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This is not a joke post, please disregard what you might think of me from my last thread i posted. Wont bring that up again.
The main reason for this post is bringing a new idea to the table about dealing with roaches early/mid game.
With the most recent patch Roach range is now 4 as you all know, do not spam here about imbalance/trolling please, personally i feel it was a long time coming as a toss player since roaches were pretty retarded and just tanked shots, with the new range they can now actually do dmg with the main army (making the zerg army at 200/200 quite a bit more powerful if you havent noticed). Moving on.
The Archon, most useless, big, low range unit in the game right? Maybe.
After facing more then 90% of zergs on ladder in 2 days all going roach early game-->muta/ling lategame REGARDLESS of what i had/they scouted, so i've been pounding my head against the wall working on new ways to beat this strat that is going around like the flu.
I dont have much trouble with the regular zerg builds (roach/hydra, muta/ling, ect), but i feel with roach-->muta/ling you have to invest so much in robo to hold off the roach push (range 4 makes them hard as anything to kite and most good zergs are now rushing to speed roaches as they should've been doing a long time ago). After investing into immortals your pretty dry for when the inevitable mutas come out.
I've recently been favoring heavy zealot/stalker/HT for most zerg builds, especially the dreaded muta/ling with a few openings (mainly FE super gate, but depends on map/positions) and have come to notice that any early expansion leaves you pretty open for heavy roach pressure. As we saw in GSL2 it took just about everything a toss had (Cant remember name, anyone remember?) to hold off the mass roach/ling bust with cannons and stalker/zealot at his nat.
And i came upon the Archon, yes finally getting to the point of the post.
350 shields, 10 HP, pretty hefty HP when you look at a zealot/stalker who are around 150/160 HP+shields.
Dmg - 25 (vs Biological...AKA ALL ZERG UNITS: 35).
Attack speed:1.75
Roachs: 145 HP
Dmg - 16
Attack Speed: 2
Doing some unit testing, using 3 archons (900 gas of units, 300 gas of tech) against an increasingly number of roaches (No micro, amoving, and even the archons were a bit slower to attack since they are such a large unit and one lagged behind by about 1 second or so).
6 Roaches - All roaches dead, one archon down and minimal shield damage.
8 Roaches - All roaches dead, one archon down with both having ~40% shields (150 shields or so)
10 Roaches- All Archons dead, with 1 roach at very low hp and one around 50%.
360/16 = 22.5
Since we're always rounding up when dealing with this sort of thing
Roaches take 23 shots to kill an archon.
145/34 = 4.26
Meaning Archons take 5 shots to kill roaches.
^All unupgraded. *Edit: Thank you UncleOwnage.
With micro/speed upgrade:
Off creep with speed upgrade, the roaches *can* kite archons, but when the roaches start to shoot the archons can get a shot off.
Without speed its a pretty one sided fight and better off just trying to focus fire due to the speed of the Archon is 2.81 compared to the roaches 2.25 pre-speed upgrade.
MICRO FOR ARCHON: Just as the Colossi has its AoE spash moving back and forth, the archon has its splash originating like the siege tank, from in to out. For best results using archons against any zerg unit (especially lings before they surround) click the closest to the middle unit you can, this will force the archons to splash the middle and largest radius of units. (Like using siege tanks vs banelings/lings, clicking the middle allows the largest splash).
All these tests were done without the use of FF/Stalkers/Zealots tanking/Other shenanigans that protoss have at there disposal. With stalker support it would go further into the toss's favor due to the high dmg of stalker vs roaches.
Mid/Lategame: This is really where i think this could shine, going fast HT shrine (Chose to go HT and just super early gas due to DT shrine being ungodly long build time) allows for one of two things against the builds you will see;
Muta Ling mid/lategame - Storm+Gateway/Archon, GG? We've all seen what storm does to lings/mutas, its pretty disgusting with 1-2 good places storms on muta.
Roach Hydra - Again, storm for hydras, create a robotics bay if hes going super mass roach and make more archons.
Ultra lategame? Did i mention how good archons were against bio units with gateway support?
