Today I ran into this player in 1v1 matchmaking game that did the most dominating unit combo I've faced PvT. I asked him to run some custom games to see if I could figure out a way to beat this but out of 5 games I lost every single one of them. Keep in mind, I knew his build the entire time but tried to keep it as standard as possible to see if it was something I could transition to out of standard play. I realize that there are many different cheeses I could have tried to win vs this but that wasn't the goal. Were both high ranked Platinum players maining our respective races.
I'm really curious to see what NonY / Orb (Maybe on Orb knows best?) has to offer towards beating this.
One of the biggest issues is I don't see me beating this with an FE (Which isn't viable on most maps anyways) so I usually kept it 1 base vs 1/2 base. He seemed to have to strong of map presence throughout the whole game.
The basic concept is to 1 Rak, Reactor marine wall off. Fact next, build the Tech lab and switch it with the Starport when finished. Add a Tech lab for the Factory again and he begins ravens. It denies scouting as well because of the early raven. He usually got a combination of Tanks / Marines / Ravens / Banshees and used the Point defense drone. Sometimes more than 1 which take a LONG time to kill in a battle when the Tanks / Rine are destroying your units. He had good timings and I attacked both times I tried to expand in 2 of the games which I was unable to hold.
I don't really see Collosi holding here, Banshees destroy it and he sometimes even got vikings, or atleast always would when I got some air or Collosi.
http://bit.ly/c85N23 - First time I saw it used, This caught me off guard. Plus I hate this map PvT.
http://bit.ly/b26H6s - I realize my first attack sucked but I think it was an AI issue, the Zlots didn't attack down the ramp but it could have been my error. 4 Warpgate build.
http://bit.ly/aQfGaT - I try a Phoenix build since he was sort of air heavy, and to deal with the Ravens, but he can switch to Vikings so easily. I might have not done this perfectly since I don't normally go Phoenix, but that's why I'm making this thread. -.^
http://bit.ly/bZHT40 - This was the closest I came, I did a 3 Warpgate / tech timing.
http://bit.ly/bXh0AT - I lost an early stalker which was a big mistake, but I stayed 1 base this entire time basically because I felt like I had to. I won the initial attack sort of but I was still to far behind. And he dominated me earlier in the game too and forced me back.
I think he's open to challengers trying to beat this build, if anyone would like to try send him a message @ Orcmaniac.bjjfan
I am confused to how you don't break this early on considering he is making ravens pretty early and should only have 1 rax (reactor) and 1 fact producing anything, and the fact should be hellions since he is burning gas on ravens. I may be wrong because I have not watch the reps yet (downloading), and will revise my statement if it seems wrong.
On May 01 2010 15:58 PaleBlueDot wrote: I am confused to how you don't break this early on considering he is making ravens pretty early and should only have 1 rax (reactor) and 1 fact producing anything, and the fact should be hellions since he is burning gas on ravens. I may be wrong because I have not watch the reps yet (downloading), and will revise my statement if it seems wrong.
I tried some early harass but like I said I didn't want to anything typically not standard since normally I'm not going to 2 Gate Zlot, or even 1 Gate Chrono Zlot vs terran early on because most of the time that gets destroyed.
I am acutally a top 5 - 10 (depends) platinum terran and i use the exact same build to crush protoss.
It is a very powerful build but not nearly unbeatable, there are some weak points in it. The Terran needs a crucial number of units to really hit you, he will be very vulnerable to early attacks. I lost to a very early blink attack, since marines completly suck against Stalkers. The one thing to keep in mind is that you have to attack before the PDD can be used, so you need to do that very early.
Mass speed Zealots will rape through the terran, since the PDD will not help and Marines and only 2-3 Tanks will die instantly to them.
If you are very skilled you can do some Voidray attack early on, but you have to be very careful to not loose any of them. If you attack with Voidrays you are forcing the terran to make vikings instead of his raven/banshees, if you then expand while attacking him you can easily build a force that will crush marine/tank/vinkings hard.
Another general thing is that the terran will be strongest when he can build like 3 bunkers for all of his marines. Do not let him bunker up in front of your main to contain you, once you are contained there is not really anything you could do to break it.
Okay, so I watched some of the replays and here is what I saw:
1st Game: He does not actually have any fighting units aside from ~15 cliff marines until about 7:30 in the game. You went like, 4 warpgate chargelot (I am not good with build names). This is where I get confused. You did not have any scouting that he was coming, the force you had (I am pretty sure you had charge before he pushed out, and blink was upgrading while he was moving out) consisted of like ~10 chargelots, 3 sentries, and 8-10 stalkers. As far as that goes, his push would have been DOMINATED if you had attacked him as he moved out, instead of after he set up outside your choke. Even during the attack, if your zealots did not do whatever the hell they were doing on the cliff (???), and just straight up attacked, I think he would have gotten owned there as well. Just like in SC1, if you see tanks, don't let him move out/set up with them. Just because they aren't SC1 tanks doesn't make them useless.
2nd Game: I have not played much on that map because I think it is gay (I main Terran), but you went for early immortals, which I did not agree with considering the large number of marines/air control he had. Pretty much got pushed back because of the unit combination colliding here.
So far (still got 3-5 to watch), I think camping his choke to attack before he sets up his tanks is a game breaker here. 1st games build will beat it soundly I think, as long as your zealots don't screw up. Ill add more as I go :/ (remember this is speculation)
I'll watch the replays in a minute, but initial theorycrafting suggests high templar. I understand that may not be your current "standard" play but the game is still in beta, and its not like beta is particularly old even. What we consider standard today will 99% guaranteed be laughable in a years time. If nothing else the timings will be better understood and thus builds refined to account for the outlayer strategies. If you played those customs, after losing once or twice more, you should've abandoned trying to play "standard" and just seeing if you could beat it. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results (Einstein).
You said that Raven denies early scouting, I think its more applicable to say he can kill your observer, so watching it as it enters his base is probably a good start for identifying his build. Likewise don't think that just observers can scout, a hallucinated phoenix is much faster and can take a few hits, thus able to get a quick run through his base to see whats up, and less expensive than an observer.
I consider templar tech vs Terran still reasonably standard, many Toss have had success with DT in the matchup. Granted DTs won't help here, but HT with feedback turns the raven into a very expensive, uncloaked observer. I admit I am not deeply familiar with point defense drone mechanics, however if it can be cast outside of feedback's 9 range, and you can't pull your army back a few steps to be out of range of the drone, then maybe point defense drone is even stronger than I had realized. You don't even need storm upgraded in time for the push, feedback seems like it should at least even the playing field, feedback is an incredible response to banshees and ravens. However with the low hp marine and stationary tanks, the natural addition of storm to your force should definitely give you the advantage.
If you are determined to go Robo I'm not sure super hard tech to colossi would answer this problem either. Like all things it needs moderation. Toss anti air via robo is always tricky, and appropriately balance stalker/sentry to colossi ratio without a good look at his army composition is a complete guessing game, and still doesn't account for any tanks. Sure ideally you could have colossi killing marines, immortals taking tank shots and targeting them back, with stalkers killing banshees, but thats a lot of favorable micro on your part and complete lack of micro on your opponents part. Another different approach would be something Day9 did a daily on, I believe in the 90 range, a relatively quick immortal drop. With the lack of army size you could definitely do damage with warp prism + immortals sniping depots/whatever. For the marines to really be effective and cover the whole base its likely they'd need stim, which is more gas not to mention a couple medivacs, once again slowing down the push. Even if you go robo and your obs get sniped early (but you can tell its some form of this strat going on), it may make sense to start templar tech, at the very least charge zealots should do decently against marines/tanks, though at that point the ravens likely start casting defense turret instead. Still it could be worth trying.
Lastly, in regards to early aggression PvT, I've noticed a fair number of Toss going stalker first (in response to potential reaper harass) and push a little/harass with the stalker. Granted stalkers aren't great vs marines or tanks in particular, but this early harass should help give you a feel for what the terran is doing. Depending on the map you can certainly cause a little trouble at the front, realize he isn't hugely defended, and shift into a more aggressive stance, requiring your opponent to get more defenses and slowing his build.
Hope any of this is helpful, like I said I'll check the replays, gl hf.
4th Game: This seemed to be a good match. You are able to pressure him, which is great. I actually think you would have won this game as well (1 and 4) if your attacks were better (no offense). You attacked through his choke into siege tanks the second or third time, which killed nothing more than most of his marines and you lost quite a few zealots + stalkers. Harass is great, but if you attack, watch out for the tanks, and try to snipe them if you can. It takes 10 (which at this point is most) of his marines to do the damage that just 1 of those tanks do (not including splash, and in most of the games I have seen, your armies collide and his marines are able to do their job...tank damage so the actual tanks [harrr] can do damage). Then, you recovered and held the middle. You first pulled your probe off the xel naga tower, which I did not agree with as it allows you to see his tanks siege/move, but that is little compared to you attacking into another choke. you had the superior force, but just ran into his army, and he got the arc since you attacked through a choke :[.
5th Game: Rush seemed really ineffective. Marines on high ground are effective against stalkers since they cant abuse their range. He ended up getting a bunker (3) wall with tanks and ravens (abusing smog fog [harrrr again] with tanks) which is pretty much the worst situation you can be in. The game was over here.
Overall the 3-4 warpgate strats seemed to have the most promise, just gotta make sure you attack with the initiative (not through a choke, not when his tanks are sieged, and bonus points for flanking). I feel going chargelot heavy would be good, as his banshee numbers were almost always limited to ~3 so stalkers or at the very least reinforcement stalkers should be able to handle them (that and tank splash should murder his marines). GL with the games :o
Played vs this a couple times. Stalkers and immortals suck against this, I recommend you getting a zealot heavy composition (like 90% of units = zealots, couple sentries and like 1 or 2 collossus'es).
Why not go 2 gates, 1 early stalker, tech up to 1 stargate, pump 2 vr's, and push at about 9 minutes with 2 vr's, 4-5 stalkers, and 2-5 sentries? Its not really cheesing, 9 minute pushes are pretty normal. And its not really an all-in, it opens you up to transition into quite a variety of things providing you dont crush him with your initial push.
HT can deny ravens energy and sometimes kill them outright. Storm isn't even necessary as a research as it seems to me like all you're having trouble with are the raven's PDD. Additionally, once you do research storm it's very effective against marines and tanks as marines have very little hp, especially once stimmed and tanks can't dodge storm. All that's left to deal with are vikings and they're really only powerful in the air.
On May 01 2010 17:45 Ryuu314 wrote: Why not templar?
HT can deny ravens energy and sometimes kill them outright. Storm isn't even necessary as a research as it seems to me like all you're having trouble with are the raven's PDD. Additionally, once you do research storm it's very effective against marines and tanks as marines have very little hp, especially once stimmed and tanks can't dodge storm. All that's left to deal with are vikings and they're really only powerful in the air.
Or you can skip that step all together and just make a lot more zealots.
On May 01 2010 17:45 Ryuu314 wrote: Why not templar?
HT can deny ravens energy and sometimes kill them outright. Storm isn't even necessary as a research as it seems to me like all you're having trouble with are the raven's PDD. Additionally, once you do research storm it's very effective against marines and tanks as marines have very little hp, especially once stimmed and tanks can't dodge storm. All that's left to deal with are vikings and they're really only powerful in the air.
Or you can skip that step all together and just make a lot more zealots.
Zealots get evaporated by tanks. If the Terran has good positioning he can block your zealots from reaching the tanks with marines and bunkers.
Tasteless did a similar build against me the other day, 1 raven for point defense drone + marines and tanks, it didnt seem very strong against warp-gate heavy army with a few immortals mixed in, i was able to hold it off dispite his attack hitting at a good time where my econ from my nat was only just kicking in and i didn't have extra gates down yet.
obviously don't build stalkers against this, get sentry zealot and immortal.
On May 01 2010 17:45 Ryuu314 wrote: Why not templar?
HT can deny ravens energy and sometimes kill them outright. Storm isn't even necessary as a research as it seems to me like all you're having trouble with are the raven's PDD. Additionally, once you do research storm it's very effective against marines and tanks as marines have very little hp, especially once stimmed and tanks can't dodge storm. All that's left to deal with are vikings and they're really only powerful in the air.
Or you can skip that step all together and just make a lot more zealots.
Zealots get evaporated by tanks. If the Terran has good positioning he can block your zealots from reaching the tanks with marines and bunkers.
Well this is only true when tanks have reached a critical mass, in early game zealots are very good against this. Terran will make go with ~ 3 tanks, marines, 1 raven, 1-2 banshees and 3-4 scvs and he is looking for a good spot to bunker up.
In middle or late game however zealots will be less useful, because if the terran is smart he will stop making marines when he secured his expansion and will start adding a fac with reactor for hellions.
I think High Templar is a very good choice because its effective against marines and banshees, but be careful when the ghosts enter the battlefield.
On May 01 2010 18:34 Ftrunkz wrote: Tasteless did a similar build against me the other day, 1 raven for point defense drone + marines and tanks, it didnt seem very strong against warp-gate heavy army with a few immortals mixed in, i was able to hold it off dispite his attack hitting at a good time where my econ from my nat was only just kicking in and i didn't have extra gates down yet.
obviously don't build stalkers against this, get sentry zealot and immortal.
I think people are forgetting about the banshees...
On May 01 2010 18:34 Ftrunkz wrote: Tasteless did a similar build against me the other day, 1 raven for point defense drone + marines and tanks, it didnt seem very strong against warp-gate heavy army with a few immortals mixed in, i was able to hold it off dispite his attack hitting at a good time where my econ from my nat was only just kicking in and i didn't have extra gates down yet.
obviously don't build stalkers against this, get sentry zealot and immortal.
I think people are forgetting about the banshees...
you have a ton of left over gas from producing pure zealot from warpgates, a lot of sentrys can take the small number of banshees he produces. And besides the more banshees he produces, the less ravens he can have, meaning you can start mixing in stalkers anyway.
Pretty sure your standard "see gas, open voidray" to expand should do OK vs any kind of 1 base terran build Though not ideal because of marines, you can at least contain him (you need good voidray micro) Also because he only has marines early on, you can do a lot of heavy pressure with 1 gate 1 stargate stalker/voidray
Failing that, i guess templar tech is required. Feedback is pretty much a godsend vs ravens, banshees, medivacs etc.etc. and ofc, opens up good tech later on in the game.
Personally i am very inexperienced with twilight first openins vs terran
number of replays with sentries: 5 number of replays with a guardian shield: 1 - and zealots were in the back while at his choke.
with rines dishing out only 5 dmg against zealots/stalkers, guardian shield takes it down to 3.
about replay 5: one storm on rines, ok - but then feedback - can be used on banshees (140HP), ravens (140HP) [if they haven't done their thing yet] - and point defense drones (50HP)
in general, more zealots. i understand one needs stalkers against banshees, which is why i was most interested in the phoenix replay: again no guardian shields, which also helps phoenixes against those 10x2 @ 2sec vikings, therefore 8x2 @ 2sec. phoenixes do ok'ish then even with an unbonus'es 5x2 @ 1.11sec. should you have to decide to stand your ground at those PDD, their 2x attack helps draining them faster, too
Yeah not sure I understand how voidray doesn't crush this build. Ravens and tanks do nothing to voidrays and mass marine you can take care of with zealots while he unsieges his tanks to move out, no? You're right that he'll try to switch to viking but... isn't that obvious since it's an RTS? If he switches his unit comp you can switch yours. I'm sure you can produce phoenixes against his vikings (not that void rays are bad against them) since you already have a stargate or two yourself.
Theorycrafting I know, but I don't see how the addition of a raven makes marine/tank go from mediocre to unbeatable. Heck, I don't even see how that prevents mass charge-zealot attacks. Marines will die from zealots/tank splash and you're golden, no?
NVM on the zealots, forgot about banshees =P Voidray/lot still sounds countering though!
Note before anyone reads this I did not get the beta too long ago so I am still pretty new. Also I have not watched any of the replays yet. Since I am at school and cannot download replays on their computers.
Suggestion to switch to templar tech. Possibly countered by ghost emp but probally still helpful since there shouldnt be too many ghosts due to the amount of gas spent on ravens banshees and tanks.
Switching to a zeolot heavy army to eliminate his advantage of the PDD might work initially. The terrans army compostion is probally mainly rines which are 50 min each and do 6 damage. If the terran builds an extra factory with a reactor. He can add a couple of hellions to the army which should pwn zeolots (especially after their upgrade from the tech lab you have anyway to produce tanks Also if the terran player is gas starved at the moment after rebuilding tanks or ravens then i can just produce the hellions out of the factory that cant produce tanks atm anyway due to the shortage of gas.
As a terran player myself I find myself in the most trouble when the protoss starts moving in when im setting up (or havent even started setting up) what i usually do to help with this is move my ball of units out with a single marine or scv leading the charge from way ahead if the unit dies before reaching its destination then the protoss player is moving out press your tank hotkey and siege up from here you can prepare to leapfrog the tanks. Also while mules are helpful to help you macro up a ****ton of rines abusing your scanner sweeps while moving out is helpful too so you can scan the sides of your attack force if needed to make sure you are not getting hit on the side where the leading rine/scv cant see. you shouldnt have to worry too much about a observer following your attack force like I know some protoss players like to do since you have ravens and rines.
anyone saying templar tech is instant counter is simply ignoring that the terran can and should add a couple ghosts once it's scouted and the game evolves to multi-base play, that's called metagame
banshees can probably snipe templars pretty well too with good control
that said i think zeal/void with light sentry seems good while teching to temps...i don't think this is a standard opening certainly so this build should stay effective for awhile...will be interesting to see how this evolves :D...
Mainly bad unit choice by the protoss, there are a number of combos that absolutely rape this - 5 warpgate push for 1 or even a voidray tech - both which seem to be the standard now adays.
On May 01 2010 23:26 lovewithlea wrote: feedback the PDD?
Can you do that?!?!
On May 02 2010 00:41 halpmeh wrote: anyone saying templar tech is instant counter is simply ignoring that the terran can and should add a couple ghosts once it's scouted and the game evolves to multi-base play, that's called metagame
If the Terran player gets a "couple ghosts", there aren't going to be many banshees or ravens at all on the field, so you don't need as many templar either.
you guys just caught on to this? it is a good opening build TvP. I will have to post a replay pack or something, the build for people wondering is:
12 rax 13 gas 15 OC
essentially, "standard economy build" and with first 100 gas factory, next 50 gas reactor on barracks.
from there, continuous marine production from your barracks, starport, use the fact to tech lab it, then tech lab the fact again, 1 raven, continuous tank production (no siege), and that is it.
from there, you have many options and transitions you can do, as well as being able to stop every single all-in build protoss can throw at you, including 4-5 warpgate all-ins.
I'm a terran and haven't ever tried this BO. However, it seems like it'd have problems against zealot/sentry. The tanks get no bonus damage, the raven can't really do anything besides make an auto turret or two, and the guardian shield cuts down the marine's damage by a ton.
I mean, I surprised this build works at all really.
On May 02 2010 01:55 Jonoman92 wrote: I'm a terran and haven't ever tried this BO. However, it seems like it'd have problems against zealot/sentry. The tanks get no bonus damage, the raven can't really do anything besides make an auto turret or two, and the guardian shield cuts down the marine's damage by a ton.
