Introduction: Since about three months I am using only mass blink stalker in PvZ, with great succes. I have played a ton of games, tried alot of variations and feel confident against everything zergs throw at me. A month or two ago I discovered a totally destructive 'tactic'. I used it twice on ladder and it had instant succes. I kept the strat for myself, not using it anymore. But now I have used it again on ladder and I will write a small guide about this revolutionary tactic.
The key elements: Now the tactic consists of two key elements. The warp prism +sentry. And the mass blink stalker. Both have been known for a while. We saw recently a cute sentry drop by TSL_JYP vs MVP_Donraegu in the GSL. I first saw mass blink stalker in Ace vs Sen (Starwars cup). Since then it has been my main strategy for pvz. However, its the combination of both which is deadly.
The tacic itself: You should open up with FFE. Make alot of stalkers and attack upgrades. Also make a sentry and a warp prism. Blink all your stalkers in the zerg main base. Drop your sentry, set your prism to phase mode. When his units come to defend his main, forcefield his army in half and collect win. Some examples: + Show Spoiler +
Aiforsen goes for roach/infestor. I spoon him :p. His army is stuck at his natural while I kill his lair. I win the game very briefly afterwards. top master zerg from team Alien invasion
This is actually the most interesting game imo, because I lost . I had a bad minerals gas ratio, and therefore was floating high on minerals and couldn't warpin as many stalkers as I'd like.(Don't be too harsh guys, I am still finding an optimal build and experiment quite a bit). I also executed poorly, loosing like 5 stalkers on the initial blink in his main. Lalush has drop for overlords, and loads his roaches back into his main, which wins him the game. ( well that and my poor army management) When I retreat out of his main, I am up 15 workers: this also shows the strength of the harassing capabilities of this build. You don't need to kill the zerg with it. I think I could have won if I didn't mess up the timings of my geysers, and controled my army a bit better.
In conclusion: I am not really sure what zerg can do vs this, thus the somewhat provocative title :p. One also need to take in consideration the raw strength of blink stalkers. 20 blink stalkers vs 20 speedroaches? Who wins, casualities? answer: + Show Spoiler +
20 stalkers kill all the roaches with 0 loss.
Zerg could get burrow and move his roaches undergound to his main, bypassing the forcefield. But I will be getting a lot of freeshots+ superior arc. Follow that up by decent blink micro and its gg. Using roaches in ovies to ferry between main and natural (like lalush did), is imo clumpsy. They take a while to load and drop, and there are vulnerable during that time. I could also blink to his natural, when he drops his own main. He then needs to restart the procedure. If you have decent multitask, you can also send a couple of units to the zerg third, as I did vs Aiforsen.
Further info: I recently started streaming. I answer questions in chat and give insights/analysis when watching my own replays.
If zerg sees this is coming and gets his army in his base before it happens he would have no problem defending it, no? Although I suppose at that point you'd just force field to trap him in his base and own his natural. Still, I think if the Zerg sees this coming he should be able to defend.
This seems extremely powerful, and may force an earlier lair for tunelling claws and burrow (or a lot of spines) because I just don't see how this can be stopped easily. The +2 Blink stalker with robo all in off ffe is very powerful already, but being able to destroy zergs tech while ffing the ramp indefinitely (warp in more sentries or have 6 already), is just so powerful. You will destroy a base, including the lair, and probably the roach warren and spawning pool and maybe evo chambers as well.
Zerg's only option is to counterattack at this point but just adding mass cannons should deal with that, considering you don't actually have to reinforce your stalkers.
There are a lot of strats similar to this that have been focusing on warp prism play either hurassing mineral line or doing the same thing with more sentries to block off the ramp indefinitely.
I really enjoy the blink play included, seems like a really nice option and gives you the freedom to run away.
On August 21 2011 06:06 Yamulo wrote: It is a really risky/gimmick move... I mean yeah sure it can have a high pay off.. but it is really risky..
I don't find it gimmicky because I feel at any time you see the zerg army out of position you have the option to try something similar throughout the game.
and what is wrong with playing risky, If you played safe all the time, people are gonna figure that out and take advantage of your play.
Having new and more strats in your repertoire is something to celebrate.
More reasons people should stop telling zerg to stop whining. The warp in mechanic is extremely hard to balance without making protoss too weak or situational, IMO its just not a good game mechanics.
On August 21 2011 05:54 Weasel- wrote: If zerg sees this is coming and gets his army in his base before it happens he would have no problem defending it, no? Although I suppose at that point you'd just force field to trap him in his base and own his natural. Still, I think if the Zerg sees this coming he should be able to defend.
If he has some kind of anti-air prepared and splits up his army to protect whatever is supposed to snipe the warp-prism (which should be Queens in most cases) he should be in decent shape.
But one of the main strenghts of this strategy is that it is very hard to distinguish from other variations of blinkstalker/robo play - and depending on the map you really dont want to have your army split up between main/natural, since that allows for easy snipes of the third hatchery for the Toss (think XNC or Shakuras).
Its just a very smart variation of the common Blinkstalker pressure and as Toss you should definetly incorporate it into your repertoir.
Edit: I don't see what is supposed to be so risky about this strat? You have Blinkstalker tech, you have a Robo and even if you don't kill him you should be able to do lots of damage - the only risk I can imagine exists if your enemy knows exactly what you're up to and awaits you in his base with drop/tunneling claws/nydus(LOL!) at the ready. Could be hard to secure a third in this case - but that's a risk any strategy that utilizes timed pushes bears - if your push is deflected without damage your behind and have to play catch-up.
Edit2: One question though : why only 1 Sentry in your Warp-Prism? The same type of play has been done to me before, but I'm quite sure the guy dropped 4 Sentries with nearly full energy into my base.
Why are you guys being skeptical? If he put his units in his main, don't blink into his main. You can bounce around and potentially trap his units in by FFing the ramp.
That said, you can use this build to punish Zerg who don't prepare for agressive 2 base play off Forge FE with spines, because then the blink stalkers won't have a problem walking into your natural either. If you look at Ret he only makes like 2 spines and stops 6gate with plainly units, so against someone like that this can be devastating
What do you do if he goes for the usual response to mass blink stalker, ling/infestor? Seems like this becomes weak once the warp prism goes down, and it seems likely that it will go down if there are infestors. What do you do if you lose it?
Would you consider adding a second warp prism to attack a mineral line w/ zealots? Or is the timing thrown off?
I've been thinking about this type of play a lot, but never actually tried it. More so in PvT, in a 6gate all in (getting a robo instead of +1). 4 sentries in the base with 4 zealots/2 stalkers warping in will shred the production coming from a typical 3/4rax + reactorport build. Keeping the rest of your army outside stops a counter, since if they try it they wont have the cover of their bunkers. Despite not getting reinforcements your main army should be able to kill the counter.
I'll definitely have to try this in PvZ, with blink it sounds awesome I'll watch the replays in a sec
EDIT: Now that I think of it this happened to me in a PvP on Antigua Shipyard, was very effective. I was eventually killed off due to him sniping my 2 obs and walking in with DTs (was producing colossi)
To simplify for the haters... the point of this strategy is to be able to split the opponent's army significantly without a heavy investment into sentries, which are fundamentally weak head on attack units.
Nobody can argue that splitting the entire opposing force in half (or better) with a single sentry is EVER a bad idea.
This strategy seems very dependent upon the zerg being completely unaware of what you're doing. If the zerg spreads creep he would see this coming. Basically, the way you "counter" your build is by simply having map awareness and scouting.
On August 21 2011 07:42 Senros wrote: This strategy seems very dependent upon the zerg being completely unaware of what you're doing. If the zerg spreads creep he would see this coming. Basically, the way you "counter" your build is by simply having map awareness and scouting.
Let's say the zerg "scouts" and "has map awareness" like you suggest (thanks for that by the way), how does he prepare for this as it marches across the map? Move his roaches into his main and get cut off from his natural? Split his army in half and get killed? Stay in the natural and sac the main? Write blizzard an angry letter and QQ on teamliquid?
I'm not sure what a good scout can even do to stop this unless you manage to decipher "+2 attack mass blink stalker with warp prism-ed sentry to block ramp" by OL scouting his base and build like 6 spines in your main while leaving your army at your natural.
On August 21 2011 07:42 Senros wrote: This strategy seems very dependent upon the zerg being completely unaware of what you're doing. If the zerg spreads creep he would see this coming. Basically, the way you "counter" your build is by simply having map awareness and scouting.
Let's say the zerg "scouts" and "has map awareness" like you suggest (thanks for that by the way), how does he prepare for this as it marches across the map? Move his roaches into his main and get cut off from his natural? Split his army in half and get killed? Stay in the natural and sac the main? Write blizzard an angry letter and QQ on teamliquid?
I'm not sure what a good scout can even do to stop this unless you manage to decipher "+2 attack mass blink stalker with warp prism-ed sentry to block ramp" by OL scouting his base and build like 6 spines in your main while leaving your army at your natural.
You just need to engage the attack sooner, like mass ling surround. But this is actually a benefit of the strategy, since it doesn't give zerg their usual amount of time to pump out units right before the attack arrives.
Yeah the way to deal with this strategy is to engage outside your base, which you really should be doing anyway because you can't get a good surround on their army when they're at your choke.
However, if you're relying on spines + infestors for defense, then this is going to hurt real bad.
lol i think someone did something similar to me. If someone goes ffe i just go 14 pool 16 hatch 22 hatch and get so rediculously ahead that if they do an attack that requires alot of tech like a robo + blink ill probably be near maxed and having my 4th going up. i dont think it matters how much damage the drops do if you dont deny their third. I think ffe into tech is kinda silly since the zerg can just get so far ahead. I really only lose to ffe if its followed by an earlier timing attack.
Ya by the screen shots if you are hitting on 12 i will be maxed on roaches or around 160 supply with hydras. on around 70 drones with a 4th making most likely
On August 21 2011 08:14 RedDragon571 wrote: spore crawler near ramp. Done, warpprisms dont have that much hp...
The point of this build is to blink units into the Zerg main while having a Sentry to FF the ramp. It doesn't have anything to do with attacking at the ramp. Please stop dismissing guides with a single comment.
This strategy might work really well and it is just a mid-game variation of the 3 Gate Sentry pressure that Protoss have been doing against Zergs without spines (FF ramp and attack natural). I can see this working really well and kinda makes Roaches even more useless against Blink Stalkers.
Warp prism shenannigans are really fun, like the build I saw NEXSickness do with 4gates and wapr prism vs gasless FE terran, but I find they're a bit gimmicky and all in. I'll definitely try this build for a strong 2base timing(all in, maybe?), vs zerg though, since my PvZ is abyssmal anyways. Always fun to have more builds to use, regardless of their nature :D
Could a zerg potentially use roaches tunneling claws and infestors to just go under the forcefield and wreak the army. I know blink stalkers beat speed roaches, but throw two infestors in there and you have a huge problem. This is still potentially really good, the zerg would have to have that sort of composition to deal with the forcefield on the ramp.
On August 21 2011 09:12 E.H Eager wrote: Could a zerg potentially use roaches tunneling claws and infestors to just go under the forcefield and wreak the army. I know blink stalkers beat speed roaches, but throw two infestors in there and you have a huge problem. This is still potentially really good, the zerg would have to have that sort of composition to deal with the forcefield on the ramp.
On August 21 2011 07:42 Senros wrote: This strategy seems very dependent upon the zerg being completely unaware of what you're doing. If the zerg spreads creep he would see this coming. Basically, the way you "counter" your build is by simply having map awareness and scouting.
Let's say the zerg "scouts" and "has map awareness" like you suggest (thanks for that by the way), how does he prepare for this as it marches across the map? Move his roaches into his main and get cut off from his natural? Split his army in half and get killed? Stay in the natural and sac the main? Write blizzard an angry letter and QQ on teamliquid?
I'm not sure what a good scout can even do to stop this unless you manage to decipher "+2 attack mass blink stalker with warp prism-ed sentry to block ramp" by OL scouting his base and build like 6 spines in your main while leaving your army at your natural.
You just need to engage the attack sooner, like mass ling surround. But this is actually a benefit of the strategy, since it doesn't give zerg their usual amount of time to pump out units right before the attack arrives.
Who the hell beats 6gate blink stalker just by "surrounding with mass ling"?
On August 21 2011 07:42 Senros wrote: This strategy seems very dependent upon the zerg being completely unaware of what you're doing. If the zerg spreads creep he would see this coming. Basically, the way you "counter" your build is by simply having map awareness and scouting.
Let's say the zerg "scouts" and "has map awareness" like you suggest (thanks for that by the way), how does he prepare for this as it marches across the map? Move his roaches into his main and get cut off from his natural? Split his army in half and get killed? Stay in the natural and sac the main? Write blizzard an angry letter and QQ on teamliquid?
I'm not sure what a good scout can even do to stop this unless you manage to decipher "+2 attack mass blink stalker with warp prism-ed sentry to block ramp" by OL scouting his base and build like 6 spines in your main while leaving your army at your natural.
You just need to engage the attack sooner, like mass ling surround. But this is actually a benefit of the strategy, since it doesn't give zerg their usual amount of time to pump out units right before the attack arrives.
