[D] PvZ Beating Stephano Style Roaches - Page 29

On March 20 2012 21:56 TechSc2 wrote:
how often have you guys tried out RSVP's stalkerless PvZ?

I've been doing this build more and more and it stops the 12 min roach max dead in it's tracks, you have immortals,voidrays, and storm to deal with them.

His trading will be horribly inefficient as long as you keep your templar alive. He won't be able to kill your 3-4 voidrays at all, and the 2-3 immortals in your army just wreak havoc as long as the zealots are alive.

Stalkers are mobile, but horrible in survivability untill they have blink, and even then it's hard to stay alive against a 3 hatch roach spam once your sentry energy dries out.

So why not skip stalkers and sentries and go for pure DPS army of doom? If he goes hydra's you'll have storm to deal with them, and by the time he has hydra's you'll have +3 attack for your ground army, a third base and around 12-14 constant working gates. You can add in archons once you have 5-6 templars on the field and just keep churning out those chargelots.

On March 20 2012 18:05 RaNgeD wrote:


Thanks for sharing. This may sound obvious to some, but i'm of the opinion that to play against zerg you have to choices:
1) Aggressively expand in order to keep up with their economy; or 2) Do timings or harass to kill them or at the very least, slow them down before hive tech. If you choose to play passively against zerg I think you need to be playing aggressive economically.

That being said, I really like what SaSe was doing in Game 1 against ret. I don't know how viable it is, and I don't know how zergs will react to a fast 3rd like that once they've played against it a few times and have had the chance to sit down and study it out a bit. But the general idea is amazing to me.

In my last 100-200 pvz games I've done the fast 3rd off of 4 gates/robo like mentioned earlier in this thread, and from my experience I can say this:
The times when zerg decide to max on roaches at 12 minutes and kill me, 50% of the time I die. And the games that I do win, it was usually that the zerg made some critical mistake, like letting me cut off 1/2 of 1/4 of his roaches and kill them for free. I've made a lot of adjustments to the build to try and survive that 12 minute wave of 200/200 roaches, like getting hallucination instead of an obs, that way i'm able to get an extra immortal out, and just use cannons and detection. Keep in mind that these are ladder games; if I could find some customs against good zergs it would be nice, but for the most part, these players aren't even near the calibre of stephano. I can't say for sure, but i'm coming to the conclusion that I think the 3rd base with this current build is too slow. The 3rd base doesn't kick in enough before you are over-run with roaches.

Another thing I wanted to say here. I don't find non-FFE builds very good at all. I used them for the first year and eventually came to the conclusion that FFE is much much better. Maybe that comes down to my style or something, but I don't really see how doing a less economic build is going to solve this issue. Even if it did, with gate expands you run into a completely different set of problems.

What SaSe is doing is really good, even if it doesn't end up working in the long run. We can sit here and do the same builds over and over again, expecting different results; OR, we can make new builds, study and refine them, and hopefully stumble upon a better way to play. I like the latter.

On March 21 2012 00:59 Friend23 wrote:
problem with VRs are:
once switch to mutas occurs - youre dead;
VRs dont kill roaches quck enough when he moves out and when youre defending;
they cost so much that even if you go 2sg you wont be able to get enough VRs to have enough DPS to deal with the roach stream, at the same time you will have x VRs and just zealots, or very little ground army, you just wont be able to defend

ill get again bring up the point that you are like 10 times better off with 9 immortals and 1 sentry than than 3 immortals and 7 sentries, if youre sure whats coming, why not to throw that 2 or even 3 robos?

and for these who instantly think of muta switch:
why dont you load 4 your immortals into warp prisms and just bruteforce kill spire to buy time, building another one will give you enough time to prepare for mutas,

and even, if he had just spent all this gas for 200/200 roaches, first hatch (after the roach push ended) wont be 20 mutas at once, or even, you might be able to brute force his third/fourth and expind behind the counter attack

what ill be trying: zealots immortals, 1-3 sentries, 0 stalkers; important would be to keep zealots ahead in upgrades than zergs armor

On March 21 2012 00:41 quillian wrote:
so apparently, according to Day9, zerg is having trouble with P right now, and stephano's style is about quick infestor into spire?

http://day9.tv/d9d429/

Is he just behind on what's going on, or am I seriously missing something?

On March 21 2012 01:52 kcdc wrote:


That kinda sucks that you're trying to blind counter the 12 minute timing and you're still unable to defend it half the time. And of course I'm sure you don't win every time that you do defend it. Take note Zergs--this is a really strong build even if P designs his build to beat it.

I think that Sase's opening is really interesting as well, but I think even that fast of a third will wind up well behind in army size. First, a stalker roughly equals a roach in combat strength, but costs twice as much. Second, Z has to spend substantially less on infrastructure for the 3-base roach max compared to a 3-base Protoss defense.

