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Italy12246 Posts
On August 20 2011 03:14 lazydino wrote: Masters protoss here. I feel like its essential to open stargate expand when your against zerg. The voidray grants map control, and most importantly stops a lot of roach ling allins. MC pioneered this in MLG Columbus and in Korea it's very standard. Problem is you've already committed to a tech path and have invested a lot of resources. Is there any other way to safely expand against zerg WITHOUT committing to a tech path?
Forge FE expands right now are very weak ; 3 hatch before pool absolutely demolishes it. DT openers are easily recognizable, zerg can just tell by looking your sentry count. 3 gate FE is outdated, very hard to hold off roach ling.
I don't know how to open against zerg, I'm very lost in this MU.
Diamond protoss so take what i say with a grain of salt, but i think 1-2 gate expands work reasonably well on most maps; you can get a good simcity up which makes holding off roach-ling a lot easier, and it keeps zerg more honest because you might have some tricky tech or a 4gate behind your nexus; on the other hand stargate openings feel really rpredictable to be "standard". Lately my favourite PvZ build is vVvTime's blink-colossus timing, even though i take a third faster than him in many cases.
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On August 20 2011 02:41 thisisSSK wrote: When going against infestors+roach+ling, is it better to blink some stalkers to try to snipe some infestors, or is it better to wait for better positioning/chokes for ff's? Or neither? Lol what's the best way to deal with infestors+Roach+Ling?
Archons, HT and collosus are good to have in your army vs this zerg composition, if the zerg has mostly roach then immortals can be good to throw in there as well. Feedback can get you free infestor kills if the infestor has enough energy. I think the most important thing is to have good expansion timings, macro, army composition but most importantly, map awareness and positioning. A zerg attack will do a lot more damage if they catch you off gaurd, fungal your ball, and surround with zerglings then if you see it coming, are able to spread your army and toss out forcefields and feedback/storms. I think having a couple of observers in key places on the map can be a big deciding factor on how an engagement will go. If
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On August 20 2011 02:41 thisisSSK wrote: When going against infestors+roach+ling, is it better to blink some stalkers to try to snipe some infestors, or is it better to wait for better positioning/chokes for ff's? Or neither? Lol what's the best way to deal with infestors+Roach+Ling?
If you're fighting infestor with blink stalkers your goal is to try to never let the zerg get a fungal off. That means it's generally not worth it to blink in a few stalkers to try to snipe an infestor (unless they're just randomly by themselves somewhere), because the end result is going to be zerg -1 infestor and you -4 stalkers. Not worth it. You want to wait for better positioning so you can ff and spread your army and avoid getting having the majority of your stalkers in range of fungal.
However, if your army gets caught out of positioning or you're about engage on a more open field, sometimes the best you can do is to use blink to immediately try to spread out your army, and in that case it may be advantageous to take some stalkers and blink them forward to snipe a few infestors since you need to spread out your army anyway.
In terms of the best way to deal with infestor/roach/ling, the theoretical answer is stalker/immortal/ht/archon with zealots depending on how many lings he has. It's quite a micro intensive composition though, so for practical purposes I actually recommend colossus instead of HT.
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Imo blinking 4-5 stalkers right on top of their infestors and targeting them down is very cost efficient.
4-5 stalkers kill inf in 1.5-2 volleys
So you are guaranteed 2 infestor kills and maybe even more if they dont respond quick.
This also forces the infestors to back away making it easier for you to blink micro ff or w/e you want.
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Is there such a thing as stalker stutter-step?
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United States8476 Posts
On August 20 2011 05:15 Karliath wrote: Is there such a thing as stalker stutter-step?
You can "stutter-step" with stalkers or any ranged unit. It's only called stutter-step with marines though cause of how fast they can do it. With other units it's called kiting.
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What is a good response to a Spanishiwa style opening? (At least I think that's what it was.)
Played a Zerg yesterday on ST and saw him go hatch first then pool with no gas. I chrono-ed a couple of Zealots to his natural and attacked but was forced off by his Queen and drones. I chrono-ed a couple more zealots and attacked again, but was forced back by both Queens and 3 spinecrawlers. So, I secure my natural off 2 Gate expo and drop 2 more gates, warp-in Sentries and Stalkers and go for a poke at his natural (I should have scouted it first, in hindsight). I handled that poke badly, dropped poor FF and was swarmed by speedlings. I lost most of my army, was counter-attacked by the lings (which I cleaned up with Zealots and probes), but lost soon after to mass ling and Infestor.