Who the hell beats 6gate blink stalker just by "surrounding with mass ling"?
you definitely would have to engage the toss before they get to ur base thats the only possible way of stoping it so it just comes down to if ur army is strong enough to take down a 6 gate without spines/queens
This worked great, but it's basically a "surprise I got you with this because you've never seen it before!" type strategy, which therein lies its strength. This is the sort of creative stuff Tosses should be doing. From the Zerg perspective, good creep spread, OL placement, and scouting of army SHOULD let your opponent see your warp prism with enough time to react before it reaches the main. Zerg can either surround the army before it gets there, thus nullifying the strategy, or go for a base trade. You would lose a base trade scenario. Zerg probably has more units (with many more on the way since he's all in now), and can just go make hatcheries somewhere else. He also probably has full vision of every other expansion outside of your natural, so he'll know if you try to do the same, and just send lings to kill your probe.
On August 21 2011 07:42 Senros wrote: This strategy seems very dependent upon the zerg being completely unaware of what you're doing. If the zerg spreads creep he would see this coming. Basically, the way you "counter" your build is by simply having map awareness and scouting.
Let's say the zerg "scouts" and "has map awareness" like you suggest (thanks for that by the way), how does he prepare for this as it marches across the map? Move his roaches into his main and get cut off from his natural? Split his army in half and get killed? Stay in the natural and sac the main? Write blizzard an angry letter and QQ on teamliquid?
I'm not sure what a good scout can even do to stop this unless you manage to decipher "+2 attack mass blink stalker with warp prism-ed sentry to block ramp" by OL scouting his base and build like 6 spines in your main while leaving your army at your natural.
You just need to engage the attack sooner, like mass ling surround. But this is actually a benefit of the strategy, since it doesn't give zerg their usual amount of time to pump out units right before the attack arrives.
Who the hell beats 6gate blink stalker just by "surrounding with mass ling"?
people who actually scout? I mean you can use another composition if you want, but I was just picking the most simplistic. You can have 6 speedlings for each stalker by that point easy, and the earlier you engage, the fewer stalkers they have. That is how you surround with mass ling.
On August 21 2011 07:42 Senros wrote: This strategy seems very dependent upon the zerg being completely unaware of what you're doing. If the zerg spreads creep he would see this coming. Basically, the way you "counter" your build is by simply having map awareness and scouting.
Let's say the zerg "scouts" and "has map awareness" like you suggest (thanks for that by the way), how does he prepare for this as it marches across the map? Move his roaches into his main and get cut off from his natural? Split his army in half and get killed? Stay in the natural and sac the main? Write blizzard an angry letter and QQ on teamliquid?
I'm not sure what a good scout can even do to stop this unless you manage to decipher "+2 attack mass blink stalker with warp prism-ed sentry to block ramp" by OL scouting his base and build like 6 spines in your main while leaving your army at your natural.
Umm, he would just meet your army in the middle of the map?
Kind of like you do against terran who wants to seige up on your low ground and elevator?
blinking into a zerg base AND FF the ramp. so glad you brought this to blizzards and my attention, hopefully between the 2 of us (me and Justin) we can knock our heads together to figure out some sort of solution to this wild new, unforeseen yet timely playstyle.
I've actually used this a few times when I was getting really frustrated with PvZ. I lost as many games as I won but it really always came down to whether I could micro properly. I think forcefields, blink and warp prisms all still have alot more potential than we've seen.
To deal with base trades situations, I think u just have to fly the warp prism back and hopefully be able to pick up a probe to make stuff + blink stalkers are REALLY good for base trades.
Christ. One more reason for me to hate Forcefield.
With good micro this is strong. I had a player do this to me and I felt like a total scrub... absolutely nothing I could do to save my base. His was too far to trade.
On August 21 2011 10:56 MuffinFTW wrote: To deal with base trades situations, I think u just have to fly the warp prism back and hopefully be able to pick up a probe to make stuff + blink stalkers are REALLY good for base trades.
Yeah except you're going to have Roach/Ling destroying 2 bases against Pure Blink Stalker destroying 3 bases, potentially 4. There's just no way you win a base trade at all.
On August 21 2011 10:56 MuffinFTW wrote: To deal with base trades situations, I think u just have to fly the warp prism back and hopefully be able to pick up a probe to make stuff + blink stalkers are REALLY good for base trades.
Yeah except you're going to have Roach/Ling destroying 2 bases against Pure Blink Stalker destroying 3 bases, potentially 4. There's just no way you win a base trade at all.
Did u not read? If u have a probe in a warp prism, by flying it back to pick one up, you'll be able to constantly make pylons WITH your army, so they can't snipe.
On August 21 2011 12:35 youngminii wrote: this is going to encourage more and more base trading until blizzard patches this to 'fix' it which means a nerf for protoss
:<
If blizzard nerfs forcefields, the amount of protoss players will likely drop to around 0%.
It is the only thing which allows us to overcome the MMM early push and the mass units of zergs. Without forcefield, it becomes easy to kill a protoss early on at any point.
though the pictures may make your thread looks detailed but your analysis of your strat are horrible. You didn't discuss any type of timing you're trying to exploit, you didn't discuss anything about what the zerg could have done to prevent that (your losses), because i'm pretty sure it's not imbalanced, if it is, the ladder and tournaments would have fulled of it already. All you did was showing people that you need to build stalkers, build sentries and build warprism to execute this build -_-
On August 21 2011 12:59 brachester wrote: though the pictures may make your thread looks detailed but your analysis of your strat are horrible. You didn't discuss any type of timing you're trying to exploit, you didn't discuss anything about what the zerg could have done to prevent that (your losses), because i'm pretty sure it's not imbalanced, if it is, the ladder and tournaments would have fulled of it already. All you did was showing people that you need to build stalkers, build sentries and build warprism to execute this build -_-
...because it's a tactic, not a build.
Much like ling runbys aren't meant to exploit a significant timing (other than "his units aren't here right now") or how marine drops don't need to happen only before Protoss gets a specific tech... it's a clever way to use the units you'll likely already have plus a warp prism to straight-up win games.
On August 21 2011 13:15 Xation wrote: Forgive me if I am wrong, but doesn't mass speedling/infestor completely wreck this? Also, Stalkers don't upgrade too well.
Stalkers start noticing a difference once you get +2 Weapons out, just a good timing to have in your head when you FFE into Blink Stalkers. Infestors could work if you have Burrow out and somehow manage to get under the Force Fields, but I still think Burrowed Roaches would still be better in the situation.
It purely is just a nice tactic. I mean you can sort of use this tactic as a cornerstone to your build, much like Terran used the Lost Temple tactic in BW as a cornerstone to their build.
Doing like an FE, into 7ish gate +2 stalker blink plus warp prism and sentry and perform that tactic, you can end up pretty good. I mean you arent running into the problems that build has, with being unable to transition well, or not being able to handle an army that flanks well, you are sidestepping all of that, and using blink stalkers for a really easy win. Or at least tons of damage to where you can perform the shitty transition blink stalkers have.
nexus first/ffe into 7 gate blink, which involves getting a robo for detection. and instead of making 1-2 observers and never using the robo till your attack fails, you get a warp prism to do this tactic.
i cant imagine someone not raging at this though, this game is designed for people to abuse zerg.
like the op thanks for adding This tactic is a great tool for protoss to use when it is applicable. The way I do this is usually with a fast charge when my twilight council gets scouted and i can reasonably assume my oponent will counter blink stalkers. then try the "sentry drop kick trick" and if all goes according to plans follow up with chargelot warp ins. I'll often end up using the first warp prism with just 3 zealots to snipe the queen at the third then swing back in to do it again and when he defends his third -=BOOOM=- i'm in your main with charelots and and a sentry or 2.
really my post is probably more directed at everyone who thinks they can add to the community culture and the pride inspiring image that tl brings to esports with 1 sentence that only belittles someone else's hard work. If you're going to get critical of someone's idea's - you're going to go into a public forum and "bash" someone you have to put something on the line or you're just flapping gums. I'm not going to quote anyone but if you're so sure you won't lose to this that you can dismiss it in 1 sentence I demand a replay. Give us a date and time for some public broadcast open stream proving it. Really if you just give some conditions and/or positions to make those blanket statements they would gain the first speck of credibility that might make people start listening to you. As it stands i just figure you're all a bunch of mid bronze level 2v2 warriors who's big brother told you about team liquid. thanks theredone
On August 21 2011 13:47 SpoR wrote: 12 minutes in? I'll always have roach burrow move and burrow. Also, if you are attacking that late with stalker only I'd probably have a ton of hydras
Hydras will be ruined. Additionally, the joy of this build is that you engage their army through a choke(free advantage) and if something goes wrong you just blink away. Roaches burrow moving up a ramp with concave stalkers dont do too well, espiecially after the toss escapes with everything after the free hits.
Additionally, considering you are on the templar tech path, storm drops are the next step. New harass oriented PvZ build inc.
This seem like something that will help my PvZ grow a lot, i'm sucking in the matchup. I have a question though, why not take 4 sentries in the warp prism for more forcefields just in case and so when you finish your attack you can load them up again and sentry drop his natural or third later as your stalkers blink back out?
I heard infestors were pretty good. Personally scouting robo and gateways I get a lot lot lot spines... Then rush for infestors. takes what 3 fungals to kill a warprism and your entire strategy is dead...
I dunno but I think protoss need to practice less and less all-ins and more and more well scouted "macro/lategame" orientated plays.
You can't count on the zerg not scouting the warprism and the blink, thus allowing units in the main and the spines at the front :|
On August 21 2011 12:59 brachester wrote: though the pictures may make your thread looks detailed but your analysis of your strat are horrible. You didn't discuss any type of timing you're trying to exploit, you didn't discuss anything about what the zerg could have done to prevent that (your losses), because i'm pretty sure it's not imbalanced, if it is, the ladder and tournaments would have fulled of it already. All you did was showing people that you need to build stalkers, build sentries and build warprism to execute this build -_-
...because it's a tactic, not a build.
Much like ling runbys aren't meant to exploit a significant timing (other than "his units aren't here right now") or how marine drops don't need to happen only before Protoss gets a specific tech... it's a clever way to use the units you'll likely already have plus a warp prism to straight-up win games.
This is certainly occasionally useful, but is by no means a surefire win, let alone imbalanced.
Burrowed roaches, baneling carpet-bombs, and base trades will all kill you. Plus, fungal growth can stop you pretty easily too. Keep in mind that if he just counters you with a ton of speedlings, you'll lose your base faster than he will. He may very well have the drop upgrade or the ability to nydus as well...
You're also banking on a small choke (like on Metalopolis) to preserve sentry energy and corral the Zerg units. If your warp prism gets sniped, then you can't make any more sentries (and you'll quickly run out of sentry energy).
Just food for thought. As a Protoss player, I love using forcefields and blink stalkers, but they're hardly a perfect combination. Good luck!
PvZ is bar far my worst match up. I struggle mightily with Zerg once they get rolling, so when I saw your strat I immediately jumped onto bnet and gave it a shot against a top 10 (in his division) diamond Zerg, and it worked so well he rage quit with "well... that's dumb." :D
Thanks for the strategy. I'm finding this one much more reliable that hister's recent post on 2 pylon pressure (also a cool strat but much harder to pull off IMO).
way to read the thread...that is a 1base 4gate allin with a warp prism and sentries
this however is a 2base blink stalker timing with a similar purpose... the greatest strength of this tactic though is to snipe tech, and if he tries to counter, you've done your damage blink out and then blink around his army to get back or simply harass his army...i would suggest getting 1-2 obs as this timing is not the quickest, as well as adding a probe inside the warp prism to build a pylon in the zergs base incase the prism gets sniped
why do i feel another protoss nerf incoming with this glorious strategy :/ something about protoss winning games seems to be a problem with blizzard...wont take too many more patches to fix that though T.T
As a general summary: 7 gate +2attack blink stalkers is already very potent. I defeated Liquidshet, Mymxlord, aAabigs with it on ladder, just to give you an idea. Adding a warp prism+ sentry is just putting the icing on the cake: its ridiculously good for harass, or outright killing the zerg. A lot of people are going like: o this will easily kill it. NO MAN! Zerg already have trouble defeating 7 gate +2 blink. I am not afraid to take up a straight up fight with my stalkers.
On August 21 2011 12:59 brachester wrote: though the pictures may make your thread looks detailed but your analysis of your strat are horrible. You didn't discuss any type of timing you're trying to exploit, you didn't discuss anything about what the zerg could have done to prevent that (your losses)
It is a guide [G] about a tactic, not about some specific build order. I discuss the possible zerg respones in my conclusion.
Because i'm pretty sure it's not imbalanced, if it is, the ladder and tournaments would have fulled of it already.
Oh, It will be full of it after this thread.
12 minutes in? I'll always have roach burrow move and burrow. Also, if you are attacking that late with stalker only I'd probably have a ton of hydras
Just add me.
I feel that this is just asking for a base trade however idk if that is good or bad.
Yeah basetrade could be annoying. But you could cannon your main, sack your natural and warp in a sentry at home. Because you have blinkstalkers and a warp prism, I think protoss is slightly favored in a basetrade if he reacts well. I think taking one probe in the prism is a very good idea. You can build proxy pylons with it, and it will be useful in a basetrade scenario.
spore crawler near ramp. Done, warpprisms dont have that much hp...
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=download&id=227476 This is a game vs MYMxlord. I lose my initial sentry and miss ff the ramp because of my clumpiness . He places later on a spore crawler at his ramp, as you suggest. I still feel, this isn't optimal: it is easy to circumvent one spore crawler. Btw, I still win this game with the raw strength of blinkstalkers.
btw: spoon.170 eu server if you think have a 'counter' or want to train vs this.
