EPTPatch got you down?
Sick of colossus?
Tired of marauders smashing your army?
Think PF's are unstoppable?
Don't want to 4 gate or 6 gate rush because you have self respect?
Think it sucks having to rely on force fields for most of the game because your army can't stand up to Terrans in a straight fight?
Than this build is for you.
Reborn's PvT build
Introduction:
I've been annoyed with PvT for months, with the patch coming out and many protoss players becoming frustrated about the amulet nerf and unsure what the chargelot buff really means, it is definitely a good time for change.
With stim and bunker build time being nerfed, I myself was looking for a way to exploit all these changes to the matchup, and Terrans perception that "Now they have to go colossus."
I have been doing phoenix builds for some time, the problem I kept running into was there was this huge timing window between turrets shutting down the phoenix harass and getting colossus out.
I only make 3 phoenix because to make more means my ground army is too weak to deal with aggression. However, letting the starport sit idle was inefficient, something I despise. Also, I was experimenting with using double forge upgrades and guardian shield since release. I haven't had much success with void rays, immortals,or chargelots in pvt. On their own mixed in with a standard protoss gateway army they seemed weak. But when you put all 3 together something amazing happens. Terrans get crushed in a straight up fight.
The theory:
Obviously, whenever a terran sees immortals or void rays mixed in with a standard gateway army they use target fired stimmed marines to crush them. But when most of your army is voids and immortals, they can't target fire them all. Add to it the fact that all the while zealots are chopping through them. In standard PvT we see protoss relying on Zealots and Stalkers as their main source of DPS early game while relying on sentries to divide the enemies army and trap marauders so zealots can make contact. Other wise the terran stimmed MM would just kite endlessly and never take damage from the zealots. Then clean up the stalkers. The issue with this is your spending a lot of resources on sentries and stalkers, both of which have horrible dps, and are not cost effective. Here is a unit DPS chart. Look at immortals and voids compared to stalkers. Keep in mind the bonus vs armored and the health of the units and cost (2 stalkers = 1 immortal or voidray). Which would you rather have vs marauders?
The reason we see so many sentries normally is so protoss can be safe enough to tech but spending 100 gas a pop so you can live long enough to spend 600 gas to get your 1st colossus out with range is counter intuitive to say the least. Another issue protoss have is the robo. Without obs protoss can be devasted by a single cloaked banshee. Therefore teching to colossus seems like a logical choice, you already need the robo for the scouting and detecting that the obs provide. But let's take a close look at a few units, first the stalker. 125/50 for a unit with a dps just under 7 is pathetic. In fact a 50 mineral unstimmed marine has slightly higher dps than the stalker. The reason for this is cooldown. Stalkers have a very long cooldown while marines is very short (they shoot more often). I've made the joke a few times that stalkers must be in a union because they take a coffee break every time they fire. A sentry has a dps that's even lower than the stalker, while it's abilities are great. It is no big help at actually killing units. So instead of attempting to survive the early game by using force field, and inefficient units my build uses this time to harass with phoenix. Doing some economic damage and slowing down the tech of the terran. Also, it buys you time by keeping the terran on defense early. Than follows up with units that can actually hold up in a straight fight while securing expansions and getting upgrades. The beauty is, the phoenix serve several purposes other than the direct damage they inflict on workers and delaying construction. They force turrets, provide scouting, delay attacks, and hard counter banshee and raven builds. Both of which are light units which phoenix get a bonus against. Another, huge issue protoss have vs terran is med-evacs, with the low dps and low speed of zealots a kiting mmm ball can seem unkillable. I can't tell you how many games I've played where the graph at the end shows my 3000 resource army dying to a 2600 resource terran army, where I loose my whole army and terran looses 400 resources worth of units in the battle. It's frustrating.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/VR1RA.png)
Does this look familiar??
