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If you did not get your third up fast enough, I have one tip to help players secure it.
While building, you should have a 4 zealots and 2 HT at that spot. Surround the HT with the zealots and nexus and put zealots on hold position so lings can't hit HT. If he attacks with mutas, you have defensive storms, but same thing against lings. If they try to attack the nexus, you can storm them and if they try to attack the zealots, you can also storm them. Lings nor mutas cannot commit to killing your 3rd, because they can be stormed, and templar cannot be focus fired by lings. (I have found it annoying defending these 3rds building in the past, when they see my templar so they send 1/2 lings to target fire them, but this prevents ANY target fire)
Also, I feel that defensive templar are too underused. I disagree with 1 per base, since mass muta / ling cannot beat stalker zealot templar in a fight straight up so they HAVE TO counter attack. Why not go more hardcore on defense then at this point (with perhaps 3 templar to each base) when you already know you will have won on offense? This is the main reason why I don't think mass muta is viable after awhile since the protoss can secure a very strong defense as well as offense.
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On November 23 2011 12:52 Purupururin wrote: If you did not get your third up fast enough, I have one tip to help players secure it.
While building, you should have a 4 zealots and 2 HT at that spot. Surround the HT with the zealots and nexus and put zealots on hold position so lings can't hit HT. If he attacks with mutas, you have defensive storms, but same thing against lings. If they try to attack the nexus, you can storm them and if they try to attack the zealots, you can also storm them. Lings nor mutas cannot commit to killing your 3rd, because they can be stormed, and templar cannot be focus fired by lings. (I have found it annoying defending these 3rds building in the past, when they see my templar so they send 1/2 lings to target fire them, but this prevents ANY target fire) What's stopping the Zerg player from moving their Mutalisks on top of this little ball and then running away when you storm yourself?
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On November 23 2011 17:18 AmericanUmlaut wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2011 12:52 Purupururin wrote: If you did not get your third up fast enough, I have one tip to help players secure it.
While building, you should have a 4 zealots and 2 HT at that spot. Surround the HT with the zealots and nexus and put zealots on hold position so lings can't hit HT. If he attacks with mutas, you have defensive storms, but same thing against lings. If they try to attack the nexus, you can storm them and if they try to attack the zealots, you can also storm them. Lings nor mutas cannot commit to killing your 3rd, because they can be stormed, and templar cannot be focus fired by lings. (I have found it annoying defending these 3rds building in the past, when they see my templar so they send 1/2 lings to target fire them, but this prevents ANY target fire) What's stopping the Zerg player from moving their Mutalisks on top of this little ball and then running away when you storm yourself?
It's not worth it to get that much damage on his muta ball to kill a HT and a few zealots. However, storming lings would be a waste in my opinion.
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Good guide. I still find that on many of the big air favored maps zerg has a huge advantage though with muta against a ground based protoss. Something like tal darim for example is insanely hard to defend with muta and it just takes so long to set up an attack or find all bases that I feel it just won't work. One problem with waiting till maxing imo is that they can also just get the ultra tech out and then they are suddenly not as weak to storm anymore. A lategame roach switch is also quite undoable for zerg. One of those can help zerg fight the P army head on later on. The thread states that muta's are supply ineffective but that is simply not true, they take the same population as a stalker and are roughly equal to them in big fights imo.
I think the general advice of going air OR going with an aggresive opening is still very solid. There are plenty of aggresive options that don't fall under the blind all-in category, for example 4 gate + warp prism pressure. If they go roach you can simply expand + tech, if they go quick 3rd you can attack it, if they go some 2 base play you can scout and adapt. Ofcourse this is a great guide for what to do when you basically didn't prepare too well. If possible I still play phoenix against muta though by the way, going from 1 stargate opening into dual stargate tends to work well enough. The key to using phoenix against muta is often just that you shouldn't expect your phoenix to deal with the muta alone, they help really well in stopping harassing though by performing the same role cannons and observers do in your build: scouting where the flock is and delaying for the stalkers get in.
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I watched your first replay, and WOW! You are so good, watched it from your POV. 6 observers out and TOTAL map vision man! LOVED it. I'm a mid-high masters player and I am no where NEAR your skill level. This is so inspirational I usually feel lost if mutas come out and i don't have phoenix. The key problem is scouting for me..
