|
Lately, I've been struggling with Zergs mass Roach/Hydra build as a 1000 Diamond Protoss. Both of us would do some aggression at various points of time but it resulted in me taking the bigger army lost (Mineral Count would be double his lost).
The build I went for was 3 Gate Expand into Robo which allowed me to hold off his aggression but it also resulted in me having to play a lot more defensively after a few more pushes at his side due to my army getting demolished by his mass Roach/Hydra.
My Early-Mid Games consisted of Zealots, Stalkers, Sentries, Immortals, Collosi into late game with only Zealots and HT as that was all I could support with 2 bases mining. Did try to get my 5th base up (3rd base mining) but he was able to take that down pretty fast.
Attached is a replay so if anyone could take a look at what I can improve on to beat Roach/Hydra builds.
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-164832.jpg)
Cheers
|
From that replay I would say you should get your robo faster and get a few immortals out as they are good against roaches. And start making colossi earlier. Roach/hydra destroys gateway units, but get obliterated by colossi. Your colossi came out too late and he already had mutas and corruptors when you attacked.
I also think you made too many probes in that game. 18 minutes in the game you have 78 workers when he only has 29.
|
On November 11 2010 12:43 LWr wrote:
From that replay I would say you should get your robo faster and get a few immortals out as they are good against roaches. And start making colossi earlier. Roach/hydra destroys gateway units, but get obliterated by colossi. Your colossi came out too late and he already had mutas and corruptors when you attacked.
I also think you made too many probes in that game. 18 minutes in the game you have 78 workers when he only has 29.
Thanks for the reply. Would you recommend a 2gate robo into expo play instead? The fear I have against zerg is the mutaling build hence going with 3gates to be able deal with the mutas.
|
As zerg, my big concern when going roach/hydra is colossi. When I see them I have to pull back and get some corruptors out before my army melts.
|
Colossi are good but roach/hydra can beat it with good micro. You need to make sure you use forcefields well. FF will change the outcome from even to heavily in your favour. Even if you just FF his army from getting up to your colossi and he retreats without you being able to trap him, he will take losses and after this has happened a couple of times his army will be too small. I would say try getting sentries earlier, after your initial stalkers (which you should pressure with until ling speed kicks in) so that they can start building up energy for FF spam.
|
I have not watched the replay, I can't right now. I'm going off your description. But based on the fact that you're up to your 5th base, at that point I would have shifted to HTs. In my experience HTs are still pretty good even against roaches and then the archons are useful against zerg as well. The biggest reason is that HTs are WG units so you don't have to keep building robos. And because you went 3 gate -> expand you didn't even have any investment in robo tech when you could have started HTs.
In my playstyle I'd rather just apply early pressure on Zerg with a 2 gate or something instead of FE'ing so my philosophy on the match up won't correlate with yours.
|
Immortal Colossi with some stalkers to take out corruptors would decimate roach hydra.
|
On November 12 2010 04:20 Bleak wrote:
Immortal Colossi with some stalkers to take out corruptors would decimate roach hydra.
At equal food yes, but if you don't get mass gates to push/threaten a push, the Zerg is going to take map control and drone really hard, so chances are that your dream army of colossi/immortals will get quickly overwhelmed by the Zerg macro once you get out.
|
On November 12 2010 03:16 adamx wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 12:43 LWr wrote:
From that replay I would say you should get your robo faster and get a few immortals out as they are good against roaches. And start making colossi earlier. Roach/hydra destroys gateway units, but get obliterated by colossi. Your colossi came out too late and he already had mutas and corruptors when you attacked.
I also think you made too many probes in that game. 18 minutes in the game you have 78 workers when he only has 29. Thanks for the reply. Would you recommend a 2gate robo into expo play instead? The fear I have against zerg is the mutaling build hence going with 3gates to be able deal with the mutas.
