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.
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.
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.
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).
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
if you're making carriers and the zerg catches wind, you can be damn sure that some corruptors are gonna start peaking their heads out of the lair to help out the swarm...
Anyways, archons have always been quite powerful against zerg. Nothing is really good at killing it since its not armored or light or anything, and its damage is huge. It's still best to just spam your storms and then morph them I believe. If you try to protect them afterwards, you will eventually get a large mass of them and it will be very hard to stop.
Mutas are cost effective against lone archons if you have lots of mutas, but not if the muta count is low... Also, many players aren't used to seeing archons used so much, and may not think to magic box the mutas to spread them, letting the aoe destroy them.
On October 21 2010 18:24 Slayer91 wrote: 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.
I think, in this case, Slayer91 is correct; the ability of roaches to kite Archons gives them a decided advantage, and neither Zealots nor Archons are that fantastic against them. Stalkers, although not as good as Immortals, seem to do fairly well against them, especially with Blink - and Blink stalkers also do fairly well against the Mutalisk part of the strategy.
Its not that it cannot be used in this particular situation - it's just that there are far more efficient strategies for dealing with this particular problem. If the person is only using Roaches to try and transition into Muta/Ling, this would be what I would attempt; it just seems like doing the standard Robo build is more efficient in more cases than this is.
On October 21 2010 13:21 DuneBug wrote: 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 with them anyway.
This. I feel like I'm viewing an alien world in which large amounts of tech are necessary to counter Roaches and Mutalisks...
I expect to see more Protoss opening with 1 Void Ray and 1 Phoenix in the future. (150/150 + 250/125 + 150/100 = 550/375.) It seems like the cleanest, safest way to scout the map and defend early pressure... and if Zerg is greedy/careless, you can harass his stuff. Further, you can Chronoboost Phoenixes if the Zerg invests heavily in mutalisks.
Archons, Templar, Colossi, and Ground Weapons Upgrades are great, but not until you have two gas + aren't playing blind.
Carriers vs mutas would work sure. Problem is that corrupters hard counter them and are very easy to get if you have mutas. The other problem is that carriers take AGES AND AGES to make, are extremely slow, and during the whole process you will be extremely vulnerable. Hydras also counter carriers pretty well. Well microed phoenix absolutely destroy mutas, honestly i dont really view mutas as problem unless i fail to scout and then suddenly i see 30 of them.
I think I will try this, I am really curious about archon effectiveness against roaches. But if I try this I must also find a way to get a mothership too, at least in late game . That archon + vortex combo while very funny and interesting seems also very possible to pull off. The biggest problem is actually having a mothership + archons xD.
I've used chargelot/archon for a long time against zerg.
Check wayyyy back in my post history
You open with archon while he's got roaches. he likely transitions to hydra, during this period you pick up storm. Then you just keep recycling those templar into archons. Archon shield regen is friggin OP... And the splash is better than you think
Also, he is a retard if he switches to ling/muta as archons + zealots + FF laugh at infinite numbers of lings, and archon + gs + sentry will laugh at muta.
On October 21 2010 19:12 justiceknight wrote: how big is archon splash in sc2? how much is the splash damage??i havent build archon for years already lol..
as big as the archon, and 50% damage according to the editor.
Archons are super cost inefficient because they are designed to be. They are for recycling HT that are out of energy or DT's that are useless because of detection.
If you are looking for a counter to the roach -> muta / ling transition, might I suggest something?
Stalkers are good against roaches, zealots are good against roaches (when zealots can attack them, of course). Why not get 1 zealot, ~2 stalkers and sentry to forcefield and hold off ramp, while chrono-ing out a void ray from stargate? Then you can phoenix when he muta's and just gateway for the lings. I'm not too sure on the timings, 7RR will come at 25~30 supply on a short map. Maybe even forge + cannon at ramp, since void rays will come out a bit late, to help hold the roaches off? The cannons will be useful in delaying the mutas wreck your mineral line later in the game anyway, and you can get quick attack upgrades for the zealots to tear through the lings. Teching to HTs takes way too long and is gas heavy.
