On November 08 2011 00:36 Velr wrote: I see why you could end up having a problem if your Z enemies SUDDENLY techswitch to 40 2/2 Mutas and after that SUDDENLY have BL/Ultras.
But these problems have not much to do with Mutas... It's probably that you let them Bank 10k Gas and never ever pressure them and all the while are getting outplayed like crazy...
I never said a Zerg suddenly techswitches to 40 2/2 mutas. The way it usually goes is the following: you forge-fast-expand, you drop 6-7 gate and a tech of your choice ( stargate, robo, twilight ), and prepare for a push around 9'. Sometimes I even produce 3-4 zealots around 6'-7' to put a bit of pressure on his third. Anyway, the Zerg sees you coming and drops a huge wall of spines in front of his natural. Like 7-8 spines and 20 lings, nothing you can break with a pure gateway army without immortals or colossi. And 2 minutes later, 10 mutas are out ( that's usually between 10'30 and 12' ). There's no way a Protoss can pressure a Zerg into spending his gas and minerals is basically a non-issue.
See WhiteRa vs Ret game 1, it's typical of what I'm speaking about:
From this point, it only goes downhill. My push fails: Either I lose my army, or I retreat by saving most of it: it doesn't matter. Mutas are out on the field, I have to defend my 2 bases. Canons are only static defenses, I absolutely need blink stalkers just to barely survive the harass, and I'm unable to take my third until I have at least a decent soft counter to mass mutas ( like storm or archons ).
Meanwhile, the Zerg continues to grow his mutaball, upgrades it, makes sure to harass left & right to make you remember he's still knocking at your door, and prepares his tech switch along with taking expansions everywhere on the map.
I tried prism and DTs harass to prevent the Zerg from macroing up; those simply don't work against good Zergs, period.
The Zerg will stay at 200/200 for a while, teching and upgrading, accumulating resources on his X bases with tons of larvae. Then when he feels confident, he will do a suicide attack. He will most likely lose to my army, and reproduce stuff I just can't handle with my tech, usually brood lords, mass roaches and infestors. It's gg for me, but in reality I just survived, the game was lost 10' ago when I got contained in my bases.
I'm absolutely confused by what I'm reading in this thread, especially coming from Zergs. Apparently it's easy to kill a Zerg when doing a timing push, but I try that all the time and it never works. I'd really like to see a non-cheesy replay of a Protoss that fast expands and is able to punish a Zerg before he's got mutas. And I'm talking of a decent Zerg that scouts and prepares for the timing push, not one that makes a major mistake.. pretty please ?
just matches that come to my mind immidiatly (because they were played yesterday and today):
contains match results of GSL and asus invitiational whiteRa vs Idra; wins and losses for protoss players vs mutalisks, but in general good play vs mutalisks + Show Spoiler +
-) Asus Invitational Idra vs WhiteRa match 1 -) Superstar vs Brown GSL Code A match 1
furthermore -) Hero vs crazymoving game1 was a very close game, in which hero got behind early, but still held on for something like 25mins vs mutalisks, until crazymoving eventually could kill him -) Hero vs crazymoving game2; hero goes double stargate and blindcounters crazymovings spire tech, who then has to cancel the spire
I really want to emphasize on the WhiteRa vs Idra game, because it showed that even if you're completly unprepared against mutalisks (double robo and charge research), just by scouting the mutalisks and having a good economy (3base vs 3base, with just a little bit of warp prism harass instead of huge gateway semi-allins) you can just power through mutalisk harass until you have the army to crush one of the best mutaplayers in the west
Really, Protoss players have to stop suciding gateway armies into 3base zergs, because that is the best possible scenario for a mutalisk switch, as stalkercount, tech and eco will be low for protoss.
It is kinda funny you mention the first game between hero and CM. Spoilers: + Show Spoiler +
Hero opens stargate with phoenix. He takes a fast third and gets templars and blink. This is a near ideal response one would think. Yet hero got roflstomped.
Yeah i know, the game lasted long and seemed close, but that is always the case in pvz with mutas. The zerg players can't engage head on, so it takes a while to technically win the game, but the game was already won at the 17 min mark. Go rewacht the muta harass at the natural at the 17 min mark ingame. Mutas come in and harass. Mutas destroy cannons phoenix and stalkers (that blunk in to defend). Toss antiair isn't as good as terran marines. Next the templars come in, waste a storm and the mutas fly away with ten health taken which they will regen anyway. That happens all the time. When you go blindly 2stargate after FFE you are in a decent spot vs spire players. But zergs don't have to use there spire. just throw down a roach warren and hydraden and you will be fine in the game.
yeah I know, it's funny how complex situations are sometimes not as easy as "but he opened stargate!" want to have another example for that: Zerg goes roach/hydra which does fine vs gateway, then Protoss goes colossi and zerg goes corruptors which is great vs colossi, yet zerg gets demolished in the direct engagement... Really makes one wonder if the game might be a little more complex + Show Spoiler +
Also if you want to find an early point, when hero lost the game, why don't you point out that crazymoving was way ahead because hero did no damage with his stargate play and no damage with his chargeplay and expanded rather late to a 3rd. One could point out that the only thing that kept hero in the game, was how well blink stalkers, phoenix and storms work against mutalisks, even when zerg has way more of them then in an even situation
CM was way ahead? Lol dude, go rewatch the game. Hero did no damage with stargate? Hero did pretty typical damage : a couple of queens, overlords and forcing spores. Heros third base was definately not late : 11 min 15, which is standard if not a little bit faster then standard. He had good eco and very good tech. What kept him in the game? Two things: 1) Muta play kills your opponent slowly. At the 17 min mark this game was lost. I know it sounds bold too an unexperienced player but it would have been a miracle to win vs a decent zerg that has spines bases and 30+ mutas. 2) CM is really not such a good player tbh, at least in that game there were many crucial mistakes which shouldnt happen at that level (codeA). Let me gives examples: Just before the main nexus dies, CM loses 10 mutas in Heros natural. CM mutas have been stormed afterwards and they are damaged. Instead of gently harassing and waiting to regen his life, he boldly moves across the main, which hero obviously sees: 5 mutas lost. hero places 3-4 stalkers behind one expo at 11 o clock; CM needs 45 sec to react and pull his drones wtf. Overall this game shows how ineffective temps and cannons are vs mutas. Just go watch how many storms were used and how many muta got killed because of the storms.
I know everyone can give his input on TL, but it is kinda funny how you, bigJ, explains to Hero, Welmu and myself how to play pvz and spams this thread like a madman.
well I'm sorry for you that I'm not one of the posters who writes "X is shit, Y is right" and then when you confront him, he doesn't answer. You know, some people call this discussing. If you want people to do that, open a thread that's called "Point out reasons why the mutalisk is imbalanced".
If you prefer it, you can think of any of my posts as: "In my opinion...", like as "in my opinion, hero was behind." And like in "in my opinion, Hero knows way better how to play PvZ, which doesn't mean that I can't point out that some of his decisions were rather relying on chance (stargate opening, chargelot harass), then being solid play" or like in "In my opinion, CM didn't make a lot more mistakes than Hero when he was harassing, because losing some mutas is just as natural as missing most storms against mutalisks"
But the thing is, HerO wasn't playing badly or worse than CrazyMoving. If anything Crazy moving was playing worse. He didn't cut off zealots and stalkers as they were picking off far away bases and he lost a whole base of drones to 2 stalkers.
And don't say HerO missed storms because the vast majority hit the mutalisks and did some damage. The issue was that the damage was so minimal that it barely left a dent on the mutalisks. Followed by the fact the stalkers were doing poor damage the mutas just wouldn't die.
As someone pointed out before, if the stalkers were marines then while flying over them Crazy Moving would have lost far more mutas than he did vs. HerO.
HerO did everything you suggest is necessary vs mutas. Storm, leaving templar behind, having well upgraded blink stalkers and taking a not super late 3rd. The 3rd was a bit faster than normal, the opening was standard and he did some mineral damage to the Zerg.
The fact that no pheonix were made even though a stargate was available also says volumes about the viability of pheonix vs Mutalisks. HerO just died a very slow death to the mutalisks since CM didnt let them sit in the middle of a storm to take full damage. That was all he had to do and he did it so he won.
