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[D] PvZ - Establishing third with Skytoss (viable?) - Page…
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Shikada
Serbia976 Posts
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Fogetaboudit
United States232 Posts
On June 29 2012 06:44 Nyast wrote: And now that I'm looking for a replay, I win again. Two Zergs killed already. But I'm back to the original build, without pressure, direct air. So that may be the reason. When I went 0-5 I was experimenting with 4 gate pressure and teching to colossi in the mid game ( as opposed to just focusing on air, and getting archons or colossi only in the end game ). So maybe I had bad luck, or maybe not concentrating on air was a bad idea/build, I'm not quite sure anymore. On the other hand, I'm facing Zergs that only have 50 drones at 9', so maybe they're bad. But if I lose doing the original build, I'll post it. Give this build order a shot, I think this was one of the best games I've played build order wise... it was very clean. I put 2 guys in each gas at the main, and focused on getting the third up. Notice I'm not even worried about harassing him until I have 3 base, he can have his 100 drones if he wants. http://drop.sc/209615 let me know if you think the timing attacks you are losing to could potentially be held by this. | ||
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Guamshin
Netherlands295 Posts
As a zerg you really can't let protoss get this army or you will die. | ||
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Fogetaboudit
United States232 Posts
On June 29 2012 07:43 Guamshin wrote: Maxing roach/ling (like Stephano) kills this. This is a very greedy build that pretty much relies on your opponent not reacting properly. Look at how your defence is against Lulssomething around 8 min, you have nothing. As a zerg you really can't let protoss get this army or you will die. the stefano max hits at around 11 minutes right? It seems pretty silly to reference what I have at 8 minutes, then. Also, a lot of other viable Protoss builds take greedy thirds. I went greedy because I scout 3 bases, no ling speed, an eco build, Hydra den, and drones transferring. You can of course play less greedy depending on what you scout, thats the whole point of the Phoenix. Yes this was greedy and would die to some all-ins if you blindly do it everygame, that''s why I advocate a scouting Phoenix and possibly a little meta gaming. Anyhow, I've held roach/ling countless times, and I've explained it ITT countless times. It's just a matter of how much damage their army does versus your structures and economy while on a clock because your army is never traded and constantly snowballing (since its in the air.) It comes down largely to execution and its quite funny trying to spam cannons everywhere/ split void rays properly/ targetfire overseers/ place vortex/ etc. I have much more trouble with a low econ baneling bust and mostly relies on whether or not I scout a lot of lings and/or ling speed. | ||
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Shikada
Serbia976 Posts
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HelioSeven
United States193 Posts
On June 29 2012 04:59 Nyast wrote: I'm a bit surprised that I seem to be the only one getting trouble with this strat.. I'll address a few comments: First of all, at which level are you playing ? I'm mid/high masters. Most of my Zerg opponents will scout my gas timings, become extremely suspicious if they don't see high-tech units, and sacrifice overseers repeatedly to know what I'm doing. There's litterally no way I can hide what I'm doing before any of my push hits. Right, so Zerg has knowledge. I'm out on the map with my first phoenix/voidray, I snippe the overlords near my base, get control of the XNC towers, while Zerg is doing two things: - get mass spores and queens ( he saw 2 stargates, or a stargate and a fleet beacon. No way he will under-estimate my strat ) - tech to some kind of anti-air: hydras, spire or quick infestors. Given that Zerg knows what you do quite early, by the time you have a MS and enough energy for a recall, he will already have a force strong enough to force you on the defense. Yeah, you'll have map control... between 8' and 12'. After that though, you'll be in the dark for the rest of the game.. I'm not particularly afraid of lings/roach pushes at 11-12'. What I die to are pushes with strong anti-air that come a bit later (14-15'). When Zerg first maxes on tons of anti-air. Your comment makes me think we are not on the same page. 3-4 voids ? Heh, no Zerg attacks when I have 3-4 voids. That's like at 10'. They attack around 14', like when they max on hydras with 15 corruptors. I'd have a dozen voidrays are this moment. Even assuming I don't get caught off-guard, Zerg will