10 billion ESPORTS dollars to the first person to point out which game this is from Credit goes to Ares[Effort] for digging up this replay
A couple of days ago when I was messing around on MrBitter's stream, I had surprisingly good results doing a very crude, not well thought out build where I just massed archons and chargelots. Sounds stupid, doesn't it? Well that's what some people said about my mass void ray build and that ended up getting patched out of the game. This time we have the same story: I make a seemingly terrible unit composition to troll people, beat some good players with it, then realize there is potential to make a legitimate strategy out of it.
So here’s a summary of my build so far:
Do some kind of FE depending on what I scout. 15 nexus 15 forge vs 14 pool, 15 pylon 18 nexus 19 forge vs hatch first, 15 forge if I haven’t found my opponent yet. Full wall off is important!
Take main gases around 24, expo gases around 30
Chrono out sentries, warp gate research, and +1 weapons once the cyber core is done. If my scouting probe is still alive and hasn’t found a third base, I make more cannons in case of an all-in.
Add 3 more gates and a twilight council.
Templar archives and +2 weapons when twilight council is done, start warping in zealots and stalkers.
4 more gates!
Mass archons and zealots! Research charge as well so that you have it before you move out.
(Optional)Get +3 weapons and spam chrono boosts
Make 2 more gates, kill your walling gate for a total of 9
Move out and take a third base. Alternatively, go kill your opponent. I like the third base better but hey whatever floats your boat. If you got +3 weapons, attack when that’s done. If not, attack whenever you want.
If opponent is still alive, add more gates and continue spamming chargelots/archons.
When you attack, your army should look like this:
Oops wrong picture! There we go.
Now this build is clearly not optimal. For one, I don’t have all the fancy precise timings I do in my standard builds. Hell, I don’t even have detection! Another thing is, it just feels easy. I’m turtling, massing up an army, and then 1a-ing my way to victory (no CrunCher jokes please). While this is fine for the occasional all-in in a best of X series, a legitimate macro strategy should have some form of early or mid game pressure to discourage mass drones, map control to discourage mass expos, some method of scouting, and require more micro than just making a guardian shield every once in a while. Despite all of the flaws, I still managed some decent results.
Winning Replays
Losing Replays
If you check SC2Ranks or 12 Weeks With the Pros (which is an awesome show show that everyone needs to check out btw), you might notice that my opponents are actually pretty good players! Therefore, any posts along the lines of “this would never work against a competent zerg” will be BANNED. Not only are they not helpful and wildly inaccurate, they prove the poster hasn’t read the thread or watched the replays.
So, the purpose of this thread is to discuss ways of making this strategy work, either by improving my build, finding alternate builds, or finding a way to do it on maps where you can’t forge FE.
Suggestions and My Opinions of Them
Thanks to Saracen, VTMrBitter, VTFuture, Shoey, tQaquanda, and xiGerbil for suggestions!
DT Harass By using an early dark shrine instead of getting a Templar archives, I gain some map control back from the Zerg and have a good chance of killing drones. I also get slightly more archons for the same amount of gas. The tradeoff is that DTs have a chance of failing to do damage, and the mineral cost of archons will cost me a TON of chargelots. Let’s pretend that my macro is so bad that I have 1500 minerals and 1500 gas. I could make 6 DT archons with that, or I could make 5 HT archons and 10 zealots, or I could make 5 HT archons and 2 Nexuses. I don’t know about you guys, but I’ll take 10 zealots over 1 archon any day.
Verdict so far: sounds like a good idea but once I have my third base up, I definitely need to add a Templar archives and switch to HT archons.
Get storm I can either have roughly X archons, or a ton of storms and still have X - 1 archons a few seconds later. The former sounds like a terrible deal to me, so maybe I’m retarded for not trying out storm yet. Consider though, that storms are terrible vs roaches and will damage my own chargelots. Also consider that just having the archons earlier lets them do plenty of damage in the time it would take to storm everything and then morph archons.
Verdict so far: I’ll probably settle for a mix of archons and Templars. Given pathing and the low range of the archon, it seems optimal to have a front row of archons and chargelots, but Templars behind.
update: psi storm replay Seems decent vs hydra/roach
Hallucinated archons The way this build works, the best micro Zerg can do is to focus down individual archons because zealots are meatshields and any archon that doesn’t die will be back to full health for the next battle. Making hallucinations tries to mess with this.
Verdict so far: LOL which noob suggested this? Maybe if I run into Idra at MLG. Otherwise, I’d rather make force fields, use guardian shield, and get real archons with the gas.
Focus fire overlords with archons I had a little trouble with baneling drops on my zealots and sentries. This would solve that problem and supply block people as well.
Verdict so far: Yep, this is a good way to defend vs baneling drops. Definitely need to practice this.
Use it without forge FEing Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. You want me to give up on economy by going 3 gate expo, and then you’re telling me to spend a ton of gas on sentries on top of that? The plus side is with an earlier army, I can take an earlier third base.
Verdict so far: Doesn't sound like a great idea.
And there you have it! I’ve presented you guys with a different way to play PvZ, devoid of any colossus or mass stalker or even detection that you normally tend to see. Try it out, share your stories, and if you find a way to make it work even better, then please help me improve my build!
Have been playing Zealot/ Archon/ Immortal/ HT in TvZ for a while btw, it's just as viable as anything Colossi based, perhaps a bit harder to play, more gratifying too though
ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuu, now I have to see this crap on ladder too.
I was facepalming at State of the Game tonight when everyone wrote the archon change off as inconsequential.
This is a very frustrating kind of thing to deal with for this reason:
Everyone knows a Protoss deathball is hell to deal with. Corruptors suck! Seriously.
Against this unit composition, the deathball is just as effective (if not more so) and now Zerg doesn't have a unit (even a bad one) capable of really challenging the major damage dealer: the archon.
for using archons to kill overlord drops, do you know how many hits it takes to kill one overlord or how many archons are needed to one shot overlords? it sounds like a great idea but at the same time sounds a little inefficient (either you spend time killing a overlord or two or do direct damage to his army)
On May 14 2011 12:24 MrBitter wrote: ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuu, now I have to see this crap on ladder too.
I was facepalming at State of the Game tonight when everyone wrote the archon change off as inconsequential.
This is a very frustrating kind of thing to deal with for this reason:
Everyone knows a Protoss deathball is hell to deal with. Corruptors suck! Seriously.
Against this unit composition, the deathball is just as effective (if not more so) and now Zerg doesn't have a unit (even a bad one) capable of really challenging the major damage dealer: the archon.
Pure upgraded Roach does pretty well vs Zealot/ Archon. Gonna be tough with stormers and immortals mixed in though. Muta's might be good too, but you'll be really vulnerable to a timing.
On May 14 2011 12:24 MrBitter wrote: ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuu, now I have to see this crap on ladder too.
I was facepalming at State of the Game tonight when everyone wrote the archon change off as inconsequential.
This is a very frustrating kind of thing to deal with for this reason:
Everyone knows a Protoss deathball is hell to deal with. Corruptors suck! Seriously.
Against this unit composition, the deathball is just as effective (if not more so) and now Zerg doesn't have a unit (even a bad one) capable of really challenging the major damage dealer: the archon.
Pure upgraded Roach does pretty well vs Zealot/ Archon. Gonna be tough with stormers and immortals mixed in though. Muta's might be good too, but you'll be really vulnerable to a timing.
I wonder if this will trigger incentive to get Hydras? now I know Hydras > Zealot and but with Zealot speed it's about equal or worse (like in SC1) but Hydras do a lot of damage and can maybe outdps the archons and zealots... hmm
Speaking as a zerg, I've had some practice partners try to do this against me and I end up crushing them hardcore early game. If they make enough defense to hold off till Archon I can muster up Ultralisks, if too many zealots Broodlords, by the time archons start to mass.
I just don't think Archon is viable in PvZ, storms are extremely useful and Archons should only be made after storms are all used up and Archons should not just be made as a unit to push out with.
Well to be honest, I've been trying this out in PvT. I'll do a FE and throw down a Templar Archives. The style is hard-countered by someone with decent ghost micro/banshee harass so it is very risky. I am however liking the early HTs to counter Thor play (which is somewhat standard on the ladder in SEA) and the early Psi-storms help deal with those terrible MM balls.
As far as PvZ goes, my PvZ practice partner is more often then not a finalist in a bo5 with me in a local tournament, so I don't want to test the build/style against someone who is likely to counter it when it matters. D:
But I watched the replays and that was awesome! If you manage to standardise this, HTs and Archons will be getting a nerf in the near future :D
On May 14 2011 12:24 MrBitter wrote: ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuu, now I have to see this crap on ladder too.
I was facepalming at State of the Game tonight when everyone wrote the archon change off as inconsequential.
This is a very frustrating kind of thing to deal with for this reason:
Everyone knows a Protoss deathball is hell to deal with. Corruptors suck! Seriously.
Against this unit composition, the deathball is just as effective (if not more so) and now Zerg doesn't have a unit (even a bad one) capable of really challenging the major damage dealer: the archon.
Pure upgraded Roach does pretty well vs Zealot/ Archon. Gonna be tough with stormers and immortals mixed in though. Muta's might be good too, but you'll be really vulnerable to a timing.
Haha, I thought so too, man. I thought so too...
edit:
Also, wtf! I just caught this:
On May 14 2011 12:07 iamke55 wrote: Verdict so far: LOL which noob suggested this? Maybe if I run into Idra at MLG. Otherwise, I’d rather make force fields, use guardian shield, and get real archons with the gas.
[*]Get storm I can either have roughly X archons, or a ton of storms and still have X - 1 archons a few seconds later. The former sounds like a terrible deal to me, so maybe I’m retarded for not trying out storm yet. Consider though, that storms are terrible vs roaches and will damage my own chargelots. Also consider that just having the archons earlier lets them do plenty of damage in the time it would take to storm everything and then morph archons.
Verdict so far: I’ll probably settle for a mix of archons and Templars. Given pathing and the low range of the archon, it seems optimal to have a front row of archons and chargelots, but Templars behind.
Wouldn't it be more important to have templars so you can feedback infestors seeing as fungal growth shuts down your army's ability to deal dps (although it doesn't do much damage to you).
Also, how do you deal with neural pasarite on archons. 2-3 (or like eight if zerg is awesome) Archons in the middle of your chargelots tends to be pretty painful and if z gets neural off you don't have a feasible way to kill the infestor unless it has full energy and you can still feedback snipe it.
On a side note, as you want the robotics for obs regardless, I think that adding immortals into the compostion would benefit you just because of how damn good they are against z. They also won't be getting stuck behind stalkers or sentries so you would simply have another layer of dmg dealers with zealot/archon and immortals.
Ok watched one of the winning reps and tried to do it vs a speeding fast expand. What ended up happening to me was the mass roach burst he managed to get after our first engagement. HOWEVER, I should note that I'm coming off like a two week break and my macro was horrible.
So maybe this is viable at a higher level? I'll keep practicing.
Honestly this does sound really potent, especially with the new archon change. The only straight up answer I can think of off the top of my head is just delaying until you can get a good number of ultralisks out
On May 14 2011 12:24 MrBitter wrote: ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuu, now I have to see this crap on ladder too.
I was facepalming at State of the Game tonight when everyone wrote the archon change off as inconsequential.
This is a very frustrating kind of thing to deal with for this reason:
Everyone knows a Protoss deathball is hell to deal with. Corruptors suck! Seriously.
Against this unit composition, the deathball is just as effective (if not more so) and now Zerg doesn't have a unit (even a bad one) capable of really challenging the major damage dealer: the archon.
Pure upgraded Roach does pretty well vs Zealot/ Archon. Gonna be tough with stormers and immortals mixed in though. Muta's might be good too, but you'll be really vulnerable to a timing.
On May 14 2011 12:07 iamke55 wrote: Verdict so far: LOL which noob suggested this? Maybe if I run into Idra at MLG. Otherwise, I’d rather make force fields, use guardian shield, and get real archons with the gas.
edited in link to 12 Weeks With the Pros just in case people don't use the search function
On May 14 2011 13:01 Stropheum wrote: Honestly this does sound really potent, especially with the new archon change. The only straight up answer I can think of off the top of my head is just delaying until you can get a good number of ultralisks out
Ultras deal zero bonus damage to archons. Ultras deal zero bonus damage to zealots. Ultra pathing rivals BW goon pathing.
Archons deal massive bonus damage to ultras. Zealots shred ultras and further complicate their clunky pathing. Zealot charge gives free auto-surrounds on big, slow, Zerg units.
The only reason anyone ever wants ultras in ZvP is to deal with big, clumped up groups of armored units like stalkers.
A zealot / archon army features absolutely zero clumped, armored units...
I actually used to do something very similar before patch hit in PvZ (at a low masters level so don't blitz me for the validity of my bad play).
<-- video to prove i'm not lying xD
Basically I would open DT harass into +3 weaps asap, then just crush through Zerg, even then with 2 range I found it to be really strong, since everything of Zergs is Biological. Haven't had chance to do it with 3 range but I bet it's epic.
My current standard for ZvP is ling-infestor and I've had a couple people try this unit comp when their DT rush failed. I can definitely see the strengths of the build but it definitely has some holes if you engage purely with zealots and archons (against ling infestor anyways).
The lack of ranged units means you aren't going to be able to snipe Infestors that use NP on the Archons...and Archons do pretty well against clumped Zealots.
Somewhat off-topic but I wonder if a phoenix lift would interrupt NP and if so, zealots and archons with a couple phoenix tossed into the mix could work wonders against ling infestor.
I'm not sure what a great counter to this is after it gets up. The zerg probably does have a timing though where they can overwhelm with drop or nydus if the toss is spending that much res cannoning his front.
Mass neural parasite would do pretty well as 5 or 6 archons with neural on would tear through the chargelots, it depends on the map architecture. The toss is going to be low on range units here too so if you had 10 or so fungals to spare coupled with hydra dps that could be good. Of course if they're going templar with their army they can just feedback to their heart's content.
The archons one shot broodlings + splash so that really hurts the utility of the brood lords though the tech is obviously still viable. Broodlings to soak damage while hydras or roaches attack sounds good.
If you try to roll a ton of banelings into this (like 50+) what are the results? I think you would probably need 15 or so banes to kill one archon but if they're splashing everything there's a tipping point. The toss is going to be low on forcefields but the archons should one shot the banelings and the banelings don't do any bonus damage to them obviously. I'm not sure how big the baneling splash radius is. If you think about it 12 banes is 300 gas which is around the same gas cost as one archon so that's not as unreasonable as it sounds. Baneling drops would be ideal but as the OP mentioned the archons kill overlords so fast. This build doesn't spare gas for robo tech though so baneling landmines would be really good here.
It's just one of those builds that's ridiculously silly but at the same time it looks to be really hard to stop, at least for zerg terran should have no problem as they can go mass ghost + emp. It seems like a very easy build to execute too which makes me qq lol. I wonder if a variant of this unit comp is viable pvp.
On May 14 2011 12:24 MrBitter wrote: ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuu, now I have to see this crap on ladder too.
I was facepalming at State of the Game tonight when everyone wrote the archon change off as inconsequential.
This is a very frustrating kind of thing to deal with for this reason:
Everyone knows a Protoss deathball is hell to deal with. Corruptors suck! Seriously.
Against this unit composition, the deathball is just as effective (if not more so) and now Zerg doesn't have a unit (even a bad one) capable of really challenging the major damage dealer: the archon.
Pure upgraded Roach does pretty well vs Zealot/ Archon. Gonna be tough with stormers and immortals mixed in though. Muta's might be good too, but you'll be really vulnerable to a timing.
Watch replays thx
Watched your winning replays, the one vs MrBitter was kinda inconclusive since you were ahead the entire game, so I'm not gonna say anything about that.
I think Gerbil did a pretty good job, but he had Infestors and Hydra's mixed in which is not useful vs this imo. I forgot Archons got some extra range though, which is really helping them in large scale battles. Plus they're so supply efficient that they just run through everything once they hit a critical mass, which is the roach's weakness. It think it's the fact that all zealots die for Aiur while the Archons survive and replenish all their shields what makes this strong. In the engagements I watched your supply dropped about equally to Zerg's but your expensive Archons survived most engagaments, becoming exponentially stronger every time.
Against Shoey, he kinda went ling baneling into roach hydra, didn't like it particularly, but he had you on the ropes with the baneling bombs killing all your zealots. Had he not gotten hydra's he might have won that big engagement decisively. Plus 2 Archons 2-shot hydra's and Zealots slaughter them as well, I think hydra's are just really bad overall unless Toss goes heavy Stargate.
I think all games clearly exposed vulnerability through not having observers, which your opponents unfortunately didn't really cash in on. Really need to get a Robo in there somewhere, sprinkling some immortals isn't gonna hurt either since they do fine against banelings, roaches and infestors and they have higher range than the zealot archon.
About not getting Storm, do you feel it is useless against Zerg mobility? Or were you just experimenting with spending all your gas on Archons? Nvm: just read carefully
My friend and I have been trying this composition in teams over the past few days just (t)rolling people. It's absolutely so devastating it got me thinking that this could be a viable 1v1 composition - even in PvT or PvP, though this is to say nothing regarding what viable builds exist to get to there.
Ive been playing around with something similar to this. Basically double robo immortals with zealots stalkers and Archon/DTs off 3 bases. But i will warn you:
The easiest way for Zerg to win is with broodlords and roaches. Or broodlords with hydras if they have the gas. There is no way Toss can shoot the broodlords w/o Stalkers w/ blink or Viods because the brood lings will prevent the Archon from getting close enough (BW did not have this problem with Guardians). High Templars may be able to storm the broods but its unlikely. Basically the composition is strong but it tends to stagnate if you don't outright kill the Zerg econ. There needs to be a tech switch to 2-3 Viods and/or Mothership to protect your army from the Broodlord range advantage.
