EPT[G] PvZ Overview - Page 6
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Erik.TheRed
United States1655 Posts
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Erik.TheRed
United States1655 Posts
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da_head
Canada3350 Posts
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Plexa
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 11 2010 15:20 Ernzoa wrote: Metal is surprisingly easy to secure a third on, assuming you're not in close positions. Lost Temple is a map which is really difficult to secure a third. Generally you cut sentries as you transition to templar (you should have atleast 6 anyway) and by doing so you should be able to afford all the tech you need. Once storm is out (depending on how aggressive he's being) you should be able to move out with 3-4 templar and take a base, or if he's being aggressive, you should be able to land a few storms on them and weaken them to a point where the zerg doesn't want to be aggressive anymore. Either way, after storm it's third time!You mentioned that a good reaction to seeing muta/ling play is to get blink stalkers and HT. However, muta harass usually confines the P to 2 bases, which is not enough gas to make sentries/stalkers/blink/upgrades AND HT. How do you go about securing the 3rd base, especially on maps like metal until the HT tech is done? Do you just dump the extra mins into cannons while making sentries/blink stalkers to deal with the harass or is it better to go for a timing push off 2 bases before the mutas get a chance to harass? | ||
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ewswes
39 Posts
reactionary phoenixes may not be able to match the mutas in numbers but if you're good with micro then your phoenixes shouldn't really die and your phoenix number should keep increasing. With phoenixes I feel you can take a 3rd base without pushing because a couple phoenixes and cannons can do very well against mutas and either chase them away or give you time to send stalkers over. With 2base templars it just seems like the mutas can pick off your econ as you're moving out, then army trade with you and the zerg will end up way ahead. | ||
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Tippany
United States765 Posts
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Thaddaeus
Germany107 Posts
On November 11 2010 01:48 Plexa wrote: Okay perhaps lol'ing at corruptors is a bit overkill, but the fact is that Corruptors aren't useful at dealing with my ground army (besides colo) and they're expensive. I think at the very worst it's an even fight between Corruptors/Speed Rays which is exactly the way it should be. Both sides should have options in the lategame which are viable. From what I've seen, though, the real strength to speedrays is their ability to pop up somewhere kill a bunch of drones and a hatch then leave again without being touched by Zerg. just for the protocol; A Void Ray kills a Corruptor (both un-upgraded) with only shields lost. A-moving 5 vs 5 Rays come out ahead even more. (y, battle situations also include other units etc pp. but the tradeoff seems "fair" to me.) | ||
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puissance
97 Posts
Now to the scout / Phönix discussion, I think that there is a third possibility between opening Halu -> Robo / Council or 2 Stargate. What about making just one Stargate, boost out a Phönix and scout him with it and react accordingly? - If he goes Muta/Ling than add a second Starport and slowly tech towards Templar. - If he goes Roach and you think he will push soon you can start building a Robo for Immortals and if needed add some Void Rays to your army. - If he stays defensive and builds up Roach / Hydra then go towards Colossus. The advantage of 1 Stargate is that is solves the scout problem and gives you an easier transition to Speedrays in the late-game. You will have less Phönix than a player who throws down 2 Stargate immediatly, but you are in a better position against other builds. Also if he doesnt go Muta you can just make ~3 Phönix for map control and drone harass. As a sidenote regarding the Phönix vs Muta efficiency discussion. It sounds like some people asume that their strength is measured in how they can beat Mutas on their own. While others and myself included measure their strength in how well they can support your Gateway army in order to beat Muta together. | ||
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Ada
Germany150 Posts
