Best Strat so Far

[hyde]

Hellion harass IS pretty nice. They don't need an upgrade for speed which I think makes them better early-game harassers than reapers.

I just thought of a strat actually. Wall off your ramp with a barracks and however many supply depots. Attach a reactor to the barracks. Build two-four marines. Then when you have the gas build a factory. Switch the factory with the barracks and build hellions. Use those for hellion harass. Attach a tech-lab to the barracks. While you're hellion harassing start producing marauders. Build more barracks and attach tech labs. Keep producing Marauders. Eventually you'll have a pretty good force of Marauder/Hellion.

Something like that anyway. I guess it's pretty simple, but I haven't seen anyone do it yet. You could do it with tanks as well I suppose, but tanks are more expensive. With this you only need a factory or two and you can just attach reactors.

I think I might just do that. Save myself 50 gas on the tech lab. Shit didn't think about reusing addons...since that was trivial in SC1

[Aldrius]

And actually, if you see them going something that can counter your Hellion/Marauder force. (Static defenses, air) You can switch the buildings back and then produce an army of Marine/Siege Tanks to counter that instead.

The new add-on system rules. Someone tried to go carriers against me tonight, just switched my Starport from my tech-lab with a Barracks that was on a reactor and started pumping out Vikings to counter them. SO effective.

[GRUNT]

About ten games later, here are my impressions for ZvP:

Playing against immortals/stalkers/sentries is tough! And roaches definitely don't cut it. The way lots of games pan out is that I'll have to get roaches (or I get rolled by zealots, since lings are lame against them), then I need to transition back into lings and get muta asap before he builds up too big a stalker/immortal/sentry army. However, once I have my roaches he can't move out so I need to exapand then.
ZvP is looking really interesting right now. And I'm not even talking about the all-in ling/bane stuff you can do, and the void ray rushes (which I haven't yet countered, but I'll have to adapt my BOs to get lair faster in case he's doing that).

Hah - I totally agree with you on that Protoss army composition - it's a pretty tough nut to crack. When you have Zealots, Stalkers, Immortals AND Sentries, it's a pain in the butt for the reasons you mentioned - you'd need to have gotten Roaches to hold off Zealots early in the game but Roaches aren't as good against Stalkers and outright suck against Immortals.

If the Protoss doesn't have too many Stalkers, Mutalisks are a fantastic form of punishment.

The problem is that if it's a largely Zealot/Stalker army, then you'd need Hydras since if the Protoss have enough Stalkers, Mutalisks won't cut it.

However, it's difficult to get both a Hydra Den and a Spire in a timely fashion upon hitting Tier 2, since using both units will deprive you of a lot of gas.

Even when I scout for either a Zealot/Stalker/Sentry (can't take out with Mutas) or a Zealot/some Stalkers/some Immortals/Sentry (can decisively take out with Mutas) army coming along, it's difficult to tell which one is going to come from looking at the buildings alone (usually I see 2 gates, a Cybernetics Core, and a Twilight Council going up).

In any case, going for a Spire upon hitting Lair as Zerg vs Protoss feels like a gamble. If the Protoss is going for Zealot/Stalker, you won't be able to hurt his army much, but if he's lighter on Stalkers in order to throw in Immortals (or is just more Zealot-heavy), then a Mutalisk attack would not only see off his army, but allow you to deal some good economic damage.

EDIT: Crud - forgot that Immortals are now built from the Robo Facility! That's what I get for playing Zerg exclusively :P.

[Islandsnake]

I think ling muta can beat stalker/zealot personally mutas almost win vs stalkers just bythemselfs haha

[GRUNT]

I think ling muta can beat stalker/zealot personally mutas almost win vs stalkers just bythemselfs haha

While I agree that Mutas can whoop Stalkers' butts once you have enough, I feel that if the Protoss really makes a dedicated early-midgame push (which they're very fond of doing with their fancy Warpgates and Chrono Fields), that they'd have too many Stalkers to beat with Mutas. I find that I don't have that kind of gas by the time that push comes around, so I use Hydras instead.

Plus, the den comes up quicker than a Spire.

I'm still relatively new, but that's just my impression .

[Aldrius]

You could try ling/ling. Banelings soften up the Zealots, Speedlings beat the weakened Zealots and the Stalkers. That doesn't cost a lot of gas at all.

[Nicol Bolas]

You could try ling/ling. Banelings soften up the Zealots, Speedlings beat the weakened Zealots and the Stalkers. That doesn't cost a lot of gas at all.

The concern there is if they see you doing this. All they need to shut you down is a Colossus or two, or HTs with Psi Storm. Or worse, just throw Void Rays into your base.

[Todie]

This just in: PvZ : early voidray & phenix to be able to defeat a queen and proceed to wreck buildings with the ray. it should even win vs two queens, but gets trickier if they have more than two AA units. (seen it work vs one queen, math says it should work on two)

with a stalker or possibly sentry, you should be able to chase off any OL before starting air tech. if you havnt realized yet; the phoenix can disable & ensure the kill on a queen (or hydra) with graviton beam! when AA is gone one ray takes a minute or so to destroy a hachery.

question is how to best defend the ramp while getting this: a roach rush might be tough. squid tried this on the steam at my suggestion, and he fended off ling/ling with zealots & stalkers at the ramp. banelings are a risk if you turtle up with cannons too much, so 1 cannon + zealots & maybe one stalker to chase of OL should be safer.

man i want that replay!

[Nicol Bolas]

Bah. You're clearly playing people who aren't paranoid enough. If I see you on one-base, with the ramp blocked, and you're taking steps to kill my scouting Overlord, I'm heading for Lair tech. And when you enter my base, you won't find easily Graviton'd Hydralisks; you'll find my Queen burrowed and in the skies above are 4 Corruptors with a bad attitude.

Oh, and I'll be breaking your front with Banelings right after I cleans the skies.

[Gradius]

I just thought of a strat actually. Wall off your ramp with a barracks and however many supply depots. Attach a reactor to the barracks. Build two-four marines. Then when you have the gas build a factory. Switch the factory with the barracks and build hellions. Use those for hellion harass. Attach a tech-lab to the barracks. While you're hellion harassing start producing marauders. Build more barracks and attach tech labs. Keep producing Marauders. Eventually you'll have a pretty good force of Marauder/Hellion.

Something like that anyway. I guess it's pretty simple, but I haven't seen anyone do it yet. You could do it with tanks as well I suppose, but tanks are more expensive. With this you only need a factory or two and you can just attach reactors.

Marauders and Hellions are very good against Protoss. I didn't do that exact build, but that's been one of my standard openers in TvP. First the hellions kill the zealots. Then, while the Marauders are fighting the rest of the army, you can sneak your hellions into their base and destroy their economy.