|
Baneling Toilet w/ Ultralisk Shield
Video 1: http://www.twitch.tv/keyzx/b/297262790
*Everything was thrown into the Vortex to see how effective the Banelings could be. In a real game scenario, obviously a Protoss player would not send in most of their army, and mainly the Archons*
Video 2: Coming Soon.
Banelings: Make about 30-40 banelings and keep them behind your broodlords at all times. If you run into a vortex scenario, you can save most of your Broodlords + any ground army you may have as well. The splash will insta-kill any archons + any other units that enter the vortex. So yes, this could essentially mean you can 1 shot a Protoss deathball, but only if they're stupid enough to send everything else in, either on purpose or by mistake.
Ultralisks: Their main purpose is to act as a splash shield, spreading out the archons even more, so that if an AoE does hit, it's minimal. They also protect your broodlords from taking blink stalker fire and force void rays to target fire broods, rather than a-move. It really gives a good opportunity for your Broodlords to retreat back to your Infestors and Overseers (which btw, you should always keep in the back as well if possible).
*If you make too few banelings, your broodlords will be hit with an initial Archon splash, but it won't necessarily kill them. They will be vulnerable though, so retreating immediately is almost a must.
End-game Unit Comp:The perfect unit composition that's vortex proof seems to be something like 12 Broodlords, 8 Ultralisks, 10 Infestors, 35 Banelings and 3-4 Overseers. This is assuming the Protoss player does not send in more than 7 Archons, which usually they don't, but even then your still pretty safe. It's great offensively and can also take a lot of damage in return. If you run into a large map where blink stalkers are trying to abuse Broodlord speed, your Ultralisks can always cover your butt. Infestors ofc serve as anti-air and detection (fungal), just don't forget your overseers.
Ultralisk/Infestor vs Roach/Hydra: This of course is personal preference, and should also be based on what the Protoss army consists of. I just believe Ultralisk/Infestor is much more efficient vs a remaining Stalker/Collossus ball. Not to mention blinking stalkers melt faster to a bunch of Ultralisks if they want a piece of your broodlords. No protoss is going to go heavy zealot with Broodlords in the picture, so 99% of the time, the Ultralisks won't be hard countered.
*I'll be adding another video soon.
|
Got some replays? even unit tester?
I thought with the 1.5seconds invincibility after Vortex, ground units could spread out fast enough to avoid the '1 hit KO splash' syndrome. Air units spread out slower, so they are still affected.
|
On October 12 2011 12:21 Trusty wrote:
Got some replays? even unit tester?
I thought with the 1.5seconds invincibility after Vortex, ground units could spread out fast enough to avoid the '1 hit KO splash' syndrome. Air units spread out slower, so they are still affected.
I can post some replays to show you guys the tests, absolutely, just give me a little time. The 1 hit splash ALWAYS hits. With the Ultralisks added, it does reduce the splash considerably, but your Broodlords will still get hit at least once by a couple of archons.
|
I have tested this out before, both in games and in unit tester, and yes, Banelings absolutely wreck havoc if the Protoss throws his units into the Vortex with them. Like, throwing Archons into the Vortex is great and all, but I would just about argue Banelings are far more destructive. I don't really know if that's true but from what I've seen everything just melts to Banes, of course you will want a decent amount of Banes in the Vortex to make sure everything dies.
I've been trying to tell people to start making Banelings if they see a Mothership but idk if it's caught on yet.
OH! And another possibility to the Archon Toilet is if you have a decent number of Infestors you can just dump all their energy into throwing Infested Terrans into the Vortex, they will absorb hits and do a lot of damage as well. It's not really a "solution" so much as an option you can choose to help reduce the impact of the Vortex.
|
|
|
Video link is up at the top in the OP.
|
why would protoss send his whole army into the vortex? that defeats the purpose of the spell
|
On October 12 2011 13:08 ChineseWife wrote:
why would protoss send his whole army into the vortex? that defeats the purpose of the spell
Sometimes they do it in order to save units or ensure they have enough units to kill off the Broodlords with stalkers since they'll spawn right beneath them.
Sometimes, their own units end up getting sent in because they were too close, it happens.
I just wanted to make sure I could test it as well.
|
I'm interested, however this counter is 100% dependent on your own play, if you aren't going ultralisk baneling or have either out, a mothership "rush" or at least a 3 base mothership can kill you.
|
This seems too dependent on your opponent doing what you think he will do. What happens if he starts going colossi, immortals, carriers, or something else. You can't rely on an entire composition to beat one tactic of your opponent unless it works on its own as a general strategy.
|
Every game is different, every game will have different unit comps and different strategies.
This is simply a counter to keeping your Broodlords ALIVE, while doing fair damage in return (to any enemy units that enter the vortex), it's not supposed to win you the game.
Thanks.
|
On October 12 2011 13:08 ChineseWife wrote:
why would protoss send his whole army into the vortex? that defeats the purpose of the spell Here are a couple examples (I've been experimenting with vortex since HUARGH originally posted his build). Say you have a roach/hydra army vortexed and a protoss has zealot/archon with a few stalkers for support (this composition would die to roach/hydra otherwise). The protoss will throw in zealots and archons into the vortex because when everything pops, the zealots and archons will be given good surface area vs. the roaches and will actually fight decently against them (often winning depending on upgrades, especially if there is no detection). Same with infestor/BL, the zealots kill the infestors insanely fast and the archons destroy the broods with splash damage. Mixing in baneling/ultra in the vortex messes up the surface area because of the huge ultras and the archons end up so they aren't near the center and then the banelings kill everything as soon as the 1.5 seconds is done and units can attack again.
Though, unlike the video, I wouldn't run the stalkers in. I usually spread them out instead while my zealots and archons are in the vortex. I've been goofing with vortexes for the last week and it seems banelings definitely are the best answer, though I've never tried with ultras. Neat idea!
|
I was in a 4v4 when opponents vortexed a big chunk of our army ran in with banes and then proceeded to call down a nuke when spell was ending. It looked fukin epic, however in the end we won the game. They were ofcourse an arranged team but I was seriously impressed.
|
On October 12 2011 12:21 Trusty wrote:
Got some replays? even unit tester?
I thought with the 1.5seconds invincibility after Vortex, ground units could spread out fast enough to avoid the '1 hit KO splash' syndrome. Air units spread out slower, so they are still affected.
I still don't think the 1.5 seconds is enough. When you go on faster mode the seconds go by a lot quicker. I saw a game between destiny and Inka who were practicing and the archon toilet still worked quite well. I remember people on the stream saying "WOW 60 supply in 1 second". Was crazy
|
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it.
|
i cant imagine a scenario in which I'll have 32 banelings laying around lategame vs toss...
but i guess that could be my play style
|
On October 12 2011 14:53 ishboh wrote:
i cant imagine a scenario in which I'll have 32 banelings laying around lategame vs toss...
but i guess that could be my play style
The scenario would probably be that you scout the Mothership and produce the banelings then. Granted, you are putting a lot of supply and resources into countering only one possible usage of the Mothership, but after IPL I can imagine a lot of metoos on the ladders employing that maneuver.
Even then, there's also a chance you can use the banelings to drop onto the protoss army during a skirmish otherwise so it's not a complete waste. At the end of the day even if you fuck up his army without having to use them, you then are equipped to bust through and start fucking with his econ or wrecking his infrastructure.
|
On October 12 2011 14:53 ishboh wrote:
i cant imagine a scenario in which I'll have 32 banelings laying around lategame vs toss...
but i guess that could be my play style
32 banelings = 8 roaches.
I'd take 32 banelings anyday.
|
On October 12 2011 14:46 Anihc wrote:
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it.
that is a completely flawed argument.
You would be fighting with less supply than he has and if he landed it on a choke point, you can't engage there until the whole vortex is finished.
|
On October 12 2011 15:10 Anihc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 14:53 ishboh wrote:
i cant imagine a scenario in which I'll have 32 banelings laying around lategame vs toss...
but i guess that could be my play style 32 banelings = 8 roaches. I'd take 32 banelings anyday.
Yah, the only time the 8 roaches would be more cost effective is if the banelings aren't guaranteed to deal damage, and the roaches are able to live long enough to outkill their cost; but in this scenario the banelings all do deal their damage so it's a really one-sided comparison in favor of the banelings.
|
On October 12 2011 15:10 Anihc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 14:53 ishboh wrote:
i cant imagine a scenario in which I'll have 32 banelings laying around lategame vs toss...
but i guess that could be my play style 32 banelings = 8 roaches. I'd take 32 banelings anyday.
Except they cost 4 times the gas and 2.66 times the minerals?
|
United States1232 Posts
On October 12 2011 15:10 Anihc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 14:53 ishboh wrote:
i cant imagine a scenario in which I'll have 32 banelings laying around lategame vs toss...
but i guess that could be my play style 32 banelings = 8 roaches. I'd take 32 banelings anyday.
Why does your math seem so wrong to me.......
is it because its 3am and im half asleep?
despite the fact that i should be sleeping....
i got 1600/800 for 32 banes......
im 8 roaches cost: 600/200
|
On October 12 2011 14:46 Anihc wrote:
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it.
And have the protoss player easily clean up one half of your army while the rest is vortexed, great idea buddy. Seriously, think a little before posting?
|
In a late game scenario (A protoss will get archon toilet in late game, not mid, except with a weird build), 32 banelings is not really hard to make.
And if you can't use them in a vortex, you can use them in a drop. So it's not useless.
|
On October 12 2011 16:13 AGIANTSMURF wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 15:10 Anihc wrote:On October 12 2011 14:53 ishboh wrote:
i cant imagine a scenario in which I'll have 32 banelings laying around lategame vs toss...
but i guess that could be my play style 32 banelings = 8 roaches. I'd take 32 banelings anyday. Why does your math seem so wrong to me....... is it because its 3am and im half asleep? despite the fact that i should be sleeping.... i got 1600/800 for 32 banes...... im 8 roaches cost: 600/200
He's talking about supply, which is the most important resource in the lategame, 8 roaches is 16 supply, 32 banelings is 16 supply.
Roaches are dead supply vs lategame protoss anyway.
|
On October 12 2011 15:21 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 14:46 Anihc wrote:
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it. that is a completely flawed argument. You would be fighting with less supply than he has and if he landed it on a choke point, you can't engage there until the whole vortex is finished.
So what's better, fighting with less supply or fighting with no supply? Especially if you keep some brood lords and infestors out of the vortex, those units can still do damage to the protoss army regardless. It's not always easy for the protoss to maneuver around his own vortex either.
|
On October 12 2011 16:29 Anihc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 15:21 ETisME wrote:On October 12 2011 14:46 Anihc wrote:
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it. that is a completely flawed argument. You would be fighting with less supply than he has and if he landed it on a choke point, you can't engage there until the whole vortex is finished. So what's better, fighting with less supply or fighting with no supply? Especially if you keep some brood lords and infestors out of the vortex, those units can still do damage to the protoss army regardless. It's not always easy for the protoss to maneuver around his own vortex either.
you think it makes a difference?
without roaches, what is going to protect the broodlords and infestors?
it's not like blink stalkers cannot "spread out" to kill off the infestors and broodlords, especially when broodlords are spread out....
|
On October 12 2011 16:20 Snusdosa wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 14:46 Anihc wrote:
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it. And have the protoss player easily clean up one half of your army while the rest is vortexed, great idea buddy. Seriously, think a little before posting?
Not only have I thought plenty about it, I've also had personal experience in hundreds of games at a very high level of play with motherships and vortexes. What about you?
Of course fighting with half your army is a disadvantage; fighting with none of your army is even worse, which will be what happens if you throw everything into the vortex. Although its very dependent on both sides' army composition and the terrain where you're fighting, a lot of times it's hard for the protoss to maneuver around his own vortex, and units outside the vortex will still survive. Also, even in small numbers against a much bigger protoss force, a handful of infestors + broodlords can still do damage.
|
On October 12 2011 16:24 Snusdosa wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 16:13 AGIANTSMURF wrote:On October 12 2011 15:10 Anihc wrote:On October 12 2011 14:53 ishboh wrote:
i cant imagine a scenario in which I'll have 32 banelings laying around lategame vs toss...
but i guess that could be my play style 32 banelings = 8 roaches. I'd take 32 banelings anyday. Why does your math seem so wrong to me....... is it because its 3am and im half asleep? despite the fact that i should be sleeping.... i got 1600/800 for 32 banes...... im 8 roaches cost: 600/200 He's talking about supply, which is the most important resource in the lategame, 8 roaches is 16 supply, 32 banelings is 16 supply. Roaches are dead supply vs lategame protoss anyway.
Correct, he said late game so I assumed cost was irrelevant (or at least secondary). I don't even considered a maxed 200/200 roach army to be late game, that can happen by 14-15 minutes.
EDIT: I guess I'll comment on the OP's idea (and I'm editing this to avoid triple posting :p):
I actually like your idea with banelings, they are great late game units due to their supply efficiency and I don't know why no zergs ever do it. Surprisingly, I have never ever had anyone throw banelings into my vortex before, but I can't imagine it would end up poorly for the zerg. Ultralisks on the other hand I have seen, and are actually really good for the zerg in a vortex (because they're big and quickly spread units out, do splash damage of their own, and have a lot of HP so they don't die in 1 shot).
So while your examples and "tests" are a bit unrealistic, banelings + ultras definitely are better against vortex than other standard more standard zerg compositions. I still however still believe that the best "counter" is to just spread out your army and not let everything get vortexed.
|
On October 12 2011 14:46 Anihc wrote:
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it.
I agree, if you go for a good arc instead of having one big ball with the radius of the vortex spell, you can negate a lot of the damage.
Banelings are a nice idea, but... what if he doesn't vortex but uses the mothership like kiwikaki for the recall? You have 32 banelings that are effectively worthless (or "situational" at best) against his archons/colossi/sentries/whatever.... and banelings are not free.
Or even: He vortexes but _doesn't_ move in his army but instead just fights half your army?
Sure, if he vortexes, moves in his whole army and you do have them, you win, but hoping on the opponent making big mistakes leads to poor play.
|
On October 12 2011 16:38 Anihc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 16:20 Snusdosa wrote:On October 12 2011 14:46 Anihc wrote:
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it. And have the protoss player easily clean up one half of your army while the rest is vortexed, great idea buddy. Seriously, think a little before posting? Not only have I thought plenty about it, I've also had personal experience in hundreds of games at a very high level of play with motherships and vortexes. What about you? Of course fighting with half your army is a disadvantage; fighting with none of your army is even worse, which will be what happens if you throw everything into the vortex. Although its very dependent on both sides' army composition and the terrain where you're fighting, a lot of times it's hard for the protoss to maneuver around his own vortex, and units outside the vortex will still survive. Also, even in small numbers against a much bigger protoss force, a handful of infestors + broodlords can still do damage.
While the "spread your army" advice is all well and good, it isn't all that practical. It basically translates to "never attack the protoss army anywhere that involves your units moving through a choke within casting range of the mothership." Considering how much more mobile a lategame protoss deathball (with a mothership/recall) is than a broodlord infestor deathball, this is extremely challenging. I would rather try to figure out a tactic that doesn't rely on my opponent screwing up and stupidly engaging my spread out army when he can just recall in my main and vortex everything when I run back to defend. I dislike strategies that rely on my opponent's mistakes.
|
Not only have I thought plenty about it, I've also had personal experience in hundreds of games at a very high level of play with motherships and vortexes. What about you?
Of course fighting with half your army is a disadvantage; fighting with none of your army is even worse, which will be what happens if you throw everything into the vortex. Although its very dependent on both sides' army composition and the terrain where you're fighting, a lot of times it's hard for the protoss to maneuver around his own vortex, and units outside the vortex will still survive. Also, even in small numbers against a much bigger protoss force, a handful of infestors + broodlords can still do damage.
Sure, i just think your first post had a poor choice of words. There really is no counter to a vortex, only different kinds of reactions to one going down and splitting up is one of them, it kinda explains itself that fighting with half your army can never be beneficial so saying that is how you "counter" a vortex isn't really right.
