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Ever since my promotion into diamond, I haven't been able to beat a solid Protoss player, strictly due to Colossus. They get 2-3 of these on the field and my roach/hydra ball is absolutely worthless. It's impossible to engage off of creep (toss will almost always have the advantage in that kind of situation) and playing a macro game with toss is not something that's too particularly wise just due to the fact that a 200/200 toss army is much more efficient than a 200/200 zerg one.
In this game, I honestly do not understand what fundamentally went wrong passed missed creep injections and creep spread. I didn't have the gas economy to support roach/hydra + corrupters, so I lost right when he got out those 2-3 Colossus. Here's the replay:
[url=http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=download&id=193183]![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-193183.jpg) [/url
Please help me out. I feel like there's something fundamentally wrong with my ZvP which is causing me to lose. If you could help me out with my timings, that'd be wonderful. Thanks in advanced!
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On March 02 2011 08:25 romelako wrote:
I didn't have the gas economy to support roach/hydra + corrupters, so I lost right when he got out those 2-3 Colossus.
i didn't watch the replay, but i assumed you would be able to support corruptors if you had more gas geysers. so make the gas economy happen :D
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Roaches (25) and hydras (50) are cheap on gas compared to stalkers (50), sentries (100), and colossi (200). How can you not support it?
Get more gas geysers.
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The short answer is that you need to get corruptors. To do this you need 6 gas at least. Your third was way too late, it could have easily been put down 4 minutes earlier. As a general rule I would get the third before you get hydras, but after you get roach and burrow (obviosly this changes if they go for early stargate play). The style I follow is outlined in this coaching session:
http://mrbitter.blip.tv/file/4484958/
Best of Luck.
EDIT: As a side note your main was heavily over-saturated for a very long time. If 6 drones had been transferred to your nat you would have had a relatively significant increase in minerals, and therefore a better timing on the third.
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Banelings are extremely underrated as a core army unit vs. protoss.
Banelings in mass are cost-efficient vs every ground unit in the game if it's in a ball. Here's a quick video of a standard death ball vs. gas/food cost of banelings.
http://www.youtube.com/user/michaelhasanalias?feature=mhum#p/a/u/2/3IYxtZDKkLQ
I don't have a video uploaded with FF's, but there are a few points to consider here as well:
1) You can't cut this army in half since all the damage dealers are in the back, and the zerglings just tank (and are 100% expendable).
2) You can't block the army because it will just retreat and hit again.
3) You can't micro away from speed banelings because the death ball is too slow.
4) Many of the new maps (and some of the old ones) have very wide engagement locations, and if you do engage, it will almost always be defensively. A death ball typically only engages upon max supply, and that will be toss's prime opportunity for attack.
5) As cheap and quick as lings are to reproduce, you can afford to send him a few waves to eat his forcefields. I don't care how good you are at spotting faux aggression, you're going to use FF against 50 lings.
6) Even if you are a boss at FF, it's still worth noting the cost efficiency of baneling vs. death ball, assuming you can engage.
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Banelings cease to become useful once the Protoss player has colossi. Or you'll overcommit on them and your main army won't be able to mop up what's left. The problem with banelings is that Protoss units have a relatively high HP/mineral ratio, which is kind of a soft counter to banelings.
That being said, baneling drops can be effective if you can get your overlords right over the ball without taking too many casualties.
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You made 2 big mistakes.
1. No corruptors
2. You chose to engange in the absolutely worst spot possible. That choke was so narrow and I can see that you realized this which is why you tried to move them out more. He probably got 4-5 free shots before you started attacking back.
Like everyone else said, banelings are the answer. However not ground banelings, baneling drops. They are mad good against protoss death balls. It can completely reverse the deathball and leave you with lots of units after the battle if done correctly. This is the worst case scenario for protoss. If you dont believe me, it is used by July in pro games as well there is a replay where someone wins against WhiteRa using it. I literally was in your position, making threads about countering protoss deathballs, until I tried baneling drops. Now I literally cant wait to engage protoss balls and see the reaction I get when they go O_O
To do it, the stalker will usually be in the front of the colossi, you want to start dropping right infront of the stalkers and towards the colossi. The stalkers will melt and the colossi will be severely damaged or may even get killed too. Colossi that survive are easy pickings for your corruptors or roaches.
My unit composition usually consists of 30 banelings in OL, 5-10 corruptors, 10-12 hydralisks, and rest roach. No lings because they are completely useless against colossi.
Another great thing is that if you make a bunch of lings at the beginning, and your opponent goes colossi, the lings aren't wasted because you can just use them for banelings.
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On March 02 2011 08:49 michaelhasanalias wrote:Banelings are extremely underrated as a core army unit vs. protoss. Banelings in mass are cost-efficient vs every ground unit in the game if it's in a ball. Here's a quick video of a standard death ball vs. gas/food cost of banelings. http://www.youtube.com/user/michaelhasanalias?feature=mhum#p/a/u/2/3IYxtZDKkLQI don't have a video uploaded with FF's, but there are a few points to consider here as well: 1) You can't cut this army in half since all the damage dealers are in the back, and the zerglings just tank (and are 100% expendable). 2) You can't block the army because it will just retreat and hit again. 3) You can't micro away from speed banelings because the death ball is too slow. 4) Many of the new maps (and some of the old ones) have very wide engagement locations, and if you do engage, it will almost always be defensively. A death ball typically only engages upon max supply, and that will be toss's prime opportunity for attack. 5) As cheap and quick as lings are to reproduce, you can afford to send him a few waves to eat his forcefields. I don't care how good you are at spotting faux aggression, you're going to use FF against 50 lings. 6) Even if you are a boss at FF, it's still worth noting the cost efficiency of baneling vs. death ball, assuming you can engage.
force fields?
also 50 lings is not affordable and it won't do shit to a ball with 4 colossus also noting that, who the hell would put down a force fields against suicide lings? if you're not maxed as P you sit in your base until you are. 50 lings won't do anything against a ball with 4 colossus, they'll do even less when that ball is protected by buildings.
