I'm more talking about this build as a way of countering the new range 4 roaches, early/midgame you can hold them off without too much trouble with a good mix of gateway units, but when it comes to the later stages i find that the tech switch from roach into muta harass is just way too hard to overcome due to needing robo for roaches (unless your micro is supurb with 100% amazing FF's, which could be true, mine just aren't perfect every single time).
@ Mobility issue, usually if you have archons, you can spare minerals for some cannons at the mineral line, talking pre-mass muta, once that happens hopefully you have warp in storm or blink to deal with it, your choice.
@ People saying its not a 1 base build, this is true. Once you get your 3rd gate/HT dropped you should expand for the gas that you WILL need. It's like a zerg trying to 1 base muta, it CAN work, but not ideal. You can get 1-2 archons off one base, but to get any more then that, and the transition into storm+amulet, you will need 2nd base gas. To secure an early enough expansion, pressure is needed and maybe i need to incorporate a forge+1/2 cannons to help protect the natural?
@ Chronopolis - Reading this comment, im inclined to agree with you in a sense, its true once your archons go down, then you wont have the force you really need. But personally with what you mentioned (sentries/colossi, ect) they all get shut down pretty easily with mutas. As you mentioned roaches are replenishable, but at the cost. During my unit testing archons were 900 gas, and the roaches were ~750 minerals/250 gas to come out ahead, this was using purely archons, no zealot tank, and no micro whatsoever to maximize splash. With the proper macro/unit composition i think even when your archons do die (if you cant pull em back when the roaches dont have speed) you should be able to either come out close to even or just retreat and get more units to fight off whats left.
Thanks for the input, will be working on edits/updates when i can, its getting late so i'll be putting in the time to test this later tomorrow.
EDIT: Thank you Raiden X for the calculation. Though Zerglings only have 35 HP no? One shot ling regardless unless they have carapace upgrades?
<~ newb. Isn't the idea not to go straight to Archon and use up the HT first? So saying 300gas just for an Archon isn't the big picture... The storms and FB should be useful on the way... Right?
On October 21 2010 11:55 OreoBoi wrote: Well you can get storm first and then switch to archons when they get burrowed roaches. Storm does very little damage against burrowed roaches
I think you missing the point of getting the early archons to be honest.
I appreciate the comment, which its good, because obviously the health regen of roaches is very strong while burrowed coupled with the high HP.
The main reason why i go archon is for the +dmg vs bio, and so i dont have to make an incredible tech switch to handle muta after the roaches get done pressuring where they can.
Going along with your idea, i think with proper placement of cannons (maybe one at the end of the cliff at your base like on metal by the 3rd? LT farthest out on the main base cliff, ect) you could counter the roaches just by using proper positioning and forcing them to come to you, taking an aggressive third maybe?
EDIT: Dontpanic, the idea is to go straight to Archon to counter the amount of roach play we have been seeing recently into the muta play. i can pull about 10 replays in the past 2 days of games where that was the strat, back to back like clockwork thats how it happened and going robo to counter roaches put me in a horrendous position to counter mutas.
With how expensive the storm research is (200/200) and how really ineffective against roaches it really is (145 hp, 80 dmg storm, takes 2 very well placed storms without dodging to kill roach) i'm playing with the idea of archons being my main "counter" for the roaches until i get the research for storm/force them into muta's or hydra.
OP - I can understand where you are coming from - especially the part where 90% of ladder matches are against zerg.
I am in Diamond ~1430 Ranked 2nd as of right now, and I've tried everything and I mean everything, to counter Mutaling, but it is quite impossible. You are also right... After the roach upgrade, many zerg transition from Roaches to Mutalisks. I too am looking for a possible solution - looking up to HuK to figure something out but even he has problems as well.
I can understand all those "attack statistics" but, any good player will micro very well in battles to make every unit count.
Personally, pre-patch i favored PvZ, i dont have a hard time with muta/ling except against exceptional players who know how to manage their macro and mass muta (20+ with fast +Attk upgrades) due to the problem is if you become behind in one fight its basically GG. (~1550ish Protoss, practice with Joseki and other good zergs)
Post patch, i think its just coming down to the problem that i really havent faced roach play enough to really have a good idea of how to counter it without being too behind tech wise to handle a switch to lair tech (muta, hydras aren't too problematic).