When he got broodlords and killed your force I thought it was over, but using DTs and Observers everywhere to keep the zerg down on bases really won it for you. Ok thanks again >=)
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On November 23 2011 20:52 Markwerf wrote: Good guide. I still find that on many of the big air favored maps zerg has a huge advantage though with muta against a ground based protoss. Something like tal darim for example is insanely hard to defend with muta and it just takes so long to set up an attack or find all bases that I feel it just won't work. One problem with waiting till maxing imo is that they can also just get the ultra tech out and then they are suddenly not as weak to storm anymore. A lategame roach switch is also quite undoable for zerg. One of those can help zerg fight the P army head on later on. The thread states that muta's are supply ineffective but that is simply not true, they take the same population as a stalker and are roughly equal to them in big fights imo.
I think the general advice of going air OR going with an aggresive opening is still very solid. There are plenty of aggresive options that don't fall under the blind all-in category, for example 4 gate + warp prism pressure. If they go roach you can simply expand + tech, if they go quick 3rd you can attack it, if they go some 2 base play you can scout and adapt. Ofcourse this is a great guide for what to do when you basically didn't prepare too well. If possible I still play phoenix against muta though by the way, going from 1 stargate opening into dual stargate tends to work well enough. The key to using phoenix against muta is often just that you shouldn't expect your phoenix to deal with the muta alone, they help really well in stopping harassing though by performing the same role cannons and observers do in your build: scouting where the flock is and delaying for the stalkers get in. Interesting. I almost always play aggressively if he is getting an early 3rd base. However if he teching off 2 base, I tend to play more carefully/defensively. Is that a mistake?
Mainly, I want to play safe because if he is teching, you don't really know what's coming until you scout him with an air unit. He could be doing almost anything, from infestors to some kind of lair tech all-in. I usually play reactively thus from a risk/reward perspective I tend to wait at least until I figure out what he is up to.
Another thing is that if he is going muta, the time window to be aggressive is not big. Your warpgate finishes at around 8 minutes (if you FFE), and his mutas will be building at around the 9-10 minute mark.
TL;DR: A lot of people are saying to play more aggressively however I don't think it is easy to do, at least at my level.
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PvZ skill increased! +20% haha thanks for the guide yo!~
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On November 23 2011 05:45 Vapaach wrote: I agree with most points, but I think that phoenix is the ONLY proper way to deal with mutas as protoss, even if you scout the spire as it is already finished. I will now explain why:
To play against muta with no phoenixes, you need to either:
A) Build a ton of cannons, which will eventually still not be enough if the mutaball grows too high (and you won't be able to take a 3rd) B) Build lots of blink stalkers, which will not allow you to take a 3rd easily if at all C) Just go 8-gate all-in or something, which is very likely be countered with mass spine + muta ling basetrade + mass hatch everywhere from z, forcing at least a draw if not a win
I will now answer some questions which might explain why phoenix are completely essential against muta:
Why is it hard/impossible to expand without phoenix?
A: Even with great unit and cannon positioning, you still won't be able to immediately have full defenses wherever the muta/ling attack comes. (obs can get shut down with muta + overseer, which most good zergs do nowadays) Archons and templar are efficient against mutas, but inefficient, and stalkers rarely have enough dps to do anything else than do some damage to the agile mutas. You will be able to bring your army wherever you need to eventually, but not before taking damage in your army and/or economy. There simply is no way to defend against muta/ling optimally without phoenix, even with AMAZING (Naniwa, HuK, etc have lost with ridiculously good positioning vs mutas with no phoenix and really no major mistakes made) positioning and awareness. Even if you manage to expand, the Z can just keep expanding freely and massing mutalisks with the map control the z has, and eventually basetrade you whenever you move out. Obviously you will take some damage from the muta harass, which will make you be even more behind in an already bad position.
Why can't you really win with an all-in attack vs muta?
A: The answer is quite simple = basetrade. Muta/ling is an terrific composition to basetrade with due to it's mobility and high dps. Even if you have a significantly superior army, you will eventually be pinned down to a single pylon/nexus/whatever, and have really no hope of attacking. As long as the zerg was smart enough to bring even 1 drone to mine, you have basically lost. Also, splitting your forces is generally a bad idea and could only work if you have over 2x stronger army than your opponent, and the ability to build a durable proxy structure. Even if you bring probes with you, it is almost inconceivable to end in a situatuon where you have a economy that can rival your opponent's, and even if you somehow do, you will just end up in the same situation as before, but in worse shape than the first time.
Why are cannons a bad idea? Turrets are the way to defend against muta harass as terran..
