I know common sentiment is starting to be that zvp favors Zerg at high levels. While this is empirically true, there seems to be a few tactics protoss has that I don't see much, namely tempests and high templar.
Is there a reason lots of tosses seem to skip this? I feel like tempests at high enough numbers to one shot broods can easily rack up value, and with broods getting snipes high templar can zone out vipers. I know this is probably taxing to play, but so is zvp late game. It'll become a battle of Zerg trying to hit abducts and toss trying to hit tempest shots. In this battle, it doesn't feel like z has an intrinsic advantage, or am I wrong here?
Also, lots of tosses have a separate group of voids that try to snipe hatcheries, but what if these are just used for defending Zerg runbys. You could just snipe the overseer in seconds and warp in 2 DTS.
With these tactics, I feel like Zerg will have more difficulty trading efficiently, but I guess what do I know.
To make tempests somehow effective you need tons of static. But it doesn't move unlike zerg static so this whole thing becomes very map dependant since you don't want to cover entire map with buildings. Blackburn would be good for tempests besides that idk. Where you want to camp with static at pride of altaris or glittering ashes?
I think the problem of ZvP favoring Zerg at high levels (which is true) stems from 2 issues
#1. The dominance of the Lurker, stemming from Adaptive Talons giving far too much of a power spike to an already potent unit. Imagine if Siege Tanks had an upgrade that reduced siege and unsiege by 50%? To me that's what Adaptive Talons does for Lurkers.
#2. Protoss lack the ability to put on any meaningful aggression against Zerg in the early/mid game, this lets Zergs enter the late game with huge booming economies, lots of map control, and their tech up and running. I've been a proponent of small QoL changes to Gateway units to make them either hit harder early game or scale better past the early game. If Protoss could stifle the Zerg economy a bit more early on, I think the metagame for the match up would be alot healthier.
Maybe something akin to a buff or change to the way Guardian Shield works? Something along the lines of all non robotic units get a movement speed/attack speed buff so it only buffs Adepts and Zealots and keeps blink Stalker builds from reigning supreme?
But we know Blizzard isn't going to do jack shit besides put out their PR fires and figure out how to monetize on whats left of WoW before New World puts it out of business.
On December 15 2021 04:27 Elantris wrote: To make tempests somehow effective you need tons of static. But it doesn't move unlike zerg static so this whole thing becomes very map dependant since you don't want to cover entire map with buildings. Blackburn would be good for tempests besides that idk. Where you want to camp with static at pride of altaris or glittering ashes?
why do the tempsets need static? if you have like 6 carriers + 8 voids + 4 archons + 6 ht chilling in the vicinity, zerg can't really dive on top to kill the tempests can they?
On December 15 2021 03:42 angry_maia wrote: I know common sentiment is starting to be that zvp favors Zerg at high levels. While this is empirically true, there seems to be a few tactics protoss has that I don't see much, namely tempests and high templar.
Is there a reason lots of tosses seem to skip this? I feel like tempests at high enough numbers to one shot broods can easily rack up value, and with broods getting snipes high templar can zone out vipers. I know this is probably taxing to play, but so is zvp late game. It'll become a battle of Zerg trying to hit abducts and toss trying to hit tempest shots. In this battle, it doesn't feel like z has an intrinsic advantage, or am I wrong here?
Also, lots of tosses have a separate group of voids that try to snipe hatcheries, but what if these are just used for defending Zerg runbys. You could just snipe the overseer in seconds and warp in 2 DTS.
With these tactics, I feel like Zerg will have more difficulty trading efficiently, but I guess what do I know.
It might sound easy in your head but until you try to control tempest and slow moving templar vs mobile viper corrupter you wont understand.
Templars move slowly and if vipers coming at different angles you cant always be in the right spot and 1 abduct will cost you dearly, carriers aren't exactly cheap neither are Tempest.
You are basically microing a slow moving ground unit against a decent speed flying caster unit.
Second problem is they nerfed Feedback so Zerg get to attempt risk free abducts if they get feedback just heal them with your queens and go leech some energy from building again and you are back in business.
