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Lobotomist
United States1541 Posts
2 Stargate VoidRay, however, is the future of PvZ late game in my humble opinion I knew it! I pretty much win every time I get hive on 3 bases up against a Protoss, as none of them EVER switch to void rays. The other day, as I rolled a Toss with with ultra/ling, I was thinking, "Man, if he had some void rays I would be totally screwed" Can't wait to start dealing with that tech switch...not. | ||
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Tachion
Canada8573 Posts
Does it really just come down to playing it by ear and there is no general solution? | ||
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Lobotomist
United States1541 Posts
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kcdc
United States2311 Posts
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Lobotomist
United States1541 Posts
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Markwerf
Netherlands3728 Posts
I think a fantastic combination post patch will be chargelots + templar + phoenix/voids. Phoenix harass will get much better as you can simply mass them alot faster and there is no more fungal to make you instantly lose all phoenix. By not going colo but templar instead to counter the eventual hydra you won't be giving them a use for their spire either, sure they can go corruptor to counter the phoenix harass but that is very ineffective. Chargelot + templar does amazing against hydra and if roaches come up you can simply add some immortals and voids, same thing with ultra's or broodlords. | ||
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chocoed
United States398 Posts
On December 04 2010 10:41 Lobotomist wrote: I knew it! I pretty much win every time I get hive on 3 bases up against a Protoss, as none of them EVER switch to void rays. The other day, as I rolled a Toss with with ultra/ling, I was thinking, "Man, if he had some void rays I would be totally screwed" Can't wait to start dealing with that tech switch...not. Yeah this is so true. Plexa made a damn good prediction on the future of PvZ. Voidrays are amazing late game, and with the upcoming damage buff to massive, it'll hurt Zerg even more. I never would've thought of picking up a mothership until I read Plexa's suggestion, and boy did it save me the game. Came out just when my zerg opponent tries to bum rush me with ultralisks / lings but he had no overseer! Furthermore, at that point already, he was so gas starved he couldn't make enough anti-air and I rolled him over. From now on I'll always produce a mothership late game in PvZ. Just too good. | ||
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HelluvaRice
United States25 Posts
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enderwiggnz
United States87 Posts
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kcdc
United States2311 Posts
On December 05 2010 15:59 chocoed wrote: Yeah this is so true. Plexa made a damn good prediction on the future of PvZ. Voidrays are amazing late game, and with the upcoming damage buff to massive, it'll hurt Zerg even more. I never would've thought of picking up a mothership until I read Plexa's suggestion, and boy did it save me the game. Came out just when my zerg opponent tries to bum rush me with ultralisks / lings but he had no overseer! Furthermore, at that point already, he was so gas starved he couldn't make enough anti-air and I rolled him over. From now on I'll always produce a mothership late game in PvZ. Just too good. Void rays are insanely awesome in late game. The trick is realizing that while voids aren't particularly cost-efficient, they're extremely supply-efficient. Void rays cost 250/150 (400 total resources) and 3 supply. That's 133 resources per supply. By comparison, a zealot is 50 reources per supply. Void rays have the highest cost per supply ratio in the Protoss arsenal, and I believe their ratio might also be the highest of any unit in the game. That means a maxed army with void rays can be much more expensive than maxed armies with other compositions. Consider a maxed army of hydra/roach against a maxed army of void/collosus. Assuming 70 workers for both sides, the maxed hydra/roach army will have a value of about 8,000 resources while the void/collosus army will be around 13,000 resources. In the late game, resource cost is less important. It's all about supply efficiency, making the void ray king. | ||
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rolfe
United Kingdom1266 Posts
My first first thought is i'm wondering why you haven't mentioned dark templar at all? i've found them to be sometimes very good at harassment against zergs, thining out drones, forcing spore crawlers, wasting gas on overseers. a relatively good way of clawing back into a game if you have fallen slightly behind. Also i find them not too bad at killing ultras what is your/or anyone else at a high levels opinion on this? Secondly the PTR has rendered some of this obsolete, speed rays may have been the future of pvz once but clearly not anymore if that change is introduced... but to look at positives from the patch do you think phoenix can be somewhat viable reactively against mutalisk? or produced from a single starport early game to force hyras while simultaneously being able to tech to collosus, is this doable or too gas intensive? I've recently found some small success with carriers late game against zerg, will this be more viable? Anyway sorry for lots of questions and theorycrafting the PTR, which obviously cannot be properly answered yet but they are just some thoughts i've had | ||