Sure the only real pressure early is timing where you get +1/speed/first couple archons. For scouting hallucination, or even stargate. Besides that all you have is probes or units.
Ding ding ding, we have a winner! How did you find it though? I couldn't find it using the search function on the replay section so I had to ask Ares[Effort] to go look for it for me. He gave me a link from another website.
On May 14 2011 12:24 MrBitter wrote: ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuu, now I have to see this crap on ladder too.
I was facepalming at State of the Game tonight when everyone wrote the archon change off as inconsequential.
This is a very frustrating kind of thing to deal with for this reason:
Everyone knows a Protoss deathball is hell to deal with. Corruptors suck! Seriously.
Against this unit composition, the deathball is just as effective (if not more so) and now Zerg doesn't have a unit (even a bad one) capable of really challenging the major damage dealer: the archon.
Pure upgraded Roach does pretty well vs Zealot/ Archon. Gonna be tough with stormers and immortals mixed in though. Muta's might be good too, but you'll be really vulnerable to a timing.
Watch replays thx
Watched your winning replays, the one vs MrBitter was kinda inconclusive since you were ahead the entire game, so I'm not gonna say anything about that.
I think Gerbil did a pretty good job, but he had Infestors and Hydra's mixed in which is not useful vs this imo. I forgot Archons got some extra range though, which is really helping them in large scale battles. Plus they're so supply efficient that they just run through everything once they hit a critical mass, which is the roach's weakness. It think it's the fact that all zealots die for Aiur while the Archons survive and replenish all their shields what makes this strong. In the engagements I watched your supply dropped about equally to Zerg's but your expensive Archons survived most engagaments, becoming exponentially stronger every time.
Against Shoey, he kinda went ling baneling into roach hydra, didn't like it particularly, but he had you on the ropes with the baneling bombs killing all your zealots. Had he not gotten hydra's he might have won that big engagement decisively. Plus 2 Archons 2-shot hydra's and Zealots slaughter them as well, I think hydra's are just really bad overall unless Toss goes heavy Stargate.
I think all games clearly exposed vulnerability through not having observers, which your opponents unfortunately didn't really cash in on. Really need to get a Robo in there somewhere, sprinkling some immortals isn't gonna hurt either since they do fine against banelings, roaches and infestors and they have higher range than the zealot archon.
About not getting Storm, do you feel it is useless against Zerg mobility? Or were you just experimenting with spending all your gas on Archons? Nvm: just read carefully
This is completely wrong. We spent the entire day testing it against random compositions, and the two things that worked were muta/ling/baneling and roach/hydra with a good number of hydras (you need to be able to pick off some archons) -> broodlord if engaged in favorable positions. What didn't work was: Mass roach (archons don't die to roaches) Roach baneling (again, archons don't die to roaches) What we didn't try yet was mass infestor with NP.
Its there, search pvz on Arcadia and only 3games come up
Main thing I'm interested in is seeing someone fit the build components together for a strong timing attack 10-12min 2-4archon maybe +2wep even with boosts. Then possible transitions.
I would think hydra/roach is the way to go vs this, but it actually looks close.
On May 14 2011 12:24 MrBitter wrote: ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuu, now I have to see this crap on ladder too.
I was facepalming at State of the Game tonight when everyone wrote the archon change off as inconsequential.
This is a very frustrating kind of thing to deal with for this reason:
Everyone knows a Protoss deathball is hell to deal with. Corruptors suck! Seriously.
Against this unit composition, the deathball is just as effective (if not more so) and now Zerg doesn't have a unit (even a bad one) capable of really challenging the major damage dealer: the archon.
Pure upgraded Roach does pretty well vs Zealot/ Archon. Gonna be tough with stormers and immortals mixed in though. Muta's might be good too, but you'll be really vulnerable to a timing.
Watch replays thx
Watched your winning replays, the one vs MrBitter was kinda inconclusive since you were ahead the entire game, so I'm not gonna say anything about that.
I think Gerbil did a pretty good job, but he had Infestors and Hydra's mixed in which is not useful vs this imo. I forgot Archons got some extra range though, which is really helping them in large scale battles. Plus they're so supply efficient that they just run through everything once they hit a critical mass, which is the roach's weakness. It think it's the fact that all zealots die for Aiur while the Archons survive and replenish all their shields what makes this strong. In the engagements I watched your supply dropped about equally to Zerg's but your expensive Archons survived most engagaments, becoming exponentially stronger every time.
Against Shoey, he kinda went ling baneling into roach hydra, didn't like it particularly, but he had you on the ropes with the baneling bombs killing all your zealots. Had he not gotten hydra's he might have won that big engagement decisively. Plus 2 Archons 2-shot hydra's and Zealots slaughter them as well, I think hydra's are just really bad overall unless Toss goes heavy Stargate.
I think all games clearly exposed vulnerability through not having observers, which your opponents unfortunately didn't really cash in on. Really need to get a Robo in there somewhere, sprinkling some immortals isn't gonna hurt either since they do fine against banelings, roaches and infestors and they have higher range than the zealot archon.
About not getting Storm, do you feel it is useless against Zerg mobility? Or were you just experimenting with spending all your gas on Archons? Nvm: just read carefully
This is completely wrong. We spent the entire day testing it against random compositions, and the two things that worked were muta/ling/baneling and roach/hydra with a good number of hydras (you need to be able to pick off some archons) -> broodlord if engaged in favorable positions. What didn't work was: Mass roach (archons don't die to roaches) Roach baneling (again, archons don't die to roaches) What we didn't try yet was mass infestor with NP.
I'd love to see more replays, but I really don't see how hydra's would work against this. I realize that it's imperative to actually kill the Archons since they quickly regain all their HP, but +2 archon/ zealot rips through them SO fast. Then again, maybe it is more efficient for the Zerg to trade armies as much as possible as gas is the limiting factor with this composition.
yeahhhhhhh neural parasite can hurt, fungal's annoying too so you definitely ought to bring some HTs along for feedback as well as psi storm.
I'd also recommend throwing in a robo and a couple observers, I know that's wasted gas but it's nice being able to kill creep and I don't see any other way to deal with roach/infestor burrow.
and yah broodlords are real good vs archon/zealot, the archons just have no way to get through the broodlings and hit the broodlords
Also obv mutas melt to archons, but archons aren't mobile enough to stop muta harass. The answer as toss is to just go attack and kill the zerg, but if some clever Z can figure out a way to both muta harass and survive the attack, that might be useful.
The archon chargelot composition is pretty thought even from one base protoss after a fail DT rush if the zerg makes roaches as they get demolished really fast by this.
I have been very interested in this and have been trying and testing it a lot, and i've come to realize that the strength of the build is the super supply efficiency of archons when compared to roaches or hydras (for example a single archon easily beats 2 roaches or 2 hydras, especially with the attack upgrades of this build). So I don't think the zlots here play much of a role except to fill up supply and be a mineral sink, and what the true goal is is a 200/200 army of pure archons (which isnt practical or feasible in an actual match i dont think).
So while this is extremely strong, its only weakness is if the zerg forgets roaches and hydras, and instead simply masses banelings. As stupid as this may sound, the idea for the zerg (who will be on many more bases than you) is to simply trade armies, which roaches and hydras cant accomplish here. While banes might not seem great against archons, they evaporate the zlots, and in enough numbers will easily eliminate the archons too, thereby winning the game. (This is the only way my relatively high masters zerg friend has beaten this, but he won easily with it).
I would suggest in this case to research storm and include maybe 5 HTs with enough energy in your army, that way when you see banes you can carpet storm them, save your archons, and steamroll through any reinforcements the zerg makes and win.
I was watching MrBitter's stream like, the entire time this was going on and it was awesome. I've been trying to do it on the ladder ever since, so thanks for the timings.
It seems like the Zerg compositions that are most effective against this (in particular muta/ling, but also hydras) have a lot of units that exploit your total lack of armor. Have you considered buying shield upgrades, maybe before +3 weapons?
On May 14 2011 15:32 Keilah wrote: and yah broodlords are real good vs archon/zealot, the archons just have no way to get through the broodlings and hit the broodlords
Also obv mutas melt to archons, but archons aren't mobile enough to stop muta harass. The answer as toss is to just go attack and kill the zerg, but if some clever Z can figure out a way to both muta harass and survive the attack, that might be useful.
I had an opponent last night (I'm garbage, but this is consistent with others' experiences) who backed up muta harass with a huge number of lings/banes and a few spines at home. You have so many lots (all the gas is in archons) that the banes can just melt them ridiculously and maybe take out a couple archons as well. At this point the mutas have been tearing at your base for a while (maybe being chased around by a couple comically slow archons, cue Bennie Hill music). You can go do some damage with your remaining archons but he's probably done more and is reproducing as we speak!
I think that as you start to see mid-late game muta/bling or roach hydra compositions you need to transitions to diversify your army beyond archon/lot or it will get out of control. Not sure what the best transitions are, but I'd definitely start by buying psystorm.
It seems natural that a small contingent of Phoenixes would be useful support, much as a small contingent of Corsairs were in BW. They greatly aid scouting, limit Mutalisk play, restrict overlord movement, force some manner of in-base anti-air, and can snipe banelings or lift Infestors in combat. Of course, Phoenix don't come cheap.
I imagine the DT opening variant fits well with a Stargate opening variant, much as it did in Broodwar.
Side note, Warp Prism(s) could be very valuable to prevent the opponent from focusing down your archons, as well as for Zealot/DT warp-attacks. (Which are particularly scary due to your ground upgrades and Charge.)
Very good points in here, mainly about the mass mutas with banes strat. On some maps turtling, while massing archons is a very vulnerable build to mass muta harass. Sometimes you won't be able to get a good number of stalkers, due to high cost of having zealots and archons. If he goes, ling/bane/infestor, then yeah it's a nice mix, plus storms are a must have in this situation, but as already pointed out, if broodlords start popping out, you'll need a starport to handle them. Not to mention if he goes for broodlord/ultra combo, like spanishiwa, which is unstoppable if you went archons/zealots first. I say it depends on what your zerg opponent is doing, but always going for this strat seems like a coin flip.
Just want to point out that in the replay that in the replay that you win vs Mr.Bitter your army value is 6775 minerals and 3225 gas and his is 4700/2100. Essentially you have 1½ times his army making it hard to determine the strength of the ball since he is outnumbered. Don't have time to watch the other replays at the moment, but this seems strong against pretty much everything except brood lords.
On May 15 2011 01:26 Bergys wrote: Just want to point out that in the replay that in the replay that you win vs Mr.Bitter your army value is 6775 minerals and 3225 gas and his is 4700/2100. Essentially you have 1½ times his army making it hard to determine the strength of the ball since he is outnumbered. Don't have time to watch the other replays at the moment, but this seems strong against pretty much everything except brood lords.
In one replay he plays against late-game broodlords. He just stutter-steps towards the broodlords, and once he gets under the broodlords (archons are quite fast and broodlords are quite slow) he uses hold or stop, I think, and the broodlords just explodes. :D
Of course this is after he destroys the support units (roaches), but this build gets a HUGE economy that lets you replenish your army really, really fast.
Wouldn't a standard roach/hydra tear this apart? it seemed like with the usual protoss deathball (colossus/zealot/stalker/sentry) you couldn't go roach/hydra due to colossus and to some extent forcefields - you all know the QQ - but if you take those 2 out of the equation, the standard big army of the zerg player SHOULD suddenly become 'viable' again for what it's worth, I'd prefer if this zealot/archon style became the standard (less boring to watch, seems like a 'normal' army which you can beat with good positioning and micro, unlike a certain other composition *cough*)
LOL, i was obs in all of ur replay =))) the main problem i saw through out all of those games was roaches speed is good enough to kite zealot til death. the only reason archon deal that much damage is bc they got a good concave and good upgrades overall. If you think about the gas ratio cost of archon, u could see that leaving them as HT for storm with minerals goes into cannons is much more effective than zealot archon in general.
my conclusion is that we should think about archon as a late game transition plan more than a mid-game ideal composition. with the range increase we might see lots more archon toilet as well as archon vs ultra but thats it :-/
Archons were pretty butch against zerg pre patch now they are damn hench. Tried this build a few times now and it works pretty well. I've made a few alterations such as researching shield upgrades for archons and getting a robo for obs and warp prisms. An archon and 2 zealots make short work of a mineral line im telling you. Muta can be pretty frustrating to deal with since archons are slow. I've found that i've got quite a few spare minerals though so cannoning works alright and big counter attack is very effective as archons just dont die.
On May 15 2011 01:36 Meancookie wrote: Wouldn't a standard roach/hydra tear this apart? it seemed like with the usual protoss deathball (colossus/zealot/stalker/sentry) you couldn't go roach/hydra due to colossus and to some extent forcefields - you all know the QQ - but if you take those 2 out of the equation, the standard big army of the zerg player SHOULD suddenly become 'viable' again for what it's worth, I'd prefer if this zealot/archon style became the standard (less boring to watch, seems like a 'normal' army which you can beat with good positioning and micro, unlike a certain other composition *cough*)
On May 14 2011 13:01 Stropheum wrote: Honestly this does sound really potent, especially with the new archon change. The only straight up answer I can think of off the top of my head is just delaying until you can get a good number of ultralisks out
Ultras deal zero bonus damage to archons. Ultras deal zero bonus damage to zealots. Ultra pathing rivals BW goon pathing.
Archons deal massive bonus damage to ultras. Zealots shred ultras and further complicate their clunky pathing. Zealot charge gives free auto-surrounds on big, slow, Zerg units.
The only reason anyone ever wants ultras in ZvP is to deal with big, clumped up groups of armored units like stalkers.
A zealot / archon army features absolutely zero clumped, armored units...
Lets take a step back and have a look at the numbers before exaggerating.
- Archons have the same unit size as an Ultralisk - Archons do 18.244~ DPS to Ultralisks with Chitinous Plating - Ultralisks do 17.4~ DPS to Archons
The range is the big swing for Archons, it really helps, makes it so you can actually deal damage
I tried Archon/Zealot a long time ago before Fungal and the Archon buffs. Neural Parasite really complicates the issue, you need some Templar/Colossus to neutralize the infestors or things get messy really fast.
As Archons have the same unit size as Ultras, if they get fungaled then they create a road block for your Zealots and Archons that aren't fungaled. But when I was trying this out the Infestor had 8second fungals so go figure, but a few fungals can drop the DPS of your army sharply depending on the terrain.
By that stage of the game you should be switching out of Zealot/Archon. I'm sure there is also some timing window where you can just go kill a Zerg who is on just Lings banking gas for early infestors too.
Also, you have to be fairly pro-active with your infrastructure, well more so then usual. I think a good rule of thumb is, if you are efficiently spending your resources and warpgate cooldowns before a fight, then you need more warpgates. Just stop building Zealots and drop 3-5 more gateways.
It might seem like a waste of money at the time but at points in the game you are going to be warp-ing in like 8-9 DT's/HT's at once--and I will guarantee you this will happen multiple times through out the game--then your minerals or gas (or both) will explode as you spam your Zealot hotkey waiting for your warpgates to finish coolingdown, you don't really notice how long DT/HT cooldowns are until you start losing a fight but you don't have the gateway cooldowns to reinforce despite building a trust fund.
Standard ling/bane with your leftover gas in pretty much anything is strong against heavy archon/zealot. Banelings clean up the light zealots (and even DTs) extremely efficiently, and then all you're left with is archons. If you try to forcefield, archons break the forcefields and your lings surround everything. ling/bane will leave you with extra gas left over so spending that gas on pretty much anything will give you units very capable of handling the archons. Oftentimes, the extra gas will be put into mutalisks and you will not be able to defend efficiently from harass if all you have are slow and bulky archons.
On May 15 2011 00:08 RedChaos wrote: So while this is extremely strong, its only weakness is if the zerg forgets roaches and hydras, and instead simply masses banelings. As stupid as this may sound, the idea for the zerg (who will be on many more bases than you) is to simply trade armies, which roaches and hydras cant accomplish here. While banes might not seem great against archons, they evaporate the zlots, and in enough numbers will easily eliminate the archons too, thereby winning the game. (This is the only way my relatively high masters zerg friend has beaten this, but he won easily with it).
i can confirm that, Banelings (drops) rape this pretty hard, archons without some meatshields that buy time for them to deal their splash damage die horribly fast.
and neural parasite is hard to deal with due to range issues.
lately because archons are getting popular now i noticed that a lot of people seem to forget that you can also morph DTs to archons you might ask wtf why should i care they are the same as HT archons?!
well DTs actually cost only 125 gas compared to the 150 of the HT...and with a gas intesive build like that (-50gas for an archon kekekek) it's pretty sick
DTs are more gas efficient but Dark Shrine is slower than Archives so a player has to account for what could attack them in that brief window of opportunity trying to use them to build archons.
On May 15 2011 03:30 mutantmagnet wrote: DTs are more gas efficient but Dark Shrine is slower than Archives so a player has to account for what could attack them in that brief window of opportunity trying to use them to build archons.
You can get SO many more zealots by going templar archives, however. 10 zealots is much better than an archon like OP said.
On May 15 2011 03:13 Verbal wrote: good fungals with anything involving a roach or hydra rips this apart. range 3 and 1 locked in place vs higher range zerg units is gg
Not really. Well not in that respect.
Archon/Zealot doesn't ball up like Stalker/Colossus. Your archon ball alone is almost the size of a regular Stalker/Colossus ball. As fungals are 4seconds now, Zerg needs a ton of infestors to hold your army down for a long time.
The infestor energy is better spent on Nuerals on Archons, which at 3attack are hitting Zealots for 44dmg a hit or Fungals used on the Protoss army to act as mini forcefields.
lag have you considered adding a few immortals into this mix, allowing for a easier time against early/mid game roach aggression. It'd also allow for a obs so you can adapt to what zerg is doing. do you think zerg could just spam hydras while dumping minerals into defendable expos and spinecrawlers, and then switch into heavy roach hydra off 4ish bases while already having a scary mass of hydras.