A counter to something is a strategy that causes the engagement or result of an event to end up favoring you, in ZvP i think banelings is the only thing i've seen that might counter a vortex.
|
On October 12 2011 17:08 Gelenn wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 16:38 Anihc wrote:On October 12 2011 16:20 Snusdosa wrote:On October 12 2011 14:46 Anihc wrote:
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it. And have the protoss player easily clean up one half of your army while the rest is vortexed, great idea buddy. Seriously, think a little before posting? Not only have I thought plenty about it, I've also had personal experience in hundreds of games at a very high level of play with motherships and vortexes. What about you? Of course fighting with half your army is a disadvantage; fighting with none of your army is even worse, which will be what happens if you throw everything into the vortex. Although its very dependent on both sides' army composition and the terrain where you're fighting, a lot of times it's hard for the protoss to maneuver around his own vortex, and units outside the vortex will still survive. Also, even in small numbers against a much bigger protoss force, a handful of infestors + broodlords can still do damage. While the "spread your army" advice is all well and good, it isn't all that practical. It basically translates to "never attack the protoss army anywhere that involves your units moving through a choke within casting range of the mothership." Considering how much more mobile a lategame protoss deathball (with a mothership/recall) is than a broodlord infestor deathball, this is extremely challenging. I would rather try to figure out a tactic that doesn't rely on my opponent screwing up and stupidly engaging my spread out army when he can just recall in my main and vortex everything when I run back to defend. I dislike strategies that rely on my opponent's mistakes.
I never give advice that is not practical. Do I literally have to spell out the fact that I don't theorycraft my posts like the majority of people here? You greatly overestimate both the mobility of a mothership and the radius of the vortex. It's pretty hard to be vortexed by surprise (giving you plenty of time to spread out your army, and when the vortex is actually cast, you still have time to not move the rest of your army into it), and if you let a mothership mass recall into your main then it's your fault for having poor map awareness (I know that it's been done to the best of players, but still. it's not an easy feat and still preventable by the zerg).
|
If you got infestor brood, then spreading out the broods pretty much wins it. A vortex doesn't have a really big AoE, little spread is needed before an engagement to make that vortex take only a small portion of your army.
If it is at a choke that should favor the zerg considering he got BROOD LORDS, the vortex is more likely to keep the stalkers from getting to the broods then. Broods don't have to go into the vortex to combat the stalkers because of the range, the stalkers do however have to go past that choke to combat the broods, and if they blink towards them your own units can now attack the stalkers.
Basicly like this:
Broods --- choke with vortex --- protoss army
Broods shoot over the choke easily with their superior range, while the protoss army can't shoot back without moving into the vortex or blinking over, if they blink over it will be:
Broods - Stalkers -- Choke with vortex --- rest of protoss army
In this scenario it is easy to see that the stalkers can be combated with your own groundforce.
Not to forget you can deal very efficently with the stalker blink with fungals.
And just to repeat, if it isn't a choke, you with only moderate amount of effort can spread out enough to have only a small portion of your army vortexed.
Take a look at all those games with brood + infestor that get vortexed, and imagine the outcome if those broods were just slightly better spread easily reducing the vortexed brood amount from 50-80% to 10-20%. A lot of the time it turns out that would give zerg a clear win.
EDIT: also to add, as anihc said, if half your army won't win the battle, then of course no army won't win it.
The most painful thing I personally watch in pro play is when zergs move their entire army into a vortex, it is 99% of the time worse than just letting whatever didn't get vortexed fight.
|
On October 12 2011 17:26 NTTemplar wrote:
If you got infestor brood, then spreading out the broods pretty much wins it. A vortex doesn't have a really big AoE, little spread is needed before an engagement to make that vortex take only a small portion of your army.
If it is at a choke that should favor the zerg considering he got BROOD LORDS, the vortex is more likely to keep the stalkers from getting to the broods then. Broods don't have to go into the vortex to combat the stalkers because of the range, the stalkers do however have to go past that choke to combat the broods, and if they blink towards them your own units can now attack the stalkers.
Basicly like this:
Broods --- choke with vortex --- protoss army
Broods shoot over the choke easily with their superior range, while the protoss army can't shoot back without moving into the vortex or blinking over, if they blink over it will be:
Broods - Stalkers -- Choke with vortex --- rest of protoss army
In this scenario it is easy to see that the stalkers can be combated with your own groundforce.
Not to forget you can deal very efficently with the stalker blink with fungals.
And just to repeat, if it isn't a choke, you with only moderate amount of effort can spread out enough to have only a small portion of your army vortexed.
Take a look at all those games with brood + infestor that get vortexed, and imagine the outcome if those broods were just slightly better spread easily reducing the vortexed brood amount from 50-80% to 10-20%. A lot of the time it turns out that would give zerg a clear win.
EDIT: also to add, as anihc said, if half your army won't win the battle, then of course no army won't win it.
The most painful thing I personally watch in pro play is when zergs move their entire army into a vortex, it is 99% of the time worse than just letting whatever didn't get vortexed fight.
Thank you for clarifying me with that example. Such a situation is exactly what I'm talking about.
|
On October 12 2011 17:26 NTTemplar wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
If you got infestor brood, then spreading out the broods pretty much wins it. A vortex doesn't have a really big AoE, little spread is needed before an engagement to make that vortex take only a small portion of your army.
If it is at a choke that should favor the zerg considering he got BROOD LORDS, the vortex is more likely to keep the stalkers from getting to the broods then. Broods don't have to go into the vortex to combat the stalkers because of the range, the stalkers do however have to go past that choke to combat the broods, and if they blink towards them your own units can now attack the stalkers.
Basicly like this:
Broods --- choke with vortex --- protoss army
Broods shoot over the choke easily with their superior range, while the protoss army can't shoot back without moving into the vortex or blinking over, if they blink over it will be:
Broods - Stalkers -- Choke with vortex --- rest of protoss army
In this scenario it is easy to see that the stalkers can be combated with your own groundforce.
Not to forget you can deal very efficently with the stalker blink with fungals.
And just to repeat, if it isn't a choke, you with only moderate amount of effort can spread out enough to have only a small portion of your army vortexed.
Take a look at all those games with brood + infestor that get vortexed, and imagine the outcome if those broods were just slightly better spread easily reducing the vortexed brood amount from 50-80% to 10-20%. A lot of the time it turns out that would give zerg a clear win.
EDIT: also to add, as anihc said, if half your army won't win the battle, then of course no army won't win it.
The most painful thing I personally watch in pro play is when zergs move their entire army into a vortex, it is 99% of the time worse than just letting whatever didn't get vortexed fight
Brood Lord are the slowest moving units in the game except slow Overlords, you dont just "spread out" a bunch of Brood Lords, spreading also makes you very vulnerable to blink stalkers.
|
On October 12 2011 17:33 Snusdosa wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 17:26 NTTemplar wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
If you got infestor brood, then spreading out the broods pretty much wins it. A vortex doesn't have a really big AoE, little spread is needed before an engagement to make that vortex take only a small portion of your army.
If it is at a choke that should favor the zerg considering he got BROOD LORDS, the vortex is more likely to keep the stalkers from getting to the broods then. Broods don't have to go into the vortex to combat the stalkers because of the range, the stalkers do however have to go past that choke to combat the broods, and if they blink towards them your own units can now attack the stalkers.
Basicly like this:
Broods --- choke with vortex --- protoss army
Broods shoot over the choke easily with their superior range, while the protoss army can't shoot back without moving into the vortex or blinking over, if they blink over it will be:
Broods - Stalkers -- Choke with vortex --- rest of protoss army
In this scenario it is easy to see that the stalkers can be combated with your own groundforce.
Not to forget you can deal very efficently with the stalker blink with fungals.
And just to repeat, if it isn't a choke, you with only moderate amount of effort can spread out enough to have only a small portion of your army vortexed.
Take a look at all those games with brood + infestor that get vortexed, and imagine the outcome if those broods were just slightly better spread easily reducing the vortexed brood amount from 50-80% to 10-20%. A lot of the time it turns out that would give zerg a clear win.
EDIT: also to add, as anihc said, if half your army won't win the battle, then of course no army won't win it.
The most painful thing I personally watch in pro play is when zergs move their entire army into a vortex, it is 99% of the time worse than just letting whatever didn't get vortexed fight
Brood Lord are the slowest moving units in the game except slow Overlords, you dont just "spread out" a bunch of Brood Lords, spreading also makes you very vulnerable to blink stalkers.
You know what's just as slow as a brood lord? A mothership. Like I said before, it's really hard to be "surprised" (as in before you have time to react) by a mothership/vortex. You have plenty of time. Also I disagree with spreading brood lords being vulnerable to blink stalkers, I find the opposite to be true since if you clump all your BLs together it basically just takes 1 blink and your stalkers can be in range to kill all the brood lords. If you spread them out, you can get in position to kill a few but then you're stuck and can't kill any more because of fungal/broodlings getting in the way. And when I say spread out I don't mean spread out across the map, you just need to spread them out a little so that they can't all get sucked into 1 vortex. Vortex radius is honestly not that big, and I'm beginning to wonder if you've actually even seen one before.
|
On October 12 2011 17:33 Snusdosa wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 17:26 NTTemplar wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
If you got infestor brood, then spreading out the broods pretty much wins it. A vortex doesn't have a really big AoE, little spread is needed before an engagement to make that vortex take only a small portion of your army.
If it is at a choke that should favor the zerg considering he got BROOD LORDS, the vortex is more likely to keep the stalkers from getting to the broods then. Broods don't have to go into the vortex to combat the stalkers because of the range, the stalkers do however have to go past that choke to combat the broods, and if they blink towards them your own units can now attack the stalkers.
Basicly like this:
Broods --- choke with vortex --- protoss army
Broods shoot over the choke easily with their superior range, while the protoss army can't shoot back without moving into the vortex or blinking over, if they blink over it will be:
Broods - Stalkers -- Choke with vortex --- rest of protoss army
In this scenario it is easy to see that the stalkers can be combated with your own groundforce.
Not to forget you can deal very efficently with the stalker blink with fungals.
And just to repeat, if it isn't a choke, you with only moderate amount of effort can spread out enough to have only a small portion of your army vortexed.
Take a look at all those games with brood + infestor that get vortexed, and imagine the outcome if those broods were just slightly better spread easily reducing the vortexed brood amount from 50-80% to 10-20%. A lot of the time it turns out that would give zerg a clear win.
EDIT: also to add, as anihc said, if half your army won't win the battle, then of course no army won't win it.
The most painful thing I personally watch in pro play is when zergs move their entire army into a vortex, it is 99% of the time worse than just letting whatever didn't get vortexed fight
Brood Lord are the slowest moving units in the game except slow Overlords, you dont just "spread out" a bunch of Brood Lords, spreading also makes you very vulnerable to blink stalkers.
You can easily keep brood lords prematurely spread without much effort, and it does rarely make you any meaningful amount more vulnerable to blink stalkers, in many scenarios it makes them less vulnerable due to requiring the stalkers to move more, in simpler words, 1 blink don't put the stalkers in range to focus fire all brood lords.
If you spread broods so they are in a line in relation to your opponent then that is almost exclusively better than clumped. To note, spreading in a row is worse though than clumping most of the time, but I guess I'll state that despite its obviouseness (That is now a word if it wasn't before).
|
On October 12 2011 17:18 Anihc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 17:08 Gelenn wrote:On October 12 2011 16:38 Anihc wrote:On October 12 2011 16:20 Snusdosa wrote:On October 12 2011 14:46 Anihc wrote:
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it. And have the protoss player easily clean up one half of your army while the rest is vortexed, great idea buddy. Seriously, think a little before posting? Not only have I thought plenty about it, I've also had personal experience in hundreds of games at a very high level of play with motherships and vortexes. What about you? Of course fighting with half your army is a disadvantage; fighting with none of your army is even worse, which will be what happens if you throw everything into the vortex. Although its very dependent on both sides' army composition and the terrain where you're fighting, a lot of times it's hard for the protoss to maneuver around his own vortex, and units outside the vortex will still survive. Also, even in small numbers against a much bigger protoss force, a handful of infestors + broodlords can still do damage. While the "spread your army" advice is all well and good, it isn't all that practical. It basically translates to "never attack the protoss army anywhere that involves your units moving through a choke within casting range of the mothership." Considering how much more mobile a lategame protoss deathball (with a mothership/recall) is than a broodlord infestor deathball, this is extremely challenging. I would rather try to figure out a tactic that doesn't rely on my opponent screwing up and stupidly engaging my spread out army when he can just recall in my main and vortex everything when I run back to defend. I dislike strategies that rely on my opponent's mistakes. I never give advice that is not practical. Do I literally have to spell out the fact that I don't theorycraft my posts like the majority of people here? You greatly overestimate both the mobility of a mothership and the radius of the vortex. It's pretty hard to be vortexed by surprise (giving you plenty of time to spread out your army, and when the vortex is actually cast, you still have time to not move the rest of your army into it), and if you let a mothership mass recall into your main then it's your fault for having poor map awareness (I know that it's been done to the best of players, but still. it's not an easy feat and still preventable by the zerg).
I'm not sure why you took on such an aggressive tone with this post. It really is not necessary. I appreciate reading advice from protoss players, since my ZvP is rubbish. Like I said, "spread your army" is great advice. Let me rephrase my point: spreading is great, but is is very difficult to keep an army on the move spread out. I would think any protoss trying to avoid fungals would appreciate the difficulty, at least.
On a different note, let's say I see a mothership making its way toward my main, and I do have time to react. What in your opinion is the proper response? If I pull everything to the main doesn't he just attack my exposed front now?
To put it another way, vortex and recall are amazing spells for controlling the battlefield and forcing favorable engagements. What are some techniques I can use to force favorable engagements of my own?
|
You know what's just as slow as a brood lord? A mothership. Like I said before, it's really hard to be "surprised" (as in before you have time to react) by a mothership/vortex. You have plenty of time. Also I disagree with spreading brood lords being vulnerable to blink stalkers, I find the opposite to be true since if you clump all your BLs together it basically just takes 1 blink and your stalkers can be in range to kill all the brood lords. If you spread them out, you can get in position to kill a few but then you're stuck and can't kill any more because of fungal/broodlings getting in the way. And when I say spread out I don't mean spread out across the map, you just need to spread them out a little so that they can't all get sucked into 1 vortex. Vortex radius is honestly not that big, and I'm beginning to wonder if you've actually even seen one before.
The Vortex range is 9 with a radius of 2.5, you wont get surprised by one. But its not dodged like nothing.
Of course i've seen them before... and players that certainly have seen them before are professional zerg players. You think every single one of them reacts poorly to vortexes? No im pretty sure if spreading was the definite answer we'd seen at least one example of a good spread vs vortexes in professional games. As of now, no good answer to vortexes have been found, archon toilet was nerfed because it was deemed too strong vs zerg as zerg dont have an efficient answer to it and all their units are biological but despite the nerf it still works.
|
On October 12 2011 17:49 Gelenn wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 17:18 Anihc wrote:On October 12 2011 17:08 Gelenn wrote:On October 12 2011 16:38 Anihc wrote:On October 12 2011 16:20 Snusdosa wrote:On October 12 2011 14:46 Anihc wrote:
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it. And have the protoss player easily clean up one half of your army while the rest is vortexed, great idea buddy. Seriously, think a little before posting? Not only have I thought plenty about it, I've also had personal experience in hundreds of games at a very high level of play with motherships and vortexes. What about you? Of course fighting with half your army is a disadvantage; fighting with none of your army is even worse, which will be what happens if you throw everything into the vortex. Although its very dependent on both sides' army composition and the terrain where you're fighting, a lot of times it's hard for the protoss to maneuver around his own vortex, and units outside the vortex will still survive. Also, even in small numbers against a much bigger protoss force, a handful of infestors + broodlords can still do damage. While the "spread your army" advice is all well and good, it isn't all that practical. It basically translates to "never attack the protoss army anywhere that involves your units moving through a choke within casting range of the mothership." Considering how much more mobile a lategame protoss deathball (with a mothership/recall) is than a broodlord infestor deathball, this is extremely challenging. I would rather try to figure out a tactic that doesn't rely on my opponent screwing up and stupidly engaging my spread out army when he can just recall in my main and vortex everything when I run back to defend. I dislike strategies that rely on my opponent's mistakes. I never give advice that is not practical. Do I literally have to spell out the fact that I don't theorycraft my posts like the majority of people here? You greatly overestimate both the mobility of a mothership and the radius of the vortex. It's pretty hard to be vortexed by surprise (giving you plenty of time to spread out your army, and when the vortex is actually cast, you still have time to not move the rest of your army into it), and if you let a mothership mass recall into your main then it's your fault for having poor map awareness (I know that it's been done to the best of players, but still. it's not an easy feat and still preventable by the zerg). I'm not sure why you took on such an aggressive tone with this post. It really is not necessary. I appreciate reading advice from protoss players, since my ZvP is rubbish. Like I said, "spread your army" is great advice. Let me rephrase my point: spreading is great, but is is very difficult to keep an army on the move spread out. I would think any protoss trying to avoid fungals would appreciate the difficulty, at least. On a different note, let's say I see a mothership making its way toward my main, and I do have time to react. What in your opinion is the proper response? If I pull everything to the main doesn't he just attack my exposed front now? To put it another way, vortex and recall are amazing spells for controlling the battlefield and forcing favorable engagements. What are some techniques I can use to force favorable engagements of my own?
to more easily keep your army spread read up onGriffith's Magic Box guide.
