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http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=185666
Here is a replay of me vs a protoss and ultimate the battle was 200food of roaches/zerglings/queens/muta VS 200 food of collossi/voidray/stalker
the protoss player wins
watching the replay it is obvious to me i was severely outplayed. the protoss was about 30 seconds ahead of me on the third base meaning he had more econ than me so i should have lost regardless.
the purpose of this thread is mainly just to discuss what unit combination is best to use against the protoss deathball
THEORY ONE:
i have one theory on this. what makes the deathball so strong is the fact that protoss get to pump so much resources into effective units with low food counts
for example, 6 food of void rays is 500 minerals and 300 gas (800 resources) , and 6 food of roaches is 225 minerals 75 gas (300 resources).
units, for all intensive purposes, generally have a strength that is relative to their resource cost. Some units however are much stronger for their resource cost than others (for example 500 resources of marines will crap all over 800 resources of void rays) but marines are the most effective PER RESOURCE unit in the game so thats to be expected
still i believe units are as strong as their cost... usually...
without comparing general units to eachother we can safely say that on average, in general, most of the time units are as strong as their cost. This means the protoss deathball is extremely strong because they can pump way more resources into 6food than zerg can. and that 6 food expands outward into 60food and then 120food and then when both sides are maxed the protoss army is much more expensive
so when following the "units are as strong as their cost" rule its obvious that the protoss deathball should roll over any army the zerg can make.
But i think i will do some tests because looking at the numbers I think there is a zerg army that can compete with the protoss deathball and maybe almost win, which would be a good improvement because in normal scenarios a zerg army is nowhere close to winning
I think the idea revolves around the mutalisk. The mutalisk is 200 resources for 2 food, meaning 6food of mutalisks is 600resources, almost approaching much as the void ray (the most expensive unit in the game per food)
because it is very hard for protoss to upgrade shields and air armor, that means a zerg who is able to amass a gigantic mutalisk army with +attack upgrades can take advantage of that bouncing attack which will shred all the protoss shields since many protoss upgrade armor but they dont upgrade shields (because its so expensive). This means when a zerg is massing mutalisk and the protoss goes for a deathball his voidrays become weaker in the scheme of things voidrays have high damage over time but relatively low health and the mutalisks with attackupgrades if they focused the voidrays would take out the VR's pretty quickly thus getting rid of their strength (high damage over time) quickly.
the problem here is mutas cost so much gas, its hard to mass them properly because stalkers are only 50gas and can compete with a 100gas mutalisk. that gives the protoss a 2 to 1 advantage with stalkers. Also void rays gas per gas should always beat mutas in a straight up fight as well. 300 gas of mutas will lose to 300 gas of void rays, because void rays are more expensive and thus because of the "units are as strong as their cost" rule the void rays do win that fight.
following the "units are as strong as their cost" rule if a protoss were to ever get a 200food army of pure void rays that would definitely be 100% impossible to stop, not even 200food of mutas could stop it because mutas are not as expensive as voidrays. but this scenario is obviously COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE. In a real game the zerg will have some advantages
The advantage the zerg has in mutalisks is that the protoss cannot put all his gas into voidrays. Voidrays are built out of 150gas stargates, where mutas are produced in mass from hatcheries. The zerg should have some tempo advantage mid and lategame because even lategame its impossible for a protoss to put all his gas into VR's and amass a gigantic VR army. The zerg should be able to have enough mutalisks to deal with the VR's
however the problem is after a zerg spends all his gas on mutalisks he is left with tons of minerals. What is he gonna spend that on, zerglings? If he did that then a protoss seriously massing voidrays would have a bunch of VR's leftover after the mutas die and zerglings cannot attack air so the VR toss would eventually win
I think the solution is the zerg should have maybe 10 or so queens with his muta/ling army and the queens have 7range and deal 9damage to air which should help clean up the VR's. then after the mutas focus down the collossi and attack the VR's with queen support all the VR's should die before the mutas, then you will be left with queens/some mutas/lings vs stalkers and the zerg should win the battle at that point.
