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Zerg counter to mass archons?

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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johanhar
Profile Joined April 2011
Norway24 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-27 11:04:35
May 27 2011 10:57 GMT
#1
Hi
Here is my replay: replay

I tried roaches, but lost my first wave to a horrible burrow :S I know Im a noob, I play in platinum. The burrow under mass archons was probably the stupidest thing I have ever done

Probably answers will be how much money I had and little expos and larva injestions, but I know all that, working on it Im mostly looking for the unit composition that beats mass archons

I saw Destiny last night lose to it with mass infestor lings, that didnt work...

I cant go BL because I only have enough eco to support two chambers.. dont think ultras are good idea hmm..

Thanks
IntoTheSnow
Profile Joined December 2010
Singapore49 Posts
May 27 2011 11:06 GMT
#2
Try going infestors lings/drops vs mass archon toss, key is he needs a lot of gas to do so and to be safe he will require sentries to keep him safe while on 2 bases. Fast drop research will slow down the process of getting ht tech cause more sentries will be required. If this fails, infestors can come to play by NPing archons, this is a two way thing because archon now being massive means P's FF is useless cause they break their own ff anyway. Zergling unlike popular belief do quite well vs archons en masses. Choosing to NP archon is always a better choice compared to FGing the army cause the main composition of toss army will be zealots. After that you can follow up with baneling drops for mid game answer and for late game ultras will do rlly well along with FG (by then NPing is useless). Good luck !! =)
Marine King
aka_star
Profile Blog Joined July 2007
United Kingdom1546 Posts
May 27 2011 11:07 GMT
#3
Roaches and a couple of hydras will shut arcons down, obviously you want to keep your distance from them so shot and move back picking off all the zealots before you engage the arcons. Having good creep spread will help you x10

only burrow when hurt or to get around mass ForceFields.
FlashDave.999 aka Star
Demus
Profile Joined May 2010
Netherlands305 Posts
May 27 2011 11:21 GMT
#4
ok, just watching the replay.

Those DT's did WAY more damage than they should have, you lost over 20 workers to them!
At the 8 minute mark, you saw: 1 gateway 1 cyber core, 1 stalker 1 zealot, no expo. Every single alarm bell in your head should be going off at that point. Yet you had no additional overlords spread out, besides the one at the front (nice placement by the way). Having an ovie at the right side of his main would have spotted his gateways (lucky, but still) but he had so little stalkers that you could have scouted his entire base before he took the ovie out.
Think of the possibilities that the toss might be going for at that point: either DT's or heavy stargate play. Robo needs more support units than that. So if you see this little (and no expo!) at that point, throw down a spore crawler at each base. Would have won you the game.

The burrow play was pretty bad, i agree. The toss actually has less range than you, no need to close that gap that fast! A wide arc would have done a lot better.

Later on, you didn't see his 4th (which you could have easily taken out) due to no scouting at all on your part. Spread those overlords out! He isn't going stargate, one ovie per mineral line would have been safe and would have told you a lot more about what's going on.

You don't need 3 evo chambers for broodlords, the broodlings are mainly there to soak up damage while your roach hydra dishes it out behind them (on that note, why no hydra's vs pure gateway?), and given your massive resource bank of 4k/1k, you could have afforded them easily. Grab your spire a little earlier so you an morph it the moment your hive's finished.

Your macro was far from perfect, but i guess you noticed that yourself as well (and your opponent wasn't that good either) so i won't gripe too much on that. Just get your gas a bit earlier, you were banking 500 mins before you took your geisers!

So the main point: scouting. No expo by 7 minutes (earlier on higher lvls, but 7 minutes should be fine for plat) means cheese, probably air or DTs for toss -> scouting overlords + 1 spore.
Later on: spread ovie's to spot expo's.
johanhar
Profile Joined April 2011
Norway24 Posts
May 27 2011 11:21 GMT
#5
IntoTheSnow:

I like the idea about drops with banelings to take out zealots/probes. There are no sentries tho, just zealots and archons. But lings, Destiny lost to mass NPs and lings last night on his stream, dont know if lings are so good against Archons and zealots, then you need banelings AND NPs with those lings.

Aka_star:
Hydras against charge zealots?
Demus
Profile Joined May 2010
Netherlands305 Posts
May 27 2011 11:27 GMT
#6
On May 27 2011 20:21 johanhar wrote:
IntoTheSnow:

I like the idea about drops with banelings to take out zealots/probes. There are no sentries tho, just zealots and archons. But lings, Destiny lost to mass NPs and lings last night on his stream, dont know if lings are so good against Archons and zealots, then you need banelings AND NPs with those lings.