Well, I think there was only one storm that was really hitting the mutaball, most other storms were just at the edges of the mutalisks. And yes, Hero did some great moves killing expansions and CM might have been able to safe some more drones, but I would have to look at the replay and see this kind of stuff. Also I think I have pointed out verious times that imo HerO was at least a little behind already at that point in time. Also I think an 11+min third is rather late with an army that consists pretty much of only gateway units, as you can go colossus expand around 12mins as well. (which is ofc no better vs mutalisks, but just to point out how much further you can be in tech at that time)
The things that really bug me are, that people keep on argueing that the Protoss should win in this "antimuta"-scenario, which is wrong. A biomech player who relies mostly on marines doesn't just lose because banelings and infestors are on the field and that is fine as well. And also that I have given 2more examples of recent high level games in PvZ including mutalisks, that the protoss players won, but people keep arguing about the one game I pointed out that the protoss player lost and that was played on probably the most mutaliskfriendly map that is currently being played in the whole mappool.
sorry bro but the bio mech player isnt massing 30 extremly hard to kill tanks and flying them around your base killing your shit and containing you, mass muta and bio mech have 0 resemblance.And you say most storms on edge of muta ? well maybe because the're so fast coupled with their ability to fly that even a pro like hero is having a hard time landing a solid storm.11 min third late? yah maybe for a zerg, he also had templar tech and stargate tech so yah he wasnt on gateway units.
On November 08 2011 04:13 Big J wrote: [quote] well I'm sorry for you that I'm not one of the posters who writes "X is shit, Y is right" and then when you confront him, he doesn't answer. You know, some people call this discussing. If you want people to do that, open a thread that's called "Point out reasons why the mutalisk is imbalanced".
If you prefer it, you can think of any of my posts as: "In my opinion...", like as "in my opinion, hero was behind." And like in "in my opinion, Hero knows way better how to play PvZ, which doesn't mean that I can't point out that some of his decisions were rather relying on chance (stargate opening, chargelot harass), then being solid play" or like in "In my opinion, CM didn't make a lot more mistakes than Hero when he was harassing, because losing some mutas is just as natural as missing most storms against mutalisks"
But the thing is, HerO wasn't playing badly or worse than CrazyMoving. If anything Crazy moving was playing worse. He didn't cut off zealots and stalkers as they were picking off far away bases and he lost a whole base of drones to 2 stalkers.
And don't say HerO missed storms because the vast majority hit the mutalisks and did some damage. The issue was that the damage was so minimal that it barely left a dent on the mutalisks. Followed by the fact the stalkers were doing poor damage the mutas just wouldn't die.
As someone pointed out before, if the stalkers were marines then while flying over them Crazy Moving would have lost far more mutas than he did vs. HerO.
HerO did everything you suggest is necessary vs mutas. Storm, leaving templar behind, having well upgraded blink stalkers and taking a not super late 3rd. The 3rd was a bit faster than normal, the opening was standard and he did some mineral damage to the Zerg.
The fact that no pheonix were made even though a stargate was available also says volumes about the viability of pheonix vs Mutalisks. HerO just died a very slow death to the mutalisks since CM didnt let them sit in the middle of a storm to take full damage. That was all he had to do and he did it so he won.
Personally I don't get why Tosses even try to use storm vs mutas, it's an awful counter, it was awful in BW and relied somewhat on luck (almost always they simply used archons). Just morph those templar into archons at the start, don't even bother with storm T_T.
In BW you had the possibility of maelstrom also which let you land storms, also corsairs were better vs mutas than phoenix are. Also goons are better than stalkers.
Maelstrom was rarely used. Very rarely. It got popular for like 2 weeks when tosses were having problems with 5 hatch hydra into delayed mutas. That's all. Corsairs were indeed better, but many opted to go the goon/archon route instead as corsairs were often picked off by scourge. Storm was also far more damaging in SC1.
Quite simply, more blink stalkers + archons are going to be a far better counter vs mutas than trying to tech to storm. Eventually get it, yes, but far far later on.
On November 08 2011 05:55 Falling wrote:
On November 08 2011 05:47 FabledIntegral wrote:
On November 08 2011 05:44 ZeromuS wrote:
On November 08 2011 04:13 Big J wrote: [quote] well I'm sorry for you that I'm not one of the posters who writes "X is shit, Y is right" and then when you confront him, he doesn't answer. You know, some people call this discussing. If you want people to do that, open a thread that's called "Point out reasons why the mutalisk is imbalanced".
If you prefer it, you can think of any of my posts as: "In my opinion...", like as "in my opinion, hero was behind." And like in "in my opinion, Hero knows way better how to play PvZ, which doesn't mean that I can't point out that some of his decisions were rather relying on chance (stargate opening, chargelot harass), then being solid play" or like in "In my opinion, CM didn't make a lot more mistakes than Hero when he was harassing, because losing some mutas is just as natural as missing most storms against mutalisks"
But the thing is, HerO wasn't playing badly or worse than CrazyMoving. If anything Crazy moving was playing worse. He didn't cut off zealots and stalkers as they were picking off far away bases and he lost a whole base of drones to 2 stalkers.
And don't say HerO missed storms because the vast majority hit the mutalisks and did some damage. The issue was that the damage was so minimal that it barely left a dent on the mutalisks. Followed by the fact the stalkers were doing poor damage the mutas just wouldn't die.
As someone pointed out before, if the stalkers were marines then while flying over them Crazy Moving would have lost far more mutas than he did vs. HerO.
HerO did everything you suggest is necessary vs mutas. Storm, leaving templar behind, having well upgraded blink stalkers and taking a not super late 3rd. The 3rd was a bit faster than normal, the opening was standard and he did some mineral damage to the Zerg.
The fact that no pheonix were made even though a stargate was available also says volumes about the viability of pheonix vs Mutalisks. HerO just died a very slow death to the mutalisks since CM didnt let them sit in the middle of a storm to take full damage. That was all he had to do and he did it so he won.
Personally I don't get why Tosses even try to use storm vs mutas, it's an awful counter, it was awful in BW and relied somewhat on luck (almost always they simply used archons). Just morph those templar into archons at the start, don't even bother with storm T_T.
Well at 112 damage, if you could ever catch the muta, it was worth it. But I agree that storms seem rather useless. Even if the muta's sit under it for the full four seconds, they keep 1/3 of their health. But what is more likely is that they'll just fly through it taking minimal damage. But do archons even help once they get that giant flock? Because with unlimited selection it seems they could just outright snipe Archons too. Whereas in BW that splash was just killer for the 11 muta that would actually be forced to take a shot or two to the face.
The higher the count of mutas, the more effective archons become... it's the same with Thors. If you force them to magic box you, they take substantially more damage from the stalkers than they would have otherwise. It's the exact same concept as ZvT. Mutas can easily pick off Thors/Archons alone, but if there is Thor/Marine or Stalker/Archon the mutas simply can't engage unless in overwhelming numbers, to which you should simply have more stuff.
But it was a possibility to maelstrom, if toss had it in sc2 they wouldn't care about mutas, maelstrom + storm or maelstrom + archons would solve the problem and it would help in PvT. Stalkers are such flimsy units I hate them, goons were way beefier. Also what "size" unit was a muta, medium?
You can't say it would be used at all without knowing the situation... mutas were a huge issue in SC1 and it still wasn't used...
But you only had to worry about groups of 11 of them, not 30-40. Imagine a maelstrom on even half of them into a storm landing for full damage and/or some archon shots. Mutas would literally melt.
On November 08 2011 06:06 Dfgj wrote:
On November 08 2011 06:03 Hierarch wrote:
On November 08 2011 05:57 FabledIntegral wrote:
On November 08 2011 05:51 Hierarch wrote:
On November 08 2011 05:47 FabledIntegral wrote:
On November 08 2011 05:44 ZeromuS wrote:
On November 08 2011 04:13 Big J wrote: [quote] well I'm sorry for you that I'm not one of the posters who writes "X is shit, Y is right" and then when you confront him, he doesn't answer. You know, some people call this discussing. If you want people to do that, open a thread that's called "Point out reasons why the mutalisk is imbalanced".
If you prefer it, you can think of any of my posts as: "In my opinion...", like as "in my opinion, hero was behind." And like in "in my opinion, Hero knows way better how to play PvZ, which doesn't mean that I can't point out that some of his decisions were rather relying on chance (stargate opening, chargelot harass), then being solid play" or like in "In my opinion, CM didn't make a lot more mistakes than Hero when he was harassing, because losing some mutas is just as natural as missing most storms against mutalisks"
But the thing is, HerO wasn't playing badly or worse than CrazyMoving. If anything Crazy moving was playing worse. He didn't cut off zealots and stalkers as they were picking off far away bases and he lost a whole base of drones to 2 stalkers.
