Protoss= game over?

[Gifted]

Draco, interesting enough, I disagree but it's probably by the nature of my build. Roaches without burrow don't push me back into my base. If they tech specifically to burrow, I'll have a larger army at their base and push them back as they won't have the vital units to worry about the aggressive. If they do a normal tech to burrow, I will have obs flying to my army as it happens.

Ultimately, if that's the case, the issue is a lack of aggression/pressure/scouting on behalf of the Protoss. The map control has been "given". Granted, against zerg I typically do 1 zealot total as I find a higher concentration of stalker/sentry more efficient against roach pushes in early game.

[Draco]

Draco, interesting enough, I disagree but it's probably by the nature of my build. Roaches without burrow don't push me back into my base. If they tech specifically to burrow, I'll have a larger army at their base and push them back as they won't have the vital units to worry about the aggressive. If they do a normal tech to burrow, I will have obs flying to my army as it happens.

Ultimately, if that's the case, the issue is a lack of aggression/pressure/scouting on behalf of the Protoss. The map control has been "given". Granted, against zerg I typically do 1 zealot total as I find a higher concentration of stalker/sentry more efficient against roach pushes in early game.

Roaches without Burrow isn't much of a problem, but immediate tech to Burrow comes by pretty quickly, and unless the Zerg stupidly overexpands or you do some cheese build, you won't be able to do any major aggression before then. As for a mainly Stalker/Sentry army, the only way you can overpower anything is if you outmacro the Zerg. Stalkers are at the bottom of the DPS totem pole, just barely above miners and Hellions on a single target, and the only thing keeping them afloat against Roaches is superior range and the bonus. A quick switch to Zerglings/Hydralisks and you're in trouble.

At the moment, I also go Stalker heavy w/ 2-3 Sentries, but I can't amass my army quickly enough sometimes because of the nerfed building times. An early 1 base Roach push can set me back if I'm not absolutely prepared for it. The matchup is not unbeatable, but it's a very uncomfortable position the entire game. I also dislike the fact that it's very hard to punish a greedy FE (for most maps) yet it doesn't work the other way around. My only saving grace is cannons on the cliffs. They're especially good at taking out spotters too. Cannons are so amazing for maps like LT. Forge FE is great and I can outproduce the Zerg before T2 kicks in. Any map where the cannon is on the same level and it'll get eaten up in 2 seconds.

[GRUNT]

The problem is that Zerg has map control the entire game. Roach with burrow pushes Toss into his base until obs, by then he has mass mutas, so time to barely defend the Muta harass. By the time you have ample AA, he can tech switch so now you have to build something else up. After he gets Hive, uber health regen Roaches will rape just about anything. Zealots/Stalkers/Storm are completely useless at that point.

You make it sound as if it's so easy for Zerg to get these things, Draco . I mean seriously, wow.

"Protoss are so silly - they can rush me with Zealots, forcing me to get lots of Roaches to counter, and then he attacks me with mass Immortals."

See? I can do that, too. And that was in fact how I felt when I was just starting out, but as I played more, I began to appreciate how the pendulum of momentum can swing back and forth from one player to the next depending on what builds they go for right from the start.

I don't want to sound harsh, but it really sounds as if you have not played enough to understand the timings quite right. If a Zerg puts gas into early Roaches, Mutalisks are not going to come out so fast that you do not have time to prepare - especially since you should have Stalkers/Sentries in a Tier 1.5 fight, anyway.

Roaches without Burrow isn't much of a problem, but immediate tech to Burrow comes by pretty quickly, and unless the Zerg stupidly overexpands or you do some cheese build, you won't be able to do any major aggression before then. As for a mainly Stalker/Sentry army, the only way you can overpower anything is if you outmacro the Zerg. Stalkers are at the bottom of the DPS totem pole, just barely above miners and Hellions on a single target, and the only thing keeping them afloat against Roaches is superior range and the bonus. A quick switch to Zerglings/Hydralisks and you're in trouble.

At the moment, I also go Stalker heavy w/ 2-3 Sentries, but I can't amass my army quickly enough sometimes because of the nerfed building times. An early 1 base Roach push can set me back if I'm not absolutely prepared for it. The matchup is not unbeatable, but it's a very uncomfortable position the entire game. I also dislike the fact that it's very hard to punish a greedy FE (for most maps) yet it doesn't work the other way around. My only saving grace is cannons on the cliffs. They're especially good at taking out spotters too. Cannons are so amazing for maps like LT. Forge FE is great and I can outproduce the Zerg before T2 kicks in. Any map where the cannon is on the same level and it'll get eaten up in 2 seconds.

The whole fast-expand thing is an area of contention. In BW, Zerg basically can't compete with other races on an equal number of bases. In SC2, is that still the case? I honestly don't know. However, my own impressions are that Zerg do need to be ahead on bases in order to win. Individually, Zerg units like Roaches and Hydralisks are extremely powerful and can often give the infantry of other races a run for their money - certainly not the 'cheap but weak' stereotype that gets thrown around.

