The HotS Protoss Help Me Thread - Page 10

On March 17 2013 01:51 apeiro wrote:
So is the Protoss ground deathball basically a relic of the past at his point? I'm genuinely interested in opinions here because I won't pretend I am a HoTS expert.

I feel like in PvT, widow mines, helbats, and improved medivacs make pure ground toss highly suspect. If I want to do a full counter of the new mech composition I need to work in Void Rays for surgical strikes, Oracles for harass, or Immortals to deal with that high gross damage. But regardless of how I build, that mech composition will destroy whatever is on the ground so it seems to be just pushing me in to the air as quickly as possible.

In PvZ I think it still works, insofar that Colossus still seem like an incredibly useful counter to most zerg ground play (especially Swarm Hosts now). But it also seems like if I want to truly dominate the zerg going into the late mid-game and late game, I will need to have the proper air units to control those engages.

In PvP is the only place I feel like the old ground army will still see a lot of prevalence. It's hard to imagine a PvP where immortals are not the hard counter to Stalkers (although Void Ray seems to do the job quite nicely with Prismatic Alignment) and therefore it seems this will still emphasize robo creation.

But also I bring this up for another reasoning. Because you can now get detection from the Oracle, Hallucination can now supply good scouting, and your air army provides multi-target damage and ludicrous anti-armored mitigation, this seems to suggest that high-tech robo bay ground army is no longer a lynch-pin to success.

On March 17 2013 02:03 ThaReckoning wrote:


The deathball still works vs bio + hellbat + widow mine, you just have to be better at defending drops than ever before. It's about the only option we have at this point. As for beating mech, frankly I have no idea. I can tell you that going skytoss doesn't work, and I can tell you that going the good old chargelot + archon + immortal doesn't work, both for the same reason, which I'm sure you can guess. As for PvZ, your guess is as good as mine. I've been trying to innovate new strategies based on gateway expands and MSC aggression, but you just can't be aggressive enough to make the zerg take you seriously. Any 1 gate expand into 3 gate aggro is stopped cold by a queen, a spine, and a round of lings, and then they just go right back to droning. It's the same story for 1g SG expo and 1g DT expo, what with detection and anti air being free.
TL;DR no idea bro, getting smashed by new units every game lol

On March 17 2013 03:00 Salv wrote:


Why are you trying to do gateway expands PvZ instead of just FFE into stargate? I've been using that and I have been having a lot of success. The only trouble I have had is when I push before I am maxed with colossi/void ray - or if I let a swarm host party set up right outside my third, that can be troublesome.

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I have to play more games to test it out, but my PvT has been improving a bit, especially versus medivacs. The one good thing about the medivac speed ability for Protoss is that it encourages Terrans to try drops a lot more often, which means if you can take advantage of that you'll be ahead - the only problem is it can be really difficult to take advantage. I've played games where I take an expand off 2 gateway robo versus 1rax/1factory/1medivac and transition into double forge colossi - but the problem is that if the Terran really commits to dropping you with three or four medivac, slow stalkers are useless.

So what I have been doing is transitioning into an expansion, double forge, citadel, and then chronoing out blink and then zealot speed. You can leave a lot of stalkers in your main to defend versus drops as long as you leave your mothership core at your natural ready to photon overcharge (+zealots/immortal). Then after blink is started, you can begin to get your colossi, then try to take an expansion.

The only problem with this is that:

• You seemingly have to play flawlessly. If you let one drop happen in your base, it can fuck you over really badly.
  
• The Terran gets map control and a quicker third base.
  
• During the game, it's going to feel like you're behind and that you have to significantly outplay them to win.

Obviously this isn't ideal, but this is something that's allowed me to get to a midgame position with upgrades, colossi, and no economy damage. My Terran opponent is usually further ahead than I am, not too much, but noticeably, and I have to play quite well in order to win. Right now versus ~300 point masters players it seems to work OK.

PvT - 1Gate/Cyber Fast Expand. Pressure very early with 3 stalker/MC. Recall if things get dicey and don't lose the Stalkers. Kill as many marines and marauders as possible, take out any fast expand if possible. If Terran successfully holds off pressure, go home and prepare for likely widow mine drops or helbat slow push. Tech up to Twilight, Stargates, Fleet Beacon and attempt to hold 3 bases on incoming pressure. No Oracles because they're timed a little too late, unless I get the scouting that he has no missile turrets down.

On March 16 2013 19:37 recklessfire wrote:



i dont think there's an answer until blizzard changes something. I ran into a proxy widow mine build but he was rallying marauders from a 2nd rax that i couldnt scout because of the full wall. He just walks into my natural and places mines while pressuring my ramp. Even after getting the robo out, it took a while to fend off his marauders and the three mines he had placed in my natural. By the time i placed my nexus down, he already expanded so I was pretty behind in economy and since robo/colossus tech is so gas dependent i was pretty much screwed from that point.


I dont have issues with aggressive options this early in the game. I dont have an issue with the mines themselves but I think they come out way too fast, and it takes so much gas to get out the necessary detection to deal with this. They are more threatening than cloak banshees imo.

On March 17 2013 03:59 ThaReckoning wrote:


I was trying to do gateway expands vs Z because recall was supposed to fill a huge gap in the protoss early game that was forcing us to FFE, and was allowing zerg to just blind 3 base every game. However, even with huge gateway pushes and recall, they can still pretty easily do this. Even if you kill the third and recall without losing a single unit, you still haven't really undone the huge lead they get by just droning up, because you can't follow up with any kind of timing attack that I've found. I've been going FFE into stargate + 4g + robo for ages, the problem is that your new units are meaningless with this build. You won't get any significant drone kills with an oracle (or any at all, most of the time) because spores are pretty much free and come out way too early. While your new units are meaningless, zerg's are not. He can still incorporate swarm hosts and vipers into 3 hatch builds no problem. This is what's creating issues.

On March 17 2013 07:45 Ldawg wrote:


Yes, I find this proxy widow mine build super-frustrating and nigh unstoppable. Throw in the fact that a high percentage of Terran players use this against me on ladder and I am at the point where I just sit out until something is changed. Even when I see the proxy factory and deny it in my base they just have a widow mine bury at my natural and expand since the mine will deny my expo for several minutes until I get detection.

On March 17 2013 12:27 Ben... wrote:
Stuff like this is why I still wish they left that detection spell on the mothership core. You didn't have to commit so much gas to a tech path to get portable detection. I liked the option of opening fast twilight council too. Plus yeah, with the necessity of mobile detection to deal with mine rushes it makes way more sense to have an easier access detection.

On March 17 2013 10:22 FlyingBeer wrote:


What sort of gate-expand build are you referring to? It sounds like a gasless gate-expand into a +1 4gate push or some variation thereof. In that case, killing the third should put you way ahead, and you can very easily transition into dt harass, 7 gate warp prism, or 1/1 7gate blink as a very quick followup, or take your own third and tech behind it.

If you're talking about a 1-base 3gate or 4gate, and you see them take a third, then you should be able to do huge economic damage at their natural while sending a unit or two to their third to kill it off, also putting you way ahead.