaches and banelings, he could very easily skip charge and get blink stalker/sentry instead. This is mostly correct. Roach/baneling/corruptor is a soft counter to this build, and protoss have no comitted to any particular tech, but the beauty of it is that roach/corruptor is still strong against most toss compositions and zerg has not comitted to any particular tech either. Corruptors shut down colossi (and can usually take colossi out before they die to stalkers), roaches are a good all around unit for any composition while allowing agressive play the slower hydra does not, and banelings are a vasty underused unit against P (though not completely without reason). Mix in some infestors (at the cost of cutting banelings if needed) and let the fun begin! This strategy seems to rely on a complete denial of scouting which is unrealistic since zerg has the best scouting in the game, and the assumption that the zerg will primarily mass one unit (hydra or muta, which is true of many zergs) without an attempt in unit diversity. In short, my issue with this build is that it seems the primary merit behind it is it gets wins through the zerg player's lack of skill, not because it is a overly strong PvZ build (though I will not deny it is solid).
Well i think that your forgetting if you decide to go bane/ling/roach the protoss already has the VR tech tree open, mixxing in a few VRs to this army, while scouting with a pheniox can then allow you to go HT over DT.
I guess this is just theory but i think the point of this build is how flexible it is while it also allows for maximum harassment and pressure vs the zerg. this will usually cause the zerg to focus more on his army then his econmy leaving him with less drones (every replay i watched and every game i played left the zerg with less drones then the protoss had probes)
this fact alone leaves the protoss in a position where he can out econ, leading to faster tech changes. and due to the already flexable build of this strategy a fast tech switch with a stronger econ will leave the zerg devistated.
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On September 01 2010 20:11 Plexa wrote:
I don't think much of the early game stuff your outlining is very good, or near optimal but I'll leave that alone because I think the unit composition you outlined in your FAQ is pretty exciting. I don't think you really need to open anything special to get to that point since you need twilight council for upgrades so you're going to have access to templar tech if you want it (and you always need something to transition into if he wins the corruptor/colossus war).
You know what you are talking about though, everything you outlined in the spoilers etc is all correct up to my own understanding. I suppose the difference in opinion over the earlygame stuff is mostly due to stylistic differences between us, so I hope that doesn't bother you too much. But anyway, using feedback on overseers is pretty clever, definitely going to have to try this out!
One thing worth noting is that DTs can kill lairs really quickly and if the opponent doesn't have a lair - he can't rebuild detection. I had a friend lose a game to a mothership recall (which sniped his hive/pool) and mass DT because he couldn't rebuild his overseers once they died.
As I said before, I was playing something very similar, and I have a completely different aproach to tier 1. I love to play in an economic style, so I am pretty good at defending with little or no units at all, thats why I force myself to play 1 gate core against zerg. for transitioning into 2 wgate agression.
My transition timer is, no doubt, the forge. If its posible (depends on the zerg, actually) I will get my forge after my core, and try to expand with the wgate upgrade. The forge gets chroned in way to have my TC just in time when +1 ground finish.
After +2 start dark shrine is my priority.
When +2 finishes, if everything is going fine, I will add ht to the mix, and start +3 and +1 shield in a second forge.
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On September 02 2010 04:05 Unosnow wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 03:43 Bair wrote:On September 02 2010 03:04 xDaunt wrote:
Here's one thing that I want to point out to those thinking that the zerg can hard counter this build by going roaches, banelings, corruptors, or any mixture of the three. What you're doing is not a hard counter to the build. At best, you're putting yourself on even footing with the protoss player by unlocking techs that can allow you to counter whatever force composition that the protoss eventually assembles. What makes this build so strong is its flexibility. When the initial phoenix flies over the zerg base, the protoss won't have committed heavily to any tech path or unit composition at that point. If the protoss sees roaches and banelings, he could very easily skip charge and get blink stalker/sentry instead. This is mostly correct. Roach/baneling/corruptor is a soft counter to this build, and protoss have no comitted to any particular tech, but the beauty of it is that roach/corruptor is still strong against most toss compositions and zerg has not comitted to any particular tech either. Corruptors shut down colossi (and can usually take colossi out before they die to stalkers), roaches are a good all around unit for any composition while allowing agressive play the slower hydra does not, and banelings are a vasty underused unit against P (though not completely without reason). Mix in some infestors (at the cost of cutting banelings if needed) and let the fun begin! This strategy seems to rely on a complete denial of scouting which is unrealistic since zerg has the best scouting in the game, and the assumption that the zerg will primarily mass one unit (hydra or muta, which is true of many zergs) without an attempt in unit diversity. In short, my issue with this build is that it seems the primary merit behind it is it gets wins through the zerg player's lack of skill, not because it is a overly strong PvZ build (though I will not deny it is solid). Well i think that your forgetting if you decide to go bane/ling/roach the protoss already has the VR tech tree open, mixxing in a few VRs to this army, while scouting with a pheniox can then allow you to go HT over DT. I guess this is just theory but i think the point of this build is how flexible it is while it also allows for maximum harassment and pressure vs the zerg. this will usually cause the zerg to focus more on his army then his econmy leaving him with less drones (every replay i watched and every game i played left the zerg with less drones then the protoss had probes) this fact alone leaves the protoss in a position where he can out econ, leading to faster tech changes. and due to the already flexable build of this strategy a fast tech switch with a stronger econ will leave the zerg devistated.
This would crush roach/ling/bling, you are right, but is on even footing or disadvantaged against roach/corruptor with a few blings, which is a good base for any ZvP builds. The difficulty of scouting that zerg after he sees your stargate/first phoenix is compounded by the high cost of the army.
And VR tech or not, corruptors do better than mutas do against void rays, and are about as cost effective as hydras while dealing with phoenixes better while still being a solid addition to the ZvP arsenal for reasons already stated.
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On September 02 2010 03:43 Bair wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 03:04 xDaunt wrote:
Here's one thing that I want to point out to those thinking that the zerg can hard counter this build by going roaches, banelings, corruptors, or any mixture of the three. What you're doing is not a hard counter to the build. At best, you're putting yourself on even footing with the protoss player by unlocking techs that can allow you to counter whatever force composition that the protoss eventually assembles. What makes this build so strong is its flexibility. When the initial phoenix flies over the zerg base, the protoss won't have committed heavily to any tech path or unit composition at that point. If the protoss sees roaches and banelings, he could very easily skip charge and get blink stalker/sentry instead. Corruptors shut down colossi (and can usually take colossi out before they die to stalkers), roaches are a good all around unit for any composition while allowing agressive play the slower hydra does not, and banelings are a vasty underused unit against P (though not completely without reason).
That's all well and good, but there generally are no colossi in the build. You won't even see a colossus in any of the replays.
On September 02 2010 03:43 Bair wrote:
This strategy seems to rely on a complete denial of scouting which is unrealistic since zerg has the best scouting in the game, and the assumption that the zerg will primarily mass one unit (hydra or muta, which is true of many zergs) without an attempt in unit diversity.
Where in the world are you getting this stuff from? In most of the replays, the zerg knows exactly what I am doing before I do it and can't stop it. In none of the replays does the zerg mass one unit. I listed all of the principals on which this strategy relies, and those two certainly don't appear on the list.
On September 02 2010 03:43 Bair wrote:
In short, my issue with this build is that it seems the primary merit behind it is it gets wins through the zerg player's lack of skill, not because it is a overly strong PvZ build (though I will not deny it is solid).
Yeah, whatever....
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What exactly is stopping the zerg from just using fungal on your almost entirely melee unit comp ?
It does reveal dts.
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On September 02 2010 04:28 Doko wrote:
What exactly is stopping the zerg from just using fungal on your almost entirely melee unit comp ?
It does reveal dts.
Other than feedback and possibly some clever phoenix usage, nothing.
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xDaunt, I got your point about adding the TC because of upgrades and I think it's very valid - didn't think about that, but phoenixes with +2 will also snipe queens REALLY fast (without upgrades you need 4, with +2 will 3 be enough? does anybody know?)
nevertheless while going for a run I thought about the exact same thing as:
Yeah, I typically see spore crawlers all over the zerg bases as soon as the phoenixes show up. This makes DT harassment ineffective.
this is why I usually prefer getting mass-stalkers with blink for harassment while adding the dark shrine and later the twilight council; I've tried managing two stalker control-group blink harass at different locations recently, it is insanely strong, but I keep fucking up my macro though (I don't want to get into 12/14 gate too much since zealots will be nerfed anyways and it doesn't really fit my playstyle)
but showing up with phoenixes is like begging the zerg to throw up sporecrawlers; ironically, the better your phoenix-harass works the worse will be the DT-harass...because the more spore-crawlers you can expect afterwards; of course I'm not trying to influence you to give up the build, at this stage of the game it's great that there are some who try out new stuff and don't just copy the things that already exist; but what do you think about going heavy with blink-stalkers instead of phoenixes? I am currently low diamond and don't run into many zergs who can hold this...but then I lose a couple of games to terrans and/or cheesers which influences my hidden rating and therefore won't play against better zergs; but do you think this could be viable on higher diamond too? because I don't want to get too involved with a build that has strong flaws against better players
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On September 02 2010 04:25 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 03:43 Bair wrote:On September 02 2010 03:04 xDaunt wrote:
Here's one thing that I want to point out to those thinking that the zerg can hard counter this build by going roaches, banelings, corruptors, or any mixture of the three. What you're doing is not a hard counter to the build. At best, you're putting yourself on even footing with the protoss player by unlocking techs that can allow you to counter whatever force composition that the protoss eventually assembles. What makes this build so strong is its flexibility. When the initial phoenix flies over the zerg base, the protoss won't have committed heavily to any tech path or unit composition at that point. If the protoss sees roaches and banelings, he could very easily skip charge and get blink stalker/sentry instead. Corruptors shut down colossi (and can usually take colossi out before they die to stalkers), roaches are a good all around unit for any composition while allowing agressive play the slower hydra does not, and banelings are a vasty underused unit against P (though not completely without reason). That's all well and good, but there generally are no colossi in the build. You won't even see a colossus in any of the replays. Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 03:43 Bair wrote:
This strategy seems to rely on a complete denial of scouting which is unrealistic since zerg has the best scouting in the game, and the assumption that the zerg will primarily mass one unit (hydra or muta, which is true of many zergs) without an attempt in unit diversity. Where in the world are you getting this stuff from? In most of the replays, the zerg knows exactly what I am doing before I do it and can't stop it. In none of the replays does the zerg mass one unit. I listed all of the principals on which this strategy relies, and those two certainly don't appear on the list. Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 03:43 Bair wrote:
In short, my issue with this build is that it seems the primary merit behind it is it gets wins through the zerg player's lack of skill, not because it is a overly strong PvZ build (though I will not deny it is solid). Yeah, whatever....
Colossi, where did I say you had them in your build? The corruptors are there to make sure you do not transition to them, since many toss I have played love to when they see any significant amount of ground units.
See, you say those players could not stop it. Why not? Because they were unable to adapt from their mainstay builds against something meant to counter said builds. In short, a lack of skill.
But hey, to paraphrase Day[9], there is no point to being right on forums, I should just take what I know to bnet and win games. If you are so intent on the idea that this build is some sort of 100% zerg killer, good for you. I was trying to point out some weaknesses so the more open minded players would have an idea when to transition out so it does not cost them the game.
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On September 02 2010 04:32 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +Yeah, I typically see spore crawlers all over the zerg bases as soon as the phoenixes show up. This makes DT harassment ineffective. this is why I usually prefer getting mass-stalkers with blink for harassment while adding the dark shrine and later the twilight council; I've tried managing two stalker control-group blink harass at different locations recently, it is insanely strong, but I keep fucking up my macro though (I don't want to get into 12/14 gate too much since zealots will be nerfed anyways and it doesn't really fit my playstyle) but showing up with phoenixes is like begging the zerg to throw up sporecrawlers; ironically, the better your phoenix-harass works the worse will be the DT-harass...because the more spore-crawlers you can expect afterwards; of course I'm not trying to influence you to give up the build, at this stage of the game it's great that there are some who try out new stuff and don't just copy the things that already exist; but what do you think about going heavy with blink-stalkers instead of phoenixes? I am currently low diamond and don't run into many zergs who can hold this...but then I lose a couple of games to terrans and/or cheesers which influences my hidden rating and therefore won't play against better zergs; but do you think this could be viable on higher diamond too? because I don't want to get too involved with a build that has strong flaws against better players
Well, the blink stalker vs phoenix debate is a bit of a Catch-22. Yes, the phoenixes do make DT harass harder because of the spore crawler reaction. However, you can't discount what you gain from using the phoenixes over blink stalkers:
1) shut down/strongly discourage mutalisk play; and
2) perfect scouting.
I don't see why this build wouldn't work at the highest levels. I don't have highest APM or best mechanics. I'm only rated at ~1050 diamond. When I win, it's usually because I'm smarter than the other player (in game, anyway). I've found that this build is incredibly effective in practice and I certainly wouldn't have taken the time to present it if I didn't see a lot of potential for it. I'd love to see players better than me give the build a whirl against top zergs to see how it holds up. That's basically the point of the original post. If the build is going to break down, my guess is that it will break down at the tier 2 transition from phoenixes into chargelot/dark templar. So far, I haven't seen it happen.
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On September 02 2010 04:41 Bair wrote:
But hey, to paraphrase Day[9], there is no point to being right on forums, I should just take what I know to bnet and win games. If you are so intent on the idea that this build is some sort of 100% zerg killer, good for you. I was trying to point out some weaknesses so the more open minded players would have an idea when to transition out so it does not cost them the game.
I never said or represented to anyone that build is a "100% zerg killer." In your previous post, you weren't pointing out weaknesses in the build. You were making very ill-founded and insulting assumptions. You're doing the same here.
Go troll elsewhere, please.
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I don't see why this build wouldn't work at the highest levels. I don't have highest APM or best mechanics. I'm only rated at ~1050 diamond. When I win, it's usually because I'm smarter than the other player (in game, anyway). I've found that this build is incredibly effective in practice and I certainly wouldn't have taken the time to present it if I didn't see a lot of potential for it.
lol you misunderstood me, my question was refering to the blink-stalkers - if you think they could work too together with DT and a transition into charge+HT or if I'm missing something here
concerning scouting, I normally scout with hallucination if I don't go for phoenixes
I'd love to see players better than me give the build a whirl against top zergs to see how it holds up. That's basically the point of the original post. If the build is going to break down, my guess is that it will break down at the tier 2 transition from phoenixes into chargelot/dark templar. So far, I haven't seen it happen.
yeah, it's kinda strange that many protoss-players don't use the harassment-potential of the race; there are rarely any warpprism-drops or hidden warp-ins (just imagine 4 zealots showing up in your mineral line out of nowhere in midgame.....some seconds later the same happens to your expo....) and you almost never see DTs; ironically, the only DT time I've seen DTs being used in a high-level game was vs terran; got owned by EMP
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On September 02 2010 04:48 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 04:41 Bair wrote:
But hey, to paraphrase Day[9], there is no point to being right on forums, I should just take what I know to bnet and win games. If you are so intent on the idea that this build is some sort of 100% zerg killer, good for you. I was trying to point out some weaknesses so the more open minded players would have an idea when to transition out so it does not cost them the game. I never said or represented to anyone that build is a "100% zerg killer." In your previous post, you weren't pointing out weaknesses in the build. You were making very ill-founded and insulting assumptions. You're doing the same here. Go troll elsewhere, please.
Well if this isn't a zerg killer, what is a solid counter for this build? It seems like you are intent to say no to the majority of ideas presented.
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Very very good build for practicing micro in engagements. Feedback overseers from the slow-ass HT's, Snipe overseers with Phoenix micro (to prevent death by hydralisk) and stalker sentry focus fire them down. Then micro back your ranged and let the zealots/DT's go to work. Leads to very exciting fights at equal odds.
It's BETTER than robo-first because it has more options against mutalisk/ling play. Completely avoids the corruptor vs. Colossi pain.
It provides EXCELLENT map control. They cannot fight your army without morphing more overseers, which limits their engage-anywhere power. Phoenixes give you frequent looks into where the enemy is and what they have.
It uses DT's as part of a normal army! Not a revolutionary concept, but we've all seen DT's used to harass mineral lines as their primary use.
And WHO DOESN'T like killing Ultralisks with DTs and Zealots. Frequent ending for me, and as seen in xDaunt's replay.
You get to High Templar tech without dying to the roach/hydra pushes, and who doesn't like noisily popping infestors and overseers from range!
Additional note: Most zerg put their overseers into their main army group, so when they a-move into yours, the overseer flies ahead. This is your moment to zap with phoenix/HT/Stalker/Sentry and micro to put your DT's into max use.
Thanks for the writeup.
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On September 02 2010 04:54 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +I don't see why this build wouldn't work at the highest levels. I don't have highest APM or best mechanics. I'm only rated at ~1050 diamond. When I win, it's usually because I'm smarter than the other player (in game, anyway). I've found that this build is incredibly effective in practice and I certainly wouldn't have taken the time to present it if I didn't see a lot of potential for it. lol you misunderstood me, my question was refering to the blink-stalkers - if you think they could work too together with DT and a transition into charge+HT or if I'm missing something here concerning scouting, I normally scout with hallucination if I don't go for phoenixes
Oh, what your describing is basically Tozar's Ninja Build. He wrote a guide for it during beta. I personally don't use it because I'm not a fan of blinker stalker-centric builds. I don't know whether he's still using it in PvZ, but he's basically at the same rank that I am right now.
I don't really know what the current "state of the art" PvZ is at the highest levels because I haven't sought out any replays and the major tournaments haven't featured a lot of good PvZ action. Last I saw, it was still very stalker/sentry/colossus-centric.
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Ive always enjoyed stargate play (been using the antimage voidray expand build, and pheonix in pvp) so im definatly going to give this a go after i study the replays a bit, thank you.
