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KhAmun
United States1005 Posts
I would recommend adding drop tech, bnest, and additional gas (still stay on only 4, 5 max) at ~180 if they're yet to move out. You won't have the same issues of lack of supply, therefor no need for a pause, therefor not the same window of vulnerability. This way, once maxed if they haven't moved out you don't have to worry about engaging on the map, you just make more banes and drop them. This is only talking about immo/sentry btw. | ||
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quarkral
58 Posts
It would be a great transition from a maxed roach army since you can just use spine crawler cancelling to get 2-3 ultralisks out, and suddenly your maxed roach army is much stronger. You'd probably skip infestors for the midgame to get to hive faster. Has anyone tried this? I would think roaches in a straight up fight can hold against a P army if it weren't for force fields making them unable to attack. | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
http://drop.sc/222075 here's a game where I just did it. You shouldn't max out on roaches though, or you won't have the ultras in time against toss. It's best done when you identify, with your overseer you make when lair finishes, that Toss is not all-inning with 6+ gates but instead expanding off 1-5, and you make maybe 10 roaches at most (skipping roach speed is a plus!), and going ling/infestor (either use spines or have roach upgrades just in case toss pushes when he 'shouldn't) with a super fast hive and fourth. It's not really ultra/roach that's good, its just ultras are great in zvp, at a certain time. Just like in the other match-ups, ultras suck really bad, but there's a really, key, timing where they really shine, when broodlords would be too greedy to get but infestor/muta with ling/bane/roach is just not enough against the 3 base push. | ||
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Andykay
Australia2 Posts
I don't understand how to stop this. He opened FFE and stacked a bunch of cannons around his mineral lines (~3ish) so I couldn't do much harrass with my mutas and his front was reasonably secure. I had a slight econ advantage, as I triple expanded when I saw him FFE, but it wasn't enough to apply pressure. Perhaps I should have busted in earlier once I saw the stargates, I don't know, but once he hits critical mass with his voids, it seems pretty much unstoppable, so all he has to do is not die until then. Any thoughts? | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
The point of mutas is 2 fold: 1. Always, always, always beat a 2 base Toss in a base race (just make sure you don't lose too many mutas with your harass, knowing how many mutas can take on how many stalkers, go into unit tester to test it out and get a feel, and not going into his main when the base trade starts and letting him mass cannons in there while you focus his nat with ling/muta) 2. Force Toss to be stuck in his base so long on 3 bases that by the time he pushes with stalker/HT, you have a superior, pure broodlord/infestor army (mass spines helps to buy some critical time or help if you are a little low on broodlords). A critical mass of voids does get unstoppable, but by that time you should have enough mutas to just win the base trade, or straight up ravage him as long as you engage correctly (if he spends that much on voids he won't be able to have enough stalkers, but 18 mutas doesn't fare well against 8 voids, you probably would rather engage with more like 22+). Or, enough infestors to roll it. Or, if you go hydras, a great response against stargate openers, busted him easily with enough roach/hydra to straight up kill him. Really sounds like a macro issue, but check out the guides linked in my profile. My zvp guide goes in-depth on how to handle Toss with mutas, as well as everything. Decaf's guide to roach/ling/muta in ZvP is also probably the best written resource on how to use mutas in the match-up as well. | ||
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Andykay
Australia2 Posts
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quarkral
58 Posts
I just played a game where I got like 25 hydras 15 roaches to his 10 stalkers 2-3 immortals 10 sentries ish. I couldn't actually engage his stupid army cause of all the FF spam every time I tried. Even if I don't lose many units to the FF, it still allows him to get away. When he moves out to attack, should I just counterattack his natural or something so he's forced to engage me? | ||
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Skouaire
France13 Posts
And you have to poke the sentries all the time in order to get them as low as possible in energy. You can also make a few speedlings / roaches drops in his main in order to keep his army in his base. If he's bad, he will take his entire army in order to defend the drop, and you will be able to push in his natural pretty easily in order to kill his probes / 2nd base / have a better concave down the choke | ||
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Pyrena
7 Posts
