TL;DR, I just got promoted to Diamond a few weeks ago and since I stopped doing the so popular 1/1/1 all-in build (which gave me a pretty high win rate of +/- 90%) and switched to a more economic focused play style like the 1 Rax expand (or in the case of this replay the 2Rax offensive) I'm having a lot of problems with mid- till lategame Protoss. For me the variety of the death ball seems endless and nearly any composition feels like an overwhelming force compared to my MMMGV.
I'm focussing harder on Ghost and Vikings now, because I think the two factors will decide the end of any battle:
1. Collosus focus with Vikings from an optimale angle. 2. Hitting with good EMPs
I have the feeling that if I fail any of those and Stim+A Click this will be the end of the game quite soon with the result that my army gets crushed, even though I'm even on upgrades.
In one of the replays I uploaded, I scout his Dark Shrine and even destroy it, plus I get his Twillight Council. Even considering that he got his natural very late I still manage to lose that game somehow. I know that my engagement was more than poorly, so that's the reason I lost, right? I should haved concentrate on my macro and just keep my advantage.
But back to my main question:
How to effectly deal with the Archon/Chargelot mix? I can't get a good idea of how to beat this composition. I'm grateful for any advice. Thanks my friends
Key to beating a chargelot archon army is having the right composition. You want mostly ghosts and marines (say 3:1 marines to marauders) and like i prefer having about 13 ghosts with cloak, but you want at the very least 6 ghosts.
Yeah, mid-lategame TvP is tough right now. I don't think theres an easy answer other than simply playing better than your opponent. I would argue against a marine-heavy bio ball, both Archons and Storm will dominate Marines. Yeah Marauders suck against Zeal/Archon too, but at least you're not risking the game on making perfect EMPs.
I've had the most success against Zeal/Archon in the lategame by trading out some (not all) Marines for Hellions and Vikings for Banshees.
Hellions are actually pretty good against Templar. Just having a handful forces the P to either keep their HTs back or make Collosi. They don't take much damage from Archons because they're not bio and have a larger unit box. They're fast and mobile enough to dodge 3+ storms just like Marauders, and they don't require Medivac support.
The key thing is not to overmake Hellions, because they suck vs every other unit composition. You just want to make enough to encourage the P to go back to Robo/Stargate, which MMMGV handles quite well.
From a protoss point of view, i have many Problems with mass medivac that heals the huuuuge bioball + kitting, because my sentrys are to slow so you cant really forcefield the Terrans army... I think its kinda hard if the terran just kites, no matter if there are tons of chargelots, the archons slow to in comparison to stimmed bio. And Chargelots melt to mass healing without doing to much damage. Iam kinda stuck right now. Even Lost a Game where i was goin Nexux first/ Nexux/forge/ gateway xD
General advice for terran facing chargelot/archon:
1. Choose your fights, scan area of your attack if you are venturing deep into enemy territory. You need a kite/escape route (back where you came from). It is easy to get surprised / surrounded by chargelots and you want to avoid that.
2. Stutter-step: whenever engaging zealot/archon ball, you want to stim + stutter step micro (alternating fire/move commands) to minimize the bio-concave of chargelots (i.e. have the zealots running in line after you instead of surrounding you). Run extra when you need to dodge storms.
3. Upgrades. Chargelot/archon builds often involve 2x chronoboosted forges. If you see P forces are at a significant upgrade advantage, do everything you can to avoid a direct army confrontation at least until your current bio upgrades are finished. Needless to say, you will need 2x engineering bays to keep up with P.
4. Ghosts are the key: Chargelots tend to aggregate in tight formations and you should be able to get juicy EMPs off. Archons are a joke if you brought ample ghosts. If you are heavy on ghosts, chain snipe zealots will also reduce their numbers at an insane rate. Cloaked ghosts + viking/scan to eliminate P observers is a very nice way to gain sick EMPs before a game-ending battle. In theory, Raven seeker missile would be a fun addition when up against hordes of zealots!
EDIT 5. Air control: the chargelot/archon army composition is another way of P saying "you can have air superiority". Cloacked banshees with 1 viking to snipe observers would in theory be a viable addition to the terran army.
This one is tough, because the best way to engage the zealots is to ball to reduce the surface the area. But archons have splash and that is just what they want. But if you spread you are given those zealot the perfect chance to get at you. IMO best approach is to never just stand there and engage. Keep kiting away from their ball. This should start whittling down the number of zealots. When there are fewer zealots then try to engage and spread your units. But you will have to keep dancing around waiting for a really good moment to attack.
I was wondering... if kiting is considered one of the best way to approach this formation, wouldn't marauders with cuncussive be a good choice, even if they have a lower dps against this composition?