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rsvp
United States2266 Posts
On December 10 2010 01:46 rolfe wrote: First off i'd like to thank you for this awesome thread plexa, i've found it very helpful and very well written and though pvz is still my weakest matchup it is one which has improved a lot after i have read this. However there are a couple of things i'd like to comment on. My first first thought is i'm wondering why you haven't mentioned dark templar at all? i've found them to be sometimes very good at harassment against zergs, thining out drones, forcing spore crawlers, wasting gas on overseers. a relatively good way of clawing back into a game if you have fallen slightly behind. Also i find them not too bad at killing ultras what is your/or anyone else at a high levels opinion on this? Secondly the PTR has rendered some of this obsolete, speed rays may have been the future of pvz once but clearly not anymore if that change is introduced... but to look at positives from the patch do you think phoenix can be somewhat viable reactively against mutalisk? or produced from a single starport early game to force hyras while simultaneously being able to tech to collosus, is this doable or too gas intensive? I've recently found some small success with carriers late game against zerg, will this be more viable? Anyway sorry for lots of questions and theorycrafting the PTR, which obviously cannot be properly answered yet but they are just some thoughts i've had There is no question that dark templars are great for harassment, but they're expensive and costs a lot of gas that you really need for other units, like colossus and sentries. Many players just feel that they're not worth their high investment. Getting dark templars mid-late game would rarely be considered a "bad" move though, so if you like them you should definitely keep playing with them. The new patch does little to render void rays obsolete. While it's unfortunate that they will no longer be as good with harassing (or killing) late game zerg expansions, it doesn't change the fact that they are still highly effective against all zerg units. The only real counters the zerg has are mutas and hydras, which die easily to many other things (storm, colossus, etc). Void rays are very supply efficient, so they will always be great to incorporate into your late game ball when you are maxing out on supply and have the income for it these expensive units. Making phoenix reactively against mutalisk has been a hotly debated topic in this thread, and different people have different views. The patch will certainly help (as in make it easier for reactive phoenix to muta), but I still don't think there is a clear cut yes you should or no you shouldn't to this question. Making phoenix out of a single stargate to force hydras while teching to colossus is done all the time. It works great off any kind of FE strat. Carriers aren't that bad, but I'd suggest void rays over carriers in almost every late game PvZ situation. I don't know what you can accomplish with carriers that you can't with void rays, but I do know that corruptors counter carriers but not so much void rays. For all the success you've had with carriers, if you had gone void rays instead you probably would have had even more success. | ||
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rolfe
United Kingdom1266 Posts
The other point i could clarify about the carriers is although you are absolutely right about the corrupters i have personally found carriers more useful against hydras. In the specific cases where i have found the carriers to work i've hidden them until i have 4 or 5 not allowing corrupters to be made until after the carriers have already done their damage. Also i've only ever made phoenix out of two stargates against zerg. I'm not sure why but i never thought the simultaneous robo + stargate would work and i don't think i've seen that in a match i've watched. i'll have to try that, my collosus have often come out far too late, hence why i do rather poorly in this matchup. I guess you're right in that DTs are DTs and don't really require much further analysis matchup specifically but i've often found zergs worse at getting decent detection. more than likely this is a reflection of the quality of the opponents i'm facing though. | ||
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Skyro
United States1823 Posts