As the game creeps on, this unit composition becomes worse, and worse and then down right terrible. This is because of upgrades. Indeed, understanding this is absolutely essential to understanding the last half of this matchup. Stalkers scale terribly with upgrades. You are right with your points about the upgrades, but I don't see the problem. Colossi/Stalker/Sentry is not supposed to fight all the Roach/Hydra army at once. You try to cut it in half so their damage output is reduced by alot. Your ball should the able to tank that damage I think. On the other hand stalker damage output does not get better during the game, they get +1 damage, Zerg gets +1 armor. But your colossi gain +2 (on two shots) every upgrade, so they climb from (colossi attack vs roarches armor level, same level) 2*14 -> 28 to 2*17 -> 34 damage. The more colossi your are able to stack, they even start to burn through roaches, hydras get decimated anyway. In the end I guess stalker upgrade scaling is part of the problem, but more important are the rising army numbers and the danger of being surrounded where you can't handle them anymore with forcefields. Never get caught on open (creep)field. | ||
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sleepingdog
Austria6145 Posts
On November 11 2010 12:17 Plexa wrote: Phoenix are only good as a preemptive counter to muta/ling, as I've said before. If you're playing catchup then you're going to lose the game. If you have a strong ground army then the correct followup is Blink Stalker/Storm - yes it's not as strong as pure phoenix - but it does work. I'm not giving up yet  First, let's not talk about blind phoenix openings, because I don't know "too" much about these as well...tried some 2 gate stalker pressure into expo into 2 stargate with the "plan" to harass with phoenixes but also to be able to mass void rays if zerg commits with roaches, but never felt really comfortable. 3 gate sentry-expand into 2 stargate feels better, but then again zerg has the possibility to go fast lair hydras which is not only a direct counter but also a quite good build vs protoss standard-play in "itself" so I encounter it quite often. Still I think we can agree that phoenix-openings are one of those things that haven't been well discovered at all - once you get 4 phoenixes and can kill queens with one lift-off the harass is one of the strongest in the whole midgame of sc2. Second, I still disagree that going stargates "reactionary" is bad. The reason is, that only recently protoss have started to figure out the timings of 5 gate pushes (be it the more all-in-ish tyler or tt1 ones, or the more conservative socke-play). If done correctly I am convinced that you WILL do CRUCIAL damage before the first mutas are out. I know I'm leaning myself out of the window a bit here, but once protoss has figured out the new PvZ then a protoss player who does not do a painful attack to zerg ~9-10 minutes into the game when zerg goes for muta/ling, then protoss has just screwed up. This was what I tried to "prove" with the socke-rep on desert oasis. Socke made quite some mistakes (notice the multiple supply-blocks early on) and didn't do a nearly as well executed timing push as tyler and STILL managed to decimate sen's army/spine-crawlers crucially before the mutas arrived. At this point you have such an advantage that you CAN go for blink AND double stargate, defending against the harass or keeping the mutas pinned at the zerg-base. I don't want to deny that storm IS stronger vs mutas when you attack zerg and force him to defend, no argument here. The reason why I think it's better to delay storm just "a bit" in order to get a useful phoenix-number to scare off the mutas is, that blinkstalker/storm WILL force you into a timing-attack. Even blinkstalker/storm can only tak you so far, I'd say you can defend 3 bases but that's it. If zerg gets hivetech just in time to have some ultras when your stalker/templar-ball comes, then you have no follow-up. Both immortals and voidrays are miles away and - more crucially - you have no map-control whatsoever, no way to prevent zerg from doing whatever the hell he wants. What I've been just trying out is going for DTs - DTs will also force zerg into defense and you could merge some into archons for a attack timed before hive (DTs will be out before amulet-templars and are cheaper on gas). Archons just demolish mutas who are "forced" to engage, because you are standing right in the middle of the zerg base. Nevertheless I'm still completely in the dark concerning the timings, so I don't want comment on let alone recommend this any further. | ||
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Applecakes
Australia319 Posts
The toss was pumping immortals and colossi out of 3-4 robos, dt drops, etc which did quite well, but just too much of an econ lag to ever really take the match. Neither player made any critical mistakes. It seems that PvZ, with equally good players, is an uphill battle for toss. Maybe voids are an answer, hard to tell. The biggest problem P seems to face is the fact that muta/ling and later 2 base roach keeps the toss constantly on the defensive then slowly out macro'd. It's really deja'vu in alot of matches. | ||