I have recently refined a build for pvt with sentry drops hitting at about the 6:45 minute mark all it is is a 2 gate robo expand where you get your second gas with you're cyber core, 1 staker first then 4 sentrys and a warp prism, only using chrono on your probes. i have not tryed it out in any games, but getting both a warp prism and 4 sentrys at the 6:25 minute mark i think is pretty dam good, thats hitting even before a 4 gate! anybody who reads this tell me if you like it.
yea the tactics of protoss arsenal are pretty mean.
nothing feels worse than loosing to a tactic executed by a player with less skill than ur own. i feel sorry for xlord and co.
arent u ashamed that u beat these players due to the capabilites of ur race and not due to superior micro AND macro?
how do you feel executing these tactic? are u excited about it? what kind of person are you to make this your standard tactic versus zerg?
i mean sure there are at least 5 percent of the zergs standard 6pooling against toss because of such tactics. the rest is doing it just sometimes if they get annoyed by toss abusers. but protoss players always seem to love abusive and/or lame strategys.
i watched ur replays - i can´t see anything that 'counters' this game design failure. also i think that the execution cant be done much better, even if huk would have tried this. thats the sad thing about toss - the actual control u need evens out the higher the level of skill gets. that means: i think huk and this spooner guy here or even white-ra have a skill difference of maybe 3percent. therefore the skill difference between sen and xlord is much more than 20percent.
sorry for gramar and or vocabular. im not a native speaker.
dont feel insulted toss players out there. it is just what i think and this post made me very very mad.
On August 21 2011 16:41 sontyp wrote: yea the tactics of protoss arsenal are pretty mean.
nothing feels worse than loosing to a tactic executed by a player with less skill than ur own. i feel sorry for xlord and co.
arent u ashamed that u beat these players due to the capabilites of ur race and not due to superior micro AND macro?
how do you feel executing these tactic? are u excited about it? what kind of person are you to make this your standard tactic versus zerg?
i mean sure there are at least 5 percent of the zergs standard 6pooling against toss because of such tactics. the rest is doing it just sometimes if they get annoyed by toss abusers. but protoss players always seem to love abusive and/or lame strategys.
i watched ur replays - i can´t see anything that 'counters' this game design failure. also i think that the execution cant be done much better, even if huk would have tried this. thats the sad thing about toss - the actual control u need evens out the higher the level of skill gets. that means: i think huk and this spooner guy here or even white-ra have a skill difference of maybe 3percent. therefore the skill difference between sen and xlord is much more than 20percent.
sorry for gramar and or vocabular. im not a native speaker.
dont feel insulted toss players out there. it is just what i think and this post made me very very mad.
What are you trying to say??? I don't really understand what you're trying to achieve here
On August 21 2011 16:41 sontyp wrote: yea the tactics of protoss arsenal are pretty mean.
nothing feels worse than loosing to a tactic executed by a player with less skill than ur own. i feel sorry for xlord and co.
arent u ashamed that u beat these players due to the capabilites of ur race and not due to superior micro AND macro?
how do you feel executing these tactic? are u excited about it? what kind of person are you to make this your standard tactic versus zerg?
i mean sure there are at least 5 percent of the zergs standard 6pooling against toss because of such tactics. the rest is doing it just sometimes if they get annoyed by toss abusers. but protoss players always seem to love abusive and/or lame strategys.
i watched ur replays - i can´t see anything that 'counters' this game design failure. also i think that the execution cant be done much better, even if huk would have tried this. thats the sad thing about toss - the actual control u need evens out the higher the level of skill gets. that means: i think huk and this spooner guy here or even white-ra have a skill difference of maybe 3percent. therefore the skill difference between sen and xlord is much more than 20percent.
sorry for gramar and or vocabular. im not a native speaker.
dont feel insulted toss players out there. it is just what i think and this post made me very very mad.
Mad? Why? I have lose numerous times to roach lings all in. Sometimes I miss my forcefield and get rolled. I made a mistake and got my army fungal. Does it mean the player is better or I am better in micro or macro? We play to get better. I don't think this is unstoppable. Infestors are hard to deal with but I am becoming better at dealing with it. This might be abusive, but so are infestors. If you can't stop it, it just means you are not good enough, it has nothing to do with your opponent.
On August 21 2011 16:41 sontyp wrote: yea the tactics of protoss arsenal are pretty mean.
nothing feels worse than loosing to a tactic executed by a player with less skill than ur own. i feel sorry for xlord and co.
arent u ashamed that u beat these players due to the capabilites of ur race and not due to superior micro AND macro?
how do you feel executing these tactic? are u excited about it? what kind of person are you to make this your standard tactic versus zerg?
i mean sure there are at least 5 percent of the zergs standard 6pooling against toss because of such tactics. the rest is doing it just sometimes if they get annoyed by toss abusers. but protoss players always seem to love abusive and/or lame strategys.
i watched ur replays - i can´t see anything that 'counters' this game design failure. also i think that the execution cant be done much better, even if huk would have tried this. thats the sad thing about toss - the actual control u need evens out the higher the level of skill gets. that means: i think huk and this spooner guy here or even white-ra have a skill difference of maybe 3percent. therefore the skill difference between sen and xlord is much more than 20percent.
sorry for gramar and or vocabular. im not a native speaker.
dont feel insulted toss players out there. it is just what i think and this post made me very very mad.
What are you trying to say??? I don't really understand what you're trying to achieve here
it looks alot like hes crapping all over toss without any real reason. but if we could get back to the topic at hand....... Yeah i cant see any practical way for a zerg to deal with this once it hits his base. the only chance id say he'd have is if he were able to see it leave the toss base and intercept it , preferably when its out of position. i wouldnt call this imbalanced, you just have to know its coming and be on your toes
On August 21 2011 07:42 Senros wrote: This strategy seems very dependent upon the zerg being completely unaware of what you're doing. If the zerg spreads creep he would see this coming. Basically, the way you "counter" your build is by simply having map awareness and scouting.
Let's say the zerg "scouts" and "has map awareness" like you suggest (thanks for that by the way), how does he prepare for this as it marches across the map? Move his roaches into his main and get cut off from his natural? Split his army in half and get killed? Stay in the natural and sac the main? Write blizzard an angry letter and QQ on teamliquid?
I'm not sure what a good scout can even do to stop this unless you manage to decipher "+2 attack mass blink stalker with warp prism-ed sentry to block ramp" by OL scouting his base and build like 6 spines in your main while leaving your army at your natural.
I can't tell whether or not you're trying to convey sarcasm in that first sentence, oh well.
Anyway, You scout mass talker and twilight council. Assume blink stalker or dt, prepare for both. go infestor -ling (which destroys mass stalker) and move his army to his main. Then stalkers can't blink, whole army dead, expand and counter attack shortly for the win.
What about the roach ling pressure or infestor play? I think this build is good only if the Zerg is really passive; and imo in Master (even diamond) it's rarely the case !
i really hate FF. You just can't do anything as a zerg once the ramp is ff'ed. burred roaches are too slow to keep your tech alive. Its a matter of time when a) queens can destroy ff or b) ff can't be spelled on creep.
On August 21 2011 18:18 d33p wrote: What about the roach ling pressure or infestor play? I think this build is good only if the Zerg is really passive; and imo in Master (even diamond) it's rarely the case !
Please watch replays. My opponents are gm zegrs, not diamond players.
It's really quite effective, and I see this working at low levels, where the average ZvP mindset is "Gotta get lots of roaches"
Also, if you do what Minigun did, and do a slight engagement outside the natural, drawing the zerg units outside of his main, then blinking up into the main, then it's pretty much GG with the forcefields
On some maps, like antiga this can be really strong, and especially as zergs don't tend to go down the roach burrow movement as much anymore.
As a zerg the only thing I can really think of is being more proactive with the ovie positioning to stop the blink up going unnoticed, but that may lead to just a straight hit on your natural and getting stuck inside your main instead. It seems that z's have to be a bit more aggressive with the map control they have and hit the toss army before it reaches their base.
On August 21 2011 18:50 VK-Vio wrote: As a zerg the only thing I can really think of is being more proactive with the ovie positioning to stop the blink up going unnoticed
I've beaten this by just going for a basetrade instantly, and spine up my third.
On August 21 2011 18:50 VK-Vio wrote: As a zerg the only thing I can really think of is being more proactive with the ovie positioning to stop the blink up going unnoticed
I've beaten this by just going for a basetrade instantly, and spine up my third.
Focusing down probes and nexus.
If you watch the video of minigun doing it, he stops the basetrade by warping in a couple of sentrys at his natural choke, and forcefielding the ramp. With cannons, forcefields and some stalkers warping, the base trade for zerg is no longer an option
I think MVPTails did this to oGsTheWind in last Code A season on Xelnaga. TheWind went for a couterattack, bu Tails had like 10 cannons at his natural.
On August 21 2011 18:50 VK-Vio wrote: As a zerg the only thing I can really think of is being more proactive with the ovie positioning to stop the blink up going unnoticed
I've beaten this by just going for a basetrade instantly, and spine up my third.
Focusing down probes and nexus.
If you watch the video of minigun doing it, he stops the basetrade by warping in a couple of sentrys at his natural choke, and forcefielding the ramp. With cannons, forcefields and some stalkers warping, the base trade for zerg is no longer an option
That zerg had pure ling. If he has 12+ roaches, it's a different story because the buildings fall fast then.
That said, you can forcefield your main - but your natural will be gone.
One problem I see is that this forces base race situations, in which usually the zerg has better building survivability. Other problems: if zerg is already at hydras or spire, they could focus fire the warp prism and cut your reinforcments. And for the roach, if they got burrow move, they can dive under the FF.
Just wanted to say thanks for this. Really really struggling PvZ and most of what I've been trying are all-ins.
Watched a few of the replays and gave it a go... managed to win my first try (did enough damage with the blink in to roll it later), but my next few tries haven't been successful... although one loss was from a 6 pool! (who does that??)
Anyway, appreciate the post, seems to be a very clever tactic.
On August 21 2011 20:29 Wildsound wrote: have you tried this strategy in PvT?
Very bad vs Terran because you can't base race them, marines shoot down warp prism like its nothing and Vikings can be made too and medivacs can ferry units across the ramp.
On August 21 2011 18:36 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: i really hate FF. You just can't do anything as a zerg once the ramp is ff'ed. burred roaches are too slow to keep your tech alive. Its a matter of time when a) queens can destroy ff or b) ff can't be spelled on creep.
or c) zerg lose automatically when fungal growth is cast.
On August 21 2011 18:50 VK-Vio wrote: As a zerg the only thing I can really think of is being more proactive with the ovie positioning to stop the blink up going unnoticed
I've beaten this by just going for a basetrade instantly, and spine up my third.
Focusing down probes and nexus.
If you watch the video of minigun doing it, he stops the basetrade by warping in a couple of sentrys at his natural choke, and forcefielding the ramp. With cannons, forcefields and some stalkers warping, the base trade for zerg is no longer an option
well, if zerg has burrow + burrow movement thats forcefields aren't option anymore :< and would be hard to believe protoss had enough units to defend same time while killing zerg's whole main...
I used to do this, but I'd just drop 8 zealots in the mineral line and have another warp prism filled with sentries to block the ramp. Never though of using blink stalkers!
This is JUST what the PvZ metagame needed. An insane all in that forces zerg to really make units and not drones, or to spine his main and put army at his natural; something to keep them honest enough that you can kill them if they aren't or take a third and be even if they are.
good zergs will counter attack ur main regardless off ur ff, i lost a lot wit this strat cuz sumtimes he is alrdy on tunnel clause and mass roaches counters everyything this strat has and even ffe total fail sry
On August 21 2011 23:17 esteem wrote: good zergs will counter attack ur main regardless off ur ff, i lost a lot wit this strat cuz sumtimes he is alrdy on tunnel clause and mass roaches counters everyything this strat has and even ffe total fail sry
In Minigun game, Ostojiy tried counter attack but failed -
gay as fuck but definately manageable. once you get the ability to realize that he's doing a sentry drop into main you either get drop on overlords spine crawlers in your main or spam hydras and lings. the push isn't that strong it's just that people don't know it's coming and it's rather cheesey. just spread overlords and scout for warp prism. as soon as it comes into your base be ready for it and it it's just a normal blink stalker attack.
i would consider defending this as just a normal blink stalker attack get hydras lings or infestors ready and just make sure you deny that warp prism. if this attack fails the zerg is way ahead
reason why it seems so op is that zergs just don't know about this yet. it's like blue flame hellion + marine drops now people are just denying the drop with like 3 queens and additional precautions. there weren't any precautions before the tactic was introduced
i think this attack is more effective as a 1 base all without blink.
Just had this done to me on ladder. Despite my whininess earlier in the thread, I actually held it with nothing but roaches. Basically you need to spot it coming (I had an inkling he might try it) and pick off as many of his stalkers as you can as it comes across the map. Picking off the warp prism is obviously target #1 with queens or whatever you have at your disposal. From there I just made a point of targeting down the sentries (he dropped 4 in my base instead of 1) on the outside of the high ground (in range of my roaches). From there just clean up as best I could. Didn't lose too much in my main and I was on three base anyway. Just transitioned into mass upgraded roaches and infestors and blink stalkers are not an issue.
here's the replay if anyone cares to see a successful hold... now this is diamond league so no doubt this isn't the "optimal" form of the build or hold, but it's an example of how you can do it.
