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On December 09 2011 08:16 NrGmonk wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2011 07:15 kcdc wrote:
I'm going to weigh in on NB's side here and agree that double robo is wasteful. In theory, it's wasteful because you really only want 3 colossi max, and with just 1 robo, you can already get that with enough time for observers and warp prisms. In practice, Brown didn't do anything with his double robo in that game that he couldn't have done just as well (or better) with 1 robo. If he'd spent less on robo units, he would have started his fleet beacon transition earlier, and he wouldn't have lost that big fight which sent him scrambling.
Also, I think HT > colossi in the current metagame. In late game, P wants carrier/mothership/archon/storm with a dash of blink stalkers for mobility. Colossi are kind of cool for killing broodlings, but the only Z unit that can threaten you in that scenario is corruptors, so supply is better used on units that shoot up. So late game, HT > colossi.
In mid-game, colossi might be marginally better than HT against roach-hydra and roach-infestor, but they're worse against infestor-ling or bling, and they're awful if Z springs a muta transition on you. IMO, the problem with mid-game colossus tech is three-fold: (1) colossi, while strong in chokes and with forcefields, are rather vulnerable to flanks, corruptors, and they require your army to be balled together, (2) they're wasted spending if Z sneaks a muta transition by you, and (3) you have to get a lot of stalkers and sentries as support, and stalkers and sentries are pretty bad.
If you go HT instead, you have a more efficient path to your end-game deathball, you're much stronger against a muta transition, you can more easily split forces, and since HT don't require sentry support and need fewer stalkers for AA, you have more resources available for for stronger support units like immortals, zealots, archons and cannons.
Note that I list zealots as good combat units in PvZ. I should explain that zealots are good defensively and for harass, but they're very kitable when used for a straight push. The key to making zealots work defensively is denying creep and having void rays. The void rays punish roaches that try to score free kills on your zealots unless Z brings hydras, and bringing hydras off creep commits fully to an attack since they can't retreat against charelots. If you want to gear up for a mid-game timing with HT against roach-hydra, you're going to need cut zealots once you're safe and build more stalkers and immortals. Double-robo immortal can be good for this sort of timing if you know that Z's hive tech is delayed. I think it's quite naive to dismiss double robo completely. You base this conclusion off of your belief that you never want more than 3 colossi in your army, which is just plain wrong. In almost every single GSL level PvZ where the protoss goes colossi, the protoss will get 4+ colossi unless he dies before that point or mutas come. 3 colossi is just simply not enough in a maxed army to fight any maxed zerg army. You can have your opinion that ht > colossi generally, and I somewhat agree to an extent. The main flaws of ht, however, are that they're much harder to safely transition to and they're more gas heavy than colossi. I prefer ht over colossi generally if I had a choice to get them both safely. I also disagree that ht are better vs ling infestor or especially ling bling. A ling infestor player can transition to roach infestor vs ht and a ht player will have a hard time dealing with both bling flanks and bling drops with his lower stalker count/higher zealot count.
HT are easy to get vs macro Z. Just open with voidray+zealot pressure, tech HT behind your push, and take an 11 minute third.
Against 2-base Z, colossi are a good choice except against spire.
As for 3 vs 4 colossi, okay, so you can get 4 colossi. My point is that you don't want to produce them for that long because they're very vulnerable if Z simply gets enough corruptors. They're not like HT where the tech can never be shut down.
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Still enjoying this conversation. I don't have the upper-level experience/authority to weigh in. I generally prefer HT to colossus, but Monk's point about the roach/bling switch is well taken. Vortex/carriers is working wonders for me in diamond if the game goes to 3.5-4 base.
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Void rays are pretty strong if used right
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Seeker
Where dat snitch at?36919 Posts
Off Topic:
Why are some people posting with blue backgrounds?
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I feel like 3 base+ you should start relying on templar almost exclusively to try and do damage. They aren't as easily countered and can't be killed by a zerg production cycle of units.
Great guide btw.
Also
On December 09 2011 15:54 Seeker wrote:
Off Topic:
Why are some people posting with blue backgrounds?
BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE JUST DON'T GIVE A F@#!
Jokes aside, the posters with blue backgrounds are the higher rated players with a good posting history. Usually backed up by guides and a good amount of play experience.
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On December 09 2011 15:54 Seeker wrote:
Off Topic:
Why are some people posting with blue backgrounds?
They are posters that have proved to give useful posts in the past consistently. So their posts are "highlighted".
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Seeker
Where dat snitch at?36919 Posts
On December 09 2011 15:57 CaptainHaz wrote:I feel like 3 base+ you should start relying on templar almost exclusively to try and do damage. They aren't as easily countered and can't be killed by a zerg production cycle of units. Great guide btw. Also Show nested quote +On December 09 2011 15:54 Seeker wrote:
Off Topic:
Why are some people posting with blue backgrounds? BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE JUST DON'T GIVE A F@#! Jokes aside, the posters with blue backgrounds are the higher rated players with a good posting history. Usually backed up by guides and a good amount of play experience.
