On April 01 2013 06:11 blade55555 wrote: To beat the sky toss composition you need hydra/swarmhost/viper/ultra.
Now if he's not going templar/colossi don't get ultra, just get hydra/viper and 10-12 swarmhosts. If he does templar/colossi add in 3-5 ultra and it'll help a ton!
Abduct and stuff will deal with it just fine and don't make corruptors if he's going mass voidray. If he isn't making many voidrays then you can add in corruptors for it.
Blade, I've seen a lot of vids from your stream during and after the BETA and I know you have pretty high APM. The question I'd like to ask you is this: do you think a lower APM Zerg can play hydra/swarmhost/viper/ultra effectively?
If we compare this to WoL PvZ, the standard way for a P to play was to push with colossi before broodlord tech. This is something a plat player can do, even if he lacks the APM to add warp prism/DT harass into the mix.
However, in HotS ZvP, the strats that counter turtle toss seem to be way more APM intensive than those that counter turtle Zerg in WoL. I don't really see how someone with lower APM than masters level can hope for a fair fight. Sure, a plat toss will be slower to max, but he'll get there. What can a plat Zerg realistically do in the meantime? No plat guy can use hydra/swarmhost/viper/ultra effectively without penalizing his macro heavily.
I can't speak for blade, but I play at mid-high master level on NA server. My average APM is 240 I believe, often spiking much higher during battles. I don't spam whatsoever, so my APM is very low in the beginning, so my actual during combat is probably closer to 280ish, with spikes of 300+.
With that said, I still find that style of play very difficult. It is effective for sure, just watch some of Blade's replays, but I still struggle with it at times. You have to be very active with your swarmhosts, babysitting them constantly, as it is pretty easy to lose all of them. Throw that in with the viper micro, and I personally would say that this is not a strategy for new players.
Still, I don't feel like I have ever failed this playstyle due to my APM. In my honest opinion, my APM is high enough that it will never be what's holding me back, even if I were playing professionally. It's my own stupidity, poor decision making, and lack of attentiveness that causes my failures. I would say if you have 100+ APM and you use it well, you can pull off this playstyle. I just need to get used to it and practice this new playstyle, as it is very different from WoL zerg.
Thanks for the answer. The question is: maybe a less skilled player than Blade will actually do better with another style, even if it's not the optimal way to play. So, what non-SH strategy can better deal with skytoss?
i had alot of trouble vs mass cannons,msc into carriers then voidrays. i have been told to not let them get there. and i end up with ur question, how da fuxk? then i was talking to schniederz and watching a game he was playing, then i think i found out where i went wrong with not letting them get there. i was massing units to try to knock that natural base of toss， which u'd know when they have that one sentry maybe two to ff u. cannons n photon nexus n warpin zealots. n maybe 2carriers u'd lose most of ur stuff and proceed to lose. so heres what i think, just camp his (to be) third, without that photon nexuz, mass cannons, u should easily take out watever he tries to bring to the third to fight with with ur hydras while ur mass macro behind this. without that 3rd base gas income it'd take way longer for the airtoss to become invincible. spine up all bases as the most likely thing the toss can do is to spend all that extra mins on zealots multiprong attack on ur bases. by the time the toss can push out to take that third u should be ready to have a huge feat of muta corrupt to keep trading his air units non stop or tons of hydras with infestors to infest terran his third while keeping that toss air feat in low numbers.
On March 26 2013 22:58 theMarkovian wrote: Against pure Carrier/Voidray? Pure Hydra. Make sure you micro your Hydra's so that they target the Carriers and not the interceptors (which they autotarget iirc). The Prismatic Alignement ability of Voidrays has no effect on Hydra's (does bonus damage on armored), so only the Carriers are scary. But without splash damage, the Hydra have free reign to shred down all the air. I'd vote against Corruptors, because they are so weak to Voidrays, or Vipers, because they are so fragile vs. Carriers.
It becomes more of a problem if the Protoss adds Colossus, as they kill Hydra so well. In that case, add Swarm Hosts and Vipers/Ultra.
hydras are very bad vs carrier and even with voidrays supply wise --> dont go hydras.
right now dealing with mass VR colo HT etc. deathball is doable but once P start adding some immos and carrier into the mix i think it is unbeatable. carrier are such an insanely strong unit if supported properly that Z cant win against a carrier HT immo voidray archon colossus army right now. so yeah, kill him before he gets there or type gg ^^
Decendos - it's unbeatable with a WoL mindset yes.
