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On March 21 2011 09:06 KevinIX wrote:
Hmm. Good writeup. But spreading your army out will just force a protoss to go into a base trade.
edit: I take that back. If you hit at a good timing before the 3rd has kicked in, the death ball isn't big enough to crush through the entire Zerg base. I might have to think about this.
What makes you say this? If the protoss is losing his base, and you're equal to him, once you take out most of his stuff, you can just re-rally and attack from behind while engaging with reinforcements from your hatches at the front, and smash him from both sides.
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i saw that epizode with iNControl, those 2 prone attacks really messed up the tosses flow
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On March 21 2011 09:05 iChau wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2011 08:01 MrBitter wrote:On March 21 2011 07:57 iChau wrote:On March 21 2011 07:51 Moja wrote:
One thing to emphasize is how incredibly strong and cheap drop tech + OL speed is for zerg... Well, I wouldn't say strong. I would... My post was vague lol. Well, when I said that it wasn't strong, I meant that it's not as good as terran drops. One thing I'm talking about is that you can snipe A LOT faster with marauders than with roaches. Another is that they're incredibly mobile compared to zerg drops. Zerg drops are still good, but if they get caught, there's a very high chance that you have to drop where you're currently at because a) protoss has blink stalkers b) protoss has phoenixes/void rays for deathball. Those air units and blink stalkers can easily snipe drops if scouted. I would say "One thing to ephasize is how incredibly strong OL drops in the main combined with the basic ground army attacking anywhere else." If the drop makes it, it's incredibly strong, but another thing to factor is that there's a lot of chokes inside a protoss base because of buildings require pylons (this is why you see buildings spread out within a toss base). If the zerg is caught just when he's about to drop, but the zerg is not at an optimal spot and instead gets choked between buildings, they'll DIE from colossi splash. The void rays/phoenies will clear everything else out. Even if a terran's medivacs die, the MM can just run around and play ring around the rosy, which roaches, and especially hydras, cannot do.
There is one big difference between Zerg drops and Terran drops though. Terran drops are very self sustaining and efficient harass units. 1 medivac+marines is far more potent than a group of ling/roach. But the strength of the Zerg drop is that at any moment, there are a dozen overlords available to doom drop. Fly in 6 overlords, and your opponent is forced to pull his entire army back whether your overlords are all full or if there's only a half dozen lings in there.
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For anyone who hasn't seen it, be sure to check out the replay pack at the bottom of the post. Some really nice examples, imo, of what I'm trying to preach.
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Unfortunately zerg doesn't have medivac+rines/rauders for truly awesome pwn drops.
But yeah otherwise, you can't attack the deathball at all. This is why mutas are so strong vs. toss when you don't get 6 gate all ined.
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On March 21 2011 09:19 KevinIX wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2011 09:05 iChau wrote:On March 21 2011 08:01 MrBitter wrote:On March 21 2011 07:57 iChau wrote:On March 21 2011 07:51 Moja wrote:
One thing to emphasize is how incredibly strong and cheap drop tech + OL speed is for zerg... Well, I wouldn't say strong. I would... My post was vague lol. Well, when I said that it wasn't strong, I meant that it's not as good as terran drops. One thing I'm talking about is that you can snipe A LOT faster with marauders than with roaches. Another is that they're incredibly mobile compared to zerg drops. Zerg drops are still good, but if they get caught, there's a very high chance that you have to drop where you're currently at because a) protoss has blink stalkers b) protoss has phoenixes/void rays for deathball. Those air units and blink stalkers can easily snipe drops if scouted. I would say "One thing to ephasize is how incredibly strong OL drops in the main combined with the basic ground army attacking anywhere else." If the drop makes it, it's incredibly strong, but another thing to factor is that there's a lot of chokes inside a protoss base because of buildings require pylons (this is why you see buildings spread out within a toss base). If the zerg is caught just when he's about to drop, but the zerg is not at an optimal spot and instead gets choked between buildings, they'll DIE from colossi splash. The void rays/phoenies will clear everything else out. Even if a terran's medivacs die, the MM can just run around and play ring around the rosy, which roaches, and especially hydras, cannot do. There is one big difference between Zerg drops and Terran drops though. Terran drops are very self sustaining and efficient harass units. 1 medivac+marines is far more potent than a group of ling/roach. But the strength of the Zerg drop is that at any moment, there are a dozen overlords available to doom drop. Fly in 6 overlords, and your opponent is forced to pull his entire army back whether your overlords are all full or if there's only a half dozen lings in there.
Oh, I never thought about that. It only works for like 20 seconds though, right, because in that 20 seconds if there's 6 overlords on top of your buildings that doesn't do anything, it'll get suspicious. I do see the army pulling back thing though, that's quite clever.
I think the "bad" part of that is those overlords are all gonna die, and that's a lot of supply. Thanks.