The zerg would only win assuming possibly a 200food vs 185food scenario. IF the protoss has 200food his army will be more expensive than the zergs so he will win the battle but i feel a queen/ling/muta combination should be able to destroy most of the protoss army which would allow for the quick respawn ability of zerg to kick in overwhelm whats left of the protoss
in the replay the protoss final army that hit my front door was 24 stalkers 4 collossi 8 void rays
the total cost of that army is 6200 / 3200 and 96food
i think a counter to that army would be 32 mutalisks 10 queens and 60 zerglings. that army would cost 6200 / 3200 and 114 food
i should test both of those armies out in a custom game to see which army actually wins a head on fight. obviously the zerg has a big disadvantage in the fact that he must spread tons of creep with overlords and tumors to make queens able to move around the map, which takes up a ton of APM
i will test both of those armies out in a custom game to see which army actually wins a fight and ill let you guys know the results
Thats one theory i have but i will need to test it in real games to see if it works.
god damn that was a huge write up of that theory. If anyone else has there theories out there on how to deal with the deathball go ahead and post them up.
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Aim to overkill with Corruptors to wipe out his collusus & voidray count.
Focus Voids 1st and use corruption for the bonus dmg it lasts a good long time for you to micro and get every target you need with corruption.
Get +Air Attack, It helps greatly for corrupter vs Collosus & Mothership if one appears which is becoming an option a lot more in late game.
Corruptors only cost 50 extra minerals then a muta; but they have armour and a lot of hp/staying power so overall you won't be hurting for gas but you'll be hurting to harrass him.
Keep your army alive somehow throughout the fight while your corruptors fight; dance for your life with your army. and keep it as a healthy mix i.e. ling roach hydra, maybe even banelings if a lot of zealots or you can spare the apm to do baneling drops.
You army will most likely take heavy dmg, but keep some of your lings on a seperate hotkey to reinforce with instantly or to trickle in to take collusus fire during the fight.
Reinforce with roach & ling or w/e you feel is appropriate but remember his upgrades are gonna be good as will his gateway count.
Kill his 3rd or 4th and survive and then keep trading as efficently as you can and you should come out strong.
P.S. If you have the time / resources and are maxed before he comes out you can try to push beyond 200 food by making a million spores and then making more army then cancelling the spores and putting those drones back on mining.
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Where you fight at 200/200 makes a big difference. In this case, as Z, the aggressor actually has the advantage. This is because while Z has a very disposable army they can remake it extremely quickly late game.
If he is fighting right at your base, your reinforcements will be streaming in from multiple bases and be picked off. If, however, you are fighting on his side of the map your reinforcements will have time to hatch and be rallied back together in preparation for his now less than 200/200 army to attack. The protoss deathball is scary, but its not that mobile and you have to exploit that fact.
One other thing to keep in mind is that you should be hitting 200/200 well before the toss can unless he's already at a large advantage. You want to harrass/pick off units/engage full on (sometimes) right around the time you max as you will be fighting 200/200 against 160/200 or so and can remake your whole army quickly.
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A protoss that spends money on void ray and colossus is giving you map control.
1) get econ advantage (gas)
2) overbuild corruptors
3) suicide corruptors into protoss army to kill void ray colossus
4) mass roach beats everything else.
5) morph leftover corruptors into broodlords when he turtles up again.
edit: also tl:dr. Jesus.
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In a unit tester (not the most valid of sources) a Protoss deathball can be cost efficiently a-move countered by ~30 banelings, 2 ultras, a couple of queens, and some speedlings. Not sure how helpful this is, but the point is adding a bunch of queens can hurt the colossi/VR composition badly.
Check out that Queens are Awesome thread, they discuss this idea.
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On February 02 2011 05:24 Adeeler wrote:
Aim to overkill with Corruptors to wipe out his collusus & voidray count.
So very very very true.
Then if he just stops making colossi and goes for high templar, those corruptors can become broodlords!
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ive had good results adding 15 infestors into my roach hydra army spamming infested terran in front of my roachs. I keep them burrowed in the middle of my army so they dont get sniped if toss has an observer out.
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I dont actually think you lost to ball of death. You actually lost to his initial push. That was the push that allowed him to get ahead and the ultimate deathball was really just a formality after that.
As a protoss player, I think you could have hurt your opponent more by going mass speedlings. I have lost so many times because of zerg getting 3 hatches on 2 base and pumping out speedlings. They are dead cheap and very powerful in the early game. Plus, since you have gone 3 hatch, you will not be short of larvae so you can still match protoss in economy.
If you had a few more zerglings earlier, you could have killed off some of his sentries which delays his tech and his ability to push.