As someone who has been avidly following blade since mid-WoL he is absolutely right in his statements in this and his massive post thread.
High(er) APM helps, but that is true of everything in SC2, but the majority problem most zergs have is their mindset. APM can be improved with focused practice. I have increased from 120 to 280 in 5 months purely through streamlining my practice.
Flanking, multi-pronging, better micro, more focus, better strategical decisions are ALL key to defeating skytoss along with the comp blade mentioned AND a fresh mindset. WoL is over, it's time to clear the cobwebs and approach everything in a whole new manner.
On April 01 2013 18:05 shadymmj wrote: Blade is right, but even if u dont have the apm to pull that off, hydras will beat carriers easily especially if he has too many VRs. With infestor support of course. AFAIK, getting a bank and clearing out interceptors, then remaxing and pushing for the kill is more effective than chasing down carriers off creep. It also runs less risk of your hydra ball getting stormed.
Oh and just make sure you have 1 level of upgrades (esp. armour) over the toss when you engage...not hard, eh? Wonder how many of them go double cyber at an early time. Carriers absolutely stink when they're at an upgrade disadvantage.
you havent actually tested this, havent you? hydras get raped by carriers even if carriers are 2/0 and hydras 3/3.
test it...it is laughable how insanely hard hydras get destroyed even with this huge upgrade advantage, oncreep and on open space. try this offcreep and with space carriers can hide and P wont lose anything literally. but even in a perfect scenario carriers rape hydras so hard. btw your test of "just a-move hydras and let them kill interceptors"....oncreep 45 hydras vs 15 carrier....12 carrier survive lol.
--> you need corruptor and especially you need infestor to fungal interceptor or you will lose horribly.
I have tested this multiple times and assuming you hit them when they have around 10 carriers (trust me, because you shouldn't get to 15), with equal cost, hydras clear out all interceptors with >60% of them remaining alive. 3/3 vs 2/0 as you said. If you doubt me fire up unit tester and put the carriers in space, send the hydras to them and try it. If you manage to beat the hydras come back to me.
That's already giving you a good advantage since we all know that if you're turtling to skytoss I will have 5 bases to your 3.
On April 01 2013 18:05 shadymmj wrote: Blade is right, but even if u dont have the apm to pull that off, hydras will beat carriers easily especially if he has too many VRs. With infestor support of course. AFAIK, getting a bank and clearing out interceptors, then remaxing and pushing for the kill is more effective than chasing down carriers off creep. It also runs less risk of your hydra ball getting stormed.
Oh and just make sure you have 1 level of upgrades (esp. armour) over the toss when you engage...not hard, eh? Wonder how many of them go double cyber at an early time. Carriers absolutely stink when they're at an upgrade disadvantage.
you havent actually tested this, havent you? hydras get raped by carriers even if carriers are 2/0 and hydras 3/3.
test it...it is laughable how insanely hard hydras get destroyed even with this huge upgrade advantage, oncreep and on open space. try this offcreep and with space carriers can hide and P wont lose anything literally. but even in a perfect scenario carriers rape hydras so hard. btw your test of "just a-move hydras and let them kill interceptors"....oncreep 45 hydras vs 15 carrier....12 carrier survive lol.
--> you need corruptor and especially you need infestor to fungal interceptor or you will lose horribly.
I have tested this multiple times and assuming you hit them when they have around 10 carriers (trust me, because you shouldn't get to 15), with equal cost, hydras clear out all interceptors with >60% of them remaining alive. 3/3 vs 2/0 as you said. If you doubt me fire up unit tester and put the carriers in space, send the hydras to them and try it. If you manage to beat the hydras come back to me.
That's already giving you a good advantage since we all know that if you're turtling to skytoss I will have 5 bases to your 3.
tested this aswell multiple times and hydras beat carriers very hard when having an upgradelead with equal upgrades it is really close, but as already said, who the hell is going double cyber
Yes, of course, bearing in mind that any non retard protoss will get HTs/colo to deal with hydras, so while hydras > skytoss in general, I fully acknowledge that super lategame protoss who has diversified into these units will take a lot more effort to beat. I do not view "skytoss" as the problem, but the overall combination of mega AOE and massive range on everything is super effective on zerg compos (assuming diamond to master level control).
