at the time this screenshot was taken, 'birdkicker' was #14 on the NA GM ladder
Due to a rise in popularity, this build is now commonly used. I would like to ask you to refer to this build as 'the super sexy satan build' or 'HUARGH's build'.
On October 02 2011 15:45 Anihc wrote: Why do you have to title it "90+% winrate" build? It doesn't make your guide more attractive, it just makes you look dumber. No build has a 90% winrate.
That being said, your guide isn't that bad. It does need more replays though. I feel like guides should be auto-closed if they have less than 3 replays or so.
Mothership is an excellent unit, but I'm beginning to realize that one of its strengths is that a lot of zerg players are just clueless in how to deal with it. For example, upon seeing vortex a lot of zerg players try to "save" their army by throwing everything into it. Well of course that's suicide for the zerg. But if the zerg just ignores what gets caught in the vortex, they can simply fight out the battle, kill some of your army, and then remax and kill your entire army now that you no longer have a vortex (or even mothership).
Also, I don't like how you default to zealot/archon. Mass roach just shits on it. Roach/baneling or roach/infestor shits on it even more. 1 void ray does nothing to stop mass roach, you will never get your 3rd up or be able to defend it, especially while you're spending thousands of resources teching to mothership at the same time.
There is actually a lot of micro regarding the mothership/archon versus broodlord/infestor/corruptor 200/200 battle. With no micro on either side the protoss wins easy. But if the zerg spreads out his units and doesn't throw everything into the vortex, when archons come out they still have to deal with unvortexed broodlords/broodlings and infestors casting fungal. Not to mention that if the zerg immediately runs away the corruptors that get caught in the vortex, they will NOT all die even if you have 10 archons in there. They will only all die if the zerg is slow and doesn't move them immediately upon the vortex ending.
On October 02 2011 18:18 Bill Murray wrote: 1300 = 1.3 thousand, no s
5600 = 5.6 thousand, no s
You say "five thousand resources" but you still refer to it as "thousands" of resources. Same with 1.3.
Anyway, back to the OP - I still really don't like the heavy reliance on only 2 vortexes. The whole game is banking on the zerg somewhat clumping up their army, and you getting off 2 perfect vortexes to kill their entire army (if it gets to a situation where they have get to mass infestor/bl/corruptor). If you somehow mess up, the zerg can remax much faster than you can regen your energy for another vortex.
On October 04 2011 04:45 Whiplash wrote: Tried it out vs a GM zerg and he GOT SLAMT (should give u a hint of who I played). It was my first time trying out the build and I did it a bit differently from HUARGH. Feels like with some timing refinements it will be real good. I think by nature this build allows you to take a pretty fast 3rd unless the Zerg is being hyper aggressive or dissects the build pretty well, but your mothership should be out by the time your 3rd finishes anyway so it will be pretty easy to defend.
A replay vs me and Gerbil (very good NA zerg!) he knows its coming. I'm convinced this is a solid build and playstyle, I didn't even execute the build as well as I could have and so much promise shows.
Edit: I also believe that there is a timing toss can do while taking their 4th when they max out (it should be before hive tech) where they can simply run over the zerg.
A replay vs me and Gerbil (very good NA zerg!) he knows its coming. I'm convinced this is a solid build and playstyle, I didn't even execute the build as well as I could have and so much promise shows.
Edit: I also believe that there is a timing toss can do while taking their 4th when they max out (it should be before hive tech) where they can simply run over the zerg.
Hey, I watched the replay and I have some insights on why it wasn't as onesided as it, in my opinion, should have been.
You won the first fight convincingly because you met the 'expected number of archons' (you only used gas on a robo and an observer). However, after that you started to kind of freestyle it up and went into 'standard' PvZ lategame. You spent your gas on a dark shrine, dark templars (to harass, not to transform into archons), air weapons, carriers, graviton catapult, blink research, warp prism speed, additional stargates, ...,
I did some counting (as in I actually counted, I didn't take a glance and estimated how many gas you used) and, although I may have missed something, you had used at least 2875 gas on non-archon/mothership things. This roughly equals 10 archons. In the second fight, you did not meet the expected number of archons and your army was defeated.
I personally think that it is better if you only dump all of your gas into archons. All your harass is a good example of nice play, but I think that with this build and unit composition, it is much better to only warp in zealots (not DTs) if you want to harass, and just make 100.00% sure that your 200/200 will absolutely annihilate his 200/200. Rather then making the fight indirectly in your favor (by doing warp prism harass, base sniping, etc.), you could also make it directly in your favor by simply having much more archons. What do you think?
True for sure, I just felt like it wasn't necessary to focus on getting even more archons, but I do agree that having a proper 200/200 deathball is important. I've played multiple other games and I've come to the conclusion that late game u can basically go into whatever style you want as long as it can handle what the zerg will produce. A good zerg will get roach/infestor/broodlord and I think if you add in storm and stalkers to your army composition then you'll be set, but mass archons would work just as good as long as they all get into the toilet.
The power of this build is not necessarily vortex (although it plays a key role), but the fact that the mothership allows an easy 3rd and 4th base which the zerg cannot punish.
On October 04 2011 21:47 kcdc wrote: High masters, Top 200 in the past. Two attempts, two wins. This feels a million times stronger than anything else I've done in PvZ. This is going to give Z a whine-fest like they haven't had since Idra and Artosis posted that video about colossus (particularly with void ray) being OP.
EDIT: Plexa also has a topic on mothership usage, he uses a slightly different approach. You can find it here
Introduction and history I would first like to tell you how this build came into existence. My handle is HUARGH and I play at the grandmaster level. Since 1.3.4, I have been having a lot of problems with the PvZ match-up from the Protoss' perspective. Pre-1.3.4, I used to be in good shape against Zerg, using a very basic 3gate sentry expo into 3 base colossus. Slowly my winrate in PvZ declined, however, as Zergs adopted new styles which were very hard to deal with. A good example of such a style was the early roach/ling aggression. It was very hard to deal with and nearly unscoutable, forcing you to take precautions which would put you severely behind in a more standard macro game or create vulnerabilities against other strategies such as mutalisks.
Then, infestors got a huge rise in popularity. It became very hard for the Protoss to use higher tier units due to neural parasite, parasite being most deadly against colossi but not entirely useless against immortals or void rays either. Your gateway army would receive chain fungals and before you knew it, you lost all of your units. HT-oriented builds got a rise in popularity, but still didn't seem to work that well in practice, at least not for me - baneling drops, the natural clumping up of units and a rise in ultralisk usage left me wondering what I should be doing.
So I basically looked at how high level Protoss players were playing PvZ, taking oGsMC as a prime example. He was doing a very interesting 1gate expansion, which allows you to start your expansion at around the 5 minute mark as opposed to the 6 minute mark, providing an economic advantage over the 3gate expansion build. Instead of walling himself the 3gate-expo way, with the forge and a 4th gateway, he would wall himself in with his 2nd and 3rd gateway, providing the same defense. What about the early roach/ling aggression? Simple: he would make a stargate right after his 3rd gateway was planted down and chrono out a void, and the time at which the void ray would spawn coincided nicely with the timing of the Zerg roach/ling aggression. With the untouchable void ray, he would fend off the all-in with minimal losses and end up ahead economically. What's even better is that he had the ability to scout his opponent - a role that was filled by hallucination in the 3gate sentry expo build.
Hallucinations can only scout, however. A void ray, in addition to scouting, gives you immediate map control and allows you to do 'clipping' damage in the form of picking off overlords or forcing spore crawlers. You could even deny the third base occassionally. What oGsMC would do, is make up to 3 void rays and then chrono phoenixes in an attempt to take out the 3rd base. Most zergs would throw down 1, perhaps 2 spore crawlers and feel secure against heavy air-play. Not so much with 3 void rays and phoenixes, which make short work of spore crawlers once charged. Queens were useless, too, due to the phoenixes rendering them immobile. This heavy air play was usually followed up by colossus, a logical choice seeing that the appriopriate zerg response at that time was hydralisks, which don't fair too well against colossi.
However, time passed and Zergs got more used to heavy air-play, as it used to be the way to go in PvZ, giving Zergs a lot of practice against all the variations. You could no longer kill off Zerg's 3rd base with mass air. and with the rise of infestor-based play, it was sometimes impossible to survive a simple timing attack consisting of mass lings and infested terrans. I noticed that it was often hard to fully scout the base of a Zerg with a void ray, too, resulting in a lot of silly losses (such as 10 mutas appearing in my mineral line while my colossus is almost finished). Eventually, I changed my build from 3 void rays + phoenixes, into 1 void ray + 1 phoenix, where the phoenix would fly over the Zerg base to scout, giving you 100% certainty.
All together, with this new build, my PvZ winrate went up to 'acceptable' levels, before dropping once again to 20%ish. Being unsure of what (minor) change I was supposed to make next, I sat down and analyzed all my recent PvZs, identifying what made me win and lose them. The results were quite interesting.
The major reasons why I won and lost my PvZs While analyzing my replays, I noticed clear trends in my wins and losses. My losses were mostly due to:
• not being able to get my 3rd base up in time or in good shape • not being able to defeat an army consisting of a lot of infestors, especially infestor + broodlord • not being able to fight off the second wave of Zerg units after the first big battle
While my wins were mostly due to:
• being able to get my 3rd base up in time and in good shape • the Zerg simply not making infestors • something silly; i.e. the zerg taking no precautions against lategame DTs or losing too much to the initial void
I sat down and conjured up possible ways of avoiding these traps. The point of focus was getting my 3rd base up safely, which just did not seem possible. I experimented with somewhat cheesy, risky openings and tried to bypass the issue all together by going for 2 base timings. Although I had -some- success, it felt more like playing a game of chance to me. My play was relying on secrecy and my opponent's suboptimal reaction, making me not feel in charge of the game outcome, kind of like playing roulette. This is still a game of imperfect information; both parties are forced to make certain assumptions at certain points in the game and over the course of a lot of ladder games, you are going to make wrong assumptions every now and then that put you behind. I can accept this, but my play was only focused on these things. Oops, you made an overseer, well I guess that's game. Oops, you found my hidden nexus, I guess I'll leave the game now. Oh no, you made attacking units instead of drones, I guess I'll flame you for not playing according to my distorted idea of how the game should ideally be played.
Enter Mothership After having tried nearly everything, it was time to play around with carriers, motherships and another race (Terran seemed really nice at this point, mmmmh marines). It was then that I discovered the mothership's amazing defensive and offensive capabilities!
With this build, you will certainly be able to get your 3rd base up in good shape, provided you do not make any silly mistakes (such as letting 30 lings run into your main, you should have a zealot there). I have found a gap in my old 1gate expo into void+phoenix build (described above) where you can churn out a fleet beacon (300/200) and a mothership (400/400), without suffering fatal damage from a zerg timing that would invest these resources in an army.
The basic build order and opening You should not have an idle nexus. Prioritize building probes and obviously create a gateway + cybernetics core wall at your choke. This will be the build you are going to use against nearly everything the zerg is doing, save 1base cheesy play (roach rush, 7pool, ...,).
• 9pylon, scout with pylon builder, chrono nexus twice after pylon is done • 14gate • 15gas, your 3rd chronoboost should be coming up right now - use it on your nexus • 17pylon, you will not get supply blocked • cybernetics core, your 4th chronoboost should be coming up right now - use it on your nexus • 2nd gas (if your opponent gas steals you, use your 4th chronoboost on your gateway and chrono out a zealot, then make your c-core and then make a second zealot, take your gas asap) • zealot followed by pylon, your 5th chronoboost is coming up - use it on your gateway • sentry + warpgate tech, all chrono goes on your gateway until you have 4 sentries • make your 34/34 food pylon at your natural before you make your nexus • nexus • place 2 additional gateways at your natural, creating a sim city • place a stargate, preferably in a place where an overlord is unlikely to spot it (i.e. next to the cybernetics core) • make a void ray, chronoboost it twice • get your 2 gases at your natural and transfer probes • make a phoenix, chronoboost it once, rest of chronoboosts goes on both nexus • fleet beacon, make sure you have at least one chronoboost left when your fleet beacon finishes • mothership, continuously chronoboost it • forge and twilight council • from here the build branches into different reactions from you depending on what kind of information you have gotten so far, but generally you will be looking to add more gateways, zealots and archons to your mix
Scouting: how to use your scouting probe, your void ray and your phoenix, identifying builds and responding correctly You are going to 9pylon scout, mainly to try and deny a hatch first. This is all basic PvZ stuff you should be able to do by now (look for early pool, patrol on his nat, make a pylon if he tries to take it, etc.). If he opens speed, you will want to check if he takes guys off gas. The best way to do this is to run your probe to an obscure spot, and then moving it into his base by clicking the mineral patch closest to the gas he has taken. Like this, you should see the natural going down (meaning no 1base play) and the amount of gas he has mined and if he is still mining. Try to check his gas at around 3:50 - some Zergs are either tricky or sloppy and mine some extra gas, your probe could die to lings and you will not know if he has taken guys off gas. The reason for checking if he has guys off gas is to create a mental narrative, allowing you to subconsciously better prepare for his options. If he has not taken guys off gas, this means he is either going for a fast lair (most likely mutalisks), an all-in or fast +1 (very rare). Make sure you check his natural to see if it is actually a hatchery building - although I have never encountered this, it is theoretically possible for him to throw down a hatchery, cancel it and use the creep to make a roach warren or baneling nest. If you have missed this, you can press alt+g (the hotkey for pinging) and mouse-over the hatchery. If it is smaller than a hatchery, then it is obviously not a hatchery. Safety first!
Small tip: right outside of your natural, there should be a zergling on hold position, which is there to spot for you moving out. See if you can pick it off with your sentries and zealots. Don't overcommit to killing it though! If it runs, let it run and retreat to your sim city.
Your void ray will (or should) always do the exact same thing, every game: pick off the overlord near your base (if any) and make a b-line towards the zerg's natural, following the path a ground unit would take. The reason for this being that you will want to check for roaches being rallied to your base, this would indicate early roach/ling aggression. If no roaches are being rallied, clean the xel naga towers (on most maps in most positions these will be on your way towards the Zerg natural, so you can do this while looking for roaches rallied) and proceed to where the Zerg's 3rd base should be. If no base is here your void ray can do a multitude of things: deny creep spread, deny xel naga tower vision, get a few drone kills by harassing mineral lines (right click drone, hold shift and move-command away) or look for stray overlords. This is mostly a personal preference, I switch it up depending on what I feel like doing/what I feel what would benefit me the most.
Your phoenix will be your second scout at the 9ish minute mark. You will want to fly this over the Zerg's main and natural. Be warned: from my coaching experience, Zergs in leagues below masters have a severe tendency to overreact when they see your initial void ray, and will throw down spores in their mineral lines. Your phoenix can take quite some queen shots, but flying over spores and queens is just too much, you do not want to lose your phoenix. You should still be able to get all the information you need even if he has 2 spores in every mineral line.
The 'textbook' reaction. The lair will usually be slightly delayed, probably morphing as you fly your phoenix over it. See if you can force a cancel on the 3rd with your void ray and phoenix. You do not have to force a cancel, it would just be bonus damage. Research charge, +1 weapons and start your templar archives and 3rd base, start warping in moderate amounts of stalkers. The 3rd base is a calculated risk - you have cleaned overlords, the xel naga towers and the zerglings outside of your base and his attention is focused on your void and phoenix at his 3rd. Sometimes you will be able to get away with a premature 3rd base. Your nexus will start at 9:00 - 10:00. If he is a good player and does not mess up, he will be able to deny it. There is nothing you can do, cancel it and take the 100 mineral loss, knowing that it was the right decision on a risk/reward equivalent base. Unless you are 99% sure you can defend it, don't bother because you are very low on military units and cannot afford to lose them. Make 4-5 additional gateways (whether you were forced to cancel or not), your mothership and first archon should pop at the same time, around 11-12 minutes depending on how many chronoboosts you missed. Now you can retake your 3rd base and start making units. So just to clarify: if you cancel the nexus, your 4-5 additional gateways (totaling 7-8 due to you already having 3) will go up before your 3rd base if you were forced to cancel your first attempt, and after your 3rd base if you were not forced to cancel. From here, get +2 weapons and slowly start adding more gateways, zealots and archons. You will want to go pure zealot/archon and whatever remaining units you have from the early game.
Same as above. This build is slightly safer against early aggression/timing pushes and heavy air play, but we are not doing that. It offers no other advantages over the above build.
As described above, your void ray should be able to spot the roaches being rallied. This is also the reason why your void ray is supposed to follow this path up to the enemy natural, to look for roaches being rallied. If you spot roaches being rallied, shift+right click them until they are either all dead or return to safety (queens/spores). If he is really committed, warp in units (stalkers) at your base and use forcefields. This is the easiest strategy to beat with this build. Use your game sense to determine how many stalkers you need to warp in, try to warp in as few as possible, as to not delay your forge/twilight council/mothership. If your twi council/forge/mothership is already building, his aggression is later than expected but still requires the exact same response. In every situation as a rule of thumb, employ your game sense to assess the situation and determine the optimal response, keeping the general guidelines of this guide in the back of your head. After the aggression has died out, use your phoenix to scout for his follow-up (usually a 3rd, if that is the case try to deny it and see above). Queue your mothership, build your twi council/forge, premature nexus attempt, get +1/charge/templar archives, 4-5 additional gateways and slowly start adding zealots/archons/gateways.
Your phoenix will scout this, the cues are no third base, two evolution chambers and an infestation pit. This timing will hit between 11 and 13 minutes, usually on the earlier side of the 11-13 minute range. You should have your mothership out as well as 1 archon when his infested terran/ling timing happens. To counter this, instead of your premature nexus, you are going to build 2 cannons at your natural and warp in additional units, mostly zealots. Delay charge for more warp-ins. If the attack does not come, make sure your phoenix is active to see what it exactly is that he is doing (3rd base? second tech? massing up more units off 2 bases?). If he stays on 2 bases and masses units (REALLY make sure he is staying on 2 bases), add 7 gateways, totaling 10 gateways and play 2base vs. 2base, having your army consist of only zealots, archons and the mothership. If you are adding on your 7 gateways and see he just tried to take a 3rd base, cancel 1 or 2 gateways and get your own 3rd. Slowly add more gateways, zealots and archons. Don't forget to get charge! You didn't get it yet because you needed extra units.
Make 2 or 3 additional phoenixes (not more) to fend off the first wave. After this you will have your mothership out and archon tech. Do not bother with blink or extra stalkers. Use your mothership to defend your main base and your army to defend your 2nd base. You will not attempt a premature nexus, grab your 3rd after your mothership and archon tech is out (11-12 minutes). Start adding more gateways, zealots and archons. Trick: if you can get a vortex off at his mutalisks with your archons nearby, do it and send your archons in. The 'archon toilet' was nerfed in 1.3, but mostly against ground units. Air units will spread much slower than ground units. You can one- or two-shot his mutas as they are released from the vortex. WARNING: if you are a sensitive person you may not want to use this strategy, people will start calling you names for doing this, as it is generally frowned upon. Use game sense to determine whether you need a cannon at your main's and natural's mineral line.
The cues of this build are 2 base, a hydra den, no roach warren and a dancing lair/hatchery. 'Dancing' refers to the animation buildings make when they are upgrading or producing something. Start a game against the computer as zerg and research an upgrade in your lair and hatchery. Make sure you are able to tell the difference between upgrading and not upgrading. When you have identified the build, place your void ray and phoenix in strategical locations, forcing him to either undrop hydras to chase away your void/phoenix from harassing his filled overlords (buys you time) or lose overlords full of units (obviously good for us). Delay charge for units, do not delay your templar archives. Do not attempt a premature nexus. Get your 3rd base after your archon tech and mothership are out or after the drop play has been cleaned up. Start adding more gateways, zealots and archons. Don't forget to get charge.
Very rare nowadays. Look for a dancing hatchery or lair and a dancing roach warren. Delay charge for stalker warp-ins, delay templar archives for robotics facility and make 2 cannons at your natural. Make sure he can't just snipe the cannons, you will be very sad. After your obs, archon tech and mothership are out, get your 3rd base and start adding more gateways, zealots and archons. Don't forget to get charge.
Ling/baneling oriented play, usually a follow-up from a 3rd base + Show Spoiler +
Keep making zealot archon, but research psionic storm and do not transform all of your high templars into archons. If you suspect baneling drops, play defensive and grab additional bases (4th and 5th, get geysers asap). Vortex his overlords/army and mass storm it as they are released from the vortex, do not send your own units in. Start making carriers and void rays. Move back far enough after you have vortexed his army/overlords so that he has to move quite a bit to engage you again, but make sure you are in range to psi storm him as he comes out. Have your mothership further back on hold position - the mothership cannot cast her spells when she is in motion and you will want to cast a second vortex fast after he has taken a lot of damage from storms. Move back again so he has to move a bit to engage you after being relesed from the vortex and storm him again, he will either retreat or lose all his army/overlords, giving you more time to mass air.
Mid to lategame: how to engage the army and deal with his unit compositions
Vortex his army, send your zealot/archons in. Kiting on creep can be very powerful against your composition, by vortexing his army you will immediately send all of your units in melee range, and he will be unable to kite you after being released from the vortex due to your ball of units being entangled in his ball of units, causing maximum DPS
Try to get a good vortex off on his broodlords/infestors, use 2 vortexes if necessary. Make sure there is a slight delay between the vortexes, so you can send your zealots/archons into the second vortex after they have killed everything when they have been released from the first one. A vortex lasts 20 seconds, about 10 seconds should do for a delay. Spreading from the Zerg's point is useless due to you having 2 vortexes that you can chain.
Get carriers and void rays, psionic storm and research blink. Be very careful with your vortex. See 'ling/baneling oriented play, usually a follow-up from a 3rd base' above for additional tips.
http://drop.sc/44333 <-- ladder game against GM league player GLSnute http://replayfu.com/r/gnLwQr <-- ladder game, fast 3rd with gas steal into roach/hydra/corruptor http://drop.sc/40015 <-- early roaches into 3rd base http://drop.sc/40014 <-- early roaches into 3rd base. Notice how my void ray didn't do what he was supposed to do (move towards the zerg nat to check for rallying roaches). I lose a lot because of this. As the game goes on, you should also make a few cannons as a form of static detection at your expo, because else... well... just watch this game. http://drop.sc/40041 <-- 3base roach/hydra aggression (fun tip: keep 'units lost' tab open while watching). http://drop.sc/40284 <-- ladder game, more abuse http://drop.sc/40777 <-- 7pool (ladder) http://drop.sc/43910 http://drop.sc/43906 http://drop.sc/43909 <-- ladder game, opponent goes for heavy roach/ling aggression early-game, gets creep all the way up to my base and splits his roach/hydra army while kiting them in seperate groups so they keep their concave, I mess up my build too due to the aggression and my poor crisis management in this game http://drop.sc/43908 <-- ladder game http://drop.sc/43907 <-- ladder game
Thanks for letting blizzard knowing any bug they need to fix I always though Mothership in the hands of a good player is 100% lethal, contradictory to popular belief.
Could you elaborate on how this does against ling/infestor timing attack?
How exactly would you grab that third against it?
IF the answer is that you can't, is this still doable or does it mean you are stuck again at the previous problem of 2base with all the same problems as before?
This guide is bad because you claim it's invincible and don't give us things to watch out for that you find dangerous. 90%+ winrate? You even claim that if your opponent knows exactly what you are doing its still unstoppable. Ok... this is going to get some lower level players in trouble when they try to do it themselves. These are not realistic expectations to set.
What kills this build?
What timings are you weak at?
What should you do if your opponent splits his army up and doesn't allow you to put the entire thing in a vortex?
On October 02 2011 15:13 darkscream wrote: This guide is bad because you claim it's invincible and don't give us things to watch out for that you find dangerous. 90%+ winrate? You even claim that if your opponent knows exactly what you are doing its still unstoppable. Ok... this is going to get some lower level players in trouble when they try to do it themselves. These are not realistic expectations to set.
What kills this build?
What timings are you weak at?
What should you do if your opponent splits his army up and doesn't allow you to put the entire thing in a vortex?
Look I spotted a Zerg spy trying to defend himself against the wave of mothership feces about to get flung at him, quick shun him so that no one figures out any weaknesses to this build! ^^
I definitely know what I am doing on ladder from now on.
Its annoying that stuff like this comes out Post-patch. The fact the infestor was so heavily nerfed when builds like this were ALWAYS possible, and HTs exist, as well as the early game cheese that Protoss can pull off against zerg just irritates me so much that they thought a nerf was necessary.
On October 02 2011 15:13 darkscream wrote: This guide is bad because you claim it's invincible and don't give us things to watch out for that you find dangerous. 90%+ winrate? You even claim that if your opponent knows exactly what you are doing its still unstoppable. Ok... this is going to get some lower level players in trouble when they try to do it themselves. These are not realistic expectations to set.
What kills this build?
What timings are you weak at?
What should you do if your opponent splits his army up and doesn't allow you to put the entire thing in a vortex?
Better use infestor to NP at least or better timing kill Protoss. In the replays the Zerg turtle like a lil school girl with Roaches/Hydras/corruptors like 1 year ago and then bm'ed like a lil bitch lol.
Why would the Zerg wanna splits his army? Protoss always vortex first, if Zerg separating his army, he's dead cuz Protoss army still staying outside of the vortex. Half army vs full Protoss army? We know the result yet?
I can just cast my infinity-range vortex on the broodlord/infestor ball, allowing me to safely get in range 99.99% of the time^^
Is thread a troll? For anyone who uses motherships, Vortex taking FOREVER to cast should be notorious to you.
I don't think I've ever not lost a mothership while trying to vortex, because after you tell the mothership to cast it, it just stands around for what feels like an eternity before actually casting it, and by that point it's at the brink of death.
edit: Woops, he actually covered this exact thing in the OP and I missed it
The mothership must be stationary for it to cast her spells. It cannot cast spells while moving so the acceleration/deacceleration buff is huge in this patch. If you've ever wondered why your vortex was casted like 5 seconds after you tried to it was because of this, the mothership has to come to a halt.
On October 02 2011 12:30 the p00n wrote: The mothership must be stationary for it to cast her spells. It cannot cast spells while moving so the acceleration/deacceleration buff is huge in this patch. If you've ever wondered why your vortex was casted like 5 seconds after you tried to it was because of this, the mothership has to come to a halt.
Why do you have to title it "90+% winrate" build? It doesn't make your guide more attractive, it just makes you look dumber. No build has a 90% winrate.
That being said, your guide isn't that bad. It does need more replays though. I feel like guides should be auto-closed if they have less than 3 replays or so.
Mothership is an excellent unit, but I'm beginning to realize that one of its strengths is that a lot of zerg players are just clueless in how to deal with it. For example, upon seeing vortex a lot of zerg players try to "save" their army by throwing everything into it. Well of course that's suicide for the zerg. But if the zerg just ignores what gets caught in the vortex, they can simply fight out the battle, kill some of your army, and then remax and kill your entire army now that you no longer have a vortex (or even mothership).
Also, I don't like how you default to zealot/archon. Mass roach just shits on it. Roach/baneling or roach/infestor shits on it even more. 1 void ray does nothing to stop mass roach, you will never get your 3rd up or be able to defend it, especially while you're spending thousands of resources teching to mothership at the same time.
There is actually a lot of micro regarding the mothership/archon versus broodlord/infestor/corruptor 200/200 battle. With no micro on either side the protoss wins easy. But if the zerg spreads out his units and doesn't throw everything into the vortex, when archons come out they still have to deal with unvortexed broodlords/broodlings and infestors casting fungal. Not to mention that if the zerg immediately runs away the corruptors that get caught in the vortex, they will NOT all die even if you have 10 archons in there. They will only all die if the zerg is slow and doesn't move them immediately upon the vortex ending.
On October 02 2011 12:30 the p00n wrote: The mothership must be stationary for it to cast her spells. It cannot cast spells while moving so the acceleration/deacceleration buff is huge in this patch. If you've ever wondered why your vortex was casted like 5 seconds after you tried to it was because of this, the mothership has to come to a halt.
^OP addressed that
Oh, my mistake. Will edit.
btw,
especially while you're spending thousands of resources teching to mothership at the same time.
made me chuckle... if you already have a stargate, then it's 300/200 for a fleet beacon, and now you're teched to mothership... that isn't thousands of resources. Not that I disagree with your post, it just seemed funny to call one building "thousands of resources".
Thanks for the strategy, seems unique and defo gonna try this out!
i just have one questions, why are u calling this strategy lame? seems like u found the only good use for the mothership and it instantly becomes lame (as in 'op')? lol
Nice catch on the casting-related-to-acceleration thing. I can definitely see how Vortex is inadvertedly more useful now. Especially because Zerg ground to air is so terrible. Now that I think about it you're right about air units exiting the vortex.
I'd like to see more replays though. I can't help but feel like a good Zerg would see the Fleet Beacon coming and just kill you with mass roach (Mondragon style) before you can get the Mothership+Archons out. Or if the zerg just plays counterattacky.
especially while you're spending thousands of resources teching to mothership at the same time.
made me chuckle... if you already have a stargate, then it's 300/200 for a fleet beacon, and now you're teched to mothership... that isn't thousands of resources. Not that I disagree with your post, it just seemed funny to call one building "thousands of resources".
I'm counting the mothership too... so it's 700 minerals and 600 gas = 1300 resources = greater than 1 thousand resources = thousands of resources ^^
... For a guide that claims to have a 90% win rate, you have an AWFUL lack of replays.
I watched the one you provided, and it does seem like a good late game composition... I do worry a bit about infestors + mass broodlords. But I'm sure with a 90% win rate, you have tons of replays winning vs that.
"Banelings are actually not good against zealots, he can only use this to overwhelm you (burst down your zealots with blings then run in with whatever he has left)." What does this sentence mean? Banelings are great against Zealots...
I like that build btw but I'm worried about some 3 base timings like Roach/Infestor or MassRoach, I always need Colossus asap to deal with it (even if I have 2/3 VoidRays out)
On October 02 2011 12:30 the p00n wrote: The mothership must be stationary for it to cast her spells. It cannot cast spells while moving so the acceleration/deacceleration buff is huge in this patch. If you've ever wondered why your vortex was casted like 5 seconds after you tried to it was because of this, the mothership has to come to a halt.
especially while you're spending thousands of resources teching to mothership at the same time.
made me chuckle... if you already have a stargate, then it's 300/200 for a fleet beacon, and now you're teched to mothership... that isn't thousands of resources. Not that I disagree with your post, it just seemed funny to call one building "thousands of resources".
Jesus instead of saying this you could have qued up an other game and don't jerk around.. its obviously a figurative speaking yay... Anyways really would like to see more replays against someone who doesn't use the unit comp from the "Dark Age" and actually tries to move around a map to "do stuff". That being said, i'm on 6-0 win-rate so far against the zergs with this build - seems fairly solid :D I've collected a couple of zerg's tears also. So it makes me feel good especially when facing Roach/ling/Muta every fucking time which makes me rage hard when i'm loosing to it.
What about hydra/ling drop around min 11 to go against that, when you first scouted the stargate? I feel zerg would be able to destroy a nexus at least...
I am Master Z Player and i find that strat to be very interesting. I remeber several games where i was totally raped by motherships (mostly with void+colo).
I just played around a little with the unit test map and found that 40 zeals, 10 arcons(+2 attack), get raped by 40 banes and 40 roaches when all units enter the vortex before fighting (+2 attack on melee and +2 armor). The banes just go off after immunity goes away and kill most of the zealots. The fewer roaches in the vortex the more damage the banes do.
Z could also keep 3-4 infestors behind the army to get off neural on the mothership or some archons.
If i was p i would opt to get 1 robo and pump immortals.
i dont get this. if some1 says anything wich contains " imba / op / abusive " + " zerg/terran units" sentence he get warned / temp banned
toss can be lame / easy / op anytime. why?
good catch on the replay but he did not had any units b4 9 min mark he did not used suicid lord , he did miss u passed hes lords vision with void so i not sure how u hold some kind of early agression from zerg with 4zealot 2 sent on 3-5 gate.
but i really look forward ,since i try to play nowadays expo air into charge archon finish off.
I have encountered a 2base timing attack with mothership as Diamond Zerg a few times and have a 0% win rate against it. I have tried roach/hydra, corruptors, roach/sling busts, infestors, ultras, etc.. Broods, Ultras or Infestors will not be out in time for a 2base timing attack with a mothership, just a few infestors with very little energy will be available. So mass overwhelming roach/hydra/sling is what I feel works best so far. But hydras are so slow TT
just tried this build, kinda was afraid of burrow roaches because i dint have any obs for a long time. Also got my mothership stolen with infestors couple of times :D
On October 02 2011 12:57 lizzuma wrote: sup n00b :D aom represent!
Sup Phil <3
On October 02 2011 13:05 BuddhaMonk wrote: Which nexus do you normally make your mothership at?
Usually my natural for faster rally, but it may be better to build it at your main in some circumstances. I do not think it matters all -that- much.
On October 02 2011 13:10 NTTemplar wrote: Could you elaborate on how this does against ling/infestor timing attack?
How exactly would you grab that third against it?
IF the answer is that you can't, is this still doable or does it mean you are stuck again at the previous problem of 2base with all the same problems as before?
Mothership and Archon will be out right before the earliest possible timing. You can have your mothership positioned slightly back to cloak things. If they are using this timing attack they will usually not scout your base due to the timing attack providing them with a lot of information, so they will not have an overseer. If they do bring an overseer you can still hold it with simple zealot/archon and a cannon or two.
Don't forget that this build has scouting, it is not a blind strategy. With your phoenix you will see what he's doing, if you see 2 base infestor-oriented play, play slightly more cautiously (which goes for every zerg 2-base play, most will grab a 3rd base though).
On October 02 2011 13:24 FinestHour wrote: Could you put up any more replays? That one you had was ok, but its nice to have some more
I actually have a lot of replays but I was using a cro-magnon 2-base timing build with the mothership at first, it's a very different build. Even though I also didn't play optimal in the replay currently provided, I feel it shows the strength and how the build plays out fairly well. I will provide more replays in the next few days, don't worry.
On October 02 2011 14:56 Buddhist wrote: Keep in mind also that Carriers are extremely good when you have the opportunity to build them.
Yep, it also allows for a transition into carriers. Usually unnecessarily risky though, unless you cannot attack him for some reason.
On October 02 2011 15:13 darkscream wrote: This guide is bad because you claim it's invincible and don't give us things to watch out for that you find dangerous. 90%+ winrate? You even claim that if your opponent knows exactly what you are doing its still unstoppable. Ok... this is going to get some lower level players in trouble when they try to do it themselves. These are not realistic expectations to set.
What kills this build?
What timings are you weak at?
What should you do if your opponent splits his army up and doesn't allow you to put the entire thing in a vortex?
The 90%ish is from my own experience. I don't know what kills this build, obviously you can't do this exact build against 7pool or 1base roach rush, you will have to get a second gate or forge and ditch the plan and play as you normally would.
There's not really any timings off 3 bases that can hurt you. You are not playing a FFE so he cannot grab 3 bases and mass mass drone without gas and a delayed lair. The 3 gates are to help you hold off any 10-13ish minute timings, but you can always scout if he is 2base or 3base and you can always scout his tech. You fly a phoenix over his base at around the 8-9 minute mark, you WILL get information. There have been zero games where I have not been able to get information with this (and I have been using the phoenix scout for a long, long, long time now, even before diverting into the mothership build). Delay your charge and warp in more stalkers with your 3 gates, build a cannon if you feel it is necessary (you get your forge and twi-council right after you queue your mothership). You don't have to try and take your base at 9 minutes, you can take it at ~11 minutes too when your mothership and archons are out.
If he splits his army up, just engage in a ball and pick of the straggler units. Zealot/archon loses to mass roach kiting on creep, but he cannot really kite effectively (at least I've never seen anyone able to) if his army isn't in a ball. Eventually his army will clump up, there's nothing he can really do about it. Land your vortex and throw your shit in.
On October 02 2011 15:45 Anihc wrote: Why do you have to title it "90+% winrate" build? It doesn't make your guide more attractive, it just makes you look dumber. No build has a 90% winrate.
That being said, your guide isn't that bad. It does need more replays though. I feel like guides should be auto-closed if they have less than 3 replays or so.
Mothership is an excellent unit, but I'm beginning to realize that one of its strengths is that a lot of zerg players are just clueless in how to deal with it. For example, upon seeing vortex a lot of zerg players try to "save" their army by throwing everything into it. Well of course that's suicide for the zerg. But if the zerg just ignores what gets caught in the vortex, they can simply fight out the battle, kill some of your army, and then remax and kill your entire army now that you no longer have a vortex (or even mothership).
Also, I don't like how you default to zealot/archon. Mass roach just shits on it. Roach/baneling or roach/infestor shits on it even more. 1 void ray does nothing to stop mass roach, you will never get your 3rd up or be able to defend it, especially while you're spending thousands of resources teching to mothership at the same time.
There is actually a lot of micro regarding the mothership/archon versus broodlord/infestor/corruptor 200/200 battle. With no micro on either side the protoss wins easy. But if the zerg spreads out his units and doesn't throw everything into the vortex, when archons come out they still have to deal with unvortexed broodlords/broodlings and infestors casting fungal. Not to mention that if the zerg immediately runs away the corruptors that get caught in the vortex, they will NOT all die even if you have 10 archons in there. They will only all die if the zerg is slow and doesn't move them immediately upon the vortex ending.
You have 2 vortexes that can be casted in rapid succession. If he ignores what's cast in the vortex, cast the second vortex about 10 seconds later (vortex duration is 20 seconds). You will immediately kill off the vortexed units, then you can go into the other vortex and voila. You can also opt for just using 1 vortex. You don't have to vortex his army and throw your shit in, you should always use common sense and game sense. No matter how much he spreads his broodlords out, he is going to lose a lot of them to double vortex.
Also, the reason the corruptors do not die is because archons do not auto-target them, and instead target units beneath them. Go to the unit tester, throw 6 or 7 +2 or +3 archons in a vortex together with only corruptors (as many as you like), so they have target priority, and tell me if you can fly away.
