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I have seen this situation crop up a few times where players sometimes attempt to use Banelings as an Archon toilet counter. I have never ever seen it pulled off well so far as nobody seems to know how to use this because the situation and opportunity seems so rare.
I have not been able to get a game like this going because something always screws everything up and the game changes too much for the opportunity to use this to crop up.
However I was determined to get some sort of rough guidelines going which I could use to instantly make a decision on sight of what I needed to do.
So I went by this standard.
Each Archon adds 360 hp to an Archon toilet.
Each Baneling does 25 damage per Archon as they should be 3/3 by this point but shield upgrades are probably not past 1.
Each Baneling hits 2-4 Archons on average so I made them do 75 damage to an Archon toilet.
Each Archon requires 15 hits from Banelings to be killed.
Now we get a formula.
360*(# of Archons)/75 = (# of Banelings)
With 15 Banelings being used as the minimum for any amount of Archons.
We can basically get a visual rule of thumb of what can deal with a certain number of Archons.
4 Archons gives you 19.2 Banelings required so at least 20 is needed to instantly kill it.
6 Archons gives you 28.2 so about 30.
8 Archons gets you 38.4 which is 40 and so on.
So it seems that for every additional Archon you need at least 5 Banelings past the 15 required initial Banelings.
Well the math part was done so now some actual testing to see if it holds up. I couldn't get a real game for these conditions so I just used unit tester and got the results that way.
I immediately noticed the problem upon actual testing.
First, in order to make this work an Overseer is absolutely required. Without an Overseer the Archons will get first hit if the Mothership is around to cloak the Archons making the Baneling counter fail for the most part.
Second due to the randomness of how many Archons get hit by Banelings sometimes you would get some Archons surviving with tiny slivers of health. I found dropping about a dozen infested terran eggs around the vortex to be a simple enough solution. Their instant hit fire would automatically kill any Archons that managed to survive.
Also when I tried larger and larger Archon numbers the Banelings started to be a bit less effective past 10 Archons with greater odds of a few Archons surviving and getting a shot or 2 off. The Archons also seem to get spit out farther than the Banelings reducing how many hits the outer Archons take.
When combined with about a dozen Infested Terrans on the immediate outskirts of the vortex the effectiveness of the Archon toilet drastically fell.
More importantly knowing the precise number of Banelings required also gave me a new insight in that a double Archon toilet could be somehow dealt with by splitting the Banelings up and sending in the right amount of them into each vortex after the Archons had already entered them.
As for cost efficiency it seems to work out pretty well gas wise. Banelings are much cheaper on the gas than Archons are. 4 Archons are 1200 gas, 400 minerals and 16 supply. 20 Banelings to counter it is 500 gas, 1000 minerals and 10 supply. Due to this it might be a good idea to compensate for the randomness and add in extra Banelings than the minimum required and in case Archons have some shield upgrades.
Now for the discussion part. Has anyone really explored this option in detail? I have rarely seen anyone take this option before and the option to take this step seems to rarely crop up. However if you build a spine wall would that not give you some time to get some Banelings out in order to deal with vortex? I also think it is very important to deny the Protoss from seeing you morph so many Banelings through the use of your Overseers in addition I think the use of Changelings i vital to get an accurate count of how many Archons he has. The Banelings also have to be kept well behind your main army in order to protect them and only use them for the vortex.
I would love to see any replays of this being successfully pulled off or at least attempted.
I might upload some screen shots later if anyone wants to see them but it is just unit tester pictures.
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Wow, I never expected that you would trade efficiently gas wise. I might consider it next time I play vs the mothership. I will post the replay here then if I remember to.
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And on top of that, if you throw 3/5 ultralisks into the toilet, then you just dominate everything the protoss has.
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On May 19 2012 23:33 Antylamon wrote:
And on top of that, if you throw 3/5 ultralisks into the toilet, then you just dominate everything the protoss has.
Yeah, but the sad part is that protoss do not need and do not use vortex to deal with ultralisks ; /
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On May 19 2012 23:33 Antylamon wrote:
And on top of that, if you throw 3/5 ultralisks into the toilet, then you just dominate everything the protoss has.
Sure, but I wonder if you have enough supply to do mass brood lord + mass ultralisks.