On July 15 2012 10:28 sCCrooked wrote: ^ if you have trouble in masters imagine in dia where every toss is too bad to have proper timing and just turtles up until +2 immortal/sentry ball or something dumb. We actually get punished for playing well T_T I really think the reason for this is that people assume too much. As stupid as it sounds, you can't expect your opponent to attack at a certain time if you scout a timing attack. What bothers me most is that people get angry for anything they discredit as an invalid strategy. While just maxing out after an allin certainly isn't the most optimal build (as you waste a lot of minerals in the process of getting out some of the units very earliy and not attacking with them), it certainly is a viable choice to do so, because it forces a certain kind of reaction from your opponent. Losing to this doesn't mean you lost because you played too well and the opponent played dumb, it's because you lacked knowledge. Just playing unpredictably works surprisingly often, just because people assume way too much. (zvz: telling an incoming all-in just from the drone-count at the natural, etc.. this is probably the most out-standing example) Back to the pvz scenario: The reason you defend an immortal all-in at the 'proper' time with roaches and lings is because you have to be cost-efficient at this point in the game. As the immortal-count goes up, they beat an infinite amount of roach/ling because the protoss' army is just so expensive and always beats a cheaper one (the same reason why mech works in zvt) If your opponent turtles on 2bases, you can really be cost-inefficient as fuck. This could be with massing spines and infestors, or just with a lot of banelings, it really doesn't matter. Personally, I prefer the baneling option as this is our only unit that allows us to beat a protoss army head on in the mid-game (because of their poor cost/supply ratio). | ||
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Pyrena
7 Posts
On July 15 2012 16:14 quarkral wrote: If I have a significantly better army than P, how do I actually engage his army? I just played a game where I got like 25 hydras 15 roaches to his 10 stalkers 2-3 immortals 10 sentries ish. I couldn't actually engage his stupid army cause of all the FF spam every time I tried. Even if I don't lose many units to the FF, it still allows him to get away. When he moves out to attack, should I just counterattack his natural or something so he's forced to engage me? droptech/roach burrow-movement would work really really well. It is impossible to attack directly into a natural. If you dislike using drops, (which to be honest, is very expensive at this point in the game, so just use it if you're far ahead) you could just camp outside of his natural. If he doesn't take a third until 12-13 minutes, you basically won the game. | ||
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Clarity_nl
Netherlands6826 Posts
On July 15 2012 11:52 quarkral wrote: Is roach/ultralisk a viable unit composition in the early ish hive period, vs P? Like just two ultralisks will destroy all his forcefields and make his sentries worthless. It would be a great transition from a maxed roach army since you can just use spine crawler cancelling to get 2-3 ultralisks out, and suddenly your maxed roach army is much stronger. You'd probably skip infestors for the midgame to get to hive faster. Has anyone tried this? I would think roaches in a straight up fight can hold against a P army if it weren't for force fields making them unable to attack. Trying to visualize these armies gave me a feeling that the toss army is actually better if he is defending. So I went and tried to recreate it best I could and turns out I was right, assuming every sentry has 2 forcefields you shouldnt be able to beat it in a choke. Too many hydras.... This is the classic zerg problem: Errr I made too many units that I can't do anything with. Just double expand with your superior army and drone up! | ||
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sCCrooked
Korea (South)1306 Posts
On July 15 2012 17:48 Pyrena wrote: I really think the reason for this is that people assume too much. As stupid as it sounds, you can't expect your opponent to attack at a certain time if you scout a timing attack. What bothers me most is that people get angry for anything they discredit as an invalid strategy. While just maxing out after an allin certainly isn't the most optimal build (as you waste a lot of minerals in the process of getting out some of the units very earliy and not attacking with them), it certainly is a viable choice to do so, because it forces a certain kind of reaction from your opponent. Losing to this doesn't mean you lost because you played too well and the opponent played dumb, it's because you lacked knowledge. Just playing unpredictably works surprisingly often, just because people assume way too much. (zvz: telling an incoming all-in just from the drone-count at the natural, etc.. this is probably the most out-standing example) This is the same sort of argument that popped up when the +2 stalker/sentry/immortal ball push popped up in the strategy threads. The point is its absolutely ludicrous that doing so much