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
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!
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
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
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
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.
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.
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
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).
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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....
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?
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
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
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.
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.
Actually, i think no one has a real idea about how the late game must be play with zerg and i would say with all the races aswell. We don't have enough pro games and experience in this specific part of the game because of the map pool (most of games end up with 1 or 2 basis).
- 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.
Drop play->Banelings works the best for me against any type of deathball Protoss strategy personally. Delay his deathball pushes for as long as possible while also trying to hammer away at his tech options like his cyber and his stargates. If he splits his army up to deal with your drops then he's weaker by more than you are. Each drop needs to be just large enough to fend off 1 wave of warp-ins so it actually forces a reaction and/or does damage without over-investing in the drop leaving your defenses weak.
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.
completely untested but what about mass neural parasite on the colossi whilst the corrupts take down down the VRs first, and then ur roach/corruptor army can go in for the kill after?
How about something like infestor/Ultra/corruptor? It seems to me that ultras are incredibly effective against stalkers and colossi. the corruptors of course are incredibly effective at taking out void rays and colossi as well. that leaves the infestors to use fungal growth to eliminate blink play and even turn the tide of battle with a few good NP on colossi or immortals. of course this composition is very expensive, but in the late game, does it really matter all that much? what do you guys think?
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 =/
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?
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?
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.
At the mid game area, you just need mass corrupters, like 15-25 (depending on how many vrays and collosus) with heavy roach and a light amount of hydras if any and then targetting collosus first with your corrupters. You should be on at least 3 bases usually at this point in the game. You also gotta make sure you dont engage in some terrible location that can get you force fielded really badly.
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).
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.
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
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
On January 30 2011 15:39 roymarthyup wrote: 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
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
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.
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.
I see Zerg and Protoss skip upgrades way too much 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).
@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.
@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.
On January 30 2011 16:08 Dysk wrote: @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.
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 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.
Infestors are quite useful here, as Plexa so clearly illustrates. I have seen this deathball defeated by muta/ling/Infestor, interestingly enough. He used neural parasite on colossi and fungal'd the ball together. Suddenly that deathball is a ball of death! A huge issue with this is positioning. Everything needs to be perfect in terms of positioning, otherwise the mutas which like to eat colossi and voids will be killed by the ground force, the lings can get slaughtered by excellent FFs or slow Neural Parasites, and the infestors need to be kept alive so they can work their dirty deeds.
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.
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.
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.
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
I use baneling drops all the time in mid/late ZvP. I've actually written a guide about it right here in the strategy forum.
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.
I was somewhat successful being agressive. The standard Zerg passive macro up play fails against P often. 2 base early mid game agression (slings, roach, hydra, drop, maybe some mutas) into late expo works best for me. Basically I focus on not letting the P expand so he cannot build up his dead ball. Once a P gets 3 bases, its hard to beat him..
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?
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.
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 =/
How does fungal pick off expensive tech units? It brings them down to what, half shields?
And Ultralisks smashing your ground army? They're going to get caught up on your Zeaots while VRs deal their damage, then a few immortals mixed will start to deal so much damage to them. I really feel they're just not a unit for this game
I feel as if Zergs really just can't compete with that kind of army, but they can abuse the hell out of it with mobility if the map allows. Kind of why Steppes seems really anti-Zerg because there's no real room for counterattacking/dropping/nydusing cause it's so easy for Protoss to run back and defend.
Saying something like 'oh just go Ultralisks + infestors, then if makes Immortals just go Broodlods' seriously?
Baneling dropping is pretty nice though, if you're attacking with your roach/hydra/ling meanwhile he's kind of forced to either retreat and take the hydra/roach shots or just fight while taking the baneling damage. And of course it's really supply-effective and there's a lot of versatility for banelings late game (cracking expansions in particular :o)
I really like the idea of baneling drops and think it could really in the future give zerg slightly more of an advantage in ZvP as for the short term when the toss sees a large group on ovie's heading towards them they do nothing, so this can be hit with bane drops, but after a while of course they will always be splitting their forces nullifying your baneling drops. No problem, just send speed ovies with nothing in, he volunterily messes with his positioning and you gain a good advantage in the fight.
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.
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
You can't have a mix of zealot/sentry/colossi/stalker/archons/immortal/ht/void ray it's unrealistic. When the protoss hit 200/200, he should have maid a choice in his mix. And this choice depends on his opener and the mid game.
Classical ending mix are :
-archons/stalker (blink)/sentry/immortal/ht, protoss like this mix when they face muta/ling in the mid game (sentry/ blink stalker/ht) and they prepare for ultra transition with archons/immortal. against this mix i think infestors/broodlord is the key with some burrow roaches. Ultras are bad against this mix.
-stalker/sentry/colossi/phoenix/void ray, protoss have this mix when they open phoenix they force roach/hydra/corruptor in the mid game (sentry/stalker/colossi/phoenix) and they add some voidray to deal with the corruptors. i think it's in this case where ultralisk/infestor are underused. But i don't know exactly how you can transition efficiently, that's the main problem, how to transition from a roach/hydra/corruptor to an infestor/ultralisk/hydralisk mix because yeah remax with some ultralisk is very risky it takes too long, it depends on when and where you engaged the fight.
But ofc you will never crush a 200/200 protoss with a 200/200 zerg you need at least a 300/200. But it doesn't mean there is some balance issue, there are just 2 different races with 2 different style of play.
Edit: With bigger maps we don't know how the mid game will be played and ofc the late game will change aswell.
If you have the money necessary there is a strat that beat most of the P balls. 50-100 banelings and 6-8 ultras in front wipe everything out (the splash get both Colos and regular units). The fact that baneling are only 0.5 food(!!!) and that Collossus stand ontop of the other units is one reason why it is so effective. So the only problem is getting the money for it, but if you have it, its game. I haven't really made anyone believe me, but soon people will try it and understand. Banelings are almost OP due to the fact they are only 0.5 food.
I feel like now against a protoss going for that death ball you have to keep harassing him non stop with speed roaches, drops or nydus, try to snipe some units, stop him from getting his third up. It's easier to say than to do because on some maps a protoss can just turtle up with cannons and sentries. If you face the death ball a ton of corrupters actually works very well, but if you focus the collosus the voids rip through them, and if you focus the void rays your ground army evaporates. The baneling drop seems a very good idea but very hard to make happen and you HAVE to success the first time you do it or you die. And infestors are out of the question, a good protoss will kill them with collossus range before they can do anything. Anyways you need that gas badly.