I know my faults regarding the lack of scouting before engaging and then the engagement itself, but watching the replay I noticed that he took his gas very late, and then pretty much all at once. I take it that this is the Spanishiwa style of play, yes? If so, should I simply take an early third or was I on the right track in being aggressive, but simply need to do it better? Although an early third would be vulnerable to a mass ling attack, no? Thanks, guys.
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On August 20 2011 05:26 aZealot wrote: What is a good response to a Spanishiwa style opening? (At least I think that's what it was.)
Played a Zerg yesterday on ST and saw him go hatch first then pool with no gas. I chrono-ed a couple of Zealots to his natural and attacked but was forced off by his Queen and drones. I chrono-ed a couple more zealots and attacked again, but was forced back by both Queens and 3 spinecrawlers. So, I secure my natural off 2 Gate expo and drop 2 more gates, warp-in Sentries and Stalkers and go for a poke at his natural (I should have scouted it first, in hindsight). I handled that poke badly, dropped poor FF and was swarmed by speedlings. I lost most of my army, was counter-attacked by the lings (which I cleaned up with Zealots and probes), but lost soon after to mass ling and Infestor.
I know my faults regarding the lack of scouting before engaging and then the engagement itself, but watching the replay I noticed that he took his gas very late, and then pretty much all at once. I take it that this is the Spanishiwa style of play, yes? If so, should I simply take an early third or was I on the right track in being aggressive, but simply need to do it better? Although an early third would be vulnerable to a mass ling attack, no? Thanks, guys.
Taking a quick third is pretty much the correct response but you have to keep track of what he's doing. I suggest you build normal gateway units while getting gateway units and canons to defend lings while scouting with hallucination. Then you can produce units to counter his strategy when you scout his delayed tech.
Edit: About safety of taking a fast third vs mass lings, just make sure you natural is safe and you can use your army to secure the third, zealots and good forcefields should let you do it pretty easily. And if you forge expanded you should have a pretty fast +1 attack to help you out as well.
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What is the best response to a 6-pool if you were NOT going for FFE? I've tried to wall with pylons, chrono boosted a Zealot out but the lings still broke through after breaking pylon, forcing me to pull off my probes. When the lings were dead the Zerg was already pulling ahead in the worker count. I assume I'm supposed to stop that easier than the cases in which I went for FFE, I just have no idea what is the proper way to deal it.
Should I throw down a Forge instead of a Pylon?
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A couple questions regarding colossus wars in PvP -- cause I suck at them. I don't expect some one to answer them all -- but if you're willing to I'd appreciate it.
1. Is it ever safe to attack considering you opponent will always have one (or even two) more colossus?
2.Stopping colossus production is pretty much allin, so how do I know when I can go up to 8+ gates and attack with just warpin reinforcements? If they have a colossus 1 more colossus pop out I'm kind of dead.
3. How do I fit in probes and gateway units when colossi simply eat all your money? Do I have to use scouting information and only make gateway units when an attack is coming?
4. What's better -- 2 robo colossus or 1 robo + chargelot/archon?
5. Do I target their colossi with mine or just let them eat through gateway units?
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Hi all, I'm only a gold league noob still but I am facing some low plat players now and I feel I have gotten to the point where I am no longer losing games due to being outmacroed but because I am losing the actual engagements themselves whether it be due to positioning, spell use, or army composition. Specifically, I am having trouble in the late game.
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/175800-1v1-terran-protoss-green-acres
-In this game vs a terran player who goes mostly bio with some ghosts and vikings, I thought I had a pretty good army to beat him. At first I thought I lost the game because I didn't have enough anti air to stop his vikings but after watching the replay I see that he landed some good EMPS that just decimated my mostly zealot based army. I am not too good at microing high templars and find them too slow to actually move up and target the individual ghosts to feedback them, so I just end up trying to storm instead. What could I have done better?