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On September 02 2010 04:57 Bair wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 04:48 xDaunt wrote:On September 02 2010 04:41 Bair wrote:
But hey, to paraphrase Day[9], there is no point to being right on forums, I should just take what I know to bnet and win games. If you are so intent on the idea that this build is some sort of 100% zerg killer, good for you. I was trying to point out some weaknesses so the more open minded players would have an idea when to transition out so it does not cost them the game. I never said or represented to anyone that build is a "100% zerg killer." In your previous post, you weren't pointing out weaknesses in the build. You were making very ill-founded and insulting assumptions. You're doing the same here. Go troll elsewhere, please. Well if this isn't a zerg killer, what is a solid counter for this build? It seems like you are intent to say no to the majority of ideas presented.
I don't know whether there is a "solid counter" to the build. Again, the point of the build is to put the protoss player in a position where he can be very aggressive against the zerg at all times during the game and have the means to readily adapt his force to whatever the zerg does. Once the protoss player is in that position, the matchup becomes a battle of wits and tactics between the zerg and the protoss player. The better player should generally win. That said the basic force composition that I outlined above is very problematic for zergs for the reasons listed above. I'm interested in seeing how they adapt to it.
If there is a point where the build can be solidly countered, it will be at tier 2 as the protoss transitions from phoenixes into dark templar, and before high templar come online. In fact, this transition point really is the most important part of the build. The whole purpose for getting the DTs before high templar is to cut down or even eliminate the tier 2 window during which zerg have superiority over protoss forces. It may be that some clever zerg player will eventually find a way to punish protoss players for taking this shortcut. That said, I have yet to see it.
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On September 02 2010 02:55 Bair wrote:
I have had this tried out against me the last week, and it was not hard to counter imo.
Firstly, vs the kind of ground army you describe, banelings do terrible terrible damage. And for such a gas heavy army (stalker for 50, sentry for 100, dt for 125 I think) with so many light units (zealot, sentry, dt), you won't have the number of sentries you need while still having a healthy number of real combat units. Add in burrow (to wait out forcefields) and the gas-friendly roach, and before you have HT, there is no reliable way to deal with this force. Using the methods you describe. 2 gate can be hard to deal with, but 2 gate is not guarenteed vs an FE.
The second issue is phoenix are great units for harass and against muta, but can't do a thing to corruptors. I usually go ling/muta in ZvP, and if they go blind stargate, I just go roach/corruptor and laugh since you need roughly 2 phoenix to kill 1 corruptor. This means in your uber gas heavy build you have to double my gas investment to win the air battle, and if you do you lose the ground battle.
Third issue is rather minor since this is my personal taste. When my lair morphs, first thing I do is drop 100 gas for an overseer, both for scouting (usually scout a stargate before the first phoenix is out) and detection for observer hunting. As more zerg start doing this due to the prevalence of robo builds, DT harass becomes more difficult.
Just my 2 cents as a zerg player.
You don't mass phoenix. It's just a support unit. You get around 3-6 generally unless you need more vs mass mutas. If I saw a large corruptor army backed by roaches when going stargate opener I'd just kite your roaches to death to stalkers. Corruptors will never kill phoenixes unless the protoss player chooses to stay and fight due to the speed of the phoenix.
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If one survives the T1 stage while teching up to T2 I'd think this build is really strong. Personally, I'm very fond of a chargelot/DT opening while either going stargate or robo later. And DTs are exeptionally strong in front lines as well with alot of Chargelots, I don't see why most people only use it as a harass unit. It fares quite well in combat with other units as they aren't easy to focus-fire while in a bundle of chargelots, and since the zealots will arrive at their targets first, DTs are unlikely to be focused.
But like some before me mentioned, the tech up to your fresh and rather interesting unit composition require a lot of gas. I think there's a certain window of opportunity for Z to strike before you reach all that. When you first push out, how are you supposed to defend against a baneling comp? You will most likely have enough gas for 2 or 3 DT, let alone now we're excluding charge and the initial phoenix. Very little will be left for sentries and stalkers which you REALLY need if Z goes baneling, or else you just gotta turtle, controlling very little of the map and eventually lose the macro game.
Or am I just wrong here? Great idea, btw...I really like the T3 stage of this build.
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Whenever I see DT and HT I immediately have my overseers drop a ton of changelings to get rid of energy...
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On September 02 2010 04:57 Bair wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 04:48 xDaunt wrote:On September 02 2010 04:41 Bair wrote:
But hey, to paraphrase Day[9], there is no point to being right on forums, I should just take what I know to bnet and win games. If you are so intent on the idea that this build is some sort of 100% zerg killer, good for you. I was trying to point out some weaknesses so the more open minded players would have an idea when to transition out so it does not cost them the game. I never said or represented to anyone that build is a "100% zerg killer." In your previous post, you weren't pointing out weaknesses in the build. You were making very ill-founded and insulting assumptions. You're doing the same here. Go troll elsewhere, please. Well if this isn't a zerg killer, what is a solid counter for this build? It seems like you are intent to say no to the majority of ideas presented.
The point of this build is to prevent Muta/Ling domination of a Protoss player. Since you reference Day[9], he would call it a "force." By going Phoenix/DT, you are "forcing" them off of Muta/Ling. You don't win the game you just preclude them from performing a certain strategy that has certain difficulties. If they do something that this build wouldn't bode well against (like say Bane/Zerg/Roach), then you just mix-up your unit composition a bit.
But again, the main point is that Zerg -> Muta/Ling is in the dominant position over Protoss. This is designed to force them off of that build and be reactive and now since they are building units to counter Protoss, we are controlling unit composition.
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On September 02 2010 06:27 SirNeshorn wrote:
But like some before me mentioned, the tech up to your fresh and rather interesting unit composition require a lot of gas. I think there's a certain window of opportunity for Z to strike before you reach all that. When you first push out, how are you supposed to defend against a baneling comp? You will most likely have enough gas for 2 or 3 DT, let alone now we're excluding charge and the initial phoenix. Very little will be left for sentries and stalkers which you REALLY need if Z goes baneling, or else you just gotta turtle, controlling very little of the map and eventually lose the macro game.
Or am I just wrong here? Great idea, btw...I really like the T3 stage of this build.
I don't see banelings as being too problematic for this specific build. If you're worried about a traditional, early game baneling bust, this build is no more susceptible to it than any other protoss build. If you're worried about some kind of midgame baneling ambush that occurs as you leave your base with your army, you should be able to scout it with your first phoenix before you have invested any serious amount of gas into anything other than a stargate, a phoenix, and a twilight council. This is a very small expenditure considering that you'll be on two bases at this point. From here, you can easily adapt on the fly to whatever you think is appropriate to defeat the banelings, such as sentry/stalker.
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Dude, right on time.. I've been having so much trouble with muta ling! Now I have a nice guide to steer me in the right direction. I already asked a few friends who are 900ish zerg who told me to get phoenix and colo or storm.. But now i have a much more formatted post I can come back to.
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On September 02 2010 06:44 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 06:27 SirNeshorn wrote:
But like some before me mentioned, the tech up to your fresh and rather interesting unit composition require a lot of gas. I think there's a certain window of opportunity for Z to strike before you reach all that. When you first push out, how are you supposed to defend against a baneling comp? You will most likely have enough gas for 2 or 3 DT, let alone now we're excluding charge and the initial phoenix. Very little will be left for sentries and stalkers which you REALLY need if Z goes baneling, or else you just gotta turtle, controlling very little of the map and eventually lose the macro game.
Or am I just wrong here? Great idea, btw...I really like the T3 stage of this build. I don't see banelings as being too problematic for this specific build. If you're worried about a traditional, early game baneling bust, this build is no more susceptible to it than any other protoss build. If you're worried about some kind of midgame baneling ambush that occurs as you leave your base with your army, you should be able to scout it with your first phoenix before you have invested any serious amount of gas into anything other than a stargate, a phoenix, and a twilight council. This is a very small expenditure considering that you'll be on two bases at this point. From here, you can easily adapt on the fly to whatever you think is appropriate to defeat the banelings, such as sentry/stalker.
Well, I'm not sure about how 1100 diamond zerg players operate, but at my level (~600 diamond) burrowed baneling traps can be very nasty. Seeing as the robo is obsolete, I fear that your initial push could be screwed pretty badly, although your phoenix might get lucky and see if Z got burrow up. The early game baneling bust I rarely see as a problem anyway, and I don't think this build is weaker than any other against it as well as I think it relies more on building positioning than unit composition.
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On September 02 2010 06:44 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 06:27 SirNeshorn wrote:
But like some before me mentioned, the tech up to your fresh and rather interesting unit composition require a lot of gas. I think there's a certain window of opportunity for Z to strike before you reach all that. When you first push out, how are you supposed to defend against a baneling comp? You will most likely have enough gas for 2 or 3 DT, let alone now we're excluding charge and the initial phoenix. Very little will be left for sentries and stalkers which you REALLY need if Z goes baneling, or else you just gotta turtle, controlling very little of the map and eventually lose the macro game.
Or am I just wrong here? Great idea, btw...I really like the T3 stage of this build. I don't see banelings as being too problematic for this specific build. If you're worried about a traditional, early game baneling bust, this build is no more susceptible to it than any other protoss build. If you're worried about some kind of midgame baneling ambush that occurs as you leave your base with your army, you should be able to scout it with your first phoenix before you have invested any serious amount of gas into anything other than a stargate, a phoenix, and a twilight council. This is a very small expenditure considering that you'll be on two bases at this point. From here, you can easily adapt on the fly to whatever you think is appropriate to defeat the banelings, such as sentry/stalker.
The main flaw I see in your reasoning is that you won't really be able to scout it, if you see a Nest that doesn't necessarily mean he has actually morphed into Banelings yet and typically they morph them only right before an engagement. And since he can switch to a counter much faster than you can, he has a bit of an advantage here.
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On September 02 2010 07:11 whateversclever wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 06:44 xDaunt wrote:On September 02 2010 06:27 SirNeshorn wrote:
But like some before me mentioned, the tech up to your fresh and rather interesting unit composition require a lot of gas. I think there's a certain window of opportunity for Z to strike before you reach all that. When you first push out, how are you supposed to defend against a baneling comp? You will most likely have enough gas for 2 or 3 DT, let alone now we're excluding charge and the initial phoenix. Very little will be left for sentries and stalkers which you REALLY need if Z goes baneling, or else you just gotta turtle, controlling very little of the map and eventually lose the macro game.
Or am I just wrong here? Great idea, btw...I really like the T3 stage of this build. I don't see banelings as being too problematic for this specific build. If you're worried about a traditional, early game baneling bust, this build is no more susceptible to it than any other protoss build. If you're worried about some kind of midgame baneling ambush that occurs as you leave your base with your army, you should be able to scout it with your first phoenix before you have invested any serious amount of gas into anything other than a stargate, a phoenix, and a twilight council. This is a very small expenditure considering that you'll be on two bases at this point. From here, you can easily adapt on the fly to whatever you think is appropriate to defeat the banelings, such as sentry/stalker. The main flaw I see in your reasoning is that you won't really be able to scout it, if you see a Nest that doesn't necessarily mean he has actually morphed into Banelings yet and typically they morph them only right before an engagement. And since he can switch to a counter much faster than you can, he has a bit of an advantage here.
Fair enough. However, I think that most protoss players would know that SOMETHING is up if they see a baneling nest at the zerg base and they can't locate where the zerg army is with the phoenixes. I haven't seen a zerg try any of these shenanigans yet. Maybe an earlier robo is necessary. We'll see.
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On September 02 2010 03:04 xDaunt wrote:
Here's one thing that I want to point out to those thinking that the zerg can hard counter this build by going roaches, banelings, corruptors, or any mixture of the three. What you're doing is not a hard counter to the build. At best, you're putting yourself on even footing with the protoss player by unlocking techs that can allow you to counter whatever force composition that the protoss eventually assembles. What makes this build so strong is its flexibility. When the initial phoenix flies over the zerg base, the protoss won't have committed heavily to any tech path or unit composition at that point. If the protoss sees roaches and banelings, he could very easily skip charge and get blink stalker/sentry instead.
More and more the response I'm favoring towards early Stargate builds is Spire, spawn 3-5 Corruptors to retake air control (after seeing the first few corruptors the Protoss normally stops pumping Phoenixes), then pump mutaling. Have you ever encountered that sort of Zerg response? And if yes, what is your contingency for dealing with that? In my personal experience, as long as the zerg keeps pace/catches up with ground upgrades and dumps excess minerals into lings, the Protoss will not have enough gas off two bases to deal with Mutaling with Corruptors mixed in depending on how heavy the Protoss goes Phoenixes. And if you dropped the minerals and gas into a Stargate and several Phoenix, that normally leaves a window for the Corruptor-Muta to poke into your base and take out probes while you are still transitioning into more Warpgates and High Templar tech, and put the Zerg into the lead going into late game.
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It seems like the Overseer's detection range is actually greater than it's sight range. How do you handle a zerg army who keeps his overseers near the back of a group of hydras so that they're hard to reach, but can still detect DTs on the front line?
It's not too difficult to deplete overseer energy since changelings can be dropped so easily.
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On September 02 2010 07:16 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 07:11 whateversclever wrote:On September 02 2010 06:44 xDaunt wrote:On September 02 2010 06:27 SirNeshorn wrote:
But like some before me mentioned, the tech up to your fresh and rather interesting unit composition require a lot of gas. I think there's a certain window of opportunity for Z to strike before you reach all that. When you first push out, how are you supposed to defend against a baneling comp? You will most likely have enough gas for 2 or 3 DT, let alone now we're excluding charge and the initial phoenix. Very little will be left for sentries and stalkers which you REALLY need if Z goes baneling, or else you just gotta turtle, controlling very little of the map and eventually lose the macro game.
Or am I just wrong here? Great idea, btw...I really like the T3 stage of this build. I don't see banelings as being too problematic for this specific build. If you're worried about a traditional, early game baneling bust, this build is no more susceptible to it than any other protoss build. If you're worried about some kind of midgame baneling ambush that occurs as you leave your base with your army, you should be able to scout it with your first phoenix before you have invested any serious amount of gas into anything other than a stargate, a phoenix, and a twilight council. This is a very small expenditure considering that you'll be on two bases at this point. From here, you can easily adapt on the fly to whatever you think is appropriate to defeat the banelings, such as sentry/stalker. The main flaw I see in your reasoning is that you won't really be able to scout it, if you see a Nest that doesn't necessarily mean he has actually morphed into Banelings yet and typically they morph them only right before an engagement. And since he can switch to a counter much faster than you can, he has a bit of an advantage here. Fair enough. However, I think that most protoss players would know that SOMETHING is up if they see a baneling nest at the zerg base and they can't locate where the zerg army is with the phoenixes. I haven't seen a zerg try any of these shenanigans yet. Maybe an earlier robo is necessary. We'll see.
Yeah, I don't think it's a super huge issue, just something to be aware of. Banelings are by nature very high risk/reward, even moreso in this case because you're hoping for some lucky splash action onto those Dark Templar. At worst you just play a little bit more defensively then you would before, but your Phoenix still have free reign over the air.
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On September 02 2010 07:22 Jopz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 03:04 xDaunt wrote:
Here's one thing that I want to point out to those thinking that the zerg can hard counter this build by going roaches, banelings, corruptors, or any mixture of the three. What you're doing is not a hard counter to the build. At best, you're putting yourself on even footing with the protoss player by unlocking techs that can allow you to counter whatever force composition that the protoss eventually assembles. What makes this build so strong is its flexibility. When the initial phoenix flies over the zerg base, the protoss won't have committed heavily to any tech path or unit composition at that point. If the protoss sees roaches and banelings, he could very easily skip charge and get blink stalker/sentry instead. More and more the response I'm favoring towards early Stargate builds is Spire, spawn 3-5 Corruptors to retake air control (after seeing the first few corruptors the Protoss normally stops pumping Phoenixes), then pump mutaling. Have you ever encountered that sort of Zerg response? And if yes, what is your contingency for dealing with that? In my personal experience, as long as the zerg keeps pace/catches up with ground upgrades and dumps excess minerals into lings, the Protoss will not have enough gas off two bases to deal with Mutaling with Corruptors mixed in depending on how heavy the Protoss goes Phoenixes. And if you dropped the minerals and gas into a Stargate and several Phoenix, that normally leaves a window for the Corruptor-Muta to poke into your base and take out probes while you are still transitioning into more Warpgates and High Templar tech, and put the Zerg into the lead going into late game.
I have seen zergs get corruptors a few times in response to the early phoenixes. My typical response is to increase my stalker count and attack the zerg rather than let him whittle away at my phoenix force and harass me. To get the corruptors out, the zerg has to cut either his muta count or his zergling/roach/hydra count. The usual result of my attack is that the zerg is left with nothing to defend other than his remaining corruptors while my gateway army overruns him. Since I'm already going to be zealot heavy, zerglings, by themselves, aren't an issue.
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On September 02 2010 07:26 TSL-Lore wrote:
It seems like the Overseer's detection range is actually greater than it's sight range. How do you handle a zerg army who keeps his overseers near the back of a group of hydras so that they're hard to reach, but can still detect DTs on the front line?
It's not too difficult to deplete overseer energy since changelings can be dropped so easily.
I haven't seen that kind of micro from a zerg yet. However, if he splits up his hydra force to protect his overseer, I think he runs a risk of getting a chunk of his army cutoff by forcefields (depending upon the terrain). We'll see.
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This is my second time exacuting this strategy in a 600diamond level play.
This being my second time i made many less fumble's and was able to completely dominate the entire game. the zerg had no idea what to do. didnt even gg at the end just quit.
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-145078.jpg)
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On September 02 2010 07:26 TSL-Lore wrote:
It seems like the Overseer's detection range is actually greater than it's sight range. How do you handle a zerg army who keeps his overseers near the back of a group of hydras so that they're hard to reach, but can still detect DTs on the front line?