Who determines all these factors are true for said person?
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On December 09 2011 15:58 Seeker wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2011 15:57 CaptainHaz wrote:I feel like 3 base+ you should start relying on templar almost exclusively to try and do damage. They aren't as easily countered and can't be killed by a zerg production cycle of units. Great guide btw. Also On December 09 2011 15:54 Seeker wrote:
Off Topic:
Why are some people posting with blue backgrounds? BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE JUST DON'T GIVE A F@#! Jokes aside, the posters with blue backgrounds are the higher rated players with a good posting history. Usually backed up by guides and a good amount of play experience. Who determines all these factors are true for said person?
It is a mixture of the strategy forum mods and community recommendations.
And Jesus.
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On December 09 2011 13:07 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2011 08:16 NrGmonk wrote:On December 09 2011 07:15 kcdc wrote:
I'm going to weigh in on NB's side here and agree that double robo is wasteful. In theory, it's wasteful because you really only want 3 colossi max, and with just 1 robo, you can already get that with enough time for observers and warp prisms. In practice, Brown didn't do anything with his double robo in that game that he couldn't have done just as well (or better) with 1 robo. If he'd spent less on robo units, he would have started his fleet beacon transition earlier, and he wouldn't have lost that big fight which sent him scrambling.
Also, I think HT > colossi in the current metagame. In late game, P wants carrier/mothership/archon/storm with a dash of blink stalkers for mobility. Colossi are kind of cool for killing broodlings, but the only Z unit that can threaten you in that scenario is corruptors, so supply is better used on units that shoot up. So late game, HT > colossi.
In mid-game, colossi might be marginally better than HT against roach-hydra and roach-infestor, but they're worse against infestor-ling or bling, and they're awful if Z springs a muta transition on you. IMO, the problem with mid-game colossus tech is three-fold: (1) colossi, while strong in chokes and with forcefields, are rather vulnerable to flanks, corruptors, and they require your army to be balled together, (2) they're wasted spending if Z sneaks a muta transition by you, and (3) you have to get a lot of stalkers and sentries as support, and stalkers and sentries are pretty bad.
If you go HT instead, you have a more efficient path to your end-game deathball, you're much stronger against a muta transition, you can more easily split forces, and since HT don't require sentry support and need fewer stalkers for AA, you have more resources available for for stronger support units like immortals, zealots, archons and cannons.
Note that I list zealots as good combat units in PvZ. I should explain that zealots are good defensively and for harass, but they're very kitable when used for a straight push. The key to making zealots work defensively is denying creep and having void rays. The void rays punish roaches that try to score free kills on your zealots unless Z brings hydras, and bringing hydras off creep commits fully to an attack since they can't retreat against charelots. If you want to gear up for a mid-game timing with HT against roach-hydra, you're going to need cut zealots once you're safe and build more stalkers and immortals. Double-robo immortal can be good for this sort of timing if you know that Z's hive tech is delayed. I think it's quite naive to dismiss double robo completely. You base this conclusion off of your belief that you never want more than 3 colossi in your army, which is just plain wrong. In almost every single GSL level PvZ where the protoss goes colossi, the protoss will get 4+ colossi unless he dies before that point or mutas come. 3 colossi is just simply not enough in a maxed army to fight any maxed zerg army. You can have your opinion that ht > colossi generally, and I somewhat agree to an extent. The main flaws of ht, however, are that they're much harder to safely transition to and they're more gas heavy than colossi. I prefer ht over colossi generally if I had a choice to get them both safely. I also disagree that ht are better vs ling infestor or especially ling bling. A ling infestor player can transition to roach infestor vs ht and a ht player will have a hard time dealing with both bling flanks and bling drops with his lower stalker count/higher zealot count. HT are easy to get vs macro Z. Just open with voidray+zealot pressure, tech HT behind your push, and take an 11 minute third. Against 2-base Z, colossi are a good choice except against spire. As for 3 vs 4 colossi, okay, so you can get 4 colossi. My point is that you don't want to produce them for that long because they're very vulnerable if Z simply gets enough corruptors. They're not like HT where the tech can never be shut down.
I agree with monk here, kcdc's assertion that HT are generally better vs zerg is off imo. HT can be great but there are many situations where colossi are just better.
The problem with HT imo is that they require to be mixed with zealots because of gas constraints. Zealots can be fine in PvZ but against roach based compositions they just suck balls.
I'm no fan at all of the immortal/zealot/ht style against roach based play:
- you can't effectively use force fields anymore because you're more melee based then the zerg
- fungals are very effective against your zealots because they nullify their damage for a while.
- roaches have more health per cost then zealots and are faster, this makes it very hard to use storm effectively as they can retreat easily and let you hit your own zealots
- immortals are great vs roach but still very slow, this makes it very hard to push a full roach based army with ht/zealot/immortal as zerg can just kite back with roach nullifying the immortals.
