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[b]EDIT: Problem solved. This is the post I made, summing it up. I am doing this edit because so many people are posting useless crap because they don't watch the replay, and then don't bother reading the thread so say shit that was already said that was useless the first time around.
[spoiler]
Okay so watching the replay, here's where I think I can break it down. I can say for certain that I wouldn't, and didn't figure this out when I watched the replay on my own before knowing:
1. Can't let Toss get a fourth when going mutas.
2. hard to use mutas when you can't use ling/roach/muta to bust the third.
3. Since you never engage with mutas, Toss's army just slowly gets bigger and scarier, and eventually he can run just on a single mining base all turtled up and win with a mothership vortex/recall. Since you never chip away at the army size of the Toss, eventually he'll secure his fourth, and if he doesnt go for base trade, he'll win eventually with a vortex or storm, and it'll be too late for you to go to bl/infestor because your maxed on mutas (so you have to sac your whole army, then remax on bl/infestor instantly) and his army will beat bl/infestor even.
So I think 'the moment' when I needed to identify to switch, and should have switched, was right when he got his HT archives out. Not because of any sort of HT issue or whatever, but because that was the moment, when I had about 20 mutas, when I had done lots of damage and expanded and spined it up, that I was 'safe' to go into pure BL/Infestor, because I had the amount of army where I could win a base trade if he pushed, but I also had the extra supply, and could afford to lose all my mutas, so that I could make BL/Infestor.
After this point, it slowly got to the point where I was purely maxed on mutas, and it was simply impossible for me to go BL/Infestor, because it would mean losing a pure maxed army of mutas (over 100 supply in mutas) and then being super vulnerable to a push (can't get 120 supply of bl/infestor in less than 1 minute, despite the spines, even though I had a million gas).
He was able to secure his fourth. There wasn't too much to it, he only needed really 1 mining base, because since I went mutas, I was never engaging his army, so with just one mining base, he could just slowly build up his deathball, that was already super strong. He cannoned the fuck out of his third and put HT's there, so I couldn't do anything about it (at this point I did kill his main and natural though), and he used his huge deathball to secure his fourth, as well as put a million cannons there. That fourth was also all in a choke, so I couldn't engage anyways.
So, when he planted the nexus to his fourth, that's when I lost. Not because he has a fourth up online or anything, but because I was too dedicated to mutas and was 200/200 on pure muta, and I couldn't afford, both in time (if he pushes after killing my mutas off) and in gas (i had like 4k gas, but still not enough to remax on pure bl/infestor to take his deathball on quick enough), to sac all my mutas to tech switch into pure bl/infestor.
I should have identified "Okay I did damage, but he's getting an army here that will be able to secure his fourth" and went BL/Infestor there. It's some point after his third is up and he has an army to deny my mutas, and I should have known that when I noticed I could no longer really harass him because he had so many damn stalkers.
I suppose on maps like TDA where it's a bit more spread and there's more air space and places to muta harass, the window is larger, but on this map, I couldn't slow the growth of his army because his third was literally impossible to engage with roach/ling/muta due to sentries and the chokes, so that led to the 'window' where mutas are good being smaller, and my mutas not being able to do as much harassment since that map is ridiculous in how easy it is for toss to turtle on 3 base.
I really fucking hate that map in ZvP, toss just goes FFE then gets sentries and takes super fast third. My main style of play, roach/bane/infestor, is great against such tactics, so now on I'll stick to what I do best on that map, and now on when I go mutas, I'll learn to identify when to switch to BL/Infestor:
- When toss has the third up and going, and he starts to have an army that can secure a fourth. [/spoiler]
I had this situation in a ZvP, Masters.
I had total control of the game, and decided to go mutas. I did pretty well I thought, and I was maxed out on mutas all game long, tearing things up. He got a fourth, eventually, and then the rest of the game basically was me maxed out 200/200 on 3/3 mutas and I just couldn't really get him to base trade. He just kept making archons and blink stalkers, and eventually got a mothership.
I couldn't really deal with the mothership. He would use obs to spot my mutas, and so I had tons of overseers with my mutas, but he would just recall before I could really crippling damage. I killed tons of nexuses, his main was completely cleared out by the end, and I mined out the geysers to 8 bases, and worked on about 9.
The game ended when eventually, after 50 or so minutes, he got a vortex off and 1 shotted 50 mutas. I tried to move them but it was literally instant.
