EPT[Mid-High Diamond] How do you win Late Game ZvP? - Page 4
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storm44
1293 Posts
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Zvendetta
United States321 Posts
The worst advice someone can give is "In situation X, you should be getting this unit. It would be good NOW." Every time you are considering this "tech switch" you are inherently behind. I think a lot of people idly toss (no pun intended) this term around, however that doesn't have good game flow to it. The root of all late game and late game issues is the beginning stages of midgame, which in turn is affected by how well you enter the midgame with your opener. spire is substantially stronger against robo play- colos and what not with delayed TC, however you will soon start to develop a crutch with mutas. The one thing I noticed that you didn't talk about was phoenix's. Surprising that at a midhigh level diamond you aren't facing that as much. Its not that phoenix's are as much a problem lategame, but if you are constantly relying on mutas to give you the edge at the start of the lategame then one day you will face phoenix's midgame and lose right away. first, we just need to understand what the hydra's place is in PvZ- the hydralisk is more than a "glass cannon", its high DPS and can shoot air. Sure, its base movement speed is slow and is considered "light", but thats because they aren't a late game strategy, what they can do is lead into one. If we look at a semi rock paper scissor mechanic, hydra spine> 4gate hydra>mass gateway hydra ling>protoss ground armies in the midgame before T3 Hydras are ONLY these "bad units" until colos or HT's hit. Until then, they are actually one of the best units. Training yourself "not to use a unit because of its inherent weakness i.e. glass cannon" means that you are instantly closing off different strategies which will eventually expand your lategame advantage significantly. For instance, if in the midgame we have a very strong ground army, then that means it can be supported by corrupters, but trying to build mutas afterwards is awful because that gas can vitally go somewhere far more important thatn trying to techswitch midgame. It also seems you have equal hesitancy with the broodlords. You look at its blatent weakness "Oh, its build time is long and its slow." But thats thinking in a manner of "ok, what if I try to get broodlords right now!" instead of planning to get BL's. The lategame is all about planning and preparation, and then execution then less about "ok what is this magic army composition I'm looking for" | ||
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ToxNub
Canada805 Posts
The baneling only works good on a very small amount of units, and FG just doesn't seem to deal enough damage and is generally risky. In most situations I lose a good portion of my infestors when I'm casting FGs, and I don't know if its worth it. I try to keep the game into a harass battle, and just try to keep their expansion/worker count low. But if they successfully turtle and then ball up, I lose 90% of the time. Still can't figure a solution... | ||
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phfx
United States36 Posts
If you go muta route as i tend to do just cause i love being a dick with them you need alot of luck and positioning sniping colos and templars as much as possible trying to counter attack with lings and switch towards ultras or corrupters blords with mass ling support. None of these are auto win strats but i find that these unit comps give me a good chance against toss most of the time tho you just need to outline a basic unit comp understand why ur using things and react your zerg i mean i start out every game planning on timing for my ultras but up untill then i have alot of information to take in that i gotta adapt my strat on the fly tldr: l2read | ||
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Viruuus
Germany451 Posts
I strongly feel like the best thing is to outmass him more, if he really turtles like you describe and even on 3 base, you just need to have 5-6 bases and at least 1 extra hatchery. There is no unit composition that can beat the Colossus/Stalker/+X Ball of Death, and your question alone how to beat that is the wrong way to look at ZvP. Yes, Broodlords are very nice against Protoss if you have a ton of roaches or Ultras with them aswell, also Infestor/Ultra is really good against stalker kiting and so on, but you really have to get your advantage somewhere else. | ||
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Rasun
United States787 Posts
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skindzer
Chile5114 Posts
The one thing I noticed that you didn't talk about was phoenix's. Surprising that at a midhigh level diamond you aren't facing that as much. Its not that phoenix's are as much a problem lategame, but if you are constantly relying on mutas to give you the edge at the start of the lategame then one day you will face phoenix's midgame and lose right away. Im not, thats why i didnt talk about them  It also seems you have equal hesitancy with the broodlords. You look at its blatent weakness "Oh, its build time is long and its slow." But thats thinking in a manner of "ok, what if I try to get broodlords right now!" instead of planning to get BL's. The lategame is all about planning and preparation, and then execution then less about "ok what is this magic army composition I'm looking for" Well put, interesting way to see it. | ||
