EPTThe Strength of Multi-Pronged Attacks in ZvP - Page 3
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Tachion
Canada8573 Posts
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MrBitter
United States2940 Posts
On March 21 2011 11:25 Tachion wrote: Is there a specific numerical split that you've found to be the most beneficial? As in, attack with 80% of your force at one expo and drop say 20% of the rest in their main, or split it up 50/50 etc. without getting too complicated with a 3 pronged split yet :o(but feel free to elaborate on it if you can!) This is kinda' my philosophy. Different players might have different approaches: Your first attack is never the main attack, but it always has to be big enough to force toss to react to it resoundingly. Your second attack is what's meant to do damage, and it has to be big enough to do that. If its far enough away from the army, though, as few as 12-16 roaches can really wreck a probe line, or a tech tree. Sniping robos can be far more devastating than Nexuses sometimes. IF there's a 3rd or 4th prong, it should be small, so as not to occupy too much of your supply, but significant enough to mulch probes. 8-16 lings, for example, can totally devastate mineral lines. | ||
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iNfeRnaL
Germany1908 Posts
On March 21 2011 11:19 MrBitter wrote: 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. Spinecrawlers > gateway units. Of course there's not point in having 20 spines at your natural and p just takes a third, I'm just saying, the more sentry he has the better you'll do if you have a reasonable amount (5+++) spinecrawlers up already... Going pure units against it always makes me facepalm + Show Spoiler + As you can guess I did facepalm quite a bit yesterday. | ||
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Alphasquad
Austria505 Posts
Roaches might look as a powerful unit first as they are really cheap and got some range but in my opinion they arent really useful in early game stages. The reason is that every 5 roaches you need an overlord which is quite a big investment early compared to 20 lings you could get for the same supply and the big advantage of mobility. Hydras are the unit ill never build anymore not even against air and rather get more queens or spore crawlers followed by a spire. Corruptors are actually a good choice in almost any situation vs protoss as they are able to hit air and colossi. I think we already had plenty of examples where the roach/hydra/corruptor army fails. The reason are high costs for relatively low damage - roaches have short range and slow rate of fire, hydras are expensive and die fast. While i've also seen examples where a protoss switched to immortal/templar from a coloss build the zerg has to constantly reinvest into new armies that will deny hive in most cases It takes quite long to get enough roaches and hydras as well as getting all their upgrades and during this period the protoss gets out the colossi and you are forced to make corruptors and then the situation or lets better say the deadly wheel of wasting resources for low effectivity will begin as i mentioned above The real problem, as stated already is the forcefield. None of the Zerg ground forces will be able to reach colossi behind them and only your corruptors will do their damage but due to stalkers not dying quickly to your ranged attackes they will pick off corruptors - to sum it up im convinced that this is not the correct way to play against protoss The new approaches with building ling/bling as the backbone of your army has several advantages. As it requires way less supply you will need less overlords which is a huge advantage in the early game. Speedlings are your fastest and most versatile unit, banelings your only unit with area damage until you get ultras. Back to the forcefields its obvious that melee units have the hardest time to reach the protoss army BUT for just 300/300 you will be able to avoid forcefields and increase your damage output by far - just compare these 300/300 and those resources of ling/bling including upgrades with costs for roaches, hydras and corruptors and their upgrades - in the end you have a good chance to cause more damage with less resources! Another less obvious advantage is that these resource savings will completely accelerate your play and provide a lot of flexibility. With the leftover resources you can do anything - first of all you can get more expansions earlier. The core of ling/bling can be combined with everything. With spire for example you can either get mutas for harassment or corruptors to kill colossi (if the colossi are destroyed the protoss army has no real hard counters for the ling/bling combo). The last option is teching for hive and get ultras. I highly doubt there will be a way which is as fast and provides the same safety - ling/bling and ultras are awesome (if the protoss goes air or goes HT i hope its obvious that you have to play different but im referring to the most standard protoss strategy) In a summary going ling/bling and droptech will dramatically reduce the effectivity of forcefields, sharply increase your harassment options and offers a high degree of strategical flexibility; back to the basic idea of the topic if you use lings with bane drops from different angles there is a high chance of protoss self-trapping and maximizing the damage output. | ||
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Gator
United States3432 Posts
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[MLG]GCA
United States90 Posts
In all seriousness though, I feel like drop play is the most underutilized tool in the ZvP aresenal right now, and ZvT to an extent as well. When I off with Zerg I'm guilty of this as well, but instead I usually go for heavy Roach plays to aggressively shut down the Protoss 3rd. As a Protoss player, I know how difficult (impossible) it is to get that yummy ball o' death without 6-8 gas. For the time being, I think mass Lair is the way to win with Zerg, and smashing a ball of Lair units into a ball of Coll/Sentry/Stalker is rarely going to work in Zerg's favor, even if you have 4k/2k and 80 larva ready. The Zerg opponents that give me the most trouble are very active with several groups of units, creeping and burrowing at expansions I'm looking to take, shutting down my 3rd and countering my main/nat with drops while expanding all over the map. Roach/Ling is very cheap, expendable and quickly replaced, and you can max out much faster than the Protoss. Hitting at multiple locations as you reach this max is so difficult to deal with while you're going for the Collosus deathball, especially if you are able to snipe key tech structures (Support Bay, Twilight Council, Robos, etc). | ||
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denzelz
United States604 Posts
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denzelz
United States604 Posts
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iNfeRnaL
Germany1908 Posts