If you really really want the corruptors dead you can target them with your archons, but I don't know why you would wanna do that.
The zerg cannot really spread out his army, due to this increasing the effectiveness of zealot/archon as somewhat explained above.
On October 02 2011 16:11 iNkopwnz wrote: Thanks for the strategy, seems unique and defo gonna try this out!
i just have one questions, why are u calling this strategy lame? seems like u found the only good use for the mothership and it instantly becomes lame (as in 'op')? lol
The strategy just seems a bit 'off' for an RTS game. I don't feel like I should be able to sit on my ass at 40 apm and win the game, it feels kind of like chess where multitasking is kind of irrelevant.
On October 02 2011 18:39 Macpo wrote: What about hydra/ling drop around min 11 to go against that, when you first scouted the stargate? I feel zerg would be able to destroy a nexus at least...
You can scout drop-tech (dancing hatchery/lair, fast overlords, hydra den and 2base play, ...,) and dropping is tricky due to there being a void ray out. You can hold it off anyway. Note that I am not really using my 3gateways this game. They are there for aggressive 2base play though, you obviously aren't gonna do this exact build in the replay against (very scoutable) 2base aggression, you are gonna do the build but divert from not making any gateway units, and instead make gateway units and delay your charge (200/200) and premature nexus attempt (400).
On October 02 2011 19:18 Herr_Trichter wrote: I am Master Z Player and i find that strat to be very interesting. I remeber several games where i was totally raped by motherships (mostly with void+colo).
I just played around a little with the unit test map and found that 40 zeals, 10 arcons(+2 attack), get raped by 40 banes and 40 roaches when all units enter the vortex before fighting (+2 attack on melee and +2 armor). The banes just go off after immunity goes away and kill most of the zealots. The fewer roaches in the vortex the more damage the banes do.
Z could also keep 3-4 infestors behind the army to get off neural on the mothership or some archons.
If i was p i would opt to get 1 robo and pump immortals.
You don't have to vortex and throw your shit in. The timing hits so that the zerg is unable to get a lot of banelings up, and if he does you can scout this with the phoenix and get storm tech and just not vortex (or vortex and make sure you deny him by storming his blings when they wanna go on). I mean come on, how much easier do you want a build to be? If the zerg masses banelings just don't vortex and enjoy your 4base protoss with carrier and templar tech already being out while he pumped a ton of resources into banelings.
Also, given good mothership play it is nearly impossible to neural it. This was already the case when the neural was 9 range, now it is even more so.
On October 02 2011 20:26 iNkopwnz wrote: just tried this build, kinda was afraid of burrow roaches because i dint have any obs for a long time. Also got my mothership stolen with infestors couple of times :D
This should never happen. I've gotten my mothership stolen once but it was due to really poor control from my side and could have 100.00% be prevented.
Also if you're worried about infestors you can keep 2 or 3 templars in your army for feedback.
I tested the build.. and to be honnest, I'm not 100% convinced. There's a timing, which is around 12', when your mothership has just arrived.. where you basically have no units. In your replay for ex you have 6 zealots, 5 stalkers and 4 sentries. Now, by going air harass a lot of Zergs are going to respond with hydras. I'm not sure you have enough to hold an hydra timing push at that time, even with the MS, and really you can't count on him not having an overseer, otherwise that just means you're counting on him being dumb for winning.. not a good sign. What won you the game in your replay is you snipping his B3. As a result he reached 200/200 at the same time than you, so of course you were gonna win anyway...
Other than that, if you can survive that "weak" timing, I'd say it looks pretty damn strong. Looking forward to testing it more..
On October 02 2011 21:47 Nyast wrote: I tested the build.. and to be honnest, I'm not 100% convinced. There's a timing, which is around 12', when your mothership has just arrived.. where you basically have no units. In your replay for ex you have 6 zealots, 5 stalkers and 4 sentries. Now, by going air harass a lot of Zergs are going to respond with hydras. I'm not sure you have enough to hold an hydra timing push at that time, even with the MS, and really you can't count on him not having an overseer, otherwise that just means you're counting on him being dumb for winning.. not a good sign. What won you the game in your replay is you snipping his B3. As a result he reached 200/200 at the same time than you, so of course you were gonna win anyway...
Other than that, if you can survive that "weak" timing, I'd say it looks pretty damn strong. Looking forward to testing it more..
I also had Archons. The 4 sentries were all 200/200 --> 16 forcefields. Also, there's a lot of leeway with this build in gateway unit cycles. Against very aggressive play, you can get more gateway cycles and less gateways. Ideally, you will want to mass gateways so your macro explodes, but against aggressive play you get less gateways and more zealots (day9 also explains this somewhere).
I'll definitely be trying this, I've been trying to use motherships in my play for a long time. I use them often in late game to defend expansions (20 mins+, defending 4/5/6 base I'm talking about) because as you say they are amazing defensive units.
If you sit a mothership on an expansion with 200/200 energy and a couple of cannons.... you can bet your ass that expo is not going down any time soon at all. A typical ling counter cant deal with it, since everything is cloaked, a muta harrass can't deal with it, because of the cannons and warp gates, burrow play cant deal with it, because of the cannons again, and a full out attack often cant deal with it, because of mass recall + vortex.
TIP: You can mass recall warp prisms as well. Hint hint.
so what do u do vs 40 speedroaches at like 12:00 where ur army is propably like 15 zealot, 5 stalker, few sentry, and like 3 archons:>? u would get roflstomped in two shoots (and im propably exagerrating becouse i doubt u will even have that rushing mothership)
btw are you they guy who made a thread about 'imbalanced tvp thor rush which cannot be stopped' and didnt prove any replays saying u were playing from pc cafe and didnt have the replay?
I did this while smurfing back when the archon toilet was around. I won every game I got the mothership out l0l. Tried it after the nerf and I failed every time (usually by getting my mothership NP'd >_>), maybe I'll give it a try with your guide though, sounds interesting.
I honestly think carriers and motherships are underused. 4 base toss transitioning into carriers late game PvZ is really, really good.
so what do u do vs 40 speedroaches at like 12:00 where ur army is propably like 15 zealot, 5 stalker, few sentry, and like 3 archons:>?
Um, did you even read the OP? He has a stargate and at least one Void and a Phoenix out. So when his Phoenix scouts you massing Roaches, the transition into more Voids is easy as hell.
The mothership must be stationary for it to cast her spells. It cannot cast spells while moving so the acceleration/deacceleration buff is huge in this patch. If you've ever wondered why your vortex was casted like 5 seconds after you tried to it was because of this, the mothership has to come to a halt
This is super interesting/useful to know. The acceleration buff is a lot more important/well thought out than I originally thought.
Question: Once you have the Mothership out, do you find its worth it to build Carriers. Every time I've gotten Carriers vs. Z I've found them be super efficient, but I can't tell whether it'd muck with the unit comp you're shooting for too badly.
On October 03 2011 00:06 pycho wrote: btw are you they guy who made a thread about 'imbalanced tvp thor rush which cannot be stopped' and didnt prove any replays saying u were playing from pc cafe and didnt have the replay?
I provided a ton of replays on a later page against almost every build, against ladder opponents (3gate star, 4gate, 2gate robo, 3gate expo, 1gate expo, DTs, ...,). Saying I didn't provide a replay is incorrect.
The mothership must be stationary for it to cast her spells. It cannot cast spells while moving so the acceleration/deacceleration buff is huge in this patch. If you've ever wondered why your vortex was casted like 5 seconds after you tried to it was because of this, the mothership has to come to a halt
This is super interesting/useful to know. The acceleration buff is a lot more important/well thought out than I originally thought.
Question: Once you have the Mothership out, do you find its worth it to build Carriers. Every time I've gotten Carriers vs. Z I've found them be super efficient, but I can't tell whether it'd muck with the unit comp you're shooting for too badly.
I usually do not build carriers. It is simply not necessary - think of it as you having a simple gun and a cannon, your goal is to kill someone. Are you gonna load up the cannon and risk him running away or killing you with a knife or something, or are you gonna draw out your pistol and shoot him down? If you run out of bullets you can always turn to the cannon. This is analogous to carriers and zealot/archon. You can always get the heavy artillery out if zealot/archon doesn't work.
@ pycho: mass roach can't shoot up, so if the protoss a) gets the mothership out before the zerg attacks, and b) can snipe off overseers (reasonable given the build calls for at least one void ray and a phoenix), the roaches can't shoot anything due to cloak.
As for mass hydra, the zeal/archon toilet should smash it (snick-snick!) assuming the mothership has enough energy / the protoss uses forcefields well enough to give the mothership time to build up enough energy.
I am going to give this a try next time I roll PvZ.
Every time I went mothership and tried to vortex...tears were shed and the mothership was sent to the annals of sadness. Now I know why...didn't know the mothership acceleration buff would help. Thanks for guide too! Will try indeed.
On October 03 2011 00:51 Wildflame wrote: @ pycho: mass roach can't shoot up, so if the protoss a) gets the mothership out before the zerg attacks, and b) can snipe off overseers (reasonable given the build calls for at least one void ray and a phoenix), the roaches can't shoot anything due to cloak.
As for mass hydra, the zeal/archon toilet should smash it (snick-snick!) assuming the mothership has enough energy / the protoss uses forcefields well enough to give the mothership time to build up enough energy.
I am going to give this a try next time I roll PvZ.
and what do you plan to do when zerg makes about 10 hydras with those roaches and keeps his overseers kind of in the back just enough to make them detect -,- u cant snipe them then
The mothership must be stationary for it to cast her spells. It cannot cast spells while moving so the acceleration/deacceleration buff is huge in this patch. If you've ever wondered why your vortex was casted like 5 seconds after you tried to it was because of this, the mothership has to come to a halt
This is super interesting/useful to know. The acceleration buff is a lot more important/well thought out than I originally thought.
Question: Once you have the Mothership out, do you find its worth it to build Carriers. Every time I've gotten Carriers vs. Z I've found them be super efficient, but I can't tell whether it'd muck with the unit comp you're shooting for too badly.
I usually do not build carriers. It is simply not necessary - think of it as you having a simple gun and a cannon, your goal is to kill someone. Are you gonna load up the cannon and risk him running away or killing you with a knife or something, or are you gonna draw out your pistol and shoot him down? If you run out of bullets you can always turn to the cannon. This is analogous to carriers and zealot/archon. You can always get the heavy artillery out if zealot/archon doesn't work.
What do you think about carriers after you get your 4th base running? I haven't lost a single PvZ when I've gone 4 base carrier, and now that NP doesn't work on them I'd assume it's even stronger. I usually start upgrading air weapons on 3 bases and I'm usually 2/0 or 2/1 by the time I have a decent amount of carriers.
On October 03 2011 00:51 Wildflame wrote: @ pycho: mass roach can't shoot up, so if the protoss a) gets the mothership out before the zerg attacks, and b) can snipe off overseers (reasonable given the build calls for at least one void ray and a phoenix), the roaches can't shoot anything due to cloak.
As for mass hydra, the zeal/archon toilet should smash it (snick-snick!) assuming the mothership has enough energy / the protoss uses forcefields well enough to give the mothership time to build up enough energy.
I am going to give this a try next time I roll PvZ.
and what do you plan to do when zerg makes about 10 hydras with those roaches and keeps his overseers kind of in the back just enough to make them detect -,- u cant snipe them then
Vortex the overseer and then have your archons kill it as everything comes out. Or you could just feedback it. Or just kill off the hydras.
Once he gets the mothership out he's relatively safe honestly. It'd be more of a really cheesy hydra all-in that I'd be worried about.
but seriously i'm going to dl this replay and try this out. i enjoy multiple drops with warp prism and poking with army in other place which drives some zergs out, but then if they get broodlord or too many infestors that style is kinda over must... try... mothership again!
and what do you plan to do when zerg makes about 10 hydras with those roaches and keeps his overseers kind of in the back just enough to make them detect -,- u cant snipe them then
Any build that involves getting 10 Hydras in addition to a shitton of Roaches is going to hit later than a pure Roach all-in, and you're probably not gonna have drop tech or burrow if you've invested in Hydras/Roaches and Overseers, which means that Toss will likely have more stuff (since you're attacking a bit later), and getting past Forcefields is gonna be tricky as hell without drop or burrow.
Also, Zerg is insanely vulnerably to Overseer sniping/vortexing here--even if you put them in the back, it is 100% worth it for Toss to sacrifice air units to bring them down, because if Overseers aren't on the field it doesn't really matter what Zerg has since they can't hit anyway.
Ladtly, if Zerg is going for some complete all-in, getting Cannons in place of a few Zealots might be worth it, since Motherships cloak buildings as well--Motherships over Cannons can be hard as hell to bust through.
That replay looked SO easy lol (although I think you could have had better upgrades)
The Mothership acceleration buff really makes vortex more smooth to cast, and even though the archon toilet was severely nerfed, it's still not bad. The voidray/pheonix is helpful for denying the third, and also scout what build the zerg is going. I think this build overall seems pretty damn solid with very few holes in it for the zerg to capitalize on. Will definately try this out, thanks
http://drop.sc/40014 <-- I make a lot of mistakes which makes me lose too much stuff. My void ray doesn't take the right path (it is supposed to be directly rallied to your opponent's base so you can see incoming attacks, I was too greedy and immediately went overlord hunting ). Then I forget my cannons, and he burrows + tunneling claws and destroys my nexus again
On October 03 2011 02:42 ForeverSleep wrote: btw, i would like to know, do you use that strategy on taldarim? if yes, do you just pick it up it from a ffe?
I do not FFE ever. I have found, during rigorous testing, that a good double expand build (i.e. ret vs naniwa finals blizzcon) is uncounterable unless you catch your opponent off guard (i.e. DTs, a really strange timing, ...,).
You say that the void ray will clean up roach/ling all-ins, but from your replay you barely had any units at the time it would hit. I feel like a baneling bust/roach bust would just kill you because you don't have enough stuff to clean it up/prevent it forever.
Also, I feel like if the mothership dies or runs out of energy and you're not ahead economically, you're in trouble.
I don't know, I like the feel of the build but I feel that if whatever you try doesn't turn out exactly as you planned, you're behind.
On October 03 2011 03:00 Havefa1th wrote: You say that the void ray will clean up roach/ling all-ins, but from your replay you barely had any units at the time it would hit. I feel like a baneling bust/roach bust would just kill you because you don't have enough stuff to clean it up/prevent it forever.
Also, I feel like if the mothership dies or runs out of energy and you're not ahead economically, you're in trouble.
I don't know, I like the feel of the build but I feel that if whatever you try doesn't turn out exactly as you planned, you're behind.
I get raped pretty hard by a roach push off 2 bases in the recent replay I provided due to me being greedy with my void ray. You should check that replay out.
You say that the void ray will clean up roach/ling all-ins, but from your replay you barely had any units at the time it would hit. I feel like a baneling bust/roach bust would just kill you because you don't have enough stuff to clean it up/prevent it forever.
Couldn't he just pull a "Great Wall of Hongun"? That is, there's a famous HongUn game where he had like 1 Void vs. a sizable Roach all-in, and he just spammed pylons to create a continual wall (that is, each time the Roaches got through a building he just put another one behind it) while his Void got charged up and cleaned up the push--its hugely mineral heavy, but if the Z is legitimately going all-in it could be worth it.
Huh, you get +6 damage on the mothership and +16 damage for carriers for each +1 air weapons. Might be something to look into if you haven't already if you want to go carriuuuu.
On October 03 2011 02:42 ForeverSleep wrote: btw, i would like to know, do you use that strategy on taldarim? if yes, do you just pick it up it from a ffe?
I do not FFE ever. I have found, during rigorous testing, that a good double expand build (i.e. ret vs naniwa finals blizzcon) is uncounterable unless you catch your opponent off guard (i.e. DTs, a really strange timing, ...,).
so do you go strait 1 gate expo too on taldarim? ( i guess you can if you actually start your wall at the choke) makes sense
On October 03 2011 03:40 Antisocialmunky wrote: Huh, you get +6 damage on the mothership and +16 damage for carriers for each +1 air weapons. Might be something to look into if you haven't already if you want to go carriuuuu.
but then again, each armor upgrade on the enemy nullifies the +16 completely
PvZ has been nothing but frustrating for me. Time to give this a try. Heck even if I only win 20% of my games that still an upgrade from 1 game out of 20.
I actually play both and had a Protoss not do this, but a different mothership play (mothership with stalkers and zealots, into archons later on), and it was insanely difficult to deal with.
On October 02 2011 18:18 Bill Murray wrote: 1300 = 1.3 thousand, no s
5600 = 5.6 thousand, no s
You say "five thousand resources" but you still refer to it as "thousands" of resources. Same with 1.3.
Anyway, back to the OP - I still really don't like the heavy reliance on only 2 vortexes. The whole game is banking on the zerg somewhat clumping up their army, and you getting off 2 perfect vortexes to kill their entire army (if it gets to a situation where they have get to mass infestor/bl/corruptor). If you somehow mess up, the zerg can remax much faster than you can regen your energy for another vortex.
Another trick i think yall should note, is if you attack a Z's base , forcefield the ramp of his main and hve the mothership use mass recall inside his main. vVvTime does it a lot on his stream
On October 03 2011 03:00 Havefa1th wrote: You say that the void ray will clean up roach/ling all-ins, but from your replay you barely had any units at the time it would hit. I feel like a baneling bust/roach bust would just kill you because you don't have enough stuff to clean it up/prevent it forever.
Also, I feel like if the mothership dies or runs out of energy and you're not ahead economically, you're in trouble.
I don't know, I like the feel of the build but I feel that if whatever you try doesn't turn out exactly as you planned, you're behind.
oh ok, so I guess Zerg will now have to baneling bust/roach bust every game. Honestly though, statements like that are ridicilous. It's like saying "won't early pool beat nexus first every time???"
This isn't that hard to beat, it is hard if you don't know what to do. if you decide to camp until mothership most zergs have scouted the fleet beacon by then and have taken the entire map... Then they get 30 corruptors 1-shot the mothership, then they reinforce with mass roach. Its the zergs who over-react the the zealot archon and get the roaches before corruptors.
Good scouting and knowing exactly what to do beat this build (which makes it a good build)
Here's a replay of my abysmal platinum play with this build against a standard zerg player. This is perhaps the most fun I've ever had playing SC2. I began to view the mothership as the coach from Rocky, where against the compositions I was facing normally all of my gateway units would get dominated by the zerg forces but the mothership screams "HIT 'EM ROCK" as it cloaks everything and then my gateway units would pummel their zergy asses. And also like the Rocky coach, my mothership would die in the middle of a fight, leaving my motivated gateway units behind as its legacy. I ended up getting 3 coaches that game as they kept dying to hydras. After one vortex, the zerg dropped over 70 supply, and over 60 in another.
Seriously, thanks for this build. I haven't won a ZvP in 2 weeks and was super frustrated. I had 2 build order losses earlier today as the zergs 6pooled and I scouted them last, and lost because I didn't chrono out a zealot in time to block or get a tight walloff. Things like that have made me basically give up on PvZ but this has made me want to play it again, even if I lose, because it's actually fun.
Edit: Also, unlike the guy the guy 2 posts above me, I do not feel bad. I've been 6pooled, roach-ling all-inned, roach/baneling all-inned, hydra busted, 2 base infestor/ling all-inned non-stop for the last 2 weeks straight. I haven't had a straight up game in so long. It's nice to be in control of PvZ for once, instead of feeling like I can't do anything without dying. It seems like they need at least 2-3 overseers to even attempt to engage you or else they'll just die to your units.
One thing to note - most people keep all of their overseers grouped up, even if they have 3+ of them.
A vortex right on top of the overseers followed by a-move is VERY deadly as +3 invisible Archons... well the zerg might as well not have an army.
Also, first game I did this strategy I killed a 200/200 hydra/ling/infestor army losing only 5 zealots in the fight... (The infestors didn't cast anything as I think the zerg was like... What... is.. this...)
Thank you for the awesome guide and the great strategy :-)
Oh man.. i cant tanks this enough.. i had 10% winrate against zerg.. i tried this and i messed it up really at the first time but poor zerg opponent couldn`t do anything and i won easily.. ty once again.. hope this srategy`ll have long life!!
Just a question on upgrades, it seems this build relies heavily on archons splash to clean up. After +3 atk would it be better to get shield in order to preserve the archons better or armor for your zealots as it is noticeable that getting archons is very gas intensive and zealots are important in remaxing.
Q: Since (1) a good Z will usually scout the stargate early anyway with an OL sac, (2) you don't really use your gates much, and (3) this part of the build is really short on minerals, have you thought about putting your stargate up front as part of your wall and staying on 2 gates a little longer? I believe it's the minerals that slow down your wall-off and that you have 150 extra gas at this point, and by using the stargate up front, you'd speed up your void ray (which is the key to your defense) by 300 minerals. It could also speed up your phoenix scout and eventually your mothership.
The downsides would be that it would be immediately scouted every game, and it would be the first building killed if Z is ever capable of killing your wall.
On October 03 2011 20:16 d00fuz wrote: Just a question on upgrades, it seems this build relies heavily on archons splash to clean up. After +3 atk would it be better to get shield in order to preserve the archons better or armor for your zealots as it is noticeable that getting archons is very gas intensive and zealots are important in remaxing.
Does not really matter, roaches and baneling all have high attack (you are not going to face zerglings for very very obvious reasons). I think shields would be marginally better, but once again, it probably does not really matter that much.
On October 03 2011 21:22 kcdc wrote: Q: Since (1) a good Z will usually scout the stargate early anyway with an OL sac, (2) you don't really use your gates much, and (3) this part of the build is really short on minerals, have you thought about putting your stargate up front as part of your wall and staying on 2 gates a little longer? I believe it's the minerals that slow down your wall-off and that you have 150 extra gas at this point, and by using the stargate up front, you'd speed up your void ray (which is the key to your defense) by 300 minerals. It could also speed up your phoenix scout and eventually your mothership.
The downsides would be that it would be immediately scouted every game, and it would be the first building killed if Z is ever capable of killing your wall.
I have not thought about this at all and thus cannot really give insight on it from a practical point of view, only theorycraft. The timing for the earliest pressure I've faced coincides nicely with the spawning of the void ray, I have not found myself in a situation yet where I've wished my void ray was 30ish seconds earlier.
That being said, if he does hit a weird mass speedling timing and denies my expo, I have absolutely no tech and am severely behind. If my stargate would be in my base, I at least have the tech advantage and may be able to delay his 3rd to make up for my nexus cancel.
I have a replay of early 1.3, where I play against a player named 'Avekatten' on shattered temple, he is currently in the EU grandmaster league. I was not doing this build back then, but I was doing the 1gate expo into 3gate stargate. He forces a cancel on my nexus, but due to my tech advantage (the void ray) I was able to equalize the game and eventually roll him over, as he could not get a 3rd base up as soon as he'd ideally want to. If I would take this game and imagine my stargate at the front, I would have immediately lost it.
A way to bypass this would be to perhaps build the stargate in your base first before your last gateway (or even 2nd gateway). This would slow the sim city though, enlarging the zerg timing window.
All in all I'm not really sure. What do you think?
On October 03 2011 21:22 kcdc wrote: Q: Since (1) a good Z will usually scout the stargate early anyway with an OL sac, (2) you don't really use your gates much, and (3) this part of the build is really short on minerals, have you thought about putting your stargate up front as part of your wall and staying on 2 gates a little longer? I believe it's the minerals that slow down your wall-off and that you have 150 extra gas at this point, and by using the stargate up front, you'd speed up your void ray (which is the key to your defense) by 300 minerals. It could also speed up your phoenix scout and eventually your mothership.
The downsides would be that it would be immediately scouted every game, and it would be the first building killed if Z is ever capable of killing your wall.
I have not thought about this at all and thus cannot really give insight on it from a practical point of view, only theorycraft. The timing for the earliest pressure I've faced coincides nicely with the spawning of the void ray, I have not found myself in a situation yet where I've wished my void ray was 30ish seconds earlier.
That being said, if he does hit a weird mass speedling timing and denies my expo, I have absolutely no tech and am severely behind. If my stargate would be in my base, I at least have the tech advantage and may be able to delay his 3rd to make up for my nexus cancel.
I have a replay of early 1.3, where I play against a player named 'Avekatten' on shattered temple, he is currently in the EU grandmaster league. I was not doing this build back then, but I was doing the 1gate expo into 3gate stargate. He forces a cancel on my nexus, but due to my tech advantage (the void ray) I was able to equalize the game and eventually roll him over, as he could not get a 3rd base up as soon as he'd ideally want to. If I would take this game and imagine my stargate at the front, I would have immediately lost it.
A way to bypass this would be to perhaps build the stargate in your base first before your last gateway (or even 2nd gateway). This would slow the sim city though, enlarging the zerg timing window.
All in all I'm not really sure. What do you think?
Just watched another of your replays. Using a stargate as part of your wall wouldn't lengthen the window where you're vulnerable to speedlings at all because that is limited by minerals. You didn't have 150 gas at the time of the first gateway, so using the SG in the wall would speed the SG up only 150 minerals. You might be able to re-work your chronoboost usage (more on WG research, less on sentries) to have more gas at this timing if having the SG even earlier is better.
Another note is that you really don't use your gates AT ALL early on, so completing your wall with only 1 gateway would allow you to could delay your third gate by quite a bit. Depending on what you scout, you might be able to delay the third gate until after your templar tech is building, which would basically mean an extra 150 minerals through that whole teching path.
In terms of risk/reward, you have to consider the benefits of that 150 extra minerals against the cost of having the stargate scouted as soon as you put it down and the risk that you lose the stargate (instead of a gateway) at your front. It seems like you're not expecting to do damage with the void ray anyway (beyond an OL here and there), but putting the SG up front will eliminate any chance of damage. Is that a big deal? Also, I've only played maybe 20 games of 1 gate FE vs Z, so I don't know how confident you feel with your ability to defend your walling buildings. In my experience, it's decently safe as long as you're sitting over your expo with your sentries selected. Speeding up the stargate might actually make it safer than going 3 gate first.
On October 04 2011 00:45 FabledIntegral wrote: While I'm not so sure about the actual build, and the title irked me for being heavily sensationalist, I must say, a VERY well written OP imo!
This build is simply amazing right now.
Aside from some tricky to deal with timings (speedling all-in, Roach burrow timings) I simply can't see myself losing with this.
It seems like as soon as your mothership is out you are almost invulnerable to attacks - and you can defend harass so easily. I just don't see a way you can lose once you get the mothership out...
I could very very easily see how this build can get 90%+ win ratios because any zerg that tries to macro against it just loses. Brood lords are useless vs this. Infesters a bit better but not enough. EVERY single zerg ground unit just evaporates to 10 +3 archons. Instantly. Right now I don't know if the zergs don't know the proper macro response to this, or if there's a way to beat this 200/200 army.
So i have a question about the build order since i only got to try this once or twice against zerg, since i keep getting matched up against protoss.
On certain maps like Shakuras. wouldnt the build seem to flow easier from the currently known forge fast expand to the stargate?
Or when you do expand down at your natural. why dont you get the forge then as part of your wall?
This would in my opinion help against the potential of burrowed roach timings as you would automatically have cannons up. also helping greatly against any pushes the zerg can do. you would be sacrificing a few zealots and you could potentially get your +1 attack sooner. (This is kind of a mention from kcdc comment of "Another note is that you really don't use your gates AT ALL early on")
On October 03 2011 21:22 kcdc wrote: Q: Since (1) a good Z will usually scout the stargate early anyway with an OL sac, (2) you don't really use your gates much, and (3) this part of the build is really short on minerals, have you thought about putting your stargate up front as part of your wall and staying on 2 gates a little longer? I believe it's the minerals that slow down your wall-off and that you have 150 extra gas at this point, and by using the stargate up front, you'd speed up your void ray (which is the key to your defense) by 300 minerals. It could also speed up your phoenix scout and eventually your mothership.
The downsides would be that it would be immediately scouted every game, and it would be the first building killed if Z is ever capable of killing your wall.
Something to say about immediate scouting, and maybe I'm missing something in my terrid zerg play, but warpgates and stargates look exactly the same while warping in, so you'll probably have that window of time for a while because 99% of zergs will assume gateway when they see you drop a gateway sized building as part of your wall-off. I know I've never seen someone use a stargate as a wall.
On October 04 2011 02:31 UltiBahamut wrote: So i have a question about the build order since i only got to try this once or twice against zerg, since i keep getting matched up against protoss.
On certain maps like Shakuras. wouldnt the build seem to flow easier from the currently known forge fast expand to the stargate?
Or when you do expand down at your natural. why dont you get the forge then as part of your wall?
This would in my opinion help against the potential of burrowed roach timings as you would automatically have cannons up. also helping greatly against any pushes the zerg can do. you would be sacrificing a few zealots and you could potentially get your +1 attack sooner. (This is kind of a mention from kcdc comment of "Another note is that you really don't use your gates AT ALL early on")
If you are doing a forge expansion (no matter how you transition), you are supposed to immediately lose the game on most maps, especially on shakuras plateau and some nerazim crypt spawn locations due to the easily accessible third base. The zerg will immediately grab a 3rd, make only drones and faceroll your forge expanding ass as if you don't belong in the fucking game. Doing a forge expands forces you to rely on gimmicky play, as it puts you in an absolutely unwinnable situation. I am absolutely baffled by the fact that so many players (especially high level pro koreans) go forge expand. It is the absolute worst build you can do.
If you still want to do a forge expansion, I would recommend doing a DT/blink-oriented build with a fast 3rd.
On October 03 2011 21:22 kcdc wrote: Q: Since (1) a good Z will usually scout the stargate early anyway with an OL sac, (2) you don't really use your gates much, and (3) this part of the build is really short on minerals, have you thought about putting your stargate up front as part of your wall and staying on 2 gates a little longer? I believe it's the minerals that slow down your wall-off and that you have 150 extra gas at this point, and by using the stargate up front, you'd speed up your void ray (which is the key to your defense) by 300 minerals. It could also speed up your phoenix scout and eventually your mothership.
The downsides would be that it would be immediately scouted every game, and it would be the first building killed if Z is ever capable of killing your wall.
Something to say about immediate scouting, and maybe I'm missing something in my terrid zerg play, but warpgates and stargates look exactly the same while warping in, so you'll probably have that window of time for a while because 99% of zergs will assume gateway when they see you drop a gateway sized building as part of your wall-off. I know I've never seen someone use a stargate as a wall.
The HP bar of stargates is slightly higher compared to the gateway's HP bar. Someone who always has these on will immediately notice a difference, and everyone I meet in ladder clicks buildings anyway out of habit.
On October 03 2011 21:22 kcdc wrote: Q: Since (1) a good Z will usually scout the stargate early anyway with an OL sac, (2) you don't really use your gates much, and (3) this part of the build is really short on minerals, have you thought about putting your stargate up front as part of your wall and staying on 2 gates a little longer? I believe it's the minerals that slow down your wall-off and that you have 150 extra gas at this point, and by using the stargate up front, you'd speed up your void ray (which is the key to your defense) by 300 minerals. It could also speed up your phoenix scout and eventually your mothership.
The downsides would be that it would be immediately scouted every game, and it would be the first building killed if Z is ever capable of killing your wall.
Something to say about immediate scouting, and maybe I'm missing something in my terrid zerg play, but warpgates and stargates look exactly the same while warping in, so you'll probably have that window of time for a while because 99% of zergs will assume gateway when they see you drop a gateway sized building as part of your wall-off. I know I've never seen someone use a stargate as a wall.
The HP bar of stargates is slightly higher compared to the gateway's HP bar. Someone who always has these on will immediately notice a difference, and everyone I meet in ladder clicks buildings anyway out of habit.
Well, you're playing in GM league, and I'm not, lol. I know I forget to check often, and have been surprised by fast robos and such fairly often. I know watching zerg streams, I rarely see them physically check everything warping in.
I was doing this back in December 2010 with a minor change. Instead of getting blink I just go strait for dts, and then get a mother ship. Everybody laughed at me, and said it would never work, but it seems I was a visionary now.
In my low level master games this has been working extremely well the past day or two even though I play horrendously because Im so unused to the style, thank you very much for this fun strat :D
On October 03 2011 21:22 kcdc wrote: Q: Since (1) a good Z will usually scout the stargate early anyway with an OL sac, (2) you don't really use your gates much, and (3) this part of the build is really short on minerals, have you thought about putting your stargate up front as part of your wall and staying on 2 gates a little longer? I believe it's the minerals that slow down your wall-off and that you have 150 extra gas at this point, and by using the stargate up front, you'd speed up your void ray (which is the key to your defense) by 300 minerals. It could also speed up your phoenix scout and eventually your mothership.
The downsides would be that it would be immediately scouted every game, and it would be the first building killed if Z is ever capable of killing your wall.
Something to say about immediate scouting, and maybe I'm missing something in my terrid zerg play, but warpgates and stargates look exactly the same while warping in, so you'll probably have that window of time for a while because 99% of zergs will assume gateway when they see you drop a gateway sized building as part of your wall-off. I know I've never seen someone use a stargate as a wall.
The HP bar of stargates is slightly higher compared to the gateway's HP bar. Someone who always has these on will immediately notice a difference, and everyone I meet in ladder clicks buildings anyway out of habit.
Well, you're playing in GM league, and I'm not, lol. I know I forget to check often, and have been surprised by fast robos and such fairly often. I know watching zerg streams, I rarely see them physically check everything warping in.
I suspect that for a while, a lot of Z players would just assume it's a gateway or forge until it warps in, but if it turns out that walling off with a stargate is a good, stable build, it will become popular, and then every Z will make sure they know what's warping in. You want to plan your build around what your opponent can do if they play well, and clicking a building is free information. The question is whether giving that information away pays off for the P player who saves 150 minerals on their wall.
Tried it out vs a GM zerg and he GOT SLAMT (should give u a hint of who I played). It was my first time trying out the build and I did it a bit differently from HUARGH. Feels like with some timing refinements it will be real good. I think by nature this build allows you to take a pretty fast 3rd unless the Zerg is being hyper aggressive or dissects the build pretty well, but your mothership should be out by the time your 3rd finishes anyway so it will be pretty easy to defend.
On October 04 2011 04:45 Whiplash wrote: Tried it out vs a GM zerg and he GOT SLAMT (should give u a hint of who I played). It was my first time trying out the build and I did it a bit differently from HUARGH. Feels like with some timing refinements it will be real good. I think by nature this build allows you to take a pretty fast 3rd unless the Zerg is being hyper aggressive or dissects the build pretty well, but your mothership should be out by the time your 3rd finishes anyway so it will be pretty easy to defend.
I have a few things to say : - Thank you for the guide, it's just not only useful, it helps understand the match up. So just for that, thank you OP! - I fail to see how a mothership is such a great defensive unit Could you please develop? You do overseer sniping while at your base? It's unkillable because it's big? (but so are carriers during mid game) Because there's just a very big timing window where the protoss is weaker right? (during the construction of the mothership)
I'm freaking out, your line of thinking and the way you express yourself is exactly the way I do. Flippy stuff. I love the build btw, revolutionary. At least at our sub-Korean level.
On October 03 2011 21:22 kcdc wrote: Q: Since (1) a good Z will usually scout the stargate early anyway with an OL sac, (2) you don't really use your gates much, and (3) this part of the build is really short on minerals, have you thought about putting your stargate up front as part of your wall and staying on 2 gates a little longer? I believe it's the minerals that slow down your wall-off and that you have 150 extra gas at this point, and by using the stargate up front, you'd speed up your void ray (which is the key to your defense) by 300 minerals. It could also speed up your phoenix scout and eventually your mothership.
The downsides would be that it would be immediately scouted every game, and it would be the first building killed if Z is ever capable of killing your wall.
Something to say about immediate scouting, and maybe I'm missing something in my terrid zerg play, but warpgates and stargates look exactly the same while warping in, so you'll probably have that window of time for a while because 99% of zergs will assume gateway when they see you drop a gateway sized building as part of your wall-off. I know I've never seen someone use a stargate as a wall.
The HP bar of stargates is slightly higher compared to the gateway's HP bar. Someone who always has these on will immediately notice a difference, and everyone I meet in ladder clicks buildings anyway out of habit.
Well, you're playing in GM league, and I'm not, lol. I know I forget to check often, and have been surprised by fast robos and such fairly often. I know watching zerg streams, I rarely see them physically check everything warping in.
I suspect that for a while, a lot of Z players would just assume it's a gateway or forge until it warps in, but if it turns out that walling off with a stargate is a good, stable build, it will become popular, and then every Z will make sure they know what's warping in. You want to plan your build around what your opponent can do if they play well, and clicking a building is free information. The question is whether giving that information away pays off for the P player who saves 150 minerals on their wall.
The shadow from the Stargate is different I think. It maybe just the hp bar but I can usually tell if my opponent is making a Stargate or Gate/Robo from the look of the warp-in in PvP.
On October 04 2011 05:07 BDubs wrote: Does anyone have a replay of this build that deals with mutas? My apm isn't that good so dealing with the mutas proved to be a huge hassle.
Try a 2 base timing attack and just cannon up a lot so he can't base race you, a few archons and a mothership means if he flies close enough to your army and you vortex him then hes finished.
On October 04 2011 05:07 BDubs wrote: Does anyone have a replay of this build that deals with mutas? My apm isn't that good so dealing with the mutas proved to be a huge hassle.
Try a 2 base timing attack and just cannon up a lot so he can't base race you, a few archons and a mothership means if he flies close enough to your army and you vortex him then hes finished.
What patch are you playing in bro?
Glad to see builds including the mothership, really makes you wonder how much of this game we've actually figured out.
This build is awesome! I maxed out at the 17min mark and he couldnt do anything to me! :D I'm a high masters zerg and i've been having tons of trouble vs zergs but this build is crazy! And fun too
P.S. zerg raged about imbalance like crazy after this game
On October 04 2011 05:45 RagePandas2 wrote: This build is awesome! I maxed out at the 17min mark and he couldnt do anything to me! :D I'm a high masters zerg and i've been having tons of trouble vs zergs but this build is crazy! And fun too
P.S. zerg raged about imbalance like crazy after this game
I don't even know if I'm allowed to criticize masters players but... I watched the game against Xaenor. In the time that your mothership is building... your opponent can do two things:
1 - Double expand. 2- Go absolutely all in and kill you.
