EPT[D] PvZ - Establishing third with Skytoss (viable?) - Page…
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Arcanefrost
Belgium1257 Posts
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MrLlama
United States454 Posts
I crushed him with my build. The reason is simply because I drop at 13 minutes. Your build at that time has 5-6 voidrays, 4-5 zealots, and a mothership. After scouting him getting more voidray I had about 30-40 hydras + my roaches to tank any cannons I would encounter and it simply overwhelmed the air army. That being said, I also played your build and lost. This was because I did not scout though and the guy sniped my 3rd, delaying my drop. I wasn't able to drop until about 14-14:15 and by that time he had out 2-3 carriers with his army which absolutely DEMOLISH hydras. So I think the answer here is if you can snipe my 3rd and delay until you get carriers, you win. If you cannot, you simply don't have the unit count to hold. At least that's my experience. (guy was a top 8 masters btw) | ||
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ticklishmusic
United States15977 Posts
On May 09 2012 05:16 Darkomicron wrote: While the voids were away to attack, I just sniped an expansion and had to return or lose the entire base. Only the mothership was at home to cloak and defend, but that doesn't work against so many roaches. So, you missed the part where he mentioned he could mass recall voids. | ||
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CrAzEdMiKe
Canada151 Posts
On May 09 2012 06:13 MrLlama wrote: So I played a guy who went for your build. I crushed him with my build. The reason is simply because I drop at 13 minutes. Your build at that time has 5-6 voidrays, 4-5 zealots, and a mothership. After scouting him getting more voidray I had about 30-40 hydras + my roaches to tank any cannons I would encounter and it simply overwhelmed the air army. That being said, I also played your build and lost. This was because I did not scout though and the guy sniped my 3rd, delaying my drop. I wasn't able to drop until about 14-14:15 and by that time he had out 2-3 carriers with his army which absolutely DEMOLISH hydras. So I think the answer here is if you can snipe my 3rd and delay until you get carriers, you win. If you cannot, you simply don't have the unit count to hold. At least that's my experience. (guy was a top 8 masters btw) This is why I think that for this particular build/playstyle that it might be preferable to go gateway ---> Stargate ---> Expand. By getting the Stargate significantly earlier you should be able to pretty easily delay the third base and prevent a massive overrun of Hydras which I could definitely see being the downfall of this build. I'm still not convinced that going for early Carriers is wise, but I will definitely need more practice with the build to figure that out. | ||
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Markwerf
Netherlands3728 Posts
On May 06 2012 21:30 Fogetaboudit wrote: They don't trade well enough, when MS is over cannons and with voidray support if the corruptors want to target down the MS, you just lose like all of them, "easily" is a really poor word choice, and infestors cannot really be aggressive, only defensive. Micro'ing MS back helps too believe it or not. Watch the second engagement in this replay http://drop.sc/173472 I played this game today. Also IIRC he has a quick 5 base versus my 3... I say meh. Also, my third timing is pretty normal AFAIK people just haten on the Mothership. I checked that and the zerg played absolutely abysmal, but your play was a bit dodgy too with the massive cannoning. The zerg never got enogh corruptors because of his failed early game attempts at aggression and he never upgraded his corruptors either. I'm still sure that a zerg that just masses upgraded corruptors with a few infestors for neural will easily demolish this strat. Corruptors just trade well enough with voids, especially in huge fights where the voids rarely charge. (voids don't mass well). If anything this stuff working occasionally is more a result of hydra's being the worst unit in the game then the strat actually being good | ||
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CrAzEdMiKe
Canada151 Posts
On May 09 2012 07:51 Markwerf wrote: I checked that and the zerg played absolutely abysmal, but your play was a bit dodgy too with the massive cannoning. The zerg never got enogh corruptors because of his failed early game attempts at aggression and he never upgraded his corruptors either. I'm still sure that a zerg that just masses upgraded corruptors with a few infestors for neural will easily demolish this strat. Corruptors just trade well enough with voids, especially in huge fights where the voids rarely charge. (voids don't mass well). If anything this stuff working occasionally is more a result of hydra's being the worst unit in the game then the strat actually being good Although I personally don't disagree with some of your points, I think the interesting strength of this build is that it does pigeon-hole what the Zerg needs to do to respond to it. A few infestors mixed in with a Corrupter army would DEFINITELY without question beat mass void in a straight up fight, you