EPThttp://drop.sc/190301
http://drop.sc/190300
I try to tech up to Colossi as my third is going up, but the problem is that there's just so many units that eventually I get overrun. Any tips?
[H] PvZ - Beating Roach/Hydra
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xOtit
United States253 Posts
http://drop.sc/190301 http://drop.sc/190300 I try to tech up to Colossi as my third is going up, but the problem is that there's just so many units that eventually I get overrun. Any tips? | ||
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lschiss16
15 Posts
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ineversmile
United States583 Posts
I don't really think it matters which method of scouting you use, but you should always have scout plans built into your strategy. If you go for Stargate play, that gives you flying units that can check out what your opponent has by flying over cliffs and ignoring units. If you go for warpgate attacks, you see what your opponent's current army is and you see his base because you're right there at his doorstep. If you make DTs, you can have those walk around his bases and see what's going on (I would pay 125/125 to scout a fast spire; wouldn't you?). If you go for a more passive gateway army-style macro game (like I've seen Seed do on his stream), then you can use Hallucination because you're using a large count of sentries. If your build techs Robo before most anything else, then you can use observers and Warp Prisms to check up on him. But, one way or another, you need to be checking up on what your opponent does. Regardless of whether you open with a FFE or a Gateway-based Expo or a transition from cheese into expo, your midgame transition should have very efficient scouting built-in, so you can use the information gathered in order to find a proper reaction. If you had seen the third and its saturation level, you would have known he was droning his face off with basically no army, and been able to respond more appropriately by taking a faster third and building a sim-city around it or by sending in a giant timing to punish him for droning so heavily. If you had seen the tech structures of hydra/roach/1(+) evo, you would have probably had a clue what kind of army he was going towards and been able to tech in the direction of a counter (there are multiple ways to do it, but the point is that you would have built things in a different order with better information and had better engagements as a result). I also think that you could have gotten a bit more out of the engagement at the top of the ramp by your natural, when you had a lot of forcefields banked. If you position your army back just a bit into a concave, you can wait for him to send half his stuff and forcefield behind it, then tear through that because you have superior numbers and positioning at the same time. It's hard to do that when dealing with multiprong attacks, but maybe this is something you could look to do in the future. Try to keep your eyes alert and jump back and forth between locations if you have to defend in multiple spots, and it always helps to have your units in a more ready position to defend. In the Ohana game, things seemed to be fine in your opener and I liked the zealot pressure up until a point where his spine finished on top of the ramp. At that point, I think the best decision would have been to just turn around and send those zealots home. Why? Well, think about why you build them in the first place: pressure. Pressure is done to zergs because you want to either punish him from overdroning or force him to make enough stuff to stop your pressure. Indirectly, you reduced his drone count because he was forced to build roaches earlier instead of more drones, which pushes his timings later and means you're actually at a similar harvester count. Since you're even and he is now in a good defensive position, it's better to just go home with the lots while you can, and save 600 minerals. Now, you didn't trade too poorly, but imagine if you had run back instead of going to the third (where another spine was finished). The roaches weren't out yet; the only units that would have caught up to your zealots were slow lings and you would have traded way more efficiently that way. Even still, I don't think it was a blunder to lose those zealots the way you did--they were built to slow the droning down while you took a third and they accomplished that goal; you caught up closely to his worker count. In the rest of that game, I think you should have been double-queing probes from each nexus because you missed a lot of probe builds and your worker count was way lower than it could have been for a couple minutes before his attack hit. It's better to queue up 2 probes than 1 because you don't ever miss production, and you kinda need that against zerg if you want to take a third and fight economy with economy. I used to have a problem with missing probes for a couple of seconds each on 2-3 bases, especially after working a lot more multitasking and multi-pronged aggression