The build:
Phase 1:
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/LAWAR.png)
I open with gate on 12 (which done properly means no delay in probes) cyber, than 2nd gate. I like to crono a zealot out, then crono a stalker from my first gate. This will help negate and early nonsense such as bunker rushing, an early reaper, or concussive rushes. and provide you with an early 1 stalker 1 zealot poke at terrans ramp. See what units he's making and what addons, but don't loose your units! It also helps to see if you get smacked in the face with concussive. If they made it that early they may be rushing. Start warpgate asap, but know that you won't be using any crono on it. This build is not about warpgate units. (Sounds absurd, I know). After your 2nd gate is started you will make a starport asap. VERY IMPORTANT: place the stargate somewhere unlikely to be scanned (like to put it behind the mineral line) and spread all of your gateways out. This should always be done with any build vs terran IMO. Make sure that the terran can never see everything with a single scan. Rally your stargate to the edge of the map, so that even if the terran gets lucky and see's the edge of the stargate with a scan, he may assume a void ray build. All of your crono will now go to getting 3 phoenix out fast. With your 2 gateways you will be making almost all zealots, and when it doesn't interrupt phoenix production, get a sentry. While you are waiting for your 3rd phoenix, you can put 1 pheonix off to each side of your base, and scout the terrans natural with a probe. This can provide key information. 1 thing you must be aware of is that just as your 3rd phoenix completes is the exact timing any early drop from terran will arrive (hellions!!).
The more map vision you have at this point the better (xel naga towers and pylons on the edges of the map in good spots) With your 3 phoenix you move out and begin harass. your main target is any scv building anything, even supply depots. Killing any scv hurts terrans economy, killing one that is building structures hurts their economy and delays their tech, it may even supply block them. Their are two VERY IMPORTANT keys to phoenix harass, DON'T LOOSE THEM and STAY BUSY with them. (just like muta harass) Also, know that you will get a full scout of the terrans main. If you see a tech lab starport, this could mean banshees, so get a robo and obs out. It could also mean ravens. So I like to make a lot of passes over it, with the possibility of sniping whatever comes out (phoenix get bonus vs ravens and banshees so loosing 1 phoenix to snipe one of these is the only situation you should sacrifice one) Get a robo and obs asap, just in case if you do see a tech lab starport.
While your phoenix are moving out you can expand. If the terran all ins, you just cancel it and hold your ramp with force fields. Then crono out a void ray and use your warp gates while your phoenix return home to assist in the fight. Lift off whatever makes the most sense, tanks, marauders ect, while your army engages.
Most of the time, terrans have expanded, so your expansion should be safe. Whenever your phoenix run out of energy, fly them somewhere safe and close to the terrans base while you macro. Keep an eye on your minimap at all times. This early time is your most vulnerable. If you let an all-in get up your ramp because you were not looking at the minimap you will die because of the investment you made into phoenix. This is another reason to get xel naga towers and use a probe scout, early warnings are good.
Phase 2:
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/khBjs.png)
At this point you've either successfully expanded and are pumping probes, or you successfully have denied an attack and are expanding a little later. If the terran expanded early, it will probably be a bit ahead of yours, don't worry your not behind as long as you didn't get delayed too much on your expansion. You should have killed some workers, and the terran is probably investing in turrets. Your next step is to get a robo, a 3rd gate, a forge, and begin producing void rays and immortals as fast as possible. While increasing your zealot count. You should have scouted everything the terran is doing in his main and have a good if not perfect idea of what his plans are. Continue to poke around the edges of terrans bases looking for workers constructing buildings. If there are no towers hit his worker line ( I only go after mules if I see them called down, otherwise you won't know if they are almost used up and killing an scv will be more damaging). If there are towers stay clear of them and in the meantime increase your map vision with proxy pylons while continuing to poke the edges of terrans base with your phoenix and scout for any fast 3rd. If terran makes a lot of towers and spreads his army out, the harass is over, your phoenix should now join your army.
