How can protoss harass Zerg?

Discussion in 'StarCraft 2 Strategy Discussion' started by Willis, May 10, 2011.

How can protoss harass Zerg?

Discussion in 'StarCraft 2 Strategy Discussion' started by Willis, May 10, 2011.

  1. Willis

    Willis New Member

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    As of lately unless the zerg goes mass roach or some sort of rush I just cannot win. Some games are fun with the Zerg playing a mixed composition but others are just "Zergling + X" to win. And its not always mutalisk, one game the zerg produced 80 lings to crush my forces, and then went into ultralisks. For the most part its the Zerg being able to tech switch at the blink of an eye into something I'm not nearly able to counter.

    However, what is nagging at me is I have no idea how to harass him? For the most part if I try to go in directly I might as well go for the kill because I'm going to have to face his army and everything along the way. But a back drop never works because a few units can repel me easily. Or I'm investing too much time / resources into building an "effective" harass that I'm not preparing to face his real army.
     
  2. Aurora

    Aurora The Defiant

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    Cliff walk with Colossus units, of course. You'll get them anyway in a PvZ, so go ahead and melt some workers at mineral lines.
     
  3. kuvasz

    kuvasz Corrections Officer

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    ^ Those are slow and will get eaten alive lol.

    Since the P army needs to stay together to be effective it's hard to harass with drops - one of the reasons they're not popular. What you can do is move out periodically with your army early game in a way that you make sure he sees you. The closer you get to his base and the later you pull back the better. Much simpler than harassing with medivacs and mutas and has a guaranteed effect.
     
  4. ijffdrie

    ijffdrie Lord of Spam

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    Well, they can pull zergling and hydralisk tails, swim in spawning pools, make prank-psychic calls to Kerrigan, warp in a metal plate over....


    oops, wrong kind of harassing.
     
  5. ImLikeYes

    ImLikeYes New Member

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    I use the 4 gate method which works extremely well against anything they throw up to mid game before you would want to transition into something else. Using the sentry skills you can block off any ling attacks and kill them off with stalkers without losing anyone if you catch it in time.
     
  6. Stirlitz

    Stirlitz Member

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    I actually have a real hard time controlling my laughter here, lmao!

    On topic: Some things that I've found work well:
    -Warp prisms: Not only one, but perhaps like 2-3 of them... I generally don't make colossi lately(only use robos for prisms/obs, sometimes immortals) unless very lategame for a tech switch and since my robos are without work I get to make a couple more obs and prisms. The extra obs will allow you to know which places have a good def and which are a good place to harass, as well as spot overlords to avoid getting your prisms seen. Then load them with 4 zealots and drop them on a mineral line and depending on the defence there probably warp in some additional zealots and move the warp prism away... Especially against zerg which spread out a lot, it can be quite effective, esp if you have DT tech too and can add 1-2 dts in like every expo.
    Which leads us to
    -DTs: They're quite awesome, they're invisible when moving on creep(which tends to lend zerg a crapload of sight across the map) so you can do multi-pronged attacks. Keep in mind that it's not really needed to stay and watch the attack, just send the dt to the mineral line, and check to snipe a posible spore first, then when it goes down just kill a few workers or possibly a tech building... 4 dts are quite a potent drop cause they'll prolly get to snipe an important tech structure(whatever you snipe you know you've locked him out of so you can re-arrange your army accordingly - for example: you snipe an ultralisk cavern, so you know he's not gonna make ultras, so you'll probably not gonna need immortals/void rays...)
    -HTs. That's kinda situational against Zerg because of the creep... You can't just walk a HT behind a base and drop storms cause there's gonna probably be some creep around to provide vision to them of your HT. But on some specific maps, where your opponent didn't get to cover some areas behind his base(like the 2nd normal expo on xel'naga caverns, or if he goes for the gold first and has no creep on the second natural go there with 2 HTs, get vision of the line with an obs and blanket the area with storms, that's almost deffinitely gonna do quite some dmg, but it's situational, especially against Z.
    -Early on immortal drops: If your micro is ok, you can drop an immortal with a prism, let it get a shot off and quickly load it back on on the prism: works wonders if you somehow manage to snipe a queen first and he's only on ling/roach tech still...
    -Observers: A very good way to harass zerg is killing off creep tumors, move along the creep a bit, snipe a few tumors off and move out again. It will give you quite an advantage later on.
    -Blink stalkers: They are fast and can exploit terrain(esp with an obs with them to snipe tumors and provide vision up ledges for blink) and can snipe stuff off and move out if you plan the route they'll take correctly. Kiwikaki was also famous for doing an incredible blink stalker tactic where he'd also get a mothership, around 25 blink stalkers and move from zerg base to zerg base and fast snipe their hatcheries and keep moving on, and when he got cornered he'd just recall his stalkers back to the mothership and be safe while having done tons of damage... Finally:
    -Phoenix: They're incredible units and are quite powerful against Z. A fast stargate oppening with 2-3 phoenixes and 1 void ray is extremely powerful in sniping off queens(lift them up with phoenix and kill with the vr and the free phoenixes, then have your way with the mineral line or the tech buildings and keep your energy for new queens that pop. That's also very powerful. Also mass phoenix is powerful vs zerg too cause you get to snipe overlords and supply block them while making them spend money and larva for more overlords, and can also harass mineral lines by sniping probes and queens off(even less larva) and finally taking off units that attack you and keeping them out of combat and unable to deal damage...