With that method you can with relative ease keep brood lords in a decent spread.
If you see a mothership and your composition is brood infestor roach/ling I recommend spreading your broods in a line, so that a vortex would hit 2-3 at most, have your infestors ready to fungal stalkers and assuming it is not a choke you engage him in, have your army with your broods (but not in way that allows 1 vortex to take half of it, either have it just far enough back to prevent vortex from hitting, or spread them a bit on the fly, kinda like a T does rine splitting.
To force a favorable engagement I feel is hard to give general advice on, I feel you should give a replay and I could instead say a way you could have engaged a given situation with an advantage/less of a disadvantage.
Lastly his tone was appropiate imo considering he is not theorycrafting but actually speaking from experiance, only to get the same theorycrafting thrown at him again.
|
On October 12 2011 17:52 Snusdosa wrote:Show nested quote +You know what's just as slow as a brood lord? A mothership. Like I said before, it's really hard to be "surprised" (as in before you have time to react) by a mothership/vortex. You have plenty of time. Also I disagree with spreading brood lords being vulnerable to blink stalkers, I find the opposite to be true since if you clump all your BLs together it basically just takes 1 blink and your stalkers can be in range to kill all the brood lords. If you spread them out, you can get in position to kill a few but then you're stuck and can't kill any more because of fungal/broodlings getting in the way. And when I say spread out I don't mean spread out across the map, you just need to spread them out a little so that they can't all get sucked into 1 vortex. Vortex radius is honestly not that big, and I'm beginning to wonder if you've actually even seen one before. The Vortex range is 9 with a radius of 2.5, you wont get surprised by one. But its not dodged like nothing. Of course i've seen them before... and players that certainly have seen them before are professional zerg players. You think every single one of them reacts poorly to vortexes? No im pretty sure if spreading was the definite answer we'd seen at least one example of a good spread vs vortexes in professional games. As of now, no good answer to vortexes have been found, archon toilet was nerfed because it was deemed too strong vs zerg as zerg dont have an efficient answer to it and all their units are biological but despite the nerf it still works.
Spoilers about stuff in Arena of Legends finals
+ Show Spoiler +You would think DRG knew he needs to make roaches against mass hellions considering how good people consider his ZvT, yet the fact last I saw him play was that he actually isn't all that good at ZvT, but rather ling/bling/muta.
Even top pros make some really stupid decisions from time to time, like DRG sticking to his ling bling muta 4-5 games in a row against mass hellion play. Which in simple and crude words is retarded play.
With the small amount of games that have had such vortex situations it isn't unlikely they all just make the wrong choice. Just look back at how SC2 has evolved, the general pros have plenty of times all done the same stupid thing, now months later we can look back and say e.g. "can you believe they played like that? like watching platinum players!"
|
On October 12 2011 17:58 NTTemplar wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 17:49 Gelenn wrote:On October 12 2011 17:18 Anihc wrote:On October 12 2011 17:08 Gelenn wrote:On October 12 2011 16:38 Anihc wrote:
Not only have I thought plenty about it, I've also had personal experience in hundreds of games at a very high level of play with motherships and vortexes. What about you?
Of course fighting with half your army is a disadvantage; fighting with none of your army is even worse, which will be what happens if you throw everything into the vortex. Although its very dependent on both sides' army composition and the terrain where you're fighting, a lot of times it's hard for the protoss to maneuver around his own vortex, and units outside the vortex will still survive. Also, even in small numbers against a much bigger protoss force, a handful of infestors + broodlords can still do damage. While the "spread your army" advice is all well and good, it isn't all that practical. It basically translates to "never attack the protoss army anywhere that involves your units moving through a choke within casting range of the mothership." Considering how much more mobile a lategame protoss deathball (with a mothership/recall) is than a broodlord infestor deathball, this is extremely challenging. I would rather try to figure out a tactic that doesn't rely on my opponent screwing up and stupidly engaging my spread out army when he can just recall in my main and vortex everything when I run back to defend. I dislike strategies that rely on my opponent's mistakes. I never give advice that is not practical. Do I literally have to spell out the fact that I don't theorycraft my posts like the majority of people here? You greatly overestimate both the mobility of a mothership and the radius of the vortex. It's pretty hard to be vortexed by surprise (giving you plenty of time to spread out your army, and when the vortex is actually cast, you still have time to not move the rest of your army into it), and if you let a mothership mass recall into your main then it's your fault for having poor map awareness (I know that it's been done to the best of players, but still. it's not an easy feat and still preventable by the zerg). I'm not sure why you took on such an aggressive tone with this post. It really is not necessary. I appreciate reading advice from protoss players, since my ZvP is rubbish. Like I said, "spread your army" is great advice. Let me rephrase my point: spreading is great, but is is very difficult to keep an army on the move spread out. I would think any protoss trying to avoid fungals would appreciate the difficulty, at least. On a different note, let's say I see a mothership making its way toward my main, and I do have time to react. What in your opinion is the proper response? If I pull everything to the main doesn't he just attack my exposed front now? To put it another way, vortex and recall are amazing spells for controlling the battlefield and forcing favorable engagements. What are some techniques I can use to force favorable engagements of my own? to more easily keep your army spread read up on Griffith's Magic Box guide. With that method you can with relative ease keep brood lords in a decent spread. If you see a mothership and your composition is brood infestor roach/ling I recommend spreading your broods in a line, so that a vortex would hit 2-3 at most, have your infestors ready to fungal stalkers and assuming it is not a choke you engage him in, have your army with your broods (but not in way that allows 1 vortex to take half of it, either have it just far enough back to prevent vortex from hitting, or spread them a bit on the fly, kinda like a T does rine splitting. To force a favorable engagement I feel is hard to give general advice on, I feel you should give a replay and I could instead say a way you could have engaged a given situation with an advantage/less of a disadvantage. Lastly his tone was appropiate imo considering he is not theorycrafting but actually speaking from experiance, only to get the same theorycrafting thrown at him again.
Thank you for the advice, I will try to implement those suggestions into my play.
I would like to respectfully challenge your impression that I threw theorycraft back at him. I too was speaking from experience, it just so happens that my experience is different from his. I find protoss armies with motherships extremely hard to engage favorably, which is why I am here: to get help with this problem and improve my play. And in my experience, it has also been very difficult to keep my army sufficiently spread out while moving to make much difference at all to a vortex. I think that the magic boxing of broodlords will be a good place to start.
|
I loath the reaction of a high number of TL-ers who blindly contest what someone with actual knowledge has to say.
On topic: Spreading out your army definitly seems like the smartest decision. in any case its always bad to have a Z army clumped up. This best thing to do id suppose is move your remaining units in such a way that the vortex is betwen you and your opponent and your broods can still shoot.
|
My comment about theorycrafting was not aimed at you or anyone in specific, it was more my impression of the other posts (as in those not made by Anihc) in general.
A bit in yours, a bit in others, in combination it to me as well felt a bit frustrating.
And late game ZvP where it is brood infestor + roach and/or ling against ground army + mothership the main thing that wins you the battle is getting the smallest amount of broods vortexed, and this also happens to be the easiest thing to do fix against a mothership; sure keeping your ground army spread and slightly in the back, having your infestors at just the right spot is all good, but has much less impact on the battle, and is much harder to do, than simply sending broods a bit away from each other, and then keep them magic boxed.
|
yeah ... unless the toss has voidrays just spread your broodlords ... its better against blink stalkers as well. If they have voidrays well corrupter production can overpower that easily after a few engagements. (spreading out is a bad idea though with voidrays out)
As for the banelings. let them move in, wait, storm, vortex another time ... move in archons. Never move your army into a vortex if the ms has 200 energy. The next thing you will see is your army popping out just to get absorbed into a slightly moved vortex that swallows half of your army while the rest is cut off by force fields and dependend on the position the rest will be dead as well as you reinforcements will be to slow.
Its really fortunate that people hate the ms because it replaced the arbiter ... will mean it won't see to many nerfs even though its damn good for only 8 supply.
Another thing is learn the vortex shortcut and research neural if you haven't already. Broodlings generally take the damage and if colossi focus infestors the broodlings will do terrible damage ^^. And if you try it with 3 from a different angle really high chance on sucess if there are no hts. As vortex range isn't the highest, neural is a good conter. (burrow one behind the toss army is also a good idea, if you have enough corrupters to scare the ms behind the army)
In general do the same you do against storm fungal and emp ^^; . If a toss moves in their ms to vortex your army it means they are close to losing or because they don't know how to handle a ms, or they think you are unable to deal with it.
clearing the zerg deatball generally takes more time then the vortex is up so your units should come back to turn the tides. Oh and spread your overseers, if they are close together you know where the vortex will hit.
Oh and spine walls are a good protection for broodlords as they are spell immune.
|
I forget who the game was between but the 'baneling toilet' was done and it proved very effective. The Protoss player was going for the Archon Toilet and wasn't hidding what he was doing, just made a lot of Archones for a couple of mins then moved out. The Zerg saw it coming and maxed on banelings and infestors, banelings followed the Archons and then mass fungal when they came out.
Adding Ultralisks would add to the effectiveness of this 'counter' but if a Protoss player has a mothership out then they could quite easily follow it up with Voidrays or carriers if they scout your mass baneling ultra army
|
On October 12 2011 17:49 Gelenn wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 17:18 Anihc wrote:On October 12 2011 17:08 Gelenn wrote:On October 12 2011 16:38 Anihc wrote:On October 12 2011 16:20 Snusdosa wrote:On October 12 2011 14:46 Anihc wrote:
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it. And have the protoss player easily clean up one half of your army while the rest is vortexed, great idea buddy. Seriously, think a little before posting? Not only have I thought plenty about it, I've also had personal experience in hundreds of games at a very high level of play with motherships and vortexes. What about you? Of course fighting with half your army is a disadvantage; fighting with none of your army is even worse, which will be what happens if you throw everything into the vortex. Although its very dependent on both sides' army composition and the terrain where you're fighting, a lot of times it's hard for the protoss to maneuver around his own vortex, and units outside the vortex will still survive. Also, even in small numbers against a much bigger protoss force, a handful of infestors + broodlords can still do damage. While the "spread your army" advice is all well and good, it isn't all that practical. It basically translates to "never attack the protoss army anywhere that involves your units moving through a choke within casting range of the mothership." Considering how much more mobile a lategame protoss deathball (with a mothership/recall) is than a broodlord infestor deathball, this is extremely challenging. I would rather try to figure out a tactic that doesn't rely on my opponent screwing up and stupidly engaging my spread out army when he can just recall in my main and vortex everything when I run back to defend. I dislike strategies that rely on my opponent's mistakes. I never give advice that is not practical. Do I literally have to spell out the fact that I don't theorycraft my posts like the majority of people here? You greatly overestimate both the mobility of a mothership and the radius of the vortex. It's pretty hard to be vortexed by surprise (giving you plenty of time to spread out your army, and when the vortex is actually cast, you still have time to not move the rest of your army into it), and if you let a mothership mass recall into your main then it's your fault for having poor map awareness (I know that it's been done to the best of players, but still. it's not an easy feat and still preventable by the zerg). I'm not sure why you took on such an aggressive tone with this post. It really is not necessary. I appreciate reading advice from protoss players, since my ZvP is rubbish. Like I said, "spread your army" is great advice. Let me rephrase my point: spreading is great, but is is very difficult to keep an army on the move spread out. I would think any protoss trying to avoid fungals would appreciate the difficulty, at least. On a different note, let's say I see a mothership making its way toward my main, and I do have time to react. What in your opinion is the proper response? If I pull everything to the main doesn't he just attack my exposed front now? To put it another way, vortex and recall are amazing spells for controlling the battlefield and forcing favorable engagements. What are some techniques I can use to force favorable engagements of my own?
Sorry for being harsh, but I do take offense when I get accused of giving theorycrafted or non-practical answers. My strengths are not my micro, macro, or multitasking ability, and I rarely strive to do "difficult" or apm-intensive tasks, much less recommend them or expect them of others.
As far as spreading your army goes, all you really need to do is to split your army into 2 or maybe 3 if you're being ambitious, and make sure all your infestors are not directly underneath your brood lords. That's it. NTTemplar suggested some magic boxing trick which is great and all for keeping your brood lords spread out but even that's not absolutely necessary.
|
On October 12 2011 19:03 Anihc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 17:49 Gelenn wrote:On October 12 2011 17:18 Anihc wrote:On October 12 2011 17:08 Gelenn wrote:On October 12 2011 16:38 Anihc wrote:On October 12 2011 16:20 Snusdosa wrote:On October 12 2011 14:46 Anihc wrote:
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it. And have the protoss player easily clean up one half of your army while the rest is vortexed, great idea buddy. Seriously, think a little before posting? Not only have I thought plenty about it, I've also had personal experience in hundreds of games at a very high level of play with motherships and vortexes. What about you? Of course fighting with half your army is a disadvantage; fighting with none of your army is even worse, which will be what happens if you throw everything into the vortex. Although its very dependent on both sides' army composition and the terrain where you're fighting, a lot of times it's hard for the protoss to maneuver around his own vortex, and units outside the vortex will still survive. Also, even in small numbers against a much bigger protoss force, a handful of infestors + broodlords can still do damage. While the "spread your army" advice is all well and good, it isn't all that practical. It basically translates to "never attack the protoss army anywhere that involves your units moving through a choke within casting range of the mothership." Considering how much more mobile a lategame protoss deathball (with a mothership/recall) is than a broodlord infestor deathball, this is extremely challenging. I would rather try to figure out a tactic that doesn't rely on my opponent screwing up and stupidly engaging my spread out army when he can just recall in my main and vortex everything when I run back to defend. I dislike strategies that rely on my opponent's mistakes. I never give advice that is not practical. Do I literally have to spell out the fact that I don't theorycraft my posts like the majority of people here? You greatly overestimate both the mobility of a mothership and the radius of the vortex. It's pretty hard to be vortexed by surprise (giving you plenty of time to spread out your army, and when the vortex is actually cast, you still have time to not move the rest of your army into it), and if you let a mothership mass recall into your main then it's your fault for having poor map awareness (I know that it's been done to the best of players, but still. it's not an easy feat and still preventable by the zerg). I'm not sure why you took on such an aggressive tone with this post. It really is not necessary. I appreciate reading advice from protoss players, since my ZvP is rubbish. Like I said, "spread your army" is great advice. Let me rephrase my point: spreading is great, but is is very difficult to keep an army on the move spread out. I would think any protoss trying to avoid fungals would appreciate the difficulty, at least. On a different note, let's say I see a mothership making its way toward my main, and I do have time to react. What in your opinion is the proper response? If I pull everything to the main doesn't he just attack my exposed front now? To put it another way, vortex and recall are amazing spells for controlling the battlefield and forcing favorable engagements. What are some techniques I can use to force favorable engagements of my own? Sorry for being harsh, but I do take offense when I get accused of giving theorycrafted or non-practical answers. My strengths are not my micro, macro, or multitasking ability, and I rarely strive to do "difficult" or apm-intensive tasks, much less recommend them or expect them of others. As far as spreading your army goes, all you really need to do is to split your army into 2 or maybe 3 if you're being ambitious, and make sure all your infestors are not directly underneath your brood lords. That's it. NTTemplar suggested some magic boxing trick which is great and all for keeping your brood lords spread out but even that's not absolutely necessary.