I to have tried quite a few builds (FE super gate-->robo, FE super gate --> stargate, 3 gate robo but not over-producing immortals, but muta still is tough, and 4 gate, which any good zerg even pre-patch could hold it. Along with other builds that really havent panned out). Been working on a timing for immortal/phoenix for PvP as well as now PvZ but feel that with 1 SG your just wont have enough phoenix to handle the amount of muta's there going to have if they make a hard switch to muta.
@ Micro comment, same goes for the roaches. Pre-speed, archons are faster, and with the splash micro there gonna get a pretty big bang for their buck, but your micro still needs to be good to use archons/gateway to their full potential and not get caught in bad position/in range of spinecrawlers.
On October 21 2010 11:55 OreoBoi wrote: Well you can get storm first and then switch to archons when they get burrowed roaches. Storm does very little damage against burrowed roaches
I think you missing the point of getting the early archons to be honest.
I appreciate the comment, which its good, because obviously the health regen of roaches is very strong while burrowed coupled with the high HP.
The main reason why i go archon is for the +dmg vs bio, and so i dont have to make an incredible tech switch to handle muta after the roaches get done pressuring where they can.
Going along with your idea, i think with proper placement of cannons (maybe one at the end of the cliff at your base like on metal by the 3rd? LT farthest out on the main base cliff, ect) you could counter the roaches just by using proper positioning and forcing them to come to you, taking an aggressive third maybe?
EDIT: Dontpanic, the idea is to go straight to Archon to counter the amount of roach play we have been seeing recently into the muta play. i can pull about 10 replays in the past 2 days of games where that was the strat, back to back like clockwork thats how it happened and going robo to counter roaches put me in a horrendous position to counter mutas.
With how expensive the storm research is (200/200) and how really ineffective against roaches it really is (145 hp, 80 dmg storm, takes 2 very well placed storms without dodging to kill roach) i'm playing with the idea of archons being my main "counter" for the roaches until i get the research for storm/force them into muta's or hydra.
Oh, I was just commenting on people saying that storm is more useful against the zerg army. I tend to start with chargelot archon, switch to chargelot templar if they switch to hydras, and then go back to chargelot archon. Getting early archons seems to be a lot more versatile than getting early immortal since they can fight both mutas and roaches.
2 templar for storm is a more worthwhile investment than 1 archon imo. Ht energy recharges over time and stalker templar combo is very good against roaches. I usually only use archons lategame against ultra ling.
you need to test this in larger #'s, because as #'s rise, so does the DPS i'm able to put on the archons before they get in range, also use focus fire on them with the roaches. and i'm not really ever going to have just 10 roaches vs archons.
also, roaches can kite archons and zealots, yes they will take some stalker fire but they can whittle the #'s down and then clean up the stalkers because you wont have as many since you spent money on archons and templars. also, burrow and burrow move pretty much makes storm irrelevant vs roaches.
The magic to everything in Protoss vs everything ... is sentries.
Yes, I will right now say that, by cost per damage and hp, and everything, it seems like Protoss sucks. I've played so many games where I thought this was true. For example, against Mutaling, it used to be that Muta's ended up killing off almost all my stalkers. And I kept wondering ... "why?!?!". Like, stalkers should literally go almost better than one Muta. In addition, roaches use to own any combination of zealots + stalkers. All they would do is kite all the zealots, and then with so many roaches, just pwn my stalkers. They were really cheap.
And then I tried sentries.
Sentries own like crazy. And then I thought a while why ... Well, obviously Forcefield helps prevent escaping things like roaches and so your zealots can whack away at them (with their pretty high dps). Forcefield also prevents lings from surrounding everything. Which is really great.
Now, for Mutalisks, I actually realize that Guardian shield actually decreases Muta army damage from 13 (9 + (3 + 1 for splash) all the way down to 8 (7 + 1), which is quite a lot.
Seriously, when I kept analyzing, I realized that each Protoss unit is definitely not worth its cost individually. You might as well go Terran or Zerg. However, only when you manage to make each Protoss unit work together, can you make Protoss really good.
