[dannnyds]

Was watching a mate ladder and charged zealots seem to do heaps of damage early to mid game. As a Terran what can be done to counter this? eg. marauder with concussive shells or something.

[Nemo]

It depend heavily on what are with the zealots. But basically, if 1 zealot own 2 marines, 50 marines (with steam and shield) own badly 25 zealots. Hellions are even better but are less versatile than marines.

[dannnyds]

I'll try to kite with marines or hellions then

[Stallion]

best thing is to have your maruders at the front and stim and kite as best as you can they are garented to hit once now but after the intial burst chargelots can be picked off quite easilyjust make sure you have medivacs too a drop as you attack is generally a very effective way to split the protoss army

[dannnyds]

cool, thanks for the tip. I probably keep a drop ready from now on, just in case

[Daboo]

Well, normally you dont see chargelots in the early game, mostly only get to see them after 10 minutes or so.If he is trying to go for charge early game, it will probably be easy for you to walk up to his base and kill him with standard marine marauder pressure, because all the tech he had to get, leaves him with no gas for sentries, which are essential for survival in the early game.

Do not ever forget concussive shells, it's as important as stim, and it allows you to kite the protoss army. and if your a mech guy, blue flame hellions do wonders against them when sprinkled in with the main army.

And it's also important to get upgrades, because when you see chargelots, they will normally have a +1 to armour, and to negate that you'll need +1 to attack.

stim->Run->stop->run-stop . Practice in the unit tester...it can single handedly win matches.

[maximusPrime]

well if they are going fast chargelots the best counter is obviously banshees. If you scout quick charge the protoss can't tech to get detection too so pop out 2 banshees and then it's pretty much game over

Quick Comments

	Aean(::	do this and you die before you get banshees
	dippa:	"if you scout quick charge" is a massive IF, especially when the protoss hides the twilight council

[dannnyds]

I didn't think about the gas used to get charge. Thanks for all the feedback everybody

[SayfT]

Positioning, try and have your marauders infront of your marines, chances are the protoss player will ff just behind you so that zealots can have a field day, pre-emptivaly run a little back and use the ff as a makeshift chokepoint.

If protoss is going for chargelots he/she will most likely go with templar tech then I suggest you add ghosts, EMP priority should go to templar/archons as archons/templar aoe will wipe your marine force if left unchecked, once again try and bait the storms so that his zealots get caught in it.

You can add blueflame helions, I sometimes use them when my opponent goes zealot heavy but it is very hard to get a proper "line" on the helions when everything is exploding around them :P

[dannnyds]

Always wanted to use hellions but for the longest time i had no idea what they were good for apart from roasting lings

[duanloves]

as a protoss i say mauraders are good all game long charge or no charge.
hellions are a bad idea against charge zealots as they can charge and surround so easily unless you have insane micro.

[Yonge]

Originally Posted by duanloves

as a protoss i say mauraders are good all game long charge or no charge.
hellions are a bad idea against charge zealots as they can charge and surround so easily unless you have insane micro.

Yep, as said above, def have marauders to tank damage and the hellions to do the damage. if they go majority chargelot but you mainly have hellions, you'll still need something to take down the buildings! marauders do the trick! slow and kite.

[Nemo]

Originally Posted by duanloves

as a protoss i say mauraders are good all game long charge or no charge.
hellions are a bad idea against charge zealots as they can charge and surround so easily unless you have insane micro.

I've just made the test on Unit Test Map. 16 chargelots against 8 Blue Flame Hellions. Hellions wins and there are 5 hellions left. My micro is really average.

54 marines with steam and shield rape 27 charglots (More than half the marines left) without any kitting. 25 Marauders are killed by 25 charglots even with proper kitting and concussive shell and steam. ~5 charglots left. and the 25 Marauders are more expensive.
A mix of Marines and Marauders barely wins (50%-50% of each).

My conclusion would be that Marauders suck against Charglots even with concussive shell. That seems logic cause Marauders have bonus damage against Armored units with Zealots are not and their DPS is lower than those of Marines cost-equivalent.

If someone care to do the same tests, I would be interested.

Replay of the tests : http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=371
I did the test with Hellions on another test, but it's easy to remake.

