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Please have some semblance of an idea of what you're talking about. |
On March 23 2012 02:43 Greenknight wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2012 02:20 Treehead wrote:
People who are citing zerg's inject mechanic as a reason you can't FFE should remember that zerg also loses drones any time they make a building, so for a pool, 2 hatches, 3 gas and a roach warren - that's nearly 2 injects gone entirely to buildings. Now recall that they also must make overlords for their supply heavy army, that they only get a larva every 15 seconds apart from inject, and you can start to see why CBing workers keeps you close if not equal to zerg's economy until all his infrastructure is up, but only if you build your Nexus around they same time they throw down a hatch. This is the reason people FFE, and the reason a lot of zerg's used to think that you couldn't let protoss get away with FFE and keep up economically unless your build was very unsafe. Yes, he loses drones when he makes buildings, but that´s mostly important if those buildings come early when his worker count is low. The 3 gases you mention dont come early when you FFE. And having to make lings for defense is far more important in the early minutes of the game than it is later because the larvae cost is less significant later on.
Please stop guys. If you want to talk FFE vs gateway expand, open your own thread. Otherwise, stop derailing this one.
On March 23 2012 02:15 mooseman1710 wrote:
what do you guys think of this new shift in not even maxing on roaches if toss gets a third. instead stephano gets his 4th and 5th and makes 150 drones and 50 spines and spams 8 infestors + corruptors. does that not scare you more than this roach spam?
Depends a on the map, but in general, no. If Z goes straight for lategame, I can play greedy and go straight for lategame as well. Given the choice between fighting maxed roaches with 120 supply of stalker/sentry/immortal or fighting maxed infestor broodlord with maxed mothership/carrier/archon, I'll take the latter every time.
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On March 21 2012 02:22 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2012 02:11 Kiarip wrote:On March 21 2012 00:41 quillian wrote:so apparently, according to Day9, zerg is having trouble with P right now, and stephano's style is about quick infestor into spire? http://day9.tv/d9d429/Is he just behind on what's going on, or am I seriously missing something? yeah he's behind. No, he just didn't focus on this part of Stephano's build. Stephano's build has several stages that are all really smart. It goes something like this: -fast third -defend 2-base timings with roaches -deny Protoss third if you can -infestors and wall of spines -broodlords Stephano goes into "deny 3rd" mode when he makes it to lair tech with his economy in good shape and P takes a timely third. That stage is the focus of this thread, but it didn't occur in the games Day9 looked at. That's not a problem--Day9 just showcased other parts of the build.
Stephano doesn't have one build. He's been experimenting a lot with ling infestor in ZvP, roach hydra, and muta play as well. You do want roaches if the Protoss is going to 2-base all-in or take a greedy third behind a flimsy ground army. But if the Protoss is being safe, ling infestor gives you a faster transition into late-game Zerg, while muta ling gives you map control if the Protoss is going air. In the last ZvPs I've seen Stephano play, he prefers mutas whenever the Protoss goes star gate heavy because he knows that good void ray play can shut down roach pressure.
Ling infestor into ultras and broods is a style that Stephano is slowly bringing into ZvP. Be nice if he showcased it in MLG.
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On March 23 2012 01:08 Greenknight wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2012 00:30 Borkbokbork wrote:On March 23 2012 00:09 Markwerf wrote:On March 22 2012 15:06 Borkbokbork wrote:On March 22 2012 14:56 YosHGo wrote:
I would like to say that it is not impossible for a ton of people to be wrong and think that they are right just because there is alot of them thinking the same. Now i will give you a question - Do we have sc2 down to the science as we had in bw where you could say whats REALLY a non-sense to do? Is sc2 in alot of ways a different game ? Rhetorical questions i know. I just wanna say that we cant afford to be close-minded and to some extent conservative in such "new" game. I would like to hear from cecil what he has to say This is absolutely correct. Tradition is not necessarily positive OR correct. In my opinion, Forge Fast Expand is not the correct way to play against Zerg because of Zerg's macro mechanic, inject. Protoss can make units and workers at the same time without skimping on either. Zerg can make the workers first, and the units after. Therefore, if you let them do this, they will always be ahead. The counter-argument to this is that "all of the pros do it". Yes, they all do it. My rebuttal is that this is what they are most comfortable with, but not necessarily the most ideal build to use. This is idiotic. There are many reasons FFE is considered so good and simply making a simple statement that it doesn't work well with the macro mechanics while ignoring tons of stuff is silly. FFE is fastest way to get a second nexus by far so you're also doubling up on your own macro mechanic really fast. In fact protoss can often hit 40 probes at the same time as zerg does. The real macro disadvantage protoss has lies more in it's difficulty to take a third then worker count. FFE can in many ways also provide stronger pressure then non-FFE because you can greedily tech to