EPTPvZ BW vs SC2 - Page 2
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T0fuuu
Australia2275 Posts
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nitdkim
1264 Posts
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/eVbdh.jpg) This map is a great example of some of the difficulties that zergs face. Even though it's one of the larger maps, the zerg is forced to have direct engagements. Same with almost all the other GSL maps too. Even though you get 3 easily defendable expansions early on and a decent 4th and 5th bases, you really can't hinder the protoss from taking his 3rd that much. The protoss doesn't even need to invest that much into cannons to defend the 3rd because it's so close to the natural. Even if the zerg takes 5 bases, the drone limit is around 80-90. You will need 30 drones to fully mine the gas... That allows for 50-60 drones on the minerals. Each base needs 24 drones to fully saturate. That's like having 2 fully saturated bases for minerals. the protoss with 90 probes will have 18 on gas, 72 on minerals. 24 x 3 = 72. 3 fully saturated bases for minerals and 6 gas. Zerg is just 2 mineral saturation with 10 gas. | ||
Kipsate
Netherlands45349 Posts
On April 27 2011 05:52 T0fuuu wrote: Wasnt pvz before bisu ridiculously favouring the zerg? Shit can change. While this is true, these problems stated have always been there, yet with large maps recently it changed drastically in the P its favor, so that the Protoss can go to 3base, and lets not forget that with limited scouting information, a Protoss is both deadly with or without its turtle play. On top of that SC2 rapidly advances much further, people are doing much better analysis with more RTS knowledge and even advanced mathmathics. However due to the nearly perfect AI in SC2 the chances of an ''exploit''' which would make Zerg powerfull against Protoss is simply not there, hence it must come from strategies, the ''Ice Fisher build'' has been having some moderate successes though. Apart from this all, a Zerg has nothing to micro against a Protoss in which a good player will gain a advantage. I do think that perhaps the solution lies in the Ultralisks, Corruptor and the Infestor, with proper buffs they will be able to attack the Protoss headon, but both units take incredibly long to produce and therefore can not be remaxed quickly. Will it be solved?I highly doubt it, but maybe infestors are the answer. Nothing changes from the fact though, that Zerg has no defenders advantage at all and that you either have to attack the Protoss deathball headon or die. | ||
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EchOne
United States2906 Posts
Also it is not always the case that Zerg refuses to engage the Protoss army in direct confrontations. Sometimes the Zerg wants to keep engaging and whittle down both the Protoss supply and his gas retention (sniping Reavers, Templar, overrunning Dragoons without support) with superior economy and reinforcement in order to retard his progress towards the perfect gas composition. For example, in this game: http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/korean/games/64964_Alone_vs_Stork/vod where Stork played rather badly and overreacted to Alone's hydra all-in, allowing Alone to drone up, Alone never once needed to counterattack or drop or divert any attention away from Stork's army. He simply rammed hydras and lurkers down into Stork's army to whittle it away. I don't like speaking to the state of SC2 but I'll just say as a BW Protoss that it's rather silly that P has basically been given control of space and time in SC2. Allowing drastic manipulation of such fundamentals just throws so many parameters out the window when dealing with Protoss strategy. | ||
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hugman
Sweden4644 Posts
The way Zergs stay alive in SC2 is by making Hydra / Roach. There is no key unit that can stall midgame pushes, Mutas come out too late and in most cases the threat of a Zerg counterattack isn't big enough to prevent the push, so you deal with it by making an army large enough to defend it. The Roach / Hydra army is unfortunately bad at applying counter pressure. A top level macro Zerg can max on Roaches while the Protoss is still at 150-ish supply, and from that point on the Protoss just gets a bigger and bigger lead. I think there are ideal Zerg compositions that could deal with a 200/200 Protoss army but they're so hard to get to, as in they take longer to get than the Protoss composition, and again, the Zerg can't buy time. The Roach / Hydra / Corruptor style is conceptually very similar to the MMM / Viking style that's standard in TvP, but on paper it's worse in most ways: The anti-Colossus unit for Terran, the Viking, has 50% more rage than the Corruptor, 33% more DPS (10% more