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Hello,
Ok so lately I've hit a total brick wall as to what to do against a zerg who FE's into spine crawlers and techs to spire in about 8 mins and continues to mass mutas. I'm not greatest player to ever grace sc2 with having only got to 1500 plat so maybe people here can shed some light as to what i can do.
I've tried everything~ 4 gate hard rush with pylon support to pre-cannoning and then attempt to macro myself out of a hole.
The biggest problem im finding is that I'm unable to take advantage of the person teching so hard because of lings + spines so i'm relegated to sitting in my base (with expansion). Mutas come on que at around 8.5 mins and quite honestly I've lost the game at that point. I defend it off and the zerg goes on to take his 3rd and 4th, at which point he can do whatever he wants.
I was thinking possibly go 3 gate phoenix but quite honestly after your 12 probe you're not going to see anything before it gets picked off, building a robo is instant gg so you cant get any obs.
I've been practising with my friend who is also 1500 plat and he has no suggestions for me as to what i can do to counter. The only time ive had success was when my probe caught his drone trying to make a hatch at his natural and continued to pile on the pressure after that, but that really is a bit of luck and surely the whole MU cant be decided in the first mins of the game.
I've included 2 replays of basically what ive described. You might say "oh but the games are fairly long" but really i had no control of the game once those mutas came out.
Spent many hours thinking about it but nothing comes to mind. But surely there is a solution? If there wasnt why wouldnt every PvZ turn out this way?
http://dump.justwipeit.com/Replays/rep1.SC2Replay - replay 1
http://dump.justwipeit.com/Replays/rep2.SC2Replay - replay 2
All tips welcome!
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I haven't yet looked at the reps but I will. I know what this is like from the Zerg's point of view, and have even had Protoss players asking me what I think they could have done to counter it, and I'm not 100% sure, as it seems like if you can get to muta tech fairly safely it's ridiculously hard for P to deal with.
You mentioned not being able to scout with obs due to the robo builds being countered pretty hard by mutas, but have you tried scouting with hallucinated units, like phoenix or even colossi? You will most likely be getting sentries to counter the mutas anyway, so it might 'synergize' well with a gateway-centered build.
Also, as most Zergs will be spending every single spare bit of gas they have on mutas, you might be able to sneak in some DTs at various times, as they might forget to make an overseer. Also, as they will have teched to air, they will likely not have spores up, unless you harassed them early with v-rays.
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I cant really get DT's in 9 mins tbh unless i go ALL in and ill have even less AA for the mutas that are by that point in my base. I thikn the biggest problem is once the zerg has about ~10 mutas he can take his 3rd and 4th base without any fear. If i move out to either counter his main or to stop the 3rd/4th he can move into my base and just do massive amounts of dmg then fly off to hold off the attack on his main or just cancel his hatches building and continue raping my econ/pylons.
I find it hard to accept the only way to counter is an all in build but im stumped. I dont feel like i can play "standard" and counter this build.
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On April 23 2010 00:46 jtype wrote:
I haven't yet looked at the reps but I will. I know what this is like from the Zerg's point of view, and have even had Protoss players asking me what I think they could have done to counter it, and I'm not 100% sure, as it seems like if you can get to muta tech fairly safely it's ridiculously hard for P to deal with.
You mentioned not being able to scout with obs due to the robo builds being countered pretty hard by mutas, but have you tried scouting with hallucinated units, like phoenix or even colossi? You will most likely be getting sentries to counter the mutas anyway, so it might 'synergize' well with a gateway-centered build.
Also, as most Zergs will be spending every single spare bit of gas they have on mutas, you might be able to sneak in some DTs at various times, as they might forget to make an overseer. Also, as they will have teched to air, they will likely not have spores up, unless you harassed them early with v-rays.
the problem with dt's is they are so late and the cost alot for the tech and even the dt's himself the only thing ppl say to counter mass muta is mass sentries, but when i go mass sentries even if i scout just right he start his tech no way i can win against muta. When they try to engage the fight they just fly back and just lost 1 muta. So when you're in your base no way you can expand or if you already have you can defend both, because sentry are so slow.
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Yeah, you're right, that's a very good point regarding DTs coming very late. I was just thinking along the lines that the DT might allow you to return some of the pressure while the mutas are out.
I think it seems kinda like ZvT in BW, where mutas would come out and try as hard as they could to delay the Terran push, but eventually they would have to fall back and defend against the ground force. It would pay to try to do whatever you can to keep his mutas back home, or at least pull them back while you push out.
I know that's easier said than done and it's the whole point of the discussion here, to find out exactly what Protoss can do to achieve that, but I wonder if watching some old BW ZvTs might be helpful.
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go for forge block FE (only on certain map), this will gv your foe the feeling to go mass ling or roaches early which can be counter by few sentries, then take out the robo with obs so that make sure he is going hydra or muta
muta =>canon + mass sentry and invest in blink create couple of imos for sunken burst and win
i works for me, hvnt play for 3 days since the ladder bug but it should work
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I am a gold player and was top 10 in my div before getting reset like 3 times so take it for what its worth but I find that if the toss player just cannons his mineral line and leaves a couple of stalkers at home then he can push the zerg base and force the mutas back home to defend or else you have a good chance at taking out the FE. Also, a mass zlot push is pretty effective against a muta rush around the 5 min mark as he wont be spending his gas on roaches which pretty well counter zlots and zlots maul speedlings. I cant watch the replays yet but ill check them out and see what i can.