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Plexa
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 11 2010 17:49 moose162 wrote: Depends on your build. Blink Stalkers will have you expanding anywhere between 50-70 psi whereas 2-3 stalker pressure will have you expanding closer to 30. I understand the concept of expanding behind your stalker pressure, but around what supply are you dropping a Nexus? Also, I find it way harder to keep the expo up on a map like XelNaga Caverns as opposed to Lost Temple. On November 11 2010 19:22 Thaddaeus wrote: Interesting fact! I'll keep that in mind.just for the protocol; A Void Ray kills a Corruptor (both un-upgraded) with only shields lost. A-moving 5 vs 5 Rays come out ahead even more. (y, battle situations also include other units etc pp. but the tradeoff seems "fair" to me.) On November 11 2010 19:48 puissance wrote: Getting a blind stargate isn't a bad thing, it just depends on your style. It serves the same purpose as hallucination but give you some harass options. It also means you are vulnerable to some timing attacks as well. It's a completely different game than PvZ with ground armies and one that I'm not as confident in. Thus I admit the discussion on phoenix in the matchup is lacking, I'll rectify that sooner rather than later.First of thanks for the great guide, it really helped me to understand the matchup better. Now to the scout / Phönix discussion, I think that there is a third possibility between opening Halu -> Robo / Council or 2 Stargate. What about making just one Stargate, boost out a Phönix and scout him with it and react accordingly? - If he goes Muta/Ling than add a second Starport and slowly tech towards Templar. - If he goes Roach and you think he will push soon you can start building a Robo for Immortals and if needed add some Void Rays to your army. - If he stays defensive and builds up Roach / Hydra then go towards Colossus. The advantage of 1 Stargate is that is solves the scout problem and gives you an easier transition to Speedrays in the late-game. You will have less Phönix than a player who throws down 2 Stargate immediatly, but you are in a better position against other builds. Also if he doesnt go Muta you can just make ~3 Phönix for map control and drone harass. As a sidenote regarding the Phönix vs Muta efficiency discussion. It sounds like some people asume that their strength is measured in how they can beat Mutas on their own. While others and myself included measure their strength in how well they can support your Gateway army in order to beat Muta together. On November 11 2010 20:05 Ada wrote: Yeah that's standard micro you're describing (I mentioned it in the article). Colossi and Immortals scale well with upgrades, but Colossi also die quicker since the Stalkers can't tanks as much damage. Further, I'm seeing a lot more burrow play lately and that nulls forcefields by quite a bit and can be really frustrating. I stand by the claim that the army composition gets weaker as the game goes on, but it really becomes terrible against Ultra/Ling since you can no longer use forcefield at all. You are right with your points about the upgrades, but I don't see the problem. Colossi/Stalker/Sentry is not supposed to fight all the Roach/Hydra army at once. You try to cut it in half so their damage output is reduced by alot. Your ball should the able to tank that damage I think. On the other hand stalker damage output does not get better during the game, they get +1 damage, Zerg gets +1 armor. But your colossi gain +2 (on two shots) every upgrade, so they climb from (colossi attack vs roarches armor level, same level) 2*14 -> 28 to 2*17 -> 34 damage. The more colossi your are able to stack, they even start to burn through roaches, hydras get decimated anyway. In the end I guess stalker upgrade scaling is part of the problem, but more important are the rising army numbers and the danger of being surrounded where you can't handle them anymore with forcefields. Never get caught on open (creep)field. On November 11 2010 20:10 sleepingdog wrote: Agree and disagree! There are some players who swear by Phoenix play in PvZ and they know the builds quite well ^^I'm not giving up yet First, let's not talk about blind phoenix openings, because I don't know "too" much about these as well...tried some 2 gate stalker pressure into expo into 2 stargate with the "plan" to harass with phoenixes but also to be able to mass void rays if zerg commits with roaches, but never felt really comfortable. 