into my play. Try having 2 probes queued on each nexus instead of 1, for a few games, and just see what happens to your worker counts in replays. I would also suggest boosting your nexi more often when you're on 2-3 bases; we don't have injects as Protoss, but we still have a macro mechanic that helps augment our economy. You might have been able to hold your third if you had built some gates in front of it, as a sim-city. You made extra gates in your main and 3 cannons anyways; think about how it would have been if 2-3 of those gates were in front of your third to form a wall, and the cannons were behind them. Then you don't have to back up your ramp into a corner to engage a concaved ranged army which is destroying infrastructure with everything out of range. I hope this was helpful. | ||
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PlacidPanda
United States246 Posts
On June 03 2012 09:25 lschiss16 wrote: I'm only a diamond leaguer, so I don't know how valid my advice is, but I'll tell you what I try. Against roach-hydra I try to get HTs up w/ storm. With hydras being so slow, a good storm can be really effective, especially if they are clumped up. And if you control them correctly and keep them alive throughout engagements, they can be very cost-effective investments. If the problem is he isn't getting collosi out fast enough. Why would you suggest he go for HT? HT take much longer to get up and are bad at preventing roach agression at a protoss third. | ||
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Tommyth
Poland117 Posts
At 7:00 he is 13 drones ahead. At 9:00 he is more than 20 drones ahead. Im pretty sure he could just make speedlings and u would still die. U did no dmg with ur stargate play. Sry to say that - for me it is a perfect example of BO loss. U harass, do no damage, while delaying ur first expansion , throw down a third when game is already lost. I guess there is a reason pros do FFE instead of GFE It's a matter of preference, but screwing around with more checked out builds could bring better results. | ||
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Sovano
United States1503 Posts
On June 03 2012 11:15 Tommyth wrote: I don't want to turn this thread into gateway expand vs FFE, but it seems kind of inevitable. Even though u have stalkers + sentries, u throw down a forge and a cannon, and start upgrades 2 mins later. Seems like a waste to me - with gateway FE forge should be placed ONLY for upgrades, not defensive purposes. At 7:00 he is 13 drones ahead. At 9:00 he is more than 20 drones ahead. Im pretty sure he could just make speedlings and u would still die. U did no dmg with ur stargate play. Sry to say that - for me it is a perfect example of BO loss. U harass, do no damage, while delaying ur first expansion , throw down a third when game is already lost. I guess there is a reason pros do FFE instead of GFE It's a matter of preference, but screwing around with more checked out builds could bring better results. FFE I think is just a lot more comfortable for other players, and arguably better most of the time. The only Protoss player I know that does Gate FE is Nony. | ||
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xOtit
United States253 Posts
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Hambone636
United States62 Posts
User was warned for this post | ||
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xHerodotusx
United Kingdom114 Posts
In the most general sense: if you see hydra tech play defensively until you establish decent splash damage. He's delayed infestors and broodlords for this which means he is either a) going for a timing attack b) scared of some kind of stargate play or c) playing a relatively poor mid to late-mid game strategy. Taking a slower 3rd with colossus is fine, you don't want to overextend and lose a gateway/immortal army to a well placed roach/hydra attack and he's gimped his late-game army, so it's okay if you do the same to yours. Any attack he does with hydras has to be decisive, he can't retreat and he will only have the money to fill supply with roaches if his army dies. The steps I would take against heavy hydra play would be 1) get colossus 2) take your 3rd as your first colossus is on its way 3) make a push with 3-4 colossus (get +2, +2 colossus are crazy) if he doesn't attack you before You should be able to do significant damage and, usually, straight up win with that push against hydras. | ||
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IamPryda
United States1186 Posts
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Masvidal
Korea (South)213 Posts