You would have to build literally... 6+ cannons to hold a huge all in from what I saw in the game vs Xaenor. He had 2k mins floating, and probably around 30 idle larvae, he never droned up his third... I don't even know what that was...
You basically do a 3 gate expand into 5 minutes of no pressure. Your VR/phoenix cannot deny a third off of 1 SG. what if they go 3 base muta? Your mothership cannot keep up with 20 mutas swinging around back and forth from your just started third - main - natural. Which means even more cannons, meaning less units. I'm sorry, but from what I've seen in both Plexa's reps and yours, I cannot see this working against any good Zerg. I'm in freaking Platinum league and I've never floated 2k mins, build 10 roaches for no reason, suicide them all.... I don't even know what Xeanor was doing. I think motherships should always be used late game, but trying to sneak them in early game is just suicidal... You said you were sick of "Well I hope he doesn't scout what I'm doing builds" but that's exactly what this is! You even try to sneak in a hidden fast third but you admit that if it gets scouted you have to cancel.
I'm just confused. How could this have a 90% win rate? Are masters zergs really that bad?
On October 04 2011 05:53 Flonomenalz wrote: what the...
I don't even know if I'm allowed to criticize grandmasters players but... I watched the game against Xaenor. In the time that your mothership is building... your opponent can do two things:
1 - Double expand. 2- Go absolutely all in and kill you.
You would have to build literally... 6+ cannons to hold a huge all in from what I saw in the game vs Xaenor. He had 2k mins floating, and probably around 30 idle larvae, he never droned up his third... I don't even know what that was...
You basically do a 3 gate expand into 5 minutes of no pressure. Your VR/phoenix cannot deny a third off of 1 SG. what if they go 3 base muta? Your mothership cannot keep up with 20 mutas swinging around back and forth from your just started third - main - natural. Which means even more cannons, meaning less units. I'm sorry, but from what I've seen in both Plexa's reps and yours, I cannot see this working against any good Zerg. I'm in freaking Platinum league and I've never floated 2k mins, build 10 roaches for no reason, suicide them all.... I don't even know what Xeanor was doing. I think motherships should always be used late game, but trying to sneak them in early game is just suicidal... You said you were sick of "Well I hope he doesn't scout what I'm doing builds" but that's exactly what this is! You even try to sneak in a hidden fast third but you admit that if it gets scouted you have to cancel.
I'm just confused. How could this have a 90% win rate? Are masters zergs really that bad?
If you are on the EU server, I would gladly play you.
On October 04 2011 05:53 Flonomenalz wrote: what the...
I don't even know if I'm allowed to criticize grandmasters players but... I watched the game against Xaenor. In the time that your mothership is building... your opponent can do two things:
1 - Double expand. 2- Go absolutely all in and kill you.
You would have to build literally... 6+ cannons to hold a huge all in from what I saw in the game vs Xaenor. He had 2k mins floating, and probably around 30 idle larvae, he never droned up his third... I don't even know what that was...
You basically do a 3 gate expand into 5 minutes of no pressure. Your VR/phoenix cannot deny a third off of 1 SG. what if they go 3 base muta? Your mothership cannot keep up with 20 mutas swinging around back and forth from your just started third - main - natural. Which means even more cannons, meaning less units. I'm sorry, but from what I've seen in both Plexa's reps and yours, I cannot see this working against any good Zerg. I'm in freaking Platinum league and I've never floated 2k mins, build 10 roaches for no reason, suicide them all.... I don't even know what Xeanor was doing. I think motherships should always be used late game, but trying to sneak them in early game is just suicidal... You said you were sick of "Well I hope he doesn't scout what I'm doing builds" but that's exactly what this is! You even try to sneak in a hidden fast third but you admit that if it gets scouted you have to cancel.
I'm just confused. How could this have a 90% win rate? Are masters zergs really that bad?
If you are on the EU server, I would gladly play you.
Unfortunately I'm on NA, I'd love to be wrong about what I've seen. The thing is though, I would know exactly what was coming and all your timings so that would be kind of weird. I'd actually hope for you to beat me because it seems really cool (motherships are always awesome), but I just don't think it's viable.
A replay vs me and Gerbil (very good NA zerg!) he knows its coming. I'm convinced this is a solid build and playstyle, I didn't even execute the build as well as I could have and so much promise shows.
Edit: I also believe that there is a timing toss can do while taking their 4th when they max out (it should be before hive tech) where they can simply run over the zerg.
On October 04 2011 05:53 Flonomenalz wrote: what the...
I don't even know if I'm allowed to criticize grandmasters players but... I watched the game against Xaenor. In the time that your mothership is building... your opponent can do two things:
1 - Double expand. 2- Go absolutely all in and kill you.
You would have to build literally... 6+ cannons to hold a huge all in from what I saw in the game vs Xaenor. He had 2k mins floating, and probably around 30 idle larvae, he never droned up his third... I don't even know what that was...
You basically do a 3 gate expand into 5 minutes of no pressure. Your VR/phoenix cannot deny a third off of 1 SG. what if they go 3 base muta? Your mothership cannot keep up with 20 mutas swinging around back and forth from your just started third - main - natural. Which means even more cannons, meaning less units. I'm sorry, but from what I've seen in both Plexa's reps and yours, I cannot see this working against any good Zerg. I'm in freaking Platinum league and I've never floated 2k mins, build 10 roaches for no reason, suicide them all.... I don't even know what Xeanor was doing. I think motherships should always be used late game, but trying to sneak them in early game is just suicidal... You said you were sick of "Well I hope he doesn't scout what I'm doing builds" but that's exactly what this is! You even try to sneak in a hidden fast third but you admit that if it gets scouted you have to cancel.
I'm just confused. How could this have a 90% win rate? Are masters zergs really that bad?
If you are on the EU server, I would gladly play you.
Unfortunately I'm on NA, I'd love to be wrong about what I've seen. The thing is though, I would know exactly what was coming and all your timings so that would be kind of weird. I'd actually hope for you to beat me because it seems really cool (motherships are always awesome), but I just don't think it's viable.
im on NA server and id like to play you with the early mothership build. we can do antiga or taldar arim or whatever map doesnt matter
actually my early mothership build is alot different. i do a 2gate expand with heavy scouting and if i scout roaches or a allin coming i get cannons asap, then off the 2gate expand i get a fast mothership and do 6gate pressure with mothership. its different from this dudes build and i think its a bit superior but
On October 04 2011 05:07 BDubs wrote: Does anyone have a replay of this build that deals with mutas? My apm isn't that good so dealing with the mutas proved to be a huge hassle.
Try a 2 base timing attack and just cannon up a lot so he can't base race you, a few archons and a mothership means if he flies close enough to your army and you vortex him then hes finished.
What patch are you playing in bro?
Air units still stack a lot, even after the vortex change. If you watch my replay, I vortexed around 10-12 corruptors and only a few were alive when all was done. For mutas it is the same, a few will survive but the majority will be dead. For BLs, ALL OF THEM DIE because of how slow they spread out after the vortex. Not to mention, zealots and archons will demolish the ranged ground units because they are all clumped up due to the nature of the vortex.
On October 04 2011 05:06 fezvez wrote:
- I fail to see how a mothership is such a great defensive unit Could you please develop? You do overseer sniping while at your base? It's unkillable because it's big? (but so are carriers during mid game) Because there's just a very big timing window where the protoss is weaker right? (during the construction of the mothership)
Firstly, you can half their army by vortexing it, which makes what is technically a better army more manageable to deal with. Secondly, if you vortex their overseer(s) (which is easy, especially if they a-move it with the rest of their army) they are in the dark. Thirdly, even if they keep their overseer out of the vortex, it can't come close enough to decloak everything or you can easily snipe it with stalkers or archons, so at best he can only see part of your army, and at worst, he is in the dark. Plus if you park your mothership over your third, he can't attack it without taking a large risk. Either he has to have enough detection(multiple overseers) to deal with the cloaking, or enough hydras/corruptors to brute force your mothership down while having enough units to deal with your army after sustaining heavy losses from dealing a mothership and a cloaked army. At the time when you are taking your third, it would be nigh impossible for the zerg to have enough anti-air that early in the game, unless he is blind countering you. Basically, what I'm saying is that they can't engage you on your terms while you are taking your third because of the abilities of the mothership. Hence why it is a fantastic defensive (and offensive) unit.
The mothership comes out just after all of the roach/ling all in timings but before hydra/roach play really starts up (Roughly 11 minutes into the game +/- 30 seconds. This build isn't refined yet). However, you will be basically safe from roach/ling all-ins because you have sentries, zealots and a voidray to deal with the attack along with a solid simcity from the 2 gateways you build in front of your nexus. In build-order testing I personally have been experimenting with going stargate before the 2 gates that wall-off for this exact reason (a quicker voidray to deal with the roaches since zealot/sentry is subpar against roaches). I haven't fully figured out the effects but it doesn't seem like a huge difference either way. If they ling pressure with a few lings that stop a wall from being built, I like to throw down the stargate first so I can counter pressure with a faster voidray (see my replay even though I botched it by underestimating the number of hydras out, the idea is there. My execution just sucks).
I was pondering this build a lot while working on math today, and I definitely see the potential for it to be a solid opening in ZvP that can finally solve the issue I, and many other Protosses, have beening struggling with, which is getting a faster third while still being safe from goofy all-ins.
A replay vs me and Gerbil (very good NA zerg!) he knows its coming. I'm convinced this is a solid build and playstyle, I didn't even execute the build as well as I could have and so much promise shows.
Edit: I also believe that there is a timing toss can do while taking their 4th when they max out (it should be before hive tech) where they can simply run over the zerg.
Hey, I watched the replay and I have some insights on why it wasn't as onesided as it, in my opinion, should have been.
You won the first fight convincingly because you met the 'expected number of archons' (you only used gas on a robo and an observer). However, after that you started to kind of freestyle it up and went into 'standard' PvZ lategame. You spent your gas on a dark shrine, dark templars (to harass, not to transform into archons), air weapons, carriers, graviton catapult, blink research, warp prism speed, additional stargates, ...,
I did some counting (as in I actually counted, I didn't take a glance and estimated how many gas you used) and, although I may have missed something, you had used at least 2875 gas on non-archon/mothership things. This roughly equals 10 archons. In the second fight, you did not meet the expected number of archons and your army was defeated.
I personally think that it is better if you only dump all of your gas into archons. All your harass is a good example of nice play, but I think that with this build and unit composition, it is much better to only warp in zealots (not DTs) if you want to harass, and just make 100.00% sure that your 200/200 will absolutely annihilate his 200/200. Rather then making the fight indirectly in your favor (by doing warp prism harass, base sniping, etc.), you could also make it directly in your favor by simply having much more archons. What do you think?
A replay vs me and Gerbil (very good NA zerg!) he knows its coming. I'm convinced this is a solid build and playstyle, I didn't even execute the build as well as I could have and so much promise shows.
Edit: I also believe that there is a timing toss can do while taking their 4th when they max out (it should be before hive tech) where they can simply run over the zerg.
Hey, I watched the replay and I have some insights on why it wasn't as onesided as it, in my opinion, should have been.
You won the first fight convincingly because you met the 'expected number of archons' (you only used gas on a robo and an observer). However, after that you started to kind of freestyle it up and went into 'standard' PvZ lategame. You spent your gas on a dark shrine, dark templars (to harass, not to transform into archons), air weapons, carriers, graviton catapult, blink research, warp prism speed, additional stargates, ...,
I did some counting (as in I actually counted, I didn't take a glance and estimated how many gas you used) and, although I may have missed something, you had used at least 2875 gas on non-archon/mothership things. This roughly equals 10 archons. In the second fight, you did not meet the expected number of archons and your army was defeated.
I personally think that it is better if you only dump all of your gas into archons. All your harass is a good example of nice play, but I think that with this build and unit composition, it is much better to only warp in zealots (not DTs) if you want to harass, and just make 100.00% sure that your 200/200 will absolutely annihilate his 200/200. Rather then making the fight indirectly in your favor (by doing warp prism harass, base sniping, etc.), you could also make it directly in your favor by simply having much more archons. What do you think?
True for sure, I just felt like it wasn't necessary to focus on getting even more archons, but I do agree that having a proper 200/200 deathball is important. I've played multiple other games and I've come to the conclusion that late game u can basically go into whatever style you want as long as it can handle what the zerg will produce. A good zerg will get roach/infestor/broodlord and I think if you add in storm and stalkers to your army composition then you'll be set, but mass archons would work just as good as long as they all get into the toilet.
The power of this build is not necessarily vortex (although it plays a key role), but the fact that the mothership allows an easy 3rd and 4th base which the zerg cannot punish.
A replay vs me and Gerbil (very good NA zerg!) he knows its coming. I'm convinced this is a solid build and playstyle, I didn't even execute the build as well as I could have and so much promise shows.
Edit: I also believe that there is a timing toss can do while taking their 4th when they max out (it should be before hive tech) where they can simply run over the zerg.
Hey, I watched the replay and I have some insights on why it wasn't as onesided as it, in my opinion, should have been.
You won the first fight convincingly because you met the 'expected number of archons' (you only used gas on a robo and an observer). However, after that you started to kind of freestyle it up and went into 'standard' PvZ lategame. You spent your gas on a dark shrine, dark templars (to harass, not to transform into archons), air weapons, carriers, graviton catapult, blink research, warp prism speed, additional stargates, ...,
I did some counting (as in I actually counted, I didn't take a glance and estimated how many gas you used) and, although I may have missed something, you had used at least 2875 gas on non-archon/mothership things. This roughly equals 10 archons. In the second fight, you did not meet the expected number of archons and your army was defeated.
I personally think that it is better if you only dump all of your gas into archons. All your harass is a good example of nice play, but I think that with this build and unit composition, it is much better to only warp in zealots (not DTs) if you want to harass, and just make 100.00% sure that your 200/200 will absolutely annihilate his 200/200. Rather then making the fight indirectly in your favor (by doing warp prism harass, base sniping, etc.), you could also make it directly in your favor by simply having much more archons. What do you think?
True for sure, I just felt like it wasn't necessary to focus on getting even more archons, but I do agree that having a proper 200/200 deathball is important. I've played multiple other games and I've come to the conclusion that late game u can basically go into whatever style you want as long as it can handle what the zerg will produce. A good zerg will get roach/infestor/broodlord and I think if you add in storm and stalkers to your army composition then you'll be set, but mass archons would work just as good as long as they all get into the toilet.
The power of this build is not necessarily vortex (although it plays a key role), but the fact that the mothership allows an easy 3rd and 4th base which the zerg cannot punish.
The bold part is very important and I'm happy you realize that. This was my first goal with this build, but then I figured out that the zealot/archon composition, combined with the mothership, absolutely facerolls.
In your replay, the zerg had 5k+ minerals and a 4-figure amount of gas as well while your harass was going on. It was very long-term focused, but I would much rather focus on the next 200/200 vs. 200/200. The harass did no direct damage to his army composition, it would only come into play later in that specific game you provided. I can't help but think of the second battle with 10 more archons in the mix, not trying to be bossy or anything, just my insights I'm happy you are experimenting with it.
On October 04 2011 07:01 Whiplash wrote: The power of this build is not necessarily vortex (although it plays a key role), but the fact that the mothership allows an easy 3rd and 4th base which the zerg cannot punish.
This is basically what I tried to say but more precisely and less long-winded. The vortex is great but not the key to this build. For the zerg to threaten your third or fourth they HAVE TO commit with either tons of detection that they know will likely die. Anything less than full commitment to taking out the third will lose them the game because to threaten the third they MUST deal with the mothership, which they simply cannot do cost efficiently, especially with the threat of AoE from the archons and the sheer dps of zealots. However, if they don't pressure they are in a tough spot anyway because now they have to face a Protoss on 3-4 bases that will likely either be matching them in upgrades or at better upgrades, and have the vast majority of their tech-tree open to them (A DT harrass transition for example is easily opened, or a robo switch to colossi or immortals, which is much more accessible and easy to stomach on 3-4 bases, than on two where you simply can't afford it). If they try going infestor ling you already have the tech and upgrades to deal with it easily. This is why I like the idea of this build so much. It is a safe build for Protoss, something that hasn't been around for months.
On October 02 2011 13:05 BuddhaMonk wrote: Which nexus do you normally make your mothership at?
Would this really matter? If so how?
I mean, he is going to be on 2 bases and he is using it to get his 3rd so it would be made from his natural? =/
I would build it at the main in the event he manages to scout near your natural and see it building(though it won't make a huge difference. There's nothing he can do that early) If you have been doing a good job with your voidray or phoenix, he will not have any scout overlords available to spot it building in your main. Unless he sees the fleet beacon (again, he won't if you are being attentive with phoenix/voidrays), he won't know if it is just a standard FE stargate build or a mothership play until after the mothership is out, and any opportunity to deny information (and thus, delay a reaction) is worth it in the long run, especially against a reaction-based race like Zerg.
I've been going over the build and the replays and as a Zerg player I can't really come up with any solid timings, maybe a 2 base nydus hydra all in, or certain early roach burrow timings might work since you skip on detection yourself for so long, but other than those all ins I'm not really sure how I would react, you kill overlords near the base before I could scout mothership and those all ins lose pretty hard to robo openings so it feels like a coin flip.
If you let toss do this build and they get on 4 bases unmolested there is nothing you can do, especially since it already includes a mothership which is amazingly overpowered late game, I am very suprised more protoss haven't started using it before now.
So my thinking is I might be able to macro up to 80-90 drones on 4-5 base and make 20 or so corruptors to snipe the mothership + any collosus void ray or phoenix while mass spining behind it then morphing the leftover corruptors into broodlords with infestors and lings or banes to back it up and try to hit a good timing before another 100 energy mothership is out. It feels really icky though even to think about being in that kind of situation vs toss, especially one that is using late game prisms and dt harass which are very hard to deal with while counter harassing since cannons are so much better vs lings than spines are vs zealots.
A brilliant idea. Not only are motherships awesome, they also are extremely underused, primarily due to the easy counters. A build like this removes easy counters from the equation, turning what equates to a gg from a protoss to a fair game. Plus, people tend to underestimate mass recall, archon toilet and what the cloaking field means for any major engagement. However, I am not convinced of this build's effectiveness in a tournament environment, where there are extremely high level players who also know what you favor. Zerg is a reactive race that can have its scouting easily denied. Thus, playing stupid against Zerg can actually work, unless of course they know you and expect you to do this. I remain cautiously optimistic about the build's effectiveness though.
On October 04 2011 05:53 Flonomenalz wrote: what the...
I don't even know if I'm allowed to criticize masters players but... I watched the game against Xaenor. In the time that your mothership is building... your opponent can do two things:
1 - Double expand. 2- Go absolutely all in and kill you.
You would have to build literally... 6+ cannons to hold a huge all in from what I saw in the game vs Xaenor. He had 2k mins floating, and probably around 30 idle larvae, he never droned up his third... I don't even know what that was...
You basically do a 3 gate expand into 5 minutes of no pressure. Your VR/phoenix cannot deny a third off of 1 SG. what if they go 3 base muta? Your mothership cannot keep up with 20 mutas swinging around back and forth from your just started third - main - natural. Which means even more cannons, meaning less units. I'm sorry, but from what I've seen in both Plexa's reps and yours, I cannot see this working against any good Zerg. I'm in freaking Platinum league and I've never floated 2k mins, build 10 roaches for no reason, suicide them all.... I don't even know what Xeanor was doing. I think motherships should always be used late game, but trying to sneak them in early game is just suicidal... You said you were sick of "Well I hope he doesn't scout what I'm doing builds" but that's exactly what this is! You even try to sneak in a hidden fast third but you admit that if it gets scouted you have to cancel.
I'm just confused. How could this have a 90% win rate? Are masters zergs really that bad?
The main point of the void/pheonix is to force aa (besides being safe from roach ling) - if the zerg does not have creep spread to the 3rd you can usually put on a ton of pressure, or even kill it. At that point in the game zerg pretty much only has queens for mobile AA.
Also, the pheonix lets you pretty much get a 100% scout of your opponents base - he starts going all in you can make the cannons
yep, mothership is good. Zerg hasn't really found a way to deal with them yet. You just can't attack into a mothership. Zergs have been saying this for a long time but no one listened :/
The Protoss Death ball: now comes with 50% more death!
Hello, I'm new here. Saw your thread and is interested to reply. Is this viable against zerg player who goes Muta harrass? Most my opponent saw my voidray/ phoenix they just go muta.
On October 04 2011 17:30 Drewand wrote: Hello, I'm new here. Saw your thread and is interested to reply. Is this viable against zerg player who goes Muta harrass? Most my opponent saw my voidray/ phoenix they just go muta.
Also have you try this vs terran & protoss ?
When I do this build I always go stargate really fast after a FFE or a 2gate FE with putting a stargate down asap. You should be harassing/scouting enough to see him going for mutas, Once you know mutas are coming get cannons and stalkers with blink everywhere and still get your Mothership and push out with blink and a mothership.
Btw when attacking the zerg base with a 200/200 ball, would you eat around his mining bases or just head straight to his main? Sorry if this a game sense question as I have not developed it. ><! Also...know what would be cool...we see Killer do a manly mothership build for one of his matches vs Coca. XD
On October 04 2011 13:37 RagePandas2 wrote: At the OP, you would go for high templar right? or would you go DTs to do some harass and delay some bases?(for archons i mean)
Harassing, aside from your early void/phoenix, is unnecessary and may weaken your build due to pumping gas into something that does not directly strengthen your 200/200. I use templars for archons.
On October 04 2011 17:30 Drewand wrote: Hello, I'm new here. Saw your thread and is interested to reply. Is this viable against zerg player who goes Muta harrass? Most my opponent saw my voidray/ phoenix they just go muta.
Also have you try this vs terran & protoss ?
Yes, this is viable against muta harass, read the spoiler against muta harass.
This does not work against terran due to ghost EMP and viking range. The unit composition could be effective against Protoss, but you do not have a timing window (that I know of) where you can tech to a mothership without immediately dying.
On October 04 2011 19:04 d00fuz wrote: Btw when attacking the zerg base with a 200/200 ball, would you eat around his mining bases or just head straight to his main? Sorry if this a game sense question as I have not developed it. ><! Also...know what would be cool...we see Killer do a manly mothership build for one of his matches vs Coca. XD
In most circumstances you will want to go to his 'economy', which will be his 3rd base most of the time. Economy usually gets priority over tech.
High masters, Top 200 in the past. Two attempts, two wins. This feels a million times stronger than anything else I've done in PvZ. This is going to give Z a whine-fest like they haven't had since Idra and Artosis posted that video about colossus (particularly with void ray) being OP.
You know, I'm only plat, but I tried this out and surprisingly even with my shoddy execution it worked. I think I'm gonna practise this as my go-to PvZ build.
On October 04 2011 21:47 kcdc wrote: High masters, Top 200 in the past. Two attempts, two wins. This feels a million times stronger than anything else I've done in PvZ. This is going to give Z a whine-fest like they haven't had since Idra and Artosis posted that video about colossus (particularly with void ray) being OP.
I've won every PvZ (3 or 4?)so far with this. In platinum right now.
Funnily enough, every time I poke and scout with the first two voids + phoenix, they go spire (or were going spire?) and chase out my voids with corrupters.
One addition I could see for this build for late game: Have a robo and a couple of warp prisms available as you push out with your first push. As you engage in the middle of the map, start warping your reinforcements AT HIS MINERAL LINES. This allows you to tailor your unit comp a lot easier. Since you're spending your minerals in units that are already harassing (and are probably going to die) it allows your actual remax to be much more gas heavy while at the same time, denying your opponent his gas.
On October 04 2011 21:47 kcdc wrote: High masters, Top 200 in the past. Two attempts, two wins. This feels a million times stronger than anything else I've done in PvZ. This is going to give Z a whine-fest like they haven't had since Idra and Artosis posted that video about colossus (particularly with void ray) being OP.
Could you post the replays?
I can post them, but I'll have better replays soon I'm sure. The first was a mothership crushing a 2 base hydra-all in hilarious fashion, and the second was a good macro game, but I botched the opening pretty badly when my probe elected to ignore my command to build the 26/26 pylon and I sat supply blocked for way too long expecting it to finish. I'll upload them when I get home.
I do think that walling with the SG is a good choice tho. I'd like to be able to safely take my third as early as possible, so I'm going to play around with how quickly you can get a mothership. It popped at 11:30 in my game where I botched the opening, and I did far too little chronoboosting. I'd imagine I could shave significant time off that with some refinement. 10:15-10:30 might be a good goal?
11:15 was where it popped for the OP in his latest replay. If you delayed the second void/phoenix, I could see it coming out a little earlier. But you'd be more susceptible to early game aggro as getting the additional void ray really helps vs early roach/ling pressure...
The funniest part about this is how many zergs will just ask u... "what can I do?" this is really flexible too... Like the 5 zealot +1 rush into fast stargate and from there playing like you in the mid and late game has worked out great for me.
EDIT: also I bet we will see this analyzed by mr day "J" 9 in the near future
On October 05 2011 08:45 leveller wrote: The funniest part about this is how many zergs will just ask u... "what can I do?" this is really flexible too... Like the 5 zealot +1 rush into fast stargate and from there playing like you in the mid and late game has worked out great for me.
EDIT: also I bet we will see this analyzed by mr day "J" 9 in the near future
- I fail to see how a mothership is such a great defensive unit Could you please develop? You do overseer sniping while at your base? It's unkillable because it's big? (but so are carriers during mid game) Because there's just a very big timing window where the protoss is weaker right? (during the construction of the mothership)
Firstly, you can half their army by vortexing it, which makes what is technically a better army more manageable to deal with. Secondly, if you vortex their overseer(s) (which is easy, especially if they a-move it with the rest of their army) they are in the dark. Thirdly, even if they keep their overseer out of the vortex, it can't come close enough to decloak everything or you can easily snipe it with stalkers or archons, so at best he can only see part of your army, and at worst, he is in the dark. Plus if you park your mothership over your third, he can't attack it without taking a large risk. Either he has to have enough detection(multiple overseers) to deal with the cloaking, or enough hydras/corruptors to brute force your mothership down while having enough units to deal with your army after sustaining heavy losses from dealing a mothership and a cloaked army. At the time when you are taking your third, it would be nigh impossible for the zerg to have enough anti-air that early in the game, unless he is blind countering you. Basically, what I'm saying is that they can't engage you on your terms while you are taking your third because of the abilities of the mothership. Hence why it is a fantastic defensive (and offensive) unit.
The mothership comes out just after all of the roach/ling all in timings but before hydra/roach play really starts up (Roughly 11 minutes into the game +/- 30 seconds. This build isn't refined yet). However, you will be basically safe from roach/ling all-ins because you have sentries, zealots and a voidray to deal with the attack along with a solid simcity from the 2 gateways you build in front of your nexus. In build-order testing I personally have been experimenting with going stargate before the 2 gates that wall-off for this exact reason (a quicker voidray to deal with the roaches since zealot/sentry is subpar against roaches). I haven't fully figured out the effects but it doesn't seem like a huge difference either way. If they ling pressure with a few lings that stop a wall from being built, I like to throw down the stargate first so I can counter pressure with a faster voidray (see my replay even though I botched it by underestimating the number of hydras out, the idea is there. My execution just sucks).
I was pondering this build a lot while working on math today, and I definitely see the potential for it to be a solid opening in ZvP that can finally solve the issue I, and many other Protosses, have beening struggling with, which is getting a faster third while still being safe from goofy all-ins.
Thank you dear sir! Your post cleared a lot of unasked questions I had (including timing stuff). Well, I guess I'm off to play a bit of PvZ soon!
I'm really wondering why exactly this is so safe against something silly like fast hydra pushes? I understand that air/map control give you air control and you are, to an extent, safe from allins, but 9-10 minute third? So greedy. The mothership dps is quite bad, and overseers negate the other benefit to it, unless this is meant to be something gimmicky like snipe OS so your army is cloaked?
To be fair, I've tried this on ladder about 6 times today at 1200 masters, I lost all but like 2 of them, and one of those was an epic comeback which made me continue to try the build.
Overall, I'm curious why this is considered so safe.
On October 05 2011 11:00 CaptainHaz wrote: I'm really wondering why exactly this is so safe against something silly like fast hydra pushes? I understand that air/map control give you air control and you are, to an extent, safe from allins, but 9-10 minute third? So greedy. The mothership dps is quite bad, and overseers negate the other benefit to it, unless this is meant to be something gimmicky like snipe OS so your army is cloaked?
To be fair, I've tried this on ladder about 6 times today at 1200 masters, I lost all but like 2 of them, and one of those was an epic comeback which made me continue to try the build.
Overall, I'm curious why this is considered so safe.
Post the replays please; you are either doing something wrong or there is something your opponents did that my opponents (and other's) didn't.
On October 05 2011 11:00 CaptainHaz wrote: I'm really wondering why exactly this is so safe against something silly like fast hydra pushes? I understand that air/map control give you air control and you are, to an extent, safe from allins, but 9-10 minute third? So greedy. The mothership dps is quite bad, and overseers negate the other benefit to it, unless this is meant to be something gimmicky like snipe OS so your army is cloaked?
To be fair, I've tried this on ladder about 6 times today at 1200 masters, I lost all but like 2 of them, and one of those was an epic comeback which made me continue to try the build.
Overall, I'm curious why this is considered so safe.
Post the replays please; you are either doing something wrong or there is something your opponents did that my opponents (and other's) didn't.
I should have clarified a bit, I am most definitely fucking the build up (trust me, it's bad). I'm not so much curious as to why I lost (being bad) more so that, why this is so safe against early aggression like fast hydras or just roach spam after a stupidly early third from the zerg? Looking at your reps, you repel a lot of the aggression with the void ray, but I'm worried about the mass droning of the zerg and the army he can produce from his roaring eco by 12 minutes or so into the game. Just curious.
EDIT: To just make sure, I am speaking a lot in regards to your 3rd timing, which is so fast and sexy, that I think it is too good to be true.
On October 05 2011 11:00 CaptainHaz wrote: I'm really wondering why exactly this is so safe against something silly like fast hydra pushes? I understand that air/map control give you air control and you are, to an extent, safe from allins, but 9-10 minute third? So greedy. The mothership dps is quite bad, and overseers negate the other benefit to it, unless this is meant to be something gimmicky like snipe OS so your army is cloaked?
To be fair, I've tried this on ladder about 6 times today at 1200 masters, I lost all but like 2 of them, and one of those was an epic comeback which made me continue to try the build.
Overall, I'm curious why this is considered so safe.
Post the replays please; you are either doing something wrong or there is something your opponents did that my opponents (and other's) didn't.
I should have clarified a bit, I am most definitely fucking the build up (trust me, it's bad). I'm not so much curious as to why I lost (being bad) more so that, why this is so safe against early aggression like fast hydras or just roach spam after a stupidly early third from the zerg? Looking at your reps, you repel a lot of the aggression with the void ray, but I'm worried about the mass droning of the zerg and the army he can produce from his roaring eco by 12 minutes or so into the game. Just curious.
EDIT: To just make sure, I am speaking a lot in regards to your 3rd timing, which is so fast and sexy, that I think it is too good to be true.
The zerg will be able to deny your premature nexus attempt (9:30 - 10:00) most of the time, however, the 11:00 - 12:00 timing cannot be denied due to the mothership. The reason for this is due to the mothership's defensive abilities and your chargelots/archons. He has to bring anti-air, because if he, for example, masses roaches and brings overseers, your void ray and phoenix will be able to kill the overseers before he can inflict enough damage on the ground.
Hydralisks simply come too late (chargelots do very well against hydralisks in small numbers and archons do well against everything, but especially hydralisks due to their fragility). Unlike for example, colossus, you can immediately sink money into archons and get the reward out of it. If I have 900 gas, that's 3 archons I have nearly immediately. Not so much with colossus - I need the range upgrade, they need to walk from the robo facility to the front, you need the range upgrade, you need to spend chronoboost, ...,
Another zerg-problem is that this build abuses the fact that all zerg units, minus brood lords and infestors (and ultralisks in some circumstances, not in this circumstance though), are pretty bad in a straight up fight. Let us take a look:
Roach -> horrible DPS and overkills targets, low range Hydralisks -> high DPS but no hitpoints Zerglings -> splash damage = immediate fatality Ultralisks -> not good against zealots and/or archons Banelings -> not cost-effective; a lot of them die to archon splash before they connect, also useless vs. archons, charging zealots will absorb the first few banelings making the banelings hit a minimum of zealots (can be avoided by move-commanding your blings behind the army and then a-moving when entangled) Mutas -> not good vs archons, ball up when attacking
What is he really gonna do against chargelots (which beat most units in a no-micro situation; it's things like forcefields, kiting, pathing issues etc. that make them less useful, but you circumvent this limitation by vortex abuse)?
I got to try this build out and although i stumbled a bit early game against a retarded early ling rush once i recovered and got the 1st momma ship up, it just started to snowball more and more into my advantage. Seriously this build is SIIIIIIIIIIIICK I'm already in love with it :3.
On October 05 2011 11:00 CaptainHaz wrote: I'm really wondering why exactly this is so safe against something silly like fast hydra pushes? I understand that air/map control give you air control and you are, to an extent, safe from allins, but 9-10 minute third? So greedy. The mothership dps is quite bad, and overseers negate the other benefit to it, unless this is meant to be something gimmicky like snipe OS so your army is cloaked?
To be fair, I've tried this on ladder about 6 times today at 1200 masters, I lost all but like 2 of them, and one of those was an epic comeback which made me continue to try the build.
Overall, I'm curious why this is considered so safe.
Post the replays please; you are either doing something wrong or there is something your opponents did that my opponents (and other's) didn't.
I should have clarified a bit, I am most definitely fucking the build up (trust me, it's bad). I'm not so much curious as to why I lost (being bad) more so that, why this is so safe against early aggression like fast hydras or just roach spam after a stupidly early third from the zerg? Looking at your reps, you repel a lot of the aggression with the void ray, but I'm worried about the mass droning of the zerg and the army he can produce from his roaring eco by 12 minutes or so into the game. Just curious.
EDIT: To just make sure, I am speaking a lot in regards to your 3rd timing, which is so fast and sexy, that I think it is too good to be true.
The zerg will be able to deny your premature nexus attempt (9:30 - 10:00) most of the time, however, the 11:00 - 12:00 timing cannot be denied due to the mothership. The reason for this is due to the mothership's defensive abilities and your chargelots/archons. He has to bring anti-air, because if he, for example, masses roaches and brings overseers, your void ray and phoenix will be able to kill the overseers before he can inflict enough damage on the ground.
Hydralisks simply come too late (chargelots do very well against hydralisks in small numbers and archons do well against everything, but especially hydralisks due to their fragility). Unlike for example, colossus, you can immediately sink money into archons and get the reward out of it. If I have 900 gas, that's 3 archons I have nearly immediately. Not so much with colossus - I need the range upgrade, they need to walk from the robo facility to the front, you need the range upgrade, you need to spend chronoboost, ...,
Another zerg-problem is that this build abuses the fact that all zerg units, minus brood lords and infestors (and ultralisks in some circumstances, not in this circumstance though), are pretty bad in a straight up fight. Let us take a look:
Roach -> horrible DPS and overkills targets, low range Hydralisks -> high DPS but no hitpoints Zerglings -> splash damage = immediate fatality Ultralisks -> not good against zealots and/or archons Banelings -> not cost-effective; a lot of them die to archon splash before they connect, also useless vs. archons, charging zealots will absorb the first few banelings making the banelings hit a minimum of zealots (can be avoided by move-commanding your blings behind the army and then a-moving when entangled) Mutas -> not good vs archons, ball up when attacking
What is he really gonna do against chargelots (which beat most units in a no-micro situation; it's things like forcefields, kiting, pathing issues etc. that make them less useful, but you circumvent this limitation by vortex abuse)?
I mostly agree with your assessment about zerg units, but banelings dropped from overlords would be extremely effective here, especially since baneling bombs still work even if your whole army is cloaked. Additionally, the only way to take out all those overlords quickly is with blink stalkers.
On October 05 2011 11:00 CaptainHaz wrote: I'm really wondering why exactly this is so safe against something silly like fast hydra pushes? I understand that air/map control give you air control and you are, to an extent, safe from allins, but 9-10 minute third? So greedy. The mothership dps is quite bad, and overseers negate the other benefit to it, unless this is meant to be something gimmicky like snipe OS so your army is cloaked?
To be fair, I've tried this on ladder about 6 times today at 1200 masters, I lost all but like 2 of them, and one of those was an epic comeback which made me continue to try the build.
Overall, I'm curious why this is considered so safe.
Post the replays please; you are either doing something wrong or there is something your opponents did that my opponents (and other's) didn't.
I should have clarified a bit, I am most definitely fucking the build up (trust me, it's bad). I'm not so much curious as to why I lost (being bad) more so that, why this is so safe against early aggression like fast hydras or just roach spam after a stupidly early third from the zerg? Looking at your reps, you repel a lot of the aggression with the void ray, but I'm worried about the mass droning of the zerg and the army he can produce from his roaring eco by 12 minutes or so into the game. Just curious.
EDIT: To just make sure, I am speaking a lot in regards to your 3rd timing, which is so fast and sexy, that I think it is too good to be true.
The zerg will be able to deny your premature nexus attempt (9:30 - 10:00) most of the time, however, the 11:00 - 12:00 timing cannot be denied due to the mothership. The reason for this is due to the mothership's defensive abilities and your chargelots/archons. He has to bring anti-air, because if he, for example, masses roaches and brings overseers, your void ray and phoenix will be able to kill the overseers before he can inflict enough damage on the ground.
