BTW---- I been writing this text in like 3 weeks now----- Its just never get finished I write like 1 sentence per day. I had text about the Hots gameplay, but I removed it since they nerfed the tempest range etc. I did note myself that it probably would be outdated in the future, but I mean it got outdated before I even could finish the text. I think its because I am so comfortable myself with PvZ, so I have a hard time trying to write it down. Because for me its like 1+1 = 2.
PvZ is very uncomfortable for many Protoss player today in the current meta. This is because PvZ just like in PvT the protoss player truly wants to get max food army and win. But now with the constant mass broodlord play of Zerg players Protoss players feel they cant match up late game.
This is a very key part for the current gameplay of protoss. Which have become a lot about wining with perfectly executed pushes before broodlords can be out.
Personally I don't fear the broodlords at all, I do think many games its a little gimmicky because usually the way to beat them is by using mothership. And then if the Protoss player lands a good vortex he/she wins or he/she loses. That is a big problem with the PvZ right now, and probably by far the reason Blizzard is adding in the Tempest with their huge range to combat the broodlords (+ spine wall). I wont go into this to much, but it is clear that many games invloves the protoss player early expanding, the zerg as well usually double early expand. And then the protoss player will aim to build something. For example, 3+ imortals and sentries, earyl colousus and push, void ray and push, 6-7 gate and push and so on. That’s the PvZ at its simpliest explanation, expand defend (usually dont have to) and then push out on 2 bases.
Early Game
But PvZ is of course so much more. I really like PvZ. It is kinda funky, ye funky is a good word for it, especially in the early game. The protoss army is very, very weak in the early game against mainly zerglings but also roaches. This is way the common start build is the forge early expand. As with this the protoss player can wall of defend with one canon and be pretty safe.
6 Pool not a cheese anymore !!!!
This has lead to that 6 pooling is a freaking standard today. Don't get me wrong I am not talking about bronze league players, 6 pool is extremely common in higher leagues as well. Because Zerg players have figured that 6 pooling is very good against the forge expansion. First of all this wont kill you if you go forge first, just build a pylon and canon at your mains mineral line and you save. But this leads to that the Protoss player is stuck in 1 base, and has to usually play the old type of Pvz 1 base vs 2 base zerg. I think this dynamic change in PvZ match up is really interesting. Althought from a zerg perspective( I will cover this later in detail ) I do find it possible to strong on the ladder.
IF we ignore this, the gameplay turns into a typical lets both build mass amount of workers. And this is where the protoss gameplay becomes really funky. Because you have to injure the zerg, you have to force him/her to not build drones or kill a lot of them. And this is for many users really uncomfortable, because as mentioned the protoss army is pretty weak in few numbers. This kinda forces the massive all in mid game pushes.
However, I love early PvZ. Because I know the Zerg wont build to much units, so its all about forcing them to stop drone production with early Zealots / Stalkers or the best of all Canon attacks. This is one of those typical things you can observe is a difference between a progamer and a intermediate users. The pros will often move out with for example 1 stalker killing zerglings maybe getting 1 stalker 1 zealot to hunt down a queen etc. But especially all the early canon attacks are so fun to execute. It is very depending on how the map is. This is great because it means that each map its a different approach the user can make. Furthermore, several maps features a few ways canon attacks can be executed. So its a loads of options.
And then we have all those in between combination attacks of for example canon + early zealot. Lets not forget, this all starts with a expansion block. I mean really there are no better early game enjoyment then the PvZ probe vs drone micro battles. Forcing the zerg to build at his/her third, which means he/she probably now has to go for the macro game. And then for example boss canon attacking the third (second) and so on. Seriously each time I PvZ I excited. I am like yes!!!! time to do some early canon attacks. (Note that its soooo much easier as well when you random protoss against zerg as they probably wont 6 pool then making forge start better).
Mid game
Current mid game meta then. Forces the protoss player to attack. I personally don't like this, I want to just defend until I get max army. But I mean even do I feel its totally fine to do the 200 vs 200 battle. Problem is that the current zerg strategi is to go for 3 bases super quicly right. So as a Protoss player you have to attack them at the mid mid game, not a typo I mean like the middle of the middle timing of the game (that's usually when you 2 base push). The only real problem I really see with broodlords is that the zerg has way better macro, and then he/she wins. That seems fine, as didn't we let the zerg get to good macro? Well partly it is kinda hard to stop the zerg from getting 3 bases, as protoss are so weak in the early game(excluding canons-_-).
