The HotS Protoss Help Me Thread - Page 247

On March 23 2014 11:50 playa wrote:
Does anyone have replays versus swarm hosts, who fares pretty good against them? I struggle gravely with the question of whether swarm hosts are more imbalanced than they're boring or vice versa. SC 2 is so hard to play for me, atm, boring games aside. So many games versus swarm hosts, I'll lose and there will be a sense of there was nothing I could do, besides play a different race... When the game feels out of your control, what's the point?

I watched Stehapno's vods, looking for inspiration, to see how other Toss players were faring against it. Now, I feel 10x more hopeless and feel like I need to make sure I have a spare 2 hours before I search for a game. So, even if one has replays, how do you guys not let swarm hosts make you give up the game? What is your source of motivation?

On March 23 2014 13:31 VanSCPurge wrote:


First thing, never blame balance for losses or struggles. You'll never get any better. No matter how frustrating or how many things you think you've tried, you shouldn't ever blame balance. There is ALWAYS something you should have done or could have done better.

Secondly, and more to the point, I don't have any replays on this computer, but I don't have much of an issue vs swarm host. In my experience, the best thing you can do is get up to 4 or so collosus, and start dropping while teching to HT. The biggest weakness of SH play is it's extreme lack of mobility. You should be exploiting it fully. Once you have 4-5 collos and a healthy amount of HT with storm, you can normally just roll over an SH-based army, even if supported by roaches/hydra/static defense. The AoE is key for being able to clear the locust before the next wave can spawn. Be careful to keep your observers alive, but if you lose them, try to storm on top of where you know the SH are.

On March 23 2014 13:55 SC2John wrote:


I'm not at all advocating swarm hosts or defending their balance or anything. But if you want to find a way around it, just change your goals. AKA just kill the shit out of Zerg before they can get the swarm host ball going. If you remember the BL/infestor days, many Protoss struggled a lot with the late game, so they just started doing early attacks to kill Zerg before the brood lords were out.

Example 1: Rain's 3-base immortal/colossus timing. It hit off of 3 bases with a nearly maxed out Protoss army at 15:00, just before the brood lords began morphing. As long as you didn't take too much damage taking your 3rd and you had good positioning in the fight, it was a way to dismantle the Zerg and not have to fight BL/infestor. The part is! if you lost, you lost!

Example 2: PartinG's soultrain. PartinG just realized he could kill the Zerg on 2 bases, so he just did the immortal/sentry push in like 90% of his PvZs. Again, the best part is that if your allin fails, the game is over. No need to deal with swarm hosts.

My suggestion: just aim to kill the Zerg before the swarm host ball gets going. If you play a bunch of 2-base and 3-base all-ins in PvZ, you might find that enjoy the matchup again. It's all about changing mindset and trying to play a different way when you encounter an obnoxious wall.

On March 23 2014 14:04 playa wrote:


I'm 100% a macro player. I try to give myself a chance to win all games. I don't like relying on a lot of luck or catching my opponent with his/her pants down. Anytime you have to play all-in'ish, the game is not balanced. I'm just amazed at how much margin for error there is when using swarm hosts. I miss broodlord, infestor days so bad. That's a shame.

I don't think 3 base all-in type attacks are really a consistent answer. You need colossi to deal with hydras, yet if they then flood out corrupters... I feel you're pretty boned. I just can't believe how much they have given up on this game. They really can't even give us the observer range upgrade? If colossi weren't easy enough to snipe when all you have to do is make corrupters... somehow you're supposed to hit timings with 1-2 observers that are dying within a second and have to get right next to swarm hosts, etc, to see anything. The whole premise is absurd to me.

It just feels like LotV has to be coming out soon, because there is no other way for me to explain this willful neglect. I'm at a loss. I've played this game a lot. I've felt a matchup was a lot harder before, but I've never felt like this. I can't even analyze losses because I know it's out of my control. Yeah, some games are winnable. You could have played better. But... so could your opponent. If you both play decently, you lose. It's just not worth analyzing after that realization.

Anyone playing at a decent level should realize this isn't balanced, yet can't call it for what it is. Part of the problem.