To further put emphasize on spreading your army I'll post the very last way I can think of so far to explain how to deal with vortex.
Split your zerg army with the same principal as splitting marines vs banelings usually use.
"slice" as day9 has termed it, this is what Anihc said with taking 2-3 groups and spread them abit, but I consider it valueable for enough people to compare it to something familiar like rine splitting, as I have the impression the average player understands that.
just doing this quick "slicing" of your army before engaging a groundarmy+mothership can be what you need to come out ahead as it should make no more than a small portion of ground army, and 2-3 broods be vortexed at most.
It is fast, it is effective, it is relatively easy.
|
you forgot to count the anti air portion in the zerg army... no matter what the mother ship and the voidrays still left behind....
|
On October 12 2011 19:37 NB wrote:
you forgot to count the anti air portion in the zerg army... no matter what the mother ship and the voidrays still left behind....
The more protoss put into air, the more zerg can put into air.
Since protoss then have a smaller ground army, zerg can have a smaller ground army and even fewer broods which in itself means more corruptors just there, but even more from putting less into ground.
Mothership with air is easier to deal with than groundarmy+mothership.
As in theory you would want AA against the mothership, but in practice a lonely mothership doesn't justify putting supply into AA, while voidrays do.
|
In an ideal situation, my counter as a protoss would just be to vortex ur banelings/broodlord clump, and react to what you do.
a. You keep fighting with the remaining half of your army which gets crushed by my complete army, then I just retreat and group together and attack you again
b. You send everything in, i send in 4 archons to kill all of your broodlods and banelings and clean up the rest (or just wait outside and storm/collosus AoE).
|
I don't get it... why do the banelings even do dmg? What about the invulnerability? It doesn't even work against banelings? Bug? (they automatically explode as soon as the vortex is over, it SHOULD be in the time window of invulnerability!)
btw, there's just another abuse for vortex now: cast it on a group of banelings that would classify as "so. many. banelings." - then send in a single zealot or stalker to sacrifice him to die in a giant explosion.
Hint @ blizzard on how to ultimately fix Vortex (apart from replacing the skill with another):
Make units that come out of Vortex when it ends unable to attack for 2-3 seconds.
No more imba toilets of any kind. No more sending in 400 supply and 15s of nothing happening in a game. One can still aoe the shit out of the units that were inside, but it doesn't work automatically, the protoss actually has to position himself and maybe use a skill or two (like storm) - the attack debuff actually would be an advantage here compared to before. Its just about removing the known and probably upcoming exploits with this ability (like I believe when used on a cliff you could also make units enter from below or above and have them spawn on the other side (in which case the defender at least gets 2 seconds more time now too)).
|
Banelings is awesomeone vs mothership for all the reasons already mentioned. The toss can not put all his units into the vortex, which in a lot of cases is what he wants.
However, Ultralisks is a really bad idea. Ultras do so poor vs archons and zealots (which the toss player will have a lot off if he's going mothership), so thats basically free money you're giving the toss player here. I have been experimenting a lot with mothership lately, following some of the nice guides right here on TL, and I have never lost once when the zerg goes for ultras. I have, however, lost quite a few games vs banelings and broodlords.
|
On October 12 2011 23:16 FeiLing wrote:
I don't get it... why do the banelings even do dmg? What about the invulnerability? It doesn't even work against banelings? Bug? (they automatically explode as soon as the vortex is over, it SHOULD be in the time window of invulnerability!)
btw, there's just another abuse for vortex now: cast it on a group of banelings that would classify as "so. many. banelings." - then send in a single zealot or stalker to sacrifice him to die in a giant explosion.
Hint @ blizzard on how to ultimately fix Vortex (apart from replacing the skill with another):
Make units that come out of Vortex when it ends unable to attack for 2-3 seconds.
No more imba toilets of any kind. No more sending in 400 supply and 15s of nothing happening in a game. One can still aoe the shit out of the units that were inside, but it doesn't work automatically, the protoss actually has to position himself and maybe use a skill or two (like storm) - the attack debuff actually would be an advantage here compared to before. Its just about removing the known and probably upcoming exploits with this ability (like I believe when used on a cliff you could also make units enter from below or above and have them spawn on the other side (in which case the defender at least gets 2 seconds more time now too)).
1.5 seconds
|
Honestly i see no problem with this its more like if you SEE a mothership back off make some blings then engage
|
i realized bane toileting works a week back, but really that's all you need. and you only need about 24 tops, with 2-0 upgrades, to effectively clear up enough of the protoss army that the rest of your army will have no problem handling the rest. the want for an ultra is totally bogus and cheeky. it is impractical to spend the resources and unit space you are suggesting on handling one spell from one protoss unit. it is also important to note that the 24-tops baneling count is also considered a decent counter because these are not wasted resources / supply should you have to engage in a normal fight without a toilet scenario taking place, as it is an okay number of banes to use with army bane drops. am high masters zerg.
|
The baneling vs archon tactic was done in the GSL several months ago, Nestea vs San. Basically everytime San vortexed, Nestea would bring his banes nearby to discourage the archons from going in. However, if I remember correctly San still won after archon toileting Nestea's brood lords.
|
On October 12 2011 13:25 Kornholi0 wrote:
I'm interested, however this counter is 100% dependent on your own play, if you aren't going ultralisk baneling or have either out, a mothership "rush" or at least a 3 base mothership can kill you.
This is the supposed counter to archon toilet. A mothership rush wont include archons and even if it did you wouldn't have broods at the time. Mother ship and archon are both tier 3 so if fair to compare it to ultra brood. As for banelings, baneling drops work wonders when combined with broods so its a reasonable tech option.
|
On October 12 2011 14:46 Anihc wrote:
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it.
You tell me what blink stalkers feel like when you have your brood lords spread out.
|
I have a question as to the relevance of this topic. I am not trying to troll or be mean or anything like that, I genuinely want to know. Even if the toilet was never nerfed, how bad would it really be? Do zergs see a lot of MS play? I myself only bring it out when I just want to have a little fun. I know there are strategies that involve the MS, but I feel like they are few and far between. Even with a broken mechanic, does it really affect balance all that much?
|
On October 13 2011 00:10 Asday wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 14:46 Anihc wrote:
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it. You tell me what blink stalkers feel like when you have your brood lords spread out.
You WANT to spread out your broodlord vs blink stalker though.... so they can't get under all with one blink and your broodlings zone them out for you.
|
On October 13 2011 00:15 Atreides wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 00:10 Asday wrote:On October 12 2011 14:46 Anihc wrote:
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it. You tell me what blink stalkers feel like when you have your brood lords spread out. You WANT to spread out your broodlord vs blink stalker though.... so they can't get under all with one blink and your broodlings zone them out for you.
Uhhh, I highly disagree. If Broodlords are spread out it's actually very easy for Blink Stalkers to just pick them off 1 by 1 because not all of your Broodlords are going to be in range of each other to deal damage, you just lack the raw firepower to actually do anything against a large army.
By the time Protoss are actually moving out with a Mothership odds are that they have a pretty significant death ball to back it up, meaning it's going to vaporize just about anything unless you've got a large amount of Broods all assaulting the ball in unison. Even without the Mothership Zergs still have to spread their Broodlords out to reduce the damage of Storm but the Zerg still has to keep the Broodlords fairly close to each other to be of any use. So like, lets say Zerg is spread out a decent amount but not too far, well then Vortex is still going to catch a large portion of the Zerg army since a lot of the ground forces have to be under the Broodlords or they die to Stalkers, meaning still nearly half your army will be split apart with a single Vortex allowing the other half of your army to just get demolished.
Also, contrary to popular belief, if a Zerg loses a 200/200 army they can only really remax it a few times at most before their half of the map is running dry on minerals meanwhile Protoss keeps demolishing the Zerg force while losing something absurd like 20 supply in every major engagement.
On October 13 2011 00:11 ThirdDegree wrote:
I have a question as to the relevance of this topic. I am not trying to troll or be mean or anything like that, I genuinely want to know. Even if the toilet was never nerfed, how bad would it really be? Do zergs see a lot of MS play? I myself only bring it out when I just want to have a little fun. I know there are strategies that involve the MS, but I feel like they are few and far between. Even with a broken mechanic, does it really affect balance all that much?
I think Mothership actually does effect balance a lot more than people are giving credit for. The reason we still hardly see Motherships at a pro level is because Protoss players are for some reason, incredibly reluctant to explore new things in my opinion. A lot of Zerg players have known for quite some time that Motherships are incredibly powerful if Protoss just actually learn to properly utilize them, it's only just recently that using the Mothership has started to become more mainstream.
Months ago many Zergs tried telling Protoss players to use Warp Prisms because it's only a 100 gas one-time investment for permanent mineral-only harassment against Zerg and were called idiots and told that Warp Prism was trash and nobody ever uses it because it's trash. Well, now you see Warp Prism used against Zerg constantly.
Zerg players have also been saying for a long time that Mothership is incredibly powerful to the point of being nearly broken, once again for the longest time Protoss respond by saying that the Mothership is trash and a joke gimmick unit, but now a few of them are starting to realize that the Zergs were right.
|
On October 13 2011 00:11 ThirdDegree wrote:
I have a question as to the relevance of this topic. I am not trying to troll or be mean or anything like that, I genuinely want to know. Even if the toilet was never nerfed, how bad would it really be? Do zergs see a lot of MS play? I myself only bring it out when I just want to have a little fun. I know there are strategies that involve the MS, but I feel like they are few and far between. Even with a broken mechanic, does it really affect balance all that much?
I've seen it a lot recently, do to the two guides (one by Plexa, other one by I can't remember). I actually ran a practice session with one of my practice partners where we played 5 games in a row of him going 1gate expo -> Mothership/Archon.
Usually with MS play they can't really put pressure until the MS comes out so I've won either by doing roach all-ins (if not properly scouted... one void ray won't really stop the roaches from killing all the buildings) or by playing greedy and double expanding/mass muta play (since the mothership can't ever catch the mutas, and even if the mothership does vortex... if you're fast enough you can move the mutas right as the vortex ends to minimize the splash damage so they don't all die. It is ridiculous difficult to deal with though, you can't really engage the army without losing all of it, so you either need to have a huge resource advantage where you can keep remaxing, or you need to play the ling/muta style where his army can really never catch yours.
|
@ Beenu
Spread out does not = having them 20 range apart.
Spread out means slightly apart, so that a vortex only hits 2-3 even with 20 broods you could spread out so a vortex hit 4 at most and still ahve all broods attack stalkers regardless of which brood they tried focus.
I suppose you shouldn't spread tanks either since then they can be picked off? NO, they got an insane range so they can cover each other despite being spread, and broodlords also got an insane range.
I latest today spread broodlords in ZvP against blink stalkers, and it is extremely good due to preventing a single blink from killing 5-10 broods, as when you spread out it turns into 1-2
EDIT: also I would love to know what protoss deathball can lose 20 supply to infestor brood
When I have met groundarmy+mothership comps I have not in a long long time had half my army vortexed, the number is much closer to 20% or so
|
On October 13 2011 00:11 ThirdDegree wrote:
I have a question as to the relevance of this topic. I am not trying to troll or be mean or anything like that, I genuinely want to know. Even if the toilet was never nerfed, how bad would it really be? Do zergs see a lot of MS play? I myself only bring it out when I just want to have a little fun. I know there are strategies that involve the MS, but I feel like they are few and far between. Even with a broken mechanic, does it really affect balance all that much?
archon toilet should not be nerfed. its the only counter to MASS BROOD LORDS.
if zerg wants to counter archon toilet, stop relying on mass brood lords. instead stop at 4-5 broodlords, and get mass roaches with some ultralisks and some banelings to deal with zealots because zealots with upgrades counter ultralisks (and no, i dont see a problem with zealots countering ultralisks)
archon toilet is good vs air units but bad against mass roaches since roaches are pretty clunkly and spread quickly after a vortex
if the toss has storm+zealots it gets hard because storm takes out the banelings and storm also takes out your anti air (hydras). in this scenario as zerg you must forget banelings and have ultralisks+ tons of roaches and a econ advantage. engage with the ultras+roaches and the zealots should get vaporized then retreat and send half of your roaches around the map to flank. your goal is to take out his templars/collossi with roach flanks so your hydras dont melt. carriers and voidrays both kill roaches+ultras slowly, so if the toss has air you deal with it by killing his ground army/zealots and then retreat and flank and mass more roaches then once youve taken out a big part of his ground army you pump out 25 hydras to deal with the air
|
holy shit! thanks for sharing, can't imagine that in my head they would be so clumped up still to be killed by just 30 banelings xD
|
On October 13 2011 04:46 NTTemplar wrote:
@ Beenu
Spread out does not = having them 20 range apart.
Spread out means slightly apart, so that a vortex only hits 2-3 even with 20 broods you could spread out so a vortex hit 4 at most and still ahve all broods attack stalkers regardless of which brood they tried focus.
I suppose you shouldn't spread tanks either since then they can be picked off? NO, they got an insane range so they can cover each other despite being spread, and broodlords also got an insane range.
I latest today spread broodlords in ZvP against blink stalkers, and it is extremely good due to preventing a single blink from killing 5-10 broods, as when you spread out it turns into 1-2
EDIT: also I would love to know what protoss deathball can lose 20 supply to infestor brood
When I have met groundarmy+mothership comps I have not in a long long time had half my army vortexed, the number is much closer to 20% or so
Well, I might have exaggerated a bit by saying 20 supply, it's probably closer to 40.
What unit composition could I be referring to? How about Colossus, Void Ray, Archon, Stalker, Mothership? [I've also seen a few toss mix Carriers into this composition] Also Infestor/Broodlord isn't really that good any more since when facing the deathball I just described about the only thing Fungal is good for is the Stalkers and NP is worthless.
Comparing Broodlords to Siege Tanks is pretty pointless though, you spread Siege Tanks mainly to cover more range and because they can't attack at close range and because they do splash damage to each other if they are clumped up whereas Broodlords need to be spread because of the aoe of Storm and Vortex. Not to mention Siege Tanks have something like 4 more range than Broodlords making them much better at covering each other than Broodlords are.
I am really curious as to how you would go about spreading 20 Broodlords, like what kind of a formation? Spread them out into a large concave line or like stagger them into a few rows?
Actually I don't think it matters which formation because there's big problems with both of these, if you're in a line the Toss can just attack from the edges of the line like I said earlier and pick your units off because they are forced to cover too much ground to properly engage and it's very immobile unless the Toss is just dumb enough to attack it straight on into the center. If you're talking about staggering them in rows you still get the problem where the ones in the front are attacking and the ones behind it aren't in range because you have to keep them on hold position or else they would naturally clump back up as they move forward to attack in range.
|
On October 12 2011 13:08 ChineseWife wrote:
why would protoss send his whole army into the vortex? that defeats the purpose of the spell
NA protoss's have 1 unit hotkey. 
|
What a joke.... I met zerg making me mass banelings against this tech, I just sent 2 archons each time in his 30+ banelings + vortex, he instantly loss all his banelings after the vortex.
Please continue to make banelings thinking protoss are dumb enough to send all their units in..
Seriously, did you think before posting it? As a protoss you just can wait till the very end of vortex to send ur units in to make sure there are not banelings coming after.
The only scenarios you put forward is against protoss that send all their units or all their archons... and I don't think bronze protoss (yeah, ones who could think of bringing all their units in banelings) do this tech so I don't see the point of this thread except the funny video...
User was warned for this post
|
On October 13 2011 05:37 BeeNu wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 04:46 NTTemplar wrote:
@ Beenu
Spread out does not = having them 20 range apart.
Spread out means slightly apart, so that a vortex only hits 2-3 even with 20 broods you could spread out so a vortex hit 4 at most and still ahve all broods attack stalkers regardless of which brood they tried focus.
I suppose you shouldn't spread tanks either since then they can be picked off? NO, they got an insane range so they can cover each other despite being spread, and broodlords also got an insane range.