When I play zealot/immortal/ht style against zerg it works fine unless they switch to full ranged unit usage (roach/infestor with later broods and some hydra). Pushing against them on creep is really hard because of kiting roaches (you lack the colossi to deal with that properly) and when they finally reach hive you have a problem: you need lots of immortals to deal with roach but you also need enough stalkers to deal with broods, just a very difficult balance imo.
Either way it is a viable playstyle perhaps but I just don't like it too much when i'm still in the dark if they are going roach or zergling based. If they end up going roach you'll probably need dual robo for enough immortals anyway at which point I think: why not simply go some colossi instead of ht then?
The overall lack of synergy between zealots and sentries against zerg is also a reason I just prefer stalker/sentry/colo styles. Colo play might be more vulnerable to muta but if you open stargate first with some phoenix for harass you already get a slight edge against that.
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On December 09 2011 20:18 Markwerf wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2011 13:07 kcdc wrote:On December 09 2011 08:16 NrGmonk wrote:On December 09 2011 07:15 kcdc wrote:
I'm going to weigh in on NB's side here and agree that double robo is wasteful. In theory, it's wasteful because you really only want 3 colossi max, and with just 1 robo, you can already get that with enough time for observers and warp prisms. In practice, Brown didn't do anything with his double robo in that game that he couldn't have done just as well (or better) with 1 robo. If he'd spent less on robo units, he would have started his fleet beacon transition earlier, and he wouldn't have lost that big fight which sent him scrambling.
Also, I think HT > colossi in the current metagame. In late game, P wants carrier/mothership/archon/storm with a dash of blink stalkers for mobility. Colossi are kind of cool for killing broodlings, but the only Z unit that can threaten you in that scenario is corruptors, so supply is better used on units that shoot up. So late game, HT > colossi.
In mid-game, colossi might be marginally better than HT against roach-hydra and roach-infestor, but they're worse against infestor-ling or bling, and they're awful if Z springs a muta transition on you. IMO, the problem with mid-game colossus tech is three-fold: (1) colossi, while strong in chokes and with forcefields, are rather vulnerable to flanks, corruptors, and they require your army to be balled together, (2) they're wasted spending if Z sneaks a muta transition by you, and (3) you have to get a lot of stalkers and sentries as support, and stalkers and sentries are pretty bad.
If you go HT instead, you have a more efficient path to your end-game deathball, you're much stronger against a muta transition, you can more easily split forces, and since HT don't require sentry support and need fewer stalkers for AA, you have more resources available for for stronger support units like immortals, zealots, archons and cannons.
Note that I list zealots as good combat units in PvZ. I should explain that zealots are good defensively and for harass, but they're very kitable when used for a straight push. The key to making zealots work defensively is denying creep and having void rays. The void rays punish roaches that try to score free kills on your zealots unless Z brings hydras, and bringing hydras off creep commits fully to an attack since they can't retreat against charelots. If you want to gear up for a mid-game timing with HT against roach-hydra, you're going to need cut zealots once you're safe and build more stalkers and immortals. Double-robo immortal can be good for this sort of timing if you know that Z's hive tech is delayed. I think it's quite naive to dismiss double robo completely. You base this conclusion off of your belief that you never want more than 3 colossi in your army, which is just plain wrong. In almost every single GSL level PvZ where the protoss goes colossi, the protoss will get 4+ colossi unless he dies before that point or mutas come. 3 colossi is just simply not enough in a maxed army to fight any maxed zerg army. You can have your opinion that ht > colossi generally, and I somewhat agree to an extent. The main flaws of ht, however, are that they're much harder to safely transition to and they're more gas heavy than colossi. I prefer ht over colossi generally if I had a choice to get them both safely. I also disagree that ht are better vs ling infestor or especially ling bling. A ling infestor player can transition to roach infestor vs ht and a ht player will have a hard time dealing with both bling flanks and bling drops with his lower stalker count/higher zealot count. HT are easy to get vs macro Z. Just open with voidray+zealot pressure, tech HT behind your push, and take an 11 minute third. Against 2-base Z, colossi are a good choice except against spire. As for 3 vs 4 colossi, okay, so you can get 4 colossi. My point is that you don't want to produce them for that long because they're very vulnerable if Z simply gets enough corruptors. They're not like HT where the tech can never be shut down. I agree with monk here, kcdc's assertion that HT are generally better vs zerg is off imo. HT can be great but there are many situations where colossi are just better. The problem with HT imo is that they require to be mixed with zealots because of gas constraints. Zealots can be fine in PvZ but against roach based compositions they just suck balls. I'm no fan at all of the immortal/zealot/ht style against roach