And don't say HerO missed storms because the vast majority hit the mutalisks and did some damage. The issue was that the damage was so minimal that it barely left a dent on the mutalisks. Followed by the fact the stalkers were doing poor damage the mutas just wouldn't die.
As someone pointed out before, if the stalkers were marines then while flying over them Crazy Moving would have lost far more mutas than he did vs. HerO.
HerO did everything you suggest is necessary vs mutas. Storm, leaving templar behind, having well upgraded blink stalkers and taking a not super late 3rd. The 3rd was a bit faster than normal, the opening was standard and he did some mineral damage to the Zerg.
The fact that no pheonix were made even though a stargate was available also says volumes about the viability of pheonix vs Mutalisks. HerO just died a very slow death to the mutalisks since CM didnt let them sit in the middle of a storm to take full damage. That was all he had to do and he did it so he won.
Personally I don't get why Tosses even try to use storm vs mutas, it's an awful counter, it was awful in BW and relied somewhat on luck (almost always they simply used archons). Just morph those templar into archons at the start, don't even bother with storm T_T.
In BW you had the possibility of maelstrom also which let you land storms, also corsairs were better vs mutas than phoenix are. Also goons are better than stalkers.
Maelstrom was rarely used. Very rarely. It got popular for like 2 weeks when tosses were having problems with 5 hatch hydra into delayed mutas. That's all. Corsairs were indeed better, but many opted to go the goon/archon route instead as corsairs were often picked off by scourge. Storm was also far more damaging in SC1.
Quite simply, more blink stalkers + archons are going to be a far better counter vs mutas than trying to tech to storm. Eventually get it, yes, but far far later on.
On November 08 2011 05:55 Falling wrote:
On November 08 2011 05:47 FabledIntegral wrote:
On November 08 2011 05:44 ZeromuS wrote:
On November 08 2011 04:13 Big J wrote: [quote] well I'm sorry for you that I'm not one of the posters who writes "X is shit, Y is right" and then when you confront him, he doesn't answer. You know, some people call this discussing. If you want people to do that, open a thread that's called "Point out reasons why the mutalisk is imbalanced".
If you prefer it, you can think of any of my posts as: "In my opinion...", like as "in my opinion, hero was behind." And like in "in my opinion, Hero knows way better how to play PvZ, which doesn't mean that I can't point out that some of his decisions were rather relying on chance (stargate opening, chargelot harass), then being solid play" or like in "In my opinion, CM didn't make a lot more mistakes than Hero when he was harassing, because losing some mutas is just as natural as missing most storms against mutalisks"
But the thing is, HerO wasn't playing badly or worse than CrazyMoving. If anything Crazy moving was playing worse. He didn't cut off zealots and stalkers as they were picking off far away bases and he lost a whole base of drones to 2 stalkers.
And don't say HerO missed storms because the vast majority hit the mutalisks and did some damage. The issue was that the damage was so minimal that it barely left a dent on the mutalisks. Followed by the fact the stalkers were doing poor damage the mutas just wouldn't die.
As someone pointed out before, if the stalkers were marines then while flying over them Crazy Moving would have lost far more mutas than he did vs. HerO.
HerO did everything you suggest is necessary vs mutas. Storm, leaving templar behind, having well upgraded blink stalkers and taking a not super late 3rd. The 3rd was a bit faster than normal, the opening was standard and he did some mineral damage to the Zerg.
The fact that no pheonix were made even though a stargate was available also says volumes about the viability of pheonix vs Mutalisks. HerO just died a very slow death to the mutalisks since CM didnt let them sit in the middle of a storm to take full damage. That was all he had to do and he did it so he won.
Personally I don't get why Tosses even try to use storm vs mutas, it's an awful counter, it was awful in BW and relied somewhat on luck (almost always they simply used archons). Just morph those templar into archons at the start, don't even bother with storm T_T.
Well at 112 damage, if you could ever catch the muta, it was worth it. But I agree that storms seem rather useless. Even if the muta's sit under it for the full four seconds, they keep 1/3 of their health. But what is more likely is that they'll just fly through it taking minimal damage. But do archons even help once they get that giant flock? Because with unlimited selection it seems they could just outright snipe Archons too. Whereas in BW that splash was just killer for the 11 muta that would actually be forced to take a shot or two to the face.
The higher the count of mutas, the more effective archons become... it's the same with Thors. If you force them to magic box you, they take substantially more damage from the stalkers than they would have otherwise. It's the exact same concept as ZvT. Mutas can easily pick off Thors/Archons alone, but if there is Thor/Marine or Stalker/Archon the mutas simply can't engage unless in overwhelming numbers, to which you should simply have more stuff.
But it was a possibility to maelstrom, if toss had it in sc2 they wouldn't care about mutas, maelstrom + storm or maelstrom + archons would solve the problem and it would help in PvT. Stalkers are such flimsy units I hate them, goons were way beefier. Also what "size" unit was a muta, medium?
Mutas were small.
ewww so goons only did 10 damage to them right? Sorry didn't play BW competitively at all.
You can't go into an argument about pro players and then bring up the limited unit selection in BW. In fact, having that prevented the pros from developing lazy habits like the 1a syndrome that happens even in the highest levels in SC2. Pros can control more than 1 group of mutas. They can't micro them as well as they could micro just one group but they can still micro them better than what micro the SC2 engine allows players to.
Then enlighten me to why was maelstrom so underused, and the micro engine in BW might have been "better" but the pathing was stupid a lot of the time.
You totally missed the point of what he said. He just means the game shouldn't be balanced around lazy 1a controls when we are able to control mutas in packs of 12 if we wanted. If maelstrom is too strong against muta players who 1a then they should learn to split them up, not we shouldn't bother putting the spell in.
On November 08 2011 00:36 Velr wrote: I see why you could end up having a problem if your Z enemies SUDDENLY techswitch to 40 2/2 Mutas and after that SUDDENLY have BL/Ultras.
But these problems have not much to do with Mutas... It's probably that you let them Bank 10k Gas and never ever pressure them and all the while are getting outplayed like crazy...
I never said a Zerg suddenly techswitches to 40 2/2 mutas. The way it usually goes is the following: you forge-fast-expand, you drop 6-7 gate and a tech of your choice ( stargate, robo, twilight ), and prepare for a push around 9'. Sometimes I even produce 3-4 zealots around 6'-7' to put a bit of pressure on his third. Anyway, the Zerg sees you coming and drops a huge wall of spines in front of his natural. Like 7-8 spines and 20 lings, nothing you can break with a pure gateway army without immortals or colossi. And 2 minutes later, 10 mutas are out ( that's usually between 10'30 and 12' ). There's no way a Protoss can pressure a Zerg into spending his gas and minerals is basically a non-issue.
From this point, it only goes downhill. My push fails: Either I lose my army, or I retreat by saving most of it: it doesn't matter. Mutas are out on the field, I have to defend my 2 bases. Canons are only static defenses, I absolutely need blink stalkers just to barely survive the harass, and I'm unable to take my third until I have at least a decent soft counter to mass mutas ( like storm or archons ).
Meanwhile, the Zerg continues to grow his mutaball, upgrades it, makes sure to harass left & right to make you remember he's still knocking at your door, and prepares his tech switch along with taking expansions everywhere on the map.
I tried prism and DTs harass to prevent the Zerg from macroing up; those simply don't work against good Zergs, period.
The Zerg will stay at 200/200 for a while, teching and upgrading, accumulating resources on his X bases with tons of larvae. Then when he feels confident, he will do a suicide attack. He will most likely lose to my army, and reproduce stuff I just can't handle with my tech, usually brood lords, mass roaches and infestors. It's gg for me, but in reality I just survived, the game was lost 10' ago when I got contained in my bases.
