[D] No colossus late-game PvP

Here is my question: How can you win a 30 minute pvp game without making ANY colossus?

PLEASE POST REPLAYS, I cannot find any, and would GREATLY appreciate some from plat+ players beating mass colossus lategame without any colossus of there own for the entire game.

I have been searching for hours but I cannot find any replays where the Protoss player COMPLETELY skips getting colossus for the entire game. Now im not talking about those dumb 10 minute all in games(a.k.a. 4 gate), im talking about the rare but much more fun 30 minute or more PvP game.

The only thing that seems holds any chance of beating mass colossus in a fair fight is a chargelot/archon/immortal army, and that only works in open areas, and in before they have 4+ colossus.[Sidewinder's replay from 1.4.3. http://drop.sc/139208］

After they mass enough colossus with enough upgrades, they melt through the chargelot/archon/immo army with equal supply/upgrades. So your forced to make air to beat something on the ground.

Which these air is beat against the colossus?(note both have chargelot/archon/immo army to support them)

Pheonixs can kill colossus but if the other player gets armor upgrades along with attack upgrades(a.k.a. double forge) then it starts to take to long to kill the colossus with pheonix.

Voidrays cost alot, are very slow and fragile to mass stalker supporting the colossus, and it cannot harass as good as the pheonix can. BUT unlike the pheonix, voidrays kill will straight up win you the game should the other Protoss player not make enough stalkers.

Carriers takes a long time to tech up to and build, also they are very costly to a protoss player who needs every bit of gas he can get. Building Carriers off 3 base seems very gimmicky, and seems to leave you in a vunerable state until they are finished, since your basicly praying the other player doesnt attack you for 3-4 minutes until you get out your carriers.

Mothership takes a long time to tech up to and build, is super costly at 400 gas, and a single feedback makes it's passive cloak the only useful ability.

Also The FE that I do is the 3 stalker rush>2sentry>expo>robo>3rd gate is that a viable build anymore?

Last edit: 2012-08-09 03:02:14

Quitters never win, and winners never quit.

Aterons_toss Romania. August 09 2012 02:56. Posts 1228

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Colossus is generally a good unit to use, until the very late game where you go into 3-4 Stargate carrier on certain maps if non of the players are good enough to make the game tilt ( which only happened to me about 2 or 3 times and im not even sure if it happens in pro matched ), you can't really play in the late game without using colossus at all.
There might be some starts where you can reach 200/200 faster with a lot of gateways, chragelot, immortal , archon and than kinda "win" by not letting your opponent take a 3rd until he has an army strong enough to attack you ( at which point you are so ahead you can losse and army and just warp in another half an army and win )... saw someone trying to do that to me a while ago and i remember he was pretty high GM, but it failed horribly.

Last edit: 2012-08-09 02:57:51

A good strategy means leaving your opponent room to make mistakes

Nyast Belgium. August 09 2012 02:56. Posts 497

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Sometimes I do a chargelots/archons build, but add stargates instead of robo and produce voidrays/carriers to complete my army. The main problem if you do that is that your ground army is gonna evaporate, and you'll be left with a pure air army which isn't easy to reinforce. That style is not easy to play but pretty fun, if I find back some replays I'll post them ( mid masters level ).

Yokoblue Canada. August 09 2012 03:18. Posts 594

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You can win with Immortal - Voidray combo. I did it a couple of times... had like 4 robo 3 stargate...
Let me find that replay...

Master League playing Protoss and Zerg

Arcanefrost Belgium. August 09 2012 03:29. Posts 1119

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I've seen macsed do some crazy chargelot/archon into carrier/mothership play, but I think colossi is the way to go.

Valor is a poor substitute for numbers.

Dazed1 United States. August 09 2012 03:40. Posts 6

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Reason im also curious about it is, because no matter how much I look, I cannot find a way to win late game without colossus, which is dumb because starcraft 2 is a game with hundreds of different ways to do the same thing, so why cant I find ONE way to win in the lategame without ever making colossus?

