EPT
The Protoss deathball vs 2010 Zerg swarm - Page 16
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Apolo
Portugal1259 Posts
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Mercury-
Great Britain804 Posts
On April 20 2011 20:24 Apolo wrote: @Morrow, if Protoss is so much easier to play, and you can barely note differences between top, and mid protoss players, how come we don't see almost any flunctuation at all between the players that win tournaments? Because now that PvP has stabilized into 4gate vs 4gate 'better' Ps tend to win that MU a lot. | ||
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Sweetness.751
United States225 Posts
On April 19 2011 06:57 azarat wrote: I'm not sure I agree, and the core of my disagreement lies in the way in which the PvZ metagame developed compared to the same of ZvP. If you cast your memory back to the early days of GSL and other tournaments, much of Protoss play in PvZ (and PvT too) was one-base or two-base in nature. There were numerous one-base plays that Protoss could make, from straight up 4-gates to mixtures of gates, Robo, Stargate, or Twilight Council/DT tech plays. Most were fairly easy to execute and hard to defend well, meaning that this style was deemed the most practical for use in tournament play. This style, as has also been ably pointed out by other posters, was reinforced by the map pool of tiny and abusable maps. The ZvP mindset was, as you pointed out, geared toward economic plays. Though there was some usage of cheese tactics, Protoss could relatively easily fend this off, and the most successful type of Zerg player was the one that had strong mechanics and a macro-oriented style. Even hyper-aggressive Zergs like Kyrix and to some extent Fruitdealer were far more successful in longer games than in shorter ones, shorter games in which they were almost invariably the defender against some 1-base timing attack. Essentially, the ZvP style was as you say it was: macro oriented and focused on mid-to-late game pushes reinforced with a superior economy. Fast-forward 6 months and what has changed? I think the major change, one which you refer to kind of obliquely, boils down to this: Protoss players have learned what they can get away with economically and still be safe against most or all attacks. What makes me most fear for the state of ZvP is that yes, they have learned better ways of punishing Zerg for being too greedy, but I think that's actually the result of a shift at a more fundamental level. When your style is 1-base, or limited at most to 2-base, there are inherent limitations on what you can accomplish, and what compositions can be reasonably expected. However, when you learn that you can get 3 Gateways and a bunch of low-mineral units and be impervious to all non all-in strategies so that you can get up an expansion not that far behind the Zerg, a whole bunch of other possibilities open up. Thus, the reason for the Protoss being able to punish Zergs in the early mid-game is not because of magical new strategies that involve massively different units (though Sentry usage has obviously improved immensely in the case of someone like MC), but because the economic foundations of PvZ play have fundamentally altered: you learn how few units you can get away with at the start of the game so that you just have way more shit than your opponent a few minutes from now. This is what makes me fearful of development potential in the ZvP metagame, and its what Lalush was pointing to in his post a while back on the economics of base and drone saturation. A Zerg can't truly react to an increased Protoss economy by being even more macro-oriented. In this case, I mean "truly" in the sense of a robust metagame shift. Yes, its possible to take a super fast third like some Zergs have been doing, but this is always going to be risky. With Chrono Boost, a Protoss is going to match a 3-base Zerg with a 2-base economy for a substantial period of time. With Warp-In and Chrono Boost, a Protoss can very quickly amass an army to punish a risky third Hatchery. As Lalush pointed out, the gain you make in SC2 in going from 2-base to 3-base is much less than it was in Brood War, thus making it riskier to take these earlier expansions because your economy is not going to be clearly superior to your opponent's for much longer. Essentially, what I'm saying is that Protoss players are quickly learning to push the boundaries at when you can take expansions and still be relatively safe. Instead of seeing third bases at 14 or 15 minutes into the game, you're seeing them at the 10 minute mark instead. However, unless you want the ZvP metagame to devolve into a series of risky all-ins to try kill off a Protoss who might have tried to push the envelope a little too far, there is an end-point in the development of Zerg economic plays. Maybe I'm being too doom and gloom, or overly pessimistic, but I think we're already beginning to see this. Many top Zergs, the most obvious of which is Idra, have concluded that even if with incredibly strong macro mechanics they feel its dicey to push a late-game engagement with Protoss. Instead, they're opting for risky 2-base drop plays to try cripple the Protoss early on, or Roach/Ling all-ins. Maybe