I'm absolutely confused by what I'm reading in this thread, especially coming from Zergs. Apparently it's easy to kill a Zerg when doing a timing push, but I try that all the time and it never works. I'd really like to see a non-cheesy replay of a Protoss that fast expands and is able to punish a Zerg before he's got mutas. And I'm talking of a decent Zerg that scouts and prepares for the timing push, not one that makes a major mistake.. pretty please ?
just matches that come to my mind immidiatly (because they were played yesterday and today):
contains match results of GSL and asus invitiational whiteRa vs Idra; wins and losses for protoss players vs mutalisks, but in general good play vs mutalisks + Show Spoiler +
-) Asus Invitational Idra vs WhiteRa match 1 -) Superstar vs Brown GSL Code A match 1
furthermore -) Hero vs crazymoving game1 was a very close game, in which hero got behind early, but still held on for something like 25mins vs mutalisks, until crazymoving eventually could kill him -) Hero vs crazymoving game2; hero goes double stargate and blindcounters crazymovings spire tech, who then has to cancel the spire
I really want to emphasize on the WhiteRa vs Idra game, because it showed that even if you're completly unprepared against mutalisks (double robo and charge research), just by scouting the mutalisks and having a good economy (3base vs 3base, with just a little bit of warp prism harass instead of huge gateway semi-allins) you can just power through mutalisk harass until you have the army to crush one of the best mutaplayers in the west
Really, Protoss players have to stop suciding gateway armies into 3base zergs, because that is the best possible scenario for a mutalisk switch, as stalkercount, tech and eco will be low for protoss.
It is kinda funny you mention the first game between hero and CM. Spoilers: + Show Spoiler +
Hero opens stargate with phoenix. He takes a fast third and gets templars and blink. This is a near ideal response one would think. Yet hero got roflstomped.
Yeah i know, the game lasted long and seemed close, but that is always the case in pvz with mutas. The zerg players can't engage head on, so it takes a while to technically win the game, but the game was already won at the 17 min mark. Go rewacht the muta harass at the natural at the 17 min mark ingame. Mutas come in and harass. Mutas destroy cannons phoenix and stalkers (that blunk in to defend). Toss antiair isn't as good as terran marines. Next the templars come in, waste a storm and the mutas fly away with ten health taken which they will regen anyway. That happens all the time. When you go blindly 2stargate after FFE you are in a decent spot vs spire players. But zergs don't have to use there spire. just throw down a roach warren and hydraden and you will be fine in the game.
yeah I know, it's funny how complex situations are sometimes not as easy as "but he opened stargate!" want to have another example for that: Zerg goes roach/hydra which does fine vs gateway, then Protoss goes colossi and zerg goes corruptors which is great vs colossi, yet zerg gets demolished in the direct engagement... Really makes one wonder if the game might be a little more complex + Show Spoiler +
Also if you want to find an early point, when hero lost the game, why don't you point out that crazymoving was way ahead because hero did no damage with his stargate play and no damage with his chargeplay and expanded rather late to a 3rd. One could point out that the only thing that kept hero in the game, was how well blink stalkers, phoenix and storms work against mutalisks, even when zerg has way more of them then in an even situation
CM was way ahead? Lol dude, go rewatch the game. Hero did no damage with stargate? Hero did pretty typical damage : a couple of queens, overlords and forcing spores. Heros third base was definately not late : 11 min 15, which is standard if not a little bit faster then standard. He had good eco and very good tech. What kept him in the game? Two things: 1) Muta play kills your opponent slowly. At the 17 min mark this game was lost. I know it sounds bold too an unexperienced player but it would have been a miracle to win vs a decent zerg that has spines bases and 30+ mutas. 2) CM is really not such a good player tbh, at least in that game there were many crucial mistakes which shouldnt happen at that level (codeA). Let me gives examples: Just before the main nexus dies, CM loses 10 mutas in Heros natural. CM mutas have been stormed afterwards and they are damaged. Instead of gently harassing and waiting to regen his life, he boldly moves across the main, which hero obviously sees: 5 mutas lost. hero places 3-4 stalkers behind one expo at 11 o clock; CM needs 45 sec to react and pull his drones wtf. Overall this game shows how ineffective temps and cannons are vs mutas. Just go watch how many storms were used and how many muta got killed because of the storms.
I know everyone can give his input on TL, but it is kinda funny how you, bigJ, explains to Hero, Welmu and myself how to play pvz and spams this thread like a madman.
well I'm sorry for you that I'm not one of the posters who writes "X is shit, Y is right" and then when you confront him, he doesn't answer. You know, some people call this discussing. If you want people to do that, open a thread that's called "Point out reasons why the mutalisk is imbalanced".
If you prefer it, you can think of any of my posts as: "In my opinion...", like as "in my opinion, hero was behind." And like in "in my opinion, Hero knows way better how to play PvZ, which doesn't mean that I can't point out that some of his decisions were rather relying on chance (stargate opening, chargelot harass), then being solid play" or like in "In my opinion, CM didn't make a lot more mistakes than Hero when he was harassing, because losing some mutas is just as natural as missing most storms against mutalisks"
But the thing is, HerO wasn't playing badly or worse than CrazyMoving. If anything Crazy moving was playing worse. He didn't cut off zealots and stalkers as they were picking off far away bases and he lost a whole base of drones to 2 stalkers.
And don't say HerO missed storms because the vast majority hit the mutalisks and did some damage. The issue was that the damage was so minimal that it barely left a dent on the mutalisks. Followed by the fact the stalkers were doing poor damage the mutas just wouldn't die.
As someone pointed out before, if the stalkers were marines then while flying over them Crazy Moving would have lost far more mutas than he did vs. HerO.
HerO did everything you suggest is necessary vs mutas. Storm, leaving templar behind, having well upgraded blink stalkers and taking a not super late 3rd. The 3rd was a bit faster than normal, the opening was standard and he did some mineral damage to the Zerg.
The fact that no pheonix were made even though a stargate was available also says volumes about the viability of pheonix vs Mutalisks. HerO just died a very slow death to the mutalisks since CM didnt let them sit in the middle of a storm to take full damage. That was all he had to do and he did it so he won.
Well, I think there was only one storm that was really hitting the mutaball, most other storms were just at the edges of the mutalisks. And yes, Hero did some great moves killing expansions and CM might have been able to safe some more drones, but I would have to look at the replay and see this kind of stuff. Also I think I have pointed out verious times that imo HerO was at least a little behind already at that point in time. Also I think an 11+min third is rather late with an army that consists pretty much of only gateway units, as you can go colossus expand around 12mins as well. (which is ofc no better vs mutalisks, but just to point out how much further you can be in tech at that time)
The things that really bug me are, that people keep on argueing that the Protoss should win in this "antimuta"-scenario, which is wrong. A biomech player who relies mostly on marines doesn't just lose because banelings and infestors are on the field and that is fine as well. And also that I have given 2more examples of recent high level games in PvZ including mutalisks, that the protoss players won, but people keep arguing about the one game I pointed out that the protoss player lost and that was played on probably the most mutaliskfriendly map that is currently being played in the whole mappool.
sorry bro but the bio mech player isnt massing 30 extremly hard to kill tanks and flying them around your base killing your shit and containing you, mass muta and bio mech have 0 resemblance.And you say most storms on edge of muta ? well maybe because the're so fast coupled with their ability to fly that even a pro like hero is having a hard time landing a solid storm.11 min third late? yah maybe for a zerg, he also had templar tech and stargate tech so yah he wasnt on gateway units.
you relise you cant compare bio mech to muta its not the same at all you have solid counters for biomech, what does toss do for muta please tell me, because hero did pretty much everything right trying to defend,and you could see hero was pissed cause even he knows that is just bs.
I just want to mention...in ZvT you always hear about a critical mass of mutas where terran is pretty helpless to harassment. Imagine how much worse for protoss that is when comparing the cost and effectiveness of marines v stalkers to mutas. I would consider a stalker to be the equal to at least 3 marines, more like 4-5 depending on how you want to value gas. What's more scary to a group of 15 mutas. 20 marines or 5-6 stalkers? To 30 mutas, 40 marines or 10 stalkers? Marines are also a decent amount faster when stimmed + small unit size makes it easier to not get stuck awkwardly behind your sim city. Templar are just a much more squishy, one, maybe two shot only thor.