something behind your wall. For example a FFE into stargate gets air faster then a 1 gate FE into stargate does. This is because FFE can drop tech right after cyber finishes while other builds have to get some gas units to secure the expansion first. Considering 1 base pressure is terrible in PvZ now FFE is basically fastest for many forms of pressure. Maybe Gate-nexus-core builds or some other rarely seen variations could be faster but I don't see them working. Just because zerg focusses either economy or units while protoss can do both doesn't automatically mean you need to be aggresive or shouldn't play FFE, it's a silly line of thought. I respect your opinion, but this is all relative. Yes, FFE is the fastest way to get a second nexus- but at what cost? Allowing the Zerg to get a quick third? Allowing the Zerg to get a quick third is what causes Protoss to have difficulty taking a third themselves...- something you yourself noted. This is what results in the prevalence of 2-base all-in builds, and the seemingly "coinflip" nature of the matchup at this point in time. The zerg gets three bases, and then tries as hard as he can to scout which all-in is coming. If he scouts it, he wins- most of the time. You can greedily tech behind a FFE, but then a zerg can greedily macro behind it as well. Again, it's all relative. A FFE into stargate gets air faster, but also puts on much less pressure or pseudo-pressure than a 1 gate FE. You're thinking about this in a far too one-dimensional manner- you're considering only the limitations or benefits for the Protoss, and not for the Zerg. You are right, however, that the weakness of this build is late tech. In my opinion, that is made up for by the amount of pressure that it puts out. FFE also greatly relies on the zerg not scouting the type of pressure you are applying. This build does not- it's fine by me if the zerg knows how any zealots I'm making- and even if he rushes tech- I WILL be aware of it based on the scouting info derived from the zealots. This makes a lot of sense to me, it is very important to take into account the effect a build order has on the zerg. Late teching is a weakness of the build yes, but in particular i should think delaying warpgate tech is a downside. Perhaps focusing on robo or stargate units as a followup might work well, either that or sentries since they now have a shorter build time from the gateway. Personally i do use FFE on some maps, but i cant agree with this mentality of using FFE on every map, every game. Seems to me that its best when the zerg has a hard time taking a third because of destructible rocks or when the rush distance is very long.
I have been trying a 1 gate expand on cloud kingdom and on shakuras plateau in close air positions. The 9 tile ramp outside the natural means you can make your wall (gateway, core, pylon and zealot) in front of the expansion so zerglings cant deny your expansion. I found something really interesting. If I cut probes at 22 I can add 3 gates after the nexus and hit with a 4 gate while also expanding. It is later than a 1 base 4 gate and since you are making probes you can only warp in zealots (I pulled probes off of gas). I found that since you lack a +1 upgrade zerg can still take the 4 minute third base and defend 4 gate zealots just by making zerglings. Sure, zerg gets stuck on less than less than 35 workers and your economy pulls ahead for a while but they still come out ahead as once the zealots and pylons are gone they can drone up and it is still 3 bases to 2.
I concluded that killing the zerg third with neither a forge or a stargate is unlikely if the zerg plays it correctly.
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On March 23 2012 02:40 Greenknight wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2012 01:32 chestnutcc wrote:On March 23 2012 01:30 Greenknight wrote:On March 23 2012 01:18 chestnutcc wrote:On March 23 2012 00:09 Markwerf wrote:On March 22 2012 15:06 Borkbokbork wrote:On March 22 2012 14:56 YosHGo wrote:
I would like to say that it is not impossible for a ton of people to be wrong and think that they are right just because there is alot of them thinking the same. Now i will give you a question - Do we have sc2 down to the science as we had in bw where you could say whats REALLY a non-sense to do? Is sc2 in alot of ways a different game ? Rhetorical questions i know. I just wanna say that we cant afford to be close-minded and to some extent conservative in such "new" game. I would like to hear from cecil what he has to say This is absolutely correct. Tradition is not necessarily positive OR correct. In my opinion, Forge Fast Expand is not the correct way to play against Zerg because of Zerg's macro mechanic, inject. Protoss can make units and workers at the same time without skimping on either. Zerg can make the workers first, and the units after. Therefore, if you let them do this, they will always be ahead. The counter-argument to this is that "all of the pros do it". Yes, they all do it. My rebuttal is that this is what they are most comfortable with, but not necessarily the most ideal build to use. This is idiotic. There are many reasons FFE is considered so good and simply making a simple statement that it doesn't work well with the macro mechanics while ignoring tons of stuff is silly. FFE is fastest way to get a second nexus by far so you're also doubling up on your own macro mechanic really fast. In fact protoss can often hit 40 probes at the same time as zerg does. The real macro disadvantage protoss has lies more in it's difficulty to take a third then worker count. FFE can in many ways also provide stronger pressure then non-FFE because you can greedily tech to something behind your wall. For example a FFE into stargate gets