Muta/Ling is the obvious composition to go in cross position maps like Shakuras, but in close position LT or Metalopolis I have real, real difficulty dealing with Toss deahtball pushes. Not necessarily even the Colossus/VR pushes, I mean the 2 base Stalker-Colossus ball which can get to your natural in about 10 seconds. There's nowhere that's very convenient to expand, you can't use Muta harass to keep him in his base and pretty much every composition just gets roasted unless you have supreme micro.
As people have stated, there will never be a cost efficient way to deal with a Toss death-ball, their units are just designed to be slower but stronger. Baneling drops seem gimmicky to me - they might work in a few cases, but it won't work on a Toss who's aware of what you're doing.
I think zerg players (myself included) tend to go waaaay more roach heavy than lair/hive tech units, than they should. We just see collossi, say "better make roaches," and bam we're at 200/200 before we know it, macroing like pros, and whomp, our army gets rolled. Our issue is we rely on teir 1 roaches (okay, maybe 1.5, but still, its low-tech guys...), expensive supply-wise, and somehow expect that to fare well.
**Also, we have to stay up on upgrades, that will make our 200 supply army that much more awesome. True, lack of upgrades can be made up for by increasing the unit count, but at 200/200, you can't compensate anymore, thus making upgrades very important late game...**
Some untested ideas for the "ZERG DEATHBALL":
Now don't get me wrong, some roaches tanking damage is nice(but not all supply should be roach, come on guys), and I think many queens (10+) are also underutilized, since they die slowly to collosi (150 hp, armor 1 ((though not considered "armored" making it the ultimate tank unit)) versus the other anti-air unit, the hydralisk with 80hp, a.k.a. collosi-fodder-lisk), while dealing their air damage with longer range than the roach and the hydralisk, and also being great versus voidrays.
Now, what else, I got my roaches, got my queens, now what? Well, soon as you see that collosus-den go down, you should all be making spires, or have them up already. And, make about 6-10 at a minimum corrupters, while teching to hive and greater spire. The beauty is this: Broodlords create a broodling wall in front of your "zerg deathball" (while shooting them out from the back above your queens), roaches with range 4 right behind the broodling wall focusing on hurting stalkers, queens behind the roaches spreading creep, transfusing roaches/each other/whatever needs it (yes, microintensive, and I highly suggest health bars on), and pre-battle the extra queens are great for spreading creep to fight on, preferably further away from hatches in order to keep reinforecements from being cut off by the battle's position, and also firing at the void rays (notice they have alot of stuff on their shoulders, so the more queens the merrier), and most importantly, they sit under your broodlords in order to prevent blink stalkers getting under your broodlords. Perhaps a few unconverted/reinforcement corrupters can be assisting the queen's targets (collosi and VRs).
So, to recap, Mass queen for anti air and anti-collosi, roaches to tank and focus stalkers, broodlords to form a broodling wall (you need 8 to 10 to make a good wall-off), and maybe some spare corrupters in the mix as well.
What do you guys think? Viable? Sounds reasonable to me, and with Day9's mass queen funday monday challenge, why not try it out?
Another great thing about queens and broodlords is that they're both slow as f-#$%, so they will hopefully keep up with each other. After winning, draw a slow swath of destruction with your own death-ball. Also, while you're at hive tech, why not pick up adrenal glands for mopping up far away expos after the battle, before the toss can rebuild? Just some ideas... And for the record, queens are cheap on the gas, providing more resources for upgrades, corrupter/blords, etc.
I think the fundamental ideas behind Zerg are it's ability to mass like a swarm. If a 200 zerg army was equal to a Toss / Terran army, it would be broken as hell, because Zerg gets to 200 a fair amount quicker than Terran or Protoss can, and you can also reload way quicker as well. I suppose you just gotta cop the losses Starship Troopers style, but overwhelm ... feels like that's how zerg is meant to be played?
Here's what I do, with varying degrees of success at 2700+ masters:
-roaches, upgrading ranged attack early on -as soon as I scout void/colo army, start mass producing corruptors, get +1 air attack -3 base 1 evo chamber upgraded roach/corruptor -once I get 4 bases, go hive, get ultra, go roach/ultra/corruptor, 1-3 infestors if I have the gas
Corruptors focus down the void rays first, then colossus. Roaches more or less a-move, unless a colossus is out of position, and burrow underneath force fields. Once I get ultras, they break down force fields, and attack stalker/colossus, priority on colossus.
If I manage to kill all voids & colossus, leftover corruptors use corruption on immortals followed by stalker, then start pumping mass roach/crackling.
Baneling drops do seem to be pretty effective. However, hive tech is just so much better. Baneling drops do seem to be a good tactic to use until you reach hive tech though. Maybe use it as a means to survive until you can get out that hive tech for brood lords or ultralisks.
Personally I find that lings/spine crawlers will pretty much hold toss armies off and let you use gas for mutas in 99% of situations. Close position/wide open naturals can be trickier but I just don't see roach/hydra/corruptor as being effective. upgraded lings/mutas will stand toe to toe against a toss army and this composition generally sways them from even going for collosus.
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.
From what I've played I would say the best answer is good early game decisions into roach hydra corruptor. By game decisions I really have found going speedling roach very effective against any toss build. Speedling roach lets you put tons of pressure a FE toss, and if they 4 gate you just dont have to worry about Col/VR as much since they will have no gas to support it. I tend to rush +2 attack for roaches and hydra. The drawback of doing this is that this is really vulnerable fast VR. Another drawback is that this is playing like this is larva heavy and if you don't delay their natural or mass up too many lings and they don't push then you are SO FAR BEHIND economicly.
I went ultra baneling hydra to some decent effect.
Banelings are pretty unfreaking believable. Hydras get free shots from kiting/splitting. And of course, ultras knock the FFs down. You don't need too many ultras, but you do need a lot of banelings.
People need to stop viewing mutalisks as a dps unit when theorycrafting. Corruptors are better for antiair because mutalisks are way to fragile and will get autotargeted down. Mutalisks roll lies in harassing, but eventually even going muta ling you do need to transition to tier 3 to finish a protoss off once he gets a counter to mutalisks rolling (storm/blink or mass phoenix).
Baneling drop is amazing and is still underused. I use baneling drop very heavily throughout my entire zvp games and have had alot of success with it (top 200 NA player btw). I usually start my engagements by suiciding an infestor for a leading fungal to give me position followed by bane rain on the core army. With just 20 banelings everything in the fungal will die including collosus. With the core of the toss deathball getting killed before it can really do damage the rest gets cleaned up pretty easy since toss will probably not have sentries alive.