won't get any argument from me on that point. But what I think makes the build work is that the mothership stays at home where she isn't easily sniped, and you can fly out with your fleet of voids, wreck an expansion extremely quickly and then just recall at the first sign of trouble. Going Infestor/Corrupter is very gas heavy, and if you can break away with the fleet and take out expos, the Zerg will quite likely be gas starved and won't have the abundant number of resources that it is used to. Plus, I think the key to making this work would definitely be having Chargelot/Archon prepped and ready to deploy the moment you lose a bunch of Voids in a big engagement. Just a couple of High Templars with the Voids would be incredible as well, as they can wreak havoc on the units designed to take out the Voids. | ||
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Sevenofnines
United States167 Posts
1. Assuming you hold at your 3rd and are able to mass up your VR ball of death, I would imagine that the excess minerals you acquire don't just have to go to cannons. You would still want enough Cannons so that you can fend off harassment, but spending some minerals on some combination of Gateways, Zealots, and Warp Prisms can let you put out alternative forms of harassment when the Mothership doesn't have Recall up yet. This can allow you to keep the Zerg economy in check as the game progresses. 2. An extension of #1, because the Zerg is going to rely on quick remaxxing of Corruptors/Infestors with a superior economy in order to eventually overrun your Void Rays, any damage you can do to them with Zealot harassment is IMO worth a lot more than a few extra cannons. It also abuses the Zerg's larva mechanic. For instance, suppose you just killed off his first batch of Corruptors and you have some Voids left. He's probably remaxxing and spent a good chunk of his larva on Corruptors. A Zealot warp in at one of his expos off a proxy pylon, plus another Drop/Warp-in from a Warp Prism at another expo, I imagine would cause serious headaches for the Zerg player who just spent a bunch of larva on units that cannot attack ground. He probably has very few (if any) Spines since he knows you have a mostly air army! And if he does spend larva on Lings, that's a win also since Lings are dead weight against your all air army and well-defended bases. Suffice to say, defending this kind of multi-pronged harassment would severely tax all but the very very best zerg players, and it is not particularly hard for you to pull off as Protoss. 3. Because you have a get out of jail free card in Recall, have you considered a clutch Tech Snipe on the Zerg's Spire/Greater Spire? The Spire's build time is brutally long. 100 seconds of no air units building would give you free reign over the map to kill pretty much anything you want. Considering the rate at which Void Rays kill buildings, you could perhaps even kill multiple buildings before he can arrive and defend. If you were to get the trifecta of Hive, Spire, and Infestation Pit, then it's pretty much automatic GG. The best part about this is that the risk to your army is minimal because of Recall. You could probably send your entire army after those 3 key buildings if you wanted and get out with very few losses even if his entire army is parked nearby simply because of Recall. Just some things to perhaps try out if you get the chance. I'd love to see some replays of crazy stuff like that in action! | ||
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CrAzEdMiKe
Canada151 Posts
On May 09 2012 11:00 Sevenofnines wrote: OP: Seems like a very interesting build with a lot of undeveloped potential. The flexibility provided by the Mothership Recall and huge excess of minerals opens up a lot of interesting options. I actually want to give you a few bits of food for thought. 1. Assuming you hold at your 3rd and are able to mass up your VR ball of death, I would imagine that the excess minerals you acquire don't just have to go to cannons. You would still want enough Cannons so that you can fend off harassment, but spending some minerals on some combination of Gateways, Zealots, and Warp Prisms can let you put out alternative forms of harassment when the Mothership doesn't have Recall up yet. This can allow you to keep the Zerg economy in check as the game progresses. 2. An extension of #1, because the Zerg is going to rely on quick remaxxing of Corruptors/Infestors with a superior economy in order to eventually overrun your Void Rays, any damage you can do to them with Zealot harassment is IMO worth a lot more than a few extra cannons. It also abuses the Zerg's larva mechanic. For instance, suppose you just killed off his first batch of Corruptors and you have some Voids left. He's probably remaxxing and spent a good chunk of his larva on Corruptors. A Zealot warp in at one of his expos off a proxy pylon, plus another Drop/Warp-in from a Warp Prism at another expo, I imagine would cause serious headaches for the Zerg player who just spent a bunch of larva on units that cannot attack ground. He probably has very few (if any) Spines since he knows you have a mostly air army! And if he does spend larva on Lings, that's a win also since Lings are dead weight against your all air army and well-defended bases. Suffice to say, defending this kind of multi-pronged harassment would severely tax all but the very very best zerg players, and it is not particularly hard for you to pull off as Protoss. 