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[SC2] TvP - Opening+BO Discussion/Help

Blogs > Masq
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Masq
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
Canada1792 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-11-27 18:05:51
November 27 2011 17:21 GMT
#1
Hey,

I've been running into a lot of trouble with TvP lately. Not so much with a "standard" game, just with the vast array of openings Protoss can do. For the purpose of this post, let's just discuss EARLY game openers.

It seems like my older, traditional build orders (1rax FE, gasless FE, 2rax FE) all have extremely large holes in their play, or I'm simply not reacting properly. I'm getting a little frustrated doing the same old builds and dying to a large variety of openers. I've been playing a fair amount of korea server lately, and I've ran into so many different TvP openers that I honestly am beginning to become clueless as what to do.

I'm starting to understand why a lot of korean terrans 1-1-1 often, because it allows Terran to dictate the flow of the game and protects you against a lot of timings. I've been trying to experiment with marine/tank and thor/banshee/bio builds, but I haven't had much success with those either.

Timings that need to be noted:
4 gate timing
4 gate blink timing (map specific, ex: taldarim)
dt timing
3gate voidray or proxy voidray expand
1gate/nexus first into 6gate timing
5gate robo prism (close air)
1base colossus
2 base colossus

so the question is: is there any TvP opener that is safe enough versus any all-in or aggression play, but that is also not autolose vs greedy play?

I've included some replays from todays games. Please excuse the no GG as I was extremely frustrated recently with the matchup.

Replays:
XpecimHui (P) vs Masq(T) - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/41022690/BO Help - 4gate blink.SC2Replay
NsPCookie (P) vs Masq(T) - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/41022690/BO Help - FE 6gate NsPCookie.SC2Replay
Mirage (P) vs Masq(T) - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/41022690/BO Help - TvP 4gate Expo DT.SC2Replay


Sc1pio
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
United States823 Posts
November 27 2011 17:51 GMT
#2
I think that 2rax reactor first is probably the safest build for TvP still, looks like this:

+ Show Spoiler +
Depot/Rax/Gas/Orbital all normal
marine -> reactor
second barracks
tech lab -> conc
making marines out of reactor and marauders out of tech lab


You can pressure greedy builds and be safe against aggressive ones.

1 rax FE can be safe against most things, you have to do the immediate 3 barracks after you put the CC down and pump marines (see Puma vs. Hero game 1). The only problem with this is that marines by themselves are pretty bad once protoss gets any sort of splash damage up, so you have to pressure pretty early with this large number of units.

You probably were aware of both of these builds, but I thought I would write them down anyway just in case. They're still extremely strong when played correctly. I'll watch the replays and comment in a later post, but that's just the builds here.
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few. " -Shunro Suzuki | fortuna fortes adiuvat
Masq
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
Canada1792 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-11-27 18:02:02
November 27 2011 18:01 GMT
#3
Yeah I'm aware of those builds.

I've tried them as well, but I actually dislike the 2rax reactor first build a lot. Unless its a map like Xelnaga or Metal with a very wide open natural.

I feel like it creates too much marines which are negated by heavy sentry play / sentry expo and don't serve a great purpose once you hit mid/late game. The only benefit I see are reactor first into 3rax ghost timings but that sort of relies on the protoss not spreading sentries or being caught offguard.

Do you have a replay link to the puma vs hero game?


Noxie
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States2227 Posts
November 27 2011 18:18 GMT
#4
I see all the koreans doing either 1-1-1 or opening 2 rax versus toss.

You may want to check out Polts or Hearts vods on twitch tv. They always open 2 rax and it keeps them very safe.
Sc1pio
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
United States823 Posts
November 27 2011 18:22 GMT
#5
On November 28 2011 03:01 Masq wrote:
Yeah I'm aware of those builds.

I've tried them as well, but I actually dislike the 2rax reactor first build a lot. Unless its a map like Xelnaga or Metal with a very wide open natural.