Your scouting is really shaky. Its so hard to stay even in a PvZ macro game that you MUST cut some corners, and without diligent scouting you can't know if it's safe to cut any corners at any given time eW. Another thing about air is that gas is at SUCH a premium in PvZ that I don't think it fits in well. Everything you need PvZ (Stalker, Sentry, Immortal, Colossus, HT, Storm, upgrades) costs a lot of gas, so you end up hurting yourself in one of those categories. Air hits Zerg's production more than econ, and Z never really struggles with production, whereas with Zealot pressure via proxy pylon can hit his economy without spending gas. I think the best way to deal with your problems is to be more aggressive with less gas-heavy units if you're going to take a third, and maybe try going for upgrades even SOONER, since Stalker vs Roach is affected hugely by upgrades. As far as dealing with Hydra, I think Colossus is nice, and CAN work, but only if you start before his hydra den is even up. They are a good complement against Roach Hydra play, but in small numbers they are ineffective because they just melt.If he's Roach and suddenly goes Hydra on you, you have to adjust to the new composition. With a wall of Roaches in front, coupled with good range, Hydras effectively take on the Roaches good armor. IMO, the best way to fight that composition is to somehow negate the fact that the high armor Roaches tank damage for the high DPS but unarmored hydras. Youcan up your sentry count and cut the army in half with a 2 FF deep forcefield wall and back up to engage the Roaches alone, but that's a lot of energy that needs to go to guardian shield. I like to (assuming I'm going Stalker heavy )have blink, and as soon as I engage, blink either half or all of the stalkers behind his army and use them to focus fire hydras onlyI like this better than anything because hydras and stalkers can reinforce quickly, but if you try colossus and they die thats it. Chargelots in a vacuum are great, but in reality if you try to flank with them, they die before getting around the blob to hit the hydras. My personal opinion is that against roach hydra, blink is a necessity, and the best composition is mass stalkers with immortals and sentries. If you blink half the stalkers behind him to focus hydras, the other half of the stalkers will still be okay against the roaches if you have a high immortal count, keep guardian shield up constantly, and have impeccable blink micro. Good blink micro is the difference between crushing these kind of armies and getting steamrolled by them. | ||
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nath
United States1788 Posts
the fact you forced him to commit a shit ton of gas to a midgame tech, IMO, means that you do not need your third very early at all, you can take it slowly when you have ~140 supply of collosus stalker sentry. the exception to this is muta play since he will be double expanding as soon as his first mutas are out. | ||
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ineversmile
United States583 Posts
On June 04 2012 23:37 Masvidal wrote: I would suggest ditching the stargate play (unless you REALLY feel yoy must go SG) in favor of quicker upgrades. Personally my entire PvZ arsenal is a bunch.of 2 base all ins, but even so I feel like stargate PvZ is something for high GMs and pros. It is enough of an investment that you need to do a LOT of damage to justify the cost in both money and in time wasted microing the air. Your scouting is really shaky. Its so hard to stay even in a PvZ macro game that you MUST cut some corners, and without diligent scouting you can't know if it's safe to cut any corners at any given time eW. Another thing about air is that gas is at SUCH a premium in PvZ that I don't think it fits in well. Everything you need PvZ (Stalker, Sentry, Immortal, Colossus, HT, Storm, upgrades) costs a lot of gas, so you end up hurting yourself in one of those categories. Air hits Zerg's production more than econ, and Z never really struggles with production, whereas with Zealot pressure via proxy pylon can hit his economy without spending gas. I think the best way to deal with your problems is to be more aggressive with less gas-heavy units if you're going to take a third, and maybe try going for upgrades even SOONER, since Stalker vs Roach is affected hugely by upgrades. Stargate is fine in PvZ, but if the Protoss is getting his first Void Ray out at 9:30 and expecting that to deny a third and harass a bit, it's obviously going to suck. That's what happened here. It's also a tech path that you're inevitably going to get in the match-up in longer games, since mothership requires a Stargate. It's actually a good thing to have a Stargate built 'just in case' so that you don't have to wait 60 more un-boostable seconds to tech to mothership. It also can't hurt to be able to boost some phoenixes and potentially tech faster to Anion so you can fight huge mutaballs. But definitely the units themselves must be relevant, or their gas cost is far from worthwhile--I wholeheartedly agree with you there. They don't necessarily have to trade cost-for-cost or better, but they should do things like deny scouting, force antiair, deter certain compositions, scout, etc. | ||
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aziraphale
Serbia7 Posts
