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quillian
United States318 Posts
What I'm thinking is this: Instead of focusing on air attack upgrades first and going double Cybernetics core, instead start with Air Armor, and start working on Protoss Shields as well. Yeah, this seems really smart. Armor is super valuable in big fights, and transitioning to HT/Archon is quite strong. The only drawback might be for Carriers, which benefit immensely from attack upgrades (each +1 is 16 dps!) | ||
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Fairwell
Austria195 Posts
On May 08 2012 14:12 quillian wrote: Yeah, this seems really smart. Armor is super valuable in big fights, and transitioning to HT/Archon is quite strong. The only drawback might be for Carriers, which benefit immensely from attack upgrades (each +1 is 16 dps!) Carriers have 8 interceptors, each of them shooting twice every 3sec (ingame seconds ofc). Hence their dps increases by 5.33 if you upgrade air weapons by 1. You simply forgot to factor in that interceptors have a 3.0sec refire rate (carriers initial dmg burst is way higher due to the much faster release rate of interceptors). | ||
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CrAzEdMiKe
Canada151 Posts
On May 08 2012 14:12 quillian wrote: Yeah, this seems really smart. Armor is super valuable in big fights, and transitioning to HT/Archon is quite strong. The only drawback might be for Carriers, which benefit immensely from attack upgrades (each +1 is 16 dps!) The thing is I don't think I'd want to transition to Carriers with this thought in mind. Carriers are admittedly quite strong vs Hydras... but so is Zealot/Archon and Zealot/Archon will be faster and easier to produce in the quantities required (should you lose your Void Rays for some reason). If they're going Corrupters or Mutas to fight the Voids (which is pretty dumb if you ask me), Carriers aren't so hot vs. Corrupters and the Mutas would be a terrible choice especially since the Voids would be armor/shield focused (and the Protoss has the ability to pump out lots of Phoenixes to support as well). So finally that leaves if the Zerg decided to go Infestor to fight the Voids. While Carriers are indeed better with the long range to try and take out the infestors, the problem is that IF they get neuraled your Void rays will make short work of them, and sometimes I've found that since Voids move ahead of the carriers, when the infestors go to fungal they sometimes nab the interceptors, which make the carriers pretty much useless. With High Templar in the mix, you'd be able to Storm/Feedback to contain the Infestor problem, and of course you should have Mass Recall to get you out of there if you do get into trouble. I really like the idea behind this build as it kind of pigeon-holes the Zerg in how he is to respond. Something I've been toying around with in the build order tester is the idea of going 1gate/1stargate into expansion. While the expo is admittedly quite delayed, the mothership arrives at 13minutes which is still roughly on par with the FFE timing. By getting a really quick Void + Phoenix, the idea would be to harass and possibly deny the third base, and using the Phoenix as a scout to find out what kind of tech you'll be dealing with, as well as a quick and easy way to find out where those expos are at. I'm not sold on going gate + stargate before expand, but since this build is definitely more tech oriented than it is economy oriented, I personally don't think the economic hit is too hard. Plus the nice thing is is that you're constantly producing Voids off of one Stargate for quite a while, making your Voidray count pretty decent by the time big momma shows up. With the rough draft that I've been working on in the build order tester at 13 minutes I have the Mothership completed, Air Armor and Shields at about 90/160, 7 Void Rays and a pair of Sentries, a Stalker and a Zealot. I'll be doing a bit of testing to see which I prefer. I know that FFE is the standard for Protoss vs Zerg, but I'm personally not super comfortable with FFE and since this is dedicating itself to a strong air fleet, I feel like starting off with one base play might be a little stronger... Mainly since the primary problem behind gateway based expands has been the ability to secure a third easily, which I think this build is kind of designed to do as the Mothership/Voidrays will make it very difficult for Zergling/Roach based armies to deny your third easily... And with a fairly mobile fleet the Protoss should have an easier time "sharking" the Zerg. I'm going to definitely have to work on my mechanics as I haven't played in a while, but using the Void Rays similarly to Hellions in being able to deny early creep spread of the Zerg can also drastically reduce the chances of Hydra pushes (which in turn allow you to position your voids early on somewhat aggressively, which should give you a decent heads up if the Zerg is planning to go on a full out attack. But like I said, it's something I'm going to be working on. The game one ladder game played I opted to go 1gate/stargate ---> Expo and it worked out just fine. The game I played was really sloppy and my transitions were awful, yet I still won the game which makes me feel a little confident in the core concept of this build. | ||
