[D] PvZ Beating Stephano Style Roaches

im my experience, dt after a third will catch the zerg off guard if i opened without a stargate. it buys time for me to get cannons, simcity at 3rd, and more units to hold attack, as well as getting drone kills

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Clarity_nl Netherlands. April 20 2012 05:24. Posts 3283

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On April 19 2012 10:38 zattack wrote:
im my experience, dt after a third will catch the zerg off guard if i opened without a stargate. it buys time for me to get cannons, simcity at 3rd, and more units to hold attack, as well as getting drone kills

Catching your opponent off guard isn't sound strategy. It's just rolling the dice.

On April 13 2012 21:53 Chocobo wrote:
Zealot dance party has been absolutely crushing my face when I use this build. The timing is so weird, I have to scout earlier than I ever would otherwise (meaning I have to have a second suicide ovie on hand because usually the first will show me almost nothing).

Then even if I see it coming... it's rough. A dozen zealots in my face at 8:45... it's not easy to deal with.

Ovies aren't suicided if the toss FFE's, you get to see if the toss is skimping on gas, telling you he'll do some kind of zealot pressure OR an extremely fast (not safe) third.

Last edit: 2012-04-20 06:13:24

More gg, more skill.

zattack United States. April 20 2012 06:53. Posts 47

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dt keeps them from moving out until they have an overseer. you can also get some drone kills and make them run around, which is great for delaying until bigger army/more defense.

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RemarK United States. April 20 2012 07:57. Posts 402

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I think fast 3rds are optimal vs 3 hatch gasless Zerg now, but it's a hard style to play properly. I like Ranged's idea of using hallucination, and I think robo should be dedicated to immortal + warp prisms, and based on what you scout with halluc,you can decide whether 2x robo colo transition or templar transition is more appropriate.

Thug means never having to say you're sorry | Grandmaster Protoss for Team FXO: www.twitch.tv/tsremark | @FXORemarK

ineversmile United States. April 20 2012 09:47. Posts 571

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On April 20 2012 06:53 zattack wrote:
dt keeps them from moving out until they have an overseer. you can also get some drone kills and make them run around, which is great for delaying until bigger army/more defense.

How do they keep your opponent from moving out? It's not like his army is going to fall apart to a handful of DTs if he moves out...as much damage as they do, they just don't kill Roaches fast enough for that. The only real deterrent is that you're going to kill some workers...but if he moves out and you don't have ample defense at home, you're going to lose a lot more than just workers. In the mean time, how much effort is it to get some overseers at each base, rally a handful of new roaches to each one, and keep attacking? That's the problem with using DTs to try to halt Roach aggression.

While I agree that DTs are a good way to harass and get damage in, they aren't going to stop a maxed or near-maxed Roach army from rolling across the map to kill you. If you're not using timings to stop your opponent from getting that army quickly, then there has to be some kind of solid defense at home. Personally, I think it's rather simple: You build a lot of Immortals and/or Void Rays (in addition to the typical sentries and handful of gateway units), and your opponent has to start building a different type of army. And you fight the tactical application of Roaches by putting one army at your natural and the other at your third. That's how I see it, anyways....

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ROOTKane Canada. April 20 2012 09:54. Posts 1602

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On April 20 2012 09:47 ineversmile wrote:

Show nested quote +

disagree. im zerg and dts do stop me from moving out. a handful can shred an army very quickly.

Clarity_nl Netherlands. April 20 2012 09:59. Posts 3283

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If the protoss somehow managed to get dts running by the 12 min mark after a FFE (possible). They've sacrificed so much that it's okay to sit back with your army for 2 minutes or so, and THEN kill him. Robo etc will be extremely delayed, and sentry count will be low.

More gg, more skill.

Trusty New Zealand. April 20 2012 10:00. Posts 520

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On April 20 2012 09:54 Malstriks wrote:

Show nested quote +

disagree. im zerg and dts do stop me from moving out. a handful can shred an army very quickly.

Please elaborate on a 'handful'.
State a number, then add up the cost for that number. Then decide how much 'lol' will be had when you buy 1 overseer.

s0uljah Singapore. April 20 2012 12:49. Posts 131

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To quote day 9, each DT you build is an increased prayer for "i sure hope he doesn't have detection". IMO stargate play is the best counter to mass roaches. After my FFE, I normally go stargate 4 gate +1 pressure with 2 / 3 void rays. important thing is to keep your voids alive cos 1. they are expensive and 2. they prevent any mass roach things from killing you while you tech up and expand. Stargate play is very good against zergs that go 3 hatch before gas cos the only AA they have that can move will be queens.

