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Hey all.
I'm a ~900 diamond player. I generally clean up against protoss with one large exception: Toss players who make use of 4+ templars in battles, specifically their storm ability.
My builds tend to be either 3 or 4 rax opening, and from there I'll either double down on bio if he isn't countering it right or if I sense the win, otherwise I'll expand and build a factory and starport and mixup drops/banshee harass/ghosts/tanks/thor as my scouting dictates.
This results in me generally having armies with 2-5 mechs (be it tanks or thors), but the primary backbone still being MMM, with 4 or so ghosts if we've progressed to 15 minutes in game time.
Problem is, by that time, I'll move up and get ready to start the push, or do drops. But whenever I engage openly against a toss player with a respective force (zealot/stalker/high templare/guardians/1-2 collossi) I'll get fried by him casting 4-5 storms on my main army. I'll micro and run the bio out of there, but I feel there's just tooo much damage done. My main army will inevitably get obliterated, and unless i've otherwise map controlled or gone ahead in the resource race through my harassing attempts, it'll eventually be GG.
So my question is how do I deal with 900-1100 diamond toss players using high templars. I can't send my ghosts in ahead to snipe cause he'll inevitably have an observer. I have tried doing round about drops behind his back line but it inevitably takes too long (he'll have already fired off his storms on my main), and yes I've tried stimming and running out of it. But between the stim and the storm, it inevitably gets half my main down to half life. Now I try to do the same to his force with my ghosts, but it seems I lose out.
I'm looking for some protips on how to deal with high templar. Once I see them, should I be teching/trending toward any particular type of unit? (thors? BC's? more tanks?) Anything I can do besides dividing up my main and just plain micro-ing better?
Thanks in advance. Any posts to videos of effective battling against high templar would be great.
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but HT are always well behind the main line. If they have an observer, my ghosts will get chewed up before they can get there.
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If toss has storms then you are required to always be the one initiating fights or you will get rolled by anyone competent. Snipe/EMP, if you do the snipe route a raven/extra scans and a viking or two are great for picking off observers they're really low hp and expensive for toss to continually make.
Brat-OK used to have a really amusing style where late game he abuse how easy observers are to kill and would literally end up with mass ghost cloak sniping late game.
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EMP has a ridiculous range of 10 + 2 AoE radius. Abuse it.
Of course, don't just move in one hotkey group and a-move. Toss can't do this against good T, so T shouldn't be able to do this against Toss either. I don't want to start a race war, but I think too many Terran players think 1t1a MMM ball is all that is necessary.
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Leave my observers alone damnit!
Yea, the damned things die very easily; feel free to have a suicide squad of 3-4 vikings to snipe off observers with scans, since there probably won't be anything else in the air for 'toss, and a heavy zeal/templar army will lack significant stalker numbers to stop you from blowing the poor things out of the air in seconds.
After, feel free to terrorize the protoss player with 4-6 cloaked ghosts EVERYWHERE you can get away with.
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Storm is very good in TvP, even with ghosts in play, you'll probably miss a few HT's and they'll inevitably hit you. However, your said you were up against an army of HT/ templar / guardian / zealot / stalker. The fact that he has both a dominant force of Collosi and templar signals something is wrong, that costs a ridiculous amount of time / money. Either you let him out expand you or you haven't pressured him enough in his more vulnerable stages. If you are talking about a game where an opponent goes the chargelots / storm route. I recommend frequent drops, ghosts to thin his HT numbers or banshees to snipe them. EMP out-ranges feedback so keep that in mind. I'd definitely recommend cloak later on in the game, Scan -> vikings snipe observers -> send in cloaked banshees / ghosts to take care of HTs. I've lost a lot to protoss in the past, until lately i've started doing 1-1-2 play. I feel that banshees on the field early shape his unit composition (they usually don't go collosi and it slows down their tech) fairly well.
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In an open battle, have as many ghosts as he has HTs and keep them separate from your army, but close. You need to be ready to quickly cloak and EMP. Most likely the HTs are behind a wall of stalkers/zealots so when the battle begins it's key to flank the enemy army with your cloaked ghosts (even with observer) while your main army takes the enemy army. Seek out the HTs with your ghosts and EMP asap. Once he pulls the HTs towards your main army, you have maybe 2 seconds to act. Definitely a battle of who has the best micro. If you have ravens or extra energy for a scan you could make a priority out of taking down the observer so the ghosts are free to do their business. PDD will help distract the stalkers if they get to your ghosts.
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You don't even have to cloak. Just keep them with or behind your ball and abuse the range. It's very hard to snipe ghosts with anything Toss has. Ghosts are psionic units and have no damage penalties, so anything but zealots require a lot of shots to kill them. EMP outranges FB, and EMP is an AoE spell (do you know how hard it is to click on a ghost in a moving MMG ball?).