after Corruption) and costs 25 gas less. It does have less armor and health though, but I think the range more than makes up for that. Furthermore the ground army for Zerg is less supply efficient (Roaches) than Terran's, and to top it all off Terran can get by with less workers and therefore gets more army supply. Looking at it on paper doesn't tell the whole story of course, but I still don't think it's strange that the Roach / Hydra / Corruptor style isn't doing well when I think it's so much worse than the equivalent unit composition for Terran, and it's not like Terrans roll Protosses left and right, but they can at least have a stand up fight. Also, I think a lot of the frustration people feel with the matchup is that if you win it's often because the Protoss player did bad forcefields or some other kind of unforced error. You want to be able to force the win yourself, not engage and hope that the other guy does a mistake. | ||
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nitdkim
1264 Posts
On April 27 2011 06:12 EchOne wrote: One thing I don't know if you mentioned in your run-down of BW PvZ is that the perfect Protoss army relies more on the fact that it hosts a ton of gas rather than a maxed supply. There are several instances where a maxed supply Protoss army is straight-up inferior to a maxed supply Zerg army with the same gas content. However, it is true that certain maxed Protoss compositions are almost impossible to deal with (usually Archon/Reaver/HT/DT are the core of these, though sometimes Protoss air with ground support is also a bitch for Zerg to deal with.) This requires a LOT of gas though, far more than just 3 geysers (though 3 is definitely more threatening than 2), so you really only see this in extremely late-game situations where the Protoss is allowed to turtle efficiently. Also it is not always the case that Zerg refuses to engage the Protoss army in direct confrontations. Sometimes the Zerg wants to keep engaging and whittle down both the Protoss supply and his gas retention (sniping Reavers, Templar, overrunning Dragoons without support) with superior economy and reinforcement in order to retard his progress towards the perfect gas composition. For example, in this game: http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/korean/games/64964_Alone_vs_Stork/vod where Stork played rather badly and overreacted to Alone's hydra all-in, allowing Alone to drone up, Alone never once needed to counterattack or drop or divert any attention away from Stork's army. He simply rammed hydras and lurkers down into Stork's army to whittle it away. I don't like speaking to the state of SC2 but I'll just say as a BW Protoss that it's rather silly that P has basically been given control of space and time in SC2. Allowing drastic manipulation of such fundamentals just throws so many parameters out the window when dealing with Protoss strategy. BW toss can't really survive on 3 base and they'd probably lose before achieving the endgame toss ball. In sc2, their only gas heavy unit to mass produce is the coll and they're pretty easy to use/save/micro. They don't really need much tech structures either to get to it also. Zerg's direct engagements in bw is drastically different from sc2 though. In bw, you are allowed to do some damage, then retreat. Often times, it's mostly the protoss that's trying to break a lurker line in bw. Zerg buys time with observer snipes while droning up/teching/expo/making units/etc. In sc2, you often see the zerg throw all their units to reduce the coll count and then rely solely on the reinforcements to be able to hold off the incoming attack with no coll. | ||
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nitdkim
1264 Posts
On April 27 2011 06:14 hugman wrote: Lots of excellent points made in this thread and there are lots of different ways to look at the problem. The way Zergs stay alive in SC2 is by making Hydra / Roach. There is no key unit that can stall midgame pushes, Mutas come out too late and in most cases the threat of a Zerg counterattack isn't big enough to prevent the push, so you deal with it by making an army large enough to defend it. The Roach / Hydra army is unfortunately bad at applying counter pressure. A top level macro Zerg can max on Roaches while the Protoss is still at 150-ish supply, and from that point on the Protoss just gets a bigger and bigger lead. I think there are ideal Zerg compositions that could deal with a 200/200 Protoss army but they're so hard to get to, as in they take longer to get than the Protoss composition, and again, the Zerg can't buy time. The Roach / Hydra / Corruptor style is conceptually very similar to the MMM / Viking style that's standard in TvP, but on paper it's worse in most ways: The anti-Colossus unit for Terran, the