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On June 22 2013 04:48 aldochillbro wrote: So for the first 2 months of hots pvp i used a 5 stalker msc rush into dt expand and then every time I tried dt's after those 2 months it got shut down(ppl defend it too well now). so I've tried a bunch of other builds like 5 stalker rush into robo into expand, same thing with stargate, 1 gate expand into robo, parting's blink build, etc.
I can't find a build that is good at all in pvp and i don't know where to look to get good strategies. I now do the 5 stalker rush into stargate expand pvp and I find it to be ok but i can never seem to win against other stargate builds or twilight, which only leaves me with an auto win vs robo but losing the other times.
I'm wondering what are your go to builds in pvp and how exactly to you play them out build order wise and how to react to different things from your opponent and how to go on into the mid-late game. I'm so lost, especially pheonix vs pheonix where I end up destroying his pheonix count multiple times but either overcommit on pheonix or undercommit on them when he rebuilds them and/or just has better ground upgrades. I'd pretty much like a blueprint of something reliable in pvp so and the ability to have a plan already thought out for what to do(for example I KNOW that I need 2 forges for upgrades, get charge, get x amount of gates, etc.). I know that "safe" builds don't exist in pvp, but there has to be very solid one's right?
Quite honestly, I think a "5-stalker rush" is bad. In WoL, 3 stalkers is good, but you wouldn't go up to 5 stalkers unless you're defending a very strong aggression build; if you build 5 stalkers and do no damage, you put yourself way behind in tech. In HotS, it's debatable if you need those extra stalkers to even defend when you have the planetary nexus.
The most stable builds are going to be robo builds and DT builds. 2-gate robo (though a little outdated compared to 1-gate FE) is going to yield the most stable games and allow you to defend pretty much anything that comes your way. DT builds are also pretty stable, although if your opponent goes for early aggression, it can get really scary before the dark shrine is done. All in all, though, PvP (like the other mirror matchups) is a very complex matchup with a ton of decisions. The kind of general flow chart is:
phoenix (stargate) > immortal OR fast colossus (robo) > blink stalker OR chargelot + archons (HT or DT) (twilight) > phoenix Essentially: stargate > robo > twilight> stargate
EDIT: another note: if you're not sure how PvP works, just play as greedy as possible based on a certain build. Throw down your nexus as soon as possible, try getting fast tech up, try defending with only stalkers from drops/phoenixes/oracles instead of cannons, etc., etc., and just make adjustments to make yourself safer .
you're right, I think I'm sinking too much of my early resources into stalkers and prioritizing map control over tech. it sounds stupid when you break it down like that. I actually realized that I need to prioritize my spending habits in pvt too and it helped out a bit, thanks.
I ripped a build off a streamer today that goes pheonix and I'm just gonna try to do that build and keep in mind should really focus on teching more than i've been
I do the 3stalker into tech thing, but generally get my tech up before the second and third stalker to speed it up. This means i can't do 5stalker msc pressure but my tech is really fast so it's ok. As far as tech goes i either go blink, dt or stargate off of it.
I'm also not a big fan of the gateway pressure stuff because you can still have decent map control with 3 stalkers, and having 5 out on the map means you are likely to get caught out of position by dt's or oracles. You can be safe if leave the 4th and 5th stalker at home and pressure with your first two warped in stalkers, but then your pressure is severely weakened.