On April 02 2013 08:47 Xorphene wrote: Decendos - it's unbeatable with a WoL mindset yes.
As someone who has been avidly following blade since mid-WoL he is absolutely right in his statements in this and his massive post thread.
High(er) APM helps, but that is true of everything in SC2, but the majority problem most zergs have is their mindset. APM can be improved with focused practice. I have increased from 120 to 280 in 5 months purely through streamlining my practice.
Flanking, multi-pronging, better micro, more focus, better strategical decisions are ALL key to defeating skytoss along with the comp blade mentioned AND a fresh mindset. WoL is over, it's time to clear the cobwebs and approach everything in a whole new manner.
Are you aware that apm has been buggy and unreliable recently? I know I play at around ~120 and I've had games above 300. I'm no Jaedong.
On March 26 2013 22:58 theMarkovian wrote: Against pure Carrier/Voidray? Pure Hydra. Make sure you micro your Hydra's so that they target the Carriers and not the interceptors (which they autotarget iirc). The Prismatic Alignement ability of Voidrays has no effect on Hydra's (does bonus damage on armored), so only the Carriers are scary. But without splash damage, the Hydra have free reign to shred down all the air. I'd vote against Corruptors, because they are so weak to Voidrays, or Vipers, because they are so fragile vs. Carriers.
It becomes more of a problem if the Protoss adds Colossus, as they kill Hydra so well. In that case, add Swarm Hosts and Vipers/Ultra.
hydras are very bad vs carrier and even with voidrays supply wise --> dont go hydras.
right now dealing with mass VR colo HT etc. deathball is doable but once P start adding some immos and carrier into the mix i think it is unbeatable. carrier are such an insanely strong unit if supported properly that Z cant win against a carrier HT immo voidray archon colossus army right now. so yeah, kill him before he gets there or type gg ^^
Uh it's not. If you go swarmhost/hydra/viper/ultra you can deal with it easy peasy lemon squeezy.
If he is going pure air no HT no Colo this is going to be even easier because you can just go hydra/viper and win.
No good Protoss is going to go pure air without storm. That's part of the god composition - tempest and templar -_- but you can do carrier + templar too or mass void + templar.
I dunno about your swarmhosts...every supply you have invested into swarmhosts is less corruptors/fungal/hydras, doesn't that make it way more difficult to play vs that air? Or are you saying it's worth it for the locusts to hunt down the templar? Because that only works if Protoss is stupid and engages away from their 5000 photon cannons.
Tbh, I don't think Zerg is actually meant to straight up beat skytoss + templar or skyterran + ravens/ghost. Or the best ways involve using your own units like, getting Protoss to storm his own interceptors/air, or microing corruptors with the seeker into the enemies viking/BC clumps.
On April 01 2013 18:05 shadymmj wrote: Blade is right, but even if u dont have the apm to pull that off, hydras will beat carriers easily especially if he has too many VRs. With infestor support of course. AFAIK, getting a bank and clearing out interceptors, then remaxing and pushing for the kill is more effective than chasing down carriers off creep. It also runs less risk of your hydra ball getting stormed.
Oh and just make sure you have 1 level of upgrades (esp. armour) over the toss when you engage...not hard, eh? Wonder how many of them go double cyber at an early time. Carriers absolutely stink when they're at an upgrade disadvantage.
you havent actually tested this, havent you? hydras get raped by carriers even if carriers are 2/0 and hydras 3/3.
test it...it is laughable how insanely hard hydras get destroyed even with this huge upgrade advantage, oncreep and on open space. try this offcreep and with space carriers can hide and P wont lose anything literally. but even in a perfect scenario carriers rape hydras so hard. btw your test of "just a-move hydras and let them kill interceptors"....oncreep 45 hydras vs 15 carrier....12 carrier survive lol.
--> you need corruptor and especially you need infestor to fungal interceptor or you will lose horribly.
I have tested this multiple times and assuming you hit them when they have around 10 carriers (trust me, because you shouldn't get to 15), with equal cost, hydras clear out all interceptors with >60% of them remaining alive. 3/3 vs 2/0 as you said. If you doubt me fire up unit tester and put the carriers in space, send the hydras to them and try it. If you manage to beat the hydras come back to me.