Transitions:
DTs, HT+DT+Gateway units, allows for the easiest sniping of overseers (feedback+few shots from stalkers) and then go to town on the army.
Colossi/Robo play, If you see mass mass roach, and he really doesnt wanna transition into something else, get some sentries and immortals, FF+immortals+good gateway composition, and he will cry.
Strategy: Finally!
You can your usual* build order (9 pylon, 12/13/14 gate depending on position/map), and do your usual shenanigans to stop expo's/apply enough pressure with 3 gates but do not overextend yourself and lose to a larger force because you got reckless, cannot stress this enough.
When your 2 gates are up and running (Producing mainly Stalker/Zealot with 1 sentry in case of a all in ling) drop your TC and your 3rd (4th gate if you dont want to expand). At this point you can choose to expand or go straight to HT/Archon.
While doing this, your going to want to pressure the zerg as much as you can, poke around wherever you can, make sure hes not just free to drone 100%, because lets face it, if he does your dead.
Once you have 1-2 archons (usually when the expo is warping in) you can start pressuring harder and denying the zergs 3rd and eventually teching to storm or switch techs if you feel you need to.
Hope you can incorporate one of units that most people consider to be useless into your PvZ against the newest buffed unit, the roach.
I'll try to post some replays when i get them vs some higher level players (been working on timing in customs and its not 100% yet).
Any suggestions for timings/solidifying the build for the future is always appreciated.
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You should test Archon vs Muta as I think thats the limiting factor. I think going Charge/HT vs hydra and then getting archons when he goes roaches would be smart and work, but from what I know muta's destroy archons (but I could be wrong).
i think archon's need the massive title so they can't be slowed by marauders and also a slight splash radius increase.
Another thing is burrow needs obs, but archon is pretty heavy gas so that could be a weakness imo.
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you're wrong, mutas dont destroy archons. if anything archons destroy mutas if they catch them stacked, but otherwise they're still fairly decent vs mutas.
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Thank you blitz for your feedback.
To be honest, unless the zerg is very good about magic boxing, and even when they do magic box, archons do quite well vs mutas. I can do some testing if you'd like but i know its something like 3:1 muta/archon or somewhere around there unupgraded (no stalkers helping as well).
@ burrow, ive only seen 1-2 people actually use burrow very well, which is why im starting to stray away from using colossi for PvZ right now, forced to have an obs over my army at all times or else he would burrow-->snipe colossi before i could do anything.
Thank you for the comment.
Edit: As Bowdy said, what i was just about to post, if they go head on, i think with the flying mechanics as the muta's are flying up there gonna take heavy splash until they can spread out (and HT should be out with storm by the time mass muta is coming).
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I like this a lot. I could see it coming off of some semi-fast expand with a forge for +1 and cannons to help hold off mutas
Too gas intensive for one base though imo
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Archons in BW were the anit Muta unit until corsairs. I think its really valid.
P.S. Did you know that archons get +3 atk(+1 bio= total of +4 vs bio for each upgrade) for each weapon upgrade.
Thats 47 vs bio
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On October 21 2010 11:10 blitzkrieger wrote:
You should test Archon vs Muta as I think thats the limiting factor. I think going Charge/HT vs hydra and then getting archons when he goes roaches would be smart and work, but from what I know muta's destroy archons (but I could be wrong).
i think archon's need the massive title so they can't be slowed by marauders and also a slight splash radius increase.
Another thing is burrow needs obs, but archon is pretty heavy gas so that could be a weakness imo.
Blizzard officially stated somewhere that the Archon was meant as a back-up unit (merge your templars after they have no energy) when questioned about the viability of Archons - they are meant to be not very effective in general (except against the occasional muta stack, or perhaps against lings with a weapon upgrade).
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On October 21 2010 11:18 -{Cake}- wrote:
I like this a lot. I could see it coming off of some semi-fast expand with a forge for +1 and cannons to help hold off mutas
Too gas intensive for one base though imo
One basing will die out just like it did in BW. Don't get too used to it.
FE builds are the Future Man
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One archon basically costs 300 gas though, doesn't it? That's a lot of gas to take care of roaches, which are a lot cheaper.