Quitters never win, and winners never quit.

Heh_ Singapore. August 09 2012 03:48. Posts 2245

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On August 09 2012 03:40 Dazed1 wrote:
Reason im also curious about it is, because no matter how much I look, I cannot find a way to win late game without colossus, which is dumb because starcraft 2 is a game with hundreds of different ways to do the same thing, so why cant I find ONE way to win in the lategame without ever making colossus?

Errr, zerg late game = broodlord infestor. They usually don't win late game scenarios if they don't build these units.. Point is, if a unit is good for a certain scenario then get it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

=Þ

Uncultured United States. August 09 2012 04:00. Posts 1222

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Thinly veiled colossus hate thread.

Don't you rage when you lose too? -FruitDealer

Zorgaz Sweden. August 09 2012 04:02. Posts 2715

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On August 09 2012 04:00 Uncultured wrote:
Thinly veiled colossus hate thread.

Ah common now, almost everyone hates the colossus.

Winning lategame without the collosi is really hard, i guess mass carrier could replace it, but then your opponent needs to leave you alone for a very long time, most of the time you will die before that ^^.

Last edit: 2012-08-09 04:07:32

Furthermore, I think the Collosi should be removed! (Zorgaz -Terran/AbrA-Random) Guineapigs <3

Berailfor August 09 2012 04:09. Posts 423

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Well you pretty much said it. It's either chargelot archon or colossi. So I suppose your only option if you don't want to build colossi is go chargelot archon for the midgame and transition to void carrier mothership once you can get a 4th but if you do you might just die to his attack if he knows what your planning.

My suggestion is don't be so against using colossi. Sure colossi aren't too exciting. But then again A moving with chargelot archon isn't very exciting either. Unfortunately our casters don't do very well in PvP and that's a bummer. But yeah. Your only chance for your quest is to transition to air during a good opportunity from chargelot archon. But I don't even know if that's viable if they scout it out.

SuperYo1000 United States. August 09 2012 04:21. Posts 716

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On August 09 2012 04:02 Zorgaz wrote:

Show nested quote +

almost everyone hates collosus? why cuz its a good unit?, cool looking? useful in all matchups? I never understood why people hate units with some much going for them.

I have been beat by protoss player going archon chargelot with a few immortals for the focus fire on colossus. I say its still harder to do but possible

Wombat_NI Northern Ireland. August 09 2012 04:33. Posts 5145

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On August 09 2012 04:21 SuperYo1000 wrote:

Show nested quote +

Takes no skill to use, no real drawback in having tons of them lategame, especially PvP. Just a boring unit that can't even look cool in the hands of pros (apart from collosi drops of course)

'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - McBengt Also anyone with any questions or desires to help the Irish scene, PM me!

TyrionSC2 United States. August 09 2012 04:39. Posts 253

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Colossus is basically the best mid game in PvP that's why everybody goes colossus.
You see chargleot archon sometimes, but the colossus player just needs to make some gateway walls and turtle and he wins maxed. By a lot.
In the super late game you can see carrier/archon/mothership with a few ht, but it's almost always colossus.
If you want to avoid colossus try adding in speed prisms and any time the opponent moves out warp 10 zealots into his main. You can also speed prism drop his colossus army and snipe colossi as he walks across the map.

FataLe New Zealand. August 09 2012 04:44. Posts 3622

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On August 09 2012 04:02 Zorgaz wrote:

Show nested quote +

I like the unit lol

hi. big fan.