Critical mass of mutas is just pretty hard to deal with when the zerg can micro. Saying stuff like "but it's so micro intensive!" to justify the power of it is ridiculous because any Code B+ zerg should have good enough muta control from ZvT anyway. It's getting a bit silly seeing how many times midgame muta switches just run over a toss though it's obviously nothing like 1-1-1. Maybe it's mostly map specific, if the third is relatively easy to secure some kind of new mass phoenix + zealot + colossus metagame might be okay even versus a mass roach switch if you have double robo for immortals. Opening stargate expand like Hero v Crazymoving game 3 seems to deter it if you scout the spire at the proper timing. It seems like a nightmare on a map like Tal'darim where zerg can expand to all corners of the map. Maybe warp prism + phoenix would be okay to snipe those off.
I should make a topic about are pheonix's are op? Destroying the shit out of hydras
Phoenixes are fine (excluding their inability to deal with huge muta swarms)
Hydras are UP, it is one of the most underused units in game.
Hydras are UP: the biggest fallacy to ever get posted. They're situational; Hydra drops are extremely good, Hydra/Spine pushes are scary, Hydras do a good job at defending the Zerg's base. They're a bad unit if you want to mass them and a-move them into Colossi and Siege Tanks, but that's because you're using them incorrectly. If I land my vikings and use them as the bulk of my army, I'm using Vikings wrong. The Viking example just sounds stupid because we don't have the preconception of what the Vikings role should be compared to the Hydra's role back in SC:BW. The Hydra back then fulfilled a different role, and therefore shouldn't be used as that basis of what a Hydra's role should be in StarCraft 2.
On November 08 2011 07:27 Heavenly wrote: I just want to mention...in ZvT you always hear about a critical mass of mutas where terran is pretty helpless to harassment. Imagine how much worse for protoss that is when comparing the cost and effectiveness of marines v stalkers to mutas. I would consider a stalker to be the equal to at least 3 marines, more like 4-5 depending on how you want to value gas. What's more scary to a group of 15 mutas. 20 marines or 5-6 stalkers? To 30 mutas, 40 marines or 10 stalkers? Marines are also a decent amount faster when stimmed + small unit size makes it easier to not get stuck awkwardly behind your sim city. Templar are just a much more squishy, one, maybe two shot only thor.
Critical mass of mutas is just pretty hard to deal with when the zerg can micro. Saying stuff like "but it's so micro intensive!" to justify the power of it is ridiculous because any Code B+ zerg should have good enough muta control from ZvT anyway. It's getting a bit silly seeing how many times midgame muta switches just run over a toss though it's obviously nothing like 1-1-1. Maybe it's mostly map specific, if the third is relatively easy to secure some kind of new mass phoenix + zealot + colossus metagame might be okay even versus a mass roach switch if you have double robo for immortals. Opening stargate expand like Hero v Crazymoving game 3 seems to deter it if you scout the spire at the proper timing. It seems like a nightmare on a map like Tal'darim where zerg can expand to all corners of the map. Maybe warp prism + phoenix would be okay to snipe those off.
It becomes really difficult as Terran to deal with massive Mutalisk flocks when you're trying to take a third base on maps like Shakuras Plateau or Antiga Shipyard, whereas with Stalkers at the very least Blink offers a very mobile way to get up and down cliffs. I don't want to say that managing against Mutalisks as Terran is harder or easier, but it is still very difficult. If you ever mess up in appropriately distributing your forces, you can quickly lose the game.
But seriously I think this game is what Blizzard has in mind when they say P needs an easy counter to the muta. The problem is, I'm not sure if the Tempest is the right solution. What could happen is Hero gets a Tempest at each expo and then turtles and facerolls. gg. It might be too hard of a counter, but honestly we can't say shit until the pros start playing around with it so w/e
You honestly think a 300/300 2.25 Speed unit that requires a fleet beacon was going to stop that many mutas that early?
Heres a better solution, phoenix upgrade at fleetbeacon. tuh duh.
No need for tempest.
Hell reinstate KA, no need to phoenix or tempest.
Dude seriously?
Do you honestly think that is what the final balanced cost of the Tempest is going to be? There have been like hundreds of threads where people say "don't whine about the current cost/stats of the new units. they're not balanced yet." Have you not seen those threads?
All I'm saying is the unit is a very hard counter to the muta. It would work but it isn't necessarily a good thing.
What kind of phoenix upgrade do you have in mind btw?
I don't think you understand the concept of the Tempest. It is suppose to be a capital ship. That means it will be capital ship priced. It may not be 300/300, but it'll be similiar to the battlecruiser, or broodlord, or carriers now.
There can be so many things for a phoenix upgrade. A range buff +1, the return of overload, inherent splash damage.
On November 07 2011 08:24 CosmicSpiral wrote: [quote]
Of course he didn't scout it. sC was turtling and fended off any possible overlord scout with marines all around his base's perimeter.
I'm not talking about mutalisks.
lol then this has nothing to do with the muta,were talking about 30 mutas and how stupid it is trying to defend againts it while putting pressure on the expanding zerg, not some gimmicky 1 base all in.
you said how "i cant just mass banshees and win so zerg shouldnt be able to mass mutas" at whcih point we proved you wrong by providing a game where mass banshees let a lower level player beat a higher level player (nestea), that is why it's relevent.
mass banshees is no where near as viable as mass muta, its gimmicky how many people you see doing it? nestea got cought with his pants down, how does a 1 base banshee all in even compare to mass muta.I
If you are letting Zerg get "mass mutas" to the point where you think it's OP. You haven't been pressuring him enough in the early game, hence already lost. It's not like Zerg can pop 3000 gas out of his ass at any given time.
That is such BS, the only reason people say that nowadays is because people like yourself have spouted that nonsense since the beta. I have witnessed hundreds of games where Zerg got 30+ mutas, his opponent pressuring him or not doesn't mean shit if Zerg just plays well and focuses on eventually making mutalisks.
Stop for a moment. Think logically. You're saying that if Z plays well enough, they can mass up 30 mutas despite pressure.
I'd like to point out that if Z plays well enough, they can do pretty much anything. This is obvious: if somebody (P, Z or T) plays well enough, they can win the game.
That was the point I was trying to make, dunno why you appear to think I was saying something else.
I also wasn't trying to imply that after Zerg makes 30 mutalisks they autowin. That's obviously not true (Terrans don't win as soon as the tech lab on their starport finishes in TvP); I was simply trying to dispel the myth that "If you play properly (E.G. Pressure Zerg) you can prevent him from making mutalisks, period."
The "Well if you let him get 'X' you just lose" idea is simply not true, at least not in the manner most people use it. People used to say "If you let Protoss too many Void Rays AND Collosus, you just lose." That's obviously not true now and it wasn't true at any point in time, it's just at that certain point in the metagame (Whether due to patches or not I'm not going to argue, I don't really care) if Protoss DID happen to get to that point in the game, they usually had a very high likelyhood of winning. In my opinion PvZ is in a similar situation, except with mutalisks. Obviously it's a bit different, because you can base race and stuff, but from my experience unless Zerg is silly and A-moves into a full Toss army with storm and archons, Zerg has a very high likelyhood of winning.
Oh, I wasn't trying to argue that you were implying that 30 mutas auto-win the game. I was just saying that since somebody who outplays their opponent sufficiently can win the game, then there will be a lesser level of play at which they could build 30 mutas instead (which is obviously not as strong of an action as winning the game). It all comes up to gaining enough advantage.
So... let's go for a logical analysis of the situation.
I will assume that Z can't suddenly pop 30 mutalisks out, because letting Z pile up 3k/3k resources when they are not miles ahead is not proper play (and if any player is miles ahead, then it's perfectly fine for them to be able to build a crushing army - in fact, I'd like the fact that this specific crushing army is not of the a-move sort). I'm also putting this as an axiom - if anybody disagrees with this, I'm not going to discuss it. So... in order to get there, Z has to start with small amounts of mutalisks; in order to fix a pattern of thought, let's say that they have to get to a point where they can afford to invest 850/800 (lair+spire+mutas, consider it 700/700 if you don't want to include lair tech) into units that have little direct combat value. In abstract, there could be two options for achieving that: 1) defending cost-effectively, using the margin to tech; 2) get a larger economy and use the extra income to tech.
