Hi there. I'm wondering about aggresive plays vs passive plays vs zergs (if there is any real passive plays vs zergs).
It seems to me that harassing zerg in early game with adepts or phoenix, could lower a bit their race advantage, but these harass are a huge investment. This because while you can kill few drones (and let's say it, you get real advatange on zerg only when u kill half of his drones in early game) you can do absolutly no damage and suffer the drawback of harassing.
First scenario: you start with 2 adepts harass, you can kill 5-6 drones then save them or you can kill no drones and loose the adepts. This also requires a way more much effort for protoss to micro 2 units while expanding and getting up tech. Anyway, let's assume we are all proes here. So you did ur harass, you forced a hell out of lings, that just go to your base. And here it is the first problem: you forced lots of lings but can u deal with it? Mostly you will use all your PO and kill lings or just let them escape, because you have little units in base since you where teching. Frocing PO means u have no PO when the next push, with roach ravager, comes. I also saw adepts follow up with pronged attacks of adepts: the problem is if roach are out, you will do no damage at all and you lost because terrible behind in tech units.
Second scenario: phoenix harass. Going blind spores is pretty standard for zergs, anyway, let's assume zerg is stupid and doesn't do spores. You can kill almost a dozen of drones BUT on a zerg that is already on 3 bases (because phoenix are out later) so he will just cap drones faster. Also, phoenix harass is very expensive gas-wise so you won't have so many tech units in base, and u get and expansion on the way. Still, even if you hurted zerg eco (12 drones?) he will pump out roaches and kill you. I know you deny scout to zerg, but does zerg really need to scout protoss when there is only 1 viable composition in this matchup?
Third scenario, is the lazy zerg. He just can't defend from harass, takes a bit damage from adepts, a bit damage from phoenix, but he doesn't care. He go hydra lurkers and mostly this will win him the game, becase to harass protoss has little tech units in base.
What i want to ask is: are harassing strategies really viable in pvz? they are pretty risky from my point of view and even if you do a bit of econ damage, you are still behind. Is there any passive strategy to build out fast tech units without loosing zerg pushes?
On March 28 2016 17:12 Icekin wrote: Hi there. I'm wondering about aggresive plays vs passive plays vs zergs (if there is any real passive plays vs zergs).
It seems to me that harassing zerg in early game with adepts or phoenix, could lower a bit their race advantage, but these harass are a huge investment. This because while you can kill few drones (and let's say it, you get real advatange on zerg only when u kill half of his drones in early game) you can do absolutly no damage and suffer the drawback of harassing.
First scenario: you start with 2 adepts harass, you can kill 5-6 drones then save them or you can kill no drones and loose the adepts. This also requires a way more much effort for protoss to micro 2 units while expanding and getting up tech. Anyway, let's assume we are all proes here. So you did ur harass, you forced a hell out of lings, that just go to your base. And here it is the first problem: you forced lots of lings but can u deal with it? Mostly you will use all your PO and kill lings or just let them escape, because you have little units in base since you where teching. Frocing PO means u have no PO when the next push, with roach ravager, comes. I also saw adepts follow up with pronged attacks of adepts: the problem is if roach are out, you will do no damage at all and you lost because terrible behind in tech units.
Second scenario: phoenix harass. Going blind spores is pretty standard for zergs, anyway, let's assume zerg is stupid and doesn't do spores. You can kill almost a dozen of drones BUT on a zerg that is already on 3 bases (because phoenix are out later) so he will just cap drones faster. Also, phoenix harass is very expensive gas-wise so you won't have so many tech units in base, and u get and expansion on the way. Still, even if you hurted zerg eco (12 drones?) he will pump out roaches and kill you. I know you deny scout to zerg, but does zerg really need to scout protoss when there is only 1 viable composition in this matchup?
Third scenario, is the lazy zerg. He just can't defend from harass, takes a bit damage from adepts, a bit damage from phoenix, but he doesn't care. He go hydra lurkers and mostly this will win him the game, becase to harass protoss has little tech units in base.
What i want to ask is: are harassing strategies really viable in pvz? they are pretty risky from my point of view and even if you do a bit of econ damage, you are still behind. Is there any passive strategy to build out fast tech units without loosing zerg pushes?