Aka_star:
Hydras against charge zealots?


roach hydra against charge lots? YES. That mix is one of the more effective ones against chargelots, besides pure banelings and air obv.
johanhar
Profile Joined April 2011
Norway24 Posts
May 27 2011 11:28 GMT
#7
Demus:
Thanks for the analysis! Many good points, I will definitely learn from them.
BoonSolo
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United Kingdom74 Posts
May 27 2011 11:47 GMT
#8
I have been playing a Spanishiwa opening in ZvP for a while now and my strat usually involves double evo chambers as Lair starts doing melee/carapace and teching mass ling with infestor and NP when I get to lair, if I see Robo it’s a quick hive going to ultra/crackling/infestor.

However then people started going quick archons and I was having a bit of trouble however I didn’t have to deviate from my build too much. Archons are really good against Zealots!if you fungal and then NP all the archons the zealots will die so so so fast because they are all balled up! Then your mass ling will finish off the archons no problem, you can even NP some of them again and have them fight each other if you have spare energy.. However its easy enough that if you miss the fungals you can get into to trouble, so I get a baneling nest and get a lot of banes to soak up most of the zealots charging in.
The great thing about this however is that the best counter to Archons is BroodLords as they have such low range the broodlings really mess with their pathing and makes them almost useless. And as im going a quick hive usually anyway if I see archons I just go broods instead of ultras!

Seriously A lof of infestors with bling/ling using fungal and NP is a good answer to mediumish groups of archons (like 4-6) with zealots.
By the time they have a 3rd or 4th base and can start addng in their other high tech units like Colossi or more stalkers/sentrys you can be on hive with broodlords and the Archons become almost useless.


Around 850 pt Masters EU
Team Liquid - Your Starcraft fix at work!
johanhar
Profile Joined April 2011
Norway24 Posts
May 27 2011 11:54 GMT
#9
So many great answers, thanks guys
Surili
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United Kingdom1141 Posts
May 27 2011 11:55 GMT
#10
On May 27 2011 20:28 johanhar wrote:
Demus:
Thanks for the analysis! Many good points, I will definitely learn from them.


What demus said is completely true, and in fact, you were rubbishing what the person above said about hydra's and roaches, and demus was simply pointing out that you rubbishing that was unnecessary and in fact incorrect.

For the record, putting a smiley face at after being rude doesn't stop it being rude.
The world is ending what should we do about it?
aXa
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
France748 Posts
May 27 2011 12:02 GMT
#11
Besides strategy and tactics, Hydra is the best straight up unit against archon, even more even than roaches because of their superior range and high dps. Roaches takes a lot of damage because of short range. As archon is gas intensive unit, protoss won't be able to have colossus soon enough. And hydra are good against any other gateway unit. Watch out to tech switch, colossus and HT.
FeyFey
Profile Joined September 2010
Germany10114 Posts
May 27 2011 12:04 GMT
#12
hydras do good vs archons, but are not so good vs chargelots. roaches are good vs zealots though. In general your roaches could hit and run the zealot and archon combination. Mutas are also a possibility but they would need the harass and everything to allow you to fight the archons, which is risky ^^. I like roaches vs many zealots just because you can kite those chargelots. Don't like infestors because of ht possibility. But if they stick with dt archons ^^ infestors are the first choice, not fungal though ;o
marvellosity
Profile Joined January 2011
United Kingdom36160 Posts
May 27 2011 12:04 GMT
#13
On May 27 2011 20:55 Surili wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 27 2011 20:28 johanhar wrote:
Demus:
Thanks for the analysis! Many good points, I will definitely learn from them.


What demus said is completely true, and in fact, you were rubbishing what the person above said about hydra's and roaches, and demus was simply pointing out that you rubbishing that was unnecessary and in fact incorrect.

For the record, putting a smiley face at after being rude doesn't stop it being rude.


? Get a grip. He didn't 'rubbish' anything. He questioned, not rudely, something that didn't sound right to him, Demus explained it was right, and got thanked for it. Why must you see rudeness in this?
[15:15] <Palmar> and yes marv, you're a total hottie
Probe1
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States17920 Posts
May 27 2011 12:09 GMT
#14
On May 27 2011 20:21 Demus wrote:
ok, just watching the replay.

Those DT's did WAY more damage than they should have, you lost over 20 workers to them!
At the 8 minute mark, you saw: 1 gateway 1 cyber core, 1 stalker 1 zealot, no expo. Every single alarm bell in your head should be going off at that point. + Show Spoiler +
Yet you had no additional overlords spread out, besides the one at the front (nice placement by the way). Having an ovie at the right side of his main would have spotted his gateways (lucky, but still) but he had so little stalkers that you could have scouted his entire base before he took the ovie out.
Think of the possibilities that the toss might be going for at that point: either DT's or heavy stargate play. Robo needs more support units than that. So if you see this little (and no expo!) at that point, throw down a spore crawler at each base. Would have won you the game.

