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Updated!
Note any comments on balance is unwanted for this blog. If you are going to say that the only solution is a balance patch, this thread is not for you. I believe that anything can be dealt with, that any problem can be solved, that any door can be open. All that you need is the key. This thread is for ideas regarding about how zerg should deal with the Colluses-void ray death ball.
Evolving the ZvP matchup
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa//PvZ/pvz2.jpg)
What Zerg doesn't want to see
I, as well as I’m sure many other zergs have struggled with our zvp recently. Yet this problem does not spring a new abusive all-in/cheese. It does not arise from a newfound warpgate rush. Rather, it comes from the mid-late game army composition that protoss has created. The influx of the Colluses-voidray deathball that PvZ has evolved to has posed a tremendous struggle in the matchup recently for zerg. While there are many subtle aspects about the matchup that affect this, it can basically be boiled down to one basic problem: the inability for zerg to directly defeat a 200/200 protoss army.
There are many things that I want this thread to become. First is defining the problem and deciding if there is a problem at all. For example, is it impossible to defeat a 200/200 army head on? Do you just need to have the perfect army composition?
Second off, deciding how zerg is now going to deal with this. I am confident there is a way that zerg can evolve to deal with the late game protoss deathball, we just need to find out. And this thread is for helping to generate ideas about new ways to deal with this composition.
Current best option?
Is just adding more corrupters the best option?
In my perspective, I think it would simply be to make more corrupters. One of the things to keep in mind when dealing with a colluses-voidray army is that just how expensive it is. Now, when someone says “Hey, make 25 corrupters”, you may look at them weirdly. But when you keep in mind they have 6-7 colluses and 3-4 void rays as well, suddenly 25 corrupters seems pretty cost effective.
Questions regarding this
1. When engaging, attack the corrupters or void rays?
2.Emphasis on eventual broodlords or sticking with hydra-roach?
BUT WAIT
How about new ideas? Here are some of my ideas, that I think would actually at the very least be somewhat viable.
Banelings Abound! ![[image loading]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2392/2406304163_449d8205d8_o.gif)
Let’s face it, make enough banelings and it can cost effectively kill almost anything that is clumped. Now, one of the main things regarding this “deathball” is that it is usually clumped together. Now, when you are in the awkard 200/200 army phase, when you are at maxed supply but can’t exactly kill the toss, you start to get drop, you start to use nydus, you start to stockpile minerals. I actually think when fighting dropping banelings on top of the army would be a very good way to help deal with the army. The main thing regarding this strategy would be having them in overlords, otherwise the colluses would just kill the banelings.
Recently, several zergs have begun to verify my views on the potential of baneling drops, and in this recent GSL we have seen tons of baneling drops, to suprising effect. I think this shows that really banelings are one of the most cost efficient units for zerg, and having ~30 banelings might even become one of the main ways to deal with a toss "deathball".
Spine crawlers ![[image loading]](http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSv6uRPCcNhqhiBvYFesG45wBZ1ul_mI8LFDWs_Hyl7486Qlfth)
Another main thing that causes this deathball to be so powerful is that the zerg’s army is…put bluntly… not powerful. Right now what zergs are doing is going for the “300 food army”, that is, fighting with the knowledge you will lose your army, and then just remaking your army. What I’m about to say has already been used by various zergs, but not nearly enough to the extent it should.
How about just building extra spine crawlers when you are maxed so that when you do lose your army, and while your rebuilding yours, he can’t just kill you while you don’t have an army. This is actually something that you should definitely do especially since not only does it free up supply, but also can just be a great defense.
Mass corrupter broodlord![[image loading]](http://starcraft.incgamers.com/w/images/thumb/3/32/Starcraft2_brood_lord_closeup.jpg/200px-Starcraft2_brood_lord_closeup.jpg)
Play normally, except you want to tech quickly to tier 3 and go for a mass corrupter/broodlord build. Also get fungal for reasons I’ll explain. Basically the main focus of your army will not be roaches/hydras with corrupters/broodlords as support, but rather corrupters/broodlords with roaches/hydras as support. Corrupters will deal with the corrupters/void rays, whilst the 10 or more broodlords you have can deal with the army in general. Now, blink stalkers will be the main problem with this. Which is why you should have either fungal to stop them, or hydras so that when they blink you can take them out from afar.
NEW
The Concept of Saving Supply
One of the things I have recently been thinking about when considering the state of ZvP is the effect large maps have on the game. Large maps affect the game in many aspects: longer time for zerg to remax, longer rush distance, more bases, and so forth. But there is also another hidden aspect I have just considered. And that is the concept of saving supply.