send his corruptors to kill my MS, and will kill it. 15 corruptors can kill a MS even with cannons and voidrays attacking them ( voids aren't charged yet ). Then the flood of hydras come in. 200/200 of 1/1 ( or even worse, sometimes 2/2 ) hydras absolutely murder 12 voidrays + 10+ cannons. You may survive if you have carriers or some splash damage ( colossi, templars ) but since the push is quite early ( 14' ), if you go for splash damage you'll have less voidrays.. hmm... Next time I get killed by those timing pushes, I'll post a replay. So you all understand my pain  Another comment where I feel like I'm not playing the same game When I push with 4 voids, there are 3-4 spores per expo and 5-6 queens, and everything linked by creep. Spores buy enough time for queens to come in defense. There's no way I can harass or do any damage with that. Then if I haven't scouted the spire, mutas come in and voidrays are too slow to escape them. It's auto-gg if you're not prepared. Do Zergs never scout you, for you to be so successful with those kind of pushes ? My Zergs always seem to be perfectly prepared  I feel like we're actually kinda on the same page, we're just talking about two different pushes. I thought we were talking about the 10-12' push that happens right as your are trying to establish the third with the mothership that just popped. This is the point where I usually have 3-4 void rays, a half dozen cannons, and maybe 6-8 zealots. That timing, as previously stated, usually comes in one of two forms, roach/hydra or corruptor/ling. The aim of both is to snipe the MS and sack/force a cancel on the the third. Neither are really that problematic, you just keep the mothership alive by dancing it back towards the mineral patches while cloaking the cannons and you're absolutely fine. A lot of people try and pressure with the void rays at this point, but that's just asking for your mothership to be caught defenseless at the third with no recall, so I never do that. Regarding the 14-15' maxed out Zerg push, which you are talking about, that is a very different scenario (and usually one that decides the game). If he goes for the 11-12' timing to try and snipe the mothership while the third is still being established, you should know exactly what unit composition he is planning to counter your Skytoss style with. If not, you should still be able to scout and see with a phoenix. Now, the way that I almost always play this style is single SG, fleet beacon, and then MS (fastest possible MS), with only one SG worth of void ray production until the third is established. Right before the third is established, however, I should have a good idea which of the three main anti-air choices my Zerg opponent is going for (hydra, spire, or infestor tech), and I plant my secondary wave of tech accordingly (to line up with the third being saturated). My general response is 3 additional SGs to hydra (total of 4), 2 additional SGs against spire, and a fast twilight and then templar archives with only 1 additional SG against infestors (feedbacks are just too necessary against infestors). As a general rule of thumb, you want more stargates the more carriers you plan to be producing, and less stargates the more void rays you aim to be producing (void rays being much more costly in terms of income than carriers to produce constantly); more carriers against hydras, more void rays against corruptors. If you see the hydra push coming and can get 4 carriers out (only 90 sec with chrono boosts, big reason for 4 total SGs) with 8-10 cannons, a dozen to a dozen and a half zealots, the aforementioned few void rays with mothership support, the push should just completely melt. The combined 3-4 void rays and 4 carriers should be powerful enough to quickly take out the corruptor hit squad if there is one, just micro your MS and carriers back as necessary and you should be able to pretty much outright win right there against just hydras. If he goes corruptors instead (not just a small snipe squad, but a large force), the timing is a bit later because spire and units take longer to build, so you have more time. Get more void rays and less carriers, and continue teching to storm in the background. With 1 less stargate as mentioned above, producing one carrier at a time and 2 void rays at a time, you should have the time and income to get a few high templar out with storm (focus chrono on storm research and void rays, get additional gateways as necessary). Against infestors, go straight for templar tech, delay storm tech for additional templars. Land feedbacks, and morph archons should be an easy clean up. It's tempting to go for colossi against hydra because you think you need AoE, but with a fast mothership opener carriers are the more immediate solution, and slow, off-creep hydras shouldn't do