No your 3 gate to expand was good. it was a good build order for this game however let me point out some mistakes
7:40 you left your expo completely vulnerable and the zerg was able to pick it off with his units. Make a different attack path dude, don't let your natural be too open for him to freely move around. If you want control of the left watch tower send a probe or a unit there but have yr army move in a different path that is more directed towards him. Also, you didn't even bother to catch the roaches with FF he was able to get a free snipe of that nexus and run away
10:00 you over committed to this attack that you clearly was going to lose. Poke into his base a little bit but don't hug his natural, you'll get your army trapped and surrounded. Don't trade armies with the zerg, unless you're going to all in it. Do the damage, forcefield, and retreat
14:39 you tried to sneak into his base from the left side. You made the same mistake, leaving your natural completely open and vulnerable, your natural could've been picked off again. Again, choose your attack paths better. Not only that but you ended up getting your army trapped anyway and gaining heavy losses. if you had just simply attacked the front you could've easily retreated and not lose that army
19:00 you pushed out, gained a little bit of map control, killed some tumors, this is good. This is basically what you wanna do anyway, instead of suiciding your units. Poking in and out and pressuring but not over committing can deceive a zerg to make units instead of workers because he thinks you might attack. But in this game this wasn't even the case because he had terrible economy all game compared to yours.
23:20 he harrassed yr natural with lings. workers don't beat lings in those numbers, especially speedlings. you were able to fight this off the first time but throughout the game you continued to fall for these types of tricks. leave a canon or two, or maybe even a templar behind to prevent this sort of harrassment
24:50 you decided to attack but at a terrible angle. I would've rather you preferred to meet him at the center of map that way you might've got a better concave. Half yr army was distracted by maybe the extractor or hatchery. also, if you had microd yr army a lil better and colossus instead of the 1a syndrome, u cuda got some FF's down and micro'd those colossi back from the corruptors. Also you left the creep tumors up, kill them, they give him vision and vision is a huuge advantage
26:00 you were unattentive with your army, when you trade armies and it's in his favor, expect a counter attack and pay close attention to your army. Maybe it was just a mismicro but you let like 10 stalkers die. At this point you want to regain map control. Don't try to attack him army to army.
29:00 you were pulled back and pressured by the broodlords so you decided to attack. chill out for a bit because what ended up happening was that you attacked his army however your colossi was left behind trying to take down the gold expansion. but the other half is dying to roach hydra. keep your army together.
31:40 at this point your economy is starting to fall and you are unable to reinforce your military troops. you suicided your units.
32:11 okay so you're expanding to 3 o'clock position but you're trying to gain map control at the left side for reasons idk why. zerglings were able to take out that expansion as you desperately needed it while your army from the other side of the map races to the right side. here's a pro tip. if you're expanding to the right, you want map control at the right side, if you're expanding to the left, have your army to the left. your army is always out of position and you're leaving bases undefended or you're creating holes for big counter attacks. That's just my analysis in terms of the map and how you move around yr army.
That's basically all the major mistakes I was able to count
all in all, despite having the huge economic lead due to his shitty macro, you just suffered waaaaayy too many and too heavy losses due to poor decision making. Gain more ma control and dont trap yourself and suicide your units. Give some pressure, but don't commit to it. If you simply hit his front forcefield and retreat that's a step forward to higher level playing. Don't leave yr new bases undefended. Defend them somehow whether you leave a couple zlots, templar, canons behind. it helps trust me. if your expanding to the right move yr army to the right vice versa with left. you can't have full map control of the entire map, otherwise you spread yr army too thin. keep yr army together. Hope this helps at least in your decision making. sorry if it's too constructive.
