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Honestly it worked because Parting fucked that up
He had no archons, didnt pressured the 4th, let the creep spread, and above all kept his colossus in the front where they got neuraled/ultrarolled
I dont think it have any chance against a protoss that just know what to do
Toss is not supposed to have archons against Zerg. If I see you make HT tech on 3 base AND getting the 3+ colossus off 3 base, I'm going to go straight into broodlords and just own you when you push out and my broods are already done. And in many cases, like the game on Daybreak, Symbol is doing the mass roach aggression - good luck getting HT while you need the robo tech and are barely survivng the roach aggression. Or, good luck getting HT when you fast expand like the game on cloud kingdom and I skip roaches and just tech up.
Maybe the way it will work out, is that now, zergs will go ultras if they see you go HT on 3 base (as well as the obviously necessary 3+ colossus or just mass roach/infestors, we already have roach speed), and go straight BL if they see you go HT tech, and then like we'll have games where zerg thought you were going HT tech but you actually weren't and vice versa.
Not all of the colossus were up front that he NP'd, and he won the battle pretty convincingly.... even if Parting played 'correctly', Symbol had the GS morphing already and would have denied the 4th with his ultras, then parting gets his zealot/archon/ht, and then the broods are done and GG.
But I'm glad you've already seen or played games where this sort of ultra play didn't work against Toss, as opposed to just saying something you just guess based off what you know of the game when Symbol has clearly practiced this and done what he did for a reason!
Maybe ultras are crap, but it's too early to tell. But, seeing them in these games, I do think it warrants discussion, symbol clearly felt that ultras were good in practice, thats why he did it.
One important part of the succes that had symbol with this strat pointed out by Artosis is that even in late game, Symbol still perfectly hit his inject, which made him able to remax several time on Speedling.
its because he does the backspace inject method, as opposed to what most pro koreans do, the single queen per hotkey with only 3 queens injecting, and each injecting individually. You aren't just going to have 3x the larva of much more established zergs without doing something totally different. It has it's own drawbacks as well (less control, harder to make larva out of a specific hatch without having to actually uniquely go to it), but I do it and I think it far outweighs the costs, of having 50+ larva consistently in early lategame and beyond.
Is the ultralisk cavern build time significantly shorter than the GS morphing time? Never realized that ultra cavern was quicker
Sort of. With hive done:
Ultra Den (65) + Ultra (55) = 120
Greater Spire (100) + Broodlord (34) = 134
But there are key differences.
1. Just 3-5 ultralisks is much, much more useful than 3-5 broodlords. If the 3+ base colossus push comes at you and you try to fight it head on with 3-5 broods, you die. But 3-5 ultras, with NP or mass roach that you already got in mid-game, will crush such an army. The difference is that ultras are much, much less cost efficient than broodlords, especially when its' 10+ ultras compared to 10+ broodlords, but you aren't staying on ultras forever is the point. As symbol used them in daybreak, he only had 4, and he specifically used them just to break forcefields, manuevering them to break them more than fighting with them.
2. It's never as simple as 134 seconds for greater spire. Even if you have the corruptors ready when GS pops, you generally need to move the corruptors somewhere useful first, they are very slow. Id say the difference is probably closer to 30-40 seconds in an actual game, which is a big deal, as even with ultras, toss has pushed out, but the difference is toss just at creep (like in daybreak and cloud kingdom) vs in your base, or being defensive with broods vs straight up attacking first with the ultras, in a favorable location.
3. The problem with broodlords isn't the cost. The problem is time. Ultras come out quicker, and like I said, 3-5 ultras is very game changing, 3-5 broodlords dont mean much, toss can still engage, and he can also just back off just fine and get what he needs. You need 8+ broods before it becomes a problem for toss, but 3-5 ultras can chase you all the way back home and ultimately deny the 4th. broods are MUCH slower, so yea maybe you can eventually harass the 4th that's starting rather than being denied, but you need more support for broods than with ultras. Ultra/ling or 5ultras+5infestors is a hell of a lot stronger than the equal amount of pure broodlord without support or roaches+3-5 broods.
