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Okay this is gonna be my first blog - to help the platinum protoss players into the diamond. From there, you are on your own to experiment with builds and getting a good feel for the game.
I'm 600ish diamond toss.
This isn't a build order, which will guarantee you a win - this blog entry is ment to give you a good feel for your opponent, and get some confidence.
I'll be mentioning some general problems, when facing Terran - I bet there's 2 sides to the story of this matchup, I can only bring it from my perspective (Don't go hating on me for hating on some terran stuff! :D).
Again, this is just my advice to toss players - take it for what it's worth. SC2 can be played a million ways!
![[image loading]](http://lifeonplanetkstar.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/hitchhikers_guide_to_galaxy2005teaser.jpg)
Don't panic, guys! It's just a terran player!
The initial scout
Okay, so we sent out the scout at 10, or 12.. or 13 (Doesn't matter). It arrives at terrans base, and you start moving it around, harassing his workers - especially those working on buildings.
A marine will be produced from the first barrack, which you will need to avoid as good as you can, while macroing in your main. Your opponent will start building up a lot of minerals, and soon will be FORCED to put down the next building - if it's a 2nd barracks, we assuming he's going bio, if it's a factory:
- Fast starport (banshees or just medivacs?)
or
Even if the scouting is successful, you need to keep running up his ramp with a probe to see if he really IS going what you think he is. Expect to see marauders if bio, and expect lots of marines if you scouted a factory.
If it's a small map, and the terran hasn't closed his base off, you can still try and get a 2nd probe in there to scout, even if the first one were unsuccessful  .
Vs. Bio
![[image loading]](http://i.acdn.us/image/A1078/1078364/300_1078364.jpg) Fatty fat fat fatty! (too much American dad - click)
In case it's a bio, you need to start pumping out alot of zealots/sentries (avoid stalkers, due to them being armored, and receiving additional damage from marauders). I personally prefer 3 gate, others does 2 gate.
If you are confident he's going bio, get speed upgrade for zealots in the twillight and cronoboost it out.
Once speed is almost finished, you need to start getting storm + amulet for your templars. Zealots are getting weaker and weaker as a bio-ball increases in size!
If you scout he's upgrading +1 attack, you need to start upgrading yourself. I'm still experimenting, but I guess +armor is best for toss, if you can't go +1/+1. I can't underline how IMPORTANT this upgrade is. Stimmed +1 MM-ball rips everything to pieces!
Once you've repelled his first attack, you can throw down a robotics facility, and get an observer out to follow his army. This will help A LOT when trying to feedback the ghosts, as his bio-ball is coming towards your army.
In general: Move towards his ball, as he is moving towards your base. Always remember: He's blind, and can't see your army coming, and will make it harder to get a perfect EMP off.
At some point you WILL need an observer, in case he's tech switching to banshees OR getting cloak for ghost.. You don't want to loose a match due to 3 ghosts killing all your probes.
A bio push happens at 7-9 minutes into the game, it is VERY possible to get out storm if he brings both medivacs and ghosts (don't panic!  )
[url blocked] - Notice I don't scout what he's doing with the initial scout, but then I spot 2 barracks, fast expo. Throughout the game I only expo when I see he's expoing.
Not a perfect game for me, but it was okay. Yes i run into his sieged tanks, but when you are 200/200, and he has no economy (killed 12+ harvesters), you are allowed to :p If it's an open space of course, and you feel you can win (broke my own rule and need an excuse, mkay?)
[url blocked] - Very good T player.. Gets off perfect EMPs (i failed to meet him, as he moved towards my base and almost costed me the game).
[url blocked] - Everything goes wrong. He denies my initial scout, forces me to go robotics facility for observer. I don't see his +1 upgrade push coming in (2nd wave), and I don't have storm up (due to the need of an observer) and I loose my army to it. Lucky tho, he didn't see me warp in 4 zealots in his base to take out his workers. Afterwards I still had my expo up .
Vs. teching terran
If you spotted a factory, you need to either cronoboost your warp gates research (it's still not finished), and then go hallucination OR go robotics facility for the observer - what you need to spot is techlab on the starport, or perhaps no starport at all? I prefer building a robo facility, so I can both scout AND keep track of his army - but this is more expensive (100m, 100g vs. 250m, 200g). Remember going for an observer cripples your army a bit, and slows down your other techs (see the funny replay).
