[CCJester]

G'day to all.
Thought id throw out a little issue ive been having and some ways i have come up with to maybe combat it but really looking for some input.

The Issue
In PvZ, seemingly since the patch, the infestor has been a much more predominant unit in PvZ. While using a relatively standard PvZ build, being Collosus, Stalker, sentry, with a few zealots for good measure i have been having a massive problem with dealing with Neural Parasite, in a heavy roach build, stealing my colossus and melting my ground force.

Some Initial Assumptions
1. The engagement does not occur in a tight choke.
2. Supply counts are either both maxed or roughly even
3. Both sentries and Infestors have energy
4. I dont want to make overhauling changes to my build in order to overcome this issue

First Attempts to Overcome
- I tried using blink stalkers to blink in and kill off the infestors and while this worked the same problem occured in that i lost a large portion of my ground force and eventually got rolled.
- I tried to get high templar for feedback but the sheer range of neural parasite made this almost impossible to get off before neural happened.

Current thoughts
I have currently been experimenting with adding a few phoenix to my mix when i see infestor tech in order to lift them during and before the engagement and it has been working relatively well but a well placed fungal or if there are a number of hydra's i seem to struggle.

Conclusion
While phoenix seem to be helping (sort of) the game feels to much of a dice roll on whether he hits that crucial fungal or not.

Thoughts? Opinions? Ideas?

Quick Comments

	holyforker:	yes, toss is so hard to play now :(
	Saturn:	Thanks for this

[PiG]

HT all the way. Same range as fungal with faster cast speed just make sure your HT are on a separate hotkey and get used to sending lone HT out front to zap them! It's tricky so practice with a ffriend till you get good at it

[Silver Pharaoh]

Maybe have an obs to scout where the infestors out. When engaging, send your army first followed by HTs so that HTs don't suicide themselves to the roaches.

[CCJester]

Thanks guys, but how do you combat the range of neural parasite? I mean HT are great for picking off ones that venture too far forward, but i cant seem to get them close enough without taking fire from the roaches.

[PiG]

Hmm pulling back your collossus a little using. all 9 range will mean infestors need to reach the front line of battle where they are vulnerable. with ff they can't reach your collossus without dieing. unless u have 50 roaches right on top of your army in which case neural is the least of your troubles.

[PiG]

neural range is 9

[ToRXypha]

What pig said, out range the parasite forcing the infestors to the front then snipe em

[CCJester]

sounds so simple but its something i havnt been doing so thanks very much...
what do you think of phoenix play?

[PiG]

pheonix r hard to use they are more for countering mutas and early game timings then anything else.

[Next_rim]

Use colossus range to draw them closer, then either feedback or focus fire.

[holyforker]

i've been trying to practice blink stalker micro to kill infestors now, not just blindly blink all of course, but just blink like 4 to the side and snipe infestors. it's more micro intensive but if you can pull it off it works wonders!

[Next_rim]

On a side note, I play carriers and shit on infestors

[maximusPrime]

I've had some issues with this too but I think the best solution is good FF's. If you cut the roaches in half with your sentries the infestors should only have range to neural your stalkers...which is pointless. Step back your collosi so they only attack the front pack of roaches that cant move away because of the FF's. The only way they are able to get their infestors close enough is to have them at the front of their army and if they are their just focus fire down the infestors.

Blink stalkers are unreliable for neutralising neural parasite because if they throw down some fungals on your stalkers they aren't able to blink forward. Sentries and FF's are always a must have against zerg IMO. Facing the mass amount off units that zerg players have is just ridiculous you need to pick where you want to face their army correctly and then cut that army in half and deal with it in small sections. Work at their army bit by bit until you can face up against the remainder of their army. I always try to have about 9 sentries out at all times when i play zerg

[Xeen]

Originally Posted by PiG

HT all the way. Same range as fungal with faster cast speed just make sure your HT are on a separate hotkey and get used to sending lone HT out front to zap them! It's tricky so practice with a ffriend till you get good at it

Yes.

If Zerg wants to put gas into Infestors, put gas into templar, and go into a more immortal/ht/archon lategame mix rather than stalker/colo/sentry.