I feel like it creates too much marines which are negated by heavy sentry play / sentry expo and don't serve a great purpose once you hit mid/late game. The only benefit I see are reactor first into 3rax ghost timings but that sort of relies on the protoss not spreading sentries or being caught offguard.

Do you have a replay link to the puma vs hero game?


Early on, you have a good amount of marines, but when you expand and put up the third barracks with a tech lab you get a good amount of production to get a nice ratio. 3 rax ghost pushes are a strong transition, but not the only one.

I do the 2rax reactor first on smaller maps, it loses its effectiveness the larger the map gets.

I don't know if DH will be releasing replays, and I don't know where to look for VODs :X. Keep an eye out.

Anyhoo, on to the games:

The 4gate DT expo game (Taldarim):
+ Show Spoiler +

Marine tank isn't very good vs. protoss the later the game gets, I don't know what your plan was but marines lose pretty hard to either high templar or colossus, and tanks are only really good against stalkers when they don't have blink. At this point, even Goody has admitted that tanks aren't very good against protoss.

Other than that it's really a scouting issue, you didn't scout whether he had a second gas, which would have set you off in terms of defense, and obviously you didn't scout the tech. You should most likely have an engineering bay at that point anyway for upgrades if you want to keep up with protoss, so it shouldn't be as big of an issue as it was.


The game against NsPCookie (Nezarim):
+ Show Spoiler +

Your build isn't very optimized. You get a gas at 13, get a reactor, and then don't do anything with it afterwards. You're up at 300 gas fairly quickly. If you had 1 rax FE'd and then thrown down three barracks before gas, you would have gotten more infrastructure up while having the same amount of production, and having a faster expansion. The only drawback is you would have had slower marauders, but the sheer amount of marines vs. the lack of splash from the protoss would have let you manage.

You see five gateways very quickly, which leads to the possibility of pressure from the protoss (he was sixgating, as you know). At this point, you should be making more bunkers. You stay at two, which leaves you very vulnerable. When you FE, you rely on bunkers to not die, and the cost of adding more is negated by salvaging later.

Considering that you traded evenly on the first wave; think about how much better you would have been had you had a couple more bunkers after that, and had pulled SCVs earlier.


Second Taldarim Game:
+ Show Spoiler +

This is a small point; if you're going to put a bunker out front immediately anyway you may as well put the CC there.

I have to say, this build is something I struggle with as well on this map. I'm not sure of a good way to deal with it, other than having buildings in the back of your natural to spot and stopping the stalkers from blinking somehow. Sorry for not being helpful, hopefully somebody else can help us out :X
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few. " -Shunro Suzuki | fortuna fortes adiuvat
LuckyFool
Profile Blog Joined June 2007
United States9015 Posts
November 27 2011 18:31 GMT
#6
2rax reactor first i don't like as much anymore. Gasless FE is still really good. You can Gasless FE and still get Vikings out at 9 minute to defend colossus stuff. I've been Gasless fe'ing into either 5rax before has or fast medivacs with 3rax. Both don't seem to have any major flaws and I've been holding off mOst of those builds you mentioned.

I do play purely on NA though so take that for what it's worth LOL
Masq
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
Canada1792 Posts
November 27 2011 18:34 GMT
#7
On November 28 2011 03:18 Noxie wrote:
I see all the koreans doing either 1-1-1 or opening 2 rax versus toss.

You may want to check out Polts or Hearts vods on twitch tv. They always open 2 rax and it keeps them very safe.


Yeah, I watch hearts stream pretty often. It seems as though the protosses they play typically 1gate FE and don't do any super aggressive builds though.

On November 28 2011 03:22 Sc1pio wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 28 2011 03:01 Masq wrote:
Yeah I'm aware of those builds.

I've tried them as well, but I actually dislike the 2rax reactor first build a lot. Unless its a map like Xelnaga or Metal with a very wide open natural.

I feel like it creates too much marines which are negated by heavy sentry play / sentry expo and don't serve a great purpose once you hit mid/late game. The only benefit I see are reactor first into 3rax ghost timings but that sort of relies on the protoss not spreading sentries or being caught offguard.