I definitely dont think DTs are the answer because 1 detector and your screwed and if he has mutas then hes going to scout your templar tech. Really the best thing that the toss have against mutas is blinking stalkers. Just have to pressure his base and force the mutas home. Not sure what else to say. gg corsairs DX
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Every zerg I play seems to be doing this or some build order that transitions into nothing but mass mutas and once they reach a critical mass I pretty much lose. Muta are too fast for sentries and even stalkers with blink unless you have really good micro.
Orb brought up a good point the other day that if you scout a spire early, based on when its being built then you should have more than enough time to drop a forge and cannons along your mineral line before the first mutas comes out.
If you know you opponent is going speedling/mass muta then go early stargate get 3-4 pheonix and harass his queen and overlords. Keep him food capped, kill his queen, make him spend money, try to punish him early for having no AA and delay the mutas, while you build a sufficient force...
Those are a couple things I have picked up on, in the last week, I have yet to try them.
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^ i dont thing the zlot push is that effective since its sound like all-in to me and normally they dont just tech right to muta, lot of lings harrass will come to make sure they hv the map control in the begining
i want to point out 1 more thing is that on certain map, massing muta is almost unstopable and you would like to end the game with sm kind of cheesy stuff =.=
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FE -> speedling + spine crawler defense while teching to muta only works on a few maps, specifically the ones that don't have a back door, which are LT, metalopolis, and steppes (sort of).
For those maps, I would expand as soon as you see him going for spine crawlers, put cannons around your mineral lines, and either use phoenix + sentry, or sentry + stalker to fight off the mutas.
For all other maps, you have a couple of options:
1. Mass stalkers with blink, blink past his crawlers and snipe workers/queens/hatch
2. go 4gate/3gate + robo and bust down his backdoor and force him to split his crawlers while you expand.
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On April 23 2010 01:02 jtype wrote:
Yeah, you're right, that's a very good point regarding DTs coming very late. I was just thinking along the lines that the DT might allow you to return some of the pressure while the mutas are out.
I think it seems kinda like ZvT in BW, where mutas would come out and try as hard as they could to delay the Terran push, but eventually they would have to fall back and defend against the ground force. It would pay to try to do whatever you can to keep his mutas back home, or at least pull them back while you push out.
I know that's easier said than done and it's the whole point of the discussion here, to find out exactly what Protoss can do to achieve that, but I wonder if watching some old BW ZvTs might be helpful.
You know, i've never thought of it that way
However, the matter of fact is that mutas are incredibly strong harassers, and sentries are much slower than the airborne mutas that have great mobility
The problem lies in the fact that, though in sc1 TvZ terran can defend quite adeptly using turrets and fast moving stimmed marines, cannons arent worth much against mutas, and sentries move around slowly, making it extremely easy to maul a protosses eco with mutas.
Keep in mind also, that when terran makes mnm + turrets, if the zerg tech switches to lurker, he can CONTAIN the terran, but not bust his face
whereas if a protoss is going sentry cannon, somehow having expanded (lets assume)
an immediate tech switch to hydra roach will straight up break your base before you have the units necessary to defend it (colossi/immortals)
I know theres a solution somewhere, but I cant think of one
im not the best theorycrafter though xD
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Zealot pushes are ineffective against this build because they can spine up and hold u off with lings + queen. In the 2 games i posted my friend only put down 3 or so crawlers but he coudl have easily put down up to 5-6 and that will hold off any rush, the consequence is that the mutas come out slightly later but not late enough for it to matter since the gas is what caps the amount of mutas the Z can make when the spire comes out.
You'll see in the 2 games that I even pre-emptively put down cannons at my mineral line. (these were arranged games where i told my friend to go FE> muta) The cannons do nothing besides hurt a few mutas while they snipe pylons and probes, all the while im contained coz if i dont show presence he'll just dive the towers and then its really over.
I can accept this might be harder to pull off on maps such as blistering sands because of the back door but i still find it hard to believe that on any other map with just one entrance the P is auto lose?
Oh not to mention if you play a Z on desert oasis its just totally laughable.
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On April 23 2010 01:12 BlasiuS wrote:
FE -> speedling + spine crawler defense while teching to muta only works on a few maps, specifically the ones that don't have a back door, which are LT, metalopolis, and steppes (sort of).
For those maps, I would expand as soon as you see him going for spine crawlers, put cannons around your mineral lines, and either use phoenix + sentry, or sentry + stalker to fight off the mutas.
For all other maps, you have a couple of options:
1. Mass stalkers with blink, blink past his crawlers and snipe workers/queens/hatch
2. go 4gate/3gate + robo and bust down his backdoor and force him to split his crawlers while you expand.
for the first one: feeling like locking ur army in their base with spines on one side (can be moved) and muta on ur head and lings on ur feet @.@
2nd: hmm, it would depend on the timing between u and him, the problem is that u will be in 2 base 2 or 3 mins after ur foe on 2 bases and that would put u behind if you cant really pull off and thing after the push.