air faster then a 1 gate FE into stargate does. This is because FFE can drop tech right after cyber finishes while other builds have to get some gas units to secure the expansion first. Considering 1 base pressure is terrible in PvZ now FFE is basically fastest for many forms of pressure. Maybe Gate-nexus-core builds or some other rarely seen variations could be faster but I don't see them working. Just because zerg focusses either economy or units while protoss can do both doesn't automatically mean you need to be aggresive or shouldn't play FFE, it's a silly line of thought. Markwerf maybe harsh, but he is also correct. Most professionals do indeed use the optimal builds. In fact there are builds they can do because of their greater skill which are difficult for lower league players to pull off. So arguing that they might be using sub optimal builds is just wrong. Some of them might, but not all of them. The only advantage a gate expand gives a player is a higher sentry count and a faster warpgate. The timing window for warpgate tech is about a minute or so apart from the FFE. So a gate expand must lead to a 6-8 gate all in if it is to prove superior to a FFE. Like markwerf says, a stargate or robo follow up is delayed since it must essentially come after the nexus, with lower econ. This is not to mention that against an alert zerg, you will be forced to 3 gate expand, since speedlings can delay a 1 gate fe for a v long time.Speedlings also make pressuring off a low number of gates v risky. Basically, nothing stops a zerg from going three hatch against a gate expand. They will need extra lings, but this is nothing a few injects can't flush out, since they know you are on lower econ. You must attempt to hit a fast 6-8 gate, in fact this is the only threat the zerg faces in the small timing window where a gate expands warp gates finish before that of a FFE's. The difficulty with the FFE is taking a third, and knowing what tech path the zerg will choose. But this comes at the same time for a FFE as it does for a gate expand, in fact it comes faster for a FFE since it has more econ, so the gate expand has no advantage over the FFE and is in a worse position as compared to it. In the past FFE was not so widely used, was it therefore a bad build? Will it stay popular among the pros in the future? If you dont know, then how can you be sure it´s the optimal build? Yes of course Zerg will take a third, but surely much later than against FFE. So he will have less econ himself, you have to take that into account. FFE is a broodwar build. And no, they can go fast third hatch exactly as against the FFE, with a few more lings and speed, which doesn't matter since the toss took a bigger econ hit. I know it´s a broodwar build, im discussing it in the context of sc2. And you are telling me that against a 2 gating protoss, zerg can take a third at 4:30 ?
A 2 gate opening is not a gate expand, its weird early cheese, and will be recognized as such.
edit: listening to kcdc now and will not discuss the gate expand anymore. Besides, its right there in the OP's header why he doesnt care for them.
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On March 23 2012 02:53 Azarkon wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 21:56 TechSc2 wrote:
how often have you guys tried out RSVP's stalkerless PvZ?
I've been doing this build more and more and it stops the 12 min roach max dead in it's tracks, you have immortals,voidrays, and storm to deal with them.
His trading will be horribly inefficient as long as you keep your templar alive. He won't be able to kill your 3-4 voidrays at all, and the 2-3 immortals in your army just wreak havoc as long as the zealots are alive.
Stalkers are mobile, but horrible in survivability untill they have blink, and even then it's hard to stay alive against a 3 hatch roach spam once your sentry energy dries out.
So why not skip stalkers and sentries and go for pure DPS army of doom? If he goes hydra's you'll have storm to deal with them, and by the time he has hydra's you'll have +3 attack for your ground army, a third base and around 12-14 constant working gates. You can add in archons once you have 5-6 templars on the field and just keep churning out those chargelots. Muta switches destroy stalkerless builds. Hard countering roaches is fine, but if the opponent has a clue about the match-up, they'll know when to muta switch.
No they don't, you have storm and you can chrono out phoenixes. Something tells me you never saw how an actualy army composition in a stalkerless build looks like, and what the building infrastructure is.
I'm still saying that people blow off this style too easily, you have way more aoe then with colossus builds, and you'll have it faster, zealot storm voidray has WAY more dps then any stalker based army, and will force micro away from your base.
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On March 22 2012 13:52 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2012 12:54 Chunhyang wrote:On March 15 2012 15:53 kcdc wrote:
We've had a lot of people suggesting that the answer is to gateway expand instead of FFE. While we're willing to consider all ideas, please understand that everybody here played a TON of gateway expand games vs Zerg, and we all did zealot/stalker pressure before expanding if Z delayed gas. You weren't the first to discover that stalkers can kite slow zerglings, and you didn't invent trying to deny Z's third by attacking with a bunch of sentries.
We know how it's played, and almost everybody reached the same conclusion--gateway expanding puts you behind. There's a reason that you never see pros gateway expand vs Z, and that reason isn't that they haven't thought of it. They all did it for a year+ and thousands of games.