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On March 21 2011 09:37 iChau wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2011 09:19 KevinIX wrote:On March 21 2011 09:05 iChau wrote:On March 21 2011 08:01 MrBitter wrote:On March 21 2011 07:57 iChau wrote:On March 21 2011 07:51 Moja wrote:
One thing to emphasize is how incredibly strong and cheap drop tech + OL speed is for zerg... Well, I wouldn't say strong. I would... My post was vague lol. Well, when I said that it wasn't strong, I meant that it's not as good as terran drops. One thing I'm talking about is that you can snipe A LOT faster with marauders than with roaches. Another is that they're incredibly mobile compared to zerg drops. Zerg drops are still good, but if they get caught, there's a very high chance that you have to drop where you're currently at because a) protoss has blink stalkers b) protoss has phoenixes/void rays for deathball. Those air units and blink stalkers can easily snipe drops if scouted. I would say "One thing to ephasize is how incredibly strong OL drops in the main combined with the basic ground army attacking anywhere else." If the drop makes it, it's incredibly strong, but another thing to factor is that there's a lot of chokes inside a protoss base because of buildings require pylons (this is why you see buildings spread out within a toss base). If the zerg is caught just when he's about to drop, but the zerg is not at an optimal spot and instead gets choked between buildings, they'll DIE from colossi splash. The void rays/phoenies will clear everything else out. Even if a terran's medivacs die, the MM can just run around and play ring around the rosy, which roaches, and especially hydras, cannot do. There is one big difference between Zerg drops and Terran drops though. Terran drops are very self sustaining and efficient harass units. 1 medivac+marines is far more potent than a group of ling/roach. But the strength of the Zerg drop is that at any moment, there are a dozen overlords available to doom drop. Fly in 6 overlords, and your opponent is forced to pull his entire army back whether your overlords are all full or if there's only a half dozen lings in there. Oh, I never thought about that. It only works for like 20 seconds though, right, because in that 20 seconds if there's 6 overlords on top of your buildings that doesn't do anything, it'll get suspicious. I do see the army pulling back thing though, that's quite clever. I think the "bad" part of that is those overlords are all gonna die, and that's a lot of supply. Thanks.
This is actually something TLO has talked about before.
If you show Toss that you have drop, you can threaten him with it with empty overlords, and it forces him to respond.
Conversely, if you fake drop a couple times, and then Protoss starts to think you're crying wolf, you can really devastate him with a real drop when you finally see he's out of position.
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On March 21 2011 09:37 dave333 wrote:
Unfortunately zerg doesn't have medivac+rines/rauders for truly awesome pwn drops.
But yeah otherwise, you can't attack the deathball at all. This is why mutas are so strong vs. toss when you don't get 6 gate all ined.
Kevin just responded to me, look at the above post. I really don't know if sacrificing 6 overlords is a good idea, but as soon as I see that, I would move my whole army back which allows the zerg to destroy my front/3rd.
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Great post. This is probably how Z will evolve against P. I have been telling my Z friends that the best way to beat Toss is to just deny their 3rd. If any one saw Ret play Incontrol in the GCPL. He constantly denied the Protoss third with roaches and kept him contained on 2. This snowballed quickly and InControl got crushed 2 bases against 5. InControl actually plays a far more mobile style of deathball by relying on more stalkers with his colossi and no voidrays but was unable to stop this well executed strat.
Protoss units, despite their reputation, are horribly cost inefficient in small numbers and when scrambling around the place. Their excellent supply efficiency and great synergy is what makes them almost unstoppable at max.
As Protoss I find the Roach, the Speedling and the Baneling disgustingly cost-efficient when compared to Protoss T1 units but they are not supply efficient at all.
This eventually comes down to multitasking on both sides and creates a dynamic battle between micro, multitasking and map awareness.
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Yep I saw your video with InControl on the two pronged attack...its really annoying esp at xel naga...burrowed roaches with claws are really a necessity now in ZVP. Keep up the posts man, you're really helping guys like me vs. toss.
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Hey Mr.Bitter. Just for future noting, it would be great if you could stick dates on your strategy blog posts just so we can tell how timely relevant they are  Thanks!
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I remember watching your show with Incontrol last week where you used lots of multi pronged attacks to great effect. Especially cool was using burrow to hide some of your forces to extend the effectiveness of the attack.
What are good times to get the drop research? I remember from your episode with Idra he suggested getting overlord speed soon after lair; in this case would you get drop after that finishes? While it's researching? etc?
I think multi-pronged attacks are great, it's just sometimes it seems difficult to find the resources to fit drop tech or nydus worm, or to get units early to open the back rocks (like on shattered temple) into the build. Would be great to hear more about this either here or on your show.
