EPTedit: nvm, i see its not long enough for that.
[D]PvZ Archon build - Page 9
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ishboh
United States954 Posts
edit: nvm, i see its not long enough for that. | ||
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rpgalon
Brazil1069 Posts
On May 17 2011 05:54 Nyast wrote: I watched the 3 replays you lost ( the ones you won aren't that interesting ): Game 1: you stopped upgrading at 2/0, which confirms my idea that this build requires that you stay ahead by at least a +1 margin. Also, the fights around your B3 weren't in open-space, and a lot of your units weren't engaging at all. Had it been in open space with better upgrades, you'd have rolled over that zerg  Also, not a fan of merging archons from dts ( from hts will give more zealots ).Game 2: similar problem, same upgrade level and you didn't have charge fast enough. I'm not even speaking of the detection problem - we must clearly incorporate a robo in the build to avoid this. Your macro wasn't as good as the other games, and his switch to mutas annoyed you. I guess we should keep an archon or a templar+storm ready in every base, at the very least. Basically, I don't think it invalidates the build, but it proves some adjustments are necessary to become stronger ( and I still stand by my idea that double-forge upgrades are required, even if it means 1 or 2 less archons ). Game 3: the game was lost when he killed so many probes in his harass IMO. But you were already late on upgrades (2/0 when he had 2/2) so it wasn't going too well anyway. The brood lords were just the cheery on the cake.. By the way, all those replays you posted are macro games on big maps. Have you tried the build on smaller maps ? What about Xel'naga caverns for example ? why do you think double forge or +3 ground attack is worth? i can't see why, of course late game upgrading is good, but i think charge or storm > +3, shield is gas heavy and archons don't get armor... I don't like double forge if you are going early archon. OP, since you wall off, what do you think about an early robo and early observer, I'm talking about early enought that you can react to pushs or change the build to something like blink stalkers, imortals, colossus, 6 gate, something that can hit hard or kill a very very early third or muta/infestors tech. maybe like robo before the second or third gateway. | ||
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Nyast
Belgium554 Posts
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Keilah
731 Posts
WANT -attacks when +1, Charge, and +2 come out. +1 and Charge, or +2 and Charge could possibly be simultaneous, but waiting for both +2 AND charge seems bad because a Z with good game sense will be able to play way too greedily. -some way to reliably scout in the early game/ early midgame. Hallucinate, air units, observers, or attacking seem like the only options. -a robo, somewhere. Observers, warp prism, MAYBE immortals (for the same price army, is it ever better to trade 1 archon 6-7 zealots for 3 immortals? Probably only when armies start getting big and/or vs ultras, maybe roaches), and colossus when armies get big (who needs FF when you have zealot/archon) -a way to force an early army trade on even terms, so you can start having many small battles, where zealot/archon excel. I found that if you get an archon ASAP and start fighting with 1-2 archons at about 4-gate timing, it's hard to have a big army since you need to build TC before gates, and you need more gates than usual because of the massive HT cooldown. So your army is only really up and running when you have 3-4 archons, later than I'd like. -a way to reliably engage roaches pre-charge. Far as I can see, this means building some sentries for FF traps, building ranged units (immortals?) or attacking their base fast so they don't have 50 miles of creep to kite on. NEED -a way to make the 'wants' happen without dying. For example, if we FFE and attack the moment we have 1-2 archons, we haven't done anything to save ourselves from a nydus attack or baneling bust. Can those reliably be stopped without building any sentries or stalkers? Can they be scouted in time to save ourselves if we start heading for zlot/archon? -a reliable way to expand, if we start with 1base archon | ||
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Keilah
731 Posts
On May 17 2011 06:24 Nyast wrote: Because you have a lot of zealots, that serve as damage dealers and meatshield. Of course, you should double-upgrade as well as research charge and storm, I never said upgrades only, that'd be ridiculous. As I said, the cost for upgrading armor for 40 zealots is the equivalent of 2 archons. I'd rather miss 2 archons in my army and have +2 armor for 40 zealots. A bit misleading. The cost of double forging hits you in the early and midgame where 2 archons is a big deal, but you only see appreciable results in the mid-late game. IMO it will be much better to use a load of chronoboost on upgrades rather than double forging. +2 attack, then +1 armor or shield, then +3 attack, then whatever. | ||
