quick blink stalkers vs mass hydra

Surrealz

United States449 Posts

May 19 2010 09:04 GMT

Not gonna post a replay cause its very simple, but when a zerg very quickly expands, and you don't harass early with zealots and simply rush Blink Stalkers (like tozar), how does one win this matchup? I've watched tozar's stream/replays, and he really never takes on the hydras without a mass of DTs and other stuff. Problem is that a zerg with 1 expo and rushing hydras has a crapload of zerglings and hydras, and gateway units simply cannot keep up. I'd love to keep using this fast blink tech build (its really fun/versatile), but it seems I can't beat mass hydras without a Colossi/Sentries/Thermal Lance upgrade. What kind of transition do you guys reccomend against such a build? I tried to harass with my stalkers, ended up taking down a queen and a few workers, but for the most part 20+ hydras is gonna beat 8-12ish stalkers, lol. If I go DT, I can do some serious damage, but he will eventually fall back to his spinecrawlers, make overseers, and then come back. This can buy me a couple of minutes of time, but its not like I will be able to tech all the way to collosus in this time. I'm really stumped here.

As soon as he gets roughly 20-30 hydras he WILL push, and I WILL die without time to switch all the way up to collosi.

If a replay is completely needed let me know, I can provide many of them of me getting my ass kicked in bronze/silver as blink stalkers/DT vs Hydra.

Surrealz

United States449 Posts

May 19 2010 09:06 GMT

http://www.sc2rc.com/index.php/replay/show/5845

threw up a replay. I macro'd pretty terribly, but even if I had 2-3 more stalkers I still would have gotten owned. Blink push toward his mineral line was pretty awful. Got owned by lings and paid for it big time.

NovaTheFeared

United States7232 Posts

May 19 2010 09:07 GMT

If you're going on a blink tech path anyway, why not templar archives as a way to counter hydra?

Drakonis

Canada97 Posts

May 19 2010 09:09 GMT

Well of course 20+ hydras is going to destroy 8-12 stalkers, they are roughly the same in cost, and there are twice as many hydras as stalkers. You say that gateway units cannot keep up, but I would argue that warpgates combined with chronoboost should to a fairly decent job at keeping up with the zergs macro. A replay would be helpful, and would allow us to see exactly what the situation is in order to assess the problem correctly.

I was slow at typing, and did not see the replay.. watching now

Surrealz

United States449 Posts

May 19 2010 09:26 GMT

The problem is that if you let the zerg FE he will out produce ANY protoss, chrono or not. His expansion goes up early and I don't have the units to harass because of his lings and my lack of zealots. By the time I start cranking out Stalkers to a respectable level (3-4 gates) he is doubling that, EVERY time. btw the guy in my replay is platinum and I am bronze, rofl. But still, any advice is greatly appreciated, thanks.

@nova- HT tech takes a rather incredible economy to support it, and alot of time. You can trust that any decent zerg is going to rush in with his 25+ hydras knowing that all I have is a crapload of blink stalkers and maybe a few DTs. Teching to DTs works, but it delays the inevitable. Unless I get a DT into his base, I am screwed, and most of them line their ramp with spinecrawlers (as that guy did). I feel as though using DTs is just a gimmick anyways, it ignores the issue of my blink stalkers being terribad vs hydras and tries to get an instant win with a stealth unit that rapes their bases/expos.

Drakonis

Canada97 Posts

May 19 2010 09:26 GMT

Okay first thing i noticed, was at about 8minutes in, your minerals were at 800+ and gas at 500+.
You had 3 warp gates up and running, but were not continuing to produce units.
Also, you clearly saw that your opponent had a ling heavy composition, and should have added a few zealots in with your stalkers to serve as a meat shield.
Around 10 minutes in, you blinked into the opponents main to harass the queen, and with a bit of a blink mis-micro you allowed all of your stalkers to get surrounded by lings and die. Yes you killed the queen, but it wasn't worth losing all of your stalkers. Still at this point, you have WAY too many minerals and gas. Around 11 minutes in, after losing your whole army, you added a robo bay and 3 more gateways.. and still hadn't even saturated your expo (there were NO probes mining at it). You should have opted to try to replenish your army, instead of adding 4 more production buildings to make up for the lack of macro. The 450 minerals spent on those gateways would have been better spent on a few more stalkers. Also, you warped 3 stalkers at your proxy pylon, and just left them there unattended, where they were easily overrun by zergs army.
Your 6 gateways and 1 robo bay went to waste as you did not have the income to support the production. In the final battle where zerg overran you, you were very delayed in getting the forcefields up to block the choke, and more zealots would have been ideal to stop those lings.

Delarchon

Finland132 Posts

May 19 2010 09:33 GMT

Could have put the zealot to the tower to gain vision and be able to blink up to the cliff behind the expo instead of fighting the lings. Then the big thing really is that you are not using your resources and gateways while attacking.

Surrealz

United States449 Posts

May 19 2010 09:34 GMT

While everything you said was valid and completely true in helping my chances, lets say that I didn't do that stupid push into his base, and kept macro'ing the whole time. I still would have had about the same amount of stalkers as hydras and he STILL would have overrun my army. Am I foolish to say this or do you think that I could have repelled his army had I had better macro and not been retarded and sending my 6ish stalkers on that zergling suicide mission?

Although I do see more zealots making a huge difference, I'll have to try that next time...