Hydralisks simply come too late (chargelots do very well against hydralisks in small numbers and archons do well against everything, but especially hydralisks due to their fragility). Unlike for example, colossus, you can immediately sink money into archons and get the reward out of it. If I have 900 gas, that's 3 archons I have nearly immediately. Not so much with colossus - I need the range upgrade, they need to walk from the robo facility to the front, you need the range upgrade, you need to spend chronoboost, ...,
Another zerg-problem is that this build abuses the fact that all zerg units, minus brood lords and infestors (and ultralisks in some circumstances, not in this circumstance though), are pretty bad in a straight up fight. Let us take a look:
Roach -> horrible DPS and overkills targets, low range Hydralisks -> high DPS but no hitpoints Zerglings -> splash damage = immediate fatality Ultralisks -> not good against zealots and/or archons Banelings -> not cost-effective; a lot of them die to archon splash before they connect, also useless vs. archons, charging zealots will absorb the first few banelings making the banelings hit a minimum of zealots (can be avoided by move-commanding your blings behind the army and then a-moving when entangled) Mutas -> not good vs archons, ball up when attacking
What is he really gonna do against chargelots (which beat most units in a no-micro situation; it's things like forcefields, kiting, pathing issues etc. that make them less useful, but you circumvent this limitation by vortex abuse)?
I mostly agree with your assessment about zerg units, but banelings dropped from overlords would be extremely effective here, especially since baneling bombs still work even if your whole army is cloaked. Additionally, the only way to take out all those overlords quickly is with blink stalkers.
vortex the incoming overlord cloud! archon toilet!
On October 05 2011 11:00 CaptainHaz wrote: I'm really wondering why exactly this is so safe against something silly like fast hydra pushes? I understand that air/map control give you air control and you are, to an extent, safe from allins, but 9-10 minute third? So greedy. The mothership dps is quite bad, and overseers negate the other benefit to it, unless this is meant to be something gimmicky like snipe OS so your army is cloaked?
To be fair, I've tried this on ladder about 6 times today at 1200 masters, I lost all but like 2 of them, and one of those was an epic comeback which made me continue to try the build.
Overall, I'm curious why this is considered so safe.
Post the replays please; you are either doing something wrong or there is something your opponents did that my opponents (and other's) didn't.
I should have clarified a bit, I am most definitely fucking the build up (trust me, it's bad). I'm not so much curious as to why I lost (being bad) more so that, why this is so safe against early aggression like fast hydras or just roach spam after a stupidly early third from the zerg? Looking at your reps, you repel a lot of the aggression with the void ray, but I'm worried about the mass droning of the zerg and the army he can produce from his roaring eco by 12 minutes or so into the game. Just curious.
EDIT: To just make sure, I am speaking a lot in regards to your 3rd timing, which is so fast and sexy, that I think it is too good to be true.
The zerg will be able to deny your premature nexus attempt (9:30 - 10:00) most of the time, however, the 11:00 - 12:00 timing cannot be denied due to the mothership. The reason for this is due to the mothership's defensive abilities and your chargelots/archons. He has to bring anti-air, because if he, for example, masses roaches and brings overseers, your void ray and phoenix will be able to kill the overseers before he can inflict enough damage on the ground.
Hydralisks simply come too late (chargelots do very well against hydralisks in small numbers and archons do well against everything, but especially hydralisks due to their fragility). Unlike for example, colossus, you can immediately sink money into archons and get the reward out of it. If I have 900 gas, that's 3 archons I have nearly immediately. Not so much with colossus - I need the range upgrade, they need to walk from the robo facility to the front, you need the range upgrade, you need to spend chronoboost, ...,
Another zerg-problem is that this build abuses the fact that all zerg units, minus brood lords and infestors (and ultralisks in some circumstances, not in this circumstance though), are pretty bad in a straight up fight. Let us take a look:
Roach -> horrible DPS and overkills targets, low range Hydralisks -> high DPS but no hitpoints Zerglings -> splash damage = immediate fatality Ultralisks -> not good against zealots and/or archons Banelings -> not cost-effective; a lot of them die to archon splash before they connect, also useless vs. archons, charging zealots will absorb the first few banelings making the banelings hit a minimum of zealots (can be avoided by move-commanding your blings behind the army and then a-moving when entangled) Mutas -> not good vs archons, ball up when attacking
What is he really gonna do against chargelots (which beat most units in a no-micro situation; it's things like forcefields, kiting, pathing issues etc. that make them less useful, but you circumvent this limitation by vortex abuse)?
I mostly agree with your assessment about zerg units, but banelings dropped from overlords would be extremely effective here, especially since baneling bombs still work even if your whole army is cloaked. Additionally, the only way to take out all those overlords quickly is with blink stalkers.
vortex the incoming overlord cloud! archon toilet!
Actually, you deal with Baneling bombs the same way you do Banelings. You just keep around 4-6 HTs for storm, vortex the Banelings/Overlords with Banelings, then you back up your army and storm them all when they come out. You should have a second vortex to repeat the process. Also I do recall the OP suggesting that you start to go air if you see baneling oriented play.
Keep making zealot archon, but research psionic storm and do not transform all of your high templars into archons. If you suspect baneling drops, play defensive and grab additional bases (4th and 5th, get geysers asap). Vortex his overlords/army and mass storm it as they are released from the vortex, do not send your own units in. Start making carriers and void rays. Move back far enough after you have vortexed his army/overlords so that he has to move quite a bit to engage you again, but make sure you are in range to psi storm him as he comes out. Have your mothership further back on hold position - the mothership cannot cast her spells when she is in motion and you will want to cast a second vortex fast after he has taken a lot of damage from storms. Move back again so he has to move a bit to engage you after being relesed from the vortex and storm him again, he will either retreat or lose all his army/overlords, giving you more time to mass air.
Also, here's another replay showing the strength of the build vs. mass Hydra this time. 1300 Master.
Hey way to add a "comments from blue posters" section and ignore my posts!
I finally got a chance to watch all your replays (I had only watched 1 of them when I commented earlier). I really do like your idea behind this build but I think I do have some extremely valid criticisms.
1. In pretty much every battle that occurred, you would have won without the mothership. Adding in the mothership and vortex just made it an even more lopsided battle. The zergs you were playing had relatively bad macro compared to you, and often made too many hydras and attacked off creep - that alone easily dies to chargelot/archon.
2. I said this earlier but you do look extremely weak early on while you're teching to mothership. Yes I do agree with you that once you get that mothership out, you can easily protect your 3rd, but by that time (11-12 min) it's not really a "fast" third anymore. I can get a safe 11-12 min third with a number of other builds, without being weak before the mothership pops out. I say this all the time (and not just in this thread) but a handful of void rays does not make you invunerable to roach/ling attacks. Lings kill shit so fast and can be reproduced and rallied faster than your voids can kill them. Roaches don't even die that fast to voids, there have been games where I've gone 2 stargate voids and still lost to a roach counter.
3. Now the mothership itself. A lot of its power comes from the fact that a lot of zergs just have never seen it before. The opponents in your replays speak for themselves. Some guy had never seen a vortex before, while another didn't even know motherships could be NPed. A lot of players overreacted by making a ton of corruptor (and no hive/BL tech) when you only had like 3 air units + a mothership, leaving their group army really weak.Trust me, when you start playing better players who actually know how to deal with mothership (spreading out units, not throwing everything into the vortex, using terrain to their advantage, not making hydras - lol), you might experience some frustrations yourself. I personally find it very risky to have your entire late game plan be based on the mothership. Vortexes aren't cheap, if you misplace 1 or somehow lose your mothership, you'll be dead before the energy regens or you can build another one... especially when your army is just chargelot/archon - a decent mid game composition, but not exactly the best end game composition.
4. Speaking of end game, do you have any replays of you facing broodlord and/or infestor usage? It's not like protoss was ever having trouble against roach/hydra/corruptor. I've lost many many mothership archon vs brood lord fights as long as the zerg isn't dumb enough to stick everything into the vortex. And what about other things, like ultras and/or banes? On the rare occasions where I've fought against ultras, I've found that they actually fare a bit better against vortex than other zerg units, since they don't die that fast and have some splash of their own. And while banelings by themselves or bane/ling will not get through your archons, banes in addition to other units (such as roach/infestor) can be dangerous since banes will still pretty much immediately clear all your zealots. Then you're left with roach vs archon...
On October 04 2011 21:47 kcdc wrote: High masters, Top 200 in the past. Two attempts, two wins. This feels a million times stronger than anything else I've done in PvZ. This is going to give Z a whine-fest like they haven't had since Idra and Artosis posted that video about colossus (particularly with void ray) being OP.
Wow this make me highly interested. I've had trouble at the high masters level with PvZ for some time now.
On October 06 2011 03:25 Anihc wrote: Hey way to add a "comments from blue posters" section and ignore my posts!
I finally got a chance to watch all your replays (I had only watched 1 of them when I commented earlier). I really do like your idea behind this build but I think I do have some extremely valid criticisms.
1. In pretty much every battle that occurred, you would have won without the mothership. Adding in the mothership and vortex just made it an even more lopsided battle. The zergs you were playing had relatively bad macro compared to you, and often made too many hydras and attacked off creep - that alone easily dies to chargelot/archon.
2. I said this earlier but you do look extremely weak early on while you're teching to mothership. Yes I do agree with you that once you get that mothership out, you can easily protect your 3rd, but by that time (11-12 min) it's not really a "fast" third anymore. I can get a safe 11-12 min third with a number of other builds, without being weak before the mothership pops out. I say this all the time (and not just in this thread) but a handful of void rays does not make you invunerable to roach/ling attacks. Lings kill shit so fast and can be reproduced and rallied faster than your voids can kill them. Roaches don't even die that fast to voids, there have been games where I've gone 2 stargate voids and still lost to a roach counter.
3. Now the mothership itself. A lot of its power comes from the fact that a lot of zergs just have never seen it before. The opponents in your replays speak for themselves. Some guy had never seen a vortex before, while another didn't even know motherships could be NPed. A lot of players overreacted by making a ton of corruptor (and no hive/BL tech) when you only had like 3 air units + a mothership, leaving their group army really weak.Trust me, when you start playing better players who actually know how to deal with mothership (spreading out units, not throwing everything into the vortex, using terrain to their advantage, not making hydras - lol), you might experience some frustrations yourself. I personally find it very risky to have your entire late game plan be based on the mothership. Vortexes aren't cheap, if you misplace 1 or somehow lose your mothership, you'll be dead before the energy regens or you can build another one... especially when your army is just chargelot/archon - a decent mid game composition, but not exactly the best end game composition.
4. Speaking of end game, do you have any replays of you facing broodlord and/or infestor usage? It's not like protoss was ever having trouble against roach/hydra/corruptor. I've lost many many mothership archon vs brood lord fights as long as the zerg isn't dumb enough to stick everything into the vortex. And what about other things, like ultras and/or banes? On the rare occasions where I've fought against ultras, I've found that they actually fare a bit better against vortex than other zerg units, since they don't die that fast and have some splash of their own. And while banelings by themselves or bane/ling will not get through your archons, banes in addition to other units (such as roach/infestor) can be dangerous since banes will still pretty much immediately clear all your zealots. Then you're left with roach vs archon...
Good points across the board. Some thoughts:
An 11 minute third isn't particularly fast for PvZ, but it's certainly not slow. I've played around with a lot of ways to secure a fast third in PvZ, but the problem that I would run into is that my army would tend to be either strong but slow (immortals) or more mobile but weak (blink or early colossi), and both were exploitable by roaches with speed. The mothership gives you an army that, while rather small, is surprisingly difficult to kill at the timing where you're defending your third, and it also helps with mobility issues.
The other advantage over other builds is that your end-game tech is more or less up at 11 min, so once you stabilize, your strength snowballs very quickly compared to blink builds (which can dead-end) or colossi builds (which have to continue to transition as they deal with corruptors, infestors, and finally broodlords). I suspect that spreading a large broodlord force would handle mothership+archon decently well, but the tech is also already up for void rays and carriers.
As for roach/speedling, I'm sure there are ways for Z to exploit P's lack of ground army between 7-12 minutes, but it's not easy. P has the scouting to see able to see an attack forming (whether he does or not is another issue), and P has about 16 forcefields available to buy time for voids to thin the numbers out. Quick drops might work, but given good execution from P's end, it seems like a frontal attack would not work well without AA.
On October 06 2011 03:25 Anihc wrote: Hey way to add a "comments from blue posters" section and ignore my posts!
I finally got a chance to watch all your replays (I had only watched 1 of them when I commented earlier). I really do like your idea behind this build but I think I do have some extremely valid criticisms.
1. In pretty much every battle that occurred, you would have won without the mothership. Adding in the mothership and vortex just made it an even more lopsided battle. The zergs you were playing had relatively bad macro compared to you, and often made too many hydras and attacked off creep - that alone easily dies to chargelot/archon.
2. I said this earlier but you do look extremely weak early on while you're teching to mothership. Yes I do agree with you that once you get that mothership out, you can easily protect your 3rd, but by that time (11-12 min) it's not really a "fast" third anymore. I can get a safe 11-12 min third with a number of other builds, without being weak before the mothership pops out. I say this all the time (and not just in this thread) but a handful of void rays does not make you invunerable to roach/ling attacks. Lings kill shit so fast and can be reproduced and rallied faster than your voids can kill them. Roaches don't even die that fast to voids, there have been games where I've gone 2 stargate voids and still lost to a roach counter.
3. Now the mothership itself. A lot of its power comes from the fact that a lot of zergs just have never seen it before. The opponents in your replays speak for themselves. Some guy had never seen a vortex before, while another didn't even know motherships could be NPed. A lot of players overreacted by making a ton of corruptor (and no hive/BL tech) when you only had like 3 air units + a mothership, leaving their group army really weak.Trust me, when you start playing better players who actually know how to deal with mothership (spreading out units, not throwing everything into the vortex, using terrain to their advantage, not making hydras - lol), you might experience some frustrations yourself. I personally find it very risky to have your entire late game plan be based on the mothership. Vortexes aren't cheap, if you misplace 1 or somehow lose your mothership, you'll be dead before the energy regens or you can build another one... especially when your army is just chargelot/archon - a decent mid game composition, but not exactly the best end game composition.
4. Speaking of end game, do you have any replays of you facing broodlord and/or infestor usage? It's not like protoss was ever having trouble against roach/hydra/corruptor. I've lost many many mothership archon vs brood lord fights as long as the zerg isn't dumb enough to stick everything into the vortex. And what about other things, like ultras and/or banes? On the rare occasions where I've fought against ultras, I've found that they actually fare a bit better against vortex than other zerg units, since they don't die that fast and have some splash of their own. And while banelings by themselves or bane/ling will not get through your archons, banes in addition to other units (such as roach/infestor) can be dangerous since banes will still pretty much immediately clear all your zealots. Then you're left with roach vs archon...
Good points across the board. Some thoughts:
An 11 minute third isn't particularly fast for PvZ, but it's certainly not slow. I've played around with a lot of ways to secure a fast third in PvZ, but the problem that I would run into is that my army would tend to be either strong but slow (immortals) or more mobile but weak (blink or early colossi), and both were exploitable by roaches with speed. The mothership gives you an army that, while rather small, is surprisingly difficult to kill at the timing where you're defending your third, and it also helps with mobility issues.
The other advantage over other builds is that your end-game tech is more or less up at 11 min, so once you stabilize, your strength snowballs very quickly compared to blink builds (which can dead-end) or colossi builds (which have to continue to transition as they deal with corruptors, infestors, and finally broodlords). I suspect that spreading a large broodlord force would handle mothership+archon decently well, but the tech is also already up for void rays and carriers.
As for roach/speedling, I'm sure there are ways for Z to exploit P's lack of ground army between 7-12 minutes, but it's not easy. P has the scouting to see able to see an attack forming (whether he does or not is another issue), and P has about 16 forcefields available to buy time for voids to thin the numbers out. Quick drops might work, but given good execution from P's end, it seems like a frontal attack would not work well without AA.
I guess that's a good point about the third. Contrary to how slow the mothership is, this army comp is indeed extremely mobile and not fragile either (like blink). One thing I do really like about this build is how easy you can max with a strong a-move army. I suspect that you can probably attack before the zerg gets a significant amount of BL/infestor, and that could very well be the answer to BL.
I still have my reservations about fighting a strong macro zerg that goes mainly mass roach (maybe some supporting infestors and/or banelings, but definitely no mass hydra). And while I still believe 2 base roach/ling can do damage against this, my point was that any 2 base all-in will be strong vs a a build that tries to tech and expand at the same time. And this is the ultimate build in terms of tech. Roach/ling was just the most common (roach by itself easier to stop because of FF + void, but if you add in lings you can't really kill lings with voids before they kill you). Other less common 2 base all-ins are even much harder to stop, especially (in order of decreasing popularity) hydra/ling, spine crawler rush, or burrowed roaches.
I too am worried that before the mothership comes out there is some vulnerability. I would like to see some replays of zergs going balls out to try to exploit that timing. In some or maybe all of those replays the 3rd is being warped in before the mothership is out, so if zergs have good map awareness they can just deny it.
I would like to see more transitions in the late game rather than repeatedly throwing archons and chargelots at the zerg. Void rays and carriers would probably be good and maybe even colossi. Also the mothership allows for more harassment opportunities that I want to see happen.
Awesome build though, I'm going to try it out. Thanks for it.
Heh the real thing to take away from this strategy isn't the mothership. it's just that archons are incredible when actually protected instead of left to fight whole armies by themselves something thats been touted for a long time by certain people on these forums.
On October 06 2011 04:14 AirbladeOrange wrote: I too am worried that before the mothership comes out there is some vulnerability. I would like to see some replays of zergs going balls out to try to exploit that timing. In some or maybe all of those replays the 3rd is being warped in before the mothership is out, so if zergs have good map awareness they can just deny it.
I believe the OP covers that point about the 9-10 minute nexus in the blurb about a zerg fast 3rd. It's a low risk/high reward. He said he doesn't mind cancelling it if he knows he can't defend it. It's only a 100 min loss but if it gets up then it's a big gain. If you can't get he nexus up at 9-10 wait for the mothership and put it up 11-12.
Defending an all out attack at that timing is a different story but having them deny an early nexus doesn't seem like a big deal as long as you take the 3rd again when your mothership is out.
On October 06 2011 03:25 Anihc wrote: Hey way to add a "comments from blue posters" section and ignore my posts!
I finally got a chance to watch all your replays (I had only watched 1 of them when I commented earlier). I really do like your idea behind this build but I think I do have some extremely valid criticisms.
1. In pretty much every battle that occurred, you would have won without the mothership. Adding in the mothership and vortex just made it an even more lopsided battle. The zergs you were playing had relatively bad macro compared to you, and often made too many hydras and attacked off creep - that alone easily dies to chargelot/archon.
2. I said this earlier but you do look extremely weak early on while you're teching to mothership. Yes I do agree with you that once you get that mothership out, you can easily protect your 3rd, but by that time (11-12 min) it's not really a "fast" third anymore. I can get a safe 11-12 min third with a number of other builds, without being weak before the mothership pops out. I say this all the time (and not just in this thread) but a handful of void rays does not make you invunerable to roach/ling attacks. Lings kill shit so fast and can be reproduced and rallied faster than your voids can kill them. Roaches don't even die that fast to voids, there have been games where I've gone 2 stargate voids and still lost to a roach counter.
3. Now the mothership itself. A lot of its power comes from the fact that a lot of zergs just have never seen it before. The opponents in your replays speak for themselves. Some guy had never seen a vortex before, while another didn't even know motherships could be NPed. A lot of players overreacted by making a ton of corruptor (and no hive/BL tech) when you only had like 3 air units + a mothership, leaving their group army really weak.Trust me, when you start playing better players who actually know how to deal with mothership (spreading out units, not throwing everything into the vortex, using terrain to their advantage, not making hydras - lol), you might experience some frustrations yourself. I personally find it very risky to have your entire late game plan be based on the mothership. Vortexes aren't cheap, if you misplace 1 or somehow lose your mothership, you'll be dead before the energy regens or you can build another one... especially when your army is just chargelot/archon - a decent mid game composition, but not exactly the best end game composition.
4. Speaking of end game, do you have any replays of you facing broodlord and/or infestor usage? It's not like protoss was ever having trouble against roach/hydra/corruptor. I've lost many many mothership archon vs brood lord fights as long as the zerg isn't dumb enough to stick everything into the vortex. And what about other things, like ultras and/or banes? On the rare occasions where I've fought against ultras, I've found that they actually fare a bit better against vortex than other zerg units, since they don't die that fast and have some splash of their own. And while banelings by themselves or bane/ling will not get through your archons, banes in addition to other units (such as roach/infestor) can be dangerous since banes will still pretty much immediately clear all your zealots. Then you're left with roach vs archon...
Yes, I should have added your posts. Going to do that after this post. The main problem I had with your posts was that you seemed uninformed and unknowledgable about the zealot/archon composition against certain zerg compositions. For example, you said it gets shit on by mass roach ("Also, I don't like how you default to zealot/archon. Mass roach just shits on it."), which is ridiculous and makes me think you are unsure of how to play zealot/archon. In zealot/archon vs. roach games, you retreat as soon as your zealots die while massing up archons, your archons aren't actually supposed to take hits. So you would engage with something like 15 zealots and 5 archons and leave with 1-2 zealots and your 5 archons, slowly until the ratio of zealot : archon would be ~80ish% archon, which is when you can a-move mass roach and win.
As for your points;
1. Yes, in a 200/200 vs. 200/200 battle, the mothership's role is only to vortex the infestors and broodlords. Both infestors and brood lords fuck up your pathing (broodlings and fungals respectively), with a double vortex you can 100% get in range.
If he somehow has a magical spread that cannot be double vortexed efficiently, attack via another angle or attack path. For example on shakuras, if he has spread in a concave around the middle, attack from either of the two chokes. He can't keep re-arranging his units in this magical spread for every single angle, whereas you simply right click to another location and a-move from a different angle. As soon as his units ball up (they will), vortex.
2. I would love to see these mythical builds you are talking about. The closest I have gotten was 1gate FE into 3gate stargate into uber fast colossus and even that would get raped fairly easily from time to time when I went for a 3rd. Also, this build techs extremely heavy while getting a 3rd up quickly, it's not really fair to compare it with a FFE into blink stalker/sentry 3rd base.
The reason why you are safe against mass roach is because he has to bring an overseer which can be killed by your void ray/phoenix, so he -has- to bring anti-air. Perhaps there is some really strange mass queen timing build possible where you spread your creep directly to the Protoss' 3rd and use your queens to keep your overseers alive (transfuse/scare his air away, as well as attack the mothership). The question is: can you do this off 3 bases, or will you miss your timing window then? Remember, this is not a FFE, he can't neglect gas and go straight mass drone/hatchery due to possible 1base play.
3. Zealot/Archon is actually the best lategame composition if you have a good zealot : archon ratio, save ht + mass air (which is better but extremely tough to get rolling, unlike this build). You could try this build (get any zerg you feel is qualified enough), do exactly as I say and make only zealot/archon with your mothership and then a-move him with vortexes. If he has a magical spread, attack from another angle. Tell me how well it works.
4. It is not possible to get enough brood lords up, but I do have one rigged game (somewhere, I save all my replays) where we both decided not to attack until endgame. He actually told me to wait when I was 200/200 (this was with me playing safe, i.e. cannons, obs, 11min 3rd instead of 9min, while he played 0 unit mass drone) because he did not have enough brood lords up yet (200/200 timing hits around 15-16 minutes, you can invent your own timings to attack faster but I do not think it's necessary/optimal). Eventually he has the sickest non-realistic spread ever in the center of 200/200 brood lord/infestor/roach where I purposefully attack right into with zero vortexes (didn't have mothership in my control group, trolol) and we end up trading units. I warp in 30 zealots, right click them to all his bases on the minimap and he immediately dies (yes he remaxed on roach). Then I spend all my gas on templars, morph archons and they clean up.
Also, you can just retreat after his banelings have gone off and remax, he will not have another wave of banelings.
On October 06 2011 03:25 Anihc wrote: Hey way to add a "comments from blue posters" section and ignore my posts!
I finally got a chance to watch all your replays (I had only watched 1 of them when I commented earlier). I really do like your idea behind this build but I think I do have some extremely valid criticisms.
1. In pretty much every battle that occurred, you would have won without the mothership. Adding in the mothership and vortex just made it an even more lopsided battle. The zergs you were playing had relatively bad macro compared to you, and often made too many hydras and attacked off creep - that alone easily dies to chargelot/archon.
2. I said this earlier but you do look extremely weak early on while you're teching to mothership. Yes I do agree with you that once you get that mothership out, you can easily protect your 3rd, but by that time (11-12 min) it's not really a "fast" third anymore. I can get a safe 11-12 min third with a number of other builds, without being weak before the mothership pops out. I say this all the time (and not just in this thread) but a handful of void rays does not make you invunerable to roach/ling attacks. Lings kill shit so fast and can be reproduced and rallied faster than your voids can kill them. Roaches don't even die that fast to voids, there have been games where I've gone 2 stargate voids and still lost to a roach counter.
3. Now the mothership itself. A lot of its power comes from the fact that a lot of zergs just have never seen it before. The opponents in your replays speak for themselves. Some guy had never seen a vortex before, while another didn't even know motherships could be NPed. A lot of players overreacted by making a ton of corruptor (and no hive/BL tech) when you only had like 3 air units + a mothership, leaving their group army really weak.Trust me, when you start playing better players who actually know how to deal with mothership (spreading out units, not throwing everything into the vortex, using terrain to their advantage, not making hydras - lol), you might experience some frustrations yourself. I personally find it very risky to have your entire late game plan be based on the mothership. Vortexes aren't cheap, if you misplace 1 or somehow lose your mothership, you'll be dead before the energy regens or you can build another one... especially when your army is just chargelot/archon - a decent mid game composition, but not exactly the best end game composition.
4. Speaking of end game, do you have any replays of you facing broodlord and/or infestor usage? It's not like protoss was ever having trouble against roach/hydra/corruptor. I've lost many many mothership archon vs brood lord fights as long as the zerg isn't dumb enough to stick everything into the vortex. And what about other things, like ultras and/or banes? On the rare occasions where I've fought against ultras, I've found that they actually fare a bit better against vortex than other zerg units, since they don't die that fast and have some splash of their own. And while banelings by themselves or bane/ling will not get through your archons, banes in addition to other units (such as roach/infestor) can be dangerous since banes will still pretty much immediately clear all your zealots. Then you're left with roach vs archon...
Yes, I should have added your posts. Going to do that after this post. The main problem I had with your posts was that you seemed uninformed and unknowledgable about the zealot/archon composition against certain zerg compositions. For example, you said it gets shit on by mass roach ("Also, I don't like how you default to zealot/archon. Mass roach just shits on it."), which is ridiculous and makes me think you are unsure of how to play zealot/archon. In zealot/archon vs. roach games, you retreat as soon as your zealots die while massing up archons, your archons aren't actually supposed to take hits. So you would engage with something like 15 zealots and 5 archons and leave with 1-2 zealots and your 5 archons, slowly until the ratio of zealot : archon would be ~80ish% archon, which is when you can a-move mass roach and win.
As for your points;
1. Yes, in a 200/200 vs. 200/200 battle, the mothership's role is only to vortex the infestors and broodlords. Both infestors and brood lords fuck up your pathing (broodlings and fungals respectively), with a double vortex you can 100% get in range.
If he somehow has a magical spread that cannot be double vortexed efficiently, attack via another angle or attack path. For example on shakuras, if he has spread in a concave around the middle, attack from either of the two chokes. He can't keep re-arranging his units in this magical spread for every single angle, whereas you simply right click to another location and a-move from a different angle. As soon as his units ball up (they will), vortex.
2. I would love to see these mythical builds you are talking about. The closest I have gotten was 1gate FE into 3gate stargate into uber fast colossus and even that would get raped fairly easily from time to time when I went for a 3rd. Also, this build techs extremely heavy while getting a 3rd up quickly, it's not really fair to compare it with a FFE into blink stalker/sentry 3rd base.
The reason why you are safe against mass roach is because he has to bring an overseer which can be killed by your void ray/phoenix, so he -has- to bring anti-air. Perhaps there is some really strange mass queen timing build possible where you spread your creep directly to the Protoss' 3rd and use your queens to keep your overseers alive (transfuse/scare his air away, as well as attack the mothership). The question is: can you do this off 3 bases, or will you miss your timing window then? Remember, this is not a FFE, he can't neglect gas and go straight mass drone/hatchery due to possible 1base play.
3. Zealot/Archon is actually the best lategame composition if you have a good zealot : archon ratio, save ht + mass air (which is better but extremely tough to get rolling, unlike this build). You could try this build (get any zerg you feel is qualified enough), do exactly as I say and make only zealot/archon with your mothership and then a-move him with vortexes. If he has a magical spread, attack from another angle. Tell me how well it works.
4. It is not possible to get enough brood lords up, but I do have one rigged game (somewhere, I save all my replays) where we both decided not to attack until endgame. He actually told me to wait when I was 200/200 (this was with me playing safe, i.e. cannons, obs, 11min 3rd instead of 9min, while he played 0 unit mass drone) because he did not have enough brood lords up yet (200/200 timing hits around 15-16 minutes, you can invent your own timings to attack faster but I do not think it's necessary/optimal). Eventually he has the sickest non-realistic spread ever in the center of 200/200 brood lord/infestor/roach where I purposefully attack right into with zero vortexes (didn't have mothership in my control group, trolol) and we end up trading units. I warp in 30 zealots, right click them to all his bases on the minimap and he immediately dies (yes he remaxed on roach). Then I spend all my gas on templars, morph archons and they clean up.
Also, you can just retreat after his banelings have gone off and remax, he will not have another wave of banelings.
I never make uninformed posts. I stay out of topics that I have no direct experience with. My posts may not necessarily be the "best" answer, and there may be other different "correct" answers - but anytime I write something, you can bet that I have a ton of experience at the highest level of play backing it up. I have always been a big fan of motherships, and have always used them in my PvZs for the past year. Same goes for chargelot/archon. In fact currently I'm working on a chargelot/archon build and I'm using it a ton in all my practice, ladder, and tournament games.
So as for the roach vs chargelot/archon debate - yes of course I understand that if you're not going to win a battle, you retreat, especially with your expensive units. But what if the zerg attacks you? As a composition, roaches are just very cost effective when fighting chargelot/archon. I don't think you can argue this.
It doesn't matter what angle you attack the broodlords/infestors from since you're at melee range (1-3) and the zerg is at sieging range (9 from fungal+BL). The point of the spread is just so that not everything gets sucked up by 1 vortex. I really am not convinced at all that chargelot/archon/mothership is the ultimate end game protoss army. If your argument is that you can max and threaten/attack the zerg before he gets infinity brood lords, then fine. That's perfectly reasonable. But as it stands I don't see any replays against any sort of hive tech play and I'd like to see those if possible.
These "mythical" builds I'm referring to that allow you to get a safe and relatively early 3rd are robo-based builds. IMO Stargate is overrated, robo gives you a lot more power for the money. But that's another discussion.
When I talk about mass roach, obviously I'm not talking about roach and only roach when you have a mothership out. But roaches should be the core of the zerg army when fighting zealot/archon, not hydras or corruptors, which is the case in a lot of those replays. Hydras are horrible, everytime I see hydras in PvZ when I go mothership and/or chargelot/archon it's like automatic gg free win for me.
How do you want the zerg to spread his army? Could you perhaps go to the unit tester and post an example screenshot? Because I don't see how you are supposed to spread it and then re-spread it when you attack from another angle.
On October 06 2011 06:40 the p00n wrote: How do you want the zerg to spread his army? Could you perhaps go to the unit tester and post an example screenshot? Because I don't see how you are supposed to spread it and then re-spread it when you attack from another angle.
You just keep your group of broodlords in separate groups. You also keep the Infestors behind the Broodlords and out of range of nasty things.
I agree with rsvp on all his points.
I myself think that Immortal/HT/Voidray with a few Archons is the best end game composition. I can see Adding in a Mothership a really great way to accent your army, but I don't think Archon/Mothership is at all a good end game composition.
Though I still don't know where Carriers fit in in all this :/
On October 06 2011 06:40 the p00n wrote: How do you want the zerg to spread his army? Could you perhaps go to the unit tester and post an example screenshot? Because I don't see how you are supposed to spread it and then re-spread it when you attack from another angle.
My point is that you don't need to respread the army. Take your example on shakuras - if he just moves to the middle of the map, he can hit your 3rd as well as cut off every passage in the middle. If you attack from one angle, he doesn't need to move his entire army to defend that angle, because as soon as you get in range to attack him, you're putting yourself in range of the majority of his army without him even having to move anything.
Anyway maybe I'm coming off a bit wrong, I'm not trying to say this build sucks and doesn't work because I actually believe quite the opposite. I know how strong mothership can be, and I know how strong chargelot/archon can be. I guess my comments can be boiled down to these 3:
1. This build is weak right before you get the mothership. The weakness is compounded by the fact that you're going for chargelot/archon at the same time, and you don't have a robo (why? because obs always increases safety, immortal helps a ton against early roach aggression, even more so than a void ray at times, and if you scout 2 base hydra all in its easy to get colossus out in time to stop it). I don't really think this is arguable. This doesn't mean the build is bad or doesn't work, and there are definitely things you can do to increase your safety, but it's certainly a weakness.
2. How does this fare against solid macro style, roach-based play? I think that chargelot/archon even with a mothership might have a bit of trouble, but I don't know for sure. At least in my experience the mothership/vortex is a very fragile thing and doesn't always guarantee victory. I guess in particular I'm thinking of roach/infestor. Fungal is great against zealot/archon, infested terrans provide AA, and there's always the threat of neural so you can't always get off the "perfect" vortex. You could be right in that vortex solves all mid-game problems. So this is arguable, and I'd like to see more replays (by zergs who aren't like wtf is this?? a mothership?? what do I do now??)
3. The end game scenario, when you face the zerg deathball of infestor/bl/corruptor. This is probably a moot point though, since you can put enough pressure on the zerg before it gets to that stage. Let's not argue this one, unless you have replays of zerg going hive tech against this.
I just got smashed on ladder using this, high eu master... I think if opponent scout well they are just going to roll over you, I got hit by a mix of roach/hydra/infestor...
On October 06 2011 07:07 eYeball wrote: I just got smashed on ladder using this, high eu master... I think if opponent scout well they are just going to roll over you, I got hit by a mix of roach/hydra/infestor...
Post the replay, otherwise it's not really useful to post D:
On October 06 2011 06:51 CecilSunkure wrote: Though I still don't know where Carriers fit in in all this :/
Silly Protoss, Carriers are for BW.
Dude you really need to try carriers. They are totally imba in PvZ. Just have HT with storm to defend against corruptors and you're good.
Haha yeah, same in PvT, just the problem is when they don't let you sit there massing carriers
No... PvT is completely different and carriers do not work there. First of all there's EMP, second of all vikings have 9 range compared to corruptor's 6, which means it's much easier for them to "snipe" carriers while dodging storms or not even getting in range of storms. And lastly, mass BCs actually beat mass carriers. Yes this has come from personal experience :p
On October 06 2011 06:51 CecilSunkure wrote: Though I still don't know where Carriers fit in in all this :/
Silly Protoss, Carriers are for BW.
Dude you really need to try carriers. They are totally imba in PvZ. Just have HT with storm to defend against corruptors and you're good.
Haha yeah, same in PvT, just the problem is when they don't let you sit there massing carriers
No... PvT is completely different and carriers do not work there. First of all there's EMP, second of all vikings have 9 range compared to corruptor's 6, which means it's much easier for them to "snipe" carriers while dodging storms or not even getting in range of storms. And lastly, mass BCs actually beat mass carriers. Yes this has come from personal experience :p
Silly Protoss, Carriers are for BW Terran***** :D?
i'm just plat zerg, but i have a question, since nobody mentions it.
What is with Queens? Since you force AA, i respond often with queens and just one spore/base. if you protect your Overseers with them from getting sniped from the voidrays/phoenix, cant u do the trick with the remaining roaches? and what about fast creep spread, how to deny this?
@rsvp: I 'only' play at the high master/low GM level (I guess it's relatively high, but not for 'proving' a build, especially when the surprise effect may have an effect as well. Combine this with that I am probably better than most of my opponent's in ladder (I play whenever I want to and whatever I want to, if it's 6:00 AM no sleep + drunk I might decide it's a good idea to offrace and play command center first every single game. An example was the first replay I provided against zued, which was somewhere around 5 AM with me having around 15 beers).
If anyone wants to play with me on EU (and you are very very high masters or GM), I can play both the zerg and protoss side of the match-up, and we can explore this more.
Perhaps there is some really strange mass queen timing build possible where you spread your creep directly to the Protoss' 3rd and use your queens to keep your overseers alive (transfuse/scare his air away, as well as attack the mothership).
"Keep making zealot archon, but research psionic storm and do not transform all of your high templars into archons. If you suspect baneling drops, play defensive and grab additional bases (4th and 5th, get geysers asap). Vortex his overlords/army and mass storm it as they are released from the vortex, do not send your own units in. Start making carriers and void rays. Move back far enough after you have vortexed his army/overlords so that he has to move quite a bit to engage you again, but make sure you are in range to psi storm him as he comes out. Have your mothership further back on hold position - the mothership cannot cast her spells when she is in motion and you will want to cast a second vortex fast after he has taken a lot of damage from storms. Move back again so he has to move a bit to engage you after being relesed from the vortex and storm him again, he will either retreat or lose all his army/overlords, giving you more time to mass air."
"Get carriers and void rays, psionic storm and research blink. Be very careful with your vortex. See 'ling/baneling oriented play, usually a follow-up from a 3rd base' above for additional tips."
On October 06 2011 08:35 evanthebouncy! wrote: dude i think the vortex toilet... iono do you throw your own units in as well? cuz if you do i'm throwing my banelings inside too
It takes 18 banelings to kill an Archon, and ground units spread out much faster than air units, so it might end up hurting you more than him (you lose alot of banelings for not many archons).
Any idea how you beat MASS roach? To be honest, even with vortex and archons... it seems our armies are so interdispersed that the splash damage doesn't help and is actually hurting me. Also, since the only air unit we have is the mothership.... they can just mass roach and completely ignore it as long as they have detection. It's VERY hard to beat 200/200 mass speed/upgraded roach with mothership and archon/zealot/stalker/templar combo.
