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I've been running a PvZ build that seems to work pretty well, and I was looking for quality feedback or replays/VODs of players doing similar strategies so that we might all improve. The build goes something like this:
Opening and third behind WG pressure:
FFE
Quick gate
1 gas
Core
2nd gas
Zealot and 2 stalkers rallied at Z's third--keep these alive
2 more gates, chrono the crap out of WG tech and start +1 weapons
Warp in 3 stalkers at ~7:50 and attack Z's third with 1z+5s
Take third immediately after warping in the stalkers
Turtle:
About 5 sentries
Robo, a bunch more gates, twilight
Blink and +2 weapons when gas allows
Colosus den (build about 3 colossi as you transition to mass air)
Stargate
More turtling:
4th base, fleet beacon, mothership
templar archives and a few more stargates
carriers and storm
Win:
Keep deflecting attacks until you have around 6-10 carriers, 6 templar, a mothership and a bunch of archons. Build a billion cannons. Take a fifth if you can.
Kill Zerg.
http://drop.sc/261093
http://drop.sc/261095
http://drop.sc/261096
Honestly, it's a pretty boring build to use, but it seems to win more than anything else I try, so I keep doing it.
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Or if anyone has good high-level builds that involve a third base and don't open stargate, I'd be interested in seeing those too. My build was a result of trial and error trying everything I could think of with a third base. This was the only thing I could find that didn't lose like 75% of the time.
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United States8476 Posts
First, I don't how the way you take your third is safe. Should easily fall to a roach max. Second, I don't see how what you're doing is different from a standard turtle style.
The two "safe" builds that don't involve stargate are the standard robo expand, which i talked about here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=327905
and a defensive 4 gate into twilight into robo expand, which was innovated by creator.
Creator vs Moon on Metropolis from GSTL
Parting vs Symbol on Daybreak from GSL
Oz vs JKS on Metropolis from GSL, 4 gate, twilight, robo, expand
Oz vs JKS on Entombed Valley from GSL, 4 gate, twilight, robo, expand
Oz vs Violet on Cloud Kingdom from MLG Sumemr Arena, 4 gate, twilight, robo, expand, vs roach/ling heavy pressure into infestors
Oz vs Stephano on Entombed Valley from MLG Summer Arena, 4 gate, twilight, robo, expand
Creator vs Idra on Ohana from IPL TAC 4, gate, twilight, robo, expand
Squirtle vs Hyun on Metropolis from IPL Fight Club, 4 gate, twilight, robo, expand
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This build will hold roach max because with chrono on the robo, you will get immortals out and if you have good sim city, you can hold it. The 3-gate pressure also helps delay the attack.
This build is basically similar to the twilight-robo expand but you do a 3-gate pressure and delay tech for a bit.
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Yay, another kcdc guide! Thanks!
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United States8476 Posts
On October 04 2012 05:43 ian952 wrote:
This build will hold roach max because with chrono on the robo, you will get immortals out and if you have good sim city, you can hold it. The 3-gate pressure also helps delay the attack.
This build is basically similar to the twilight-robo expand but you do a 3-gate pressure and delay tech for a bit.
Yes, but it requires you to do damage plus you get slower sentries. If your opponent reacts perfectly, you'll be behind than you would have been if you did a standard gateway twilight robo build. And gateway twilight robo barely holds roach max anyways and doesn't on maps like Antiga.
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Monk, at least for me, this third is easier to hold than one where you get robo before the third nexus. I've tried both options quite a bit, and the WG timing seems to weaken the roach pressure considerably. Try it out--I think you'll agree that it's an easier third to hold.
As for what's different, I'm taking my third a little differently than how I see pros do it. And I'm skipping the pre-BL colossus pressure for faster fleet beacon. I'm also consistently hitting 6+ carrier counts, which seems unusual.
Also, thanks for the links. I'll be sure to check them out.
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On October 04 2012 05:51 monk. wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2012 05:43 ian952 wrote:
This build will hold roach max because with chrono on the robo, you will get immortals out and if you have good sim city, you can hold it. The 3-gate pressure also helps delay the attack.
This build is basically similar to the twilight-robo expand but you do a 3-gate pressure and delay tech for a bit. Yes, but it requires you to do damage plus you get slower sentries. If your opponent reacts perfectly, you'll be behind than you would have been if you did a standard gateway twilight robo build. And gateway twilight robo barely holds roach max anyways and doesn't on maps like Antiga.
Try it out--you get the third faster this way, and you wind up matching their production so you don't need as many forcefields.
Also, it's hard to put a finger on what the "perfect" Zerg response is to the 1z/5s pressure. It's pretty rare that Z will have speed at that point, and if they do, you fall back to your pylon for more zealots. If you're up against slow lings, you just micro a bit until they've built a reasonable army and then you go home. It's not supposed to do damage--it's just supposed to stall their economy a bit.
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I personally do a 2 gate 3 stalker pressure that hits before warpgate is done. After producing 3 stalkers, I make sentries only and take third off 2 gate way at about 6:45. Then I add gateway+cannons+robo and twilight at around 9:40.
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On October 04 2012 06:08 ian952 wrote:
I personally do a 2 gate 3 stalker pressure that hits before warpgate is done. After producing 3 stalkers, I make sentries only and take third off 2 gate way at about 6:45. Then I add gateway+cannons+robo and twilight at around 9:40.
That's more or less how I was taking my third before I saw a pro game with a light WG stalker pressure into third. I think it might have been Titan that I stole the idea from? I'd say that adding the WG pressure improves the build over just doing a pre-WG stalker poke. You can do a zealot+stalker poke before WG tech to force some lings (like you would with a 3 stalker poke) and then you follow it up with the quick warp-ins. It seems to force a more significant response from Zerg, which makes a big difference in their eventual counter attack.
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United States8476 Posts
On October 04 2012 05:56 kcdc wrote:
Monk, at least for me, this third is easier to hold than one where you get robo before the third nexus. I've tried both options quite a bit, and the WG timing seems to weaken the roach pressure considerably. Try it out--I think you'll agree that it's an easier third to hold.
As for what's different, I'm taking my third a little differently than how I see pros do it. And I'm skipping the pre-BL colossus pressure for faster fleet beacon. I'm also consistently hitting 6+ carrier counts, which seems unusual.
Also, thanks for the links. I'll be sure to check them out.
Skipping colossi isn't too unusual these days against fast broodlords; Startale Protoss like Ace and Squirtle have been doing it for about half a year. Also, carriers are becoming very common lately. About half the games that go into extreme late game involve carriers.
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On October 04 2012 06:14 monk. wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2012 05:56 kcdc wrote:
Monk, at least for me, this third is easier to hold than one where you get robo before the third nexus. I've tried both options quite a bit, and the WG timing seems to weaken the roach pressure considerably. Try it out--I think you'll agree that it's an easier third to hold.
As for what's different, I'm taking my third a little differently than how I see pros do it. And I'm skipping the pre-BL colossus pressure for faster fleet beacon. I'm also consistently hitting 6+ carrier counts, which seems unusual.
Also, thanks for the links. I'll be sure to check them out. Skipping colossi isn't too unusual these days against fast broodlords; Startale Protoss like Ace and Squirtle have been doing it for about half a year. Also, carriers are becoming very common lately. About half the games that go into extreme late game involve carriers.
I'm not skipping colossi. That was another thing I had to learn the hard way. If you skip colossi, it's very hard to stop infestor-roach attacks before Z finishes his BL transition. What I'm not doing is attacking with the colossi. I just build about 3 colossi and park them next to my cannons.
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wasnt ling speed bit after 8min so ur push would get crushed 15s after it starts?
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On October 04 2012 06:21 SMMN wrote:
wasnt ling speed bit after 8min so ur push would get crushed 15s after it starts?
It doesn't seem to. Usually, they don't quite have speed when the attack starts, and they almost always have a low unit count. You can either warp in some zealots to help or run away in time.