The burrow play was pretty bad, i agree. The toss actually has less range than you, no need to close that gap that fast! A wide arc would have done a lot better.

Later on, you didn't see his 4th (which you could have easily taken out) due to no scouting at all on your part. Spread those overlords out! He isn't going stargate, one ovie per mineral line would have been safe and would have told you a lot more about what's going on.

You don't need 3 evo chambers for broodlords, the broodlings are mainly there to soak up damage while your roach hydra dishes it out behind them (on that note, why no hydra's vs pure gateway?), and given your massive resource bank of 4k/1k, you could have afforded them easily. Grab your spire a little earlier so you an morph it the moment your hive's finished.

Your macro was far from perfect, but i guess you noticed that yourself as well (and your opponent wasn't that good either) so i won't gripe too much on that. Just get your gas a bit earlier, you were banking 500 mins before you took your geisers!

So the main point: scouting. No expo by 7 minutes (earlier on higher lvls, but 7 minutes should be fine for plat) means cheese, probably air or DTs for toss -> scouting overlords + 1 spore.
Later on: spread ovie's to spot expo's.


Just yesterday I went against this exact style (Also in Platinum; also ZvP) and if you run a ling to their door and see just a zealot and a stalker throw all your lings against the door. You won't get the door down, you probably will take a lot of damage (On ~10 zerglings though, not a huge investment) but he will either have to warp in units which sucks for him or he'll show is hand and you'll see the shimmer of DTs running around behind his wall. I got the ladder and the 4 DTs he meant to ruin my mineral line with were stopped right at the front door by a spore crawler and overseers. That one LITTLE thing was enough to give me enough of a lead that I could afford a murder of mutas and a pack of lings/roaches. Zealot/Archon (And forced stalker cause of mutas) cannot stand up to a two pronged attack at his front door and mineral line.

Well at least in platinum.
우정호 KT_VIOLET 1988 - 2012 While we are postponing, life speeds by
johanhar
Profile Joined April 2011
Norway24 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-27 19:47:52
May 27 2011 19:45 GMT
#15
On May 27 2011 20:55 Surili wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 27 2011 20:28 johanhar wrote:
Demus:
Thanks for the analysis! Many good points, I will definitely learn from them.


What demus said is completely true, and in fact, you were rubbishing what the person above said about hydra's and roaches, and demus was simply pointing out that you rubbishing that was unnecessary and in fact incorrect.

For the record, putting a smiley face at after being rude doesn't stop it being rude.


Rubbishing, no, questioning because Im still new to this. It was an honest "thank you", he had many great points abut my lack of scouting and macro
s1eger
Profile Joined August 2010
United States126 Posts
May 27 2011 20:32 GMT
#16
i havent read whole thread but roaches are very good counter to archons, especially if you can spread them enough. because as we know you wont want any splash damage;)
cOoL
DuneBug
Profile Joined April 2010
United States668 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-27 21:00:19
May 27 2011 20:57 GMT
#17
roaches still outrange archons so you can actually fungal growth and get free shots in. The other thing is to box your roaches and separate them to reduce the splash.

And you can neural parasite archons (which is stupid imo... They are pure energy!, but nevertheless)

hypothetically you should be able to have 2 infestors to each archon so NP'ing all of them should be viable... Realistically (probably only one infestor), just get a lot of stuff and attack upgrades. Archons really aren't that good. Protoss is unlikely to be upgrading shields so you'll effectively be ahead in upgrades.

Even lings are effective, as while the archons are wasting shots on pure mineral units the roaches will be doing damage.
TIME TO SAY GOODNIGHT BRO!
Falcon-sw
Profile Joined September 2010
United States324 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-28 20:57:51
May 28 2011 20:53 GMT
#18
Just played a 'toss who went archon/chargelot. I responded with hydra/roach. Hydras got eaten by the chargelots. Everything got eaten by the archons. It was fun. He ended the game saying he could do that with his feet.

Next time I'll go infestor/hydra, I think.
https://www.youtube.com/FalconPaladin https://twitch.tv/falconpaladin
EternalSC
Profile Joined May 2011
Sweden313 Posts
May 28 2011 21:22 GMT
#19
Just go kill him in the early/midgame, no?

User was warned for this post
SHIT'S ON LIKE DONKEY KONG!
freetgy
Profile Joined November 2010
1720 Posts
May 28 2011 21:38 GMT
#20
if the enemy has enough gas to go mass archons, you will have enough gas to go
2 Infestor per Archon (1 for fungal 1 for NP)
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