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@OP Have you tried to use infested terrans to LIMIT the area where the archons will spread by making a kind of circle around the vortex? it doesn't have to be a full circle, maybe you can get away with doing that on your part of the vortex, so it will be more difficult for his army to kill the eggs in time
On May 19 2012 23:33 Antylamon wrote:
And on top of that, if you throw 3/5 ultralisks into the toilet, then you just dominate everything the protoss has.
Don't they spread the archons even more, making the banelings less effective?
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I've thought of using this before but thought it would just end up badly for me (the zerg). But seeing that it gives me a good gas trade maybe i'll consider using it now.
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On May 20 2012 00:55 Asolmanx wrote:@OP Have you tried to use infested terrans to LIMIT the area where the archons will spread by making a kind of circle around the vortex? it doesn't have to be a full circle, maybe you can get away with doing that on your part of the vortex, so it will be more difficult for his army to kill the eggs in time Show nested quote +On May 19 2012 23:33 Antylamon wrote:
And on top of that, if you throw 3/5 ultralisks into the toilet, then you just dominate everything the protoss has. Don't they spread the archons even more, making the banelings less effective?
Well I think this is not really worth the energy as it would take far too much and I am not sure it will be effective at all. Just having infested Terrans in range of any Archons that could pop should suffice to pick off any survivors. However there are some situations I can see it being really good. For example if the Archon toilet happens in a cramped area surrounded by cliffs or unwalkable terrain. Then you can use the infested Terrans to block off the exit routes to make the Archons more compressed when they pop.
Yeah I would not put in anything but Banelings in there. You put any other ground units you have in there then they get less effective. It is kinda fine if they put their ground units in there though. As most units are smaller than Archons so the splash should still be quite effective.
Only time I would put Ultralisks in there is if they put their whole army in it.
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As a protoss player myself, this is one thing i fear, but i must point out that if u but bainlings inside of a vortex i will put some more units other than archons in to suck up the damage a little
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If Zerg is showing any amount of banelings, in his max out army you have to play differently. He is either going to drop you or use them to flood the toilet. If i see him run his banelings in the vortex i just put less unit in and use the time to spread and macro. Ive seen destiny use infested terrans.
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On May 20 2012 04:45 SuPern00b wrote:
As a protoss player myself, this is one thing i fear, but i must point out that if u but bainlings inside of a vortex i will put some more units other than archons in to suck up the damage a little
Yup this could mitigate the damage quite a lot but it is still extremely risky. You better know how many Banelings went in there otherwise if the Zerg player went beyond the minimum required you will just be sending your army to its certain death while the Zerg player will still save his Broodlords.
The Zerg player can afford to send in more than the minimum as Banelings are much cheaper than Archons.
I think only Immortals would be really effective against this as any other units would entail more risk.
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But aren't units impossible to damage during 2 secs (or some small time anyway, cant remember exactly) after being vortexed? Won't the banelings just blow up on impervious units?
And in any way - how can it be good to put other units in there to mitigate the damage from the banelings? Wouldn't that just hurt the extra units as well as the archons, given that blings have splash damage?
confused.gif
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On May 20 2012 05:47 straycat wrote:
But aren't units impossible to damage during 2 secs (or some small time anyway, cant remember exactly) after being vortexed? Won't the banelings just blow up on impervious units?
And in any way - how can it be good to put other units in there to mitigate the damage from the banelings? Wouldn't that just hurt the extra units as well as the archons, given that blings have splash damage?
confused.gif
Obviously this would not work if Banelings blew up on invincible units.
Extra units will spread out the army more so less Archons will be hit. More units in total will be hit but less Archons which is what is most important. The other units do not matter as much as the Archons. The Archon's battle power against flying units in a vortex is worth more than 15 Stalkers per Archon.
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Baneling Toiletting a Protoss army is the single greatest service a Zerg player a can perform in the name of The Swarm, and I support any endeavour to increase its probability. Thanks for the numbers, I've wondered about this but never had the inclination to actually sit down and do the math.
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well hello again, I finally managed to get a good replay for banelings in a vortex. I seriously don't understand why zergs don't do this now. 
http://drop.sc/184420
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On May 22 2012 06:34 Wortie wrote:well hello again, I finally managed to get a good replay for banelings in a vortex. I seriously don't understand why zergs don't do this now. http://drop.sc/184420
That was definitely sick as hell. Good job man! Although I have no idea how you survived with just queens until the 10 minute mark. Really unique style you had there. =D
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EPT