It's not too difficult to deplete overseer energy since changelings can be dropped so easily.
Hydras are slow. So just don't. You would only want to go face-to-face against Lings and Mutas, if they go Hydras you want to split them up and hit his various expansions. They need Spore + Hydras everywhere, if the don't have one or the other then Dark Templar will just crush it. Depending upon how many Phoenix you have, you can also take out small packs of Hydralisks easily.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but, if you 2 gate in base and realize that your opponent is doing the 5 roach rush build what would your response be?
The 5 roach rush build has room for a fast lair after the initial 5 roaches and lings, including an expo going down to deal with your fast phoenixes or voids on one base since after the lair pops a hydra den can be built fairly quickly. And I think the initial roach/ling push that is designed to harass protoss in the early game is enough to stop you from expanding (Btw, I do realize that some maps can actually block chokes off and prevent any sort of harass on an expo, so I can see how this strategy can be a very great threat).
From what I can see, if I were playing this game, I could 5 roach rush (this is accompanied with lings) to destroy a fairly good amount of zealots before I overextend myself (stalkers will probably come out) with maybe 1 roach loss or so due to kiting. Then at that point I would have to scout your main with my intial overlord to see if you put down a core, have taken 2 gases, getting twilight council first instead of stargate etc. Which would then just become a macro/turtle game for me (defending with hydras and static spines), because I'm almost certain that I could stall your expansion far enough to the point where I'd be just about to take my third as your nat is going up. Then I ~think~ I could do a timing push with hydra/ling (and have a macro'd defense force as I leave because phoenixes will probably snipe all my queens or something if I don't, or drones, either or, or i guess maybe even void ray harass?). This is possible because of your stargate transition and emphasis on gateway units (aka no early robo). And if the game gets any further as to where your DTs are out and support quite nicely, I think I would need to get used to getting rid of my overseer energy right away due to your feedbacks from the HTs (if I can't do that, I guess I'll probably lose).
The only thing I am completely iffy on, is the usage of DTs. I really hate those little fuckers. I am honestly not too sure as to what the critical amount is for them to just snipe my buildings before my hydra on creep can defend (unless I leave some there as a buffer). Though, I think it is critical for you to have your expo before you get dts just because of the massive gas usage which I'm confident in being able to stall for awhile since you'd have to build more gateway units before putting down the expo becuse of my 4-5 roach and 20-30 ling army. But in any case, I've lost many games where a protoss would dedicate a DT attack (8-9 DTs) and just snipe all of my tech buildings, and sometimes kill my lair/hive because I'm not expecting it.
I think this build would definitely screw over any zerg that doesn't have any idea what in the hell you are doing, but I definitely think it's easily adaptable once you get used to losing to it after a few games. For the last month or so of playing, I've not seen many dt usage against zerg, but now it seems to be running rampant.
Anyway, if you're up for a game, I'd love that.
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On September 02 2010 08:21 afiddy wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but, if you 2 gate in base and realize that your opponent is doing the 5 roach rush build what would your response be?
The 5 roach rush build has room for a fast lair after the initial 5 roaches and lings, including an expo going down to deal with your fast phoenixes or voids on one base since after the lair pops a hydra den can be built fairly quickly. And I think the initial roach/ling push that is designed to harass protoss in the early game is enough to stop you from expanding (Btw, I do realize that some maps can actually block chokes off and prevent any sort of harass on an expo, so I can see how this strategy can be a very great threat).
From what I can see, if I were playing this game, I could 5 roach rush (this is accompanied with lings) to destroy a fairly good amount of zealots before I overextend myself (stalkers will probably come out) with maybe 1 roach loss or so due to kiting. Then at that point I would have to scout your main with my intial overlord to see if you put down a core, have taken 2 gases, getting twilight council first instead of stargate etc. Which would then just become a macro/turtle game for me (defending with hydras and static spines), because I'm almost certain that I could stall your expansion far enough to the point where I'd be just about to take my third as your nat is going up. Then I ~think~ I could do a timing push with hydra/ling (and have a macro'd defense force as I leave because phoenixes will probably snipe all my queens or something if I don't, or drones, either or, or i guess maybe even void ray harass?). This is possible because of your stargate transition and emphasis on gateway units (aka no early robo). And if the game gets any further as to where your DTs are out and support quite nicely, I think I would need to get used to getting rid of my overseer energy right away due to your feedbacks from the HTs (if I can't do that, I guess I'll probably lose).
The only thing I am completely iffy on, is the usage of DTs. I really hate those little fuckers. I am honestly not too sure as to what the critical amount is for them to just snipe my buildings before my hydra on creep can defend (unless I leave some there as a buffer). Though, I think it is critical for you to have your expo before you get dts just because of the massive gas usage which I'm confident in being able to stall for awhile since you'd have to build more gateway units before putting down the expo becuse of my 4-5 roach and 20-30 ling army. But in any case, I've lost many games where a protoss would dedicate a DT attack (8-9 DTs) and just snipe all of my tech buildings, and sometimes kill my lair/hive because I'm not expecting it.
I think this build would definitely screw over any zerg that doesn't have any idea what in the hell you are doing, but I definitely think it's easily adaptable once you get used to losing to it after a few games. For the last month or so of playing, I've not seen many dt usage against zerg, but now it seems to be running rampant.
Anyway, if you're up for a game, I'd love that.
I belive my first game went like
2gate rush stopped by zerglings into attacking with 5 roaches.
My initial rush failed but i was able to hold off the roach rush due to warpgate finishing and having 2 cannons up.
(this build is 2gate in forge into pheniox into expanding while pheniox harass, then teching dt+charge attacking, then if attack fails teching into HT as well for ground support or massing more pheniox+stalker is more air support is needed)
The basis of the build is how flexible it is.
How ever this is all theory-crafting. but i havnt lost a single game since deploying this strategy, and PvZ was by far my hardest matchup
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FYI!!! This strategy is severly lacking a cool name.
**(Theniox)***?
Templar+Pheniox?
^^^ god that sounds corny.
Oooo i just scouted a Theniox build....
doesnt sound to devistating. lol.
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On September 02 2010 08:21 afiddy wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but, if you 2 gate in base and realize that your opponent is doing the 5 roach rush build what would your response be?
The 5 roach rush build has room for a fast lair after the initial 5 roaches and lings, including an expo going down to deal with your fast phoenixes or voids on one base since after the lair pops a hydra den can be built fairly quickly. And I think the initial roach/ling push that is designed to harass protoss in the early game is enough to stop you from expanding (Btw, I do realize that some maps can actually block chokes off and prevent any sort of harass on an expo, so I can see how this strategy can be a very great threat).
From what I can see, if I were playing this game, I could 5 roach rush (this is accompanied with lings) to destroy a fairly good amount of zealots before I overextend myself (stalkers will probably come out) with maybe 1 roach loss or so due to kiting. Then at that point I would have to scout your main with my intial overlord to see if you put down a core, have taken 2 gases, getting twilight council first instead of stargate etc. Which would then just become a macro/turtle game for me (defending with hydras and static spines), because I'm almost certain that I could stall your expansion far enough to the point where I'd be just about to take my third as your nat is going up. Then I ~think~ I could do a timing push with hydra/ling (and have a macro'd defense force as I leave because phoenixes will probably snipe all my queens or something if I don't, or drones, either or, or i guess maybe even void ray harass?). This is possible because of your stargate transition and emphasis on gateway units (aka no early robo). And if the game gets any further as to where your DTs are out and support quite nicely, I think I would need to get used to getting rid of my overseer energy right away due to your feedbacks from the HTs (if I can't do that, I guess I'll probably lose).
The only thing I am completely iffy on, is the usage of DTs. I really hate those little fuckers. I am honestly not too sure as to what the critical amount is for them to just snipe my buildings before my hydra on creep can defend (unless I leave some there as a buffer). Though, I think it is critical for you to have your expo before you get dts just because of the massive gas usage which I'm confident in being able to stall for awhile since you'd have to build more gateway units before putting down the expo becuse of my 4-5 roach and 20-30 ling army. But in any case, I've lost many games where a protoss would dedicate a DT attack (8-9 DTs) and just snipe all of my tech buildings, and sometimes kill my lair/hive because I'm not expecting it.
I think this build would definitely screw over any zerg that doesn't have any idea what in the hell you are doing, but I definitely think it's easily adaptable once you get used to losing to it after a few games. For the last month or so of playing, I've not seen many dt usage against zerg, but now it seems to be running rampant.
Anyway, if you're up for a game, I'd love that.
The effectiveness of the 5 roach rush depends upon how the protoss 2-gates. If the protoss employs my version of 2-gating as described above in which he gets 2 stalkers out after building 6 zealots, then your initial 5 roaches won't accomplish anything. I checked the timings, and your roaches will pop by about the time that my first 5 zealots reach your base. Assuming you chase my zealots back to my base, I'll have 2 stalkers out by the time you reach my base, in addition to 5-6 zealots. You won't be able to deny my expansion unless you commit significantly more resources into your army at this stage.
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There is a time window, at 31 supply to 40 supply (for the zerg) where he just rallies zerglings while his own expo is going down (and roaches chasing your zealots, I suppose), and I believe ling speed finishes maybe about 10-15 seconds after my roaches get to your base, but regardless, I think I would just like to play you, I really hate posting theory. I'll PM you when I get back from work.
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I read the OP, got all ready to say something smart about how corruptors give phoenix openings trouble, and then read the rest of the thread and found that others had already done so 
That said, just as you say there's nothing to stop you from cutting back on phoenix production once corruptors come out, there's nothing stopping the zerg from cutting corruptors in a similar way. They are really cost-effective vs phoenix and cost no more gas than a muta, and at the end of the day both players end up with air units that have minimal effect on a ground fight (with phoenixes costing significantly more gas than corruptors to be even in a fight). Once the zerg player regains air control and you stop producing phoenixes due to the corruptors, they could start massing mutas and if you're not 100% on top of your scouting you could be screwed because if you can't start catching up to the muta production fast enough the protoss player straight up loses, in my experience. You can't really say that once there are 2-3 corruptors in the air that the zerg player has a definite disadvantage on the ground that you could exploit with a timing attack before the mutas start to come out en masse...they really aren't that expensive (the corruptors). IMO it seems like no matter what, with the strategies we've seen so far, protoss has to be worried about mass mutas coming out. You can't simply discourage mutas for all of the midgame by producing 4-6 phoenixes early game due to the ease of switching between corruptors and mutas.
You say yourself that the largest timing is between phoenixes and DT/HT tech...it seems like stargate builds are strong in that they give you more aggression after the 2gate but maybe a good zerg could see through the phoenix aggression and just take a quick third with a couple of corruptors to defend the phoenix scouting. With so much gas put into tech (TC, stargate + phoenixes, charge, dt shrine), zerg might be able to power ahead in economy and be in an ok position late game. That's just one option....the other option being massing mutaling off 2base after regaining air control as I and Jopz stated earlier.
All in all, it has its strengths and weaknesses. The transitions are nice and smooth and DTS are badass, it almost makes me want to off-race just to try it.
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Im a zerg and ive played versus this about 5 times with my friend. This build is EXTREMELY strong. I lost 4 times, with different strategies. The only time i beat this was with a good hydra timing push on steppes, the time where the first phoenix scouts you. He wont have DT's yet and his nat should have kicked in so his extra warpgates are just building.
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On September 02 2010 09:28 sooch wrote:I read the OP, got all ready to say something smart about how corruptors give phoenix openings trouble, and then read the rest of the thread and found that others had already done so That said, just as you say there's nothing to stop you from cutting back on phoenix production once corruptors come out, there's nothing stopping the zerg from cutting corruptors in a similar way. They are really cost-effective vs phoenix and cost no more gas than a muta, and at the end of the day both players end up with air units that have minimal effect on a ground fight (with phoenixes costing significantly more gas than corruptors to be even in a fight). Once the zerg player regains air control and you stop producing phoenixes due to the corruptors, they could start massing mutas and if you're not 100% on top of your scouting you could be screwed because if you can't start catching up to the muta production fast enough the protoss player straight up loses, in my experience. You can't really say that once there are 2-3 corruptors in the air that the zerg player has a definite disadvantage on the ground that you could exploit with a timing attack before the mutas start to come out en masse...they really aren't that expensive (the corruptors). IMO it seems like no matter what, with the strategies we've seen so far, protoss has to be worried about mass mutas coming out. You can't simply discourage mutas for all of the midgame by producing 4-6 phoenixes early game due to the ease of switching between corruptors and mutas. You say yourself that the largest timing is between phoenixes and DT/HT tech...it seems like stargate builds are strong in that they give you more aggression after the 2gate but maybe a good zerg could see through the phoenix aggression and just take a quick third with a couple of corruptors to defend the phoenix scouting. With so much gas put into tech (TC, stargate + phoenixes, charge, dt shrine), zerg might be able to power ahead in economy and be in an ok position late game. That's just one option....the other option being massing mutaling off 2base after regaining air control as I and Jopz stated earlier. All in all, it has its strengths and weaknesses. The transitions are nice and smooth and DTS are badass, it almost makes me want to off-race just to try it.
From what i've read the phoenixes are supposed to deal with the overseers at the start of the battles and since they have much better movement speed than corruptors the protoss player could just snipe those overseers and send the phoniexies away from those corruptors. You said it yourself, phoenixes don't play a big role on the ground battle (after those overseers are gone) so do corruptors, and you would be investing into corruptors thus having a smaller army. I'd like to see what would happend if the z player decided to mass mutas at some point of the game like you said, but imo if the zerg goes mass mutas the protoss could go for a base trade and win easily, right? this thread is really amusing, so congrats to xDaunt. I'm looking forward to keep reading it and see how it goes, i'll go watch the replays now
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I've tried this strat yesterday and get a loss but I think that it sound very promising and I will try to refine my game style according to it.
I was slightly behind my enemy in population during the last fight and I was raped by Ultras+hydras and some mutas... the main problem was that he had like 4 overseer and my phoenixes couldn't kill them fast enough to let the DT survive long enough to deal with the Ultras... maybe I should have switched to immortals when I saw that he invested so many recources into detection?
I'm around 500 points diamond for reference.
Thanks and sorry for my horrible english
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On September 02 2010 18:13 Parrr-Agh wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 09:28 sooch wrote:I read the OP, got all ready to say something smart about how corruptors give phoenix openings trouble, and then read the rest of the thread and found that others had already done so That said, just as you say there's nothing to stop you from cutting back on phoenix production once corruptors come out, there's nothing stopping the zerg from cutting corruptors in a similar way. They are really cost-effective vs phoenix and cost no more gas than a muta, and at the end of the day both players end up with air units that have minimal effect on a ground fight (with phoenixes costing significantly more gas than corruptors to be even in a fight). Once the zerg player regains air control and you stop producing phoenixes due to the corruptors, they could start massing mutas and if you're not 100% on top of your scouting you could be screwed because if you can't start catching up to the muta production fast enough the protoss player straight up loses, in my experience. You can't really say that once there are 2-3 corruptors in the air that the zerg player has a definite disadvantage on the ground that you could exploit with a timing attack before the mutas start to come out en masse...they really aren't that expensive (the corruptors). IMO it seems like no matter what, with the strategies we've seen so far, protoss has to be worried about mass mutas coming out. You can't simply discourage mutas for all of the midgame by producing 4-6 phoenixes early game due to the ease of switching between corruptors and mutas. You say yourself that the largest timing is between phoenixes and DT/HT tech...it seems like stargate builds are strong in that they give you more aggression after the 2gate but maybe a good zerg could see through the phoenix aggression and just take a quick third with a couple of corruptors to defend the phoenix scouting. With so much gas put into tech (TC, stargate + phoenixes, charge, dt shrine), zerg might be able to power ahead in economy and be in an ok position late game. That's just one option....the other option being massing mutaling off 2base after regaining air control as I and Jopz stated earlier. All in all, it has its strengths and weaknesses. The transitions are nice and smooth and DTS are badass, it almost makes me want to off-race just to try it. From what i've read the phoenixes are supposed to deal with the overseers at the start of the battles and since they have much better movement speed than corruptors the protoss player could just snipe those overseers and send the phoniexies away from those corruptors. You said it yourself, phoenixes don't play a big role on the ground battle (after those overseers are gone) so do corruptors, and you would be investing into corruptors thus having a smaller army. I'd like to see what would happend if the z player decided to mass mutas at some point of the game like you said, but imo if the zerg goes mass mutas the protoss could go for a base trade and win easily, right? this thread is really amusing, so congrats to xDaunt. I'm looking forward to keep reading it and see how it goes, i'll go watch the replays now
No, the HTs are supposed to deal with the seers...phoenixes actually blow against armored units such as the overseer.
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I'm seeing a weakness where you're talking about going 2-gate, late gas, cybercore, stargate, forge, and having cannons and 2 void rays by the time Z tries a baneling bust. That's just not gonna happen.
Also, as with any 2-gate opening, you need to do damage to justify your delayed tech and slight economic loss. I've played against openings where upon scouting 2-gate, Z opens with ~2 lings into a spine crawler and ~3 roaches followed by an expansion and a couple more spine crawlers. The 2-gate will do essentially no damage and the zerg player will have been droning hard through the entire aggression. When 2-gating against this minimal but effective defense, I've found myself with literally half the income in the midgame.
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Yes I think that the key is keep scouting the Z to react in the better way. If you see that he is going to turtle then I assume you can stop to pump out zealots and start a expansion while you take the two gas in your main...
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1) FYI!!! This strategy is severly lacking a cool name.
I read neo-bisu build a few pages back, and man, that made me smile and is an awesome name to boot because well... bisu rocks.
2) I won't be able to test this build until tomorrow, but it may be above my current level of ability as a high Gold protoss (although, only just swapped from Zerg and am having much more success as Toss). From what I understand, the DTs give your main army a huge dps increase and remain unattackable - the issue is taking out the overseer fast enough.