The reason bane rain is so effective is because of its efficiency. Banelings are incredibly efficient. They cost 1/2 a supply so you can fit alot in your army for cheap supply costs, this is probably most important. Sacrificing 5 roaches for 20 banelings seems way to good to pass up. But they are actually cost efficient in most situations too! If your baneling hits 3 collosus it is efficient (1500 resources worth of banelings will overkill a colosus hp), or 4 stalkers. Against light units its obviously very efficient. The only ground units that they are not efficient dropping on are immortals. When zergs are used to making 2 armies to fight one deathball actually having anything efficient is very useful.
Also getting drop is also very amazing for fighting toss as well. If your near maxed but cant attack into the protoss because of positioning or creep you can start dropping different points with your army as a good way to trade resources with a toss. Also baneling drops on mineral lines are very good as well. Another less seen tactic is to transport a queen around in an ovie and to put your creeping into overdrive.
I tried few times a corruptor/broodlord combo and it may be deadly vs. toss depending on map. If the map is something like metalopolis where you can micro broodlords from blink stalkers then it's super strong. Let's say you have ~10+ broodlords and everything else are corruptors, like 30 or something. Then toss can't do anything about that! He will start pumping voids but it will be impossible for him to overwhelm your corruptor numbers.
But ofc until this stage of the game you are usually already dead lol
Edit: Plexa, I tried ultras so many times and they just suck. I mean if you will get 12 upgraded ultras with prefect suround then yeah, definately you gonna crush, but the thing is, toss is not going to dance in the middle of the shattered temple - he will be somewhere around the chokes where your ultras will be dead before reaching toss army. Not to mention that you are maxing range/armor upgrades all game long, and for ultras you should have +attack upgrades.
And toss can just start boosting immortals from double robo and add mass zealot - those are perfect against ultras.
I think Zergs are getting their Hive tech too late in this match up. I'm stating pure theorycraft because I'm not good enough yet to have really ironed out my theory and put it into practice, so let me know your thoughts on this...
In theory, I want to have Hive ended around the same time as my maxed Hydroach/Corruptor army is made, go trade as efficiently as I can while an ultra cavern and/or greater spire is building, and then re-build my army with a Hydralisk backbone, 3 or 4 Ultras (any more than that is a waste of resources), a few infestors, corruptors, and 2 or 3 BLs (morphing more if any corruptors survive the Collosus hunt). I have a very VERY hard time imagining a situation where a Hydra/Corruptor/Ultra/BL/Infestor late-game mix would lose outright to the toss deathball... Especially with the amulet upgrade being removed in the upcoming patch.
Is my timing window practical? I have no idea, I'd appreciate anybody with experience in this to let me know, but as I continue to play and improve my macro, it's a timing that I want to make happen.
I think that part of the reason that many players think Ultras are so horribad is that they make too many. Any more than 4 or 5 at the absolute most is and they almost never get to attack at the same time anyway. A lot of zerg get stuck in this "4suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu" or "4srrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" macro mentality while they play, and what should be happening with their larva is "4suuuuhhhhhhhhhhccccccccgggghhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrr" (infestor is g in my setup). Many zerg players, even at the top level, are not consciously aware of the amount of each unit they are including in their composition. It's usually "Well, I have an ultralisk cavern, now, make FIFTEEEEEEEEN Ultras!" Then they lose the game and wonder why anybody could ever DARE to suggest that Ultralisks be used in the matchup.
Baneling drops are powerful especially because hitting from the middle turns the aoe from a moon type shape or maybe semi circle into a 360 degree blast. I heard from a good protoss (HuK I think?) that it's really just a surprise play and with a fast spread and/or blink it doesn't do nearly as much damage (ofc)
mass corruptor brood lord would be so unbelievably immobile
I never seen mass spine crawlers as anything more than a stall tactic
I think zergs needs a good unit composition. Baneling is one of the most suply effective unit in the game. Its only 0.5 and dropped on deathball can be quite deadly. Ultras are also ok. They stomp ffs and deal good amont of damage to stalker/collosus.Broodlords are also good.The problem might be voidray as its good against corruptor but muta/hydra can clean it up. The hard thing is transitioning from roach-hydra-corrupor to something better. I think it should be done by dropping small amount of forces(like 16 roaches) in your oponents main/other undedended areas. It will do some damage(unlike attacking his army head on) and frre some suply. The other way is building spores/spines and canceling (or not) It will make your army bigger. Obviously having 500 larve waiting to be morphed is always good
Given the fact this has been bumped, I have decided to update it with some of my new ideas as well as a replay of that.
I have decided to continue updating this until we zergs figure out the best way to deal with the 200/200 army, so that I DO have the possibility of just macroing up and beating a 200/200 toss, and the Overmind shall finally put its final blade into the heart of Aiur.
On March 06 2011 19:17 Pandain wrote: Given the fact this has been bumped, I have decided to update it with some of my new ideas as well as a replay of that.
I have decided to continue updating this until we zergs figure out the best way to deal with the 200/200 army, so that I DO have the possibility of just macroing up and beating a 200/200 toss, and the Overmind shall finally put its final blade into the heart of Aiur.
If Ling/Bane Mass Expand style becomes viable in ZvP, as it is now(Can't get it to work atm T_T), Banelings are so supply-efficient that they just wreck Protoss Deathballs if you properly spread out and surround against Splash damage units.
Ling/Baneling/Corruptor does much better against Stalker/Colossus/VR or Zealot/Colossus/VR than Roach/Hydra/Corruptor does as Banelings kinda end the battle before Colossi get critical amount of Splash done. In 200/200 vs. 200/200 that is.
If they have resourses to get enough Sentries as well with the Colossus/VR ball, you should have a couple Ultras to kill the FFs. Not 12 - 2 are enough.
In the current understanding of the game a 200 zerg shouldnt be able to beat a 200 toss, because zergs can just remax faster. However, this only applies, if the toss knows the zergs composition of units. if they see mass corrupter, they will just make mass stalkers and zerg is done. so the point of saving supply to make the army of your choice is a brilliant approach. If toss goes for mass voidray/colossus, Id make mass mutas. Of course you are not allowed to show that mass at the beginning or he will get storm and you are done.
However I prefer 2 different approaches.
1) Immobility. If the toss finally moves out, just counterattack with muta/ling. If he retreats, just leave. This of course is only possible when there are no templar, but guess how long it will take to transition from 2stargate 1 robo+bay into templar tech and having enough templar.. and probably all this on 2 base. Not really a possibility.