I mean, I surprised this build works at all really.
well, my tvp win/loss ratio is around 95% using exclusively this build for so many of my TvPs, soooo...it works. It works amazingly
It has no problems against zealot/sentry unless you do not scout and change your unit composition. If you notice they are doing zealot/sentry, you simply get igniter hellions and banshees from your starport
you then also have igniter drop options, transitions into ghost mech easily, transitions into airmech easily, or you can transition it back into a mass marauder bio.
so, what's the surprise to the build working? It is the most versatile T opening any Terran can do right now vs anything.
you have opportunity for aggression vs someone who might try to FE. you have opportunity for turtling with siege mode. you have opportunity for igniter harrass. you have opportunity to counter nony's phoenix style build/voidrays with the marines/raven/viking. you can expand afterwards (treat it very much like SC1 FD build). and more importantly, you can stop every multitude of protoss all-ins that they can do.
if they go mass stalker/immortal, you have the PDD + tank (get siege), and accumulate banshees as well. If needed you work in a bunker.
if they go collosus, you get vikings from your starport instead to neutralize and stay even or be at an advantage.
if they go mass zealot/sentry b4 expo, you get igniter hellions and transition into igniter harrass. if they FE, you bust it, and you can bunker up their choke/contain, harrass
I watched the fourth game. I played something similar last night and don't think that the terran's build is unbeatable. A few notes:
1) The build is very tech-intensive and very slow to massing the proper unit composition. Because of this, the terran is probably stuck with one-base play for an extended period of time. If you see the build coming early enough (like with an observer), the proper response is to take an expansion. I think that your response in the fourth game was the absolute worst one: attacking into his tank-fortified choke with stalker/sentry and a few zealots. When in doubt, protoss players should be patient against terran players. It's almost always better to take an expansion and wait for the terran army to meet you in the field on your terms than to attack into his hardened position on his terms.
2) The build relies heavily upon the marines to provide a meatshield for tech units, specifically the tanks and banshees. If you can get rid of the marines quickly, then you'll be able to trash his tech units quickly. In reality, this principle isn't much different than in SC1 and the reason why you never see marine+tank against protoss in that game. As others have suggested, templar tech would be the perfect route to go. Feedback would trash his banshees and ravens, and storm will rip up his marines and allow your chargelots to get to his tanks. In the fourth game, you never teched beyond zealot/stalker/sentry. You basically were fighting his Tier 2/3 force (depending upon how you categorize tanks/banshees/ravens) with a bunch of Tier 1/1.5 units. That never is going to work out well. You don't even have an archives at the 16 minute mark even though you had been on 2 bases for quite some time. Get storm faster.
Somebody used this against me today, without especially great execution I think. I pushed through his fortified position using chargelots, sentries, and quite a few immortals. From there, he started going a little marauder heavy, so I built 3 stargate and pumped out 6 void rays. After that, it was pretty much GG, as I wiped out 2 expos and then attacked the natural with my ground forces. Have to see how it goes when somebody executes a little better.
On May 02 2010 01:55 Jonoman92 wrote: I'm a terran and haven't ever tried this BO. However, it seems like it'd have problems against zealot/sentry. The tanks get no bonus damage, the raven can't really do anything besides make an auto turret or two, and the guardian shield cuts down the marine's damage by a ton.
I mean, I surprised this build works at all really.
well, my tvp win/loss ratio is around 95% using exclusively this build for so many of my TvPs, soooo...it works. It works amazingly
It has no problems against zealot/sentry unless you do not scout and change your unit composition. If you notice they are doing zealot/sentry, you simply get igniter hellions and banshees from your starport
you then also have igniter drop options, transitions into ghost mech easily, transitions into airmech easily, or you can transition it back into a mass marauder bio.
so, what's the surprise to the build working? It is the most versatile T opening any Terran can do right now vs anything.
you have opportunity for aggression vs someone who might try to FE. you have opportunity for turtling with siege mode. you have opportunity for igniter harrass. you have opportunity to counter nony's phoenix style build/voidrays with the marines/raven/viking. you can expand afterwards (treat it very much like SC1 FD build). and more importantly, you can stop every multitude of protoss all-ins that they can do.
if they go mass stalker/immortal, you have the PDD + tank (get siege), and accumulate banshees as well. If needed you work in a bunker.
if they go collosus, you get vikings from your starport instead to neutralize and stay even or be at an advantage.
if they go mass zealot/sentry b4 expo, you get igniter hellions and transition into igniter harrass. if they FE, you bust it, and you can bunker up their choke/contain, harrass
it is probably the best TvP right now
thanks for the response, I guess I'll have to try it out.
I've faced this build a couple of times, and it's really tough for me to beat.
The 2 builds that I use against this fast factory/starport tech is 2 zealot 1 stalker cyber - nexus, and the fast stargate with 2 void rays + zeal/stalker to control his ramp while expo'ing. I feel like with both of these builds I end up with a disadvantage if he responds correctly, however.
On May 01 2010 21:40 Liquid`Drone wrote: don't you mostly just have to make sure you engage him near his exit point so he is forced to use PDD in an area where you can simply retreat?
Nice build. Haven't had the privlidge of getting owned by this yet. The closest variant i've seen is marine into raven/banshee, which is a bitch to deal with itself. Kudoz to the OP for bringing this to light, i'll have to practice with it today.
Hi, im theTerran OP faced in those reps. I dont think ppl think that but I dont claim to have invented this build, I actually stole it from Avilo who posted in this thread(thank you avilo!) and he use it much better than me. Like he said the greatest strenght of this build is its versatile. Im pretty sure some unit composition beat the build like I did in the replay but you have not commit to anything you can switch to hellion and viking for example.
So far im undefeated using it so it has merit and its much funnier to use then Marauder heavy. Im pretty sure it can stop any build if played properly and allow you to kill obs then adapt to whatever strat toss is making.
On May 02 2010 05:32 Bosko wrote: As someone already mentioned, seems like it would get stomped by sentries/zealots.
maybe voidray zealot but zealot sentry wouldnt, like I said earlier if you see ton of zeal stop tank and make hellion with the upgrade dmg also zeal dont do too hot vs banshee. the point is its another good build you can use instead of marauder every game because most toss have adapted pretty well to marauder by now.
On May 02 2010 05:32 Bosko wrote: As someone already mentioned, seems like it would get stomped by sentries/zealots.
maybe voidray zealot but zealot sentry wouldnt, like I said earlier if you see ton of zeal stop tank and make hellion with the upgrade dmg also zeal dont do too hot vs banshee. the point is its another good build you can use instead of marauder every game because most toss have adapted pretty well to marauder by now.
I don't know if toss would continue void ray production if he opened stargate if he saw that many marines in the first push. It seems like the strength of this build is being able to transition to any tech option to counter the protoss' unit composition.
I figured I'd give this a try since it sounded interesting and mass marauder was starting to get old (and had weaknesses)
The gods smiled down upon me and granted me 4 protoss matches in a row. I didn't go "hard raven" and I also didn't go reactor on barracks. I just made sure to go for a fast factory w/tech lab (for tanks without siege mode) and a starport (for 1 viking to scout, and then possible tech lab into raven)
It has gone pretty amazing. Protoss metagame looks very stalker heavy right now and tanks (unsieged) crush them...especially with a point defense drone.
I also played someone with sentry/zealot, in which I diabolically laughed, made another factory w/reactor and massed hellion (w/hellion upgrade). Never seen zealots die so fast before.
I think this may be the next level up after mass marauder. Very flexible and possibly even stronger than mass marauder. And, void ray is a lot less exploitable because you have a viking out.
IMO I think this type of army is what Blizzard wants. Several different units combined into one force destroying other armies that only focus on making 2 or 3 units.
Game 1 and game 3 you shouldn't have lost (only watched those 2). In game 1 you saw him move out, with an army size that you could've absolutely crushed. Instead of engaging him midway you sat in your base, let him siege up 4 tanks below your cliff, let him get 2 more down there and then you basically fed him your army. If you had a-moved across the map when you saw him moving out you would've annihilated him.
Game 3 you were incredibly late on activating guardian shield (reduces marine damage from 6 to 4, and all he had was marines, one tank, and one banshee) and you attacked into a horrible choke. And I think you still would've won if you hadn't retreated for no reason. It really doesn't seem like such a strong build. It's very late expo, very weak to early pressure, and it relies heavily on marine damage which gets reduced by 30% with guardian shield. Chargelot sentry would do perfectly fine against this build as long as you don't let him siege up outside your natural. Heck, what you did in game 1 and 3 worked too, it just was as poorly executed as it can get =P. Not to criticize, I know things can get hectic in a game.
I tried it a few times, and I gotta say, it makes me want to play the game again. I was getting so sick of seeing balls of Marauders it was hard to convince myself to play. This doesn't seem OP but rather, its another option Terran have vs. Protoss.
On May 02 2010 08:17 Buzz Lightyear wrote: IMO I think this type of army is what Blizzard wants. Several different units combined into one force destroying other armies that only focus on making 2 or 3 units.
Oh so Protoss is the non-varied race now, that's new.
On a serious note however I still think void rays, zealots and stalkers will rape this, but who knows. I have unfortunately not yet encounter this( both happy and sad :/ )
On May 02 2010 10:02 stormtemplar wrote: don't have SC2 here so I can't check, but don't PDDs have energy? Go templar tech, feedback the revens, and get the PDDs too, and storm with remaining energy and you'll roll him.
No reason that ghosts can't be added to this mix if you see templar tech. That's the beauty of the build. Every single unit, barring the battle cruiser, is very close at hand. If you're loosing to templar with this build you need to get better with emp.
I've been playing with it most of the day, and i'm pretty sold on it being the best terran build (both in terms of being safe and dynamic/fun) in PvT. In-fact it's so dynamic i'm seriously considering playing terran. This build really explores diversity and tech switching in a way that protoss just can't do because of the absurd number of necessary upgrades and tech structures required.
Think about it, what would happen if a toss went single gate, cyber, robo, council, templar archive, stargate, all in one fel swoop, while producing a few units from each? For one thing, he wouldn't be able to afford many units for all the gas he spent (certainly couldn't single-base it). For another, he'd still not have access to dt's or colossi, both of which need their own buildings, and he'd spend a hell of a lot more time building structures with the extra 3 buildings (not to mention the fact he has to squeeze them all on a few pylons).
On May 02 2010 10:54 stormtemplar wrote: Honestly though, emp 6-10 templar before they can feedback the HUGE ravens and PDDs? A quick toss could really outfeedback you
lol? The timing of his first push is around 7 mins. You'd be damn lucky to have A templar at that point, to say nothing of 10.
At the point when you'd have that many templar, it's safe to assume he'd have enough ghosts to counter, or you'd have to seriously out-micro him.
On May 02 2010 12:03 Nerdrage wrote: Do you thin Nony's phoenix build would work against this well?
Not at all.
Show replays? The only replay I have playing against this while doing the Phoenix build I end up winning but my opponent was behind when we entered mid game so it wasn't really fair.
Keep in mind that with the Phoenix build, there's no need to keep making Phoenixes or do anything with the Stargate after the first Phoenix. At worst, it's paying 300/250 for some excellent scouting (and even in that case, the Terran usually takes some anti-Phoenix measures based on seeing just one).
I have only really found two types of builds that are good against the Phoenix build: builds that hit me before I can get the strength of Phoenixes going, builds that are vulnerable to hard rushes but strong if they survive (and no hard rush is coming from the Phoenix build so they'll definitely survive). This isn't really either of them.
As a Protoss facing this build, what I need the most is constant scouting to know how much I can invest in econ and what units to build. I'm guessing Observers would be constantly sniped thanks to Ravens. The Phoenix build might still be my preference.
On May 02 2010 01:49 avilo wrote: you guys just caught on to this? it is a good opening build TvP. I will have to post a replay pack or something, the build for people wondering is:
12 rax 13 gas 15 OC
essentially, "standard economy build" and with first 100 gas factory, next 50 gas reactor on barracks.
from there, continuous marine production from your barracks, starport, use the fact to tech lab it, then tech lab the fact again, 1 raven, continuous tank production (no siege), and that is it.
from there, you have many options and transitions you can do, as well as being able to stop every single all-in build protoss can throw at you, including 4-5 warpgate all-ins.
yep, I watched a replay of you doing this build few days ago. And It is a powerful build against Protoss. You mentioned that this build is originated from the Asia server. Is there any solid counter to this build from Asia server as well?
well, my tvp win/loss ratio is around 95% using exclusively this build for so many of my TvPs, soooo...it works. It works amazingly
It has no problems against zealot/sentry unless you do not scout and change your unit composition. If you notice they are doing zealot/sentry, you simply get igniter hellions and banshees from your starport
you then also have igniter drop options, transitions into ghost mech easily, transitions into airmech easily, or you can transition it back into a mass marauder bio.
Also one thing to note on this if the protoss switches to sentries and zeolots and the terran tech switches to hellions the terran player will no longer have to spend gas on the units be pumped from his factory.
Which could lead to a.) more banshees b.) more ravens possibly with the hunter seeker missle this time (and eventually transitioning into bc since you have the fusion core anyways to upgrade the seeker missle) c.) more ravens and simply dropping turrets for the extra damage (even though the turrets really suck d.) adding marauders to the marine ball which of course can be used as meatshields for the rines and slow down the zeolots.
What's with the myth that turrets suck? 2 turrets have 300 hp and 1 armor. A PDD for the same amount of energy blocks 20 attacks, so if the attacks are 16 damage or less each then the turrets are equal/better in durability and deal damage on top of it, as well as "block" all kinds of attacks(and the enemy can't effectively pick off all the marines one by one, because of overkill and zealots being melee, and that requires a lot of micro just to ignore 300 hp and still take damage from the turrets).
The disadvantage is that they use up a good amount of ground area, so they can't be cast on top of your army, but they aren't weak.
Anyone saying you should go for HT against this must not realise that HTs are 150 gas each and 200 for archives, you're playing off of one base and you can't reliably scout with observers. If your HT build get scouted T can change his composition and you have no idea on how many HTs to get due to no scouting.
On May 02 2010 19:00 lololol wrote: What's with the myth that turrets suck? 2 turrets have 300 hp and 1 armor. A PDD for the same amount of energy blocks 20 attacks, so if the attacks are 16 damage or less each then the turrets are equal/better in durability and deal damage on top of it, as well as "block" all kinds of attacks(and the enemy can't effectively pick off all the marines one by one, because of overkill and zealots being melee, and that requires a lot of micro just to ignore 300 hp and still take damage from the turrets).
The disadvantage is that they use up a good amount of ground area, so they can't be cast on top of your army, but they aren't weak.
Any time anyone mentions Raven's being good I link to this thread:
On May 02 2010 20:58 Odge wrote: Anyone saying you should go for HT against this must not realise that HTs are 150 gas each and 200 for archives, you're playing off of one base and you can't reliably scout with observers. If your HT build get scouted T can change his composition and you have no idea on how many HTs to get due to no scouting.
You won't need the HT's when you're on one base. HT's are only necessary when the terran army starts hitting critical mass. Before that point, chargelots, sentries, stalkers, and the odd immortal or two will do just fine.
If the protoss sees the terran investing heavily in a tech build to reach this critical mass, then the protoss player should expand. At that point, getting HT's is no problem.
well, my tvp win/loss ratio is around 95% using exclusively this build for so many of my TvPs, soooo...it works. It works amazingly
It has no problems against zealot/sentry unless you do not scout and change your unit composition. If you notice they are doing zealot/sentry, you simply get igniter hellions and banshees from your starport
you then also have igniter drop options, transitions into ghost mech easily, transitions into airmech easily, or you can transition it back into a mass marauder bio.
Also one thing to note on this if the protoss switches to sentries and zeolots and the terran tech switches to hellions the terran player will no longer have to spend gas on the units be pumped from his factory.
Which could lead to a.) more banshees b.) more ravens possibly with the hunter seeker missle this time (and eventually transitioning into bc since you have the fusion core anyways to upgrade the seeker missle) c.) more ravens and simply dropping turrets for the extra damage (even though the turrets really suck d.) adding marauders to the marine ball which of course can be used as meatshields for the rines and slow down the zeolots.
you no longer need fusion core to research HSM iirc?
Wow i have been getting absolutely crushed by this build lol
It rapes voidrays so hard since you will have 10 marines by the first ray (and pumping more) so you can delay indefinitly until you have your army comp and then just a move into your opponents base
I do get to scout the early reactor but not too sure how to beat this build atm
On May 02 2010 20:58 Odge wrote: Anyone saying you should go for HT against this must not realise that HTs are 150 gas each and 200 for archives, you're playing off of one base and you can't reliably scout with observers. If your HT build get scouted T can change his composition and you have no idea on how many HTs to get due to no scouting.
No scouting???? who said the observer was the only thing that could scout? hallucinated phoenixes can scout just fine and they are faster.
On May 02 2010 20:58 Odge wrote: Anyone saying you should go for HT against this must not realise that HTs are 150 gas each and 200 for archives, you're playing off of one base and you can't reliably scout with observers. If your HT build get scouted T can change his composition and you have no idea on how many HTs to get due to no scouting.
No scouting???? who said the observer was the only thing that could scout? hallucinated phoenixes can scout just fine and they are faster.
It is beatable, but not from bad play, and not from unorthodox/cheese strats. like Nony said in some thread, barely anyone is playing at a high level in beta right now. People either refuse to do what could become standard builds (or almost already are) or they refuse to macro good and play safe and instead they do some all-in/cheese every game.
i'd say the best way to play vs this is by playing...good. As in, not trying to "beat" the opening itself, because that is what this T thing is, an opening build, not an entire strategy.
I only play Terran, so I cannot say what is safest definitely from a Protoss perspective, but I would guess safe Protoss openings include a robo/2 gates and observer to scout/react.
then from there you just play solid, think of PDD as SC1 darkswarm, and when T throws it out...run away if you have a stalker based army (which you usually should?)
and you will want good army positioning/map control so that Terran cannot throw down PDDs on your side of the map or near you...really it is like darkswarm so yah...do not just sit in your base.
besides playing standard, I would keep in mind this is a safe T opening that can stop every all-in possible, from proxy robo or void rays or even 5 gate. So if you do go all-in or for a heavy aggression strat, make sure you skew your unit composition one way completely - either to all stalker/zealot/immortal or all stalker/immortal type of unit compositions. That will force the T to react to you, rather than the other way around.
as for how this T opening works vs nony's phoenix opening...it works very well assuming both players did not cheese or do anything ridiculous, I would say both are on even footing and have great opportunities to attack/defend/expand.
I watched your replays and this definitely looks like a strong build from the Terran perspective. However, there were opportunities in your games where you could have won easily if you had simply "played better" (I mean no offense by this). The game on Kulas Ravine comes to mind where you were pushing into his base with a zealot/stalker/sentry army and literally never used FF correctly.
Once you had knocked down his supply depot a single force field slightly behind where it was located would have allowed you to destroy his barracks with impunity. Then you could have easily used one or two more to control his army as you walked in and did some serious damage. Instead, you let the majority of his army outside the wallin before using the force field.
On May 03 2010 02:18 avilo wrote: It is beatable, but not from bad play, and not from unorthodox/cheese strats. like Nony said in some thread, barely anyone is playing at a high level in beta right now. People either refuse to do what could become standard builds (or almost already are) or they refuse to macro good and play safe and instead they do some all-in/cheese every game.
i'd say the best way to play vs this is by playing...good. As in, not trying to "beat" the opening itself, because that is what this T thing is, an opening build, not an entire strategy.