I have lost twice now to mass roach. Also some people have been doing a 2-3 base zerg 200/200 push with a lot of roach and hydra with fast 2-0 weapons upgrade. That hurt......
Its absolutely necessary you throw in a robo for an obs because what zergs will also do is drop harass your bases or just walk in with tunneling claws and harass you all day long and you have no detection to do anything about it. I guess I could start voidrays or carriers but once we fight once and the zerg remaxes... carriers are pretty shit vs corruptors. It seems the strength in the mass expansions allows many many gateways to quickly warp in your army and defend. If you lose a fight considerably... the chances of coming back are slim.
http://drop.sc/41088- Here's a roach/hydra kind of all in it seemed... he got his 3rd base late if I remember correctly.
http://drop.sc/41090 - I think this is a mass roach/maybe some hydra but with roach drops and remaxing with heavy roach
If you were to watch any of these, the first two are what I'm talking about.
http://drop.sc/41089 - Here is one where I surely thought I was going to lose but I think his macro was just terrible... 4k avg unspent (I guess maybe he was banking at 200/200 awhile?) It just seems like your mobility is severely limited with this strategy due to the fact the mothership being key to your army strength.. splitting it up kinda hurts you. I also got lucky hitting him before broods otherwise I would have lost badly I feel.
Cant wait to try this out - looks powerful and sounds fun!
About your build order opener - why do you spend all CB on the gateway instead of WG? Isnt faster WG going to be better long-term? Or is this necessary to get the unit count to expand early?
On October 06 2011 15:11 Azide wrote: http://drop.sc/41088- Here's a roach/hydra kind of all in it seemed... he got his 3rd base late if I remember correctly.
http://drop.sc/41090 - I think this is a mass roach/maybe some hydra but with roach drops and remaxing with heavy roach
If you were to watch any of these, the first two are what I'm talking about.
http://drop.sc/41089 - Here is one where I surely thought I was going to lose but I think his macro was just terrible... 4k avg unspent (I guess maybe he was banking at 200/200 awhile?) It just seems like your mobility is severely limited with this strategy due to the fact the mothership being key to your army strength.. splitting it up kinda hurts you. I also got lucky hitting him before broods otherwise I would have lost badly I feel.
Alright, what I noticed: Your forge is late. Get it faster and push your weapons upgrade more.
Watch the OP's replays again and notice what he spends his gas on. Your archon count is VERY low. The point of the toilet is to let your archons wreck his army. With your unit comp it is the other way around.
Lastly, make sure you have enough gates. You should have enough to basically be at zero minerals zero gas once the mothership comes out.
On October 06 2011 15:11 Azide wrote: http://drop.sc/41088- Here's a roach/hydra kind of all in it seemed... he got his 3rd base late if I remember correctly.
http://drop.sc/41090 - I think this is a mass roach/maybe some hydra but with roach drops and remaxing with heavy roach
If you were to watch any of these, the first two are what I'm talking about.
http://drop.sc/41089 - Here is one where I surely thought I was going to lose but I think his macro was just terrible... 4k avg unspent (I guess maybe he was banking at 200/200 awhile?) It just seems like your mobility is severely limited with this strategy due to the fact the mothership being key to your army strength.. splitting it up kinda hurts you. I also got lucky hitting him before broods otherwise I would have lost badly I feel.
The reason you lost the above 2 games was because you were not doing what the guide told you to do. The guide does not tell you to get storm and mass stalkers, delay forge/twi council, ...,
Hmm. Reason I got some stalkers was incase of a hydra drop I saw what I thought to be his lair upgraded + hydra range. That's also why I got storm. I think I made a few more phoenix too to try and kill overlords while dropping as the guide said
So I ran about 5 practice games today against a Protoss using this build on MLG Testbug (we're both Very high masters, Top 300 in NA)
I got absolutely demolished the first two times. Essentially the Mothership came out, with a strong gateway/archon comp, and I had no answer. He was able to take the third base safely, and despite my attempts at zergling runbys, was able to eventually overrun my base.
I also attempted a roach/hydra/infestor composition, this got annihilated. The vortex was always a threat and when it finally did come out it ate up half of my army. He'd throw the archons in and it would be GG.
The 3rd and 4th times, I went for mass expand/mass muta style. This actually worked really well. He pretty much couldn't move out because I was building a muta pack. I ended up winning both of these games, being on 5/6 bases to 2 or 3 and really just not letting up on the pressure. Had he turtled I think I just would've teched up, saved enough resources/larva, then keep army-trading (inefficiently) until the game was won.
Of course, I had a feeling he would go for Mothership based on our other practice attempts, so I specifically went Mutas as a counter. I'm not sure the best way to stop this in a standard game if you wanted to do something more standard like roach/hydra or had already started going in that direction. There were also holes in my defense that, had he gone for a timing attack, would've caused me to lose. In the games that I won, I pretty much were keeping all my mutas alive and staying far enough from the mothership to prevent a vortex - I ended up with probably 40+ mutas at the end.
NOTE: Even though I was avoiding Vortexes, Mutas are fast enough that if you micro right when the vortex ends your mutas won't all day, you may lose a few and a lot of yours will get damaged due to archon splash though. So it's not the end of the world.
He was doing the Mothership build out of a 1gate expand, so twice I went for the kill - once with roaches and once with ling/bling. The roaches was unsuccessful because void ray popped (I could've gone something like 18 drone one queen all-in, which would probably work if unscouted, but that's risky as well). I was able to go ling/bling and take out the natural which pretty much ended the game once, especially since he was pretty gas-heavy on getting the +1 weapons upgrade, getting the tech to mothership (including mothership) so he was a bit short on the sentry count.
I would post replays but I want to talk to the practice partner to ensure that he's okay with it.
On October 07 2011 09:39 FairForever wrote: So I ran about 5 practice games today against a Protoss using this build on MLG Testbug (we're both Very high masters, Top 300 in NA)
I got absolutely demolished the first two times. Essentially the Mothership came out, with a strong gateway/archon comp, and I had no answer. He was able to take the third base safely, and despite my attempts at zergling runbys, was able to eventually overrun my base.
I also attempted a roach/hydra/infestor composition, this got annihilated. The vortex was always a threat and when it finally did come out it ate up half of my army. He'd throw the archons in and it would be GG.
The 3rd and 4th times, I went for mass expand/mass muta style. This actually worked really well. He pretty much couldn't move out because I was building a muta pack. I ended up winning both of these games, being on 5/6 bases to 2 or 3 and really just not letting up on the pressure. Had he turtled I think I just would've teched up, saved enough resources/larva, then keep army-trading (inefficiently) until the game was won.
Of course, I had a feeling he would go for Mothership based on our other practice attempts, so I specifically went Mutas as a counter. I'm not sure the best way to stop this in a standard game if you wanted to do something more standard like roach/hydra or had already started going in that direction. There were also holes in my defense that, had he gone for a timing attack, would've caused me to lose. In the games that I won, I pretty much were keeping all my mutas alive and staying far enough from the mothership to prevent a vortex - I ended up with probably 40+ mutas at the end.
NOTE: Even though I was avoiding Vortexes, Mutas are fast enough that if you micro right when the vortex ends your mutas won't all day, you may lose a few and a lot of yours will get damaged due to archon splash though. So it's not the end of the world.
He was doing the Mothership build out of a 1gate expand, so twice I went for the kill - once with roaches and once with ling/bling. The roaches was unsuccessful because void ray popped (I could've gone something like 18 drone one queen all-in, which would probably work if unscouted, but that's risky as well). I was able to go ling/bling and take out the natural which pretty much ended the game once, especially since he was pretty gas-heavy on getting the +1 weapons upgrade, getting the tech to mothership (including mothership) so he was a bit short on the sentry count.
I would post replays but I want to talk to the practice partner to ensure that he's okay with it.
In my games, mutalisks gave me the most trouble as well, but what I have been doing is massing cannons and keeping 1-2 archons at my 3rd and basetrade the zerg pretty quickly (you have a timing where he won't have much, other than mutalisks). I have a game of this exact thing happening, but I think my opponent could have won if he did not make a few vital mistakes (then again the same could be said for me even though I ended up winning, so maybe it has some relevance). Maybe it is better to do a timing off 2 bases against mutalisks...
This build doesn't work. The timings to take a third even at 11-12 are not solid. Zerg can have like 160 supply of roaches at this time and just overwhelm your z and 1 arcohn and 1 mothership army. From there, zerg just pounds you again and again on your 2 base versus his 3-4 bases. I'm mid-masters btw. Don't do this build...it doesnt work.
On October 07 2011 21:18 Rigorous wrote: This build doesn't work. The timings to take a third even at 11-12 are not solid. Zerg can have like 160 supply of roaches at this time and just overwhelm your z and 1 arcohn and 1 mothership army. From there, zerg just pounds you again and again on your 2 base versus his 3-4 bases. I'm mid-masters btw. Don't do this build...it doesnt work.
On October 07 2011 21:18 Rigorous wrote: This build doesn't work. The timings to take a third even at 11-12 are not solid. Zerg can have like 160 supply of roaches at this time and just overwhelm your z and 1 arcohn and 1 mothership army. From there, zerg just pounds you again and again on your 2 base versus his 3-4 bases. I'm mid-masters btw. Don't do this build...it doesnt work.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
hes right, zerg with a 4-5min third on shakuras will be on 160 supply roach/hydra at 11-12 while u have mothership 2 archons 10 zealots max, even if u vortex it u just do not have enough to kill it, and you know, not everyone runs all of their army into a vortex, and pretty much half of that army can kill what u have - this strat only works one time vs zergs who did not experienced it before and dont know what to do against it, u will not defeat any high level zerg with it more than one time.
On October 07 2011 21:18 Rigorous wrote: This build doesn't work. The timings to take a third even at 11-12 are not solid. Zerg can have like 160 supply of roaches at this time and just overwhelm your z and 1 arcohn and 1 mothership army. From there, zerg just pounds you again and again on your 2 base versus his 3-4 bases. I'm mid-masters btw. Don't do this build...it doesnt work.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
hes right, zerg with a 4-5min third on shakuras will be on 160 supply roach/hydra at 11-12 while u have mothership 2 archons 10 zealots max, even if u vortex it u just do not have enough to kill it, and you know, not everyone runs all of their army into a vortex, and pretty much half of that army can kill what u have - this strat only works one time vs zergs who did not experienced it before and dont know what to do against it, u will not defeat any high level zerg with it more than one time.
You don't have to follow the build blindly. If any Zerg double FEs against a Gate Core opening just go freaking kill him.
Worked pretty well however the zerg thought i was rushing at the beginning so made a bunch of spines, then sat on 3 bases for very long, I think he was just confused and didnt know how to respond.
On October 07 2011 21:18 Rigorous wrote: This build doesn't work. The timings to take a third even at 11-12 are not solid. Zerg can have like 160 supply of roaches at this time and just overwhelm your z and 1 arcohn and 1 mothership army. From there, zerg just pounds you again and again on your 2 base versus his 3-4 bases. I'm mid-masters btw. Don't do this build...it doesnt work.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
hes right, zerg with a 4-5min third on shakuras will be on 160 supply roach/hydra at 11-12 while u have mothership 2 archons 10 zealots max, even if u vortex it u just do not have enough to kill it, and you know, not everyone runs all of their army into a vortex, and pretty much half of that army can kill what u have - this strat only works one time vs zergs who did not experienced it before and dont know what to do against it, u will not defeat any high level zerg with it more than one time.
No he's not right because I can go double nexus first and have a much bigger army at 11-12 while he only has 160 supply roach/hydra.
I really liked this build, but i guess I should wait to make the mothership after my 3rd is finished. Waiting 180 seconds without making any probes from 2 nexi that early in the game, seems sort of a cheese.
On October 08 2011 03:25 TiTanIum_ wrote: I really liked this build, but i guess I should wait to make the mothership after my 3rd is finished. Waiting 180 seconds without making any probes from 2 nexi that early in the game, seems sort of a cheese.
Do you have any thoughts.on that?
I can't speak for the OP, but by the time the mothership starts you should definitely be pretty close to saturated on 2 base anyway. If the postulations by the OP is correct that the mothership guarantees the protoss his third at a relatively early time, then I'd say it's worth it.
On October 08 2011 03:25 TiTanIum_ wrote: I really liked this build, but i guess I should wait to make the mothership after my 3rd is finished. Waiting 180 seconds without making any probes from 2 nexi that early in the game, seems sort of a cheese.
Do you have any thoughts.on that?
You can do whatever variation you want, but results may vary (from my experience they tend to fair worse, but if there wasn't any testing this build would not have existed in the first place so I encourage trying new things). The mothership is used to get your 3rd base up, if you have a build that gets the 3rd base up safely and then allows you to transition into a mothership then yes, but the later you get the mothership the unsafer it generally is unless you get it really really late (20+ mins when on 4 or 5 bases).
So I went and tried out this build (all games are different opponents on EU ladder).
Game 1: I try to set up my third. It goes up, but then he attacks with corruptor + roach (he had scouted my fleet beacon with an overseer). I use the vortex to try to save my mothership since he had enough corruptors to easily deal with my handful of phoenix/void. I'm safe for now, but as soon as the vortex ends he runs me over. I don't have enough AA to deal with the corruptors and no vortex/not enough troops to deal with the roaches.
Game 2: We both max to 200/200. I attack with mothership/chargelot/archon, he has mostly roach with some hydra. I throw some vortexes but he has his army spread out very well. He does not throw everything into vortex so when it ends, he has my army surrounded instead of me having his army surrounded. I get raped.
Game 3: I get my third up for awhile and have a decent sized chargelot/archon ball. He attacks my third with a big roach/infestor army. He doesn't even have overseers, but uses fungal for detection. I vortex and throw most of my army in, but he also has his army spread out and doesn't throw everything in. It looks like I win and he retreats with the rest of his army, but comes back a bit later with reinforcements. I don't have a vortex now, and my chargelot/archon dies to roach/infestor.
I know I could have played better but it seems like some of my concerns were reaffirmed - mostly that roaches still beat chargelot/archon and the mothership/vortex can only do so much, especially when your opponent plays smart and knows how to deal with vortex. I don't think this is a bad build but would like to see more replays of this build handling strong macro/roach play.
I guess one thing different I do is that I FFE instead of 1 gate expo. That could help explain in games 1 and 3 how the zergs managed to have a bigger army than usual since I don't put any pressure on the zerg besides the void ray. But it doesn't really affect game 2.
On October 08 2011 18:39 Anihc wrote: So I went and tried out this build (all games are different opponents on EU ladder).
Game 1: I try to set up my third. It goes up, but then he attacks with corruptor + roach (he had scouted my fleet beacon with an overseer). I use the vortex to try to save my mothership since he had enough corruptors to easily deal with my handful of phoenix/void. I'm safe for now, but as soon as the vortex ends he runs me over. I don't have enough AA to deal with the corruptors and no vortex/not enough troops to deal with the roaches.
Game 2: We both max to 200/200. I attack with mothership/chargelot/archon, he has mostly roach with some hydra. I throw some vortexes but he has his army spread out very well. He does not throw everything into vortex so when it ends, he has my army surrounded instead of me having his army surrounded. I get raped.
Game 3: I get my third up for awhile and have a decent sized chargelot/archon ball. He attacks my third with a big roach/infestor army. He doesn't even have overseers, but uses fungal for detection. I vortex and throw most of my army in, but he also has his army spread out and doesn't throw everything in. It looks like I win and he retreats with the rest of his army, but comes back a bit later with reinforcements. I don't have a vortex now, and my chargelot/archon dies to roach/infestor.
I know I could have played better but it seems like some of my concerns were reaffirmed - mostly that roaches still beat chargelot/archon and the mothership/vortex can only do so much, especially when your opponent plays smart and knows how to deal with vortex. I don't think this is a bad build but would like to see more replays of this build handling strong macro/roach play.
I guess one thing different I do is that I FFE instead of 1 gate expo. That could help explain in games 1 and 3 how the zergs managed to have a bigger army than usual since I don't put any pressure on the zerg besides the void ray. But it doesn't really affect game 2.
It seems to me that the majority of the power from this build comes from being able to establish a 3rd and 4th expansion relatively safely and essentially setting you up to build any kind of late game composition you want.
As a Zerg player it seems to me most Zergs would try to respond to this with some kind of a mostly ground-oriented army of say Roach/Hydra with maybe Corruptors or Infestors, I feel like you could really exploit this if you scout them out to be certain what kind of army they are building. Like, what about massing up a large Immortal/Zealot army with sprinkling in High Templar/Archons? This would probably be fairly weak to a large number of Broodlords but the threat of Archon Toilet and maybe retaining a few Void Rays throughout the game could scare them away from this approach. I'm mostly just theory crafting here but I think this whole Mothership expand build has a ton of potential.
I played with the build a lot and I found out a few things (High Master):
1) It works wonder vs roach/hydra passive players. If they don't attack you can upgrade and build the perfect army to vortex and rape them. Pure roach hydra is NOT the answer to an archon toilet xD 2) It works pretty well versus mutaling, but you HAVE to catch the mutalisks in a vortex or at least kill them if they try to take down your mothership. Too many mutas will still mean a lot of harassment and eco loss. 3) This build is not that good versus aggressive zergs. They all take overseers and keep them behind their army, your army is too small to beat a hugh roach hydra ball if they attack. Even if I vortex I often times lose a lot of archons and that slowly leads to losing a game. 3) This build is good versus infestors but you can't lose the mothership. If you do lose it, you're in for a hard time because fungal just nullifies the zealots and makes your army so vulnerable to long range fire from roaches or hydras. Neural on your archons sucks too. Mothership is key to vortex them in time. 4) Corruptors are great, you will lose your mothership so you have to vortex well and fast, but after losing your mothership their ground army is a lot smaller than usually. The corruptors are useless and you can still push and win. 5) I find it very hard to get a 10 minute third up, the mothership can come out at 11 minutes and even then my army is so small... I often die to a 2 base push from a zerg because this build is so bad at holding agression, what's a mothership going to do versus 30 and a few overseers? Your army is not big enough to hold aggression. Once you get your third up and ~12+ archons you are in a great position. From that point on scouting will tell you what to do (voids for BL's, mix in colossi/stalker vs roach hydra corruptor... etc). But often times I just enter that phase with a disadvantage or I enter it later (13 minutes, which isn't really fast).
How do you survive a 2base roach push for instance, and still get a 'fast' 3rd?
On October 08 2011 18:39 Anihc wrote: So I went and tried out this build (all games are different opponents on EU ladder).
Game 1: I try to set up my third. It goes up, but then he attacks with corruptor + roach (he had scouted my fleet beacon with an overseer). I use the vortex to try to save my mothership since he had enough corruptors to easily deal with my handful of phoenix/void. I'm safe for now, but as soon as the vortex ends he runs me over. I don't have enough AA to deal with the corruptors and no vortex/not enough troops to deal with the roaches.
Game 2: We both max to 200/200. I attack with mothership/chargelot/archon, he has mostly roach with some hydra. I throw some vortexes but he has his army spread out very well. He does not throw everything into vortex so when it ends, he has my army surrounded instead of me having his army surrounded. I get raped.
Game 3: I get my third up for awhile and have a decent sized chargelot/archon ball. He attacks my third with a big roach/infestor army. He doesn't even have overseers, but uses fungal for detection. I vortex and throw most of my army in, but he also has his army spread out and doesn't throw everything in. It looks like I win and he retreats with the rest of his army, but comes back a bit later with reinforcements. I don't have a vortex now, and my chargelot/archon dies to roach/infestor.
I know I could have played better but it seems like some of my concerns were reaffirmed - mostly that roaches still beat chargelot/archon and the mothership/vortex can only do so much, especially when your opponent plays smart and knows how to deal with vortex. I don't think this is a bad build but would like to see more replays of this build handling strong macro/roach play.
I guess one thing different I do is that I FFE instead of 1 gate expo. That could help explain in games 1 and 3 how the zergs managed to have a bigger army than usual since I don't put any pressure on the zerg besides the void ray. But it doesn't really affect game 2.
Well OP likes zlot/archon but that doesn't mean it's your only choice. Once you have 3 bases it's pretty easy to build whatever army you want, right? The core of the build is gateway expand -> mothership -> 3rd and the rest is up to you unless I'm mistaken.
On October 08 2011 18:39 Anihc wrote: So I went and tried out this build (all games are different opponents on EU ladder).
Game 1: I try to set up my third. It goes up, but then he attacks with corruptor + roach (he had scouted my fleet beacon with an overseer). I use the vortex to try to save my mothership since he had enough corruptors to easily deal with my handful of phoenix/void. I'm safe for now, but as soon as the vortex ends he runs me over. I don't have enough AA to deal with the corruptors and no vortex/not enough troops to deal with the roaches.
Game 2: We both max to 200/200. I attack with mothership/chargelot/archon, he has mostly roach with some hydra. I throw some vortexes but he has his army spread out very well. He does not throw everything into vortex so when it ends, he has my army surrounded instead of me having his army surrounded. I get raped.
Game 3: I get my third up for awhile and have a decent sized chargelot/archon ball. He attacks my third with a big roach/infestor army. He doesn't even have overseers, but uses fungal for detection. I vortex and throw most of my army in, but he also has his army spread out and doesn't throw everything in. It looks like I win and he retreats with the rest of his army, but comes back a bit later with reinforcements. I don't have a vortex now, and my chargelot/archon dies to roach/infestor.
I know I could have played better but it seems like some of my concerns were reaffirmed - mostly that roaches still beat chargelot/archon and the mothership/vortex can only do so much, especially when your opponent plays smart and knows how to deal with vortex. I don't think this is a bad build but would like to see more replays of this build handling strong macro/roach play.
I guess one thing different I do is that I FFE instead of 1 gate expo. That could help explain in games 1 and 3 how the zergs managed to have a bigger army than usual since I don't put any pressure on the zerg besides the void ray. But it doesn't really affect game 2.
Well OP likes zlot/archon but that doesn't mean it's your only choice. Once you have 3 bases it's pretty easy to build whatever army you want, right? The core of the build is gateway expand -> mothership -> 3rd and the rest is up to you unless I'm mistaken.
If the goal of this build is to just get a 3rd, then ok it's a decent build but it wouldn't be my favorite way to get a 3rd up...
On October 10 2011 09:54 Keilah wrote: pray tell, what would be your favorite?
I use a lot of robo based builds to get a quick 3rd up safely at around the 10 minute mark. Sometimes I'd just go heavy sentry/stalker/immortal, other times I'll go quick colo. If you want reps I released a small PvZ rep pack recently and I go robo -> fast 3rd in the majority of them. In the past I've also gone for a fast 6 gate +1 that allows me to take a 3rd behind it as well. I believe there are replays of this somewhere on this site as well. Recently I've been working on a stargate/chargelot/archon build that again allows me to put pressure on the zerg and expand behind it, usually before 11 minutes.
Like I've said before, one issue I have with this build is that it really relies on the surprise or wtf factor. A lot of people just don't know how to react properly to the mothership. I've been using motherships in my PvZs for the past year and I've noticed that my mothership usage has gotten more and more defendable/counterable. Am I sucking more? No, zerg players are just adapting better. The other thing I don't like about it is that you can't really put any early game pressure on the zerg. So no pressure + not the "safest" or "earliest" 3rd = cool build but not favorite :p
On October 10 2011 09:54 Keilah wrote: pray tell, what would be your favorite?
I use a lot of robo based builds to get a quick 3rd up safely at around the 10 minute mark. Sometimes I'd just go heavy sentry/stalker/immortal, other times I'll go quick colo. If you want reps I released a small PvZ rep pack recently and I go robo -> fast 3rd in the majority of them. In the past I've also gone for a fast 6 gate +1 that allows me to take a 3rd behind it as well. I believe there are replays of this somewhere on this site as well. Recently I've been working on a stargate/chargelot/archon build that again allows me to put pressure on the zerg and expand behind it, usually before 11 minutes.
Like I've said before, one issue I have with this build is that it really relies on the surprise or wtf factor. A lot of people just don't know how to react properly to the mothership. I've been using motherships in my PvZs for the past year and I've noticed that my mothership usage has gotten more and more defendable/counterable. Am I sucking more? No, zerg players are just adapting better. The other thing I don't like about it is that you can't really put any early game pressure on the zerg. So no pressure + not the "safest" or "earliest" 3rd = cool build but not favorite :p
On October 10 2011 09:54 Keilah wrote: pray tell, what would be your favorite?
I use a lot of robo based builds to get a quick 3rd up safely at around the 10 minute mark. Sometimes I'd just go heavy sentry/stalker/immortal, other times I'll go quick colo. If you want reps I released a small PvZ rep pack recently and I go robo -> fast 3rd in the majority of them. In the past I've also gone for a fast 6 gate +1 that allows me to take a 3rd behind it as well. I believe there are replays of this somewhere on this site as well. Recently I've been working on a stargate/chargelot/archon build that again allows me to put pressure on the zerg and expand behind it, usually before 11 minutes.
Like I've said before, one issue I have with this build is that it really relies on the surprise or wtf factor. A lot of people just don't know how to react properly to the mothership. I've been using motherships in my PvZs for the past year and I've noticed that my mothership usage has gotten more and more defendable/counterable. Am I sucking more? No, zerg players are just adapting better. The other thing I don't like about it is that you can't really put any early game pressure on the zerg. So no pressure + not the "safest" or "earliest" 3rd = cool build but not favorite :p
Also, @rsvp, saying you like to pressure but still going forge expand seems kind of silly to me. You get a void ray and a phoenix which gives some decent pressure, and the whole build forces the zerg to be more conservative with their droning (unlike forge FE where you can just hurrdurr 3 base 70 drones before units).
On October 10 2011 10:26 Keilah wrote: link? couldn't find
On October 10 2011 10:04 Anihc wrote:
On October 10 2011 09:54 Keilah wrote: pray tell, what would be your favorite?
I use a lot of robo based builds to get a quick 3rd up safely at around the 10 minute mark. Sometimes I'd just go heavy sentry/stalker/immortal, other times I'll go quick colo. If you want reps I released a small PvZ rep pack recently and I go robo -> fast 3rd in the majority of them. In the past I've also gone for a fast 6 gate +1 that allows me to take a 3rd behind it as well. I believe there are replays of this somewhere on this site as well. Recently I've been working on a stargate/chargelot/archon build that again allows me to put pressure on the zerg and expand behind it, usually before 11 minutes.
Like I've said before, one issue I have with this build is that it really relies on the surprise or wtf factor. A lot of people just don't know how to react properly to the mothership. I've been using motherships in my PvZs for the past year and I've noticed that my mothership usage has gotten more and more defendable/counterable. Am I sucking more? No, zerg players are just adapting better. The other thing I don't like about it is that you can't really put any early game pressure on the zerg. So no pressure + not the "safest" or "earliest" 3rd = cool build but not favorite :p
Also, @rsvp, saying you like to pressure but still going forge expand seems kind of silly to me. You get a void ray and a phoenix which gives some decent pressure, and the whole build forces the zerg to be more conservative with their droning (unlike forge FE where you can just hurrdurr 3 base 70 drones before units).
A void ray and phoenix does nothing, many zergs build blind spores anyway so it does almost nothing in terms of pressure. You are right that gateway expanding instead of FFE does create some kind of "pressure," but there are lots of zergs who treat gateway expand as if you were FFEing and drone hardcore all the same, and you can't punish them for coin flipping like that with this build.
Any zerg who herp derps 70 drones before units against my standard FFE > fast warpgate (non-all in, I don't stop making probes) loses their 3rd. 100% of the time.
On October 10 2011 10:26 Keilah wrote: link? couldn't find
On October 10 2011 10:04 Anihc wrote:
On October 10 2011 09:54 Keilah wrote: pray tell, what would be your favorite?
I use a lot of robo based builds to get a quick 3rd up safely at around the 10 minute mark. Sometimes I'd just go heavy sentry/stalker/immortal, other times I'll go quick colo. If you want reps I released a small PvZ rep pack recently and I go robo -> fast 3rd in the majority of them. In the past I've also gone for a fast 6 gate +1 that allows me to take a 3rd behind it as well. I believe there are replays of this somewhere on this site as well. Recently I've been working on a stargate/chargelot/archon build that again allows me to put pressure on the zerg and expand behind it, usually before 11 minutes.
Like I've said before, one issue I have with this build is that it really relies on the surprise or wtf factor. A lot of people just don't know how to react properly to the mothership. I've been using motherships in my PvZs for the past year and I've noticed that my mothership usage has gotten more and more defendable/counterable. Am I sucking more? No, zerg players are just adapting better. The other thing I don't like about it is that you can't really put any early game pressure on the zerg. So no pressure + not the "safest" or "earliest" 3rd = cool build but not favorite :p
Also, @rsvp, saying you like to pressure but still going forge expand seems kind of silly to me. You get a void ray and a phoenix which gives some decent pressure, and the whole build forces the zerg to be more conservative with their droning (unlike forge FE where you can just hurrdurr 3 base 70 drones before units).
A void ray and phoenix does nothing, many zergs build blind spores anyway so it does almost nothing in terms of pressure. You are right that gateway expanding instead of FFE does create some kind of "pressure," but there are lots of zergs who treat gateway expand as if you were FFEing and drone hardcore all the same, and you can't punish them for coin flipping like that with this build.
Any zerg who herp derps 70 drones before units against my standard FFE > fast warpgate (non-all in, I don't stop making probes) loses their 3rd. 100% of the time.
I don't know about that, I play zerg as well and if I get a hatch first (not entirely impossible on shakuras, nerazim crypt, ..., depending on when your scout finds me), I feel quite invulnerable to warpgate pushes. Maybe all my opponents were just bad?
EDIT: Also I have yet to see a zerg completely forego military and gas while droning up to 70 or so on 3 bases against a gateway opening, especially on a map like shakuras where most zergs will go 'wtf?' when you don't FFE. Even without the 'wtf'-factor, however, I have yet to see zergs respond exactly as if it were a FFE.
This build is fun to do also kiwikaki style. Get a group of blink stalkers and push his 3rd or wherever zergs army isn't, and kill the hatch or tech buildings, then try to blink away to do more damage while escaping his army, and then when you're cornered recall them out with mothership. or if he counter attacks recall. My zealot wasn't fat enough to stop some lings in a game last night, i lost 19 workers, and then chrono'd out only probes while getting mothership and zealot/archon. pushed his third, kill it and some workers, and recalled and held his counter attack putting me ahead. he then stopped making drones and went all in with army and attacked and won from no vortex energy. if mothership didn't cost so much energy it would've been sick
http://drop.sc/43910 http://drop.sc/43906 http://drop.sc/43909 <-- ladder game, opponent goes for heavy roach/ling aggression early-game, gets creep all the way up to my base and splits his roach/hydra army while kiting them in seperate groups so they keep their concave, I mess up my build too due to the aggression and my poor crisis management in this game http://drop.sc/43908 <-- ladder game http://drop.sc/43907 <-- ladder game
I read this guide and watched 3 replays. These are my initial reactions:
Calling this strategy 90%+ win rate just makes it look worse, not better. It makes it seem like you're just not playing good enough people who know how to react to it. If the build were truly 90% at the highest levels, you should be winning tournaments, ezpz. Plus, it makes you seem arrogant.
Your analysis in the middle of the guide seems good and well thought out.
Why not go stargate before 2 additional gates? This is the way MC does it and I assume you're trying to emulate his build.
The biggest problem I have with this build is that it relies on your opponent not seeing it before and thus reacting poorly. The first example is unit composition. Many players will take a look at your unit composition and go completely different tech route from each other, such as infestor hydra, broodlord corruptor, roach ling hydra corruptor, etc... Most people see this unit comp and aren't sure what to make, which I believe is roach corruptor.
Another big problem is that most people don't know how to deal with mothership. If you throw your entire army into a vortex, especially a broodlord/corruptor army, you instantly lose. Zergs who learn to split their army and not run everything into a vortex will do much better.
On October 13 2011 02:02 NrGmonk wrote: I read this guide and watched 3 replays. These are my initial reactions:
Calling this strategy 90%+ win rate just makes it look worse, not better. It makes it seem like you're just not playing good enough people who know how to react to it. If the build were truly 90% at the highest levels, you should be winning tournaments, ezpz. Plus, it makes you seem arrogant.
Your analysis in the middle of the guide seems good and well thought out.
Why not go stargate before 2 additional gates? This is the way MC does it and I assume you're trying to emulate his build.
The biggest problem I have with this build is that it relies on your opponent not seeing it before and thus reacting poorly. The first example is unit composition. Many players will take a look at your unit composition and go completely different tech route from each other, such as infestor hydra, broodlord corruptor, roach ling hydra corruptor, etc... Most people see this unit comp and aren't sure what to make, which I believe is roach corruptor.
Another big problem is that most people don't know how to deal with mothership. If you throw your entire army into a vortex, especially a broodlord/corruptor army, you instantly lose. Zergs who learn to split their army and not run everything into a vortex will do much better.
MC used to throw down his 2 gateways before the stargate, 100% sure. I'm not sure if he has recently changed this up.
That being said, I have been experimenting with the stargate first or second, and it may indeed be better.
Another thing is; what units should the zerg make?
And saying he has to split his army is really worthless advice that has been given too much in this topic. EVERYTHING you do makes your units ball up, -everything-. It's how the game works.
On October 13 2011 02:30 IMRandom wrote: "HUARGH's"?You ripped the strat and the guide off Playxp and ur claiming it as ur own -_- At least give the creator some credit u moron.
No, everything in this guide is from me. I thought up everything that's written in this guide, I have written everything in this guide. I don't even read Korean and have no idea what you linked.
That being said, I think you are just bitter because i 2-0'd you in ladder fairly easily :p
On October 13 2011 02:30 IMRandom wrote: "HUARGH's"?You ripped the strat and the guide off Playxp and ur claiming it as ur own -_- At least give the creator some credit u moron.
No, everything in this guide is from me. I thought up everything that's written in this guide, I have written everything in this guide. I don't even read Korean and have no idea what you linked.
That being said, I think you are just bitter because i 2-0'd you in ladder fairly easily :p
If it's just the strategy that's similar, i'd just be suspicious, but even the two guides and their wordings are similar. Considering the korean guide is from 2 months ago, I don't have to guess.
Also, I think a mid master in KR server trumps any euro trash who pretends to be a GM
On October 13 2011 02:30 IMRandom wrote: "HUARGH's"?You ripped the strat and the guide off Playxp and ur claiming it as ur own -_- At least give the creator some credit u moron.
No, everything in this guide is from me. I thought up everything that's written in this guide, I have written everything in this guide. I don't even read Korean and have no idea what you linked.
That being said, I think you are just bitter because i 2-0'd you in ladder fairly easily :p
If it's just the strategy that's similar, i'd just be suspicious, but even the two guides and their wordings are similar. Considering the korean guide is from 2 months ago, I don't have to guess.
Also, I think a mid master in KR server trumps any euro trash who pretends to be a GM
I don't speak korean at all so I have no idea. If someone else could give some insight on this that would be great. I'm also not sure how 'similar' the strategy is (because once again, I don't speak korean). There may be nuances that make this build very different from the one you linked, that may be obvious to me but not to you.
That being said, do you want me to post the replays vs. you? :p
On October 13 2011 02:30 IMRandom wrote: "HUARGH's"?You ripped the strat and the guide off Playxp and ur claiming it as ur own -_- At least give the creator some credit u moron.
No, everything in this guide is from me. I thought up everything that's written in this guide, I have written everything in this guide. I don't even read Korean and have no idea what you linked.
That being said, I think you are just bitter because i 2-0'd you in ladder fairly easily :p
If it's just the strategy that's similar, i'd just be suspicious, but even the two guides and their wordings are similar. Considering the korean guide is from 2 months ago, I don't have to guess.
Also, I think a mid master in KR server trumps any euro trash who pretends to be a GM
I don't speak korean at all so I have no idea. If someone else could give some insight on this that would be great. I'm also not sure how 'similar' the strategy is (because once again, I don't speak korean). There may be nuances that make this build very different from the one you linked, that may be obvious to me but not to you.
That being said, do you want me to post the replays vs. you? :p
On October 13 2011 02:30 IMRandom wrote: "HUARGH's"?You ripped the strat and the guide off Playxp and ur claiming it as ur own -_- At least give the creator some credit u moron.
No, everything in this guide is from me. I thought up everything that's written in this guide, I have written everything in this guide. I don't even read Korean and have no idea what you linked.
That being said, I think you are just bitter because i 2-0'd you in ladder fairly easily :p
If it's just the strategy that's similar, i'd just be suspicious, but even the two guides and their wordings are similar. Considering the korean guide is from 2 months ago, I don't have to guess.
Also, I think a mid master in KR server trumps any euro trash who pretends to be a GM
I don't speak korean at all so I have no idea. If someone else could give some insight on this that would be great. I'm also not sure how 'similar' the strategy is (because once again, I don't speak korean). There may be nuances that make this build very different from the one you linked, that may be obvious to me but not to you.
That being said, do you want me to post the replays vs. you? :p
Oh i see, but u misunderstood. http://sc2ranks.com/eu/1745784/IMRandom <--- This is certainly NOT me. I'm just a random bloke in KR who got pissed after reading this blatant ripoff and created an acc.
I can read Korean, and I'm completely sure that there are incredibly obvious similarities with the two guides.
On October 13 2011 02:30 IMRandom wrote: "HUARGH's"?You ripped the strat and the guide off Playxp and ur claiming it as ur own -_- At least give the creator some credit u moron.
No, everything in this guide is from me. I thought up everything that's written in this guide, I have written everything in this guide. I don't even read Korean and have no idea what you linked.
That being said, I think you are just bitter because i 2-0'd you in ladder fairly easily :p
If it's just the strategy that's similar, i'd just be suspicious, but even the two guides and their wordings are similar. Considering the korean guide is from 2 months ago, I don't have to guess.