You will now have a robo, stargate, and forge all of which should be getting crono'd constantly. There is absolutely 0 excuse to accumlating energy on your nexus. As your immortal and void ray count grows your army will become more and more difficult to counter. The voids will deal with any air units, and hopefully you still have your phoenix alive, which you can place along the edge map drop routes, to protect yourself from harassment. But if any battle occurs you want your phoenix in it. You will now be looking to take a 3rd. You want the game to go on, the longer it does the more powerful you will become, don't be hasty and get aggressive needlessly (unless you just won a large battle and it was 1 sided in your favor). You should also add a twilight ( you may get it sooner, if you get +1 +1 finished, get the twilight right away so you can continue upgrading to +2 at the forge and get charge)
Phase 3:
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/QKP7n.png)
This is where your advantage becomes unmanageable for terran. What advantage? If you look at Void rays and immortals stats you'll notice they both get a large bonus vs armored, such as marauders, tanks, and thors. Any composition reliant on these units from terran will get demolished by your composition. Also, once your void ray count gets high enough you will rule the skies. Meaning med-evacs, vikings and any other terran air unit will evaporate in battle. If you do notice a heavy viking count, you will probably want a few extra stalkers (to help support your voids). Your army can kill destructible rocks extremely fast, so you can take your 3rd as soon as you feel safe too. This depends a lot on how much vision you have of the map, and how fast terran expands. When I start feeling ready for a 3rd, is about the time I get an obs, to sit outside terrans base and watch for him to move out. Seeing him leave his base will allow you the time to get in advantageous positioning, depending on his composition. After your 3rd nexus you also want a 2nd forge and templar archive and perhaps 2 or 3 more gateways. You continue to pump out immortals, voidrays, and chargelots. If you have 1 or 2 sentries left from the early game I highly recommend you use gaurdian shield in any battle. Marines will be more of a threat than any other unit to your composition at this point . As long as you have armor upgrades and use guardian shield however, the marine fire will seem like mosqito bites to your army. You don't need force fields, chargelots are your force fields and the dps from void rays and immortals will have the terran saying "WTF just happened to my army?"
Again crono, crono, crono, you will have 2 forges, a twilight, and should be researching storm
at this point. 3 nexus's make a lot of crono, for the love of starcraft use that shit, please. With your 3rd up and your growing army getting close to supply cap, you will begin to notice you have an abundance of gas (as long as you have been taking your geysers on time!), this is because immortals, voids, and zealots are all mineral heavy units. This is why adding HT's and storm makes so much sense, they will balance out your economy at this phase. All the upgrades are also equal cost gas and minerals as well.
You will now be free to take a 4th but before you do here are a few tips. Place a few cannons around all of your mineral lines, and leave 1 HT at each. For my main I like to place some that deny any air routes along the edge, which means any harass will have to fly closer to my army. This will negate any harassment or large attacks on your expansions and main long enough to respond with your army. Also, with the amulet nerf, you will quickly see the beauty of always having a storm ready HT around when you need one. Once you have good defenses in place, some HT's around your bases and a few HT's with your army, you can now start kicking terran in the face.
You should probably think about all the games you lost to terran because of a 1a stim push, as your army 1a's and demolishes his. Good storms and guardian shield are all you really have to make sure and utilize. Also note: This army composition destroys pf's in literally under 3 seconds. They die so fast the workers can't get from the minerals to the PF in time to repair it. It's insane. So if you go to a 3rd or 4th base of terran and it's a pf, and terrans army is more than 3 seconds away. Kill it without hesitation. (you can storm the workers too
At this point you can expect the terran to rage quit because the game started with you annoying the crap out of him with phoenix, followed by him losing every engagement without a ff or colossus being used and finished with his bases dying faster than he can move his screen. With some op psi storm as the cherry on top. Closing:
I am interested in how this build will hold up at the higher levels of play. If anyone is top masters and willing to try it out, please let know and I'll post the replays. These replays are post patch. Some of them are from me teaching a bronze player, who is a friend of mine, using the build against very hard cpu. I thought they would be usefull to any lower league players. One replay is of me playing my teammate heliXmasse who is a (great person!) very skilled, high masters terran and he usually stomps me. (see graph above) Until I came up with this build. So it should work for just about anybody who is willing to practice it and work on their phoenix harass and multitasking. Happy hunting brotoss
This replays is vs Masse a masters terran player.
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/153690-1v1-terran-protoss-xelnaga-caverns
Vs a diamond terran
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/153692-1v1-terran-protoss-xelnaga-caverns
Vs a platinum zerg learning terran
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/153694-1v1-terran-protoss-xelnaga-caverns
These are the replays from me practicing vs cpu and teaching mistro, a bronze level player.
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/153688-1v1-terran-protoss-xelnaga-caverns
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/153687-1v1-terran-protoss-xelnaga-caverns
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/153685-1v1-terran-protoss-xelnaga-caverns