Does this build fall on its face if your micro isn't up to the level of feedbacking overseers instantly?
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On September 02 2010 21:12 kcdc wrote:
I'm seeing a weakness where you're talking about going 2-gate, late gas, cybercore, stargate, forge, and having cannons and 2 void rays by the time Z tries a baneling bust. That's just not gonna happen.
Also, as with any 2-gate opening, you need to do damage to justify your delayed tech and slight economic loss. I've played against openings where upon scouting 2-gate, Z opens with ~2 lings into a spine crawler and ~3 roaches followed by an expansion and a couple more spine crawlers. The 2-gate will do essentially no damage and the zerg player will have been droning hard through the entire aggression. When 2-gating against this minimal but effective defense, I've found myself with literally half the income in the midgame.
I don't really understand this post. As stated in the original post, what happens at tier 1 isn't particularly important for the purposes of this build. The build predominantly concerns the tier 2 and tier 3 transitions after you have your expansion up. How you get there is up to you. I don't think that there is one good, rigid build order for tier 1 in all PvZs. The optimal build order, whether it be FE, 1-gate core, or 2-gate, is going to depend upon a number of things such as the map, proximity between bases, etc. I don't always 2-gate, and even when I do 2-gate, I often cut zealot production early to get tech going faster if I see the zerg doing something that I can exploit. It all depends.
I also think you really misunderstand what the 2-gate opening does. By opening 2-gate, you FORCE the zerg to react in certain predictable ways, such as cutting his economy to produce spine crawlers, lots of lings, or roaches. You don't even have to attack when 2-gating to hurt the zerg. Two-gating almost shuts down zerg FE builds (again, depending upon the map and proximity). That is DAMAGE to the zerg. Watch a replay and compare zerg and protoss worker counts when the protoss 2-gates and the zerg reacts. Again, that difference in workers IS DAMAGE to the zerg. This is why Blizzard is nerfing zealot buildtime. If you just robotically FE as toss every game, the zerg will FE every game as well, pump all of his larvae into drones, and create a huge macroeconomic advantage for himself that a protoss player cannot compete with. These are elementary PvZ concepts.
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I had been thoughtcrafting a very similar build in my free time, I'm glad I found someone else had already fleshed it all out.
I would call this a "No Robo" build, throwing that in there always makes it sound even crazier!
I'd like to ask about increasing the amount of warp prism usage, particularly with DTs and chargelots, and later HTs.
When is it feasible to start the Robo and start making a couple Warp Prisms? Should we get observers afterwards just because we can? How early can this fit into the build progression?
Thanks!
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On September 02 2010 23:06 learning wrote:
I had been thoughtcrafting a very similar build in my free time, I'm glad I found someone else had already fleshed it all out.
I would call this a "No Robo" build, throwing that in there always makes it sound even crazier!
I'd like to ask about increasing the amount of warp prism usage, particularly with DTs and chargelots, and later HTs.
When is it feasible to start the Robo and start making a couple Warp Prisms? Should we get observers afterwards just because we can? How early can this fit into the build progression?
Thanks!
Depending upon how badly you need high templar tech (which is a function of how much help you need with hydralisks), you can probably get away with starting your robo right after you start charge and your dark shrine. Gas is going to be the limiting factor.
I don't think that you really want or need the phase prism that early. Phase prism play against zerg only really starts to become good when the zerg takes his third. Then you can really abuse the distances between bases.
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Been using a variation of the Antimage build for a while now. Instead of the colossus, I've been trying to go for HT, but the timing window for a hydralisk attack is huge, so I've been unable to pull it off. This, though, seems to be an effective way to transition from void rays to templar tech. I was already using phoenixes to some degree, but I think if I start with 2 void rays => pump phoenixes, then tech to DTs with a photon cannon or two at my natural, I should be okay to a early hydra push. Also, I'll have the void rays, which I could precharge on my nexus and handle the hydras quite well.
But then again, when I played vs Artosis, his hydralisk push came before my first colossus was out, so I'm not so sure.
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On September 02 2010 22:47 Moreboom wrote:
2) I won't be able to test this build until tomorrow, but it may be above my current level of ability as a high Gold protoss (although, only just swapped from Zerg and am having much more success as Toss). From what I understand, the DTs give your main army a huge dps increase and remain unattackable - the issue is taking out the overseer fast enough.
Does this build fall on its face if your micro isn't up to the level of feedbacking overseers instantly?
I don't think that you need to kill the overseers "instantly," but if you're not fast enough on the trigger, yeah, you're going to have problems. You'll be relying very heavily upon the dark templar in many situations.
This is a fairly complicated and difficult build to use. I'm not sure that I'd use it if you're below diamond (you probably don't need it and would be better served by practicing your mechanics). That said, give it a whirl and see how you do with it. If you can use it and like it, fantastic.
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On September 02 2010 23:37 Khrane wrote:
Been using a variation of the Antimage build for a while now. Instead of the colossus, I've been trying to go for HT, but the timing window for a hydralisk attack is huge, so I've been unable to pull it off. This, though, seems to be an effective way to transition from void rays to templar tech. I was already using phoenixes to some degree, but I think if I start with 2 void rays => pump phoenixes, then tech to DTs with a photon cannon or two at my natural, I should be okay to a early hydra push. Also, I'll have the void rays, which I could precharge on my nexus and handle the hydras quite well.
But then again, when I played vs Artosis, his hydralisk push came before my first colossus was out, so I'm not so sure.
Yep, cutting down that tier 3 transition period by getting the DTs out early is the whole point of this build. I'm very interested in seeing whether a player like Artosis can still abuse the Tier2/Tier3 window with hydras against a toss using this build.
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I really do not know where this idea of corruptors allowing zerg to retake map control come from. Mutalisk damage (if you count bounce damage) actually does more dps than a corruptor to a phoenix. Corruptors are even slower than mutas so a player with phoenixes never has to fight a corruptor if he doesn't want to. And even if you do engage if they have a muta/corruptor mix, just focus down the mutas and fly away. The zerg player will have to invest a significant amount of resources to retake air dominance, and it's debatable if that is not better achieved by just making more mutas than a muta/corruptor mix.
I really do not think corruptors are the way to go if you're zerg. I'm not a zerg player nor have I ever tried this build (I usually go robo for colossi after stargate opener due to the threat of a hydra push from your T2 -> T3 transition), but I can't imagine how Infestors wouldn't throw a huge wrench in this unit composition, given equal micro among both players. It is easy to dump energy on infestors be hedge against feedback, and it is easier to fungal growth phoenixes and obliterate them w/ hydras than it is using them to pick off infestors or overseers.
Even if you can kill the infestors it's highly unlikely it can be done before the critical fungal growths hit your zealots & DTs. It's somewhat similar in PvT w/ ghosts and HT. Theoretically ghosts counter HT but it's just not feasible that you will be able to emp all of his HT before he throws down a few round of storms.
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I had someone try this build on me (zerg) today, and I thought I'd share the results. He went zealots, I went banelings so he understandably stayed back. He went phoenix, I built a spore crawler in every expo. He went DT, my spore crawlers to counter the phoenix harass detected him and he failed miserably. He went HT and did some nice drop/warp-in harass but at this point my army was too big (ultras out).
I think since it was a new build for him his execution wasn't that great (he said so himself), but the baneling/spore crawler thing seems like a big problem. Skipping DT seems better if your opponent gets spore crawlers. I don't think the build is bad, but I also don't think you can always execute it without fail.
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On September 03 2010 01:45 Glacius0 wrote:
I had someone try this build on me (zerg) today, and I thought I'd share the results. He went zealots, I went banelings so he understandably stayed back. He went phoenix, I built a spore crawler in every expo. He went DT, my spore crawlers to counter the phoenix harass detected him and he failed miserably. He went HT and did some nice drop/warp-in harass but at this point my army was too big (ultras out).
I think since it was a new build for him his execution wasn't that great (he said so himself), but the baneling/spore crawler thing seems like a big problem. Skipping DT seems better if your opponent gets spore crawlers. I don't think the build is bad, but I also don't think you can always execute it without fail.
A few questions about the game:
1) What did the protoss try to do with the phoenixes and DTs?
2) What was your mid-game, pre-ultra army composition? Banelings and what else?
3) Were there any battles in the open field? If so, how did those go and what were the force compositions?
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On September 02 2010 22:48 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 21:12 kcdc wrote:
I'm seeing a weakness where you're talking about going 2-gate, late gas, cybercore, stargate, forge, and having cannons and 2 void rays by the time Z tries a baneling bust. That's just not gonna happen.
Also, as with any 2-gate opening, you need to do damage to justify your delayed tech and slight economic loss. I've played against openings where upon scouting 2-gate, Z opens with ~2 lings into a spine crawler and ~3 roaches followed by an expansion and a couple more spine crawlers. The 2-gate will do essentially no damage and the zerg player will have been droning hard through the entire aggression. When 2-gating against this minimal but effective defense, I've found myself with literally half the income in the midgame. I don't really understand this post. As stated in the original post, what happens at tier 1 isn't particularly important for the purposes of this build. The build predominantly concerns the tier 2 and tier 3 transitions after you have your expansion up. How you get there is up to you. I don't think that there is one good, rigid build order for tier 1 in all PvZs. The optimal build order, whether it be FE, 1-gate core, or 2-gate, is going to depend upon a number of things such as the map, proximity between bases, etc. I don't always 2-gate, and even when I do 2-gate, I often cut zealot production early to get tech going faster if I see the zerg doing something that I can exploit. It all depends. I also think you really misunderstand what the 2-gate opening does. By opening 2-gate, you FORCE the zerg to react in certain predictable ways, such as cutting his economy to produce spine crawlers, lots of lings, or roaches. You don't even have to attack when 2-gating to hurt the zerg. Two-gating almost shuts down zerg FE builds (again, depending upon the map and proximity). That is DAMAGE to the zerg. Watch a replay and compare zerg and protoss worker counts when the protoss 2-gates and the zerg reacts. Again, that difference in workers IS DAMAGE to the zerg. This is why Blizzard is nerfing zealot buildtime. If you just robotically FE as toss every game, the zerg will FE every game as well, pump all of his larvae into drones, and create a huge macroeconomic advantage for himself that a protoss player cannot compete with. These are elementary PvZ concepts.
Ok....we disagree about what 2-gating forces from Z....Your reply makes it sound like you believe a 2-gating P will always be able to get a worker advantage against Z and will always be able to prevent a FE. I strongly disagree, but like you said, this threadis more about the tech progression from phoenixes to DTs to HTs, and is not the place for a discussion about 2-gating vs Z. For purposes of discussing your proprosed tech progression, we'll hopefully be able to agree that it's possible for Zerg to enter the mid-game on at least equal ground against any Protoss opening.
As for that tech progression, against a Z with equal economy, I think there are more efficient ways to go. I'd skip the DT's in favor of earlier and more HT's honestly. You're winning because you've been able to (1) secure an economic lead in the early game, and (2) eliminate Z's detection. You can't count on #1, however, because a 2-gate does not ensure an economic lead against a capable Zer player. As for #2, feedbacking overseers will work a lot on ladder, but it's not a permanent solution since the Zerg player can easily drain their energy. Then you're stuck blinking into a force of zerglings, roaches and hydras trying to snipe overseers....and you will lose even-resource fights. Z needs to spend 200/200 on detection, but you have phoenixes which aren't shooting anything and stalkers and DT's that aren't cost-efficient in a straight up fight.
Anyway, using phoenixes to corral Z toward hydras instead of mutas is a viable idea. I find that blink stalkers deal with mutas decently enough, and phoenixes aren't particularly useful beyond discouraging mutas, so I prefer not to make that investment. It's a matter of preference tho--early phoenixes definitely can be good.
The big problems with this build are (1) you're assuming that 2-gating will grant you an economic lead, and (2) your army isn't cost-efficient if Z can keep detection. It's still a decent build that will work well on ladder up to a point. It's just not quite stable.
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Wont the new patch mess up this build since it will make 2 gate pushes much slower?
Maybe adjust it to a FE...
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On September 03 2010 02:14 kcdc wrote:The big problems with this build are (1) you're assuming that 2-gating will grant you an economic lead, and (2) your army isn't cost-efficient if Z can keep detection. It's still a decent build that will work well on ladder up to a point. It's just not quite stable.
I don't really see how this army is not cost-efficient. Phoenix/Zealot is already efficient against Muta/Ling. Overseer with Speed (which they'll likely want so they can be mobile) is already 250/200 compared to a Dark Shrine's 100/250.
You could screw it up by building too many DT's, but that's on you as they have to respond to the threat of DT's, whereas you only have to respond to the reality of detection.
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On September 03 2010 01:24 Skyro wrote:
I really do not know where this idea of corruptors allowing zerg to retake map control come from. Mutalisk damage (if you count bounce damage) actually does more dps than a corruptor to a phoenix. Corruptors are even slower than mutas so a player with phoenixes never has to fight a corruptor if he doesn't want to. And even if you do engage if they have a muta/corruptor mix, just focus down the mutas and fly away. The zerg player will have to invest a significant amount of resources to retake air dominance, and it's debatable if that is not better achieved by just making more mutas than a muta/corruptor mix.
I really do not think corruptors are the way to go if you're zerg. I'm not a zerg player nor have I ever tried this build (I usually go robo for colossi after stargate opener due to the threat of a hydra push from your T2 -> T3 transition), but I can't imagine how Infestors wouldn't throw a huge wrench in this unit composition, given equal micro among both players. It is easy to dump energy on infestors be hedge against feedback, and it is easier to fungal growth phoenixes and obliterate them w/ hydras than it is using them to pick off infestors or overseers.
Even if you can kill the infestors it's highly unlikely it can be done before the critical fungal growths hit your zealots & DTs. It's somewhat similar in PvT w/ ghosts and HT. Theoretically ghosts counter HT but it's just not feasible that you will be able to emp all of his HT before he throws down a few round of storms.
Even if corruptors have worse DPS than mutas against phoenixes, phoenixes' dps is EVEN WORSE vs corruptors because of their base armor of 2, which reduces phoenix damage to 6 per volley of 2 shots. That's terrible. On top of that, corruptors have 80 more hp than mutas AND outrange phoenixes by 2. The point of the corruptors is not to kill the phoenixes, although they can certainly do that if the protoss player decides to engage, but to protect the muta numbers while they grow to critical mass or protect your air while massing up some ground unit. If the protoss doesn't engage with the phoenixes, voila, you have air control which was the goal of building the corruptors in the first place. You aren't a zerg player and have never tried the build...but you don't think corruptors are the way to go :/
TBH against P that 1gate/2gate stargate, I almost never build hydras, because I know if I do I'm just falling into the tech path that the protoss player wants to take. I've had success with massing roach on 2 bases and then attacking before the colossus numbers get above 2, or before HTs can really start coming onto the field seriously.
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When do you add your Robo for this?
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On September 03 2010 02:14 kcdc wrote:
For purposes of discussing your proprosed tech progression, we'll hopefully be able to agree that it's possible for Zerg to enter the mid-game on at least equal ground against any Protoss opening.
Yes, I agree with this, and depending upon the map, I believe that it is inevitable.
On September 03 2010 02:14 kcdc wrote:
As for that tech progression, against a Z with equal economy, I think there are more efficient ways to go. I'd skip the DT's in favor of earlier and more HT's honestly. You're winning because you've been able to (1) secure an economic lead in the early game, and (2) eliminate Z's detection. You can't count on #1, however, because a 2-gate does not ensure an economic lead against a capable Zer player. As for #2, feedbacking overseers will work a lot on ladder, but it's not a permanent solution since the Zerg player can easily drain their energy. Then you're stuck blinking into a force of zerglings, roaches and hydras trying to snipe overseers....and you will lose even-resource fights. Z needs to spend 200/200 on detection, but you have phoenixes which aren't shooting anything and stalkers and DT's that aren't cost-efficient in a straight up fight.
....
The big problems with this build are (1) you're assuming that 2-gating will grant you an economic lead, and (2) your army isn't cost-efficient if Z can keep detection. It's still a decent build that will work well on ladder up to a point. It's just not quite stable.
Ok, I disagree that the build is dependent upon securing an economic lead at tier 1. Even though I have the larger economy in most of the replays, the zerg, at one point in each of those games, has a larger army than I do when we engage in the mid game because I have been pumping workers and he has been cutting drones.
I also disagree that the build is dependent upon feedbacking overseers. I wouldn't introduce a build that is founded entirely upon a gimmick such as that. Is the build dependent upon killing overseers? Yes, and especially before you get your high templar on the field. Phoenixes, feedback, stalkers, and sentries all contribute to killing the overseers. If you watch some of the replays, a lot of battles are fought when dark templar and phoenixes are on the field but high templar are not.
I also think that you're missing the point of getting the dark templar before high templar. The point is to get a force out onto the field that can be aggressive against the zerg quicker. This eases the transition from tier 2 into tier 3, which is usually very time- and resource-intensive. It is during this transition period that zerg's usually are able to either take extra bases or put a lot of pressure on the protoss. The whole point of the build is to eliminate this period. I absolutely agree that high templar are better unit to have in the long run, which is why I advocate getting them ASAP after the dark templar are up.
I strongly suggest that you give the build a few tries to see how it works. Again, it's complicated, and some of the dynamics aren't obvious.
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On September 03 2010 02:40 ThatsNoMoon wrote:
Wont the new patch mess up this build since it will make 2 gate pushes much slower?
Maybe adjust it to a FE...
The new patch will mess up 2-gating. But this build doesn't require 2-gating to work, so the patch won't effect it.