based play: - you can't effectively use force fields anymore because you're more melee based then the zerg - fungals are very effective against your zealots because they nullify their damage for a while. - roaches have more health per cost then zealots and are faster, this makes it very hard to use storm effectively as they can retreat easily and let you hit your own zealots - immortals are great vs roach but still very slow, this makes it very hard to push a full roach based army with ht/zealot/immortal as zerg can just kite back with roach nullifying the immortals. When I play zealot/immortal/ht style against zerg it works fine unless they switch to full ranged unit usage (roach/infestor with later broods and some hydra). Pushing against them on creep is really hard because of kiting roaches (you lack the colossi to deal with that properly) and when they finally reach hive you have a problem: you need lots of immortals to deal with roach but you also need enough stalkers to deal with broods, just a very difficult balance imo. Either way it is a viable playstyle perhaps but I just don't like it too much when i'm still in the dark if they are going roach or zergling based. If they end up going roach you'll probably need dual robo for enough immortals anyway at which point I think: why not simply go some colossi instead of ht then? The overall lack of synergy between zealots and sentries against zerg is also a reason I just prefer stalker/sentry/colo styles. Colo play might be more vulnerable to muta but if you open stargate first with some phoenix for harass you already get a slight edge against that. I think that late game exchanges really favor IST more than SSC since zealots are basically supplementing sentries as melee forcefields. IST allows you to actually engage more cost effectively IMO since either the zerg is going to be eating storms, or moving out of them effectively reducing his army DPS. I do think a healthy stalker count is important though. After about 140 supply or so zealots stop being efficient even with charge. In addition to efficiency, corruptors become completely useless against this composition, there is no hard counter that zerg has for templar.
Basically the zealot count shouldn't be so high to make it your primary damage dealer. You want immortals/stalker/templars for that. This is also speaking 3+bases, I think stalker/colossus is quite fine when your gas income is limited.
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@ captainhaz,
I guess it really depends on the map, the zerg composition and your preference with either style. I find SSC much better against roach based play because it lets me get and defend my third much easier, you do rely on good forcefields more with it though. With IST you don't really need forcefields and the playstyle thus feels relatively better on open maps like tal darim. Zealot pressure also transitions much better into IST than SSC.
If you want to use carriers/mothership IST is also better than SSC perhaps because corruptors become harder to use for them. SSC forces them into some corruptors anyway while IST makes choosing the right number of corruptors very hard for them. IST also has more templars thus archons to abuse the mothership too.
I guess I have to practice straight IST more but I find it difficult to hold a third with it against potential roach pressure, perhaps quick immortals do the trick. Immortals can hit roaches from behind a wall since they got range 6 without being hit themselves.. Perhaps that's the trick to abuse to making that style work.
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United Kingdom36156 Posts
On December 09 2011 20:18 Markwerf wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2011 13:07 kcdc wrote:On December 09 2011 08:16 NrGmonk wrote:On December 09 2011 07:15 kcdc wrote:
I'm going to weigh in on NB's side here and agree that double robo is wasteful. In theory, it's wasteful because you really only want 3 colossi max, and with just 1 robo, you can already get that with enough time for observers and warp prisms. In practice, Brown didn't do anything with his double robo in that game that he couldn't have done just as well (or better) with 1 robo. If he'd spent less on robo units, he would have started his fleet beacon transition earlier, and he wouldn't have lost that big fight which sent him scrambling.
Also, I think HT > colossi in the current metagame. In late game, P wants carrier/mothership/archon/storm with a dash of blink stalkers for mobility. Colossi are kind of cool for killing broodlings, but the only Z unit that can threaten you in that scenario is corruptors, so supply is better used on units that shoot up. So late game, HT > colossi.
In mid-game, colossi might be marginally better than HT against roach-hydra and roach-infestor, but they're worse against infestor-ling or bling, and they're awful if Z springs a muta transition on you. IMO, the problem with mid-game colossus tech is three-fold: (1) colossi, while strong in chokes and with forcefields, are rather vulnerable to flanks, corruptors, and they require your army to be balled together, (2) they're wasted spending if Z sneaks a muta transition by you, and (3) you have to get a lot of stalkers and sentries as support, and stalkers and sentries are pretty bad.
If you go HT instead, you have a more efficient path to your end-game deathball, you're much stronger against a muta transition, you can more easily split forces, and since HT don't require sentry support and need fewer stalkers for AA, you have more resources available for for stronger support units like immortals, zealots, archons and cannons.