StaraCroft Austria. August 09 2012 06:23. Posts 165

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If your opponent goes into heavy colossi production you can swtich to double stargate and get a ton of phoenix to support your ground army. some void rays/carriers can help but phoenix are usually better in every way. Void rays stack too much and are pretty weak to storm - but if your opponent doesn't think of that you can still win a lot of games.
For a while I went into heavy carrier/immortal/chargelot after opening phoenix, but that only really works if your opponent tunnel visions on the air units and blinks into your immortal/zealot army. All that stuff worked for me in diamond, and I've seen mass air pvp at a GM level, so I'm guessing it can be viable... especially with recall

Nyast Belgium. August 09 2012 07:44. Posts 497

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Charge archons immortals only work until a certain point, let's say when the colossus number is 5-6 or under. But against 8+ colossi with a few archons and a ton of chargelots, it gets crushed. The splash damage of 8+ colossi is insane.

NewEyes Germany. August 09 2012 08:04. Posts 52

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I am working on exactly this for a couple days now, here's the best solution i ve got by now:
http://www.mediafire.com/?pcb0w4f2tmyzxzr
http://www.mediafire.com/?sns8t808xk2h0ws

The basic idea is to open up stargate and rush for a defensive Mothership on 2 Bases. The reason why this works (at least particularly) is because its really hard to aggressivly engage your army when you focus the opponent's Observers with your Phoenix, forcing him to blink in and get shredded by your Zealots/Immortals. To finish off his Colossi i like to add in a couple Carriers. (Archons as well ios the Game gets to the later stages).

This is all still work in progress i haven't worked out the timings by now and am unsure how viable this strategy is if your opponent reacts accordingly. But i am trying my best to make pvp work without colossi and it's working out okayish for me at the moment. So if you really hate Colossi (just like i do), maybe give it a try.

Replays are Mid-Master Level.

BBQKP August 09 2012 08:07. Posts 15

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Phoenix-FE --> Zealot-Immortal-Archon quick third --> Void Rays and eventually Carriers and Mothership would be what I would recommend if one were to skip Colossi in Protoss vs Protoss.

I can upload a replay whenever I meet a Protoss.

EDIT:

http://sc2rep.com/replays/%28P%29BBQKingPrime_vs_%28P%29Flashtunnel/20587####

Neither of us played particularly well, but you get the idea of the build and composition.

Comments on the game:

1) One could open greedier than I chose to.
2) When your army composition consists of Zealot-Archon, prioritize attack upgrades highly, both units scale ridiculously well with upgrades.
3) With a composition of Zealot-Archon-Immortal, one should seek to trade as often and efficiently as possible, for which reason one can go up to 70-80 Probes, if circumstances allow.
4) My opponent lost when he lost 21 Probes to 3 Phoenixes, not to mention all the worthless Stalkers I "forced", I like his choice to include Storm against my composition though.
5) One can include Warp Prisms as well and I should've definitely been more active with my Phoenixes searching for a Warp Prism of his.

Last edit: 2012-08-09 08:53:20

Aro Canada. August 09 2012 08:29. Posts 35

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I remember seeing Attero doing a phoenix opening into carrier transition a while ago on his stream. Maybe you can find some replay packs of him doing this strat.

rsvp United States. August 09 2012 10:14. Posts 2073

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Like most people have said in this thread, your mid game is going to be zealot/stalker/archon/immortal if you don't want to go colossus. Stalkers are important since they should be used to blink in and snipe colossus. You don't want pure zealot/archon/immortal. Your game plan is pretty much to harass with blink stalkers, prevent him from getting his 3rd, and take your own 3rd (and possibly additional expansions as well). If he oversteps himself and allows himself to be flanked, you kill him. If he plays ultra defensively and goes for max on 2 bases, your only hope is to tech to void ray and/or maybe carrier/mothership.

A lot of people are saying that once the colossus count hits 4+ then your zealot/archon army is useless - that's not exactly true. What's dangerous is a colossus ball with archon support. As long as you flank well, a zealot/archon army is still going to beat an equal army with colossus even if colossus numbers are like 6+. And it's difficult to get a colossus/archon army on 2 bases, which is why your game plan is to prevent that 3rd from getting set up.

aka Anihc

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