Also, I think a mid master in KR server trumps any euro trash who pretends to be a GM
I don't speak korean at all so I have no idea. If someone else could give some insight on this that would be great. I'm also not sure how 'similar' the strategy is (because once again, I don't speak korean). There may be nuances that make this build very different from the one you linked, that may be obvious to me but not to you.
That being said, do you want me to post the replays vs. you? :p
Now you're just being a dick
No I'm not. I'm being accused of something I know that is wrong and I have had inflammatory conversations with this guy on b.net EU, which would provide him with a motive.
EDIT: If you are not the EU IMRandom, I apologize, but everything in this guide is thought up and written by me. I have not used a template and have never seen the playxp guide you linked (let alone read it, I don't read korean). In fact; my first draft of this build was written drunk at 6 AM and poorly constructed, I re-wrote it later with better wording.
On October 13 2011 02:30 IMRandom wrote: "HUARGH's"?You ripped the strat and the guide off Playxp and ur claiming it as ur own -_- At least give the creator some credit u moron.
No, everything in this guide is from me. I thought up everything that's written in this guide, I have written everything in this guide. I don't even read Korean and have no idea what you linked.
That being said, I think you are just bitter because i 2-0'd you in ladder fairly easily :p
If it's just the strategy that's similar, i'd just be suspicious, but even the two guides and their wordings are similar. Considering the korean guide is from 2 months ago, I don't have to guess.
Also, I think a mid master in KR server trumps any euro trash who pretends to be a GM
I don't speak korean at all so I have no idea. If someone else could give some insight on this that would be great. I'm also not sure how 'similar' the strategy is (because once again, I don't speak korean). There may be nuances that make this build very different from the one you linked, that may be obvious to me but not to you.
That being said, do you want me to post the replays vs. you? :p
Now you're just being a dick
No I'm not. I'm being accused of something I know that is wrong and I have had inflammatory conversations with this guy on b.net EU, which would provide him with a motive.
I don't have an acc in EU, and "IMRandom" is just a spontaneous creation from my race "Random" and my favouritism towards IM. Any correlation with the http://sc2ranks.com/eu/1745784/IMRandom bloke is just coincidental. For that, I'll retract the "euro trash" comment, however u are faking the "gm" thing nonetheless.
Please, I can read korean, and i can spot the obvious similarities. Just back down and credit the original creator
On October 13 2011 02:30 IMRandom wrote: "HUARGH's"?You ripped the strat and the guide off Playxp and ur claiming it as ur own -_- At least give the creator some credit u moron.
No, everything in this guide is from me. I thought up everything that's written in this guide, I have written everything in this guide. I don't even read Korean and have no idea what you linked.
That being said, I think you are just bitter because i 2-0'd you in ladder fairly easily :p
If it's just the strategy that's similar, i'd just be suspicious, but even the two guides and their wordings are similar. Considering the korean guide is from 2 months ago, I don't have to guess.
Also, I think a mid master in KR server trumps any euro trash who pretends to be a GM
I don't speak korean at all so I have no idea. If someone else could give some insight on this that would be great. I'm also not sure how 'similar' the strategy is (because once again, I don't speak korean). There may be nuances that make this build very different from the one you linked, that may be obvious to me but not to you.
That being said, do you want me to post the replays vs. you? :p
Now you're just being a dick
No I'm not. I'm being accused of something I know that is wrong and I have had inflammatory conversations with this guy on b.net EU, which would provide him with a motive.
I don't have an acc in EU, and "IMRandom" is just a spontaneous creation from my race "Random" and my favouritism towards IM. Any correlation with the http://sc2ranks.com/eu/1745784/IMRandom bloke is just coincidental. For that, I'll retract the "euro trash" comment, however u are faking the "gm" thing nonetheless.
Please, I can read korean, and i can spot the obvious similarities. Just back down and credit the original creator
I am not going to credit anybody but myself, as I made the guide. I gave MC credit for the 1gate expand into void, from there on out, however, everything is thought up by me. I'm not saying it is totally impossible for someone to make the same mental leaps as me or come up with a build that's roughly equal to mine, but I don't think the similarities can be that striking as you are making it out to be.
Anyway, I'd love it if you could post some examples of what you would consider 'obvious similarities'? I tried translating through google translate but that didn't really work out too well.
It sucks that you can still use the archon toilet technique even though it was "patched" in order to avoid the problem. It especially sucked seeing Kiwikaki use it in the IPL to beat a player in a game ( which had its merits and was awesome by the way) he kinda lost allready. Zergs beware
On October 13 2011 02:30 IMRandom wrote: "HUARGH's"?You ripped the strat and the guide off Playxp and ur claiming it as ur own -_- At least give the creator some credit u moron.
No, everything in this guide is from me. I thought up everything that's written in this guide, I have written everything in this guide. I don't even read Korean and have no idea what you linked.
That being said, I think you are just bitter because i 2-0'd you in ladder fairly easily :p
If it's just the strategy that's similar, i'd just be suspicious, but even the two guides and their wordings are similar. Considering the korean guide is from 2 months ago, I don't have to guess.
Also, I think a mid master in KR server trumps any euro trash who pretends to be a GM
I don't speak korean at all so I have no idea. If someone else could give some insight on this that would be great. I'm also not sure how 'similar' the strategy is (because once again, I don't speak korean). There may be nuances that make this build very different from the one you linked, that may be obvious to me but not to you.
That being said, do you want me to post the replays vs. you? :p
Now you're just being a dick
No I'm not. I'm being accused of something I know that is wrong and I have had inflammatory conversations with this guy on b.net EU, which would provide him with a motive.
I don't have an acc in EU, and "IMRandom" is just a spontaneous creation from my race "Random" and my favouritism towards IM. Any correlation with the http://sc2ranks.com/eu/1745784/IMRandom bloke is just coincidental. For that, I'll retract the "euro trash" comment, however u are faking the "gm" thing nonetheless.
Please, I can read korean, and i can spot the obvious similarities. Just back down and credit the original creator
I am not going to credit anybody but myself, as I made the guide. I gave MC credit for the 1gate expand into void, from there on out, however, everything is thought up by me. I'm not saying it is totally impossible for someone to make the same mental leaps as me or come up with a build that's roughly equal to mine, but I don't think the similarities can be that striking as you are making it out to be.
Anyway, I'd love it if you could post some examples of what you would consider 'obvious similarities'? I tried translating through google translate but that didn't really work out too well.
It's 3 am in the morning here, not gonna go too deep into it, but the only notable difference is the korean bloke goes stargate first, but u go 1gate expo, which i believe is better. However, the korean bloke is diamond so...Main things are: ur intro, counter against zerg timings and scouting are similarly worded. I think u've improved the BO, but then again, the bloke is diamond >_>
It's kinda hard to believe u because ur lying about u being in GM as well. I'd say high master and low GM are about equal, but ur still lying
Ok, so the build is entirely different, from another patch, the author is diamond but there are some similar wordings even though it's another language!
On October 13 2011 03:37 the p00n wrote: Ok, so the build is entirely different, from another patch, the author is diamond but there are some similar wordings even though it's another language!
I was GM but dropped out due to inactivity. The link you provided does not show me being promoted to GM league.
No the build is pretty much the same in terms of concept, it's just one order difference. Patch just makes it better. Even though it's an another language, the similarities are so clear and obvious.
The link should show that u were in GM if u ever were. It doesn't.
On October 13 2011 02:30 IMRandom wrote: "HUARGH's"?You ripped the strat and the guide off Playxp and ur claiming it as ur own -_- At least give the creator some credit u moron.
No, everything in this guide is from me. I thought up everything that's written in this guide, I have written everything in this guide. I don't even read Korean and have no idea what you linked.
That being said, I think you are just bitter because i 2-0'd you in ladder fairly easily :p
If it's just the strategy that's similar, i'd just be suspicious, but even the two guides and their wordings are similar. Considering the korean guide is from 2 months ago, I don't have to guess.
Also, I think a mid master in KR server trumps any euro trash who pretends to be a GM
I don't speak korean at all so I have no idea. If someone else could give some insight on this that would be great. I'm also not sure how 'similar' the strategy is (because once again, I don't speak korean). There may be nuances that make this build very different from the one you linked, that may be obvious to me but not to you.
That being said, do you want me to post the replays vs. you? :p
Now you're just being a dick
No I'm not. I'm being accused of something I know that is wrong and I have had inflammatory conversations with this guy on b.net EU, which would provide him with a motive.
I don't have an acc in EU, and "IMRandom" is just a spontaneous creation from my race "Random" and my favouritism towards IM. Any correlation with the http://sc2ranks.com/eu/1745784/IMRandom bloke is just coincidental. For that, I'll retract the "euro trash" comment, however u are faking the "gm" thing nonetheless.
Please, I can read korean, and i can spot the obvious similarities. Just back down and credit the original creator
I am not going to credit anybody but myself, as I made the guide. I gave MC credit for the 1gate expand into void, from there on out, however, everything is thought up by me. I'm not saying it is totally impossible for someone to make the same mental leaps as me or come up with a build that's roughly equal to mine, but I don't think the similarities can be that striking as you are making it out to be.
Anyway, I'd love it if you could post some examples of what you would consider 'obvious similarities'? I tried translating through google translate but that didn't really work out too well.
It's 3 am in the morning here, not gonna go too deep into it, but the only notable difference is the korean bloke goes stargate first, but u go 1gate expo, which i believe is better. However, the korean bloke is diamond so...Main things are: ur intro, counter against zerg timings and scouting are similarly worded. I think u've improved the BO, but then again, the bloke is diamond >_>
It's kinda hard to believe u because ur lying about u being in GM as well. I'd say high master and low GM are about equal, but ur still lying
But then again, i'd like to argue that there aren't one thousand ways to go fast mothership (well, i think, correct me if i'm wrong). I mean, those builds all come down to getting a fast expand, find a way to keep up with the zerg and know what he is doing (phoenix void ray), defend yourself (buy time, i guess) while you get the mothership, take the third with he mothership support. From here, that's the part where we start seeing more differences in what they are doing.
Watching the replay on playxp just shows that its some kind of mix between Plexa's build and this one, where he goes for blink and templars, but no archons, if I understood correctly. Then, he builds a lot of blink stalkers and go harrass a lot, in other words, he uses the mothership very defensively
What i am trying to say is, it's not completely out of question that more than 1 person thought about this kind of build when they kinda have the same philosophy on how to get there
On October 13 2011 02:30 IMRandom wrote: "HUARGH's"?You ripped the strat and the guide off Playxp and ur claiming it as ur own -_- At least give the creator some credit u moron.
No, everything in this guide is from me. I thought up everything that's written in this guide, I have written everything in this guide. I don't even read Korean and have no idea what you linked.
That being said, I think you are just bitter because i 2-0'd you in ladder fairly easily :p
If it's just the strategy that's similar, i'd just be suspicious, but even the two guides and their wordings are similar. Considering the korean guide is from 2 months ago, I don't have to guess.
Also, I think a mid master in KR server trumps any euro trash who pretends to be a GM
I don't speak korean at all so I have no idea. If someone else could give some insight on this that would be great. I'm also not sure how 'similar' the strategy is (because once again, I don't speak korean). There may be nuances that make this build very different from the one you linked, that may be obvious to me but not to you.
That being said, do you want me to post the replays vs. you? :p
Now you're just being a dick
No I'm not. I'm being accused of something I know that is wrong and I have had inflammatory conversations with this guy on b.net EU, which would provide him with a motive.
I don't have an acc in EU, and "IMRandom" is just a spontaneous creation from my race "Random" and my favouritism towards IM. Any correlation with the http://sc2ranks.com/eu/1745784/IMRandom bloke is just coincidental. For that, I'll retract the "euro trash" comment, however u are faking the "gm" thing nonetheless.
Please, I can read korean, and i can spot the obvious similarities. Just back down and credit the original creator
I am not going to credit anybody but myself, as I made the guide. I gave MC credit for the 1gate expand into void, from there on out, however, everything is thought up by me. I'm not saying it is totally impossible for someone to make the same mental leaps as me or come up with a build that's roughly equal to mine, but I don't think the similarities can be that striking as you are making it out to be.
Anyway, I'd love it if you could post some examples of what you would consider 'obvious similarities'? I tried translating through google translate but that didn't really work out too well.
It's 3 am in the morning here, not gonna go too deep into it, but the only notable difference is the korean bloke goes stargate first, but u go 1gate expo, which i believe is better. However, the korean bloke is diamond so...Main things are: ur intro, counter against zerg timings and scouting are similarly worded. I think u've improved the BO, but then again, the bloke is diamond >_>
It's kinda hard to believe u because ur lying about u being in GM as well. I'd say high master and low GM are about equal, but ur still lying
But then again, i'd like to argue that there aren't one thousand ways to go fast mothership (well, i think, correct me if i'm wrong). I mean, those builds all come down to getting a fast expand, find a way to keep up with the zerg and know what he is doing (phoenix void ray), defend yourself (buy time, i guess) while you get the mothership, take the third with he mothership support. From here, that's the part where we start seeing more differences in what they are doing.
Watching the replay on playxp just shows that its some kind of mix between Plexa's build and this one, where he goes for blink and templars, but no archons, if I understood correctly. Then, he builds a lot of blink stalkers and go harrass a lot, in other words, he uses the mothership very defensively
What i am trying to say is, it's not completely out of question that more than 1 person thought about this kind of build when they kinda have the same philosophy on how to get there
Let me sum this up for u.1. The GUIDE is very similar, including the title.(90winrate thingy) 2.He is lying about ever being in GM. 3. The build is very similar
If it was just no.3, I wouldn't have called him out. It's the striking similarities between two guides that caught my attention
If he wanted to plagarize someone else's guide I doubt he'd copy the title word for word and if you're so sure that he stole the guide then put some effort into proving it instead of saying it's very similar to something almost no one here can read anyway. Otherwise stop derailing the thread.
I dont see what your problem with this guide is, dont read it if you dont like it. Im in Masters, and after having serious issued with zerg (they owned me mid - early, i couldnt take a third etc) ive been having sucsess with this. Its not unbeatable, but definitely fun to play.
No, everything in this guide is from me. I thought up everything that's written in this guide, I have written everything in this guide. I don't even read Korean and have no idea what you linked.
That being said, I think you are just bitter because i 2-0'd you in ladder fairly easily :p
If it's just the strategy that's similar, i'd just be suspicious, but even the two guides and their wordings are similar. Considering the korean guide is from 2 months ago, I don't have to guess.
Also, I think a mid master in KR server trumps any euro trash who pretends to be a GM
I don't speak korean at all so I have no idea. If someone else could give some insight on this that would be great. I'm also not sure how 'similar' the strategy is (because once again, I don't speak korean). There may be nuances that make this build very different from the one you linked, that may be obvious to me but not to you.
That being said, do you want me to post the replays vs. you? :p
Now you're just being a dick
No I'm not. I'm being accused of something I know that is wrong and I have had inflammatory conversations with this guy on b.net EU, which would provide him with a motive.
I don't have an acc in EU, and "IMRandom" is just a spontaneous creation from my race "Random" and my favouritism towards IM. Any correlation with the http://sc2ranks.com/eu/1745784/IMRandom bloke is just coincidental. For that, I'll retract the "euro trash" comment, however u are faking the "gm" thing nonetheless.
Please, I can read korean, and i can spot the obvious similarities. Just back down and credit the original creator
I am not going to credit anybody but myself, as I made the guide. I gave MC credit for the 1gate expand into void, from there on out, however, everything is thought up by me. I'm not saying it is totally impossible for someone to make the same mental leaps as me or come up with a build that's roughly equal to mine, but I don't think the similarities can be that striking as you are making it out to be.
Anyway, I'd love it if you could post some examples of what you would consider 'obvious similarities'? I tried translating through google translate but that didn't really work out too well.
It's 3 am in the morning here, not gonna go too deep into it, but the only notable difference is the korean bloke goes stargate first, but u go 1gate expo, which i believe is better. However, the korean bloke is diamond so...Main things are: ur intro, counter against zerg timings and scouting are similarly worded. I think u've improved the BO, but then again, the bloke is diamond >_>
It's kinda hard to believe u because ur lying about u being in GM as well. I'd say high master and low GM are about equal, but ur still lying
But then again, i'd like to argue that there aren't one thousand ways to go fast mothership (well, i think, correct me if i'm wrong). I mean, those builds all come down to getting a fast expand, find a way to keep up with the zerg and know what he is doing (phoenix void ray), defend yourself (buy time, i guess) while you get the mothership, take the third with he mothership support. From here, that's the part where we start seeing more differences in what they are doing.
Watching the replay on playxp just shows that its some kind of mix between Plexa's build and this one, where he goes for blink and templars, but no archons, if I understood correctly. Then, he builds a lot of blink stalkers and go harrass a lot, in other words, he uses the mothership very defensively
What i am trying to say is, it's not completely out of question that more than 1 person thought about this kind of build when they kinda have the same philosophy on how to get there
Let me sum this up for u.1. The GUIDE is very similar, including the title.(90winrate thingy) 2.He is lying about ever being in GM. 3. The build is very similar
If it was just no.3, I wouldn't have called him out. It's the striking similarities between two guides that caught my attention
for 1, I can't read Korean and google translation is kinda bad, so I am trusting you on that one (I assume you are talking about the textual structure). I think the build was written following a standard structure, but I still see your point, and can't deny it (and I do see the 90% winrate too and all).
2. Now, for that point, you are right. Technically, even I think that he should have written that he was high master, instead of ''playing at grandmaster level'', which is misleading. He was probably trying to get more viewers in a cheap way, but those ways usually always end up in backfires (like in this case). I will just say that taking this point to say that he is a blatantly lying about the legitimate of his entire guide is kinda harsh tho, considering that he does play against GM opponents. Not all the time, i would guess (i am not high master, so I don't know the frequency at which you are supposed to play against GM people), so his statement is still true in a way. VERY misleading, but not entirely wrong.
3. well, I explained my position on this point my last post.
Now, I would like to say that I am in no way entirely defending the author here. I am just trying to tone down the mood, by saying that jumping to conclusions with the facts I see right now is a bit pushing it. The author could have ripped to guide as he could be the legitimate author, but I think only he knows. He says he didn't steal it and somewhat explained his position, thrus I will go for the benefit of the doubt right now.
If more people think your way tho, after reading the ''original'' guide, then yes, I think your case would be more solid. But right now, only you can read Korean here...
I encountered GLSnute on ladder, he is a GM league player and featured streamer on tl.net. I think I have provided enough replays for now, so I shall stop.
I lol'd at this one :D The guide was excellent, especially from a Zerg point of view. I can clearly see why Kiwikaki continues to use motherships, especially due to the benefits you've pointed out here.
I would like to see how this fares against a macro zerg who plays extremely passive but harasses constantly with corruptors (and builds up infestor/roach/hydra) after scouting moship tech.
If it's just the strategy that's similar, i'd just be suspicious, but even the two guides and their wordings are similar. Considering the korean guide is from 2 months ago, I don't have to guess.
Also, I think a mid master in KR server trumps any euro trash who pretends to be a GM
I don't speak korean at all so I have no idea. If someone else could give some insight on this that would be great. I'm also not sure how 'similar' the strategy is (because once again, I don't speak korean). There may be nuances that make this build very different from the one you linked, that may be obvious to me but not to you.
That being said, do you want me to post the replays vs. you? :p
Now you're just being a dick
No I'm not. I'm being accused of something I know that is wrong and I have had inflammatory conversations with this guy on b.net EU, which would provide him with a motive.
I don't have an acc in EU, and "IMRandom" is just a spontaneous creation from my race "Random" and my favouritism towards IM. Any correlation with the http://sc2ranks.com/eu/1745784/IMRandom bloke is just coincidental. For that, I'll retract the "euro trash" comment, however u are faking the "gm" thing nonetheless.
Please, I can read korean, and i can spot the obvious similarities. Just back down and credit the original creator
I am not going to credit anybody but myself, as I made the guide. I gave MC credit for the 1gate expand into void, from there on out, however, everything is thought up by me. I'm not saying it is totally impossible for someone to make the same mental leaps as me or come up with a build that's roughly equal to mine, but I don't think the similarities can be that striking as you are making it out to be.
Anyway, I'd love it if you could post some examples of what you would consider 'obvious similarities'? I tried translating through google translate but that didn't really work out too well.
It's 3 am in the morning here, not gonna go too deep into it, but the only notable difference is the korean bloke goes stargate first, but u go 1gate expo, which i believe is better. However, the korean bloke is diamond so...Main things are: ur intro, counter against zerg timings and scouting are similarly worded. I think u've improved the BO, but then again, the bloke is diamond >_>
It's kinda hard to believe u because ur lying about u being in GM as well. I'd say high master and low GM are about equal, but ur still lying
But then again, i'd like to argue that there aren't one thousand ways to go fast mothership (well, i think, correct me if i'm wrong). I mean, those builds all come down to getting a fast expand, find a way to keep up with the zerg and know what he is doing (phoenix void ray), defend yourself (buy time, i guess) while you get the mothership, take the third with he mothership support. From here, that's the part where we start seeing more differences in what they are doing.
Watching the replay on playxp just shows that its some kind of mix between Plexa's build and this one, where he goes for blink and templars, but no archons, if I understood correctly. Then, he builds a lot of blink stalkers and go harrass a lot, in other words, he uses the mothership very defensively
What i am trying to say is, it's not completely out of question that more than 1 person thought about this kind of build when they kinda have the same philosophy on how to get there
Let me sum this up for u.1. The GUIDE is very similar, including the title.(90winrate thingy) 2.He is lying about ever being in GM. 3. The build is very similar
If it was just no.3, I wouldn't have called him out. It's the striking similarities between two guides that caught my attention
2. Now, for that point, you are right. Technically, even I think that he should have written that he was high master, instead of ''playing at grandmaster level'', which is misleading.
Misleading, but True. Some of his replays ARE against GM players. Because the ladder matches you up with players of similar skill, he can viably to be "playing at a grandmaster level". If he had lost to every grandmaster he played, then he obviously wouldn't be able to claim the same, but even beating one GM means that he's playing on at least "that GM's level".
So anyone can make accusations of plagiarism without backing them up with any evidence at all ( yeah cause we all read korean around here ), that sounds fair to me. There should be some sanction given here.
Anyway thanks for this OP, I will make this my main BO in PvZ :D
I played a little with the build and I think there's a lot of refinement that can be done.
One of the big advantages for me in using that build (and it doesn't seem to be given much emphasis in the guide) is how u can have a really strong defensive position but yet be really agressive on the map with chargelots drops.
Chargelot drops are extremely effective and were usually a little weird to try and incorporate mid-game in my usual builds.
I also think its fairly easy to do effective transitions when you start opening with that build.
What I usually prefer is to get my robo as I get my third so I can start becoming agressive with chargelot drops fairly early in the game. I also found that once I get a decent number of archons for archon toilet, just throwing several immortals into the mix and then slowly trading ur zealots for blink stalkers and HTs with storm makes up for a really strong late game composition (basically blink stalker immortal HTs archon mothership).
Allright.. I've played a fair number of times that build now, and I've had quite a few wins.. but far from the 90% you mentionned ( mid/high master's level ).
My feeling is that its weakest part is a 2/3 base all-in from Zerg with roaches/hydras after you've successfully set up your B3, while you're powering up for archons. You have a decent amount of zealots, a couple of sentries, but the number of archons is still too limited ( 6-7 ) to finish off his army, it doesn't deal enough damage to the roaches and the zealots evaporate due to his dps..
One thing I've realized is that this build is a pretty decent counter to mutas/lings. The fear of the vortex, plus archons, shuts down mutas harass pretty quickly. If you don't do any major mistake, play defensively on 3 bases, tech blink/storm along with archons and have a good engagement, the game is pretty much in the bag.
On October 13 2011 16:22 jemag wrote: I played a little with the build and I think there's a lot of refinement that can be done.
One of the big advantages for me in using that build (and it doesn't seem to be given much emphasis in the guide) is how u can have a really strong defensive position but yet be really agressive on the map with chargelots drops.
Chargelot drops are extremely effective and were usually a little weird to try and incorporate mid-game in my usual builds.
I also think its fairly easy to do effective transitions when you start opening with that build.
What I usually prefer is to get my robo as I get my third so I can start becoming agressive with chargelot drops fairly early in the game. I also found that once I get a decent number of archons for archon toilet, just throwing several immortals into the mix and then slowly trading ur zealots for blink stalkers and HTs with storm makes up for a really strong late game composition (basically blink stalker immortal HTs archon mothership).
Yeh, I've actually thought about this yesterday, but more in the form of parking 2 warp prisms at 2 of his bases and remaxing on zealots after a big engagement right here. Also, I've been getting the stargate before the 4th sentry and the 2 gateways, kcdc's earlier stargate suggestion got me thinking.
I will play around with warp prisms and eventually update the guide.
On October 14 2011 01:22 Tantaburs wrote: forgive me if it has already been asked before but would it be better to FFE on maps such as Tal'darim/shakuras or still go gate first?
I downvote tal'darim (but would still go 1gate expo) and it is never better to go FFE imo. FFE is a very silly opening.
my problem is that around 14 min mark when my 3 rd should really kick in he come with hidra roach infestor queens vs i have alrdy 4 maybe even 6 (have to look replay ) tons of zealots + i had like 5 stalker but i still had only 1 vortex energy i preatty good catch him what did not entered the vortex i killed off and than i jumped into vortex with all. he did win.asap i did push gua shield and pulled back mother ship ,but it was sniped my army was preatty much raped i did stay there with like 1 archon + 4-5 zealot vs mass speed roach rally there.
- yes my mothership was a lil bit later popped than it suppose to be - yes i had +2 attack - yea maybe my macro slipped a lil bit ( but i bet my oppo did not played perf either )
so what should i do if he dont play the max out macro game , he just secure 3 base and start to pressure arround so i have to move to def my 3rd. I have the mothership ( low enery 1 vortex max ) + like 8-10 gate support.
On October 14 2011 06:18 Gerike wrote: my problem is that around 14 min mark when my 3 rd should really kick in he come with hidra roach infestor queens vs i have alrdy 4 maybe even 6 (have to look replay ) tons of zealots + i had like 5 stalker but i still had only 1 vortex energy i preatty good catch him what did not entered the vortex i killed off and than i jumped into vortex with all. he did win.asap i did push gua shield and pulled back mother ship ,but it was sniped my army was preatty much raped i did stay there with like 1 archon + 4-5 zealot vs mass speed roach rally there.
- yes my mothership was a lil bit later popped than it suppose to be - yes i had +2 attack - yea maybe my macro slipped a lil bit ( but i bet my oppo did not played perf either )
so what should i do if he dont play the max out macro game , he just secure 3 base and start to pressure arround so i have to move to def my 3rd. I have the mothership ( low enery 1 vortex max ) + like 8-10 gate support.
It's hard to exactly make out what you're saying, could you post the replay?
On October 14 2011 00:21 marvellosity wrote: Must say, IMRandom is coming across as a total douche. Either provide hard evidence to back up your claims, or shut the hell up.
Fantastic build and effort btw.
I'm a douche cause i dislike plagiarism? I provided hard evidence. go look at the link I posted. If u can't read korean, how is does that invalidate anything? Even if u can't read korean, even the title's the same.
He was lying about being in GM, he edited that out. He LIES. U gonna believe him about plagiarism?
On October 14 2011 01:25 the p00n wrote: I downvote tal'darim (but would still go 1gate expo) and it is never better to go FFE imo. FFE is a very silly opening.
Could you expand on this a little bit because it seems to me that this style of play would actually go very well with the FFE? Especially given that you recommend a larger gateway composition as a follow-up. To me the economic boost of a forge FFE would allow for a heavier ground army whil;e still being able to expand.I'm just theory-crafting but i would like to hear your reasons for not liking the FFE.
On October 14 2011 01:25 the p00n wrote: I downvote tal'darim (but would still go 1gate expo) and it is never better to go FFE imo. FFE is a very silly opening.
Could you expand on this a little bit because it seems to me that this style of play would actually go very well with the FFE? Especially given that you recommend a larger gateway composition as a follow-up. To me the economic boost of a forge FFE would allow for a heavier ground army whil;e still being able to expand.I'm just theory-crafting but i would like to hear your reasons for not liking the FFE.
The reason why I dislike FFE is because the zerg does not have to be very conservative with his droning, and can get an immediate 3rd base. A gateway/core opening may branch into a 1-base all-in. It also allows for more metagaming. If I play against an opponent on ladder for the 3rd time and I went for this build 2 games in a row, I may go for a 1base all-in with a fake nexus or do a 6gate instead of transitioning into mothership. With a FFE, your options are very limited.
On October 14 2011 07:27 the p00n wrote: If I play against an opponent on ladder for the 3rd time and I went for this build 2 games in a row, I may go for a 1base all-in with a fake nexus or do a 6gate instead of transitioning into mothership. With a FFE, your options are very limited.
Hey, just a general question about this remark.
Why would you change your build if you met the same person on the ladder 3 times?
If he knows you are doing this strategy, what in particular are you worried about?
Just trying to see weakness in this build, and the easiest way to tell if a strategy has a weakness, is when the user is worried that the opponent knows what they are doing.
So a better way to ask: What are you scared of when doing this build, if you told your opponent you're doing it at the start of the game?
EDIT: Obviously there will be things you are worried about, as a player. For example, regardless of what I'm doing in PvZ, I'm always worried about Mutas, because I have poor track record against muta play - nothing to do with my builds, just me as a player, does poorly against mutas
HUARGH, I checked the build: 2 easy wins against master zergs, 1 loss so far.
The last game I played against rank 1 guy from your division, but I made a mistake in reading. I saw spire with phoenix so I thought he's gonna go muta, (and I also saw like 8 spore crawlers so I thought he must be bad, lol) but he actually went corruptors and infestors with some roaches. I made to many phoenixes, still won first battle, but he than made shitloads of banelings and I couldn't get 4th then eventually lost to broodlords and his superior econ.
I noticed you get excess of minerals soon after taking 3rd and you also make robo around that time, so getting few warp prisms around the map and warping +3 speed zealots from 20 warp gates seems to fit in pretty nicely. Also you could mention that against infestors you should get obs with your army asap in case of NP. Great guide.
On October 14 2011 07:27 the p00n wrote: If I play against an opponent on ladder for the 3rd time and I went for this build 2 games in a row, I may go for a 1base all-in with a fake nexus or do a 6gate instead of transitioning into mothership. With a FFE, your options are very limited.
So a better way to ask: What are you scared of when doing this build, if you told your opponent you're doing it at the start of the game?
Roach/queen all-in (with like 7-8 queens and mass creep), double expanding, extremely fast drops + tunneling claws (can be prevented though, but hard to play against/to scout).
On October 14 2011 08:11 habermas wrote: HUARGH, I checked the build: 2 easy wins against master zergs, 1 loss so far.
The last game I played against rank 1 guy from your division, but I made a mistake in reading. I saw spire with phoenix so I thought he's gonna go muta, (and I also saw like 8 spore crawlers so I thought he must be bad, lol) but he actually went corruptors and infestors with some roaches. I made to many phoenixes, still won first battle, but he than made shitloads of banelings and I couldn't get 4th then eventually lost to broodlords and his superior econ.
I noticed you get excess of minerals soon after taking 3rd and you also make robo around that time, so getting few warp prisms around the map and warping +3 speed zealots from 20 warp gates seems to fit in pretty nicely. Also you could mention that against infestors you should get obs with your army asap in case of NP. Great guide.
Glad you like the build could you post the replay you lost? I haven't really lost with it yet, even though I almost lost against Snute (because I made a shitton of mistakes).
Question for OP: which replay do you feel executed the build with the best precision in regards to macro, scouting, and reacting to the scouting, up the point of your 3rd base kicking in? I'm going to be watching replays to study the build, and would just like to know which one you think has the fewest actual mistakes.
Thanks for the guide, sounds awesome and can't wait to practice it and try it out.
I was losing to a shitton of platinum zergs these past few days, now I beat 3 master zergs today and a ton of diamonds.
This build is really great, and more safe and powerful than I'd expect from something with a mothership included. Thank you for the guide and the replays.
On October 14 2011 11:12 Carbonthief wrote: Question for OP: which replay do you feel executed the build with the best precision in regards to macro, scouting, and reacting to the scouting, up the point of your 3rd base kicking in? I'm going to be watching replays to study the build, and would just like to know which one you think has the fewest actual mistakes.
Thanks for the guide, sounds awesome and can't wait to practice it and try it out.
Hard to say. I would say the one against Snute, with the following exceptions:
1. constantly chrono your mothership, so you don't lose all your shit to banelings 2. retreat when zealots are gone, at my first big engagement I basically won the game but threw away my advantage by having only archons fight only roaches in a huge concave 3. better initial vortexes 4. faster 4th and +3 weapons
On October 14 2011 11:12 Carbonthief wrote: Question for OP: which replay do you feel executed the build with the best precision in regards to macro, scouting, and reacting to the scouting, up the point of your 3rd base kicking in? I'm going to be watching replays to study the build, and would just like to know which one you think has the fewest actual mistakes.
Thanks for the guide, sounds awesome and can't wait to practice it and try it out.
Hard to say. I would say the one against Snute, with the following exceptions:
1. constantly chrono your mothership, so you don't lose all your shit to banelings 2. retreat when zealots are gone, at my first big engagement I basically won the game but threw away my advantage by having only archons fight only roaches in a huge concave 3. better initial vortexes 4. faster 4th and +3 weapons
Thankyou... also a question, do you ever have trouble with just, a bunch of lings denying your 1 gate fe? You seem to stay on 1 zealot and a few sentries for longer time than I feel comfortable doing. Once I get like, 6 sentries, pretty invincible, but that span of time before you get all the sentries out feels really dangerous. Do you just, gauge whether or not you can do this, certain pool timings, basically what I'm asking is, is there anything you ever scout that makes you decide to 3 gate expand instead of 1 gate expand because it simply isn't safe, or do you feel you can pretty much always hold it if you do it right?
I find it really good to have a second forge up after you get the third base. It's cheap, and getting the shield upgrades is awesome for both zealots and archons.
On October 13 2011 16:22 jemag wrote: I played a little with the build and I think there's a lot of refinement that can be done.
One of the big advantages for me in using that build (and it doesn't seem to be given much emphasis in the guide) is how u can have a really strong defensive position but yet be really agressive on the map with chargelots drops.
Chargelot drops are extremely effective and were usually a little weird to try and incorporate mid-game in my usual builds.
I also think its fairly easy to do effective transitions when you start opening with that build.
What I usually prefer is to get my robo as I get my third so I can start becoming agressive with chargelot drops fairly early in the game. I also found that once I get a decent number of archons for archon toilet, just throwing several immortals into the mix and then slowly trading ur zealots for blink stalkers and HTs with storm makes up for a really strong late game composition (basically blink stalker immortal HTs archon mothership).
I've been getting the stargate before the 4th sentry and the 2 gateways, kcdc's earlier stargate suggestion got me thinking.
I've been using this as my primary PvZ build and it's very strong. I do change a few things up tho. You can get a very fast stargate by building the stargate before your 4th sentry, but it's not very safe if Z just makes ~10 speedlings to pressure as your setting up your natural. Most of the time, Z doesn't do that, but it's a small investment from Z that will really screw you up if you don't chrono out those 4 sentries. I prefer to get my stargate after 4 sentries and my 2nd gate which is a little faster than the OP which gets 4 sentries and 3 gates before stargate. I don't get a third gate until after starting my mothership.
I put more emphasis on void rays than the OP suggests. Having a few voids (rather than 1 or 2) helps protect you from 2 and early 3-base timings because roaches can't hit them and they pop overseers very quickly. If you get into a fight where you're outnumbered, just focus the voids on the overseers and you're safe again.
I don't make as many archons. Archon+mothership is great, but it can be beaten by well-positioned roaches and/or broodlords. Having 4 HT with storm and a handful of void rays feels stronger and more versatile than just massing archons. I still make a lot of archons for the meat of my army--I just spread my gas slightly more than the OP suggests. Storm is much better for protecting your mothership+voids against corruptors than archons alone are, and storm's range is very helpful against broodlords. I will say that the control for mothership + archon/zealot + HT + void rays can be very difficult as each group should be controlled separately.
I'm not 100% sure charge is worth getting as early as the OP suggests. In that 10-13 min window where I'm setting up my third, I think I'd rather have an extra archon than have my zealots run a little faster.
I don't bother with trying to sneak a 9 minute expo. Z can easily shut it down if they're playing well, and the defensible 10:30 expo feels fast enough.
On October 15 2011 04:01 Arcanefrost wrote: I heard hasuobs say this wasn't the way to go because if he scouts and gets fast corruptors it kills you, have you ever faced this?
HasuObs does it off a FFE, so it doesn't matter what he says.
@other guy: I never had troubles vs. hydra drop, but I have only faced it twice.
On October 15 2011 04:01 Arcanefrost wrote: I heard hasuobs say this wasn't the way to go because if he scouts and gets fast corruptors it kills you, have you ever faced this?
HasuObs does it off a FFE, so it doesn't matter what he says.
@other guy: I never had troubles vs. hydra drop, but I have only faced it twice.
Yes, a pro's opinion definitely doesn't matter at all.
Just a FYI I practiced vs this (opponent did a 1-gate expand every game) and I was able to get mutas in time, personally I prefer the mutas with the map control, but I could've gone corrupters in time as well. That being said I'm not sure I like the corrupter route, but if HasuObs says it's good then there has to be a reason.
With Corrupters vs Collossus it sucks, but I guess with the huge huge costs to get Mothership (+ a few void rays maybe) the excess AA doesn't hurt too much.
On October 15 2011 04:01 Arcanefrost wrote: I heard hasuobs say this wasn't the way to go because if he scouts and gets fast corruptors it kills you, have you ever faced this?
HasuObs does it off a FFE, so it doesn't matter what he says.
Why not? It's the same idea and most zergs treat 1gate fe like ffe anyways.
On October 15 2011 04:01 Arcanefrost wrote: I heard hasuobs say this wasn't the way to go because if he scouts and gets fast corruptors it kills you, have you ever faced this?
HasuObs does it off a FFE, so it doesn't matter what he says.