3. Because you have a get out of jail free card in Recall, have you considered a clutch Tech Snipe on the Zerg's Spire/Greater Spire? The Spire's build time is brutally long. 100 seconds of no air units building would give you free reign over the map to kill pretty much anything you want. Considering the rate at which Void Rays kill buildings, you could perhaps even kill multiple buildings before he can arrive and defend. If you were to get the trifecta of Hive, Spire, and Infestation Pit, then it's pretty much automatic GG. The best part about this is that the risk to your army is minimal because of Recall. You could probably send your entire army after those 3 key buildings if you wanted and get out with very few losses even if his entire army is parked nearby simply because of Recall. Just some things to perhaps try out if you get the chance. I'd love to see some replays of crazy stuff like that in action! This is EXACTLY what I have in mind as well... The ability to endlessly harass the opponent as you could send in the fleet of Voids knowing that they'll head there to defend, while warping in a round of Zealots and attacking an outlying expansion... The thought of which makes me very giddy which is why I'm definitely going to experiment with this playstyle | ||
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Servius_Fulvius
United States947 Posts
Overall it looks like a fun ladder strategy. I'm sure a lot of players could figure out weaknesses after a few practice games, but the BM must make it all worth it! Reminds me of the game back about 8 months ago where someone did a delayed +1 7 gate all-in with mothership! | ||
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John F Kennedy
United States40 Posts
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CrAzEdMiKe
Canada151 Posts
On May 09 2012 11:36 John F Kennedy wrote: I have used this build only twice now, once on ladder vs mid master zerg. I won that game but it was pretty sloppy. I tried it again vs this gm player in a z33k tourney, and got crushed my mass hydra. http://drop.sc/175340 This is the replay, mind giving any tips? I don't think i played to well but i am not sure how you would stop mass hydra. I think the main reason you lost that game was that you fought away from your cannons. You tried to chase after the retreating hydras when you could have been parked nice and safe behind a wall of cannons which would have provided the necessary dps to take out the hydras. If you would have stayed behind your cannons I actually think at the very least your 3rd would have been completely fine, though I feel like the entrance to your natural could have used more cannons. I've tried to bring it up in discussion before but I haven't seen it addressed yet, but would going for 1gate/stargate into expo be better than FFE for this build? The reason that gateway expands were abandoned (at least from my reading, to be quite honest I haven't played SC2 regularly for quite a while) was that there were a number of Roach/Ling aggression builds that would overwhelm the natural before it could get setup. If you're constantly pumping Voidrays, I honestly can't see how this would really be a problem, and since you're going for fast Mothership, setting up a third should be a heck of a lot easier as well. Plus, this allows the Protoss to at least delay the third base, making it very difficult for the Zerg to amass a large number of Hydras quickly as they'd only have 4 gas to do it. An interesting afterthought that I just thought of... Since I think early on it would be wise to make a few Sentries, would researching Hallucination actually be a legitimate upgrade for this build? Since the Zerg should know at some point that you're massing Voids, I can forsee some very tricky Hallucinate play where you send a fleet of Hallucinated Voids in plain view of the Zerg while your real fleet attacks somewhere else? And since you are massing one unit with a bunch of cannons, it wouldn't seem overly suspicious that there's no ground army accompanying the Voidrays. If you had three or four sentries with max energy, you could make a fake fleet of 8 Voidrays merely as a distractionary tactic to pull them out of position while you lock down your real target. They might only fall for it once, and it is a little bit "gimmicky", but it could add an extra layer of "harass" that the Zerg would need to be aware of. Pure theorycraft, but this strategy lends itself to some avenues that I don't think have really been explored before. | ||
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Fogetaboudit
United States232 Posts
