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Samhax
1054 Posts
- Like op said i think masse spine crawler+creep speed are underused (free supply) -Nydus are also underused in the late game (you can be everywhere and force the protoss to constantly defend if you have the map control i.e he has no phoenix) -We have to remember that Ultralisk are quite good against sentry/colossi (underused in my opinion) In conclusion we have to explore all the possibilities when the new maps pool comme in play. | ||
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Logo
United States7542 Posts
If he's making phoenixes to pick off your overlords, then he's not making void rays or has too many Stargates and you should be able to take his army. With drop aggression super late game you can also back it up with nydus play (Drop then use the units to secure a nydus). The aggression from drops should keep you from being in a 200/200 situation anyways ideally, or at least should be able to prevent one of void rays, stalkers, or colossi for a while. | ||
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dc302
Australia576 Posts
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redoxx
United States333 Posts
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Plexa
Aotearoa39261 Posts
- Using Fungal to screw up my army positioning - Using Fungal to pick off my expensive Tech units - Using Ultralisks to break my forcefields - Using Ultralisks to smash through my ground army - When I don't have a massive stalker blob, raping my tech units with Corruptors BL used to be the best option PvZ, but with us Protoss realising how awesome VRs are, BLs should be taking a back seat to Ultras as the preferred late game option. Let's face it, Roaches are not supply effective when the Protoss is in death ball mode. Replace the Roaches in your army with Ultralisks (so you're running a Hydra/Corruptor/Ultra/Infestor mix) and viola! You are now supply effective. I swear you Zergs vastly underrate just how effective ultras are =/. Yes immortals hard counter them, but who masses immortals these days? If they're massing immortals it's not hard to tech switch to BL (Assuming you still have corruptors) or mass ling/bling =/ | ||
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valheru
Australia966 Posts
On January 30 2011 14:02 Plexa wrote: Why you Zergs refuse to use Hive Tech I'll never know. The only time I ever have trouble with a deathball is when the Zerg plays good solid hive tech. In particular; - Using Fungal to screw up my army positioning - Using Fungal to pick off my expensive Tech units - Using Ultralisks to break my forcefields - Using Ultralisks to smash through my ground army - When I don't have a massive stalker blob, raping my tech units with Corruptors BL used to be the best option PvZ, but with us Protoss realising how awesome VRs are, BLs should be taking a back seat to Ultras as the preferred late game option. Let's face it, Roaches are not supply effective when the Protoss is in death ball mode. Replace the Roaches in your army with Ultralisks (so you're running a Hydra/Corruptor/Ultra/Infestor mix) and viola! You are now supply effective. I swear you Zergs vastly underrate just how effective ultras are =/. Yes immortals hard counter them, but who masses immortals these days? If they're massing immortals it's not hard to tech switch to BL (Assuming you still have corruptors) or mass ling/bling =/ You would have to still remax on roaches though right? Ultras take like 70 seconds to build and Zerg pretty much has to 300 food push, unless ultras nullify that need? | ||
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happyness
United States2400 Posts
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Plexa
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On January 30 2011 14:13 valheru wrote: You would have to still remax on roaches though right? Ultras take like 70 seconds to build and Zerg pretty much has to 300 food push, unless ultras nullify that need? There's no reason why a remax on Roach (or Roach/Hydra) is necessarily bad. The problems lair tech zerg face against deathball protoss is that - Forcefield rape you - Roaches are not supply efficient After a solid ultralisk attack the Protoss should be low sentry/low sentry energy and no longer maxed. In particular, worse case scenario he's left just with tech units. Roaches are dirt cheap, and combined with Hydra (+infestor if need be), they can take down the remaining tech units efficiently because it will be more like a 180 vs 140 supply fight rather than 200 vs 180-200 fight which you are definitely going to lose with lair tech. If the game continues to go long, then you can add a handful of ultras (you don't need to add 12 ultras every time... treat them like protoss do colossi - 3-4 can make a world of difference) in addition to your remax on roach/hydra. | ||
