The midgame strategy and composition was given a go in the ProLeague. Nice find! :D :D
On May 21 2012 01:37 TheSilverfox wrote: Here's M18M (StarDust) using a variation of this strat in ProLeague :D
He had a really nice composition with a lot of VRs, some Carriers, othership as well as 3-4 HTs to Feedback the Infestors.
Results, 85%+ Ladder winrate over current sample (small,) but similar results over very very large samplesize (1 year-ish) + Show Spoiler +
I just installed SC2 gears (cool program!) Here is an analysis of all of my Ladder games for all the replays I have, as you can see my PvZ is pretty dominant. Also, most of the 5 losses are from getting all-inned or whathaveyou. I still need to work on my defense of the various all-ins. While this will become less powerful (like every strategy) at higher levels, I think it's still at least certainly viable. I wish I had my replays saved all year, but the results are not really different, just the sample size. I really need to learn PvP, or I'll just end up switching to Terran for good
Hi Guys, I'm a bit of a Lurker and recreational player. This is my first post so go easy on the flaming, please.
I'm pretty obsessive when it comes to gametheory. I like to understand why I'm winning and losing, and usually it's pretty clear to me, as I watch tons of pro games, pro streams, and feel like I have a really good understanding of the game. However, in PvZ it is absolutely not clear to me, why more people don't use this strategy.
Before you LOL at the composition and how this looks like a silver league 4v4 please actually give this post some thought.
If a top protoss were to try this style, and work on it, I just can't see how it would lose. I would really love to see this strategy either become extremely powerful, and very viable at any level, or get exploited.
Most top protoss who try double stargate treat it as too much of a 2 base all-in imho.
On May 31 2012 22:01 Adonminus wrote: I tried this style out, started with some practice games with my teammates, and now here's my first time trying it on ladder against NrSuStar rank ~80 grandmaster on eu. I won the game quite easily actually, great strategy imo. Check the replay: http://sc2rep.com/replays/(P)NOMAdonminus_vs_(Z)NrSuStar/19912
http://drop.sc/171670 - 1st Ballot BM Hall of Famer xDDD - I go for a +1 zealot+VoidRay timing off 2 base to try and interrupt his drone count, this delays my third but I think its worth it. I also make a scouting Phoenix which is really helpful in identifying the threats.
http://drop.sc/171539 - worked in a scouting Phoenix to check for Muta, then transitioned into Colossus off 4 base
Losing versus better player - http://drop.sc/171097 - This game makes me feel that mixing in 1 or 2 scouting phoenix is important! he was active with harass and just a little too fast, there are many things the protoss can improve upon, however. It's possible that pulling probes and making reactive Phoenix versus Mutas is a bit too slow.
http://drop.sc/171539 - tried a light 2 base pressure, and then worked in a scouting Phoenix to check for Muta, then transitioned into Colossus off 4 base.
On May 06 2012 17:30 piroko139 wrote: Alright, I was toying around with this the past coupe of days and I noted a few things. I am mid Masters on NA in case anyone is wondering.
1. Games last LONG. All the games that I didn't die to early aggression, they lasted at least 20 minutes, commonly around 30.
2. As a result of games lasting long, focus on upgrades is paramount. I have to definitely attribute a lot, if not all, of my wins to being up in reasonable upgrades. Carriers hit hard as hell when they're at 3 attack. I'm sure you guys already knew that.
3. Defensive Mothership is pretty amazing. It bolsters your defense tremendously, and gives more mobility to an honestly slow army. Recall is apparently awesome. That in mind, It has forced me to get used to using the Mothership on a completely different hotkey.
4. Corrupters are not that great against this composition, UNLESS they're upgraded. I do not see many zerg going double Spire though. Hydras are also not that great against this composition. But then again, I haven't gone up against 3/3 Hydras yet (I see a lot of zerg skipping Carapace for some reason).
5. There is no efficient mineral dump against this composition. Spore Crawlers fail against Carriers, Lings can't hit air (or get past a cannon wall), and I haven't seen a queen heavy composition yet (Although I have to assume Carrier dps will negate Transfuse anyways). Forcing the zerg into a gas heavy composition is something that seems to make them uncomfortable. In other words, I have made several zerg lose purely because they ran out of gas to reinforce.
6. A lot of games seem to catch the zerg completely off guard, simply by putting the Stargates 2 opposite ends of the base. By showing a single Stargate, the zerg seem to assume that that's all you have, and it commonly leaves them unprepared if they attempt to engage with no antiair.
Replays: In the following replays, I opened up Forge Expand every single time, along with Double Stargate. In almost all of the games, I went for pure air, the composition consisting of 1 Mothership, Void Rays and Carriers, going Phoenix for Mutas (obviously). I opted for more heavy Carriers in most games, although I have yet to differentiate when it is appropriate to do one or the other.
http://drop.sc/173180 Daybreak Muta Ling play. Although he was able to wreck my economy, the infrastructure for a Phoenix switch kept the muta numbers down, in addition to having not touched the primary army. As such, the final engagement was more or less a walkover, since he was unable to maintain a 4th (or his main). Also, 3 attack Carriers wreck 0 armor Hydras.
http://drop.sc/173183 Korhal Compound LE I was really bad in scouting this game, he took every base that wasn't on my side of the map, and I completely missed it. Still, I felt as if his 4th was too late, and he found out first hand why you shouldn't bunch up your overseers. Again, 3 attack Carriers really smash things with no armor.
http://drop.sc/173185 Cloud Kingdom LE Hydra Infestor composition. I believe what killed him is that he made too many infestors and it cut deep into his gas. As such, he was unable to reinforce with either Hydras or more Corrupters. Also, his 4th was really late, which allowed it to get sniped almost immediately.
http://drop.sc/173186 Antiga Shipyard I believe he tried Stephano style roaches, assuming that it was only 1 Stargate. As such, I found out how effective Void Rays + Cannons are against Roach Ling. It seems like the rest of it was him losing too much and being unable to rebuild his economy effectively (or even get a composition that can hit air).
http://drop.sc/173221 Cloud Kingdom LE 44 Corrupters < 15 Void Rays, 6 Carriers. To be fair, the toss is at 3/2/1 and the Corrupters were at 1/1, in addition to half the Corrupter army didn't engage immediately. Although he was able to get good ling runbys, I was able to keep my army. Also, even though he hit 6k minerals, I reiterate that there is no efficient mineral dump against mass air.
http://drop.sc/173224 Korhal Compound LE This game is a loss. It showcases early aggression destroying enough of the economy that it becomes too taxing to recover. He also significantly delayed my 3rd, forcing my army to grow too slowly. It also involves the use of double spire to equate the upgrades that the air toss had. Since I haven't tried double Core yet, I fell behind in upgrades and 3/2 Corrupters overran me in the end.
In the end, I feel it's at least a refreshing look at PvZ, and I will certainly be trying out mass air more. I'll post more replays as they come along.
I just have a question, could you elaborate in your OP more about the composition and map viability? Maybe how it fares against the different styles of defense? I could probably figure out if I watched the replays, but it might arouse some interest from a broader audience if you add some more information. As far as I am concerned, both P and Z players are yearning for variations to the current gameplay, so inputs like this are really helpful.
If you truely want to be invincible, add HTs late game into the mix. They cost only 2 supply? And 1 storm would wipe out the cluster of corrupters/hydras. They can also feedback infestors. + their movement speed is on par with the mothership so you get 2 OP spellcasters in an area.
Basically you spend all of your gas on Void Rays + Mothership. Against anything on the ground in the midgame, this is what you make.
If you scout muta then you have the infrastructure to go Phoenix. One mismicro that pros always make and it TILTS ME beyond belief. They try to micro 1 or 2 phoenix against 13 mutas like some sort of hero, and of course it always gets sniped. They repeat this for 3 or 4 production cycles, managing to let every phoenix get sniped, when you need to use very defensive micro, and NOT TAKE CHANCES until you have a critical number of phoenix's to trade efficiently.
Also, you can add a few carriers late, against a zerg with a lot of infestors in his composition. I did this in my second replay.
But seriously, its all about Stargate, Mothership, and cannons. Think of it like Mech TvX, but it's more mobile and defensive recall is just amazing for harass, and OH SHIT!
On April 30 2012 19:37 Immutant wrote: If you truely want to be invincible, add HTs late game into the mix. They cost only 2 supply? And 1 storm would wipe out the cluster of corrupters/hydras.
I see this a lot in 3v3, 4v4 team games.
since you are turtling with your deathball, and plastering the map with cannons, if you manage to mine half the gas on the map you can make the production facilities to remax into any sort of standard composition that you choose. In my second replay, after establishing my fourth I throw down 15 gates and Colossus tech, even though I never end up needing to use it.
On April 30 2012 19:24 TokO wrote: I just have a question, could you elaborate in your OP more about the composition and map viability? Maybe how it fares against the different styles of defense? I could probably figure out if I watched the replays, but it might arouse some interest from a broader audience if you add some more information. As far as I am concerned, both P and Z players are yearning for variations to the current gameplay, so inputs like this are really helpful.
Thank you nevertheless!
I talked about composition in my first reply but I forgot to talk about map viability.
Bigger maps are slightly better, smaller maps are slightly worse. Mostly because the push distance to your third for early timings is shorter or longer. That one huge map with the two islands is SUPER awesome for this strategy.
And of course maps like Metalopolis where its harder to FFE are worse than maps where it's a bit more natural.
But since you don't really need minerals anyways, and your going to sink into cannons eventually, anyway, you can throw down a few extra cannons if you don't confirm a quick third, or if you are scared of some shady business like early speed, scouting a lot of lings which could mean a bust could be coming, etc etc.
Watched both games, dunno really what to say. It worked better than i thought. Would like to see how this would cope with hydra/fungal combo. In both games there were no fungals, at least no decent ones.
Also the part about mutas. You dont really scout (you go for voids immediately) so you dont know if has 7-8 mutas coming.
On April 30 2012 19:38 Fogetaboudit wrote: If you scout muta then you have the infrastructure to go Phoenix. One mismicro that pros always make and it TILTS ME beyond belief. They try to micro 1 or 2 phoenix against 13 mutas like some sort of hero, and of course it always gets sniped. They repeat this for 3 or 4 production cycles, managing to let every phoenix get sniped, when you need to use very defensive micro, and NOT TAKE CHANCES until you have a critical number of phoenix's to trade efficiently.
Problem with mutas is that they kill your pylons/stargate to prevent you from making additional phoenixes. Thats why pros try to buy time with a singe phoenix.
The difference would be that I use Archons instead of VRs, which I believe is better due to warp-in time and the low mineral cost (100/300), which would allow for more cannons or whathaveyou. That being said, a FFE into double stargate is very vulnerable to things such as hydra drops and other cheesy things (baneling bust shoots to mind).
I never tried archons but they seem pretty bad versus roaches in my experience. I think the idea of the defensive mothership to establish a third is very good, though.
Baneling busts function very similar to the same way they function versus any normal FFE (itll probably work if you are poorly defended and caught off guard.)
If your first probe doesn't scout a third then you should be pretty skeptical. Open with zealot pressure, poker around and if you scout a bunch of lings or speed or no third and get that spidey sense then you can make a few cannons blind, of buff your sim city and it doesn't really hurt you, until you get the defensive voids out.
Blind Hydra drops are probably the hardest counter if your opponent commits from the start of the game, however, he can't "scout and exploit" it's way too slow imo.
On April 30 2012 20:10 sperY wrote: Watched both games, dunno really what to say. It worked better than i thought. Would like to see how this would cope with hydra/fungal combo. In both games there were no fungals, at least no decent ones.
Also the part about mutas. You dont really scout (you go for voids immediately) so you dont know if has 7-8 mutas coming.
On April 30 2012 19:38 Fogetaboudit wrote: If you scout muta then you have the infrastructure to go Phoenix. One mismicro that pros always make and it TILTS ME beyond belief. They try to micro 1 or 2 phoenix against 13 mutas like some sort of hero, and of course it always gets sniped. They repeat this for 3 or 4 production cycles, managing to let every phoenix get sniped, when you need to use very defensive micro, and NOT TAKE CHANCES until you have a critical number of phoenix's to trade efficiently.
Problem with mutas is that they kill your pylons/stargate to prevent you from making additional phoenixes. Thats why pros try to buy time with a singe phoenix.
When I say scout, I mean "see mutas" what will sometimes happen is you will have 3 voids harassing the zergs third, you will notice the lings have no speed, you will notice there are no roaches and then BAM 12 mutas kill your three voids. You target and try to pick off 2 or 3 mutas. you have another 2 Voids in production, and your mothership is about to pop. You use these units to "zone" the mutas out kinda like marines do. You throw down emergency cannons, you pump phoenix and 1 or 2 emergency stalkers.
It's a little tricky and takes some time to get used to but the stabilization is not that hard. Phoenix / voidrayMS versus Muta Corruptor is really fun!
Mutas have little DPS, unpowering my Stargates is not really a threat, normally I have a cannon covering my stargates, also never make an artosis pylon powering all your stargates, obv!
i've watched the peepmode replay and i must say it looks very interesting. The one thing i foresee as a hardcounter that is viable after scouting the build would be corrupter infestor. Corrupters with fungal is more cost effective then pure voidray.
I'm gonna try it out, and give it a shot and post my thought/replays on it whenever i have around 10 games with it.
I was playing around with defensive stargate openings before but you can get swarmed if they intended to open up muta but then cuorrupter switch once they see pure air. And voidrays only get really good in larger numbers, as seen in the replays when you start cleaving through the zergs main in like 10 seconds and then recall back.
On April 30 2012 21:57 TechSc2 wrote: i've watched the peepmode replay and i must say it looks very interesting. The one thing i foresee as a hardcounter that is viable after scouting the build would be corrupter infestor. Corrupters with fungal is more cost effective then pure voidray.
I'm gonna try it out, and give it a shot and post my thought/replays on it whenever i have around 10 games with it.
I was playing around with defensive stargate openings before but you can get swarmed if they intended to open up muta but then cuorrupter switch once they see pure air. And voidrays only get really good in larger numbers, as seen in the replays when you start cleaving through the zergs main in like 10 seconds and then recall back.
I'm happy to hear this!
Fungal is the biggest thing to look out for, chain fungals are instant GG if you don't have a recall and are too balled up and caught out on the map. It's very important to only be aggressive if you have a recall available. If you are turtling behind your cannons you cannot really be "fungaled" there.
On April 30 2012 19:37 Immutant wrote: If you truely want to be invincible, add HTs late game into the mix. They cost only 2 supply? And 1 storm would wipe out the cluster of corrupters/hydras. They can also feedback infestors. + their movement speed is on par with the mothership so you get 2 OP spellcasters in an area.
I see this a lot in 3v3, 4v4 team games.
No, one storm does not wipe out the cluster corrupters and hydras. hydras need 2 storms to kil corruptors need three...
On April 30 2012 22:17 InfusedTT.DaZe wrote: there are more problems than chain fungals, mass infested terrans and hydra dps seems good vs mass vr, but anyway its worth trying out
In small numbers you are absolutely correct, but we are trying to max out with this army, kinda like how 10 marauders beats 5 tanks but 30 marauders loses to 15 tanks (I'm not Terran but you understand what I'm saying) Void rays in large numbers are just absurd, they literally counter Hydras when they are stacked, especially off creep and engaging near edges. Infested terrans actually get mostly sniped up during the hatching.
I must admit at first I thought this strategy sucks, but after trying it out I see how wrong I was. Very easy to pull off, rage-inducing , besides its cool to see victory fleet annihilating everything the zerg can throw at you.
Does anyone remember Socke vs. Dimaga on Crevasse a while ago, sometime last year, i think it was one of the IEMs, but im not sure, basically Socke transitioned into mass vr with recall to kill expos and stuff, i actually dont know the result but it looked really good at that time, but nobody ever tried it since then, it was kind of a unique gimmicky game in some ways, maybe someone knows which game it was so we could go watch it.
On April 30 2012 22:53 Broesl wrote: Does anyone remember Socke vs. Dimaga on Crevasse a while ago, sometime last year, i think it was one of the IEMs, but im not sure, basically Socke transitioned into mass vr with recall to kill expos and stuff, i actually dont know the result but it looked really good at that time, but nobody ever tried it since then, it was kind of a unique gimmicky game in some ways, maybe someone knows which game it was so we could go watch it.
On April 30 2012 22:53 Broesl wrote: Does anyone remember Socke vs. Dimaga on Crevasse a while ago, sometime last year, i think it was one of the IEMs, but im not sure, basically Socke transitioned into mass vr with recall to kill expos and stuff, i actually dont know the result but it looked really good at that time, but nobody ever tried it since then, it was kind of a unique gimmicky game in some ways, maybe someone knows which game it was so we could go watch it.
He just transitions into it lategame, but that game just came to my mind when i read about vrs with recall to harass, so watch it its kind of old but still pretty epic.
Please tell me shit like this doesn't work, beacause if it does, this game is terrible.
:D
Seriously though, that dimaga socke game was silly, it was one of those classic times that dimaga didn't attack with a huge lead, and he managed to throw the game away.
On April 30 2012 19:37 Immutant wrote: If you truely want to be invincible, add HTs late game into the mix. They cost only 2 supply? And 1 storm would wipe out the cluster of corrupters/hydras. They can also feedback infestors. + their movement speed is on par with the mothership so you get 2 OP spellcasters in an area.
I see this a lot in 3v3, 4v4 team games.
No, one storm does not wipe out the cluster corrupters and hydras. hydras need 2 storms to kil corruptors need three...
I know, but 1 storm is enough, the zerg will never recover from that damage. If he stays and fight, his forces will die. If he retreats, the slow speed of hydras and corrupters will mean VRs (which can attack while moving) get to pick them off. 1 full energy HT can storm 2 times and it costs only 2 supply. 4-5 HTs are enough. It's an extremely cost efficient army because the only zerg AA counters to Mass VRs are Hydras/Corrupters(VR good vs armored)/Queens/Mutas/Infestors and the inclusion of HTs will negate hydras,queens, mutas and infestors vs pure VR.
On April 30 2012 23:34 Surili wrote: Please tell me shit like this doesn't work, beacause if it does, this game is terrible.
:D
Seriously though, that dimaga socke game was silly, it was one of those classic times that dimaga didn't attack with a huge lead, and he managed to throw the game away.
well, it works as far as I can tell... I agree its a bit silly, there is no epic forcefield micro, or sick timing, but thats the game.
When do you start to put pressure back on Zerg ? As soon as you have recall on your mothership ? What in-game time is that generally ?
How fast do you upgrade ? Do you go double-cybercore upgrades ?
How many gates do you make ? Just 1 ? Or more, "in case of emergency", for ex. warping sentries ? If so how many gates do you go up to ?
While you're producing all those voidrays, Zerg can freely drone and get a crazy economy. What prevents him from going mass corruptors and overflow you with those ? You won't deny scouting either, Zerg will know pretty early that you're going for mass voidrays.
It's a bit like what WhiteRa does sometimes as a "special taktik" on ladder. He goes fast carriers on 2 bases, secures his third and goes for.. more carriers, and a delayed mothership. It wins when Zergs are caught by surprise or don't know how to react, but sometimes Zerg just go mass corruptors and the carriers stand no chance. I know voidrays are pretty decent versus corruptors, however will you have enough of them in time since Zerg's got the eco advantage since the beginning ?
Do you have replays of a Zerg scouting you early and committing to heavy economy into corruptors ?
I used to do a style like this, but I would expand behind carriers and turn it into a chargelot-archon followup to kill the hydras/corruptor. It's a good thing zergs haven't learned to magic-box corruptor vs archons yet :D. (Stole the build from whitera - he used to do it on shakuras a lot). Anyway, I like the idea of a defensive moship better, feels like a safer third base.
How would you deal with a fast baneling bust? Do you overinvest in cannons immediately- this is a pretty big sign to zergs that they can eco freely. If you're not investing into sentries at all, I could see that giving you some trouble.
Also how do you pressure beyond your initial stargate opener? Once the zerg stabilizes it seems like you can't really do much to stop them from hitting an unreal economy and just rolling you, since you have to wait for 100 energy on a mothership before you can risk moving out and losing your voidrays (or being able to defend counters)
On May 01 2012 00:20 Nyast wrote: How fast do you upgrade ? Do you go double-cybercore upgrades ?
How many gates do you make ? Just 1 ? Or more, "in case of emergency", for ex. warping sentries ? If so how many gates do you go up to ?
I have these same questions. Especially the gateways. I do wonder if you're just floating tons of minerals and sinking them into cannons if maybe just adding gateways isn't a bad idea, for an "oh shit" scenario or to feign pressure (zerg scouts tons of gates, freaks out and makes units rather than drones). They make decent walls.
On May 01 2012 00:20 Nyast wrote: I know voidrays are pretty decent versus corruptors
I'd be more worried about 3-base ling/muta, which many zergs will use against any FFE play.
I don't see that as a big problem.. zerglings won't pass the sim-city of cannons at each base, and mutas will get owned by phoenixes ( which he can have very quickly since he's on many stargates ), and since he goes fast mothership anyway, the range upgrade for phoenix is only half a minute away.. no, lings/mutas is definitely the least of the concerns with that build..
On May 01 2012 00:20 Nyast wrote: When do you start to put pressure back on Zerg ? As soon as you have recall on your mothership ? What in-game time is that generally ?
How fast do you upgrade ? Do you go double-cybercore upgrades ?
How many gates do you make ? Just 1 ? Or more, "in case of emergency", for ex. warping sentries ? If so how many gates do you go up to ?
While you're producing all those voidrays, Zerg can freely drone and get a crazy economy. What prevents him from going mass corruptors and overflow you with those ? You won't deny scouting either, Zerg will know pretty early that you're going for mass voidrays.
It's a bit like what WhiteRa does sometimes as a "special taktik" on ladder. He goes fast carriers on 2 bases, secures his third and goes for.. more carriers, and a delayed mothership. It wins when Zergs are caught by surprise or don't know how to react, but sometimes Zerg just go mass corruptors and the carriers stand no chance. I know voidrays are pretty decent versus corruptors, however will you have enough of them in time since Zerg's got the eco advantage since the beginning ?
Do you have replays of a Zerg scouting you early and committing to heavy economy into corruptors ?
Good questions.
In the earlygame (10:30-12:00) I'm always pressuring the zerg with the Void rays, you can always harass, scout, and retreat. If they start to get a ton of queens, spores, or hydras then I need to back off a bit. I could probably be a bit more active than I am, however it's incredibly important not to lose any. After this period in the earlygame, I only poke in and attack if I have a recall available, since you cant really run away from fungals or corruptors..
If I tech pretty strait to MS she will have 100 mana for a recall and I'll have 7 Void rays at about 13 minutes, I can poke here pretty safely if I'm not busy defending 100 roaches.
Good question about the upgrades. I don't know whats best but lately I've been adding the second core, and 2 more Stargates, sometime after 1/1 and after the third is established.
Usually very few gates, very often only 1, but I could be convinced this is bad. Sometimes I play around with opening up with zealot pressure and therefor I'd have 2 gates, you could also argue a few more to be safe... IDK
The supply cap is what prevents him from overwhelming me with corruptors, they can't really freely drone either, if they are not paying attention or cant get defense into place for just a few too many seconds I can snipe some really important buildings.
I love White-Ra but I hate that build that he does, honestly it was my inspiration to go double stargate and mess around with it, but Carriers are just so hard countered, Void rays not so much. VR's
Well one thing why i prefer carriers over voidrays is, neural. Neural has a +1 range advantage on the Voidray and the Infestor can throw down a fungal before for extra damage. And Voidrays kill other Voidrays at light speed. Also just 2 supply against 3 of the Voidray. And of course neuraled units don't get recalled, if the recall is to slow you will lose alot of units. Also Fungal is a key element at preventing Voidrays from stacking, so i would say Infestors are essential. And while Templars and Colossus can snipe Infestors, its fairly easy to fungal those without the Voidrays and afterwards neural the Voidrays and those 4 seconds are enough if the Voidrays get out of position. (range of 2 away from Colossus/HT) Another thing is that larger groups of Voidrays have a really hard time to get into charge mode if not controlled right. And without charge they aren't a problem. Its really easy though to charge pre battle. Without charge engagements will more or less look like a giant flock of Spores running under the Voidrays that cannot retreat because of Fungal and the Spores won't get enough damage before they root. Spores are the bane of air heavy armies, because an air army needs time to get big and spores don't cost supply, so it gets worse and worse. And while Overlords do die super fast, its enough to spread enough creep even while attacking.
So a Queen (better Hydra against air), Infestor combination with spore support can deal fairly well with Voidrays, leaving you tons of supply free to deal with anything else the toss adds. Queen again +1 range advantage on the Voidray and you aren't in any hurry to beat the Protoss. But I have to add if someone lets me I go up to 230 supply as Zerg, which is usually the case against Toss players.
I encountered this a few times along time ago and used it myself as well. But at that time Voidrays had the speed upgrade still. After the speed was gone it would mean while Phoenix are the fastest air unit, the Zerg air in general is faster then Toss air and can decide where to engage. Also i think the Zerg would be in micro favor. Mutas would be in the front and would reduce the damage of the Voidrays, while the Mutas would simply splash everything. As Zerg I usually killed all Voidrays and still had Mutas and Corruptors to protect the Mutas. The range upgrade on the Phoenix should switch those engagements into the Tosses favor though again and i have to add my opponents strangely never charge pre battle if they have voidrays. (this 200 supply roaches is funny if you charge your voidrays seconds before they arrive)
Still Voidrays are such a good unit but they need good controls, to become truly devastating (Favorite unit lategame unit for pvp). So its not like there is a true hardconter to them, but zergs ground anti air is really sturdy and extremely cheap as well (especially on supply and gas). But luckily most zergs don't even consider using queens, neural or mass spores.
What I currently do against Stargate play, is the simple Hydra push (with Nydus added, but its more a distraction and doesn't see alot of use other then reinforcing). Since 2 ingame minutes after Lair finishes your creep spread is at the front of the opponents base allowing your Hydras to micro around like crazy. If the Toss notices it in time, it will probably take around 3 ingame minutes. In general the Colossus is to late because they miscalculated when the Hydras will arrive.
On May 01 2012 00:31 Durp wrote: How would you deal with a fast baneling bust? Do you overinvest in cannons immediately- this is a pretty big sign to zergs that they can eco freely. If you're not investing into sentries at all, I could see that giving you some trouble.
Also how do you pressure beyond your initial stargate opener? Once the zerg stabilizes it seems like you can't really do much to stop them from hitting an unreal economy and just rolling you, since you have to wait for 100 energy on a mothership before you can risk moving out and losing your voidrays (or being able to defend counters)
On May 01 2012 00:20 Nyast wrote: How fast do you upgrade ? Do you go double-cybercore upgrades ?
How many gates do you make ? Just 1 ? Or more, "in case of emergency", for ex. warping sentries ? If so how many gates do you go up to ?
I have these same questions. Especially the gateways. I do wonder if you're just floating tons of minerals and sinking them into cannons if maybe just adding gateways isn't a bad idea, for an "oh shit" scenario or to feign pressure (zerg scouts tons of gates, freaks out and makes units rather than drones). They make decent walls.
well honestly, this is probably how I have lost most of my games. To various all ins before I get that first 1-2 Void Rays out. But all of these weaknesses are the same for any version of the FFE, if they hit before WG.
You just gotta scout and react. Lately if I don't confirm a third is down, and they are going eco, I feel like buying and extra cannon or two is justified, even if it's mostly blind I feel it is okay if your not spending all that gas on Sentries, of course I could be wrong here, who knows.
Watched the Peepmode replay, heres a few ideas to smooth out and speed out the play:
1.) On a FFE after the 17 nexus/cannon/gate/pylon throw down 2 assimilators at 18, if you're going air you're going to need the gas, similarly I'd play around with throwing down a REALLY fast 3rd, gas and a 4th once nearing 32 mineral workers at both bases combined.
2.) Defending Z busts relies on 2 things: a.) throwing down more and spread out cannons and maybe another backup pylon when you anticipate the all in coming. OP mentioned this a bit, you wont be able to see exactly what the Z is doing, but if you don't see a 3rd by 5-6 minutes, throw down some security cannons. b.) sentry production is VITAL in stopping bane busts, you need to plan to build up to 4 sentries. I know this slows your build down a lot, but its either that or just throw in the towel if he bane busts you. The bright side is the low min cost of sentry allows you to saturate more gases quicker and survive the low mineral income.
3.) A lot of people mentioned the fear of hydra drops, but if you're playing well this actually shouldn't be a problem. You have to get a phoenix flock to protect the voids from mutas (you'll probably start with some voids, get the phoenix numbers up then switch back to voids at like 6~ phoenix). Your air army allows you to push away dropping overlords, and if he drops in front of you phoenix can pick up and 1 volley kill hydras as they unload, with some pretty simple focus fire. with hydra numbers kept low, you should be able to overpower them with warp in zealots (what else are you doing with mins?) and air. Mainly, Z should not get ovies in number near your base once the air is out.
On May 01 2012 00:57 FeyFey wrote: Well one thing why i prefer carriers over voidrays is, neural. Neural has a +1 range advantage on the Voidray and the Infestor can throw down a fungal before for extra damage. And Voidrays kill other Voidrays at light speed. Also just 2 supply against 3 of the Voidray. And of course neuraled units don't get recalled, if the recall is to slow you will lose alot of units. Also Fungal is a key element at preventing Voidrays from stacking, so i would say Infestors are essential. And while Templars and Colossus can snipe Infestors, its fairly easy to fungal those without the Voidrays and afterwards neural the Voidrays and those 4 seconds are enough if the Voidrays get out of position. (range of 2 away from Colossus/HT) Another thing is that larger groups of Voidrays have a really hard time to get into charge mode if not controlled right. And without charge they aren't a problem. Its really easy though to charge pre battle. Without charge engagements will more or less look like a giant flock of Spores running under the Voidrays that cannot retreat because of Fungal and the Spores won't get enough damage before they root. Spores are the bane of air heavy armies, because an air army needs time to get big and spores don't cost supply, so it gets worse and worse. And while Overlords do die super fast, its enough to spread enough creep even while attacking.
So a Queen (better Hydra against air), Infestor combination with spore support can deal fairly well with Voidrays, leaving you tons of supply free to deal with anything else the toss adds. Queen again +1 range advantage on the Voidray and you aren't in any hurry to beat the Protoss. But I have to add if someone lets me I go up to 230 supply as Zerg, which is usually the case against Toss players.
I encountered this a few times along time ago and used it myself as well. But at that time Voidrays had the speed upgrade still. After the speed was gone it would mean while Phoenix are the fastest air unit, the Zerg air in general is faster then Toss air and can decide where to engage. Also i think the Zerg would be in micro favor. Mutas would be in the front and would reduce the damage of the Voidrays, while the Mutas would simply splash everything. As Zerg I usually killed all Voidrays and still had Mutas and Corruptors to protect the Mutas. The range upgrade on the Phoenix should switch those engagements into the Tosses favor though again and i have to add my opponents strangely never charge pre battle if they have voidrays. (this 200 supply roaches is funny if you charge your voidrays seconds before they arrive)
Still Voidrays are such a good unit but they need good controls, to become truly devastating (Favorite unit lategame unit for pvp). So its not like there is a true hardconter to them, but zergs ground anti air is really sturdy and extremely cheap as well (especially on supply and gas). But luckily most zergs don't even consider using queens, neural or mass spores.
Well, against Fungal you just recall. But Neuro is very interesting. Against heavy infestor play I always add carriers, against heavy corruptor play I add VRs. I've probably done this build 1000 times and actually been "Neuraled" less than 10. Normally even though the neuraled VRs get stopped, the rest of the ball just keeps on moving, and they snipe the infestors so quick. I'm not sure how the battle would look, and I would love to see Pro's controlling it, but I can say I've never lost to Neuro based infestor play, not because its not viable, I just haven't run into it very much.
The old build revolved around build mass Voids and Cannons.
Your build uses Recall as a replacement to the Speed Upgrade. Very interesting... it won't allow you to run from Hydra/Queens as easy, but obviously Recall is much more useful against Fungals which has become the more standard anti-air choice for Zerg.
The old build revolved around build mass Voids and Cannons.
Your build uses Recall as a replacement to the Speed Upgrade. Very interesting... it won't allow you to run from Hydra/Queens as easy, but obviously Recall is much more useful against Fungals which has become the more standard anti-air choice for Zerg.
wow, nice find, yes exactly.
It's well written especially about the strength in numbers which is what I'm trying to get across.
I watched the game in the PeepMode replay. Your opponents response was not good. Mass chain Fungal would be have been far more effective than Hydras, and it showed in the last battle, where he was able to do significant damage with Infestors to your Void Ray ball. And if you lose that ball, you lose the game. If your opponent responds with Hydras, you'll get a win with this strategy, but if they go for Infestors/Queens/Corrupters (Infestors being the key), you'll die to chain Fungals.
Even the old thread admits the threat:
On December 07 2010 15:52 iamke55 wrote: Mass corruptor/muta/infestor with 3/3 air upgrades: believe it or not, this can defeat your fleet! Now that I know about this threat, sniping spires is more important than sniping hives/lairs.
Basically, when Zergs got away from Hydras and began depending more on Infestors for anti-air, this build became unviable. Today lots of Zergs will open Hydras though in response to 2 Gate Stargate play, but they expect you to try and end the game with your air units and not get a Mothership and take a third.
On April 30 2012 19:37 Immutant wrote: If you truely want to be invincible, add HTs late game into the mix. They cost only 2 supply? And 1 storm would wipe out the cluster of corrupters/hydras. They can also feedback infestors. + their movement speed is on par with the mothership so you get 2 OP spellcasters in an area.
I see this a lot in 3v3, 4v4 team games.
No, one storm does not wipe out the cluster corrupters and hydras. hydras need 2 storms to kil corruptors need three...
I know, but 1 storm is enough, the zerg will never recover from that damage. If he stays and fight, his forces will die. If he retreats, the slow speed of hydras and corrupters will mean VRs (which can attack while moving) get to pick them off. 1 full energy HT can storm 2 times and it costs only 2 supply. 4-5 HTs are enough. It's an extremely cost efficient army because the only zerg AA counters to Mass VRs are Hydras/Corrupters(VR good vs armored)/Queens/Mutas/Infestors and the inclusion of HTs will negate hydras,queens, mutas and infestors vs pure VR.
was just saying youre first statement was wrong. which it is and was.
On May 01 2012 01:41 BronzeKnee wrote: I watched the game in the PeepMode replay. Your opponents response was not good. Mass chain Fungal would be have been far more effective than Hydras, and it showed in the last battle, where he was able to do significant damage with Infestors to your Void Ray ball. And if you lose that ball, you lose the game. If your opponent responds with Hydras, you'll get a win with this strategy, but if they go for Infestors/Queens/Corrupters (Infestors being the key), you'll die to chain Fungals.
On December 07 2010 15:52 iamke55 wrote: Mass corruptor/muta/infestor with 3/3 air upgrades: believe it or not, this can defeat your fleet! Now that I know about this threat, sniping spires is more important than sniping hives/lairs.
Basically, when Zergs got away from Hydras and began depending more on Infestors for anti-air, this build became unviable. Today lots of Zergs will open Hydras though in response to 2 Gate Stargate play, but they expect you to try and end the game with your air units and not get a Mothership and take a third.
yes ofc chain fungals are GG thats why I warned about it earlier.
Fungal is the biggest thing to look out for, chain fungals are instant GG if you don't have a recall and are too balled up and caught out on the map. It's very important to only be aggressive if you have a recall available. If you are turtling behind your cannons you cannot really be "fungaled" there.
Good Luck!
The build is defensive minded, basically you want to mine half the gas on the map. and never lose your army. Being able to recall is the key. If you engaged bad, misjudged your opponents army, want to trade some supply for some damage, then recall out of there. If he is heavy on infestor you can always remax with more carriers (or colossus on 4base+)
The build sounds interesting, and fun, so I'll definitely give it a try ( I'll try it from a 1 gate FE though, even better timings for that.. ).
But how crazy must you go with cannons to hold a Zerg that'd commit to roaches/hydras ? This kind of zergball has tons of dps, it sounds like 20-30 cannons per base wouldn't even be enough.. but with voidrays support I don't know, I really have trouble to envision how easy/hard it is to defend various pushes/timings with mass cannons + only voidrays support.
On May 01 2012 03:12 Nyast wrote: The build sounds interesting, and fun, so I'll definitely give it a try ( I'll try it from a 1 gate FE though, even better timings for that.. ).
But how crazy must you go with cannons to hold a Zerg that'd commit to roaches/hydras ? This kind of zergball has tons of dps, it sounds like 20-30 cannons per base wouldn't even be enough.. but with voidrays support I don't know, I really have trouble to envision how easy/hard it is to defend various pushes/timings with mass cannons + only voidrays support.
Check out the second Peep Mode replay. Zerg has a maxed army of Hydra Roach and he handles it easily at the third with just a few Cannons Cannons, his Voids and his Mothership.
Watched the replays, one thing I would suggest is to add a robo for observers to this build, you need to know where his army his so that you can do some hit & run harass on his tech. Also you definitely need to increase the number of gates, maybe not that much, I'd go to 4-5, you're floating tons of minerals in the mid-game so that shouldn't be a problem. The reason ? Zerglings run-bys would definitely be annoying if your voidrays are far away or your MS lacks energy..
You also need a second cybercore faster, and I'd also suggest to upgrade shields quickly since you have an idle forge. It may be the first build where the shield upgrades take priority over the ground upgrades :p
I have to go, so I won't write much. Still, I watched the first replay, and it proves nothing about the viability of this build. Your opponent went for a 2 base lings all in, and you blocked it. After this, you were able to deny his third with a few voids and could really do anything you wanted.
I feel like your discription of your strategy leaves much to be desired. You say you rush defensive mothership, but you don't give a time of when you go for it. In the replay, you went mothership off 3 base and around a dozen voids. That isn't exactly a rushed mothership. You also delayed 3rd and 4th gas. Maybe this was a mistake; you are rusty as you said, but I don't know if it was or if it was intentional.
I agree that a maxxed army of void rays is really strong, but I feel that a good zerg will never let you hold a third base with this strategy. Roach/corrupter off 3 base will just constantly attack while he takes the rest of the map. Even if you were able to do so, your mobility is rather poor. Drops and multipronged attacks would be very strong against your void ray army. It moves slowly, and really needs to be together. It wont kill lings very quickly, so you will be forced to get up even more cannons around all of your bases and delay further expansion even more.
That first replay is a ridiculous example. You went forge/nexus, he went speedling expand into a zergling all-in that had no chance of ever doing damage. You were ahead all game.
If you do this against someone who is any good at all, they will simply take a fast third, make 80 drones, then deny your third with mass zergling (so many that cannons don't even help) and kill all your void rays and probes with mutalisks while teching to infestors.
On April 30 2012 23:34 Surili wrote: Please tell me shit like this doesn't work, beacause if it does, this game is terrible.
:D
Seriously though, that dimaga socke game was silly, it was one of those classic times that dimaga didn't attack with a huge lead, and he managed to throw the game away.
This shit works. White-ra just did a variation of it on his stream 15 minutes ago on Ohana. He made a more carrier heavy composition and transitioned in a partial ground army, but it is totally viable. I think carriers are garbage units compared to vrs on a cost/supply effectiveness basis. Carriers are worse than ultralisks.
I think the optimal way of playing it would be to go 2 stargate+beacon and rush a mothership while massing VRs and getting warpgates+cannons with extra minerals and eventually taking a 3rd when it becomes possible. For this to happen, you will probably need a decent amount of gateway units and just massing voids won't work. From there you need to transition into HT tech for archons+feedback. If zerg tries to counter this with hydras and corruptors eventually you will get to some critical mass of voidrays where you can kill his shit anyway, but if he's wiser and gets a ton of infestors you will lose. I don't know if this would work if zerg just decided not to get any hydras, roaches, or corruptors and just went infestors+upgraded lings.
I also wonder if you could just ditch voidrays entirely, but tech quickly to mothership and warpgates and try to take a third, add in robo tech, and try to play a standard game. Using your build order timings, the fastest mothership possible would be 10:20 on 2 base, and taking an 11 minute 3rd with a mothership+gateway units would definitely put you in a decent position for the rest of the game.
I'll attest that this build is actually really, really effective, though against very good zergs (I'd say at the mid/high GM-ish level) who just do a Stephano/DRG (sorry, don't know who invented it) quick 3 base into 12 minutes max roach bust, it has some risks because you don't have enough DPS to defend against that many roaches with ling followup. But to that kind of bust in time, you need really, really good macro.
I've used this a couple times, though mostly just for lulz against friends because I didn't think it was really viable. I did win with it most of the times (I remember b/c those are the pretty much the ONLY games where I won with carriers). Then again, admittedly, PvZ is my best matchup w/ over 70% winrate.
A few notes: Limit zerg creep spread Warp prisms can be very easily incorporated into this build Observers everywhere Play like you play "In Utter Darkness" from the campaign (I'm serious)
I would like to try this, but its finals week at my school. Maybe in a couple weeks.
On May 01 2012 07:03 Lafer wrote: Do you have any games where the zerg player actually does the Sephano style roach bust? How do you fair against that?
You should be able to scout it when poking around, but as is you are stretched really thin at the 5 Void rays, a MS and a ton of cannons are not good agains 70 roaches, but your units are in the air! He has a small window where he can try to split and run by and all that,,, but he cannot trade with you forever, with a better econ, like he can if your army is on the ground. When your VR count starts to get higher and higher it will snowball eventually and his returns will be demising quickly. It's a little bit ugly, you might lose some probes, some pylons, some buildings, but you wont lose any attacking units, and as soon as you stabilize he had better have an answer for your army, which gives you time to Macro/ expand/ remake stuff.
On May 01 2012 04:06 phyren wrote: I have to go, so I won't write much. Still, I watched the first replay, and it proves nothing about the viability of this build. Your opponent went for a 2 base lings all in, and you blocked it.
Yes I'm aware this game is not that helpful, because of the ling all in, which is why I apologized in the OP. I just posted it mostly to show the composition (lol) the defense (cannons ftw) and the recalls and stuff.
The second/ third replay is a much better game and shows the build against a normal econ.
On May 01 2012 04:52 oOOoOphidian wrote: If you do this against someone who is any good at all, they will simply take a fast third, make 80 drones, then deny your third with mass zergling (so many that cannons don't even help) and kill all your void rays and probes with mutalisks while teching to infestors.
Lings versus voidrays/mothership/cannons doesn't end up well for the Zerg. Mass ling is much more destructive with run-by harass, into the main, if I'm too slow to close the chokes/complete a wall. However, this is me screwing up simple micro, not a theory issue.
"Kill all of your VR and probes" it doesnt really work this way.
You will probably lose your first 3 void rays if you are poking his third and 13 mutas hatch, however even though this trade is crappy for you, he is comitted to Muta Ling, spent a ton of Gas on it, and there is enough time to ball up the rest of your VRs with your MS to "zone", switch to phoenix, and throw down emergency cannons, warp in stalkers, etc. The longer the game goes on the less worried you should be about any muta "suprise" because as the numbers start to grow Mutas don't do very well.
My third replay is a Muta game I played yesterday, of course my opponent didn't play perfectly, but it's something.
On May 01 2012 09:56 FabledIntegral wrote: Hmmm I wasn't aware that recall got you out of chain fungals. Interesting to note!
That one actually makes sense because its the Mothership acting on the units. But SCV"s repairing colossi... Day9 showed me that and I almost shat myself...
and then you get good, face zergs who scout, and are maxxed at 13:30 minutes with 30 +1+1 hydras and 35 roaches at your doorstep. GL holding that off without a ground army.
Cyanogen: how can you play that shit and not see how fucked that it? Cyanogen has reconnected. Cyanogen: a mothership at 12 mins? Cyanogen has disconnected.
On May 01 2012 11:49 xOny wrote: and then you get good, face zergs who scout, and are maxxed at 13:30 minutes with 30 +1+1 hydras and 35 roaches at your doorstep. GL holding that off without a ground army.
I've held it off many times, this composition is the easiest to hold, pure roach running by into your main and into your third is much trickier, they trade army for damage, and not army for army, but you stabilize soon enough. With the roach hydra, you just win army vs army.
Please see this replay, http://drop.sc/169483 . It's peepmode so skip in 10 minutes past the first game. Watch this from zergs POV. His mechanics are extremely good, and this player does a similar timing attack to the one you are describing, I hold it.
I have tried similar game styles of getting a fast mothership, It works particularly well on entombed valley. To me its a very map specific build. It works kinda well on Metroloplis but you need good FF.
On May 01 2012 04:52 oOOoOphidian wrote: If you do this against someone who is any good at all, they will simply take a fast third, make 80 drones, then deny your third with mass zergling (so many that cannons don't even help) and kill all your void rays and probes with mutalisks while teching to infestors.
Did you know that the Mothership cloaks units? Did you know that Void Rays are particularly good against armored units like Overseers?
There is no way a mass ling force will be able to deny the third if the Mothership is sitting there. Even if 8 Voids can't kill the Lings that quickly, they can easily lay waste to even large numbers of Overseers quite quickly. Furthermore the Protoss can use Vortex to defend the third.
People need to watch the replays before they discount this build. It used to be so good when Voids had the speed upgrade that Flux Vanes was removed from the game. If you don't respond properly and try some kind of Roach/Ling/Hydra timing you'll simply lose to it. The only really effective response would be Infestors/Muta/Corrupter.
I just don't like how expensive sentries are, aside from protecting from an early all in and a late game guardian shield... I'd rather not spend any gas on "forcefields" and rather spend all of it on the Victory Fleet!
If you don't respond properly and try some kind of Roach/Ling/Hydra timing you'll simply lose to it. The only really effective response would be Infestors/Muta/Corrupter.
Exactly!
If they max out on corruptor/ infestor this is the hardest thing to beat.
In open space, you can lose max vs max, but with recall you can always re-evaluate, re tweak your composition, rework your spread, re-enforce, or simply turtle if you want. Even though fast and maxed corruptor/infestor can be tough near midmap, it's pretty hard to attack with this composition, and you definitely can't engage when the Protoss has a defensive posture and is supported by cannons/rally/ warp in.
Also, in max vs max situations versus infestor/corruptor I have been thinking about warping in a few stalkers (after finding a way to free up the supply) to go after the infestors, they literally can't be touched... and it's kinda funny. Of course they can morph broods but then they are weak versus the air, and around and around it goes.
On April 30 2012 18:55 Fogetaboudit wrote: Basically, the only way I lose in this matchup with this strategy, is if I play someone who is 647 times better than me and literally never misses a macro mechanic.
YES ANOTHER UNBEATABLE STRATEGY VIA TEAMLIQUID
IM GOIN TO MLG, THEN IPL, THEN GSL, PYAAAAOOOOOOOOOH
On April 30 2012 18:55 Fogetaboudit wrote: Basically, the only way I lose in this matchup with this strategy, is if I play someone who is 647 times better than me and literally never misses a macro mechanic.
YES ANOTHER UNBEATABLE STRATEGY VIA TEAMLIQUID
IM GOIN TO MLG, THEN IPL, THEN GSL, PYAAAAOOOOOOOOOH
This is not funny. I never said the strategy was unbeatable, I said I only lose to much better players, and not because there is a skill ceiling with the composition or micro that I can find, but simply because I am too slow and my macro is much much worse than my opponents. This means I think it's a pretty good strategy, worth exploring, and worth improving upon so I came to this community to share my thoughts.
Thanks for treating my post and ideas with respect.
On April 30 2012 18:55 Fogetaboudit wrote: Basically, the only way I lose in this matchup with this strategy, is if I play someone who is 647 times better than me and literally never misses a macro mechanic.
YES ANOTHER UNBEATABLE STRATEGY VIA TEAMLIQUID
IM GOIN TO MLG, THEN IPL, THEN GSL, PYAAAAOOOOOOOOOH
This is not funny. I never said the strategy was unbeatable, I said I only lose to much better players, and not because there is a skill ceiling with the composition or micro that I can find, but simply because I am too slow and my macro is much much worse than my opponents. This means I think it's a pretty good strategy, worth exploring, and worth improving upon so I came to this community to share my thoughts.
Thanks for treating my post and ideas with respect.
Nah, you said you only lose if your opponent is over 500 times better than you and literally never misses a macro mechanic. It's like that "unstoppable" proxy rax thread. Tired of kids exaggerating about their builds.
On April 30 2012 18:55 Fogetaboudit wrote: Basically, the only way I lose in this matchup with this strategy, is if I play someone who is 647 times better than me and literally never misses a macro mechanic.
YES ANOTHER UNBEATABLE STRATEGY VIA TEAMLIQUID
IM GOIN TO MLG, THEN IPL, THEN GSL, PYAAAAOOOOOOOOOH
This is not funny. I never said the strategy was unbeatable, I said I only lose to much better players, and not because there is a skill ceiling with the composition or micro that I can find, but simply because I am too slow and my macro is much much worse than my opponents. This means I think it's a pretty good strategy, worth exploring, and worth improving upon so I came to this community to share my thoughts.
Thanks for treating my post and ideas with respect.
Nah, you said you only lose if your opponent is over 500 times better than you and literally never misses a macro mechanic. It's like that "unstoppable" proxy rax thread. Tired of kids exaggerating about their builds.
I'm, sorry if you were mislead and did not realize I was exaggerating.
First of all, the proxy rax is not unstoppable, however, I would argue it's very powerful, and unlike my build afaik it has a pretty clear skill ceiling, and stops working, where the players scout very small details and respond quickly and accurately to what they see. (11rax, SCV cuts, etc)
My build afaik does not have a skill ceiling that I have observed, mostly because I'm just not a good enough player to play the best zergs with it and see how it could be exploited.
In a climate where lots of Protoss are having trouble establishing their third I was thinking a strategy like this might be helpful for some people to explore, if you have a problem with this then feel free to go away.
Never mind him, not sure why he lashed out at you, if he had put any thought in the OP while reading instead of looking for something to nitpick about, im sure he wouldnt have posted that. When reading your post I didnt think you were presenting us with unbeatable strat, it simply said at your level its very strong and you are looking for discussion about viability at higher levels. When I get a chance Ill be trying this as well, thanks. Always fun to mix it up & lookin forward to some blue responses.
On May 01 2012 14:09 SpecFire wrote: Uhm.. wtf do you do if they build...
Corruptors? Hydras?
This build just doesn't seem to work.
?
This has obviously been asked and addressed. Infestor support is vital, otherwise your army is just better than pure corruptor or hydra, go play around in a unit tester if you don't believe me. And if the zerg has infestor tech you might not be able to win a strait fight but you can cleave through expos and recall against chain fungals, you can't really be broken anywhere that there are cannons.
On April 30 2012 22:17 InfusedTT.DaZe wrote: there are more problems than chain fungals, mass infested terrans and hydra dps seems good vs mass vr, but anyway its worth trying out
In small numbers you are absolutely correct, but we are trying to max out with this army, kinda like how 10 marauders beats 5 tanks but 30 marauders loses to 15 tanks (I'm not Terran but you understand what I'm saying) Void rays in large numbers are just absurd, they literally counter Hydras when they are stacked, especially off creep and engaging near edges. Infested terrans actually get mostly sniped up during the hatching.
On May 01 2012 04:06 phyren wrote: I have to go, so I won't write much. Still, I watched the first replay, and it proves nothing about the viability of this build. Your opponent went for a 2 base lings all in, and you blocked it.
Yes I'm aware this game is not that helpful, because of the ling all in, which is why I apologized in the OP. I just posted it mostly to show the composition (lol) the defense (cannons ftw) and the recalls and stuff.
The second/ third replay is a much better game and shows the build against a normal econ.
what about the rest of my post? When do you get your gasses? your mothership? your third? Is it a standard timing or do you do something different based on your scouting? When do you add more stargate, get upgrades add a second cyber core, etc.? Can you be more specific then mass void rays and get a mothership?
I don't think anyone has pointed out the biggest reason this shouldn't work. You can't take your 3rd when doing this build. Roach ling can can deny the 3rd base indefinitely since you have no gateway units. Even if you don't factor in burrow, this is a huge problem.
On May 01 2012 04:06 phyren wrote: I have to go, so I won't write much. Still, I watched the first replay, and it proves nothing about the viability of this build. Your opponent went for a 2 base lings all in, and you blocked it.
Yes I'm aware this game is not that helpful, because of the ling all in, which is why I apologized in the OP. I just posted it mostly to show the composition (lol) the defense (cannons ftw) and the recalls and stuff.
The second/ third replay is a much better game and shows the build against a normal econ.
what about the rest of my post? When do you get your gasses? your mothership? your third? Is it a standard timing or do you do something different based on your scouting? When do you add more stargate, get upgrades add a second cyber core, etc.? Can you be more specific then mass void rays and get a mothership?
I think I've touched on all of these but the answers are scattered throughout the thread.
Gasses: as fast as possible without cutting into probe production, teching, or cannon safety.
Mothership: Lately I've been going 1 Stargate strait to Fleet Beacon, strait to MS. With constant VR production from the 1 Stargate and Start the mothership as soon as you can afford it. After MS is started add second Stargate as soon as you can afford it, but never cut VRs.
Third: Not sure exactly, probably 12ish minutes depends on what you scout with your Void Rays poking around. Adding stuff: After the third is stable, Add 2 more stargates, and a second core.
On May 01 2012 14:40 NrGmonk wrote: I don't think anyone has pointed out the biggest reason this shouldn't work. You can't take your 3rd when doing this build. Roach ling can can deny the 3rd base indefinitely since you have no gateway units. Even if you don't factor in burrow, this is a huge problem.
How could roach ling deny the third, lol. Have you ever denied a third you couldn't see, protected by units you cant attack.
Detection is sometimes a problem, normally you have enough cannons to spook the zerg form doing a ton of burrowing but I could see a zerg sniping a few buildings and burrow moving into your main and sort of running around trying to cause damage. While you chase his speed roaches and try to throw up cannons to provide detection everywhere, lol. He can't unburrow and snipe because you've got a mothership, but he could burrow move somewhere else so it can get a little tricky... I've had some games like this but its very very rare.
On May 01 2012 14:40 NrGmonk wrote: I don't think anyone has pointed out the biggest reason this shouldn't work. You can't take your 3rd when doing this build. Roach ling can can deny the 3rd base indefinitely since you have no gateway units. Even if you don't factor in burrow, this is a huge problem.
How could roach ling deny the third, lol. Have you ever denied a third you couldn't see, protected by units you cant attack.
Detection is sometimes a problem, normally you have enough cannons to spook the zerg form doing a ton of burrowing but I could see a zerg sniping a few buildings and burrow moving into your main and sort of running around trying to cause damage. While you chase his speed roaches and try to throw up cannons to provide detection everywhere, lol. He can't unburrow and snipe because you've got a mothership, but he could burrow move somewhere else so it can get a little tricky... I've had some games like this but its very very rare.
Max roach/ling and mass overseers while hitting 2 places at once. You won't have enough units/cannons to defend both and you can't have the mothership at both places. This is Stephano's response to double stargate.
On May 01 2012 14:40 NrGmonk wrote: I don't think anyone has pointed out the biggest reason this shouldn't work. You can't take your 3rd when doing this build. Roach ling can can deny the 3rd base indefinitely since you have no gateway units. Even if you don't factor in burrow, this is a huge problem.
How could roach ling deny the third, lol. Have you ever denied a third you couldn't see, protected by units you cant attack.
Detection is sometimes a problem, normally you have enough cannons to spook the zerg form doing a ton of burrowing but I could see a zerg sniping a few buildings and burrow moving into your main and sort of running around trying to cause damage. While you chase his speed roaches and try to throw up cannons to provide detection everywhere, lol. He can't unburrow and snipe because you've got a mothership, but he could burrow move somewhere else so it can get a little tricky... I've had some games like this but its very very rare.
Max roach/ling and mass overseers while hitting 2 places at once. You won't have enough units/cannons to defend both and you can't have the mothership at both places. This is Stephano's response to double stargate.
Do you have any Vods of this? I would love to see this, and I'm pretty curious.
I've had to cancel my third before but honestly its not an end of world deal imho. The third is just going to go up, eventually, guaranteed. It's just a question of how early can you stabalize, everything, and how much damage have you taken. Because you are never trading your army, your army is snowballing and his is getting traded for some amount of damage.
On May 01 2012 14:40 NrGmonk wrote: I don't think anyone has pointed out the biggest reason this shouldn't work. You can't take your 3rd when doing this build. Roach ling can can deny the 3rd base indefinitely since you have no gateway units. Even if you don't factor in burrow, this is a huge problem.
How could roach ling deny the third, lol. Have you ever denied a third you couldn't see, protected by units you cant attack.
Detection is sometimes a problem, normally you have enough cannons to spook the zerg form doing a ton of burrowing but I could see a zerg sniping a few buildings and burrow moving into your main and sort of running around trying to cause damage. While you chase his speed roaches and try to throw up cannons to provide detection everywhere, lol. He can't unburrow and snipe because you've got a mothership, but he could burrow move somewhere else so it can get a little tricky... I've had some games like this but its very very rare.
Max roach/ling and mass overseers while hitting 2 places at once. You won't have enough units/cannons to defend both and you can't have the mothership at both places. This is Stephano's response to double stargate.
Do you have any Vods of this? I would love to see this, and I'm pretty curious.
I've had to cancel my third before but honestly its not an end of world deal imho. The third is just going to go up, eventually, guaranteed. It's just a question of how early can you stabalize, everything, and how much damage have you taken. Because you are never trading your army, your army is snowballing and his is getting traded for some amount of damage.
Nope, only seen it on his stream and also in interviews.
Do you have any replays of you losing to a push while taking a third at all, or does every Zerg you play try to come up with a composition to beat it and abandons the Stepaho style push?
I'm sorry if I sound odd asking for replays of losses, I just feel like I, along with many others, can learn a lot more about this build by seeing it beat. It just seems too easy, lol.
If you don't have a replay, maybe you can play a custom and have someone try to break it with the Stephano style?
On May 01 2012 15:18 Lafer wrote: Do you have any replays of you losing to a push while taking a third at all, or does every Zerg you play try to come up with a composition to beat it and abandons the Stepaho style push?
I'm sorry if I sound odd asking for replays of losses, I just feel like I, along with many others, can learn a lot more about this build by seeing it beat. It just seems too easy, lol.
If you don't have a replay, maybe you can play a custom and have someone try to break it with the Stephano style?
Of course you don't sound odd asking for replays of losses. Unfortunately I dont have any replays from more than about 10 days ago. I think they autodelete? And I don't have that SC2 gears thing (lol noob)
I will continue to ladder toss though now in an attempt to get some more good replays for this thread, but my games lately are not that intersting because terran (and trying some new hotkey setups) tanked my MMR to high diamondish, and PvZ is pretty easy there.
On May 01 2012 15:18 Lafer wrote: Do you have any replays of you losing to a push while taking a third at all, or does every Zerg you play try to come up with a composition to beat it and abandons the Stepaho style push?
I'm sorry if I sound odd asking for replays of losses, I just feel like I, along with many others, can learn a lot more about this build by seeing it beat. It just seems too easy, lol.
If you don't have a replay, maybe you can play a custom and have someone try to break it with the Stephano style?
Of course you don't sound odd asking for replays of losses. Unfortunately I dont have any replays from more than about 10 days ago. I think they autodelete? And I don't have that SC2 gears thing (lol noob)
I will continue to ladder toss though now in an attempt to get some more good replays for this thread, but my games lately are not that intersting because terran (and trying some new hotkey setups) tanked my MMR to high diamondish, and PvZ is pretty easy there.
A few masters Z asked to play you in this thread, why not give that a shot if your MMR is low.
On May 01 2012 15:18 Lafer wrote: Do you have any replays of you losing to a push while taking a third at all, or does every Zerg you play try to come up with a composition to beat it and abandons the Stepaho style push?
I'm sorry if I sound odd asking for replays of losses, I just feel like I, along with many others, can learn a lot more about this build by seeing it beat. It just seems too easy, lol.
If you don't have a replay, maybe you can play a custom and have someone try to break it with the Stephano style?
Of course you don't sound odd asking for replays of losses. Unfortunately I dont have any replays from more than about 10 days ago. I think they autodelete? And I don't have that SC2 gears thing (lol noob)
I will continue to ladder toss though now in an attempt to get some more good replays for this thread, but my games lately are not that intersting because terran (and trying some new hotkey setups) tanked my MMR to high diamondish, and PvZ is pretty easy there.
A few masters Z asked to play you in this thread, why not give that a shot if your MMR is low.
On May 01 2012 15:18 Lafer wrote: Do you have any replays of you losing to a push while taking a third at all, or does every Zerg you play try to come up with a composition to beat it and abandons the Stepaho style push?
I'm sorry if I sound odd asking for replays of losses, I just feel like I, along with many others, can learn a lot more about this build by seeing it beat. It just seems too easy, lol.
If you don't have a replay, maybe you can play a custom and have someone try to break it with the Stephano style?
Here is an example of 40 roaches trying to do damage, not a full Stefano bust but this is basically how it could look, except you have to imagine more damage being dealt, and more roaches being "spent" http://drop.sc/170081
I think its important to understand how much you can really get done with a good Sim city and cannons. Of course we could have both microed better, I should have just completely walled, but this is a good visualization of how it "could" look.
On May 01 2012 18:37 eu.exodus wrote: I've had this done to me a few times.
it only worked the first time.
banelings off 3 base ftw.
this is pretty smart. Trying to vortex them is a pretty funny micro battle. They explode and demolish your worker line/Nexus even if its cloaked, and your sim city works against you. That's very interesting. I guess its a question of how costly it is versus how much damage is dealt, and sounds very micro intensive. I'm worried that you will never break the army and just trade gas for minerals, which if the Protoss is able to hold on and stick it out, maybe he can be fine, but it sounds like you did well.
On May 01 2012 12:55 BronzeKnee wrote: People need to watch the replays before they discount this build. It used to be so good when Voids had the speed upgrade that Flux Vanes was removed from the game. If you don't respond properly and try some kind of Roach/Ling/Hydra timing you'll simply lose to it. The only really effective response would be Infestors/Muta/Corrupter.
Indeed, I've done a few tests in a unit tester and the results are pretty interesting. Many Zerg compos are effective against mass voidrays but they all have something in common: no hard counter ( at the end of the fight, only few units remain from a side or another ), and no cheap armies ( the ressources worth, both in minerals AND gas, must be close ).
A 200/200 maxed corruptors army loses versus a maxed voidrays army, but if you take into account Zerg's eco advantage and an immediate reprod in full corruptors, it would win. That's without using vortex.
Other than that, one of the best army compos I've found is a third of infestors, a third of corruptors and a third of hydras. Also, full infestors ( 200/200 infestors lol ! ) is not bad and has the advantage of being able to neural-parasite the mothership if it comes into battle.
On May 01 2012 12:57 Fogetaboudit wrote: I just don't like how expensive sentries are, aside from protecting from an early all in and a late game guardian shield... I'd rather not spend any gas on "forcefields" and rather spend all of it on the Victory Fleet!
I know its a bummer, but it IS a necessary investment, you either have to pump out gateway units or get a small investments in sentries plus 1-3 (depending on threat) cannons in order to have a safe, stable FFE resistant to all-ins. As a side bonus I've been using this opening vs Z for a few months and it looks deceptively unsafe, causing Z to try to bust me and immediately giving me a massive econ lead when I defend it. There is no better tech to be in when you're already ahead than air!
Also if Z goes for a hydra timing, the 16 forcefields you saved up will be vital to zoning out the hydras to stop them from swarming your delicate voids.
I tried sky-toss out a few times in peepmode for funsies, and after upsetting a large number of bets I realized that carriers are actually a good mineral sink, also Z has a hard time powering air upgrades, and when carriers have an upgrade advantage they actually exchange decently vs corruptors, while laughing heartily at mutalisks due to 2 base armor vs no base armor (blizz why you gotta take away my beast 4 armor carriers?) Neural parasite is a joke ability, its super easy to identify and target fire the infestor doing it, and thats just 5 less infested marines under your feet, vs a mothership its fine, vs a carrier in a sky-ball its terrible.
One other thought is this build is frighteningly unsafe to ling runby's when you push out if you just go Sky. You should take your mineral excess (don't invest it in carriers until you're working on +3 air weapons imo) and invest it in a.) Sim city gates/pylons/cannons to defend the 3rd and, b.) a roving chargelot force (~20 zealots with any sentries you have alive) to defend ling runbys, if they send anything heavier either split your air force or delay with warp ins and defend at cannons until some air support can come. Cannons and your playstyle should be enough to dissuade Z from going heavy into mutas.
On thought I had while reading is that if you need a mineral sink, a warp prism + zealot warp-ins to harass might be a worthwhile investment. Depends on how many cannons you need though, but taking out a spire or infestation pit is always nice, you could send the fleet to their fourth and then drop the main.
I've tried the build and you only start to get excess minerals once the third is saturated ( then the gas becomes the limiting factor ).
I'm not 100% convinced it resists the Stephano style, especially with a few hydras mixed in. In none of your replays I've seen a properly executed Stephano style. In the latest one you posted, I think Zerg barely reached 160 food at 12', that's 20 roaches missing there. And at that timing, the number of cannons isn't so high, 4-5 max at the natural, 5 voidrays and a mothership to defend it.. I'm not sure you have enough dps to avoid serious damage. I'd really like to see how that build holds versus a well executed Stephano style.
I would hate to play vs that build in a ZvP. But since i know the build i could scout it way better with my 2 sneaky overlords. And if the P really goes on that build, i would str8 3 bases mutas with lings blocking the 3rd xpand untill i get the right amount of Mutas to pretty much kill him. And if that doesn't work well infestors like every said would be great.
On May 02 2012 03:43 Levernz wrote: I would hate to play vs that build in a ZvP. But since i know the build i could scout it way better with my 2 sneaky overlords. And if the P really goes on that build, i would str8 3 bases mutas with lings blocking the 3rd xpand untill i get the right amount of Mutas to pretty much kill him. And if that doesn't work well infestors like every said would be great.
that's signing your own deathwish, you cannot kill phoenixes off 3 stargates worth of production. just not gonna happen. I can deflect muta's with 6 phoenixes with range upgrade out of 1 stargate, not to mention pumping them out of 3.
Yeah the one thing i really wanna see is a properly executed 12 min roach max and see how you get the third up in that battle. still haven't gotten around to testing this unfortunatly
I actually tried this like more than an year ago back when mothership was still slow acceleration speed, it can actually work but there's one problem. A decent opponent will make overseers in order to see your cloaked units, then he will go roaches or hydras depending on your composition, if you go too void ray heavy then he will get tons of hydras and overrun you before colossus is up, or when you don't go void ray heavy, you get overrun with roaches with overseers. Plus it's vulnerable to the 2 base nydus hydra though no one does it anymore. It can still work, but you'll need to use stalkers and sentries to defend the third with lots of cannons and void rays. Once you defend and stabilize your 3rd, I would recommend transitioning to carriers and take a 4th. It's very hard and you'll need to have perfect forcefields and vortexes to pull it off. However once you achieve a high number of carriers and also get archons to kill corruptors then you're invincible.
On May 02 2012 03:12 Nyast wrote:I'm not sure you have enough dps to avoid serious damage. I'd really like to see how that build holds versus a well executed Stephano style.
Yes I would love to see this as well, it's hard to say because most people just stop making roaches so my sample size of games like this is pretty small.
This is kind of a random question, but does anyone know if you can build on a vortex? Like, suppose you threw down a vortex, could you put a nexus down where the vortex was? O_O
Also, I played a couple monobattles with a friend for giggles. I went mass roach and managed to max at ~13/14 mins off of thee bases and a macro hatch with a pretty crappy build-- I got supply blocked a couple times, threw down a gas too early, missed some injects, etc. I did throw down a few spines as well, so that kind of counts for the defense I would have had to get in a "real game". (suppose I should have sacked an ovie as well). First big wave of roaches I wiped out 3 expansions and a bunch of stray thors. Next time I went back in with burrowed +1 roaches. When my teammates finally moved in, it was GG.
Anyways, apart from my awesome monobattle skills, I don't think getting a 12/13 minute roach max is actually that difficult. I rarely play Zerg, and I was pretty close on my first try, even with my screw ups.
On May 02 2012 15:49 ticklishmusic wrote: This is kind of a random question, but does anyone know if you can build on a vortex? Like, suppose you threw down a vortex, could you put a nexus down where the vortex was? O_O
Also, I played a couple monobattles with a friend for giggles. I went mass roach and managed to max at ~13/14 mins off of thee bases and a macro hatch with a pretty crappy build-- I got supply blocked a couple times, threw down a gas too early, missed some injects, etc. I did throw down a few spines as well, so that kind of counts for the defense I would have had to get in a "real game". (suppose I should have sacked an ovie as well). First big wave of roaches I wiped out 3 expansions and a bunch of stray thors. Next time I went back in with burrowed +1 roaches. When my teammates finally moved in, it was GG.
Anyways, apart from my awesome monobattle skills, I don't think getting a 12/13 minute roach max is actually that difficult. I rarely play Zerg, and I was pretty close on my first try, even with my screw ups.
Of course its not hard to max on roaches?!, the questions is how much damage can they do before they get killed, and how much did you invest into them.
Just because you ran around in monobattles and sniped some bases doesn't mean roaches never die.
Unfortunately most people that I face abandon roaches when they see mass voidray+cannon+MS (imo for good reason) But people here are theorycrafting that irreversible damage can be dealt, before the roaches die off. I would like to practice against a Stefano style and see if an equally skilled player could break me, I seriously doubt it. I think there is so much you can accomplish with a good sim city and highground/well placed cannons/micro. Also, there is nothing wrong with cancelling your third, waiting a minute or two, and planting it back down... your tech is so much superior and when you have a critical VR mass the zergs army becomes more and more useless, and you are going to kill his units more and more efficiently (to justify a delayed third, if you even had to delay it in the first place.) imho.
Of course he could have microed better but the same can definately be said for me, either way I think the strategy is definately viable versus 3 base banelings aggression, as far as I can tell.
What time is your mother ship ready? Because roaches can not break the wall that they can not see, and vr can snipe overseers quickly. If you have ms up by twelve mins vs pure roach shouldn't be too bad..
Also I only got to play one game with this, though I used adonminus zealot opening, sniped 3rd and went air during the pressure. Worked out well, since that opening forces roaches. Final battle was hilarious also, I lost 700 minerals worth of units, he lost 7000:D. Though his unit comp was terrible
IDK the exact time to be honest, I get it as soon as possible, I just kinda wing it everygame and my build could be better but... 1SG, strait to Fleet beacon, and immidiately get Mothership while never cutting void production from the 1 SG.
I took my first 6 voids into his main and killed his tech, and while i was there roaches killed all 3 of my nexi LOL. i saved all the probes, rebuilt all nexi, killed all roaches when my void rays returned home (as they were killing main and natural nexi), and then won the game :D
On May 02 2012 17:13 Kaladin wrote: I took my first 6 voids into his main and killed his tech, and while i was there roaches killed all 3 of my nexi LOL. i saved all the probes, rebuilt all nexi, killed all roaches when my void rays returned home (as they were killing main and natural nexi), and then won the game :D
thanks for this build
Rofl that sounds Hilarious. Did you try to get a Mothership? You can Cloak one of your Nexi and some cannons which is awesome. Then you can desperately try and chase his roach pack around cloaking as many important buildings as possible while your VR's cleave through his main. Of course he can get overseer but you can try to snipe it or always go for recall and defend everything. Glad you had fun with it!
This is the ultimate turtle P style. Very easy to pull off, but even master Z would have problem dealing with it. However, it is not commonly used in pro games, I think it is mainly because pro zergs can easily find the timing to deny your third.
Denying the third is the key to beat this stra, amateur players(including master and lower leagues) are usually scared by the VR and cannons, or don't know what to build against this as it is not common, and as a result, they usually miss the opportunnity to deny the third. But this is relatively easier for pro players. They are calm, they know what to build, when to attack and can deny your third easily.
Another reason pros dont use this is because it doesn't really enhance your gaming skills. As I said, this is very easy to pull off, but takes much more skills to deal with.
On May 02 2012 17:31 WinWalk wrote: This is the ultimate turtle P style. Very easy to pull off, but even master Z would have problem dealing with it. However, it is not commonly used in pro games, I think it is mainly because pro zergs can easily find the timing to deny your third.
Denying the third is the key to beat this stra, amateur players(including master and lower leagues) are usually scared by the VR and cannons, or don't know what to build against this as it is not common, and as a result, they usually miss the opportunnity to deny the third. But this is relatively easier for pro players. They are calm, they know what to build, when to attack and can deny your third easily.
Another reason pros dont use this is because it doesn't really enhance your gaming skills. As I said, this is very easy to pull off, but takes much more skills to deal with.
I really disagree with "easily deny your third," I believe the third can be killed but at what cost! How would you deny the third? Also, even if the third is killed, I believe that if the zerg spends too much army in exchange for the third, that you can just plant it down later with your slightly worse econ, and much superior army/tech. (Unlike a standard ground composition you are not trading army for army/buildings, you are trading army for buildings) I played a game versus baneling/ling and he killed 2 of my Nexi, but he could never trade with my army, so he lost 18K worth of resources compared to my 8K worth of buildings/Nexi/probes/zeal/whatever. + Show Spoiler +
Also, understand that my build is by no means ironed out, a Pro on the Protoss side could probably find a way to have a few extra units out as well/ better sim city/ couple epic forcefields/ better micro.
I think you make a good point about the "enhancing gaming skills" this is relatively easy to pull off, but still, if it wins it wins. If there is lots of idle time for APM then everything could be improved as well. Void Ray micro could be close to perfect, sim city could be perfect, forcefields, etc.
1. How do you scout with this build? a very important scouting information would be if they are going mutas for instance... how do you find that out before its too late? (mind you zergs have a tendency to save up gas, and facing such a strat i would just save up a LOT of gas, to make my techswitch really strong)
2.when going double stargate will you be pressuring with the air units, if not - how do you deal with zerg just taking 5-6 bases, mine gas from them, and kill you with mutas?
3. if you pressure... how do you deal with loosing your initial air units (im not saying you will allways loose them, but if you do?)... as far as i can see, it leaves you with no infrastructure to come back from even a small deficit...
4. how do you deal with drops? if i turn all my overlords into dropships, i can drop all the places you cannons arent... i cant see how you can protect with cannons everywhere, and afford constant doupple vr production...
On May 02 2012 17:31 WinWalk wrote: This is the ultimate turtle P style. Very easy to pull off, but even master Z would have problem dealing with it. However, it is not commonly used in pro games, I think it is mainly because pro zergs can easily find the timing to deny your third.
Denying the third is the key to beat this stra, amateur players(including master and lower leagues) are usually scared by the VR and cannons, or don't know what to build against this as it is not common, and as a result, they usually miss the opportunnity to deny the third. But this is relatively easier for pro players. They are calm, they know what to build, when to attack and can deny your third easily.
Another reason pros dont use this is because it doesn't really enhance your gaming skills. As I said, this is very easy to pull off, but takes much more skills to deal with.
I really disagree with "easily deny your third," I believe the third can be killed but at what cost! How would you deny the third? Also, even if the third is killed, I believe that if the zerg spends too much army in exchange for the third, that you can just plant it down later with your slightly worse econ, and much superior army/tech. I played a game versus baneling/ling and he killed 2 of my Nexi, but he could never trade with my army, so he lost 18K worth of resources compared to my 8K worth of buildings/Nexi/probes/zeal/whatever.
Also, understand that my build is by no means ironed out, a Pro on the Protoss side could probably find a way to have a few extra units out as well/ better sim city/ couple epic forcefields/ better micro.
No need to defend yourself, I understand how good your stra is in master/lower leagues, but my point is in a pro scene, this would not work out very well(still can win with pro's execution and variation, but it is not a consistent play style and pros don't usually do it).
A well executed Stepahno style can kill your third effectively, a well timed hydra+ling attack could probably kill your third and you. By "well", I mean pro level skill. I as a master zerg and think I will definately fall to this stra executed by similar level P as I don't think i can kill/deny your third effectively, but imagining having pro level skill, it is not too hard to beat it even it is pro level P.
On May 02 2012 17:52 immanentblue wrote: a couple of questions...
1. How do you scout with this build? a very important scouting information would be if they are going mutas for instance... how do you find that out before its too late? (mind you zergs have a tendency to save up gas, and facing such a strat i would just save up a LOT of gas, to make my techswitch really strong)
2.when going double stargate will you be pressuring with the air units, if not - how do you deal with zerg just taking 5-6 bases, mine gas from them, and kill you with mutas?
3. if you pressure... how do you deal with loosing your initial air units (im not saying you will allways loose them, but if you do?)... as far as i can see, it leaves you with no infrastructure to come back from even a small deficit...
4. how do you deal with drops? if i turn all my overlords into dropships, i can drop all the places you cannons arent... i cant see how you can protect with cannons everywhere, and afford constant doupple vr production...
1 - In the earlygame, you do as much scouting as you do with most FFE's, I normally try to figure out if they have gotten their quick third and try to feel out if some low econ cheesy all-in is coming. After this period you just poke with your Void Rays, if you don't see any roaches and not a lot of lings I would get pretty suspicious of Mutas. You can always fit in 1 or 2 phoenix just for scouting and it doesn't hurt that much.
2 - Absolutely pressure as much as possible unless you can lose your units, its important to be able to retreat without losing anything. If you are poking at edges retreating from hydra/queen/spore is easy, if infestors are out YOU NEED A RECALL to retreat from chain fungals.
3 - you absolutely should not lose void rays to queens/spores. This is not hard to micro, I am cautious I guess. Sometimes 13 mutas will pop and you will lose your initial void rays that are caught out on the map in an unfavorable trade (try to target 1 or 2 mutas). While this is bad, remember he had to buy the spire, and spent all of that gas on Mutas and you can switch easily into lots of Phoenix production (I'm not sure why you said "no infrastructure", we have double stargate) to trade efficiently in your favor, you also have time to prepare more defensive cannons at the mineral lines.
4 - Versus the blind all ins like fast hydra drop off of 2 base, or Nydus cheese that hit at like 10 minutes, I think this is pretty close to a build order loss (however I have beaten these before.) But they can't scout what you are doing and then react with these builds to exploit you, they need to do a blind all in and hope you happen to be doing a strategy that it works against.
The longer the game goes on the less I am dependant on cannons, I haven't dealt much with a midgame drop of infestor/hydra or something like this into the main. That is very interesting. Most zergs realize its a huge risk to go for a drop when you have all of this air. It could be a way to exploit my style but drops are not always as effective as it appears they could be. There is a lot of funny micro, and lots of DPS from the dropper is wasted on nexus/ assimilator/random buildinds when I can just fly in from the most optimal angle and focus my DPS/target down what I want to target down, also I have a Vortex don't forget.
On May 02 2012 03:12 Nyast wrote:I'm not sure you have enough dps to avoid serious damage. I'd really like to see how that build holds versus a well executed Stephano style.
Yes I would love to see this as well, it's hard to say because most people just stop making roaches so my sample size of games like this is pretty small.
Just to be clear, when I speak of a well Stephano executed style, I don't necessarily mean pure roaches ( though it'd also be interesting to see ). I mean the Stephano build going for a maxed roach army at 12', but when scouting the mass cannons/voidrays, a transition to hydras. I suspect a good Zerg can have a shitton of roach/hydras, near maxed, around 12'30. And you won't have that many cannons/voidrays at that time..
On May 02 2012 17:31 WinWalk wrote: This is the ultimate turtle P style. Very easy to pull off, but even master Z would have problem dealing with it. However, it is not commonly used in pro games, I think it is mainly because pro zergs can easily find the timing to deny your third.
Denying the third is the key to beat this stra, amateur players(including master and lower leagues) are usually scared by the VR and cannons, or don't know what to build against this as it is not common, and as a result, they usually miss the opportunnity to deny the third. But this is relatively easier for pro players. They are calm, they know what to build, when to attack and can deny your third easily.
Another reason pros dont use this is because it doesn't really enhance your gaming skills. As I said, this is very easy to pull off, but takes much more skills to deal with.
I really disagree with "easily deny your third," I believe the third can be killed but at what cost! How would you deny the third? Also, even if the third is killed, I believe that if the zerg spends too much army in exchange for the third, that you can just plant it down later with your slightly worse econ, and much superior army/tech. I played a game versus baneling/ling and he killed 2 of my Nexi, but he could never trade with my army, so he lost 18K worth of resources compared to my 8K worth of buildings/Nexi/probes/zeal/whatever.
Also, understand that my build is by no means ironed out, a Pro on the Protoss side could probably find a way to have a few extra units out as well/ better sim city/ couple epic forcefields/ better micro.
No need to defend yourself, I understand how good your stra is in master/lower leagues, but my point is in a pro scene, this would not work out very well(still can win with pro's execution and variation, but it is not a consistent play style and pros don't usually do it).
A well executed Stepahno style can kill your third effectively, a well timed hydra+ling attack could probably kill your third and you. By "well", I mean pro level skill. I as a master zerg and think I will definately fall to this stra executed by similar level P as I don't think i can kill/deny your third effectively, but imagining having pro level skill, it is not too hard to beat it even it is pro level P.
Yeah I guess I am just like "gotta see it to believe it, pics or didn't happen!!lols" In the game I posted versus the ling/baneling, I defended terribly, lost 2 nexus and a ton of probes, but still won. I think while a pro could have attacked in a more optimal manner, and pro could have also defended in a more optimal manner.
On May 02 2012 03:12 Nyast wrote:I'm not sure you have enough dps to avoid serious damage. I'd really like to see how that build holds versus a well executed Stephano style.
Yes I would love to see this as well, it's hard to say because most people just stop making roaches so my sample size of games like this is pretty small.
Just to be clear, when I speak of a well Stephano executed style, I don't necessarily mean pure roaches ( though it'd also be interesting to see ). I mean the Stephano build going for a maxed roach army at 12', but when scouting the mass cannons/voidrays, a transition to hydras. I suspect a good Zerg can have a shitton of roach/hydras, near maxed, around 12'30. And you won't have that many cannons/voidrays at that time..
you should take a close look at the picture in the OP, the timestamp, and the units tab. I think its a pretty strong timing that he goes for, roach/hydra with 1/1 and I manage to defend it.
It's taken from this game. http://drop.sc/169483 (peepmode, skip in 10 minutes for my PvZ)
I believe the Zerg was a better all around player than I am, and I think he executed his "build" pretty well (It's afaik the same build you are suggesting)
On May 02 2012 17:31 WinWalk wrote: This is the ultimate turtle P style. Very easy to pull off, but even master Z would have problem dealing with it. However, it is not commonly used in pro games, I think it is mainly because pro zergs can easily find the timing to deny your third.
Denying the third is the key to beat this stra, amateur players(including master and lower leagues) are usually scared by the VR and cannons, or don't know what to build against this as it is not common, and as a result, they usually miss the opportunnity to deny the third. But this is relatively easier for pro players. They are calm, they know what to build, when to attack and can deny your third easily.
Another reason pros dont use this is because it doesn't really enhance your gaming skills. As I said, this is very easy to pull off, but takes much more skills to deal with.
I really disagree with "easily deny your third," I believe the third can be killed but at what cost! How would you deny the third? Also, even if the third is killed, I believe that if the zerg spends too much army in exchange for the third, that you can just plant it down later with your slightly worse econ, and much superior army/tech. I played a game versus baneling/ling and he killed 2 of my Nexi, but he could never trade with my army, so he lost 18K worth of resources compared to my 8K worth of buildings/Nexi/probes/zeal/whatever.
Also, understand that my build is by no means ironed out, a Pro on the Protoss side could probably find a way to have a few extra units out as well/ better sim city/ couple epic forcefields/ better micro.
No need to defend yourself, I understand how good your stra is in master/lower leagues, but my point is in a pro scene, this would not work out very well(still can win with pro's execution and variation, but it is not a consistent play style and pros don't usually do it).
A well executed Stepahno style can kill your third effectively, a well timed hydra+ling attack could probably kill your third and you. By "well", I mean pro level skill. I as a master zerg and think I will definately fall to this stra executed by similar level P as I don't think i can kill/deny your third effectively, but imagining having pro level skill, it is not too hard to beat it even it is pro level P.
Yeah I guess I am just like "gotta see it to believe it, pics or didn't happen!!lols" In the game I posted versus the ling/baneling, I defended terribly, lost 2 nexus and a ton of probes, but still won. I think while a pro could have attacked in a more optimal manner, and pro could have also defended in a more optimal manner.
Let me put it in a simple way. Your win rate using this strat may be 80%+ in amateur plays. but I will say it drops below 50% in pro plays (even both sides are pro players). That's why pros don't use it but I agree that it is a very good stra for amateurs to WIN a game.
On May 02 2012 17:31 WinWalk wrote: This is the ultimate turtle P style. Very easy to pull off, but even master Z would have problem dealing with it. However, it is not commonly used in pro games, I think it is mainly because pro zergs can easily find the timing to deny your third.
Denying the third is the key to beat this stra, amateur players(including master and lower leagues) are usually scared by the VR and cannons, or don't know what to build against this as it is not common, and as a result, they usually miss the opportunnity to deny the third. But this is relatively easier for pro players. They are calm, they know what to build, when to attack and can deny your third easily.
Another reason pros dont use this is because it doesn't really enhance your gaming skills. As I said, this is very easy to pull off, but takes much more skills to deal with.
I really disagree with "easily deny your third," I believe the third can be killed but at what cost! How would you deny the third? Also, even if the third is killed, I believe that if the zerg spends too much army in exchange for the third, that you can just plant it down later with your slightly worse econ, and much superior army/tech. I played a game versus baneling/ling and he killed 2 of my Nexi, but he could never trade with my army, so he lost 18K worth of resources compared to my 8K worth of buildings/Nexi/probes/zeal/whatever.
Also, understand that my build is by no means ironed out, a Pro on the Protoss side could probably find a way to have a few extra units out as well/ better sim city/ couple epic forcefields/ better micro.
No need to defend yourself, I understand how good your stra is in master/lower leagues, but my point is in a pro scene, this would not work out very well(still can win with pro's execution and variation, but it is not a consistent play style and pros don't usually do it).
A well executed Stepahno style can kill your third effectively, a well timed hydra+ling attack could probably kill your third and you. By "well", I mean pro level skill. I as a master zerg and think I will definately fall to this stra executed by similar level P as I don't think i can kill/deny your third effectively, but imagining having pro level skill, it is not too hard to beat it even it is pro level P.
Yeah I guess I am just like "gotta see it to believe it, pics or didn't happen!!lols" In the game I posted versus the ling/baneling, I defended terribly, lost 2 nexus and a ton of probes, but still won. I think while a pro could have attacked in a more optimal manner, and pro could have also defended in a more optimal manner.
Let me put it in a simple way. Your win rate using this strat may be 80%+ in amateur plays. but I will say it drops below 50% in pro plays (even both sides are pro players). That's why pros don't use it but I agree that it is a very good stra for amateurs to WIN a game.
Bro, I understood your point the first time, you don't need to reword it. I just simply think your wrong. You have no evidence, and I have very little (a lot of amateur replays, and amateur experience.) Nobody knows for sure, of course.
I remember playing against this awhile ago. Most frustrating game of sc I have ever played.
Very effective strategy. Biggest problem I found is that going infestor/corruptor against this you need a lot of bases for the gas and its extremely painful defending them because the protoss army is more mobile. In addition if your infestors tend to get shredded by HT.
how does this fare against 2 base mass ling + infested terran bust (i think destiny made it popular a while ago) basically you stay on 2 bases, get infestors with energy upgrade + burrow, throw all minerals into zerglings, then go for the bust once you have 5-8 infestors.
On May 02 2012 19:25 Cirqueenflex wrote: how does this fare against 2 base mass ling + infested terran bust (i think destiny made it popular a while ago) basically you stay on 2 bases, get infestors with energy upgrade + burrow, throw all minerals into zerglings, then go for the bust once you have 5-8 infestors.
I honestly have no idea, I can't remember facing this or anything close to it... it doesn't sound that scary though.
i've lost to this also. I could deny the 3rd, but could not stop the air-ball. However i figured out i could have won a base trade easily (was on 5 base). Mass expanding into base trade is probably the counter.
This works against pretty much anything but fast infestors
I use this on ladder all the time and you can actually engage hydralisks off creep and win very reliably. However, this build always wins either overwhelmingly or dies quickly to infestors, since you can't beat infestors without mass recall
On May 02 2012 19:37 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: i've lost to this also. I could deny the 3rd, but could not stop the air-ball. However i figured out i could have won a base trade easily (was on 5 base). Mass expanding into base trade is probably the counter.
base trading against Mass cannons and a well timed recall seem very tough, but it's an interesting idea. The protoss doesn't really want to base trade with my strategy, it's better to just turtle and mine half the resources on the map (even if you are expanding a little bit later than whats currently thought of as acceptable.) It's better to harass and then recall, defend, and fight than it is to base trade.
On May 02 2012 19:50 Banchan wrote: This works against pretty much anything but fast infestors
I use this on ladder all the time and you can actually engage hydralisks off creep and win very reliably. However, this build always wins either overwhelmingly or dies quickly to infestors, since you can't beat infestors without mass recall
Yep a good chain fungal with no recall is GG, this is why I never am never risking my airball without an emergency recall available! Infestors can't really be aggressive versus your turtle, defensive positioning, and cannons.
On May 02 2012 21:40 Dysruption wrote: Especially in Masters, I wish this didn't work so well. The first time I tried it I got an easy win.
totally agree, I don't understand why it's not more popular and not viable at the pro level, I can't find a hard exploit yet. I feel most people dismiss this because it doesn't look like "the right way to play" ... imho that's pretty stupid in a game that should be played to win and balance itself. Just watched MVP cheese Naniwa twice, and he seems okay at the game
On May 02 2012 21:40 Dysruption wrote:I found that keeping 2-3 Sentries at each base to accompany the cannons (especially the third) make it really difficult for your third to get sniped.
Good idea, my problem is I'm always paranoid that I'll miss the forcefields and then I have these really expensive paperweights, I'm trying to use a strategy with the largest margin for micro error, but with the best results, however with good Sentry control I think you can be much more bold with your expansion timings.
Mass Recall is awesome. Sniping infestor tech is a priority here. Nice build!
Thank you! No better feeling than sniping the infestor pit and mass recall to defend the counter attack, lol.
Let me put it in a simple way. Your win rate using this strat may be 80%+ in amateur plays. but I will say it drops below 50% in pro plays (even both sides are pro players). That's why pros don't use it but I agree that it is a very good stra for amateurs to WIN a game.
Let me put this in a simple way
White-ra does something similar Parting does something similar
Two of the pro scene protoss plaers and i bet there are more who at least try to fiddle around with 2 stargate into third builds.
If you want to discount White-ra and parting into the amateur leauges, be my guest. But the main thing you are missing here is that the DRG/Stephano style also took like 2-3 months to be completely figured and and be as strong as it is now. It used to be a joke that the zergs came with 30 roaches to deny your third, now it's 60 roaches.
So unless you come with evidence that zergs have over 60% winrate against this strategy, you have no grounds to call for a bad build, or call it amateur league stuff
I think that this is definitely one of those strategies that will be almost autowin if the opponent does not identify it and takes measures against it early on. Barring a lot of infestors getting dream fungals off, I don't see anything stopping the void ray clump. Somebody did this to me on ladder and beyond a certain number of void rays it is very hard to do something about.
On May 02 2012 22:52 straycat wrote: I think that this is definitely one of those strategies that will be almost autowin if the opponent does not identify it and takes measures against it early on. Barring a lot of infestors getting dream fungals off, I don't see anything stopping the void ray clump. Somebody did this to me on ladder and beyond a certain number of void rays it is very hard to do something about.
I don't think the Void ball is quite "unbeatable" in a head on fight lategame, corruptor infestor is a stronger max IMO,
BUT,
1 - You can retreat from any fight you don't like, and make little adjustments to your composition (like throwing in 10 stalkers, versus a corruptor/infestor max (redic funny,) adding in more carriers, deciding to abandon your timing and secure an expansion w/ cannons, etc)
You can harass with a ridiculously strong force, and snipe bases/tech in a matter of seconds, and your opponent cant retreat without taking a lot of losses if he makes a mistake with his composition, engagement, or micro, he just loses, if you make this mistake you just recall and say "OOPs, BRB BRO!"
On May 02 2012 23:20 Treehead wrote: If you scout spire, do you tech switch to phoenixes then? Or do you somehow still beat them with voids?
Well, spire can be corruptor tech, and you definitely dont want too many Phoenix versus no Muta.
Versus Muta you obviously need some amount of Phoenix or else your mineral lines will just be hit and run forever, and since you are going lategame he can dump a LOT of gas into mutas if he wants, cannons alone are not sufficient defense. They help for extra DPS and give you a little extra margin for error with your micro but you absolutely need some amount of Phoenix support vs Muta. The new upgrade actually becomes useful as well, which is nice to get.
Not sure how standard can ever be since it can have really strong hard counters, but i guess it's nice to throw it in there if you are a big stargate fan in a BoX series.
Do you ever simcity your third with gateways to protect your cannons on maps like Entombed, even though you are unlikely to use them for a while?
Let me put it in a simple way. Your win rate using this strat may be 80%+ in amateur plays. but I will say it drops below 50% in pro plays (even both sides are pro players). That's why pros don't use it but I agree that it is a very good stra for amateurs to WIN a game.
Let me put this in a simple way
White-ra does something similar Parting does something similar
Two of the pro scene protoss plaers and i bet there are more who at least try to fiddle around with 2 stargate into third builds.
If you want to discount White-ra and parting into the amateur leauges, be my guest. But the main thing you are missing here is that the DRG/Stephano style also took like 2-3 months to be completely figured and and be as strong as it is now. It used to be a joke that the zergs came with 30 roaches to deny your third, now it's 60 roaches.
So unless you come with evidence that zergs have over 60% winrate against this strategy, you have no grounds to call for a bad build, or call it amateur league stuff
From what we have seen in the pro games, this is not a commonly used stra ( even some pros do similar stuff occasionally), do you consider this some kind of evidence? I don't call it a bad build but pros decide this is not a good everyday use build. The risk is too great in pro scenes.
So I tried this out twice with a little bit of refinement this could be pretty nice :D I uploaded both of the games. In the first one the tried standard play and had to transition into only hydra which failed.
The second game was pretty interesting. He opened up Muta and then Corruptor Infestor Hydra. It was pretty close at some point but alle worked out pretty well.
On May 02 2012 15:49 ticklishmusic wrote: This is kind of a random question, but does anyone know if you can build on a vortex? Like, suppose you threw down a vortex, could you put a nexus down where the vortex was? O_O
Also, I played a couple monobattles with a friend for giggles. I went mass roach and managed to max at ~13/14 mins off of thee bases and a macro hatch with a pretty crappy build-- I got supply blocked a couple times, threw down a gas too early, missed some injects, etc. I did throw down a few spines as well, so that kind of counts for the defense I would have had to get in a "real game". (suppose I should have sacked an ovie as well). First big wave of roaches I wiped out 3 expansions and a bunch of stray thors. Next time I went back in with burrowed +1 roaches. When my teammates finally moved in, it was GG.
Anyways, apart from my awesome monobattle skills, I don't think getting a 12/13 minute roach max is actually that difficult. I rarely play Zerg, and I was pretty close on my first try, even with my screw ups.
Of course its not hard to max on roaches?!, the questions is how much damage can they do before they get killed, and how much did you invest into them.
Just because you ran around in monobattles and sniped some bases doesn't mean roaches never die.
Unfortunately most people that I face abandon roaches when they see mass voidray+cannon+MS (imo for good reason) But people here are theorycrafting that irreversible damage can be dealt, before the roaches die off. I would like to practice against a Stefano style and see if an equally skilled player could break me, I seriously doubt it. I think there is so much you can accomplish with a good sim city and highground/well placed cannons/micro. Also, there is nothing wrong with cancelling your third, waiting a minute or two, and planting it back down... your tech is so much superior and when you have a critical VR mass the zergs army becomes more and more useless, and you are going to kill his units more and more efficiently (to justify a delayed third, if you even had to delay it in the first place.) imho.
I was just surprised how easy it was to get a roach max at 13 minutes. I thought that was supposed to be the difficult part... then attacking with them in a decent concave, pulling back weakened ones, those are just regular old skills. I definitely lost a ton froaches, but I also managed to do terrible terrible damage. Granted that monobattle players are generally much worse than me, but I managed to bash through all of them pretty easily. But again, that's besides the point.
I agree its unlikely for a Zerg to bust through a good protoss sim city, unless there's some egregious micro mistake from the protoss which wouldn't really matter b/c roaches can't shoot up anyways. However, I think that using Nydus or speed drops could prove to be pretty effective though. He can just lift into your main and circumvent the cannons at your natural and third. I don't think you can really defend effectively with your VR at more than one location.
mass infestor hardcounter it hard, you cant recall units that are taken from zterg so if he fungal the infestor and take 3-4 voids you will lose them (if u recall the taken units stay there cause they not count as your units)
@CoR Nobody uses neural anymore. The only really threat is a direct attack when you have not enough cannons or drops. Everything else is pretty much useless because a maxed out hydra corruptor infestor army with 120 supply will still loose to mass voids with some cannons and a mamaship with Vortex.
Sounds really cool for a toss tryign to mix it up, but a little gimmicky . I think the game could end up a couple of ways, First, someone starts with the standard 3 hatch rw evo business and while you have double stargate trying to haras they just counter and kill you (Stephano vs Hero). There could also be a timing similar to the GSL when Nestea was playing Inca where Nestea's increased production and econ just rolled him. Sounds interesting though.
I am a low masters protoss and have not lost with this build yet. However, against my mid-masters zerg friend I was forced to transition out of pure air because I couldn't keep up with his production of infestor/corruptor. As in, since I could only attack every time I had 100 energy on the mothership, (or I would subsequently lose instantly to chain fungals) I wasn't doing enough damage... but I threw down three robos, chrono'd out 9 colossus, and crushed him.
Ever since then I've been experimenting with this strategy, but transitioning into an air/templar mix. (which varies according to the opponent's composition.) I felt VERY comfortable with a void ray/ mothership / phoenix / chargelot / HT/ blink stalker / archon composition.
Phoenixes are fantastic for grav lifting infestors, also. You would think this wouldn't be the case, but it forces infestors to use WAY more energy than they otherwise would.
It should be noted that a mothership/observer together are very adept at securing you a fast fourth and fifth base. Manually detonated banelings can hurt you, but that's a lot of resources just to kill a nexus.
And I have been very surprised at the effectiveness of mass cannon as a defensive tactic.
On May 03 2012 05:39 PandaMonk wrote: Sounds really cool for a toss tryign to mix it up, but a little gimmicky . I think the game could end up a couple of ways, First, someone starts with the standard 3 hatch rw evo business and while you have double stargate trying to haras they just counter and kill you (Stephano vs Hero). There could also be a timing similar to the GSL when Nestea was playing Inca where Nestea's increased production and econ just rolled him. Sounds interesting though.
I don't think its gimmicky because as far as I can tell it defends EVERYTHING and leads to a long macro game. It's a defensive build that helps to establish your expansions and you can transition into any sort of lategame composition as some people itt have experimented with. While you will take some amount of damage versus roaches or baneling/speedling if you defend well your units snowball and you stabilize while the zerg is put on a clock to do fatal damage before your airball just beomes too strong to deflect everything.
Do you have a VOD for the Stephano Hero game? If I had to guess why it lost I would say not enough cannons were used, and too many minerals went into Phoenix/gateway/gateway units. Of course Hero is a fantastic player, so I would love to see why it didn't work out.
On May 03 2012 05:28 CoR wrote: mass infestor hardcounter it hard, you cant recall units that are taken from zterg so if he fungal the infestor and take 3-4 voids you will lose them (if u recall the taken units stay there cause they not count as your units)
Nobody uses Neuro, but this is a good point, and still needs to be addressed.
First of all, the micro can get a little tricky, it's not like you just autolose all void rays because the zeg has researched parasite and built infestors.
He has to be incredibly careful and not let the infestors get targeted down or its a huge problem and a lot of them will be lost. Secondly, if you are unable to scout mass infestor until the battle, you can still recall everything as soon as Neuro starts, (minus the couple of void rays that you are unable to save) and change your composition.... you can go very carrier heavy, or add collossus, or add chargelots or HT's, w/e.
Let me put it in a simple way. Your win rate using this strat may be 80%+ in amateur plays. but I will say it drops below 50% in pro plays (even both sides are pro players). That's why pros don't use it but I agree that it is a very good stra for amateurs to WIN a game.
Let me put this in a simple way
White-ra does something similar Parting does something similar
Two of the pro scene protoss plaers and i bet there are more who at least try to fiddle around with 2 stargate into third builds.
If you want to discount White-ra and parting into the amateur leauges, be my guest. But the main thing you are missing here is that the DRG/Stephano style also took like 2-3 months to be completely figured and and be as strong as it is now. It used to be a joke that the zergs came with 30 roaches to deny your third, now it's 60 roaches.
So unless you come with evidence that zergs have over 60% winrate against this strategy, you have no grounds to call for a bad build, or call it amateur league stuff
From what we have seen in the pro games, this is not a commonly used stra ( even some pros do similar stuff occasionally), do you consider this some kind of evidence? I don't call it a bad build but pros decide this is not a good everyday use build. The risk is too great in pro scenes.
I think the lack of it being used at Pro level, on it's own, is very little (but some) evidence. The less intuitive a build is, the longer it will take to be explored, imo.
On May 01 2012 04:52 oOOoOphidian wrote: If you do this against someone who is any good at all, they will simply take a fast third, make 80 drones, then deny your third with mass zergling (so many that cannons don't even help) and kill all your void rays and probes with mutalisks while teching to infestors.
Lings versus voidrays/mothership/cannons doesn't end up well for the Zerg. Mass ling is much more destructive with run-by harass, into the main, if I'm too slow to close the chokes/complete a wall. However, this is me screwing up simple micro, not a theory issue.
"Kill all of your VR and probes" it doesnt really work this way.