TL;DR - Cannon at ramp, handful of gateway to hold off roach rush, void ray asap, to force tech switch, phoenix when he goes muta, attack upgrades for lings.
Edit: I read only 2 pages, I see Void ray -> Phoenix has already been suggested.
On October 21 2010 10:59 justinsroy wrote: Shots to kill a roach with archons - 4 Shots to kill a archon with roaches - 21 ^All unupgraded.
I don't know if it's because nobody noticed yet or people just don't care, but your numbers are wrong.
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.
I figured you might want to edit your numbers to match reality.
Now as far as the strategy goes, your tests showed it was rougly 3 archons to 9 roaches. That's 150/900 to 675/225 in resources, meaning in general terms that you use 4 times as much gas as him at what we can call the critical mass, when the two armies are matched. This means that for it to be effective you must use at least 4 times as much gas as him for straight Archon vs Roach. With stalker support it will probably tilt a lot in your favour, but keep in mind that he has a lot more freedom with his gas than you. I think this build will severely limit your ability to get upgrades compared to your opponent, maybe leaving you behind as you enter the mid-game.
It comes back to what some people have mentioned earlier, Archons are a way of recycling your templar. Oftentimes I make archons when my templar run out of energy in an engagement I've committed to or are about to die. Especially vs roaches I find immortals more efficient. It's 100 more minerals, 200 less gas, 60 less hp/shield pool (but hardened shields) and a lot more damage for much cheaper tech and still great transitioning possibilities
Archons are a great tanking unit, and great for taking out stacked or clumped bio. nothing more than, as was said earlier, a backup unit. Really the best counter for roaches is the same as it has always been. a good mix of gateway units. immortals if you are going robo, but mostly gateway units deal nicely. If you want to play around with unit mixes, DTs mixed in with your army wil do very well against roaches. mix in some phoenix, and you have a strong mix against mutas. add charge and HT, subtract stalkers, and you have a strong unit mix vs anything the zerg throws at you.
If you are talking about roach build, I am not sure if you can actually morph out an Archon before 8 roaches in early game. In mid/ late game this could work but in early game I doubt.
THis entire thread contradicts itself. If anything the numbers posted show that roaches counter archons and not the other way around. 3 roaches per archon to beat them is a good deal for zerg... 225/75 is worth a lot less then 100/300. I mean what do you rather have, 125 minerals or 225 gas???? I'd say 1 archon costs the same as about 6 roaches which beat up that archon easily.
Archons are only good vs straight up muta/ling really because against those units the splash is actually good. Best way to counter muta/ling is just stalker/zealot/phoenix focussing on attack upgrades for your zealots (to counter those lings), but archons can be a very good addition to such a army. Mostly they are just a outlet for empty HT though, only reason to immediately forge them into archon is to do some timing attack agianst a muta/ling player where you don't want to wait for storm.
Thank you uncle ownage for the numbers correction, i threw this post past the time im usually awake and i probably forgot rounding or something. Edit'd, thank you.
Got a PM recently from an un-named source: "provide replays with your post, i find it retarded that you would imagine you could get 3 archons or 6 of either templar before the 5speed roach push."
This build is NOT attempting to counter the 5-7RR pushes. I am very very aware that they will come ~30ish or so food, i know that. With 1 sentry/stalker/zealots you can hold off the initial pushes with a simple 2-3 gate and decent micro. This is meant for slightly later (When there about to transition into muta or hydras but still have 10-20 roaches depending on how much you pressure). I'm working on a way to hold off the last of their roaches without being too invested for when they transition. If they choose to go hydra/roach, then by all means robo and get immortal/colossi, but the main problem is if they see immortal's and go mutas, then you have a hunk of metal that unless you find a way to flip it onto its back then its almost useless until you wanna break down some spinecrawlers.