3 gate sentry-expand into 2 stargate feels better, but then again zerg has the possibility to go fast lair hydras which is not only a direct counter but also a quite good build vs protoss standard-play in "itself" so I encounter it quite often. Still I think we can agree that phoenix-openings are one of those things that haven't been well discovered at all - once you get 4 phoenixes and can kill queens with one lift-off the harass is one of the strongest in the whole midgame of sc2. Second, I still disagree that going stargates "reactionary" is bad. The reason is, that only recently protoss have started to figure out the timings of 5 gate pushes (be it the more all-in-ish tyler or tt1 ones, or the more conservative socke-play). If done correctly I am convinced that you WILL do CRUCIAL damage before the first mutas are out. I know I'm leaning myself out of the window a bit here, but once protoss has figured out the new PvZ then a protoss player who does not do a painful attack to zerg ~9-10 minutes into the game when zerg goes for muta/ling, then protoss has just screwed up. I can see it working if you are able to do a semi-successful timing attack to stall muta numbers, provided you don't lose too many stalker/sentry (zealots are expendable). That way the Zerg is going to have to spend a few round of larvae redroning and not building mutas giving you a chance to catch up in unit count. In my head when I think reactionary phoenix I think you scout the spire with hallu and go "oh time to build phoenix" and 99% of the time that dies imo. But a timing attack should be enough to give you those extra few seconds to get a decent fleet up. The Reniehour/Artosis game (despite Artosis building corruptors..) shows how to use Phoenix well (even though he went blind 2gate pheonix).This was what I tried to "prove" with the socke-rep on desert oasis. Socke made quite some mistakes (notice the multiple supply-blocks early on) and didn't do a nearly as well executed timing push as tyler and STILL managed to decimate sen's army/spine-crawlers crucially before the mutas arrived. At this point you have such an advantage that you CAN go for blink AND double stargate, defending against the harass or keeping the mutas pinned at the zerg-base. I don't want to deny that storm IS stronger vs mutas when you attack zerg and force him to defend, no argument here. The reason why I think it's better to delay storm just "a bit" in order to get a useful phoenix-number to scare off the mutas is, that blinkstalker/storm WILL force you into a timing-attack. Even blinkstalker/storm can only tak you so far, I'd say you can defend 3 bases but that's it. If zerg gets hivetech just in time to have some ultras when your stalker/templar-ball comes, then you have no follow-up. Both immortals and voidrays are miles away and - more crucially - you have no map-control whatsoever, no way to prevent zerg from doing whatever the hell he wants. Templar are invaluable defensive tools against mutalisks though. If the Zerg doesn't transition into Roach (which usually doesn't happen) then keeping 2-3 templar by each Nexus is sufficient deterrent to muta harass. Laying down a few good storms over the cloud really hurts them and any counter attack you do will be that much more effective (since the bulk of his army is on 30hp). That way its possible to secure more than 2 bases, its difficult, but possible. What I've been just trying out is going for DTs - DTs will also force zerg into defense and you could merge some into archons for a attack timed before hive (DTs will be out before amulet-templars and are cheaper on gas). Archons just demolish mutas who are "forced" to engage, because you are standing right in the middle of the zerg base. DTs are great against Mutaling as well. I said earlier in the thread that 4 DTs with +2 can kill a hatch before overseers arrive - and that can be critical in not falling behind. With that said, its always a tough decision between killing drones and killing the hatch... I think killing drones is better, but I'm not sure Nevertheless I'm still completely in the dark concerning the timings, so I don't want comment on let alone recommend this any further.  and yeah, Archons with upgrades are great. I just wish we still had depleted geysers or that DTs were cheaper (if they were 250/50 I would be stoked!) so that Archons became a viable unit to base an army around rather than just a support unit you get once you run out of storm.On November 11 2010 20:42 Applecakes wrote: Sounds about right. The metagame is not nice to Protoss at the moment and many players still don't understand the matchup as well as they could. (Yes, even the koreans..). Being a predictable Protoss will only work for a limited time - thats why it's important for top level Protoss to keep mixing it up so that they can't be metagamed. That's one of the reason why Tester and Genius are so good - their builds are unique and their styles drastically different to other Protoss. The PvZ match just shown on gom really sums up this MU. Toss expo'd off one gateway, got sentries/stalkers with few zealots. Pumped out hallucination. Zerg followed up with muta into mass roach to pressure the P until he was multiple bases ahead then effectively GG. The toss was pumping immortals and colossi out of 3-4 robos, dt drops, etc which did quite well, but just too much of an econ lag to ever really take the match. Neither player made any critical mistakes. It seems that PvZ, with equally good players, is an uphill battle for toss. Maybe voids are an answer, hard to tell. The biggest problem P seems to face is the fact that muta/ling and later 2 base roach keeps the toss constantly on the defensive then slowly out macro'd. It's really deja'vu in alot of matches. | ||