So if you want to say that gateway expanding is the answer, you need to understand that you're running against everybody else's experiences, and you have a high burden of proof to clear before your opinion is taken seriously. You need to bring replays or VODs of pro games or at least GM-level games as evidence. If you don't have that evidence, just let it go. You can keep gateway expanding, but posting that you have success with it in diamond isn't going to convince anybody to go back to an old style that they found doesn't work. "I put my opinion in italicized words on top of the OP and that makes it RIGHT." I'm fine with people bringing ideas to the table that involve gateway expanding instead of FFE, but since almost every high level player has concluded that FFE is generally superior (Cecil may be one of the last hold-outs), I think it's fair to require a higher threshold of proof for the opposing position. It's sort of like if 90% of environmental scientists say that global warming is real and a new scientist wants to enter the fray saying that the earth is not warming, he's going to need some strong evidence backing up his claim if he wants to be taken seriously. And frankly, we had a bunch of players coming in and saying (without evidence) that Stephano's SuperRoach style breaks FFE and that gateway expanding solves the problem, and the comments were derailing the thread. I don't have a problem if you think gateway expanding is good. Just back up your claim with solid evidence.
KCDC, do you ever watch HwangSin or Nony? Those two plays gateway expand all the time. Both are GMs. Hwangsin is high GM in KR. Hwangsin almost exclusively opens gateway expand...
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On March 23 2012 03:25 TechSc2 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2012 02:53 Azarkon wrote:On March 20 2012 21:56 TechSc2 wrote:
how often have you guys tried out RSVP's stalkerless PvZ?
I've been doing this build more and more and it stops the 12 min roach max dead in it's tracks, you have immortals,voidrays, and storm to deal with them.
His trading will be horribly inefficient as long as you keep your templar alive. He won't be able to kill your 3-4 voidrays at all, and the 2-3 immortals in your army just wreak havoc as long as the zealots are alive.
Stalkers are mobile, but horrible in survivability untill they have blink, and even then it's hard to stay alive against a 3 hatch roach spam once your sentry energy dries out.
So why not skip stalkers and sentries and go for pure DPS army of doom? If he goes hydra's you'll have storm to deal with them, and by the time he has hydra's you'll have +3 attack for your ground army, a third base and around 12-14 constant working gates. You can add in archons once you have 5-6 templars on the field and just keep churning out those chargelots. Muta switches destroy stalkerless builds. Hard countering roaches is fine, but if the opponent has a clue about the match-up, they'll know when to muta switch. No they don't, you have storm and you can chrono out phoenixes. Something tells me you never saw how an actualy army composition in a stalkerless build looks like, and what the building infrastructure is. I'm still saying that people blow off this style too easily, you have way more aoe then with colossus builds, and you'll have it faster, zealot storm voidray has WAY more dps then any stalker based army, and will force micro away from your base.
I am only a low masters player but I want to inject some rts theory that I have been using for the 15 years that I have been playing competitive rts (which I am only telling you so you realise I am not completely clueless)...
Forcing an opponent to produce their weak units is a very viable strategy. Stalkers are the weak link for protoss. Hydras are the weak link for zerg.
Stalkers are used for many reasons but when it comes to a head on fight in a defensive position then any other protoss units are preferable. Some people might disagree with stalkers being weak so I would suggest checking their atats (dps, health and cost) compared to other units. In PvT, do you ever want more than a handful of stalkers in your army? In late game PvP do you ever want any stalkers at all in your army? Stalkers are a mobile unit but not a direct combat unit.
With this in mind, a strategy is good if it can get around the need for stalkers (for they mobility, anti-air, long range and fast production). However, I think most of us are sceptical of stalkerless pvz due to the weak time where you dont have enough storms available to defend the roach push. If you want to play the stalkerless style then in theory you need to apply enough aerial pressure to force hydras.
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I am only a low masters player but I want to inject some rts theory that I have been using for the 15 years that I have been playing competitive rts (which I am only telling you so you realise I am not completely clueless)...
Forcing an opponent to produce their weak units is a very viable strategy. Stalkers are the weak link for protoss. Hydras are the weak link for zerg.
Stalkers are used for many reasons but when it comes to a head on fight in a defensive position then any other protoss units are preferable. Some people might disagree with stalkers being weak so I would suggest checking their atats (dps, health and cost) compared to other units. In PvT, do you ever want more than a handful of stalkers in your army? In late game PvP do you ever want any stalkers at all in your army? Stalkers are a mobile unit but not a direct combat unit.
With this in mind, a strategy is good if it can get around the need for stalkers (for they mobility, anti-air, long range and fast production). However, I think most of us are sceptical of stalkerless pvz due to the weak time where you dont have enough storms available to defend the roach push. If you want to play the stalkerless style then in theory you need to apply enough aerial pressure to force hydras.
That's the thing, a zerg player can't ignore the ever growing voidray count, once you get 4-5 voidrays out they HAVE to deal with them in another fashion then only roach spamming. 4 voidrays ( especcially when charged up ) can kill a TON of roaches when they try to retreat.
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What the hell? Same post on 2 different accounts?
And yes it is viable in practice (the forcing units thing) but what are you saying. That we need to rely on the Zerg to overproduce units? What happens then if they don't and hold it off with as minimal units as possible?
So no, it is not a "very viable strategy" because eventually the best Zergs won't overproduce units and it'll be completely ineffective.