Why not? It's the same idea and most zergs treat 1gate fe like ffe anyways.
Not at all. When you expand with one or 3 gateways (a lot of the time, the zerg wont be able to know the difference), you have the ability to be, or at least threaten to be, agressive.
When you ffe, your economy will shoot, but you wont have any units. If you rush for mothership after ffe, and zerg just kills it off with corrupters because you don't have archons (and you wont), then you're screwed. If you do a normal expand and he rushes for corrupters, you will have archons out in time to be able to flush them.
I will say this though, corrupters is the best way to fight mothership, and there have been cases where I've just lost it because I wasn't careful enough. Sometimes thats a loss right there, other times I have won by simply rebuilding it (as my third is up, and he wont be able to take my third out right away since he spent so much resources on the corrupters).
I have won vs several Gm players with this build, and a progamer. You can't say its not viable
On October 15 2011 04:01 Arcanefrost wrote: I heard hasuobs say this wasn't the way to go because if he scouts and gets fast corruptors it kills you, have you ever faced this?
HasuObs does it off a FFE, so it doesn't matter what he says.
@other guy: I never had troubles vs. hydra drop, but I have only faced it twice.
I have been dropped by roaches and hydras a couple of times. Even when my archons are usually blocked by my own choke at the ramp, I still hold it easily.
On October 15 2011 04:01 Arcanefrost wrote: I heard hasuobs say this wasn't the way to go because if he scouts and gets fast corruptors it kills you, have you ever faced this?
HasuObs does it off a FFE, so it doesn't matter what he says.
@other guy: I never had troubles vs. hydra drop, but I have only faced it twice.
I have been dropped by roaches and hydras a couple of times. Even when my archons are usually blocked by my own choke at the ramp, I still hold it easily.
Which, actually, brings me to my biggest problem atm. If my opponent is going mutalisks, I have to kill off one of my own buildings at my main choke, sometimes at my natural as well, to be able to fit through archons. Which is essential if you catch the mutas with a vortex. Its not a gameending issue atm, but it is 300 very wasted minerals. Does anyone have any smart solutions to this?
On October 15 2011 04:01 Arcanefrost wrote: I heard hasuobs say this wasn't the way to go because if he scouts and gets fast corruptors it kills you, have you ever faced this?
HasuObs does it off a FFE, so it doesn't matter what he says.
Why not? It's the same idea and most zergs treat 1gate fe like ffe anyways.
Not at all. When you expand with one or 3 gateways (a lot of the time, the zerg wont be able to know the difference), you have the ability to be, or at least threaten to be, agressive.
When you ffe, your economy will shoot, but you wont have any units. If you rush for mothership after ffe, and zerg just kills it off with corrupters because you don't have archons (and you wont), then you're screwed. If you do a normal expand and he rushes for corrupters, you will have archons out in time to be able to flush them.
I will say this though, corrupters is the best way to fight mothership, and there have been cases where I've just lost it because I wasn't careful enough. Sometimes thats a loss right there, other times I have won by simply rebuilding it (as my third is up, and he wont be able to take my third out right away since he spent so much resources on the corrupters).
I have won vs several Gm players with this build, and a progamer. You can't say its not viable
I disagree. You can easily scout the difference between 1gate and 3gate. I doubt that vs macro oriented zergs 1gate fe will give your archon count that big of a boost. It's obviously viable if you can beat gm players with it, but I don't feel like this style will stay for a long time. If zergs start responding to mothership and vortex better this will be a lot less good, it's just not the way to go imo. But that's just my opinion, if you like it by all means keep doing it.
On October 15 2011 04:01 Arcanefrost wrote: I heard hasuobs say this wasn't the way to go because if he scouts and gets fast corruptors it kills you, have you ever faced this?
HasuObs does it off a FFE, so it doesn't matter what he says.
Why not? It's the same idea and most zergs treat 1gate fe like ffe anyways.
Not at all. When you expand with one or 3 gateways (a lot of the time, the zerg wont be able to know the difference), you have the ability to be, or at least threaten to be, agressive.
When you ffe, your economy will shoot, but you wont have any units. If you rush for mothership after ffe, and zerg just kills it off with corrupters because you don't have archons (and you wont), then you're screwed. If you do a normal expand and he rushes for corrupters, you will have archons out in time to be able to flush them.
I will say this though, corrupters is the best way to fight mothership, and there have been cases where I've just lost it because I wasn't careful enough. Sometimes thats a loss right there, other times I have won by simply rebuilding it (as my third is up, and he wont be able to take my third out right away since he spent so much resources on the corrupters).
I have won vs several Gm players with this build, and a progamer. You can't say its not viable
I disagree. You can easily scout the difference between 1gate and 3gate. I doubt that vs macro oriented zergs 1gate fe will give your archon count that big of a boost. It's obviously viable if you can beat gm players with it, but I don't feel like this style will stay for a long time. If zergs start responding to mothership and vortex better this will be a lot less good, it's just not the way to go imo. But that's just my opinion, if you like it by all means keep doing it.
I love the use of word "easily", especially as we're dealing with builds you don't see. You have to see the entierty of the base to be able to know for sure 100% that there aren't more gateways.
And it does. You will be ahead in tech when 1gate expanding compared to ffe, and thus you'll have archons just that little bit earlier. And since we're talking about "sniping" the mothership, it can only occur if the toss does a mistake (which is a long way from saying "impossible". Mistakes are easy), or when mothership doesn't have vortex and/or you don't have archons.
It's a cute strategy, but takes too long to rebuild mothership, even with chrono all the time. They could just lose their entire army and remax in a second or so mostly, if you face a good zerg anyways.
On October 15 2011 04:01 Arcanefrost wrote: I heard hasuobs say this wasn't the way to go because if he scouts and gets fast corruptors it kills you, have you ever faced this?
HasuObs does it off a FFE, so it doesn't matter what he says.
Why not? It's the same idea and most zergs treat 1gate fe like ffe anyways.
Not at all. When you expand with one or 3 gateways (a lot of the time, the zerg wont be able to know the difference), you have the ability to be, or at least threaten to be, agressive.
When you ffe, your economy will shoot, but you wont have any units. If you rush for mothership after ffe, and zerg just kills it off with corrupters because you don't have archons (and you wont), then you're screwed. If you do a normal expand and he rushes for corrupters, you will have archons out in time to be able to flush them.
I will say this though, corrupters is the best way to fight mothership, and there have been cases where I've just lost it because I wasn't careful enough. Sometimes thats a loss right there, other times I have won by simply rebuilding it (as my third is up, and he wont be able to take my third out right away since he spent so much resources on the corrupters).
I have won vs several Gm players with this build, and a progamer. You can't say its not viable
I disagree. You can easily scout the difference between 1gate and 3gate. I doubt that vs macro oriented zergs 1gate fe will give your archon count that big of a boost. It's obviously viable if you can beat gm players with it, but I don't feel like this style will stay for a long time. If zergs start responding to mothership and vortex better this will be a lot less good, it's just not the way to go imo. But that's just my opinion, if you like it by all means keep doing it.
I love the use of word "easily", especially as we're dealing with builds you don't see. You have to see the entierty of the base to be able to know for sure 100% that there aren't more gateways.
And it does. You will be ahead in tech when 1gate expanding compared to ffe, and thus you'll have archons just that little bit earlier. And since we're talking about "sniping" the mothership, it can only occur if the toss does a mistake (which is a long way from saying "impossible". Mistakes are easy), or when mothership doesn't have vortex and/or you don't have archons.
1-gate expand is at ~5:10 and 3-gate expand is at ~6:00. A good Z will know the difference. Also, archon tech is limited by gas income, not by building time, so FFE will actually have archons a little faster.
The advantage of 1-gate expand is that it limits Z's economy relative to what a FFE allows. 1-gate FE gets much faster WG tech, and you have the threat of a quick attack with 3 to 6 gates. Against FFE, Z can take a third before gas or any lings.
On October 16 2011 00:03 Excludos wrote: I love the use of word "easily", especially as we're dealing with builds you don't see. You have to see the entierty of the base to be able to know for sure 100% that there aren't more gateways.
And it does. You will be ahead in tech when 1gate expanding compared to ffe, and thus you'll have archons just that little bit earlier. And since we're talking about "sniping" the mothership, it can only occur if the toss does a mistake (which is a long way from saying "impossible". Mistakes are easy), or when mothership doesn't have vortex and/or you don't have archons.
If you see a 5minish expo it's 1gate fe, if it's 5:48ish it's 3gate. Not exactly rocket science is it. You won't have a tech advantage, both forge fe and 1gate fe get the starport around the 7min mark. The only difference is that 1gate has more sentry energy.
On October 15 2011 04:01 Arcanefrost wrote: I heard hasuobs say this wasn't the way to go because if he scouts and gets fast corruptors it kills you, have you ever faced this?
HasuObs does it off a FFE, so it doesn't matter what he says.
Why not? It's the same idea and most zergs treat 1gate fe like ffe anyways.
Not at all. When you expand with one or 3 gateways (a lot of the time, the zerg wont be able to know the difference), you have the ability to be, or at least threaten to be, agressive.
When you ffe, your economy will shoot, but you wont have any units. If you rush for mothership after ffe, and zerg just kills it off with corrupters because you don't have archons (and you wont), then you're screwed. If you do a normal expand and he rushes for corrupters, you will have archons out in time to be able to flush them.
I will say this though, corrupters is the best way to fight mothership, and there have been cases where I've just lost it because I wasn't careful enough. Sometimes thats a loss right there, other times I have won by simply rebuilding it (as my third is up, and he wont be able to take my third out right away since he spent so much resources on the corrupters).
I have won vs several Gm players with this build, and a progamer. You can't say its not viable
I disagree. You can easily scout the difference between 1gate and 3gate. I doubt that vs macro oriented zergs 1gate fe will give your archon count that big of a boost. It's obviously viable if you can beat gm players with it, but I don't feel like this style will stay for a long time. If zergs start responding to mothership and vortex better this will be a lot less good, it's just not the way to go imo. But that's just my opinion, if you like it by all means keep doing it.
I love the use of word "easily", especially as we're dealing with builds you don't see. You have to see the entierty of the base to be able to know for sure 100% that there aren't more gateways.
And it does. You will be ahead in tech when 1gate expanding compared to ffe, and thus you'll have archons just that little bit earlier. And since we're talking about "sniping" the mothership, it can only occur if the toss does a mistake (which is a long way from saying "impossible". Mistakes are easy), or when mothership doesn't have vortex and/or you don't have archons.
1-gate expand is at ~5:10 and 3-gate expand is at ~6:00. A good Z will know the difference. Also, archon tech is limited by gas income, not by building time, so FFE will actually have archons a little faster.
The advantage of 1-gate expand is that it limits Z's economy relative to what a FFE allows. 1-gate FE gets much faster WG tech, and you have the threat of a quick attack with 3 to 6 gates. Against FFE, Z can take a third before gas or any lings.
The amount of archons is limited by gas. The moment you receive archons is limited by tech time. The latter is longer if you go ffe than if you 1gate expo. If you do a ffe you'll have to worry about a lot of things before you can start teching to a T3 unit, mainly the point on how you're going to survive, while a 1gate expo generally just flows better into it. You can always argue that you can rush to archons, and it will be quicker with ffe, but you can't argue that you'll be safe doing so.
The last part I already mentioned, although with other words. You are entirely correct there
On October 16 2011 00:03 Excludos wrote: I love the use of word "easily", especially as we're dealing with builds you don't see. You have to see the entierty of the base to be able to know for sure 100% that there aren't more gateways.
And it does. You will be ahead in tech when 1gate expanding compared to ffe, and thus you'll have archons just that little bit earlier. And since we're talking about "sniping" the mothership, it can only occur if the toss does a mistake (which is a long way from saying "impossible". Mistakes are easy), or when mothership doesn't have vortex and/or you don't have archons.
If you see a 5minish expo it's 1gate fe, if it's 5:48ish it's 3gate. Not exactly rocket science is it. You won't have a tech advantage, both forge fe and 1gate fe get the starport around the 7min mark. The only difference is that 1gate has more sentry energy.
Yes, the zerg can also generally presume a 1gate expo when he sees the gateway being chronoed instead of the wg. However, you can't treat it like "oh, he's onegate expanding. He wont be attacking for a while", just like with 3gate expo. A zerg cannot take his third the same way he does with a ffe.
edit: I'll also add this, which is a response to my own post a bit earlier stating a zerg often times wont know the difference. The reason is that in my experience a expo never goes down exactly when you want it to. Sure, if the zerg doesn't bother being aggressive, its going to go down at 5:10. A lot of the time, you need one extra sentry before you can put it down, and its delayed. Likewise with a 3gate expo, often times you expand a bit earlier than usual, simply because you know the zerg doesn't have any plans on attacking.
It varies a lot by game to game. And as a zerg player, a lot of the time you don't know for certain whetever its one or 3 gates, and you can't 100% rule out a possible attack.
The point was that 1gate fe doesn't have that big an impact on hasu's statement to completely neglect it, I don't know why wer'e argueing over these silly things.
On October 16 2011 02:53 Arcanefrost wrote: The point was that 1gate fe doesn't have that big an impact on hasu's statement to completely neglect it, I don't know why wer'e argueing over these silly things.
You can get nearly twice the amount of corruptors against FFE due to FFE giving the zerg a free 3rd, which is why it doesn't matter what hasuobs says because even though he's roughly doing the same build, he gives the zerg the ability to drone up on 3 bases with a delayed gas.
What do you do against a big roach hydra +2 attack on 2 bases? It hits me just as I begin to warp in archons and a lot of chargelots, and right as my +2 is finishing. The games start out in my favor, I deny the third and get map control and see everything going on. But I don't seem to have enough to deal with his army (especially since roaches tank a LOT of damage). I feel like there is some method of using forcefields and vortex to split the army that I am neglecting? Or maybe I need to add in some more void rays? Here are a few replays to show what I'm talking about:
can someone upload some replays on dealing with banelings? in the midgame especially, I just dont seem to have enough units to handle them + the drops at the same time
On October 16 2011 19:51 DropTester wrote: can someone upload some replays on dealing with banelings? in the midgame especially, I just dont seem to have enough units to handle them + the drops at the same time
The drops can be a pain. Luckily, you have that starport just sitting there, not really being used. Make a couple extra phoenixes, and put them on patrol next to your bases. This way you at least get a warning when one is nearing your base, giving you time to move your probes. If you see it early enough, you can even kill it off.
Banelings vs me straight up midgame has never been a problem. You should have 7-9 sentries with you the entire time, and archons generally annihilate banelings when they're out on the field. Funnily enough, its a lot bigger problem lategame. This due to the fact that he can have so many blings that you'll be having a hard time using vortex to your favor. Storm is your friend here
I don't think you should pay too much attention to everything I'm doing in this replay. A lot of it was just plain stupid. Things to note: Get a canon behind each mineral line. This way he can't just park his blings behind it and stop you from mining for minutes. Secondly, my attack was my worst executed attack ever, I should have just taken a fourth instead and waited for him to attack me. Get observers earlier, and get storm.
I have been using this awesome build for some time now, with good success in mid-master ladder. However there seems to be a window of weakness before we can reach a critical number of archons, so the time between 11:00 and 13:00 is very scary. Do you feel the same or am I just doing it wrong ? :D
On October 16 2011 19:51 DropTester wrote: can someone upload some replays on dealing with banelings? in the midgame especially, I just dont seem to have enough units to handle them + the drops at the same time
Download the replay vs. glsnute in the OP, he used baneling drops.
Quite an interesting build. I've been analyzing your replays and am just about ready to put it to the test. I'll update with how well it goes, but none the less im excited to try it out. Thanks!
On October 02 2011 12:30 the p00n wrote: My handle is HUARGH and I play at the grandmaster level.
Could you elaborate on how someone who has never been in grandmaster league play at the grandmaster level?
If you had bothered to read the first page, you'd find out He was in gm, but got demoted before season end because of inactivity.
If you had bothered to use your brain, you'd find out that he was never in GM, therefore also never getting demoted due to inactivity or for any other reason *smiley that blinks*.
Firstly, I've had him on my friendslist (the one that shows real name) since season 1. He was never in GM, and would most certainly brag about if it he was. Furthermore, I know he has been trying to get into GM unsuccesfully several times. Secondly, the question was pointed at him, as in "could you elaborate" rather than "could someone elaborate".
Finally, I'd definitely argue that "playing at the grandmaster level" is a phrase that, with no further elaboration, suggests being in GM league. However, seing that he never was in GM league, it's an outright lie, which is relevant for the situation as it increases perceived reliability and therefore negating possible skepticism about the strategy; "Well, he's GM, so he probably know better... 90% winrate in GM league, it must be really strong (as opposed to if it was in a lower league)"
One could argue that this isn't of high enough significance for me to act on it, and I'll respect that point of view, but being in a position with superior information about the author of the thread to most of the readers of this thread, I think that intentionally not informing this thread mislead readers of his intentional deception would be wrong of me. That being said, I'm not going to spend time proving myself, so feel free to disregard the above. I'll put my own credibility on the line stating that he, to this point in time, has never been in GM league with the accountname HUARGH.
@ TS; I'm impressed by the thread, intention of the build and strategy and will absolutely give it a try today.
I read through all posts quickly, and ended up with the last one. Two more things to add; I'll definitely be watching all replays posted in this thread as I really think this kind of play could make the mother-ship viable, even if it were only to keep equal in bases compared to the Zerg (I don't think it needs to rely completely on some proper vortexes), the other thing is that I'd like to add I've had the author of this thread in my FL too for quite some time (before GM league was introduced) and I can only confirm I've never seen him hit GM league either; I'm not going to mix myself into such a debate as I do feel it's irrelevant, because I know where the author stands skill-wise.
Thanks for sharing and I'll keep an eye on this thread Take care guys
On October 02 2011 12:30 the p00n wrote: My handle is HUARGH and I play at the grandmaster level.
Could you elaborate on how someone who has never been in grandmaster league play at the grandmaster level?
If you had bothered to read the first page, you'd find out He was in gm, but got demoted before season end because of inactivity.
If you had bothered to use your brain, you'd find out that he was never in GM, therefore also never getting demoted due to inactivity or for any other reason *smiley that blinks*.
Firstly, I've had him on my friendslist (the one that shows real name) since season 1. He was never in GM, and would most certainly brag about if it he was. Furthermore, I know he has been trying to get into GM unsuccesfully several times. Secondly, the question was pointed at him, as in "could you elaborate" rather than "could someone elaborate".
Finally, I'd definitely argue that "playing at the grandmaster level" is a phrase that, with no further elaboration, suggests being in GM league. However, seing that he never was in GM league, it's an outright lie, which is relevant for the situation as it increases perceived reliability and therefore negating possible skepticism about the strategy; "Well, he's GM, so he probably know better... 90% winrate in GM league, it must be really strong (as opposed to if it was in a lower league)"
One could argue that this isn't of high enough significance for me to act on it, and I'll respect that point of view, but being in a position with superior information about the author of the thread to most of the readers of this thread, I think that intentionally not informing this thread mislead readers of his intentional deception would be wrong of me. That being said, I'm not going to spend time proving myself, so feel free to disregard the above. I'll put my own credibility on the line stating that he, to this point in time, has never been in GM league with the accountname HUARGH.
People need to chill out about this. There are a lot of good players that aren't in GM. Minigun is one of the best P players on the NA ladder, and he's not in GM. I stopped taking SC2 as seriously at the start of this year, so now I'm not close to GM, but I still occasionally play (and beat) pros. There's not much of a skill gap between high masters and low GM. If your build beats GM players, then you can say it works at the GM level.
Since we're into the GM title, here's a rep against GM #145.
On October 02 2011 12:30 the p00n wrote: My handle is HUARGH and I play at the grandmaster level.
Could you elaborate on how someone who has never been in grandmaster league play at the grandmaster level?
If you had bothered to read the first page, you'd find out He was in gm, but got demoted before season end because of inactivity.
If you had bothered to use your brain, you'd find out that he was never in GM, therefore also never getting demoted due to inactivity or for any other reason *smiley that blinks*.
Firstly, I've had him on my friendslist (the one that shows real name) since season 1. He was never in GM, and would most certainly brag about if it he was. Furthermore, I know he has been trying to get into GM unsuccesfully several times. Secondly, the question was pointed at him, as in "could you elaborate" rather than "could someone elaborate".
Finally, I'd definitely argue that "playing at the grandmaster level" is a phrase that, with no further elaboration, suggests being in GM league. However, seing that he never was in GM league, it's an outright lie, which is relevant for the situation as it increases perceived reliability and therefore negating possible skepticism about the strategy; "Well, he's GM, so he probably know better... 90% winrate in GM league, it must be really strong (as opposed to if it was in a lower league)"
One could argue that this isn't of high enough significance for me to act on it, and I'll respect that point of view, but being in a position with superior information about the author of the thread to most of the readers of this thread, I think that intentionally not informing this thread mislead readers of his intentional deception would be wrong of me. That being said, I'm not going to spend time proving myself, so feel free to disregard the above. I'll put my own credibility on the line stating that he, to this point in time, has never been in GM league with the accountname HUARGH.
People need to chill out about this. There are a lot of good players that aren't in GM. Minigun is one of the best P players on the NA ladder, and he's not in GM. I stopped taking SC2 as seriously at the start of this year, so now I'm not close to GM, but I still occasionally play (and beat) pros. There's not much of a skill gap between high masters and low GM. If your build beats GM players, then you can say it works at the GM level.
Since we're into the GM title, here's a rep against GM #145.
I'm not debating the skilllevel of non GM players, nor am I debating the skillgap of the GM league and master league and their respective players. I'm stating that the author of this thread was never in GM league and therefore, per definition, cannot be playing at the GM level, because the later serves as a direct reference to former league distinction (read: skilldistinction). Therefore, claiming to be playing at the GM level is a lie both rhetorically and logically.
What are the defining criterium for playing at the GM level? If you don't have to, at the very least, at some point having been in GM league, then, at the very least, any master league player can claim to be playing at the GM level by having beaten x amount of GM players in their y amount of played games. That negates the whole point of making such claim in the first place, as it serves to distinguish oneself from those who "do not" play at the GM level, which, in effect, will be nobody in the master league. The same line of thought applies to all leagues. As such, the effect of neagting defining criterium for playing at any league level results in anyone from any league being able to rightfully claim to be playing at the GM level.
If your build beat x amount of GM players, you can directly and rightfully state so, but that does not translate into you playing at the GM level in either tautology.
Sooooooo happy to see someone take the mothership seriously insted of being like LOL I MADE A MOTHERSHIP LOLOLOL. EVen carriers i think need to be explored more, even though they just die sooo fast to some units and take longer to make than it takes for small mountain ranges to form. Still, i think there could be some validity in SkyToss. who knows wht match up, but the void ray/carrier/mothership/phoenix unit comp needs exploring.
On October 18 2011 00:10 buldermar wrote: I'm not debating the skilllevel of non GM players, nor am I debating the skillgap of the GM league and master league and their respective players. I'm stating that the author of this thread was never in GM league and therefore, per definition, cannot be playing at the GM level
Of course he can play at the GM level, since the GM league has limited places. As long as a good amount of his opponents are GMs. I don't know if that's the case or not, but check his match history first. If a lot of his opponents are GMs, his MMR is one of a GM despite him being in Master's.
On October 02 2011 12:30 the p00n wrote: My handle is HUARGH and I play at the grandmaster level.
Could you elaborate on how someone who has never been in grandmaster league play at the grandmaster level?
If you had bothered to read the first page, you'd find out He was in gm, but got demoted before season end because of inactivity.
If you had bothered to use your brain, you'd find out that he was never in GM, therefore also never getting demoted due to inactivity or for any other reason *smiley that blinks*.
Firstly, I've had him on my friendslist (the one that shows real name) since season 1. He was never in GM, and would most certainly brag about if it he was. Furthermore, I know he has been trying to get into GM unsuccesfully several times. Secondly, the question was pointed at him, as in "could you elaborate" rather than "could someone elaborate".
Finally, I'd definitely argue that "playing at the grandmaster level" is a phrase that, with no further elaboration, suggests being in GM league. However, seing that he never was in GM league, it's an outright lie, which is relevant for the situation as it increases perceived reliability and therefore negating possible skepticism about the strategy; "Well, he's GM, so he probably know better... 90% winrate in GM league, it must be really strong (as opposed to if it was in a lower league)"
One could argue that this isn't of high enough significance for me to act on it, and I'll respect that point of view, but being in a position with superior information about the author of the thread to most of the readers of this thread, I think that intentionally not informing this thread mislead readers of his intentional deception would be wrong of me. That being said, I'm not going to spend time proving myself, so feel free to disregard the above. I'll put my own credibility on the line stating that he, to this point in time, has never been in GM league with the accountname HUARGH.
People need to chill out about this. There are a lot of good players that aren't in GM. Minigun is one of the best P players on the NA ladder, and he's not in GM. I stopped taking SC2 as seriously at the start of this year, so now I'm not close to GM, but I still occasionally play (and beat) pros. There's not much of a skill gap between high masters and low GM. If your build beats GM players, then you can say it works at the GM level.
Since we're into the GM title, here's a rep against GM #145.
I'm not debating the skilllevel of non GM players, nor am I debating the skillgap of the GM league and master league and their respective players. I'm stating that the author of this thread was never in GM league and therefore, per definition, cannot be playing at the GM level, because the later serves as a direct reference to former league distinction (read: skilldistinction). Therefore, claiming to be playing at the GM level is a lie both rhetorically and logically.
What are the defining criterium for playing at the GM level? If you don't have to, at the very least, at some point having been in GM league, then, at the very least, any master league player can claim to be playing at the GM level by having beaten x amount of GM players in their y amount of played games. That negates the whole point of making such claim in the first place, as it serves to distinguish oneself from those who "do not" play at the GM level, which, in effect, will be nobody in the master league. The same line of thought applies to all leagues. As such, the effect of neagting defining criterium for playing at any league level results in anyone from any league being able to rightfully claim to be playing at the GM level.
If your build beat x amount of GM players, you can directly and rightfully state so, but that does not translate into you playing at the GM level in either tautology.
EDIT: a random typo.
I don't want to argue about this because it's irrelevant to the topic and not very interesting. I'm just going to say that you can be as good as GM players without being in GM. It's okay if you don't believe me.
On October 18 2011 00:10 buldermar wrote: I'm not debating the skilllevel of non GM players, nor am I debating the skillgap of the GM league and master league and their respective players. I'm stating that the author of this thread was never in GM league and therefore, per definition, cannot be playing at the GM level
Of course he can play at the GM level, since the GM league has limited places. As long as a good amount of his opponents are GMs. I don't know if that's the case or not, but check his match history first. If a lot of his opponents are GMs, his MMR is one of a GM despite him being in Master's.
Out of the last 20 games, he played a GM player once and lost that game.
Furthermore, as I believe I explained, stating that one can play at the GM level without ever having been in GM league is tautologically a self-contradiction, both rhetorically and logically.
Finally, I'd appreciate if you'd quote anything relevant for that on which you're commenting in the future. In this case you seperated my statement from its respective argumentation. Thanks.
On October 02 2011 12:30 the p00n wrote: My handle is HUARGH and I play at the grandmaster level.
Could you elaborate on how someone who has never been in grandmaster league play at the grandmaster level?
If you had bothered to read the first page, you'd find out He was in gm, but got demoted before season end because of inactivity.
If you had bothered to use your brain, you'd find out that he was never in GM, therefore also never getting demoted due to inactivity or for any other reason *smiley that blinks*.
Firstly, I've had him on my friendslist (the one that shows real name) since season 1. He was never in GM, and would most certainly brag about if it he was. Furthermore, I know he has been trying to get into GM unsuccesfully several times. Secondly, the question was pointed at him, as in "could you elaborate" rather than "could someone elaborate".
Finally, I'd definitely argue that "playing at the grandmaster level" is a phrase that, with no further elaboration, suggests being in GM league. However, seing that he never was in GM league, it's an outright lie, which is relevant for the situation as it increases perceived reliability and therefore negating possible skepticism about the strategy; "Well, he's GM, so he probably know better... 90% winrate in GM league, it must be really strong (as opposed to if it was in a lower league)"
One could argue that this isn't of high enough significance for me to act on it, and I'll respect that point of view, but being in a position with superior information about the author of the thread to most of the readers of this thread, I think that intentionally not informing this thread mislead readers of his intentional deception would be wrong of me. That being said, I'm not going to spend time proving myself, so feel free to disregard the above. I'll put my own credibility on the line stating that he, to this point in time, has never been in GM league with the accountname HUARGH.
People need to chill out about this. There are a lot of good players that aren't in GM. Minigun is one of the best P players on the NA ladder, and he's not in GM. I stopped taking SC2 as seriously at the start of this year, so now I'm not close to GM, but I still occasionally play (and beat) pros. There's not much of a skill gap between high masters and low GM. If your build beats GM players, then you can say it works at the GM level.
Since we're into the GM title, here's a rep against GM #145.
I'm not debating the skilllevel of non GM players, nor am I debating the skillgap of the GM league and master league and their respective players. I'm stating that the author of this thread was never in GM league and therefore, per definition, cannot be playing at the GM level, because the later serves as a direct reference to former league distinction (read: skilldistinction). Therefore, claiming to be playing at the GM level is a lie both rhetorically and logically.
What are the defining criterium for playing at the GM level? If you don't have to, at the very least, at some point having been in GM league, then, at the very least, any master league player can claim to be playing at the GM level by having beaten x amount of GM players in their y amount of played games. That negates the whole point of making such claim in the first place, as it serves to distinguish oneself from those who "do not" play at the GM level, which, in effect, will be nobody in the master league. The same line of thought applies to all leagues. As such, the effect of neagting defining criterium for playing at any league level results in anyone from any league being able to rightfully claim to be playing at the GM level.
If your build beat x amount of GM players, you can directly and rightfully state so, but that does not translate into you playing at the GM level in either tautology.
EDIT: a random typo.
I don't want to argue about this because it's irrelevant to the topic and not very interesting. I'm just going to say that you can be as good as GM players without being in GM. It's okay if you don't believe me.
You quoted me initially, making comments that in no way were relevant to the ones I made.
The points I'm making are relevant to what I quoted from the topic. Since what I quoted from the topic is from the header of the topic, the subject of the topic so to speak, it is as relevant as it can possibly get. If you want to fault the author for including a statement in his initial post that seems to be irrelevant to its remaining content, I'm not holding you back.
It goes without saying that a non-GM player can potentially be a better player than a GM player. However, that does not contradict anything I've said thus far.
@buldermar What's the point of debating this for 2 pages ? You prove nothing saying that the Op lost to the last gm he played... and you d be helpfull to a lot more people trying the build and critizing it rather than the Op's level
On October 18 2011 18:38 Lordcamel wrote: @buldermar What's the point of debating this for 2 pages ? You prove nothing saying that the Op lost to the last gm he played... and you d be helpfull to a lot more people trying the build and critizing it rather than the Op's level
I'm not debating anything, I'm answering questions like the one you just made. I initially asked OP one question and have only been responding to people quoting me.
If you think I'm looking to prove anything other than that OP is lying, you're mistaking. I checked the most recent 20 matches on the request of someone else.
I'm also not discussing OP's level of play. My personal opinion is that he's a very good player, but it's absolutely irrelevant for my points.
Please stop making absurd assumptions about my motivations, goals etc. I wanted to make one simple point: that OP was never in GM and therefore cannot be playing at the GM level, which, in effect, makes him a liar about this matter both rhetorically and logically.
I have tried the build, although not thoroughly. I think one of its weaker points is against two base hydra busts. I also think its succesrate is a lot higher amongst lower level players fighting than what is the case between two higher level players. That is because it requires much lower APM to execute than what is required by zerg to counter. Therefore, it might be countered more consistently between two very high level players (like MC vs NesTea or something similar). However, this is nothing but guesses and speculations.
I can definitely see someone have a 90% winrate using this build only against zerg if it is against mainly master league players, in particular on NA ladder.
Hope blizz removes vortex in the hands of a skilled Protoss player this build is unbeatable as Zerg. Honestly people who use this archon toilet build are abusing a mechanic of the game that blizzard neve considered how powerful 2 vortexes then throw a few archons in and watch zergs air army melt to nothing. The patch didn't help much watch vs kiwikaki game.
This builds essentially a cough abusive mechanic that people use to beat a player they could never defeat Ina straight up game.
I've got few replays of my army perfect comPositioon higher upgrades against his abusive build it's basically auto loss for the Zerg in most situations look at the win rate it has
The win rate says it all
I know that makes some Protoss angry obviously but I've faced this on ladder a ton and feel it's imbalanced
On October 19 2011 10:10 XRaDiiX wrote: Hope blizz removes vortex in the hands of a skilled Protoss player this build is unbeatable as Zerg. Honestly people who use this archon toilet build are abusing a mechanic of the game that blizzard neve considered how powerful 2 vortexes then throw a few archons in and watch zergs air army melt to nothing. The patch didn't help much watch vs kiwikaki game.
This builds essentially a cough abusive mechanic that people use to beat a player they could never defeat Ina straight up game.
I've got few replays of my army perfect comPositioon higher upgrades against his abusive build it's basically auto loss for the Zerg in most situations look at the win rate it has
The win rate says it all
I know that makes some Protoss angry obviously but I've faced this on ladder a ton and feel it's imbalanced
Sorry for mistakes on phone
I do lose games with it though, yesterday I lost a game vs. a basic 3base roach/hydra push (had only 7 gates, 2k minerals when he attacked :p) and a few days ago I lost to a tunneling claws timing push because I forgot my robo ._.
You could argue that I'm not supposed to make these mistakes, but you could also argue that my opponent isn't supposed to make mistakes either then.
On October 18 2011 18:38 Lordcamel wrote: @buldermar What's the point of debating this for 2 pages ? You prove nothing saying that the Op lost to the last gm he played... and you d be helpfull to a lot more people trying the build and critizing it rather than the Op's level
Please stop making absurd assumptions about my motivations, goals etc. I wanted to make one simple point: that OP was never in GM and therefore cannot be playing at the GM level, which, in effect, makes him a liar about this matter both rhetorically and logically.
this is a really dumb argument so i probably shouldn't add to it, but this is a really dumb thing to post. its very possible to be at a "gm level" as the op described it without actually being in gm currently. actually, its possible to be at "gm level" without even playing a ladder game, ever. i have a hard time believing you actually think the stuff you post is correct, and i think everyone can agree that its irrelevant.
On October 18 2011 18:38 Lordcamel wrote: @buldermar What's the point of debating this for 2 pages ? You prove nothing saying that the Op lost to the last gm he played... and you d be helpfull to a lot more people trying the build and critizing it rather than the Op's level
I'm not debating anything, I'm answering questions like the one you just made. I initially asked OP one question and have only been responding to people quoting me.
If you think I'm looking to prove anything other than that OP is lying, you're mistaking. I checked the most recent 20 matches on the request of someone else.
I'm also not discussing OP's level of play. My personal opinion is that he's a very good player, but it's absolutely irrelevant for my points.
Please stop making absurd assumptions about my motivations, goals etc. I wanted to make one simple point: that OP was never in GM and therefore cannot be playing at the GM level, which, in effect, makes him a liar about this matter both rhetorically and logically.
I have tried the build, although not thoroughly. I think one of its weaker points is against two base hydra busts. I also think its succesrate is a lot higher amongst lower level players fighting than what is the case between two higher level players. That is because it requires much lower APM to execute than what is required by zerg to counter. Therefore, it might be countered more consistently between two very high level players (like MC vs NesTea or something similar). However, this is nothing but guesses and speculations.
I can definitely see someone have a 90% winrate using this build only against zerg if it is against mainly master league players, in particular on NA ladder.
On October 18 2011 18:38 Lordcamel wrote: @buldermar What's the point of debating this for 2 pages ? You prove nothing saying that the Op lost to the last gm he played... and you d be helpfull to a lot more people trying the build and critizing it rather than the Op's level
Please stop making absurd assumptions about my motivations, goals etc. I wanted to make one simple point: that OP was never in GM and therefore cannot be playing at the GM level, which, in effect, makes him a liar about this matter both rhetorically and logically.
this is a really dumb argument so i probably shouldn't add to it, but this is a really dumb thing to post. its very possible to be at a "gm level" as the op described it without actually being in gm currently. actually, its possible to be at "gm level" without even playing a ladder game, ever. i have a hard time believing you actually think the stuff you post is correct, and i think everyone can agree that its irrelevant.
It's easy to disprove people. You know how in math you just say your statement can be proven right by contradiction proofs? EG.Huk's in Master's league. He's not in NA GM. GG ... you can play beyond GM level and not be GM.
Anyway, I have come to confirm that this build works *really* *really* well. However, about that hydra counter, some people actually mass phoenix into ... carriers O_o, which are apparently very good against hydras. HuK was doing this to colStandard today, and the mothership later helped a lot into having him win the final battle.
The mothership helps in one major aspect: Helping Toss hard to kill and easier to retain units. The point is that, you're going to have a pretty good final deathball of archon, immortals, void rays (maybe even carriers) that will melt Zerg, and that is ridiculous IF you can get to it.
Because you're cloaked, you can literally inch your way throughout the whole entire game until the end when you've mind out the map and your army is so much more resource retainable than the Zerg's army. Hell, you don't even have to have any working bases except for two (I guess you can let Zerg destroy your mined out bases in multi pronged attacks)
I just tried this out 6 times on the ladder. Worked every time. I love the idea of getting that voidray to force defensive measures while you get out your ship.
And i really dig the idea of getting a mother ship on 2nd base as it can crush timing pushes as your nexus pops and zerg goes to kill it. (as they can't see it without detection)
I've only lost the mother ship in one game but still won and rebuilt it.
On October 19 2011 10:10 XRaDiiX wrote: Hope blizz removes vortex in the hands of a skilled Protoss player this build is unbeatable as Zerg. Honestly people who use this archon toilet build are abusing a mechanic of the game that blizzard neve considered how powerful 2 vortexes then throw a few archons in and watch zergs air army melt to nothing. The patch didn't help much watch vs kiwikaki game.