On the other hand if protoss pokes and oversteps you lose units everytime, so zerg gets to poke somewhat risk free if the vipers dont get 1 shot by tempests( which shouldnt happen anyway zerg shouldnt poke if the vipers are revealed by a oracle.
Anyway TOP zergs now will never even let protoss get to late game air armies anymore, if you go straight for late game now there will be 200 supply queen corrupter and whatever you want before protoss has even 4 carriers on the map, and you cant go mass void ray because it loses to parasitic bomb and is stopped by mass queen or hydra easily anyway.
Top protosses dont know what to do vs top zergs as you can clearly see in a lot of the ZVP recently played or just take a look at Trap vs Serral in TSL8, Trap was helpless whatever he did it got scouted and at that point you have already lost as protoss unless opponent throws the game.
Protoss will never be competitive against top end zergs even if they are equal level or even better, youll have some luck streaks every now and then but thats pretty much it.
Nice theorycraft but if you actually tried playing those kind of games you would see the reality is very different. If you want to build tempest you need at least 6 of them, which means you have to cut back on other units which are a lot better against everything else besides broods. (and tempest are glass without batteries which you cant build offensively because Zerg has the whole map covered by creep) Lower carrier count means Zerg can just dive in deeper with a lot faster composition and pick away protoss expensive units. Lower disruptor count means infestors will wreck you because you cant possibly feedback everything. Lower void ray count means corruptors kill everything. By design late game ZvP is almost unwinnable against a perfect Zerg. You have a race with faster, less supply heavy units, stronger eco, faster expansions and potential to insta rebuild. On the other hand you have a race with strong units, but heavy, slow and its just impossible to outmacro and outexpand a good Zerg if they dont have solid amount of early/mid game damage.
In the current state of the game I dont see a Protoss who would be able to contest Serral. He is the perfect ZvP player. Yes he might lose here and there with some unexpected toss cheese or a surprising timing attack, but when him and his opponent come in to the late game kinda even, its just impossible to win.
Tempests aren’t good outside of a super late game war of attrition scenario.
It’s a problem of transition, the composition you mention would be good in maps that suit it.
The problem is to get to that transition you have to basically sacrifice any kind of ground based timing, or potent carrier timings
Tempests chip away and wear down an opponent, if you’re pushing in to opponents, Carriers are far better as they actually kill things quickly.
It’s a bit like Terrans and mass BCs. If you can get mass fully upgraded BCs Protoss is fucked. Stalkers tickle them and you can teleport on top of Tempests.
Trying to carve out a window to get that composition without your opponent figuring it out and killing you is enormously difficult, I’ve only seen Gumiho ever pull it off.
In a war of attrition, at the very highest level, with a player who has the APM to constantly reposition spores, control vipers well you’ll just bleed out. Trying to spring a surprise transition against say, Serral basically doesn’t work, he’ll just max with a bunch of corruptors and wipe your slowly assembled fleet.
On December 15 2021 08:33 MarianoSC2 wrote: Nice theorycraft but if you actually tried playing those kind of games you would see the reality is very different. If you want to build tempest you need at least 6 of them, which means you have to cut back on other units which are a lot better against everything else besides broods. (and tempest are glass without batteries which you cant build offensively because Zerg has the whole map covered by creep) Lower carrier count means Zerg can just dive in deeper with a lot faster composition and pick away protoss expensive units. Lower disruptor count means infestors will wreck you because you cant possibly feedback everything. Lower void ray count means corruptors kill everything. By design late game ZvP is almost unwinnable against a perfect Zerg. You have a race with faster, less supply heavy units, stronger eco, faster expansions and potential to insta rebuild. On the other hand you have a race with strong units, but heavy, slow and its just impossible to outmacro and outexpand a good Zerg if they dont have solid amount of early/mid game damage.
In the current state of the game I dont see a Protoss who would be able to contest Serral. He is the perfect ZvP player. Yes he might lose here and there with some unexpected toss cheese or a surprising timing attack, but when him and his opponent come in to the late game kinda even, its just impossible to win.
heh at low plat high gold, my carrier void ray a-move + 2 storms means i never need tempest lol.
however your response makes a lot of sense. In summary, it seems like you are saying that in the time it takes me to get to my "theory build", zerg has so many ways to counter what i'm trying to do.
EPT