I latest today spread broodlords in ZvP against blink stalkers, and it is extremely good due to preventing a single blink from killing 5-10 broods, as when you spread out it turns into 1-2
EDIT: also I would love to know what protoss deathball can lose 20 supply to infestor brood
When I have met groundarmy+mothership comps I have not in a long long time had half my army vortexed, the number is much closer to 20% or so Well, I might have exaggerated a bit by saying 20 supply, it's probably closer to 40. What unit composition could I be referring to? How about Colossus, Void Ray, Archon, Stalker, Mothership? [I've also seen a few toss mix Carriers into this composition] Also Infestor/Broodlord isn't really that good any more since when facing the deathball I just described about the only thing Fungal is good for is the Stalkers and NP is worthless. Comparing Broodlords to Siege Tanks is pretty pointless though, you spread Siege Tanks mainly to cover more range and because they can't attack at close range and because they do splash damage to each other if they are clumped up whereas Broodlords need to be spread because of the aoe of Storm and Vortex. Not to mention Siege Tanks have something like 4 more range than Broodlords making them much better at covering each other than Broodlords are. I am really curious as to how you would go about spreading 20 Broodlords, like what kind of a formation? Spread them out into a large concave line or like stagger them into a few rows? Actually I don't think it matters which formation because there's big problems with both of these, if you're in a line the Toss can just attack from the edges of the line like I said earlier and pick your units off because they are forced to cover too much ground to properly engage and it's very immobile unless the Toss is just dumb enough to attack it straight on into the center. If you're talking about staggering them in rows you still get the problem where the ones in the front are attacking and the ones behind it aren't in range because you have to keep them on hold position or else they would naturally clump back up as they move forward to attack in range.
I said this before in this thread to someone else, but you are seriously overestimating the radius of both vortex and storm. Brood lords are already pretty big and have a decent spread by themselves if you just leave them alone. It's not difficult at all to either let them stay spread out, or manually separate them into 2 or 3 groups. I know that when they start attacking they clump up again, but they'll clump up into a line which is still perfectly fine and won't be suspect to just 1 vortex. I just tried this several times in the unit tester, with NO micro or prepositioning at all, I took 10 brood lords and moved them over a short distance to attack a single nexus. Then I vortexed the middle of the brood lords, and still only caught about half of them. Again, this is with NO micro on the zerg part. If the zerg put an ounce of micro into it or just attacked multiple objects like an expansion/cannon line, they would be spread out even more and vortex would catch much less.
And this is still not "exposed" to blink stalkers from 1 edge either, yes I understand it's always better for the protoss to engage from the edge rather than the middle but the battle is still going to end badly for the protoss especially when the zerg is in the realm of 10-20 brood lords. No protoss ground army is going to beat that, if you're playing a protoss who is trying to beat your 20 brood lords with stalkers he's a bad protoss and if you're losing 20 brood lords to stalkers you're a bad zerg.
|
On October 13 2011 06:13 Anihc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 05:37 BeeNu wrote:On October 13 2011 04:46 NTTemplar wrote:
@ Beenu
Spread out does not = having them 20 range apart.
Spread out means slightly apart, so that a vortex only hits 2-3 even with 20 broods you could spread out so a vortex hit 4 at most and still ahve all broods attack stalkers regardless of which brood they tried focus.
I suppose you shouldn't spread tanks either since then they can be picked off? NO, they got an insane range so they can cover each other despite being spread, and broodlords also got an insane range.
I latest today spread broodlords in ZvP against blink stalkers, and it is extremely good due to preventing a single blink from killing 5-10 broods, as when you spread out it turns into 1-2
EDIT: also I would love to know what protoss deathball can lose 20 supply to infestor brood
When I have met groundarmy+mothership comps I have not in a long long time had half my army vortexed, the number is much closer to 20% or so Well, I might have exaggerated a bit by saying 20 supply, it's probably closer to 40. What unit composition could I be referring to? How about Colossus, Void Ray, Archon, Stalker, Mothership? [I've also seen a few toss mix Carriers into this composition] Also Infestor/Broodlord isn't really that good any more since when facing the deathball I just described about the only thing Fungal is good for is the Stalkers and NP is worthless. Comparing Broodlords to Siege Tanks is pretty pointless though, you spread Siege Tanks mainly to cover more range and because they can't attack at close range and because they do splash damage to each other if they are clumped up whereas Broodlords need to be spread because of the aoe of Storm and Vortex. Not to mention Siege Tanks have something like 4 more range than Broodlords making them much better at covering each other than Broodlords are. I am really curious as to how you would go about spreading 20 Broodlords, like what kind of a formation? Spread them out into a large concave line or like stagger them into a few rows? Actually I don't think it matters which formation because there's big problems with both of these, if you're in a line the Toss can just attack from the edges of the line like I said earlier and pick your units off because they are forced to cover too much ground to properly engage and it's very immobile unless the Toss is just dumb enough to attack it straight on into the center. If you're talking about staggering them in rows you still get the problem where the ones in the front are attacking and the ones behind it aren't in range because you have to keep them on hold position or else they would naturally clump back up as they move forward to attack in range. I said this before in this thread to someone else, but you are seriously overestimating the radius of both vortex and storm. Brood lords are already pretty big and have a decent spread by themselves if you just leave them alone. It's not difficult at all to either let them stay spread out, or manually separate them into 2 or 3 groups. I know that when they start attacking they clump up again, but they'll clump up into a line which is still perfectly fine and won't be suspect to just 1 vortex. I just tried this several times in the unit tester, with NO micro or prepositioning at all, I took 10 brood lords and moved them over a short distance to attack a single nexus. Then I vortexed the middle of the brood lords, and still only caught about half of them. Again, this is with NO micro on the zerg part. If the zerg put an ounce of micro into it or just attacked multiple objects like an expansion/cannon line, they would be spread out even more and vortex would catch much less. And this is still not "exposed" to blink stalkers from 1 edge either, yes I understand it's always better for the protoss to engage from the edge rather than the middle but the battle is still going to end badly for the protoss especially when the zerg is in the realm of 10-20 brood lords. No protoss ground army is going to beat that, if you're playing a protoss who is trying to beat your 20 brood lords with stalkers he's a bad protoss and if you're losing 20 brood lords to stalkers you're a bad zerg.
Ok right, Broodlords are rather large and even with no micro you are only going to catch so many with the Vortex however in a 200/200 army battle what exactly is the Zerg supposed to do once however many Broodlords are caught in the Vortex [not to mention however many Roaches/Hydras/Infestors/Corruptors are caught as well]? Sure spreading units can minimize some of the damage but like what options does the Zerg have from there? Do you just retreat and abandon everything in the Vortex to die for nothing except some Mothership energy or do you keep attacking with your now less than 200 army that gets completely wrecked by the Protoss army because it's not as strong as it should be?
I also do want to remind you that a Mothership can potentially cast off 2 Vortex which does take up a lot of surface area.
|
Is archon toilet still a major problem? I havent seen to many games decided by it, if any at all O.o
|
On October 12 2011 17:49 Gelenn wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 17:18 Anihc wrote:On October 12 2011 17:08 Gelenn wrote:On October 12 2011 16:38 Anihc wrote:On October 12 2011 16:20 Snusdosa wrote:On October 12 2011 14:46 Anihc wrote:
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it. And have the protoss player easily clean up one half of your army while the rest is vortexed, great idea buddy. Seriously, think a little before posting? Not only have I thought plenty about it, I've also had personal experience in hundreds of games at a very high level of play with motherships and vortexes. What about you? Of course fighting with half your army is a disadvantage; fighting with none of your army is even worse, which will be what happens if you throw everything into the vortex. Although its very dependent on both sides' army composition and the terrain where you're fighting, a lot of times it's hard for the protoss to maneuver around his own vortex, and units outside the vortex will still survive. Also, even in small numbers against a much bigger protoss force, a handful of infestors + broodlords can still do damage. While the "spread your army" advice is all well and good, it isn't all that practical. It basically translates to "never attack the protoss army anywhere that involves your units moving through a choke within casting range of the mothership." Considering how much more mobile a lategame protoss deathball (with a mothership/recall) is than a broodlord infestor deathball, this is extremely challenging. I would rather try to figure out a tactic that doesn't rely on my opponent screwing up and stupidly engaging my spread out army when he can just recall in my main and vortex everything when I run back to defend. I dislike strategies that rely on my opponent's mistakes. I never give advice that is not practical. Do I literally have to spell out the fact that I don't theorycraft my posts like the majority of people here? You greatly overestimate both the mobility of a mothership and the radius of the vortex. It's pretty hard to be vortexed by surprise (giving you plenty of time to spread out your army, and when the vortex is actually cast, you still have time to not move the rest of your army into it), and if you let a mothership mass recall into your main then it's your fault for having poor map awareness (I know that it's been done to the best of players, but still. it's not an easy feat and still preventable by the zerg). I'm not sure why you took on such an aggressive tone with this post. It really is not necessary. I appreciate reading advice from protoss players, since my ZvP is rubbish. Like I said, "spread your army" is great advice. Let me rephrase my point: spreading is great, but is is very difficult to keep an army on the move spread out. I would think any protoss trying to avoid fungals would appreciate the difficulty, at least. On a different note, let's say I see a mothership making its way toward my main, and I do have time to react. What in your opinion is the proper response? If I pull everything to the main doesn't he just attack my exposed front now? To put it another way, vortex and recall are amazing spells for controlling the battlefield and forcing favorable engagements. What are some techniques I can use to force favorable engagements of my own?
I'm thinking Anihc did that because people on forums have a tendency to just counter what others say just for the sake of it without trying to take a moment to actually assess what the person means to say. Everybody know this to be true, many times we have seen people even ignore the entire post of a person and just pick one sentence to counter and argue upon. And TL awards the privilege of being a blue poster only to respected and experienced members of the community and the admins have repeatedly told people that the expect others to respect their posts and don't argue with them aggressively. I would say that if you look back to The replies to Anihc's post you will find that the posters werentt too polite themselves. Its one thing to attack the post's content and quite another to attack the poster. However not many people recognize it (and I really hope nobody takes my comment to be target at ANY single individual, Its not my intention to speak anything disrespectful towards anyone). Its one reason many pros don't respond much to The forums anymore, especially the strategy section.
|
On October 13 2011 06:45 Nortac wrote:
Is archon toilet still a major problem? I havent seen to many games decided by it, if any at all O.o
Funny you should say that. Last night I was watching Destiny do practice games with Inka, every game that Inka went for a deathball with Mothership he basically wrecked Destiny every time.
So then Destiny went around asking other Zerg players how they cope with the Mothership and they all basically responded with "idk, it's hard to deal with".
Also, I know this doesn't mean a whole lot, but the only game in IPL that Kiwikaki managed to take a game off of Stephano involved using a Mothership.
|
@Beenu
Against colossus, void ray, archon, stalker, mothership I will use broodlord, infestor, corruptor, lings.
Broodlords beat archons, colossus and does well against stalkers, corruptors take down voids and then can either help kill off the colossuses or kill the mothership, infestors should not waste energy on NP, they are purely for fungal which helps with DPS against stalkers along with simply preventing archons, stalkers and voidrays getting to the broodlords.
If stalkers are too aggressive they will all die insanely fast to lings, broods and infestors. Without the stalkers brood and corruptor clean up everything else easily.
Comparing brood lords to siege tanks is nothing remotely close to pointless when it is about whetever units with a long range can cover each other despite being split.
Tanks still cover each other despite being split, you said broods couldn't if they split which is simply false.
It is not hard to spread so that only a small portion of the zerg army ends up in the vortex if you do just minimal practice on it, the average pro simply havn't done that.
Brood infestor corruptor ling despite quite a supply difference beats colossus void ray archon stalker mothership.
Corruptors do really well against voids especially with fungal helping out, mothership is a support unit so combating corruptors with it is just silly. Zerg will win there.
Stalkers lose to broods lings and fungals very badly.
Archons simply won't be getting in range due to broodlords and fungals, while colossus is just dead to corruptors as well.
To put it simple, any lategame army involving voidrays from a P force the Z into corruptors, that is BAD for the protoss.
You basicly force him into a unit that counters your mothership and colossus.
Because of how corruptors+fungal beat voidrays a lategame toss army should generally stay away from void rays.
That leaves a protoss ground army+mothership against brood lord, infestor and lings.
And the only way to beat that is for the stalkers to kill the broods, which requires a huge supply lead from the protoss. You can afford losing part of the zerg army as it is so strong against stalkers; Fungal keeps them away and deal great damage, lings tear through stalkers very fast, and broods in themself do great against them.
Not attempting to say it is impossible for the protoss by any means, but it is in favor of the zerg.
In such a 200/200 clash it will come down to positioning to a degree, and after that it is solely whetever the zerg plays worse or not. If the zerg plays well or not is out of the hands of the protoss player, so whetever he wins such a battle depends on whetever the zerg mess up.
|
Yet another time that banelings somehow beat the bejeezus out of protoss. I wonder why pros don't do this stuff more often.
|
On October 12 2011 13:30 AirbladeOrange wrote:
This seems too dependent on your opponent doing what you think he will do. What happens if he starts going colossi, immortals, carriers, or something else. You can't rely on an entire composition to beat one tactic of your opponent unless it works on its own as a general strategy.
This.
I ONLY get mothership if I know the zerg is going BL heavy
|
On October 13 2011 11:20 NTTemplar wrote:
@Beenu
Against colossus, void ray, archon, stalker, mothership I will use broodlord, infestor, corruptor, lings.
Broodlords beat archons, colossus and does well against stalkers, corruptors take down voids and then can either help kill off the colossuses or kill the mothership, infestors should not waste energy on NP, they are purely for fungal which helps with DPS against stalkers along with simply preventing archons, stalkers and voidrays getting to the broodlords.
If stalkers are too aggressive they will all die insanely fast to lings, broods and infestors. Without the stalkers brood and corruptor clean up everything else easily.
Comparing brood lords to siege tanks is nothing remotely close to pointless when it is about whetever units with a long range can cover each other despite being split.
Tanks still cover each other despite being split, you said broods couldn't if they split which is simply false.
It is not hard to spread so that only a small portion of the zerg army ends up in the vortex if you do just minimal practice on it, the average pro simply havn't done that.
Brood infestor corruptor ling despite quite a supply difference beats colossus void ray archon stalker mothership.
Corruptors do really well against voids especially with fungal helping out, mothership is a support unit so combating corruptors with it is just silly. Zerg will win there.
Stalkers lose to broods lings and fungals very badly.
Archons simply won't be getting in range due to broodlords and fungals, while colossus is just dead to corruptors as well.
To put it simple, any lategame army involving voidrays from a P force the Z into corruptors, that is BAD for the protoss.
You basicly force him into a unit that counters your mothership and colossus.
Because of how corruptors+fungal beat voidrays a lategame toss army should generally stay away from void rays.
That leaves a protoss ground army+mothership against brood lord, infestor and lings.
And the only way to beat that is for the stalkers to kill the broods, which requires a huge supply lead from the protoss. You can afford losing part of the zerg army as it is so strong against stalkers; Fungal keeps them away and deal great damage, lings tear through stalkers very fast, and broods in themself do great against them.
Not attempting to say it is impossible for the protoss by any means, but it is in favor of the zerg.
In such a 200/200 clash it will come down to positioning to a degree, and after that it is solely whetever the zerg plays worse or not. If the zerg plays well or not is out of the hands of the protoss player, so whetever he wins such a battle depends on whetever the zerg mess up.
Well, aside from you taking a lot of what I said completely out of context [but thats fine I don't really care] I still massively disagree that when Vortex goes off splitting your army is going to make any difference whatsoever. A single vortex can easily capture half your army or a third of your army even and it's too much, you still get demolished. If you can actually show me a decent example of splitting your units to beat an archon toilet I'll admit you have a valid point otherwise this is just theorycrafting which I am not interested in.
As it currently stands the single best solution to defeating the archon toilet is by throwing enough banelings into the toilet to instantly kill all of the archons.
|
I ran into this once as protoss. I used feedback and killed 3 overseers then cloaked my archons to win the game without losing anything.
