[D] Lessons learned from Brown vs Losira - Page 17

On February 15 2012 00:31 chestnutcc wrote:
The circumstances and strategies in the game do not matter. Firstly, it demonstrates that in a straight up fight, voids will take a long time to kill roaches (in the daybreak game they took forever even with gateway support), time which you do not have. If it worked for Brown, it was a meta game thing where Losira did not choose to exploit the timing window (Brown had the timing attack in mind but abandoned it, at best his army strength was the same as Parting's who opted for an all in). Secondly, void ray positioning is a deterrent, if they don't take the hint, they can trade quite well, certainly deny your third. I love your builds Monk, but I think you overstate the defensive advantage of a void ray. That honour still goes to the sentry.

On February 15 2012 00:16 kcdc wrote:
I actually have no idea what counters 2 base infestor on large maps. Mass zealot timings can kill it early if Z doesn't make enough spines (often the case), and colossus timings are good on small maps where you can defend the attack and then go kill him, but on large maps (read: TDA), it seems like Z can run around your army and counter-attack to pin you in your base until they complete their 3-base hive rush. I know it's a low-econ hive, but infestor+BL is still insanely strong against your colossus composition, and the hive comes so quickly with the 2-base infestor strat.

The circumstances and strategies in the game do not matter.

On February 15 2012 00:42 Treehead wrote:


If you think he's wrong, give a reason. The fact that it's from the GSL causes a person to think that maybe he's done some research and found that it's safe. Maybe it was a blind risk staked on the idea that Losira wouldn't roach rush. So do some analysis. Sit your void ray right at the edge of the zerg's creep. Roaches are the same speed as voids before the speed upgrade. How many roaches can your void ray kill between his base and yours? I haven't tested it myself, but random intuition tells me the number is pretty high, high enough that a couple rounds of production from gateways while his roaches waddle across the map should be sufficient to hold even against a really hard rush - provided no hydras are present and speed is not done.

On February 15 2012 02:32 kcdc wrote:


A: All of them.

It's silly for Z to try to bust your third without some sort of lair tech. Roach speed is required for a roach bust against a well-position void ray, and burrow+tunneling claws or OL speed+drops are very helpful for overcoming forcefields.

Getting a void ray gives you a nice timing window where Z can't attack you without getting their lair tech online which typically means you're safe to do greedy tech or expanding until about 11 minutes (sometimes later) against Z that delay gas for a fast third.

Of course, if you decide to harass with your void ray rather than blocking Z's attack path, roaches can sneak by and do damage.

I'm not convinced that Brown's build was safe against everything Z can do, but it was reasonably safe against most of the things Z would likely do.

On February 15 2012 01:20 skatbone wrote:


Excuse me? How can we have a discussion if "circumstances...in the game do not matter"? In conversations about strategy, if we don't discuss "circumstances," we engage in masterbatory speculation. Circumstances and specifics ground discussion and hold participants responsible to the burden of evidence.

On February 25 2012 01:20 NrGmonk wrote:

You ignored all my points. In that game, the toss army was out of position with a random allin build with a completely different timing when speed was finished. In the brown build, it's a specific build designed to stop those pushes with correct unit positioning/sim city/army composition and much later roach speed finishing.

On February 24 2012 23:00 chestnutcc wrote:


What will happen is that the void ray will take out one or two roaches, and then trail behind the roach ball. On day break for example, there may even be a natural split of roaches rallied from 3 hatches.

On February 15 2012 00:42 Treehead wrote:
Sit your void ray right at the edge of the zerg's creep. Roaches are the same speed as voids before the speed upgrade. How many roaches can your void ray kill between his base and yours?

On February 25 2012 04:12 Treehead wrote:


You didn't read the post he replied to. I'll quote it for you and bold the relevant section.



Edit: Actually, kcdc's response says roach speed too. So, I guess you're just wrong. They move the same speed.

To clarify, from the liquipedia:

"Once the Void Ray's beam is activated within its 6 range, there's an additional leeway of 2 if the target moves away.
The Void Ray can shoot while moving. It attacks anything within range in a 40° angle in front of it. While moving however, targets are chosen based on target priority so it may not necessarily continue to shoot a target it was previously ordered to attack. "

This might mean you may not be able to attack move it or just leave it where it is once it spots roaches. You might have to move it manually and let it autoshoot, depending on how quickly it accelerates.

On February 25 2012 04:46 chestnutcc wrote:


At least test it in the unit tester before posting.

Edit: To make myself clear academic friend, the void ray pauses while charging on a roach,so it gives time for the rest of the ball to get a slight lead on it, and since they move at the same speed, after the void has dispatched of the roach or two it snags, it trails behind the rest. And please no void ray stutter stepping.

On February 25 2012 05:30 Treehead wrote:


You don't have to stutter step. Read what I just wrote. You just have to move in from behind. The VR fires automatically at things in front of it while its moving. Tbh, I've seen it autofire sometimes and not others, but didn't realize the direction was the trigger. This is not too hard to do. And I think the pros would spend a ton of APM if it allowed them to kill a whole bunch of roaches without losing anything, let alone the 10 APM it takes to tell a VR to move along the roaches path to your third.

On February 25 2012 06:51 kcdc wrote:
About the slow roach vs void situation:

I might have taken for granted that everybody has experience killing slow roaches off creep with void rays. I love opening with zealot+void pressure, so I do this micro almost every PvZ.

What you do is you select your voids, target fire them on the leading roach, and then shift click each roach in order from the front to the back. Voids move at the same speed as slow roaches off creep, and they shoot while moving, so any roach that gets target fired will be killed (and quickly). The trick is understanding that the void won't move while shooting until its target is 6 range away, and it can't acquire new targets that are greater than 6 range away, so if you let the void select its own target, it will naturally pick up the roach at the back of the pack, and when that roach dies, the void won't be able to get in range of any new roaches. But if you target fire them in order from from front to back, the void will dispatch the leading roach, then pick up the second roach, then the third, and so on while always staying 6 range from the front of the roach pack.

A charged void ray can kill a roach in 6 game seconds. If Z wants to attack P with slow roaches on a moderately large map (say 60 second rush distance at slow roach speed), one void ray can kill 10 of the roaches before they reach the Protoss base. In other words, the attack will suck. If Z waits for roach speed, one void might be able to kill the lead roach and do a little damage to the back roach.