|
Hi I am a high diamond zerg and I have a problem with this game. I whacked him hard in mid game but he still managed to squeeze out a couple of void rays and own me.
http://drop.sc/174931
So these are the questions I wanna ask:
1. Did I do enough damage to him during mid game? 2. Are corruptors the answer for mass void rays? My corruptors died like flies when faced against his army. 3. Should I have just base trade with mass roaches instead of tech switching to corruptors to answer his mass void rays?
I'm open to all criticism and thanks in advance!
|
Hey, just had a look at the replay, and from what I could tell (low-diamond EU toss, take my advice with a medium shakers worth of of salt) you should have just teched as you would normally. Corruptors definitely don't counter voidrays, you should know that btw. Get infestors out, clumped up voids melt to chain fungal, and even when you can't chain-fungal them because of the colossi it softens them up a lot. And you already had hydra-tech, it would have probably been better to keep using that instead of going for the spire. So in that situation old-skool roach-hydra with infestor support would have helped you a lot more I think.
P.S. your midgame nydus-attack did a lot of damage but he had his fourth up for a long time before you scouted it, so your advantage was slim at best, as is true for all us lower-league players better scouting is key (I always mess this up myself as well )
|
corruptors are good against void rays, void rays are good against corruptors, only make them if you can outproduce him.
Against 2 stargate it's hard, but try to keep your money as low as possible, overproduce overlords. 2500 minerals at the 10 min mark is why you lost. Find the earliest mistake and work on that, everything else is irrelevant.
|
1. You didn't do enough damage at all. Your nydus play helped you catch up in worker counts against protoss, but being even in econ with protoss isn't enough. He had ~70 probes to your ~50 drones, you killed his 2nd base but he had his 3rd up right when the attack came and he got his 4th up right after. You were either behind or even in econ the entire game. You need to be up a base against protoss all the time and you should have a higher worker count. Your follow up roach attack could have killed him if you transitioned faster. You were floating a ton of minerals and you seemed to forget to macro at this point.
2. I personally love going mutas against void ray. He didn't get any stalkers, he only had 2-3 phoenix, and the only other thing that could hit air was his void rays. You were floating 3500 gas at one point, and you pumped out a ton of roaches/hydra that did nothing but melt to his void ray/colossus. I'm pretty sure with 30+ mutas you could have rolled him.
|
On May 10 2012 01:34 Shkudde wrote:Hey, just had a look at the replay, and from what I could tell (low-diamond EU toss, take my advice with a medium shakers worth of of salt) you should have just teched as you would normally. Corruptors definitely don't counter voidrays, you should know that btw. Get infestors out, clumped up voids melt to chain fungal, and even when you can't chain-fungal them because of the colossi it softens them up a lot. And you already had hydra-tech, it would have probably been better to keep using that instead of going for the spire. So in that situation old-skool roach-hydra with infestor support would have helped you a lot more I think. P.S. your midgame nydus-attack did a lot of damage but he had his fourth up for a long time before you scouted it, so your advantage was slim at best, as is true for all us lower-league players better scouting is key (I always mess this up myself as well  )
Thanks! I'll look into more heavy infestor play! 
On May 10 2012 01:48 Clarity_nl wrote: corruptors are good against void rays, void rays are good against corruptors, only make them if you can outproduce him.
Against 2 stargate it's hard, but try to keep your money as low as possible, overproduce overlords. 2500 minerals at the 10 min mark is why you lost. Find the earliest mistake and work on that, everything else is irrelevant.
I see. Do you think my early game was ok? Am I sitting on too much minerals or taking my gases too early?
|
Go for Corrupters, because you should always go for Hive/Broodlords so you need them not only for Voids, also for Colossi, to snipe the Mothership or just morph them into Broodies
|
On May 10 2012 01:48 Clarity_nl wrote: corruptors are good against void rays, void rays are good against corruptors, only make them if you can outproduce him.
Corrupters are not good against Void Rays. I don't understand where this idea comes from. 3 Void Rays (total cost 750-450) straight up beats 5 Corrupters (total cost 750-500) even when the Corrupters use Corruption. And if you're facing pre-charged Voids, forget it. Sure if you can swarm them you can take them down Corrupters win, but that is like saying Stalkers are good against Marauders when you can swarm them.
The key to taking down mass Void Rays is Infestors. Fungal growth is very effective against Void Rays.
|
On May 10 2012 01:48 Clarity_nl wrote: 2500 minerals at the 10 min mark is why you lost. Find the earliest mistake and work on that, everything else is irrelevant.
I was going to say this. You repelled the air harass, but you didn't build anything accept queens. You didn't even have a roach warren.
I'm also confused about your early game plan. You made speedlings, but it's very hard to do runby's against toss since their sim cities are pretty good. If I were you I'd stick to slower lings and pump out more drones.
The hydra nydus destroyed a bunch of units and some buildings, but at the end you were behind 15 workers. From there you kept making hydra and they kept dying to colossus. Infestor/broodlord with some corruptor support would have worked wonders against this composition especially given that it was very supply heavy on units that aren't easily reproduced (colossus and void rays).
Is the nydus play the central strategy? I can see this working against a lot of players, but this toss was able to salvage their economy, defend the attack, and come away with an advantage. Why not just go stephano style roach into the nydus and transition to a more conventional late game tech?
|
It's been my experience that there's no *single* zerg unit that's good against mass void rays.
