On December 22 2015 22:02 therealkillemall wrote: Hi all. I've been struggling against Protoss air + HTs. First of all, I dont know if it's sensible letting P take expansions for free and mass air units (even if you play extremely greedy). Second, how should be engaged that kind of army? Parasitic bomb is pretty good against air, but vipers get hard countered by HT's... I've tried base racing whenever the P fleet leaves home, but it seems to me a bit of a coinflip due to high count of cannons and mass recall available. Any good adivce?
Thank you all.
Generally not letting it get too far along is a good idea. The "piss build" can work really well re-actively off this opening vs phenix openers. Instead of mutas go for 10 corruptors and a lot of ling-roach. Distract them at the front with your main army while pissing on one of their nexuses in the back. Dis-engage, and do it again hitting a different nexus. Follow-up with the standard transition to broods and ultras. Killing their nexuses will rekt their economy pretty hard :D. Big Hydra-ling-corruptor timings can work just to win with a frontal assault sometimes too, though it can be a bit of a gamble.
Ofc if it does get to lategame you want advice on how to fight airtoss. Vs Tempests, phenix and voidrays you want to have a bunch of broodlords. A few vipers (a lot if they have heaps of voidrays), some queens, and a shit-ton of corruptors. Spread the corruptors in a huge concave over multiple screens before you engage. Parasitic Bomb on any clumped air units, especially Voidrays and otherwise just try to transfuse as much as you can and focus-fire templar with broods if possible.
vs Carriers - You can kill them before they reach critical mass with +carapace corruptor timings focusing down the carriers. However the more reliable method is to just go 3-3 ultras and adrenal lings + banes and just counterattack them constantly off a huge economy of ~100 drones. Use banes to bust walls and just flood through constantly. It will be very hard for them to maintain much economy if you multiprong correctly. Each interceptor shot will do 0.5-1 damage which means it will take 500-1000 interceptor shots to kill a single ultralisk.
In the meantime drop a huge ball of spores infront of your newest bases and add ~10 infestors. You should be adding double spire behind all this and upgrading constantly and when he finally tries to shove in you can build a shit-ton of corruptors. Be wary of doing this too early as remember you should smash a basetrade with just ultra-ling-bane and as long as you keep your spore-army alive he will lose. So only fill up on corruptors when you really have to. When he does finally fight your spores just chain-fungal interceptors over the spores and it will cost him a huge amount of money to bust through. If you have corruptors supporting too he shouldn't be able to break through. It's very technical but hilarious when you do it right. The ultimate protoss armada tends to just get shat on by good counterattacks and units that can't hit up :D
On December 23 2015 10:19 Quazman wrote: Hey PiG, fantastic guide! Thanks for the great streams and advice.
Been trying out this build and really liking it. The only move that toss makes that screws with me is when they make a medium-sized (6-8) pheonix fleet (typically out of 1 stargate) and start flying around and screwing with me. I typically like to drop 1 spore per base, pump out a few extra queens and chase them around transfusing as I go. But inevitably the pheonixes will pick off a few overlords, some transferring drones and the occasional stray queen.
Do you think it's best to skip the spire in this case, lay a hydra den instead and get a contingent of 8 hydras or so? This eliminates the easy transition to broods but does open up lurker play. The other thought would be to get the infester energy upgrade and try to land a fungle.
Thanks man, keep up the amazing work!
Hey mate great question. The hydra contingent is something I like to do, though I rarely go lurker with them as it costs so much gas and I really want that hive tech out. I usually still stick to the exact same plan otherwise, adding infestors and then going ultras and into broods.
However I also have recently started messing around with the piss build vs phenix players (as outlined in my previous answer), especially if my lair and spire are fast I can skimp on spores, sometimes skipping them entirely and go straight to 10 corruptors. Pissing their nexii down is hilarious and you have a sickkkk broodlord transition. With 8+ corruptors it takes under 10 seconds to kill a nexus. So with 10 corruptors its only possible for them to save it if they see you coming and have a LOT of antiair in position.
It hasn't worked for me because of how hard phoenix shuts down mutas and stargate opener is really popular right now for the map control and harass it gives
Muta tech switches can work though
Also pig I was getting owned with your build by zealot archon and other gateway / robo heavy armies until I started going lurkers. I am only platinum but getting 8-10 lurkers was the only thing letting me handle protoss ground armies
ps. do you have any replays of your zvp dealing with phoenix contain?