Does that make sense? Both of you/same person.
Edit: Okay I am thinking now Techsc2 might have misquoted or something. That's the only explanation I can think of.
Edit2: oh I see your saying that if Protoss wants to win they force Zerg to build hydras? That might even be a worse statement. And Zerg only makes hydras when they ARE NOT a weak unit based on your composition. If your Protoss have you not lost your third after a stargate or double stargate opening to hydras? If your Zerg have you not denied a third with hydras? Or are you Terran because your saying stalkers are weak? Because most Zergs I know say stalkers is the strongest unit we have against them. (only due to blink of course)
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On March 23 2012 03:25 TechSc2 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2012 02:53 Azarkon wrote:On March 20 2012 21:56 TechSc2 wrote:
how often have you guys tried out RSVP's stalkerless PvZ?
I've been doing this build more and more and it stops the 12 min roach max dead in it's tracks, you have immortals,voidrays, and storm to deal with them.
His trading will be horribly inefficient as long as you keep your templar alive. He won't be able to kill your 3-4 voidrays at all, and the 2-3 immortals in your army just wreak havoc as long as the zealots are alive.
Stalkers are mobile, but horrible in survivability untill they have blink, and even then it's hard to stay alive against a 3 hatch roach spam once your sentry energy dries out.
So why not skip stalkers and sentries and go for pure DPS army of doom? If he goes hydra's you'll have storm to deal with them, and by the time he has hydra's you'll have +3 attack for your ground army, a third base and around 12-14 constant working gates. You can add in archons once you have 5-6 templars on the field and just keep churning out those chargelots. Muta switches destroy stalkerless builds. Hard countering roaches is fine, but if the opponent has a clue about the match-up, they'll know when to muta switch. No they don't, you have storm and you can chrono out phoenixes. Something tells me you never saw how an actualy army composition in a stalkerless build looks like, and what the building infrastructure is. I'm still saying that people blow off this style too easily, you have way more aoe then with colossus builds, and you'll have it faster, zealot storm voidray has WAY more dps then any stalker based army, and will force micro away from your base.
You can't have both storm and phoenixes and have enough ground forces to hold roaches. I can tell you haven't worked out the timings in this build because there's no way you can have that much tech while still taking a third. Hell, the build you're talking about says in its introduction that:
"This build is also relatively vulnerable in the early lair phase of the game between 11 and 15 minutes while you're trying to defend your third. Because of this, it is best used on maps with an easily defended third."
The 12 minute maxed roach build talked about in this thread is designed to destroy a Protoss third during that time range. You can defend the roach rush with void rays and immortals, but the Zerg can detect that and do a muta switch that'll hit you before your third kicks in. It can't hold both.
The 12 minute maxed roach build is defendable. The problem is how much you have to spend to defend a rush that the Zerg doesn't have to do. Void rays and immortals are both very easy for a Zerg to detect, and both tech choices require you to invest in them because you can't just warp in void rays and immortals - you have to build up a stock of them to defend.
A smart Zerg will sniff that out and do a tech switch. You'll be left with an army that is bad against whatever he's switching to.
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On March 23 2012 04:09 Azarkon wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2012 03:25 TechSc2 wrote:On March 23 2012 02:53 Azarkon wrote:On March 20 2012 21:56 TechSc2 wrote:
how often have you guys tried out RSVP's stalkerless PvZ?
I've been doing this build more and more and it stops the 12 min roach max dead in it's tracks, you have immortals,voidrays, and storm to deal with them.
His trading will be horribly inefficient as long as you keep your templar alive. He won't be able to kill your 3-4 voidrays at all, and the 2-3 immortals in your army just wreak havoc as long as the zealots are alive.
Stalkers are mobile, but horrible in survivability untill they have blink, and even then it's hard to stay alive against a 3 hatch roach spam once your sentry energy dries out.
So why not skip stalkers and sentries and go for pure DPS army of doom? If he goes hydra's you'll have storm to deal with them, and by the time he has hydra's you'll have +3 attack for your ground army, a third base and around 12-14 constant working gates. You can add in archons once you have 5-6 templars on the field and just keep churning out those chargelots. Muta switches destroy stalkerless builds. Hard countering roaches is fine, but if the opponent has a clue about the match-up, they'll know when to muta switch. No they don't, you have storm and you can chrono out phoenixes. Something tells me you never saw how an actualy army composition in a stalkerless build looks like, and what the building infrastructure is. I'm still saying that people blow off this style too easily, you have way more aoe then with colossus builds, and you'll have it faster, zealot storm voidray has WAY more dps then any stalker based army, and will force micro away from your base. You can't have both storm and phoenixes and have enough ground forces to hold roaches. I can tell you haven't worked out the timings in this build because there's no way you can have that much tech while still taking a third. Hell, the build you're talking about even says in its introduction that: "This build is also relatively vulnerable in the early lair phase of the game between 11 and 15 minutes while you're trying to defend your third. Because of this, it is best used on maps with an easily defended third." The 12 minute maxed roach build talked about in this thread is designed to destroy a Protoss third during that time range. If you go heavy on ground with immortals to defend the roach rush the Zerg can detect that and do a muta switch that'll hit you before your third kicks in. It can't hold both.
