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How am I supposed to deal with Muta harrass as Protoss? I try building Stalkers to defend my base but they’re too fast, and if I build cannons they just take them out no prob. It’s really a huge problem for me because my probes usually die first, and I can’t catch up.
Here are a couple recent games where I lost to Muta harass:
Steppes of War - SupremeJD vs. Dirtpipe - Replays - SC2Replayed.com
Desert Oasis - Ohdin vs. SupremeJD - Replays - SC2Replayed.com
Help would be much appreciated.
Phoenixes. Perfect for countering mutas and harassing his mineral lines.
game i had about 2 days ago.
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Alright, so I checked out both your replays, and this is what I noticed. Its the same thing I struggled with up until a few weeks ago:
You have an opening in mind, and you stick to it really good; then you fall apart in the mid game because you don’t have a plan.
Just think about one thing when the match is starting: what is my plan? I don’t mean an opening build, I mean what is your general plan? Contain your opponent, Rush him down, turtle up and tech, theres many different general strategies. Then you can narrow that down into a plan: 2 gate Zealot pressure while going 4 warpgates, early stargate to harass, mass blink stalkers, etc. As far as I can tell, your strategy is to build up a bunch of units in your base, and attack about 10 minutes into the game after your first observer gets out.
While it might seem like the Mutas are what killed you, really it was more than that, it was your passiveness in both games. In Game 1, you got your probe into his base (coincidently, you had him in the base but missed that he was building his spawning pool behind his minerals, work on your scouting paths to go behind the minerals vs zerg) and then when it died, you didn’t have any more info on his base until you got your observer out; and by then it was too late to counter what he was doing. In the second game, he all-ins you with a 6 pool (which you defended perfectly) and then you didn’t press your advantage against him, allowing him to catch back up economically.
So basically, you should really work on poking in with zealots early versus zerg. The idea is, zerg doesn’t have the ability like we do to make workers AND fighters at the same time, they have to choose. For every set of zerglings he makes, he’s not making a worker. You can hurt him economically early on by forcing him to make spinecrawlers/zerglings. In the first game, your opponent didn’t make ANY fighting units until his mutas came out, because you didn’t give him a reason to. It’s scary, but don’t be too worried just to poke in and see whats up with his base, look for tech, etc. Zealots are strong, zerglings are weak, you may force him into roaches which means less mutas or slower mutas.
Secondly, if you’re going to cannon up your base like in the second game, ALWAYS protect your workers. You put cannons everywhere except the place where it really matters. Cannons are a deterrent, not an absolute defense, so make sure your stalkers are around to help the cannons out.
Thirdly, work on getting Blink with your stalkers, it helps them fight a lot better against mutas, but its really more advanced and takes quite a bit more APM to be able to pull it off.
Fourth, BUILD MORE WORKERS. Seriously, you need more workers than you have, you stopped at low 20s, it takes 30 workers PER BASE to run at the highest possible output (6 on gas, 24 on minerals). Then when he came in and killed all your workers, you didn’t build any more (even though you had 100 chrono boost saved up) until his second attack took out all your workers. I think this is your biggest downfall, you get complacent with workers because you feel like you have enough money, which brings me to my next suggestion…
Fifth, BUILD MORE FIGHTERS. There were so many times your warpgates sat on cooldown not producing anything, you really need to be warping in stuff as soon as the cooldown is up (Versus mutas, stalkers of course). It seems like you wait until theres 8 mutas attacking, then decide its the time to warp in 3 stalkers to die to them. Had you used your previous 2 cycles of warpgate that went to waste, you’d have 9 at this point to push him away. Also, make sure you warp in the smart units; when you saw he had mutas as his primary army, you countered with zealots; not the best choice since they died harmlessly (well you did do a bit of damage). Had you used stalkers it would be a much different story (3-4 zealots + stalkers is a good mix, not 7-8 zealots and 1 stalker).
Theres a lot of other little things (like you having a group of stalkers on desert oasis just standing there half the game not doing anything), but just try to keep a mental checklist:
- Am I building workers?
- Am I utilizing my warpgates?