2) Go f***** kill him (or his expensive units). So the toss is sitting on 2 base and massing up voidrays and colossus. Why not just make a spire and go with a group of corrupters and kill some of his voidrays? It takes quite some time to build those numbers up and you can make a decent corrupter group quite fast. So why not send them in (of course theyre going to die.. but the push will be delayed very hard and by constantly going in you have 1) the scout infos and 2) you force him to make many stalkers and 3) you are able to overdrone (>80) and get enough resources. Or you just go and watch MooNs replays of the IEM and his hydra/ling drop play.
If you watch Destiny v RootMinigun Showmatch at spazcraft.com. You can see how to deal with the average 2-3 base deathball of colosi/void ray in game four. He made something like 30 corrupters and 5ish broodlords with supplementary roaches if I remember correctly. He absolutely steamrolled minigun making it look effortless.
Now one thing I think people need to realize especially OP is that the colosi/void ray deathball is strongest with 4-5 colosi and a ton of voids. The colosi pretty much cap out in effectiveness at 4-5 and then the void rays kill colosi counter of corrupters so they usually overmake voids and stalkers and get a minimal amount of colosi. OP said they would make 6-7 colosi and 4-5 voids. I would say the more scare version is reversed with 4-5 colosi and with that extra gas you dont use you can make 7-9 voids. Supplemented with stalkers this is scary as crap.
Now what destiny did that zergs need to do in order to counter void ray/collosi is drop main with hydras and such. Hydras deal phonomenal dps and can destroy the main pretty fast if not dealt with. Furthermore, hydras deal enough dps that the toss will have to take a significant number of units to his base to counter. This slows him down a ton and can help you get to the corrupter/broodlord mix you want to have.
There's a lot of talk about ultras being effective (but not great) and banes being flat out great, but not a lot of talk about how they work together.
If you're considering pushing forward with ultras or banes, make sure they go together. Say 5 ultras, make sure they're rolling in together with at least 4+ banes per ultra. The ultras tank for your banes, they also move at the same speed which helps the tanking effect (unlike speedlings which run ahead and jam everything up). Together they can move in at the front lines taking down the zeal/sentry lines, allowing the ultras to move in onto the stalks.
And there is mention of nydus, my experience with nydus is that by the time you get 10 units out of it, you have a deathball on top of it - so the most effective nydusing I've managed to pull off is with 8 banes in a nydus, build it, and rally it into the mineral lines, and the instant it spawns, hit the D key then anything else you get out of it is a bonus. The trick is to make sure the nydus is empty when you load it with banes, and THEN put your main troops into it, because nydus is generally a First In First Out device.
This article might give you some ideas as to how Zerg needs to be handled, and why muta/ling/bling has been the most effective use of zerg so far http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_warfare
I'm just gonna put this video here. The video description basically explains it. A 120 supply army consisting of banelings and zerglings against a 120 supply army of protoss. Banelings have gave me reasonable success against the protoss ball recently. Even though it's not as cost effective as people would like, it doesn't matter when you're maxed out at 200/200 army. You're bound to stock up on resources, so you might as well have 50 banelings handy. This video is just an example of what potential the banelings have. Not neccessarily a real case scenario.
Forcefields are the main concern, and so these guys pair well with ultralisks who can break down those forcefields. Even then, you have other options too such as flanking with banelings, overlord drops and burrow.
I have a question: Can I get away without Hydras in ZvP? -If I can, I can keep up with the Ling/Bane Mass Expand style, get 4th base around ~10-12min mark and completely stomp his Deathball by pure Ling/Bane/Corruptor numbers because Banes end the fight early and because I got more bases early. -If I cannot, I need to All-In him before the deathball because in my eyes, anything that has Roaches and/or Hydras can't effectively beat the ball due to me not having my 4th and possibly 5th base up in time to benefit enough from them.
If I'm forced to get Roaches and/or Hydras due to various openings, I want suggestions on how to All-In the Protoss before he has the deathball.
How about a pure roach/muta mix. Nothing in that comp is particularly effective against mutas. Corrupters are good but actually don't do as well against voids because they are armored...
Also, mutas are gas heavy while roaches are mineral heavy, which allows you to make an army without wasting anything. Corruptor BL will leave you with 23948273948234 minerals.
I realize the supply efficiency of this may be an issue, but with these fast, cheap units, you can constantly trade supplies with the protoss and keep him from reaching critical mass.
Banelings... I somehow don't see them being effective against the massive colossus which are not light and are too big to be effectively splashed.
Roaches are actually decent against colossus as they can tank more shots. Sure, they do nothing to voids, but that's why u have mutars.
With a combination of burrow roaches and mutas... think of the harass potential!
the ling/banling is kind of FOTM and only effective on the maps with big open areas, especially the new temple more then anything. Its more taking advantage of protoss dropping sentrys for more gas in Vray/colossi, i have no problem with it when i play standard gateway/colossi with good FF.
Its good for now but i think it will fall out of style because any kind of engagement in a choke with decent FF wrecks it. Its supply effective but very situational and cost inefficient.
Starcraft II is a economic game. There never is a NEED to all-in. But you can try to cripple your opponent and take advantage of that - economic wise! Currently the best way to cripple your opponent is a hydra/ling drop. If you want to have timings etc, then watch the moon replays from the IEM tournament. Of course you can do that as an all-in. But I dont see any reason why you shouldnt take another base behind this, so that even if it fails you kill a good portion of his army and/or buildings and delay any attacks the protoss can do.
Cant comment on wether mass ling/baneling works or not. No one in my league is playing it it seems -.-
On March 07 2011 06:01 uSnAmplified wrote: the ling/banling is kind of FOTM and only effective on the maps with big open areas, especially the new temple more then anything. Its more taking advantage of protoss dropping sentrys for more gas in Vray/colossi, i have no problem with it when i play standard gateway/colossi with good FF.
Its good for now but i think it will fall out of style because any kind of engagement in a choke with decent FF wrecks it. Its supply effective but very situational and cost inefficient.
Well I don't know, but would engaging in a choke with FFs break Zerg armies anyway?
Well, if Ling/Bane works, it works. If it eventually doesn't, I'll change to something else. I think I'll use Hydra drops more if I'm ever against a 1base Stargate opener.
I have a lot of difficulties as a zerg against void/colossus and just 5 minutes ago, a friend gave me a good idee(according to me).
Instead of thinking about which units make to counter it, some overseers can stop the production of robo/stargate units with contaminate. Sure some will die, but it could give you the time you needed to make whatever response you want to.