I feel lost in PvZ. In WoL it was my strongest MU, probably due to Naniwa-esque gateway-builds that chopped up the regular 3-base Zerg openings. However, now I think I lost all sense of timings. While I usually open Stargate and/or GW-aggression I find it difficult to either do enough damage with the GW-attacks or to find proper timings. What often happens is that I've got my Phoenixes flying around, killing some OL:s and some queens, I get the robo, a third and a twilight to tech up. And then, about 15 minutes in I get stomped by massive Roach/Hydra armies, Ultra transitions or one million Mutas. I think it's because I don't know any good builds from which to start to gain control of the game anymore. Halp?!?!?1
On June 22 2013 20:45 Heartland wrote: I feel lost in PvZ. In WoL it was my strongest MU, probably due to Naniwa-esque gateway-builds that chopped up the regular 3-base Zerg openings. However, now I think I lost all sense of timings. While I usually open Stargate and/or GW-aggression I find it difficult to either do enough damage with the GW-attacks or to find proper timings. What often happens is that I've got my Phoenixes flying around, killing some OL:s and some queens, I get the robo, a third and a twilight to tech up. And then, about 15 minutes in I get stomped by massive Roach/Hydra armies, Ultra transitions or one million Mutas. I think it's because I don't know any good builds from which to start to gain control of the game anymore. Halp?!?!?1
I no longer do GW attacks/timings because Zerg is a very reactionary race and as long as they scout this, they can defend it pretty easily. This leads to Protoss playing from behind 95% of the time (through a random number in there woot xD). Anyways, your opening is fine and what I do nowadays (Phoenix opener). But you should scout beforehand with a hallucinated phoenix and see the Zerg's tech. If they don't have a Roach Warren down (when Stargate is done), you can go phoenix and expand to your 3rd pretty safely as long as you have a good amount of sentries (4-6) and a couple zealots. Just have those units between the mineral line and your 3rd nexus and you will be fine but make sure you have still have a zealot blocking your natural (don't want a ling runby). Robo is the transition from Stargate. You get a robotics bay immediately unless you see them just going full out roaches. If they go full out roaches, you actually need that 200 gas and constant immortal production but this is a rare case nowadays. I add on the twilight council when +1 attack is near 50% done so I can start +2 attack on time. You need to scout constantly against Zerg at this phase (actually at any point of the game) with hallucinated phoenix or if you are really fast, with your phoenixes. You don't want to lose your phoenixes because you will have to end up remaking them because of possible mutas. But what you need to see is how many evo chambers he has (1 or 2 or in some rare cases 3), his army composition (mass ling, roach/ling, roach/hydra), his possible tech paths, and his hive timing. Once you see the hive on the way, you need a templar archives and a 4th base by that time.
Now with dealing with army compositions from Zerg:
Heavy Mass Ling upgrades - You want to get a quick third and sim city. Keep your phoenix count and just begin producing immortals with a 2nd robo as well if you see quick 2-2 and hive on the way for Zerg and also go double forge. This means they are dedicated to a heavy melee/ground army. You want a templar archives and 4th. Get a warp prism and buy you time because this is the part you want to trade your minerals for time. You want time because you want to get storm if they add on a baneling nest; you want time because you want to get maxed with a strong army (archon/immortal/ht) that cost a lot of gas. Use a good sim city to prevent ling run bys. The easiest/fastest tell to this style is double evo upgrades before lair from Zerg and lots of lings. From there you expand super fast and gain the economic lead over Zerg.
Roach/Hydra - Your composition should be Void Ray/Colo from the Stargate and Robo. Use Time warp and Force Fields to help deal with the army and use zealots to buffer. I say zealots because your gas should be tied up on the void rays and colos and your upgrades that it's hard to squeeze in a good number of stalkers. If you are able to get blink stalkers with this composition, then go ahead because of their survive-ability. You need to see hive timing when you see this composition so send hallucinated phoenix to their lair constantly. Viper is a very common followup now in HotS. Once you see it get HT to feedback them while researching storm.
Dealing with Swarm Host play - Think about WoL for a second and ask yourself how did you deal with Broodlords. Because let's face it; Swarm Hosts are practically Broodlords but easier/cheaper/faster to get in HotS. You don't necessarily want to think how do I engage them but rather how do I abuse them. The answer is mobility. They are extremely immobile so crank out a warp prism and just expand. Dump minerals into warped in zealots and expansions while you tech to double robo colos. If you want to engage into swarm hosts, you want not only colos but at least storm to help. In long drawn out games, you want around 4 colos/4 hts/4 archons/3 tempests/some observers (2-3)/rest void rays. Another army composition is 100% skytoss with a warp prism full of HTs but this hard to get unless you have like 8 bases (a bit of an exaggeration) and banking a lot of money But the warp prism harass, should kill most of Zerg's economy. Remember you have mothership core that allows you to mass recall to a base so just move out on the map with your army and mothership core and snipe bases and recall home while you have another warp prism harassing another base. Basically you shouldn't ask, how do I beat this army composition, but how do I prevent this army composition. If you let them easily get this composition and just waltz their way to the spot where they want to siege, then you are going to have a hard time. It's still doable with the army composition I said but it's a lot harder than just harassing Zerg with warp prisms and mass expanding.