Note that I list zealots as good combat units in PvZ. I should explain that zealots are good defensively and for harass, but they're very kitable when used for a straight push. The key to making zealots work defensively is denying creep and having void rays. The void rays punish roaches that try to score free kills on your zealots unless Z brings hydras, and bringing hydras off creep commits fully to an attack since they can't retreat against charelots. If you want to gear up for a mid-game timing with HT against roach-hydra, you're going to need cut zealots once you're safe and build more stalkers and immortals. Double-robo immortal can be good for this sort of timing if you know that Z's hive tech is delayed. I think it's quite naive to dismiss double robo completely. You base this conclusion off of your belief that you never want more than 3 colossi in your army, which is just plain wrong. In almost every single GSL level PvZ where the protoss goes colossi, the protoss will get 4+ colossi unless he dies before that point or mutas come. 3 colossi is just simply not enough in a maxed army to fight any maxed zerg army. You can have your opinion that ht > colossi generally, and I somewhat agree to an extent. The main flaws of ht, however, are that they're much harder to safely transition to and they're more gas heavy than colossi. I prefer ht over colossi generally if I had a choice to get them both safely. I also disagree that ht are better vs ling infestor or especially ling bling. A ling infestor player can transition to roach infestor vs ht and a ht player will have a hard time dealing with both bling flanks and bling drops with his lower stalker count/higher zealot count. HT are easy to get vs macro Z. Just open with voidray+zealot pressure, tech HT behind your push, and take an 11 minute third. Against 2-base Z, colossi are a good choice except against spire. As for 3 vs 4 colossi, okay, so you can get 4 colossi. My point is that you don't want to produce them for that long because they're very vulnerable if Z simply gets enough corruptors. They're not like HT where the tech can never be shut down. - roaches have more health per cost then zealots
Kinda irrelevant, but afaik this is untrue. 100 minerals for 150hp vs 75/25 for 145hp, with the HP being equivalent I guess because Roaches have armour for all their HP. But 100 mins is cheaper than 75/25 after all.
Zealots are the best tanks in the game for cost I believe.
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On December 06 2011 05:27 darkscream wrote:
I don't think this is really revolutionary. Lots of people do early 3rd, it can be punished. Lots of people make motherships; splitting your army defeats vortex. Carriers actually are a waste of money (Adding more void rays would have been better), and it just reinforces the idea that zerg only needs to make 3/3 corruptors and infestors to beat protoss in the late game...
Glad to see another good protoss re-surface but it's not like his play just created a bunch of hard and fast rules overnight. I like the many-observers idea but I don't think it will catch on either - nor are his ideas totally original. The fake 4zealot poke and the light voidray pheonix into a third is standard play on the ladder for weeks.. And like most expand-behind-soft-contain strats the shit crumbles to the correct roach timings so, I guess we'll have to see if there is actually something to be learned in the coming weeks.
No, just no. His fast 3rd is hard to punish without him seeing it coming, and carriers are NOT a waste of money in any sense. For you to do ANYTHING against 4-5 carriers you need to be focus firing with your corruptors which lets the Toss easily vortex them. They're weak by themselves but when added to a composition that counters hydras (colossus) and corruptors (vortex/archons) they're insanely strong. Void rays are so, so, so, SO much worse late-game that it pains me to see Protoss players still build them as a counter.
3+ obs should be standard, with good control the small investment in 1-2 more obs is easily worth it.
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On December 09 2011 23:00 marvellosity wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2011 20:18 Markwerf wrote:On December 09 2011 13:07 kcdc wrote:On December 09 2011 08:16 NrGmonk wrote:On December 09 2011 07:15 kcdc wrote:
I'm going to weigh in on NB's side here and agree that double robo is wasteful. In theory, it's wasteful because you really only want 3 colossi max, and with just 1 robo, you can already get that with enough time for observers and warp prisms. In practice, Brown didn't do anything with his double robo in that game that he couldn't have done just as well (or better) with 1 robo. If he'd spent less on robo units, he would have started his fleet beacon transition earlier, and he wouldn't have lost that big fight which sent him scrambling.
Also, I think HT > colossi in the current metagame. In late game, P wants carrier/mothership/archon/storm with a dash of blink stalkers for mobility. Colossi are kind of cool for killing broodlings, but the only Z unit that can threaten you in that scenario is corruptors, so supply is better used on units that shoot up. So late game, HT > colossi.
In mid-game, colossi might be marginally better than HT against roach-hydra and roach-infestor, but they're worse against infestor-ling or bling, and they're awful if Z springs a muta transition on you. IMO, the problem with mid-game colossus tech is three-fold: (1) colossi, while strong in chokes and with forcefields, are rather vulnerable to flanks, corruptors, and they require your army to be balled together, (2) they're wasted spending if Z sneaks a muta transition by you, and (3) you have to get a lot of stalkers and sentries as support, and stalkers and sentries are pretty bad.
If you go HT instead, you have a more efficient path to your end-game deathball, you're much stronger against a muta transition, you can more easily split forces, and since HT don't require sentry support and need fewer stalkers for AA, you have more resources available for for stronger support units like immortals, zealots, archons and cannons.