I have been messing around with this playstyle as well, I think its viable if a really good and safe opening can come you go into the mix. I have also experimented opening up air and transferring into this and using storm late game with the army; theres lots of promise here I think and a potentially new standard for how to PvZ in the next upcoming months.
Did you ever think about adding Immortals to this mix as well? Immortals are also good at taking damage and dealing tons of it to their armored roaches (which they'll most likely have) and they won't have as many pathing issues as they would with a stalker heavy army since most of your army will be up at the front. Adding 4-5 Immortals make this a roach blender with archons.
Haha, as I write this, somebody else thinks of it too two posts before me haha.
I am interested to know how do u handle muta harass since your army isn't that mobile. in terms of actual combat, I think roache and mutas (tier 3 go for brood) would work ok as long as the archon number is low
Etisme, if zerg is going roach muta they cant have that much of both. So id assume you would just add in some stalkers w/ blink get a good army distribution of zealot,archon and stalkers.
On May 15 2011 04:05 ETisME wrote: I am interested to know how do u handle muta harass since your army isn't that mobile. in terms of actual combat, I think roache and mutas (tier 3 go for brood) would work ok as long as the archon number is low
My experience trying to go muta vs this style hasn't been too promising.
You have to consider a couple of things.
1.) Protoss is getting fast upgrades.
2.) Protoss is rushing templar, giving him access to both blink and storm.
3.) Protoss is throwing down looots of gates very early on.
4.) Protoss wanting to go archon/zealot does not lock him in to archon/zealot. Once he realizes "oh, Zerg's going muta", Toss will get blink, add storm, and make tons of very well upgraded stalkers, at which point he should lol all over your muta ball.
I've actually been trying this out as a late-game transition out of blink stalkers. I prefer not to do the "turtle up and then a-move," and the blink stalkers let me be active on the map, pressure the zerg, take my third earlier, etc. Also I find that stalkers work fairly well with this style since they deal with mass roach a little better, and they can just sit in the back and not get in anything's way.
I think it needs to involve building a robo and getting a observer somewhere before you get your third up. Borrowed zerglings are really annoying when you realise you need to expand and you can't because there is a zergling trolling. Getting the robo, building a obs and flying it there is also very long. You can always build a cannon but it also delays your third by some time. Getting some spare gas to build the robo and obs is kinda hard when you are on 2 base tho.
Once you get the robo up, I highly recommend getting a Prism out as they do not cost gas. Loading up 1 or 2 archons into a prism and dropping a mineral lines is deadly. Archons with +2 attack one shot drones.
i think this should be played more like a harass and active style, templars with storm on warp prisms harassing mineral lines, your army is fast (2.75 chargelots and 2.8 archons), you should try to trade zealots with your enemy army, zealots die and you run way with the archons, warp more zealots and keep pressuring, you have to avoid big amounts of zealots.
maybe I am wrong, but camping on your base just seens wrong when your army have 2,75 movement speed
On May 15 2011 06:11 rpgalon wrote: i think this should be played more like a harass and active style, templars with storm on warp prisms harassing mineral lines, your army is fast (2.75 chargelots and 2.8 archons), you should try to trade zealots with your enemy army, zealots die and you run way with the archons, warp more zealots and keep pressuring, you have to avoid big amounts of zealots.
maybe I am wrong, but camping on your base just seens wrong when your army have 2,75 movement speed
Every single Zerg unit besides off creep hydras/queens + broodlords has a faster movement speed than that. So your point is kinda moot.
Saw Artosis do this in a PvP too. I think DT harass into archon is better, since you won't need templar feedback most of the time, unless they go infestors quite early. DT also forces them to build detection in their bases and an overseer flying around their army. Maybe get +1 weapons as the archon attack scales pretty well doesn't it?
Roach Hydra can kite it slightly on the creep but off creep hydras are so slow, archons will be able to do some serious damage. With a few forcefields if you trap the roach/hydra the zealot/archon melee mix will be sure to do great damage - especially now they have 4 range.
PvP it is ridiculous. open with a 3gate dt rush into chargelot/archon. I have not lost a PvP like this yet, because with the warp-gate nerf, there is more time to get enough units up to defend
So, I just did this against a Master Zerg who knew what i was doing, theres no spesific buildorder either i just chronoed + 3 and moved out when i was almost maxed (got supplystucl so i missed the +3 timing lol) he goes infester ling bling (later ultra) and even kills 20 zealots with 5 blings before a fight starts, and he has like a million bases. But well even though i did so much wrong i think it clearly shows how strong this composition with +3 is. (Btw he knew it was coming)
I think if there will be an actual build that revolves around this unit composition and a fast +3, which could very well completly change the metagame in PvZ.
I think this strat is pretty awesome =), i have been messing around with archons and they are really good, specially against ling/bling, where you can use them as shields to suck the banelings and then let the zealots do their job ^.^. Also vs mass roach or roach hydra they do tank fairly well and do lots of damage so chargelot/archon is pretty amazing as long as you fight in open ground where your zealots can try to get a surround (vs ling/bling you don't want to fight in open ground trust me, at least not until you get ride of the banelings and your zealots are like right next to each other, he can micro the banelings to go for the zealots and not for the archons so you must be careful there).
The only thing tho is that you can't really go straight for archons unless you are sure he won't get burrow because you won't be able to move out because of the possibility of your enemy getting roaches in your base.
I think because of the gas cost of archons (250 or 300, i don't think you will morph a DT and a templar, i don't even know if that is still possible ) is better to start with a fast expansion (as stated by the OP), which probably made you get cannons so you are safe vs burrowed roaches as well (as long as you deny any attempt of nydus in your main), this way, you have the gas for the archons and lots of minerals to make lots of zealots ^.^.
Also, fungal can be really good vs melee units like zealots so they won't be able to hit, but if you have archons you will probably have a templar archives and can get some HTs and use feedback on the infestors which should even the score ^^.
I saw NesTea put in his 2 cents on the subject last night. I liked his argument.
A lot of the posts here are making leaps in their assumptions. Yes Z-A can be an awesome composition but then again so can 50 blink stalkers or 20 colossii versus all the marines in creation.
I'd like to see this thread remade with a confined look on the unit composition instead of "Well they pwn zerglings! You'll win if they made nothing but zerglings!"
I apologize for the negativity but I feel obligated to speak up after reading most of these posts in a thread on strategy.
On May 15 2011 06:11 rpgalon wrote: i think this should be played more like a harass and active style, templars with storm on warp prisms harassing mineral lines, your army is fast (2.75 chargelots and 2.8 archons), you should try to trade zealots with your enemy army, zealots die and you run way with the archons, warp more zealots and keep pressuring, you have to avoid big amounts of zealots.
maybe I am wrong, but camping on your base just seens wrong when your army have 2,75 movement speed
Every single Zerg unit besides off creep hydras/queens + broodlords has a faster movement speed than that. So your point is kinda moot.
i know zerg units are fasters, but if you stop looking the nunbers, you can see that in the real game, archons can run way, probably cuz they can join the reinforcements quickly and have a ton of HP, since you can warp in HT and zealots, you don't need to run all the way back to home to reinforce with zealots and archons, and if the zerg is chasing you, his reinforcements will take more time to arrive,(unless he is reinforcing with zerglings against zealot/archons). it's like when you use blink stalkers against terran, you keep fighting till your zealots die, this is not that good against zerg cuz stalkers have shit dps against zerglings, and zerglings can chase down blink stalkers, and yet trading zealots for zerglings is not that good, but with archons, you one hit zerglings with splash, so the zerg player is probably building roaches, trading zealots for roaches is like trading 25 min for 25 gas, and roaches are not good like zerglings chasing and locking down armys.
On May 15 2011 06:35 Probe1 wrote: I saw NesTea put in his 2 cents on the subject last night. I liked his argument.
A lot of the posts here are making leaps in their assumptions. Yes Z-A can be an awesome composition but then again so can 50 blink stalkers or 20 colossii versus all the marines in creation.
I'd like to see this thread remade with a confined look on the unit composition instead of "Well they pwn zerglings! You'll win if they made nothing but zerglings!"
I apologize for the negativity but I feel obligated to speak up after reading most of these posts in a thread on strategy.
Well if you watched the replays, this build can deal with roach/hydra and even roach/broodlord/infestor.
On May 15 2011 06:35 Probe1 wrote: I saw NesTea put in his 2 cents on the subject last night. I liked his argument.
A lot of the posts here are making leaps in their assumptions. Yes Z-A can be an awesome composition but then again so can 50 blink stalkers or 20 colossii versus all the marines in creation.
I'd like to see this thread remade with a confined look on the unit composition instead of "Well they pwn zerglings! You'll win if they made nothing but zerglings!"
I apologize for the negativity but I feel obligated to speak up after reading most of these posts in a thread on strategy.
Well, have you at least watched the replays?
It's a LOT more than archons vs zerglings, I'd suggest you to watch them if you haven't already
Edit: Sorry, didn't refresh the page for a while, someone beat me to it.
Against this unit composition, the deathball is just as effective (if not more so) and now Zerg doesn't have a unit (even a bad one) capable of really challenging the major damage dealer: the archon.
Well baneling are really good vs zealots and burrow-microed roaches should be fine against archons. Typical protoss ball with good ffs can be invinsible to the extent you wonna break something after the game. Here the protoss engages in melee fight.
On May 15 2011 07:45 AXygnus wrote: Wonder if the Shield upgrades would be more useful than the Attack upgrades.
shield is useless against banelings so I'd not go armor.
In my exoerience dts are more useful pvz than hts. Since overseers are their only mobile detection and are easy to spot and snipe, you can force a lot of retreats when their army tries to engage outside their base. The map control you gain from dts in your army is just amazing. Then you can morph them all to archons once you want to push into their static defense. The new archons are extremely strong in this match up
I have experienced this a bit because this build is quite effective against my favorite Zerg composition. The Ultra, Infestor, Baneling/Ling composition. Well actually it is more Archon + Immortal that I face but there are some similarities with heavy Archon usage.
However after facing it a few times what is good against it is Broodlords. Broodlords wreck it pretty badly. Archons get stuck behind Broodlings and other ranged units like the Roach or Hydra deal with the Zealots. You just need to engage in the right location or get enough Broodlords to reach critical mass. Also chokes work better for you as a Zerg in this instance. This Toss build is bad on choke heavy maps from what I could see.
Maybe you could also do something with Infestor NP but feedback makes this risky.
I've been trying this, and this possibly could work in ladder, however, in a BO series, it will not work 2x in a row. I'll post my replays in a sec on my experience with this.
On May 15 2011 10:12 AzureD wrote: I have experienced this a bit because this build is quite effective against my favorite Zerg composition. The Ultra, Infestor, Baneling/Ling composition. Well actually it is more Archon + Immortal that I face but there are some similarities with heavy Archon usage.
However after facing it a few times what is good against it is Broodlords. Broodlords wreck it pretty badly. Archons get stuck behind Broodlings and other ranged units like the Roach or Hydra deal with the Zealots. You just need to engage in the right location or get enough Broodlords to reach critical mass. Also chokes work better for you as a Zerg in this instance. This Toss build is bad on choke heavy maps from what I could see.
Maybe you could also do something with Infestor NP but feedback makes this risky.
Its not like you are gonna do ONLY zealot archon. Its obvious that you have to adapt to things your opponent is doing.
So I've been playing around with this today and my biggest observation is that archons are so hilarious against baneling drops, you can let them drop their shit all over your army and once it's over your archons are just sitting there chillin. Then their shields recharge and you laugh because you don't have to replace any gas units so your army just gets stronger and stronger as the game goes on.
Damn that Archon-Zealot army in the picture looks so expensive =O I am downloading and loading the replays right now, I need a new PvZ style other than just 3 gate FE onto 3 base Colossi turtle, its boring me while pissing off the Zergs I play.
Thanks for taking the time to show us the overall strategy!
Now that I have shown that I am not against the build, I just thought it was kind of funny
Therefore, any posts along the lines of “this would never work against a competent zerg” will be BANNED.
Moderators posting guides =D
Another question, if you are not going HEAVY storm usage, you use Dark Templars to make Archons right?
First six replays were underwhelming in terms of just showing durability of the build. All but one of the games was just two players sitting in their base, macroing, and not even really scouting. Do you have any more replays where there are some engagements/tactics being used or is it all just mass up and a-move from both sides each game? I can see the power of the archons though and I realize the zealots are necessitated by all your gas being dumped into archons. My question then is, how about a couple fewer archons in there in favor stalkers to keep your zealot count down?
On May 15 2011 11:09 iTzAnglory wrote:Another question, if you are not going HEAVY storm usage, you use Dark Templars to make Archons right?
It depends on the style you're planning on playing. In my opinion, DT archons are better if you're planning on turtling on 3 base to max, since it will allow you to add more gas units into your composition and use the DTs a little bit to harass. If you're planning on being more aggressive with chargelot/archon then I prefer HT archons because you will have more units overall than the DT archon style (extra 3 zealots per 2 archons made at the cost of 50 extra gas).
On May 15 2011 11:09 iTzAnglory wrote:Another question, if you are not going HEAVY storm usage, you use Dark Templars to make Archons right?
It depends on the style you're planning on playing. In my opinion, DT archons are better if you're planning on turtling on 3 base to max, since it will allow you to add more gas units into your composition and use the DTs a little bit to harass. If you're planning on being more aggressive with chargelot/archon then I prefer HT archons because you will have more units overall than the DT archon style (extra 3 zealots per 2 archons made at the cost of 50 extra gas).
Quick question, or comment rather. This build seems to be susceptible to the map and zerg early pressure. In other words if the map has a hard to defend natural, wouldn't it be better to 3 gate expand assuming you scout some early pressure? I guess my main question is, is the build based on the speed of getting the army with upgrades up or is it more based on raw strength no matter what part of the game?
On May 15 2011 12:55 AlphaNoodle wrote: Quick question, or comment rather. This build seems to be susceptible to the map and zerg early pressure. In other words if the map has a hard to defend natural, wouldn't it be better to 3 gate expand assuming you scout some early pressure? I guess my main question is, is the build based on the speed of getting the army with upgrades up or is it more based on raw strength no matter what part of the game?
I don't think it's a good idea to do this build on maps where you can't sim city your natural. Certainly not on Delta Quadrant or Slag Pits!
To be honest, I don't feel that your psi storm replay on Shakuras is a very good example of adding HTs w/ Psi Storm into this unit comp against Zerg.
Not once the entire game did he have any base fully saturated (example: he had about 10 Drones mining at his main for ~4 minutes starting at around 8:50). The Zerg player kept his minerals low but had a major surplus of gas throughout the entire game (floating ~1500 gas at the time of the first engagement).
Beyond his initial two overlord sacs for scouting, he basically saw nothing, including your unit comp, until you moved to take your 3rd.
For the first engagement he had way too many Hydras and not nearly enough of anything to tank for them so you easily rolled over him, and it was gg from there as he had no minerals to remake much of anything. The game could have quite possibly looked very different if he had balanced his economy better, attempted to get Infestors before his army was in tatters (started Infestation Pit after the engagement had begun), and/or didn't essentially make pure Hydras then decide to make Roaches after you move to take your 3rd.
Edit: Not trying to detract from your playing, it's just that basically any standard unit comp past T1 would have rolled over this Zerg.
Sorry for being a little off-topic, in TvP I got hit by DT into archon/lots/stalker army, it seems to work vs bio/air Terran as well.
They are a little weaker than colossi vs bio, but still seems to work pretty well. Banshees have to cluster to be cost effective vs stalkers, a few archons will stop that cold.They ignore PDD too.
I've just been trying this build out (diamond). I think that this is so strong because of its flexibility. The actual zealot+archon +3 attack timing is so damn strong against any amount of hydras or lings, and it won't get totally crushed by roaches. However, I believe a zerg pumping roaches will be able to stop the push and help the Zerg survive, and Protoss has to pull back at that point. Further, brood lords crush this composition pretty handily. So against a competent player, it won't always be possible to go through with this build all the way to the push and hope to win. Instead, I'm finding that it's really good as a flexible opening because it can easily transition into some fantastic late-game armies and adapt to Zerg builds.
The build goes for lots of gateways, a twilight council, and a templar archives very quickly. If you spot mutas, it's no problem to research blink and storm very easily - and Archons are fantastic against mutas and lings. If there are a lot of roaches, you begin making stalkers and throw down a robo - switching into stalker+immortal+high templar without much difficulty. And the zealot+archon push is still strong enough that Zerg has to respect it even with pure roach. Of course, if he goes for hydras or a lot of lings, you'll outright kill him.
Problems, as I see it, come down to timings of all these transitions, and taking a 3rd safely. And, of course, there's no way to pressure Zergs, allowing them to drone as much as they like. So that's something to watch out for. Still I'm loving it and I'll keep messing with it.
Though playing against a Zerg on Tal'Darin has made me not want to play it on big maps. He saw that I had a ton of Zealots so just switched to Muta. I wasn't exactly sure what to do, so I just attacked him. As I ran up to his base and saw his drones scatter everywhere, it sank in pretty fast that he was going for an all-out base trade, I already invested too much into Zealot/Archon to ever be able to win, everytime I split them up a few muta would just start picking away on the Zealots who weren't supported by Archons or whatever few Stalkers I managed to get out.
Not sure what to do in that situation. Maybe I just need to attack earlier If I see a spire building
This is a great unit composition. Depending on what the zerg does you can also add in more immortals if roach heavy, or more HT's if hydra heavy. I do prefer to start with DT's for map control and harass.
The big problem with this composition is if the zerg player can get to brood lords. Archons are not really good enough vs brood lords. But you should have plenty of time to kill the zerg before then, or scout it with lots of time to react.
