EPTHopefully it can help me a bit to get out of the Zerg struggle I'm in right now(PvZ was my best matchup before this patch..
)[G] PvZ Overview - Page 9
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lurked
Canada918 Posts
Hopefully it can help me a bit to get out of the Zerg struggle I'm in right now(PvZ was my best matchup before this patch.. ) | ||
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johanngrunt
Hong Kong1555 Posts
I've been staying off 1v1 for a while because I couldn't deal with zerg, but now, I just might go back =) | ||
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sUmdUmgUy
United States1 Post
something many many many players overlook is the supply block, use a group of 5-6 pheonix to get his overlords down, especially the ones he uses for scouting. most zerg players have a little pocket of ovies in the corner of the map or behind their main base, depending on the map. find this little pocket and harrass it ruthlessly. if its early game, he has to devote 3-4 hundred minerals just to make drones, and loosing that time, larva, and those minerals puts him a decent way back in both economy and army. now the problem with this is that if you rush into air, you should be ready for a decent size counter of mutas/corrupters, and he will probably keep some hydras in his base for defensive putposes. in late game, a group of 10 pheonix will DECIMATE his overlord pocket, or as i call it, the ovaries (lol). if hes at the full 200 supply and you knock out 10-12 overlords, it takes not only larvae to restore that, it takes well over 1000 minerals and.... 30 seconds? which if you get a good kiting situation and knock out some roaches/ultras/hydras, then it takes quiet a while for him to reinforce his army. as long as you keep your losses minimal, you should be able to warp in a quick few stalkers/sentries, push art his front door, march your collossi up into his base, crush his choke point from both suides (if the zerg crawlered in), and move in for a full out ass-rape on his tech structures and worker line. hope this helps! | ||
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Antisocialmunky
United States5912 Posts
On November 12 2010 22:04 sUmdUmgUy wrote: as a zerg player, what kills me is mass collossi with good force fields by sentries. they split up the roaches and hold back whatever b-lings i have. hydras are worthless if the zerg doesnt creep highway, and on some longer maps its nearly impossible to creep highway. if the zerg player creeps out you should use 1-2 zealots to kill as many tumors as you can. something many many many players overlook is the supply block, use a group of 5-6 pheonix to get his overlords down, especially the ones he uses for scouting. most zerg players have a little pocket of ovies in the corner of the map or behind their main base, depending on the map. find this little pocket and harrass it ruthlessly. if its early game, he has to devote 3-4 hundred minerals just to make drones, and loosing that time, larva, and those minerals puts him a decent way back in both economy and army. now the problem with this is that if you rush into air, you should be ready for a decent size counter of mutas/corrupters, and he will probably keep some hydras in his base for defensive putposes. in late game, a group of 10 pheonix will DECIMATE his overlord pocket, or as i call it, the ovaries (lol). if hes at the full 200 supply and you knock out 10-12 overlords, it takes not only larvae to restore that, it takes well over 1000 minerals and.... 30 seconds? which if you get a good kiting situation and knock out some roaches/ultras/hydras, then it takes quiet a while for him to reinforce his army. as long as you keep your losses minimal, you should be able to warp in a quick few stalkers/sentries, push art his front door, march your collossi up into his base, crush his choke point from both suides (if the zerg crawlered in), and move in for a full out ass-rape on his tech structures and worker line. hope this helps! How well can that actually work? You are spending so much money on Phoenixes by that point. | ||
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Mr.Pyro
Denmark959 Posts
Given the insane harass pressure from muta speedling builds, it seems impossible to stop the Zerg from taking his 3rd and maybe even 4th. Playing against any good Zerg you should just be overrun by the point he has 4 bases running and the game should be over. So - is the only choice against these muta speedling builds really a timing attack? | ||
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Mr.Pyro
Denmark959 Posts
On November 12 2010 22:06 Antisocialmunky wrote: How well can that actually work? You are spending so much money on Phoenixes by that point. I have to agree - you will leave yourself seriously exposed by produing that many phoenix. The main issue with phoenix is that they're just not a good enough anti-air unit. And while cost for cost they stand up pretty decent to mutas for example, and can kite them to oblivion - you just need to make so many of them to pack a decent punch. The corsair was a more viable counter because you didn't need as many of them to pack a punch, but it just seems making phoenix for anti-air purposes and/or defensive purposes against muta harass isn't very viable. | ||
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Hectic
Australia159 Posts
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MK4512
Canada938 Posts
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sleepingdog
Austria6145 Posts