That is, staying at ~160, but saving enough larva to max to 200 if the toss pushes out. And if he doesn't, you have ample time to add some "ideal" units that you normally wouldn't have, such as:
1.3 or 4 infestors, so fungal +neural parasite can help kill that deathball/fungal catches them out of position
2.Get some banelings for your baneling drops.
3.Mass corrupters vs Voidray Deathball (see replay)
Or any other sort. I have included a replay for your benefit. One of the main things I feel about this replay is it shows I could've beat a 200/200 voidray collusus build, but built too many corrupters and lost to his tech switch. That and my untimely tech to ultras ruined the game for me.
ZVP REPLAY
Well these are some of my ideas. What are yours?
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Mass corruptor brood lord would be good, but you'd need to be on what, 4-5 bases to actually support all that? :s
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I think baneling bombs would be effective. As P, i am usually more worried about focusing down any broodlords/corruptors with my voidrays while keeping my colli out of range of the zerg army to think about any incoming ol's.
Also, i'm not sure why zerg's don't mix in muta with their corruptors, as muta own voidray so hard and most P will be making voidray instead of phoenix to counter the corruptors.
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On January 30 2011 11:35 LyRa wrote:
Mass corruptor brood lord would be good, but you'd need to be on what, 4-5 bases to actually support all that? :s
Yeah this is mainly about the mid-late game ZvP.
On January 30 2011 11:35 J.E.G. wrote:
I think baneling bombs would be effective. As P, i am usually more worried about focusing down any broodlords/corruptors with my voidrays while keeping my colli out of range of the zerg army to think about any incoming ol's.
Also, i'm not sure why zerg's don't mix in muta with their corruptors, as muta own voidray so hard and most P will be making voidray instead of phoenix to counter the corruptors.
The way I see it, is corrupters are there to mainly take out the colossus. While mutas may be good "overall", having them in the numbers needed to do well vs that kind of army would require you basically to get less roaches and hydras. Then the protoss can easily switch to phoenix production if he sees alot of mutas. Finally, less corrupters mean collosus can deal damage longer.
On January 30 2011 12:02 koveras wrote:
Sow what does this post add what we didnt allready know about the ZvP match up. Its not about what army counters the VR/stalker/collossi deathball but how you get there. You can counter the ball by going roach/corrupter, roach/mutalisk/corrupter or mass queens with ultralisk. I find this post to be very lazy because there is no detailled information but only far fetched strategies like go baneling drops or make broodlords. For instance there is nothing about upgrades and what it means to have +2 upgraded corrupters vs deathball. All extremely general information and not very substantial. Why dont you post some replays beating the deathball with baneling drops lol
I'm sorry if it seems lazy, but this isn't supposed to be a "guide." It's mainly a thread for a general discussion on how to advance the ZvP mid-late game when dealing with this. As for these being far fetched, tell me then. How is it far fetched? For example, baneling drops. By then you normally already have drop, why not just make 30 zerglings(so 15 pairs), make a banelings nest, and you can deal a whole bunch of damage.
As for upgrades, that really isn't "needed" for this, since it is a discussion of ideas, not a guide(yet???). If you would like to help, I would be greatly appreciative.
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So what does this post add what we didnt allready know about the ZvP match up. Its not about what army counters the VR/stalker/collossi deathball but how you get there. You can counter the ball by going roach/corrupter, roach/mutalisk/corrupter or mass queens with ultralisk. I find this post to be very lazy because there is no detailled information but only far fetched strategies like go baneling drops or make broodlords. For instance there is nothing about upgrades and what it means to have +2 upgraded corrupters vs deathball. All extremely general information and not very substantial. Why dont you post some replays beating the deathball with baneling drops lol
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Well the VR collosus deathball is kinda slow (in comparison to zerg) and needs to stay together to be most effective. This is reminiscient of Mech is it not? Slow and needs to stay together and zerg doesn't need to stay together (mostly) and can move really fast.
So use nydus worms into the back of every single one of their bases at once? Use banelings bombs on mineral lines? Use drops? Mutas?
I think the key is to not deal with it directly but abuse immobility.
As said in the OP spine crawlers cost 0 food (technically -1) and cost only minerals which late game zergs have a shit ton of. In the late game having like 60-70 wokers (whatever it is for zerg) is bad it eats into your army size, so you can either suicide them or build spine crawlers, I think spines is the better option.
Now to deal with it directly I think that a good option is WHAT THE F-CORRUPTERS!? (with broodlords) followed by WHAT THE F-MUTAS!?