On May 15 2011 14:22 Dommk wrote: Been trying this, pretty fun
Though playing against a Zerg on Tal'Darin has made me not want to play it on big maps. He saw that I had a ton of Zealots so just switched to Muta. I wasn't exactly sure what to do, so I just attacked him. As I ran up to his base and saw his drones scatter everywhere, it sank in pretty fast that he was going for an all-out base trade, I already invested too much into Zealot/Archon to ever be able to win, everytime I split them up a few muta would just start picking away on the Zealots who weren't supported by Archons or whatever few Stalkers I managed to get out.
Not sure what to do in that situation. Maybe I just need to attack earlier If I see a spire building
When I try this out and spot mutas, and it's not a rush or it's just too late for me to 6-gate, I instantly research storm and blink and begin making nothing but stalkers and high templar. The archons you already have are still effective too. Then I just plop down a billion cannons and go attack. It's worked out so far.
I did a 3 gates expand by cutting down the sentries and getting a fast templar archive. By 7 minutes 30 i had 2 archons 1 stalker and 4 zealots. I was able to expand safely.
On May 15 2011 04:05 ETisME wrote: I am interested to know how do u handle muta harass since your army isn't that mobile. in terms of actual combat, I think roache and mutas (tier 3 go for brood) would work ok as long as the archon number is low
My experience trying to go muta vs this style hasn't been too promising.
You have to consider a couple of things.
1.) Protoss is getting fast upgrades.
2.) Protoss is rushing templar, giving him access to both blink and storm.
3.) Protoss is throwing down looots of gates very early on.
4.) Protoss wanting to go archon/zealot does not lock him in to archon/zealot. Once he realizes "oh, Zerg's going muta", Toss will get blink, add storm, and make tons of very well upgraded stalkers, at which point he should lol all over your muta ball.
not sure about this. rushing upgrades means a lesser templar and stalker counts and templar is good against mutas only when they have their upgrades. the time to get them are much longer than massing up mutas. The constant harass will pretty much force the protoss to play even more defensively, at which time, zerg can get the expansions and have a better map control
your point 4) is a very flawed argument. It is also possible for me to argue for switching to infestors (that would give lair tech later on) and also mass roache to tank, which using the remaining mutas for harrassing/reinforce
I've been using warp prisms (I get the robo for observers anyway so why not use it some more) to harass and micro hurt archons out of battle. Not sure whether it's actually cost-effective but it's lots of fun
One of the biggest weaknesses of the forge first expo is that you're vulnerable to nydus and roach aggression and you "have" to get a voidray to fight that stuff off. Now I'm wondering just how fast you can get a dark shrine out..
On May 15 2011 17:27 Drowsy wrote: One of the biggest weaknesses of the forge first expo is that you're vulnerable to nydus and roach aggression and you "have" to get a voidray to fight that stuff off. Now I'm wondering just how fast you can get a dark shrine out..
I've been playing against this quite a lot lately, and I've found something that I find works pretty darn well actually. If your Zerg opponent spots you lacking Collosus Tech, a very nasty response from the Zerg is to go Hydra ling Infestor with early drop tech. Hydras really rip through Zealots and Archons, and they deal extremely well versus Immortals aswell. The weakness comes in the form of lightning death from storms. On top of that you've got to be extremely agressive with that sort of style. Sitting back and playing a macro only game as Zerg is not going to cut it. I generally noticed that dropping the back and assaulting the front while expanding, generally leaves the protoss slowly dying. Archons and Zealots really aren't that fast - not to talk about the High Templars. Getting good exchanges in somewhat medium sized engagements is not all that hard either.
I defently find Archons to be valueable to the Protoss army. I merely wonder if going light on the Archons and adding a light amount of Collosus would be more ideal?
I like this style of play and have been trying it alot before already but never got good results with it. The change to archons might make it better though.
I actually like going stargate first though and then switch into zealot/archon. It feels a bit safer as i get scouting options, a way to stop his third and a sort of counter to mutalisk play. Zealot archon straight up can actually have quite some problems against quick muta play. I also just prefer going no sentries or just 1 with this build, I find they only delay archons and guardian shield isn't really that good against zerg especially with this composition. Your zealots are hard to cover and sentries are the only slow unit in a zealot/stalker/archon composition.
For mass archon it might be worth it to get shield upgrades with double forge. Helps with the turtling too. Especially if you go a DT path, quite a bit of gas will be freed up in comparison to a HT/Storm path, and DTs have more shield too.
On May 15 2011 21:25 imbecile wrote: For mass archon it might be worth it to get shield upgrades with double forge. Helps with the turtling too. Especially if you go a DT path, quite a bit of gas will be freed up in comparison to a HT/Storm path, and DTs have more shield too.
I advise against it.
To get +3shields, it costs around 4minutes worth of gas harvesting from a single base. The upgrade alone costs almost as much as the Weapon and Armor upgrade combined (sometime like ~150/150 less).
You are going to have like four archons 10mins into the game if you try get the shield upgrade early on.
Lets say you aim for +2/0/+2 with double forge going the DT route. TC, Upgrades, DS, WG and Say 3 DT's to harass = 1487 Gas~= 4-5 Archons
A single base roughly has around 228gas income per minute, you are looking at 6.5mins worth of gas from a single base. That is a huge investment and you have nothing to really make use of it. 1
Shield upgrades are nice, but not early on. The Archons aren't mean to tank damage anyway, it is only a last resort thing, the Zealots should make it so the Archons avoid getting hit.
On May 15 2011 19:51 Xana wrote: I've been playing against this quite a lot lately, and I've found something that I find works pretty darn well actually. If your Zerg opponent spots you lacking Collosus Tech, a very nasty response from the Zerg is to go Hydra ling Infestor with early drop tech. Hydras really rip through Zealots and Archons, and they deal extremely well versus Immortals aswell. The weakness comes in the form of lightning death from storms. On top of that you've got to be extremely agressive with that sort of style. Sitting back and playing a macro only game as Zerg is not going to cut it. I generally noticed that dropping the back and assaulting the front while expanding, generally leaves the protoss slowly dying. Archons and Zealots really aren't that fast - not to talk about the High Templars. Getting good exchanges in somewhat medium sized engagements is not all that hard either.
I defently find Archons to be valueable to the Protoss army. I merely wonder if going light on the Archons and adding a light amount of Collosus would be more ideal?
What i have been doing lately against zerg is the completely standard 3gate expand into blink stalker.
I pressure the zerg with the blink stalkers and sometimes outright kill him or atleast his third, as zergs aren't prepared for a big early/mid game push.
I continuesly "shark arround" (coined: geoff) and pick off anything i can, i try to deny the third for as long as possible and blink into the main if he moves his army to secure it.
It's my experience that the zerg has two responces to seeing this pressure
1) more roaches. If he does so i continue down the collosus path trying to make the zerg max on roaches
2) hydra ling. If he goes for the less common hydra ling build i start throw down the templar archives but don't upgrade storm and add 5-10 gateways (when on 3 base) and max out a chargelot / blink stalker / archon army. If the zerg realizes this, collosus tech isnt to far behind and blink stalkers allow you enough map controll to take a forth on most maps.) (This is also my responce to infestors because feedback is awesome awesome)
I should note i tend to grab an early +1 atk (and continue to get + attack instead of armor) as i get the forge for canons anyway and it makes blink stalker harass a lot better.
This is what i've been doing PvZ with archons, sorry i don't have time to elaborate much but i thought it was sorta in line with what OP's post is about so i figured it would be worth posting.
I agree with the OP that this needs some form of early-mid game aggression to stop the zerg economy from exploding. I'm also worried about the longevity of this strategy. It seems to me that there have to be some sick timings when the toss player has 1-2 archons and is completely open to attack. I can see baneling busts being pretty sick, as well as hydra drops.
I also agree that pure upgraded roaches might be the answer to this. + Show Spoiler +
In this past GSL, we saw NesTea use just a few roaches to fend off 1 archon+zealots. Would the same thing work here?
I think that if the zerg has good creep spread and is able to engage in the center of the map, the roaches would be able to get sick surface area and negate the archon spash damage.
The other possible counter may involve burrow tactics. This would force the protoss to get a robo and obs. The protoss player wouldn't lose the game because of burrow, but their gas, and therefore archons, would be severely delayed.
This was one of the ultimate late game transitions in BW in PvZ. Zerg can't really do anything.
I wouldn't shoot directly towards the composition right off the bat because there are builds with more effective timings but its something to keep in mind in the late game. However, its going to be harder to get compared to the BW Dr. Manhattan composition due to limited gas supplies so I suppose you do need a specialized build. That or you start throwing down nexus at expos just for the gas.
I can't for the life of me beat a Zerg who just scouts my massive Zealot count and just switches to Muta. You have no scouting, your Stalker count is non existent and you have a huge timing window here you just die if the Zerg goes Muta. At around the 10-11min mark where all your infrastructure kicks in and you make your first commitment to a Zealot/Archon army or just before all your infrastructure kicks in, you are very vulnerable Muta.
You have no actual form of scouting, and the way in which you do your build, you invest virtually everything you have just getting Tech and Infrastructure that you have no army, it comes a live when every Warpgate is up and kicking and it feels like you are playing Zerg, but before then, before your mass gateways go up, you are on 3 sentries, a few Zealots and an Archon or two with only 3/4gateways that you aren't even using.
You cant keep up that early in the game to aggresion, making an Archon puts two of your gateways on a 45second cooldown... Sure it is devastating but you cant reinforce fast enough and gets tied up with your other gateway army.
I think the composition is strong. However there is a need to hit some sort of mid game timing but you are cutting every corner to get there, you invest into Tech that doesn't pay it self off for a long time, you bank a lot of resources, you build all your infrastructure to support unit production in big bursts rather than a steady flow and to top it all off you have no real way to create a threatening army before everything kicks in.
Yes you have storm and Blink in your path, but with no scouting you have no idea if you will need them or not and if you choose to get them blindly, you don't at any point have many of the units that the upgrades actually benefit.
TBH, I like the composition, but having no ability to scout and no form of steady army production till around 11-12mins mark just doesn't sit well with me. Drop/Muta play that hits you before everything kicks in is a killing blow. Also if you choose to go a standard army then try transition into this it doesn't work too well at all.
EDIT:
TL;DR:
- Waiting until 11-12mins in to start your unit production is far too long IMO
- You are very vulnerable to timings due to a lack of a threatening army
- You have no way to produce an army till every thing kicks in. As you are not using gateway cooldowns leading up to your gateway explosion, if a situation arises where you need units fast, you will be in the deep end very quickly. 3/4 Gateways are great, but the idea behind it is that you are using your cooldowns modestly and building up your army slowly, you cannot in a panic just throw an army together with banked resources with such few production facilities.
On May 15 2011 20:41 Markwerf wrote: I like this style of play and have been trying it alot before already but never got good results with it. The change to archons might make it better though.
I actually like going stargate first though and then switch into zealot/archon. It feels a bit safer as i get scouting options, a way to stop his third and a sort of counter to mutalisk play. Zealot archon straight up can actually have quite some problems against quick muta play. I also just prefer going no sentries or just 1 with this build, I find they only delay archons and guardian shield isn't really that good against zerg especially with this composition. Your zealots are hard to cover and sentries are the only slow unit in a zealot/stalker/archon composition.
With the 9 gates, you can easily warp-in a lot of stalkers if you see 4 gas + lair (which this response is also better for infestors as zealots are melee and are very vulnerable to infestors) with a probe scout.
+ with chrono, you should have enough stalkers. Also, since you have the twilight council, you can easily prepare for blink.
On May 15 2011 20:41 Markwerf wrote: I like this style of play and have been trying it alot before already but never got good results with it. The change to archons might make it better though.
I actually like going stargate first though and then switch into zealot/archon. It feels a bit safer as i get scouting options, a way to stop his third and a sort of counter to mutalisk play. Zealot archon straight up can actually have quite some problems against quick muta play. I also just prefer going no sentries or just 1 with this build, I find they only delay archons and guardian shield isn't really that good against zerg especially with this composition. Your zealots are hard to cover and sentries are the only slow unit in a zealot/stalker/archon composition.
With the 9 gates, you can easily warp-in a lot of stalkers if you see 4 gas + lair (which this response is also better for infestors as zealots are melee and are very vulnerable to infestors) with a probe scout.
+ with chrono, you should have enough stalkers. Also, since you have the twilight council, you can easily prepare for blink.
But your 9 Gates come up at the 10-11min mark because you are also upgrading and getting Templar tech at the same time. If you can get to that point then I think you are in a good position, but until you get there you are just relying on a probe scout and praying he doesn't do some kind of funky all-in
I wall off, and do a +2 timing push with like 5-6 archons 7-9 stalkers 1 sentry, looots of zealots and 1 observer, while taking my third expand behind the push, I hit in the 12 minute mark, and like to go for the zerg third base. if in the 12 minute mark zerg don't have a third or is not saturating his third, i don't attack and just try to protect my 3 bases.
it's very similar to the OP build, I just build less sentrys and a little less zealots, and build more stalkers and a robo... and i try to hit earlier to hit the zerg, just when his third base starts to pay off.
Obs: I like zealots but i try to build earlier stalkers and hit earlier, so i don't have that biiiig mass of zealots.
On May 16 2011 00:42 trNimitz wrote: Tried this out, just standard roach/mass infestor play rapes it. Immoblized melee units are the definition of useless. :/
On May 16 2011 03:12 rpgalon wrote: I wall off, and do a +2 timing push with like 5-6 archons 7-9 stalkers 1 sentry, looots of zealots and 1 observer, while taking my third expand behind the push, I hit in the 12 minute mark, and like to go for the zerg third base. if in the 12 minute mark zerg don't have a third or is not saturating his third, i don't attack and just try to protect my 3 bases.
it's very similar to the OP build, I just build less sentrys and a little less zealots, and build more stalkers and a robo... and i try to hit earlier to hit the zerg, just when his third base starts to pay off.
Obs: I like zealots but i try to build earlier stalkers and hit earlier, so i don't have that biiiig mass of zealots.
isnt that to long to wait? id be getting my 4th by that time xDD ( im zerg )
On May 16 2011 00:42 trNimitz wrote: Tried this out, just standard roach/mass infestor play rapes it. Immoblized melee units are the definition of useless. :/
yeah got the same problem
If there are infestors then you have to keep some high templars around for feedback. Worked pretty well for me so far!
For the person questioning the 9 gateways, you start floating a ton of minerals if you only have 8.
On May 16 2011 00:42 trNimitz wrote: Tried this out, just standard roach/mass infestor play rapes it. Immoblized melee units are the definition of useless. :/
yeah got the same problem
If there are infestors then you have to keep some high templars around for feedback. Worked pretty well for me so far!
For the person questioning the 9 gateways, you start floating a ton of minerals if you only have 8.
I'm kinda curious about feedback, does making some DTs and feedbacking the Overseers work well in your experience? It would seem like that would be helpful in controlling zerg's gas.
On May 16 2011 00:42 trNimitz wrote: Tried this out, just standard roach/mass infestor play rapes it. Immoblized melee units are the definition of useless. :/
yeah got the same problem
If there are infestors then you have to keep some high templars around for feedback. Worked pretty well for me so far!
For the person questioning the 9 gateways, you start floating a ton of minerals if you only have 8.
I'm kinda curious about feedback, does making some DTs and feedbacking the Overseers work well in your experience? It would seem like that would be helpful in controlling zerg's gas.
If you can kill an overseer with feedback it's because of the zerg playing bad and not dumping his mana, it's not something you can rely on.
As fun and as strong archons are (probably the most supply efficient unit in the game, 200/200 archon is just lol)
I really can't get this build to work. Its like, you are going straight for the latest of latest of tech, and the correct zerg response is just to make drones since until you have an archon force there is literally nothing you can do to harass
Once zerg has that econ, since all units are "ok" against archons (infestor roach EG) it doesn't really matter just as long as he attacks you at somepoint with his 3 base econ
+1 and +2 attack are really nice, +3 not so important since a +1 advantage in attack vs carapace (or a -1 disadvantage) is where the swing in # of shots to kill comes in. So chrono the shizz out of +1, get +2 pretty fast to be ready for his +1 carapace, but research storm or get an almost-archon or something instead of rushing +3.
each saturated base supports roughly 5 gateways if you don't also tech/expand. Similar to zealot/sentry, just templar cost more gas and have WAY longer cooldowns.
I find it nice to have an even number of gateways to make it less likely that you warp in 3/5/7 templar when you have no use for a HT and want only archons/zlots.
Get a robo. you need a couple obs for scouting, creep-killing, and dealing with burrow. I also see GREAT potential for warp prisms with this style (elevator into the main and warp in 34986798 units if he has a ton of spines?), and immortals might be better than usual since he can't make lings to kill them (immortal drop killing the queen and morphing spire? LOL^^)
Most importantly, and for many reasons, I advocate attacking ASAP and continuing to attack rather than massing up and a-moving at 200/200. Here come the reasons: -If you DON'T attack asap, you miss a chance to totally pwn him if his early game built a bunch of useless zerglings. -chargelot/archon does AWESOME in small numbers, good in medium numbers, and very meh in large numbers. This is vs any unit comp I can think of. -Infestors get more annoying the longer the game goes and the bigger armies get because: there are more of them meaning harder to feedback before they cast, they have more energy and their upgrades have been researched, NP hurts more because you have more clumped zealots for your archons to murder, and fungal works better the more units you have. Think about what will happen when fungal or NP happens to an army of 2 archons, 10 zlots. Then think about what happens vs an army of 6 archons, 30 zlots. Try it and you'll see ^_^ -banelings could be decent vs a HUGE army, but you will LOL if he uses them vs small armies. It takes roughly the same number of banes to evaporate a large army as it does to evaporate a small army. Also it's much easier to spread/retreat your zealots in small numbers than it is in big numbers. -With pure gateways you reinforce anywhere on the map really really fast, so you're able to continuously force battle with small armies, and can move in for the kill if he slips up. -It's really easy to retreat a single low-shield archon in a small-army fight. It's impossible when there are 30 roach/hydras focus firing him down. -Constant fighting with small armies is FUN! Also exciting for observers. Maxing out a big ball and moving out for one decisive battle is boring and repetitive.