On November 12 2010 22:18 MaD.pYrO wrote: I have some thoughts.. Given the insane harass pressure from muta speedling builds, it seems impossible to stop the Zerg from taking his 3rd and maybe even 4th. Playing against any good Zerg you should just be overrun by the point he has 4 bases running and the game should be over. So - is the only choice against these muta speedling builds really a timing attack? Also to you I can recommend the socke vs sen game on desert oasis at MLG. Not because Socke owns (which he does) but because Socke made some mistakes early, still went through with his timing attack before the mutas could get critical but did NOT end the game there. So this is one of the (few) pro-games where you can actually see a transition after a succesful midgame push....because recently you either see the protoss-player fail, or win outright. Socke added two stargates AND a TC for blink and fended off the mutas perfectly well. The timing attack allowed him to tech-switch without getting behind. He got a reasonably early third, teched to colossi AND HT and stomped sen into the ground in a surprisingly onesided match overall. I love this game not only because of the timing-attack that made all the cool transitions, techs and the 3rd expansion possible, but the fact that socke made quite some mistakes and STILL ended up doing good damage. This is what should be encouraging for us "normal" people, that even if you get supply-blocked, allow a unnecessary ling-runby quite early and feel uncomfortable, you still have this window of opportunity for doing a decent push before the mutas are out. A push that, supported from 5 gates (recently I started adding a forge for +1 early while sacrificing some stalkers) is nowhere near all-in but allows for great transitions both against mutas and against roach/hydra or even roach/muta. | ||
Plexa
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 12 2010 22:18 MaD.pYrO wrote: I have some thoughts.. Given the insane harass pressure from muta speedling builds, it seems impossible to stop the Zerg from taking his 3rd and maybe even 4th. Playing against any good Zerg you should just be overrun by the point he has 4 bases running and the game should be over. So - is the only choice against these muta speedling builds really a timing attack? If a Zerg is taking his third before a Muta/Ling transition and you just sit there and do nothing about it then of course you are going to lose. He's taking a massive risk and you're not punishing him for it. To pull this back to a familiar BW scenario, it's like letting a Terran 14CC without pressuring him with Dragoons or expanding quickly yourself - you're not playing to your opponent, you're playing in a world of your own. If a Zerg is taking his third while harassing with mutas, well thats a different story. You should be pressuring the Zerg before his mutalisks pop and from there make a decision on how you're going to react - phoenix or storm. Blink is mandatory in either case. Most times you're going to have to make a timing attack after your get phoenix/storm and cause some drone damage, killing the hatch isn't going to cut it in most cases. And of course, taking a third yourself. Yes it's difficult, no it's not impossible @sleepingdog - yet another good post. I suspect in a few weeks the 5gate push, that you describe, won't work as well anymore since Zergs will begin to expect it. And then us Protoss have to change it up yet again (maybe a 6gate push, or playing more greedy, idk!) | ||
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Phrencys
Canada270 Posts
Can it be viable vs a Roach Tech switch if you're already committed to templars/DTs? Or you really should slam down 3 robos and mass Immortals no matter what? | ||
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Plexa
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On November 13 2010 00:01 Phrencys wrote: What about archons? 35dmg with splash vs bio (51dmg at +3) Can it be viable vs a Roach Tech switch if you're already committed to templars/DTs? Or you really should slam down 3 robos and mass Immortals no matter what? If you had unlimited gas, archons would be the unit of choice in PvZ hands down. Gas, however, is an extremely limited resource. The 300 gas you spend on an Archon (or 250 if you use to DT route) is not as gas-cost effective as Colossi or anything else. So that's why Archons can't be the core of your army, but will always add value to it as a supplementary unit. | ||
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MangoTango
United States3670 Posts
On November 12 2010 21:10 Chaosvuistje wrote: Single player spoilers inside + Show Spoiler + Anybody remember the protosses last stand mission? What units did you build off to hold off over 2000 zerg units? I'm pretty sure it was collosi into voidrays, into voidray carrier. Ah, now that's a really good point. I never thought of it this way. | ||
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sleepingdog
Austria6145 Posts