That's already giving you a good advantage since we all know that if you're turtling to skytoss I will have 5 bases to your 3.
tested this aswell multiple times and hydras beat carriers very hard when having an upgradelead with equal upgrades it is really close, but as already said, who the hell is going double cyber
why do you test it with equal cost? what matters is supply in lategame. if hydras were 1,5 or even 1 supply with same costs...well yes you could use them to fight lategame. but on equal supply they lose horribly...like omg do they lose hardcore vs carrier. and that is with 2/0 vs 3/3 and no storms, cannons etc. P just wont attack until they are maxed out...why should they? so you would have to fight offcreep and attack into cannons, storm and 10 carriers with your army....hf ^^
and btw i never said anything about ZvP being imba or something. ZvT is a bit T favored right now, thats it. ZvP isnt imba overall in HOTS...it also wasnt imba in WoL...its just that in WoL sentry immo and BL infestor was broken...overall it was about 50% winrate....but still a stupid MU. in HOTS ZvP is much much better and more fun for both sides. still its bad for the game if one lategame army is unbeatable for the other race because that means the race with the unbeatable lategame army will just turtle to get that army which leads to insanely boring games and an imbalanaced lategame. so yeah even blade said and avilo says this too: dont let T/P get to that army and kill or at least hurt him a lot before.
oh and i even believe that you can beat a mass carrier + support army...you just have to go SH infestor corruptor queen with lots and lots of spores while taking all bases possible. its just that hydras are bad, thats all i said basically but some people dont want to read that it seems ^^
what i believe is that a raven BC viking + support army is unbeatable since T really is able to go pure air and Z has no antispellcaster in ZvT (SH and ultras are the "antispellcaster" in ZvP...but ravens fly so... )
On March 26 2013 22:58 theMarkovian wrote: Against pure Carrier/Voidray? Pure Hydra. Make sure you micro your Hydra's so that they target the Carriers and not the interceptors (which they autotarget iirc). The Prismatic Alignement ability of Voidrays has no effect on Hydra's (does bonus damage on armored), so only the Carriers are scary. But without splash damage, the Hydra have free reign to shred down all the air. I'd vote against Corruptors, because they are so weak to Voidrays, or Vipers, because they are so fragile vs. Carriers.
It becomes more of a problem if the Protoss adds Colossus, as they kill Hydra so well. In that case, add Swarm Hosts and Vipers/Ultra.
hydras are very bad vs carrier and even with voidrays supply wise --> dont go hydras.
right now dealing with mass VR colo HT etc. deathball is doable but once P start adding some immos and carrier into the mix i think it is unbeatable. carrier are such an insanely strong unit if supported properly that Z cant win against a carrier HT immo voidray archon colossus army right now. so yeah, kill him before he gets there or type gg ^^
Uh it's not. If you go swarmhost/hydra/viper/ultra you can deal with it easy peasy lemon squeezy.
If he is going pure air no HT no Colo this is going to be even easier because you can just go hydra/viper and win.
I don't know whether hydra/viper will do it alone, but what I have seen zergs do is fortifying an area in front of the protoss base by adding tons of sporecrawlers. And if the protoss is careless, you can (chain)pull single carriers over the spores, where you can engage more easily.
edit: one crucial step is obviously scouting the build early, so you won't dump too many resources in units which will be useless in the lategame engagement.
The Protoss will not move out for quit some time, since he needs lots of these units before even thinking of attacking. So you can take lots of bases and go heavy on upgrades.
You don't want to take a full battle, but take these costly units out one by one, using "Vipers", "Corrupters" with "Hydralisks" and "Lings" being your part of the composition. Eventually the Protoss will have a much vurnerable army, so you can take a bigger fight, since it costs quit some time for him to get these important units back.
I think playing ZvP lategame is all about being patient, and making the right decisions. TLO did this in a replay analysed by Husky. You might want to take a look at that game on his channel, it was on Newkirk against Instict.
