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[Q] how to counter Mass immortal/archon as zerg ? - Page 2

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
Post a Reply
Prev 1 2 All
RoseTempest
Profile Joined May 2010
Canada196 Posts
May 07 2011 00:10 GMT
#21
On May 07 2011 08:55 jojoleb wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 07 2011 08:26 NiiTHrA wrote:
a better question is why did you let him get archon AND immortals? Overlord drops of lings [just a few.] You should have a lot of expansions always threaten counter attacks if he pushes out and tech to whatever you want. Hydra would be good vs this but the point is that he's got a very immobile army you should abuse this by just destroying him by getting 3 more bases than he has and abusing the lack of pressure he can do with droning.

did you even watch the replay ?? thats what i did !
i FG his probes(killed at least 20) . harrassed, denied 3rd twice etc..


I watched the replay, wrong, wrong, and wrong again.

He was ahead in probes, tech, structures, units until 10 minutes in, bad saturation up until 12 minutes. You don't make a single attempt at harassment/attacking until 17:20 into the game. Thats almost 18 minutes where you sit on your ass and occasionally make some low tier units.

1. Bad scouting, you don't attempt to see what he's doing after the initial overlord scout, thus leaving you massively unprepared. You don't even scout his army comp until it's too late.

2. Bad unit composition, your army, until 19:15 consists of ONLY roaches and lings. Against a zealot, archon immortal army. You had the hydra den down, but just didn't make anything.

3. Bad reactions, while you saw (or didn't see) that he wasn't going to attack anytime soon, you didn't mass expand, nor did you tech up to something that could break him, NOR did you make a more efficient army composition.

In regards to your argument that you harassed etc.

1. You fungaled his probes at... 27 minutes into the game, in which he had already built up his deathball, and was in the middle of killing your natural, 2nd, 3rd and 4th expansions. The 2nd time you fungaled was after you had no income and were down by 60 supply.

2. Harassment at 17 minutes by sending your entire army to die, really isn't harassment.

3. The first time you denied his third, you suicided your entire army into his, lost your supply lead. The second time you denied it, he KILLED your third. That isn't harassment.

tl;dr

sloppy play, you had the illusion that you were in the lead/ahead, you didn't take the map, nothing until 17 minutes, no effective harassment until 27 minutes, bad reactions, bad composition, bad scouting, bad macro/game sense etc.
BlindSC2
Profile Joined January 2011
United Kingdom435 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-07 00:21:32
May 07 2011 00:10 GMT
#22
Muta-ling then going to broodlords on 4 or so bases would be the best

Dont engage his army unless hes at your doorstep and you have to, harrass him instead. Deny his expansions with the lings and constantly pick off probes or outlying pylons with mutas. Archons are fat and have a hard time moving around the base, especially considering their pitiful range, and immortals are obviously bad versus both lings and mutas

If you have to engage head on, magic boxing the mutas is the most important thing

Once to broodlords it should be in the bag since he cant save the gas for stargate unless he totally stops templar production and blink stalkers will get demolished by the lings in the small numbers he will be able to get out. Just remember to spend any excess minerals on spore and spines at your expos since a DT attack will be likely given the tech route he went

Coming from a protoss who favours the mass gate style with 1 robo for obs
Wise men speak because they have something to say, fools; because they have to say something - Plato
JKira
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
Canada1002 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-07 00:13:27
May 07 2011 00:13 GMT
#23
All sorts of zerg unit combinations will work against this. Off the top of my head I can think of muta/ling, hydra/ling, infestor/ling, something gas heavy with lings should be fine.