    Pick the one that fits your style or just try some of these out and see which feels the best for you. I personally suck badly with stargate plays since I always get to lose my macro then and do better with warp prisms and gateway armies(dts/hts/zealots) so I prefer these, but just pick your own, really, depending on the map and how the enemy plays...
     
  7. TheWarOwl

    TheWarOwl New Member

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    The War Owl knows something! I play Protoss:

    -Dark Templar are teh pwnzor for harassment. If anything it forces the zerg to get detection, but not until after you pwn their mineral lines. After you don't need them, arcons with the increased range now are actually very nice against zerg

    -Zealot Drops with Warp Prism, or just warping them in. I used to do immortal drops, even played around with a collosus drop, but neither were very cost efficent so I gave up. 4 chargelots in a mineral line, 400 each, if you catch their army out of position can do a ton of damage. I've tried out HT drops and the drones usually get away, because of how small the storm radius is in SC2.

    -Pheonix. These are only viable if the zerg also goes mutalisk, as building the stargate and pulling resources off your ground army for these only makes sense if they have something to shoot. The micro for this is moderately difficult though, and you have to watch out for queens.

    Remember this brave Protoss executor! Pylons allow you to warp in units wherever you want on the map! So do warp prisms. Clever pylon placement will help out.
     
  8. Stirlitz

    Stirlitz Member

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    With overlords for supply phoenixes never, ever run short on shooting targets in pvz :p Also graviton beam is boss, with good ff usage you can split the zerg army in 2 and then pick some out of the fight too for some extra advantage, phoenixes are rarely a bad choice :p

    And yeah, I also think that zealot drops are more effective than immortal drops mostly cause immortals are too much of an investment and lings own them...
     
  9. TheWarOwl

    TheWarOwl New Member

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    Oh yes overlord hunting is fun stuff! That actually is a pretty effective way of harassment. Think about it, the zerg usually spreads them out for map control right? The zerg has to tech up to corruptors before they can deal with your pheonixes, since the overlords are all over the place.

    Good thought I forgot about that
     
  10. TheWarOwl

    TheWarOwl New Member

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    lol I just noticed this, why do I have a -1 reputation? haha
     
  11. ijffdrie

    ijffdrie Lord of Spam

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    Probably done by Higgs. He's kinda grumpy, and is known to detract reputation for happiness, claims of psychic powers, conspiracy theories and having good points. We mostly ignore reputation anyway, so no one really cares.
     
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  12. kuvasz

    kuvasz Corrections Officer

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    It wasn't higgs but let's not drift into OTland.

    Also, hunting down creep tumours is a bad way of harassment. You should never do it.
     
  13. Stirlitz

    Stirlitz Member

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    It's not harassment in the actual sense but it does deny the zerg a speed advantage and it's very important to do(also don't forget it denies vision and therefore map control, so one more reason to do it). It's not something you should devote your whole army to do, but if you can spare a couple stalkers it's always good to send them after tumors... Zergs always want to engage on creep so denying it foces them into a more defensive mode(plus it makes flanking, hunting,positioning and surrounding tougher to do)...
    Every P or T pro when playing against Z will push out at times, kill off a few tumors and then back off again to allow for the creep to withdraw, it's quite standard...
     
  14. kuvasz

    kuvasz Corrections Officer

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    Good ole Stir taking things literally as usual.

    Hint: I am a Z.
     
  15. Stirlitz

    Stirlitz Member

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  16. Shaithis

    Shaithis New Member

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    You don't have to "harass," just keep applying pressure with your army to force him to make units instead of powering drones. Go watch some pro replays or VODs to see this in action. In general, your build order vs the common FE zerg should include a FE of your own so that you can keep even with macro.
     
  17. brotosterone

    brotosterone New Member

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    I agree with this.

    Just moving out with your army a lot of the time is GUARANTEED damage. I'm a Zerg and when an opponent moves out, I immediately make units and not workers. All those units made is basically equivalent to killed drones since they are never made.

    Just poke out with your army, take out xelnaga towers, etc. Protoss armies are scary for zerg, so make sure to show aggression.
     
  18. kuvasz

    kuvasz Corrections Officer

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    Already pointed out in #3.
     
  19. brotosterone

    brotosterone New Member

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    I apologize Kuvasz, just reiterating though :)
     
  20. kuvasz

    kuvasz Corrections Officer

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    Don't apologise I have no idea what I was thinking lol.