I only play Terran, so I cannot say what is safest definitely from a Protoss perspective, but I would guess safe Protoss openings include a robo/2 gates and observer to scout/react.
then from there you just play solid, think of PDD as SC1 darkswarm, and when T throws it out...run away if you have a stalker based army (which you usually should?)
and you will want good army positioning/map control so that Terran cannot throw down PDDs on your side of the map or near you...really it is like darkswarm so yah...do not just sit in your base.
besides playing standard, I would keep in mind this is a safe T opening that can stop every all-in possible, from proxy robo or void rays or even 5 gate. So if you do go all-in or for a heavy aggression strat, make sure you skew your unit composition one way completely - either to all stalker/zealot/immortal or all stalker/immortal type of unit compositions. That will force the T to react to you, rather than the other way around.
as for how this T opening works vs nony's phoenix opening...it works very well assuming both players did not cheese or do anything ridiculous, I would say both are on even footing and have great opportunities to attack/defend/expand.
Void rays IS supposed to be the safe, standard opening
Going fast robo is an extremely dangerous opening because you are in danger of getting absolutely crushed by marauder builds
On May 02 2010 20:58 Odge wrote: Anyone saying you should go for HT against this must not realise that HTs are 150 gas each and 200 for archives, you're playing off of one base and you can't reliably scout with observers. If your HT build get scouted T can change his composition and you have no idea on how many HTs to get due to no scouting.
No scouting???? who said the observer was the only thing that could scout? hallucinated phoenixes can scout just fine and they are faster.
It is beatable, but not from bad play, and not from unorthodox/cheese strats. like Nony said in some thread, barely anyone is playing at a high level in beta right now. People either refuse to do what could become standard builds (or almost already are) or they refuse to macro good and play safe and instead they do some all-in/cheese every game.
i'd say the best way to play vs this is by playing...good. As in, not trying to "beat" the opening itself, because that is what this T thing is, an opening build, not an entire strategy.
I only play Terran, so I cannot say what is safest definitely from a Protoss perspective, but I would guess safe Protoss openings include a robo/2 gates and observer to scout/react.
then from there you just play solid, think of PDD as SC1 darkswarm, and when T throws it out...run away if you have a stalker based army (which you usually should?)
and you will want good army positioning/map control so that Terran cannot throw down PDDs on your side of the map or near you...really it is like darkswarm so yah...do not just sit in your base.
besides playing standard, I would keep in mind this is a safe T opening that can stop every all-in possible, from proxy robo or void rays or even 5 gate. So if you do go all-in or for a heavy aggression strat, make sure you skew your unit composition one way completely - either to all stalker/zealot/immortal or all stalker/immortal type of unit compositions. That will force the T to react to you, rather than the other way around.
as for how this T opening works vs nony's phoenix opening...it works very well assuming both players did not cheese or do anything ridiculous, I would say both are on even footing and have great opportunities to attack/defend/expand.
Any chance you could post a replay of you doing this vs a good protoss?
On May 03 2010 02:18 avilo wrote: It is beatable, but not from bad play, and not from unorthodox/cheese strats. like Nony said in some thread, barely anyone is playing at a high level in beta right now. People either refuse to do what could become standard builds (or almost already are) or they refuse to macro good and play safe and instead they do some all-in/cheese every game.
i'd say the best way to play vs this is by playing...good. As in, not trying to "beat" the opening itself, because that is what this T thing is, an opening build, not an entire strategy.
I only play Terran, so I cannot say what is safest definitely from a Protoss perspective, but I would guess safe Protoss openings include a robo/2 gates and observer to scout/react.
then from there you just play solid, think of PDD as SC1 darkswarm, and when T throws it out...run away if you have a stalker based army (which you usually should?)
and you will want good army positioning/map control so that Terran cannot throw down PDDs on your side of the map or near you...really it is like darkswarm so yah...do not just sit in your base.
besides playing standard, I would keep in mind this is a safe T opening that can stop every all-in possible, from proxy robo or void rays or even 5 gate. So if you do go all-in or for a heavy aggression strat, make sure you skew your unit composition one way completely - either to all stalker/zealot/immortal or all stalker/immortal type of unit compositions. That will force the T to react to you, rather than the other way around.
as for how this T opening works vs nony's phoenix opening...it works very well assuming both players did not cheese or do anything ridiculous, I would say both are on even footing and have great opportunities to attack/defend/expand.
Void rays IS supposed to be the safe, standard opening
Going fast robo is an extremely dangerous opening because you are in danger of getting absolutely crushed by marauder builds
On May 03 2010 02:18 avilo wrote: It is beatable, but not from bad play, and not from unorthodox/cheese strats. like Nony said in some thread, barely anyone is playing at a high level in beta right now. People either refuse to do what could become standard builds (or almost already are) or they refuse to macro good and play safe and instead they do some all-in/cheese every game.
i'd say the best way to play vs this is by playing...good. As in, not trying to "beat" the opening itself, because that is what this T thing is, an opening build, not an entire strategy.
I only play Terran, so I cannot say what is safest definitely from a Protoss perspective, but I would guess safe Protoss openings include a robo/2 gates and observer to scout/react.
then from there you just play solid, think of PDD as SC1 darkswarm, and when T throws it out...run away if you have a stalker based army (which you usually should?)
and you will want good army positioning/map control so that Terran cannot throw down PDDs on your side of the map or near you...really it is like darkswarm so yah...do not just sit in your base.
besides playing standard, I would keep in mind this is a safe T opening that can stop every all-in possible, from proxy robo or void rays or even 5 gate. So if you do go all-in or for a heavy aggression strat, make sure you skew your unit composition one way completely - either to all stalker/zealot/immortal or all stalker/immortal type of unit compositions. That will force the T to react to you, rather than the other way around.
as for how this T opening works vs nony's phoenix opening...it works very well assuming both players did not cheese or do anything ridiculous, I would say both are on even footing and have great opportunities to attack/defend/expand.
Void rays IS supposed to be the safe, standard opening
Going fast robo is an extremely dangerous opening because you are in danger of getting absolutely crushed by marauder builds
What? Robo first is as safe as it gets.
Not against Terran. It's safer to buid a stargate and void ray, even if he knows it's coming.
Not sure if the people who used this build against me are noobish or something but I totally curb stomp this unit composition with nothing more than speedlots with like 5 phoenixes. Is there something about this build that is so special that speedlots can't handle?
On May 03 2010 11:34 Yamoth wrote: Not sure if the people who used this build against me are noobish or something but I totally curb stomp this unit composition with nothing more than speedlots with like 5 phoenixes. Is there something about this build that is so special that speedlots can't handle?
Hellions wouldn't be hard to switch to and would rock the zeals. 5 phoenix... isn't gunna do much if they build marines or vikings at all. If the player is building exactly x marines, x tank, 1 raven, and push, he's a newb and he's not understanding this build. It's meant to be flexible, and give you the option of using a lot of diffirent units. It's not meant to win with the particular unit comp you saw in one game or another.
Hellion are easy to deal with if you just add a couple stalkers to your mix and have the phoenixes takes them out of combat as your two army engage. What I want to point out is that this build he mention is very tech heavy and that mean that there will be many timing windows where you can move in with your lower tech army and dominate. With that army composition, I don't see why any toss in their right mind would just sit in base and let the terran have map control.
On May 03 2010 11:54 Yamoth wrote: Hellion are easy to deal with if you just add a couple stalkers to your mix and have the phoenixes takes them out of combat as your two army engage. What I want to point out is that this build he mention is very tech heavy and that mean that there will be many timing windows where you can move in with your lower tech army and dominate. With that army composition, I don't see why any toss in their right mind would just sit in base and let the terran have map control.
What about map control? He's turtling with that build until around 7-8 mins. P has map control if he wants it. T will probably be scouting with scan. I'd probably proxy stargate vs. this build. Show a lot of zeals, and try to convince them to skimp on AA.
If you see a very weak timing window in there to exploit, be my guest to point it out. I highly doubt a 4gate would do any damage to that open and i know a 2 immo rush would be useless. I think the best bet is the void ray proxy, but these days that's so predictable.
I don't have beta but I could imagine that hallucination could mess with him a bit.
Showing him a Phoenix could force him to make Vikings instead of banshees, but don't expect it to work all the time. Then you can roll him with Zeals and sentries.
First of, the only reason he would be able to reach tech that fast up while turtleing was is by diverting all the gas that other terran used to make marauder to making tanks and fast teching to raven. And I don't know about any other player out there, but a marauderless terran army is a joke verus any decent toss player. What I would do in this situation is to use the phoenix for sight and use my stalker to break down the supply walling. Once that is gone, I walk my zealots and stalker up the base and mop them up.
Furthermore, if I know this is the build he going for, there nothing stopping me from making a single voidray to break the blockage and walk up his base with my superior ground army. Once again, this terran build doesn't seem at all that scary to me, I think the only reason the toss player is loosing was because he not punishing the terran for fast teching.
On May 03 2010 12:27 Yamoth wrote: First of, the only reason he would be able to reach tech that fast up while turtleing was is by diverting all the gas that other terran used to make marauder to making tanks and fast teching to raven. And I don't know about any other player out there, but a marauderless terran army is a joke verus any decent toss player. What I would do in this situation is to use the phoenix for sight and use my stalker to break down the supply walling. Once that is gone, I walk my zealots and stalker up the base and mop them up.
Furthermore, if I know this is the build he going for, there nothing stopping me from making a single voidray to break the blockage and walk up his base with my superior ground army. Once again, this terran build doesn't seem at all that scary to me, I think the only reason the toss player is loosing was because he not punishing the terran for fast teching.
This build came up in another thread and I tried a variant of it on Axslav. He crushed it pretty hard with 1 gate robo expand just by pulling a dozen probes and using guardian shield + FF. It probably would have gone better for me if I had went raven first and pushed with 2 tanks because then he wouldn't have had his second and third gateways up pumping units in time.
The issue is not that this composition is uncounterable or anything, it doesn't absolutely rape toss or anything. The issue is that it seems to be significantly more cost effective than any protoss response I have seen so far.
On May 03 2010 13:18 No_eL wrote: nice build im really surprised about apm difference and game results!
i suffer so much against toss, i will try to incorporate raven to my games.
haha I know my apm is pathetic I was hoping ppl would not check the apm I also didnt hotckey or change my waypoint buildings. Oh well it just show that the build is pretty good. and for ppl that think some unit combination would crush it then fine thats what the OP was interested in but ill say it again, the strenght of this build is thats its not set in stone you change your unit composition much more easily than if you went 4 rax MM for example. It is a safe opening vs pretty much all toss build after that its up to you to make it work.
Lol ive been getting crushed over and over again by this
Sorry guys, i havnt found how to beat it yet
I think 5 gate ZS can hold it off but its not ideal and not as cost effective as i would like it to be, Probably needs to be a 4 gate ZS with twilight charge
My friend has amazing voidray and stalker micro and seems to be able to pick off marines (he brings his first ray with 2 stalker + zealot, charges on the zealot and constantly outranges marines with his ray) Problem is the tanks are really devastating you and need incredible micro to do this
this build ( marine / raven / tanks ) is hard countered by mass stalker + very offensive gameplay EARLY ON ( go hit&run with 2 stalkers+) + blink. without marauder you can't fight hit&run stalkers toe to toe, you will end up losing slowly.
On May 03 2010 22:45 Kyuki wrote: I seriously think mass stalker + blink will crush this
are you kidding? mass stalker is so easy with this build...if you make ton of stalker you are playing right into the strenght of this build marine tank and PDD, maybe if you micro and blink out alot you can stall it but crush it? not even close.
On May 03 2010 13:37 ShadowDrgn wrote: This build came up in another thread and I tried a variant of it on Axslav. He crushed it pretty hard with 1 gate robo expand just by pulling a dozen probes and using guardian shield + FF. It probably would have gone better for me if I had went raven first and pushed with 2 tanks because then he wouldn't have had his second and third gateways up pumping units in time.
What was the point of building banshee when you knew he had all those stalkers? Seems like you didn't modify your open to the situation at hand. Stalker mass and immos and you also never built a ghost academy. That and Axslav just plain out-played you.
You dont get it, even if you cant hoover a Observer above the opponent when he moves out you can detect when he sieges with proper movement and general scouting (watchtower control etc) (Stalkers outrun anything that is Terran unstimmed) and simply outright crush it right there with a good blink. If the push dies, the game is over.
On May 04 2010 01:03 Kyuki wrote: You dont get it, even if you cant hoover a Observer above the opponent when he moves out you can detect when he sieges with proper movement and general scouting (watchtower control etc) (Stalkers outrun anything that is Terran unstimmed) and simply outright crush it right there with a good blink. If the push dies, the game is over.
What I don't get is how this P is getting fast obs and blink that early. Or how blink is going to "crush" a PDD.
http://bit.ly/bZHT40 - This was the closest I came, I did a 3 Warpgate / tech timing.
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I watched this replay. I'm ranked 2nd in Gold 1v1 as Terran so I have some good advice. In first 2/3 of game you blow all your units pushing a terran choke point with a wall up and tanks behind it. Think about this for a second, you're preventing half your units from attacking. You should have put down a 3rd expansion and sat your units in his expo so at the point of contact he will be just exiting his choke and you will have the greatest firing arc. Not to mention while hitting his unites while moving they will be partially dragged out in a line meaning you don't encounter the correct terran "ball" that he had set up in his base. The 3rd expo would have let you out macro the shit of him.
Second, against his high amount of marines I think 2-3 colossi would be very beneficial. That guy never got stim or hp upgrade or medivacs. If he focuses your colossi with banshees so be it, but micro colossi back, exposing the banshees over all your void walkers and focus fire them down. Either way those colossi would mow down the marines or force him to suicide his air.
I played toss in sc1 and what about the zealot drop on tanks from behind? Dropping 4 zealots on his tanks while engaging in the front with voids / colossi would decimate him. Or if you can manually have the zealots charge to the tanks do that.
I don't see how mass stalkers could lose to this. Keep harassing the shit out of him since he has no marauders. He has to use PDD when he tries to leave his base, then keep engaging him as he makes his way to your base. By the time he gets to your side of the map, he'll be out of PDD and out several marines as well. If you just let him waltz to your base with a 200 mana raven, yeah, of course you're in trouble. But I don't see this any different than letting a 200 mana infestor or 200 mana HT waltz to your base before engaging.
On May 04 2010 01:27 newbcake wrote: I don't see how mass stalkers could lose to this. Keep harassing the shit out of him since he has no marauders. He has to use PDD when he tries to leave his base, then keep engaging him as he makes his way to your base. By the time he gets to your side of the map, he'll be out of PDD and out several marines as well. If you just let him waltz to your base with a 200 mana raven, yeah, of course you're in trouble. But I don't see this any different than letting a 200 mana infestor or 200 mana HT waltz to your base before engaging.
What's to keep him from just pushing out far enough to shut down your harass and take an expo? You're only going to have a harder time winning as the game gets longer.
On May 04 2010 01:27 newbcake wrote: I don't see how mass stalkers could lose to this. Keep harassing the shit out of him since he has no marauders. He has to use PDD when he tries to leave his base, then keep engaging him as he makes his way to your base. By the time he gets to your side of the map, he'll be out of PDD and out several marines as well. If you just let him waltz to your base with a 200 mana raven, yeah, of course you're in trouble. But I don't see this any different than letting a 200 mana infestor or 200 mana HT waltz to your base before engaging.
What's to keep him from just pushing out far enough to shut down your harass and take an expo? You're only going to have a harder time winning as the game gets longer.
If the terran is teching up to raven's (and I see him doing it with my obs), then I will already have expanded and be ahead economically. I'm more than happy to let him play catch-up all game long.
I strongly disagree with the proposition that protoss has a harder time beating a terran as the game drags on. Once protoss unlocks all of his tier 3 tech (particularly templar and colossi), he is in the driver's seat against terrans. I find that the trickiest part of PvT is weathering a terran timing attack that hits just before I get psi storm online. Once the AoE comes online, however, bio balls simply melt, especially marine-heavy bio balls.
On May 04 2010 01:27 newbcake wrote: I don't see how mass stalkers could lose to this. Keep harassing the shit out of him since he has no marauders. He has to use PDD when he tries to leave his base, then keep engaging him as he makes his way to your base. By the time he gets to your side of the map, he'll be out of PDD and out several marines as well. If you just let him waltz to your base with a 200 mana raven, yeah, of course you're in trouble. But I don't see this any different than letting a 200 mana infestor or 200 mana HT waltz to your base before engaging.
What's to keep him from just pushing out far enough to shut down your harass and take an expo? You're only going to have a harder time winning as the game gets longer.
If the terran is teching up to raven's (and I see him doing it with my obs), then I will already have expanded and be ahead economically. I'm more than happy to let him play catch-up all game long.
I strongly disagree with the proposition that protoss has a harder time beating a terran as the game drags on. Once protoss unlocks all of his tier 3 tech (particularly templar and colossi), he is in the driver's seat against terrans. I find that the trickiest part of PvT is weathering a terran timing attack that hits just before I get psi storm online. Once the AoE comes online, however, bio balls simply melt, especially marine-heavy bio balls.
Uh.. I can tell you as a Platinum player for several months that it is most certainly true, our longer games vs. T are more often losses than shorter games. In point of fact, unless you are facing something newbish like a bio-ball @ 35 mins, you are going to be hard pressed to pull a win.
No idea how you think the terran is going to play catch-up because he build a single starport with a tech lab either.
On May 04 2010 01:03 Kyuki wrote: You dont get it, even if you cant hoover a Observer above the opponent when he moves out you can detect when he sieges with proper movement and general scouting (watchtower control etc) (Stalkers outrun anything that is Terran unstimmed) and simply outright crush it right there with a good blink. If the push dies, the game is over.
If Terran has a Raven with his army how are you goin to sneak an observer to see his army w/o it getting killed. And if you do, he'll know that you'll know and adjust.
quote: If the terran is teching up to raven's (and I see him doing it with my obs), then I will already have expanded and be ahead economically. I'm more than happy to let him play catch-up all game long.
You are seriously underestimating how fast the 1st push will come. Ive played against toss who went like gate-nexus-whatever and he got crushed by this. If you expand you cannot also have obs blink and an army to delay me. Ill be on your front door before you know it. Tons of ppl are making up strategy on how they would crush the build but have you tested it ? again im sure this is beatable and the best way is probably to stall and mass expo and tech to templar but if you get too greedy or get cocky you will lose to it. Oh and I also beat someone who went mass stalker and tried to harrass using blink and he lost badly but I think he wasnt very good, he didnt try to delay me nearly enough.
It is beatable, but it forces the protoss to play a longer and more macro heavy games than he's used to. That's the primary strength of the build (related to how flexible it is). Not only are most toss unfamiliar with this playstyle, but I believe toss late-game to be pretty underwhelming in combatting an equally teched terran opponent. I think we won't really know how much this changes the matchup until more Terran are using it.
I'm planning to use this build all week and see what i can come up with. I'm not as comfortable with terran yet, but i'll at least get to guage the reaction of more protoss players than just practicing with a couple friends.
On May 04 2010 01:03 Kyuki wrote: You dont get it, even if you cant hoover a Observer above the opponent when he moves out you can detect when he sieges with proper movement and general scouting (watchtower control etc) (Stalkers outrun anything that is Terran unstimmed) and simply outright crush it right there with a good blink. If the push dies, the game is over.
What I don't get is how this P is getting fast obs and blink that early. Or how blink is going to "crush" a PDD.