Think about this: I had 100 more supply than my opponent. I had 3 mining bases. My opponent simply had some swarm hosts, some queens and 2 spores. Yet, it still took me 20-30 minutes to win... All of my units were "useful," too. When your opponent stays in a game versus someone that has 3 fully saturated bases to his 0 and is way down in army supply... you have to ask yourself... who is the bigger idiot? The person that created this unit or the person that keeps playing this game?

I'm fed up, and I just want to see some replays that can provide some light/hope. I'm desperate for it...

On March 23 2014 15:58 VanSCPurge wrote:



If you were really 100 supply up and it still took you 20-30 minutes to win(Especially in a 3 base vs 0 scenario), there was something more going on than swarm hosts. That's a replay I would like to see, actually. The advice given by SC2John is solid, but if you don't like that type of aggressive play, then the style I tried to explain works too. It's how you beat swarm host in a macro game. AoE -> Harass Harass Harass -> Another AoE. It can be difficult but it's what works. People are trying to help you but you just keep complaining about how imbalanced the unit is. You're not understanding that it doesn't matter. You need to be focusing on your own play, not something that is out of your control.

If you're tilted and don't feel like that is something you can do, then take a deep breath, and maybe take a few days off from the game. Come back with a different outlook. Trust me, it can do wonders. Fixed my PvT in WoL, that's for sure.

On March 23 2014 17:40 Teoita wrote:
Protoss has a huge amount of bulids viable vs T. It sounds like you are just executing poorly. If you post a few replays i'll take a look and let you know.

I have taken a break. I often take breaks here and there because of swarm hosts. I win more games than not regardless of what I'm playing against, but I get so angry win or lose versus swarm hosts. I hate to see the game look like this. I hate to play it. It just gets at me. Winning is largely irrelevant at this point. Knowing that it's not fair is simply the cherry on the top.

Imagine if you had to rush to 10 templars in P vs T. How exploitable would that be? This is a game with a ton of hard counters. You can't just put 90% of your eggs in one basket and hope, "gee I hope he doesn't make enough corrupters/vipers." They can't even try increasing the supply cost of SH by 1? It's so obvious there is a problem, yet you can't even get them to test changes. I have no idea how any of you aren't tilted/fed up with playing these drawn out games, every day, and knowing you have to rely on people who keep turning a blind eye and giving Q/A's "like that."

I found the replay, and while I might have been exaggerating on just how long it took, the point remains I had to mass up tempests to not risk losing to a guy that hadn't mined a mineral in a few years, because swarm hosts kill everything on the ground and there is no way to predict how a fight will go when Zerg can keep transfusing everything. Invincibility + being able to attack from a mile must be pretty nice. I wonder what the Zerg help thread looks like. I wonder how many are having difficulties burrowing swarm hosts.

Replay

Most races have to leave when they have something like 1 base to 3. Zerg players don't need to leave, whether they have a base or not because you can't kill swarm hosts... at least with vipers you're relying on a spell/micro to own a battle and then kill them before they can remake their army. There's not even micro involved here... whether it's imbalanced or not, please fix it. It looks horrible. Make it look better. Something.

On March 23 2014 19:15 KingAlphard wrote:


You played more or less correctly in that replay. You wasted WAY too many resources trying to engage the swarm host/queen/spore army, and you should expand in different locations rather than close to your other bases (in Yeonsu you can also take the islands with a prism), but all in all you built the right composition and took enough expos to survive.

Yeah one base swarm host is a very stupid tactic that shouldn't exist imo. If the protoss player knows what to do he will win, but it will take him probably more than 30 minutes (I've had 50 minutes games vs. 1 base swarm host before I could break them because they also got vipers), when the game should've been won when you cannon rushed him and he wasn't able to counter it/started blind hatch first. Nowadays, in fact, it is the most common follow up to a cannon rush together with the classic roach nydus.

Actually, in general I think that vs. swarm hosts it's fun when you win, because it means you totally out-multitasked your opponent and killed him through smart harassing, but when you lose it's terrible because you were probably just outnumbered by free units.

A big part of beating swarm hosts is getting into their main and destroying it and spreading them thin. But, really, it's not hard to put corrupters on patrol. You can usually do damage, but you shouldn't... it's only a matter of time before people wise up and you won't do damage, and you will be forced to attack swarm hosts head on.