Clarity_nl Netherlands. April 20 2012 17:30. Posts 3283

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I think surviving the 200 max roach push is more than just a simple: "I counter it with this".
Solid play while securing a third without cutting corners beats it. Good ff, good positioning, good sim city at your third.

More gg, more skill.

zattack United States. April 20 2012 21:41. Posts 47

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okay, there is the thing about dt's. if gotten after a quick third, after robo and after some extra gates, it will but you some time to get more gates/cannons up and more immortals out. Since you already have a three base economy, dt's will not cut into your production. if you send a dt to each of the zergs mineral lines, it will delay thier maxed . Also, they will stop to morph an overseer before attacking, so thats even more time that you have to build up a strong defense. Also, sending dt's to thier base while they are attacking(provided no overseer with thier army) can straight up stop their attack and force them to go back home to defend. and you can always make archons, which are great tank(ill admit, not the best at fighting roaches, but against zerg, it never hurts to have an archon or two in your army)

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aebriol Norway. April 20 2012 21:46. Posts 2064

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If any zerg is stopped from moving out by dt's, when all you have to do is morph 3 overseers and rally them to your army ... it's weird.

shmee United States. April 20 2012 21:48. Posts 28

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On April 20 2012 21:46 aebriol wrote:
If any zerg is stopped from moving out by dt's, when all you have to do is morph 3 overseers and rally them to your army ... it's weird.

If any protoss is stopped by overlords when all you have to do is build 1 void ray and rally it with your army... it's weird.

See? We can do it, too.

"It's a comedian's duty to find out where people draw the line and then cross it deliberately." - George Carlin

emis Estonia. April 20 2012 21:51. Posts 392

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2 robos and building wall at third. ez mode

Master EU protoss

VoirDire Sweden. April 20 2012 22:19. Posts 1774

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On April 20 2012 21:51 emis wrote:
2 robos and building wall at third. ez mode

You won't get any meaningful production out of 2 robos by 10:30.

Playing meaningless games are a travesty to competition.

Dools1337 France. April 20 2012 22:26. Posts 20

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EC#Welmu made a very strange all-in on two bases against Revival on the ladder today. At the end around the 16 or 17 minute mark he had like 10 immortals. I wonder how it works.

Je vadrouille à travers les jours comme une putain dans un monde sans trottoir

RampancyTW United States. April 20 2012 23:18. Posts 239

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On April 20 2012 17:30 Clarity_nl wrote:
I think surviving the 200 max roach push is more than just a simple: "I counter it with this".
Solid play while securing a third without cutting corners beats it. Good ff, good positioning, good sim city at your third.

Yeah this

Roaches desperately need numbers/surface area to beat a smaller, forcefielding Protoss army. Or burrow + burrow movement, which takes a while to get up. Good simcity and minimap awareness should allow 'Toss to SAFELY take a third and either hold it or force too large of an army sacrifice taking it out for Z to hold off your counter-attack.

Last edit: 2012-04-20 23:20:28

aebriol Norway. April 20 2012 23:49. Posts 2064

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On April 20 2012 21:48 shmee wrote:

Show nested quote +

If any protoss is stopped by overlords when all you have to do is build 1 void ray and rally it with your army... it's weird.

See? We can do it, too.

So you are saying a protoss is likely to have DT's and void rays to defend against it at that time? If so he has no army, and you can just ignore the losses while you kill everything.

kiklion April 20 2012 23:58. Posts 97

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On April 20 2012 21:41 zattack wrote:
okay, there is the thing about dt's. if gotten after a quick third, after robo and after some extra gates, it will but you some time to get more gates/cannons up and more immortals out. Since you already have a three base economy, dt's will not cut into your production. if you send a dt to each of the zergs mineral lines, it will delay thier maxed . Also, they will stop to morph an overseer before attacking, so thats even more time that you have to build up a strong defense. Also, sending dt's to thier base while they are attacking(provided no overseer with thier army) can straight up stop their attack and force them to go back home to defend. and you can always make archons, which are great tank(ill admit, not the best at fighting roaches, but against zerg, it never hurts to have an archon or two in your army)

I think zerg will start making at least one spore crawler per base no matter what they are up against. If the stargate was hidden, you have the spore crawler anyway, if an observer comes to see your army comp (did you muta switch? Roach/hydra or just roach? etc), you have a spore crawler anyway, if DT's come, you have the spore crawler anyway, if you don't win off of the roach push, you already have the spore crawlers for the spine line against mother ships... it's relatively cheap at 75 minerals and a drone. If the consensus is that zerg is ahead 3 saturated bases vs 2, you shouldn't be focusing on stuff that would make you 'win more' but reduce the number of ways you can lose.

ineversmile United States. April 21 2012 02:07. Posts 571

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On April 20 2012 09:54 Malstriks wrote:

Show nested quote +

disagree. im zerg and dts do stop me from moving out. a handful can shred an army very quickly.