Do you have a replay link to the puma vs hero game?


Early on, you have a good amount of marines, but when you expand and put up the third barracks with a tech lab you get a good amount of production to get a nice ratio. 3 rax ghost pushes are a strong transition, but not the only one.

I do the 2rax reactor first on smaller maps, it loses its effectiveness the larger the map gets.

I don't know if DH will be releasing replays, and I don't know where to look for VODs :X. Keep an eye out.

Anyhoo, on to the games:

The 4gate DT expo game (Taldarim):
+ Show Spoiler +

Marine tank isn't very good vs. protoss the later the game gets, I don't know what your plan was but marines lose pretty hard to either high templar or colossus, and tanks are only really good against stalkers when they don't have blink. At this point, even Goody has admitted that tanks aren't very good against protoss.

Other than that it's really a scouting issue, you didn't scout whether he had a second gas, which would have set you off in terms of defense, and obviously you didn't scout the tech. You should most likely have an engineering bay at that point anyway for upgrades if you want to keep up with protoss, so it shouldn't be as big of an issue as it was.


The game against NsPCookie (Nezarim):
+ Show Spoiler +

Your build isn't very optimized. You get a gas at 13, get a reactor, and then don't do anything with it afterwards. You're up at 300 gas fairly quickly. If you had 1 rax FE'd and then thrown down three barracks before gas, you would have gotten more infrastructure up while having the same amount of production, and having a faster expansion. The only drawback is you would have had slower marauders, but the sheer amount of marines vs. the lack of splash from the protoss would have let you manage.

You see five gateways very quickly, which leads to the possibility of pressure from the protoss (he was sixgating, as you know). At this point, you should be making more bunkers. You stay at two, which leaves you very vulnerable. When you FE, you rely on bunkers to not die, and the cost of adding more is negated by salvaging later.

Considering that you traded evenly on the first wave; think about how much better you would have been had you had a couple more bunkers after that, and had pulled SCVs earlier.


Second Taldarim Game:
+ Show Spoiler +

This is a small point; if you're going to put a bunker out front immediately anyway you may as well put the CC there.

I have to say, this build is something I struggle with as well on this map. I'm not sure of a good way to deal with it, other than having buildings in the back of your natural to spot and stopping the stalkers from blinking somehow. Sorry for not being helpful, hopefully somebody else can help us out :X


I've been experimenting with tanks to do some tank/bunker contains off 2base. I'm aware marine/tank is near worthless in the late game, but if you can contain off 2 base you can severely limit the gas income of protoss so they can't reach sufficient colossus/immortal numbers to bust.

In regard to your responses, while I didn't get my reaper scout in on the Taldarim game, I did scan at roughly 6minutes and saw the 4gate. I put two bunkers down immediately afterwards in response. He faked pressure after the scan and as the scan faded went twilight/dt tech as you can see.

In the second game I agree I should have added another 2-3 bunkers as well. But I disagree pulling SCVs, I would dare say its even better to just let them mine because with a sentry heavy 6gate, your scvs will never reach the bunker anyway.

and in the third game, I built the CC in base because I saw no expand with my reaper scout, so I knew some offensive play was coming. I didn't want to leave the CC in an angle I couldn't defend it from voidray.