So.. mutas is just don't let toss get a fourth or you lose? This guy would just never commit to a base trade, and I think he just basically waited all game until he could get an archon toilet off. I never switched into ultras because he just had way too much of a deathball... and you know, ultras.
Maybe I should've stuck with what I know, and use mutas on better muta maps.
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=250464
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I didnt have a chance to watch the replay, but you need to switch to broodlords late game.
User was warned for this post
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My opinion isn't masters level, but, I think if you're wanting to have control of the game the entire time and stay on mutas, you can't let him get a fourth. The best way to keep him from ever having a real end-game army like that is just dismantle him everywhere all the time. You can't have four bases AND be that mobile AND have enough stuff to really deal with mass mutas everywhere at once. Split them up if you need to, go crazy, but the key as far as i know, to winning with a t 2.5 unit is to keep the game in t 2.5 stage.
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Have you considered banelings?
You were ahead on econ, so you have lots of resources. You don't need to be resource efficient at that point, you need to be supply efficient. Banelings do a lot of damage, and they do it fast, and they are only half a supply each. Supply efficient.
They also force stalkers to run away and leave the archons unprotected.
Also, have fun vortexing banelings and throwing in your own units as protoss.
If he saves HTs with storm rather than making all archons, then it becomes a problem, since banelings are very weak to storm.
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Russian Federation164 Posts
[reserved till I watch rep ^_^]
+ Show Spoiler +Theorycraft (I'm toss): your plan is fine,
just mix in many Ultras to tank + screw Archons + to be OK with vortexes
Trust me, Archont/Stalker is, like, on of the few scenarios when Ultras are fuckin awesome ^_^
@banelings: yeah, sure! waste, like, 40 supply to kill 4 Archons XD
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air units are in general statbased weaker than ground based on unit cost cause they offer more "utility". thats the reason why marines > muta and the reason why you need hive tech lategame as zerg. (maybe some of the lategame big flyers like bc's carrier's and broodlords are an exception.)
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The army he had was strong enough to take out any bl/infestor army. that was the problem. If you think I should have transitioned into something else, please watch the replay and tell me when I should have done so. Because I thought I was in a pretty commanding position all game long until he got that vortex off, which I was pretty careful to avoid.
Banelings are a no-no because of storm. If you think I should go banerain, well, those don't do well against archons.
Please don't post if you haven't watched the replay, it isn't helpful. I'm not so stupid that I couldn't think of what you guys are saying when you don't watch the replay. It would be more helpful if you watched the replay and said "at X point you get banes/bl/infestors/etc".
He had an army that would dismantle any bl/infestor army. I just let toss get too strong, and whereas my general roach/banerain/infestor play always kills the P army, in mutas you never engage so he was able to just get this big, fat army that bl/infestor would lose to.
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On January 20 2012 18:34 BoggieMan wrote:
air units are in general statbased weaker than ground based on unit cost cause they offer more "utility". thats the reason why marines > muta and the reason why you need hive tech lategame as zerg. (maybe some of the lategame big flyers like bc's carrier's and broodlords are an exception.)
Dude, marines are better than everything.
To the OP, you played those muta pretty well. Unfortunately, endgame Protoss that turtles really hard has to be dealt with by other means. I see more and more of this lately. Protoss that are just content to turtle really hard, behind a lot of cannons and positioned units while they creep out and take 4 or 5 bases. They play it like Brood War Terran, come to think of it.
In my opinion, you've gotta find a way to field T3 units and chip him out of there. Problem is, when you've got so much invested in muta, and the muta are what's keeping him locked down, it's hard to find a way to "cost effectively" trade out mutas so you can get Brood/Infestor or something.
Ultimately, I think it just comes down to preventing that 4th base - if you're going muta heavy play, that is. Once you max out on muta, I feel like you're kinda stuck with it.
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I was actually the protoss you played. Skip. I had no economy but a 200/200 comprised mostly of units. 1 or 2 tech switches would have got my army down with no way to replenish my army because my economy is shot.
But you literally went mutas for 50minutes
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i havent watched your rep but based on what you are saying, you are trying to beat him with just mutas while he has alreay obtained counters. its basicly just like a protoss player trying to beat a zerg with only blink stalkers, they work great until zerg gets infestors. once protoss gets hts, archons, alot of stalkers and a mothership all out, mutas are kinda reduntent. ill update this when ive finished watching rep.
ok i've watched rep and your bm is terrible. go watch the rep again and open up the resources lost tab. at the end of the game u had lost twice as much as he did. the entire point of going mutalisk is to buy time for tech and expanstions to kickin or to deny bases and force a favorable base race. if u are trying for a baserace u should be sniping his nexuses, not his tech structures. at one point u had 100+ supply in mutas and all u did was kill his already dryed nat and main. u let him take new expos despite your advantage and lost too much trying to snipe these established expos which were heavly cannoned. you have to prevent these expos from being establishd rather than trying to take them out after they are already mining and defended. also dont fly 10+ overseers with your mutas, flying one does the same job and isnt as painful to watch when they all die due to bad micro.