However, Protoss really dictates the game in the mid game. As I mentioned I would rather have a more control oriented gameplay, but at least the Protoss has like total offensive rights. Its all about doing that attack you feel is the best suited for this map or probably what push you are the most used to.
What I really like its there is a lot trickery from the Protoss. Which brings us back to a control gameplay, the protoss can do so much false attacks to force units and expand. The protoss can fake so many different builds and force out the wrong units etc. This is really the core gameplay I like with PvZ. Its all about getting out some sort of unit mix, but preferably making the zerg build the wrong stuff. Or attacking from unexpected angles etc. I am not gonna go into the specific builds the user can do but its a lot, I would say this is the match up where the user has the most different kind of build combinations.
Late Game
Yeah,,, Broodlords. Honestly I found it really boring that most Zerg always go for broodlords. And I mean every game, I face master ranked zerg players that I would assume would be better but they still always go for the broodlords. What I mean is that 90% zerg players litterly always go for broodlords even when it makes completely no sense, my favorite is when the zerg is one 2 bases after a lot of battles has bad economy. And still build broodlords seriously people this happens like every game. What happen is that they will get up like 5-6 number of broodlord at best, possible more but then they will have absolutely no units on the ground. And the protoss can easily kill them with some stalker warp ins.
Is this Blizzard faults??? Probably a big part of it-_- What I mean is that it is so stiff, it becomes like a ridiculous law, Zerg will always go broodlords against Protoss. So I would say its also the users fault.
I don't wanna say that late game is boring, but relatively compared to early and mid game. It is not as fun. Basically as mentioned it becomes, get units X,Y and Z that beats broodlords. That is a let down, but still its not all bad I am not saying that.
For example, warp prism drop attacks are very effective. And the whole battle while gimmicky there are some good parts. Feedbacking infestors, storm attacks. Massive DT harass, dodging fungus and especially dodging the neural parasite, Mass blink stalkers and so forth.
It do becomes sometimes become a stalemate. Where neither player wants to move into the other mas food army, where the zerg normally will build huge spine walls. And the protoss defend the expansion with number of canons and gates. Honestly a problem I have many times is that I have warp prism. But I have max food, because nothing really dies for a long time. So I cant warp in anything. Sure in the beginning of late game is that early late game or late early game. I would say its early late game right because late early game would imply the end of early right.
Then its Zealots, which could be sacrifice somewhere to open food. But late, late game with 4+ bases. Many time you found yourself in a place with 10+ archons etc everything is gas heavy, and there are no real unit to sacrifice.
Hmm personally I like to have around 4-8 food left to keep warping in DTS at different places.
Briefly I will make some point about Hearth of the swarm because its been a lot of negative about protoss new units and the overall gameplay of them recently(the days before when I am writing this)
People hate tempest, but the thing is that. Tempest is a really good unit to counter the spine broodlord wall, maybe it is not perfectly balanced yet, mainly its dps seems lacking and I would prefer if it kept its aoe against air to combat mass muta and to combat broodlords/corrupters.
Now it seems that the dps is far to low to still really effectual defeat broodloards and the zerg player can kill the tempest with ease as they usually build huge numbers of corrupters.
But anyway, Tempest is a needed unit, the carrier has some use but not nearly enough.
Th e Oracle on the other hand I like it but as I will explain my build soon, which is extremely air oriented the oracle actually perform worse then building Phoenix or void rays. Especially the gas cost. I think the oracle will work good if 2 things are changed: 1 the extremely high gas cost, 2 change one of the vision granting abilities they are redundant having 2.
By reducing the cost it will be more versatile to go like robo+stargate against zerg at least and be able to build a couple of oracle to harass. Right now its such a commitment, so you will get stuck on using a few oracle for quit some time.
The third ability should have use in the death ball, it don't have to be the cloak which a lot of people are missing (at first oracle could use mass cloak which has been put back to the mothership). But something that has a huge in mass combat, maybe for example the stasis field of arbitar, however, it can only freeze one or something similar.