Your contradicting yourself in all your posts. IF he muta switches you'll have storm and a stargate ready to pump phoenix, if he is going 12 min max roach ball, you'll have your normal army composition and you won't get phoenix....
@ berailfor forcing someone into a certain unit composition is the most normal thing there is in RTS games, in PvT if you go fast colossus which forces more marauders then marines, so what is your point?
You die often if you go stargate -> colossus due to the extreme investment colossus is. chargelot templar is better against roach hydra then stalker colossi. The difference in DPS is absurd, templar/chargelot have way more damage output then stalker colossi.
I'm still a strong believer that we need to rethink our PvZ army composition, simply because stalker colossus doesn't protect us from muta's, and has a lower DPS then other army compositions.
Yes the build is vulnerable in the early lair stages, but staying on 2 bases a little bit longer just to get a even more deadly combination off voidrays/immortals/templar might have to be done against the perfect roach spam.
A smart Zerg will sniff that out and do a tech switch. You'll be left with an army that is bad against whatever he's switching to.
Isn't this one of the thing we WANT from the zerg? since ANY other army composition with the units you have is easier to defend then pure roaches....
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On March 23 2012 04:23 TechSc2 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2012 04:09 Azarkon wrote:On March 23 2012 03:25 TechSc2 wrote:On March 23 2012 02:53 Azarkon wrote:On March 20 2012 21:56 TechSc2 wrote:
how often have you guys tried out RSVP's stalkerless PvZ?
I've been doing this build more and more and it stops the 12 min roach max dead in it's tracks, you have immortals,voidrays, and storm to deal with them.
His trading will be horribly inefficient as long as you keep your templar alive. He won't be able to kill your 3-4 voidrays at all, and the 2-3 immortals in your army just wreak havoc as long as the zealots are alive.
Stalkers are mobile, but horrible in survivability untill they have blink, and even then it's hard to stay alive against a 3 hatch roach spam once your sentry energy dries out.
So why not skip stalkers and sentries and go for pure DPS army of doom? If he goes hydra's you'll have storm to deal with them, and by the time he has hydra's you'll have +3 attack for your ground army, a third base and around 12-14 constant working gates. You can add in archons once you have 5-6 templars on the field and just keep churning out those chargelots. Muta switches destroy stalkerless builds. Hard countering roaches is fine, but if the opponent has a clue about the match-up, they'll know when to muta switch. No they don't, you have storm and you can chrono out phoenixes. Something tells me you never saw how an actualy army composition in a stalkerless build looks like, and what the building infrastructure is. I'm still saying that people blow off this style too easily, you have way more aoe then with colossus builds, and you'll have it faster, zealot storm voidray has WAY more dps then any stalker based army, and will force micro away from your base. You can't have both storm and phoenixes and have enough ground forces to hold roaches. I can tell you haven't worked out the timings in this build because there's no way you can have that much tech while still taking a third. Hell, the build you're talking about even says in its introduction that: "This build is also relatively vulnerable in the early lair phase of the game between 11 and 15 minutes while you're trying to defend your third. Because of this, it is best used on maps with an easily defended third." The 12 minute maxed roach build talked about in this thread is designed to destroy a Protoss third during that time range. If you go heavy on ground with immortals to defend the roach rush the Zerg can detect that and do a muta switch that'll hit you before your third kicks in. It can't hold both. Your contradicting yourself in all your posts. IF he muta switches you'll have storm and a stargate ready to pump phoenix, if he is going 12 min max roach ball, you'll have your normal army composition and you won't get phoenix....
If you play Protoss, then you know that one star gate producing phoenixes is not and has never been enough to stop a muta tech switch. The Zerg will have 20 mutas on the map before you get 4-5 phoenixes. He can snipe your templars with ease by splitting his mutas and then what are you left with? A ground army of zealots sentries and immortals - aka nothing.
Stalkers exist in this game for a reason, and they are the backbone of the Protoss army. Stalkerless builds are good for timing pushes, but they leave you vulnerable in so many different ways.
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@Techsc2
Stay on 2 bases LONGER?? We've been there, we've done that. And wait your suggesting to get immortal/void/temp?!? That's like the most allin 2 base thing I've ever heard. So your saying your idea for taking bases is turtle on 2 base, and take 3 once they can't kill you with roaches? Your talking like we need to be reactive but your completely neglecting that the Zerg will also be reactive. They arent gonna see you going 2 base immortal/void and sit there and pump roaches.