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On September 03 2010 03:00 sooch wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2010 01:24 Skyro wrote:
I really do not know where this idea of corruptors allowing zerg to retake map control come from. Mutalisk damage (if you count bounce damage) actually does more dps than a corruptor to a phoenix. Corruptors are even slower than mutas so a player with phoenixes never has to fight a corruptor if he doesn't want to. And even if you do engage if they have a muta/corruptor mix, just focus down the mutas and fly away. The zerg player will have to invest a significant amount of resources to retake air dominance, and it's debatable if that is not better achieved by just making more mutas than a muta/corruptor mix.
I really do not think corruptors are the way to go if you're zerg. I'm not a zerg player nor have I ever tried this build (I usually go robo for colossi after stargate opener due to the threat of a hydra push from your T2 -> T3 transition), but I can't imagine how Infestors wouldn't throw a huge wrench in this unit composition, given equal micro among both players. It is easy to dump energy on infestors be hedge against feedback, and it is easier to fungal growth phoenixes and obliterate them w/ hydras than it is using them to pick off infestors or overseers.
Even if you can kill the infestors it's highly unlikely it can be done before the critical fungal growths hit your zealots & DTs. It's somewhat similar in PvT w/ ghosts and HT. Theoretically ghosts counter HT but it's just not feasible that you will be able to emp all of his HT before he throws down a few round of storms. Even if corruptors have worse DPS than mutas against phoenixes, phoenixes' dps is EVEN WORSE vs corruptors because of their base armor of 2, which reduces phoenix damage to 6 per volley of 2 shots. That's terrible. On top of that, corruptors have 80 more hp than mutas AND outrange phoenixes by 2. The point of the corruptors is not to kill the phoenixes, although they can certainly do that if the protoss player decides to engage, but to protect the muta numbers while they grow to critical mass or protect your air while massing up some ground unit. If the protoss doesn't engage with the phoenixes, voila, you have air control which was the goal of building the corruptors in the first place. You aren't a zerg player and have never tried the build...but you don't think corruptors are the way to go :/ TBH against P that 1gate/2gate stargate, I almost never build hydras, because I know if I do I'm just falling into the tech path that the protoss player wants to take. I've had success with massing roach on 2 bases and then attacking before the colossus numbers get above 2, or before HTs can really start coming onto the field seriously.
I think you don't understand what I'm trying to say. What forces a protoss player to attack your corruptors with phoenixes? Nothing. You can literally come in with your phoenix force, focus down the mutas, and fly away. Now you have a useless corruptor army floating around doing nothing, while I likely have a superior ground army stomping your base. Corruptors also only have a marginal effect in preventing phoenixes kiting your mutas because corruptors are slower than mutas. This, along with the fact protoss usually uses a combination of phoenix and stalkers (who corruptors are useless against) in response to mutas, is why I said it is debatable whether corruptors are even worth it if your goal is muta harass and air dominance vs phoenixes. If a protoss player is stupid enough to engage with his phoenixes w/o stalker and sentry report, don't micro at all, and focus fire your corruptors instead of mutas, then yes corruptors would be worth it in that scenario. I somehow doubt that is a safe bet however.
I am not a zerg player and have never tried the build as I've stated, but I also did state I often go with a stargate opener into phoenixes when I FE on certain maps and I was strictly talking about the mid-game aka T2 time period which would be exactly the same T2 as this build. I diverge in T3 where I choose to go robo rather than templar tech, usually because the appearance of phoenixes often causes zerg to go hydras, and causes a slower transition into corruptors. This would actually be a case where I wouldn't go for colossi since there would already be a lot of corruptors on the field. So I can say from experience corruptors do not do much for zerg in this particular scenario.
I suppose there is some benefit in corruptors in that they help with a transition in broodlords or hedge against colossi (though a protoss player could easily go templar tech since he'll see your corruptors in T2), but I was just countering the point that a few corruptors in T2/mid-game somehow magically makes zerg regain air dominance and enhances muta harass against phoenixes, which I point out is clearly not the case.
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On September 02 2010 21:12 kcdc wrote:
I'm seeing a weakness where you're talking about going 2-gate, late gas, cybercore, stargate, forge, and having cannons and 2 void rays by the time Z tries a baneling bust. That's just not gonna happen.
Also, as with any 2-gate opening, you need to do damage to justify your delayed tech and slight economic loss. I've played against openings where upon scouting 2-gate, Z opens with ~2 lings into a spine crawler and ~3 roaches followed by an expansion and a couple more spine crawlers. The 2-gate will do essentially no damage and the zerg player will have been droning hard through the entire aggression. When 2-gating against this minimal but effective defense, I've found myself with literally half the income in the midgame.
maybe i get this wrong but:
protoss: 5 zealots = 500 minerals + slight(!) eco damage
zerg: 2lings = 50minerals, 3 roach = 225minerals + 75 gas, 1 spinecrawler = 150minerals.
that are 425 minerals, 75 gas + the loss of larvae and it gets much worse for z the more spinecrawler he builds. zerg also gets a eco loss!
seems like an equal "loss"
you also dont need to suicide your 5 zealots, just back up if he has >1 spinecrawler and your just fine
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On September 03 2010 03:03 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2010 02:14 kcdc wrote:
For purposes of discussing your proprosed tech progression, we'll hopefully be able to agree that it's possible for Zerg to enter the mid-game on at least equal ground against any Protoss opening.
Yes, I agree with this, and depending upon the map, I believe that it is inevitable. Show nested quote +On September 03 2010 02:14 kcdc wrote:
As for that tech progression, against a Z with equal economy, I think there are more efficient ways to go. I'd skip the DT's in favor of earlier and more HT's honestly. You're winning because you've been able to (1) secure an economic lead in the early game, and (2) eliminate Z's detection. You can't count on #1, however, because a 2-gate does not ensure an economic lead against a capable Zer player. As for #2, feedbacking overseers will work a lot on ladder, but it's not a permanent solution since the Zerg player can easily drain their energy. Then you're stuck blinking into a force of zerglings, roaches and hydras trying to snipe overseers....and you will lose even-resource fights. Z needs to spend 200/200 on detection, but you have phoenixes which aren't shooting anything and stalkers and DT's that aren't cost-efficient in a straight up fight.
....
The big problems with this build are (1) you're assuming that 2-gating will grant you an economic lead, and (2) your army isn't cost-efficient if Z can keep detection. It's still a decent build that will work well on ladder up to a point. It's just not quite stable. Ok, I disagree that the build is dependent upon securing an economic lead at tier 1. Even though I have the larger economy in most of the replays, the zerg, at one point in each of those games, has a larger army than I do when we engage in the mid game because I have been pumping workers and he has been cutting drones. I also disagree that the build is dependent upon feedbacking overseers. I wouldn't introduce a build that is founded entirely upon a gimmick such as that. Is the build dependent upon killing overseers? Yes, and especially before you get your high templar on the field. Phoenixes, feedback, stalkers, and sentries all contribute to killing the overseers. If you watch some of the replays, a lot of battles are fought when dark templar and phoenixes are on the field but high templar are not. I also think that you're missing the point of getting the dark templar before high templar. The point is to get a force out onto the field that can be aggressive against the zerg quicker. This eases the transition from tier 2 into tier 3, which is usually very time- and resource-intensive. It is during this transition period that zerg's usually are able to either take extra bases or put a lot of pressure on the protoss. The whole point of the build is to eliminate this period. I absolutely agree that high templar are better unit to have in the long run, which is why I advocate getting them ASAP after the dark templar are up. I strongly suggest that you give the build a few tries to see how it works. Again, it's complicated, and some of the dynamics aren't obvious.
I agree that there's a critical time window where Z has enough hydra/roach to beat your gateway units and you don't have storm yet that Z can exploit. DT's are a reasonable way to try to maintain map control during this window. Particularly on big maps where Z won't be able to spread creep so that hydras can effectively defend overseers, DT's could be good. Still, it costs 500 gas to get two DT's, and it's possible (though difficult) to make those DT's effectively expensive zealots. If you skip the DTs, you'll have storm a minute and a half earlier.
I'm also can't buy that zealot/stalker/sentry/phoenix/DT beats roach/hydra/overseer for cost if the overseers are controlled well. Roaches and hydras are simply more cost efficient then every P unit on the field as long as there's detection.
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On September 03 2010 03:03 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2010 02:14 kcdc wrote:
For purposes of discussing your proprosed tech progression, we'll hopefully be able to agree that it's possible for Zerg to enter the mid-game on at least equal ground against any Protoss opening.
Yes, I agree with this, and depending upon the map, I believe that it is inevitable. Show nested quote +On September 03 2010 02:14 kcdc wrote:
As for that tech progression, against a Z with equal economy, I think there are more efficient ways to go. I'd skip the DT's in favor of earlier and more HT's honestly. You're winning because you've been able to (1) secure an economic lead in the early game, and (2) eliminate Z's detection. You can't count on #1, however, because a 2-gate does not ensure an economic lead against a capable Zer player. As for #2, feedbacking overseers will work a lot on ladder, but it's not a permanent solution since the Zerg player can easily drain their energy. Then you're stuck blinking into a force of zerglings, roaches and hydras trying to snipe overseers....and you will lose even-resource fights. Z needs to spend 200/200 on detection, but you have phoenixes which aren't shooting anything and stalkers and DT's that aren't cost-efficient in a straight up fight.
....
The big problems with this build are (1) you're assuming that 2-gating will grant you an economic lead, and (2) your army isn't cost-efficient if Z can keep detection. It's still a decent build that will work well on ladder up to a point. It's just not quite stable. Ok, I disagree that the build is dependent upon securing an economic lead at tier 1. Even though I have the larger economy in most of the replays, the zerg, at one point in each of those games, has a larger army than I do when we engage in the mid game because I have been pumping workers and he has been cutting drones. I also disagree that the build is dependent upon feedbacking overseers. I wouldn't introduce a build that is founded entirely upon a gimmick such as that. Is the build dependent upon killing overseers? Yes, and especially before you get your high templar on the field. Phoenixes, feedback, stalkers, and sentries all contribute to killing the overseers. If you watch some of the replays, a lot of battles are fought when dark templar and phoenixes are on the field but high templar are not. I also think that you're missing the point of getting the dark templar before high templar. The point is to get a force out onto the field that can be aggressive against the zerg quicker. This eases the transition from tier 2 into tier 3, which is usually very time- and resource-intensive. It is during this transition period that zerg's usually are able to either take extra bases or put a lot of pressure on the protoss. The whole point of the build is to eliminate this period. I absolutely agree that high templar are better unit to have in the long run, which is why I advocate getting them ASAP after the dark templar are up. I strongly suggest that you give the build a few tries to see how it works. Again, it's complicated, and some of the dynamics aren't obvious.
Yeah the T2 -> T3 progression is such a huge timing window for zerg and the you thing you have to be most mindful of with almost any protoss build, in particular ones that FE and/or open with stargate. Roach, hydras, nydus worms, even bling busts all pose their own particular problems during this window.
Back when I was experimenting with FE into robo into templar tech I was at one point using DT to hold off pushes during this window, with mixed success. Granted I didn't have phoenixes, but phoenixes don't kill overseers particulary fast, and if I did have any substantial number of phoenixes that would only slow down my tech even worse. It's really hard to say how vulnerable w/o assuming certain things since you are vauge about T1, how much you were able to delay the zerg, etc.
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On September 03 2010 03:38 amaGAWD wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2010 21:12 kcdc wrote:
I'm seeing a weakness where you're talking about going 2-gate, late gas, cybercore, stargate, forge, and having cannons and 2 void rays by the time Z tries a baneling bust. That's just not gonna happen.
Also, as with any 2-gate opening, you need to do damage to justify your delayed tech and slight economic loss. I've played against openings where upon scouting 2-gate, Z opens with ~2 lings into a spine crawler and ~3 roaches followed by an expansion and a couple more spine crawlers. The 2-gate will do essentially no damage and the zerg player will have been droning hard through the entire aggression. When 2-gating against this minimal but effective defense, I've found myself with literally half the income in the midgame. maybe i get this wrong but: protoss: 5 zealots = 500 minerals + slight(!) eco damage zerg: 2lings = 50minerals, 3 roach = 225minerals + 75 gas, 1 spinecrawler = 150minerals. that are 425 minerals, 75 gas + the loss of larvae and it gets much worse for z the more spinecrawler he builds. zerg also gets a eco loss! seems like an equal "loss" you also dont need to suicide your 5 zealots, just back up if he has >1 spinecrawler and your just fine
Ok, but P had to cut workers to 2-gate in time to do damage and still needs gas, cybercore and stalkers before he can expand since Z has roaches on the field. Meanwhile, Z gets to expand immediately for free and P can't apply any pressure. Z will have a much earlier expansion and more workers....
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On September 03 2010 03:43 kcdc wrote:
I'm also can't buy that zealot/stalker/sentry/phoenix/DT beats roach/hydra/overseer for cost if the overseers are controlled well. Roaches and hydras are simply more cost efficient then every P unit on the field as long as there's detection.
Yes, here's the real issue. Let me refine it a little further for you: the issue is whether chargelot/stalker/sentry/phoenix/DT beats roach/hydra/overseer for cost, in mid-game numbers (ie the ~100-120 food range), and if the overseers are controlled well.
I added the food range because that's about how large the armies will be when the DT's are out and before HT's come online for the protoss. IE, this is the critical tier 2 window that I referenced above. I'd have to check my replays for the exact food range (it might be a little lower), but I think I'm pretty close with that estimate. In case you're wondering, the size of the armies makes a very large difference for the reasons explained in the OP.
I know it's counterintuitive, but I believe that the protoss force can beat the zerg force in those circumstances. You'll just have to try it out.
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On September 03 2010 03:50 kcdc wrote:
Ok, but P had to cut workers to 2-gate in time to do damage and still needs gas, cybercore and stalkers before he can expand since Z has roaches on the field. Meanwhile, Z gets to expand immediately for free and P can't apply any pressure. Z will have a much earlier expansion and more workers....
i think investing the above mentioned minerals/gas and larvae(for units) is "enough" dmg. it does throw you behind(obv) but zerg in an equal amount too
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On September 03 2010 03:49 Skyro wrote:
Back when I was experimenting with FE into robo into templar tech I was at one point using DT to hold off pushes during this window, with mixed success. Granted I didn't have phoenixes, but phoenixes don't kill overseers particulary fast, and if I did have any substantial number of phoenixes that would only slow down my tech even worse. It's really hard to say how vulnerable w/o assuming certain things since you are vauge about T1, how much you were able to delay the zerg, etc.
As I mentioned above, I don't think that the protoss can assume that he will do any significant damage to the zerg at Tier 1. I see this as being kind of a black and white issue: either the DT's and phoenixes can consistently close the Tier 2 window against a roach/hydra attack or they can't. So far, I have been able to close that window consistently. It's definitely a much smaller window than if you tech straight to storm or colossi.
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On September 03 2010 03:55 amaGAWD wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2010 03:50 kcdc wrote:
Ok, but P had to cut workers to 2-gate in time to do damage and still needs gas, cybercore and stalkers before he can expand since Z has roaches on the field. Meanwhile, Z gets to expand immediately for free and P can't apply any pressure. Z will have a much earlier expansion and more workers.... i think investing the above mentioned minerals/gas and larvae(for units) is "enough" dmg. it does throw you behind(obv) but zerg in an equal amount too
No, my point is that in the scenario where you make 2 gates and 5 zealots while Z makes 2 lings, 3 roaches and a spine crawler, you're behind. Zerg has more workers and a stronger army. You can't expand. Zerg can. 2-gating can leave Protoss behind if Zerg responds well.
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On September 03 2010 04:01 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2010 03:49 Skyro wrote:
Back when I was experimenting with FE into robo into templar tech I was at one point using DT to hold off pushes during this window, with mixed success. Granted I didn't have phoenixes, but phoenixes don't kill overseers particulary fast, and if I did have any substantial number of phoenixes that would only slow down my tech even worse. It's really hard to say how vulnerable w/o assuming certain things since you are vauge about T1, how much you were able to delay the zerg, etc.
As I mentioned above, I don't think that the protoss can assume that he will do any significant damage to the zerg at Tier 1. I see this as being kind of a black and white issue: either the DT's and phoenixes can consistently close the Tier 2 window against a roach/hydra attack or they can't. So far, I have been able to close that window consistently. It's definitely a much smaller window than if you tech straight to storm or colossi.
IMO, the key issue is creep. If the battle happens off creep, roaches and hydras will have a hard time keeping overseers alive. If the battle happens on creep, the Zerg forces should win easily if they're controlled properly. In most cases, creep won't be an offensive option at this timing window, so the DT's should be effective for defense. I doubt that you can count on the DT's preventing Z from taking a third base, however, as creep will obviously be present for defense.
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I am going to start playing around with this really hate the tier 1 units spam nonsense
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I really want to say again that this transition better from 1 gate than from 2.
I always get 1 gate core and wg asap, then I get forge and depending on my scout I get cannon (for banneling bust) or a second gateway (when I see roach). I can also force the roach by putting pressure with my very first chroned zealot, and I usually chrone 2 of the first 3, so I chrono 3 probes and first and third zealot, and then either get an satlker or 2 more zealots (depending if I made a cannon or 2 gateways)
Forge is never lost money, because I start +1 weapon right away. And now I can get an easy expansion. When I see zerg expanding in this moment, I start attacking the expansion so I can force more spines and a more pasive zerg, while securing my expansion
So I can get my stargate, and TC and go to this mid game.
Basically, I am talking about wg-forge FE, being agressive from the very first zealot. I have not a replay with me, at the time, but next time I play a zerg I will save it.
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I agree with a previous poster that there is some danger with a timing attack right after the hydralisk den finishes. It involves a lot of lings and about 10 hydralisks and the overseer that he had from scouting the expo with changelings (provdes detection). You oppose with a few chargelots, maybe 3 dts, and 2 phoenixes--not enough to kill the overseer fast enough. Two gateways worth of units appears wholly inadequate since you've only just got your expo up and dt's on the fiel .Ironically, this was described by my opponent as a timing attack to do dmg before the feared colossus!