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silentdecay01
United States106 Posts
If the good zerg vetos the unfriendly z maps in the ladder pool, a early roach attack will kill you instantly For those in masters on NA and won with this, not to flame but I have a feeling and watching the replays, those zergs you played using this strat, they made to many dumb mistakes and played like low plat players vs it. A good zerg will just expand and roach trade and just rape your base. Voids take forever to kill roaches, cannons die few hits of roaches. ect early roach aggression with early base expanding, you won't be able to get a mothership out or anything decent. if the zerg puts a spire behind roach agression its gg. as he will trade better then you. | ||
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CrAzEdMiKe
Canada151 Posts
On May 08 2012 15:53 silentdecay01 wrote: any good zerg will kill you start of the game, you can't turtle your base vs roaches, they will destroy every massive cannons you build. On our current map selection on the ladder, this wont work @ master lvl vs a good zerg. mabey in lower leagues. If the good zerg vetos the unfriendly z maps in the ladder pool, a early roach attack will kill you instantly Ermm... I'm not sure if your post was directed at my posts or the thread in general. If directed at my post, I have to start playing some more because I have been out of the SC2 scene for a while so you may be right (though I have kept up in watching vods). If you're directing your post at the thread in general, the OP provided a number of replays which were clearly against master level Zergs and he was able to defeat quite a few of them. Define an "early roach attack"... Are we talking a Stephano timing or something that comes a little sooner? Because going the route of the FFE I don't see why the build would be less safe vs. early roaches than a FFE sans stargate since you have... Well, air units. And it's my understanding that air units are pretty good vs. them Roaches. I'm not sure what the point of your post was, since it's awfully vague and doesn't contain any reasoning for why the roaches trump cannons + stargates. If you're referring to what I'm posting, as said, I've been out of the game for a while so I may need to re-educate myself and I won't deny that... But if this is just a flat out dismissal for the build as a whole, I can't say I agree based on the extremely limited and unexplained reasons you've provided. A good zerg will just expand and roach trade and just rape your base. Voids take forever to kill roaches, cannons die few hits of roaches. ect early roach aggression with early base expanding, you won't be able to get a mothership out or anything decent. if the zerg puts a spire behind roach agression its gg. as he will trade better then you. Single cannons die quickly to roaches. Large numbers of cannons do not. I do think that the build suggested by the OP could definitely use at least a few Sentries to try and mitigate early roach movement... But aside from that most Protosses FFE and are able to handle early Roach aggression, I really don't see how going Void Rays suddenly makes that a liability. As for following up with Spire... The Protoss isn't going to be moving out of his base a whole lot until he has a decent sized fleet and a Recall ready, I don't see how it would be possible to just "trade better than you" as hell have to fly over a grid of cannons in order to begin attacking Void Rays... Nevermind that I wouldn't consider Corruptors or Mutas to trade better with Void Rays. Also, small numbers of Void rays have trouble dealing with Roaches. Mid to large numbers of Void rays will MELT roaches rather quickly. | ||
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silentdecay01
United States106 Posts
his ecom will take a huge hit early game if he makes nothing but cannons to defend.... old school early roach rush will kill this before it becomes a problem. I think people are winning using werid strats because most players don't expect this and will drone up and play standard. tho a high lvl master or gm player or kor pro would be able to deter this with old shcool early roachs and just kill said player. This is nothing new, back in the day protoss used to play a turtle type game and mass void rays, it stoped working at high lvl play for a reason. | ||