[mR.bONG789]

use feedback, send like 4 stalkers and a ht foward to snipe off infestors, if he just attacks with his units then blink out and hit him again afther the cooldown (or just storm your stalkers he sends lings), if he fungles you then feedback his shit. if he neurals your ht just blink foward and snipe his infestors.

[pikk0n]

the unit composition from xeen seems stronger and more reliable because so far, it seems that the issue is dealing with infestor roach. What I am more worried about are the bane drops + fungal onto your deathball which seems to be almost impossible to deal with if you have a standard stalker, sentry and colo army.....

[Bielsko]

HTs are just bad compared to infestors. Phoenix's and good forcefields are the best counter to infestors. A soft counter is hallucination but that takes away a lot of possible forcefields.

Against a good player storm will do max 50 damage (unless its hydra heavy) it is only worth it really late game when zerg has +3 armor otherwise collosus is a much better choice not only coz there's more damage but you don't have to rely on chokes and there is much less micro.

Why feedback isn't a good counter to infestors: fungal growth has range 9+2 (because of the extra AOE) and feedback has range 9. This would be alright if high templar were the same speed or cost a lot less, but they only cost 50 minerals less and are almost half the speed when on creep. This match-up is a lot like stalkers vs marines, although the marines can get lucky when the player with the stalker isn't watching, but technically the stalkers can't die to marines when used correctly.

The only way to use feedback effectively is with an observer and sneak up on idle infestors but there is only a certain number of times you can do this before the zerg responds with a creep tumor/overlord or fungals your observer.

[Azure]

Sounds like is mainly micro related them anything else.
With all thing's it takes practice HT can destroy infestors it just takes micro

on the other end of the stick it is actually pretty hard to use Neural Parasite on colossus due to them having range 9 (infestors die to quickly) if they keep the colossus behind there army it is almost impossible to get a Neural Parasite to stick for more then a couple seconds for that reason i normally just use fungal.

with force fields blink stalkers and micro you should be ok

[ZergGirl]

I dunno what's best. HT don't bother me, phoenix really don't bother me either but a little collo wiggle (micro back and forth etc) with FF and blink stalkers ruins my day many times

If both armies are maxxed you should be quite fine with your current unit comp though, I find 4+ collo are when I QQ and die if i'm playing stupid. (any other number is 'meh')

[Bielsko]

It doens't take micro to kill infestors with HTs, it takes luck or a lack of skill from the zerg player. As I said above HTs move at half the speed and have less range than fungal... Once a fungal hits any unit it is forced into a stop command hence feedback has to be reissued if the templar got fungal'd which is unnecessary apm because the infestors won't be on high energy anymore after fungalling.

[duanloves]

Assuming that you scouted that the zerg is going infestors, start to harass the mineral line with your unit of choice. I would go warp prisms and warp in zealots or dts and try to do as much damage as possible. During that tech to HT and research storm.
That would force the zerg to be turtle and remake economy or to push out. Make sure you have an obs to see army movement.
In the big engagements seperate your HT from your main army and try using the range advantage to feedback infestors. It would generally kill the infestors straight.
If the zerg has a really high infestor count it would be more cost effective and quicker to storm infestors as they clump up then to feedback by one unless you are have insane feedback micro.
Go watch vods of dreamhack HuK vs Moon and how he handles ling infestor ultras

[Digby]

lol, the way i deal with alot of festors is just to mix in some dts, like to the side so they dont get fungalled, then I jst snipe em with dts, the higher energy ones preferably, or ffs.

[porkchop]

i dont know if this works for u but , ever since ive watched MC's air play , i go , immortal/void/lots , with legs.. i believe that a maxed out army , 5 voids and around 8 immortals, and lots, regardless if its wide open or choke , is very winnable, just use the voids to target down the infestors, and be weary of hydras, but they normally dont have much hydras , if they go infestors, then you could transtion to stalkers and colosi , or acron zealots.

ive been winning using MC's build , its fun to , you get map control .,

[ProAnnn]

Originally Posted by porkchop

i dont know if this works for u but , ever since ive watched MC's air play , i go , immortal/void/lots , with legs.. i believe that a maxed out army , 5 voids and around 8 immortals, and lots, regardless if its wide open or choke , is very winnable, just use the voids to target down the infestors, and be weary of hydras, but they normally dont have much hydras , if they go infestors, then you could transtion to stalkers and colosi , or acron zealots.

ive been winning using MC's build , its fun to , you get map control .,

Infestor hydras will pwn this build. MC is good because he reacts to what his opponent and dont go for 1 unit composition.