You will probably lose your first 3 void rays if you are poking his third and 13 mutas hatch, however even though this trade is crappy for you, he is comitted to Muta Ling, spent a ton of Gas on it, and there is enough time to ball up the rest of your VRs with your MS to "zone", switch to phoenix, and throw down emergency cannons, warp in stalkers, etc. The longer the game goes on the less worried you should be about any muta "suprise" because as the numbers start to grow Mutas don't do very well.
My third replay is a Muta game I played yesterday, of course my opponent didn't play perfectly, but it's something.
I am saying you will be dead before you get a third base secured or a mothership. It won't be 10 mutalisks either, it will be 20-30 by then, because the zerg was completely free to take 4 bases and fully saturate 8 gas. I watched your replay, your opponent was down on workers the entire game and made horrible decisions throwing away units for no purpose.
I could also see a massive vulnerability to roach hydra drops, as even if you can deal with the hydra count you are still too immobile and lacking in army size to defend multiple fronts.
Yeah massing void rays and spamming cannons can work if someone lets you get away with it, which is why you see it from bronze leaguers all the time, but it's really not viable if someone scouts it.
On May 01 2012 04:52 oOOoOphidian wrote: If you do this against someone who is any good at all, they will simply take a fast third, make 80 drones, then deny your third with mass zergling (so many that cannons don't even help) and kill all your void rays and probes with mutalisks while teching to infestors.
Lings versus voidrays/mothership/cannons doesn't end up well for the Zerg. Mass ling is much more destructive with run-by harass, into the main, if I'm too slow to close the chokes/complete a wall. However, this is me screwing up simple micro, not a theory issue.
"Kill all of your VR and probes" it doesnt really work this way.
You will probably lose your first 3 void rays if you are poking his third and 13 mutas hatch, however even though this trade is crappy for you, he is comitted to Muta Ling, spent a ton of Gas on it, and there is enough time to ball up the rest of your VRs with your MS to "zone", switch to phoenix, and throw down emergency cannons, warp in stalkers, etc. The longer the game goes on the less worried you should be about any muta "suprise" because as the numbers start to grow Mutas don't do very well.
My third replay is a Muta game I played yesterday, of course my opponent didn't play perfectly, but it's something.
I am saying you will be dead before you get a third base secured or a mothership. It won't be 10 mutalisks either, it will be 20-30 by then, because the zerg was completely free to take 4 bases and fully saturate 8 gas. I watched your replay, your opponent was down on workers the entire game and made horrible decisions throwing away units for no purpose.
I could also see a massive vulnerability to roach hydra drops, as even if you can deal with the hydra count you are still too immobile and lacking in army size to defend multiple fronts.
Yeah massing void rays and spamming cannons can work if someone lets you get away with it, which is why you see it from bronze leaguers all the time, but it's really not viable if someone scouts it.
Of course my opponent could have played better, I could have as well, and this will always be the case.
I'm not sure how you intend to deny a third protected by X cannons, 9 (and counting) voidrays and a mothership with pure zergling. Even if you can delay it, by sacraficing an unknown number of lings and an unknown number of overseer's. without letting your overseer get sniped, it's eventually going to go up, and it will be well protected.
While mass mass mutas can be a problem if you are unprepared (obviously,) this composition can never do fatal damage, only harass. If I don't see any gas units and I have had my third for a little while I will be scared of mutas and can make a few phoenix to scout, and take more bases if he continues to stockpile gas while refusing to "show his hand."
Also, chrono'd phoenix production from 4 stargates while not as fast as zergs larva production, is still super fast, and fast enough to deal with Mutas.
With the range upgrade (and weapons and armor and shield upgrades) phoenix do okay against muta, I can catch up in numbers extremely quickly, and now I have that many less infestors to worry about in the lategame.
Have you ever seen 16 2/2/1 phoenix with range versus 30 mutas?
On May 03 2012 01:42 How2getMaster wrote: So I tried this out twice with a little bit of refinement this could be pretty nice :D I uploaded both of the games. In the first one the tried standard play and had to transition into only hydra which failed.
The second game was pretty interesting. He opened up Muta and then Corruptor Infestor Hydra. It was pretty close at some point but alle worked out pretty well.
Funny games! I like how you sniped the natural and then ran like a coward in the first game, and in the second game he starts cussing or something in German and you blame your strategy on TL
I have lost to versus Muta harass into a very strong/ clean Hydra timing if I over-produce Phoenix and am out of position for the defense. Always have to remember to be careful here.
On May 01 2012 04:52 oOOoOphidian wrote: If you do this against someone who is any good at all, they will simply take a fast third, make 80 drones, then deny your third with mass zergling (so many that cannons don't even help) and kill all your void rays and probes with mutalisks while teching to infestors.
Lings versus voidrays/mothership/cannons doesn't end up well for the Zerg. Mass ling is much more destructive with run-by harass, into the main, if I'm too slow to close the chokes/complete a wall. However, this is me screwing up simple micro, not a theory issue.
"Kill all of your VR and probes" it doesnt really work this way.
You will probably lose your first 3 void rays if you are poking his third and 13 mutas hatch, however even though this trade is crappy for you, he is comitted to Muta Ling, spent a ton of Gas on it, and there is enough time to ball up the rest of your VRs with your MS to "zone", switch to phoenix, and throw down emergency cannons, warp in stalkers, etc. The longer the game goes on the less worried you should be about any muta "suprise" because as the numbers start to grow Mutas don't do very well.
My third replay is a Muta game I played yesterday, of course my opponent didn't play perfectly, but it's something.
I am saying you will be dead before you get a third base secured or a mothership. It won't be 10 mutalisks either, it will be 20-30 by then, because the zerg was completely free to take 4 bases and fully saturate 8 gas. I watched your replay, your opponent was down on workers the entire game and made horrible decisions throwing away units for no purpose.
I could also see a massive vulnerability to roach hydra drops, as even if you can deal with the hydra count you are still too immobile and lacking in army size to defend multiple fronts.
Yeah massing void rays and spamming cannons can work if someone lets you get away with it, which is why you see it from bronze leaguers all the time, but it's really not viable if someone scouts it.
Of course my opponent could have played better, I could have as well, and this will always be the case.
I'm not sure how you intend to deny a third protected by X cannons, 9 voidrays and a mothership with pure zergling. Even if you can delay it, without letting your overseer get sniped, its eventually going to go up, and it will be protected by a good simcity.
While mass mass mutas can be a problem if you are unprepared (obviously,) this composition can never do fatal damage, only harass. If I don't see any gas units and I have had my third for a little while I will be scared of mutas and can make a few phoenix to scout, and get a start on my techswitch. Also, phoenix production from 4 stargates with the range upgrade (and weapons and armor upgrades) does okay against muta, I can catch up in numbers extremely quickly, and now I have that many less infestors to worry about in the lategame.
The point is you don't get a third, you lose all of your probes, and the zerg then can just send units at you until you die, because you have no income left to produce more defense.
On May 01 2012 04:52 oOOoOphidian wrote: If you do this against someone who is any good at all, they will simply take a fast third, make 80 drones, then deny your third with mass zergling (so many that cannons don't even help) and kill all your void rays and probes with mutalisks while teching to infestors.
Lings versus voidrays/mothership/cannons doesn't end up well for the Zerg. Mass ling is much more destructive with run-by harass, into the main, if I'm too slow to close the chokes/complete a wall. However, this is me screwing up simple micro, not a theory issue.
"Kill all of your VR and probes" it doesnt really work this way.
You will probably lose your first 3 void rays if you are poking his third and 13 mutas hatch, however even though this trade is crappy for you, he is comitted to Muta Ling, spent a ton of Gas on it, and there is enough time to ball up the rest of your VRs with your MS to "zone", switch to phoenix, and throw down emergency cannons, warp in stalkers, etc. The longer the game goes on the less worried you should be about any muta "suprise" because as the numbers start to grow Mutas don't do very well.
My third replay is a Muta game I played yesterday, of course my opponent didn't play perfectly, but it's something.
I am saying you will be dead before you get a third base secured or a mothership. It won't be 10 mutalisks either, it will be 20-30 by then, because the zerg was completely free to take 4 bases and fully saturate 8 gas. I watched your replay, your opponent was down on workers the entire game and made horrible decisions throwing away units for no purpose.
I could also see a massive vulnerability to roach hydra drops, as even if you can deal with the hydra count you are still too immobile and lacking in army size to defend multiple fronts.
Yeah massing void rays and spamming cannons can work if someone lets you get away with it, which is why you see it from bronze leaguers all the time, but it's really not viable if someone scouts it.
Of course my opponent could have played better, I could have as well, and this will always be the case.
I'm not sure how you intend to deny a third protected by X cannons, 9 voidrays and a mothership with pure zergling. Even if you can delay it, without letting your overseer get sniped, its eventually going to go up, and it will be protected by a good simcity.
While mass mass mutas can be a problem if you are unprepared (obviously,) this composition can never do fatal damage, only harass. If I don't see any gas units and I have had my third for a little while I will be scared of mutas and can make a few phoenix to scout, and get a start on my techswitch. Also, phoenix production from 4 stargates with the range upgrade (and weapons and armor upgrades) does okay against muta, I can catch up in numbers extremely quickly, and now I have that many less infestors to worry about in the lategame.
The point is you don't get a third, you lose all of your probes, and the zerg then can just send units at you until you die, because you have no income left to produce more defense.
Contrary to popular belief, there are a finite amount of resources on all maps.
In this game he has lost 18K in army value, I've lost 0. Even though my micro is bad, and the walls/cannon placement are FAR from optimal, he is still not able to kill all of my probes.
My third is denied, AND an additional nexus, and 60 probes are killed. He taps out because he is all in and I stabilize.
On May 01 2012 04:52 oOOoOphidian wrote: If you do this against someone who is any good at all, they will simply take a fast third, make 80 drones, then deny your third with mass zergling (so many that cannons don't even help) and kill all your void rays and probes with mutalisks while teching to infestors.
Lings versus voidrays/mothership/cannons doesn't end up well for the Zerg. Mass ling is much more destructive with run-by harass, into the main, if I'm too slow to close the chokes/complete a wall. However, this is me screwing up simple micro, not a theory issue.
"Kill all of your VR and probes" it doesnt really work this way.
You will probably lose your first 3 void rays if you are poking his third and 13 mutas hatch, however even though this trade is crappy for you, he is comitted to Muta Ling, spent a ton of Gas on it, and there is enough time to ball up the rest of your VRs with your MS to "zone", switch to phoenix, and throw down emergency cannons, warp in stalkers, etc. The longer the game goes on the less worried you should be about any muta "suprise" because as the numbers start to grow Mutas don't do very well.
My third replay is a Muta game I played yesterday, of course my opponent didn't play perfectly, but it's something.
I am saying you will be dead before you get a third base secured or a mothership. It won't be 10 mutalisks either, it will be 20-30 by then, because the zerg was completely free to take 4 bases and fully saturate 8 gas. I watched your replay, your opponent was down on workers the entire game and made horrible decisions throwing away units for no purpose.
I could also see a massive vulnerability to roach hydra drops, as even if you can deal with the hydra count you are still too immobile and lacking in army size to defend multiple fronts.
Yeah massing void rays and spamming cannons can work if someone lets you get away with it, which is why you see it from bronze leaguers all the time, but it's really not viable if someone scouts it.
Of course my opponent could have played better, I could have as well, and this will always be the case.
I'm not sure how you intend to deny a third protected by X cannons, 9 voidrays and a mothership with pure zergling. Even if you can delay it, without letting your overseer get sniped, its eventually going to go up, and it will be protected by a good simcity.
While mass mass mutas can be a problem if you are unprepared (obviously,) this composition can never do fatal damage, only harass. If I don't see any gas units and I have had my third for a little while I will be scared of mutas and can make a few phoenix to scout, and get a start on my techswitch. Also, phoenix production from 4 stargates with the range upgrade (and weapons and armor upgrades) does okay against muta, I can catch up in numbers extremely quickly, and now I have that many less infestors to worry about in the lategame.
The point is you don't get a third, you lose all of your probes, and the zerg then can just send units at you until you die, because you have no income left to produce more defense.
Contrary to popular belief, there are a finite amount of resources on all maps.
In this game he has lost 18K in army value, I've lost 0. Even though my micro is bad, and the walls/cannon placement are FAR from optimal, he is still not able to kill all of my probes.
My third is denied, AND an additional nexus, and 60 probes are killed. He taps out because he is all in and I stabilize.
Seriously? Your opponent doesn't scout you at all, makes tons of lings and is behind you on workers for the first 10 minutes. He then floats 2000 minerals and does a poorly executed baneling attack that could have easily killed all the workers in both your main and natural if he controlled his units at all. He made literally only lings and banelings to attack you and was still behind on workers after every attack because he never droned and didn't do proper damage. Meanwhile he let you mass 21 void rays and you consider this a game that proves your style is viable?
As I said a zerg can make a huge number of mutalisks off a 3-4 base economy with full gas income and kill your air fleet before it gets big, or kill all of your probes. It doesn't matter by that point if you can make phoenix off 3-4 stargates, because the zerg can then make whatever they want to kill you due to the crippled economy and low count of void rays. The entire point is zerg shouldn't be letting you get mass void rays in the first place.
For that matter, you can't even hold a proper stephano style roach push with this. You'll lose everything except your 4 void rays and then they will just make literally any anti-air units and kill the rest of your buildings and your void rays after that.
On May 02 2012 17:31 WinWalk wrote: This is the ultimate turtle P style. Very easy to pull off, but even master Z would have problem dealing with it. However, it is not commonly used in pro games, I think it is mainly because pro zergs can easily find the timing to deny your third.
Denying the third is the key to beat this stra, amateur players(including master and lower leagues) are usually scared by the VR and cannons, or don't know what to build against this as it is not common, and as a result, they usually miss the opportunnity to deny the third. But this is relatively easier for pro players. They are calm, they know what to build, when to attack and can deny your third easily.
Another reason pros dont use this is because it doesn't really enhance your gaming skills. As I said, this is very easy to pull off, but takes much more skills to deal with.
I really disagree with "easily deny your third," I believe the third can be killed but at what cost! How would you deny the third? Also, even if the third is killed, I believe that if the zerg spends too much army in exchange for the third, that you can just plant it down later with your slightly worse econ, and much superior army/tech. I played a game versus baneling/ling and he killed 2 of my Nexi, but he could never trade with my army, so he lost 18K worth of resources compared to my 8K worth of buildings/Nexi/probes/zeal/whatever.
Also, understand that my build is by no means ironed out, a Pro on the Protoss side could probably find a way to have a few extra units out as well/ better sim city/ couple epic forcefields/ better micro.
No need to defend yourself, I understand how good your stra is in master/lower leagues, but my point is in a pro scene, this would not work out very well(still can win with pro's execution and variation, but it is not a consistent play style and pros don't usually do it).
A well executed Stepahno style can kill your third effectively, a well timed hydra+ling attack could probably kill your third and you. By "well", I mean pro level skill. I as a master zerg and think I will definately fall to this stra executed by similar level P as I don't think i can kill/deny your third effectively, but imagining having pro level skill, it is not too hard to beat it even it is pro level P.
Yeah I guess I am just like "gotta see it to believe it, pics or didn't happen!!lols" In the game I posted versus the ling/baneling, I defended terribly, lost 2 nexus and a ton of probes, but still won. I think while a pro could have attacked in a more optimal manner, and pro could have also defended in a more optimal manner.
Let me put it in a simple way. Your win rate using this strat may be 80%+ in amateur plays. but I will say it drops below 50% in pro plays (even both sides are pro players). That's why pros don't use it but I agree that it is a very good stra for amateurs to WIN a game.
Bro, I understood your point the first time, you don't need to reword it. I just simply think your wrong. You have no evidence, and I have very little (a lot of amateur replays, and amateur experience.) Nobody knows for sure, of course.
On May 02 2012 18:54 Fogetaboudit wrote:Bro, I understood your point the first time, you don't need to reword it. I just simply think your wrong. You have no evidence, and I have very little (a lot of amateur replays, and amateur experience.) Nobody knows for sure, of course.
comprehension ftw.
Okay. Do you want to play a few games? Posting replays against gold leaguers who make tons of mistakes doesn't really mean much.
On May 03 2012 12:32 Fogetaboudit wrote: Your arguments boil down to "well he could have played better, doesn't count"
you consider this a game that proves your style is viable?
I never said my replays "prove" my style is viable at a pro level, I said this
On May 02 2012 18:54 Fogetaboudit wrote:Bro, I understood your point the first time, you don't need to reword it. I just simply think your wrong. You have no evidence, and I have very little (a lot of amateur replays, and amateur experience.) Nobody knows for sure, of course.
comprehension ftw.
Okay. Do you want to play a few games? Posting replays against gold leaguers who make tons of mistakes doesn't really mean much.
the first replay is against a GM afaik. Sure we can play a few.
As I said, you should play against tang's all-ins. The build is extremely vulnerable before your voidrays pop (as they are unusually late for SG builds) and before your mothership pops. Infestor/Ling timing is easily the hardest thing for you to deal with, though hydra can be decent (zenio style in particular).
You will never be able to determine whether this style is viable at higher levels, unless someone actually tries it out against higher level zergs. It's just pointless to say "ur opponent was horrble lol", or "dis wud die to (insert zerg push here)". You can say what you think, but just don't say it like it's a universal fact, unless you tried it a few times and can post the replays. Hopefully we can get some feedback concluded from experience instead of (overanalysed) theory-crafting.
On May 03 2012 15:34 PaNiCterrran wrote: You will never be able to determine whether this style is viable at higher levels, unless someone actually tries it out against higher level zergs. It's just pointless to say "ur opponent was horrble lol", or "dis wud die to (insert zerg push here)". You can say what you think, but just don't say it like it's a universal fact, unless you tried it a few times and can post the replays. Hopefully we can get some feedback concluded from experience instead of (overanalysed) theory-crafting.
On May 03 2012 21:15 How2getMaster wrote: Nice you had time to watch the reps ^^ I´m definitely going to continue playing this stlye We will see where it leads.
Greetings.
I think its important to mix in at least 1 scouting phoenix, but other than that I still believe skytoss is entirely viable as an opening and throughout a Macro game. GL to you!
What that screenshot you used doesn't show is that the first game took 53 minutes because you literally just spammed cannons on one base when I had every single other base on the map. You acted like we should have practiced 5 different 50 minute games just because you want to play In Utter Darkness with another player.
I showed you multiple things that crush this build and attempted a few more that I had no experience with and every time I tried something that I didn't quite do properly I was still on 6 bases or more to 3 every time and they all would go like this if it was worth the time to do so:
I should also mention that the OP was ridiculously BM despite being willing to play quite a few games to prove the point... I recommend nobody else waste their time.
For anyone curious, a reactive 3 hatch hydra ling was the easiest counter, while 3 hatch muta (my preferred response on ladder) does the expected amount of economic damage to let continued pushes work. Never got around to using an infestor/ling timing, but with only 3 void rays out at that time you can do the math.
On May 03 2012 23:28 oOOoOphidian wrote: what that screenshot you used doesn't show is that the first game took 53 minutes because you literally just spammed cannons on one base when I had every single other base on the map. you act like we should have practiced 5 different 50 minute games just because you want to play In Utter Darkness with another player.
I must admit - I'm surprised the build can hold up for 53 minutes.
There's nothing wrong with playing for long games if you can win in long games. Look at TvT.
It seems to me this strategy would get destroyed just like the build MC did against DRG in the GSL Arena fairly recently. Motherships, VRs, and some Carriers with mass cannons. All DRG had to do was use mass zerglings, a few infestors, and a LOT of corruptors (which counter every unit you are proposing to use). Zerglings are also nearly impossible to kill with VRs once they have range. The cannons you use can be whittled down, and a trade for maybe 20 lings to get into a base and destroy production is worth it for sure. I just don't think this is viable.
Maybe if you went more in depth about resource production, tech switching, and harassment capabilities, I could be swayed. Maybe.
On May 03 2012 23:28 oOOoOphidian wrote: what that screenshot you used doesn't show is that the first game took 53 minutes because you literally just spammed cannons on one base when I had every single other base on the map. you act like we should have practiced 5 different 50 minute games just because you want to play In Utter Darkness with another player.
I must admit - I'm surprised the build can hold up for 53 minutes.
There's nothing wrong with playing for long games if you can win in long games. Look at TvT.
That's more because I'm overly cautious and never went for killing blows than because this is good strategy. It is a lot like how someone in bronze league cannoning up one base and massing void rays can survive for a long time despite their opponent having all the other bases. It's not that you can ever actually win, it's just that it takes forever to kill you. Most players better than I are more capable of staging attacks and trading units properly. I will say that the mothership makes it somewhat tricky to engage, but that's why stephano literally just sacrifices a ton of corrupters to kill that off whenever he faces stuff like this.
On May 03 2012 23:28 oOOoOphidian wrote: what that screenshot you used doesn't show is that the first game took 53 minutes because you literally just spammed cannons on one base when I had every single other base on the map. you act like we should have practiced 5 different 50 minute games just because you want to play In Utter Darkness with another player.
I must admit - I'm surprised the build can hold up for 53 minutes.
There's nothing wrong with playing for long games if you can win in long games. Look at TvT.
That's more because I'm overly cautious and never went for killing blows than because this is good strategy. It is a lot like how someone in bronze league cannoning up one base and massing void rays can survive for a long time despite their opponent having all the other bases. It's not that you can ever actually win, it's just that it takes forever to kill you. Most players better than I are more capable of staging attacks and trading units properly. I will say that the mothership makes it somewhat tricky to engage, but that's why stephano literally just sacrifices a ton of corrupters to kill that off whenever he faces stuff like this.
Ah, I see.
His statement led me to believe he won some of the games you two played. If he's not beating you then nevermind.
On May 03 2012 23:28 oOOoOphidian wrote: What that screenshot you used doesn't show is that the first game took 53 minutes because you literally just spammed cannons on one base when I had every single other base on the map. You acted like we should have practiced 5 different 50 minute games just because you want to play In Utter Darkness with another player.
I showed you multiple things that crush this build and attempted a few more that I had no experience with and every time I tried something that I didn't quite do properly I was still on 6 bases or more to 3 every time and they all would go like this if it was worth the time to do so:
I should also mention that the OP was ridiculously BM despite being willing to play quite a few games to prove the point... I recommend nobody else waste their time.
For anyone curious, a reactive 3 hatch hydra ling was the easiest counter, while 3 hatch muta (my preferred response on ladder) does the expected amount of economic damage to let continued pushes work. Never got around to using an infestor/ling timing, but with only 3 void rays out at that time you can do the math.
LOL, you took a screenshot from the other game ^^ You broke my fourth with infested terrans because my detection wasnt up in time.
Stop playing stupid, you got owned in every game except for 2?, this win was a silly one that could have been avoided) and your other win was a hydra timing in which i defended rather poorly and was out of position. You failed to decisively break the build and either lost miserably while rage quitting, or won because of silly mistakes on my part.
On May 03 2012 23:28 oOOoOphidian wrote: what that screenshot you used doesn't show is that the first game took 53 minutes because you literally just spammed cannons on one base when I had every single other base on the map. you act like we should have practiced 5 different 50 minute games just because you want to play In Utter Darkness with another player.
I must admit - I'm surprised the build can hold up for 53 minutes.
There's nothing wrong with playing for long games if you can win in long games. Look at TvT.
That's more because I'm overly cautious and never went for killing blows than because this is good strategy. It is a lot like how someone in bronze league cannoning up one base and massing void rays can survive for a long time despite their opponent having all the other bases. It's not that you can ever actually win, it's just that it takes forever to kill you. Most players better than I are more capable of staging attacks and trading units properly. I will say that the mothership makes it somewhat tricky to engage, but that's why stephano literally just sacrifices a ton of corrupters to kill that off whenever he faces stuff like this.
Ah, I see.
His statement led me to believe he won some of the games you two played. If he's not beating you then nevermind.
I lost a game on Entombed Valley due to poor execution of the stephano style, handling a small 2 zealot harass poorly and then fumbling with a low supply hydra/roach drop. Every other game I just left if he started turtling or got a third up / I fucked up my opener, simply to avoid 50 minute games. Every game except the Entombed Valley game I was on 6+ bases with 80-90 drones and all tech. The easiest way to grind away at the turtle is with mass zerglings and infested terrans, which is how I won the first game.
You realize I had 6 bases and 7k/2k banked with 25 full energy infestors, right? You were mining one base and cannoning it up, just like the first game you lost.
Anyway, I talked about a build someone used against me a while ago on ladder that was similar, here it is: http://drop.sc/171222 If you want to do mass void rays against a 3 hatch zerg, that opener is a lot better as it gets a much faster third and better production, though he ended up losing to mutalisks he made quite a few mistakes that made it pretty lopsided when it shouldn't have been.
On May 03 2012 23:28 oOOoOphidian wrote: what that screenshot you used doesn't show is that the first game took 53 minutes because you literally just spammed cannons on one base when I had every single other base on the map. you act like we should have practiced 5 different 50 minute games just because you want to play In Utter Darkness with another player.
I must admit - I'm surprised the build can hold up for 53 minutes.
There's nothing wrong with playing for long games if you can win in long games. Look at TvT.
That's more because I'm overly cautious and never went for killing blows than because this is good strategy. It is a lot like how someone in bronze league cannoning up one base and massing void rays can survive for a long time despite their opponent having all the other bases. It's not that you can ever actually win, it's just that it takes forever to kill you. Most players better than I are more capable of staging attacks and trading units properly. I will say that the mothership makes it somewhat tricky to engage, but that's why stephano literally just sacrifices a ton of corrupters to kill that off whenever he faces stuff like this.
Ah, I see.
His statement led me to believe he won some of the games you two played. If he's not beating you then nevermind.
I lost a game on Entombed Valley due to poor execution of the stephano style, handling a small 2 zealot harass poorly and then fumbling with a low supply hydra/roach drop. Every other game I just left if he started turtling or got a third up / I fucked up my opener, simply to avoid 50 minute games. Every game except the Entombed Valley game I was on 6+ bases with 80-90 drones and all tech. The easiest way to grind away at the turtle is with mass zerglings and infested terrans, which is how I won the first game.
This sounds like you lost a couple, he won a couple and then you left a lot if it looked like the game would go late (which is what he's going for). To me, this says you weren't actually interested in testing the strat - that you were only interested in gloating. Bear in mind that almost all Protoss builds in PvZ either can't get a third up or have a lot of trouble doing so. If this build can reliably get a third up, but has trouble keeping a zerg off of however many other bases a zerg wants - all that means is that it isn't a 2-base allin (which is what wins/loses most PvZ matches these days).
Were there 50+ minute games you actually played out where you actually killed him? Or did you just leave because you were "pretty sure you could".
On May 04 2012 00:16 Fogetaboudit wrote: lol, you didn't leave to avoid a 50 minute game, you left after your main army was decimated. Stop playing dumb and/or misleading.
You realize I had 6 bases and 7k/2k banked with 25 full energy infestors, right? You were mining one base and cannoning it up, just like the first game you lost.
Anyway, I talked about a build someone used against me a while ago on ladder that was similar, here it is: http://drop.sc/171222 If you want to do mass void rays against a 3 hatch zerg, that opener is a lot better as it gets a much faster third and better production, though he ended up losing to mutalisks he made quite a few mistakes that made it pretty lopsided when it shouldn't have been.
I checked the replay just to make sure your lying, again. I'm suprised at how much you literally make up, especially when the replay is right here.
On May 04 2012 00:22 oOOoOphidian wrote: You realize I had 6 bases and 7k/2k banked with 25 full energy infestors, right? You were mining one base and cannoning it up, just like the first game you lost.
WRONG - When you ragequit I have 3 mining bases (not 1), and you have 4 (not 6). I even numbered them for you! All of your infestors have about half enery, some are much lower (not full).
Anyhow, I'm trying to actually work on my build, and improve my theoretical understanding of the game. You just want to be an angry BM player who rages out for little to no reason. It's quite clear to me now that you never intended to help me hammer out this build, you just wanted to look like a wise guy on Team Liquid, lol. You blow your wins out of proportion, and then any game that I had a decisive advantage in you would just ragequit claiming to want to avoid a long game, lol.
On May 03 2012 23:28 oOOoOphidian wrote: what that screenshot you used doesn't show is that the first game took 53 minutes because you literally just spammed cannons on one base when I had every single other base on the map. you act like we should have practiced 5 different 50 minute games just because you want to play In Utter Darkness with another player.
I must admit - I'm surprised the build can hold up for 53 minutes.
There's nothing wrong with playing for long games if you can win in long games. Look at TvT.
That's more because I'm overly cautious and never went for killing blows than because this is good strategy. It is a lot like how someone in bronze league cannoning up one base and massing void rays can survive for a long time despite their opponent having all the other bases. It's not that you can ever actually win, it's just that it takes forever to kill you. Most players better than I are more capable of staging attacks and trading units properly. I will say that the mothership makes it somewhat tricky to engage, but that's why stephano literally just sacrifices a ton of corrupters to kill that off whenever he faces stuff like this.
Ah, I see.
His statement led me to believe he won some of the games you two played. If he's not beating you then nevermind.
I lost a game on Entombed Valley due to poor execution of the stephano style, handling a small 2 zealot harass poorly and then fumbling with a low supply hydra/roach drop. Every other game I just left if he started turtling or got a third up / I fucked up my opener, simply to avoid 50 minute games. Every game except the Entombed Valley game I was on 6+ bases with 80-90 drones and all tech. The easiest way to grind away at the turtle is with mass zerglings and infested terrans, which is how I won the first game.
This sounds like you lost a couple, he won a couple and then you left a lot if it looked like the game would go late (which is what he's going for). To me, this says you weren't actually interested in testing the strat - that you were only interested in gloating. Bear in mind that almost all Protoss builds in PvZ either can't get a third up or have a lot of trouble doing so. If this build can reliably get a third up, but has trouble keeping a zerg off of however many other bases a zerg wants - all that means is that it isn't a 2-base allin (which is what wins/loses most PvZ matches these days).
Were there 50+ minute games you actually played out where you actually killed him? Or did you just leave because you were "pretty sure you could".
On May 04 2012 00:16 Fogetaboudit wrote: lol, you didn't leave to avoid a 50 minute game, you left after your main army was decimated. Stop playing dumb and/or misleading.
rofl, yeah. You are in control of this game for sure... 130 supply vs my Max. RAGEquit, lol.
stop playing stupid and misleading everyone
Posts like this make me hope you're wrong anyway. Sarcastic statements and accusations are only useful on reality TV.
The first game we played I played out and it took 53 minutes because he cannoned up one base despite losing everything else. I ended up morphing brood lords and he finally left. There were quite likely over 50 spore crawlers being pushed toward that base, which is why it took so long. A lot like that other game he posted where he lost, except that zerg was less careful, but better at using corrupter/infestor to engage.
I'm 100% confident any zerg on 6+ bases can beat this strategy every time, though it is likely to take quite a while. Just get Corrupter/Infestor and a small number of Brood Lords, pushing forward with dozens of spore crawlers. That is why I didn't play out any other games that went to that stage. All I can say is this is the protoss version of avilo turtle, where you can't win the game at any point, but your opponent can't kill you quickly and if they try they might throw away the game.
I believe 3 hatch with many hydras and some infestors would be the best counter to this build. I have played vs mass void ray a lot in custom games and air units don't really cut it. Funnily enough infestor + mass queen would also work, especially on small maps. Fungals prevent micro, break cloak and do damage, it is the perfect spell vs void ray mothership while queens do quite good dps vs air and with their transfuse survive quite well.
On May 03 2012 23:28 oOOoOphidian wrote: what that screenshot you used doesn't show is that the first game took 53 minutes because you literally just spammed cannons on one base when I had every single other base on the map. you act like we should have practiced 5 different 50 minute games just because you want to play In Utter Darkness with another player.
I must admit - I'm surprised the build can hold up for 53 minutes.
There's nothing wrong with playing for long games if you can win in long games. Look at TvT.
That's more because I'm overly cautious and never went for killing blows than because this is good strategy. It is a lot like how someone in bronze league cannoning up one base and massing void rays can survive for a long time despite their opponent having all the other bases. It's not that you can ever actually win, it's just that it takes forever to kill you. Most players better than I are more capable of staging attacks and trading units properly. I will say that the mothership makes it somewhat tricky to engage, but that's why stephano literally just sacrifices a ton of corrupters to kill that off whenever he faces stuff like this.
Ah, I see.
His statement led me to believe he won some of the games you two played. If he's not beating you then nevermind.
I lost a game on Entombed Valley due to poor execution of the stephano style, handling a small 2 zealot harass poorly and then fumbling with a low supply hydra/roach drop. Every other game I just left if he started turtling or got a third up / I fucked up my opener, simply to avoid 50 minute games. Every game except the Entombed Valley game I was on 6+ bases with 80-90 drones and all tech. The easiest way to grind away at the turtle is with mass zerglings and infested terrans, which is how I won the first game.
This sounds like you lost a couple, he won a couple and then you left a lot if it looked like the game would go late (which is what he's going for). To me, this says you weren't actually interested in testing the strat - that you were only interested in gloating. Bear in mind that almost all Protoss builds in PvZ either can't get a third up or have a lot of trouble doing so. If this build can reliably get a third up, but has trouble keeping a zerg off of however many other bases a zerg wants - all that means is that it isn't a 2-base allin (which is what wins/loses most PvZ matches these days).
Were there 50+ minute games you actually played out where you actually killed him? Or did you just leave because you were "pretty sure you could".
On May 04 2012 00:16 Fogetaboudit wrote: lol, you didn't leave to avoid a 50 minute game, you left after your main army was decimated. Stop playing dumb and/or misleading.
rofl, yeah. You are in control of this game for sure... 130 supply vs my Max. RAGEquit, lol.
stop playing stupid and misleading everyone
Posts like this make me hope you're wrong anyway. Sarcastic statements and accusations are only useful on reality TV.
The first game we played I played out and it took 53 minutes because he cannoned up one base despite losing everything else. I ended up morphing brood lords and he finally left. There were quite likely over 50 spore crawlers being pushed toward that base, which is why it took so long. A lot like that other game he posted where he lost, except that zerg was less careful, but better at using corrupter/infestor to engage.
I'm 100% confident any zerg on 6+ bases can beat this strategy every time, though it is likely to take quite a while. Just get Corrupter/Infestor and a small number of Brood Lords, pushing forward with dozens of spore crawlers. That is why I didn't play out any other games that went to that stage. All I can say is this is the protoss version of avilo turtle, where you can't win the game at any point, but your opponent can't kill you quickly and if they try they might throw away the game.
Yeah, I feel like only going voids is a bit silly. How about a modified version adding HTs after you get a good dozen or so voids? I know VR/Carrier/MShip/HT tends to be a good endgame comp. And keep in mind that the base deficit is only in place for as long as zerg is able to keep protoss from making pushes against them. Slow protoss armies have one big difference in comparison with slow terran armies: slow terran armies can be counterattacked. Slow protoss armies have recall, so they can kill your army, work on a base while sending the MShip home - and then be in position for a counterattack.
Having played against the pure void style - does this seem better? worse?
@Forgetaboutit: If you want your style to be popular (which I'm guessing you do, since you've posted in like 3-4 different threads linking back to this one), your best bet is probably to take the high road and highlight the cogent points of your strategy and not to let your thread devolve into mudslinging. As I said above, if people want drama, they watch reality TV - this type of thread is for posting strategy. There's a real and legitimate disparity between the perceived power of this build between you and oOOoOphidian. The way to resolve that is through games and strategic commentary - not name-calling and "gtfo".
On May 03 2012 23:28 oOOoOphidian wrote: what that screenshot you used doesn't show is that the first game took 53 minutes because you literally just spammed cannons on one base when I had every single other base on the map. you act like we should have practiced 5 different 50 minute games just because you want to play In Utter Darkness with another player.
I must admit - I'm surprised the build can hold up for 53 minutes.
There's nothing wrong with playing for long games if you can win in long games. Look at TvT.
That's more because I'm overly cautious and never went for killing blows than because this is good strategy. It is a lot like how someone in bronze league cannoning up one base and massing void rays can survive for a long time despite their opponent having all the other bases. It's not that you can ever actually win, it's just that it takes forever to kill you. Most players better than I are more capable of staging attacks and trading units properly. I will say that the mothership makes it somewhat tricky to engage, but that's why stephano literally just sacrifices a ton of corrupters to kill that off whenever he faces stuff like this.
Ah, I see.
His statement led me to believe he won some of the games you two played. If he's not beating you then nevermind.
I lost a game on Entombed Valley due to poor execution of the stephano style, handling a small 2 zealot harass poorly and then fumbling with a low supply hydra/roach drop. Every other game I just left if he started turtling or got a third up / I fucked up my opener, simply to avoid 50 minute games. Every game except the Entombed Valley game I was on 6+ bases with 80-90 drones and all tech. The easiest way to grind away at the turtle is with mass zerglings and infested terrans, which is how I won the first game.
This sounds like you lost a couple, he won a couple and then you left a lot if it looked like the game would go late (which is what he's going for). To me, this says you weren't actually interested in testing the strat - that you were only interested in gloating. Bear in mind that almost all Protoss builds in PvZ either can't get a third up or have a lot of trouble doing so. If this build can reliably get a third up, but has trouble keeping a zerg off of however many other bases a zerg wants - all that means is that it isn't a 2-base allin (which is what wins/loses most PvZ matches these days).
Were there 50+ minute games you actually played out where you actually killed him? Or did you just leave because you were "pretty sure you could".
On May 04 2012 00:16 Fogetaboudit wrote: lol, you didn't leave to avoid a 50 minute game, you left after your main army was decimated. Stop playing dumb and/or misleading.
rofl, yeah. You are in control of this game for sure... 130 supply vs my Max. RAGEquit, lol.
stop playing stupid and misleading everyone
Posts like this make me hope you're wrong anyway. Sarcastic statements and accusations are only useful on reality TV.
The first game we played I played out and it took 53 minutes because he cannoned up one base despite losing everything else. I ended up morphing brood lords and he finally left. There were quite likely over 50 spore crawlers being pushed toward that base, which is why it took so long. A lot like that other game he posted where he lost, except that zerg was less careful, but better at using corrupter/infestor to engage.
I'm 100% confident any zerg on 6+ bases can beat this strategy every time, though it is likely to take quite a while. Just get Corrupter/Infestor and a small number of Brood Lords, pushing forward with dozens of spore crawlers. That is why I didn't play out any other games that went to that stage. All I can say is this is the protoss version of avilo turtle, where you can't win the game at any point, but your opponent can't kill you quickly and if they try they might throw away the game.
Yeah, I feel like only going voids is a bit silly. How about a modified version adding HTs after you get a good dozen or so voids? I know VR/Carrier/MShip/HT tends to be a good endgame comp. And keep in mind that the base deficit is only in place for as long as zerg is able to keep protoss from making pushes against them. Slow protoss armies have one big difference in comparison with slow terran armies: slow terran armies can be counterattacked. Slow protoss armies have recall, so they can kill your army, work on a base while sending the MShip home - and then be in position for a counterattack.
Having played against the pure void style - does this seem better? worse?
The idea is to establish a third with a composition that the zerg cant really trade with in the earlygame. After this period I believe you can branch out in many directions. I have been messing around with different lategame compositions, normally on 4 base is when I will try and throw up lots of different tech.
You make a great point about the base defecit. This is the exact reason our friendly Zerg ragequit. I killed two of his bases pretty easily and would have eventually gotten around to mining them myself, I was also getting additional tech.
I like this strategy! it is interesting and not "standard". A big problem would be the infestor + anything AA. Maybe make some templars for feedback. I will try it out anyways. Good job tipping me off
On May 04 2012 01:08 Opeasy wrote: I like this strategy! it is interesting and not "standard". A big problem would be the infestor + anything AA. Maybe make some templars for feedback. I will try it out anyways. Good job tipping me off
Thats right, mass infestor/corruptor is definitely the max that you cannot really beat with pure air, unless you get a great engagement or something. Even just adding a few (1-4) colossus can do wonders against the infestors, but there are lots of options, and I'm sure HT's can work very well and are very good for their supply, which is really important.
On May 04 2012 01:03 Treehead wrote: @Forgetaboutit: If you want your style to be popular (which I'm guessing you do, since you've posted in like 3-4 different threads linking back to this one), your best bet is probably to take the high road and highlight the cogent points of your strategy and not to let your thread devolve into mudslinging. As I said above, if people want drama, they watch reality TV - this type of thread is for posting strategy. There's a real and legitimate disparity between the perceived power of this build between you and oOOoOphidian. The way to resolve that is through games and strategic commentary - not name-calling and "gtfo".
I agree wholeheartedly, but like everyone I just have a finite amount of patience.
He got under my skin when I realized he was playing me just for show and to try and make me look bad, not to work through the build, like you mention. While this wouldn't even be that bad, he goes in my thread and just strait up lies a bunch, lol, which is unacceptable, imo. FWIW there are 4 lies in this sentence. That has to be some sort of record, haha - + Show Spoiler +
On May 03 2012 23:28 oOOoOphidian wrote:I showed you multiple things that crush this build and attempted a few more that I had no experience with and every time I tried something that I didn't quite do properly I was still on 6 bases or more to 3 every time and they all would go like this if it was worth the time to do so:
Still, an argument can be made for not feeding the troll
On May 04 2012 01:03 Treehead wrote:This sounds like you lost a couple, he won a couple and then you left a lot if it looked like the game would go late (which is what he's going for). To me, this says you weren't actually interested in testing the strat - that you were only interested in gloating.
Despite all of the put downs you've been getting fogetaboudit, I must say thank you for this strat! This is my 1st post ever on TL, I always read the forums but have never signed up, but I felt that thankful to you for this build. I was previously having a really hard time keeping the Zerg under control and preventing them from doing the popular "Stephano roach" build. Im no great player but I knew if I didn't do some sort of big econ damage to the Zerg by 11-13mins I was in for a loss. So far after doing this build, not a single loss to Zerg! Granted I'm only low gold-high silver, but still getting matched up with a Zerg is no longer the death sentence as it used to be, all in all just wanted to say thank you, and I hope your tweaking on this build makes it better than what you started with in the OP.
On May 04 2012 01:47 Chaser808 wrote: Despite all of the put downs you've been getting fogetaboudit, I must say thank you for this strat! This is my 1st post ever on TL, I always read the forums but have never signed up, but I felt that thankful to you for this build. I was previously having a really hard time keeping the Zerg under control and preventing them from doing the popular "Stephano roach" build. Im no great player but I knew if I didn't do some sort of big econ damage to the Zerg by 11-13mins I was in for a loss. So far after doing this build, not a single loss to Zerg! Granted I'm only low gold-high silver, but still getting matched up with a Zerg is no longer the death sentence as it used to be, all in all just wanted to say thank you, and I hope your tweaking on this build makes it better than what you started with in the OP.
Yeah dude listen, I mean some people are saying this build isn't legit, but I don't really understand that. Genius's FFE into Stargate is legitimate, but it doesn't work all the time.
I don't know how well this works on the pro level, but it's worked for me. Not only that, but where you attack, when you attack, how you split your Void Rays in fungal-defense, what you transition into, and how you utilize recall all affect the outcome of the game. So it's not like the level of execution doesn't affect it.
Just because it doesn't work all the time doesn't mean it's not legit. It's got potential, even if it's just for establishing a third.
Also, to continue what you said at the beginning of the OP, I think to establish a third you NEED sentries. Void Rays, Cannons, Mothership, and good Force Fields can help you establish a third. I suggest you put that in the thread, because it helps with ling run-bys, roach/hydra, etc.
But yeah, I sure as hell never thought of this before, so nice job, as I said before. (Masters Protoss here, to add some background)
So I actually watched a few replays and this build is incredibly weak. You have no means of reinforcing early as you're only on 1-2 gates and 1 stargate. You lose to any major attack that is not roaches (and if your opponent has good control, multitasking and splitting up forces while still managing them-abilities perhaps even to roaches). Fast lings, hydrae, banelings, nydus worms, drop tech, ...,
Not only this but your endgame composition is extremely vulnerable to mass infestors (the Ophidian guy in one of your replays has extremely poor control and awareness and generally seemed like a poor player). Your answer for this appears to be Mass Recall, which is great, but it means you are never able to push the zerg and you are extremely vulnerable when you do not have enough energy for a vortex. You have to ask yourself:
1. How are you going to deal with a Zerg who mass fungals your army, when you do not have mass recall?
Right now there is no way to deal with this. In other words, you are unable to move out with all of your void rays unless you have mass recall. If you do absolutely no damage and get caught by a fungal immediately, you have just lost however long it takes for a mothership to regenerate 100 energy, allowing the zerg to do as he pleases.
2. How are you going to deal with a Zerg attacking you with mass Infestor/Hydrae? What do you do when you are trying to get your 4th base (or defend it) and he shows up with 10 overseers and a maxed out infestor/hydrae army (with a billion resources in the bank, too, probably)?
I Forge Fast expand into double stargate (yah nothing new here)
But this is my variation to the build, and it's original as far as I can tell. There are a few main points, 1 - I rush to a DEFENSIVE mothership, and this is used to help establish and defend a third 2 - I mineral sink into MASS CANNONS! EVERYWHERE! (no supply! instead of gateways and gateway units)
There are guides to both FFE and stargate PvZ play already in stickies or searchable in the strategy section if you don't know how to execute them.
Good stuff. I'll be trying this out on ladder later today.
On May 04 2012 02:36 the p00n wrote: So I actually watched a few replays and this build is incredibly weak. You have no means of reinforcing early as you're only on 1-2 gates and 1 stargate. You lose to any major attack that is not roaches (and if your opponent has good control, multitasking and splitting up forces while still managing them-abilities perhaps even to roaches). Fast lings, hydrae, banelings, nydus worms, drop tech, ...,
Reinforcing is not even always necessary in a Macro build. I'm not really sure what your getting at. When IMMVP hides an extra Macro orbital in his main and he is working off 3 rax adding 2 techlabs and 2 ebays and the works he has no way to "reinforce" the dude is skimping hardcore on production. While it can be punished for a win on occasion, it's not like its autowin for the toss cus he has an extra orbital. I hope this metaphor makes sense.
I'm not sure what you mean by "early" I eventually get a second SG as soon as I can afford it, also I've been playing around with some light 2 base timings to pressure the zerg with VoidRay/zealot, but this really slows my third so it's tough to say if it's worth it or not.
I've talked about how to handle all of the different pressures that you mentioned as best as I can, in various places ITT. I eventually pull all of these answers together so people stop asking about how to deflect the various pressures.
On May 04 2012 02:36 the p00n wrote:Not only this but your endgame composition is extremely vulnerable to mass infestors (the Ophidian guy in one of your replays has extremely poor control and awareness and generally seemed like a poor player). Your answer for this appears to be Mass Recall, which is great, but it means you are never able to push the zerg and you are extremely vulnerable when you do not have enough energy for a vortex. You have to ask yourself:
1. How are you going to deal with a Zerg who mass fungals your army, when you do not have mass recall?
Right now there is no way to deal with this. In other words, you are unable to move out with all of your void rays unless you have mass recall. If you do absolutely no damage and get caught by a fungal immediately, you have just lost however long it takes for a mothership to regenerate 100 energy, allowing the zerg to do as he pleases.
2. How are you going to deal with a Zerg attacking you with mass Infestor/Hydrae? What do you do when you are trying to get your 4th base (or defend it) and he shows up with 10 overseers and a maxed out infestor/hydrae army (with a billion resources in the bank, too, probably)?
Again, there is no answer for this either.
He doesn't have poor control, he is a pro with all the answers (who struggles against an admittedly average amateur) :D
1. Well, don't poke around on the map if chain fungals are present, obviously. If he is sieging your base with a few broodlords and a strong max of infestor/corruptor and you were not able to switch up your composition to deal with it, then it's probably GG I guess If I lose a Macro game, this is normally how.
Yes if you get caught by a Fungal when attempting to harass, and you do no damage, it sucks. I'm not sure why your mentioning this. It's sort of like saying "Why would you try a stim drop against Protoss, he might snipe your dropship" Harass is by no means some sort of guarantee... life goes on.
2. Infestor Hydra is surprisingly easy to deal with in the late midgame (after 3 base) Hydras off creep are just gawdawful. There are several ways to micro against it, imo. Approaching from the most optimal angle is easy, vortexing one side of the army, and about ~30% of the Hydras really does wonders. Hydras are too slow to all run into the vortex.
On May 04 2012 02:36 the p00n wrote: So I actually watched a few replays and this build is incredibly weak. You have no means of reinforcing early as you're only on 1-2 gates and 1 stargate. You lose to any major attack that is not roaches (and if your opponent has good control, multitasking and splitting up forces while still managing them-abilities perhaps even to roaches). Fast lings, hydrae, banelings, nydus worms, drop tech, ...,
You watched the replays? No field-testing? Lings, banes, drops and nydus can be used effectively against every build provided u are not prepared. OP never said he's neglecting scouting, so I don't understand this point. Fast Hydrae are perfectly holdable (I actually tried it) with void ray - supported cannons, even without mothership (don't know what u exactly mean by fast hydrae).
On May 04 2012 02:36 the p00n wrote: Not only this but your endgame composition is extremely vulnerable to mass infestors (the Ophidian guy in one of your replays has extremely poor control and awareness and generally seemed like a poor player). Your answer for this appears to be Mass Recall, which is great, but it means you are never able to push the zerg and you are extremely vulnerable when you do not have enough energy for a vortex. You have to ask yourself:
Infestors are indeed very hard to deal when used defensively, but are slightly less useful offensively, as u have few rows of cannons shooting at everything that gets close to the fleet. Besides, HT.
On May 04 2012 02:36 the p00n wrote:
1. How are you going to deal with a Zerg who mass fungals your army, when you do not have mass recall?
Right now there is no way to deal with this. In other words, you are unable to move out with all of your void rays unless you have mass recall. If you do absolutely no damage and get caught by a fungal immediately, you have just lost however long it takes for a mothership to regenerate 100 energy, allowing the zerg to do as he pleases.
2. How are you going to deal with a Zerg attacking you with mass Infestor/Hydrae? What do you do when you are trying to get your 4th base (or defend it) and he shows up with 10 overseers and a maxed out infestor/hydrae army (with a billion resources in the bank, too, probably)?
Again, there is no answer for this either.
1. OP said so many times NOT to move out when mass recall is not available...
2. Again, Few HT's behind cannons would melt this kind of composition...
U sound like this build prohibits scouting and making anything that is not a void ray, mothership or cannon. Yes, mass void rays are absolutely beatable, so is any other strategy if u don't know how to react to your opponents actions...
Few crucial mistakes that I made during my games and u definetely want to avoid:
- don't make too many carriers in the end, 2-4 is enough, they do nice in distracting hydrae fire, but when carrier count matches VR's, the composition becomes suprisingly weak (interceptors die fast, can be NPed, easily focus fired).
- remember that zerg can remax almost outright - its easier to win bit by bit rather than in one push, lock him on his current base count, be patient,
For the most part, blue likes to take it slow. It despises hasty actions and is also very big on deception, cloaking the truth and concealing its true motives. As the ruler of air and water, blue has always found a way to make its more aggressive creatures effective infiltrators through some form of evasion, typically flying. It also has a unique skill in the matters of time, usually reversing it by unsummoning things. Blue, as the color of intelligence, takes great pride in never running out of options. It loves to draw cards so that it always has a plan for what may come (ironically, Saviors of Kamigawa established large hands as being "wisdom," not intelligence).
Hey again :D Today I played it on ladder once and it didn´t work out. I have to admit that I was not confident in only building Voids and that was the problem! In this game I lost because I saw him going only Hydra and I startet Colo tech but it would´ve way better to set up 5-6 stargates instead of just 3. So well I guess I learned from it that building anything but Voids is bad^^ I also didn´t harras verry well because of Taldarim haha (So hard to harras main)
Just curious, could you post all the replays against oOOoOphidian? I'd like to watch them sometime and run a couple quick analyses with sc2gears and the like. I'd like to look at it as sort of a BoX.
I found this build is vulnerable to early mutas when you have 3-4 voids and mothership isn't out yet. I started putting 1-2 cannons in my main mineral line if i was unable to scout.
Also, you should try upgrading shields. It helps out your cannon hp and buffs up air defense as well. I saw in your replay you were at 2 0 3.
Otherwise, this strat is great. Makes people type LOL when they lose haha love it
In small numbers you are absolutely correct, but we are trying to max out with this army, kinda like how 10 marauders beats 5 tanks but 30 marauders loses to 15 tanks (I'm not Terran but you understand what I'm saying) Void rays in large numbers are just absurd, they literally counter Hydras when they are stacked, especially off creep and engaging near edges. Infested terrans actually get mostly sniped up during the hatching.[/QUOTE]
Recently played against this as zerg. It is extremely easy to scout it. One benefit is seeing 2 stargates can either be this, or a ~7 gate +1 ~9 minute timing. So the zerg can easily react 'wrong'.
Personally, I won by dropping double spire, taking a fourth and fifth on Ohana LE. I made a set of mutas (~14) followed by corruptors. I hit the main, killing probes and an assimilator, pulled back and went back in with my corruptors waiting by the fourth. Soon as he pulled in his air units I Focus fired the mothership/carriers/voidrays with corruptors and mutas (1/1) Lost all of my units but he only had a few stalkers left. Kept trading similarly, but being ahead 2 bases and denying the fourth continually he ran out of economy.
On May 04 2012 11:10 kiklion wrote: Recently played against this as zerg. It is extremely easy to scout it. One benefit is seeing 2 stargates can either be this, or a ~7 gate +1 ~9 minute timing. So the zerg can easily react 'wrong'.
Personally, I won by dropping double spire, taking a fourth and fifth on Ohana LE. I made a set of mutas (~14) followed by corruptors. I hit the main, killing probes and an assimilator, pulled back and went back in with my corruptors waiting by the fourth. Soon as he pulled in his air units I Focus fired the mothership/carriers/voidrays with corruptors and mutas (1/1) Lost all of my units but he only had a few stalkers left. Kept trading similarly, but being ahead 2 bases and denying the fourth continually he ran out of economy.
If he had stalkers he was doing it wrong. :D
Seriously though, I like your opening and I think it's one of the best opening's versus this. However, I would argue that if the Toss has good enough execution, he can win versus double Spire. I don't think your strategy is much of a "hard counter," my buddy beat me using the same thing but I was not able to scout the Mutas, and took too much damage. He is also sick good at this game. I believe making a scouting Phoenix is important, especially if you are not facing any quick aggression against your third, and can't find where the gas is going.
Trading often is very strong, because the airball gets strong in big numbers, similar to how Zerg behaves against mech, imo. Of course if the Protoss "overturtles" you are going to have an advantage as well.
I think if both sides execute well, the next obstacle will be for the Protoss to establishing a fourth, without being too far behind.
Thanks for your input, it sounds like you played well against it.
On May 04 2012 05:11 ticklishmusic wrote: Just curious, could you post all the replays against oOOoOphidian? I'd like to watch them sometime and run a couple quick analyses with sc2gears and the like. I'd like to look at it as sort of a BoX.
I'm not sure if this is the best idea, I would rather not feed the fire, to be honest.
I'd rather just let it die out (unless he comes in here and starts talking more sh*t again, then I'll post all of them.)
Suffice it to say we both won and lost games and my losses were due to a lot of stupid mistakes, (getting supply blocked, forgetting detection, etc) not much can be learned from them, and they are not that interesting anyways.
However, if a mannered/respectful person of similar skill would like to help me work on this strategy I would be more than willing to play a pack of games for some in depth SC2 gears analysis, good idea!
On May 04 2012 07:17 Tree0 wrote: I found this build is vulnerable to early mutas when you have 3-4 voids and mothership isn't out yet. I started putting 1-2 cannons in my main mineral line if i was unable to scout.
Also, you should try upgrading shields. It helps out your cannon hp and buffs up air defense as well. I saw in your replay you were at 2 0 3.
Otherwise, this strat is great. Makes people type LOL when they lose haha love it
Yeah I agree, I'm starting to think 100% reactive Phoenix is not entirely sufficient against a well played zerg, especially if they wait for a ton of gas before showing their hand. IMO you can make reactive Phoenix against like 10 mutas, but against 20 it gets pretty dangerous and your on thin ice.
This strategy seems interesting, and really different. I have a question though: Does this strategy work because of the current meta game? i.e. would this work in a different metagame? e.g. would it be viable against early aggression, or greedy zerg play (going straight for ~80 drones)?
On May 04 2012 16:53 gronnelg wrote: This strategy seems interesting, and really different. I have a question though: Does this strategy work because of the current meta game? i.e. would this work in a different metagame? e.g. would it be viable against early aggression, or greedy zerg play (going straight for ~80 drones)?
I think it has had an easier time winning a lot of games than it probably should because of the current metagame, but that doesn't mean its not viable. Unfortunately, winning game after game after game of opponents making a few roaches, this has slowed the process of identifying the weaknesses in the build, and that was a big reason for this post.
After some dedicated practice I've noticed that drones strait into an overwhelming muta count (16+) can be a problem if you don't scout for it. Which is why I now suggest mixing in 1 phoenix to identify where the zergs gas is going (if you don't see anything with your VoidRay poke.)
While I've lost to some early timing attacks, it has never been very decisive, and in each of these cases I have always been very unhappy with my execution in these games. (Late cannons, lazy scouting, bad micro, supply blocks, etc) I think the defensive potential of this build really shocks the people who try it.
Against 80 drones, you've got yourself a macro game. There are of course no simple answers here, but getting your third/fourth should be easier, and you have a tech advantage, army advantage. and an econ disadvantage. It\s important to note that the zerg HAS to make some defense against mass Stargate, if they don't things can really spiral out of control. Also, I've been working on a +1 zealot + VoidRay light pressure to control the zergs drone count, however this slows my third a bit.
I think there are a million variations to this strategy, but I think the main points of opening up with air, and a Mothership, and relying on some more cannons for defense, are incredibly powerful and underused/ not explored.
Only engaging when Recall is ready will limit your harass/attack option alot. And as far as I can tell, you should die against a good zerg with good creepspread, who's taking expansions while going infestors. Sure, you've got replays - and sure, you can recall out of fungals. But if you're "only" on 3base, you'll eventually mine out. Once you do so you'll have to be the aggressor. And when you can't engage all his infestors, you're in big trouble. What would you do if he had a single ling burrowed where you'd take a 4th? No observer... You'd have to go pylon --> cannon --> and after the cannon finishes and the ling is dead, only then can you make your nexus, and by then he'll know the jig is up.
However, I do find this to be a quite fun tactics. I love the mineral dumping into cannons, knowing runbys will be difficult to manage - plus warpgate units simply eats your supply. And I love your ability to actually attack with your force without ever commiting since you can just recall.
Weaknesses: Fungals and neural (on the mothership). No detection. Restriction in bases. Strengths: Mobility, strength, costefficiency, hit and run potential, strong defenses while getting your high tech army
Basicly you get some things protoss usually don't. But then again. You're forcing yourself to play super defensive, so you'll be behind on workers and bases.
On May 04 2012 18:10 Mentalizor wrote: Only engaging when Recall is ready will limit your harass/attack option alot. And as far as I can tell, you should die against a good zerg with good creepspread, who's taking expansions while going infestors. Sure, you've got replays - and sure, you can recall out of fungals. But if you're "only" on 3base, you'll eventually mine out. Once you do so you'll have to be the aggressor. And when you can't engage all his infestors, you're in big trouble. What would you do if he had a single ling burrowed where you'd take a 4th? No observer... You'd have to go pylon --> cannon --> and after the cannon finishes and the ling is dead, only then can you make your nexus, and by then he'll know the jig is up.
However, I do find this to be a quite fun tactics. I love the mineral dumping into cannons, knowing runbys will be difficult to manage - plus warpgate units simply eats your supply. And I love your ability to actually attack with your force without ever commiting since you can just recall.
Weaknesses: Fungals and neural (on the mothership). No detection. Restriction in bases. Strengths: Mobility, strength, costefficiency, hit and run potential, strong defenses while getting your high tech army
Basicly you get some things protoss usually don't. But then again. You're forcing yourself to play super defensive, so you'll be behind on workers and bases.
Please understand that this is not a "3 base all-in" its rather a "reliable way to secure 3 bases, and lead to a macro game" I've had 7 bases on Metropolis before (utilizing the easy splitmap, and islands) versus a zerg who starved on his 5-7 bases.
The detection problem you mention kinda sucks, and it has hurt me before, lately I've been getting a Robo when on 3 base, just for observer, and in some games this leads to a really nice transition when on 4 base for double robo colossus, particularly if they are very infestor heavy.
But imo your weaknesses, particularily about restriction in bases, are pretty accurate. For this reason, I think this strategy, while potentially viable on all maps, is defiantely stronger on certain maps.
The easier it is to cut the map in half, the better. The more gas there is, the better. Islands are good, as well as space to fly with no ground support possible.
Tal Darim like maps kinda suck, but Metropolis like maps are really really awesome.
how do you deal with mass infestor neural parasiting your VRs so that they dont get recalled?
have you ever played vs ling hydra infestor nydus attack to kill your 3rd base? i am playing around with it, hitting at about 11:30-12:00 with 8-10 hydras, 4-6 infestors and lots of lings. think that would give you huge trouble establishing a 3rd.
another thing: do you get a sentry? i think you´ll need at least one or will outright lose against the zenio 3 base ling bling all in.
i like your overall plan going fast mothership and harrass with recall, but i think you´ll have to adapt and dont go mass VR on double stargate but add robo oder TC tech instead, so you dont die early on.
Have you considered splitting your voidrayball to do multi pronged harass/attacks ?
It's more dangerous since you can't just recall it all, but on the other hand, Zerg won't know how/where to split his army, so if he messes up his split ( ex.: you split your voidrays 50/50% but he splits 30%/70% ) you can always recall the part of your army that is overwhelmed, while the other part does a lot of damage.
On May 04 2012 19:14 Decendos wrote: how do you deal with mass infestor neural parasiting your VRs so that they dont get recalled?
have you ever played vs ling hydra infestor nydus attack to kill your 3rd base? i am playing around with it, hitting at about 11:30-12:00 with 8-10 hydras, 4-6 infestors and lots of lings. think that would give you huge trouble establishing a 3rd.
another thing: do you get a sentry? i think you´ll need at least one or will outright lose against the zenio 3 base ling bling all in.
i like your overall plan going fast mothership and harrass with recall, but i think you´ll have to adapt and dont go mass VR on double stargate but add robo oder TC tech instead, so you dont die early on.
I have not dealt with mass Neuro from a good player, yet. I think it's dangerous an unreliable to micro, since your infestors can get targeted down and it can spiral out of control quickly. Still, you make a good point and someone else theorycrafted this earlier... if the zerg player controls just right, it's potentially one of the most brutal counters. I think if caught off guard you just have to sacrafice a few of the units that are Neuro'd, recall, and add more anti-infestor to your army (carrier/ colossus/ HT/ gateway stuff) Also, it's not like I'm looking to make mass void rays against mass infestor, the Void Rays are just sort of all purpose early/mid game and fit well in any lategame composition, and make some sick harass, but the more infestors I scout all game, the more anti-infestor I'll be producing (carrier)
Hydras with a Rally Nydus are underused imo, and this would make all of the timings much tighter, I don't think enough players incorporate this into their play. I couldn't say for sure of course how much trouble this would cause. All I know is that so far Hydras have been surprisingly easy to deal with. Mixing in some infestors and Lings to tank makes things interesting.
I think a 3 base Baneling/Ling all in can be held, and comes down to the execution of both players. Its a very dirty/messy game, you lose a lot of stuff on the ground, but nothing in the air. And like you said, its an all in.. so if you ever stabilize you have an easy game.
I of course agree that this needs to be adopted/ optimized like any build, and I'm happy you like the overall plan.
On May 04 2012 19:19 Nyast wrote: Have you considered splitting your voidrayball to do multi pronged harass/attacks ?
It's more dangerous since you can't just recall it all, but on the other hand, Zerg won't know how/where to split his army, so if he messes up his split ( ex.: you split your voidrays 50/50% but he splits 30%/70% ) you can always recall the part of your army that is overwhelmed, while the other part does a lot of damage.
Good Idea, I never thought of this to be honest. This is one of the points that many people overlook about the potential of this kind of strategy. Everybody says lol 1A ball, but there is a sick amount of optimizing that can be done with good control and professional play. Personally I have 2 army control groups, and one of them is for the MS, so this would be tough for me. I REALLY need to get comfortable with using more control groups, lol.
On May 04 2012 11:10 kiklion wrote: Recently played against this as zerg. It is extremely easy to scout it. One benefit is seeing 2 stargates can either be this, or a ~7 gate +1 ~9 minute timing. So the zerg can easily react 'wrong'.
Personally, I won by dropping double spire, taking a fourth and fifth on Ohana LE. I made a set of mutas (~14) followed by corruptors. I hit the main, killing probes and an assimilator, pulled back and went back in with my corruptors waiting by the fourth. Soon as he pulled in his air units I Focus fired the mothership/carriers/voidrays with corruptors and mutas (1/1) Lost all of my units but he only had a few stalkers left. Kept trading similarly, but being ahead 2 bases and denying the fourth continually he ran out of economy.
If he had stalkers he was doing it wrong. :D
Seriously though, I like your opening and I think it's one of the best opening's versus this. However, I would argue that if the Toss has good enough execution, he can win versus double Spire. I don't think your strategy is much of a "hard counter," my buddy beat me using the same thing but I was not able to scout the Mutas, and took too much damage. He is also sick good at this game. I believe making a scouting Phoenix is important, especially if you are not facing any quick aggression against your third, and can't find where the gas is going.
Trading often is very strong, because the airball gets strong in big numbers, similar to how Zerg behaves against mech, imo. Of course if the Protoss "overturtles" you are going to have an advantage as well.
I think if both sides execute well, the next obstacle will be for the Protoss to establishing a fourth, without being too far behind.
Thanks for your input, it sounds like you played well against it.
Actually, he didn't have stalkers when I engaged. He warped them in during the fight. His army was just carriers/void/mothership and sentry.
I definitely think that this can be used to grab a third, but offensive options are limited. Just as a FFE leads to a 2v3 base, I feel this strat to grab a third will force it to a 3v5 base.
Corruptors counter all air, at least in small to medium numbers. The mothership isn't scary because you don't have the gas for the archon toilet, so if you get a vortex out, zerg sends all of his army into it.
On the other hand, Ohana layout is poor for mothership defense against air. Your third is directly across from the natural so the distance third to main is large. If it was more of a V shape it would be better for the slow units.
~edit Also he didn't have many cannons. For a build that is supposed to be gas starved I believe, having cannons would have greatly changed the air fight over his base. Maybe he only placed them at third/natural, I would need to check replay to check it out.
On May 04 2012 11:10 kiklion wrote: Recently played against this as zerg. It is extremely easy to scout it. One benefit is seeing 2 stargates can either be this, or a ~7 gate +1 ~9 minute timing. So the zerg can easily react 'wrong'.
Personally, I won by dropping double spire, taking a fourth and fifth on Ohana LE. I made a set of mutas (~14) followed by corruptors. I hit the main, killing probes and an assimilator, pulled back and went back in with my corruptors waiting by the fourth. Soon as he pulled in his air units I Focus fired the mothership/carriers/voidrays with corruptors and mutas (1/1) Lost all of my units but he only had a few stalkers left. Kept trading similarly, but being ahead 2 bases and denying the fourth continually he ran out of economy.
If he had stalkers he was doing it wrong. :D
Seriously though, I like your opening and I think it's one of the best opening's versus this. However, I would argue that if the Toss has good enough execution, he can win versus double Spire. I don't think your strategy is much of a "hard counter," my buddy beat me using the same thing but I was not able to scout the Mutas, and took too much damage. He is also sick good at this game. I believe making a scouting Phoenix is important, especially if you are not facing any quick aggression against your third, and can't find where the gas is going.
Trading often is very strong, because the airball gets strong in big numbers, similar to how Zerg behaves against mech, imo. Of course if the Protoss "overturtles" you are going to have an advantage as well.
I think if both sides execute well, the next obstacle will be for the Protoss to establishing a fourth, without being too far behind.
Thanks for your input, it sounds like you played well against it.
Actually, he didn't have stalkers when I engaged. He warped them in during the fight. His army was just carriers/void/mothership and sentry.
I definitely think that this can be used to grab a third, but offensive options are limited. Just as a FFE leads to a 2v3 base, I feel this strat to grab a third will force it to a 3v5 base.
Corruptors counter all air, at least in small to medium numbers. The mothership isn't scary because you don't have the gas for the archon toilet, so if you get a vortex out, zerg sends all of his army into it.
On the other hand, Ohana layout is poor for mothership defense against air. Your third is directly across from the natural so the distance third to main is large. If it was more of a V shape it would be better for the slow units.
~edit Also he didn't have many cannons. For a build that is supposed to be gas starved I believe, having cannons would have greatly changed the air fight over his base. Maybe he only placed them at third/natural, I would need to check replay to check it out.
Yeah like you said, the defensive point is relying on cannons and favorable positioning for defense. If he didn't have many cannons, it sounds like his macro probably slipped as there should be tons of minerals that need to go somewhere. I know that normally when I lose a battle to an early push, I'll have 1500 minerals that I did a bad job of spending.
I would argue Corruptors are not very good in medium numbers either, just based on experience, but I suppose this isn't that hard to test. What I do know, is that If the Voids can charge during the battle while trading at a close to even rate, they crush near the end... Infestor suport is Critical according to all of my game experience and unit testing.
While offensive Options are somewhat Limited, (if and only if ample defenses are made) You can certainly do lots of harassing/scouting/defending/expanding, thats kinda the whole point. You can also transition into a 3 base all-in if you felt like it, but I don't really do this. There have been a lot of games where I go to harass with my airball but then I just strait up win because the zerg overdroned behind a handful of spores/infestors and expected me to keep turtling.
This sounds like quite an innovative way to play PvZ. I've always tried to be creative, doing things that other people don't (ie no stalkers, mass immortal/archon etc). This is something I'll have to add to the list. I like the defensive mothership idea and the pure strength in mass voidrays. 20+ of them just melt bases.
I'm curious if any pros have any insight into this. I remember White-ra experimenting with stargate play a while back, but it was quite different from this still.
A few things I'd suggest from my limited experience trying this.
Split your void rays into 2 control groups, or more depending on how you lay out your hotkeys. This makes splitting them in engagements a lot easier and avoiding the worst effects of fungal.
If the Zerg opts for a pure infestor/corruptor defence I leave 20 or 30 supply free when possible and send out zealot hitsquads around the map. It's not massively cost efficient, but it forces the Zerg to split his stuff and makes the attacks from your fleet more potent as a consequence. Sometime I even send out a few Zealots with an obs to reduce the creep spread. This is important if the Zerg is bringing his Queens along for extra AA/mass transfuses in that it slows them down a lot.
The addition of 3/4 collosus, or high temps to try to mitigate mass infestors underneath corruptors is also advisory in my view, it doesn't take away from the strength of your air fleet much, and adds a bit of safety against counter-compositions
On May 05 2012 10:37 Wombat_NI wrote: A few things I'd suggest from my limited experience trying this.
Split your void rays into 2 control groups, or more depending on how you lay out your hotkeys. This makes splitting them in engagements a lot easier and avoiding the worst effects of fungal.
If the Zerg opts for a pure infestor/corruptor defence I leave 20 or 30 supply free when possible and send out zealot hitsquads around the map. It's not massively cost efficient, but it forces the Zerg to split his stuff and makes the attacks from your fleet more potent as a consequence. Sometime I even send out a few Zealots with an obs to reduce the creep spread. This is important if the Zerg is bringing his Queens along for extra AA/mass transfuses in that it slows them down a lot.
The addition of 3/4 collosus, or high temps to try to mitigate mass infestors underneath corruptors is also advisory in my view, it doesn't take away from the strength of your air fleet much, and adds a bit of safety against counter-compositions
the zealot hit squad is hilariously funny, it's frustrating for the zerg to deal with if they are heavy corrutor infestor. At a minimum, ground units soak up some Fungals, and only die to spines/queens/stray lings.
I have been transitioning into just a few colossus sometime late 3base early 4base. 2-3 really shred infestors and don't eat too much supply. Also, colossus/Void ray is very mobile, can cliffwalk, and recall so you still have sick harass/kill potential with the ability to recall from a swarm of corruptor/fungal if you don't like how the engagement is going. Also, with a few colossus joining your fleet, fungal will only eat away at the shields at the often fatal cost of the spellcasting infestor.
I've been using this strategy for most of my PvZs lately and it's definitely a refreshing way to play the matchup. Thanks for sharing the build!
Have you ever thought about skipping warp gate research in favor of faster +1 air weapons? It only costs 50/50 more and sets you up for the late game much faster; not to mention it helps against mutalisks in the mid-game. It'll delay the fleet beacon very briefly but the mothership will be ready at the third by the 12 minute mark regardless. This also lines up quite well for +2 air weapons after the mothership is in production. Since you opt for colossi as a response to counter-compositions, you probably won't need the warp gate anyway.
On another note, since the mothership is usually left at one of your bases, I think ferrying high templars around in warp prisms is a viable alternative to colossi. Storm can deal with hydras, stacked corruptors, and feedback can deal with infestors. You can also use templars defensively; storm is ridiculously good at defending multipronged attacks when used in conjunction with cannons.
On May 05 2012 12:00 flyingnimbus wrote: I've been using this strategy for most of my PvZs lately and it's definitely a refreshing way to play the matchup. Thanks for sharing the build!
Have you ever thought about skipping warp gate research in favor of faster +1 air weapons? It only costs 50/50 more and sets you up for the late game much faster; not to mention it helps against mutalisks in the mid-game. It'll delay the fleet beacon very briefly but the mothership will be ready at the third by the 12 minute mark regardless. This also lines up quite well for +2 air weapons after the mothership is in production. Since you opt for colossi as a response to counter-compositions, you probably won't need the warp gate anyway.
On another note, since the mothership is usually left at one of your bases, I think ferrying high templars around in warp prisms is a viable alternative to colossi. Storm can deal with hydras, stacked corruptors, and feedback can deal with infestors. You can also use templars defensively; storm is ridiculously good at defending multipronged attacks when used in conjunction with cannons.
Ya I wanna say I've tried to skip the WarpGate like 5 or 6 times, and almost everytime coincidentally I get baneling busted or or theres a huge speedling runby where 1 or 2 well placed zealot warp-ins would make a huge difference. I know this is just coincidence, but at the same time warpgate is pretty cheap and and amazing upgrade, even if you are hardly using it. I think skipping it atleast temporarily is definitely viable, though.
There are lots of cute tricks you can do, but I have top 3 attack move. What you suggest sounds pretty fancy and also pretty expensive, but I'm sure there is a way to pull it off.
I'm happy you find the approach a little more refreshing.
I also played my own variation of that build, ofc starting with http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Gate_Nexus_YufFE :D I can place my starport @ 5:20 , and everything will be even faster and stronger. Mothership is ready at 11:00 . was pretty funny to have it that early, no zerg would expect that and pushes usually come without overseer. Still i think, that strat is very map dependant. On some maps u really need loots of canons to be save ^^
On May 06 2012 15:39 Yuffie wrote: I also played my own variation of that build, ofc starting with http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Gate_Nexus_YufFE :D I can place my starport @ 5:20 , and everything will be even faster and stronger. Mothership is ready at 11:00 . was pretty funny to have it that early, no zerg would expect that and pushes usually come without overseer. Still i think, that strat is very map dependant. On some maps u really need loots of canons to be save ^^
Sounds interesting, Thank you.
My "build" is by no means even close to optimized, it\s more of just a casual plan, one that I feel is very strong, it sounds like you have made an improvement and I can't wait to try it!
Alright, I was toying around with this the past coupe of days and I noted a few things. I am mid Masters on NA in case anyone is wondering.
1. Games last LONG. All the games that I didn't die to early aggression, they lasted at least 20 minutes, commonly around 30.
2. As a result of games lasting long, focus on upgrades is paramount. I have to definitely attribute a lot, if not all, of my wins to being up in reasonable upgrades. Carriers hit hard as hell when they're at 3 attack. I'm sure you guys already knew that.
3. Defensive Mothership is pretty amazing. It bolsters your defense tremendously, and gives more mobility to an honestly slow army. Recall is apparently awesome. That in mind, It has forced me to get used to using the Mothership on a completely different hotkey.
4. Corrupters are not that great against this composition, UNLESS they're upgraded. I do not see many zerg going double Spire though. Hydras are also not that great against this composition. But then again, I haven't gone up against 3/3 Hydras yet (I see a lot of zerg skipping Carapace for some reason).
5. There is no efficient mineral dump against this composition. Spore Crawlers fail against Carriers, Lings can't hit air (or get past a cannon wall), and I haven't seen a queen heavy composition yet (Although I have to assume Carrier dps will negate Transfuse anyways). Forcing the zerg into a gas heavy composition is something that seems to make them uncomfortable. In other words, I have made several zerg lose purely because they ran out of gas to reinforce.
6. A lot of games seem to catch the zerg completely off guard, simply by putting the Stargates 2 opposite ends of the base. By showing a single Stargate, the zerg seem to assume that that's all you have, and it commonly leaves them unprepared if they attempt to engage with no antiair.
Replays: In the following replays, I opened up Forge Expand every single time, along with Double Stargate. In almost all of the games, I went for pure air, the composition consisting of 1 Mothership, Void Rays and Carriers, going Phoenix for Mutas (obviously). I opted for more heavy Carriers in most games, although I have yet to differentiate when it is appropriate to do one or the other.
http://drop.sc/173180 Daybreak Muta Ling play. Although he was able to wreck my economy, the infrastructure for a Phoenix switch kept the muta numbers down, in addition to having not touched the primary army. As such, the final engagement was more or less a walkover, since he was unable to maintain a 4th (or his main). Also, 3 attack Carriers wreck 0 armor Hydras.
http://drop.sc/173183 Korhal Compound LE I was really bad in scouting this game, he took every base that wasn't on my side of the map, and I completely missed it. Still, I felt as if his 4th was too late, and he found out first hand why you shouldn't bunch up your overseers. Again, 3 attack Carriers really smash things with no armor.
http://drop.sc/173185 Cloud Kingdom LE Hydra Infestor composition. I believe what killed him is that he made too many infestors and it cut deep into his gas. As such, he was unable to reinforce with either Hydras or more Corrupters. Also, his 4th was really late, which allowed it to get sniped almost immediately.
http://drop.sc/173186 Antiga Shipyard I believe he tried Stephano style roaches, assuming that it was only 1 Stargate. As such, I found out how effective Void Rays + Cannons are against Roach Ling. It seems like the rest of it was him losing too much and being unable to rebuild his economy effectively (or even get a composition that can hit air).
http://drop.sc/173221 Cloud Kingdom LE 44 Corrupters < 15 Void Rays, 6 Carriers. To be fair, the toss is at 3/2/1 and the Corrupters were at 1/1, in addition to half the Corrupter army didn't engage immediately. Although he was able to get good ling runbys, I was able to keep my army. Also, even though he hit 6k minerals, I reiterate that there is no efficient mineral dump against mass air.
http://drop.sc/173224 Korhal Compound LE This game is a loss. It showcases early aggression destroying enough of the economy that it becomes too taxing to recover. He also significantly delayed my 3rd, forcing my army to grow too slowly. It also involves the use of double spire to equate the upgrades that the air toss had. Since I haven't tried double Core yet, I fell behind in upgrades and 3/2 Corrupters overran me in the end.
In the end, I feel it's at least a refreshing look at PvZ, and I will certainly be trying out mass air more. I'll post more replays as they come along.
On May 06 2012 17:30 piroko139 wrote: Alright, I was toying around with this the past coupe of days and I noted a few things. I am mid Masters on NA in case anyone is wondering.
1. Games last LONG. All the games that I didn't die to early aggression, they lasted at least 20 minutes, commonly around 30.
2. As a result of games lasting long, focus on upgrades is paramount. I have to definitely attribute a lot, if not all, of my wins to being up in reasonable upgrades. Carriers hit hard as hell when they're at 3 attack. I'm sure you guys already knew that.
3. Defensive Mothership is pretty amazing. It bolsters your defense tremendously, and gives more mobility to an honestly slow army. Recall is apparently awesome. That in mind, It has forced me to get used to using the Mothership on a completely different hotkey.
4. Corrupters are not that great against this composition, UNLESS they're upgraded. I do not see many zerg going double Spire though. Hydras are also not that great against this composition. But then again, I haven't gone up against 3/3 Hydras yet (I see a lot of zerg skipping Carapace for some reason).
5. There is no efficient mineral dump against this composition. Spore Crawlers fail against Carriers, Lings can't hit air (or get past a cannon wall), and I haven't seen a queen heavy composition yet (Although I have to assume Carrier dps will negate Transfuse anyways). Forcing the zerg into a gas heavy composition is something that seems to make them uncomfortable. In other words, I have made several zerg lose purely because they ran out of gas to reinforce.
6. A lot of games seem to catch the zerg completely off guard, simply by putting the Stargates 2 opposite ends of the base. By showing a single Stargate, the zerg seem to assume that that's all you have, and it commonly leaves them unprepared if they attempt to engage with no antiair.
Replays: In the following replays, I opened up Forge Expand every single time, along with Double Stargate. In almost all of the games, I went for pure air, the composition consisting of 1 Mothership, Void Rays and Carriers, going Phoenix for Mutas (obviously). I opted for more heavy Carriers in most games, although I have yet to differentiate when it is appropriate to do one or the other.
http://drop.sc/173180 Daybreak Muta Ling play. Although he was able to wreck my economy, the infrastructure for a Phoenix switch kept the muta numbers down, in addition to having not touched the primary army. As such, the final engagement was more or less a walkover, since he was unable to maintain a 4th (or his main). Also, 3 attack Carriers wreck 0 armor Hydras.
http://drop.sc/173183 Korhal Compound LE I was really bad in scouting this game, he took every base that wasn't on my side of the map, and I completely missed it. Still, I felt as if his 4th was too late, and he found out first hand why you shouldn't bunch up your overseers. Again, 3 attack Carriers really smash things with no armor.
http://drop.sc/173185 Cloud Kingdom LE Hydra Infestor composition. I believe what killed him is that he made too many infestors and it cut deep into his gas. As such, he was unable to reinforce with either Hydras or more Corrupters. Also, his 4th was really late, which allowed it to get sniped almost immediately.
http://drop.sc/173186 Antiga Shipyard I believe he tried Stephano style roaches, assuming that it was only 1 Stargate. As such, I found out how effective Void Rays + Cannons are against Roach Ling. It seems like the rest of it was him losing too much and being unable to rebuild his economy effectively (or even get a composition that can hit air).
http://drop.sc/173221 Cloud Kingdom LE 44 Corrupters < 15 Void Rays, 6 Carriers. To be fair, the toss is at 3/2/1 and the Corrupters were at 1/1, in addition to half the Corrupter army didn't engage immediately. Although he was able to get good ling runbys, I was able to keep my army. Also, even though he hit 6k minerals, I reiterate that there is no efficient mineral dump against mass air.
http://drop.sc/173224 Korhal Compound LE This game is a loss. It showcases early aggression destroying enough of the economy that it becomes too taxing to recover. He also significantly delayed my 3rd, forcing my army to grow too slowly. It also involves the use of double spire to equate the upgrades that the air toss had. Since I haven't tried double Core yet, I fell behind in upgrades and 3/2 Corrupters overran me in the end.
In the end, I feel it's at least a refreshing look at PvZ, and I will certainly be trying out mass air more. I'll post more replays as they come along.
Thanks for the contribution! I'm happy you find it at least refreshing. I added your post to the OP and hope you don't mind as I think the replays and your comments on them can be helpful.
I can't wait to watch your Antiga game. I'm trying to figure out if every attack can be held, or if I just haven't run into well enough executed attacks at our level.
I've been doing a variation of this for a while, it's good to see that somebody wrote a guide for skytoss. Hopefully protoss air will become more viable in the future.
I was wondering about drops: as Protoss army is kind of slow, I felt that would be a potential strategy for zerg, at least as a transition to something else: for instance: 3 hatch roach, into drops (after zerg saw protoss void rays); into corruptors/droplings. Have you guys faced that?
On May 06 2012 18:04 Macpo wrote: I was wondering about drops: as Protoss army is kind of slow, I felt that would be a potential strategy for zerg, at least as a transition to something else: for instance: 3 hatch roach, into drops (after zerg saw protoss void rays); into corruptors/droplings. Have you guys faced that?
Voids are supposed to offer map control so that you would be able to see drops (and other attacks) coming. I have never faced drop lings before, and with this style and spamming of cannons, I can't see dropping lings being very effective as a result. Either way, it's not a very common style.
On May 06 2012 18:04 Macpo wrote: I was wondering about drops: as Protoss army is kind of slow, I felt that would be a potential strategy for zerg, at least as a transition to something else: for instance: 3 hatch roach, into drops (after zerg saw protoss void rays); into corruptors/droplings. Have you guys faced that?
Droplings can indeed be a problem, in your main, (drop anything) if you are out of position and don't see it coming, and if you have vital tech vulnerable. I normally position everything very carefully, and usually have my SG on highground but near the ramp, so a highground cannon or two can get a lot done. Sometimes the Nexus is vulnerable... I've messed around with just cannoning it blind, or just running the probes as best you can if you happen to be up against drop/ runby play.
I learned that just having a few extra gates, not even more than 4. And a few "money" cannons completely walled in and behind minerals really helps to shut this down, or at least handle it, in my experience.
I don't see how this works against corruptor/infestor at all. Corruptors kill the mothership easily and trade well enough with voidrays. Especially with some infestors for fungal backup it shouldn't be a problem at all for zerg to stop this. Also waiting for mothership to take third is just awfully slow.
On May 06 2012 20:52 Markwerf wrote: I don't see how this works against corruptor/infestor at all. Corruptors kill the mothership easily and trade well enough with voidrays. Especially with some infestors for fungal backup it shouldn't be a problem at all for zerg to stop this. Also waiting for mothership to take third is just awfully slow.
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.
2. As a result of games lasting long, focus on upgrades is paramount. I have to definitely attribute a lot, if not all, of my wins to being up in reasonable upgrades. Carriers hit hard as hell when they're at 3 attack. I'm sure you guys already knew that.
4. Corrupters are not that great against this composition, UNLESS they're upgraded. I do not see many zerg going double Spire though. Hydras are also not that great against this composition. But then again, I haven't gone up against 3/3 Hydras yet (I see a lot of zerg skipping Carapace for some reason).
5. There is no efficient mineral dump against this composition. Spore Crawlers fail against Carriers, Lings can't hit air (or get past a cannon wall), and I haven't seen a queen heavy composition yet (Although I have to assume Carrier dps will negate Transfuse anyways). Forcing the zerg into a gas heavy composition is something that seems to make them uncomfortable. In other words, I have made several zerg lose purely because they ran out of gas to reinforce.
Upgrades are definitely important. Attack upgrades greatly improve the dps of voids/carriers/phoenixes. Flip of the coin, getting armor upgrades greatly helps the zerg units if they get ahead of toss. (shouldn't but if)
Even upgraded corruptors lose to equal supply/cost void rays. The benefit though, is how fast zerg can remax. So trading will be in zergs favor.
Just as cannons are efficient in defending, lings are useful in denying expansions. But that is about it, if the cannon/pylons go up, lings alone won't break it efficiently. They will need a gas unit.
I have been using this strat a lot. I'm mid masters on NA, and I think I've lost twice with it. I like to open with zealot aggression before cyber core. Here's some of my reps if they'll help:
http://drop.sc/173883 Shakuras, Zerg tries to nydus, then masses queens corruptors and hydras.
http://drop.sc/173884 Antiga. Zerg snipes my third with big hydra/roach drop, but loses too much and I kill his main after.
http://drop.sc/173885 Shakuras. I lose this game, though I was kinda tired so I didn't make good use of my army before he attacked.
http://drop.sc/173886 Ohana. Zerg loses third to zealot pressure, after that it's hard to catch up.
The next few I played a while ago and don't remember well enough to give a summary:
Oh and far as voids go, there's a thread floating around about how upgrades *might* actually hurt voids. I'm sure that a lot of you have seen it, but here's the link for sake of completeness.
I don't know if this would affect voids in this specific strategy, such as vs. corruptor, hydra, etc. but I thought it might be worth discussing. From the descriptions of replays I've read, it seems that attack upgrades are in fact beneficial to void rays, but you never know. Maybe someone can play around with the sandbox a bit?
My exp with this build, yes you can take games off ppl. You lose if the zerg just expands lots and constantly trades with you. If you can't get to that 150+ food (which takes gas+time) you can never win and eventually the opponent wears you down.
On May 07 2012 07:25 Rorschach wrote: My exp with this build, yes you can take games off ppl. You lose if the zerg just expands lots and constantly trades with you. If you can't get to that 150+ food (which takes gas+time) you can never win and eventually the opponent wears you down.
This is true. In my experience the difficulty is timing your expansions. If you can get your third quickly enough (which some maps almost guarantees your forth; for example on Shakuras, if you take the distant third then by blocking that ramp with lots of cannons it becomes easy to take the 4th behind it) then it's much easier to pull off. Compare with Antiga which has no easy 4th to take, and in some ways the third is harder (although it's easier to use the mothership to defend it since the ramps are so close together.
Granted that I've been playing gold/platinum players, but I'm about 6-0 with this. Warning: You will get BM, or at least a distinct lack of gg's. A sentry or two early on seems to be worth it to prevent ling run-bys. Often they seem to think that mass corruptor will beat mass void ray+mothership. Late game switch to sentry/zealot is surprisingly powerful if they've gone strongly into corruptor/infestor, especially if you're ahead enough to throw away the zealots. Nice write-up.
I gave a shot at this strat guys and these are results of playing 10 games with it: No WAY!! 10-0 This is so extremely one-sided game. I think most of the wins are, because zerg doesn't know how to counter this. I'm also getting my templar tech so my unit comp is: Vrays, 2 carriers, Phoenix(if muta play), 3-6 templar (depending on how many infestors), archons (extremely powerful against hydra and corrupter stacks).
Toughest game was when guy went infestor-hydra. Then i've learned about power of templar and archon in this composition.
Lost a game with it yesterday, but honnestly I messed up. It was on Shakuras. Zerg took fast 5 bases, then went mass hydras and kept trading with me and remaxing hydras. I made two main mistakes:
1. I took the third near the center instead of the further one, so one side of my third was exposed to hydras attack. As a result, I was forced to engage with all my voidrays + MS where there was no cannons and traded badly.
2. I kindda rushed to zealots + colossi when I saw he was going so heavy on hydras, instead of strengthening my voidrays compo. Voidrays were upgraded, zealots and colossi were not, and I had to stop my air production to get 4-6 colossi out. As a result he transitionned to corruptors and destroyed everything
I cannot see this work versus high ranked players in top master or grandmaster. What I've seen so far were just zergs eager to throw their army away before being maxed. Not trying any multi pronged attacks (hydra drops, hydra+nydus) and not using infestors, or way too late.
Cannons are great, but you can only cover so much. I feel like a good player will recognize the weakness and do multi pronged attacks to delay your production, either killing probes, supply blocking, or taking out production facilities. Then he'll max and attack into your army, killing it with fungals and focus fire. You don't have archons so a toilet will only delay it a little and probably won't make a difference.
I'd like to see a grandmaster protoss utilize this against good opponents. If it works for him then I think it's worth trying, as of what I've seen now. I very much doubt I would be able to win with it.
I absolutely love this build, i used it against my buddy in our weekly practice session and beat him 4 out of 5 games with it. I have thought for a long time that the stargate was the future of pvz but for some reason the key to this particular build escaped me completely: Cannons!
I never thought to go crazy on cannons, maybe because it seems so bronze league to build so many, but the way I figure it, zerg can't say much because they spam the map with spine crawlers in traditional pvz games. The one game I lost to my buddy was because i didn't remember to cannon up my third.
So far what I have experienced with this build playing against him, fully upgraded hydras come very close to being able to beat this, so being quick with that mass recall is key. Also, if the zerg thinks to bring infestors to your third and neural your mothership that can cause a few problems.
On May 07 2012 21:11 Bulldog654 wrote: I absolutely love this build, i used it against my buddy in our weekly practice session and beat him 4 out of 5 games with it. I have thought for a long time that the stargate was the future of pvz but for some reason the key to this particular build escaped me completely: Cannons!
I never thought to go crazy on cannons, maybe because it seems so bronze league to build so many, but the way I figure it, zerg can't say much because they spam the map with spine crawlers in traditional pvz games. The one game I lost to my buddy was because i didn't remember to cannon up my third.
So far what I have experienced with this build playing against him, fully upgraded hydras come very close to being able to beat this, so being quick with that mass recall is key. Also, if the zerg thinks to bring infestors to your third and neural your mothership that can cause a few problems.
One game on entombed wally I got hydra-infestor. I managed to win the game, because hydra is so slow, even on creep. Basically u attack one end of the map, when hydra arrives - recall - attack from the other side, if he splits forces, Protoss fleet will just run him over. Also carriers are fine addition: - Dumping minerals - Good against spore - Usually get targeted first, which gives your voids time to charge up. adding 2-4 carriers makes army so much better.
Also against hydra i would prefer storms over colossi.
It's sort of ridiculous that this works, and I play Protoss. The guy who said to expect your opponents to be angry is right on the money--do not expect GGs or for them to be amused by this, generally speaking. I can't speak to high-level play, but it definitely is effective in the gold-platinum range.
Guys I gave a little thought about multi-pronged attacks. Since you are swimming in minerals, you can get a ton of gateways. If you get a speed prism or two, you can attack with fleet at one place, and then recall, and with zealots in other (two other places).
After reading this thread I'm wondering if there are some interesting ways of making the buildings in this build a little more effecient. I tried the build today and I was pleasantly surprised at how effective it was. But I got lost a little later when I didn't know what to really follow up with when I got most of my air infrastructure online.
What I'm thinking is this: Instead of focusing on air attack upgrades first and going double Cybernetics core, instead start with Air Armor, and start working on Protoss Shields as well. Then you use both buildings that you need to have anyway, the Shields will help your cannons as well as your Mothership greatly (keep in mind she has a very high shield count). Then with a Twilight council you'd have the ability to throw down either Templar Archives or Dark Shrine. That way you can build a pretty strong sim city with Gateway/Cannons (which take a long time for Zerg to break, especially with Shield upgrades) and if needed you can morph some Templar and make Archons which benefit hugely from shield upgrades. Then you can archon toilet if it's necessary.
I'm not sure which I prefer, since if you go Dark Templar you have the option of making a few and then you can just use them to harass far out expansions, while keeping your main Voidray fleet at home... Reducing the dependancy on the Mothership in the event of infestors. On the flip side, by going High Templar you have the ability to deal better with the infestors as well as Hydra/Corrupter.
The armor/shield upgrades also make the unit stronger against both Hydras and Corrupters as well (mainly Hydras which have a quick rate of fire). Corrupters deal only 14 unupgraded damage per shot (which is a fairly low rate of fire), which is actually only slightly more than Hydras deal... Just a little slower. Corrupters of course will all be able to engage the voidrays, whereas hydras will line up and not all of them will necessarily be able to fight the void rays. Either way, since the Voids are really the big time consuming investment, making them stronger against these units I think is kind of key. They also really help a lot vs Infested Terrans, whereas the damage upgrade isn't really helping THAT much.
Like I said though, I think the main strength would be that you would be building a very tough voidray fleet, and if they commit very hard to defeat that fleet, by that point the idea is to be on enough bases and have enough gateways that you can warp in a large army of Zealot/Archon rather quickly. That's in the event of losing the fleet which ideally won't happen. If they've been going mass Hydra to deal with the Voids, then chargelot/archon can be extremely effective vs the Hydras, and if they go mass corrupter, you can simply overwhelm them on the ground with a freshly warped in army. I think it's this type of contingency plan that needs to exist, because if you lose that fleet of void rays by accident, you need a way of quickly creating some type of army in order to combat the one the Zerg has already mustered/or is mustering.
The good news is that either option of dealing with the voids (Corrupters/Infestors/Hydras) are all very gas intensive, and if they've spent that much gas to deal with the Voids then they won't be able to create a GIANT army of roaches to deal with Zealot/Archon.
From the game I played I decided to get a Robo after getting my third, and if I had focused on Twilight/Shield upgrades instead of air attack upgrades, I would have had the opportunity to get a Warp Prism and do some Zealot harass. This build definitely has a lot of minerals to spare, and once you reach a critical mass of cannons (or run out of room) then you need to find a way of spending that money in a productive way. Since the optimal Zerg response to Void Rays is likely the Infestor, infestors have issues dealing with multiprong harass, and having a Warp prism or two could be extremely aggravating for the Zerg... Nevermind that an infestor based defense would have to rely on spending some energy in dealing with said Zealots, which will make your Void Ray fleet that much stronger.
Anyway, I'm just blabbering on and thinking out loud at this point, but I actually feel like this playstyle has a lot of potential. Some kinks need to be refined and worked out... But I actually think that working on a type of air based strategy is the future of Protoss, especially with the potential possibilities coming in HotS (another discussion for another time).
Far as I see, this seems is developing similarly to the current PvT system.
In PvT, the prevailing wisdom is to try to take a quick third with a bare defense so you can get archons/ storm against bio, then do a quick tech switch to colossi to force lots of vikings or just kill him there. Then, you can then switch back to a gateway based army whole a lot of supply is taken up by vikings. From there you just switch back and forth to confuse him.
In PvZ, this strategy brought up the idea of an air composition with relatively quick three bases. This forces a hydra or corrupter heavy composition as the only viable opposing composition. Then, you can quickly warp in a large ground army which is extremely good against hydra corruptor. Infestors are okay, but they can be nullified through adding a few colossi or something as well.
It seems Protoss may be the most versatile race after all. Once you hit the lategame, you can essentially dictate the game through tech switches.
What I'm thinking is this: Instead of focusing on air attack upgrades first and going double Cybernetics core, instead start with Air Armor, and start working on Protoss Shields as well.
Yeah, this seems really smart. Armor is super valuable in big fights, and transitioning to HT/Archon is quite strong.
The only drawback might be for Carriers, which benefit immensely from attack upgrades (each +1 is 16 dps!)
What I'm thinking is this: Instead of focusing on air attack upgrades first and going double Cybernetics core, instead start with Air Armor, and start working on Protoss Shields as well.
Yeah, this seems really smart. Armor is super valuable in big fights, and transitioning to HT/Archon is quite strong.
The only drawback might be for Carriers, which benefit immensely from attack upgrades (each +1 is 16 dps!)
Carriers have 8 interceptors, each of them shooting twice every 3sec (ingame seconds ofc). Hence their dps increases by 5.33 if you upgrade air weapons by 1. You simply forgot to factor in that interceptors have a 3.0sec refire rate (carriers initial dmg burst is way higher due to the much faster release rate of interceptors).
On May 08 2012 14:12 quillian wrote: Yeah, this seems really smart. Armor is super valuable in big fights, and transitioning to HT/Archon is quite strong.
The only drawback might be for Carriers, which benefit immensely from attack upgrades (each +1 is 16 dps!)
The thing is I don't think I'd want to transition to Carriers with this thought in mind. Carriers are admittedly quite strong vs Hydras... but so is Zealot/Archon and Zealot/Archon will be faster and easier to produce in the quantities required (should you lose your Void Rays for some reason). If they're going Corrupters or Mutas to fight the Voids (which is pretty dumb if you ask me), Carriers aren't so hot vs. Corrupters and the Mutas would be a terrible choice especially since the Voids would be armor/shield focused (and the Protoss has the ability to pump out lots of Phoenixes to support as well).
So finally that leaves if the Zerg decided to go Infestor to fight the Voids. While Carriers are indeed better with the long range to try and take out the infestors, the problem is that IF they get neuraled your Void rays will make short work of them, and sometimes I've found that since Voids move ahead of the carriers, when the infestors go to fungal they sometimes nab the interceptors, which make the carriers pretty much useless. With High Templar in the mix, you'd be able to Storm/Feedback to contain the Infestor problem, and of course you should have Mass Recall to get you out of there if you do get into trouble.
I really like the idea behind this build as it kind of pigeon-holes the Zerg in how he is to respond. Something I've been toying around with in the build order tester is the idea of going 1gate/1stargate into expansion. While the expo is admittedly quite delayed, the mothership arrives at 13minutes which is still roughly on par with the FFE timing. By getting a really quick Void + Phoenix, the idea would be to harass and possibly deny the third base, and using the Phoenix as a scout to find out what kind of tech you'll be dealing with, as well as a quick and easy way to find out where those expos are at.
I'm not sold on going gate + stargate before expand, but since this build is definitely more tech oriented than it is economy oriented, I personally don't think the economic hit is too hard. Plus the nice thing is is that you're constantly producing Voids off of one Stargate for quite a while, making your Voidray count pretty decent by the time big momma shows up. With the rough draft that I've been working on in the build order tester at 13 minutes I have the Mothership completed, Air Armor and Shields at about 90/160, 7 Void Rays and a pair of Sentries, a Stalker and a Zealot.
I'll be doing a bit of testing to see which I prefer. I know that FFE is the standard for Protoss vs Zerg, but I'm personally not super comfortable with FFE and since this is dedicating itself to a strong air fleet, I feel like starting off with one base play might be a little stronger... Mainly since the primary problem behind gateway based expands has been the ability to secure a third easily, which I think this build is kind of designed to do as the Mothership/Voidrays will make it very difficult for Zergling/Roach based armies to deny your third easily... And with a fairly mobile fleet the Protoss should have an easier time "sharking" the Zerg. I'm going to definitely have to work on my mechanics as I haven't played in a while, but using the Void Rays similarly to Hellions in being able to deny early creep spread of the Zerg can also drastically reduce the chances of Hydra pushes (which in turn allow you to position your voids early on somewhat aggressively, which should give you a decent heads up if the Zerg is planning to go on a full out attack.