Besides the obvious points mentioned before, there is also an additional problem with cannons, and that is the fact that they don't benefit from upgrades very much at all. They get no additional damage or armor, which is very problematic as the game goes on. As the muta upgrades start to stack, you will find yourself in a situation where you have to either split your army (causing you to take damage) or spend a TON of minerals to cannons (causing you to have a weaker army).
Personally, I never forge FE and always use hallucination to scout and react with double stargate phoenixes with +1 air and +1 shields upgrading. I think having to blindly go stargate with forge FE vs zerg is quite a terrible setback having to deal with.
Post replays or is just trolling the thread imo, cose you're saying the opposite in many ways.
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On November 23 2011 17:18 AmericanUmlaut wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2011 12:52 Purupururin wrote: If you did not get your third up fast enough, I have one tip to help players secure it.
While building, you should have a 4 zealots and 2 HT at that spot. Surround the HT with the zealots and nexus and put zealots on hold position so lings can't hit HT. If he attacks with mutas, you have defensive storms, but same thing against lings. If they try to attack the nexus, you can storm them and if they try to attack the zealots, you can also storm them. Lings nor mutas cannot commit to killing your 3rd, because they can be stormed, and templar cannot be focus fired by lings. (I have found it annoying defending these 3rds building in the past, when they see my templar so they send 1/2 lings to target fire them, but this prevents ANY target fire) What's stopping the Zerg player from moving their Mutalisks on top of this little ball and then running away when you storm yourself?
Then you get to storm the mutas. Thats the thing about defensive templar. Mutas cant risk getting near them.
Although now I think about it, 1 muta would ruin your day.
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Is it worth getting observer speed? or just keep observers stationary in key points around the map?
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Hm.. I watched all your replays and I think 4/5 of them you were ahead. However, the Zerg made mutas and then pulled back to even or he even was ahead at some times.
Is there another way to maintain your advantage despite the Zerg going Mutas, or does your opponent going Mutas mean the game will always even out?
For example, the game vs gowser, he was fairly far behind after the bling bust and after his bling attack on your 3rd. I think it would've just been a better idea to allin him instead of playing out a drawn out game, no? Making it a passive game allows the Zerg to get back into the game so easily because they can mass drones and harass with Mutas.
Also, do you have some games where the Zerg transitions out of Mutas earlier?
Otherwise great games dude. Thanks for the reps!
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On November 23 2011 05:45 Vapaach wrote: Personally, I never forge FE and always use hallucination to scout and react with double stargate phoenixes with +1 air and +1 shields upgrading. I think having to blindly go stargate with forge FE vs zerg is quite a terrible setback having to deal with.
I've been trying to always counter muta-ling play by going double stargate phoenix, but have stopped doing it quite a while ago and now I do the more common blink stalker with some canons into ht defence (I don't use 4-5 obs like the op, but I usually have around 3 for that, maybe I should try getting more of them ... :-)).
There are basically 2 reasons why I stopped going double stargate phoenix (unless I blindly opened it after ffe already and got lucky to blindcounter his unit composition). The first reason has been mentioned in the OP as well as in some posts already (I think also from sleepingdog, too many posts I've read sry) is that if you reactively go double stargate most of the time what happens is that the initial flock of mutas can't be defended with those phoenix, because your first phoenix just finish and the zerg will usually be up one base by then (3 base to 2 base most commonly) and he can simply overrun you with way more mutas or add some corruptors into his ball (kinda hard to focus fire only mutas out if you have a lot of phoenix and he is bunching up his air units, they stack up and it's hard to click on the right ones) or they switch to mass roach (I faced some guys going for +2 ranged attack meanwhile, they stop muta production completely and you end up having to defend vs endless streams of roaches (and then you have no aoe, no blink etc since all gas went into stargates + phoenix and maybe even upgrades for them).
So far I've described one of my personal issues with the phoenix solution, but if you manage to scout it in time always (like you stated getting fast hallu every game and not going ffe for that reason) I don't see a reason to switch it up if that works for you consistently. My 2nd concern however is that many zergs don't just rush to mutas of 2 or 3 base which will often times outright die to blind 2 base timings of protoss or even reactive aggression (like you open robo with gates of 2base and see his spire being completed and just push and rape him before he can even use mutas to harass and gain map control). More often than not I've faced zergs lately going for a quick 3rd as a reaction to my standard ffe and going mass roach first and then they add a spire (often times hydra den + spire). If I started colossus production to go blinkstalker-sentry-colossus or similar and I scout this with my observer I can't tell if this guy just wants to add some corruptors to deal with my colossi and later make the absolute standard broodlord transition or intends to just purely go mass muta afterwards. Some make a hydra den just in case if they feel they need units quick for a push or to make you think they will go roach-hydra-muta so that you are less prepared. If you go double stargate and start phoenix production in such circumstances I think you have just made the absolute worst unit against his unit composition.