[Nemo]

PvZ is not really my realm, but I think a lot of HT with storm in your mix would do the trick. I've just watched Destiny getting destroyed on a very long game on Teld'arim by a Toss Army with sick number of storm. A zerg army can't deal with 5 or 6 consecutive storms, infestors or not. That was very impressive. But the real Battle was on macro. The Korean Master could (ChessPlayer http://www.sc2ranks.com/kr/2546331/ChessPlayer if I remember correctly) afford that much HT because he had half the map and Destiny was on the back foot the whole game. He had a lot of stalkers too in his mix.

Destiny's style is infestor heavy. You never see him make a single muta.

[Next_rim]

A zerg army can't deal with 5 or 6 consecutive storms

Burrowed roaches regen almost as fast as storm damages them. That's the reason I never play HT in PvZ. If zerg see HT, they just switch to roaches, and HT storm becomes useless.

[iM tgun]

Originally Posted by Next_rim

Burrowed roaches regen almost as fast as storm damages them. That's the reason I never play HT in PvZ. If zerg see HT, they just switch to roaches, and HT storm becomes useless.

I don't know, forcing a whole asrmy to be burrowed and useless sounds like a useful ability.

[Next_rim]

They don't just sit there, they move away underground while not taking damage, and HT energy is wasted. And if you overextend while chasing, you get fungaled from behind the roach line. If you build HT - better build them vs infestors and feedback em' infestors. Or storm efficiently on hydra or muta. If zerg wants to tank storms, can easily add burrowed roaches to the army. I bet they would be already available, zerg always build that emergency roach warren in the beginning.

[PiG]

Originally Posted by Next_rim

They don't just sit there, they move away underground while not taking damage, and HT energy is wasted. And if you overextend while chasing, you get fungaled from behind the roach line. If you build HT - better build them vs infestors and feedback em' infestors. Or storm efficiently on hydra or muta. If zerg wants to tank storms, can easily add burrowed roaches to the army. I bet they would be already available, zerg always build that emergency roach warren in the beginning.

Storm is very good against roaches, even with burrow movement forcing units to burrow during combat is ridiculously good. Not to mention they only heal at half the rate of the storm dps.

You're making the mistake of taking an experience where a vastly superior army beat you because you didn't have enough units and using it as evidence that Storm is bad against roaches. In fact it's friggin beastly against roaches. You just can't rely on a lone ability to win you a battle.

What you may be trying to say is that you can't use only a small gateway based army and rely on just a few HT to win you battles. You need heavy blinkstalker, immortal or collossus support, or ALOT of storm. But preferably you need to force the roaches into a corner or stop them from being able to run.

[x5.Revenant]

Originally Posted by KayJ

It doens't take micro to kill infestors with HTs, it takes luck or a lack of skill from the zerg player. As I said above HTs move at half the speed and have less range than fungal... Once a fungal hits any unit it is forced into a stop command hence feedback has to be reissued if the templar got fungal'd which is unnecessary apm because the infestors won't be on high energy anymore after fungalling.

Sidenote:
Feedbacks are 9 range, whilst FG is 7(Despite liquipedia stating both FG and NP are 9, test it out and you'll see.) (:

Back to topic, normally you wouldnt want to blink all your stalkers in, to pick off infestors. An optimal of around 5 stalkers would be sufficient to blink in and pick off at least 1-2 infestors before dying.

[AxSGRiM]

I watched HuK do this and what he does is just target fire the infestors with the collosus, and then use HT later game. When he goes Broodlords just get some voidrays added to the mix and archons if he goes for more ultras.

[Bielsko]

Originally Posted by Revenant

Sidenote:
Feedbacks are 9 range, whilst FG is 7(Despite liquipedia stating both FG and NP are 9, test it out and you'll see.) (:

I tested it myself, Feedback has 9 range but Fungal growth has 9 range and +2 because it is AOE so it has 11 range. You should test it out, easiest way is to order a feedback on the infestor then use fungal growth when HT is in the AOE just outside the max range of fungal, then you will see how broken the infestor vs ht match up is....