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Rimak
Denmark434 Posts
On May 08 2012 15:53 silentdecay01 wrote: any good zerg will kill you start of the game, you can't turtle your base vs roaches, they will destroy every massive cannons you build. On our current map selection on the ladder, this wont work @ master lvl vs a good zerg. mabey in lower leagues. If the good zerg vetos the unfriendly z maps in the ladder pool, a early roach attack will kill you instantly For those in masters on NA and won with this, not to flame but I have a feeling and watching the replays, those zergs you played using this strat, they made to many dumb mistakes and played like low plat players vs it. A good zerg will just expand and roach trade and just rape your base. Voids take forever to kill roaches, cannons die few hits of roaches. ect early roach aggression with early base expanding, you won't be able to get a mothership out or anything decent. if the zerg puts a spire behind roach agression its gg. as he will trade better then you. The answer to your objections are very simple. Toss can FFE on every map (no really, he can), especially with those hoards of minerals he is saving by not building a ground force. Early roach pushes are easily deflected, because they are based on protoss being greedy and not building additional cannos for defence. By the time, for example, a 2 base roach will arrive, you'll have at least 5! cannons and a sentry guarding gates. When stephano attack hits at around 12 minutes (which is doubtfull, cuz obv voidrays will delay it, but let's assume void did no damage). Protoss will have 2 sentry, at least 10-15 cannons, thick layer of sim-city, voids and a freakin mothership with cloak (so cannons can't be targeted without overseer, and you'll need alot of them). And about trading. You see, toss actually don't trade he just sits on his base with a mothership and cannons everywhere like a bronze-leagued. Protoss don't trade armies, he trades cannons. Thing is, when i've watched replay, that zerg is swimming in resources, while you produce your fleet, and he cannot remake his limit of roaches into spire, because he needs to kill them all. I've had an all-air play from zerg with 3-3 muta gainst my composition. We traded ~120 supply of muta to my ~20 supplay of voidrays. As stupid as it sound but this build offer a slow, unique, but solid style of play. Also I've got nydus yesterday, but this is actually all about scoutng your base. Nydus was able to flow 7 roaches to my main, before it died. Obv 7 roaches did little to no damage, after i just put cannons to cover the whole base and 1 cannon is perfectly fine to take out any nydus threats. | ||
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Nyast
Belgium554 Posts
That's not to say the build is an auto-win, but early roach defense or taking a third definitely isn't the issue here.. | ||
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MeLo
Australia192 Posts
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Zheryn
Sweden3653 Posts
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Ender2701
United States581 Posts
I actually have the highest win percentage with this strategy of all of my builds but I don't do it that often because I felt like it was cheesy, I suppose I've never actually lost and felt like it was my strategy that lost me the game though. After I have my 5th + 6th gas I put down double robo and get collossus, as usually you'll force a hydra-ling-infestor composition from the zerg. I'm fairly high masters ( 750 points, top 10% of masters league) and I'll post a few replays when I get home. | ||
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Peleus
Australia420 Posts
Below are two replays of toss going mass voidray / mothership against me in the end game, and you can see how I dealt with it. http://drop.sc/174923 http://drop.sc/174924 Edit: Before anyone complains yes in one game I could have finished him much quicker, but I was just toying with them. | ||
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Rimak
Denmark434 Posts
On May 09 2012 00:36 Peleus wrote: Basically a counter to this as Zerg is to really go mass mass corruptors and creep crawl a heap of your own static D towards the enemy, trying to gain a one up on the mining bases and slowly close in around him with creep spread. Because when toss get's to this lategame stage they typically max out on voids / mothership / collossi corruptors can attack everything, and any remaining ground forces can be cleaned up by your spine / spore contain. You can then morph 2-3 broodlords and just slowly wear down canons as any actual engage is most likely bad for him. Obviously you need to be careful of mothership vortex / archons, but that's the same as any late game army. Below are two replays of toss going mass voidray / mothership against me in the end game, and you can see how I dealt with it. http://drop.sc/174923 http://drop.sc/174924 Edit: Before anyone complains yes in one game I could have finished him much quicker, but I was just toying with them. I'm still going to watch replays, but mass corrupters was easiest to deal with for me, i just added 5 archons and 2 HT into mix and they melted insanely fast. | ||