In fact, I realized that at high level play, to be a good protoss player, you actually have to concentrate on microing (or in this case, using a lot of spells) much much more so than the other races. Hence, you have to make good work of sentries and templars to do pretty well.
What about just heavy zealot and sentrie play, with sentries blocking off the roach escape and zealots attacking the front. Is that not effective against roaches? They can't kite and that way you can spend your gas on sentries.
archons are not fun to deal with and i think they're a viable asset to dealing with roaches.
But after a certain point archons usefulness diminishes, and templar are kind of worthless against roaches. I have never understood why protoss have not been getting void rays against heavy roach play. Void rays negate any aggression until the zerg has hydras or mutas. Spire takes forever to build, and with a stargate you're all set to build phoenix to deal witht hem anyway.
Hydras are tougher to deal with but far less mobile. Anyway Every toss should know how to deal with roach/hydra by now, so i'm not going to make suggestions.
Did your op account for zergs that go roach+hydra+infestor? Even raoch into -> ling+muta, if I see high templar or any mass gateway play, I'm going to get infestors for fungal growth. Zealots won't get close to your ground, same thing with archons. Fungal growthed archon is useless and dies to roaches or hydras. As long as zerg doesn't fight off creep, storm damage can be minimized by microing out of it, which is a lot easyer when you FG their army so you don't get followed.
If I didn't get infestors for FG, archons would be pretty hard. Just remember to keep your infestors in the back so you don't get FB. The aoe of FG should be long enough to FG a HT before it FB your infestor too.
@People_0f_Color We're talking about roach INTO mutalisk. pure Roaches arent that much of a deal.
@DuneBug Kinda true, you could transition into Phoenixes. But from my experience its really hard to control Phoenixes to counter mutas. So easy to lose them with one mismicro (and you will never get more phoenixes then mutas anyway). Much better to go TC tech then stargate.
@P00RKID you're right. When more zerg players will figure it out then it will be almost impossible to beat this composition aspecially wih roach range. The only answer would be mass colosi i think.
BTW imo Archons sux vs hydras. Hydra dmg output is enormous compared to Archon dps. They just die before achieving anything. And Archon splash sux.
the same that could be written about pure muta/ling also holds true vs roach - I would NEVER go the HIGH-templar-path first when I'd face pressure and/or wanted to go for archons; dark templars will immediately end any sort of contain because zerg who masses roaches "should" not have their first overseer befor your first DTs can do damage; zergs who roach-contain are very often underprepared vs DTs so DTs can give you time to breathe; then (very important) zerg has to sink LOTs of gas into overseers; same as if you played vs terran with cloaked banshees and needed tons of observers; also DTs cost less gas than HTs; HTs suck vs roaches, if the zerg spots hts he could even just mass-expand and overrun you with pure mass-roach because they are so cheap; the reason why I've also started thinking about archons is that they provide the necessary meatshield for your stalkers
nevertheless one problem remains: the simple, pure gas-cost; I think it's near to impossible to support a viable archon/stalker-force off 2 bases; immortals are 250/100 where archons are 250/250 at its best; also robo costs 200/100 wich is far less gas-intensive than the templar tech; this is the main reason why I'm not sure if archon/stalker could work; not because this combo isn't cost-effective vs roach...but because it probably won't be possible to get a decent number of this before you just die against sheer masses
It doesn't matter if you a-move roaches and archons kill them. Roaches with speed move faster and you can't afford much else than zealots with archons. Roaches destroy both zealots and archons. If its muta ling you're having trouble with, sure they're great. Roaches with speed and burrow however crush all gateway units and templar tech, so you just need immortals or a lot of colossus.
As a zerg may I ask if carrier is a good alternative to all these problems? I know this sounds like way off topic, but recently in my 2v2 and 3v3 games, I encountered stalker + carrier builds, to which 20+ damage upgraded mutalisks don't work well. (and I was pure muta pumping thanks to my friends protection)
So in 1 v 1, 20 stalkers + 4 carriers would be greater than muta + ling - especially if you can pepper in some zealots?
EPT