Who said you were going for obs? The claim here is that "I cant see what he is doing, I'm blind and getting demolished!" If you open with fast stalkers, pinch into the terran and see his tech pattern (which you certainly can do with fast stalkers) you can transition into a 2-3 gate, council into blink, 4-gate mass stalker and Punish him When he moves out.
Do it when he sieges, he'll die. Not saying it doenst require skill, you need awesome timing. Just like in SC1 when T sieges.
On May 04 2010 01:03 Kyuki wrote: You dont get it, even if you cant hoover a Observer above the opponent when he moves out you can detect when he sieges with proper movement and general scouting (watchtower control etc) (Stalkers outrun anything that is Terran unstimmed) and simply outright crush it right there with a good blink. If the push dies, the game is over.
What I don't get is how this P is getting fast obs and blink that early. Or how blink is going to "crush" a PDD.
Who said you were going for obs? The claim here is that "I cant see what he is doing, I'm blind and getting demolished!" If you open with fast stalkers, pinch into the terran and see his tech pattern (which you certainly can do with fast stalkers) you can transition into a 2-3 gate, council into blink, 4-gate mass stalker and Punish him When he moves out.
Do it when he sieges, he'll die. Not saying it doenst require skill, you need awesome timing. Just like in SC1 when T sieges.
Explain what you mean by "pinch into the terran and see his tech pattern." I have no idea what you're thinking is going to happen when some fast stalkers run into a bunch of marines and a tank or two at his choke. Do you really expect to push into his base at that point? You won't get any scouting info other than the fact he has marines and a tank, and unless you take advantage immidiately, he's free to change his army comp quickly, while you have to tech in order to do so.
If you think there is a timing window, post a replay where you exploit it. I'm definitly not seeing any point in this build where early agression would be rewarded with a win.
On May 04 2010 02:40 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote: It is beatable, but it forces the protoss to play a longer and more macro heavy games than he's used to. That's the primary strength of the build (related to how flexible it is). Not only are most toss unfamiliar with this playstyle, but I believe toss late-game to be pretty underwhelming in combatting an equally teched terran opponent. I think we won't really know how much this changes the matchup until more Terran are using it.
I'm planning to use this build all week and see what i can come up with. I'm not as comfortable with terran yet, but i'll at least get to guage the reaction of more protoss players than just practicing with a couple friends.
Isn't this what I've been saying all along? If you see the terran teching heavily, take an expo, and abuse your resource advantage.
And again, I really don't see how protoss late game is underwhelming by any stretch of the imagination. The only late game terran units that a protoss player has difficulty killing are battlecruisers (and no, void rays are not the answer). Everything else, particularly terran ground armies, are very beatable by protoss.
On May 04 2010 02:40 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote: It is beatable, but it forces the protoss to play a longer and more macro heavy games than he's used to. That's the primary strength of the build (related to how flexible it is). Not only are most toss unfamiliar with this playstyle, but I believe toss late-game to be pretty underwhelming in combatting an equally teched terran opponent. I think we won't really know how much this changes the matchup until more Terran are using it.
I'm planning to use this build all week and see what i can come up with. I'm not as comfortable with terran yet, but i'll at least get to guage the reaction of more protoss players than just practicing with a couple friends.
Isn't this what I've been saying all along? If you see the terran teching heavily, take an expo, and abuse your resource advantage.
And again, I really don't see how protoss late game is underwhelming by any stretch of the imagination. The only late game terran units that a protoss player has difficulty killing are battlecruisers (and no, void rays are not the answer). Everything else, particularly terran ground armies, are very beatable by protoss.
Then you should play more macro games against terran. You will be suprised at the results. It changes the matchup significantly when the game isn't over at the 10 min mark.
On May 04 2010 02:40 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote: It is beatable, but it forces the protoss to play a longer and more macro heavy games than he's used to. That's the primary strength of the build (related to how flexible it is). Not only are most toss unfamiliar with this playstyle, but I believe toss late-game to be pretty underwhelming in combatting an equally teched terran opponent. I think we won't really know how much this changes the matchup until more Terran are using it.
I'm planning to use this build all week and see what i can come up with. I'm not as comfortable with terran yet, but i'll at least get to guage the reaction of more protoss players than just practicing with a couple friends.
Isn't this what I've been saying all along? If you see the terran teching heavily, take an expo, and abuse your resource advantage.
And again, I really don't see how protoss late game is underwhelming by any stretch of the imagination. The only late game terran units that a protoss player has difficulty killing are battlecruisers (and no, void rays are not the answer). Everything else, particularly terran ground armies, are very beatable by protoss.
Then you should play more macro games against terran. You will be suprised at the results. It changes the matchup significantly when the game isn't over at the 10 min mark.
Dude, are you not reading what I'm saying? Let me make the obvious clear for you: when I am talking about late game terran against late game protoss, I necessarily am talking about a macro-oriented game.
To make things even more clear, let me just say that almost all of my PvT's are macro-oriented. I don't bother with cute timing pushes against terrans because I don't like hitting terran hard-points. I'd rather engage the terran in the open, so I take expansions and establish map control instead of attacking into his main or a hardened natural. This is what I did in SC1 and this still what I do in SC2, even though it really isn't as necessary. Nevertheless, it's the safe play.
From my experience as a platinum player, gateway units, when supplemented with immortals, colossi, and high templar, are perfectly capable of crushing late game terran armies. The only late game terran tech that gives me trouble is battlecruisers. However, most terrans do not build battlecruisers and stick to the ground instead.
Now, please elaborate on what exactly makes late-game protoss tech weak against late-game terran tech?
On May 04 2010 03:28 xDaunt wrote: Now, please elaborate on what exactly makes late-game protoss tech weak against late-game terran tech?
Effective EMP and PDD use shuts down protoss late game. Addin battle cruisers is a nail in the coffin. Hardened shield becomes increasingly weaker as the game drags on. Emp becomes stronger due to the fact there is limited space to spread units out. PDD becomes stronger is the toss shifts toward a stalker heavy build to compensate for air units. Once enough tanks, banshees, or marauders take to the feild, there is little to be done with a protoss ground army. We obviously cannot take to the air since vikings effectively counter every air unit we produce except pre-charged void-rays, and that isn't something you can rely on.
HTs love Terrans that spend all their gas on Ravens instead of Ghosts.
Try Obs into Charge/HTs and robo for Warp Prisms/harass later on instead of the usual Immo/Col tech. More Zeals less Stalkers. Stalkers are pretty bad against most ground units in a direct fight, and are atrocious if he has PDs.
On May 04 2010 03:28 xDaunt wrote: Now, please elaborate on what exactly makes late-game protoss tech weak against late-game terran tech?
Effective EMP and PDD use shuts down protoss late game. Addin battle cruisers is a nail in the coffin. Hardened shield becomes increasingly weaker as the game drags on. Emp becomes stronger due to the fact there is limited space to spread units out. PDD becomes stronger is the toss shifts toward a stalker heavy build to compensate for air units. Once enough tanks, banshees, or marauders take to the feild, there is little to be done with a protoss ground army. We obviously cannot take to the air since vikings effectively counter every air unit we produce except pre-charged void-rays, and that isn't something you can rely on.
As CGM just said: high templar. Yeah, you need to watch for invisible ghosts EMP'ing you, but that's what observers are for. Just pay attention to your army and you'll be fine.
On May 04 2010 03:28 xDaunt wrote: Now, please elaborate on what exactly makes late-game protoss tech weak against late-game terran tech?
Effective EMP and PDD use shuts down protoss late game. Addin battle cruisers is a nail in the coffin. Hardened shield becomes increasingly weaker as the game drags on. Emp becomes stronger due to the fact there is limited space to spread units out. PDD becomes stronger is the toss shifts toward a stalker heavy build to compensate for air units. Once enough tanks, banshees, or marauders take to the feild, there is little to be done with a protoss ground army. We obviously cannot take to the air since vikings effectively counter every air unit we produce except pre-charged void-rays, and that isn't something you can rely on.
As CGM just said: high templar. Yeah, you need to watch for invisible ghosts EMP'ing you, but that's what observers are for. Just pay attention to your army and you'll be fine.
AoE emp vs. single target feedback. Range 10 emp vs. rand 9 feedback. Invisible ghost that can deal damage vs. visible HT who can do nothing but merge into a free emp kill after he has expended his energy.
Can we please stop acting like hT are a cure-all for out late-game problems? If you mass the hell out of HT, you're massing a bunch of light armor units who are totally dependant on energy to do any damage at all.
PS. No, you cannot feedback a point defense drone, but yes, you can feedback a raven. Problem is, the raven is an air unit that is free to sit well out of harm's way once he drops his dones, and once he has ditched his energy on drones, he doesn't fear feedback anyhow. Your scenario with HT requires instantaneous feedbacks on a large number of targets. That simply isn't realistic in the present build. You won't feedback a majority of his ghosts and all of his ravens before your army has been descimated.
On May 04 2010 03:28 xDaunt wrote: Now, please elaborate on what exactly makes late-game protoss tech weak against late-game terran tech?
Effective EMP and PDD use shuts down protoss late game. Addin battle cruisers is a nail in the coffin. Hardened shield becomes increasingly weaker as the game drags on. Emp becomes stronger due to the fact there is limited space to spread units out. PDD becomes stronger is the toss shifts toward a stalker heavy build to compensate for air units. Once enough tanks, banshees, or marauders take to the feild, there is little to be done with a protoss ground army. We obviously cannot take to the air since vikings effectively counter every air unit we produce except pre-charged void-rays, and that isn't something you can rely on.
As CGM just said: high templar. Yeah, you need to watch for invisible ghosts EMP'ing you, but that's what observers are for. Just pay attention to your army and you'll be fine.
AoE emp vs. single target feedback. Range 10 emp vs. rand 9 feedback. Invisible ghost that can deal damage vs. visible HT who can do nothing but merge into a free emp kill after he has expended his energy.
This is theorycrafting at its worst. In practice, HTs do just fine against ghosts.
On May 04 2010 03:28 xDaunt wrote: Now, please elaborate on what exactly makes late-game protoss tech weak against late-game terran tech?
Effective EMP and PDD use shuts down protoss late game. Addin battle cruisers is a nail in the coffin. Hardened shield becomes increasingly weaker as the game drags on. Emp becomes stronger due to the fact there is limited space to spread units out. PDD becomes stronger is the toss shifts toward a stalker heavy build to compensate for air units. Once enough tanks, banshees, or marauders take to the feild, there is little to be done with a protoss ground army. We obviously cannot take to the air since vikings effectively counter every air unit we produce except pre-charged void-rays, and that isn't something you can rely on.
As CGM just said: high templar. Yeah, you need to watch for invisible ghosts EMP'ing you, but that's what observers are for. Just pay attention to your army and you'll be fine.
AoE emp vs. single target feedback. Range 10 emp vs. rand 9 feedback. Invisible ghost that can deal damage vs. visible HT who can do nothing but merge into a free emp kill after he has expended his energy.
This is theorycrafting at its worst. In practice, HTs do just fine against ghosts.
Thank you for conceding the argument? I fail to see how you proved anything by retorting with "wrong, they're fine."
On May 04 2010 03:28 xDaunt wrote: Now, please elaborate on what exactly makes late-game protoss tech weak against late-game terran tech?
Effective EMP and PDD use shuts down protoss late game. Addin battle cruisers is a nail in the coffin. Hardened shield becomes increasingly weaker as the game drags on. Emp becomes stronger due to the fact there is limited space to spread units out. PDD becomes stronger is the toss shifts toward a stalker heavy build to compensate for air units. Once enough tanks, banshees, or marauders take to the feild, there is little to be done with a protoss ground army. We obviously cannot take to the air since vikings effectively counter every air unit we produce except pre-charged void-rays, and that isn't something you can rely on.
As CGM just said: high templar. Yeah, you need to watch for invisible ghosts EMP'ing you, but that's what observers are for. Just pay attention to your army and you'll be fine.
AoE emp vs. single target feedback. Range 10 emp vs. rand 9 feedback. Invisible ghost that can deal damage vs. visible HT who can do nothing but merge into a free emp kill after he has expended his energy.
This is theorycrafting at its worst. In practice, HTs do just fine against ghosts.
Thank you for conceding the argument? I fail to see how you proved anything by retorting with "wrong, they're fine."
Are you joking? I've been saying throughout this thread that I haven't had trouble with ghosts when I have HT's. In fact, to my knowledge, no top protoss player has complained about them. Moreover, do you ever watch streams of tournies or other VODs with top protoss players? Guess what they do against ghosts? That's right, they feedback them with HTs. Surprised?
Hey, I have a great idea: go look at the "PvT Ghost EMP thread" in which you have been posting. Do you see any posts from top protoss players complaining about EMP there? I certainly don't.
In rebutting all of this, you haven't cited anything other than mathematical stats of the individual skills. As I said, that is theory-crafting at its worst.
On May 04 2010 03:28 xDaunt wrote: Now, please elaborate on what exactly makes late-game protoss tech weak against late-game terran tech?
Effective EMP and PDD use shuts down protoss late game. Addin battle cruisers is a nail in the coffin. Hardened shield becomes increasingly weaker as the game drags on. Emp becomes stronger due to the fact there is limited space to spread units out. PDD becomes stronger is the toss shifts toward a stalker heavy build to compensate for air units. Once enough tanks, banshees, or marauders take to the feild, there is little to be done with a protoss ground army. We obviously cannot take to the air since vikings effectively counter every air unit we produce except pre-charged void-rays, and that isn't something you can rely on.
As CGM just said: high templar. Yeah, you need to watch for invisible ghosts EMP'ing you, but that's what observers are for. Just pay attention to your army and you'll be fine.
AoE emp vs. single target feedback. Range 10 emp vs. rand 9 feedback. Invisible ghost that can deal damage vs. visible HT who can do nothing but merge into a free emp kill after he has expended his energy.
This is theorycrafting at its worst. In practice, HTs do just fine against ghosts.
Thank you for conceding the argument? I fail to see how you proved anything by retorting with "wrong, they're fine."
Are you joking? I've been saying throughout this thread that I haven't had trouble with ghosts when I have HT's. In fact, to my knowledge, no top protoss player has complained about them. Moreover, do you ever watch streams of tournies or other VODs with top protoss players? Guess what they do against ghosts? That's right, they feedback them with HTs. Surprised?
Hey, I have a great idea: go look at the "PvT Ghost EMP thread" in which you have been posting. Do you see any posts from top protoss players complaining about EMP there? I certainly don't.
In rebutting all of this, you haven't cited anything other than mathematical stats of the individual skills. As I said, that is theory-crafting at its worst.
You've cited no replays or vods yourself and you're making an inverse assumption to my logic that aoe > not aoe. Please provide evidence to the contrary. PvT is a muck of rush tactics, proxy marauder, fast void ray, 4gate allin, 3gate robo allin, etc. I haven't seen a shred of macro play in this matchup to prove either of our points in ages.
On May 04 2010 03:28 xDaunt wrote: Now, please elaborate on what exactly makes late-game protoss tech weak against late-game terran tech?
Effective EMP and PDD use shuts down protoss late game. Addin battle cruisers is a nail in the coffin. Hardened shield becomes increasingly weaker as the game drags on. Emp becomes stronger due to the fact there is limited space to spread units out. PDD becomes stronger is the toss shifts toward a stalker heavy build to compensate for air units. Once enough tanks, banshees, or marauders take to the feild, there is little to be done with a protoss ground army. We obviously cannot take to the air since vikings effectively counter every air unit we produce except pre-charged void-rays, and that isn't something you can rely on.
As CGM just said: high templar. Yeah, you need to watch for invisible ghosts EMP'ing you, but that's what observers are for. Just pay attention to your army and you'll be fine.
AoE emp vs. single target feedback. Range 10 emp vs. rand 9 feedback. Invisible ghost that can deal damage vs. visible HT who can do nothing but merge into a free emp kill after he has expended his energy.
This is theorycrafting at its worst. In practice, HTs do just fine against ghosts.
Thank you for conceding the argument? I fail to see how you proved anything by retorting with "wrong, they're fine."
Are you joking? I've been saying throughout this thread that I haven't had trouble with ghosts when I have HT's. In fact, to my knowledge, no top protoss player has complained about them. Moreover, do you ever watch streams of tournies or other VODs with top protoss players? Guess what they do against ghosts? That's right, they feedback them with HTs. Surprised?
Hey, I have a great idea: go look at the "PvT Ghost EMP thread" in which you have been posting. Do you see any posts from top protoss players complaining about EMP there? I certainly don't.
In rebutting all of this, you haven't cited anything other than mathematical stats of the individual skills. As I said, that is theory-crafting at its worst.
You've cited no replays or vods yourself and you're making an inverse assumption to my logic that aoe > not aoe. Please provide evidence to the contrary. PvT is a muck of rush tactics, proxy marauder, fast void ray, 4gate allin, 3gate robo allin, etc. I haven't seen a shred of macro play in this matchup to prove either of our points in ages.
I'm too lazy to find more, but here's a great example from the Triple-Strike from last night. Fast-forward to the 1hr 17m mark to the PvT on lost temple. It's a great macro game that features some nice HT vs Ghost dueling towards the end.
I just played against this yesterday. I was going to go dts but he scouted my twilight council so I just decided to go mass stalker + blink. I abused the rock glitch on Incineration Zone and got some kills. When he pushed out though, I had no way to stop it.
I tried it and it works quite well. I think it's better to get a banshee before the raven because you can use it to get some scouting informations, a few probe kills, and maybe make the protoss overreact. You can have a tank faster aswell like that and be safe against aggressive stalkers rush.
On May 04 2010 05:24 ganil wrote: I tried it and it works quite well. I think it's better to get a banshee before the raven because you can use it to get some scouting informations, a few probe kills, and maybe make the protoss overreact. You can have a tank faster aswell like that and be safe against aggressive stalkers rush.
The point of the build is that it provides a flexible opening for terrans. Terrans will have a lot of options available depending upon what the toss is doing. You definitely do not want to just automatically tech and mass to the Raven/tank/marine push (maybe a banshee or two) that is employed in OP's replays.
On May 04 2010 03:28 xDaunt wrote: Now, please elaborate on what exactly makes late-game protoss tech weak against late-game terran tech?
Effective EMP and PDD use shuts down protoss late game. Addin battle cruisers is a nail in the coffin. Hardened shield becomes increasingly weaker as the game drags on. Emp becomes stronger due to the fact there is limited space to spread units out. PDD becomes stronger is the toss shifts toward a stalker heavy build to compensate for air units. Once enough tanks, banshees, or marauders take to the feild, there is little to be done with a protoss ground army. We obviously cannot take to the air since vikings effectively counter every air unit we produce except pre-charged void-rays, and that isn't something you can rely on.
As CGM just said: high templar. Yeah, you need to watch for invisible ghosts EMP'ing you, but that's what observers are for. Just pay attention to your army and you'll be fine.
AoE emp vs. single target feedback. Range 10 emp vs. rand 9 feedback. Invisible ghost that can deal damage vs. visible HT who can do nothing but merge into a free emp kill after he has expended his energy.
This is theorycrafting at its worst. In practice, HTs do just fine against ghosts.
Thank you for conceding the argument? I fail to see how you proved anything by retorting with "wrong, they're fine."
Are you joking? I've been saying throughout this thread that I haven't had trouble with ghosts when I have HT's. In fact, to my knowledge, no top protoss player has complained about them. Moreover, do you ever watch streams of tournies or other VODs with top protoss players? Guess what they do against ghosts? That's right, they feedback them with HTs. Surprised?