But like I said, it's something I'm going to be working on. The game one ladder game played I opted to go 1gate/stargate ---> Expo and it worked out just fine. The game I played was really sloppy and my transitions were awful, yet I still won the game which makes me feel a little confident in the core concept of this build.
any good zerg will kill you start of the game, you can't turtle your base vs roaches, they will destroy every massive cannons you build. On our current map selection on the ladder, this wont work @ master lvl vs a good zerg. mabey in lower leagues.
If the good zerg vetos the unfriendly z maps in the ladder pool, a early roach attack will kill you instantly
For those in masters on NA and won with this, not to flame but I have a feeling and watching the replays, those zergs you played using this strat, they made to many dumb mistakes and played like low plat players vs it.
A good zerg will just expand and roach trade and just rape your base. Voids take forever to kill roaches, cannons die few hits of roaches. ect early roach aggression with early base expanding, you won't be able to get a mothership out or anything decent. if the zerg puts a spire behind roach agression its gg. as he will trade better then you.
On May 08 2012 15:53 silentdecay01 wrote: any good zerg will kill you start of the game, you can't turtle your base vs roaches, they will destroy every massive cannons you build. On our current map selection on the ladder, this wont work @ master lvl vs a good zerg. mabey in lower leagues.
If the good zerg vetos the unfriendly z maps in the ladder pool, a early roach attack will kill you instantly
Ermm... I'm not sure if your post was directed at my posts or the thread in general. If directed at my post, I have to start playing some more because I have been out of the SC2 scene for a while so you may be right (though I have kept up in watching vods).
If you're directing your post at the thread in general, the OP provided a number of replays which were clearly against master level Zergs and he was able to defeat quite a few of them. Define an "early roach attack"... Are we talking a Stephano timing or something that comes a little sooner? Because going the route of the FFE I don't see why the build would be less safe vs. early roaches than a FFE sans stargate since you have... Well, air units. And it's my understanding that air units are pretty good vs. them Roaches.
I'm not sure what the point of your post was, since it's awfully vague and doesn't contain any reasoning for why the roaches trump cannons + stargates. If you're referring to what I'm posting, as said, I've been out of the game for a while so I may need to re-educate myself and I won't deny that... But if this is just a flat out dismissal for the build as a whole, I can't say I agree based on the extremely limited and unexplained reasons you've provided.
A good zerg will just expand and roach trade and just rape your base. Voids take forever to kill roaches, cannons die few hits of roaches. ect early roach aggression with early base expanding, you won't be able to get a mothership out or anything decent. if the zerg puts a spire behind roach agression its gg. as he will trade better then you.
Single cannons die quickly to roaches. Large numbers of cannons do not. I do think that the build suggested by the OP could definitely use at least a few Sentries to try and mitigate early roach movement... But aside from that most Protosses FFE and are able to handle early Roach aggression, I really don't see how going Void Rays suddenly makes that a liability.
As for following up with Spire... The Protoss isn't going to be moving out of his base a whole lot until he has a decent sized fleet and a Recall ready, I don't see how it would be possible to just "trade better than you" as hell have to fly over a grid of cannons in order to begin attacking Void Rays... Nevermind that I wouldn't consider Corruptors or Mutas to trade better with Void Rays.
Also, small numbers of Void rays have trouble dealing with Roaches. Mid to large numbers of Void rays will MELT roaches rather quickly.
My point is any good zerg will crush this type of play before he has enough cannons to prevent large sums of roaches.....
his ecom will take a huge hit early game if he makes nothing but cannons to defend.... old school early roach rush will kill this before it becomes a problem.
I think people are winning using werid strats because most players don't expect this and will drone up and play standard. tho a high lvl master or gm player or kor pro would be able to deter this with old shcool early roachs and just kill said player.
This is nothing new, back in the day protoss used to play a turtle type game and mass void rays, it stoped working at high lvl play for a reason.
On May 08 2012 15:53 silentdecay01 wrote: any good zerg will kill you start of the game, you can't turtle your base vs roaches, they will destroy every massive cannons you build. On our current map selection on the ladder, this wont work @ master lvl vs a good zerg. mabey in lower leagues.
If the good zerg vetos the unfriendly z maps in the ladder pool, a early roach attack will kill you instantly
For those in masters on NA and won with this, not to flame but I have a feeling and watching the replays, those zergs you played using this strat, they made to many dumb mistakes and played like low plat players vs it.
A good zerg will just expand and roach trade and just rape your base. Voids take forever to kill roaches, cannons die few hits of roaches. ect early roach aggression with early base expanding, you won't be able to get a mothership out or anything decent. if the zerg puts a spire behind roach agression its gg. as he will trade better then you.
The answer to your objections are very simple.
Toss can FFE on every map (no really, he can), especially with those hoards of minerals he is saving by not building a ground force.
Early roach pushes are easily deflected, because they are based on protoss being greedy and not building additional cannos for defence. By the time, for example, a 2 base roach will arrive, you'll have at least 5! cannons and a sentry guarding gates.
When stephano attack hits at around 12 minutes (which is doubtfull, cuz obv voidrays will delay it, but let's assume void did no damage). Protoss will have 2 sentry, at least 10-15 cannons, thick layer of sim-city, voids and a freakin mothership with cloak (so cannons can't be targeted without overseer, and you'll need alot of them).
And about trading. You see, toss actually don't trade he just sits on his base with a mothership and cannons everywhere like a bronze-leagued. Protoss don't trade armies, he trades cannons. Thing is, when i've watched replay, that zerg is swimming in resources, while you produce your fleet, and he cannot remake his limit of roaches into spire, because he needs to kill them all. I've had an all-air play from zerg with 3-3 muta gainst my composition. We traded ~120 supply of muta to my ~20 supplay of voidrays.
As stupid as it sound but this build offer a slow, unique, but solid style of play.
Also I've got nydus yesterday, but this is actually all about scoutng your base. Nydus was able to flow 7 roaches to my main, before it died. Obv 7 roaches did little to no damage, after i just put cannons to cover the whole base and 1 cannon is perfectly fine to take out any nydus threats.
Assuming Protoss is able to get his 3rd up and an economy going, Zerg is going to need to keep up in upgrades and I'd suggest having a Nydus somewhere so they can counter easier with Hydras/Infestors.
I actually also play a sky toss against zerg sometimes, but my style is less stable I think, but maybe some people would like to test it out. I open with forge nexus gate gate at my natural, and then pump zealots chonroboosted and go with and go for the third and just keep pumping zealots. I delay my core until my minerals line up for it, and take my gases at the normal time ( so I bank a bit). Then after my core finishes I put down 2-3 stargates and pump VR phoenix and expand with lots of cannons behind it. I believe I copied the strategy from Kiwikaki from his MLG online qualifier games vs Sheth.
I actually have the highest win percentage with this strategy of all of my builds but I don't do it that often because I felt like it was cheesy, I suppose I've never actually lost and felt like it was my strategy that lost me the game though. After I have my 5th + 6th gas I put down double robo and get collossus, as usually you'll force a hydra-ling-infestor composition from the zerg.
I'm fairly high masters ( 750 points, top 10% of masters league) and I'll post a few replays when I get home.
Basically a counter to this as Zerg is to really go mass mass corruptors and creep crawl a heap of your own static D towards the enemy, trying to gain a one up on the mining bases and slowly close in around him with creep spread. Because when toss get's to this lategame stage they typically max out on voids / mothership / collossi corruptors can attack everything, and any remaining ground forces can be cleaned up by your spine / spore contain. You can then morph 2-3 broodlords and just slowly wear down canons as any actual engage is most likely bad for him. Obviously you need to be careful of mothership vortex / archons, but that's the same as any late game army.
Below are two replays of toss going mass voidray / mothership against me in the end game, and you can see how I dealt with it.
On May 09 2012 00:36 Peleus wrote: Basically a counter to this as Zerg is to really go mass mass corruptors and creep crawl a heap of your own static D towards the enemy, trying to gain a one up on the mining bases and slowly close in around him with creep spread. Because when toss get's to this lategame stage they typically max out on voids / mothership / collossi corruptors can attack everything, and any remaining ground forces can be cleaned up by your spine / spore contain. You can then morph 2-3 broodlords and just slowly wear down canons as any actual engage is most likely bad for him. Obviously you need to be careful of mothership vortex / archons, but that's the same as any late game army.
Below are two replays of toss going mass voidray / mothership against me in the end game, and you can see how I dealt with it.
Edit: Before anyone complains yes in one game I could have finished him much quicker, but I was just toying with them.
I'm still going to watch replays, but mass corrupters was easiest to deal with for me, i just added 5 archons and 2 HT into mix and they melted insanely fast.
On May 09 2012 00:36 Peleus wrote: Basically a counter to this as Zerg is to really go mass mass corruptors and creep crawl a heap of your own static D towards the enemy, trying to gain a one up on the mining bases and slowly close in around him with creep spread. Because when toss get's to this lategame stage they typically max out on voids / mothership / collossi corruptors can attack everything, and any remaining ground forces can be cleaned up by your spine / spore contain. You can then morph 2-3 broodlords and just slowly wear down canons as any actual engage is most likely bad for him. Obviously you need to be careful of mothership vortex / archons, but that's the same as any late game army.
Below are two replays of toss going mass voidray / mothership against me in the end game, and you can see how I dealt with it.
Edit: Before anyone complains yes in one game I could have finished him much quicker, but I was just toying with them.
the first game he didn't do anything remotely like this build. it's not really relevant to this thread.
the second game is more useful, and shows what most players who do a lot of 3v3 and 4v4 have learned, that mass corruptor CAN trade effectively with void rays, and remax faster. The aggressive creep spread with mass cralwers is a good addition. When the zerg commits to the counter, it becomes a good fight, with the game swinging on good positioning and vortex/storm. Seems balanced and playable from both sides.
The issue is the spine/spore forest, which quite frankly is the scariest thing Zerg has vs Toss IMO. Both our siege units die to the same unit, and we don't have any real combat units, and buildings aren't affected by spells. And Zerg "defenses" can move and attack.
Tried it a few times. The zergs just play smart, sack all the roaches in order to kill your natural nexus (even if you keep your mothership, they burrow under the unit block, snipe tons of probes/pylons/stargates and set you back a lot).
Mass fungal + corruptor. Tons of infested terrans on expansions. Zerg has complete map control. You can't win, killed his army a few times, he just remaxes and finishes it off. It feels almost impossible to play with.
On May 09 2012 00:36 Peleus wrote: Basically a counter to this as Zerg is to really go mass mass corruptors and creep crawl a heap of your own static D towards the enemy, trying to gain a one up on the mining bases and slowly close in around him with creep spread. Because when toss get's to this lategame stage they typically max out on voids / mothership / collossi corruptors can attack everything, and any remaining ground forces can be cleaned up by your spine / spore contain. You can then morph 2-3 broodlords and just slowly wear down canons as any actual engage is most likely bad for him. Obviously you need to be careful of mothership vortex / archons, but that's the same as any late game army.
Below are two replays of toss going mass voidray / mothership against me in the end game, and you can see how I dealt with it.
Edit: Before anyone complains yes in one game I could have finished him much quicker, but I was just toying with them.
I watched the second game and while I do agree to an extent that Corrupters will trade with Voids, there are a few factors that I feel you haven't considered when comparing these games to the strategy that the OP is employing.
The first and foremost thing is that he also went Colossi to "deal" with the ground army. Three Colossi is 18 supply, which is effectively 6 Void Rays that did not exist in the fight at all. Second of all, in the main engagements between the Corruptors/Voids you had a significant upgrade advantage, one that would not exist against the build of the OP as he is focusing on air upgrades all throughout the game.
And the third thing that I feel is the most important is that by going for such an early Mothership, the ability of the Protoss to snipe bases is MUCH easier at an earlier stage in the game. You had the economy to wage a war of attrition of Corrupter vs Void Ray, but part of the elegance of this build is that by keeping big momma at home, the Protoss is able to fly the outskirts of the map, snipe a hatch or two and immediately run away when corrupters show up. When an engagement inevitably occurs, it will be the Voids not the Corrupters who will have an upgrade advantage.
I'm not saying that it would be a "sure win" on the Protoss part as there are a lot of different factors involved, but taking a game like this I feel doesn't put things in good perspective for this particular build. Plus I think the correct followup to going Mass Void is definitely to mix in some High Templar, as all three responses to mass Voidray are fairly lackluster against the HTs. I think that this was the primary reason you were able to wittle down your Protoss opponent (and well done I might add, I by no means am trying to put down your play as it was a masterfully executed game), as he could have definitely used Storm to great advantage on those Corrupter clumps, and I think that a pair of Warp Prisms could have done significant damage considering how invested into corrupter you were.
The build has minerals in massive abundance, so throwing away Zealots and Warp Prisms to harass and distract the Zerg I think are necessary as the game drags on... And IF the Protoss should lose his Void Ray army, he needs some kind of cheap army that he can use in the meantime while he builds up the Voidray fleet again, which is why I think that HT/Zealot/Archon is the correct followup to this build, as it is capable of producing a massive amount of gateways (it probably already has just to aid in it's sim-city style of play).
On May 09 2012 03:09 Darkomicron wrote: Tried it a few times. The zergs just play smart, sack all the roaches in order to kill your natural nexus (even if you keep your mothership, they burrow under the unit block, snipe tons of probes/pylons/stargates and set you back a lot).
Mass fungal + corruptor. Tons of infested terrans on expansions. Zerg has complete map control. You can't win, killed his army a few times, he just remaxes and finishes it off. It feels almost impossible to play with.
Burrowing through a natural wall off with cannons and voids shooting at you is suicide, and much worse than just trying to bust it down. Cannons are detectors (if you've forgotten), and roaches have to tunnel slowly through the 1/2 hex opening in the wall-off. Heck, I think that its even viable to do a complete wall off with this build, in which case you would be utterly screwed. Remember, you're basically trying to burrow around a cloaked walloff. Given the cannons, voids and mothership shooting at you while you tunnel, its doubtful you would even kill a pylon before your roaches died.
It's true that an early roach bust could be effective, but that is ONLY if Toss is being super greedy and doesn't build more than one cannon until he shits himself when the bust comes. I personally always drop 2 or 3, because I think it's stupid not to. In this build, Toss doesn't really spend minerals on army-- he builds cannons. Lots and lots of cannons.
It's been established that corruptors are pretty much shit against this build b/c void rays beat them, and void rays plus cannons utterly destroy them. Infestors are more of a problem, but adding colossi or HT can be very good against it, and its just a micro issue again. IT's die to cannons before they hatch.
On May 09 2012 03:09 Darkomicron wrote: Tried it a few times. The zergs just play smart, sack all the roaches in order to kill your natural nexus (even if you keep your mothership, they burrow under the unit block, snipe tons of probes/pylons/stargates and set you back a lot).
Mass fungal + corruptor. Tons of infested terrans on expansions. Zerg has complete map control. You can't win, killed his army a few times, he just remaxes and finishes it off. It feels almost impossible to play with.
Burrowing through a natural wall off with cannons and voids shooting at you is suicide, and much worse than just trying to bust it down. Cannons are detectors (if you've forgotten), and roaches have to tunnel slowly through the 1/2 hex opening in the wall-off. Heck, I think that its even viable to do a complete wall off with this build, in which case you would be utterly screwed. Remember, you're basically trying to burrow around a cloaked walloff. Given the cannons, voids and mothership shooting at you while you tunnel, its doubtful you would even kill a pylon before your roaches died.
It's true that an early roach bust could be effective, but that is ONLY if Toss is being super greedy and doesn't build more than one cannon until he shits himself when the bust comes. I personally always drop 2 or 3, because I think it's stupid not to. In this build, Toss doesn't really spend minerals on army-- he builds cannons. Lots and lots of cannons.
It's been established that corruptors are pretty much shit against this build b/c void rays beat them, and void rays plus cannons utterly destroy them. Infestors are more of a problem, but adding colossi or HT can be very good against it, and its just a micro issue again. IT's die to cannons before they hatch.
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.
I am a eu master zerg , played against this playstyle a few times and i just get all the eco i want and go hydra with corruptor . very easy to beat corruptor take down mothership/carrier very quick and then hydra clean up very easy
Why would you mass vr like this, they arent even good because they die to fungal. Its better to play normal and then go carrier/mothership when you have at least 4bases. Also this doesnt hold stephanostyle or retstyle roachhydra.
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)
On May 09 2012 03:09 Darkomicron wrote: Tried it a few times. The zergs just play smart, sack all the roaches in order to kill your natural nexus (even if you keep your mothership, they burrow under the unit block, snipe tons of probes/pylons/stargates and set you back a lot).
Mass fungal + corruptor. Tons of infested terrans on expansions. Zerg has complete map control. You can't win, killed his army a few times, he just remaxes and finishes it off. It feels almost impossible to play with.
Burrowing through a natural wall off with cannons and voids shooting at you is suicide, and much worse than just trying to bust it down. Cannons are detectors (if you've forgotten), and roaches have to tunnel slowly through the 1/2 hex opening in the wall-off. Heck, I think that its even viable to do a complete wall off with this build, in which case you would be utterly screwed. Remember, you're basically trying to burrow around a cloaked walloff. Given the cannons, voids and mothership shooting at you while you tunnel, its doubtful you would even kill a pylon before your roaches died.
It's true that an early roach bust could be effective, but that is ONLY if Toss is being super greedy and doesn't build more than one cannon until he shits himself when the bust comes. I personally always drop 2 or 3, because I think it's stupid not to. In this build, Toss doesn't really spend minerals on army-- he builds cannons. Lots and lots of cannons.
It's been established that corruptors are pretty much shit against this build b/c void rays beat them, and void rays plus cannons utterly destroy them. Infestors are more of a problem, but adding colossi or HT can be very good against it, and its just a micro issue again. IT's die to cannons before they hatch.
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.
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.
On May 06 2012 20:52 Markwerf wrote: I don't see how this works against corruptor/infestor at all. Corruptors kill the mothership easily and trade well enough with voidrays. Especially with some infestors for fungal backup it shouldn't be a problem at all for zerg to stop this. Also waiting for mothership to take third is just awfully slow.
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
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.
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!
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
I played against someone who did something similar to this last week (2 stargate mass voids into quick mothership). I put up the spores and some queens to fend off the voids and went straight for the natural at about 11 minutes with 35ish roaches. I'm pretty sure you would have destroyed me, though :p
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!
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.
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.
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.
On May 06 2012 20:52 Markwerf wrote: I don't see how this works against corruptor/infestor at all. Corruptors kill the mothership easily and trade well enough with voidrays. Especially with some infestors for fungal backup it shouldn't be a problem at all for zerg to stop this. Also waiting for mothership to take third is just awfully slow.
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
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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. =(
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.
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.
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.
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!
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
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)
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.
Another big problem with Antiga is that the bases are so close together, it's really easy to get blindsided by Hydras. I can scout a Spire with Phoenix before Mutas start coming out and prepare for that tech path, but if it's not corner-to-corner the Hydras can just waltz to my front door quickly and do a lot of damage. Even after surviving that with smart defense, it's hard to transition into the 4th because I feel like I have no map control until I either get AoE tech or I have 200 energy for Recall+Vortex. From that point, usually the Zerg just overmakes Corruptors and has Infestors, and it's just too late. I'm suddenly in an endgame situation where the Zerg is constantly maxed, has money in the bank, and has plenty of bases.
The map that I have most success with, using this strategy, is Korhol Compound, which is great for turtling and gradually adding on that fourth with minimal attack points and a lot of easy vision due to the Xel Naga Tower positioning. Thinking backwards, in contrast Antiga basically has a useless Xel Naga Tower, shorter rush distances (unless it's cross-map), and mostly horrible access to fourths--especially if you're starting with your main next to your opponent's natural third. Maybe Antiga is just a map where you can only pull off this build in cross-spawn situations, or not at all. In order to make this strategy work well, I would honestly want to just cannon the low ground between my natural and third, wall off the ramp with the rocks, and spread to the gold. I don't know; I'm trying different things on that map and none of them seem to be either productive or a good plan.
I think the best response as a zerg would be something along these lines:
constant queen production (for defense vs early voids, creep spread to connect bases, transfuses to save a lot of stuff etc) enough spores at your bases a lot of creepspread grab a lot of bases with a lot of static defenses (spines + spores) make all of the tech buildings with (spire and infestation pit priority) Build a lot of hatcheries, everywhere (while banking) so you can instantly remax + in case of base race having a lot of buildings always help etc (zerglings as a mineral dump wouldn't help at all since we've got no dark swarm to take care of cannons with drops etc)
Get a lot of corruptors/infestors. Morph some corruptors into broodlords (like 5). Get 230/200 and push.
TLDR: Drone, expand, static defenses, queens, expand, static defenses, expand, (no particular order specified).... into corruptors/broodlords/infestors.
On the OP: I love this strategy looks really cool and fun. Let's hope pro's will start using it :D
On May 20 2012 21:12 Xitac wrote: @ Fogetaboudit when lame fucktards like you quit starcraft 2 protoss, and terranmech will be fixed
u mad bro?
I try to win as much as possible given my skillset, and have fun at the same time. You should give this approach a shot, it has got to be healthier than whatever you have going on over there.
Also versus the strategy of sending out all your voids to do damage and recalling them with a mothership, the following might be something that works against it for the zerg:
making 40 corruptors and whenever you see him moving out with the voids but leaving mother ship behind, just send hose 40 corruptors to kill the mothership ignoring cannons etc. Then chain fungal the voids killing your base and if he doesn't react fast enough, you might kill all his voids through fungal because the mothership is dead before he could recall. Morph a bunch of broodlords or use some nydusses to quickly get infront of his bases with units and kill the cannons.
The "disrespectful poster getting owned" part is pretty...disrespectful.
I think the main problem with this is that void rays die to fungals pretty easily, so all in all I don't think it's that great of a composition. I'm a big fan of going standard play into carrier/mothership, maybe try to use the voidrays to protect yourself in the midgame and get carriers sooner?
On May 20 2012 23:21 wcr.4fun wrote: Also versus the strategy of sending out all your voids to do damage and recalling them with a mothership, the following might be something that works against it for the zerg:
making 40 corruptors and whenever you see him moving out with the voids but leaving mother ship behind, just send hose 40 corruptors to kill the mothership ignoring cannons etc. Then chain fungal the voids killing your base and if he doesn't react fast enough, you might kill all his voids through fungal because the mothership is dead before he could recall. Morph a bunch of broodlords or use some nydusses to quickly get infront of his bases with units and kill the cannons.
There are lots of funny micro situations that you don't often see when using this strategy. This is definitely one of the tactics I've run into against good opposition.
With most micro situations it's not as simple the theory craft of "fly in" "hope they dont notice" "snipe" "fly away" makes it sound.
Against mass corruptor the Mothership doesn't need to be directly above cannons, you have to be careful with positioning and you can be extra defensive. For example. splitting the difference between 3rd 4th and 5th on daybreak allows ample cannon coverage from almost all angles, and gives extra reaction time.
Still, that tactic you mention can be a good one, it's something I have run into and has cost me lots of map presence and in some cases, the game, if I don't react in time or am caught out of position. On the flipside, if they really commit and you have a really well timed recall, a bunch of corruptors are going to melt in exchange.
On May 21 2012 01:09 Arcanefrost wrote: The "disrespectful poster getting owned" part is pretty...disrespectful.
That was the idea...
Instead of helping me work on my build he just BMed me and did his best to blind counter it. This would be fine except he proceeds to come ITT and blatantly lie about our games (as I pointed out)
His intentions the entire time were not to help me both of us practice and get better but instead to gloat and try to make me look bad, I just wanted to make sure it backfired.
I'll never throw the first punch but you better believe I'll finish the fight.
as a high master toss this voidray army composition is what i do every game against zerg now
i pretty much just follow the rule "instead of stalkers, get voidrays" and i also get maybe 5 pheonix if i suspect muta (5 pheonix for cost arent too bad against hydras) then 10 upgraded pheonix if theres heavy muta
voidrays are so much better against broodlords and if you spread voidrays out they dont get rolled by fungal. in fact the zerg has fungal but the toss also has storm, voidrays stomp corrupters and when you add in fungal for the zerg and storm for the toss the toss still wins. one day we shall see an end to this mass broodlord shennanigans
the only counter to a heavy voidray+storm+mothership+some archons/gateway army ive found for zerg is if a zerg has many 200energy infestors and is able to be defensive on some spore crawlers and broodlords outrange templars protecting you from feedbacks when you attack each infestor can launch 8 infested terrans plus some launch fungals and 8 infested terrans for 2food is extremely food-effective and combined with fungal/corrupters/queens/hydras (for anti air) / some ultralisks thats really the only counter zerg has but it makes the game pretty even lategame at that point
Interesting approach. I had always thought that Mass Recall/Void Rays had potential, but I never put the time into trying to make it happen.
Watching the vid (and just giving it thought) Carriers are good complements to Void Rays. Mass Recall seems more of a big play, allowing you to save your fleet or bases, but Carriers (one or two) seem like they would give you incremental advantages. Interceptors are good tanks (25 minerals for 40/40 is far better than Zealots) and Carrier range lets you engage the opponent safer.
Secondly, the other main point was seeing Sentries and Guardian Shield. Whether facing Corruptors, Mutas, or Hydras, getting the additional 2 damage reduction is pretty big and will give you the key upgrade edge.
Lastly, have you tried incorporating Hallucination into this build? I'm always looking to utilize this ability, and this seems like a very suitable means of doing so. If they don't use Overseers to scout, then you can very effectively bluff them. If they do, the actual Void Rays can take them out. It also gives you cheap scouting, in case tech changes need to happen.
've attached some replays, I'm sorry I don't have more, I've been playing Terran lately and don't save my replays. But I have been using this strategy for about a year so I probably have about 1,000 PvZs with this style.
http://drop.sc/169483 (peepmode, skip in 10 minutes for my PvZ) crappy replay, but extremely good game. This guy said he was a GM who was "embarrassed" and "glad he was smurfing" No clue if he was being honest but he put up a reasonable enough defense.
Basically I would like to find the weakness in this strategy (spare me the obvious macro mechanic slip ups, please.)
I've been having trouble finding a hole in my build, so I'd like to start a discussion about it. (I'm a crappy mid masters protoss, playing for fun, who has beaten GM zergs and loses in the other matchups)
5:36 scouts probe in his third >> makes 4 lings. build is now 36/36 before overlord. Drone count 27. 1 larva floating. start overlord... ...inject lands, larva capping the main. overlord progress 0/25. maybe twice that long on the third ...zero overlords made in the meantime. gassing frees 2 early supply with 4/2 larva floating... ...two drones built. larva count is now 3/1. *headdesk*
6:14 scouts nothing in protoss main >> makes evo chamber. 24 drones, 155 minerals, no larva. ...three seconds until 2x gas need filling. third base mineable in 12 seconds. third queen doesn't bother injecting
7:39 Ok, see the stargate + fourth gas >> takes two gas (to 4), then throws down 6 spores. Goes ahead with ling speed, lair, and +1 missile. Cuts roach warren. This gets us to 8 minutes, at which point we have 47 drones 150 minerals, and seventeen idle larva. Our army supply is one and a half. Our next choice is to leave the overlord behind the stargate (so the void ray turns around, which should buy us almost as much time as it supply caps us for)
9:30 Your stargate pressure hits. you run straight into a spore + queen, can't take them, and bail dealing no damage. He seriously droned for nine and a half minutes off a single zergling. ended with a dangerously low drone count, let you play 100% unopposed You could have build 2 gates at any point and won. Instead you're makign a mothership?
've attached some replays, I'm sorry I don't have more, I've been playing Terran lately and don't save my replays. But I have been using this strategy for about a year so I probably have about 1,000 PvZs with this style.
http://drop.sc/169483 (peepmode, skip in 10 minutes for my PvZ) crappy replay, but extremely good game. This guy said he was a GM who was "embarrassed" and "glad he was smurfing" No clue if he was being honest but he put up a reasonable enough defense.
Basically I would like to find the weakness in this strategy (spare me the obvious macro mechanic slip ups, please.)
I've been having trouble finding a hole in my build, so I'd like to start a discussion about it. (I'm a crappy mid masters protoss, playing for fun, who has beaten GM zergs and loses in the other matchups)
5:36 scouts probe in his third >> makes 4 lings. build is now 36/36 before overlord. Drone count 27. 1 larva floating. start overlord... ...inject lands, larva capping the main. overlord progress 0/25. maybe twice that long on the third ...zero overlords made in the meantime. gassing frees 2 early supply with 4/2 larva floating... ...two drones built. larva count is now 3/1. *headdesk*
6:14 scouts nothing in protoss main >> makes evo chamber. 24 drones, 155 minerals, no larva. ...three seconds until 2x gas need filling. third base mineable in 12 seconds. third queen doesn't bother injecting
7:39 Ok, see the stargate + fourth gas >> takes two gas (to 4), then throws down 6 spores. Goes ahead with ling speed, lair, and +1 missile. Cuts roach warren. This gets us to 8 minutes, at which point we have 47 drones 150 minerals, and seventeen idle larva. Our army supply is one and a half. Our next choice is to leave the overlord behind the stargate (so the void ray turns around, which should buy us almost as much time as it supply caps us for)
9:30 Your stargate pressure hits. you run straight into a spore + queen, can't take them, and bail dealing no damage. He seriously droned for nine and a half minutes off a single zergling. ended with a dangerously low drone count, let you play 100% unopposed You could have build 2 gates at any point and won. Instead you're makign a mothership?
not convinced by this replay :p
wat.
If he droned behind two lings and I won the game that says more for the midgame strategy, not less.
Why are you giving play by play of the opening? "At 5:10 you make a supply depot, instead of going for the SCV Marine all-in, NOT CONVINCED" Would you say this to a Terran player who is showing you a unique build??
Are you just being sarcastic and my detector is off today? Apologize if thats the case, SCOOP sunday can SMD.
I've got more experience with that build now, and still love it.. really strong.
A few additional notes:
- this build is an auto-loss versus 2 or 3 bases fast mutas, fast as in "zerg makes no defensive units, straight into mutas". It's very risky for the Zerg, but he may be able to achieve it if he scouts your stargates in time.
- now I like to go 4 gates stargate. Previously I was going pure stargates and only 1 gate, but I find that with 3 additional gates, you can warp in some zealots which helps tremendously as meat shields against roach/hydras busts.
- some Zergs used the tactic of mass corruptors to catch and snippe the mothership off guard. In one game, I lost my MS 3 times. Despite this, you're guaranteed to kill a ton of corruptors. I'm not at all convinced it's trade efficient for the Zerg.
- the best compo I've found so far is voidrays, 5-6 carriers and the rest zealots + archons. Archons are really good to kill stacking corruptors, zealots melt hydras, and overall your ground army helps to tank vs mass infestors, while carriers do their damage..
- strangely, I'd say all my games are between 25 and 35' long. I've done that build a good dozen of times now, and I can't remember any game shorter or longer than that. Most of the time, it feels like the Zerg gives up around the 30' mark, just attempts a last attack and leaves ( despite his superior economy ).
On May 21 2012 04:09 roymarthyup wrote: the only counter to a heavy voidray+storm+mothership+some archons/gateway army ive found for zerg is if a zerg has many 200energy infestors and is able to be defensive on some spore crawlers and broodlords outrange templars protecting you from feedbacks when you attack each infestor can launch 8 infested terrans plus some launch fungals and 8 infested terrans for 2food is extremely food-effective and combined with fungal/corrupters/queens/hydras (for anti air) / some ultralisks thats really the only counter zerg has but it makes the game pretty even lategame at that point
That's no counter, just attack with your massive air force on the sides of the map where there are no spores, kill all his tech/expos and recall. If he counters, go for the base trade, with the amount of cannons you have it won't turn out too good for him.
Here are the various ways I know of to counter this strat:
- all-in / attack before the mothership is out: 5-6 voidrays aren't enough to defend. A front attack is out of question due to the cannons defense, which leaves fast mutas or fast drops/nydus. Fortunately, those builds aren't in the meta game, I've only seen them once.
- early scouting the dual stargates and going directly into mass corruptors: Zerg will have enough corruptors to kill the voidrays, and once he has air superiority he'll keep it. In particular, he can camp his corruptors on top of the stargates, so any air unit that gets out is insta killed. Toss then needs to warp stalkers ( but he has few gates ), or build mass cannons around the stargates, or transition to something else ( very hard with that build ).
- denying the fourth and starving the toss
Army composition doesn't matter, if toss can get his air fleet + templars/archons on 4+ bases, Zerg has basically lost.
Does pure mass corruptor with double upgrades from double spire really not beat this? o_O
I was laughing when I was watching the proleague game, because the zerg just didn't scout it all game and was still building things like roaches, a baneling nest, lings, etc. It really looked like if he just massed corruptors with solid upgrades he would stomp this build.
Maybe this has been proven wrong somewhere that I missed
On May 21 2012 22:26 -orb- wrote: Does pure mass corruptor with double upgrades from double spire really not beat this? o_O
I was laughing when I was watching the proleague game, because the zerg just didn't scout it all game and was still building things like roaches, a baneling nest, lings, etc. It really looked like if he just massed corruptors with solid upgrades he would stomp this build.
Maybe this has been proven wrong somewhere that I missed
Void rays beat corruptors cost for cost and supply for supply.
On May 21 2012 20:35 Nyast wrote: - this build is an auto-loss versus 2 or 3 bases fast mutas, fast as in "zerg makes no defensive units, straight into mutas". It's very risky for the Zerg, but he may be able to achieve it if he scouts your stargates in time.
Why do you feel this way? Do you mean like 7 minute Lair 2 base muta, 50 drone, all in style?
I've had trouble against this before as well, but I wouldn't call it "auto-loss"
I would categorize it as a "soft-counter" if anything, and pretty unsolved. I've only faces 2 base Muta play a few times and its cheese just hoping to catch you offguard, there are always triggers that I believe we could attempt to scout with an earlier Phoenix, Zealot Push, hidden probe, or even gateway timing attack.
If I scout no quick third and/or a gas Build I really think scouting is important.
I do agree of course that if you have 3 Voidrays over your natural and 8 Mutas fly into your main, that you are behind during that instant (but you are probably ahead in probes vs drones,) but the as soon as a good Phoenix count is established you can trade very well. However, don't overproduce Phoenix and lose to a Hydra followup timing attack. This is the kind of strategy that I have lost to before, but there were tons of mistakes I made and lots of things I could have done to improve my execution. If anything I would label very fast Muta a soft counter, with possible ways to beat it but I can't say with too much confidence until lots of trials.
On May 21 2012 22:26 -orb- wrote: Does pure mass corruptor with double upgrades from double spire really not beat this? o_O
I was laughing when I was watching the proleague game, because the zerg just didn't scout it all game and was still building things like roaches, a baneling nest, lings, etc. It really looked like if he just massed corruptors with solid upgrades he would stomp this build.
Maybe this has been proven wrong somewhere that I missed
Void rays beat corruptors cost for cost and supply for supply.
Right, but can't the corrupters be massed more easily by zerg than air units be massed by Protoss? I mean I guess the problem is if toss turtles over cannons and doesnt move out until 3 air attack 3 air armour mass carrier but there has to be a timing somewhere.
This thing is crazy man.... Zerg doesnt have any effective counter against VR and Carrier plus Mothership for defense..... We zerg need to think of sthing goodd..
On May 21 2012 04:09 roymarthyup wrote: the only counter to a heavy voidray+storm+mothership+some archons/gateway army ive found for zerg is if a zerg has many 200energy infestors and is able to be defensive on some spore crawlers and broodlords outrange templars protecting you from feedbacks when you attack each infestor can launch 8 infested terrans plus some launch fungals and 8 infested terrans for 2food is extremely food-effective and combined with fungal/corrupters/queens/hydras (for anti air) / some ultralisks thats really the only counter zerg has but it makes the game pretty even lategame at that point
That's no counter, just attack with your massive air force on the sides of the map where there are no spores, kill all his tech/expos and recall. If he counters, go for the base trade, with the amount of cannons you have it won't turn out too good for him.
Here are the various ways I know of to counter this strat:
- all-in / attack before the mothership is out: 5-6 voidrays aren't enough to defend. A front attack is out of question due to the cannons defense, which leaves fast mutas or fast drops/nydus. Fortunately, those builds aren't in the meta game, I've only seen them once.
- early scouting the dual stargates and going directly into mass corruptors: Zerg will have enough corruptors to kill the voidrays, and once he has air superiority he'll keep it. In particular, he can camp his corruptors on top of the stargates, so any air unit that gets out is insta killed. Toss then needs to warp stalkers ( but he has few gates ), or build mass cannons around the stargates, or transition to something else ( very hard with that build ).
- denying the fourth and starving the toss
Army composition doesn't matter, if toss can get his air fleet + templars/archons on 4+ bases, Zerg has basically lost.
The protoss can just recall to their base soon as u fungal plus infested terrans..
On May 22 2012 00:53 ZeromuS wrote: Right, but can't the corrupters be massed more easily by zerg than air units be massed by Protoss?
Just because your production mechanic is quicker doesn't mean you win the game, that would make PvZ pretty stupid. You are oversimplifying the case, and stating the obvious.
On May 22 2012 00:53 ZeromuS wrote: I mean I guess the problem is if toss turtles over cannons and doesnt move out until 3 air attack 3 air armour mass carrier but there has to be a timing somewhere.
On May 21 2012 20:35 Nyast wrote: - this build is an auto-loss versus 2 or 3 bases fast mutas, fast as in "zerg makes no defensive units, straight into mutas". It's very risky for the Zerg, but he may be able to achieve it if he scouts your stargates in time.
Why do you feel this way? Do you mean like 7 minute Lair 2 base muta, 50 drone, all in style?
I've had trouble against this before as well, but I wouldn't call it "auto-loss"
I would categorize it as a "soft-counter" if anything, and pretty unsolved. I've only faces 2 base Muta play a few times and its cheese just hoping to catch you offguard, there are always triggers that I believe we could attempt to scout with an earlier Phoenix, Zealot Push, hidden probe, or even gateway timing attack.
If I scout no quick third and/or a gas Build I really think scouting is important.
One guy did this to me: fast third into fast gas. Only few lings, no roaches, straight into gas into spire. By the time your 4 voidrays are out on the map, 10+ mutas arrive in your base and snippe the stargate's pylon(s). So if I remember correctly, that hits around the 10'-11' mark.
After the game, I asked him what triggered such a greedy/risky build. Nothing special, in fact he didn't even scout my 2 stargates, he did it blindly. He would have died to any form of pressure, that's for sure, but you can't pressure with that build.
You could definitely chrono a first phoenix and scout it in time, but in that game all the flags were green for a typical 3-bases defensive-roach style build, and sending a phoenix would have let the cat out of the bag too early while you can sometimes do some surprise damage with 4 voidrays if Zerg didn't scout you yet. But maybe you have to do it anyway to be safe, and forget about early harass other than snipping a few overlords, I don't know..
On May 21 2012 20:35 Nyast wrote: - this build is an auto-loss versus 2 or 3 bases fast mutas, fast as in "zerg makes no defensive units, straight into mutas". It's very risky for the Zerg, but he may be able to achieve it if he scouts your stargates in time.
Why do you feel this way? Do you mean like 7 minute Lair 2 base muta, 50 drone, all in style?
I've had trouble against this before as well, but I wouldn't call it "auto-loss"
I would categorize it as a "soft-counter" if anything, and pretty unsolved. I've only faces 2 base Muta play a few times and its cheese just hoping to catch you offguard, there are always triggers that I believe we could attempt to scout with an earlier Phoenix, Zealot Push, hidden probe, or even gateway timing attack.
If I scout no quick third and/or a gas Build I really think scouting is important.
One guy did this to me: fast third into fast gas. Only few lings, no roaches, straight into gas into spire. By the time your 4 voidrays are out on the map, 10+ mutas arrive in your base and snippe the stargate's pylon(s). So if I remember correctly, that hits around the 10'-11' mark.
After the game, I asked him what triggered such a greedy/risky build. Nothing special, in fact he didn't even scout my 2 stargates, he did it blindly. He would have died to any form of pressure, that's for sure, but you can't pressure with that build.
You could definitely chrono a first phoenix and scout it in time, but in that game all the flags were green for a typical 3-bases defensive-roach style build, and sending a phoenix would have let the cat out of the bag too early while you can sometimes do some surprise damage with 4 voidrays if Zerg didn't scout you yet. But maybe you have to do it anyway to be safe, and forgot about early harass other than snipping a few overlords, I don't know..
Ya definitely having Mutas snipe an Artosis Pylong is an auto-loss, haha. Sounds like a tough beat.
I think Stargate positioning is really important. I wouldn't worry too much about hiding it from an overlord scout in the corner of your base, especially given the speed buff, you are probably going to get scouted anyways.
I think the best position for the first two stargates is your main, but near the closest edge to the natural, so that a single highground cannon (which you would make anyways) can do lots of protection for your production facilities.
kinda like this (lol) x marks the spot for cannon, SG is Stargate, P is Pylon, etc
WG_P_WG SG_P_CORE SG_P_CORE this side is the main! ........X.............................this is the cliff!!.............. WG_X this side is the natural expansion! WG_P FGE_X
On May 22 2012 00:53 ZeromuS wrote: Right, but can't the corrupters be massed more easily by zerg than air units be massed by Protoss?
Just because your production mechanic is quicker doesn't mean you win the game, that would make PvZ pretty stupid. You are oversimplifying the case, and stating the obvious.
Ok, let me rephrase my concerns in a different way.
Let us say that the Zerg has 40 corrupters when you dont have a mothership yet. The zerg then kills half of your standing air army and loses his corrupters. Zerg then makes another 40 corrupters after the trade and the protoss having lost half of his air army then loses more of his air army. Isn't this a viable scenario? Its basically the same way we have seen mech from terran lose in the past. The zerg catches the army out and trades inefficiently BUT does enough damage that the next remax can be more efficient and do more damage and the mech army just kind of dies faster than it can rebuild and the zerg slowly gains an advantage.
On May 22 2012 00:53 ZeromuS wrote: I mean I guess the problem is if toss turtles over cannons and doesnt move out until 3 air attack 3 air armour mass carrier but there has to be a timing somewhere.
come on dude, lol
I don't see what you mean by this. If I sit there for 20 minutes massing an army off of 3 base I highly doubt that there isn't a chance for zerg to do something to me at some point in those 20 minutes or longer.
On May 22 2012 00:53 ZeromuS wrote: Right, but can't the corrupters be massed more easily by zerg than air units be massed by Protoss?
Just because your production mechanic is quicker doesn't mean you win the game, that would make PvZ pretty stupid. You are oversimplifying the case, and stating the obvious.
Ok, let me rephrase my concerns in a different way.
Let us say that the Zerg has 40 corrupters when you dont have a mothership yet. The zerg then kills half of your standing air army and loses his corrupters. Zerg then makes another 40 corrupters after the trade and the protoss having lost half of his air army then loses more of his air army. Isn't this a viable scenario? Its basically the same way we have seen mech from terran lose in the past. The zerg catches the army out and trades inefficiently BUT does enough damage that the next remax can be more efficient and do more damage and the mech army just kind of dies faster than it can rebuild and the zerg slowly gains an advantage.
Your entire credibility is shot when you say "Zerg has 40 corrupters when you dont have a mothership yet." The entire strategy is based on Getting early production of air fleet and mothership to secure additional bases, what you said, simply never happens, and it's obvious you didn't watch or pay attention to any replays.
What you said about Mech, is again, stating the obvious. Everyone knows that if you trade with mech a lot, you might win the game. That doesn't mean that Mech is not viable TvZ.
On May 22 2012 00:53 ZeromuS wrote: I mean I guess the problem is if toss turtles over cannons and doesnt move out until 3 air attack 3 air armour mass carrier but there has to be a timing somewhere.
come on dude, lol
I don't see what you mean by this. If I sit there for 20 minutes massing an army off of 3 base I highly doubt that there isn't a chance for zerg to do something to me at some point in those 20 minutes or longer.
What I meant is,
You didn't watch any replays, or analyzed them poorly. You didn't consider how the midgame plays out. You didn't consider the different endgame compositions, and the various transitions on/after 3-4 base. You didn't follow the discussion very well ITT.
You are talking about mass carriers for some reason when, I've never even went mass carrier before. My composition is always Void Ray heavy with various support units based on what I scout.
On May 22 2012 01:31 Fogetaboudit wrote: Ya definitely having Mutas snipe an Artosis Pylong is an auto-loss, haha. Sounds like a tough beat.
That wasn't an artosis plyon, I had 2. But thing is, your voidrays are somewhere on the map, MS is not out yet, and you only have a handful amount of stalkers, if any, and few gates to warp more. There isn't much you can do...
On May 22 2012 01:31 Fogetaboudit wrote: Ya definitely having Mutas snipe an Artosis Pylong is an auto-loss, haha. Sounds like a tough beat.
That wasn't an artosis plyon, I had 2. But thing is, your voidrays are somewhere on the map, MS is not out yet, and you only have a handful amount of stalkers, if any, and few gates to warp more. There isn't much you can do...
On May 21 2012 20:35 Nyast wrote: - this build is an auto-loss versus 2 or 3 bases fast mutas, fast as in "zerg makes no defensive units, straight into mutas". It's very risky for the Zerg, but he may be able to achieve it if he scouts your stargates in time.
Why do you feel this way? Do you mean like 7 minute Lair 2 base muta, 50 drone, all in style?
I've had trouble against this before as well, but I wouldn't call it "auto-loss"
I would categorize it as a "soft-counter" if anything, and pretty unsolved. I've only faces 2 base Muta play a few times and its cheese just hoping to catch you offguard, there are always triggers that I believe we could attempt to scout with an earlier Phoenix, Zealot Push, hidden probe, or even gateway timing attack.
If I scout no quick third and/or a gas Build I really think scouting is important.
One guy did this to me: fast third into fast gas. Only few lings, no roaches, straight into gas into spire. By the time your 4 voidrays are out on the map, 10+ mutas arrive in your base and snippe the stargate's pylon(s). So if I remember correctly, that hits around the 10'-11' mark.
After the game, I asked him what triggered such a greedy/risky build. Nothing special, in fact he didn't even scout my 2 stargates, he did it blindly. He would have died to any form of pressure, that's for sure, but you can't pressure with that build.
You could definitely chrono a first phoenix and scout it in time, but in that game all the flags were green for a typical 3-bases defensive-roach style build, and sending a phoenix would have let the cat out of the bag too early while you can sometimes do some surprise damage with 4 voidrays if Zerg didn't scout you yet. But maybe you have to do it anyway to be safe, and forgot about early harass other than snipping a few overlords, I don't know..
Ya definitely having Mutas snipe an Artosis Pylong is an auto-loss, haha. Sounds like a tough beat.
I think Stargate positioning is really important. I wouldn't worry too much about hiding it from an overlord scout in the corner of your base, especially given the speed buff, you are probably going to get scouted anyways.
I think the best position for the first two stargates is your main, but near the closest edge to the natural, so that a single highground cannon (which you would make anyways) can do lots of protection for your production facilities.
kinda like this (lol) x marks the spot for cannon, SG is Stargate, P is Pylon, etc
WG_P_WG SG_P_CORE SG_P_CORE this side is the main! ........X.............................this is the cliff!!.............. WG_X this side is the natural expansion! WG_P FGE_X
wall^^^
I'll eventuallly get around to taking a screen shot of a well made sim-city, but I was hoping this awesome drawing :D would be easy enough to at least consider.
Yeah I understood.. but a single cannon is probably not enough. Maybe 2. In any case, I'm starting to think it's a bad idea to rely on the stargates not being scouted. A chronoed phoenix as your first unit to hunt overlords and scout what he's doing may be enough to avoid this kind of scenario.
On May 22 2012 02:54 Nyast wrote: Yeah I understood.. but a single cannon is probably not enough. Maybe 2. In any case, I'm starting to think it's a bad idea to rely on the stargates not being scouted. A chronoed phoenix as your first unit to hunt overlords and scout what he's doing may be enough to avoid this kind of scenario.
definitely agree
I think its better for learning anyways when the Zerg scouts what your doing and tries to come up with the optimal counter composition or strategy.
On May 22 2012 02:54 Nyast wrote: Yeah I understood.. but a single cannon is probably not enough. Maybe 2. In any case, I'm starting to think it's a bad idea to rely on the stargates not being scouted. A chronoed phoenix as your first unit to hunt overlords and scout what he's doing may be enough to avoid this kind of scenario.
While Void Rays are still going to be the end-game core of the fleet, I actually think going for early Phoenix harass rather than Void Ray harass might be a valid option. Range (with Anion-Pulse Crystals) and speed, will make it very difficult to protect Overlords. Spores are only 7 range, so while they'll get hits in, with micro they become a minimal threat unless in ridiculous numbers. Both Mutas and drops become significantly weaker. Phoenix are weaker than Voids against Corruptors, but you'll have yours up much earlier.
I used to see a lot more Phoenix play (which I loved), but it seemed to fall out of favor. But now with the range upgrade, they seem much more difficult to deter with Spores. I think a big thing with them is ignoring workers and going for primarily Overlords to save energy, Queens when the opportunity is good, and Roaches only when necessary. You do become more vulnerable to ground based rushes, but that would be in the face of your harassment and if you have Energy stored up and every 50 Energy is one free Roach.
On May 22 2012 02:54 Nyast wrote: Yeah I understood.. but a single cannon is probably not enough. Maybe 2. In any case, I'm starting to think it's a bad idea to rely on the stargates not being scouted. A chronoed phoenix as your first unit to hunt overlords and scout what he's doing may be enough to avoid this kind of scenario.
While Void Rays are still going to be the end-game core of the fleet, I actually think going for early Phoenix harass rather than Void Ray harass might be a valid option. Range (with Anion-Pulse Crystals) and speed, will make it very difficult to protect Overlords. Spores are only 7 range, so while they'll get hits in, with micro they become a minimal threat unless in ridiculous numbers. Both Mutas and drops become significantly weaker. Phoenix are weaker than Voids against Corruptors, but you'll have yours up much earlier.
I used to see a lot more Phoenix play (which I loved), but it seemed to fall out of favor. But now with the range upgrade, they seem much more difficult to deter with Spores. I think a big thing with them is ignoring workers and going for primarily Overlords to save energy, Queens when the opportunity is good, and Roaches only when necessary. You do become more vulnerable to ground based rushes, but that would be in the face of your harassment and if you have Energy stored up and every 50 Energy is one free Roach.
So basically now you harrass with 5 phoenix, instead of 4 VR? If so then: Pros: - It hits earlier - Easier to snipe queens. - Better map-control - Perfect scouting of Z - Discourage muta-play (or if he still plays, you aleready have starting fleet) - Forces a lot more spores/queens
Cons: - No building damage - Forces Infestors (?)
You should be able to do 2 rounds of attack.
1. With initial 5 PHX 2. When your anion-pulse crystals and +1 will kick in (and you can do multi--pronged attack with 2 VR on the other side of map)
There's also something else to note about Phoenix pressure: you can attack queens very efficiently, and this disrupts the production cycles of the zerg. You can only get so many drones with Phoenix because of the low total energy at that early timing, and you can only really get one hatch down/force one cancel with early Voids, but you can almost assuredly pick off a couple queens and mess up the injects. Less injects=less larva=worse macro=smaller army at your doorstep.
It seems more efficient than killing half a dozen drones, which are way easier to replace for the Zerg. Figure you can get 1-2 Phoenixes, use the initial ones to clear the ovies near your base, and then go right towards their main when you hit 4 and have 1-2 more on the way. This way you scout immediately, check what the tech is, kill a queen, and move to the natural to repeat the process. Then you go to the 3rd, snipe the queen, and you've killed roughly half the production of the zerg, which really eats into their timings. You can back off and let shields regen on the phoenixes at that point, but still have them be active on the map checking for overlords that might have slipped through the crack, and they're always a threat to be able to snipe queens again further down the road or to be the foundation for countering Mutas.
For my money, I want Phoenixes first and Voids second, unless I'm using the Void specifically for defense. I would rather screw up the production than have a shot at canceling/killing a third, which good zergs just won't allow in most cases.
what type of opening do you guys do with this build? I like to open up the double gate zealot with +1 attack because I really don't need my cyber core early. I like to put them down at the same time and this attack seems to work well and force roaches while using a minimal amount of gas.
With airtoss playign defensive you are gonna loose alot to just mass roaches/ling ignoring your air and just sniping the nexus and remaxing to keep your eco low. Tbh i dont see it working. Even if you get your third up the zerg will at one point have 1 billion corrupters and you will die. Your army is also slow so him hitting your natural/3rd with roaches will make it even more difficult. thinking about it he could even just drop a nydus in ur main and you would have to react with probes. or overlord drop ur main and ur air army would be at ur 3rd defending.
On May 22 2012 20:26 Chillypill wrote: With airtoss playign defensive you are gonna loose alot to just mass roaches/ling ignoring your air and just sniping the nexus and remaxing to keep your eco low. Tbh i dont see it working. Even if you get your third up the zerg will at one point have 1 billion corrupters and you will die. Your army is also slow so him hitting your natural/3rd with roaches will make it even more difficult. thinking about it he could even just drop a nydus in ur main and you would have to react with probes. or overlord drop ur main and ur air army would be at ur 3rd defending.
Air is just too slow and fragile if you ask me
Have you.. like... even watched the replays ? Or read the OP ?
On May 22 2012 20:26 Chillypill wrote: With airtoss playign defensive you are gonna loose alot to just mass roaches/ling ignoring your air and just sniping the nexus and remaxing to keep your eco low. Tbh i dont see it working. Even if you get your third up the zerg will at one point have 1 billion corrupters and you will die. Your army is also slow so him hitting your natural/3rd with roaches will make it even more difficult. thinking about it he could even just drop a nydus in ur main and you would have to react with probes. or overlord drop ur main and ur air army would be at ur 3rd defending.
Air is just too slow and fragile if you ask me
I'm sorry, but did you even read 1 review of the build, or watched a single replay? I even don't have the words to describe how wrong you are. Please get familiar to the topic, and I'll gladly discuss it's weaknesses.
But roach and mass-corrupter is NOT counter to the build.
On May 22 2012 20:26 Chillypill wrote: With airtoss playign defensive you are gonna loose alot to just mass roaches/ling ignoring your air and just sniping the nexus and remaxing to keep your eco low. Tbh i dont see it working. Even if you get your third up the zerg will at one point have 1 billion corrupters and you will die. Your army is also slow so him hitting your natural/3rd with roaches will make it even more difficult. thinking about it he could even just drop a nydus in ur main and you would have to react with probes. or overlord drop ur main and ur air army would be at ur 3rd defending.
Air is just too slow and fragile if you ask me
Have you watched any replays?
That's why there is a mothership early on. Allows cloacking of the buildings as well as recall of your air army.
And FYI, corrupters are pretty useless against voidrays.
On May 22 2012 20:26 Chillypill wrote: With airtoss playign defensive you are gonna loose alot to just mass roaches/ling ignoring your air and just sniping the nexus and remaxing to keep your eco low. Tbh i dont see it working. Even if you get your third up the zerg will at one point have 1 billion corrupters and you will die. Your army is also slow so him hitting your natural/3rd with roaches will make it even more difficult. thinking about it he could even just drop a nydus in ur main and you would have to react with probes. or overlord drop ur main and ur air army would be at ur 3rd defending.
Air is just too slow and fragile if you ask me
Please read this thread (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=338557) before posting in this discussion any more. This post doesn't add anything at all to the discussion. You simply dismiss a strategy as unviable without referring to any of the information that's already been posted regarding it, and without introducing any information of your own that would back up your statements.
On May 22 2012 20:12 -MoOsE- wrote: what type of opening do you guys do with this build? I like to open up the double gate zealot with +1 attack because I really don't need my cyber core early. I like to put them down at the same time and this attack seems to work well and force roaches while using a minimal amount of gas.
Right now I usually start of:
FFE > SG> Beacon>+SG
@100% Core +1 Air Att & +1 Shields (approx at same time) @4 VR - Harass zerg's 3rd or Nat. @100% Becon - MS + Prepare for 3rd, @6 VR - 2 VR on main, 4 on nat or 3rd (check what tech he got Hydra, muta or infestor) - Very important is not to lose more than 1 VR. @100% MS - 3rd should be almost done, so i just float it over.
Then transition into additional tech HT if Hydra/infestor. DT (into Archon) if Corrupter, HT's later.
It's basic, so it varies depending how the game goes, but it's something like that.
Thanks for this..this works great at diamond/low master level..it just all comes down to mining from 3bases most of the games (thus you need to be able to secure a fourth..but this is easy with minirals overflowing and spamming cannons..most of the time)
Its funny how people say that there is no way this can work.. it works fucking great, but it is this linear thinking of people that makes builds like this not the new metagame...because skytoss has great potential.
On May 22 2012 02:54 Nyast wrote: Yeah I understood.. but a single cannon is probably not enough. Maybe 2. In any case, I'm starting to think it's a bad idea to rely on the stargates not being scouted. A chronoed phoenix as your first unit to hunt overlords and scout what he's doing may be enough to avoid this kind of scenario.
While Void Rays are still going to be the end-game core of the fleet, I actually think going for early Phoenix harass rather than Void Ray harass might be a valid option. Range (with Anion-Pulse Crystals) and speed, will make it very difficult to protect Overlords. Spores are only 7 range, so while they'll get hits in, with micro they become a minimal threat unless in ridiculous numbers. Both Mutas and drops become significantly weaker. Phoenix are weaker than Voids against Corruptors, but you'll have yours up much earlier.
I used to see a lot more Phoenix play (which I loved), but it seemed to fall out of favor. But now with the range upgrade, they seem much more difficult to deter with Spores. I think a big thing with them is ignoring workers and going for primarily Overlords to save energy, Queens when the opportunity is good, and Roaches only when necessary. You do become more vulnerable to ground based rushes, but that would be in the face of your harassment and if you have Energy stored up and every 50 Energy is one free Roach.
So basically now you harrass with 5 phoenix, instead of 4 VR? If so then: Pros: - It hits earlier - Easier to snipe queens. - Better map-control - Perfect scouting of Z - Discourage muta-play (or if he still plays, you aleready have starting fleet) - Forces a lot more spores/queens
Cons: - No building damage - Forces Infestors (?)
You should be able to do 2 rounds of attack.
1. With initial 5 PHX 2. When your anion-pulse crystals and +1 will kick in (and you can do multi--pronged attack with 2 VR on the other side of map)
Correct me if i'm wrong.
Yeah, that's the theory. The biggest fear I'd have is that they'd just say screw it and go roach on you, but you could delay +1 for Warpgate, cancel your Phoenixes for a warp in round if needed. Losing building damage isn't that huge, as at 3 base it's going to be hard to take one down anyways.
Also Infestors (while great units) are probably the preferred Zerg response, as it benefits them to delay attacking to build up energy which gives you time to build up your fleet.
I've been playing this style a fair bit vs Zerg lately and I've been growing to like it more and more as I get more familiar with it. Something I've been doing after I get my third up is just straight up going for High Templar fairly quickly, as you'll either need energy for Storm (as well as researching storm asap) or Archons to take care of those Corrupters.
As a result, I've been transitioning into Carriers once I have a healthy Void Ray count. If they choose to go Hydras vs Carriers you giggle like a little girl, and if they choose to go Corrupters the Archons just rip them to shreds... Since they have to focus fire the Carriers in order to take them down, they clump up like mad allowing the Archons to mow those Corrupters down at a frightening speed.
It's been working for me nicely and it's a lot of fun to play... As it is definitely a rage inducer. =D
On May 22 2012 20:08 ineversmile wrote: There's also something else to note about Phoenix pressure: you can attack queens very efficiently, and this disrupts the production cycles of the zerg. You can only get so many drones with Phoenix because of the low total energy at that early timing, and you can only really get one hatch down/force one cancel with early Voids, but you can almost assuredly pick off a couple queens and mess up the injects. Less injects=less larva=worse macro=smaller army at your doorstep.
It seems more efficient than killing half a dozen drones, which are way easier to replace for the Zerg. Figure you can get 1-2 Phoenixes, use the initial ones to clear the ovies near your base, and then go right towards their main when you hit 4 and have 1-2 more on the way. This way you scout immediately, check what the tech is, kill a queen, and move to the natural to repeat the process. Then you go to the 3rd, snipe the queen, and you've killed roughly half the production of the zerg, which really eats into their timings. You can back off and let shields regen on the phoenixes at that point, but still have them be active on the map checking for overlords that might have slipped through the crack, and they're always a threat to be able to snipe queens again further down the road or to be the foundation for countering Mutas.
For my money, I want Phoenixes first and Voids second, unless I'm using the Void specifically for defense. I would rather screw up the production than have a shot at canceling/killing a third, which good zergs just won't allow in most cases.
Yeah, killing Drones (unless you kill a lot of them quickly) is a waste. You have to remember that Zerg isn't restricted to one building to build Drones, so they recoup their losses much quicker than other races. However, forcing them to rebuild a Queen means that they lose 50 seconds of building Drones. Don't forget that you don't only screw up larva injects, but also creep tumors which is huge as well.
Once range is upgraded, I would imagine that it's going to be really difficult to keep Overlords safe and almost impossible to scout with them. Follow that up with some Warp pylons to warp in Zealots to control Drone/Zergling scouting, and you get a lot of map control.
On May 23 2012 15:07 CrAzEdMiKe wrote: I've been playing this style a fair bit vs Zerg lately and I've been growing to like it more and more as I get more familiar with it. Something I've been doing after I get my third up is just straight up going for High Templar fairly quickly, as you'll either need energy for Storm (as well as researching storm asap) or Archons to take care of those Corrupters.
As a result, I've been transitioning into Carriers once I have a healthy Void Ray count. If they choose to go Hydras vs Carriers you giggle like a little girl, and if they choose to go Corrupters the Archons just rip them to shreds... Since they have to focus fire the Carriers in order to take them down, they clump up like mad allowing the Archons to mow those Corrupters down at a frightening speed.
It's been working for me nicely and it's a lot of fun to play... As it is definitely a rage inducer. =D
Don't forget to snag a few Sentries for Guardian Shield.
Templars are a great transition afterwards though, both High and Dark, as you can remax on them insanely quickly. Just don't forget to start building Gateways rather than Cannons once they get an opposing fleet up.
I must admit: I am stunned. I always wanted to find a way out of the annoying lategame against Brood Lords and well, here it is. The fast Mothership really gives you a great defense and even offensive potential because of the mass recall. Just tried this build and I am surprised that it is even strong against mass Hydras. Infestors are of course a big threat to this build, so High Templars and Feedback are very important in the lategame.
Thanks a lot for this build, I will try to experiment with it. :D
In the times I've done this, I've actually opened 3 Stargates on 2 bases and have done a 5 Void Ray + 3 Phoenix (and 3 Phoenix at a time rallying) timing attack to give me an opportunity to take my 3rd base and deal a lot of damage/force a lot of crappy units out of Zerg. While I'm not sure that's the most amazing way to play, it at least outright won some games if they underprepared for the attack. It relied purely on micro, so days where my micro was spot-on I'd lose no units and kill a hatch plus about 5 queens.
Most of all, I felt this option was the most safe against Muta, Roach and Infestor builds from Zerg. Using Void Rays only can result in a lot of probe death unless you have a reliable way to scout Muta and switch heavily into Phoenix usage. I'm also not sure how well you would fare against somebody going really fast 3-base Infestor without some sort of solid 2-base timing to cripple Zerg if he cuts corners. Kinda seems like tons upon tons of Infested Terrans would either kill a Nexus or trade very favorably with your Void Rays. There's also a big timing in which I think you'd be weak due to not having enough energy on the Mothership for a vortex.
My build also skipped the Mothership until later because I felt like I needed Carriers and Phoenix more quickly to deal with Hydralisk timings.
Secondly, I feel like builds such as this one and my own of similar concept work better on Zergs that have no idea what is going on. It's pretty much guaranteed that even mid Master or high Master Zergs have seen builds like this maybe a couple times, ever, and never bothered to figure out the intricacies. So I feel like it's a ladder or best-of-X build, rather than a solid, go-to build for every game against opponents that have seen it and studied it before. There's nothing wrong with that, but I think you might get a lot of crap because of this.
Lastly, I feel like most people have a poor understanding of how to support Carriers. Void Rays and Phoenix can support Carriers but only for so long. You need some form of ground and air AOE so you can repel Corrupters, punish them for clumping and still be able to deal with Infestors and Infested Terran swarms. My answer has always been Storm or Archons. Many people die because they stay on Carrier, Void Ray, Phoenix for too long, including pro games like Lure vs YugiOh(?).
On May 27 2012 09:12 SidewinderSC2 wrote: Lastly, I feel like most people have a poor understanding of how to support Carriers. Void Rays and Phoenix can support Carriers but only for so long. You need some form of ground and air AOE so you can repel Corrupters, punish them for clumping and still be able to deal with Infestors and Infested Terran swarms. My answer has always been Storm or Archons. Many people die because they stay on Carrier, Void Ray, Phoenix for too long, including pro games like Lure vs YugiOh(?).
Personally, I only add archons when I reach my 200/200 and have a solid fourth established. I feel that before that, dumping my gas into archons ( or templars ) makes my air army too weak in numbers, and it can be defeated by mass corruptors/infestors.
My plan now looks like this: - I open 1 stargate into phoenixes, for scouting ( vs fast mutas ) and snipping overlords/queens - I immediately get a fleet beacon and drop my 2nd stargate. From now on, I transition to full voidrays - when my mothership is around 50% done, I get my third and start to get mass cannons there. I also solidify my natural. - once the mothership is out, I move it to my third. I start carefully start harassing with voidrays. If I spot hydras, infestors or corruptors, I'll go back to play defensively for a while. - once I have 8+ voidrays, I start to mix in some carriers. I usually get 4 stargates by the time my 3rd is well established, and produce half-half voidrays/carriers. I also crank up my air upgrades by getting a second core. - once I reach a threatening looking number of carriers and voidrays ( 5-6 carriers, 12+ voidrays ) I start to get my fourth. I'll also attempt some expo snipping using recall. - at this point I start to mix in some templars/archons to complete my compo. I sacrifice zealots by doing run-bys if I still have zealots left ( note: I do warp zealots on 4+ gates in the mid-game when I see hydras/roaches pushes. They help a ton to tank for your voidrays ).
@Welmu: When did the infestors attack you? In the mid or late game? It's interesting to know because I still have to find out what is the best time to get High Templars. And against mass infestors you have to get a high number of HTs to feedback those nasty infestors.
On May 27 2012 22:16 Welmu wrote: I tried this few times and both times big mass of infestors just destroyed it totally
Were you attacking? Were you defending? Around what time? Did you recall? Did you tech to High Templar?
Those are my primary questions regarding being "totally destroyed" by infestors... And I do believe that this build should blind tech to High Templar, as they basically help deal with anything that will be threatening to your Void Rays/Carriers.
By the way: How do you incorporate a Robo into this build or do you even build one? Get it after the first two Stargates or maybe later? Yesterday I got a Robo after my 3rd for some observers to deny creep spread and also to intercept the attack paths of Zergs army.
On May 27 2012 23:19 Bahajinbo wrote: By the way: How do you incorporate a Robo into this build or do you even build one? Get it after the first two Stargates or maybe later? Yesterday I got a Robo after my 3rd for some observers to deny creep spread and also to intercept the attack paths of Zergs army.
you said it I get mine sometime after my third is up, mostly just for observer for the reasons you mentioned. You can throw up a BAy/ seocond robo when your fourth is making against dedicated infestor/Hydra/Queen.
Defending when zerg was on three bases around 14 minutes mark, I had a lot of cannons + few carriers + a lot void rays and both time Zergs have like ~13 Infestors and of course there were other units like roach/hydra/ling in combination
On May 28 2012 04:31 Welmu wrote: Defending when zerg was on three bases around 14 minutes mark, I had a lot of cannons + few carriers + a lot void rays and both time Zergs have like ~13 Infestors and of course there were other units like roach/hydra/ling in combination
Where was your mothership? It sound's like your micro was definitely terrible, tough to say for sure without seeing a replay. When I lose to early timings its always been hold able with better execution.
On May 28 2012 04:31 Welmu wrote: Defending when zerg was on three bases around 14 minutes mark, I had a lot of cannons + few carriers + a lot void rays and both time Zergs have like ~13 Infestors and of course there were other units like roach/hydra/ling in combination
Where was your mothership? It sound's like your micro was definitely terrible, tough to say for sure without seeing a replay. When I lose to early timings its always been hold able with better execution.
Er you know who Welmu is right? Also, i wouldn't say 14 minutes with 13 infestors counts for an early timing.
Im not really sure about timings, but to say once more zergs attacked on 3-4 bases with big infestor count and I had mostly void rays/some carriers/mothership done in one game and not done in one and I used void rays to pick off drones and harass a lot while building up big air army in behind and getting a lot of cannons, but both times I just got crushed by big Zerg army and mostly due big infestor counts pretty early in game. I can try searching for a replay tomorrow ^^
On May 28 2012 04:31 Welmu wrote: Defending when zerg was on three bases around 14 minutes mark, I had a lot of cannons + few carriers + a lot void rays and both time Zergs have like ~13 Infestors and of course there were other units like roach/hydra/ling in combination
Where was your mothership? It sound's like your micro was definitely terrible, tough to say for sure without seeing a replay. When I lose to early timings its always been hold able with better execution.
On May 28 2012 04:31 Welmu wrote: Defending when zerg was on three bases around 14 minutes mark, I had a lot of cannons + few carriers + a lot void rays and both time Zergs have like ~13 Infestors and of course there were other units like roach/hydra/ling in combination
Where was your mothership? It sound's like your micro was definitely terrible, tough to say for sure without seeing a replay. When I lose to early timings its always been hold able with better execution.
Also, i wouldn't say 14 minutes with 13 infestors counts for an early timing.
On May 28 2012 05:47 Welmu wrote: Im not really sure about timings, but to say once more zergs attacked on 3-4 bases with big infestor count and I had mostly void rays/some carriers/mothership done in one game and not done in one and I used void rays to pick off drones and harass a lot while building up big air army in behind and getting a lot of cannons, but both times I just got crushed by big Zerg army and mostly due big infestor counts pretty early in game. I can try searching for a replay tomorrow ^^
sorry to hear.
You should never be in a position to lose your army, it's like a mech army, super expensive, strong in numbers.
If he took the fight to your side of the map, with only infestors, and he beat Stargate units/ mothership support/ many cannons, with defensive positioning, and beat it with just infestors I would really like to see how the battle turned looked so I could study the game.
Of course you will lose your army if your poking around the middle of the map versus mass fungal and no recall, I hope thats not what you are referring to.
On May 28 2012 04:31 Welmu wrote: Defending when zerg was on three bases around 14 minutes mark, I had a lot of cannons + few carriers + a lot void rays and both time Zergs have like ~13 Infestors and of course there were other units like roach/hydra/ling in combination
Where was your mothership? It sound's like your micro was definitely terrible, tough to say for sure without seeing a replay. When I lose to early timings its always been hold able with better execution.
On May 28 2012 04:31 Welmu wrote: Defending when zerg was on three bases around 14 minutes mark, I had a lot of cannons + few carriers + a lot void rays and both time Zergs have like ~13 Infestors and of course there were other units like roach/hydra/ling in combination
Where was your mothership? It sound's like your micro was definitely terrible, tough to say for sure without seeing a replay. When I lose to early timings its always been hold able with better execution.
Also, i wouldn't say 14 minutes with 13 infestors counts for an early timing.
I would. Semantics.
Don't be snide. Welmu is a well known pro player. Calling his micro "definitely terrible" is not appropriate.
On May 28 2012 04:31 Welmu wrote: Defending when zerg was on three bases around 14 minutes mark, I had a lot of cannons + few carriers + a lot void rays and both time Zergs have like ~13 Infestors and of course there were other units like roach/hydra/ling in combination
Where was your mothership? It sound's like your micro was definitely terrible, tough to say for sure without seeing a replay. When I lose to early timings its always been hold able with better execution.
Er you know who Welmu is right?
no, "sorry"
On May 28 2012 05:38 NrGmonk wrote:
On May 28 2012 05:25 Fogetaboudit wrote:
On May 28 2012 04:31 Welmu wrote: Defending when zerg was on three bases around 14 minutes mark, I had a lot of cannons + few carriers + a lot void rays and both time Zergs have like ~13 Infestors and of course there were other units like roach/hydra/ling in combination
Where was your mothership? It sound's like your micro was definitely terrible, tough to say for sure without seeing a replay. When I lose to early timings its always been hold able with better execution.
Also, i wouldn't say 14 minutes with 13 infestors counts for an early timing.
I would. Semantics.
Don't be snide. Welmu is a well known pro player. Calling his micro "definitely terrible" is not appropriate.
I said that what it "sounds like" based on his own paragraph. There is nothing else to go on at this point. My language was probably too harsh but taking it out of context is pretty stupid and adds nothing. Go away
On May 28 2012 04:31 Welmu wrote: Defending when zerg was on three bases around 14 minutes mark, I had a lot of cannons + few carriers + a lot void rays and both time Zergs have like ~13 Infestors and of course there were other units like roach/hydra/ling in combination
Where was your mothership? It sound's like your micro was definitely terrible, tough to say for sure without seeing a replay. When I lose to early timings its always been hold able with better execution.
Er you know who Welmu is right?
no, "sorry"
On May 28 2012 05:38 NrGmonk wrote:
On May 28 2012 05:25 Fogetaboudit wrote:
On May 28 2012 04:31 Welmu wrote: Defending when zerg was on three bases around 14 minutes mark, I had a lot of cannons + few carriers + a lot void rays and both time Zergs have like ~13 Infestors and of course there were other units like roach/hydra/ling in combination
Where was your mothership? It sound's like your micro was definitely terrible, tough to say for sure without seeing a replay. When I lose to early timings its always been hold able with better execution.
Also, i wouldn't say 14 minutes with 13 infestors counts for an early timing.
I would. Semantics.
Don't be snide. Welmu is a well known pro player. Calling his micro "definitely terrible" is not appropriate.
Not everybody is following the scene very closely. Welmu might be known, but he's not a superstar that "everybody" knows.
On May 28 2012 04:31 Welmu wrote: Defending when zerg was on three bases around 14 minutes mark, I had a lot of cannons + few carriers + a lot void rays and both time Zergs have like ~13 Infestors and of course there were other units like roach/hydra/ling in combination
Where was your mothership? It sound's like your micro was definitely terrible, tough to say for sure without seeing a replay. When I lose to early timings its always been hold able with better execution.
Er you know who Welmu is right?
no, "sorry"
On May 28 2012 05:38 NrGmonk wrote:
On May 28 2012 05:25 Fogetaboudit wrote:
On May 28 2012 04:31 Welmu wrote: Defending when zerg was on three bases around 14 minutes mark, I had a lot of cannons + few carriers + a lot void rays and both time Zergs have like ~13 Infestors and of course there were other units like roach/hydra/ling in combination
Where was your mothership? It sound's like your micro was definitely terrible, tough to say for sure without seeing a replay. When I lose to early timings its always been hold able with better execution.
Also, i wouldn't say 14 minutes with 13 infestors counts for an early timing.
I would. Semantics.
Don't be snide. Welmu is a well known pro player. Calling his micro "definitely terrible" is not appropriate.
That is a bit of an exaggeration, and a pro player should know to link us to a replay so we can better know what he is talking about.
On May 28 2012 04:31 Welmu wrote: Defending when zerg was on three bases around 14 minutes mark, I had a lot of cannons + few carriers + a lot void rays and both time Zergs have like ~13 Infestors and of course there were other units like roach/hydra/ling in combination
Where was your mothership? It sound's like your micro was definitely terrible, tough to say for sure without seeing a replay. When I lose to early timings its always been hold able with better execution.
Er you know who Welmu is right?
no, "sorry"
On May 28 2012 05:38 NrGmonk wrote:
On May 28 2012 05:25 Fogetaboudit wrote:
On May 28 2012 04:31 Welmu wrote: Defending when zerg was on three bases around 14 minutes mark, I had a lot of cannons + few carriers + a lot void rays and both time Zergs have like ~13 Infestors and of course there were other units like roach/hydra/ling in combination
Where was your mothership? It sound's like your micro was definitely terrible, tough to say for sure without seeing a replay. When I lose to early timings its always been hold able with better execution.
Also, i wouldn't say 14 minutes with 13 infestors counts for an early timing.
I would. Semantics.
Don't be snide. Welmu is a well known pro player. Calling his micro "definitely terrible" is not appropriate.
That is a bit of an exaggeration, and a pro player should know to link us to a replay so we can better know what he is talking about.
He also is one of the few pros who frequently posts on tl. Anyways, I would still like to see the replay if he has it. Welmu did say "defending" in his post, and this is just me guessing, but with enough infestors and units you might be able to tank the cannon fire and just fungal to death the air fleet (with 14 infestors + other units this seems reasonable) even if the mother ship was there. I am not certain about this but if a zerg was smart enough it seems like he could kill your air army by just bringing the fight to you (so the recalling out of fungal does not work), after the air units are dead the zerg can just pull back his infestors. Again i am not sure if this is what Welmu is talking about but it seems like something that at least needs to be considered.
What is the exaggeration... Welmu is a professional player. If you have a 19 page thread on TL about a strategy you are supporting you should probably know about an extremely talented protoss player and not assume he has terrible micro when trying your strategy.
On May 28 2012 12:16 Venomsflame wrote: What is the exaggeration... Welmu is a professional player. If you have a 19 page thread on TL about a strategy you are supporting you should probably know about an extremely talented protoss player and not assume he has terrible micro when trying your strategy.
The exaggeration is that he is well known, I thought that was fairly obvious.
I don't know most people in this community, so I treat most of them equally. I also shared a strategy that I have been having an absurd amount of success with. I don't see the problem here.
I already said my language was probably too harsh (we still don't know) but you guys need to calm down a little bit.
On May 28 2012 12:16 Venomsflame wrote: What is the exaggeration... Welmu is a professional player. If you have a 19 page thread on TL about a strategy you are supporting you should probably know about an extremely talented protoss player and not assume he has terrible micro when trying your strategy.
The exaggeration is that he is well known, I thought that was fairly obvious.
I don't know most people in this community, so I treat most of them equally. I also shared a strategy that I have been having an absurd amount of success with. I don't see the problem here.
I already said my language was probably too harsh (we still don't know) but you guys need to calm down a little bit.
There are some posts where you sound kinda pedantic (imho).
As any comunity anywhere, there are members who have contributed a lot. You say it by yourself, you "don't know most people in the comunity". So if you are new, or dk the active members, then please have respect. "I don't see the problem here". You talked to a well known pro like if he was a scrub, and sent "away" one of the few active protoss quality contributors.
Any strat may have high win% at certain level. But to be a really valid strat, there is nothing better to be tested at top skill level, to see if the strat is rightfully good, or if it just depends of the player limitations. So if you care about your strat get into mainstream level, there is nothing better to get a pro testing it, you should be happy.
On May 28 2012 12:16 Venomsflame wrote: What is the exaggeration... Welmu is a professional player. If you have a 19 page thread on TL about a strategy you are supporting you should probably know about an extremely talented protoss player and not assume he has terrible micro when trying your strategy.
The exaggeration is that he is well known, I thought that was fairly obvious.
I don't know most people in this community, so I treat most of them equally. I also shared a strategy that I have been having an absurd amount of success with. I don't see the problem here.
I already said my language was probably too harsh (we still don't know) but you guys need to calm down a little bit.
He is well known. That isn't an exaggeration, he's a pro player signed to a team. Welmu replied and was very polite, so did Monk who was told to 'go away.' Not acceptable, if you want pro players and high level amateurs like Monk to post in these threads show some respect. If you are like me and you get most of your new builds from these forums from people like monk and kcdc then you value high level input.
All of your posts in this thread have been sarcastic and condescending and it doesn't sit well with most forum users.
Welmu - I think a lot of people here would like to see that replay if you ever find it! Keep fighting.
so 4 votes for "well-known" 3 votes for "kind of an exaggeration"
how about realizing that this is a relative thing, and doesn't really matter.
Again, apologies for the harsh language, it's not my intent to insult someone. (But it's still taken pretty poorly out of context, by Monk) I meant to make an educated guess that the lack of success might be from a poor engagement, but of course we don't know for sure.
Hi all, very nice to see some Pro posting in this thread, with their experience with this build. And Forget, please, I thank you for introducing this nice strategy, but insulting pro players and arguing with Monk is not putting you in a good light. It is obvious, that this build has it's flaws and it can be beatable, but to find out where it fails, should come with analytic approach, to find weak spots.
But I'm here for a little update The 5 phoenix harass is extremely good, it disrupts zerg's production cycles by a lot!
Earlier I thought, that you should do 2 rounds of attack, first with initial 5 and then when +1 and APC kick in. BUT. As it turned out, you get your +1 already with the first 5 phoenix. So sniping queens is your primary target, killing overlords is also very nice, because all the new larva will be spent on them, and there are NO injects made (if you took out all the queens). Anion Pulse Crystals usually finish when he already laid down spores, and this is the best part, because with new range you usually wave angles of attack not covered by them, the thing you should be careful is not to lose your graviton-beam lifting phoenix, cuz it's usually closest. I'm really thinking of adding 2 more phoenix for the second round of attack. So what happens with the zerg, when you hit (perfect scenario): You kill all his queens and food-block him. New larva goes into overlords. Drones will go into spores. After the queens are live again, you do a second round with APC and do the same thing again. In one game I managed to get 2 rounds of queens, ~10 ovies, and forced 3 spores/hatch. And though he had the infestation pit, he could't get those out quickly, due to food block. Awesome, just awesome.
Alright sorry I couldnt post it yesterday but here is one game vs MouzCCbiGs http://drop.sc/187407/d . It was my first time trying it out and I obviously made some mistakes, but I think its still good example how easily it can be beaten by Zerg.
On May 28 2012 15:20 Welmu wrote: Alright sorry I couldnt post it yesterday but here is one game vs MouzCCbiGs http://drop.sc/187407/d . It was my first time trying it out and I obviously made some mistakes, but I think its still good example how easily it can be beaten by Zerg.
I always appreciate pros offering feedback and stuff on these kinds of threads. So thanks Welmu! <3
But with that said, I think it needs to be noted that 99% of people play this game to have fun rather than trying to earn a living. Even if you win on ladder with a cool build just because your opponent didn't expect it, rather than because you had a super-solid plan, I think it's still reasonable to call it "viable" because it's "viable" for the 99% of people that just want to have fun. Pro players should obviously be solving their own problems and making their own builds that work for their skill level.
And secondly, there are a ton of "standard" builds out there that you'll see pros all the time that outright lose to X or Y build/tactic/composition. Just because they lose to it doesn't mean that's what every opponent is going to do against it. And with every build, the way it's operated, the way units are micro'ed and the decisions that are made within the game often make for dramatically improved or reduced effectiveness.
So, long story short, I don't think anybody should call a build bad (or not "viable".. whatever) just because they lost with it, or just because a pro wouldn't use it. 99% of players aren't pro, and just want to come on TL to look for a cool build they can use in their ladder games. I think if a build has a good idea behind it, or even wins in Masters with reliability, I'd say it's worth posting. Posting criticism purely to help the build grow should be welcomed, and posts that just say "this is bad" really don't add anything useful to the conversation, assuming it's met the prior criteria I mentioned.
On May 28 2012 15:20 Welmu wrote: Alright sorry I couldnt post it yesterday but here is one game vs MouzCCbiGs http://drop.sc/187407/d . It was my first time trying it out and I obviously made some mistakes, but I think its still good example how easily it can be beaten by Zerg.
Thanks for the replay! It's always nice to view a high level game. Sorry about my language earlier, I obviously didn't mean to offend anyone, Monk tends to troll me a lot.
as for the game:
why are you making 3 Stargates? My build is 2 stargates on 2 base, that's all I can support with constant production while teching to MS and getting air upgrades going. I prefer 1 SG > Fleet Beacon > second Stargate > Mothership Asap
at 12:30 you have no idea where his tech lies, and just begin the Fleet Beacon. Your mothership should almost be completed at this time.
You run into chain fungals, and lose 2 Voidrays. It's really important to not lose any units, but okay we all make mistakes. I would like to see 1 phoenix to identify the threat. Once Fungal is on the field we need to gtfo!!!
At 15 minutes he is preparing an attack at your third. You throw down a 4th and 5th Stargate. This is like an antitiming, as you should be producing out of 4 Stargates right now.
Your mothership is not part of the battle, and you have very little cannon support at your natural. You also have a VoidRay Harassing the main, which is always nice, but it would be better with your army adding to the total firepower. You have 9 Voidrays, 1 carrier, and no Mothership fighting against infestors in the middle of the map (okay not the middle exactly, but you are not using architecture or ramps to your advantage,) with idle units not participating in the battle. everything needs to be well spread and positioned defensively. You let him snipe the cannons without having your army in place, then you went army vs army too late without the help of any sort of static defense or mothership which is the entire point of my strategy
You lose like 10 voidRays which are fighting on their own out in the middle, and the game spirals out of control.
Things I would consider:
Faster Mothership (like way faster, very crucial defensive unit) Scouting Phoenix (need to identify where zergs gas is going, Mutas, hydra drops, infestors, all have very different responses but can all be held) More Optimal Static defense (3/4 cannons at natural ramp, 1 in main on highground, less at third but clumped tighter) More optimal engagement (army and mothership and cannons at the same time vs zerg army, not zerg army vs cannons then zerg army vs half of protoss army without using map architecture to your advantage)
Mothership pops at 16 minutes just in time to see the swarm invasion, poor momma wasn't there to defend everything.
I can tell that your an amazing player based on your mechanics and I feel like if you watch the game again and really tried to optimize your defense, you would have held easily.
Here is how I would try to engage. At 15:30 I would have a Mothership and all of My Air units together splitting the difference between my natural and third, as soon as he commits to dumping energy into infested Terrans, I would attack move and try to hold my naturals ramp. You will snipe up most of the Infested Terrans before they even hatch, you will cloak everything and have micro opportunities to snipe overseers. You will also have a vortex at your disposal. When your air units are not scattered everywhere, and are positioned very optimally to deal all of the damage in a focused area (the natural ramp in this case), the zerg units just melt. Also you missed a chance to forcefield your natural ramp which would have slowed everything down temporarily and at least given you time to position more optimally. Also, you have 3 zealots which are holding a watchtower but they should be in the fight along with whatever you can warp in at the last minute. Honestly I don't even think that battle would have been close if you engaged better/ had the composition, that zerg army at 15 minutes is just not scary.
On May 28 2012 05:47 Welmu wrote: Im not really sure about timings, but to say once more zergs attacked on 3-4 bases with big infestor count and I had mostly void rays/some carriers/mothership done in one game and not done in one and I used void rays to pick off drones and harass a lot while building up big air army in behind and getting a lot of cannons, but both times I just got crushed by big Zerg army and mostly due big infestor counts pretty early in game. I can try searching for a replay tomorrow ^^
sorry to hear.
You should never be in a position to lose your army, it's like a mech army, super expensive, strong in numbers.
If he took the fight to your side of the map, with only infestors, and he beat Stargate units/ mothership support/ many cannons, with defensive positioning, and beat it with just infestors I would really like to see how the battle turned looked so I could study the game.
Of course you will lose your army if your poking around the middle of the map versus mass fungal and no recall, I hope thats not what you are referring to.
I gotta say I think I nailed it here, we lost 2 VoidRays, and a third Voidray was not in battle.
While he had pretty much only infestors and won the fight, you didn't have a mothership or enough cannons, or a good engagement, or defensive positioning. Your positioning was very offensive as you have 7-9 VoidRays fighting in the open with no static defense participating.
It was nice to Study the game and I thank you for that, but this certainly doesn't prove the strategy is not viable. It might not be a viable strategy (I have my doubts against some builds) but this game doesn't really prove anything.
I have mixed feelings on that map. The fourth is for free after you take and defend the third, and there are ramps both on the natural and third. On the other hand, the distance between the natural and third is quite big and in open space. I've had a lot of Zergs attack the base where my army/mothership was not stationned in, and just roll over me. The fact that there isn't much area space to fit enough cannons doesn't help either ( especially at the natural, since you're walling with gates, forge etc.. ).
I'm considering doing a different build on Shakuras and Antiga ( on Antiga, taking the fourth is just too hard ).
On May 28 2012 20:46 Nyast wrote: Any experience on Shakuras ?
I have mixed feelings on that map. The fourth is for free after you take and defend the third, and there are ramps both on the natural and third. On the other hand, the distance between the natural and third is quite big and in open space. I've had a lot of Zergs attack the base where my army/mothership was not stationned in, and just roll over me. The fact that there isn't much area space to fit enough cannons doesn't help either ( especially at the natural, since you're walling with gates, forge etc.. ).
I'm considering doing a different build on Shakuras and Antiga ( on Antiga, taking the fourth is just too hard ).
I've had more luck taking expansion, that is under your main, closer to the center, as third and cannoning it. Tried?
On May 28 2012 20:46 Nyast wrote: Any experience on Shakuras ?
I have mixed feelings on that map. The fourth is for free after you take and defend the third, and there are ramps both on the natural and third. On the other hand, the distance between the natural and third is quite big and in open space. I've had a lot of Zergs attack the base where my army/mothership was not stationned in, and just roll over me. The fact that there isn't much area space to fit enough cannons doesn't help either ( especially at the natural, since you're walling with gates, forge etc.. ).
I'm considering doing a different build on Shakuras and Antiga ( on Antiga, taking the fourth is just too hard ).
I've had more luck taking expansion, that is under your main, closer to the center, as third and cannoning it. Tried?
Yeah I tried without success. There's too much open space between the natural and the third closer to the xel naga tower, Zerg can attack from two sides ( XNC, and between rock and main's cliff ), and there isn't much room to place cannons either. In the game I lost trying that, Zerg made mass hydras and kept attacking from that side, I didn't have enough cannons to defend.
Ohana is the perfect example of a good map to do this build: you can full-wall your natural, destroy the rocks, take your third, and there's ton of space to put cannons around the third. There's only one attack path for the Zerg: attacking at the third, cause the natural is blocked. So you can place your mothership at the third and easily defend anything there.
On May 28 2012 20:46 Nyast wrote: Any experience on Shakuras ?
I have mixed feelings on that map. The fourth is for free after you take and defend the third, and there are ramps both on the natural and third. On the other hand, the distance between the natural and third is quite big and in open space. I've had a lot of Zergs attack the base where my army/mothership was not stationned in, and just roll over me. The fact that there isn't much area space to fit enough cannons doesn't help either ( especially at the natural, since you're walling with gates, forge etc.. ).
I'm considering doing a different build on Shakuras and Antiga ( on Antiga, taking the fourth is just too hard ).
I've had more luck taking expansion, that is under your main, closer to the center, as third and cannoning it. Tried?
Yeah I tried without success. There's too much open space between the natural and the third closer to the xel naga tower, Zerg can attack from two sides ( XNC, and between rock and main's cliff ), and there isn't much room to place cannons either. In the game I lost trying that, Zerg made mass hydras and kept attacking from that side, I didn't have enough cannons to defend.
Ohana is the perfect example of a good map to do this build: you can full-wall your natural, destroy the rocks, take your third, and there's ton of space to put cannons around the third. There's only one attack path for the Zerg: attacking at the third, cause the natural is blocked. So you can place your mothership at the third and easily defend anything there.
I prefer the third thats kinda far away which allows for easy fourth. I cannon natural and third even harder because you don't need that extra army strength to establish a fourth. It can still get tricky but if they split their army you can roll half of it with almost perfect retention and then roll the other half. If they kill a nexus 20 probes and 6 cannons and lose an entire army this is acceptable, imo.
On May 29 2012 09:02 Fogetaboudit wrote: I prefer the third thats kinda far away which allows for easy fourth. I cannon natural and third even harder because you don't need that extra army strength to establish a fourth. It can still get tricky but if they split their army you can roll half of it with almost perfect retention and then roll the other half. If they kill a nexus 20 probes and 6 cannons and lose an entire army this is acceptable, imo.
One major problem is that it keeps you on the defensive. I've had Zergs do this strat successfully: they do a regular build with a regular compo ( roaches hydras infestors or corruptors ), and starting attacking you when they're maxed, let's say 13-14'. At this time you've secured your third but your army is still small ( < 10 voids and a mothership ). While they attack, they double expo ( 4th and 5th ) and immediately take the gas. Then they repop with the same compo and attack again 2-3' later.
The consequence of this style is that at no moment you are in the position to harass / deny Zerg's expos. You can defend your third fine but you'll lose a third to a half your army each time. By the time you remake it, the next wave is coming. As a result, your army size is growing, but very slowly. Once you're in a position to secure the fourth, Zerg's on 6-8 bases and can afford trading entire armies every 3 minutes. Then as your main and natural get exhausted ( past the 20' mark ), you're only on 2 mining bases, and still far from the 200/200 max.
@ Nyast: This is one of the major problems of this strategy if you are facing a Zerg who instantly knows how to deal with it. That's why I rely on killing off the Zerg bases as early as possible. So if I have the mothership out and can afford Recall, I start harassing with void rays as they can destroy hatcherys or tech buildings pretty fast. Still, I have to experiment with this strategy a lot, but as Protoss you have to do the same as with other strategies: Deny Zerg bases as long as possible. But with Airtoss you can deny their bases a lot later as you rely on a fast Mothership.
On May 29 2012 19:38 Lomasa wrote: I hope this question has´t be asked yet but what do you think about what HOTS will do to this kind of strat?
I think it's still going to be viable. Tempests with grades should work pretty nice against corruptors (possibly), and nexi will have recall. Only thing I really gonna miss is mass cloak.
On May 29 2012 09:02 Fogetaboudit wrote: I prefer the third thats kinda far away which allows for easy fourth. I cannon natural and third even harder because you don't need that extra army strength to establish a fourth. It can still get tricky but if they split their army you can roll half of it with almost perfect retention and then roll the other half. If they kill a nexus 20 probes and 6 cannons and lose an entire army this is acceptable, imo.
One major problem is that it keeps you on the defensive. I've had Zergs do this strat successfully: they do a regular build with a regular compo ( roaches hydras infestors or corruptors ), and starting attacking you when they're maxed, let's say 13-14'. At this time you've secured your third but your army is still small ( < 10 voids and a mothership ). While they attack, they double expo ( 4th and 5th ) and immediately take the gas. Then they repop with the same compo and attack again 2-3' later.
The consequence of this style is that at no moment you are in the position to harass / deny Zerg's expos. You can defend your third fine but you'll lose a third to a half your army each time. By the time you remake it, the next wave is coming. As a result, your army size is growing, but very slowly. Once you're in a position to secure the fourth, Zerg's on 6-8 bases and can afford trading entire armies every 3 minutes. Then as your main and natural get exhausted ( past the 20' mark ), you're only on 2 mining bases, and still far from the 200/200 max.
There's a reason why protosses do things like +1 4gates on 2 bases, or sending out a void ray and some other units to deny an expansion. You have to find some way of evening out things so that you're not just fighting down a full base while the zerg drones through the ceiling. But a lot of the timings are pretty well-known, off a FFE, and a zerg with the right information (relatively easy to come by these days) has a really good shot at just hard-countering the pressure, and then you're significantly behind as protoss.
Something I have been experimenting with lately is the 2gate expo. There has been a fair amount of recent discussion on opening with gateways as opposed to a FFE. I'm not fully sure whether or not it's worth using (as opposed to FFE), but it certainly brings a few benefits to the table:
-Your tech is waaaaaaaaaay faster because your are going to have a Core significantly earlier than you would if you were going forge first. Even if you do something greedy (if warranted) like dropping Nexus right before or right after Gate (which you can just cancel if you get hit by a timing), you are still going to have a faster Core and gas simply because you're spending that 300 on tech instead of Forge+Cannon. Now, there's something to be said about powering up tech on 2 bases with double chrono going down on upgrades, but the point here is that you will have an earlier Stargate if you tech directly towards it with a gateway expo.
-Because of a faster Stargate, you can do things like get 2-3 Sentries, then start dumping gas into that squad of Phoenixes. Really early Phoenixes are a total pain in the neck because you can wreck the queens at crucial early moments, which really messes with larva and creep spread. Also, the earlier you start making Phoenixes, the earlier you have a pool of energy banking up on those Phoenixes. Alongside the Sentries, having a steadily charging energy pool is one way of countering zerg's natural economical advantage, since you have a resource that grows over time. Often, this means killing stuff for free--both in the case of grav lifts and in well-positioned forcefields.
-You can get a Stalker out much sooner, this way. While it isn't going to provide the DPS of an early cannon, a Stalker can deny/punish overlord scouting, and that means you're threatening to do something like a 4gate, 5gate Nexus cancel, DT rush, or some other kind of 1base timing. So you force either a sac overlord or a blind response to the predicted pressure, and a blind response to one timing is often not going to be that effective against another (i.e. building spores blindly and then not having enough stuff to survive a warpgate push without taking significant damage). Sure, you have less gateways and upgrades, but the timings are much earlier. It's a trade-off to consider.
-Because the plan is to get a Core before a Forge, it means you can get +1 air weapons earlier than you would if you went Forge-Gate-Core. This seems to benefit Carrier timings more than anything else, since Carriers get enormous benefits from damage upgrades.
-Having actual mobile units on the map means you can walk across the map and attack your opponent, do pokes, deny the third quicker, etc. So the big trade-off here is that you're going to be down a base for a small portion of time, but you're not automatically defaulting to a 2base vs 3base situation, which often happens from a FFE.
I had honestly just assumed, for a while, that the FFE is better for air play because the fast expansion gives you 2 more gases, and you plan to make a bunch of cannons anyways. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's strictly better. I think there might be some serious merit to a build which has a significantly faster first stargate. It's much less passive, which is important when considering a zerg trying to get a lot of bases going.
I'm going to start posting some replays of this, when I have a bit more grasp on streamlining the build order. Right now, I'm just feeling it out and winging it, and I've also just been running into zergs that seem to think the correct response to a 1-gate is to roach-ling all-in into a bunch of banked forcefields.
This recently happened in the GSL on Ohana I believe. It was either STCurious or SlayerSYuGiOh that stopped this air strategy pretty easily. Without much mobility the skytoss is forced to established a 3rd base and ultimately a fourth while the zerg is able to as well establish bases and create a composition to defeat this. The one that works the best (that I've even experienced as surprisingly I've been 2 stargate phoenix into carrier rushed on KR diamond) is spore, infestor, queen, corruptor. I don't think that skytoss is the new go to strategy but it has some viability if it is done secretively and the zerg has no way to prepare. If the zerg knows about it it's almost an auto-lose if they know what to do.
On May 29 2012 21:15 Felvo wrote: This recently happened in the GSL on Ohana I believe. It was either STCurious or SlayerSYuGiOh that stopped this air strategy pretty easily. Without much mobility the skytoss is forced to established a 3rd base and ultimately a fourth while the zerg is able to as well establish bases and create a composition to defeat this. The one that works the best (that I've even experienced as surprisingly I've been 2 stargate phoenix into carrier rushed on KR diamond) is spore, infestor, queen, corruptor. I don't think that skytoss is the new go to strategy but it has some viability if it is done secretively and the zerg has no way to prepare. If the zerg knows about it it's almost an auto-lose if they know what to do.
edit: Actually I should be able to find the replay hopefully
It's frustrating when people say "I saw a Stargate build lose, therefore, your Stargate strategy is not viable"
Your last sentence is pretty misguided, and based on nothing other than your own opinion. I don't mind when my build gets scouted, I actually prefer when my double stargate gets scouted quickly by the zerg on ladder, I want them to make the best composition, and I want to see if I can still roll it. It does wonders for the learning curve, and I get better games than when I just build order win versus some roach pressure.
On May 29 2012 09:02 Fogetaboudit wrote: I prefer the third thats kinda far away which allows for easy fourth. I cannon natural and third even harder because you don't need that extra army strength to establish a fourth. It can still get tricky but if they split their army you can roll half of it with almost perfect retention and then roll the other half. If they kill a nexus 20 probes and 6 cannons and lose an entire army this is acceptable, imo.
One major problem is that it keeps you on the defensive. I've had Zergs do this strat successfully: they do a regular build with a regular compo ( roaches hydras infestors or corruptors ), and starting attacking you when they're maxed, let's say 13-14'. At this time you've secured your third but your army is still small ( < 10 voids and a mothership ). While they attack, they double expo ( 4th and 5th ) and immediately take the gas. Then they repop with the same compo and attack again 2-3' later.
The consequence of this style is that at no moment you are in the position to harass / deny Zerg's expos. You can defend your third fine but you'll lose a third to a half your army each time. By the time you remake it, the next wave is coming. As a result, your army size is growing, but very slowly. Once you're in a position to secure the fourth, Zerg's on 6-8 bases and can afford trading entire armies every 3 minutes. Then as your main and natural get exhausted ( past the 20' mark ), you're only on 2 mining bases, and still far from the 200/200 max.
I feel like your saying "if they trade a lot, you can be in trouble." This has always been a concern that deserves attention. I think trading becomes easier, and harder on different maps, and makes the build gets better or worse on certain maps as a consequence, but I don't think it's so much so as the strategy needs to be abandoned completely, at least on Shakuras.
To be honest I really like Shakuras, There is a natural splitmap, and while your inner bases can be sieged by static defense + creep pushing + a few broodlords, their inner base expansions are easy to harass in the early lategame, and the topcenter and bottom center bases are really easy to harass and secure throughout the entire game.
I definitely feel like there are tons of improvements and refinements that could be done to the build. I'm excited that you are working on a gateway opener, can't wait to hear the results.
Gateway oppening is a nice Idea. Zerg are so used to tosses that play FFE, this can bring some tension back. Things that shot in my mind, is 3 gate-stargate allin vs fast 3 hatch zerg, is it viable?
If zerg is not going 3 fast hatch, then something like Phoenix-expand would be suitable.
Basically, here is what I'm set on for the earliest part of the build:
9 Pylon (high ground)-->Scout (I like information) 14 Gate 16 Pylon 17 Gas Core/2ndGas right after that (not sure what the supply is at that point, probably 20ish), followed by a Zealot when 100 minerals is available.