less can be so effective. If your opponent requires a certain level of multi-task to obtain say 78 supply by 8 minutes off just drones and queens (any Z will tell you this is a very high benchmark), there is absolutely no reason you should be able to do a very basic and very easy-to-execute 2 base all-in that stops at 40-something workers and for about 3-5 minutes (yes THIS freaking long) drop to 0 multi-tasking and about 5apm while doing nothing but yawn and wait for your warp gates to reset and click one time on your robo after immortal pops out. Its a strategy that literally has "do no multi-task that requires 0 skill and 0 effort" as the key ingredient in its success. Its a very serious game design flaw in which doing more, having better macro, and having better army for a huge window yields NEGATIVE results. There's no way to scout it, and the P is not forced to do a damn thing. Just by sitting in his base, we can't touch him because its the already-invincible sentry/immortal which can't be touched unless you crumble it bit by bit across the map and we can't scout this because it looks identical to a normal 2 base all-in in which case you are absolutely FORCED to make a ton of units quickly or you WILL die to any variety of these all-ins. tl;dr Doing much less with no regard for any sort of timing should be self-punishing, not self-rewarding in such a huge way. User was warned for this post | ||
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Pyrena
7 Posts
It's not like 2 base all-in into 2base turtle into 200/200 unit composition of x is something you will see in highlevel-play, because it isn't self rewarding. Every minute the protoss is on 2base vs. 3, he actually gets more and more behind. You absolutely have to prepare for it if he does move out in the next second, but you have to switch to a more heavy weapon if he doesn't. I really encourage you to try some baneling-play if you face that kind of problems. | ||
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sCCrooked
Korea (South)1306 Posts
On July 15 2012 21:20 Pyrena wrote: I really wish you'd commentate on the second half of my post. It's not like 2 base all-in into 2base turtle into 200/200 unit composition of x is something you will see in highlevel-play, because it isn't self rewarding. Every minute the protoss is on 2base vs. 3, he actually gets more and more behind. You absolutely have to prepare for it if he does move out in the next second, but you have to switch to a more heavy weapon if he doesn't. I really encourage you to try some baneling-play if you face that kind of problems. I was going to try saving you some face by not showing that part, but these are just really bad comments said in the face of overwhelming evidence. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=337516 That right there is a link to the long thread of discussion following a build and style suggested by EmpireMista. Other Protosses have since created variations of this build. These are progamers. The others that have been using variances of this build are GM at the top and continue all the way down to mineral-league levels. It IS self-rewarding in a very big way. You can even see Mista winning against Code S Stephano using this build in an embedded VOD. bane/ling is not effective either. The only option they really mentioned there was a base-trade with that army type. *Edit* I've suggested it before and I'll say it again, if they don't move out by 11:00, I'm making infestors. If they use this 14:30 move-out I'm just going to mass-fungal them and hope its enough to kill off a big portion of their push. However, even that is still close to a coin-toss if they go for this sort of build. | ||
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Clarity_nl
Netherlands6826 Posts
You question has been answered a bunch. | ||
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FrogOfWar
Germany1406 Posts
My problem is that I can't win against a fast expanding Protoss. Played three matches today: First a ZvT in which I roflstomped him. Second a ZvZ in which I roflstomped him. Then a ZvP in which I got roflstomped by him. It's not always this extreme, but this was no coincidence either. I know this is a rather unspecific question. But maybe someone can enlighten me with some general guidelines on how to play ZvP. I don't get it. Protoss units just seem so much stronger than what I can muster up, which is made worse by their usual upgrade advantage. Ground armies get nullified by force fields. Protosses open fast expand, build their army and then just walk over me, no matter if I two base or three base. If I try three base, the third doesn't really kick in before they attack with their superior army, so that my third gets killed while their third gets up. I do watch pro games, I know the Stephano style. Now, I don't have Stephano's macro. But the thing is, in other matchups I don't need Stephano's macro. In ZvP it seems I do. I'm always so happy when a Protoss cannon rushes me or does an old style four-gate, rushes for void rays or DTs, because I know how to defend against that. At this point, I think i have the best chances vs a fast expanding