Also, in terms of positioning. you want to engage him in the open areas. Once he enters the choke of your natural, his forcefields give him a huge advantage. There is no reason why you are not controlling both watchtowers given you have speedlings. That way you will know when his push is coming and make enough units to crush it.
Because his attack caught you off guard, and because you didn't kill it while it was retreating, you were scared to take your third and allowed protoss to do so. That point is when you lost the game. Not when the deathball came out.
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The Protoss ball isn't what is generally scary. I mean if a Protoss never leaves his side of the map from the get go and just gets up 3 bases and pushes with a "Perfect Army", the Zerg army should be SIGNIFICANTLY more powerful even at even supply.
Generally Zerg players are FORCED into make roach/hydra to SURVIVE until the protoss deathball arrives and then the deathball vs 300 food push+spinecrawlers is enacted. From then on better macro from the toss is matched up to the now weakened economy of the zerg player (Via spine crawlers for supply free up) and the Zerg player's general army control and tactics are used in an effort to kill the Protoss player's irreplaceable units.
If the Protoss left the Zerg completely unmolested, without even feinting, the Zerg player should simply have just as, or at least close to, a supply efficient army as the Protoss with which to strike back at the Protoss with. The Protoss deathball only seems unbreakable because the Protoss dictates the Zerg composition with clever semi-aggressive play, and then counters the living shit out of the Zerg comp.
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On February 02 2011 05:41 Aequos wrote:
In a unit tester (not the most valid of sources) a Protoss deathball can be cost efficiently a-move countered by ~30 banelings, 2 ultras, a couple of queens, and some speedlings. Not sure how helpful this is, but the point is adding a bunch of queens can hurt the colossi/VR composition badly.
Check out that Queens are Awesome thread, they discuss this idea.
You do realize you haven't defined what a Protoss deathball is. In this case I'm guessing you're talking about a Stalker Sentry Colossus Void ray comp?
If so, with decent micro the Protoss should win that battle with significant, but manageable losses. Why you ask? Because the crux of this zerg comp is the Ultralisks that negate forcefields. If you want to usefully negate forcefields without losing too many Banelings, which will obviously be insta-focused by colossus, you have to put your Ultralisks near the front of your army. Doing so creates a GREAT situation for the Protoss which SHOULD the majority of your army off of the Ultalisks with forcefield and focus fire ALL of his 200/200 army on your 2 Ultralisks destroying them with the utterly epic fist of god overkill of stalkers. The rest of your army will be sliced to cinder by forcefield and Thermal Lances.
Of course if you send in your Zerglings first, which you might think is a good idea, your Zerglings will be forcefielded in a similar fashion, and seeing as Ultralisks can't crush forcefields without direct contact, you'll be forced to pull back much of your Zerglings in an effort to make way for the forcefield breaking. From then on see the first scenario, but even easier seeing as you'd be lacking in Zerglings.
The unit tester is grossly inaccurate, seeing as most of the battles in a unit tester take place on the open field; where zerg has the inherent advantage. The current mappool has few truly open spaces where zerg can utilize said advantage.
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For void ray + collosus, I'd recommend a LOT of corruptors till you have air control, and then broodlords. As for cramming the maximum possible cost into your 200/200 food, void rays are actually the second most expensive unit per food in the game. #1 is the baneling. 6 food of banelings costs 600 minerals and 300 gas for a total of 900 resources. Of course, banelings aren't gonna do crap against collosi + void rays, but when you get to the max with resources to burn, you might free up 10 food for 20 banelings and upgrade OL drops. They'll only be okay in a fight, but that's an awesome harass force for only 10 food.
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On February 02 2011 05:41 Aequos wrote:
In a unit tester (not the most valid of sources) a Protoss deathball can be cost efficiently a-move countered by ~30 banelings, 2 ultras, a couple of queens, and some speedlings. Not sure how helpful this is, but the point is adding a bunch of queens can hurt the colossi/VR composition badly.
Check out that Queens are Awesome thread, they discuss this idea.
^That^, but it also comes with a double whammy:
IIRC, banelings have the highest cost: pop ratio, at 100 mins and 50 gas per population count. With 80 supply taken up by queens and drones, and with 8 ultras worth 48 supply (128 total), you can get 144 banelings. That's a lot. Each queen costs four banelings in pop, but that means that four queens and you can still have 128 banelings.