On May 09 2012 06:13 MrLlama wrote: So I played a guy who went for your build. I crushed him with my build. The reason is simply because I drop at 13 minutes. Your build at that time has 5-6 voidrays, 4-5 zealots, and a mothership. After scouting him getting more voidray I had about 30-40 hydras + my roaches to tank any cannons I would encounter and it simply overwhelmed the air army. That being said, I also played your build and lost. This was because I did not scout though and the guy sniped my 3rd, delaying my drop. I wasn't able to drop until about 14-14:15 and by that time he had out 2-3 carriers with his army which absolutely DEMOLISH hydras. So I think the answer here is if you can snipe my 3rd and delay until you get carriers, you win. If you cannot, you simply don't have the unit count to hold. At least that's my experience. (guy was a top 8 masters btw) Do you have a replay? I would love to see a reactive drop with that many units at 13 minutes. I have always admitted that a blind drop that hits early enough (2 base lair all-in) could be a build order loss, (although I've held this surprisingly often, anyways) Your timing window is VERY tight like you mention, and I'm not convinced it's an exploit, just yet. Micro vs drops heavily favors the protoss player, as well. You don't just 1a at the zerg army in a panic to save your nexus. You engage from the optimal angle and let the hydras waste dps on assimilators/Nexus/ and idle buildings. You may even have a Vortex available, etc. | ||
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Fogetaboudit
United States232 Posts
On May 09 2012 07:51 Markwerf wrote: I checked that and the zerg played absolutely abysmal, but your play was a bit dodgy too with the massive cannoning. The zerg never got enogh corruptors because of his failed early game attempts at aggression and he never upgraded his corruptors either. I'm still sure that a zerg that just masses upgraded corruptors with a few infestors for neural will easily demolish this strat. Corruptors just trade well enough with voids, especially in huge fights where the voids rarely charge. (voids don't mass well). If anything this stuff working occasionally is more a result of hydra's being the worst unit in the game then the strat actually being good dude, go play around in a unit tester. I don't know what to say other than your just wrong, please go test Void ray vs corruptor of equal supply and equal upgrades (even though toss should be ahead) Fingal support is very important, as has been said countless times ITT. Void's absolutely do charge in huge fights, again go check it if you don't believe me. They absolutely DO mass well, they stack and their attacking mechanic allows for DPS to be used very efficiently (not wasted) | ||
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Let it Raine
Canada1245 Posts
I WON A GAME.. I BEAT A GUY... no one cares, and that doesn't mean anything for this build. youre not executing this build at full efficiency and neither are the people that zergs are beating. that said, i don't think straight mass air is the best way to go about it. I've been recommending standard openings for a free third and then transitioning into mass air with templar support. but, i like this strategy post 100% because you mentioned my other idea ive been yellin about, mass recalling voids if they get fungaled before you split. if this were reddit i'd upvote. I think air + templar beats everything zerg has and is far more effective of a late game composition than stalker collossi mothership with enough archons for a toilet. | ||
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Fogetaboudit
United States232 Posts
On May 09 2012 11:36 John F Kennedy wrote: I have used this build only twice now, once on ladder vs mid master zerg. I won that game but it was pretty sloppy. I tried it again vs this gm player in a z33k tourney, and got crushed my mass hydra. http://drop.sc/175340 This is the replay, mind giving any tips? I don't think i played to well but i am not sure how you would stop mass hydra. I was hoping to see something interesting  The analysis is suprisingly easy. CrazedMike nailed it.I've held this attack many times. A few main points 1 - Your were very greedy, and your third went up very early so you should have won this game, imo. I might steal this expansion timing, I quite like it but it seems very risky. I normally prefer to scout and pressure with early Zealots, and then to take a slightly later third in his face, with a beefier army, but I think your third timing is much better, if you can get away with it. 2 - Your mothership and your army are completely out of position, always put the MS at the base the zerg wants to attack. If you are not sure, then split the difference until you can spot the army. A ton of your cannons were isolated and got sniped for free, thats a pretty big deal. 3 - You over produced Phoenix, imo. I make 1 (at the most) for scouting, as far as I can tell your scouting wasn't even that active. spotting for drops and and muta tech is the most important. Once you spot hydras, cannon up both entrances and don't be out of position, it's surprisingly easy. 4 - I feel you are just frustrated, but if you watch the replay with a clear head you can't tell me you microed this battle well. As I've said 100 times, like a broken record, Voids die to Hydras in small numbers, away from cannon support, we all know this, but you chased them and brought the fight to him in the middle of the map, away from your static defense. 2 extra void rays make a HUGE difference at the start of the game, and better positioning is always important. You vortex'ed his army but then instead of retreating and making your position better, regrouping with re-enforcements, you chased after his hydras and allowed him to get the perfect surround when the vortex finished. It's all about defensive positioning in the earlygame. | ||