Thank you for the input everyone. Recently have been playing around with a timing for 1 VR, 1-2 phoenix opening which would be a 1 gate, stargate, then add more gates after. (pick up queens because 1:1 VR's now do not kill queens if im not mistaken) which would also hold off the roaches and maybe make them shy away from mutalisks.
roaches are sooo good nowadays. protoss has a really hard time dealing with them early game. archons are not exactly an answer for early game, more of a endgame/metagame tactic. but it is a good option for then.
Maybe proper micro of archon (saving them with ~~20 shields left) can allow you to have a very powerful pushing advantage?
Zealots regain 50 shields at most, making a properly "rescued" Zealot capable of fighting/tanking 33% compared to a fresh.
Stalkers regain 80 shields at most, making a properly "rescued" Stalker capable of fighting/tanking ~40% compared to a fresh
Archon regain up to 350 shield, making a properly "rescued" Archon capable of fighting/tanking at 99% capacity at the next encounter!
We need a Pro-toss version of BoxeR, a super Warp-Drop harass king or something. Imagine, a near-impossible to kill army.
Suggestion for a build : Mixing Warp Prism into Archon consisted army, using Archon as a tank and Prism to rescue critically injured Archon. Protoss have no mode of healing, however, Shield is awesome, it cost no energy to heal (Medivacs/Queen Transfuse) and it's capable of regenerating all the way till it's end. Have separated armor component (come on, upgrading "armor" for BOTH ground and air is cool), quick regen (Archon regain full shield from 0-350 in 175 seconds, that's 3 Transfusion [150 energy] or 120 seconds worth of healing from medivacs, at absolutely no cost except time).
Keeping a few at home can prevent Muta harass due to imba regeration capacity.
TL;DR - Archons are underused due to their design as only an additional unit, however, they have very good potential. Archon has very powerful potential, coz they are yet to be used to it's fullest.
For the ones suggesting going for a fast stargate build, it may kill off the roaches, but not before they do some good damage. And whenever I see stargate and 3/4 gateways, I just go hydra with upgrades. Collossus will be out too late to really counter hydras before you can get a spire for corruptors, and its back to a normal game from there.
Extra points if you were going spire, they scout it, and you just make hydras anyway while they waste money on 4 phoenix delaying the colossus.
On October 22 2010 11:21 justinsroy wrote: Thank you for the input everyone. Recently have been playing around with a timing for 1 VR, 1-2 phoenix opening which would be a 1 gate, stargate, then add more gates after. (pick up queens because 1:1 VR's now do not kill queens if im not mistaken) which would also hold off the roaches and maybe make them shy away from mutalisks.
Yay! I hope it works for you.
On October 22 2010 12:48 P00RKID wrote: For the ones suggesting going for a fast stargate build, it may kill off the roaches, but not before they do some good damage. And whenever I see stargate and 3/4 gateways, I just go hydra with upgrades. Collossus will be out too late to really counter hydras before you can get a spire for corruptors, and its back to a normal game from there.
Extra points if you were going spire, they scout it, and you just make hydras anyway while they waste money on 4 phoenix delaying the colossus.
3-4 gateways + Stargate is a one-base all-in. 1 Gate 1 Stargate is an economic build.
And there's nothing wrong with getting 4 Phoenix. They're very strong early on (queen-killing, overlord-killing, and before hydras mass up, hydra-killing) and if you get them later in the game, they can still snipe drones to pay for themselves. (Also, so much reconnaissance.) You're not suddenly screwed if Zerg fakes you into building 4 Phoenix to counter mutalisks.
Id like to contribute some replays to this thread. I posted a thread the other day about roach into muta and got bashed my Z players and then the thread got closed. I have since been playing non stop to try to fix this problem and archon/templar/zealot/ mass upgrades has come to save the damn day so far. I really really need to refine my build though as im complete trash atm lol. This is around 1350 diamond. Check these out and let me know what u think.
