I'm ashamed to say that I have more then once lost to mass scouts. It felt like I really tried everything in my recent game. I had quite a few spores, tons of hydras, devourers and defilers.
He sniped all my overlords, harassed the mineral lines while expanding and putting up dozens of cannons and placing reavers behind them. After 45 minutes I had to throw in the towel.
I rarely see players do this build so it feels like it shouldn't be a problem and 20 years ago no one ever even built a scout >.<
Man, I wrote a teamliquid post just like this and wracked my brain for some time on how to beat mass scouts. Don't worry, I've been in your shoes.
The trick is to go mass scourge + queen for ensnare, and having bases with spores, and researching burrow to burrow your drones so they don't die to scouts. And when I say mass scourge, I mean a lotta scourge. 40+. Never stop making them against scouts. Don't make a single muta for the earlier part of the game. Expand everywhere. I saw Killer dismantle a protoss mass scout player like this. Upgrade air carapace early to +3. Also, it's key to never let protoss get bases for free by getting a chance to set up a bunch of cannons. Otherwise, you have to play a longer game. Always have units to scout out ramps/bases/any entrances by patrolling them. Burrow comes in handy for this too by burrowing them at a ramp or elsewhere.
Level your way up to greater spire and get a devourer/muta/guardian/hydra/defiler army. Although I guess you could experiment and try a scourge/queen/muta army but haven't tried that ever. Get a second spire for attack upgrades. Defilers are mostly good for plague at this point. Your leftover resources are good to spend on Hydras to give a good anchor/backbone. I wouldn't stop getting scourge at any point either. They're very powerful against scouts since their attack has to have their projectile hit on the scourge rather than having an instantaneous attack like corsairs.
To dismantle the reaver/cannon defenses a combination of spread-out guardians, plaguing defilers, and devourers/mutas/queen ensnare/scourge to punish scouts as they come towards to try to snipe off guardians is good. doing constant dives w/ scourge+ensnare is a good strategy, maybe throw in an initial few units to absorb cannon fire to distract for the scourge. In some situations you can have the hydras clean up or use hydra drops. Parasite is good for this too to see when protoss is trying to dive in.
I usually have some sort of "safe zone" of 3-4+ spore colonies for the majority of my overlords to gather, but I guess just queen ensnare+scourge is a good enough deterrent usually as if the protoss wanders into your half of the map they risk getting ensnared and taking a bad trade.
That is my approach to beating the mass scout strategy. And even though mass scout is unorthodox, it's still a legit strat, whatever that means, albeit still embarrassing to lose to.
On December 25 2021 11:59 Ty2 wrote: Man, I wrote a teamliquid post just like this and wracked my brain for some time on how to beat mass scouts. Don't worry, I've been in your shoes.
The trick is to go mass scourge + queen for ensnare, and having bases with spores, and researching burrow to burrow your drones so they don't die to scouts. And when I say mass scourge, I mean a lotta scourge. 40+. Never stop making them against scouts. Don't make a single muta for the earlier part of the game. Expand everywhere. I saw Killer dismantle a protoss mass scout player like this. Upgrade air carapace early to +3. Also, it's key to never let protoss get bases for free by getting a chance to set up a bunch of cannons. Otherwise, you have to play a longer game. Always have units to scout out ramps/bases/any entrances by patrolling them. Burrow comes in handy for this too by burrowing them at a ramp or elsewhere.
Level your way up to greater spire and get a devourer/muta/guardian/hydra/defiler army. Although I guess you could experiment and try a scourge/queen/muta army but haven't tried that ever. Get a second spire for attack upgrades. Defilers are mostly good for plague at this point. Your leftover resources are good to spend on Hydras to give a good anchor/backbone. I wouldn't stop getting scourge at any point either. They're very powerful against scouts since their attack has to have their projectile hit on the scourge rather than having an instantaneous attack like corsairs.
To dismantle the reaver/cannon defenses a combination of spread-out guardians, plaguing defilers, and devourers/mutas/queen ensnare/scourge to punish scouts as they come towards to try to snipe off guardians is good. doing constant dives w/ scourge+ensnare is a good strategy, maybe throw in an initial few units to absorb cannon fire to distract for the scourge. In some situations you can have the hydras clean up or use hydra drops. Parasite is good for this too to see when protoss is trying to dive in.
I usually have some sort of "safe zone" of 3-4+ spore colonies for the majority of my overlords to gather, but I guess just queen ensnare+scourge is a good enough deterrent usually as if the protoss wanders into your half of the map they risk getting ensnared and taking a bad trade.