On May 16 2011 08:59 Saracen wrote: Hey, I have a question, OP: How does this build fare against hydra heavy compositions?
full hydra is destroyed by this comp, full roach are easy to deal if you have an observer.
mid roach mid hydra or low roach heavy hydra, can end both ways, it is very dependent on positioning, fighting on creep, your surround, all archons hitting, etc...
but this on mid suply armies, low suply i think archons/zealots > roach/hydra, and high suply archon/zealot < roach/hydra this becomes even worse if the zerg uses some banelings to kill the mass zealot, and if you let zerg get some broodlords it's gg unless you are ahead.
Obs: after playing some times with my friend, it looks like if you have chargelots and not that much archons, they work better if you put then behind/together the archons, this happens cus if you put your chargelots in front of the archons, they start charging and die before the archons start to hit
On May 16 2011 09:24 Keilah wrote: my 2,3,4 and 5 cents:
+1 and +2 attack are really nice, +3 not so important since a +1 advantage in attack vs carapace (or a -1 disadvantage) is where the swing in # of shots to kill comes in. So chrono the shizz out of +1, get +2 pretty fast to be ready for his +1 carapace, but research storm or get an almost-archon or something instead of rushing +3.
each saturated base supports roughly 5 gateways if you don't also tech/expand. Similar to zealot/sentry, just templar cost more gas and have WAY longer cooldowns.
I find it nice to have an even number of gateways to make it less likely that you warp in 3/5/7 templar when you have no use for a HT and want only archons/zlots.
Get a robo. you need a couple obs for scouting, creep-killing, and dealing with burrow. I also see GREAT potential for warp prisms with this style (elevator into the main and warp in 34986798 units if he has a ton of spines?), and immortals might be better than usual since he can't make lings to kill them (immortal drop killing the queen and morphing spire? LOL^^)
Most importantly, and for many reasons, I advocate attacking ASAP and continuing to attack rather than massing up and a-moving at 200/200. Here come the reasons: -If you DON'T attack asap, you miss a chance to totally pwn him if his early game built a bunch of useless zerglings. -chargelot/archon does AWESOME in small numbers, good in medium numbers, and very meh in large numbers. This is vs any unit comp I can think of. -Infestors get more annoying the longer the game goes and the bigger armies get because: there are more of them meaning harder to feedback before they cast, they have more energy and their upgrades have been researched, NP hurts more because you have more clumped zealots for your archons to murder, and fungal works better the more units you have. Think about what will happen when fungal or NP happens to an army of 2 archons, 10 zlots. Then think about what happens vs an army of 6 archons, 30 zlots. Try it and you'll see ^_^ -banelings could be decent vs a HUGE army, but you will LOL if he uses them vs small armies. It takes roughly the same number of banes to evaporate a large army as it does to evaporate a small army. Also it's much easier to spread/retreat your zealots in small numbers than it is in big numbers. -With pure gateways you reinforce anywhere on the map really really fast, so you're able to continuously force battle with small armies, and can move in for the kill if he slips up. -It's really easy to retreat a single low-shield archon in a small-army fight. It's impossible when there are 30 roach/hydras focus firing him down. -Constant fighting with small armies is FUN! Also exciting for observers. Maxing out a big ball and moving out for one decisive battle is boring and repetitive.
agree 100%, I like trading 1 archon and 7 zealots for 7 stalkers, when zealots start to mass (20 +-)
I have hit this or something similar quite a few times now (usually DT rush into archon though, dt rushes seem popular given they now have a plan B). Usually as a 2 base timing push after which I have either lost (as Zerg) or win a battle, deny the third and eventually win by starving the toss.
A few things come to mind.
First, dts can be killed with banelings without detection ... I am starting to just throw up a baneling nest every ZvP because being able to convert 3-4 lings to kill off dt harass (just while I get spores or an overseer) can be worth it.
Second, in line with point 1 and perhaps more importantly, charge zealots hate banelings, especially with a couple attack upgrades. They charge and boom, the charge means the zealots are nice and clumped and much harder to micro away (unless they are on hold position all the time a few banes will destroy a bunch of them). maybe better with infestors ... not sure ...
Now I have successfully combined this with roaches at my lowly level because unsupported archons will eventually die to an overwhelming number of roaches given how efficiently banes can clear out chargelots. This may not be the case at higher levels.
At higher levels it looks to me like you would need a) some unit that can deal with archons, hydras or infestors with NP would do well as could broodlords and b) something to get between the chargelots and the hydras/infestors, probably either roaches or banelings would be best here as lings and ultras get ripped apart by zealots.
Has anyone tried baneling/hydra ? It seems like a very fragile composition but has insane damage so might do the trick. It also has the advantage of mauling blink stalkers so if you scout a twilight and are unsure it makes for a good transition (ling/hydra into bling/hydra).
Note that also in my (limited) experience fast templar/dt builds end up vulnerable to roach/ling pressure or all in but that could just be at my level.
hah, bane/hydra might actually be pretty good vs this. Probably want to keep the banes hugging the hydras or something, to make sure they explode on zealots and not archons.
EDIT: although I suppose, psi storm now beats the poop out of your entire army, so... ?
On May 16 2011 08:59 Saracen wrote: Hey, I have a question, OP: How does this build fare against hydra heavy compositions?
What, you mean you're an actual person? I thought you were a bot that bans people and closes threads.
Does not compute. Not a strategy-related post. >> ban -forum -time 17 7d iamke55 Banning user iamke55 from forum 17 for 7 day(s)... Error: cannot ban user. Banning user iamke55 from forum 17 for 7 day(s)... Error: cannot ban user. Banning user iamke55 from forum 17 for 7 day(s)... Error: cannot ban user. Banning user iamke55 from forum 17 for 7 day(s)... Error: cannot ban user. Banning user iamke55 from forum 17 for 7 day(s)... Error: cannot ban user. ^C >>
On May 16 2011 00:42 trNimitz wrote: Tried this out, just standard roach/mass infestor play rapes it. Immoblized melee units are the definition of useless. :/
yeah got the same problem
If there are infestors then you have to keep some high templars around for feedback. Worked pretty well for me so far!
For the person questioning the 9 gateways, you start floating a ton of minerals if you only have 8.
I really hope that this becomes standard PvZ and roach/infestor becomes standard ZvP as well, because then you get some really cool micro dynamics. Roach/Infestor > protoss army, but protoss army > roaches and high templars > infestors.
It's sort of like ZvT, where mutas/lings > tanks > banelings > marines > mutas/lings and it comes down to timing, reinforcement and control as opposed to the "well you let me get this army so now I 1a you" of the previous standard (which doesn't work anymore from what I've seen, infestors are good and so are banelings)
I'm gonna look through the replays and think about this new composition :D
On May 16 2011 08:59 Saracen wrote: Hey, I have a question, OP: How does this build fare against hydra heavy compositions?
What, you mean you're an actual person? I thought you were a bot that bans people and closes threads.
Does not compute. Not a strategy-related post. >> ban -forum -time 17 7d iamke55 Banning user iamke55 from forum 17 for 7 day(s)... Error: cannot ban user. Banning user iamke55 from forum 17 for 7 day(s)... Error: cannot ban user. Banning user iamke55 from forum 17 for 7 day(s)... Error: cannot ban user. Banning user iamke55 from forum 17 for 7 day(s)... Error: cannot ban user. Banning user iamke55 from forum 17 for 7 day(s)... Error: cannot ban user. ^C >>
loving the banter lol
OT: I will try this out tomorrow when I get a chance to play without being half asleep lol Ill post back with some initial impressions and in a week or so with some more time will add to my thoughts
Though I do feel that this will be especially good if there is a Zerg who goes hatch first late gas so long as you go for DT expand since you can really punish the Zerg and not be behind with the option for defensive DTs pretty early to help you prepare for HTs and storm once you get a third up
On May 16 2011 00:42 trNimitz wrote: Tried this out, just standard roach/mass infestor play rapes it. Immoblized melee units are the definition of useless. :/
yeah got the same problem
If there are infestors then you have to keep some high templars around for feedback. Worked pretty well for me so far!
For the person questioning the 9 gateways, you start floating a ton of minerals if you only have 8.
There was a guy who did 1 base Zealot + Archon and he needed 5-6 Gateways in order to spend his money. Archons really eat into production time. You can maybe make 2 Archons a minute on 2 bases. 9 might even be too few but maybe with really good macro it might work out.
You really can't get anything else that costs gas though. If you lose those Archons it might be gg as they are REALLY expensive.
Wow. I'm very happy that I have found that thread, because a few days ago I came up independently with that strategy, and my conclusions are similar to yours ! (mid-level master here).
There are a few details that I'd like to add since I spent a couple hours experimenting in unit testers. First, this strat IMO works better by adopting a Zerg-like mentality. Zealots only cost minerals, so you can spawn them in huge amounts as a throw-away unit. Positionning is also counter-intuitive: as a Protoss, so far, we've wanted to engage in chokes and narrow areas. But to maximize efficiency with this strat, you should actually engage in open-space ! Also, you shouldn't stay on the defensive: playing sim-city in your natural can actually work against you if you get attacked. I'd recommend positionning your army in front of the natural, below the choke/ramp.
I've tested many zerg compositions of zerglings/roaches/hydras ( pure hydras, lings/hydras, lings/roaches, pure roaches, roaches/hydras in various % and lings/roaches/hydras ) and came to the conclusion that a protoss army made of chargelots/templars/archons always wins, assuming engaging in open-space and +1 difference in upgrades (under less favorable conditions, it becomes a micro battle). I'm not sure about bannelings/infestors though, I guess they'd counter it pretty well.
I think this strat works better by dropping double-forge and chrono-boosting upgrades asap. I'm not convinced about going DTs, IMO dropping a templar archive and starting to warp templars/archons (without storm yet) asap is better, and add storm later. The timing attack can come as soon as the +2 upgrades arrive.
As I suspected this build is amazing against no gas spanishiwa style openings. I have played about 5 games against that style today and with a DT expand you have an amazing opportunity to really take advantage of the archon chargelot composition. While DTs are more expensive if you know the Zerg will suffer from late detection you can do decent damage with the DTs and safely expand behind the pressure. This allows you to save gas to transition to high templar based archons. The DT archons are also very good at defending early pressure.
I played a Zerg who decided to go for a baneling bust after I denied a few spore crawlers to build/burrow (I committed to the DT harass with about 5 of them to do this). I was able to create a choke with some high hp buildings and place Archons in hold position in and behind the wall. The 30 or so banelings never broke my front thanks to the massive amount of shields archons have and their size negating most splash damage and the fact they dont suffer bonus damage from the banelings.
All in all loving the composition and feedback/storm thrown in is super useful as well
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).
I tried this and it works quite well in the lower leagues (plat). The key is of course to not loose your archons, retreat when the zealots evaporates and replenish. I had a 200/200 engagement where the zerg threw 63 (!) banelings at my army. I had 11 archons, 9 survived. Of the 40 zealots, only 2. I named them Lucky and Bastard.
I made a robo for observers because otherwise you finish with creep in your main, plus burrowed roaches can be annoying.
I have the feeling it works mostly because zerg are not used to it, though. Give them some time and they will hard counter the heck out of it. Of the turtling-no scouting version, at least, which is why we need to find an opener and mid-game that can transition into it.
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 ?
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.
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.
OK so I was toying around and I'm looking for ways to make this better.
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
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.
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.
yeah, to be fair the zergs unit composition will most likely involve roaches, and armor does almost nothing against them.
I've been trying this build a lot since last patch ( I actually made a discussion thread for it but it was bad and got closed). If I feel really safe and I feel that the zerg is being really greedy I'll go for 3 gate expand into dts with my twilight council down before the nexus finishes. I especially like this style versus ling baneling. Usually because off all the gas going into banes the zerg won't have a lair/overseer out in time and the dts sometimes can win the game. The archons allow you to move around the map versus ling bane a lot sooner than other builds and if you micro well and have your archons absorb banelings you can sometimes kill a zerg player outright. Its nice to do this build because you can keep up constant aggression while expanding and feeling safe.
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
Ive been toying with Ke's new build, i always like to help test what he puts out and give him feedback on Bnet.
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.
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).
How do you beat this, because I'm getting really pissed off losing to scrubs doing this. It also totally dominates the style of ZvP I've been playing (ling/infestor/bling/ultra)
Wow this sounds really good and at the very least, fun. Can't wait to try this out later! I like the idea of opening early dt for harass and map control which is far more useful than opening with templar archives and going straight into archons.
Interesting fact: 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 =]
I am curious as to why people focus so much on the zealots in this build.
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.
I've tried out a similar build after watching the zerg go hatch first. Most of the zerg's that I played did 2 base all in after they saw me take such an early expo, and once I saw this coming it was easy to get a few more cannons and hold it off. After that initial hold of the all-in, the game was over because they couldn't reproduce units fast enough and the archon splash is way too much. At that point I had +2 attack already done. Zealot/Archon works great and not that many people deal well with it, still haven't figured out all the timings either.
Has anyone figured out a good robo timing for this build to get observers? I always feel so broke on gas with this build that I'm not sure when to fit it in. I get it when I'm about to take my third or when I doing my first real push (when a third is harder to take) in case he's doing burrow crap, but it usually feels too late. Fighting speed + burrow roaches on creep with chargelot/archon is rough without sentries, but this build doesn't really give me too many options early on to clear it.
I'm honestly starting to think it's worth delaying the TC to get a robo and observer first if you see roaches. You can count on him researching burrow and immortals help a ton vs roaches. They're also real nice vs spines and you needn't worry about lings or mutas because of the zealots + archons.
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.
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.
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.
Haven't come up against this yet and I tend to use ling/bling/infestor/ultra against Protoss so I'm guessing I'll probably have to change my unit comp.
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).
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.
Since this playstyle is so utterly passive you can get to infestor/baneling/roach once you ascertain they dont have some massive air switch coming. Until this build removes the reliance on zealots somehow im convinced it can't be a consistent standard. I've used it alot with mostly terrible results so I dont think ill be getting archons the same way as the OP. If you get on 3 bases or especially on a 4th I think its just awesome as a switch to go into archon, but once your opponent knows what you're doing you find yourself in a bad position... at least a worse position than with a standard army.
Don't let that guy make me look like an unfair mod... I closed his thread because it wasn't tagged properly as required by the Purge thread. Normally I would just rename it and be done but his balance complaint in the replay didn't make me want to do him any favors.
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.
Since this playstyle is so utterly passive you can get to infestor/baneling/roach once you ascertain they dont have some massive air switch coming. Until this build removes the reliance on zealots somehow im convinced it can't be a consistent standard. I've used it alot with mostly terrible results so I dont think ill be getting archons the same way as the OP. If you get on 3 bases or especially on a 4th I think its just awesome as a switch to go into archon, but once your opponent knows what you're doing you find yourself in a bad position... at least a worse position than with a standard army.
roach/infestor definitely feels like the best choice right now. Perhaps banelings too but in a late game situation it's incredibly easy to get HT. I feel like Roaches are the only viable unit that are able to absorb the damage from the composition (chargelots destroy hydralisks), and therefore it's the core. Meanwhile, what's stopping the roaches from winning outright are the Archons so Neural Parasite would benefit greatly.
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.
Since this playstyle is so utterly passive you can get to infestor/baneling/roach once you ascertain they dont have some massive air switch coming. Until this build removes the reliance on zealots somehow im convinced it can't be a consistent standard. I've used it alot with mostly terrible results so I dont think ill be getting archons the same way as the OP. If you get on 3 bases or especially on a 4th I think its just awesome as a switch to go into archon, but once your opponent knows what you're doing you find yourself in a bad position... at least a worse position than with a standard army.
This is why I keep saying protoss should be finding a way to attack sooner, with 1-3 archons and probably at +1 and without charge
How about pressure early with 6 gate as soon as +1 attack is done? You would try to kill someone who went muta and add twilight council + templar archives against someone who used roaches or lings for defense. I'm practicing my standard pvz build lately so I haven't been doing the archon build much.
On May 19 2011 10:11 iamke55 wrote: How about pressure early with 6 gate as soon as +1 attack is done? You would try to kill someone who went muta and add twilight council + templar archives against someone who used roaches or lings for defense. I'm practicing my standard pvz build lately so I haven't been doing the archon build much.
That should work quite well since forge FE transitions quite nicely into 6 gate if needed.
I think if you see 4 gas and not that many spine crawlers (due to you ffing), you can go for a 6 gate 38 probe 2 gas instead of the archon build.
What is your standard build? Just wondering since it seems you're choosing that over this.
I tested this build on ladder (plat lvl, against diamond, plat and gold).
Let's say in general I was going on a 2gates/forge expand, which is quite safe in early game PvZ.
From what I've seen (let's forget about gold and plats), if correctly scouted by the zerg (he won't any gas heavy unit from you until 8-9 minutes), you have a huge time window of weakness (around 10-11) where a mass roach in addtion of 3-4 infestors can overwhelm you before you have enough archons to survive. I feel this build is quite vulnerable if applied in early mid game with only 2 nexi --> too gas heavy.