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/175801-1v1-protoss-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
-Here is a game against a zerg that went pretty late, with both of us on 4-5 bases. I tried to pressure the zerg early to force him to build units and not just mass drones, but I feel like my pressure didn't do much. I made some stupid mistakes in the game, like losing my 3rd nexus for nothing since I forgot to destroy the rocks. However, it shouldn't have cost me the game. The big engagement occurs at around the 26 min mark, and I pretty much get owned. Looking back, I feel like I engaged at a bad spot since he did have a lot of spine crawlers protecting his gold. I thought I got some good storms off though. Any advice?
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On August 20 2011 05:44 Lisitsa wrote: What is the best response to a 6-pool if you were NOT going for FFE? I've tried to wall with pylons, chrono boosted a Zealot out but the lings still broke through after breaking pylon, forcing me to pull off my probes. When the lings were dead the Zerg was already pulling ahead in the worker count. I assume I'm supposed to stop that easier than the cases in which I went for FFE, I just have no idea what is the proper way to deal it.
Should I throw down a Forge instead of a Pylon?
Another forge or another gateway, both are fine. I think people discussed this a few pages back in this thread You need to defend this with minimal probe losses to be ahead and not overdo the defense if you're doing the forge. With 2gate you can go offensive after you defended the 6pool.
On August 20 2011 05:47 sjschmidt93 wrote: A couple questions regarding colossus wars in PvP -- cause I suck at them. I don't expect some one to answer them all -- but if you're willing to I'd appreciate it.
1. Is it ever safe to attack considering you opponent will always have one (or even two) more colossus?
2.Stopping colossus production is pretty much allin, so how do I know when I can go up to 8+ gates and attack with just warpin reinforcements? If they have a colossus 1 more colossus pop out I'm kind of dead.
3. How do I fit in probes and gateway units when colossi simply eat all your money? Do I have to use scouting information and only make gateway units when an attack is coming?
4. What's better -- 2 robo colossus or 1 robo + chargelot/archon?
5. Do I target their colossi with mine or just let them eat through gateway units?
1. Assuming you are both going colossus, yes. You may have a better army composition like archons mixed in. Or and upgrade advantage. And the most important thing, a good concave so your colossus just deals more damage than his. Since you can split units easily while waiting for an attack this might be hard sometimes but you can always force him out of position with a warp prism or something similar.
2. Don't worry about this. If you ever find yourself in need of many more colossi just get another robo. While constant colossi production is good it's also good to take a third etc. And you should be able to do that easily if you cut gateway/probe production. You shouldn't need to cut probes even except if you got too many.
3. Get more probes earlier, then cut gateway units but not probes unless you are going for some kind of all in or timing. Also don't cut colossi production when an attack is coming, the game doesn't always in a 10 second battle. Well, tbh cut them if you think you need to.
4. Both are good for different things. Are your opponent making loads of gateway units and you are aiming for a crazy strong anti-ground army? Make 2 robos but be careful of air though. Otherwise 1 robo with chargelot archon maxes out faster so you can get an earlier army advantage for being aggressive.
5. If your gateway units can kill his gateway units your colossi can target his colossi. Otherwise you need to support your gateway units.
This is all what I personally do but I don't really like massing colossi 
On August 20 2011 05:49 aZealot wrote: Thanks, Latedi.
No problem ^^
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On August 20 2011 05:47 sjschmidt93 wrote: A couple questions regarding colossus wars in PvP -- cause I suck at them. I don't expect some one to answer them all -- but if you're willing to I'd appreciate it.
1. Is it ever safe to attack considering you opponent will always have one (or even two) more colossus?
2.Stopping colossus production is pretty much allin, so how do I know when I can go up to 8+ gates and attack with just warpin reinforcements? If they have a colossus 1 more colossus pop out I'm kind of dead.
3. How do I fit in probes and gateway units when colossi simply eat all your money? Do I have to use scouting information and only make gateway units when an attack is coming?