- Am I putting pressure on zerg to force them out of their comfort zone?
- Do I know what units my opponent is building?
And I think you’ll do 100% better.
In the replays I posted up a few pages back theres like 2-3 against zerg, you can see how I utilize the putting pressure on your opponent mechanic to use. My brother is a platinum zerg, and I hardly beat him; however I’ll show you how I cannon contained him and won by making him starve to death resource wise.
Metalopolis - RushDownTV vs. ThatGuy - Replays - SC2Replayed.com
Yo, thanks for all those pointers. And yeah, I get lost mid game after I do my opener. I kinda always just wing it mid game.
I’ll download the replay tonight and watch it when I get home from work. Thanks again.
didnt watch the games yet but yea as mecha said phoenixes help. if u every played BW an early phoenix acts like a corsair that harasses OL’s and possibly more importantly, gets very good scouting in early game, to figure out wut tech z is going. sentry’s do a decent job too, but their a bit gas entensive and their range isnt too good. but they work great vs lings and FF is a must in pvz.
also useing phoenix’s are LOL. when they do move shots and do insanely quick 180’s. so friggin funny 
This actually helped me out alot too thanks…
I’ve been killing ladder players again and I think I have the rust off. Any SRKers down for some matches tonight? I’m going to be on around 9 PM central.
What is early-game, mid-game, and late-game exactly? Is there a definite time?
I’m guessing:
Early - first push/under 30 supply
Mid - after securing first/second expansion
Late - everything else?
Also, can I warp it more than four units at a time? Like if I have 8 warpgates, can I warp in 8 units all at once?
hell yeah you can!
put that warp prism in their main and start warping in shitloads of units into their base!
although i have never been able to abuse that cause my games usually end before then (usually in a horrific loss lol)
Early game = If both players are playing standard then early game will entail early tech with small forces. At this stage of the game 2-3 marines or 1-2 zealots or 4-6 zerglings extra or under can really define the game. This goes into marauders/stalkers but mid game is more easily defined by…
Mid game = You’re either committing to early tech by now (4 gate push, MM ball, speedling/roach build), pushing for later tech (twilight council, starport, hydralisk/mutalisk), or maintaining an economic foot hold with a well saturated expansion. Please note that just placing an expansion down doesn’t necessarily define mid game, especially for zerg. Actually having the expansion running close to full capacity is a better determiner.
Late game = You can expect to see big armies, late tech, and multiple bases for both players. At this point of the game the player with the better macro management skills will tend to win assuming they managed to stay roughly even until that point.
You can warp in as many units at a time as you have warp gates assuming you have the cash to blow. The reason 4 gate is so popular is because if you’re devoting yourself to the push then you probably won’t be able to fund more than 4 warp gates off of one base. Most toss players don’t add on extra gates until they have expansions flowing in a healthy fashion and they’ll probably get robo facility/stargate/twilight council before that.
Speaking of warpgates, anyone else have trouble warping stuff online? I have trouble clicking the right spots for some reason, and since I spam I eventually deselect the warp gates which leads to more lost time.
Can I get a cloaked unit that attacks for the zerg PLEASE!!! And can I get an early unit that attacks BOTH AIR AND GROUND UNITS!!!
Everyone asks for our ‘unit that attacks while invisible’ as if we need it. Think about burrow for a few seconds. In strictly offensive play it’s not as powerful as being able to initiate cloak or being permanently cloaked…but it does apply to every single Zerg ground unit. Hellions harassing your drones? Burrow them. Need a scout everywhere? Send a ling in whatever direction and burrow it. You can even use auto cast on unburrow for banelings to turn them into mines. Burrow is extremely effective and we don’t need a dark templar/ghost like unit.
Allright I caved in and bought it. Name is Forgenjuro code 208 I suck royally heh
Never played a RTS competitively. How can I practice to get my macro up? That is the biggest problem for me.
Macro? Keep building shit, and watch this video:
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burrow with benglings is great fun
Not sure if I have posted this here yet, but this channel is really helpful:
Dude forgen we need to get some games in. I’m pretty terribad at this game. Just like old L4D times…