Another idea could be to give it some kind of buff effect, enforcing the strong protoss units and it can still be kept in the back as it has so low life. Ok I am just spewing ideas here time for my PvZ build. (What I wrote now will probably be absolute in a week or to anyway)
My Build 90% win ratio PvZ
Double stargate +1
OK so I brag about this ridecules wining ratio in PvZ. I even upploaded a video of a game weeks before writing this(well I had planned writing this and a lot of stuff got in my way)
Here is this game:
more replays:
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=271648
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=271649
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=271650
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=271651
I crush zerg players, I just love to get PvZ its so much all about controlling the game flow. I am coming back to this but it really is like playing a control character in a fighting game, I would say it is actually still mainly as playing a control control or a strong control. Because, its a lot similar to for example playing Dr Strange in MVC3, obviously what I am thinking about its the pylon placement. By placing Pylons at the zergs base you will prevent his movement and depending on how you wall you can control the field etc.
Early Game:
What I do is that I always, always !!! block the hatchery with a pylon. I will send out 2 scouting probes to make sure I can block a 16 hatch. Note that if he goes for a 15 hatch you might not always be able to block, however my build means you always do a 13 forge so if he goes for a 15 hatch. Just kill him with pylon + canons. If the zerg goes for greedy 15 hatch, its very easy to use both the probes to drop 2 pylons and a lot of canons he will have no chance stopping this with only drones so that's a free win, I probably get around 20% free win in pvz because they early hatch.
Another part of this build is that its always easy to defend a 6 pool. If he 6 pools you build a pylon behind your mains mineral line and a canon between the minerals and the probes. You will lose your forge + pylon but you have huge economy lead.
In this kind of games I actually just build 1 zealot and expand. 1 zealot is enough to get away the lings by using 1-2 probe as well with a quick expand from this you wont be much after his expand and you will have a lot more workers. Furthermore I just keep building zealots and attack him with 3-4 zealots this will force him to make a lot of lings to defend or spines - making us have further lead in workers. After this I go for my regular build which I will explain shortly
Note: Some people claim the best way to beat 6 pool is to hide a probe and then block his hatch, sure that's really good but u cant count on that, and expanding as soon as possible is much safer then e.g going for a 4-5 gate all in after his 6 pool. Zerg are used to that and will defend it
If the zerg does something more refined like 10 pool or 8 pool etc. That's a free win with 13 forge, you on most maps wall of the natural before the lings reaches you. Even if cant fully wall of, your canon should be finish and you can block with the probes, losing 1-2 at worst.
Basically 13 forge is the best safest way on ladder it beats all early rushes (all in roaches as well etc). It should give you a free win against 15 hatches which is becoming less common but people still do them especially on larger maps(why 2 scout is important).
So its our start.
An important part this leads to its that the zerg will expand at his/her third base location. This means the the zerg almost always will go 3 bases. IF the zerg don't go 3 bases expect a roach all in or a baneling all in, and simply build more canons. But by blocking of, we can almost 100% certain now this wont happen. Of course scouting is still very crucial, but because we have split the zerg bases up, if the zerg do any kind of all in. And we defend it the zerg will be in an even worse condition then if he/she would have a normal 2 bases rush. Because then when our counter push comes it will basically be impossible to defend those 2 spread bases. So that again its an important concept, of the control protoss player has.
Basically - blocking leads to the its easier to assume correctly what the zerg will do, and if the zerg does some crazy all in. Its even more of an all in then what it is normally.
Mid game:
Take 4 gas really early-
Keep massing probes
Keep building zealots until you have 3, sometimes more depending on what the early pylon blocked made him/her do.
What we do now, is to build double stargates. Preferably you hide the stargates. But its not necessary at all, this is not a cheese. However, it is really easy to win straight away if you manage to hide the stargates. Usually what happens is that the zerg player will send in 1-2 overlords to scout (2 for the most time). So one of them will probably scout the stargates. But with smart building placement, we can make it take maximum time.
When you have started building both stargates, research 1+ air weapons. This is really important don't skip it. Furthermore, if the zerg spot cybernetic core, which they usually do with 1 overlord(they will almost always see the core each game). As they spot it spinning, and especially if you drop some chrono boost. Many of them expect a gate attack.