On August 22 2011 03:40 McGuire72 wrote: Just had this done to me on ladder. Despite my whininess earlier in the thread, I actually held it with nothing but roaches. Basically you need to spot it coming (I had an inkling he might try it) and pick off as many of his stalkers as you can as it comes across the map. Picking off the warp prism is obviously target #1 with queens or whatever you have at your disposal. From there I just made a point of targeting down the sentries (he dropped 4 in my base instead of 1) on the outside of the high ground (in range of my roaches). From there just clean up as best I could. Didn't lose too much in my main and I was on three base anyway. Just transitioned into mass upgraded roaches and infestors and blink stalkers are not an issue.
here's the replay if anyone cares to see a successful hold... now this is diamond league so no doubt this isn't the "optimal" form of the build or hold, but it's an example of how you can do it.
Yeah you probably won because he let his sentries get in range + die If this was done optimally without being scouted then I don't see the zerg winning in my opinion. I will try this build and edit it into this post later.
On August 21 2011 18:36 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: i really hate FF. You just can't do anything as a zerg once the ramp is ff'ed. burred roaches are too slow to keep your tech alive. Its a matter of time when a) queens can destroy ff or b) ff can't be spelled on creep.
This. i'd love to see point b in the next patch, but it will probably only be a. One might consider adding c:
FF can't be spelled near a queen (lets say 1 hex around the queen).
or d:
FF's can't be spelled on slopes.
FF's use to be very very strong, but never OP. This will change things, haha.
On August 22 2011 03:40 McGuire72 wrote: Just had this done to me on ladder. Despite my whininess earlier in the thread, I actually held it with nothing but roaches. Basically you need to spot it coming (I had an inkling he might try it) and pick off as many of his stalkers as you can as it comes across the map. Picking off the warp prism is obviously target #1 with queens or whatever you have at your disposal. From there I just made a point of targeting down the sentries (he dropped 4 in my base instead of 1) on the outside of the high ground (in range of my roaches). From there just clean up as best I could. Didn't lose too much in my main and I was on three base anyway. Just transitioned into mass upgraded roaches and infestors and blink stalkers are not an issue.
here's the replay if anyone cares to see a successful hold... now this is diamond league so no doubt this isn't the "optimal" form of the build or hold, but it's an example of how you can do it.
Yeah you probably won because he let his sentries get in range + die If this was done optimally without being scouted then I don't see the zerg winning in my opinion. I will try this build and edit it into this post later.
I don't doubt this. I just watched it myself and my opponent was... not doing very well. To say the least.
However, the BIG thing to take away from it is that i managed to cut off the main stalker ball in the middle of the map, so all he had in my main was the 4 sentries he dropped, and the 5 stalkers he warped in before i killed the prism. By not allowing the main stalker ball to get within blinking range, I saved the game. If he'd got his stalkers up in my base, I lose regardless of how careless he is with his sentries.
On August 21 2011 18:36 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: i really hate FF. You just can't do anything as a zerg once the ramp is ff'ed. burred roaches are too slow to keep your tech alive. Its a matter of time when a) queens can destroy ff or b) ff can't be spelled on creep.
This. i'd love to see point b in the next patch, but it will probably only be a. One might consider adding c:
FF can't be spelled near a queen (lets say 1 hex around the queen).
or d:
FF's can't be spelled on slopes.
FF's use to be very very strong, but never OP. This will change things, haha.
Well if you want to make sentries useless... A is pretty retarded , more or less (retarded) depending on how the queen can destroy it. B is stupid it's not as big of a nerf as A,C and D but will make Protoss have to deny creep spread constantly which in the lower leagues would be game-breaking. C means queens would be a massive unit making them way too strong at defending Stargate pressure which is already nerfed enough to make it not as viable. D makes PvT and PvZ unwinable.All Terran would need to do is either 3rax or really any Terran rush/all-in and Zerg would have to 7 Roach rush. Forcefield is as balanced as possible and nerfing it or removing it would make Protoss unplayable.
Forcefields need a fix. Making it last shorter? Cost more energy? They are strong enough outside of the ramps already. There should be something preventing them to block enemy ramps indefinitely.
lol the execution of this strategy is actually really hard. Really requires a lot of multitasking but also requires lots of skill from the zerg to hold it off!
On August 21 2011 18:50 VK-Vio wrote: As a zerg the only thing I can really think of is being more proactive with the ovie positioning to stop the blink up going unnoticed
I've beaten this by just going for a basetrade instantly, and spine up my third.
Focusing down probes and nexus.
If you watch the video of minigun doing it, he stops the basetrade by warping in a couple of sentrys at his natural choke, and forcefielding the ramp. With cannons, forcefields and some stalkers warping, the base trade for zerg is no longer an option
this is map dependent, on some maps like xel'naga caverns the basetrade would be very viable as ff would not hold as well
On August 21 2011 18:36 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: i really hate FF. You just can't do anything as a zerg once the ramp is ff'ed. burred roaches are too slow to keep your tech alive. Its a matter of time when a) queens can destroy ff or b) ff can't be spelled on creep.
This. i'd love to see point b in the next patch, but it will probably only be a. One might consider adding c:
FF can't be spelled near a queen (lets say 1 hex around the queen).
or d:
FF's can't be spelled on slopes.
FF's use to be very very strong, but never OP. This will change things, haha.
Well if you want to make sentries useless... A is pretty retarded , more or less (retarded) depending on how the queen can destroy it. B is stupid it's not as big of a nerf as A,C and D but will make Protoss have to deny creep spread constantly which in the lower leagues would be game-breaking. C means queens would be a massive unit making them way too strong at defending Stargate pressure which is already nerfed enough to make it not as viable. D makes PvT and PvZ unwinable.All Terran would need to do is either 3rax or really any Terran rush/all-in and Zerg would have to 7 Roach rush. Forcefield is as balanced as possible and nerfing it or removing it would make Protoss unplayable.
Forcefield cannot be placed on Creep. Terran doesn't have as big of a problem with this, and this would also end the bullshit of Protoss retreating with FF/ engaging with FF on creep.
I would say 'forcefield has lower duration on creep'. It seems a bit better than just outright disallowing it on creep.
If we accept the premise that force field are a problem in zvp. Which I don't think it is, besides rampforcefielding.
How about; a zergling upgrade that they can cliff walk, but can only cliff walk _down.
If this attack would happen, they will still be able to defend the main. If he switches to the natural, the zerglings (at least) can still get out. I'm not sure of any down sides, besides that it makes it easier to 'save' zergligns after runby's and sneak in's and all that good stuff.
I didn't read all the comments, so maybe I missed something, sorry. But, yeah, theoretical it sounds powerful, but I think if the Zerg sees it coming, it can be defended, and I think with good scouting you can easily see it coming. But I dunno how it plays out .. I think it's a real different story, when it actually get played AND I don't think it's unbalanced, only hard to defend, if you don't scout ..
On August 21 2011 18:36 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: i really hate FF. You just can't do anything as a zerg once the ramp is ff'ed. burred roaches are too slow to keep your tech alive. Its a matter of time when a) queens can destroy ff or b) ff can't be spelled on creep.
This. i'd love to see point b in the next patch, but it will probably only be a. One might consider adding c:
FF can't be spelled near a queen (lets say 1 hex around the queen).
or d:
FF's can't be spelled on slopes.
FF's use to be very very strong, but never OP. This will change things, haha.
Well if you want to make sentries useless... A is pretty retarded , more or less (retarded) depending on how the queen can destroy it. B is stupid it's not as big of a nerf as A,C and D but will make Protoss have to deny creep spread constantly which in the lower leagues would be game-breaking. C means queens would be a massive unit making them way too strong at defending Stargate pressure which is already nerfed enough to make it not as viable. D makes PvT and PvZ unwinable.All Terran would need to do is either 3rax or really any Terran rush/all-in and Zerg would have to 7 Roach rush. Forcefield is as balanced as possible and nerfing it or removing it would make Protoss unplayable.
How would B break lower leagues? They would have to spread creep in the first place...
On August 21 2011 18:36 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: i really hate FF. You just can't do anything as a zerg once the ramp is ff'ed. burred roaches are too slow to keep your tech alive. Its a matter of time when a) queens can destroy ff or b) ff can't be spelled on creep.
This. i'd love to see point b in the next patch, but it will probably only be a. One might consider adding c:
FF can't be spelled near a queen (lets say 1 hex around the queen).
or d:
FF's can't be spelled on slopes.
FF's use to be very very strong, but never OP. This will change things, haha.
Make Queen massive and the problem with FF is solved. It should make sense with a massive queen, she even moves in slow motion of creep.
On August 21 2011 18:36 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: i really hate FF. You just can't do anything as a zerg once the ramp is ff'ed. burred roaches are too slow to keep your tech alive. Its a matter of time when a) queens can destroy ff or b) ff can't be spelled on creep.
This. i'd love to see point b in the next patch, but it will probably only be a. One might consider adding c:
FF can't be spelled near a queen (lets say 1 hex around the queen).
or d:
FF's can't be spelled on slopes.
FF's use to be very very strong, but never OP. This will change things, haha.
Well if you want to make sentries useless... A is pretty retarded , more or less (retarded) depending on how the queen can destroy it. B is stupid it's not as big of a nerf as A,C and D but will make Protoss have to deny creep spread constantly which in the lower leagues would be game-breaking. C means queens would be a massive unit making them way too strong at defending Stargate pressure which is already nerfed enough to make it not as viable. D makes PvT and PvZ unwinable.All Terran would need to do is either 3rax or really any Terran rush/all-in and Zerg would have to 7 Roach rush. Forcefield is as balanced as possible and nerfing it or removing it would make Protoss unplayable.
How would B break lower leagues? They would have to spread creep in the first place...
You have creep around your Hatches and spreading creep isn't that hard in the first place I've seen it done way back when I was Gold. Edit:Also imagine a roach(or any unit really) push backed up by overlords spreading creep you can't forcefield them and you can't even kill the overlords because they are above the huge roach ball.
On August 21 2011 18:36 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: i really hate FF. You just can't do anything as a zerg once the ramp is ff'ed. burred roaches are too slow to keep your tech alive. Its a matter of time when a) queens can destroy ff or b) ff can't be spelled on creep.
This. i'd love to see point b in the next patch, but it will probably only be a. One might consider adding c:
FF can't be spelled near a queen (lets say 1 hex around the queen).
or d:
FF's can't be spelled on slopes.
FF's use to be very very strong, but never OP. This will change things, haha.
Well if you want to make sentries useless... A is pretty retarded , more or less (retarded) depending on how the queen can destroy it. B is stupid it's not as big of a nerf as A,C and D but will make Protoss have to deny creep spread constantly which in the lower leagues would be game-breaking. C means queens would be a massive unit making them way too strong at defending Stargate pressure which is already nerfed enough to make it not as viable. D makes PvT and PvZ unwinable.All Terran would need to do is either 3rax or really any Terran rush/all-in and Zerg would have to 7 Roach rush. Forcefield is as balanced as possible and nerfing it or removing it would make Protoss unplayable.
Forcefield cannot be placed on Creep. Terran doesn't have as big of a problem with this, and this would also end the bullshit of Protoss retreating with FF/ engaging with FF on creep.
Sorry, that's just plain and simply retarded. You can't solve the issue of ramp-blocking with forcefields by completely gimping protoss vs zerg when zergs don't even need help in the match-up. Making queens massive or something similar is a much better solution.
On August 21 2011 10:56 MuffinFTW wrote: To deal with base trades situations, I think u just have to fly the warp prism back and hopefully be able to pick up a probe to make stuff + blink stalkers are REALLY good for base trades.
Yeah except you're going to have Roach/Ling destroying 2 bases against Pure Blink Stalker destroying 3 bases, potentially 4. There's just no way you win a base trade at all.
Did u not read? If u have a probe in a warp prism, by flying it back to pick one up, you'll be able to constantly make pylons WITH your army, so they can't snipe.
Yeahh because I'm not going to see your warp prism fly back and pick up a probe, and I won't follow it with a few lings.
On August 22 2011 03:40 McGuire72 wrote: Just had this done to me on ladder. Despite my whininess earlier in the thread, I actually held it with nothing but roaches. Basically you need to spot it coming (I had an inkling he might try it) and pick off as many of his stalkers as you can as it comes across the map. Picking off the warp prism is obviously target #1 with queens or whatever you have at your disposal. From there I just made a point of targeting down the sentries (he dropped 4 in my base instead of 1) on the outside of the high ground (in range of my roaches). From there just clean up as best I could. Didn't lose too much in my main and I was on three base anyway. Just transitioned into mass upgraded roaches and infestors and blink stalkers are not an issue.
here's the replay if anyone cares to see a successful hold... now this is diamond league so no doubt this isn't the "optimal" form of the build or hold, but it's an example of how you can do it.
Yeah you probably won because he let his sentries get in range + die If this was done optimally without being scouted then I don't see the zerg winning in my opinion. I will try this build and edit it into this post later.
LOOOL if Build X is done perfectly WITHOUT BEING SCOUTED you can't win. Duh. Great analysis. If I don't scout 6 gate double SG, i lose. If I don't scout DTs Iose. If you don't scout Roach Ling all in, you lose.
The point is, you SHOULD see it coming and have enough time to react. It just catches people off guard, especially at lower leagues.
This is what happens when an entire race's early and mid game is based around a single ability...