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Banelings are cost effective against every protoss unit if they are able to hit at least 4 of them (Assuming they also damage a collosi in the case of stalkers). Personally, I play ZvP at the 3k diamond level without ever building a roach, hydra, or corruptor. Banelings destroy the core of 3 gate expand builds, zealots and sentries, and allow you to easily crush 6 gate aggression. Unless the protoss masses a large stalker + collosi army, you are pretty safe once mutas are out, and mutas allow you to deny his collosi production, so you are pretty safe in general. Storms obviously destroy this composition though.
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As zerg, you have a cheaper, more mobile army. That's your weakness and advantage. SO use it.
Cheaper: So trade armies as often as possible. It costs a protoss more to replenish armies. Obviously don't trade your entire army, have enough so that you can hold back further attacks with reinforcements. And then, go out and trade part of your army again.
Mobile: Harrass. This is a fundamental point to all races, but zerg mobility helps here. Speedlings, Mutas, Baneling drops on mineral link, burrowed roaches, Overseer contamination, anything you can do to harrass, you should do.
=)
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Too much passive play here IMO. Protoss is most dangerous when they approach the supply limit, zerg is weakest at that point. You want to try to force engagements in the middle, or even do more aggression, even if it is cost inefficient. Take your econ lead and trade it for fighting. Even if it's cost inefficient, as long as you can continuously contain the toss and keep his unit count lower, you are coming out ahead in the scheme of things, even if value wise you are coming behind.
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On March 02 2011 10:57 rapier7 wrote:
Banelings cease to become useful once the Protoss player has colossi. Or you'll overcommit on them and your main army won't be able to mop up what's left. The problem with banelings is that Protoss units have a relatively high HP/mineral ratio, which is kind of a soft counter to banelings.
That being said, baneling drops can be effective if you can get your overlords right over the ball without taking too many casualties.
I feel like this is a very uninformed post you made.
I think you're assuming that banelings would be the sole unit in the army, or that someone is going to send banelings one at a time to protoss units which will get hit one at a time. Only an idiot would just send only banelings without somethign (zerglings, ultralisks, even broodlords) to tank for them.
If banes can hit the ball, they will annihilate everything on the ground. There's not such a thing as overcommitting to banelings unless your opponent is mostly air or something ridiculous.
Army trading with banelings is of tremendous advantage to the zerg player, who can re-max far more quickly than his protoss opponent.
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Yeah it's always easy to give up stuff instead of learning how to beat it. You get corruptors vs. collossi. But most of all, you need to trade with him since you have your 3rd, which is around 70 food, in case you didn't know. It's not easy, since some naturals are easily defendable with ffs etc. I won't write here, what you should do, because there are different situations. Did you even check mrbitter's vods? Lots of useful stuff there. One thing I can say, relying on 6pool to 'win' you the game is a stupid and weak mindset. We play starcraft to have long, satysfying matches, after which we feel that we actually played.
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I'll try to advise as a Protoss player.
If I lose an initial push like the player did it is normally GG. You gained an advantage at 9:00 and didn't exploit it enough in my opinion. You could have expanded, teched up or both after killing the initial push. You are in absolutely no danger for a very long time if a push like that dies. Throwing away lings without roach support at 9:50 was stupid.
You also engaged the second time with protoss army at 14:32 a bad time at and this is what lost you the game.There was no reason to attack protoss army head on at this point - just try and deny his 3rd expo. You also micro'd badly in that battle and did almost no damage. It seems like you attacked when Protoss was taking his third. You should either try to force a cancel with roaches or wait for it to go up then snipe with roaches. Maybe try to distract protoss army with drops / nydus and use that as opportunity to snipe the nexus.
The more I look at this map, the more I think it is protoss favoured in the late game. So easy to take and defend 3rd while rush distance to entrance of your opponents natural is so short. If I get collossus plus FF into that natural Zerg is screwed. Maybe you should rethink roach hydra on this map given narrow chokes. Mutas would be able to abuse cliffs a lot better.
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On March 02 2011 12:24 andrewwiggin wrote:
As zerg, you have a cheaper, more mobile army. That's your weakness and advantage. SO use it.
Cheaper: So trade armies as often as possible. It costs a protoss more to replenish armies. Obviously don't trade your entire army, have enough so that you can hold back further attacks with reinforcements. And then, go out and trade part of your army again.
Mobile: Harrass. This is a fundamental point to all races, but zerg mobility helps here. Speedlings, Mutas, Baneling drops on mineral link, burrowed roaches, Overseer contamination, anything you can do to harrass, you should do.
=)
+1
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Baneling drop his mineral lines and Contaminate his Robotics Facilties.
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EPT