If he really is staying tank/marines you need to go for speedlots (again) with stalkers/sentries.
The Encounter
Always catch a terran on the "move", and doesn't have his tanks sieged up (that's a no brainer). What's not a no brainer is to remember your sentries shield, and move them CLOSE to your zealots. The range of the shield from the sentries is lower than it's attack range, which means: While your speedlots are rushing towards the bio ball, they are running out of the shield. Therefore move the sentries closer to the battle.
![[image loading]](http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/7523/99247671.png)
Guys? Stay in the shield!
It's easy to spot which sentry has his shield up, cos he'll be "spreading his wings", showing off to the female terran race that he is protected and ready to mate.
Last notes
A riddle! What to do, when a Terran denies you initial scouting and places a bunker in front of his base? If you go 3 gate into robotics facility you'll die to an early marauder/marine push. If you go for hallucination, you'll be "behind" with getting the observer out (in case he rushes for cloaked banshees). It's a gamble, and I prefer to expect a bio attack (going for fast speedlots), and then delay my storm a bit, to get an observer out.
I think (don't flame me zerg players!) that protoss is in the early game very limited in scouting, where zerg has overlords sacrificing and terran has scans, protoss has to wait for hallucination or observer.
I never use immortals vs. terran bio, since marines slaughters them.
In big macro games on maps like Kulas Ravine, have 1 high templar sit at your expos Xel'naga tower, it's so enjoyable to watch 4 medivacs instantly disappear, with some help from feedback .
Remember to rate and leave a comment - I would love to hear some feedback. PvT is my best match up, but I would love to learn more from other players.
One last thing: Don't panic! And remember your towel.
Thanks to Pebble for helping me theory craft for this match up, as well as trying out builds in practice matches.
 
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i feel dirty reading this... i mean it's well written/formatted, with pictures, and solid advice... so all i can say is keep it up, but...
On August 15 2010 16:20 Qzy wrote:
If you waits for hallucination to finish, you'll be waiting for a long time, and wont be ready if a cloaked banshee hits early. It's a gamble, and I prefer to expect a bio attack, and then delay my storm to get an observer out.
what?
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On August 15 2010 16:25 jodogohoo wrote:i feel dirty reading this... i mean it's well written/formatted, with pictures, and solid advice... so all i can say is keep it up, but... Show nested quote +On August 15 2010 16:20 Qzy wrote:
If you waits for hallucination to finish, you'll be waiting for a long time, and wont be ready if a cloaked banshee hits early. It's a gamble, and I prefer to expect a bio attack, and then delay my storm to get an observer out. what?
Thanks, I'll try and edit it so it makes more sense.
Like it now? Edited it.
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Just one thing, its starport >.< ppl gotta stop mixing it up.
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On August 15 2010 16:41 TheMunkey wrote:
Just one thing, its starport >.< ppl gotta stop mixing it up.
Fixed! It was only ONE place :D
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Added some replays of recent games . Enjoy!
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nice, write-up.
but one thing though. vs mech, dont you go at least a couple immortals in your composition? im a diamond p myself, and when ive had a couple immortals with my army, it tends to go better than just stalker,lots and sentries.
keep up the good work - and nice uploading the replays aswell!
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On August 15 2010 18:04 preacha wrote:
nice, write-up.
but one thing though. vs mech, dont you go at least a couple immortals in your composition? im a diamond p myself, and when ive had a couple immortals with my army, it tends to go better than just stalker,lots and sentries.
keep up the good work - and nice uploading the replays aswell!
Thanks man! I need to start making more immortals vs. tank pushes. Problem is the amount of marines is really hurting the immortals. With stim, they take down the immortals FAST. If i rather go for 3 more high templars, I can take out his bio fast and go directly for the tanks.
Again, I'm still experimenting a lot in this match up, and I'll try with some immortals this week .
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Never tried to protect your immortals with warp prisms the same way as shuttle-reaver in starcraft1? I've had some success with that in early pvt battles. If you are planning to do a drop and gonna get a warp prism anyway, you can use it to keep the immortals alive. It really doesn't work that well because immortals have bad range. You can try to take the immortals behind the enemy lines and snipe the tanks out, while all the marines are focusing on the zealots at the front.
