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Guide: Zerg vs Protoss LATE GAME
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Edited by JaM on 8/5/10 12:46 PM (PDT)
Protoss vs Zerg can be a bit of a nightmare as all matchups are for a starting - mid level zerg player. Mainly it's because Zerg is a heavy "counter race" that requires some knowledge and tactics in order for you to succeed. Below is my general guide of what to do against Protoss.
First, I would suggest that against all Protoss you would start with a strong Tier 1 32/32 zergling/roach push. This means you should attack after you have 16 drones 1 queen 2 zerglings (4 lings after they split) and 6 roaches. (16 drones + 1 queen + 2 zerglings + 6 roaches = 32 food) The link is an video of exactly how to do this. youtube.com/watch?v=yBQApjw2RT0 See my other Zerg vs Protoss thread for more information on this. Late game The first line of the Zerg characteristics says 'strength in numbers' You should use this philosophy and attempt to overwhelm all of your opponents. Use a high number of zerglings and banelings vs all ground forces. This will get rid of their anti-hydra/roach force giving you an easy kill. Most of my late game fights don't last more than 10 seconds because of the high volume of damage my zerglings/banelings inflict on the other team. Immortals/ Stalkers / Collosus If you notice he is going Immortals / Collosus, you have to realize that these do a high amount of damage and they need to be taken out early in the fight. Use 15-25 banelings to get rid and weaken of the massive amount of zealots mixed with stalkers. then follow up with an overwhelming amount of zerglings backed by hydras and roaches. The ideal army against this late game army will be 150 (75 food) speedlings, remember both upgrades, which will overpower the stalkers - 25 food of hydras, 3-4 Brood Lords and the rest corruptors to deal with the Collosus. The 2 most important units to micro in your big fights are your corruptors attacking the collosus and the banelings. Quick Baneling TIP: Move your banelings into the army, do not use attack move with them. Let the banelings hold their own hotkey. By letting your banelings be attacked instead of attacking the Protoss army is wasting shots and your acheiving the same damage. Mass Air Try using a high mixture of corruptors and hydras for mass air and make sure to focus fire each air unit. The best way to focus fire is using the shift click. Simply trigger the hotkey that has the corruptors and hold shift then right click in order which units you want them to kill. MUHR ZERGLINGZ One thing many new zerg players will do is stop making zerglings. Just because they die quickly does not mean they are not effective in numbers. A large group of zerglings can be a difference maker. They do lots of damage, they are very fast, they attack extremely fast and force units that attack slow to waste a lot of shots. Especially when followed with banelings zerglings can eat up an army in less time than one might think. You always want to try to overwhelm the other player The first line for characteristics of zerg is "strength in numbers" Use a mass amount of zergligns/banes followed by broods/hydras to overwhelm the protoss. Many new protoss/terran players that see a huge blob of zerglings will freeze up and just watch their army die. REMEMBER TO USE QUEEN SPAWN LARVAE The more you use this, the faster you can remake your army - the higher probability you have to win games. This is something that needs to be built into your rotation. Put all of your queens into one hot key and every 40 seconds use the mini map to smart cast spawn larvae at each expansion point. Don't Blaim Imbalance You will place against players that are better than you. You're only hurting yourself and doubting your race. Until you are toward the top 100 players you have no right to accuse races of being under powered. Some races may be easier to play I'm not disputing that, however - especially at the Bronze-Gold level, the better player will win. Watch replays and listen to audio commentaries. In my first 20 games I was under 50% and I thought Zerg was underpowered and I can confidently say that I would trash all of those players that beat me. I'm sure that with more and more experience we will all discover that we chose Zerg because it's the most challenging and strongest race when played correctly. |
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I'm pretty bad at the moment but I ran into a good late game ZvP last night that I won, and Zerglings made all the difference.
My opponent went Immortals, Stalkers and Colossus. The hivemind mentality of Zerg is what saved me because I just kept spawning more and more ... stuff. I had mostly Zerglings, Mutalisks and Hydralisks supplemented with Roaches. I encountered his army while coming to my base so they were pretty spread out, and I was able to surround the Colossus with Zerglings. With the attack speed upgrade they tear through Colossus and Immortals, and my Mutalisks and Hydralisks finished the job. What secured the win for me was the sheer number of units that I had, and the fact that I just kept spawning more stuff... I've always liked Zerglings, and they are very helpful in gigantic doom army situations, if even for cannon fodder... |
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1 Supply Roaches...I didn't get to play during that part of Phase 1.
