i've noticed a lot of new players have problems breaking siege lines in pvt. here's how
the basic idea is to spread out units as much as possible before the engagement and to target tanks with zealots
0. BEFORE ENGAGEMENT - scout properly. you will need a larger army than the terran or really good spellcasting. if you don't have enough units go backstab or cut off reinforcements instead - make sure you have zealots/dragoons hotkeyed separately
1. SPREAD OUT UNITS moving perpendicular to the terran siege line then stopping them will naturally spread out your army due to unit blocking you can also spread out your units manually. it helps to start with perpendicular movement, then spread manually
2. ATTACK MOVE DRAGOONS begin clearing mines. if there aren't any you can start moving zealots in if you have shuttles and/or arbiters, start moving them in now
3. CLEAR MINES UNTIL TANKS START FIRING at this point if the mines are sufficiently cleared start moving zealots in dragoons can tank a few hits by themselves but try not to let more than a few tanks fire arbiters should be casting on the largest clumps of units, preferably in the back
4. MOVE ZEALOTS IN move zealots in. make sure you click behind the siege line if you have a zealot shuttle it should be on top of the tanks by now. start dropping if you have a templar shuttle drop them behind your charging zealots and start storming
5. SPLIT ZEALOTS split your zealots as much as possible as they charge in try to get as far into the siege line as possible, and split zealots between different tanks
6. TANKS DIE alternately all your zealots are dead and you retreat what's left of your army to wait for reinforcements
I've been trying to incorporate shuttle zealot bombing into late game engagements. Is it not worth it? Would better time be spent with the shuttles if I put HT in them and went to harass?
Nice guide! I'll also post counter strategy for the Terran:
1. The vultures are in a control group, and so are scvs/tanks. Each has moved to an individual location. The tanks were sieged.
2. Move the vultures out to place mines forward. About half of a screen. We want tanks to be able to shoot dragoons that get into range of mines. Make some missile turrets. Make sure the radius of each turret overlaps each other a little bit. The purpose of turrets is to protect the mines from observers. Lay mines between the turrets.
3. Mines have been placed between turrets. Tanks can protect the turrets as the turrets protect the mines. The protoss now has very minimal vision of the Terran army. The protoss will have trouble counting how many Terran tanks exist. The vultures are just on hold position in the middle of the tanks, with some tanks front of the vultures. Hiya recently explained idea behind hold position vulture micro in a translated video:
4. Protoss attempts to clear mines, and loses an observer and dragoon. This is critical moment of decision making for the Protoss. Protoss can not freely clear mines, and must act.
5-1. The first choice for Protoss. Back away for now. Terran may have 20 tanks, or he may only have 2 tanks. It is hard to tell. If Protoss backs away he can expand, and/or prepare an Arbiter recall.
5-2. The Protoss is pushing! The protoss tries for a bust of the sim city. Unless the Protoss had very good macro, there will not be enough units to bust the fortification. The Terran will certainly hold given equal macro skill for each player. The Protoss can not bust without an advantage, like better macro/micro, or some tech Arbiter plays or Carriers. Terran holds, and can take a safe expansion. Eventually the Protoss will run out of minerals, and the Terran will have minerals available to mine. Victory.
On July 07 2017 07:59 Galtath wrote: I've been trying to incorporate shuttle zealot bombing into late game engagements. Is it not worth it? Would better time be spent with the shuttles if I put HT in them and went to harass?
Late game zealot bombs in a big engagemet won't really do anything to a decent Terran. Terran will be focus firing dragoons with tanks, and the hold position vultures will just insta kill the zealots for free.
But, dropping some HT tech for storm on the tanks is great. Zealot bombing before vessel tech comes out is also really strong, since Terran does not yet have a big mech army.
On July 07 2017 07:59 Galtath wrote: I've been trying to incorporate shuttle zealot bombing into late game engagements. Is it not worth it? Would better time be spent with the shuttles if I put HT in them and went to harass?