But yea it is a significant time difference actually, especially when you factor in things like the speed of broods vs ultras, that its rarely as straightforward as "yup, my 10 corruptors are all in the perfectly safe and aggressive forward position ready to be morphed the second GS pops", and that ultras allow you to be aggressive and have map control when if you went broodlords, Toss has map control because 10+ broods take a long time and need a lot of support whereas ultras just go fuck shit up.
after watching it over and over, i still think this was mostly due to Parting not having any storms and the mass baneling cleaning the vast majority of the protoss army (with fungal to prevent blink). At that point about any unit that can attack ground should have been able to clean that up, even queens
Like I said, if you go storm on 3 base and 3+ colossus that you need for that push, Zerg can go straight broodlords safely and confine you on 3 base. I think the proper thing is that you need HT/chargelot tech only against ultras, but you have to make sure you dont get it against someone who skips ultras. So it's a balance that you need to play.
I dont think any toss would be happy if they were told "Okay, zerg is getting his mass broodlords right now, but you can't attack him, and no, your expansion is going to be hard to take too"
Banelings were not the issue. Banelings can be easily stopped by sentries. Which parting would have done, if it wasnt for those 3-5 ultras smashing the forcefields (tahts their primary role). Also, in the game on cloud kingdom, Symbol did not use banelings, but instead relied on infestors.
This hasn't been done earlier because Zergs didnt understand ultras before. Before, Zergs always thought "Ultras vs Broodlords" or "Tech switch between the two'. No shit, broodlords are WAY better than ultras, in every matchup and every army! The difference is that Zergs realize "Hey, ultras are not as good as broodlords, but they come quicker and allow me map control when normally I'm dying just before my broods pop out - if I use this map control to both deny the opponent's push and future bases while getting my broodlords out, I can easily win!"
We see ultras being used a lot now in all of the match-ups, all with the same intent - be aggressive instead of defensive vs a 3 base deathball push, and THEN get broodlords once you defend that push which is impossible to beat aggressively with lair tech (you have to be passive using infestor/spine or mutas to force him to stay in his base rather than using the mutas to fight) and impossible to get broodlords in time against.
and ultras come significantly quicker, and are game changing in much smaller numbers, and most improtantly, are much much faster than broodlords. big difference.
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Only problem I experience with ultras. Is that the skill required to control them increases exponentially with how many you have. Using a few as a stepping stone. Seems to be a nice side step of the infinite skill needed to control 6+ ultras. When I go mass ultra they always try to hump each other.
I also agree with how banes go good with ultras. Had a game recently where I went ling->inf->ultra against a terran who went mostly MMM with a few tanks and a thor. He was denying me a win until I realised I needed some banes. Game ended being pretty close but I think if I had banes when I started attacking. It would have been an easy win.
Best thing with ultras is that you get your upgrades for free if you went ling infestor ^^
Ps. Belial88 you put in a lot of work, kudos!
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my point is, Brood Lords are the core of a BL late game army, with infestor/corruptor/spine/roach/hydra/whatever as support besides them to cover for their blind spot
whereas Ultras in most cases are not the core of the army, they are first of all just a support in form of crushing forcefields and tanking damage for your real damage dealing units (banelings) to close the gap. So they are not the core unit you try to get as fast as possible, they are rather the support units you want to have to make your banelings more viable. Which is basically the very same thing as dropping banelings onto a protoss army. Note that in both cases you need infestors to keep stalkers in place anyway. Also this composition is mainly based on banelings, not on ultras, since if you snipe the ultras the banelings can still kill the entire protoss army, whereas if the banelings are dead before arrival, your ultras will not do much at all, assuming protoss does not fight split up in the open
watch the linked youtube video again. Sure, there are like 15 banelings wasted on one archon. But before that, banelings blow up ~15+ Stalker, plus ~5-10 Zealots, plus two immortals, plus the sentries (and they would have killed the colossi too if it wasn't for the NP). And they did so cost-efficient. This was the real core of the zerg army to win that fight. About any composition of the same supply as the ultras would have cleaned up afterwards. The ultras just allowed the banelings to negate forcefields.