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quillian
United States318 Posts
On May 09 2012 00:36 Peleus wrote: Basically a counter to this as Zerg is to really go mass mass corruptors and creep crawl a heap of your own static D towards the enemy, trying to gain a one up on the mining bases and slowly close in around him with creep spread. Because when toss get's to this lategame stage they typically max out on voids / mothership / collossi corruptors can attack everything, and any remaining ground forces can be cleaned up by your spine / spore contain. You can then morph 2-3 broodlords and just slowly wear down canons as any actual engage is most likely bad for him. Obviously you need to be careful of mothership vortex / archons, but that's the same as any late game army. Below are two replays of toss going mass voidray / mothership against me in the end game, and you can see how I dealt with it. http://drop.sc/174923 http://drop.sc/174924 Edit: Before anyone complains yes in one game I could have finished him much quicker, but I was just toying with them. the first game he didn't do anything remotely like this build. it's not really relevant to this thread. the second game is more useful, and shows what most players who do a lot of 3v3 and 4v4 have learned, that mass corruptor CAN trade effectively with void rays, and remax faster. The aggressive creep spread with mass cralwers is a good addition. When the zerg commits to the counter, it becomes a good fight, with the game swinging on good positioning and vortex/storm. Seems balanced and playable from both sides. | ||
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Crow!
United States150 Posts
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Darkomicron
Netherlands216 Posts
Mass fungal + corruptor. Tons of infested terrans on expansions. Zerg has complete map control. You can't win, killed his army a few times, he just remaxes and finishes it off. It feels almost impossible to play with. | ||
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CrAzEdMiKe
Canada151 Posts
On May 09 2012 00:36 Peleus wrote: Basically a counter to this as Zerg is to really go mass mass corruptors and creep crawl a heap of your own static D towards the enemy, trying to gain a one up on the mining bases and slowly close in around him with creep spread. Because when toss get's to this lategame stage they typically max out on voids / mothership / collossi corruptors can attack everything, and any remaining ground forces can be cleaned up by your spine / spore contain. You can then morph 2-3 broodlords and just slowly wear down canons as any actual engage is most likely bad for him. Obviously you need to be careful of mothership vortex / archons, but that's the same as any late game army. Below are two replays of toss going mass voidray / mothership against me in the end game, and you can see how I dealt with it. http://drop.sc/174923 http://drop.sc/174924 Edit: Before anyone complains yes in one game I could have finished him much quicker, but I was just toying with them. I watched the second game and while I do agree to an extent that Corrupters will trade with Voids, there are a few factors that I feel you haven't considered when comparing these games to the strategy that the OP is employing. The first and foremost thing is that he also went Colossi to "deal" with the ground army. Three Colossi is 18 supply, which is effectively 6 Void Rays that did not exist in the fight at all. Second of all, in the main engagements between the Corruptors/Voids you had a significant upgrade advantage, one that would not exist against the build of the OP as he is focusing on air upgrades all throughout the game. And the third thing that I feel is the most important is that by going for such an early Mothership, the ability of the Protoss to snipe bases is MUCH easier at an earlier stage in the game. You had the economy to wage a war of attrition of Corrupter vs Void Ray, but part of the elegance of this build is that by keeping big momma at home, the Protoss is able to fly the outskirts of the map, snipe a hatch or two and immediately run away when corrupters show up. When an engagement inevitably occurs, it will be the Voids not the Corrupters who will have an upgrade advantage. I'm not saying that it would be a "sure win" on the Protoss part as there are a lot of different