Viking, has 50% more rage than the Corruptor, 33% more DPS (10% more after Corruption) and costs 25 gas less. It does have less armor and health though, but I think the range more than makes up for that. Furthermore the ground army for Zerg is less supply efficient (Roaches) than Terran's, and to top it all off Terran can get by with less workers and therefore gets more army supply. Looking at it on paper doesn't tell the whole story of course, but I still don't think it's strange that the Roach / Hydra / Corruptor style isn't doing well when I think it's so much worse than the equivalent unit composition for Terran, and it's not like Terrans roll Protosses left and right, but they can at least have a stand up fight. Also, I think a lot of the frustration people feel with the matchup is that if you win it's often because the Protoss player did bad forcefields or some other kind of unforced error. You want to be able to force the win yourself, not engage and hope that the other guy does a mistake. Zergs are trying to find new compositions that work such as broodlord/infestor/ling/etc but broodlords are such fragile units due to their immobility and need for constant care and reinforcements to support it. Infestors aren't really that great dps as people think they are and i think their role should be to protect the broodlords and hold the enemy units in place. Maybe the stun duration should be longer except the last few seconds don't do any damage. I think that most people are looking to the composition/ball vs ball method to overcoming pvz because the points I've mentioned in the OP. Zergs can't really play in the way that they should be played so they're forced to find pseudo-answers. If a zerg figures out a way to beat the current protoss army composition, protoss simply just need to change either their playstyle or change the unit composition themselves. If zergs find a good mix of units that do well against the toss deathball, it will be a short lived composition. | ||
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xarthaz
1704 Posts
Maxed protoss army will beat a maxed zerg army This isnt very true in BW. The kind of sacrificial playstyle isnt that effective as zerg. Instead, the mobility and damage advantage is critical to giving zerg winning as zerg(outside of timing attacks which are plentifully used): the use of multiprone attacks, abusing the higher damage to cost ratio units for very efficient harassment and dropsZergs need to rely on a heavy economy if they want to beat a protoss in a head to head fight by keep ramming units into it and trying to disrupt the unit composition Also about the maxed army: zerg supply count is generally LOWER than that of terran and protoss(in an even game), zerg units are remarkably supply efficient in BW. Also it is not always the case that Zerg refuses to engage the Protoss army in direct confrontations. Sometimes the Zerg wants to keep engaging and whittle down both the Protoss supply and his gas retention (sniping Reavers, Templar, overrunning Dragoons without support) with superior economy and reinforcement in order to retard his progress towards the perfect gas composition. For example, in this game: http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/korean/games/64964_Alone_vs_Stork/vod Uhh.. Alone used the superior speed and damage output of zerg units to bypass storks ball and take down his third and to wreak havoc with the drop later on.where Stork played rather badly and overreacted to Alone's hydra all-in, allowing Alone to drone up, Alone never once needed to counterattack or drop or divert any attention away from Stork's army. He simply rammed hydras and lurkers down into Stork's army to whittle it away. | ||
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nitdkim
1264 Posts
On April 27 2011 06:33 xarthaz wrote: This isnt very true in BW. The kind of sacrificial playstyle isnt that effective as zerg. Instead, the mobility and damage advantage is critical to giving zerg winning as zerg(outside of timing attacks which are plentifully used): the use of multiprone attacks, abusing the higher damage to cost ratio units for very efficient harassment and drops Also about the maxed army: zerg supply count is generally LOWER than that of terran and protoss(in an even game), zerg units are remarkably supply efficient in BW. I think I've said all those things. lol And you're right, sacrificial play and not using mobility is what SC2 zergs are doing right now. It isn't very effective but it's the only method right now for them that seems to be working. Infestors are being tested out but the results aren't game changing in pvz. | ||
disciple
9069 Posts
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nitdkim
1264 Posts