That is my approach to beating the mass scout strategy. And even though mass scout is unorthodox, it's still a legit strat, whatever that means, albeit still embarrassing to lose to.
I completely forgot burrow that game. I will try the mass scourge next time, thanks for the advice.
On December 25 2021 14:35 WGT-Baal wrote: Would you happen to have a few replays? I m curious tonsee at what point P went for scout and the overall dynamic of scouts vs your units.
I've never uploaded a replay here before, how do I go about it?
As someone who very frequently went scouts to troll zergs, the easiest, cheapest and most effective answer to scouts is spore colonies. Since economic harassment is what wins the game for the scout user, you’ll probably need 4 well placed spores in each mineral line to shut down drone harass. 2 or 3 spores doesn’t cut it as a good player with good control will find a gap to harass drones where only one spore fires at once. The point is to NOT lose any drones or overlords.
As a side note, 5 scouts with +1 air weapons one shot a drone, 7 scouts one shot an overlord. Five +1 speed scouts should be done around 9 minutes or so, 7 scouts shortly after. So don’t lose many drones or overlords and the game will be that much easier vs scouts. There are many ways to kill the Protoss once you shut down the economic harassment from the scouts (refer to ty2’s post)
On December 25 2021 14:35 WGT-Baal wrote: Would you happen to have a few replays? I m curious tonsee at what point P went for scout and the overall dynamic of scouts vs your units.
I've never uploaded a replay here before, how do I go about it?
If you're losing to mass scouts, it's not the mass scouts you're losing to. The scout is just someone's way of tell you they're that much better than you.
Scouts are slow to build and slow to move around anywhere. The standard 3hatch spire would have had scourges out and ready before he even think about touching any other overlords that you don't have camping outside his natural. And since they're slow as balls (scout with thruster upgraded are like, a hair faster than corsairs), they die for free to scourges. 3 of them kill a scout.
If he spends all his money on scouts, cannon, and reavers, that means he has no money to spend on actual units, which mean he shouldn't be able to expand anywhere because he can't defend anything vs the units that you should be having. Contain him, snipe the probes heading out to build things, and get vision of other expansions. You see him trying to set up cannons, you go there and shit on him.
Meanwhile, you just expand and drone up like a psycho. He's spending all his money on stationary shit and a really shitty unit, so get some spores and some scourges and macro the hell out of your shit. By the time he wants to do anything, it won't matter what he has because you're gonna be so rich he's gonna be looking at hydras as far as his eyes could see.
On January 01 2022 16:36 O-ops wrote: If you're losing to mass scouts, it's not the mass scouts you're losing to. The scout is just someone's way of tell you they're that much better than you.
Scouts are slow to build and slow to move around anywhere. The standard 3hatch spire would have had scourges out and ready before he even think about touching any other overlords that you don't have camping outside his natural. And since they're slow as balls (scout with thruster upgraded are like, a hair faster than corsairs), they die for free to scourges. 3 of them kill a scout.
If he spends all his money on scouts, cannon, and reavers, that means he has no money to spend on actual units, which mean he shouldn't be able to expand anywhere because he can't defend anything vs the units that you should be having. Contain him, snipe the probes heading out to build things, and get vision of other expansions. You see him trying to set up cannons, you go there and shit on him.
Meanwhile, you just expand and drone up like a psycho. He's spending all his money on stationary shit and a really shitty unit, so get some spores and some scourges and macro the hell out of your shit. By the time he wants to do anything, it won't matter what he has because you're gonna be so rich he's gonna be looking at hydras as far as his eyes could see.
Once you have speed upgrade for scouts, you can kill infinite scourge since they are faster than scourge. They can ALWAYS outrun them. I've tried to build like 12+ scourge to corner 4-5 scouts and the scouts with good control always easily won. They turn instantly and fire backwards, they are easier to micro vs. scourge than mutas
On January 01 2022 16:36 O-ops wrote: If you're losing to mass scouts, it's not the mass scouts you're losing to. The scout is just someone's way of tell you they're that much better than you.
Scouts are slow to build and slow to move around anywhere. The standard 3hatch spire would have had scourges out and ready before he even think about touching any other overlords that you don't have camping outside his natural. And since they're slow as balls (scout with thruster upgraded are like, a hair faster than corsairs), they die for free to scourges. 3 of them kill a scout.