If 2) is what happens without superior play from Z, then the alleged balance problem isn't with mutalisks. Since that would transcend the scope of this discussion, I'm going to ignore this possibility (read: if people really think that there's a problem with economy growth, it would be better to open another thread). If 1) is what happens without superior play from Z, then I would assume that crawlers are involved. While creep and the support of one queen per hatchery are a significant form of defender's advantage, they should not account for 850/800 worth of resources. If we're talking about spine crawlers, that is another 150 minerals of resources per crawler - I'd dare to say that you'd need four for 600 minerals, but the exact amount is debatable. Point is, P should be able to decide to put 400 minerals in a nexus, then 450/450 in three stargates, then add as many cannons as the amount of the crawlers they forced. This should be enough to ward off small amounts of mutas. In fact, I think that P could afford to put 400 some of those resources into buildings before pushing out, then cancel them for extra warp-ins if they see that they see that Z cut corners in their defense - but this is just an idea. With the gas from 3 bases, P is able to support 3 boosted stargates with a little surplus (a stargate pumping phoenixes with a single chrono per minute eats up exactly 200 gas). Now... I know from previous tests that phoenixes win against mutalisks at a 2:3 ratio without micro, in large numbers (and get only better if microed correctly or if mutalisk bounces become negligible due to smaller numbers). So, in order to get enough gas to beat phoenixes from 3 bases, Z has to control 9 geysers. This means 5 bases - and Z needs to secure them before P can rake up the phoenix count. If both sides pump 600 gas per minute in flyers, then the catch-up takes (at most! Remember, I'm still going with the 2:3 figure, which is probably not the best that P can do) 20 seconds per every 100 gas that Z had over P when the stargates finished (either in mutas or waiting to be spent in mutas). Once that happens, mutas become useless.
This is all theorycraft and there are a lot of details that need refinement and polishing. However, it's an effort to be vaguely more constructive and analytical. I'd be curious to see if a gameplan like this works, but I'm a Z player and I'm nowhere near GM/pro level anyway.
Having a lot of phoenix is cool and all, so lets say you win the air battle (which you won't if they add in some corrupters or infesters) then you have a ton of useless phoenix that can't kill hatcheries which is all the zerg was making while you were defending. Also if you blindly go 3 stargate you die to hydra/ling aggression
Okay, on the three points: - you should still have the army with which you threatened a push earlier on. That can take care of hatcheries once map control is re-established; zerg should have been making speedlings along mutas, but on the other hand protoss should have been making zealots. - corruptors are actually not a problem. They cannot chase phoenixes and definitely cannot be mixed in the ball of mutas for harassing; they're also pretty bad against void rays and stalkers, both of which you have access to. Infestors are more of a problem theoretically, but there is a 130 seconds frame between putting down the infestation pit and getting the first fungal growth. Assuming that Z wants to defend four bases (staying on three vs protoss' three seems suicidal), I'd expect at least four infestors. That's 100+150+600=850 gas, which is a pretty big hit for the muta count. I mean... it looks like the right transition, but zerg is not going to keep map control with those mutas anymore. This is not something that looks clear-cut in theory. - hydra/ling is a problem, yes; good catch. Scouting, in general, is a problem with a pure gateway push blocked by a wall of spines. Hallucination doesn't seem particularly valuable, so the other options are doing a mixed stargate/gateway push and adding extra stargates as needed (which seems bad; you'd need to invest into void rays, which aren't good against mutas) or going robotics. Now, an observer could be an obvious choice, but I can't help but be intrigued at the possibilities offered by a warp prism or two, particularly against an opponent that is trying to support the defense of 3 bases with crawlers.
On November 07 2011 08:27 headdshot wrote: [quote]
lol then this has nothing to do with the muta,were talking about 30 mutas and how stupid it is trying to defend againts it while putting pressure on the expanding zerg, not some gimmicky 1 base all in.
you said how "i cant just mass banshees and win so zerg shouldnt be able to mass mutas" at whcih point we proved you wrong by providing a game where mass banshees let a lower level player beat a higher level player (nestea), that is why it's relevent.
mass banshees is no where near as viable as mass muta, its gimmicky how many people you see doing it? nestea got cought with his pants down, how does a 1 base banshee all in even compare to mass muta.I
If you are letting Zerg get "mass mutas" to the point where you think it's OP. You haven't been pressuring him enough in the early game, hence already lost. It's not like Zerg can pop 3000 gas out of his ass at any given time.
That is such BS, the only reason people say that nowadays is because people like yourself have spouted that nonsense since the beta. I have witnessed hundreds of games where Zerg got 30+ mutas, his opponent pressuring him or not doesn't mean shit if Zerg just plays well and focuses on eventually making mutalisks.
Stop for a moment. Think logically. You're saying that if Z plays well enough, they can mass up 30 mutas despite pressure.
I'd like to point out that if Z plays well enough, they can do pretty much anything. This is obvious: if somebody (P, Z or T) plays well enough, they can win the game.
That was the point I was trying to make, dunno why you appear to think I was saying something else.
I also wasn't trying to imply that after Zerg makes 30 mutalisks they autowin. That's obviously not true (Terrans don't win as soon as the tech lab on their starport finishes in TvP); I was simply trying to dispel the myth that "If you play properly (E.G. Pressure Zerg) you can prevent him from making mutalisks, period."
The "Well if you let him get 'X' you just lose" idea is simply not true, at least not in the manner most people use it. People used to say "If you let Protoss too many Void Rays AND Collosus, you just lose." That's obviously not true now and it wasn't true at any point in time, it's just at that certain point in the metagame (Whether due to patches or not I'm not going to argue, I don't really care) if Protoss DID happen to get to that point in the game, they usually had a very high likelyhood of winning. In my opinion PvZ is in a similar situation, except with mutalisks. Obviously it's a bit different, because you can base race and stuff, but from my experience unless Zerg is silly and A-moves into a full Toss army with storm and archons, Zerg has a very high likelyhood of winning.
Oh, I wasn't trying to argue that you were implying that 30 mutas auto-win the game. I was just saying that since somebody who outplays their opponent sufficiently can win the game, then there will be a lesser level of play at which they could build 30 mutas instead (which is obviously not as strong of an action as winning the game). It all comes up to gaining enough advantage.
So... let's go for a logical analysis of the situation.
I will assume that Z can't suddenly pop 30 mutalisks out, because letting Z pile up 3k/3k resources when they are not miles ahead is not proper play (and if any player is miles ahead, then it's perfectly fine for them to be able to build a crushing army - in fact, I'd like the fact that this specific crushing army is not of the a-move sort). I'm also putting this as an axiom - if anybody disagrees with this, I'm not going to discuss it. So... in order to get there, Z has to start with small amounts of mutalisks; in order to fix a pattern of thought, let's say that they have to get to a point where they can afford to invest 850/800 (lair+spire+mutas, consider it 700/700 if you don't want to include lair tech) into units that have little direct combat value. In abstract, there could be two options for achieving that: 1) defending cost-effectively, using the margin to tech; 2) get a larger economy and use the extra income to tech.
If 2) is what happens without superior play from Z, then the alleged balance problem isn't with mutalisks. Since that would transcend the scope of this discussion, I'm going to ignore this possibility (read: if people really think that there's a problem with economy growth, it would be better to open another thread). If 1) is what happens without superior play from Z, then I would assume that crawlers are involved. While creep and the support of one queen per hatchery are a significant form of defender's advantage, they should not account for 850/800 worth of resources. If we're talking about spine crawlers, that is another 150 minerals of resources per crawler - I'd dare to say that you'd need four for 600 minerals, but the exact amount is debatable. Point is, P should be able to decide to put 400 minerals in a nexus, then 450/450 in three stargates, then add as many cannons as the amount of the crawlers they forced. This should be enough to ward off small amounts of mutas. In fact, I think that P could afford to put 400 some of those resources into buildings before pushing out, then cancel them for extra warp-ins if they see that they see that Z cut corners in their defense - but this is just an idea. With the gas from 3 bases, P is able to support 3 boosted stargates with a little surplus (a stargate pumping phoenixes with a single chrono per minute eats up exactly 200 gas). Now... I know from previous tests that phoenixes win against mutalisks at a 2:3 ratio without micro, in large numbers (and get only better if microed correctly or if mutalisk bounces become negligible due to smaller numbers). So, in order to get enough gas to beat phoenixes from 3 bases, Z has to control 9 geysers. This means 5 bases - and Z needs to secure them before P can rake up the phoenix count. If both sides pump 600 gas per minute in flyers, then the catch-up takes (at most! Remember, I'm still going with the 2:3 figure, which is probably not the best that P can do) 20 seconds per every 100 gas that Z had over P when the stargates finished (either in mutas or waiting to be spent in mutas). Once that happens, mutas become useless.