much against cannon/carrier/mothership. But against a 14-15' max out push, you win that single engagement and you have control of the entire map, you can deny bases and expand, cannon the crap out of everything, keep making carriers, and Zerg can't do squat. Recall harass to your hearts delight. I'm platinum, but regularly beat plat/dia Zergs with a very high percentage. I've just been doing Skytoss since the +1 zealot/void ray pressure was popular, so I'm pretty familiar with it at this point, where I think most Zergs aren't. But I can do Skytoss from White-Ra's carrier rush (there was one on his stream today!) to fast mothership to old void ray pressure builds and pretty much everything in between. I can also post replays if you're having trouble with either kind of Zerg push (the early or the maxed out kind), I'm sure I can find several in my recent games, as I'm having really good success with the fast mothership builds recently. P.S. I'm with you on the scouting thing. There's pretty much no way to deny Zerg overlord suicides before the stargate is up, and even if he doesn't get the scout he'll usually see the SG unit flying away from the base. It kinda balances out cause they can't deny your phoenix scout either, really, so you should still be able to play reactively against his reaction and you can force him to make a couple extra ovies and keep them in his base. | ||
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HelioSeven
United States193 Posts
On June 29 2012 05:12 Shikada wrote: Well Nyast, I guess master zergs are that much better at scouting than diamond ones. Makes sense If I feel I can't get anything done I retreat instantly. Conserving VRs is more important. But even so you're not behind and can take a safe third. Against mutas I'm not sure at that level of play, so I'm sure you know better. But I don't think he can get enough that early that you can't escape. Not if he's going 3 base, all those spores and queens. What's the number of mutas he needs to beat 4 +1 VRs? Without clumping them and with good focus fire not less than 10 surely. Regarding this, I don't think so. I've seen Hero use phoenixes to beat mutas before, so I know pros can do it if they feel like it. My personal experience with Skytoss is that if you scout a 2 base spire with the initial scouting phoenix you should just delay the fast mothership and go straight up to 4-5 phoenixes with +1 and range (go for MS after). If he sees your phoenix and makes corruptors reactively, he won't be able to do anything with them, so the phoenixes are just good insurance against 2 base muta play. Mutas are pretty good against void rays. Clumping isn't an issue, void rays don't have splash. Mutas are rather effective against void rays, even in small numbers (where usually void rays shine). | ||
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Fogetaboudit
United States232 Posts
On June 28 2012 04:03 Nyast wrote: Corruptors are a real pain. I keep losing games stupidly because of them. Like, I have a great start, excellent macro, take a decently fast third ( 10' ), get my MS, make 10-15 cannons at my third, then start to move out to harass with a dozen voids or so.. and then suddenly comes 20+ corruptors that instantly snippe my MS. Cannons underneath it basically do no damage, the MS is shot in a second, so if you were looking away during that second, it's pretty much gg. You can remake a MS and it'll get snipped again asap as it's back. Doesn't matter if Zerg loses 10-15 corruptors each time and it's horribly cost innefficient for him, he can easily get on 6 bases and without recall, moving to harass with your air army is just too risky. I recently tried to incorporate some early agression ( 4 gate + voidray pressure ) to slow down the Zerg, but the problem is that it slows you down a lot too, so I'm thinking of going back and getting into as much air as possible, as fast as possible. Here is a game against corruptors that suicide into my mothership, twice. http://drop.sc/209675 I feel like it's clearly too costly for him. | ||
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ThaReckoning
United States197 Posts
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thrawn2112
United States6918 Posts