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-eXalt
United States462 Posts
On October 25 2010 19:46 BreAKmYBank wrote: 3 words. ultralisks. theres nothing that beats like...15 ultralisks off of 4 bases. You are basically unstoppable Blink stalkers + Immortals really OWN ultras. Blink stalkers also own Brood lords in most cases. Phoenix own Mutas.. etc lots of hard counters. The thing that messes me up is lots of speedlings with nydus.. really hard to manage when you have nydus popping up everywhere.. I can handle everything else just fine. | ||
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PH
United States6173 Posts
On October 26 2010 01:02 gautamvirk86 wrote: wow i was just trying to help a fellow zerg didnt know that you were going to spell check and just hate. Anyways i got my point across and trust me not everyone has time to sit there and check there grammar and stuff or in any case even give a suggestion. Punctuation is your friend. | ||
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Sanasante
United States321 Posts
I recently played a game on metropolis where I ran into this exact same problem. The game lasted for around 25 minutes where I would keep pressuring the protoss nonstop. From about the 10 min to 24 minute mark I lost every single engagement with the protoss despite have 40+ food advantage (Although most of it was in drones). As I said... I lost every single battle...but I won the war. I won one battle at the very end with 3-3 Ultra/Crack (After I killed his colossus with corruptors) which promptly ended the game. The only way I have been able to win is literally from doing crazy macro style builds which are semi risky and relatively weak against highly perfected timed pushes. The main thing I would suggest is to try and keep the protoss player the best you can on 4 gas nodes. Once he gets 6 up and running he can basically afford any army composition he wants. I have been running some idea's around double expoing when I know my opponent is going to attempt either some sort of fast expand or 2 gate robo expand. I do know however that if you get ling speed + Roaches with a proper ratio of both you can possibly delay his expansion or kill him if he expands too fast but I personally have some issues with this due to some players having excellent forcefield placement. Muta/Ling Composition would allow you however to maintain map control and keep your opponent on 2 bases for a good period of time while you can easily take your 3rd. This play style would force the Protoss to mass blink stalker/sentry/zealot ~8 heavy gate build. If you can hold off his timed push when hes roughly at 130-150 supply you will win. Easier said than done but these are my two current ideas on the matchup looking at devations or combination of both. As for the maps Delta and Stepps, I simply remove them from my map choice altogether. They are very unfriendly towards Zerg players and can be abused by Terran (Delta) or Protoss (Stepps) very easily. The main problem with stepps is that you literally barely even have the time to mass 1 group of larva production in the time it takes your opponent to walk to your base. | ||
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Newbiesk
United States27 Posts
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skindzer
Chile5114 Posts
On October 26 2010 10:25 Sanasante wrote: I have had very similiar issues... actually the exact same problem in ZvP. At around the 1850ish level most of the baddies get weeded out and solid protoss players come into play. Yeah, another thing that bugs me is that since I got to like 1600 is getting harder and harder to improve by laddering simply because you either fight against one of this original idiots who either 6 pool zvz, do a 1 base allin or tech rush with Terran or 4 warpagates EVERYGAME so they either fail horribly or you fail to scout/ get unlucky and die. Or you play against the exact opposite and die after a long and painful battle. Ive taken a personal policy nowadays to mock every Protoss who 4 warpgates me simply because its idiotic how is ALL THEY know. (that or a cannon rush at the ramp) The main thing I would suggest is to try and keep the protoss player the best you can on 4 gas nodes. Once he gets 6 up and running he can basically afford any army composition he wants. Thing is, the only maps where you can avoid this is Blistering, Scrap Station, Lost Temple (which doesnt really counts because of vsT) and Metalopolis close positions. Also i dont want to rely on trying to end the game on mid-game because its not really a solution. Zerg (all races in fact) should be able to fight in all stages of the game as long as you are on par or ahead on econ. As for the maps Delta and Stepps, I simply remove them from my map choice altogether. They are very unfriendly towards Zerg players and can be abused by Terran (Delta) or Protoss (Stepps) very easily. The main problem with stepps is that you literally barely even have the time to mass 1 group of larva production in the time it takes your opponent to walk to your base. Yeah the map pool is so incredible bad, you pretty much have the maps "where you CAN win" and the maps "where you WILL lose" unless its a mirror or your opponent is WAY worse than you. | ||