I can also say that I am a Protoss player that is also comfortable playing the other races, so I can tell you this from my own experience. I have been trying to take full fights each time as a Zerg, or playing with other compositions. One disavantage that might appear during this air/hydra/ling heavy composition, is overmaking corrupters, or having to much corrupters in the end when taking out his air. Transitioning to 4-6 broodlords isn't an option I think, since the Protoss will probably stay air, but I haven't tested that out yet.
On March 26 2013 22:58 theMarkovian wrote: Against pure Carrier/Voidray? Pure Hydra. Make sure you micro your Hydra's so that they target the Carriers and not the interceptors (which they autotarget iirc). The Prismatic Alignement ability of Voidrays has no effect on Hydra's (does bonus damage on armored), so only the Carriers are scary. But without splash damage, the Hydra have free reign to shred down all the air. I'd vote against Corruptors, because they are so weak to Voidrays, or Vipers, because they are so fragile vs. Carriers.
It becomes more of a problem if the Protoss adds Colossus, as they kill Hydra so well. In that case, add Swarm Hosts and Vipers/Ultra.
hydras are very bad vs carrier and even with voidrays supply wise --> dont go hydras.
right now dealing with mass VR colo HT etc. deathball is doable but once P start adding some immos and carrier into the mix i think it is unbeatable. carrier are such an insanely strong unit if supported properly that Z cant win against a carrier HT immo voidray archon colossus army right now. so yeah, kill him before he gets there or type gg ^^
Uh it's not. If you go swarmhost/hydra/viper/ultra you can deal with it easy peasy lemon squeezy.
If he is going pure air no HT no Colo this is going to be even easier because you can just go hydra/viper and win.
No good Protoss is going to go pure air without storm. That's part of the god composition - tempest and templar -_- but you can do carrier + templar too or mass void + templar.
I dunno about your swarmhosts...every supply you have invested into swarmhosts is less corruptors/fungal/hydras, doesn't that make it way more difficult to play vs that air? Or are you saying it's worth it for the locusts to hunt down the templar? Because that only works if Protoss is stupid and engages away from their 5000 photon cannons.
Tbh, I don't think Zerg is actually meant to straight up beat skytoss + templar or skyterran + ravens/ghost. Or the best ways involve using your own units like, getting Protoss to storm his own interceptors/air, or microing corruptors with the seeker into the enemies viking/BC clumps.
To be honest I would know because I beat protoss players who go templar/tempest/voidray or pure voidray/templar. It's not hard at all. Seriously you have no idea ultra/hydra/swarmhost/viper SMASHES templar/voidray.
Honestly the stronger composition is quiet a few voids, but with a good ground support as well (so not pure sky toss + templar). Pure sky toss + templar is very easily countered by the composition I have said many times, ultra/hydra/swarmhost/viper does such a good job.
You will lose the fight but you will maintain all your swarmhosts, some ultra but you will lose all your hydras (he will have to many voids), but the remax of hydra will beat it then you win.
Also tempest/templar is even easier to beat in a straight up fight then voidray/templar. Honestly I don't think tempests are very good in pvz if zerg goes ultra/hydra/swarmhost/viper and voidrays are the better answer.
For anyone who wants to see replays of me killing a protoss deathball as I have said look at the replay pack here:http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=404915
It is all from the korean server and has quiet a few games to show case it as well as me beating a korean GM toss who gets that mass voidray/colo/templar deathball while getting 5 bases. To know I renamed that replay "GM toss" and I can't remember what else, but if you see a replay named GM toss in there that's the one you want to watch.
There is also a game of me vs a guy named EXID on daybreak, he gets 5-7 carriers with templar support (or colossi one of the 2) and I beat it with hydra/sh/ultra/viper.
My next youtube video will be going over me beating the late game protoss army. I will probably end up doing a few in a row to show case this for anyone curious.
I had a Toss get to sky against me ..... Impossible to fight when it get to that stage ...
I re-maxed on hydra 3-3 and viper , didn't work I re- maxed hydra viper investor , fungaled all interceptors , still didn't work. I re-maxed pure corruptor .... Void ray + storm .... So yeh didn't work. (Even caught a load of HT's with a swift group of lings , didn't matter)
I was microing my ass off , splitting , conclaves , blah blah , didn't matter at all , he literally just a-move , stim voids , storm when required .... Not a thing I could do .
Also , due to this comp being SO amazingly cost efficient against Zerg , they rly can just cannon up like crazy on bases and chokes due to thier mins stacking.