And now attack him/her with the 3 zealots. Usually the zerg only has 2-4 lings (used to remove the pylons and to take watch towers). These 3 zealots will make the zerg build spines, more lings and many times roaches because he expect a massive gate attack following these 3 zealots.
With the zealots, aim to get queens if you can as they will then have a lower anti air, killing 1 queen can do a lot. Usually these zealots will get a few of drones, but the important thing is to force the zerg to build pointless ground units.
Depending on your gas get a few sentries out, which will help a lot if ht zerg tries to counter attack.
Void rays, void rays, void rays.
Constant chrono boosting on double VOID RAYS!. Don't get Phoenix, the goal is to kill of the zergs third, so the zerg is stuck. Getting 1 fist Phoenix is a good decision some times, it can hunt the overlords (especially if the zerg have already scouted the stargates), by having it out very early it can store up a lot of energy to lift queens. But the zerg will almost always do mass spore defence so Phoenix will lose their meaning very quickly.
Mid Game main build:
The idea is that we get a lot of void rays with + 1 and kill the zerg. Easy, straight forward.
TRUST ME, in any game, in any real strategy situation, almost always is the best strategy the straight forward one because then as least as possible abnormalities can happen.
When I do this build the game almost always looks exactly the same, and I win always. There is no trick to the build really. This don't mean their is no tricks. For example, chronoing the core, making the zerg build more ground units. This is a bonus, a good build in the ladder meta is a build that is very stable, but it has some extra bonuses that can happen, if they happen great then we probably will win even easier.
When I to become the best player in soul-arena in the world (ranked 1 for 6 months after stop playing), In this game it was all about 1 lose was like 10 wins worth. Because it was such a harsh ladder system, the way to go up is to have a team that always had the same result. In starcraft 2 is the same way, as long as you have really good micro, do a lot of early attacks pylon, canons, zealots and then mass void ray. It will damage the zerg, my goal in every build against zerg is to force them to be on 2 bases. I don't need more bases then 2 as long as the zerg don't have more the then 2.
The follow up on this build is pretty easy, its very gas heavy, so its easy to take a third and canon it up. The problem is if the zerg goes a lot of ground units you right away cant take a third, but hen the zerg will die from the void rays so....
Otherwise, take a third a lot of canons.
The zerg will most of the time go mass hydra, they are so easily beaten by colossus.
Hydras: A very standard answer, you would think they don't do this up on higher leagues but they do. Fly back with void rays keep 2-3 to harass. Defending is really easy with void ray+sentry. This is the answer we want them to do - go for the main build
The build follow up is, add more gates. build 2 robotic facility (usually after 6 void rays). Bay quickly, and start doing double colo. Note don't stop building void rays, we are gonna build them until the game is over
You should attack with 4 void rays, This is the money number people, 4 void ray + 1 can very easily take out a spore, or kill queens very quickly, but the point is to be able to be able to beat the spore channels. We will attack the zergs third, which is actually the second, so if the zerg has a bad placement of the spores number of queens etc. We can kill a lot of drones. But the main goal is to kill the hatch, lowering the zerg number to 2, and on mot maps after this we can easily fly over to either to second or the main and kill most things there as well. Because when we have destroyed the third we will have around 8 void rays, which can easily just kill any tech building. However at this time the zerg answer will be out. I usually fly in and kill the most imporant tech building or I spot a bad position of the zerg I might try to snipe the hatch/lair.
The next stage is to get a lot of colo, with void rays and sentries. This is the main army. Zerg only real good answer is Infestors, with good force fields and colo range this can be taken care of.
You need good force field as the ground army is non existing
Alteration to build: depending on what counter measurement the zerg does do this:
Zerg masses muta: Stop building void rays, double Phoenix production - kill the mass muta this is a free win, often because the zerg miss understand the protoss production speed of double stargate. 1 stargate cant handle this
Zerg keeps building roaches: keep building canons, and wall of the choke to the natural. Leave 2-3 void rays at home. Zerg will have basically no air defence is a base race, but a few sentries with void rays can handle the roaches. Some times they actually do breach me defence but the roaches will die after a while. On the same time zerg base die.
