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I'm currently 3-2 with that build, but those 2 losses are due to me not being experienced enough.
I have a couple of random comments:
- I don't remember who said this, that Zerg has "no good mineral dump". In one of my games, the Zerg seems to have realized it and found a good mineral dump. Mass hatcheries. Like, all over the map. Take ALL expos and rebuilding them as soon as I destroyed them 
- I don't remember seeing this in the OP, but base trading seems to strongly favor the toss. One of the games I lost was because I did not realize this. I kept defending and defending at all costs while Zerg mass expoed everywhere. If I had run my voids into his bases, killed his tech and eco, and recalled in time to defend one of my bases, I'd have won the game.
Think about it twice: let's say Zerg makes a ton of hydralisks, and attacks your third while you're out on the map with all your voidrays. Let's say you decide to base trade. What's going to happen ? Zerg will lose a third-to-half of his army simply because of the mass cannons at your third. You'll definitely lose your third. But meanwhile, you're destroying his main, his eco and his tech. He cannot reprod his army. Then once Zerg has killed your third, he'll move on to your natural where he'll lose another third of his army. Meanwhile, you're killing the rest of his eco/expoes. Finally, you put the nail on the coffin and recall, and kill the last third of his army. Result: Zerg lost eco, army and tech. You only lost eco (third) but you still have your whole army and your tech.
- the best timing for dropping a robo and producing obs seems to be right as you're taking your third. Doing it earlier delays the mothership too much. Then when you're harassing with voidrays, you can use the obs to fight creep. In the whole mid-game you're going to have voidrays navigating the whole map, so fighting creep is incredibly easy, providing you have an obs. This will severely hinder hydras as a response.
- I tried three types of transitions: templars, colossi and carriers. I believe templars are the best, simply because colossi are too easily countered by mass corruptors, which also counter the voidrays. I'm not too convinced by the carriers transition at the moment ( though I did win my games when I did it ), I don't like how it slows the production of voidrays and is also countered by mass corruptors.
The main advantage of templars is the following: Zerg has 3 choice of units to counter your mass voidrays: corruptors, hydras and infestors ( I'll ignore mutas since you can reactively make phoenixes, it'd be a suicide ). Templars counter them all. Especially defensively, you're untouchable: corruptors can't attack ground and easily stack ( yummy storms landing on them ! ), hydras will melt to cannons + storms, and infestors can't attack besides mass infested terrans, which also melt to storms and cannons. You don't even need mass templars, just 4-6 of them is enough..
- I particularly like that there's no pressure about Zerg getting hive and teching to T3. When I play a standard PvZ macro game, I always feel like I'm playing against a timer: once he gets BLs, I must have my MS + archons ready or I'm a dead man. Not with that build. In fact, all you need is a good dose of patience.
- I had fun making Zergs go crazy by splitting my voidrays attacks. Typically, I'd send my main army on one expo while I'd split 1-2 voidrays ( not more ) and attack an expo on the other side of the map. I'm surprised at how easy it is to keep the Zerg on 3 bases with this tactic. Once you have a couple of templars out, you can easily take a fourth and fifth while Zerg struggles to take his fourth. It's really powerful.
Yesterday I won a PvZ where I had like 120 food total ( 12 voidrays + MS + 6 templars ) vs 200 food of roaches ( to tank cannons ) + mass hydras + 12 corruptors. It wasn't pretty. Zerg just attacked into my army + cannons, I landed storms, rage quit with a comment about "didn't know templars cost 0 gas". I'm playing at mid masters but I'm confident I'm gonna win a lot with this build at this level. Dunno how high masters / GMs will fare against it.
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@Nyast
I definitely think transitioning to High Templar is a very wise move for this build once you get the Mothership and the third base up and running. Although Carriers take a while to set up, Carrier/HT is such a strong composition and is really hard to crack, especially if you're keeping up on upgrades. I've been favoring upgrading Air Weapons with Cybercore and Shields with Forge... The shields cost the same amount as air armor, and shields will overall benefit you more as they make your Cannons, buildings and Probes more durable, and the only instance where I feel air armor benefits the Protoss more is with the Carrier, as they not only have a good base armor but also larger health pool as well.
But for Voidrays and Mothership, the Voidrays have 150 health vs 100 shields, and should you have a Voidray that survives a battle, the shields will be tougher which gives it a little more surviveability in my eyes. Although Mothership definitely has a large health pool as well, it's equal to her shield count and as said... I'd rather buff the shield since it will regenerate.