I rarely whine , but honestly .... I mean BL infest core was powerful in WoL , but with blink stalker , archon , vortex , void or carrier switch , it was killable . Zerg cannot do anything at all , I fight this army ....
I just don let them have any peace now , just trying to harass as much as possible , coz ill never wanna have to fight that again....
I re-maxed around 3-4 times overall , and didn't take more than half the sky out .... Painful.
On March 26 2013 22:58 theMarkovian wrote: Against pure Carrier/Voidray? Pure Hydra. Make sure you micro your Hydra's so that they target the Carriers and not the interceptors (which they autotarget iirc). The Prismatic Alignement ability of Voidrays has no effect on Hydra's (does bonus damage on armored), so only the Carriers are scary. But without splash damage, the Hydra have free reign to shred down all the air. I'd vote against Corruptors, because they are so weak to Voidrays, or Vipers, because they are so fragile vs. Carriers.
It becomes more of a problem if the Protoss adds Colossus, as they kill Hydra so well. In that case, add Swarm Hosts and Vipers/Ultra.
hydras are very bad vs carrier and even with voidrays supply wise --> dont go hydras.
right now dealing with mass VR colo HT etc. deathball is doable but once P start adding some immos and carrier into the mix i think it is unbeatable. carrier are such an insanely strong unit if supported properly that Z cant win against a carrier HT immo voidray archon colossus army right now. so yeah, kill him before he gets there or type gg ^^
Uh it's not. If you go swarmhost/hydra/viper/ultra you can deal with it easy peasy lemon squeezy.
If he is going pure air no HT no Colo this is going to be even easier because you can just go hydra/viper and win.
No good Protoss is going to go pure air without storm. That's part of the god composition - tempest and templar -_- but you can do carrier + templar too or mass void + templar.
I dunno about your swarmhosts...every supply you have invested into swarmhosts is less corruptors/fungal/hydras, doesn't that make it way more difficult to play vs that air? Or are you saying it's worth it for the locusts to hunt down the templar? Because that only works if Protoss is stupid and engages away from their 5000 photon cannons.
Tbh, I don't think Zerg is actually meant to straight up beat skytoss + templar or skyterran + ravens/ghost. Or the best ways involve using your own units like, getting Protoss to storm his own interceptors/air, or microing corruptors with the seeker into the enemies viking/BC clumps.
To be honest I would know because I beat protoss players who go templar/tempest/voidray or pure voidray/templar. It's not hard at all. Seriously you have no idea ultra/hydra/swarmhost/viper SMASHES templar/voidray.
Honestly the stronger composition is quiet a few voids, but with a good ground support as well (so not pure sky toss + templar). Pure sky toss + templar is very easily countered by the composition I have said many times, ultra/hydra/swarmhost/viper does such a good job.
You will lose the fight but you will maintain all your swarmhosts, some ultra but you will lose all your hydras (he will have to many voids), but the remax of hydra will beat it then you win.
Also tempest/templar is even easier to beat in a straight up fight then voidray/templar. Honestly I don't think tempests are very good in pvz if zerg goes ultra/hydra/swarmhost/viper and voidrays are the better answer.
For anyone who wants to see replays of me killing a protoss deathball as I have said look at the replay pack here:http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=404915
It is all from the korean server and has quiet a few games to show case it as well as me beating a korean GM toss who gets that mass voidray/colo/templar deathball while getting 5 bases. To know I renamed that replay "GM toss" and I can't remember what else, but if you see a replay named GM toss in there that's the one you want to watch.
There is also a game of me vs a guy named EXID on daybreak, he gets 5-7 carriers with templar support (or colossi one of the 2) and I beat it with hydra/sh/ultra/viper.
My next youtube video will be going over me beating the late game protoss army. I will probably end up doing a few in a row to show case this for anyone curious.
watched the replay vs EXID: basically what i thought happened. you killed him before he could get his deathball. once the carriers arrived he never went over 120 supply and even there your hydras got smashed 3 fights until you finally got him down. if he had 200 supply he wouldve rolled over you. so basically you have to kill him before he gets 150+ supply because otherwise hydra + viper doesnt work and you will need corruptor, queen infestor to support your SHs. which is no problem to techswitch to but you will have to.
i think it will take time for P to play against SHs and best thing for them will be to turtle very hard with lots of cannons and doing multipronged WP harrass until they have huge skytoss army with lots of carriers or to just all in with things like blinkstalker etc.