If he spends all his money on scouts, cannon, and reavers, that means he has no money to spend on actual units, which mean he shouldn't be able to expand anywhere because he can't defend anything vs the units that you should be having. Contain him, snipe the probes heading out to build things, and get vision of other expansions. You see him trying to set up cannons, you go there and shit on him.
Meanwhile, you just expand and drone up like a psycho. He's spending all his money on stationary shit and a really shitty unit, so get some spores and some scourges and macro the hell out of your shit. By the time he wants to do anything, it won't matter what he has because you're gonna be so rich he's gonna be looking at hydras as far as his eyes could see.
Once you have speed upgrade for scouts, you can kill infinite scourge since they are faster than scourge. They can ALWAYS outrun them. I've tried to build like 12+ scourge to corner 4-5 scouts and the scouts with good control always easily won. They turn instantly and fire backwards, they are easier to micro vs. scourge than mutas
This just in, Scouts OP according to iopq.
You're supposed to attack them from multiple angles so they can't kite btw.
On January 01 2022 16:36 O-ops wrote: If you're losing to mass scouts, it's not the mass scouts you're losing to. The scout is just someone's way of tell you they're that much better than you.
Scouts are slow to build and slow to move around anywhere. The standard 3hatch spire would have had scourges out and ready before he even think about touching any other overlords that you don't have camping outside his natural. And since they're slow as balls (scout with thruster upgraded are like, a hair faster than corsairs), they die for free to scourges. 3 of them kill a scout.
If he spends all his money on scouts, cannon, and reavers, that means he has no money to spend on actual units, which mean he shouldn't be able to expand anywhere because he can't defend anything vs the units that you should be having. Contain him, snipe the probes heading out to build things, and get vision of other expansions. You see him trying to set up cannons, you go there and shit on him.
Meanwhile, you just expand and drone up like a psycho. He's spending all his money on stationary shit and a really shitty unit, so get some spores and some scourges and macro the hell out of your shit. By the time he wants to do anything, it won't matter what he has because you're gonna be so rich he's gonna be looking at hydras as far as his eyes could see.
Once you have speed upgrade for scouts, you can kill infinite scourge since they are faster than scourge. They can ALWAYS outrun them. I've tried to build like 12+ scourge to corner 4-5 scouts and the scouts with good control always easily won. They turn instantly and fire backwards, they are easier to micro vs. scourge than mutas
This just in, Scouts OP according to iopq.
You're supposed to attack them from multiple angles so they can't kite btw.
Scourge are dumb as hell, it literally doesn't work without ensnare. I tried this SO many times vs. scouts (funny nexus would always meme and build scouts vs. me). This doesn't work in practice
On January 01 2022 16:36 O-ops wrote: If you're losing to mass scouts, it's not the mass scouts you're losing to. The scout is just someone's way of tell you they're that much better than you.
Scouts are slow to build and slow to move around anywhere. The standard 3hatch spire would have had scourges out and ready before he even think about touching any other overlords that you don't have camping outside his natural. And since they're slow as balls (scout with thruster upgraded are like, a hair faster than corsairs), they die for free to scourges. 3 of them kill a scout.
If he spends all his money on scouts, cannon, and reavers, that means he has no money to spend on actual units, which mean he shouldn't be able to expand anywhere because he can't defend anything vs the units that you should be having. Contain him, snipe the probes heading out to build things, and get vision of other expansions. You see him trying to set up cannons, you go there and shit on him.
Meanwhile, you just expand and drone up like a psycho. He's spending all his money on stationary shit and a really shitty unit, so get some spores and some scourges and macro the hell out of your shit. By the time he wants to do anything, it won't matter what he has because you're gonna be so rich he's gonna be looking at hydras as far as his eyes could see.
Once you have speed upgrade for scouts, you can kill infinite scourge since they are faster than scourge. They can ALWAYS outrun them. I've tried to build like 12+ scourge to corner 4-5 scouts and the scouts with good control always easily won. They turn instantly and fire backwards, they are easier to micro vs. scourge than mutas
They deal more AA damage and have longer range, so they don't have to basically cuddle the Scourge while doing triangle maneuvering…
On January 01 2022 16:36 O-ops wrote: If you're losing to mass scouts, it's not the mass scouts you're losing to. The scout is just someone's way of tell you they're that much better than you.