So to sum it up, this is not a decision between Brood Lords and Ultras, this is a decision between Brood Lord turtle and Baneling aggression to crush Protoss armies, in which the latter can profit from Ultras to get better hits in. Again, with those fungals and that positioning i could bet on Symbol winning that fight even if all his Ultras were Hydras or Roaches and he would have dropped the banelings onto the fungaled mass Stalker. Thus this threads name should be "Banelings in ZvP (Symbol style)", pointing out how great he chose his engagements, how perfect his fungals were and noting that he went ultralisks to complement his baneling based army, not vice-versa. At least in my humble opinion.
Oh and again, HT tech route screw this type of army composition, not because Zealot/Archon does good against Ultras, but because the storms kill the real damage dealing units (banelings) with one or two good storms before they do anything.
Except maybe against pure Stalker/Colossus Ultras are never a good unit on their own, and even then it is doubtful. Ultras get crushed hard by immortal-based armies, Stargate-based armies and even Gateway-heavy armies (Zealots as a meatshield, Stalker have bonus dmg vs armored) can fare well against Ultras.
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Only problem I experience with ultras. Is that the skill required to control them increases exponentially with how many you have. Using a few as a stepping stone. Seems to be a nice side step of the infinite skill needed to control 6+ ultras. When I go mass ultra they always try to hump each other.
I dont agree. Just keep lings on a separate hotkey from the ultras. In both games, symbol actually just a-moves the ultras. Not much control required. But spreading them a bit with a patrol move, just like spreading ling/bane, is very helpful. or any sort of spreading of the melee units.
just in case you didn't know, broods also immensely benefit from melee/carapce upgrades as well. they get more dps added by going melee upgrades than air attack (due to broodlings). Both ultra and bl benefit from same upgrades, really.
whereas Ultras in most cases are not the core of the army, they are first of all just a support in form of crushing forcefields and tanking damage for your real damage dealing units (banelings) to close the gap. So they are not the core unit you try to get as fast as possible, they are rather the support units you want to have to make your banelings more viable. Which is basically the very same thing as dropping banelings onto a protoss army. Note that in both cases you need infestors to keep stalkers in place anyway. Also this composition is mainly based on banelings, not on ultras, since if you snipe the ultras the banelings can still kill the entire protoss army, whereas if the banelings are dead before arrival, your ultras will not do much at all, assuming protoss does not fight split up in the open
I don't know, I really think the ultras are important. I guess speedbanes are really helpful though.
I think like with mutas with going bl vs banes, its a choice of passive teching up, or aggression(or defense if its really tight i gues, like symbol on daybreak).
But cant just make speedbanes without ultras. You need the ultras to break the forcefields, and you are using ultras to combat colossus-stalker, the real core of the toss 3+ colossus 3 base push (he will have less immortal/sentry/zealot/archon than stalker/colossus).
Yea, I imagine if you open mutas, you should not go this symbol style Ultras because Toss will have HT, as a mid-stage transition for broodlords. I guess you can as aggression (i recall seeing a few games where zergs went ultras on entombed in lategame vs toss, but i think it lost so...play macro!).
But if Toss goes for HT, you can just not make many ultras and go for broods much quicker, or at least delay the fourth long enough to set up.
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On June 20 2012 18:41 Belial88 wrote:
But cant just make speedbanes without ultras. You need the ultras to break the forcefields, and you are using ultras to combat colossus-stalker, the real core of the toss 3+ colossus 3 base push (he will have less immortal/sentry/zealot/archon than stalker/colossus).
