There are loads of people on the forum complaining about Skytoss right now, but I don't understand it at all. Detailed below is a new tactic that my friends and I use to destroy it:
Unit Composition:
This is the least secure part, and is interchangeable. However, the ideas
Main: Corruptor - Main Anti-Air. This is the best Anti-Air unit in the game, an obvious choice.
Ultralisk - Main Anti-Ground. Ultralisks can destroy High Templar, Zealots and Collosus with ease, which should be
Situational: Viper - If the Tempest are doing too much damage, use the viper to counter them. More detail under the tactics section. Mutalisk - If your opponent has gone Mass Void Ray, Mutalisks are actually more effective against them than Corruptors. Roach - If the Ultralisks are not working, or you have trouble teching to them, Roaches can also be effective Anti-Ground. Hydralisk - If the Protoss has neglected any Collosus or High Templar, the Hyrdralisk can rip through the Protoss' army. .
Tactics
These tactics are key to beating it, and are the probably the aspect that most players miss.
The Overcharge Bait - This is designed to help vs Void Rays. Move your army into the Protoss', but move away at the last moment. This should cause the Protoss player to activate the Overcharge ability on his Void Rays. As soon as the ability wears off, move back in and engage. This almost half's a Void Ray's DPS.
The Tempest/Carrier Snipe - This is designed to help if the opponent is doing too much damage with the big units. Take a small taskforce of corruptors and one viper around to the side of the Protoss army (enough to 2-shot a Carrier or Tempest). Abduct a Tempest or a carrier and kill it. Once killed, move away. If played perfectly, the Protoss should not kill a single unit.
The Zergling run-by - A classic Zerg strategy, try to utilise this to keep the Protoss's army in his base and stop them expanding.
Focus-Fire - Another Classic Zerg strategy, focus the Carrier's for the most Damage reduction.
.
That's it for now, I may update with new tactics or unit reworks if this begins to not work as well.
Thanks
TheNewerBakery
EDIT:
A video which shows the tactics and how it works. If there are any problems with it, feel free to tell me and I will follow up with another video .
I don't know what level you're playing at, but this doesn't work even at the mid-high masters level unless the toss is just playing the strategy wrong. The high templars will get off storms on the corruptors and feedbacks on the vipers then move back behind the army. run bys don't work because toss players use all the excess minerals on cannons at all bases. As for the ultras; if you make enough ultras to kill the ground force then you won't have enough corruptor viper to deal with the air army. If you try to snipe the carriers and tempest you'll just get feedbacked or simply killed because of the tempest range. The only thing that you've said that actually works well is the overcharge bait, but that alone is not enough to beat this army.
this will work at low level. at higher level this wont work...at all. hydras get destroyed by carriers etc. theres not even need for storm but with storm its even more onesided. feedback prevents any abduct, corruptors are NOT the best AA unit (they get destroyed by storm and voidrays), roaches...no comment, mutalisks...no comment. only thing you got right is ultras.
the best way to deal with skytoss is an ultra queen infestor corruptor army with 230/200 supply with the "spore-trick". something like 5 ultras, 15 infestors, 15 queens, 30 corruptors has the best chance to fight airtoss. the thing is, while toss a-moves and after that just controls his HT to feedback and storm you have to: a-move ultras, corrupt, focus fire with corruptors, transfuse, fungal, spam mass IT, fungal again, transfuse again etc. and all that while mircoing your corruptors out of storm. but if you got the sick APM to do all that you have a small chance to fight skytoss + HT. this only works vs low numbers of carriers. once P reaches 8+ carriers its just gg.
On February 25 2013 05:09 Decendos wrote: this will work at low level. at higher level this wont work...at all. hydras get destroyed by carriers etc. theres not even need for storm but with storm its even more onesided. feedback prevents any abduct, corruptors are NOT the best AA unit (they get destroyed by storm and voidrays), roaches...no comment, mutalisks...no comment. only thing you got right is ultras.
the best way to deal with skytoss is an ultra queen infestor corruptor army with 230/200 supply with the "spore-trick". something like 5 ultras, 15 infestors, 15 queens, 30 corruptors has the best chance to fight airtoss. the thing is, while toss a-moves and after that just controls his HT to feedback and storm you have to: a-move ultras, corrupt, focus fire with corruptors, transfuse, fungal, spam mass IT, fungal again, transfuse again etc. and all that while mircoing your corruptors out of storm. but if you got the sick APM to do all that you have a small chance to fight skytoss + HT. this only works vs low numbers of carriers. once P reaches 8+ carriers its just gg.