some revolutionary macro-play will come along that means that late-game Zerg will again have a clear economic advantage, but I don't feel it is likely. The lack of scouting and the prevalence of strong timing attacks that will outright kill you if you don't prepare perfectly mean that boundaries exist for these types of plays. Anyway, thats my 2c. This is an amazing post that has truly expanded my knowledge of the meta game in general. The same can be said of Mules for Terran in TvP and TvZ as Mules allow the Terran to over mine an already fully saturated base, meaning that they can survive longer on less bases. I never really saw the chrono boost mechanic in that light before but it makes sense. Basically it means we can make units faster (and thusly keep up with larva inject for a brief period of time on 1 less base) than Terran if we spend our chrono boosts on units. I will never chrono research or upgrades again (Probes all the way! :-) This means that Protoss should always have a worker advantage and a population advantage and should be expanding sooner than Terran. I know this is a thread about the PvZ Meta game but I think I just made a huge mental breakthrough in my PvT :-) | ||
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Sweetness.751
United States225 Posts
On April 20 2011 21:36 Mercury- wrote: Because now that PvP has stabilized into 4gate vs 4gate 'better' Ps tend to win that MU a lot. I don't know where you get you information from but PvP definitely does not revolve exclusively around 4gate vs. 4gate. I know plenty of styles by pros that are superior to the 4gate. (Cough, Cough, Adel Scott's PvP) They just require a large learning curve that many pros still have not put the time into mastering. | ||
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Ashok
Australia339 Posts
On April 20 2011 18:23 MorroW wrote: theory zvp i think its a combination with 2 things reason 1 protoss has figured out the early game more, how to expand safely and getting a greater economy than zerg. (forge expand gets more economy than a pool expand or gas pool expand, at the same time it can punish a hatchery first with cannon rush). so then zergs option to catch up is to take a extremely fast 3rd base but this has been prooven many times to die to 6warpgate +1 timing attacks or the simple voidray +streamline of phoenixes. the 3warpgate expand has its own beauty on smaller maps but also maps without as wide chokes. the units themselves are sentrys which not only defends any allin zerg does, also they build up energy to be great in mid and late game. on top of this creating these units themselves forces zerg to build defenses. and not a too uncommon strategy is to cancel the nexus and go for an allin, which zerg has no possibility to scout in time to prepare, so zergs only option is to overmake defenses every time he see 3warpgate expand. so to sum it up the only way you dont fall behind vs a 3warpgate expand on rather small maps is too take huge risks and hope he dont cancel the nexus and did a 4/5gate fake nexus strategy. and on big maps they can comfortably forge expand without any risk what so ever of cheese if they scout well and always get a unfair lead. reason 2 protoss used to be this timing attack race off of 2 or 3 bases but recently they have figured out all they have to do is max out on 200 food and only turtle because no matter how many bases zerg has he still cant get a huge economic lead because u cant literally produce over 80 drones. zerg became the timing attack player instead, using his "economic lead" on 3-4 bases and trying to break down the protoss before his army gets too big, or simply damage it alot and rebuild and go for it again, while expanding. but this is extremely hard when protoss gets an easy 3rd base (tal darim, terminus etc). zerg is the race that wants to army trade on an even field so protoss has simply realized that there is never a reason to attack unless zerg gets too overgreedy. (and ofcourse toss has even the option to respond with another expansion aswell so again protoss attacking is always a threat to zerg but its never a must for protoss). and once protoss gets 3 bases up and running for 1-2 minutes the zerg overpower style (attack, rebuild, attack, streamline) doesnt work anymore because protoss can rebuild at an almost equal rate. plus the larger protoss army it gets the less units they lose in fights) so when it comes to 200 food deathballs. protoss should in theory always win, everyone knows that. so zerg is the race that wants to battle kill the majority of protosses army and then rebuild (using his bigger saved up money to his advantage). now ive written down the way zvp should be, disregarding how hard it is for each race to execute their play so here comes the skill requiring part so not only is protoss the stronger race right now in theory. it is also easier to play the race which is widely known for anyone thats high level to know. to be the aggressor throughout the game and find ways to break the protoss is alot harder for zerg than for protoss to just figure out how to defend. also mechanically speaking the race is vastly harder aswell. and when it comes to mistakes you can make it your macro (money growing