- they make kiting zealots a LOT better (of course after the initial inevitable charge)
- they resist better to storms
- being bigger, they are less vulnerable to archons' area damage
- with their longer range, they can kite Archons' too a bit better
Of course they are going to cut in the gas available for ghosts, which would be in lower number..
yes thats why you have some marauders mixed in, but not a lot. Your only gonna be hitting / slowing the zealots in the front anyway so you dont need that many.
Well of course the terran mid-late game bioball vs P consists of marauder focused marine-marauder-medivac-ghost (MMMG) + vikings. Naturally the marauders need concussive shells.
And kiting is the only correct way to approach the protoss army until the chargelots are dead
only thing i can tell you when someone is going Chargelot/Archons is to drop.
i remember select demolishing a protoss on antiga with medivac heavy play. you should look for that game.gsl code a i think
but then this charge thing shifted away in to blink first. and that is why artosis is keep saying get blink first on his stream. because you can NOT deal with drops with Chargelot/Archons choke points/high ground/low ground.just pick him apart
but im not talking about late game here im talking about mid game.
u had the first game won. Ive paused it at 9:30, initial notes:
* stim and combat shields should both be done by 9:45, you took waaay too long on those. Neither of those were done at 12:30 and you engaged the P - disastrous! Conc shell is nice but it comes last im my books. Combat shields first.
* get an ebay at 6:00. This is for DT insurance and the +1 weapons to combine with stim. Put a tower behind your rax. So many times the P will inadvertently run his obs over your turret and die.
* lastly, try to use your depots adjacent to your rax as a wall so your troops can get out but DTs can just waltz in. Build 3rd or 4th rax outside. Leave SPort in your base like u did.
I tend to focus more on my macro than on my unit composition except when dealing with very heavy storm or more than 4 collosus.
In general, if your macro is solid and your upgrades are equal to your opponent Chargelot Archon by itself should not beat you unless you just get completely stomped on a single engagement which shouldn't happen normally without Storm/Collosus. Z/A stops being cost efficient in larger engagements, while it is very good in smaller sub-200/200 engagements. It also doesn't scale as well with upgrades as Terran bio does.
That being said, a few keys to handling Chargelot/Archon is to make sure you choose your engagements carefully. Chokes are your friend unless they are sentry heavy in which case their archon count is likely to be much lower.
On January 12 2012 19:17 Aervhorn wrote: EDIT 5. Air control: the chargelot/archon army composition is another way of P saying "you can have air superiority". Cloacked banshees with 1 viking to snipe observers would in theory be a viable addition to the terran army.
Or Battlecruisers. Yamato Cannon is pretty good against Archons, and with their size, they don't take as much splash damage as Banshees.
Keep in mind that chargelot archon deals really badly with A) Drops B) Chokes
If you spot your protoss opponent going for a heavy chargelot archon play, ulitize your mobillity advantage and keep your main army behind a wall or in the very least in a choke. This will completely destroy the composition.
If you leave your unit in the middle of the map trying to take 40 zealots head on you are doing it wrong
Like somone said, add more Ghost, Banshee Hellion instead so many Marines
The main army should be Marauder Hellion Medivac -> Banshee + Ghost
Banshees does more damage than Vikings to Colosus, you only need Cloack and learn to kill the Obs with 2 Vikings if you like, if you have skill and can use that mixes propperly, no one Protoss will beat you wit simply A+Click or throwing few Storms
Look at Sinistry's Anti Colossi Build for more info, it could help you, GL
Play even more greedy. Bunkers are really good. Build really fast inbase 3rd and pump workers from it, then lift it out to ur third when going out to put pressure on toss at ~11 min.
Just faced this today and i dunno how to beat this.
>>How to effectly deal with the Archon/Chargelot mix?
The only times I've beaten chargelot/archon/templar is when I've had an overwhelming supply advantage. (170 vs 140 for example) Nailing EMPs on top of all of the templar is too hard now with the EMP nerf. I stopped trying late game macro and decided to bitbybit my TvP and focus on crippling the protoss in the early game.
If you do want to try it, I suggest high medivac count and a reasonable viking count based on number of colossi. (If you have more than 10 vikings you're going to lose on the ground, unless protoss is getting >4 colossus) Hide behind 8 or so bunkers and planetaries and try dropping mm everywhere. (Make sure you select your most depleted medivacs for this purpose since you can expect protoss to have templar at all expansions) If protoss doesn't have any templar in his army then you could mass about 25 ghosts and send 2-3 emps to every archon. Focus them after they lose shields. Make sure to have a good spread and kite micro every flank of your army separately against zealots.