I build a Sentry after Zealot, then either start my second gate or my Nexus, switching the order around depending on what I scout (right now I think gas=get the gate first, whereas no gas I get the Nexus first). Then I make a Stalker, so I have one of each unit (which is optimal, IMO, since they all work better together). Usually after that, I get a Stargate in my main followed by a Forge on the low ground to start my wall-off, and while the Stargate is building I get a second Sentry. I'm not sure if this is the right order of operations for building units, but it's a work-in-progress. The bottomline is that this gives me a very fast Stargate while still granting ample unit-based defense and a reasonably-timed Nexus.
Unless I'm planning to just jump ship on the expo and go for a 4-gate/5-gate Nexus cancel, I don't cut any probes, after starting that first pylon. I boost my nexus 3 times, and then depending on what I scout I usually go ahead and boost it a 4th time if I have a Nexus already in production and I want to race worker production to have a well-saturated expo quickly. The third boost comes down right when I have the energy for it, which is why I pylon before my first gas (I'm not building a Nexus on 15 or 17 food, so I need to be producing workers quickly to compensate for it). That's is I drop the Nexus before my 2nd gate. Otherwise, I tend to just boost my gateway if I'm planning to Expo or I boost warpgates if I'm going to build more gates and do a warp timing. But generally, I think boosting gateways is better for this build because I'm intending to commit to a stargate army in the midgame, so I don't want a bunch of gateways; I just want ~2 for survival and boosting those gates allows for a pretty quick standing army to defend that natural. I'm planning to use gateways later on as part of sim cities and major wall-offs to protect my cannons at the 3rd/4th, so I don't need to be slamming them down in my main where they're just going to be dead weight. That's the point when a big switch to ground catches the Zerg off guard when his army is basically massed antiair, or when I simply want to get some multipronged aggression going. I'm fine with having extra gates beyond my production capability (they are useful, after all), but I prefer them to be somewhere in front of an expansion where they can do more than sit there in case of emergency.
I'm finding that I want the first 2 pylons on the high ground, and probably the third one up there as well. You don't have to start committing to the low ground with buildings if you have units and 2 gates pumping; my early low ground defense is forcefields and army positioning on the ramp. If my opponent decides that he really wants to cancel my expo, it means that he's going to have to build a lot of roach/ling to do so, meaning his drone count will be garbage and my delayed expo isn't a big deal, since I'll have awkward saturation for a moment but that's compensated for by the potential for warpgate counterattacks (if he overdrones) and my way superior tech. If you have nothing but a nexus on the low ground, a roach/ling (or even bling) all-in is only going to cost you a small number of minerals lost for canceling the Nexus, whereas if you put pylons and other stuff down there, it's an investment you might not get back if you have to go back up the ramp.
I boost my first Phoenix, then send it directly to my opponent's base along the most direct path which ground units would travel to come to my natural. Picking of overlords isn't a big priority at that point because my cards are basically on the table: I have an expansion and a really quick stargate, and obviously I'm going Phoenix first. So it's more important to me to just go across the map and see if I need to brace for an immediate attack, then check the bases for all the relevant information possible: the tech structures, the drone count, the queen count, gas count, etc. After I do that, my second Phoenix comes out and I use that one to clear overlords by my base, while I send the first one around to check for some less obvious expansion spots/to snipe overlords for free on the map. When I get my third Phoenix out, I group them back up and go kill a queen if possible, otherwise I wait for the 4th/5th one to do this (if there is more antiair, I wait for more Phoenixes). This way, what I am doing is getting as perfect a picture of the Zerg as possible and then attacking his production. I don't pick up drones this early unless I somehow managed to murder all the queens and I have a couple spare grav lifts at the time, and I don't forsee immediate aggression--it's good to have some spare energy to be able to turn the tides of an engagement at that stage of the game with clutch grav lifts.
I'm pretty certain about all of the above, but from there I don't have the build completely fleshed out. That's OK, though; that's why things are discussed and developed. I know that I want to have 2 gates, then a stargate and I know that I want a small gateway force and then Phoenixes, and from there I decide tech paths (commit to stargate army, double robo into colossus, big warpgate aggression, etc.)
Oh, and a transition I've been really happy with is going Robo while the Phoenix harass commences, which allows me to pick up 3 full-energy Sentries and do a major attack on the main with infinite forcefields on the ramp. Because Phoenixes clear the overlords out of the way, the drop comes out of nowhere and gives the zerg so little time to react. At best, you wreck the zerg on the spot and the game is yours. At worst, your opponent puts up a defense in his main and you just fly away with the Warp Prism intact and all your units still alive. I'll be sure to post a rep of this as soon as I get a good game to show.
@ineversmile Your gate expand is very risky, it usualy dies to mass speedlings.
Also Investment in ground force and gateway tech is really delaying your air-tech, by a lot more, than Nexus-first in FFE. I'm not saying that it is bad or something, It seems okay, but it doubtful if you want to play mass air. Also gateway oppening must WG tech first, so you will get +1 later. Zerg's drone count will be fine, if we consider he is going 14/16 standart, and when scouts no FFE, just throws down gas and get speed.
Maybe YufFE and Nony's 2Gate sentry expo will get you some thoughts.
On May 29 2012 22:45 Rimak wrote: @ineversmile Your gate expand is very risky, it usualy dies to mass speedlings.
Or it just gets canceled and I go up the ramp, if my opponent opened gas-pool. If the gas comes down after my probe is kicked out of his base, that means he has a pool already and the timing is so much later that I will already have a similar wall-off with a cannon that FFE would, and with banked forcefields and some units. It all depends on the timing of their gas.
Also Investment in ground force and gateway tech is really delaying your air-tech, by a lot more, than Nexus-first in FFE. I'm not saying that it is bad or something, It seems okay, but it doubtful if you want to play mass air.
Prove it.
Also gateway oppening must WG tech first, so you will get +1 later.
I would never get +1 before WG with a FFE build either, so this is completely irrelevant. Maybe the right thing to do is to delay WG tech until the Stargate is started, since it's not that high of a priority. But I would never want to play a game without WG tech. It's way too useful to leave behind, even if I'm building my 3rd gateway at my third base to form a wall. WG tech completely changes the match-up from an aggression standpoint, as well as being an emergency defense mechanism.
Zerg's drone count will be fine, if we consider he is going 14/16 standart, and when scouts no FFE, just throws down gas and get speed.
Maybe YufFE and Nony's 2Gate sentry expo will get you some thoughts.
The whole point was to take Nony's 2gate expo and tweak it to add a faster stargate. I didn't invent the Gateway Expansion opening; I'm just trying to find one that works for this build because the Core and gases are quicker so the Stargate can be built earlier.
I would never get +1 before WG with a FFE build either, so this is completely irrelevant.
You should honestly think about it with the skytoss style. I never really even thought about it until I saw White-Ra do it with his FFE carrier rush build (obviously the upgrade being hugely important with carriers), but the more that I've played around with it the more I've found that it does make a certain amount of sense with a lot of different skytoss openings. Particularly the double cyber core variants, because then you can just start WG with the second cyber core before the first is done with +1, giving you warp tech plenty early enough.
If you get +1 air weapons ridiculously fast, where are the benefits? Assuming you aren't rushing to carriers, what does this make Phoenixes kill faster? Void Rays? +1 ground weapons gives Zealots the ability to 2-shot lings...what equivalent are we getting from a +1 air timing? Because without getting a crazy-fast fleet beacon, you simply aren't going to be getting +2 air weapons right after the +1 finishes, and without that stepladder incentive I don't see why I should want to get +1 air weapons that quickly. It seems better to just throw down a Beacon (and potentially that second Core) while the third is established, then start boosting upgrades.
The thing about delaying WG super late is that you're going to have regular gateways that are basically sitting there as walls, so your opponent will know that you have no potential for warp-ins. That means he doesn't have to worry about proxy pylons, warp prism, warping in reinforcements to respond to his harassment, etc. It also means you are basically telling your opponent that he should only worry about air units, which makes it way easier for him to make the right decisions about where and when to engage, and how aggressively he can expand/drone up. So to me, there had better be some kind of ridiculous +attack-based timing involved, if I'm going to give up WG tech until the ~13 minute mark just so I can have that attack upgrade. Maybe I'm wrong; if so, convince me if I am. What are the tangible benefits to getting +1 air weapons that fast?
By the way, since you guys are discussing this, I wouldn't recommend gateway expand when using this. Benefits of gateway first is get warp and cybercore fast while getting also additional gateway units. You should go double stargate off ffe, since you can't get it earlier with 1 gate expand, you'll simply not have enough gas and risk more to get all inned and not have a proper defense.
On May 30 2012 13:26 ineversmile wrote: If you get +1 air weapons ridiculously fast, where are the benefits? Assuming you aren't rushing to carriers, what does this make Phoenixes kill faster? Void Rays? +1 ground weapons gives Zealots the ability to 2-shot lings...what equivalent are we getting from a +1 air timing? Because without getting a crazy-fast fleet beacon, you simply aren't going to be getting +2 air weapons right after the +1 finishes, and without that stepladder incentive I don't see why I should want to get +1 air weapons that quickly. It seems better to just throw down a Beacon (and potentially that second Core) while the third is established, then start boosting upgrades.
The thing about delaying WG super late is that you're going to have regular gateways that are basically sitting there as walls, so your opponent will know that you have no potential for warp-ins. That means he doesn't have to worry about proxy pylons, warp prism, warping in reinforcements to respond to his harassment, etc. It also means you are basically telling your opponent that he should only worry about air units, which makes it way easier for him to make the right decisions about where and when to engage, and how aggressively he can expand/drone up. So to me, there had better be some kind of ridiculous +attack-based timing involved, if I'm going to give up WG tech until the ~13 minute mark just so I can have that attack upgrade. Maybe I'm wrong; if so, convince me if I am. What are the tangible benefits to getting +1 air weapons that fast?
It makes pheonix take out overlords faster, and it allows void rays to focus down overlords and buildings faster. It also makes heavy air defenses vs. roach busts easier (VRs will take out roaches faster). It also makes phoenix kill mutas and corrupters quicker (one less attack to kill mutas I believe), etc. It basically makes any initial pressure from air units stronger and forces more defense from zerg, and helps your air units hold off counters easier.
But mainly, if your army is going to be primarily air for a while, it might be better than warp gate while you're still on two bases: you can still make units out of normal gateways after all. A better question might be what is the benefit of getting warp gate first with a primarily air build? You get one extra round of units out right when warp gate finishes, and slightly faster gateway production. The actual warp in function only really becomes important if you're doing gateway attacks or your bases are spread out (on three bases etc.)
On May 31 2012 03:46 Foks wrote: I feel like a corruptor response with a reasonable economy behind it is gonna trash this style the longer the game goes on.
Corrupters are really bad vs. void rays. Really, really bad.
On May 31 2012 03:46 Foks wrote: I feel like a corruptor response with a reasonable economy behind it is gonna trash this style the longer the game goes on.
Corrupters are really bad vs. void rays. Really, really bad.
how the hell do u beat this as zerg? the toss i played rushed out a mothership and it makes pressuring him a huge pain in the ass. then he got 200/200 fully upgraded carriers. i took the map and could literally build whatever i wanted to as an army with all the ups, and still got raped. i think i ended up with around 50 corruptors, mass spores and some mutas.
is mass infestor / neural parasite probably the only hope against this kind of situation? thanks
On May 31 2012 01:39 FuGGu wrote: This is interesting....any problems with 11 minute roaches? Could they just overwhelm and abuse the slow speed of the voidrays?
Initial 5 phoenix deal with this very nice. You disrupt his production cycles, kill queens and force spores. so push will come @ ~13-14 minutes, and that's completely different story. Also you should already have mothership over cannons. Focus-fire overseers, and then watch the helples roach massacre.
On May 31 2012 04:40 Foks wrote:Fungal growth/IT doesn't solve this issue?
On May 31 2012 01:39 FuGGu wrote: This is interesting....any problems with 11 minute roaches? Could they just overwhelm and abuse the slow speed of the voidrays?
Also you should already have mothership over cannons. Focus-fire overseers, and then watch the helples roach massacre.
tee hee hee
On May 31 2012 11:20 GreggSauce wrote: I would just like to say I lost to this horribly. I had no idea what to do
I tried this style out, started with some practice games with my teammates, and now here's my first time trying it on ladder against NrSuStar rank ~80 grandmaster on eu. I won the game quite easily actually, great strategy imo. Check the replay: http://sc2rep.com/replays/(P)NOMAdonminus_vs_(Z)NrSuStar/19912
On May 31 2012 03:46 Foks wrote: I feel like a corruptor response with a reasonable economy behind it is gonna trash this style the longer the game goes on.
It doesn't. I have experience of beating 3/3 mass corruptor with infestor support army when the zerg took 12 gaysers and still he got demolished (Didin't even need to vortex him) Just don't get all your HT's fingaled and get storms on clumps of corruptors.
Try not to write about your feelings in discussion thread, but rather about theory with some evidence or reasoning behind it.
On May 31 2012 03:46 Foks wrote: I feel like a corruptor response with a reasonable economy behind it is gonna trash this style the longer the game goes on.
It doesn't. I have experience of beating 3/3 mass corruptor with infestor support army when the zerg took 12 gaysers and still he got demolished (Didin't even need to vortex him) Just don't get all your HT's fingaled and get storms on clumps of corruptors.
Try not to write about your feelings in discussion thread, but rather about theory with some evidence or reasoning behind it.
Actually I practiced with Naugrim, and he did a fast corruptor response. Basicly a push with tons of corruptors and some queens and lings behind it (lings to break cannons and queens to transfuse corruptors) could destroy the 3rd and win the game.
However such a timing with corruptors is only possible if you know 100% that your opponent is going for sky toss and getting a 3rd. Therefore you should use this build as a surprise tactic and hide your stargates. And not as a each game standard strategy.
This build is just an epic win. I win 100% of my PvZ since I use this build. Most 12 min markish roach pushes will arrive when I already have 2-3 Carriers and a handfull Voidrays. With cannons and a mothership you can easily hold a suprised zerg and Recall is making a toss army so mobil. Once after getting mroe carriers I go for collosi and upgrades. Later i'll add archons if the zerg gets a critical mass of curropters/broodlords.
On May 31 2012 03:46 Foks wrote: I feel like a corruptor response with a reasonable economy behind it is gonna trash this style the longer the game goes on.
It doesn't. I have experience of beating 3/3 mass corruptor with infestor support army when the zerg took 12 gaysers and still he got demolished (Didin't even need to vortex him) Just don't get all your HT's fingaled and get storms on clumps of corruptors.
Try not to write about your feelings in discussion thread, but rather about theory with some evidence or reasoning behind it.
Actually I practiced with Naugrim, and he did a fast corruptor response. Basicly a push with tons of corruptors and some queens and lings behind it (lings to break cannons and queens to transfuse corruptors) could destroy the 3rd and win the game.
However such a timing with corruptors is only possible if you know 100% that your opponent is going for sky toss and getting a 3rd. Therefore you should use this build as a surprise tactic and hide your stargates. And not as a each game standard strategy.
Yuck
I was suspicious about Corruptor first being a problem, but I've never faced it before. Zergs just never think to do it on ladder, at least up through mid/high masters. A few lings to tank cannon shots is pretty good/smart.
On May 31 2012 22:53 Fogetaboudit wrote: I was suspicious about Corruptor first being a problem, but I've never faced it before. Zergs just never think to do it on ladder, at least up through mid/high masters. A few lings to tank cannon shots is pretty good/smart.
I got a loss or two with Zergs that went corruptors first. Then they park your stargates so that any voidray/carrier that pops out is insta killed. This forces you to produce cannons and stalkers under the stargates, and even then, none of those kill a huge pack of corruptors very quickly, which is damn annoying.
I also got a loss or two against Zergs that traded corruptors for the mothership ( even if it's not trade cost effective for them ). In one game I lost my MS 4 or 5 times, each time I didn't have energy for a vortex. Meanwhile Zerg just mass expoes, and you can't harass / punish him due to the threat of infestors fungal when your army is out of pos since your don't have a recall.
On May 31 2012 22:53 Fogetaboudit wrote: I was suspicious about Corruptor first being a problem, but I've never faced it before. Zergs just never think to do it on ladder, at least up through mid/high masters. A few lings to tank cannon shots is pretty good/smart.
I got a loss or two with Zergs that went corruptors first. Then they park your stargates so that any voidray/carrier that pops out is insta killed. This forces you to produce cannons and stalkers under the stargates, and even then, none of those kill a huge pack of corruptors very quickly, which is damn annoying.
I also got a loss or two against Zergs that traded corruptors for the mothership ( even if it's not trade cost effective for them ). In one game I lost my MS 4 or 5 times, each time I didn't have energy for a vortex. Meanwhile Zerg just mass expoes, and you can't harass / punish him due to the threat of infestors fungal when your army is out of pos since your don't have a recall.
This is why I think it's important not to forget to start massing up Warpgates and get shield/ground attack upgrades. There should be a lot of good windows between trades where you can warp in a cycle of Dark Templar/Archons/Templar/Zealots, in between rebuilding your fleet.
I love this style since I don't have to deal with broodlords. I always open void ray, but does anyone have any replays of doing a defensive mothership after opening with 4-5 phoenix?
On May 30 2012 13:26 ineversmile wrote: What are the tangible benefits to getting +1 air weapons that fast?
Whitewing touched on the pretty much all of these, but these are the numbers:
- Phoenixes kill overlords in 17 shots instead of 20, thus 3 phoenixes kill an overlord in 6 volleys instead of 7. - Phoenixes kill mutas in 11 shots instead of 12 (and if you can get +2 attack before they get +1 armor then it's 10 shots). - Void rays gain a boost of 1.7 dps (from 10), plus an additional 1.7 when charged up against armored units (meaning that when fully charged, void rays do 30 dps instead of 26.6 to roaches, killing them close to 20% faster).
Most of the time when I decide to go for +1 air weapons before warp tech, I'm focused on using a pretty heavy air comp throughout the game, and thus I'll get the second cyber core very early, usually when +1 weapons is about 30% done. That way, I can start warp tech on the second cyber before +1 weapons is done, start +1 armor on the first cyber after +1 weapons is done, and still have plenty of time to set up a third and a fleet beacon before +1 armor and warp tech are done, then leaving me with double cyber cores for +2/+2 as soon as the fleet beacon is done. If I see fast 3 bases from Zerg and suspect mass roaches with the probe/zealot scout, I'll usually go for +1 air weapons first just because of how much faster void rays will kill roaches, which is much more useful than the extra zealots you would have out by having faster warp tech.
I just have to say it - 3/3/3 upgraded fleet with guardian shield and storm is the most beautifull army in this game. And probably the most rage inducing aswell
I am only high platinum, so my experience doesn't count, but I managed to beat this by first making the typical roach/hydra army to attack his natural and destroyed it. (And managed to do some damage in his maina s well.) My follow up was pure baneling to destroy a bunch of cannons at the natural and his natural nexus (again).
In the mean time he kept making voidrays and phoenix; I kept expanding and putting down 10 spores at each expansion and getting infestors at all of them. It seems that pure offensive ling/bling and defensive spore/infestor is pretty good against this.
On June 01 2012 19:32 AdrianHealey wrote: I am only high platinum, so my experience doesn't count, but I managed to beat this by first making the typical roach/hydra army to attack his natural and destroyed it. (And managed to do some damage in his maina s well.) My follow up was pure baneling to destroy a bunch of cannons at the natural and his natural nexus (again).
In the mean time he kept making voidrays and phoenix; I kept expanding and putting down 10 spores at each expansion and getting infestors at all of them. It seems that pure offensive ling/bling and defensive spore/infestor is pretty good against this.
Map was Ohana.
Would you care to share a rep of that game? We are still working on getting this build to solid stanc, every little pice of info helps.
Also, got rolled over with corruptor-ling, when was taking third at shakuras, basically he traded corrupters for my MS and lings to do cannons, really thinking of adding more zealots and earlier archon to secure third if see a corruptor follow-up.
Going back to WG tech vs +1.
For me getting +1 early is really important for initial phoenix harass. And there is a timing window right after your +1 is done and you are getting FB and MS, it's perfectly suitable to get WG then.
yeah I'm a little worried about corruptor/ling first, with no gas wasted on roach/hydra/muta. I theorycraft that a supersick Vortex could help out in the battle, allowing cannons to clean up an extra amount of lings, allowing for more time to spit out whatever extra units you can get, and allowing a few stray units to get picked off.
I think it's the biggest problem at this point but this is based only on replies itt. Also, if you make 1 Phoenix like I do, and scout no units + spire, I have a hard time knowing how many additional Phoenix to get. Can't know if they are going Muta or Corruptor until you physically see them hatch.
On June 01 2012 19:57 Fogetaboudit wrote: yeah I'm a little worried about corruptor/ling first, with no gas wasted on roach/hydra/muta
I think it's the biggest problem at this point but this is based only on replies itt. Also, if you make 1 Phoenix like I do, and scout no units + spire, I have a hard time knowing how many additional Phoenix to get. Can't know if they are going Muta or Corruptor until you physically see them hatch.
Uhu, that's why i swithced to 5 phoenix firs instead of VR to harass, gives you much better scouting. Economic damage is pretty similar, but scouting is so good. And I was saying earlier that infestor is bad, but i actually feel much safer when see infestor follow up.
On June 01 2012 19:57 Fogetaboudit wrote: yeah I'm a little worried about corruptor/ling first, with no gas wasted on roach/hydra/muta
I think it's the biggest problem at this point but this is based only on replies itt. Also, if you make 1 Phoenix like I do, and scout no units + spire, I have a hard time knowing how many additional Phoenix to get. Can't know if they are going Muta or Corruptor until you physically see them hatch.
Uhu, that's why i swithced to 5 phoenix firs instead of VR to harass, gives you much better scouting. Economic damage is pretty similar, but scouting is so good. And I was saying earlier that infestor is bad, but i actually feel much safer when see infestor follow up.
Do you have any replays of your 5 phoenix opener you would like to share? :D
On June 01 2012 19:32 AdrianHealey wrote: I am only high platinum, so my experience doesn't count, but I managed to beat this by first making the typical roach/hydra army to attack his natural and destroyed it. (And managed to do some damage in his maina s well.) My follow up was pure baneling to destroy a bunch of cannons at the natural and his natural nexus (again).
In the mean time he kept making voidrays and phoenix; I kept expanding and putting down 10 spores at each expansion and getting infestors at all of them. It seems that pure offensive ling/bling and defensive spore/infestor is pretty good against this.
Map was Ohana.
Would you care to share a rep of that game? We are still working on getting this build to solid stanc, every little pice of info helps.
Also, got rolled over with corruptor-ling, when was taking third at shakuras, basically he traded corrupters for my MS and lings to do cannons, really thinking of adding more zealots and earlier archon to secure third if see a corruptor follow-up.
Going back to WG tech vs +1.
For me getting +1 early is really important for initial phoenix harass. And there is a timing window right after your +1 is done and you are getting FB and MS, it's perfectly suitable to get WG then.
I'll see if I can find it. Again; the execution was probably not perfect, but neither was my response.
Just tried this on the ladder but I probably wont do it again.
My VRs + mothership died over and over again to his muta/hydra/corruptor composition. I had a hard time denying creep spread and couldn't really do any damage because of queens + spores.
I am only top gold so I am pretty sure that it was just me executing it poorly but I didn't know how to engage him..
I met this style on Shakuras. Went double Spire upgrades and took as many bases with gas as fast as I could. My opponent added a few Archons, and the fight become Archon/Voidray/Mothership/Carriers/Sentries (2 for Guardian Shields) vs Corrupter/Infestor/Ling. I'm not sure how exactly this turned out the way it did, but his four bases were pretty impossible to break early.
and somehow 2/2 corrupter+Infestors don't do all too well vs the Protoss fleet. In fact, my stuff died insanely fast to his blob of units, barely killing anything. I believe for 40 corrupters and 10ish Infestors I killed maybe half his army. I was a bit surprised at just how hard it was to murder a maxed fleet. If I hadn't had all the center expansions gas aswell, my remax had been too poor to fight off the remaining fleet, especially after the Mothership Recall harass.
don't forget, with this style, the anion pulse crystals mean that with proper micro phoenixes can actually trade pretty effectively wit corruptors, i believe, since they have identical range
On June 01 2012 23:38 polysciguy wrote: don't forget, with this style, the anion pulse crystals mean that with proper micro phoenixes can actually trade pretty effectively wit corruptors, i believe, since they have identical range
Corruptors have 2 armor which makes them do way more damage relatively speaking. Its better to go harass than try to take them on head to head with Phoenix. Though of course, if you can pick of a straggler, it's worth it.
You realize I had 6 bases and 7k/2k banked with 25 full energy infestors, right? You were mining one base and cannoning it up, just like the first game you lost.
Anyway, I talked about a build someone used against me a while ago on ladder that was similar, here it is: http://drop.sc/171222 If you want to do mass void rays against a 3 hatch zerg, that opener is a lot better as it gets a much faster third and better production, though he ended up losing to mutalisks he made quite a few mistakes that made it pretty lopsided when it shouldn't have been.
I checked the replay just to make sure your lying, again. I'm suprised at how much you literally make up, especially when the replay is right here.
On May 04 2012 00:22 oOOoOphidian wrote: You realize I had 6 bases and 7k/2k banked with 25 full energy infestors, right? You were mining one base and cannoning it up, just like the first game you lost.
WRONG - When you ragequit I have 3 mining bases (not 1), and you have 4 (not 6). I even numbered them for you! All of your infestors have about half enery, some are much lower (not full).
Anyhow, I'm trying to actually work on my build, and improve my theoretical understanding of the game. You just want to be an angry BM player who rages out for little to no reason. It's quite clear to me now that you never intended to help me hammer out this build, you just wanted to look like a wise guy on Team Liquid, lol. You blow your wins out of proportion, and then any game that I had a decisive advantage in you would just ragequit claiming to want to avoid a long game, lol.
time to gtfo.
You do realise that unless he had a stroke he had won that game right?? 25 infestors, despite not being full energy and that bank means he could instantly go to 200-200 with like 30 corruptors while taking another base. In a fight you would straight up lose without recall and he coudl just deny all your expos and camp. You were not going to win that game and seeing as it was practice i would have left too. Tbh it seems like that guy was actually right and you are just refusing to see weaknesses in the build. I'm a protoss player btw before any "Zerg bias you have no idea what you are talking about"
This army composition is so good, since I've started using it, I have a 95% winrate in PvZ right now. I still don't see how this composition can get hard countered imo. (mid-high'ish diamond US)
On June 02 2012 03:11 iAmBiGbiRd wrote: You do realise that unless he had a stroke he had won that game right?? 25 infestors, despite not being full energy and that bank means he could instantly go to 200-200 with like 30 corruptors while taking another base. In a fight you would straight up lose without recall and he coudl just deny all your expos and camp. You were not going to win that game and seeing as it was practice i would have left too. Tbh it seems like that guy was actually right and you are just refusing to see weaknesses in the build. I'm a protoss player btw before any "Zerg bias you have no idea what you are talking about"
You do realize that Zerg has 25 infestors.. and nothing else right ? Like.. 25 infestors.. and 1600 gas in bank ?
So let's assume for a second that he already has 16 corruptors.
That's 25 infestors + 16 corruptors versus 1 mothership, 29 voidrays and 3 carriers. Army wise that's rouhgly 80 food vs 120 food. Assuming full upgrades on both sides, the result of a direct fight is a slaughter in protoss favor.. like.. it's not even close... and by direct fight I mean, not even relying on vortex !
I mean, if you're going to criticize the build, you better have some experience with it, or test compos in a map unit, or whatever. To me it seems like you have absolutely no clue how strong that compo is. That Zerg was 100% dead. Just run a unit tester and see by yourself.
Now if he had 7000 gas in bank it would have been a different story..
I don't care if this build isn't viable unless the other guy screws up reacting to it and bla bla whatever, it's so fucking hilarious i will definitely start adding it into my macro builds. I feel like white-ra doing this lol.
You realize I had 6 bases and 7k/2k banked with 25 full energy infestors, right? You were mining one base and cannoning it up, just like the first game you lost.
Anyway, I talked about a build someone used against me a while ago on ladder that was similar, here it is: http://drop.sc/171222 If you want to do mass void rays against a 3 hatch zerg, that opener is a lot better as it gets a much faster third and better production, though he ended up losing to mutalisks he made quite a few mistakes that made it pretty lopsided when it shouldn't have been.
I checked the replay just to make sure your lying, again. I'm suprised at how much you literally make up, especially when the replay is right here.
On May 04 2012 00:22 oOOoOphidian wrote: You realize I had 6 bases and 7k/2k banked with 25 full energy infestors, right? You were mining one base and cannoning it up, just like the first game you lost.
WRONG - When you ragequit I have 3 mining bases (not 1), and you have 4 (not 6). I even numbered them for you! All of your infestors have about half enery, some are much lower (not full).
Anyhow, I'm trying to actually work on my build, and improve my theoretical understanding of the game. You just want to be an angry BM player who rages out for little to no reason. It's quite clear to me now that you never intended to help me hammer out this build, you just wanted to look like a wise guy on Team Liquid, lol. You blow your wins out of proportion, and then any game that I had a decisive advantage in you would just ragequit claiming to want to avoid a long game, lol.
time to gtfo.
You do realise that unless he had a stroke he had won that game right?? 25 infestors, despite not being full energy and that bank means he could instantly go to 200-200 with like 30 corruptors while taking another base. In a fight you would straight up lose without recall and he coudl just deny all your expos and camp. You were not going to win that game and seeing as it was practice i would have left too. Tbh it seems like that guy was actually right and you are just refusing to see weaknesses in the build. I'm a protoss player btw before any "Zerg bias you have no idea what you are talking about"
Sounds like you already had a stroke. The point of the post was to show that this player blatantly lied about our games. I quoted what he said, and screenshot of what he was referring to. Then I even included the replay. I have a huge advantage based on being in a similar position many times before. but that's not the point. The point is that I wanted to work on the strategy which is intended to go to the lategame and Max out, ragequitting doesn't help me practice the lategame, it's just BM from a scumbag who never intended to help me in the first place.
On June 02 2012 03:38 NMHU. wrote: This army composition is so good, since I've started using it, I have a 95% winrate in PvZ right now. I still don't see how this composition can get hard countered imo. (mid-high'ish diamond US)
- NMHU.
Does this stand for "No Money Heads Up"?
happy to hear about the success
On June 02 2012 07:39 Teoita wrote: I don't care if this build isn't viable unless the other guy screws up reacting to it and bla bla whatever, it's so fucking hilarious i will definitely start adding it into my macro builds. I feel like white-ra doing this lol.
Ok since I started doing this build I haven't lost a single game against zerg, except for quick all-ins that i failed to scout or react to appropriately, and those losses weren't because i was doing this build, but because i simply failed to react properly or scout. So if the game goes to ten minutes or so then I haven't lost a single one.
Now because I love replays so much I decided to put a couple of my own up, and constructive criticism is always appreciated.
http://drop.sc/189906 This one was against a player in a league higher than me, and I wanted to draw attention to the final battle, in which he has 34 corrupters and I have 29 voids I believe. What absolutely blew my mind was that i barely lost any voids at all, i almost felt bad for the dude. I did have better upgrades and it took a couple seconds for him to get his corrupters into the engagement but it was actually quite frightening to me how soundly i defeated his corrupters.
Anyway cheers to you Fogetaboudit for the wonderful build, I am having a great deal of fun with it!
Bulldog, I've done the exact same thing -- I switched to Protoss because I'm tired of all the bs zerg has to deal with. I read this guide a long while back, and was like "lol hope i never play against this style"... Yesterday I switched to Protoss, and this build is SO good. I typically grab my third, wall in EVERYTHING with gateways + cannons, get a total of 4 stargates, double cyber, and keep them upgrades flowing. there isn't a counter to cloaked 3-3-3 voidrays, and I imagine that you could even do an archon toilet just to make the zerg cry "imba!" even more. The mass recall harass is actually hilarious, and I laugh and type "YOINK!" everytime I use it.
On June 01 2012 19:57 Fogetaboudit wrote: yeah I'm a little worried about corruptor/ling first, with no gas wasted on roach/hydra/muta
I think it's the biggest problem at this point but this is based only on replies itt. Also, if you make 1 Phoenix like I do, and scout no units + spire, I have a hard time knowing how many additional Phoenix to get. Can't know if they are going Muta or Corruptor until you physically see them hatch.
Uhu, that's why i swithced to 5 phoenix firs instead of VR to harass, gives you much better scouting. Economic damage is pretty similar, but scouting is so good. And I was saying earlier that infestor is bad, but i actually feel much safer when see infestor follow up.
Do you have any replays of your 5 phoenix opener you would like to share? :D
Myself and Zerg's were just terrible, sorry for that, I'm really far from being good, but at least It'll give you some ideas on what i mean opening with phx.
On June 04 2012 04:47 Mavvie wrote: Bulldog, I've done the exact same thing -- I switched to Protoss because I'm tired of all the bs zerg has to deal with. I read this guide a long while back, and was like "lol hope i never play against this style"... Yesterday I switched to Protoss, and this build is SO good. I typically grab my third, wall in EVERYTHING with gateways + cannons, get a total of 4 stargates, double cyber, and keep them upgrades flowing. there isn't a counter to cloaked 3-3-3 voidrays, and I imagine that you could even do an archon toilet just to make the zerg cry "imba!" even more. The mass recall harass is actually hilarious, and I laugh and type "YOINK!" everytime I use it.
Those replays were fun to watch
"and I laugh and type "YOINK!" everytime I use it. " so You are just telling that you are a f****n BM d**k ? O.o acknowledge
On June 04 2012 04:47 Mavvie wrote: Bulldog, I've done the exact same thing -- I switched to Protoss because I'm tired of all the bs zerg has to deal with. I read this guide a long while back, and was like "lol hope i never play against this style"... Yesterday I switched to Protoss, and this build is SO good. I typically grab my third, wall in EVERYTHING with gateways + cannons, get a total of 4 stargates, double cyber, and keep them upgrades flowing. there isn't a counter to cloaked 3-3-3 voidrays, and I imagine that you could even do an archon toilet just to make the zerg cry "imba!" even more. The mass recall harass is actually hilarious, and I laugh and type "YOINK!" everytime I use it.
Those replays were fun to watch
"and I laugh and type "YOINK!" everytime I use it. " so You are just telling that you are a f****n BM d**k ? O.o acknowledge
lol, yeah but at least its funny and light hearted, imo. Personally I would only work this awesome BM in against players who BM first.
On June 04 2012 04:47 Mavvie wrote: Bulldog, I've done the exact same thing -- I switched to Protoss because I'm tired of all the bs zerg has to deal with. I read this guide a long while back, and was like "lol hope i never play against this style"... Yesterday I switched to Protoss, and this build is SO good. I typically grab my third, wall in EVERYTHING with gateways + cannons, get a total of 4 stargates, double cyber, and keep them upgrades flowing. there isn't a counter to cloaked 3-3-3 voidrays, and I imagine that you could even do an archon toilet just to make the zerg cry "imba!" even more. The mass recall harass is actually hilarious, and I laugh and type "YOINK!" everytime I use it.
Those replays were fun to watch
"and I laugh and type "YOINK!" everytime I use it. " so You are just telling that you are a f****n BM d**k ? O.o acknowledge
Someone here is a sensitive flower. I think friendly smack is a welcome addition to the build, and should be included in the op.
On June 04 2012 04:47 Mavvie wrote: Bulldog, I've done the exact same thing -- I switched to Protoss because I'm tired of all the bs zerg has to deal with. I read this guide a long while back, and was like "lol hope i never play against this style"... Yesterday I switched to Protoss, and this build is SO good. I typically grab my third, wall in EVERYTHING with gateways + cannons, get a total of 4 stargates, double cyber, and keep them upgrades flowing. there isn't a counter to cloaked 3-3-3 voidrays, and I imagine that you could even do an archon toilet just to make the zerg cry "imba!" even more. The mass recall harass is actually hilarious, and I laugh and type "YOINK!" everytime I use it.
Those replays were fun to watch
Lol, not really my style but funny nonetheless. What I find funny, is the rage this build induces. There is something funny about a zerg player getting upset at you for massing one type of powerful unit.....
Anyway I am going to continue to use this style because it WORKS, it is very viable and very powerful.
Hey, Diamond P here. I decided to try out this build the other day, and the least I could say is its quite fun building up a skytoss deathball. Here's the replay: http://drop.sc/192376
Some thoughts about the build:
-First of all its funny, the zerg starts out the game so friendly but losing to mass air makes him rage quit pretty hard.
-I didn't play this very well: I get scouted quite early, lose a lot to an early zergling runby, don't do much with my voids except cancel a hatch, and my army control is sub-par to say the least. However, the pros are that this army composition is ridiculously easy to control. All you need to do is A-Move and throw storms on all the zergs clumped units.
-I think the zergs response was bad. He played really passive and had wasted supply in ground units. He also did a really bad zergling drop attempt where he just suicided all his drops and ovies to my air army. I did a really greedy variant where I skipped warpgate (thus couldn't warp in when I had my zealot plug out of position when he did his zergling runby), went phoenix and got the third at 8 min. When my third actually finished my only army was 5 phoenix and 2 zealots. Obviously I had some cannons as well, but is this actually viable in response to a 3 hatch or couldn't I just die if the zerg built some units instead of drones and attacked?
-I figure that if the zerg is going 3 hatch they are going to want to get as much drones as possible and attack at a later timing. At least in my league, zergs don't seem to push out until 12 min or so. I think that with the phoenix as another deterrent to stall them (forces them to get spores and additional queens, some might overreact and go hydras or something) that you have time to get your mothership out for protection. Also, with mass air its really easy to kill overseers, so using a defensive mothership as protection for at least one base seems really viable.
-The build is really gas heavy. Even with getting my gases at my nat really quick, funding a double stargate, early fleet beacon, and a mothership does make warp gate difficult to get early, as well as any stalkers or sentries. And when is the best time to tech to storm? I didn't get storm until pretty late, but if the zerg starts actually pressuring earlier with an army that can actually attack air, I think this build would struggle a lot to take a 4th.
-Lastly, archons are really damn good against corruptors. Mass corruptors clump hard when they attack anything.
Alright, so after running this for about 10 games, I have a decent winrate just because of my prior experience and comfort level with Void Rays, Mothership and Carriers.
I love the opener. The opener is actually really solid. Something that should be noted is that there's no reason to rally forward Void Rays after the first 4. The remainder should be rallied to the wall at the natural, along with about 3 extra cannons so a blind eco Roach counter doesn't just autowin (happened to me before vs a rank 1, 1350 point Masters Zerg.. really irritating because I killed his 3rd too and was miles ahead). And if you can keep your 4 Void Rays busy around the Zerg base, the chances of killing a hatch, forcing tons of Spores or making them waste all of their Roaches to a pointless counterattack makes this opener much, much better than not knowing when/how to rally your Stargates. So, to get the most out of it you definitely need good APM and good Void Ray control.
However, I think the transition into Carriers is too damn slow. Maybe make 2 just to handle the first wave of Hydras if that's what they choose to attack with, and maybe bait out Corrupter fire. But still I think you could do better by just researching warpgate and powering up a handful of gateways with Charge Zealots. Like somebody had said in this thread, if they just Corrupter dive with lots and lots of lings to kill the cannons, you just can't reinforce well enough to overtake the Zerg's reinforcement rate. Plus, if they mass Hydra and you are still making only Carriers, your cannon wall won't last forever with assuming they support the Hydras well, but a good Vortex and a lot of Charge Zealots in there means they lose their entire army and you lose.. Zealots.
I think the winning move with this build is a really aggressive, strong ground army. My personal choice would be Mothership along with Charge Zealot, Archon/Storm and maybe 4-6 Immortals. If you can keep your Void Ray count high (like 8) and +3 ground weapons, it's a super sick army assuming you keep your Mothership alive.
I don't think winning with a full Stargate army is very viable just because of how contained you are to your Cannons. Taking a 4th base with Carrier, Void Ray, Mothership versus somebody that just makes a zillion corrupters is basically impossible unless you find ways to put them out of the position so you can take your Nexus, and get cannons up before moving your Mothership.
So, as a whole, great opener (the Mothership is the key to the opener), but I think the transition needs to turn into some sort of Templar and Immortal army. I am going to try to keep moving forward with 2 Robo Immortals, Charge Zealots and probably Archons. For some reason I just can't handle Mothership and Templar at the same time. Having two awkward, slow casters in the same army just messes with my brain.
So, I've been experiencing this play on the ladder a lot and I don't know how to stop it as Zerg. What kind of unit comp should I be looking for to combat this air stratgety?
On June 06 2012 10:59 Nightmarishpie wrote: So, I've been experiencing this play on the ladder a lot and I don't know how to stop it as Zerg. What kind of unit comp should I be looking for to combat this air stratgety?
Corruptor/Infestor/Queen?
From what I gather the single most important thing you must do is get double spire and get the air upgrades ASAP, as well as making a ton of Queens and Infestors as ground support.
I agree about the zealot transition from air. Actually, I think it works both ways; going mass gateway style with double forges and then transitioning into triple stargate with +air weapons after taking a third. I like going +ground weapons and +shields from the forges, so I can eventually have x-0-x ground and air to fight hydras etc. It's also worth noting that shields are good for your buildings, as this comes up a lot when you're turtling and they want to use lings to do damage. Shields counteract ling and hydra dps pretty well for buildings and they help with air units and warp prisms flying over queens and spores to get into position.
I have been meaning to post some replays, but I just find myself going ground and then eventually swapping my army for air later on in the game when I have the gas and my opponent is going for the broods. Part of this is because I'm feeling much more comfortable opening gateway expo than FFE. Maybe it's just the old War3 side of me that's coming out and wanting to have an active army instead of a bunch of stationary cannons.
So my opening lately is 1gate into nexus with zealot-sentry-stalker, and if I see a fast third I just 4gate or 5gate nexus cancel, or I go DTs and get the sentry after stalker so I can pressure. I get a stargate as the expo finishes and get 5 phoenix, use them to get queens and stray ovies and scout, and then I just boost 2 forges and immortals while sim-citying with a shitload of wall-off gateways at my third/natural and then I get the other stargates when I'm nearing 140 supply or taking a 4th/hitting a timing.
On June 02 2012 03:11 iAmBiGbiRd wrote: You do realise that unless he had a stroke he had won that game right?? 25 infestors, despite not being full energy and that bank means he could instantly go to 200-200 with like 30 corruptors while taking another base. In a fight you would straight up lose without recall and he coudl just deny all your expos and camp. You were not going to win that game and seeing as it was practice i would have left too. Tbh it seems like that guy was actually right and you are just refusing to see weaknesses in the build. I'm a protoss player btw before any "Zerg bias you have no idea what you are talking about"
You do realize that Zerg has 25 infestors.. and nothing else right ? Like.. 25 infestors.. and 1600 gas in bank ?
So let's assume for a second that he already has 16 corruptors.
That's 25 infestors + 16 corruptors versus 1 mothership, 29 voidrays and 3 carriers. Army wise that's rouhgly 80 food vs 120 food. Assuming full upgrades on both sides, the result of a direct fight is a slaughter in protoss favor.. like.. it's not even close... and by direct fight I mean, not even relying on vortex !
I mean, if you're going to criticize the build, you better have some experience with it, or test compos in a map unit, or whatever. To me it seems like you have absolutely no clue how strong that compo is. That Zerg was 100% dead. Just run a unit tester and see by yourself.
Now if he had 7000 gas in bank it would have been a different story..
That protoss army is so immobile. Yes 1.6k gas so 16 corruptors, but with 4 bases fully mining gas at around 800 gas per min how long do you think it would take him to get more?? Also using a unit tester comparison in a case like this is stupid. At the very least he could have sacced the top base giving him time for corruptors and more energy on the infestors as he has 7k banked it doesnt matter much. Think about it. 25 full energy infestors and he probably would have added a few more with the corroptors. Thats like 50 fungals and over 100 infested terran PLUS the corruptors which in that number would one shot a mothership/carrier. Im not saying the build doesnt have potential, although i think it would get crushed by a lot of things/by actually good zergs, i am just saying that the posted screenshot was a waste of time trying to prove a point. If the zerg wasn't retarded he WOULD NOT have lost that game, simple as that
On June 02 2012 03:11 iAmBiGbiRd wrote: You do realise that unless he had a stroke he had won that game right?? 25 infestors, despite not being full energy and that bank means he could instantly go to 200-200 with like 30 corruptors while taking another base. In a fight you would straight up lose without recall and he coudl just deny all your expos and camp. You were not going to win that game and seeing as it was practice i would have left too. Tbh it seems like that guy was actually right and you are just refusing to see weaknesses in the build. I'm a protoss player btw before any "Zerg bias you have no idea what you are talking about"
You do realize that Zerg has 25 infestors.. and nothing else right ? Like.. 25 infestors.. and 1600 gas in bank ?
So let's assume for a second that he already has 16 corruptors.
That's 25 infestors + 16 corruptors versus 1 mothership, 29 voidrays and 3 carriers. Army wise that's rouhgly 80 food vs 120 food. Assuming full upgrades on both sides, the result of a direct fight is a slaughter in protoss favor.. like.. it's not even close... and by direct fight I mean, not even relying on vortex !
I mean, if you're going to criticize the build, you better have some experience with it, or test compos in a map unit, or whatever. To me it seems like you have absolutely no clue how strong that compo is. That Zerg was 100% dead. Just run a unit tester and see by yourself.
Now if he had 7000 gas in bank it would have been a different story..
That protoss army is so immobile. Yes 1.6k gas so 16 corruptors, but with 4 bases fully mining gas at around 800 gas per min how long do you think it would take him to get more?? Also using a unit tester comparison in a case like this is stupid. At the very least he could have sacced the top base giving him time for corruptors and more energy on the infestors as he has 7k banked it doesnt matter much. Think about it. 25 full energy infestors and he probably would have added a few more with the corroptors. Thats like 50 fungals and over 100 infested terran PLUS the corruptors which in that number would one shot a mothership/carrier. Im not saying the build doesnt have potential, although i think it would get crushed by a lot of things/by actually good zergs, i am just saying that the posted screenshot was a waste of time trying to prove a point. If the zerg wasn't retarded he WOULD NOT have lost that game, simple as that
You are an idiot. I love how "roughly 45% energy" is the new "full energy"
On June 06 2012 12:39 iAmBiGbiRd wrote: i am just saying that the posted screenshot was a waste of time trying to prove a point. If the zerg wasn't retarded he WOULD NOT have lost that game, simple as that
It's not a waste of time, I'm not going to tolerate lying, and I will hold those who do it accountable. I clearly point out where the player is lying in an attempt to mislead people and boost his own ego.
You can theorycraft all you want about how the game could have continued, you can spam different statistics, but based on my experience, you are wrong, and my advantage is decisive, but this doesn't really matter, thats the point.
The whole point is, I wanted to practice my build (including the lategame) to further increase my samplesize of games that I can learn from, and to actually have a replay of a lategame to review. If I was playing a helpful practice partner, and not a lying scumbag, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now.
I checked the OP, but is opener what the Air Force Ace player did? I feel some sort of gateway pressure should be used early in the game to keep the Z from making too many drones and 13 minute hive trololololing. Is this build possible following a 4 gate +1 timing?
On June 06 2012 12:50 NoMicroWin wrote: I checked the OP, but is opener what the Air Force Ace player did? I feel some sort of gateway pressure should be used early in the game to keep the Z from making too many drones and 13 minute hive trololololing. Is this build possible following a 4 gate +1 timing?
With this style you don't really care about Hive, imo. But having said that, I think using a timing attack in conjunction with this is pretty viable. But the goal of a timing attack is to try and limit the number of drones/bases/geysers the zerg can acquire, and if you happen to delay tech then thats just a bonus. Adrenal is the only HiveTech that is pretty annoying. Broodlords only come into play in very lategame.
On June 02 2012 03:11 iAmBiGbiRd wrote: You do realise that unless he had a stroke he had won that game right?? 25 infestors, despite not being full energy and that bank means he could instantly go to 200-200 with like 30 corruptors while taking another base. In a fight you would straight up lose without recall and he coudl just deny all your expos and camp. You were not going to win that game and seeing as it was practice i would have left too. Tbh it seems like that guy was actually right and you are just refusing to see weaknesses in the build. I'm a protoss player btw before any "Zerg bias you have no idea what you are talking about"
You do realize that Zerg has 25 infestors.. and nothing else right ? Like.. 25 infestors.. and 1600 gas in bank ?
So let's assume for a second that he already has 16 corruptors.
That's 25 infestors + 16 corruptors versus 1 mothership, 29 voidrays and 3 carriers. Army wise that's rouhgly 80 food vs 120 food. Assuming full upgrades on both sides, the result of a direct fight is a slaughter in protoss favor.. like.. it's not even close... and by direct fight I mean, not even relying on vortex !
I mean, if you're going to criticize the build, you better have some experience with it, or test compos in a map unit, or whatever. To me it seems like you have absolutely no clue how strong that compo is. That Zerg was 100% dead. Just run a unit tester and see by yourself.
Now if he had 7000 gas in bank it would have been a different story..
That protoss army is so immobile. Yes 1.6k gas so 16 corruptors, but with 4 bases fully mining gas at around 800 gas per min how long do you think it would take him to get more?? Also using a unit tester comparison in a case like this is stupid. At the very least he could have sacced the top base giving him time for corruptors and more energy on the infestors as he has 7k banked it doesnt matter much. Think about it. 25 full energy infestors and he probably would have added a few more with the corroptors. Thats like 50 fungals and over 100 infested terran PLUS the corruptors which in that number would one shot a mothership/carrier. Im not saying the build doesnt have potential, although i think it would get crushed by a lot of things/by actually good zergs, i am just saying that the posted screenshot was a waste of time trying to prove a point. If the zerg wasn't retarded he WOULD NOT have lost that game, simple as that
The Protoss army is indeed less mobile, but it can still cross the map in less than a minute. Even with 800 more gas, or 8 more corruptors, this is STILL a slaughter in toss favor. Everybody who's played the build knows that. I have dozens of games of experience with it, Fogetaboudit has even more, and I even tested in a map unit tester this scenario to confirm that it was not even close. The number of fungals does not matter because they do not stack and everything else dies so fast.
On June 06 2012 10:13 SidewinderSC2 wrote: However, I think the transition into Carriers is too damn slow. Maybe make 2 just to handle the first wave of Hydras if that's what they choose to attack with, and maybe bait out Corrupter fire. But still I think you could do better by just researching warpgate and powering up a handful of gateways with Charge Zealots. Like somebody had said in this thread, if they just Corrupter dive with lots and lots of lings to kill the cannons, you just can't reinforce well enough to overtake the Zerg's reinforcement rate. Plus, if they mass Hydra and you are still making only Carriers, your cannon wall won't last forever with assuming they support the Hydras well, but a good Vortex and a lot of Charge Zealots in there means they lose their entire army and you lose.. Zealots.
I think the winning move with this build is a really aggressive, strong ground army. My personal choice would be Mothership along with Charge Zealot, Archon/Storm and maybe 4-6 Immortals. If you can keep your Void Ray count high (like 8) and +3 ground weapons, it's a super sick army assuming you keep your Mothership alive.
On June 06 2012 12:18 ineversmile wrote: I agree about the zealot transition from air. Actually, I think it works both ways; going mass gateway style with double forges and then transitioning into triple stargate with +air weapons after taking a third. I like going +ground weapons and +shields from the forges, so I can eventually have x-0-x ground and air to fight hydras etc. It's also worth noting that shields are good for your buildings, as this comes up a lot when you're turtling and they want to use lings to do damage. Shields counteract ling and hydra dps pretty well for buildings and they help with air units and warp prisms flying over queens and spores to get into position.
I like ground, but not as a transition per se. If you transition blindly (or as part of a build), then they'll just go hive and probably have the advantage, since its easy for them to transition to Broodlords and they probably already have Infestors. It's more just getting Warpgates up, so you can re-max really quickly.
For instance, you trade Void Rays and Corruptors, if you have tons of Warpgates, you can warp in a bunch of Zealots and push their base. (maybe even Dark Templar)
If they go Roach, push to get more cannons up, and you can use your gas to get your air back up while they lock their supply into Roach (resetting the match with you again at a tech advantage). If they go Muta, use your gas to Warp in Stalkers. If they go ling (probably baneling), use your gas on Sentries. If they go Corruptors or Infestors, just keep pushing (make a few Stalkers). But if you don't take the time/resources to build those Warpgates (and get upgrades), these options are lost. Simply put they can't go mineral only, to counter the Zealots, meaning they have to commit their gas before you do.
If you transition though, they can just get hive and Broodlords, and you have the tech disadvantage. So I think it's less a transition, and more a conditional timing that flips the match-up conventions. Normally, the Zerg is in a better situation to build counter (i.e. go Muta when you went heavy Immortal or whatever), but once Warpgate infrastructure (along with upgrades) is set up, you are better suited towards this type of counter.
On June 07 2012 00:44 denyeverything wrote: If they go Muta, use your gas to Warp in Stalkers.
IMO, phoenixes are a better answer, if you scout the transition early enough to have a fleet beacon. They're more gas intensive than stalkers, certainly, but since you already have the stargates up, you can get a decent group of phoenixes out fairly quickly and with APC they are a direct hard counter; you should be able to clean all of his mutas up with maybe 1 or 2 phoenix losses at most. Use extra minerals on cannons and zealots, then start massing air again with the air dominance the phoenixes give you.
It's useful to be able to warp in a handful of stalkers right into position against mutas, while you're boosting them out (and getting range if you don't have that already). Stalkers also help with the Muta+Corruptor plan that zerg can and does sometimes use, just to take advantage of a temporary air dominance from their faster max-out with a billion corruptors.
On June 07 2012 00:44 denyeverything wrote: If they go Muta, use your gas to Warp in Stalkers.
IMO, phoenixes are a better answer, if you scout the transition early enough to have a fleet beacon. They're more gas intensive than stalkers, certainly, but since you already have the stargates up, you can get a decent group of phoenixes out fairly quickly and with APC they are a direct hard counter; you should be able to clean all of his mutas up with maybe 1 or 2 phoenix losses at most. Use extra minerals on cannons and zealots, then start massing air again with the air dominance the phoenixes give you.
Phoenix is a better anti-Mutalisk unit, but it's not a better answer.
Obviously, Phoenix with APC counter Mutalisks, but your counter can't be slower than the threat. Mutalisks build slightly faster already, on top of that to even match production, you're going to need more Stargates. Each Stargate is 150 minerals and 150 gas or 1.5 Mutalisks. Let's also not forget the fact that Mutalisks can ignore Phoenix, just hit and run against probes, and retreat to Spores/Queens. Sure you can get Cannons, but those are also twice as expensive as Spores, and your air force costs more minerals. Plus, Phoenix harass is limited to energy (aside from Overlord sniping) on top of being completely vulnerable to the ground and bad to Corruptors. Given that you are trying to quickly build units, the Phoenix are relatively lower in energy than they were with ones that were rushed out earlier (if you went that path). Finally, Zerg can suddenly spawn 12+ Mutalisks at once, so you can't really wait to see them coming and then shift into Phoenix production. You'll just be lagging to far behind. This means you end up having to gamble, which defeats the whole purpose of it being a counter.
I'm not saying don't build Phoenix's (I kinda just assumed you would from whatever Stargate's you have lying around, and in general I like building them), but the point of my post is not to point out unit counters, but to point out the advantages of building Warpgates. You can pressure with your mineral dump and watch what they do with their gas to respond. If you want to tech or build more air units, that's great (and I wholly recommend getting Motherships). But that's lateral from the issue.
Tactically, I don't like the idea of trying to re-build a Protoss fleet. If you lose some, you should reinforce, but if it's gone, it's gone, and you should shift it to support rather than the core of your army. This mostly means Mothership, but tossing in some Carriers if you see Infestors, Void Rays if you see Corruptors, and Phoenix if they try to mass expand.
This looks great. I wanted to try this on the ladder tonight, but everybody I got matched with was a protoss. I'm really looking forward to testing this build out in the future.
On June 07 2012 00:44 denyeverything wrote: If they go Muta, use your gas to Warp in Stalkers.
IMO, phoenixes are a better answer, if you scout the transition early enough to have a fleet beacon. They're more gas intensive than stalkers, certainly, but since you already have the stargates up, you can get a decent group of phoenixes out fairly quickly and with APC they are a direct hard counter; you should be able to clean all of his mutas up with maybe 1 or 2 phoenix losses at most. Use extra minerals on cannons and zealots, then start massing air again with the air dominance the phoenixes give you.
Phoenix is a better anti-Mutalisk unit, but it's not a better answer.
Obviously, Phoenix with APC counter Mutalisks, but your counter can't be slower than the threat. Mutalisks build slightly faster already, on top of that to even match production, you're going to need more Stargates. Each Stargate is 150 minerals and 150 gas or 1.5 Mutalisks. Let's also not forget the fact that Mutalisks can ignore Phoenix, just hit and run against probes, and retreat to Spores/Queens. Sure you can get Cannons, but those are also twice as expensive as Spores, and your air force costs more minerals. Plus, Phoenix harass is limited to energy (aside from Overlord sniping) on top of being completely vulnerable to the ground and bad to Corruptors. Given that you are trying to quickly build units, the Phoenix are relatively lower in energy than they were with ones that were rushed out earlier (if you went that path). Finally, Zerg can suddenly spawn 12+ Mutalisks at once, so you can't really wait to see them coming and then shift into Phoenix production. You'll just be lagging to far behind. This means you end up having to gamble, which defeats the whole purpose of it being a counter.
I'm not saying don't build Phoenix's (I kinda just assumed you would from whatever Stargate's you have lying around, and in general I like building them), but the point of my post is not to point out unit counters, but to point out the advantages of building Warpgates. You can pressure with your mineral dump and watch what they do with their gas to respond. If you want to tech or build more air units, that's great (and I wholly recommend getting Motherships). But that's lateral from the issue.
Tactically, I don't like the idea of trying to re-build a Protoss fleet. If you lose some, you should reinforce, but if it's gone, it's gone, and you should shift it to support rather than the core of your army. This mostly means Mothership, but tossing in some Carriers if you see Infestors, Void Rays if you see Corruptors, and Phoenix if they try to mass expand.
So much theory-craft here. Please watch the replays.
If I open with SG->Beacon->SG I can have 5 phoenix with +1 and APC before his muta spawns. When i scout muta i'll just add 3-4 more phoenix.
Let me explain.
0-0 12 muta vs 5+ (1-0), or a little bit later (2-1) phoenix with APC is trash, basically thrown away money.
Also you are completely wrong about muta ignoring phoenix. Phoenix HARD counters muta, because of superior speed, superior range and possibility to fire while moving. The whole point of phoenix is that muta can't run away from them, just cannot.
In gateway builds stalkers are a better response, cuz you have the infrastructure for ground army and ground upgrades, but if you are going mass air - phoenix and only phoenix.
Cannons expensive? Please get familiar with the OP, cannons are the core of this build, you can build a crapton of them if you want, it's still cheaper than to get ground army.
Why not stalkers? Stalkers are good in descent numbers and with upgrades. So if you are going sky-toss , most probably you won't have the infrastructure to sustain ground army, nor the upgrades. to deal with 12 muta with stalker and no blink, you'll need around 10+ stalkers, that's: 125x10 + 50x10 = 1250 minerals + 500 gas 5 phoenix is 750 + 500 and if we add the cannons, to get the same amount of investment - 2 cannons/mineral line. 1350 + 50, so the difference in cost is just 100 minerals. But phoenix are much more cost-effective due to harass and scouting. I'm not counting the upgrades cost or the fleet beacon, because it's a part of build.
About phoenix harass: You are missing the point of it. Usually you want to deal economic damage to zerg, so you can get ahead, but in this build your most important resource is time, time to establish third. Purpose of phx is to disrupt production cycles of zerg, by killing queens. Get him supply blocked by killing ovies, force to rebuild those and spend larva on them. You are buying yourself time to get cannons on your third and a MS and VR. Energy of 5 phx is more than enough to do that.
TL;DR - If you have SG and Beacon - Get phoenix against muta. And also please, read the topic, thank you.
On June 07 2012 00:44 denyeverything wrote: If they go Muta, use your gas to Warp in Stalkers.
IMO, phoenixes are a better answer, if you scout the transition early enough to have a fleet beacon. They're more gas intensive than stalkers, certainly, but since you already have the stargates up, you can get a decent group of phoenixes out fairly quickly and with APC they are a direct hard counter; you should be able to clean all of his mutas up with maybe 1 or 2 phoenix losses at most. Use extra minerals on cannons and zealots, then start massing air again with the air dominance the phoenixes give you.
Phoenix is a better anti-Mutalisk unit, but it's not a better answer.
Obviously, Phoenix with APC counter Mutalisks, but your counter can't be slower than the threat. Mutalisks build slightly faster already, on top of that to even match production, you're going to need more Stargates. Each Stargate is 150 minerals and 150 gas or 1.5 Mutalisks. Let's also not forget the fact that Mutalisks can ignore Phoenix, just hit and run against probes, and retreat to Spores/Queens. Sure you can get Cannons, but those are also twice as expensive as Spores, and your air force costs more minerals. Plus, Phoenix harass is limited to energy (aside from Overlord sniping) on top of being completely vulnerable to the ground and bad to Corruptors. Given that you are trying to quickly build units, the Phoenix are relatively lower in energy than they were with ones that were rushed out earlier (if you went that path). Finally, Zerg can suddenly spawn 12+ Mutalisks at once, so you can't really wait to see them coming and then shift into Phoenix production. You'll just be lagging to far behind. This means you end up having to gamble, which defeats the whole purpose of it being a counter.
I'm not saying don't build Phoenix's (I kinda just assumed you would from whatever Stargate's you have lying around, and in general I like building them), but the point of my post is not to point out unit counters, but to point out the advantages of building Warpgates. You can pressure with your mineral dump and watch what they do with their gas to respond. If you want to tech or build more air units, that's great (and I wholly recommend getting Motherships). But that's lateral from the issue.
Tactically, I don't like the idea of trying to re-build a Protoss fleet. If you lose some, you should reinforce, but if it's gone, it's gone, and you should shift it to support rather than the core of your army. This mostly means Mothership, but tossing in some Carriers if you see Infestors, Void Rays if you see Corruptors, and Phoenix if they try to mass expand.
So much theory-craft here. Please watch the replays.
If I open with SG->Becon->SG I can have 5 phoenix with +1 and APC before his muta spawns. When i scout muta i'll just add 3-4 more phoenix. let me explain.
0-0 12 muta vs 5+ (1-0), or a little bit later (2-1) phoenix with APC is trash, basically thrown away money.
Also you are completely wrong about muta ignoring phoenix. Phoenix HARD counters muta, because of superior speed, superior range and possibility to fire while moving. The whole point of phoenix is that muta can't run away from them, just cannot.
In normal games stalkers are a better response, cuz you have the infrastructure for ground army and ground upgrades, but if you are going mass air - phoenix and only phoenix.
Cannons expensive? Please get familiar with the OP, cannons are the core of this build, you can build a crapton of them if you want, it's still cheaper than to get ground army.
Let me explain why not stalkers. Stalkers are good in descent numbers and with upgrades. So if you are going sky-toss , most probably you won't have the infrastructure to sustain ground army, nor the upgrades. to deal with 12 muta with stalker and no blink, you'll need around 10+ stalkers, that's: 125x10 + 50x10 = 1250 minerals + 500 gas 5 phoenix is 750 + 500 and if we add the cannons, to get the same amount of investment - 2 cannons/mineral line. 1350 + 50, so the difference in cost is just 100 minerals. But phoenix are much more cost-effective due to harass and scouting. I'm not counting the upgrades cost or the fleet beacon, because it's a part of build.
About phoenix harass: You are missing the point of it. Usually you want to deal economic damage to zerg, so you can get ahead, but in this build your most important resource is time, time to establish third. Purpose of phx is to disrupt production cycles of zerg, by killing queens. Get him supply blocked by killing ovies, force to rebuild those and spend larva on them. You are buying yourself time to get cannons on your third and a MS and VR. Energy of 5 phx is more than enough to do that.
TL;DR - If you have SG and Beacon - Get phoenix against muta. And also please, read the topic, thank you.
Excellent post, and the muta threat is why I like to open phoenix. You will have perfect scouting and see them coming which will prompt you to grab APC. 5 phoenix 1/0 with APC can handle double to triple the muta numbers easy. Get 4-5, switch to VR, and grab extra cannons if you expect a roach counter.
On June 07 2012 00:44 denyeverything wrote: If they go Muta, use your gas to Warp in Stalkers.
IMO, phoenixes are a better answer, if you scout the transition early enough to have a fleet beacon. They're more gas intensive than stalkers, certainly, but since you already have the stargates up, you can get a decent group of phoenixes out fairly quickly and with APC they are a direct hard counter; you should be able to clean all of his mutas up with maybe 1 or 2 phoenix losses at most. Use extra minerals on cannons and zealots, then start massing air again with the air dominance the phoenixes give you.
Phoenix is a better anti-Mutalisk unit, but it's not a better answer.
Obviously, Phoenix with APC counter Mutalisks, but your counter can't be slower than the threat. Mutalisks build slightly faster already, on top of that to even match production, you're going to need more Stargates. Each Stargate is 150 minerals and 150 gas or 1.5 Mutalisks. Let's also not forget the fact that Mutalisks can ignore Phoenix, just hit and run against probes, and retreat to Spores/Queens. Sure you can get Cannons, but those are also twice as expensive as Spores, and your air force costs more minerals. Plus, Phoenix harass is limited to energy (aside from Overlord sniping) on top of being completely vulnerable to the ground and bad to Corruptors. Given that you are trying to quickly build units, the Phoenix are relatively lower in energy than they were with ones that were rushed out earlier (if you went that path). Finally, Zerg can suddenly spawn 12+ Mutalisks at once, so you can't really wait to see them coming and then shift into Phoenix production. You'll just be lagging to far behind. This means you end up having to gamble, which defeats the whole purpose of it being a counter.
I'm not saying don't build Phoenix's (I kinda just assumed you would from whatever Stargate's you have lying around, and in general I like building them), but the point of my post is not to point out unit counters, but to point out the advantages of building Warpgates. You can pressure with your mineral dump and watch what they do with their gas to respond. If you want to tech or build more air units, that's great (and I wholly recommend getting Motherships). But that's lateral from the issue.
Tactically, I don't like the idea of trying to re-build a Protoss fleet. If you lose some, you should reinforce, but if it's gone, it's gone, and you should shift it to support rather than the core of your army. This mostly means Mothership, but tossing in some Carriers if you see Infestors, Void Rays if you see Corruptors, and Phoenix if they try to mass expand.
So much theory-craft here. Please watch the replays.
If I open with SG->Becon->SG I can have 5 phoenix with +1 and APC before his muta spawns. When i scout muta i'll just add 3-4 more phoenix. let me explain.
0-0 12 muta vs 5+ (1-0), or a little bit later (2-1) phoenix with APC is trash, basically thrown away money.
Also you are completely wrong about muta ignoring phoenix. Phoenix HARD counters muta, because of superior speed, superior range and possibility to fire while moving. The whole point of phoenix is that muta can't run away from them, just cannot.
In normal games stalkers are a better response, cuz you have the infrastructure for ground army and ground upgrades, but if you are going mass air - phoenix and only phoenix.
Cannons expensive? Please get familiar with the OP, cannons are the core of this build, you can build a crapton of them if you want, it's still cheaper than to get ground army.
Let me explain why not stalkers. Stalkers are good in descent numbers and with upgrades. So if you are going sky-toss , most probably you won't have the infrastructure to sustain ground army, nor the upgrades. to deal with 12 muta with stalker and no blink, you'll need around 10+ stalkers, that's: 125x10 + 50x10 = 1250 minerals + 500 gas 5 phoenix is 750 + 500 and if we add the cannons, to get the same amount of investment - 2 cannons/mineral line. 1350 + 50, so the difference in cost is just 100 minerals. But phoenix are much more cost-effective due to harass and scouting. I'm not counting the upgrades cost or the fleet beacon, because it's a part of build.
About phoenix harass: You are missing the point of it. Usually you want to deal economic damage to zerg, so you can get ahead, but in this build your most important resource is time, time to establish third. Purpose of phx is to disrupt production cycles of zerg, by killing queens. Get him supply blocked by killing ovies, force to rebuild those and spend larva on them. You are buying yourself time to get cannons on your third and a MS and VR. Energy of 5 phx is more than enough to do that.
TL;DR - If you have SG and Beacon - Get phoenix against muta. And also please, read the topic, thank you.
Excellent post, and the muta threat is why I like to open phoenix. You will have perfect scouting and see them coming which will prompt you to grab APC. 5 phoenix 1/0 with APC can handle double to triple the muta numbers easy. Get 4-5, switch to VR, and grab extra cannons if you expect a roach counter.
This. Even in "normal" games I've been a huge advocate of stargate first play for a long time. Get a single phoenix, go scout (not as subtle as an obs, but way faster and earlier information is always better). If you see roach warren and a significant number of roaches already out, boost void rays. If you see a baneling nest, boost phoenixes and patrol around your base, lifting the banelings as soon as they morph. If you see a spire, get a fleet beacon and boost +1 air weapons and APC. Pretty safe almost any way you go about it. Get a robo second, and a twilight in time to start +2 ground weapons without delay. Most Zerg respond to a stargate first with a hydralisk den; so long as you patrol your base to keep ovies away and prevent the nydus, you can easily tech to colossus and enjoy your free win over roach/hydra/ling.
On June 07 2012 00:44 denyeverything wrote: If they go Muta, use your gas to Warp in Stalkers.
IMO, phoenixes are a better answer, if you scout the transition early enough to have a fleet beacon. They're more gas intensive than stalkers, certainly, but since you already have the stargates up, you can get a decent group of phoenixes out fairly quickly and with APC they are a direct hard counter; you should be able to clean all of his mutas up with maybe 1 or 2 phoenix losses at most. Use extra minerals on cannons and zealots, then start massing air again with the air dominance the phoenixes give you.
Phoenix is a better anti-Mutalisk unit, but it's not a better answer.
Obviously, Phoenix with APC counter Mutalisks, but your counter can't be slower than the threat. Mutalisks build slightly faster already, on top of that to even match production, you're going to need more Stargates. Each Stargate is 150 minerals and 150 gas or 1.5 Mutalisks. Let's also not forget the fact that Mutalisks can ignore Phoenix, just hit and run against probes, and retreat to Spores/Queens. Sure you can get Cannons, but those are also twice as expensive as Spores, and your air force costs more minerals. Plus, Phoenix harass is limited to energy (aside from Overlord sniping) on top of being completely vulnerable to the ground and bad to Corruptors. Given that you are trying to quickly build units, the Phoenix are relatively lower in energy than they were with ones that were rushed out earlier (if you went that path). Finally, Zerg can suddenly spawn 12+ Mutalisks at once, so you can't really wait to see them coming and then shift into Phoenix production. You'll just be lagging to far behind. This means you end up having to gamble, which defeats the whole purpose of it being a counter.
I'm not saying don't build Phoenix's (I kinda just assumed you would from whatever Stargate's you have lying around, and in general I like building them), but the point of my post is not to point out unit counters, but to point out the advantages of building Warpgates. You can pressure with your mineral dump and watch what they do with their gas to respond. If you want to tech or build more air units, that's great (and I wholly recommend getting Motherships). But that's lateral from the issue.
Tactically, I don't like the idea of trying to re-build a Protoss fleet. If you lose some, you should reinforce, but if it's gone, it's gone, and you should shift it to support rather than the core of your army. This mostly means Mothership, but tossing in some Carriers if you see Infestors, Void Rays if you see Corruptors, and Phoenix if they try to mass expand.
So much theory-craft here. Please watch the replays.
If I open with SG->Beacon->SG I can have 5 phoenix with +1 and APC before his muta spawns. When i scout muta i'll just add 3-4 more phoenix.
Let me explain.
0-0 12 muta vs 5+ (1-0), or a little bit later (2-1) phoenix with APC is trash, basically thrown away money.
Also you are completely wrong about muta ignoring phoenix. Phoenix HARD counters muta, because of superior speed, superior range and possibility to fire while moving. The whole point of phoenix is that muta can't run away from them, just cannot.
In gateway builds stalkers are a better response, cuz you have the infrastructure for ground army and ground upgrades, but if you are going mass air - phoenix and only phoenix.
Cannons expensive? Please get familiar with the OP, cannons are the core of this build, you can build a crapton of them if you want, it's still cheaper than to get ground army.
Why not stalkers? Stalkers are good in descent numbers and with upgrades. So if you are going sky-toss , most probably you won't have the infrastructure to sustain ground army, nor the upgrades. to deal with 12 muta with stalker and no blink, you'll need around 10+ stalkers, that's: 125x10 + 50x10 = 1250 minerals + 500 gas 5 phoenix is 750 + 500 and if we add the cannons, to get the same amount of investment - 2 cannons/mineral line. 1350 + 50, so the difference in cost is just 100 minerals. But phoenix are much more cost-effective due to harass and scouting. I'm not counting the upgrades cost or the fleet beacon, because it's a part of build.
About phoenix harass: You are missing the point of it. Usually you want to deal economic damage to zerg, so you can get ahead, but in this build your most important resource is time, time to establish third. Purpose of phx is to disrupt production cycles of zerg, by killing queens. Get him supply blocked by killing ovies, force to rebuild those and spend larva on them. You are buying yourself time to get cannons on your third and a MS and VR. Energy of 5 phx is more than enough to do that.
TL;DR - If you have SG and Beacon - Get phoenix against muta. And also please, read the topic, thank you.
You clearly didn't read my post. I was talking about transitions, not if the Zerg opens Mutas. :sigh:
On June 07 2012 00:44 denyeverything wrote: If they go Muta, use your gas to Warp in Stalkers.
IMO, phoenixes are a better answer, if you scout the transition early enough to have a fleet beacon. They're more gas intensive than stalkers, certainly, but since you already have the stargates up, you can get a decent group of phoenixes out fairly quickly and with APC they are a direct hard counter; you should be able to clean all of his mutas up with maybe 1 or 2 phoenix losses at most. Use extra minerals on cannons and zealots, then start massing air again with the air dominance the phoenixes give you.
Phoenix is a better anti-Mutalisk unit, but it's not a better answer.
Obviously, Phoenix with APC counter Mutalisks, but your counter can't be slower than the threat. Mutalisks build slightly faster already, on top of that to even match production, you're going to need more Stargates. Each Stargate is 150 minerals and 150 gas or 1.5 Mutalisks. Let's also not forget the fact that Mutalisks can ignore Phoenix, just hit and run against probes, and retreat to Spores/Queens. Sure you can get Cannons, but those are also twice as expensive as Spores, and your air force costs more minerals. Plus, Phoenix harass is limited to energy (aside from Overlord sniping) on top of being completely vulnerable to the ground and bad to Corruptors. Given that you are trying to quickly build units, the Phoenix are relatively lower in energy than they were with ones that were rushed out earlier (if you went that path). Finally, Zerg can suddenly spawn 12+ Mutalisks at once, so you can't really wait to see them coming and then shift into Phoenix production. You'll just be lagging to far behind. This means you end up having to gamble, which defeats the whole purpose of it being a counter.
I'm not saying don't build Phoenix's (I kinda just assumed you would from whatever Stargate's you have lying around, and in general I like building them), but the point of my post is not to point out unit counters, but to point out the advantages of building Warpgates. You can pressure with your mineral dump and watch what they do with their gas to respond. If you want to tech or build more air units, that's great (and I wholly recommend getting Motherships). But that's lateral from the issue.
Tactically, I don't like the idea of trying to re-build a Protoss fleet. If you lose some, you should reinforce, but if it's gone, it's gone, and you should shift it to support rather than the core of your army. This mostly means Mothership, but tossing in some Carriers if you see Infestors, Void Rays if you see Corruptors, and Phoenix if they try to mass expand.
So much theory-craft here. Please watch the replays.
If I open with SG->Beacon->SG I can have 5 phoenix with +1 and APC before his muta spawns. When i scout muta i'll just add 3-4 more phoenix.
Let me explain.
0-0 12 muta vs 5+ (1-0), or a little bit later (2-1) phoenix with APC is trash, basically thrown away money.
Also you are completely wrong about muta ignoring phoenix. Phoenix HARD counters muta, because of superior speed, superior range and possibility to fire while moving. The whole point of phoenix is that muta can't run away from them, just cannot.
In gateway builds stalkers are a better response, cuz you have the infrastructure for ground army and ground upgrades, but if you are going mass air - phoenix and only phoenix.
Cannons expensive? Please get familiar with the OP, cannons are the core of this build, you can build a crapton of them if you want, it's still cheaper than to get ground army.
Why not stalkers? Stalkers are good in descent numbers and with upgrades. So if you are going sky-toss , most probably you won't have the infrastructure to sustain ground army, nor the upgrades. to deal with 12 muta with stalker and no blink, you'll need around 10+ stalkers, that's: 125x10 + 50x10 = 1250 minerals + 500 gas 5 phoenix is 750 + 500 and if we add the cannons, to get the same amount of investment - 2 cannons/mineral line. 1350 + 50, so the difference in cost is just 100 minerals. But phoenix are much more cost-effective due to harass and scouting. I'm not counting the upgrades cost or the fleet beacon, because it's a part of build.
About phoenix harass: You are missing the point of it. Usually you want to deal economic damage to zerg, so you can get ahead, but in this build your most important resource is time, time to establish third. Purpose of phx is to disrupt production cycles of zerg, by killing queens. Get him supply blocked by killing ovies, force to rebuild those and spend larva on them. You are buying yourself time to get cannons on your third and a MS and VR. Energy of 5 phx is more than enough to do that.
TL;DR - If you have SG and Beacon - Get phoenix against muta. And also please, read the topic, thank you.
You clearly didn't read my post. I was talking about transitions, not if the Zerg opens Mutas. :sigh:
I understood your point, mostly my post was an answer 2Quasi.In.Rem's said. Stalker is a good answer if you play common gateway army, but we are talking in sky toss thread, right? So i presume it was "warping stalkers while you play sky toss". Which lead to explanation why stalkers is a bad responce if you are playing air. Muta transition will just hit upgraded phoenix wall, and that's pretty much it.
i have done this build dozens of times, and well the reps i have seen people usually move put with their frist void as soon as it finishes, and rally more voids from there, i do a 2 stargate +1 and get 6 voids, then rally pheonixs while i move out to kill 3 zergs third, i was wondering what the advantages are of having your stargate play revealed so early, i mean, the zerg will have more time to react and place spores in suspicion of a stargate attack, but if your stargates are not scouted why not wait for 6 voids and then rally pheni to his third? pros and cons greatly appreciated and will put replays up of my games if needed
On June 09 2012 00:52 Fortis-Et-Fidus wrote: i have done this build dozens of times, and well the reps i have seen people usually move put with their frist void as soon as it finishes, and rally more voids from there, i do a 2 stargate +1 and get 6 voids, then rally pheonixs while i move out to kill 3 zergs third, i was wondering what the advantages are of having your stargate play revealed so early, i mean, the zerg will have more time to react and place spores in suspicion of a stargate attack, but if your stargates are not scouted why not wait for 6 voids and then rally pheni to his third? pros and cons greatly appreciated and will put replays up of my games if needed
Take my opinion for what its worth, I am platinum. At my level, I like to reveal my stargate play by killing their overlords around my base with my first void instead of keeping it hidden. The reason for this is that about 100% of zergs i play do the stephano build, and watching the replays, it is very evident that these zergs are thrown way off their game when they see more than a couple void rays. They are so set in doing this stephano build that when they see im going air they really start to falter, they forget to saturate bases, they have to throw down their hydra den, they forget to spread creep, they forget about overlords spread around the map that i then kill for free, so in my experience so far the benefit to showing my hand has been well worth not being able to outright kill their third.
This benefit may change in higher leagues, but at least for now the people i play against you can tell that they are very screwed when they have to modify a particular build they were setting out for.
On June 09 2012 00:52 Fortis-Et-Fidus wrote: i have done this build dozens of times, and well the reps i have seen people usually move put with their frist void as soon as it finishes, and rally more voids from there, i do a 2 stargate +1 and get 6 voids, then rally pheonixs while i move out to kill 3 zergs third, i was wondering what the advantages are of having your stargate play revealed so early, i mean, the zerg will have more time to react and place spores in suspicion of a stargate attack, but if your stargates are not scouted why not wait for 6 voids and then rally pheni to his third? pros and cons greatly appreciated and will put replays up of my games if needed
Yeah that's a strong attack but you auto-lose if Zerg went fast mutas. You won't have your 6 voids before 10-11' and that's when fast mutas come out. That's usually on 2 bases, as doing it on 3 bases is more risky, but I've also seen it on 3 bases ( Zerg gets the roach warren but if no pressure is coming they just go straight to mutas.. ).
There's also the fact that any half decent Zerg will scout. You can deny overlords in the early game, but once the lair is finished, if he's not sure what you're doing, how are you going to prevent an overseer from seeing everything ?
All in all, I'm no fan of that attack timing, because it means delaying your third ( you're delaying your mothership, and you can't hold your third without the mothership ). This makes your air attack semi-all-in: if you don't do major damage, you're in a terrible position to continue a macro game.
Personally, I like to start with one single pheonix out asap to scout the Zerg and to hunt overlords. I continue on voidrays, fast mothership, but I try to hide my second stargate, and I also drop a couple gates as distraction. It's easier to play that way because Zerg will likely scout at least one stargate and the gates, and he'll see the phoenix, so you kind of force an under-reaction. I want him to continue investing in those lings and roaches. I don't want him to rush to infestors or corruptors, or get fast air upgrades. I want him to think I'm doing a pressure build on a single stargate, followed by a gate timing, or a third. By the time he realizes I'm actually getting a third with a mothership and multiple stargates and committing to air with upgrades, he's spent thousands and thousands of resources in a useless tech and army.
This discussion is totally branching off into different directions based upon skill level. What works against Platinum opponents won't work against Diamond, which won't work against Masters, and so forth. I don't care about opponents who suck enough to make poor choices; I want to be able to beat the ones who make good decisions because my strategy is sound and it allows me the room to outplay people.
On June 09 2012 18:14 ineversmile wrote: This discussion is totally branching off into different directions based upon skill level. What works against Platinum opponents won't work against Diamond, which won't work against Masters, and so forth. I don't care about opponents who suck enough to make poor choices; I want to be able to beat the ones who make good decisions because my strategy is sound and it allows me the room to outplay people.
While this is true, to an extent, one must also realize that it's not a rigid build like the Stephano-style 12 minute roach max build. There are many ways of doing Skytoss openers, and none (afaik) are conclusively better than any of the others at this point in time. That's why this thread exists in the first place, to create a discussion around Skytoss openers, and which tend to work better than others. Personally, it's led to a lot more experimentation for me with the fast mothership play, since I never really tried a defensive Skytoss opener like that (I used to do a lot more offensive Skytoss style builds, like the 2 base carrier rush, setting up the third after your opponent is on the back foot). While a carrier rush is effective at catching ladder opponents off guard and scoring cheap wins, it's not nearly as solid a build as a fast defensive mothership is, at least in my opinion. The point is that Skytoss is a very viable PvZ style in a wide variety of situations, not purely those where your opponents aren't quick-thinking enough to come up with a good response.
The reason that the discussion is sort of all over the place is because it's a very infrequently used style, and a lot of people have come up with very different approaches to it. But don't make the mistake of equating infrequent use with inferiority (see Stardust vs Roro, Freaky vs Crank, etc). Play with it yourself and see what works.
On June 02 2012 03:11 iAmBiGbiRd wrote: You do realise that unless he had a stroke he had won that game right?? 25 infestors, despite not being full energy and that bank means he could instantly go to 200-200 with like 30 corruptors while taking another base. In a fight you would straight up lose without recall and he coudl just deny all your expos and camp. You were not going to win that game and seeing as it was practice i would have left too. Tbh it seems like that guy was actually right and you are just refusing to see weaknesses in the build. I'm a protoss player btw before any "Zerg bias you have no idea what you are talking about"
You do realize that Zerg has 25 infestors.. and nothing else right ? Like.. 25 infestors.. and 1600 gas in bank ?
So let's assume for a second that he already has 16 corruptors.
That's 25 infestors + 16 corruptors versus 1 mothership, 29 voidrays and 3 carriers. Army wise that's rouhgly 80 food vs 120 food. Assuming full upgrades on both sides, the result of a direct fight is a slaughter in protoss favor.. like.. it's not even close... and by direct fight I mean, not even relying on vortex !
I mean, if you're going to criticize the build, you better have some experience with it, or test compos in a map unit, or whatever. To me it seems like you have absolutely no clue how strong that compo is. That Zerg was 100% dead. Just run a unit tester and see by yourself.
Now if he had 7000 gas in bank it would have been a different story..
That protoss army is so immobile. Yes 1.6k gas so 16 corruptors, but with 4 bases fully mining gas at around 800 gas per min how long do you think it would take him to get more?? Also using a unit tester comparison in a case like this is stupid. At the very least he could have sacced the top base giving him time for corruptors and more energy on the infestors as he has 7k banked it doesnt matter much. Think about it. 25 full energy infestors and he probably would have added a few more with the corroptors. Thats like 50 fungals and over 100 infested terran PLUS the corruptors which in that number would one shot a mothership/carrier. Im not saying the build doesnt have potential, although i think it would get crushed by a lot of things/by actually good zergs, i am just saying that the posted screenshot was a waste of time trying to prove a point. If the zerg wasn't retarded he WOULD NOT have lost that game, simple as that
You are an idiot. I love how "roughly 45% energy" is the new "full energy"
On June 06 2012 12:39 iAmBiGbiRd wrote: i am just saying that the posted screenshot was a waste of time trying to prove a point. If the zerg wasn't retarded he WOULD NOT have lost that game, simple as that
It's not a waste of time, I'm not going to tolerate lying, and I will hold those who do it accountable. I clearly point out where the player is lying in an attempt to mislead people and boost his own ego.
You can theorycraft all you want about how the game could have continued, you can spam different statistics, but based on my experience, you are wrong, and my advantage is decisive, but this doesn't really matter, thats the point.
The whole point is, I wanted to practice my build (including the lategame) to further increase my samplesize of games that I can learn from, and to actually have a replay of a lategame to review. If I was playing a helpful practice partner, and not a lying scumbag, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now.
Actually you are the idiot. I didn't say that he had full energy right now but if he was smart by the time an engagement happened he would have been very close and would have added a few more + corruptors. Also do you forget that zerg have Neural?? Don't you think all pro P players would be doing this build if it's endgame was invincible?? I'm done here, you obviously are not willing to accept any criticism and seem to think that build is good.
On June 09 2012 18:14 ineversmile wrote: This discussion is totally branching off into different directions based upon skill level. What works against Platinum opponents won't work against Diamond, which won't work against Masters, and so forth. I don't care about opponents who suck enough to make poor choices; I want to be able to beat the ones who make good decisions because my strategy is sound and it allows me the room to outplay people.
While this is true, to an extent, one must also realize that it's not a rigid build like the Stephano-style 12 minute roach max build. There are many ways of doing Skytoss openers, and none (afaik) are conclusively better than any of the others at this point in time. That's why this thread exists in the first place, to create a discussion around Skytoss openers, and which tend to work better than others. Personally, it's led to a lot more experimentation for me with the fast mothership play, since I never really tried a defensive Skytoss opener like that (I used to do a lot more offensive Skytoss style builds, like the 2 base carrier rush, setting up the third after your opponent is on the back foot). While a carrier rush is effective at catching ladder opponents off guard and scoring cheap wins, it's not nearly as solid a build as a fast defensive mothership is, at least in my opinion. The point is that Skytoss is a very viable PvZ style in a wide variety of situations, not purely those where your opponents aren't quick-thinking enough to come up with a good response.
The reason that the discussion is sort of all over the place is because it's a very infrequently used style, and a lot of people have come up with very different approaches to it. But don't make the mistake of equating infrequent use with inferiority (see Stardust vs Roro, Freaky vs Crank, etc). Play with it yourself and see what works.
I'm not complaining about the variety of builds and transitions into and out of Skytoss; I'm just a bit bummed by the fact that it's hard to sift through all the posts about how "people just lose to me because I built mass air and they didn't play accordingly." Sure, sometimes build order wins happen and a bunch of Void Rays go across the map and wreck your opponent, just like how a DT rush can end the game or a marine/helion attack can hard-counter a 4-gate at the highest level. Some games just fly out the window because there are always timings where a player just dies or gets really, really far behind very quickly without a chance to respond. However, what about the times when the opponent does have the time and ability to respond and does so accordingly? This is what I'm interested in, especially because it's my biggest problem when doing a Skytoss build from the beginning. I don't have a problem beating the guys making mass Roaches against Void Ray/defensive Mothership turtling; I'm having trouble with acute Hydra timings before I can get AoE and with Ling/Infestor/mass spire units, which are what happens when my opponents actually decide to counter the stargate play appropriately.
Anyways....
About the muta-countering issue: I agree with the concept that you should have at least 2-3 stargates ready to pump Phoenix, and you probably should have a Fleet Beacon established already by the time that Mutas come across the map (if you aren't already sitting on a squad of Pheonixes to stem the tide). However, you don't necessarily know that Mutas are coming until they hatch. Even with the best of scouting, you don't know if they're making 5 mutas or 15 mutas or just Corruptors, or a mix of Mutas and Corruptors. You can, at best, scout the spire timing, then see the air units pop at their base before they start flying over to yours (or to engage your army, if you've been attacking/harassing). So you can't always be prepared fully with Anion range, but you can take steps like having the Beacon ready, having the production up to make Phoenixes, and having +1 air to be able to tear up their Mutas. Still, it's never a bad thing to have a bunch of Warp Gates available simply so you can warp in an emergency round of Stalkers to slow down the Mutas while you're pumping Phoenixes and getting that range going. It doesn't have to be a full commital and you don't need to get Blink or anything, but it's good to have that option so you build a handful of under-upgraded units instead of losing a ton of probes or production. The stalkers are good for crisis management, when youre focusing on a Skytoss army. That's how I see it, anyways.
I have been experimenting with walling off my third with more stargates, lately. They're more exposed to ground attacks than if they were to sit in your base, but they also happen to have more HP than gateways...and you need to build them anyways. It's a good excuse to power up production more quickly, and I like the timings: Get a third and build 2 more Stargates at it with cannons behind them. This helps a bit with the whole "corruptors/mutas camping my Stargates" problem, too, and it also means voids/carriers are popping out right in the front of the battle to reinforce against ground attacks. Maybe it's too risky for the sake of the important buildings tanking too much damage...but maybe this is the correct way to go if WG tech is beign delayed in favor of faster Cyber-Core air upgrades. I don't know if anyone else has thought about this, but it seems interesting. The biggest problem is definitely the fact that Gateways cost exactly the same minerals but without the gas...I don't know. It's not like you're hiding the fact that you're making lots of air units, when they see the +air attack that early and see a Mothership at your heavily-turtled third.
On June 02 2012 03:11 iAmBiGbiRd wrote: You do realise that unless he had a stroke he had won that game right?? 25 infestors, despite not being full energy and that bank means he could instantly go to 200-200 with like 30 corruptors while taking another base. In a fight you would straight up lose without recall and he coudl just deny all your expos and camp. You were not going to win that game and seeing as it was practice i would have left too. Tbh it seems like that guy was actually right and you are just refusing to see weaknesses in the build. I'm a protoss player btw before any "Zerg bias you have no idea what you are talking about"
You do realize that Zerg has 25 infestors.. and nothing else right ? Like.. 25 infestors.. and 1600 gas in bank ?
So let's assume for a second that he already has 16 corruptors.
That's 25 infestors + 16 corruptors versus 1 mothership, 29 voidrays and 3 carriers. Army wise that's rouhgly 80 food vs 120 food. Assuming full upgrades on both sides, the result of a direct fight is a slaughter in protoss favor.. like.. it's not even close... and by direct fight I mean, not even relying on vortex !
I mean, if you're going to criticize the build, you better have some experience with it, or test compos in a map unit, or whatever. To me it seems like you have absolutely no clue how strong that compo is. That Zerg was 100% dead. Just run a unit tester and see by yourself.
Now if he had 7000 gas in bank it would have been a different story..
That protoss army is so immobile. Yes 1.6k gas so 16 corruptors, but with 4 bases fully mining gas at around 800 gas per min how long do you think it would take him to get more?? Also using a unit tester comparison in a case like this is stupid. At the very least he could have sacced the top base giving him time for corruptors and more energy on the infestors as he has 7k banked it doesnt matter much. Think about it. 25 full energy infestors and he probably would have added a few more with the corroptors. Thats like 50 fungals and over 100 infested terran PLUS the corruptors which in that number would one shot a mothership/carrier. Im not saying the build doesnt have potential, although i think it would get crushed by a lot of things/by actually good zergs, i am just saying that the posted screenshot was a waste of time trying to prove a point. If the zerg wasn't retarded he WOULD NOT have lost that game, simple as that
You are an idiot. I love how "roughly 45% energy" is the new "full energy"
On June 06 2012 12:39 iAmBiGbiRd wrote: i am just saying that the posted screenshot was a waste of time trying to prove a point. If the zerg wasn't retarded he WOULD NOT have lost that game, simple as that
It's not a waste of time, I'm not going to tolerate lying, and I will hold those who do it accountable. I clearly point out where the player is lying in an attempt to mislead people and boost his own ego.
You can theorycraft all you want about how the game could have continued, you can spam different statistics, but based on my experience, you are wrong, and my advantage is decisive, but this doesn't really matter, thats the point.
The whole point is, I wanted to practice my build (including the lategame) to further increase my samplesize of games that I can learn from, and to actually have a replay of a lategame to review. If I was playing a helpful practice partner, and not a lying scumbag, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now.
Actually you are the idiot. I didn't say that he had full energy right now but if he was smart by the time an engagement happened he would have been very close and would have added a few more + corruptors. Also do you forget that zerg have Neural?? Don't you think all pro P players would be doing this build if it's endgame was invincible?? I'm done here, you obviously are not willing to accept any criticism and seem to think that build is good.
Nice backtrack, lol. You either misunderstood how much energy there was (probable), or said something pretty irrelevant, theorycrafting for how a future battle would turn out based on your offbase intuition (stupid.)
I've always been open to criticism, just not to idiocy with a cocky "know it all" attitude, and no proof.
I've already accepted sound criticism ITT, from someone who actually worked with the build and came to a conclusion, so you are wrong. (A talented player said a crisp corrupter/ling timing hitting the third can cause potential problems, and I currently accept this criticism)
Anyhow, anyone with a clue/ experience with these compositions has mentioned you are wrong. Not only are you wrong, it's irrelevant in the first place. I'll quote myself again since you still don't get it. Hint: focus on the third paragraph, and take your (awful) theory-crafting elsewhere.
On June 06 2012 12:45 Fogetaboudit wrote: It's not a waste of time, I'm not going to tolerate lying, and I will hold those who do it accountable. I clearly point out where the player is lying in an attempt to mislead people and boost his own ego.
You can theorycraft all you want about how the game could have continued, you can spam different statistics, but based on my experience, you are wrong, and my advantage is decisive, but this doesn't really matter, thats the point.
The whole point is, I wanted to practice my build (including the lategame) to further increase my samplesize of games that I can learn from, and to actually have a replay of a lategame to review. If I was playing a helpful practice partner, and not a lying scumbag, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now.
On June 09 2012 18:14 ineversmile wrote: This discussion is totally branching off into different directions based upon skill level. What works against Platinum opponents won't work against Diamond, which won't work against Masters, and so forth. I don't care about opponents who suck enough to make poor choices; I want to be able to beat the ones who make good decisions because my strategy is sound and it allows me the room to outplay people.
While this is true, to an extent, one must also realize that it's not a rigid build like the Stephano-style 12 minute roach max build. There are many ways of doing Skytoss openers, and none (afaik) are conclusively better than any of the others at this point in time. That's why this thread exists in the first place, to create a discussion around Skytoss openers, and which tend to work better than others. Personally, it's led to a lot more experimentation for me with the fast mothership play, since I never really tried a defensive Skytoss opener like that (I used to do a lot more offensive Skytoss style builds, like the 2 base carrier rush, setting up the third after your opponent is on the back foot). While a carrier rush is effective at catching ladder opponents off guard and scoring cheap wins, it's not nearly as solid a build as a fast defensive mothership is, at least in my opinion. The point is that Skytoss is a very viable PvZ style in a wide variety of situations, not purely those where your opponents aren't quick-thinking enough to come up with a good response.
The reason that the discussion is sort of all over the place is because it's a very infrequently used style, and a lot of people have come up with very different approaches to it. But don't make the mistake of equating infrequent use with inferiority (see Stardust vs Roro, Freaky vs Crank, etc). Play with it yourself and see what works.
great post.
I've always accepted that my adaptation of this is pretty far from optimal and there is a TON of room for refinement as we figure these things out. Having a dominating strategy with tons of flexibility and room for refinement is definitely a good thing.
On June 09 2012 19:55 ineversmile wrote: I have been experimenting with walling off my third with more stargates, lately. They're more exposed to ground attacks than if they were to sit in your base, but they also happen to have more HP than gateways...and you need to build them anyways. It's a good excuse to power up production more quickly, and I like the timings: Get a third and build 2 more Stargates at it with cannons behind them. This helps a bit with the whole "corruptors/mutas camping my Stargates" problem, too, and it also means voids/carriers are popping out right in the front of the battle to reinforce against ground attacks. Maybe it's too risky for the sake of the important buildings tanking too much damage...but maybe this is the correct way to go if WG tech is beign delayed in favor of faster Cyber-Core air upgrades. I don't know if anyone else has thought about this, but it seems interesting. The biggest problem is definitely the fact that Gateways cost exactly the same minerals but without the gas...I don't know. It's not like you're hiding the fact that you're making lots of air units, when they see the +air attack that early and see a Mothership at your heavily-turtled third.
I never put all my SG's together. I always put my third and fourth at the third base like you suggested, and I try to work this into my Sim-City. It's a tough call deciding just how much exposure you want. After all, they are expensive buildings, and if there is a crucial production cycle about to pop, losing the building can be devastating, so I tend to put them not quite out in the very front.
On June 09 2012 19:55 ineversmile wrote: I have been experimenting with walling off my third with more stargates, lately. They're more exposed to ground attacks than if they were to sit in your base, but they also happen to have more HP than gateways...and you need to build them anyways. It's a good excuse to power up production more quickly, and I like the timings: Get a third and build 2 more Stargates at it with cannons behind them. This helps a bit with the whole "corruptors/mutas camping my Stargates" problem, too, and it also means voids/carriers are popping out right in the front of the battle to reinforce against ground attacks. Maybe it's too risky for the sake of the important buildings tanking too much damage...but maybe this is the correct way to go if WG tech is beign delayed in favor of faster Cyber-Core air upgrades. I don't know if anyone else has thought about this, but it seems interesting. The biggest problem is definitely the fact that Gateways cost exactly the same minerals but without the gas...I don't know. It's not like you're hiding the fact that you're making lots of air units, when they see the +air attack that early and see a Mothership at your heavily-turtled third.
I actually wall my third with gates, and I place stargates in the back of my third. The thing is that you need more gates too, as you need to get many for that transition to templars. I also use them to warp zealots in case of lings run-bys, hydra timings, stalkers if muta-surprise, etc..
Quick question to all tosses playing that style: do you aim at a long term macro game ( using your air army to secure a fourth and more ), or do you aim at doing a 200/200 all-in timing by playing purely defensively and staying on 3 bases ?
In Greek mythology Sisyphus was a king punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this action forever.
On June 09 2012 18:14 ineversmile wrote: This discussion is totally branching off into different directions based upon skill level. What works against Platinum opponents won't work against Diamond, which won't work against Masters, and so forth. I don't care about opponents who suck enough to make poor choices; I want to be able to beat the ones who make good decisions because my strategy is sound and it allows me the room to outplay people.
While this is true, to an extent, one must also realize that it's not a rigid build like the Stephano-style 12 minute roach max build. There are many ways of doing Skytoss openers, and none (afaik) are conclusively better than any of the others at this point in time. That's why this thread exists in the first place, to create a discussion around Skytoss openers, and which tend to work better than others. Personally, it's led to a lot more experimentation for me with the fast mothership play, since I never really tried a defensive Skytoss opener like that (I used to do a lot more offensive Skytoss style builds, like the 2 base carrier rush, setting up the third after your opponent is on the back foot). While a carrier rush is effective at catching ladder opponents off guard and scoring cheap wins, it's not nearly as solid a build as a fast defensive mothership is, at least in my opinion. The point is that Skytoss is a very viable PvZ style in a wide variety of situations, not purely those where your opponents aren't quick-thinking enough to come up with a good response.
The reason that the discussion is sort of all over the place is because it's a very infrequently used style, and a lot of people have come up with very different approaches to it. But don't make the mistake of equating infrequent use with inferiority (see Stardust vs Roro, Freaky vs Crank, etc). Play with it yourself and see what works.
I'm not complaining about the variety of builds and transitions into and out of Skytoss; I'm just a bit bummed by the fact that it's hard to sift through all the posts about how "people just lose to me because I built mass air and they didn't play accordingly." Sure, sometimes build order wins happen and a bunch of Void Rays go across the map and wreck your opponent, just like how a DT rush can end the game or a marine/helion attack can hard-counter a 4-gate at the highest level. Some games just fly out the window because there are always timings where a player just dies or gets really, really far behind very quickly without a chance to respond. However, what about the times when the opponent does have the time and ability to respond and does so accordingly? This is what I'm interested in, especially because it's my biggest problem when doing a Skytoss build from the beginning. I don't have a problem beating the guys making mass Roaches against Void Ray/defensive Mothership turtling; I'm having trouble with acute Hydra timings before I can get AoE and with Ling/Infestor/mass spire units, which are what happens when my opponents actually decide to counter the stargate play appropriately.
Anyways....