On December 10 2010 01:03 kcdc wrote: Void rays are insanely awesome in late game. The trick is realizing that while voids aren't particularly cost-efficient, they're extremely supply-efficient. Void rays cost 250/150 (400 total resources) and 3 supply. That's 133 resources per supply. By comparison, a zealot is 50 reources per supply. Void rays have the highest cost per supply ratio in the Protoss arsenal, and I believe their ratio might also be the highest of any unit in the game. That means a maxed army with void rays can be much more expensive than maxed armies with other compositions. Consider a maxed army of hydra/roach against a maxed army of void/collosus. Assuming 70 workers for both sides, the maxed hydra/roach army will have a value of about 8,000 resources while the void/collosus army will be around 13,000 resources. In the late game, resource cost is less important. It's all about supply efficiency, making the void ray king. I like how Plexa pointed how stalkers start to become weaker and more inefficient as time goes on. People see then as a core unit but I don't, I always look for ways to avoid making stalkers as I go further into the late game. And with VR's is due to their fast attack speed (less dps lost from overkill) and being an air unit (so they don't have to fight for space in a concave), along with scaling incredibly well with upgrades, makes them a stalker replacement in your late game army. There is no reason to have mass stalkers in your late game army unless you are really incorporting blink play. It's the same reason why I'm a big advocate of going phoenix instead of stalkers for AA whenever possible (though it is sometimes just not feasible to use phoenix e.g. as a reaction to mutas). | ||
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rolfe
United Kingdom1266 Posts
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Khaladas
United States223 Posts
Your goal during the midgame is to keep his expansions in check while securing your third and fourth and keeping up (if not leading) in upgrades. If you are able to do this you will avoid being overrun by wave upon wave of maxed Zerg armies. Yay. Does this just mean that in general you should be fairly passive and continuing to expand to stay equal on bases with zerg, and only attacking if you see a huge opportunity or if zerg gets too greedy with expansions? I've lost a lot of games by moving out to try and pressure zerg's third (while i'm on 2 bases ) only to get steamrolled by a ton of hydras, or have a gang of mutas come have their way with my probes. Any advice on that particular point would be great. Thanks! | ||
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iamke55
United States2806 Posts
On December 22 2010 00:43 Nasdrova wrote: The advice in this post is extremely solid but i'm struggling a bit with the mid-game part. Does this just mean that in general you should be fairly passive and continuing to expand to stay equal on bases with zerg, and only attacking if you see a huge opportunity or if zerg gets too greedy with expansions? I've lost a lot of games by moving out to try and pressure zerg's third (while i'm on 2 bases ) only to get steamrolled by a ton of hydras, or have a gang of mutas come have their way with my probes. Any advice on that particular point would be great. Thanks! This sounds about right. A good roach/hydra zerg will generally be anywhere from 20-40 supply ahead of you in the midgame. Unless you went for a 2 base all in build (such as 6 gates with probe cut), you won't be able to do much damage to all but the greediest zergs. | ||
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Roblicious
United States64 Posts
From what I understand 3 gate expo is standard against zerg (depending on map of course) Is it because the protoss player that goes 3 gate expo is pushing out to either apply or feint pressure against the zerg so they arent droning up? Because in early game its either expo or pressure am I right? | ||
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Skyro
United States1823 Posts
On December 22 2010 04:19 Roblicious wrote: Dono if this has been covered quite yet, but I noticed Plexa saying that a 3 gate expo = lose to a competent zerg, then I see a lot of pro protoss doing 3 gate expo vs zerg with 6 sentries, and a few stalkers and zealots (nony style). From what I understand 3 gate expo is standard against zerg (depending on map of course) Is it because the protoss player that goes 3 gate expo is pushing out to either apply or feint pressure against the zerg so they arent droning up? Because in early game its either expo or pressure am I right? 3-Gate expo still pressures once you get your 3 WGs up. If you don't stop mass droning and/or do some damage from this initial push you will be behind economically. How you transition from there varies depending on how your initial push went and what you saw in terms of tech and unit composition. For instance if you see mass lings and crawlers it is almost guaranteed mutaling, so most opt for a follow-up 6-Gate push around the 9 minute mark. You pretty much have to do some form of early pressure vs a FE Zerg to not get behind economically unless you FE yourself (which is viable on certain maps). | ||
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SnuggleZhenya
596 Posts
If I make it to the mid game I will generally lose horribly to ling/muta, or I will win v. hydras if an only if I am able to get 2-3 colossi out early enough. I just feel so at the mercy of a zerg and totally unable to really dictate the direction the game goes unless its the first 5-7 minutes. I have trouble with phoenix play because my APM is kind of low, this leads to either good phoenix control or good macro, but generally not both at the same time. Is this the key to the matchup, need I just be flat better at the game than I am to play solidly in PvZ right now? | ||
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