I've heard on some MrBitter coaching session a pro saying that you should keep the number of colossi/void rays as low as you can, even if you have to trade more ressources doing it.
If the key is to keep the number low, overseers could help with it, right?
I have a lot of difficulties as a zerg against void/colossus and just 5 minutes ago, a friend gave me a good idee(according to me).
Instead of thinking about which units make to counter it, some overseers can stop the production of robo/stargate units with contaminate. Sure some will die, but it could give you the time you needed to make whatever response you want to.
I've heard on some MrBitter coaching session a pro saying that you should keep the number of colossi/void rays as low as you can, even if you have to trade more ressources doing it.
If the key is to keep the number low, overseers could help with it, right?
I would like to see your opinion on that.
I have mixed opinions about Overseers contaminating the buildings. The Protoss is kinda safe if you use gas for Overseers(100 gas for one is kinda much, even if you go Ling/Bane style). You basically cut into your Corruptor, Baneling or Hydralisk numbers if you go Overseers and the opponent can just camp nearby his buildings, or warp them in safe so that he can defend them.
If you suggest this as a tactic to use with a couple Overseers that scout at the same time, yeah why not do that. If you suggest that as a core strategy part, it's a bit too vulnerable.
On March 07 2011 06:01 uSnAmplified wrote: the ling/banling is kind of FOTM and only effective on the maps with big open areas, especially the new temple more then anything. Its more taking advantage of protoss dropping sentrys for more gas in Vray/colossi, i have no problem with it when i play standard gateway/colossi with good FF.
Its good for now but i think it will fall out of style because any kind of engagement in a choke with decent FF wrecks it. Its supply effective but very situational and cost inefficient.
Well I don't know, but would engaging in a choke with FFs break Zerg armies anyway?
Well, if Ling/Bane works, it works. If it eventually doesn't, I'll change to something else. I think I'll use Hydra drops more if I'm ever against a 1base Stargate opener.
You are neglecting to think about how good FFs can stop bling surrounds from being effective in the wider open maps, the choke just exponentially makes the build worse.
The only reason it works is because protoss are more interested in an attack move composition then placing decent forcefields.
On March 07 2011 06:01 uSnAmplified wrote: the ling/banling is kind of FOTM and only effective on the maps with big open areas, especially the new temple more then anything. Its more taking advantage of protoss dropping sentrys for more gas in Vray/colossi, i have no problem with it when i play standard gateway/colossi with good FF.
Its good for now but i think it will fall out of style because any kind of engagement in a choke with decent FF wrecks it. Its supply effective but very situational and cost inefficient.
Well I don't know, but would engaging in a choke with FFs break Zerg armies anyway?
Well, if Ling/Bane works, it works. If it eventually doesn't, I'll change to something else. I think I'll use Hydra drops more if I'm ever against a 1base Stargate opener.
You are neglecting to think about how good FFs can stop bling surrounds from being effective in the wider open maps, the choke just exponentially makes the build worse.
The only reason it works is because protoss are more interested in an attack move composition then placing decent forcefields.
On some maps, Roaches are probably the only choice vP.
Those maps being Backwater Gulch(was it?) and Delta Quadrant at least. Arguably Xel'Naga Caverns as well because of rocks everywhere and pretty chok-ish mid-ground. I would also say Typhon Peaks(whatever it's called) is one.
I don't see a major problem going Ling/Bane on Shattered Temple and Metalopolis because of the former being so open and the latter having easy backstab routes and easy to take expansions, as well as some openness.
For the other point: The game evolves and we don't really know what builds are going to win and what are not. Protoss FF micro might get better but Zerg unit control might also get better forcing more and more FFs off. And in late-game if I see Sentries, I just get a couple Ultralisks out so yeah.
I'm not particularly afraid of Sentries in the deathball and you probably know the reason. There are not enough of them and if there are, it's not a deathball anymore.
with the vision and speed creep grantz flanking is much easier for a zerg, combine this with some queen play and you will ensure decent creep while having some very tanky units to "occupy" protoss with while flanking.
I have a replay here using queens, creep vision, and flanking to take a LESS than 200 Zerg army to kill a 200 Toss deathball (voids, stalkers, colossus). Play isnt perfect, but its still a good replay that shows off some potential. Its a diamond Zerg(me) vs a Master Toss
hun13, I liked your flanking tactics, your initial pinch in the choke, and the side flank hitting the collossus on the move. I thought for sure you'd come out behind, but you prevailed and came out on top.
but I was a bit disturbed that 25 minutes into the game the master level toss had barely any upgrades, was only 1:1:0 on the ground and 000 in the air and you had been ahead on the upgrades all game.
I suspect this was the main reason you got the upper hand on him. I'll take the lesson though, upgrade hard, dont fight head on, and you'll win more games.
My problem lies much in the fact I find it extreemly hard to find the correct unit composition. If I get to many corruptors I destroy his collosi but his ground army just roll over my bases and if I get a few his collosi destroy my ground army. So basically for me I think I really need to improve my scouting powers so I better can estimate the correct amount of each units I need. Which isn't very easy.
first of all im glad someone is trying to find a solution tnx dude, bane rain would be ver affective not beacuse it counters void collos but beacuse it is destructive to any kind of toss death baal, most people think that the solution is mass coropt but corruptor dont do extra dmg to void cus they aint massive and u need to focus collos first allowing the voids to charge up, now with bane rain most of the gateway units will die fast if u do it good and the its just big units like void that are weak alone but its gonna take a lot of work to find out strategies like when do i get banes do i get upgrades what timings and such
I don't understand why everyone advice a faster Hive. I mean, both T3 Zerg die in seconds to VoidRay. Broodlord are easy to snipe during fight with them, and ultra are most likely the only unit that let VR charge up. ( Don't forget the recent +20% damage to massive buff )
However, i really see a muta ling + banelings carpet bomb working against Colo VR. We need to see more pro trying this instead of the classic Roach Hydra, which always seems to be bad in large fight due to their supply cost. ( 2 food each, mean you generaly have ~30 roach ~30 Hydra + some corruptor. ( 150 suply easily ) and tbh, it's nothing against 4 or more colossi. )
Curious if anyone ever thought to try Mass Queen Ultras against a toss Max army?
I mean that funday monday was very enlightening when Mass Queens just don't die. kinda feel like Zergs arent thinking outside the box enough. Or more use of Nydus worms. not only to harass but to use as an escape route.