On March 21 2011 13:04 denzelz wrote: I think what Zerg needs is a good double evo ling/muta build that is designed specifically to counter the zealot/sentry 3 gate expo. Right now, going Roach into Hydra/Corrupters just feels really immobile. Like MrBitter said, this is a very immobile army that doesn't do enough damage quickly enough to dodge in and out of battles. Ugh, you know that until some time ago (read: before phoenix buff) mass muta was actually one of the most used strategies in ZvP, right? And a "timing attack" as you've described it - even with double evo - is not going to happen, I just forcefield my ramp and fight your mutas with Blinkstalkers/Sentry only, that's the problem about it. The only way you make mutalisks work is by playing defensive, upgrade them and eventually get a number that is high enough to rape everything. | ||
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Maynarde
Australia1286 Posts
On March 21 2011 13:04 denzelz wrote: Oops double post. Just to add to my point, I think drop play works well on certain maps but is difficult to do on maps like Xel Naga where you are much more likely to lose all of your army without doing much damage. Why are you more likely to lose your whole army on Xel'Naga? If the Protoss blob is in the center of the map a base drop would be awesome. Might be a scrub question, not trying to argue I just genuinely want to know. | ||
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denzelz
United States604 Posts
On March 21 2011 13:18 iNfeRnaL wrote: Ugh, you know that until some time ago (read: before phoenix buff) mass muta was actually one of the most used strategies in ZvP, right? And a "timing attack" as you've described it - even with double evo - is not going to happen, I just forcefield my ramp and fight your mutas with Blinkstalkers/Sentry only, that's the problem about it. The only way you make mutalisks work is by playing defensive, upgrade them and eventually get a number that is high enough to rape everything. Well the idea behind muta/ling against 3 gate expo is to stop that first attack from Protoss while harassing with mutas and preventing the P's 3rd base. The lings are only meant to defeat the P's army if P decides to move out. Most of the damage is dealt by the mutas. The point of the mutas is to kill probes and snipe sentries. You expand heavily and keep adding muta numbers. Again, this doesn't work at all against Stargate openings which is why I said it was only used to counter 3 gate expos. When I scout Stargate, I have to fall back to Roach/Corrupter. But, for the sake for not derailing this thread, the reason why I think some maps are better for drops than others is that maps like Xel Naga can intercept drops easier because it is narrow. Unlike a map like Metalopolis or Scrap Station where your overlords can escape really easily, your drops are a little more committed on Xel Naga. Also, I was wondering what the Zerg's plan is if the Protoss decides to just push into your base when you are dropping in 3 places. | ||
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iNfeRnaL
Germany1908 Posts
Possibly with Banelings added to that mix, yea, but if P hits his timing window you're in a shitload of trouble, because at this point P will simply ignore the fact that you're destroying his main nexus for example cause he knows you can't really stop him from killing you. However, mutalisks are still underused in ZvP nowadays, because that muta ball still beats anything else but pure stalker/sentry. In fact most people do not even know that Mutalisks shitfucking rape Void Rays, means this usual Protoss deathball with mass colo, 10 void rays and about 15 stalkers dies pretty easily to 30++ mutalisks actually  Obviously once Protoss mixes in a lot of Phoenix it doesn't anymore without corruptors.  | ||
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MrBitter
United States2940 Posts
This multi-prong stuff I'm talking about doesn't have to be roach-specific. You can do it with lings and banes, roaches and hydras, or even mutas and lings. Its basically just positioning 101. | ||
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Alphasquad
Austria505 Posts
(2nd time i tried this strategy and i dont even think i played pretty well which is almost scary considering this strategy in the hands of a really good player) http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=197202 | ||
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kcdc
United States2311 Posts
On March 21 2011 11:03 Warrice wrote: 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. There's a difference between good forcefields and forcefields that are good enough to keep you alive. For example, consider forcefielding against roaches. Roaches are going to be cost effective against P if they can get in close. In order to hold a roach attack efficiently, P wants to let about 20-50% of the roaches through a choke and then forcefield the rest away. The window where you can chop off the amount of roaches you want to fight lasts about 1 second. Sure, if you miss that second and let the roaches in closer, you can create a wall of 8 forcefields next to your army and then back away creating a similar situation, but you've spent more forcefields and you've taken a lot of extra damage. If a good Protoss player is focusing on one attack front, he'll hit great forcefields that chop the perfect amount of units off every time. But if Z attacks 2 fronts at once, P might get great forcefields at one of the locations, but there's no way he'll forcefield optimally even if, somehow, he has split and positioned his army perfectly. Fighting on multiple fronts simply favors Z, even if P knows what's coming. | ||
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Jotoco
Brazil1342 Posts
Bandwidth Limit Exceeded The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later. | ||
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Glueburn
United States496 Posts
On March 22 2011 01:48 Jotoco wrote: Mr. Bitter, your link: Bandwidth Limit Exceeded The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later. I guess the server couldn't handle the awesomeness that is TL crowd. I suppose MrBitter is getting too popular, but that is for the best, as he is a great guy. | ||
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MrBitter
United States2940 Posts
On March 22 2011 01:48 Jotoco wrote: Mr. Bitter, your link: Bandwidth Limit Exceeded The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later. Oh noes. Time to bust heads and yell at web-people. | ||
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Jotoco
Brazil1342 Posts
On March 22 2011 01:54 CampinSam wrote: I guess the server couldn't handle the awesomeness that is TL crowd. I suppose MrBitter is getting too popular, but that is for the best, as he is a great guy. Nah. I think he is too bitter. (Bah-dun-tish!) I want to comment on something, but I first need to read the whole text. Sad I can't. | ||
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MrBitter
United States2940 Posts
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