I also think that getting a Warp Prism or two can really give the Zerg fits... As you can run your Voids over to one side (either his main or an expansion) to draw the army, and then hit with a Zealot drop elsewhere. Since there are obviously so many minerals to spend the Zealot Warpins can be done quite frequently... Especially once you get Warp Prism speed as there is nothing the Zerg has that can really catch those prisms (Speed prisms actually have the same speed as a Mutalisk).
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Good point about warp prisms.. though speed requires a robo bay, which I won't get if I go templars.
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Does anyone have any replays of going for the HT switch after taking a third, using this style?
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On May 11 2012 04:27 Nyast wrote:
Good point about warp prisms.. though speed requires a robo bay, which I won't get if I go templars.
Yeah I wouldn't worry about getting speed until at least 4-base. Rest of the time there is something better to be spending gas on.
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I just faced this and dumbly went 3/3 corruptors. Had the whole map, 7 bases to his 4. Threw away 2 armies of corruptor and a few lings, did minimal damage. Next time I face this I'm building spores, infestor, hydra, overseer. Fungal & infested terrans should clean up.
I think starving the opponent out while taking some of his bases and defending is the best way to go. Infestors and a spam of spores make defense quite easy.
My game was on shakuras, meaning I can take up to 8 bases on that map while he is limited to four. Havent faced it on other maps.
It is difficult for the toss to attack a large number of spores as clumped up voids make such excellent targets for fungal infested terran traps.
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This is a somewhat relevant thread... so I will ask here.
Why do more protoss not do VR's? Why do pro players get carriers.... ever... when a VR is soooooooo much better?
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On May 11 2012 12:32 TheRabidDeer wrote:
This is a somewhat relevant thread... so I will ask here.
Why do more protoss not do VR's? Why do pro players get carriers.... ever... when a VR is soooooooo much better?
Carriers are a lot beefier and also do more up-front DPS than a Void Ray... However, they are of course more expensive and slower to build by a fair margin. But if you reach "critical mass" with Carriers (I'd say once you have about 10+) it requires a MASSIVE amount of resources to take them down.
So it's kind of a trade-off... Cheaper + Faster vs Stronger + Expensive. Early game where you don't have much of an army I would definitely say Voidray > Carrier (I've seen some pros like WhiteRa flat out rush the Carrier, when he probably could of achieved more massing Voids), but as the game continues the Carrier becomes more appealing... Especially since it has such a crazy long range of attack.
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On May 11 2012 13:08 CrAzEdMiKe wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2012 12:32 TheRabidDeer wrote:
This is a somewhat relevant thread... so I will ask here.
Why do more protoss not do VR's? Why do pro players get carriers.... ever... when a VR is soooooooo much better? Carriers are a lot beefier and also do more up-front DPS than a Void Ray... However, they are of course more expensive and slower to build by a fair margin. But if you reach "critical mass" with Carriers (I'd say once you have about 10+) it requires a MASSIVE amount of resources to take them down. So it's kind of a trade-off... Cheaper + Faster vs Stronger + Expensive. Early game where you don't have much of an army I would definitely say Voidray > Carrier (I've seen some pros like WhiteRa flat out rush the Carrier, when he probably could of achieved more massing Voids), but as the game continues the Carrier becomes more appealing... Especially since it has such a crazy long range of attack.
In terms of supply cost VR's have more health though, in addition to them being incredibly strong against most traditional counters and better synergy with the rest of your army. You also lose less damage when you lose a VR when compared to a carrier.
I mean, add in some HT's and/or archons and zealots with the VR's and you can handle the counters to VR's (hydra/infestor) really really well via storm and feedback.
I would understand carriers if they had the micro potential of BW carriers and maybe a bit more speed so that they can actually be microd, but as it stands they seem too easy to counter... either with corruptors or infestors NP.
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It makes me sad that this is working at masters level.
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On May 11 2012 13:29 TheRabidDeer wrote:
In terms of supply cost VR's have more health though, in addition to them being incredibly strong against most traditional counters and better synergy with the rest of your army. You also lose less damage when you lose a VR when compared to a carrier.
I mean, add in some HT's and/or archons and zealots with the VR's and you can handle the counters to VR's (hydra/infestor) really really well via storm and feedback.
I would understand carriers if they had the micro potential of BW carriers and maybe a bit more speed so that they can actually be microd, but as it stands they seem too easy to counter... either with corruptors or infestors NP.