XenClamzz
Profile Joined April 2011
United States130 Posts
November 27 2011 18:44 GMT
#8
all vods are on Day9's page. but at the moment ive been in favor of 3 openings atm. 1 rax fe drop 2 rax (total of 3) and double gas and do some quick drop play. Another thing is reactor marines into FE. To do this you fake a lot of plays by grabbing a gas but you get 50 gas and thats it. by this time the scouting probe is gone and should not have seen the reactor on the rax. you play it off after that by taking 8 marines or so and pressuring his expo. lastly its an all in but its extremely good. Puma did it v hero. Its the standard 1 rax fe opening so the opponent believes you are expanding, but rather than dropping a cc you drop 3 more raxes and mass marines and pull scvs. its an all in, but an effective all in. as it comes before any splash damage or large amount of sentries. keep in mind its only good if hes expanding.
Sup Son?
Masq
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
Canada1792 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-11-27 18:54:00
November 27 2011 18:49 GMT
#9
On November 28 2011 03:44 XenClamzz wrote:
all vods are on Day9's page. but at the moment ive been in favor of 3 openings atm. 1 rax fe drop 2 rax (total of 3) and double gas and do some quick drop play. Another thing is reactor marines into FE. To do this you fake a lot of plays by grabbing a gas but you get 50 gas and thats it. by this time the scouting probe is gone and should not have seen the reactor on the rax. you play it off after that by taking 8 marines or so and pressuring his expo. lastly its an all in but its extremely good. Puma did it v hero. Its the standard 1 rax fe opening so the opponent believes you are expanding, but rather than dropping a cc you drop 3 more raxes and mass marines and pull scvs. its an all in, but an effective all in. as it comes before any splash damage or large amount of sentries. keep in mind its only good if hes expanding.



do you have any replays of these fast drop plays? are these timings before ~8:30m ?
im not really interested in learning any all-ins such as 4rax +scv
avilo
Profile Blog Joined November 2007
United States4100 Posts
November 27 2011 19:00 GMT
#10
I think you just have to admit that protoss will always have a build order advantage/possibility of killing you with a random build and then outplay them from there, or all-in so that it doesn't get to the stage where they turtle 3/0/3 and trade with u for freewins.

I see most people do 2 rax reactor like said above, and then when stim is done you suicide push into their natural to try to kill as many sentries as you can, and then you gogogo again at 4 medivacs and do the same thing.

There is no safe opening against Protoss though. They can at their leisure choose to all-in and kill you, or pretend like they are and take a greedy expansion that is unpunishable.

The match-up is actually at a stage right now where it is protoss favored, regardless of what white knight balance warriors want to advocate about not bringing balance into the discussion, pvt right now is imbalanced in protosses favor, so you just have to do your best to struggle through it and outplay them as best as possible.

Chances are you're actually not doing anything majorly wrong right now, and a lot of times you simply have to make the most logical GUESS on what build protoss is doing, obviously excluding stuff like 15 nexus which you can straight up scout and see that they are doing (and still not punish lol).

So yeh, either stick with 111 ALL-IN, or go 2 rax reactor first into stim timing to kill sentries. Those are your best bets. And definitely when you max out either do 1 of these 2 things:

a) be active on the map and run your bio viking ghost ball around and try and kill/trade before protoss gets their invincible deathball + bill gates chargelot+archon remax bankroll.

b) turtle hardcore on 4 bases, and slowly trade away all of your bio for pure BC/ghost.

GL, all Terrans currently need it.
Sup
NB
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Netherlands12045 Posts
November 27 2011 19:27 GMT
#11
as a Protoss player i dont think the problem for terran is the build order, especially if you are high master and above.

Yes build order is matter if you take map into consideration: on xelnaga FE sucks 1/1/1 strong but on taldarim 1 rax expand is wonderful etc. But once you get pass the cheesing phase (7 mins mark ish), its all about itimidation between the 2 players.

So in a tradition timeline, the attacks came as follow assuming you are using bio macro play vs P.

proxy
1 base 3/4 rax scv marines all in
1 base 2 rax pressure
4 gates
3 gates VR/DT / prism drop
marine shield/ 1 base +1 timing
6 gates/immortal timing
stim timing
ghost/+1 timing
medivac timing

in moment in the above time line, the player could fake out their build in order to force an overreaction so that you could get ahead. For example as Protoss i love to go 1 gate expand into 3 gate and push out. Out side in it looks exactly like a 6 gates timing burst but i put down 2 gases at nature and transition into double forge. A terran player when see that push coming will over commit to bunkers and pull SCV therefore i just get further ahead. Same thing could apply to Terran: once medivac are out, you could just move out into middle of the map while taking a hidden(from obs vision) 3rd base.