Drakonis

Canada97 Posts

May 19 2010 09:42 GMT

The stalkers in the mineral line is good, but if you're going to do that, you have to make sure to use the Blink ability that you spent the time and resources on to get those Stalkers back to safety. The hard counter to Stalkers is of course Speedlings, and in seeing that, you should have definitely added zealots to protect them. If you hadn't lost all your stalkers, and had kept up with your macro i think you would have had more than a decent chance to stop his push. Use the forcefields to funnel zergs army through your choke, and guardian shield to provide +2 armor against those pesky hydralisks. Zealots would have murdered what few lings he had in that composition, and then would have served as a meatshield against the hydras as well. 6 gateways was a little too much for one base, even though you had an expo that you were in the process of saturating, especially since you had just recently added a robo bay as well. Just try to constantly use what production buildings you currently have in order to keep up with the macro, instead of adding more production buildings to make up for the lack of macro.

Chaosvuistje

Netherlands2581 Posts

May 19 2010 10:01 GMT

#10

Gold level zerg here, take my advice as you wish.

I have a lot of trouble against mass stalkers, because after they get a critical mass, a zergling surround won't deal enough damage quick enough to kill the stalkers off. The only thing that does work then is mass hydra.

Blink stalkers ALWAYS outrun hydra's, and when you upgrade the armour of stalkers they become a very deadly foe against zerg midgame forces.

With mass hydra I actually have more trouble against high templar than collosi. Because when you get collosi the obvious counter would be corruptors. Against high templar there is no obvious counter when its tucked in neatly between your stalkers.

Even when psy storm doesn't kill the hydra' s, it softens them up good enough for your stalkers to finish them off easily. Once you have more stalkers than his hydra's just harras him with blinking stalkers, because even though zerg can reinforce quickly, hydra's are still quite costly.

The obvious counter to high templar/ stalker would be Ultralisks, however with some focus firing the stalkers should be able to beat the ultra's.

Things you shouldn't do with stalkers:
-Let them get surrounded, just back them up against a wall.
-Attack with small forces of them, a surround is easier on 10 stalkers than on 20 for example.
-Focus on static defence too much, stalkers can just blink past them and not having to worry about spinecrawlers for some time, as rerooting takes a long time and makes the crawlers vunerable to quick snipes.

ggrrg

Bulgaria2716 Posts

May 19 2010 10:35 GMT

#11

Stalkers fare pretty well against roaches (especially with blink). However, they suck badly against zerglings and hydras. One hydra kills one stalker and on top of that hydras have a greater range with their upgrade...

torfteufel

Germany86 Posts

May 19 2010 10:42 GMT

#12

if youre not the macro god and will end up with excess minerals and gas once you go into midgame (similar to me :D ) and focus on army positioning and stuff. why not use those excess ressources early on? once you have some spare minerals, through down a stargate, it basically does cost nothing as you will not use those ressources anyway.
in other words: build a friggin mothership man, and back them up with a gigantic ground force (stalkers/zealots)! they are awesome in medium/lower level play. first of all, nobody expects them. second they cloak your entire army plus buildings if you need to defend a gigantic push. thirdly they do decent damage and have a crazy amount of hp and are impossible to take out with hydras unless you suffer a heartattack while playing because the mothership looks so epic. and yeah, that vortex is ridiculous, honestly.
and heres the most important reason to get them: they are a lot of fun :D
so every once in a while when you get frustrated, go for some mothership action. even if you lose the game, you had a ton of fun

Izzachar

Sweden285 Posts

May 19 2010 11:11 GMT

#13

I don't get it. You basicly say you wanna win vs hydra with stalkers only. Thats like saying that a Zerg player wants to win with roaches against mass banshee ok maybe not as extreme but almost as stupid. You gotta adapt?

Why not simply get the most appropriate counter which is HTs or colossus. This forces Zerg to get either corrupters, mutas or infestors or tech make more roaches or tech for BL. Stalkers and a few sentries put hurt to both corrupters and mutas so that work well with your wanted opening.

Surrealz

United States449 Posts

May 19 2010 11:46 GMT

#14

Izzachar, I think you may have misread what I said, when STARTING with blink stalkers I was asking how to shift well into a build in a soon enough time to counter hydra. The decision to go Core>Stalkers comes before the shift to hydra, so there will be times that you have to transition in a stalker vs hydra game early to mid game.

drakonis, some very good points there. Would you say level 1 armor is better than weapons vs zerg? Also what should my timing regarding forge be (in general) vs non rush games as blinkstalkers?

Thanks all for the input

Sansucal

Germany259 Posts

May 19 2010 12:07 GMT

#15

On May 19 2010 19:35 ggrrg wrote:
Stalkers fare pretty well against roaches (especially with blink). However, they suck badly against zerglings and hydras.

its true against hydras, however against zerglings stalker with decent micro can do pretty well. But if you go mass stalker, you'll have to do damage to the zerg before he has hydras or you'll just get owned by the zerg hydras, if you have only gateway units.

Tozar

United States245 Posts

May 21 2010 10:26 GMT

#16

If I see roach/hydra or ling/hydra I can sometimes keep pushing with Stalkers and bring DTs in for the kill (or delay/weaken a counter), but if your opponent teched straight to Hydralisk with little investment in T1 units, you should start a robotics for Collosi asap. If you are already heavily invested in warpgates another alternative is researching zealot charge and mixing a couple sentries in for guardian shield in with your stalkers. I rarely use high templar, but I think they would fare well against hydra/ling and corruptors (not so much vs hydra/roach).

It is simply isn't effective to try and micro only blink stalkers against hydra. Hydras are cost effective and can take out stalkers very quickly with range and focus firing.

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