If I played 500 PvZs, id lose 450.
If I played 500 PvTs, id win 400
If I played 500 PvPs, id win 400.
See the pattern?
Time and time again, I keep losing PvZ. Ive tried Team Liquid, but they can not help me at all.
So I turn to SEN. Can anyone here please explain PvZ?
Thanks

I'm not the best person to be answering this, and may get shot down by bedazed or ex. Anyway, assuming you don't play a VERY high level,

When you scout Z's base, if they are teching, you have time to tech as well. But, if they are going for a rush, then you want zlots out quick. You don't need many to stop a zling rush, unless the Z has pro micro or you have terrible micro.

Make sure you learn to use storm effectively. It raeps Z. Archons around your workers are good for stopping mutalisk attacks. Goons suck against zlings, so always go zlots if Z uses mass zlings.
Z can expo lightning fast, use your scout probe to start building a pylon where he would normally place his expo hatch if a drone comes out to the expo. Cancel it before it finishes being built.

Feel free to ignore me/shoot me down.

I'm assuming you know the general pvz build orders? If so, you just need to get used to using them, so that they become second nature. There are plenty of ways to combat z with p, and there are a lot of replays of great pvz games at the iccup site. Check them out here: http://www.iccup.com/starcraft/replays.html

Just get the build orders you want to use down well, and then work from there. Look for really good reps, with higher level players, so that you can see the proper way to start the game off.

My favorite build orders are forge fast expansion, and 2 gate fast expansion. From there I like to pop off a few corsairs and try to harass and slow down the zerg player as quickly as possible. Don't build more than a few dragoons, unless you know mutas are coming; you should be getting a good amount of zealots juxtapose to dragoon numbers. Psi storm is a must, and reavers can be extremely useful, so it's usually a good idea to get at least a reaver or two along with a shuttle. Archons in the later parts of the game are very very useful, especially if you just used your templars' energy on storms.

Whatever you do, don't let in a rush of lings to your base early in the game -but that's extremely basic, and you probably know this

If you see the enemy z player start massing sunken colonies in their natural expansion early in the game, just smile, because they gave you a free expo

During the game, keep scouting. Try to put pressure all over the map, try to force the z player to spread out his forces, don't let him focus on one area of the map if he has 3 expos. If you see an unprotected expansion owned by the enemy, put pressure on it -or destroy it.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 5 2009, 10:26 pm by CecilSunkure.

That really helped Cecil - thanks.

The only problem is what to do when I get contained by Hydra and Lurkers.

Obs plus high templars or DTs, is my guess.

SEN has no good melee players.

Lies.
I'm a C- Zerg who is just lazy.
I like to be left alone by protoss until I get my hydralisks out, so you should do the opposite of that when vsing zerg.

I used to be a C Terran, but now that I haven't played for several months- I am probably really noob atm. <_< Oh, and Koltz and a few other korean members on SEN were B- to B+, which is pretty good for any non-pro.

Little bit of an idea on WHERE your losing out would help.

Start game.

This should be easy by now, zerglings dont outspeed your probe, so you should know what build the zerg is going if you can, alalalala.

If hes going hydras, youll want storm and speedlots, accompanied by goons.
He comes at you with his army, you rush at him with speedlots, as he retreats, storm the back of his army/however far back you can.
Either the Z gets owned by storm or faces your zlots, or in cases of poor micro, both.

This also transitions well into archons, which can be nice for a push.

If hes going mutas, you want sairs faster. Dont build too many, as he can just switch to hydra relatively quickly and take them down.
Use sairs for pseudo-map control, scouting out his ovies and expos, and killing them asap.

Those are two main build counters, im short of time else i would explain more/add more mid game stuff etc...

Woudl like to know where you tend to lose out though.

DON'T ONE BASE AGAINST ME IT ANGERS ME! AJKSDKJKSfjKD

Do you like FE? Because I love FE. It's a really popular choice against many Zs.

Psi storm will cut through hydralisks, and do pretty decently against lurkers. To counter a lurker rush, just place a couple photon cannons. Keep a mix of archons, high templars, zealots, observers, and a reaver or two. If you can get an army like that, all you have to do is win a war of attrition against the z player by not allowing them to gain expo positions. During pvz, the z player is supposed to try to keep at least one more expo than the p player. If you are in a pvz and you can keep an equal expo to expo ratio, then you are winning.

Just make sure that your main force in any army you create is zealots, with the speed upgrade of course.

Early on, it's probably a good idea to upgrade your units' ground weapons, reaver damage, psi storm//HT energy, and dragoon range.

If the enemy z player isn't very good, try to micro out his lurkers with reavers and psi storms. I use reavers against lurkers and hydralisks all the time. Just makes sure not to lose your reavers to a swarm of hydralisks or something -which is what the shuttle is for; to keep the reavers safe, and move them around fast.

If you wanted, you could even make a practice map with a z army, and a p army, and then take turns using the protoss with another melee playing friend.

Don't go for scouts to fish out lurkers; extremely expensive and ineffective at doing so.

@Ex We should melee together sometime, I enjoy meleeing

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 7 2009, 5:48 pm by CecilSunkure.

I think theres an abundunce of them...

Oh, and I love to melee too! <_< I mean, even if I haven't played for months- if I could play for fun for a few rounds, that'd be great.

I need help with Sair/DT. Anyone care to give advice?

For fast Corsair, you mean? I think the formula is something like this:

6 Pylon
8 Gateway
10 Assimilator
11 Cybernetics Core
13 StarGate
13/14 Corsair

Not sure on that, though. Don't take my word for it.

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Bisu_Build
and
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Protoss_Fast_Expand_Forge_Walling

Should be plenty good until C- level. You can also win games just because you're Protoss by slipping a DT in and ending his workers without any notifications.

Well, I'd still say normal way of beating Zs should be better than Sair/DT because Sair/DT is actually a really high level strategy that requires precise timing.

It doesn't really take timing... you just have to avoid hydras and don't stop building corsairs. When you punch a hole through his overlords, send in DT's.

Sairs aren't all they great. They are just good against morons and noobs, and can throw off those professional macro maniacs who play by the book all game. All the enemy has to do is make a couple hydras, and you'll start losing sairs fast. When I actually do make a sair, I usually don't make more than about 3, because the enemy starts countering them. The goal of the sairs isn't to cripple to opponent (if you can do this with sairs, by all means do it), it's to harass and throw off the opponents methodical macro. Constant pressure on an enemy is a very good thing, especially in multiple places -it allows you to stay in control.

About dark templars.. That's a terrible thing to rely on, without proper scouting. You should never just go for a specialized strategy during a 1v1 without prior scouting. The best thing to do, is to scout, judge what your enemy is most likely to do, and then plan to counter that. You should go sairs//dts when it will be effective, as sairs and dts are just going to be a bit easy to play against, especially early game due to the lack of vespene on the protoss side.

No, I've always found that DT and sair take precise timing or ovie upgrades and spore along with a massive army of dras will always fuck you up. Its also because DT and sair is a double tech, which means it takes more gas for you then it does for Z, strategically speaking. Plus, if you did want to go faster, then you might have your nat taken off by hydra rush.