Tried this vs a buddy of mine, i went FE into fast archons, he went 2 base with another hatch in base roach. All he did was pump roaches, i had nine warpgates and no money, yet i didnt stand a chance. Problem is he just kites everything and if youre getting archons, youre not getting alot of sentries. I usually died around the 11-12min mark, roaches are just insanely good now and toss seems to have no real reply to them. The games i went 2 gate robo into expand vs him i did great with early pressure(6-7 zealots 2 sentries and 2 immortals) and did a fair bit of dmg to his expo while i expanded.
After that however he just went into pump roach mode, and i simply cannot keep up. Whenever i do keep up, he just swaps to mutas, even if im prepared for it it cripples me alot and i dont get enough stalkers in time to engage him head on. Then he just expands all over the map while im stuck in my base and yeah u know how it goes.
Im struggling alot vs zerg this patch, mainly due to the fact that they can switch their army every larvae cycle. Mass roach ok immortals, immortals, stalkers, bam hes now mass ling with some roaches, immortals are now useless and so on. Havent really managed to do anything against it.
So 10 roaches comes out just barely ahead against 3 archons. The roaches cost 750/250 while the archons cost 300/900. That is not an even trade AT ALL. The roaches cost overall less and if you factor in that gas is worth way more than minerals the archons are terrible against roaches. This is even ignoring the rediculous amount of tech you need for archons compared to a T1 150 mineral building.
Archons are meant for to be used when HTst are out of energy. That's when they become a little more cost effective. Storming some roaches is going to do more damage than using just archons.
Looking at the replay army values were pretty much the same, with me ahead slightly in gas, i had better income and 10 more probes. Food count roughly the same, and the fights werent even close. Add to that, that i cant even keep up in production since roaches are so damn cheap, it becomes... frustrating to say the least.
I honestly thing the answer to roaches is a fast stargate with either 2 phoenix or void, even if you loose your units you force Z to make hydra or muta immediately. Ive been trying to go with a robo bay to start vs zerg and it just doesnt make any sense.
I think im going to go 12 gate, 14 / 15 forge from here on out and expand with cannons and a stargate...
Goddamn roaches. haven't been able to win any games where my opponent goes mass roach because they're just so goddamn CHEAP to make and do way more damage for cost.
Voids used to work before they got nerfed, and immortals take forever to make.
I mean, maybe just give archons a better splash? or maybe more range. Right now, they're slow as heck and useless on defense. On offense, they're okay, but....
It would probably do ok against the mutas-ling but I'd be very concerned about dieing to roaches. If you're mainly relying on zealots, archons, and cannons, the zerg can roach micro for as long as it takes to wear you down while continuing to build up roach numbers.
I think that would only really work if the zerg is on offense, however. If you could be pressuing the zerg with those zealots and archons that could cause them more trouble since they can only back up so far. Archons do seem fairly effective on offense.
Edit:FreshFive, how many cannons do you need to be "safe" from a heavy roach bust? 1 on bottom one on top ridge on LT? (at least two im assuming). 1 behind wall, one closer to nexus when ur FE'ing on a map like xel naga?
Goddamn roaches. haven't been able to win any games where my opponent goes mass roach because they're just so goddamn CHEAP to make and do way more damage for cost.
Voids used to work before they got nerfed, and immortals take forever to make.
I mean, maybe just give archons a better splash? or maybe more range. Right now, they're slow as heck and useless on defense. On offense, they're okay, but....
I feel the same way, even if you handle them well zerg can tech swap so fast and youre stuck with a bunch of useless immortals. I think for archons they need to be slightly faster and maybe .5 longer range, that would make them usefull again.
Did the funday monday with archons/tanks/viking... archons suck vs everything for cost lol.
about some of the stargate discussion. Anyone see those two koreans whose name I cant pronounce on scrap station the other day? The toss 1 based 3 gates and 1 stargate, pumped 4 phoenix for OL sniping then got a mothership off one base and pushed. Mothership with a huge gateway army under it is SCARY
Edit:FreshFive, how many cannons do you need to be "safe" from a heavy roach bust? 1 on bottom one on top ridge on LT? (at least two im assuming). 1 behind wall, one closer to nexus when ur FE'ing on a map like xel naga?