Note that I list zealots as good combat units in PvZ. I should explain that zealots are good defensively and for harass, but they're very kitable when used for a straight push. The key to making zealots work defensively is denying creep and having void rays. The void rays punish roaches that try to score free kills on your zealots unless Z brings hydras, and bringing hydras off creep commits fully to an attack since they can't retreat against charelots. If you want to gear up for a mid-game timing with HT against roach-hydra, you're going to need cut zealots once you're safe and build more stalkers and immortals. Double-robo immortal can be good for this sort of timing if you know that Z's hive tech is delayed. I think it's quite naive to dismiss double robo completely. You base this conclusion off of your belief that you never want more than 3 colossi in your army, which is just plain wrong. In almost every single GSL level PvZ where the protoss goes colossi, the protoss will get 4+ colossi unless he dies before that point or mutas come. 3 colossi is just simply not enough in a maxed army to fight any maxed zerg army. You can have your opinion that ht > colossi generally, and I somewhat agree to an extent. The main flaws of ht, however, are that they're much harder to safely transition to and they're more gas heavy than colossi. I prefer ht over colossi generally if I had a choice to get them both safely. I also disagree that ht are better vs ling infestor or especially ling bling. A ling infestor player can transition to roach infestor vs ht and a ht player will have a hard time dealing with both bling flanks and bling drops with his lower stalker count/higher zealot count. HT are easy to get vs macro Z. Just open with voidray+zealot pressure, tech HT behind your push, and take an 11 minute third. Against 2-base Z, colossi are a good choice except against spire. As for 3 vs 4 colossi, okay, so you can get 4 colossi. My point is that you don't want to produce them for that long because they're very vulnerable if Z simply gets enough corruptors. They're not like HT where the tech can never be shut down. - roaches have more health per cost then zealots Kinda irrelevant, but afaik this is untrue. 100 minerals for 150hp vs 75/25 for 145hp, with the HP being equivalent I guess because Roaches have armour for all their HP. But 100 mins is cheaper than 75/25 after all. Zealots are the best tanks in the game for cost I believe.
Well they are virtually equal. Roaches have 1 armor on their entire hp, zealots only on 2/3rd. Also gas intake is about as fast as mineral intake so you can't really say minerals are 'cheaper'. The point is pretty moot though, i only stated it to show that storming on top of roaches fighting zealots is usually not going to do much good, because you are likely to hit as much zealots as roaches often. Unlike zealots vs marines where storming both is a pretty good deal given marines have 110 hp for 100 mins vs 150 for zeals with 100 min.
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Giving a hero unit to only 1 race in the game is a horrible design.
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On December 09 2011 20:18 Markwerf wrote:
The problem with HT imo is that they require to be mixed with zealots because of gas constraints. Zealots can be fine in PvZ but against roach based compositions they just suck balls.
I'm no fan at all of the immortal/zealot/ht style against roach based play:
- you can't effectively use force fields anymore because you're more melee based then the zerg
- fungals are very effective against your zealots because they nullify their damage for a while.
- roaches have more health per cost then zealots and are faster, this makes it very hard to use storm effectively as they can retreat easily and let you hit your own zealots
- immortals are great vs roach but still very slow, this makes it very hard to push a full roach based army with ht/zealot/immortal as zerg can just kite back with roach nullifying the immortals.
When I play zealot/immortal/ht style against zerg it works fine unless they switch to full ranged unit usage (roach/infestor with later broods and some hydra). Pushing against them on creep is really hard because of kiting roaches (you lack the colossi to deal with that properly) and when they finally reach hive you have a problem: you need lots of immortals to deal with roach but you also need enough stalkers to deal with broods, just a very difficult balance imo.
Either way it is a viable playstyle perhaps but I just don't like it too much when i'm still in the dark if they are going roach or zergling based. If they end up going roach you'll probably need dual robo for enough immortals anyway at which point I think: why not simply go some colossi instead of ht then?
The overall lack of synergy between zealots and sentries against zerg is also a reason I just prefer stalker/sentry/colo styles. Colo play might be more vulnerable to muta but if you open stargate first with some phoenix for harass you already get a slight edge against that.
First, I should say that I play macro PvZ without sentries if at all possible. My though process is that they're wasted spending if Z goes mutas or infestors, so I avoid spending on them in early game before I know Z's tech path. In mid-game, they're fine if Z commits to roaches, but by that point, I think there's better options for your gas (void rays, immortals, templar, upgrades, tech).
If you play that style, zealots are one of P's best units vs roaches. They tank and do a ton of DPS. It's a misconception to say zealots suck against roaches. People say that because they don't give their zealots void ray support.
Against roach+infestor, colossi are probably better. But you can handle that comp with a mixture of chargelots, immortals, templar, and blink stalkers to snipe infestors.
Your issue with hive tech seems ill-formed. Immortals are bad against broodlords, sure, but so are blink stalkers. If you're fighting broodlords with blink stalkers, you've let Z hit a timing window where you don't have the right unit composition to deal with his. You want to drop your fleet beacon as soon as you see Z going hive.