About the muta-countering issue: I agree with the concept that you should have at least 2-3 stargates ready to pump Phoenix, and you probably should have a Fleet Beacon established already by the time that Mutas come across the map (if you aren't already sitting on a squad of Pheonixes to stem the tide). However, you don't necessarily know that Mutas are coming until they hatch. Even with the best of scouting, you don't know if they're making 5 mutas or 15 mutas or just Corruptors, or a mix of Mutas and Corruptors. You can, at best, scout the spire timing, then see the air units pop at their base before they start flying over to yours (or to engage your army, if you've been attacking/harassing). So you can't always be prepared fully with Anion range, but you can take steps like having the Beacon ready, having the production up to make Phoenixes, and having +1 air to be able to tear up their Mutas. Still, it's never a bad thing to have a bunch of Warp Gates available simply so you can warp in an emergency round of Stalkers to slow down the Mutas while you're pumping Phoenixes and getting that range going. It doesn't have to be a full commital and you don't need to get Blink or anything, but it's good to have that option so you build a handful of under-upgraded units instead of losing a ton of probes or production. The stalkers are good for crisis management, when youre focusing on a Skytoss army. That's how I see it, anyways.
I have been experimenting with walling off my third with more stargates, lately. They're more exposed to ground attacks than if they were to sit in your base, but they also happen to have more HP than gateways...and you need to build them anyways. It's a good excuse to power up production more quickly, and I like the timings: Get a third and build 2 more Stargates at it with cannons behind them. This helps a bit with the whole "corruptors/mutas camping my Stargates" problem, too, and it also means voids/carriers are popping out right in the front of the battle to reinforce against ground attacks. Maybe it's too risky for the sake of the important buildings tanking too much damage...but maybe this is the correct way to go if WG tech is beign delayed in favor of faster Cyber-Core air upgrades. I don't know if anyone else has thought about this, but it seems interesting. The biggest problem is definitely the fact that Gateways cost exactly the same minerals but without the gas...I don't know. It's not like you're hiding the fact that you're making lots of air units, when they see the +air attack that early and see a Mothership at your heavily-turtled third.
No, I certainly sympathize, there is quite a bit of fluff in this thread regarding Zergs who just die simply by virtue having no idea how to properly respond to stargate play, but I mean, dude, this is TeamLiquid. Sifting through the junk posts was part of the fine print when you signed up.
That said, I think there is some worthwhile discussion to be had about proper Zerg responses and how to respond to said responses. These "hydra timings" of which you speak are complete news to me, in my experience if you scout a hydra den as a response to the stargate play then an immediate tech to colossi upon establishing the 3rd's extra gas income should destroy that. There isn't really any timing for Zerg to exploit there, because cannon/zealot/void ray should be plenty to hold roach/hydra in the small numbers he can eke out before the colossi transition. The ling/infestor/spire style is a much more serious threat, in my opinion, but also not impossible to deal with. Transitioning to high templar will give you storms to deal with the massed air and feedbacks to deal with the infestors, and should leave you very mineral heavy with which to continue expanding as well as adding gateways, zealots, and ample cannon defenses for your bases. By tweaking your air comp to counter your opponent's air comp (more void rays against corruptors, more phoenixes against mutas), you should be able to mop up any excess with ease.
Regarding the phoenix counter against a spire-tech opener, the thing is you don't really need to see the units pop. If you see the spire building, the precautionary measures you mentioned are pretty much all you need: getting +1 air weapons, 4-5 phoenixes, and throwing down the fleet beacon (extra stargate is questionable, depends on worker counts, game timing, etc). If he goes ahead and goes for the muta play, you should be able to boost APC in time to defend as the mutas are arriving at your base or shortly after. Once APC is done, 4-5 phoenixes are a complete hard counter to pretty much any possible amount of mutas that early in the game, as previously discussed. If, on the other hand, the Zerg opts for corruptors instead of mutas, it's pretty much his loss. The corruptors are never going to be able to chase down the phoenixes, and you can dance circles around them harassing overlords and queens while getting out the fast mothership and making an early transition to a gateway-heavy army. Your opponent has effectively wasted all of the gas spent on those corruptors. Going for a mix would probably be the best idea for the Zerg, but keeping the mutas and corruptors together to employ the strengths of both and weaknesses of neither would be a micro nightmare given the two units' vastly different speeds. Not to mention how completely gas starved that would leave him.
On June 09 2012 20:49 Nyast wrote: Quick question to all tosses playing that style: do you aim at a long term macro game ( using your air army to secure a fourth and more ), or do you aim at doing a 200/200 all-in timing by playing purely defensively and staying on 3 bases ?
I always try and play macro games whenever possible, if nothing else than for the practice. Unless the Zerg really denies our 4th for a long time (which should be pretty difficult for him), you might as well continue to macro and see how the transitions play out. Only when the Zerg really doesn't take any damage from the Skytoss opener and manages to expand to 4 or even 5 bases while holding me to 3 will I ever go for a 3 base all-in.
On June 09 2012 20:49 Nyast wrote: Quick question to all tosses playing that style: do you aim at a long term macro game ( using your air army to secure a fourth and more ), or do you aim at doing a 200/200 all-in timing by playing purely defensively and staying on 3 bases ?
I always try and play macro games whenever possible, if nothing else than for the practice. Unless the Zerg really denies our 4th for a long time (which should be pretty difficult for him), you might as well continue to macro and see how the transitions play out. Only when the Zerg really doesn't take any damage from the Skytoss opener and manages to expand to 4 or even 5 bases while holding me to 3 will I ever go for a 3 base all-in.
Yeah that's also how I play, but I've been wondering if a strong 3 base push at 200 wouldn't be as effective, and make games shorter.
This style is really funny, I swear 90% of my games are in the 26-30' range, no more no less. It seems like the vast majority of Zergs lose patience and suicide their armies at that time. I occasionally had shorter games ( like 20'-25' ) but the Zerg really has to screw up somewhere for that to happen.
Well this is a nice abusive strategy that requires very little skill to execute. The problem is that when P goes air you'd like to get corruptors since hydras would lose to robo switch. And corruptors lose vs voids. I still believe the zerg has no good ground to air unit and was quite surpised they didnt add one in the HOTS. Anyway the strat is good if you dont have much skill to utilize but if you do have there is no place to put it to good use in this strat. You dont need scouting (well u need in the early game since it is forge expo but every forge expo requires it so its not relevant to this strat). Your units composition is the same. You make lots of cannons so u dont need micro defending. Your attacks basicly dont need micro too and depend more on how the opponent responds to determine success or failure. The only things that is important are mothership spells and making probes. So I believe this strat is bad at higher level and especially bad if the opponent expects it. People at higher level treat Skytoss as all-in or early game harrass because if you commit to it its up for the zerg to take the game. He responds well you lose, he doesnt - u win. Certainly you can win games with it but its a deadend improvement-wise.
On June 09 2012 20:49 Nyast wrote: Quick question to all tosses playing that style: do you aim at a long term macro game ( using your air army to secure a fourth and more ), or do you aim at doing a 200/200 all-in timing by playing purely defensively and staying on 3 bases ?
I find that if I sit on 3 base to get 5 phoenix, 20 voids, 4 carriers with 3/3/3 with 6ish templar with storm and a robo for observers, it takes forever and I have a ton to mineral banked. I'm more comfortable attempting to take a 4th so that when I'm maxed, I'm equal on upgrades or ahead. All my battles have been total annihilations if I had an upgrade advantage with storm.
Anyone else playing the style enjoy watching the Zerg army evaporate to Skytoss/mass void over and over and over again in your replays?
What is the general consensus. Is going for double zealot pressure into dual stargate better or is opening phoenix with range? I'm trying to decide how I should open into this build. It seems like opening with the zealots can snipe a third and kill drones and force worthless roaches, but it delays the tech while the phoenix kill queens and force preemtive anit air. What do you guys think is the best way to open.
On June 10 2012 23:04 -MoOsE- wrote: What is the general consensus. Is going for double zealot pressure into dual stargate better or is opening phoenix with range? I'm trying to decide how I should open into this build. It seems like opening with the zealots can snipe a third and kill drones and force worthless roaches, but it delays the tech while the phoenix kill queens and force preemtive anit air. What do you guys think is the best way to open.
I haven't tried opening double zealot yet, but I've found that the faster I get the mothership, the better I do holding off a mid game zerg push. Phoenix also seem like a lot more reliable damage since Zergs are getting better at scouting and stopping zealot pressure, especially with the new ranged queen. Phoenixes, however, can disrupt production cycles, and can force at least 6 drone losses when the zerg makes spores, gives you perfect scouting, and leaves you with a ready response to a deadly muta counter.
On June 10 2012 23:02 Harbinger631 wrote: Anyone else playing the style enjoy watching the Zerg army evaporate to Skytoss/mass void over and over and over again in your replays?
Yeah. It's especially hilarious with the "resources lost" tab :o
The main problem with this build is that you have to take double gas at your nat.
To most zergs this is an obvious indicator of a tech heavy build, making your double SG pretty transparent. This means that Zerg can take all their gasses and tech super quick to spire, skipping the roach warren and upgrades on roaches.
It is crucial to note that the zerg does not have to make mutas. If it's evident that you're taking a 3rd, we can just make a minimal amount of corruptors to supplement the spore crawlers around the bases and take a 4th and maybe even a 5th. At this point, we have the potential to bank a ridiculous amount of gas, allowing us to continue to tech in any direction we want. I might even suggest a nydus hydra push with drones to build spore crawlers, if I were certain this build was going to happen.
Perhaps more reliable is the answer already mentioned: stephano style except supplemented with mass ling and some overseers. This can reliably deny the 3rd for a very long time so long as the zerg is dilligent about not letting you get infinite cannons up. With proper macro, the zerg should be able to take a 4th while you're still stuck on 2 base.
On June 09 2012 20:49 Nyast wrote: Quick question to all tosses playing that style: do you aim at a long term macro game ( using your air army to secure a fourth and more ), or do you aim at doing a 200/200 all-in timing by playing purely defensively and staying on 3 bases ?
I find that if I sit on 3 base to get 5 phoenix, 20 voids, 4 carriers with 3/3/3 with 6ish templar with storm and a robo for observers, it takes forever and I have a ton to mineral banked. I'm more comfortable attempting to take a 4th so that when I'm maxed, I'm equal on upgrades or ahead. All my battles have been total annihilations if I had an upgrade advantage with storm.
Anyone else playing the style enjoy watching the Zerg army evaporate to Skytoss/mass void over and over and over again in your replays?
Pretty much this. You do have alot of those free minerals, and cannons, pilons, gateways and nexi cost only minerals, so not attempting to set up a 4th is kinda "Why not?". Only if i would fail at establishing 4th for couple of time, i would go for 3 base-allin. Most important is to keep your air alive and not throwing it away. Losing minerals is bad, but acceptable, losing gas is no-no.
And yea replays with resources lost tab open is just sooo hillarious.
After trying this build 5 times I can say that this works very well (I'm a Masters Toss). My record w the build is about 6-1 with the 1 loss being a 6 pool transition into mass baneling. I go mainly VR's w a mothership around 10 min and constantly harass w recall ready. Very fun and works quite well.
On June 10 2012 22:59 Cheerio wrote: Well this is a nice abusive strategy that requires very little skill to execute. The problem is that when P goes air you'd like to get corruptors since hydras would lose to robo switch. And corruptors lose vs voids. I still believe the zerg has no good ground to air unit and was quite surpised they didnt add one in the HOTS. Anyway the strat is good if you dont have much skill to utilize but if you do have there is no place to put it to good use in this strat. You dont need scouting (well u need in the early game since it is forge expo but every forge expo requires it so its not relevant to this strat). Your units composition is the same. You make lots of cannons so u dont need micro defending. Your attacks basicly dont need micro too and depend more on how the opponent responds to determine success or failure. The only things that is important are mothership spells and making probes. So I believe this strat is bad at higher level and especially bad if the opponent expects it. People at higher level treat Skytoss as all-in or early game harrass because if you commit to it its up for the zerg to take the game. He responds well you lose, he doesnt - u win. Certainly you can win games with it but its a deadend improvement-wise.
I'm not sure if I agree with the things this guy is saying. Yes you have to make probes, but how is this much different than someone who plays Terran and goes MMM? I often do 2 pronged attacks with the VR's provided there is recall available all the while continuing production and expanding aggressively. Don't quite understand how this is a deadend improvement wise.
On June 12 2012 00:14 AxonHD wrote: After trying this build 5 times I can say that this works very well (I'm a Masters Toss). My record w the build is about 6-1 with the 1 loss being a 6 pool transition into mass baneling. I go mainly VR's w a mothership around 10 min and constantly harass w recall ready. Very fun and works quite well.
On June 10 2012 22:59 Cheerio wrote: Well this is a nice abusive strategy that requires very little skill to execute. The problem is that when P goes air you'd like to get corruptors since hydras would lose to robo switch. And corruptors lose vs voids. I still believe the zerg has no good ground to air unit and was quite surpised they didnt add one in the HOTS. Anyway the strat is good if you dont have much skill to utilize but if you do have there is no place to put it to good use in this strat. You dont need scouting (well u need in the early game since it is forge expo but every forge expo requires it so its not relevant to this strat). Your units composition is the same. You make lots of cannons so u dont need micro defending. Your attacks basicly dont need micro too and depend more on how the opponent responds to determine success or failure. The only things that is important are mothership spells and making probes. So I believe this strat is bad at higher level and especially bad if the opponent expects it. People at higher level treat Skytoss as all-in or early game harrass because if you commit to it its up for the zerg to take the game. He responds well you lose, he doesnt - u win. Certainly you can win games with it but its a deadend improvement-wise.
I'm not sure if I agree with the things this guy is saying. Yes you have to make probes, but how is this much different than someone who plays Terran and goes MMM? I often do 2 pronged attacks with the VR's provided there is recall available all the while continuing production and expanding aggressively. Don't quite understand how this is a deadend improvement wise.
Try hiding your mothership at your opponents 4th, as close as you can get to his 3rd without it being spotted.
Send your void rays to the edge of his main and start attacking. Wait for him to move in his army to defend as far away from his 3rd as possible.
Recall to his third and send your mothership back home.
On June 07 2012 00:44 denyeverything wrote: If they go Muta, use your gas to Warp in Stalkers.
IMO, phoenixes are a better answer, if you scout the transition early enough to have a fleet beacon. They're more gas intensive than stalkers, certainly, but since you already have the stargates up, you can get a decent group of phoenixes out fairly quickly and with APC they are a direct hard counter; you should be able to clean all of his mutas up with maybe 1 or 2 phoenix losses at most. Use extra minerals on cannons and zealots, then start massing air again with the air dominance the phoenixes give you.
Phoenix is a better anti-Mutalisk unit, but it's not a better answer.
Obviously, Phoenix with APC counter Mutalisks, but your counter can't be slower than the threat. Mutalisks build slightly faster already, on top of that to even match production, you're going to need more Stargates. Each Stargate is 150 minerals and 150 gas or 1.5 Mutalisks. Let's also not forget the fact that Mutalisks can ignore Phoenix, just hit and run against probes, and retreat to Spores/Queens. Sure you can get Cannons, but those are also twice as expensive as Spores, and your air force costs more minerals. Plus, Phoenix harass is limited to energy (aside from Overlord sniping) on top of being completely vulnerable to the ground and bad to Corruptors. Given that you are trying to quickly build units, the Phoenix are relatively lower in energy than they were with ones that were rushed out earlier (if you went that path). Finally, Zerg can suddenly spawn 12+ Mutalisks at once, so you can't really wait to see them coming and then shift into Phoenix production. You'll just be lagging to far behind. This means you end up having to gamble, which defeats the whole purpose of it being a counter.
I'm not saying don't build Phoenix's (I kinda just assumed you would from whatever Stargate's you have lying around, and in general I like building them), but the point of my post is not to point out unit counters, but to point out the advantages of building Warpgates. You can pressure with your mineral dump and watch what they do with their gas to respond. If you want to tech or build more air units, that's great (and I wholly recommend getting Motherships). But that's lateral from the issue.
Tactically, I don't like the idea of trying to re-build a Protoss fleet. If you lose some, you should reinforce, but if it's gone, it's gone, and you should shift it to support rather than the core of your army. This mostly means Mothership, but tossing in some Carriers if you see Infestors, Void Rays if you see Corruptors, and Phoenix if they try to mass expand.
So much theory-craft here. Please watch the replays.
If I open with SG->Beacon->SG I can have 5 phoenix with +1 and APC before his muta spawns. When i scout muta i'll just add 3-4 more phoenix.
Let me explain.
0-0 12 muta vs 5+ (1-0), or a little bit later (2-1) phoenix with APC is trash, basically thrown away money.
Also you are completely wrong about muta ignoring phoenix. Phoenix HARD counters muta, because of superior speed, superior range and possibility to fire while moving. The whole point of phoenix is that muta can't run away from them, just cannot.
In gateway builds stalkers are a better response, cuz you have the infrastructure for ground army and ground upgrades, but if you are going mass air - phoenix and only phoenix.
Cannons expensive? Please get familiar with the OP, cannons are the core of this build, you can build a crapton of them if you want, it's still cheaper than to get ground army.
Why not stalkers? Stalkers are good in descent numbers and with upgrades. So if you are going sky-toss , most probably you won't have the infrastructure to sustain ground army, nor the upgrades. to deal with 12 muta with stalker and no blink, you'll need around 10+ stalkers, that's: 125x10 + 50x10 = 1250 minerals + 500 gas 5 phoenix is 750 + 500 and if we add the cannons, to get the same amount of investment - 2 cannons/mineral line. 1350 + 50, so the difference in cost is just 100 minerals. But phoenix are much more cost-effective due to harass and scouting. I'm not counting the upgrades cost or the fleet beacon, because it's a part of build.
About phoenix harass: You are missing the point of it. Usually you want to deal economic damage to zerg, so you can get ahead, but in this build your most important resource is time, time to establish third. Purpose of phx is to disrupt production cycles of zerg, by killing queens. Get him supply blocked by killing ovies, force to rebuild those and spend larva on them. You are buying yourself time to get cannons on your third and a MS and VR. Energy of 5 phx is more than enough to do that.
TL;DR - If you have SG and Beacon - Get phoenix against muta. And also please, read the topic, thank you.
You clearly didn't read my post. I was talking about transitions, not if the Zerg opens Mutas. :sigh:
I understood your point, mostly my post was an answer 2Quasi.In.Rem's said. Stalker is a good answer if you play common gateway army, but we are talking in sky toss thread, right? So i presume it was "warping stalkers while you play sky toss". Which lead to explanation why stalkers is a bad responce if you are playing air. Muta transition will just hit upgraded phoenix wall, and that's pretty much it.
I'm am the same persion. whateversclever=denyeverything=quasi.in.rem. I just forget my password, so I set up a new account on each computer. (Work laptop, desktop, home laptop). LOL.
Anyways, just for clarification, where I'm coming from is early air (and i prefer fast 4-5 Phoenix... so hearing people say to build more phoenix was werid) to fast mothership while stocking up on Void Rays...
And then at that point where do you transition from? My perspective is that rather than stocking up on more and more Void Rays, use your air superiority to buy time to build up your Warpgate infrastructure.
I'll still slowly roll out the some Void Rays, but I don't like doing things like 4 Stargates all building Void Rays. It just feels very all-in ish because you're army rebuild time is going to be much slower than the Zerg if you mutually wipe out (which is about how Corruptor/Void Ray works out in my experience). Not to mention Fungal. Sure, you have Mass Recall but you'll only have so few, whereas he'll have so many.
If they go heavy Roach, keep pushing out the basic Void Ray/Cannon strategy, but otherwise I prefer to go to build out my Warpgate infrastructure while I have the tech advantage. At that point, if I build an air for, I generally go for Phoenix over Void Ray since they deal with mass expo better in my opinion, since Infestor or Corruptors are a sign of passivity.
Hi I'm a zerg player, and I've never particularly struggled against this.
I defend 2-star with queens/spores and eventually infestors, while using zerglings to make sure you work for your 3rd base, while I take many bases.
I go double upgrade corruptors, trying to make sure my +air carapace keeps up with your +air attack (or stays as close as possible) and fight with queen/infestor/corruptor while using zerglings to slow down your expansion attempts, and even do zergling drops if I know your air units are not in a defensive position.
If I can neural units to prevent defensive recalls, I will.
If your air units ever step away from one of your bases, I cover it with infested terrans to kill all the cannons, and then bring in lings to finish it off if you don't come back.
my gameplan is more or less to starve you out without losing too many units, and then I can spam 3/3 corruptors at you.
So far I haven't had to face anyone who was able to work storm and archons into the composition, but can you even afford that (along with your air units) if you never get a 4th base?
On June 12 2012 09:18 Oboeman wrote: Hi I'm a zerg player, and I've never particularly struggled against this.
I defend 2-star with queens/spores and eventually infestors, while using zerglings to make sure you work for your 3rd base, while I take many bases.
I go double upgrade corruptors, trying to make sure my +air carapace keeps up with your +air attack (or stays as close as possible) and fight with queen/infestor/corruptor while using zerglings to slow down your expansion attempts, and even do zergling drops if I know your air units are not in a defensive position.
If I can neural units to prevent defensive recalls, I will.
If your air units ever step away from one of your bases, I cover it with infested terrans to kill all the cannons, and then bring in lings to finish it off if you don't come back.
my gameplan is more or less to starve you out without losing too many units, and then I can spam 3/3 corruptors at you.
So far I haven't had to face anyone who was able to work storm and archons into the composition, but can you even afford that (along with your air units) if you never get a 4th base?
Depends entirely when the Protoss transitions. You do have what I think is pretty much the correct response on the part of a Zerg player facing a Skytoss opener, and I will assume you play reactive enough to be able to see a gateway transition coming and react accordingly, but it is a danger. Double stargate production isn't as income intensive as you would otherwise think, particularly carriers, because of their long build time. If your Toss opponent keeps up with his ground upgrades and has enough gateways he can make a very sudden transition into chargelot/archon w/ storm, and that can be very dangerous. Even on only 3 bases a Toss should be able to support 8-10 gateways, 2 stargates, and upgrades. I think it really all comes down to how well the mothership is controlled and if it can be kept alive long enough. Even if you defend well against the mass recall harass, a well placed vortex could still absolutely wreck your army. It's not a situation I particularly like (as discussed above, I generally avoid the 3 base all-in if at all possible), but with a good vortex and good storms it can absolutely clean house.
So far using this build, I pretty much stick to upgraded voidrays with a carrier here and there and snipe bases with recall and holding with mass cannons.
However, I have a lot of trouble when the zerg goes 2 base infestor, once infestors are out you need 100 energy on your mothership to do anything aggressive and I feel like the risk of chain fungals prevents me from doing much until he macros to infestor/corruptor deathball.
If you think the zerg is going for 2 base infestor, what should you do or should you just respond with a less air focused build?
On June 13 2012 17:20 omahahowitzer wrote: So far using this build, I pretty much stick to upgraded voidrays with a carrier here and there and snipe bases with recall and holding with mass cannons.
However, I have a lot of trouble when the zerg goes 2 base infestor, once infestors are out you need 100 energy on your mothership to do anything aggressive and I feel like the risk of chain fungals prevents me from doing much until he macros to infestor/corruptor deathball.
If you think the zerg is going for 2 base infestor, what should you do or should you just respond with a less air focused build?
On June 13 2012 21:55 SharkBait wrote: This may be obvious, but do you get all of your gases asap after core? And generally, how many phoenixes do you have in your late game army?
Personally get 2 gasese after 1st gateway and another 2 after first SG. Just easier to remember.
Phoenix are kinda useless in lategame IMO. So perfectly staying with initial 5 is okay I get +4 more if heavy-muta play.
On June 13 2012 21:55 SharkBait wrote: This may be obvious, but do you get all of your gases asap after core? And generally, how many phoenixes do you have in your late game army?
Phoenix are good for killing Infestors if you can be quick and lift 4+ of them and instagib them before they get to Fungal Growth you.
playing with fire there, just sac em somehow, and try to trade reasonably well and replace the supply with HT/Collo/anything. Keeping 1 for spotting army position/scouting composition is acceptable
Ok I just used this build against a low masters player and even with terrible macro and easily beat him. Another question for you guys is that is there any way this can be viable against terran?
On June 13 2012 17:20 omahahowitzer wrote: So far using this build, I pretty much stick to upgraded voidrays with a carrier here and there and snipe bases with recall and holding with mass cannons.
However, I have a lot of trouble when the zerg goes 2 base infestor, once infestors are out you need 100 energy on your mothership to do anything aggressive and I feel like the risk of chain fungals prevents me from doing much until he macros to infestor/corruptor deathball.
If you think the zerg is going for 2 base infestor, what should you do or should you just respond with a less air focused build?
Are you getting HT with storm? Storm + FB
Thanks for the help, I think my problem is vs most other builds, I never really transition away from air, only adding ht after a 3rd or 4th base and the zerg can never deal with upgraded air fleet. Against infestor play I should get faster HT, and maybe switch into standard army?
On June 13 2012 17:20 omahahowitzer wrote: So far using this build, I pretty much stick to upgraded voidrays with a carrier here and there and snipe bases with recall and holding with mass cannons.
However, I have a lot of trouble when the zerg goes 2 base infestor, once infestors are out you need 100 energy on your mothership to do anything aggressive and I feel like the risk of chain fungals prevents me from doing much until he macros to infestor/corruptor deathball.
If you think the zerg is going for 2 base infestor, what should you do or should you just respond with a less air focused build?
Are you getting HT with storm? Storm + FB
Thanks for the help, I think my problem is vs most other builds, I never really transition away from air, only adding ht after a 3rd or 4th base and the zerg can never deal with upgraded air fleet. Against infestor play I should get faster HT, and maybe switch into standard army?
You can't really switch into a standard army imo. Against 2 base anything, it needs to do damage or they fall way behind, you need to never get supply blocked, mass as many emergency cannons as possible, and not miss any chrono and get out your MS/ as many units as possible. Can't get more specific without a replay.
It's also possible that someone finds a timing attack where we are in a BO loss or need to tweak the build or scout for something more specific, but it doesn't really happen in todays metagame, maybe in the future.
On June 13 2012 21:55 SharkBait wrote: This may be obvious, but do you get all of your gases asap after core? And generally, how many phoenixes do you have in your late game army?
Personally get 2 gasese after 1st gateway and another 2 after first SG. Just easier to remember.
Phoenix are kinda useless in lategame IMO. So perfectly staying with initial 5 is okay I get +4 more if heavy-muta play.
More or less same here. I always get 2 gases before cyber core, 1 more after, and then the 4th after the first stargate. Also same with the phoenixes, unless the Zerg commits to muta play I generally stick to 5 of them throughout the midgame and then sack all but 1 (for scouting) in the late game to free up the supply.
On June 14 2012 03:31 Fogetaboudit wrote: playing with fire there, just sac em somehow, and try to trade reasonably well and replace the supply with HT/Collo/anything. Keeping 1 for spotting army position/scouting composition is acceptable
If you're lucky, though, lifting and sniping a couple of infestors can be a good way to sack them. Even 2 high energy infestors can easily be worth the sack of 4-5 phoenixes.
On June 14 2012 03:44 iLevitate wrote: Oh i used to go skytoss all the time until the queen buff.
And that is relevant... how? Patch 1.4.3 buffed the queen's anti-ground attack range from 3 to 5. The anti-air attack has always been range 7.
On June 14 2012 05:48 SharkBait wrote: Ok I just used this build against a low masters player and even with terrible macro and easily beat him. Another question for you guys is that is there any way this can be viable against terran?
I've been playing with it, it's all a question of how many marauders you can force your opponent to make before transitioning into heavy Skytoss. It can sometimes work as a transition out of a blink stalker opener, therefore, as obviously marauders are the natural counter to stalkers. The more marines are involved, though, the less viable skytoss becomes. Stimmed marines are just too much of a problem, you're better off going for splash first just to deal with them.
Also note that there is a 1-base carrier all-in build that is quite effective against Terran, but that's a different story altogether.
On June 14 2012 05:48 SharkBait wrote: Ok I just used this build against a low masters player and even with terrible macro and easily beat him. Another question for you guys is that is there any way this can be viable against terran?
Void Ray (or Phoenix) openings exist against Terran. Mass VRs though is another story. But you can go old school school VR+Colossus. Not really recommended, but it's a strategy. The issue is the prominence of cheap ground to air and the Protoss counter to that being counter the same as your core army. Going Phoenix there are no cheap targets and unless they have heavy Marauder play good lift targets. (Though SCVs are worth it in this match-up). Carriers are too slow, but good if you can buy time to get them.
On June 13 2012 17:20 omahahowitzer wrote: So far using this build, I pretty much stick to upgraded voidrays with a carrier here and there and snipe bases with recall and holding with mass cannons.
However, I have a lot of trouble when the zerg goes 2 base infestor, once infestors are out you need 100 energy on your mothership to do anything aggressive and I feel like the risk of chain fungals prevents me from doing much until he macros to infestor/corruptor deathball.
If you think the zerg is going for 2 base infestor, what should you do or should you just respond with a less air focused build?
Are you getting HT with storm? Storm + FB
Thanks for the help, I think my problem is vs most other builds, I never really transition away from air, only adding ht after a 3rd or 4th base and the zerg can never deal with upgraded air fleet. Against infestor play I should get faster HT, and maybe switch into standard army?
You don't necessarily need HT. What I do is stick with VRs if they go Roach or if they go both Infestors and Corruptors. This is generally tech+defense mode (slow roll into Broodlords), so you can build up to a critical mass of Void Rays relatively easily in this case.
If they go Infestors or Corruptors, but not both and using their minearls for offense (Roaches or Zerglings), I usually focus on getting my Warpgates up. You'll need the bodies and might not have time to get enough VRs up, and if a battle swings the wrong way (getting caught behind on upgrades, a bad ensnare or whatever), it's almost GG otherwise. Zealot/Stalkers can be well suited here as support on top of your Cannons. If they go corruptors, don't forget to build Sentries, and position them to be part of the battle. Guardian shield is huge for swinging this in your favor.
If they go Muta, well I open Phoenix, but if you didn't, you can build Phoenix and Stalkers as your build allows.
If they are using their minerals to just go mass drones and take the map, I go Phoenix (more Phoenix I mean). It'll be hard to defend them the entire map. Use your best judgement as to what is enough and what is going overboard. I will also be getting up Warpgates in the case too.
Upgrades-wise, I focus on Shields primarily It helps your buildings, which are needed to tank Zerglings, ontop of helping all your units, and unlike ground units that tend to have a point in armor, air generally doesn't so it a preference for armor due to the cumulative advantage like ground does.
Other than that it's play-by-ear. If they go heavy mass expand, sometimes I like adding a robo for warp prisms or a dark shrine for dark templar. if they are trying to late game into brood lords, i generally tech up to storm and focus on ground upgrades for Archon+Storm (Archons with Shield upgrades are much better than you might have thought) alongside your Mothership. I like trying to sneak in a Hallucination somewhere, as it can really screw with their overlord scouting.
I've played this style about 10 times now on ladder and I love it. I'm a gold player who was looking for a way to play lategame without having to deal with broodlords, and this is it! Here's a replay against a plat zerg that shows all the major points of the build
1) Mothership defense (I defend a 33 roach attack at the 12 min mark with 2 void rays and a mothership, with minimal losses.) 2) Easy phoenix scout. 3) Mass recall harass 4) Late game face stomp. At my level, if I can get to the 25-30 min mark, the last battle lasts like 5-10 seconds. It's remarkable.
There's still loads of room for improvment with both my style and my general play. If anyone familiar with skytoss w/ defensive mothership would look at the replay and give me advice, it would be very much appreciated!
I've been having a lot of success with this build so far in my testing. Only 2 losses with it - my very first game trying it out, and once to a baneling/ling bust. And both of those were my own fault for not scouting enough/not nailing timings right. This is incredibly effective and a ton of fun! Great strat.
On June 18 2012 21:01 Badrobot wrote: ..there is not a lot of cannons....
10-15 minutes is a lot of time.
@10 min I usually have around 7 cannons at natural. Also you should have 2 senty at entrance. And my 5 phoenix is out at ~9:30 So @10min zerg is kinda busy saving his queens and overlords
@13 min tech transition finishes DT's for corruptors or HT's for infestor, storm+carriers for hydra or more phoenix for muta. And thrd is heavy cannoned + simcity
@~15 min i prepare for maxed zerg to attack (they usually do)
After his army is crushed - take 4th and gogo recall-harass.
On June 18 2012 21:01 Badrobot wrote: ..there is not a lot of cannons....
10-15 minutes is a lot of time.
@10 min I usually have around 7 cannons at natural. Also you should have 2 senty at entrance. And my 5 phoenix is out at ~9:30 So @10min zerg is kinda busy saving his queens and overlords
@13 min tech transition finishes DT's for corruptors or HT's for infestor, storm+carriers for hydra or more phoenix for muta. And thrd is heavy cannoned + simcity
@~15 min i prepare for maxed zerg to attack (they usually do)
After his army is crushed - take 4th and gogo recall-harass.
TL;DR Put more cannons.
well put, I'm still doing great with this build... just struggling in my other matchups (probably because my MMR is inflated due to not losing PvZ)
On June 18 2012 21:01 Badrobot wrote: ..there is not a lot of cannons....
10-15 minutes is a lot of time.
@10 min I usually have around 7 cannons at natural. Also you should have 2 senty at entrance. And my 5 phoenix is out at ~9:30 So @10min zerg is kinda busy saving his queens and overlords
@13 min tech transition finishes DT's for corruptors or HT's for infestor, storm+carriers for hydra or more phoenix for muta. And thrd is heavy cannoned + simcity
@~15 min i prepare for maxed zerg to attack (they usually do)
After his army is crushed - take 4th and gogo recall-harass.
TL;DR Put more cannons.
well put, I'm still doing great with this build... just struggling in my other matchups (probably because my MMR is inflated due to not losing PvZ)
Haha, story of my life. Matchmaking almost never gives me PvZs any more, because I basically never lose against Zerg. My PvP is okay, but my PvT is struggling, so it mostly matches me up with Terrans.
yeah I got about 90% PvT today on the ladder, it was really strange. Also dropped a bunch of points, lol. Eventually got tilted and tried to go carriers into HT and actually won a game (but also lost about 10 )
On June 19 2012 11:59 -MoOsE- wrote: What is the general timings with this build. I don't know when I should drop third, get mommaship, and the fleet beacon.
There are variations depending on your playstyle.
Basically FFE as normal. @100% Core - WG research + 3 gates to do some zealot pressure OR +1 air weapons Also Start your SG OR Double stargate Add fleet beacon. Create VR's or 5 Phoenix + APC OR 1 phoenix for scout @100% Fleet beacon - MS w/ cb @50% MS - start your third + cannons (remember to clean up the ling scout first) @15 minutes defend a maxed zerg attack, after that - take 4th.
Fogetaboudit, have you thought about doing a 4-gate zealots + voidray pressure while getting the mothership / establishing the third ? This will delay them a little bit but that pressure is pretty scary for the Zerg, and his typical reaction will most likely involve hydras, which suck vs the rest of the build.
I sometimes lose when doing this build, and that's usually when Zerg scouts the fleet beacon and immediately goes straight to mass corruptors/infestors. By doing this pressure, we can force a ground army which then gets countered later.
On June 19 2012 18:06 Nyast wrote: Fogetaboudit, have you thought about doing a 4-gate zealots + voidray pressure while getting the mothership / establishing the third ? This will delay them a little bit but that pressure is pretty scary for the Zerg, and his typical reaction will most likely involve hydras, which suck vs the rest of the build.
I sometimes lose when doing this build, and that's usually when Zerg scouts the fleet beacon and immediately goes straight to mass corruptors/infestors. By doing this pressure, we can force a ground army which then gets countered later.
I've been thinking of more offencive style with this build. Basically came up with following: Early CB 2 zealots for the poke and possible early agression, WG and +1 ground (produce less cannon, more zealots) While building PHX SG, add 3 more gates. @8-9 minutes an attack with +1 at 3rd and @5 phoenix (~9:30) at main, APC and +1 air will kick in @11min By 12 minutes MS should be out already and third should be up with some cannons and at least 2 VR over it. When 3rd is up - add 3 more SG.
But this haven't yet been tested. Weaknesses are obvious. Less cannons. Late 2nd SG. Later 2nd Core.
I actually do something very close to this - as soon as my gateway is finished i make 4 or 5 zealots from one gate. Use one to clear Xelnaga and check for the 3rd while waiting for the Voidray. As soon as those are finished i will push the 3rd. Most of the time it scares the zerg and allows to do some ecodamage, going as far as killing the hatch. From there just go standart mode. Btw check for their composition - if it is only zerglings, than gear for the mutas, they are coming.
On June 19 2012 10:05 Fogetaboudit wrote: yeah I got about 90% PvT today on the ladder, it was really strange. Also dropped a bunch of points, lol. Eventually got tilted and tried to go carriers into HT and actually won a game (but also lost about 10 )
Same. :\
I've actually found carriers to be sort of effective against Terran if he goes really heavy marauder, but that's a rarity unless you go heavy blink stalker play for too long. Still, can be satisfying.
On June 19 2012 11:59 -MoOsE- wrote: What is the general timings with this build. I don't know when I should drop third, get mommaship, and the fleet beacon.
There are variations depending on your playstyle.
Basically FFE as normal. @100% Core - WG research + 3 gates to do some zealot pressure OR +1 air weapons Also Start your SG OR Double stargate Add fleet beacon. Create VR's or 5 Phoenix + APC OR 1 phoenix for scout @100% Fleet beacon - MS w/ cb @50% MS - start your third + cannons (remember to clean up the ling scout first) @15 minutes defend a maxed zerg attack, after that - take 4th.
I think strictly speaking, fast mothership implies single stargate with either phoenixes for production harass or void rays to hold roaches at bay. Also, if planning for Skytoss composition, one can also opt for double cyber core.
On June 19 2012 18:06 Nyast wrote: Fogetaboudit, have you thought about doing a 4-gate zealots + voidray pressure while getting the mothership / establishing the third ? This will delay them a little bit but that pressure is pretty scary for the Zerg, and his typical reaction will most likely involve hydras, which suck vs the rest of the build.
I sometimes lose when doing this build, and that's usually when Zerg scouts the fleet beacon and immediately goes straight to mass corruptors/infestors. By doing this pressure, we can force a ground army which then gets countered later.
A ways back in the meta game (late november, early december last year), there was a style of +1 void ray pressure very similar to what you're describing. Basically a fast two gases after FFE, 3rd after cyber, and then stargate and 1 void ray. Chrono +1 at the forge and Warp Tech, plant a nice early pylon and enjoy. Zealots kill lings, void rays kill roaches, and both kill queens. It can be kind of ugly if your Zerg opponent doesn't build crawlers or fast techs to lair.
On June 19 2012 20:07 HelioSeven wrote:A ways back in the meta game (late november, early december last year), there was a style of +1 void ray pressure very similar to what you're describing. Basically a fast two gases after FFE, 3rd after cyber, and then stargate and 1 void ray. Chrono +1 at the forge and Warp Tech, plant a nice early pylon and enjoy. Zealots kill lings, void rays kill roaches, and both kill queens. It can be kind of ugly if your Zerg opponent doesn't build crawlers or fast techs to lair.
This is actually very nice. Because the build will look more like common toss strat and may even call you old-scool, up until the moment zerg sees MS ad more than 3 VR's.
So I've given it some more tries, and it's actually really good. I was very sceptical at first but once you figure out the hydra bust timing it is a pretty good strat. Only thing I have trouble with is neurals on my mothership into double vortex on my own army, that shit should be nerfed out of the game! :p
On June 19 2012 21:23 Arcanefrost wrote: Only thing I have trouble with is neurals on my mothership into double vortex on my own army, that shit should be nerfed out of the game! :p
I know your kinda joking but, I am not aggressive with my mothership unless I need to all-in for some reason. If you decisively lose an engagement you normally lose the game. I like having the option to scout composition while harassing, and being able to recall to safety after picking off some units and letting my shields tank some fungal damage. It's a great utility.
On June 19 2012 18:06 Nyast wrote: Fogetaboudit, have you thought about doing a 4-gate zealots + voidray pressure while getting the mothership / establishing the third ? This will delay them a little bit but that pressure is pretty scary for the Zerg, and his typical reaction will most likely involve hydras, which suck vs the rest of the build.
I sometimes lose when doing this build, and that's usually when Zerg scouts the fleet beacon and immediately goes straight to mass corruptors/infestors. By doing this pressure, we can force a ground army which then gets countered later.
I've been thinking of more offencive style with this build. Basically came up with following: Early CB 2 zealots for the poke and possible early agression, WG and +1 ground (produce less cannon, more zealots) While building PHX SG, add 3 more gates. @8-9 minutes an attack with +1 at 3rd and @5 phoenix (~9:30) at main, APC and +1 air will kick in @11min By 12 minutes MS should be out already and third should be up with some cannons and at least 2 VR over it. When 3rd is up - add 3 more SG.
But this haven't yet been tested. Weaknesses are obvious. Less cannons. Late 2nd SG. Later 2nd Core.
yeah these weaknesses cover early aggression pretty well. We can get to a similar midgame from many openings... I like doing a safe style that will produce a lot of consistent 3 base situations, but thats just me, I think aggressive openings are viable.
On June 19 2012 11:59 -MoOsE- wrote: What is the general timings with this build. I don't know when I should drop third, get mommaship, and the fleet beacon.
There are variations depending on your playstyle.
Basically FFE as normal. @100% Core - WG research + 3 gates to do some zealot pressure OR +1 air weapons Also Start your SG OR Double stargate Add fleet beacon. Create VR's or 5 Phoenix + APC OR 1 phoenix for scout @100% Fleet beacon - MS w/ cb @50% MS - start your third + cannons (remember to clean up the ling scout first) @15 minutes defend a maxed zerg attack, after that - take 4th.
I dont get it, the maxed zerg attack is at 12, not at 15 no ?
On June 19 2012 11:59 -MoOsE- wrote: What is the general timings with this build. I don't know when I should drop third, get mommaship, and the fleet beacon.
There are variations depending on your playstyle.
Basically FFE as normal. @100% Core - WG research + 3 gates to do some zealot pressure OR +1 air weapons Also Start your SG OR Double stargate Add fleet beacon. Create VR's or 5 Phoenix + APC OR 1 phoenix for scout @100% Fleet beacon - MS w/ cb @50% MS - start your third + cannons (remember to clean up the ling scout first) @15 minutes defend a maxed zerg attack, after that - take 4th.
I dont get it, the maxed zerg attack is at 12, not at 15 no ?
If you don't touch him and try to take a passive third - yes. Phoenix harass, for example will disrupt his production cycles, force spores and makes him spend larvae on Overlords.
Zealot-voidray can deny his third, which is a huge setback. Also not every zerg has the steel nerves to go in attack, while you play in his sandbox. AND your MS is out by 12 min, so roach-lings usually kiss an invisible wall and go away.
@15 he will assemble a healthy unit composition and take 4th (as he is feeling super-safe, cuz he will have alot of AA units). But as his resource will go over 2k he will try to bust you, but the thing is, that it's close to IMPOSSIBRU. So after he realizes, that his army was just decimated, you can take 4th whie he rebuilds supply.
On June 20 2012 03:56 rocKingJS wrote: Doesnt this lose against a fast roach-rush? (7 roach rush for example)
doesn't have anything to do with this build, upon scouting cheese you react accordingly of course! (cannons, sentries) and can then transition into the skytoss style
On June 19 2012 20:07 HelioSeven wrote:A ways back in the meta game (late november, early december last year), there was a style of +1 void ray pressure very similar to what you're describing. Basically a fast two gases after FFE, 3rd after cyber, and then stargate and 1 void ray. Chrono +1 at the forge and Warp Tech, plant a nice early pylon and enjoy. Zealots kill lings, void rays kill roaches, and both kill queens. It can be kind of ugly if your Zerg opponent doesn't build crawlers or fast techs to lair.
This is actually very nice. Because the build will look more like common toss strat and may even call you old-scool, up until the moment zerg sees MS ad more than 3 VR's.
As always, there are of course trade-offs. The 4th gas is delayed, which slightly delays the FB and thus mothership and thus 3rd base. Also, it delays your air upgrades by spending gas on +1 ground weapons and warp tech so early on. It being a pressure build, the implication is that you can do some damage, at least kill a queen or some drones or a tech building if not the 3rd base altogether, and be able to continue into fast mothership. Meanwhile, your Zerg opponent hopefully over-invests in static defense (spines and spores) that are in the long run going to be totally useless to him and put him behind on drone count.
On June 20 2012 03:56 rocKingJS wrote: Doesnt this lose against a fast roach-rush? (7 roach rush for example)
doesn't have anything to do with this build, upon scouting cheese you react accordingly of course! (cannons, sentries) and can then transition into the skytoss style
The nice thing about stargate first is that if you blind stargate first against a roach rush and scout it late, you can still chrono out the first void ray and usually minimize losses to a pylon or two and a few probes. But I agree, against a well-timed 7 roach or other early roach rush, generally you just have to scout it correctly, put up 2 or 3 extra cannons at your natural choke, and just chrono out units and you should be golden.
I guess not taking a risk all game, and playing a macro game, is the new "cheese" haha
It was really fun to watch the resources lost tab :D
But seriously this strat is awesome. It may be far too early to tell but I wonder what HoTS will do to this strat. I think it will still be viable but it will ultimately depend on how fast you can tech to the mothership core in order to do recall harass.
On June 20 2012 10:15 -MoOsE- wrote: this strat is so good on condemmed ridge
easy to take 4th and long rush distances mean any hydra pushes take awhile to arrive
Depends on the spawn locations. Taking the high ground 4th (the vertically middle bases) is usually pretty easy, the horizontally middle expansions are pretty wide open though, and can be tough to defend.
I guess not taking a risk all game, and playing a macro game, is the new "cheese" haha
That was a fun game, had a healthy laught.
I just wanted to note some things. I really like how you upgraded your style, but there are some poins i noted. You get WG first, but don't actually warp-in anything until 27th minute of the game =) Maybe it's better to get +1 air first. You should've gotten archons when saw him going mass corruptor (if you'd have 3 archon with you on the fight at the top right, when 3 VR survived and he muta-shifted, you would destroy him ezpz)
I played a game today where I opened with a sentry expand and then decided to transition into double stargate as I took my third. I didn't plan to go Skytoss this game, but I play very reactively and I got a pretty big tell that Mutas were coming based on a large speedling force that hit my natural. I look like a total lucksack for it, but maybe that's just my sense from playing cards for years and knowing how to read situations and people. Anyways, I eventually add on a third stargate and I have a pretty even mix of gateway and stargate units, so there are some interesting engagements with gateway units+Voidray Phoenix against Roach/Hydra while everything is at about similar upgrades.
is this a viable way to combat a hatch/evo block? Basically I made what ended up being a macro nexus, it slowed me down a little bit but the extra chrono/supply/probe production is good.
is this a viable way to combat a hatch/evo block? Basically I made what ended up being a macro nexus, it slowed me down a little bit but the extra chrono/supply/probe production is good.
I think if you weren't going for a fast mothership, the macro nexus would be completely terrible. But since you happened to be going Skytoss and a fast mothership is insanely strong on that map, it seemed to me like a pretty good response to a hatch-block. You had a pretty sick probe lead for a good period of time and then you were able to build 2 probes at a time while boosting a mothership with triple chrono potential. I think it's a good call if you're on a map where the 1 stargate with minimal units into fast mothership is strong--I like this for Ohana and probably Entombed Valley, but not so much for Daybreak. Although it might not be bad to put the macro nexus right up by the low ramp on that map, where it can serve another function as a giant barricade--I really like walling off by the secondary ramp there and on Cloud Kingdom and perhaps that's a way to make the macro nexus work on those maps.
I suppose it is a fringe situation, but we're talking about opening 17 nexus, so it's a pretty wide-open option for the zerg to do.
I've been trying this build the last couple of days on ladder. Mid-high masters and its works like a charm
My build is open w/ +1 zealot 4 gate pressure take 2 stargates and a fleet beacon make 2 voids to deflect roach counter. take third with cannons. then make like 5 phoenix to harass start air ups and then go 4 stargate 2 voids adn 2 carriers at a time
Take a fourth once you push back their first maxed attack. go to storm and you should be able to win with your next push.
Been practicing this v AI, now I'm so jazzed to go round up some low level (gold/plat) Z kills with this build. Maybe when some of them BM I'll just tell them to "Fogetaboudit"
I guess not taking a risk all game, and playing a macro game, is the new "cheese" haha
It was really fun to watch the resources lost tab :D
But seriously this strat is awesome. It may be far too early to tell but I wonder what HoTS will do to this strat. I think it will still be viable but it will ultimately depend on how fast you can tech to the mothership core in order to do recall harass.
I think it'll be viable, and even more powerful, in HOTS. Add some oracles and tempests and Zergs are going to be in a lot of trouble. Hydras timings may become slightly more powerful but other than that, they'll still suck vs air, and I don't really see what vipers can do versus such an air army.
Ahah that guy in the replay was funny, calling that a cheese, when it's actually like the ultimate macro game. I love how he threatened to post the replay on TL, rofl. Too bad you lost your whole army to corruptors, that's why I like to have my templars when I move out with my first maxed army.
I played a game the other day, the guy hadn't even lost that he started to call the strat "useless", and that it wasn't worth his time to play against. He just left in the middle of the game. Sad :o
I guess not taking a risk all game, and playing a macro game, is the new "cheese" haha
It was really fun to watch the resources lost tab :D
But seriously this strat is awesome. It may be far too early to tell but I wonder what HoTS will do to this strat. I think it will still be viable but it will ultimately depend on how fast you can tech to the mothership core in order to do recall harass.
I think it'll be viable, and even more powerful, in HOTS. Add some oracles and tempests and Zergs are going to be in a lot of trouble. Hydras timings may become slightly more powerful but other than that, they'll still suck vs air, and I don't really see what vipers can do versus such an air army.
Let's just hope they won't remove carrier. Cuz oracle will make this strat enormosly strong.
On June 21 2012 08:55 -MoOsE- wrote: Ok I'm having a problem when they are going mass roach, they can deny my third so long it seems like I just lose. What are yall doing against this?
On June 21 2012 08:55 -MoOsE- wrote: Ok I'm having a problem when they are going mass roach, they can deny my third so long it seems like I just lose. What are yall doing against this?
depending on how hard they commit to roach its acceptable to take building and eco damage. Your army is never traded, just sim city as best you can and place cannons as best you can. You can lose a Nexus and still be quite far ahead depending on his investment... need replay to be more specific.
I really do love this build, I have spent a little time trying it and have had about 50% success with it *if I can get far enough into the game*. What I would really like is some replays of the Protoss holding early pressure. The kind that comes around when you have maybe 5 Voids out.
Specifically does anyone have any replays of them holding a successful roach hydra push with several overseers around 12-13 mins?
Does it just come down to Vortexing the Hydra (or half the hydra) army?
I also have difficulty when they open 2 base spire, get several mutalisks out and pepper the flock with a couple of Corruptors.
Also what would you do if they split up half their Hydras, one to go for natural, the other, your third?
Thanks for your time chaps, I would be grateful to have some help!
On June 22 2012 05:43 smokingkipper wrote: I really do love this build, I have spent a little time trying it and have had about 50% success with it *if I can get far enough into the game*. What I would really like is some replays of the Protoss holding early pressure. The kind that comes around when you have maybe 5 Voids out.
Specifically does anyone have any replays of them holding a successful roach hydra push with several overseers around 12-13 mins?
Does it just come down to Vortexing the Hydra (or half the hydra) army?
I also have difficulty when they open 2 base spire, get several mutalisks out and pepper the flock with a couple of Corruptors.
Also what would you do if they split up half their Hydras, one to go for natural, the other, your third?
Thanks for your time chaps, I would be grateful to have some help!
(also, first post :p )
I just recently lost a game at that 12-13 minute mark to the roach/hydra push designed to take down the third (one of my only losses to Zerg in the last few weeks), but it was pretty retarded on my part because all my voids were away doing harass and he sniped my mothership before I could get the mass recall. By and large, as long as you have 6-10 chargelots in the way, 4 or 5 cannons at your 3rd with the mothership floating over it, and 4 or 5 voids, you should be absolutely fine. Just snipe the overseers and protect the mothership as best you can, you shouldn't even really need the vortex.
Regarding 2 base spire, you should pretty much never lose against that. With the stargate first opening you should always build one phoenix right off the bat and scout. For a 2 base spire build, that scout should give you all the information you need, at which point you should just get out 4-5 phoenixes, chrono boost range and +1, and you should be absolutely fine. You should basically never lose to muta with a stargate first build, even with a few corruptors mixed in (as they are slow as hell and generally can't engage phoenix ever). As a general rule of thumb, void rays are good against corruptors and phoenixes are good against mutas. Bear in mind that phoenixes are the fastest unit in the game, so they should allow you to choose your engagements.
First of all, and to qualify what I say below, I am only at Platinum level, so this is absolutely an issue with my execution and not a beef I have with the build.
I would *love* to make this a successful move. (and would LOVE to be able to do something like this in all matchups ;p)
On June 22 2012 05:43 smokingkipper wrote: I really do love this build, I have spent a little time trying it and have had about 50% success with it *if I can get far enough into the game*. What I would really like is some replays of the Protoss holding early pressure. The kind that comes around when you have maybe 5 Voids out.
Specifically does anyone have any replays of them holding a successful roach hydra push with several overseers around 12-13 mins?
Does it just come down to Vortexing the Hydra (or half the hydra) army?
I also have difficulty when they open 2 base spire, get several mutalisks out and pepper the flock with a couple of Corruptors.
Also what would you do if they split up half their Hydras, one to go for natural, the other, your third?
Thanks for your time chaps, I would be grateful to have some help!
(also, first post :p )
I just recently lost a game at that 12-13 minute mark to the roach/hydra push designed to take down the third (one of my only losses to Zerg in the last few weeks), but it was pretty retarded on my part because all my voids were away doing harass and he sniped my mothership before I could get the mass recall. By and large, as long as you have 6-10 chargelots in the way, 4 or 5 cannons at your 3rd with the mothership floating over it, and 4 or 5 voids, you should be absolutely fine. Just snipe the overseers and protect the mothership as best you can, you shouldn't even really need the vortex.
Regarding 2 base spire, you should pretty much never lose against that. With the stargate first opening you should always build one phoenix right off the bat and scout. For a 2 base spire build, that scout should give you all the information you need, at which point you should just get out 4-5 phoenixes, chrono boost range and +1, and you should be absolutely fine. You should basically never lose to muta with a stargate first build, even with a few corruptors mixed in (as they are slow as hell and generally can't engage phoenix ever). As a general rule of thumb, void rays are good against corruptors and phoenixes are good against mutas. Bear in mind that phoenixes are the fastest unit in the game, so they should allow you to choose your engagements.
Here is a replay of me losing to Roach Hyrda. I was at my 3rd with my Mothership and all my army, he came along with too many Overseers for me to take out quickly.
On June 22 2012 06:55 HelioSeven wrote: Regarding 2 base spire, you should pretty much never lose against that. With the stargate first opening you should always build one phoenix right off the bat and scout. For a 2 base spire build, that scout should give you all the information you need, at which point you should just get out 4-5 phoenixes, chrono boost range and +1, and you should be absolutely fine. You should basically never lose to muta with a stargate first build, even with a few corruptors mixed in (as they are slow as hell and generally can't engage phoenix ever).
Reminds me a pretty hilarious game where I basically went paranoiac with mutas. I scouted an early spire, so I mass produced phoenixes ( not just 5, more like.. 20 of them ). The guy never made more than 5 mutas. Only corruptors. Needless to say, 20 phoenixes versus 12+ corruptors are quite useless. Yeah they couldn't catch up to my phoenixes but I couldn't really harass either ( spores and queens everywhere ), so they were dead weight, and significantly delayed my production of carriers/voidrays. If I remember well I ended up winning that game, but that was pretty lucky on my part.
On June 22 2012 07:23 smokingkipper wrote: First of all, and to qualify what I say below, I am only at Platinum level, so this is absolutely an issue with my execution and not a beef I have with the build.
I would *love* to make this a successful move. (and would LOVE to be able to do something like this in all matchups ;p)
On June 22 2012 05:43 smokingkipper wrote: I really do love this build, I have spent a little time trying it and have had about 50% success with it *if I can get far enough into the game*. What I would really like is some replays of the Protoss holding early pressure. The kind that comes around when you have maybe 5 Voids out.
Specifically does anyone have any replays of them holding a successful roach hydra push with several overseers around 12-13 mins?
Does it just come down to Vortexing the Hydra (or half the hydra) army?
I also have difficulty when they open 2 base spire, get several mutalisks out and pepper the flock with a couple of Corruptors.
Also what would you do if they split up half their Hydras, one to go for natural, the other, your third?
Thanks for your time chaps, I would be grateful to have some help!
(also, first post :p )
I just recently lost a game at that 12-13 minute mark to the roach/hydra push designed to take down the third (one of my only losses to Zerg in the last few weeks), but it was pretty retarded on my part because all my voids were away doing harass and he sniped my mothership before I could get the mass recall. By and large, as long as you have 6-10 chargelots in the way, 4 or 5 cannons at your 3rd with the mothership floating over it, and 4 or 5 voids, you should be absolutely fine. Just snipe the overseers and protect the mothership as best you can, you shouldn't even really need the vortex.
Regarding 2 base spire, you should pretty much never lose against that. With the stargate first opening you should always build one phoenix right off the bat and scout. For a 2 base spire build, that scout should give you all the information you need, at which point you should just get out 4-5 phoenixes, chrono boost range and +1, and you should be absolutely fine. You should basically never lose to muta with a stargate first build, even with a few corruptors mixed in (as they are slow as hell and generally can't engage phoenix ever). As a general rule of thumb, void rays are good against corruptors and phoenixes are good against mutas. Bear in mind that phoenixes are the fastest unit in the game, so they should allow you to choose your engagements.
Here is a replay of me losing to Roach Hyrda. I was at my 3rd with my Mothership and all my army, he came along with too many Overseers for me to take out quickly.
Is this is a case of my Macro not being up to snuff? I was pumping out 4 Voidrays at a time but was mineral heavy (arn't we all with this build?).
I would love your feedback on this!
Thanks for the info regarding early spire. I will open with 1 scouting Phoenix from now on and weigh it up from there.
Hi there. I've seen the replay and actually you were doing really, really fine and would be able to hold this push easy, if not some important details. 1. Losing 5 VR in early agression. You really overcomitted on pure VR pressure 2. Getting carriers. 1 or 2 would made enormous difference. 3. You only had 2! cannons at your third Here's a screen from some old game of my, I'm seriously overcomitting on cannons, but it should give you the idea.
On June 22 2012 07:23 smokingkipper wrote: First of all, and to qualify what I say below, I am only at Platinum level, so this is absolutely an issue with my execution and not a beef I have with the build.
I would *love* to make this a successful move. (and would LOVE to be able to do something like this in all matchups ;p)
On June 22 2012 06:55 HelioSeven wrote:
On June 22 2012 05:43 smokingkipper wrote: I really do love this build, I have spent a little time trying it and have had about 50% success with it *if I can get far enough into the game*. What I would really like is some replays of the Protoss holding early pressure. The kind that comes around when you have maybe 5 Voids out.
Specifically does anyone have any replays of them holding a successful roach hydra push with several overseers around 12-13 mins?
Does it just come down to Vortexing the Hydra (or half the hydra) army?
I also have difficulty when they open 2 base spire, get several mutalisks out and pepper the flock with a couple of Corruptors.
Also what would you do if they split up half their Hydras, one to go for natural, the other, your third?
Thanks for your time chaps, I would be grateful to have some help!
(also, first post :p )
I just recently lost a game at that 12-13 minute mark to the roach/hydra push designed to take down the third (one of my only losses to Zerg in the last few weeks), but it was pretty retarded on my part because all my voids were away doing harass and he sniped my mothership before I could get the mass recall. By and large, as long as you have 6-10 chargelots in the way, 4 or 5 cannons at your 3rd with the mothership floating over it, and 4 or 5 voids, you should be absolutely fine. Just snipe the overseers and protect the mothership as best you can, you shouldn't even really need the vortex.
Regarding 2 base spire, you should pretty much never lose against that. With the stargate first opening you should always build one phoenix right off the bat and scout. For a 2 base spire build, that scout should give you all the information you need, at which point you should just get out 4-5 phoenixes, chrono boost range and +1, and you should be absolutely fine. You should basically never lose to muta with a stargate first build, even with a few corruptors mixed in (as they are slow as hell and generally can't engage phoenix ever). As a general rule of thumb, void rays are good against corruptors and phoenixes are good against mutas. Bear in mind that phoenixes are the fastest unit in the game, so they should allow you to choose your engagements.
Here is a replay of me losing to Roach Hyrda. I was at my 3rd with my Mothership and all my army, he came along with too many Overseers for me to take out quickly.
Is this is a case of my Macro not being up to snuff? I was pumping out 4 Voidrays at a time but was mineral heavy (arn't we all with this build?).
I would love your feedback on this!
Thanks for the info regarding early spire. I will open with 1 scouting Phoenix from now on and weigh it up from there.
Hi there. I've seen the replay and actually you were doing really, really fine and would be able to hold this push easy, if not some important details. 1. Losing 5 VR in early agression. You really overcomitted on pure VR pressure 2. Getting carriers. 1 or 2 would made enormous difference. 3. You only had 2! cannons at your third Here's a screen from some old game of my, I'm seriously overcomitting on cannons, but it should give you the idea.
This is more or less on point. Don't lose so many void rays, and transition to carriers after 6 or 8 are out. His example of cannons is a little overkill, but you should at least have 4-5. Extra minerals can be dumped into zealots (you should have 3 or 4 gateways for that purpose).
Thanks guys, beefing up the third (and to some extent the 2nd) to extravagant levels should be my aim and I think I successfully did this in the game below.
I woke this morning and was itching to try it, here is my first game:
I utterly destroyed him (and his a-typical roach push into my Mothership). I am quite happy with my harass here, it does show how people can fall apart to air when they are not used to it. However I did again lose a couple of units.
On June 22 2012 07:23 smokingkipper wrote: First of all, and to qualify what I say below, I am only at Platinum level, so this is absolutely an issue with my execution and not a beef I have with the build.
I would *love* to make this a successful move. (and would LOVE to be able to do something like this in all matchups ;p)
On June 22 2012 05:43 smokingkipper wrote: I really do love this build, I have spent a little time trying it and have had about 50% success with it *if I can get far enough into the game*. What I would really like is some replays of the Protoss holding early pressure. The kind that comes around when you have maybe 5 Voids out.
Specifically does anyone have any replays of them holding a successful roach hydra push with several overseers around 12-13 mins?
Does it just come down to Vortexing the Hydra (or half the hydra) army?
I also have difficulty when they open 2 base spire, get several mutalisks out and pepper the flock with a couple of Corruptors.
Also what would you do if they split up half their Hydras, one to go for natural, the other, your third?
Thanks for your time chaps, I would be grateful to have some help!
(also, first post :p )
I just recently lost a game at that 12-13 minute mark to the roach/hydra push designed to take down the third (one of my only losses to Zerg in the last few weeks), but it was pretty retarded on my part because all my voids were away doing harass and he sniped my mothership before I could get the mass recall. By and large, as long as you have 6-10 chargelots in the way, 4 or 5 cannons at your 3rd with the mothership floating over it, and 4 or 5 voids, you should be absolutely fine. Just snipe the overseers and protect the mothership as best you can, you shouldn't even really need the vortex.
Regarding 2 base spire, you should pretty much never lose against that. With the stargate first opening you should always build one phoenix right off the bat and scout. For a 2 base spire build, that scout should give you all the information you need, at which point you should just get out 4-5 phoenixes, chrono boost range and +1, and you should be absolutely fine. You should basically never lose to muta with a stargate first build, even with a few corruptors mixed in (as they are slow as hell and generally can't engage phoenix ever). As a general rule of thumb, void rays are good against corruptors and phoenixes are good against mutas. Bear in mind that phoenixes are the fastest unit in the game, so they should allow you to choose your engagements.
Here is a replay of me losing to Roach Hyrda. I was at my 3rd with my Mothership and all my army, he came along with too many Overseers for me to take out quickly.
I made a few mistakes, losing the mothership in first engagement was pretty bad micro. Also, I let him block my Nexus which was bad and then I made a macro Nexus but didn't take guys off gas to compensate so I was mineral starved and floating gas during the earlygame. But regardless, it should give you a "rough idea" of the defense.
I think when you go macro nexus, you should get gas later and put the Nexus up higher to form more of the wall-off. I'm still fooling around with it, myself but I think you can give a little more distance to your expo minerals and be fine because the whole point is to keep producing workers, not so much the saturation.
@ 14 minutes you have a 4th going up behind a giant wall of cannons, but lings run by and harass the nexus from the back. I think you should consider parking a Void Ray over the Nexus if you're taking a distant fourth like that. I don't think it would ruin the army to have one less Void Ray at that stage, whereas that single Void would be able to deflect the hell out of the run-by or put more of a clock on Roaches if a bunch of those go up to your Nexus. I feel like this is about the same tactic as leaving 1-2 Sentries behind a wall-off or a HT in each base, just with a different unit.
I like how @19 minutes he was looking around with a giant ball of corruptors for an air army to fight near your main, but you were up a the top left sitting over your 4th. I wonder if it's correct to build about 6-8 stargates in that new main base area where the mothership should be camping out; that would mean you could sacrifice/trade away your main and keep production/tech in order where your mineral patches are, so you don't have to defend multiple crucial locations at once. Plus, the rally points would be a lot more convenient. I know you kinda did that this game, but maybe it's better to just invest in more stargates in the new main base preemptively rather than when the doom army comes to your doorstep. Food for thought.
I feel like this new ladder map is so sick for macro play, but there are so many good spots for a nydus wyrm...so annoying.
Do you like to go for some early pressure first ie zealots or go straight to stargate for the quicker mothership? I feel like with early pressure you force useless roaches and stop droning, but at the same time the z can go for a continuing roach bust on your third while you have low v ray numbers
The Macro Nexus build with a fast Mothership seems like it drones about as effeciently as triple hatch. I'm going to solitaire it a few games and check it out in more detail.
sounds good if you have a "read" that your going into a macro game. I'd say it's pretty unclear or just losing if you get cheesed.
I'm gonna play around with it. Something like 3 fast Nexus, rally probes to main and Nat?, make Mothership out of Nat?, get 1 void ray ASAP to tickle and deny slow lings. Cannon up/saturate all bases/scout, gogogo.
I feel the biggest issue is they could re-actively pump a lot of slow lings and overpower just 1 VR/Zeal. Maybe you should go pylon/cannon/Nexus?
I just played some test games on Daybreak to figure out how good a Nexus is, for walling off. I started with the usual FFE 13ish Forge after a 9 scout and then a 16 rally to the low ground for a failed 17 nexus (which is usually where you get blocked and then decide to build the macro nexus in the first place, since this is all assumed going into this build). It turns out that, if you build your Forge next to the bottom of your ramp to start the wall-off and you build the Nexus next to the top wall, there's a corner that units can traverse.
I played another test game that shows how this happens by building the Nexus in a few locations and trying to walk a probe past it. I went to 17 probes and then just built and canceled buildings to show what walls and what doesn't. Here's that replay: http://drop.sc/202390
I am going to play a couple more test runs on different maps to show different potential wall-offs involving a macro Nexus. Maybe after that I'll just play a couple solitaire games to check the probe count if we literally just boost probes constantly for 5 minutes off of the 2base 3 Nexi build. I think the target worker count is about 75.
Also, something I've been thinking about is that a Mothership itself actually builds pretty darn fast if you boost it all the way. It's a 160 second build time (just like Warp gate), but each time you chrono you turn 30 seconds into 20 seconds, so 150 seconds would turn into 100 seconds (30*5 into 20*5) plus the other 10 seconds...making it 110 seconds build time, or just under 2 minutes with vigilant boosting. According to Liquipedia, energy regenrates at 0.5625 per in-game second, so in 20 in-game seconds a Nexus regenerates 11.25 energy. Between 3 Nexi, that's 33.75 energy, so if you start with a boost and a half banked you don't need to bank any more for a Mothership. That's not a lot of energy needed to save for Mothership; the rest can go to probes or units or w/e the hell else you want. This makes the Triple Nexus Mothership build look a lot more possible, considering that you could build the Mothership at your safer Natural expo Nexus and use the Macro one for probes; if that one somehow dies in a late bust you still have a mothership timing to stall for with an emergency wall-off for a few seconds.
For reference, some build times: Gateway: 65 Cyber Core: 50 Stargate: 60 Fleet Beacon: 60 Mothership (boosted 5 times): 110
From the start of your gateway to the mothership popping out, if you miss 0 build timings, that's 345 seconds or almost 6 minutes of in-game time.
But what's the point in an extra early third? I mean, we are going to get there in the end so why rush things? What specific advantage can be gained via taking the risk? I think you are more or less immune to early pressure as already demonstrated (and thanks for your stream link, I have been watching a few of your vods), things will be going to the very late game.
I guess what I am trying to say is that unless you are going to try and carve out a good timing which can benefit from rushing a third pre MS, just take it safe and easy.
(8x speed throug the first 3 and a half minutes or so; I just get an economy up so I can build and cancel stuff at will to display wall-offs).
The downside to me seems to be that roaches might outrange cannons with the right positioning, giving them free range to take potshots on the nexus. But that could probably be dealt with via a cannon on the high ground and one right in the armpit between the macro nexus and gateway. Also, a nexus can tank some serious damage, so maybe if 7-10 roaches roll up to bust your front door, boost out a void first and have that solve the problem. After that stage, you could always just build more cannons in front of the wall to stall a hydra bust...just make sure to scout it while it starts rolling across the map.
Also, you could theoretically use pylons to help form the wall-off, but I was just trying to see if the wall could be done without that. Pylons aren't the most sturdy of barricades.... Or instead of a partial wall-off, a full wall could be used while you tech mothership and probe up, which makes you really really safe from busts without even needing any early gateway units at all.
On June 23 2012 02:34 -MoOsE- wrote: so what is the point of getting this macro nexus?
the advantages are pretty obvious...
Extra Chrono Extra Probe Production even during Mothership build time (very valuable when recovering against harass) quicker access to more patches/geysers when blocked Supply
So are the disadvantages... -A tell that you are going into macro -Big early investment, slowing tech
The question is "whether or not this is worth it," not .. "whats the point"
ok I just played another game and won and I think that if you can secure a 4th just throw down like 20 gates with all of your extra minerals and then after the big 200/200 fight warp in zealots everywhere while you are rebuilding. It seems a lot of times that your opponent will instantly remax on infestor/corrupter so lots counter this pretty well.
On June 23 2012 00:03 ineversmile wrote: I think when you go macro nexus, you should get gas later and put the Nexus up higher to form more of the wall-off. I'm still fooling around with it, myself but I think you can give a little more distance to your expo minerals and be fine because the whole point is to keep producing workers, not so much the saturation.
@ 14 minutes you have a 4th going up behind a giant wall of cannons, but lings run by and harass the nexus from the back. I think you should consider parking a Void Ray over the Nexus if you're taking a distant fourth like that. I don't think it would ruin the army to have one less Void Ray at that stage, whereas that single Void would be able to deflect the hell out of the run-by or put more of a clock on Roaches if a bunch of those go up to your Nexus. I feel like this is about the same tactic as leaving 1-2 Sentries behind a wall-off or a HT in each base, just with a different unit.
I like how @19 minutes he was looking around with a giant ball of corruptors for an air army to fight near your main, but you were up a the top left sitting over your 4th. I wonder if it's correct to build about 6-8 stargates in that new main base area where the mothership should be camping out; that would mean you could sacrifice/trade away your main and keep production/tech in order where your mineral patches are, so you don't have to defend multiple crucial locations at once. Plus, the rally points would be a lot more convenient. I know you kinda did that this game, but maybe it's better to just invest in more stargates in the new main base preemptively rather than when the doom army comes to your doorstep. Food for thought.
I feel like this new ladder map is so sick for macro play, but there are so many good spots for a nydus wyrm...so annoying.
The new map has way too much dead air space behind it. It is a pain to deal with mutas without going full-on phoenix.
I did a couple test games on Cloud Kingdom. So on that map, there are exactly 9 spaces between the top and bottom of your low ground choke point. Normally, that means Forge/Gateway/Zealot/Pylon, but with a Nexus you can go Nexus/Zealot/Forge using the same space. There's even a perfect hallways between 2 giant buildings for blocking off, although it is possible to screw up the block by putting the probe/zealot too close to the corner of the nexus (which is apparantly rounded off).
Long story short, Cloud Kingdom is a really good map for a macro nexus as part of a wall-off. You can put a cannon up behind your gas near the overlord spot, and another one on the high ground by the cliff looking down from your main to the choke point. That covers roach attacks with 2 cannons.
I think you want to go 13-14 forge and then a nexus at ~17-18, then build a gateway somewhere and another nexus after that. Maybe a pylon in there before the gateway; I'm not sure if that's how things time out. You do kind of want to bank up another 400 minerals after building a cannon and a gateway, so maybe probes should be cut at 18 or something.
And I think if you scout an early pool that's not a 6pool but something more like 10pool to deny/slow your own nexus, it might be smarter to build the macro nexus before the regular one, then block off that hallway with a probe. I have no idea how that times out, though. I forget which pool gets there at that point in time; I've been fooling around with gateway expos and mixing in 4gates/DTs lately in PvZ and my FFE is a bit rusty.
Long story short, Cloud Kingdom is a really good map for a macro nexus as part of a wall-off. You can put a cannon up behind your gas near the overlord spot, and another one on the high ground by the cliff looking down from your main to the choke point. That covers roach attacks with 2 cannons.
Here's a picture of the bottom-left base. Not sure if the top pylon and cannon should be that close to the wall-off or further away or what-not, but you get the idea. The clifftop cannon could be placed at different spots of the cliff, as well, or there could be multiple cannons, etc.
I restarted the game after that test run to see if I could build the base a little bit better. Here's one of the top-right base, with a mothership and everything.
Notice the zealot blocks the hallway on hold position.
Here's a shot of the southside of the main base, with some tech structures:
I think that the second pylon should go here, since space will be a factor with a macro nexus wall-off and you need to put the tech structures somewhere. This could be a spot for the gateway and cyber core. Alternatively:
This is a space covered by the first pylon with room for a gateway and/or more cannon(s). So you could 17-18 gate here before or after the nexus wall-off or cannon, depending on how the build order evolves and when the lings are expected to show up at the front door.
This is a space covered by the first pylon with room for a gateway and/or more cannon(s). So you could 17-18 gate here before or after the nexus wall-off or cannon, depending on how the build order evolves and when the lings are expected to show up at the front door.
I really enjoy this. Do you generally go third nexus before or after gateway?
Just wanted to say thanks for this build! I've been reading this thread regularly since its creation, and this is now the preferred way I play PvZ. Yes, I'm only platinum, almost diamond, but here are my two cents.
The only thing I die to regularly is an all hydra + mass queen type attack. It can hit pretty early, so if you're even a little bit late with the mothership you're just dead.
Late game I dump my excess minerals (what's left from cannons) into some gateways, like 6 of them. If I see mass hydra I build 10+ zealots and keep them with my air units. If they get close they do good versus hydras but the real value is that they absorb shots, so it's always a good trade. If I start seeing mass corruptors I try to tech to HT as soon as possible, and with the gateways I have I build around 8 templars.
You'll usually be ahead in upgrades, since zerg will upgrade both ground and air, and late game no matter the composition, void rays, a few carriers and storms wins, and wins decisively. However you look at it I think airtoss trades much better vs Zerg, and until someone proved there's a timing that can easily kill you before you get to the late game I will continue with this style
Very important: -Harass with initial VRs but don't lose a single one -Upgrade constantly, first weapons, then armor is what I prefer -Don't forget to upgrade shields middle/late game, that forge isn't doing anything anyway -More hydras = more carriers, more corruptors = more VRs -Never, and I mean never, be late with the mothership. It's just that important.
This is a space covered by the first pylon with room for a gateway and/or more cannon(s). So you could 17-18 gate here before or after the nexus wall-off or cannon, depending on how the build order evolves and when the lings are expected to show up at the front door.
I really enjoy this. Do you generally go third nexus before or after gateway?
I haven't figured out the build yet; it's too radical of a concept to really know yet. I know I want 13ish forge and a 17ish nexus, but I don't know if it's correct to build the nexus at the natural first or the one at the wall-off first. Walling off seems safer, so you could delay the gate for a third nexus pre-gate and be ok due to a wall-off that can be plugged with a probe during a shitstorm.
Having 3 nexi up by 6ish minutes into the game is probably the most ridiculous thing I have ever witnessed in this game. You literally can chain chrono on one building constantly and the total pool of energy between the nexi steadily rises while that happens. It completely changes the number of production buildings needed. Also, because you functionally can just drone when you want, you don't need to constantly build workers and you can get the right saturation way quicker. So that's mor minerals spent on not probing up and a quicker full mineral saturation. So awesome.
This is a space covered by the first pylon with room for a gateway and/or more cannon(s). So you could 17-18 gate here before or after the nexus wall-off or cannon, depending on how the build order evolves and when the lings are expected to show up at the front door.
I really enjoy this. Do you generally go third nexus before or after gateway?
I haven't figured out the build yet; it's too radical of a concept to really know yet. I know I want 13ish forge and a 17ish nexus, but I don't know if it's correct to build the nexus at the natural first or the one at the wall-off first. Walling off seems safer, so you could delay the gate for a third nexus pre-gate and be ok due to a wall-off that can be plugged with a probe during a shitstorm.
Having 3 nexi up by 6ish minutes into the game is probably the most ridiculous thing I have ever witnessed in this game. You literally can chain chrono on one building constantly and the total pool of energy between the nexi steadily rises while that happens. It completely changes the number of production buildings needed. Also, because you functionally can just drone when you want, you don't need to constantly build workers and you can get the right saturation way quicker. So that's mor minerals spent on not probing up and a quicker full mineral saturation. So awesome.
Not sure how well that would work against an early cheese, though. I would go for safety and put up macro nexus after gateway, and then 2 gases, cyber, gas, stargate, gas. That way if you scout roach rush with the probe your tech isn't too delayed and you can cancel (or better yet not even put up) the macro nexus and throw down extra cannons.
I thumbs down Antiga. I don't like maps without accessible 4ths and beyond. ______
I think that forge-->macro nexus-->cannon-->gateway-->expo nexus-->double gas is the way to go, by instinct. You keep probe production rolling at a high potential, you don't screw your tech, and you have a pretty solid barricade for ling pressure simultaneously. I'm just not sure at which point the second pylon should be built during that BO.
On June 23 2012 10:15 The Eskimo wrote: I was unable to use this on antiga shipyard because I couldn't take my 4th. What do?
yeah getting the fourth is kinda tricky. On 4 player maps, I try to find a time in the game where my opponents army is weakest and escort a probe to another main, wall off the ramp with a ton of cannons just like you would Forge fast expand. Make the cannons first and you should have good access to 2 new bases. In general, I think it's acceptable to have a slightly later fourth if you also get a fifth.
this build is almost a auto win against any zerg. i am very very impressed how well this build works. if any protoss are having problems beating zerg i recommend this build.
I think the best time to take a 4th is while you're picking of your opponent's expo with a fleet and defensively town portalling it home with your mothership recall. If he doesn't send infestors to try to chain fungal, you can do tons of damage and wreck him. If he does, you recall to between 3rd and 4th and have a solid defens over your 4th. One way or another, your cannons make him pay for a potential push and the diversion allows a window to establish more economy.
I made a TL account specifically to reply to this thread. I'm only a diamond player, but I've beat several zerg masters with this, and I've beaten other diamond players repeatedly (read: 5 times in a row), even when they know it's coming. I've held off speedling allins, roach ling allins, stephano roach max, big hydra pushes, hydra drops, infestor pushes, mass upgraded corruptor armies (55+!), hydra infestor armies, queen spore hydra infestor slow-pushes, and most of my games last ~40 minutes, and end with us both on 6-base with maxed armies when I made the final trade and come out OVERWHELMINGLY ahead. My win-rate PvZ has also turned spectacular overnight.
Protoss air is awesome, and it seems like many discount it before they've done their due diligence in exploring it. Simple things like treating it as a means to a high-econ macro game (rather than a mid-game allin), defensive recall (to save you from fungal death), having the appropriate mix of void-carrier (terrans die because of too many marauder in their MMM-ball, why would toss air compositions be any different?), and pairing your lategame army with storm and a few archons go a long way to securing your victory. However, ultimately, the ability to play a 40 minute macro game versus a zerg opponent, to be safe from virtually all mid-game pressure, to match him on economy the entire game, to negate broodlords, and to deny his harrassment with solid cannon usage, mothership (and other air) placement, and high protoss technology, is phenomenal.
I'm incredibly grateful to you for turning me on to this strategy, and nothing saddens me more than the fact that the removal of carriers from HoTS will substantially weaken the end-game 'toss air composition against infestor-hydra heavy armies. Nevertheless, this style demands further study, and I urge everyone to give it a shot. Thank you fogedaboutit.
Dismantling a BM top8-diamond zerg. He thought his ling pressure killed my third (even after seeing my mothership) and got overconfident. (I BM back towards the end. Sorry about that. Maybe I'll get that rematch one day...) http://drop.sc/201629
Another game vs a top8-diamond zerg. He asks me if I'm smurfing during the game, and accuses me of it again afterwards. =D http://drop.sc/200335
A game vs a mid-diamond zerg. Storm is so good in those final battles... http://drop.sc/200328
I have dozens more replays like this. I've only really died to super fast (~12min) hydra pushes at my natural, followed up by another quick hydra push to finish the job, and I think it was my fault that I took my third too late, and didn't rebuild my wall / cannons quickly enough.
There is still a slight possibility that carriers will stay in HotS, so keep praying
Also I feel airtoss could be made to work without carriers, but then it would always have to be a mix of air and ground units late game, which would definitively make it weaker (and I guees technically it wouldn't be airtoss anymore).
Carriers are needed because of infestors. A couple fungals can do a lot of damage to a huge mass of voidrays, so if Zergs goes mass mass infestors, you're in trouble with pure carriers.
Templars are of course a good counter to infestors, but there's a critical point, when Zergs has > 20 infestors, where no matter what number of templars you have, you won't be able to feedback/kill all those infestors before they chained their fungals and killed your voidrays. The number of infested terrans will be insane too..
Maybe tempests will help, as they can kill infestors from a huge distance, but the dynamics would completely change. With carriers you can fight Zerg's army directly; with tempests, it is likely that you'll have to treat them like brood lords, and advance step-by-step while using the rest of your army as a shield. Imagine 6-7 tempests shooting at 22 range with 20+ voidrays and 8+ templars to keep them protected.. hmm hmmm
Hello, i didnt lose a single pvz since i'm playing this, but i definitely dont like carriers, i really prefer getting 4 colossus quite fast to hold the hydras push, kill the infestors, kill the infested terran and getting like 4-5 archonts and 10 templars, as your oponent's army is composed of infestor and corruptors the colossus auto target the infestors and if you split your voidrays he will be unable to do major damage even with 25 infestor until you feedback/kill them all.
On June 23 2012 22:27 loko1275 wrote: Hello, i didnt lose a single pvz since i'm playing this, but i definitely dont like carriers, i really prefer getting 4 colossus quite fast to hold the hydras push, kill the infestors, kill the infested terran and getting like 4-5 archonts and 10 templars, as your oponent's army is composed of infestor and corruptors the colossus auto target the infestors and if you split your voidrays he will be unable to do major damage even with 25 infestor until you feedback/kill them all.
On June 24 2012 06:02 The Eskimo wrote: it seems whenever i do this they just spam roaches at me and I'll only have a couple voids out. i take too much damage and end up dieing
This is where scouting comes into play. In many cases, Zerg still go for the 12 minute max out, and as a result, you have a timestamp as to when you should be adequately defended. This means one of several things.
1. Mothership out. If the Mothership is out, more than likely, they will not have detection, which means while they would normally be able to bust your wall, they can't see it.
2. Spam Cannons. With a sufficient wall off at the third and a large amount of cannons, you can generally either hold it off, or stall for sufficient forces to arrive.
Alternatively, you can force them out of Roaches through showing double Stargate. In the case that they actually see double Stargate, they will either abandon Roaches entirely before the assault, or try to go all in. Either way works out for you, assuming you can scout it coming. I generally get a Phoenix after the first Void Ray, I use the Void Ray to clear out Overlords and Zerglings, and the Phoenix to scout gasses. By the time the Phoenix gets there in most maps, 3 Gasses usually means Roaches, 4+ means Muta or Infestor.
I made some more pics of wall-offs for other maps (since I already showed Cloud Kingdom). Here's Ohana:
Note that units can move to the left side of the nexus (see how the Zealot is standing there), so you will need 2 cannons to cover this wall-off fully. You probably want to do that, anyways, considering how the plan is to get 3 nexi up and basically straight tech to the highest possible tech unit with the longest build time in the game. Fortunately, you can put the left cannon down a little bit late because a 1000+1000 HP building isn't going anywhere for a while. Also, notice how the cannon on the right can hit the rocks from its placement:
I think that building a macro nexus next to your ramp is probably the best placement for the sake of walling off, as that's the spot where it's not going to screw over your wall-off with its rounded corner issues. Moving on, here's Daybreak:
Notice the clicking spot; the probe cannot move past the nexus corner where it is placed. This is why I like the macro nexus next to a ramp. I'm pretty sure that roaches can hit it without getting targetted by the cannon, though, so another cannon should go on the high ground. Here's a wall-off on the other side of Daybreak, using a 1-space gap with a Zealot instead of a full wall-off:
Next is Entombed Valley. It took me a few tries to get this one right, but this one seems close to optimal. What you do is wall-off twice. First you wall to take your natural and then later you expand the wall towards your rocks. A Zealot blocks at both stages:
The second gate obviously should be a Core, but you get the point. This way, you're covering your ass with one cannon until you're financially capable of building more of the wall. Plus, you'll have that Zealot to protect your assets while they're building. Note that I tested walking an Immortal between the Nexus and ramp, and it does fit. I also tried another couple of wall-offs:
This one takes a lot of buildings and relies on a Pylon, which is sketchy on a number of levels. But it's an alternative.
This is a wall-off that works very well for the natural, but sucks for the sake of taking the third and comfortably walling it. Food for thought, though.
I'm getting a bit closer to figuring out the build order, but I wanted to really sit down and figure out how to wall things off first. If anyone has input on how to improve some of these wall-offs, I'm all ears. I also wouldn't mind if you do some of the work for other maps!
I've been trying to wall off with the Nexus but haven't put much thought into the placement so every sim city is just a huge cluster***k
I think the extra Nexus pays for itself remarkably fast and you can afford a second blind cannon in addition to many sacrificial scouting probes.
When I stay on top of my chrono it's pretty hard to produce consistently out of 4 Stargates. I wonder if 3 Stargates (instead of 4) and another earlier tech (HT or Collossus) is good off of 3 bases.
On June 24 2012 07:30 Fogetaboudit wrote: thank you!
I've been trying to wall off with the Nexus but haven't put much thought into the placement so every sim city is just a huge cluster***k
I think the extra Nexus pays for itself remarkably fast and you can afford a second blind cannon in addition to many sacrificial scouting probes.
You're welcome
I agree 100% that the third nexus pays for itself. This build is all about gas anyways, so it's not like I don't have the minerals to spare...it's more like a 300 mineral investment into a pylon that does a lot of stuff for me. I figure I'll have 300 minerals laying around if I don't invest that money into 2 more gateways.
I honestly have the problem of overprobing sometimes now, so I have to remind myself to cut workers after being so mentally trained to constantly make probes in this game. You honestly can just stop workers when you're in the 45-50 range, focus on buildings for a while, and then get workers after starting the third and getting its sim-city going (i.e. after the mineral dump is over and you have money for workers again). I like your idea of using throwaway probes to scout, too. That doesn't normally make sense, but when there's an exponential economy ramp engine involved, you can afford to treat some workers as disposable.
When I stay on top of my chrono it's pretty hard to produce consistently out of 4 Stargates. I wonder if 3 Stargates (instead of 4) and another earlier tech (HT or Collossus) is good off of 3 bases.
I agree. You don't really need 4 Stargates. 3 will produce Voids/Carriers fast enough to keep the fleet growing steadily. 3 is also enough to boost out 6 Phoenixes in less than a minute to deal with a surprise Muta flock. That seems to be the menchmark for me, so I'm cool with 3 of them. I usually like to go:
(after Core) Stargate Beacon Mothership 2 more Stargates
so I think maybe the right choice is to go more like this:
(after Core) Stargate Beacon Mothership Stargate #2 Robo Stargate #3 When Robo finishes, get a Bay and then maybe add another Robo. I don't know if you can afford to pump 2 Colossi while pumping 3 stargates, so maybe you get a second Robo in case of emergencies and cut down on Stargate production to boost Colossi against Hydra timings.
I think that Robo tech is the right choice, and I'll give a few reasons.
For starters, Robo tech is more useful than Twilight tech at that stage of the game. You don't have much use for blink or charge. Warp-in Zealots are useful to harass or to emergency defend, but you don't really need charge for them to do their job at that stage (it's more of a luxury than a necessity). The same goes for Stalkers, which you're realistically only going to make on 3 base if your opponent suddenly shows up with a ton of mutas and you need some defense. And then if you look at what else you get from the Twilight Council, it's Forge-based upgrades past level 1 (Who cares?), HT tech, and DT tech. You know your opponent is going to have spores everywhere, so DTs are basically a terrible idea. HTs are good, but are they really worth going down this tech road and having nothing else to show for them?
On the other hand, a Robo is useful as soon as you get it. While the Twilight is just a stepping stone to Templar Archives, a Robo gives you 3 different things as soon as its built. You can use an Observer and a Void/Zealot to go around clearing creep tumors. You can get an Immortal to help against a giant roach push. You can get a Warp Prism, which lets you attack into Spore-defended areas by dumping your excess minerals into Zealots--or even just bring a Prism with your air army and warp in ground units when you attack across cliffs. All 3 of these units are useful, and even if you usually just get one observer you can at least know that you can build other stuff to deal with timing-based situations or to just give the 3base stage of your Skytoss game more versatility.
And then, there is the actual contrast between Storm/Archons and Colossi. At this point in the game, you're always going to have better upgrades than your opponent's air units because you're just way ahead in starting them, so you can win even food battles of air vs air with the right mix of Stargate Units and smart decisions about where and when to engage. What you have to really worry about are Hydras and Infestors, so I think it's fine to have only anti-ground AoE at that stage of the game.
Storm finishes faster than Thermal Lance and Templar Archives build faster than a Robo Bay, but the upshot to Colossus here is that it's useful before Thermal Lance. HTs are functionally feedback machines and nothing else before storm unless you turn them into archons, so that makes them dead weight against some of the faster Hydra timings. But if you have a Colossus pop out, you can immediately have it do some damage to the Hydra ball. Even if it trades away because it has even range with Hydras, at least it does some damage. Archons...not so much. Plus, while you can get good storms against Hydras off creep, you only have so many storms available. Colossi, on the other hand, have an infinite number of shots available to them. They don't screw around. Also, Colossi can cliff walk
This doesn't mean I think Storm is bad; it's obviously amazing and it helps fight the Corruptors straight-up. But I would rather delay the Twilight until some later time. Maybe it's best when I take my fourth and I'm starting to build a bunch more Gateways, so I'm more capable of putting the twilight to use at that point. That's also leading into the time when I'll have 8 geysers instead of 6, and HTs are really gas-intensive alongside an already gas-greedy mass air composition.
EDIT: Condemned Ridge Wall-Off:
Pretty simple. Here's Antiga:
This is a wall for the ramp. The macro nexus conveniently lets you do this, whereas before it was a really big pain in the ass to wall this huge ramp. Alternatively, there's this awesome trick:
Yo dawg I heard you like nexus so I put a nexus next to your nexus so you can wall off your nexus. If you position it here, it's a wall from your ramp to your expansion. If you move it up or down a slot, it's not a wall because corners can be cut...be careful.
Here's that wall-off with the forge past the mineral line to barricade a cannon in, which deters run-bys.
Here's the spot I think the second cannon would probably go (seems obvious).
I think walling the big ramp with the Zealot block is probably safer, but it's hilarious that you can exctly block your main ramp to your expo with the macro nexus. I bet zergs do this in ZvZ with macro hatches sometimes, but it was news to me when I tried it.
On June 23 2012 21:02 Nyast wrote: Carriers are needed because of infestors. A couple fungals can do a lot of damage to a huge mass of voidrays, so if Zergs goes mass mass infestors, you're in trouble with pure carriers.
Templars are of course a good counter to infestors, but there's a critical point, when Zergs has > 20 infestors, where no matter what number of templars you have, you won't be able to feedback/kill all those infestors before they chained their fungals and killed your voidrays. The number of infested terrans will be insane too..
Maybe tempests will help, as they can kill infestors from a huge distance, but the dynamics would completely change. With carriers you can fight Zerg's army directly; with tempests, it is likely that you'll have to treat them like brood lords, and advance step-by-step while using the rest of your army as a shield. Imagine 6-7 tempests shooting at 22 range with 20+ voidrays and 8+ templars to keep them protected.. hmm hmmm
Carriers still clump, and can be ganked by large numbers of infested terrans with fungals. The thing is, high templar scale with infestors pretty well, because clumps of infestors can just be stormed instead of feedbacked, and it works more or less the same. Works pretty well on infested terrans too.
But carriers are definitely needed in that role of high dps vs large numbers of low armor units. Hydras just melt against carriers, and void ray/carrier is generall stronger than corruptor/hydra, depending of course on the engagement.
On June 24 2012 07:30 Fogetaboudit wrote: thank you!
I've been trying to wall off with the Nexus but haven't put much thought into the placement so every sim city is just a huge cluster***k
I think the extra Nexus pays for itself remarkably fast and you can afford a second blind cannon in addition to many sacrificial scouting probes.
When I stay on top of my chrono it's pretty hard to produce consistently out of 4 Stargates. I wonder if 3 Stargates (instead of 4) and another earlier tech (HT or Collossus) is good off of 3 bases.
Depends on what you are making. Keep in mind that the number of production facilities you want to have simultaneously running is determined by the income cost of the units you are making. Carriers, because of their insane build time, are much cheaper in terms of income than void rays and phoenixes, despite their higher base cost. I usually go for the 4th stargate when I'm producing mostly carriers, otherwise the income cost of void rays is just a little too high.
Hey! I've switched back to zerg, and am top gold. I played vs a diamond protoss in a private match and he did a similar strategy vs me. I didn't make corruptors until the very end (he made a few carriers). My analysis of the replay and playstyle tells me that an excellent unit comp would be infestor queen, with corruptor support. The corruptors will only be used to kill carriers and mommaships. This is because pure infestors aren't enough (rofl units lost tab when he kills ~40 of mine at once), and all other anti-air costs gas. I tried spores, but it's really tricky to get that to work
Mavvie, you won because the toss made four huge mistakes. (1) Toss never got a mothership, ever. The mothership is the core of this strategy, and he would have roflstomped you easily if he had one. Every time you fungaled him, he could have simply recalled out with zero losses after killing a bunch of your units. As it was, he lost about 20 voids to fungal, -twice- (which was completely unnecessary). (2) Toss had no carriers until he was already dead (~39 minutes). Against infestor hydra, they are extremely important. You would have lost tons of infestors to interceptors while trying to fungal him, and he could simply mass recall out and take no losses. He had no diversity in his composition (apart from a single colossus)--big mistake. (3) Toss had 15 cannons powered off of two pylons at his fourth, and a similar artosis-pylon situation at his third, which allowed you to do damage to his economy late-game. (4) Toss had no HTs to feedback/storm infestors.
I (also a diamond toss) have roflstomped every composition you sent at him with this style, and I believe I can safely say the compositions you used are not an issue for this style. If you don't believe me, I'd be happy to play some games with you, where you can build up and try whatever timing attacks / compositions you like.
trbot, I agree with everything you said. In fact, after the game I told him to get mothership and not have artosis pylons. However, I feel that queens ARE the answer to this strategy. Whenever infestors are used, there's a buffer. Be it roaches, lings, ultras, etc. however, the only anti-air that is being used as a buffer is hydras, which get insta-gibbed by everything that isn't a stalker, sentry, or zealot. I think that queens solve this problem -- they ARE tanks. Only archons so bonus damage, and with 3-3 they're formidable. They also have a lot of HP, only cost minerals, and have 7 range compared to fungal's 9; infestirs can sit behind and cast away. Transfuse op too! I suppose this is vulnerable to feedback, but HT cost so much gas and queens only minerals, so I'd trade that any day. Just theorycraft, but I think that with creep, spores, queens, and infestors, you should be able to defeat this strategy. Also, mass transfuse queen is great at breaking cannon lines! Just my thoughts, I'd love to try it in-game sometime!
I agree from playing against mass queens a few times; they are really strong against air en masse. However, they do have the pitfall of taking 50 seconds to build from a hatchery...if you lose that queen army then it's 50 seconds per hatchery and that's a lot of macro hatches needed just to remax it in a timely fashion. So the goal with mass queens would probably be to keep that army intact and not really plan to trade so much with it. That doesn't make it bad, but it is a major strategic vulnerability to exploit. Everything has a weakness.
Having some real trouble actually placing these buildings properly in games, especially on Daybreak. I have to train my brain to put the pylon in the right spot on the low ground, which is a huge pain in the ass. As a result of screwing that up, I lost a couple ladder games to roach/ling aggression that never would have succeeded with a properly placed cannon and void ray first (note to self: Void Ray for defense and then Phoenix to scout).
I think that it actually might be better (for some maps) to go with a sentry expand and then, instead of walling off the natural with gateways, put a macro nexus down and go from there.
On June 25 2012 09:11 ineversmile wrote: I agree from playing against mass queens a few times; they are really strong against air en masse. However, they do have the pitfall of taking 50 seconds to build from a hatchery...if you lose that queen army then it's 50 seconds per hatchery and that's a lot of macro hatches needed just to remax it in a timely fashion. So the goal with mass queens would probably be to keep that army intact and not really plan to trade so much with it. That doesn't make it bad, but it is a major strategic vulnerability to exploit. Everything has a weakness.
Yeah, I have long maintained that this is the best Zerg composition to defend against the Skytoss style. Corruptor/queen/infestor is pretty ridiculous, and mineral dumping into lings turns into run-bys galore, cause carriers and void rays ain't that quick. It can get pretty ugly if a Zerg insta-reads Skytoss and responds with tons of queens. Fortunately, queens are slow as hell off creep so they can't push out very early and that gives you time to tech to chargelot archon, which works quite well against that comp.
On June 23 2012 13:33 trbot wrote: I made a TL account specifically to reply to this thread. I'm only a diamond player, but I've beat several zerg masters with this, and I've beaten other diamond players repeatedly (read: 5 times in a row), even when they know it's coming. I've held off speedling allins, roach ling allins, stephano roach max, big hydra pushes, hydra drops, infestor pushes, mass upgraded corruptor armies (55+!), hydra infestor armies, queen spore hydra infestor slow-pushes, and most of my games last ~40 minutes, and end with us both on 6-base with maxed armies when I made the final trade and come out OVERWHELMINGLY ahead. My win-rate PvZ has also turned spectacular overnight.
Protoss air is awesome, and it seems like many discount it before they've done their due diligence in exploring it. Simple things like treating it as a means to a high-econ macro game (rather than a mid-game allin), defensive recall (to save you from fungal death), having the appropriate mix of void-carrier (terrans die because of too many marauder in their MMM-ball, why would toss air compositions be any different?), and pairing your lategame army with storm and a few archons go a long way to securing your victory. However, ultimately, the ability to play a 40 minute macro game versus a zerg opponent, to be safe from virtually all mid-game pressure, to match him on economy the entire game, to negate broodlords, and to deny his harrassment with solid cannon usage, mothership (and other air) placement, and high protoss technology, is phenomenal.
I'm incredibly grateful to you for turning me on to this strategy, and nothing saddens me more than the fact that the removal of carriers from HoTS will substantially weaken the end-game 'toss air composition against infestor-hydra heavy armies. Nevertheless, this style demands further study, and I urge everyone to give it a shot. Thank you fogedaboutit.
Dismantling a BM top8-diamond zerg. He thought his ling pressure killed my third (even after seeing my mothership) and got overconfident. (I BM back towards the end. Sorry about that. Maybe I'll get that rematch one day...) http://drop.sc/201629
Another game vs a top8-diamond zerg. He asks me if I'm smurfing during the game, and accuses me of it again afterwards. =D http://drop.sc/200335
A game vs a mid-diamond zerg. Storm is so good in those final battles... http://drop.sc/200328
I have dozens more replays like this. I've only really died to super fast (~12min) hydra pushes at my natural, followed up by another quick hydra push to finish the job, and I think it was my fault that I took my third too late, and didn't rebuild my wall / cannons quickly enough.
Beautiful post, and I loved the first replay. That must've felt so good after you slaughtered his corrupter comp after all that bm.
To everyone saying to go robo tech before storm, do any of you guys have replays of robo tech in action with fast mothership/skytoss? I theorycraft that collosus take too long to build/get murdered by corrupters/take 6 supply vs 2 and that storm crushes hydra as hard as thermal lance, but I'd love to see replays of them in action. Thanks for sharing!
I simpley love this build as well. PvZ was my worst match up and then I tried this. Now I'm about 90% winrate vs zerg and this is high plat/low dimond. I've only had ONE zerg actually say "gg" at the end of a game though. It seems like they think they are loosing to some noob going mass voids and not a rather refined start.
I've hit a wall in a few of my recent games, it seems like good Zergs have finally learned how to adapt to this strat. Don't make me wrong, I still have an excellent win ratio with it, but not as good as a month ago
What gives me trouble is the very end game, when Zerg has tons of bases and a mass infestors/corruptors compo with a couple broord lords. My templars die quickly to the brood lords, I can only land a few storms; voidrays get fungaled to death, and Zerg can be agressive with the brood lords, attacking the fourth/fifth even if you have tons of cannons there. Meanwhile, corruptors eventually get good upgrades so your carriers/voids aren't as effective as in the mid game.