The point of combined health for 2 Voids vs 1 Carrier is actually the same. The Voidray has 150 HP + 100 Shields which = 250 Combined health, vs. a single Carrier which has 300 Health, and 150 Shields for a combined of 450 HOWEVER, the Carrier has a base armor of 2 over the course of 300 of that health, which makes them a lot beefier than the Voidrays.
So for the same comparison of 2 Void Rays vs. 1 Carrier, the Voids actually cost a little bit more gas. The Carrier does need the interceptor upgrade (150 Gas), but if 2 Voids = 1 Carrier, then Voids cost a total of 300 gas to make two of them. So as the numbers get bigger, the Carriers become heavily produceable. Once I've solidly established my third base, and have all the necessary tech up and running, if you're not using ANY other gas for units/upgrades, you can basically produce three Carriers at a time non-stop. You can beef the Carrier numbers out relatively quickly because you have a lot of the infrastructure already set-up.
Although to be fair, I am biased as I love the Carrier... And I'm trying to find a way to keep it from going in HotS. =(
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A game I played yesterday evening. Zerg kept throwing maxed corruptors armies at me while taking the whole map. Still won cause he lost patience and suicided his armies into my cannons:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/F6l8C.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-262974.jpg)
Besides the fun, I'm getting convinced that the weakness of this build is taking the fourth. If Zerg has a decent army to counter the mass voidray, his best bet is to starve the Protoss by constantly denying the fourth. A good amount of corruptors and infestors are critical to do that. In that game above, Zerg failed to prevent my fourth, and once the cannons were up it was too late.
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Hm, if fourth is the weakness, then maybe we can think of some 3 base timing?
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On May 11 2012 18:58 Nyast wrote:A game I played yesterday evening. Zerg kept throwing maxed corruptors armies at me while taking the whole map. Still won cause he lost patience and suicided his armies into my cannons: Besides the fun, I'm getting convinced that the weakness of this build is taking the fourth. If Zerg has a decent army to counter the mass voidray, his best bet is to starve the Protoss by constantly denying the fourth. A good amount of corruptors and infestors are critical to do that. In that game above, Zerg failed to prevent my fourth, and once the cannons were up it was too late.
I think the main reason it might have felt a little fragile at certain points in that particular game are for some of these following reasons:
1) You didn't have Mothership ready for when you set up your third. This one was huge, as you were massively delayed by a roach counterattack that wouldn't have accomplished anything if you had big momma parked at that expo. If big momma would have been on time, you not only could have defended the third with no issue at all, but with mass recall being ready sooner you would be able to run your Voids into all sorts of fun places without fear of losing them.
2) Before your Voids reached critical mass you lost three of them while being very aggressive. Trying to delay the fourth I liked, but when you only had a handful of Voids I would have brought them back and turtled up a little bit. This build is capable of getting very aggressive once it reaches a certain threshold of Voidrays, and I think once the Zerg has had time to get some tech to deal with the Voidrays, you have to pull back and mass up. At 14:26 you had a total of 4 Voidrays on the field when it could have easily been 7. You even lost a pair of Voidrays needlessly around 18 minutes.
I think this bleeding of Voidrays is essentially what would have made it a little more difficult to have the sufficient army early on to be able to secure that fourth... Especially since if you wouldn't have had to rebuild the Nexus and had that income sooner, your army would have been bigger as a result as well. I'm very glad you won though, but I think this playstyle is a LOT more passive than most Protoss builds, since for a long time you're going to be sitting back massing Voids and just making sure that all three fronts are properly defended.
Once a sufficient number of Voidrays are up and mass recall energy is available, the build has the capability of really going balls to the wall with aggression... It's going to take some flushing out, but I actually believe that some kind of air concept is the future of PvZ... It just has to be discovered correctly.
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On May 11 2012 18:58 Nyast wrote:A game I played yesterday evening. Zerg kept throwing maxed corruptors armies at me while taking the whole map. Still won cause he lost patience and suicided his armies into my cannons: Besides the fun, I'm getting convinced that the weakness of this build is taking the fourth. If Zerg has a decent army to counter the mass voidray, his best bet is to starve the Protoss by constantly denying the fourth. A good amount of corruptors and infestors are critical to do that. In that game above, Zerg failed to prevent my fourth, and once the cannons were up it was too late.
Yeah I think I agree that losing some early voids slowed you down, your fleet was kinda small throughout the mid game.