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On August 15 2010 18:33 gray-fox wrote:
Never tried to protect your immortals with warp prisms the same way as shuttle-reaver in starcraft1? I've had some success with that in early pvt battles. If you are planning to do a drop and gonna get a warp prism anyway, you can use it to keep the immortals alive. It really doesn't work that well because immortals have bad range. You can try to take the immortals behind the enemy lines and snipe the tanks out, while all the marines are focusing on the zealots at the front.
That's actually very sexy. Come in from the side or behind with a dropship, with 2 immortals in it. Drop them while turning into warp-mode for zealots. Hmm! Sexy theory crafting - I gotta try that.
But again, that takes some practice, and some apm!
I wouldn't use the warpprism as a shuttle, cos it has sooo low health. Loosing 2 immortals in a prism would be a great loss.
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great job mate hope you don't wet my shoulder crying anymore!
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Nice write up, pretty solid tips, nothing too specific but they give a good enough idea of what to do.
On a side note, I've been watching tons (probably 50+) of replays by gosus (mostly TvP) and bonus dmg to buildings by marauders is kinda silly lol and I play Terran myself.
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On August 16 2010 00:25 Pebble wrote:great job mate hope you don't wet my shoulder crying anymore!
There's always room for some crying!
On August 16 2010 00:38 Entropic wrote:
Nice write up, pretty solid tips, nothing too specific but they give a good enough idea of what to do.
On a side note, I've been watching tons (probably 50+) of replays by gosus (mostly TvP) and bonus dmg to buildings by marauders is kinda silly lol and I play Terran myself.
Yeah marauders dropping in your base is absolutely devastating. It's a good way to loose important tech structure. I kinda hope they drop that +damage to buildings.
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On August 16 2010 01:06 Qzy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 00:25 Pebble wrote:great job mate hope you don't wet my shoulder crying anymore! There's always room for some crying! Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 00:38 Entropic wrote:
Nice write up, pretty solid tips, nothing too specific but they give a good enough idea of what to do.
On a side note, I've been watching tons (probably 50+) of replays by gosus (mostly TvP) and bonus dmg to buildings by marauders is kinda silly lol and I play Terran myself. Yeah marauders dropping in your base is absolutely devastating. It's a good way to loose important tech structure. I kinda hope they drop that +damage to buildings.
Seriously, after watching so many TvP's trying to improve my own TvP, I always kinda just facepalm at how fast marauders take down buildings (stimmed marauder marine without the bonus dmg to buildings is fast enough at taking them down). Overall though I think TvP is pretty balanced.
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On August 16 2010 02:19 Entropic wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 01:06 Qzy wrote:On August 16 2010 00:25 Pebble wrote:great job mate hope you don't wet my shoulder crying anymore! There's always room for some crying! On August 16 2010 00:38 Entropic wrote:
Nice write up, pretty solid tips, nothing too specific but they give a good enough idea of what to do.
On a side note, I've been watching tons (probably 50+) of replays by gosus (mostly TvP) and bonus dmg to buildings by marauders is kinda silly lol and I play Terran myself. Yeah marauders dropping in your base is absolutely devastating. It's a good way to loose important tech structure. I kinda hope they drop that +damage to buildings. Seriously, after watching so many TvP's trying to improve my own TvP, I always kinda just facepalm at how fast marauders take down buildings (stimmed marauder marine without the bonus dmg to buildings is fast enough at taking them down). Overall though I think TvP is pretty balanced.
Don't get me started on balance :p.
The EMP is just too overpowered atm, hopefully it'll be an upgrade + less range, so we can feedback them before the EMP goes off.
And yes, just yesterday i lost my storm-research cos 4 marauders dropped into my main (my army were located at the ramp/near expo, and couldn't make it back in time.
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United States10774 Posts
I really hate that fatty you have up there 
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Thanks for the guide! Nice replays!
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I generally try not to build immortals against bioballs, but they're really good for cleaning up when the numbers on both sides get low- since they can actually dish out a lot of damage without dying instantly.
Also, I find stalkers are somewhat indispensable against maurders... granted you shouldn't mass them (generally speaking), but if they try to pull off some early aggression he can kite your zealots for all eternity if you don't have something to keep him a bit honest. Force field doesn't really work too terribly well when numbers are small.
And I generally have a decent number of stalkers midgame, but start warping in almost exclusively sentry/zealot once I get charge.
Also, yeah, Protoss early game scouting really sucks. Given how small the maps are, I feel like it's a bit of crapshoot. I almost always think to myself "Well... he's got a couple of raxes with tech labs. He's probably going to get banshees because I'm getting my robo late, but I can probably defend those by running around, so I'll make sure I don't die to a bioball... great, time to run around before the banshee rapes all my probes."