Lategame i think shuttles with HT are infinitely better than trying to zealot bomb. Since they dont get priority on attacks being casters drop along a line and storm big clumps of tanks
On July 07 2017 07:59 Galtath wrote: I've been trying to incorporate shuttle zealot bombing into late game engagements. Is it not worth it? Would better time be spent with the shuttles if I put HT in them and went to harass?
as others have said it's worth it late game but only if you have spare apm stasis and/or templar shuttles for storm (on clumped tank/vult) are much more important
On July 07 2017 18:41 psd wrote: Shouldn't you wait for terran to unsiedge before going ?
ideally yes but it's not generally possible unless the terran screws up lategame the terran is going to be keeping tabs on your army with vults/mines/scans so it's going to be very hard to surprise them
before you engage a terran, if possible, move against him and make him lay mines earlier than he wants to and siege up, buys you time, you should have more prod, and if he unsieges then better moment for you to go or even not yet, wait till he moves over his mines, etc, also sometimes better just go behind his army depends how heavy he went on production before eco etcccc sometimes you can make nice move with zealots coming from unpredicted direction, if they dont have to go through minefield its great :O how proactive you are with goons+obs before engagement/sieging up/mining up matters if you really have to engage a set up T position you better have big army advantage at that spot and/or good reason for attacking
zealot bombing late game : harder to pull off at that stage (goliaths?) but no reason you wouldnt be able to sometimes, also I guess multiple shuttles with speed with zeals in them can do nice stuff?? such as just legit drop on top of his tanks or something - I rarely do that but doesnt sound bad
As a Protoss player I don't attempt to break a siege line unless I have a decent advantage or am forced to because I allowed them to get to close to my base. This guide is good for knowing how to engage for when either of those 2 situations arrive.
I think another thing to talk about though is when not to engage and how to continue the game and gain advantage without forcing an engagement. For the most part I keep around 3 orbs around the map. One of the left side one on the right and one in the middle to keep tabs on the Terran army. I keep my army in position just outside the range of their army and don't engage unless they try to move forward and I can catch them off guard. You can do a lot of whittling down this way and it's ok to trade zeals for tanks / vaults but you have to back away when you lose most or all your zealots. By staying in the Terrans face and picking and choosing when to engage and back off, it gives you more opportunity to upgrade /tech/expand until you do have the army advantage or enough bases to have 20+ gateways.
When it comes to 4 base Terran vs 5 base Protoss I will engage in less than favorable positions because at this point you can rebuild your army quickly because you will have excess minerals and tons of gateways. Alternatively you can afford to recall parts of your army and not have to worry about Terran steamrolling you when they eventually die because you can rebuild your army fast.
The important thing to remember in PvT is that Terran wants you to attack their siege line and they do not want to be the aggressor unless they have a big advantage.
TLDR: Don't play their game and attack into siege tanks mine field when you don't have to. Focus on map control and smaller hit and run battles until you have the advantage.
On July 08 2017 07:43 RealZork wrote: As a Protoss player I don't attempt to break a siege line unless I have a decent advantage or am forced to because I allowed them to get to close to my base. This guide is good for knowing how to engage for when either of those 2 situations arrive.
I think another thing to talk about though is when not to engage and how to continue the game and gain advantage without forcing an engagement. For the most part I keep around 3 orbs around the map. One of the left side one on the right and one in the middle to keep tabs on the Terran army. I keep my army in position just outside the range of their army and don't engage unless they try to move forward and I can catch them off guard. You can do a lot of whittling down this way and it's ok to trade zeals for tanks / vaults but you have to back away when you lose most or all your zealots. By staying in the Terrans face and picking and choosing when to engage and back off, it gives you more opportunity to upgrade /tech/expand until you do have the army advantage or enough bases to have 20+ gateways.
When it comes to 4 base Terran vs 5 base Protoss I will engage in less than favorable positions because at this point you can rebuild your army quickly because you will have excess minerals and tons of gateways. Alternatively you can afford to recall parts of your army and not have to worry about Terran steamrolling you when they eventually die because you can rebuild your army fast.
The important thing to remember in PvT is that Terran wants you to attack their siege line and they do not want to be the aggressor unless they have a big advantage.
TLDR: Don't play their game and attack into siege tanks mine field when you don't have to. Focus on map control and smaller hit and run battles until you have the advantage.
Realistically you wanna cripple them as much as you can before lategame, have a bunch of bases and be ready to remax cause your first army will almost 100% die, and then with luck your 2nd one can survive vs 3-3. Cause the first tank volley probably 1/4 of your army will die instantly and you wanna do as much as you can with whats left.
Retreat goons after zeals die and just try and kill anything you can
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/9X4OlE2.png)
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