How do I fight Zerg

General Discussion
1

I’m at Diamond 3.

I usually get beaten by almost everything zerg do other than zergling rush (I think I’m pretty good at scouting and handling it).

I lost more often than I win my macro games (40-60 in their favour).

And I often lose to just roach timing attacks.

Can someone tell me how do I react to this timing attacks and how to scout for it properly? Lately I’ve just been going 4 gate glaivedept into DT’s, it doesn’t work for me, not because the tactic is bad, but because I’m still bad at executing it, still trying it though.

My usual macro tactics:
Pull one probe and block the natural hatchery (forcing them to take the 3rd hatch).
Robo immediately after Cybercore.
2nd & 3rd Gate before Robo is finished
Chrono 2 adept and harass with it (putting them at the middle of both base, shading to main, moving to 3rd or vise versa). Usually losing it while taking away 4-5 drones.

If I see a roach warden, I aim for 3 immortals.

But even after that, I’m just not capable on handling the constant roach coming on my way.

Any Protoss player want to share any tips on how to generally fight against zerg, or, any Zerg player want to tell me Zerg’s “down time”? (i.e exploitable timings).

p.s I don’t like going to stargate, because I’m not good enough at microing oracle and or phoenixes. Usually only have around 100+ apm, really bad at multi tasking (other than making probe).

Oh, and, when you attack, how do you guys (Protoss player) suggest?
Should I look away from my main army and warp in and let my army just auto attack, or should I move back, and then warp in?

When should I try to get my 3rd nexus against Zerg?
My PvZ winrate is really bad.

2

Im d2/d1.

Vs Zerg I basically do adept harass and transition to skytoss immediately. I get glaives and 4 gates (I usually proxy one gate close to the 3rd). I drop double Stargate before taking a third (usually putting the Stargates down when my natural is about half saturated). I take a third with my adepts and then move out. I harass with 10 adepts (two groups, one in the 3rd and the other in the natural/main) and try and kill as many drones as possible. Behind it I am pumping out chronoed void rays (if mass roaches, lings or hydras) and or chronoed phoenix if mutas are sensed. Usually the sky units shoot down any kind of counter attack once the adept harass is done because they are hard counters. All they need is a little bit of stalker or adept support. From there I have a lead and can go into carriers with upgrades and storm. Get storm earlier if you see hydras. Attack and end the game when you have like 9 carriers and 5-6 void Ray’s and maybe a mothership and 4 Templar.

This is basically vibelols pvz skytoss build and you can see it on YouTube. I have changed it a bit in that I prefer to have my third secured before I move out with adepts and I favor more void Ray’s than phoenix because you can snipe hatcheries with the void Ray’s. I switched to this because I just felt that protoss ground was so underwhelming. You die to mutas, you die to lurkers, you die to mass roach. The air units basically force Zerg into hydras and corruptor’s and they can get absolutely crushed if you know what you’re doing and get storm and void Ray’s and upgrades. I kill zergs up to 4.3 K with this and it’s really funny to see two 200 supply armies clash and I lose one or two carriers and he loses his entire hydras corruptor army.

I really think on this day and age you have to do adept harass to win vs Zerg. They are just so good vs oracles and they all have learned how to counter punch archon harass.

Regarding scouting. One thing you should start doing is leaving your scouting probe at the opponent third. if by the time your adept comes out they haven’t taken the third, don’t move out with the adept (you already know he doesn’t have a third) and instead send the probe into the base. You usually will see the cheese immediately and can react accordingly. Remember a stalker and shield battery in the wall will keep you safe from baneling busts (they can’t break that) and vs roaches get lots of shield batteries and pump out immortals and stalkers

2 Likes
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Enjoy

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Also one thing to know,
If you hatch block a Zerg you’re way way way more likely to face an all in. If you feel good at holding ling floods, and baneling busts, and nydus stuff and roach ravager all ins keep doing it. But I stopped hatch blocking a long time ago because I got tired of the much higher rate of cheese vs just letting the Zerg do a normal build.

5 Likes
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Around 4:40 - 4:50 . You should always do it with either 2-4 adepts or any units with 2 sentries. Build pylon before nexus or right after that and then add 1 shield battery.
Stargate can also be used to have a bit safer play than robo. Look you don’t have to do actual damage with oracles. Just build 2-3 of them and use for scout and if you see Zerg move out with roaches just attack them(roaches don’t shoot air).

Personally I prefer two builds in PvZ:

  1. Stargate 2 oracle into twilight glaives 10 adepts from 4 gates timing attack into mass carriers.
  2. Stargate 1 oracle into 2 robos on the third mass non stop immortal chargelot archons with 2 forges into 3 stargate carriers. Without or with storm depending on what Zerg is producing.
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if a toss blocks my natural, the chances of me roach linging all-in increase dramatically. but don’t know what it’s like with other zerg players.