up, forgetting injects or chronoboost zerg is alot more unforgiving). if i play vs midlevel protoss users who only play the turtle style i cant even tell a difference from our best protosses in europe, except for maybe the microcontrol. whenever you see zvp on TSL or NASL or GSL, people are always judging the zerg what he is doing wrong, what he should be doing you can note if he forgets to spread creep or when his money gets high you call thats why he lose. protosses is like 80% of the case the one thats executing more badly than the zerg but nobody is mentioning that because its harder to see and it doesnt matter because the toss end up cleaning up anyway. i know i come off as extremely biased because i havent been doing too well in tournaments lately vs protosses but keep in mind. i dont ladder, all my zvp practice comes from literally only playing progamer protosses and talking to them about the game and how this matchup works (mainly with naniwa). i wouldnt come here and say toss is alot easier to play than zerg if they wouldnt tell me the same. im not a toss progamer but they say themselves zerg has to be vastly superior to compete on the same level. i have alot to improve on in zvp but i dont see myself worse than any other zerg in this matchup and i hope you can trust my word for that. ive been practicing this matchup almost exlusivly the past weeks and still my winratio in zvt is about 20% higher than in zvp. ive practiced mutalisk play, ive tried multipromt attacks and nyduses. and high infestor play. but the overpower style is the absolute best way (and most solid imo) to play this matchup Posting just to say thanks for your insight, it's really valuable. | ||
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LastMan
90 Posts
On April 20 2011 22:32 Sweetness.751 wrote: + Show Spoiler + On April 19 2011 06:57 azarat wrote: I'm not sure I agree, and the core of my disagreement lies in the way in which the PvZ metagame developed compared to the same of ZvP. If you cast your memory back to the early days of GSL and other tournaments, much of Protoss play in PvZ (and PvT too) was one-base or two-base in nature. There were numerous one-base plays that Protoss could make, from straight up 4-gates to mixtures of gates, Robo, Stargate, or Twilight Council/DT tech plays. Most were fairly easy to execute and hard to defend well, meaning that this style was deemed the most practical for use in tournament play. This style, as has also been ably pointed out by other posters, was reinforced by the map pool of tiny and abusable maps. The ZvP mindset was, as you pointed out, geared toward economic plays. Though there was some usage of cheese tactics, Protoss could relatively easily fend this off, and the most successful type of Zerg player was the one that had strong mechanics and a macro-oriented style. Even hyper-aggressive Zergs like Kyrix and to some extent Fruitdealer were far more successful in longer games than in shorter ones, shorter games in which they were almost invariably the defender against some 1-base timing attack. Essentially, the ZvP style was as you say it was: macro oriented and focused on mid-to-late game pushes reinforced with a superior economy. Fast-forward 6 months and what has changed? I think the major change, one which you refer to kind of obliquely, boils down to this: Protoss players have learned what they can get away with economically and still be safe against most or all attacks. What makes me most fear for the state of ZvP is that yes, they have learned better ways of punishing Zerg for being too greedy, but I think that's actually the result of a shift at a more fundamental level. When your style is 1-base, or limited at most to 2-base, there are inherent limitations on what you can accomplish, and what compositions can be reasonably expected. However, when you learn that you can get 3 Gateways and a bunch of low-mineral units and be impervious to all non all-in strategies so that you can get up an expansion not that far behind the Zerg, a whole bunch of other possibilities open up. Thus, the reason for the Protoss being able to punish Zergs in the early mid-game is not because of magical new strategies that involve massively different units (though Sentry usage has obviously improved immensely in the case of someone like MC), but because the economic foundations of PvZ play have fundamentally altered: you learn how few units you can get away with at the start of the game so that you just have way more shit than your opponent a few minutes from now. This is what makes me fearful of development potential in the ZvP metagame, and its what Lalush was pointing to in his post a while back on the economics of base and drone saturation. A Zerg can't truly react to an increased Protoss economy by being even more macro-oriented. In this case, I mean "truly" in the sense of a robust metagame shift. Yes, its possible to take a super fast third like some Zergs have been doing, but this is always going to be risky. With Chrono Boost, a Protoss is going to match a 3-base Zerg with a 2-base economy for a substantial period of time. With Warp-In and Chrono Boost, a Protoss can very quickly amass an army to punish a risky third Hatchery. As Lalush