Dealing with Ultra/Ling/Queen - I made a Youtube video about how to deal with this here.
But to recap if you do not have time to watch it, you want to go double forge as well and try to match his ultra count with your immortal count. Obviously this is hard to do in a snap because of larva mechanic but if you are constantly producing immortals from double robotics you should be able to match it (usually Zerg will have near 10 once maxed). Use hallucinated archons from your sentry energy to help buffer/mess with the AI. If the Zerg has an overseer (very common) with their army and you use hallucinated archons, it will bug the AI of the Ultras because they know it's fake so the Ultras try to bypass the hallucinated archons by going around it which takes longer for Zerg than for them to just kill the hallucinated archons. But for them to kill the hallucinated archons than going around it, they need to either lose the overseer or target fire one by one which I highly doubt any Zergs will do. If they add banelings, you need storm and storm the banelings.
Dealing with the Magic Muta Switch - The Magic Muta Switch is common from Zerg after doing a hydra/ling timing. If they do a hydra/ling timing, you need to see their reinforcements and if they are using their larva. If they have stacked larva or more lings on the way, this means they are banking gas for a tech switch which is 99% of the time going to be mutas. Rarely see like a Swarm Host switch around this time (3 base) but you still want to get in the habit of constant scouting whether it be hallucinated phoenix, an observer, or your actual phoenixes. Personally, I keep the observer around their rally spot (generally outside of their natural on most maps) and use my phoenixes/hallucinated phoenix to scout constantly. If you see this coming, you need to add a 2nd stargate, a fleet beacon, and a 4th base. Like I said, it's easy to get another base against lings. Get the range upgrade and phoenixes and all that stuff and just keep expanding while using warp prisms and zealot run bys to distract the Zerg. If you are talking about the Magic Muta Switch where you are on like Whirlwind and both of you are on like 5 bases economy, then my tip is to have as many Stargates as you have bases against Zerg. You should have the phoenix range upgrade as well by this time. Your initial 5 phoenixes should buy you enough time to get up a healthy amount of phoenixes to compete with their mutas. Plus on 5+ bases, you should be upgrading air attack/armor and getting shields around that time.
My thoughts on PvZ is to just scout constantly and defend appropriately (boring I know). This is the most reliable way of playing PvZ in my opinion. Any time I lose a PvZ, it's because I didn't scout constantly or at least that's how I feel.
May i get good response - how to fight vs. mech terran. Im staring facing composition hellbats/tanks/ghosts and i see that my units are rolled.
I trading expensive units vs cheap ( hellbats mostly). I`m not able to refill my army fast while hes makeing hellbats really fast. Another problem i dont know what to use to tank damage. Zealots(hellbats) and Archons are excluded, even immortals ( while ghosts makes alot of EMP).
Against mech in general, you want to mass expand and trade minerals for gas so use warp prism and zealots to harass while you tech to either skytoss or immortal/archon/ht
On June 23 2013 06:13 vovinam wrote: how do you usually react when zerg take a late third? i feel like anything could come, from roach bane allin/ swarmhost/ mutas.
Easiest way is to sentry scout or scout with phoenix off of a stargate opener. You can also poke the front with zealot + msc earlier than that and see gas, ling count, queen count, etc.
When doing an immortal all in, and microing units with a warp prism, if I pick up a sentry using guardian shield and drop him, will guardian shield end? Or does it stay activated? Pretty sure it ends but just making sure.
On June 23 2013 06:54 Jmanthedragonguy wrote: When doing an immortal all in, and microing units with a warp prism, if I pick up a sentry using guardian shield and drop him, will guardian shield end? Or does it stay activated? Pretty sure it ends but just making sure.
For this kind of thing you should really just open up a unit tester and check. Its not something I do often or others probably do often so the fastest way to get an answer is test it yourself.
I'm noticing a trend in Proleague PvP recently, where players will never tech to Colossi and instead make Immortal/Archon based armies, with Chargelots thrown in there as a tank/mineral sink. Why is this? Are Colossus-based armies bad against Immortal/Archon based armies, or are you vulnerable while teching to them? Or am I just wrong and I happen to have an atypical sample of recent PvP's?