I'm gonna try it as transition in late game. But my feel is right now the 3gates/FE then robo is still the best ans safest opening against zergs
Spanishiwa style was my savior, the protoss was able to win the PvZ match-up so incredibly easily, but now they have to actually shed a sweat or two. as for the DT's I would say that it'ss very risky but if you catch the zerg off guard you can cancel his third, but no more than that, unless the zerg player is low level. And I would say the response to your late game composition would be Infestor ultralisk, infestor is used to take out the zealots cost efficiently and ultralisks are used to counter the archons. In case the protoss player goes for some air-colossi mass air with their zealot archon composition, its most safe to get out corrupters to be able to save the energy on those infestors. Also with the infestor speen now lowered down we can pay less attention to the infestors but still loosing them would be like a protoss player loosing all his centuries early game (and possibly GGing next.) As for the dealing with the immortals, it is very cost efficient to use infested terran to scatter them or kill them, also your ultralisks should never waste any of their attacks on the immortals. ultralisks are easy to micro, save them as much as you can be cause loosing them could be the end of you no matter how far ahead you are. unless you are 7 base vs a 1 base toss with phoenixes. High templar could do serios damage to your composition so be wary of them. you can deal with them be microing your infestors and keeping the in the back, if the templar get to greedy to kill your infestors kill them with the rest of your army. If the protoss player switches into mass high templars (gets more than 6 templars out) you can afford to get about 7-8 mutas and wait for an opportunity to catch some of those Templar, because of their movement speed they cant be caught out of position if the protoss player is not careful. and, in time maybe harrass his mineral lines a little make him build a cannon or two. another way of dealing with templar is to use about 10 burrowed roaches in your compostion, as the battle starts burrow your roaches and send them under the protoss army, this would very cost efficient because although the protoss player has an observes and sees them, he focuses his entire army on those burrowed roaches and they take in some much of the focus fire while the rest of your army is doing their job.
Reeeaally nice, gonna try this out. Would imagine infestors are really strong against this with all the bunching up zealots and low range of the archons. Not morhping some of the HT's and using feedback on the infestors could work I guess. Overall sweeet thread dude!
Seems like this has so much potential...key that I don't see discussed is how fast this can get you to a 200 max army. With colossi tech you have to wait forever for thermal lance and for each individual colossi to get out of the oven (1.25 minutes not counting the 65s build time for robo facilities). And in fact a colossi/stalker army is so expensive you usually need to go 3 base before you can make it work. In the screenshot the protoss has what appears to be a 180 supply army at the 15 minute mark...you don't (at least I don't) see that powerful of an army that fast with colossi. That's huge!
It's also great to see a use for zealots...in standard pvz they're only good at holding off early ling pressure then they are worthless because mass ranged units focus them so fast with frontloaded damage.
Here with sufficient numbers, attack upgrades (+12.5% isn't shabby), charge, and archon support they once again become effective and represent a viable mineral sink for protoss which is huge. One of the biggest problems right now for protoss players is they don't have an efficient mineral sink vs zerg.
Yeah, mutas could be a pain...but think about it. If they go muta tech this means their ground forces will be pathetic and you could probably just attack their base. It also means because mutas are so gas expensive that they will have probably mostly mineral sink units (lings) that you would face which is perfect for zealot-archon! Guess the key is just to scout the zerg constantly with probes or a zealot and if you see mineral sink units (spines/lings) assume mass mutas, build defensive cannons...leave a couple of archons behind for defense and consider getting storm. That or change your attack timing to happen a lot faster.
Don't see broodlords being an issue at the 15 minute mark.
Also don't like the idea of getting blink/stalkers/or observers/shield upgrades. This really slows down your monster zarchon push which is key vs zerg because they are such a reactionary and exponetial race that timing is everything with them.
I am but a lowly plat, but I've been workign this build out with DTs, as they can put early pressuer on, slow the zerg from moving out, and can actually help you defend from zerglings.
This main problem is you basically just gotta survive until you get a good number of archons+chargelots out.
On May 22 2011 08:53 Fungal Growth wrote: Also don't like the idea of getting blink/stalkers/or observers/shield upgrades. This really slows down your monster zarchon push which is key vs zerg because they are such a reactionary and exponetial race that timing is everything with them.
It's just that if the zerg sees many zealots he'll almost always get roaches and then you need the robo, I'm pretty confident that zlot/archon is bad vs pure roach
On May 22 2011 08:54 scur2d2 wrote: I am but a lowly plat, but I've been workign this build out with DTs, as they can put early pressuer on, slow the zerg from moving out, and can actually help you defend from zerglings.
This main problem is you basically just gotta survive until you get a good number of archons+chargelots out.
I'm a low diamond but I've been working on the same thing. The high templar allow for a much faster food growth buildup as they are so cheap on minerals... But I find that the DTs are great for just a little bit of pressure (I get the DTs after my expansion is secured and up and running).
Even if they scout it it isn't a really big deal, as the DTs are just a method to get less gas expensive archons and be able to maybe kill a couple of drones/cancel a third (cancelling the third is a big one). There was a thread somewhere about if you attack with 3 dts on a hatchery you can kill it before an Overseer morphs. I don't know if it is literally true, but from my experience it would be an accurate assessment. I don't know exactly how much time it takes to kill off a hatchery with 3 dts, but it always seems like the Overseer shows up a little late. Killing off a hatchery does HUGE damage to a Zerg player as they not only will be incapable of really reaping benefits from that expo, but their production is sliced a bunch as well.
Often they will be prepared, but even if you only snipe a few units it has forced them to spend drones and money on static d or money on Overseers or what have you to secure their bases from DTs. So long as you're not behind the Zerg, this works out to be just fine as if you come in there with some DTs and see that there's no way you can do damage, it's okay because you can run them back home and morph them into an Archon which is the whole point of the build anyway.
Ive tinkered with this build a lot and made my own modifications. This composition can hit a timing where charge finishes as early at 12 -13 min while expanding at the same time. I treat archons like colossus (damage dealer) and zealots the meat shield+dps. To all those theory crafters out there saying roach-hydra or mass hydra, I gotta say you have to face this to get a feel of how strong this style is. I think only the NP - infestor or mass baneling type composition can stand a chance. Roach-hydra or roach compositions just melt. Foccus firing? Youre forgetting that chargelots have a very high DPS. Basically I do a revised 3 gate zealot sentry expo. I go like this
- 3 gate zealot sentry expo with WG finishing around 5:30 (warp in 1 round of zealot sentry then expo). Hallucinate done at 6:45 to scout for the losira timing attack -plant forge after planting nexus + pylon at natural -after scouting, if there's no shenanigans brewing, i cut WG production and probe up while going tech, I go gate - council then take 1 gas at natural > scout again with hallucinate -at 100% council i get archives > 2nd gas at natural (decision depending on info from scout ,usually i watch out for mutalisk stuff so i go another route if i see that coming) -at 100% archives i get charge, more gates (I have around 9 or 10 in total of gates), 4 archons, then rest goes to zealot production. - timing attack around 12:30-13 min while expanding to 3rd, when charge finishes and +2 weapons is done
I still need to find some loopholes to plug though. I'm not a very high lvl player.
lol this is some awesome stuff, deff gonna try this out. imo archons has kinda been like "the forgotten unit" in sc2, fun to see some builds where the archons is a core unit finally coming out. gj!
this strategy is actually a good find. makes strong use of the latest archon buff.
as a dedicated zerg player here are my thoughts: - guess the first times i encounter this, i would get overwhelmed, simply because i wouldnt take it seriously enough. - i should be able to scout this, since i always use overseer combined with changeling as soon as i have a lair
solutions that should be possible with little effort: 1. - go for 8 to 10 spines in front of natural and main + hit'n'run muta to kill enough probes in main /exp.(can go really wrong, if toss scouts spire and gets more cannons. spines are simply not strong enough to hold such a push by themselfs. so i would go for some more queens to heal spines through the push)
2. - go for roach/w speed/burrow/burrowmovement + infestor/w energy (this is probably my most obvious reaction, since archons are kind of a melee unit too. ). this still can be tough, if there isnt enough creep spread. nydus to expansions should help here too, since you need to get way more mobile
ultra/broodlord would take too long to tech, vs FE toss ling, hydra are dead on sight
Unfortunately I kindda abandonned that build. Main reason: infestors. Fungal really makes a good amount of the chargelots useless. Also, in a lot of maps it's hard to engage in an open position where you get a good concave with your army. This kind of army compo in chokes just.. dies vs mass roaches/hydras.. painfully..
On May 27 2011 18:09 Nyast wrote: Unfortunately I kindda abandonned that build. Main reason: infestors. Fungal really makes a good amount of the chargelots useless. Also, in a lot of maps it's hard to engage in an open position where you get a good concave with your army. This kind of army compo in chokes just.. dies vs mass roaches/hydras.. painfully..
Nothing a couple of spare templars can solve here. It boils down to a micro fest between templars and infestors really, with templars having a slight advantage. Do recall that FG now only has 4s duration with the recent patch. Also, you must utilize this composition's mobility too and not keep it steady. You have to keep this army moving to avoid FG hits. Considering the recent influx of big maps, and the nerf to infestor speed off creep, its really opening a whole new dimension to the rather boring match up of PVZ. Personally I find the colossus style of play rather inelegant and downright boring.
banelings protoss doesn't have anything that can kill banelings before they can get into splash range.
cracklings protoss will have few forcefields, and any forcefields would be more detrimental to the zealots than any zerg unit. avoid getting bottlenecked and storm isn't a hard counter to lings due to mobility, storm is not as cost efficient as colossus.
neural parasite the protoss dps will not be high enough to overcome neural parasite on the archons, especially if the zerg has a blockade of mass zergling mixed in with baneling.
Build seems very solid. Was wondering if anyone has tried to just go 6-7 infestor vs it? It seems like fungal would rip through it since you have no ranged units.
On May 27 2011 19:10 shizna wrote: banelings protoss doesn't have anything that can kill banelings before they can get into splash range.
cracklings protoss will have few forcefields, and any forcefields would be more detrimental to the zealots than any zerg unit. avoid getting bottlenecked and storm isn't a hard counter to lings due to mobility, storm is not as cost efficient as colossus.
neural parasite the protoss dps will not be high enough to overcome neural parasite on the archons, especially if the zerg has a blockade of mass zergling mixed in with baneling.
Banelings: Kills the zealots, not the archon i.e. kill em meat shields while keeping the main damage dealer alive. Toss could just retreat the archons and tada! They're as good as new again in the next battle (350 shields 10 hp). With 10 gates ready to restock the zealots with ease, aren't you trading high resource units with just a mineral sink? Decent but not enough. Need to find a good partner unit.
Cracklings: You do realize that archons one shot lings right? Not to mention chargelots kill these critters easily and can you really go high up the tech tree that fast with this army barreling down your front door? Also from my experience, I barely even need FF with this composition. This style shines best in the wide open spaces. The use of force fields, I find only hampers the show the chargelots do.
Infestor: The only good point here but as Ive said, nothing a few spare templars with feedback can handle. At least blizzard gave the Templars feedback capability at warp in.
PS: Do expect to have at least 4-5 executor rank archons with this build with 25-40 kills each with this build LOL
What I do is dt expand -> Immortal, Stalker, Archon.
I mainly get a squad of around 10 stalkers to blink behind the Zerg army to kill infestors. If he goes ling/bling my ~5-8 archons kill that with stalker support, while my 10 stalkers blink on top (maybe it's just me, but they never seem to fungal me if you 'surprise' them) and snipe np infestors and chase em
~700 diamond here though.
Once, I lost my army except my 6 archons, he went ling/bling and overtime he would send all his lings to kill my archons, they will dieeeeee. Had archons with executor ranks (each had 50~)
Like the guy above me said, this completely owns ling:bling from my experience, even with some fungals
I just beat it ZvP with roach/infestors, can't really attack head on until 120+ supply when roaches are massed. The tech path is really weird to witness, I got full scouting off and expected something so much more deadly. Archons just not as good as they are in theory. http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=211353
I'm intensely curious how this would match up against a mass upgraded roach build, especially when you consider the lack of detection you may have, or better yet the old bread and butter of zerg, roach/hydra. In the past I've been able to deal with fast HT's with mass roach, and the most annoying part of this is that mass roach is much easier to manage than HT/zlot/archon, or as this post is describing, mass zlot/archon.
Have you encountered a mass roach style against this army composition? say something along the lines of what FXOsheth does (covered in day9 daily 300).
@ DarKcS Just finished watching the rep. Few notes here.
1.The toss didn't even bother to research charge and weapons early game and just foolishly massed zealots and archons. No matter what type of composition you do, without the proper accompanying tech and transition, it will definitely be weaker.
2. Very poor macro by toss. Remained at max 6 gates the whole time and was floating at least 1k in money! Thats like 10 additional chargelots! The key to doing this build is to mass a lot of gates. Get 15 or more at 3 bases and not just sit at 6. Treat making gates like banking a lot of larvae as zerg. Also the zealot replenishment was just awful. In order to increase the efficiency of the combo, you have to make a lot of zealots constantly since these guys get the brunt of the damage and get killed easily. Maintain a at least a 1:8-10 ratio of zealots. Treat archons like colossus with a support army of gateway units.
I think that in the rep, you just plainly outplayed the Protoss. His loss was not due to the weakness of the composition but rather his incapability to macro properly. 4 gate to mass archon-zealots just wont cut it. If you don't establish a proper set-up of tech, early defense, upgrades and macro, no matter how good the composition is, it wont matter. I just also found out that a 12 min timing with quick charge + 2 and 3-4 archons can quickly decimate a roach hydra army so i would definitely disagree with the statement that the composition is only good at 120+ supply. Very small groups with just 1-2 archons really do well in picking up reinforcements.
I watched the first game against VTmrbitter, there was no reason at all for him to throw in those hydras, he would have been fine with mass roach and attacking around the 150 mark, he spreads himself wayyy to thin on tech threes going infestor, baneling, roach, hydra, getting speed, range, and pathogen glands. If he simply focused on mass roach with good micro, or hell, even roach/infestor, it would have been a very different story.
On May 14 2011 13:27 proxY_ wrote: If you try to roll a ton of banelings into this (like 50+) what are the results? I think you would probably need 15 or so banes to kill one archon but if they're splashing everything there's a tipping point. The toss is going to be low on forcefields but the archons should one shot the banelings and the banelings don't do any bonus damage to them obviously. I'm not sure how big the baneling splash radius is. If you think about it 12 banes is 300 gas which is around the same gas cost as one archon so that's not as unreasonable as it sounds.
The Funny thing is that archons are maybe the best unit against banelings it takes about 20 banelings to kill an archon, if you patrol away (like you can do with marines) then they are maybe the most cost efficent thing to kill banelings and if you double click the zealots and pull them back... they won't get hurt cause archons form a great wall
mutalisks should be no problem, they are a big investion, if you see them... go kill him! they can't really help defend but the zerg will need to pull them back and die anyways
also note that if you drop an archon, he oneshots drones with 2 attack ups
btw, archons deal 47 dmg vs bio at 3 attack ups --> oneshots lings --> twoshots hydras --> 3 shots mutas
I only had time to read up to page 6 because I dont have time at the moment... but I was wondering how this would go with a DT/pheonix build. I've been using this in PvZ lately, its still under development, but basically its a 3 gate dt expand (doing as much damage as you can and denying his third for as long as possible) into forge cannon double stargate pheonix when you expand (to pick off as many overlords and harass if you can and deny his third even longer.. its suprisingly hard for a zerg to take a third if he's relying on spore crawlers to defend the pheonix and dt harass if you're active about keeping your dts alive and sniping overseers with your pheonix). You'll also be building up gates, zealots and maybe defensive cannons (not sure where its best for the minerals to go yet) with your mins
From here I'm not really sure where to go, I was thinking the weakness' are obviously infestors, or hydras (with overseer support, too many to snipe before your pheonix die) but in both cases HT's seem the way to go considering you've already got a twilight council. At this point, I'm not sure of the ordering on the following things but you can easily get hts to deal with hydras and infestors get charge for your zealots take a third if you see t3, you have 2 starports for voids
so if the zealot/archon/pheonix (+ dt warp in potential if he doesnt have enough overseers to survive your pheonix) is enough to brute force your way to a third reasonably safely, so you can get your third before HT's, I can see this build being an incredibly strong way to have great harass that can potentially win you the game, but not rely on it too much as you can still go into the 3 base deathball style (chargelot archon HT immortal + maybe voids or blink stalkers depending whats going on- which in my opinion is alot stronger than sentry stalker collosus void). I think this would be very cool. Opinions?
Edit- Yeah and no idea on upgrade timings I guess I just go +attack once I got my forge up until +3 is done but I havent really thought it out... shields might be way better later anyway considering you have HTs... but probably not because i can see +weapons adding heaps of value to your dts as well
Does anyone think a sentry expand (iNcontrol style - Search it up if you've not seen it alredy) is viable? I know the OP said that Hallucinations may not be a good strategy, but if you sentry expand you can have infinite force fields and left over energy for hallucinations. The incontrol sentry expand makes procuring a third increasingly easy, and means that a zerg simply cannot kill you before hive tech units. If you miss out the collossus, and go straight for DT harass, I imagine this would work? - Theory crafting. If you power units out after your third and attack at 200/200 with decent FF placement and hallucinations of any units... Maybe even collossus earlier to trick your opponent into Corruptors ^^. Has anyone tried this more spellcasting/micro style? And if so, does it work as well, or is it not as effective?
From what I've gathered, Archon's are mainly meant as a recycle unit, I've faced mass archon a few times and it feels like it's really weak against some sort of roach/infestor or roach/hydra build
On May 31 2011 03:38 Veritassong wrote: No range means this build loses STRAIGHT up to infestor bling zling. alot of infestors for fungal + NP...
i tried this long time ago when the patch first started , and got raped by that combo.
Master toss (700 pt)
Then you obviously had bad unit control. Mass gateway with archon/HT is the best way to go against bling/ling/infestor u don't even need storm. Of course u need pretty good macro and unit ratio. And for sure u can't let zerg to macro up too much or you will be overwhelmed. The natural counter to this are roaches of course, u can't trade cost effective with style against them.
I watched the reps. They were very nice. Just exactly what I think the toss should play it. Transition between stalkers-zealots when needed, treating archons like colossi, letting the zerg drone up and getting the traditional army he likes, getting mass gates and charge all the while and just ripping him apart in the end (macro wise and army wise). From the looks of it, this might shift the metagame lol.