protoss when I do something silly like a spine crawler rush, hatchery in his base, two base mutalisk or fast baneling drop. Roaches seem to give me a window when I have quick burrowed movement and they have no observer, but if they do, roaches getting slaughtered while burrowed doesn't really help me out. Quick attack upgrades also don't help when they eat five times more fire than they dish out because they're trapped in force fields. Same for hydras. Roach/Hydra only seems to work with a macro advantage, but how am I supposed to get that when Protosses can get a massive upgraded army on their well fortified two-base? I really must be missing something. There is nothing in the other matchups that I am anywhere near as clueless about as I am about playing straight up vs. a macroing Protoss. | ||
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sCCrooked
Korea (South)1306 Posts
On July 15 2012 22:35 Clarity_nl wrote: Guys this isn't a balance discussion thread, nor should we care about the level of effort required in doing strategies. You question has been answered a bunch. Balance is not being discussed and we're discussing a very real ZvP scenario that never really had a "normal" response figured out. Stop trying to mod when proper discussion is being held please. *Edit* I am Zerg, and I need help. My problem is that I can't win against a fast expanding Protoss. Played three matches today: First a ZvT in which I roflstomped him. Second a ZvZ in which I roflstomped him. Then a ZvP in which I got roflstomped by him. It's not always this extreme, but this was no coincidence either. I know this is a rather unspecific question. But maybe someone can enlighten me with some general guidelines on how to play ZvP. I don't get it. Protoss units just seem so much stronger than what I can muster up, which is made worse by their usual upgrade advantage. Ground armies get nullified by force fields. Protosses open fast expand, build their army and then just walk over me, no matter if I two base or three base. If I try three base, the third doesn't really kick in before they attack with their superior army, so that my third gets killed while their third gets up. I do watch pro games, I know the Stephano style. Now, I don't have Stephano's macro. But the thing is, in other matchups I don't need Stephano's macro. In ZvP it seems I do. I'm always so happy when a Protoss cannon rushes me or does an old style four-gate, rushes for void rays or DTs, because I know how to defend against that. At this point, I think i have the best chances vs a fast expanding protoss when I do something silly like a spine crawler rush, hatchery in his base, two base mutalisk or fast baneling drop. Roaches seem to give me a window when I have quick burrowed movement and they have no observer, but if they do, roaches getting slaughtered while burrowed doesn't really help me out. Quick attack upgrades also don't help when they eat five times more fire than they dish out because they're trapped in force fields. Same for hydras. Roach/Hydra only seems to work with a macro advantage, but how am I supposed to get that when Protosses can get a massive upgraded army on their well fortified two-base? I really must be missing something. There is nothing in the other matchups that I am anywhere near as clueless about as I am about playing straight up vs. a macroing Protoss. The best way to play against protoss right now is a 3 base opening into massing drones. There are also ling/bane options available that utilize less drones, but they are tailored to meet a specific push we've been discussing here called "Immortal/Sentry all-in". If you want help with that, there are varied ways to deal with it, but nobody has a super-clear view right now on how to properly handle it. It seems more to do with having better mechanics and micro for exchanges than anything else. For general ZvP, you can expect either a 2 or 3 base push at 10:00 and 15:30 respectively. The first, you should be trying to hit certain macro benchmarks in your build. The biggest one being at 8:00 checking your supply count and seeing how high you have managed to make it. 70+ is considered to be very good while 60-70 is moderate and under 60 being very poor. Keep trying to drone and hit injects until you can consistently make 70+ and you'll have no trouble with 2 base pushes in general (except for the scenario I've been explaining above). If you find the P takes a really fast third (like before 9:30), there's a few ways to respond. There's a muta style which takes advantage of P being spread out pretty thin, but its very APM-intensive and you need to be able to maintain harassment while changing into a lategame T3 army with 4-5 bases and BL/festor. The other option is to take a fast fourth yourself and make more drones with a huge spine wall. You eventually get infestors (throw down the pit as soon as you see their early third) and use fungal/spine to deter any earlier-than-15:30 timings with an army. You use this safety wall to rush hive and BLs to go with your festors and then you slowly move forward by re-arranging the spine wall and spreading the BL/festor army so you don't get vortex'd. Either style has been proven to work. | ||