You do this adept or phoenix harass, not only to kill 1-20 drones/queens...but to gain info + win time. If he go blind LingRoachRavager allin, it will hit you ~5:30 from 3 bases, and your phoenix/adepts will come at ~5:00 to his bases. By this you will gather info: that u need 10 more pylons for def, if you got SG you start voidrays, and u can prepare at your 3-d. vs Lurker Hydra , you will try to delay his attack timing, and meet him in the middle of the map or sandwich on 3-d...etc.etc... + you can give him choices, like he want to attack now, or leave army at bases, so he wont lose whole economy to 8 adept harass..... But passive style wont give you timing advantages
Are there any viable one-base counter-builds or is defence into 'normal' expo+teching the preferred way to go? The thing is, I've recently lost twice to a scouted (!) proxy racks. Twice, I've pulled drones and the racks got cancelled. First time, I went for a quick expo, while the opponent just rebuild the racks in a different location, added another two and rushed me down (wide ramp at natural). The second time, being somewhat freaked out after the first loss, I've tried some sort of a middle-ish follow up, with a adept poke into an expo. But this time, the opponent immediately expo'd after failed rush, walled off his ramp with a bunker, my adepts got nothing done and I quickly ended up behind economically and eventually wiped out.
I reach out to you brethren Protoss, as I'm sure you can imagine my (drumroll...) pain!
On April 01 2016 18:35 Major Glory wrote: Hi there,
Looking for suggestions against Terran all-ins.
Are there any viable one-base counter-builds or is defence into 'normal' expo+teching the preferred way to go? The thing is, I've recently lost twice to a scouted (!) proxy racks. Twice, I've pulled drones and the racks got cancelled. First time, I went for a quick expo, while the opponent just rebuild the racks in a different location, added another two and rushed me down (wide ramp at natural). The second time, being somewhat freaked out after the first loss, I've tried some sort of a middle-ish follow up, with a adept poke into an expo. But this time, the opponent immediately expo'd after failed rush, walled off his ramp with a bunker, my adepts got nothing done and I quickly ended up behind economically and eventually wiped out.
I reach out to you brethren Protoss, as I'm sure you can imagine my (drumroll...) pain!
First case: you should be able to defend your expo with 3 pylons, photon overcharge, and constant adept production. If you know your opponent is going ham on proxy raxes (more than 2) maybe cut some probes to add more quickly 2 extra gateways and a forge for photon cannon as extra defense.
Second case: I think robo->prism and adept aggression on 3 gateways is a better follow up. It may outright kill him if he is not prepared well enough and you still have a way out if it does not.
On April 01 2016 18:35 Major Glory wrote: Hi there, Looking for suggestions against Terran all-ins. Are there any viable one-base counter-builds or is defence into 'normal' expo+teching the preferred way to go? The thing is, I've recently lost twice to a scouted (!) proxy racks. Twice, I've pulled drones and the racks got cancelled. First time, I went for a quick expo, while the opponent just rebuild the racks in a different location, added another two and rushed me down (wide ramp at natural). (...)
First case: you should be able to defend your expo with 3 pylons, photon overcharge, and constant adept production. If you know your opponent is going ham on proxy raxes (more than 2) maybe cut some probes to add more quickly 2 extra gateways and a forge for photon cannon as extra defense. (...).
Thanks. I'm opening with a build that was described on TL a while ago GW --> Nexus --> Core --> MC, adept, GW Worked great back in the days of PO costing 25 energy, not so much now. Last time the first wave of mariners arrived, I had enough energy for 1 overcharge + 2 adepts & 2 GWs. This buys me some 15 seconds of life until overcharge wears off, then he walks up the ramp and guns everything down with stutter-stepping marines. Extra GWs or forge don't really have a chance to complete - is this build obsolete now or am I making a different mistake?
On April 01 2016 18:35 Major Glory wrote: Hi there, Looking for suggestions against Terran all-ins. Are there any viable one-base counter-builds or is defence into 'normal' expo+teching the preferred way to go? The thing is, I've recently lost twice to a scouted (!) proxy racks. Twice, I've pulled drones and the racks got cancelled. First time, I went for a quick expo, while the opponent just rebuild the racks in a different location, added another two and rushed me down (wide ramp at natural). (...)
First case: you should be able to defend your expo with 3 pylons, photon overcharge, and constant adept production. If you know your opponent is going ham on proxy raxes (more than 2) maybe cut some probes to add more quickly 2 extra gateways and a forge for photon cannon as extra defense. (...).
Thanks. I'm opening with a build that was described on TL a while ago GW --> Nexus --> Core --> MC, adept, GW Worked great back in the days of PO costing 25 energy, not so much now. Last time the first wave of mariners arrived, I had enough energy for 1 overcharge + 2 adepts & 2 GWs. This buys me some 15 seconds of life until overcharge wears off, then he walks up the ramp and guns everything down with stutter-stepping marines. Extra GWs or forge don't really have a chance to complete - is this build obsolete now or am I making a different mistake?
My suggestion is based on the worst-case assumption that you did indeed this opener and could not cancel your nexus in time. You are also expected to pull some probes to buffer for your adepts in this case and pray that your micro does the job I guess. Ideally if you go scout right after starting your gateway you should be able to see in time that something is wrong either by seeing the proxy itself ot by seeing at your opponent's base that a rax is missing (and that it is not CC first) so that you are still able to cancel your nexus, go cyber to get your MSC asap, get a 2nd gateway and be ready to close your (main) ramp with 3 pylons depending on the emergency.