On January 03 2016 21:03 littlebear wrote: I remember in HotS you could go mass mutas ZvP. You'd have full map control so you could expand everywhere, your fuckton of extra minerals would go into spines, and if the opponent moved out you would just win the base trade. A sufficient number of mutas plus good micro would beat everything but phoenix/archon/high templar, and if the game really dragged on you could transition to infestor ultras.
Does this still work?
On January 04 2016 18:45 Merkmerk wrote: ^
It hasn't worked for me because of how hard phoenix shuts down mutas and stargate opener is really popular right now for the map control and harass it gives
Muta tech switches can work though
Also pig I was getting owned with your build by zealot archon and other gateway / robo heavy armies until I started going lurkers. I am only platinum but getting 8-10 lurkers was the only thing letting me handle protoss ground armies
ps. do you have any replays of your zvp dealing with phoenix contain?
Yeah Merkmerk is pretty right. Even in HOTS if you did that style it woudldn't really work much vs high level opponents because even if you force a lot of stalker-archon, they could eventually get phenix with range and you'd never be able to trade off your mutas efficiently.
Yeah Merkmerk Chargelot builds are really common right now I'm thinking of a baneling nest might help, but generally I'm aiming to practice ling-(safety warren)-Lurker and otherwise follow the same progression and see how it goes. Once I have a good feel for that style I'll see how to adjust when necessary and find the sweet spot.
For vs phenix read previous comments I made in this thread and check out this VoD:
There's also a VoD vs Parting where I go for the same transition thinking he was following up with phenix and it doesn't work out so well, but I end up winning so hey it couldn't be too bad
Alternatively my previous standard and much less trolling reaction is to just get a handful of hydras and skimp on roaches vs phenix and continue along the same tech path. I don't think I have any VoDs or replays of that on hand though sorry about that.
I feel like you dealt with the initial 2 Adepts better than I ever do with gasless openings. When I play, the Adept harass really starts to throw off momentum, sometimes even getting quite a few drone kills. Is it safe to say that against 1-Gate adept/expand, you want to have about 10 slow Lings by 3:30~ to help get a surround / ensure no Drones fall? Would you get more slow Zerglings against 2gate adept? Any tips for scouting/responding/minimizing damage from adepts with a gasless 3-hatch opening would be appreciated!
It's actually kind of funny, as I watched the game I was thinking "Alright this is when 3 of my workers die to these adepts then an oracle flies into my main and kills 8 more." State went to your natural; but if he had have stayed in the main he probably would have netted a few extra kills. Would you say it was a mistake for you not to have a spore in the main by then? You'd have to start it so early though like...3:45 on Ulrena.
On January 10 2016 23:18 TangSC wrote: I feel like you dealt with the initial 2 Adepts better than I ever do with gasless openings. When I play, the Adept harass really starts to throw off momentum, sometimes even getting quite a few drone kills. Is it safe to say that against 1-Gate adept/expand, you want to have about 10 slow Lings by 3:30~ to help get a surround / ensure no Drones fall? Would you get more slow Zerglings against 2gate adept? Any tips for scouting/responding/minimizing damage from adepts with a gasless 3-hatch opening would be appreciated!
It's actually kind of funny, as I watched the game I was thinking "Alright this is when 3 of my workers die to these adepts then an oracle flies into my main and kills 8 more." State went to your natural; but if he had have stayed in the main he probably would have netted a few extra kills. Would you say it was a mistake for you not to have a spore in the main by then? You'd have to start it so early though like...3:45 on Ulrena.
Yeah adept defence is a never-ending battle haha. Generally I say have 4 lings for every adept, and a few more to make things easier is never a bad idea. Also always connect your bases with creep (something I'm only now adding in as a "I MUST DO THIS EVERY GAME" as players get better and better with adepts.
The general rule is you follow the shades with the lings (try to be in front of them as they move faster). The fast 4th queen extra at the front puts a timer on adepts hitting your front base, so even if they dive in there just run the drones and follow the shade. Always run the drones from the actual adepts and cover the shade with lings whilst queens whittle away. Only go to surround the actual adepts when you can shut it down. Remember from it shading to a location you have 4 seconds till it can shade again, and 7 seconds till the shade finishes. So between shade's there's 11 seconds where the adept is exposed, but if you commit and don't kill them you'll expose a different mineral line to drones, so you have to be sure you can shut them down.