You aren't likely going to stop every storm, but just move out of the one or two that Toss throws down.
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learn and perfect ghost micro and try to build them reasonably early.
if you are in a fight, do not move youre eye. even if you fail in the macro part, just add 1-2 barracks for gods sake. but fully concentrate about the fight. if you do good, and the toss can get only like 1-2 storms off, you should crush his army with your bioball.
also, there is more ways of getting rid of templar energy. stim, attack, wait till he storms, retreat, maybe get some emps off.
if you can win the micro fight. you win. if you lose the micro fight, you lose. thats pvt gamble.
the other option is, go for psi-resistent armies. thor, battlecruisers tanks, something among these lines.
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I'm already sorry if this ends up being a wall of text, but I can't explain the situation in 1 sentence.
Terran has no proper counter to High Templars. You can scream and say "Ghost!" but its absolutely not true. High Templars and Ghosts are designed to counter each other which means that the Ghosts itself also gets countered by the HT.
There are different situations, usually Protoss has vision over your army if you don't have a raven with it (observer) and you won't have much vision over his. You can use scan but thats just a momentarely glimpse over his army composition and position. You want to scan before you engage to EMP high templars.
The main problem is, besides EMP being really strong. Its hard to pull of, harder to pull off than feedback. Everyone keeps saying EMP has more range than feedback which is only half-true.
If you hit the Templar with the edge of the EMP area, you will hit first, if you put the HT in the middle of the EMP area, the feedback will hit you first. Thats the first problem you will encounter; the other problem is that high templars will usually (lets just assume for the sake of Terran, Templars are all clumped) be at the very back of the Protoss army; and you need the Ghosts to go in front to actually land EMP's on them. Problem with that? He gets vision of your ghosts earlier than you get vision of his HTs (even with scan beforehand) and you will have to cast EMP with a wall of Zealot/Stalker in front of you.
That usually leads to getting feedbacked or dying Ghosts before you even EMP properly  !
Obviously EMP'ing the Protoss army is also really good, but what you really want to get are the templars. Also EMP'ing the army of Protoss is 'good' but its by no means equal to be as good as storm, because if you don't look for a second and get hit by storm, your army is gone.
Right now a lot of Protoss players are not good by any means, they are way too agressive and low on templar / storms.. but I think when Protoss players get better and know how to survive early the Terran players will have a huge problem.
Defensive Protoss with Templars (Feedback vs Medivac) and Storm or Cannons can shut down drop attempts easily. So if you are Terran, open with pressure, try to throw him off or kill him early, in lategame instant warpin ( storm ) and feedback will shut down harass and he will kill you later :o
Edit: If you don't know me. I'm playing vs Socke, HasuObs, Naniwa and other really good players more often than I'd like to haha.. :d
Edit2: I for my part think that TvP is hard because Protoss just has so many options that are viable. Void Rays do good vs nearly everything, especially when charged. Colossi+Stalker armies are really good, even if you have vikings (you will always have TOO many or too less.. so your other army part sucks balls).
Storm is great AoE and you can always get off enough storms to make the bioball retreat or die (if you are good)
If you don't overcommit Carriers are also a good choice OR!!! just a few as support to your main army.
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On September 24 2010 05:32 G.s)NarutO wrote:I'm already sorry if this ends up being a wall of text, but I can't explain the situation in 1 sentence. Terran has no proper counter to High Templars. You can scream and say "Ghost!" but its absolutely not true. High Templars and Ghosts are designed to counter each other which means that the Ghosts itself also gets countered by the HT. There are different situations, usually Protoss has vision over your army if you don't have a raven with it (observer) and you won't have much vision over his. You can use scan but thats just a momentarely glimpse over his army composition and position. You want to scan before you engage to EMP high templars. The main problem is, besides EMP being really strong. Its hard to pull of, harder to pull off than feedback. Everyone keeps saying EMP has more range than feedback which is only half-true. If you hit the Templar with the edge of the EMP area, you will hit first, if you put the HT in the middle of the EMP area, the feedback will hit you first. Thats the first problem you will encounter; the other problem is that high templars will usually (lets just assume for the sake of Terran, Templars are all clumped) be at the very back of the Protoss army; and you need the Ghosts to go in front to actually land EMP's on them. Problem with that? He gets vision of your ghosts earlier than you get vision of his HTs (even with scan beforehand) and you will have to cast EMP with a wall of Zealot/Stalker in front of you. That usually leads to getting feedbacked or dying Ghosts before you even EMP properly ! Obviously EMP'ing the Protoss army is also really good, but what you really want to get are the templars. Also EMP'ing the army of Protoss is 'good' but its by no means equal to be as good as storm, because if you don't look for a second and get hit by storm, your army is gone. Right now a lot of Protoss players are not good by any means, they are way too agressive and low on templar / storms.. but I think when Protoss players get better and know how to survive early the Terran players will have a huge problem. Defensive Protoss with Templars (Feedback vs Medivac) and Storm or Cannons can shut down drop attempts easily. So if you are Terran, open with pressure, try to throw him off or kill him early, in lategame instant warpin ( storm ) and feedback will shut down harass and he will kill you later :o Edit: If you don't know me. I'm playing vs Socke, HasuObs, Naniwa and other really good players more often than I'd like to haha.. :d Edit2: I for my part think that TvP is hard because Protoss just has so many options that are viable. Void Rays do good vs nearly everything, especially when charged. Colossi+Stalker armies are really good, even if you have vikings (you will always have TOO many or too less.. so your other army part sucks balls). Storm is great AoE and you can always get off enough storms to make the bioball retreat or die (if you are good) If you don't overcommit Carriers are also a good choice OR!!! just a few as support to your main army.