That was the point i was trying to make. From the few games i was able to watch from DH, i saw Dimaga crush Protoss pushes with banelings without ultras over and over. He just chose his engagements wisely, got good flanks with banelings, used overlord drop, and he made it through a lot of really good protoss players into the finals of DH. Sure, when you get to that point in the game, you add ultras to your composition to further increase effectiveness of your banes, but it still is not the core of your army. And in the game Symbol vs Parting, the banelings killed at least two third of the protoss army (colossus-stalker!), the ultras did only kill ~7 Stalker (who blinked INTO the ultras to snipe all infestors!). I guess i made my point clear enough, it is not the ultra-heavy play that won Symbol the games, it was the baneling-based play in which he used ultras as support. Dimaga used baneling-based play as well, just that he dropped them instead of running them in. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Partings main mistake was not to get storm (which you absolutely need when you see that many banelings), even though i don't know how the game got to this point i think it is viable to have Storm when you try to take your fourth base as protoss
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That was the point i was trying to make. From the few games i was able to watch from DH, i saw Dimaga crush Protoss pushes with banelings without ultras over and over. He just chose his engagements wisely, got good flanks with banelings, used overlord drop, and he made it through a lot of really good protoss players into the finals of DH. Sure, when you get to that point in the game, you add ultras to your composition to further increase effectiveness of your banes, but it still is not the core of your army. And in the game Symbol vs Parting, the banelings killed at least two third of the protoss army (colossus-stalker!), the ultras did only kill ~7 Stalker (who blinked INTO the ultras to snipe all infestors!). I guess i made my point clear enough, it is not the ultra-heavy play that won Symbol the games, it was the baneling-based play in which he used ultras as support. Dimaga used baneling-based play as well, just that he dropped them instead of running them in. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Partings main mistake was not to get storm (which you absolutely need when you see that many banelings), even though i don't know how the game got to this point i think it is viable to have Storm when you try to take your fourth base as protoss
It is viable to get storm when you try to take your fourth, but it is not viable to get storm against infestor openings from zerg and be able to push them when they try to go straight from infestors to mass broodlords, as you won't do your 3+ colossus push in time. Thus there's a very clear - get templar tech vs ultra/bane, and don't get templar tech vs broodlord, and if you dont do the right thing vs either play, you are behind.
So it's a game to play, much like toss needs to to the 'right' thing based on whether zerg is going mutas (templar tech) or infestors (robo tech), and similarly, will fall behind. you go HT thinking mutas against mass roach and you lose.
I'll try to check out dimaga in dreamhack, but I believe his style revolved around using ling/bane aggression against Toss - not using ultra/bane to survive the deathball push. What dimaga did is more like just not taking a fast third, thus he can skip roaches, and basically using a really strong ling/bane composition as a means of aggression against toss. Completely different, and completely different purposes to both - that's comparing getting marauders early game against zerg for aggression and stim timing as to getting ultras to fight infestors or ultras (yea... really bad example).
It didn't remind you of Belial's ZvP Guide: Ling/Infestor, or How I grew to Love ZvP?
tt
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On June 20 2012 15:22 NrGmonk wrote:
Leftover sentries should be used to hallucinate archons.
Why wait? Hallucinate the moment you see Ultra/Bane/ling attacking, because otherwise you lose energy and can't do anything else usefull with it anyway.
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United States8476 Posts
On June 20 2012 22:13 -Kira wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2012 15:22 NrGmonk wrote:
Leftover sentries should be used to hallucinate archons. Why wait? Hallucinate the moment you see Ultra/Bane/ling attacking, because otherwise you lose energy and can't do anything else usefull with it anyway.
Isn't that what I said/meant?
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I can see this Ultra/Baneling style becoming the trend in near future.
Over time, protoss will learn to adapt to this style and try to scout it. Seeing baneling nest and ultralisk cavern in zerg base with observer is not the hardest thing in the world after all.
Then, protoss will learn what the best unit composition vs Ultra/Baneling is. Heavier HT/Immortal than current typical protoss ball will be probably it. Protoss players might put more practice time into splitting like terran players currently do.
Whenever somewhat new strategy come out of 1 race, that race dominates with the strategy. After several weeks or sometimes months, the other race come up with the counter strategy. At that point, the original strategy gets old and becomes far less effective than it was when it first came out. I love this cycle and how game evolves over time. I am a zerg player, so I am obviously happy to see this new style from pro zerg player. At the same time, I would love to see pro protoss player literally demolish this style in coming weeks of months. Then another new strategy will come out...so exciting!!