On April 27 2011 06:52 disciple wrote: Just wanted to say that having an easy to secure 3rd is not giving the toss any sort of advantage going into lategame in BW. With high ups, zerg army gets very potent against the zealot so the toss must transit into gas heavy archon reaver etc army, goons are doing pretty well vs ultras as well, but again, zealots are useless in lategame PvZ in BW. So naturally toss needs to take a 4th base to make a smooth transition to gas heavy combo. You often see games with big ball of toss units just doing nothing vs a 5 base zerg with good ups, cause toss still doesnt have map control and cracklings raid stuff so fast. One of the maps that comes in mind is Fighting Spirit which many people consider balanced but its really difficult for late game PvZ cause toss basically cant take a that 4th gas w/o having a huge lead in the midgame. Fast zealots with legs changed that recently and toss is actually aiming to kill the zerg before the late game. 3 base timing attacks are still pretty scary for zergs to deal with but at least they can buy time with lurkers and observer sniping and dropping hydra lings at the protoss. In sc2, protosses are pretty content with having 3bases since coll are such good units and most of the time zergs barely have 4 bases and protosses aren't that scared of drops because it's such a big investment for the zerg. | ||
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Nazza
Australia1654 Posts
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=89939 http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Mining TLDR: There's not much benefit from keeping drones less than the number of patches in SC2. So you guys are saying, because the 3rds are so easy to take in the new maps in SC2, there is no way to abuse the slowness of the collosi by attacking two fronts at once, forcing the collosi to choose which place he needs to attack? If that's the case, they may need to make the distance between 3rds and nat a greater distance, or make taking the 3rd force the protoss to engage with a larger choke. If a deathball is so hard to defeat, than shouldn't the current strategy involve harassment and delaying the protoss economy by using the mobility of Zerg? Drops were used to delay the Protoss push in BW. Can't they be used in SC2? The last SotG podcast talked about abusing the mobility of zerg, maybe you can get some ideas from there. | ||
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hugman
Sweden4644 Posts
On April 27 2011 07:56 Nazza wrote:If a deathball is so hard to defeat, than shouldn't the current strategy involve harassment and delaying the protoss economy by using the mobility of Zerg? Drops were used to delay the Protoss push in BW. Can't they be used in SC2? That's valid conclusion to draw, but it's hard to do in practice. First of all, Mutalisks are great at containing and harassing Protosses and they have been popular in the matchup but Zergs had to stop using them because Protoss players found midgame 2-base timings that straight up kill Zergs that try to go for them. If you get the Mutas out in decent numbers they're great, but if the Protoss plays it right you're not going to. You can do drops but the main problem is that Zerg doesn't have a good unit to drop (Roches have very low DPS, Hydras fragile, slow and very expensive, there's no Hydra speed upg in SC2 :sadface: ). You tend to only see all-in doom drops because there's nothing you can drop in small numbers that will do enough damage to justify the cost, plus small drops are easily dealt with through the warp-in mechanic and blink Stalkers. Baneling drops on mineral lines have a lot of potential though. Probes are only (very) slightly slower than speed Banelings, so it hard to force them to work, but it does force situations where the Protoss player has to react well, which is good. Here's a game where the Zerg tries to harass non-stop, but it's not cost effective and he ends up getting rolled. | ||
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419
Russian Federation3631 Posts
On April 27 2011 06:12 EchOne wrote: Also it is not always the case that Zerg refuses to engage the Protoss army in direct confrontations. Sometimes the Zerg wants to keep engaging and whittle down both the Protoss supply and his gas retention (sniping Reavers, Templar, overrunning Dragoons without support) with superior economy and reinforcement in order to retard his progress towards the perfect gas composition. For example, in this game: http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/korean/games/64964_Alone_vs_Stork/vod. That made me realize one more thing -- one part of BW PvZ is that engagements in the field (and even when the protoss is hitting the outlying expo simcity) do not force the Zerg to seriously commit his army. Hydralisks can often run in, trade a bit of