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Fogetaboudit
United States232 Posts
On May 09 2012 06:13 MrLlama wrote: So I played a guy who went for your build. I crushed him with my build. On May 09 2012 14:21 Let it Raine wrote: i love peoples testing I WON A GAME.. I BEAT A GUY... no one cares, and that doesn't mean anything for this build. youre not executing this build at full efficiency and neither are the people that zergs are beating. that said, i don't think straight mass air is the best way to go about it. I've been recommending standard openings for a free third and then transitioning into mass air with templar support. but, i like this strategy post 100% because you mentioned my other idea ive been yellin about, mass recalling voids if they get fungaled before you split. if this were reddit i'd upvote. I think air + templar beats everything zerg has and is far more effective of a late game composition than stalker collossi mothership with enough archons for a toilet. qft!  | ||
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Fogetaboudit
United States232 Posts
On May 07 2012 07:58 willkillson wrote: I really don't see what you could have done in our game, opening like this really puts you off vs muta into hydra. You BM me for no reason on the ladder when I'm a nice guy, and then you come here and make a post. You probably tried your best to blind counter me with a 7 minute 2 base Lair off 45 drones, which caught me offguard, still I would have been fine if I had either - 1 - Taken the correct third, above the ramp. (On Shakuras I took the exposed third and another poster made the same mistake) 2 - Positioned cannons better, they didn't really help in the fight 3 - Didn't panick at the start and pull probes vs muta. Costing valuable gas 4 - Didn't overreact to baneling bust (that was my read) I don't want to look for the replay because it's not that helpful, but you can go ahead and post it if you find it. It will demonstrate what I'm talking about. More importantly, go and work on your manners and your character, I feel bad for you. | ||
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quillian
United States318 Posts
Corruptors trade well vs void rays *so long as the void rays don't charge up.* In large void ray vs corruptor fights, build a small muta flock. Micro these mutas forward and behind the corruptors, causing the void rays to switch targets. try to target any void ray that is charged up with the muta ball, but never expose it for more than an instant. if they void ray player focus fires corruptors to avoid attacking the mutas, it will actually kill corruptors too fast and prevent charging. if he does not micro, the mutas will soak fire and snipe charged VR. This has NOT been live tested in 1v1 ladder, use at your own risk! | ||
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Fogetaboudit
United States232 Posts
On May 09 2012 15:48 quillian wrote: So here's a weird technique I'm playing around with: Corruptors trade well vs void rays *so long as the void rays don't charge up.* In large void ray vs corruptor fights, build a small muta flock. Micro these mutas forward and behind the corruptors, causing the void rays to switch targets. try to target any void ray that is charged up with the muta ball, but never expose it for more than an instant. if they void ray player focus fires corruptors to avoid attacking the mutas, it will actually kill corruptors too fast and prevent charging. if he does not micro, the mutas will soak fire and snipe charged VR. This has NOT been live tested in 1v1 ladder, use at your own risk! Interesting technique, I think a huge reason for my success with this build has a lot to do with poor micro from the zerg, often as a result of having little practice vs mass air compositions. The technique you describe sounds really difficult, remember there is normally a mothership around too, so you have to find a way to detect, or just give up "X" units for free while sniping it. Also, against muta composition you should have Phoenix, unless like you said a small flock is made at the end of the game, but then I fear the DPS versus supply will be much worse than any potential gain you get from favorable micro in the battle. I think this technique is most appropriate in the midgame, after you switch out of Mutas but still have some alive. | ||
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Rimak
Denmark434 Posts
On May 09 2012 07:51 Markwerf wrote: I'm still sure that a zerg that just masses upgraded corruptors with a few infestors for neural will easily demolish this strat. Corruptors just trade well enough with voids, especially in huge fights where the voids rarely charge. Not if you storm/vortex the shit out of corrupters, And feedback in instant kill for infestor. I really think it's a matter of engagement, and how well your opponent is prepared | ||
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