Hey, I have a great idea: go look at the "PvT Ghost EMP thread" in which you have been posting. Do you see any posts from top protoss players complaining about EMP there? I certainly don't.
In rebutting all of this, you haven't cited anything other than mathematical stats of the individual skills. As I said, that is theory-crafting at its worst.
You've cited no replays or vods yourself and you're making an inverse assumption to my logic that aoe > not aoe. Please provide evidence to the contrary. PvT is a muck of rush tactics, proxy marauder, fast void ray, 4gate allin, 3gate robo allin, etc. I haven't seen a shred of macro play in this matchup to prove either of our points in ages.
I'm too lazy to find more, but here's a great example from the Triple-Strike from last night. Fast-forward to the 1hr 17m mark to the PvT on lost temple. It's a great macro game that features some nice HT vs Ghost dueling towards the end.
So, are you going to produce something to buttress your theory-crafting?
Thors getting nuked by feedback is supposed to prove what? It's a macro game but it does no feature any ghost/ht "dueling." The only battle that included a significant number of ghosts was a roll by the toss due to void rays, zeals > marauders and a couple thors.
Or were you not talking about Paramore v Moo?
After trawling sc2rc, 4pooled, and a few other replay sites, i'm not able to come up with a single PvT/TvP over 30 mins that is a worthy replay consisting of two skilled opponents. About 95% of the replays are sub 10min in length, and the outliers are generally 20-25mins.
So, i'm hoping you can supply some of your macro long-game replays, because there clearly aren't many toss out there who are even trying to play longer games, much less win them.
On May 04 2010 03:28 xDaunt wrote: Now, please elaborate on what exactly makes late-game protoss tech weak against late-game terran tech?
Effective EMP and PDD use shuts down protoss late game. Addin battle cruisers is a nail in the coffin. Hardened shield becomes increasingly weaker as the game drags on. Emp becomes stronger due to the fact there is limited space to spread units out. PDD becomes stronger is the toss shifts toward a stalker heavy build to compensate for air units. Once enough tanks, banshees, or marauders take to the feild, there is little to be done with a protoss ground army. We obviously cannot take to the air since vikings effectively counter every air unit we produce except pre-charged void-rays, and that isn't something you can rely on.
As CGM just said: high templar. Yeah, you need to watch for invisible ghosts EMP'ing you, but that's what observers are for. Just pay attention to your army and you'll be fine.
AoE emp vs. single target feedback. Range 10 emp vs. rand 9 feedback. Invisible ghost that can deal damage vs. visible HT who can do nothing but merge into a free emp kill after he has expended his energy.
This is theorycrafting at its worst. In practice, HTs do just fine against ghosts.
Thank you for conceding the argument? I fail to see how you proved anything by retorting with "wrong, they're fine."
Are you joking? I've been saying throughout this thread that I haven't had trouble with ghosts when I have HT's. In fact, to my knowledge, no top protoss player has complained about them. Moreover, do you ever watch streams of tournies or other VODs with top protoss players? Guess what they do against ghosts? That's right, they feedback them with HTs. Surprised?
Hey, I have a great idea: go look at the "PvT Ghost EMP thread" in which you have been posting. Do you see any posts from top protoss players complaining about EMP there? I certainly don't.
In rebutting all of this, you haven't cited anything other than mathematical stats of the individual skills. As I said, that is theory-crafting at its worst.
You've cited no replays or vods yourself and you're making an inverse assumption to my logic that aoe > not aoe. Please provide evidence to the contrary. PvT is a muck of rush tactics, proxy marauder, fast void ray, 4gate allin, 3gate robo allin, etc. I haven't seen a shred of macro play in this matchup to prove either of our points in ages.
I'm too lazy to find more, but here's a great example from the Triple-Strike from last night. Fast-forward to the 1hr 17m mark to the PvT on lost temple. It's a great macro game that features some nice HT vs Ghost dueling towards the end.
So, are you going to produce something to buttress your theory-crafting?
Thors getting nuked by feedback is supposed to prove what? It's a macro game but it does no feature any ghost/ht "dueling." The only battle that included a significant number of ghosts was a roll by the toss due to void rays, zeals > marauders and a couple thors.
Or were you not talking about Paramore v Moo?
After trawling sc2rc, 4pooled, and a few other replay sites, i'm not able to come up with a single PvT/TvP over 30 mins that is a worthy replay consisting of two skilled opponents. About 95% of the replays are sub 10min in length, and the outliers are generally 20-25mins.
So, i'm hoping you can supply some of your macro long-game replays, because there clearly aren't many toss out there who are even trying to play longer games, much less win them.
I give up. You clearly did not watch the whole game. If you want to insist that HT's can't deal with ghosts and that toss late game can't compete with terran late game, go ahead. Troll away.
On May 04 2010 03:28 xDaunt wrote: Now, please elaborate on what exactly makes late-game protoss tech weak against late-game terran tech?
Effective EMP and PDD use shuts down protoss late game. Addin battle cruisers is a nail in the coffin. Hardened shield becomes increasingly weaker as the game drags on. Emp becomes stronger due to the fact there is limited space to spread units out. PDD becomes stronger is the toss shifts toward a stalker heavy build to compensate for air units. Once enough tanks, banshees, or marauders take to the feild, there is little to be done with a protoss ground army. We obviously cannot take to the air since vikings effectively counter every air unit we produce except pre-charged void-rays, and that isn't something you can rely on.
As CGM just said: high templar. Yeah, you need to watch for invisible ghosts EMP'ing you, but that's what observers are for. Just pay attention to your army and you'll be fine.
AoE emp vs. single target feedback. Range 10 emp vs. rand 9 feedback. Invisible ghost that can deal damage vs. visible HT who can do nothing but merge into a free emp kill after he has expended his energy.
This is theorycrafting at its worst. In practice, HTs do just fine against ghosts.
Thank you for conceding the argument? I fail to see how you proved anything by retorting with "wrong, they're fine."
Are you joking? I've been saying throughout this thread that I haven't had trouble with ghosts when I have HT's. In fact, to my knowledge, no top protoss player has complained about them. Moreover, do you ever watch streams of tournies or other VODs with top protoss players? Guess what they do against ghosts? That's right, they feedback them with HTs. Surprised?
Hey, I have a great idea: go look at the "PvT Ghost EMP thread" in which you have been posting. Do you see any posts from top protoss players complaining about EMP there? I certainly don't.
In rebutting all of this, you haven't cited anything other than mathematical stats of the individual skills. As I said, that is theory-crafting at its worst.
You've cited no replays or vods yourself and you're making an inverse assumption to my logic that aoe > not aoe. Please provide evidence to the contrary. PvT is a muck of rush tactics, proxy marauder, fast void ray, 4gate allin, 3gate robo allin, etc. I haven't seen a shred of macro play in this matchup to prove either of our points in ages.
I'm too lazy to find more, but here's a great example from the Triple-Strike from last night. Fast-forward to the 1hr 17m mark to the PvT on lost temple. It's a great macro game that features some nice HT vs Ghost dueling towards the end.
So, are you going to produce something to buttress your theory-crafting?
Thors getting nuked by feedback is supposed to prove what? It's a macro game but it does no feature any ghost/ht "dueling." The only battle that included a significant number of ghosts was a roll by the toss due to void rays, zeals > marauders and a couple thors.
Or were you not talking about Paramore v Moo?
After trawling sc2rc, 4pooled, and a few other replay sites, i'm not able to come up with a single PvT/TvP over 30 mins that is a worthy replay consisting of two skilled opponents. About 95% of the replays are sub 10min in length, and the outliers are generally 20-25mins.
So, i'm hoping you can supply some of your macro long-game replays, because there clearly aren't many toss out there who are even trying to play longer games, much less win them.
As intelligent as you likely think you sound, there are volumes of good players who can tell you that HT are an extremely effective counter to Ghosts. Cloak is expensive and pointless against a competent Protoss player, Ghosts being invisible is irrelevant entirely. No one goes around without Observers with an army (no one good, at least). The range is a non issue because the HT can walk out ahead and kill the Ghosts. Since Ghosts MUST neutralize HT/Immortal BEFORE the battle starts, their longer range and AOE is nullified when you're talking about small numbers of Ghost/HT walking up ahead of armies and dueling. At best you will EMP the HT before it uses Feedback, but that's a 1-1 trade.
Unlike EMP, Storm can be spammed through out the battle and be effective, so HT can also just be brought in after a battle is initiated and EMP have been spent on other units. Ghosts are also effectively useless in late game situations once they've used EMPs, HT can make Archons which serve as huge meat shields and deal extra damage vs bio. So in the worst case the HT feedback the ghosts, storm, then become Archons. Best case, I EMP them individually before the battle, they run off and become Archons, and I'm no better off because P can afford to make far more HT than I can make Ghosts.
Trying to reduce it to "AOE > non AOE" is pointless, there's no value to the argument, and it proves nothing in this debate.
The real issue is not whether or not HT do currently counter Ghosts (which they do QUITE well) - the issue is should Blizzard keep giving units the ability to beat the one unit that counters it? The one unit Terran can use to neutralize masses of HT is the Ghost. But HTs counter the Ghost. It's a poor design choice. Feedback belongs on Archons in my opinion. Just like Void Rays should get slaughtered by Marines and Hydras, rather than counter Marines and Hydras and any other unit. It's poor design and I hope it gets changed.
On May 04 2010 03:35 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote: [quote]
Effective EMP and PDD use shuts down protoss late game. Addin battle cruisers is a nail in the coffin. Hardened shield becomes increasingly weaker as the game drags on. Emp becomes stronger due to the fact there is limited space to spread units out. PDD becomes stronger is the toss shifts toward a stalker heavy build to compensate for air units. Once enough tanks, banshees, or marauders take to the feild, there is little to be done with a protoss ground army. We obviously cannot take to the air since vikings effectively counter every air unit we produce except pre-charged void-rays, and that isn't something you can rely on.
As CGM just said: high templar. Yeah, you need to watch for invisible ghosts EMP'ing you, but that's what observers are for. Just pay attention to your army and you'll be fine.
AoE emp vs. single target feedback. Range 10 emp vs. rand 9 feedback. Invisible ghost that can deal damage vs. visible HT who can do nothing but merge into a free emp kill after he has expended his energy.
This is theorycrafting at its worst. In practice, HTs do just fine against ghosts.
Thank you for conceding the argument? I fail to see how you proved anything by retorting with "wrong, they're fine."
Are you joking? I've been saying throughout this thread that I haven't had trouble with ghosts when I have HT's. In fact, to my knowledge, no top protoss player has complained about them. Moreover, do you ever watch streams of tournies or other VODs with top protoss players? Guess what they do against ghosts? That's right, they feedback them with HTs. Surprised?
Hey, I have a great idea: go look at the "PvT Ghost EMP thread" in which you have been posting. Do you see any posts from top protoss players complaining about EMP there? I certainly don't.
In rebutting all of this, you haven't cited anything other than mathematical stats of the individual skills. As I said, that is theory-crafting at its worst.
You've cited no replays or vods yourself and you're making an inverse assumption to my logic that aoe > not aoe. Please provide evidence to the contrary. PvT is a muck of rush tactics, proxy marauder, fast void ray, 4gate allin, 3gate robo allin, etc. I haven't seen a shred of macro play in this matchup to prove either of our points in ages.
I'm too lazy to find more, but here's a great example from the Triple-Strike from last night. Fast-forward to the 1hr 17m mark to the PvT on lost temple. It's a great macro game that features some nice HT vs Ghost dueling towards the end.
So, are you going to produce something to buttress your theory-crafting?
Thors getting nuked by feedback is supposed to prove what? It's a macro game but it does no feature any ghost/ht "dueling." The only battle that included a significant number of ghosts was a roll by the toss due to void rays, zeals > marauders and a couple thors.
Or were you not talking about Paramore v Moo?
After trawling sc2rc, 4pooled, and a few other replay sites, i'm not able to come up with a single PvT/TvP over 30 mins that is a worthy replay consisting of two skilled opponents. About 95% of the replays are sub 10min in length, and the outliers are generally 20-25mins.
So, i'm hoping you can supply some of your macro long-game replays, because there clearly aren't many toss out there who are even trying to play longer games, much less win them.
I give up. You clearly did not watch the whole game. If you want to insist that HT's can't deal with ghosts and that toss late game can't compete with terran late game, go ahead. Troll away.
I watched the VOD..Moo (Terran) didn't even make that many ghosts in the end when Protoss had like 15 HTs..there was like one ghost...
On May 04 2010 03:35 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote: [quote]
Effective EMP and PDD use shuts down protoss late game. Addin battle cruisers is a nail in the coffin. Hardened shield becomes increasingly weaker as the game drags on. Emp becomes stronger due to the fact there is limited space to spread units out. PDD becomes stronger is the toss shifts toward a stalker heavy build to compensate for air units. Once enough tanks, banshees, or marauders take to the feild, there is little to be done with a protoss ground army. We obviously cannot take to the air since vikings effectively counter every air unit we produce except pre-charged void-rays, and that isn't something you can rely on.
As CGM just said: high templar. Yeah, you need to watch for invisible ghosts EMP'ing you, but that's what observers are for. Just pay attention to your army and you'll be fine.
AoE emp vs. single target feedback. Range 10 emp vs. rand 9 feedback. Invisible ghost that can deal damage vs. visible HT who can do nothing but merge into a free emp kill after he has expended his energy.
This is theorycrafting at its worst. In practice, HTs do just fine against ghosts.
Thank you for conceding the argument? I fail to see how you proved anything by retorting with "wrong, they're fine."
Are you joking? I've been saying throughout this thread that I haven't had trouble with ghosts when I have HT's. In fact, to my knowledge, no top protoss player has complained about them. Moreover, do you ever watch streams of tournies or other VODs with top protoss players? Guess what they do against ghosts? That's right, they feedback them with HTs. Surprised?
Hey, I have a great idea: go look at the "PvT Ghost EMP thread" in which you have been posting. Do you see any posts from top protoss players complaining about EMP there? I certainly don't.
In rebutting all of this, you haven't cited anything other than mathematical stats of the individual skills. As I said, that is theory-crafting at its worst.
You've cited no replays or vods yourself and you're making an inverse assumption to my logic that aoe > not aoe. Please provide evidence to the contrary. PvT is a muck of rush tactics, proxy marauder, fast void ray, 4gate allin, 3gate robo allin, etc. I haven't seen a shred of macro play in this matchup to prove either of our points in ages.
I'm too lazy to find more, but here's a great example from the Triple-Strike from last night. Fast-forward to the 1hr 17m mark to the PvT on lost temple. It's a great macro game that features some nice HT vs Ghost dueling towards the end.
So, are you going to produce something to buttress your theory-crafting?
Thors getting nuked by feedback is supposed to prove what? It's a macro game but it does no feature any ghost/ht "dueling." The only battle that included a significant number of ghosts was a roll by the toss due to void rays, zeals > marauders and a couple thors.
Or were you not talking about Paramore v Moo?
After trawling sc2rc, 4pooled, and a few other replay sites, i'm not able to come up with a single PvT/TvP over 30 mins that is a worthy replay consisting of two skilled opponents. About 95% of the replays are sub 10min in length, and the outliers are generally 20-25mins.
So, i'm hoping you can supply some of your macro long-game replays, because there clearly aren't many toss out there who are even trying to play longer games, much less win them.
As intelligent as you likely think you sound, there are volumes of good players who can tell you that HT are an extremely effective counter to Ghosts. Cloak is expensive and pointless against a competent Protoss player, Ghosts being invisible is irrelevant entirely. No one goes around without Observers with an army (no one good, at least). The range is a non issue because the HT can walk out ahead and kill the Ghosts. Since Ghosts MUST neutralize HT/Immortal BEFORE the battle starts, their longer range and AOE is nullified when you're talking about small numbers of Ghost/HT walking up ahead of armies and dueling. At best you will EMP the HT before it uses Feedback, but that's a 1-1 trade.
Except it's not a 1 to 1 trade, as emp will hit more than one target. Seriously, you can split your units into a half dozen control groups, but there is only so much room to move in a given space. You don't just loose 1 ht when an emp goes off.And let not play the "competent toss use obs to detect ghosts," story, we've been down that road and we understand that - espcially in this build - a raven is going to be there and there will not be ghost observers sitting out just to detect ghosts without being destroyed.
Unlike EMP, Storm can be spammed through out the battle and be effective, so HT can also just be brought in after a battle is initiated and EMP have been spent on other units. Ghosts are also effectively useless in late game situations once they've used EMPs, HT can make Archons which serve as huge meat shields and deal extra damage vs bio. So in the worst case the HT feedback the ghosts, storm, then become Archons. Best case, I EMP them individually before the battle, they run off and become Archons, and I'm no better off because P can afford to make far more HT than I can make Ghosts.
Trying to reduce it to "AOE > non AOE" is pointless, there's no value to the argument, and it proves nothing in this debate.
EMP can't be spammed? Really now, because i've heard you tell numerous tales about "spammed" force-field, which is targeted the same way as emp. How can P afford to make far more HT? They're just as useless without energy as ghosts (even more so, really), and they're equally gas heavy. You aren't going to morph archons (10 hp after their shields are nuked off) against a terran with ghosts, that's utter nonsense. It's not being reduced to "this one is aoe, this one isn't," there is clearly more to it than that. A comparison of the two units, of the two armies, of their respective roles, all of it is relavent. Feel free to stop trying to asassinate the character of the argument by over-simplifying it.
The real issue is not whether or not HT do currently counter Ghosts (which they do QUITE well) - the issue is should Blizzard keep giving units the ability to beat the one unit that counters it? The one unit Terran can use to neutralize masses of HT is the Ghost. But HTs counter the Ghost. It's a poor design choice. Feedback belongs on Archons in my opinion. Just like Void Rays should get slaughtered by Marines and Hydras, rather than counter Marines and Hydras and any other unit. It's poor design and I hope it gets changed.
I agree it's silly that HT and Ghosts are each other's counter-unit. I think it would be even more absurd that archons have it instead. Moving feedback even further down the tech tree (even if it is just a combination of two ht or dt) is not a good idea. It's just a reason to make archons in PvT.
I sympathise with you about void rays, I agree what they're currently doing to PvT is stupid, but that is a seperate issue. I'm concerned that when our cheese tactics are gone (and i'm fairly certain that we'll soon be rid of void ray as a viable open), we're going to be very handicapped in standard play vs. T because we simply haven't seen long macro games in PvT at all, and those that do run long are lop-sided as hell because of a crippling all-in from one side or the other. It's not just emp, not just ghosts, not just the fact archons are trash and ht are fairly weak compared to what we started the beta with, not just the fact our r3 air is god-awful by comparison to z and t, not just the overwhelming lack of diversity in our openings due to observers being out sole detectors, but a combination of these issues and others.
Protoss really doesn't have a lot going for it without a strong mid-game push. That's been the story of protoss since the beginning of the beta. Now that we're FIANLLY starting to move toward longer and more complete games in other matchups, pvt and pvz are STILL full of all-in push tactics. I'm not saying every other mu has incredibly long and well-thought out builds, but almost every pv* matchup is very short and heated. I don't think that's a coincidence.
I think the main thing is that a protoss opening including HT's is extremely tech heavy and doesn't apply enough pressure to be considered a strong opening
Ht's are a much better midgame transition than an opener
I am more interested in a general counter to the marine/tank/raven push when it first comes out
Ht's do get owned by aoe emps. A nice thing to do is have a few hts in ur warp prism. So if he emps then you can drop ur hts and storm. If he doesn't emp because he knows u have hts in ur dropship then thats a big enough advantage as it is and you can still drop them later.
