On October 04 2011 14:58 Anihc wrote:Show nested quote +On September 27 2011 23:12 kcdc wrote:
Anihc, great replay pack. Thanks for the upload. I'm totally gonna copy your PvZ. Couple questions.
Your general build seems to go something like:
FE (usually FFE), scout for Z's 3rd at 5-6 min, if he's expanded, tech straight to colossi (or 6 gate), take quick third around the time that the first colossus pops, add second robo, then transition to carrier+archon while trying to cannon+nexus the map.
I couldn't get all of the replays to load, but that seemed to be the outline from what I saw.
What are your thoughts on the order for twilight council/templar archives/stargate/fleet beacon? Twilight council is needed for +2 weapons, but the archons seem to be the last addition to your deathball when you've finally got the 10 gas geysers to make the perfect all-gas composition. In the games I watched, those 4 tech structures along with +2 weapons seemed to be kind of jumbled in all at the same time. Do you worry about spending too much of your income on tech at this window?
Why 2 robo's? They came in handy when you got caught in bad positions and lost your core, but for the most part, you rarely used both at the same time, and often, they both sat idle as you tended to stop at ~6 colossi anyway. Do you feel like you need 2 robo's to boost your colossus count fast enough to defend your aggressive expansions? Or do you want the extra production capacity should you need to rebuild your colossus core quickly?
Do you think about applying pressure beyond the occasional zealot or DT drop, or is your plan more about grabbing bases and crafting the perfect 200/200 composition? Do you see any timings where you could apply direct pressure?
Blink and storm--are they worth it? Assuming you're going with the expand+defend strategy, when would you research them? I assume you'd only want at most 2 HT kept for storm, and the rest made into archons before engaging.
How thrilled are you about the infestor nerfs? NP seemed to be the only thing that gave you problems in the mid-game.
Order for twilight/archives/stargate/fleet beacon - yea I see that you could tell I was just randomly throwing up tech buildings in a lot of my games :p I'm glad that you mentioned worrying about spending too much of my income on tech at the same time, since actually this has become an issue for me recently - I've lost to several zergs who just quickly max on roach/infestor and then attack. For some reason in the past most zergs just wait for hive tech, which gives me enough time to get out carrier/mothership/etc. So now I think an important thing is to keep an eye on when they start their hive (i.e. obs in their main), because if they don't get hive there's no need to tech to fleet beacon. Stargate is still good though, since mixing in voids is always great. I guess order should be twilight (for +2), stargate, and then fleet beacon when you see hive, and finally templar archives when you're about to complete your death ball.
I originally went double robo because one of my other favorite openings is a fast +1 6 gate, and I'd follow that up with double robo colo since your robo comes late and I feel the need to catch up on colo count. But I guess if you go fast robo/colo, there's really no need for the double robo. I'd recommend a faster stargate instead and adding in voids earlier rather than a 2nd robo. Once you get to 4+ bases though a 2nd robo is always good.
There's really no way to apply pressure other than zealot/dt/drops. I've tried just maxing on gateway/colo and attacking, but if you tech/expand at the same time then your attack is too slow, and if you don't tech at all then you'll lose to hive tech.
Blink is always great to have. That's actually a weakness of my play, I know I often don't really utilize blink well. The question of storm vs archon - I've actually been leaning more towards storm recently. When I face good zergs who spread out their units and don't throw everything into vortex, then archons actually get killed by broodlords who are outside the vortex. Thus storm becomes much better for you to defend your carriers against corruptors.
Yea infestor nerfs + mothership buff makes this deathball style extremely strong now. Now really the only thing I'm scared of is mass corruptor/BL + fast remax.