On June 29 2012 03:08 Shikada wrote: Well I don't know how exactly you play the skytoss style, but once I scout I'm safe from roach rushes and what not (with probes) I go double stargate and before 10:30 I hit with 4 void rays with +1 weapons. If he is rushing mutas he won't have them before 11 minutes, so if you attack at this time there's a good chance you'll spot his spire. The chance is bigger if you attack the main, since most zergs place their tech there, although which base you attack is very map specific (usually you will want to target the third since it's the hardest one to get the queens to). So even if he rushed mutas he will have a few at most at this time, enough to beat with 4 +1 VRs, if he sends them to my base I'll drop a few canons next to my stargates and mineral lines and chronoboost phoenixes. When I attack with the inital 4 VRs I always rally stargates to my base, never to the VRs, because if he counter attacks you need those VRs home to defend. This is essential! So you will have those two VRs for defense, keep them over your canons and micro them until other canons are done and more phoenixes are out. Not to mention that your VRs will ravage his base if he tries this. Really, all this isn't even that hard, and it still surprises me how many zergs just flat out lose from the initial VR aggression. Important notes: - 4 VR +1 weapons harass rules - against mutas use extra minerals (that you will have) for canons and pump phoenixes - you power your stargates with like 3+ pylons right ? - build stargates between your main and natural, on the high ground near your natural wall off (it's the hardest to scout and safest from runbays and you can use those canons from the wall to defend your VRs while you defend stargates from mutas) won't just the standard number of queens zerg gets be able to easily deal with maybe even up to 6 voids? throw in a spore and it gets braindead easy for them | ||
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Fogetaboudit
United States232 Posts
On June 29 2012 18:03 thrawn2112 wrote: won't just the standard number of queens zerg gets be able to easily deal with maybe even up to 6 voids? throw in a spore and it gets braindead easy for them yes, luckily you don't need to do any damage to be in a fine position. | ||
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Shikada
Serbia976 Posts
On June 29 2012 20:08 Fogetaboudit wrote: yes, luckily you don't need to do any damage to be in a fine position. Yeah this. Also, combine that with the fact that if for some reason zerg makes a mistake in his defense, you'll be able to punish him severely. VR harass is a tactic that requires skill, no matter what some zerg players might think, and you'll get better at doing it as you try. Usually the zerg places spores in such a way that you can pick them off one by one, never should you allow two spores to shoot at you at once. When he brings all his queens to one base, you go and attack the furthest base from that (that's why it's not smart to attack the middle of the three zerg bases, the queens converge too quickly). Add to this the little things, like microing your damaged VRs back, gauging when to engage a certain number of queens depending on how many of your VRs are charged and the like and you'll start to see a definitive edge in your harass. And hey those queens aren't injecting or spreading creep, so that's good too. Usually there is no reason to stop the harass until you see mutas or big numbers of hydras. | ||
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thrawn2112
United States6918 Posts
all the replays i've seen have either zergs not scouting, not macroing properly, or not taking advantage of huge windows where toss is extremely vulnerable early game | ||
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Shikada
Serbia976 Posts
On June 29 2012 23:18 thrawn2112 wrote: seems like there's a lot of non top level players blindly defending this build. in a lot of the replays i've downloaded from you guys there seems to be several HUGE mistakes the zerg player makes that makes the build look more solid than it is. for one thing, i still dont think this build is safe against heavy muta play. especially if the zerg scouts the stargates and cybercore air upgrades (which is extremely easy to do) then they could easily prepare some timing where they make upwards of 8 mutas as soon as the spire finishes and continues making mutas and overwhelm your tiny voidray army. all the replays i've seen have either zergs not scouting, not macroing properly, or not taking advantage of huge windows where toss is extremely vulnerable early game Well all my posts consider this build against diamond zergs, I already stated that, so there is just cause for skepticism there. On the other hand, I do not blindly defend the build. I follow the scene a lot and know this build isn't popular in pro play, but I still haven't seen any high level players dismiss this build for any concrete reason. As long as that doesn't happen I'll continue to use it. With standard play my PvZ winrate is 50% at best, with skytoss it's like 90% and almost all the games get me a safe third, which is the main problem with standard play (excluding you're doing one of the popular two base all ins). And I feel you're not helping the debate at all. I respect that you don't think much of this build, but without replays of your own or discussing concrete examples I don't think your overly generic statements shift my opinion one way or the other. | ||