[x5.Revenant]

Originally Posted by KayJ

I tested it myself, Feedback has 9 range but Fungal growth has 9 range and +2 because it is AOE so it has 11 range. You should test it out, easiest way is to order a feedback on the infestor then use fungal growth when HT is in the AOE just outside the max range of fungal, then you will see how broken the infestor vs ht match up is....

I'm pretty sure FG's initial cast range is 7, as fungal growth never comes out before a HT's feedback lands. :] But hey, I may be wrong. Just speaking from experience. ^^

[Bielsko]

You Tube

You Tube

I did the test for you

Quick Comments

	Nemo:	That's impressive work ! Thanks greatly for the good job.
	Maynarde:	Nicely done man :)

[PiG]

Originally Posted by KayJ

I tested it myself, Feedback has 9 range but Fungal growth has 9 range and +2 because it is AOE so it has 11 range. You should test it out, easiest way is to order a feedback on the infestor then use fungal growth when HT is in the AOE just outside the max range of fungal, then you will see how broken the infestor vs ht match up is....

Broken? Feedback costs only 50 energy and will usually kill the infestors outright. On the other hand it takes 3 fungal growths (225 energy) to kill a HT. Also the zerg have fewer ranged units as they don't have blinkstalkers or collossus, they have to wait for broods to actually outrange the HT's whereas infestors are very snipeable.

That being said I'm not saying that its favoured one way or the other but it certainly isn't broken. Infestors are a great unit but so are HT. If you spread out your HT's and they have to cast fungals just to keep the lone HT out of range then you're already getting your moneys worth just by wasting the infestors energy. It is a micro battle usually where the HT charge straight into battle all spread out and the infestors run away fungalling trying to stop them getting in range.

The zerg units have to be manually told to focus down the low-threat HT's before the infestors can join the battle. If the zerg doesn't do this he loses all his infestors in the blink of an eye.

In my experience the best shot the zerg has is neural parasiting high energy HT's and feedbacking all the other HT's.

Generally speaking just a few HT's in an army can largely negate the effect of a large number of infestors. It is definitely not "broken" in the favour of infestors.

[ke_ivan]

Not my area either, but HuK said Phoenix openings are good for everything. Kinda forces hydras and queens - and then go templar/stalker/sentry/colossus! Okay nvm, don't listen to me.

[Bielsko]

100 energy to kill a HT sounds good to me, 1 infested terran then fungal. Seeing as the zerg psionic storm upgrade gives you extra energy instead. If you think about it you don't even need to fungal just use enough infested terran to get below 80hp.

The only reason infestors have the stun ability is because zerg has low ranged units. Just spread your attacking units, like you suggested to the slow moving HTs.

I don't think you can say the HT vs Infestor match-up is not broken with a straight face. EVERY statistic is better, it all comes down to lack of skill from the zerg player for HTs to do anything to infestors. Greater range, much faster speed, moving burrow, detection, no friendly-fire, ability to control units that cost 3x as much as the infestor, and even greater damage in most cases vs armoured. (As storm is easily dodged by speed roaches which will end up doing about 40 damage.)

In the sc2 help menu, it says that HTs are the counter to infestors but that just is not true.

[mGGDaedalus]

KayJ HT are great against infestors, I don't know what you're talking about. If you leave all of your HT in a clump and they all get hit by the same fungal that's really an error on your part. Feedback doesn't even need to be targeted, you can just click the minimap and it will auto target the nearest infestor. It's just a matter of good positioning. As for colossus based armies, they are not the best choice against infestor ling styles of zerg armies because of NP, take xeen's advice.

[PiG]

Originally Posted by KayJ

100 energy to kill a HT sounds good to me, 1 infested terran then fungal. Seeing as the zerg psionic storm upgrade gives you extra energy instead. If you think about it you don't even need to fungal just use enough infested terran to get below 80hp.

The only reason infestors have the stun ability is because zerg has low ranged units. Just spread your attacking units, like you suggested to the slow moving HTs.