Yay! The Z skill ceiling has increased. ^_^
On a more serious note: from what I've found playing against toss in the beta is you don't want to let them reach late-game - or at least when you do hit late-game, I've found that using the 300/200 food (quick remax) along with swarmhost drops in the main and pockets of broodlords sieging their expansions - it's all about massively out-multitasking the P. If you have one big roaring fire (i.e. your clumped up death-ball), in a straight-up engagement the p will win. You need to start small fires all over the place and continually mess him up. All it takes is one bad engagement and the game's over (for you or your opponent - if you've been stressing him all game with multi-pronged attacks and drop feints and so forth the probability leans slightly in your favour) and you can move on to the next one. You never want the deathball. You want to basically base-race and keep on expanding.
Stay calm, don't hesitate, and make sure you have multiple armies on multiple hotkeys. You can't just 1-A your way to victory anymore.
Um the ideas you have just aren't that great high level. I think it is impossible to beat if the protoss plays correctly (lots of cannons, templar or colossi, voidray/tempest.
The best way to fight it though is with swarmhost/hydra/viper if he goes colossi (if he goes templar vipers are useless as feedback will hit pretty much every time you try to use it unless toss is nice).
Swarmhost/hydra and a couple ultras is pretty good to and maybe adding in infestors. But mutalisks actually die to mass voidray as well. Saw a GSL game where 40 mutas died to 16 voidrays (something like that I was so positive mutas would win but they didn't). The numbers favored mutas by a lot but they got crushed.
I think you may have misunderstood the strategy a bit. The job of the Ultralisks is to kill the High Templars, and with the huge damage that they can put out now, they actually can. If the Protoss attacks you, then the Templars won't have time to storm and feedback, they will die to the Ultra's.
Void Rays are also incredibly weak without the Overcharge ability. Using the tactic that I detailed, the 'Overcharge Bait', the Void Rays can be killed easily by the corruptors. Also, if the opponent goes heavily into Void Rays, you can use Mutalisks. They are actually more effective against charged Void Rays than Corruptors are.
On February 25 2013 05:09 Decendos wrote: this will work at low level. at higher level this wont work...at all. hydras get destroyed by carriers etc. theres not even need for storm but with storm its even more onesided. feedback prevents any abduct, corruptors are NOT the best AA unit (they get destroyed by storm and voidrays), roaches...no comment, mutalisks...no comment. only thing you got right is ultras.
the best way to deal with skytoss is an ultra queen infestor corruptor army with 230/200 supply with the "spore-trick". something like 5 ultras, 15 infestors, 15 queens, 30 corruptors has the best chance to fight airtoss. the thing is, while toss a-moves and after that just controls his HT to feedback and storm you have to: a-move ultras, corrupt, focus fire with corruptors, transfuse, fungal, spam mass IT, fungal again, transfuse again etc. and all that while mircoing your corruptors out of storm. but if you got the sick APM to do all that you have a small chance to fight skytoss + HT. this only works vs low numbers of carriers. once P reaches 8+ carriers its just gg.
Yay! The Z skill ceiling has increased. ^_^
On a more serious note: from what I've found playing against toss in the beta is you don't want to let them reach late-game - or at least when you do hit late-game, I've found that using the 300/200 food (quick remax) along with swarmhost drops in the main and pockets of broodlords sieging their expansions - it's all about massively out-multitasking the P. If you have one big roaring fire (i.e. your clumped up death-ball), in a straight-up engagement the p will win. You need to start small fires all over the place and continually mess him up. All it takes is one bad engagement and the game's over (for you or your opponent - if you've been stressing him all game with multi-pronged attacks and drop feints and so forth the probability leans slightly in your favour) and you can move on to the next one. You never want the deathball. You want to basically base-race and keep on expanding.
Stay calm, don't hesitate, and make sure you have multiple armies on multiple hotkeys. You can't just 1-A your way to victory anymore.
yeah the Z skill ceiling has increased...a lot. Z went from easiest race in lategame to play to the hardest race in early and lategame to play. P got even easier lol ^^
but yeah while i know what you mean the problem is: zerg has no cost efficient way to harrass vs mass cannons + turtle toss, especially on the maps right now. on most maps 4 bases are very close together and mass cannons at the edges + army in the middle + MSC recall to any nexus makes harrassing basically impossible which is sad. so right now the best way is to take all bases, deny 5th base, build up mass spores and spines and build the above mentioned army and remax on the same exact army.