pointed out, the gain you make in SC2 in going from 2-base to 3-base is much less than it was in Brood War, thus making it riskier to take these earlier expansions because your economy is not going to be clearly superior to your opponent's for much longer. Essentially, what I'm saying is that Protoss players are quickly learning to push the boundaries at when you can take expansions and still be relatively safe. Instead of seeing third bases at 14 or 15 minutes into the game, you're seeing them at the 10 minute mark instead. However, unless you want the ZvP metagame to devolve into a series of risky all-ins to try kill off a Protoss who might have tried to push the envelope a little too far, there is an end-point in the development of Zerg economic plays. Maybe I'm being too doom and gloom, or overly pessimistic, but I think we're already beginning to see this. Many top Zergs, the most obvious of which is Idra, have concluded that even if with incredibly strong macro mechanics they feel its dicey to push a late-game engagement with Protoss. Instead, they're opting for risky 2-base drop plays to try cripple the Protoss early on, or Roach/Ling all-ins. Maybe some revolutionary macro-play will come along that means that late-game Zerg will again have a clear economic advantage, but I don't feel it is likely. The lack of scouting and the prevalence of strong timing attacks that will outright kill you if you don't prepare perfectly mean that boundaries exist for these types of plays. Anyway, thats my 2c. This is an amazing post that has truly expanded my knowledge of the meta game in general. The same can be said of Mules for Terran in TvP and TvZ as Mules allow the Terran to over mine an already fully saturated base, meaning that they can survive longer on less bases. I never really saw the chrono boost mechanic in that light before but it makes sense. Basically it means we can make units faster (and thusly keep up with larva inject for a brief period of time on 1 less base) than Terran if we spend our chrono boosts on units. I will never chrono research or upgrades again (Probes all the way! :-) This means that Protoss should always have a worker advantage and a population advantage and should be expanding sooner than Terran. I know this is a thread about the PvZ Meta game but I think I just made a huge mental breakthrough in my PvT :-) no they can not if anything mules just mine out your bases faster, also other races always have more workers, good rule of thumb for terran is to have the same amount of bases as your opponent | ||
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phrenzy
United Kingdom478 Posts
This game had a number of different deathballs in it. Destiny im sure made alot of mistakes... which i think was him ignoring the idiot who told him what iNcontrol was doin and then paying the price. But hyrda broodlord seemed to be really effective when positioned right. It was good of him to sacrifice the roaches though to a bunch of cannons.... but im sure he couldve been more effective. I just worry that if the only way to beat this is to prevent it, then it can never be balanced. Again though... that is if its the only way, hopefully there is a composition that will work. And if there is, im sure the people of TL will find it . | ||
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AzureD
United States320 Posts
On April 21 2011 00:23 phrenzy wrote: edit:// forgot to post the game. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_nf6lWmQB4 This game had a number of different deathballs in it. Destiny im sure made alot of mistakes... which i think was him ignoring the idiot who told him what iNcontrol was doin and then paying the price. But hyrda broodlord seemed to be really effective when positioned right. It was good of him to sacrifice the roaches though to a bunch of cannons.... but im sure he couldve been more effective. I just worry that if the only way to beat this is to prevent it, then it can never be balanced. Again though... that is if its the only way, hopefully there is a composition that will work. And if there is, im sure the people of TL will find it .I would say he needed something to tank for his Hydras after the first engagement. Something like Ultralisks. Fungals also came too late and really did not do anything. Losing 3 expansions to DT probably did not help though. Actually 5 expansions throughout the game. All from DT. For that matter there was barely any scouting. No drop play, no effort at Nydus at all. | ||
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Thrombozyt
Germany1269 Posts
So I wonder if one of the best uses for the Nydus network would be to provide the escape for dropped units. Drop them, draw attention and start the nydus. Worst case the opponent kills it which gives your drop more time to deal damage. Best case the worm gets through and you can either reinforce or just retreat. 100/100 to save my dropped units seems like a pretty good deal and as soon as they enter the worm they are save and there is no limit how fast units can enter. | ||
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fant0m
964 Posts
