Why protoss always underperforms on pro level? - Page 5

On December 15 2024 23:40 HolySmokes wrote:


Damn man, feel like you totally missed the point of my post. I have played the game, was pretty competent I dare say, beat a lot of people I'd meet. You talk about the pros a lot, obviously the meta is important and I do like to keep up with the scene. The pros validate theory, but theory makes pros, it goes both ways. Pros show if something is viable, but viability in BW also depends on execution, which depends on the players. This is self-evident in the fact how players come along with new strats and change the game. Boxer, Oov, Savior, Bisu, for example. And honestly I think DA has a lot of potential in that regard. I talk about the DA a lot because I've had a lot of success in PvZ doing FE DA into Sair / DT play. If you tech quickly to maelstrom, skipping sair for the moment, and turtle a bit behind cannons with 2 DA, you are safe and have options vs muta and hydra. Then you can get Sair to continue scouting and develop air supremacy and add DT to the mix to make plays, and there's all kinds of stuff you can do. But obviously I wasn't a pro or anything, and if you could show me games where pros have tried this and failed, I'd love to see them.

On December 18 2024 21:30 Soulforged wrote:
I'll give you one hypothetical scenario with some branches.

A zerg can hit you at 08:00 with good 24 hydras with speed+range+overlord speed, off of a standard 3 hatch lair -> spire -> 5h hydra off of 35 drone(1 per mineral patch + gas mining)
If you're going both sair and mael, you'll have to make something like 6 cannons vs it to win time to get to storm, because just mael and a few cannons are not going to deal with it.

If you open speedlot/sair into 4 HT off of forge FE, for example, and rush 2nd gas right after core, you can have 4 HTs and storm, if you cut sairs after 3.
This lets you put up some zealot pressure, and survive that kind of break attempt with just 3 cannons. Zerg might not even be able to snipe gate/forge.

Alternative approach is to delay HTs, get more zealots and more cannons, and use zealots to threaten counter attacks.
Both are viable, and both limit Zerg economy from greeding too much, while being able to hold well if Zerg decides to mass units.

A different alternative would be to open sair/DT, and pressure with DT + some few slow zealots + sairs, while getting faster HTs. This is likely what you could be doing when going mael, since some sort of pressure is almost always necessary. But doing this does require making 5-6 sairs, otherwise there's no real way to pressure with dt.

The problem with going mael is that it isn't as good as storm defensively. You can't get it reactively vs zerg pumping hydras - they may get only 12 hydras and drone after, they may get 24+, they usually approach that situation with larva saved anyway, 5-6 hatcheries make it very easy to randomly have extra 12 hydras.
So you need to get storm (or mael in your case) in advance. You cannot go sair/speedlots into mael - storm is barely in time for 8:00, extra 25 energy on mael is enough to be game ending.

So something has to be cut. Getting less than 3 sairs is quite risky if Z made a spire.
The only reasonable way to try to approach this situation is to go for sair/DT pressure and transition into mael, then you may have it on time. The problem is that you'll need more than 3 cannons, because mael is not as good as storm. Need something to do actual damage.
And the final problem is that it'd be risky to try to get natural cannons up reactively.
Speed hydra hatch(as in, from starting the egg) and cross the map faster than cannons build, and you're not guaranteed to instantly notice and count all the hydras with your sair.
Usually the extra time for reactionary cannons is won by threatening speedlot counterattacks, the gate/forge wall, and probe pulls.
If you go for sair/dt slow zealot pressure, you can't threaten much of a counter-attack, at least nothing that will divert significant part of their force. They're bringing the majority of the overlords with the hydra force, a DT/sair counter certainly can deal damage but it won't pull entire Z army. Slow zealots by that point likely either traded or went home already.

A sair/dt/slow zealot pressure opener generally gets storm well in advance(not trying to barely get it by 8 min like speedlot/sair does), so that doesn't have this problem. Having 3 cannons and 4 storms is enough to win a lot of time.
Having 3 cannons and 2 mael is not.
Making blind 6 cannons is not an option, Z could just get minimal hydra and drone.
Even making 6 blind cannons and having Z go for heavy hydra, would be a problem if instead of committing, zerg transitions into lurker contain. Mael doesn't break contains much. Banked energy HTs do(or reavers).

This build also wouldn't have speedlot map pressure to threaten backstabs vs attempted lurker contain.
Correct reaction vs 35 drone shshsh into no jump on cannons and lurker contain, is to have a counter-attack threatening zealot force to divert some unit, and bust attempt as hydras are morphing into eggs. No banked double storm per HT yet, but at least you have 4 storms, usually can break out before it is set up. If it is setup already, need banked storm or reavers, maybe with some hail mary drop in parallel.

P options are pretty constrained. There's some variety and tactics - this post covers some viable alternatives of dealing with the same kind of challenge, that also do not auto die to other possibilities - but radical deviations are hard to pull off.
Something reaver based is more likely than DA.

DA and additional(more than 1-2) sair production skip is commonplace vs 973 hydra pressure that transitions into macro, but that is a pretty specific branch.
As a lategame addition, of course, they're underused.

On December 18 2024 23:25 Soulforged wrote:
This is in P going forge FE context, e.g. if P opens gate FE, the specifics change(for both parties).
Any A zerg could hit the described timing.

The only unusual thing is that you need den between 4th and 5th hatch, in order to have both upgrades finish by 8 min(starting with speed, range finishes right as you hit, overlord speed you want to finish as you start to move)

It is pretty trivial to pull off with a build like this:
- overpool 2-4 ling open
- 3rd hatch before gas, ~2:55-ish gas
- first 100 gas goes to lair
- next 100 gas go to ling speed
- need to have 6 lings out by 4:20 to deal with first zealot moveout possibility(assume P went nex/cannon/gate/pylon/gas, and got core & 2 probes, delaying first zealot a few seconds)
- need to have ling speed and 10-12 lings by 5:20 - this can deal with a 3 zealot attack, and can also threaten backstab if P moves out with more lings
- spire as lair finishes, 4th hatch should be around that time as well
- 2 pairs of scourge as spire finishes, to push sairs back and scout
- den before 5th hatch(something like 5:20 is good enough), 2nd gas at the same time
- 5th hatch as you have money, something like 5:40-50 is good enough
- hydra speed first, overlord speed as you have money
- start pumping hydra after you have drone per mineral patch and 3+3 on 2 gas. This will usually be around 30 drone. Can go up to 35 drones, this should allow to have money to have 6th hatch later, but may delay your attack by 13 seconds.

You should be able to get around 20-24 hydras and overlord speed done by 7:40, that can go from natural to natural in 20 seconds easily. Range hits as you hit P
Probably can fit a ranged +1 somewhere(not finish, but start at least - I'm not a Z, not sure where exactly that would fit.


This is not greedy and handles the standard early game pressure from forge FE open.
By standard I mean P isn't opening 2 gate before core, and doesn't go citadel zealot legs before stargate or mass goon...those would be seen by overlord and have different counters.
If P goes core -> sair ASAP this is basically it, if P goes something silly like 2 gate zealot after sair before citadel, zerg still has ling speed and capacity to make more lings, that holds everything before +1/speed.

The +1/zealot speed openers that are started after stargate - that cannot pressure such a zerg opener at all, speedlots basically arrive to meet a large hydra force and need to turn around.

Even if you do this poorly or get thrown off early game, well, you'd be hitting at 8:30 instead of 8.
Give it a try, if you are on point with worker transfer and keeping a drone per patch, it should not be difficult.

10:30 is...zerg can have 6 hatch 50+ drones, 4th started @ 7th hatch, that kind of army, with either muta or lurker switch incoming