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But I'm glad you've already seen or played games where this sort of ultra play didn't work against Toss, as opposed to just saying something you just guess based off what you know of the game when Symbol has clearly practiced this and done what he did for a reason!
Maybe ultras are crap, but it's too early to tell. But, seeing them in these games, I do think it warrants discussion, symbol clearly felt that ultras were good in practice, thats why he did it.
I dont really understand what you mean about the Parting/Symbol game, if you were trying to be ironic or not, so i'll just say that i did see a lot of people try to make it work and failing pretty bad at it, primarly because Archon/zealot/HT shred that army comp, and for various other reason, like the need for an open wide area and the colossi being able to just go up a cliff against a 100% melee army.
Also, protoss isnt "supposed" to get Archon against zerg but if they scout a heavy Ling/bling/Ultra comp they may very well want to add them
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Irregardless isn't a word. Other than that, it's an interesting play against that scary stalker/colossus timing before BL tech. Might have to try this out on certain maps.
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I think the main thing that makes this comp good for zerg is a protoss with no or very few zealots. If they just have stalkers and colossus mostly Ultras should roll over that army(assuming a semi favorable engagement).
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On June 20 2012 21:54 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +That was the point i was trying to make. From the few games i was able to watch from DH, i saw Dimaga crush Protoss pushes with banelings without ultras over and over. He just chose his engagements wisely, got good flanks with banelings, used overlord drop, and he made it through a lot of really good protoss players into the finals of DH. Sure, when you get to that point in the game, you add ultras to your composition to further increase effectiveness of your banes, but it still is not the core of your army. And in the game Symbol vs Parting, the banelings killed at least two third of the protoss army (colossus-stalker!), the ultras did only kill ~7 Stalker (who blinked INTO the ultras to snipe all infestors!). I guess i made my point clear enough, it is not the ultra-heavy play that won Symbol the games, it was the baneling-based play in which he used ultras as support. Dimaga used baneling-based play as well, just that he dropped them instead of running them in. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Partings main mistake was not to get storm (which you absolutely need when you see that many banelings), even though i don't know how the game got to this point i think it is viable to have Storm when you try to take your fourth base as protoss It is viable to get storm when you try to take your fourth, but it is not viable to get storm against infestor openings from zerg and be able to push them when they try to go straight from infestors to mass broodlords, as you won't do your 3+ colossus push in time. Thus there's a very clear - get templar tech vs ultra/bane, and don't get templar tech vs broodlord, and if you dont do the right thing vs either play, you are behind. So it's a game to play, much like toss needs to to the 'right' thing based on whether zerg is going mutas (templar tech) or infestors (robo tech), and similarly, will fall behind. you go HT thinking mutas against mass roach and you lose. I'll try to check out dimaga in dreamhack, but I believe his style revolved around using ling/bane aggression against Toss - not using ultra/bane to survive the deathball push. What dimaga did is more like just not taking a fast third, thus he can skip roaches, and basically using a really strong ling/bane composition as a means of aggression against toss. Completely different, and completely different purposes to both - that's comparing getting marauders early game against zerg for aggression and stim timing as to getting ultras to fight infestors or ultras (yea... really bad example). It didn't remind you of Belial's ZvP Guide: Ling/Infestor, or How I grew to Love ZvP? tt
he was taking a fast third in all the games i watched(4min ish) and there were games were he used it as aggresion(went all-in vs mana in one of the games) and in some of the games he used it to crush pushes, while eventually teching up to broodlords, he totally crushed some 3 base collosi pushes, but looked vunerable to naniwa's double robo collosi push(he lost his natural and his third, but had a 4th at that time, although he did win that game by going into corruptors just in time and going up to bls after that).
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Would it be beneficial to perhaps go 3 (just a theory instead of 4) gas roach/ling with melee upgrades to defend the two base timing? Or are we stuck just going +1 roaches and then switch to melee upgrades? Lings will be amazing with the upgrade and it will translate into the late game perfectly.