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Camlito
Australia4040 Posts
Also Jesse, you forgot to mention my Roach/Muta/Ling play ;D. | ||
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SpiciestZerg
United States154 Posts
On November 11 2010 01:22 Plexa wrote: Okay it's important to realise there are two scenarios here. Firstly, if you have a stargate and are making phoenix already then yea, you can keep up with his mutalisk production. At the very worst, it's an even game between you two. e.g. replay the protoss beats the zerg with 3 stargate phoenix in a 44 minute game. However, if you scout mutas (i.e. after spire is around 50% complete) and then add phoenix, you will never be able to match his mutalisk count. He will always have superior numbers and you won't win. Phoenix are an excellent preventative measure, but aren't a reactionary measure - if you understand what I mean. Basically, you'll never get to the point where you have equal cost phoenix vs muta because he'll be ahead of you if you start phoenix production after scouting spire. Random player, i've used phoenixes like crazy ever since i saw Nony first use them. I'm actually seeing mutas less and less in my PvZ, but when I do i find a reactionary stargate works wonders. I cant stand giving them total map control, and phoenixes counter mutas even if sorely outmatched. Basically i use the chronoboosts on my stargate (usually only one) to get out more phoenix faster. Now its true, you wont ever catch up in numbers, in fact you might fall more behind, but the important thing is phoenix can shoot and kite mutas, so they are unchasable. You cant go muta hunting, but they cant chase down your phoenixes either. So it takes away some of their map control. But more importantly, their DPS is much much much better than stalkers'. You mentioned how important it was to thin the muta ball: phoenixes do a great job, in conjunction with cannons and stalkers the mutas cant fight back so the phoenix get a lot of free shots, and just happen to be the best muta-killers around. its definitely more micro-intensive, but it works pretty well. edit: so to clarify the phoenixes are used more defensively; if they really do a good job keeping the pressure on there wont be any actual harass at all. They just a) pick off a few mutas at a time b) take away their perfect map control. | ||
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Markwerf
Netherlands3728 Posts
Let's suppose you're on 2 base vs zerg 2 base and have some stalkers, sentries and 3 or so gateways. You scout zerg going spire but the spire is already done when you see it. Now according to the guide you should get stalkers, a few immortals from your 1 robo and tech to templar. Then when templar is done (takes a shitload of time to get storm ready templars) you should expo to your 3rd and possibly 4th under the cover of templars apparently. A good zerg will simply harass you non-stop till you have templar ready and expand once or twice. You won't have a way to pressure AT ALL as he has map control + lings to beat any stalker pushing, also because your army composition is extremely gas heavy you will have a mineral build up (which you have to wait with spending before you get that oppurtunity to expo). Then at the point you expo your behind 2 bases and Z can just do a tech switch to ultra and/or roach and you're in trouble. This is exactly what happened in the socke vs sen game.. the game was only close because socke had some great storms / positioning later but he was out of it the moment he didn't get phoenix imo. If you instead go phoenix, even if it's reactionary, you can defend the first wave with just your stalkers. Then you can pump chronoboosted phoenix from 2 stargates non-stop. Those phoenixes are not ment to kill the muta on their own.. they serve to help in fights and keep a check on the muta fleet / harass back. With just stalkers it's insanely hard to stop muta harass as he just flies around and then attacks from some random angle where you're stalkers aren't, with phoenix you can keep track of his muta ball way better and help to pick off a muta everytime he retreats. Phoenix