I still win most of the fights in this situation, but it's not as cost effective as it used to be. Zerg has a lot more bases, creep everywhere and spends his minerals excess in as many spores/spines as you do with cannons ( 10+ per expo ), which buys time for infestors to come back, so harassing just becomes impossible. With not-so-cost-effective trading, it's only a matter of time before my third runs out of ressources, and I slowly lose the game from there.
Which brings me to my question: how do you deal with mass infestors (20+) / corruptors (16+) and a few brood lords (6) ? Typically I'll have a mothership, 5-6 templars, 14-16 voidrays and the rest in carriers ( 5-6 ). Should I adapt my compo to colossi instead of templars when I see mass infestors ?
On June 25 2012 18:34 Nyast wrote: I've hit a wall in a few of my recent games, it seems like good Zergs have finally learned how to adapt to this strat. Don't make me wrong, I still have an excellent win ratio with it, but not as good as a month ago
What gives me trouble is the very end game, when Zerg has tons of bases and a mass infestors/corruptors compo with a couple broord lords. My templars die quickly to the brood lords, I can only land a few storms; voidrays get fungaled to death, and Zerg can be agressive with the brood lords, attacking the fourth/fifth even if you have tons of cannons there. Meanwhile, corruptors eventually get good upgrades so your carriers/voids aren't as effective as in the mid game.
I still win most of the fights in this situation, but it's not as cost effective as it used to be. Zerg has a lot more bases, creep everywhere and spends his minerals excess in as many spores/spines as you do with cannons ( 10+ per expo ), which buys time for infestors to come back, so harassing just becomes impossible. With not-so-cost-effective trading, it's only a matter of time before my third runs out of ressources, and I slowly lose the game from there.
Which brings me to my question: how do you deal with mass infestors (20+) / corruptors (16+) and a few brood lords (6) ? Typically I'll have a mothership, 5-6 templars, 14-16 voidrays and the rest in carriers ( 5-6 ). Should I adapt my compo to colossi instead of templars when I see mass infestors ?
Was giving a thought about lategame also. From what i can see, if you meet a zerg liek that, you need to destroy his production. Unfortunatly i totally forgot who it was, but there was a game when someone of high Protoss playec against AcerBly on Metropolis and went for quck air. What he did in super lategame is added 2 speed prisms with DT's and with constant warp-ins and DT sniping reduced the Z's basecount to 3, so he could've remax so fast.
Yeah, I also like going multiple speed prisms to deal with their death ball. You can fight it if you really want to, but I would much rather just go kill their production first, then fight them at my cannons.
If they only have 6 Broods, a handful of Colossi can handle the Infestors/Infested Marines in the beginning of the fight and help you get that positional edge you need.. Then you can either choose to kill the broods or the corruptors, depending on what they decided to pick off. If they took away the mothership, I like going for broods and switching into mass blink stalker with Archons because it's mobile on its own. Then I hunt down the corruptors with the stalkers because they move the same rate and have blink. On the other hand, if the mothership lives, I go for the corruptors and keep the fleet going. Usually them going for the mothership will lead to a lot of corruptors getting vortexed, if you have it in a safe position.
On June 25 2012 19:16 Rimak wrote: Was giving a thought about lategame also. From what i can see, if you meet a zerg liek that, you need to destroy his production. Unfortunatly i totally forgot who it was, but there was a game when someone of high Protoss playec against AcerBly on Metropolis and went for quck air. What he did in super lategame is added 2 speed prisms with DT's and with constant warp-ins and DT sniping reduced the Z's basecount to 3, so he could've remax so fast.
I'd like to, but there are 10 spines and 10 spores at EACH expo. You need a huge army to kill that. I'm not joking when I say the Zerg dumps his excess minerals into defenses. He does exactly what you do as a toss with cannons everywhere.
The main may be the weakest point though, so you may snippe some tech buildings, but he'll immediately remake them somewhere else. That buys you a minute max, I doubt that's the answer to this problem
On June 25 2012 18:34 Nyast wrote: I've hit a wall in a few of my recent games, it seems like good Zergs have finally learned how to adapt to this strat. Don't make me wrong, I still have an excellent win ratio with it, but not as good as a month ago
What gives me trouble is the very end game, when Zerg has tons of bases and a mass infestors/corruptors compo with a couple broord lords. My templars die quickly to the brood lords, I can only land a few storms; voidrays get fungaled to death, and Zerg can be agressive with the brood lords, attacking the fourth/fifth even if you have tons of cannons there. Meanwhile, corruptors eventually get good upgrades so your carriers/voids aren't as effective as in the mid game.
I still win most of the fights in this situation, but it's not as cost effective as it used to be. Zerg has a lot more bases, creep everywhere and spends his minerals excess in as many spores/spines as you do with cannons ( 10+ per expo ), which buys time for infestors to come back, so harassing just becomes impossible. With not-so-cost-effective trading, it's only a matter of time before my third runs out of ressources, and I slowly lose the game from there.
Which brings me to my question: how do you deal with mass infestors (20+) / corruptors (16+) and a few brood lords (6) ? Typically I'll have a mothership, 5-6 templars, 14-16 voidrays and the rest in carriers ( 5-6 ). Should I adapt my compo to colossi instead of templars when I see mass infestors ?
Do you have any replays of your losses? That's really the only way I can learn anything if I watch gameplay.
On June 25 2012 20:27 Nyast wrote: I'd like to, but there are 10 spines and 10 spores at EACH expo. You need a huge army to kill that. I'm not joking when I say the Zerg dumps his excess minerals into defenses. He does exactly what you do as a toss with cannons everywhere.
The main may be the weakest point though, so you may snippe some tech buildings, but he'll immediately remake them somewhere else. That buys you a minute max, I doubt that's the answer to this problem
I just ignore the static defenses, focus a hatch and run... If his army shows up, I recall. Unless he focus fires, you don't have more than a spore or two shooting one unit, and your air army will melt the hatch in seconds. Typically, I lose one void, and kill a hatchery. I rinse and repeat, nabbing another hatchery, and return home. Every 100 energy on your mothership is an opportunity to snipe a well defended hatch, or several undefended ones.
On June 25 2012 20:27 Nyast wrote: I'd like to, but there are 10 spines and 10 spores at EACH expo. You need a huge army to kill that. I'm not joking when I say the Zerg dumps his excess minerals into defenses. He does exactly what you do as a toss with cannons everywhere.
The main may be the weakest point though, so you may snippe some tech buildings, but he'll immediately remake them somewhere else. That buys you a minute max, I doubt that's the answer to this problem
I just ignore the static defenses, focus a hatch and run... If his army shows up, I recall. Unless he focus fires, you don't have more than a spore or two shooting one unit, and your air army will melt the hatch in seconds. Typically, I lose one void, and kill a hatchery. I rinse and repeat, nabbing another hatchery, and return home. Every 100 energy on your mothership is an opportunity to snipe a well defended hatch, or several undefended ones.
Yeah, that may work sometimes but it's a bit random. Your air army is moving quite slowly so he may have time to spot where it's heading to, and move his corruptors or infestors there in time. In which case you'll be forced to recall before you can kill the hatch
On June 25 2012 18:34 Nyast wrote: Which brings me to my question: how do you deal with mass infestors (20+) / corruptors (16+) and a few brood lords (6) ? Typically I'll have a mothership, 5-6 templars, 14-16 voidrays and the rest in carriers ( 5-6 ). Should I adapt my compo to colossi instead of templars when I see mass infestors ?
No, you should get 8 templars, 2-3 colossus and some archons instead of some carrier, the archons will tank the broodlords shoot while de colossus will kill every infestor coming in range of fungal even if you're not reactive with feedback. Archons are really good at killing corruptors when they stack too. The only time i lost with this army was because of a huge mistake, getting my mothership controlled by an infestor and vortex on my voidrays.
The problem with carrier is they are good if the zerg lets his corruptors fire at the interceptors but if he does some nice focus fire they die so fast :/ moreother a mass infested terran with the scroll trick kill the interceptors so fast they are useless.
I dont know if it's the same for you but everytime the zerg scout my double stargate he tries to push me hard, even going all in and most of the time that's the point where he loses the game, so i dont face so much huge 3/3 corruptors/infestors army. Most of time i just show my voidrays but i dont push with them tough i dont want to kill him right now and showing 4 voidrays will force 3 spore on each bases or he will send full ling roach on my b2, i lost sometimes because i had my 4 firsts voidrays trying to deal with 4 queens and 3 spores whereras they would have been so great in defense.
On June 25 2012 18:34 Nyast wrote: I've hit a wall in a few of my recent games, it seems like good Zergs have finally learned how to adapt to this strat. Don't make me wrong, I still have an excellent win ratio with it, but not as good as a month ago
could be just bad luck yesterday but yeah same here
I still have an absurd win ratio but I actually lost two PvZ yesterday. I'm not losing faith because my execution in these games was pretty poor and I was busy messing around with the macro hatchery BO's. When I stop having areas to improve I will feel this is not viable at any higher levels.
Also, I lost a game a few days ago versus a guy who RUSHED for Neural... when I went to poke for harass he insta stole all 7 of my units, before I realized what was going on, lol. Gonna have to watch out for that in the future. Neural is not good in big numbers but in small numbers the infestors can destroy almost everything while keeping perfect retention. It's very micro intensive and it basically comes down to whether or not you have carriers.
On June 25 2012 18:34 Nyast wrote: Which brings me to my question: how do you deal with mass infestors (20+) / corruptors (16+) and a few brood lords (6) ? Typically I'll have a mothership, 5-6 templars, 14-16 voidrays and the rest in carriers ( 5-6 ). Should I adapt my compo to colossi instead of templars when I see mass infestors ?
I think colossi first is better than storm, you will be guaranteed to shred a few infestors each time there is an engagement, and you can always recall after enough fungals drain your shields.
On June 25 2012 22:13 Fogetaboudit wrote: I think colossi first is better than storm, you will be guaranteed to shred a few infestors each time there is an engagement, and you can always recall after enough fungals drain your shields.
I know I have too many colossi here but there is no way this army is losing to infestors, LOL.
That's a beautiful army !
But the reason I don't go with this kind of army is upgrades. How the hell can you afford upgrades for both ground and air ? I get 3/3 air as fast as I can, and even then I'm maxed pretty late.
Edit: huh, that army is like 150 pop, and there's not even a mothership. Don't you have 70+ probes ? Or did you sac your probes as it was an hour long game ? If so then it's not very representative of the army you can have in the mid/late game..
yeah I was just sort of joking, lol. That was an extreme scenario where we split the map in half on Shakuras and mined it out. Yes, I sacraficed my probes. My mothership was back at home incase something went wrong.
I think attacking with your mothership makes your attack way stronger but it also makes it way more "all-in"
I do however think colossus are strong but you cant get this many or else you will just get run over by corrupter.
Also just played a CRAZY base trade game vs muta/ling on that new huge map. He did really well to not let me ever engage his 40 mutas, but having 200 mana on your MS is great in this scenario. I was able to finally vortex the huge mutaball and then recall all of my army that was counterattacking his expansions to finally force a decisive fight. Sick game, mannered guy too.
I'm also interested in creating a 3 base all in or 2 base all in with the same looking build order to keep zergs honest who try and metagame you hardcore. Ideas?
I know I have too many colossi here but there is no way this army is losing to infestors, LOL.
this type of army comp is so stupid to deal because there is litterally nothing zerg can do to beat it once its made. ive went through every possible unit comp for zerg in my head AND in game and i cant find a way to beat it. im on the virge of thinking its not even possible to beat and destiny seems to share the same opinion.
On June 25 2012 22:13 Fogetaboudit wrote: I think colossi first is better than storm, you will be guaranteed to shred a few infestors each time there is an engagement, and you can always recall after enough fungals drain your shields.
I know I have too many colossi here but there is no way this army is losing to infestors, LOL.
That's a beautiful army !
But the reason I don't go with this kind of army is upgrades. How the hell can you afford upgrades for both ground and air ? I get 3/3 air as fast as I can, and even then I'm maxed pretty late.
Edit: huh, that army is like 150 pop, and there's not even a mothership. Don't you have 70+ probes ? Or did you sac your probes as it was an hour long game ? If so then it's not very representative of the army you can have in the mid/late game..
more than likely he saced probes. usually when a toss is going for mass air they will always throw away probes, which is a good indicator he is freeing up more supply for more death in his ball. also he dont need that many colo, just enough to make sure all of zergs ground to air units are useless, like infestors/hydras, and hydras are useless to begin with...
all that being said the best way to deal with this comp that ive found is to just not let toss get there. this is why so many ppl use early roach ling aggression builds like stephanos build. late game toss is just absurd.
I do a slightly similar style on Shakuras sometimes and I actually do prefer to get my max as 4-6 colo and the rest of the army as voidrays (+mothership) because voidrays are much better than carriers imo, and colo prevent any chance of fungal growth, and it's a freewin if the zerg goes hydralisks.
I know I have too many colossi here but there is no way this army is losing to infestors, LOL.
this type of army comp is so stupid to deal because there is litterally nothing zerg can do to beat it once its made. ive went through every possible unit comp for zerg in my head AND in game and i cant find a way to beat it. im on the virge of thinking its not even possible to beat and destiny seems to share the same opinion.
im not saying its OP, but its OP
Max mostly on 3-3 corruptors, keep infestors in the back and safe until colossi are dead or out of posi to defend the air units, if the toss really had enough voidrays to kill your corruptors then you should just remax on corruptors asap. Make sure you have every base you could possibly get to mine gas from, if you really are floating huge amounts of money you know you'll never spend u can even throw in some spore crawlers in addition to the spine wall zergs usually make. You just have to scout that the toss is doing this, be on top of your upgrades, and be at least equal basecounts with the toss.
On June 26 2012 21:24 Ballistixz wrote: this type of army comp is so stupid to deal because there is litterally nothing zerg can do to beat it once its made. ive went through every possible unit comp for zerg in my head AND in game and i cant find a way to beat it. im on the virge of thinking its not even possible to beat and destiny seems to share the same opinion.
That's not completely true. A maxed corruptors army will get ride of all voidrays, carriers and colossi, and a quick remax into roaches or broodlords will kill the archons/templars. What you can't afford to do as Zerg is under-commit into corruptors. Infestors and hydras will drop like flies to colossi/templars, while the remaining corruptors won't be in enough numbers to kill everything. So the solution is a 200/200 of corruptors into something else for the killing blow. But you have to be careful with the mothership/vortex, spread/split your corruptors and attack from multiple sides, and I believe Zerg could win.
On June 26 2012 21:24 Ballistixz wrote: this type of army comp is so stupid to deal because there is litterally nothing zerg can do to beat it once its made. ive went through every possible unit comp for zerg in my head AND in game and i cant find a way to beat it. im on the virge of thinking its not even possible to beat and destiny seems to share the same opinion.
That's not completely true. A maxed corruptors army will get ride of all voidrays, carriers and colossi, and a quick remax into roaches or broodlords will kill the archons/templars. What you can't afford to do as Zerg is under-commit into corruptors. Infestors and hydras will drop like flies to colossi/templars, while the remaining corruptors won't be in enough numbers to kill everything. So the solution is a 200/200 of corruptors into something else for the killing blow. But you have to be careful with the mothership/vortex, spread/split your corruptors and attack from multiple sides, and I believe Zerg could win.
I don't think it's likely that approx 65 corrupters can handle a toss army that has a lot of voids backed up by archons and storm. The battles I've done and seen in replays are ridiculously one-sided in favor of the toss; they usually only lose approx 30 supply. Throw vortex into the mix and it gets even harder for the Zerg.
Furthermore at that point remember than the toss will have many gates, so they'll be able to make up 30 supply or more very quickly. They will not, however, be able to quickly replace Carriers or Collosus. Void Rays come out a little later than hyrdas with chrono, but typically only 6 at a time, as opposed to 40+ of whatever the Zerg wants.
The issue is how much army the Zerg can kill. I don't think the Zerg can put a big enough dent into the protoss death ball for a quick re-max to make a difference.
Also keep in mind engaging over static defense can be pretty huge. Spines walls are really awesome against archons/templar and they can protect the Infestors a bit from colossus, and keep everything back while broodlords tend to get in on the HTs. Pushing static defense across the map and sieging bases with broodlords in creative locations is really frustrating to deal with. I have lost some games to this slow push to my fifth while constantly harassing and trading with me earlier in the game.
I mean, I agree there are no real hard counters which is why I like this playstyle so much. At my level I feel like whether or not I win depends on my level of execution.
I've lost twice now to 2base muta. His mutas always swipe in when I'm in his base with 2 vrs and a few phoenixes. I pumped phoenixes once I saw his mutas popped.
I'm pretty sold on going back to sentry expands and then transitioning into airtoss off of 2 base or going into a third. I keep playing greedy zergs who are just begging to get hit by big timing attacks, but when I get a good replay I'll post it up here. I'm still using a macro nexus where and when I can, but I think a better timing for it is when I'm at around 30ish to 40 supply and I have minerals to dump. It's a happy median between taking a fast third and not being exposed to getting destroyed for taking that third nexus.
wtf when did this become a macro nexus build? Are you guys actually incorporating a nexus wall-in to your normal build and having success? What is the order?
On June 26 2012 21:24 Ballistixz wrote: this type of army comp is so stupid to deal because there is litterally nothing zerg can do to beat it once its made. ive went through every possible unit comp for zerg in my head AND in game and i cant find a way to beat it. im on the virge of thinking its not even possible to beat and destiny seems to share the same opinion.
That's not completely true. A maxed corruptors army will get ride of all voidrays, carriers and colossi, and a quick remax into roaches or broodlords will kill the archons/templars. What you can't afford to do as Zerg is under-commit into corruptors. Infestors and hydras will drop like flies to colossi/templars, while the remaining corruptors won't be in enough numbers to kill everything. So the solution is a 200/200 of corruptors into something else for the killing blow. But you have to be careful with the mothership/vortex, spread/split your corruptors and attack from multiple sides, and I believe Zerg could win.
corruptors are entirely useless especially if u max on them. if u get even a few good storms on the corruptors or if they get archon toileted ur dead, and nvm the fact that 3-3 toss army can brute force a 3-3 corruptor army just by A-moving because of how insanely high the DPS of 3-3 carriers and voids are.
ive tried it before and max corruptors are just so bad. if u are making that kind of army u are basically praying that the toss does not know how to use storm and vortex.
also splitting corruptors doesnt work. it just makes it easier to pick them off tbh. corruptors work best in a large group and there DPS is surprisingly low when split off into smaller groups when trying to take up that kind of army. i dont know how to explain it correctly but ya...
Hey guys. I have been trying this style as a little ace in the hole before a tournament tomorrow, but I need urgent help! here are two replays where I go this style and lose horribly, wondering what to do when the zerg just runs around everywhere and kills my bases.
On June 26 2012 21:24 Ballistixz wrote: this type of army comp is so stupid to deal because there is litterally nothing zerg can do to beat it once its made. ive went through every possible unit comp for zerg in my head AND in game and i cant find a way to beat it. im on the virge of thinking its not even possible to beat and destiny seems to share the same opinion.
That's not completely true. A maxed corruptors army will get ride of all voidrays, carriers and colossi, and a quick remax into roaches or broodlords will kill the archons/templars. What you can't afford to do as Zerg is under-commit into corruptors. Infestors and hydras will drop like flies to colossi/templars, while the remaining corruptors won't be in enough numbers to kill everything. So the solution is a 200/200 of corruptors into something else for the killing blow. But you have to be careful with the mothership/vortex, spread/split your corruptors and attack from multiple sides, and I believe Zerg could win.
No, this isn't true at all... A maxed corruptor army dies extremely quickly to this. I've faced the ~55-65 corruptor armies many times and just roflstomped them with very little losses. As long as you have -half- as many voids as he has corruptors, and you get off 1 storm, you win easily. I even posted a replay in my earlier post where I clashed with a zerg who was max-corruptor. I was carrier heavy, and I still killed all 56 corruptors, losing only 20 supply. This was -without- storm or any archons, lol...
1) More (static) defense at natural 2) Split up your void rays
Game 2:
1) Same as game 1 2) Can't understate the importance of upgrades against hydras. The difference is MASSIVE. 3) Might want to rebuild a couple of senties to hold ramp. At least on that map.
You should really try and get some ht's out. This is made difficult in your position because you fail to defend your third, but for future reference.
On June 27 2012 04:52 quillian wrote: wtf when did this become a macro nexus build? Are you guys actually incorporating a nexus wall-in to your normal build and having success? What is the order?
I do it in conjunction with the fast mothership build, it seems to work pretty well. The third is a bit delayed, but still quite fast, and mothership with a few void rays should be able to hold any kind of bust the Zerg can attempt on hatch tech. It makes your walls much safer against banelings on maps with wide natural ramps (though a single sentry is still always nice), and the additional chrono pays off in spades in the mid-game. Since you are turtling hard for fast tech anyway, it kinda makes sense.
With 3 hatch opening, my response after scouting double stargate at around 7:30 (maybe with an unusual amount of cannons?) is basically: -Stop any roach production, maybe only 2 or 3 preparing for potential random zealot harass. Mass roach is never a proper response for this, as you just never have a chance against a cannoned simcity of protoss, with voidrays and even a few force fields. -12~16 speedlings (later 20+), also for zealots and more importantly denine protoss getting extremely fast 3rd -Grab 5th and 6th gas and 4th expand, (in contrast to standard stephano style's 4 gas and macro hatch), DRONE LIKE A MAD MAN. You need good economy for late game. You will eventually need a 5th macro hatch, and keep expand like madman in mid game for gases -Extra queens, may be 6 or 7 in total. Also at least 1 spore for each base to give you more reaction time. -Spire, not hydras, not infestors. You need to be aggressive (while macroing hard), and hydras or infestors just sucks off creep. They also need to much time to wait until reliable (in numbers for hydras, and energy for infestors) so just no hydras or infestors, at least in early-mid game. -Double evo chamber for melee and carapace. Lings will be your mineral dump in the mid-late game, and broodlord is the only proper siege against cannons. Also get burrow, as a single burrowed ling block for expand is just as annoying as a pylon block from protoss
Since you will need some extra upgrades and need to build lots of units when the spire is finished, you need so much gas and a double spire at the very beginning may not always be a good idea, but you will eventually need that if the protoss player is going to fully commited in skytoss
When your spire is up, make a mixed units of both mutas and corrupters. For some reason I would prefer corrupters over mutas, as mutas just sucks against phoenixes and also "not that good" against large number of voidrays, while corrupters is "not that bad" against both, you have to make mutas to force your opponent to create phoenixes or else those gases will eventually be used for voidrays or carriers that are much harder to due with, and you need corrupters to protect your mutas.
There are 2 important things to play with this kind of protoss: -Force engage to trade voidrays, even under cannons. You just need to lower his void ray count before it is like 80 supply+ and become impossible to hold. I think that it will be an acceptable trade if you can do it in like 1.5(or even like 1.8) : 1 in supply count. It is fine, since you should (and NEEDED) to have more gases, smaller army favors you. -Active lings runby, mainly for denining the 3rd, but also needed for protoss's upcoming expands. Unless protoss just extends their cannon wall along the way from their bases, they need to create extra ground units to defend their new bases until the new cannon and simcity is up. I don't think it is a good idea for a protoss to try cleaning swarms of lings with voidrays. Carriers do better, but anyway it may not be an ideal situation for protoss to leave their air units in open areas for trade without good cannon support. For this, zerg need a very good macro to flood zerglings, a lot of zerglings cause you will eventually have an insane amount of minerals.
If any of these fails, then it is already a GG. It is just hard to fight a protoss with 4 bases. It is even harder to fight a protoss with like 150 supply for this style. Zerg needs at least 5~7 bases to be in good position even if protoss didn't get an ultra fast 3rd and 4th, or with a super huge air army.
Late game is like spine walls defending ground transition / infestor defending air / air unit chasing anywhere / random lings swarming / broodlord sieging or whatever Lots of apm is needed though.
Indeed playing against cannoned sky-toss as zerg isn't a easy task, but for the reason of how long the game could be and how frustrating you have to macro that hard for lings =( At least in my level I would say the game would be quite even with this.
On June 27 2012 04:52 quillian wrote: wtf when did this become a macro nexus build? Are you guys actually incorporating a nexus wall-in to your normal build and having success? What is the order?
Forgetaboutit posted a VOD of him getting hatch blocked on Ohana and then responding by doing a Macro nexus. He's done it a few times now, and I took a more in-depth look into whether or not it would be possible to just go 2base 3 nexus for the sake of probe production (to race triple hatch) as well as chronoboost. I don't know how to make a build order work if you don't FFE and get hatch-blocked, because if the Zerg is actually just building stuff at home (whether it's attacking units or expansions+drones or tech), then investing 800 minerals into back-to-back or near back-to-back nexi is just suicide. However, the upside is you can do things like build your macro nexus as part of the wall-off to deal with aggression from 10-pools and later, then build your natural after your gate or core. I have some pics of wall-offs using a macro nexus on previous pages, but I haven't yet figured out a viable adaptation of the FFE to use it. That's why right now I'm trying it in the context of a 1gate or 2gate Sentry expand, where I add it as part of a later wall-off to catch up on the worker count because I'm not planning to add on a bunch of gateways and I have the minerals to spend.
In theory, a Nexus provides 10 supply, so it's functionally 1.25 pylons and that makes the cost of a macro nexus closer to 275--for something that produces probes and chronoboost, as well as a potential giant tank for your wall-off and a place to build the mothership. According to Liquipedia, each nexus will produce 25 energy (one chronoboost) every 45 in-game seconds. So you're slightly augmenting your production with the extra boost production from a third nexus--but this is really important when you're boosting things with long build times, like Mothership or Carriers. It also leads to timings off of large gateway attacks where you warp in 8+ units, boost all of the gates, warp them in 10 seconds earlier than a wave normally would, rinse and repeat.
A macro Nexus does not seem to be as cost efficient as adding even one Gateway for the sake of production based upon chrono boost, but if you're also using it to probe your face off or to continue probe production while building a mothership, it might be worthwhile. For a build like skytoss where you're sitting on a ton of minerals and you could use a sink for them, I think a macro nexus has some real potential.
As far as taking over the thread is concerned...I don't think that's really the case. It is a very good way to rush straight to mothership off of 2 bases because of the chronoboost, and you can keep up with drones very well against 3hatch, but the cost may not be worthwhile. How much information is out there on a macro nexus, though? Not much. That's why it's worth trying out and analyzing and discussing, in my opinion.
corrupters have the corruption ability which makes attacks deal 20% more damage to enemy units for 30 seconds. that's pretty huge and mass corrupters kill carriers/voids relatively easy if upgraded on the same level.
On June 27 2012 21:43 JayIsImbA wrote: corrupters have the corruption ability which makes attacks deal 20% more damage to enemy units for 30 seconds. that's pretty huge and mass corrupters kill carriers/voids relatively easy if upgraded on the same level.
thats why it all comes down to the archon toilet and storming the corrupters late game
On June 27 2012 21:43 JayIsImbA wrote: corrupters have the corruption ability which makes attacks deal 20% more damage to enemy units for 30 seconds. that's pretty huge and mass corrupters kill carriers/voids relatively easy if upgraded on the same level.
its not that good of an ability. ppl say that corruptors are the "best anti air unit in the game" and that is true only if its a low number of air units corruptors are facing. against larget numbers corruptors wont do anything. if toss gets masses 3-3 air like that corruptors wont do anything. u litterally have to target fire everything for a corruptor to kill something when it comes to mass air vs mass air where as toss can just A move.
even mass terran air is hard to deal with when you only have corruptors.
Maxed out 3-3 air army is just much more resources invested into units than you invest into mass corruptor. And no, nothing beats airtoss on equal upgrades easily, that's just flat out wrong. Add a few archons and storms, and I think no zerg composition can beat it, or at least trade effectively, at all.
On June 27 2012 21:43 JayIsImbA wrote: corrupters have the corruption ability which makes attacks deal 20% more damage to enemy units for 30 seconds. that's pretty huge and mass corrupters kill carriers/voids relatively easy if upgraded on the same level.
its not that good of an ability. ppl say that corruptors are the "best anti air unit in the game" and that is true only if its a low number of air units corruptors are facing. against larget numbers corruptors wont do anything. if toss gets masses 3-3 air like that corruptors wont do anything. u litterally have to target fire everything for a corruptor to kill something when it comes to mass air vs mass air where as toss can just A move.
even mass terran air is hard to deal with when you only have corruptors.
I completely disagree. For the supply, corrupter vs Protoss air are incredibly supply efficient and cost efficient, especially vs carriers. Maxed out VRs vs maxed out corrupter might be able to do the job, but the VR max out cost is significantly higher and more time consuming than the corrupter, particularly when considering how larve works for zerg vs stargates for toss.
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.
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.
void rays can do more for there cost. once voids take out corrptors for example they can still be a threat and atk ground/snipe hatches. corruptors how ever are wasted supply. once all air is gone toss can just make a ground switch and roll.
honestly instead of macro nexus I have been just planting it at the third behind 1 cannon versus ECO openings from zerg
I'm not convinced they can do anything about it just yet. All they have are slow lings, which are not good vs 1/2 cannons. I constantly sacrifice probes to scout when I take this obnoxious third, and since I have instant access to more patches you can afford to be even more ridiculous! with cannon defense.
here is an example of the fast three base (again the build order is kinda off but the general idea is shown.)
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.
yeah you just have to recall right away and make them fly over as many cannons as possible for as long as possible. Mothership positioning and constant minimap awareness is important versus this sniping tactic. If they dump all of their gas into corruptors and souicide it onto your MS we need to watch the replay but I'm not very convinced they will have enough fungal to defend a dedicated counterattack.
Instead of just 100% "waiting for recall" I have been trying to improve my gamesense for when chainfungals are not possible, and when my army can do decisive damage. Honestly I'd say pump another MS a rounds of carriers and just go for it with a good spread and focus on micro, just theorycrafting though.
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.
Exactly the reason why i prefer to go for a faster tech, Like archons for corrupters. Sniping a MS is Pain, but with tech you should be safe to take 4th even without MS. And yea - vortex,vortex But i must say that it's really close to GG when you lose the MS.
On June 28 2012 06:38 Fogetaboudit wrote: yeah you just have to recall right away and make them fly over as many cannons as possible for as long as possible. Mothership positioning and constant minimap awareness is important versus this sniping tactic. If they dump all of their gas into corruptors and souicide it onto your MS we need to watch the replay but I'm not very convinced they will have enough fungal to defend a dedicated counterattack.
You can't really have minimap awareness without a fast robo ( which I don't get, but I think I will from now on ). Zerg has total map control.
I've currently lost my last 5 games to Zerg when going skytoss. Whereeas just a month ago I went 10-0 with it
Most of those losses have one thing in common: once his third has kicked in, and Zerg realizes I'm going skytoss, he makes 10-15 corruptors and suicides them into my MS ( usually located behind 10 cannons at my third ). Once I've lost my MS, a doomspush happen. I've seen many variations, but the ones that scare me the most are mass hydras, and mass lings+bannelings.
Hydras definitely aren't cost effective, he'll likely lose his entire army, but I'll lose most of my cannons and half of my voidrays. By the time my MS has come back, there are more corruptors than my remaining air army can handle. I'm forced to play on the defensive, cannot ever get my fourth, while Zerg takes his 5th+, and can afford to throw wave of hydras after wave of hydra into me.
The second kind of push is scary. Zerg maxes on 15 corruptors and the remaining 200/200 of upgraded lings/bans. He'll attempt run-bys and busts left & right, and it just doesn't matter if you have 15 cannons and 15 voidrays, you won't be able to kill that many lings once he enters your base. The only way to survive is to not let your walls get busted by bannelings, and it's easier said than done since his army is very mobile, and yours isn't. In any case, getting your fourth is next to impossible..
On June 28 2012 06:38 Fogetaboudit wrote: yeah you just have to recall right away and make them fly over as many cannons as possible for as long as possible. Mothership positioning and constant minimap awareness is important versus this sniping tactic. If they dump all of their gas into corruptors and souicide it onto your MS we need to watch the replay but I'm not very convinced they will have enough fungal to defend a dedicated counterattack.
You can't really have minimap awareness without a fast robo ( which I don't get, but I think I will from now on ). Zerg has total map control.
when I say minimap awareness, I mean, watch the minimap, and be aware if corruptors are sharking nearby. Similar to how you would defend against drops.... I mean... your looking at the minimap. You don't put the mothership over the cannons, you put it behind them and constantly move it using the cannons as a shield.
As for the rest of the post it's pretty hard to be specific without seeing replays. I still have an absurd winrate north of 90% and I'm midish highish masters. Sorry to hear it's not working as well for you anymore.
On June 28 2012 06:38 Fogetaboudit wrote: yeah you just have to recall right away and make them fly over as many cannons as possible for as long as possible. Mothership positioning and constant minimap awareness is important versus this sniping tactic. If they dump all of their gas into corruptors and souicide it onto your MS we need to watch the replay but I'm not very convinced they will have enough fungal to defend a dedicated counterattack.
You can't really have minimap awareness without a fast robo ( which I don't get, but I think I will from now on ). Zerg has total map control.
I've currently lost my last 5 games to Zerg when going skytoss. Whereeas just a month ago I went 10-0 with it
Most of those losses have one thing in common: once his third has kicked in, and Zerg realizes I'm going skytoss, he makes 10-15 corruptors and suicides them into my MS ( usually located behind 10 cannons at my third ). Once I've lost my MS, a doomspush happen. I've seen many variations, but the ones that scare me the most are mass hydras, and mass lings+bannelings.
Hydras definitely aren't cost effective, he'll likely lose his entire army, but I'll lose most of my cannons and half of my voidrays. By the time my MS has come back, there are more corruptors than my remaining air army can handle. I'm forced to play on the defensive, cannot ever get my fourth, while Zerg takes his 5th+, and can afford to throw wave of hydras after wave of hydra into me.
The second kind of push is scary. Zerg maxes on 15 corruptors and the remaining 200/200 of upgraded lings/bans. He'll attempt run-bys and busts left & right, and it just doesn't matter if you have 15 cannons and 15 voidrays, you won't be able to kill that many lings once he enters your base. The only way to survive is to not let your walls get busted by bannelings, and it's easier said than done since his army is very mobile, and yours isn't. In any case, getting your fourth is next to impossible..
You and I have very different experiences with the fast mothership play. The whole reason I started going stargate first against Zerg was for map control. You get map vision with a robo, but no control. A small group of phoenixes can force all of your opponents overlords back into his base, and deny him any map vision for most of the mid-game. Just keep your phoenixes on patrol over important run-by lanes whenever you're not actively micro'ing them, and you should have plenty of map awareness off a stargate first.
Admittedly, if you tech into fast mothership and lose it, that can be a game ender many times right there. You need the MS to be able to hold the 3rd against that 11 to 12 minute push of either roach/hydra or ling/muta/corruptor, depending on your opponent's tech choices, obviously.
Regarding the issue of the corruptor suicide squad, I have died to this on occasion (same thing with hydra hit squads sent to your third). If you have 4 or 5 cannons at your third, this tactic by and large should not work, though. Keep you voids (you should have 3-4) with your mothership until you have the energy for that recall, because you absolutely can not be caught with your pants down like having your voids out harassing without the energy for a recall. As long as you are very quick about that recall, you MS should basically never die against a small group of a dozen corruptors.
what happens when zerg makes a ton of mutas and heads for the main or something? if zerg 100% commits to mutas it seems like you arent going to be able to defend with just pure cannon, and due to voidrays being slow and phoenixes needing to be massed in order to deal with a high muta count, i have a hard time believing you could defend all your bases without stalkers and fast twilight tech
On June 29 2012 01:38 thrawn2112 wrote: what happens when zerg makes a ton of mutas and heads for the main or something? if zerg 100% commits to mutas it seems like you arent going to be able to defend with just pure cannon, and due to voidrays being slow and phoenixes needing to be massed in order to deal with a high muta count, i have a hard time believing you could defend all your bases without stalkers and fast twilight tech
Rarely will you see zerg commit this much to muta, and rightly so. You already have the infrastructure to make mass phoenix. With two stargates being chronoed you will build up a good number pretty quickly. Until then the mothership, cannons and void rays should minimize the damage. Even better, you have the fleet beacon for phoenix range upgrade.
So the transition is easy, and once the mutas are defeated you should have an easy time against a zerg that wasted so much gas.
On June 29 2012 01:38 thrawn2112 wrote: what happens when zerg makes a ton of mutas and heads for the main or something? if zerg 100% commits to mutas it seems like you arent going to be able to defend with just pure cannon, and due to voidrays being slow and phoenixes needing to be massed in order to deal with a high muta count, i have a hard time believing you could defend all your bases without stalkers and fast twilight tech
Rarely will you see zerg commit this much to muta, and rightly so. You already have the infrastructure to make mass phoenix. With two stargates being chronoed you will build up a good number pretty quickly. Until then the mothership, cannons and void rays should minimize the damage. Even better, you have the fleet beacon for phoenix range upgrade.
So the transition is easy, and once the mutas are defeated you should have an easy time against a zerg that wasted so much gas.
having the infrastructure to go mass phoenix and having enough phoenix to handle a critical mass of mutas are very different things. it's not like you will have the time to make enough phoenixes and get the range upgrade once you see the mutas fly into your base. i feel like for this build to be safe against heavy muta builds you would need to scout the spire way ahead of time, which means using hallucination, robo, or making a phoenix first to scout. however none of these options seem ideal to me because the 100 gas for hallucination or robo is desperately needed to get all the stargate tech and upgrades out, and i don't like the idea of trying to take a fast defensive third while opening stargate and going anything but voidray first. voidrays are only "decent" against roaches and lings because they are air units, phoenixes are even worse.
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)
On June 29 2012 01:38 thrawn2112 wrote: what happens when zerg makes a ton of mutas and heads for the main or something? if zerg 100% commits to mutas it seems like you arent going to be able to defend with just pure cannon, and due to voidrays being slow and phoenixes needing to be massed in order to deal with a high muta count, i have a hard time believing you could defend all your bases without stalkers and fast twilight tech
On June 29 2012 01:38 thrawn2112 wrote: what happens when zerg makes a ton of mutas and heads for the main or something? if zerg 100% commits to mutas it seems like you arent going to be able to defend with just pure cannon, and due to voidrays being slow and phoenixes needing to be massed in order to deal with a high muta count, i have a hard time believing you could defend all your bases without stalkers and fast twilight tech
Rarely will you see zerg commit this much to muta, and rightly so. You already have the infrastructure to make mass phoenix. With two stargates being chronoed you will build up a good number pretty quickly. Until then the mothership, cannons and void rays should minimize the damage. Even better, you have the fleet beacon for phoenix range upgrade.
So the transition is easy, and once the mutas are defeated you should have an easy time against a zerg that wasted so much gas.
having the infrastructure to go mass phoenix and having enough phoenix to handle a critical mass of mutas are very different things. it's not like you will have the time to make enough phoenixes and get the range upgrade once you see the mutas fly into your base. i feel like for this build to be safe against heavy muta builds you would need to scout the spire way ahead of time, which means using hallucination, robo, or making a phoenix first to scout. however none of these options seem ideal to me because the 100 gas for hallucination or robo is desperately needed to get all the stargate tech and upgrades out, and i don't like the idea of trying to take a fast defensive third while opening stargate and going anything but voidray first. voidrays are only "decent" against roaches and lings because they are air units, phoenixes are even worse.
You don't need to "take-our word for it" Just try it yourself, or watch some replays. Yeah I've lost a few games to Muta, but I normally win. Saying it's a counter and can't be dealt with is absurd. It's indeed a bit tricky and will test your multitasking, however.
On June 28 2012 06:38 Fogetaboudit wrote: honestly instead of macro nexus I have been just planting it at the third behind 1 cannon versus ECO openings from zerg
I'm not convinced they can do anything about it just yet. All they have are slow lings, which are not good vs 1/2 cannons. I constantly sacrifice probes to scout when I take this obnoxious third, and since I have instant access to more patches you can afford to be even more ridiculous! with cannon defense.
here is an example of the fast three base (again the build order is kinda off but the general idea is shown.)
here is a game I just played vs Muta. I was unable to scout for them and a huge pack showed up in my base when I had 1 Phoenix, but I was still able to stabilize and win the game. Obviously if you can scout for them you will be much better prepared. As always, there is room for refinement and better execution on both sides, of course.
I'm a bit surprised that I seem to be the only one getting trouble with this strat.. I'll address a few comments:
On June 29 2012 00:55 HelioSeven wrote: You and I have very different experiences with the fast mothership play. The whole reason I started going stargate first against Zerg was for map control. You get map vision with a robo, but no control. A small group of phoenixes can force all of your opponents overlords back into his base, and deny him any map vision for most of the mid-game. Just keep your phoenixes on patrol over important run-by lanes whenever you're not actively micro'ing them, and you should have plenty of map awareness off a stargate first.
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..
On June 29 2012 00:55 HelioSeven wrote: Admittedly, if you tech into fast mothership and lose it, that can be a game ender many times right there. You need the MS to be able to hold the 3rd against that 11 to 12 minute push of either roach/hydra or ling/muta/corruptor, depending on your opponent's tech choices, obviously.
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.
On June 29 2012 00:55 HelioSeven wrote: Regarding the issue of the corruptor suicide squad, I have died to this on occasion (same thing with hydra hit squads sent to your third). If you have 4 or 5 cannons at your third, this tactic by and large should not work, though. Keep you voids (you should have 3-4) with your mothership until you have the energy for that recall, because you absolutely can not be caught with your pants down like having your voids out harassing without the energy for a recall. As long as you are very quick about that recall, you MS should basically never die against a small group of a dozen corruptors.
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
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).
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
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.
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.
Thanks for that Nyast, looking forward to your replays. I really want this build to be proven effective even at higher levels, but only two or so pro games showcasing it makes me worry. I love the strategy though
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.
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.
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.
On June 29 2012 00:55 HelioSeven wrote: You and I have very different experiences with the fast mothership play. The whole reason I started going stargate first against Zerg was for map control. You get map vision with a robo, but no control. A small group of phoenixes can force all of your opponents overlords back into his base, and deny him any map vision for most of the mid-game. Just keep your phoenixes on patrol over important run-by lanes whenever you're not actively micro'ing them, and you should have plenty of map awareness off a stargate first.
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..
On June 29 2012 00:55 HelioSeven wrote: Admittedly, if you tech into fast mothership and lose it, that can be a game ender many times right there. You need the MS to be able to hold the 3rd against that 11 to 12 minute push of either roach/hydra or ling/muta/corruptor, depending on your opponent's tech choices, obviously.
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.
On June 29 2012 00:55 HelioSeven wrote: Regarding the issue of the corruptor suicide squad, I have died to this on occasion (same thing with hydra hit squads sent to your third). If you have 4 or 5 cannons at your third, this tactic by and large should not work, though. Keep you voids (you should have 3-4) with your mothership until you have the energy for that recall, because you absolutely can not be caught with your pants down like having your voids out harassing without the energy for a recall. As long as you are very quick about that recall, you MS should basically never die against a small group of a dozen corruptors.
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
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).
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.
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).
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.
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
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
yes, luckily you don't need to do any damage to be in a fine position.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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 ?
Maxing out on roaches won't help you vs void rays my delicate prince, u gonna lose your third and won't be able to counter vs someone who made 3-4 more cannons like they should when they move out
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.
Any 'decent' build that recquire non-standart answer and is executed correctly, will work most of time in mid/low master and lower.
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.
On June 30 2012 08:27 Aelfric wrote: 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.
Unfortunately it's not that simple. Zerg will make corruptors instead and suddenly your phoenixes are useless, you'll have no way to harass and prevent Zerg from mass expanding, and your voids/carriers will be so delayed that a timing push with ground units ( let's say mass zerglings, or mass roaches ) will be very hard to defend
So I'm not nearly as good a player as you Nyast, but it seems like a better idea to start with a void, then build a few (3?) phoenix, then chrono voids while harrassing with the phoenixes+void until you see something pop. If it's ~6-8 mutas, you retreat and quickly drop some extra cannons, chrono those voids out and start chrono'd phoenix production. You'll probably have something like 3 voids and 3 phoenix when the mutas hit your base, with 2 phoenix to pop soon. If it's corruptors, you just retreat and continue producing voids... Even if he sends hydras at you, those 3 phoenixes can lift a few out of the fight in early engagements, and they're not such a huge investment--they might even help you kill a queen or two where 2-3 voids alone would be unable to prevent queens from retreating to spore range.
On June 30 2012 08:27 Aelfric wrote: 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.
Unfortunately it's not that simple. Zerg will make corruptors instead and suddenly your phoenixes are useless, you'll have no way to harass and prevent Zerg from mass expanding, and your voids/carriers will be so delayed that a timing push with ground units ( let's say mass zerglings, or mass roaches ) will be very hard to defend
I feel like we've talked about the spire first vs stargate first issue before, and I really have yet to have a problem in that department. Phoenixes should still be able to harass against corruptors, as they are fairly significantly faster and equal range with APC. It takes about a second and a half for 4-5 phoenixes to kill a queen, or an overlord (which is all you're trying to go after with the phoenixes anyway), and corruptors won't be able to stop that without fungal or transfuse (on the targeted queen) or something.
For that matter, phoenixes make a much bigger dent in your income than your production, since they only take like 35 seconds to build. It's just good insurance against spire first, as phoenixes will nullify the muta threat, maybe get some harass done depending on how spread out the map is, and they're not terrible in a straight up fight (lifts, soaking damage, etc).
I'm pretty sure we're all more or less on the same page about phoenix>muta, muta>void ray, void ray>corruptor, corruptor>phoenix, but, at least from my personal experience and of course depending on composition, phoenix/void ray will generally beat muta/corruptor, just because of how the range and damage tables work out. Mutas, with shortest range by far, will fly in close and generally be the first to die, and then phoenixes will absorb enough damage to let the void rays charge up, and that's usually that.
Also, on a somewhat related note, I know that in ZvZ meta-game people have discovered that +1 armor is better than +1 attack in muta vs muta, as it heavily reduces the bouncing effect of the glaive wurm. Beginning to wonder if the same thing isn't true for phoenix, yeah? +1 air armor (and +1 shields, for that matter) would reduce 3 damage, 1 per bounce. Could really help keep those crucial early game numbers sufficient (though of course, the gas investment becomes higher). Just a thought. I think getting +1 ground weapons is more important early on with the forge, but getting +1 air armor instead of weapons may be quite a good idea. Gonna screw around with it some after White-Ra is done streaming, will post results.
To the poster above, I'd recommend +1 shields out of your forge and +1 attack out of your cybercore. With skytoss you won't (really) need ground attack, and shields help ground units, air units, and buildings. +1 phoenixes just destroy mutas, probably before the shields even go down lolol.
On July 02 2012 01:38 Mavvie wrote: To the poster above, I'd recommend +1 shields out of your forge and +1 attack out of your cybercore. With skytoss you won't (really) need ground attack, and shields help ground units, air units, and buildings. +1 phoenixes just destroy mutas, probably before the shields even go down lolol.
Yeah, I mean it's just trade-offs. With +1 ground attack you get a huge boost in efficiency out of zealot vs ling (kill in 2 attacks instead of 3), with shields you get armor bonuses to all your units and buildings last forever and a half against ling attacks. Whichever seems more relevant is obviously what should be done in any given game situation, be reactive.
Regarding the +1 air weapons vs +1 air armor, that doesn't seem to be the case to me. I don't think killing the mutas faster is all that important, really. Phoenixes do 10 damage per shot, 12 with +1, and mutas have 120 health. So +0 phoenixes kill a muta in 12 shots, +1 phoenixes kill in 10 shots. Contrarily, phoenixes have 120 health and 60 shields, while mutas do a total of 13 damage with bounce shot (9+3+1), 10 against +1 armor. So a +0 armor phoenix will withstand 14 shots from a muta, but with +1 armor it will survive 17 (18 w/ +1 shields). The extra shots you can get off with a phoenix that lives 3-4 shots longer seems a lot more important, to me at least, than the shot or two saved killing a muta with an attack upgrade. The phoenix has lower attack and higher health than the muta, it seems like the armor upgrade would be much more cost efficient (and you can always add on a second cyber core with the gas advantage you will have in hard countering muta play like that).
This is all sort of presuming that phoenix micro is rather difficult, even with range, and realistically speaking against a player who is half decent with mutas, you are going to take some shots, particularly in that early stage where you only have a few phoenixes out.
I have a feeling this would get destroyed by ling drops a lá Dimaga.
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I haven't really faced skytoss that much, and maybe they are just executing it wrong (Diamond/Masters EU) but they just seem to not have any unit that can kill lings fast enough and I can rampage his base and kill (at least) the main nexus and the tech in the main. This would be even harder for toss if I did roach drops (because zealots warpins wouldn't do anything at all). Skytoss is a really good (insanely good) army comp lategame, but using it to take a fast third seems kind of risky because you don't really have any units that deals splash damage (unless you tech like a madman and have even less units as a result) and thus lings (and to some degree roaches) would be insane if they get past your cannons (drops/nydus).
On July 02 2012 01:38 Mavvie wrote: To the poster above, I'd recommend +1 shields out of your forge and +1 attack out of your cybercore. With skytoss you won't (really) need ground attack, and shields help ground units, air units, and buildings. +1 phoenixes just destroy mutas, probably before the shields even go down lolol.
Yeah, I mean it's just trade-offs. With +1 ground attack you get a huge boost in efficiency out of zealot vs ling (kill in 2 attacks instead of 3), with shields you get armor bonuses to all your units and buildings last forever and a half against ling attacks. Whichever seems more relevant is obviously what should be done in any given game situation, be reactive.
Regarding the +1 air weapons vs +1 air armor, that doesn't seem to be the case to me. I don't think killing the mutas faster is all that important, really. Phoenixes do 10 damage per shot, 12 with +1, and mutas have 120 health. So +0 phoenixes kill a muta in 12 shots, +1 phoenixes kill in 10 shots. Contrarily, phoenixes have 120 health and 60 shields, while mutas do a total of 13 damage with bounce shot (9+3+1), 10 against +1 armor. So a +0 armor phoenix will withstand 14 shots from a muta, but with +1 armor it will survive 17 (18 w/ +1 shields). The extra shots you can get off with a phoenix that lives 3-4 shots longer seems a lot more important, to me at least, than the shot or two saved killing a muta with an attack upgrade. The phoenix has lower attack and higher health than the muta, it seems like the armor upgrade would be much more cost efficient (and you can always add on a second cyber core with the gas advantage you will have in hard countering muta play like that).
This is all sort of presuming that phoenix micro is rather difficult, even with range, and realistically speaking against a player who is half decent with mutas, you are going to take some shots, particularly in that early stage where you only have a few phoenixes out.
I agree that the biggest problem with +1 shields is that you aren't getting +1 weapons but if you're going skytoss and don't scout a spling all in, might as well get shields. Uh, I disagree about +1 air armor still. I like your point, but youre forgetting that despite phoenixes doing less damage per attack, they attack way faster. I'll break down the math: Mutalisk DPS: 13 / 1.5246 = 8.53 DPS. Vs +1 armor: 10/1.5246 = 6.56 DPS DPS reduction: 8.53-6.56=1.97 DPS reduced
Phoenix DPS: (5+5) x 2/1.11 = 18 DPS With +1 attack: (6+5) x 2/1.11 = 20 DPS DPS increase: 20-18= 2 more DPS
Ok LOL it actually doesn't make a shit of a difference which one you get, but if you have +1 shields and +1 armor, then it will take 18 shots to kill a Phoenix. Also worth noting is that +1 attack will only actually kill mutas faster sometimes. With health regen, it will take 121 health/20damage = 7 shots to kill. However, 121 health/ 22 damage = 6 shots to kill.
In conclusion: +1 attack will make your phoenixes kill the mutas in 6 shots instead of 7. 1/7 increase in awesomeness. +1 armor will make your phoenixes survive 12 shots after their shields go down, instead of 10 shots. 1/6 increase in awesomeness. I have changed my mind and agree with you. 1/6>1/7, but due to the nature of the Phoenix, you don't need to out-DPS the mutas. You have to micro so they don't get enough shots off to do damage to your Phoenix. So, to decide which upgrade to get:
Get +1 attack if you're consistent at microing Phoenix without taking many hits -- you'll kill the mutas significantly faster Get +1 armor if you screw up microing Phoenix occasionally, and want to decrease the hull damage taken when you make a mistake.
On July 02 2012 01:38 Mavvie wrote: To the poster above, I'd recommend +1 shields out of your forge and +1 attack out of your cybercore. With skytoss you won't (really) need ground attack, and shields help ground units, air units, and buildings. +1 phoenixes just destroy mutas, probably before the shields even go down lolol.
Yeah, I mean it's just trade-offs. With +1 ground attack you get a huge boost in efficiency out of zealot vs ling (kill in 2 attacks instead of 3), with shields you get armor bonuses to all your units and buildings last forever and a half against ling attacks. Whichever seems more relevant is obviously what should be done in any given game situation, be reactive.
Regarding the +1 air weapons vs +1 air armor, that doesn't seem to be the case to me. I don't think killing the mutas faster is all that important, really. Phoenixes do 10 damage per shot, 12 with +1, and mutas have 120 health. So +0 phoenixes kill a muta in 12 shots, +1 phoenixes kill in 10 shots. Contrarily, phoenixes have 120 health and 60 shields, while mutas do a total of 13 damage with bounce shot (9+3+1), 10 against +1 armor. So a +0 armor phoenix will withstand 14 shots from a muta, but with +1 armor it will survive 17 (18 w/ +1 shields). The extra shots you can get off with a phoenix that lives 3-4 shots longer seems a lot more important, to me at least, than the shot or two saved killing a muta with an attack upgrade. The phoenix has lower attack and higher health than the muta, it seems like the armor upgrade would be much more cost efficient (and you can always add on a second cyber core with the gas advantage you will have in hard countering muta play like that).
This is all sort of presuming that phoenix micro is rather difficult, even with range, and realistically speaking against a player who is half decent with mutas, you are going to take some shots, particularly in that early stage where you only have a few phoenixes out.
I agree that the biggest problem with +1 shields is that you aren't getting +1 weapons but if you're going skytoss and don't scout a spling all in, might as well get shields. Uh, I disagree about +1 air armor still. I like your point, but youre forgetting that despite phoenixes doing less damage per attack, they attack way faster. I'll break down the math: Mutalisk DPS: 13 / 1.5246 = 8.53 DPS. Vs +1 armor: 10/1.5246 = 6.56 DPS DPS reduction: 8.53-6.56=1.97 DPS reduced
Phoenix DPS: (5+5) x 2/1.11 = 18 DPS With +1 attack: (6+5) x 2/1.11 = 20 DPS DPS increase: 20-18= 2 more DPS
Ok LOL it actually doesn't make a shit of a difference which one you get, but if you have +1 shields and +1 armor, then it will take 18 shots to kill a Phoenix. Also worth noting is that +1 attack will only actually kill mutas faster sometimes. With health regen, it will take 121 health/20damage = 7 shots to kill. However, 121 health/ 22 damage = 6 shots to kill.
In conclusion: +1 attack will make your phoenixes kill the mutas in 6 shots instead of 7. 1/7 increase in awesomeness. +1 armor will make your phoenixes survive 12 shots after their shields go down, instead of 10 shots. 1/6 increase in awesomeness. I have changed my mind and agree with you. 1/6>1/7, but due to the nature of the Phoenix, you don't need to out-DPS the mutas. You have to micro so they don't get enough shots off to do damage to your Phoenix. So, to decide which upgrade to get:
Get +1 attack if you're consistent at microing Phoenix without taking many hits -- you'll kill the mutas significantly faster Get +1 armor if you screw up microing Phoenix occasionally, and want to decrease the hull damage taken when you make a mistake.
Damn, dat analysis
Haha, well done, I applaud your math. I'm glad someone took the trouble to actually think that one out.
The only other thing I would point out is that, somewhat obviously, +1 air weapons is vastly more beneficial to void rays and carriers if you plan on getting those, so one might consider getting +1 air armor instead if you plan on quickly transitioning into a robo or gateway based army shortly after countering the mutas. Otherwise, the earlier +1 attack will probably pay off more in the long run.
On July 02 2012 01:38 Mavvie wrote: To the poster above, I'd recommend +1 shields out of your forge and +1 attack out of your cybercore. With skytoss you won't (really) need ground attack, and shields help ground units, air units, and buildings. +1 phoenixes just destroy mutas, probably before the shields even go down lolol.
Yeah, I mean it's just trade-offs. With +1 ground attack you get a huge boost in efficiency out of zealot vs ling (kill in 2 attacks instead of 3), with shields you get armor bonuses to all your units and buildings last forever and a half against ling attacks. Whichever seems more relevant is obviously what should be done in any given game situation, be reactive.
Regarding the +1 air weapons vs +1 air armor, that doesn't seem to be the case to me. I don't think killing the mutas faster is all that important, really. Phoenixes do 10 damage per shot, 12 with +1, and mutas have 120 health. So +0 phoenixes kill a muta in 12 shots, +1 phoenixes kill in 10 shots. Contrarily, phoenixes have 120 health and 60 shields, while mutas do a total of 13 damage with bounce shot (9+3+1), 10 against +1 armor. So a +0 armor phoenix will withstand 14 shots from a muta, but with +1 armor it will survive 17 (18 w/ +1 shields). The extra shots you can get off with a phoenix that lives 3-4 shots longer seems a lot more important, to me at least, than the shot or two saved killing a muta with an attack upgrade. The phoenix has lower attack and higher health than the muta, it seems like the armor upgrade would be much more cost efficient (and you can always add on a second cyber core with the gas advantage you will have in hard countering muta play like that).
This is all sort of presuming that phoenix micro is rather difficult, even with range, and realistically speaking against a player who is half decent with mutas, you are going to take some shots, particularly in that early stage where you only have a few phoenixes out.
I agree that the biggest problem with +1 shields is that you aren't getting +1 weapons but if you're going skytoss and don't scout a spling all in, might as well get shields. Uh, I disagree about +1 air armor still. I like your point, but youre forgetting that despite phoenixes doing less damage per attack, they attack way faster. I'll break down the math: Mutalisk DPS: 13 / 1.5246 = 8.53 DPS. Vs +1 armor: 10/1.5246 = 6.56 DPS DPS reduction: 8.53-6.56=1.97 DPS reduced
Phoenix DPS: (5+5) x 2/1.11 = 18 DPS With +1 attack: (6+5) x 2/1.11 = 20 DPS DPS increase: 20-18= 2 more DPS
Ok LOL it actually doesn't make a shit of a difference which one you get, but if you have +1 shields and +1 armor, then it will take 18 shots to kill a Phoenix. Also worth noting is that +1 attack will only actually kill mutas faster sometimes. With health regen, it will take 121 health/20damage = 7 shots to kill. However, 121 health/ 22 damage = 6 shots to kill.
In conclusion: +1 attack will make your phoenixes kill the mutas in 6 shots instead of 7. 1/7 increase in awesomeness. +1 armor will make your phoenixes survive 12 shots after their shields go down, instead of 10 shots. 1/6 increase in awesomeness. I have changed my mind and agree with you. 1/6>1/7, but due to the nature of the Phoenix, you don't need to out-DPS the mutas. You have to micro so they don't get enough shots off to do damage to your Phoenix. So, to decide which upgrade to get:
Get +1 attack if you're consistent at microing Phoenix without taking many hits -- you'll kill the mutas significantly faster Get +1 armor if you screw up microing Phoenix occasionally, and want to decrease the hull damage taken when you make a mistake.
Damn, dat analysis
Haha, well done, I applaud your math. I'm glad someone took the trouble to actually think that one out.
The only other thing I would point out is that, somewhat obviously, +1 air weapons is vastly more beneficial to void rays and carriers if you plan on getting those, so one might consider getting +1 air armor instead if you plan on quickly transitioning into a robo or gateway based army shortly after countering the mutas. Otherwise, the earlier +1 attack will probably pay off more in the long run.
Yeah, the +1 makes a big difference for VR and a HUGE difference for carriers.
One should also note that attack is a larger % dps change vs corruptors, as they have high armor and a low rate of fire. +1 attack takes it from 34 to 25 shots for a phoenix to kill a corruptor. +1 armor increases it from 8 shots after shields to 9 (meh)
I think air attack is always the better choice when you are planning to continue building starport units.
edit- upon thinking about the math, has anyone encountered a zerg that goes fast armor with mass corruptor? All protoss air has fast attack speed, stacking armor could totally cripple their dps...
I think it's agreed that you need 2 cores for double upgrades. I feel that you guys are underestimating air armor. Sure, void rays benefit a ton, but so do carriers! As a Zerg, I find nothing scarier than not only the 3-3-3 carriers, but the interceptors themselves! Flying zerglings that do insane DPS and just don't die. Again, with Phoenix vs muta they're both equally beneficial, so you could just opt for +1 attack to make all your units just that much scarier!
On July 02 2012 11:40 Mavvie wrote: I think it's agreed that you need 2 cores for double upgrades. I feel that you guys are underestimating air armor. Sure, void rays benefit a ton, but so do carriers! As a Zerg, I find nothing scarier than not only the 3-3-3 carriers, but the interceptors themselves! Flying zerglings that do insane DPS and just don't die. Again, with Phoenix vs muta they're both equally beneficial, so you could just opt for +1 attack to make all your units just that much scarier!
Protoss air units vs Zerg anti-air is a burst damage vs critical mass situation, so I would choose air attack and shields to 3 before considering armor. You FFE and get 1 core anyway, so why spend an extra 150 to get air armor before the stuff you really need?
Armor doens't matter once zerg has: -enough hydras to combat air units -enough roach to flood -enough muta or corruptor
Since VRs are the threat in sky toss but are slow units, you often times want to do damage and get out of there rather than stay and fight since they are costly and you really cant afford losing them
On July 02 2012 13:25 tehemperorer wrote: Armor doens't matter once zerg has: -enough hydras to combat air units
rofl, WHAT? hydras are essentially THE reason you get armor...
Yeah, hydra attack speed is through the roof. Armor upgrades are worth their weight in gold against hydras, as well as infested terrans and queens. Mutas to a lesser degree and corruptors the least.
The most trouble I've ever had out of this build is getting myself fungaled in clumps vs a zerg that produces a lot of corruptors, and that problem is solved easily enough by pre-spreading. Often times late game I don't even try to vortex the infestors anymore, I just hit as many corruptors as I can with it with a good spread, and cost efficiency goes in my favor.
Things I've noticed with the build:
You can't afford going double sets of upgrades, and shield upgrades, before 3 base, and your third is delayed with this build. Therefore, I don't advocate double cycore, because by the time you have the gas for it, you're already almost done with +3 attack anyways.
2-3 phoenix after the first 2 voids are invaluable for scouting.
I'm using this build against zergs in high diamond/low master and it does wonders. Usually because they don't know how to respond properly (like they don't make infestors at all, fail with mass expanding, or try to bust my 3rd base with pure hydra). I'm doing version with 1 starport into fast fleet beacon and mothership. Add 2nd starport after mothership production is started. Starports 3. and 4. after 3rd base. Just before MS is out, I make 3rd base.
My SG units are void -> phoenix (harras 3rd, force spores, usually does no other damage) -> more voids. With phoenix I scout tech and expansions. I don't harras otherwise before recall is ready. I found that there is no worser feeling then have 3-5 void harrasing zerg, when they appear in your base with roach/hydra. First they kill your naked cannons. Then they kill your naked void rays .
I have question about carriers. They seems to bee good vs infestor/hydra, but aweful against corruptors. Also they are useless in harrasment (too slow). For sure they need void supports, but i feel that corruptors snipe them too fast, and I would end better with pure void army. But adding like ~4 carriers may be good idea, dunno. And against hydras, voids are good enough with cannon support (because never will all hydras fire at them, while all voids will always participate in battle). Just need good spread against fungals.
As for muta problem, chronoboosting phoenixes from 4 stargates + range upgrade is enough. 4 phoenixes kills infinite numbers of mutalisks If they keep producing mutas, that's very good news! Keep phoenix number at 6-8 and carry on with void production. And because phoenixes shouldn't take too much damage from muta, attack upgrade is preffered, but you have iddle forge for shields
And for last note, how do you guys handle hydra drop? It seems to be most powerfull counter to this build. Also what maps do you use/never use it on?
Best maps are in order cloud kingdom, ohana, entombed, antiga, tal darim, and I've had varied success on condemned. It's definitely more effective in close positions on any of these maps. Cross map is tough because you can't really harass effectively.
never try it on daybreak.
vs hydras throw down 3-4 gates and constantly warp in zealots while you get your third up. zealots tank a lot of damage so your air can kill everything
The three maps on which I believe it's not good are:
- shakuras, cause zerg can ping/pong between attacking at the natural or at the third depending on where you're not
- antiga: cause taking the fourth is next to impossible, and zerg can easily take the golds
- condemned: cause the fourth is next to impossible, and the map is so huge and areas all accesible so that your slow mobility of air units works against you ( you'll be caught off-guard and forced to recall before you even reach zerg's bases ).
personally I hate cloud kingdom because of the fourth.
I think the best map is Shakuras or Ohana. I'm really starting to like Shakuras because you can just cannon up both ramps, sit between the natural and third and just go where they send most of their army.
Shakuras is very good actually. You take expo beneath your main as 3rd, and then kill rocks to access EASY 4th. On the other hand map is small, so hydra pushes come faster, but on the other hand, harrasing is also easier.
Condemned is hell for 4th true.
On antiga it's impossible to deny zerg's 4th base on gold, which also make things harder. Do you expand on Antiga to gold, or take other natural as 4th?
Isn't distance between 2nd and 3rd base on TDA too big to cover?
Btw, I stay on one gateway and this way i can put 4-5 cannons on natural and 8+ at 3rd. Hydras don't stand a chance. Zealots sounds weak because they will also tank hits from hydras that are anyway too far away to attack anything else.Zerg rarely get perfect concave.
How about daybreak? Have anyone tried to play skytoss on this map? Probably the best 3rd would be base in the middle, by the watch tower.
vs hydras throw down 3-4 gates and constantly warp in zealots while you get your third up. zealots tank a lot of damage so your air can kill everything
I've never actually had to do this at all, I find with good decision making/positioning with the air units + mothership, I can crush hydra play. I get a LOT of cannons though, and stay on 2 stargates for a long time. The build usually goes like this:
FFE 3rd gas while core is building 2 sentries, 2 stargates asap 2 voids, 6-8 phoenii mommaship and third by 10:30 voids cannons at third attack ups from cycore, then when third is saturated, 2 more stargates + start armor upgrades (+3 should be done), tc and shield ups get tons of voids and 4-6 carriers + mommaship, move around and be scary etc if game goes super late get ground attack ups and tons of archons/HT and 6-8 stargates win because you're a bauss
I disagree with you guys. Antiga in either close spawn is a great map for this build. You can harass their main, then fly 10 feet back to defend your third.
Or you can harass their third or make them take the far one which you can send zealots to all game.
It seems you guys don't really incorporate zealots in to the build. I find they are very useful distractions to buy time to set up new expansions. And you will need the 4 gateways later for the high templar. I go 2 gate and then use the additional 2 + a 2nd cyber core to set up a wall at my third.
The trick to taking a 4th on condemned and antiga is taking another main base and putting a sentry + 6 cannons at the top of the ramp.
On July 02 2012 19:00 Fogetaboudit wrote: I think the best map is Shakuras or Ohana. I'm really starting to like Shakuras because you can just cannon up both ramps, sit between the natural and third and just go where they send most of their army.
Where do you put your mothership ? Between the nat and third too ? It seems risky since it's not under cannons, and if you put it on the natural and get attacked at your third, it's too slow to come back quick enough
On July 03 2012 09:41 -MoOsE- wrote: does anyone have a replay of when the z goes for a hydra ling all in on you. I cant seem to hold this
"When does it hit?" seems to be the most relevant question... and do you have enough cannons? When I get hit with hydra allin, it usually comes at ~15 mins, and walks into 12 cloaked cannons, ~8 voids and ~2 carriers at my third. It usually goes pretty poorly for the zerg. I'm not sure how lings would make this push much different, except drawing cannon fire... But then the hydra army would be considerably weaker, no?
Yeah mabye I just need to work on my build order. (is the one of the replay in the main post still the good build to use). Also, how do you deal with the stephano push that just snipes the third over and over so you cant take it. They then tech up to infesotrs to deal with the stargates.
On July 03 2012 12:22 -MoOsE- wrote: Yeah mabye I just need to work on my build order. (is the one of the replay in the main post still the good build to use). Also, how do you deal with the stephano push that just snipes the third over and over so you cant take it. They then tech up to infesotrs to deal with the stargates.
Mothership deals with both. Roaches can't shoot up, and in most cases, don't bring Overseers. In the case they do, Void Ray targetting will solve that issue. Once Infestors hit the field, it's a matter of Recall use at key times, and forcing the Zerg to defend.
On July 03 2012 12:22 -MoOsE- wrote: Yeah mabye I just need to work on my build order. (is the one of the replay in the main post still the good build to use). Also, how do you deal with the stephano push that just snipes the third over and over so you cant take it. They then tech up to infesotrs to deal with the stargates.
Just make sure your void rays are flying overhead and you cancel as many things as possible, then play for the split map end game scenario. They will run out of resources long before you do, then inevitably complain that they outplayed you all game long and still lost toss OP.
I have extrem problems with Zergs, who goes Mutas/corruptors - like lots of mutas and 10 or so corruptors. They just fly to the different part of my base and run away as soon as they see my fleet. If i chase with the phoenixes they sepparate my army and then kill or try to kill phoenixes... Lost like 4 in row to this
On July 03 2012 16:34 Wasihasi wrote: I have extrem problems with Zergs, who goes Mutas/corruptors - like lots of mutas and 10 or so corruptors. They just fly to the different part of my base and run away as soon as they see my fleet. If i chase with the phoenixes they sepparate my army and then kill or try to kill phoenixes... Lost like 4 in row to this
Yeah its a messy game that focuses a lot on micro and positioning. I've definitely lost games to this as well, but I can always find mistakes in my play when I lose. Having lots of cannons at each mineral line really help to chip away at the muta count, constantly being active with your Phoenix trying to pick off Mutas is important as well. Mutas move faster so normally you can snipe them before Corruptors get their volleys off, but yeah, its a bit of a mess. Constantly A-move your Mothership/voidray/carrier ball at their air fleet, and do your best to zone it out while protecting your mining. Then keep the Phoenix on another hotkey and do your best to trade/repel Mutas.
Stay patient, especially on splitmap maps. Mutas are SO inefficient, they will never trade and kill any of your gas units. All they do is harass, accept the harass and understand it's okay to lose some probes and cannons, just do your best to fight and stabilize as best you can. Eventually, they have to come up with a solution for your army and switch into Infestor/Corruptor.
On July 03 2012 16:34 Wasihasi wrote: I have extrem problems with Zergs, who goes Mutas/corruptors - like lots of mutas and 10 or so corruptors. They just fly to the different part of my base and run away as soon as they see my fleet. If i chase with the phoenixes they sepparate my army and then kill or try to kill phoenixes... Lost like 4 in row to this
The most solid counter to this strategy is in my opinion a base race style with mass zerglings and then saving their infestor / corrupter force to fight with their queens and spores at a holdout.
The cannons will always pay off. put them around your nexuses, stargates, and choke points. shield upgrades benefit cannons as well. and late game, put a high templar or two (so they can emergency morph in to an archon if need be) at your important points to storm with the cannons. so strong.
On July 03 2012 17:39 saladToss wrote: cannons in your mineral lines. very important.
The most solid counter to this strategy is in my opinion a base race style with mass zerglings and then saving their infestor / corrupter force to fight with their queens and spores at a holdout.
The cannons will always pay off. put them around your nexuses, stargates, and choke points. shield upgrades benefit cannons as well. and late game, put a high templar or two (so they can emergency morph in to an archon if need be) at your important points to storm with the cannons. so strong.
Yep =)... This is so true. I tend to drop 10-14 cannons at each expo. Lings do NOTHING.
Through all my experience with this build, you need to do damage with your double stargate void rays so that he won't be able to do heavy mid game pressures like hydra queen corruptor for example.
Then there's also the problem between fast hts or fast carriers, fast hts can be good vs corruptors and queens while carriers are better against hydralisks and decent against infestors too.
On July 03 2012 20:29 Adonminus wrote: Through all my experience with this build, you need to do damage with your double stargate void rays so that he won't be able to do heavy mid game pressures like hydra queen corruptor for example.
Then there's also the problem between fast hts or fast carriers, fast hts can be good vs corruptors and queens while carriers are better against hydralisks and decent against infestors too.
I thought that the build order for this build was like a 8 min third off of your 1st vray? Drop down an extra stargate then and cannon up the third and nat. Are you doing double stargate 2 base pressure into third?
On July 03 2012 20:29 Adonminus wrote: Through all my experience with this build, you need to do damage with your double stargate void rays so that he won't be able to do heavy mid game pressures like hydra queen corruptor for example.
Then there's also the problem between fast hts or fast carriers, fast hts can be good vs corruptors and queens while carriers are better against hydralisks and decent against infestors too.
I thought that the build order for this build was like a 8 min third off of your 1st vray? Drop down an extra stargate then and cannon up the third and nat. Are you doing double stargate 2 base pressure into third?
Yeah, I was about to ask the same question. If you're planting a second stargate before fleet beacon, that pretty much negates the whole fast mothership fast 3rd base play altogether. With double SG that early you are pretty much forced to pressure with it, and that kind of pressure is okay at best, even with +1 zealot support. Either way, the third is going to be late and the MS is going to be extremely late on 2 bases worth of gas, so... yeah, not advisable, as far as I'm concerned.
Adonminus, I've posted about this before, but as long as you're on 2 base, stay on 1 SG and tech as fast as possible towards that MS, as you don't really have the gas for anything else. After you have the 3rd and it's two gases established, then you want to throw down your second wave of tech (as the third is setting up is a good time to send that phoenix scout in). From there, you want to play reactively. My second wave of tech is usually 3 extra SGs, 2 extra SGs, or an extra SG and a twilight council, depending on the anti-air choices your Zerg opponent makes (corruptors, hydras, or infestors). Depends how quickly you think you need to transition to HTs to deal with the infestor problem, and how many carriers you plan to be making to deal with hydras (remember, more carriers need more SGs, as they have lower income cost and longer build times than other SG units).
On maps like Shakuras, I do my 10-gate FE into skytoss. That makes games pretty unimpressive, but damn efficient ( and faster than the standard macro build, which easily goes into the 30' ):
On July 04 2012 06:21 Nyast wrote: On maps like Shakuras, I do my 10-gate FE into skytoss. That makes games pretty unimpressive, but damn efficient ( and faster than the standard macro build, which easily goes into the 30' ):
This is Gate/Forge into Block second into Expand etc. On which maps would you advise to do this? Or what is the criterion to not to do it?
On July 03 2012 20:29 Adonminus wrote: Through all my experience with this build, you need to do damage with your double stargate void rays so that he won't be able to do heavy mid game pressures like hydra queen corruptor for example.
Then there's also the problem between fast hts or fast carriers, fast hts can be good vs corruptors and queens while carriers are better against hydralisks and decent against infestors too.
I thought that the build order for this build was like a 8 min third off of your 1st vray? Drop down an extra stargate then and cannon up the third and nat. Are you doing double stargate 2 base pressure into third?
Yeah, I was about to ask the same question. If you're planting a second stargate before fleet beacon, that pretty much negates the whole fast mothership fast 3rd base play altogether. With double SG that early you are pretty much forced to pressure with it, and that kind of pressure is okay at best, even with +1 zealot support. Either way, the third is going to be late and the MS is going to be extremely late on 2 bases worth of gas, so... yeah, not advisable, as far as I'm concerned.
Adonminus, I've posted about this before, but as long as you're on 2 base, stay on 1 SG and tech as fast as possible towards that MS, as you don't really have the gas for anything else. After you have the 3rd and it's two gases established, then you want to throw down your second wave of tech (as the third is setting up is a good time to send that phoenix scout in). From there, you want to play reactively. My second wave of tech is usually 3 extra SGs, 2 extra SGs, or an extra SG and a twilight council, depending on the anti-air choices your Zerg opponent makes (corruptors, hydras, or infestors). Depends how quickly you think you need to transition to HTs to deal with the infestor problem, and how many carriers you plan to be making to deal with hydras (remember, more carriers need more SGs, as they have lower income cost and longer build times than other SG units).
On July 04 2012 06:21 Nyast wrote: On maps like Shakuras, I do my 10-gate FE into skytoss. That makes games pretty unimpressive, but damn efficient ( and faster than the standard macro build, which easily goes into the 30' ):
This is Gate/Forge into Block second into Expand etc. On which maps would you advise to do this? Or what is the criterion to not to do it?
I wouldn't do it on any 4-player map.
On smaller maps you can do it, but you shouldn't over-commit if Zerg has scouted you ( with an overlord or drone ). If my build is spotted, I just go for 2 zealots and depending on the timing of the zerglings, either I'll attempt the cannon contain, either I'll drop my nexus asap. Normally Zergs are too busy with your zealots to rush you, so you can delay the defensive cannon after the nexus.
When the contain is successful, skytoss is particularly powerful. The third will be very delayed, his eco will be lagging behind, and the first voidrays will scare him and force spores at a critical moment ( when he's trying to get an eco back up ). And whatever mid-game army he makes, he won't have the eco to reprod it instantly, which makes any push he attempts a bit risky for him.
On July 03 2012 20:29 Adonminus wrote: Through all my experience with this build, you need to do damage with your double stargate void rays so that he won't be able to do heavy mid game pressures like hydra queen corruptor for example.
Then there's also the problem between fast hts or fast carriers, fast hts can be good vs corruptors and queens while carriers are better against hydralisks and decent against infestors too.
I thought that the build order for this build was like a 8 min third off of your 1st vray? Drop down an extra stargate then and cannon up the third and nat. Are you doing double stargate 2 base pressure into third?
Yeah, I was about to ask the same question. If you're planting a second stargate before fleet beacon, that pretty much negates the whole fast mothership fast 3rd base play altogether. With double SG that early you are pretty much forced to pressure with it, and that kind of pressure is okay at best, even with +1 zealot support. Either way, the third is going to be late and the MS is going to be extremely late on 2 bases worth of gas, so... yeah, not advisable, as far as I'm concerned.
Adonminus, I've posted about this before, but as long as you're on 2 base, stay on 1 SG and tech as fast as possible towards that MS, as you don't really have the gas for anything else. After you have the 3rd and it's two gases established, then you want to throw down your second wave of tech (as the third is setting up is a good time to send that phoenix scout in). From there, you want to play reactively. My second wave of tech is usually 3 extra SGs, 2 extra SGs, or an extra SG and a twilight council, depending on the anti-air choices your Zerg opponent makes (corruptors, hydras, or infestors). Depends how quickly you think you need to transition to HTs to deal with the infestor problem, and how many carriers you plan to be making to deal with hydras (remember, more carriers need more SGs, as they have lower income cost and longer build times than other SG units).
Ty this was very helpful.
Yeah basically, with the 5th and 6th gases at the 3rd base, you want to react to/with the following:
- against mostly hydras, 4 stargates producing carriers - against mostly corruptors, 3 stargates producing 1 carrier/2 VRs at a time - against mostly infestor, 2 stargates producing carriers/VRs as necessary w/ 8 gates HTs
On a somewhat unrelated note, I just crushed in a PvP with a phoenix opener into carrier/immortal build. Got up to 5 stargates and 3 robos on 5 bases. Methinks Skytoss is actually somewhat viable in PvP, oddly enough...
On April 30 2012 19:37 Immutant wrote: If you truely want to be invincible, add HTs late game into the mix. They cost only 2 supply? And 1 storm would wipe out the cluster of corrupters/hydras. They can also feedback infestors. + their movement speed is on par with the mothership so you get 2 OP spellcasters in an area.
I see this a lot in 3v3, 4v4 team games.
High Templar have a high skill cap to them and when used properly can be absolutely devastating in the mid to late game.
But still when securing a third I still don't think that is a needed precaution to add High Templar to the field. But moving up to the tech for later is defiantly a good idea.
On July 03 2012 20:29 Adonminus wrote: Through all my experience with this build, you need to do damage with your double stargate void rays so that he won't be able to do heavy mid game pressures like hydra queen corruptor for example.
Then there's also the problem between fast hts or fast carriers, fast hts can be good vs corruptors and queens while carriers are better against hydralisks and decent against infestors too.
I thought that the build order for this build was like a 8 min third off of your 1st vray? Drop down an extra stargate then and cannon up the third and nat. Are you doing double stargate 2 base pressure into third?
Yes, I get my 3rd after I send like 4 void rays to my opponent's 3rd.
On July 04 2012 19:18 HelioSeven wrote: On a somewhat unrelated note, I just crushed in a PvP with a phoenix opener into carrier/immortal build. Got up to 5 stargates and 3 robos on 5 bases. Methinks Skytoss is actually somewhat viable in PvP, oddly enough...
I think in a phoenix vs phoenix situation in PvP, you can get a fleet beacon for +2 range, and those +2 range phoenixes easily beat normal phoenixes. Funny, but 4 phoenixes can beat 12 phoenixes in pvp using that upgrade.
After that you can use fleetbeacon to transition to skytoss. I would also want to note that carriers are extremly good at defending chargelot archon busts in pvp due to their superior range. (though you need a wall to put them behind so archons can't damage them).
On July 03 2012 20:29 Adonminus wrote: Through all my experience with this build, you need to do damage with your double stargate void rays so that he won't be able to do heavy mid game pressures like hydra queen corruptor for example.
Then there's also the problem between fast hts or fast carriers, fast hts can be good vs corruptors and queens while carriers are better against hydralisks and decent against infestors too.
I thought that the build order for this build was like a 8 min third off of your 1st vray? Drop down an extra stargate then and cannon up the third and nat. Are you doing double stargate 2 base pressure into third?
Yeah, I was about to ask the same question. If you're planting a second stargate before fleet beacon, that pretty much negates the whole fast mothership fast 3rd base play altogether. With double SG that early you are pretty much forced to pressure with it, and that kind of pressure is okay at best, even with +1 zealot support. Either way, the third is going to be late and the MS is going to be extremely late on 2 bases worth of gas, so... yeah, not advisable, as far as I'm concerned.
Adonminus, I've posted about this before, but as long as you're on 2 base, stay on 1 SG and tech as fast as possible towards that MS, as you don't really have the gas for anything else. After you have the 3rd and it's two gases established, then you want to throw down your second wave of tech (as the third is setting up is a good time to send that phoenix scout in). From there, you want to play reactively. My second wave of tech is usually 3 extra SGs, 2 extra SGs, or an extra SG and a twilight council, depending on the anti-air choices your Zerg opponent makes (corruptors, hydras, or infestors). Depends how quickly you think you need to transition to HTs to deal with the infestor problem, and how many carriers you plan to be making to deal with hydras (remember, more carriers need more SGs, as they have lower income cost and longer build times than other SG units).
I'm not sure. If you get 2 additional assimilators really early like at the same time you start your stargate, you get an insane boost of gas. Plus if you let the zerg drone up safely, he can prepare a very strong mid game composition against skytoss, and just beating it with overwhelming number rather than cost efficiency, like maxing out on hydra queen corruptor as an example.
On July 04 2012 06:21 Nyast wrote: On maps like Shakuras, I do my 10-gate FE into skytoss. That makes games pretty unimpressive, but damn efficient ( and faster than the standard macro build, which easily goes into the 30' ):
Awesome, I wad waiting to see this from you
I've been experimenting with a macro 1 gate Fe with faster third as well. The contain seems brutal though.
On July 04 2012 19:18 HelioSeven wrote: On a somewhat unrelated note, I just crushed in a PvP with a phoenix opener into carrier/immortal build. Got up to 5 stargates and 3 robos on 5 bases. Methinks Skytoss is actually somewhat viable in PvP, oddly enough...
Well if you think about it - colossi don't shoot UP. Ht's may be a pain but a fast MS can give you the advantage. Interesting.
What's the best way for zerg to deal with this in late game?
I imagine: - making tons of expo's across the map - tons of spores/spines - mass infestors/corruptor
I haven't encountered this strategy yet but I'd like to know how to have a chance if it goes late game.. I've read that muta's are initially good but get progressively worse as the game goes on.
On July 03 2012 20:29 Adonminus wrote: Through all my experience with this build, you need to do damage with your double stargate void rays so that he won't be able to do heavy mid game pressures like hydra queen corruptor for example.
Then there's also the problem between fast hts or fast carriers, fast hts can be good vs corruptors and queens while carriers are better against hydralisks and decent against infestors too.
I thought that the build order for this build was like a 8 min third off of your 1st vray? Drop down an extra stargate then and cannon up the third and nat. Are you doing double stargate 2 base pressure into third?
Yes, I get my 3rd after I send like 4 void rays to my opponent's 3rd.
Wait, how do you have a mothership at that point? Do you even? Do you just get it after the third or something?
In my experience, it's really hard to be aggressive against the fast three base Zerg with the stargate first play, on most maps. Personally I find the fast mothership quick 3rd base to be more effective. You should be able to at least keep up in probes with chrono boost, and can easily mineral dump into cannons as you get the important tech out.
On July 04 2012 19:18 HelioSeven wrote: On a somewhat unrelated note, I just crushed in a PvP with a phoenix opener into carrier/immortal build. Got up to 5 stargates and 3 robos on 5 bases. Methinks Skytoss is actually somewhat viable in PvP, oddly enough...
I think in a phoenix vs phoenix situation in PvP, you can get a fleet beacon for +2 range, and those +2 range phoenixes easily beat normal phoenixes. Funny, but 4 phoenixes can beat 12 phoenixes in pvp using that upgrade.
After that you can use fleetbeacon to transition to skytoss. I would also want to note that carriers are extremly good at defending chargelot archon busts in pvp due to their superior range. (though you need a wall to put them behind so archons can't damage them).
No, I mean I played against a 3 gate expand opener into mass blink stalker/chargelot w/ a couple of colossi to support and beat that with a phoenix opener into immortal/carrier build. Handily. Gotta try this out some more, but I think I finally understand the counter wheel of PvP.
On July 03 2012 20:29 Adonminus wrote: Through all my experience with this build, you need to do damage with your double stargate void rays so that he won't be able to do heavy mid game pressures like hydra queen corruptor for example.
Then there's also the problem between fast hts or fast carriers, fast hts can be good vs corruptors and queens while carriers are better against hydralisks and decent against infestors too.
I thought that the build order for this build was like a 8 min third off of your 1st vray? Drop down an extra stargate then and cannon up the third and nat. Are you doing double stargate 2 base pressure into third?
Yeah, I was about to ask the same question. If you're planting a second stargate before fleet beacon, that pretty much negates the whole fast mothership fast 3rd base play altogether. With double SG that early you are pretty much forced to pressure with it, and that kind of pressure is okay at best, even with +1 zealot support. Either way, the third is going to be late and the MS is going to be extremely late on 2 bases worth of gas, so... yeah, not advisable, as far as I'm concerned.
Adonminus, I've posted about this before, but as long as you're on 2 base, stay on 1 SG and tech as fast as possible towards that MS, as you don't really have the gas for anything else. After you have the 3rd and it's two gases established, then you want to throw down your second wave of tech (as the third is setting up is a good time to send that phoenix scout in). From there, you want to play reactively. My second wave of tech is usually 3 extra SGs, 2 extra SGs, or an extra SG and a twilight council, depending on the anti-air choices your Zerg opponent makes (corruptors, hydras, or infestors). Depends how quickly you think you need to transition to HTs to deal with the infestor problem, and how many carriers you plan to be making to deal with hydras (remember, more carriers need more SGs, as they have lower income cost and longer build times than other SG units).
I'm not sure. If you get 2 additional assimilators really early like at the same time you start your stargate, you get an insane boost of gas. Plus if you let the zerg drone up safely, he can prepare a very strong mid game composition against skytoss, and just beating it with overwhelming number rather than cost efficiency, like maxing out on hydra queen corruptor as an example.
I get my 3rd assimilator earlier than that. After setting the FFE up I usually go 2 gas > cyber > gas > stargate > gas. The whole purpose of the fast third (and, in a similar vein, the macro nexus), is to let him drone up and simply keep up (chrono boost is an incredible thing). After you've spent all the gas on the SG, FB, MS, and gotten all your upgrades starting, you should be setting up your third, getting it defended with cannons, and building up a bank of gas for the second wave of tech as previously mentioned. Scout well, and you should have no problems defending.
If you are dead-set on pressuring instead, you can still do it off of just one stargate, you don't need to take all 4 gasses and flood double stargate. You can do a +1 zealot w/ void ray pressure timing that exploits a Zerg who delays lair tech a little too long, and you can do it with just a couple of voids. If you chrono out +1 ground weapons and warp tech, have a nice early proxy pylon set up, and have decent void ray micro at all you should be able to do a ton of damage (void rays kill roaches then buildings, zealots kill everything else).
On July 04 2012 19:18 HelioSeven wrote: On a somewhat unrelated note, I just crushed in a PvP with a phoenix opener into carrier/immortal build. Got up to 5 stargates and 3 robos on 5 bases. Methinks Skytoss is actually somewhat viable in PvP, oddly enough...
I think you basically should be going into stargate transitions or heavy drop play/harassment after the 2base stalemate situation where Colossus concaves force defender's advantage and it's pretty easy for both players to take and hold a third while they max. The bigger question becomes how you mix that composition--a lot of Immortals and Phoenixes are good if you're up against a lot of Stalkers, but if it's mass Chargelot with Archons I think going into Carriers faster is better. A few Phoenixes are always good in that match-up, though, since they wreck drops and give you harassment potential.
Actually, where I've been happiest using Stargate tech lately is against Terran. I'm doing Robo-->fast Colossus into 2base Phoenix Colossus as I take a third. If you get the Stargate down about when the Starport is down, Phoenixes help clean up drops to the point where you're actually killing the Medivacs, and in major engagements they're good for fighting Vikings and cleaning up stimmed retreating units. This is all probably better for another thread, but I figured I'd bring up that I'm on a double-digit win streak on ladder against Terrans because of Phoenix/Colossus, mostly due to the stuff I've been trying with Skytoss vs Zerg (as inspired by this thread to a great extent).
On July 04 2012 19:18 HelioSeven wrote: On a somewhat unrelated note, I just crushed in a PvP with a phoenix opener into carrier/immortal build. Got up to 5 stargates and 3 robos on 5 bases. Methinks Skytoss is actually somewhat viable in PvP, oddly enough...
I think you basically should be going into stargate transitions or heavy drop play/harassment after the 2base stalemate situation where Colossus concaves force defender's advantage and it's pretty easy for both players to take and hold a third while they max. The bigger question becomes how you mix that composition--a lot of Immortals and Phoenixes are good if you're up against a lot of Stalkers, but if it's mass Chargelot with Archons I think going into Carriers faster is better. A few Phoenixes are always good in that match-up, though, since they wreck drops and give you harassment potential.
Actually, where I've been happiest using Stargate tech lately is against Terran. I'm doing Robo-->fast Colossus into 2base Phoenix Colossus as I take a third. If you get the Stargate down about when the Starport is down, Phoenixes help clean up drops to the point where you're actually killing the Medivacs, and in major engagements they're good for fighting Vikings and cleaning up stimmed retreating units. This is all probably better for another thread, but I figured I'd bring up that I'm on a double-digit win streak on ladder against Terrans because of Phoenix/Colossus, mostly due to the stuff I've been trying with Skytoss vs Zerg (as inspired by this thread to a great extent).
You know I've been screwing around with that too. I tried void rays guarding the edges of your base, and they're somewhat better at swatting drops, but much worse when the straight up engagement happens. But I agree, with a fleet beacon for phoenix range and a mothership, colossi suddenly become way more powerful.
Regarding the PvP immortal/carrier situation, yeah, pretty much. You scale immortals against blink stalkers, and carriers against everything else. I've tried to throw a few colossi in, especially if you already have the robo bay for prism speed or something like that, but generally it's just too much gas out of your income. Maybe throwing a few in once your gas banks up a bit, I don't know. But 3 base/3 stargate carrier production with 2 robos supporting immortals seems to destroy 3 base double robo colossus.
One thing to remember when playing with a momma ship is that it's not actually that slow, it just has a really slow acceleration. If you put it on patrol when idle it'll actually be quite fast, relatively speaking.
So thanks to this build I have like a 90% win Rate in PvZ. I only loose when I takes fights against pure Hydra in early midgame and he snipes my mamaship because then I can´t safely harras. Anything else is beatable
On July 07 2012 20:04 How2getMaster wrote: So thanks to this build I have like a 90% win Rate in PvZ. I only loose when I takes fights against pure Hydra in early midgame and he snipes my mamaship because then I can´t safely harras. Anything else is beatable
its almost impossible to take a 4th on antiga. I try to take a 3rd after a fight in which i win. B/c you have time to get cannons up while he reinforces
On July 08 2012 02:09 Daimai wrote: High master protoss here, having decent success with this build, its not an automatic win button but definitely viable.
That being said, I have difficulties taking my 4th base (Antiga Shipyard for example) and vs infestors in general.
Anyone got tips on how to take a 4th safely on stupid maps like Condemned, Antiga etc. Or do I just turtle up to 200/200 on 3base?
Cannons. Cannons everywhere.
But seriously, put down a lot of cannons. Generally, I go for the 4th wherever is closest by air to my other bases, to aid in defense with the fast mothership. On Antiga, that either means the 3rd that's close to your main or the main that's close to your 3rd, as I try to avoid the center bases in PvZ (way too open, run-bys for days). Condemned doesn't seem to matter too much, as the map is just absolutely huge.
You can sit on 3 bases for a pretty long time, though, especially if you get the 3rd super quick. Make sure to be very current with your scouting info throughout the game, and just see all his anti-air transitions coming. Which brings me to the topic of infestors. With Skytoss, I usually get forge upgrades in the order attack 1, shields 1, then shields 2, so I usually get my twilight pretty late, relatively speaking. That said, if you see an infestation pit you need to tech to HTs immediately for feedbacks (getting storm is good too, but can be done a bit later). In my experience, Zerg will usually make the move to add infestors to their first anti-air choice (corruptors or hydras) about the same time as you want to be setting up your 4th. Wall off with additional gateways, cannon up, and you should be gas heavy enough to warp in a ton of HTs as soon as the archives finishes. Feedback is also a great way of sniping overseers, making an offensive mothership very powerful as well.
Cannons shouldn't finish because zerg will have zerglings actively denying expansions. So you have to bring your air units to camp the cannons while they complete. It seems to me this relies too much on a zerg not looking and letting you build a ton of cannons undefended.
This gives zerg a chance to actually engage you (with corruptor/queen/infestor) out of range of cannons, or he can counterattack you (normally I either drop lings in the main base or clear out the cannons at your 3rd with mass infested terran).
What maps do you think you can take a 4th base on? because I have a hard time imagining it happening on any map, except maybe shak where you can expand behind the rocks.
I need some help to handle mass infestors in the late late game. Here's an example:
This game all comes down to a major problem from my side: I'm never able to reach a critical mass, and I'm not trading cost efficiently ( keep the resources lost tab opened.. it's sad ). Zerg keeps sending waves and waves of stuff at me, and I barely hold in most battles, but in the end there's just too much for me to handle.
Of course I understand that the reason I cannot handle the final battle is that I'm getting resource starved and I'm never able to reach a critical mass. The question is why do I keep trading so inefficiently in all the mid game ( say, after 18', where the first major battle occurs ).
At 17' when he attacks my fourth, I have 9 voidrays and 3 carriers. That actually doesn't sound a lot, but I can't really see where my macro slipped that much. I only lost 2 voidrays to harass attempts, so I don't think that's the cause..? Am I trying to upgrade or tech too quickly ?
The question is why do I keep trading so inefficiently in all the mid game ( say, after 18', where the first major battle occurs ).
The main reason is that corruptors with double upgrades trade very well against protoss units. If you want to come out ahead I'm pretty sure you have to always stay in range of your cannons.
On July 08 2012 03:33 Oboeman wrote: Cannons shouldn't finish because zerg will have zerglings actively denying expansions. So you have to bring your air units to camp the cannons while they complete. It seems to me this relies too much on a zerg not looking and letting you build a ton of cannons undefended.
This gives zerg a chance to actually engage you (with corruptor/queen/infestor) out of range of cannons, or he can counterattack you (normally I either drop lings in the main base or clear out the cannons at your 3rd with mass infested terran).
What maps do you think you can take a 4th base on? because I have a hard time imagining it happening on any map, except maybe shak where you can expand behind the rocks.
It's not a question of the cannons getting down, it's a question of the pylon getting down. With maybe a single carrier and a warp in round of 6-8 zealots you should be able to buy plenty of time for cannons to get down. Even if you have to cancel a couple, shouldn't matter. Once the first couple are up, you can flesh out the rest of the wall safely.
Obviously, it is harder on some maps than other (Condemned Ridge comes to mind), and not all 4ths are created equal, but I generally don't have a problem with it. That said, a 3 base timing attack right as 3/3 finishes for your carriers can be a brutally powerful timing, so even if you can delay the 4th forever, don't consider the game won quite then.
On July 08 2012 03:33 Oboeman wrote: Cannons shouldn't finish because zerg will have zerglings actively denying expansions. So you have to bring your air units to camp the cannons while they complete. It seems to me this relies too much on a zerg not looking and letting you build a ton of cannons undefended.
This gives zerg a chance to actually engage you (with corruptor/queen/infestor) out of range of cannons, or he can counterattack you (normally I either drop lings in the main base or clear out the cannons at your 3rd with mass infested terran).
What maps do you think you can take a 4th base on? because I have a hard time imagining it happening on any map, except maybe shak where you can expand behind the rocks.
Shakuras as you said, Entombed Valley, Daybreak, Cloud Kingdom.
I think Cloud Kingdom isn´t bad to get a fourth because it is so far away you can easily get it without forcing a direct fight. In the game I played I went double stargate because I wanted to apply a litte preassure I works either way.
On July 08 2012 11:04 Feos wrote: i didnt read the whole discussion about the macro nexus but some time ago i made some tests that might be interesting for some of you:
Didn't go through all of it line by line, but the math looks pretty good, and confirms what I already suspected. The macro nexus pays off for itself in minerals in 3 or 4 minutes, and you hit saturation significantly faster. With the fast mothership fast third style Skytoss opener, it gives you much better initial saturation just as the third finishes and gives you a whole extra nexus with which to build the mothership and not worry about cutting into your probe production. Add to all of that the chrono boost, imo the most op thing in the game, and it pays off deep into the late game with how many chronos you can lay on upgrades and stargate production.
I think that general consensus is that if you are feeling safe enough to do it, it definitely doesn't hurt to throw down a macro nexus in your wall off when going for the fast mothership. As long as you are defensively tech turtling, you might as well aggressively macro your econ as well, right?
On July 08 2012 03:37 Nyast wrote: I need some help to handle mass infestors in the late late game. Here's an example:
This game all comes down to a major problem from my side: I'm never able to reach a critical mass, and I'm not trading cost efficiently ( keep the resources lost tab opened.. it's sad ). Zerg keeps sending waves and waves of stuff at me, and I barely hold in most battles, but in the end there's just too much for me to handle.
Of course I understand that the reason I cannot handle the final battle is that I'm getting resource starved and I'm never able to reach a critical mass. The question is why do I keep trading so inefficiently in all the mid game ( say, after 18', where the first major battle occurs ).
At 17' when he attacks my fourth, I have 9 voidrays and 3 carriers. That actually doesn't sound a lot, but I can't really see where my macro slipped that much. I only lost 2 voidrays to harass attempts, so I don't think that's the cause..? Am I trying to upgrade or tech too quickly ?
Okay, so I finally got around to looking at this replay.
I'm only 14' in and I can already tell you why you lost this game, and that's no scouting. With the first phoenix, you don't even fly over his main base to see what tech he chose (you don't even see the spire till like 10 minutes after it's done), and then try to make a hasty defense when there isn't even an attack coming. You throw up a bunch of cannons at your third as he is taking his 4th and 5th bases (the exact opposite of what you want to be doing), and you blindly make a lot of void rays early on despite the fact that his first anti-air choice was hydras, which carriers work much better against. You spend tons of minerals all game long on cannons and gateways that ultimately never really end up getting used all that much.
The void ray snipe of the greater spire and subsequent mass recall was quite nice, but way too late, and ultimately, he never really built all that many corruptors (which is what all those void rays really would have been good against) until after he rebuilt his spire much later in the game. He makes a big move into infestors that you never scout, and that causes your HTs to be really late, leaving you with no feedbacks when he comes to sack the 4th. When that happens, he actually trades quite inefficiently (and you trade rather efficiently, aside from losing the mothership), but that doesn't really matter since all he was trying to do was snipe the 4th, which he did, leaving him 2 bases ahead (and when you are roughly equal on tech, that's pretty much a death sentance unless you can make a doom push right then, which you can't). He remaxes on a ton of corruptors, with the greater spire already done, and you are just left way behind. I think the income tab tells a lot more about this game than the units lost tab. Every engagement that I can see you trade more cost efficiently than him, but he just has twice the income with which to replace his army every time.
On July 07 2012 20:04 How2getMaster wrote: So thanks to this build I have like a 90% win Rate in PvZ. I only loose when I takes fights against pure Hydra in early midgame and he snipes my mamaship because then I can´t safely harras. Anything else is beatable
I know you didn't ask for comments/criticism/advice, but I think you probably could have survived that final push, and wonder if you've considered the following.
I think you made two mistakes. First, you didn't make any carriers after seeing he was going hydra. Unlike voids, carriers come with +2 base armor, and their interceptors force the zerg to focus fire. If he ever resorts to a-clicking, your interceptors will take the heat, and your voids will do free damage. If he focus fires, at best he's overkilling, or causing hydras on the fringe of his hydra-ball to run around aimlessly trying to get in range. At worst, his units are running forward while you're kiting him back and roasting him with the rest of your fleet. Second, you engaged over open ground, away from your cannons. (Imo, versus midgame hydra pushes, you need lots of cannons and to attack close to them, keeping your mothership safe overtop the cannons+nexus, possibly sniping overseers as you can. The extra DPS and hitpoints will really help, and microing weak voids/carriers back over the cannons can help you preserve a lot of your army.) I say, when he gets tons of hydra, don't be afraid to drop extra cannons (e.g., 12 cannons at your fourth); he loses mobility and late-game strength with that army (so he's going to have to sac some before remaxing on more supply-efficient corruptors, making those cannons likely to pay off), and you'll be able to harrass his bases easier in future, so taking your 5th and 6th bases as quickly as him doesn't seem as important.