This is all theorycraft and there are a lot of details that need refinement and polishing. However, it's an effort to be vaguely more constructive and analytical. I'd be curious to see if a gameplan like this works, but I'm a Z player and I'm nowhere near GM/pro level anyway.
Having a lot of phoenix is cool and all, so lets say you win the air battle (which you won't if they add in some corrupters or infesters) then you have a ton of useless phoenix that can't kill hatcheries which is all the zerg was making while you were defending. Also if you blindly go 3 stargate you die to hydra/ling aggression
Okay, on the three points: - you should still have the army with which you threatened a push earlier on. That can take care of hatcheries once map control is re-established; zerg should have been making speedlings along mutas, but on the other hand protoss should have been making zealots. - corruptors are actually not a problem. They cannot chase phoenixes and definitely cannot be mixed in the ball of mutas for harassing; they're also pretty bad against void rays and stalkers, both of which you have access to. Infestors are more of a problem theoretically, but there is a 130 seconds frame between putting down the infestation pit and getting the first fungal growth. Assuming that Z wants to defend four bases (staying on three vs protoss' three seems suicidal), I'd expect at least four infestors. That's 100+150+600=850 gas, which is a pretty big hit for the muta count. I mean... it looks like the right transition, but zerg is not going to keep map control with those mutas anymore. This is not something that looks clear-cut in theory. - hydra/ling is a problem, yes; good catch. Scouting, in general, is a problem with a pure gateway push blocked by a wall of spines. Hallucination doesn't seem particularly valuable, so the other options are doing a mixed stargate/gateway push and adding extra stargates as needed (which seems bad; you'd need to invest into void rays, which aren't good against mutas) or going robotics. Now, an observer could be an obvious choice, but I can't help but be intrigued at the possibilities offered by a warp prism or two, particularly against an opponent that is trying to support the defense of 3 bases with crawlers.
Oh I agree, but the main problem is a muta transition like in HerO vs CM, when the zerg pops 14-20 mutas at once is when the flood gates open. Early scouting and map control vs zerg is hard to come by it seems, and the most common fast expand build (FFE) just seems to allow zergs to get a fast 3 bases going.
On November 08 2011 12:17 Hierarch wrote: Early scouting and map control vs zerg is hard to come by it seems, and the most common fast expand build (FFE) just seems to allow zergs to get a fast 3 bases going.
Maybe FFE is just a bad idea if you can't punish a quick third base?
Yeah, after watching that game I feel like that either FFE is the problem or HerO's timing of his third was. Z was able to get a noticeable economic lead (about 10 workers over HerO's 50-60 workers, to be more precise I'd have to see the replay) despite a well-placed harassment.
Hope the gateway expand that White-Ra displayed recently becomes more popular as that gave the option of early harrass while still getting a just as fast expansion and faster tech.
On November 08 2011 12:17 Hierarch wrote: Early scouting and map control vs zerg is hard to come by it seems, and the most common fast expand build (FFE) just seems to allow zergs to get a fast 3 bases going.
Maybe FFE is just a bad idea if you can't punish a quick third base?
Soon more protosses will start 1 gate FE... finally. Or they'll open double SG off of FFE, which is pretty much the only build that allows you to get any real harassment without the Z messing up.
this is an example why muta give me an hard headache everytime i face them now.
i do FFE and stop his ling harass go into stargate tech with 3 phoenix 1 ray delaying his third after mine, so i got a real hard advantage hes going hydra trys to harass but without succes i take my 4th on the gold he does the muta switch besides
then the game goes very close with him loosing, but still its funny that after that disadvantage the game gets that close if he kept on doin upgrades i would have lost!
blablabla telling things that are not true blablabla
equal amounts of stalkers always beats equal amounts of mutalisks. Costwise, supplywise, availabilitywise, without blink, without support. I don't say there isn't a problem with this, because zerglings counter stalkers so well, that protoss needs to spend some gas differently and that the current metagame revolves around protoss doing huge 2base timings, which when they fail set back the stalker count extremly low, which means that they can't deal with mutas properly
stalkers are not marines. if you have a pack of 10 marines supported by medivacts they will usually always force a pack of 30 or so mutas to retreat. if you have a pack of 10 stalkers 30 mutas will beat them without a problem at all. if u have enough mutas and the mutas are of equal or higher upgrade then stalkers they they beat them pretty handedly. stalkers would need either blink or higher upgrades to turn the tide. usually zerg players dont focus insanely high upgrades on mutas. they usually stop at 1/1 2/0 or 0/2 which is why stalkers seem to always have the upper hand because stalkers have upgrade advantage. if u dont beleive me then go into a test map and test it for urself. u really do need blink stalkers to deal with mutas.
And no, you can't throw down 2-3stargates reactively to deal with 30mutas. But Protoss can throw down 2-3stargates to build void rays when they scout a greater spire. So I think Protoss could throw down those stargates to deal with mutas, if they scout them BEFORE numbers get out of hand. But that is probably being blocked again, by protoss not going with the metagame of all the other matchups and forcing out a strategy that expands evenly with their opponent. PvP, TvP, ZvZ, ZvT, TvT... you name it. In all those MUs, both races play around with nearly even base counts. Protoss don't in PvZ. They rely on power units (namely the colossus and the sentry) and timings to win the ground war. But that backfires when it comes to dealing with air. I'm not saying that this is the players fault. Maybe this is how the game will turn out (though I highly doubt it with the HotS changes). Currently the MU is close to balanced in all tournaments as far as I know. The problem isn't the mutalisk. The problem is the general MU being do or die for Protoss when they are on 2base. Everything that happens after 12mins, is usually only the outcome of protoss failing (mutalisks or straight up losing) or succeeding(getting even on bases or straight up winning) with their allin play.
no they cant. brood lords cant akt air units so building stargate to get voids for broods makes sense. building 3 stargates mid game to deal with mutas doesnt. the mutas will be of higher upgrade and will snipe the low count of nixes and u will just waste gas. if they scout the spire and still makes nixes to react against the mutas then u will get runned over by hydras because ur colo tech will be severly delayed. and if u think making 3 stargates purely for mutas wont delay colo tech by a significant margin then well idk what to say to u. you seriously cant just place stargates at random to counter mutas. u just cant. u need to open stargate or just not go nixes at all. ur better off going archon or something.
Thors counter the hell out of mutalisks, everyone who says otherwise has no clue about the game. If you go Mech, you can have 2thors out when 6-7mutas are out. 4thors when 15mutas are out and so on... The Thors will always win that by turret support early, and without turret support later. (magic box is completly denied by higher thor counts) Archons are pretty much the same in actual combats, though they have less range and therefore aren't so good to defend mobile harassplay. Templars are good as well. But in the end, it always will come down to stalkers and phoenix. Make those work or die vs mutalisks. (everything else is just like a zerg that doesn't build mass roaches and/or zerglings and dies to gateway pushes, and then claims that stalkers are imba...)
lol. first of all if terran goes mech u dont really need to go mutas at all. u can run him over with drop harass, nydus, counter atks, etc. and you are stupid as all hell if u engage 4 thors with mutas. the point of mutas against mech is to run the terran arround, keep him on a certain number of bases, and abuse the hell out of his immobility. you do not EVER EVER need to engage thors directly with mutas. its a stupid idea. the same concept applies to archons. abuse there immobility.so i honestly have no idea what you are trying to prove with that statement.
FFE is what allows the zerg to build towards the muta ball, that late core, meats late warp gate.. which also delays a crucial phoenix upgrade that seems to be ignored by most protoss players.... air armor lvl 1, 5 phoenixes with +1 armor (armor instead of weapons, for the muta glaive bounces) can handle the innitial 12 or so mutas, assuming you dont 1a into them ,you will be able to chase them down and widdle them away, if they continue to build more go up to 8 or so phoenix, and get +1 weapons...
My one issue with this is if zerg pulls all their mutas back to their base (to avoid the phoenixes hunting them down while rebuilding), they can wait for the +2 attack to finish and forces the protoss into the current problem (mass air and get rolled by tech switch, or base trade and lose)
That +2 attack helps them so much against the 1,1 phoenixes... Now what I would like to know.. is why do the lvl 2 air upgrade require a fleet beacon? and not just a stargate..... that really doesnt make sense to me and should be changed, if im able to get 1,2 phoenixes (and even possibly a shield upgrade with the new patch) those 8-10 1/2/1 phoenix against his 25 2/0/0 mutas can handle their own and buy more time to react..