Question: A little off topic. What kind of unit composition(s) are most beneficial to transition to as Terran to mid-late game? Do you want to get bioball + ghosts/medivacs? Is ghostmech/biomech viable?
Sounds like a noobie question..but I don't think I've ever been in a long late game TvP. (I'm currently like 28th in Gold). Just wondering what an ideal late game Terran army would be like. (In BW, it would be Vultures, Tanks, Vessels, a few Goliaths).
On May 04 2010 08:51 BrTarolg wrote: Lol all this talk about HT's
I think the main thing is that a protoss opening including HT's is extremely tech heavy and doesn't apply enough pressure to be considered a strong opening
Ht's are a much better midgame transition than an opener
I am more interested in a general counter to the marine/tank/raven push when it first comes out
Heavy chargelot/sentry will do just fine before the marine force gets too big. However, keep in mind that the more marines that the terran has, the longer he'll delay his push, and the more likely it is that you'll have storm.
On May 04 2010 10:05 WorkersOfTheWorld wrote: How would that have won the game, exactly?
Cuz he attacked with his last army but didn't wait for the mothership - it was flying over towards the battle, but was too far away.
Hard to say if it really would have made a difference, but it definitely seems like attacking without it was a big mistake on his part.
Again, seeing how fast it died, what makes anyone certain it would have helped at all? I grant you he attacked without a unit, an exepensive one, and at that point, it was dumb. But, it was evaporated in mere seconds by a fraction of the terran's force. I see no reason to believe it wouldn't have instantly died if he had waited on it.
Just out of curiosity. This may be not be possible since EMP is earlier in the tech tree then in sc1. However if there is only one ghost it will only take 100 shields off. Archons, (yes I know they are expensive) have alot of health(well shields actually) do not set off the PDD would take minimal damage from turrets/seeker missle can hit both the banshees and ravens kill a stimmed rine in one hit when they get to the tanks the tanks wont be able to shoot back last of all supposedly they have splash.
Splash damage from archons was suposedly removed however I played against a bot last night just to check and I was damaging multiple things at once with one archon shot (the aoe of the attack is probally just not as big as it was in sc1)
So build a bunch of zeolots or stalkers combine it with the archons and leave one or 2 temps around for storm and rines and tanks should be no problem
Probally wont work due to the cost of the unit but like said just an idea.
archons are really terrible and get destroyed by any form of ranged ball from any race. It's especially terrible against terran, and thats not even counting emp.
The splash is still there, it's just tiny 0.5 or something. Units literally have to be on top of one another. They also attack slow as hell and have pathetic range. They're definitly not the solution to any problems. They are a problem in and of themselves.
On May 04 2010 14:56 wonksaggin wrote: Perhaps stealing his gas early on would delay his tech and give you ample time to counter this push. That's just my guess.
It's not a push.. it's just a flexible open for T with a lot of options based on scouting. Can we please get over the idea that this is some kind of 8min marines + tank push?
Wow - I can't belive the way you are arguing your "HT's are worthless and ghosts are OP" case here WorkersOfTheWorld..
This is what you've done so far trying to prove a point: - If two attack moving armies move towards eachother EMP will kick the shit out of everything the toss has. Toss sucks! - EMP will hit a clump of unit! It's AoE! What if a HT tries to feedback it, it's AoE and will always hit more than 1 unit! Toss sucks! - EMP can be spammed like all other spells, it's as useful as forcefield spam or whatever spell spam in battle! (Even when the toss has no shields or energy left!) - Observers will always be way infront of the Toss army and since Terran has Raven, observer dies. Cloak IS AWESOME! - You cant feedback PDD. Toss sucks! And it goes on.
If you really intend to view the balance in the MU (Not between the two units because that's completely useless.) you'd look at what happens during the fights, not just "think" what's happening and expect every player out there to be fucking crap when doing it.
And yes ofc this build that this OP is all about is a PUSH, if he doesnt push you will have complete reign over the map and you will kill him with whatever tech choice.
And enough about this crap about Toss not having lategame strength, please just stop trolling..
Back on topic... Tested this build a few times vP and it works very well against any sort of early aggression due to the reactor constantly pumping marines (and even then you have excess resources). There is a very small timing window where any sort of cheese will wreck this build, but if you scout on 10 with your supply depot SCV you don't have to build the reactor on your barracks. Another nice thing is that, as pointed out early, at this point you have the three unit producing facilities for terran, two tech labs and one reactor. Any build is possible, be it teching hellions on the fac and swapping with the rax for a marau/hellion build, or going for banshee/viking/hellion/rine. (build another starport and put it on the reactor ofr increased viking output). I really, really like how much map control this build gives you. It also reduces the threat of DT harass, because who's going to go DT once they see ravens on the field. Suddenly balls of units look like a bad idea (possible HSM or siege) and anti-air will get mowed down by ridiculous amounts of marines.
The only way I see countering this build is going heavy zeal/sentry as early as possible off 3 gates and containing the terran while you expand. Abuse force field to keep the T trapped in his base and back off when he's forced to go air heavy, tech to siege, etc. I absolutely love Nony's phoenix build and abuse the shit out of it whenever I play protoss, but in the event that phoenix go in your mineral line and take out your drones, just push as terran into their base with your superior ground force (if they force field the ramp just expand as terran, tech siege, and laugh as the raven gives vision up his ramp and your siege blow his shit to smitherines).
Above all though, protect that Raven! Your air units are key to pushing up the ramp and giving vision in this build (I generally push when I get one raven, one banshee).
On May 04 2010 17:40 Kyuki wrote: Wow - I can't belive the way you are arguing your "HT's are worthless and ghosts are OP" case here WorkersOfTheWorld..
This is what you've done so far trying to prove a point: - If two attack moving armies move towards eachother EMP will kick the shit out of everything the toss has. Toss sucks! - EMP will hit a clump of unit! It's AoE! What if a HT tries to feedback it, it's AoE and will always hit more than 1 unit! Toss sucks! - EMP can be spammed like all other spells, it's as useful as forcefield spam or whatever spell spam in battle! (Even when the toss has no shields or energy left!) - Observers will always be way infront of the Toss army and since Terran has Raven, observer dies. Cloak IS AWESOME! - You cant feedback PDD. Toss sucks! And it goes on.
If you really intend to view the balance in the MU (Not between the two units because that's completely useless.) you'd look at what happens during the fights, not just "think" what's happening and expect every player out there to be fucking crap when doing it.
And yes ofc this build that this OP is all about is a PUSH, if he doesnt push you will have complete reign over the map and you will kill him with whatever tech choice.
And enough about this crap about Toss not having lategame strength, please just stop trolling..
I never said it was a current issue. I think it's an up-coming issue.
How many PvT matches have you seen in the last moth or more that lasted more than 15 mins? Most last aroud 8-10. We really have no idea what the MU is like late-game except for the few outliers i've been able to view and all of those have been toss losses if he hadn't already run away with the game from a timing push.
I realize everyone here is going to say "Oh, but look at the toss owning T all day long in the tournaments." That's great, but long-term gameplay isn't going to be 7min timing push with gateway units, OP void rays, and the occasional immortal timing push. The trend is going to be toward longer games, macro games. That's something I don't think toss are comfortable with and I believe this open is a good example of why.
Contrary to popular myths, we don't have the best t3 units. We don't have the best spells. We don't have the strongest end-game, at all.
Why the hell are people arguing about ghosts/HTs? lmao, those are already pretty balanced. Whoever is better wins, leave it at that.
On May 05 2010 00:54 Snowfield wrote: I have a question
When you do this build at it hits midgame, your pushing out banshees and siegetanks with marines
i just find that i start to float alot of minerals and lack gas, do you expand then? or pump more marines out form barrackes?
Anyone got some more good replays with this build?
The point of this build is to be able to have many options and stop all-ins while being able to also pressure greedy toss builds. The build also lets you secure your expansion as well, so when you do move out, you do build a command center.
There is a point where you wanna stop building marines and switch into airmech, bio MMM, or ghost mech, as marines are gonna be pretty useless later on.
Ive been having some reasonable sucess fighting this build using a 3 stalker 1 voidray harass to keep the marine count low, expand containing and then mustering an army big enough hwen he pushes
Requires much more superior micro than your opponent though it is pretty tough
On May 04 2010 17:40 Kyuki wrote: Wow - I can't belive the way you are arguing your "HT's are worthless and ghosts are OP" case here WorkersOfTheWorld..
This is what you've done so far trying to prove a point: - If two attack moving armies move towards eachother EMP will kick the shit out of everything the toss has. Toss sucks! - EMP will hit a clump of unit! It's AoE! What if a HT tries to feedback it, it's AoE and will always hit more than 1 unit! Toss sucks! - EMP can be spammed like all other spells, it's as useful as forcefield spam or whatever spell spam in battle! (Even when the toss has no shields or energy left!) - Observers will always be way infront of the Toss army and since Terran has Raven, observer dies. Cloak IS AWESOME! - You cant feedback PDD. Toss sucks! And it goes on.
If you really intend to view the balance in the MU (Not between the two units because that's completely useless.) you'd look at what happens during the fights, not just "think" what's happening and expect every player out there to be fucking crap when doing it.
And yes ofc this build that this OP is all about is a PUSH, if he doesnt push you will have complete reign over the map and you will kill him with whatever tech choice.
And enough about this crap about Toss not having lategame strength, please just stop trolling..
I never said it was a current issue. I think it's an up-coming issue.
How many PvT matches have you seen in the last moth or more that lasted more than 15 mins? Most last aroud 8-10. We really have no idea what the MU is like late-game except for the few outliers i've been able to view and all of those have been toss losses if he hadn't already run away with the game from a timing push.
I realize everyone here is going to say "Oh, but look at the toss owning T all day long in the tournaments." That's great, but long-term gameplay isn't going to be 7min timing push with gateway units, OP void rays, and the occasional immortal timing push. The trend is going to be toward longer games, macro games. That's something I don't think toss are comfortable with and I believe this open is a good example of why.
Contrary to popular myths, we don't have the best t3 units. We don't have the best spells. We don't have the strongest end-game, at all.
What games have you been watching that weren't decided within the first 15 mins? O_0
On May 04 2010 17:40 Kyuki wrote: Wow - I can't belive the way you are arguing your "HT's are worthless and ghosts are OP" case here WorkersOfTheWorld..
This is what you've done so far trying to prove a point: - If two attack moving armies move towards eachother EMP will kick the shit out of everything the toss has. Toss sucks! - EMP will hit a clump of unit! It's AoE! What if a HT tries to feedback it, it's AoE and will always hit more than 1 unit! Toss sucks! - EMP can be spammed like all other spells, it's as useful as forcefield spam or whatever spell spam in battle! (Even when the toss has no shields or energy left!) - Observers will always be way infront of the Toss army and since Terran has Raven, observer dies. Cloak IS AWESOME! - You cant feedback PDD. Toss sucks! And it goes on.
If you really intend to view the balance in the MU (Not between the two units because that's completely useless.) you'd look at what happens during the fights, not just "think" what's happening and expect every player out there to be fucking crap when doing it.
And yes ofc this build that this OP is all about is a PUSH, if he doesnt push you will have complete reign over the map and you will kill him with whatever tech choice.
And enough about this crap about Toss not having lategame strength, please just stop trolling..
I never said it was a current issue. I think it's an up-coming issue.
How many PvT matches have you seen in the last moth or more that lasted more than 15 mins? Most last aroud 8-10. We really have no idea what the MU is like late-game except for the few outliers i've been able to view and all of those have been toss losses if he hadn't already run away with the game from a timing push.
I realize everyone here is going to say "Oh, but look at the toss owning T all day long in the tournaments." That's great, but long-term gameplay isn't going to be 7min timing push with gateway units, OP void rays, and the occasional immortal timing push. The trend is going to be toward longer games, macro games. That's something I don't think toss are comfortable with and I believe this open is a good example of why.
Contrary to popular myths, we don't have the best t3 units. We don't have the best spells. We don't have the strongest end-game, at all.
What games have you been watching that weren't decided within the first 15 mins? O_0
Thanks for making my point? I said matches -were- being decided that early and i think this should/will change eventually, and that with current balance that might be a big problem for toss, who have a lot (basically everything) riding on their 10min push in PvT and a lot of units that become obsolete or dramatically less effective later on compared to their counterparts.
Maybe sc2 will always be this fast (quite dissapointing, imo), but i've always hoped games woud tend to run longer as the game got older and more developed.
I think TvP usually ends in midgame b/c of the following:
1. Defense is difficult b/c of: unit abilities and less terrain advantage. In bw a terran could hold of 2 gate pressure with 1fact while expanding. In sc2 terran doesn't have the strong defense potential for the cost potential. Cliff fighting doesn't provide as much advantage as before. Units can also bypass cliffs much faster. 2. Terran's higher tier units haven't been popularized in TvP. Terran has not much incentive to go for late game to use ravens and battlecruisers (or even mass thor; small numbers of thors are popular, but not mass thors). BCs are countered by feedback(which prevent yamatos from ever being used) and void rays effectively. 3. Protoss's higher tier is seen more frequently (colo, void), but its endgame tech (carrier/mothership) are still not very viable b/c they are countered by vikings. 4. Protoss's AoE is very strong when collected (colo + high templar). So P has an advantage in large army battles. T's AoE is not as present (tanks whose splash is questionable as of now), so for T it's better to end games in medium scale battles. 5. Player's haven't been as developed. Ghost and HT properly microed can nullify each other, but players just haven't the confidence in their micro/army management. So they want to end the game early. But as the game becomes more developed, longer games will start to dominate as players' strategy, reactions, micro/macromanagement, etc. get better.
protect your templar and bring them in the rear. An emp'd protoss army can still fight with zealots/colossus on the field. however, if 3 storms go off the Terran army must back up or lose 30 units
At worst, hotkey a warp prism along with an obs and drop them to the side of the battle.
Also, a sentry/zealot army with fast templar tech would rape this build. clean up the ground army and warp in stalkers to finish the feedbacked banshees.
I think this topic needs more attention. The replays in OP aren't really great representations (no offense meant) of how good it is to get a really early Raven to store up energy to showcase just how good PDDrone can be. Also the power of high DPS marines+banshees+tanks, when they are "protected" really shines. It is a very very efficient build too... you spend your money very solidly until mineral saturation.
It almost feels like if Protoss goes stalker or Immortal, they will be at a big disadvantage here. In my test matches last night I rolled the Protosses I came across, mid plat, etc. without even trying hard (was half asleep and made some mistakes). Immortals are supposed to be the bane of Terran, but with marines/banshees/unsieged tanks wailing away at them, they drop quick.
Safest bet for P must be charge zealots to HT, like people are saying. Still the build is safe for Terran since you can swap to hellions easily. Auto-turrets are great meatshields for your marines/hellions, and they waste zealot charge very well.
On May 06 2010 00:34 Blacklizard wrote: It almost feels like if Protoss goes stalker or Immortal, they will be at a big disadvantage here. In my test matches last night I rolled the Protosses I came across, mid plat, etc. without even trying hard (was half asleep and made some mistakes). Immortals are supposed to be the bane of Terran, but with marines/banshees/unsieged tanks wailing away at them, they drop quick.
Safest bet for P must be charge zealots to HT, like people are saying. Still the build is safe for Terran since you can swap to hellions easily. Auto-turrets are great meatshields for your marines/hellions, and they waste zealot charge very well.
Loving the Raven more and more.
Yea, this build functions simlarly to void ray opens for protoss. Throws the opponent way off the norm, makes them invest a lot in something you can just as easily counter. And yea, if the P isn't really on the ball and/or familiar with the open they generally tend to get rolled by it. They're either over-confident, confused, or just under-estimate hellions (i see this a lot), unsieged tank, and some of the other less common TvP units.
http://bit.ly/bZHT40 - This was the closest I came, I did a 3 Warpgate / tech timing.
I watched this replay. I'm ranked 2nd in Gold 1v1 as Terran so I have some good advice. In first 2/3 of game you blow all your units pushing a terran choke point with a wall up and tanks behind it. Think about this for a second, you're preventing half your units from attacking. You should have put down a 3rd expansion and sat your units in his expo so at the point of contact he will be just exiting his choke and you will have the greatest firing arc. Not to mention while hitting his unites while moving they will be partially dragged out in a line meaning you don't encounter the correct terran "ball" that he had set up in his base. The 3rd expo would have let you out macro the shit of him.
Second, against his high amount of marines I think 2-3 colossi would be very beneficial. That guy never got stim or hp upgrade or medivacs. If he focuses your colossi with banshees so be it, but micro colossi back, exposing the banshees over all your void walkers and focus fire them down. Either way those colossi would mow down the marines or force him to suicide his air.
I played toss in sc1 and what about the zealot drop on tanks from behind? Dropping 4 zealots on his tanks while engaging in the front with voids / colossi would decimate him. Or if you can manually have the zealots charge to the tanks do that.
Just a few thoughts.
[/QUOTE] Void Walkers? I'm going to assume you're talking about stalkers. imo zealot bombs wouldn't work very well, because the t is focusing so much on marines. Counting on the t to be out of position will only work so long. Also, starting off a post claiming to be awesome because you're in gold doesn't help
To the OP, i would advise just going mass talkers and rushing blink. Stalkers will eat rines with a little micro and you can just blink past the wall and into his base. If he is wasting that much money and time on tech you should be able to crank out a good amount of stalkers before he can get a sizable force.
Edit, depending on timing though this could be a gamble as stalkers are the most affected by the ravens..
I've started playing this build after reading this thread and haven't lost a single TvP since. I'm sure protoss will find an answer eventually, but for now it really does magic.
I am still a newbie that is in bronze and maybe what I am going to say is gonna look stupid, but for me the scouting is not a problem - for 100/100 (illusion research) I get as many phoenixes to scout, as I want. But that's just my 2 cents on scouting. Maybe it's just because I am in bronze and 100/100 doesn't make a big difference, but oh well.
Yeah, I played one where the guy had basically double my income from time 5 minutes with a hidden FE. Still rolled him. Killed his whole army (we were about equal on army costs), and I lost like 5 units. Yeah, wow.
I think if P catches on and tries to meet me closer to my bad, I'm going to start opting for 1 medivac full of marines or hellions to drop his mineral line. Or hell actually, I could just send two of the banshees.
Just watched two korean replays of flash (probably fake, still played well and uber high apm) and he used the same unit combo - marines, tanks, banshees and raven. So it's definately playable even on the highest level.
On May 06 2010 20:08 Hrypa wrote: I've started playing this build after reading this thread and haven't lost a single TvP since. I'm sure protoss will find an answer eventually, but for now it really does magic.
Protoss players that blindly open with void ray are going to have trouble. I've seen this build three or four times now, and have only lost once as the protoss player. Once I see the marines being built, I do a robo-opening and build an observer just to make sure that the terran isn't doing something weird like an all-in marine rush. Once confirming that the terran is committing to the build, I take my natural and tech to chargelots and templar tech. This will trash the first marine-heavy push very easily. From there, take a second expansion and get robo-tech going. In each game, the terran replaced his marines with marauders. Go heavy on immortal/chargelots/templar with some stalker/sentry support. Eventually you'll want to transition out of immortals and into colossi when your third base is up and running and you can afford it. At this point, you'll have all of your tech unlocked and be in good shape. If you see the terran going banshees at any point, build a stargate and get a few phoenixes (3-4 should be plenty).