The problem is if he mixes in some HT's in his army. Then it gets a little harder and good micro will be needed to bait storms or good fungals on HT.
mousez
Profile Joined March 2011
Australia94 Posts
May 07 2011 00:16 GMT
#24
hydras and fungal kills archons easily as they are outranged
gday
emc
Profile Joined September 2010
United States3088 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-07 00:28:50
May 07 2011 00:27 GMT
#25
fungal growth, mutalisks, hydralisks, zerglings are all good. pure zerglings aren't the best against archons, mass hydras with infestor support and lings as a mineral dump is a much better choice.
jojoleb
Profile Joined April 2010
Lebanon180 Posts
May 07 2011 00:29 GMT
#26
On May 07 2011 09:10 RoseTempest wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 07 2011 08:55 jojoleb wrote:
On May 07 2011 08:26 NiiTHrA wrote:
a better question is why did you let him get archon AND immortals? Overlord drops of lings [just a few.] You should have a lot of expansions always threaten counter attacks if he pushes out and tech to whatever you want. Hydra would be good vs this but the point is that he's got a very immobile army you should abuse this by just destroying him by getting 3 more bases than he has and abusing the lack of pressure he can do with droning.

did you even watch the replay ?? thats what i did !
i FG his probes(killed at least 20) . harrassed, denied 3rd twice etc..


I watched the replay, wrong, wrong, and wrong again.

He was ahead in probes, tech, structures, units until 10 minutes in, bad saturation up until 12 minutes. You don't make a single attempt at harassment/attacking until 17:20 into the game. Thats almost 18 minutes where you sit on your ass and occasionally make some low tier units.

1. Bad scouting, you don't attempt to see what he's doing after the initial overlord scout, thus leaving you massively unprepared. You don't even scout his army comp until it's too late.

2. Bad unit composition, your army, until 19:15 consists of ONLY roaches and lings. Against a zealot, archon immortal army. You had the hydra den down, but just didn't make anything.

3. Bad reactions, while you saw (or didn't see) that he wasn't going to attack anytime soon, you didn't mass expand, nor did you tech up to something that could break him, NOR did you make a more efficient army composition.

In regards to your argument that you harassed etc.

1. You fungaled his probes at... 27 minutes into the game, in which he had already built up his deathball, and was in the middle of killing your natural, 2nd, 3rd and 4th expansions. The 2nd time you fungaled was after you had no income and were down by 60 supply.

2. Harassment at 17 minutes by sending your entire army to die, really isn't harassment.

3. The first time you denied his third, you suicided your entire army into his, lost your supply lead. The second time you denied it, he KILLED your third. That isn't harassment.

tl;dr

sloppy play, you had the illusion that you were in the lead/ahead, you didn't take the map, nothing until 17 minutes, no effective harassment until 27 minutes, bad reactions, bad composition, bad scouting, bad macro/game sense etc.


Yes 100% i agree with what you said. i kinda figured that out when i watched the replay. BUT how i'm a supposed to tech to brood lords when he's got a huge death ball( teching to broodsloard requires me to bank to some money that means i will have less army then him). this would leave me vulnerable for 5-10 minutes at least !!
thanks for the advice though !! really appreciate it !
Amui
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Canada10567 Posts
May 07 2011 00:39 GMT
#27
If you are scared to pool resources for a new tech, how do you get mutalisks? Do you make a spire and make muta's one at a time when it pops? Zerg pools money for new techs to get a lot of it at once. You WILL need a hive for upgrades by 18-20 minutes at the latest. You should already have a spire by that point in time. Part of playing zerg is knowing when the opponent is unable or unwilling to move out. You say that teching to broods is going to leave you vulnerable, but in reality it is only going to be for 2 minutes. Take the map, the time it takes for him to deny one of your expo's is your window to counter attack somewhere else, and tech to broodlords.

As a zerg you cannot think to yourself, I see his army and I need to be able to beat it as it stands. You need to think to yourself, how much army do I need so that whatever army I have + whatever I can make in the 40s it takes for him to get to my base can beat his.
Porouscloud - NA LoL
RoseTempest
Profile Joined May 2010
Canada196 Posts
May 07 2011 01:44 GMT
#28
On May 07 2011 09:29 jojoleb wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 07 2011 09:10 RoseTempest wrote:
On May 07 2011 08:55 jojoleb wrote:
On May 07 2011 08:26 NiiTHrA wrote:
a better question is why did you let him get archon AND immortals? Overlord drops of lings [just a few.] You should have a lot of expansions always threaten counter attacks if he pushes out and tech to whatever you want. Hydra would be good vs this but the point is that he's got a very immobile army you should abuse this by just destroying him by getting 3 more bases than he has and abusing the lack of pressure he can do with droning.

did you even watch the replay ?? thats what i did !
i FG his probes(killed at least 20) . harrassed, denied 3rd twice etc..