I think the real problem is scouting it. Obviously it's easier to deal with IF you scout it. However, blink stalkers are fantastic for killing suicide overlords and taking map control. As long as the protoss player doesn't allow his robotics facility and council to be scouted (which shouldn't be difficult, as it can be produced when there are already plenty of stalkers out). If that is done, I don't see how (when done properly) it could not kill either the natural or main depending on where the zerg positions its units.
LOL guys its clearly op, defenders of protoss just dont want to be nerfed, good protoss can do this with 2 warp prisms, and zerg cant snipe that warp prism because of blink. If he goes to main you can ff the ramp and kill nat, you have blink so retreat is no problem. Guys when i read these comments its like "hey man its so easy to defend for the zerg, just need to snipe that warp prism, yea sure but it takes half a sec to blink and kill anti air, and if the zerg snipes the wp the blink stalkers can kill the other units anyways. If this strat is executed properly zerg will lose 100%, if anyone can defend this at the same level, show me a rep and i will shut up.
On August 22 2011 05:57 UltraRush wrote: This is what happens when an entire race's early and mid game is based around a single ability...
I think the real problem is scouting it. Obviously it's easier to deal with IF you scout it. However, blink stalkers are fantastic for killing suicide overlords and taking map control. As long as the protoss player doesn't allow his robotics facility and council to be scouted (which shouldn't be difficult, as it can be produced when there are already plenty of stalkers out). If that is done, I don't see how (when done properly) it could not kill either the natural or main depending on where the zerg positions its units.
Uh this isn't a 1 base timing bro. It's off 2 base, with blink, and probably +1. Meaning you have enough time to get Lair and an overseer in their base right when Lair is done, which is what any good Zerg should do once Lair is done anyway (and what most of them do). Unless you're going to keep groups of 3-4 stalkers all over your base to hide your robo and council... you're not going to stop it from being scouted. A changeling can scout the army too. Zergling runby with only around 10 lings would see the prism too.
If you delay the timing of the robo and the council to get more stalkers to deny scouting, the entire push is delayed, and Z now knows you are hiding something.
Yea, this is a strategy, I wouldn't call it imbalanced, its abusive. Can you hold roach/ling all-in while getting robo and blink?
What about super heavy roach play? They could just wait out the FFs, and either sack the base and take another then just defend the stalkers. I'm sure top level zerg players can deal with this is some way, what about burrowed roaches? Kinda directly owns this all-in.
On August 22 2011 05:57 UltraRush wrote: This is what happens when an entire race's early and mid game is based around a single ability...
I think the real problem is scouting it. Obviously it's easier to deal with IF you scout it. However, blink stalkers are fantastic for killing suicide overlords and taking map control. As long as the protoss player doesn't allow his robotics facility and council to be scouted (which shouldn't be difficult, as it can be produced when there are already plenty of stalkers out). If that is done, I don't see how (when done properly) it could not kill either the natural or main depending on where the zerg positions its units.
Uh this isn't a 1 base timing bro. It's off 2 base, with blink, and probably +1. Meaning you have enough time to get Lair and an overseer in their base right when Lair is done, which is what any good Zerg should do once Lair is done anyway (and what most of them do). Unless you're going to keep groups of 3-4 stalkers all over your base to hide your robo and council... you're not going to stop it from being scouted. A changeling can scout the army too. Zergling runby with only around 10 lings would see the prism too.
If you delay the timing of the robo and the council to get more stalkers to deny scouting, the entire push is delayed, and Z now knows you are hiding something.
I knew it was 2 base, but looking back at the screenshot the timing is later than I thought. Still, it's very possible to miss either the robo or council in the protoss's base if they are positioned smartly. Even if both are scouted though, it's only an indication that the build may be coming. I don't know the normal protoss building timings super well, but I would think it's pretty typical for the protoss to be getting robo around then, even with a council there as well.
But I don't know, I've never actually come across this on ladder so I have no in-game experience with it.
On August 21 2011 18:36 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: i really hate FF. You just can't do anything as a zerg once the ramp is ff'ed. burred roaches are too slow to keep your tech alive. Its a matter of time when a) queens can destroy ff or b) ff can't be spelled on creep.
This. i'd love to see point b in the next patch, but it will probably only be a. One might consider adding c:
FF can't be spelled near a queen (lets say 1 hex around the queen).
or d:
FF's can't be spelled on slopes.
FF's use to be very very strong, but never OP. This will change things, haha.
Well if you want to make sentries useless... A is pretty retarded , more or less (retarded) depending on how the queen can destroy it. B is stupid it's not as big of a nerf as A,C and D but will make Protoss have to deny creep spread constantly which in the lower leagues would be game-breaking. C means queens would be a massive unit making them way too strong at defending Stargate pressure which is already nerfed enough to make it not as viable. D makes PvT and PvZ unwinable.All Terran would need to do is either 3rax or really any Terran rush/all-in and Zerg would have to 7 Roach rush. Forcefield is as balanced as possible and nerfing it or removing it would make Protoss unplayable.
Forcefield cannot be placed on Creep. Terran doesn't have as big of a problem with this, and this would also end the bullshit of Protoss retreating with FF/ engaging with FF on creep.
Sorry, that's just plain and simply retarded. You can't solve the issue of ramp-blocking with forcefields by completely gimping protoss vs zerg when zergs don't even need help in the match-up. Making queens massive or something similar is a much better solution.
Of course it's retarded because forcefields are not a problem I haven't heard anyone complaining about them in months people just know how to deal with them.Making queens massive won't help much to be honest they are easily sniped by Stalkers and as I explained would make Stargate play almost impossible.Zergs just need to learn how to scout this build which is pretty easy really.And react by splitting their army and putting up spines in their main and natural it's an all-in build so holding it off will most likely be a win for a decent Zerg.Anytime some new strategy or build comes out people think it's can't be dealt with without even trying.Don't blame it on balance.Protoss play is advancing very quickly with new uses for the Warp Prism against Terran and Zerg.Zerg can't counter it without without having some advancement in their play too.
I can see any zerg using mutalisk play to stop this by sniping the warp prism. A nydus worm could be used to fast travel in/out of his base if the zerg had prepared one but that's not very likely.
By the way; making queens massive would increase the amount of damage that a void ray does to it, but will make it impossible for phoenix to pick a queen up. So that would change; wether it's buff/nerf is not something we can know a priori (I think).
I feel like a genius now, I was doing this when I was playing protoss a long time ago ^^ (only diamond though). I remember seing another thread on that too a few months ago, in a cheesier one base version.
And since I switched to zerg since then I feel I should comment on that. The biggest trouble with this build is actually getting to your opponent's base. Against more ling based armies the zerg can actually chose where to engage quite well, and since you're investing so much in tech you won't do that well in a straight up fight. Other than that it worked really well for a while, especially when spanishiwa styles were so common because I think they're hard countered about as badly as they can with this.
As a now zerg player I don't think it's imbalanced, nor do I believe it requires special scouting. Just be on the look out when you see him move out. And like other people said it's quite cheesy. I'd rather be facing this than a lot of other things Protoss can do in PvZ. Not saying it's not good, but it's not great.
its a nice and funny build, if you dont make mistakes in the early game, and u can mass a good amount of stalkers and dont lose the warprism u have a certain advantage, but the mass speedlings, and/or fast infestor can turn your build to ashes in just a sec, its a good build to practice anyway, thx!
I'm only in diamond but this doesn't seem like it would work out at that well imo.
In the OP it mentions how roaches melt to stalkers, but mostly anyone would be making ling (or doubling)/infestor. I would end up making a useless roach warren probably, seeing gateways and suspecting the more normal zealot/stalker/sentry, but I wouldn't actually make roaches when I see little to no zealots off of 2 base.
And then when it comes to actually blinking into the main, that's also problematic. Against any gateway unit composition (especially stalkers) I'm going to want to surround you in the middle of the map anyway. Unless I'm totally dropping the ball on scouting, I'm going to want to engage you way before you're close enough to blink into the main, even if I have no idea you're about to try it. Basically, imo you have to hope that Z doesn't do exactly what it should be doing against your composition, even though they might not know your tactic.
+1 armor first PvZ always if you're going mass stalker. Always, always, always. It's the same swing vs roaches and hydras as +1 weapon (that is, with weapon they die one shot sooner, with armor you survive one shot longer, either way it's the same shift), while it absolutely demolishes any zergling efficiency.
Anyone saying "do this," "do that," when "this" or "that" isn't "catch the stalkers before they reach your base" is 100% wrong. Splitting your army LOSES. You will not win by putting half your roaches in your nat and half in your main. You will lose half your army and your entire main and be twice as screwed.
The ONLY way to beat this strat is to scout it coming and cut off his blink stalkers before they get to your base. This build comes fairly late (12~ minutes both times I've seen it now, and in the replays in this thread). You have time to get 3 bases up, with a good ball of upgraded roaches and a couple of infestors. If you think your opponent may be trying this, WATCH for the stalker ball to move out. Engage the stalkers with your roaches and infestors in the middle of the map. Destroy them. Do NOT let them approach your base. As SOON as they are in your main, just type GG and move on. IF you can halt them before they reach your base, you are at a huge advantage, and will likely win. Four sentries and a prism in your base is laughable. But for God's sake keep those blink stalkers away from your main. Don't be a retard and split your army up. That has to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
On August 22 2011 12:28 HQuality wrote: works perfectly vs fast 3 hatches. just go w/ 4 zealots on 3rd, he moves his army, u immediately go on main. game basically ends.
And this upsets me cuz it's super smart and likely very effective. Don't fall for this lol
Pros: Hits early and hits hard, especially with attack upgrades Possibility for heavy damage or outright win
Cons: Requires long research time for Warp Gate and Blink Easy to scout due to Templar Archives animation/chrono Easy to predict due to lack of any other units but Stalkers
How to counter this as Zerg: 1. Sacrifice one or two Overlords ~7 minute mark 2. See only Stalkers and Templar Archives working 3. Upgrade +1 Melee and spam Zerglings 4. Notice him push out ~11 minute mark with Speedlings parked outside 5. Catch him with a surround on the route from his base to your base
Due to the fact that Blink Stalkers can't defensively micro against a Speedling ambush, and the fact that they take 3 or 4 slow firing shots to kill each Zergling, you should easily win the battle. Don't go all-in from here unless he really has nothing. Saturate your third base and enjoy your lead.
How to lose to this as Zerg: 1. Don't sacrifice any Overlord scouts 2. Don't have a Zergling parked outside his base 3. Build Slow-Roaches and Spine Crawlers 4. Notice his army once it is already approaching your cliff
Spine Crawlers are the absolute worst thing you could build if you suspect a Blink Stalker attack. Spines are best used defending a 4-gate or 6-gate. (This Blink Stalker build won't look like either of those because he will be Forge-Fast-Expanding.) Slow Roaches vs Blink Stalkers is also quite hilarious. Even Speed Roaches will have a hard time catching the defensively micro'd Stalkers. Speed Roaches with a couple dozen Speedlings flanking would work wonders in terms of holding them in place and not allowing escapes.
On August 22 2011 13:34 Sajuuk7 wrote: You should include this in the OP:
Pros: Hits early and hits hard, especially with attack upgrades Possibility for heavy damage or outright win
Cons: Requires long research time for Warp Gate and Blink Easy to scout due to Templar Archives animation/chrono Easy to predict due to lack of any other units but Stalkers
How to counter this as Zerg: 1. Sacrifice one or two Overlords ~7 minute mark 2. See only Stalkers and Templar Archives working 3. Upgrade +1 Melee and spam Zerglings 4. Notice him push out ~11 minute mark with Speedlings parked outside 5. Catch him with a surround on the route from his base to your base
Due to the fact that Blink Stalkers can't defensively micro against a Speedling ambush, and the fact that they take 3 or 4 slow firing shots to kill each Zergling, you should easily win the battle. Don't go all-in from here unless he really has nothing. Saturate your third base and enjoy your lead.
How to lose to this as Zerg: 1. Don't sacrifice any Overlord scouts 2. Don't have a Zergling parked outside his base 3. Build Slow-Roaches and Spine Crawlers 4. Notice his army once it is already approaching your cliff
Spine Crawlers are the absolute worst thing you could build if you suspect a Blink Stalker attack. Spines are best used defending a 4-gate or 6-gate. (This Blink Stalker build won't look like either of those because he will be Forge-Fast-Expanding.) Slow Roaches vs Blink Stalkers is also quite hilarious. Even Speed Roaches will have a hard time catching the defensively micro'd Stalkers. Speed Roaches with a couple dozen Speedlings flanking would work wonders in terms of holding them in place and not allowing escapes.
great analysis of it, i just have one thing to add in the steps to win "have overlord positioning around his base to possibly see the prism" and its actually called a twilight council..templar archives is for hightemplar (the stormers)
On August 22 2011 11:11 Vul wrote: I'm only in diamond but this doesn't seem like it would work out at that well imo.
Did you watch the reps? They were gm zergs...
On August 22 2011 11:29 FiatFuror wrote: +1 armor first PvZ always if you're going mass stalker. Always, always, always. It's the same swing vs roaches and hydras as +1 weapon (that is, with weapon they die one shot sooner, with armor you survive one shot longer, either way it's the same shift), while it absolutely demolishes any zergling efficiency.
with good micro, +1 armor is useless for your stalkers. You blink before they take health damage.