The best thing I can suggest though is to play to your race's strengths. Macroing until limit plays into the protoss hands. Instead, open reactor techlab barracks with immediate stim research (skip conc) and take an earlier expansion than your opponent. If protoss took a disgustingly early expansion, bring a few scvs along with your army and cancel it for him.
On January 12 2012 23:20 Bulldozor wrote: Keep in mind that chargelot archon deals really badly with A) Drops B) Chokes
If you spot your protoss opponent going for a heavy chargelot archon play, ulitize your mobillity advantage and keep your main army behind a wall or in the very least in a choke. This will completely destroy the composition.
If you leave your unit in the middle of the map trying to take 40 zealots head on you are doing it wrong
Warping in charglots does very well against drops, as charglots raaaaape bio. And they will probably have HT around their bases to feedback dropships
On January 12 2012 23:32 joopajoo wrote: What the hell do i do when they have everything? e.g zealot,stalker,sentry,HT,archon,colossi.
In all seriousness and whining aside. If they are maxed on a deathball on 4 bases. You have almost certainly lost. Thats how bio works vs Protoss. Its just the nature of it.
On January 12 2012 22:35 Fossa wrote: I'm a protoss player and have found that terran players win when they use emps and kite. Megumixbear says that you should spread your army.
Archons deal a lot of splash damage, you have to kite/spread to make them less effective. ♥
1) Positioning - you want to force your opponent's chargelots through a narrow choke. If that can't be achieved, try to fight in a position where you have freedom to retreat/stutterstep, and somewhere you can avoid your bio ball getting completely surrounded (somewhere near a cliff or something).
2) Unit compositon - if he has 0 stalkers, you don't need a ton of marauders. The later the game goes, the less likely it is he will have Guardian shield, so marines will perform better vs his unit mix than marauders. You want a few for concussive shells, but not too many.
3) EMPs - you need to hit the Archons with as many EMPs as possible. Be liberal with your scans and see if he has any HTs with storm so you can save the necessary number of EMPs for those, then spend the rest on archons.
4) Upgrades - you need to stay at least even with the protoss in upgrades. Try to line up your strategy so that the times you move out on the map is when an attack upgrade finishes - that way you've got the biggest chance of being even in upgrades with the protoss when the engagements happen. If you can trade somewhat evenly with a protoss when you're both 1/1 he won't have a lot of army to engage you when his 2/2 finishes.
Well you could abuse the fact that his army doesn't have the drop stomping potential of blink stalkers and just do annoying 8 marine drops in the main and expo until he gets frustrated enough to move out and chose a bad engagement. Also since upgrades are a big part of chargelot archon you could try to drop in with marauders and try to snipe forges.
if he has 2 different units in his army, you shouldnt have more than 2 different units in your army too. that's what day9 calls a "lean composition." just do one starport MMM and scout for a transiton, then add on ghost academy
Watched the first game. I think you could've won the first battle easily if you had stim and shields. You did get trapped by FF, so you couldn't kite away, but if you had stim and shields, you could have dealt enough damage to win that battle.
30 Ghosts + enough vikings to beat whatever Colossi they have beats any Protoss deathball regardless of number of bases or resources. Even if they have 30 gates it will still take a minute for any warped-in templar to be effective, so you can just walk to their main and tear it down after you beat their main army.
Ghosts have the same DPS/supply as marines, in any mass resource maxed situation they trump anything.
You might be right though about the mass ghost composition. I saw Major doing that kind of play but personally would like to see some replays or vods of it in action to see if its gimmicky or not. I'll try to test it out in some of my games as well.
On January 12 2012 23:32 joopajoo wrote: What the hell do i do when they have everything? e.g zealot,stalker,sentry,HT,archon,colossi.
Unit composition is probably the most important thing when it comes to late game battles. You need everything yourself in this situation, MMM ghosts and vikings, and you need the right amount. Then it becomes a battle of vikings trying to hit the colossus and dodging stalkers, and of course better position + whoever nails the EMPs or storms when you finally engage.
If your composition lacks enough ghosts or vikings to deal with the templar and colossus, you will get rolled 100% even on same supply or slightly ahead. The best thing you can do is try and stall until you get the necessary units out and try to do some drop harass.
Make sure to drop a scan around 50 supply to see the if the protoss is going colossus or high templar so you can immediately start making vikings or ghosts.
You might be right though about the mass ghost composition. I saw Major doing that kind of play but personally would like to see some replays or vods of it in action to see if its gimmicky or not. I'll try to test it out in some of my games as well.