Far from despairing, I think the solution is aggressive scouting of overseers right after seeing the zerg tech structure. The dmg was the overseer nearby scouting to detect, making my investment in DT tech and not more gateways an ineffective choice.
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This build sounds genuinely awesome. I've been opening Stargate into Chargelots then High Templars in a lot of matchups lately just because the Phoenix is such a cool unit and so fun to use.
Sniping Overseers and adding DTs against zerg seems like a natural addition to what I've been doing already, thanks!
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Ok so this thread has just turned into just pure theory debate. so far im the only one besides daunt who has even posted a replay. Honestly i like to see alot less of this theorycrafting war and get some real freeking play in this thread.
WTB some god damn replays, and honestly unless the zerg players posting in this thread can bring replays in where they have gone against it and have something helpfull to contribute its really gotten to the point where this has become un-helpfull and just added alot of garbage to sift through in this thread that i belive was made for a very specific purpose.
Which was to help out protoss players having trouble with muta-ling.
Personally ive gotten to the point where i cant even bring myself to read through all this because none of it has any actual fact to back it up... Obviously with the exception of Xdaunt's posts.
So please either help out and give fact-based replys with replays attached or i just dont see the point in your posting at all
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On September 03 2010 06:29 Unosnow wrote:
Ok so this thread has just turned into just pure theory debate. so far im the only one besides daunt who has even posted a replay. Honestly i like to see alot less of this theorycrafting war and get some real freeking play in this thread.
WTB some god damn replays, and honestly unless the zerg players posting in this thread can bring replays in where they have gone against it and have something helpfull to contribute its really gotten to the point where this has become un-helpfull and just added alot of garbage to sift through in this thread that i belive was made for a very specific purpose.
Which was to help out protoss players having trouble with muta-ling.
Personally ive gotten to the point where i cant even bring myself to read through all this because none of it has any actual fact to back it up... Obviously with the exception of Xdaunt's posts.
So please either help out and give fact-based replys with replays attached or i just dont see the point in your posting at all
+1
Yes, I was about to post something like this. I'd like to see some people actually try this build out before they come here and say that it can't work. I'm happy to explain some of the finer points behind the theory of the build, but I can only explain so much to someone who makes a post and, from his post, clearly does not understand the build.
As I said in the OP, I don't have all of the kinks worked out and I do not know how viable the build is. I already know where the possible weak point in the build is, and I've directly cited it repeatedly in the posts above. However, I don't know whether this possible weak point actually exists or whether it is fatal to the build as a whole. I think that the build is strong and interesting enough to present to everyone for further refinement and discussion. That's the whole point of this thread. However, that won't work well unless people actually try the build and share their experiences.
I've been busy at work so I have not had time to play more than 1 game of SC2 since starting this thread. But, at least for my part, I'll keep posting replays as they come along.
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I've been busy lately, but tonight and tomorrow I'll have a lot of time to play. I'll see if I can do this strategy with a void ray => expand opening, and should be able to upload a replay or two... Hopefully.
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I'm a zerg player, but I'm really excited to see this kind of build emerging, as muta-ling is ridonkulously effective against toss at my level (mid platinum). So many toss players just kinda refuse to build phoenixes, which you really do need (ideally with blink stalker support) to stop zergs constantly going into your base.
So yeah, awesome build, unfortunately I only play toss in team games (where there is so much more detection) so I probably won't be able to try it out.
From a zerg point of view, one idea for countering this would be to try and convince your toss opponent to get a low amount of phoenixes - mass production of hydras might be one thing, or maybe try and snipe his HT/DT so that he uses up his gas on them and can't afford phoenix - as once below a certain threshold the zerg could tech switch to mass muta and end up overwhelming the toss with a big wave of them (though obviously this is a late game scenario).
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On September 01 2010 12:33 ReCharge wrote:Nicely done, I forgot that Overseers have energy, feedback + DT = win
Wouldnt anyone with half a brain start spamming changelings once he's feedbacked once or twice?
I generally go a zealot heavy build, 2 gate-->stargate--> charge ht. Usually get one void ray then pump phoenixes. So...similar but without the DT.
The DT seem like a bad investment to me, b/c theyre probably gunna get at least one spore at each mineral line in response to phoenixes, so DT harass wont work. And although they are powerful combat units if not seen, the gas is better spent on HT/archons/robo tech.
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On September 03 2010 02:13 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2010 01:45 Glacius0 wrote:
I had someone try this build on me (zerg) today, and I thought I'd share the results. He went zealots, I went banelings so he understandably stayed back. He went phoenix, I built a spore crawler in every expo. He went DT, my spore crawlers to counter the phoenix harass detected him and he failed miserably. He went HT and did some nice drop/warp-in harass but at this point my army was too big (ultras out).
I think since it was a new build for him his execution wasn't that great (he said so himself), but the baneling/spore crawler thing seems like a big problem. Skipping DT seems better if your opponent gets spore crawlers. I don't think the build is bad, but I also don't think you can always execute it without fail. A few questions about the game: 1) What did the protoss try to do with the phoenixes and DTs? 2) What was your mid-game, pre-ultra army composition? Banelings and what else? 3) Were there any battles in the open field? If so, how did those go and what were the force compositions?
1. He tried to kill my queens and overlords with phoenix, drones with DT.
2. ling/baneling with upgrades
3. There were no battles before ultras (which stomped everything). He didn't feel safe with only zealots vs blings and I don't disagree with him.
Not sure if you are trying to prove that the player did something wrong, but one thing I can mention is that he probably should have taken more map control with DT + phoenix killing overseers if I ever tried to move out. However the nasty thing about banelings is that DTs suicide themselves by killing banelings if you don't micro. This actually happened in one of his DT attacks on my base. Also manual detonation is a problem, or simple having DT near visible units when banelings explode on them.
Either way, no build is uncounterable, and you shouldn't expect it to be. If you know what potential dangers are, then you know when to deviate from your build to prevent them. No detection? Go DT. No banelings? Push. Something along those lines.
Also, getting HT out before ultras by skipping DT might be a nice counter to banelings, but I'm not a protoss player and I reckon it's hard to tech to it in time.
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On September 03 2010 07:47 Glacius0 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2010 02:13 xDaunt wrote:On September 03 2010 01:45 Glacius0 wrote:
I had someone try this build on me (zerg) today, and I thought I'd share the results. He went zealots, I went banelings so he understandably stayed back. He went phoenix, I built a spore crawler in every expo. He went DT, my spore crawlers to counter the phoenix harass detected him and he failed miserably. He went HT and did some nice drop/warp-in harass but at this point my army was too big (ultras out).
I think since it was a new build for him his execution wasn't that great (he said so himself), but the baneling/spore crawler thing seems like a big problem. Skipping DT seems better if your opponent gets spore crawlers. I don't think the build is bad, but I also don't think you can always execute it without fail. A few questions about the game: 1) What did the protoss try to do with the phoenixes and DTs? 2) What was your mid-game, pre-ultra army composition? Banelings and what else? 3) Were there any battles in the open field? If so, how did those go and what were the force compositions? 1. He tried to kill my queens and overlords with phoenix, drones with DT. 2. ling/baneling with upgrades 3. There were no battles before ultras (which stomped everything). He didn't feel safe with only zealots vs blings and I don't disagree with him. Not sure if you are trying to prove that the player did something wrong, but one thing I can mention is that he probably should have taken more map control with DT + phoenix killing overseers if I ever tried to move out. However the nasty thing about banelings is that DTs suicide themselves by killing banelings if you don't micro. This actually happened in one of his DT attacks on my base. Also manual detonation is a problem, or simple having DT near visible units when banelings explode on them. Either way, no build is uncounterable, and you shouldn't expect it to be. If you know what potential dangers are, then you know when to deviate from your build to prevent them. No detection? Go DT. No banelings? Push. Something along those lines.
Yeah, what I figured. I think that this will be the hardest thing for a lot of players to understand about using this build: the phoenixes and DTs aren't meant to be harassment tools so much as they're designed to help you establish map control by giving you superiority over the zerg's army. You have to take what the zerg gives you. If the zerg throws up a bunch of spore crawlers in his bases, then you obviously can't fight him there with DT's and phoenixes. Take an expansion instead. If a zerg is only running around with zerglings and banelings, then the toss should be getting some sentries and stalkers up. Sitting in base and letting the zerg tech to ultras unmolested is not a good idea.
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Here are a couple examples of this strategy from me. I am not great at this game nor at this strat yet but it's getting better for me. The last two times I played I ended up winning with the 2 gate into phoenix OL/Drone harass and they resigned as my stalker/zealot/dt army marched into their sight.
First game, I lose and see a lot of mistakes. It's practice and I'll keep uploading more replays.
700ish diamond protoss.
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-145428.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-145430.jpg)
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Very well written. Will definitely analyze and test this.
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On September 03 2010 07:47 Glacius0 wrote:Either way, no build is uncounterable, and you shouldn't expect it to be. If you know what potential dangers are, then you know when to deviate from your build to prevent them. No detection? Go DT. No banelings? Push. Something along those lines.
one or 2 void rays with a phoenix(beam the queen8)) suddenly popping out in the back of your main and he would have owned you badly.
he had all the tools and just fucked up , tbh "lucky" for you :p
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Thank you so much xdaunt. I'm loving this build. I absolutely HATED pvz MU because of muta/ling or
mass hydra+corruptors killing my colossi+gateway units.
I'm definitely loving this strat and it is a lot of fun!! At first, my execution was very sloppy. But now I'm getting hang of it. DT killing drones at multiple bases + pushing with main army surely throws off the zerg. Towards the end, the zerg would try to switch to mass mutas from hydra/roach/ling/overseers. But then I had stargates so it wouldn't matter.
Again, thanks a bunch!
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Thanks! the phoenix' against muta build was really helpful! Now i have confident in PvZ hooray (? xP)
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Oh man, I am LOVING this strategy/build at the moment.
Zerg just can't figure it out. Even when they start throwing lots of overseers in it, as long as you keep denying their third expo - it's eventually a gg while you expand at your leisure and walk away from every encounter far ahead.
I know when I was playing zerg and got backed into a corner as I was hive teching to ultras, i would feel like the game it about to turn around on the other guy. I now kinda feel bad for the zerg who's ultras are rendered useless by the dt's.
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A few notes and updates:
1) I recommended using a 2-gate opening in the original post, especially if the zerg is in close positions. Some people wondered whether a 5 Roach Rush (see Fistadantilus's guide) would run the protoss over. The answer is no, albeit it is very close. As long as you're very good at getting your core and gas up after your 5th zealot, you should have 2 stalkers built in time to hold off the rush. However, this margin for error is very slim with the timings. In fact, it is so slim that I suspect that 2-gating may not even be viable after the zealot nerf. I'm not entirely sure what the best way to transition into this build will be post-patch (or even now). This will take a little more experimenting. Any ideas on this point would be greatly appreciated. I'd prefer something that allows the protoss to pressure the zerg. Maybe Antimage's void ray opener is the best answer at this point.
2) As others have pointed out, one thing to watch out for with this build is a zerg that goes very heavy roach with some hydra support. Fortunately, with your phoenix, you will be able to see what the zerg is doing and have plenty of time to adjust your forces if the zerg goes roach-heavy. Adding a couple void rays will do nicely to help burn down the roaches.
3) Speaking of void rays, I think that fluxed void rays are preferable to phoenixes as your air force as the game rolls on into the late game. You'll be able to kill overseers faster, snipe expansions more easily, and have an extra tool for killing broodlords and ultralisks efficiently. Also, void rays with phoenixes will better be able to maintain air control than just pure phoenixes because void rays can kill corruptors much more easily.
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On September 07 2010 01:13 xDaunt wrote:
A few notes and updates...
I've been having a lot of success with the Antimage opening, but you need to be really careful with your expo depending on what tech path he chooses. Once you have 2 void rays out, I place a forge, THEN my expo. This is because there's a strong hydra push right when they pop out that can give you some trouble, so you sometimes need one, MAYBE two cannons up ASAP. Other than that, you're golden on the expo.
For the midgame, I do your phoenix/DT build, and use it to get my 3rd base up, but I've realized that after your 3rd base is up, there's no reason not to do a normal zealot/immortal/HT build (of course with a few phoenixes in case he goes surprise mutalisks). The DTs are FANTASTIC to take out a 2-base hydra push, but once he's got a large hydra force and several overseers, you lose a lot more units doing zealot/DT/phoenix/HT than you do without the DTs and phoenixes.
I just think that DT/phoenix is a great transition, just not a good lategame composition.
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Russian Federation1132 Posts
Very nice post. I usually use a very similar opening in PvZ, except for earlier gateways and double stargate before expand if there are no roaches (and stalkers if there are roaches).
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Thiefing my tactic!
Well till the phoenix part .... I never get DT's I always transition into collosi cause You mostly force the zerg into hydra's
Gonna watch all your replay's though and learn it cause lately I had some problems with a couple of zerg players! I hope this order will ownzzz them harddzz
Love you!
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Whouhou this guide works wonders for me :!
Been a bit hard to get the hang of it but as soon as you do, at equal level, at least the zerg starts having lots of trouble...
Thanks a lot !
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I'm really interested in this strat, but being as its a little old now do you still feel it holds up? With the roach upgrades, is it too dangerous to get a late gas/core now?
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Very similar to the build I use. Except instead of 2 gate pressure, I will usually FE if the situation allows it, transition to Phoenix/DT, but instead of HT: I skip templar archives and opt for getting a couple of Archons from DTs
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On October 29 2010 02:57 Shadrak wrote:
I'm really interested in this strat, but being as its a little old now do you still feel it holds up? With the roach upgrades, is it too dangerous to get a late gas/core now?
I'm a little bit rusty because I haven't had time to play much for the past couple months. However, with the recent roach change, the 2 gate opening has to change. You can't open 2 gate against a roach opening anymore because you can't get away with fending off roaches with 5 zealots and 2 stalkers. The zerg will simply run you over. I don't really know what the ideal opening is for protoss at this point, but, depending upon the map, it will either be a fast expansion opening or a 1-gate gas/core opening.
Like I point out in various posts throughout the thread, the opening is fairly immaterial as the guide is more about the mid to late game transition. As more zergs became familiar with the build, they started incorporating more roaches into their force compositions. If the protoss stuck with a zealot-heavy composition and delayed robo tech to get templar tech online fast, the protoss would lose. With the roach upgrade, I think that this is even more of a problem now. The protoss simply needs immortals against larger roach masses. Moreover, the protoss cannot get away with cutting gas on sentries and stalkers to get templar tech online faster while also supporting a phoenix force.
The end game force composition will still be incredibly effective for the protoss against zerg. If you're running around with zealot/stalker/sentry complimented by DTs, HTs, immortals, and phoenixes, you're going to cause a lot of problems for zerg players. The issue now is how best to get there. I don't have a particularly good answer for that right now.
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Something similar to this devestated me a couple weeks ago. It was so frustrating. I couldn't keep my detectors up, but his stalker/dt heavy army on my creep said to me "make as many hydras as possible." The problem with that (even though I could own the stalkers and then kite the dts) was that the combination of the three compliments really wrecked me. If I was focusing on the phoenix, the stalkers were taking out detection (or attackers), if I was focusing on the stalkers, the dts were owning my hydras, and if I focused the DTs he's lift as many attacking units as possible for the stalkers to own.
In hindsight (read: after the somewhat polite ragequit), I should've had infestors. A fungal growth would've worked wonders.
Another fail was my counterattack. Decided not to opt for the 1-cannon defended rocks (Blistering Sands) attack, and instead crashed against his wall-in. Doh.
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I have tried this technique of going fast Archons, but by 7 minutes a zerg wtih no pressure is going to run right over me.
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On October 29 2010 07:14 absolutrook wrote:
I have tried this technique of going fast Archons, but by 7 minutes a zerg wtih no pressure is going to run right over me.
This is the real trick to PvZ and why the roach change is more significant than a lot of people will admit. What's the best way for the protoss to pressure a zerg early now?
I'm open to suggestions. =)
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Iv'e been using something alot like this.
I loved the Bisu build
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I've played this style opening as my first pvz in diamond (at release basically). I didn't know someone did a nice write up on it though (came up with it as well, independently). Working on a different opening something along the lines of a 1gate, early +1 fast expo with forge play, then into straight stargate + 3 gate army for pressuring and teching. I basically get a forge instead of a core, at the exact same time, and use my 100 gas when the forge completes for the upgrade, which i chrono out. I have 3 zealots (at their base) by the time my upgrade finishes, and 3 +1 zealots can do a lot of damage. This isnt to win the game, or even to kill some drones. This is just to put the zergy under pressure. If they go a quick roach opening, i use the forge and zealots to defend as I put up an expo, and tech to stargate.
Here is the BO so far. Its missing a few things, but i think i've gotten everything: (i've really planned this out)
9 Pylon
11-12 Chrono Probes
12 Gate
14 Gas
14-15 Chrono Probes
16 Pylon
17 Forge
18 Zealot
22 +1 Weapons
24 Zealot
25 Pylon
26 Zealot
29 Pylon at bottom of ramp/Zealot
30 Core
33 Expo
34 2nd Gas
35 Warp gate, Stargate, once core finishes
36 Stalker
Once 1st stalker is done, throw up 2 more gates.
If they try and early bust with blings or roaches, just make a couple of cannons and dont attack with zealots. Once +1 is about 90% complete, is when you move out, Right when the 3rd zealot pops out. This attack isnt a winning move, and wont kill any zerg. It will force them to make a few more lings then they want, or start making roaches.
Likely transitions include some carrier and ht/dt play. You usually want to favor less blink stalkers, although it is a good idea to get them, because you have a lot of phenox out.
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The best way I have found to pressure zerg early now is phoenix. If zerg 15 hatches it's fairly easy to get some serious harass going with phoenix. Pump out a stalker first, get rid of any observers then go for phoenix. Once you put some pressure on them, then think about expanding.