* Mass infestor is cost inefficient if he splits up his void rays, and it's tricky to fungal without letting him kill any infestors and yet also prevent him from escaping with some of the damaged void rays. Plus it's way too easy to wind up with no energy and have a handful of void rays destroy all your remaining infestors and then clinch the game. I'm pretty sure we've all been there before, right?
* Hydras actually get destroyed by stacked void rays past a certain point. Plus a hydra-based strategy is somewhat easy to harass and later abuse with an aoe tech switch.
* Mutas are cost efficient vs uncharged void rays, but there's no way you'll mass up enough of them if you weren't already going for a muta strategy to begin with.
* Corruptors aren't cost efficient and again, you'll never get a spire up in time and mass up enough of them.
* Queens/spores don't really work in those numbers, and also allow the voids to get charged, at which point nothing works.
So in my opinion the counter is really threefold:
1) spread creep aggressively so you can move into position in time
2) mass infestors, chain fungal and spawn infested terrans under clumps of void rays, at least 3 voids to a fungal. Make sure you move everything out of range of the voids that are chain fungaled.
3) have at least 12-16 of another type of anti-air unit to buffer for the infestors and engage the voids that don't get caught in 'money fungals'. Use hydras if you already have them. Otherwise use corruptors (so that you have the option of broodlords later).
The emphasis is still always on infestors. Pull your queens to act as a buffer until you have enough (8-12) infestors, then get some other aa to make your infestors more cost efficient. Later on, get more infestors (12-24). Also it doesn't hurt to have the rest of your army under the void rays. It forces protoss to micro more to make sure his voids aren't attacking zerglings.
|
On May 10 2012 01:48 Clarity_nl wrote: 2500 minerals at the 10 min mark is why you lost. Find the earliest mistake and work on that, everything else is irrelevant.
This. Nothing else matters. Replace void rays with any other unit and you possibly make the same exact post (how to beat mass stalker? how to beat mass phoenix? how to beat mass zealot?), but the remedy is essentially the same. That was 100% the issue.
|
Thanks all for your feedback!! I really appreciate the efforts you all have put in for me!
|
People are touching on it above, its not one of those use X army composition to kill him but one of those be in a better position so he can't get there. Macro, CREEP SPREAD, and queens are the best ways to deal with all of the above (and they all kind of go together, at least the queens and the creep do); positioning is huge in these situations, and creep just means better positioning and early response time. Obviously infestors are a necessity in higher numbers, but those builds are easily scouted and dealt with in time.
good luck!
|
Mass zerglings to indefinitely deny his 3rd base and force him to make something besides void rays. while that happens you take a 4th base, get a hundred drones, and mass anything you want and kill him, with a huge economic lead. Infestors are generally the best against void rays, but arguments can be made for corruptor or mutalisks or even queens.
|
You can trade corruptors cost effectively with void rays, as long as you don't let him charge up. You have to micro-- you can't sit around and keep trading fire once they are charged or you will get roasted. however, if you scout well and engage in hit and run, you can effectively whittle down his force and reinforce faster.
|
On May 10 2012 01:48 Clarity_nl wrote: corruptors are good against void rays, void rays are good against corruptors, only make them if you can outproduce him.
I think its better to say corruptors are "decent" against void rays and then only when you use "corruption". "Good" is a bit of an overstatement.
They definitely don't suck vs VRs though.
|
I've recently played a game where I got mowed by mass void ray play too.. so I can say with some experience, even if you could immediately spawn as many corruptors as VRs, they're still not the best counter to VRs, especially since they charge up quickly mowing your base. On hindsight, I agree that a mix of infestors / queen / spore + some kind of anti-air (e.g. hydras or corruptors) would probably have been more cost efficient that corruptors alone, especially if you can fungal the VRs before they start attacking.
|
Corrupters are absolute shiit against voidrays, hydras are decent vs voidrays but its best not to get them because protoss can easily transition into colosus which will make hydras almost useless, so the best response would be infestors, for fungal growth and infested terrans. If they're allining with the voidrays, a good way to defend them is to make extra queens and spore crawlers.
|
On May 10 2012 14:39 Kisezik wrote: Corrupters are absolute shiit against voidrays, hydras are decent vs voidrays but its best not to get them because protoss can easily transition into colosus which will make hydras almost useless, so the best response would be infestors, for fungal growth and infested terrans. If they're allining with the voidrays, a good way to defend them is to make extra queens and spore crawlers.
Hydras are amazing against void rays, and protoss cannot easily switch to Colo when on stargate tech. If you scout and see voids coming throw down a hydra den and later infestation pit (to deal with phoenix) and that should work well. Hydras will destroy voidrays as long as you have a mediocre engage.
Once you kill the voids the protoss will be stuck without much army and the hydras should be able to do some damge.
|
On May 10 2012 14:39 Kisezik wrote: Corrupters are absolute shiit against voidrays
Try out the unit tester sometime. You can trade relatively evenly. "decent". Not good but definitely not shit. You do need to use corruption though.
|
Its really important to get Air Armor upgrades against voidrays when trying to counter em with Corrupters because oft their high attackspeed.
|
|
|
|