If you're vulnerable while teching to Colossi, what timings can you hit vs. a Colossus player? If Colossus-based armies are bad vs. this composition, is there any composition that's superior to it that is possible to obtain without dying, or are you forced into the same Immortal/Archon mix?
On June 23 2013 15:35 Salivanth wrote: I'm noticing a trend in Proleague PvP recently, where players will never tech to Colossi and instead make Immortal/Archon based armies, with Chargelots thrown in there as a tank/mineral sink. Why is this? Are Colossus-based armies bad against Immortal/Archon based armies, or are you vulnerable while teching to them? Or am I just wrong and I happen to have an atypical sample of recent PvP's?
If you're vulnerable while teching to Colossi, what timings can you hit vs. a Colossus player? If Colossus-based armies are bad vs. this composition, is there any composition that's superior to it that is possible to obtain without dying, or are you forced into the same Immortal/Archon mix?
I think the main thing is that it's not as expensive which means you can go towards an air transition faster while being able to abuse the mobility of your army in combination with more warpins as you'll have more gateways. One thing hasn't changed from WoL though - once the colossus count gets higher and you don't have anything to directly counter them, you will lose straight up fights.
Oh one more thing that I personally do in PvP when I play this style is get double forge and upgrading shield upgrades as it will benefit both my current army and the one I'm transitioning to.
What should I have done differently in this situation in regards to countering muta/corruptor?
I think you need to be more assertive with your phoenix. Don't just use them to defend, use them to chase down the mutas. Make sure to get the range upgrade ASAP and then you can kite corruptors as well. However that's if you wanna go the stargate route, but I think in that game, knowing that all his econ would be going towards muta/corruptor, I think 1 stargate phoenix to kite the mutas along with 6-8 gates would have been a timing attack that he would just die to. He only had lings, no RW or hydra den, and in battle, focus the mutas down ignoring the corruptors, because they can't attack anything and once the mutas are dead the phoenix have no use. The attack would be only stalker/zealot, with 2/3 sentries for guardian shield and maybe a forcefield or two. Also because of the muta rush, he wouldn't have ground upgrades so +1 attack on zealots would be great against the lings. I think the key to this game was that his muta rush was really low econ, and that a gateway timing, with a few phoenix to focus mutas and leave the corruptors as paper-weights, would have rolled him.
On June 23 2013 15:35 Salivanth wrote: I'm noticing a trend in Proleague PvP recently, where players will never tech to Colossi and instead make Immortal/Archon based armies, with Chargelots thrown in there as a tank/mineral sink. Why is this? Are Colossus-based armies bad against Immortal/Archon based armies, or are you vulnerable while teching to them? Or am I just wrong and I happen to have an atypical sample of recent PvP's?
If you're vulnerable while teching to Colossi, what timings can you hit vs. a Colossus player? If Colossus-based armies are bad vs. this composition, is there any composition that's superior to it that is possible to obtain without dying, or are you forced into the same Immortal/Archon mix?
I am interested in learning more from this style as well. In Parting x HerO (PL rnd 6, SKT x CJ), Parting went for stargate when he scouted a robotics bay, so maybe it's more about having a tech choice advantage (tempest x colossus) than hitting a timing. It felt like a game of chicken - who will try to transition out of immortal/archon first? Whoever does, can be punished with counter tech.
On June 23 2013 22:26 Salivanth wrote: So, if Colossus-based compositions are still strong, how do you beat Chargelot/Immortal/Archon/Tempest with a Colossus based army?
I think in lategame scenario, army with tempest support will win. Colosus die so fast to them. The main thing is, you will not be able to break his ground defense of tempest. Colosus will die too fast to tempest and then you have archon/zealot/immortal vs his tempest and ground army. From what i heard, voidrays counter tempest pretty well. If you go into colosus and scout them going tempest, add stargate and voidrays. He will have to focus them with archons in order to defend tempest, then your zealot/immortal will break through his ground army and, if you have any archons (which you should have in lategame mix) or some useless stalkers left, you will be able to break tempest. Note, that you could have no colosus left by then so make sure you have some WG ready to reinforce.
EPT
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