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It's fun to get ultras at first but then not making anymore unless they go super stalker heavy. It's a great unit zvp for a few moments during that big push that toss does to stop bl's, if you can neural the immortals/archons (if he has any) and make sure banelings connect with zealots you will crush his push :D
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Are there any free/accessible vods that show pro zergs executing this? Considering all the countless times we've seen Ultras get roflstomped in the matchup I'd be very interested to see how it played out since I can't quite picture Ultras being this useful. Makes sense, but there's gotta be a replay with this that we can see without a GSL pass.
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I'm using ultras in pretty much every match up, when we talk ZvP they are really powerful but most people use them wrong and throw them away like expensive lings
Ultras are weak on there own and need to be used like Protoss use there colossus, you don't keep a moving when theres no gateway units around they just would die and so you should never send ultras to fight if theres no lings and banelings around to support. And you certainly don't lead the charge with ultras on red health the same as not leading the charge with a red health no shield colossus you would wait for shields to regenerate same with healing ultras up.
In a standard ZvP game Zerg goes 3 base Protoss will go 2 base immortal and either all in or take a 3rd, the powerful part of that army is there ability to control engagements through the use of forcefields. There are options you can get drop to rain hell upon them or try out manoeuvre them by attacking on more than 1 front and that can work, but the protoss still has the better army and if you tech straight into broods they can find there way into a position to kill you before that happens, but by opting for ultras first the Protoss suddenly loses the ability to control the engagement the way they want and so there army strength drastically drops. This gives you time to tech into broodlords so you can build that zerg deathball that's pretty strong.
Queens are also important in playing safely towards that deathball with queens (same cost as 6 lings but only 2 supply!) you can use transfuse to keep ultras alive longer in a fight so they tank even more damage and if you transfuse right you can win fights when you are outnumbered and behind if they lack sufficient splash damage to kill the lings and then when all other units are dead you can fall back and wait for reinforcement lings etc but your opponents deathball will have taken much more damage and won't be able to engage again and you don't need to rebuild the ultras you save so much gas and you have also freed up supply to make broodlords woo.
Also if you have ultra broodlords queen infestors you don't lose ever. there's nothing that beats this deathball as queens can keep everything alive, you let broodlords do the damage from distance and hold the ultras back if they try to blink in and kill the broodlords the ultras + infetor will kill all of them and they will only get 1 broodlord at most with the first volley (that can even be transfused if you hit it in time)
tldr: You use ultras against high stalker sentry count and broodlords against a high zealot, archon and immortal count, tech ultras first only fight with supporting units using queens to keep all the gas expensive units alive. Doing all this on a high drone count till you get to the perfect Ultra Broodlord Infestor Queen deathball.
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I've been doing this vs FFE on ladder for ages (mid-masters). the thing is I've been going ling/hydra in the early game to fend off gateway timings, and the fast lair sets up for fast hive pretty well too. In addition this pretty much makes him go collossus because toss who see hydras go "OM NOM NOM", and stop making immortals.
Three problems with this style that I can see:
1. What to do if he DOESN'T attack (ie third at 9-11 minutes), I'm not quite sure if this build can put pressure on and or deny his third.
2. There is a 3 base collossus push that comes JUST before ultras pop (if they pop at 16 minutes). Most of the time I just let him kill my fourth and sometimes third, and just roll over him once ultras pop. This does work but its still scary.
3. A 2 base collossus push can kind of blind counter this, and I haven't figured out how to deal with this yet. My suspicion is to go mutas. but I feel like it just doesn't get there fast enough.
The build order roughly:
Opener:
9 overlord
14 pool
15-21 hatch
15-21 queen
15-21 2 sets of lines
15-21 overlord
24-28 hatch
24-28 overlord
24-28 queen
5:30-5:45: gas
6:00 to 6:15: gas
6:30: Scout P gas at natural,
NO gas: you can either make a roach warren and do standard defense, OR get ling speed with first 100 gas and FLOOD lings when necessary.