supply, and run off. Even in a large 30 v 30 supply engagement, the hydralisks can easily leave the field should the battle go awry, since only zealots can chase them down. Thus, the Zerg isn't forced to sacrifice 10 hydras (when the battle is not going well) for no cost against a large protoss army. On the other hand, Stalkers are damn fast, and severely punish the Zerg running in the middle of a battle. It doesn't help when the roach, a low-ranged unit, makes up the backbone of the Z army comp. Drops were used to delay the Protoss push in BW. Can't they be used in SC2? A common theme of some player's ZvP (RorO is one I recall), is to cross-counter the Protoss main / natural when confronted with a large army assaulting his 4th, aiming to destroy his production, and then to kill the Protoss field army through attrition. The thing is, warp gate negates this sort of play pretty well. Furthermore, BW cross-counter armies were cheap -- hydra / crackling with a defiler or two mixed in could do obscene amounts of damage. Mostly cracklings though, which are cheap and destructive -- I've seen games where they tear down 3 protoss expos in less than 2 minutes (but of course you can't have something as OP as that in Sc2). This is really key, as you're essentially writing off these units when you send them to hit the Protoss main. Not saying its completely unviable -- Spanishiwa executes some pretty cool examples of this with varying success -- but lings > roaches for this sort of play. | ||
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nitdkim
1264 Posts
On April 27 2011 07:56 Nazza wrote: On mining: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=89939 http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Mining TLDR: There's not much benefit from keeping drones less than the number of patches in SC2. So you guys are saying, because the 3rds are so easy to take in the new maps in SC2, there is no way to abuse the slowness of the collosi by attacking two fronts at once, forcing the collosi to choose which place he needs to attack? If that's the case, they may need to make the distance between 3rds and nat a greater distance, or make taking the 3rd force the protoss to engage with a larger choke. If a deathball is so hard to defeat, than shouldn't the current strategy involve harassment and delaying the protoss economy by using the mobility of Zerg? Drops were used to delay the Protoss push in BW. Can't they be used in SC2? The last SotG podcast talked about abusing the mobility of zerg, maybe you can get some ideas from there. yes, drops are the way that zergs should be approaching the matchup but units such as roach/hydras aren't very effective units to use for drops. They cost a lot of resources and they cost 2 food. Because the protoss's general strategy is to mass up to a critical number of coll, they are generally positioned between their natural and 3rd base. Because of this, response to drops is very quick and if it's like a 4roach drop into a mineral line, they can just warp in 6 stalkers to deal with it easily. Just because it's easily stopped doesnt mean that it is never effective. BUT, it's just that the rewards from dropping doesnt justify the cost. In bw, drops consisted of hydras and hydras killed buildings very quickly and they were a huge threat if it wasnt dealt with. While main is being dropped, lings can go snipe a nexus or something. This can also be done in SC2 but once the drop in the main is dealt with, most of toss's army would probably not even be affected by it and the ling attack to the 3rd was probably stopped by zealot warp-ins or something. I don't really want to sound too negative from the zerg's point of view but it just comes out that way... | ||
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arb
Noobville17919 Posts
On April 27 2011 06:33 xarthaz wrote: This isnt very true in BW. The kind of sacrificial playstyle isnt that effective as zerg. Instead, the mobility and damage advantage is critical to giving zerg winning as zerg(outside of timing attacks which are plentifully used): the use of multiprone attacks, abusing the higher damage to cost ratio units for very efficient harassment and drops Also about the maxed army: zerg supply count is generally LOWER than that of terran and protoss(in an even game), zerg units are remarkably supply efficient in BW. Uhh.. Alone used the superior speed and damage output of zerg units to bypass storks ball and take down his third and to wreak havoc with the drop later on. Isnt it also said that the closer Zerg is to you in Supply the worse off you are in the game? Also the primary difference allowing Zerg to fight Protoss on semi equal footing is no longer in the game That of course being ..wait theres 3 reasons Ultralisks are ASSSSSSSSSSS. Cracklings are more like Marijuana lings than what they used to be and last but not least Zerg is stuck with 3 hive tech choices(these being broodlords/cracklings(sorta..)/Ultralisks) And the key component that made these viable against Terran(broodlords being guardians obviously) aswell as protoss is no longer in the game. That of course being the Defiler. Without Dark Swarm to combat the giant ranged army of protoss, or plague to soften them up considerably this plus the fact that Broodlords are very weak, roaches are horrible and cost 2 supply, Cracklings are a shadow of their former selves, all adds up to why Zerg has so much trouble against Protoss late game IMO. | ||