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On April 23 2010 01:28 NB wrote:Show nested quote +On April 23 2010 01:12 BlasiuS wrote:
FE -> speedling + spine crawler defense while teching to muta only works on a few maps, specifically the ones that don't have a back door, which are LT, metalopolis, and steppes (sort of).
For those maps, I would expand as soon as you see him going for spine crawlers, put cannons around your mineral lines, and either use phoenix + sentry, or sentry + stalker to fight off the mutas.
For all other maps, you have a couple of options:
1. Mass stalkers with blink, blink past his crawlers and snipe workers/queens/hatch
2. go 4gate/3gate + robo and bust down his backdoor and force him to split his crawlers while you expand. for the first one: feeling like locking ur army in their base with spines on one side (can be moved) and muta on ur head and lings on ur feet @.@ 2nd: hmm, it would depend on the timing between u and him, the problem is that u will be in 2 base 2 or 3 mins after ur foe on 2 bases and that would put u behind if you cant really pull off and thing after the push.
plenty of replays out there showing both of these working against FE mass crawler.
Here's one showing mass stalker with blink:
http://starcraft.gamesports.net/de/replays/893/
I'll try and find some for the other option, but trust me they both work.
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I'm also having trouble in this matchup especially on desert oasis, what a terrible map. 9/10 Zergs and Terrans will muta/reaper harrass you taking advantage of the map design making it almost impossible to gain map control.
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I play as Terran, and I have a really difficult time against mass mutas..... Stimmed rines don't work, thors don't work. HSM doesn't work, vikings don't work....So i'm stumped.
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United States1967 Posts
On April 23 2010 01:31 RoosterSamurai wrote:
I play as Terran, and I have a really difficult time against mass mutas..... Stimmed rines don't work, thors don't work. HSM doesn't work, vikings don't work....So i'm stumped.
seems much easier for terran to counter mutas, since turrets are pretty strong anti air compared to cannons, it should be pretty easy to expand fast (maybe even 1 rax FE) + build up critical mass of few thor/hellion/mmm and just push out. With thor doing splash damage, opponent wont be able to keep massing mutas and will need to switch to ground.
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On April 23 2010 01:31 RoosterSamurai wrote:
I play as Terran, and I have a really difficult time against mass mutas..... Stimmed rines don't work, thors don't work. HSM doesn't work, vikings don't work....So i'm stumped.
When you make posts like this, state your league
its pretty apparent that you're not a gold/plat player though, because terran has a very easy time against mutas, turrets counter mutas VERY hard with a couple scvs auto repairing, thor AoE rapes the shit out of muta, and a marine army, without stim, shield, or medivacs, STILL beats mutas in terms of mineral vs mineral cost in mid to large engagements.
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Something to consider (and I have tried this and it works):
Warp Prism. Now, every game is contextual, but I've found a double immortal drop can snipe queens with relative ease (and micro'ing around the lings/roaches) and destroy tech.
Couple with this fact that even when a Warp Prism is deployed, it still cannot be attacked by ground units.
Warping in a sentry or two with the immortals can create chaos inside the Zerg base with FF and delay tech.
For a more gateway heavy build, load up the Warp Prism, drop, deploy, warp, chrono boost, rinse, repeat.
When you see a Zerg saving his gas for mutas, it's your responsibility to do something about it.
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The only counter for this is upfront pressure with proxy in front of his base. if he walls in with spines crawlers then thats all you can do. If your really good you might be able to blink with stalkers pretty well but sooner or later the zerg is going to expand as u sit in your base waiting to defend. Watch some pro replays, you will see that its much different than most gold level games where people shake hands in the beginning, wait 8.5 mins and then commence. What i would do is scout and if you see him throwing a gas down then immediately chrono and get some zealots on the way there with maybe one or two left behind for zerglings that are pointed there. then throw down a proxy pylon and gate. At this point he should have one or two crawlers up but that doesnt mean you sit in your base and ponder what units will counter his impending mutas. The one thing people make the huge mistake of doing when seeing crawlers is they give up. They do have extensive reach, but with about 8 zealots you can go around them. now if he is an extreamely good player he will position them accordingly and move them to areas they cant reach, but this type of haraassment will slow down the muta rush. especially getting pop shots on the extractors and possibly sacrificing a few zealots to take one down will really help. now i know in the beginning he could be going mass zergling rush so you dont know whether or not to rush HIM, but i know that if you rush him and he kills your zealots with mass zerglings and COUNTERS, sending more zerglings to follow, youve stalled him further. If he backs off and their is a lull then immediately get up tehre and f him up using sentrys. My point here is that everyone thinks that its strats and unit combos but more so its your micro and scouting. Initiating the harassment and setting up shop from there will give you success.. its all in your micro, harass with the zealots, proxy up front and force HIM to change his game plan, not the other way around.
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EPT