However, their shortcoming is just in plain ol' area damage. Siege Tanks, Colossi, and Psi Storm (for Hydras, mainly) kill Zerg really really fast. As a result, Zerg do tend to throw away quite a few units, but generally rely on superior economy/production to get them back in the fight after suffering expensive losses. Both Marines and Hydras are cost-effective damage-dealers with a vulnerability to AoE damage, but it hurts a lot less to lose a bunch of Marines than a bunch of Hydras. That's my theory at least, though .

[Gifted]

@Draco:

I hear ya on a lot of your points. I do a build specifically for roaches each time (the early zealot is for the odd 7 pool) and use scouting (when I care to actually win hard) to keep an eye on their ability, It's pivotal to scout when I have my cybernetics core at 25% (roach confirmation) and about 3-5 seconds after it completes (to see larva dropping from typical queen to predict 7 roach push) If the timings are off from these two points, it helps me judge the confidence the opponent has in their build. Things that are delayed, I try to mentally judge "300 minerals missing?" and immediately consider a quick burst to their expansion with my first 3 units and pull my scouting probe to them to make the force a wee bit harder as the AI still tricks a little with priority levels of a worker. (This is when I'm serious and not doing online livecasting)

I have no issues with zergling but I'll admit I've specifically focused on force field micro since the beginning so that's a possibility of my lack of concern. If I notice a switch to hydra/ling, I just research hallucination. By the time the switch happens I have my critical 8 sentry setup. Unlike stalkers, sentries do a solid amount of dps comparatively and with a fake zealot swarm to take the hits and pushing hydras back out of range with force field micro you'll see some interesting things happen.

Depending on the game if that switch happens, I might go hard charge/zealot (Or collossi, pending their ability) or expand, as the pressure that stalker/sentry can provide is very solid for that time period securing an expansion, especially with the mineral surplus from going sentries for a while.

I'll admit, this creates an opening for me for muta harrass, but if they did a late switch, I'd be scouting with observers. If they did an early switch I might be in a bit of a rut for a while.

And yes, I agree completely on the cannons.

[Draco]

You make it sound as if it's so easy for Zerg to get these things, Draco . I mean seriously, wow.

"Protoss are so silly - they can rush me with Zealots, forcing me to get lots of Roaches to counter, and then he attacks me with mass Immortals."

See? I can do that, too. And that was in fact how I felt when I was just starting out, but as I played more, I began to appreciate how the pendulum of momentum can swing back and forth from one player to the next depending on what builds they go for right from the start.

I don't want to sound harsh, but it really sounds as if you have not played enough to understand the timings quite right. If a Zerg puts gas into early Roaches, Mutalisks are not going to come out so fast that you do not have time to prepare - especially since you should have Stalkers/Sentries in a Tier 1.5 fight, anyway.

It's not just my problem. There's a discussion about it on TL with all these Platinum Protoss talking about how lopsided PvZ is. I'm making it out to be that easy for Zerg because it is that easy. The obvious answer is always to Roach spam initially; there is no disadvantage, and no thought to it. You don't need an abundance of Roaches to hold map control once you have burrow, either. They're effectively invulnerable if you micro properly. Pool your gas, larva inject, spawn 4-6 Muta at once when the Spire comes up and you can beat the vast majority of Protoss players out there.

[Gifted]

It's not just my problem. There's a discussion about it on TL with all these Platinum Protoss talking about how lopsided PvZ is. I'm making it out to be that easy for Zerg because it is that easy. The obvious answer is always to Roach spam initially; there is no disadvantage, and no thought to it. You don't need an abundance of Roaches to hold map control once you have burrow, either. They're effectively invulnerable if you micro properly. Pool your gas, larva inject, spawn 4-6 Muta at once when the Spire comes up and you can beat the vast majority of Protoss players out there.

Grunt... in his defense I can see his point regarding the "majority of protoss players out there".

It kinda flatters me as I'm not the majority of players or haven't played a person who utilizes this strat/switch well... but I just don't have that much problem against this setup anymore unless it's something obvious like me doing a bad job at macro... which can be attributed to that.

I find it interesting, I have a far easier time with PvZ than PvT. But also, from what I see I do a far heavier concentration with sentries than stalkers which could also attribute to my ability to be ready for tech switches away from Armored opposition.

[Todie]

oi.. you actually use hallucination? that is major cool. i'd love to see some replays of that, obviously.

i imagine hallucination might also help in phenix vs muta? if you're able to halucinate air units that is.

[Draco]

@Draco:

I hear ya on a lot of your points. I do a build specifically for roaches each time (the early zealot is for the odd 7 pool) and use scouting (when I care to actually win hard) to keep an eye on their ability, It's pivotal to scout when I have my cybernetics core at 25% (roach confirmation) and about 3-5 seconds after it completes (to see larva dropping from typical queen to predict 7 roach push) If the timings are off from these two points, it helps me judge the confidence the opponent has in their build. Things that are delayed, I try to mentally judge "300 minerals missing?" and immediately consider a quick burst to their expansion with my first 3 units and pull my scouting probe to them to make the force a wee bit harder as the AI still tricks a little with priority levels of a worker. (This is when I'm serious and not doing online livecasting)

I have no issues with zergling but I'll admit I've specifically focused on force field micro since the beginning so that's a possibility of my lack of concern. If I notice a switch to hydra/ling, I just research hallucination. By the time the switch happens I have my critical 8 sentry setup. Unlike stalkers, sentries do a solid amount of dps comparatively and with a fake zealot swarm to take the hits and pushing hydras back out of range with force field micro you'll see some interesting things happen.

