I cant beat protoss as zerg because of the freaking psystorm

[B~E]

\cry\



Any advices, other than the usual "produce many times more units than him" and "move out of the way"?

As a zerg, I rely a lot on the ability to drop a massive amount of units at once, but it only take a single templar to reduce a drop of 24 hydralisk to nothing much. So even a protoss expend guarded by 4 or 5 canons and a single templar become extremly costly and difficult to take.

How do you people do it? Is it worth it to pump out upgraded queens to match his production of templars? After all, if the broodling ability cost more, queens are a bit cheaper, and more manoeuvrable and come earlier in the tech tree. Also, they're still usefull with the parasite and ensnare.

[Laharl]

Queens are always good support units, and are therefore always worth producing. Especially against Protoss as they have no way to get rid of the parasite besides the death of the unit.

And protoss units are always moderately costly. Epecially late game.

And the broodling to destroy their templar might offset the loss in ground troops. I'd also invest in a guard or two.

[B~E]

Guards arent manoeuvrable enough to escape psystorm, and can be easily countered with corsairs. You'd need a good ratio of hyfra\guardians, and very good micro skills to make sure the guardians dont die from the psystorm.

Otherwise, yeah, gardians are good. I've ben adviced to produce them gradualy, in batches of 2, to protect my base from drops, and only use them when I have 8-10, as a suprise.

[ZzMayhemzZ]

ensnare then plague them then rush em!
ultras work good vs templars because of their high hps

if your in the early game and dont have ultras or defilers.. send some men from one side then send the rest in from the other... If there's only 1 templar they are screwed

It also depends on how many men you will be using..
you said 1 temp can ravage 24 hydras.. split em up in groups of 8

send in 3 waves of 8.. in 3 diff directions at once... the templar can't kil em all

[B~E]

Well, in Lost temple, I usualy move my hydras with overlords, so that sort of complicate things.

Maybe I should rethink my strategy.

[Renzokuken]

Just micro your hydra's away from an incoming storm. And don't send 24 at once otherwise they all just bunch up. HT's are very expensive, 150 gas is a lot, plus the 200m/200g to learn psionic storm. I guess you could use queens but i reckon your money is better spent elsewhere.

I wouldn't bother with guardians. Muta's are more versatile. You're basically spending money to make your unit slower and only attack ground. Sounds like a waste of money to me. Keep your Muta's, they are excellent at harassing. If they counter with Corsairs (They should build a few for Overlord hunting anyway) just move them around with Hydra's.

[Chris]

Plus the fact Templar are instakilled by Queen Spawn Broodlings, that is a good way to deal with the threat off the bat. Just make sure you split your forces a bit so that Psi storm does miniscule damage as possible. Once the templar gets attacked, its game over for it.

Also, don't burrow in plain sight, or the enemy will have a reason to Psi Storm. And you can't escape it then, because you would be fried by the time you start moving (12 dps).

I agree with Renzo with regards to Mutas. The only reason I ever saw using guards is to bomb Photon Cannons without risking ultra HP or other units. After that, mostly for ground control or do deal with Reavers, even though Mutas can solve that problem easy.

[Vadriel]

I'd say use Guardians (2-3) in a feint to draw out the HT's. You'll probably lose your guardians, but while your opponent's busy worrying about them you can be dropping Hydras on the opposite end of their base.

A strategy that's less costly on the upper tier units is to just spam a couple dozen Zerglings for your diversionary attack. They spawn quickly and are cheap, and the masses of them is almost too much for a charged HT to resist. If any survive, they only help your Hydras demolish the base.

[Renzokuken]

Who feints Guardians? Seriously. They are too expensive to be used as bait. Waste. Of. Money.

[Vadriel]

I usually have a few to spare anyways...but yeah, hence the "Zergling" substitute?

[ZzMayhemzZ]

well whatever units are used.. it comes down to micro-ing..
micro-ing(microing?) means to use a small group of units up to a large group of units,(You can micro a whole army if your really good...altho you will have some casualties)
to attack and dodge... basically.. using spells and range to your advantage. In this case, you will essentially be making tactical kills while dodging area of affect spells. Add a few zealots, Archons and reavers to the mix, or a carrier, and the job is a little tougher.

When the enemy (or enemies) FOLLOW you.. since they are locked on...
they are in attack move mode.. but you manually target to hit them before they hit you..

In your case, (in the early game, you probably wont have spells) so you split up your forces into 2 groups.. and attack from 2 sides.. force the computer templar or 2 to choose where to defend.. then run rampant with the other group.. Most computer toss have 2-5 spread out cannons so they wont kill very many men in the templar killing process

The temps have limited energy for storm.. and you can kill the temp while he is storming the other group..