When doing this IMO it is important to bring/spread at least 4-5 overseers since a mothership can simply cloak all the protoss units after vortex wears off, meaning without detection zerg must time the manual baneling detonation perfectly (almost impossible) in order to pull off a win.
|
Destiny's testing on stream now.
So far:
Infested Terrans are horseshit.
Ultralisks are horseshit.
Banelings are cost-ineffective, but so far the only way to save your brood lords.
With +3 melee against +3 shields, you need ~8 banelings per Archon. This means you need an accurate count of his archons, and a lot of banelings ready whenever you engage.
Cost ineffective as shit, but the protoss shouldn't have any archons left, and you should still have all your BLs, so you can hopefully roll him.
Still don't know how it'd work in games.
|
On October 13 2011 12:24 Asday wrote:
Destiny's testing on stream now.
So far:
Infested Terrans are horseshit.
Ultralisks are horseshit.
Banelings are cost-ineffective, but so far the only way to save your brood lords.
With +3 melee against +3 shields, you need ~8 banelings per Archon. This means you need an accurate count of his archons, and a lot of banelings ready whenever you engage.
Cost ineffective as shit, but the protoss shouldn't have any archons left, and you should still have all your BLs, so you can hopefully roll him.
Still don't know how it'd work in games.
idk, I think it counts as being cost effective considering at that point in the game you should easily be able to afford that many banelings and it would be a worthwhile investment if it keeps your Broodlords from instantly popping like zits.
|
On October 13 2011 12:26 BeeNu wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 12:24 Asday wrote:
Destiny's testing on stream now.
So far:
Infested Terrans are horseshit.
Ultralisks are horseshit.
Banelings are cost-ineffective, but so far the only way to save your brood lords.
With +3 melee against +3 shields, you need ~8 banelings per Archon. This means you need an accurate count of his archons, and a lot of banelings ready whenever you engage.
Cost ineffective as shit, but the protoss shouldn't have any archons left, and you should still have all your BLs, so you can hopefully roll him.
Still don't know how it'd work in games. idk, I think it counts as being cost effective considering at that point in the game you should easily be able to afford that many banelings and it would be a worthwhile investment if it keeps your Broodlords from instantly popping like zits.
If you mis-count, and are missing a row of banelings (one archon's worth), all your brood lords still die. Go to a unit tester, and check out the margin for error. Pretty fucking ridiculous. If it's that easy to get wrong, I call it cost ineffective.
I agree with your point, though. Time not important, only life important.
|
You can use hold position spine crawlers to keep units clumped for more efficient baneling hits. It is interesting but I don't know if it's useful or not.
Try it out in a unit tester, you can kill 50+ archons with 20 banelings and 5 spine crawlers:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/GFCfo.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/gBJkx.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/0Iguv.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/rin9q.jpg)
Wow!
|
The Mothership should be removed from the Game.
The Vortex is a Clutch ability that allows Protoss to come back in situations where they have lost and use a clutch strat to win with Arhcon Toilet.
I'll post a Replay of mine showing how ridiculously Effective the Archon Toilet can be.
I had 3/3 Upgrades Mass Roach a few dozen lings 6-7 Infestors... Mostly Roach Army though and it got annihilated by Zealot Archon which Roach is supposed to Counter..
The Roach army was 2/2 Upgrades during the Engagement and the Zealot/Archon Army with MotherShip was only 1 attack upgrades that's it
My Army absolutely Melted he attacked one of my bases And i as i pursued his army to stop him from attacking my mining base he used his mothership right on the mass of my army.
I didn't have any corruptors at the time because i was maxed out but doesn't really make a difference when you realise Motherships vortex Outranges. everything Zerg has and most Smart protoss will just keep their Death Ball right underneath it.
Its a situation where a much worse players can easily get a win by using Clutch Dirty Tactics to beat a superior Player.
Replay's right here for anyone wanting to analyze.
http://replayfu.com/download/N19qDn
Honestly Zerg shouldn't have to attempt all these gimmicks to counter something that seems extremely abusive.. and can slaughter 12 broodlords in 3 seconds flat.
The Video posted in the OP isn't really indicative of what happens in a real situation..
Most Smart Protoss vortex Brood lords Sometimes 2 Vortexes So Spreading your Army like the one guy claimed doesn't really help too much. They can throw a few Archons in and your entire Air Army Evaporates in Seconds. It works well against Ground armys too if you watch my Replay.
The Protoss is supposed to send the Archons in First and from Different Angles of the Vortex When they send them in For best Effect.
The Video in The OP Is kind a bit misleading on what most people will do when they vortex you.... If you watch the Vidoe the Archons don't really get many shots at all on the Brood Lords because they don't Spawn under them like Most Protoss do because they send the Archons in First and from the a few different Angles and the Archons Spawn all around when the Vortex Releases the Armies and They get Huge Splash off on the Broods.
In the Replay in the OP The Archons aren't really released under the Broodslords but just far enough so only 1-2 Archons actually get Shots at the Broods.
This Baneling Strat seems like a great Idea; as a Zerg it's frustrating to have to be 'prepared to use such Gimmicks as these to actually try and counter these Strats.
But from now on if i See Archon Zealot comps Or Mother Ship Toilets... I'll try the 30 Baneling Toilet.
I'm hoping Blizzard Removes the Mothership the Vortex thing always seems overpowered to me its just a really gimicky situation where you can lose your whole army if you don't 'Spread' or 'Position' It Right..
But Protoss can just 1A their Death Ball... Sorry if it seems whiny i'm just not seeing how the Mothership's abilities are really that Fair. Because you have to have more skill than your enemy to successfully defend these kind of strats.
BTW sorry for the balance whine just really frustrated with people abusing Archon Toilet on the Ladder
And in Real Game Situations this Baneling Thing Isn't Exactly The Safest Strat because they don't always Send in their Whole Army Sometimes Just a Bunch of Archons..
As you can see in my Replay though Archon Toilets Work Even Well against Pure Ground Armies.
As my 2/2 Upgrades Roach Army Melted to his 1+ attack Protoss Army in 5 seconds.
Sorry for the Bad Grammar
/EndRant
|
On October 13 2011 12:46 Asday wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 12:26 BeeNu wrote:On October 13 2011 12:24 Asday wrote:
Destiny's testing on stream now.
So far:
Infested Terrans are horseshit.
Ultralisks are horseshit.
Banelings are cost-ineffective, but so far the only way to save your brood lords.
With +3 melee against +3 shields, you need ~8 banelings per Archon. This means you need an accurate count of his archons, and a lot of banelings ready whenever you engage.
Cost ineffective as shit, but the protoss shouldn't have any archons left, and you should still have all your BLs, so you can hopefully roll him.
Still don't know how it'd work in games. idk, I think it counts as being cost effective considering at that point in the game you should easily be able to afford that many banelings and it would be a worthwhile investment if it keeps your Broodlords from instantly popping like zits. If you mis-count, and are missing a row of banelings (one archon's worth), all your brood lords still die. Go to a unit tester, and check out the margin for error. Pretty fucking ridiculous. If it's that easy to get wrong, I call it cost ineffective. I agree with your point, though. Time not important, only life important.
Yeah, I was playing around with this a couple weeks ago, it's pretty ridiculous what happens if you can't insta-kill the Archons, it's basically you have to instantly kill them all or it's all for nothing so a rather razor-thin margin for error which makes it pretty scary.
But...I just had a bit of an epiphany while writing this...couldn't you just use Infestors to Fungal and keep the Archons from entering the toilet in the first place?
Ok wait maybe I think I got it now. What you need to do is get an infestor and research neural parasite....then what you do is take over a probe and build your own nexus and start making your own Archons to throw into the vortex to counter the enemy's archons! brilliant!
|
On October 13 2011 12:59 Tunzi wrote:You can use hold position spine crawlers to keep units clumped for more efficient baneling hits. It is interesting but I don't know if it's useful or not. Try it out in a unit tester, you can kill 50+ archons with 20 banelings and 5 spine crawlers: Wow!
OMG LOLOLOL nice find!!! holy shit!
does this mean that the archon toilet may have been nerfed too much if zerg can simply counter like that? (considering that you can still do splash damage now even after the invincibility time, it seems they still want you to be able to do the toilet but just to a much lesser or expensive degree, vs completely removing any chance of splashing due to the vortex)
|
On October 13 2011 13:07 BeeNu wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 12:46 Asday wrote:On October 13 2011 12:26 BeeNu wrote:On October 13 2011 12:24 Asday wrote:
Destiny's testing on stream now.
So far:
Infested Terrans are horseshit.
Ultralisks are horseshit.
Banelings are cost-ineffective, but so far the only way to save your brood lords.
With +3 melee against +3 shields, you need ~8 banelings per Archon. This means you need an accurate count of his archons, and a lot of banelings ready whenever you engage.
Cost ineffective as shit, but the protoss shouldn't have any archons left, and you should still have all your BLs, so you can hopefully roll him.
Still don't know how it'd work in games. idk, I think it counts as being cost effective considering at that point in the game you should easily be able to afford that many banelings and it would be a worthwhile investment if it keeps your Broodlords from instantly popping like zits. If you mis-count, and are missing a row of banelings (one archon's worth), all your brood lords still die. Go to a unit tester, and check out the margin for error. Pretty fucking ridiculous. If it's that easy to get wrong, I call it cost ineffective. I agree with your point, though. Time not important, only life important. Yeah, I was playing around with this a couple weeks ago, it's pretty ridiculous what happens if you can't insta-kill the Archons, it's basically you have to instantly kill them all or it's all for nothing so a rather razor-thin margin for error which makes it pretty scary. But...I just had a bit of an epiphany while writing this...couldn't you just use Infestors to Fungal and keep the Archons from entering the toilet in the first place?
It's certainly possible... but that's a lot of energy. Assuming 2 fungals gets all the archons for 4 seconds, that's 10 fungals to lock them down for 20 seconds. Not to mention that's a long time to expose your infestors without full army support. I'm sure its worth using in certain situations though, like if the vortex zones your army from theirs so your infestors are protected?
I want my 8 second fungal back... and not just for this reason obviously. T.T
|
On October 12 2011 14:46 Anihc wrote:
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it.
In Most Situations that's just not feasible if you spread your army too Thin Blink Stalkers Come in and Annihilate.
So we have to spread our army out into 2-L3 separate groups with the perfect army comp certain amount of roachs/infestors under/by the Brood Lords to ward off blink stalker while Trying to Snipe the MotherShip.
While the Protoss can just keep his whole army in one Clump.
There's a stark disparity of skill requirement involved in the Situation Protoss just 1a their Death Ball Around while Zerg is Forced to do this Crazy Spreading and/or Get Corruptors Destroyed by Blink Stalkers while Trying to Snipe the Mother Ship. While Keeping your 3 Army Groups Split up Seperated and Avoid Getting them Vortexed.
Its a bit annoying because your forced to do so much. While Protoss in this situation have a much easier time executing this strategy.
As a Zerg trying to Defend against this it makes u ragey Especially if they cut off one of your Expo's and you can't get to it because they will just Vortex your Army.
It's also not fun when your maxed out on your Zerg Army and you see the Mothership and you hadn't made Corruptors yet. Because then you're almost Forced to Throw away your army or Turn Drones into Spines to Free up Supply For Corruptors.
|
On October 13 2011 13:14 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 12:59 Tunzi wrote:You can use hold position spine crawlers to keep units clumped for more efficient baneling hits. It is interesting but I don't know if it's useful or not. Try it out in a unit tester, you can kill 50+ archons with 20 banelings and 5 spine crawlers: Wow! OMG LOLOLOL nice find!!! holy shit! does this mean that the archon toilet may have been nerfed too much if zerg can simply counter like that? (considering that you can still do splash damage now even after the invincibility time, it seems they still want you to be able to do the toilet but just to a much lesser or expensive degree, vs completely removing any chance of splashing due to the vortex)
That's not really gonna be feasible in a real game situation or would be really hard to pull off. You'd have to have Creep there and 5 Spines At the Spot where it Happens..
The Protoss Chooses where to Engage not the Zerg Especially when they have the MotherShip.
|
On October 13 2011 13:14 Gelenn wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 13:07 BeeNu wrote:On October 13 2011 12:46 Asday wrote:On October 13 2011 12:26 BeeNu wrote:On October 13 2011 12:24 Asday wrote:
Destiny's testing on stream now.
So far:
Infested Terrans are horseshit.
Ultralisks are horseshit.
Banelings are cost-ineffective, but so far the only way to save your brood lords.
With +3 melee against +3 shields, you need ~8 banelings per Archon. This means you need an accurate count of his archons, and a lot of banelings ready whenever you engage.
Cost ineffective as shit, but the protoss shouldn't have any archons left, and you should still have all your BLs, so you can hopefully roll him.
Still don't know how it'd work in games. idk, I think it counts as being cost effective considering at that point in the game you should easily be able to afford that many banelings and it would be a worthwhile investment if it keeps your Broodlords from instantly popping like zits. If you mis-count, and are missing a row of banelings (one archon's worth), all your brood lords still die. Go to a unit tester, and check out the margin for error. Pretty fucking ridiculous. If it's that easy to get wrong, I call it cost ineffective. I agree with your point, though. Time not important, only life important. Yeah, I was playing around with this a couple weeks ago, it's pretty ridiculous what happens if you can't insta-kill the Archons, it's basically you have to instantly kill them all or it's all for nothing so a rather razor-thin margin for error which makes it pretty scary. But...I just had a bit of an epiphany while writing this...couldn't you just use Infestors to Fungal and keep the Archons from entering the toilet in the first place? It's certainly possible... but that's a lot of energy. Assuming 2 fungals gets all the archons for 4 seconds, that's 10 fungals to lock them down for 20 seconds. Not to mention that's a long time to expose your infestors without full army support. I'm sure its worth using in certain situations though, like if the vortex zones your army from theirs so your infestors are protected? I want my 8 second fungal back... and not just for this reason obviously. T.T
Eh, I just tested it out a bit and it turns out to be completely worthless, ahhh well. It sounded much better in theory. The thing is, to fungal the archons your infestors have to be just outside of the opposite side of the vortex, and at about max fungal range this places the archon just outside the opposite of the vortex...the big problem lies in the fact that your broodlords still come out of the vortex all clumped in a tiny ball and archons lying just outside the vortex are still in range to kill them.
Was worth testing anyways I suppose.
|
On October 13 2011 13:22 XRaDiiX wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 14:46 Anihc wrote:
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it. In Most Situations that's just not feasible if you spread your army too Thin Blink Stalkers Come in and Annihilate. So we have to spread our army out into 2-L3 separate groups with the perfect army comp certain amount of roachs/infestors under/by the Brood Lords to ward off blink stalker while Trying to Snipe the MotherShip. While the Protoss can just keep his whole army in one Clump. There's a stark disparity of skill requirement involved in the Situation Protoss just 1a their Death Ball Around while Zerg is Forced to do this Crazy Spreading and/or Get Corruptors Destroyed by Blink Stalkers while Trying to Snipe the Mother Ship. While Keeping your 3 Army Groups Split up Seperated and Avoid Getting them Vortexed. Its a bit annoying because your forced to do so much. While Protoss in this situation have a much easier time executing this strategy. As a Zerg trying to Defend against this it makes u ragey Especially if they cut off one of your Expo's and you can't get to it because they will just Vortex your Army. It's also not fun when your maxed out on your Zerg Army and you see the Mothership and you hadn't made Corruptors yet. Because then you're almost Forced to Throw away your army or Turn Drones into Spines to Free up Supply For Corruptors.
Way to contribute nothing but whining. The spreading your units out issue has been discussed in great detail in this thread, have you not bothered to read it at all? Please don't post like this.
|
On October 13 2011 13:24 XRaDiiX wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 13:14 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On October 13 2011 12:59 Tunzi wrote:You can use hold position spine crawlers to keep units clumped for more efficient baneling hits. It is interesting but I don't know if it's useful or not. Try it out in a unit tester, you can kill 50+ archons with 20 banelings and 5 spine crawlers: Wow! OMG LOLOLOL nice find!!! holy shit! does this mean that the archon toilet may have been nerfed too much if zerg can simply counter like that? (considering that you can still do splash damage now even after the invincibility time, it seems they still want you to be able to do the toilet but just to a much lesser or expensive degree, vs completely removing any chance of splashing due to the vortex) That's not really gonna be feasible in a real game situation or would be really hard to pull off. You'd have to have Creep there and 5 Spines At the Spot where it Happens.. The Protoss Chooses where to Engage not the Zerg Especially when they have the MotherShip.