It's really easy for Zergs to get in the Muta-mindset-- that is, to make something like 20 mutas, start 1-shotting tanks and depots, and think they're invincible. Mutas in big numbers are terrifying, but still pretty vulnerable. If you're flying around with 2000/2000 and 1/5 of a maxed army trying to do relatively small amounts of disruptive harass, you're almost tempting fate. Sure, 20 mutas can take out a group of 20 marines, but suddenly afterwards, a lot of them are low-health, and, as IdrA has said before, Muta health is incredibly important. A pack of low-health mutas start to die out to a couple at a time until it's back down to a measly 8 mutas. Mutas to me seem like sort of a glass sonic-the-hedgehog: vulnerable, but quick and irritating to those cooky Terran Dr. Robotniks.
stalkers are not marines. if you have a pack of 10 marines supported by medivacts they will usually always force a pack of 30 or so mutas to retreat.
wow, all those zergs with 30 mutas crushing 25+ of my stimmed, upgraded marines in the blink of an eye must just be cheaters.
Thanks for letting me know!
Try it in the unit tester. 30 unupgraded Mutas do not "crush" 25+ stimmed, upgraded Marines with medivacs (you didn't mention medivacs, but the poster you quoted did). You're exaggerating massively. Anyone complaining Mutas are cost-efficient against Marine is talking out their ass.
blablabla telling things that are not true blablabla
equal amounts of stalkers always beats equal amounts of mutalisks. Costwise, supplywise, availabilitywise, without blink, without support. I don't say there isn't a problem with this, because zerglings counter stalkers so well, that protoss needs to spend some gas differently and that the current metagame revolves around protoss doing huge 2base timings, which when they fail set back the stalker count extremly low, which means that they can't deal with mutas properly
stalkers are not marines. if you have a pack of 10 marines supported by medivacts they will usually always force a pack of 30 or so mutas to retreat. if you have a pack of 10 stalkers 30 mutas will beat them without a problem at all. if u have enough mutas and the mutas are of equal or higher upgrade then stalkers they they beat them pretty handedly. stalkers would need either blink or higher upgrades to turn the tide. usually zerg players dont focus insanely high upgrades on mutas. they usually stop at 1/1 2/0 or 0/2 which is why stalkers seem to always have the upper hand because stalkers have upgrade advantage. if u dont beleive me then go into a test map and test it for urself. u really do need blink stalkers to deal with mutas.
And are 10stalkers the equal cost or supply of 30mutalisks? no. Not in the slightest. I was answering a post of someone, who stated that mutalisks beat (blink) stalkers in direct confrontations in even, high supply situations. Which is wrong (as my qoute says)
And on a sidenote, if a terran has 10marines and something like 2medivacs without any turret support and no marines stimming torwards them, pretty much every zergplayer will just roll them over if he has 30mutalisks in place (and he is aware of the situation).
And no, you can't throw down 2-3stargates reactively to deal with 30mutas. But Protoss can throw down 2-3stargates to build void rays when they scout a greater spire. So I think Protoss could throw down those stargates to deal with mutas, if they scout them BEFORE numbers get out of hand. But that is probably being blocked again, by protoss not going with the metagame of all the other matchups and forcing out a strategy that expands evenly with their opponent. PvP, TvP, ZvZ, ZvT, TvT... you name it. In all those MUs, both races play around with nearly even base counts. Protoss don't in PvZ. They rely on power units (namely the colossus and the sentry) and timings to win the ground war. But that backfires when it comes to dealing with air. I'm not saying that this is the players fault. Maybe this is how the game will turn out (though I highly doubt it with the HotS changes). Currently the MU is close to balanced in all tournaments as far as I know. The problem isn't the mutalisk. The problem is the general MU being do or die for Protoss when they are on 2base. Everything that happens after 12mins, is usually only the outcome of protoss failing (mutalisks or straight up losing) or succeeding(getting even on bases or straight up winning) with their allin play.
no they cant. brood lords cant akt air units so building stargate to get voids for broods makes sense. building 3 stargates mid game to deal with mutas doesnt. the mutas will be of higher upgrade and will snipe the low count of nixes and u will just waste gas. if they scout the spire and still makes nixes to react against the mutas then u will get runned over by hydras because ur colo tech will be severly delayed. and if u think making 3 stargates purely for mutas wont delay colo tech by a significant margin then well idk what to say to u. you seriously cant just place stargates at random to counter mutas. u just cant. u need to open stargate or just not go nixes at all. ur better off going archon or something.
Seriously, read what I wrote: I think it is possible to throw down stargates BEFORE the spire finishes if you scout it early. How in hell will Zerg ever get an upgrade advantage in that scenario, if you're both going air at the same time? And of course you have to be aware of techswitches. I don't know how often I have fallen to protoss players who went from zealot/archon into mass blink stalkerplay, or from an air opening into colossusplay (pretty popular techswitch btw). Shame on me for not being aware of it, wp my opponents. But it's not like he is going to be able to get 10mutalisks out, and knock on your door with 20 rangehydralisks 2mins later.
Also, just because mutalisks can attack air units, doesn't mean that those units are bad vs them (phoenix in equal costs demolish mutalisks, the question is, if it is possible to get in those amounts without being to vulnurable to a techswitch. As I stated: I don't know, but it's worth a try and from what I've heard commentators talking about, some progamers are experimenting with it) It's like saying colossi are bad vs hydras because hydras can attack them...
Thors counter the hell out of mutalisks, everyone who says otherwise has no clue about the game. If you go Mech, you can have 2thors out when 6-7mutas are out. 4thors when 15mutas are out and so on... The Thors will always win that by turret support early, and without turret support later. (magic box is completly denied by higher thor counts) Archons are pretty much the same in actual combats, though they have less range and therefore aren't so good to defend mobile harassplay. Templars are good as well. But in the end, it always will come down to stalkers and phoenix. Make those work or die vs mutalisks. (everything else is just like a zerg that doesn't build mass roaches and/or zerglings and dies to gateway pushes, and then claims that stalkers are imba...)
lol. first of all if terran goes mech u dont really need to go mutas at all. u can run him over with drop harass, nydus, counter atks, etc. and you are stupid as all hell if u engage 4 thors with mutas. the point of mutas against mech is to run the terran arround, keep him on a certain number of bases, and abuse the hell out of his immobility. you do not EVER EVER need to engage thors directly with mutas. its a stupid idea. the same concept applies to archons. abuse there immobility.so i honestly have no idea what you are trying to prove with that statement.
Again, I was only responding to a comment that stated that pure mutaliskplay would easily counter massthor in direct engagements. I know pretty well what may work vs mech and what may not. But mech is a popular TvZ style for a reason: IT WORKS. Saying that X and Y kills a mech player might be true, but it also might be true that the mech player is just waiting for your counterattack with a pack of hellions and siegetanks and can still roll you with his maxed minus20 supply army, because mech is just really efficient. But I guess all the korean Terrans who go Mech in TvZ from time to time in the GSL are just bad and their zerg opponents even worse in your opinion...
Also I don't think you fully read them or fully understood them, as you are not answering to what I wrote in there, but you're just stating random facts and opinions on some keywords in them. (like the first comment. I never said that there would always be equal amounts of stalkers ready to fight mutalisks. I only corrected someone who said that mutalisks win the equal fight) But I guess you're not interested in discussing anyway, as you just took some quotes of mine from some pages ago, ripped them completly out of context (like cutting the quotes I was answering to) and not even bothering to find any of my comments that are saying that I'm not certain if mutalisk play is balanced, yet I think that Zergs right now have the upper hand vs Protoss anyways (mutalisks just make it obvious because Colossi can't shoot air), because imo Protoss PvZ styles are not as macrooriented as any other XvY style (and I'm not saying that Protoss players are bad, because they don't. I'm saying they are either caught in a phase in which those "2base aggro before expand" styles are really figuered out by zergs and haven't found the right build to get a quicker third, or that there might have to be some change to make protoss taking 3rds easier, if it doesn't evolve on it's own)
mass mutas are not even close to being OP vs P. theyre only used when Zerg alrdy has an advantage and thats why it seems like the P is so helpless and cant come back (cus they're alrdy at a defecit). try watching a high level game of a Z going mass mutas when its even LOL
EPT
