Hello SC2 community!
I haven’t really played SC2 for several years and the only time I played it competitively was during Wings of Liberty (I was at the top of the ladder back then but it’s been so long, I’m not that good anymore, probably somewhere around plat/low diamond would be my guess).
I used to play Zerg the most and some Protoss. I’m trying to decide on which race to main now as I’m trying to slowly get used back to the game and am considering Terran as well.
I normally enjoy going for late game builds with a strong economy over rushes or timing pushes as much as possible. I enjoy building a strong “Death ball” type of army and push my way through. What are some of the stronger unit compositions for the different match ups?
Zerg: I love how fast they can expand and their mobility. The tech switches are very powerful late game if I can bank enough money. However, I sometimes get frustrated at how cost inefficient their armies are and how they can’t take on a Protoss or Terran death ball (or so it seems). My strongest compositions are usually ultras/hydras/broods but it’s not all that amazing and tech switches are usually what wins me late games with Zerg. I read a lot of complaints about mass Infestors+broodlords. How does it work exactly? I don’t get how EMP or a few disruptor shots into the infestors doesn’t shut this down (I know pros do it but they usually hide behind an army of spores, do you just have to be super patient and hide in static D for it to work?).
Protoss: Last time I played it (last year), I could often pull out early carriers into mass carriers+VRs+mothership and a few archons in PvZ and I’ve never encountered anyone who came any close to breaking this death ball apart. It felt like Zerg had no answer to this. I’ve seen a pro gamer beat it recently with fungal growth on interceptors and a ton of spores so maybe that’s the solution? Against Terran, if the bio is microed properly, I haven’t found any “Death ball” composition that seems to truly be able to overcome bio+ghosts+vikings.
Terran: A large Mech army can be scary for Zerg but I think neural parasite and abduct is easier to use against them than protoss in order to counter it. Same with Battlecruisers not being as efficient as Carriers I think due to their shorter attack range. What’s the strongest unit composition to fight Zerg with Terran? Against Protoss, it feels like bio+ghosts+vikings or bio+tanks/liberators is very powerful. Is there something better?
What about mirror matches (haven’t played those in a long time), what are the ideal army compositions that you would aim for in the late game?
If you want to deathball as T, you are out of luck. In TvT and TvZ, its impossible thanks to spells disabling most expansive units and all other being extremely clumsy to use massed or too squishy to fight head on.
In TvP, you can go mass BC and do reasonably well if you do transition well. If not, they will get picked off by tempest or just run over by blink stalkers. But if you manage, its incredibly hard for Protoss to kill off enough BCs fast enough to start winning fights.
Its possible, but they need more bases thanks to superior Terran eco on same base count. And that makes it easier for you to harass.
terran not hav any late game blazzard want them 2 loose all there game becuse terran r 2 skilled and they want 2 reward noob like protons or zerg
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Nah. Terran has late game. Its just that its hard to get there without disadvantage in TvP and Z lategame is just insane atm.
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I think the ultimate late game for each race is
Terran: BC viking ghost liberator
Zerg: Blord corruptor infestor
Protoss: if someone figure it out tell me, I want to know
That’s because zerg late game is super hard to control compared to protoss, so lower league player usually can’t break this
Remove Bc, and also deathball, terran doesnt have a ‘deathball’ Altough it is an ultimate lategame comp, it doesnt qualify as deathball
BCs are the main damage dealers, the other units are there to counter their counters
Bcs dont work in practice in the said comp, im afraid
Tested by many terrans its just not the way
You can go Bc mech with around 10 bcs, but those will just be a harassment tool mostly
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“That’s because zerg late game is super hard to control compared to protoss, so lower league player usually can’t break this”
I wasn’t playing in lower leagues, I was at the very top of the ladder last time I played ranked (masters didn’t exist, I was rank 1 in my diamond division which was the highest you could go). Those people I was playing against last year with this Protoss strategy in unranked were normally diamond. That’s not GM or Master but I still don’t think that would be considered “lower league players”. Maybe things have changed over the last year with the meta and Zerg have figured out how to crush this type of Protoss army while Diamond ones were 100% helpless against it a year ago, I’ll have to play more and see.
Diamond is definitely low league.
Low league is anything below GM. Almost any strat works in low leagues if you use it correctly, you hardly need to worry about balance and can chose your playstyle for stylistic reasons.
Mid-level is GM level. These are the players that have a decent understanding of the game and decent mechanics but they fall apart if they encounter good players.
Pro players: These are are good since they play for a living. Here balance starts to matter, even though it mostly can be overcome by playing better.
you are talking about a loooong time ago, I’m talking about the current meta
In TvP its Tempest-Disruptor-HT plus a bunch of chargelots-stalkers-immortals for a-click. Also don’t forgot WP with you. Collosi works just a bit worse then Disruptor because it has less range and less damage.
But you can just abuse Protoss 3-base pushes with chargelot-Collosus- bunch of stalkers that are insanely strong atm. Its not even individual units strength that makes it strong (that too), but economical disparity - Protoss takes both second and especially third before terran and mine much more resources from them.
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Taking into consideration your playstyle, I’d advice to stay as Zerg. Safest race to reach late game, but you need to be very reactive in the transition.
I tried the winfestors+Blords vs AI and it went horribly wrong. I’d definitely have to work on it (I know it’s very strong, saw some pros win with it recently, I just need to figure out how to transition into it but I still don’t think I enjoy this unit composition).
I faced a weak Protoss as Terran (I forget his league, maybe gold or plat at best) that started massing Tempests. I let him do it and maxed myself out on upgraded marines+medivacs+lots of vikings. I thought his tempests/carriers couldn’t stand a chance. Turns out he also had some High Templars. I used 2x a maxed army of marines+medivacs+vikings (only didn’t have viking armor upgrade) and it barely scratched that Protoss army. Storms onto my marines, I ran up closer to move out of them but I guess the marines that survived the storms died to the interceptors while moving closer. Vikings failed miserably as well. I know it’s my fault for being stupid and not attacking him earlier or doing hit and run harassment with marines since his army is slow but is there a counter to this as Terran? The only other option I could think of would have been mass BCs+anti-armor raven missiles and Maybe a few ghosts for EMP but I’m still unsure if that would have worked or not.
Tactical Jumping directly on his army would have worked, since Tempest lose the straight up fight against BC, and BC armor negates a lot of the Carrier damage. Some EMPs to take care of the Templars (even if the ghosts dies, as long as you can get a few hits) should have assured you the win.
Option 1: full max on just mass BC, maybe with EMP if you want, where you jump half the BCs onto the back of the enemy army while running forward with the other half and yamato everything. Especially the tempests; nothing else protoss has can actually pose a threat to a big enough BC ball.
Option 2: (my preference) gradually trade out bio while getting ever more liberators. Critical mass is around 20. Run in with bio/lib/ghost. Emp wave and gun down all the interceptors. Storm and archons are the only protoss splash that can hit up, so your libs are pretty safe once intercepts are dead, and lib splash damage is large enough area to cleave through all the protoss air in the blink of an eye.