How to counter this as Zerg: 1. Sacrifice one or two Overlords ~7 minute mark 2. See only Stalkers and Templar Archives working 3. Upgrade +1 Melee and spam Zerglings 4. Notice him push out ~11 minute mark with Speedlings parked outside 5. Catch him with a surround on the route from his base to your base
Due to the fact that Blink Stalkers can't defensively micro against a Speedling ambush, and the fact that they take 3 or 4 slow firing shots to kill each Zergling, you should easily win the battle. Don't go all-in from here unless he really has nothing. Saturate your third base and enjoy your lead.
My reaction as a toss. 1. Scout a huge amount of lings with obsever. 2. Therefore, hug the walls, and add a couple of zealots. 3. Place your unit against the wall in a ball, so that speedlings can't get good surround. 4. Lol at him when he attacks, because your zealots 2 shot, and stalkers 3 shot lings with +2attack. 5. Micro back the stalkers 6. Your reinforcement route will be way faster then his, because he is engaging in the middle of the map, and not close to his base. 7. Go now forward with your prism and army. 8. FF the ramp and send your army to the main, or to the natural if zerg send his units to the main. 9. Take your hands off your keyboard, zerg will type out very soon.
I will be glad to play anyone who has find out a 'counter'. + Show Spoiler +
So you are hugging wall, what if he attack when you are not hugging? There must be a time when you are vulnerable. Also, while hugging the wall, and moving slowly out, this push is only getting slower right? Doesn't this buy crucial time for zerg, for example, spines? I have seen quite a few zergs put their tech and Lair at their natural to prevent them being locked out from their ramp. Have you encountered this?
For all those saying this is (easy) to hold for zerg, please provide a high level replay corroborating this. Else it didn't happen and thus shut t.. f... u..
this is old tactics but people dont use warp prism enough which is why i dont see it in ladder as often. they are freakin slow and when scouted properly, gives enough time for speedlings to run back to base. also this is the reason why all zergs should research drops. its good in the short-term allins, pick up all army and into base and in the long-term harras.
On August 22 2011 11:29 FiatFuror wrote: +1 armor first PvZ always if you're going mass stalker. Always, always, always. It's the same swing vs roaches and hydras as +1 weapon (that is, with weapon they die one shot sooner, with armor you survive one shot longer, either way it's the same shift), while it absolutely demolishes any zergling efficiency.
with good micro, +1 armor is useless for your stalkers. You blink before they take health damage.
How to counter this as Zerg: 1. Sacrifice one or two Overlords ~7 minute mark 2. See only Stalkers and Templar Archives working 3. Upgrade +1 Melee and spam Zerglings 4. Notice him push out ~11 minute mark with Speedlings parked outside 5. Catch him with a surround on the route from his base to your base
Due to the fact that Blink Stalkers can't defensively micro against a Speedling ambush, and the fact that they take 3 or 4 slow firing shots to kill each Zergling, you should easily win the battle. Don't go all-in from here unless he really has nothing. Saturate your third base and enjoy your lead.
My reaction as a toss. 1. Scout a huge amount of lings with obsever. 2. Therefore, hug the walls, and add a couple of zealots. 3. Place your unit against the wall in a ball, so that speedlings can't get good surround. 4. Lol at him when he attacks, because your zealots 2 shot, and stalkers 3 shot lings with +2attack. 5. Micro back the stalkers 6. Your reinforcement route will be way faster then his, because he is engaging in the middle of the map, and not close to his base. 7. Go now forward with your prism and army. 8. FF the ramp and send your army to the main, or to the natural if zerg send his units to the main. 9. Take your hands off your keyboard, zerg will type out very soon.
I will be glad to play anyone who has find out a 'counter'. + Show Spoiler +
spoon.170 eu server.
It doesn't really matter how good the Z's you beat were, because this is a very technical strategy and a single mistake is a loss.
But it is really gimmicky, its not like blink stalkers is anything new...yeah your tactics are slightly different than most, but point being the usual counter to blink stalkers is making a lot of units.
What walls are you going to hug running cross map tal'darim? Or nerazim? The second I see a lot of stalkers and upgrades from forge, I cut drone saturation from my 3rd immediately, I guess if you take a really bad fight yeah this is pretty strong, but a lot of top Z's take retarded fights.
Strategies like this, 6 gate, and any other strategy and has a high success rate of immediately ending the game seem really good until someone deals with it properly.
For ladder it will probably rack up plenty wins for a little while, but even then the current meta game you see a lot of ling/infestor, which I know for certain will destroy those.
I know those kind of strategies only have a real impact for master+ level (in which you know how to FFE properly while having good timings on your gaz and tech, depending on your scouting). However, even a rough shape of build order featured in the guide would be greatly appreciated by more modest players.
A lot of noobs here acting like it's not imbalanced. One kid even said base trades would kill him rofl! Unless they leave a single sentry at their base and then they are invincible.
Force fields in combat are necessary for protoss. Force Fields on ramps have always been imbalanced. Protoss is the only race that can literally beat 200/200 armies of roach with instant remaxing forever with 4 sentry on the ramp. The only race that can say "want to attack me? Na, i'd rather be invincible until your tier 2.5." Force fields need to do something else like slow down movement going through them, which would still help a lot in combat but wouldn't make for dumb shit like FF on opponents ramp. Or maybe being inside a FF could cause damage idfk, it's just dumb as hell for it to actually erase a part of the map pretty much and be impossible to inhabit it.
Well, I guess next time one of these zergs encounter you on ladder they'd better get burrow and burrow movement before your warp prism shenanigans. A very strong tactic for sure, though.
On August 22 2011 20:36 EneMal wrote: A lot of noobs here acting like it's not imbalanced. One kid even said base trades would kill him rofl! Unless they leave a single sentry at their base and then they are invincible.
Force fields in combat are necessary for protoss. Force Fields on ramps have always been imbalanced. Protoss is the only race that can literally beat 200/200 armies of roach with instant remaxing forever with 4 sentry on the ramp. The only race that can say "want to attack me? Na, i'd rather be invincible until your tier 2.5." Force fields need to do something else like slow down movement going through them, which would still help a lot in combat but wouldn't make for dumb shit like FF on opponents ramp. Or maybe being inside a FF could cause damage idfk, it's just dumb as hell for it to actually erase a part of the map pretty much and be impossible to inhabit it.
And using your language, a lot of crybabies like you are moaning imba because they do not know proper responses.
Back to polite conversation though, there are counters to this strategy, so there should be no reason for the imbalance discussion (especially that this forum guidelines clearly state that Strategy Forum is no place for such discussion).
The strategy is definitely strong if executed properly though - a nice addition to your usual +2 attack 7 gate blink with obs I'd say, or just as a nice harassment if you catch the Zerg out of position.
On August 21 2011 15:31 Kornholi0 wrote: I heard infestors were pretty good. Personally scouting robo and gateways I get a lot lot lot spines... Then rush for infestors. takes what 3 fungals to kill a warprism and your entire strategy is dead...
I dunno but I think protoss need to practice less and less all-ins and more and more well scouted "macro/lategame" orientated plays.
You can't count on the zerg not scouting the warprism and the blink, thus allowing units in the main and the spines at the front :|
You can't count on the protoss to mis-micro and throw a warp prism in range when he has an obs.
If you can't actually blink into his main and kill him you can take a 3rd and deny his 3rd/4th, which is basically a win there too. I've been doing something similar and it's ridiculously good. This can be turned into an aggressive macro/late game play if you play it right. I've showed a friend this and had him do the build to me, it was basically impossible for me to secure a 4th and ended up being 3 base vs. 3 base for a long time.
I was actually thinking of counters today and came up with a couple.First would be to get a Nydus worm upon scouting it and second would be to get overlord drop.You will always have enough overlords to drop your whole army as Zerg.Problem - solved.
On August 22 2011 22:14 Sn0wM4 wrote: I was actually thinking of counters today and came up with a couple.First would be to get a Nydus worm upon scouting it and second would be to get overlord drop.You will always have enough overlords to drop your whole army as Zerg.Problem - solved.
Uhh, I can't tell if you're serious with this.
They have stalkers. That can shoot up. And blink under your overlords. Have fun losing half your army for nothing with ovie drops.
And the same can basically be said with a nydus. You could probably flank his army with it or something insane like that but it's not a viable option in all scenarios.
This is all assuming you knew it was coming for a fact too, or else you're just blindly investing in kind of useless tech unless you're going for a drop/nydus heavy style.
On August 22 2011 22:14 Sn0wM4 wrote: I was actually thinking of counters today and came up with a couple.First would be to get a Nydus worm upon scouting it and second would be to get overlord drop.You will always have enough overlords to drop your whole army as Zerg.Problem - solved.
Your ideas already fail at the point where you assume that this style of play is 'scoutable'. Yes you can scout the Gates, the TC and even the Robo. But none of that really tells you "Warp-Prism Blinkstalkers!" since the Robo often is used for Immortals or just an Anti-Creep/Anti-Burrow Observer. You'd have to be really lucky with your Overlords to get the specific useful information against a Toss who is massing tons of stalkers (yeah well this tells you "Blinkstalker!" but not the specific variation he wants to use).
The time build/research time for Nydus/Ventral Sacks is too slow to be used reactonary after you saw the Warp-Prism (which would be the really revealing scout information) and they are too costly of an investment to get them 'just in case'.
I really wouldnt call your suggestion counters - if your strategy was based around Drop/Nydus(LOL) anyway they are nice additions that will make defending a lot easier. But in the sense of a "ah i scouted him im going to do this to react!"-counter they are pretty much useless.
What's wrong with ovie drop? You can load up and drop in the back of your base, and if he sees that, you actually have the ability to counter attack via doom drop.
I don't think ovie drop is useless tech. Even if you're not going lings or banelings, un upgraded zergling drops are very effective, I feel the only reason zerg doesn't use them more is that its not strictly necessary. But you kill 4 probes and force them off mining for 30 seconds you've pretty much paid for it (200 mins + ~300-400 lost mining time and about 100 gas lost mining time). That assumes he actually gets his probes off of gas and they dont die to zerglings as well. Even if there's 4 stalkers at the edge I'm pretty sure you can literally unload 8 zerglings on top of them and lose cost effectively (target down 2 stalkers)
On August 22 2011 22:38 Huntz wrote: What's wrong with ovie drop? You can load up and drop in the back of your base, and if he sees that, you actually have the ability to counter attack via doom drop.
I don't think ovie drop is useless tech. Even if you're not going lings or banelings, un upgraded zergling drops are very effective, I feel the only reason zerg doesn't use them more is that its not strictly necessary. But you kill 4 probes and force them off mining for 30 seconds you've pretty much paid for it (200 mins + ~300-400 lost mining time and about 100 gas lost mining time). That assumes he actually gets his probes off of gas and they dont die to zerglings as well.
It's an extremly expensive tech in the early stages of the game that doesn't actually give you more fighting power - which is exactly what you would want to have against massive amounts of blinkstalkers. 300/300 are fore example Burrow and Tunneling Claws for all your Roaches, which increases the effectiveness of your Roaches by a huge margin.
Don't get me wrong. Drop is an awesome upgrade that could definetly see some more use from Z-players. But it's not the investment you want to make if your first priority is to defend against some kind of timing push.
Even if there's 4 stalkers at the edge I'm pretty sure you can literally unload 8 zerglings on top of them and lose cost effectively (target down 2 stalkers)
Do you actually play this game (no offence, but that just seems to be such an extreme misjudgement of a situation that I really can't imagine that your actively playing)? You can literally unload 1 Zergling in this situation before the overlord goes down to the stalkers.
This is a strong push to be sure, but I think zerg need to look at ways to prevent it as opposed to how to stop it once it's at your door.
For instance, a low sentry count all game means an early roach/ling push off of 2 bases can and will do damage while delaying the push until your tech is established.
It will at least (on every map except maybe Shakura's) kill the forge.
This strat works very well. I think, if this strat becomes more popular on ladder, zergs will learn to keep their army centralized in their main/natural. Also, this strat proves the importants of scouting overlords, and/or overlords positioned outside your base. Im my last game where i used this strat, had the zerg seen my army coming, blinking along the way with a warp prism flying overhead, they would have ran their army up into their main. Zerg units are so mobile, so why not keep em close to your main anyways? Why do they have to be positioned at the natural or out on the map, unless they are used for scouting or harassing/destroying rocks etc...
Running into the main doesn't work well, either. It means the stalkers can simply wreck the natural/third while the army sits pinned in the main by sentries.
Zergs either have to prevent the push, engage it in the open, or go for the base race.
This is a special tactic for sure and quite strong however if scouted it can be fought just like anything else and will come down to micro/no mistakes and that is everything about the game actually. Toss needs to use more warp prism the same way terrans need to use more ravens and zerg needs to use more queens, maybe 4 queens can help focus down the prism and also transfuse some spines at the nat while roaches stay in the main and lings in the nat, it's all situational and map dependant of course but no strat is unbeatable, else the game would be broken. Also if you catch this moving out you can delay it a bit with lings while trying to get roaches or infestors out, so it all comes down to skill and scouting and that's the way it should be. Does this timing hit before infestors assuming a Destiny style of play where you get infestors as fast as possible ? Seems fungal and +1 mass lings could be able to deal with this in a somewhat effective manner.
Can zerg have burrow by this time of the game? My thoughts would be to just burrow your units until the forcefield wears away? maybe if you anticipate a blink stalker rush through proper scouting, maybe you see that warp prism passing by the xelnaga which you should have under your control for most the time, you can prepare for it. Other thoughts would be to just nydus between bases just in case. If anything you can have a nydus worm ready to break into your enemies base if they do not go blink stalker. Other thoughts would be to have banelings burrowed so they blink up, and BOOM!