Beyond the fact that the third base for Protoss is the largest part of PvZ (beyond 2 base allins, which every single one can be held with the Zerg playing properly.) Every Zerg will tell you a turtling 2 base Protoss is not scary at all, it's once they get 3 bases that it gets scary. And this whole thread is about securing your third against a Zerg who can max on roaches at the 12 minute mark. If you try to take a delayed third. Then he will still just throw the maxed roaches at you, but now instead of remaxing on low tech units. He'll have more of the map, be maxing on higher tech units, and probably have a hive on the way ready to transition to infestor bl. Meanwhile you won't even be close to archon/mothership because you've been sitting on 4 gas geysers when you AT LEAST need 6.
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@ azarkon, 4-5 phoenix with cannons in mineral lines and storm behind it holds off muta just fine. no contest even for the protoss player.
@ berailfor, i'm not talking taking a third at 16 minutes, the stalkerless build wants to get a third up at 11 minutes, and anything before the 13 minute mark is pretty fast even. you HAVE to have it by the 14-15 minute mark to stay in the game.
My perception of a later base is i take it at 12 minutes, instead of the advised 11 minutes with this build. a normal robo build wants to take a third base between 12-15 minutes, so i will be ahead in taking my third regardless if i delay it by 1-2 minutes.
and again, you are talking that the zerg has unlimited resources to do whatever he wants at the 12 minute mark, and that's where you go wrong in your thought process. If he is teching up and expanding, his roach ball won't remax nearly as fast anymore, and that in itself is enough to take your third, and rapidly take a fourth to get more gas geysers going.
Read through your posts, both of you. Both are saying that the zerg can switch to any other tech path, tech up to infestor BL if he scouts your army composition. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE WANT AS A PROTOSS. As kcdc already noted before, and i wholeheartedly agree with him, i rather fight a 17 minute BL/infestor army, then a 12 minute roach max army. so every time you say that the zerg will tech switch, or just tech up instead of roach spamming you achieved exactly what you want, avoid the roach spam....
voidray/immortal/temps is completely 0% all in, it consumes (almost) all your gas on 2 bases in that regard you are correct, but you completely wrong that it's an all in, it's a redistribution of your gas/mineral income and spending, and you can expand easily and get enough probes etc without any problem.
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On March 23 2012 04:23 TechSc2 wrote:
I'm still a strong believer that we need to rethink our PvZ army composition, simply because stalker colossus doesn't protect us from muta's, and has a lower DPS then other army compositions.
I think a pretty underestimated army composition is sentries, stalkers, immortals and archons. Archons are morphed from DTs that you get for harass and map control around 10'. Your "deathball" can grow relatively safely too, since against roaches you'll have the typical early compo of sentries/blink stalkers/immortals, and Zerg has no hard counter to any of your units. Once you get archons, blink + archons should be sufficient to hold a sudden mutalisk switch. It's also a decent compo versus Zerg's T3, I recently won vs 13 brood lords and a spines wall that I hadn't scouted. When you reach the end game you can add a mothership and a couple voidrays for the ultimate combo.
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On March 23 2012 04:58 Nyast wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2012 04:23 TechSc2 wrote:
I'm still a strong believer that we need to rethink our PvZ army composition, simply because stalker colossus doesn't protect us from muta's, and has a lower DPS then other army compositions. I think a pretty underestimated army composition is sentries, stalkers, immortals and archons. Archons are morphed from DTs that you get for harass and map control around 10'. Your "deathball" can grow relatively safely too, since against roaches you'll have the typical early compo of sentries/blink stalkers/immortals, and Zerg has no hard counter to any of your units. Once you get archons, blink + archons should be sufficient to hold a sudden mutalisk switch. It's also a decent compo versus Zerg's T3, I recently won vs 13 brood lords and a spines wall that I hadn't scouted. When you reach the end game you can add a mothership and a couple voidrays for the ultimate combo.
problem here is that on 2 base getting a reasonable sentry count, enough (blink) stalkers and on top of that archons is TOO gas heavy, and not nearly as much DPS as (charge) lots,temps voidrays
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I wrote the guide for Stalkerless PvZ.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=300535
I've played it a ton, and I know the ins and outs of the build.
I love the build, and it worked beautifully for a long time, but good Zerg players have adapted and you won't be able to hold the third with that style if they play optimally. Let me explain in a little more detail since this seems to keep coming up:
The build invests very heavily into tech early on. By 12:00, it has a SG, a robo, a twilight council, a templar archives, psionic storm, and preferably charge and +2 weapons. The resulting composition is very efficient against roach hydra off creep, and this lets you hold your third against larger Zerg armies to an extent.
But it has limits. When I was experimenting with the build, I tried cutting the zealot+void timing and taking a faster third, and I got crushed every time in hilarious fashion. I'd wind up fighting maxed armies with 3 storms and 100 supply. It wasn't close. This confirmed my suspicion that in order for the build to take a third, the zealot+void timing needs to set back Z's economy. Simply trying to boost your own economy doesn't work--applying pressure, in this case, is much better for putting you ahead than playing passively.