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My only problem with this is my multi tasking is HORRIBLE. However, if I can beef up my APM efficiency I can see this fixing my ZvP conundrum.
Never really thought of drop. However, what's your opinion on Roach Burrow Move? Sending ovie drops or nydus into their bases, and then sending burrowed roaches when they move their obs and army to the nat to their main and unburrowing to kill all their crap and sending some Ovies to pick them up. Or is that getting too fancy and luck based?
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The only question I have is what if the Protoss is being attacked from multiple angles like you said and just says fuck it, and goes for a bace race. Sure you would do damage but 10-20 roaches and or hydras against a full deathball or semi deathball (2 base) it would be nearly impossible unless you pull back as well.
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On March 21 2011 10:54 Terminator(471) wrote:
The only question I have is what if the Protoss is being attacked from multiple angles like you said and just says fuck it, and goes for a bace race. Sure you would do damage but 10-20 roaches and or hydras against a full deathball or semi deathball (2 base) it would be nearly impossible unless you pull back as well.
Let's assume this then. You kill all of their probes and production capability easily before they reach your base (especially if you're dropping +2 banes, which one shot probes). Now they are all in. You are not. All you have to do is DEFEND. Throw up 20+ spines, bring a shit ton of drones and queens and just attack them from behind with your harassing army and the front with the rest. Even if you lose 50+ drones, you'll still have the capability to macro up dozens more afterward and they will be screwed.
Besides, not many people will base their games on a base trade.
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On March 21 2011 08:50 kcdc wrote:
Yep. Really, it comes down to the sentry. Sentries are awesome in big fights where they completely obliterate enemy concaves, but if Z splits forces, the sentries become a liability. They're too slow to respond quickly, their spells are less powerful at smaller army sizes, and forcefielding well requires 100% focus, so you can't get good, timely forcefields at both fronts. By splitting forces, Z turns P's most powerful unit into a low health, low DPS 100 gas liability.
im pretty sure you CAN get good forcefields at two different places, i honestly dont know why you would think otherwise, it just takes a little practice im sure. but the main thing is, you only need to forcefield one spot completely off and then rape the other prong of the attack.
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definly try this out, been doing 3rr for awhile agiast toss cause i can beat their tier 3, just worryed about base tradeing
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iNfeRnaL
Germany1908 Posts
On March 21 2011 11:03 Warrice wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2011 08:50 kcdc wrote:
Yep. Really, it comes down to the sentry. Sentries are awesome in big fights where they completely obliterate enemy concaves, but if Z splits forces, the sentries become a liability. They're too slow to respond quickly, their spells are less powerful at smaller army sizes, and forcefielding well requires 100% focus, so you can't get good, timely forcefields at both fronts. By splitting forces, Z turns P's most powerful unit into a low health, low DPS 100 gas liability. im pretty sure you CAN get good forcefields at two different places, i honestly dont know why you would think otherwise, it just takes a little practice im sure. but the main thing is, you only need to forcefield one spot completely off and then rape the other prong of the attack.
You're assuming the ideal stiuation here where you can actually completely forcefield off one spot.
Usually a good Zerg would not less this happen, either he will drop your natural first and force you to pull units there (which is usually quite a bit away if you are about to take a third) AND keep in mind a good player will react when he see's the overlord and not when he see's wtf the zerg has unloaded out of this overlords [means you have no fucking time to decide which units you leave behind or not, mostly you'll be rushing there with most of your force even], which means either your units are away, out of position OR they aren't and your natural gets owned.
Make a decision.
And exactly that's the point of it!
You force the protoss to make a decision that is NEVER favorable for him if you do it right.
And this doesn't even take into account that what is described so easily by you "just ff off one spot and clear out the rest" takes actually a lot more speed, precision and micro in this situation by the protoss than MOST people do have - where as the zerg "simply" has to attack one side and do a drop on the other one.
Yet again, if the Protoss just keeps all his sentrys at front and takes the time to lock you out there your natural might already be gone in the meantime.
I'm not trying to say its unbeatable either for protoss, don't get me wrong, if you have blinkstalkers and spot a drop it can very well end up as a freaking desaster for the Zerg as well.
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In my opinion, the biggest weakness of doing this kind of thing is getting to a point int he game where you can: ie: Not dying before you get your own 3 base economy rolling. (Which is when I like to add drop)
This kind of later mid-game style obviously isn't going to save you from a 4 gate or a 6 gate, or from any kind of 1 or 2 base all-in...
Like I said in the article, that's one of the primary difficulties of ZvP in general, and its not one that I think anyone has a good answer to.
That said, if you can put yourself into a position where you CAN start to really amp up the multi-prong harass, I think ZvP becomes a much more manageable matchup, albeit still quite hard when it comes time to fight the deathball.
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This is exactly how I play TvP, drop and split up the protoss army as much as possible.
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EPT