Another minor note: personally, I like to go for a faster +3 attack (before +1 armor) to go with some carriers, and I think you could have saved your mothership in the first engagement.
On July 07 2012 20:04 How2getMaster wrote: So thanks to this build I have like a 90% win Rate in PvZ. I only loose when I takes fights against pure Hydra in early midgame and he snipes my mamaship because then I can´t safely harras. Anything else is beatable
I hope you'll allow a lowly platinum player (that goes against diamond zergs almost all the time) to give you some criticism
I feel that delaying the mothership until you get 4 void rays out is better, because your attack comes before his hydras, so you could have potentially done some pretty decent damage in that game.
Second, losing that mothership the first time was a very big blow, and it shouldn't have happened. You were in a perfect position to deal with that roach hydra attack, you just need to keep your MS in the back and over/behind buildings and there's no way it will get sniped. I always repel these sort of attacks with ease.
The biggest advice... you should have started making carriers. When you see he is going almost pure hydras, ie. no infestors or even worse corruptors, carriers will win you your battles. Until you have at least 4 of them I don't feel it's to your advantage to try and attack a hydra force. Against mostly hydras I turtle anyway, there is no way he can break a base that's littered with cannons, has a MS over it and your entire fleet. Just no way. If he tries two pronged aggression keep your fleet to one side and MS on another over your nexus, keep it alive, deal with one threat, recall, deal with the other. Not many problems there.
Stay vigilant over your upgrades and extra production. You could have done upgrades better, and as soon as you transfer workers on your third is a timing to throw down not 2, but 3 more stargates. I mean you can go to 4 if you want to only go mass VR, but if you're building carriers you can support 5 because of the slow build time.
On a minor note, you will still have a lot of extra minerals if you get to 4 bases, even with 5 stargates. Throwing down extra gates for zealots and HTs later is a good idea I find. When I see mass hydra I constantly build zealots out of the one gateway you have, so when that first attack hits you have like 6 or 8 of them. Better for hydras to hit them than the VRs
Hope you or anybody else finds something useful here.
Hey Shikada :D As you can see I am just Diamond and I have to learn alot! So thanks for your advice. You are right in every point and I am going to work on these.
His earlygame gas allocation is much different than mine and it's something I would like to study. Also, he doesn't go Void rays but just goes storm/blink stalkers to deal with corruptors. It's definitely more micro intensive. cool game
His earlygame gas allocation is much different than mine and it's something I would like to study. Also, he doesn't go Void rays but just goes storm/blink stalkers to deal with corruptors. It's definitely more micro intensive. cool game
Ah! Thanks for the link.
Yeah, the storm timing is about the same as with my build, but the timing with which he gets blink is really early. I like the reliance on stalkers instead of void rays to counter the corruptors, though the gas allocation shows with the mothership being started a good minute later than I would.
Kind of disappointing that Coca lost all his BLs like that, which pretty much ended the game right there, but still, incredibly well executed by Squirtle.
I just watched it, too. I've been really unhappy with Void Rays in general against competent Zergs (because they don't ever seem to get charged), so I'm looking forward to trying Carrier/Stalker/HT instead. It seems like a more balanced composition, with more general mobility available to your core units. Stalkers can cliff harass pretty well, too, so they can still go along with the Carriers for some base raids-->defensive recalls.
He also got MS after 3 bases, opposed to using it to get his 3rd. Is a bit of a scrappier style, with less cannons and no voids for their raw DPS. Definitely seems like higher level play, as a plat player I feel like I would have less opportunity to screw up the void ray skytoss play than the blink stalker HT carrier style.
It's almost as though he took the Stalker/Sentry/Colossus ball and just swapped out Sentries and Colossi for HTs and Carriers. It makes sense, though. You use Stalkers as a mobile ranged army core, HTs to provide AoE, and Carriers as the heavy power units that break through armies and fortifications much like other siege units (Colossus, Brood Lord, Siege Tank). And if the standard of PvZ is to get a Mothership+Archon Toilet in the late game to counteract Brood Lords, it makes sense to be in Fleet Beacon+Templar Archives tech anyways, as opposed to Robo Bay. That's a more smooth transition. And generally the desired upgrade for the match-up is damage, so having +weapons for ground and air only takes the forge and core you plan to build anyways...it's a really natural unit composition for the sake of transitioning from 2 base to 3 to 4 and forward.
yeah I think the hardest part is getting away with how greedy he was. I'm not sure how much he metagamed the zerg, and how safe he actually was. I mean, he had some defensive sentries and a scouting Phoenix, but I would like to see how quickly he could switch it up and defend versus a bust.
Would love to watch him practice with this style many times against a zerg who tried to exploit it, and really define where the holes are so you know what risks your taking. A reasonable assumption is that he believes it is not viable as an everygame build due to the greediness in play, and there are probably some timings that can exploit it. It's something he can just bust out in a BOX on a macro map if he has a "read" that the Zerg will rush tech/eco. Zergs are moving away from big busts and just going for 3 minute Hives so it kinda makes sense.
My take on the build is designed to hold most all timing attacks on the third, but is definitely weaker with regard to establishing a consistent fourth base. His build looks a bit greedier and relies on minimum defenses and calculated risks combined with PRO micro
I still think stalkers are one of the most overrated units in the game, though. I'd rather see him mix in archons and some chargelots instead of stalkers, but what do I know :D
I watched the vod, and to me it looks like a pretty gimmicky build that is highly risked. He could have died to tons of things from Zerg, from mutas to hydras to infestors timings..
But the most important point is that he took a fast third, and that the Zerg went fast hive as an answer. This bought him enough time to get his tech and army up until Zerg realized what was really happening.
Zerg had many chances to scout his build, but missed all those opportunities. No overseer flying in main.. the roach push also missed all those stargates. Zerg saw stalkers and templars so he was kind of mislead. I think he was basically metagamed. So I don't think that's a safe build you could use on ladder, for example.
After playing a couple of games with this strategy (in SEA high platinum level) I can safely say that most zergs below masters will die to it if they aren't particularly experienced at dealing with it. Hydralisks are easily outmanoeuvred, Corruptors are highly inefficient to voids/carriers and infestors can only really screw you up if you let them.
That said, something to worry about is being caught off guard against too large a muta flock, particularly if they go for your stargates first. Usually you will find the spire/small number of mutalisks to give yourself phoenix production time, but if they catch you with too many voids it's a death for you. Fighting near the cannons makes the mutas much less capable however, and with this build you should have tons of cannons.
Something I find beneficial to add with this build is an observer after a few void rays to push back creep. It really slows down their push, and makes them only have two resorts: hydra drops or nydus, both of which can countered easily enough with a roaming void ray.
On July 10 2012 20:50 xAdra wrote: After playing a couple of games with this strategy (in SEA high platinum level) I can safely say that most zergs below masters will die to it if they aren't particularly experienced at dealing with it. Hydralisks are easily outmanoeuvred, Corruptors are highly inefficient to voids/carriers and infestors can only really screw you up if you let them.
That said, something to worry about is being caught off guard against too large a muta flock, particularly if they go for your stargates first. Usually you will find the spire/small number of mutalisks to give yourself phoenix production time, but if they catch you with too many voids it's a death for you. Fighting near the cannons makes the mutas much less capable however, and with this build you should have tons of cannons.
Something I find beneficial to add with this build is an observer after a few void rays to push back creep. It really slows down their push, and makes them only have two resorts: hydra drops or nydus, both of which can countered easily enough with a roaming void ray.
Definitively agree with this. Mass muta switch can be really painful, but if you protect your stargates, even two of them can pump out a lot of phoenixes in a relatively short time. Also, don't forget that range upgrade
I have been playing with switching from airtoss into ground once I get my third safely. I still feel this is the biggest advantage of this build, you know, safe three bases, safety from all the different early and mid game all ins and the such. I know I'm terrible btw, this is against diamond zergs :D
Here's a game of me playing and winning against mass muta switch: http://drop.sc/218003
I would like for more higher level players to comment if this is really a solid way to play. I for one find it fun and effective. It's nice to be able to use almost all the protoss units in a single game
^ Btw Shikada have a point. Right now usually toss go Robo-sentry to try and take 3rd (if not allin), but if you go stargate into fast MS with the fast MS and gateway army (only produce 1 phx off SG to scout). So this can probably be a different tech into thirds, so when your third is Up+ms you can transition into gateway-robo play w/ Ms and/or recall. (most probably mass blink stalker-recall). Sounds reasonable, no?
Here another game I played :D I got the mamaship early this time (stargate->beacon->stargate->third) The Zerg thought he could go muta with 3 base but NOPE :D
Well Rimak, that's not what I do exactly, since I like to play with void rays until my third is up. Basically, double stargates, harass with 4 VRs and then I'll usually amass like 10 or 12 of them and then switch to carriers. I continue making carriers all the time, slowly, since I remain on two stargates, and I never remake VRs once I lose them. I believe this early air play makes zerg go into very focused and predictable tech paths, to stay alive. The end result is that my third will never even by at risk, which is never true in standard PvZ.
Eventually I'll come to the perfect late game composition against zerg that all the pros now do, that is MS, blink stalkers, colossus, archons and a few carriers. The significant difference is that my air units will have very good upgrades by then.
I like going up to 10 voids or so off of 3 stargates and then throw down like 10 extra gates and take my 4th off of that. If the zerg overmakes corrupters your ground army crushes him and if he makes to much ground force your v rays kill him, so he has to have the perfect unit comibination to fight this.
On July 10 2012 23:02 -MoOsE- wrote: I like going up to 10 voids or so off of 3 stargates and then throw down like 10 extra gates and take my 4th off of that. If the zerg overmakes corrupters your ground army crushes him and if he makes to much ground force your v rays kill him, so he has to have the perfect unit comibination to fight this.
Yeah MoOsE, that's the plan
A simple rule I use is, if he makes too many corruptors, make gateways and stalkers, if he goes mass hydras then I throw down two robos and start double colossus production and focus on gateways later. HTs with storm after that, no matter his composition. You're going to need archons anyway.
Whatever the case, I believe now that transitioning into ground in some way is preferable than staying only in air.
Good feedback Shikada. I particularly agree with your assertion that the third will never be at risk, which is a real bliss compared to standard PvZ where those roaches (hate those things) are knocking at your door all day long. I'll watch your replays real soon, but I'm only plat so I don't think I'm a very good judge of skill
However, I feel that switching to mass ground, while definitely a good idea in practice, is not very comfortable to me at the moment because I can never fit in the ground upgrades. Anyone give me some advice on this? Also, how do you feel about using warp prisms+dts to strike where your voids aren't (to form a sort of double pronged attack)?
Also, I have to add that I made an account just to post on this thread, because of how much this strategy has made my PvZ more bearable. Call me lazy if you want, but I have had enough of trying to counter the roach remax. Being sick and tired of such a thing, skytoss has helped me make sure that I never lay my eyes on any mass roach armies ever again.
I actually go pure air with fast ups every game. The only ground I add is high templar in the late-game. (Well, I occasionally add some zealot warpings for harrassment.) I have a >90% winrate vs top8 diamonds.
I can tell you with 100% certainty that you don't need to transition to ground to have a ridiculous success rate vs top8 diamond and low masters. It might be nice for some reasons, but I really like having a pure air army, because any time there's dead space on a map my forces sing. They fly in from the darkness and rape a base.
By the way, if you guys aren't flying into an expo or the main every 100 energy on the MS, and focusing hatches immediately, completely ignoring all spores until the hatch is dead, you're seriously missing out. I basically get a guaranteed hatch kill every 100 energy. It completely wrecks the zerg's mindset. Even 4-6 spores won't delay me, because I focus the hatch first (maybe lose 1 void), then go on to kill spores -if- his army hasn't showed up yet.
On July 11 2012 05:02 trbot wrote: I actually go pure air with fast ups every game. The only ground I add is high templar in the late-game. (Well, I occasionally add some zealot warpings for harrassment.) I have a >90% winrate vs top8 diamonds.
I can tell you with 100% certainty that you don't need to transition to ground to have a ridiculous success rate vs top8 diamond and low masters. It might be nice for some reasons, but I really like having a pure air army, because any time there's dead space on a map my forces sing. They fly in from the darkness and rape a base.
By the way, if you guys aren't flying into an expo or the main every 100 energy on the MS, and focusing hatches immediately, completely ignoring all spores until the hatch is dead, you're seriously missing out. I basically get a guaranteed hatch kill every 100 energy. It completely wrecks the zerg's mindset. Even 4-6 spores won't delay me, because I focus the hatch first (maybe lose 1 void), then go on to kill spores -if- his army hasn't showed up yet.
Well yes, nothing against pure air style, I have been playing that for a while now. While it's very fun, I feel it also has its disadvantages. A maxed corruptor infestor army trades quite good against it. There is also the very real threat of MS sniping with corruptors, as another poster identified. One bad engagement and you're pretty much dead, as it's very slow and costly to rebuild an air army. And while storm is a must and it helps a lot, smart players will fly their corruptors into your army so if you storm you're storming your units too.
Now with ground added to the mix, I feel it gives you more flexibility, in a way that it's easier to exploit many unit compositions zerg will make. If he overproduces corruptors you go ground, if he goes roach hydra for some reason you stay air, if he goes mass infestor hydra and some corruptors you can stay air and use storms to win, etc. I also believe it's more efficient in regards to mineral usage. I mean there's only so many cannons you can build until it's just wasteful to make more, while there are many good options if you have gateways.
In the end air is proven to work ok in diamond and to some degree in masters. Maybe air into ground can work even in GM, who knows? I sure don't :D
The fundamental problem with staying mass air is that Void Rays are supposed to be your counter to Corruptors, but they don't actually function that way. The Corruptors will win that fight before the Voids are charged, and rarely will engagements begin with your Voids charged up. There's also the issue that Corruptors can focus fire down the Voids and do their full damage, whereas if Voids do that they don't charge up because they're changing targets constantly.
I think Voids are always going to be at least somewhat useful because they can defend bases and you can build them to help deter/punish Roach pushes and all-ins, or to go out and snipe a hatch/apply some kind of pressure. But as a standing army, I'm just not using them anymore. It doesn't work as a core army unit; its job is to shoot down armored antiair and it doesn't actually do that effectively against Corruptors. So I would much rather use Stalkers in this role; even though they aren't high DPS, they actually do counter Corruptors and they don't use the charge mechanic, which is basically terrible for maxed army fights. So I am definitely a fan of Stalker/Carrier/HT here because the Stalkers are a hell of a lot more reliable than Void Rays in major engagements.
On July 11 2012 06:01 Shikada wrote: A maxed corruptor infestor army trades quite good against it. There is also the very real threat of MS sniping with corruptors, as another poster identified.
I actually disagree with this.. When you have ht mixed in, you can feedback the hell out of his infestors, and the corruptors melt instantly. I frequently face off with a maxed infestor corruptor army and, after the battle, he has 120 supply to my 180. As for mothership sniping, I guarantee he will lose his entire army if he tries. I leave my mothership over 12 cannons at all times. This has happened before (see the first replay I posted a few pages back), and I just obliterate his army then kill him since I lost essentially nothing. This is how it goes. Zerg flies up to my mothership, getting fired upon by 12 cannons. I recall my army. He kills my mothership, and by the time he's done, I've obliterated his entire army and lost 10-20 supply, -tops-.
On July 11 2012 06:01 Shikada wrote: One bad engagement and you're pretty much dead, as it's very slow and costly to rebuild an air army. And while storm is a must and it helps a lot, smart players will fly their corruptors into your army so if you storm you're storming your units too.
I'll never be in a bad engagement because I can recall out. As for rebuilding an air army, I've actually never needed to. I've played about 30 games with this style, and I've rarely lost more than 40 supply in my worst battles. (Note that I'm engaging with a close-to-maxed army.) As for corruptors flying into your army, that happened in one of the replays I posted earlier, too... It turns out carriers can withstand storms far better than his corruptors can... =) There might be some kind of magic boxing zerg could do, but I think that would make voids hyper effective (since each will target the closest corruptor and get a full charge quickly).
As for people saying that corruptors do well vs voids, when it's large numbers vs large numbers, they absolutely don't. Try it in the unit tester... 37 voids vs 56 corruptors with equal upgrades ends with 17-20 voids left with no micro. Even if the corruptors use corruption when the battle starts, it isn't much different. If you mix a few archons in, it becomes a complete roflstomp. If he magicboxes to avoid storm, it's FAR worse, with almost all voids surviving.
I have a few questions that you can maybe answer, and watching this replay should help as well. This is a 500 point NA masters game, so relatively low masters. Some questions I have:
When do you get your macro nexus? Do you double cycore? When do you work in phoenii for scouting, after the first couple of voids? I have a lot of downtime during this part of the game, I feel it should be then. When do you begin your transition to storm, and carriers?
I have several nasty engagements because my carriers and storm are too late, should I be getting them earlier? I could easily have lost this game, and it's got me worried that I need to improve.
On July 11 2012 08:58 trbot wrote: As for people saying that corruptors do well vs voids, when it's large numbers vs large numbers, they absolutely don't. Try it in the unit tester... 37 voids vs 56 corruptors with equal upgrades ends with 17-20 voids left with no micro. Even if the corruptors use corruption when the battle starts, it isn't much different. If you mix a few archons in, it becomes a complete roflstomp. If he magicboxes to avoid storm, it's FAR worse, with almost all voids surviving.
To piggy-back off this, I want to point out the numbers involved. Corruptors only get bonus damage against massive, not armored, so against void rays they have a dps of 7.4 (+0.5). Void rays, however, even without being charged, get a bonus vs armored and have a dps against corruptors of 16.7 (+1.7). If they get charged, that goes up to 26.6 (+3.4). Void rays do really well against corruptors, and scale much better with upgrades as well. Throw some carriers behind them and it's not even funny how quickly corruptors die.
Seeing as how void rays have more health than corruptors (150 health + 100 shields vs just 200 health), the only thing the corruptors have going for them is their 2 base armor, which honestly doesn't help all that much at all. If you're on 3 or 4 base with as many stargates and you're not producing void rays to counter the corruptor threat, you are doing Skytoss all wrong.
On July 11 2012 09:22 ThaReckoning wrote: I have a few questions that you can maybe answer, and watching this replay should help as well. This is a 500 point NA masters game, so relatively low masters. Some questions I have:
When do you get your macro nexus? Do you double cycore? When do you work in phoenii for scouting, after the first couple of voids? I have a lot of downtime during this part of the game, I feel it should be then. When do you begin your transition to storm, and carriers?
I have several nasty engagements because my carriers and storm are too late, should I be getting them earlier? I could easily have lost this game, and it's got me worried that I need to improve.
Small note from someone who speaks Latin and is rather finicky about etymology: phoenii isn't a word. In English, plural of phoenix is either phoenix or phoenixes, in Latin, plural of phoenīx is phoenīcēs, so no phoenii. Just to add to the confusion, though, nexi is an acceptable pluralization of nexus (technically nexī, but I can forgive the lack of accent marks in ASCII).
Anywho, more towards the point at hand:
- Macro nexus, if applicable, should be going down shortly after your natural expansion finishes. - I very often double cyber core, but not always. If I have the extra chrono of a macro nexus, then I always do. I don't have any strict criterion for this one, though, you just gotta kind of wing it. - I always go phoenix first, before any void rays. Unless I'm being roach rushed and I absolutely need that void ray out, the 35 seconds to build a phoenix (25 with chrono) doesn't delay anything, and earliest scouting information is always the best scouting information. - Transition into storm/carriers is entirely dependent upon your opponent's anti-air choices. Hydras, because they are so slow off creep, are generally a defensive unit and you are somewhat safe just straight massing carriers against them off of 4 SGs. Corruptors require more void rays in your composition, thus less SGs, and thus a faster transition to storm. Against infestors I cut all void ray production immediately, make carriers off the stargates I have, and transition as fast as possible to HTs.
On July 11 2012 07:46 ineversmile wrote: The fundamental problem with staying mass air is that Void Rays are supposed to be your counter to Corruptors, but they don't actually function that way. The Corruptors will win that fight before the Voids are charged, and rarely will engagements begin with your Voids charged up. There's also the issue that Corruptors can focus fire down the Voids and do their full damage, whereas if Voids do that they don't charge up because they're changing targets constantly.
I think Voids are always going to be at least somewhat useful because they can defend bases and you can build them to help deter/punish Roach pushes and all-ins, or to go out and snipe a hatch/apply some kind of pressure. But as a standing army, I'm just not using them anymore. It doesn't work as a core army unit; its job is to shoot down armored antiair and it doesn't actually do that effectively against Corruptors. So I would much rather use Stalkers in this role; even though they aren't high DPS, they actually do counter Corruptors and they don't use the charge mechanic, which is basically terrible for maxed army fights. So I am definitely a fan of Stalker/Carrier/HT here because the Stalkers are a hell of a lot more reliable than Void Rays in major engagements.
You shouldnt fight corrupters with pure VR in direct fight. You MUST have archon if you want to fight face to face. And templars should storm the infestor. Stalkers are not that good.
I haven't looked at the replays yet or tried this on ladder, but I watched that Proleague game and my mind is blown. Zergs will wish for the Stalker, Colossus deathball if this ever becomes semi standard.
On July 11 2012 07:46 ineversmile wrote: The fundamental problem with staying mass air is that Void Rays are supposed to be your counter to Corruptors, but they don't actually function that way. The Corruptors will win that fight before the Voids are charged, and rarely will engagements begin with your Voids charged up. There's also the issue that Corruptors can focus fire down the Voids and do their full damage, whereas if Voids do that they don't charge up because they're changing targets constantly.
I think Voids are always going to be at least somewhat useful because they can defend bases and you can build them to help deter/punish Roach pushes and all-ins, or to go out and snipe a hatch/apply some kind of pressure. But as a standing army, I'm just not using them anymore. It doesn't work as a core army unit; its job is to shoot down armored antiair and it doesn't actually do that effectively against Corruptors. So I would much rather use Stalkers in this role; even though they aren't high DPS, they actually do counter Corruptors and they don't use the charge mechanic, which is basically terrible for maxed army fights. So I am definitely a fan of Stalker/Carrier/HT here because the Stalkers are a hell of a lot more reliable than Void Rays in major engagements.
You shouldnt fight corrupters with pure VR in direct fight. You MUST have archon if you want to fight face to face. And templars should storm the infestor.
Wat.
Gonna go ahead and completely disagree with you there. As long as you're not outnumbered 2 to 1, VRs should have no problem taking on corruptors mano a mano. See a couple posts up regarding the numbers.
Also, storm should go on the corruptors and hydras... feedbacks are more efficient on infestors because even though you don't get the AoE damage, it depletes the infestors of energy, so that even if they survive with a few hitpoints they are still useless. Only when large groups of infestors clump up is storm more efficient than feedback.
I met this just one game ago on Antiga shipyard. It might have a lot of potential, but I have a few questions for the OP of this build, as the player I met just crumbled hardcore in the midgame, and never ever managed to secure his fourth base.
Your opponent scouts you going air, thats all cool and fine. Now your opponent makes a decent round of Zerglings, and plants them in a split out fashion on your third before the base goes up. Your Voidrays/Phoenix did no real damage worth mentioning. At this point Zerg is taking a fourth base aswell, in the middle at the gold, as a standard reaction to the heavy air play.
- Behind this Zerg has made a spire and an infestation pit, planning to make 6-10 corrupters to scout your base to see if you really are going mass air, or making a Robo transition.
Exactly what are you going to do? If you pull your units back to clean up the speedlings, my fourth base finish. If you just use the Mothership that pops out, it'll take a good while to clean up the lings. When burrow finishes, it becomes even more troublesome.Then again, this wasn't my main concern with the build. Even if you do some damage and your third is not delayed, later on I'm going to have a ring of vision around your base. I'll see the minute you move out and try to engage your army as close to your base as I can with my Infestor/Corrupter mix. I'll have gone double spire for upgrades, and keep on tossing stuff at you to keep you on three bases. I'll happily sacrifice some corrupters for a Mothership/Carriers, because Voidrays just melt to Infestor play. Assuming your opponent is on equal skill with you, and will do anything he can to force you to stay in your base in the security of cannons, how would you stop him from taking the map?
On July 11 2012 07:46 ineversmile wrote: The fundamental problem with staying mass air is that Void Rays are supposed to be your counter to Corruptors, but they don't actually function that way. The Corruptors will win that fight before the Voids are charged, and rarely will engagements begin with your Voids charged up. There's also the issue that Corruptors can focus fire down the Voids and do their full damage, whereas if Voids do that they don't charge up because they're changing targets constantly.
I think Voids are always going to be at least somewhat useful because they can defend bases and you can build them to help deter/punish Roach pushes and all-ins, or to go out and snipe a hatch/apply some kind of pressure. But as a standing army, I'm just not using them anymore. It doesn't work as a core army unit; its job is to shoot down armored antiair and it doesn't actually do that effectively against Corruptors. So I would much rather use Stalkers in this role; even though they aren't high DPS, they actually do counter Corruptors and they don't use the charge mechanic, which is basically terrible for maxed army fights. So I am definitely a fan of Stalker/Carrier/HT here because the Stalkers are a hell of a lot more reliable than Void Rays in major engagements.
You shouldnt fight corrupters with pure VR in direct fight. You MUST have archon if you want to fight face to face. And templars should storm the infestor.
Wat.
Gonna go ahead and completely disagree with you there. As long as you're not outnumbered 2 to 1, VRs should have no problem taking on corruptors mano a mano. See a couple posts up regarding the numbers.
Also, storm should go on the corruptors and hydras... feedbacks are more efficient on infestors because even though you don't get the AoE damage, it depletes the infestors of energy, so that even if they survive with a few hitpoints they are still useless. Only when large groups of infestors clump up is storm more efficient than feedback.
I agre with what you are saying. Sorry for misguiding you. Yes When I was saying about archons i mean when corruptors overwhelm you, in even numbers VR destroy them, no chance. And also i agree about feedback and infestor, should've add that storming infestor is better than feedback if there is 15+ infestor. I won't comment about hydra resistance to storm
Speaking about stalkers what i was trying to say, that i really think that there is just too much of EVERYTHING PvZ is going on around them, so though they are good as a unit a refreshing view of stalkerless PvZ is also possible, that's why I like skytoss so much. I'll try to be more specific on my thought from now on. ty.
On July 11 2012 15:49 Xana wrote: I met this just one game ago on Antiga shipyard. It might have a lot of potential, but I have a few questions for the OP of this build, as the player I met just crumbled hardcore in the midgame, and never ever managed to secure his fourth base.
Your opponent scouts you going air, thats all cool and fine. Now your opponent makes a decent round of Zerglings, and plants them in a split out fashion on your third before the base goes up. Your Voidrays/Phoenix did no real damage worth mentioning. At this point Zerg is taking a fourth base aswell, in the middle at the gold, as a standard reaction to the heavy air play.
There are two defining ways for the Protoss to take a third with Skytoss. One is behind pressure, which means 2 stargate worth of attacking units. If you send those out on the map, the 4th isn't going up. Even 1 Void Ray and 5 Phoenixes will deter that for a while until queens start walking off creep in large groups. The whole point of sending out pressure is to stop the zerg from taking a 4th and to pick off Queens to deny the production, since you're essentially conceding drone harassment when you do this. If you send out pressure, you get a later third but you're getting upgrades and a fleet going, and you can use your fleet to clear the lings away for your third.
The other way to take a third is to get a very fast mothership, which is essentially where the Toss starts a third nexus either as a macro nexus or a (calculated) risky third base, boosts the Mothership out 5 times, and uses the cloaking field to protect his third while cannons and production get powered up for further defense. If this happens, the zerg can take a 4th, but again the protoss can still go send out a Void and some Phoenixes to temporarily deny it until a big group of queens comes over to protect it. You don't need more than one stargate to produce that army quickly if you're sitting on triple nexus for chronoboost. In fact, it's pretty standard to get a phoenix to scout, then a void for defense while you wait for your mothership to arive (park the void over the third), then 4 more phoenixes for queen-hunting.
The bottomline is that, without a dedicated attack from the zerg (beyond a couple dozen lings at the third), the toss will get his third and the zerg will eventually get a fourth, but it's the protoss's job to slow down the 4th while it controls the sky.
- Behind this Zerg has made a spire and an infestation pit, planning to make 6-10 corrupters to scout your base to see if you really are going mass air, or making a Robo transition.
Exactly what are you going to do? If you pull your units back to clean up the speedlings, my fourth base finish. If you just use the Mothership that pops out, it'll take a good while to clean up the lings. When burrow finishes, it becomes even more troublesome.Then again, this wasn't my main concern with the build. Even if you do some damage and your third is not delayed, later on I'm going to have a ring of vision around your base. I'll see the minute you move out and try to engage your army as close to your base as I can with my Infestor/Corrupter mix. I'll have gone double spire for upgrades, and keep on tossing stuff at you to keep you on three bases. I'll happily sacrifice some corrupters for a Mothership/Carriers, because Voidrays just melt to Infestor play. Assuming your opponent is on equal skill with you, and will do anything he can to force you to stay in your base in the security of cannons, how would you stop him from taking the map?
The point of the Phoenix harass, which comes pre-spire and pre-infestors, is to kill queens. If you kill some queens, the other queens have to focus on injects while new ones are built. That means less creep tumors, which means slower creep spread, which means more time for the toss to get a Robo, an obs, and start controlling tumors with one Void/Zealot and one Obs rolling around the map. You don't need an army to slow down creep tumors; one unit does just fine.
The goal is to move out when the timing is strong. Good move-out timings include:
-Level 2 air weapons attacks with carriers (this comes really fast if you rush to carriers) -Level 3 air weapons attacks with carriers -200 food max-out -A 300 food push where you trade armies as effeciently as properly and then remax; often (but not always) to a different unit mix -Having AoE with the army -Any time the mothership has ~90 energy, which is almost enough for a Recall (or if you want to be safe, enough for a Recall and almost enough for a Vortex, so 190) -You can also create timing windows with multipronged aggression, such as sending a fleet out in one way and attacking with warp prisms/blink stalkers in 2 other spots.
That doesn't mean all of the timings will work; it's just potential move-out windows, just like stim finishing or having 2 Colossi with range.
I know we're both speaking a lot in theory and things don't always work out in games they way they do on paper, but hopefully I was able to give you some insight into some of the Protoss's plans to deal with the Zerg's lings-->4th-->Infestor/Corruptor max-out for map control.
On July 11 2012 15:49 Xana wrote: Your opponent scouts you going air, thats all cool and fine. Now your opponent makes a decent round of Zerglings, and plants them in a split out fashion on your third before the base goes up.
You didn't mention if they were burrowed or not. If zerg rushed burrow his econ will be hurt pretty badly, just make 1 cannon first and it's justified imo. Use your void rays/zealots to constantly clip at them and thin out the numbers while making the third.
On July 11 2012 15:49 Xana wrote: Your Voidrays/Phoenix did no real damage worth mentioning. At this point Zerg is taking a fourth base aswell, in the middle at the gold, as a standard reaction to the heavy air play.
I don't see the problem here, this is the standard progression. Often times I don't even send my units across the map to attempt damage.
On July 11 2012 15:49 Xana wrote: Your opponent scouts you going air, thats all cool and fine. Now your opponent makes a decent round of Zerglings, and plants them in a split out fashion on your third before the base goes up.
You didn't mention if they were burrowed or not. If zerg rushed burrow his econ will be hurt pretty badly, just make 1 cannon first and it's justified imo. Use your void rays/zealots to constantly clip at them and thin out the numbers while making the third.
On July 11 2012 15:49 Xana wrote: Your Voidrays/Phoenix did no real damage worth mentioning. At this point Zerg is taking a fourth base aswell, in the middle at the gold, as a standard reaction to the heavy air play.
I don't see the problem here, this is the standard progression. Often times I don't even send my units across the map to attempt damage.
On July 11 2012 15:49 Xana wrote: - Behind this Zerg has made a spire and an infestation pit, planning to make 6-10 corrupters to scout your base to see if you really are going mass air, or making a Robo transition.
Exactly what are you going to do? If you pull your units back to clean up the speedlings, my fourth base finish. If you just use the Mothership that pops out, it'll take a good while to clean up the lings. When burrow finishes, it becomes even more troublesome.Then again, this wasn't my main concern with the build. Even if you do some damage and your third is not delayed, later on I'm going to have a ring of vision around your base. I'll see the minute you move out and try to engage your army as close to your base as I can with my Infestor/Corrupter mix. I'll have gone double spire for upgrades, and keep on tossing stuff at you to keep you on three bases. I'll happily sacrifice some corrupters for a Mothership/Carriers, because Voidrays just melt to Infestor play. Assuming your opponent is on equal skill with you, and will do anything he can to force you to stay in your base in the security of cannons, how would you stop him from taking the map?
This is pretty broad and hard to answer, however, I think you are underestimating the strength of the army, overall. ineversmile mentions some plausible timing windows.\
Here is a game I played against a similar style to the one you described. http://drop.sc/218616
On July 11 2012 17:09 ineversmile wrote:
The goal is to move out when the timing is strong. Good move-out timings include:
-Level 2 air weapons attacks with carriers (this comes really fast if you rush to carriers) -Level 3 air weapons attacks with carriers -200 food max-out -A 300 food push where you trade armies as effeciently as properly and then remax; often (but not always) to a different unit mix -Having AoE with the army -Any time the mothership has ~90 energy, which is almost enough for a Recall (or if you want to be safe, enough for a Recall and almost enough for a Vortex, so 190) -You can also create timing windows with multipronged aggression, such as sending a fleet out in one way and attacking with warp prisms/blink stalkers in 2 other spots.
That doesn't mean all of the timings will work; it's just potential move-out windows, just like stim finishing or having 2 Colossi with range.
I know we're both speaking a lot in theory and things don't always work out in games they way they do on paper, but hopefully I was able to give you some insight into some of the Protoss's plans to deal with the Zerg's lings-->4th-->Infestor/Corruptor max-out for map control.
A long time ago I already voiced my opinion on this build (being that it probably is not viable) but after revisiting this thread a couple of times over the last few times I have been giving it more thought... unfortunately my opinion remains unchanged because I have been going through the majority of the replays you provided and... well... I'm not sure how to put this nicely, but all your opponents suck really fucking hard.
When you have no ground army, zerg forces are not hindered by pathing and void ray dps isn't that great against lings, this makes me wonder what would happen if a zerg just ran a bunch of speedlings through your base. You don't seem to like sentries (or gateways) that much but instead favor cannons for this type of thing. You don't start making additional cannons early enough to fend off possible ling attacks, though.
Take for example the replay you provided in the post right above this one. Your opponent, a supposedly #13 master, plays more like a platinum to me (up to the point where I had to stop watching the replay halfway through because nothing would be strategically relevant anymore due to your opponent's inability to play even semi-decent). You take an extremely early 3rd directly under his overlord (was it 8-9 minutes?). He does absolutely nothing. In fact, he doesn't even have speed started. What I wonder is what would happen if he made 20 to 30 speedlings and forced a cancel on your 3rd, or what would happen if he would do any sort of run-by, or just any sort of timing attacks with anti-air (infestors mainly as hydra aren't that great). This never seems to happen in your games.
haha yeah I mean I'm probably getting some silly breaks due to metagame, and I never denied that.
On July 11 2012 21:52 the p00n wrote: When you have no ground army, zerg forces are not hindered by pathing and void ray dps isn't that great against lings, this makes me wonder what would happen if a zerg just ran a bunch of speedlings through your base. You don't seem to like sentries (or gateways) that much but instead favor cannons for this type of thing. You don't start making additional cannons early enough to fend off possible ling attacks, though.
I'm getting really good at placing cannons in each mineral line and walling them in with pylons, it does wonders against a runby. Sometimes, I forget, and I'm also not sure of the exact timing of when I need to make these, but it's not like it can't be dealt with.
On July 11 2012 21:52 the p00n wrote:What I wonder is what would happen if he made 20 to 30 speedlings and forced a cancel on your 3rd, or what would happen if he would do any sort of run-by, or just any sort of timing attacks with anti-air (infestors mainly as hydra aren't that great). This never seems to happen in your games.
what would happen is he would have 100% have 10-15 less drones, he would possibly force a cancel, depending on our execution/micro, and then it would just go right back up except a minute later, with slower econs for both of us. I mean, its a turtle build and not some sharp timing, so its not like instant GG if the third is delayed a little.
- Macro nexus, if applicable, should be going down shortly after your natural expansion finishes. - I very often double cyber core, but not always. If I have the extra chrono of a macro nexus, then I always do. I don't have any strict criterion for this one, though, you just gotta kind of wing it. - I always go phoenix first, before any void rays. Unless I'm being roach rushed and I absolutely need that void ray out, the 35 seconds to build a phoenix (25 with chrono) doesn't delay anything, and earliest scouting information is always the best scouting information. - Transition into storm/carriers is entirely dependent upon your opponent's anti-air choices. Hydras, because they are so slow off creep, are generally a defensive unit and you are somewhat safe just straight massing carriers against them off of 4 SGs. Corruptors require more void rays in your composition, thus less SGs, and thus a faster transition to storm. Against infestors I cut all void ray production immediately, make carriers off the stargates I have, and transition as fast as possible to HTs.
mkay so about that macro nexus... its not really possible to have enough mins for when the nex finishes unless you completely skip the zealot attack, and any units beyond the first unit and any cannons in addition to the first cannon.
Let me make sure I'm clear, your plan is to have 1 zealot and 1 cannon the entire time between starting your nex and about a minute after it finishes? GL surviving any 2 base low tech aggression. Right as my nexus finishes, i'm usually very very starved for minerals. I find that I actually have to pull guys off of gas after getting my plus 1 ground attack up.
including the +1 2 gate zealot attack really really helps with this play, it in fact, gives you more gas to do the fleet beacon cuz you delay stargates until you basically got all your gas going. You put down cyber then collect all your gasses.
And to anyone who says voidrays are bad vs corruptors.... LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL omfg, The only thing voids are more cost effective against is roaches haha. It wouldn't suprise me if a maxed army of void rays could defeat a maxed army of corruptors, and then wait for a remax, and defeat that again without reinforcements.
- Macro nexus, if applicable, should be going down shortly after your natural expansion finishes. - I very often double cyber core, but not always. If I have the extra chrono of a macro nexus, then I always do. I don't have any strict criterion for this one, though, you just gotta kind of wing it. - I always go phoenix first, before any void rays. Unless I'm being roach rushed and I absolutely need that void ray out, the 35 seconds to build a phoenix (25 with chrono) doesn't delay anything, and earliest scouting information is always the best scouting information. - Transition into storm/carriers is entirely dependent upon your opponent's anti-air choices. Hydras, because they are so slow off creep, are generally a defensive unit and you are somewhat safe just straight massing carriers against them off of 4 SGs. Corruptors require more void rays in your composition, thus less SGs, and thus a faster transition to storm. Against infestors I cut all void ray production immediately, make carriers off the stargates I have, and transition as fast as possible to HTs.
And to anyone who says voidrays are bad vs corruptors.... LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL omfg, The only thing voids are more cost effective against is roaches haha. It wouldn't suprise me if a maxed army of void rays could defeat a maxed army of corruptors, and then wait for a remax, and defeat that again without reinforcements.
Agreed! Also, I think that max upgrades benefit voids better than corruptors (3 upgrades, super expensive, instead of 2) Storms help make it so one-sided that it's painful to watch. In fact, in that link, Squirtle uses carriers extremely cost-effectively against the zerg player, thanks to HTs to feedback + storm everything to shit. I wish I played protoss haha.
Well the thing about upgrading voids is that sometimes when you upgrade the attack they kill the unit before getting a full charge. in a void vs void battle, un upgraded voids beat fully upped attack voids. You have to test vs corruptors, but I guess as long as they are getting armor upgrades as well it would be fine.
Carrier HT is just about unbeatable, with any race against it. the problem is, is that interceptors themselves are very cost ineffective. Basically, any army can just kill the interceptors cost effectively, so there isn't even a need to go for the carriers really. When you add in HT, though, then you are owning all shit.
Just feel like if this is done even stronger by GM players, I lose. Also, I think this build is largely dependant on catching your opponent by surprise and not a solid macro strat which you can use for all games in a BO5 for example.
- Macro nexus, if applicable, should be going down shortly after your natural expansion finishes. - I very often double cyber core, but not always. If I have the extra chrono of a macro nexus, then I always do. I don't have any strict criterion for this one, though, you just gotta kind of wing it. - I always go phoenix first, before any void rays. Unless I'm being roach rushed and I absolutely need that void ray out, the 35 seconds to build a phoenix (25 with chrono) doesn't delay anything, and earliest scouting information is always the best scouting information. - Transition into storm/carriers is entirely dependent upon your opponent's anti-air choices. Hydras, because they are so slow off creep, are generally a defensive unit and you are somewhat safe just straight massing carriers against them off of 4 SGs. Corruptors require more void rays in your composition, thus less SGs, and thus a faster transition to storm. Against infestors I cut all void ray production immediately, make carriers off the stargates I have, and transition as fast as possible to HTs.
mkay so about that macro nexus... its not really possible to have enough mins for when the nex finishes unless you completely skip the zealot attack, and any units beyond the first unit and any cannons in addition to the first cannon.
Let me make sure I'm clear, your plan is to have 1 zealot and 1 cannon the entire time between starting your nex and about a minute after it finishes? GL surviving any 2 base low tech aggression. Right as my nexus finishes, i'm usually very very starved for minerals. I find that I actually have to pull guys off of gas after getting my plus 1 ground attack up.
I agree with this being wrong. You should get a Sentry and a Void Ray at minimum and then get Phoenixes after the defensive void, and then you can warp in a second Sentry and have about 4 forcefields and a bit of time to sim-city backwards while your void deals with pressure. I only advocate the zealot as a way to plug a gap in a wall-off; on some maps I would rather just skip it.
including the +1 2 gate zealot attack really really helps with this play, it in fact, gives you more gas to do the fleet beacon cuz you delay stargates until you basically got all your gas going. You put down cyber then collect all your gasses.
I like the Zealot timings with this build too; I just don't always use them because I like to have a variety of builds.
And to anyone who says voidrays are bad vs corruptors.... LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL omfg, The only thing voids are more cost effective against is roaches haha. It wouldn't suprise me if a maxed army of void rays could defeat a maxed army of corruptors, and then wait for a remax, and defeat that again without reinforcements.
-Corruptors move faster than Void Rays, so they can control the engagements. -With the corruption ability on, a Corruptor does 7.4 DPS times 120%=8.88 DPS. Since it's a 2-food unit, you could say it does 4.44 DPS per supply. -An uncharged Void Ray does 10+4=14 DPS vs armored. Since it's a 3-food unit, you could say it does 4.666667 DPS per supply.
That's favorable for void rays, but not that favorable. In an even fight without charge, Void are going to trade favorably against Corruptors, but then in the remax stage your opponent will have a maxed army almost instantaneously while you're rebuilding your army. Even if you win the guessing game with composition choice, you need a huge bank and tons of stargates to match their remax within a minute and a half, and in that timing window they can go across the map and do a lot of damage.
Now, obviously the goal is to fight Corruptors with Voids and Storm and Archons and Mothership support, but I'm really sick of people trying to tell me that Voids beat the crap out of Corruptors on their own. They don't. They marginally win the fight without upgrade advantages and, with them, they only get exponentially better while charged. The Corruptors can shift-click focus fire and then run away when charge happens, whereas if voids shift-click focus fire they're not going to charge up very well and the fight will remain relatively even. Sure, I want to imagine that I'm always going to fight Corruptors with even food Void Rays and with caster support and Archons, but that's just not realistic. I need to be able to count on my army in situations where things are scrappy and uneven, and that's the flaw in massing Voids. Believe me, there's a few flaws in using stalkers as the core of your army, but right now I stand on the stalker side of the trade-off fence because they're just a more trustworthy unit. And, most of all, Stalkers run the same pace as Corruptors and they get blink, which means they can chase them down and kill units for free. Voids don't do that unless you fight at their base and they run away whie you kill buildings...aka winning more when you're already winning.
On July 12 2012 05:20 Daimai wrote: This replay made me lose faith of this build: http://drop.sc/218765
You can't blame the build, you made so many mistakes...
Macro-wise, it's not pretty, 17' into the game and you're still barely at 60 probes.
Your build wasn't optimal, you started your mothership a bit too late ( around 10' ) while you're floating tons of gas. I'm pretty sure you could have started it 30s earlier while keeping the same pressure. In addition, you started your third 30s too late ( you were floating minerals during your attack, but only started the third after your snipped the hatch.. ). So you're lagging behind by a whole minute to set your third up, which means that when Zerg countered, you were not ready to defend, and had to cancel.. but okay, you were still in the game at that stage.
On this map you should have walled off the ramp at the natural. And put many more cannons there. you lose the game because at 15', Zerg attacks a second time and that's where it gets ugly. You vortex him but he splits his army in two, one half goes to prevent your third, the other half remains in the vortex, and you get indecisive about what to do. In the end you kill a couple of his units while your third gets killed a second time, we're now around 16' and you still don't have a third up and running. Had you got a wall-off at the natural, this would have been impossible.
This build relies on canons and sim-city to properly defend your bases. You can't defend your natural with just a single canon, you have to dump your mineral excess into a lot more canons everywhere..
@Damai: I also don't like how you forced your opponent into hydra/roach, then decided to continue making Void Rays instead of Carriers before his push that killed your third. You could have wrecked the Hydras with Carriers and votexed his Roaches to potentially save your third, but instead you had Voids fighting Hydras at a way less efficient manner. You had the Fleet Beacon and time to get at least a couple carriers out, so it was possible. Plus, why on earth were you out on the map with a squad of Voids when you knew it was about time for the Roach/Hydra move-out timing? While you were expanding???!?!?! That's not even a Skytoss problem; that's a game sense problem. At least set your base up before you move out; you don't want to trade your third for his fourth.
Ineversmile, he did well in moving out with his voids, that was called gamesense win. He sensed that he had a mothership, which has an ability called recall.
And he only sprinkled in hydra, it was mostly corruptor.
Okay, so here is the biggest problem I see with that build done in the game.
the zealot pressure isn't optimal... you want to do a single push with plus one zealots from gateways, and just skip warpgate altogether. You spent WAYYY too many minerals in zealots. It ended up being okay, ish, because you killed his third, but at what price?? killing his third and having him re take it within a minute with a 4th isn't worth spending so many minerals in zealots that you can't have enough cannons to defend shit. You should be able to put 8 cannons down at your third. with 5-6 cannons at natural. That might be overkill, but you have more than enough minerals to do it.
Also, you get too much gas too early. You have more gas than minerals until, like, the 17 minute mark, even while underbuilding cannons. You should start off with one gas, or just 2 workers in each gas at the very least, for a little while.
So if you followed advice proposed by nyast and had faster third, then my advice with more cannons, = ez hold on third. When you get third you add in another stargate or two, depending on whether you are staying on void or carrier, maybe 2nd cyber core for ups, preference. Also, its important to start going up to HT tech after you got gas from your third. That lines up nicely because thats about the time you really need storm/feedback or archon. At that point, you can go completely skytoss + ht and bend them over.
On July 12 2012 05:20 Daimai wrote: This replay made me lose faith of this build: http://drop.sc/218765
Just feel like if this is done even stronger by GM players, I lose. Also, I think this build is largely dependant on catching your opponent by surprise and not a solid macro strat which you can use for all games in a BO5 for example.
Sigh... back to losing vs broodlord infestor.
Dude you played it so wrong, I mean it, it's painful to watch. But let's do a step-by-step.
1. You scout 14 pool and still go forge-nexus. You can safely go nexus first on cloud kingdom against 14 pool, or just go 17 forge 17 nexus if you want to be supersafe. 2. Cybercore was delayed. 3.You go for a 4 gate+1 with VR attack. And actually For a moment there i thought that you're not going to play sky toss. 4. You put 1!! cannon in your wall-off 5. Losing 2 VR in the engagement at 3rd, eventually you are able to snipe it, though i really think the cost was too high. 6. @8.50 you start fleet beacon. IMO that is extremely late. 7. So while you try to take your 3rd, zerg is trying to double expand to 3rd and 4th and you scout the hydra switch, but don't change your tech, so you have no carriers or HT. 8. Cannon placement is bad, and zerg abuse it to snipe the 3rd. 9 You blindly fly into his 4th and snipe it, finding out that he has corrupters 10 Your MS is floating in the middle of nowhere you have like 6 cannons with all 6 of them in the 3rd, so when zerg attacks he just enters your nat and starts slaughtering probes. 11. Twice your remaining VR destroy zergs army, that tries to attack you. But you have only 1 mining base left. 12. 20+ minutes in the game, no tech past VR.
TL;DR Execution was bad. Too many unnececary loses. Very risky style to play with initial +1 ground attack. This delays your expo, tech and MS. Almost NO fucking cannons made! Dude, cannons are the core of this build, your MS should be over your thids and HEAVY cannoned. You should build a scouting phoenix from SG and check what tech Z is going and adapt your army.
I think you can do much better than what I saw on that rep.
- Macro nexus, if applicable, should be going down shortly after your natural expansion finishes. - I very often double cyber core, but not always. If I have the extra chrono of a macro nexus, then I always do. I don't have any strict criterion for this one, though, you just gotta kind of wing it. - I always go phoenix first, before any void rays. Unless I'm being roach rushed and I absolutely need that void ray out, the 35 seconds to build a phoenix (25 with chrono) doesn't delay anything, and earliest scouting information is always the best scouting information. - Transition into storm/carriers is entirely dependent upon your opponent's anti-air choices. Hydras, because they are so slow off creep, are generally a defensive unit and you are somewhat safe just straight massing carriers against them off of 4 SGs. Corruptors require more void rays in your composition, thus less SGs, and thus a faster transition to storm. Against infestors I cut all void ray production immediately, make carriers off the stargates I have, and transition as fast as possible to HTs.
mkay so about that macro nexus... its not really possible to have enough mins for when the nex finishes unless you completely skip the zealot attack, and any units beyond the first unit and any cannons in addition to the first cannon.
Let me make sure I'm clear, your plan is to have 1 zealot and 1 cannon the entire time between starting your nex and about a minute after it finishes? GL surviving any 2 base low tech aggression. Right as my nexus finishes, i'm usually very very starved for minerals. I find that I actually have to pull guys off of gas after getting my plus 1 ground attack up.
including the +1 2 gate zealot attack really really helps with this play, it in fact, gives you more gas to do the fleet beacon cuz you delay stargates until you basically got all your gas going. You put down cyber then collect all your gasses.
And to anyone who says voidrays are bad vs corruptors.... LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL omfg, The only thing voids are more cost effective against is roaches haha. It wouldn't suprise me if a maxed army of void rays could defeat a maxed army of corruptors, and then wait for a remax, and defeat that again without reinforcements.
Well I mean yeah, what were you expecting with an extreme econ build like a macro nexus? Of course you're not going to be able to put on +1 zealot pressure and go for a macro nexus at the same time. And don't get me wrong, I love me some old fashioned +1 zealot w/ void ray pressure, but the other way to deal with a greedy Zerg is just be greedy yourself.
It's not as susceptible to 2 base aggression as you might think, mostly because the wall is much stronger. If you scout correctly, cut probes and set up additional cannons at the right time, you should come out okay. That said, it's obviously much safer to do a macro nexus build on large, macro oriented maps such as Condemned or Entombed.
And to anyone who says voidrays are bad vs corruptors.... LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL omfg, The only thing voids are more cost effective against is roaches haha. It wouldn't suprise me if a maxed army of void rays could defeat a maxed army of corruptors, and then wait for a remax, and defeat that again without reinforcements.
-Corruptors move faster than Void Rays, so they can control the engagements. -With the corruption ability on, a Corruptor does 7.4 DPS times 120%=8.88 DPS. Since it's a 2-food unit, you could say it does 4.44 DPS per supply. -An uncharged Void Ray does 10+4=14 DPS vs armored. Since it's a 3-food unit, you could say it does 4.666667 DPS per supply.
That's favorable for void rays, but not that favorable. In an even fight without charge, Void are going to trade favorably against Corruptors, but then in the remax stage your opponent will have a maxed army almost instantaneously while you're rebuilding your army. Even if you win the guessing game with composition choice, you need a huge bank and tons of stargates to match their remax within a minute and a half, and in that timing window they can go across the map and do a lot of damage.
Now, obviously the goal is to fight Corruptors with Voids and Storm and Archons and Mothership support, but I'm really sick of people trying to tell me that Voids beat the crap out of Corruptors on their own. They don't. They marginally win the fight without upgrade advantages and, with them, they only get exponentially better while charged. The Corruptors can shift-click focus fire and then run away when charge happens, whereas if voids shift-click focus fire they're not going to charge up very well and the fight will remain relatively even. Sure, I want to imagine that I'm always going to fight Corruptors with even food Void Rays and with caster support and Archons, but that's just not realistic. I need to be able to count on my army in situations where things are scrappy and uneven, and that's the flaw in massing Voids. Believe me, there's a few flaws in using stalkers as the core of your army, but right now I stand on the stalker side of the trade-off fence because they're just a more trustworthy unit. And, most of all, Stalkers run the same pace as Corruptors and they get blink, which means they can chase them down and kill units for free. Voids don't do that unless you fight at their base and they run away whie you kill buildings...aka winning more when you're already winning.
I'm not entirely sure you understand how carrier/void ray works. Void rays reach peak damage output several seconds after the engagement begins, ie when they are charged up. Carriers reach peak damage output immediately, as all the interceptors are being launched with graviton catapult. This is where the inherent synergy comes from: carriers do massive amounts of damage in the first 1.5 seconds of the fight, and shortly thereafter the void rays get charged. There is no favorable time of engagement for a corruptor ball. You can't just run in, snipe some void rays, and then leave before they get charged, you'll lose way too many corruptors to the initial volley of the carriers. If you try to snipe the carriers, they can abuse their superior range to continue engaging as they retreat, giving the void rays plenty of time to charge up.
The only time that dps/supply could possibly matter is in a maxed out army scenario, when you're going to have storm and archon support anyway. In mid-game numbers, corruptors alone should never be able to beat a good Skytoss composition, there simply isn't a way for them to be cost efficient without infestor, queen, or spore crawler support.
in 200food battles its extremely difficult to use corruption in any effective way. its more of a powerful midgame ability making the zerg strong when its small vr vs corrupter battles early game
i think vr/carrier is definitely the future of the matchup. spread well to avoid fungals, storm against infested terrans/corrupters. it really is the true unbeatable army in the matchup
Nexus won't finish in time for a 6 pool, obv, but thats what scouting is for.
I don't see how nexus improves wall at all... the reason forge and gates are good is because they provide beef in front, and cannons in back can attack anything that tries to attack the wall. If you put nexus in front, suddenly, cannons have lost all their effectiveness. You might as well only have 1 cannon. Zerg, of course, can and usually will just play greedy in response. But a nexus doesn't improve the wall, it makes it a million times worse. Maybe in HOTS when it can be a cannon itself its great, but until then, its just a free kill for any ranged unit who wants to attack it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, if a cannon can indeed attack roaches from behind a wall, I'll rescind my statement. And to your credit, I will say that wall should be GREAT vs baneling busts.
On July 12 2012 15:04 emaster wrote: Nexus won't finish in time for a 6 pool, obv, but thats what scouting is for.
I don't see how nexus improves wall at all... the reason forge and gates are good is because they provide beef in front, and cannons in back can attack anything that tries to attack the wall. If you put nexus in front, suddenly, cannons have lost all their effectiveness. You might as well only have 1 cannon. Zerg, of course, can and usually will just play greedy in response. But a nexus doesn't improve the wall, it makes it a million times worse. Maybe in HOTS when it can be a cannon itself its great, but until then, its just a free kill for any ranged unit who wants to attack it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, if a cannon can indeed attack roaches from behind a wall, I'll rescind my statement. And to your credit, I will say that wall should be GREAT vs baneling busts.
You natural expansion won't finish before a 6 pool, let alone a wall-off. I fail to see how that's relevant. And you shouldn't have a Zerg play greedy in response to this, as I stated above, a macro nexus should be in response to your opponent playing greedy, not the other way around.
Anywho, here's the setup I use on Entombed (it's pretty similar on most maps):
As the zealot shows, there is a 1 hex space at the corner of the nexus, allowing traffic in and out despite the fact that it looks like a complete wall off (see Liquidpedia's entry on walling off for further information regarding the "tightness" of walls and 5x5 buildings). As the ghost pylon also shows, you can still wall-off normally after the forge and gateways are down, in the event that you scout something that makes you not want to put down the macro nexus. Both cannons cover the entire ramp, so it's about as roach-proof as walls get. The only weakness to baneling busts is the usual weakness, the zealot. Don't know what to tell you on that front except have a sentry ready.
The only immediate disadvantage to this wall-off type that comes to mind is that you can't use either cannon to assist in taking down the destructible rocks when it comes time to do that, but you might as well set up a cannon on the other side to defend the other ramp anyway. Plus I suppose you could always flip the wall around (nexus at the bottom, forge off to the right), as I don't think that would interfere with your natural expansion.
I'm still afraid of the enemy having ranged units camped outside your base attacking it. Can the cannons protect it? or is it just so beefy that you can wait for voids to defend it?
On July 12 2012 16:32 emaster wrote: I'm still afraid of the enemy having ranged units camped outside your base attacking it. Can the cannons protect it? or is it just so beefy that you can wait for voids to defend it?
As was stated macro nexus should go aginst greedy zerg so he won't have ranged units for some time. Also if you use wall-off like was shown above your cannons are in range and it's pretty much fine.
I can only suggest one thing - If you are afraid, then don't do it. If you are willing to take a risk - try it and see how it goes.
On July 12 2012 16:32 emaster wrote: I'm still afraid of the enemy having ranged units camped outside your base attacking it. Can the cannons protect it? or is it just so beefy that you can wait for voids to defend it?
The only ranged units Zerg has on T1 (ie, units he could have out in front of your base before voids) are roaches and queens, so let's be honest here, you really just meant roaches. To answer your question, the cannons completely cover the ramp, so he would have to get high ground vision with an overlord. In that situation, he could hit the nexus with roaches, but the surface area is so small from the low ground that he could only do it with 3 or 4 roaches and that's not going to kill a nexus any time soon (it takes 125 roach attacks to even take down the shields), and voids will be out with plenty of time to spare.
I'm not saying a macro nexus is a good idea: sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. My only point is that it is indeed safe, and if you wall off as shown you retain the choice of how to complete your wall until the last building.
Can somebody tell me please how to kill corruptors? I often end up with the best endgame army I can have but mass corruptors just CRUSH it and then transform into broods. it is so frustrating. :/
On July 13 2012 04:59 chrissummers wrote: Can somebody tell me please how to kill corruptors? I often end up with the best endgame army I can have but mass corruptors just CRUSH it and then transform into broods. it is so frustrating. :/
At this stage of the game, you need templars and archons. Land storm on the mass of corruptors and you'll be in good shape.
Here's a game that I just played that demonstrates that:
Before the late game, you shouldn't engage corruptors if your voids aren't under a ton of cannons, or unless you have a recall ready.
I'm not entirely sure you understand how carrier/void ray works. Void rays reach peak damage output several seconds after the engagement begins, ie when they are charged up. Carriers reach peak damage output immediately, as all the interceptors are being launched with graviton catapult. This is where the inherent synergy comes from: carriers do massive amounts of damage in the first 1.5 seconds of the fight, and shortly thereafter the void rays get charged. There is no favorable time of engagement for a corruptor ball. You can't just run in, snipe some void rays, and then leave before they get charged, you'll lose way too many corruptors to the initial volley of the carriers. If you try to snipe the carriers, they can abuse their superior range to continue engaging as they retreat, giving the void rays plenty of time to charge up.
The only time that dps/supply could possibly matter is in a maxed out army scenario, when you're going to have storm and archon support anyway. In mid-game numbers, corruptors alone should never be able to beat a good Skytoss composition, there simply isn't a way for them to be cost efficient without infestor, queen, or spore crawler support.
So this is what I'm getting out of this post:
1. Carriers are the air unit I actually want, since they're the ones with the range to punish Corruptor kiting. 2. Archons and High Templars are the real counter to Corruptors, not Void Rays.
I am still not convinced at all that I want Void Rays as part of my eventual army; just while I'm on 2-3 bases and I don't yet have the infrastructure to build Carriers. I'm waiting for a better explaination.
His earlygame gas allocation is much different than mine and it's something I would like to study. Also, he doesn't go Void rays but just goes storm/blink stalkers to deal with corruptors. It's definitely more micro intensive. cool game
I saw that game and it was less an air-toss game as described in this thread, and more of a tweak on the standard macro PvZ that abuses the metagame on Entombed Valley. Most Zergs will attempt to tech to fast broodlords on that map because of how hard it is to pressure with tier 2 units. Squirtle expected this, and went straight for the late late game unit composition of mothership/carrier/templar/archon, which is the best unit composition against infestor/broodlord. Again, more just Squirtle skipping a few steps in response to the metagame on Entombed than intentionally trying to go sky toss.
PS, for people who don't know, standard pvz generally goes along the lines of: Gateway units->maybe immortals->colossi or templar->mothership->get templar/archons if you don't already have them->carriers
Hmm not sure the viability of this strat at higher levels ... but as a silver leaguer .. been struggling PvZ against fellow silvers with normal builds, so I tried this in custom and got a gold zerg.
I gotta say it's not a bad build at all. Quite noob friendly considering my opponent had higher APM and did try all the recommended counters to the build.
In my opinion the zerg should attack natural if mothership is at 3rd and the micromanagement of infestors is also key. Another key point is to upgrade your zerg units such as corruptors or hydras. Even if hard to combat the upgraded voids or carriers ... it's better than not doing so.
I'm not entirely sure you understand how carrier/void ray works. Void rays reach peak damage output several seconds after the engagement begins, ie when they are charged up. Carriers reach peak damage output immediately, as all the interceptors are being launched with graviton catapult. This is where the inherent synergy comes from: carriers do massive amounts of damage in the first 1.5 seconds of the fight, and shortly thereafter the void rays get charged. There is no favorable time of engagement for a corruptor ball. You can't just run in, snipe some void rays, and then leave before they get charged, you'll lose way too many corruptors to the initial volley of the carriers. If you try to snipe the carriers, they can abuse their superior range to continue engaging as they retreat, giving the void rays plenty of time to charge up.
The only time that dps/supply could possibly matter is in a maxed out army scenario, when you're going to have storm and archon support anyway. In mid-game numbers, corruptors alone should never be able to beat a good Skytoss composition, there simply isn't a way for them to be cost efficient without infestor, queen, or spore crawler support.
So this is what I'm getting out of this post:
1. Carriers are the air unit I actually want, since they're the ones with the range to punish Corruptor kiting. 2. Archons and High Templars are the real counter to Corruptors, not Void Rays.
I am still not convinced at all that I want Void Rays as part of my eventual army; just while I'm on 2-3 bases and I don't yet have the infrastructure to build Carriers. I'm waiting for a better explaination.
No, I absolutely agree that in late-game army you want to replace all your voids with HT/archon, definitely, but as you transition to templar tech in the midgame you can continue to rely on void rays to good effect while you build your carrier numbers.
I'm not entirely sure you understand how carrier/void ray works. Void rays reach peak damage output several seconds after the engagement begins, ie when they are charged up. Carriers reach peak damage output immediately, as all the interceptors are being launched with graviton catapult. This is where the inherent synergy comes from: carriers do massive amounts of damage in the first 1.5 seconds of the fight, and shortly thereafter the void rays get charged. There is no favorable time of engagement for a corruptor ball. You can't just run in, snipe some void rays, and then leave before they get charged, you'll lose way too many corruptors to the initial volley of the carriers. If you try to snipe the carriers, they can abuse their superior range to continue engaging as they retreat, giving the void rays plenty of time to charge up.
The only time that dps/supply could possibly matter is in a maxed out army scenario, when you're going to have storm and archon support anyway. In mid-game numbers, corruptors alone should never be able to beat a good Skytoss composition, there simply isn't a way for them to be cost efficient without infestor, queen, or spore crawler support.
So this is what I'm getting out of this post:
1. Carriers are the air unit I actually want, since they're the ones with the range to punish Corruptor kiting. 2. Archons and High Templars are the real counter to Corruptors, not Void Rays.
I am still not convinced at all that I want Void Rays as part of my eventual army; just while I'm on 2-3 bases and I don't yet have the infrastructure to build Carriers. I'm waiting for a better explaination.
No, I absolutely agree that in late-game army you want to replace all your voids with HT/archon, definitely, but as you transition to templar tech in the midgame you can continue to rely on void rays to good effect while you build your carrier numbers.
If you are facing mass corrupter are carriers really favourable to voids, HT/archon support or otherwise?
I'm not entirely sure you understand how carrier/void ray works. Void rays reach peak damage output several seconds after the engagement begins, ie when they are charged up. Carriers reach peak damage output immediately, as all the interceptors are being launched with graviton catapult. This is where the inherent synergy comes from: carriers do massive amounts of damage in the first 1.5 seconds of the fight, and shortly thereafter the void rays get charged. There is no favorable time of engagement for a corruptor ball. You can't just run in, snipe some void rays, and then leave before they get charged, you'll lose way too many corruptors to the initial volley of the carriers. If you try to snipe the carriers, they can abuse their superior range to continue engaging as they retreat, giving the void rays plenty of time to charge up.
The only time that dps/supply could possibly matter is in a maxed out army scenario, when you're going to have storm and archon support anyway. In mid-game numbers, corruptors alone should never be able to beat a good Skytoss composition, there simply isn't a way for them to be cost efficient without infestor, queen, or spore crawler support.
So this is what I'm getting out of this post:
1. Carriers are the air unit I actually want, since they're the ones with the range to punish Corruptor kiting. 2. Archons and High Templars are the real counter to Corruptors, not Void Rays.
I am still not convinced at all that I want Void Rays as part of my eventual army; just while I'm on 2-3 bases and I don't yet have the infrastructure to build Carriers. I'm waiting for a better explaination.
No, I absolutely agree that in late-game army you want to replace all your voids with HT/archon, definitely, but as you transition to templar tech in the midgame you can continue to rely on void rays to good effect while you build your carrier numbers.
If you are facing mass corrupter are carriers really favourable to voids, HT/archon support or otherwise?
On July 13 2012 23:13 esaul17 wrote: If you are facing mass corrupter are carriers really favourable to voids, HT/archon support or otherwise?
Voids are good vs pure corruptors, however the problem changes with the introduction of infestors and fungal. Carriers are much better in this case.
Nyast is correct, but also, it's important to take into account when each unit does it's major dps. In a big maxed out battle most voids are never going to get charged up, thus never do peak damage. Carriers en masse will do massive damage at the beginning of the fight with graviton catapult. Along with the added range and superior health, they just last longer and end up doing more damage.
I just did some unit tester in there. maxed voids will beat corruptors with between 1/4 and 1/3 of army remaining, even though it costs less gas.
When you make it 10 carriers with the rest into voids, suddenly the corruptors win if you just a-move them in, and only micro to target fire carriers after voids are all dead.
Carriers are behind voids the whole time, auto spawning interceptors (which are free on unit test map) and the corruptors dont target fire or use corrupt at all, but still win. thats because carriers suck. Maxed carriers can't beat anything cost effectively, unless they can't attack back. Interceptors themselves have a hard time beating cost effectively.
Hydra just ends up being bad in the long run, because as you get maxed out armies voids can be on top of each other, take less focus fire, while hydras are stuck behind each other and have bad pathing.
I just did some unit tester in there. maxed voids will beat corruptors with between 1/4 and 1/3 of army remaining, even though it costs less gas.
When you make it 10 carriers with the rest into voids, suddenly the corruptors win if you just a-move them in, and only micro to target fire carriers after voids are all dead.
Pure carriers suck vs pure corruptors. But add a couple templars/archons and suddenly you've got a very cost effective army.
Pure voids suck vs fungal.
What's important is to get a balanced number of units you need against Zerg's compo. Similar to TvP, you need to adjust the amounts of vikings and ghosts to the number of colossus and templars the Protoss has. You can't expect to make only one type of units, here carriers, and roll over everything.
El oh el. This is a terrible example of you butting in with your opinion in an attempt to correct everybody. Unit testers are a terrible way to gauge how a game is going to be played out. Everybody that knows anything about using Carriers knows that you need competent support to go along with them, and that's usually Mothership, Storm, Archons or Stalkers. Nobody makes only Carriers and expects to win against Corrupters when Corrupters are obviously designed to counter massive units. Nobody here was even claiming that.
Next time, at least bring some real-game knowledge to the table if you're going to butt in and try to correct everyone.
Spores, cannons, and turrets all are at least double cost efficient vs interceptors. Marines and hydra are better vs carriers because they are cost effective vs interceptors, and they dont have any stacking issues.... the interceptors come to them. Vs voids, they have to do more micro to get underneat them, so it takes longer for them to start hitting voids efficiently.
"Nobody makes only Carriers and expects to win against Corrupters"
Thats indeed a straw man, I am saying if you add in 10 carriers, with the rest voids, you get owned by corruptors, in a 200 vs 200 fight, without micro. You can't really improve the micro of carrier and voidray very much... since carriers are already behind the voids, and inteceptors are on autospawn, and lots of the corruptors go for ints.
Carriers were effective in broodwar, because everything had less range, and corrupts, vikings, and voidrays didn't exist.
Next time, you want to say i am just butting in with my opinion, please dont use a straw man and please offer some real evidence to counter mine.
If you don't think carriers work, go post in some other thread. Nobody cares about how they operate in no-micro situations because those are unrealistic examples of engagements.
On July 14 2012 07:05 emaster wrote: Spores, cannons, and turrets all are at least double cost efficient vs interceptors. Marines and hydra are better vs carriers because they are cost effective vs interceptors, and they dont have any stacking issues.... the interceptors come to them. Vs voids, they have to do more micro to get underneat them, so it takes longer for them to start hitting voids efficiently.
Carriers were effective in broodwar, because everything had less range, and corrupts, vikings, and voidrays didn't exist.
Next time, you want to say i am just butting in with my opinion, please dont use a straw man and please offer some real evidence to counter mine.
My evidence is that I use them regularly, with good success, similar to many other people that support this build/style. Your evidence consists of baseless theory and unit testers where Carriers are designed to lose. I know for a fact you haven't seriously used them more than perhaps while smurfing, otherwise you'd know how absolutely terrible Hydras are against Carriers or Interceptors.
Here is the part where I'd normally educate you on how to use them, but I'm sure you're not interested in that.. you seem much more interested in being an ignorant crusader, attempting to battle high-level players that base their entire PvZ around using them correctly.
Long story short, learn how to use them and actually use them in your games, then maybe you can join this discussion without looking like a fool. Unit testing and making stuff up (like Hydras are good against Carriers) isn't sufficient evidence whatsoever.
On July 14 2012 07:59 Daimai wrote: Hey guys, I followed some of the advice earlier in the thread (I think) and now im left wondering what to do in these lategame situations:
Can you please explain what the situation is? I'm not at a computer where I can watch replays, but I can answer questions regarding this style (or Stargate armies in general).
Perhaps you misunderstand me... I never go a game without using them.
But someone else was saying pure corruptor wins vs voids, and taht you need carriers to combat corruptors. Having 3 or 4 won't hurt, but having more than that vs pure corruptor is bad. They were spouting out theory, dps, and numbers. While my experience is that I only go against pure corruptor in the mid game, and when I do I go pure void. Eventually they add in other stuff that carriers are good to have with the voids, but carriers can't be the core of your army.
Carriers do suck. Its very unfortunate. From brood war to sc2, range on everything else increased except for them, basically. Plus each race got a much better counter vs them. Doesn't mean they are unusable, but you have to realize you can't mass them up, in the same way. If you add in HT, you can possibly make them a core, but interceptors are still cost inefficient. You have to use HT to feed back infestors and storm stuff that counter them. Carriers can be effective when you have HT, very very effective when used defensively with mothership and cannons over them, but to go offensive, you need a bank of minerals because they cost too much money to fight offensively otherwise.
On July 14 2012 07:59 Daimai wrote: Hey guys, I followed some of the advice earlier in the thread (I think) and now im left wondering what to do in these lategame situations:
Okay So I watched both replays. I play at a lower level, but just breezing through the game I noticed some things.
Game 1: Your opponent played beautifully to deal with your lategame army, just gonna say, he played it great. But I couldn't help but feel like you never, really tried to attack him. I know you might be afraid of your army getting caught out of position, so maybe place some observers around. When you have a mothership with 100+ energy, there is no such thing as being caught out of position mid-late game. Maybe ultra late game you need to have vortex on hand, but not there. At the end of the game, you lost to chain fungal because you never re created your mothership. The mothership is very important the whole game!
Get a scouting phoenix, and determine if you can be aggressive. I like to be aggressive with first few voids, but then again I'm not so ballsy about grabbing my third so early. Since you're greedy, you can keep first few voids around. But as soon as you have mothership and it has ~85 energy or so, I move striaght out to attack. Sometimes I will move my void to edge of map, and see if I can sneak into the main. Remember You cant be caught out of position if you have recall. I don't care what your composition is, you cant just sit back on 4 bases, never attack, just leave your army at home, and expect to win the game without attacking ever.
Game 2: That early game made me cringe, those ling runbys were painful . You were a bit better about poking, but it seemed like you were still scared of getting caught out of position. He had a huge setup in the center of infestors, spore crawlers, and corruptors. What should you do? Fly around the edge of the map, go into his main base, snipe all his shit, snipe everything you can, and recall out when he tries to attack your army. Don't be afraid of attacking, with recall on your side You literally have nothing to lose. IF you are able to keep up the recall attacking, and limit his base count to yours, you will be able to do well against his army. You lost the game when he attacked your 4th, and you attacked without your cannon support, and without recall. If you are defending a base, your fleet should be above your cannons. That was bad positioning on your part. Put cannons basically on top of your nexus, that way a mothership can be over nexus, cloaking all probes and cannons and recall the fleet right on top of base to defend. I cant say that if you properly placed your cannons that you wouldn't have lost the game, but it certainly wouldn't have been so easy for your opponent. They would have had to bring spores and spines and brood lords to siege.
One more thing about the brood lord shit goin on, you need to morph a few of your HT into archon to absorb the brood lord shots. When you have only HT and air broodlords can only target your HT so they die kinda quick.
TLDR:
Don't be afraid to attack! midgame, you have a great army, where you can poke and prod without any risk at all. Recall makes it so you can attack with, potentially, absolutely zero risk. I've played games where I went in, sniped hydra den infest pit and main lair/hive and recalled before losing a single unit. You can't expect that to fall in your lap, but you have to try. You can easily keep their base count as low as yours by doing that. If you let the zerg get to an endgame where they have 6k/6k in the bank, and 7+ hatcheries while you are only at 1-2k/1-2k you are dead lost. Be aggressive!
On July 14 2012 07:59 Daimai wrote: Hey guys, I followed some of the advice earlier in the thread (I think) and now im left wondering what to do in these lategame situations:
Can you please explain what the situation is? I'm not at a computer where I can watch replays, but I can answer questions regarding this style (or Stargate armies in general).
I have no idea how to deal with lategame infestor/corruptor/broodlord armies from zerg. Feel like they are too effective vs this mix.
On July 14 2012 07:59 Daimai wrote: Hey guys, I followed some of the advice earlier in the thread (I think) and now im left wondering what to do in these lategame situations:
Can you please explain what the situation is? I'm not at a computer where I can watch replays, but I can answer questions regarding this style (or Stargate armies in general).
I have no idea how to deal with lategame infestor/corruptor/broodlord armies from zerg. Feel like they are too effective vs this mix.
On July 14 2012 10:12 emaster wrote: Perhaps you misunderstand me... I never go a game without using them.
But someone else was saying pure corruptor wins vs voids, and taht you need carriers to combat corruptors. Having 3 or 4 won't hurt, but having more than that vs pure corruptor is bad. They were spouting out theory, dps, and numbers. While my experience is that I only go against pure corruptor in the mid game, and when I do I go pure void. Eventually they add in other stuff that carriers are good to have with the voids, but carriers can't be the core of your army.
Carriers do suck. Its very unfortunate. From brood war to sc2, range on everything else increased except for them, basically. Plus each race got a much better counter vs them. Doesn't mean they are unusable, but you have to realize you can't mass them up, in the same way. If you add in HT, you can possibly make them a core, but interceptors are still cost inefficient. You have to use HT to feed back infestors and storm stuff that counter them. Carriers can be effective when you have HT, very very effective when used defensively with mothership and cannons over them, but to go offensive, you need a bank of minerals because they cost too much money to fight offensively otherwise.
I just find it strange that you say "Carriers suck" as your first sentence in one post, then a couple posts later you say "I never go a game without using them". If they suck, why do you use them?
I agree with you that Carrier vs Corrupter is a terrible fight, and I don't understand how that would ever be debatable. But you basically said "look guys, Carriers suck and I went into a unit tester to prove that they suck". I think I just missed the person you were responding to since your first post had no quote.
But, Carriers actually don't suck. Their strength is in how difficult they are to kill, adding severe longevity to your army. They are not a DPS unit because they attack one target at a time. Any AoE unit is going to be better for DPS, but AoE units can be negated relatively easily by dodging storms, EMP'ing, using a ton of Vikings, etc. But the fact that Carriers are so difficult to kill along with proper support makes them good, along with decent, burst-fire DPS.
The downside is that most people don't understand how to properly support Carriers, and it's always Mothership + Templar tech. Stalkers can be okay because of their bonus damage to armored, but the fact that it forces such a big commitment to kill, wild switches into Zealot/Archon or other gateway-based stuff makes Protoss really hard to deal with.
On July 14 2012 07:59 Daimai wrote: Hey guys, I followed some of the advice earlier in the thread (I think) and now im left wondering what to do in these lategame situations:
Can you please explain what the situation is? I'm not at a computer where I can watch replays, but I can answer questions regarding this style (or Stargate armies in general).
I have no idea how to deal with lategame infestor/corruptor/broodlord armies from zerg. Feel like they are too effective vs this mix.
Just for the record, with some tweaks you had that game in your pocket.
Oh really? What tweaks? Do tell. I love this style much more than roll over and die to broodlord infestor but I struggle vs lategame corruptor infestor spore broodlord pushes.
On July 15 2012 05:12 emaster wrote: So I guess I shouldn't watch the last replay since you've already given up on it and don't want analysis?
I always love me some criticism, please do watch all three I posted and do tell <3.
I think the biggest weakness specifically in this build is following it up with Carriers right after the expansion. The Mothership expansion is really solid, but the immediate Carrier follow-up is really weak and slow. Taking a 4th base with Carrier, MS, Void Ray is also really difficult unless you pull off some recall shenanigans to buy time.
I run the Mothership expansion part, but then transition into Archons with my excess gas during cannon production. After that, I add Zealots and Immortals to power through spines and deal with high Roach counts, and then wait for him to engage poorly.
Dealing with the late-game composition of Brood/Corruptor/Infestor is now a lot more about warp prism harassment to keep their army at bay and make any attack they commit to an all-in, and landing one or two good vortexes with a full energy Mothership. The 10 or so Void Rays as part of the composition helps.
But the entire thing revolves around the Archons, and later Storm. If you run Stargate in PvZ without Archons or Storm, I feel it's a very fragile army. Once you are maxed out, if you don't feel comfortable attacking, add on like 4 extra Stargates as you take a 4th base, and start dumping Zealots as harassment and to refine what's taking up your supply. Keep up the harassment until he attacks, and you can either re-fill the supply with more Templar and Archons, or start adding more Void Rays to help battle the high Corrupter amount. Once you get to a 200/200 army that is purely Templar, Void Ray, Mothership, Archon, it's simply about landing Storms and vortexes. He'll have to attack you eventually, making Vortex pretty easy to land.
Of course, if you still want Carriers as a part of the mix, the alternative to the style I'm talking about while still covering weaknesses is simply getting the Zealot Archon army filled up, then adding Stargates instead of Robos when you are ready to complete your composition. 4-Stargate Carrier on 3 bases is perfectly fine, because the Carriers are arriving (unintentional, I swear) with proper Archon or Templar support, rather than with weak support of only Void Rays and Cannons.
@ Damai Look at all the posts on page 42, 4th one down is my analysis of your first 2 replays. I didn't do a detailed analysis, just a breeze through. But the TLDR is that you need to go wild and attack while you have mothership. Mothership is good to help defend a 3rd base, but thats not its only purpose! Go ape shit crazy attacking with it, like fly on the edge of map straight into the main and snipe tech, then recall out. Midgame rule I propose to you, if you have 100 energy on your mothership in the midgame, it needs to be attacking a base.
EDIT: by it I mean your army, with your mothership placed defensively over cannons to recall back in case of a counter attack or if your army is in danger. I have played games where in the midgame the resource lost tab is 10k to less than 1k, and that less than 1k happened early game. Sniped a few bases, sniped some tech, recall out without losing a single unit. You can't expect you're opponent to hand you that much on a platter of course! But you gotta be aggressive. You have a HUGE mobility advantage in the midgame that you gotta abuse.
I am terrible (platinum) but could anyone give me tips as to how I could have beat mutas this game? Mechanics aside, what should I have done differently?
I am platinum too, so I know you don't want to hear this... but your macro sucked.
I'm paused at 13 minutes, you have two stargates a mothership about to pop, and 2150/750 in the bank. If you listen to the master's in this forum, they will tell you its impossible to afford a mothership and 2 stargates, yet you can easily afford a 3rd. If you were spending your money, off even 1 stargate chrono boosted, you would have had 5-6 more phoenix at this point. So instead of 5 phoenix vs 17 muta, it could/should have been 10-12 vs 17. If you did double stargate then added mothership later, you would have had = number of phoenix.
14 minutes, you have a zealot with wall and a full energy sentry behind it, yet somehow lings come in and destroy your cannons. Your mothership is above it, but without cannons. You need to have cannons below your mothership.
You never attempt to build a 3rd, which is the whole point of this build.
Easiest correction to make, hotkey the F*ing motherhsip. Its a 400/400 unit, give it its own hotkey. It got sniped, yet if you had it hotkeyed you could recall your phoenix army on top of it and do well.
So lets assume you macro better, and you have a lot of pheonix. One the game should solve itself, but after that, when you got phoenix, you follow them anywhere they go and kill every single one. You follow them until they get to queens and spore crawlers, and just kill every single one of those units.
So yeah, stop getting supply blocked so much. Build units. Attempt to make a 3rd, and make sure you replace cannons at your front. Hotkey your mothership, and dont let zerglings get in when you have a zealot on hold position and a full energy sentry behind it. there is no reason to not get that FF down. You were staring at the zerglings, and you moved your phoenix around with doing anything with them. Your sentry was right there!!!!! You were staring at this happen for 10 ingame seconds, and just didn't do it.
On July 12 2012 15:04 emaster wrote: Nexus won't finish in time for a 6 pool, obv, but thats what scouting is for.
I don't see how nexus improves wall at all... the reason forge and gates are good is because they provide beef in front, and cannons in back can attack anything that tries to attack the wall. If you put nexus in front, suddenly, cannons have lost all their effectiveness. You might as well only have 1 cannon. Zerg, of course, can and usually will just play greedy in response. But a nexus doesn't improve the wall, it makes it a million times worse. Maybe in HOTS when it can be a cannon itself its great, but until then, its just a free kill for any ranged unit who wants to attack it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, if a cannon can indeed attack roaches from behind a wall, I'll rescind my statement. And to your credit, I will say that wall should be GREAT vs baneling busts.
You natural expansion won't finish before a 6 pool, let alone a wall-off. I fail to see how that's relevant. And you shouldn't have a Zerg play greedy in response to this, as I stated above, a macro nexus should be in response to your opponent playing greedy, not the other way around.
Anywho, here's the setup I use on Entombed (it's pretty similar on most maps):
As the zealot shows, there is a 1 hex space at the corner of the nexus, allowing traffic in and out despite the fact that it looks like a complete wall off (see Liquidpedia's entry on walling off for further information regarding the "tightness" of walls and 5x5 buildings). As the ghost pylon also shows, you can still wall-off normally after the forge and gateways are down, in the event that you scout something that makes you not want to put down the macro nexus. Both cannons cover the entire ramp, so it's about as roach-proof as walls get. The only weakness to baneling busts is the usual weakness, the zealot. Don't know what to tell you on that front except have a sentry ready.
The only immediate disadvantage to this wall-off type that comes to mind is that you can't use either cannon to assist in taking down the destructible rocks when it comes time to do that, but you might as well set up a cannon on the other side to defend the other ramp anyway. Plus I suppose you could always flip the wall around (nexus at the bottom, forge off to the right), as I don't think that would interfere with your natural expansion.
Can't tell if troll with that wall off.... I reallllly hope you're trolling
On July 18 2012 11:57 emaster wrote: I am platinum too, so I know you don't want to hear this... but your macro sucked.
I'm paused at 13 minutes, you have two stargates a mothership about to pop, and 2150/750 in the bank. If you listen to the master's in this forum, they will tell you its impossible to afford a mothership and 2 stargates, yet you can easily afford a 3rd. If you were spending your money, off even 1 stargate chrono boosted, you would have had 5-6 more phoenix at this point. So instead of 5 phoenix vs 17 muta, it could/should have been 10-12 vs 17. If you did double stargate then added mothership later, you would have had = number of phoenix.
14 minutes, you have a zealot with wall and a full energy sentry behind it, yet somehow lings come in and destroy your cannons. Your mothership is above it, but without cannons. You need to have cannons below your mothership.
You never attempt to build a 3rd, which is the whole point of this build.
Easiest correction to make, hotkey the F*ing motherhsip. Its a 400/400 unit, give it its own hotkey. It got sniped, yet if you had it hotkeyed you could recall your phoenix army on top of it and do well.
So lets assume you macro better, and you have a lot of pheonix. One the game should solve itself, but after that, when you got phoenix, you follow them anywhere they go and kill every single one. You follow them until they get to queens and spore crawlers, and just kill every single one of those units.
So yeah, stop getting supply blocked so much. Build units. Attempt to make a 3rd, and make sure you replace cannons at your front. Hotkey your mothership, and dont let zerglings get in when you have a zealot on hold position and a full energy sentry behind it. there is no reason to not get that FF down. You were staring at the zerglings, and you moved your phoenix around with doing anything with them. Your sentry was right there!!!!! You were staring at this happen for 10 ingame seconds, and just didn't do it.
Thanks a lot. I actually forgot I had the sentry. So is it better to go 2 SG before MS vs mass muta? And how many cannons do you think I need at my enterance and mineral lines to hold?
You had enough cannons, the ones that you had at the front shouldn't have gone down. I usually have at least 3 at the entrance, and I put down extra zealots in the gap just to be sure.
If you are macroing very well, you can't go double stargate, fleet beacon and mothership. Phoenix build time is incredibly fast, and they are actually heavier on gas then void, so I'd say one stargate with constant chronoboost in addition to phoenix range and attack upgrade will easily hold off muta, especially since you are teching straight to it and aren't doing early pressure.
EDIT: Will easily hold off 3 base muta as you saw. 2 base muta hits very hard very fast so I'm not sure how easy the hold is, but if you're going for constant phoenix with +1 attack and the range upgrade, he will eventually be unable to kill a single phoenix.
On July 12 2012 15:04 emaster wrote: Nexus won't finish in time for a 6 pool, obv, but thats what scouting is for.
I don't see how nexus improves wall at all... the reason forge and gates are good is because they provide beef in front, and cannons in back can attack anything that tries to attack the wall. If you put nexus in front, suddenly, cannons have lost all their effectiveness. You might as well only have 1 cannon. Zerg, of course, can and usually will just play greedy in response. But a nexus doesn't improve the wall, it makes it a million times worse. Maybe in HOTS when it can be a cannon itself its great, but until then, its just a free kill for any ranged unit who wants to attack it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, if a cannon can indeed attack roaches from behind a wall, I'll rescind my statement. And to your credit, I will say that wall should be GREAT vs baneling busts.
You natural expansion won't finish before a 6 pool, let alone a wall-off. I fail to see how that's relevant. And you shouldn't have a Zerg play greedy in response to this, as I stated above, a macro nexus should be in response to your opponent playing greedy, not the other way around.
Anywho, here's the setup I use on Entombed (it's pretty similar on most maps):
As the zealot shows, there is a 1 hex space at the corner of the nexus, allowing traffic in and out despite the fact that it looks like a complete wall off (see Liquidpedia's entry on walling off for further information regarding the "tightness" of walls and 5x5 buildings). As the ghost pylon also shows, you can still wall-off normally after the forge and gateways are down, in the event that you scout something that makes you not want to put down the macro nexus. Both cannons cover the entire ramp, so it's about as roach-proof as walls get. The only weakness to baneling busts is the usual weakness, the zealot. Don't know what to tell you on that front except have a sentry ready.
The only immediate disadvantage to this wall-off type that comes to mind is that you can't use either cannon to assist in taking down the destructible rocks when it comes time to do that, but you might as well set up a cannon on the other side to defend the other ramp anyway. Plus I suppose you could always flip the wall around (nexus at the bottom, forge off to the right), as I don't think that would interfere with your natural expansion.
Can't tell if troll with that wall off.... I reallllly hope you're trolling
Esaul, I can start a lot earlier than 13 mins. At 5 mins, your nexus at your main is at 100 energy. Use dem chronos! I make my stargate, and right after I start +1 air attack. I prefer to make phx first (you should know where standard spots for ovies are) to snipe ovies and see what z is doing...react to what you see by maing a second sg or a fb. Either way, chronos should be used most likely on units at this stage if you are unsure if your opponent is being aggressive or not...i usually prefer to chrono units no matter what unless i see inf pit and no other tech. Like emaster said, if you are chroning units, you really dont need a second sg, hopefully chronos are used for units and for MS to get fast third. However, if you read no early aggression, just chrono probes. If you see nothing early, your +1 should finish at about the time you have around 4 (if 1 sg) vrays and you should start poking around. I usually make my 2nd sg right after my fb, so if the z is weak/being greedy, continue to pressure with vrays (this will win you the game or you can pick off a base). Mutas are somewhat annoying in the early stages, but extremely weak later. If you are worried, make approx 4-5 canonns around your main and nat around 10-1030 min, which shoud buy time for units...if you are constantly making probes to prepare for 3rd, you should have plenty of mins as well for this, and dont forget phx range if you see muta! This is a very fun style! If you are worried about ling runbys just make a full wall early on. I have lost A LOT early aggression which is why i prefer phx first. Once you establish a 3rd is comes down to macro and being aggressive on the map trying to pick off bases! HF
You should have 3 Stargates, 4-5 Phoenixes, and a Fleet Beacon finished by the time Mutas are flying across the map off of 3 bases. Even if you don't see the spire (sometimes it's well-hidden, or even proxied), you should see speedlings, no roaches, no hydras, no infestation pit, and enough gases taken to indicate Mutas. And even without that, you should have that small starting squad of Phoenixes out because you need them to apply pressure to the Zerg via sniping queens/ovies/drones and forcing spores. Remember: If you're going straight to Mothership to hold your third, you should be building a Phoenix and Void, then the mothership, then go back into Phoenixes and add on 2 more Stargates. This is as important as putting your pylon down at 9 supply, in terms of build order.
When the mutas move out, you should have your phoenixes out on the map scouting for army positioning, so you should see them coming across the map. By the time they leave the creep, you should know about this, cancel all production on your stargates, and immediately boost Range and 3 Phoenixes. Start kiting the mutas across the map, and not in your worker lines. If they get to your base and your workers aren't protected by cannons, pull your probes temporarily so you avoid worker losses.
If you are keeping up with your macro (money low and using chrono), you cant support 3 s gates off 2 bases with upgrades constantly producing. ESP if your opponent is going muta, phx make very fast, the range upgrade will take precedence over the 3rd sg. Even if you do get your 3rd as fast as possible, mutas will be hitting about the same time as the 3rd is finishing assuming your MS is out. So maybe inveresmile is MUCH better than I am, but I have never been able to constantly produce out of 3 sg, have a MS, have a 3rd going, have 5 phx, and have my range upgrade by the time muta hits, which is around 10 mins for any competant z. But with 2 sg you can have just as many phx with saturated bases. Maybe Im wrong but I'd love to see a rep with all of this happening before 10 mins
I just did some unit tester in there. maxed voids will beat corruptors with between 1/4 and 1/3 of army remaining, even though it costs less gas.
When you make it 10 carriers with the rest into voids, suddenly the corruptors win if you just a-move them in, and only micro to target fire carriers after voids are all dead.
Carriers are behind voids the whole time, auto spawning interceptors (which are free on unit test map) and the corruptors dont target fire or use corrupt at all, but still win. thats because carriers suck. Maxed carriers can't beat anything cost effectively, unless they can't attack back. Interceptors themselves have a hard time beating cost effectively.
Hydra just ends up being bad in the long run, because as you get maxed out armies voids can be on top of each other, take less focus fire, while hydras are stuck behind each other and have bad pathing.
I went through this exact thought process too, and came to the same conclusion when you're dealing exclusively with corruptors. Mass voids are wayyy better on cost efficiency, but fungal growth tends to be a lot more effective against voids due to their greater tendency to clump compared to carriers.
On July 18 2012 16:36 thesupamuug wrote: If you are keeping up with your macro (money low and using chrono), you cant support 3 s gates off 2 bases with upgrades constantly producing. ESP if your opponent is going muta, phx make very fast, the range upgrade will take precedence over the 3rd sg. Even if you do get your 3rd as fast as possible, mutas will be hitting about the same time as the 3rd is finishing assuming your MS is out. So maybe inveresmile is MUCH better than I am, but I have never been able to constantly produce out of 3 sg, have a MS, have a 3rd going, have 5 phx, and have my range upgrade by the time muta hits, which is around 10 mins for any competant z. But with 2 sg you can have just as many phx with saturated bases. Maybe Im wrong but I'd love to see a rep with all of this happening before 10 mins
I have no idea where our skill levels are, but I neglected to mention a couple of things:
1. I don't get any weapons upgrades until my third is established, I have a Mothership and those Phoenixes, and I have 3 Stargates pumping units. I don't care about investing into those upgrades until I have units to use the upgrades, since I can't spare the gas while powering up. If you're going for a gateway army, building gates takes only minerals and therefore you can tech while you do that. But if you're building stargates and a Mothership and all of your units cost ~50 gas per food, upgrades can wait. Being behind in upgrades is fine if you plan to boost them later on, when you're safe.
2. You can't support 3 constantly boosted stargates pumping Phoenixes off of 4 gases. Generally speaking, you can afford one stargate's worth of boosted Phoenix per base. A gas geyser with 3 workers produces 121.15 gpm (gas per ingame minute). If you constantly pump Phoenixes out of one stargate and you boost it once per minute, 2 of them build in exactly 60 seconds (35+35 for build times -10 for chronoboost), which means you're spending 200 gas per minute at that rate. Between 3 Stargates if you boost that often, it's 600 gas per minute, which is barely supportable off of 5 geysers because 121.15 gpm*5=605.75 gpm. I personally try to get my 5th geyser to finish right as the third base finishes so I can saturate it ASAP, and then I get the 6th a little later because I know from the math that 5 geysers can support 3 Stargates when they're producing as fast as possible, so I use my minerals to do other things at that point--usually cannoning and walling. And my goal is to get the 2nd and 3rd stargates to line up with my third, which lines up with the 5th gas, which leads to being able to support all that production simultaneously. Makes sense, right?
3. Since you can't afford Range and 3 Stargates on boosted Phoenix detail, it's reasonable to assume that you get Pulse Chrystals first, then go all-in on producing Phoenixes with your gas. If your opponent half-asses his mutas, 8 stock Phoenixes will kill all of them in a lopsided trade with some decent micro. If he commits, though, you want range. Since mutas take 33 seconds to build and then additional time to move across the map to join the flock, you can stall the first group of mutas while you boost range twice. Range takes 90 seconds to research, and if you boost it perfectly 3 times that shortens to 60 seconds. However, boosting that perfectly is basically a joke when you're microing phoenixes against mutas while macroing, so assume you boost it twice and knock it down to 70 in-game seconds...stall for that long and you can kill all the mutas with that timing.
If you have trouble boosting your stuff quickly while microing, put your Fleet Beacon next to a nexus and hit the backspace key a couple of times to find it so you can boost it faster. If you put your Phoenixes on hotkey 2, for example, this means Back-Back-C-Click-2-2 to find your Beacon, boost it, and then select and zoom in on your Phoenixes again. Your mouse shouldn't have to move very far across the screen. You could also use location hotkeys. Setting up one of those right over your stargates is a pretty good way to jump back and forth between chronoboosting and fighting.
On July 18 2012 16:36 thesupamuug wrote: If you are keeping up with your macro (money low and using chrono), you cant support 3 s gates off 2 bases with upgrades constantly producing. ESP if your opponent is going muta, phx make very fast, the range upgrade will take precedence over the 3rd sg. Even if you do get your 3rd as fast as possible, mutas will be hitting about the same time as the 3rd is finishing assuming your MS is out. So maybe inveresmile is MUCH better than I am, but I have never been able to constantly produce out of 3 sg, have a MS, have a 3rd going, have 5 phx, and have my range upgrade by the time muta hits, which is around 10 mins for any competant z. But with 2 sg you can have just as many phx with saturated bases. Maybe Im wrong but I'd love to see a rep with all of this happening before 10 mins
I have no idea where our skill levels are, but I neglected to mention a couple of things:
1. I don't get any weapons upgrades until my third is established, I have a Mothership and those Phoenixes, and I have 3 Stargates pumping units. I don't care about investing into those upgrades until I have units to use the upgrades, since I can't spare the gas while powering up. If you're going for a gateway army, building gates takes only minerals and therefore you can tech while you do that. But if you're building stargates and a Mothership and all of your units cost ~50 gas per food, upgrades can wait. Being behind in upgrades is fine if you plan to boost them later on, when you're safe.
2. You can't support 3 constantly boosted stargates pumping Phoenixes off of 4 gases. Generally speaking, you can afford one stargate's worth of boosted Phoenix per base. A gas geyser with 3 workers produces 121.15 gpm (gas per ingame minute). If you constantly pump Phoenixes out of one stargate and you boost it once per minute, 2 of them build in exactly 60 seconds (35+35 for build times -10 for chronoboost), which means you're spending 200 gas per minute at that rate. Between 3 Stargates if you boost that often, it's 600 gas per minute, which is barely supportable off of 5 geysers because 121.15 gpm*5=605.75 gpm. I personally try to get my 5th geyser to finish right as the third base finishes so I can saturate it ASAP, and then I get the 6th a little later because I know from the math that 5 geysers can support 3 Stargates when they're producing as fast as possible, so I use my minerals to do other things at that point--usually cannoning and walling. And my goal is to get the 2nd and 3rd stargates to line up with my third, which lines up with the 5th gas, which leads to being able to support all that production simultaneously. Makes sense, right?
3. Since you can't afford Range and 3 Stargates on boosted Phoenix detail, it's reasonable to assume that you get Pulse Chrystals first, then go all-in on producing Phoenixes with your gas. If your opponent half-asses his mutas, 8 stock Phoenixes will kill all of them in a lopsided trade with some decent micro. If he commits, though, you want range. Since mutas take 33 seconds to build and then additional time to move across the map to join the flock, you can stall the first group of mutas while you boost range twice. Range takes 90 seconds to research, and if you boost it perfectly 3 times that shortens to 60 seconds. However, boosting that perfectly is basically a joke when you're microing phoenixes against mutas while macroing, so assume you boost it twice and knock it down to 70 in-game seconds...stall for that long and you can kill all the mutas with that timing.
If you have trouble boosting your stuff quickly while microing, put your Fleet Beacon next to a nexus and hit the backspace key a couple of times to find it so you can boost it faster. If you put your Phoenixes on hotkey 2, for example, this means Back-Back-C-Click-2-2 to find your Beacon, boost it, and then select and zoom in on your Phoenixes again. Your mouse shouldn't have to move very far across the screen. You could also use location hotkeys. Setting up one of those right over your stargates is a pretty good way to jump back and forth between chronoboosting and fighting.
This man knows what he is talking about. You should listen to him.
Except about location hotkeys. They're actually called camera hotkeys. But that's okay. They're still really useful.
Speaking of using phoenixes against mutas, I just recently played this game holding 2 base muta aggression with a single stargate and a couple cannons. Kind of a wonky game, he early pools me, and in the end he over commits to air army and I chrono 3/3/3 with double forge and make a massive gateway transition as he sacks my air army and main. Oh, and that baneling bust. Not sure why I didn't make any sentries upon seeing the baneling nest or how I came out of that whole situation as well as I did, but whatever. At least you can get a general timing on the whole first phoenix scout, see timing on spire, boost +1 and APC, get 3 to 4 phoenix out and hold 2 base muta @ 12-13 mins thing. Even if you don't see the spire, if it feels like muta play those cannons are always worthy insurance.
I actually really like the muta/corruptor/queen composition he used (too bad his transfuses were awful to non-existant), which really did kinda rip through my air army. In the end I was focusing on those forge upgrades so it didn't matter, but it's worth noting as an anti-Skytoss composition.
A transition to HT will kill all of that nicely though Archons are good obv, but feed back and storm on muta queen corruptor with archon and void/carrier is basically unbeatable :D
On July 19 2012 08:01 emaster wrote: A transition to HT will kill all of that nicely though Archons are good obv, but feed back and storm on muta queen corruptor with archon and void/carrier is basically unbeatable :D
Well yeah, and that's what I ended up doing, sort-of. I got the transition to stalker/HTs off though had to sack my air army in the process. The storms weren't even really that good, the upgrades carried me though there. But yeah, HT seems to be the corner piece of every successful Skytoss build; at some point, you gotta get 'em.