1 gas: go lair @ 7:00 but prep for 4gate +1 and send ovie to third and make more queens lol.
Second 100 gas goes to ling speed.
2 Gas: Lair, Evo chamber, and hydra den once lair finishes. Get ling speed and +1 melee. Get gases at natural
7:00: Scout his base with other ovie.
8-11 minutes crush his timing attack with ling/hydra, you can make around 8-10 hydras and the rest lings. Scout for third. Make second evo chamber if it looks like hes taking a third.
If he takes a third, you can take fourth and fifth. and just keep an eye on his army size. Take 2 more gas at third, and go Infestation pit + hive.
You should be getting +2 at this point if its not already done.
Once hive is started go BANELING NEST and BANELING SPEED. If it looks like he is going to hit you with some kind of bs attack just make the appropriate units (ie banelings or infestors depending on what you see).
I generally make a sizable group of banelings in case of emergency, you should line them up with bane speed.
At this stage if he tries to move out with a deathball try and do ling runbys and counter attacks to prevent him from getting to you before ultras pop. If he does get to you before Ultras pop just sacrifice your fourth and try some ling counter-attack stuff. It's really fine to lose a few bases with this style, just save drones and take a different base etc.
You can actually bait him into overcommitting by showing your ling/hydra and then backing into your bases. Once you're ultras pop you can literally just A-move them into his shit, let them get in front to deal with force fields and then watch as his army dies. This will obliterate ANY deathball that is a response to hydras.
The other possible scenario is that he doesn't attack you and goes for mamaship. He will try and take a fourth here. Try and deny but don't lose anything in the process. Just keep him afraid and pinned back. Stay active with lings.
He should have a reasonable collossus count so you can't really engage him at this point. STILL GET BANELING NEST but do NOT morph banes. This time you want infestors with that gas instead, and even grab NP. Once he gets mothership he'll attack but you should have an army consisting of Ultras Hydras Banelings and Infestors ready to meet him. If you can NP the mothership, great, just vortex and run all your banes in. If HE goes for archon toilet... do the same thing. It's hilarious. Like you will literally be amazed at how dead as shit his army is.
One last tip, always run with an overseer in your army. With hydras you he won't be able to use observers to keep track of you.
Any feedback on the issues that I still have with this build would be appreciated. If anyone wants to see replays I'll post them up just message me.
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United States8476 Posts
I usually don't do this, because it takes forever to respond to your posts, but a large amount of your posts have some fallacies in them. However, this one was especially bad, as your assertions in this thread are just especially plain wrong and I don't want people getting the wrong idea.
On June 20 2012 17:23 Belial88 wrote:
And in many cases, like the game on Daybreak, Symbol is doing the mass roach aggression - good luck getting HT while you need the robo tech and are barely survivng the roach aggression. Or, good luck getting HT when you fast expand like the game on cloud kingdom and I skip roaches and just tech up.
It's perfectly viable to get HT tech versus roach aggression: See puzzle versus lucky on daybreak from gstl and puzzle versus true on cloud kingdom from gsl. You only need to extreme dedication to roach defense if you know for sure it's Stephano style roaches or tunneling claw roaches. If you scout an incorrect number of gas from Zerg or other tech building, you must start teching to something.
Toss is not supposed to have archons against Zerg. If I see you make HT tech on 3 base AND getting the 3+ colossus off 3 base, I'm going to go straight into broodlords and just own you when you push out and my broods are already done.
Maybe the way it will work out, is that now, zergs will go ultras if they see you go HT on 3 base (as well as the obviously necessary 3+ colossus or just mass roach/infestors, we already have roach speed), and go straight BL if they see you go HT tech, and then like we'll have games where zerg thought you were going HT tech but you actually weren't and vice versa.
You'll rarely see colossi AND templar tech versus a Zerg who's going broodlords. Protoss should only get both techs if they see something specific from Zerg, such as ultras or heavy ling/baneling. Also, going reactive ultralisks just because you saw colossi isn't viable. Ultralisks MUST combine with banelings to be effective, so it takes a long time to plan and you basically have to base your entire build on getting ultralisks.