Not to mention it would be incredibly easy for the Protoss to just kill the Spines with Colossus or Stalkers.
|
On October 13 2011 13:27 Anihc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 13:22 XRaDiiX wrote:On October 12 2011 14:46 Anihc wrote:
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it. In Most Situations that's just not feasible if you spread your army too Thin Blink Stalkers Come in and Annihilate. So we have to spread our army out into 2-L3 separate groups with the perfect army comp certain amount of roachs/infestors under/by the Brood Lords to ward off blink stalker while Trying to Snipe the MotherShip. While the Protoss can just keep his whole army in one Clump. There's a stark disparity of skill requirement involved in the Situation Protoss just 1a their Death Ball Around while Zerg is Forced to do this Crazy Spreading and/or Get Corruptors Destroyed by Blink Stalkers while Trying to Snipe the Mother Ship. While Keeping your 3 Army Groups Split up Seperated and Avoid Getting them Vortexed. Its a bit annoying because your forced to do so much. While Protoss in this situation have a much easier time executing this strategy. As a Zerg trying to Defend against this it makes u ragey Especially if they cut off one of your Expo's and you can't get to it because they will just Vortex your Army. It's also not fun when your maxed out on your Zerg Army and you see the Mothership and you hadn't made Corruptors yet. Because then you're almost Forced to Throw away your army or Turn Drones into Spines to Free up Supply For Corruptors. Way to contribute nothing but whining. The spreading your units out issue has been discussed in great detail in this thread, have you not bothered to read it at all? Please don't post like this.
So you agree a Protoss can Execute an engagement with a MotherShip Easier than a Zerg Can Defend it?
Sorry for the purported 'whining' But how do you find 2-3 Archons Melting 15 Brood Lords Balance\
Not to Mention the Slow Speed of Broods makes these kind of Engagements With the MotherShip a bit of a Nightmare
User was warned for this post
|
Someone's suggesting bringing baller crawlers to the fight...? What the FUCK planet do you live from, and how much is the internet connection to earth? I'm all for stupid shit in team games, but 1v1 imbalance is serious internet business.
On October 13 2011 13:07 BeeNu wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 12:46 Asday wrote:On October 13 2011 12:26 BeeNu wrote:On October 13 2011 12:24 Asday wrote:
Destiny's testing on stream now.
So far:
Infested Terrans are horseshit.
Ultralisks are horseshit.
Banelings are cost-ineffective, but so far the only way to save your brood lords.
With +3 melee against +3 shields, you need ~8 banelings per Archon. This means you need an accurate count of his archons, and a lot of banelings ready whenever you engage.
Cost ineffective as shit, but the protoss shouldn't have any archons left, and you should still have all your BLs, so you can hopefully roll him.
Still don't know how it'd work in games. idk, I think it counts as being cost effective considering at that point in the game you should easily be able to afford that many banelings and it would be a worthwhile investment if it keeps your Broodlords from instantly popping like zits. If you mis-count, and are missing a row of banelings (one archon's worth), all your brood lords still die. Go to a unit tester, and check out the margin for error. Pretty fucking ridiculous. If it's that easy to get wrong, I call it cost ineffective. I agree with your point, though. Time not important, only life important. Yeah, I was playing around with this a couple weeks ago, it's pretty ridiculous what happens if you can't insta-kill the Archons, it's basically you have to instantly kill them all or it's all for nothing so a rather razor-thin margin for error which makes it pretty scary. But...I just had a bit of an epiphany while writing this...couldn't you just use Infestors to Fungal and keep the Archons from entering the toilet in the first place?
No, because the entirety of the rest of the Protoss arsenal exists.
|
On October 13 2011 13:27 BeeNu wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 13:24 XRaDiiX wrote:On October 13 2011 13:14 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On October 13 2011 12:59 Tunzi wrote:You can use hold position spine crawlers to keep units clumped for more efficient baneling hits. It is interesting but I don't know if it's useful or not. Try it out in a unit tester, you can kill 50+ archons with 20 banelings and 5 spine crawlers: Wow! OMG LOLOLOL nice find!!! holy shit! does this mean that the archon toilet may have been nerfed too much if zerg can simply counter like that? (considering that you can still do splash damage now even after the invincibility time, it seems they still want you to be able to do the toilet but just to a much lesser or expensive degree, vs completely removing any chance of splashing due to the vortex) That's not really gonna be feasible in a real game situation or would be really hard to pull off. You'd have to have Creep there and 5 Spines At the Spot where it Happens.. The Protoss Chooses where to Engage not the Zerg Especially when they have the MotherShip. Not to mention it would be incredibly easy for the Protoss to just kill the Spines with Colossus or Stalkers.
You may not be able to pull it off, but its use is still there. Just the possibility of this happening if the Protoss is on creep helps a lot. Plus, who wouldn't have a bunch of spine crawlers on the map that late in the game? Though you're right they wouldn't put their entire army into the toilet.
Just wondering is it possible to build buildings around the vortex? What if you made a square of evolution chambers? Though I guess it wouldn't make sense since a Protoss would only vortex if they would catch a significant amount of the zerg army.
|
On October 13 2011 13:32 XRaDiiX wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 13:27 Anihc wrote:On October 13 2011 13:22 XRaDiiX wrote:On October 12 2011 14:46 Anihc wrote:
You know what a better counter is to vortex? Spread out your army and don't throw everything into it. In Most Situations that's just not feasible if you spread your army too Thin Blink Stalkers Come in and Annihilate. So we have to spread our army out into 2-L3 separate groups with the perfect army comp certain amount of roachs/infestors under/by the Brood Lords to ward off blink stalker while Trying to Snipe the MotherShip. While the Protoss can just keep his whole army in one Clump. There's a stark disparity of skill requirement involved in the Situation Protoss just 1a their Death Ball Around while Zerg is Forced to do this Crazy Spreading and/or Get Corruptors Destroyed by Blink Stalkers while Trying to Snipe the Mother Ship. While Keeping your 3 Army Groups Split up Seperated and Avoid Getting them Vortexed. Its a bit annoying because your forced to do so much. While Protoss in this situation have a much easier time executing this strategy. As a Zerg trying to Defend against this it makes u ragey Especially if they cut off one of your Expo's and you can't get to it because they will just Vortex your Army. It's also not fun when your maxed out on your Zerg Army and you see the Mothership and you hadn't made Corruptors yet. Because then you're almost Forced to Throw away your army or Turn Drones into Spines to Free up Supply For Corruptors. Way to contribute nothing but whining. The spreading your units out issue has been discussed in great detail in this thread, have you not bothered to read it at all? Please don't post like this. So you agree a Protoss can Execute an engagement with a MotherShip Easier than a Zerg Can Defend it? Sorry for the purported 'whining' But how do you find 2-3 Archons Melting 15 Brood Lords Balance\ Not to Mention the Slow Speed of Broods makes these kind of Engagements With the MotherShip a bit of a Nightmare
Random capitalisation doesn't make up for bad grammar. Use the shift key responsibly, or not at all.
This is a thread for working out how to get around the fact that the archon BL toilet is fucking bullshit. Coming in here and proclaiming it's fucking bullshit like it's news is like tripping over a midget twice. We know we're small damnit.
If you can think of a feasible way to enter lategame vP, and not have to be ready for some dry humping, and an unsatisfying gg, then by all means, post, but if not, leave.
|
On October 12 2011 23:57 zylog wrote:
The baneling vs archon tactic was done in the GSL several months ago, Nestea vs San. Basically everytime San vortexed, Nestea would bring his banes nearby to discourage the archons from going in. However, if I remember correctly San still won after archon toileting Nestea's brood lords.
This.. like i said just doesn't 'feel' right Zerg has to use these Gimmicks to Counter such a strategy that the protoss can abuse so effectively
|
As the OP, I appreciate all the great feedback. I've been messing around with it more and I'll be updating the original post real soon since I didn't cover as much as I could yesterday. *I'll add another video link to contribute to more actual demos.
1 - Some of the tests that I did show that in a real game scenario, a Protoss player who sends in a couple of Archons can easily close in on your broodlords with the rest of their army once the vortex is over, so a high Ultralisk count is actually essential. This prevents stalkers and Collossus from closing in. They'll also give your broodlords enough time to retreat back to Overseers, and Infestors as tanking units if you need time to regroup rather than attack right away.
2 - You can also disrupt any AoE from the Archons if you have a high enough baneling count. 40 Banelings and 8 Ultralisks prevented 7 Archons from giving my Broodlords any damage whatsoever.
3 - The perfect unit composition that's vortex proof seems to be something like: 12 Broodlords, 8 Ultralisks, 10 Infestors, 35 Banelings. This is assuming the Protoss player does not send in more than 7 Archons, which usually they don't, but even then your still pretty safe.
|
On October 13 2011 05:01 roymarthyup wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 00:11 ThirdDegree wrote:
I have a question as to the relevance of this topic. I am not trying to troll or be mean or anything like that, I genuinely want to know. Even if the toilet was never nerfed, how bad would it really be? Do zergs see a lot of MS play? I myself only bring it out when I just want to have a little fun. I know there are strategies that involve the MS, but I feel like they are few and far between. Even with a broken mechanic, does it really affect balance all that much? archon toilet should not be nerfed. its the only counter to MASS BROOD LORDS. if zerg wants to counter archon toilet, stop relying on mass brood lords. instead stop at 4-5 broodlords, and get mass roaches with some ultralisks and some banelings to deal with zealots because zealots with upgrades counter ultralisks (and no, i dont see a problem with zealots countering ultralisks) archon toilet is good vs air units but bad against mass roaches since roaches are pretty clunkly and spread quickly after a vortex if the toss has storm+zealots it gets hard because storm takes out the banelings and storm also takes out your anti air (hydras). in this scenario as zerg you must forget banelings and have ultralisks+ tons of roaches and a econ advantage. engage with the ultras+roaches and the zealots should get vaporized then retreat and send half of your roaches around the map to flank. your goal is to take out his templars/collossi with roach flanks so your hydras dont melt. carriers and voidrays both kill roaches+ultras slowly, so if the toss has air you deal with it by killing his ground army/zealots and then retreat and flank and mass more roaches then once youve taken out a big part of his ground army you pump out 25 hydras to deal with the air
Archon Toilet isn't the Only Counter you can get Void Rays too and 'Spread em' So Fungal isn't as Effective.
Void Rays are pretty good vs Corruptors too and pretty good vs most units.
|
Now people are talking about walling in a vortex? Jesus fuck, why didn't I think of- WAIT A MINUTE I REMEMBER, BECAUSE THAT WOULD NEVER EVER BE FEASIBLE. Not even in 4v4s.
On October 13 2011 13:45 Keyz1 wrote:
As the OP, I appreciate all the great feedback. I've been messing around with it more and I'll be updating the original post real soon since I didn't cover as much as I could yesterday. *I'll add another video link to contribute to more actual demos.
1 - Some of the tests that I did show that in a real game scenario, a Protoss player who sends in a couple of Archons can easily close in on your broodlords with the rest of their army once the vortex is over, so a high Ultralisk count is actually essential. This prevents stalkers and Collossus from closing in. They'll also give your broodlords enough time to retreat back to Overseers, and Infestors as tanking units if you need time to regroup rather than attack right away.
2 - You can also disrupt any AoE from the Archons if you have a high enough baneling count. 40 Banelings and 8 Ultralisks prevented 7 Archons from giving my Broodlords any damage whatsoever.
3 - The perfect unit composition that's vortex proof seems to be something like: 12 Broodlords, 8 Ultralisks, 10 Infestors, 35 Banelings. This is assuming the Protoss player does not send in more than 7 Archons, which usually they don't, but even then your still pretty safe.
Ultras are pretty worthless, you wanna aim for ~8 banelings per archon, and preferably nothing else in the vortex, as it'll bump into the banes, and be in a place an archon could be receiving splash.
As for the collosus stalker force, you're kinda expected to have a roach hydra force.
|
On October 13 2011 13:45 Keyz1 wrote:
As the OP, I appreciate all the great feedback. I've been messing around with it more and I'll be updating the original post real soon since I didn't cover as much as I could yesterday. *I'll add another video link to contribute to more actual demos.
1 - Some of the tests that I did show that in a real game scenario, a Protoss player who sends in a couple of Archons can easily close in on your broodlords with the rest of their army once the vortex is over, so a high Ultralisk count is actually essential. This prevents stalkers and Collossus from closing in. They'll also give your broodlords enough time to retreat back to Overseers, and Infestors as tanking units if you need time to regroup rather than attack right away.
2 - You can also disrupt any AoE from the Archons if you have a high enough baneling count. 40 Banelings and 8 Ultralisks prevented 7 Archons from giving my Broodlords any damage whatsoever.
3 - The perfect unit composition that's vortex proof seems to be something like: 12 Broodlords, 8 Ultralisks, 10 Infestors, 35 Banelings. This is assuming the Protoss player does not send in more than 7 Archons, which usually they don't, but even then your still pretty safe.
You should also make a Video of 2 Seperate Groups of the Zerg army Split up evenly
Say try 6 broods in each control Group 20 roaches few infestors/fewlings/1-2 Ultralisks in Each Control Group.
Then show the MotherShip Vortex both Zerg Armies Send in 2-4 Archons into Each Vortex with half of each Protoss army also being Sent in to each separate vortex.
Just to show that sometimes even spreading your army ; if you don't have the Banelings will also get you killed as well.
This would be a good example of how effective and good this Strategy is versus Zerg if the Protoss knows what he's doing.
Hopefully this Baneling Strat works out i'll try it next time i come up against an Protoss Mother Ship Toilet.
|
On October 13 2011 13:50 Asday wrote:Now people are talking about walling in a vortex? Jesus fuck, why didn't I think of- WAIT A MINUTE I REMEMBER, BECAUSE THAT WOULD NEVER EVER BE FEASIBLE. Not even in 4v4s. Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 13:45 Keyz1 wrote:
As the OP, I appreciate all the great feedback. I've been messing around with it more and I'll be updating the original post real soon since I didn't cover as much as I could yesterday. *I'll add another video link to contribute to more actual demos.
1 - Some of the tests that I did show that in a real game scenario, a Protoss player who sends in a couple of Archons can easily close in on your broodlords with the rest of their army once the vortex is over, so a high Ultralisk count is actually essential. This prevents stalkers and Collossus from closing in. They'll also give your broodlords enough time to retreat back to Overseers, and Infestors as tanking units if you need time to regroup rather than attack right away.
2 - You can also disrupt any AoE from the Archons if you have a high enough baneling count. 40 Banelings and 8 Ultralisks prevented 7 Archons from giving my Broodlords any damage whatsoever.
3 - The perfect unit composition that's vortex proof seems to be something like: 12 Broodlords, 8 Ultralisks, 10 Infestors, 35 Banelings. This is assuming the Protoss player does not send in more than 7 Archons, which usually they don't, but even then your still pretty safe.
Ultras are pretty worthless, you wanna aim for ~8 banelings per archon, and preferably nothing else in the vortex, as it'll bump into the banes, and be in a place an archon could be receiving splash. As for the collosus stalker force, you're kinda expected to have a roach hydra force.
Yeah I'm not sure of the Baneling to Archon ratio, but 35-40 seems like a safe number to stick with. You can't just make like 70 Banelings in theres 12 archons, probably won't have the supply room with all the other supporting units.