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MonsieurGrimm
Canada2441 Posts
On May 17 2011 07:06 Keilah wrote: A bit misleading. The cost of double forging hits you in the early and midgame where 2 archons is a big deal, but you only see appreciable results in the mid-late game. IMO it will be much better to use a load of chronoboost on upgrades rather than double forging. +2 attack, then +1 armor or shield, then +3 attack, then whatever. yeah, to be fair the zergs unit composition will most likely involve roaches, and armor does almost nothing against them. | ||
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Nothingtosay
United States875 Posts
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ZeromuS
Canada13379 Posts
On May 17 2011 03:41 Kaiz wrote: The no gas opening should be able to stop the initial DT harass if spores are timed out properly although the DTs can straight up win you the game if the Zerg is late on spores. I've played a few more games against the zealot archon comp as Zerg and having a few sets of burrowed banelings between your base and the Protoss' base seems to shut this down pretty well since most Protoss are too focused on spending every bit of gas on getting more Archons. It's not a very solid counter as obviously any detection will shut it down, but I think a Protoss will need to start getting an observer before they push out as this build becomes more popular and more easily recognized (as if it isn't used enough already). A note on the observer, since burrowed roaches and infestors as well as banelings are always an issue any time a Zerg plays I always get a robotics bay, I mean it might push certain timings back a little bit the observer is more than helpful. I point to the anyproprime games of the GSL where he did a 6 gate +1 +1 timing with an observer to deny the Zerg the opportunity of using burrowed roaches to kill the protoss army | ||
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ccJroy
United States483 Posts
One problem he was mentioning was his lack of ability to hurt/stop the mass droning. I've personally been testing with clanmates/ladder about doing a new drop, basically 2 drop ships, Prism speed with Archon/1HT in each dropship sent to: Natural/Third at same time, or Main/3rd, whichever one you predict will have the most drones. Start short wall of text: PM/post with any questions. + Show Spoiler + The premise is that with +2 weapons, an archon will 1 shot drones at any armor level (40hp, archons are 43dmg at +2). With correct targeting, in 3 shots you can usually kill over 10 workers. Use the archon to focus clumps of drones at the mineral line (Position the archon right on the minerals to force heavier clumping) and 1 HT per hatch to snipe the queens energy hopefully stopping the remass of drones/units. The gold bases are especially good on maps such as Scrap station/shattered, the 6 patch spit by the 2 gas basically force 5-10 drones to clump in insane numbers (think my record on scrap/golds like scrap was ~10 drones in one shot) I don't have the timing saved just yet, but i can usually time out prism speed, and 2 prisms with +2 pretty well just based on how the game is going at the time. The only thing you have to watch out for are corruptors in response to scouting the robotics bay and obviously muta's, i would only suggest this against someone you see purely massing roaches, but can be done against everything since Prism's with speed is only slower then mutalisks. Obviously this can be used over and over as long as they dont spine up everybase, which even then with proper micro the 350 shield archon should be able to do a bit of dmg before it needs to be picked up. Reasons for bases chosen: With a timed out HT in the warp prism going to the main, it should have enough energy for 2 feedbacks, one for the main hatch, one for the natural. Obviously in a standard game, unless they opponent has been quite diligent about injecting, the two queens with the highest energy will be the main and the natural, while the 3rd will be the next in line for highest energy. Reason for 1Archon/HT: With 2 dropships, your apm will already be pressed to the max, the targeting feature for priority will be targeting queens (like your zealots), with two archons, you cant maximize the drone kills due to both would be shooting the same drones (that your one shotting). If you load 2, then one will be a queen chaser, one will be killing drones, which with HT taking energy basically does the same thing, just doesn't force a new queen to be made. Also it would take 5 shots to kill a queen at +2, which the speed of archon attack is pretty slow. Sniping the energy/getting observer will also make the zerg have higher decision making, since every time they spend energy after the harass will directly impact the next part of the game (No energy, sniped tumors, they will have to redecide like in earlygame if they want the tumors, or more larva). | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