Past the mid game, especially if Protoss took a relatively passive third, it is usually always Zerg who dictates tech, not Protoss. Templar openings also do completely fine versus broodlord tech: See ace vs bbongbbong from gsl on cloud, squirtle vs stephano on entombed from red bull, and vines vs bigs on entombed from egmc.
Not all of the colossus were up front that he NP'd, and he won the battle pretty convincingly.... even if Parting played 'correctly', Symbol had the GS morphing already and would have denied the 4th with his ultras, then parting gets his zealot/archon/ht, and then the broods are done and GG.
I dont think any toss would be happy if they were told "Okay, zerg is getting his mass broodlords right now, but you can't attack him, and no, your expansion is going to be hard to take too"
This is a huge over-simplification. In game 3, Parting played extremely badly in many ways even before really bad fight, which put him in that terrible position.
1. Just 3-5 ultralisks is much, much more useful than 3-5 broodlords. If the 3+ base colossus push comes at you and you try to fight it head on with 3-5 broods, you die. But 3-5 ultras, with NP or mass roach that you already got in mid-game, will crush such an army. The difference is that ultras are much, much less cost efficient than broodlords, especially when its' 10+ ultras compared to 10+ broodlords, but you aren't staying on ultras forever is the point. As symbol used them in daybreak, he only had 4, and he specifically used them just to break forcefields, manuevering them to break them more than fighting with them.
Completely disagree with this. 3-5 ultras by themselves are pretty useless. You just let Protoss have a really effective mineral sink in zealots. You MUST combine then with banelings, as I said before, just because zealots exist.
Like I said, if you go storm on 3 base and 3+ colossus that you need for that push, Zerg can go straight broodlords safely and confine you on 3 base. I think the proper thing is that you need HT/chargelot tech only against ultras, but you have to make sure you dont get it against someone who skips ultras. So it's a balance that you need to play.
It's almost impossible to definitively scout colossi/templar in time and then re-actively transition into broodlords. Templar archives often means just getting archons for archon toilets, so you don't get any information from that. You literally have to see something like high energy templar with storm research, and by that time it's too late. Also, templar tech, in combination with a mothership, is completely fine versus broodlords, as evidenced before. Also, chargelots won't do you any good versus ultras, except as reinforcement units, because they will always be paired with banelings.
Banelings were not the issue. Banelings can be easily stopped by sentries. Which parting would have done, if it wasnt for those 3-5 ultras smashing the forcefields (tahts their primary role). Also, in the game on cloud kingdom, Symbol did not use banelings, but instead relied on infestors.
Banelings, in combination with the ultras are the issue. Either alone will not deal well with a late game Protoss army.
But you cant just make speedbanes without ultras. You need the ultras to break the forcefields, and you are using ultras to combat colossus-stalker, the real core of the toss 3+ colossus 3 base push (he will have less immortal/sentry/zealot/archon than stalker/colossus).
Speedbanes are a completely viable unit without ultras; they just become much better with ultras. Ling/baneling with/without drop, Roach/baneling with drop, or muta into speed banes are very common and viable compositions. You can either use drop to circumvent forcefields or rely on mutas to snipe sentries beforehand. Pure templar is not very good versus banelings in a flank on creep.
It is viable to get storm when you try to take your fourth, but it is not viable to get storm against infestor openings from zerg and be able to push them when they try to go straight from infestors to mass broodlords, as you won't do your 3+ colossus push in time. Thus there's a very clear - get templar tech vs ultra/bane, and don't get templar tech vs broodlord, and if you dont do the right thing vs either play, you are behind.
So it's a game to play, much like toss needs to to the 'right' thing based on whether zerg is going mutas (templar tech) or infestors (robo tech), and similarly, will fall behind. you go HT thinking mutas against mass roach and you lose.
Again, you don't need colossi versus infestors. They just happen to be the more common choice. Especially versus fast 15 minute broodlords, both templar/colossi tech are extremely viable.
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