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betaflame
175 Posts
Then in the late game, you need like 30 corrupters with some broodlords and a lot of roaches and hydras and if you are getting forcefielded, you should throw in just a couple ultras so that in the intial engagement they can break them down. Use the corrupters to target/one-shot the collosus first and then your roach-hydra-remainingcorrupter mix can deal with the rest of the army. Remax with roaches (and some hydras, amount depends on how strong their remaining stargate army is). But what's important is that you get your ground upgrades as well as air upgrades (mainly attack) and always target fire collosus first since your roach hydra army can prob kill their ground army+vrays and you'll be remaxing with roaches and hydras anyways (assuming you have a good mix ratio of roaches to hydras). | ||
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dc302
Australia576 Posts
On January 30 2011 14:02 Plexa wrote: Why you Zergs refuse to use Hive Tech I'll never know. The only time I ever have trouble with a deathball is when the Zerg plays good solid hive tech. In particular; - Using Fungal to screw up my army positioning - Using Fungal to pick off my expensive Tech units - Using Ultralisks to break my forcefields - Using Ultralisks to smash through my ground army - When I don't have a massive stalker blob, raping my tech units with Corruptors BL used to be the best option PvZ, but with us Protoss realising how awesome VRs are, BLs should be taking a back seat to Ultras as the preferred late game option. Let's face it, Roaches are not supply effective when the Protoss is in death ball mode. Replace the Roaches in your army with Ultralisks (so you're running a Hydra/Corruptor/Ultra/Infestor mix) and viola! You are now supply effective. I swear you Zergs vastly underrate just how effective ultras are =/. Yes immortals hard counter them, but who masses immortals these days? If they're massing immortals it's not hard to tech switch to BL (Assuming you still have corruptors) or mass ling/bling =/ The problem is usually by hive tech you will have 2-2 range/armour for ur roaches, so to make a sudden tech switch to melee units may not be AS effective as you may think. Not saying its not effective though, but a well upgraded protoss is hard to defeat without upgraded zerg units. | ||
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roymarthyup
1442 Posts
i believe a 200/200 zerg army with brood lords can definitely compete with the protoss deathball. Because broodlord fire essentially makes the collossi and immortals waste their shots on weak broodlings while the roaches and hydras tear apart all zealots and start taking shots at collossi Lets say each side has 58 workers. that leaves 142 food for both sides 8 broodlords = 32 food 10 queens = 20 food 30 roaches = 60 food 15 hydras = 30 food total = 142 food 2400 2000 1500 2250 750 1500 750 total cost = 7650 / 3500 now for toss. toss gets 142 food 10 collossi = 60 food 20 void rays = 60 food 11 stalkers = 22food 3000 2000 5000 3000 1375 550 total cost = 9375 / 5550 So the truth is the protoss army is much more expensive and the honest truth is broodlord fire + all those roaches will shred those collossi pretty quickly, and the queens/hydras will put a good dent into the VR numbers. I dont think the protoss army will fiar that much better against the zerg army and it is so costly. After the battle is over the zerg can pump out nonstop muta/ling/queens which should beat the void rays since mutas kill collossi and then queen/muta can fight the void rays and after the collossi are dead the lings can come in and ravage stalkers | ||
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Plexa
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On January 30 2011 15:39 roymarthyup wrote: This is so unrealistic. If a Protoss gets 20 Void Rays the game is over. Further, you're not going to have 58 workers a side. I know you're trying to make an argument here but there is no way that this is a practical real game scenario.i think the problem is zergs need to find a reliable EFFECTIVE way to get to 200/200 army with at least 7 broodlords at the same time your enemy gets 200/200 of VR/collossi/stalker/sentry/zealot i believe a 200/200 zerg army with brood lords can definitely compete with the protoss deathball. Because broodlord fire essentially makes the collossi and immortals waste their shots on weak broodlings while the roaches and hydras tear apart all zealots and start taking shots at collossi