Infestors - If he builds a few, you can lift them with Phoenix, if he builds a lot--- Do not get Phoenix at all. Normally they build a lot then just keep going for the main build
Late game:
First of all, zerg cant really broad lords a lot of void rays will solve that. Furthermore, most zerg will have to fight the void rays with curropters, and they perform really poorly against void rays. If you have 10 void rays, he need more hten 20 curropters to win. This also means the curropters will have a really hard time killing colousos, so the zerg will have huge problems managing these units.
Never stop the aggression really, you can just keep attacking his bases, stop only briefly to charge energy basically or waiting for a tech to complete.
-Obviously always take more bases, this build is suuuper gas heavy, minerals can be throw in to more expansion.
The unit we want to get late game is Dark Templar.
Dts are really important to block of expansion or to snipe hatcheries, again its all about limiting te zerg number of bases. Furthermore archons can be rally good if he goes for mass muta, which is not that hard to handle with void ray+sentry if they aren't in mass mass number, but a few archons and its super easy. DTS in your army is awesome!!!! I used to go Double stargate Phoenix back in season 1 with mass dts. With void rays as well(not as effective as Phoenix) we can snipe overseers. So the zerg has a huge problem with DTS.
Furthermore, Getting archons trough DTs are much better then trough High Templars because of hte Gas cost.
Lastly get a mothership, one reason I like stargate builds is because its easy to transition into the mothership. The mother ship is always good in PvZ. And as we get a lot of DTS as the last unit, why not use an archon toilet. Colos are pretty good as well at killing of the zerg units so. And obviously if the zerg goes for broadlord(which should be a free win) It will be really easy to kill the zerg army.
To summarize the build:
And btw, you wont get a food build from me, There is a clear food time structure to the build in the begging e,g 9 pylon. But pretty quickly you have to adept way to much. I cant say build void ray 5 at food 43.5 That's not really how it is. Food number only makes sense when the game is super low on complexity which it only is the first few minutes.
However-_- Al toss build should have stop building units at 192-196 food. So you can warp in defences mainly DTs to defend against drop or so you can warp in Dts at good pylons/warp prism to harass.
Pylon 9, forge 13 outside to early expand
Block with Pylons 16, try to canon attack if there is possibilities on the zergs third usually
Expand - Possibility throw done a canon before nexus depends on what the zerg does some ignore the blocked pylon and attack, however then they will not get an expand very soon-_-
Gate
Take Gas build core take more gas
Never stop building probes
Get 3 zealots with the 1 gate, more if canons are still in annoying the zerg.
Alteration :::: if the zerg takes load of damage from this fuck this build, throw down 6 gates and just kill the zerg with core units super easy, stargate will almost always work as well but its just faster to get the zerg if a pylon+canon i still up its an amazing foothold for gate pressure
Build double stargate, tech 1 + air weapon Try to hide them, you wont be able to at higher level, but still make the overlord fight for it.
Attack with 4 void rays, and keep just killing the zerg.
Throw down 2 robotic, unless the zerg goes for mass muta, then just mass pheonix kill the muts and then kill all queens + huge number of drones wiht the phoeonix. All other builds are anwsered wiht coloussos.
-Get some sentries.
-if zerg wanna swap base, build mass canons leave some void ray to defend
Stop attacking with the void ray when the zerg got anti air units. Note units, that the zerg has queens and/or spore don't matter , but back away from hydras etc. Expand during this time
The zerg army leave the base for void rays, the zerg cant attack because void ray + senty is awesome
Get a a lot of of colouses(6-8), mass void rays and a lot of sentries, you probably can kill the zerg with this army, almost always. Keep attacking to prevent zerg from having good macro.
Zerg will almost never be able go brodlords, they perform shit against this.
Get Dts, because they are awesome. always get DTs! in all matches -_-
- Only late game threat - mass infestors - so get observers get good force field, and do not freaking lump or void rays.
Note: Ur colos are suuuper hard to kill the zerg unit that counters colo, curropters are so bad against huge number of void rays.
Wow its so annoying to write about sc2 because a lot of the words dont exist right, zerglins for example. So its hard finding spelling errors between all the red marked text.