4. What's better -- 2 robo colossus or 1 robo + chargelot/archon?
5. Do I target their colossi with mine or just let them eat through gateway units?
I've managed to beat mass colossi in PvP with immortals and void rays FFing them down, I can't find my replay, but Colossi vs. colossi isn't a pleasant experience and seems like a coin toss. Gateway order should be Zealot>sentry>stalker. get Chargelots to take the fire so your immortals and voids are safe to FF the Colossi, guardian shield during this of course, and try to split his army sideways (not near colossi or it is a waste)
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On August 20 2011 06:06 flipstorm wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Hi all, I'm only a gold league noob still but I am facing some low plat players now and I feel I have gotten to the point where I am no longer losing games due to being outmacroed but because I am losing the actual engagements themselves whether it be due to positioning, spell use, or army composition. Specifically, I am having trouble in the late game. http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/175800-1v1-terran-protoss-green-acres-In this game vs a terran player who goes mostly bio with some ghosts and vikings, I thought I had a pretty good army to beat him. At first I thought I lost the game because I didn't have enough anti air to stop his vikings but after watching the replay I see that he landed some good EMPS that just decimated my mostly zealot based army. I am not too good at microing high templars and find them too slow to actually move up and target the individual ghosts to feedback them, so I just end up trying to storm instead. What could I have done better? http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/175801-1v1-protoss-zerg-xelnaga-caverns-Here is a game against a zerg that went pretty late, with both of us on 4-5 bases. I tried to pressure the zerg early to force him to build units and not just mass drones, but I feel like my pressure didn't do much. I made some stupid mistakes in the game, like losing my 3rd nexus for nothing since I forgot to destroy the rocks. However, it shouldn't have cost me the game. The big engagement occurs at around the 26 min mark, and I pretty much get owned. Looking back, I feel like I engaged at a bad spot since he did have a lot of spine crawlers protecting his gold. I thought I got some good storms off though. Any advice?
Diamond level P here...
I only watched the first game, so that's what I'm gonna respond to.
First of all there were some minor slipups with supply and probes... But it was good for a gold level.
Second of all: You stopped making probes when you had around 45 and 2 bases... And you didn't attack.... Meaning you had an army peak that you didn't take advantage of. If you are not gonna attack you should make more probes so you can actually use the fact that you are taking a 3rd before attacking.
The biggest point however:
When he made his first attack at the 18 min mark he had a slightly bigger army... why? BECAUSE YOU HAD 3K minerals banked. What does this mean? Well it means you lacked 30 2-2 chargelots. You would have annihilated his attack with 30 extra zealots... You could have A-moved to win.
You did get outmacroed. Every time you engage when you have money banked, it means your army is that much smaller. Never engage with money banked unless you are 200/200.
Edit:
I just watched the last game in 4xspeed
You never had over 45 probes in a 35 min long game. This is not good. Aim for 65 in stead of 45.
Then you'd be maxed faster.
Btw... Very important: When you are maxed as protoss... Expect that zerg is maxed too. Zerg will have larva to remax in 30 seconds.... This means that you have to have shit ton of gateways so you can remax fast too.
That's one of the many reasons why you need to have more probes.
In the main engagement (at his gold) your units were very clumbed... so was his. Your storms were very well placed, but they were very late. By then the battle was over and he had the eco advantage (because of your lag of probes), so the game was over.
I like the amount of time you keep preasure on the zerg at the start of the game. You ended up ahead in probes.... But then you stopped making and he made 20 more. This is basicly why he won... Plus he killed your 3rd... You could have had a pylon at the top of the second ramp of the 3rd to give you 5 sec extra to respond. Or and observer.
Btw keep an obs with your army at all points. He tried to be fancy with burrow in the late game... You lost 10 free roaches when you didn't have an obs with your army.
And obs at that point could actually have won you the game, because he brought half his army to your army, which is very stupid... You could have killed that and A moved to win (possibly)
Otherwise GJ on chrone on forge upgrades and the thermal lance. Actually a better job than most at diamond level.
I'd like to see you send something to harrass his 3rd... You'd be surprised how much damaged 4 chargelots can do to a probeline if he reacts after taking the first few hits.