And a few months ago, the zealot+void pressure was super strong. I said in the guide that the pressure essentially forces Z to pause droning at 45, and that was true back when Zergs were getting roach warrens at 8:30. You'd walk up your zealots, see them go, "Oh shiiii" and start 20 lings and 3 spines at their third. Then the void would show up, focus down the spines, and they'd pump even more lings and start some spores. There was a time when you'd kill the third more often then not. Then Zergs got better and they'd save their third, but stall out their economy at 45 drones. Now, they've had months of practice against the pressure, and they make an early creep tumor to connect to their third for queen mobility, and when they see the pressure coming, they build 5 roaches and an extra queen and deny the attack easily while pumping drones.
In other words, the pressure doesn't cause nearly the reaction that it once did, and as a result, the 12:00 timings are much stronger. You just can't tech that heavily early on and hold the third anymore.
The last time I saw rsvp do the build, he got stomped by A-move roaches with queens attacking off creep. toxSik knew how to attack with roach/queen as well, and I think I was like 0-5 against him with the strategy. And he wasn't even all that good at deflecting the zealot+void pressure.
Anyway, it was a good build, but it's not suited for the current metagame. If Zergs start playing greedier with their openings or more passively with their midgames, it might be good again, but for now, it's just not strong enough.
You can do a zealot+void timing into less tech-heavy builds quite effectively. Zealot+void timing into an immortal-sentry all-in is a build I picked up from watching Crank, and it's extremely strong. The voids sit over your ground army and provide a ton of extra DPS--it provides great synergy with forcefields since it effectively increases the size of your concave in tight quarters. Or you can do a similar build, but with an expansion behind the pressure. The 13 minute expansion is late, but you freak Z out so much with your attacks that it works out okay.
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Well this is only my first post on TL (had an older account though) but i want to contribute something here.
Lately i am diong the 7 gate immortal allin of off 2 base in like every single game against zerg and it works out quite well for me. Admittedly i am only a diamond player and had never played against the real 200 max. on roaches/speedlings at 12 minutes.
I dont have an exact buildorder so it isnt nearly perfect, but its basically ffe into 1 gate robo (shortly after 6 more gates) and then i push out with 3 immortals and +1 at like 10-11 minutes. I will give you guys a replay so you can see how it looks like.
http://drop.sc/140203
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On March 23 2012 04:55 TechSc2 wrote:
@ azarkon, 4-5 phoenix with cannons in mineral lines and storm behind it holds off muta just fine. no contest even for the protoss player.
Yes, on two bases, but the issue for Protoss right now is going up to three bases off of a good timing. Three base economy gives you access to the resources you need to build a late-game Protoss death ball and to fight brood lord + infestor. Taking the third base is the challenge for Protoss and denying it is the challenge for Zerg.
Two to three HTs aren't enough to defend three bases, and getting 4-5 cannons up in the first place is a problem. Timing is everything in this match-up, and the reason 12 min roaches are potent is because they hit before you can get out a good number of colossi on three bases, which means they'll hit before you can get out a good number of storms, as well.
In an army trading scenario, HTs are worse than colossi. You'll get 2 storms out of a HT that's been sitting there for a while and 1 out of a HT that hasn't. Zerg will take that trade. They'll run roaches in to bait storms and then burrow them to regen. You'll run out of storms and then you'll die.
Okay, you say, but then I get a bunch of void rays and immortals. That holds roach.
Yeah - it does, but now you open yourself up to a muta switch, and Zergs love mass mutas in ZvP because it gives them total map control and without blink stalkers you can't do anything to them until you build up a fleet of phoenixes - they counter with corrupters - and HTs and archons, which would take forever.
Hell, watch the recent ZvPs between top pros and you see that mass mutas result in worse lost games for Protoss than mass roaches do.
That's what I've been trying to say, but heck, use the build. I want to know how you end up faring.
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Sorry in Advance! I hate theorycraft, but I sat down last night to attempt some in yabot.
Basically, my idea was to swap +1 zealot voidray for +1 zealot Immortal/WP.
As I'm sure all of you would be able to guess, you will be hitting around 30~ seconds later, due to waiting for either the WP or the Immortal. So around 8 Zealots, 1 Immo, 1 WP @ his 3rd @ 8:45.
It FELT flimsy, really flimsy. Not to mention, microing immortal + wp, is much more demanding than a single VR.
I did ONE game only with my Z practice partner. It didn't go as bad as I thought it would.
We talked about it, and we discussed that even though it's his natural reaction to make less roaches (due to immortal), he should probably actually just keep making roaches.
The nice thing is you have obs tech right out, to confirm exact lair timing & tech. Also it's hard, but I also managed to deal some nice damage to his scout by drop micro'ing wp/immortal(s) as the small army walked across map (He thought no SG, so he said he feels safe to walk out with small amount of roach 10:00~ ish).
Sorry for such flimsy post with no replay!! Will Test heavily tonight!!
I know this is really ambigious post, but I wanted to share in-case some wants to build on the idea.
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EPT