Similar topic is here. That's about smashing into terran balls more than protoss balls, but the same concept applies.
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Use corruptors to take out the VR/Colo combo. That's the real muscle to the toss ball 'o doom. Don't be shy about making "too many". Once you have him down to just gateway units he's fucked. You should reach max supply before your protoss villain does also. This leaves you in better position to reload quickly. While he may come out ahead in the initial engagement, all his power units should be dead too. You can remake 60 roaches a hell of a lot quicker than he can remake 6 colossi and 8 VRs.
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Don't mean to repeat what everyone's saying, but you really do need to go overkill on the corruptors. Corrupt everything and wipe out the expensive-and-long-build-time units. Easier said than done... but thats what you gotta do
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One thing to point out is that it's not only just about massing corruptors.
All protoss play differently and have different timings. I think what's more important is that zerg maintains CONSTANT SCOUTING after lair tech hits (with overseers and upgraded speed overlords). There are 'timing windows' that the protoss are vulnerable. If these timings aren't taken advantage of then the zerg will definitely be fighting a uphill battle when the toss took those risks earlier and now is at a 200/200 deathball.
For example, if you scout Robo Bay upgrading colossus range and you already have spire tech (due to scouting Robo facility) then you may hit a timing window where range isn't complete and you have a handful of corruptors. You may not kill him but if you lower his colossus/voidray count, then you lower his death ball effectiveness later in the game.
To further elaborate, the protoss deathball is not linear in gaining strength. As more colossus/voidrays are added into the toss' army, the less effective adding subsequent corruptors/units are to a zergs army (the toss' army's strength is almost exponential with each colossus addition). That's why the term 'critical mass' is used quite often. If you can find a timing to abuse/hit before this critical mass is reached (even if you lose a bunch of units) and you can lower his colossus/voidray count, then you're far better off in the later stages of the game where zerg macro is far more effective than protoss.
Also, it's important to note that the fight with the protoss deathball is not entirely dependent on army composition and macro. Position and point of engatement are equally important to the latter points because forcefields are so powerful. You do not want to engage in small corridors or tight spaces because that maximizes the damage of the protoss army and neuters the zerg's ability to swarm and get surface area.
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On February 02 2011 06:42 QTIP. wrote:
Don't mean to repeat what everyone's saying, but you really do need to go overkill on the corruptors. Corrupt everything and wipe out the expensive-and-long-build-time units. Easier said than done... but thats what you gotta do
Curious what people mean when they say "overkill" on corruptors. Say the deathball has 5 collosi and several VRs, how many corruptors are you going to suicide into it to take them out?
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On February 02 2011 07:04 Shadrak wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2011 06:42 QTIP. wrote:
Don't mean to repeat what everyone's saying, but you really do need to go overkill on the corruptors. Corrupt everything and wipe out the expensive-and-long-build-time units. Easier said than done... but thats what you gotta do Curious what people mean when they say "overkill" on corruptors. Say the deathball has 5 collosi and several VRs, how many corruptors are you going to suicide into it to take them out?
Probably around 16-20 corruptors. If after the engagement, there are still colossus and void rays left and you lost all your corruptors, you are doomed. You want to wipe out all colossus and void rays (have about maybe 3-5 corruptors left) and he will only have stalkers left. You are already gas starved from making corruptors so you will want to reload on roaches which will take care of the stalkers.
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On February 02 2011 05:36 willeesmalls wrote:
A protoss that spends money on void ray and colossus is giving you map control.
1) get econ advantage (gas)
2) overbuild corruptors
3) suicide corruptors into protoss army to kill void ray colossus
4) mass roach beats everything else.
5) morph leftover corruptors into broodlords when he turtles up again.
edit: also tl:dr. Jesus.
I agree with this post mostly. Use corruption though, don't be a lazy ass. Also, please please please... it isn't "all intensive purposes"... it is "all intents and purposes". Dates back to the 1500s!
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_the_saying_'all_intents_and_purposes'_or_'all_intense_purposes'
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ive seen some games where p is going deathball: colossi with air support and gateway units, zerg is going roach hydra but invests in banelings, ovie speed and drop. then its about flanking with overlords to drop banelings into the death ball while the protoss engages your roach hydra army. i believe it was sixjaxVibe that beat egInka with this strat in a clan match, cant find a rep atm sorry
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EPT