It's the same DPS/supply ratio when both sides are fully upgraded. (I probably should have mentioned that) Protoss ground has 4 armor, so marines do 5 damage a shot for 8.72 DPS, while Ghosts do 22 damage a shot for 17.6 DPS or 8.8 DPS/supply.
i saw a friend of mine (GM on na/eu) go for 3 factory helions, getting blue flame for them while just having marine/marauder/ghost still.
Just because the splash for the zealots is super effective - makes it abit easier, the downside is ofcourse - less minerals for marines. but i haven't played to much vs protoss yet who dont try to murder me before the mid game - so havent been able to test it out. seems cool tho ^^ aswell - 10helions is quite much the ideal thing you want, but you just want them quick. hence the 3 factories i guess, im a newb! dont shoot me ;(
You might be right though about the mass ghost composition. I saw Major doing that kind of play but personally would like to see some replays or vods of it in action to see if its gimmicky or not. I'll try to test it out in some of my games as well.
It's the same DPS/supply ratio when both sides are fully upgraded. (I probably should have mentioned that) Protoss ground has 4 armor, so marines do 5 damage a shot for 8.72 DPS, while Ghosts do 22 damage a shot for 17.6 DPS or 8.8 DPS/supply.
Thats only against light units. hellions suck for the same reason a simple stalker switch and its over but they lack upgrades as well.
You might be right though about the mass ghost composition. I saw Major doing that kind of play but personally would like to see some replays or vods of it in action to see if its gimmicky or not. I'll try to test it out in some of my games as well.
It's the same DPS/supply ratio when both sides are fully upgraded. (I probably should have mentioned that) Protoss ground has 4 armor, so marines do 5 damage a shot for 8.72 DPS, while Ghosts do 22 damage a shot for 17.6 DPS or 8.8 DPS/supply.
I dont really see why it matters that much because isnt it still all about the emps/snipes more so than the clean up afterwards? in which case vs zealots archon comp ghosts would way outperform marines right? and if they did a tech switch then suddenly you have the infrastructure to support lots of marauders... I donno though because I'm a toss player
edit: I think my point was like 15-20 ghosts wouldnt be too much I feel, possibly even more
Against Chargelot/Archon its best to just have a lot of ghost at least 8-12 and get some great EMPs because if you don't thats it. Another thing that is really hard at the moment for me is that even with great production if you trade armies the toss will win, he can remax a lot faster. So your going to want to snipe the obs and have cloak for your ghost.
To summarise what I saw in the (edit) metalopolis game was that you had walked out with your Marine/marauder raven combo to guard against DTs. However even though you scanned (or alternatively a raven autoturret/PDD as ur forward spotter, you walked right into FF range, got FF cup raped and then lost against the counterattack.
1. You were too busy looking for the kill because you assumed he was going to continue DT production. However his switch to sentries caught you offguard and you stepped forward too far. If I saw his composition, I wouldn't have started a fight unless I had medivacs to try and lift my guys out of FF pockets. You have to stay right on the outskirts of your attacking range if you do engage. Otherwise maybe defensive macro yourself a third and use medivacs drops to abuse his immobility?
2. As soon as you realised your expeditionary force was going to die, you needed to be johnny on the spot with defensive bunkers or other structures to create a choke. But you let your army sit in front of your natural, and they melted against the zealot onslaught. Fighting from a good choke(standing in the space between the mineral line and the natural CC) would have made his life a lot harder. You also needed to focus down those guardian shields. Alternatively you could try kiting through the mineral line, or an scv pull because you did not have a sufficient army at your own base.
But please take my analysis with a grain of salt.. I'm only a lowly goldy.
On January 12 2012 23:32 joopajoo wrote: What the hell do i do when they have everything? e.g zealot,stalker,sentry,HT,archon,colossi.
In all seriousness and whining aside. If they are maxed on a deathball on 4 bases. You have almost certainly lost. Thats how bio works vs Protoss. Its just the nature of it.
Dont let them get there.
So completely and utterly wrong. If you are Terran and Protoss has everything he wants then the onus (and result of the game) rests purely on you. It's (IMO) much harder to engage as Terran but if done correctly (so frickin' hard, btw) then Terran should always win this fight and then take the game. Both sides claim this is OP, but with EMP now having the same radius as storm (and still being totally badass) it just comes down to micro. Toss has a chance to win and so does Terran. If one side micros perfectly and the other doesn't the better micro wins (if both sides micro perfectly Terran wins also, but this is actually impossible).
You need to have enough ghosts and vikings as well as the right mix of marine/marauder and you need to micro your units all quite well (kiting continuously, landing all of your EMPs, focus-firing Colossi, etc).
Protoss is not stronger than Terran in late game (I would rather be Terran in late game than Protoss in fact), they are both awesome in the late game. I play random, btw.
EPT