Alternately I have had some luck with 15 nexus expand into phoenix. The strength of this is that defending 2 bases is generally not that much harder than defending one early game, and 4 gas can get you the leg up on gas you need to get phoenix out quickly and continue to tech quickly while maintaining a good enough ground army to hold off zerg pushes.
With both options, zerg has a window they can exploit with zerglings or roach busts that you absolutely must scout so you can prepare with units/cannons as necessary.
You can then transition into colossi or HT/DT or both eventually in the late game.
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On October 29 2010 07:25 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On October 29 2010 07:14 absolutrook wrote:
I have tried this technique of going fast Archons, but by 7 minutes a zerg wtih no pressure is going to run right over me. This is the real trick to PvZ and why the roach change is more significant than a lot of people will admit. What's the best way for the protoss to pressure a zerg early now? I'm open to suggestions. =)
Early phoenixs. I just saw this OP and I'm seriously impressed and about to try it out. I'm going to adjust it with my 3gate 1 gate phoenix opening to keep the zerg contained a bit while I expand and go for the DT's.
I'll report back if it works
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gotta try it out. been losing to zerg too much. thanks!
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2nd time trying it and it worked flawlessly. I faced a ~1800 zerg and it straight up crushed him.
The phoenix opening into expansion works as good as ever. I get the coucil just before i start the expansion, and the DS as the expansion finishes. The timing is fairly good and i was even able to take out a 3rd hatch as well as about 7 drones or so.
I didnt harass as much as i would have liked, but that will come once i get more familiar with the build.
He probably had a bigger army of roach/hydra/muta than i did (havnt watched the replay yet) however the composition is just perfect. The mutas fell without contest, the overseers were fedback immidietly and the hydra roach was dominated by storms and everything else.
I am very much liking these transitions as it also sets you up to get archons and DTs vs ultras which you showed.
Very great strategy bro! ^^
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Wouldn't the ideal zerg response be to turtle/expand to 200/200 and be sure to have a spore at each expo? Don't really see how you could break him anywhere he has a spore.
Initially starting the expos may be hard for the zerg (idunno, I'm not zerg), but he could use nydus worms to defend wherever you attack without needing to travel the space in between.
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On October 29 2010 13:38 Keilah wrote:
Wouldn't the ideal zerg response be to turtle/expand to 200/200 and be sure to have a spore at each expo? Don't really see how you could break him anywhere he has a spore.
Then just drop/harass away from the spore?
Initially starting the expos may be hard for the zerg (idunno, I'm not zerg), but he could use nydus worms to defend wherever you attack without needing to travel the space in between.
Hardly any zergs use nydus worms even for this kind of thing. It's just a difficult thing to deal with.
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On October 29 2010 07:05 Evark wrote:
In hindsight (read: after the somewhat polite ragequit), I should've had infestors. A fungal growth would've worked wonders.
I wonder about that. I've only given this strat one try (last night) and the Zerg I was facing did eventually tech to infestor but they honestly didn't make a difference. I simply stormed/feedbacked them and split a few DTs to the back to take them out. Of course by that point I was already in the lead so maybe earlier infestor would make the difference.
With this unit combo FG only seems like it helps during a retreat. If you stay and keep attacking after FG, storms are going to tear up your range anyway.
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Anyone could help me on the opening ? I really love this strat, i want to practice it but i'm in trouble with the opening. Indeed : 2 gate aren't as efficient as it was because of the nerf. So, it doesn't put any pressure on the zerg opponent does he ?
What kinds of opening are you using atm, in order to be able to switch correctly into the tier2 and tier3 strategy of this thread ?
Sorry for my english, not my native language
Btw, i'm in diamond league 1600.
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On October 30 2010 07:17 Omega.763 wrote:Anyone could help me on the opening ? I really love this strat, i want to practice it but i'm in trouble with the opening. Indeed : 2 gate aren't as efficient as it was because of the nerf. So, it doesn't put any pressure on the zerg opponent no ? Whats kinds of opening are you using atm, in order to be able to switch correctly into the tier2 and tier3 strategy of this thread ? Sorry for my english, not my native language Btw, i'm in diamond league 1600.
I used 3 gate pressure into expand followed immediately by stargate.
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I'm very interested to know if anyone can find a way to make this strategy effective after the last patch. I used this a lot before but now it's very difficult to put pressure on a Z with a 2 gate opening...
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On October 30 2010 09:41 Ingruz wrote:
I'm very interested to know if anyone can find a way to make this strategy effective after the last patch. I used this a lot before but now it's very difficult to put pressure on a Z with a 2 gate opening...
You really can't 2 gate anymore. Read my post a few above, it gives a good overview of it. I'll attach a few replays in a minute.
EDIT:
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On October 30 2010 07:19 Shadrak wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2010 07:17 Omega.763 wrote:Anyone could help me on the opening ? I really love this strat, i want to practice it but i'm in trouble with the opening. Indeed : 2 gate aren't as efficient as it was because of the nerf. So, it doesn't put any pressure on the zerg opponent no ? Whats kinds of opening are you using atm, in order to be able to switch correctly into the tier2 and tier3 strategy of this thread ? Sorry for my english, not my native language Btw, i'm in diamond league 1600. I used 3 gate pressure into expand followed immediately by stargate.
This is what im gonna try to develop into one of my main PvZ strats. 1500 diamond here.
As of right now I do 3 gate pressure into expand then collosi/gate mid game push into third. from there i get blink into either storm/archon or void rays depending on what I scout. I do have trouble around 8-10 min mark with mutas in my base JUST before i start pumping collosi so i have to leave stalkers in my mineral lines.
What i have trouble with is like 12-14 mutas. especially before blink when they start mineral line hopping and my ramp entrance is too much of a choke to effeciently reenter my base. I try cannons and leaving stalkers in the mineral line but critical mass beats them.
Going to try stargate openings to gain the air control. try and force roach hydra and three base gateway late collosi.
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On October 29 2010 12:20 Gemini_19 wrote:
2nd time trying it and it worked flawlessly. I faced a ~1800 zerg and it straight up crushed him.
The phoenix opening into expansion works as good as ever. I get the coucil just before i start the expansion, and the DS as the expansion finishes. The timing is fairly good and i was even able to take out a 3rd hatch as well as about 7 drones or so.
I didnt harass as much as i would have liked, but that will come once i get more familiar with the build.
He probably had a bigger army of roach/hydra/muta than i did (havnt watched the replay yet) however the composition is just perfect. The mutas fell without contest, the overseers were fedback immidietly and the hydra roach was dominated by storms and everything else.
I am very much liking these transitions as it also sets you up to get archons and DTs vs ultras which you showed.
Very great strategy bro! ^^
Here is the replay of this description.
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I was very interested until I watched the replays.
it seems in most games you just DT's at some point and make sure to play people bad enough to not have any detection. The starport units you make usually go to waste. This build doesn't seem to do what you claim in the post, which is counter both muta/ling and roach/hydra, as you suffer heavy losses to both.
that said, I do think a phoenix/templar build is very viable and worth exploring. hopefully something more crisp will come out of this thread, it seems people are pursuing it.
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Bisubuild rediscovered! Kind of interesting that this follows a rediscovery of the 15 nexus forge expand.
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I am pursuing this build as well. I did try is once but due to poor execution with the phoenix never made it any further.
Did have better luck the2nd time. Will try it a bit more.
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I'm definitely going to give this a shot. Im sitting at 1600-1700 right now and lose about 75% of my PvZ matchups due to lack of constant pressure. I feel like my only options are to go either can either phoenix harass into robo push, or blink stalker/4gate harass into a failed attempt to keep up with Z macro.
How does this build hold up to roach/spling or hyd/roach/spling (depending on map) timing pushes before the DTs are on the field? I assume it would be especially hard to get the full effect of this strats strengths on maps like scrap or Basin where they can macro hard regardless of a non-cheese central rush.
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As an update to my post, ive been using this as a standard PvZ opener and its been disgustingly effective. I'm sure Zs will get better at patrolling clumps of overseers around the fight to make it harder to snipe them, or just air transfering asap to force u to play phoenix vs em. But for now at mid-diamond, this is one of the best full game PvZ strats ive come across. Awesome work!
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On November 01 2010 03:47 HuskyHawk wrote:
As an update to my post, ive been using this as a standard PvZ opener and its been disgustingly effective. I'm sure Zs will get better at patrolling clumps of overseers around the fight to make it harder to snipe them, or just air transfering asap to force u to play phoenix vs em. But for now at mid-diamond, this is one of the best full game PvZ strats ive come across. Awesome work!
What about mass roach can you hold that off?
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On November 01 2010 03:59 us.insurgency wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2010 03:47 HuskyHawk wrote:
As an update to my post, ive been using this as a standard PvZ opener and its been disgustingly effective. I'm sure Zs will get better at patrolling clumps of overseers around the fight to make it harder to snipe them, or just air transfering asap to force u to play phoenix vs em. But for now at mid-diamond, this is one of the best full game PvZ strats ive come across. Awesome work! What about mass roach can you hold that off?
I just won an early mass roach push, 14 more or less.
I had 4 phoenixes, 3 sentrys, 3 stalkers and 1 zealot.
Force Fields are awesome, and Graviton Beam took care of the angry roaches ... forced a retreat and expanded to win.
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On October 29 2010 13:38 Keilah wrote:
Wouldn't the ideal zerg response be to turtle/expand to 200/200 and be sure to have a spore at each expo? Don't really see how you could break him anywhere he has a spore.
Initially starting the expos may be hard for the zerg (idunno, I'm not zerg), but he could use nydus worms to defend wherever you attack without needing to travel the space in between.
Spores aren't very mobile. If he gives up map control and turtles you can just do the same and expo/macro up to 200/200. If you can stay close to even economically with a zerg and take the game pretty late without falling behind you can win pretty easily.
On October 30 2010 09:55 Gemini_19 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2010 09:41 Ingruz wrote:
I'm very interested to know if anyone can find a way to make this strategy effective after the last patch. I used this a lot before but now it's very difficult to put pressure on a Z with a 2 gate opening... You really can't 2 gate anymore. Read my post a few above, it gives a good overview of it. I'll attach a few replays in a minute. EDIT:
agreed, just do the 1-gate phoenix expo build
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I disagree that you can no longer put pressure off of a 2gate based opening. So long as you are willing to delay warpgate tech and throw some chronos on the gates, you can easily pressure or threaten pressure to FE zerg (which is about 95% of the Zs that I see at 1500-1900). My opening push is usually a 4-1-1 zlot/stalk/sent; I don't ever plan on doing more than stopping drone production and tech and annoying the shit out of the Z. IMO, if a Z isn't on a back foot, he's winning.
If they have the horrible idea to push with all roach or very very heavy roach, they will have very little to stop 4-5 nixes from mutilating the seers (with feedback on the field or without).
The key problem I'm still having with this build is against strong macro roach/hyd Z that know how to keep their overseers out of harms way (its really really hard to get phoenixes to do significant damage around a good hydra clump).
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I could see roach/hydra/infestor working well against this, which any zerg with a brain will go against chargelots and phoenix. And because you get detection so late burrow roaches can be a strong counter.
You force them into hydra's and they arent going to go pure hydras, roaches up front tanking and even without detection FG spam will catch some of the DTs. With Infestors behind your army FGing you cannot feedback snipe them. And I don't know about other zergs but I pretty much send in an overlord sacrifice like twice a minute. Unless you put your Dark Shrine somewhere outside your base it will get scouted and overseers will get made. And maybe other people have their overseers running into the middle of the battle but I keep mine over my infestors.
Now people will say but but roach/hydra/infestor/overseer is so gas intensive! Well so is dark templar/observer/stalker/sentry with chargelots and blink.
I would like to face this a couple times and see how it goes in game.
It does sound like a very solid strategy.
MorsCerta 125
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This strategy is not built around obs, blink stalkers, or sentries. The gas is getting eaten up by upgrades, DTs, temps, and phoenixes. If burrow abuse is in play, there will be at most a need for 2 obs; which is only a 300 gas investment (with robo).
In my experience, this isn't a single engagement/death ball type strategy, so the DTs will be recognized early on in the game. The strength of this comp against Z is that overseers are exceedingly difficult to keep alive if P ffs them and then engages. That said, I have had some serious trouble against Zs who have good seer micro keeping them between a hydra ball and my phoenixes, while still away from temps.
I have faced Zs that focus on more infestors, which usually can draw the game out, but not win it for them. templars eat infestors for lunch. They are always heavy on energy and have ridiculously low health; feedbacking them is usually pretty straightforward so long as the P engages from a good angle and doesnt let the temps fall to far back. Also, its not that hard to sneak a few DTs to the back of the Z force and snipe the infestors; they get 1 shotted by 2 DTs.
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On November 02 2010 07:42 HuskyHawk wrote:
This strategy is not built around obs, blink stalkers, or sentries. The gas is getting eaten up by upgrades, DTs, temps, and phoenixes. If burrow abuse is in play, there will be at most a need for 2 obs; which is only a 300 gas investment (with robo).
In my experience, this isn't a single engagement/death ball type strategy, so the DTs will be recognized early on in the game. The strength of this comp against Z is that overseers are exceedingly difficult to keep alive if P ffs them and then engages. That said, I have had some serious trouble against Zs who have good seer micro keeping them between a hydra ball and my phoenixes, while still away from temps.
I have faced Zs that focus on more infestors, which usually can draw the game out, but not win it for them. templars eat infestors for lunch. They are always heavy on energy and have ridiculously low health; feedbacking them is usually pretty straightforward so long as the P engages from a good angle and doesnt let the temps fall to far back. Also, its not that hard to sneak a few DTs to the back of the Z force and snipe the infestors; they get 1 shotted by 2 DTs.
Observers are necessary if the zerg goes burrow play...overseers+hydras will snipe oberservers, making you sink more gas into them.
If you even have enough gas for observers after DTs Phoenix's and templar
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Look, just as you argued for overseers not running into the middle of a battle, why would a P player start stampeding obs into a fight? The key difference is that if a Z wants to try and hunt down the obs, storms are gonna wreck house.
I don't play at a level where a Z can keep up with macro while simultaneously:
1.) microing burrow on roaches to maximize health and positioning
2.) microing hyds AND overseers to snipe obs
3.) WHILE sniping obs, microing overseers away from phoenixes, temps, and supporting stalks
4.) fungal growth with infestors WHILE keeping them positioned away from temps/flanking DTs
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On November 02 2010 10:19 HuskyHawk wrote:
Look, just as you argued for overseers not running into the middle of a battle, why would a P player start stampeding obs into a fight? The key difference is that if a Z wants to try and hunt down the obs, storms are gonna wreck house.
I don't play at a level where a Z can keep up with macro while simultaneously:
1.) microing burrow on roaches to maximize health and positioning
2.) microing hyds AND overseers to snipe obs
3.) WHILE sniping obs, microing overseers away from phoenixes, temps, and supporting stalks
4.) fungal growth with infestors WHILE keeping them positioned away from temps/flanking DTs
I was not saying a P player will be stampeding observers into the battle. And if Zerg goes burrow roaches, storm will be delayed by the necessity for a robo bay and observers, neither of which this build gets early. Giving the zerg more time to build up a roach/hydra/infestor force.
Microing burrow on roaches like that is unnecessary in this situation, the point is to delay protoss tech and if protoss chooses to ignore the issue punish him. Once again observer snipe unnecessary. Microing seers from behind a line of 4 range roaches and 6 range hydras? Stalkers cant get close enough and Seers sitting over the infestors who have 9 range fungal growth will be fine.
The first thing I would fungal growth is the phoenix's. And then have a group of hydras destroy them as they die fairly easily. And flanking DT's will die in a heartbeat if you do not manage to kill my overseers. Second fungal growth is the chargelots, for obvious reasons.
Also Zerg macro takes maybe 2 seconds. Which I would delay until after the very important parts of the battle were over.
I feel like you are trying to completely discredit what I am saying, while I am simply saying that it is possible to counter this strategy. Just as every other strategy. Yes, if Roach/Hydra/Infestor is done poorly you can in fact defeat it with this, However I feel as though one executed superbly, in the ways I am trying to explain, would be a strong counter.
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Please delete, mods. This is a repeat of the next post.
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On November 03 2010 02:46 HuskyHawk wrote:
I was not saying a P player will be stampeding observers into the battle. And if Zerg goes burrow roaches, storm will be delayed by the necessity for a robo bay and observers, neither of which this build gets early. Giving the zerg more time to build up a roach/hydra/infestor force.
Microing burrow on roaches like that is unnecessary in this situation, the point is to delay protoss tech and if protoss chooses to ignore the issue punish him. Once again observer snipe unnecessary. Microing seers from behind a line of 4 range roaches and 6 range hydras? Stalkers cant get close enough and Seers sitting over the infestors who have 9 range fungal growth will be fine.
The first thing I would fungal growth is the phoenix's. And then have a group of hydras destroy them as they die fairly easily. And flanking DT's will die in a heartbeat if you do not manage to kill my overseers. Second fungal growth is the chargelots, for obvious reasons.
Also Zerg macro takes maybe 2 seconds. Which I would delay until after the very important parts of the battle were over.
I feel like you are trying to completely discredit what I am saying, while I am simply saying that it is possible to counter this strategy. Just as every other strategy. Yes, if Roach/Hydra/Infestor is done poorly you can in fact defeat it with this, However I feel as though one executed superbly, in the ways I am trying to explain, would be a strong counter.
Fair enough, I wasn't trying to imply that this strat (much less any) is uncounterable. I was more trying to answer the micro differences that I felt were implied in how you described the Z counters to this strat. I agree that roach hydra is a strong combination against this, so long as you are nifty with your ovies and can keep them out of harms way.