On April 02 2016 03:40 9Lyves wrote: I've been running into Ling/Bling openers that bust my front. This hits before 4 Mins and is very difficult to hold. CAn I get any suggestions?
You can hold every, and I mean every, Zerg 1-2 base all-ins by opening Stargate and getting Voids Ray. That, and making sure your walls are good and FF's are on point.
Immediately rebuild parts of the wall that get broken down, and get Zealots, not Adepts so you can pour the remaining gas into Voids.
On April 02 2016 03:40 9Lyves wrote: I've been running into Ling/Bling openers that bust my front. This hits before 4 Mins and is very difficult to hold. CAn I get any suggestions?
You can hold every, and I mean every, Zerg 1-2 base all-ins by opening Stargate and getting Voids Ray. That, and making sure your walls are good and FF's are on point.
Immediately rebuild parts of the wall that get broken down, and get Zealots, not Adepts so you can pour the remaining gas into Voids.
That is not true, lots of all ins you can't hold without msc + 3 gates. The key to defending these all ins is scout when the zerg takes their pool and gas and if they take their third base ~2:40-3:00. If not, something is up >:{
On April 02 2016 03:40 9Lyves wrote: I've been running into Ling/Bling openers that bust my front. This hits before 4 Mins and is very difficult to hold. CAn I get any suggestions?
You can hold every, and I mean every, Zerg 1-2 base all-ins by opening Stargate and getting Voids Ray. That, and making sure your walls are good and FF's are on point.
Immediately rebuild parts of the wall that get broken down, and get Zealots, not Adepts so you can pour the remaining gas into Voids.
That is not true, lots of all ins you can't hold without msc + 3 gates. The key to defending these all ins is scout when the zerg takes their pool and gas and if they take their third base ~2:40-3:00. If not, something is up >:{
herO vs leenock last night opening stargate. Got oracles for some reason but it wouldnt have mattered with 2 queens
Am I right in thinking that the current maps show what a failure mothership core is for protoss? It's great for maps like last season's ones but it's not as great for the new maps because third base and second base are too far. It may still be fine if you know where to expect enemy but... I just find it difficult to defend on the new maps.
Guys, I'm feel completly perplexed, dumb and lost. I recently hit a dramatically bad streak of games (~25-30% winrate in the last 25+ games) and even if I win, it seems that I can't really explain why, as if it was just luck. This applies to all matchups, but mostly to PvP and PvZ. I'm trying to figure out what happened and where I should improve. Any advice would be useful, but if you could give me a couple of simple things I could work on (like: "Pay attention to where your army is so you don't lose all your effing disruptors in two seconds" or "Make a sentry and send a hallucination once in a while"), it would be great.
Background: I finished HotS in diamond (climbing from bronze to diamond over the span of 2 years, so nothing to be proud of) and finished in diamond in LotV beta and the first two ladder seasons. I don't have a lot of time to play. On average that would be about 10-20 games a week. So probably there is not a lot more that I can achieve by improving mechanics, with not a lot of practice time.
I open gate-gas-nexus-core in all matchups.
PvT: I try to open stargate because a) drops kill me b) liberator harrasment kills me too. After that I usually pump adepts while techning to storm. The flaws that I identified are as follows: - too slow tech development resulting in not enough AoE (late storm, fighting bio balls with gateway units only etc.) or perhaps I simply don't make enough units? - bad multitasking (late reactions to mine drops) - not enough scouting (failing to identify preparations for liberator pushes etc.) - if the game is long and liberators should be expected, late transition to tempest
PvP: I hate stargate openings in PvP but I often go that way because it seems that the meta almost forces me to (fast oracles, mass phoenix). On the other hand, that's less stressful than going full stalker/disruptor and trying not to suffer a heart attack after blinking a milisecond too late. The flaws that I identified are as follows: - taking my third too late, - engagements messed up on every front, i.e. choosing when to engage, positioning (like loosing track of tempests or disruptors so that the enemy can blink on/under them), reactions (not microing phoenixes), - forgetting to upgrade, - bad army compositions (relying too much on gateway units, not enough immortals/disruptors, not transitioning in time).
PvZ: Again, I open stargate and build a couple of phoenixes to a) kill overlords b) harrass if possible c) scout d) try to keep them alive for mutas. Then the general idea is to build immortals and eventually combine them with archons, templars and chargelots. The flaws that I identified are as follows: - taking my third too late, - engagements, holy crap. How often did I just charge into sieged positions with a couple of lurkers, I can't even count. I even managed to move-command 6 colossus with range into a group of burrowed lurkers. How often did I leave my immortals to fight hydras on their own. And how many times did I forget that zerg players can remax at once after trading armies, - forgetting to upgrade, - bad army compositions resulting from lack of proper scouting).