Here is the build for expand / forge at 15. I have had success hold off roach rushes with this. You need at least 3 per base and you need to sim city your base while you do it to keep the roaches as close as you can.
I've only lost once to zerg doing the build since the new patch. As noted in the update, don't drop your first cannons in your min line bc the roach will be out of range.
I am still playing with a 12 gate 14 forge to air to see if its viabale.
Focusing all of today to test some new builds vs roach openings: Trying the 15 nexus/forge, dropping 1 super early cannon and then gateway, then second cannon soon after. If my opponent doesnt have OL over his FE i drop a cannon behind that just to be a pest.
Gonna attempt 2 diff transitions, archon/chargelot like replays, and a double stargate phoenix. My last game i did 2 stargate, right as the opponent saw phoenix he just gg'd out (He was going for super fast hive for whatever reason).
since we are on the archon topic - how do they perform against hydras. Usually I see hydra/roach and not straight up mass roach.
Btw, I've only really made a point of trying to use more archons once and it was against zergling heavy army. Zealots and archons ripped through like 3 waves of lings with minimal losses.
If you scout mass roaches, make sure you have at least 3 sentries ready. Good FF micro + gateway units is still very strong against roaches especially if they're trying to go up a ramp.
HT's are the reason Archons ever see the light of day in my army. The AE against a mass of zerg army is indispensable if you aren't pursuing Colossus. The roaches aren't going to die en mass to the psistorm, to be sure. Yet, the damage across many roaches weakens them to make them die faster to your gateway army, or gateway army + immortals. If they have hydra support as is typical, the HT's really shine.
After your storm the army, merge the HT's with spent energy into Archons and you have an excellent tanking unit at the front doing its own meager splash. Low range and high kitability limits its use to a support role. If you can trap the zerg army into defending a base and the Archon gets into range, they really shine.
Very clear that Archons do well against Ultra/Ling armies lategame.
HT's & Archons are very shaky against Muta/Ling. The muta's mobility in lategame make it very hard to leave your base as it snipes key structures, mineral lines, scouting pylons, etc. Protoss has a small timing window before Muta numbers grow large to attack the base and force them onto the defense, where they are less effective. Archons' speed on the ground and the ability of Mutas to keep dodging psistorms makes the ground-based defense of muta/ling ineffective.
Roaches comes knocking at the 6 minute mark, can templar tech with any support really be made? While I'm sure midgame this might be an option, I cannot imagine deciding to go templar tech when so many roaches are coming, robotics seems like a better choice early.
I dont know about colossus archon to stop mass roach. And when I say I don't know, what I mean to say is that's a terrible idea. There's a bit of sense to the rest of it, but Immortals were born to kill mass roach.
Goddamn roaches. haven't been able to win any games where my opponent goes mass roach because they're just so goddamn CHEAP to make and do way more damage for cost.
Voids used to work before they got nerfed, and immortals take forever to make.
I mean, maybe just give archons a better splash? or maybe more range. Right now, they're slow as heck and useless on defense. On offense, they're okay, but....
Void rays kill roaches quicker now than they did before. Old void rays don't start beating out new void rays in damage until 245 + damage has been done. If you opponent is letting you hit his roaches for that long unpunished, you win in either scenario.
There has not been near enough mention of immortals in this thread. Do they take too long to make. Yes, but if you are going against mass roaches, you should have known this was coming for quite some time.
Oh NO! He added zerglings to his mix you say? +1 zealots hold zerglings down by the throat and mercilessly destroy them. If your opponent masses 1 type of unit, build counterunits. If he starts making units to counter your counterunits. BUILD COUNTERUNITS
On October 21 2010 19:12 justiceknight wrote: how big is archon splash in sc2? how much is the splash damage??i havent build archon for years already lol..