factors involved, but taking a game like this I feel doesn't put things in good perspective for this particular build. Plus I think the correct followup to going Mass Void is definitely to mix in some High Templar, as all three responses to mass Voidray are fairly lackluster against the HTs. I think that this was the primary reason you were able to wittle down your Protoss opponent (and well done I might add, I by no means am trying to put down your play as it was a masterfully executed game), as he could have definitely used Storm to great advantage on those Corrupter clumps, and I think that a pair of Warp Prisms could have done significant damage considering how invested into corrupter you were. The build has minerals in massive abundance, so throwing away Zealots and Warp Prisms to harass and distract the Zerg I think are necessary as the game drags on... And IF the Protoss should lose his Void Ray army, he needs some kind of cheap army that he can use in the meantime while he builds up the Voidray fleet again, which is why I think that HT/Zealot/Archon is the correct followup to this build, as it is capable of producing a massive amount of gateways (it probably already has just to aid in it's sim-city style of play). | ||
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ticklishmusic
United States15977 Posts
On May 09 2012 03:09 Darkomicron wrote: Tried it a few times. The zergs just play smart, sack all the roaches in order to kill your natural nexus (even if you keep your mothership, they burrow under the unit block, snipe tons of probes/pylons/stargates and set you back a lot). Mass fungal + corruptor. Tons of infested terrans on expansions. Zerg has complete map control. You can't win, killed his army a few times, he just remaxes and finishes it off. It feels almost impossible to play with. Burrowing through a natural wall off with cannons and voids shooting at you is suicide, and much worse than just trying to bust it down. Cannons are detectors (if you've forgotten), and roaches have to tunnel slowly through the 1/2 hex opening in the wall-off. Heck, I think that its even viable to do a complete wall off with this build, in which case you would be utterly screwed. Remember, you're basically trying to burrow around a cloaked walloff. Given the cannons, voids and mothership shooting at you while you tunnel, its doubtful you would even kill a pylon before your roaches died. It's true that an early roach bust could be effective, but that is ONLY if Toss is being super greedy and doesn't build more than one cannon until he shits himself when the bust comes. I personally always drop 2 or 3, because I think it's stupid not to. In this build, Toss doesn't really spend minerals on army-- he builds cannons. Lots and lots of cannons. It's been established that corruptors are pretty much shit against this build b/c void rays beat them, and void rays plus cannons utterly destroy them. Infestors are more of a problem, but adding colossi or HT can be very good against it, and its just a micro issue again. IT's die to cannons before they hatch. | ||
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Darkomicron
Netherlands216 Posts
On May 09 2012 04:49 ticklishmusic wrote: Burrowing through a natural wall off with cannons and voids shooting at you is suicide, and much worse than just trying to bust it down. Cannons are detectors (if you've forgotten), and roaches have to tunnel slowly through the 1/2 hex opening in the wall-off. Heck, I think that its even viable to do a complete wall off with this build, in which case you would be utterly screwed. Remember, you're basically trying to burrow around a cloaked walloff. Given the cannons, voids and mothership shooting at you while you tunnel, its doubtful you would even kill a pylon before your roaches died. It's true that an early roach bust could be effective, but that is ONLY if Toss is being super greedy and doesn't build more than one cannon until he shits himself when the bust comes. I personally always drop 2 or 3, because I think it's stupid not to. In this build, Toss doesn't really spend minerals on army-- he builds cannons. Lots and lots of cannons. It's been established that corruptors are pretty much shit against this build b/c void rays beat them, and void rays plus cannons utterly destroy them. Infestors are more of a problem, but adding colossi or HT can be very good against it, and its just a micro issue again. IT's die to cannons before they hatch. While the voids were away to attack, I just sniped an expansion and had to return or lose the entire base. Only the mothership was at home to cloak and defend, but that doesn't work against so many roaches. | ||
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denten
Netherlands10 Posts
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