Depending on the game if that switch happens, I might go hard charge/zealot (Or collossi, pending their ability) or expand, as the pressure that stalker/sentry can provide is very solid for that time period securing an expansion, especially with the mineral surplus from going sentries for a while.

I'll admit, this creates an opening for me for muta harrass, but if they did a late switch, I'd be scouting with observers. If they did an early switch I might be in a bit of a rut for a while.

And yes, I agree completely on the cannons.

I'm a huge fan of the Sentry, but I also have trouble with them melting like butter. Perhaps hallucination is what I've been missing. I've never used 8 Sentries at once, so maybe there's a critical mass element to it.

[newcomplex]

The problem is that Zerg has map control the entire game. Roach with burrow pushes Toss into his base until obs, by then he has mass mutas, so time to barely defend the Muta harass. By the time you have ample AA, he can tech switch so now you have to build something else up. After he gets Hive, uber health regen Roaches will rape just about anything. Zealots/Stalkers/Storm are completely useless at that point.

The MU is more about Zerg sucking than Protoss doing anything.

By the time roaches have burrow mutas are already easily defendable :/

[GRUNT]

It's not just my problem. There's a discussion about it on TL with all these Platinum Protoss talking about how lopsided PvZ is. I'm making it out to be that easy for Zerg because it is that easy. The obvious answer is always to Roach spam initially; there is no disadvantage, and no thought to it. You don't need an abundance of Roaches to hold map control once you have burrow, either. They're effectively invulnerable if you micro properly. Pool your gas, larva inject, spawn 4-6 Muta at once when the Spire comes up and you can beat the vast majority of Protoss players out there.

Think of all the gas that it takes to get that many Roaches, tech to Lair, get Burrow, build a Spire, AND get Mutalisks.

How many Stalkers and Sentries can you get with that? You can also get a Robo Fac up, if you need Immortals.

If the Zerg player is predictably Roach spamming (and whether or not the Zerg is going for this strat should be obvious for the Protoss), it's not difficult to tech to Immortals. You do need to play defensively for a time, and you need to make good use of Force Field to stave off that push, but once you get Immortals, the momentum swings to the Protoss' favour and you can effectively take the fight to the Zerg.

When you have such a potent Protoss ground force knocking at your door, your Mutalisks can't ignore it by attacking the Protoss' base - they can't kill the P's base faster than the P can kill the Zerg's. And of course, you'd already have Stalkers and Sentries in your army, so the Zerg doesn't get a chance to build up enough Mutalisks to take out all the anti-air in your army before you do significant damage or kill the Zerg.

But yes, it's not quite that simple. Just like when the momentum is in the Zerg player's favour, a lot of the match's outcome depends on the raw skill of the players involved. At the moment, I find PvZ to be the most interesting of the possible matchups.

I stopped paying as much heed to the guys at TL as I used to . Not too long ago, Smuft, #1 Protoss in his Platinum Division was talking about how PvZ was skewed in favour of P. The game's changing a lot, the metagame's still shifting around, and I'm sure you'll find plenty of Platinum players from all races saying that they feel that other races have more control in a particular MU.

The beta servers are down at the moment, but I hope this replay I'm attaching is correct. Letting the Zerg take map control isn't a problem when you're still capable of busting out with a powerful army, or if he doesn't see a tech coming. The annoying thing as a Zerg player is that if I just see 1 gateway and a Cybernetics core with my scouting Overlord/Drone before I have to retreat, it's very difficult to ascertain what the P is going to do because he'll block his ramp. Usually, 2-gate tech seems to be a very safe build. Gives you enough troop-producing power to hold off some kind of Roach rush, but also gives you enough strength to take the fight to the enemy if they are getting too greedy and aren't producing enough military units.

Grunt... in his defense I can see his point regarding the "majority of protoss players out there".

That's because you probably actually understand how to use Stalkers/Sentries . At a mid skill-level, a Roach rush is harder to stop by the Protoss player. Stalkers and Sentries DO counter Roaches, but I feel that this is only through micro - good use of Force Fields to exploit that measly 3 range on the Roach, mainly. I really think that Forcefield use is important in stopping an overly Roach-happy Zerg and that the Protoss player has to micro more than the Zerg in order to win. However, the key here is the degree to which micro is rewarded. The Zerg player can micro just as much as the Protoss in a fight like this, but with such importance being placed on good Forcefield positioning, I feel that the Protoss is more rewarded for better micro in the fight.

I think that too often, Protoss players rely on A-move and some focus-firing with the Stalkers and expect to win in a straight-up fight against Roaches. It's also about positioning - it's harder to win in open ground, but if you pick your fight at a choke (which you should be able to do if the Zerg's being aggressive), you can get some nice Forcefield traps off, and defeat his army in detail.