On April 19 2011 06:11 On_Slaught wrote: I agree but if anything Zerg should be doing better now with these maps since zergs across the board wanted bigger maps. They got what they wanted but things have either stayed the same or gotten worse statistically. The problem with big maps when you're comparing races is that on huge maps both T and Z have huge rush distances, and aggressive styles are heavily punished. However, warpgate tech means that rush distance is completely nonexistent for Toss, and every map is the same "how far is my proxy pylon from his main?" Combine these 2 factors and it means that in PvT and PvZ, the Protoss CAN rush, but can't get rushed back! Or not nearly as effectively at least. This has majorly affected the strategies used in PvT and PvZ, and swung the balance in Toss's favor, in my opinion. | ||
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Nycaloth
147 Posts
There are a lot less similarities in the Zerg an Protoss play styles then there may appear to be at first glance. While both races may favour more economically focused openings, the goal that they want to accomplish with them are vastly different. A Zerg game plan will generally revolve around expansions. An economic lead in resource intake must be backed up with a sufficient amount of hatcheries to be transformed into a military advantage. Later in the game, Zergs will win by forcing big engagements and then rebuilding their army faster then the opponent, possibly in several iterations. This goal cannot possibly be accomplished of a 2base play, which is why the next step after securing ones natural always is establishing 3rd and 4th bases. Zergs do not turtle in the same sense that T and P do, they have a harder time establishing strong easily defensible positions and also have less of an interest in doing so, preferring to be spread across many bases an reacting to aggression by pumping units instead of drones only shortly before an attack hits. The Protoss on the other hand is much more comfortable sitting on two bases and can focus an entire play style around this. With good building placement and FF, P can deny most harassment from a Z until lairtech. The usual rationale of harassing against an economy focused build cant be applied as easily. Once the deathball composition is established, the P will try to lose as few of his units as possible, requiring less production facilities and less economic strength to sustain his push. In summary, the protoss economy focused style is different to the zerg economy focused style and the same principles that work against a macro zerg cant be applied against a macro P. The answer to turtling and building up must be found elsewhere. | ||
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LF9
United States537 Posts
On April 21 2011 13:13 AzureD wrote: I would say he needed something to tank for his Hydras after the first engagement. Something like Ultralisks. Fungals also came too late and really did not do anything. Losing 3 expansions to DT probably did not help though. Actually 5 expansions throughout the game. All from DT. For that matter there was barely any scouting. No drop play, no effort at Nydus at all. Honestly, I've seen a very similar strategy but instead of just Hydra+Broodlord (you said he needs something to tank for the Hydra) the player used mass Roach + Hydra + Broodlord. Probably 2 Roach for every Hydra. It works pretty damn well; Roaches tank fairly well and between Roaches and Broodlords, ground-based anti-air gets ripped up quickly or at least kept at bay, and any air units are picked off by the Hydras. If there are no air units, you know the kind of damage the Hydras do to ground units; with Roaches in front, they last a lot longer . And Roaches + Hydra damage, in the right ratio, ends up being higher than pure Hydra damage, because the average lifespan of the army is increased so much by the presence of Roaches. Getting armor upgrades first and aggressively is really important for this type of build, though. | ||
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massivez
Belgium653 Posts
On April 20 2011 18:23 MorroW wrote: theory zvp i think its a combination with 2 things reason 1 protoss has figured out the early game more, how to expand safely and getting a greater economy than zerg. (forge expand gets more economy than a pool expand or gas pool expand, at the same time it can punish a hatchery first with cannon rush). so then zergs option to catch up is to take a extremely fast 3rd base but this has been prooven many times to die to 6warpgate +1 timing attacks or the simple voidray +streamline of phoenixes. the 3warpgate expand has its own beauty on smaller maps but also maps without as wide chokes. the units themselves are sentrys which not only defends any allin zerg does, also they build up energy to be great in mid and late game. on top of this creating these units themselves forces zerg to build defenses. and not a too uncommon strategy is to cancel the nexus and go for an allin, which zerg has no possibility to scout in time to prepare, so zergs only option is to overmake defenses every time he see 3warpgate expand. so to sum it up the only way you dont fall behind vs a 3warpgate expand on rather small maps is too take huge risks and hope he dont cancel the nexus and did a 4/5gate fake