I'm just so sick and tired of the colossus based play and its ugliness. Whoever the toss was, bravo! Hat off to you. The only thing I didnt like was the DT method of getting archons. Too resource intensive IMO. I mean, trading, 25 gas with 75 minerals? Ill take the gas since the rest of the army is so mineral intensive. 75 mineral adds up while the 25 gas isn't too costly in this case. LOL where else would I spend my gas in this case other than a few research and upgrades. Also the dark shrine takes too long! That's a 50 second difference between the two. Not to mention,being a more resource intensive route and if you face an infestor style you will need the high templars anyway.
His interpretation seems to take the comments in here into account. He gets a robo for detection and later adds in immortal, researches storm, and gets charge earlier so he can take map control and secure a third base.
His interpretation seems to take the comments in here into account. He gets a robo for detection and later adds in immortal, researches storm, and gets charge earlier so he can take map control and secure a third base.
Pretty ballsy of Naniwa to execute a 1gateFE like that. Seems like that opener would be better against hatch first. Still, it's very cool to see the build played by a pro.
Archons baby.. Having great success with various zeal/archon builds. I'm trying to get like 4 phoenix for scouting and harass purpose that also clears overlords and thus deny nydus play while open up for easier warp prism harass later on, but boy archons are good.. <3
I played a game today in which I (a zerg) fast expanded, and saw that he had 3 gated into expansion and then later on near the end he attacked me with purely archon and zealot and I just wondered to myself what this guy was doing.. All I had was mass roach and infestor completely destroyed him :D
I've been messing around with Archons in PvZ for a while, but the safest way I felt I could use them was to transition from Colossus play. You'll be dealing with lots of Roaches, and I just felt that need to go Robo.
But I've been able to play mind games with Zergs by letting them scout my Robo Facility and the Bay, while hiding Templar tech. It forces them to waste gas on Corruptors while I tear apart their ground army.
I just tried it for the first time and it worked pretty well, this isn't the best replay since the Z was trying to do a baneling bust/all-in (30 drones on 3 base lol), after I did an unsuccesful timing attack off 3 gate; so I decided to transition into this build. We both made a lot of mistakes and I managed to pull ahead vs roach/bane.
Recently i've seen Elfi use a 1base zealot/archon all-in in PvZ after a DT "rush" during the Gigabyte cup tournament; out of the two games i've seen, he won one and lost the other. The replays are these:
It seems like the build works very well against a zerg that's delaying his roach warren, and kinda dies if he does have one. Now switching from facts and replays from pro's to theorycraft as a diamond player (please forgive me if i say things that don't make sense)...with your first 2 dt's you should be able to scout wether he has the warren or not, and not go for the push if he does, and maybe do a dt expand or something along those lines, does anyone better than me think it's possible? Specifically, how does a dt expand work against a 2-base roach push? From the 2 replays from Elfi, it seems like the dt's get there slightly too late to scout wether or not he has a one, cancel gates 4 and 5 and throw down a Nexus, but i feel there's too little info in just 2 games.
I saw the replays and I thought it was interesting how you won while having so many resources.
I played a couple vs the computer then laddered. I did a FFE with voidray air harass, while teching to mass gateway chargelots archon and the third.
It's amazing because I played so poorly, had so many left over resources (and he killed my forge by hitting me in 2 different areas so I was behind on upgrades). But the fact I had 12-15 gateways on 3 bases I could dump minerals however was convenient. And somehow I just rolled the roaches and infestors b/c I could just keep mass reproducing the zealots.
Imagine how effective a polished, practiced version of this style of play could be.
I've finally played around with this build enough to be able to comment on it. My verdict: definitely viable, but in general weaker than blink stalker play (which is the other obvious alternative when you go down this tech path). There are 2 scenarios where you might prefer chargelot/archon over blink stalker:
1) Your micro/multitasking is not that great. Chargelot/archon is very easy to use, most of the time it's just a-move and a few forcefields to trap roaches if you can.
2) Your opponent is insistent on just massing lings, with very little or no roach or infestor usage.
What I've been doing is FFE into 6 gate +1 attack with mostly zealots. This puts a lot of pressure on the Zerg and forces them to get units instead of drones. This attack comes really early (I chrono warpgate tech all the way, attack with my first round of warp ins), so if they even try to saturate their 3rd base they're going to lose it. Meanwhile I've already taken my 4 gases pretty early so I'm stockpiling a lot of it. As I attack I throw up my council, and follow it up with charge and templar archives. Then I move out again with a +2 or +2/+1 chargelot/archon/sentry army, and take my 3rd as I'm doing so.
I had the most trouble with heavy roach armies, and also the longer the game lasted and the bigger the armies got, the weaker yours is relatively (melee based armies get weaker vs ranged ball armies). It's easy to get into a poor engagements and not be able to forcefield trap all the roaches, and every time you do that you're going to lose a good chunk of your zealots without returning that much damage. Infestors also ruin your day pretty much.
The big issue is that even when roaches are completely unmicroed, zealot/archon is still only slightly more cost effective than roaches. You will have to gain some sort of advantage in other ways, such as via upgrades (more like praying that the zerg gets behind in upgrades) or economy (which is also pretty hard to do against zerg). Other protoss compositions based on stalkers and/or colossus rely on forcefields to combat the cost effectiveness of roaches. While forcefields certainly help a chargelot/archon army, they don't help as much because even when forcefielded all roaches can attack, unlike when you forcefield roaches with a stalker and/or colossus army.
Archons are not bad units, but in the end I still think they should only be made when your HTs run out of energy. Or, in this case with a chargelot/archon build, the chargelots are actually the better units here, and you're just making archons since you need to use up your gas somewhere and they cost the least minerals. Note that I'm talking about mid-game here, obviously this isn't the case in late game where zealots are useless and archons are very supply efficient.
On June 16 2011 23:14 Teoita wrote: Recently i've seen Elfi use a 1base zealot/archon all-in in PvZ after a DT "rush" during the Gigabyte cup tournament; out of the two games i've seen, he won one and lost the other. The replays are these:
It seems like the build works very well against a zerg that's delaying his roach warren, and kinda dies if he does have one. Now switching from facts and replays from pro's to theorycraft as a diamond player (please forgive me if i say things that don't make sense)...with your first 2 dt's you should be able to scout wether he has the warren or not, and not go for the push if he does, and maybe do a dt expand or something along those lines, does anyone better than me think it's possible? Specifically, how does a dt expand work against a 2-base roach push? From the 2 replays from Elfi, it seems like the dt's get there slightly too late to scout wether or not he has a one, cancel gates 4 and 5 and throw down a Nexus, but i feel there's too little info in just 2 games.
Well, the game he lost more seemed like it was the zerg who played very well. If you look well, the zerg got blind spores + crawlers to deny the 2 first DTs. Then again, I say blind when it wasn't blind at all, because when he looked up the ramp with a zergling, he saw 2 zealots and 1 stalker, something that can let a zerg assume some kind of fast dt play. So no damage with the dts and then, the zerg saw no expantion and found the proxy warp location. From here, the zerg mass produced roaches with his initial zerglings and roaches + spines and stalled the protoss enough to overproduce it. I think the strategy could have worked if the protoss had hidden his intentions a bit better (like take those extra zealots and pull them back). In short, I dont think the roach warren was what defined the outcome of that game.
Concerning the dt expand question , i never tryed that, and I would be interested to know the answer too.
On June 17 2011 05:17 Anihc wrote: The big issue is that even when roaches are completely unmicroed, zealot/archon is still only slightly more cost effective than roaches. You will have to gain some sort of advantage in other ways, such as via upgrades (more like praying that the zerg gets behind in upgrades) or economy (which is also pretty hard to do against zerg). Other protoss compositions based on stalkers and/or colossus rely on forcefields to combat the cost effectiveness of roaches. While forcefields certainly help a chargelot/archon army, they don't help as much because even when forcefielded all roaches can attack, unlike when you forcefield roaches with a stalker and/or colossus army.
I went away from the pure chargelots/archons/sentries army and recently I've been adapting my strat for a different compo, give it a try if you can. This is: chargelots, blink stalkers, archons and immortals. No sentries, no templars/storm, and good upgrades. Chargelots and blink stalkers roughly in equal numbers. I've found it very effective and less sensitive to infestors.
I use this composition with some Immortals mixed in. It plays like a dream against Zerg. You just need to push before Zerg gets Broodlords because they can be tricky do deal with.
On June 17 2011 05:17 Anihc wrote: The big issue is that even when roaches are completely unmicroed, zealot/archon is still only slightly more cost effective than roaches. You will have to gain some sort of advantage in other ways, such as via upgrades (more like praying that the zerg gets behind in upgrades) or economy (which is also pretty hard to do against zerg). Other protoss compositions based on stalkers and/or colossus rely on forcefields to combat the cost effectiveness of roaches. While forcefields certainly help a chargelot/archon army, they don't help as much because even when forcefielded all roaches can attack, unlike when you forcefield roaches with a stalker and/or colossus army.
I went away from the pure chargelots/archons/sentries army and recently I've been adapting my strat for a different compo, give it a try if you can. This is: chargelots, blink stalkers, archons and immortals. No sentries, no templars/storm, and good upgrades. Chargelots and blink stalkers roughly in equal numbers. I've found it very effective and less sensitive to infestors.
lol in order for that to work you will have to have more bases than the zerg. GL doing that. You realize that roaches are extremely cost effective against all gateway units right?
My friend is adapting this style in his PvZ heavly. I think this style is far too strong vs zerg. If you mix in a couple of DT's into your army and snipe the overseers with archons (not that hard to do, only 5 hits) then you can trash zergs army with just the DT's and he has to invest even more into overseers.
Just watched the replay vs mrbitter2 and you only lost because he caught you out of position.
Archons are just rediculous vs zerg in reality. They have bonus to biological, and an extra range now. Massive doesnt matter too much. Archons are good vs everything zerg has untill T3. And zealots just destroy ultras. Broodlords you need some void rays to take them out.
The only possible way zerg can outplay you is getting 5-6 infestors to delay your push (assuming you don't know how to feedback or misclick your HT into his roachs or something) then massing up alot of broodlords and corruptors for anti air.Banelings would also work pretty well vs the mass zealot if you control well then use roachs to overpower the archons.
His interpretation seems to take the comments in here into account. He gets a robo for detection and later adds in immortal, researches storm, and gets charge earlier so he can take map control and secure a third base.
I was about to try this out, but then I saw this replay and decided against it. Naniwa had literally 4k resources more in his army and was 20 food ahead of a Roach-based army, but basically lost the fight and was 10 food behind afterwards.
Sounds cool i would rather get more stalkers than zealots so incase the other has fungal or broods because zealots can just be kited quite easily and hydras will rip any of this apart. Archons can act as zealots and stalkers are back up against anything else. Blink is much more useful than charge. Harass, blink micro and catching broods or armys
very...amazing. i played toss last game (i play zerg mostly) on ladder in plat, and while i normally get crushed, i just demolished the guy. his muta/ling didnt stand a chance...
HT and Archon are just the super strong units against zerg. I always have problems with them, even if I managed to scout them out. My units composition always is mass lings and infestors, it's just tough to deal with these "anti mass" units. Lings last too short for neural parasit-ing the archons. Muta's miss micro will die to storms and archons.
Every time I win against this is that I managed to have my 3rd fully saturated and immediately tech to brood. It seems to be the only way imo
Address how to deal with infestors and ill give it a shot.
I tried my own version of this and Infestors completely own you.
Hydras and Roaches have more range than Archons and your zealots are stuck in place until they die.
There's feedback but your making archon's so your not gonna have too many templar left to feedback(or your gonna get overrun cuz zealots = fail vs roaches).
I could see a Zerg who isnt prepared and doing a build like ling/muta losing to it. However infestors and roach/hydra(especially all of those combined) are pretty hard counters to this build.
Not saying it wont work, i just wanna know what you would do to deal with it.
On June 28 2011 18:16 Cryosin wrote: Address how to deal with infestors and ill give it a shot.
I tried my own version of this and Infestors completely own you.
Hydras and Roaches have more range than Archons and your zealots are stuck in place until they die.
There's feedback but your making archon's so your not gonna have too many templar left to feedback(or your gonna get overrun cuz zealots = fail vs roaches).
I could see a Zerg who isnt prepared and doing a build like ling/muta losing to it. However infestors and roach/hydra(especially all of those combined) are pretty hard counters to this build.
Not saying it wont work, i just wanna know what you would do to deal with it.
I would say don't morph every templar into archons, keep a few for feedbacks. Feedback has a decent range to deal with fungals.
I had a variation of this beat me today, he went fast DTs to harass into chargelots and archons and he ended up slaughtering me although mostly the DTs are what weakened me.
(I'm in diamond league btw) so I can confirm this build can work.
Ive lost a few games when my preferred maxed army (Ultras, cracklings and infestors) gets absolutely melted by a 150-170 toss army heavy on archons. They counter all melee hard dude to their huge aoe dmg output and tanky-ness. A quick switch to roaches is the only thing you can do short of infestor broodlord play.
Been using this with a stargate variant, but I think it tends to be weak against muta harass the moment you throw down a stargate for early harass. Giving up map control to the zerg is pretty bad, as he can drone up like crazy and add on a few more bases before you can get up a sizeable army.
I wonder how people manage to pressure the zerg while going for this build. Zealot drops perhaps?
On June 28 2011 20:26 divinesage wrote: Been using this with a stargate variant, but I think it tends to be weak against muta harass the moment you throw down a stargate for early harass. Giving up map control to the zerg is pretty bad, as he can drone up like crazy and add on a few more bases before you can get up a sizeable army.
I wonder how people manage to pressure the zerg while going for this build. Zealot drops perhaps?
There's a game that Day[9] has been reviewing where HuK is under a lot of muta-pressure he still manages to use DT's to pressure the Zerg. I believe that this build can let the protoss do it the same way.
On June 28 2011 23:01 th2pun1sh3r wrote: Interesting write up.
I feel as though this build (without col or storm support) would be shut down by mass up'd hydras.
thoughts?
archons still tear through hydras cause they have so much dmg. archons have 25(35) /28(39) /31(43) /34(47) damage, so after 2 weapon upgrades, archons will 2 shot hydras, even if the hydras have 3 armor.
i just tested this, and with 60 2/2 hydras on creep vs 50 3/0/0 zealots and 10 3/0/0 HT archons (same cost), and the toss having only attack upgrades but lvl 3 of it is cause the build specifies on getting attack upgrades. i figured id give the hydras 2/2 to be fair.
there were 15 zealots left, along with all 10 archons. the hydras just fell apart.
I have been playing chargelot archon quite a bit. In a lot of situations it is very powerful in PvT as well.
I personally like to get a fast charge first.
My rough build order: (Starting at 13 obv) Gateaway-> Gas -> Pylon-> Cyber ->Gas -> Gateway -> Pylon -> Twlight
Spend all your chrono on workers in because you need to have enough to support two early gasses.
Start saving chrono right before you lay down your twilight so you can spend it all on zealots.
You should be able to move out an attack with chargelots pretty early if you do it right. The attack will buy time to throw down a dark shrine, and expand.
By the time your chargelot harass/ attack is over your DTs should be ready. Pinning your opponent in his base with you chargelots allows you to place a pylon close. When you move out to attack with your DTs, you should have extra cash to throw down more gateways.
The zerg is usually so focused on making units and spines that he hasn't teched to see your DTs. If you just harrass with a few DTs you should be stockpiling Chargelots and Archons in your base. When the DT Harass is over and you have an army, you attack and win.
I've started to do something similar with a few changes. (not sure on supply counts, will describe timings best i can)
- I do begin with the forge FE (nexus/forge first variation, depends on scouting) - I lay down 2cannons, gates and pylons to create complete wall off - get All 4 gases while on 3gate, adding the council. - Dark shrine around 9 minutes on 2bases (rough) - While its building, use excess gas to make forge, and a robo. - Do some DT harass, if the zerg saw your FE and decided fast third this can actually do alot of damage. - While harassing with 3 dt's, start chrono'ing out immortals and a +1 attack upgrade. - Continue making a mix of Dt's for archons and stalker from 4 gate (add one) - Constant construction of immortals, get +2 attack fast.
Most zergs respond to DT harass by massing roach because they assume archon zealot follow up, those who dont respond with speedling infestor.
Your army mix of immortal/archon/stalker/sentry is extremely high dps and super efficient mix of units. Speedlings melt to the archons along with hydra or muta's. And any roaches die instantly to immortals.
Main weaknesses include speedling infestor (and i mean mass infestor) to neural parasite all of your core units (archon immortals) then the lings beat everything else. I add blink stalkers to blink into the infestors and snipe the ones doing NP.
Strengths:
Dark templar make for great map control mid-late game. Can add drops with your main attacks to garantee damage.
On July 22 2011 01:59 MormonWithoutACause wrote: Has there been any experimentation on mixing in some blink stalker play with mass archons?They seem to complement eachother perfectly. Thoughts?
You're pretty tight on gas before you get third secured. Late game I don't see what's wrong with adding stalkers.
Lame side note, I just goofed off in a 4v4 match went 3 gates into DTs, did some harass and then transitioned to Archon/Chargelot. A lot of variables go into the game but my army wrecked the couple attacks thrown at me. So beefy.
To tie it in with my first comment on gas, I'd almost rather get a robo for an observer and possibly adding immortals in down the road before getting Blink and enough Stalkers for it to matter. Initially at least.
On June 29 2011 20:56 burn man wrote: If you are going zelot archon as the original post suggested after getting weapon ups would you get armor for your zelots or shield for you archons?
When I've played around with this composition, I usually get Shield. By the time you get +3 Weapons, you should be on 3-4 bases and dropping the extra 100 gas for Shield upgrades shouldn't hurt your Archon count too much. Remember Zealots are affected by Shield upgrades too, and while they're not normally more effective than armor upgrades, I think the inclusion of Archons in the comp changes that.