The reason for the Ultralisks are essential, as I updated the main post. Roach/Hydra is good, but Collossus melt Roach/Hydra eventually. Ultralisks melt Stalker/Collossus, and can tank for a lot longer. With no more Archons in your way, Ultralisks are fantastic, especially when in unisen WITH broodlings.
|
On October 13 2011 13:47 XRaDiiX wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 05:01 roymarthyup wrote:On October 13 2011 00:11 ThirdDegree wrote:
I have a question as to the relevance of this topic. I am not trying to troll or be mean or anything like that, I genuinely want to know. Even if the toilet was never nerfed, how bad would it really be? Do zergs see a lot of MS play? I myself only bring it out when I just want to have a little fun. I know there are strategies that involve the MS, but I feel like they are few and far between. Even with a broken mechanic, does it really affect balance all that much? archon toilet should not be nerfed. its the only counter to MASS BROOD LORDS. if zerg wants to counter archon toilet, stop relying on mass brood lords. instead stop at 4-5 broodlords, and get mass roaches with some ultralisks and some banelings to deal with zealots because zealots with upgrades counter ultralisks (and no, i dont see a problem with zealots countering ultralisks) archon toilet is good vs air units but bad against mass roaches since roaches are pretty clunkly and spread quickly after a vortex if the toss has storm+zealots it gets hard because storm takes out the banelings and storm also takes out your anti air (hydras). in this scenario as zerg you must forget banelings and have ultralisks+ tons of roaches and a econ advantage. engage with the ultras+roaches and the zealots should get vaporized then retreat and send half of your roaches around the map to flank. your goal is to take out his templars/collossi with roach flanks so your hydras dont melt. carriers and voidrays both kill roaches+ultras slowly, so if the toss has air you deal with it by killing his ground army/zealots and then retreat and flank and mass more roaches then once youve taken out a big part of his ground army you pump out 25 hydras to deal with the air Archon Toilet isn't the Only Counter you can get Void Rays too and 'Spread em' So Fungal isn't as Effective. Void Rays are pretty good vs Corruptors too and pretty good vs most units.
Oh I see, so now it's impossible for zerg to spread out their units against a vortex, but protoss should definitely do so vs fungal? You do know that both of these spells are instant, and that vortex comes from a single, vibrant, huge, slow flying turtle shell, while the other comes from multiple faster units that can move while burrowed. I wonder which one is easier to see coming? Anyone who can't spread before a mothership gets to the battlefield should not be arguing about what is overpowered or underpowered.
|
Destiny theorycrafted this extensively yesterday, 8 banelings per archon is a safe bet. It should kill all archons immediately when vortex ends, leaving your brolords with full HP. Here is the VOD:
http://www.twitch.tv/steven_bonnell_ii/b/297339240
He makes the conclusion around 1:00:00 into the VOD
|
On October 13 2011 22:37 Fig wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 13:47 XRaDiiX wrote:On October 13 2011 05:01 roymarthyup wrote:On October 13 2011 00:11 ThirdDegree wrote:
I have a question as to the relevance of this topic. I am not trying to troll or be mean or anything like that, I genuinely want to know. Even if the toilet was never nerfed, how bad would it really be? Do zergs see a lot of MS play? I myself only bring it out when I just want to have a little fun. I know there are strategies that involve the MS, but I feel like they are few and far between. Even with a broken mechanic, does it really affect balance all that much? archon toilet should not be nerfed. its the only counter to MASS BROOD LORDS. if zerg wants to counter archon toilet, stop relying on mass brood lords. instead stop at 4-5 broodlords, and get mass roaches with some ultralisks and some banelings to deal with zealots because zealots with upgrades counter ultralisks (and no, i dont see a problem with zealots countering ultralisks) archon toilet is good vs air units but bad against mass roaches since roaches are pretty clunkly and spread quickly after a vortex if the toss has storm+zealots it gets hard because storm takes out the banelings and storm also takes out your anti air (hydras). in this scenario as zerg you must forget banelings and have ultralisks+ tons of roaches and a econ advantage. engage with the ultras+roaches and the zealots should get vaporized then retreat and send half of your roaches around the map to flank. your goal is to take out his templars/collossi with roach flanks so your hydras dont melt. carriers and voidrays both kill roaches+ultras slowly, so if the toss has air you deal with it by killing his ground army/zealots and then retreat and flank and mass more roaches then once youve taken out a big part of his ground army you pump out 25 hydras to deal with the air Archon Toilet isn't the Only Counter you can get Void Rays too and 'Spread em' So Fungal isn't as Effective. Void Rays are pretty good vs Corruptors too and pretty good vs most units. Oh I see, so now it's impossible for zerg to spread out their units against a vortex, but protoss should definitely do so vs fungal? You do know that both of these spells are instant, and that vortex comes from a single, vibrant, huge, slow flying turtle shell, while the other comes from multiple faster units that can move while burrowed. I wonder which one is easier to see coming? Anyone who can't spread before a mothership gets to the battlefield should not be arguing about what is overpowered or underpowered.
Great response. Now, if spreading your units actually managed to do anything useful in the face of Vortex we would have a great solution here. Unfortunately, even with split units you are still getting a large portion of your army removed from the battle crippling you in the face of any major engagement.
|
On October 13 2011 22:37 Fig wrote:
Oh I see, so now it's impossible for zerg to spread out their units against a vortex, but protoss should definitely do so vs fungal? You do know that both of these spells are instant, and that vortex comes from a single, vibrant, huge, slow flying turtle shell, while the other comes from multiple faster units that can move while burrowed. I wonder which one is easier to see coming? Anyone who can't spread before a mothership gets to the battlefield should not be arguing about what is overpowered or underpowered.
How can you even compare infestors to a spell caster that flies, has 700 hp, 2 armor, a strong standard attack, cloaking aura, and with a 20 second completely disabling spell that hits at 2.5 radius. Not to mention fungals need to be chained, and the units hit can still attack while stunned.
Not to mention that even if the Zerg does spread out his broodlords, the mothership still makes it impossible for zerg to engage a protoss in the late game. Even with the worst casted vortex you should easily be able to remove 30-40 supply, making it super easy to snipe any crucial units that did not get vortexed (broods / infestors)
|
On October 12 2011 12:21 Trusty wrote:
Got some replays? even unit tester?
I thought with the 1.5seconds invincibility after Vortex, ground units could spread out fast enough to avoid the '1 hit KO splash' syndrome. Air units spread out slower, so they are still affected.
Well what the 1.5 sec thing fixed was putting like exactly enough archons into the vortex to kill the other units inside. You can still put a few more in and when the 1.5 sec expires you still do significant damage most likely still killing all enemy units.
|
On October 13 2011 14:02 Keyz1 wrote:
The reason for the Ultralisks are essential, as I updated the main post. Roach/Hydra is good, but Collossus melt Roach/Hydra eventually. Ultralisks melt Stalker/Collossus, and can tank for a lot longer. With no more Archons in your way, Ultralisks are fantastic, especially when in unisen WITH broodlings.
Ultras really aren't that useful considering they can never really catch Colossus or Stalkers, Protoss Tier1 counters them, Void Rays also melt them very very fast and Archons hold up fine against them as well. Like really, what's the point? I mean sure they can be useful to add a few into your army just for the hell of it I guess but I would never consider calling Ultralisks "essential".
|
On October 14 2011 05:59 BeeNu wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 14:02 Keyz1 wrote:
The reason for the Ultralisks are essential, as I updated the main post. Roach/Hydra is good, but Collossus melt Roach/Hydra eventually. Ultralisks melt Stalker/Collossus, and can tank for a lot longer. With no more Archons in your way, Ultralisks are fantastic, especially when in unisen WITH broodlings.
Ultras really aren't that useful considering they can never really catch Colossus or Stalkers, Protoss Tier1 counters them, Void Rays also melt them very very fast and Archons hold up fine against them as well. Like really, what's the point? I mean sure they can be useful to add a few into your army just for the hell of it I guess but I would never consider calling Ultralisks "essential".
Well, the infestors just sit there doing nothing actually. They have fungal, but don't know what it does......infested terrans are pretty gimp too......
enough sarcasm,
Fungal + Ultralisk AoE, where the stalker/collossi you gonna run?
Fungal + ITs, where the voids gonna run?
Add Broodlings at the same time.
Majority of the archons died in the toilet, they're not in the way anymore.
Think before you post.
gl hf.
|
Sorry if this was mentioned already, but won't the invuln after the toilet make this irrelevant?
|
On October 14 2011 11:12 PraetorialGamer wrote:
Sorry if this was mentioned already, but won't the invuln after the toilet make this irrelevant?
Brood lords spread out too slowly to avoid archon splash.
On October 13 2011 22:37 Fig wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 13:47 XRaDiiX wrote:On October 13 2011 05:01 roymarthyup wrote:On October 13 2011 00:11 ThirdDegree wrote:
I have a question as to the relevance of this topic. I am not trying to troll or be mean or anything like that, I genuinely want to know. Even if the toilet was never nerfed, how bad would it really be? Do zergs see a lot of MS play? I myself only bring it out when I just want to have a little fun. I know there are strategies that involve the MS, but I feel like they are few and far between. Even with a broken mechanic, does it really affect balance all that much? archon toilet should not be nerfed. its the only counter to MASS BROOD LORDS. if zerg wants to counter archon toilet, stop relying on mass brood lords. instead stop at 4-5 broodlords, and get mass roaches with some ultralisks and some banelings to deal with zealots because zealots with upgrades counter ultralisks (and no, i dont see a problem with zealots countering ultralisks) archon toilet is good vs air units but bad against mass roaches since roaches are pretty clunkly and spread quickly after a vortex if the toss has storm+zealots it gets hard because storm takes out the banelings and storm also takes out your anti air (hydras). in this scenario as zerg you must forget banelings and have ultralisks+ tons of roaches and a econ advantage. engage with the ultras+roaches and the zealots should get vaporized then retreat and send half of your roaches around the map to flank. your goal is to take out his templars/collossi with roach flanks so your hydras dont melt. carriers and voidrays both kill roaches+ultras slowly, so if the toss has air you deal with it by killing his ground army/zealots and then retreat and flank and mass more roaches then once youve taken out a big part of his ground army you pump out 25 hydras to deal with the air Archon Toilet isn't the Only Counter you can get Void Rays too and 'Spread em' So Fungal isn't as Effective. Void Rays are pretty good vs Corruptors too and pretty good vs most units. Oh I see, so now it's impossible for zerg to spread out their units against a vortex, but protoss should definitely do so vs fungal? You do know that both of these spells are instant, and that vortex comes from a single, vibrant, huge, slow flying turtle shell, while the other comes from multiple faster units that can move while burrowed. I wonder which one is easier to see coming? Anyone who can't spread before a mothership gets to the battlefield should not be arguing about what is overpowered or underpowered.
If protoss spreads out their brood lords, small packs of blink stalkers WILL fuck them up. If Protoss spreads out his void rays, what's the Zerg gonna do? Send in the corruptors? Oh wait, void rays are cost efficient versus those.
Don't even mention fungal, 'cause the voids are in small groups. You fungalled 3 of them? Fantastic, let me bring another 9 over to clean up your pitiful infestors.
Why is FG being called into question here anyway? It's fairly balanced in its current state, which is more that can be said for the archon toilet, WHICH, is what this thread's about.
|
On October 14 2011 11:05 Keyz1 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2011 05:59 BeeNu wrote:On October 13 2011 14:02 Keyz1 wrote:
The reason for the Ultralisks are essential, as I updated the main post. Roach/Hydra is good, but Collossus melt Roach/Hydra eventually. Ultralisks melt Stalker/Collossus, and can tank for a lot longer. With no more Archons in your way, Ultralisks are fantastic, especially when in unisen WITH broodlings.
Ultras really aren't that useful considering they can never really catch Colossus or Stalkers, Protoss Tier1 counters them, Void Rays also melt them very very fast and Archons hold up fine against them as well. Like really, what's the point? I mean sure they can be useful to add a few into your army just for the hell of it I guess but I would never consider calling Ultralisks "essential". Well, the infestors just sit there doing nothing actually. They have fungal, but don't know what it does......infested terrans are pretty gimp too...... enough sarcasm, Fungal + Ultralisk AoE, where the stalker/collossi you gonna run? Fungal + ITs, where the voids gonna run? Add Broodlings at the same time. Majority of the archons died in the toilet, they're not in the way anymore. Think before you post. gl hf.
Ugh, this is one of the worst responses I've ever gotten. Essential? Really? You have to be kidding me. You just invested a large sum of resources into keeping your Broodlords alive for the end duration and you want to fill your ground force's supply up with Ultralisks? Talk about a waste of money.
|
On October 14 2011 13:32 Asday wrote:Show nested quote +On October 14 2011 11:12 PraetorialGamer wrote:
Sorry if this was mentioned already, but won't the invuln after the toilet make this irrelevant? Brood lords spread out too slowly to avoid archon splash. Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 22:37 Fig wrote:On October 13 2011 13:47 XRaDiiX wrote:On October 13 2011 05:01 roymarthyup wrote:On October 13 2011 00:11 ThirdDegree wrote:
I have a question as to the relevance of this topic. I am not trying to troll or be mean or anything like that, I genuinely want to know. Even if the toilet was never nerfed, how bad would it really be? Do zergs see a lot of MS play? I myself only bring it out when I just want to have a little fun. I know there are strategies that involve the MS, but I feel like they are few and far between. Even with a broken mechanic, does it really affect balance all that much? archon toilet should not be nerfed. its the only counter to MASS BROOD LORDS. if zerg wants to counter archon toilet, stop relying on mass brood lords. instead stop at 4-5 broodlords, and get mass roaches with some ultralisks and some banelings to deal with zealots because zealots with upgrades counter ultralisks (and no, i dont see a problem with zealots countering ultralisks) archon toilet is good vs air units but bad against mass roaches since roaches are pretty clunkly and spread quickly after a vortex if the toss has storm+zealots it gets hard because storm takes out the banelings and storm also takes out your anti air (hydras). in this scenario as zerg you must forget banelings and have ultralisks+ tons of roaches and a econ advantage. engage with the ultras+roaches and the zealots should get vaporized then retreat and send half of your roaches around the map to flank. your goal is to take out his templars/collossi with roach flanks so your hydras dont melt. carriers and voidrays both kill roaches+ultras slowly, so if the toss has air you deal with it by killing his ground army/zealots and then retreat and flank and mass more roaches then once youve taken out a big part of his ground army you pump out 25 hydras to deal with the air Archon Toilet isn't the Only Counter you can get Void Rays too and 'Spread em' So Fungal isn't as Effective. Void Rays are pretty good vs Corruptors too and pretty good vs most units. Oh I see, so now it's impossible for zerg to spread out their units against a vortex, but protoss should definitely do so vs fungal? You do know that both of these spells are instant, and that vortex comes from a single, vibrant, huge, slow flying turtle shell, while the other comes from multiple faster units that can move while burrowed. I wonder which one is easier to see coming? Anyone who can't spread before a mothership gets to the battlefield should not be arguing about what is overpowered or underpowered. If protoss spreads out their brood lords, small packs of blink stalkers WILL fuck them up. If Protoss spreads out his void rays, what's the Zerg gonna do? Send in the corruptors? Oh wait, void rays are cost efficient versus those. Don't even mention fungal, 'cause the voids are in small groups. You fungalled 3 of them? Fantastic, let me bring another 9 over to clean up your pitiful infestors. Why is FG being called into question here anyway? It's fairly balanced in its current state, which is more that can be said for the archon toilet, WHICH, is what this thread's about.
You seem to not understand an archon toilet. It uses archons, not void rays. If a toss ever has mass stalker (to kill the spread out broodlords in your example), 12 voids (from your example), along with a mothership and plenty of archons, you let him get away with way too much.
Now lets go over the strategic options against a mothership. There can only be one mothership on the map at a time. It is big and slow and can't teleport like it could in the beta. This means that if you want, you can just avoid confrontations with it by backstabbing and counterattacking.
Plus there is always a way to beat something, and if you really want to engage in blob vs blob wars vs a protoss, in this case flanking is the answer. A mothership only has 200 energy max, so at most two vortexes can be used at a time. Come in with corruptors from all sides (corruptors have more than twice the movespeed of a mothership, so no excuse for not getting full surround). Plus fungal holds it in place rather nicely. They take it out as quickly as they can take out 2 collosi. Then fungal their army, retreat, and morph to broods and wreck before another makes it out 160 secs later (sooner with chronoboost).
Also fungal can also be used to hold the archons in place if you ever do let all your broods get vortexed. That way they can't enter the vortex and the toilet never even happens.
Plenty of options. Some easier than others, but I can't believe you are calling vortex overpowered. Don't call something overpowered before you exhaust all possibilities.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