Scouts are slow to build and slow to move around anywhere. The standard 3hatch spire would have had scourges out and ready before he even think about touching any other overlords that you don't have camping outside his natural. And since they're slow as balls (scout with thruster upgraded are like, a hair faster than corsairs), they die for free to scourges. 3 of them kill a scout.
If he spends all his money on scouts, cannon, and reavers, that means he has no money to spend on actual units, which mean he shouldn't be able to expand anywhere because he can't defend anything vs the units that you should be having. Contain him, snipe the probes heading out to build things, and get vision of other expansions. You see him trying to set up cannons, you go there and shit on him.
Meanwhile, you just expand and drone up like a psycho. He's spending all his money on stationary shit and a really shitty unit, so get some spores and some scourges and macro the hell out of your shit. By the time he wants to do anything, it won't matter what he has because you're gonna be so rich he's gonna be looking at hydras as far as his eyes could see.
This is the only correct anwser. Try to improve your game and you will no longer have any problem with scouts
I wouldn't call it mass scouts. The 5 scouts came a bit slower since it was scout reaver. Really tough when you can't kill many drones with your first 5/7 scouts.
On January 01 2022 16:36 O-ops wrote: If you're losing to mass scouts, it's not the mass scouts you're losing to. The scout is just someone's way of tell you they're that much better than you.
Scouts are slow to build and slow to move around anywhere. The standard 3hatch spire would have had scourges out and ready before he even think about touching any other overlords that you don't have camping outside his natural. And since they're slow as balls (scout with thruster upgraded are like, a hair faster than corsairs), they die for free to scourges. 3 of them kill a scout.
If he spends all his money on scouts, cannon, and reavers, that means he has no money to spend on actual units, which mean he shouldn't be able to expand anywhere because he can't defend anything vs the units that you should be having. Contain him, snipe the probes heading out to build things, and get vision of other expansions. You see him trying to set up cannons, you go there and shit on him.
Meanwhile, you just expand and drone up like a psycho. He's spending all his money on stationary shit and a really shitty unit, so get some spores and some scourges and macro the hell out of your shit. By the time he wants to do anything, it won't matter what he has because you're gonna be so rich he's gonna be looking at hydras as far as his eyes could see.
This is the only correct anwser. Try to improve your game and you will no longer have any problem with scouts
These are lazy answers, it's not actually advice since it helps nobody actually play against scouts. It just says it should NEVER work against a good player, which is actually false:
Last beats Soma with mass scouts. Should Soma improve his game according to you?
Kinda pointless posting a game without the opening to describe the viability of something. There's no question that mass scout can work if you're in a significantly advantageous position, or if you're significantly better. I've lost against Dewalt mass scouting me (but also, one of the few times I've beat him was when he tried to mass scout me without having a big initial advantage). It is a troll build, doesn't mean it can't ever work. I didn't watch that last vs soma game, but if it featured something like soma's nat getting cannon rushed or initial zealots dealing lots of damage or a failed ling allin opening, it makes sense that a mass scout followup can work.
Now, IF someone tries to mass scout you, you want to make tons and tons of drones and spores and expansions. Packs of hydras under your overlords, enough hatcheries to replace drones that are lost to harassment. There's nothing you can do to stop p from sniping lords or drones, but you can make it a bit harder (spores protecting drones, hydras and spores protecting overlords) while you get enough gas to get mass scourge+queen support. The scouts themselves will be cost-efficient, but you're being given a several minute long window of p not exerting any pressure. Once the mass scouts are out, they're actually fairly decent, but getting 10 speed scouts is equal to a 30 gateway unit army. One of those is even against 20 hydras, the other might beat 50.
To actually beat mass scout once they're out, you really do want queens, and ideally, plague too. The two really strong aspects of mass scouts are a) mobility b) durability, queens cut down their mobility (first parasite lets you know where they are, then ensnare makes them unable to kite scourge, so you can cut down their numbers), and plague turns them into wraiths.
What do you mean? He watched the replay on high speed at the end. You can use the youtube slow down feature to watch it at a slower speed. He killed a drone with a harassing zealot and that's it.
There was no huge advantage (cannon rush or whatever). He just made straight scouts, no zealot speed, nothing special
In that case yeah, there's an issue with Soma needing to improve his game (when playing vs mass scout). If I face similar mmr opponents as myself, with nothing 'weird' happening early on, people I'll beat 50% of the time in games where they 'play standard', my win rate will improve to 98%+ if they decide to go 3 stargate speed scout.
(my bad not watching the full video before commenting though! that's on me. )