My only loss to a terran using the build came on incineration zone where the terrain is just totally unfriendly to protoss army movement. If I had teched straight to colossi I would have won. Without colossi, tanks and marauders absolutely ledge-raped my army.
I was definately doubting this but I said what the hell, il give it a try
This build owns, abolsutely brilliant to use ravens DPD to cover your high dps units asses. Quick reactor rines and starport with turrets can hold the voids off as well. Ive been pushing out once I get about 14 rines 2 ravens and 3 tanks and a medivac or two. If toss has stalker heavy army I will demolish him. If they have coli or HT I just keep em at bay while i get my expo. Tanks as always provide the map control I need. Once expand is up I add rauders and banshees to the mix and it becomes very hard for the toss to stop me.
Im not saying im now 10-0 to toss with this build, i have had some close games that he ended up winning, but IMO this is a great advancement in the TvP meta game.
Just watched two korean replays of flash (probably fake, still played well and uber high apm) and he used the same unit combo - marines, tanks, banshees and raven. So it's definately playable even on the highest level.
On May 07 2010 04:32 XXXSmOke wrote: about 14 rines 2 ravens and 3 tanks and a medivac or two.
Im not saying im now 10-0 to toss with this build, i have had some close games that he ended up winning, but IMO this is a great advancement in the TvP meta game.
I think 1 raven would be fine, replace the second with a banshee or 2.
Also I wouldn't really call it an advancement in meta game....
On May 01 2010 17:45 Ryuu314 wrote: Why not templar?
HT can deny ravens energy and sometimes kill them outright. Storm isn't even necessary as a research as it seems to me like all you're having trouble with are the raven's PDD. Additionally, once you do research storm it's very effective against marines and tanks as marines have very little hp, especially once stimmed and tanks can't dodge storm. All that's left to deal with are vikings and they're really only powerful in the air.
Good point. storm those vikings and ravens. I would go a mix of stalkers, collosi, and templars. Stalkers would be able to finish the job that the storm left.
It seems to me that you could have won that first game outright with some better micro. Your zealots just sat there while your stalkers got blown away by the tanks. Also, when you blinked into the tank group, you left them just far enough away that the sieged tanks could still hit them. And, of course, your zealots didn't move in until your stalkers were down. And it may be difficult to tech to in time while maintaining a decent main force, but one storm could take out half the marines (or most of the health of most of the marines) letting your zealots destroy them.
All you had to do was focus fire the tanks with your stalkers, send your zealots at the marines, and then mop up the remaining banshees and raven with whatever stalkers are left. Since you had Blink, you could have sent in the zealots, which would occupy the marines, blink into the middle of the siege tank group and focus them down, and simply ignore the banshees until everything else is dead. The PDD is obviously a problem, but with the amount of stalkers you had, it shouldn't be a huge problem. In the time it takes his tanks to unsiege (which he would be forced to do to get any shots in with them at all) he would get 1-2 attack rounds maximum with them before your stalkers took out the first one or two.
The second game was similar. Your immortals were auto-firing on the marines the whole time. You had some zealots stuck in the back, and you force fielded off the tanks while staying in firing range of them. If you had used the choke more to your advantage by force fielding some of his forces and retreating some to snipe the marines with the stalkers, you could have taken out at least 1/3 of them before the force fields went down.
In the fourth game, your timing push was a great choice, I think. Unfortunately, the bulk of your zealots got stuck behind your stalkers when you went in. As close as that battle was, the zealots going in first could have made all the difference. You may have even been able to push in and harassed his economy a little (that's a bit of a stretch, but not an entirely unreasonable assumption).
I completely agree that it's a great build, but it's far from unbeatable. One of its biggest disadvantages is that it's very difficult to micro everything. All he can really do is pre-position, toss down PDD, and siege up. If you just out-micro it, which shouldn't be too difficult considering all the different types of units he has, you should be fine. While a slightly more adaptive/specialized build would obviously help, it seems like your initial build should suffice with better placement/micro.
On May 11 2010 14:29 wonksaggin wrote: lol is there a build like this just as effective for zerg?
you can use this opening vs. zerg and it works pretty well (at gold/silver level at least).
The PDD pwns hydralisks, but seems much less effective vs. mass roaches. many people in this thread say to mix in some helions when you play vs. zerg, but I haven't needed to.
the most important thing that I've notice is to get siege early - after the 2nd tank (if you forget siege and they rush you are screwed) and to force fights where the terrain is in your advantage. camp your tanks outside their base at the top of a ramp or ledge, then try attacking with your banshees/marines and draw the fight back to your tanks that are waiting.
Also I've noticed that many zergs (in 2v2 at least) will switch to mass mutalisk as soon as they see your banshees as they think you are going mass air, so then you have to add a 2nd starport w/ reactor and pump vikings to counter that (usually really easy).
On May 01 2010 17:45 Ryuu314 wrote: Why not templar?
HT can deny ravens energy and sometimes kill them outright. Storm isn't even necessary as a research as it seems to me like all you're having trouble with are the raven's PDD. Additionally, once you do research storm it's very effective against marines and tanks as marines have very little hp, especially once stimmed and tanks can't dodge storm. All that's left to deal with are vikings and they're really only powerful in the air.
Good point. storm those vikings and ravens. I would go a mix of stalkers, collosi, and templars. Stalkers would be able to finish the job that the storm left.
You're not going to have enough gas for all of that, unless you stand there taunting one another on 2-bases for a long time. Zealots, Sentries, Stalkers and HTs is all you need. Shitloads of Feedback, Psi Storm and 'man'power should work fine. Also make sure to build backup Observers and keep them at the back, in case he COMSATs your existing one dead, then Cloaks.
Raven's get countered pretty hard by templar's by either feedbacking the raven or the PDD they release. Without that, this is basically just marines + banshee (+tank) which can be killed with stalker/zealot. As usual against tanks, don't try to force through them attack him when he is on the move or just outexpo him. Banshee's also get countered easily by phoenixes against which the PDD isn't really effective.
If you've already got sentries in this situation, does anyone have an idea of whether it would be worth it to research hallucination to hallucinate phoenix and use up PDD energy that way [1 attack from a phoenix eats up two shots of PDD according to liquipedia]?
Its a good idea, but worth it? I doubt you'll get a solid concensus on that. It certainly can't hurt, since you aren't going to be making much use of Force Field against a force like that.
And the more firepower they have shooting at Hallucinations, the better. The amount of damage that combo can throw out is insane.
On May 12 2010 01:59 Markwerf wrote: Raven's get countered pretty hard by templar's by either feedbacking the raven or the PDD they release. Without that, this is basically just marines + banshee (+tank) which can be killed with stalker/zealot. As usual against tanks, don't try to force through them attack him when he is on the move or just outexpo him. Banshee's also get countered easily by phoenixes against which the PDD isn't really effective.
I just watched a game (patch 11) where LZgamer went 1 base all Marines (reactor) and 2 port banshees. He rolled his friend who went mostly all zealots/stalkers and then a late stargate after he scouted dual starports. Banshees are awesome in general and not bad against stalkers at all.
watchd replay 4 and have to say you played bad T could build cloaked banshe and he would win too because u've never build robotic facilty(nor templar archives i dont get how u wanted to fight any 3rax build), u made many bad decisions as well like trying to push with senetry/zealot/stalker army vs sieged tanks behind wall lol
Sweet jesus, I've lost to this as P a few times. With PDD lasting like 6 minutes, if you have the misfortune of getting contained, you've lost. Tanks + PDD provide incredible map control, just when everyone was thinking it was gone from SC2.
Just wanted to say thanks for this thread. I've played this build a few times TvP and easily pushed them up their ramp and then never get down. It's awesome
i havn't read all 10 pages, but i've been perfecting a build order of me going 2gate/1robo/1 stargate then pumping zealots, pheonix and a couple immortal. The pheonix destroy banshees/ravens, and graviton beam is very useful on the tanks, meanwhile zealots clean up against the marine forces.
This build is a pretty strong counter and quite easily beating 1600 terrans with it(i'm 1600 toss)
On May 15 2010 06:05 stroggos wrote: i havn't read all 10 pages, but i've been perfecting a build order of me going 2gate/1robo/1 stargate then pumping zealots, pheonix and a couple immortal. The pheonix destroy banshees/ravens, and graviton beam is very useful on the tanks, meanwhile zealots clean up against the marine forces.
This build is a pretty strong counter and quite easily beating 1600 terrans with it(i'm 1600 toss)
Interesting. Do you go robo first or stargate first? My one concern would be having enough gas to pump phoenixes and immortals simultaneously.
On May 15 2010 06:05 stroggos wrote: i havn't read all 10 pages, but i've been perfecting a build order of me going 2gate/1robo/1 stargate then pumping zealots, pheonix and a couple immortal. The pheonix destroy banshees/ravens, and graviton beam is very useful on the tanks, meanwhile zealots clean up against the marine forces.
This build is a pretty strong counter and quite easily beating 1600 terrans with it(i'm 1600 toss)
Interesting. Do you go robo first or stargate first? My one concern would be having enough gas to pump phoenixes and immortals simultaneously.
it's not that gas intensive really, you also don't really need more than 1 immortal early game. No more gas intensive than tanks/ravens and banshees at the same time i'd say
i go robo 1st, then when it gets to mid game, i start adding on gateways, keep the pheonix producing, research charge...ect
Ugh, when properly executed this build is monstrous. I think I'm gonna try phoenix + 3 gate zealot stalker next time, clear the air of ravens and banshees then lift the tanks while hopefully the zealots tank the marines. Phoenix lift unsieges tanks which helps a lot if the terran is slow pushing. The problem is the terran can vary the timing of this push depending on when you'll be weakest so trying to expand before the terran is right out. One thing to note is the terran is pretty vulnerable early on so you can harass him a bit with stalker. I dunno
Also if you predict this build from a terran is it worth to gas steal?
I didn't read all of the ten pages of this thread but I just beat this build a little while ago against an 1850 platinum T.
I did a 4-gate with robo (3-gate would have prob been fine) defensive build, where I took my natural around 9:30 into the game. You need a strong focus on immortal/sentry/zeal. Sentries for FF/guardian shield and target firing banshees and immortals vs tanks. Stalkers are obviously useless..
In the late game, I focused on defending and taking out expansions knowing that his force is not very mobile with siege tanks and opted for map control with speeded void rays and a primarily gateway oriented unit composition. Void ray is a very good transition in the mid-late game. Charge is also a necessity. Taking out all of his expansions and limiting him to two or three bases will guarantee you win the game in the long run.
It was a fun build to play against...see replay. I think this build is best countered by defensive and responsive play with a focus on later game map control as the terran's force is primarily immobile if they keep pumping tanks. I'm not sure about other possible transitions for the terran (is it possible for them to switch to MMM?) Either way, good scouting and countering should go a long way.
I *think* phoenix with 3-gate is a good early game method of countering this also - maybe even more effective as it grants you early map control and completely nullifies tanks...have yet to try it but I find robo builds to be generally safer vs other terran openings.
ok you should probably quickly tech up to HTs and make archons. He has spent alot of gas making tanks/ravens/banshees so he probably wont have enuff to create ghost. Archons can take dmg and can attack land and air making it difficult for marines and banshees. Also if u have any left over HTs u can just use feed back agianst the ravens. probably wont even need storm. This might not be standard but his build really isnt standard aswell he is making ravens usually u see ravens in TvZ and ghost in TvP (not always but majority of the time). you also probably dont want to make to many stalkers probably go heavy immo/sent/zeal charge is recommended
On May 15 2010 13:33 StormsInJuly wrote: Ugh, when properly executed this build is monstrous. I think I'm gonna try phoenix + 3 gate zealot stalker next time, clear the air of ravens and banshees then lift the tanks while hopefully the zealots tank the marines. Phoenix lift unsieges tanks which helps a lot if the terran is slow pushing. The problem is the terran can vary the timing of this push depending on when you'll be weakest so trying to expand before the terran is right out. One thing to note is the terran is pretty vulnerable early on so you can harass him a bit with stalker. I dunno
Also if you predict this build from a terran is it worth to gas steal?
Don't bother with the gas steal. Just play straight up and go phoenix / heavy zealot, with stalkers and sentries as gas allows for support. Use your phoenixes to lift tanks and marauders. Adjust as necessary with phoenix scouting.
To beat this build, the Protoss doesn't have to do anything special. The timing push revolves around the PDD being placed at the right place at the right time, forcing the Protoss into an engagement where the PDD becomes really powerful against armies with Stalkers. To beat this build, simply go mass Stalkers with blink and engage the Terran in the middle of the map or at his base. Fight him until he drops the PDD then pull back. Without the PDD the Terran doesn't have a way to push you or engage a group of Stalkers. Sprinkle some Zealots into your force to distract his army while you blink up and snipe the Banshees, Tanks, and Raven.
Most Protoss seem to respond with some sort of Zealot/Sentry/HT force, but this is a mistake. Tech switching for the Terran is really easy with this build and mass upgraded Hellions are right around the corner as soon as you push him back with any kind of light unit army. I also don't recommend going air as Vikings are also just around the corner and Hellions will still ruin you if you don't have a solid armored ground presence (not Zealots and Sentries). Also beware if you try to use Phoenix to counter this army as the PDD does in fact block Phoenix shots and the Terran will start focus firing with his Marines if you lift up tanks.
If you go mass blink stalkers and ruin his PDD timing, you can easily run him over when he doesn't have the PDD and there is no quick tech switch answer to stopping mass stalkers as Terran.
On May 18 2010 00:29 PacketOverflow wrote: To beat this build, the Protoss doesn't have to do anything special. The timing push revolves around the PDD being placed at the right place at the right time, forcing the Protoss into an engagement where the PDD becomes really powerful against armies with Stalkers. To beat this build, simply go mass Stalkers with blink and engage the Terran in the middle of the map or at his base. Fight him until he drops the PDD then pull back. Without the PDD the Terran doesn't have a way to push you or engage a group of Stalkers. Sprinkle some Zealots into your force to distract his army while you blink up and snipe the Banshees, Tanks, and Raven.
Most Protoss seem to respond with some sort of Zealot/Sentry/HT force, but this is a mistake. Tech switching for the Terran is really easy with this build and mass upgraded Hellions are right around the corner as soon as you push him back with any kind of light unit army. I also don't recommend going air as Vikings are also just around the corner and Hellions will still ruin you if you don't have a solid armored ground presence (not Zealots and Sentries). Also beware if you try to use Phoenix to counter this army as the PDD does in fact block Phoenix shots and the Terran will start focus firing with his Marines if you lift up tanks.
If you go mass blink stalkers and ruin his PDD timing, you can easily run him over when he doesn't have the PDD and there is no quick tech switch answer to stopping mass stalkers as Terran.
You're to going to have your day ruined if you go mass stalker and the terran goes heavy marauders. Also, the micro involved with the stalkers is very intense and leaves very little margin for error.
I've found phoenixes to be a very safe response to this build. You don't need to shoot anything with the phoenixes, you just need to lift key units (marauders, tanks, and hellions [if he has them]) so that your zealots can rip his marines up. If the terran wants to shoot my phoenixes with his marines, that's fine with me. My zealots will eat him alive before he's able to do too much damage.
You're to going to have your day ruined if you go mass stalker and the terran goes heavy marauders. Also, the micro involved with the stalkers is very intense and leaves very little margin for error.
I've found phoenixes to be a very safe response to this build. You don't need to shoot anything with the phoenixes, you just need to lift key units (marauders, tanks, and hellions [if he has them]) so that your zealots can rip his marines up. If the terran wants to shoot my phoenixes with his marines, that's fine with me. My zealots will eat him alive before he's able to do too much damage.
Mass Marauders is really easy to see coming though. This build, while flexible, is pretty obvious to see just by sending a Probe up the ramp. 99/100 times the Terran will have the Barracks on the ramp with a Tech Lab to get a head start on Marauder production for his timing push. If you see it with a Reactor making a lot of Marines (mineral dumping), chances are good it's not two more Barracks in the back but something more gas heavy. The Reactor or Tech Lab on the Barracks both go up fairly early so you've got a good window to prepare. The Terran would have to purposely slow his build/push in order to feed you false information and while this is possible, it's not common. Even if he tries to hide his marauders or tech, sending your early anti-reaper Stalker (or 2) to his ramp will usually force the Terran to show his hand as the usual 2 marine defense won't be enough to stop the harassment.
(Also: this build produces no Marauders before the first 9min push, if you see even one Marauder at any point in the early game, he's not doing this build.)
On May 18 2010 01:10 nujgnoy wrote: As the terran who's used this combo a while ago in beta:
zealot, sentry, minimum proportion of stalker, phoenix, FE, and good macro into mass ground (stalker, etc) with HT > this strategy
Good macro and unit diversity does indeed beat this build. It's a build designed to defeat most Protoss timing pushes while also applying pressure and expanding, as it's designed to force the Protoss into a macro focused game. It only outright defeats Protoss who are so dependent on their 1base plays that they are uncomfortable with more drawn out macro games. Past the 9min timing push and lines being drawn in the sand, it's up to you to beat the Protoss yourself. The push is not a catch-all-and-win-the-game build, but a soft counter to most Protoss 1base pushes that allows you to expand and quickly switch tech to anything that you require.
Im just going to let everyone in on a pro secret as to why this build isn't played often on a high level of play -
Zelot/Sentry/Phoenix > this. You have like 10 pheonixes with Zelot Sentry and T cannot do anything, you shoot everything out of the air and lift all the tanks, then its just Marine vs Zelot Sentry. Nony completely raped me in round 5 of the craft cup last week countering my raven tank build, and since then I've never looked back at it. The build isn't very good if you scout it.
On May 20 2010 02:27 Joseki wrote: Im just going to let everyone in on a pro secret as to why this build isn't played often on a high level of play -
Zelot/Sentry/Phoenix > this. You have like 10 pheonixes with Zelot Sentry and T cannot do anything, you shoot everything out of the air and lift all the tanks, then its just Marine vs Zelot Sentry. Nony completely raped me in round 5 of the craft cup last week countering my raven tank build, and since then I've never looked back at it. The build isn't very good if you scout it.
On May 20 2010 02:27 Joseki wrote: Im just going to let everyone in on a pro secret as to why this build isn't played often on a high level of play -
Zelot/Sentry/Phoenix > this. You have like 10 pheonixes with Zelot Sentry and T cannot do anything, you shoot everything out of the air and lift all the tanks, then its just Marine vs Zelot Sentry. Nony completely raped me in round 5 of the craft cup last week countering my raven tank build, and since then I've never looked back at it. The build isn't very good if you scout it.
Nope. Zealot/sentry/phoenix is not > this. And this is not > zealot/sentry/phoenix. It is up to player skill, which is why the opening is so great. Nony undoubtedly outplayed you.
I'm guessing you did not build any vikings, or not enough the "build" is an opening, and is dependent on a good level of scouting information and experience with it. It is not just simply a "build" or "opening" that you do by copy pasting and have a counter to everything. Tiny adjustments are key.
On May 20 2010 02:27 Joseki wrote: Im just going to let everyone in on a pro secret as to why this build isn't played often on a high level of play -
Zelot/Sentry/Phoenix > this. You have like 10 pheonixes with Zelot Sentry and T cannot do anything, you shoot everything out of the air and lift all the tanks, then its just Marine vs Zelot Sentry. Nony completely raped me in round 5 of the craft cup last week countering my raven tank build, and since then I've never looked back at it. The build isn't very good if you scout it.