Another thing (last I promise): Losing the amount of gas heavy units early that you did (sentries mainly) will come back to haunt you once you get to plat/diamond. As a protoss you cannot afford to lose your first 5-6 sentries early... because those sentries are suppossed to be with you in the main engagement. That way then will be on 200 energy. If you lose the first 6, then you'll have slower collosi (meaning less) or slower upgrades. 6 sentries is 3 collosi in gass. I shouldn't need to tell you the difference between 3 and 6 collosi in an engagement vs a roach heavy army. At the main engagement you had a huge amount of zealots... Only around 8 stalkers. Meaning very few units can attack at once. This is one of the reasons you lost the fight. Also you attacked 40 sec before your 3-3 finished. With chrone this is 20 seconds... You have waited 25 mins... You can wait 20 seconds more for the big fight. It makes a difference.
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Hey all, just wondering if I could ask those of you much more skilled than myself to go over this replay and see what it is I should improve on in my PvZ. (Note: I am top9 gold playing low-mid lvl platinum players and just looking to improve.)
In advance: The split and other little micro mistakes until about the 6 minute mark was because I had just gotten back from the gym and my gameplay took a bit of warming up.
What I really would like to know is: 1) if my macro is okay. I've watched the replay several times and have a feeling I'm a bit off in terms of expo's. 2) Scouting, am I doing enough? Can I do more? How? 3) Timings, i.e. Upgrades/Gas/Pushing etc.
Thank you very very much to anyone that takes time out of their day to respond.
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replay-videos/12115
Edit: Yes this is a win video, but a very sloppy one with a lot to work on. I'm mostly looking for help with Mechanics. I'm glad people have taken the time to respond and will have to be more active with the probe production past 12 mins. 3rd expo going up after pressuring his third is also something to look into.
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I do 3gate expo vs T and Z (gateways before nexus), what should my unit composition be after my first two warp ins in each matchup? I'm a high gold player, playing plats and my PvP is pretty much the only thing that got me here.
Crisply executed replays would be very helpful as well.
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On August 20 2011 16:05 Erzz wrote: I do 3gate expo vs T and Z (gateways before nexus), what should my unit composition be after my first two warp ins in each matchup? I'm a high gold player, playing plats and my PvP is pretty much the only thing that got me here.
Crisply executed replays would be very helpful as well.
Against zerg, you'd need a bunch of sentries. I like to make around 8-10. I then get hallucination and use phoenix to scout and go from there.
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On August 20 2011 15:32 Lhional wrote:Hey all, just wondering if I could ask those of you much more skilled than myself to go over this replay and see what it is I should improve on in my PvZ. (Note: I am top9 gold playing low-mid lvl platinum players and just looking to improve.) In advance: The split and other little micro mistakes until about the 6 minute mark was because I had just gotten back from the gym and my gameplay took a bit of warming up. What I really would like to know is: 1) if my macro is okay. I've watched the replay several times and have a feeling I'm a bit off in terms of expo's. 2) Scouting, am I doing enough? Can I do more? How? 3) Timings, i.e. Upgrades/Gas/Pushing etc. Thank you very very much to anyone that takes time out of their day to respond. http://www.sc2replayed.com/replay-videos/12115
If you really want the most help possible in your game, post a loss, not a win. No one is going to insult you for losing here.
There was a lot of time your Nexii weren't making probes. (Edit: You were doing good before about the 12:00 mark) Unless you have a reason for it, that's always a mistake. Your opponent made lots of units instead of drones when he didn't really have a reason to, that's why your macro outshone his.
Generally you take your third as soon as you feel safe to do so. If I'm 2 base pressuring that's usually a good time to go for it, knocking out his third and whittling away a bunch of his roaches is practically an invitation.
There were other refinements you could have made, but work on those first.
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On August 20 2011 05:44 Lisitsa wrote: What is the best response to a 6-pool if you were NOT going for FFE? I've tried to wall with pylons, chrono boosted a Zealot out but the lings still broke through after breaking pylon, forcing me to pull off my probes. When the lings were dead the Zerg was already pulling ahead in the worker count. I assume I'm supposed to stop that easier than the cases in which I went for FFE, I just have no idea what is the proper way to deal it.
Should I throw down a Forge instead of a Pylon? Look at how MC deal with Idra's 6pool at Dreamhack, both gate/forge and 2 gate will work, don't hesitate to pull some probes because your economy is going to be ahead
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