I think one important thing to remember about this PvZ design is the predication on SMALL engagements. It can work in the 200/200 fights, but really isn't intended for battles larger than 50-70 food. Once the game has become a 200/200 replenishing brawl, Z has usually already won, regardless of gosu micro from the P.
If you are rolling out with 3-4 infestors, 20+ roaches, 10+hydras, and 2+seers (70+ food); its gonna be tough to hold off 20 chargelots, 6 DTs, 4 phoenix, and 4 temps (72 food) if micro is pretty comparable on both sides. However, if you map those comps up to maxed armies, it becomes a lot harder for P to win with enough left over and good enough macro to keep up with the new Z force.
IMO, the best Z counters to this are tech switches from roach/hyd to muta/corruptor/ling/bling with infestor support for both forces. once you air switch, P is forced to warp in more stalks and pump phoenixes, which usually results in horrible destruction when the hyds come back on the field.[/QUOTE]
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On November 03 2010 02:47 HuskyHawk wrote:
If you are rolling out with 3-4 infestors, 20+ roaches, 10+hydras, and 2+seers (70+ food); its gonna be tough to hold off 20 chargelots, 6 DTs, 4 phoenix, and 4 temps (72 food) if micro is pretty comparable on both sides. However, if you map those comps up to maxed armies, it becomes a lot harder for P to win with enough left over and good enough macro to keep up with the new Z force.
Actually, with those army compositions and everything else being equal, the zerg should win. The roaches and hydras will eat the zealots so quickly that the zerg can afford to keep his overseers safely in the back where they can't get feedback sniped. Hydras can pick off the 4 phoenixes easily enough, the DTs won't be able to do enough damage in the meantime. Pre-roach buff, I frequently lost battles with those army compositions. I imagine that the post-roach buff, the zerg would have an even easier time winning.
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hey xdaunt are you gonna start playing again?! we should run some pvps if you are.
But yeah, roaches are really strong with their range now, unless you have voidrays/immortals with you I wouldn't ever use zealots against them. Stalkers are ok, but probably not when he also has infestors.
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On November 03 2010 03:51 Kiarip wrote:
hey xdaunt are you gonna start playing again?! we should run some pvps if you are.
But yeah, roaches are really strong with their range now, unless you have voidrays/immortals with you I wouldn't ever use zealots against them. Stalkers are ok, but probably not when he also has infestors.
Sure, we can do some PvPs. I've started playing a bit again recently. I'm pretty rusty right now. My PvZ is particularly atrocious because of how much the game has changed. I've played 4 PvZ's and lost all of them to timing pushes that I'm not used to, especially because 2gating is dead.
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On November 03 2010 02:47 HuskyHawk wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2010 02:46 HuskyHawk wrote:
I was not saying a P player will be stampeding observers into the battle. And if Zerg goes burrow roaches, storm will be delayed by the necessity for a robo bay and observers, neither of which this build gets early. Giving the zerg more time to build up a roach/hydra/infestor force.
Microing burrow on roaches like that is unnecessary in this situation, the point is to delay protoss tech and if protoss chooses to ignore the issue punish him. Once again observer snipe unnecessary. Microing seers from behind a line of 4 range roaches and 6 range hydras? Stalkers cant get close enough and Seers sitting over the infestors who have 9 range fungal growth will be fine.
The first thing I would fungal growth is the phoenix's. And then have a group of hydras destroy them as they die fairly easily. And flanking DT's will die in a heartbeat if you do not manage to kill my overseers. Second fungal growth is the chargelots, for obvious reasons.
Also Zerg macro takes maybe 2 seconds. Which I would delay until after the very important parts of the battle were over.
I feel like you are trying to completely discredit what I am saying, while I am simply saying that it is possible to counter this strategy. Just as every other strategy. Yes, if Roach/Hydra/Infestor is done poorly you can in fact defeat it with this, However I feel as though one executed superbly, in the ways I am trying to explain, would be a strong counter. Fair enough, I wasn't trying to imply that this strat (much less any) is uncounterable. I was more trying to answer the micro differences that I felt were implied in how you described the Z counters to this strat. I agree that roach hydra is a strong combination against this, so long as you are nifty with your ovies and can keep them out of harms way. I think one important thing to remember about this PvZ design is the predication on SMALL engagements. It can work in the 200/200 fights, but really isn't intended for battles larger than 50-70 food. Once the game has become a 200/200 replenishing brawl, Z has usually already won, regardless of gosu micro from the P. If you are rolling out with 3-4 infestors, 20+ roaches, 10+hydras, and 2+seers (70+ food); its gonna be tough to hold off 20 chargelots, 6 DTs, 4 phoenix, and 4 temps (72 food) if micro is pretty comparable on both sides. However, if you map those comps up to maxed armies, it becomes a lot harder for P to win with enough left over and good enough macro to keep up with the new Z force. IMO, the best Z counters to this are tech switches from roach/hyd to muta/corruptor/ling/bling with infestor support for both forces. once you air switch, P is forced to warp in more stalks and pump phoenixes, which usually results in horrible destruction when the hyds come back on the field.
[/QUOTE]
In what way would it be tough to hold off that combination of units? Your 4 phoenix will be fungaled as will your zealots before you can feedback infestors or seers, the DTs will die to hydras in 2 seconds and you will have to land some absolutely amazing storms on the hydras to down them.
If micro is comparable the protoss will get destroyed, not to mention you have NO observers in that army so if zerg has burrow and flanks (which is something I like to do,) then you will do even worse.
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i love when zerg go muta but i hate when zerg go roach hydra ...
i actually am more comfortable dealing with muta ling xD
whatever, looking at your replay right now
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Look, this is turning into bad theorycraft here so I'm I'll just say I disagree that roach/hydra/infestor autowins vs. chargelot/DT/phoenix/templar. The discussion about micro is pointless as micro is a very fluid and contextually based part of the game; there is not way to just predict the direct impact of different "levels of micro."
In my experience, when there are phoenixes on the field vs. Z, I am often the aggressor, which means I usually have some advantage over where and when engagements occur. As such, I often have my temps in a reasonable position to drop storms/feedback seers/feedback infestors. Its also important to note that if the P can get the storms off quick enough, there will be archons involved in the fight, moreso if the Z tries to avoid storms and chargelots by running away. I also have not seen a ton of Zs that can just nail growths on phoenixes darting around a seer, they are damn hard to hit (especially with their actual map position being off from their visual position in the air).
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lol i read the part where he said im 1050 diamond and i was like . . . oh hes not good . . . but then i saw this was in september.
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Interesting but I fin it hard to justify all this tech when a robo transition is exponentially better. Dt's would be a sick transition but I find then innefective when Zerg has already thrown down sporecrawlers to deal with your phoenixes. After they get spore crawlers and sufficient hydra support this build relinquishes map control
with slow and cumbersome tech. I'd rather have immortals against ultras anyways they murder ultralisks an collossi voidray is pretty unstoppable. My question is thus might work but going robo post Phoenix seems better.
Edit: nuke this post if u like now that I think about it this thread is too old and metagames are too different for this toto be viable
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On November 03 2010 07:01 HuskyHawk wrote:
Look, this is turning into bad theorycraft here so I'm I'll just say I disagree that roach/hydra/infestor autowins vs. chargelot/DT/phoenix/templar. The discussion about micro is pointless as micro is a very fluid and contextually based part of the game; there is not way to just predict the direct impact of different "levels of micro."
In my experience, when there are phoenixes on the field vs. Z, I am often the aggressor, which means I usually have some advantage over where and when engagements occur. As such, I often have my temps in a reasonable position to drop storms/feedback seers/feedback infestors. Its also important to note that if the P can get the storms off quick enough, there will be archons involved in the fight, moreso if the Z tries to avoid storms and chargelots by running away. I also have not seen a ton of Zs that can just nail growths on phoenixes darting around a seer, they are damn hard to hit (especially with their actual map position being off from their visual position in the air).
Let us try it then.
And hitting air units is not difficult if you use the helper thing, which I do.
MorsCerta - 125
Not that I am the best example of micro or macro in a zerg, my MMR is only like 1600ish but Assuming you are of around the same skill level (I dont know what you are) we can test it out.
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On November 03 2010 01:56 MorsCerta wrote:Show nested quote +On November 02 2010 10:19 HuskyHawk wrote:
Look, just as you argued for overseers not running into the middle of a battle, why would a P player start stampeding obs into a fight? The key difference is that if a Z wants to try and hunt down the obs, storms are gonna wreck house.
I don't play at a level where a Z can keep up with macro while simultaneously:
1.) microing burrow on roaches to maximize health and positioning
2.) microing hyds AND overseers to snipe obs
3.) WHILE sniping obs, microing overseers away from phoenixes, temps, and supporting stalks
4.) fungal growth with infestors WHILE keeping them positioned away from temps/flanking DTs
I was not saying a P player will be stampeding observers into the battle. And if Zerg goes burrow roaches, storm will be delayed by the necessity for a robo bay and observers, neither of which this build gets early. Giving the zerg more time to build up a roach/hydra/infestor force. Microing burrow on roaches like that is unnecessary in this situation, the point is to delay protoss tech and if protoss chooses to ignore the issue punish him. Once again observer snipe unnecessary. Microing seers from behind a line of 4 range roaches and 6 range hydras? Stalkers cant get close enough and Seers sitting over the infestors who have 9 range fungal growth will be fine. The first thing I would fungal growth is the phoenix's. And then have a group of hydras destroy them as they die fairly easily. And flanking DT's will die in a heartbeat if you do not manage to kill my overseers. Second fungal growth is the chargelots, for obvious reasons. Also Zerg macro takes maybe 2 seconds. Which I would delay until after the very important parts of the battle were over. I feel like you are trying to completely discredit what I am saying, while I am simply saying that it is possible to counter this strategy. Just as every other strategy. Yes, if Roach/Hydra/Infestor is done poorly you can in fact defeat it with this, However I feel as though one executed superbly, in the ways I am trying to explain, would be a strong counter.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if Z doesn't get as many Hydras out but rather gets infestor/roaches as well, that means Phoenix's will be able to get map control by avoiding the main zerg army. This will result in a lot of dead OL's or keeping Z in their base. This will happen well before enough infestors come out with FG.
Going burrow roaches can be delayed with cannons, which will not delay templar/storm tech. And once storm comes out burrow becomes useless again. And since you don't have that many hydras, toss can waste storms on the roaches...forcing them to unburrow to move away (delaying enough to get a few obs or templar energy upgrade). And once templars come out infestors also become quite useless...which allows phoenix's to kill the overseers and let the DT's do their work while the main toss gateway army takes care of the hydra/roach.
Ultimately what I'm saying is that burrow roaches won't be in time to force observers as long as toss turtles with cannons and uses phoenix for map control. And if infestors are opted for first...that should give toss enough time to get templar + storm again with a cannon turtle...keeping phoenixes slightly more passive until toss is ready to move out.
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Yeah I've reattempted this build and I've found less success with it. It requires the zerg to not attack you for a very long time, or you to put on so much pressure that he can't get enough units. Since it's so immensely gas heavy it's difficult to pull this off with 2 bases, so you need to take a very very fast 3rd causing for even more vulnerability.
I've adapted the DT play into my late game however as It really catches the zerg off guard and straight up dishes out a shitton of damage.
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On November 03 2010 11:18 inn5013orecl wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2010 01:56 MorsCerta wrote:On November 02 2010 10:19 HuskyHawk wrote:
Look, just as you argued for overseers not running into the middle of a battle, why would a P player start stampeding obs into a fight? The key difference is that if a Z wants to try and hunt down the obs, storms are gonna wreck house.
I don't play at a level where a Z can keep up with macro while simultaneously:
1.) microing burrow on roaches to maximize health and positioning
2.) microing hyds AND overseers to snipe obs
3.) WHILE sniping obs, microing overseers away from phoenixes, temps, and supporting stalks
4.) fungal growth with infestors WHILE keeping them positioned away from temps/flanking DTs
I was not saying a P player will be stampeding observers into the battle. And if Zerg goes burrow roaches, storm will be delayed by the necessity for a robo bay and observers, neither of which this build gets early. Giving the zerg more time to build up a roach/hydra/infestor force. Microing burrow on roaches like that is unnecessary in this situation, the point is to delay protoss tech and if protoss chooses to ignore the issue punish him. Once again observer snipe unnecessary. Microing seers from behind a line of 4 range roaches and 6 range hydras? Stalkers cant get close enough and Seers sitting over the infestors who have 9 range fungal growth will be fine. The first thing I would fungal growth is the phoenix's. And then have a group of hydras destroy them as they die fairly easily. And flanking DT's will die in a heartbeat if you do not manage to kill my overseers. Second fungal growth is the chargelots, for obvious reasons. Also Zerg macro takes maybe 2 seconds. Which I would delay until after the very important parts of the battle were over. I feel like you are trying to completely discredit what I am saying, while I am simply saying that it is possible to counter this strategy. Just as every other strategy. Yes, if Roach/Hydra/Infestor is done poorly you can in fact defeat it with this, However I feel as though one executed superbly, in the ways I am trying to explain, would be a strong counter. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if Z doesn't get as many Hydras out but rather gets infestor/roaches as well, that means Phoenix's will be able to get map control by avoiding the main zerg army. This will result in a lot of dead OL's or keeping Z in their base. This will happen well before enough infestors come out with FG. Going burrow roaches can be delayed with cannons, which will not delay templar/storm tech. And once storm comes out burrow becomes useless again. And since you don't have that many hydras, toss can waste storms on the roaches...forcing them to unburrow to move away (delaying enough to get a few obs or templar energy upgrade). And once templars come out infestors also become quite useless...which allows phoenix's to kill the overseers and let the DT's do their work while the main toss gateway army takes care of the hydra/roach. Ultimately what I'm saying is that burrow roaches won't be in time to force observers as long as toss turtles with cannons and uses phoenix for map control. And if infestors are opted for first...that should give toss enough time to get templar + storm again with a cannon turtle...keeping phoenixes slightly more passive until toss is ready to move out.
If you are phoenix harassing zerg will get enough hydras out to defend it. And probably place 2 spore crawlers in each base, maybe 3. Burrow roaches arent to attack with, it is to FORCE the protoss to get mobile detection. If you just cannon up and leave your base with an army and have no detection, you could walk right over one roach group to engage zergs main army only to get flanked.
In a perfect protoss world templars make infestors useless. However this is not the case. Not to mention if you want to waste storms on roaches go for it, I would much rather have you storming roaches then hydras.
I also dont think this strategy is meant to be played as a cannon turtle, its mean as an aggressive, harassing, expanding protoss. Maybe I am wrong but thats how I read it.
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On November 03 2010 13:09 MorsCerta wrote:
I also dont think this strategy is meant to be played as a cannon turtle, its mean as an aggressive, harassing, expanding protoss. Maybe I am wrong but thats how I read it.
That was precisely the goal: a PvZ build and strategy that was highly aggressive from beginning to end. Again, even when I made the OP, I hadn't worked out all of the details and kinks in the build. However, I thought that the core ideas were good enough to warrant presentation to the community for further refinement.
However, the zealot nerf and roach buff have dramatically changed the PvZ early game, which in turn affects this build, especially because it was predicated upon opening with 2 gate pressure. If you read through the thread, there is a lot of discussion about whether opening 2 gate was optimal anyway -- an issue that was never really resolved.
You also have to keep in mind that this build was developed at a time when muta/ling was the predominant ZvP strategy. Muta/ling is less prevalent now following the roach changes. Given the buffs to roaches, I do not think that a protoss can safely forego robo tech and immortals when facing roach masses. Gateway units just do too poorly.
So where does this leave the build? Is it obsolete? I think the answer is both yes and no. I developed the build backwards. I found a really cool and powerful late game protoss army composition that I liked and wanted to find a way to safely develop that army. Of course, you can't just go straight tier 3 against a zerg because a good zerg will punish you with his superior macro potential. The protoss has to pressure the zerg -- period. The transitions that I developed were designed with that in mind. I'm not sure that the transitions as I set them forth in the OP are particularly viable anymore. However, the tier 3 army composition is still very potent and should give zergs nightmares. As before, the trick now is to figure out the best way to get there. That will require renewed thought and testing.
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I have always loved this strategy but just havnt been able to implement it to the success i have had with all-in blink stalkers
love me some blink stalkers
But more on the topic, i have found that some really good sim city can help this build along to get you to the later stages of the game.
But maybe these 2 concepts can be combined some how? the very powerfull early game of blink stalkers and the very powerfull late tier 3 army youve designed
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Love this build, reminds me of good ol' corsair/DT builds, though I struggled getting something like phoenix/dt or stalker/dt to work when zerg goes overseer heavy. Good stuff up there
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DT`s imo are not used enough. Their dps is good for mid game. We need to get rid of the shrine and only have one templar building. That would make HT`s more viable
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On November 03 2010 15:41 us.insurgency wrote:
DT`s imo are not used enough. Their dps is good for mid game. We need to get rid of the shrine and only have one templar building. That would make HT`s more viable
i agree with this
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This is countered by infestors unless you feedback them very quickly, remember that FG not only completely stops DT's from attacking anything that isn't melee, it also pulls them out of cloak
banelings also are a very hard counter to DT's even if the zerg lacks detection
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This looks pretty awesome, I will have to give this a go. I've always favoured HTs over colossus in PvZ, but always gone colossus as most zerg will pressure you before you've teched to HTs. And immortals are out in time for any roach push.
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The main problem I have had is burrowed roach abuse. Cannons in base work great but it makes pushing out not so hot, robo is really delayed so no mobile detection.
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I just tried this build twice and completely failed at the 2-gate pressure part. I've never been much of a 2-gate player, even since BW. Basically, what happened was I put a lot of pressure on the Z and forced a ton of lings and some spines, but while I was teching with a core and gas, he just speedling ling all-inned me, and since my initial force died and I didn't have enough gas for sentries to block my ramp => dead.
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