On August 23 2011 03:03 [uci] Fizik wrote: Can zerg have burrow by this time of the game? My thoughts would be to just burrow your units until the forcefield wears away? maybe if you anticipate a blink stalker rush through proper scouting, maybe you see that warp prism passing by the xelnaga which you should have under your control for most the time, you can prepare for it. Other thoughts would be to just nydus between bases just in case. If anything you can have a nydus worm ready to break into your enemies base if they do not go blink stalker. Other thoughts would be to have banelings burrowed so they blink up, and BOOM!
bs. burrowed roaches move so slow, blink stalker can rape some tech and blink away. <Repeat>. Also its hard to see this coming
This might be a pretty lame solution....but couldn't you just put like a couple premptive spines by the edge? That way if toss blinks up he takes extra damage and has a hard time moving away from the choke. Spines can compensate for loss of Z army while roaches can still shoot from lowground as well?
Try to pick off spines with sight before blinking up allows me to flank with speedlings on the lowground before attacking with roaches on the highground?
Not sure, but this is how i'd approach it. Only other possibility I can see is burrowed movement, but if they have an obs that's going to hurt a lot....
On August 23 2011 03:03 [uci] Fizik wrote: Can zerg have burrow by this time of the game? My thoughts would be to just burrow your units until the forcefield wears away? maybe if you anticipate a blink stalker rush through proper scouting, maybe you see that warp prism passing by the xelnaga which you should have under your control for most the time, you can prepare for it. Other thoughts would be to just nydus between bases just in case. If anything you can have a nydus worm ready to break into your enemies base if they do not go blink stalker. Other thoughts would be to have banelings burrowed so they blink up, and BOOM!
bs. burrowed roaches move so slow, blink stalker can rape some tech and blink away. <Repeat>. Also its hard to see this coming
suicide a overlord, if you see primarily stalkers, a robo and a twilight council. Maybe you catch a chrono going off on the twilight. What else could they be doing? And like i mentioned, shouldn't your xel-naga see a swarm of stalkers making their way towards your base?
you also do not address my other solutions like nydus network (im pretty sure you should have a lair by the time toss gets a twilight council and blink researched, if you do not that's pretty fail). You do not have to connect your bases right away, maybe you save it and if you do not see protoss push you nydus their base, or if you feel aggressive you counter push with nydus to force his army back in time for you to change tech.
On August 23 2011 03:03 [uci] Fizik wrote: Can zerg have burrow by this time of the game? My thoughts would be to just burrow your units until the forcefield wears away? maybe if you anticipate a blink stalker rush through proper scouting, maybe you see that warp prism passing by the xelnaga which you should have under your control for most the time, you can prepare for it. Other thoughts would be to just nydus between bases just in case. If anything you can have a nydus worm ready to break into your enemies base if they do not go blink stalker. Other thoughts would be to have banelings burrowed so they blink up, and BOOM!
bs. burrowed roaches move so slow, blink stalker can rape some tech and blink away. <Repeat>. Also its hard to see this coming
suicide a overlord, if you see primarily stalkers, a robo and a twilight council. Maybe you catch a chrono going off on the twilight. What else could they be doing? And like i mentioned, shouldn't your xel-naga see a swarm of stalkers making their way towards your base?
you also do not address my other solutions like nydus network (im pretty sure you should have a lair by the time toss gets a twilight council and blink researched, if you do not that's pretty fail). You do not have to connect your bases right away, maybe you save it and if you do not see protoss push you nydus their base, or if you feel aggressive you counter push with nydus to force his army back in time for you to change tech.
You can see blink coming ofc, the warp prism can be hidden pretty easy until he moves to the base. Anyway, FF ramp block has no real counter. You can prevent "normal" ramp block by trying to spread out creep+spines from your natural, so the sentry cannot move in, however you pretty much can't prevent the drop + blink. Queens won't kill this in time. Also building preemptive spines and +4 queens just in case will kill you economically .. this stuff costs money you know.
Once the ramp block is established, wether nydus (200/200+100/100) nor burrowed movement will help you, as burrowed roaches are too slow and loading/unloading nydus is extremely slow, too (the major reason it is not used frequently, most zerg units are faster without nydus, depends on number of units and map size).
I am pretty sure as sneaky ramp blocking attacks get more popular, there will be a nerf (which is correct) or we'll see maps with wide chokes or a destructible rock backdoor. There just is no real counter to FF (same Fungal, however you can EMP/Feedback if you are not a Z), this is a problem.
On August 23 2011 03:03 [uci] Fizik wrote: I am pretty sure as sneaky ramp blocking attacks get more popular, there will be a nerf (which is correct) or we'll see maps with wide chokes or a destructible rock backdoor. There just is no real counter to FF (same Fungal, however you can EMP/Feedback if you are not a Z), this is a problem.
There won't be a nerf because this type of attack can be scouted and preppared for/stopped. Artosis and Idra once stated, during their imbalanced youtube show, that they were only concerned with the highest level of play in order to discern whether or not something was ballanced or imballanced - not a direct quote but paraphrased. Im pretty sure that David Kim and the other people at Blizzard hold a smiliar philosophy to ballanced/imballanced. Yeah, this strat works against master players and lower, if it takes the player by suprise, but I don't think a top leveld pro would be phased by it because they would be able to scout the attack by sacking overlords in the P's base and having overlords scouting around their own base. I personally think this strat is great because all the nubs i play against as a high level master protoss player get wrecked by it, to the point where they can't even come up with a decent counter on this thread. But, as builds like this become more popular, people will learn to scout, defend, and counter them. Just because you're not skilled enough to deflect an all-in like this attack doesnt mean it's imballanced.
On August 23 2011 03:03 [uci] Fizik wrote: I am pretty sure as sneaky ramp blocking attacks get more popular, there will be a nerf (which is correct) or we'll see maps with wide chokes or a destructible rock backdoor. There just is no real counter to FF (same Fungal, however you can EMP/Feedback if you are not a Z), this is a problem.
There won't be a nerf because this type of attack can be scouted and preppared for/stopped. Artosis and Idra once stated, during their imbalanced youtube show, that they were only concerned with the highest level of play in order to discern whether or not something was ballanced or imballanced - not a direct quote but paraphrased. Im pretty sure that David Kim and the other people at Blizzard hold a smiliar philosophy to ballanced/imballanced. Yeah, this strat works against master players and lower, if it takes the player by suprise, but I don't think a top leveld pro would be phased by it because they would be able to scout the attack by sacking overlords in the P's base and having overlords scouting around their own base. I personally think this strat is great because all the nubs i play against as a high level master protoss player get wrecked by it, to the point where they can't even come up with a decent counter on this thread. But, as builds like this become more popular, people will learn to scout, defend, and counter them. Just because you're not skilled enough to deflect an all-in like this attack doesnt mean it's imballanced.
hm .. so if i scout this, how should i prepare ? if i move my army to the main, i get trapped and nat is raped, if i stay at nat, he blinks to main and blocks ramp => tech/main is lost. nydus/burrowed roaches/drop will be too slow in most cases. the only counter i can think of is to catch his forces on the open field. however this won't work well with Zergy-build-army-just-when-attacked. Preemptive army = autolose for Z. Both fungal and ff imho are somewhat missdesigned. in BW there was stasis (freeze units for a time). bloodbad (like fungal, more damage but units could move), ensnare (slowdown, but no damage). fungal is like bloodbad+ensnare. FF: get 6,7 sentries and block any choke forever. the game would profit if those spells get nerfed somewhat. each of the BW spells was somewhat counterable by unit positing, healing, retreat.
On August 23 2011 05:01 judicatormd wrote: I have like a 0% win against Z with infestors being out.
I have tried variations of this but I will try again as it seems to work well in these repolays
yeah fungal is hard (i am Z). The disadvantage of infestors for Zerg is immobility. Infestor play feels like being a protoss. Since the ressource hungry Zerg needs to spread out, he has a hard time defending far bases. You can exploit this by using mobile units as far as possible (blink, drop, hellions, phoenix) and doing multiple smaller hit and run attacks. You hardly see a korean Zergs using infestors that much: one good emp or mass feedback all over a sudden makes you "naked" (no army). if you get dropped, it takes ages to bring your infestors to the fight. Additionally: Fight that creep, infestors are dog slow without creep. Personally i use infestors mainly as counter for mass marine play or defensive support unit (4-6), as Infestor play can be owned pretty hard mid to late game because of their immobility.
cool strategy, I might have to bring back drop play in ZvP and by that I mean using overlords to drop micro around forcefields.
Wouldn't mass infestor with burrow do decently against this? I think a lot of IT and fungal might be strong but I suppose the power of this build is that you can retreat at any time with blink. Maybe Muta/ling would be good as well.
This sounds like it could be pretty effective-- but by the 12:00 mark, what's to stop a zerg player from having overlord drops and overlord speed? He could probably elevator his army into his main, or even use tunneling claws or something to get in. You've invested pretty heavily into tech to do this attack, so it's not unreasonable to expect the zerg player to have some trick to defend it.
Hah no, engaging out in the open is obviously the best way to stop this (but you have to react perfectly, stopping drone production and making a big enough army to stomp the large blink stalker force) or as Lalush did with drop + speed tech on overlords (though its insanely micro intensive).
On August 23 2011 07:49 Vore210 wrote: Nydus canals!
Hah no, engaging out in the open is obviously the best way to stop this (but you have to react perfectly, stopping drone production and making a big enough army to stomp the large blink stalker force) or as Lalush did with drop + speed tech on overlords (though its insanely micro intensive).
I think the micro-intensive drop play is probably the best answer; even with speed roaches, it's hard to chose your engagements on the open field against blink stalkers. The protoss player could just run away if you meet him in the open field, or maybe even try to do some sort of walk-by and get into your base anyways.
On August 23 2011 00:34 TolEranceNA wrote: Or, we can just wait for blizzard to patch this .. oh wait!
I've been waiting over a year for Blizzard to make Queens massive...
Amusingly enough, that would now give void rays a +20% damage against them.
Perhaps it could be as simple as leaving a spine crawler on each side of the choke - though three hits mean that a suicidal sentry can still approach and forcefield as needed.
Wow this strategy looks very nice!! I think they cant do much about it even if they do see it coming, and their entire army is in their main base, just FF the main ramp and kill their natural! If they split half and half of their army between the natural and the main, you FF the other half out and kill the small half. It feels unstoppable as long as the protoss executes it correctly.
This is a really good tactic. Possible counter=hydras in position??
Sentry can't blink, so you need a good multitasking for blink + Diseble warp prism + lift up Sentry + Drop them down. It's not possible, but you can lost 1 round of warp, but the zerg can do his own round of larva.
I think is a good (and cool) strategy, especially because you made a good use of the prism. But since is an evolution of blinkstalker harras, it could be faced in the same way:scouting. creep spread, overlords, control of xel'naga towers.
Probably, scouting doesn't mean totally countering, and whend the attack start it will be the skilled player who'll win. But calling this strategy Imbalanced...i think is too much
Looks very interesting, but wouldn't doing a 1-base version w/o blink hit a lot earlier and be dramatically more effective since zerg would have less counters available to them earlier in the game? You can simply phase your warp prism at the edge of their base which would allow you to elevator units above or below. I guess I'm saying it seems delaying the push seems unnecessary.
wait so what about hydra? most zerg i play against have hydra way before this attack would come out, even with great blink micro there is no way the hydra attack would not kill this especially mass roach hydra ling and then the counter would be brutal. I understand the idea with this is to pressure and either win or take a 3rd get collo attack, take a 4th get ht's or v-ray and win. My problem here is that there is no way to deny a 3rd and stop drone production unless you snipe the 3rd which would be effective if the zerg doesn't get spines. i guess the rational here is get stalkers get blink blink micro to win / get advantage ??? profit :D
On August 23 2011 14:00 Skyro wrote: Looks very interesting, but wouldn't doing a 1-base version w/o blink hit a lot earlier and be dramatically more effective since zerg would have less counters available to them earlier in the game? You can simply phase your warp prism at the edge of their base which would allow you to elevator units above or below. I guess I'm saying it seems delaying the push seems unnecessary.
I was doing a one base version with gateways that was quite effective (very cheesy obviously). The thing is, there is no real counter to this, it's all about unit positionning. I hear everyone mention drops and burrowed roaches and other silly things but it's really not the way to defeat this (otherwise it would truly be imbalanced).
People will start massing lings if they see you staying on one base with 3 gates, this makes the journey to the opponent's base quite perillous. After a FFE though, especially if the zerg double expands "IM style" I can see it being more effective.
this is miniguns blink stalker all in? well at least thats what he said and he gets excactly what you get, blink stalkers and a warp prism with sentrys
if the zerg saw this coming they could snipe the prism before it got to the base. the protoss could either continue pushing and try to take out the natural or wait for another prism with sentry. either way the threat of the push is greatly reduced. burrow micro is better then blink micro if the protoss doesnt have an obs and with static defenses the zerg could hold it. all they need to do is hold it off until they get an infestor with a couple fungal growths and mass speedlings and that stlaker army is gone
On August 23 2011 06:53 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: hm .. so if i scout this, how should i prepare ? if i move my army to the main, i get trapped and nat is raped, if i stay at nat, he blinks to main and blocks ramp => tech/main is lost. nydus/burrowed roaches/drop will be too slow in most cases. the only counter i can think of is to catch his forces on the open field. however this won't work well with Zergy-build-army-just-when-attacked. Preemptive army = autolose for Z. Both fungal and ff imho are somewhat missdesigned. in BW there was stasis (freeze units for a time). bloodbad (like fungal, more damage but units could move), ensnare (slowdown, but no damage). fungal is like bloodbad+ensnare. FF: get 6,7 sentries and block any choke forever. the game would profit if those spells get nerfed somewhat. each of the BW spells was somewhat counterable by unit positing, healing, retreat.