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On October 04 2012 05:09 kcdc wrote:
Or if anyone has good high-level builds that involve a third base and don't open stargate, I'd be interested in seeing those too. My build was a result of trial and error trying everything I could think of with a third base. This was the only thing I could find that didn't lose like 75% of the time.
I think jangbi did a cool build in proleague, 1 gate pressure while taking a 3rd into mass +2 blink stalkers
i think it was versus sacsri...
ok found the VOD
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On October 04 2012 06:19 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2012 06:14 monk. wrote:On October 04 2012 05:56 kcdc wrote:
Monk, at least for me, this third is easier to hold than one where you get robo before the third nexus. I've tried both options quite a bit, and the WG timing seems to weaken the roach pressure considerably. Try it out--I think you'll agree that it's an easier third to hold.
As for what's different, I'm taking my third a little differently than how I see pros do it. And I'm skipping the pre-BL colossus pressure for faster fleet beacon. I'm also consistently hitting 6+ carrier counts, which seems unusual.
Also, thanks for the links. I'll be sure to check them out. Skipping colossi isn't too unusual these days against fast broodlords; Startale Protoss like Ace and Squirtle have been doing it for about half a year. Also, carriers are becoming very common lately. About half the games that go into extreme late game involve carriers. I'm not skipping colossi. That was another thing I had to learn the hard way. If you skip colossi, it's very hard to stop infestor-roach attacks before Z finishes his BL transition. What I'm not doing is attacking with the colossi. I just build about 3 colossi and park them next to my cannons.
lately, many people are getting delayed colossus of double robo so they will have 4 colossi by the time zerg has BL even if they start their support bay very late.
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Watched the first rep. I used to pretty much do this exact thing almost every PvZ, namely warpgate aggression without fast tech, relatively fast 3rd, turtle with colossus and cannon, get 4th, get carrier/mothership, make carrier/colossus/archon/ht mothership deathball, win.
However, problems with it include:
1. Fast 3rd with slow tech is unsafe. You need to know if they're trying to mass roach off 3 base to kill you or if they're teching/macroing/getting a 4th. If you have few or no immortals against fast roach max, you will die, if you blindly chrono immortals/more sentries and other defenses you'll be behind going into late game or if they go mutas. I guess in your game you might have reacted differently if you sensed/scouted a fast roach max was coming, but there would be no way you'd survive it doing what you did.
2. Getting a 4th early before you're nearly maxed or have a large number of robo units is unsafe. The zerg should have been maxed at that point, and also his infestor play was sloppy so you were able to defend it (for example he threw infested terrans only after his army died). I'm never able to hold a 4th at that stage of the game though.
3. Slowly transitioning to carriers is awkward. If you have a large ground army you want to vortex broodlords and then burst DPS when units come out. If you have carriers you want to vortex corruptor. If you are slowly transitioning to carriers then you have a period time where you're extremely weak when you only have a few carriers out and a lot of supply tied into making more carriers. At that point your army is still mostly ground but it's significantly smaller, and the few carriers you have are not adding much to your side especially when your own vortex sucks in interceptors. In other words what I'm trying to say is mass carrier with colossus/ht/archon support is strong, mass ground with mothership is not bad, but mostly ground with some carrier support is very bad.
So now my standard PvZ macro/turtle build is a bit different. Here's how I've adapted:
1. Fast robo, fast 3rd but still with the 8 minute 4 gate warpgate timing. My first 100 gas goes to warpgate tech and a stalker, my next 100 gas goes to the robo. Then I add 3 additional gateways, and I can put down my 3rd at around 7:30. I afford this by not getting my +1 upgrade that early (usually I start it after I start my 3rd base), and by delaying my 2nd gas and the 3rd/4th gas until after I start the 3rd base (I know that you also delay your 2nd gas in your games, but most standard PvZ builds get double gas at 19/20 supply). Not only does the fast robo provide me with a fast obs for fast scouting, it also allows me to build up that immortal count fast to defend my 3rd against roaches.
2. I don't take a 4th until I'm nearly maxed and I'm moving out to attack. I typically go for a pre-bl colossus timing, but I still get a mothership behind it so it's not a complete all-in and I have something to fall back on if he is able to defend until BLs come out. Because my 4th is later, I can't afford to get carriers that fast, so I don't. But this leads to my next comment:
3. Carrier transition - the best way I've come up with to transition to air is to prepare for a mass transition - get air upgrades and lay down a lot of stargates, but don't make any carriers yet, just focus on your stalker/colossus/archon/mothership army first. Work on your mothership micro (which is actually quite difficult - you need to control it will since it needs to be fully stopped before it can cast vortex, and also you need to watch it at all times and protect it from neurals), but if you are careful with your mothership although the game may stalemate if he hides behind a spine wall, he shouldn't be able to beat your army until he slowly turns his entire army to ~20 broodlords with some infestors/corruptor support. At this point you should be grabbing a 5th and even more bases and mass cannoning to protect them, while harassing with warp prism/poking with your main army. When he finally attacks you can choose to try to defend it, or go counter into his main. Most likely he'll turn around to try to defend, and then you do your air transition while trying to kill off as much of his base/tech as you can. After he stabilizes, continue to buy time by doing warp prism harass (use 2+ warp prisms). Hopefully you haven't actually killed any of his brood lords so that all his supply is tied into bl when you get air out. It sounds kinda cheesy but it's the best you can do unless you just want to all-in earlier and pray for lucky vortexes, once the zerg gets like 20 broodlords and doesn't stack them all in 1 place there is literally no way for you to kill it with only ground and 2 vortexes.
Note that the carrier transition doesn't always happen - in fact it's actually quite rare for the game to get to that stage, but it's pretty much the best way I can come up to make carriers. I
Here's a replay kinda showing this, it's not too good (some early timings were off especially the late warpgate timing, also I get an early 4th like I say not to, but I get it because I scout his fast hive plus I kill off a group of roaches without taking any losses), but it's the best I can quickly find right now. I'll try to find other reps later. http://drop.sc/261127
Also just as another build you may want to look at is that jangbi fast 3rd build where you just chrono gateway units out of your first gate, and get your 3rd base off of 1 gateway. It's nice if you want to pressure the zerg earlier, since most zergs are just used to defending the 8:00 warpgate timing and can get caught off guard either taking more damage than they should or overbuilding units and then being behind in drones. I personally don't like it because your tech is slower but if you don't mind that you should try it, it's safer than you'd think with a lot more early aggressive potential.
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United States8476 Posts
On October 04 2012 06:29 rsvp wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Watched the first rep. I used to pretty much do this exact thing almost every PvZ, namely warpgate aggression without fast tech, relatively fast 3rd, turtle with colossus and cannon, get 4th, get carrier/mothership, make carrier/colossus/archon/ht mothership deathball, win. However, problems with it include: 1. Fast 3rd with slow tech is unsafe. You need to know if they're trying to mass roach off 3 base to kill you or if they're teching/macroing/getting a 4th. If you have few or no immortals against fast roach max, you will die, if you blindly chrono immortals/more sentries and other defenses you'll be behind going into late game or if they go mutas. I guess in your game you might have reacted differently if you sensed/scouted a fast roach max was coming, but there would be no way you'd survive it doing what you did. 2. Getting a 4th early before you're nearly maxed or have a large number of robo units is unsafe. The zerg should have been maxed at that point, and also his infestor play was sloppy so you were able to defend it (for example he threw infested terrans only after his army died). I'm never able to hold a 4th at that stage of the game though. 3. Slowly transitioning to carriers is awkward. If you have a large ground army you want to vortex broodlords and then burst DPS when units come out. If you have carriers you want to vortex corruptor. If you are slowly transitioning to carriers then you have a period time where you're extremely weak when you only have a few carriers out and a lot of supply tied into making more carriers. At that point your army is still mostly ground but it's significantly smaller, and the few carriers you have are not adding much to your side especially when your own vortex sucks in interceptors. In other words what I'm trying to say is mass carrier with colossus/ht/archon support is strong, mass ground with mothership is not bad, but mostly ground with some carrier support is very bad. So now my standard PvZ macro/turtle build is a bit different. Here's how I've adapted: 1. Fast robo, fast 3rd but still with the 8 minute 4 gate warpgate timing. My first 100 gas goes to warpgate tech and a stalker, my next 100 gas goes to the robo. Then I add 3 additional gateways, and I can put down my 3rd at around 7:30. I afford this by not getting my +1 upgrade that early (usually I start it after I start my 3rd base), and by delaying my 2nd gas and the 3rd/4th gas until after I start the 3rd base (I know that you also delay your 2nd gas in your games, but most standard PvZ builds get double gas at 19/20 supply). Not only does the fast robo provide me with a fast obs for fast scouting, it also allows me to build up that immortal count fast to defend my 3rd against roaches. 2. I don't take a 4th until I'm nearly maxed and I'm moving out to attack. I typically go for a pre-bl colossus timing, but I still get a mothership behind it so it's not a complete all-in and I have something to fall back on if he is able to defend until BLs come out. Because my 4th is later, I can't afford to get carriers that fast, so I don't. But this leads to my next comment: 3. Carrier transition - the best way I've come up with to transition to air is to prepare for a mass transition - get air upgrades and lay down a lot of stargates, but don't make any carriers yet, just focus on your stalker/colossus/archon/mothership army first. Work on your mothership micro (which is actually quite difficult - you need to control it will since it needs to be fully stopped before it can cast vortex, and also you need to watch it at all times and protect it from neurals), but if you are careful with your mothership although the game may stalemate if he hides behind a spine wall, he shouldn't be able to beat your army until he slowly turns his entire army to ~20 broodlords with some infestors/corruptor support. At this point you should be grabbing a 5th and even more bases and mass cannoning to protect them, while harassing with warp prism/poking with your main army. When he finally attacks you can choose to try to defend it, or go counter into his main. Most likely he'll turn around to try to defend, and then you do your air transition while trying to kill off as much of his base/tech as you can. After he stabilizes, continue to buy time by doing warp prism harass (use 2+ warp prisms). Hopefully you haven't actually killed any of his brood lords so that all his supply is tied into bl when you get air out. It sounds kinda cheesy but it's the best you can do unless you just want to all-in earlier and pray for lucky vortexes, once the zerg gets like 20 broodlords and doesn't stack them all in 1 place there is literally no way for you to kill it with only ground and 2 vortexes. Note that the carrier transition doesn't always happen - in fact it's actually quite rare for the game to get to that stage, but it's pretty much the best way I can come up to make carriers. I Here's a replay kinda showing this, it's not too good (some early timings were off especially the late warpgate timing, also I get an early 4th like I say not to, but I get it because I scout his fast hive plus I kill off a group of roaches without taking any losses), but it's the best I can quickly find right now. I'll try to find other reps later. http://drop.sc/261127Also just as another build you may want to look at is that jangbi fast 3rd build where you just chrono gateway units out of your first gate, and get your 3rd base off of 1 gateway. It's nice if you want to pressure the zerg earlier, since most zergs are just used to defending the 8:00 warpgate timing and can get caught off guard either taking more damage than they should or overbuilding units and then being behind in drones. I personally don't like it because your tech is slower but if you don't mind that you should try it, it's safer than you'd think with a lot more early aggressive potential.
Feel like I need to ban you for this post. You know why.....
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lol lots of posts in the time it took me to write that
Some things I want to comment on -
1. Versus roach max - there's the kind that waits until 200/200 max at 12-13 minutes before attacking - which I believe kcdc's build in the OP will be fine against. However, lots of roach max builds begin attacking much earlier, and any sort of fast 3rd, especially those without a fast robo and sentries, will have a lot of difficulty holding.
2. On early gateway aggression - there are tons of variants out there (whether you get units out of 1 gate or 2 gate, chronoed units before warpgate, how many gates, zealots vs stalkers, etc. it doesn't matter), and zergs are getting good at defending all them. Typically they just get a decent number of lings early on and use those to scout/delay and produce an optimal response to whatever variation of gateway harass you're doing. So in other words, it's still good to do these kinds of pokes, but you can't depend on them to really significantly slow down the zerg.
3. Colossus vs no colossus, pre-BL timings - I've played around a lot with getting colossus versus no colossus and I really think getting colossus is the better and safer route. I know that progamers often skip colossus but I think those are specific towards special situations/builds/maps. Monk, do you have any replays/vods showing PvZ without colossus going up a heavy ling/infestor style?
As far as pre-BL timings go now I always go for it, while still getting a mothership behind the attack. That way it's not all-in, and why not do it? You have the chance to do a lot of damage, and you should be safe since before BLs your 200/200 colossus army should be able to beat anything else zerg throws at you. Then when they do get BL you can safely retreat since BLs are so slow.
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On October 04 2012 06:36 monk. wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2012 06:29 rsvp wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Watched the first rep. I used to pretty much do this exact thing almost every PvZ, namely warpgate aggression without fast tech, relatively fast 3rd, turtle with colossus and cannon, get 4th, get carrier/mothership, make carrier/colossus/archon/ht mothership deathball, win. However, problems with it include: 1. Fast 3rd with slow tech is unsafe. You need to know if they're trying to mass roach off 3 base to kill you or if they're teching/macroing/getting a 4th. If you have few or no immortals against fast roach max, you will die, if you blindly chrono immortals/more sentries and other defenses you'll be behind going into late game or if they go mutas. I guess in your game you might have reacted differently if you sensed/scouted a fast roach max was coming, but there would be no way you'd survive it doing what you did. 2. Getting a 4th early before you're nearly maxed or have a large number of robo units is unsafe. The zerg should have been maxed at that point, and also his infestor play was sloppy so you were able to defend it (for example he threw infested terrans only after his army died). I'm never able to hold a 4th at that stage of the game though. 3. Slowly transitioning to carriers is awkward. If you have a large ground army you want to vortex broodlords and then burst DPS when units come out. If you have carriers you want to vortex corruptor. If you are slowly transitioning to carriers then you have a period time where you're extremely weak when you only have a few carriers out and a lot of supply tied into making more carriers. At that point your army is still mostly ground but it's significantly smaller, and the few carriers you have are not adding much to your side especially when your own vortex sucks in interceptors. In other words what I'm trying to say is mass carrier with colossus/ht/archon support is strong, mass ground with mothership is not bad, but mostly ground with some carrier support is very bad. So now my standard PvZ macro/turtle build is a bit different. Here's how I've adapted: 1. Fast robo, fast 3rd but still with the 8 minute 4 gate warpgate timing. My first 100 gas goes to warpgate tech and a stalker, my next 100 gas goes to the robo. Then I add 3 additional gateways, and I can put down my 3rd at around 7:30. I afford this by not getting my +1 upgrade that early (usually I start it after I start my 3rd base), and by delaying my 2nd gas and the 3rd/4th gas until after I start the 3rd base (I know that you also delay your 2nd gas in your games, but most standard PvZ builds get double gas at 19/20 supply). Not only does the fast robo provide me with a fast obs for fast scouting, it also allows me to build up that immortal count fast to defend my 3rd against roaches. 2. I don't take a 4th until I'm nearly maxed and I'm moving out to attack. I typically go for a pre-bl colossus timing, but I still get a mothership behind it so it's not a complete all-in and I have something to fall back on if he is able to defend until BLs come out. Because my 4th is later, I can't afford to get carriers that fast, so I don't. But this leads to my next comment: 3. Carrier transition - the best way I've come up with to transition to air is to prepare for a mass transition - get air upgrades and lay down a lot of stargates, but don't make any carriers yet, just focus on your stalker/colossus/archon/mothership army first. Work on your mothership micro (which is actually quite difficult - you need to control it will since it needs to be fully stopped before it can cast vortex, and also you need to watch it at all times and protect it from neurals), but if you are careful with your mothership although the game may stalemate if he hides behind a spine wall, he shouldn't be able to beat your army until he slowly turns his entire army to ~20 broodlords with some infestors/corruptor support. At this point you should be grabbing a 5th and even more bases and mass cannoning to protect them, while harassing with warp prism/poking with your main army. When he finally attacks you can choose to try to defend it, or go counter into his main. Most likely he'll turn around to try to defend, and then you do your air transition while trying to kill off as much of his base/tech as you can. After he stabilizes, continue to buy time by doing warp prism harass (use 2+ warp prisms). Hopefully you haven't actually killed any of his brood lords so that all his supply is tied into bl when you get air out. It sounds kinda cheesy but it's the best you can do unless you just want to all-in earlier and pray for lucky vortexes, once the zerg gets like 20 broodlords and doesn't stack them all in 1 place there is literally no way for you to kill it with only ground and 2 vortexes. Note that the carrier transition doesn't always happen - in fact it's actually quite rare for the game to get to that stage, but it's pretty much the best way I can come up to make carriers. I Here's a replay kinda showing this, it's not too good (some early timings were off especially the late warpgate timing, also I get an early 4th like I say not to, but I get it because I scout his fast hive plus I kill off a group of roaches without taking any losses), but it's the best I can quickly find right now. I'll try to find other reps later. http://drop.sc/261127Also just as another build you may want to look at is that jangbi fast 3rd build where you just chrono gateway units out of your first gate, and get your 3rd base off of 1 gateway. It's nice if you want to pressure the zerg earlier, since most zergs are just used to defending the 8:00 warpgate timing and can get caught off guard either taking more damage than they should or overbuilding units and then being behind in drones. I personally don't like it because your tech is slower but if you don't mind that you should try it, it's safer than you'd think with a lot more early aggressive potential. Feel like I need to ban you for this post. You know why.....
is it because you guys are wasting time trying to figure out how to macro vs. zerg when everyone knows all-ins are easier? lol
in all seriousness though, I feel like you guys are underestimating just how flexible and often times unpredictable zerg can be.
Pushing with colossus and making a mothership behind it so you have something to fall back on just doesnt sound that smart. Your going completely against the protoss way of either committing to an attack or not committing to an attack.
If your trying to hit an anti-hive timing then that 8 supply and 400 gas can make a difference after youve begun trading units. Not to mention that if you get caught with fungals and you happen to lose a chunk of your army (and dont say this doesnt happen because you'd be lying) then even if you retreat and fall back you'll find yourself burning more and more gas on replacing stalkers and you'll have a blink stakler mothership army. And this might have worked out ok a year ago, but today it just doesnt cut it vs. the mass brood infestor style thats so popular today.
Carriers seem like a horrible choice too, I used to be all for Carrier HT as a unit comp but the build time to make carriers and their cost just makes them such a difficult transition. Not to mention that if they have a high infestor count then corruptor infested terran with fungal is just going make you sad.
You think replacing colossus is annoying? try replacing carriers with their 2minute build time.
AND you have to take into consideration that you might not be able to defend the 5-6 bases needed to support this. I cant tell you how many times I've made carriers only to run out of minerals and can no longer afford Interceptors
Zerg OP!
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woops, double post.
3. Colossus vs no colossus, pre-BL timings - I've played around a lot with getting colossus versus no colossus and I really think getting colossus is the better and safer route. I know that progamers often skip colossus but I think those are specific towards special situations/builds/maps. Monk, do you have any replays/vods showing PvZ without colossus going up a heavy ling/infestor style?
Archon/HT with storm is alot of more effective vs. ling infestor and alot more cost efficient as well. 4 solid storms will easily kill as much as 4 colossus would in a fight for alot less cost, and will also better prepare you to begin combating against the brood infestor army.
not to mention that if you havent scouted the zerg yet, HT are a safer choice as it will help to defend vs. muta as well.
The only time i see colossus as a favorable option is vs. roaches (and hydras? LoL) or as an anti-hive timing used to pick off spine crawlers from a distance
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Thanks rsvp. A lot of really good thoughts there.
It sounds like our early game is pretty similar. You get a faster robo while I get a faster +1 weapons. I think your solution is better, so I'll switch.
As for the timing on the 4th, I'll play around with it some. I always try to be aggressive with expansions until I die enough that I'm convinced that it doesn't work, so I'm probably going to keep experiementing here. I haven't died enough yet.
Regarding the carrier transition timing, I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand, yes, having one or two carriers isn't better than having that supply in stalkers, so from that perspective, it makes sense to time the carrier transition so it comes all at once. On the other hand, carriers take forever to build, and if you have five stargages producing carriers at once, there's a big timing window where your army is down 30 supply. If they attack while you're making your carriers, you just die.
From my limited experience with this build, I'm able to get a good carrier count out before Z has the 20 BL army that I can't handle with mothership+ground. He might be able to catch me on 1 or 2 carriers if he attacks with 6 broodlords, but if he waits for 20, my air transition will be in better shape. If it turns out that my fourth is totally unsafe, I might not be able to complete the air transition in time, which will force me to stay on colossi longer like do.
I'll watch your replay when I get home. Let me know if you try taking a fourth a little faster. If you have a handful of sentries, couple colossi and a good stalker force, It seems like you can handle anything they throw at you before broodlords, and you know when the broodlord timing will hit.
Also, the reason I don't get aggressive with my colossus-stalker ball before the BL's pop is that I can't retreat against fungal. Maybe my control is just bad, but if I attack with my army at that time, it often gets rooted to the ground in green goo, and eventually cleaned up when the BL's finish. I tried the push a lot with the MS tech behind it, but even with tech behind the push, it wound up feeling all-in since I couldn't retreat, so if I couldn't beat his army, I lost the game.
I do think it's worth posturing like you might attack with the colossus force, but really, if there's a spine wall, you're not gonna kill him and in my mind, it's not worth actually commiting to an attack given the risk of becoming fungal-locked. There's definitely a timing attack window there, but I think you need a mothership core to make it safe.
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On October 04 2012 06:43 rsvp wrote:
lol lots of posts in the time it took me to write that
Some things I want to comment on -
1. Versus roach max - there's the kind that waits until 200/200 max at 12-13 minutes before attacking - which I believe kcdc's build in the OP will be fine against. However, lots of roach max builds begin attacking much earlier, and any sort of fast 3rd, especially those without a fast robo and sentries, will have a lot of difficulty holding.
This is very map dependent. On maps like CK , Ohana or daybreak, it is definitely easier to make some sort of choke at the third and wall of the ramp to natural. Then you can just rely on good FF to hold the early roach attacks and have immortals out on time for the max. Since you will get TC instead of robo bay, you can have blink just in time to fend off muta.
That being said, on maps like Antiga or TDA, it's nearly impossible to do this.
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My whole game plan is similar too, but I don't do stalkers. I do 3 zealots out of a gate and rally them to Zerg's 3rd, then warp in 2 more from 2 gates while continuing to tech to DTs and waiting for +1 to finish (5 zealots, don't lose them, run if roaches). I get Shrine, and gates 3 and 4 after Shrine is down. After the 2 zealot warp-in cooldown has expired is usually when Shrine finishes, along with gates 3 and 4. Depending on how aggro you want to go, and when you took gasses 3 and 4 you can warp in the fitting number of Dark Templar, I usually do 3. You get robo around when shrine finishes, and you should have started the 3rd. Everything else is zealot/cannon defense at the 3rd augmented by 1-2 archons and 1-3 immortals depending on how much damage you do and when Zerg pushes out.
Questions on your build:
I would rather do zealots than stalkers for the poke at third, since at that point I'm not sure I won't just lose stalkers to speedlings. Thoughts?
The above deviation gets an early TC which is nice if you can't proceed with the build because you scouted something. You already have +1 and can just do blink/add gates/+2 instead of DTs.
Is gas in sentries for defense better than gas in other tech for maybe stronger offensive units?
DTs have more utility compared to stalkers, even if they do no damage they are better defending your 3rd as an archon than stalkers. Would you rather have 5 stalkers or 1 archon and 3 zealots when defending third?
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rsvp, I watched your rep, and your WG timing is (1) much later than mine, and (2) a suicide attack. I like your idea of a faster robo because I'd like to scout earlier, but my 7:50 1z/5s WG timing is much stronger than the WG timing you used in that replay. Maybe there's a way to get the best of both worlds.
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On October 04 2012 07:41 kcdc wrote:
rsvp, I watched your rep, and your WG timing is (1) much later than mine, and (2) a suicide attack. I like your idea of a faster robo because I'd like to scout earlier, but my 7:50 1z/5s WG timing is much stronger than the WG timing you used in that replay. Maybe there's a way to get the best of both worlds.
1) I messed up somewhere, usually I can get it to hit at 8:00 which I guess is still a bit later than yours but not that much later. Here's an example where I warp in at 8:00, and as you can see there's still room for improvement (I could have chronoed the warpgate tech more). http://drop.sc/261192
2) It's only a suicide attack because I warped in zealots. You can choose to warp in stalkers with it and still not make it into a suicide attack.
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In terms of Builds oriented around getting fastish thirds up, I don't think Jangbi's PvZ build has gotten enough attention. He did it a couple times and it looked really good at first impression, but then no one seemed to care about it to work out the details. Thread on it here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=352807
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On October 04 2012 07:41 kcdc wrote:
rsvp, I watched your rep, and your WG timing is (1) much later than mine, and (2) a suicide attack. I like your idea of a faster robo because I'd like to scout earlier, but my 7:50 1z/5s WG timing is much stronger than the WG timing you used in that replay. Maybe there's a way to get the best of both worlds.
You can use hallucination to scout and get up to 6-7 sentries.
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On October 04 2012 10:37 ian952 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2012 07:41 kcdc wrote:
rsvp, I watched your rep, and your WG timing is (1) much later than mine, and (2) a suicide attack. I like your idea of a faster robo because I'd like to scout earlier, but my 7:50 1z/5s WG timing is much stronger than the WG timing you used in that replay. Maybe there's a way to get the best of both worlds. You can use hallucination to scout and get up to 6-7 sentries.
Robo is important not just for obs but for immortals to defend against roaches.
On October 04 2012 10:24 Vaporak wrote:In terms of Builds oriented around getting fastish thirds up, I don't think Jangbi's PvZ build has gotten enough attention. He did it a couple times and it looked really good at first impression, but then no one seemed to care about it to work out the details. Thread on it here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=352807
I commented on this build in an earlier post, basically it's a viable build but I personally don't like it because of the late robo.
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I don't know if you're willing but I'd like to try playing some games vs this on because I feel this style is pretty vulnerable to a few different styles but I'm not 100% sure. I'm a high master Zerg, we can play on NA.
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Seems like pretty interesting stuff. Tomorrow i'll check this with some games and post the results.
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On October 04 2012 06:36 monk. wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2012 06:29 rsvp wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Watched the first rep. I used to pretty much do this exact thing almost every PvZ, namely warpgate aggression without fast tech, relatively fast 3rd, turtle with colossus and cannon, get 4th, get carrier/mothership, make carrier/colossus/archon/ht mothership deathball, win. However, problems with it include: 1. Fast 3rd with slow tech is unsafe. You need to know if they're trying to mass roach off 3 base to kill you or if they're teching/macroing/getting a 4th. If you have few or no immortals against fast roach max, you will die, if you blindly chrono immortals/more sentries and other defenses you'll be behind going into late game or if they go mutas. I guess in your game you might have reacted differently if you sensed/scouted a fast roach max was coming, but there would be no way you'd survive it doing what you did. 2. Getting a 4th early before you're nearly maxed or have a large number of robo units is unsafe. The zerg should have been maxed at that point, and also his infestor play was sloppy so you were able to defend it (for example he threw infested terrans only after his army died). I'm never able to hold a 4th at that stage of the game though. 3. Slowly transitioning to carriers is awkward. If you have a large ground army you want to vortex broodlords and then burst DPS when units come out. If you have carriers you want to vortex corruptor. If you are slowly transitioning to carriers then you have a period time where you're extremely weak when you only have a few carriers out and a lot of supply tied into making more carriers. At that point your army is still mostly ground but it's significantly smaller, and the few carriers you have are not adding much to your side especially when your own vortex sucks in interceptors. In other words what I'm trying to say is mass carrier with colossus/ht/archon support is strong, mass ground with mothership is not bad, but mostly ground with some carrier support is very bad. So now my standard PvZ macro/turtle build is a bit different. Here's how I've adapted: 1. Fast robo, fast 3rd but still with the 8 minute 4 gate warpgate timing. My first 100 gas goes to warpgate tech and a stalker, my next 100 gas goes to the robo. Then I add 3 additional gateways, and I can put down my 3rd at around 7:30. I afford this by not getting my +1 upgrade that early (usually I start it after I start my 3rd base), and by delaying my 2nd gas and the 3rd/4th gas until after I start the 3rd base (I know that you also delay your 2nd gas in your games, but most standard PvZ builds get double gas at 19/20 supply). Not only does the fast robo provide me with a fast obs for fast scouting, it also allows me to build up that immortal count fast to defend my 3rd against roaches. 2. I don't take a 4th until I'm nearly maxed and I'm moving out to attack. I typically go for a pre-bl colossus timing, but I still get a mothership behind it so it's not a complete all-in and I have something to fall back on if he is able to defend until BLs come out. Because my 4th is later, I can't afford to get carriers that fast, so I don't. But this leads to my next comment: 3. Carrier transition - the best way I've come up with to transition to air is to prepare for a mass transition - get air upgrades and lay down a lot of stargates, but don't make any carriers yet, just focus on your stalker/colossus/archon/mothership army first. Work on your mothership micro (which is actually quite difficult - you need to control it will since it needs to be fully stopped before it can cast vortex, and also you need to watch it at all times and protect it from neurals), but if you are careful with your mothership although the game may stalemate if he hides behind a spine wall, he shouldn't be able to beat your army until he slowly turns his entire army to ~20 broodlords with some infestors/corruptor support. At this point you should be grabbing a 5th and even more bases and mass cannoning to protect them, while harassing with warp prism/poking with your main army. When he finally attacks you can choose to try to defend it, or go counter into his main. Most likely he'll turn around to try to defend, and then you do your air transition while trying to kill off as much of his base/tech as you can. After he stabilizes, continue to buy time by doing warp prism harass (use 2+ warp prisms). Hopefully you haven't actually killed any of his brood lords so that all his supply is tied into bl when you get air out. It sounds kinda cheesy but it's the best you can do unless you just want to all-in earlier and pray for lucky vortexes, once the zerg gets like 20 broodlords and doesn't stack them all in 1 place there is literally no way for you to kill it with only ground and 2 vortexes. Note that the carrier transition doesn't always happen - in fact it's actually quite rare for the game to get to that stage, but it's pretty much the best way I can come up to make carriers. I Here's a replay kinda showing this, it's not too good (some early timings were off especially the late warpgate timing, also I get an early 4th like I say not to, but I get it because I scout his fast hive plus I kill off a group of roaches without taking any losses), but it's the best I can quickly find right now. I'll try to find other reps later. http://drop.sc/261127Also just as another build you may want to look at is that jangbi fast 3rd build where you just chrono gateway units out of your first gate, and get your 3rd base off of 1 gateway. It's nice if you want to pressure the zerg earlier, since most zergs are just used to defending the 8:00 warpgate timing and can get caught off guard either taking more damage than they should or overbuilding units and then being behind in drones. I personally don't like it because your tech is slower but if you don't mind that you should try it, it's safer than you'd think with a lot more early aggressive potential. Feel like I need to ban you for this post. You know why.....
Mind explaining?
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On October 04 2012 10:39 rsvp wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2012 10:37 ian952 wrote:On October 04 2012 07:41 kcdc wrote:
rsvp, I watched your rep, and your WG timing is (1) much later than mine, and (2) a suicide attack. I like your idea of a faster robo because I'd like to scout earlier, but my 7:50 1z/5s WG timing is much stronger than the WG timing you used in that replay. Maybe there's a way to get the best of both worlds. You can use hallucination to scout and get up to 6-7 sentries. Robo is important not just for obs but for immortals to defend against roaches.
I get what you mean, but wouldn't hallucination do the same as obs (trying to see if its roach max, muta, or fast 4th). Since you are using hallucination instead of obs, I suppose you can delay the obs in favour of fast immortals. Since you took your third earlier, wouldn't that help you with a better economy?
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United States8476 Posts
On October 04 2012 11:07 ian952 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2012 10:39 rsvp wrote:On October 04 2012 10:37 ian952 wrote:On October 04 2012 07:41 kcdc wrote:
rsvp, I watched your rep, and your WG timing is (1) much later than mine, and (2) a suicide attack. I like your idea of a faster robo because I'd like to scout earlier, but my 7:50 1z/5s WG timing is much stronger than the WG timing you used in that replay. Maybe there's a way to get the best of both worlds. You can use hallucination to scout and get up to 6-7 sentries. Robo is important not just for obs but for immortals to defend against roaches. I get what you mean, but wouldn't hallucination do the same as obs (trying to see if its roach max, muta, or fast 4th). Since you are using hallucination instead of obs, I suppose you can delay the obs in favour of fast immortals. Since you took your third earlier, wouldn't that help you with a better economy?
You still need obs to scout roach splits and detect burrow. Hallucination costs too much valuable sentry energy to keep a phoenix up all the time.
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On October 04 2012 05:38 monk. wrote:First, I don't how the way you take your third is safe. Should easily fall to a roach max. Second, I don't see how what you're doing is different from a standard turtle style. The two "safe" builds that don't involve stargate are the standard robo expand, which i talked about here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=327905and a defensive 4 gate into twilight into robo expand, which was innovated by creator. Creator vs Moon on Metropolis from GSTL Parting vs Symbol on Daybreak from GSL Oz vs JKS on Metropolis from GSL, 4 gate, twilight, robo, expandOz vs JKS on Entombed Valley from GSL, 4 gate, twilight, robo, expandOz vs Violet on Cloud Kingdom from MLG Sumemr Arena, 4 gate, twilight, robo, expand, vs roach/ling heavy pressure into infestorsOz vs Stephano on Entombed Valley from MLG Summer Arena, 4 gate, twilight, robo, expandCreator vs Idra on Ohana from IPL TAC 4, gate, twilight, robo, expandSquirtle vs Hyun on Metropolis from IPL Fight Club, 4 gate, twilight, robo, expand
Genius does (or at least used to) a build that goes 4 gate twilight expand robo. What are your thoughts on that? Is the earlier expand worth the slower immortals? Can you decisively hold roach maxes?
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United States8476 Posts
On October 04 2012 11:52 Indrium wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2012 05:38 monk. wrote:First, I don't how the way you take your third is safe. Should easily fall to a roach max. Second, I don't see how what you're doing is different from a standard turtle style. The two "safe" builds that don't involve stargate are the standard robo expand, which i talked about here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=327905and a defensive 4 gate into twilight into robo expand, which was innovated by creator. Creator vs Moon on Metropolis from GSTL Parting vs Symbol on Daybreak from GSL Oz vs JKS on Metropolis from GSL, 4 gate, twilight, robo, expandOz vs JKS on Entombed Valley from GSL, 4 gate, twilight, robo, expandOz vs Violet on Cloud Kingdom from MLG Sumemr Arena, 4 gate, twilight, robo, expand, vs roach/ling heavy pressure into infestorsOz vs Stephano on Entombed Valley from MLG Summer Arena, 4 gate, twilight, robo, expandCreator vs Idra on Ohana from IPL TAC 4, gate, twilight, robo, expandSquirtle vs Hyun on Metropolis from IPL Fight Club, 4 gate, twilight, robo, expand Genius does (or at least used to) a build that goes 4 gate twilight expand robo. What are your thoughts on that? Is the earlier expand worth the slower immortals? Can you decisively hold roach maxes?
Maybe, but it seems extremely hard. Robo 4 gate expands are the best for holding, but even they have problems on a map like Antiga. 4 gate twilight robo expand already needs some help from the map, ie not Antiga, and it's close. I suspect 4 gate twilight expand robo would be even harder. Also, I don't think delaying the robo speeds up your expand by much. In my experience, the limiting factor is usually the first warp-in of sentries and not the 400 minerals. At worst, it only delays you by 200 minerals.
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I think the fact is a well controlled zerg deathball rolls a protoss deathball (carriers or not) if they make they're composition right for what you have, you guys are trying to find a solution where there isnt one really, I honestly believe that without doing alot of damage to zerg throughout the game a turtle style just isn't effective anymore, unless you can seriously hinder the zergs tech/economy or they attack into you over and over while you turtle they are just going to get ahead in macro have a maxed BL infestor corrupter army before you have the army you want.
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I'm struggling to see what makes this strategy any different from other macro PvZ builds. It opens with a FFE, you go Robo+Sentry into a third with blink, then you get Colossi, then your endgame is 100% reliant on the Mothership against the Broodlord/Infestor ball.
What am I missing? Or is this not supposed to be about the build itself, but just playing for the macro game? Because I play almost exclusively macro-style in PvZ, but I use pressure and tech instead of turtling.
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Italy12246 Posts
On October 04 2012 18:55 ineversmile wrote:
I'm struggling to see what makes this strategy any different from other macro PvZ builds. It opens with a FFE, you go Robo+Sentry into a third with blink, then you get Colossi, then your endgame is 100% reliant on the Mothership against the Broodlord/Infestor ball.
What am I missing? Or is this not supposed to be about the build itself, but just playing for the macro game? Because I play almost exclusively macro-style in PvZ, but I use pressure and tech instead of turtling.
The opening pressure is somewhat innovative, mothership tech is much faster than many builds, there is no pre-bl timing, the 4th and carriers are faster than normal.
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On October 04 2012 18:55 ineversmile wrote:
I'm struggling to see what makes this strategy any different from other macro PvZ builds. It opens with a FFE, you go Robo+Sentry into a third with blink, then you get Colossi, then your endgame is 100% reliant on the Mothership against the Broodlord/Infestor ball.
What am I missing? Or is this not supposed to be about the build itself, but just playing for the macro game? Because I play almost exclusively macro-style in PvZ, but I use pressure and tech instead of turtling.
It's actually gateway pressure into a third followed by robo + sentry, not robo + sentry into a third. Also the end game is NOT 100% reliant on the mothership, that's what the carriers are for and one of the major points of this thread.
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Regarding the opening 1z+5s pressure, I find that any good zerg player that goes fast speed in response to seeing you chrono your WG tech more then twice will easily shut this down ? I have a feeling that early WG attacks are so uncommon that people don't know how to react to them yet, but the style is inherently flawed.
In my PvZs nowadays I go gate nexus pylon gas core with a 1z+5s attack around 7 min or earlier and 12 early speedlings totally shut down my push. Now of course zerg can get speed on the way faster because they react to gateway first, but I think it finishes before 8minutes if he does it in reaction to chronoed WG ?
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It has worked out for me, but yes, if they have speed, your stalkers are in trouble. If you get +1 weapons, you can kill the lings with zealots. I'm not experienced with the build to know the full range of zerg responses, but it seems to work well in the current metagame. Give it a shot and post replays!
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I've just been doing 2 base all ins for a while now in pvz but one build I saw MC do at iem cologne was FFE into 4 gate +1 pressure. While he was doing this he stayed on 2 bases, macroed up and got blink/dts. As soon as his 4gate pressure was falling off he went into DT harass took a third and got out colossus. He then won because he was ahead/equal to zerg in bases and economy. Not really turtlely but not an all in either, I'm interested in trying it out.
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Italy12246 Posts
While 4Gate into DT can work extremely well, especially at lower levels of play (i am like 9-1 with it at mid master), it's a bit gimmicky as you invest a ton of resources into both a pressure build and unit that relies on your opponent more or less screwing up.
That said, it's a very fun build to do.
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On October 05 2012 01:03 Teoita wrote:
While 4Gate into DT can work extremely well, especially at lower levels of play (i am like 9-1 with it at mid master), it's a bit gimmicky as you invest a ton of resources into both a pressure build and unit that relies on your opponent more or less screwing up.
That said, it's a very fun build to do.
Not only that but you'd have to do a considerable amount of damage (Im talking 20-30 drone kills + killing at least one of the mining bases) just to come out ahead. Dt's are expensive and set back your sentry count and other tech transitions incredibly. And if they happen to scout your dt's with an overlord prior to yuor attack you can just forget about do any damage at all.
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I agree with Smurf regarding Templar vs Colossus. I've always felt that Colossus have the most narrow role in PvZ, and translate to the late-game extremely poorly. If you don't do damage with your Colossus during a pre-Brood timing, their usefulness and investment really don't line up particularly well. Having your main form of tech dedicated solely to killing free units (Broodlings) seems like a really poor implementation of late-game gas.
I like the earlier Carriers and Mothership, but the only way those units actually work is if you already have Templar up. Might as well skip a step and rely on Archon splash + Storms so your Carrier transition is much less seamless. The only trouble with Templar is hardcore Roaching, so you will need a good group of Immortals (and hit a timing to kill spines before Broods are done, then go home) or Void Rays with strong upgrades.
I guess there's nothing wrong with a slower progression if you need comfort while doing so, but I see way too many people die because they make Colossus, get a Mothership and then the two units have absolutely no use when put together because Corrupters kill them both.
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On October 04 2012 06:29 rsvp wrote:Watched the first rep. I used to pretty much do this exact thing almost every PvZ, namely warpgate aggression without fast tech, relatively fast 3rd, turtle with colossus and cannon, get 4th, get carrier/mothership, make carrier/colossus/archon/ht mothership deathball, win. However, problems with it include: 1. Fast 3rd with slow tech is unsafe. You need to know if they're trying to mass roach off 3 base to kill you or if they're teching/macroing/getting a 4th. If you have few or no immortals against fast roach max, you will die, if you blindly chrono immortals/more sentries and other defenses you'll be behind going into late game or if they go mutas. I guess in your game you might have reacted differently if you sensed/scouted a fast roach max was coming, but there would be no way you'd survive it doing what you did. 2. Getting a 4th early before you're nearly maxed or have a large number of robo units is unsafe. The zerg should have been maxed at that point, and also his infestor play was sloppy so you were able to defend it (for example he threw infested terrans only after his army died). I'm never able to hold a 4th at that stage of the game though. 3. Slowly transitioning to carriers is awkward. If you have a large ground army you want to vortex broodlords and then burst DPS when units come out. If you have carriers you want to vortex corruptor. If you are slowly transitioning to carriers then you have a period time where you're extremely weak when you only have a few carriers out and a lot of supply tied into making more carriers. At that point your army is still mostly ground but it's significantly smaller, and the few carriers you have are not adding much to your side especially when your own vortex sucks in interceptors. In other words what I'm trying to say is mass carrier with colossus/ht/archon support is strong, mass ground with mothership is not bad, but mostly ground with some carrier support is very bad. So now my standard PvZ macro/turtle build is a bit different. Here's how I've adapted: 1. Fast robo, fast 3rd but still with the 8 minute 4 gate warpgate timing. My first 100 gas goes to warpgate tech and a stalker, my next 100 gas goes to the robo. Then I add 3 additional gateways, and I can put down my 3rd at around 7:30. I afford this by not getting my +1 upgrade that early (usually I start it after I start my 3rd base), and by delaying my 2nd gas and the 3rd/4th gas until after I start the 3rd base (I know that you also delay your 2nd gas in your games, but most standard PvZ builds get double gas at 19/20 supply). Not only does the fast robo provide me with a fast obs for fast scouting, it also allows me to build up that immortal count fast to defend my 3rd against roaches. 2. I don't take a 4th until I'm nearly maxed and I'm moving out to attack. I typically go for a pre-bl colossus timing, but I still get a mothership behind it so it's not a complete all-in and I have something to fall back on if he is able to defend until BLs come out. Because my 4th is later, I can't afford to get carriers that fast, so I don't. But this leads to my next comment: 3. Carrier transition - the best way I've come up with to transition to air is to prepare for a mass transition - get air upgrades and lay down a lot of stargates, but don't make any carriers yet, just focus on your stalker/colossus/archon/mothership army first. Work on your mothership micro (which is actually quite difficult - you need to control it will since it needs to be fully stopped before it can cast vortex, and also you need to watch it at all times and protect it from neurals), but if you are careful with your mothership although the game may stalemate if he hides behind a spine wall, he shouldn't be able to beat your army until he slowly turns his entire army to ~20 broodlords with some infestors/corruptor support. At this point you should be grabbing a 5th and even more bases and mass cannoning to protect them, while harassing with warp prism/poking with your main army. When he finally attacks you can choose to try to defend it, or go counter into his main. Most likely he'll turn around to try to defend, and then you do your air transition while trying to kill off as much of his base/tech as you can. After he stabilizes, continue to buy time by doing warp prism harass (use 2+ warp prisms). Hopefully you haven't actually killed any of his brood lords so that all his supply is tied into bl when you get air out. It sounds kinda cheesy but it's the best you can do unless you just want to all-in earlier and pray for lucky vortexes, once the zerg gets like 20 broodlords and doesn't stack them all in 1 place there is literally no way for you to kill it with only ground and 2 vortexes. Note that the carrier transition doesn't always happen - in fact it's actually quite rare for the game to get to that stage, but it's pretty much the best way I can come up to make carriers. I Here's a replay kinda showing this, it's not too good (some early timings were off especially the late warpgate timing, also I get an early 4th like I say not to, but I get it because I scout his fast hive plus I kill off a group of roaches without taking any losses), but it's the best I can quickly find right now. I'll try to find other reps later. http://drop.sc/261127Also just as another build you may want to look at is that jangbi fast 3rd build where you just chrono gateway units out of your first gate, and get your 3rd base off of 1 gateway. It's nice if you want to pressure the zerg earlier, since most zergs are just used to defending the 8:00 warpgate timing and can get caught off guard either taking more damage than they should or overbuilding units and then being behind in drones. I personally don't like it because your tech is slower but if you don't mind that you should try it, it's safer than you'd think with a lot more early aggressive potential.
Quoted this post for echoing my thoughts, very true all this.
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On October 04 2012 20:03 Geiko wrote:
Regarding the opening 1z+5s pressure, I find that any good zerg player that goes fast speed in response to seeing you chrono your WG tech more then twice will easily shut this down ? I have a feeling that early WG attacks are so uncommon that people don't know how to react to them yet, but the style is inherently flawed.
In my PvZs nowadays I go gate nexus pylon gas core with a 1z+5s attack around 7 min or earlier and 12 early speedlings totally shut down my push. Now of course zerg can get speed on the way faster because they react to gateway first, but I think it finishes before 8minutes if he does it in reaction to chronoed WG ?
On the contrary, I rarely see fast speed in response to me chronoing my WG tech, and most zergs I play seem to know how to perfectly handle any variation of early WG pressure I throw at them (without fast speed). It still makes it worth it though even if I don't do any damage, I feel like it's a small investment for me and forces out a lot of units from the zerg rather than drones early on, so I don't see what's inherently flawed about this.
And anyway I always have a few gateway units on the map prior to my warp-in (ex. zealot/stalker), and if they see speed early on or a huge number of lings I simple don't do the offensive warp-in. You're probably seeing the fast speed response to your gate nexus build rather than the chronoed WG tech.
On October 05 2012 03:54 SidewinderSC2 wrote:
I agree with Smurf regarding Templar vs Colossus. I've always felt that Colossus have the most narrow role in PvZ, and translate to the late-game extremely poorly. If you don't do damage with your Colossus during a pre-Brood timing, their usefulness and investment really don't line up particularly well. Having your main form of tech dedicated solely to killing free units (Broodlings) seems like a really poor implementation of late-game gas.