I'll say that I copied my PvZ style from rsvp (one of the best NA Protoss and whose strongest MU is PvZ), and I was terrible at the MU before I started dropping the sentries and relying on zealot+void. Now PvZ might be my strongest MU. I think that given enough time, we'll see the metagame shift toward this style because it's better able to adapt to the variety of looks that Z can give you in the mid-game, and it's more efficiently geared to end-game.
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On December 09 2011 23:57 Markwerf wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2011 23:00 marvellosity wrote:On December 09 2011 20:18 Markwerf wrote:On December 09 2011 13:07 kcdc wrote:On December 09 2011 08:16 NrGmonk wrote:On December 09 2011 07:15 kcdc wrote:
I'm going to weigh in on NB's side here and agree that double robo is wasteful. In theory, it's wasteful because you really only want 3 colossi max, and with just 1 robo, you can already get that with enough time for observers and warp prisms. In practice, Brown didn't do anything with his double robo in that game that he couldn't have done just as well (or better) with 1 robo. If he'd spent less on robo units, he would have started his fleet beacon transition earlier, and he wouldn't have lost that big fight which sent him scrambling.
Also, I think HT > colossi in the current metagame. In late game, P wants carrier/mothership/archon/storm with a dash of blink stalkers for mobility. Colossi are kind of cool for killing broodlings, but the only Z unit that can threaten you in that scenario is corruptors, so supply is better used on units that shoot up. So late game, HT > colossi.
In mid-game, colossi might be marginally better than HT against roach-hydra and roach-infestor, but they're worse against infestor-ling or bling, and they're awful if Z springs a muta transition on you. IMO, the problem with mid-game colossus tech is three-fold: (1) colossi, while strong in chokes and with forcefields, are rather vulnerable to flanks, corruptors, and they require your army to be balled together, (2) they're wasted spending if Z sneaks a muta transition by you, and (3) you have to get a lot of stalkers and sentries as support, and stalkers and sentries are pretty bad.
If you go HT instead, you have a more efficient path to your end-game deathball, you're much stronger against a muta transition, you can more easily split forces, and since HT don't require sentry support and need fewer stalkers for AA, you have more resources available for for stronger support units like immortals, zealots, archons and cannons.
Note that I list zealots as good combat units in PvZ. I should explain that zealots are good defensively and for harass, but they're very kitable when used for a straight push. The key to making zealots work defensively is denying creep and having void rays. The void rays punish roaches that try to score free kills on your zealots unless Z brings hydras, and bringing hydras off creep commits fully to an attack since they can't retreat against charelots. If you want to gear up for a mid-game timing with HT against roach-hydra, you're going to need cut zealots once you're safe and build more stalkers and immortals. Double-robo immortal can be good for this sort of timing if you know that Z's hive tech is delayed. I think it's quite naive to dismiss double robo completely. You base this conclusion off of your belief that you never want more than 3 colossi in your army, which is just plain wrong. In almost every single GSL level PvZ where the protoss goes colossi, the protoss will get 4+ colossi unless he dies before that point or mutas come. 3 colossi is just simply not enough in a maxed army to fight any maxed zerg army. You can have your opinion that ht > colossi generally, and I somewhat agree to an extent. The main flaws of ht, however, are that they're much harder to safely transition to and they're more gas heavy than colossi. I prefer ht over colossi generally if I had a choice to get them both safely. I also disagree that ht are better vs ling infestor or especially ling bling. A ling infestor player can transition to roach infestor vs ht and a ht player will have a hard time dealing with both bling flanks and bling drops with his lower stalker count/higher zealot count. HT are easy to get vs macro Z. Just open with voidray+zealot pressure, tech HT behind your push, and take an 11 minute third. Against 2-base Z, colossi are a good choice except against spire. As for 3 vs 4 colossi, okay, so you can get 4 colossi. My point is that you don't want to produce them for that long because they're very vulnerable if Z simply gets enough corruptors. They're not like HT where the tech can never be shut down. - roaches have more health per cost then zealots Kinda irrelevant, but afaik this is untrue. 100 minerals for 150hp vs 75/25 for 145hp, with the HP being equivalent I guess because Roaches have armour for all their HP. But 100 mins is cheaper than 75/25 after all. Zealots are the best tanks in the game for cost I believe. Well they are virtually equal. Roaches have 1 armor on their entire hp, zealots only on 2/3rd. Also gas intake is about as fast as mineral intake so you can't really say minerals are 'cheaper'. The point is pretty moot though, i only stated it to show that storming on top of roaches fighting zealots is usually not going to do much good, because you are likely to hit as much zealots as roaches often. Unlike zealots vs marines where storming both is a pretty good deal given marines have 110 hp for 100 mins vs 150 for zeals with 100 min.
Storm isn't for the roaches--it's for the hydras. Voids protect the zealots, templar protect the voids, and zealots protect the templar. Immortals boost the DPS.