On February 25 2013 05:29 TheNewerBakery wrote: I think you may have misunderstood the strategy a bit. The job of the Ultralisks is to kill the High Templars, and with the huge damage that they can put out now, they actually can. If the Protoss attacks you, then the Templars won't have time to storm and feedback, they will die to the Ultra's.
Void Rays are also incredibly weak without the Overcharge ability. Using the tactic that I detailed, the 'Overcharge Bait', the Void Rays can be killed easily by the corruptors. Also, if the opponent goes heavily into Void Rays, you can use Mutalisks. They are actually more effective against charged Void Rays than Corruptors are.
i understood the ultralisk part and like i said thats the only part i agree with. you need something to kill HT and ultras do that nicely.
your bait wont work vs a good player though. he will start his overcharge once corruptors actually attack. but if you dont move in with you whole army but only with your corruptors he will storm them and attack them with carriers and tempest and get free kills before you attack his voidrays. so corruptors with range 6 cant bait a good toss. he will start overcharge once you actually attack and not 1 minute before and get free damage with his high ranged storm/tempest/carrier.
and no you can never go mutas. dont want to offend you but i think you are like gold level at max. mutas gets destroyed insanely hard by skytoss + HT, same goes for hydras.
Could a good way of preventing Skytoss from ever getting going opening up with a hydra/swarmhost ala hydra lurker contain in Broodwar? If you keep him in his base and mass expand, even if he gets his third and goes for skytoss, you'll have so much money that it wouldn't really need to worry about cost efficiency.
I realise this isn't the best solution to the skytoss "problem", but I think a good way of stopping it is to put a lot of pressure on early to force it to slow down.
Wow people here whine a lot, the guy tried to find a solution to your problem, and even if its not high level at least he is trying.
The ultimate deathball of Protoss is probably not beatable, but that is consists from so much gas it should be impossible to get. The thing about the skytoss is that in order to get so much army you need either a lot of time or a lot of bases, and since going for the deathball removes you mobility then you're focusing on the time here, and that gives the Zerg player the option to take the map and get a huge amount of larva and resources.
Basically I don't get why would you want any ground units when facing sky toss, since the only thing on the ground is HT's, which should hide behind the army so reaching them will be near impossible. Unless the Protoss invests a lot into Archons you should go mostly Corruptors and get on top of the Protoss army in order for storm to damage the forces of the Protoss as well. With a big base lead and many larva stacked you should be able to kill the remaining Protoss army with a new army, since sky toss takes ages to build, unlike corruptors.
Another idea is one that was used by someone in the GSL (don't remember who), where the Zerg player used massive amount of spores with speed overlords to spread creep and plant down the spores under the slow sky toss that can't retreat fast enough. This gives the edge that the Zerg player needed in order to beat the Protoss army.
finaly zerg need skill to win and instant every zerg cry about imbalance ... the end of the patchzergs sound like part 3 of a movie i am mid master and i can tell you there ARE zergs who CRUSH! it, and others who not even try and flame nonstop ... i like that they removed from high ranks REALLY much because only smart guys have to be there
On February 25 2013 05:52 CoR wrote: finaly zerg need skill to win and instant every zerg cry about imbalance ... the end of the patchzergs sound like part 3 of a movie i am mid master and i can tell you there ARE zergs who CRUSH! it, and others who not even try and flame nonstop ... i like that they removed from high ranks REALLY much because only smart guys have to be there
Hate to break it to you buddy, but if you're going skytoss templar and a zerg is crushing you, then they are so much better than you it's ridiculous.
"i like that they removed from high ranks REALLY much because only smart guys have to be there" <-- This gave me a good laugh, thank you putting a smile on my face.
On February 25 2013 05:52 moskonia wrote: Wow people here whine a lot, the guy tried to find a solution to your problem, and even if its not high level at least he is trying.
The ultimate deathball of Protoss is probably not beatable, but that is consists from so much gas it should be impossible to get. The thing about the skytoss is that in order to get so much army you need either a lot of time or a lot of bases, and since going for the deathball removes you mobility then you're focusing on the time here, and that gives the Zerg player the option to take the map and get a huge amount of larva and resources.
Basically I don't get why would you want any ground units when facing sky toss, since the only thing on the ground is HT's, which should hide behind the army so reaching them will be near impossible. Unless the Protoss invests a lot into Archons you should go mostly Corruptors and get on top of the Protoss army in order for storm to damage the forces of the Protoss as well. With a big base lead and many larva stacked you should be able to kill the remaining Protoss army with a new army, since sky toss takes ages to build, unlike corruptors.