Mutas take half as much damage from VRs cost 50 mins less and most importantly have bounce damage. if you have 50 mutas that's (assuming no upgrades) 450 initial damage 150 first bounce damage and 50 second bouce damage a total of 650 damage. 50 corrupters do 700 damage with their first attack (not with bonus to massive damage) but have a slower fire rate cost more and take longer to rebuild.
It's like how you attack with ultras and remax with roaches because they're cheaper and faster to get. You use corrupters because they will make a bigger dent in the army for supply and remax with mutas because they will finish it off faster than the corrupters would (build time wise).
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I think that Mutalisks are underused in ZvP. Not only are you able to harass effectively and gain map control but you also open up the spire for corruptors and broodlords too. With corruptors you will not have to worry about Pheonix.
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On January 30 2011 12:02 Pandain wrote:
I'm sorry if it seems lazy, but this isn't supposed to be a "guide." It's mainly a thread for a general discussion on how to advance the ZvP mid-late game when dealing with this. As for these being far fetched, tell me then. How is it far fetched? For example, baneling drops. By then you normally already have drop, why not just make 30 zerglings(so 15 pairs), make a banelings nest, and you can deal a whole bunch of damage.
As for upgrades, that really isn't "needed" for this, since it is a discussion of ideas, not a guide(yet???). If you would like to help, I would be greatly appreciative.
There are more threads like this, use the search function. They dont have these pretty pics though.
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in zvt you usually have no supply problems because the core of your army consists of ling/bling which cost 0.5 supply and even with 10 ultras you still can have a ton of
the problem in zvp is imo that the standard roach/hydra/corruptor simply does not enough damage for its size and the resources involved - if you trade 120-130 supply of army to kill about 50 of the protoss there is no chance to do this
the main problem in this build is the massive amount of roaches - their low range makes them less effective in larger numbers and they are pretty weak against every unit in the stalker/colossi/voidray deathball
my solution is just theorycrafting atm but im thinking of increasing the number of corruptors (from 10 to about 20 to snipe the colossi and then speedlings should decimate the number of stalkers pretty good for zero gas; then a 2nd wave including hydras should be able to deal with the remaining forces
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I really like the baneling bomb ideas. In a clan war game between EG and I forget who and what team they were on but I think they took down 2 EG members and one of them was a ZvP, i think it was Inca who got defeated by having baneling bombs dropped on his army while in an engagement. The next game in the series was also a PvZ, same zerg obviously and he did it again but this time it was Incontrol and he microed his army away while sniping OLs and went to win the game. (Not trying to say Inca is bad or anything at all)
So I definitely think it is a really cool tatic that can be countered but, imo the more "creative" you use it the better it will be. For an example with good positioning I think that while in the engagement if the carpet bombing came from behind the zerg maybe from two opposite directions it would be devastating. This is assuming that the Zerg is ready with the banelings in that position, Just an idea.
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On January 30 2011 12:20 koveras wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2011 12:02 Pandain wrote:
I'm sorry if it seems lazy, but this isn't supposed to be a "guide." It's mainly a thread for a general discussion on how to advance the ZvP mid-late game when dealing with this. As for these being far fetched, tell me then. How is it far fetched? For example, baneling drops. By then you normally already have drop, why not just make 30 zerglings(so 15 pairs), make a banelings nest, and you can deal a whole bunch of damage.
As for upgrades, that really isn't "needed" for this, since it is a discussion of ideas, not a guide(yet???). If you would like to help, I would be greatly appreciative. There are more threads like this, use the search function. They dont have these pretty pics though.
For a 16 post user telling a 3000 post user to use the search function, you do got some balls.
However, if you would notice, this thread is about thinking up new tactics on the ZvP mid-late game, especially in relation to dealing with the void-ray colluses deathball. While there have been "help me beat this", there hasn't been a thread devoted just to thinking up new ways to deal with this.
What this is doing will hopefully help stop those threads and they can just look at this thread, pick up a tactic like baneling drops, and use it to their advantage.
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Get enough queens that you will be able to make your army more cost efficient with transfuses. Where do i get the time to get those queens? Right at the start, if you do it right by 7 mins 30 secs you can nearly saturate 2 bases and have around 7 queens out if you constantly produce them out of your hatcheries.
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By god man dont tell people to use the baneling drops on deathball. It allready whas a risky tactic and with the latest patch that decreased phoenix building time its going to be pretty hard if not impossible to manoeuvre your ovies above his deathball. Also any half decent protoss would be splitting up his army nullifying the baneling damage. There is also no efficient follow up since you spend so much gass on drop tech and huge amount of banelings. If anything baneling drops where only used to buy time to get something else but its not a viable way to counter protoss deathball.