This post is so one sided I cannot even believe you are a top tier player.
So you are saying templars arent easy to kill because you actually have to react before they get in range? You need to react fast, yes, just as the protoss has to rely on you NOT reacting to feedback you.
Also, Void rays are easily shut down by vikings and marines in the late game. You have to get to them before they charge. MAP CONTROL.
Collosi stalker armies are not good vs terran. Remember that a toss ball is only as good as the zealots backing it up. After that any and all armored units WILL die to marauders. Marauders + vikings beats this easily. If the toss is going too stalker heavy, punish him.
The problem with drops is cannons? If your opponent has his base lined with cannons go around them and find another spot. FORCE the issue if you really want to drop that bad. MMM drops are not the only thing the terran army has dude.
You are basically complaining about THREE different toss strats, each of which are easy to scout and has a viable response from terran. Stop massing just MMM and mix in other units if they have templar. You don't bring up any compelling evidence and your little statement at the end about the players you face in ladder does not make your post true.
edit- and at your carrier comment, LOL YAMATO
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I'm sorry but your post is not worth more than a oneliner. You know I'm living with DemusliM right? I see him play against Protoss and I talk with him all the time. KiWiKaki (you should know him) players Stalker/Colossi or Gatewayunit / Colossi and once he hit 200/200 with it, you can try to kill it with Marauder/Viking.
You talk big and I bet you've never played any Terran at all.. my post is not biased or one sided, I'm stating problems Terran players encouter. I didn't say that there's no counter to that, I'm saying that those strategies are STRONGER and Protoss is STRONGER than the Protoss players make it look like. Most Protoss saying its basically 1t1a with a drop at the same time, its not true.
and I'm speaking of cannons right besides the Nexus, with a Templar there. You can try to find a way around, I already try to maximaze damage, but don't tell me a 4 marauderdrop can take out 2 cannons and a templar + Nexus in seconds, easily enough time (if not enough to shut down the drop) is bought.
Edit: TvP in that aspect is the same as TvZ. Fuck up Zerg early, and expand after, try to go into a macrogame and you will probably die if they reach Mid+Late untouched. Thats Terrans advantage now. Not mid or late "MAPCONTROL" like you say.
Edit2: If you are curious, check out HasuObs or Socke, both always put pylon+templar at watchtowers or cliffs. They have pylons all over, they can reinforce their army at any position on the map or sneak an HT to storm you, if you don't know what I'm talking about, stop crying about Terran. 
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I don't understand why EMP is hard to pull of. The only thing that might trip a ghost up is a HT in the hands of a very high level player (such as yourself) who can accurately and quickly click F before Ghost can fire an EMP (EMP does outrange FB by 1 + 2 AoE, but that's small enough a margin that if T isn't paying attention or doesn't have line of sight, HTs can FB a ghost). But again, this requires very high level reflexes and mousing accuracy which anyone less than 1500 diamond really isn't inclined to have.
But the OP is asking about how to counter storm, and really, a storm has a range of six. EMP will easily take care of any HTs if what the toss player is using them for is storm.
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I, at that point of high templers, have either enough ghosts or banshees to pick off templers. If they speed tech, you'd hope you had basic maurder/marine split army control to stim and run and split and just pick of some templers and fall back (its what I do at least..? lol im sure its horrible) I waste some troops to take out his temps, because assuming you have at least a raven or two for PDD it makes stalkers at least bearable, until they just blink away. I personally always have trouble with collsai, because I make too many ravens and not nearly enough vikings. I try to rush them, and they plain destroy me.
