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Hi everyone. I am a protoss diamond player. As all good protoss player know, PvP is determined by 3 things: -) Who has the most gates in the early stages. (I am thinking of 2gate zealot ) -) Who has as first warpgate (4 gate rushes: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=140172) -) Who has the most colossi in the middle game.
I recently watched a vod of a PvP matchup wherin one of the players claimed that colossi were bad in PvP and that in the future no one would use them. I would have laughed if that statement didn't come from Huk himself, a very good protoss player. The match was Nani(P) vs Huk (P), a best of 3. Game1, 2, 3 : http://www.mefeedia.com/watch/32177901, http://vodpod.com/watch/4102191-day9-launch-event-game-2-huk-vs-nani, http://www.mefeedia.com/watch/32149610
Huk didn't make a single colossus in the three entire games, funny isn't it? He argues that colossi can be countered by numerous things: air, blink stalkers, warp prism+immortal etc. Because I got bored of 4 gating myself, I decided to show that Huk was right. I've done a couple of games now where I use warp prism + immortal to snipe the colossi, not making any colossi myself. I haven't been able to win yet, but it seems to work ok. However once the both of you have expanded and he starts to amass 4-5 colossi it doesn't seem to work anymore.
It might be that my execution is somewhat poor. The last game I played got close ( http://www.mediafire.com/?47mowr42ykf7bdh ) and it would be nice to here some comments on it. I also think there is some nice timing push against colossi teching toss, just before range kicks in or just when he has one colossi, which you could easily snipe with immortal+prism. I admit I don't have the feel for that timing yet . Do you guys think the warp prism+immortal can be good against colossi?
Haven't tried air yet but it might work if the oponnent saves all his gas for colossi. I have actually watched some of my own replays in wich the oponnent saved his gas and air might have worked.
Haven't tried blink stalkers.
So I hope that some good protoss players give their tought on it/ try it. It would be especially nice if Huk himself shows up in this thread to give his opinion/replays (don't know if he comes on this forums however).
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I've yet to watch your replays but doesn't phoenix own colossi ? The transition to air is faster than the one to colossi so you could have a good force already when he s got his...
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I was watching a PvP game on a stream, and once the guy got a critical mass of colossus, the opponent just got a void ray fleet going. However, the splash from colossi eats through hardened shields real fast.
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in PVP it's always worth building a stargate after you expand, void rays and banshees are excellent for harrasment, attacking ground armies and defeating colossus. If your going a standard 3 gate robo expand after your robo and get a stargate.
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I've had some success using blink stalkers and immortals to kill Collossi. Basically I blink stalkers on top of his army (Spreads them out) and snipe his Collossi. With immortals early game, you will have more immortals than he has collossi so you can just set an immortal to chase every collossi around and pound his army with the rest in the meantime.
I do agree that mass collossi makes immortals and stalkers very had to use, however. I would definatly agree with the suggestion of switching to mass void rays.
However, I think the most straightforward way to kill collossi is with an immortal surround. This is about as hard as it sounds - you need map control, to spread your immortals out and to get a good sandwich (a concave won't do it). I've killed many collossi in every matchup by using immortals/mauraders/roaches to get a sandwhich on the back of the toss army, and focusing those collossi down. This is map specific though.
I hadn't thought about prism immortal sniping, tbh. It seems to me to just be so vulnerable if your opponent has got lots of stalkers - prisms are so fragile. Immortals also have that short range of 5 so getting them close enough without hte collossi running seems dangerous.
I definatly think that once you both get your econs going a tech switch to air will prove best. Mass void rays seems like an excellent way to both harass him and have a seriously threatening army at the same time. Perphaps Void ray/zealots? Yes, zealots get chewed up by mass collossi but they do take down stalkers pretty well, and will prevent his stalkers from getting close enough to all shoot at the void rays at the same time. If you lose all your zealots and a few void rays but you come out with void rays and he only has collossi, I'd say you came out more than even. If he has blink though... I'd be antsy about this. Warp gate lets you pump out those stalkers so fast.
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If they are going colossus go blink stalker / immortal.
Blink your stalkers on top of their immortal and focus fire on it with the stalkers. In the meantime, use your immortals to focus their stalkers.
The biggest problem I see in this matchup is incorrectly prioritizing targets. Couple of big mistakes people do and why they don't work: 1. Attacking immortals with other immortals: wastes high dps on shield - targetting stalkers will destroy his army and his dps much faster. 2. Trying to target colossus with immortals - They'll just walk away from your immortals, which will run straight into a crowd of stalkers doing no damage 3. Letting your own stalkers form a concave - Colossus love attacking concaves, which stalkers love making. It might seem natural to try and stay at a distance, but it works against you. Blink right on top of that colossus to minimize it's output and take it down fast.
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I once played a PvP on Metalopolis, and we started at the 1 and 7 o'clock positions. You can imagine how that turned out at the 10 minute mark. After a while I noticed he was going, very, very heavy on Collossi and very light on Stalkers, so I went for Flux Vaned Void Rays while rushing around with Observers trying to snipe his from spotting my tech (I fucking love the Observer speed upgrade). Snuck them around the side, obliterated an expansion and then he arrived to defend too late. The charged Void Rays chewed through the Stalkers insanely fast and then he had nothing left to protect his Collossi in the middle of the map. Lunch time!
On any other map/position layout (i.e. much closer to each other) this would have just failed hardcore. No way you can expand twice, build a sizeable force of Collossi to prevent him just barreling in, while still being able build things like Flux-Vaned Void Rays on the side.
I like the Immortal drop idea, but fuck me do Blink Stalkers bring those Warp Prisms down fast. You have to be INCREDIBLY careful with its angle of attack and where you drop them. If you're going to get a Robo Bay for the speed upgrade...you might as well just make Collossi.
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Really, blink stalkers rape Colossuses almost in all maps. I haven't lost once, when I've opted to do blink stalkers build (which i copied from one dude xD). However build needs a lot microing/multitasking so I don't suggest it, if you are low-tier diamond player.
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On August 04 2010 02:27 Welmu wrote: Really, blink stalkers rape Colossuses almost in all maps. I haven't lost once, when I've opted to do blink stalkers build (which i copied from one dude xD). However build needs a lot microing/multitasking so I don't suggest it, if you are low-tier diamond player.
If they keep pumping Collossi, then they're making a pretty big blunder. They've already got the tech unlocked for the ultimate Stalker-killer, as well as Observers to keep an eye on exactly what you're up to. You want more Collossi than the other guy, but you don't want to go FULL Collossi when the other guy is massing nothing but Stalkers.
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