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On December 10 2011 00:19 kcdc wrote:
First, I should say that I play macro PvZ without sentries if at all possible. My though process is that they're wasted spending if Z goes mutas or infestors, so I avoid spending on them in early game before I know Z's tech path. In mid-game, they're fine if Z commits to roaches, but by that point, I think there's better options for your gas (void rays, immortals, templar, upgrades, tech).
Isn't guardian shield more or less OP against mutas? It cuts the damage hardcore.
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United States8476 Posts
On December 09 2011 13:07 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2011 08:16 NrGmonk wrote:On December 09 2011 07:15 kcdc wrote:
I'm going to weigh in on NB's side here and agree that double robo is wasteful. In theory, it's wasteful because you really only want 3 colossi max, and with just 1 robo, you can already get that with enough time for observers and warp prisms. In practice, Brown didn't do anything with his double robo in that game that he couldn't have done just as well (or better) with 1 robo. If he'd spent less on robo units, he would have started his fleet beacon transition earlier, and he wouldn't have lost that big fight which sent him scrambling.
Also, I think HT > colossi in the current metagame. In late game, P wants carrier/mothership/archon/storm with a dash of blink stalkers for mobility. Colossi are kind of cool for killing broodlings, but the only Z unit that can threaten you in that scenario is corruptors, so supply is better used on units that shoot up. So late game, HT > colossi.
In mid-game, colossi might be marginally better than HT against roach-hydra and roach-infestor, but they're worse against infestor-ling or bling, and they're awful if Z springs a muta transition on you. IMO, the problem with mid-game colossus tech is three-fold: (1) colossi, while strong in chokes and with forcefields, are rather vulnerable to flanks, corruptors, and they require your army to be balled together, (2) they're wasted spending if Z sneaks a muta transition by you, and (3) you have to get a lot of stalkers and sentries as support, and stalkers and sentries are pretty bad.
If you go HT instead, you have a more efficient path to your end-game deathball, you're much stronger against a muta transition, you can more easily split forces, and since HT don't require sentry support and need fewer stalkers for AA, you have more resources available for for stronger support units like immortals, zealots, archons and cannons.
Note that I list zealots as good combat units in PvZ. I should explain that zealots are good defensively and for harass, but they're very kitable when used for a straight push. The key to making zealots work defensively is denying creep and having void rays. The void rays punish roaches that try to score free kills on your zealots unless Z brings hydras, and bringing hydras off creep commits fully to an attack since they can't retreat against charelots. If you want to gear up for a mid-game timing with HT against roach-hydra, you're going to need cut zealots once you're safe and build more stalkers and immortals. Double-robo immortal can be good for this sort of timing if you know that Z's hive tech is delayed. I think it's quite naive to dismiss double robo completely. You base this conclusion off of your belief that you never want more than 3 colossi in your army, which is just plain wrong. In almost every single GSL level PvZ where the protoss goes colossi, the protoss will get 4+ colossi unless he dies before that point or mutas come. 3 colossi is just simply not enough in a maxed army to fight any maxed zerg army. You can have your opinion that ht > colossi generally, and I somewhat agree to an extent. The main flaws of ht, however, are that they're much harder to safely transition to and they're more gas heavy than colossi. I prefer ht over colossi generally if I had a choice to get them both safely. I also disagree that ht are better vs ling infestor or especially ling bling. A ling infestor player can transition to roach infestor vs ht and a ht player will have a hard time dealing with both bling flanks and bling drops with his lower stalker count/higher zealot count. HT are easy to get vs macro Z. Just open with voidray+zealot pressure, tech HT behind your push, and take an 11 minute third. Against 2-base Z, colossi are a good choice except against spire. As for 3 vs 4 colossi, okay, so you can get 4 colossi. My point is that you don't want to produce them for that long because they're very vulnerable if Z simply gets enough corruptors. They're not like HT where the tech can never be shut down.
Ht are much harder to get out than colossi. The first problem is that you have to do a specific tech pattern to get HT out. Every high level HT opener I've seen starts with a stargate. On the other hand, there's an innumerable number of ways to get out Colossi.
Secondly, while I think 4 templar with full energy are worth about 3-4 colossi in an end game death ball, your first 4 templar(which is about the right number for your initial warpin of templar) is not as good at holding off roach/hydra or roach/corruptor attacks as just 1 colossi without range, which actually comes faster than those 4 templar. You may damage the roaches a bit, but you don't have the consistent AoE to kill the reinforcement roaches.
All this combined has led to the following problem: It's very hard to get templar out fast on any medium sized maps such as metal, shattered, or Antiga. In fact, in pro games, the only maps where Ht are gotten are the first tech include Daybreak and Talderim.(I'm not saying, however, that they're not viable on other maps.)
So to sum it up, I do think ht are overall better if you can safely get them out. However, both colossi and ht have their individual strengths and weaknesses and one of the biggest Colossi advantages over ht is how easy it is to safely get them out in comparison.
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EPT