It just looks like Zerg just keeps using the same strat that does work.
I wanna see mass queens in pro play
Zerg's only other Spell caster and no1 ever uses them offensively >.<
I have been testing out roach muta corruptors build and it works pretty well. You start out with lings and roaches to defend any potential 4 gate pushes while teching to spire. Get tons of mutas to harass the toss mineral line. If they have collosus/ phoenixes, get corruptors. Its working pretty well for me.
On March 07 2011 22:54 DTWolfwood wrote: Curious if anyone ever thought to try Mass Queen Ultras against a toss Max army?
I mean that funday monday was very enlightening when Mass Queens just don't die. kinda feel like Zergs arent thinking outside the box enough. Or more use of Nydus worms. not only to harass but to use as an escape route.
It just looks like Zerg just keeps using the same strat that does work.
I wanna see mass queens in pro play
Zerg's only other Spell caster and no1 ever uses them offensively >.<
Well, i think ppl don't use Nydus because of the gas cost. Think about it, a single Nydus worm is 200 + 100 gas. It's 6 Hydra or 12 Roaches or 3 Muta or 2 Infestors or all the tech fo drop play worth of Gas for something completly incertain in terms of effectiveness. ( can be scout, killed... )
Blings are the secret to this match up. i have played quite a few games where the max toss death ball comes at me and I only have 2/2 lings and blings and mutas and absolutely demolish his army. As long as there are enough blings to deal tons of damage to his ball its over. This doesnt even require drops. you can always just run blings in from a flank or the side and do an incredible amount of damage.
What about the idea of mass roach corrupter? 2/2 or 3/3 roach with burrow and tunneling claws to move under FF. mass corrupter to focus down the Coli and VR
not to discredit you, but you post nothing of your credibility in the OP. now through looking at your name and sc2ranksing that you're 3500~ meaning that what you say may carry some merit. now to talk about what you're saying, yes banelings rape everything (really, they do). however, the problem lies in several factors: banelings really aren't that fast. they just aren't. even on creep they are quite slow. forcefields, they are a bitch and effectively make banelings useles, therefore, you need either to drop them or lead with ultralisk [to crush forcefields], which, there in lies the problem yet again. Teching straight to ultralisk can be done in about 12-15min depending on how the game plays out, however, this is straight teching--cutting mutas, or roaches/hydras w/e or what not you will be open to basically any other strat. Now lets go back to drops, the problem with overlords is they are slow, even with speed they are slow [0.4687 (+1.4062)]. 1.86 speed is slower than ANY ground movement speed. and if you are going for drops, then you most likely won't be getting ultras due to resource constraints. thus, the protoss can forcefield their way out of the situation. The problem seems to be the timing of the deathball rather than actually countering it. it hits before you can get everything you need to perfectly counter it, therefore, that is the actual problem.
and also, don't ever try and mention neural parasite as an option it is hoping you opponent doesn't notice or responds too late, moreover it has several flaws: 9 range (enough to be hit by a colli as it begins to cast), puts a big ass cable which is obvious as hell, and are EASILY sniped. and you will say "well your infestors should be at the back of your army and so they won't get killed". incorrect. that is an ideal situation, you're army isn't going to be right in their face because of forcefields i'm too lazy to draw a picture and upload it but your infestors are goign to be out in the open.
I like the brain storming though, I would like to see some ideas with queens, however, it would be nice if queens had 8--instead of 7 range because 7 is too short thus allowing queens to get wrecked by the stalkers and such.
i'm a 3700 masters zerg on us server. bluewaffle.127 if ur curious.
On March 08 2011 03:52 majestouch wrote: not to discredit you, but you post nothing of your credibility in the OP. now through looking at your name and sc2ranksing that you're 3500~ meaning that what you say may carry some merit. now to talk about what you're saying, yes banelings rape everything (really, they do). however, the problem lies in several factors: banelings really aren't that fast. they just aren't. even on creep they are quite slow. forcefields, they are a bitch and effectively make banelings useles, therefore, you need either to drop them or lead with ultralisk [to crush forcefields], which, there in lies the problem yet again. Teching straight to ultralisk can be done in about 12-15min depending on how the game plays out, however, this is straight teching--cutting mutas, or roaches/hydras w/e or what not you will be open to basically any other strat. Now lets go back to drops, the problem with overlords is they are slow, even with speed they are slow [0.4687 (+1.4062)]. 1.86 speed is slower than ANY ground movement speed. and if you are going for drops, then you most likely won't be getting ultras due to resource constraints. thus, the protoss can forcefield their way out of the situation. The problem seems to be the timing of the deathball rather than actually countering it. it hits before you can get everything you need to perfectly counter it, therefore, that is the actual problem.
and also, don't ever try and mention neural parasite as an option it is hoping you opponent doesn't notice or responds too late, moreover it has several flaws: 9 range (enough to be hit by a colli as it begins to cast), puts a big ass cable which is obvious as hell, and are EASILY sniped. and you will say "well your infestors should be at the back of your army and so they won't get killed". incorrect. that is an ideal situation, you're army isn't going to be right in their face because of forcefields i'm too lazy to draw a picture and upload it but your infestors are goign to be out in the open.
I like the brain storming though, I would like to see some ideas with queens, however, it would be nice if queens had 8--instead of 7 range because 7 is too short thus allowing queens to get wrecked by the stalkers and such.
i'm a 3700 masters zerg on us server. bluewaffle.127 if ur curious.
Keep in mind that baneling drops don't need to be "super fast" in order to work. They go at a reasonable speed, and at the very least either force: 1.Toss to move out of position he wants(win for you) 2. Lose a whole bunch of his army.
I personally prefer drops for the reasons he stated above: Against a good toss forcefields will be very difficult to deal with if your going mass ling bling.
As for neural parasite, keep in mind we are talking about the IDEAL army. Having just 4-5 infestors and 190 regular supply can be EXTREMELY good, as we are not only talking about Neural parasite, but fungal as well! Combine this with baneling drops and you have a fungal+baneling combo that cannot be microed against well.
I would like to see a zerg keep 20-30 banes under the brood lords. Basically the Banes will defend the brood lords from blink stalkers. In this way the stalkers would have to essentially blink into a pool of banes to get under the broods. From here you could slow push the Toss.
Im only plat, so take my words for what they are. I believe if someones was to get 3-4 overseers and use contamiate on robo, and stargate as much as possible could seriously shrink the deathball.
On March 08 2011 06:42 HomicidaL wrote: Mass Muta destroy the death ball pretty hard, expecially if you invest in air upgrades.