One thing I've been trying on day break is actually taking the close-by-air as my fourth, instead of expanding next to the third. This lets you reinforce quickly from your main, and avoid spreading your voidrays out too much. You can easily go on raiding missions to the zergs 4th and 5th, and seriously cramp their ability to expand. With your 4th, you want to give them an obvious target to contest, build a ton of cannons and rally your stargates there. This will make them hit you where you are strongest.
I also think HT are the best transition, as they help vs corruptors, hydras, and infestors equally well.
edit: it seems like he controlled the big fight in the center pretty poorly. since you were defending with your mothership, chain fungals should have been effective. I think as zerg figure out the details of these engagements we will see less lopsided games. still fun though.
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Sir, I believe this is the most rage-inducing build I have ever tried. 2/2 so far <3
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For the toss out there who are using this strat, beware of early nydus and straight up all hydra off 2-3 bases, just 2 strats that I have lost to when using this build. You simply just dont have a good enough amout of VRs for the hydras, and the nydus bypasses your cannoned front.
@sharklight, most definitely a BM enducing build, every recall after sniping some key building, like a hive or expo, causes the explitives to start flying!
Solid build though, really puts the ball in the zergs court to pressure the toss instead of the other way around. Pretty much 75-80% win rate vs zerg, when pvz was my weakest prior to this thread, Ty again Foget!
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I've been trying out this midgame (Void Rays+Recall) for about a dozen games thus far, and I think it's very solid for some maps. It honestly makes me feel like I'm playing Warcraft III again, where I'm running around the map sniping expos and dodging fights with town portals. Pretty ridiculous. Even if I find this whole Void Ray midgame to be too fundamentally flawed, I'm going to probably use the Mothership for Recall more than for Vortex, at this point.
I got Roach/Ling all-ined on the ladder earlier today, when I was on 2 bases and my opponent had 3 hatches (with only 2 bases saturated ~40 drones total). My mothership popped out at my expo just in time to cloak my Nexus, which was in red health and being attacked by a couple dozen lings. I almost fell out of my chair, I was laughing so hard--but it was still really cool to see that timing in action. My build went something like this:
Standard FFE through double gas and Cyber
Gas at Expo
Stargate
Other gas at Expo
Fleet Beacon
Stargate
That was a really, really fast mothership.
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On May 13 2012 18:29 Chaser808 wrote:
For the toss out there who are using this strat, beware of early nydus and straight up all hydra off 2-3 bases, just 2 strats that I have lost to when using this build. You simply just dont have a good enough amout of VRs for the hydras, and the nydus bypasses your cannoned front.
@sharklight, most definitely a BM enducing build, every recall after sniping some key building, like a hive or expo, causes the explitives to start flying!
Solid build though, really puts the ball in the zergs court to pressure the toss instead of the other way around. Pretty much 75-80% win rate vs zerg, when pvz was my weakest prior to this thread, Ty again Foget!
Lol I can only imagine how rage inducing this build is, I have had nearly every zerg I used this on BM me some way or another lol. It feels very abusive but its hella fun IMO. It feels really WC3 esque with the recall (acting as TP) and all.
My usual transition for this build is to drop the council and templar archives, I slowly accumulate HT off the 1-2 gates that I have, if I see mass hydra inc I tech storm and CB it, it takes about 3 mins to get storm out from the time you first drop the archives, considering that he wont sac his hydras against mass canons but instead go about it pretty carefully, its really easy to hold the push. I usually have 2 HT with quite abit of energy some time after taking my 3rd. If its the usual corruptor response I move out when I feel comfortable and make all the HTs into archons for some toilets.
My tweak to the build is to drop a shit ton of gates when I move out. Later game there really isnt much to do with minerals. The gate transition is for remax on mass archons just incase something goes wrong. I've also won remaxing on chargelots cos he had too many corruptors, that game was hilarious, he was floating above my army killing his own corruptors cos my zealots didnt care and was ripping his base apart. (i got into that position cos my mothership was trailing behind and got sniped and i lost the void-corruptor war cos i had some supply at home)
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Have any of you have experienced this build on Antiga ?
Most of my losses are on Antiga. The third is really hard to defend since there are three attack paths around that location: the rocks at the third, the big ramp at the third ( not much room to place cannons or wall here ), and of course the ramp at the natural. In addition, I lost a few games due to starvation, as taking a fourth is very difficult, as it's so far.
I'm considering taking my third in the natural of another corner of the map instead of the standard third. That also gives a free fourth provided I cannon hard at the ramp.
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EPT