On July 19 2012 20:30 HelioSeven wrote: But yeah, HT seems to be the corner piece of every successful Skytoss build; at some point, you gotta get 'em.
Wholeheartedly agreed. For me, this is the key to victory in the late-game in many situations. As soon as I see infestors or queens, I roll out the high templar. Then it's a glorious micro battle of unit splitting, fungal and feedback (which is tons of fun). Usually an infestor can get off one fungal before being feedbacked if the zerg sends them in one-at-a-time (since I don't move ht's ahead of my army), so it can be quite close if the zerg's infestor control is top notch! Sometimes I even need to use a recall during the penultimate battle to save my low-health army, then grab reinforcements and immediately move out again.
EDIT: adding a few carriers also -REALLY- helps with infestors. I win many games with zero HTs simply because I can split my units a little bit and the carriers can launch interceptors in time to ward off more than one fungal. I really hope Blizz doesn't remove the carrier in HoTS. It will severely weaken this strategy against infestor and mid-game hydra.
How does Zerg beat this? I've never been able to win against it, and my lost opponent told he he had never lost using this strat. Could someone maybe do a write up on how to beat this as Zerg?
On July 20 2012 13:37 AndySCWilson wrote: How does Zerg beat this? I've never been able to win against it, and my lost opponent told he he had never lost using this strat. Could someone maybe do a write up on how to beat this as Zerg?
Much love
-Andy
After about 40 games with this style, I've only lost to:
6-7pool baneling bust 180 supply almost-pure-hydra push at my natural with 2-2 at 14:30, followed by another huge wave 3 minutes later
These strategies actually account for about 15 losses (6-7p is very common in diamond).
I feel like a baneling bust will win easily on most maps (since you can't spare early gas for sentries), and banelings are especially powerful versus this build, since it relies on cloaking for defense, and banelings can detonate on invisible walls and probes...
I believe you can also be successful if you are vigilant in denying the toss third and fourth (NOT just trying to kill them once they are up). It is very hard for toss to compete with zerg production on 5-6 base if they are confined to three. If you confine him to two, I believe he is essentially dead. On a side-note, I had a zerg take a hidden expo at my fourth, and spore+spine the hell out of it. I managed to win (partially because he didn't do a very good job of denying my fourth elsewhere), but that really hurt.
On July 19 2012 20:30 HelioSeven wrote: But yeah, HT seems to be the corner piece of every successful Skytoss build; at some point, you gotta get 'em.
Wholeheartedly agreed. For me, this is the key to victory in the late-game in many situations. As soon as I see infestors or queens, I roll out the high templar. Then it's a glorious micro battle of unit splitting, fungal and feedback (which is tons of fun). Usually an infestor can get off one fungal before being feedbacked if the zerg sends them in one-at-a-time (since I don't move ht's ahead of my army), so it can be quite close if the zerg's infestor control is top notch! Sometimes I even need to use a recall during the penultimate battle to save my low-health army, then grab reinforcements and immediately move out again.
EDIT: adding a few carriers also -REALLY- helps with infestors. I win many games with zero HTs simply because I can split my units a little bit and the carriers can launch interceptors in time to ward off more than one fungal. I really hope Blizz doesn't remove the carrier in HoTS. It will severely weaken this strategy against infestor and mid-game hydra.
Not even mid-game hydra, either, think about hive-tech speed hydras. Skytoss with no carriers against infestor/viper/speed hydra? Ugh...
On July 20 2012 13:37 AndySCWilson wrote: How does Zerg beat this? I've never been able to win against it, and my lost opponent told he he had never lost using this strat. Could someone maybe do a write up on how to beat this as Zerg?
Much love
-Andy
I maintain infestors are the best Zerg's currently got against Skytoss. Corruptors should tank lots of damage, so get armor upgrades from the spire. Infestors with pathogen glands and neural parasite and a lot of energy should be able to engage even maxed out Skytoss fleets cost-efficiently enough to win on the remax. Maybe add a few hydras in, but no more than a few. Queens are always good for additional anti-air (benefit from same ranged attack upgrade as infested terrans and hydras), but more importantly have transfuses. Burrow the infestors, find a favorable location to engage, and toss a large volley of infested terrans, while moving towards his fleet. As soon as he breaks away to avoid the ITs, unburrow and lay down fungals and NPs. The more NPs you use the less incentive he has to mass recall, the more fungals you use, the less incentive he has to stay around and fight, so find a balance there.
On July 20 2012 14:13 HelioSeven wrote: Burrow the infestors, find a favorable location to engage, and toss a large volley of infested terrans, while moving towards his fleet. As soon as he breaks away to avoid the ITs, unburrow and lay down fungals and NPs. The more NPs you use the less incentive he has to mass recall, the more fungals you use, the less incentive he has to stay around and fight, so find a balance there.
This is an interesting strategy. I've only faced it once, and I could be wrong, but I'm not so sure it's the best option zerg has. In particular, I'm not in favor of the IT dump. It doesn't seem too hard to micro against neural parasite, unless the zerg controls really well, since if my voids aren't all fungaled, your infestors will die to focus fire pretty quickly. (And, even if you've fungaled my voids, I'll still have interceptors flying around, and they can continue the job.) Once your neuraling infestors are dead, I just recall and hit you again immediately. Since you've depleted a huge amount of energy with the IT dump, things will likely go in my favor. Even if you manage to keep 8 voids neuraled (which seems like a lot), I can take the hit and have them rebuilt in one minute with chrono. Neuraling carriers seems more useful, since they take so long to build but, since they're in the back of my army, your infestors will die even to fungaled voids while trying to neural them. Besides, this is predicated on my not bringing half a dozen templar with me, in which case any infestor that gets in range of feedback (much greater than neural range) will die instantly... (And, when I see infestors, I almost always bring high templar with me...)
If you want to talk ultra late-game strength, it seems from my experience that zerg is strongest if they can sac some corruptors to destroy my mothership (21 corruptors will 2-shot it), then remax and either expo/add static defenses with impunity while I can't move out safely, or fungal me to death when I do move out like an idiot. Rinse and repeat, and you either buy time to get 1,000 spore crawlers you can engage from atop, or catch me out of position and trade cost effectively. Either way, you're going to have to play cost effectively if you each own of half the map. If you don't like how that sounds, you're going to have to prevent them from getting half the map. (Good luck being cost effective after the fact with a dozen cannons at each expo.)
On July 20 2012 13:37 AndySCWilson wrote: How does Zerg beat this? I've never been able to win against it, and my lost opponent told he he had never lost using this strat. Could someone maybe do a write up on how to beat this as Zerg?
Much love
-Andy
Weak spots, that i know of: Baneling bust. (though i know get 2 sentry as a MUST and get 4-6 cannons at entrance, and was able to handle a 2 base BB, guy faked 3rd and i got only one sentry, but still held, though lost a lot of probes.) Corruptor-ling timing@ 3rd, before lots of cannons constructed.
Summary: Zerg moves his WHOLE army to chase.. 3 stupid zealots, on the bottom-right of the map. As I see he's so out of pos, I go snippe his closest base ( there are tons of spores, I ignore them and focus the hatchery ). He comes back in catastrophe and decides to push in my center base..
At 0:54:57 in the vid ( around 25'30 in game ).. he sends roaches, hydras and infestors into 14 canons, 6 templars full of energy and my air army. I land some insane storms, no need for vortex, his army dies instantly. I went down to 183/200 food for a couple seconds before getting maxed again.
On July 20 2012 13:37 AndySCWilson wrote: How does Zerg beat this? I've never been able to win against it, and my lost opponent told he he had never lost using this strat. Could someone maybe do a write up on how to beat this as Zerg?
Much love
-Andy
Denying 4th is much more important than denying 3rd. I feel that trading "okishly" while preventing the toss to go for the 4th ( while you expand ) is the way to go.
On July 20 2012 13:37 AndySCWilson wrote: How does Zerg beat this? I've never been able to win against it, and my lost opponent told he he had never lost using this strat. Could someone maybe do a write up on how to beat this as Zerg?
Much love
-Andy
I haven't played against it enough to be sure. I've never seen anyone make a good transition into getting storm+archon as well, but I think that's because I don't let them get a 4th base. My experience is that it's been pretty easy to deal with.
The number one most important thing is to use zerglings to their fullest. Make sure that he never gets to build a nexus without sitting his mothership ontop of it to cloak it. He can't take a 3rd base with only void rays, you will kill it and burrow a ling. Never let him finish cannons without being spotted, use lings to deny every attempt unless he brings all of his air units over to defend it while it builds.
Now on most maps, if he moves his fleet out to take a 3rd base, he leaves another point of his base very vulnerable, even if he builds a ton of cannons.
If he hasn't ringed his entire main base in cannons, you want to drop a ton of zerglings into it while his fleet is out of position, and when he pulls it back to clean up the lings, you go kill his 4th base. You should upgrade drops early, but check with an overseer before committing all your overlords to it. Drops will be the best 200 gas you've ever spent in your entire life.
Normally protoss will have about 20 cannons at the new base, so I usually just drown the base in infested terrans to clear out the cannons for free. Any time his fleet moves, counterattack with ling/infested terran, while queen/corruptor/spore plays defensively. Sometimes you trade a base for a base, but that's okay because you'll probably be up by 2 bases most of the game anyway. I've never let a pure skytoss player get a 4th base.
As for actually being able to fight his army, get two spires and upgrade at both of them. Make a bunch of queens and infestors, and when you fight, fungal if he clumps void rays, otherwise just spam infested terrans, and spam transfuses on your corruptors. I tend win these fights without actually microing my corruptors (to busy spamming infested terran and transfuse), but if you do use corruption and target fire it should be even more one sided than usual. Don't fight in range of his cannons. In late game, mineral dump into mass spore crawlers and walk them across the map to contain him. Slowly trade free stuff (infested terrans or broodlings) for his cannons and eventually you'll get to a point where you can just kill him.
against storm, you will have to fight a lot more carefully, but I think that you will still be able to remax and clean him up without doing anything too much differently.
I only have one replay, and it's not that great a game (far too one sided), but it should demonstrate my point. http://drop.sc/195659
basically - spend your minerals. Keep finding ways to trade zerglings throughout the game, instead of banking 16000 minerals in a long turtle game, and when it gets to the point where you actually do need a max army, spend the minerals on spores (and spines - for archons!) instead.
I'd be happy to play games against protoss players doing this to explore it further. oboeman.146 on NA.
On July 21 2012 03:32 Oboeman wrote: Make sure that he never gets to build a nexus without sitting his mothership ontop of it to cloak it. He can't take a 3rd base with only void rays, you will kill it and burrow a ling. Never let him finish cannons without being spotted, use lings to deny every attempt unless he brings all of his air units over to defend it while it builds. [...] I've never let a pure skytoss player get a 4th base.
This. I believe this is the reason you win. If I get a fourth, I add high templar, and feedback+a few archons makes your life very difficult. I've had some pretty difficult games where zergs made it very difficult to take my fourth.
A lot of people have mentioned a weakness against banelings - are there any "dead giveaway" things that I can scout that can alert me to grab an early gas and go baneling.
Also around what time should a baneling timing hit?
On July 21 2012 17:37 AndySCWilson wrote: A lot of people have mentioned a weakness against banelings - are there any "dead giveaway" things that I can scout that can alert me to grab an early gas and go baneling.
Also around what time should a baneling timing hit?
A baneling bust usually requires a minimum of 6 banelings, which is 150 gas. Then you also figure in the 6 lings that get morphed into banes, and then there's the actual lings that follow in during the bust. So when you're scouting, you should be checking drone counts, gas timings, and for that third base. If you can't get a probe in there, you need to make a guess. It take a couple minutes to get the gas to set up a baneling bust, and that's not even considering zergling speed (if it's used).
A 2-hatch baneling bust takes about as long to set up as zergling speed does, which is ~3 minutes from the time the extractor is finished. A 3-hatch one will take longer, since 3 hatch before gas obviously means delayed gas. If you see droning and no ling speed, you're probably not getting busted. If you see no third base and lings heading out, your opponent is probably preparing a bust. Only 2 kinds of units can bust you at tier 1: Banelings and Roaches. Prepare your front door for both of them and you should be fine. And if you're having trouble scouting, go out there with a Zealot or two and poke his front door with a unit that's more resilient than a probe--information is key to defeating any kind of aggression.
I mean from the zerg point of view - what are some things that a zerg player can look for to see if the protoss player is going Skytoss, are there any dead giveaway signs that scream Skytoss that comes early enough for me to get gas and banes on time?
On July 22 2012 12:07 AndySCWilson wrote: I mean from the zerg point of view - what are some things that a zerg player can look for to see if the protoss player is going Skytoss, are there any dead giveaway signs that scream Skytoss that comes early enough for me to get gas and banes on time?
Scout, scout and scout some more in the early game. If you see 2 stargates early you can assume with some certainty that he is going skytoss. I would say if you see that fleet beacon early then I would assume with 95% certainty he is doing some variant of the skytoss build. I'm not sure of exact timings but if you scout early and feel comfortable enough with assuming he's going skytoss, you might have enough time to bust him.
On July 18 2012 16:36 thesupamuug wrote: If you are keeping up with your macro (money low and using chrono), you cant support 3 s gates off 2 bases with upgrades constantly producing. ESP if your opponent is going muta, phx make very fast, the range upgrade will take precedence over the 3rd sg. Even if you do get your 3rd as fast as possible, mutas will be hitting about the same time as the 3rd is finishing assuming your MS is out. So maybe inveresmile is MUCH better than I am, but I have never been able to constantly produce out of 3 sg, have a MS, have a 3rd going, have 5 phx, and have my range upgrade by the time muta hits, which is around 10 mins for any competant z. But with 2 sg you can have just as many phx with saturated bases. Maybe Im wrong but I'd love to see a rep with all of this happening before 10 mins
I have no idea where our skill levels are, but I neglected to mention a couple of things:
1. I don't get any weapons upgrades until my third is established, I have a Mothership and those Phoenixes, and I have 3 Stargates pumping units. I don't care about investing into those upgrades until I have units to use the upgrades, since I can't spare the gas while powering up. If you're going for a gateway army, building gates takes only minerals and therefore you can tech while you do that. But if you're building stargates and a Mothership and all of your units cost ~50 gas per food, upgrades can wait. Being behind in upgrades is fine if you plan to boost them later on, when you're safe.
2. You can't support 3 constantly boosted stargates pumping Phoenixes off of 4 gases. Generally speaking, you can afford one stargate's worth of boosted Phoenix per base. A gas geyser with 3 workers produces 121.15 gpm (gas per ingame minute). If you constantly pump Phoenixes out of one stargate and you boost it once per minute, 2 of them build in exactly 60 seconds (35+35 for build times -10 for chronoboost), which means you're spending 200 gas per minute at that rate. Between 3 Stargates if you boost that often, it's 600 gas per minute, which is barely supportable off of 5 geysers because 121.15 gpm*5=605.75 gpm. I personally try to get my 5th geyser to finish right as the third base finishes so I can saturate it ASAP, and then I get the 6th a little later because I know from the math that 5 geysers can support 3 Stargates when they're producing as fast as possible, so I use my minerals to do other things at that point--usually cannoning and walling. And my goal is to get the 2nd and 3rd stargates to line up with my third, which lines up with the 5th gas, which leads to being able to support all that production simultaneously. Makes sense, right?
3. Since you can't afford Range and 3 Stargates on boosted Phoenix detail, it's reasonable to assume that you get Pulse Chrystals first, then go all-in on producing Phoenixes with your gas. If your opponent half-asses his mutas, 8 stock Phoenixes will kill all of them in a lopsided trade with some decent micro. If he commits, though, you want range. Since mutas take 33 seconds to build and then additional time to move across the map to join the flock, you can stall the first group of mutas while you boost range twice. Range takes 90 seconds to research, and if you boost it perfectly 3 times that shortens to 60 seconds. However, boosting that perfectly is basically a joke when you're microing phoenixes against mutas while macroing, so assume you boost it twice and knock it down to 70 in-game seconds...stall for that long and you can kill all the mutas with that timing.
If you have trouble boosting your stuff quickly while microing, put your Fleet Beacon next to a nexus and hit the backspace key a couple of times to find it so you can boost it faster. If you put your Phoenixes on hotkey 2, for example, this means Back-Back-C-Click-2-2 to find your Beacon, boost it, and then select and zoom in on your Phoenixes again. Your mouse shouldn't have to move very far across the screen. You could also use location hotkeys. Setting up one of those right over your stargates is a pretty good way to jump back and forth between chronoboosting and fighting.
All the info you provided is awesome and 100% accurate, thanks (no trouble w/boosts and I have phx on hotkey 2)! Yet the issue was not any of that, but the fact that there is no way you can have all of that happening by the time z has mutes in your mineral line...as i see you are a diamond like myself, I wonder how you are actually in diamond if you can do all that you say by the time mutes hit. I have been watching fellow poster Nyast's stream/casts, and he does almost exactly what I do. 1 sg to fb to MS, starts 3rd at about 11 min. Then adds 2 sg and gates. So do you start MS after your 3rd starts? I try to play it safe and always start MS before 3rd...but I think this is map dependent. Are there any cues you look for to start 3rd so early and know youre safe?
On July 22 2012 12:07 AndySCWilson wrote: I mean from the zerg point of view - what are some things that a zerg player can look for to see if the protoss player is going Skytoss, are there any dead giveaway signs that scream Skytoss that comes early enough for me to get gas and banes on time?
Like people have said, 2 sg should mean a lot of air units. But since I dont know what level you are at, so some ppl are so bad they might build stuff for no reason. A completely blocked nat most likely means air. If you stay on top of scouting w/ overseers/changelings and use slings, should be no prob. Anything over 3 vrays + any number of phx you should be super suspicious. As someone who plays the skytoss style, the best way I feel is to have a lot of s lings to deny 3rd/4th as soon as cannons start and always use overseers to the best of your ablity. Even then, it is still in question what comp to use if you see skytoss
On July 22 2012 15:19 thesupamuug wrote: All the info you provided is awesome and 100% accurate, thanks (no trouble w/boosts and I have phx on hotkey 2)! Yet the issue was not any of that, but the fact that there is no way you can have all of that happening by the time z has mutes in your mineral line...as i see you are a diamond like myself, I wonder how you are actually in diamond if you can do all that you say by the time mutes hit. I have been watching fellow poster Nyast's stream/casts, and he does almost exactly what I do. 1 sg to fb to MS, starts 3rd at about 11 min. Then adds 2 sg and gates. So do you start MS after your 3rd starts? I try to play it safe and always start MS before 3rd...but I think this is map dependent. Are there any cues you look for to start 3rd so early and know youre safe?
I'm extremely inconsistent. When I play well, I crush a bunch of masters players in a streak. When I play poorly, I tank the hell out of my ranking and hidden ranking. I play a pretty hefty amount of ladder, but I don't have enough practice partners to sit there and practice one match-up for a dozen games in a row. Plus, I'm basically stuck in a rut where I'm getting hit by the weirdest of cheeses, and there's basically no concept of a metagame because everyone just does completely strategies all the time. It's horrible for practice and I really need to go seek some more regular practice partners, because that's basically all I would need to get into masters. I played Warcraft 3 for 8 years and played it pretty competitively for the last 3, so I have unit control and minimap awareness pretty well down; I just need to play more non-ladder practice to improve my consistency. I also have a major problem with PvP these days because I have been overhauling my style to deal with all the early Stargate play, so I'm losing a lot of mirror matches just for the sake of learning.
The build I use from a FFE is to go 2 Gas-->Stargate-->2 more gas-->Fleet Beacon+Void Ray-->4-5 Phoenix. I don't Macro Nexus unless I'm Hatch-blocked. I get the Mothership as soon as the Beacon is done, and I only boost my Stargate twice to get some more defense (the Void Ray) and scouting (the first Phoenix) quickly. While the Mothership builds, I go take my third and park the Void Ray over it. Then, as my Phoenixes are sharking around, I get 2 more Stargates. I don't cut probes to take the third, but I do take it pretty early because the Void will kill 100+minerals worth of units if it gets attacked, so it's not really a big risk if it gets canceled. I need gas more than minerals at that stage anyways, so it's fine to invest like that.
Some adaptations I use:
-If I need to defend a Roach/Ling bust, I nix all the Phoenixes beyond the first one for more Void Rays, and boost those instead of Mothership. Generally speaking, I use Void Rays only to cancel hatcheries, or to defend a base from non-anti-air units, like it's a floating cannon. I think Void Rays are crappy air units (by design; the charge mechanic is just stupid IMHO), but even a crappy air unit is good when your opponent can't shoot up. I still get that one Phoenix just for the sake of scouting and bullying overlords, though; it always pays for itself. I want to see what kind of droning and teching (or lack thereof) is going on.
-If the zerg makes a lot of stuff to cancel my third, I cancel the third and try to kill as much with my air units as possible. If the third gets canceled, it costs me just 100 minerals and a couple minutes of mining at the third, but if they send out non-drone units to die, it costs a lot more for the Zerg. In the meantime, I do counterattacks with my Phoenixes and attack him where he is weak...sometimes I bring a Void along to cancel a hatch. Either he loses almost all of his queens and I kill a lot of flying cows, or he makes a bunch of anti-air instead of drones and more attacking units.
On July 22 2012 15:19 thesupamuug wrote: All the info you provided is awesome and 100% accurate, thanks (no trouble w/boosts and I have phx on hotkey 2)! Yet the issue was not any of that, but the fact that there is no way you can have all of that happening by the time z has mutes in your mineral line...as i see you are a diamond like myself, I wonder how you are actually in diamond if you can do all that you say by the time mutes hit. I have been watching fellow poster Nyast's stream/casts, and he does almost exactly what I do. 1 sg to fb to MS, starts 3rd at about 11 min. Then adds 2 sg and gates. So do you start MS after your 3rd starts? I try to play it safe and always start MS before 3rd...but I think this is map dependent. Are there any cues you look for to start 3rd so early and know youre safe?
I'm assuming this is happening while you're on 2-base, since you should be able to handle mutas easily when you're on 3. I find the mutas can't engage your mothership and 5 or so void-rays if you use the voids to target fire. (The voids and couple of phoenix you squeeze out during the battle will kill all mutas before the mothership dies, although it might be very close.) If the zerg dances around your main/nat trying to do economic damage instead of engaging, then you can drop cannons and dance around with your voids/MS/few phoenixes that pop as best you can as you chrono out more phoenixes. If you really can't handle it splitting attention between two bases until 4-6 phoenix get out, then move all probes at your main to your nat, and park the MS there. If you're worried about mutas killing your stargates, then do what I do and place one SG in your nat, and one SG on the high ground very close to the nat, with a cannon next to it. Then park the MS close enough to drift over and save either SG. I've played about 40 games with this style, and I've never lost to mutas. (I play mid-high diamond PvZ, if you're wondering about my rank.)
EDIT: on a side-note, if you didn't notice from the above, I go SG, fleet beacon, SG, 1-3 voids, MS, pressure. The MS isn't too incredibly delayed, and even if you delayed the voids to speed up MS production, I think you'd still probably be okay. You should have some idea if z has some -super- fast muta pressure coming -- he won't have a third base... You are scouting for a third at ~4:30-5:00, right? If you don't see one by 5:00, you should probably be delaying your third to get more units ASAP. Additionally, an early phoenix scout should reveal his plans...
Ok, Fogetaboudit, here's a loss when I went skytoss on Daybreak where I can't really see what I did fundamentally wrong ( he was master 1200, so good player I guess ):
Basically, he took a blind 4th at 9', and when he scouted the build, just went for a mass roachs/lings push. At that very moment I'm taking my third and my mothership comes out, so I'm able to hold.
I lose a voidray to 2 queens when he tries to establish his fourth, cause I stupidly thought that without creep there was no way queens could arrive in time. Guess I was wrong
After his attack I immediately counter with 2 voidrays to attempt to snippe his fourth, but corruptors are already out. Gg.
I don't see why you can't just try to throw it up around 8:30 - 9
You are poking with your first Void Ray but he has rallied his army across the map. Instead of using your Void ray for defense its just attacking an idle hatchery. Every unit is critical for defense at the start. You also make 2 extra gateways and 3 zealots instead of 4 cannons. again, early efficiency is king. You have 3 unpowered cannons due to an artosis pylon.
This is all very basic analysis...
4 bases against 2 is not acceptable, so from this point on you are pretty lost as long as he continues to trade. You should have held much cleaner if you are going to stay on 2 base. I think the amount of damage you took is acceptable if you have 3 nexus because after stabilization you have lots more chrono/patches/probe production.
Spending gas on sentries is not good if you are just going to lose them for free at 14:45. Everything you have is just sitting at the third, so he engages your cannons at the natural by themselves. And then engages your small/midsized army while its naked.
Don't like making 3 stargates before taking the third...
IDK like he played well against your style, maybe it's a soft counter, maybe it's not. This replay is certainly not proof of a hard counter because I think the execution/build order/decision making has a lot of room to improve.
Also you spent gas on twilight council kinda early and float a lot of gas in general. Just food for thought. I know you like switching into Templar but you need a very strong air core before doing this, imo.
On July 22 2012 22:09 Fogetaboudit wrote: What is your third timing?
I don't see why you can't just try to throw it up around 8:30 - 9
I usually try to take my third around 10'. Sometimes a bit earlier, sometimes a bit later. But in my experience, if you do it too early it fails. 9' is the timing most zergs produce lings/roaches in a standard macro game for defense, so they'll be active around the map and poke. I very rarely succeed at early thirds, especially on a map such as daybreak..
On July 22 2012 22:09 Fogetaboudit wrote: You are poking with your first Void Ray but he has rallied his army across the map. Instead of using your Void ray for defense its just attacking an idle hatchery. Every unit is critical for defense at the start. You also make 2 extra gateways and 3 zealots instead of 4 cannons. again, early efficiency is king. You have 3 unpowered cannons due to an artosis pylon.
That idle hatchery is his fourth.. in the context of this game, it was so early that it seemed to me to be critical to delay it. Besides, the roaches were already streaming on the map, and voidrays are slow: I knew it wouldn't be back in time to help so I let it continue attack the hatchery. Maybe that was a mistake ( well, losing it definitely was ), but honestly, in the event I had pulled back and was able to defend perfectly and establish my third, I'm not sure I would have been in a better position with a Zerg who got a 9' fourth and a fast spire. In fact, he could make more corruptors than I could handle.
This is the main thing I wanted to demonstrate in that game, what I think is the flaw in this strat: Zerg takes a fast fourth and a fast spire, you're forced to defend / delay your third, and by the time you've successfully defended, he already has more corruptors out than you have voids. THAT is what worries me. The fact that I took serious damage in that game is kind of secondary, cause even if I didn't, I think I was screwed.
I won't address the rest of your comments since I don't think they're too relevant. In that game, I messed up, I took my third at 12' as I was too busy defending ( note that he could have denied my potential 10' third with his roaches instead of attacking at the natural. It would still have been 4 bases vs 2.. ). My feeling is that such a fast fourth + denying third + fast corruptors = gg
On July 23 2012 03:38 Nyast wrote: This is the main thing I wanted to demonstrate in that game, what I think is the flaw in this strat: Zerg takes a fast fourth and a fast spire, you're forced to defend / delay your third, and by the time you've successfully defended, he already has more corruptors out than you have voids. THAT is what worries me.
I didn't watch the replay (can't atm), but I feel like there's probably a hole in his defense if he has 4 bases, fast lair and fast spire. Might his play be susceptible to a strong 2-SG push with ~3-5 chrono'd voids and a couple of phoenix (delaying the mothership's completion by 2-mins or so)? (Just drop a few cannons to defend your nat. while you push.) Alternatively, after scouting his fast spire, maybe you could drop four DTs in his main to snipe the spire, and then send a couple of zealots and a DT to his fourth?
On a side-note, one thing I've started doing is dropping pylons and cannons -before- a nexus at my third. It helps me get cannons up 400 minerals sooner, after which it's pretty easy to take the nexus, if a few voids are parked overhead.
On July 21 2012 03:32 Oboeman wrote: Make sure that he never gets to build a nexus without sitting his mothership ontop of it to cloak it. He can't take a 3rd base with only void rays, you will kill it and burrow a ling. Never let him finish cannons without being spotted, use lings to deny every attempt unless he brings all of his air units over to defend it while it builds. [...] I've never let a pure skytoss player get a 4th base.
This. I believe this is the reason you win. If I get a fourth, I add high templar, and feedback+a few archons makes your life very difficult. I've had some pretty difficult games where zergs made it very difficult to take my fourth.
Yes, exactly.
However, it's not like they don't try to take a 4th base. They do try, and I don't let them. I'm not going all-in trying to end the game before their 4th base either. I'm still shooting for a longer game, but they have a very hard time taking their 4th base against me.
for those of you who are getting your 3rd base before your mothership is out... how? Is zerg just choosing to not attack it with zerglings? I go cancel your 3rd with speedlings while pylons and cannons are warping in if you have no ground units, even if you are sitting on top of it with void rays. Are your zerg opponents just letting you get it for free?
On July 23 2012 05:56 Oboeman wrote: for those of you who are getting your 3rd base before your mothership is out... how? Is zerg just choosing to not attack it with zerglings? I go cancel your 3rd with speedlings while pylons and cannons are warping in if you have no ground units, even if you are sitting on top of it with void rays. Are your zerg opponents just letting you get it for free?
I usually just get my third after MS is out (third at ~10:30), after some void-pressure. However, recently I've been playing with the idea of placing early pylons + cannons (~7-8 mins) at my third without even dropping a nexus. Then, when it's time to take my third a few minutes later, it's easy. I haven't done this much, so this is only theorycrafting, but while zergs can theoretically deny my pylons and cannons, (1) in terms of the metagame, few zerg check for stuff at the third that early, and (2) if it looks like you're going to try to deny my third then, instead of harrassing, I can park my voids over my third and start killing anything that would prevent me from building pylons and cannons, chronoing a zealot or two to help if needed. If you commit much more than a dozen lings at ~7-8 mins, you're really cutting into your mid-game macro. If you don't, I'll probably be able to take a fast third.
I've rarely had zergs do a really good job of denying the third, but if you -can- deny it until 12mins+, as long as you didn't invest -too- much, toss is probably dead. I had one masters zerg deny it with stupidly fast hydralisks and overseer. (He knew the strat was coming, and I'm not really that good--just mid diamond.)
On July 23 2012 05:56 Oboeman wrote: for those of you who are getting your 3rd base before your mothership is out... how? Is zerg just choosing to not attack it with zerglings? I go cancel your 3rd with speedlings while pylons and cannons are warping in if you have no ground units, even if you are sitting on top of it with void rays. Are your zerg opponents just letting you get it for free?
Like, I've just been planting it under 1-2 zealots and 1 Voidray. If Zerg is going for crazy econ/tech then I can keep up. If they have a lot of speedlings, then they have to attack at the perfect timing, focus the nexus, and force a cancel, while losing units in the process. I'll just cancel (sometimes I don't even have to, depending on the micro) and then make it again behind another production cycle.
On July 23 2012 05:56 Oboeman wrote: for those of you who are getting your 3rd base before your mothership is out... how? Is zerg just choosing to not attack it with zerglings? I go cancel your 3rd with speedlings while pylons and cannons are warping in if you have no ground units, even if you are sitting on top of it with void rays. Are your zerg opponents just letting you get it for free?
Like, I've just been planting it under 1-2 zealots and 1 Voidray. If Zerg is going for crazy econ/tech then I can keep up. If they have a lot of speedlings, then they have to attack at the perfect timing, focus the nexus, and force a cancel, while losing units in the process. I'll just cancel (sometimes I don't even have to, depending on the micro) and then make it again behind another production cycle.
Also, high econ baneling busts are NOT scary.
Ok they shouldn't let you get your 3rd like that. It doesn't take many lings to slow it down, and it's almost always worth it if you can stop a base with only lings. It's normal for the zerg player to make a round of lings after hitting 60 drones, just to ensure you have map control and lets you get some scouting, and it's just good to have. Especially against stargate, when the overlords get taken out, it's crucial to have lings out for map vision. so i make the lings anyway, and then it turns out that they get to kill a pylon and 2 zealots.
Starting the pylon before nexus to get the cannons up faster is a good idea, but I don't know if it'd be enough. Do you have lots of spare minerals at this point in the build?
On July 23 2012 09:32 Oboeman wrote: Starting the pylon before nexus to get the cannons up faster is a good idea, but I don't know if it'd be enough. Do you have lots of spare minerals at this point in the build?
I played around a bit in YABOT, and it seems reasonable if you only go one stargate. I tend to go 2-SG pressure, so I have fewer mins to work with. If people start completely preventing my third when I go 2-SG I guess I'll have to switch to one. I wound up sending 1 zealot and a probe to build pylons+cannons at my third at 6:30, and I can get 3-4 cannons up by 7:30, with a second zealot to help guard. (Once I have 3-4 cannons building I actually send my zealots to the zerg's third to scout and distract him.) To be clear, I make a bunch of cannons before the nexus, since I care more about holding my nexus than whether it finishes at 8:30 or 10:00. My suspicion is that's enough to hold anything that a zerg will send if he's not really dipping into his macro, and I can reasonably continue the build, and still have the MS pop at a reasonable time (I believe it was ~11-12 mins). From my limited experience with this variant, I seem to have a couple of voids, a couple of zealots, and 12 cannons+finished third at about 10 mins, with full saturation on main+nat, and half saturation on third.
My build for this variant isn't terribly well thought through, but my feeling is that a good player should be able to refine it. If you wait for 60 drones to make a bunch of units, I don't think you can hit the third before maybe 8:30, by which time 8 cannons can be up. I don't know though, someone should flesh it out. I'm not good enough to try to make it work versus masters players that know what's coming -- I just take the occasional game off the unsuspecting low master. =)
On July 22 2012 21:17 Nyast wrote: Ok, Fogetaboudit, here's a loss when I went skytoss on Daybreak where I can't really see what I did fundamentally wrong ( he was master 1200, so good player I guess ):
Basically, he took a blind 4th at 9', and when he scouted the build, just went for a mass roachs/lings push. At that very moment I'm taking my third and my mothership comes out, so I'm able to hold.
I lose a voidray to 2 queens when he tries to establish his fourth, cause I stupidly thought that without creep there was no way queens could arrive in time. Guess I was wrong
After his attack I immediately counter with 2 voidrays to attempt to snippe his fourth, but corruptors are already out. Gg.
Your wall-off was suspect. Your opponent could have executed a really simple baneling bust and killed you easily, if he wanted. Personally, I think you should futher wall-off the secondary ramp by the rocks, like you would with Cloud Kingdom. One way or another, you need to build a better defensive position at your natural because it's unacceptable to lose to roach/ling busts coming that late when you're only on 2 bases.
On July 23 2012 05:56 Oboeman wrote: for those of you who are getting your 3rd base before your mothership is out... how? Is zerg just choosing to not attack it with zerglings? I go cancel your 3rd with speedlings while pylons and cannons are warping in if you have no ground units, even if you are sitting on top of it with void rays. Are your zerg opponents just letting you get it for free?
I usually just get my third after MS is out (third at ~10:30), after some void-pressure. However, recently I've been playing with the idea of placing early pylons + cannons (~7-8 mins) at my third without even dropping a nexus. Then, when it's time to take my third a few minutes later, it's easy. I haven't done this much, so this is only theorycrafting, but while zergs can theoretically deny my pylons and cannons, (1) in terms of the metagame, few zerg check for stuff at the third that early, and (2) if it looks like you're going to try to deny my third then, instead of harrassing, I can park my voids over my third and start killing anything that would prevent me from building pylons and cannons, chronoing a zealot or two to help if needed. If you commit much more than a dozen lings at ~7-8 mins, you're really cutting into your mid-game macro. If you don't, I'll probably be able to take a fast third.
I've rarely had zergs do a really good job of denying the third, but if you -can- deny it until 12mins+, as long as you didn't invest -too- much, toss is probably dead. I had one masters zerg deny it with stupidly fast hydralisks and overseer. (He knew the strat was coming, and I'm not really that good--just mid diamond.)
Hey so I'm just a plat, but if they have hydras parked at your third to prevent a third, why dont you just fly voids over to main base and put your voids in there ass, and then mothership recall as soon as your fleet is in any danger? if they hydras are near your base, you should be easily able to go in snipe hydra tech, infest pit, and main lair/hive, and then maybe a mining base too. Hydras are sooo damn slow
On July 24 2012 02:47 emaster wrote: Hey so I'm just a plat, but if they have hydras parked at your third to prevent a third, why dont you just fly voids over to main base and put your voids in there ass, and then mothership recall as soon as your fleet is in any danger? if they hydras are near your base, you should be easily able to go in snipe hydra tech, infest pit, and main lair/hive, and then maybe a mining base too. Hydras are sooo damn slow
That's a good thought, but: (1) his hydra push was big enough to flatten my natural if I sent my air units out (he was about 150 supply at 12min with just drones+queens+hydras, and almost maxed by 14min, whereas I had MS, one carrier, 6-7 voids and maybe 10 cannons) (2) he had a creep highway all the way to my base courtesy of several queens, taking the gold, and overlord creep
There are definitely things I could have done better in the game (take faster third, remake cannons and blocking gateways faster after his hydras busted my nat, save MS during that bust). I just got (pretty heavily) outplayed. He was a good player (mid-masters, been masters since season 2) and he knew what was coming lol.
Sorry for switching the topic a bit, but what do you do when zerg goes for a baneling bust before the mothership is out? I'm not sure what the best response would be.
On July 24 2012 07:07 Shikada wrote: Sorry for switching the topic a bit, but what do you do when zerg goes for a baneling bust before the mothership is out? I'm not sure what the best response would be.
Silly macro nexus shenanigans aside, if you smell baneling bust, ever, get sentries. In fact, getting a couple sentries at some point not a bad idea in any case. Sure, it's a hunk of gas, but you can always use the extra minerals to econ a bit faster. Even if you don't use the forcefields you have a few guardian shields later on, which always helps. Watch hydras against carriers with GS, it's fun.
A couple of sentries is always good safety against early aggression. Put 'em on a different hotkey, though, sometimes you gotta dance them back while the carriers wreck.
reading about the idea of zerg denying the 3rd and 4th with heavy ling pressure, is it possible to get out a single carrier early enough to take your bases without screwing over your economy. The reason I ask is that interceptors kill zerglings and banelings extremely fast, and would allow you to easily repel any ling/bling pressure.
I honestly have not attempted this build as my mechanics are crap and I am working on improving over trying out new builds. I really like the idea of pure skytoss though, so I would love to experiment once I can get my macro to an acceptable level.
Basically, I send a Zealot and a Void to the third and build one pylon next to the nexus. If they send enough lings (say, 20-ish) to cancel that, I'm out 300 minerals, I've killed a bunch of the lings, and they had to bone their own economy to make that many lings, so I'm fine with the delay. If they send them right when you start it, that means they already made the lings instead of ~10 drones, so you're really fine with losing 300 minerals for free with a cancel. That's the beauty of a fast third--they have to either really commit, or they can't do anything about it because they've been droning.
After the pylon is done, I put a cannon down, then another pylon, then another cannon, then another pylon. You have a minor sim-city for fighting lings where the cannons hug the nexus and 3 pylons form a partial wall next to them. If you get attacked, you can build one more building and block off the cannons, which makes speedlings super cost-inefficient, even while these buildings are 75% done because your first cannon, your zealot, and your Void Ray will do so much damage (even though it's lings). The thing about getting a Carrier is that you have to spend 250 gas on it, and it takes 120 seconds to build. For 150 more gas and 40 more seconds, you could have a Mothership. You can't afford both, so it's better to just get the Mothership because it does a more solid job of defending your third base. Plus, you want it as soon as possible because Mothership energy is a valuable resource which increases over time. More energy means more vortexes to deter timing attacks. It also means more move-out times where you roll out with an army and hunt down bases, then teleport out when the infestors show up (or to defend a base from counter-attacks).
Personally, I have been a lot happier lately with opening 13 Gate in PvZ, so I don't FFE anymore. I don't even want to begin to bring that debate into this thread, but it's worth mentioning because otherwise I would probably post some replays to help. I still take fast thirds or go into heavy stargate/fast mothership play, but I don't do it from the FFE because I prefer to get some stalkers out early to pressure the zerg...I have War3 micro so I might as well use it.
On July 25 2012 02:01 Morton wrote: that makes sense. I haven't really had much experience with motherships, but using it for defense seems very solid.
Yeah, the cloaking is a real boon, even if your opponent brings detection (which can usually be sniped anyway). But it's the build-up of energy that really makes the mothership incredible at defense. Mass recalls and vortexes are worth their weight in gold that early in the game.
well if you do a +1 2gate zealot push like i do, then no amount of slings are gonna stop a mothership with some +1 zealots underneath it from securing a 3rd.
This strategy makes me cry, what should I do? I tried a corruptor/ling timing, but it was to no avail (Bad engagement, i had lings get decimated by cannons, then corruptors took tons of fire) I had a burrowed drone (lol) to deny his fourth, but he got it up anyways because he built cannons before the nexus. I tried to break him at his fourth, but void rays decimate corruptors. I didn't have infestors because I lost them all, and I felt that I needed to attack NOW...it got crushed, and shortly after he just a-moves and wins. A fairly fast game, I got starved out. Also i lost 80 lings for nothing, which was terrible but not game-ending. It really wasn't close...what should I do differently to attempt to win?
Guy was very mannered, apparently Protoss players are nicer than zergs xD
Thanks!
Edit: I think I felt pressured to attack because I scouted a gateway transition incoming. And I hate archons. I got REALLY lucky and was gonna roach drop his main, but 20 roaches spawned and killed the archons. Didn't help me from losing the game though.
On July 27 2012 09:08 emaster wrote: well if you do a +1 2gate zealot push like i do, then no amount of slings are gonna stop a mothership with some +1 zealots underneath it from securing a 3rd.
I usually get a slow +1 attack, not throwing any chrono boost on it, but for that very reason. Having some zealot cushion is never really bad against anything, in the early game, and the +1 timing with your third going down is hard for a Zerg to push against. Later on they don't scale so well with the shields upgrades (the way cannons do, for instance), so you gotta balance out that resource usage, but zealots are always a welcome cushion early on.
On July 27 2012 09:59 Mavvie wrote: This strategy makes me cry, what should I do? I tried a corruptor/ling timing, but it was to no avail (Bad engagement, i had lings get decimated by cannons, then corruptors took tons of fire) I had a burrowed drone (lol) to deny his fourth, but he got it up anyways because he built cannons before the nexus. I tried to break him at his fourth, but void rays decimate corruptors. I didn't have infestors because I lost them all, and I felt that I needed to attack NOW...it got crushed, and shortly after he just a-moves and wins. A fairly fast game, I got starved out. Also i lost 80 lings for nothing, which was terrible but not game-ending. It really wasn't close...what should I do differently to attempt to win?
Guy was very mannered, apparently Protoss players are nicer than zergs xD
Thanks!
Edit: I think I felt pressured to attack because I scouted a gateway transition incoming. And I hate archons. I got REALLY lucky and was gonna roach drop his main, but 20 roaches spawned and killed the archons. Didn't help me from losing the game though.
Someone pls answer him ; ; I died to this on Daybreak and had never seen any openings to harass.... It all ended when he maxed out, destroyed the rocks, gg
On July 27 2012 09:59 Mavvie wrote: This strategy makes me cry, what should I do? I tried a corruptor/ling timing, but it was to no avail (Bad engagement, i had lings get decimated by cannons, then corruptors took tons of fire) I had a burrowed drone (lol) to deny his fourth, but he got it up anyways because he built cannons before the nexus. I tried to break him at his fourth, but void rays decimate corruptors. I didn't have infestors because I lost them all, and I felt that I needed to attack NOW...it got crushed, and shortly after he just a-moves and wins. A fairly fast game, I got starved out. Also i lost 80 lings for nothing, which was terrible but not game-ending. It really wasn't close...what should I do differently to attempt to win?
Guy was very mannered, apparently Protoss players are nicer than zergs xD
Thanks!
Edit: I think I felt pressured to attack because I scouted a gateway transition incoming. And I hate archons. I got REALLY lucky and was gonna roach drop his main, but 20 roaches spawned and killed the archons. Didn't help me from losing the game though.
Someone pls answer him ; ; I died to this on Daybreak and had never seen any openings to harass.... It all ended when he maxed out, destroyed the rocks, gg
fungals and hydras and transfuse was not enough
Proactively deny his third while taking a fourth, spreading creep, and getting tons of queens. Prevent him from taking his third until 12-13 minutes, then get hydra corruptor, make a huge push at 15:00, and win...
EDIT: don't forget to engage wherever he has the least cannons. That might be his natural. Otherwise, drop or double-nydus his main. I'd say up until ~15:00 you want pure hydra on the ground and pure corruptor in the air. After that add infestors and control them well (but not too many). If things drag out, you should be able to prevent him from taking a fourth forever by forcing him to engage your army away from cannons. Then after he kills you (at great cost), you remax on whatever will kill him (probably pure corruptor with lings for ground) and push again IMMEDIATELY, before he has a chance to cannon the fourth up. You starve him, he can't make units.
Yesterday somebody went for a bust with hydras at around 13'.. using a nydus just in front of my natural ! So creep spread isn't a factor, and he can reinforce directly in your face Found it quite effective First vortex helped to temporize but I didn't have enough units afterwards to hold 40+ hydras.
On July 28 2012 03:08 Nyast wrote: Yesterday somebody went for a bust with hydras at around 13'.. using a nydus just in front of my natural ! So creep spread isn't a factor, and he can reinforce directly in your face Found it quite effective First vortex helped to temporize but I didn't have enough units afterwards to hold 40+ hydras.
Yeah I've been SUPER worried about this. Been holding it like 50% of the time but I hardly ever face it so my efficiency and the attackers efficiency have a lot of room to improve.
On July 28 2012 03:24 nGBeast wrote: Yeah I don't think this is viable anymore, and roaches so fucking good he can just trade roaches endlessly and lol at you
Used this all my pvzs at 900ish masters eu, won all Devo still viable
I just think that you can't go FFE into defensive air-only play and expect it to work. The pressure is too little--too late, and you have to rely on static defense so much. I'm still a huge fan of air play and I almost always use Stargate units as part of my composition in PvZ, but I'm much prefering opening 13Gate and pressuring the zerg. In my opinion, it is better to be the bully when you face Zergs. If you start off the game by letting them call the shots, you're screwing yourself over.
On July 28 2012 03:24 nGBeast wrote: Yeah I don't think this is viable anymore, and roaches so fucking good he can just trade roaches endlessly and lol at you
Used this all my pvzs at 900ish masters eu, won all Devo still viable
a 12 min 200 food stephano roach push will shit all over you, it doesn't matter how much static d/void rays you have you will die and lose the base and he's only losing roaches while on 3 bases.
You do know that mothership cloaks my units right? Good luck stomping over the invisible tight wall with invsible cannons and voidrays behind it with just roaches.
On July 28 2012 03:24 nGBeast wrote: Yeah I don't think this is viable anymore, and roaches so fucking good he can just trade roaches endlessly and lol at you
Used this all my pvzs at 900ish masters eu, won all Devo still viable
a 12 min 200 food stephano roach push will shit all over you, it doesn't matter how much static d/void rays you have you will die and lose the base and he's only losing roaches while on 3 bases.
You know, this is one of the things that I fear the absolute least. Absolute bottom of the food chain. I've faced the 12 minute max, and it's just a ridiculously easy hold each time. My mothership cloaks my shit. If you bring overseers, they die instantly. You can't get in, and you either retreat or die. Either way, I go rape your main with 6-8 void rays while you're stuck outside my base doing no damage... Bye bye lair... bye bye spire, hydra den, infestation pit, evo chambers, queens, ...
What -really- shakes my boots is a 200 food hydra push at 14:30. I only hold that 50% of the time. (I'm getting better though; extra cannons sure help.)
On July 28 2012 03:24 nGBeast wrote: Yeah I don't think this is viable anymore, and roaches so fucking good he can just trade roaches endlessly and lol at you
Used this all my pvzs at 900ish masters eu, won all Devo still viable
a 12 min 200 food stephano roach push will shit all over you, it doesn't matter how much static d/void rays you have you will die and lose the base and he's only losing roaches while on 3 bases.
On July 28 2012 03:24 nGBeast wrote: Yeah I don't think this is viable anymore, and roaches so fucking good he can just trade roaches endlessly and lol at you
Used this all my pvzs at 900ish masters eu, won all Devo still viable
a 12 min 200 food stephano roach push will shit all over you, it doesn't matter how much static d/void rays you have you will die and lose the base and he's only losing roaches while on 3 bases.
Unless he bring hydras, he's trading Roaches for sim-citied cannons sitting under Void Rays and a Mothership. That means you're putting his army on a clock while he waits for detection to come, then he has to kill stuff in timing windows while he has Overseers around. In the meantime, you're gradually snowballing your fleet and he has to either tech Hydras (which means either a later attack or a window of breathing room for you where you stabilize) or use Overseers to trade the majority of his army for your third. If you save the majority of your workers and all of your air (gas) units and have a mothership, you're actually ahead on 2 base vs 3. You can sacrifice a base and still win the game, so long as you're smart and you go wreck 1-2 of his bases and recall home to maintain your army.
ineversmile, for the 14:30 max hydra push, I stop double VR production, and start pumping carriers, I build some zealots to tank shots, and I drop down one robo, as soon as it's done I drop another robo and support bay and start pumping double colosus. You should have two by the time he attacks, and then it's not even funny how easy it is to hold.
Just remember that having more than 4 or 6 colosus is never good, since he will switch into corruptors, so you have to switch to storm/archon, but before that you have a nice window to do some damage.
Of course, this is all diamond level stuff, your opponents might not let you get away with it, but perhaps it's worth a try.
On July 28 2012 03:44 ineversmile wrote: I just think that you can't go FFE into defensive air-only play and expect it to work. The pressure is too little--too late, and you have to rely on static defense so much. I'm still a huge fan of air play and I almost always use Stargate units as part of my composition in PvZ, but I'm much prefering opening 13Gate and pressuring the zerg. In my opinion, it is better to be the bully when you face Zergs. If you start off the game by letting them call the shots, you're screwing yourself over.
I attempted pressure builds for a good while, but found it quite ineffective in the end. The problem is this: you're slightly delaying the Zerg, so far so good. This forces him to make a lot of units to defend. Which implies that he's going to be able to deny your third until your MS is out; forget about taking it while the MS is constructing, it'll be impossible.
MS production is slightly delayed ( 30s to a minute ) due to the resources you put into pressure.
In the end, I found that most of the time I had to delay my third until the 13-14' mark before I can safely take it. Meanwhile, Zerg has been on 3+ bases for a long time, and if he's not stupid and has scouted your bases with overseers, he's already dropped a spire and is starting to produce corruptors.
In the end I decided that no pressure and going for eco, faster third and faster MS + voidrays was better I think the key to skytoss is to prevent ( or delay for a long time ) Zerg's fourth. Most games where I'm able to park a voidray on his fourth and deny it, I've won.
If the Zerg retreats after a failed 200/200 I MAEK ROACH build, I try to let most his roaches alive. The more ineffective supplies he's got in his army, the better for me it as he cannot reinforce with an optimal number of hydras and/or corruptors and/or infestors. So for me, the 200/200 derp push is pretty easy to hold with this build.
On July 28 2012 03:44 ineversmile wrote: I just think that you can't go FFE into defensive air-only play and expect it to work. The pressure is too little--too late, and you have to rely on static defense so much. I'm still a huge fan of air play and I almost always use Stargate units as part of my composition in PvZ, but I'm much prefering opening 13Gate and pressuring the zerg. In my opinion, it is better to be the bully when you face Zergs. If you start off the game by letting them call the shots, you're screwing yourself over.
I attempted pressure builds for a good while, but found it quite ineffective in the end. The problem is this: you're slightly delaying the Zerg, so far so good. This forces him to make a lot of units to defend. Which implies that he's going to be able to deny your third until your MS is out; forget about taking it while the MS is constructing, it'll be impossible.
You shouldn't be getting a MS to defend a third if you're doing a gateway pressure build. Your plan for taking a third should be to send Phoenixes out there, see if he took his third and is droning, and then respond with a third and Phoenix harass. If he built a bunch of units, he's all-in and you don't need to take a third base for a while. That's the point.
MS production is slightly delayed ( 30s to a minute ) due to the resources you put into pressure.
I make a MS while taking a 4th because i have an army for defense instead. Granted, it's not a sky army, but it becomes one because after the MS starts I'm going into 3 Stargate Carriers and basically massing just chargelots and an immortal with the rest of my production cycles, since I'm gas starved.
In the end, I found that most of the time I had to delay my third until the 13-14' mark before I can safely take it. Meanwhile, Zerg has been on 3+ bases for a long time, and if he's not stupid and has scouted your bases with overseers, he's already dropped a spire and is starting to produce corruptors.
Who cares about the in-game time? It's all relative. If the zerg doesn't have a saturated third, I don't need one.
In the end I decided that no pressure and going for eco, faster third and faster MS + voidrays was better I think the key to skytoss is to prevent ( or delay for a long time ) Zerg's fourth. Most games where I'm able to park a voidray on his fourth and deny it, I've won.
Whatever works for you!
EDIT: The whole composition I go for in this matchup is Carriers and ranged Phoenixes with a Mothership and +3 air weapons. I actually don't even stop making Phoenixes in most of my games. So I'm still doing Skytoss, but it's a late game plan so I'm not shoehorned into massing crappy Void Rays or eventually abandoning the skies and going into pure chargelot. I think this is smoother in terms of playing to your resources (building mineral-heavy armies early and gas-heavy armies later), map control, and dealing with aggression because it's an approach that isn't built around cutting corners.
On July 29 2012 03:40 ineversmile wrote: EDIT: The whole composition I go for in this matchup is Carriers and ranged Phoenixes with a Mothership and +3 air weapons. I actually don't even stop making Phoenixes in most of my games. So I'm still doing Skytoss, but it's a late game plan so I'm not shoehorned into massing crappy Void Rays or eventually abandoning the skies and going into pure chargelot. I think this is smoother in terms of playing to your resources (building mineral-heavy armies early and gas-heavy armies later), map control, and dealing with aggression because it's an approach that isn't built around cutting corners.
You make me curious, do you have replays ?
The problem I see with phoenixes is the same than voidrays: fungal pwns them. Do you spread/harass with them in small groups ?
On July 29 2012 03:40 ineversmile wrote: EDIT: The whole composition I go for in this matchup is Carriers and ranged Phoenixes with a Mothership and +3 air weapons. I actually don't even stop making Phoenixes in most of my games. So I'm still doing Skytoss, but it's a late game plan so I'm not shoehorned into massing crappy Void Rays or eventually abandoning the skies and going into pure chargelot. I think this is smoother in terms of playing to your resources (building mineral-heavy armies early and gas-heavy armies later), map control, and dealing with aggression because it's an approach that isn't built around cutting corners.
You make me curious, do you have replays ?
The problem I see with phoenixes is the same than voidrays: fungal pwns them. Do you spread/harass with them in small groups ?
As a zerg player i can imagine someone doing MASSIVE hit-and-runs on my overlords + drones...or he could split them into groups of 3 or 4 and go overlord/queen hunting, being super annoying and causing terrible economic damage. But I feel that you would simply die to a corruptor/ling timing with 3-4 infestors. We all know that phoenix, motherships, and carriers suck against corruptors, and lings would be good for multi-progned aggression through drops,nydus,runbys, etc.
I'll go dig for some replays right now. I have a bunch of replays of zergs getting wrecked by the pressure, but not so many of a zerg losing in the late game. It usually goes to a midgame where I'm ahead and I either crush some kind of tier 2 timing from the Zerg and hold my third base, or I go over there and wreck him beyond repair with stargate pay. You would also be surprised how often I kill a scouting overlord with the first stalker when it goes to check my main after seeing no expansion and no wall-off at the ramp. =D A supply block a couple minutes into the game is so swingy.
I'll edit this post in after an hour or so, when I get some replays together and upload them. At least a couple games go to the midgame, to show the third timing I use and my transition plan.
I havent lost to a zerg with skytoss strat in last 15 games. They have tried everything. Like Shikada mentions max hydra push at 14:30 or so isnt difficult to hold at all. You just have to scout and tech appropriatly. I love this strat.
On July 29 2012 05:20 SuperYo1000 wrote: I havent lost to a zerg with skytoss strat in last 15 games. They have tried everything. Like Shikada mentions max hydra push at 14:30 or so isnt difficult to hold at all. You just have to scout and tech appropriatly. I love this strat.
I do lose games (typically facing top8 diamond / low masters), but usually because I lost a few voids early, or didn't make extra cannons in time for a fast hydra-corruptor bust, or overcommitted to phoenixes+stalkers vs a diminishing muta count, or mismanaged my mothership (letting it die with >100 energy). Sometimes a good player will deny my third with an insanely fast hydra rush. Even if he can't break my front, if he can stop me from taking a third until ~15mins, I'm boned. I've also lost a few quick games with a lot of $$ and stargate time invested into a carrier that pops just as the battle is ending. Oh... and fast baneling busts that I can't scout (because my phoenix isn't out, and he's preventing probe scouting with just a few lings)...
On July 29 2012 03:40 ineversmile wrote: EDIT: The whole composition I go for in this matchup is Carriers and ranged Phoenixes with a Mothership and +3 air weapons. I actually don't even stop making Phoenixes in most of my games. So I'm still doing Skytoss, but it's a late game plan so I'm not shoehorned into massing crappy Void Rays or eventually abandoning the skies and going into pure chargelot. I think this is smoother in terms of playing to your resources (building mineral-heavy armies early and gas-heavy armies later), map control, and dealing with aggression because it's an approach that isn't built around cutting corners.
You make me curious, do you have replays ?
The problem I see with phoenixes is the same than voidrays: fungal pwns them. Do you spread/harass with them in small groups ?
As a zerg player i can imagine someone doing MASSIVE hit-and-runs on my overlords + drones...or he could split them into groups of 3 or 4 and go overlord/queen hunting, being super annoying and causing terrible economic damage. But I feel that you would simply die to a corruptor/ling timing with 3-4 infestors. We all know that phoenix, motherships, and carriers suck against corruptors, and lings would be good for multi-progned aggression through drops,nydus,runbys, etc.
So basically you are saying that this will die to ling-corruptor-infestor-nydus timing? Yep, totally standard play for zerg.
On July 29 2012 03:40 ineversmile wrote: EDIT: The whole composition I go for in this matchup is Carriers and ranged Phoenixes with a Mothership and +3 air weapons. I actually don't even stop making Phoenixes in most of my games. So I'm still doing Skytoss, but it's a late game plan so I'm not shoehorned into massing crappy Void Rays or eventually abandoning the skies and going into pure chargelot. I think this is smoother in terms of playing to your resources (building mineral-heavy armies early and gas-heavy armies later), map control, and dealing with aggression because it's an approach that isn't built around cutting corners.
You make me curious, do you have replays ?
The problem I see with phoenixes is the same than voidrays: fungal pwns them. Do you spread/harass with them in small groups ?
As a zerg player i can imagine someone doing MASSIVE hit-and-runs on my overlords + drones...or he could split them into groups of 3 or 4 and go overlord/queen hunting, being super annoying and causing terrible economic damage. But I feel that you would simply die to a corruptor/ling timing with 3-4 infestors. We all know that phoenix, motherships, and carriers suck against corruptors, and lings would be good for multi-progned aggression through drops,nydus,runbys, etc.
So basically you are saying that this will die to ling-corruptor-infestor-nydus timing? Yep, totally standard play for zerg.
Zerg doesnt have standard play vs mass air. If I see more than 3 Phoenix, I'm throwing down an infestation pit and spire if I don't have both already. Then it'll be about 2.5 minutes until I'm at your door with a few infestors, a bunch of corruptors, and however many lings I can afford. I was just saying Nydus play is a good idea -- treat your army like T mech. Abuse the immobility. I CAN whittle down a skytoss army, but I can't remax and finish it off when you have 10 stargates and 5 bases. However, if I take out your main, it opens a huge window where I won't have to worry about carrier/mothership etc. Nydus isn't "standard", but the more common overlord drops would be just as good (albeit vulnerable to Phoenix)
Revival just crushed this in his playhem game ~5minutes ago. Early hydra/ling/roach into the third, expanded a lot, built up a muta count while counter attacking with lings each time toss moved out sniping buildings + probes, also using mutas.
ended with the toss doing 1 last desperation push with all his VRs + mothership, Revival sat back and let it arrive at his queens + muta ball. GG
On July 29 2012 03:40 ineversmile wrote: EDIT: The whole composition I go for in this matchup is Carriers and ranged Phoenixes with a Mothership and +3 air weapons. I actually don't even stop making Phoenixes in most of my games. So I'm still doing Skytoss, but it's a late game plan so I'm not shoehorned into massing crappy Void Rays or eventually abandoning the skies and going into pure chargelot. I think this is smoother in terms of playing to your resources (building mineral-heavy armies early and gas-heavy armies later), map control, and dealing with aggression because it's an approach that isn't built around cutting corners.
You make me curious, do you have replays ?
The problem I see with phoenixes is the same than voidrays: fungal pwns them. Do you spread/harass with them in small groups ?
As a zerg player i can imagine someone doing MASSIVE hit-and-runs on my overlords + drones...or he could split them into groups of 3 or 4 and go overlord/queen hunting, being super annoying and causing terrible economic damage. But I feel that you would simply die to a corruptor/ling timing with 3-4 infestors. We all know that phoenix, motherships, and carriers suck against corruptors, and lings would be good for multi-progned aggression through drops,nydus,runbys, etc.
So basically you are saying that this will die to ling-corruptor-infestor-nydus timing? Yep, totally standard play for zerg.
Zerg doesnt have standard play vs mass air. If I see more than 3 Phoenix, I'm throwing down an infestation pit and spire if I don't have both already. Then it'll be about 2.5 minutes until I'm at your door with a few infestors, a bunch of corruptors, and however many lings I can afford. I was just saying Nydus play is a good idea -- treat your army like T mech. Abuse the immobility. I CAN whittle down a skytoss army, but I can't remax and finish it off when you have 10 stargates and 5 bases. However, if I take out your main, it opens a huge window where I won't have to worry about carrier/mothership etc. Nydus isn't "standard", but the more common overlord drops would be just as good (albeit vulnerable to Phoenix)
Overlord drops I think would be better (more health, armor, and less "eggs in one basket", if you will). I'm generally pretty paranoid of nydus worms, so I check for them all the time with Skytoss builds, but I do recognize they are quite effective if Protoss isn't expecting one in his base.
Also, I would generally just go for more infestors than corruptors. Just me, a stylistic thing, but corruptors don't actually do all that much damage; I like having just enough to tank damage and not much more.
On July 30 2012 03:07 FallDownMarigold wrote: Revival just crushed this in his playhem game ~5minutes ago. Early hydra/ling/roach into the third, expanded a lot, built up a muta count while counter attacking with lings each time toss moved out sniping buildings + probes, also using mutas.
ended with the toss doing 1 last desperation push with all his VRs + mothership, Revival sat back and let it arrive at his queens + muta ball. GG
Not to bash pros or anything (they are pros after all), but if you open stargate and ever lose to mutas, you just plain suck, nothing else to it. Queens are a smart response. Mutas are a great response if and only if your opponent derps and completely forgets about phoenixes.
I think that mutas are a good idea against this style. Not for an army, but to harass the mineral line and force more static defenses. Mutalisk good unit! But honestly I don't know how to kill an air "deathball"
This is a good example of pressure. I skip the Zealot in this game and then use a couple stalkers to kill lings and a queen, and delay the third considerably while I wall up at my natural. The phoenix harass was mediocre; if I had been focused I could have done more. Nevertheless, everything I did was very cost-efficient through the phoenix harass, even though I made some macro mistakes due to my inexperience with this build (I seem to supply block myself at 68 or 76 often because this is the time when I'm normally microing air units). The zerg probably could have pushed me a few minutes earler, but I'm pretty sure it would have traded with my army and then the next warp-in or two would have stabilized me with a way better economy. I think he was waiting for a critical mass to attack with, but because of the stalker harass and then the phoenix harass, his injects suffered due to planting creep tumors and getting picked off.
This is an example of a rougher beginning game, where I'm caught napping and a bunch of lings show up at my front door. I micro to save my stalker at the cost of a probe, and then the second one cleans things up. Since I've screwed up the opening a bit, I just transpose into a defensive expansion with an immediate forge and cannon, as well as sentries. He ends up making a lot of speedlings (instead of droning) to try to break my front and I don't miss forcefields, so the worker count evens out. I notice he still hasn't taken his natural third for a long time, so I tech up and take a slower third and have a delayed phoenix harass. In fact, it's so delayed, I run into a bunch of infestors and lose some phoenixes...however, he does lose a lot of energy at this point. If I had planned things out, I think warping in a ton of chargelots would have killed a lot at that point while he had basically no fungals left and a bunch of lings and anti-air as his defense. (Something to think about for future games). I think if he had dropped infested terrans here, all of the Phoenixes would have died, but that timing window for some chargelot warp-ins would have been even more fatal. One way or another, I think this is a pretty good example of how many fungals it actually takes to kill Phoenixes without something else to DPS them where they sit. Phoenixes are not armored units so they take only 30 damage per fungal...which is 6 fungals in total. That's a pretty big energy commitment and if you mess up, the phoenixes can lift an infestor or two and get a kill in.
Either way, neither of us exactly played perfectly, but we ended up playing a long game and fully teching out. There are are some points in time when I take engagements with the plan to recall home, but I donate some carriers. I also decide to engage an air army while it's over a cliff at the 12oclock over a really stupid base location. Still, even though that wasn't perfect, I was able to gradually whittle down the zerg's gas units and keep pressure on throughout the majority of the game. Eventually, he had a ton of brood lords and a decent corruptor count, but my chargelot/immortal composition killed off a lot of infestors in some fights and I tactically sniped a bunch off outside of fights when I had the chance. I end the game by pumping Phoenixes out of 5 stargates, then microing those to kill off his corruptors and eventually enough broods for him to tap out.
---------
So this is the style that I use, right now. I think it's only going to get better when I have a better understanding of some of the fights I can and can't take, considering that this is a pretty different composition than usual protoss unit mixes. I know Sage used to do the whole Phoenix/Chargelot thing a while back, and I've been trying to find some of those games to get a better grasp on what else I can do. I'm playing far from perfectly in these games, so I feel like there is always something I could improve to get me out of a rough situation or to damage the zerg in some way. Almost all of my success and failure has to do with the fact that the style is all about active units, which demand as much focus as possible.
On July 29 2012 03:40 ineversmile wrote: EDIT: The whole composition I go for in this matchup is Carriers and ranged Phoenixes with a Mothership and +3 air weapons. I actually don't even stop making Phoenixes in most of my games. So I'm still doing Skytoss, but it's a late game plan so I'm not shoehorned into massing crappy Void Rays or eventually abandoning the skies and going into pure chargelot. I think this is smoother in terms of playing to your resources (building mineral-heavy armies early and gas-heavy armies later), map control, and dealing with aggression because it's an approach that isn't built around cutting corners.
You make me curious, do you have replays ?
The problem I see with phoenixes is the same than voidrays: fungal pwns them. Do you spread/harass with them in small groups ?
As a zerg player i can imagine someone doing MASSIVE hit-and-runs on my overlords + drones...or he could split them into groups of 3 or 4 and go overlord/queen hunting, being super annoying and causing terrible economic damage. But I feel that you would simply die to a corruptor/ling timing with 3-4 infestors. We all know that phoenix, motherships, and carriers suck against corruptors, and lings would be good for multi-progned aggression through drops,nydus,runbys, etc.
So basically you are saying that this will die to ling-corruptor-infestor-nydus timing? Yep, totally standard play for zerg.
Zerg doesnt have standard play vs mass air. If I see more than 3 Phoenix, I'm throwing down an infestation pit and spire if I don't have both already. Then it'll be about 2.5 minutes until I'm at your door with a few infestors, a bunch of corruptors, and however many lings I can afford. I was just saying Nydus play is a good idea -- treat your army like T mech. Abuse the immobility. I CAN whittle down a skytoss army, but I can't remax and finish it off when you have 10 stargates and 5 bases. However, if I take out your main, it opens a huge window where I won't have to worry about carrier/mothership etc. Nydus isn't "standard", but the more common overlord drops would be just as good (albeit vulnerable to Phoenix)
Overlord drops I think would be better (more health, armor, and less "eggs in one basket", if you will). I'm generally pretty paranoid of nydus worms, so I check for them all the time with Skytoss builds, but I do recognize they are quite effective if Protoss isn't expecting one in his base.
Also, I would generally just go for more infestors than corruptors. Just me, a stylistic thing, but corruptors don't actually do all that much damage; I like having just enough to tank damage and not much more.
On July 30 2012 03:07 FallDownMarigold wrote: Revival just crushed this in his playhem game ~5minutes ago. Early hydra/ling/roach into the third, expanded a lot, built up a muta count while counter attacking with lings each time toss moved out sniping buildings + probes, also using mutas.
ended with the toss doing 1 last desperation push with all his VRs + mothership, Revival sat back and let it arrive at his queens + muta ball. GG
Not to bash pros or anything (they are pros after all), but if you open stargate and ever lose to mutas, you just plain suck, nothing else to it. Queens are a smart response. Mutas are a great response if and only if your opponent derps and completely forgets about phoenixes.
You would have needed to have seen the game. Revival went mutas and made it work. The toss had to keep making voidrays per the build after revival put heavy pressure roach/hydra/ling on the third early on, the mutas came as a switch after 8+ VRs and caused too much damage along with lings to the probes to allow for phoenix response (also denied third continually). I don't think it's as cut and dry as you make it... Just because you open stargate does not mean you automatically suck for losing to some muta play at some point in the game. He didn't open phoenix, he open voidray mass per this build, and mutas came later after he was no longer really producing much off the stargates except for voids due to what happened earlier on. I guess it really depends on doing damage to the third+economy using counter attacks and multiprong efficiently, but it can go either way.
Hmm...so he has a production building that can make both Phoenixes and Void Rays. He's eventually getting Fleet Beacon tech because he's upgrading air weapons. Phoenixes are more costly per minute of production that Void Rays, so they take as many or less Stargates than Void Rays to be produced. So getting ranged Phoenixes to counter Mutas is really, really easy to do. What's the problem here? This sounds like someone saying "He built gateways and a Cybernetics Core, but he can't get Zealots because he has the tech for Stalkers. Wtf? I mean, there are good timings for mutas, but the pro obviously didn't know what he was doing if he lost to mutas as a late game deathball (which is what you made it sound like). Who was the toss in this game? Better yet, link us a replay/VOD!
I'm with ineversmile on this one. Hard for me to judge without having seen the game in question, but if you're doing a Skytoss build you have at least one stargate and a fleet beacon, not to mention air upgrades probably on the way or already done, depending on the stage of the game. Mutas should only be able to do minimal damage before a small squad of phoenixes can be fielded to nullify their harass.
Not that I frequently lose with Skytoss openers to begin with, but I literally can not remember the last time I lost to mutas.
I have been having a bit of trouble with this sort of counter. Z will go for 3 base muta, and attack with the first 9 or so as they pop. I generally don't have much for army yet (say 3 voids and a phoenix if the mutas catch me off guard) and his muta ling attack temporarily denies my building third (cannons still warping in). Following that he makes a big wave of corruptors as I am making phoenixes for the mutas. Due to his muta ball he can his my structures/probes so anywhere I don't have cannons he can attack and force me to engage his mutas and corruptors without cannon support- a fight I can't win (at least cost effectively). I can just never hit critical mass and am slowly overrun. Even if I can keep my third (one game it went totally unscouted) he can just keep attacking cannonless spots and killing my army if I defend them. I can't have canons everywhere. Does anyone have a replay of defending against this sort of thing?
On July 31 2012 14:03 esaul17 wrote: I have been having a bit of trouble with this sort of counter. Z will go for 3 base muta, and attack with the first 9 or so as they pop. I generally don't have much for army yet (say 3 voids and a phoenix if the mutas catch me off guard) and his muta ling attack temporarily denies my building third (cannons still warping in). Following that he makes a big wave of corruptors as I am making phoenixes for the mutas. Due to his muta ball he can his my structures/probes so anywhere I don't have cannons he can attack and force me to engage his mutas and corruptors without cannon support- a fight I can't win (at least cost effectively). I can just never hit critical mass and am slowly overrun. Even if I can keep my third (one game it went totally unscouted) he can just keep attacking cannonless spots and killing my army if I defend them. I can't have canons everywhere. Does anyone have a replay of defending against this sort of thing?
That's why there was debate about making the first unit out of your stargate a phoenix... Usually it's roach but if you don't make the phoenix and do 3 voids, you get smoked by muta and there's no coming back from losing those against muta since your phoenix count will never get up to what it should have been vs muta.
On July 31 2012 14:03 esaul17 wrote: I can't have canons everywhere.
I quoted this because it's the only specific thing in your post that I could correct. You don't need cannons "everywhere" you just need a few in each mineral line. Gonna have to post a replay or do your own critical thinking and analysis to learn from your losses.
It just sounds like you are getting outplayed and not thinking critically/creatively about what you could do better. I've both won and lost versus this style, when I lose, it's because my execution is shit.
Here's a game I played on cloud kingdom. I went for a really quick third and managed to get really greedy without much reprecussions. Then made mothership and eventually transitioned into carriers. IMO waiting for a mothership to take a third is a bad idea because you delay your eco by a lot and the zerg just gets very ahead, so its better to take it around 6-6:30 and put up a ton of cannons, you should always send a zealot at the zerg's natural and main to scout for a roach warren/bane nest around 5 mins or so, to be sure if there is an all-in coming or not, if not then just take the really early third and make cannons at it, your first 1-2 units from the stargates always need to be phoenixes for scouting, I usually make 2 if one of them gets sniped accidently. But otherwise I slowly transition into carrier/templar and go straight through the zerg's army, Enjoy! (game is played at a high diamond/low master level on ladder)
On July 31 2012 14:03 esaul17 wrote: I have been having a bit of trouble with this sort of counter. Z will go for 3 base muta, and attack with the first 9 or so as they pop. I generally don't have much for army yet (say 3 voids and a phoenix if the mutas catch me off guard) and his muta ling attack temporarily denies my building third (cannons still warping in). Following that he makes a big wave of corruptors as I am making phoenixes for the mutas. Due to his muta ball he can his my structures/probes so anywhere I don't have cannons he can attack and force me to engage his mutas and corruptors without cannon support- a fight I can't win (at least cost effectively). I can just never hit critical mass and am slowly overrun. Even if I can keep my third (one game it went totally unscouted) he can just keep attacking cannonless spots and killing my army if I defend them. I can't have canons everywhere. Does anyone have a replay of defending against this sort of thing?
If you only have 3 voids and a Phoenix, I assume it's a 1 stargate-->mothership build. You don't need to make 3 void rays with that opening. One is enough while you wait for the mothership. You should have 1 void for defense and 5 phoenixes harassing and scouting. They do more damage, move faster, and give you a base squad for fighting mutas(should they come). Only make more voids to defend a bust, otherwise wait until you have the 5 phoenixes to go back to void production or into carriers.
On July 31 2012 14:03 esaul17 wrote: I have been having a bit of trouble with this sort of counter. Z will go for 3 base muta, and attack with the first 9 or so as they pop. I generally don't have much for army yet (say 3 voids and a phoenix if the mutas catch me off guard) and his muta ling attack temporarily denies my building third (cannons still warping in). Following that he makes a big wave of corruptors as I am making phoenixes for the mutas. Due to his muta ball he can his my structures/probes so anywhere I don't have cannons he can attack and force me to engage his mutas and corruptors without cannon support- a fight I can't win (at least cost effectively). I can just never hit critical mass and am slowly overrun. Even if I can keep my third (one game it went totally unscouted) he can just keep attacking cannonless spots and killing my army if I defend them. I can't have canons everywhere. Does anyone have a replay of defending against this sort of thing?
If you only have 3 voids and a Phoenix, I assume it's a 1 stargate-->mothership build. You don't need to make 3 void rays with that opening. One is enough while you wait for the mothership. You should have 1 void for defense and 5 phoenixes harassing and scouting. They do more damage, move faster, and give you a base squad for fighting mutas(should they come). Only make more voids to defend a bust, otherwise wait until you have the 5 phoenixes to go back to void production or into carriers.
This is a very good point. Another thing that should be mentioned is there is unless your zealot scout sees roaches coming, you should almost always go phoenix first and rally it towards your opponent's main, because you need that scouting information. Build the void second, and by the time the void finishes you should have scouting info on your opponent. If you see a spire building, a fast range 5 phoenix opener is without a doubt much safer than the fast mothership play. You still get the mothership out reasonably quick, but you need those phoenix out in time for safety. A cannon or two at each mineral line should seal the deal.
Also worth noting that 5 phoenix openers can help out down the line against hydras. Lift with carrier support is ridiculous (though micro intensive, obviously; all about dat shift key). I generally only do 3-4 void ray openings against either fast 4th hatch builds or 12 minute roach maxes. The former because it delays his lair tech so long that 4 voids can do good damage against queen/spore, the latter because, well, voids absolutely melt roaches.
On July 28 2012 03:44 ineversmile wrote: I just think that you can't go FFE into defensive air-only play and expect it to work. The pressure is too little--too late, and you have to rely on static defense so much. I'm still a huge fan of air play and I almost always use Stargate units as part of my composition in PvZ, but I'm much prefering opening 13Gate and pressuring the zerg. In my opinion, it is better to be the bully when you face Zergs. If you start off the game by letting them call the shots, you're screwing yourself over.
I attempted pressure builds for a good while, but found it quite ineffective in the end. The problem is this: you're slightly delaying the Zerg, so far so good. This forces him to make a lot of units to defend. Which implies that he's going to be able to deny your third until your MS is out; forget about taking it while the MS is constructing, it'll be impossible.
MS production is slightly delayed ( 30s to a minute ) due to the resources you put into pressure.
In the end, I found that most of the time I had to delay my third until the 13-14' mark before I can safely take it. Meanwhile, Zerg has been on 3+ bases for a long time, and if he's not stupid and has scouted your bases with overseers, he's already dropped a spire and is starting to produce corruptors.
In the end I decided that no pressure and going for eco, faster third and faster MS + voidrays was better I think the key to skytoss is to prevent ( or delay for a long time ) Zerg's fourth. Most games where I'm able to park a voidray on his fourth and deny it, I've won.
I've found 2 gate zealot pressure to be really strong, like what Stardust originally did in Pro league. A lot of the time u kill the third, but u always force a ton of lings. And if u keep ur zealots alive, u can take a quick 3rd base as ur zealots are enough defence against lings, and u will usually have a void ray out. I would agree that some pressures, especially ones involving warp gate would ultimately not be worth it, but i've personally found the 2 gate zealot pressure to be ridiculously effective.
Still toying around with it, and I had some more notes to share.
1. Infestor usage
If you watched TSL4 game Squirtle vs Curious (I want to say game 4?), I think that showcases proper Infestor use vs Carriers more than anything. Fungal Growth on the Interceptors themselves forces you to burn through your mineral bank (which starts getting to be a problem as you begin to transition out of pure air), and significantly reduces the DPS of your army. It's much more effective, IMO, than using Neural on the Carriers themselves, since the remaining Carrier DPS will just kill the Neuraling Infestor.
As a result, if you see a significant amount of Infestors (I wanna say at least 8), you can safely assume that he'll have a pretty heavy Infestor focus and as a result, you'll need Templar (which you want for a large number of Corruptors anyways). Long story short, transition to HT faster if you see them going heavy Infestor.
2. Antiga Shipyard
It's still a thorn in my side, as I've been toying around with using this style on the map, but drop play is so prevalent. Now, to be fair, this is on the ladder, which means I get really random positions, and this might factor into the significance of drop play, but I might have to resort to placing perimeter Cannons to assist in the defense.
If you're wondering, I put the Mothership at the natural ramp to cloak, and whatever air units at the third to help defense. However, I still need more experience with this map.
3. Drop play
Scouting has consistently been a thorn in my side. Especially on Daybreak, where your bases are spread out very far apart, even if I place all of my air stuff in a perimeter, I don't have the time to drag all of them back to the main to help defend. Again, may have to resort to a perimeter of Cannons where drop play is likely to occur. But Overlords are still very resilient, so I'll let you know if I have figured anything out.
4. Base denial
This seems to be the most effective way to play against this style, where you have a ton of lings and Corruptors to deny the 4th and beyond. By the time your 3-4 Stargates start kicking into production, your main is getting close to mined out and you'll need to start thinking about a 4th at least. If they have scouted this before they commit to Mutas (assuming they went Spire of course), they'll just commit the gas into Corruptors instead, then you'll have a hell of a time taking a 4th without attempting to turtle on your 3 bases.
But not enough Zerg do this, at least at Mid Masters, they're still focusing on Stephano style, which I still laugh at.
So a list of what I've lost to in recent times:
1. (Delayed) Drop (Dropped Hydras) 2. Muta Ling (Scouted strat before starting Mutas, commited gas to Corruptors) 3. Early game all ins
And that's about it so far. Still have a consistently high win rate with this strat. I'll keep toying with it.
On August 15 2012 09:57 piroko139 wrote: Still toying around with it, and I had some more notes to share.
1. Infestor usage
If you watched TSL4 game Squirtle vs Curious (I want to say game 4?), I think that showcases proper Infestor use vs Carriers more than anything. Fungal Growth on the Interceptors themselves forces you to burn through your mineral bank (which starts getting to be a problem as you begin to transition out of pure air), and significantly reduces the DPS of your army. It's much more effective, IMO, than using Neural on the Carriers themselves, since the remaining Carrier DPS will just kill the Neuraling Infestor.
As a result, if you see a significant amount of Infestors (I wanna say at least 8), you can safely assume that he'll have a pretty heavy Infestor focus and as a result, you'll need Templar (which you want for a large number of Corruptors anyways). Long story short, transition to HT faster if you see them going heavy Infestor.
2. Antiga Shipyard
It's still a thorn in my side, as I've been toying around with using this style on the map, but drop play is so prevalent. Now, to be fair, this is on the ladder, which means I get really random positions, and this might factor into the significance of drop play, but I might have to resort to placing perimeter Cannons to assist in the defense.
If you're wondering, I put the Mothership at the natural ramp to cloak, and whatever air units at the third to help defense. However, I still need more experience with this map.
3. Drop play
Scouting has consistently been a thorn in my side. Especially on Daybreak, where your bases are spread out very far apart, even if I place all of my air stuff in a perimeter, I don't have the time to drag all of them back to the main to help defend. Again, may have to resort to a perimeter of Cannons where drop play is likely to occur. But Overlords are still very resilient, so I'll let you know if I have figured anything out.
4. Base denial
This seems to be the most effective way to play against this style, where you have a ton of lings and Corruptors to deny the 4th and beyond. By the time your 3-4 Stargates start kicking into production, your main is getting close to mined out and you'll need to start thinking about a 4th at least. If they have scouted this before they commit to Mutas (assuming they went Spire of course), they'll just commit the gas into Corruptors instead, then you'll have a hell of a time taking a 4th without attempting to turtle on your 3 bases.
But not enough Zerg do this, at least at Mid Masters, they're still focusing on Stephano style, which I still laugh at.
So a list of what I've lost to in recent times:
1. (Delayed) Drop (Dropped Hydras) 2. Muta Ling (Scouted strat before starting Mutas, commited gas to Corruptors) 3. Early game all ins
And that's about it so far. Still have a consistently high win rate with this strat. I'll keep toying with it.
Regarding the fungals on interceptors, that got a lot more feasible with patch 1.5. There were some sneaky, undocumented changes with 1.5 as to how carriers and interceptors work, one of which being that the interceptors clump much closer together around the target now, making AoE like fungal much more feasible.
That carrier change may have made ints clump up a bit more, but it sure made carrier micro way better. Holy crap, they feel way more similar to BW carriers, and that's a good thing because I eventually go for Carrier tech in basically every long game in each match-up.
On August 15 2012 23:07 ineversmile wrote: That carrier change may have made ints clump up a bit more, but it sure made carrier micro way better. Holy crap, they feel way more similar to BW carriers, and that's a good thing because I eventually go for Carrier tech in basically every long game in each match-up.
This is true. It has made target firing and individual kiting much more rewarding, to my limited experience with 1.5 (limited experience because 1.5 has also introduced game-ruining lag for me).
I have been doing mass air toss air since the beta, although switching it to just vrs zerg shortly after. I find that it is a very effective ladder strategy, however in bo3, bo5, or playing with friends who know your style I find air toss not nearly as effective.
I suggest to anyone interested in air toss to also work on their other strats, as it is somewhat cheesy and if a player knows what you are up to you are at a disadvantage (however it should carry you to high masters before this becomes an issue, speaking from experience).
On August 16 2012 06:04 coldSnaH wrote: I have been doing mass air toss air since the beta, although switching it to just vrs zerg shortly after. I find that it is a very effective ladder strategy, however in bo3, bo5, or playing with friends who know your style I find air toss not nearly as effective.
I suggest to anyone interested in air toss to also work on their other strats, as it is somewhat cheesy and if a player knows what you are up to you are at a disadvantage (however it should carry you to high masters before this becomes an issue, speaking from experience).
Well, isn't it best to have a variety of strategies and switch things up? That's why I like to go into sky toss as a transition from 1 stargate after my third finishes and I have the gas to do that
On August 16 2012 06:04 coldSnaH wrote: I have been doing mass air toss air since the beta, although switching it to just vrs zerg shortly after. I find that it is a very effective ladder strategy, however in bo3, bo5, or playing with friends who know your style I find air toss not nearly as effective.
I suggest to anyone interested in air toss to also work on their other strats, as it is somewhat cheesy and if a player knows what you are up to you are at a disadvantage (however it should carry you to high masters before this becomes an issue, speaking from experience).
Well, isn't it best to have a variety of strategies and switch things up? That's why I like to go into sky toss as a transition from 1 stargate after my third finishes and I have the gas to do that
I want to add to this that stargate-first play doesn't always necessarily mean Skytoss builds. I sometimes open stargate-first in PvZ just to scare my opponent, get a couple phoenixes out for scouting/harass overlords, and then transition into standard gateway-based army. If they completely over-react to the stargate with spores/queens/useless tech, mission accomplished.
That said, I've found fast mothership fast third to be extremely safe, even against mass roach timings (that hit right before MS is out) as long as you scout properly and get proper numbers of cannons/sentries out in time. And you don't necessarily have to go mass carrier Skytoss style out of that, you can just get a few voids out with the stargate and transition into robo tech if that seems relevant.
tl;dr: even if you aren't going for a heavy Skytoss style, opening stargate first in every game of a PvZ Bo5 can really throw your opponent off.
I rarely go pure skytoss anymore. After taking my third I transition into ground every time. I keep making two carriers at a time the entire game long. If it's reasonably safe I try to get archons as fast as possible and land an early vortex for a quick gg.
I've taken this and throttled back a little and went +1 zeals to DTs and then air and 3rd to make a pretty strong army; it's basically all archon/zealot/VoidRay and stomps over both roach and muta. Zerg can't push because Overseers are shot down by forward VRs and my third is safe without a mothership.
Also, in hots, I will have access to cloak even earlier with the oracle so my 3rd will be even easier to defend: usually if they suicide I have to warp in DTs to defend and kill the Overseer with voirdray, but in hots its looking like I can skip 1 VR and have a speedy oracle to zip back to base to defend, and I can warp in any units to defend instead of just DTs cause of oracle's cloak. 1.1k masters, have several replays of it if anyone interested
I personally go double forge Chargelot+constant Phoenix and Immortal/Warp Prism production off of gateways+1 Staragate+1 Robo. I do this against Terran, too--I actually think double Forge Chargelot+Phoenixes is basically just a more upgraded (but more micro-intensive) muta/ling composition. Since my army is all in minerals, I tend to get an upgrade or two from my Cyber Core relatively quickly so the Phoenixes can fight more efficiently or survive as they fly over anti-air. So long as you're using Warp Prisms and pylons around the map to warp in Zealot flanks and surrounding your opponent's army, you're going to beat up even Roach armies or Roach/Hydra armies pretty well. I tend to fly a Sentry around in each Warp Prism so I can pop Guardian Shield from 3 different angles and donut my opponent's entire army with heavily-upgraded, Guardian Shielded Chargelots. And then I fly Phoenixes over the middle and pick up as much stuff as I can from the opposing Range ball so that my Zealots are fighting less of the army at a time. It's the same concept as splitting your opponent's forces up with forcefields or by doing multi-pronged aggression.
The major upside to this composition is that you can have a bunch of Chargelots out to take a fast third, and zerglings are basically not going to stop that unless your opponent makes an insane amount and screws over his own economy hard. If Roaches or Hydras go across the map to pressure the third, you're going to see it coming with your Phoenixes and be able to react properly. Then you have your fast third and you didn't have to play passively to get it, because your defense is a minimal amount of cannons and a maximum amount of highly mobile, heavily-upgraded Chargelots with Phoenix support. From there, that's when I start doing things like adding on Carriers/Templars/Archons and going for the long game, or putting down a 2nd and 3rd Robo and crushing the inevitable wall of Spines with mass Chargelot/Immortal. Or I see them try the roach max and I boost Void Rays and go for a mass Chargelot/Void Ray composition right then and there in the midgame.
I know this is the thread about taking a third with Skytoss, but I do constantly make Phoenixes (maybe a Void or two, but mostly Phoenixes) as I take my third, and I find that the Chargelot plan is a really sound way to take and hold a third. It fits my style because I'm used to having active units on the map so that I'm capable of playing offense as well as defense. I very much enjoy playing long macro games, but there's also times when you should be able to say, "OK, you're being too greedy, I'm going to make you pay for that." Cannons can't exactly do that past a certain point in the game. I also am not a fan of leaning on the Mothership, by this point in time, because I really only like it for Recall...I think that the Vortex is only as good as your opponent's mistakes. Anyways, it's another way to accomplish the goals of this thread: take a third, play a macro game (unless your opponent begs you to go over there and kill him for doing something stupid), and if you want you're capable of going into air tech.
On August 20 2012 16:25 Daimai wrote: So I play this style a lot, and my biggest problem is handling lategame infestor/corruptor/brood lord/spore/spine.
What do you guys do against this? What is the ultimate lategame comp?
I pull it off with 3/3 carriers. Once or if they die by that time i usually have 15+ gateways aswell and just do full warpins of zealots/stalkers if needed to eaither reinforce or kill hatches.
I think the staple for late game air toss is to have them gateways very late game. Your gonna end up having alot of minerals so you may aswell use them somewhere.
On August 17 2012 09:48 ineversmile wrote: I personally go double forge Chargelot+constant Phoenix and Immortal/Warp Prism production off of gateways+1 Staragate+1 Robo. I do this against Terran, too-
Could you please post some replays of this vs terran?
On August 20 2012 16:25 Daimai wrote: So I play this style a lot, and my biggest problem is handling lategame infestor/corruptor/brood lord/spore/spine.
What do you guys do against this? What is the ultimate lategame comp?
I pull it off with 3/3 carriers. Once or if they die by that time i usually have 15+ gateways aswell and just do full warpins of zealots/stalkers if needed to eaither reinforce or kill hatches.
I think the staple for late game air toss is to have them gateways very late game. Your gonna end up having alot of minerals so you may aswell use them somewhere.
I think carriers are shit vs corruptors.. :/ What league are you in? Do you have a thourough description of a typical engagement? Like what you do with the carriers and what your general lategame comp is.
On August 20 2012 16:25 Daimai wrote: So I play this style a lot, and my biggest problem is handling lategame infestor/corruptor/brood lord/spore/spine.
What do you guys do against this? What is the ultimate lategame comp?
Ultimate late-game composition is about 8-10 Carriers with +3 attack, a Mothership, maybe 6-8 Templar for Storms and feedback, and the rest of the army supply in Archons. Of course, you do need to handle your army correctly. Archons should be primarily focused on splashing Corrupter balls, and Templar's main purpose should be to get rid of Infestor energy, and add DPS on Corrupter balls if you have the micro to both focus the Archons and land Storms.
At some point, you need to be sending Zealots or DTs into his mining bases with warp prisms to wear his economy down, and eventually you will make it so that he has to fight you or bleed out.
On August 20 2012 16:25 Daimai wrote: So I play this style a lot, and my biggest problem is handling lategame infestor/corruptor/brood lord/spore/spine.
What do you guys do against this? What is the ultimate lategame comp?
I pull it off with 3/3 carriers. Once or if they die by that time i usually have 15+ gateways aswell and just do full warpins of zealots/stalkers if needed to eaither reinforce or kill hatches.
I think the staple for late game air toss is to have them gateways very late game. Your gonna end up having alot of minerals so you may aswell use them somewhere.
I think carriers are shit vs corruptors.. :/ What league are you in? Do you have a thourough description of a typical engagement? Like what you do with the carriers and what your general lategame comp is.
Carriers are weak against corruptors, but there are plenty of things that are strong against corruptors that you don't really need to worry about it. Void rays are great in low numbers, in higher numbers, archons and HTs w/ storm fill that role. Carriers have plenty of range, so just sit them back far enough that the archons/HTs can keep the corruptors away from your carriers.
I agree with SidewinderSC2's assessment of late-game composition, for the most part. I typically go a little heavier on the carriers, more towards 12-14, and then the rest archon/HT. Keeping 10-20 supply free for zealot/DT drops/warp-ins to harass your opponents mining bases is always a great idea, but obviously requires a lot of micro at a stage of the game where your APM is no doubt already stretched pretty thin.
On August 17 2012 09:48 ineversmile wrote: I personally go double forge Chargelot+constant Phoenix and Immortal/Warp Prism production off of gateways+1 Staragate+1 Robo. I do this against Terran, too-
Could you please post some replays of this vs terran?
Seconding this. Would really like to see some replays of this style, sounds awesome and I look forward to trying it out, but some replays to get me started in the right direction would definitely help.
On August 20 2012 16:25 Daimai wrote: So I play this style a lot, and my biggest problem is handling lategame infestor/corruptor/brood lord/spore/spine.
What do you guys do against this? What is the ultimate lategame comp?
I pull it off with 3/3 carriers. Once or if they die by that time i usually have 15+ gateways aswell and just do full warpins of zealots/stalkers if needed to eaither reinforce or kill hatches.
I think the staple for late game air toss is to have them gateways very late game. Your gonna end up having alot of minerals so you may aswell use them somewhere.
I think carriers are shit vs corruptors.. :/ What league are you in? Do you have a thourough description of a typical engagement? Like what you do with the carriers and what your general lategame comp is.
Carriers are weak against corruptors, but there are plenty of things that are strong against corruptors that you don't really need to worry about it. Void rays are great in low numbers, in higher numbers, archons and HTs w/ storm fill that role. Carriers have plenty of range, so just sit them back far enough that the archons/HTs can keep the corruptors away from your carriers.
I agree with SidewinderSC2's assessment of late-game composition, for the most part. I typically go a little heavier on the carriers, more towards 12-14, and then the rest archon/HT. Keeping 10-20 supply free for zealot/DT drops/warp-ins to harass your opponents mining bases is always a great idea, but obviously requires a lot of micro at a stage of the game where your APM is no doubt already stretched pretty thin.
On August 17 2012 09:48 ineversmile wrote: I personally go double forge Chargelot+constant Phoenix and Immortal/Warp Prism production off of gateways+1 Staragate+1 Robo. I do this against Terran, too-
Could you please post some replays of this vs terran?
Seconding this. Would really like to see some replays of this style, sounds awesome and I look forward to trying it out, but some replays to get me started in the right direction would definitely help.
I only do this on my smurf (dia league toss) but it felt pretty good to have like 4-8 void rays in a different control group, to harass expos or in battles only pull them into range when corrupter start to focus ur carriers. but i agree on HT/archons. carriers+htarchon is pretty hard to engage for zerg with mass corrupter
Boy, this strategy...it's quite something. My winrate in PvZ has gone from like 50ish% to 99%, it's unbelievable. Only gold though so my execution is faaaaar from perfect but not a single zerg knows how to react to it, it's hilarious!
On August 17 2012 09:48 ineversmile wrote: I personally go double forge Chargelot+constant Phoenix and Immortal/Warp Prism production off of gateways+1 Staragate+1 Robo. I do this against Terran, too-
Could you please post some replays of this vs terran?
Ya, I will when I get a chance. My replays folder was accidentally deleted, so I guess I'll just have to play some more games and post newer replays. I have been using colossus-Phoenix builds over the past couple of months, and more recently I started just rolling straight chargelot Phoenix when I realized that I could pull it off and have better upgrades than the Terran.
I'm trying to work out a couple kinks in my forge/additional gateway timings for that pvt build anyways, so I'll see if I can find a strong Terran to play some practice games...hopefully the replays from this are useful.
What do you guys think about going reactive muta corruptor off double spire and expanding everywhere against this?
I've had success with it at mid master level (~700pts) constantly trading with P while endlessly massing corruptors off of 4, 5, 6+ bases, sniping VRs, carriers, and mothership as they come out. This effectively prevents P from moving out, as they can't engage zerg's army without cannon support due to the ridiculous numbers advantage in Z's favor. My composition is mass corruptor with 7-10 mutas sprinkled in to snipe cannons, kill probes, and chase fleeing VRs. While this composition is god-awful against skytoss in larger numbers, it's used to constantly apply pressure, trade, and to *prevent toss from reaching critical mass.* It has a very similar feel to using roaches vs mech in ZvT. As this is my first post, I apologize in advance for any idiotic things I may have said.
Reactive double Spire depends heavily on if you are able to defend the initial harassment, as well as how many losses you suffered with the inital attack.
Usually the first push from the Zerg causes heavy losses on one side or the other. It sounds obvious, but if it's the 12 minute roach max, then it will depend heavily on things like Mothership positioning, and building placement. With that in mind, if the toss is able to hold the attack, Zerg is severely behind in tech, and threw away a ton of resources. As a result, the toss should begin the Recall harass, and if you can't defend your new expansions from this, then double Spire isn't going to save you, regardless of how awesome the composition is against Skytoss.
But if you were able to do a reasonable amount of damage (20+ probes, a Nexus, etc), then you likely have forced the toss to sit in their base in order to recover, it's a viable response. However, you must keep up on upgrades, otherwise the investment isn't that worth it, because Toss is likely already ahead of you because of how early the Core is compared to the Spires.
Just to clarify, I meant that my reaction was to effectively transition into "sky zerg." :O I haven't played in far too long (No access to a computer) but I remember one game where upon scouting him going skytoss, I ceased roach production and threw down a spire. I proceeded to make 8 or so mutas to chase off 2-3 voidrays, and he responded with ~4 phoenix, then I double expanded to 5 base and pumped corruptors all game long, literally flying around in his base sniping his units as they finished, not allowing P's units to accumulate. I ended up winning a very very long game that basically consisted of him not getting a fourth and mining out.
On August 21 2012 08:53 pixelAsurA wrote: Just to clarify, I meant that my reaction was to effectively transition into "sky zerg." :O I haven't played in far too long (No access to a computer) but I remember one game where upon scouting him going skytoss, I ceased roach production and threw down a spire. I proceeded to make 8 or so mutas to chase off 2-3 voidrays, and he responded with ~4 phoenix, then I double expanded to 5 base and pumped corruptors all game long, literally flying around in his base sniping his units as they finished, not allowing P's units to accumulate. I ended up winning a very very long game that basically consisted of him not getting a fourth and mining out.
Sen used to do this. He would make the mutas, like you did, and then make a bunch of corruptors. I think it's a smart response from the zerg because you can often outproduce the protoss due to having a faster third pair of gases and having pre-established production buildings that, unlike extra stargates, don't require a bunch of 150 gas investments (just the 200/200 spire). Then the mutas can often go over there and do a ton of damage, and the toss doesn't have enough ground to handle the mutas. If the protoss wants to beat that composition with air, it basically takes a bunch of higher-upgraded range phoenixes kiting them around the map.
On September 16 2012 23:47 j.k.l wrote: where is the build order?
There is no set build order. The bulk of it working is being able to hide your tech until the Mothership arrives. You open up forge expand however you want, into Stargate. I tend to get the Fleet Beacon after my Phoenix spawns to confirm that there are no more Overlords nearby. After that, you take your third based on your scouting, or if your Mothership spawns, whichever tips you off that you're safe. After that, transition into triple or 4x Stargate, based on if you want to go Void Rays or Carriers respectively.
-FFE -Stargate -Fleet Beacon when free from scouting -Mothership (Chronoboost the crap out of it, seriously) -Third -Xx Stargates -??? -Profit
-Edit- I have also been experimenting with the idea of just getting a Mothership in order to establish the third, and then transition into other stuff. Basically, is it possible to Mothership Expand into, say, a 7 gate pressure to further secure the third? So far, it's not been fruitful, but I will keep this thread posted on developments in the matter.
On September 16 2012 23:47 j.k.l wrote: where is the build order?
As piroko139 said, there is no strict BO, but overall was explained very vell.
Out of 1st SG you get VR to clear the map, and 1 PHX to scout. After first stargate get +1 Air and later WG.
When you start your third, add up to 7 gateways to produce zealots, so your third should be protected by zealots, cannon, VR and MS.
Get robo and templar archives. While getting obs, archons and warp prism use your pre-warped zealots for double-pronged attack. Zealots go into 3rd (or 4th), your air into the main, DON'T LOSE YOUR AIR - use a recall.
~18 minutes you would have archon-zealot, VR, carrier, HT deathball which can help you safely secure the 4th.
Past 20 minutes It's most probably over for the Zerg, just don't do stupid things and remember to split against fungals.
Also 4 I, personally really rarely go into 4 SG.
This is just an overview - as It's much better to understand weaknesses and strengths of the build by yourself.
On April 10 2013 18:03 andas wrote: Anyone tried this one HOTS?
I assume some of it is harder because of the Viper? I haven't played much in HOTS and would like to know if this strat is still viable.
Hydra is more standard now since theyve been buffed which means its much harder to go air right away. Also mothership has been nerfed, you need the invisibility to defend against most attacks.