Mass mutas is a completely different zvp. Its not something you can tech to on a whim because it takes a decently long time to critical mass and even then arnt particularly cost effective unless you harass well with them. If a toss doesnt scout you switching to mutas and change up his tech path accordingly he probably deserves to lose. Just by making phoenix instead of void rays a toss should be able to roll over muta ling in a maxed food with proper forcefields/micro.
Also contaminate doesnt work well because it doesnt actually deny your opponent resources. In zvz if i see more 2+ overseers i just throw up another hatch and although temporarily i might be floating money in the long run contaminate won't be cost effective unless your pairing it with some sort of timing attack. Same concept applies to zvp, toss can either throw up more production buildings or cannons to stop contaminates and essentially use less money to counter it then it actually takes to make enough overseers to make contaminate effective.
Mass muta will beat Colossus/Void Ray straight up. The problem is simply that you aren't given enough time to make enough Muta if they go for the 2-base build. If the game has gone long enough to be able to get Brood Lords, then this is probably the way to go.
well, yeah our deathball is quite strong, but the thing is as someone already mentioned, its like mech, slow and strong as hell.
on ladder though it seems there are many zergs, that have figured out some ways.
the first thing we can do is go for a timing attack off 2bases, well, if you have scouted that toss hasnt expanded yet, just make any units you can get and try to stop us, it is possible, otherwise we would see this strat used in any game, be it iem or gsl and no toss would ever lose to zerg, which isnt happening, so next time you lose, check your macro/micro etc. first. also dont negelect upgrades, they are hugely important. if we decide to expand, we should really have enough units to hold any of your attacks, so you shouldnt try it and instead go for your 4th base. this is propably when things start getting hairy for you folks^^. normal expand timing for 3rd base really depends on the opening, so you have to get some feeling for this.
the first way is as the op mentioned corruptors, the only question is the quantity. if we decide to move out after our 3rd at about 180 sup, you should have already maxed out and got some money in your bank. i think if you go corruptors, you should really way overmake them, kinda like the terran-viking thing. rape our voids and collossi with corruptors, if you can kill those 2 units, stalkers wont do shit, its like terran losing all his tanks. remax with lings, hydras or roaches, what you like.
another possible solution is the mutaswitch, i think its completely underused, with almost all our gas spend on collossi and voids, we wont be able to have many stalkers or (lol) the templartech. yeah, voids can do smth, but they are still awefull. try it out, maybe you can prove me wrong.
banedrops are kinda creepy. with 10+ voidrays, you can really snipe the ols decently fast, if your on top of things. so i really depends on micro and stuff. banelings with speed are awesome though. yeah, there are forcefields, BUT, a voidray, collossus, sentry, stalker army, is reallly reallly realllllly expansive on gas, its your job to find out the weakpoints. does he have very few stalkers? you may try mutas has he stopped void ray production? corruptors are your friends does he have very few sentries? banelings ftw
and then the thing almost no zerg ever thinks about, the infamous nydus/mass ovi drop. you are the swarm, you have complete mapcontrol, if we have 3+ bases, it gets insanely hard to counter all your drops and canons cost money.
i dont think neither ultras nor broodlords are a good choice in this matchup vs. this unitcombo, instead try to get up 5+ hatches and pile up larvae and money.
hope i could help some of you. btw, i find it rather funny, that terrans are beating zergs up in the gsl so far left and right, but none complains about that.
I don't know whether this has been already mentioned, but has anyone ever thought about getting some more overseers to corrupt his key production of VR and colloxian? This could maybe easily countered by adding some cannons or stuff, but as i imagine every toss playing deathball against zerg sitting in front of his pc with a troll grin, preparing to roll the zerg, maybe it catches him offguard. If this worked, it would help buy some more time to get the units zerg wants. Also, I'd say protoss feels kinda harrassed and maybe messes something up or simply overreacts to the overseers. I haven't tested this yet, but maybe it's another idea too few people thought about.
Furthermore, I read a lot about baneling drops, but why only attack from the air? I am not sure whether protoss usuallly has an obs in his deathball, but wouldn't burrow sometimes really surprise him? of course for that u'd have to predict where the toss engages you, but if you do, maybe one can also burrow hydras and stuff behind where his army is supposed to go, and then get a nice surround after blowing him up with banelings. Unfortunately this would probably only work once against the same enemy.
The main problem i think is that zerg can't face toss in a normal fight, so creativity is the key. The strength of deathball are: - direct engagement - counters almost every unit comp of zerg - very supply efficient due to expensive units - key units are very hard to reach and kill - ~30 more supply in army due to less worker count
Looking at his list of strenghts, it doesn't sound recommendable to directly attack his deathball. U shouldn't attack him where he is strong, but let's see what his weak points are and how to possibly exploit them. - slow army that has to stay together -> attack his base from different sides - toss is on 2 bases with not too many workers -> zerg has the stronger economy + toss is very limited in gas and resources. This means a zerg player doesnt' have to trade efficiently; if he's able to pick off one collossus or two with losing about 5-10 mutas, thats probably worth it. - toss is dependent on the complete functionality of his key buildings as there are most times 2 starports and 1 robofactory -> snipe them, corrupt them,... would really slow the growing of the deathball
Summing up, you should attack the protoss where he is weak at, which is not his giant unitball! Exploit the fact that you have the better economy and the more mobile army.
Drops, nydus, burrow, harrass, corruption should all be techniques that put the protoss under a lot of trouble. In addition, I guess most toss aren't used to being harrassed, as zergs play often way too passive. That's probably because one cannot play passive and reactive against a deathballing protoss, cuz then one would face his 200/200 army.
On March 08 2011 19:32 Malni wrote: I don't know whether this has been already mentioned, but has anyone ever thought about getting some more overseers to corrupt his key production of VR and colloxian? This could maybe easily countered by adding some cannons or stuff, but as i imagine every toss playing deathball against zerg sitting in front of his pc with a troll grin, preparing to roll the zerg, maybe it catches him offguard. If this worked, it would help buy some more time to get the units zerg wants. Also, I'd say protoss feels kinda harrassed and maybe messes something up or simply overreacts to the overseers. I haven't tested this yet, but maybe it's another idea too few people thought about.
Was mentioned a couple pages back. If you catch him off-guard, you can maybe get 2-3 Contaminates off before he has units/cannons there. 100gas per Overseer isn't cost-effective at that point. You use Overseers for scouting anyway so why not do this.