I could see it working against some toss, but a good deal of them build a sentry and stalker or 2 before warp gates come in, along with their varied number of zealots. Cutting your roach army in half as they stumble up the ramp will hurt, and retreating back with stalkers that are faster may be impossible. It sets you back on your expo and drops your army that could protect against an inevitable 4-gate. Somewhat risky if you are caught of guard. |
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Sorry but any competent protoss player will have a good amount of sentry vs you and will use forcefields so you zerglings cant even get to the front line and will just get picked off, while keeping your roaches far back they cant shoot anything while Colossus plus range pick off every single unit you have. The key 2 units late in the game vs protoss are broodlord/corruptors if they are going air or anything that isnt blink stalker, or large amounts of ultralisk with upgrades. Zerg should be 3/3/3 upgrades in the late game well ahead of protoss, and ultras ignore force fields and get into any unit and can just destroy everything but immortals, but then you have zerglings, the only time you should be making zerglings is if you gas is really low or you have mass ultras to break forcefields. As a very good protoss player I want to win in the mid game vs zerg because if you make immortals they go broodlords, and if I dont I get run over my ultras. Just roam the map, do your best to prevent expos from going down, while expanding as much as you can yourself and you will do well.
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Thanks for the advice. I've been having some trouble lately and I'll give some of this stuff a try. You don't seem to cover void rays though and that is what gives me the most trouble. For me, if the other player gets more than 12 or so, I'm screwed. The fact that their damage increases once they start attacking just tears through anything I have.
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Thanks for the advice. I have only really been encountering VRs or mass stalkers lately, with the exception of 1 game where my opponent got 2 colossi around 25 min.
Speedlings are so effective in that I use them to surround my opponent's units and they're the perfect distraction for the AI and in late game THEY ARE CHEAP AS HELL. |
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Edited by Woogy on 8/27/10 9:09 AM (PDT)
Thanks for the advice. I've been having some trouble lately and I'll give some of this stuff a try. You don't seem to cover void rays though and that is what gives me the most trouble. For me, if the other player gets more than 12 or so, I'm screwed. The fact that their damage increases once they start attacking just tears through anything I have. 1 - You better have scouted it early to make effective counter. If he has 12 VRs and you didn't know it was coming, well then just learn to scout better (see Nicholas' Zerg Scouting Compendium : http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/248295026?page=1). 2 - If you saw your opponent is going mass VR, REACT! You have options... A) Beat him before he gets mass by killing his mineral workers and attacking, B) Be defensive and throw down 3-4 spore colonies in your main base (that should be tightly construsted) and go get corruptors + hydras. 3 - Get map control, or at least souct as much as you can and creep everywhere you can, so that you see them coming... Why? see #4. 4 - To reduce the VRs' advantage you have to micro. You can't go all in vs 12x+ VRs or they'll get charged up and decimate you. Ideally you saw them coming and you meet them halfway in the open so that you have room to micro/kite. You have to go in, keep them at max range (dont let them come over your troop of hydras), fight 2-3 seconds and pull back... Kite kite kite, and they wont charge up. 5 - If they're already in your base, you can't kite obviously because they'll charge up on your buildings, but YOU DO HAVE TO MICRO to get the most out of your troops. That is also why *you have scouted them early and made spore colonies* in case they're reach your base : to help defend and dont let them "cherge up freely" in there. Also, use shift + A + target to focus fire on each kill since you can't actually kite; at least focus fire. Hope this helps! |
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Edited by Vadoff on 8/27/10 9:58 AM (PDT)
I'm sorry, but this is not the most effective strategy against late game toss.
Psi-storm and a decent army makes short work of an infinite number of lings/banelings. I feel this is better: Early-game: Roaches/Lings (you have this correct) Mid-game: Mutalisks/Lings (great for harass and keeps the toss contained while you expand) Late-game: Ultralisks or Broodlords with army (ultralisks and brood lords both deal well with mass stalkers and aren't easily dealt with by psi-storm. Brood lords can't easily be dealt with by pheonix or void rays but you must still take care not to get blinked under by stalkers. Ultralisks can be countered by a good mix of immortals so be sure to add more hydralisks to your composition if that occurs) Of course if they don't opt for psi-storm for some reason, then you can just go mass hydralisks and take care of colossi with corrupters. |
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Edited by Frontstab on 8/27/10 12:05 PM (PDT)
Thanks for the advice. I've been having some trouble lately and I'll give some of this stuff a try. You don't seem to cover void rays though and that is what gives me the most trouble. For me, if the other player gets more than 12 or so, I'm screwed. The fact that their damage increases once they start attacking just tears through anything I have. Dude... You are in practice league.. Dont try to be smart you are gonna make people lose. Spore crawlers suck, Also you can't kite void rays with hydras or corruptors. void rays are faster, have more range, and can attack while moving. Also you aren't supposed get both corruptors and hydras, if you do you will lose because of the money and time wasted of the tech. You have to choose one or the other. |
Protoss vs Zerg can be a bit of a nightmare as all matchups are for a starting - mid level zerg player. Mainly it's because Zerg is a heavy "counter race" that requires some knowledge and tactics in order for you to succeed. Below is my general guide of what to do against Protoss. I stopped reading after the second paragraph. By suggesting players start all their games with a roach rush I can tell you've cheesed your way to diamond and don't actually understand the match-up very well. Please, don't post a "guide" thread unless you actually know what you're talking about. Telling people to start every game with a roach rush will only worsen their play overall, even if they win games. |