I don't think you can say the HT vs Infestor match-up is not broken with a straight face. EVERY statistic is better, it all comes down to lack of skill from the zerg player for HTs to do anything to infestors. Greater range, much faster speed, moving burrow, detection, no friendly-fire, ability to control units that cost 3x as much as the infestor, and even greater damage in most cases vs armoured. (As storm is easily dodged by speed roaches which will end up doing about 40 damage.)

In the sc2 help menu, it says that HTs are the counter to infestors but that just is not true.

I'm starting to question whether you're trolling...

1) Infested terrans can't be used to snipe HT, that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

2)
"Seeing as the zerg psionic storm upgrade gives you extra energy instead. If you think about it you don't even need to fungal just use enough infested terran to get below 80hp."

This point made no sense. Please clarify what you mean.

3) "The only reason infestors have the stun ability is because zerg has low ranged units. Just spread your attacking units, like you suggested to the slow moving HTs."

How is this supposed to stop feedback? It's a targetable spell not area of effect.

4) "EVERY statistic is better" Except for the fact that as I mentioned in my previous posts feedback destroys infestors.

I agree Infestors get "moving burrow, detection(I assume you mean by fungal), no friendly-fire, ability to control units that cost 3x as much as the infestor". Nonetheless feedback instantly destroys infestors so they are easily zoned out of battles by HT/collossus.

5) Storm does more DPS then fungal so whilst a lone storm in a battle can be dodged the damage potential of storm is still much greater.

Overall you are clearly have some anger from losing to infestors but if you want to persist in trying to theorycraft that HT suck and infestors rule then I'd really love to atleast know what league you are in.

[Next_rim]

PiG,

Do you have any good replays vs HT?

Not that I care, my style in PvZ is far from HT. Far from ground, actually, as I play mommaships and heavy air, and never have problems with infestors. But methinks real replays is what we need.

[Bielsko]

1) The only effective way of using HT is streaming them in (1 by 1) and sniping infestors using an obs, if the zerg player sees this happening they can drop 1 infested terran then fungal and the HT will die. Putting HTs within your army will make them clump after a short distance because of their speed difference.

2) Let me clarify, the upgrade we need to actually use our AOE costs more than the upgrade Zerg gets for extra energy, because fungal growth doesn't have an upgrade requirement, pathogen glands is essentially the psionic storm upgrade. Feedback does damage equal to the units energy, therefore keeping your infestors (which have 80hp) at 75 energy enough for 1 fungal each will ensure they survive even if they somehow get hit by feedback.

3) Fungal outranges feedback AND infestors are faster, there is no way a feedback should hit an infestor. I was suggesting to spread your roaches etc. against storm, which should be much easier to do because they move a lot faster than HTs (against fungal).

4) I just illustrated in that youtube video above that at high level feedback should never hit. If the 2 units were the same speed (at least off creep) then fine but not only are infestors faster but fungal growth also outranges feedback, so technically the only way for feedback to hit is if zerg gets really sloppy or they get choked somewhere.

5) I disagree, (assuming it is a high level game) although storm does 20 dps and fungal does 8 dps/12 dps armoured, fungal is guaranteed 36/48 damage and storm is guaranteed 20 and maybe 40 for some slow units in the middle. Also storm has a 2 second cool down between casts, therefore you need 2 HTs in position to cover the same area as a single high energy infestor.

Leagues are not important for a balance discussion unless it is a micro orientated topic, only arguments are needed. However, if you really have to know I am grandmaster on SEA.

EDIT: I am not angry about infestors because I use phoenixes and blink stalkers to counter them, I am just explaining that HTs are not the counter to infestors.

[PiG]

Good idea rim I don't use infestors that often vs HT players anymore but I'll try to find some reps

[Digby]

I think, cos Amulet got nerfed...
It's time for Pathogen Glands to go.

[Xeen]

Originally Posted by Digby

I think, cos Amulet got nerfed...
It's time for Pathogen Glands to go.

You can't warp in Infestors or Ghosts to a specific point in short order, regardless of warpgate cooldown. If anything, it's Fungal (and EMP) that should require an upgrade.

[Benji]

Originally Posted by Digby

I think, cos Amulet got nerfed...
It's time for Pathogen Glands to go.

Completely different uses, you don't see Zergs reacting to a drop by building an infestor.