KiWiKaKi played near perfect that game and still won by the smallest margin imaginable. Had Stephano for example spread out his units when he saw the mothership approach he would've won that engagement. This is basically the only proper counter Protoss has against brood+infestor deathball.
Claiming something is unbeatable when you clearly lack tons of knowledge, experience and competence is really annoying.
On October 19 2011 10:10 XRaDiiX wrote: Hope blizz removes vortex in the hands of a skilled Protoss player this build is unbeatable as Zerg. Honestly people who use this archon toilet build are abusing a mechanic of the game that blizzard neve considered how powerful 2 vortexes then throw a few archons in and watch zergs air army melt to nothing. The patch didn't help much watch vs kiwikaki game.
KiWiKaKi played near perfect that game and still won by the smallest margin imaginable. Had Stephano for example spread out his units when he saw the mothership approach he would've won that engagement. This is basically the only proper counter Protoss has against brood+infestor deathball.
Claiming something is unbeatable when you clearly lack tons of knowledge, experience and competence is really annoying.
Claiming kiwikaki played near perfect is pretty dumb too, I saw a lot of mistakes that game.
On October 19 2011 13:42 ThisGS wrote: its a ladderbuild, whoever you face 2 or 3 times you cant play it, cause hydra kill it...
Actually hydras are pretty shit against it.
But yes it's a lot easier to deal with once you've practiced against it. I'm 6-1 or 7-1 against Mothership builds after losing my first two games against it (I played 5 games against a practice partner doing this build), all but one coming out of 1gate expand (the other was a FFE)
Honestly most people recommend corrupters, I personally like mutalisks on any map that is bigger (I even did it on midsize maps like Antiga) because you can win ANY base race against a protoss, just mass up the hatcheries in various locations around the map and use a mutaling army to really tear apart their base (or part of their army if they try and split, kill the part without the mothership).
On October 19 2011 10:10 XRaDiiX wrote: Hope blizz removes vortex in the hands of a skilled Protoss player this build is unbeatable as Zerg. Honestly people who use this archon toilet build are abusing a mechanic of the game that blizzard neve considered how powerful 2 vortexes then throw a few archons in and watch zergs air army melt to nothing. The patch didn't help much watch vs kiwikaki game.
KiWiKaKi played near perfect that game and still won by the smallest margin imaginable. Had Stephano for example spread out his units when he saw the mothership approach he would've won that engagement. This is basically the only proper counter Protoss has against brood+infestor deathball.
Claiming something is unbeatable when you clearly lack tons of knowledge, experience and competence is really annoying.
Claiming kiwikaki played near perfect is pretty dumb too, I saw a lot of mistakes that game.
Man buldermar im not gonna quote your mountain of worthless shit but its clear you're arguing just for the sake of arguing now. He played against GMs, and beat them. That is playing at a GM level. It doesnt fucking matter if it took place on ladder, in customs, or if he never fucking played a placement match. If he was playing against a GM that was making an effort to win, and he beat him, it means that he is playing the game AT THE LEVEL of a grandmaster But you fucking know this already, you're arguing semantics because you cant stand being wrong
On October 19 2011 10:10 XRaDiiX wrote: Hope blizz removes vortex in the hands of a skilled Protoss player this build is unbeatable as Zerg. Honestly people who use this archon toilet build are abusing a mechanic of the game that blizzard neve considered how powerful 2 vortexes then throw a few archons in and watch zergs air army melt to nothing. The patch didn't help much watch vs kiwikaki game.
KiWiKaKi played near perfect that game and still won by the smallest margin imaginable. Had Stephano for example spread out his units when he saw the mothership approach he would've won that engagement. This is basically the only proper counter Protoss has against brood+infestor deathball.
Claiming something is unbeatable when you clearly lack tons of knowledge, experience and competence is really annoying.
Lol kiwikakai didnt go archons till the last 10 minutes of the game when he was running out of mins. the majority of the game he went stalker void colossi which is hugely inefficient against the billions of broodlords that stephano had that game. The moment he landed a good vortex with his archons, he came out ahead against a higher supply army.
If you're going to call someone out for lacing knowledge, try to actually back up your post with facts. I dont understand why everyone is so worked up about him being or not being GM, the build is cool and its that which should discussed lol, not his credentials
Also, i lost a game the other day where the zerg threw buttloads of infested terrans right outside the vortex and ran away. It seems like if you keep your infestors separate, the infested terrans can decimate your army but it all comes down to a micro fight and landing clutch vortexes imo.
Furthermore, as I believe I explained, stating that one can play at the GM level without ever having been in GM league is <b>tautologically a self-contradiction, both rhetorically and logically.</b>
Oh god, I'm revoking your English language license.
On October 19 2011 13:42 ThisGS wrote: its a ladderbuild, whoever you face 2 or 3 times you cant play it, cause hydra kill it...
Actually hydras are pretty shit against it.
But yes it's a lot easier to deal with once you've practiced against it. I'm 6-1 or 7-1 against Mothership builds after losing my first two games against it (I played 5 games against a practice partner doing this build), all but one coming out of 1gate expand (the other was a FFE)
Honestly most people recommend corrupters, I personally like mutalisks on any map that is bigger (I even did it on midsize maps like Antiga) because you can win ANY base race against a protoss, just mass up the hatcheries in various locations around the map and use a mutaling army to really tear apart their base (or part of their army if they try and split, kill the part without the mothership).
i totally agree with ya , muta play is the hardest to deal with for me. and actually vs any zerg who dont run on ya at chokes or be able to split hes units a lil bit + add splash ( bane or ultra or both ) can couse trouble.
i had a to play like 10 games to get the feeling of the style.
Just tried this build out for the first time (diamond). Although I did FFE into stargate into fast moship, rather than 1-gate expand. Opponent went 2-base muta, I scouted it with my first phoenix and pumped a bunch more and shut down his muta harass completely. Took a 3rd when my moship finished, made tons of zealots and archons. Attacked at 200/200 while taking a 4th. The final push was absurdly 1-sided. 200 vs 200 supply, 1 vortex later it was 180 vs 130 supply and he left the game. Can't wait to try this more!
edit: and another game, this guy went roach-hydra after I 1-gate expoed. This build feels almost too strong, it seems like as long as I get down a vortex I'll win the battle with double the supply at the end of it. Really impressive!
final edit: 3rd time trying the build and I crush a masters league zerg going ling-infestor. WOW this is amazing...
On October 19 2011 10:10 XRaDiiX wrote: Hope blizz removes vortex in the hands of a skilled Protoss player this build is unbeatable as Zerg. Honestly people who use this archon toilet build are abusing a mechanic of the game that blizzard neve considered how powerful 2 vortexes then throw a few archons in and watch zergs air army melt to nothing. The patch didn't help much watch vs kiwikaki game.
KiWiKaKi played near perfect that game and still won by the smallest margin imaginable. Had Stephano for example spread out his units when he saw the mothership approach he would've won that engagement. This is basically the only proper counter Protoss has against brood+infestor deathball.
Claiming something is unbeatable when you clearly lack tons of knowledge, experience and competence is really annoying.
Lol kiwikakai didnt go archons till the last 10 minutes of the game when he was running out of mins. the majority of the game he went stalker void colossi which is hugely inefficient against the billions of broodlords that stephano had that game. The moment he landed a good vortex with his archons, he came out ahead against a higher supply army.
If you're going to call someone out for lacing knowledge, try to actually back up your post with facts. I dont understand why everyone is so worked up about him being or not being GM, the build is cool and its that which should discussed lol, not his credentials
Also, i lost a game the other day where the zerg threw buttloads of infested terrans right outside the vortex and ran away. It seems like if you keep your infestors separate, the infested terrans can decimate your army but it all comes down to a micro fight and landing clutch vortexes imo.
1. He did not make the army he did to directly engage the broodlords. You saw how he ended up after that battle. Had he engaged with archons earlier with the same result, Stephano would've been able to remax his army in time. KiWiKaKi used Blink Stalker Colossi to great effect sniping expansions, keeping Stephano pressured.
2. Did you even read my post and who I quoted? I haven't called anyone out for not being a GM; I was responding to someone else.
I tried this,.. He had infestors and just dropped tons of infested terrans after vortex and decimated my archon zealot army.. I am too afraid to put second vortex on infestors since they can parasite steal mommaship..
So i've been running this build on the ladder for some time now with great results. As mentioned there are a few things that are a pain in the ass, but certainly workable with good scouting.
I've been doing this build against a practice partner for a few weeks now, and he found a good timing with hydras and roaches. He hits right at the 12 minute mark with a large pack of roaches and hydras off of 2 bases (fairly all-in, if the attack failed or was crushed he would have a hard time winning the game). Problem is, at this point in time, the mother ship is out with maybe 3 or 4 archons at best, but doesn't have enough energy for a vortex. He usually has an overseer and his army and supply are considerably higher than mine (because this build is so tech heavy early on). Is there some way to stop this rush that I haven't thought of? I could try to get collossus out or maybe rush to storm, but this would either slow the mothership down or reduce my archon count quite a bit. Thoughts?
On October 21 2011 05:51 omegablackmage wrote: So i've been running this build on the ladder for some time now with great results. As mentioned there are a few things that are a pain in the ass, but certainly workable with good scouting.
I've been doing this build against a practice partner for a few weeks now, and he found a good timing with hydras and roaches. He hits right at the 12 minute mark with a large pack of roaches and hydras off of 2 bases (fairly all-in, if the attack failed or was crushed he would have a hard time winning the game). Problem is, at this point in time, the mother ship is out with maybe 3 or 4 archons at best, but doesn't have enough energy for a vortex. He usually has an overseer and his army and supply are considerably higher than mine (because this build is so tech heavy early on). Is there some way to stop this rush that I haven't thought of? I could try to get collossus out or maybe rush to storm, but this would either slow the mothership down or reduce my archon count quite a bit. Thoughts?
I have never really had problems with good FF micro. If you could post a replay that would certainly help, but just from this post it seems like you can snipe the overseer (or even flank with a lot of zealots from a proxy pylon).
On October 21 2011 05:51 omegablackmage wrote: So i've been running this build on the ladder for some time now with great results. As mentioned there are a few things that are a pain in the ass, but certainly workable with good scouting.
I've been doing this build against a practice partner for a few weeks now, and he found a good timing with hydras and roaches. He hits right at the 12 minute mark with a large pack of roaches and hydras off of 2 bases (fairly all-in, if the attack failed or was crushed he would have a hard time winning the game). Problem is, at this point in time, the mother ship is out with maybe 3 or 4 archons at best, but doesn't have enough energy for a vortex. He usually has an overseer and his army and supply are considerably higher than mine (because this build is so tech heavy early on). Is there some way to stop this rush that I haven't thought of? I could try to get collossus out or maybe rush to storm, but this would either slow the mothership down or reduce my archon count quite a bit. Thoughts?
If Z stays on 2 bases, I start cannoning. There's no way your army of a few zealots and archons can beat a 2-base roach+hydra attack even if you did have a vortex. You want to stay 1 base behind Z and count on efficiency to win you the game. IMO, voids (and stalkers if you have to) are a better investment for defending than zealot/archon because they can shoot past forcefields.
90% winrate doesnt count if its not gm, in gm ppl will most of the time scout it, have 2 more bases then u and have a 150 supply roach hydra army when u move out - or even 200 depending on when u push
I just got my ass kicked by a zerg who just did not want to get a 3rd base. He didn't take a 3rd base and hit me just as mine was getting going with roaches and hydras and I just didn't have enough units even with a good vortex to beat it in a straight up fight.
Any suggestions? I should find that replay.
Edit: I found out I'm not the only one with this problem. I gotta scout better and probably just not take a 3rd if the zerg hasn't and get ready to defend the attack.
On October 21 2011 05:51 omegablackmage wrote: So i've been running this build on the ladder for some time now with great results. As mentioned there are a few things that are a pain in the ass, but certainly workable with good scouting.
I've been doing this build against a practice partner for a few weeks now, and he found a good timing with hydras and roaches. He hits right at the 12 minute mark with a large pack of roaches and hydras off of 2 bases (fairly all-in, if the attack failed or was crushed he would have a hard time winning the game). Problem is, at this point in time, the mother ship is out with maybe 3 or 4 archons at best, but doesn't have enough energy for a vortex. He usually has an overseer and his army and supply are considerably higher than mine (because this build is so tech heavy early on). Is there some way to stop this rush that I haven't thought of? I could try to get collossus out or maybe rush to storm, but this would either slow the mothership down or reduce my archon count quite a bit. Thoughts?
If Z stays on 2 bases, I start cannoning. There's no way your army of a few zealots and archons can beat a 2-base roach+hydra attack even if you did have a vortex. You want to stay 1 base behind Z and count on efficiency to win you the game. IMO, voids (and stalkers if you have to) are a better investment for defending than zealot/archon because they can shoot past forcefields.
This exactly. I've been doing the build and it wasn't working only because of a 2base push which I wasn't ready for. For anyone doing this build, please remember to cannon up if zerg is on 2base.
I'd like to thank the OP for this build. PvZ has been a weak point for me for a while, and this build has so far netted me 5 wins in a row (I'm a high-ish diamond level player hoping to eventually make it into masters) vs zerg, and I can even see the merit of this in PvT (bioball gets even more screwed when put into melee with zeal/archon mix.. throw a few storms on top and gg).
I'd also like to add that even though I only tested the build once vs computer to get a feel for it, I won my very fist game using it vs a diamond level zerg on ladder - and it wasn't just a win, it was him getting absolutely crushed. I find that at the diamond level, my void ray can usually deny a 3rd base without much problem, and it stops or really slows roach aggression. If he really wants to push across the map with a roach timing push off 2 base, my void ray will take down a large portion of his army, and cannons will be ready for it.
I am far from having this build "down" like I do my other builds. I frequently get supply blocked and screw up some of the timings, but I'm getting much better. Just goes to show how powerful this build is.
Although the mothership is the centerpiece of it, I think that some of the little things that this build encourages you to do helps a lot as well, like expanding @ around 34 supply with ~4 sentries and a zealot, and the general build order. I think that tip about sending your void ray along the path that the roaches or lings would take to get to you is amazing, and shortly afterwards scouting out nearby minerals for possible expansions. I've been amazed the number of times I could take out his 3rd base and delay it almost indefinitely unless he got some type of AA. You don't by any means "have" to go mothership + zeal/archon. If they go mass roach, hell, throw some immortals in as well, they also serve as a good mineral dump.
Great build and great general advice man, thank you.
On October 18 2011 18:38 Lordcamel wrote: @buldermar What's the point of debating this for 2 pages ? You prove nothing saying that the Op lost to the last gm he played... and you d be helpfull to a lot more people trying the build and critizing it rather than the Op's level
Please stop making absurd assumptions about my motivations, goals etc. I wanted to make one simple point: that OP was never in GM and therefore cannot be playing at the GM level, which, in effect, makes him a liar about this matter both rhetorically and logically.
this is a really dumb argument so i probably shouldn't add to it, but this is a really dumb thing to post. its very possible to be at a "gm level" as the op described it without actually being in gm currently. actually, its possible to be at "gm level" without even playing a ladder game, ever. i have a hard time believing you actually think the stuff you post is correct, and i think everyone can agree that its irrelevant.
1) It's not a matter of not currently being in GM, but a matter of never having been in GM or an equivilanet of GM.
2) It's not possible to be playing at the GM level without ever having been in GM league. If you disagree, read my arguments and be specific about where I'm wrong. It's a tautological fallacy to utilize a term with a clear boundary without meeting its respective defining criterium. Without having ever been in GM league (or an equivilant) one can, per definition, not be playing at the GM level. Master league is not an equivilant because master league is on the same continuum, serving as a distinction (border) for GM league.
3) Since I've been responding only to posts sent my way, my posts are, per definition, relevant, because their relevance is just a synonym for my intentions with them. The fact that you quoted my post AND described it as being irrelevant at once is a clear incongruity, that is, ironic.
On October 18 2011 18:38 Lordcamel wrote: @buldermar What's the point of debating this for 2 pages ? You prove nothing saying that the Op lost to the last gm he played... and you d be helpfull to a lot more people trying the build and critizing it rather than the Op's level
I'm not debating anything, I'm answering questions like the one you just made. I initially asked OP one question and have only been responding to people quoting me.
If you think I'm looking to prove anything other than that OP is lying, you're mistaking. I checked the most recent 20 matches on the request of someone else.
I'm also not discussing OP's level of play. My personal opinion is that he's a very good player, but it's absolutely irrelevant for my points.
Please stop making absurd assumptions about my motivations, goals etc. I wanted to make one simple point: that OP was never in GM and therefore cannot be playing at the GM level, which, in effect, makes him a liar about this matter both rhetorically and logically.
I have tried the build, although not thoroughly. I think one of its weaker points is against two base hydra busts. I also think its succesrate is a lot higher amongst lower level players fighting than what is the case between two higher level players. That is because it requires much lower APM to execute than what is required by zerg to counter. Therefore, it might be countered more consistently between two very high level players (like MC vs NesTea or something similar). However, this is nothing but guesses and speculations.
I can definitely see someone have a 90% winrate using this build only against zerg if it is against mainly master league players, in particular on NA ladder.
On October 19 2011 22:48 TheAntZ wrote: Man buldermar im not gonna quote your mountain of worthless shit but its clear you're arguing just for the sake of arguing now. He played against GMs, and beat them. That is playing at a GM level. It doesnt fucking matter if it took place on ladder, in customs, or if he never fucking played a placement match. If he was playing against a GM that was making an effort to win, and he beat him, it means that he is playing the game AT THE LEVEL of a grandmaster But you fucking know this already, you're arguing semantics because you cant stand being wrong
1) Which part of what I've written is worthless shit?
2) Stating that I'm arguing for the sake of arguing is an allegation. Furthermore, it's ironic to acuse someone of arguing just for the sake of arguing without providing any proof, as your post in effect becomes just that: arguing for the sake of arguing. Explain how I'm arguing for the sake of arguing or your post will remain an assertion without proof.
3) Playing at the GM level is in no way directly defined by the amount of GM players you beat or face - neither total amount, nor percentage. Stating "I've beat GM players with this build" is not the same as stating "I'm playing at the GM level".
4) No, I disagree with you. Please allow me to decide on my own position in this regard. If you're going to tell me what I think and don't think; what I can stand and can't stand; if I'm wrong or not, provide specific examples, logical counterarguments or other proof, or your posts will be nothing but allegations, leaving me with nothing to respond on.
I'm not debating anything, I'm answering questions like the one you just made. I initially asked OP one question and have only been responding to people quoting me.
If you think I'm looking to prove anything other than that OP is lying, you're mistaking. I checked the most recent 20 matches on the request of someone else.
I'm also not discussing OP's level of play. My personal opinion is that he's a very good player, but it's absolutely irrelevant for my points.
Please stop making absurd assumptions about my motivations, goals etc. I wanted to make one simple point: that OP was never in GM and therefore cannot be playing at the GM level, which, in effect, makes him a liar about this matter both rhetorically and logically.
And right here:
On October 24 2011 03:10 buldermar wrote: 3) Playing at the GM level is in no way directly defined by the amount of GM players you beat or face - neither total amount, nor percentage. Stating "I've beat GM players with this build" is not the same as stating "I'm playing at the GM level".
Either discuss the build itself or leave. Stop arguing about Huargh's level of play. You took one tiny chunk of the OP and blew it so far out of proportion that all you are doing is damaging the thread for everybody else by whining about the OP saying he plays at the GM level. He probably didn't even think twice when writing that and now you are crucifying him for it. Stop arguing semantics and grow up. I'm sorry if I sound harsh, but it is incredibly frustrating reading threads trying to learn something when there are people repeatedly dragging it off topic arguing about something irrelevant to the actual topic. So please, either start discussing the build itself, or leave this thread alone so people who actually want to learn something can instead of having to sift through garbage.
Now back on topic, after using this build as Protoss for a while (and having great success) I actually got to play against it as Zerg on my second account, it can be quite annoying to deal with. It seems that spreading units is the key to dealing with this, along with having the correct amount of anti-air and detection (3-4 overseers that are all split up). I would like to play against it more so I can get a better understanding of both sides. It definitely seems strong but beatable.
Furthermore, as I believe I explained, stating that one can play at the GM level without ever having been in GM league is <b>tautologically a self-contradiction, both rhetorically and logically.</b>
Oh god, I'm revoking your English language license.
I don't think highly of my english abilities. I don't speak it in my daily life and havn't made an effort of learning the language.
The statement is a tautological self-contradiction. It either means nothing or is a lie, both rhetorically and logically. Since it was written, it has an intended meaning, therefore being a lie. This can be proven, for instance, by using propositional logic with binary connectives, or by considering each of the possible interpretations that does not entail ever having been in GM league AND, at the same time, has a distinctive meaning. Since both methods, per se, leads to the statement being a lie, and a lie being a tautological self-contradiction, it necessarily is tautologically a self-contradiction (both rhetorically and logically).
I'm not debating anything, I'm answering questions like the one you just made. I initially asked OP one question and have only been responding to people quoting me.
If you think I'm looking to prove anything other than that OP is lying, you're mistaking. I checked the most recent 20 matches on the request of someone else.
I'm also not discussing OP's level of play. My personal opinion is that he's a very good player, but it's absolutely irrelevant for my points.
Please stop making absurd assumptions about my motivations, goals etc. I wanted to make one simple point: that OP was never in GM and therefore cannot be playing at the GM level, which, in effect, makes him a liar about this matter both rhetorically and logically.
On October 24 2011 03:10 buldermar wrote: 3) Playing at the GM level is in no way directly defined by the amount of GM players you beat or face - neither total amount, nor percentage. Stating "I've beat GM players with this build" is not the same as stating "I'm playing at the GM level".
Either discuss the build itself or leave. Stop arguing about Huargh's level of play. You took one tiny chunk of the OP and blew it so far out of proportion that all you are doing is damaging the thread for everybody else by whining about the OP saying he plays at the GM level. He probably didn't even think twice when writing that and now you are crucifying him for it. Stop arguing semantics and grow up. I'm sorry if I sound harsh, but it is incredibly frustrating reading threads trying to learn something when there are people repeatedly dragging it off topic arguing about something irrelevant to the actual topic. So please, either start discussing the build itself, or leave this thread alone so people who actually want to learn something can instead of having to sift through garbage.
Now back on topic, after using this build as Protoss for a while (and having great success) I actually got to play against it as Zerg on my second account, it can be quite annoying to deal with. It seems that spreading units is the key to dealing with this, along with having the correct amount of anti-air and detection (3-4 overseers that are all split up). I would like to play against it more so I can get a better understanding of both sides. It definitely seems strong but beatable.
I asked OP a specific question.
After having asked OP a specific question, I was quoted.
This leads to a situation in which I can either; a) respond b) ignore
I sincerely believe I'm being openminded and willing to answer anything I'm asked. I initially asked OP a question for a clarification rather than making an accusation. The accusation occured once I had to defend my question for people whom I didn't ask in the first place.
I didn't take any chunk, nor did I blow anything out of proportions. If you read the entire thread, you'll find that I have not initiated a single dialogue despite my very first initial question. If I'm quoted, I'm in my right to respond to what's being said in my direction.
I have reasons to think that the statement is not a typo and I believe that the lie is destructive for a healthy and fair discussion environment. I'm putting my own credibility on the line by stating that OP has, to this point in time, never been in GM league or anything equivilent.
As I've stated countless times, I'm only responding to posts directed to me. I'm not initiating ANY conversations. It is ironic if you make a post just to ask of me not to respond to the very post you made when I'm not initiating anything in the first place.
Keep this in mind: 1) I reserve my right to respond to people quoting me or people posting something specifically to me 2) I've asked only one question, which was less than one line. From there, one of two things could happen; a) the comment could be left alone, as it was adressed specifically to OP b) someone could interfere, quoting me or posting something specifically to me, which would lead to 1).
Don't quote me or post something specifically to me unless you're okay with it being answered.
I urge people to please keep this thread on topic. It's getting frustrating to keep sifting through this shit every time I want to keep up with what people are saying about THE BUILD.
The only zerg I have played that has dealt with the build well is the zerg who did a huge 2 base roach hydra attack after I took my 3rd but before it started paying for itself. Every zerg I run into wants to run their entire army into the vortex and I don't know why. Zergs can tade units much better than protoss so it seems like they should just keep as many units out of the vortex as possible. They aren't doing much spreading out of units or even much counter attacking for that matter. I'm sure zergs will figure this out better soon but it's not evident in the games I have been playing against them as of now.
On October 18 2011 18:38 Lordcamel wrote: @buldermar What's the point of debating this for 2 pages ? You prove nothing saying that the Op lost to the last gm he played... and you d be helpfull to a lot more people trying the build and critizing it rather than the Op's level
Please stop making absurd assumptions about my motivations, goals etc. I wanted to make one simple point: that OP was never in GM and therefore cannot be playing at the GM level, which, in effect, makes him a liar about this matter both rhetorically and logically.
this is a really dumb argument so i probably shouldn't add to it, but this is a really dumb thing to post. its very possible to be at a "gm level" as the op described it without actually being in gm currently. actually, its possible to be at "gm level" without even playing a ladder game, ever. i have a hard time believing you actually think the stuff you post is correct, and i think everyone can agree that its irrelevant.
1) It's not a matter of not currently being in GM, but a matter of never having been in GM or an equivilanet of GM.
2) It's not possible to be playing at the GM level without ever having been in GM league. If you disagree, read my arguments and be specific about where I'm wrong. It's a tautological fallacy to utilize a term with a clear boundary without meeting its respective defining criterium. Without having ever been in GM league (or an equivilant) one can, per definition, not be playing at the GM level. Master league is not an equivilant because master league is on the same continuum, serving as a distinction (border) for GM league.
3) Since I've been responding only to posts sent my way, my posts are, per definition, relevant, because their relevance is just a synonym for my intentions with them. The fact that you quoted my post AND described it as being irrelevant at once is a clear incongruity, that is, ironic.
i think i see where your problem comes from. your "defining criterium" for GM level play seems to be strictly that a player must be in the GM league. for the rest of the posters in this thread, it isn't defined in that way.
i think you're mistaking "GM-level" for "GM" - the GM in the first term describes the level of play, not the specific GM league. if i was to say:
i am a GM zerg player.
this would imply that i am in fact a zerg grandmaster on any of the various servers. but if i was to say:
my zvt is GM-level.
this would imply that i am as good as GM zerg players at the zvt matchup. using GM-level to describe a certain level of skill simply does not imply that that which is being described was actually in the GM league, period.
it would be nonsensical to use the term "GM-level" in the way that you seem to be advocating. take player x, who just won a ladder game and was promoted to GM for the first time. in the game he just played (immediately before his promotion) he was not and had never had been in GM league. however, he played and beat a grandmaster level player. i would describe his play in that game as "GM-level", but according to what you've posted that would be incorrect because player x had never actually attained GM league at that point. do you see the error in this?
Man, this thread would be so much easier to follow if I had the reading comprehension of a first-grader. Alas, I was educated in England and thus cannot legitimately claim to possess the reading comprehension of a first-grader - the conversations I undertake on a near daily basis at or around that level notwithstanding.
Insofar as I can divine the meaning of the text, I believe the most efficacious tactic to be hiding, very quietly, until the mothership goes away sometime next year.
Every Zerg I have used thus on has either not GG'd or raged at me. It's kind of funny :D
Also I have an exceptional winrate with this strategy now. Easily 90+% as advertised! The only thing it might be weak to us a roach-hydra push timed for right around when the 3rd base and the mothership are up, but I've found that as long as I have vortex I've pretty much won the game.
@ Talon I've heard in terms of defeating the Mothership + Archon toilet shenanigans, running a ton of banelings into the vortex is pretty effective. Saw people theorycrafting this and a few tried it out as a counter to this, but I haven't actually kept track of the thread in question enough to know if their efforts were successful.
alright enough with the argue'ing people... it gets us nowhere
1) it doesnt matter if the OP lied about playing GM's. i honestly dont care about that. the question is the build at hand, does it suck or is it good?
2) we all know motherships are a good unit in PvZ and i dont question that. however i do question the validity of this opener. is it TRULY safe?
3) on that regard, is any opener TRULY safe? who really knows. the OP suggests doing a 1gate expand. I feel that 2gate expand is safe however 1gate expand against a good zerg who is playing standard-high-econ-speedling equals the moment your nexus finishes a swarm of lings will kill it, and you cannot "scout" this, and you cannot cancel the nexus, instead you have to drop your nexus at the normal time and HOPE your zerg enemy is bad and doesnt kill your expand and if he does you are behind no matter what.
4) however, maybe point 3 is wrong. maybe 1gate expand IS SAFE? i guess the only way to find the truth to that is point 5
5) if any zergs out there feel like they can easily prove how 1gate expand is stupid and weak, feel free to post in here saying "im willing to 1v1 any protoss in here who thinks 1gate expand is good, and i will show you why its not safe against any standard zerg play"
6) until a zerg actually does that. no amount of the argue'ing going on in this thread is worth any kind of attention. theres no amount of argue'ing going on in this thread that has a point.... theres only 1 thing that actually has value, and thats replays. so create replays, or stop the argue'ing.
7) i realize the OP has replays with him winning, however that doesnt really prove point 3. and also i dont think anyone is here to argue that motherships are a bad unit. The OP says you should get motherships and gateway units to beat zerg. Well guess what, motherships and gateway units are all super powerful against zerg, and i aint going to say any of those options are "bad".... instead, the main focus here is on the BUILD posted in the OP. to be exact, it is an opening build that is touted to be "safe". however, is it TRULY SAFE ???
i feel that answer has yet to be provided in this thread, and the only way to get that answer is with a GOOD ZERG and a GOOD PROTOSS providing replays. no amount of argue'ing will solve anything
This build is the only thing that's made PvZ fun to play again. I would die to roach 1-a time and time again trying to take my third, now I feel like I'm making them react and I can win the mind-game just the way I want to.
My Win-rate has easily been upwards of 80% at high diamond level. In general, it seems that once a mothership comes into play, the zerg forgets the importance of concaves and flanking. The best Zergs either scout what's going on, and trigger an agression switch, or expand, keep up on upgrades, and harrass like crazy.
Infestor play has been of mixed results against this fungal growth's reveal ability does help considerably, though.... the counter-intuitive "solution" to a mothership being out is generally to ignore it, and kill it nearly last. I've survived so many assaults with 10+ corruptors because either my mothership has died, but I've had a deathball left, or my mothership has been left clinging to health after some solid vortex work.
I really hope Blizz doesn't nuke the MS in HoTS like they've been planning. It's a good unit that has only just begun to realize it's potential.
The really thing you have to understand is the synergy between archon+zealot+vortex. Vortex just brings every unit to close/melee range, so zealots can do MAXIMUM DPS, as so as Archons ...and with splash. So, you have a build that climbs the tech-tree in a very safe way against zerg exploiting the lack of early anti-air that zerg has with Voids. In the end you have a chained build order that simply works.
On October 27 2011 12:01 roymarthyup wrote: alright enough with the argue'ing people... it gets us nowhere
1) it doesnt matter if the OP lied about playing GM's. i honestly dont care about that. the question is the build at hand, does it suck or is it good?
2) we all know motherships are a good unit in PvZ and i dont question that. however i do question the validity of this opener. is it TRULY safe?
3) on that regard, is any opener TRULY safe? who really knows. the OP suggests doing a 1gate expand. I feel that 2gate expand is safe however 1gate expand against a good zerg who is playing standard-high-econ-speedling equals the moment your nexus finishes a swarm of lings will kill it, and you cannot "scout" this, and you cannot cancel the nexus, instead you have to drop your nexus at the normal time and HOPE your zerg enemy is bad and doesnt kill your expand and if he does you are behind no matter what.
4) however, maybe point 3 is wrong. maybe 1gate expand IS SAFE? i guess the only way to find the truth to that is point 5
5) if any zergs out there feel like they can easily prove how 1gate expand is stupid and weak, feel free to post in here saying "im willing to 1v1 any protoss in here who thinks 1gate expand is good, and i will show you why its not safe against any standard zerg play"
6) until a zerg actually does that. no amount of the argue'ing going on in this thread is worth any kind of attention. theres no amount of argue'ing going on in this thread that has a point.... theres only 1 thing that actually has value, and thats replays. so create replays, or stop the argue'ing.
7) i realize the OP has replays with him winning, however that doesnt really prove point 3. and also i dont think anyone is here to argue that motherships are a bad unit. The OP says you should get motherships and gateway units to beat zerg. Well guess what, motherships and gateway units are all super powerful against zerg, and i aint going to say any of those options are "bad".... instead, the main focus here is on the BUILD posted in the OP. to be exact, it is an opening build that is touted to be "safe". however, is it TRULY SAFE ???
i feel that answer has yet to be provided in this thread, and the only way to get that answer is with a GOOD ZERG and a GOOD PROTOSS providing replays. no amount of argue'ing will solve anything
1) Its good. If you can pull it off, its incredibly strong. The main problem lies in getting there.
2) Opener, yes. Its very solid. The midgame is another story. That is, if you scout and react properly of course. No opener is 100% against everything.
3) Personally I feel 1gate is safe against a lot of things that 3gate usually isn't, especially in regards to early game cheeses that happen before you move out, as you'll be having a higher sentry count a tad earlier. You'll also generally be safe against roach attacks. You can have trouble vs allin ling/bling right after you place the nexus down, which is why its important to scout for this every single game.
4) see 3
5) MC uses 1gate expo constantly, nuff said
6) See 5
7) This build does have a lot of problems, but the 1gate expo is not where they lie. The main problem actually arises at two points in the game.
The first is right before or after you take third, and youre mothership may not be done, or be done but you don't have enough energy for vortex yet. I have lost a lot vs roach/hydra allins at this phase in the game. Even if the mothership has enough for vortex, the amount of units can be so overwhelming you simply don't have enough to stop it. This again, comes down to scouting, delaying the third expo, and placing down more gates. But it can be a bit tricky to spot this coming.
The second is when you move out with your 200/200 army. At this point you havent really had any possible way to pressure the zerg, and a lot fo them exploit this by taking every single expo on the map, and meeting your 200/200 with broodlords, banelings, infestors, corrupters and roaches. You don't really have any high dps units to face this with. You could include storm in your composition, but I've had a hard time doing that so far, as vortex naturally clump up your units with the enemey's. Broodlords also annihilate your units, and the only way to deal with them is to vortex them (which, btw, works ridiculously well). However if you also face banelings and infestors, this can be troublesome as well.
But then again, I can't say I'm naturally good at this game..or even simply "good" at all. There is probably houndred of ways to deal with the two issues described above..simply adding voids could be one thing (thought that delays the push a lot, or you'll have a lot less archons). I really wish a progamer could show us how its done, but I have yet to see this.
I just want to echo the sentiment that this build has made PvZ incredibly fun for me at a diamond level. It's by far my best MU now.
As for anyone having any questions about how safe it is, it's pretty fucking good. If you want to see how 1gate FE stargate openers handle roach ling all ins, see MC 4-0ing IdrA, where IdrA attempts a roach ling all in 3 times in a row. This build doesnt even xfer probes until the VR is out, to add to it.
Good scouting with your phoenix lets you identify what Z is doing, and in the vacuum after a void ray is out and before Z can pressure you, you power immensely, getting 4 gates + TC + forge + mothership while skimping a bit on gateway units. The way this all times out is amazing, much kudos to the OP.
And yes, I too hope to god that the MS doesn't get removed in HotS.
Haha! Just tried this and during the potentially best Archon toilets ever witnessed by man, an Infestor neurals my Mothership and I did not bring an observer... That's backfire.
Is the new cost reduction on forge upgrades sufficient to justify an expenditure on the Protoss Shields Upgrade(s)?
It would make your Mothership (and other air units), Archons, buildings and gateway units more resilient. Since you have a mixed air/ground army, rely on photon cannons for early defense and make heavy use of archons which do not really benefit from armour upgrades; I wonder if protoss shields might complement this style well.
Have 1 question. If he goas roach ling and when you defend it, is it optimal to just counter him with 6-7 gates and finishthe game or it is risky, since he stayed on 2 bases still(because he can reproduce those roach ling fast)?
yea why did people stop doing this build. as z, i've faced it a few times on ladder, and it's really tough to play against
On December 03 2011 07:31 AirbladeOrange wrote: Is this build working for anyone anymore? I've been using it for a while but it barely seems to work as Zergs just play against it much better now.
what do you lose to? just heavy roach (hydra?) aggression?
On December 19 2011 15:36 elsemyano wrote: yea why did people stop doing this build. as z, i've faced it a few times on ladder, and it's really tough to play against
On December 03 2011 07:31 AirbladeOrange wrote: Is this build working for anyone anymore? I've been using it for a while but it barely seems to work as Zergs just play against it much better now.
what do you lose to? just heavy roach (hydra?) aggression?
Mostly roach/hydra timings before the 3rd is actually secure. Also good muta play messed me up quite a bit. I stopped using the build because it seems like the zergs I played against were used to it and knew what build was coming and how to punish it. It worked for a while and tons of people on the ladder would just bitch at me. Funny how that works out.
Mass roach destroys me every time. Chargelot archons are just horrible against them, doesn't matter if I'm in melee range after a vortex, against a ball of 80 roaches I lose every time.
From a quick run over this seems like brown style with the fast third off minimal air units which I have been using to great success on ladder tbh. The future of protoss is their air. My 2 favourite builds are brown style or a double stargate into carrier mothership hts and a faster third. Your build however seems to rush mothership too fast for my liking and a mass corrupter switch will kill you. you need more then 3 gateways and 2 air units to hold off some kind of zerg all in. Youre basically hoping they dont attack you and allow you time to raise an army. chargelot phoenix or void ray with ht support into carrier mothership and storm is currently the easiest way to attain the ultimate pvz deathball imo as late game transitions rely on you tech swithcing and him not rolling you. Whereas the slow build up style basically is all about you just not dieing and getting more cannons and expoing (best on shakuras).
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Ag6wa.jpg)
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I always though Mothership in the hands of a good player is 100% lethal, contradictory to popular belief. 
must... try... mothership again! 
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