Furthermore, I read a lot about baneling drops, but why only attack from the air? I am not sure whether protoss usuallly has an obs in his deathball, but wouldn't burrow sometimes really surprise him? of course for that u'd have to predict where the toss engages you, but if you do, maybe one can also burrow hydras and stuff behind where his army is supposed to go, and then get a nice surround after blowing him up with banelings. Unfortunately this would probably only work once against the same enemy.
He has an Observer with his army if he has brains, even if he doesn't know you have Burrow.
The main problem i think is that zerg can't face toss in a normal fight, so creativity is the key. The strength of deathball are: - direct engagement - counters almost every unit comp of zerg - very supply efficient due to expensive units - key units are very hard to reach and kill - ~30 more supply in army due to less worker count
I dare to say that Baneling/Corruptor/Roach or Ling depending on style is pretty good. The problem is how to get there and how to get enough of stuff.
Looking at his list of strenghts, it doesn't sound recommendable to directly attack his deathball. U shouldn't attack him where he is strong, but let's see what his weak points are and how to possibly exploit them. - slow army that has to stay together -> attack his base from different sides - toss is on 2 bases with not too many workers -> zerg has the stronger economy + toss is very limited in gas and resources. This means a zerg player doesnt' have to trade efficiently; if he's able to pick off one collossus or two with losing about 5-10 mutas, thats probably worth it. - toss is dependent on the complete functionality of his key buildings as there are most times 2 starports and 1 robofactory -> snipe them, corrupt them,... would really slow the growing of the deathball
2base Deathball is All-In so you don't get anything if you backstab him. He can just crush your base without care. You basically need to engage him.
Summing up, you should attack the protoss where he is weak at, which is not his giant unitball! Exploit the fact that you have the better economy and the more mobile army.
Only works if he is going for a macrogame but it's highly recommended to backstab/harass if he is doing just that.
Drops, nydus, burrow, harrass, corruption should all be techniques that put the protoss under a lot of trouble. In addition, I guess most toss aren't used to being harrassed, as zergs play often way too passive. That's probably because one cannot play passive and reactive against a deathballing protoss, cuz then one would face his 200/200 army.
I would say that the new Ling/Bane style has less problems with Protoss deathballs than Roach style does. With Lings, you are more mobile and can expand ridiculously quickly and backstab the Protoss if he attacks before the deathball is complete.
50 Speedbanes(You get the idea so don't go nitpicking about the number) isn't something Protoss wants to see, be it with his Deathball or not. With faster expansions, I can get 4bases very quickly and go Ling/Bane/Corruptor while teching to even 3base Hive. You need proper positioning so don't go 1a the Banelings in a ball.
The purpose of the Banelings are not to kill the Colossi, but to kill everything else. Be it Stalkers or Zealots. Sentries are no problem because they take too much gas that he would have maybe 4 at max and if you engage in as open as possible, the FFs would have little effect. And because of your mobility, you can retreat. Finish with Brood Lords.
Both styles are completely viable of course and Roaches are almost a must on maps like: Xel'Naga Caverns Typhon Peaks Backwater Gulch Delta Quadrant Scrap Station
Lings are more viable on: Shattered Temple Metalopolis
Slag Pits is in between but it's horrible for other reasons.
TL:DR I say Mass Baneling/Corruptor/Roach or Ling depending on style. Might be right, might be wrong but that's what I'm using atm. Probably the only harass options are Mutalisks and Drops which the latter might work and the former is viable if the Protoss isn't going Colossus by the moment your Spire pops.
You need to engage the deathball directly at some point, depending on if it's 2base All-In or not. If it's not, harass is pretty good to do.
High Diamond blah blah take this as a grain of salt.
I wonder how Infesotrs with Broodlords would do. Sure it's very gas heavy, but if you execute this right, you can keep the entire ball fungaled while spraying it with broodlings.
This might be a terrible idea, but anyway I'd always use Infestors. I just love those squishy, pillow-like creatures so much!
Also - lol at the "slow and immobile" description of the Protoss Death Ball. The slowest units is 2.25 speed, Colossi walk over cliffs, Stalkers blink up, Void Rays... well they fly. This army is anything but immobile compared to Terran Mech where Thors have a speed of 1.8 and Tanks need to be deployed which takes like 3 seconds... and to walk up the ramp you actually have to walk up the ramp.
On March 08 2011 23:50 ellmo wrote: I wonder how Infesotrs with Broodlords would do. Sure it's very gas heavy, but if you execute this right, you can keep the entire ball fungaled while spraying it with broodlings.
This might be a terrible idea, but anyway I'd always use Infestors. I just love those squishy, pillow-like creatures so much!
Also - lol at the "slow and immobile" description of the Protoss Death Ball. The slowest units is 2.25 speed, Colossi walk over cliffs, Stalkers blink up, Void Rays... well they fly. This army is anything but immobile compared to Terran Mech where Thors have a speed of 1.8 and Tanks need to be deployed which takes like 3 seconds... and to walk up the ramp you actually have to walk up the ramp.
If you can safely get Fungals on any units that can hit your Brood Lords, go ahead. I wouldn't bet on it. Infestors are very easily sniped by Colossi because Colossus range > Fungal range. You need pretty many Infestors to stop his army for enough time for your Brood Lords to kill it. That cuts into your Baneling count if you use them, Corruptor count and basically forces you to go Infestor/Brood Lord/Ling. If you manage to pull it off, it's very good but the composition overall is very fragile to even a single little mistake.
I just got my ass handed to me by Zealot/Immortal/HT/Archon with 2-3 Sentries mixed in. Should I just go insanely fast Hive and BL or what's up with that? It was on a map where I'm pretty much forced to go Roaches(XNC). I tried massing up Mutas but that didn't work out so well(I didn't get owned by any means, but he was left with a butt-ton of Zealots and Immortals so might as well tap out if he is attacking me and I have no ground left). Magic box and everything. Nothing complicated, just if I should go fast Hive and BL/Roach or something else. Or alternatively Ling/Baneling/BL if the map favors Ling/Bane.
No replays to show a relatively clear build that consistently beats the 2-base Void Ray + Colossi.
You're completely ignoring Idra and Artosis who actually tested this strategy multiple times at a pro level.
Idra said it's beatable with Queen + Ultra, but stated that this is a hard counter. That means you need to assume that he's going to go Void-Ray Colossus as soon as he goes on two bases and already start pumping queens and techning to Hive, expanding like crazy, etc.
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa//PvZ/pvz2.jpg)
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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?
sorry) but Morrow effectively deals with Chi's death ball. Important points are as follows:
