On February 25 2013 13:30 i)awn wrote: Why do you want skytoss to be beatable? From what I read it's always "you can't beat the player unless he makes mistakes". Well that's the how it should be! Why would you want to beat someone if he hasn't done any mistakes? I'm tired of people wanting some composition to just roll over the enemy army regardless if the contesting player did mistakes or not. Maybe this would be valid army is composed of just massing two types of unit but we're taking here about an ultra late game army with the right mixture of different units. It shouldn't be beatable unless the other player makes mistakes.
a balanced game means that the better player wins and that nothing is unbeatable. there should be a way to play better then your opponent and beat their army regardless of ur opponent making mistakes. that is why skytoss+temps needs to be nerfed. there isnt a way for the zerg player to use strategy or decisions making or unit control/battle setups or any of the other "skills" that make players better then others to allow the zerg to win.
for example: with broodlord infestor vs toss the toss could use drop harass and the multitasking to tax their opponents skills and abuse the immobility of the zerg to get them into a position where they could take the game. this is just one example there are others but you cant do that against skytoss it just doesn't work for reasons already explained in post. unbeatable is not what anyone wants in the game. we want balanced where the skill of the players in the game determines who is the victor not that one race is unbeatable unless they screw up and the other can never beat their army
On February 25 2013 13:30 i)awn wrote: Why do you want skytoss to be beatable? From what I read it's always "you can't beat the player unless he makes mistakes". Well that's the how it should be! Why would you want to beat someone if he hasn't done any mistakes? I'm tired of people wanting some composition to just roll over the enemy army regardless if the contesting player did mistakes or not. Maybe this would be valid army is composed of just massing two types of unit but we're taking here about an ultra late game army with the right mixture of different units. It shouldn't be beatable unless the other player makes mistakes.
a balanced game means that the better player wins and that nothing is unbeatable. there should be a way to play better then your opponent and beat their army regardless of ur opponent making mistakes. that is why skytoss+temps needs to be nerfed. there isnt a way for the zerg player to use strategy or decisions making or unit control/battle setups or any of the other "skills" that make players better then others to allow the zerg to win.
for example: with broodlord infestor vs toss the toss could use drop harass and the multitasking to tax their opponents skills and abuse the immobility of the zerg to get them into a position where they could take the game. this is just one example there are others but you cant do that against skytoss it just doesn't work for reasons already explained in post. unbeatable is not what anyone wants in the game. we want balanced where the skill of the players in the game determines who is the victor not that one race is unbeatable unless they screw up and the other can never beat their army
If no one screws up the game should go on and on. That's what balanced is. But eventually under pressure someone will make a mistake and the other will have to capitalize on it otherwise victory can never be achieved. This is how balance should be. There shouldn't be an "algorithm" or a "way" or a build or a composition to beat your opponent ultra army. There should be a mind game going on and on and you win when you force your opponent to do mistakes by laying a trap or baiting him over and over or pressuring him until he cracks. It shouldn't be he gets X, so I got Y and do this "plan that kills X" and win.
Now you can say that that's what you aim for; an ability to bait the protoss army or to pressure him. However all I read is "ugghh there is no army composition than I can build that can destroy his army with some good moves!! he can always respond with his own good moves!!". Well good. What I would have liked to hear is "what baits can I use?", "what traps can I lay?", "how to pressure him"? "what might we be missing for zerg to do that?" Unfortunately that's not what I hear at all. All are asking for a way to beat the opponent main army in a straight forward engagement.
On February 25 2013 13:30 i)awn wrote: Why do you want skytoss to be beatable? From what I read it's always "you can't beat the player unless he makes mistakes". Well that's the how it should be! Why would you want to beat someone if he hasn't done any mistakes? I'm tired of people wanting some composition to just roll over the enemy army regardless if the contesting player did mistakes or not. Maybe this would be valid army is composed of just massing two types of unit but we're taking here about an ultra late game army with the right mixture of different units. It shouldn't be beatable unless the other player makes mistakes.
a balanced game means that the better player wins and that nothing is unbeatable. there should be a way to play better then your opponent and beat their army regardless of ur opponent making mistakes. that is why skytoss+temps needs to be nerfed. there isnt a way for the zerg player to use strategy or decisions making or unit control/battle setups or any of the other "skills" that make players better then others to allow the zerg to win.
for example: with broodlord infestor vs toss the toss could use drop harass and the multitasking to tax their opponents skills and abuse the immobility of the zerg to get them into a position where they could take the game. this is just one example there are others but you cant do that against skytoss it just doesn't work for reasons already explained in post. unbeatable is not what anyone wants in the game. we want balanced where the skill of the players in the game determines who is the victor not that one race is unbeatable unless they screw up and the other can never beat their army
How about killing/crippling the protoss before they get to that point? That is what terrans have to do currently in WoL vs both zerg and protoss. This is Blizzard's idea with their 'asymmetric' balance.
You could argue that air terran in WoL was actually really good if you can get there (Mvp on Metropolis was the prime example). I don't think we can just look at a specific comp without looking into the build up/transition to that comp and whether you are taking risk/cutting corners at certain points. If you need to be very vulnerable before you can get to your ultimate composition, then that in itself is balance as well.
On February 25 2013 13:30 i)awn wrote: Why do you want skytoss to be beatable? From what I read it's always "you can't beat the player unless he makes mistakes". Well that's the how it should be! Why would you want to beat someone if he hasn't done any mistakes? I'm tired of people wanting some composition to just roll over the enemy army regardless if the contesting player did mistakes or not. Maybe this would be valid army is composed of just massing two types of unit but we're taking here about an ultra late game army with the right mixture of different units. It shouldn't be beatable unless the other player makes mistakes.
a balanced game means that the better player wins and that nothing is unbeatable. there should be a way to play better then your opponent and beat their army regardless of ur opponent making mistakes. that is why skytoss+temps needs to be nerfed. there isnt a way for the zerg player to use strategy or decisions making or unit control/battle setups or any of the other "skills" that make players better then others to allow the zerg to win.
for example: with broodlord infestor vs toss the toss could use drop harass and the multitasking to tax their opponents skills and abuse the immobility of the zerg to get them into a position where they could take the game. this is just one example there are others but you cant do that against skytoss it just doesn't work for reasons already explained in post. unbeatable is not what anyone wants in the game. we want balanced where the skill of the players in the game determines who is the victor not that one race is unbeatable unless they screw up and the other can never beat their army
If no one screws up the game should go on and on. That's what balanced is. But eventually under pressure someone will make a mistake and the other will have to capitalize on it otherwise victory can never be achieved. This is how balance should be. There shouldn't be an "algorithm" or a "way" or a build or a composition to beat your opponent ultra army. There should be a mind game going on and on and you win when you force your opponent to do mistakes by laying a trap or baiting him over and over or pressuring him until he cracks. It shouldn't be he gets X, so I got Y and do this "plan that kills X" and win.
Now you can say that that's what you aim for; an ability to bait the protoss army or to pressure him. However all I read is "ugghh there is no army composition than I can build that can destroy his army with some good moves!! he can always respond with his own good moves!!". Well good. What I would have liked to hear is "what baits can I use?", "what traps can I lay?", "how to pressure him"? "what might we be missing for zerg to do that?" Unfortunately that's not what I hear at all. All are asking for a way to beat the opponent main army in a straight forward engagement.
u really think that if no one screws up that the game should never end? the only way to have a game never end would be a mirror match where all engagments traded exxactly equal and bases were taken and mined at same rate. just saying its impossible for that to be the "ideal" of balanced. anyways no there should be ways to beat ur opponents without them making mistakes by you doing something to out play them. you could agrue that this is ur opponents mistake by letting u out play them. but its different. heres a good example. this happens alot in tvt, where one terrans positioning mulitasking allow him to manuever his way into a win even if hes behind. the fact that zergs cant break skytoss when they have massive economic leads should be screaming to u that someehtings not right. even broods/infestor play from WoL had room for the other player to make plays agasint it. (vortex/storm/feedbacks or seekermissles/nukes/emps) im ok with an army being hard to kill but impossible to kill is wrong. if u can throw remax after remax of the only units that z has to deal iwth voids and colosus and temps at the toss until ur 6-7 bases is gone and toss is still on 4-5 and barely lost a dime then thats not even close to balanced
On February 25 2013 13:30 i)awn wrote: Why do you want skytoss to be beatable? From what I read it's always "you can't beat the player unless he makes mistakes". Well that's the how it should be! Why would you want to beat someone if he hasn't done any mistakes? I'm tired of people wanting some composition to just roll over the enemy army regardless if the contesting player did mistakes or not. Maybe this would be valid army is composed of just massing two types of unit but we're taking here about an ultra late game army with the right mixture of different units. It shouldn't be beatable unless the other player makes mistakes.
a balanced game means that the better player wins and that nothing is unbeatable. there should be a way to play better then your opponent and beat their army regardless of ur opponent making mistakes. that is why skytoss+temps needs to be nerfed. there isnt a way for the zerg player to use strategy or decisions making or unit control/battle setups or any of the other "skills" that make players better then others to allow the zerg to win.
for example: with broodlord infestor vs toss the toss could use drop harass and the multitasking to tax their opponents skills and abuse the immobility of the zerg to get them into a position where they could take the game. this is just one example there are others but you cant do that against skytoss it just doesn't work for reasons already explained in post. unbeatable is not what anyone wants in the game. we want balanced where the skill of the players in the game determines who is the victor not that one race is unbeatable unless they screw up and the other can never beat their army
How about killing/crippling the protoss before they get to that point? That is what terrans have to do currently in WoL vs both zerg and protoss. This is Blizzard's idea with their 'asymmetric' balance.
You could argue that air terran in WoL was actually really good if you can get there (Mvp on Metropolis was the prime example). I don't think we can just look at a specific comp without looking into the build up/transition to that comp and whether you are taking risk/cutting corners at certain points. If you need to be very vulnerable before you can get to your ultimate composition, then that in itself is balance as well.
While the most ideal situation of cause would be killing the protoss before they get there, the problem is that what if they got there? WoL zerg deathball for example, you can still buy time for harassment and eventually get your mothership out with archons etc OR terran could drops until they have a high upgraded viking counts and kill the zerg before the zerg had the ball too big (or go transition into a high raven counts) There are still ways to get to a comp that is possible in beating that zerg deathball, like sky terran or the sky toss. And Zerg had to end the game before that transition is made.
I have mentioned this in my thread about the problem with sky deathball. Should there be an unbeatable deathball? If so, then how quickly and how safe that deathball should be able to transition into. SkyTerran is uber powerful but weak to a lot of timings, making it 'balanced'. But SkyToss is much easier and quicker to build and is almost as strong, if not stronger than the Skyterran. In WoL, the Zerg deathball comes TOO quickly imo but not completely unbeatable because rushing it makes the army still vulnerable in terms of upgrades and low number defense structures in every base, vulnerable to drops and run bys.
On February 25 2013 13:30 i)awn wrote: Why do you want skytoss to be beatable? From what I read it's always "you can't beat the player unless he makes mistakes". Well that's the how it should be! Why would you want to beat someone if he hasn't done any mistakes? I'm tired of people wanting some composition to just roll over the enemy army regardless if the contesting player did mistakes or not. Maybe this would be valid army is composed of just massing two types of unit but we're taking here about an ultra late game army with the right mixture of different units. It shouldn't be beatable unless the other player makes mistakes.
a balanced game means that the better player wins and that nothing is unbeatable. there should be a way to play better then your opponent and beat their army regardless of ur opponent making mistakes. that is why skytoss+temps needs to be nerfed. there isnt a way for the zerg player to use strategy or decisions making or unit control/battle setups or any of the other "skills" that make players better then others to allow the zerg to win.
for example: with broodlord infestor vs toss the toss could use drop harass and the multitasking to tax their opponents skills and abuse the immobility of the zerg to get them into a position where they could take the game. this is just one example there are others but you cant do that against skytoss it just doesn't work for reasons already explained in post. unbeatable is not what anyone wants in the game. we want balanced where the skill of the players in the game determines who is the victor not that one race is unbeatable unless they screw up and the other can never beat their army
If no one screws up the game should go on and on. That's what balanced is. But eventually under pressure someone will make a mistake and the other will have to capitalize on it otherwise victory can never be achieved. This is how balance should be. There shouldn't be an "algorithm" or a "way" or a build or a composition to beat your opponent ultra army. There should be a mind game going on and on and you win when you force your opponent to do mistakes by laying a trap or baiting him over and over or pressuring him until he cracks. It shouldn't be he gets X, so I got Y and do this "plan that kills X" and win.
Now you can say that that's what you aim for; an ability to bait the protoss army or to pressure him. However all I read is "ugghh there is no army composition than I can build that can destroy his army with some good moves!! he can always respond with his own good moves!!". Well good. What I would have liked to hear is "what baits can I use?", "what traps can I lay?", "how to pressure him"? "what might we be missing for zerg to do that?" Unfortunately that's not what I hear at all. All are asking for a way to beat the opponent main army in a straight forward engagement.
u really think that if no one screws up that the game should never end? the only way to have a game never end would be a mirror match where all engagments traded exxactly equal and bases were taken and mined at same rate. just saying its impossible for that to be the "ideal" of balanced. anyways no there should be ways to beat ur opponents without them making mistakes by you doing something to out play them. you could agrue that this is ur opponents mistake by letting u out play them. but its different. heres a good example. this happens alot in tvt, where one terrans positioning mulitasking allow him to manuever his way into a win even if hes behind. the fact that zergs cant break skytoss when they have massive economic leads should be screaming to u that someehtings not right. even broods/infestor play from WoL had room for the other player to make plays agasint it. (vortex/storm/feedbacks or seekermissles/nukes/emps) im ok with an army being hard to kill but impossible to kill is wrong. if u can throw remax after remax of the only units that z has to deal iwth voids and colosus and temps at the toss until ur 6-7 bases is gone and toss is still on 4-5 and barely lost a dime then thats not even close to balanced
A mistake is not always a "blunder" it can be simply a wrong reaction or slow reaction or a misread or whatever. Someone always screws up; does a misread, falls into a trap, gets baited; gets ambushed; gets pressured then cracks and do mistakes or do suboptimal micro or multitasking. However what zerg are asking for is an army combination that just wins over the skytoss which is really not "skytoss" as much as "all protoss units" there are HTs, Colossus, archons, carriers, tempests, stalkers, zealots, sentries in that army. You want an army that can beat the ultimate protoss army in an engagement late game even if he doesn't screw up?? What should the Protoss do then? Why are you taking it for granted? Why shouldn't it be the opposite way? The protoss should be able to kill you late game with your optimal army composition even when you don't do mistakes and keep optimal micro; how about that? If you object against the latter how can you ask for the first?
What we should be arguing about is the match up in general and whether the zerg can beat Protoss; it doesn't have to be by killing his army especially when it comes to his/her ultimate army. Simply bringing up "I can't kill his army if he doesn't do mistakes" is not something really useful. I do think the match up can use some changes but arguing for killing opponent's ultimate army made of almost all his units along with all his T3 units even when he doesn't do mistakes is really awkward to say the least.
On February 25 2013 13:30 i)awn wrote: Why do you want skytoss to be beatable? From what I read it's always "you can't beat the player unless he makes mistakes". Well that's the how it should be! Why would you want to beat someone if he hasn't done any mistakes? I'm tired of people wanting some composition to just roll over the enemy army regardless if the contesting player did mistakes or not. Maybe this would be valid army is composed of just massing two types of unit but we're taking here about an ultra late game army with the right mixture of different units. It shouldn't be beatable unless the other player makes mistakes.
a balanced game means that the better player wins and that nothing is unbeatable. there should be a way to play better then your opponent and beat their army regardless of ur opponent making mistakes. that is why skytoss+temps needs to be nerfed. there isnt a way for the zerg player to use strategy or decisions making or unit control/battle setups or any of the other "skills" that make players better then others to allow the zerg to win.
for example: with broodlord infestor vs toss the toss could use drop harass and the multitasking to tax their opponents skills and abuse the immobility of the zerg to get them into a position where they could take the game. this is just one example there are others but you cant do that against skytoss it just doesn't work for reasons already explained in post. unbeatable is not what anyone wants in the game. we want balanced where the skill of the players in the game determines who is the victor not that one race is unbeatable unless they screw up and the other can never beat their army
If no one screws up the game should go on and on. That's what balanced is. But eventually under pressure someone will make a mistake and the other will have to capitalize on it otherwise victory can never be achieved. This is how balance should be. There shouldn't be an "algorithm" or a "way" or a build or a composition to beat your opponent ultra army. There should be a mind game going on and on and you win when you force your opponent to do mistakes by laying a trap or baiting him over and over or pressuring him until he cracks. It shouldn't be he gets X, so I got Y and do this "plan that kills X" and win.
Now you can say that that's what you aim for; an ability to bait the protoss army or to pressure him. However all I read is "ugghh there is no army composition than I can build that can destroy his army with some good moves!! he can always respond with his own good moves!!". Well good. What I would have liked to hear is "what baits can I use?", "what traps can I lay?", "how to pressure him"? "what might we be missing for zerg to do that?" Unfortunately that's not what I hear at all. All are asking for a way to beat the opponent main army in a straight forward engagement.
u really think that if no one screws up that the game should never end? the only way to have a game never end would be a mirror match where all engagments traded exxactly equal and bases were taken and mined at same rate. just saying its impossible for that to be the "ideal" of balanced. anyways no there should be ways to beat ur opponents without them making mistakes by you doing something to out play them. you could agrue that this is ur opponents mistake by letting u out play them. but its different. heres a good example. this happens alot in tvt, where one terrans positioning mulitasking allow him to manuever his way into a win even if hes behind. the fact that zergs cant break skytoss when they have massive economic leads should be screaming to u that someehtings not right. even broods/infestor play from WoL had room for the other player to make plays agasint it. (vortex/storm/feedbacks or seekermissles/nukes/emps) im ok with an army being hard to kill but impossible to kill is wrong. if u can throw remax after remax of the only units that z has to deal iwth voids and colosus and temps at the toss until ur 6-7 bases is gone and toss is still on 4-5 and barely lost a dime then thats not even close to balanced
A mistake is not always a "blunder" it can be simply a wrong reaction or slow reaction or a misread or whatever. Someone always screws up; does a misread, falls into a trap, gets baited; gets ambushed; gets pressured then cracks and do mistakes or do suboptimal micro or multitasking. However what zerg are asking for is an army combination that just wins over the skytoss which is really not "skytoss" as much as "all protoss units" there are HTs, Colossus, archons, carriers, tempests, stalkers, zealots, sentries in that army. You want an army that can beat the ultimate protoss army in an engagement late game even if he doesn't screw up?? What should the Protoss do then? Why are you taking it for granted? Why shouldn't it be the opposite way? The protoss should be able to kill you late game with your optimal army composition even when you don't do mistakes and keep optimal micro; how about that? If you object against the latter how can you ask for the first?
What we should be arguing about is the match up in general and whether the zerg can beat Protoss; it doesn't have to be by killing his army especially when it comes to his/her ultimate army. Simply bringing up "I can't kill his army if he doesn't do mistakes" is not something really useful. I do think the match up can use some changes but arguing for killing opponent's ultimate army made of almost all his units along with all his T3 units even when he doesn't do mistakes is really awkward to say the least.
What is being asked for is not perfect equality in the match up, it is simply to be able to trade with protoss on a level that is not heavily in favor of protoss. At the moment whatever lategame composition you have, lets say it's 35 hydras + some vipers and corrupters, you might be to kill a void ray if you're lucky (yes it's that bad).
Brood lord infestor corrupter isn't really much better either, you might get 2 void rays though with some sick micro.
On February 25 2013 13:30 i)awn wrote: Why do you want skytoss to be beatable? From what I read it's always "you can't beat the player unless he makes mistakes". Well that's the how it should be! Why would you want to beat someone if he hasn't done any mistakes? I'm tired of people wanting some composition to just roll over the enemy army regardless if the contesting player did mistakes or not. Maybe this would be valid army is composed of just massing two types of unit but we're taking here about an ultra late game army with the right mixture of different units. It shouldn't be beatable unless the other player makes mistakes.
a balanced game means that the better player wins and that nothing is unbeatable. there should be a way to play better then your opponent and beat their army regardless of ur opponent making mistakes. that is why skytoss+temps needs to be nerfed. there isnt a way for the zerg player to use strategy or decisions making or unit control/battle setups or any of the other "skills" that make players better then others to allow the zerg to win.
for example: with broodlord infestor vs toss the toss could use drop harass and the multitasking to tax their opponents skills and abuse the immobility of the zerg to get them into a position where they could take the game. this is just one example there are others but you cant do that against skytoss it just doesn't work for reasons already explained in post. unbeatable is not what anyone wants in the game. we want balanced where the skill of the players in the game determines who is the victor not that one race is unbeatable unless they screw up and the other can never beat their army
If no one screws up the game should go on and on. That's what balanced is. But eventually under pressure someone will make a mistake and the other will have to capitalize on it otherwise victory can never be achieved. This is how balance should be. There shouldn't be an "algorithm" or a "way" or a build or a composition to beat your opponent ultra army. There should be a mind game going on and on and you win when you force your opponent to do mistakes by laying a trap or baiting him over and over or pressuring him until he cracks. It shouldn't be he gets X, so I got Y and do this "plan that kills X" and win.
Now you can say that that's what you aim for; an ability to bait the protoss army or to pressure him. However all I read is "ugghh there is no army composition than I can build that can destroy his army with some good moves!! he can always respond with his own good moves!!". Well good. What I would have liked to hear is "what baits can I use?", "what traps can I lay?", "how to pressure him"? "what might we be missing for zerg to do that?" Unfortunately that's not what I hear at all. All are asking for a way to beat the opponent main army in a straight forward engagement.
u really think that if no one screws up that the game should never end? the only way to have a game never end would be a mirror match where all engagments traded exxactly equal and bases were taken and mined at same rate. just saying its impossible for that to be the "ideal" of balanced. anyways no there should be ways to beat ur opponents without them making mistakes by you doing something to out play them. you could agrue that this is ur opponents mistake by letting u out play them. but its different. heres a good example. this happens alot in tvt, where one terrans positioning mulitasking allow him to manuever his way into a win even if hes behind. the fact that zergs cant break skytoss when they have massive economic leads should be screaming to u that someehtings not right. even broods/infestor play from WoL had room for the other player to make plays agasint it. (vortex/storm/feedbacks or seekermissles/nukes/emps) im ok with an army being hard to kill but impossible to kill is wrong. if u can throw remax after remax of the only units that z has to deal iwth voids and colosus and temps at the toss until ur 6-7 bases is gone and toss is still on 4-5 and barely lost a dime then thats not even close to balanced
A mistake is not always a "blunder" it can be simply a wrong reaction or slow reaction or a misread or whatever. Someone always screws up; does a misread, falls into a trap, gets baited; gets ambushed; gets pressured then cracks and do mistakes or do suboptimal micro or multitasking. However what zerg are asking for is an army combination that just wins over the skytoss which is really not "skytoss" as much as "all protoss units" there are HTs, Colossus, archons, carriers, tempests, stalkers, zealots, sentries in that army. You want an army that can beat the ultimate protoss army in an engagement late game even if he doesn't screw up?? What should the Protoss do then? Why are you taking it for granted? Why shouldn't it be the opposite way? The protoss should be able to kill you late game with your optimal army composition even when you don't do mistakes and keep optimal micro; how about that? If you object against the latter how can you ask for the first?
What we should be arguing about is the match up in general and whether the zerg can beat Protoss; it doesn't have to be by killing his army especially when it comes to his/her ultimate army. Simply bringing up "I can't kill his army if he doesn't do mistakes" is not something really useful. I do think the match up can use some changes but arguing for killing opponent's ultimate army made of almost all his units along with all his T3 units even when he doesn't do mistakes is really awkward to say the least.
I think you're somewhat missing the point. What people are saying is 'If I make no mistakes and he makes no mistakes, I lose'. That isn't balanced. That's 'I only have A CHANCE to win if the Protoss makes an error'.
Or are you saying that it's fine for the composition to be utterly unbeatable providing the player doesn't derp and completely mis-move his units?
This doesnt work in Masters at all, once toss has 3bases or more and if its getting in the loategame u dont have any chance to beat a protoss player without having double income over hole time , once Toss is getting close to 200supply ur fucked as Zerg , when he has a composition of Storms,Colosses,Voids. Courrpters, hydras and mutas get all fucked by Voids + Storms, and even mass spores in lategame dont help because of the huge range of Carriers or Tempests.
But one thing that is really strong against toss is a 2/3 Base , Swarmhost+Queens - Nydus - Play. (But is quite and all in , u can take a 4th behind but its very very late, and u have to do much dmg but its not this hard to do much dmg with swarmhost queen.
Why Nydus?: The nydus is important to have a fast reinforcement with Swarmhost and espacially to reinforce with QUEENS. U also can build Spore/spines
Why building Queens?: Creepspread, Transfuses and the ability to attack air units (the observer / Voidrais / Pheonix / Mothershipcore.
I find these threads so strange. I play hots at masters and also watch streams on a daily basis but yet when I see a pvz hardly anyone tries to go for this ultimate mass air composition. WhiteRa uses it a lot (he did also in WOL vs zerg) but I mostly just see him dying while trying to get there. I would love if people would actually stop theorycrafting and provide replays of where "it's unbeatable and nothing can be done".
I personally never use it and just play regular macro pvz games (added voids/phoenix from one stargate and double stargate vs mass muta) and the matchup is so much better now. Zerg midgame options are really strong now (2base hydra-ling speed hydras into mutas, swarm host pushes with spores etc) but so much more dynamic and fun to play. There is no timer until (13-15min mark make your 3 base allin push with 1-2 prism when he tries to get his broodlords out).
I just don't see how this composition with hts + mass air can be unbeatable because there are some distinct differences to broodlord-corruptor-infestor from WOL zerg. It takes way more time to transition into. Air upgrades needed while zerg went for 3/3 melee/carapace which also were useful for his ground units; broodlords with +3 melee do the main dps, even if there is +0 air attack still so transitioning back into ground or having speedlings as a bonus was natural. Also remaxing with broodlords didn't take so long because you either morph corruptors into broods (38sec) or corruptors first into broods (74sec). Tempests take 70sec (from each stargate), carriers 120sec(+32sec for interceptors) and voidrays 60sec. Unless you have like 20-30 stargates you need several cycles. Getting more bases for gas and making a good canon wall is more expensive and takes more time. A protoss has it harder (that is it takes longer) to get 8+ gases so early and canons can't be moved or healed (transfuse).
So what if you get there? Ht's on the ground are not protected as infestors are with broodlords. Broodlords instantly (also automatically) made a huge broodling-wall so you can't just run chargelots to the infestors or feedback them (broodlords have higher range). Tempests have even higher range but they do really low dps and massively overkill. How will you stop a group of 50-60 speedlings or ultras running in to force storms/archon merges with the speed tehy have. Maybe have of the linsg will die beforehand. So he actually needs more ground support (archons/colossi etc). Tempests also do super low dps (9.09 vs non broodlords), that's less than a stalker. Add on top of that their massive overkill and it takes forever to actually kill mass ground. So if tempests are massed you just overrun him. If he has carriers use corruptors or fg (interceptors caught stop doing dps) or hydras (dimaga always used hydras with hold position to kill interceptors). I just don't see the amazing synergy. Tempests do super low dps (and nobody goes broods vs mass tempests) and overkill, hts can be sniped because they are not protected (like burrow moving and snaring infestors behind a wall of broodlings that tank and prevent any ground movement there).
Maybe I missed something important. But that's why I'd love to see some good replays (high level play). I'm sure one of you can help here out since you all see it used nearly every game to great success.
I'll personally stick with ground anyways because now that broods can be countered I think ht/immortal/blink etc with some slight air support is all I need and midgame fights are really fun and dynamic now (except for mass muta, there it's a stupid you either get raped or get enough phoenix out in time to rape him game).
Sleep vs First (GSTL) it's set 4, you have to manually change it (or i was just too stupid to post the correct link...-.-)
this game doesnt show the actual skytoss deathball, but something quite close to it.
watching this game i really dont understand how people keep arguing it's hard to get to skytoss "deathball". in this game sleeps 2nd and 3rd get delayed quite a bit, but then again, there's not much you can do about that. he takes a decent amount of damage from the phenixes but no direct eco dmg (he loses two queens right away and a 3rd one later, so you can argue he had less eco because he couldnt inject as much as he wanted, but thats about it).
he delays toss 3rd, he is ahead in bases (he's on 4 bases all game long even when his initial 4th gets sniped he's got two other bases up already), he's ahead in upgrades, he prevents toss from taking a 4th (yeah it gets up, but no gas is mined there), and he trades quite well against the colosus before VR HT comes into play.
but still toss get's out a couple of VR on his 3 bases with HT support. toss got no bank, but then again, once he engages with his army, he doesnt really need a bank. he just crushes through the zerg army. watch the engagement happen at around 24:12. yeah the locusts come in late but they would have been exactely where the stoms hit anyway. the corruptors melt within seconds against the VRs, so do the hydras against storm. yeah the storms are great, yeah sleep doesnt walk out of them, but then again, if he wants to do dmg to the toss army, he needs to go in and he will ultimately eat storms.
now of course you can argue, his composition wasnt all that great with all those SH, but then again, they where the only thing that allowed him to put any kind of pressure on the toss. but once there are VR with some HT there's just no way he can trade his army costefficiently and transition out of it.
now maybe i'm "analysing" this game completely wrong, so please enlighten me if i'm completely off point. but this just seems strange to me.
On February 25 2013 22:16 looken wrote: Sleep vs First (GSTL) it's set 4, you have to manually change it (or i was just too stupid to post the correct link...-.-)
this game doesnt show the actual skytoss deathball, but something quite close to it.
watching this game i really dont understand how people keep arguing it's hard to get to skytoss "deathball". in this game sleeps 2nd and 3rd get delayed quite a bit, but then again, there's not much you can do about that. he takes a decent amount of damage from the phenixes but no direct eco dmg (he loses two queens right away and a 3rd one later, so you can argue he had less eco because he couldnt inject as much as he wanted, but thats about it).
he delays toss 3rd, he is ahead in bases (he's on 4 bases all game long even when his initial 4th gets sniped he's got two other bases up already), he's ahead in upgrades, he prevents toss from taking a 4th (yeah it gets up, but no gas is mined there), and he trades quite well against the colosus before VR HT comes into play.
but still toss get's out a couple of VR on his 3 bases with HT support. toss got no bank, but then again, once he engages with his army, he doesnt really need a bank. he just crushes through the zerg army. watch the engagement happen at around 24:12. yeah the locusts come in late but they would have been exactely where the stoms hit anyway. the corruptors melt within seconds against the VRs, so do the hydras against storm. yeah the storms are great, yeah sleep doesnt walk out of them, but then again, if he wants to do dmg to the toss army, he needs to go in and he will ultimately eat storms.
now of course you can argue, his composition wasnt all that great with all those SH, but then again, they where the only thing that allowed him to put any kind of pressure on the toss. but once there are VR with some HT there's just no way he can trade his army costefficiently and transition out of it.
now maybe i'm "analysing" this game completely wrong, so please enlighten me if i'm completely off point. but this just seems strange to me.
You're completely missing the points where Sleep completely blundered all control, stacked all his corrupters on top of his voidrays meaning they all got stormed at once doing massive damage and the moments where he moved all his hydralisks when he only needed to move a few to dodge storms.
You cannot use that game to say voidrays are strong, Sleep mucked everything up. he didn't even try and back his corrupters out of storm or away from the charged up void rays, he just sat and ate damage all over the place.
On February 25 2013 11:03 osiris17 wrote: Increase the corruptor armor by like 3 and then nerf their heallth to compensate. THen they'll do much better against both voids and carriers, and presumably equal against everything else.
God no.
It's an issue of tempests being too supply efficient in lategame, as well as having too much health for their intended design purpose (a counter to broodlords).
Tempest supply increased to 8, tempest health reduced. Then see what happens.
Why 8 you ask, and not 6? Because aside from the Tempest being too efficient in lategame right now, HOTS right now design-wise across every match-up is heading towards a very bad design - mass air units vs mass air units.
Tempests being 8 supply nerfs the unit lategame, and also puts more importance back on ground focused armies instead of massing the strongest air army you can lategame.
Because infested terrans were nerfed, Zerg no longer has any way of dealing with carriers or voidrays. Then voidrays got buffed. Zerg needs some kind of buff, simply nerfing Tempest supply is not enough. The problem is more than that.
On February 25 2013 22:16 looken wrote: Sleep vs First (GSTL) it's set 4, you have to manually change it (or i was just too stupid to post the correct link...-.-)
this game doesnt show the actual skytoss deathball, but something quite close to it.
watching this game i really dont understand how people keep arguing it's hard to get to skytoss "deathball". in this game sleeps 2nd and 3rd get delayed quite a bit, but then again, there's not much you can do about that. he takes a decent amount of damage from the phenixes but no direct eco dmg (he loses two queens right away and a 3rd one later, so you can argue he had less eco because he couldnt inject as much as he wanted, but thats about it).
he delays toss 3rd, he is ahead in bases (he's on 4 bases all game long even when his initial 4th gets sniped he's got two other bases up already), he's ahead in upgrades, he prevents toss from taking a 4th (yeah it gets up, but no gas is mined there), and he trades quite well against the colosus before VR HT comes into play.
but still toss get's out a couple of VR on his 3 bases with HT support. toss got no bank, but then again, once he engages with his army, he doesnt really need a bank. he just crushes through the zerg army. watch the engagement happen at around 24:12. yeah the locusts come in late but they would have been exactely where the stoms hit anyway. the corruptors melt within seconds against the VRs, so do the hydras against storm. yeah the storms are great, yeah sleep doesnt walk out of them, but then again, if he wants to do dmg to the toss army, he needs to go in and he will ultimately eat storms.
now of course you can argue, his composition wasnt all that great with all those SH, but then again, they where the only thing that allowed him to put any kind of pressure on the toss. but once there are VR with some HT there's just no way he can trade his army costefficiently and transition out of it.
now maybe i'm "analysing" this game completely wrong, so please enlighten me if i'm completely off point. but this just seems strange to me.
You're completely missing the points where Sleep completely blundered all control, stacked all his corrupters on top of his voidrays meaning they all got stormed at once doing massive damage and the moments where he moved all his hydralisks when he only needed to move a few to dodge storms.
You cannot use that game to say voidrays are strong, Sleep mucked everything up. he didn't even try and back his corrupters out of storm or away from the charged up void rays, he just sat and ate damage all over the place.
Storm do not kill corruptors that quickly, it's the void ray. Storm does 80 damage over 4 seconds, those corruptors (200 hp each) were dead soon if not earlier than the storm was finished. That's more HP than a roach and protoss complained about how roach can tank storm easily The void rays did most of those damage, not to mention First didn't even mix in archons, which would have further increased the burst damage against the corruptors.
That trade was guaranteed to have ended extremely cost efficiently to First
"Void Ray vs Corruptor: Using their charge power, Void Rays can now kill Corruptors in 7.5 seconds, during which the Void Ray will take 42 damage in return fire. In fact, Void Rays can now take on a couple Corruptors at once and win pretty comfortably. Previously unless they were somehow precharged, Void Rays took 12 seconds to kill Corruptors and would take 84 damage over that time—yes, with their new ability and cooldown, Void Rays now kill Corruptors in nearly half the time. If they don’t use charge, it will take them 12.5 seconds to kill Corruptors, which is about the same as pre-patch " http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=386801
The problem I'm seeing with Skytoss isn't that "In an open field the composition is unbeatable" it's that, on a map with chokes and areas to properly use Tempest range, along with pushing Photon Cannons, the composition can certainly feel unbeatable, similar to Infestor/Corruptor/Brood from WoL.
You'd think the answer would be "Kill the Protoss before they get to Skytoss" but, Protoss players have learned this and now drop 10-15 cannons blindly. This should be easy to respond to, ok he's turtling I'll macro up, but in Starcraft 2 being up 2-3 bases doesn't matter that much when someone has a composition that you cannot directly engage. Personally I'd attribute this to how the game economy and maps work but that's a much larger discussion.
On a separate note, since I saw it's still in the map pool. I wonder what the PvZ win rates look like on Daybreak. I'd assume they've flip-flopped since it's a map just begging you to turtle into 200/200 armies.
EPT
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