Zerg deathballs are not actually an issue anymore IMO. There are plenty of zerg compositions that can beat all kinds of Protoss deathballs. The classic void/collossus/stalker/sentry stuff is easily broken by infestor/ultra/ling/bling and all sorts of variation of this.
What is the issue is Protoss going from greedy to aggression seamlessly thanks to chrono/warpgate, that makes it hard for zerg to get to the composition they need. Zerg can go roach to be safe early game, but then struggle late game, or try to go for a ling/infestor style that is strong mid/late game but weak early. Trying to go in between again suffers from well timed protoss aggression.
Most lower level protoss don't know how to deal with the late game infestor/ling/ultra stuff; they just sit and turtle like theres no difference and get rolled. But good toss know that seeing this type of composition means that there is a window where zerg is very weak because their tech/upgrades have not kicked in, and can go for the kill.
On April 24 2011 19:56 Zevah wrote: I've been having huge sucess with a build like this the last few days.
what i do is open without gas, drone hard until 40/50 supply and take the 4 gases at once (spanishiwa style) immediatly get a lair, +1melee and +caparace and ling speed. after lair i get something like 6 infestors to help my lings to defend. I get my 3rd and my 4th right after that.
I was having trouble dealing with stalker zealot and colossus until i started getting banelings wich annihilated everything.
then i was having trouble with a 1/2 stargate builds until i started adding mutas into the build when i saw 1 or 2 stargates.
later on i add ultras so i don't need to Neural any colossus to deal with forcefields.
I'm really happy to beat protoss once again =D
I usually don't get more than 6 infestors and i try to keep them on that number.
Here is a small video i've made to show the power of ling bling infestor to a friend against protoss:
In the past 5 GSLs there have been 3 zerg, 2 Protoss and 5 terran's to get to the finals.
Of those races who reached the top 2 Zerg, 2 Protoss and 1 Terran has won the championship.
The Terran only won because it was a mirror. Only one Protoss player won both Protoss trophies. Two seperate zerg's in two seperate metagames won GSL titles.
In the current gsl the two favorites to win the whole damn thing is IMNestea and IMLosira.
That seems like a pretty balanced metagame from where I'm standing. Lots of Terran finalist, repeat Protoss victories and multiple cinderalla stories for the Zerg.
-in all cases, the winners were players who seemed dominant despite their race.
On April 24 2011 19:56 Zevah wrote: I've been having huge sucess with a build like this the last few days.
what i do is open without gas, drone hard until 40/50 supply and take the 4 gases at once (spanishiwa style) immediatly get a lair, +1melee and +caparace and ling speed. after lair i get something like 6 infestors to help my lings to defend. I get my 3rd and my 4th right after that.
I was having trouble dealing with stalker zealot and colossus until i started getting banelings wich annihilated everything.
then i was having trouble with a 1/2 stargate builds until i started adding mutas into the build when i saw 1 or 2 stargates.
later on i add ultras so i don't need to Neural any colossus to deal with forcefields.
I'm really happy to beat protoss once again =D
I usually don't get more than 6 infestors and i try to keep them on that number.
Here is a small video i've made to show the power of ling bling infestor to a friend against protoss:
This post was very inspirational for me, used this unit composition several times effectively to beat the Protoss deathball
Well if protoss does not use FFs at all ofc you can win, but I though we are talking about decent protoss players here. That video is just a fail from toss.
On April 25 2011 17:20 epoc wrote: All races are relatively easy to play. Zerg macro and droning decisions take some skill but the army micro is pretty nonexistant. Protoss has macro and forcefields. Terran imo takes the most skill. Especially in TvZ which is my favourite match up. Terran has to split marines, do drops and guard their tanks with marines.
Can people who don't actually play zerg at a high level stop posting this bullshit. As zerg positioning of your army is a huge deal, attacking from multiple angles and splitting up your important units like banelings. Drops really aren't as hard as you're making them sound, you hotkey a medivac and rally it to unload and just keep an eye on it as it appraoches. How can you really think it takes more skill to do multiple drops than to defend them is beyond me, zerg has relatively weak defense at external locations (cannons are much better because they can be positioned smarter, as zerg you're defending air somewhere OR you're defending ground). I know this because I do a ton of drops as zerg and I never feel like it stretches my multitasking much.