The basic idea is to cut corner inside a power build and calling a bluff. Instead of getting a bunker you could squeeze in another ebay. Instead of making unit, make a CC and 3 barracks instead. In another word, TvP to me is a very slow pace rock paper scissor where you have scout and react accordingly. Which then results tons and tons of fake out, bait, retard magnet strat. Most recently we see how puma decided to split his army away from his base on metal vs Hero to destroy the range colossus timing push which normally would crush everything Puma have since he doesnt even have a single viking vs 2 colossi.

But yeah, tradition build order does work, it just the meta game has evolved a tons in the past 1 month which make it way wayyyy harder to play the game if you are not good at bluffing and calling bluff. BTW, try staying away from thor... they are just a horrible unit in this match up and the onlything that they do well vs is phoenix.
Im daed. Follow me @TL_NB
Sc1pio
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
United States823 Posts
November 27 2011 19:28 GMT
#12
On November 28 2011 03:34 Masq wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 28 2011 03:22 Sc1pio wrote:
On November 28 2011 03:01 Masq wrote:
Yeah I'm aware of those builds.

I've tried them as well, but I actually dislike the 2rax reactor first build a lot. Unless its a map like Xelnaga or Metal with a very wide open natural.

I feel like it creates too much marines which are negated by heavy sentry play / sentry expo and don't serve a great purpose once you hit mid/late game. The only benefit I see are reactor first into 3rax ghost timings but that sort of relies on the protoss not spreading sentries or being caught offguard.

Do you have a replay link to the puma vs hero game?


Early on, you have a good amount of marines, but when you expand and put up the third barracks with a tech lab you get a good amount of production to get a nice ratio. 3 rax ghost pushes are a strong transition, but not the only one.

I do the 2rax reactor first on smaller maps, it loses its effectiveness the larger the map gets.

I don't know if DH will be releasing replays, and I don't know where to look for VODs :X. Keep an eye out.

Anyhoo, on to the games:

The 4gate DT expo game (Taldarim):
+ Show Spoiler +

Marine tank isn't very good vs. protoss the later the game gets, I don't know what your plan was but marines lose pretty hard to either high templar or colossus, and tanks are only really good against stalkers when they don't have blink. At this point, even Goody has admitted that tanks aren't very good against protoss.

Other than that it's really a scouting issue, you didn't scout whether he had a second gas, which would have set you off in terms of defense, and obviously you didn't scout the tech. You should most likely have an engineering bay at that point anyway for upgrades if you want to keep up with protoss, so it shouldn't be as big of an issue as it was.


The game against NsPCookie (Nezarim):
+ Show Spoiler +

Your build isn't very optimized. You get a gas at 13, get a reactor, and then don't do anything with it afterwards. You're up at 300 gas fairly quickly. If you had 1 rax FE'd and then thrown down three barracks before gas, you would have gotten more infrastructure up while having the same amount of production, and having a faster expansion. The only drawback is you would have had slower marauders, but the sheer amount of marines vs. the lack of splash from the protoss would have let you manage.

You see five gateways very quickly, which leads to the possibility of pressure from the protoss (he was sixgating, as you know). At this point, you should be making more bunkers. You stay at two, which leaves you very vulnerable. When you FE, you rely on bunkers to not die, and the cost of adding more is negated by salvaging later.

Considering that you traded evenly on the first wave; think about how much better you would have been had you had a couple more bunkers after that, and had pulled SCVs earlier.


Second Taldarim Game:
+ Show Spoiler +

This is a small point; if you're going to put a bunker out front immediately anyway you may as well put the CC there.

I have to say, this build is something I struggle with as well on this map. I'm not sure of a good way to deal with it, other than having buildings in the back of your natural to spot and stopping the stalkers from blinking somehow. Sorry for not being helpful, hopefully somebody else can help us out :X


I've been experimenting with tanks to do some tank/bunker contains off 2base. I'm aware marine/tank is near worthless in the late game, but if you can contain off 2 base you can severely limit the gas income of protoss so they can't reach sufficient colossus/immortal numbers to bust.