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KazeHydra
Japan2788 Posts
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Keilah
731 Posts
In a unit-tester max food Ultras vs max food Archons, Ultras used to crush, but now the Archons totally demolish the Ultras! I figure it's because the Archons can now fire in 2 rows, more or less doubling their DPS in big numbers. Doesn't make as much difference in regular games where you're unlikely to have a double row of archons, but hey, whatever =] | ||
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MilesTegM
22 Posts
I know they are a great mineral sink, and are necessary to get this build up and running, but why do people focus their upgrades on the zealots and then keep rebuilding them? It seems to me that the zealots are fundamentally throw away units. You get one good battle out of them and they die. (If a zealot survives a battle it is because he was either in the back row, or you really had a huge advantage in the battle to begin with) Zealots are slow, so they are hard to save if a battle turns against you. Zealots by nature are inefficient with minerals. Archons are much more efficient with resources given that they do splash damage, and recharge all their shields between battles going back to full strength. (they are not as efficient as collossi, but aren't as weak to a direct counter) From what I have seen, zealots also don't always get in position to add to the battle. Archons are faster than zealots, so they tend to move to the front of the control group. If you are not careful to rearrange them before engaging, the zealots will not participate until a number of the archons have died to make room. I would think that transitioning away from zealots should be a goal of this build. Why not start with zealot/archon, but try to gradually replace zealots with stalkers or other higher tier units as the game goes on? The idea is to stop using throwaway units and shift to a composition that you can more easily keep alive. Putting an emphasis on keeping units alive will allow you to start getting small advantages in unit counts that eventually give you an overwhelming advantage. For example, making stalkers instead of zealots will leave you with some excess minerals. Use them to make more cannons that give you a line of retreat to fall back to. Archon/Stalker will benefit more from shield upgrades than armor. Try to use the speed of Archon/Stalker force to attack away from the enemy's main force, then retreat to the cannon line to deal with his counter attack. Try to bait them into engaging your force in range of your cannons. | ||
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GreEny K
Germany7312 Posts
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CryMore
United States497 Posts
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Keilah
731 Posts
I'm pretty sure if the zerg goes muta/ling you'll steamroll through all his bases with archon/zlot or archon/zlot/immortal. The nice thing about this style is zerg won't be able to kill your base, then retreat and kill your army, since archons smash mutas so hard in a straight up fight, compared to old style where mutas still do OK vs stalkers. If Z goes for a straight up base race, you should be able to hold on to at least 1 mining base by warping in 2-3 archons and some zealots or cannons or w/e. | ||
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MoreFaSho
United States1427 Posts
Archons are pretty awesome. | ||
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elitesniper420
Canada135 Posts
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MonsieurGrimm
Canada2441 Posts
On May 19 2011 09:24 elitesniper420 wrote: so OP locked my thread because apparently I said I "outplayed" my opponent. Anyway, since that thread is locked I'll ask here. What is the best composition to deal with this? The answers I've heard are cracklings and hydralisks but both of those are hard countered by high templars. roach infestor is the best thing I can think of. if my interpretation of this is correct, they delay their robo by quite a bit, so if you get burrowing roaches that should give you time to get both infestor upgrades. if you can get good mind controls off their army should die ezpz, only thing you have to be careful of is not letting your infestors get feedbacked too bad (hug his army with roaches, they're probably mostly chargelots anyways so closing the distance doesn't hurt you too much) of course, this is all just me speculating and theorycrafting, I haven't actually fought this. | ||
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schmutttt
Australia3856 Posts
The only thing is though, wouldn't this build evaporate to roach/bane? If you got enough banes out storms would have to be perfect and as long as you don't send your banes in one line you will be ok, and roaches of course are good against archons and great against zealots (Obviously not against immortals if you included them). | ||
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