Nope. Zealot/sentry/phoenix is not > this. And this is not > zealot/sentry/phoenix. It is up to player skill, which is why the opening is so great. Nony undoubtedly outplayed you.
I'm guessing you did not build any vikings, or not enough the "build" is an opening, and is dependent on a good level of scouting information and experience with it. It is not just simply a "build" or "opening" that you do by copy pasting and have a counter to everything. Tiny adjustments are key.
100% agree here. You don't just keep blindly building marine + tank + raven/banshee if protoss masses 10 phoenix -_-
First off, if you see a stargate you should immediately stop making raven/banshee and start producing vikings. Stargate usually means void rays.
Secondly, if you see protoss massing phoenix, you should start making thor, thor are the hard counter to phoenix; they do extra damge to light air units, and they are massive, meaning they are immune to gravitron beam. 2 thors + your viking/marine should be more than enough for phoenix. Use the raven(s) you already have to cast PDD, it affects phoenix.
Lastly, if you scout zealot/sentry or a lack of stalker, you should stop making tanks and start making igniter hellions. And if you already made ravens, use them to make auto-turrets. If you already made banshees, get cloak, a stargate opening = toss has no observers, at least not for awhile.
On May 20 2010 02:27 Joseki wrote: Im just going to let everyone in on a pro secret as to why this build isn't played often on a high level of play -
Zelot/Sentry/Phoenix > this. You have like 10 pheonixes with Zelot Sentry and T cannot do anything, you shoot everything out of the air and lift all the tanks, then its just Marine vs Zelot Sentry. Nony completely raped me in round 5 of the craft cup last week countering my raven tank build, and since then I've never looked back at it. The build isn't very good if you scout it.
Replay?
Because some of the strongest parts of this build come from an early timing push when you wouldn't have many Phoenixes and the marines would easily be able to defend against them with the PDD.
On May 20 2010 02:27 Joseki wrote: Im just going to let everyone in on a pro secret as to why this build isn't played often on a high level of play -
Zelot/Sentry/Phoenix > this. You have like 10 pheonixes with Zelot Sentry and T cannot do anything, you shoot everything out of the air and lift all the tanks, then its just Marine vs Zelot Sentry. Nony completely raped me in round 5 of the craft cup last week countering my raven tank build, and since then I've never looked back at it. The build isn't very good if you scout it.
Blindly buiding the composition when the counter is being made is a big mistake. There is a good time around when your Starport goes up that you can afford a scan without having any buildings/units slowed down due to not having a MULE. The Marine/Tank/Raven/Banshee is only a framework for the build made to counter STANDARD Protoss one-base play. If you even suspect that the Protoss is going to attempt to counter this SPECIFIC build then you need to find out what he's doing and counter ahead of time by using the incredibly flexible building framework the build leaves available to you.
ex. Against my one friend he decided he was going to counter the build with Colossus tech and Sentry/Zealot. I scanned as my Raven was being produced and saw the support bay. Instead of making Banshees right away, I made Vikings. I hung out around his nat baiting his Colossus into my vikings by moving a little forward to take a potshot or two with my ground force. While I had him in this light contain I expanded. I got a lucky break and sniped a Colossus with my vikings so I moved in and sieged up. If I hadn't reacted by making Vikings, I wouldn't have been able to engage him without risking either my banshees or getting my ground force split and evaporated with FF.
Above all else, this is a FLEXIBLE build, not a game winning (or losing) timing push with a set composition.
Here is a replay of a 3 gate/robo strategy that countered early Terran aggression with Tank/Marine/Banshee.
I would like to submit that the best way to exploit this build if you are going to stick to Robo, is to get fast upgrades. I routinely throw down my forge right after my Robo and keep boosting upgrades (though I did a sloppy job of it in the replay). When T diversifies his units with Tanks, Marines, Banshees and Ravens, there is no way he will be able to keep up in upgrades.
Additionally, as soon as you scout this build, plan to head toward HT. The key part is the early battle and the final battle where HT are used. Enjoy!
2 Warp Gate Zealot/Sentry with 1 Stargate Phoenix would destroy that Terran attack. That Protoss player was making Stalkers and a Robotics and Immortals.
On May 20 2010 02:27 Joseki wrote: Im just going to let everyone in on a pro secret as to why this build isn't played often on a high level of play -
Zelot/Sentry/Phoenix > this. You have like 10 pheonixes with Zelot Sentry and T cannot do anything, you shoot everything out of the air and lift all the tanks, then its just Marine vs Zelot Sentry. Nony completely raped me in round 5 of the craft cup last week countering my raven tank build, and since then I've never looked back at it. The build isn't very good if you scout it.
This isn't used in high level play? The best terrans in the world (all korean) use this build and variations thereof pretty extensively. I'm not sure where you're getting this. Jinro just recently used this style of build to beat naniwa as well. edit: oh yeah, and dayfly crushed hasuobs with a variation of it as well.
2 Warp Gate Zealot/Sentry with 1 Stargate Phoenix would destroy that Terran attack. That Protoss player was making Stalkers and a Robotics and Immortals.
2 Warp Gate Zealot/Sentry with 1 Stargate Phoenix would destroy that Terran attack. That Protoss player was making Stalkers and a Robotics and Immortals.
Nony has spoken! will try phoenix zealot/sentry
Maka has actually been doing a variation with cloak banshee that will pretty much rape any toss build that doesn't get an early robo. Very similar concept though, it's very powerful.
2 Warp Gate Zealot/Sentry with 1 Stargate Phoenix would destroy that Terran attack. That Protoss player was making Stalkers and a Robotics and Immortals.
Nony has spoken! will try phoenix zealot/sentry
Here's the one thing to keep in mind when using the Nony build against the terran: the build is at its best when fighting the terran in the open. If you attack into a terran chokepoint, you're probably going to have problems unless the terran has a much smaller army. Use the build to deny terran expansions and take your own expansion. If you're on a map like lost temple that has a cloistered natural, you probably will not be able to deny the expo if the terran refuses to come out of his base. When that happens, simply take advantage of your map control and out-expand the terran. Also, make sure that you transition into either colossi or templar to establish an AoE presence for the mid-late game.
2 Warp Gate Zealot/Sentry with 1 Stargate Phoenix would destroy that Terran attack. That Protoss player was making Stalkers and a Robotics and Immortals.
Nony has spoken! will try phoenix zealot/sentry
Maka has actually been doing a variation with cloak banshee that will pretty much rape any toss build that doesn't get an early robo. Very similar concept though, it's very powerful.
The first Phoenix will see something researching at the Tech Lab and a Robotics can go up then. It's not so bad for Protoss.
People are thinking about the raven opening or apparently known as the "1/1/1" build in korea the wrong way.
It is just an opening build, and allows you to adapt in any direction depending on how well you scout. For some reason some people here are stuck in the mind set - oh, I will always build a banshee, oh I will always continue marines, oh I will always get the tank first, etc.
You can change the tiniest things depending on what you see, or what you do not see. If you see a phoenix, you can start to accumulate vikings along with ground production, to nullify the vikings.
Now, if you see them keep making phoenix, you keep making vikings/marines, etc. If you see massive zealot/sentry, then you wanna basically stop marines, and get a second factory on your reactor and igniter upgrade.
It is not robotic cookie cutter build that is gonna be the same way every game.
edit: saw that day9/gretorp commentated game of dayfly, I am surprised that they seem so surprised that that build exists already. Do they not read TL? lol. They acted way too "surprised" or did they really not know about it?
On May 21 2010 03:59 avilo wrote: People are thinking about the raven opening or apparently known as the "1/1/1" build in korea the wrong way.
It is just an opening build, and allows you to adapt in any direction depending on how well you scout. For some reason some people here are stuck in the mind set - oh, I will always build a banshee, oh I will always continue marines, oh I will always get the tank first, etc.
You can change the tiniest things depending on what you see, or what you do not see. If you see a phoenix, you can start to accumulate vikings along with ground production, to nullify the vikings.
Now, if you see them keep making phoenix, you keep making vikings/marines, etc. If you see massive zealot/sentry, then you wanna basically stop marines, and get a second factory on your reactor and igniter upgrade.
It is not robotic cookie cutter build that is gonna be the same way every game.
edit: saw that day9/gretorp commentated game of dayfly, I am surprised that they seem so surprised that that build exists already. Do they not read TL? lol. They acted way too "surprised" or did they really not know about it?
Yeah but at least protoss can counter the early opening build, if he sees terran getting viking/marine he can get stop making phoenixes and get stalkers. The phoenix is for sniping off ravens/banshees. Obviously its best if we can counter our opponents units directly, but unless you have maphack, we cant really do that cant we? Terran cant possible throw off scans all over the map all the time. Perhaps you may have other ways to beat this?. Or if NonY has some replay packs to show us?
On May 21 2010 03:59 avilo wrote: edit: saw that day9/gretorp commentated game of dayfly, I am surprised that they seem so surprised that that build exists already. Do they not read TL? lol. They acted way too "surprised" or did they really not know about it?
day9 seem to live in his own world sometimes and maybe it's the same for gretorp.
On May 21 2010 03:59 avilo wrote: edit: saw that day9/gretorp commentated game of dayfly, I am surprised that they seem so surprised that that build exists already. Do they not read TL? lol. They acted way too "surprised" or did they really not know about it?
day9 seem to live in his own world sometimes and maybe it's the same for gretorp.
Do you guys have a link to the hasuobs vs dayfly commentary?
On May 21 2010 03:59 avilo wrote: People are thinking about the raven opening or apparently known as the "1/1/1" build in korea the wrong way.
It is just an opening build, and allows you to adapt in any direction depending on how well you scout. For some reason some people here are stuck in the mind set - oh, I will always build a banshee, oh I will always continue marines, oh I will always get the tank first, etc.
You can change the tiniest things depending on what you see, or what you do not see. If you see a phoenix, you can start to accumulate vikings along with ground production, to nullify the vikings.
Now, if you see them keep making phoenix, you keep making vikings/marines, etc. If you see massive zealot/sentry, then you wanna basically stop marines, and get a second factory on your reactor and igniter upgrade.
It is not robotic cookie cutter build that is gonna be the same way every game.
edit: saw that day9/gretorp commentated game of dayfly, I am surprised that they seem so surprised that that build exists already. Do they not read TL? lol. They acted way too "surprised" or did they really not know about it?
Yeah but at least protoss can counter the early opening build, if he sees terran getting viking/marine he can get stop making phoenixes and get stalkers. The phoenix is for sniping off ravens/banshees. Obviously its best if we can counter our opponents units directly, but unless you have maphack, we cant really do that cant we? Terran cant possible throw off scans all over the map all the time. Perhaps you may have other ways to beat this?. Or if NonY has some replay packs to show us?
In your example, the protoss isn't countering the build, he's countering the player. All that this build does is open up a variety of techpaths for the the terran. Nothing more. It's no different than a protoss player going 1-gate robo or 1-gate stargate. Both openings provide for easy early scouting and quick transitions into techs that counter whatever the opposition is doing.
hmmmm I don't do this build b/c i'm terrified of mass blink stalkers. although zealots have the most dps of gateway units, you can decrease the dps of marines by not getting zealots, and exploiting movement with stalkers and sentries. What do i mean by this?
Picture a ball of marines, say 12 marines. If they engage against 6 zealots, they will be maximizing their DPS because all 12 marines will be shooting on them due to zealots being close range. Now switch out 6 zealots for 5 stalkers. The marines now have variable dps, as it depends on the arc and range to the stalkers. Since stalkers are faster, you can abuse this idea and essentially decrease the army by doing kiting on the marines, taking minimal damage. Blink stalkers will keep you much safer of course. This is a simple idea, but it just supports the claim going this mass zealot army isn't too strong. I know stalkers aren't terribly strong, but with good movement play and micro, I believe this build can be undermined very easily. Especially on small ramp maps, if a terran pushes on you, say lt, and you have your blink stalkers in the middle(maybe 3 warpgate), you can keep the terran in their base for a very long while. If they commit, you simply counter, make sentries, and FF your ramp.
Definitely gotta undermine the movement play in against this build. Clutch.
On May 21 2010 05:06 Gretorp wrote: hmmmm I don't do this build b/c i'm terrified of mass blink stalkers. although zealots have the most dps of gateway units, you can decrease the dps of marines by not getting zealots, and exploiting movement with stalkers and sentries. What do i mean by this?
Picture a ball of marines, say 12 marines. If they engage against 6 zealots, they will be maximizing their DPS because all 12 marines will be shooting on them due to zealots being close range. Now switch out 6 zealots for 5 stalkers. The marines now have variable dps, as it depends on the arc and range to the stalkers. Since stalkers are faster, you can abuse this idea and essentially decrease the army by doing kiting on the marines, taking minimal damage. Blink stalkers will keep you much safer of course. This is a simple idea, but it just supports the claim going this mass zealot army isn't too strong. I know stalkers aren't terribly strong, but with good movement play and micro, I believe this build can be undermined very easily. Especially on small ramp maps, if a terran pushes on you, say lt, and you have your blink stalkers in the middle(maybe 3 warpgate), you can keep the terran in their base for a very long while. If they commit, you simply counter, make sentries, and FF your ramp.
Definitely gotta undermine the movement play in against this build. Clutch.
Zealots, even with all the marines firing at them, are still way more dangerous than stalkers. Marines melt pretty quickly against zealots without stim, some kind of meatshield, or without critical mass. Stalkers are more annoying than deadly. Remember, nothing in this build requires you to push out. In fact, playing defensively against blink stalkers is probably the smarter idea; you can simply expand to your natural and make sure you have spotters around any paths he might try to blink up. If he's really intent on doing mass stalkers, it's pretty easy to amass a much stronger army over a brief time and you can simply walk into his base and kill everything if he's not in position to kite or even try a slow push.
On May 21 2010 03:59 avilo wrote: People are thinking about the raven opening or apparently known as the "1/1/1" build in korea the wrong way.
It is just an opening build, and allows you to adapt in any direction depending on how well you scout. For some reason some people here are stuck in the mind set - oh, I will always build a banshee, oh I will always continue marines, oh I will always get the tank first, etc.
You can change the tiniest things depending on what you see, or what you do not see. If you see a phoenix, you can start to accumulate vikings along with ground production, to nullify the vikings.
Now, if you see them keep making phoenix, you keep making vikings/marines, etc. If you see massive zealot/sentry, then you wanna basically stop marines, and get a second factory on your reactor and igniter upgrade.
It is not robotic cookie cutter build that is gonna be the same way every game.
edit: saw that day9/gretorp commentated game of dayfly, I am surprised that they seem so surprised that that build exists already. Do they not read TL? lol. They acted way too "surprised" or did they really not know about it?
Yeah but at least protoss can counter the early opening build, if he sees terran getting viking/marine he can get stop making phoenixes and get stalkers. The phoenix is for sniping off ravens/banshees. Obviously its best if we can counter our opponents units directly, but unless you have maphack, we cant really do that cant we? Terran cant possible throw off scans all over the map all the time. Perhaps you may have other ways to beat this?. Or if NonY has some replay packs to show us?
In your example, the protoss isn't countering the build, he's countering the player. All that this build does is open up a variety of techpaths for the the terran. Nothing more. It's no different than a protoss player going 1-gate robo or 1-gate stargate. Both openings provide for easy early scouting and quick transitions into techs that counter whatever the opposition is doing.
I apologise, its not countering the 1/1/1 build, but rather counter the marine/tank/raven/banshee combination
Pressuring when I know my opponent is trying to get away with fast tech is how I win many of my games, it is part of my standard build. If I can't break I won't try and I won't waste that many units or make more unnecessarily.
what he said ^^^^ i'm still sorta new to sc but when i did this build against another protoss he had 2 stargates up and chrono boosted them to get voidrays/phoenix/ and even a carrier. i had a decent sized army, but the banshee's/siegetanks/ravens couldnt hit nuthin so it was my fault for not scouting properly but the air units did get me.
2 Warp Gate Zealot/Sentry with 1 Stargate Phoenix would destroy that Terran attack. That Protoss player was making Stalkers and a Robotics and Immortals.
Nony has spoken! will try phoenix zealot/sentry
Maka has actually been doing a variation with cloak banshee that will pretty much rape any toss build that doesn't get an early robo. Very similar concept though, it's very powerful.
The first Phoenix will see something researching at the Tech Lab and a Robotics can go up then. It's not so bad for Protoss.
I don't know many, I'm raging right now because every single PvT I've played today the terran has done this build and won. I tried the 2 Warpgate / Phoenix and it didn't work for me. The terran got combat shields and enough marines / tanks / banshees to easily kill my ground force off and the phoenix would die also. The banshees easily target fire my sentires so gaurdian shield isn't helping and they always have tons of marines, a few tanks, and sometimes also get 2 vikings to easily kill the phoenix. This build now seems even more impossible to beat, seriously. The terran can make vikings so easily and already has so many rines that phoenix die very fast, and with the sentries sniped by the banshees the zealots just get raped by the marines with combat shield and tanks.
Gretorp is right in that mass Stalkers with map/movement control can definitely undermine this build. As I posted earlier, mass Stalkers is something you have to actually straight up beat, there is no single unit tech switch that Terran can pull out of his ass to negate all Stalkers. Furthermore, by playing mobile and holding the middle of the map, the Protoss can not only snipe down some units, but bait the Terran into wasting his PDD and then pull back, making the Terran unable to go anywhere but back to his base. Once the Protoss has the Terran on his heels again he can expand and the game moves on to the mid-late macro game (as the build is designed to do) but this time with Protoss with the upper hand in map control instead of the Terran. I'm not sure if it negates the entire build, but mass Stalkers certainly counters that standard 9min push composition that the Terran will usually send.
Unless the Terran does a bonehead move and gets run over by an army comp that beats his due to lack of scouting and addon switching, he will quickly be able to react to a mass of light units or air. There is no "oh switch these two buildings and I'm good to go" vs mass Stalkers though.
try 3 wargate blink stalkers >> hts. I think that undermines this build completely, especially w/ feedback and storm. blink stalkers to hold them off against aggressive T
I just dont get why ppl. are complaining about this build and not the ghost build. Like this build is good, since it counters stalkers/immortals fairly well, however the ghost build doesnt seem to have any counter I can think off. EMP is just so good and so much easier to get than HT.
well I didn't watch your replays, but I have played against this build and I find that mass speed zealots and some phoenixes to prevent getting demolished by banshees works pretty well. Sentries I think almost go without saying in just about any protoss army.
edit- and I agree with the guy above me. I think getting EMP is way more lethal. I have more problems with ghost builds as protoss than just about any other.
On May 01 2010 17:29 Tundera wrote: Why not go 2 gates, 1 early stalker, tech up to 1 stargate, pump 2 vr's, and push at about 9 minutes with 2 vr's, 4-5 stalkers, and 2-5 sentries? Its not really cheesing, 9 minute pushes are pretty normal. And its not really an all-in, it opens you up to transition into quite a variety of things providing you dont crush him with your initial push.
If you go 2 gate before core your stalker wont be out in time for a reaper rush.
First post... !!!! =D I got so mad about losing every game to Terran, I developed a strategy to flawlessly beat the MMM and/or banshee tech. The secret is in the replay: http://www.sc2rc.com/index.php/replay/show/6808
the only build that annoys me as protoss is MASS when he comes into my base with ghosts and scan+snipes my observer and goes to town killing all my probes in 3 seconds. ghosts deal extra normal damage to probes.
EPT
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so yah...do not just sit in your base.