In regard to your responses, while I didn't get my reaper scout in on the Taldarim game, I did scan at roughly 6minutes and saw the 4gate. I put two bunkers down immediately afterwards in response. He faked pressure after the scan and as the scan faded went twilight/dt tech as you can see.

In the second game I agree I should have added another 2-3 bunkers as well. But I disagree pulling SCVs, I would dare say its even better to just let them mine because with a sentry heavy 6gate, your scvs will never reach the bunker anyway.

and in the third game, I built the CC in base because I saw no expand with my reaper scout, so I knew some offensive play was coming. I didn't want to leave the CC in an angle I couldn't defend it from voidray.





Yeah I wasn't sure if you were planning on keeping marine/tank later on, and it is pretty bad. A couple of people have experimented with opening marine/tank and transitioning, which is good, but tanks are so bad lategame that you need to find a transition.

The most important thing to scout in TvP when you get your first scout in is if they get a second gas. You don't scout this. If they get a second gas, you stay on your toes for void rays / DTs.

Your other two responses do make sense though.
"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few. " -Shunro Suzuki | fortuna fortes adiuvat
Masq
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
Canada1792 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-11-27 19:38:19
November 27 2011 19:37 GMT
#13
On November 28 2011 04:27 NB wrote:
as a Protoss player i dont think the problem for terran is the build order, especially if you are high master and above.

Yes build order is matter if you take map into consideration: on xelnaga FE sucks 1/1/1 strong but on taldarim 1 rax expand is wonderful etc. But once you get pass the cheesing phase (7 mins mark ish), its all about itimidation between the 2 players.

So in a tradition timeline, the attacks came as follow assuming you are using bio macro play vs P.

proxy
1 base 3/4 rax scv marines all in
1 base 2 rax pressure
4 gates
3 gates VR/DT / prism drop
marine shield/ 1 base +1 timing
6 gates/immortal timing
stim timing
ghost/+1 timing
medivac timing

in moment in the above time line, the player could fake out their build in order to force an overreaction so that you could get ahead. For example as Protoss i love to go 1 gate expand into 3 gate and push out. Out side in it looks exactly like a 6 gates timing burst but i put down 2 gases at nature and transition into double forge. A terran player when see that push coming will over commit to bunkers and pull SCV therefore i just get further ahead. Same thing could apply to Terran: once medivac are out, you could just move out into middle of the map while taking a hidden(from obs vision) 3rd base.

The basic idea is to cut corner inside a power build and calling a bluff. Instead of getting a bunker you could squeeze in another ebay. Instead of making unit, make a CC and 3 barracks instead. In another word, TvP to me is a very slow pace rock paper scissor where you have scout and react accordingly. Which then results tons and tons of fake out, bait, retard magnet strat. Most recently we see how puma decided to split his army away from his base on metal vs Hero to destroy the range colossus timing push which normally would crush everything Puma have since he doesnt even have a single viking vs 2 colossi.

But yeah, tradition build order does work, it just the meta game has evolved a tons in the past 1 month which make it way wayyyy harder to play the game if you are not good at bluffing and calling bluff. BTW, try staying away from thor... they are just a horrible unit in this match up and the onlything that they do well vs is phoenix.


I disagree entirely, I think the problem IS the build order. The problem is that the opening build order requires a commitment and its hard to deviate enough in-time to adapt. Terran can't exactly NOT build a bunker, because you simply die to 6/9 of the builds, most of which are very difficult to scout in the early game.

On November 28 2011 04:28 Sc1pio wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 28 2011 03:34 Masq wrote:
On November 28 2011 03:22 Sc1pio wrote:
On November 28 2011 03:01 Masq wrote:
Yeah I'm aware of those builds.

I've tried them as well, but I actually dislike the 2rax reactor first build a lot. Unless its a map like Xelnaga or Metal with a very wide open natural.