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its simple, play twice as good as them, thats how you beat zerg. gl

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Same for me, If some toss blocks me I just tech faster, I get my third and I use it as a macro hatch.As toss I never block for that reason,toss early defense can be hard and a missmanagement can end with you being behind.With no blocks I can manage a more standard gameplay, I don’t like unexpected ravager fiestas or banebust+ling floods.

I’m about 3500-3800 with toss and it’s the opposite for me, I always play macro, my cheeses are bad, my timing attacks do almost nothing because they hurt me more than they hurt the enemy. What I do is playing safe, sometimes oracle, sometimes robo.Oracle gives you the option of some harass, and then you can defend your third if needed, or even making a safety void in case roaches are coming.For me the important stuff is charge+inmortals.Get a lot of inmortals and don’t stop until you have at least 5-6. Get a couple of archons asap and chrono the Storm. Once you have a good mass of inmortal archon+HT you can walk around the map destroying the zerg.During that composition, try to send chargelots for harass, and then with a better eco, chargelot+DT.

Be sure about Z transition, see if they are making blords, if they are doing it, start upgrading the air attack and then build the stargates+beacon for carrier+some tempest gameplay, play passive, don’t rush or you will fight with unupgraded air units against upgraded units.

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Oh, that’s much faster than I usually do.
I usually get Forge and Twilight at 4:40 and after they are done, only then I make my 3rd Nexus (Close to 6 minutes).

Regarding about the Roaches, I see, that’s a very nice point. I will definitely try to do stargate opening against zerg.

That is a very interesting information. I’ll keep that in mind!

Yeah, this is where I’m at at doing 4 gate glaivedept into DT’s. It definitely feels strong when the zerg doesn’t go roaches.

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It is too late, you give Zerg full 3 base saturation without any pressure, from this situation you are so far behind in eco that Zerg can play whatever they want and win.

That can be a reason why you have awful PvZ.

1 Like
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It’s better for you to bring replays, because what’s most important to improve is what you don’t say because you are not aware you’re doing it wrong.

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Definitely. My PvT is absolutely bad. 40% winrate, and it is getting worse.

Will do when I play a Zerg, don’t expect it today though.

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at Diamond and higher you have to be able to effectively harass to play against Zerg. We are past the point where you will consistently run into players that is allowed to Drone for 5 minutes nonstop and still screw up his macro floating 2k for no reason. If you let the Zerg do whatever he wants he will just get to 50-60 drones, max Roach, and kill you while you are just working on your 3rd.

Zerg fundamentally works differently from other races that when they are making one thing, they aren’t making workers, and when they build a building, they lose a worker, so if you force him to make army, he will fall behind economically. If you kill Overlords/Drones with harassment, he falls further behind than if you were to kill a Depot/Pylon and SCV/Probe.

This is why glaives pressure IMO is currently the best, albeit predictable opener, as long as you don’t completely botch it (as in dealing no damage and throwing away all your adepts), because Zerg has to respect it and build either an overwhelming number of lings early on, or build an earlier Roach Warren than he would have liked, that you would at least enter the 5 minute mark with equal worker count, even if you don’t deal drone damage, as long as the zerg is respecting the threat.

Just make sure you are macroing behind whatever harassment you are doing. I’ve lost games that I should have won after killing 20+ drones with Adepts because they all-in me with the Roaches that I forced him to build and I failed to macro enough immortals behind the harassment and died from the all-in.

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http://sc2replaystats.com/replay/14671394

A match where I lost to roach “all-in”.
I generally still don’t understand how to scout it without actually scouting it, like, how do I know they are going to roach all in instead of mass muta if they are on 2 base? And those general stuff.

I just don’t know what to scout in PvZ, unlike in PvT where the amount of their buildings and the tech they choose are pretty visible.

Can anyone help me on this?
Like, if in PvT, if I see a starport with techlab, it’ll be either cloak banshee or bc’s.
What do I scout in PvZ, and, is it wise to suicide my adept to tech scout, and if so, at what time should I do it.

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will watch replays later.

As for Roach vs Muta (assuming on 2 base), number of gas is usually the best indicator.

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Don’t they usually just get all 4 in the case of 2 base all in?

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considering the low amount of gas needed for roaches, that seems to only delay the timing of the all in, but I’m not a Zerg expert so maybe some Zerg main can explain that.

1 Like
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The dumb thing is, while roaches are armored, ravagers are not, which really triggers me.

What unit comp do you usually build against roach + ravagers?

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You should scout with first adept till 3:30(ling speed timing). Shade to his natural and count workers if there are less than 8 you will be all inned.

You reaction should have been 2 rounds of stalkers warp in and chrono immortal. Again vs 6 roaches and 2 ravagers all you need is to buy time untill your immortal arrives and then you have +10 probes…just hold and win
With mutas Zerg need a lot of gas to make efficient number of mutas so his natural gases should have been taken.

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before 3:30 or after 3:30?