To be honest I would know because I beat protoss players who go templar/tempest/voidray or pure voidray/templar. It's not hard at all.
Blade, I think when you refer to not being hard, you have a different meaning for the word "hard" in mind from most people posting here. What you mean is you have found a composition / play style that crushes skytoss.
However, what many people are referring to here is that the style you are using is extremely hard to pull off for a lesser player. I mean, I've seen your vids and you refer yourself to many aspects of what makes it so hard, for example, how easily you can lose all your SH if don't nurture them all the time.
So the thing is: it becomes easy if you have the multitasking, map awareness, game knowledge and decision making of Blade.
This is why I believe skytoss is mainly a concern for the lower leagues. Plat/diam players don't have the APM to do much more than good macro. You don't need more than that to build a skytoss army. You need a lot more than that to play your SH/hydra/viper/ultra style with constant pressure and 5 vs 3 bases.
To be honest I would know because I beat protoss players who go templar/tempest/voidray or pure voidray/templar. It's not hard at all.
Blade, I think when you refer to not being hard, you have a different meaning for the word "hard" in mind from most people posting here. What you mean is you have found a composition / play style that crushes skytoss.
However, what many people are referring to here is that the style you are using is extremely hard to pull off for a lesser player. I mean, I've seen your vids and you refer yourself to many aspects of what makes it so hard, for example, how easily you can lose all your SH if don't nurture them all the time.
So the thing is: it becomes easy if you have the multitasking, map awareness, game knowledge and decision making of Blade.
This is why I believe skytoss is mainly a concern for the lower leagues. Plat/diam players don't have the APM to do much more than good macro. You don't need more than that to build a skytoss army. You need a lot more than that to play your SH/hydra/viper/ultra style with constant pressure and 5 vs 3 bases.
Well a lower league Protoss player would also have a different composition as skytoss, and won't micro as good as a higher league player, which kind of is the answer to a lower league zerg. Which makes the conclusion simpler: It's not about the league.
Why? Cause even if both the higher league players have all the aspects you wrote in your post, we get to the same story: The composition is really strong lategame. Which I want to refer to my post. Look at TLO's solution. Be more patient and pick off the important units, because they are difficult to replace in a short time period. Which gives you an open window to crush the Protoss player, if you do it well.
Than how can I pick off those units with such an army? Well the viper is your solution. It has enough range to pick off a unit once in a while. So instead of trying to crush a deathball, you are hurting the deathball to make it a lesser deathball.
Like I said: look at my previous post, and check the vod of TLO versus Instict on Newkirch.
I am Top masters Zerg and play all races at top masters level on NA, I have a different play style and openings that I use in ZvP, I play extremely aggressive but opt for a Spire rather than roach hydra openings, it can be risky vs some msc + gateway timings, but early +1 for lings and into early spire can be very useful, if he opens 1 or double stargate which is indicative of skytoss play, i'd open with +1 attack on spire and just get corrupters and then transition into mutalisks,
but if you know hes going to open heavily with stargate play, open heavily with corrupters, because then you will be able to gain the air superiority and will set the toss behind, forcing him to stay on 2 base and pumping out of stargates, or going back into warpgate play to try to get the 3rd, but with speedling, corrupter, mutalisk, you will be able to get a 3rd and maintain air and ground superiority because of the mobility of speedling muta, or speedling corrupter, only go mutalisks if you know he will not be going pheonix, otherwise you will just get really far behind unless you have perfect micro and the timing of your defensive spores are perfect.
If you can time it correctly and open with speedling then into spire and get +1 corrupters when he opens stargates, and then transition into mutalisks once you gain air superiority, to maintain air superiority and gain a huge advantage, if needed sometimes it is possible you will have to throw down a lot of spine crawlers and or add a few swarmhosts once your 3rd is up to not die to some last ditch do or die attack attempt from the toss.