[ZanC]

[QUOTE=Nemo;27536]I've just made the test on Unit Test Map. 16 chargelots against 8 Blue Flame Hellions. Hellions wins and there are 5 hellions left. My micro is really average.

54 marines with steam and shield rape 27 charglots (More than half the marines left) without any kitting. 25 Marauders are killed by 25 charglots even with proper kitting and concussive shell and steam. ~5 charglots left. and the 25 Marauders are more expensive.
A mix of Marines and Marauders barely wins (50%-50% of each).[QUOTE]

What your test shows is Pure Hellions > Pure Zealots and Pure Zealots > Pure Marauders. Hellions definitely counter zealots, but it doesn't counter anything else in the protoss deathball, so unless you do some economic damage with them you've wasted the opportunity cost of your MMM.

Fully upgraded and balanced MMM would still beat fully upgraded Gateway units.

[ke_ivan]

This is coming from the person with the worst TvP on the planet atm. i agree with what everyone says (except the banshee strat). look at it logically. with chargelots you have to worry about:
1) speed (or charge);
2) shields (because they are usually there to tank damage).

if you take away one or both of these factors zealots are often useless. If you're going bio, then marauders with concussive shells take away the speed advantage. I'm guessing that mid-game, ghosts and possibly vikings will come into play. Ghosts are useful in any anti-protoss composition. EMP and snipe zealots. Marauders can deal with whatever that comes to follow up (stalkers, even archons) and zealots tend to clump. If he goes collosus, then vikings usually own. I almost always end up with a marauder/ghost/viking/medivac mix at the end, but i'm usually very viking heavy (6 vikings/12 - 15 marauders/1 - 3 ghosts/ 1 - 2 medivacs) since there are other possible unit compositions that mine covers (mostly collosus/stalker/sentry/zealot/HT or sentry/immortal/zealot/voidray/HT) It can be weak against certain types of phoenix plays, but usually it walks over anyone with bad unit spreading. One thing to note about bio though: forcefields are terribly dangerous. Sentry/zealot is becoming more popular these days (thanks to MC and his 6-gate zealot/sentry rush) so I'd watch out for that.

While it is true that protoss has terrible anti-air, not toss player going charge zealots/sentries is going to let you have your banshees for long. Even if he did, he'd just counter-attack into your base take out all your scvs and then what? he just puts in a few stalkers in his mix, maybe build a forge if he doesn't have a robo and you're screwed man.

[dannnyds]

Yeah i think marauders, hellions, a few marines and a ghost should be able to fend of chargelots and stalkers.

[Yonge]

lol, as per other stream, maybe the real answer to everything including chargelots should be the Thor 250mm cannons :P ahhhh, boom, i think its found its calling!

Quick Comments

ke_ivan:

Made me LOL!

[Spectron]

marauders with concussive shells and stutter step micro should be good unless the toss drops some forcefields.

[ZanC]

Early: Concussive, Bunker
Mid-Late: MMM fully upgraded (ideally of cause stim, concussive, combat shields & 3-3)

If you op for hellions you need to harress well or you'd have opportunity costed your MMM and risk losing head-on confrontations.

[Daboo]

Guys, remember if you want to win without any micro, the "counter" to zealots would then be banshees, battlecruisers, purely because zealots cannot jump that high and hit air. Hence air units can kill infinity zealots and not take damage at all, they are so gosu vs zealots.
Against a mass of zealots, not many unmicroed armies do well, they are one of the hardiest units in the game. Blue flame hellions do well, because of the damage bonus, and the fact that hellions canmove pretty fast. But then against it comes down to numbers, and control.

Bio armies do okay because they have stim, and marauders have concussive shells. But unmicroed, against a swarm of zealots, they dont perform very well.

If you can micro a bio army against chargelots, your probably competent enough micro hellions around to kill zealots. But what it really comes down to is the state of the game. Can you really afford to build a tech lab on a factory, research blue flames, and then produce hellions? That takes a long time, or are you better off building 2 more raxes and getting more upgrades for your bio army, and microing your army around? and then add ghosts for emp? Changing tech is tough unless your ahead by a bit.

If you've gone bio all game long,switching to blue flame hellions would be a tougher path to go, and for most terrans the factory flies around the map for scouting, so you'll have a bit of downtime before your hellion tech is ready to go.If you opened with something like blue flame hellions, then building more of them is a better fit in your build, and getting them is a lot easier as you have most of the tech in place, and already have blue flame researched.