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FrogOfWar
Germany1406 Posts
On July 15 2012 22:53 sCCrooked wrote: Balance is not being discussed and we're discussing a very real ZvP scenario that never really had a "normal" response figured out. Stop trying to mod when proper discussion is being held please. *Edit* The best way to play against protoss right now is a 3 base opening into massing drones. There are also ling/bane options available that utilize less drones, but they are tailored to meet a specific push we've been discussing here called "Immortal/Sentry all-in". If you want help with that, there are varied ways to deal with it, but nobody has a super-clear view right now on how to properly handle it. It seems more to do with having better mechanics and micro for exchanges than anything else. For general ZvP, you can expect either a 2 or 3 base push at 10:00 and 15:30 respectively. The first, you should be trying to hit certain macro benchmarks in your build. The biggest one being at 8:00 checking your supply count and seeing how high you have managed to make it. 70+ is considered to be very good while 60-70 is moderate and under 60 being very poor. Keep trying to drone and hit injects until you can consistently make 70+ and you'll have no trouble with 2 base pushes in general (except for the scenario I've been explaining above). If you find the P takes a really fast third (like before 9:30), there's a few ways to respond. There's a muta style which takes advantage of P being spread out pretty thin, but its very APM-intensive and you need to be able to maintain harassment while changing into a lategame T3 army with 4-5 bases and BL/festor. The other option is to take a fast fourth yourself and make more drones with a huge spine wall. You eventually get infestors (throw down the pit as soon as you see their early third) and use fungal/spine to deter any earlier-than-15:30 timings with an army. You use this safety wall to rush hive and BLs to go with your festors and then you slowly move forward by re-arranging the spine wall and spreading the BL/festor army so you don't get vortex'd. Either style has been proven to work. That was quick, thank you! I guess I'll start by looking out for those benchmarks. | ||
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wcr.4fun
Belgium686 Posts
Same question to the early 3 zealot pressure (after FFE). Is it acceptable to make spine crawlers or just mass lings (both situations)? I feel 1 spine crawler + your queen can sure scare the toss a lot (which might end up being a lot less intense on your larvae). | ||
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sCCrooked
Korea (South)1306 Posts
On July 15 2012 23:54 wcr.4fun wrote: What's the best way to handle with early pressure from a Toss when you're going the standard 3 hatch (14 pool 15 hatch as opening) before gas. Lings don't waste any gass, but most often they'll have +1 on their zealots which means you need even more lings. You could get roaches but that means you'd have to get your roach warren at 6 minutes or earlier to have some roaches to hold that off (typically hits at 7.30 or something). Same question to the early 3 zealot pressure (after FFE). Is it acceptable to make spine crawlers or just mass lings (both situations)? I feel 1 spine crawler + your queen can sure scare the toss a lot (which might end up being a lot less intense on your larvae). You'll have to be a bit more specific with "early pressure" as in "from how many gates?" but I'll try to give a generalized answer. The biggest thing is scouting his gate count and when they're up. Its also a good idea to send in a ling every 30 seconds to his front to just keep an eye on his move-out time and his zealot count. If they're indeed waiting for +1 to finish, I'm guessing this is a 4 gate +1 zealot pressure into delayed robo+warpgate all-in. There's a way to see this coming with an overlord at his natural and look at his gas geysers. If he has no geysers at 6:45, you should be worried about this potentially coming. Plop down your roach warren immediately (if he has no gas by 6:30, you can put it down then too to be safer but it will cost you a little economy) and cut your droning up at about 7:00-7:15 depending on his move-out timing. Switch into pure roach/ling and you should be able to hold it. There's another variation which is more of a 2 or 3 gate expand (its kind of bad and weird but you'll see it on ladder). The way I handle this is scouting the earlier gates and making sufficient lings accordingly. Then, I watch carefully during the zealot attack with an overlord in their main to see when they add on the secondary wave of gates and pump robo units. There's a small window where you have enough to hold off their zealot pressure and you can get a round of drones in. This should boost your economy to over 60 drones and thusly enough to hold off the next all-in push. If I didn't answer your concern here, please make another post and be more specific about which variation you meant (or supply a replay, that helps!) | ||
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