On November 13 2010 00:03 Plexa wrote: If you had unlimited gas, archons would be the unit of choice in PvZ hands down. Gas, however, is an extremely limited resource. The 300 gas you spend on an Archon (or 250 if you use to DT route) is not as gas-cost effective as Colossi or anything else. So that's why Archons can't be the core of your army, but will always add value to it as a supplementary unit. Exactly this - archons are awsome, sadly they are ridiculously expensive and the DT-path is quite limiting towards your general playstyle. I'd say Archons are good if you see your window of opportunity for a semi-all-in, if zerg eg. doesn't have many spine-crawlers to defend. Then Archons can win the game. Nevertheless Archons are horrible for defense, they are huge, slow balls with a "please focus fire me" written on them. On November 12 2010 23:54 Plexa wrote: @sleepingdog - yet another good post. I suspect in a few weeks the 5gate push, that you describe, won't work as well anymore since Zergs will begin to expect it. And then us Protoss have to change it up yet again (maybe a 6gate push, or playing more greedy, idk!) Tbh what I expect is, that either zergs will stop playing it so greedily on the tech-paths, meaning they won't go for mutas as fast as they used to / want to. I think we will see the hydras much more often, much earlier, but not used as a general attack-unit but as a transition-unit that defends against protoss-timing-attacks. The other possibility is, that more zergs will play it like dimaga recently and will build tons and TONS of spine-crawlers to lol at any gateway-ball that tries to break through. I'm much more afraid of this style because mutas are so gas-heavy which means zerg has excess-minerals anyways. All zergs have to do is stop getting a third so fast but sink all their minerals into lots of spines and the muta/ling could still be perfectly valid, even against 5-6 gate pushes. | ||
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Synk
United States297 Posts
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Markwerf
Netherlands3728 Posts
On small maps there is a very good timing window to attack with mass gateway and a robo against spire play. He will usually have to make roaches, a shitload of spine crawlers or use his muta to defend if he can at all vs a timing push. In either case this will reveal and/or severely limit the number of muta's he gets. Sentry, stalker owns muta quite hard as long as you can force him to fight near a guardian shield, this is quite easy to do on offense but not on defense. Mass gateway + a robo is also very good vs any other form of play as it allows to tech to colossi quite fast if he doesn't play spire. On big maps it is much harder to do a timing push and they can generally tech to muta quite safely. On the other hand there is no risk of a hydra push from them so it's completely safe to throw down a blind stargate. Worst case scenario they went hydra really fast and you simply make 1 phoenix to use for overlord hunting and scouting and go to colossi asap. If they started off with roach/ling you can either make a voidray (if they are pressuring) or go with 4 phoenix which is imo the ideal number for harass (you can kill a queen with 1 lift and drones with 1 volley). If they went with spire you throw down a 2nd stargate and make some phoenix while gearing up for a phoenix, stalker, zealot timing attack. By this approach you also eliminate the need for hallucination. On small maps you're observer will tell their tech path really quickly and a timing push buys more then enough time to get stargates going (or just kills them). On big maps a phoenix scout tells you everything you need to know and will never be useless either. In general I just find hallucination a bit overcosted. The fact you HAVE to get warpgate tech first and then spend 100m 100g on a fairly lengthy tech to get hallucinated phoenix scouts is not worth it to me. I generally throw down my stargate/robo while i'm still getting warpgate thus it's actually faster for scouting to just not get hallucination. I find that everything you need to know about their tech options can be accounted for by either just being aggresive or taking a very versatile build. Also about the voidray + colossus combo. Corruptors beat voidrays cost effectively with the use of corruptions and lose slightly without the use of corruption. Given that a P will generally have enough time to get corruption and can by default corrupt all your voids + colossi if they use corruptors for this I don't see the merit in a lategame voidray composition. The fact that I don't like about colossus + voidray either is that you make it very simply for the Z to mass corruptors. If you just go colossi Z is always in a pickle about what number of corruptors they need, if they make too many you can simply switch from colossi to immortals and win on the ground with immortal/stalker. The best lategame composition is imo just immortal/stalker/HT. It deals with everything pretty efficiently and you always put in a couple voids if they get broodlords. I don't see the use for voids if they don't make broodlords though as your colossi generally force them into corruptors already. | ||
Firebolt145
Lalalaland34492 Posts
Regarding using DT's - most of the time you'll be running with HT's as well at this point. Most zerg players might bring 1-2 overseers and they are usually brimming with energy (changeling/that other ability aren't used very often in the current metagame) so a single Feedback can 1-shot each overseer, leaving your DT's free to wreak havoc. Other than that, extremely interesting read. I hadn't considered how lousy Stalkers were in the end-game, though by that point I'm too busy spamming chargelots + HT's anyway.  | ||
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MisterPuppy
161 Posts
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iloahz
United States964 Posts
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MinD_KonTroL
Portugal13 Posts
Any chance you could include some replays where we can watch some of that early game ( especially ) you are talking about ? Thank you and congrats on keeping up answering after 10 pages | ||
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