forge expand into a 2 base allin. its sad but right now thats the only chance protoss has because there simply is no cost efficient counter to infestor/broods

Mjolnir

912 Posts

January 24 2012 20:24 GMT

#43

I'm going to ask a noobish question.

Are void rays completely useless in this scenario? It seems like they'd be decent anti air since they beat corruptors, and once those are gone they've got control of the sky. I guess infestors are a problem with FG and IT, but would spreading the VRs out, or trying to vortex the infestors instead of the broods be an option?

I don't play Protoss. I'm a Z and T player. So I could be way off base thinking this is possible.

rustypipe

Canada206 Posts

January 24 2012 21:58 GMT

#44

I don't see what the problem is here, just do what every other protoss player does and 2 base 8gateway blink stalker push him if you see this. You will crush him at the 11:30-12:30 mark which is WAAAAAAAAY before he can get up enough infestors / broordlords. Hell get an observer, collo, or any air unit and just blink up into his base to avoid the spine line.

monk

United States8477 Posts

January 24 2012 23:34 GMT

#45

On January 25 2012 05:24 Mjolnir wrote:

I'm going to ask a noobish question.

Are void rays completely useless in this scenario? It seems like they'd be decent anti air since they beat corruptors, and once those are gone they've got control of the sky. I guess infestors are a problem with FG and IT, but would spreading the VRs out, or trying to vortex the infestors instead of the broods be an option?

I don't play Protoss. I'm a Z and T player. So I could be way off base thinking this is possible.

Yea, FG and IT along with a few corruptors are a huge problem. ITs with +3 kill voidrays so quickly.

On January 25 2012 06:58 rustypipe wrote:
I don't see what the problem is here, just do what every other protoss player does and 2 base 8gateway blink stalker push him if you see this. You will crush him at the 11:30-12:30 mark which is WAAAAAAAAY before he can get up enough infestors / broordlords. Hell get an observer, collo, or any air unit and just blink up into his base to avoid the spine line.

How are you supposed to scout this before 11:30? Do you usually see infestors and broodlords at 11:30?

neoghaleon55

United States7435 Posts

January 26 2012 22:14 GMT

#46

On January 24 2012 15:47 cLunAsTyY wrote:

B: Yes spines do actually combat alot of army. Since the theory of this build is rely on roach infestor till you get hive once you get hive(well broods) you win. The spines are essential. There will be a timing 80% of the protoss players will try to hit once you're morphing greater spire. The spines force protoss to make a decision. X: Full out engage spines + roach + infestor and lose their army. B: Poke at the spines untill the static defence falls. Option Y is usually very risky since if your collosus get caught by fungal while poking the roaches can run up and snipe them and from there on its game over. Option X can be dangerous but you can hold this with chain fungals and eventual roach engagement (at this point you're just buying time for broods trying to thin out their army and make then retreat). You don't necesarely need spines everywhere either you just need them on one or two key locations. Even if protoss could blink into your 4th and walk up there with collosus all you're doing is buying time. Since this build goal is just to get broodlords and win. Even if you lose bases in the process of getting broods. Because you get them so early against pure stalker collosus theyre so cost effective they will most likely win you the game.

This is wonderful analysis.
What I've learned from watching Stephano's ZvP is that Spinecrawlers/Infestors are hideously strong against protoss. It was actually the spines that was the missing piece of my gameplay puzzle. Whenever I go ling/bling/infestor against protoss, I always get rolled because the deathball just bumrush and your ling/bling/infestor count literally melts in 5 second. However, what Stephano demonstrated was that MASS spinecrawlers are worth their weight in gold for a few reasons. I say mass because Stephano used more than 10 or so per choke. On bigger open grounds he can go up to 25 spines or more.

1. They are super hardy, which slows down the Protoss's army, allowing Infestors to safely chain fungal.

2. They are extremely mineral and larvae efficient

3. If you lose your entire Zerg army, the spines will allow some breathing space to remax without being rolled by whatever Protoss units are left.

I was highly skeptical about this strategy because it seemed like a lot of wasted minerals. Seriously 3-5K minerals on spines easily! But goddamn! This strategy is amazing! Mass Spine is the new planetary fortress!!

By the way, I'm sad to say that mass spines does not work against Terrans...Siegetanks/Marauders are just too strong...

However, I'm happy to be enlightened by this new style of ZvP.

The_Darkness

United States910 Posts

January 28 2012 01:56 GMT

#47

I'm a zerg player but have watched a ton of Stephano's games so I've seen several styles used against his deathball. He has the best army control of any foreign zerg IMO and also his anti-harassment defense is world class so beating him is extremely hard and anyone who beats Stephano's deathball should be studied closely by Protoss looking for ideas as to how to beat it.

1. Mothership plus vortex w/mass recall to harass: This is a very good strategy IMO. Some type of harassment is absolutely necessary; otherwise stephano will have 10K, 4K banked (like he did against grubby) and slowly wear down the Protoss because any direct encounter is going to favor the zerg unless the Protoss gets a good archon toilet. The mass recall allows you to keep your army intact. I haven't seen Stephano successfully toileted since IPL so I think he's figured out how to position his infestors to avoid this (somewhere just behind the lead broodlord).

2. Mass air plus mothership -- Grubby tried this strategy in SC4. He had a bunch of carriers (perhaps 8, maybe more), a mothership and a small ground army but no void rays. Nevertheless I'm pretty sure Stephano just had BL and about 15-20 infestors. I thought he was dead for sure but he just spawned about 50 infested terrans, which warded off the carriers (to my surprise), destoryed grubby's ground army in about 2 seconds and took almost no losses -- maybe 30 supply at the most, which he used to build around 15 corruptors and promptly polish off Grubby's air force. Apollo suggested that Grubby needed Void Rays. Perhaps that would have done the trick but there were so many infested Terran and potential fungal growths available, even then I'm not sure how cost efficient it would have been to fight him.

3. Constant harass with blink stalker, high templar, archon, mothership death ball -- This worked for a couple players in Korea (maybe one was Squirtle, not sure). Stephano defended well but the constant harass prevented him from building up a huge bank and when he finally lost a good portion of his main army he couldn't afford to rebuild it quickly. The hightemplars were absolutely key to keeping his infestor count to a reasonable number. He never was able to get it to 15-20. Bling at the recent SC4 used high templar but I don't think he got off a single feedback the whole game because he couldn't get close enough to the infestors to make it happen. What I think the Koreans who beat Stephano were able to do was to get his brood lords out of position and then opportunistically snipe his infestors. Without the high templar I think it's basically impossible to beat BL infestor. I think that's part of the reason why Grubby had so much trouble against Stephano despite constantly attempting to harass.

The_Darkness

United States910 Posts

January 28 2012 02:06 GMT

#48

People obviously have tried to blink around the spine crawlers. Against Stephano at least it generally hasn't worked since, if he's teching up to broodlord infestor, he's going to have a lot of infestors out and he'll simply kill the blink stalker army with fungal plus whatever units he has on the ground. Grubby tried this a couple times at SC4 (with a massive supply lead) and still couldn't do any damage. Nevertheless, I agree with the general idea of harassing him and not allowing him to build the deathball. If you do cause some damage you will slow him down and increase the chances of a favorable encounter.