Remember it's not about plain what effectively counters what, it's about what fits better with your overall game plan, and the state you are in the game. This is why most analysis discussions are done with a replay, to see what you could've done given the situation you were in.

[ZanC]

Originally Posted by Daboo

Can you really afford to build a tech lab on a factory, research blue flames, and then produce hellions? That takes a long time, or are you better off building 2 more raxes and getting more upgrades for your bio army, and microing your army around? and then add ghosts for emp? Changing tech is tough unless your ahead by a bit.

Remember it's not about plain what effectively counters what, it's about what fits better with your overall game plan, and the state you are in the game. This is why most analysis discussions are done with a replay, to see what you could've done given the situation you were in.

Stalker > Hellion, all Terran air

Seriously, face-down the only practical way to go beating zealot/gateway units is bio/MMM in my opinion. I would do MMM even against a pure zealot army (AND feel safe because I know protoss invested a lot on useless units I already countered).

Good luck dannnyds. Don't take my word for it though, try both bio and mech style for yourself.

[dannnyds]

guess all that's left to do is practice . thanks again all for the feedback

[Nobunaga]

If you don't micro your bio ball, the chargelots will eat you for breakfast.

I'd say that banshees are pretty good in the matchup if they don't do the MC phoenix, as long as you keep them around after your early pressure, you have some extra dps. Basically what Jinro did in the GSL.

[dannnyds]

Well the skill level involved with that i posted would be gold at best so micro is not too much of a concern (also my micro is better than my macro).

[Halstrom]

In my humble BSG opinion, the unit counter discussion isn't the most optimal one. To me I'd be asking why Protoss has chargelots. Yes they do damage, but in a death ball they also 1/. open up a buffer to allow stalkers/collosi to attack safely, 2/. tank the bio-ball to shape them and prevent them advancing. The Protoss death ball efficiency often comes from the this combo, not just one unit within it.

Looking at this ball, killing zealots only allows access to the back line, but vikings also kill collosi. A marine drop to kill a twighlight council before (or during) leg speed training will delay a Protoss push (see NASL finals MC vs PuMa). When you're against chargelots during a drop, all you have to do is pick up your units again.

Also, consider in your testing, the effect that sentry guardian shield has if it covers the zealots. Zealots do a LOT better shielded.

Lastly, hellions are yummy if you send them within range of my stalkers Zealots rarely operate alone.

[AxSGRiM]

Put in 4 hellions and get more marauders for kiting.

[NobleSix]

I usually go early 2 gas to go chargelots. It seems to work very well against terran All i can say as a protoss is i usually go 1 gate then tech to twilight council so if u scout 1 gate and two gas early on, it would be a safe move to get bunkers. As for army composition, im not to sure but stim marauders with concussive shells are a problem for me

[dannnyds]

I'm starting to use marauders more (with shells) and they are actually rather nice.

[TAriiChard]

Scan ahead. emp. emp. emp. stim in and engage. if he runs you kite forwards and if he engages you, you kite backwards.

[Xavi]

ghosts - emp for shields, extra damage vs light (maurder equiv for light armoured units) snipe great ability for taking out single targets

marines - strong in numbers, + with the combination of kiting away form them (stim + shields) can be added in combination with gas units eg tanks ghosts

hellions - line damage, extra damage vs light, fastest ground unit (which is great for kiting), blue flame upgrade more damage to light cost effective make no gas required

you can pick your units and use them in combination with other units
for example, u have 4 rax's 3 with reactors 1 with tech lab, get upgrades on tech lab and make ghosts out of that one, and rines from the reactors

if u feel the rines are pointless because the absence of toss air or the abundantness
of colossus for example if you want can make more use of the hellions because there more dynamic in there movement and have abit more hp

in summary, the use of micro ß in relative to the choice of unit is how u fight off chargelots


basic micro
- kiting backwards (attack then move backwards while you attack speed ticks over (0.86 or something for rines without stim)
- luring through chokes (great for hellions) or and basic using of map terrain to your advantage
- finding the correct time to emp and or snipe (while the chargelots are bunched in a group etc)

Quick Comments

Nemo:

Thanks for the comprehensive analysis !