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Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
And yeah the biggest issue with sc2, that completely changes how the game works from sc1 and makes it hard to make comparisons, is mining saturation/efficiency. The fact that it is absolutely pointless to have more than 3 fully operational bases is depressing. | ||
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nitdkim
1264 Posts
On April 27 2011 09:10 arb wrote: Isnt it also said that the closer Zerg is to you in Supply the worse off you are in the game? Also the primary difference allowing Zerg to fight Protoss on semi equal footing is no longer in the game That of course being ..wait theres 3 reasons Ultralisks are ASSSSSSSSSSS. Cracklings are more like Marijuana lings than what they used to be and last but not least Zerg is stuck with 3 hive tech choices(these being broodlords/cracklings(sorta..)/Ultralisks) And the key component that made these viable against Terran(broodlords being guardians obviously) aswell as protoss is no longer in the game. That of course being the Defiler. Without Dark Swarm to combat the giant ranged army of protoss, or plague to soften them up considerably this plus the fact that Broodlords are very weak, roaches are horrible and cost 2 supply, Cracklings are a shadow of their former selves, all adds up to why Zerg has so much trouble against Protoss late game IMO. Well, we can't do much about absence of units or lack of certain unit's power... only thing that we can do is try to learn different styles of play and see how the new units affect the gameplay... Zergs are doing the 300food push which isn't working out... infestors are being tried but results aren't game changing. A lot of the professional players are talking about the drop play and chaotic multi attacks for the zerg but it's pretty difficult to be able to pull off when there are things like forcefield and warp-ins. Also, make one mistake and you lose an entire group of units and do no damage... I think a part of the issue in this matchup is that zerg players and blizzard want to be able to engage a protoss army and come out even. The fungal growth's change reflect's blizzard's attitude towards the PvZ matchup and I don't really think that it is the right direction for the match up because I really don't see how the balancing will work out between micro engagements and huge macro engagements. For example, marines are super good in numbers 20-30ish but they are terrible when they're in low numbers and huge numbers (weak to aoe like other low hp units). | ||
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Kamille
Monaco1035 Posts
On April 27 2011 09:21 travis wrote: Lings are actually pretty good in sc2, they were just incredibly incredibly good in sc1 once they had adrenal. And yeah the biggest issue with sc2, that completely changes how the game works from sc1 and makes it hard to make comparisons, is mining saturation/efficiency. The fact that it is absolutely pointless to have more than 3 fully operational bases is depressing. I think the fake cracklings in SC2 are more easily nullified with collossi. You have a unit with 9 range that can destroy cracklings from a distance. This was the same in BW, but it actually took some work. Both BW and SC2 have storm, which is great for killing lings, but collosi and reaver last longer without the need for energy. Reavers take a lot of micro when compared to BW, making cracklings viable. The advent of the collosus gives you a unit with massive range and the ability to walk over cliffs to escape danger. In general, I think the collosus does the same work as the reaver, but the amount of management for each is vastly different. | ||
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nitdkim
1264 Posts
I'm going to go test this. (the resource collection) EDIT: nvm. this is dumb. haha. After a minute of thinking, it's not the same income as 16/16/16 for minerals compared to 24/24 did test anyway. 25 minerals per sec with 24/24 setup and 31 minerals per sec with 16/16/16 setup. | ||
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