are also alot less gas heavy so won't get such a huge mineral build up. Then if he keeps making muta you just want to push, sure you say zealots suck because of roaches but if you have proper attack upgrades on your lots and perhaps even charge they actually do quite ok against roach (1 chargelot beats 1 roach). Against a player that makes muta/ling and expands greedily a 2/0 stalker/zealot/phoenix timing attack does fantastic. The zealots will 2-shot the lings (as there is no way that he has 2 armor when you get 2 attack) and with blink you can easily blink the stalkers so that the zealots can protect them well. Phoenix combined with stalkers easily mop up muta (though your phoenix will all die probably) and then your remaining stalker + zealots won't have a issue at all with his ground. All you have to do is be weary of a tech switch, which isn't hard to check with phoenix keeping track of their muta. The zealots for a timing push can be warped in last so if he does tech switch you simply expand and get your HT tech going. | ||
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drooL
United Kingdom2108 Posts
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sleepingdog
Austria6145 Posts
On November 11 2010 21:27 Plexa wrote: Agree and disagree! There are some players who swear by Phoenix play in PvZ and they know the builds quite well ^^ Of course, don't get me wrong on this, I LOVE phoenix-play, when using phoenixes I can really exploit my wc3-micro. What I meant was, that you see "so" few pros using phoenixs vs zerg that I believe that there is still a pretty stony road ahead of us - if I use phoenixes properly on ladder, I either rip through the zerg who can't handle the harass because he isn't used to it, or I lose vs some timing-attack I wasn't prepared for because I haven't seen it before. There are so few reps available so that I'm still quite in the dark concerning the proper build-up (2 gate or 3 gate expand, early 3 gas) and more importantly, how to correctly estimate whether or not my defense will hold vs attacks, be it lings, roach or - most troublesome for me - early hydra-pushs. Perfect example would be sangho vs phoenixwerra. Sangho demolished the zerg, nevertheless it "seemed" like phoenixwerra just hasn't played against a phoenix-build executed "that" perfectly - tbh the game tells us nothing about if the build hasn't some very weak spots a zerg who has played hundreds of games against such stuff will be able to exploit in the future. I can see it working if you are able to do a semi-successful timing attack to stall muta numbers, provided you don't lose too many stalker/sentry (zealots are expendable). That way the Zerg is going to have to spend a few round of larvae redroning and not building mutas giving you a chance to catch up in unit count. In my head when I think reactionary phoenix I think you scout the spire with hallu and go "oh time to build phoenix" and 99% of the time that dies imo. But a timing attack should be enough to give you those extra few seconds to get a decent fleet up. The Reniehour/Artosis game (despite Artosis building corruptors..) shows how to use Phoenix well (even though he went blind 2gate pheonix). This is what I meant, I am completely with you that building up a ground army, scouting with hallu and THEN putting up 2 stargates as a "reaction" to the spire will lose because zerg will outproduce you....will basicly always be one step ahead of you all the time. The real question I am asking you and also myself is: how can the zerg-player NOT get behind against a timing attack? Which means that the 5-gate push would be nowhere near all-in because you would just exploit a weakness in the zerg-build that is there "by default", meaning that a muta-ling-playing zerg could never effectively prevent you from doing damage. From my current understanding, I cannot see how zerg without roach could withstand such pressure without getting behind or losing outright. For me the phoenix-play into delayed templar seems to give you a better map-control and also provides the stargates for a voidray-transition. Will definitely post some reps if I get this to work against better opponents myself, the closest game to this yesterday was vs a 1750 zerg, but he just left after he saw he couldn't make a comeback...so not viable for demonstration-purposes. | ||
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Applecakes
Australia319 Posts
Another PvZ coming up. Hopefully I can learn something from it (looks like 3gate blink stalker with voids!) | ||
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xs101
Romania86 Posts
BTW mass void rays are indeed really difficult to stop from a zerg perspective. | ||
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Dwar3xwar
39 Posts
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