Another idea is one that was used by someone in the GSL (don't remember who), where the Zerg player used massive amount of spores with speed overlords to spread creep and plant down the spores under the slow sky toss that can't retreat fast enough. This gives the edge that the Zerg player needed in order to beat the Protoss army.
Show me a replay at high level where a zerg remaxes on corruptors and beats that army. As for the spore thing, idk if that actually worked, but there are so many flaws with that strategy that it's insane, one being the overlords will just get killed by the massive sky army and storms...lol
I am just going for mass muta in pvz now. Basetrade if I need to. Mutas do better against voidrays than corruptors. Storms do pose a problem, but at least you can contain the opponent and harass him while you mass expand.
On February 25 2013 05:52 CoR wrote: finaly zerg need skill to win and instant every zerg cry about imbalance ... the end of the patchzergs sound like part 3 of a movie i am mid master and i can tell you there ARE zergs who CRUSH! it, and others who not even try and flame nonstop ... i like that they removed from high ranks REALLY much because only smart guys have to be there
Hate to break it to you buddy, but if you're going skytoss templar and a zerg is crushing you, then they are so much better than you it's ridiculous.
"i like that they removed from high ranks REALLY much because only smart guys have to be there" <-- This gave me a good laugh, thank you putting a smile on my face.
basically this. on pro level i havent seen a 4 base HT + skytoss player who lost. literally not a single game and it should be every 2nd game to be balanced. so yeah if you lose in mid master once you reached 4 base skytoss + HT you either fucked up the engagement or you play vs much better player than you and got in midmaster like a "patchtoss". oh and have to break it to you but i was master even then Z had 40% winrates on close metalopolis 2 rax before depot times. so sorry patchtoss, i am no patchzerg (stupid word btw).
I've beaten Sky-Toss ONCE, only once. He played so poorly it didn't even count in my book.
He had a ton of tempests, Voids, x3 Colossus, HT's. I massed Corrupter's until I knew I'd take all air out & Colossus. He could of easily switched to Stalker/Sentry/Zealot to defeat me but he attempted to match my air units (dumb move).
My entire army was devoted into Corrupter's & could only transfer into Brood's after I attacked him with a few Swarm Hosts.
I shouldn't of won at all and got lucky.
Skytoss cannot be beaten at the current state of the game in the hands of a GM.
On February 25 2013 05:52 CoR wrote: finaly zerg need skill to win and instant every zerg cry about imbalance ... the end of the patchzergs sound like part 3 of a movie i am mid master and i can tell you there ARE zergs who CRUSH! it, and others who not even try and flame nonstop ... i like that they removed from high ranks REALLY much because only smart guys have to be there
Mid master is not a high rank... I'd like to know how turtling and massing up a deathball then A moving with an unbeatable army can be called skill. And when there is no unit composition to counter said army, that's not a skill issue either.... Maybe someone is bitter from losing ZvT alot? : D
Good luck engaging a toss when his voids aren't charged. Any smart toss player just retreats if you back off when he activates his voids, only a bronzey would engage after wasting his charge.
Your basic strat sounds like 'let the toss mess up then you win', not too solid a strat...
On February 25 2013 06:15 KingLumps wrote: Good luck engaging a toss when his voids aren't charged. Any smart toss player just retreats if you back off when he activates his voids, only a bronzey would engage after wasting his charge.
Your basic strat sounds like 'let the toss mess up then you win', not too solid a strat...
You bring a good point. This strategy has been primarily used in Diamond and Master leagues, so a Grand Master may be able to beat it still. However, if they back off, do it again and again, until they can't back off anymore. This should force them into their base and give you map control, leaving you free to expand.
Could someone explain to me why this thing has become an issue? Is it really impossible to ever, ever attack a Protoss player, all game long? I still don't know what's happening in these games people keep mentioning, do you just sit on your side of the map until the 20 minute mark, then die horribly to maxed tempest / void / templar?
Also, nobody is mentioning Infestors; you can still chain fungals, even if it doesn't do as much damage as before. If Tempests are an issue at any stage of the game, I don't see why moving them around while burrowed would be impossible, since he can't possibly defend his obs that far away from his army, assuming you're attacking before he maxes.
EPT
.
- if you've been stressing him all game with multi-pronged attacks and drop feints and so forth the probability leans slightly in your favour) and you can move on to the next one. You never want the deathball. You want to basically base-race and keep on expanding.
