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On November 23 2010 06:12 Lucius2 wrote:
i gave this build some tries and i came to the conclusion that it doesnt work vs good players. often i got stomped by a simple 4 gate when charge is actually already done and the first archon is up, but i just died, cause i didnt have enough stuff. all the teching eats too many resources where the other guy just spams more units. even charge and an archon wont do any difference.
are you going dts? cause usually if someone is 4 gating they dont have their robo up in time for obs
or maybe they do i dunno just asking if thats the case or not.
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no i was specifically going the archons, its extremely hard to scout if someone goes 4 gate or gets a robo. and if theres a robo u instant lose, when having dts.
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[QUOTE]On November 23 2010 06:12 Lucius2 wrote:
i gave this build some tries and i came to the conclusion that it doesnt work vs good players. often i got stomped by a simple 4 gate when charge is actually already done and the first archon is up, but i just died, cause i didnt have enough stuff. all the teching eats too many resources where the other guy just spams more units. even charge and an archon wont do any difference.[/QUOTE
How many sentries did you have blocking your ramp when you lost?
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[QUOTE]On November 23 2010 06:25 Nasdrova wrote:
[QUOTE]On November 23 2010 06:12 Lucius2 wrote:
i gave this build some tries and i came to the conclusion that it doesnt work vs good players. often i got stomped by a simple 4 gate when charge is actually already done and the first archon is up, but i just died, cause i didnt have enough stuff. all the teching eats too many resources where the other guy just spams more units. even charge and an archon wont do any difference.[/QUOTE
How many sentries did you have blocking your ramp when you lost?[/QUOTE]
not that many, like 1 or 2, since everything in that build costs so much gas. and on blistering sands i got roflstomped, because of the backdoor
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On November 23 2010 03:29 Nasdrova wrote:
First off, let me just make a suggestion that you move these replays to sc2replays.org or some other similar site. Mediafire is horrible, I think i clicked on 2-3 ads before I found the right link to actually download the replay.
I agree that Archons are underused, and possibly slightly underrated, and I also commend the OP for thinking out of the box.
A few comments on the replays, hopefully this will help you flush out the strategy a bit more.
Vs gino replay #2
In this replay gino had a terrible unit composition, and even worse micro during the key battle in your base. The immortals should be focus firing the archons since they are armored units, but it looks like they are hitting the zealots. His army composition was mostly stalkers and immortals and a couple sentries. WOuld be good to see a replay where your opponent had immortals/zealot/sentry instead.
vs chaosdream
Again here, the guy had a lot of non-blink stalkers and sentries. Once you got chargelots he didn't have enough energy left in the sentries to make the stalkers do their job. The archons hardly even played a role as you had pretty much wiped the floor with your chargelots by the time the first one popped out. Again, i'd like to see your opponent with more of a zealot/sentry/immortal mix, chargelots + anything would have won you that battle.
Vs Pogoman
He went for 3 gate expand into colossus. This is a relatively weak play against any sort of aggresssion, especially on a short run distance map. You did the smart thing by pushing him relatively early with a very strong composition of chargelot/sentry. He would have needed to hold you off for a couple more minutes to fully realize the power of what he was trying to do. I think he might have even been better off getting some early immortals rather than teching AND trying to get an expansion up at roughly the same time.
Some conclusions from what i'm seeing so far:
In these 3 replays it feels like won largely because you had chargelots and you simply outplayed your opponents. The archons definitely played their role, but one could easily argue had you DT rushed you would have probably won all 3 games since none of your opponents had an obs out, and I would imagine you could have skipped archons all together and just gotten more chargelots/sentries and done just as well.
This feels somewhat like a DT rush in the build order, except with DTs you are relying a bit on trickery, whereas with this it's much more straightforward, so I really like that aspect of this build.
Like DT rushing, you don't have DT protection, but I think if you are willing to roll the dice on that aspect you are going to be looking pretty good good vs a lot of PvP builds since you are getting early charge along with your Archons.
"The immortals should be focus firing the archons since they are armored units" Kind of hard to read anything else past this... imho
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This has the same problem any non-colossus PvP build does: forcefield.