OK, we are talking about the same almost pure roach army with maybe some lings, right? Because DTs are not very efficient at killing either of those units in a timely fashion.

Lings are considered throwaway units in terms of occupying DTs' time while they are attacked. Sure, losing anything for free (even the cheapest unit in the game) is still relevant, but looking at cost-efficiency the DTs have way better jobs to do than killl stray Lings. And since Lings are always faster than DTs, if youre opponent is letting you kill Lings...he obviously either doesn't care or he's happy that you're attacking Lings instead of something relevant (Drones, tech buildings, expos, queens, etc). So we can agree that DTs aren't going to shred up Ling armies when that's relevant, right? Maybe just when defending...but the bigger issue at hand is the Roaches, not the Lings, when it comes to defending a third.

As far as attacking Roaches with DTs...a Roach has 145 health and base 1 armor. A DT does 45 damage a hit, base. Without upgrades on either unit, a DT takes 4 hits (45-1=44x4=176) to slice up one roach. If the DT has +1, it's 50 damage a hit, so 49x3=147 damage and a +1 DT will kill a Roach in 3 swings (I'm not sure if this is compensated by the automatic zerg unit regen in the time that the 2nd and 3rd swing hit, especially if the Roach moves instinctively away from the DT after each slice...but in theory it's 3 swings). If the roach has +1 armor however, it's down to 48 damage a hit and that means 144 damage after 3 swings, which is barely not enough to kill a Roach.

While a small group of DTs will gradually cut through a bunch of Roaches, they just don't do it fast enough to effectively defend a lone Nexus and they won't stop the Roaches from doing their damage. The whole point of the Stephano-style Roach-Max is to really emphasize the tactical implications of very fast units that are designed to trade cost-effectively and be able to advance, retreat, and split up for maximum damage. If I'm a Zerg player and I send out 50 Roaches and those 50 Roaches trade with your third base and most of your army, I don't care if you have a bunch of hero DTs. The only DTs that I care about are the ones that kill my economy or shut down my tech buildings/upgrades, and it's pretty easy to just get detection at each of my bases and put some units and/or spines there to guard my stuff.

So honestly, if a "handful of DTs" is shredding your army and stopping your from moving out, what kind of handful are we dealing with? And where are these DTs? If they're at home defending, then I'll gladly trade 17 seconds and minimal resources to upgrade multiple overseers before moving out with detection (against someone who got a Twilight early and then spent a couple minutes and a boatload of gas building a Dark Shrine instead of Stargate units or some other tech). If the DTs are attacking at a specific timing, then the issue is getting detection at home--which honestly is built into most BOs in the form of a Spore or two at each base (which helps cover the air, just in case--so a lot of Zergs do this by default).

On April 20 2012 22:19 VoirDire wrote:

Show nested quote +

You won't get any meaningful production out of 2 robos by 10:30.

Well, not if you're getting blink, upgrades from 1-2 forges, Extended Lances, and double Colossi with chrono boosts; no, the second Robo won't work in that case. But if you're pumping out 2 Immortals or 1 Colossus+1 Immortal at a time, or you're getting extra observers/Warp Prism(s) while you get Immortals/Colossi, then isn't that a good use for a second Robo? Conventional economic math is that a Robo and a couple Gateways can be run off of one mining base, so wouldn't you be able to double that to about 4 gates and about 2 Robos running off of 2 bases? Yes, it's a trade-off where you don't get some other form of tech, but if you're churning out a bunch of Immortals or building Immortals simultaneously with other useful robo units, then it's going to be very strong against a heavy Roach composition. The worst thing that happens is you use the second Robo a lot for 5 minutes, then you don't use it for 5 minutes after that while you switch tech into something else because the Zerg is forced to seriously adapt.

Nostradamus.146@AM, Nostradamus.398@KR, Nostradamus.922@EU http://www.teamliquid.net/blog/ins