Lets say each side has 58 workers. that leaves 142 food for both sides 8 broodlords = 32 food 10 queens = 20 food 30 roaches = 60 food 15 hydras = 30 food total = 142 food 2400 2000 1500 2250 750 1500 750 total cost = 7650 / 3500 now for toss. toss gets 142 food 10 collossi = 60 food 20 void rays = 60 food 11 stalkers = 22food 3000 2000 5000 3000 1375 550 total cost = 9375 / 5550 So the truth is the protoss army is much more expensive and the honest truth is broodlord fire + all those roaches will shred those collossi pretty quickly, and the queens/hydras will put a good dent into the collossi numbers. I dont think the protoss army will fiar that much better against the zerg army and it is so costly. After the battle is over the zerg can pump out nonstop muta/ling/queens which should beat the void rays since mutas kill collossi and then queen/muta can fight the void rays and after the collossi are dead the lings can come in and ravage stalkers On January 30 2011 15:19 dc302 wrote: I see Zerg and Protoss skip upgrades way too much The problem is usually by hive tech you will have 2-2 range/armour for ur roaches, so to make a sudden tech switch to melee units may not be AS effective as you may think. Not saying its not effective though, but a well upgraded protoss is hard to defeat without upgraded zerg units.  Zerg should be at 2-2 but usually they're at 1-2 or something. Nevertheless, that's not important. Ultras are there to tank hits, they don't need the melee upgrades as badly as the roaches/hydra need range upgrades. You see, Ultras are already getting +20 damage vs armoured so a 3-0-3 stalker takes 35 damage on it's shields and 31 damage on it's hitpoints - that's still a lot of damage esp. when you factor in splash and how stalkers LOVE to clump together. Throw in Ultra armour (and eventually +3 armour +3 range) and your ultralisks are taking -6 damage from everything. What does that mean?- VR's deal 5 damage precharge, 9 damage charged (no upgrades, fairly typical) (20% bonus don't forget) - Colossus deal 30 damage at +3 weapons (in comparison to 42 damage without any armour or 34 vs +3 armour roaches) - Stalkers deal 11 damage at +3 weapons (laughable really) - Sentries deal +3 at +3 weapons (lol) They tank hits many times better than roaches allowing your hydras to really get stuck in (plus theyre not hopeless at attacking themselves). Yes they are hard countered by Immortals, but if the Protoss is deathballing he's not going to be making those is he and if he is he isn't making Colossus so pure hydra will destroy him (throw in fungal as well for further rape). | ||
Dysk
Singapore44 Posts
And we haven't even touched on archons yet. @OP: The counter to the protoss deathball is not letting them get to the deathball. Because there is no way a decent protoss will not crush your ground army if you mass corruptors, not fail to pull his army back while sniping your baneling-carrying overlords when you try to carpet drop them, not use his 9 range colossi to just kill off any spines you have, and not kill you during the huge timing window you have when you are quick teching to broodlords while not trying to harass him, and there is no. way. to directly engage a protoss deathball. As zerg you have to establish and cling onto an absolute advantage throughout the game, and hope for a balance patch. | ||
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Plexa
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On January 30 2011 16:08 Dysk wrote: Okay let's stop the theorycraft, and turn to some replays. http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/sc2_reps/R4_MorroW_vs_Chi_Game_.sc2replay Here is a game from the 1st TSL qualifier (so it's on the old patch @Plexa: That's all well and good in theory. In practice the critical mass of colossus and stalkers still tear through the ultralisks like paper and they get free pot shots off when you're trying to move your ultralisks around to get more than 2 attacking at a time because their size and pathing is so terrible. You also must have infestors or the ultralisks become near useless with deathball kiting. If the protoss just chooses to swap out 1/2 colossi for immortals upon scouting your army with his observer, ultras become dirt. When the ultralisks engage your army you can also force field behind them to cut off the rest of the zerg army from moving in and forcing the zerg player to micro some ultras back to break force fields, but then you can just do it again because force fields cost 50 energy and last for 15 seconds and all protoss have a million sentries with full energy by that point. And we haven't even touched on archons yet.  sorry) but Morrow effectively deals with Chi's death ball. Important points are as follows:- First engagement he gets horribly destroyed; mostly hydra/corruptor army - Second engagement, he destroys the deathball; roach/hydra/corruptor/infestor mix - the fungal growths were KEY in winning this battle - Third engagement, maxed protoss deathball vs maxed Zerg with ultra/fungal - Zerg comes out on top with a commanding lead. I think the replay demonstrates that ultralisks and fungal growth should not be written off as useless vs the deathball. In fact, I believe they hold the key to solving the deathball problem. | ||
