Does anyone have a replay of 3 gate expand? Particularly where they pressure with the 3 gates and then transition into a 5 or 6 gate push at the 9 minute mark?

ZeNd0kUn

United States331 Posts

December 23 2010 06:33 GMT

#302

Dunno who bumped this up but .. hey it's PvZ day today on Gisado's GOMtv matchup tournament! And I sure hope it's not a 1 player all kill like yesterday.

TheResidentEvil

United States991 Posts

January 05 2011 21:15 GMT

#303

bump for this awesome post

bankai

362 Posts

January 06 2011 01:23 GMT

#304

After reading the OP (btw this is a great post), I have a question.

The mid game describes 2 unit compositions: CSS for roach/hydra and ISS for muta/ling.

I understand that zealots fall very quickly to roach/hydra, but if u do go CSS, cant zerg quickly change to speedlings and decimate your CSS?? It sounds really hard to use effective FF to prevent the CSS army from dying. The same even for ISS, I cant imagine how ISS can hold off mass speedlings without very fast and effectively played FF. Can someone clarify this for me?

ABCSFirebird

Germany90 Posts

January 06 2011 01:39 GMT

#305

Simple answer: Yes you need (very) fast and effectively played FF. What do you think are the sentries for?

bankai

362 Posts

January 06 2011 03:17 GMT

#306

On January 06 2011 10:39 ABCSFirebird wrote:
Simple answer: Yes you need (very) fast and effectively played FF. What do you think are the sentries for?

Woah, tat sounds so risky for someone with terrible micro like me =P

KingofGods

Canada1218 Posts

January 06 2011 05:26 GMT

#307

You don't really need that fast force fields. Even if the speedlings get onto your units you can still force field in front (or on) your units and push the zerglings back.

electrogravitic

Canada1 Post

January 06 2011 11:59 GMT

#308

Legit. Thanks, I've been weak in PvZ matches. Very Informative, recommend to all who are having trouble with zerg.

grimAuxiliatrix

United States105 Posts

January 07 2011 06:03 GMT

#309

I'm really curious why you would want immortals in a composition vs ling muta. (Yes I get the roach switch thing, but it's ling-muta. Pretty much immortals' worst enemies.

DFarce

55 Posts

January 11 2011 15:20 GMT

#310

An excellent guide that covers most of what protoss need to know for the current PvZ metagame.

I'm bumping this because it should be front page for a very long time and I was surprised to find it so buried when I wanted to check some of the things out.

marvellosity

United Kingdom36156 Posts

January 11 2011 15:30 GMT

#311

Even with the CSS composition, you're probably still gonna have a few zealots around just because of mineral dumping. Should help with the lings.

Markwerf

Netherlands3728 Posts

January 11 2011 16:26 GMT

#312

With colossi stalker sentry you should be having 0 zealots really. Zealots hardly do a thing with that composition as they only work against your own forcefields and they simply die too fast to even do a thing. Without upgrades zealots are even worse and the CSS style of play shouldn't be focussing on upgrades imo so it saves gas. Upgrades do very little for stalkers and sentries anyway.

Gas economy is very important with CSS but if you do it well and DON"T lose your sentries too much you should be able to do without building a zealot at all. Key to this is carefully managing your economy (ie. make more stalkers instead of sentries if you need extra gas, occasionally make an immortal instead of a colossus etc.). Expanding in time to spend minerals is also key, rather get your 3rd a bit early then a bit late, CSS is really strong on defense so you should be able to get that 3rd quickly after your colo's get out.

kernl

84 Posts

January 25 2011 12:47 GMT

#313

Personally, I think void rays are viable much earlier than lategame. I like to do a 3 gate sentry forge expand with 2 gas immediately, and go robo and stargate as soon as possible. According to what the observer scouts I build cannons, but other than that I start building the colossi/stalker/sentry/void ray death ball right away with upgrades. NOTHING can kill that, really. depending on Z army size I take my third between 100 and 150 supply, of course pressuring Z is necessary if he's solely powering.

For zerg it's ridiculously hard to deal with, say, 5-8 colossi and void rays each with gateway unit support. The main disadvantage of the build is that you can't punish a very early third or even fourth base by the zerg because of you hardcore teching.

BUT: (1) You simply cannot die. (2) You kill absolutely everything once you move out.

The (few) PvZs I've lost with this build were against zergs that macroed hard, i.e. expanded, upgraded, had a good unit mix and then engaged my when at 200/200, lost their army and rebuilt it, slowly decimating my army and taking advantage of the long col/VR building time. In such games it usually simply boils down to whoever is the better player.

Anyway, Col/VR immediately ftw.

Byte

Germany11 Posts

June 04 2011 11:59 GMT

#314

You guys know that scene in the Matrix where Neo learns Karate, well this guide is the Pvz floppy disk! thanks so much for the help!

ODKStevez

Ireland1225 Posts

June 14 2011 23:50 GMT

#315

Awesome write up. I'll be reading this alot.

Perplex

United States1693 Posts

June 15 2011 00:59 GMT

#316

To Byte and ODKStevez: Remember that this is from NOVEMBER of 2010. It's pretty outdated now, particularly the end-game section about speedrays (they don't exist anymore)

Automata

393 Posts

June 15 2011 03:50 GMT

#317

Does anyone have replays for 3gate expand (not FFE on shakuras or tal darim)?

SethDrone

United States51 Posts

June 15 2011 13:56 GMT

#318

With this post and the revival of Antimage's PvZ guide I think it's evident we are lacking in current PvZ guides. People seem to be actively looking for help in this matchup and coming up short.

rsvp

United States2266 Posts

June 15 2011 14:25 GMT

#319

On June 15 2011 09:59 Perplex wrote:
To Byte and ODKStevez: Remember that this is from NOVEMBER of 2010. It's pretty outdated now, particularly the end-game section about speedrays (they don't exist anymore)

Surprisingly (or not) most of this guide still holds. In particular, the 2 main compositions you want to get still are CSS or IST. IST is gaining in popularity with the quick council tech (blink is so useful even when threatened by infestors/fungal) and HTs helping a lot against infestor play which we're seeing more and more from zergs.

Even though speed rays don't exist anymore, void rays are still (imo) essential in the late game if you're going for the CSS composition. Without void rays it's just too difficult to combat corruptor/brood lord armies with just stalkers - stalkers have poor DPS and must struggle to kill corruptors before you lose all your colossus and the brood lords before you lose all your stalkers.

If you're going IST, then late game void rays are still ok, but the general preference is to just spend extra gas you can on additional HT and archons.

As far as early game, 15 nexus is still viable on every map in most tournament map pools. 1 gate expands are gaining in popularity as well, and although you can still always 3 gate FE, I personally think it's a horrible build.

marvellosity

United Kingdom36156 Posts

June 15 2011 14:56 GMT

#320

Anihc - maybe it's written somewhere, but how do you defend your newly placed expansion against a large group of speedlings with 1 gate expo?