|
On November 11 2010 12:06 adamx wrote:Lately, I've been struggling with Zergs mass Roach/Hydra build as a 1000 Diamond Protoss. Both of us would do some aggression at various points of time but it resulted in me taking the bigger army lost (Mineral Count would be double his lost). The build I went for was 3 Gate Expand into Robo which allowed me to hold off his aggression but it also resulted in me having to play a lot more defensively after a few more pushes at his side due to my army getting demolished by his mass Roach/Hydra. My Early-Mid Games consisted of Zealots, Stalkers, Sentries, Immortals, Collosi into late game with only Zealots and HT as that was all I could support with 2 bases mining. Did try to get my 5th base up (3rd base mining) but he was able to take that down pretty fast. Attached is a replay so if anyone could take a look at what I can improve on to beat Roach/Hydra builds. Cheers
Against zerg, it is better to make colossi late game unless you are sure he has several corruptors. Colossi and ideal for killing hydralisks and since that is the backbone of roach/hydra, you want to hit them. Pre colossus, your best friend against a zerg with lots of roaches is still FF. Use it to split up his army and engage half of them. A couple of guardian shields can make a big difference too.
|
At equal food yes, but if you don't get mass gates to push/threaten a push, the Zerg is going to take map control and drone really hard, so chances are that your dream army of colossi/immortals will get quickly overwhelmed by the Zerg macro once you get out.
You are right, so what about a 3gate robo push with 1 immortal and whatever gateway army you can get, and expand while making a push, scaring the zerg. Use this distraction to tech to colossi and then go double robo, making immortals and colossi.
|
Force fields and colossus are the hard counter to Zerg ground game. Get a lot of sentries early and keep them alive throughout the game.
|
Although not the suggested playstyle these days you can always go stargate tech by opening with a fast void ray or 4 phoenixes for harass or 1 fast phoenix to kill overlords while you take an expansion. If he goes corruptors to counter then you can "tech back down" to just mass gateway units and rofl stomp him. If he goes hydra/roach anyways, you will have map control and can harass. Also mass phoenix owns hydra/roach thanks to stacking and +20 damage against light.
Can't watch the replay, I was going to say 3 gate robo, there must have been something small you could have done better to win. May be you just didn't scout enough, for example may be he stopped expanding and just went complete aggro while you still spent money on econ instead of cutting probes etc.?
Some tips that you may or may not have incorporated. FF are absolutely devastating against roaches. Really try to make your sentries so that they are full on energy when you engage. And don't be afraid to throw "too many" FFs down! Big mistake I see a lot. People get forcefield, throw down some in the enemy's front lines, which is good, but then forget about the other 10-20 FFs they have energy for. Back up while attacking still with colossi, and make a shit ton more FFs!
|
Thanks for the help guys. Have been playing a few more games with more success. Just going for a early robo and faster upgrades have been winning against the Roach/Hydra build.
Also Having trouble with zergs that go Mutaling and mass spine crawlers (7-8 outside the Lost Temple natural for example). Would it be wise to just macro up on stalkers to counter the mutalisks and let the zerg to start expanding to the side/gold naturals then to engage his heavy spine crawler use? Not able to do any earlier aggression from the 7-8 spine crawlers as it is already 8-10mins into the game.
|
On November 13 2010 19:20 adamx wrote:
Thanks for the help guys. Have been playing a few more games with more success. Just going for a early robo and faster upgrades have been winning against the Roach/Hydra build.
Also Having trouble with zergs that go Mutaling and mass spine crawlers (7-8 outside the Lost Temple natural for example). Would it be wise to just macro up on stalkers to counter the mutalisks and let the zerg to start expanding to the side/gold naturals then to engage his heavy spine crawler use? Not able to do any earlier aggression from the 7-8 spine crawlers as it is already 8-10mins into the game.
just turtle on 2 base and blink in his main past the spine crawlers when you scout that you can beat his ground forces.
|
I have had success recently with void ray/colossus/zealot against roach/hydra. Also with this build you get to make a mothership if you get speed for voids, which is awesome map control and can snipe tech buildings also. Voids are good against all spire tech if you can keep their numbers low and hydras get owned by colossi. Also good against muta ling although you will want to add in phoenix to supplement voids.
|
|
|
with good FF use you can beat any ling, roach, hydra combination - at least in my experience (1.7K zerg) - I'm sure Z better than me can overecome the awesomeness of good FF - but it will learning to use them well will help you alot in many situations - that'd be my advice
*edit* you obviously want collosi/HT out eventually - FF is just to buy you time
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