Because your scouting is not that good, plus you are passive, zergs in both games had plenty of time to drone like crazy (+10 in one, +20 workers in the other game), mass roaches, add couple of hydras (I don't think they hurt you that much on Cloud Kingdom) and crush you after 12 minutes. Have that in mind, zerg with three bases will probably stop droning after 8 or 9 minutes. After that he will mass the army and beat the crap out of you at around 12min mark. Scout him, attack earlier, pressure that damn third base with whatever army composition you prefer, just do not allow him to drone like that. (stop us pesky little zerg players from playing our game :D) Plus, of course, you add everything ineversmile told you. If I am two weeks two late with this post and you successfully destroy my dear ol' brothers and sisters, please post some replays, would like to see them. | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
why would you pressure a zerg if he's going for a roach max out, let him kill himself. ie, you dont go 'pressure' a 6 pooler, you defend him and win. | ||
FLiP491
United States124 Posts
First off what kind of 1gate expand build is that? I guess if you have good micro you don't need to wall, but the zerg goes fast 3 base anyway and you don't do anything. The whole point is to deny the zerg the fast 3 base. Secondly, you get one of everything at like 9 mins you had a robo stargate and twilight but hadnt done anything with them. Finally, you realize you forced hydras with the air right? But then you were not prepared to counter the hydras even though you had the robo up early. So, I think you lost the game when you allowed the zerg to go up 3 bases to 1. And keep in mind, this was not a stephano level zerg. I remember seeing his apm at 18 for awhile, and then by midgame it was around 45 on 3 bases? So against a better zerg you would have had to deal with even more stuff. I did like the unit split when defending his push though! I didn't check your worker saturation but i think you could have spread to your third a bit better, and ofc unit micro, i didn't see too much blinking. | ||
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Mikelius
Germany517 Posts
On June 03 2012 11:34 Sovano wrote: FFE I think is just a lot more comfortable for other players, and arguably better most of the time. The only Protoss player I know that does Gate FE is Nony. Axslav is currently experimenting with Gateway expands, but he does emphasize that while you get your tech faster with the same econ you are very vulnerable to speedling openings. | ||
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Xequecal
United States473 Posts
It's rapidly coming to the point where I would just recommend you pick a 2-base allin against Zerg and just do that every time. Macro games don't work, you can't secure a third on any map that's not Entombed Valley if Zerg has proper scouting and responses. I'm not sure how you can ever beat roach/hydra after a fast third, you can't get colossi out fast enough with the amount of sentries you'll need to keep spamming just to stay alive. | ||
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Fairchild
133 Posts
I always thought the counter to roach/hydra was good force fields. I know that's really simple advice, but as a Zerg player I never go roach hydra vs Protoss just because how easy it is to get my army fragmented by force fields and then torn apart piece by isolated piece by a sentry heavy stalker immortal ball. User was warned for this post | ||
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-Cyrus-
United States318 Posts
I put my stargates up sometime in between 6:40 and 7:20 then sometime in the middle of my first two void production (which is all I make from those stargate until they stop hydra production), I put up a robo and tech to collosus. I let them see the stargates on purpose. I get a third during this time as well. The key to this build is getting 4 gas super fast. You want to do one full warp in of sentrys as your warpgate tech is done so you have about ~6, I like to get more. Like 8-10. Also, at your third, put anywhere from 2-6 cannons these. They are insanely helpful. As I've done this build hundreds of times, I can tell you that every single time the push comes you will have one collosus and a decent amount of gateway units. You can easily stop any push as long as you don't position yourself poorly. Good forcefields make stopping these pushes easy. After that, I go up to 3 collosus and start voids again if they stop going hydra, then I push out at 3 collosus. I have 6 gates, 3 collosus, lots of sentrys, and as many voids as I can at that point (which is 2-6 depending on what has happened). I reinforce with a warp prism as I move out and void rays. 90% of the time they will die to this push. However, on maps like Shakuras, it can be almost impossible to hold the third base because of how open the map is from the third to any of the natural expansions. Well, maybe not impossible, but it's hard to force a good zerg into a position where they are at a disadvantage during the engage when you have to defend. Good luck man. | ||
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