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I think the baneling bomb strategy would be effective, but it cannot be a staple strategy that zerg can rely on. It would be difficult for it to work consistently against the same opponent, since after the first time he loses to it, he would just learn to spread out his units and use stalkers and voidrays to kill incoming overlords. Against Terran who spread out his marines this still works only because terran armies are much more fragile against banelings compared to protoss. Basically, I think using baneling drop to kill toss' push is an effective strategy you can use to surprise a protoss, but not one that can work as a staple push-killer.
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I honestly don't know. I just don't know. It feels like if the game lasts past a certain point, I might as well leave.
I would like the answer to the deathball, but it seems like there isn't one other than "don't let him get one. seriously."
So then the question becomes... "how do I not let him get a deathball?"
I'd like the answer to that question, because when they have cannons in all of their bases and their army at any given time is big enough to stop your attack....
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i actually think it's funny that no zerg has really come up with a good strategy based around tier3 units...
such as infestor for fungal and killing off the deathball with broodlords... i've seen it happening once and it worked brilliantly. took the death out of deathball. ultras could also be very effective, if you're successfully flanking him, to get a ultra surround.
i'm sure we'll see good solutions to the deathball in the near future.
but then on the other hand... i'm sure good zergs have tried these strategies already... so, why don't they work?
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the problem with adding on too many corruptors is that a lot of times you will kill off the colossus and be left with too small of a ground army that just dies to the stalkers anyways
this is for a 1 robo/8 warpgate mix or 2 stargate phoenix. dont know about colossus/voidray, though
edit: a typical protoss death ball has upwards of 8-10 sentries in it, so i dont see how banelings are at all useful
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I do stagger while seeing this composition, I treat it like terran mech, and I do muta/ling and expand till he moves out with the deathball. Lings with upgrades, and muta's doing splash plus not taking extra dmg vs the void rays, + reinforcements is how I deal with it. I make a macro hatch, and extra queen and I just keep pouring lings and all gas on muta's. Try to bait out the FF's and you can beat this comp with a decent base advantage. The lings will also help against stalker/sentry, and focus the voids. You definitely can't beat this death ball on equal terms with the toss. This works for me 60% of the time, the other times I lose due to me not having the biggest economic advantage.
2600 Masters for what it worth
Gud Luk 
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On January 30 2011 12:37 koveras wrote:
By god man dont tell people to use the baneling drops on deathball. It allready whas a risky tactic and with the latest patch that decreased phoenix building time its going to be pretty hard if not impossible to manoeuvre your ovies above his deathball. Also any half decent protoss would be splitting up his army nullifying the baneling damage. There is also no efficient follow up since you spend so much gass on drop tech and huge amount of banelings. If anything baneling drops where only used to buy time to get something else but its not a viable way to counter protoss deathball.
I'm unsure as to whether you understand that this is when you already have a near 200 army, and the problem no longer becomes "How can I aim for the late game" and it becomes "I'm in the late game, how do I spend these 4000 minerals.". Plus I'm not sure how decreased phoenix time means its harder to maneuver your overlords, especially when A) Your dealing with void rays and B) Its not hard to maneuver overlords anyway.
Finally, it's not a strat so much as a tactic to do in battle. You won't have to worry about transitioning or it costing too much since you already had drop tech, does 30 banelings really ruin you forever? When the damage it does is enormous?
On January 30 2011 12:50 5unrise wrote:
I think the baneling bomb strategy would be effective, but it cannot be a staple strategy that zerg can rely on. It would be difficult for it to work consistently against the same opponent, since after the first time he loses to it, he would just learn to spread out his units and use stalkers and voidrays to kill incoming overlords. Against Terran who spread out his marines this still works only because terran armies are much more fragile against banelings compared to protoss. Basically, I think using baneling drop to kill toss' push is an effective strategy you can use to surprise a protoss, but not one that can work as a staple push-killer.
Yes, but then the corrupters aren't being hit, you see? The banelings aren't the main part, its just a tremendous advantage that you have. At the very least, now your corruptors are free to hit the broodlords.
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In my experience in the later game, the toughest thing i've come to face is a zerg that went and added only about 2-3 infestors to the normal hydra/roach/corruptor composition. (He might have had broodlords as well just can't remember).
I've only seen this strat done once but by being very careful with his infestors and hitting me with fungals his army was trading in a much more favorable position than a typical pvz for me. Eventually I was just overcome by him having more bases and my deathball never really doing enough damage.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.freeenterprise.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/saving-money1.jpg)