100% damage in a radius of 0.25 50% in a radius of 0.5 25% in a radius of 1
For comparison tank splash is 100% in a radius of 0.48 50% in a radius of 0.78 25% in a radius of 1.25
On October 23 2010 04:48 Koronin wrote: Roaches comes knocking at the 6 minute mark, can templar tech with any support really be made? While I'm sure midgame this might be an option, I cannot imagine deciding to go templar tech when so many roaches are coming, robotics seems like a better choice early.
Do you read? Like really, i dont wanna be an asshole, but ive adressed this like 100 times as well as others in this thread.
instead of pounding your head and crunching numbers with dps numbers, you should see if you can find a timing push in between the zergs transition from roaches to mutas. There are alot out there, and you seem smart enough to find them
I don't really see archons being a great counter to roaches. Archons counter almost everything else zerg has BUT roaches, I love to use archons (and that 3gate arch/zealot push) but I usually get some immortals from my inevitable robo bay because of the roaches.
I just got roflstomped last night by this build. I put SOME early pressure, but since he got an expo, i grabbed two. He built up, so I dropped on main, destroyed SOME, but he cleaned it up. As I was remaking, he was already starting to move out and kill one of my expos. I held this off a couple of times, mainly with roaches, but at that point he just had storm, would back up, and make them archons. Once he had a few archons, zealots to wall, and a few stalkers, it was GG no sweat. I couldn't figure out how to counter!!!
I'd like to see more builds based around archons, it'd be great if you could make use of the sub-units first though.
For example, storm drops are perfect because you can normally use up energy without engaging in a battle. Current competitive play archons are only used after storms in midbattle, which normally makes them ineffective.
I still don't see use for the archon except as usage for empty templars. Archons simply cost too much for what they do.
Archons are not that bad a unit but to create it as such it simply costs alot compared to other units you could be getting. You want to counter muta/ling? Archons look nice, but for 300 gas i'd rather be getting some more phoenixes and stalkers. A good muta/ling player will simply not clump the muta's and focus the archons first. Against hydra/roach? Hydra's and roaches both stomp archons, their size is just to big to really be effected by splash alot and they are just way more cost effective Against ultra/ling? Not bad here but you are generally better off keeping the templar for storm first and then transforming.
Against terran archons are simply not good enough either, you want to use your templar for storm there not create archons which lose big chunks of shield against EMP.
Against protoss templar are basically a no-go along with archons.
Archons are more than a viable unit in PvZ, especially if you had good mineral investment, such as FE + forge/zealots, and once you get +1, archons melt through zerg. I've been doing this for awhile now, starting with team games, then moving on to custom 1v1s, and I can vouch that this works out really well. But it's good that you noted that you needed to poke around,making sure the zerg doesn't get an eco going/a 3rd much earlier than you get your 3rd. Roach range will always be a problem, and since archons are such a gas heavy unit, it's quite natural to have alot of zealots, so it's very important to get charge for lots as well. But if anything fast archons aren't a 1 base thing to do.
There is always something better you can get then straight up archons though, thats why they aren't competetive as a direct unit to make. If you have problems with lings you are better off just getting attack upgrades for your zealots or templar with storm. If you have problems with muta's you are better off making stalkers and phoenix. If you are having problems with marines and marauders, you are are better off making templar with storm or colossi... I can't see a situation where i need the archon as a unit except in some rare cornercases where you have a gas loadup and need to spend it quick (ie. you cant for some reason wait for storm). Against most units like roaches the splash area is just to small so it's just a overcosted thing against them.
BronzeLeagueDude here. Even if you do the forge wall at natural and expand at 14 I don't see this working. Why? Well the zerg is going to see your fast expand, and problebly cue up a back door nydus right before you can warp in the first ht at this point you sure as hell don't have amulet and storm yet the mutas can effectively harass, and if your stalkers get hit by fungus those mutas can out run any archon. If the mutas fail he's going to assume chargelot ht and maybe mix in a couple investigators with the ling/roach. HT and archon are both big targets for the parasite, plus theres the problem with the burrow right before a unit dies with zerg against no detection.
EPT
. That archon + vortex combo while very funny and interesting seems also very possible to pull off. The biggest problem is actually having a mothership + archons xD.