I watched the replay, wrong, wrong, and wrong again.

He was ahead in probes, tech, structures, units until 10 minutes in, bad saturation up until 12 minutes. You don't make a single attempt at harassment/attacking until 17:20 into the game. Thats almost 18 minutes where you sit on your ass and occasionally make some low tier units.

1. Bad scouting, you don't attempt to see what he's doing after the initial overlord scout, thus leaving you massively unprepared. You don't even scout his army comp until it's too late.

2. Bad unit composition, your army, until 19:15 consists of ONLY roaches and lings. Against a zealot, archon immortal army. You had the hydra den down, but just didn't make anything.

3. Bad reactions, while you saw (or didn't see) that he wasn't going to attack anytime soon, you didn't mass expand, nor did you tech up to something that could break him, NOR did you make a more efficient army composition.

In regards to your argument that you harassed etc.

1. You fungaled his probes at... 27 minutes into the game, in which he had already built up his deathball, and was in the middle of killing your natural, 2nd, 3rd and 4th expansions. The 2nd time you fungaled was after you had no income and were down by 60 supply.

2. Harassment at 17 minutes by sending your entire army to die, really isn't harassment.

3. The first time you denied his third, you suicided your entire army into his, lost your supply lead. The second time you denied it, he KILLED your third. That isn't harassment.

tl;dr

sloppy play, you had the illusion that you were in the lead/ahead, you didn't take the map, nothing until 17 minutes, no effective harassment until 27 minutes, bad reactions, bad composition, bad scouting, bad macro/game sense etc.


Yes 100% i agree with what you said. i kinda figured that out when i watched the replay. BUT how i'm a supposed to tech to brood lords when he's got a huge death ball( teching to broodsloard requires me to bank to some money that means i will have less army then him). this would leave me vulnerable for 5-10 minutes at least !!
thanks for the advice though !! really appreciate it !


I'm glad you can take advice well =]

I'm out at the moment but i'll give you some in-depth advice/tips when I get back later, but for now, focus more on scouting their base/front to see what army/tech they have. If their army is puny, don't worry about teching as much etc.

Will post more later.
Element_4
Profile Joined December 2010
United States5 Posts
May 07 2011 02:29 GMT
#29
On May 07 2011 08:58 jojoleb wrote:
thank everyone for the advice. but how i'm supposed to tech to brood lords when he can just attack me at any moments ! thats why I was getting roach hydra coz that was that tech i had. i even tried to fungal.
but the problems is that no zerg unit does extra damage to Psyonic units(archons) so its hard to counter it.


By the time he has massed Immortal/Archon you should at least have hive tech and a spire up. You should have no problem destroying this build with scouting what he is doing and just macroing like crazy until he begins to push.
The_Piper42
Profile Blog Joined September 2009
United States426 Posts
May 07 2011 02:32 GMT
#30
Mass immortal/archon is hugely expensive. I'm certain there's a timing window sometime when they don't have a large army. If I suspected this strategy I would stop powering drones earlier and pressure with roaches.
Boxer, White-Ra, Grubby, Flash fighting!
Piggiez
Profile Joined March 2011
393 Posts
May 07 2011 03:57 GMT
#31
brood lords means you already have a spire. before you tech to greater you should get mutas and harass his assimilators, so he isn't able to amass a archon/immortal/ht death ball.
Keilah
Profile Joined May 2010
731 Posts
May 07 2011 05:21 GMT
#32
idunno how feasible it is, but it would be hilarious to see 8-10 neural parasites wreck that army. How's he gonna reach your infestors, really?
=]
Venomous Drone
Profile Joined January 2011
48 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-07 14:36:12
May 07 2011 14:21 GMT
#33
Macro better, at the 16 minute mark with roach hydra you should be maxed in supply. At the beggining you should have droned like crazy, a couple of spores and some lings are enough to defend you against any early aggression he can make. After securing that economic lead he shouldnt be able to win.
Penguinator
Profile Joined December 2010
United States837 Posts
May 07 2011 15:08 GMT
#34
Infestors with some mutas or broodlords
Towelie.635
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