Yeah not having a spore in the main on this map was sloppy as all hell haha. Most exposed base should always get a safety spore or the creep queen chilling in it! He definitely coulda got ~6-7 kills.
When I spot adept harrass incoming (i.e. scout a 2 gate expand build with chronoed adepts) I usually make a spine in each of my mineral lines and cut zerglings - usually they see this and don't build more than the first 2/4 adepts and this lets me transition safely into roaches (to hold aggression) or into hive tech (atm i've been going ling lurker ravager with brood/ultra in the very late game...anyway, do you think building 3 spines is really punishing at that stage in the game, considering the above? I know its probably inefficient but I really struggle vs adepts
1) Many protoss players add their 3rd/4th gases almost at 4:00, usually 5 - 10 seconds earlier. In this case, i can leave my ovie flying/looking a bit more at their natural to see if they will throw down the gases?
2) In case that my scout was denied, and i only have been able to see 1 Gas at natural, how do i play? can i assume that he went the 4th as well? or i still need to be worried of adept/immortal/zealot?
3) Last question, any safe things do vs Dark Templars, people in lower leagues like a lot, they often hide the shrine, even put a fake tech (stargate, robotics) to feint you to believe there's no DTs and i die.
On January 16 2016 02:31 Maxie wrote: I remember you mentioning a ZvZ guide on your stream at some point, got an ETA on that one?
SOONtm - I'll throw up a simple guide in the next day or two and add to it over time.
On January 19 2016 07:52 cabal] wrote: how do you deal with cannon rushes with 3 hatch in lotv?
Check on any scouting probe with a drone, follow it if you feel safer that way and pull drones. If a pylon goes down ~5 drones, The moment the pylon finishes have ~8 more drones hotkeyd and bring them down while your other 5 drones block the key cannon spots (don't let them wall off any cannons) and try to kill the probe. If it's before you drop your 3rd hatch ofc drop a pool first.
I've actually heard that hatch-pool-hatch is more efficient then 3-hatch (and it feels pretty identical ingame) so if you're more comfortable just do that every game.
On January 19 2016 08:49 VBBandit wrote: When I spot adept harrass incoming (i.e. scout a 2 gate expand build with chronoed adepts) I usually make a spine in each of my mineral lines and cut zerglings - usually they see this and don't build more than the first 2/4 adepts and this lets me transition safely into roaches (to hold aggression) or into hive tech (atm i've been going ling lurker ravager with brood/ultra in the very late game...anyway, do you think building 3 spines is really punishing at that stage in the game, considering the above? I know its probably inefficient but I really struggle vs adepts
It's costly but definitely can work up to a pretty high level. Just make sure you delay your gases till 3:30+ if you prefer this method.
On January 19 2016 11:28 Alstreim wrote: PiG
1) Many protoss players add their 3rd/4th gases almost at 4:00, usually 5 - 10 seconds earlier. In this case, i can leave my ovie flying/looking a bit more at their natural to see if they will throw down the gases?
2) In case that my scout was denied, and i only have been able to see 1 Gas at natural, how do i play? can i assume that he went the 4th as well? or i still need to be worried of adept/immortal/zealot?
3) Last question, any safe things do vs Dark Templars, people in lower leagues like a lot, they often hide the shrine, even put a fake tech (stargate, robotics) to feint you to believe there's no DTs and i die.
Thanks in advance, Alstreim
1. Yeah if you go in a bit later at 4:00 it should be fine, you won't have hit 50 drones yet so it's not too important till then. It's just simpler to poke/send the ovie in at 3:30 along with the sacrificial one.
2. I'd assume both at 90% of players won't be playing a mindgame. Therefore that's the right decision 90% of the time. If you want just send that overlord in a bit further to confirm, but already knowing they're mining 3-gas means the strongest attack will still be delayed from a 2-gas timing so with efficient play you'll usually hold with close to 3-base saturation. Ofc if you haven't seen a 3rd base at ~5:30 you'll probably just be massing units anyway.
3. Going Lair first as standard can help. Or just putting down a few safety spores every game.
EPT