I try a lot of things to avoid the colossus battles but if your opponent makes enough sentries and has decent micro everything is just inferior. Immortal/Phoenix builds look like they rape colossus on paper and I do win a good amount of PvPs with them but there is always going to be the problem where he can control the fight with forcefield and you can't. This is even worse when you don't have phoenixes and are relying on archons and their terrible range
Archons are surprisingly good in PvP though. I ended up making them in a game unplanned the other day to help spend my gas (I was going mainly immortal/chargelot) and they did a lot better than I expected.
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Edit: Bad comment, delete, plz
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What about doing a 2-gate or a gas steal so he cannot go so heavy on those sentries?
I think this would work better with Shrine than Archives for the reasons mentioned, and I also think that a 4 gate Charge expand sounds interesting. What about using gas in +2/+2 btw?
I can only try it in my high-class superbronze though...
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On November 23 2010 06:51 Deathfairy wrote:
"The immortals should be focus firing the archons since they are armored units" Kind of hard to read anything else past this... imho
My mistake, I fixed that. Still doesn't change the fact that you need a lot of sentries to combat chargelots with stalker/immortal army. 1-2 isn't enough. No amount of micro would have saved him in this case,.
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On November 23 2010 00:26 Wayem wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2010 00:22 Jayzo wrote:
if the problem is FF could u use hallucinated colossi to break them? Sadly, doesn't work anymore. :p
i didnt think so either but i thought day9 mentioned it in sundays daily... maybe im wrong.
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I occasionally have been using archons in PvP, but its not viable in 100% of matches. I did just manage to win one vs a 2k protoss though. I got really lazy when my push decimated him and I should have been macroing, but whatever I suppose. The push came early enough where he was still trying to get colossi and he likely didn't have gas for enough sentries. My archons melted his zealots and my zealots got in his face. He blunk to my VRs, but that was a big mistake.
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-167963.jpg)
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I'm not entirely sure because I'm not THAT good of a player yet, but it seemed surprisingly viable. It's really aggressive, and I mean timing the ff to stop CHARGElots is pretty hard. Last game (link-wise) you posted actually had the guy originally use a decent ff, that seperated your first archon with some zealots, though his micro definitely could've been better. Still, the aggressiveness shuts down fast collossus, and I like that you actually use that map control, making a nice expo that lets you get ahead econ-wise really well. Definitely worth a shot, as in every pvp I've played it really is ALWAYS who has more collossus, and who can snipe them faster in mid-late game..
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I've had some success using a variant of this build vs terran, using archons and chargelots to bridge the gap to storm HT's. Mid diamond level
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Has anyone tried precharging zealots before engagment? I'm pretty sure, but someone confirm this, that chargelots move faster than any unit in the game, including zerglings on creep. You could probably get your zealots in their face before they could respond with FF's. I've tested the range of the entire charge spell and it seems to go about 10-13 range.
chargelot runbys anyone? :D
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So what's the selling point of Archons? Protoss doesn't have any units that do bonus against Zealots (unless your opponent is using Phoenix or Archons) so the archons aren't particularly special tanks, and their DPS is not compelling for so much gas.
Have you tried Speedlot/Phoenix or Speedlot/Void Ray?
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Back! So I tried this build on like 5 pvps on my ladder, worked like hell from even the first time. Firstly the chargelots just throws everyone off the pvp thing, everyone saying forcefield shuts it down is more or less just theory crafting... the ramp IS a real pain in the ass to get over, but I basically just camp out at their natural and kill anything that comes out, while i get a saturated expansion and kill you with whatever I want. Dts came out once, it wasn't much of a problem, because i was so ahead economically, I already had robo fac..
I see what the OP said about "not having enough games that actually go that long", because i mean it actually decimates armies amazingly well. FF in normal area is asking for alot of a sentry early game, and charge can really mess you up, forcefields not being as easy as it sounds.
Blink stalkers were interesting. I found that the blink cool-down is just enough so that even if they try to blink up and down your ramp, you can usually take a good swipe or two at them, eventually just killing them. I admit however, I feel that the chargelot is really the huge benefactor, the archon is just a huge cloud of fluffy energy to absorb shots, 'cause they're pretty dam distracting :D
I get that the whole idea is that since you get the twilight, you're already half way there to get hts/dts/archons, but I don't quite know yet if it works. But anyway, I think that I prefer this as a really aggressive opening, kind of like an elongated 2 gate, because it helps A LOT to shut down the other guy's natural, and get your own up safe. Haven't faced any actual dt RUSHES or any starport play though, so I mean I'll keep trying it out and see what happens.