nexus strategy. and on big maps they can comfortably forge expand without any risk what so ever of cheese if they scout well and always get a unfair lead. reason 2 protoss used to be this timing attack race off of 2 or 3 bases but recently they have figured out all they have to do is max out on 200 food and only turtle because no matter how many bases zerg has he still cant get a huge economic lead because u cant literally produce over 80 drones. zerg became the timing attack player instead, using his "economic lead" on 3-4 bases and trying to break down the protoss before his army gets too big, or simply damage it alot and rebuild and go for it again, while expanding. but this is extremely hard when protoss gets an easy 3rd base (tal darim, terminus etc). zerg is the race that wants to army trade on an even field so protoss has simply realized that there is never a reason to attack unless zerg gets too overgreedy. (and ofcourse toss has even the option to respond with another expansion aswell so again protoss attacking is always a threat to zerg but its never a must for protoss). and once protoss gets 3 bases up and running for 1-2 minutes the zerg overpower style (attack, rebuild, attack, streamline) doesnt work anymore because protoss can rebuild at an almost equal rate. plus the larger protoss army it gets the less units they lose in fights) so when it comes to 200 food deathballs. protoss should in theory always win, everyone knows that. so zerg is the race that wants to battle kill the majority of protosses army and then rebuild (using his bigger saved up money to his advantage). now ive written down the way zvp should be, disregarding how hard it is for each race to execute their play so here comes the skill requiring part so not only is protoss the stronger race right now in theory. it is also easier to play the race which is widely known for anyone thats high level to know. to be the aggressor throughout the game and find ways to break the protoss is alot harder for zerg than for protoss to just figure out how to defend. also mechanically speaking the race is vastly harder aswell. and when it comes to mistakes you can make it your macro (money growing up, forgetting injects or chronoboost zerg is alot more unforgiving). if i play vs midlevel protoss users who only play the turtle style i cant even tell a difference from our best protosses in europe, except for maybe the microcontrol. whenever you see zvp on TSL or NASL or GSL, people are always judging the zerg what he is doing wrong, what he should be doing you can note if he forgets to spread creep or when his money gets high you call thats why he lose. protosses is like 80% of the case the one thats executing more badly than the zerg but nobody is mentioning that because its harder to see and it doesnt matter because the toss end up cleaning up anyway. i know i come off as extremely biased because i havent been doing too well in tournaments lately vs protosses but keep in mind. i dont ladder, all my zvp practice comes from literally only playing progamer protosses and talking to them about the game and how this matchup works (mainly with naniwa). i wouldnt come here and say toss is alot easier to play than zerg if they wouldnt tell me the same. im not a toss progamer but they say themselves zerg has to be vastly superior to compete on the same level. i have alot to improve on in zvp but i dont see myself worse than any other zerg in this matchup and i hope you can trust my word for that. ive been practicing this matchup almost exlusivly the past weeks and still my winratio in zvt is about 20% higher than in zvp. ive practiced mutalisk play, ive tried multipromt attacks and nyduses. and high infestor play. but the overpower style is the absolute best way (and most solid imo) to play this matchup Very interesting post, put these things also on battle.net forum:p. | ||
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Dommk
Australia4865 Posts
But then again, there are styles from Zerg that your only response IS to turtle, name Ling/Baneling, Ling/Infestor +/Baneling, Roach/Infestor +/Ling/Hydra...there is no real way to get map presence against those builds and most of the time the moment you move out you tend to die and everyone I've talked to has told me to turtle against them until 200/200 as there really isn't any other way of dealing with it. IMO, this isn't a one way street. You could nerf units like Colossus, but that won't make Toss play any less boring, just more cautiously. I think what Socke said needs to be emphasized, if they want to make Protoss play less turtlish styles then they need to give them better mineral units and rely less on super gas heavy units like Sentries/Colossus, such that trading armies isn't always a bad idea until you've reached 200/200. | ||
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dave333
United States915 Posts