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I came expecting to flame some stupid and hopelessly shortsighted theorycrafting but this thread was well written, your ideas expressed clearly, and the argument thought out. I'll probably have a lot of free time this weekend to video game, so I'll try out your suggestion and see if I can incorporate archons.
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On October 21 2010 11:12 Bowdy wrote:
you're wrong, mutas dont destroy archons. if anything archons destroy mutas if they catch them stacked, but otherwise they're still fairly decent vs mutas.
The bold part is the problem. Archons are very immobile compared to mutas. You can treat them somewhat like Thors and build a cannon + Archon in the mineral line to defend against mutas, but that's a 250/300 and 2x Warpgate CD (plus merge time) investment that can't go on offense. Blink Stalkers are your best answer...I was thinking of a Blink + DT harass into Stalker/Archon (made with the Dark Templar once they get multiple overseers). That'd probably be the best way to go about things.
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Archons can also cost 250 gas.
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The archon uses so much gas, that is removes most of the other possibilities that protoss relies on...sentries, storm, collolus. In a mid-game, you can really only muster 3-4 archons. Think of stalker zealot archon. Once the archons go down you really don't have anything that can dps the zerg down. If the archon was 250 100 like the immortal, then it would totally replenishable and viable. But it isn't. The zerg can afford to replenish 10 roaches, 3 archons is 900 gas which is a fuck ton. Try going against roach/hydra where the zerg is microing, you suffer badly. chargelot archon is actually really strong in small numbers, but once the army sizes goes up, or you are engaging spinecrawlers, archon zealot doesn't cut it.
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I've been using archons a lot to deal with a lot of mutas, with the benefit that it does decent damage to all of the zerg army
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just gotta say that this can't possibly deal with "early-mid" roaches.
archons are really high up the tech tree. other than that, unit testing seems impressive!
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If you keep up on upgrades, armor especially, the inevitable muta switch won't be able to touch your stalkers unless he was preemptively upgrading attack. I think toss should value armor upgrades over attack upgrades in this MU.
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On October 21 2010 11:12 Bowdy wrote:
you're wrong, mutas dont destroy archons. if anything archons destroy mutas if they catch them stacked, but otherwise they're still fairly decent vs mutas.
Well you do need to get the archons first which is a pretty steep bill. Its 150 gas for citadel, 200 gas for templar archives, then 300gas per archon. This isn't counting all the time it takes to get this. I am not sure exactly when the first 7 mutas pop will you have the archons ready?
This doens't look like you can FE
If you did FE archon range is low so you need other anti-air for cannons (unless you are attacking).
I should probably test some archon builds for the hell of it rofl.
Day9 stream still not working... sigh...
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On October 21 2010 11:22 TedJustice wrote:
One archon basically costs 300 gas though, doesn't it? That's a lot of gas to take care of roaches, which are a lot cheaper.
Chargelots, Archon, Storm basically pwns everything zerg has. Archons serve as a tanking unit so that you don't insta die. This composition is really good since your resources are split between Super mineral heavy and super gas heavy.
This is better then collosi as collosi are glass cannons that if focused down leaves a weak protoss army. any decent zerg nows that collosi are a priority to take out.
And this build isnt as gas heavy as people believe. If your only spending gas HTs and atk upgrades off of 2 bases. you have 4 gysers directly fueling you HTs. At the same time you'll have tones a minerals which equals Zealots,cannons(For muta def), and expansions. And with this mobile force(compared to robo tech) you can easily defend expansions.
In these expansions you don't even need to saturate, just take the gases.
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On October 21 2010 11:22 the p00n wrote:
Archons can also cost 250 gas.
I lol'd.
I also think you have to consider what the zerg does with his gas. If you went charge/HT with storm INTO archons it could work but sacrificing your HT means you lose a lot. You definitely coudln't open with any archon build but transitioning to it if he transitions to mutaling would work.
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Just calculated 3 Atk Archons
1 shot lings
2 shot hydras
3 shot roaches
3 shot mutas
2 shot infestors
11 shot Ultras
Ultras 20 shot Archons
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EPT