I feel like it creates too much marines which are negated by heavy sentry play / sentry expo and don't serve a great purpose once you hit mid/late game. The only benefit I see are reactor first into 3rax ghost timings but that sort of relies on the protoss not spreading sentries or being caught offguard.

Do you have a replay link to the puma vs hero game?


Early on, you have a good amount of marines, but when you expand and put up the third barracks with a tech lab you get a good amount of production to get a nice ratio. 3 rax ghost pushes are a strong transition, but not the only one.

I do the 2rax reactor first on smaller maps, it loses its effectiveness the larger the map gets.

I don't know if DH will be releasing replays, and I don't know where to look for VODs :X. Keep an eye out.

Anyhoo, on to the games:

The 4gate DT expo game (Taldarim):
+ Show Spoiler +

Marine tank isn't very good vs. protoss the later the game gets, I don't know what your plan was but marines lose pretty hard to either high templar or colossus, and tanks are only really good against stalkers when they don't have blink. At this point, even Goody has admitted that tanks aren't very good against protoss.

Other than that it's really a scouting issue, you didn't scout whether he had a second gas, which would have set you off in terms of defense, and obviously you didn't scout the tech. You should most likely have an engineering bay at that point anyway for upgrades if you want to keep up with protoss, so it shouldn't be as big of an issue as it was.


The game against NsPCookie (Nezarim):
+ Show Spoiler +

Your build isn't very optimized. You get a gas at 13, get a reactor, and then don't do anything with it afterwards. You're up at 300 gas fairly quickly. If you had 1 rax FE'd and then thrown down three barracks before gas, you would have gotten more infrastructure up while having the same amount of production, and having a faster expansion. The only drawback is you would have had slower marauders, but the sheer amount of marines vs. the lack of splash from the protoss would have let you manage.

You see five gateways very quickly, which leads to the possibility of pressure from the protoss (he was sixgating, as you know). At this point, you should be making more bunkers. You stay at two, which leaves you very vulnerable. When you FE, you rely on bunkers to not die, and the cost of adding more is negated by salvaging later.

Considering that you traded evenly on the first wave; think about how much better you would have been had you had a couple more bunkers after that, and had pulled SCVs earlier.


Second Taldarim Game:
+ Show Spoiler +

This is a small point; if you're going to put a bunker out front immediately anyway you may as well put the CC there.

I have to say, this build is something I struggle with as well on this map. I'm not sure of a good way to deal with it, other than having buildings in the back of your natural to spot and stopping the stalkers from blinking somehow. Sorry for not being helpful, hopefully somebody else can help us out :X


I've been experimenting with tanks to do some tank/bunker contains off 2base. I'm aware marine/tank is near worthless in the late game, but if you can contain off 2 base you can severely limit the gas income of protoss so they can't reach sufficient colossus/immortal numbers to bust.

In regard to your responses, while I didn't get my reaper scout in on the Taldarim game, I did scan at roughly 6minutes and saw the 4gate. I put two bunkers down immediately afterwards in response. He faked pressure after the scan and as the scan faded went twilight/dt tech as you can see.

In the second game I agree I should have added another 2-3 bunkers as well. But I disagree pulling SCVs, I would dare say its even better to just let them mine because with a sentry heavy 6gate, your scvs will never reach the bunker anyway.

and in the third game, I built the CC in base because I saw no expand with my reaper scout, so I knew some offensive play was coming. I didn't want to leave the CC in an angle I couldn't defend it from voidray.





Yeah I wasn't sure if you were planning on keeping marine/tank later on, and it is pretty bad. A couple of people have experimented with opening marine/tank and transitioning, which is good, but tanks are so bad lategame that you need to find a transition.

The most important thing to scout in TvP when you get your first scout in is if they get a second gas. You don't scout this. If they get a second gas, you stay on your toes for void rays / DTs.

Your other two responses do make sense though.


Honestly most protoss in korea server get 2 gas regardless of doing 1gate FE or not. It's probably the more common build when compared to 1gas FE. It opens their tech up a lot quicker. While I agree I should have noticed it.


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