My question for you is now how do you reliably scout that he indeed is opting for mutas and not corruptors vs colossi play? A zerg on 3base and opting for a 4th base will alway take all gases with roach-hydra-corruptor and upgrades as well, I simply can't find any huge signs I should be checking/scouting to see that. While if I opt for blink + good upgrades and the moment he makes that muta switch I just stay defensive for a moment, get up the canons, warp in more units, get like 2 extra observers and then make a good push seems like a reliable way to handle it. I'd love to hear your insights/thoughts on this. If it weren't for zergs' race mechanics being able to switch that quickly phoenix production would always be my personal answer against muta play. :-)
Masters Protoss EU if you are wondering about my opponents' skilllevel and experience.
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many thanks. just beat a diamond zerg doing mass muta as a platinum player just now :D
one question, do you have some kind of formula for how many stalkers to deal with muta harrass. as half the time i move my whole army to defend and get attacked elsewhere, other times i dont send enough stalkers and they jsut get wiped out.
e.g. if there's 6 mutas how many stalkers must i have to fend them off rather than moving my army. How many for 12ish etc?
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On November 22 2011 01:31 CecilSunkure wrote:I guarantee you most people have trouble against mutas because they fail to play PvZ properly in the early/mid game, leaving the Z with a huge income disparity in comparison the Protoss. This results in a huge amount of resources dumped into a Muta/Ling army, and that huge amount of resources keeps the Protoss from getting their needed vespene until the Protoss is finally fed up, runs out into the middle of the map in a last ditch attempt to death roll across the map where they get obliterated by Muta/Ling. Happened in every student replay of mine where "Muta/Ling" was a concern. This should probably be addressed in your OP somewhere. I haven't lost to Muta/Ling in a long time because every single time I see it coming, I do a timing attack just as they are morphing from Larva, or am playing as to prevent any from being made until later in the game. Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 01:30 Harstem wrote: Hi, Archons aren't really bad, they can be great in battle especially if they go muta/bling/ling they can tank so much bling damage. Another thing I would like to add is if they get like 30 crawlers it wouldnt hurt to get like 1/2 colossus. Colossus also help if they switch into roaches. Yeah, they are bad. Against a Muta/Ling ball your Archons will be immobile shooting at lings, while the mutas magic box everything. Plus they are stupidly expensive.
i think that having 2-4 archons is good, but mass archon is bad due to the supply and cost, this forces the zerg to magic box because it creates another threat and they still do good damage vs mutaling, though the storms would do more...i'd rather have 4 archons and 6ht in my army than 7 archons or 14ht but thats just me
im pretty sure the key is really keeping the stalkers alive, i've played a lot of games w/my teammate (mgkamikiri) where i lose because a good chunk of my stalkers died and i no longer had the mobility to keep up w/the mutas T___T
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Fantastic post RSVP. This should definitely be spotlighted, I have never seen a better explanation on how to handle mutas pvz.
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Rsvp, I'd never seen u playing before, but now that i' ve seen those replays i think that you're an extremely talented player and i hope to see in some major tournament^^(and of course thanks for this awesome guide)
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Very good tread...im like 10-15% win ratio when they make muta...they make me rage so bad...this tread will help me thanks! and...I imagine if you were planning going collosus and you have robo bay yet... observer speed might worth it : / if you planning to make 4-5 obs ?
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Thanks so much for this post. I am having a really hard time dealing with Mutas and this gives me hope. Also the inclusion of the mothership made me smile!
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Yo dood, Sick ass guide seriously, Your point about taking an early third totally busted my skull, very smart thinking sir. I also really like your explanation for why HT> Archon, completely agree. But i have one question:
Can you give any advice on how to aim your storms vs muta ? (yea obviously have flyer spotter assist thingy on) Do you try and just storm where they are, or do you try and lead them? Do you blanket the area to get the dmg out as fast as possible or do you storm slower but as precise as you can. I understand that this is kinda a detailed micro question( even GSL pros have a hard time making storms connect on muta), but I just feel like my storms are extremely bad and would like them to not be that, so any advice would be sick.
Thanks for being an awesome contributor to the community RSVP!!
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