On March 23 2014 22:39 VanSCPurge wrote:


I haven't watched the replay yet, and I will either edit this post or add a reply when I do, but I just wanted to comment on this. If they have corrupters out against your collos, but are choosing to patrol them to avoid drops, then you should attack into the swarm hosts. That's your opening. You have succeeded in spreading him thin. When he comes back with his corrupters just back off and drop. 4+ Collos melts through locust, you'll almost always be able to kill at least a few SH doing that. If they park over the SH, drop. If they don't, attack. Keep in mind that by the time they have vipers, you should also have HT. Storm and feedback are both incredibly valuable.


EDIT: Watched the replay, and I have to say, wow. You over-committed on the cannons. The two in the natural were almost completely pointless. Maybe one closer to the pylon just to force either more lings or a roach response. As a result, your natural was so late that had he just used his roaches to clear the cannon in his 3rd and double expanded, he might have actually been ahead. You never walled your natural, and you went 3 different tech routes off only 2 base and 4 gas. By the time his Nydus was about to pop, your standing army was 1 zealot, 1 sentry, and a single void ray. When his locust were pushing into your nat, your army was only slight bigger, another void ray or two, some zealots, an immortal, while you floated 900 minerals. If he had killed your third initially after your natural and not wasted time in your main, he most likely would have won the game. And it has nothing to do with swarm host being imbalanced. You opened the game extremely aggressively (some might even call it cheesy), over-committed, and your follow up was slow and too spread out. Had you just played standard after placing *maybe* 1 cannon in his nat and 3rd, you could have crushed him. But instead you spread your gas paper thin, and almost lost.

There's more, but the point really isn't to point out every mistake (being fair, you made some good choices too like the mass expansions) made that game. Just to show that there is way more to it than the swarm host. Especially one base SH, which is bad, terrible even. You basically won the game when you forced a base trade he couldn't possibly win with such immobile units.

On March 24 2014 19:50 SatedSC2 wrote:

You're really not going to get more solid advice than this. I've had a 70+% win-ratio in PvZ since the BL/Infestor era using exclusively two/three base all-in strategies that hit before common Zerg end-game strategies can come to fruition. If you don't like playing against Swarm Hosts then aggressive strategies are by far the best option; there's no point playing the game in a way that allows your opponent to get to a composition that you hate playing against and then whining about how your opponent managed to get to a composition that you hate playing against because you're the one that's letting them get away with it!

Also, I feel like I should point out that many of the new maps are really favourable towards two base all-ins. For example, I personally think that Heavy Rain and Habitation Station make Immortal/Sentry all-ins look pretty broken because the layout of these maps makes it hard for the Zerg to surround the Protoss army and also force the Zerg to engage in fairly narrow choke points. Heavy Rain actually reminds me a lot of Cloud Kingdom in this respect because you essentially have a single, fairly narrow corridor that can be used to attack into the third, and the third base itself actually acts like a giant Forcefield. Yeonsu has a lot of good choke points as well, although it's a bit easier for the Zerg to go for surrounds, so I've actually been using Blink Stalker all-ins a lot on that map because of how exploitable the ledges near both third bases are when using Blink (although this type of all-in has become a lot weaker with the Hydralisk being buffed). Lastly, any map on which the Immortal/Sentry all-in works well is a map where the 2 Immortal 2 Colossus all-in will work well, so that's also an option if you're worried about playing Immortal/Sentry against a possible Ling/Hydra opening from the Zerg.

I understand that you're saying that you don't like to play all-ins because you're a "macro player", but if you're coming up against stuff in macro games that frustrates you then why bother playing that way?

EDIT:

I totally forgot to ask what I came here to ask (derp).

Is there a general guide out there for Protoss vs. Mech? It's always been a very common thing to say that Mech play shouldn't work very well and yet I still seem to have a lot of problems against it in HotS. In WoL I found it incredibly easy to play against because Chargelot/Archon/Immortal could a-move straight through it, but with the addition of Hellbats (or even the newly buffed Widow Mine) that's no longer the case.