On March 26 2013 22:58 theMarkovian wrote: Against pure Carrier/Voidray? Pure Hydra. Make sure you micro your Hydra's so that they target the Carriers and not the interceptors (which they autotarget iirc). The Prismatic Alignement ability of Voidrays has no effect on Hydra's (does bonus damage on armored), so only the Carriers are scary. But without splash damage, the Hydra have free reign to shred down all the air. I'd vote against Corruptors, because they are so weak to Voidrays, or Vipers, because they are so fragile vs. Carriers.
It becomes more of a problem if the Protoss adds Colossus, as they kill Hydra so well. In that case, add Swarm Hosts and Vipers/Ultra.
hydras are very bad vs carrier and even with voidrays supply wise --> dont go hydras.
right now dealing with mass VR colo HT etc. deathball is doable but once P start adding some immos and carrier into the mix i think it is unbeatable. carrier are such an insanely strong unit if supported properly that Z cant win against a carrier HT immo voidray archon colossus army right now. so yeah, kill him before he gets there or type gg ^^
Uh it's not. If you go swarmhost/hydra/viper/ultra you can deal with it easy peasy lemon squeezy.
If he is going pure air no HT no Colo this is going to be even easier because you can just go hydra/viper and win.
No good Protoss is going to go pure air without storm. That's part of the god composition - tempest and templar -_- but you can do carrier + templar too or mass void + templar.
I dunno about your swarmhosts...every supply you have invested into swarmhosts is less corruptors/fungal/hydras, doesn't that make it way more difficult to play vs that air? Or are you saying it's worth it for the locusts to hunt down the templar? Because that only works if Protoss is stupid and engages away from their 5000 photon cannons.
Tbh, I don't think Zerg is actually meant to straight up beat skytoss + templar or skyterran + ravens/ghost. Or the best ways involve using your own units like, getting Protoss to storm his own interceptors/air, or microing corruptors with the seeker into the enemies viking/BC clumps.
To be honest I would know because I beat protoss players who go templar/tempest/voidray or pure voidray/templar. It's not hard at all. Seriously you have no idea ultra/hydra/swarmhost/viper SMASHES templar/voidray.
Honestly the stronger composition is quiet a few voids, but with a good ground support as well (so not pure sky toss + templar). Pure sky toss + templar is very easily countered by the composition I have said many times, ultra/hydra/swarmhost/viper does such a good job.
You will lose the fight but you will maintain all your swarmhosts, some ultra but you will lose all your hydras (he will have to many voids), but the remax of hydra will beat it then you win.
Also tempest/templar is even easier to beat in a straight up fight then voidray/templar. Honestly I don't think tempests are very good in pvz if zerg goes ultra/hydra/swarmhost/viper and voidrays are the better answer.
For anyone who wants to see replays of me killing a protoss deathball as I have said look at the replay pack here:http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=404915
It is all from the korean server and has quiet a few games to show case it as well as me beating a korean GM toss who gets that mass voidray/colo/templar deathball while getting 5 bases. To know I renamed that replay "GM toss" and I can't remember what else, but if you see a replay named GM toss in there that's the one you want to watch.
There is also a game of me vs a guy named EXID on daybreak, he gets 5-7 carriers with templar support (or colossi one of the 2) and I beat it with hydra/sh/ultra/viper.
My next youtube video will be going over me beating the late game protoss army. I will probably end up doing a few in a row to show case this for anyone curious.
It's pretty hilarious that you've actually found a way to beat this comp and posted videos of your beating the supposed ultimate comp (against high level competition) and yet there are still people saying that the "ultimate" late game P army is unbeatable. Even so, your finding an apparent solution to the problem has at least taken the wind out of the sails of most of the many vocal balance whiners on TL, who can't wait to declare X, Y and Z composition unbeatable, that HoTS is broken and that Blizzard has no idea what they're doing. Avilo was clearly crestfallen to learn that someone had found an apparent solution to the unbeatable P army and, to add insult to injury, that it involved swarm hosts (since whiners usually maintain that Swarm Hosts are useless unless you mass them).
It doesn't surprise me at all that SHs are a key part of beating HT - mass air comps, given that their effective range is longer than anything in the P deathball. I had a while back speculated that swarm hosts would be part of an eventual solution, if one would be found, so it seems like for once I wasn't too off base with my prediction. In the beta, and probably still now, players seemed to view SHs as something you either commit to completely or don't build at all. Your sucess undermines this sort of "either-or" view of SHs and shows that they can have utility even when not massed.
EPT
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