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Ultras are good if they can't move. The bug and all. Fungal solves this. Then maybe roaches or something meaty / DPS behind. Corruptors to snipe MSHIP?
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Ultimately, I think it just comes down to preventing that 4th base - if you're going muta heavy play, that is. Once you max out on muta, I feel like you're kinda stuck with it.
Thanks, ill rewatch and see how i can change that.
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First, ask yourself why you're going 3 base muta instead of 2 base muta. In a general sense, muta builds are aimed at not letting protoss get more bases to get that gas that allows him to build his ultra cost effective army by countering at every turn. By starting a 3 base build instead of a 2 base build, you're allowing him leeway to get his third up before you can threaten to counter really effectively. The proper response to mutas is indeed to get your third as fast as possible to get enough gas to get blink and HT w/ storm. I think there are applications to use later mutalisks to snipe templar etc in straight up fights, but after protoss gets enough gas, your mutalisk "army" isn't going to do much.
If you want to use muta, I would suggest using 2 base muta. The first big thing is to absorb any attack he's doing with just lings. It is hard to hold off 2 base allins with lings, but it is possible with spine support. After the earlygame stuff, your whole goal is to NEVER engage his army. You're going to want to double epand off your mutas (ideally to far away locations) and throw pretty much all your gas into mutas (and attack ups for your lings). When the protoss moves at all, you're going to dive into his base. When he's pinned to two base, it's very very hard to get his epand and defend his mineral lines/infrastructure due to your lings/mutas. If he protects his infrastructure while trying to get his third, he can't really defend your lings canceling it. If he goes to defend that third, he can't really defend his infrastructure, so you counter with your mutas. Eventually the goal is he's pinned to two base and you have hatches around the map and he's about to run out of resources, so he has to go all in. You're going to kill his base with your mutas while he runs into your wall of spinecrawlers and then he can't kill all your buildings before you can kill all his.
If he gets a third, it becomes a lot harder because he gets a lot more resouces (particularly gas) so often it's better to keep him from getting his fourth while you get your tech up (BL/Infestor).
If you watch the VOD's on EGMachine or EGiNcontroL's twitch tv's, they have been doing a lot of team practice and there have been a lot of games where machine or strifecro go muta and they talk about the games afterward. On a particularly fun note, iNcontroL faces the two base muta variant a few times and just can't stop talking about how mutas are bullshit, which just shows you how strong this baserace style is.
So, in summary, the goals of mutalisk play in ZvP is to...
1) Prevent him from securing additional bases (read:gas) with backstabs with lings/mutas (dualpronged attacks)
2) Punish him for moving out of position (attacking or taking a new base) (" ")
3) Establish yourself around the map so protoss can not possibly win the baserace (and, subsequently, establish more gas)
4) Setup spinecrawlers to buy you time to baserace
5) Never, ever engage his army (unless you know for certain you can crush it and immediately win the game).
gl
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do not engage mutas vs protoss army. get overlord drops, roach/ling drops in main -> mutas to 3rd/4th, mass spine crawlers at newest expos + hive tech units.
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As a Protoss player, I second Arisen's opinion on 2-Base Muta over 3-Base. However, this is very subjective based on the initial strategy of the Protoss player. If he is going for a large 2 base attack, rushing to Mutas on two base could be a bit rough. However, with Mutalisk's off of two bases, you can effectively keep them bottled up on 2 bases easier than a 3-base Muta strategy. Going to 3 bases before Mutas allows the Protoss player more time to secure his additional bases, as well as prepare for Mutalisks.
I know on Muta favored maps, I will often open FFE into some number of gateways, after a Twilight for Blink. This is reasonably safe against most openings and will put me in a position where I can defend Mutas. If I push out around 8 minutes, I can get there right before Mutas pop. If I find 3-4 spines, I often will just turn right around. At this point, I can rush over to grab a third base and prepare for the incoming Mutas. The toughest thing at this point, is if the Zerg player makes around 15-18 Mutalisk max and then just uses them to backstab whenever I attempt to move out. You effectively have the entire map and can expand wherever you want without any concerns. Keep a Zergling patrolling for the fourth base and switch to whatever tech you want to finish out the game with. If you can do this, you will be very successful.