I like the earlier Carriers and Mothership, but the only way those units actually work is if you already have Templar up. Might as well skip a step and rely on Archon splash + Storms so your Carrier transition is much less seamless. The only trouble with Templar is hardcore Roaching, so you will need a good group of Immortals (and hit a timing to kill spines before Broods are done, then go home) or Void Rays with strong upgrades.
I guess there's nothing wrong with a slower progression if you need comfort while doing so, but I see way too many people die because they make Colossus, get a Mothership and then the two units have absolutely no use when put together because Corrupters kill them both.
I completely disagree. I know that some players do prefer HT over colossus against infestor heavy armies and that it's certainly a viable alternative, but going colossus versus infestor is so much easier. I don't know what game you're playing where colossus have a narrow role or are useless in the late-game, they are very effective not only against broodlings, but also infestors, any ground unit besides ultra, and especially infested terrans and infested terran eggs (I've had plenty of games where I was able to get good vortexes off but the zerg manages to deny my archons from getting into the vortex with huge infested terran egg walls + fungal, if I had more colossus during those situations that would not have been an issue). Their 9 range is so crucial in a phase of the game where the zerg is focused on denying you from getting into range to attack anything. In fact in games where I don't get colossus early on, I feel like I absolutely need to have them for late game if I see them teching to BL/infestor.
In the end you'd want both colossus and archons, and maybe if you were faced with a large number of broodlords and you have a mothership and can only afford archons or colossus I'd go with the archons, but for every step of the way until that point I'd rather have colossus over archons if I had to choose.
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On October 05 2012 03:54 SidewinderSC2 wrote:
I agree with Smurf regarding Templar vs Colossus. I've always felt that Colossus have the most narrow role in PvZ, and translate to the late-game extremely poorly. If you don't do damage with your Colossus during a pre-Brood timing, their usefulness and investment really don't line up particularly well. Having your main form of tech dedicated solely to killing free units (Broodlings) seems like a really poor implementation of late-game gas
Actually I feel that colossi are necessary to clean the broodlings while the stalkers kill the BLs, and most of the pros I see try to constantly be at around 2-3 colossi for this reason (I suspect). That is until they transition to carriers.
Regarding the build, I'll try it although I stopped doing early aggression since zergs seemed to manage it so beautifully it would not really produce anything of value. I think I'm later than this build is, that maybe why. Thanks for the good builds kcdc!
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Italy12246 Posts
You do need something to keep the broodling count low, and while colossi are an obvious choice, if you decided to go templar instead you can just make archons, which accomplish that role really well.
Overall, both have their pro's and con's, and often it comes down a lot to a player's style. Plus as rsvp said, using colossi is far easier and more "intuitive".
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On October 05 2012 04:10 Grubby wrote:
Quoted this post for echoing my thoughts, very true all this.
I only read the wall of text because Grubby told me to. Just wanted to throw that out there.
However, after reading it, rsvp is pretty much saying exactly what I would have said too, but with a lot more detail. Especially the building up for a Mass Carrier switch as opposed to slowly building up Carriers.
I've been playing around with after getting +3 weapons, getting +1shield instead of +armor and adding in +air attack to prepare for this mass air switch that I'm planning on doing if the game progresses that far. Not entirely sure it's a good idea because of the extra gas spent decently early on +air and +shield for units that don't exist yet, but I don't feel I've lost because of it yet.
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Edit: Food for thought, I was watching SsonLight the other day vs jEcho and he went for an early Robo -> Second Forge + Twilight -> 3rd Base -> Swell of gateways, and defended a 3base, 4gas, roach max on Ohana beautifully with Immortals, Charge, and 2-2 finishing at around ~12:00ish. Only sim-city on the natural's ramp, left the 3rd open with just a couple cannons for support. I didn't get a chance to record the game or write down any specifics, but I thought it was really cool and completely opposite to the thought process we're all thinking of in this thread. Yes, Sson > jEcho but he was doing it on Korean ladder as well with a great amount of success. I'm unsure what his response to baneling and/or mutas would be but everything else seems rather covered if you scout no-gas and fast 3rd.
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Is a pleassure to read rsvp or Grubby thoughts in the P strat forum.
Thanks to kcdc and monk for making that posible.
And yeah, collosi is a must for many reasons.
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If you want to go mass air just open double stargate and youll be fine if you can secure your third. You should be able to and then afterwards your pretty set. I just dont see the point of investing in a lot of ground and collosus if you are going into mass air anyways.
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On October 05 2012 11:26 DarkblueRH wrote:Show nested quote +On October 05 2012 04:10 Grubby wrote:
Quoted this post for echoing my thoughts, very true all this. I only read the wall of text because Grubby told me to. Just wanted to throw that out there.
The moral of the story is you should never skip an rsvp wall of text. He does pro-level strategy guides as random comments halfway through a thread. If you want to save time, as a rule of thumb, you're better off skipping the OP and going straight to rsvp's reply.
As for skipping colossi to get archon+mothership faster, it's really hard to deal with roach-infestor timings with templar tech, and colossi are also helpful against infestor-broodlord. For a long time, I was a big proponent for skipping colossi because they're not good in your perfect carrier/archon/storm composition, but they make it much easier to survive to that point. You don't need to build a ton of them, but having 2 or 3 helps a ton for staying alive.
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On October 05 2012 04:53 rsvp wrote:I completely disagree. I know that some players do prefer HT over colossus against infestor heavy armies and that it's certainly a viable alternative, but going colossus versus infestor is so much easier. I don't know what game you're playing where colossus have a narrow role or are useless in the late-game, they are very effective not only against broodlings, but also infestors, any ground unit besides ultra, and especially infested terrans and infested terran eggs (I've had plenty of games where I was able to get good vortexes off but the zerg manages to deny my archons from getting into the vortex with huge infested terran egg walls + fungal, if I had more colossus during those situations that would not have been an issue). Their 9 range is so crucial in a phase of the game where the zerg is focused on denying you from getting into range to attack anything. In fact in games where I don't get colossus early on, I feel like I absolutely need to have them for late game if I see them teching to BL/infestor.
In the end you'd want both colossus and archons, and maybe if you were faced with a large number of broodlords and you have a mothership and can only afford archons or colossus I'd go with the archons, but for every step of the way until that point I'd rather have colossus over archons if I had to choose.
But then I feel like if you have both Colossus and Archons, you are relying on getting a money vortex somewhere throughout the battle, which is frustratingly inconsistent. I think it comes down more to comfort than actually what is downright better. I'm not comfortable at all engaging a Brood Lord army and expecting my Stalkers to kill the Brood Lords and trade effectively, so I try to use Storms, Mothership and Stargate units as much as possible to do that. And still, I know that plenty of people can fight Brood Lord armies with Stalker + Colossus and maybe a Mothership depending on the timings of it all, I just don't feel comfortable and would rather transition more directly into a late-game army before the battles get too big.
Just my opinion though. I never really thought Colossi were worth it because of how much they don't kill Brood Lords. If you can find a way to force them to keep making mid-game units via aggression and harassment, then yeah, Colossi are really good. But a normal PvZ to me is like a 3-base Protoss timing trying to kill a couple bases and/or some spines before the Brood Lords come out, then going home, continuing the harassment while desperately switching into a late-game army and sometimes just dying to an attack (like Leenock did to Hero). If you can switch in time and get enough economy crippling done, then you might win. If not, the Colossi attack Broodlings while your only form of AA dies incredibly quickly to fungals and Brood Lord fire. And the trouble is that the more the metagame develops, the harder I see Zerg players stuffing that big Robo timing off 3 bases as the 4th goes up.
Also, regarding Colossi being easier, I think that's a good point - particularly just because of the mechanics of the unit.. high sustained DPS and no need to tell them to attack stuff (like with Storm). It's a simple trade-off I suppose.
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