You have given your own answer to your question. The most common response to a blink stalker 2 base all-in are speedlings or roaches off 3 bases anyway (+ infestors if it is a late push) engaging in the middle of the map. Most people know when to produce units when they scout these pushes and are ready in time. It is not like you are making units only once the Protoss leaves his base. Just in time does not mean 'when he is killing all my freakin' base'.
Even if you fail to respond in time, you probably still have a chance to hold it if you have infestors. FG the prism before it can drop he sentries. FG the stalkers before they blink into your base. Spam IT and kill the sentries + prism at the ramp. Tbh I can think of plenty of responses that can work - obviously the damage is already done if they are in your base, but it is not much different from a Terran drop, a ling run-by, a nydus or any other sneaky attack - if you scout it coming in time, you can stop it.
It's idd strong if you can do it but it's very risky. Hydras will eat through that warp prism and losing a warp prism full of Sentries is very very expensive. Also if you get caught out mid map your army will not be as strong due to investement in the robo tech + warp prism.
On August 23 2011 00:34 TolEranceNA wrote: Or, we can just wait for blizzard to patch this .. oh wait!
I've been waiting over a year for Blizzard to make Queens massive...
Why wait for a patch when it's obvious it's not needed.If queens were massive it would be really overpowered.When you scout this you either get overlord drop or a nydus worm.Problem - solved.
This tactic works because zergs never makes nydus between bases and to their opponent (only rarely). When zergs understand that nydus grants an easy mobility of troops similar to protos warps, they will come on top. Burrowed roaches will work just fine as well.
Ah jeeze, I was hoping no one noticed how good this build is. It was hard enough when my army got caught partially in my main and my natural got wrecked. Nice write up and this is a killer build. Perhaps a nydus between bases will be the future!
Edit: the only way to do damage vs this would be to counter attack and go for the base race. my 2 cents.
On August 23 2011 00:34 TolEranceNA wrote: Or, we can just wait for blizzard to patch this .. oh wait!
I've been waiting over a year for Blizzard to make Queens massive...
Amusingly enough, that would now give void rays a +20% damage against them.
Perhaps it could be as simple as leaving a spine crawler on each side of the choke - though three hits mean that a suicidal sentry can still approach and forcefield as needed.
Basically this. Except I imagine putting spines on top of the ridge makes one think twice about blinking up. Stalkers can't really move away from the edge easily without taking a lot of damage and you should be flanking with lings so.... this seems manageable and not really broken/imbalanced in anyway...
On August 24 2011 01:47 Gobbles wrote: Ah jeeze, I was hoping no one noticed how good this build is. It was hard enough when my army got caught partially in my main and my natural got wrecked. Nice write up and this is a killer build. Perhaps a nydus between bases will be the future!
Edit: the only way to do damage vs this would be to counter attack and go for the base race. my 2 cents.
My thoughts were basically "wow, I love this build" ... "Wait, does this mean zerg will get nydus/drops more? Fuck this build ."
i tried this against a ling infester build, and they threw about a bajillion infested terrans up the ramp, which called my WP, and all my sentries before i could get them away, leaving me with wounded blink stalkers and a swarm of zerglings ran up the ramp. it seems like a counter to me
Until I read this thread, I wanted to leave work, go home and ladder(Z).
The counters being spouted off here all seem very weak, outside of scouting and trying to engage the force out in the open. I actually checked the estimated HotS release date to see if that might help (no).
If I were P this would probably be my default ladder build on viable maps. It seems safe, strong and with practice it would appear that you could shut down the zerg responses as well:
- Obs near ramp for roach ramp slaughter - Focus loaded overlords - Leave 4 units waiting outside of Nydus to kill the slow train (Or just kill the building) - Cannon/sentry vs counterattack as shown in the Minigun game
If the strat is too good, it'll get fixed. Until then, A. I'll focus on putting my tech structures and Lair at my natural and B. I'll be terrified into remembering to scout vs FFE.
This seems like another of the many attacks in PvZ where the zerg really needs to control the area near his ramp out past the choke instead of defending too close to the natural. Can't let the protoss anywhere NEAR the ramp into the main or he'll FF that ramp and get his army on the undefended side of it.
Took 5 tries before it finally worked, but man was it fun when it did.
Question - do you rush for blink and robo tech, or do you just kind of let it come along as it will? Because I feel super vulnerable with only z zealot, a sentry, and 1 (or 2) cannons as my entire defense until blink is online.
Why? you don't move out immediately after you get blink. You don' thave enough troops, plus usually your warp prism isnt' done building (if you get an obs first to scout ahead). +30 seconds just gives you another round of stalkers to walk to his base, which honestly is prob better so that you don't get surrounded and killed on the way there.
A thought on how to counter it... Let's assume you have good creep spread. if you spread creep well, you should have about 10 seconds to react to this and get units in your main, if not more.
Of course, should the toss see your army in your main with the warp prism, he'll go in your natural.
So how about this - we never see anything besides infestors, roaches, and banelings burrowed. How about we get our units in our main, then burrow them as quickly as possible. The toss will see an empty base (assuming you have a few spores or ways to deal with observers), and then face palms as he walked in a trap.
Of course, this is highly map dependent. I can't imagine this working on Shakuras plateau for instance, as he could just as easily choose to go for your natural. But on a map like Xel'Naga Caverns, if you see them coming up the side away from your natural , you can probably tells whats up.
I want to see more baneling mines in general, not just versus terran
its a nice build for a showmatch but its not imbalanced. i ve seen a protoss play this build vs mvp in a PvT some days ago in a replay. mvp defending a very early expo with 2 bunkers and basicly marines only.(just a few marauders when the stalkers hit the main with 2 sentries blocking ramp). easy gg vs mvp for that protoss.. dont see that too often.
woow this seems pretty nice i gonna trie that next time on adder thx man...
Edit: Just watched the replay against Forsen xD. So hilerious how he said in the beginning " A Protoss like you can never win against me". But at the same time the Zergs made many mistakes so its a nearly unbeatable strong build...
Ling infestor is not the only way to stop this. Roach/Hydra is a mix that is a bit dated, but with so many toss opting to go gate heavy in the mid-game lately I find myself using it a lot more.
Against this attack If you have good over lord spread around your base, and you stop that warp prism from getting into your main its pretty much an auto-win for zerg. You are guaranteed map control after fend off this attack and with Protoss pretty much dedicated to their tech route you secure a third and possibly forth and just contain Toss to two bases.
And another thing I find about this build is with the roach/hydra mix you are going to have a Toss who has to build a robo and robo bay just to counter your mix. So that's 2 minutes of almost guaranteed map control.
With the new patch this might become stronger !! The warp prism buff is nice. I think overall more and more people will be using prisms in pvz. The infestor nerf is REALLY nice. Now (prepatch) fungal has insane dps vs armored stalkers and prevents blink. After the patch their damage will be decreased +-20% vs stalkers.
Small changes I made myself: I now place 3 sentries and a probe in the prism. The probe can build pylons and 3 sentries have more ff then one (duh). One needs to be really carefull for counterattacks. I therefore recommend to leave some sentries home. On maps like Antiga shipyard and Shakuras plateau, this is more then enough.
You are also not obligated to send all your stalkers to the main. You can also split half the stalkers to the third, and half into the main.
I upload another replay to reply to some criticism. In this game my opponent, roxkisLive (gm zerg), knows 100% it is coming. He masses upgraded lings. He place his army in his main ready to intercept my blink stalkers. A couple of queens target my warp prism. The ideal counter? I still outmanouver him and proceed to take an easy win. It is really easy to force your opponent out of position when you have sentries, warp prism and blink stalkers. The game: http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=228715
On August 24 2011 10:48 maragin wrote: Until I read this thread, I wanted to leave work, go home and ladder(Z).
The counters being spouted off here all seem very weak, outside of scouting and trying to engage the force out in the open. I actually checked the estimated HotS release date to see if that might help (no).
If I were P this would probably be my default ladder build on viable maps. It seems safe, strong and with practice it would appear that you could shut down the zerg responses as well:
- Obs near ramp for roach ramp slaughter - Focus loaded overlords - Leave 4 units waiting outside of Nydus to kill the slow train (Or just kill the building) - Cannon/sentry vs counterattack as shown in the Minigun game
If the strat is too good, it'll get fixed. Until then, A. I'll focus on putting my tech structures and Lair at my natural and B. I'll be terrified into remembering to scout vs FFE.
Hmm you will actually have kind of a hard time defending an all-in.They should fix this because Zergs should be able to hold off any Protoss all-in without severe casualties or any effort other than building roaches to counter it. /sarcasm Focus loaded overlords?You have twice as many overlords than it takes to load your army.You can't tell apart loaded ones and unloaded ones.Argument = invalid.
On topic: I know this thread is rather old, therefore also rendering the strategy outdated as well. I would just like to know how relevant this strat is in today's metagame for PvZ? We don't often see professional players do this kind of build in major tournaments, so that leaves me to think either two things: 1. They know that their opponents will potentially have the ability to easily shut it down, and 2. It isn't that strong anymore.
All I'd like to know is whether this build can still be pulled off with moderate success these days. Blink stalkers are one of my favourite units to use in the PvZ matchup so it would be obvious that I am interested in this kind of strategy. I've never really tried something like this (I'm quite new still with toss, since I switched from Terran recently) and would definitely like to incorporate it into my play. All I need is some relevant tips on how to do it in today's metagame. Of course I will still be viewing the uploaded replays. Thanks in advance.
I think its still relevant, especially at non GM levels (who knows whats relevant there . The warp prism is getting more play now a days anyway, so they might not know what you are up to. The nice thing about the build is although its not the strongest possible unit composition, it will work fairly well against everything, and particularly well against a few things (fast muties come to mind). It isn't a BO loss vs anything the zerg can do, although it seems to me that zergling/hydra could be troublesome. Even in that case you can still easily defend with the cannons and tech to colossi, you will have an observer out, so its not like you are forced into an ill advised attack. Meeting lings w/ hydras 1/2 way across the map would probably be the worst case scenario, but in that case you can just use the mobility of blink to get into a favorable position, or retreat and tech up as you see fit. This isn't an all in, but you don't have the brute force to take on their army in the open field, hence back to the OP, you have to split their army to have a real advantage. This relies more on positioning than anything, and I don't believe is ever going to be outdated.
One thing to keep in mind, if the splitting of their army doesn't happen, and you retreat, it may make taking a 3rd base more difficult! You will probably be forced to get colossi or storm to deal AOE damage and do so on 2 bases. This isn't the end of the world, but may make this strat more applicable to those maps where getting a third is easier. Those in the higher ranks would probably have more insight than I (I'm plat protoss/diamond terran, I switched over to prot not too long ago too!)
On a side note, I sometimes have trouble with FFE getting busted, and noticed from the latest replay that AA.spoon makes 4 or 5 cannons preemptively. I think this is a good idea, will prevent all ins nicely. If you can scout that he went for a quick third, some pros chrono out 2 zealots and attack it forcing the zerg to make some zerglings instead of pure drones. If the zerg stays on 2 bases this is a waste.
Roach burrow? When I see a warp prism I get roach burrow movement just for the prevention of Protoss being stupid with force field on the ramp. And a spine or two at each base, depending how my economy is doing.
On topic: I know this thread is rather old, therefore also rendering the strategy outdated as well. I would just like to know how relevant this strat is in today's metagame for PvZ? We don't often see professional players do this kind of build in major tournaments, so that leaves me to think either two things: 1. They know that their opponents will potentially have the ability to easily shut it down, and 2. It isn't that strong anymore.
All I'd like to know is whether this build can still be pulled off with moderate success these days. Blink stalkers are one of my favourite units to use in the PvZ matchup so it would be obvious that I am interested in this kind of strategy. I've never really tried something like this (I'm quite new still with toss, since I switched from Terran recently) and would definitely like to incorporate it into my play. All I need is some relevant tips on how to do it in today's metagame. Of course I will still be viewing the uploaded replays. Thanks in advance.
a problem with this tactic is the possibility of a counter attack on a map like shak, it is quite easy to defend the counter attack with a few sentries and cannons on a map like shattered temple, it is significantly harder in addition to this, the current metagame for pvz on the zerg side is often mutas in the pro scene, a lot of openings include stargates to deter muta play or they do a two base timing attack that hits when the zerg has very few muta this kind of push, if timed well, would hit a bit after mutas come out i think and mutas could trash your base while this occurs
so pretty much the strat is still very effective you just have to be careful of counter attacks, especially muta counter attacks
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/GyN24.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/I93fU.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/uypbU.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/3cIzj.png)
. I had a bad minerals gas ratio, and therefore was floating high on minerals and couldn't warpin as many stalkers as I'd like.(Don't be too harsh guys, I am still finding an optimal build and experiment quite a bit). I also executed poorly, loosing like 5 stalkers on the initial blink in his main. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/y6lnu.png)