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Any top players that regularly goes 2-base muta vs FFE? Not just GM but top-top-top players.
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If he was constantly waiting for a good vortex toilet you should of thrown in a BUNCH of banes, when everything comes out BOOM everything dies  would of costed some control in muta but hey, probably would of been worth it
A good way to deal with this is susicde those units into the vortex with banes once you have A TON of stock piled minerals / larva, then when everything kinda washes out from the vortex toilet just remax on infestors and broodlords with crazy upgrades since you had map control the whole game, then go crush him
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Mass muta does not work vs toss... he is attacking @35min with 27 stalkers 1 immortal 10 archons 8 sentries and mothership and 8 HT's . u have 1 ling 48 mutas and 4 queens. even if you were jaedong and had perfect micro u lose this 100%. you have been maxed with tons of bases for a long time and only have 1m 1a and 1 carpace for upgrades on ground you have every tech but hydras, but you only have mutas in your army. you have been maxed at this point to be able to have full upgrades for all you units and be able to tech switch constantly. You WAY over commited to mutas at this point muta's vs toss shouldnt get over 20-25 for harass and deny expos while u expand and get upgrades for a tech switch. You see that his army is anti mutas and still keep going mutas. you let a handful of units take out 2 bases for free and instead of saving these u tried to counter his base and lost 10mutas and didnt accomplish much else excpet let him take a huge lead. your only advantage at this point in the game (around the 40min mark is you have more drones. he has significantly better and bigger army and his bases are relativly well defended to the point where base race goes in his favor. the final enagagement the mothership was a formality as day9 would call it. he could have beaten your army with just the archons OR just the stalkers.
things you should consider from this game
1. you saw nexus first, 2 pylons at the front of his wall and that he was getting +1 and made 2 zealots. baneling bust would almost be an auto win.
2. you did not scout for his second probe this would have shut down the early zealot pressure and saved u from over making lings early game
3. why did you make roachs? your roaches did nothing all game but be a waste of money this delayed your mutas this delayed ur 4th and 5th.
4. you have complete map control and you never take the base in mid by ur 3rd till 40min mark.
5. 2 evo chambers that didnt have constant upgrades
6.you made about 100000 overseers (bad idea in general) but you didnt use changlings or contaminate changlings to spot for your mutas where the army is and contaminate key uprgades (ie strom or +attack)
best way to do roachs into mutas is on a map that u can hit an attack timing with roach speed and 1/1 at around 150 supply with 3 bases and trade armys and refill your army with muta Sheth was doing this alot on stream a few weeks ago with good success otherwise if you dont trade armies the late mutas are not able to accomplish their job of denying expos (this is how he got his 4th) because there is already a big enough army to handle your late mutas to set up a fourth.
all this is strategy related changes you need to look at. your macro and mechanics could use some work (but hey we all need to work on mechanics all the time) i wont say anything specific about that since i don't feel that you lost this game because of bad mechanics but your overall strategy was only ever going to work if you were facing a player significantly lower skill level then yourself.
Sorry for bashing your game pretty hardcore but you have to rip your game apart if you want to get better. but you also need some encouragement to grow too so some positive things to end on good job with your overlords pooping creep on the expos (very rare to see that outside of pro level play), your mutas did fantastic job harassing and keeping him in his base (even if half the mutas would have done the job too :-P ).
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On January 21 2012 01:52 Catgroove wrote:
Any top players that regularly goes 2-base muta vs FFE? Not just GM but top-top-top players.
Julyzerg does it on his stream, don't know about tournaments though.
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On January 21 2012 02:48 psychotics wrote:
Mass muta does not work vs toss... You WAY over commited to mutas at this point muta's vs toss shouldnt get over 20-25 for harass and deny expos while u expand and get upgrades for a tech switch.
Well, I'm sorry, but the statement that mass muta doesn't work versus protoss is just wrong. The statement "fighting a protoss army with mass mutalisks versus toss doesn't (or rather, shouldn't) work" would be far more accurate. Mass mutalisks work fine versus protoss, the endgame goal of the build is completely different from most conventional armies, though. Like I said in an earlier post, the point of mass mutalisks is to basetrade and make sure he can't win that basetrade through mass epanding with spines.
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EPT