As you can see, I tried to list the flaws in my play on my own, but on my level (diamond until last week, right now probably low platinum) my diagnosis is likely to be incorrect. So I'd appreciate any help.
Hey, this is a really good post so I hope people give you some in-depth pointers from looking at the replays. I don't think your analysis is particularly wrong, but the focus is on the wrong place. If a big engagement goes really bad, there was usually mistakes 5-10 minutes prior that lead to that engagement going as it went.
In order to improve, I would advise you to relentlessly focus on the same gameplan, one for each matchup. You already have an opening build, which is good, but for the gameplan, it is a lot more comprehensive. When to get infrastructure, when to expand, when to attack, what units to build, positioning and so on. The more of your gameplan you can execute comfortably, the more brain power you have to focus on your weaknesses. It's kind of like starting to weightlift, it might be slow and repetitive, but you are training the muscles that are lagging behind. This will definitely improve your mechanics, and it is definitely doable in a 10-20 games a week.
The reason I'm giving this kind of advice is that you are quite good, you are able to identify mistakes and incorporate them into your play, so there's not really a big need for me to point them out. But you want a structured framework that you can incorporate the fixes into. If everything is kind of 'winging' it after the first two tech choices, then it's going to hinder your rate of improvement.
A lot of Protoss in HotS could comfortably sit on two base and just push out with a three colossus deathball, and that would be perfectly legit. LotV is different, Protoss is no longer king on the ground, so it's more benficial for you to be aggressive, both in terms of expanding and attacking.
On April 08 2016 19:16 corydoras wrote: Guys As you can see, I tried to list the flaws in my play on my own, but on my level (diamond until last week, right now probably low platinum) my diagnosis is likely to be incorrect. So I'd appreciate any help.
Basically, you got one mistake in all games, that leads you to your guesses..You stoping to build workers.. You sacrifice worker production, to build gates and tech earlyer, but then , you dont have economy to worker + army production + gather for new bases.. So try to make algorythm:
1)build probe
2)check if i need pylon
3)decide if i need to build army (in some games is ok to sit on 3 stalkers + MSC till 5 minutes)
4) a)if army needed build army -> Check money
b)army not needed -> Check money
5) a)army builded and you have 400+Minerlas ->> decide to build expo or more production (if you decide production, means you planing all in, or defending all in) -> continue to step (1)
b)you dont need army and you have 400+ --->>> make expo, or hard tech for all in -> continue to step (1)
c)you made/not made army , but you have <400 minerals ? -> continue to step (1)
~~~~~you have around ~10 seconds to do this algorithm (probe build time)~~~~~
So you need to risk somewhere to get advantage in economy, you play super safe, survive attacks, but you behind all game because its too much tech on 2 bases. Some timings : get your 3-d base from 4 to 6-30 latest, on ~7:00 transfer 8 probes from your main to 3-d / or 4-th base.
On April 09 2016 15:17 TedBurtle wrote: Some timings : get your 3-d base from 4 to 6-30 latest, on ~7:00 transfer 8 probes from your main to 3-d / or 4-th base.
Thanks. Are there any benchmarks in term of probe count that I should be aiming at?
On April 02 2016 03:40 9Lyves wrote: I've been running into Ling/Bling openers that bust my front. This hits before 4 Mins and is very difficult to hold. CAn I get any suggestions?
You can hold every, and I mean every, Zerg 1-2 base all-ins by opening Stargate and getting Voids Ray. That, and making sure your walls are good and FF's are on point.
Immediately rebuild parts of the wall that get broken down, and get Zealots, not Adepts so you can pour the remaining gas into Voids.
That is not true, lots of all ins you can't hold without msc + 3 gates. The key to defending these all ins is scout when the zerg takes their pool and gas and if they take their third base ~2:40-3:00. If not, something is up >:{
What ? I'm zerg so I may not understand this from a protoss PoV, but isn't taking gas + taking third at 3 min a very standard opening ?
On April 02 2016 03:40 9Lyves wrote: I've been running into Ling/Bling openers that bust my front. This hits before 4 Mins and is very difficult to hold. CAn I get any suggestions?
You can hold every, and I mean every, Zerg 1-2 base all-ins by opening Stargate and getting Voids Ray. That, and making sure your walls are good and FF's are on point.
Immediately rebuild parts of the wall that get broken down, and get Zealots, not Adepts so you can pour the remaining gas into Voids.
That is not true, lots of all ins you can't hold without msc + 3 gates. The key to defending these all ins is scout when the zerg takes their pool and gas and if they take their third base ~2:40-3:00. If not, something is up >:{
What ? I'm zerg so I may not understand this from a protoss PoV, but isn't taking gas + taking third at 3 min a very standard opening ?
Yeah, it is a very standard opening, that's why if it is not happening, it becomes a strong warning sign.
EPT