But now protoss players have learned how to play greedy. Sometimes very greedy, as some sentries, a wall, and a cannon can cost efficiently defend any zerg pressure without any issues. Combine this with the ability to still do extremely strong timing attacks and all ins, you see a fundamental issue zerg faces, as timing attacks and allin requires a completely different response than greed. The fact that protoss can seamlessly flow from one into the other thanks to chrono warp gates, and bad zerg scouting, you have a very difficult game for zerg to play. In addition, stopping the deathball, we can see, can be easily done. It is not difficult. Even simple ling/bling/infestor can stop smaller deathballs; add ultras for the bigger ones and you can mostly roll over them. This build is also very effective for harass, as bling drops can single handedly for an all in from the toss by killing all the probes. The issue is that the composition required to beat the deathball is very ineffective against builds like 5/6 gate all ins. Getting to that composition is a risk. Meanwhile, being safe against this earlier pressure and allin attacks flows into a composition that greatly struggles against the deathball, aka roaches/corruptors. It also struggles with harass that can slow a deathball build up. TLDR; toss can too easily move from greed to aggression or just be greedy, and zerg compositions do not flow well enough to deal with this. Oh yeah and Zerg can't "outmacro" toss anymore. You're essentially limited to 3 bases, maybe a 2 more for gas. The danger of taking a quick third against greedy builds is an example of protoss' ability to seamless and rapidly transition into strong, powerful aggression via warpgates. This inability to outmacro toss means that you can't get the economic lead to launch massive armies because he'll basically be even on you, and can reinforce very quickly as well. Zerg has no response to protoss greed either, as protoss defenses are strong and trying to be greedier has that risk of fast protoss aggression. | ||
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Signum
Canada99 Posts
On April 20 2011 20:24 Apolo wrote: @Morrow, if Protoss is so much easier to play, and you can barely note differences between top, and mid protoss players, how come we don't see almost any flunctuation at all between the players that win tournaments? presumably because there are two other matchups for protoss players in this game. | ||
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arb
Noobville17921 Posts
On April 20 2011 22:37 Sweetness.751 wrote: I don't know where you get you information from but PvP definitely does not revolve exclusively around 4gate vs. 4gate. I know plenty of styles by pros that are superior to the 4gate. (Cough, Cough, Adel Scott's PvP) They just require a large learning curve that many pros still have not put the time into mastering. uh yeah it does, do you even watch starcraft? 99% of all builds die to even the most basic of 4gate attacks, theres a reason why its the most boring mirror in SC2 | ||
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Sweetness.751
United States225 Posts
On April 20 2011 23:22 LastMan wrote: no they can not if anything mules just mine out your bases faster, also other races always have more workers, good rule of thumb for terran is to have the same amount of bases as your opponent I think you miss read my post as you basically just reiterated what I said, so let me restate it. "Mules allow Terran to over mine an already fully saturated base." Meaning they can acquire more minerals on equal number of bases OR acquire the same amount of minerals on 1 less base for a longer period of time. Yes this means they mine their bases out faster, but it is far from immediate or crippling. Just look at Empire.Kas who routinely makes a 3rd OC off 2 bases and sits on 2 base with 3 mules just for the bigger push potential. The reason other races have more workers is because the OC mechanic stops worker production and the fact Terran loses mining time for each structure it constructs. (same can be said for Zerg, but larva Inject more than makes up for this and Zerg has less structures in general). But once all of those buildings are up and SCV production has stopped, the Terran economy explodes into the realm of deadly all-in timing attacks. That is why the POLT super late 9-10 min timing attack is possible in TvP or any of the double factory siege tank openings are deadly in every matchup. Terran has that double-edged sword. They can sneak that early expo, and if unpressured, have superior econ for the rest of the game, or they can wait for your expo and do a super late all-in. Either way, for them a win is a win. | ||
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Apolo
Portugal1259 Posts
Put on 20mins 10s to get to the ball vs ball. | ||
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TheButtonmen
Canada1403 Posts
On April 20 2011 19:31 andrewwiggin wrote: lol it's useless arguing on the internet. I guess everyone's right then...... But I'd like to call out everyone complaining about zerg and say.. do you TRULY BELIEVE that you'll still be complaining a month, two months, even 6 months from now? Answer me that one oh great and all knowing zerg theorists. ... It's been how long since release? Until there is a viable way to scout and some way to actually be cost effective when defending then yes I fully expect zergs to still be having problems with every none mirror match six months from now. | ||
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