What about if you go for dark shrine instead of templar archives? Sacrifice your zealot count in order to get a few more archons? This will probably suck againts a more roach heavy composition, but just wondering. Also, you could drop a stargate with the saved gas and apply map control, forcing him to get hydra den/spire, which will make your achons have a hayday.
On July 22 2011 04:28 ShatterZer0 wrote: hilariously enough... this counter's Destiny's 6 infestor timing style like a charm XDDDD
Yes with a lot of zerg players going early infestors + roach-ling, HT is somewhat a must have.
although i do this build because i really like my archons and my zelots its very weak against pure roach and they just kite your zelots. this strat is weak in maps where you can forge FE. much better on maps where u 3 gate sentry expand cuz u can FF the roaches and the zelots and archons will destroy them
honestly archon zealot is OP as shit its viable in all 3 match ups unfortunately theres no true counter for this unit comp in ZvP which is complete bullshit
roach hydra gets wrecked cuz zealots are so damn fast and archons do like 40000000 dmg on zerg units -.-
Something I've been experimenting with lately has been opening up with a 3gate expand (or 1gate+forge on certain maps) to be able to tech to Dark Templar relatively quickly. Using hallucinate I scout out the Zerg's third base (DTs will be up around the time the third finishes) and check for detection. Sometimes you'll find that the Zerg won't have spore crawlers or overseers at the natural expo and that is when this opener is strongest. If you send three Dark Templar and target fire the hatchery, they will kill it off before an Overseer can spawn (assuming the Zerg reacts immediately after the DTs start attacking the hatch). This can delay the Zerg long enough for you to be able to get a large number of gateways with an archon zealot army to protect you from counteraggression. Depending on what I've scouted I'll adjust my units from there, but the idea is to go Robotics + Stargate for Immortal and Phoenix production. The Archon lends itself as a halfway point between the two units, supporting them against either large amounts of Zerglings (which the Zealots happily chew up) or Hydras.
The idea of the Immortal is to provide a tough backbone for the army that smashes through Roaches and Infestors if they accidentally get to close. The job of the Phoenix is to try and snipe either Infestors or other air units. I haven't worked out all the timings yet for when I want to start producing the units, but the composition is quite strong, and allows you to transition into pretty much whatever you want (since you're not going too deep into either of the tech trees, it becomes fairly affordable on 2-3 bases, though on 2 base you need to halt your Archon production).
The nice thing about archons is that you can leave them for the last minute to produce, as you can get your backbone army set up and then before you're ready to move you can warp in the DTs to morph, and voila, you've just instantly spawned a bunch of Archons which are the real meat of the build.
Chargelot/Archon on it's own I find will eventually get wittled down and killed, whereas if you have some supporting tier 2 units from either Robo or Stargate (Void rays are also quite effective if you see him massing a LOT of roaches).
On June 28 2011 18:02 TheKillers wrote: very...amazing. i played toss last game (i play zerg mostly) on ladder in plat, and while i normally get crushed, i just demolished the guy. his muta/ling didnt stand a chance...
Yes, well, mutaling is the worst possible composition against zealot archon.
On July 22 2011 06:01 CrAzEdMiKe wrote: Something I've been experimenting with lately has been opening up with a 3gate expand (or 1gate+forge on certain maps) to be able to tech to Dark Templar relatively quickly. Using hallucinate I scout out the Zerg's third base (DTs will be up around the time the third finishes) and check for detection. Sometimes you'll find that the Zerg won't have spore crawlers or overseers at the natural expo and that is when this opener is strongest. If you send three Dark Templar and target fire the hatchery, they will kill it off before an Overseer can spawn (assuming the Zerg reacts immediately after the DTs start attacking the hatch). This can delay the Zerg long enough for you to be able to get a large number of gateways with an archon zealot army to protect you from counteraggression. Depending on what I've scouted I'll adjust my units from there, but the idea is to go Robotics + Stargate for Immortal and Phoenix production. The Archon lends itself as a halfway point between the two units, supporting them against either large amounts of Zerglings (which the Zealots happily chew up) or Hydras.
The idea of the Immortal is to provide a tough backbone for the army that smashes through Roaches and Infestors if they accidentally get to close. The job of the Phoenix is to try and snipe either Infestors or other air units. I haven't worked out all the timings yet for when I want to start producing the units, but the composition is quite strong, and allows you to transition into pretty much whatever you want (since you're not going too deep into either of the tech trees, it becomes fairly affordable on 2-3 bases, though on 2 base you need to halt your Archon production).
The nice thing about archons is that you can leave them for the last minute to produce, as you can get your backbone army set up and then before you're ready to move you can warp in the DTs to morph, and voila, you've just instantly spawned a bunch of Archons which are the real meat of the build.
Chargelot/Archon on it's own I find will eventually get wittled down and killed, whereas if you have some supporting tier 2 units from either Robo or Stargate (Void rays are also quite effective if you see him massing a LOT of roaches).
Do you have some replays? Would love to check them out!
Ive been trying this build a bit and get stomped by mass roaches and zerg just out expanding me since it seems really hard to do any early pressure before at least 4-5 archons are out. I initially read this and thought it was a 2 base pressure build to take your third or alternatively just 2 base all in. However upon watching a couple of the winning replays it seems as though you just turtle up and defend till 200 200 and go in and like 1 shot hatches lol. Which is the right way to play this can't really seem to get this to work but I would like to know what I am doing wrong.
Here is a game I just played on Taldarim Altar. I'm actually very upset about this game, as I made a number of mistakes (first, not denying his overlord scout at ALL... taking a super late third as well as a bunch of macro problems). But I feel that this is a good game that illustrates how powerful the composition can be.
In this game my opponent sees my Dark Shrine before it's even complete, and as a reaction, chooses to go heavy on Roach Hydra with the transition into Brood lords... A composition which should in theory eat Zealot/Archon alive. Keep in mind, I am a low diamond level player and the Zerg is a rank 4 diamond player so don't expect to see super tip top play int his replay =P
One of the reasons I didn't go too far with the air play was because I saw a lot of Hydras. Since I saw Roach/Hydra there was little likelyhood that he had many infestors, if any at all. So Void Rays seemed more appropriate as they would help clean up the roaches more quickly.
As said, I made a lot of mistakes in that game and I certainly wasn't playing my best (certain beverages may have been involved). But I still lend credit to the strength of the composition.
As a side note, the following is an example of how opening with DTs can win you the game. Obviously the huge mistake on the Zerg player's part was not getting ANY detection whatsoever. But the nice thing about opening up with 3-gate into DTs is that is comfortably sets you up for the mid-game, and Hallucinated Phoenix can really get a lot of quick scouting done so you know where your opponent may be vulnerable to DTs. This was something that occurred this game I'm about to link, as I saw that he had no evolution chamber and his lair wasn't completed. I've worked out the timing (I think I already pointed this out in my last post, but I'll say it again), if you attack a hatchery with 3 DTs, they kill the hatchery before an Overseer can be morphed in (and that's assuming he starts the morph immediately after the DTs start hitting the hatchery). In the case of a lair, it's 5 DTs it takes to kill it off within 17 seconds. That's why in this game I waited to spawn two more DTs since I didn't know when his lair would be finished. The game was concluded very shortly after.
I personally like the DTs more for this build, as it allows you to put on pressure and gains some map control back from the Zerg. It also makes the Zerg reluctant to move out until they have everything secured at home, buying you time to get your army producing and ready. Admittedly, I've been having problems with Infestors... So when I do the Phoenix scout I will immediately lay down Robo for Observers and Templar Archives for HTs. It's messy though, I don't like Infestors. =P
I just watched both games, and while good they're not exactly what the OP was refferring to. Since the Tal'Darim was more of a get one of everything on three bases, because the Archons only really helped vs the hydras and Brood lords while your immortals wrecked pretty much everything. And the Chargelots were more of a diversion/meat shield than front line damage.
I've been this when I DT expand. It's such an effective and easy transition. Against roach infestor add in some HTs and you have a force to be reckoned with
On July 22 2011 11:17 Mikelius wrote: I just watched both games, and while good they're not exactly what the OP was refferring to. Since the Tal'Darim was more of a get one of everything on three bases, because the Archons only really helped vs the hydras and Brood lords while your immortals wrecked pretty much everything. And the Chargelots were more of a diversion/meat shield than front line damage.
Still good games.
Yeah I realize that my strategy isn't quite what the OP is referring to, as he is basically going for PURE Archon/Chargelot vs the haphazard composition that I've got going on. But in my experience with Zealot/Archon it simply cannot handle mass mass roach... And the problem is that roaches are super duper easy to mass. I know there are replays which "prove" otherwise, but if the Zerg is smart he's going to play like a Protoss and use choke points to his advantage and that just eats Zealot Archon alive. A 2-unit combo might be able to mass up more quickly, but as a result it is much much much much much easier to counter and solve.
In my game on Taldarim, the Zealots and Archons are definitely the meatshields for the army... Because they are super quickly replaceable and for cheap... Nevermind that they have a higher movement speed which allows for faster reinforcements. By having Zealot/Archon as your shield for the Immortals and Void Rays, it essentially annihilates non-infestor play. The Immortals and Voids wreck Roaches so hard that they are only able to do a limited number of damage to the meat shield before falling, and the Hydras get eaten alive by what's left of Zealot/Archon + Immortal/Voidray support. The Zerg is unable to just reinforce with a bunch of lings to take care of the Immortals since they get SHREDDED by the Archon/Zealot, and the Zerg tier 3 is pretty much hardcountered by Immortal/Voidray (Ultras are absolutely worthless vs large numbers of immortals, and Brood Lords can't shoot them Void Rays).
There are still a lot of kinks in the build, but if you can get it up and running it is ridiculously difficult for a Zerg to stop. As I've mentioned before, the main trouble I've been having has been against Infestors. The build is still in a stage of heavy refinement, but I feel like it has potential. But I digress, I do admit that my post is quite irrelevant to the particular build the OP is proposing. However, due to the infrequent number of posts in this thread, I find it quite likely he has dismissed the pure Archon/Zealot composition already... As he would have experienced many of the same problems I had when I first started playing around with Archon/Zealot... Namely mass roach, roach/hydra and Brood Lords (Brood lords being one of the biggest ones, as Zealot/Archon has an absolutely horrendous time dealing with them). You could see in my game that the Zealot/Archon got pretty wittled down when going up his ramp, and it is no different (in fact, much worse) if you're going pure Zealot/Archon. The two compositions (Zealot/Archon + Immortal/Voidray) lend the appropriate amount of strength to eachother to make it very difficult for the Zerg to counter.
Just played a game and did this and I was blown away by how easy it felt. I am 1.5k masters.
I played really bad this game too. My macro was bad, I lost tons of probes to baneling bombs. and I had several failed attacks including one where I was about to kill him but Had to run all the way back to my base cuz he had burrow and I had no detection.
But none of it mattered. Who knew just sitting in your base and making archons good be so good?
When you've been staying at home too long and you've got a lot of blue balls... xD
There's actually a cast done by Husky and Day9 for the NVIDIA GeForce ProAm Tournament, the game between Cruncher and Goldenfou where he does this:
I personally don't think that Goldenfou reacted to the archons properly. But regardless... It's a fun game to watch. This build is incredibly strong when the opponent either doesn't make or is light on Infestors. Once infestors start hitting the field though, it starts to get really ugly.
I like the way CrunCher executes this Archon/Chargelot build the best, as opposed to DT's or a Zealot push, by going early stargate he gets map control, denies a lot of scouting, and forces more queens, spores and hydras hurting opponents roach and infestor production. Also you can see up cliffs with air mixed in as well as get off shots later from way behind main engagement with just a couple voids mixed in.
When I play this style my two/three VRs have something like 10-20 kills.
Edit: I've tried to make this build work with DT's but I never have enough minerals for zealots off two base. The key is to save your archons and not having enough zealots to buffer them doesn't go well. So basically for me it's air into HTs for archons.
I personally don't think that Goldenfou reacted to the archons properly. But regardless... It's a fun game to watch. This build is incredibly strong when the opponent either doesn't make or is light on Infestors. Once infestors start hitting the field though, it starts to get really ugly.
The zerg just had a bad build vs toss. Hydra's don't work, not against pheonix, not against gateway, certainly not against archon or w/e else.
Cruncher had no robo, no detection, where was the burrow? Pure roach into infestor/corruptor is how you deal with something like that. And you have to kite back while killing off zealots to minimize their damage done.
After I watched this game I've been more inclined to go Stargate first since it is something I end up getting anyway... It also makes the Zerg less inclined to bring Overseers along which is great for when you have DTs as an option.
I still think going DTs are better since they are more versatile than High Templar early on, and cost less gas which allows you to get more tech and upgrades. Once you have a third up and running I lay down a Templar Archives so I can pump out the really lean unit mix as my "reinforcement" group.
Since I'm using a fairly large force of Void Rays + Immortals, I've been bringing a Warp Prism along with me to serve as my mobile proxy pylon. I just keep it behind the army and warp in reinforcements directly. If I see there is no detection at the engagement, I warp in a big round of DTs and they do tremendous damage to the Zerg.
I think once you get into the mid-late game, you want that Templar Archives up since you've got the gas to make use of it, but while you're still on 2 bases I think DTs are the way to go. The Void Ray/Phoenix harass can buy you some time to set that up as well.
EDIT @ Above:
On July 27 2011 11:28 Blarginator wrote: The zerg just had a bad build vs toss. Hydra's don't work, not against pheonix, not against gateway, certainly not against archon or w/e else.
Cruncher had no robo, no detection, where was the burrow? Pure roach into infestor/corruptor is how you deal with something like that. And you have to kite back while killing off zealots to minimize their damage done.
I completely agree. That's why I think this build should be the transition to getting your third base up and running and possibly a fourth. If you can get those set up, you can then start to afford a Robo producing some tech units. The way Cruncher played it out was not quite optimal or developed yet I think... But it has a lot of potential. The Zerg reacted poorly and I completely agree there. But I wanted to link that game mainly because you can see the mid-game potential of the build.
I really like this style, I usually do it after a dt expand and try to keep the dts alive if I can. Throw down a templar archives later but that initial map control, forcing overseers, and forcing spores makes up for the cost of the dark shrine in my mind. I keep a dt at the third and when I see them taking it, wait a bit until they're going to be pumping drones, then rush in with a big two base timing. Works surprisingly well even though archons are still not their BW counterparts. If you turtle up and get an immortal/archon/blink stalker army it seems literally unstoppable, much more of a deathball than stalker/colossi. 10 archons, 10 immortals, rest blink stalker, gg. When I get up to this I go for shield upgrades more than armor since all benefit a great deal from +1 shields, which is cheaper than +3 armor, but armor definitely is better for chargelots.
I do agree that going for earlier DTs is cost effective even just having the shrine down. The games where the Zerg scouts it they are forced to make detection and are usually on their toes for a while. I've often been able to deny the third for quite a while with DTs making them extremely worthwhile.
Something I've also done on occasion if I know that the Shrine is going to be scouted if I lay it down at that moment is start the Chargelot upgrade and chronoboost it. Zergs will often think that you're going for Blink and they start massing up lings as a result. Sure it delays the DTs by quite a bit, but it's better to have them a bit later and unscouted than earlier and scouted if you ask me... Especially since you'll be getting that charge upgrade anyway.
As for shields, I personally like shields more in my build than armor, since I'm incorporating a number of air units and the Archons are meant to be the meat shield of the army. Since I'm going for large numbers of Archons and Immortals, I usually get the +1 attack really early and then start working on shields, as it really benefits the Archons hugely as well as helps secure your base + expansions as cannons and blocking gateways will become just a little harder to kill.
On July 22 2011 06:01 CrAzEdMiKe wrote: Something I've been experimenting with lately has been opening up with a 3gate expand (or 1gate+forge on certain maps) to be able to tech to Dark Templar relatively quickly. Using hallucinate I scout out the Zerg's third base (DTs will be up around the time the third finishes) and check for detection. Sometimes you'll find that the Zerg won't have spore crawlers or overseers at the natural expo and that is when this opener is strongest. If you send three Dark Templar and target fire the hatchery, they will kill it off before an Overseer can spawn (assuming the Zerg reacts immediately after the DTs start attacking the hatch). This can delay the Zerg long enough for you to be able to get a large number of gateways with an archon zealot army to protect you from counteraggression. Depending on what I've scouted I'll adjust my units from there, but the idea is to go Robotics + Stargate for Immortal and Phoenix production. The Archon lends itself as a halfway point between the two units, supporting them against either large amounts of Zerglings (which the Zealots happily chew up) or Hydras.
The idea of the Immortal is to provide a tough backbone for the army that smashes through Roaches and Infestors if they accidentally get to close. The job of the Phoenix is to try and snipe either Infestors or other air units. I haven't worked out all the timings yet for when I want to start producing the units, but the composition is quite strong, and allows you to transition into pretty much whatever you want (since you're not going too deep into either of the tech trees, it becomes fairly affordable on 2-3 bases, though on 2 base you need to halt your Archon production).
The nice thing about archons is that you can leave them for the last minute to produce, as you can get your backbone army set up and then before you're ready to move you can warp in the DTs to morph, and voila, you've just instantly spawned a bunch of Archons which are the real meat of the build.
Chargelot/Archon on it's own I find will eventually get wittled down and killed, whereas if you have some supporting tier 2 units from either Robo or Stargate (Void rays are also quite effective if you see him massing a LOT of roaches).
Heh, I did this by accident yesterday, and it was really effective. I opened 3 gate expand, and got fast dt and sent to every base, managing to kill the third. In the meantime, I got quick third with cannons, and got up 10 gateways for archon chargelot push, and it worked beautifully. The dt's were really critical in getting map control and being able to preoccupy the zerg long enough to get a third up.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/gtYga.jpg)
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Maybe if I run into Idra at MLG. Otherwise, I’d rather make force fields, use guardian shield, and get real archons with the gas.
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