EDIT: Tried to clarify some stuff, bad english mostly.
Re edit:
Well I guess this could be another post, but I think double posting isn't really that great, so I felt like just adding on to this..
Daedalus81 saw the replay, was pretty interesting I guess. But I kind of felt that really, the void rays were kind of more like a distraction that made the other guy kind of fail a little, letting your zealots get a surround as they got charge. Just as a note, you could've actually went and attacked him AGES ago, which I kind of feel is the general concept of this build, because I mean if he wasn't so behind, he could've easily gotten collossus to roast your zealots. Felt the choice to go VRs and delaying archons basically didn't really help, the VRs take too long to come out, I think it's better to get archons where you can utilize proxy pylons and your warp gates. Just saying again, could've attacked earlier, basically right after you held off that attack, if you counter attacked, it would've been practically instant gg, void ray or not.
An interesting thing to note:
One of your zealots got 15 freaking kills. What a hax0r, or just a jerk who's kill stealing all your other zealots, but that was hilarious lol.
VRs died pretty fast, considering his army wasn't much bigger than your zealot count alone, and the max for one of your voids was like 10, while an archon got 15 ish? (Forgetting now).
But I mean, can't forget how useful they are. They can actually probably help you with going up a ramp, what with the range and the fact that they're air helps, because the ff doesn't affect them. The only thing that bothers me then is the fact you need a starport, and you really need to keep using your chronos there to actually have a decent VR count, while archons u can just warp whenever you have the gas to manage.
Will try out VRs too.
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I didn't read every single post, but I still don't quite understand why you would all conclude that FF would stop chargelot completely if a hallucination colossus can still stomp those force fields. Since he is massing mostly zealot early on, he could actually get quite a few sentry to do a early zealot/sentry, utilizing a hallucination colossus to stomp force fields and pushing with charge zealot is a possibility. During all this, expand then transition into a archon stalker style play. Why have we not considered that?
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I don't think hallucinations break FF anymore.
Regardless...it doesn't matter if you can't get up his ramp. If you're controlling his natural you can out expand him. Otherwise he'll spend tons of gas to have enough sentries to pace the requisite forcefields to stop you, which means less colossi.
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just open DT, get your harass then when obs is out make those archons imo ^^
You get full map control + force observers instead of colossus
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K so I played a lot more games, decided that some variations of this build works riduculously well against terran too... The bio ball can't kite chargelots really (they can kite the first charge, but the second one finishes a surround no matter how hard they try), and you go straight to hts with storm and just rape marines hardcore.
Anyway back to pvp. I think I like going standard until about 2 gates, when I get my twilight council (basically similar timing as a robo fac., instead, it's a twilight council), and get my charge. Usually make like 3 stalkers or so, and the terran/protoss won't suspect a thing. Going archons. I don't know if it's really that useful in pvp. I was much more satisfied in getting collossus FASTER by using my economy advantage (sure, I can't go up their ramp, but they know as well as I do they can't expand, or my army will win without a choke)... I mean, again, I understand the fact that you are halfway to ht tech already, but collossus are just so godly in pvp, while storms, feedback, and well short-ranged archons just can't output the same results.
Still, dam dam dam. Amazed at the effectiveness of chargelots. I almost always get chargelots now, unless I'm facing like zerg with TOTAL roach spam or something like that. (Or early banshee, but I mean whenever they try to tech you usually can go up the ramp and eventually break down the wall, if they're spending that money more on tech than army.
Again, ff against chargelots... Really? Unless you have a ridiculous choke point for your natural (like blistering sands, but I mean the back door can make you an easy gg :D), it's almost impossible to use effectively, as the chargelots move so fast using it, and that's basically the moment the zealot's charge is in range (a fair distance, and definitely hard to react if the chargelots are the ones attacking). Now I use this early game just to be aggressive, get an easy expand down while they're stuck on one base, and just macro and win, or if they get desperate and try to push out, show them what chargelots can do in an open area :D
EDIT: As a side note though, against terran, it is actually good if you get a robo and some stalkers after you get a nice amount of hts and zealots, because otherwise you can't take down those blasted tanks, but with vision + stalker range, you can kill those pesky tanks with not too much casualties, letting your zealots run free and rape =3
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EPT