I'm not trying to say other races don't have their challenges, but this "no micro" bullshit has got to stop, yes, there's slightly less focus firing and you don't have to click f, then click your mouse somewhere, but you do have to manually move your units around forcefields, burrow hurt roaches and unburrow them, burrow move then unburrow, flank with lings, all with good timing. I know it's not moving your stalkers behind your zealots with one click or right clicking on a group of banelings with your tanks (which many terran players seem incapable of, they're so focused on getting 1 or 2 extra shots off their marines before they die they're not willing to prevent their death).
Also, somehow you count guarding your tanks with marines as micro or multitasking, you know if your marines are just standing near the tanks, they'll attack mutas.
On April 24 2011 19:56 Zevah wrote: I've been having huge sucess with a build like this the last few days.
what i do is open without gas, drone hard until 40/50 supply and take the 4 gases at once (spanishiwa style) immediatly get a lair, +1melee and +caparace and ling speed. after lair i get something like 6 infestors to help my lings to defend. I get my 3rd and my 4th right after that.
I was having trouble dealing with stalker zealot and colossus until i started getting banelings wich annihilated everything.
then i was having trouble with a 1/2 stargate builds until i started adding mutas into the build when i saw 1 or 2 stargates.
later on i add ultras so i don't need to Neural any colossus to deal with forcefields.
I'm really happy to beat protoss once again =D
I usually don't get more than 6 infestors and i try to keep them on that number.
Here is a small video i've made to show the power of ling bling infestor to a friend against protoss:
This post was very inspirational for me, used this unit composition several times effectively to beat the Protoss deathball
Well if protoss does not use FFs at all ofc you can win, but I though we are talking about decent protoss players here. That video is just a fail from toss.
Yeh I mix in 2-3 Ultras to break forcefields, it's no problem. I've seen several top Zergs use this style now aswell, only one I can recall atm is Lowely, so you could look up some replays if you're interested.
Banelings are really the answer. One well-placed baneling can hit enough stalkers to deal over 200 damage instantaneously--and an Overlord dropping a bunch of them frontloads so much damage that it can simply decimate the army and leave it very vulnerable to whatever Zerg units remain.
I like the Ultra/ling/infestor/bling combo spanishwa did, and if they go void ray cant you just use infested Terrans once you take out the ground army? Not to mention it seems like you can abuse the mobilty of this ball alot.
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.
I think this is pretty much the single most important thing in this thread. Terran and Zerg can realistically walk around the map with smaller groups of units and try and deal damage. If you lose everything for no damage done it's not the end of the world because it's cheap. Protoss' effectiveness is *entirely* resting on senties, templars and collossi and losing multiple 150 or 200 gas units *IS* a big deal.
Trading 4 marauders and 10 marines against 20 zerglings and 6 roaches is smart and will force military instead of drones from zerg.
Trading 5 zealots and 3 sentries for 20 zerglings and 6 roaches will just make you lose the game.
On May 06 2011 03:33 XXXSmOke wrote: I like the Ultra/ling/infestor/bling combo spanishwa did, and if they go void ray cant you just use infested Terrans once you take out the ground army? Not to mention it seems like you can abuse the mobilty of this ball alot.
Yeh, some people like to mix in Hydras or Corruptors or Mutas to take care of the air units, but I've seen Lowely and Spanishwa more or less ignore them and take them out with fungals and infested terrans eventually.
edit: How do you hold off a good 6gate though? I still go Roach or Hydra to be safe vs those...
On May 06 2011 03:33 XXXSmOke wrote: I like the Ultra/ling/infestor/bling combo spanishwa did, and if they go void ray cant you just use infested Terrans once you take out the ground army? Not to mention it seems like you can abuse the mobilty of this ball alot.
Yeh, some people like to mix in Hydras or Corruptors or Mutas to take care of the air units, but I've seen Lowely and Spanishwa more or less ignore them and take them out with fungals and infested terrans eventually.
edit: How do you hold off a good 6gate though? I still go Roach or Hydra to be safe vs those...
I jsut switced to Z heh, so I dont know yet. I was a masters Terran that was to passive so im playing my BW race now that its summer and I have time to learn them.
So far vs Toss, early ling infestor with ups is pretty sick. Using spanishwas build I can drone heavy then pump tons of lings. I am always harassing and poking in as well threatening the backstab so the toss really has to think twice before pushing out. And if he does push out I can just fungal and run(rinse/repeat). Or whats even funnier is if you land good enough fungals in the middle of the map you jsut do a ling run by.
Once 3rd is saturatued I switch to ultra/ling/infestor. If they go collsi void ray I just drop everywhere harass everywhere until I can weaken there economy enough where I can just power through them with 300/200.
EPT