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saladToss
United States75 Posts
On June 29 2012 20:08 Fogetaboudit wrote: yes, luckily you don't need to do any damage to be in a fine position. I find that the amount of spores a zerg makes often times is the perfect amount of damage. 4-6 Void rays with micro can beat a lot of queens, so the spores are necessary. Staying active with the void rays until you see hydras is important. If you don't see hydras at a normal timing (they come out faster than mutas and infestors), mutalisk or infestor is likely. In either case 4 phoenix while you get your fleet beacon up is never a bad thing since you won't have any sort of map presence for the next 10 minutes of the game at least. I also like to make a couple zealots, and I send them around the map to the zerg third while I establish my own third and try to get a drone or two, but more importantly preoccupy them while I get my 4-7 cannons up. I like making a 2nd cybernetics core as well at my third for double upgrades and to wall in the cannons along with two more gates, so I have a total of four for my inevitable templar addition. I've been doing this build since I saw HongUn doing it on his stream forever ago. I'd say I have an 85% win rate with it at top 8 masters level. | ||
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Nyast
Belgium554 Posts
On June 29 2012 11:48 Fogetaboudit wrote: Here is a game against corruptors that suicide into my mothership, twice. http://drop.sc/209675 I feel like it's clearly too costly for him. Yeah, but assuming you refer to his push around 16'30, it was really weak. First of all, you lost your MS after the fight, not before.. big difference. Then, he was only at 165 pop vs your 140. Considering a Zerg can max out on roaches/hydras at 12', it's definitely a lot weaker than what I die to. I die to: - a push that comes 2 minutes before - a push where Zerg sacrificies his 10-15 corruptors *before* the fight happens - a push where he remaxes in roaches/hydras ( roaches to tank cannons, hydras versus air ) Think about what you have at 14'30, let's say at your third: 5 canons, 8 voidrays and 1 MS. There's no way you can save your MS from the corruptors. Then once the MS is out, it's let's say 10 voidrays + 5 cannons vs 30 roaches and 30 hydras. Guess who wins ? But here's the thing: that kind of doomspush is not that frequent. Good Zergs will definitely do it, but looking at my past wins, a lot of Zergs really mess up here. It's beyond my understanding.. they scout double stargate, or they scout the fleet beacon, they build a huge army to push and.. forget to bring an overseer ? How many games did I win simply because when Zerg did his first massive push, my whole army and cannons were cloacked ? | ||
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PZyungprince
United States13 Posts
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saladToss
United States75 Posts
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Aelfric
Turkey1496 Posts
On June 29 2012 23:18 thrawn2112 wrote: seems like there's a lot of non top level players blindly defending this build. in a lot of the replays i've downloaded from you guys there seems to be several HUGE mistakes the zerg player makes that makes the build look more solid than it is. for one thing, i still dont think this build is safe against heavy muta play. especially if the zerg scouts the stargates and cybercore air upgrades (which is extremely easy to do) then they could easily prepare some timing where they make upwards of 8 mutas as soon as the spire finishes and continues making mutas and overwhelm your tiny voidray army. all the replays i've seen have either zergs not scouting, not macroing properly, or not taking advantage of huge windows where toss is extremely vulnerable early game Won't happen, i always have at least 1 phoenix early with this build for scouting any kind of early spire. If i see a spire only and not a hydra den or even roaches i will just dump on phoenixes with +1/2 upgrade with +2 range and believe me, mutas are not the best thing against that. What i am suggesting is always, always get a phoenix after your first 2 void rays to pass over bases. It works wonders. | ||
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Tuczniak
1561 Posts
These builds might not have 50% at high master/gm, but it's good those builds exist. There is no reason for everyone play the same builds/compositions as progamers use. Level of execution and balance is completely different at those leagues. It's almost funny how lower leagues are using pro's builds while mass marine would work better :D. | ||
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