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On August 16 2010 03:30 zer0das wrote:
Also, I find stalkers are somewhat indispensable against maurders... granted you shouldn't mass them (generally speaking), but if they try to pull off some early aggression he can kite your zealots for all eternity if you don't have something to keep him a bit honest. Force field doesn't really work too terribly well when numbers are small.
First 2 units that comes from my gateway is 1. A stalker to kill the reaper and 2. A sentry.
This allows the sentry to get some energy up to block off the ramp, in case he comes with A LOT more than i anticipated (ie proxy rax). I can't recall ever loosing to a very early terran push, as long as you can stay in your base, forcefielding the ramp/killing whatever comes up with zealots.
On maps like kulas ravine, where you can't block ramp that easy, you can always use it for shield and a few key forcefields. But by the time he has concussive shell up, I should have speedlots or atleast a lot of forcefields waiting for the terran.
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On August 16 2010 03:30 zer0das wrote:
I generally try not to build immortals against bioballs, but they're really good for cleaning up when the numbers on both sides get low- since they can actually dish out a lot of damage without dying instantly.
Also, I find stalkers are somewhat indispensable against maurders... granted you shouldn't mass them (generally speaking), but if they try to pull off some early aggression he can kite your zealots for all eternity if you don't have something to keep him a bit honest. Force field doesn't really work too terribly well when numbers are small.
And I generally have a decent number of stalkers midgame, but start warping in almost exclusively sentry/zealot once I get charge.
Also, yeah, Protoss early game scouting really sucks. Given how small the maps are, I feel like it's a bit of crapshoot. I almost always think to myself "Well... he's got a couple of raxes with tech labs. He's probably going to get banshees because I'm getting my robo late, but I can probably defend those by running around, so I'll make sure I don't die to a bioball... great, time to run around before the banshee rapes all my probes."
I've seen Huk (to be exact it was Huk vs Qxc) go 1gate robo with chronoboosted immortal first then observer right after. I guess it works for him (granted he onyl really used it on 4 player maps (non close positions, ex. 9 vs 6 on Metalopolis). He defended against an early marauder push (standard 1rax 1marine 2-3 marauders poke at the ramp). He just pulled back a bit and micro'd his immortal with probe surround. It was really close so 2gate robo is probably much safer than 1gate robo. I've seen Whitera go 1gate robo sometimes too.
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In my opinion, immortals is absolutely suicidal to use vs. bio. So many units, and it can be targetted down so fast.
HuK does it to get colos out - i prefer the storm route . Marauders can very easy stim and run around after the colos, if you don't have perfect micro.
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Sounds like you play against Terran pretty similarly to the way I play against Terran. I love playing Terran. =D
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On August 16 2010 05:36 Qzy wrote:In my opinion, immortals is absolutely suicidal to use vs. bio. So many units, and it can be targetted down so fast. HuK does it to get colos out - i prefer the storm route . Marauders can very easy stim and run around after the colos, if you don't have perfect micro.
what do you do for detection? cannons? ive gone hts instead of colos aswell. but, those pesky..ehh..what are they called again xD...can turn themselves invisible-fly-thingy. ive been trying out new builds of late. i go 2gate robo(chrono immortal if scout sees him going 3 rax), obs early, THEN tech for ht. i may take a little more time - but in my opinion, a safer build.
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On August 17 2010 00:18 preacha wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2010 05:36 Qzy wrote:In my opinion, immortals is absolutely suicidal to use vs. bio. So many units, and it can be targetted down so fast. HuK does it to get colos out - i prefer the storm route . Marauders can very easy stim and run around after the colos, if you don't have perfect micro. what do you do for detection? cannons? ive gone hts instead of colos aswell. but, those pesky..ehh..what are they called again xD...can turn themselves invisible-fly-thingy. ive been trying out new builds of late. i go 2gate robo(chrono immortal if scout sees him going 3 rax), obs early, THEN tech for ht. i may take a little more time - but in my opinion, a safer build.
You can't go 2 gate robo vs. bio. If he goes barracks, for marauders, he wont be going for cloaked banshees right away. You are safe, and don't need observer right away. But remember to build them later on .
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.lazy-sniper.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/dramatic_chipmunk.png)