I'd say though, ghosts are your best bet. He'll still get storms off, and you'll get a LOT of emp's off and then, if all else fails, you can snipe his HTs or zealots out of battle rather easily.
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I don't care where you are living, I am approaching your argument from a neutral stance.
Marauder + Viking is a suitable counter to gateway units + collosi. You are going to need to scout and adjust for how many collosi they have. If you are having trouble with that simple mechanic, I'm sorry.
You made no compelling argument that suggests that protoss is stronger, you just complained about the difficulties of executing your strategy (which you have even admitted is viable).
A cannon is right next to the nexus? Guess what bro, your drop doesn't have to snipe the nexus. Go snipe the core, the templar archives, gateways, assimilators, etc. The idea of a drop is not to just doom drop in and ravage their main nexus, its to keep them contained and NOT ATTACKING YOU while doing economic damage. If there are cannons by the nexus thats 150+ minerals he is spending on something you can ignore completely. Go snipe other buildings bro.
If you really want to drop, you are going to have to force the issue and not expect to simply snipe bases in under a second.
Again, please give me some compelling evidence and I will be more likely to agree with you. My ears are open.
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BTW, I used to play T in beta. I'm certainly no pro (always a mid-high diamond player), but using EMP was never difficult. Again, this might be different at the highest levels of play, but EMP was pretty much a sure-thing for everyone not a pro (and really, in pro replays, I see EMPS going off on templars more often then not).
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If you EMP (AoE 2) and put the Templar in the middle of that AoE feedback will hit before your EMP. And the Ghosts are not going within your army.. because they need to get in front because you want to EMP while attacking. If they are stuck within your bio ball, they will die to storm  !
Its really a lot more tricky than you make it sound and storm is a lot easier to cast than EMP even though both are AoE spells. If you don't believe me, try it yourself. I don't want to argue.
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On September 24 2010 05:32 G.s)NarutO wrote:I'm already sorry if this ends up being a wall of text, but I can't explain the situation in 1 sentence. Terran has no proper counter to High Templars. You can scream and say "Ghost!" but its absolutely not true. High Templars and Ghosts are designed to counter each other which means that the Ghosts itself also gets countered by the HT. There are different situations, usually Protoss has vision over your army if you don't have a raven with it (observer) and you won't have much vision over his. You can use scan but thats just a momentarely glimpse over his army composition and position. You want to scan before you engage to EMP high templars. The main problem is, besides EMP being really strong. Its hard to pull of, harder to pull off than feedback. Everyone keeps saying EMP has more range than feedback which is only half-true. If you hit the Templar with the edge of the EMP area, you will hit first, if you put the HT in the middle of the EMP area, the feedback will hit you first. Thats the first problem you will encounter; the other problem is that high templars will usually (lets just assume for the sake of Terran, Templars are all clumped) be at the very back of the Protoss army; and you need the Ghosts to go in front to actually land EMP's on them. Problem with that? He gets vision of your ghosts earlier than you get vision of his HTs (even with scan beforehand) and you will have to cast EMP with a wall of Zealot/Stalker in front of you. That usually leads to getting feedbacked or dying Ghosts before you even EMP properly ! Obviously EMP'ing the Protoss army is also really good, but what you really want to get are the templars. Also EMP'ing the army of Protoss is 'good' but its by no means equal to be as good as storm, because if you don't look for a second and get hit by storm, your army is gone. Right now a lot of Protoss players are not good by any means, they are way too agressive and low on templar / storms.. but I think when Protoss players get better and know how to survive early the Terran players will have a huge problem. Defensive Protoss with Templars (Feedback vs Medivac) and Storm or Cannons can shut down drop attempts easily. So if you are Terran, open with pressure, try to throw him off or kill him early, in lategame instant warpin ( storm ) and feedback will shut down harass and he will kill you later :o Edit: If you don't know me. I'm playing vs Socke, HasuObs, Naniwa and other really good players more often than I'd like to haha.. :d Edit2: I for my part think that TvP is hard because Protoss just has so many options that are viable. Void Rays do good vs nearly everything, especially when charged. Colossi+Stalker armies are really good, even if you have vikings (you will always have TOO many or too less.. so your other army part sucks balls). Storm is great AoE and you can always get off enough storms to make the bioball retreat or die (if you are good) If you don't overcommit Carriers are also a good choice OR!!! just a few as support to your main army.
I sorta half-agree with you, but saying EMP is harder to pull off than feedback just doesn't sound right at ALL. Take a look at this screenshot: http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/4964/screenshot2010092223093.jpg Just imagine how much accuracy and skill it takes to snipe a ghost with feedback (+1 skill if the ghost is cloaked) I'd rather waste my energy on storming than using feedback to snipe individual ghost.
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EPT