If this is a UMS game... their might be more toss men or more cannons.. in that case.. might wanna wait til you have more lings and hydras to rush in before your hydras, or wait to learn spells.

[Chris]

Zerglings are better bait if you want to bait a person to using Psi Storm Vad. Plus if their speeds are increased and the enemy is slow in response, you might be able to direct attack the templar before they let off a Storm. The only way Guards would be useful is if yo umanage to pick off the HT before he gets into range, and there isnt more than one.

Carriers are also slow attackers. Even with Interceptors, they can only target one person at a time. With enough cheap numbers of any form of AA (except Valks, they would only be good in shooting down Corsairs and Scouts), you can pretty much decimate Carriers.

[Vadriel]

My main reason for Guardians is that they have that amazing range. They can pop off at some photon cannons, withdraw, and then sometimes peg the HT before it gets a good shot in. Also, nobody just sits and lets Guardians snipe their base...Guardians guarantee reaction.

But yeah, as far as expendability and cost go, Zerglings are better if the diversion area is hittable by land.

[Chris]

Yeah, but once Guardians are directly attacked, they won't survive long. And thats the problem with using slow, but powerful units, thier speed is a liability.

[B~E]

Originally Posted by Vadriel

My main reason for Guardians is that they have that amazing range. They can pop off at some photon cannons, withdraw, and then sometimes peg the HT before it gets a good shot in. Also, nobody just sits and lets Guardians snipe their base...Guardians guarantee reaction.

But yeah, as far as expendability and cost go, Zerglings are better if the diversion area is hittable by land.

So I had time to practice since I made this thread, and I found that I could match my opponent's production of tanks and templare with queens. It works more often than not. Also, queens have a very high survivability rate; they're very hard to kill, and with the parasite ability, they provide invaluable scouting.

Actualy, I find them more useful than gardian, when dealing with tanks and templars. Against zerg, though, they're useless. I've never really tried the web ability aniway.

[Vadriel]

Ensnare is next to useless imo. Slower movespeed just doesn't match the other abilities in energy efficiency.

And I don't know where you've been saying they're tough to kill...I smack every queen that comes in my base...

[Executor Keldain]

Use the Queen's spawn broodling to pop the HT's like they were zits and have to broodlings go to work on any other HT's. Do a split drop with Hydras, oh and use my famous tactic of Overlord Overload. Build alot of extra Overlords and send them in first to disguise your attack, then come from a different direction with your main force mixed with another group of Overlords, Drop mass Hydras, GG.

Betcha didn't know I knew how to play Zerg eh Vad?

[B~E]

Originally Posted by Vadriel

Ensnare is next to useless imo. Slower movespeed just doesn't match the other abilities in energy efficiency.

And I don't know where you've been saying they're tough to kill...I smack every queen that comes in my base...

They're fast flying units that can strike from any direction. Once spawnbroodling is casted, the other player doesnt have the time to react to send whatever ground units he has against the queen.

You and I need to play. T_T

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Vadriel

Ensnare is next to useless imo. Slower movespeed just doesn't match the other abilities in energy efficiency.

Are you serious? Ensare is probably one of the better debuffs of the game. Reveals cloaked units, slow movespeed allows you to pick offf retreaters, or to slow down to the advanace of faster and deadly units like Ultras or Zealots. It is an underhanded way to turn the tides in the right hands.

The only way you can stop a Queen is with Air or the ground units that are not targeted and way outside of range of Broodlings can stop it. But that chances of that situation are slim, so I have to agree with B~E.

[Vadriel]

I'm sorry, but most of the time I'm Toss, there are cannons at my ground choke points and goons at the borders anyways by the time I do HTs...if I EVER do HTs...so Queens generally don't get in unmolested unless they waste their valuable one-shot of Broodling on one of my goons. Anybody with half decent defense doesn't have to worry about Queens.

And Chris, if you don't have other ways of dealing with that sorta thing, then you're lacking in development. Like Lurker defense to turn advancing ground units into Swiss cheese. Sentry overlords floating around with a Zergling in them to deter Ghost launches. Guardians for retreating ground units.

Zerg works best as a complete hive, but I rarely ever build Queens. I'm just not good at using em. They usually end up getting chased around by Scouts or Wraiths until they finally croak...and I got what? One parasite out of the building cost and one larva wasted that could have been a Hydralisk?

But then, I'm really not very good at Zerg. Usually I build outrageous D on money maps and swarm 8 groups of Guardians, then do a holocaust. It takes a great player to survive 64 Guardians coming at their base from every angle, even if I lose half of them in the process...I'm always spawning a new batch at home base...

Honestly, I'm only a moderately decent player regardless. I prefer to do a 2h v 6c battle with a buddy on a moneymap...I'm really not much for pvp at all in just about any game I play.