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cerebralz
United States443 Posts
What you want to see is is pheonix/VR in which case you mix in one production cycle of corruptors. The Corruptors will smash any pheonix defense as well as punish robo bay units with corruption and A2A attack. In one game, i switches to exclusively corruptors when i saw 3 stargate pheonix. After killing all the pheonix, i teched to hive and morphed a ton of BL's. When he switched to blink stalkers to counter the BL's i marched over him with ultra/ling. I think this matchup, if it gets past the rush/early push stage, really is dependent on the zerg to dictate the pace. If you let P get the army he wants, the large battle will happen on your doorstep and no matter how fast you can replenish he will crush you. If you are pushing the pace the whole game, the large battle takes place at his front door, or in the open, in which case you can do all the tech switching people are talking about. | ||
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peanutter
Australia165 Posts
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ALPINA
3791 Posts
On November 12 2010 10:36 peanutter wrote: I'm not sure if any of you have the same problem, but when I get to ZvP late game, I generally have no supply left to get anything. I usually go for roach hydra mid game, then upon getting to hive tech i only have about 20 supply left for any hive tech units with like 100 supply into hydra/roach and like 80 supply in drones. If I attempt to attack them with the roach hydra to free up supply, they roflstomp the army and march towards me while some units are desperately producing. I am not economically behind (4bases v 2bases) but usually ahead. How do you guys cope with the supply problem? Well if you have tech and recources to make T3 army then just get rid from your supply. By that time you should have drops, just send 2 ovies with hydra/roach in one exp, and 2 in the other and most of the time he will try to defend this. If he just attacks you straight then it depends on map - let's say on steppes you probably gonna lose, cause ultras take ages to make. | ||
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ALPINA
3791 Posts
Most of you say that zerg should pressure toss in early/mid game so he won't be that strong in lategame, but the question is how should I do this with my ground army? I mean pushing with roaches/hydra while he does not have collosus can loose you a game if he just uses good force fields and traps your army. Drops/nydus are too expensive mid game. Tech switch to mutas after hydra/roach? I don't think I am going to have enough gas for that. Edit: sorry for double post. | ||
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ChickenLips
2912 Posts
On November 12 2010 10:36 peanutter wrote: I'm not sure if any of you have the same problem, but when I get to ZvP late game, I generally have no supply left to get anything. I usually go for roach hydra mid game, then upon getting to hive tech i only have about 20 supply left for any hive tech units with like 100 supply into hydra/roach and like 80 supply in drones. If I attempt to attack them with the roach hydra to free up supply, they roflstomp the army and march towards me while some units are desperately producing. I am not economically behind (4bases v 2bases) but usually ahead. How do you guys cope with the supply problem? I just can't help it, with 20 supply you can get 40 banelings. A 2000/1000 investment that will completely annihilate ANY protoss ball. If you drop them right on top of his army you basically can just a-move into their base since they spent the last 20 minutes accumulating all the gas and tech required to get that big ball of death. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=167126 Enjoy, it has brought me probably the only victories in ZvP that were really clear cut and dry without the usual head banging against his defenses for 10 minutes even though you are dramatically ahead. | ||
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evanthebouncy!
United States12796 Posts
The problem with roach/hydra is you are not squeezing enough money per supply. roach is 75/25 per 2 supply bane is what? 100/50 per 1 supply! You can really sink a lot of things in there. | ||
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mardi
United States1164 Posts
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achacttn
Australia82 Posts
If there is a small rush distance, I FE, defend their first push and pump speed roach and hydra with +1 range attack. With a 3rd queen constantly popping creep tumours, I make a little road to the protoss base and end it before they start saturating their 2nd base / get colossus range. If it's late game with 3, 4 bases each, I tech fast to broodlords and get hydra, and do a slow death push with the broodlords in front killing everything, and hydras behind to def the broodlords against blinking stalkers, void rays etc while being safe from colossus lasers. | ||
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