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ManOfScience
United States12 Posts
I also saw the abusable mobility of this army as a huge plus, excluding infestors. You can harass multiple locations with lings and mutas simultaneously without investing in nydus worms and this can form either unfavorable splits to set up an attack using your superior mobility to snipe smaller groups of units or clear the Protoss army out of a very unfavorable position (The close chokes that can make this composition useless) Honestly, this is not a ideal solution, but I have seen it work between players of equivalent skill. | ||
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LWr
60 Posts
On January 30 2011 14:02 Plexa wrote: Replace the Roaches in your army with Ultralisks (so you're running a Hydra/Corruptor/Ultra/Infestor mix) and viola! You are now supply effective. Although I agree that Ultras aren't used enough in ZvP, they are not even cost effective against zealots. 2 ultras (600/400) lose to 7 zealots (700), even without charge. | ||
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roymarthyup
1442 Posts
On January 30 2011 16:52 LWr wrote: Although I agree that Ultras aren't used enough in ZvP, they are not even cost effective against zealots. 2 ultras (600/400) lose to 7 zealots (700), even without charge. you are correct. ultras only really become effective when you consider that zealots get shredded so fricken fast by roaches and hydras which you should have to deal with zealots. you only want 3-4 ultralisks in your lategame army because after the zealots are dead the ultras roll over everything armored the problem becomes when storm / archons are added into the mix. archons take forever for ultras to kill, storm obliterates everything zerg has you need broodlords to compete with archons / storm because 8 broodlords throwing their fire will cause the archons to waste their attacks and they have so much range they can be safe from storm to a point | ||
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Chaosvuistje
Netherlands2581 Posts
My current build revolves around getting a quick +1 melee, +1 range after and +2 melee once lair is finished. It makes the banelings tons more effective and on top of that you can still harrass probelines, since +2 banes 1hit probes. However, you can only use it to take out the gateway units and sometimes the collosi if the protoss is careless. The voidrays would still be alive, but you could pick those off with corruptors or hydra's. You can often safely transition into hive once the army has been whittled down reasonably. Although I'll be honest I haven't been using fungal as much as I should in ZvP lategame, they definitely sound amazing when coupled with ultralisks or broodlords. | ||
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Schnullerbacke13
Germany1199 Posts
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valheru
Australia966 Posts
On January 30 2011 14:40 Plexa wrote: There's no reason why a remax on Roach (or Roach/Hydra) is necessarily bad. The problems lair tech zerg face against deathball protoss is that - Forcefield rape you - Roaches are not supply efficient After a solid ultralisk attack the Protoss should be low sentry/low sentry energy and no longer maxed. In particular, worse case scenario he's left just with tech units. Roaches are dirt cheap, and combined with Hydra (+infestor if need be), they can take down the remaining tech units efficiently because it will be more like a 180 vs 140 supply fight rather than 200 vs 180-200 fight which you are definitely going to lose with lair tech. If the game continues to go long, then you can add a handful of ultras (you don't need to add 12 ultras every time... treat them like protoss do colossi - 3-4 can make a world of difference) in addition to your remax on roach/hydra. Oh sorry, I didn't mean to say that remaxing on roaches was bad after engaging just that remaxing with alot of ultras is so slow that you have to remax on mostly roaches unless you do a lot of damage because the protoss deathball will kil you while the ultras are building. | ||
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