SuperRoach (counting drone in building cost):
pool, warren: 450 minerals
3 hatches (2 expansion, 1 macro): 1350 minerals
3 queens: 450 minerals
evolution chamber: 125 minerals
lair: 150/100
ling speed, roach speed and +1 missile: 300/300
4 gas: 300 minerals
Total: 3125/400


SuperRoach Defense:
2 nexii: 800 minerals
forge, core: 300 minerals
4 cannons minimum: 600 minerals
WG and +1 weapons: 150/150
8 gates (minimum, you'll want more on 3-base econ): 1200
robo: 200/100
5 gas: 375 minerals
twilight (necessary before 12 minutes): 150/100
observer (or hallucination, but we'll count the cheaper one): 25/75
Total: 3800/425

So ~700 minerals is the minimum infrastructure difference as I see it. If you want some extra cannons or blink or a robo support bay or some extra gates, it's going to add up pretty fast.

Factor in that you'll never fully catch Z's economy even with a third nexus before core and that roaches cost about half as much per supply as your composition does, and it becomes pretty clear that if P wants to take a fast third, Z can have a 70 supply lead at 12 minutes if they want it.

So I think that while it's tempting to ask, "How do I match Z's economy and army size?" the more important question may be, "How do I defend 2+ attack paths when I'm down 70 supply?" I think the answer to the latter question is going to rest heavily on forcefields, so I wonder if Sase's delayed core build is such a good choice.

On March 21 2012 00:41 quillian wrote:
so apparently, according to Day9, zerg is having trouble with P right now, and stephano's style is about quick infestor into spire?

http://day9.tv/d9d429/

Is he just behind on what's going on, or am I seriously missing something?

On March 21 2012 02:22 buldermar wrote:
@kcdc

I noticed that MC has pretty good international stats against zerg. He has won his last 12 games, and has a 76%+ winrate overall. He lost only twice recently, which was to DRG who just won code S. Since you seem to have accounted for much, I want to ask you if you know why MC is winning against zerg so consistently?

On March 21 2012 02:22 kcdc wrote:


No, he just didn't focus on this part of Stephano's build. Stephano's build has several stages that are all really smart. It goes something like this:

-fast third
-defend 2-base timings with roaches
-deny Protoss third if you can
-infestors and wall of spines
-broodlords

Stephano goes into "deny 3rd" mode when he makes it to lair tech with his economy in good shape and P takes a timely third. That stage is the focus of this thread, but it didn't occur in the games Day9 looked at. That's not a problem--Day9 just showcased other parts of the build.

On March 21 2012 01:52 kcdc wrote:


That kinda sucks that you're trying to blind counter the 12 minute timing and you're still unable to defend it half the time. And of course I'm sure you don't win every time that you do defend it. Take note Zergs--this is a really strong build even if P designs his build to beat it.

I think that Sase's opening is really interesting as well, but I think even that fast of a third will wind up well behind in army size. First, a stalker roughly equals a roach in combat strength, but costs twice as much. Second, Z has to spend substantially less on infrastructure for the 3-base roach max compared to a 3-base Protoss defense.

SuperRoach (counting drone in building cost):
pool, warren: 450 minerals
3 hatches (2 expansion, 1 macro): 1350 minerals
3 queens: 450 minerals
evolution chamber: 125 minerals
lair: 150/100
ling speed, roach speed and +1 missile: 300/300
4 gas: 300 minerals
Total: 3125/400


SuperRoach Defense:
2 nexii: 800 minerals
forge, core: 300 minerals
4 cannons minimum: 600 minerals
WG and +1 weapons: 150/150
8 gates (minimum, you'll want more on 3-base econ): 1200
robo: 200/100
5 gas: 375 minerals
twilight (necessary before 12 minutes): 150/100
observer (or hallucination, but we'll count the cheaper one): 25/75
Total: 3800/425

So ~700 minerals is the minimum infrastructure difference as I see it. If you want some extra cannons or blink or a robo support bay or some extra gates, it's going to add up pretty fast.

Factor in that you'll never fully catch Z's economy even with a third nexus before core and that roaches cost about half as much per supply as your composition does, and it becomes pretty clear that if P wants to take a fast third, Z can have a 70 supply lead at 12 minutes if they want it.

So I think that while it's tempting to ask, "How do I match Z's economy and army size?" the more important question may be, "How do I defend 2+ attack paths when I'm down 70 supply?" I think the answer to the latter question is going to rest heavily on forcefields, so I wonder if Sase's delayed core build is such a good choice.

On March 21 2012 02:22 buldermar wrote:
@kcdc

I noticed that MC has pretty good international stats against zerg. He has won his last 12 games, and has a 76%+ winrate overall. He lost only twice recently, which was to DRG who just won code S. Since you seem to have accounted for much, I want to ask you if you know why MC is winning against zerg so consistently?

and for these who instantly think of muta switch:
why dont you load 4 your immortals into warp prisms and just bruteforce kill spire to buy time, building another one will give you enough time to prepare for mutas,

and even, if he had just spent all this gas for 200/200 roaches, first hatch (after the roach push ended) wont be 20 mutas at once, or even, you might be able to brute force his third/fourth and expind behind the counter attack