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Just as a disclaimer, I for some reason hate the normal 3gate 1robo play, or any 4gate all in rushes, etc. I am NOT the best player. However, I have found it to be extremely fun trying out council builds and just going for templar tech or stalker/zealot upgrades in the early game. After seeing tozar's stream a while back I decided to try and employ his strategies and I had a blast messing around with blink stalkers and DTs.
The problem is that the build just cannot beat everything. Most games are won through just amassing a crapload of stalkers in early/midgame and getting some sweet blinks. However, as I progress higher and higher in the ladders, I'm finding it very hard to counter other builds with just Stalkers/DTs (Mass hydra with overseers, MMM balls, M&M, Mass lings, etc.). I decided to start going for high templar tech against MMM instead of the typical robo bay or sometimes stargate builds, and its worked OK for me, but like I said, I'm not a great starcraft player.
Another option is to make a citadel and 2 or 3 gates, and then get a robo after that. However this really strains my economy and is sometimes too little too late, as my opponent will probably have a huge force by then.
TL;DR- What do you guys think of the viability of such a build? Can a council opener be adapted to almost any game? Or will I have to be forced into the cookie cutter builds in most games? It seems that the protoss players are sort of deadlocked in the Collosi vs HT debate, as some players prefer different units to take out MMM balls and hydra balls and stuff. Any sort of details, replays, or insight on this is GREATLY appreciated.
Thanks (and sorry for the poorly organized wall of text)
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I personally love Twilight Councils. Though what I do, is first tech to robo, then get a TC close to the same time. I use immortals to fend off early aggression, observers for the usual scouting, then build the TA or the DS depending on which I think is best to confront my opponents army.
I've found hiding the Temp buildings very helpful when doing this, because when the enemy sees the Immo, they think I'm going Robo. But yeah, I'm no high level player either. Before the stats reset, I was around mid-gold (which i guess would be platinum now), and hardly met any good players, so take it for what it's worth.
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That is true, but a council opener is a really high branch of tech unless youi're going for DT cheese and unless the Terran really is going for a mid-game end-all push I find that Blink Build on Kulas Ravine is amazing against Fast Expanding terrans.
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Hm, this still doesn't solve my issue of: If I start of blink stalkers, and I find myself in a tight spot (MMM or mass hydra) is going templar archives the right move? Or transfer to robo? Or is the game already lost from me rushing council cause im a nerd?
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@Surrealz you should have 3 gateways, get sentries. FF the balls and then snipe 1 side with Stalkers?
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even with said sentries, marauders with the ever cheap stim pack + conc shot tear through stalkers like no tomorrow. This is why I'm experimenting with chargelots and high temps against MMM balls, with a few stalkers mixed in of course.
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From my tinkering arround at the gold (now plat) level, I found that things get a lot better with more zealots being put into the mix. I atleast was skewing to a heavy heavy stalker army from early on.
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I think that both colossi and high templar are viable, but that the high templar have a significantly harder time being used as effectively as colossi. Colossi are difficult to kill overall, they have a decent hit point pool and they can attack from a long distance, they also require very little micro to use effectively. The high templars can be used to great effect, but you have to take care of them, as they are slow and fragile. High templars also make you have to divide your attention between two spellcasters, with the other being the sentry. I often go to colossi because you can focus all spellcasting attention on one unit. Not only that, but high templars can be thoroughly countered with some well-placed EMPs, I don't think there is such a hard or potentially crushing counter to the colossus.
Overall I think it can work, but that you're going to be a more effective player using colossi. If you want to spend your time making it work, you might find a niche where other Terrans simply aren't experienced against HT as they are against colossi and from there you may gain some meta-game advantage. In short, I would go with the colossi.
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salv, I am aware that the collosi have a great advantage, I am simply asking "from a blink stalkers build, what is the most effective way to segway into something to beat these builds?"
in 75% of games you WILL NOT have time to tech all the way to collosus after putting so much initial resources into Stalkers/Sentries/Hallucination/Possibly DT or HT
Am I better off making HTs, or do you think just starting over and making a robo is better? I really love blink stalkers, but it seems like everything counters them these days. lol
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The tricky part, from what I'm seeing, is that there is a small timing window where a terran opponent will have stimmed MM or speedling and you will have templar tech but no amulet. The amulet is pretty key to making those temps effective. My guess on biding time is definitely FF defensively, like your ramp or choke and wait it out. I like the Templar tech though because of how crazy aggressive people are with air in this game, fortunately most air units have energy so no worries.
I think a robo is a good call if only for one observe, or if your crazy sauce warp prism templar drop mineral line. But for sure get the robo.
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I'm not a master player by any means either, and have been having trouble with this same thing. My macro isn't super awesome so I'm trying to just get that in place before I do anything too different.
My biggest problem has been when they get some sort of cloaked unit, DT's, Ghosts(less so), Banshees, Without an obs, Protoss only has static detectors, so what then? Should I make sure I keep the pressure on all the time so they don't have time for this? Or should I get cannons up earlier and defend more?
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^^ having the same issue as darby. Pretty sure you just have to be incredibly good at scouting and keep pressure with the blink stalkers to see what your opponent is up to. If you spot some kind of cheese stealth play, go and make a robo asap or if you already have a forge cannon up.
Any upper level diamond players wanna see the viability of going fast blink stalkers, and then transitioning to robo shortly after? I'm just not confident that you can sustain all the teching, keeping up 3 gates, and a robo. You will definitely have to expand at least once, but your opponent probably already has like 3-4 dif. kinds of units and you are still on just basic stalkers (albeit with blink) and a few immos. I'd LOVE to see some upper level players come out and post some replays with these kind of builds in mind.
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I recently played a TvP and just did a 3gate->twilight/blink -> Robo and you absolutely can't keep production going with all the tech on 1 base. Like I said, my Macro is pretty bad, but even I couldn't produce units when i remembered.
I think if i had done a 2 gate wall with TC/Blink and scouted for ghost/air tech->obs it would work out a lot better, then if i dont see any banshee tech i can just toss 1-2 more gates down/forge
EDIT: I think the 2gate/TC/Obs would be good because the obs can give you sight up cliffs too
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yea but by then you are gonna SO MUCH of a smaller army than your opponent its retarded. I'm having tons of trouble with this, and I have no idea how tozar is managing to still win games. (although it seems everytime I check out his stream he is losing, lol)
Also, what is the list of all the places on maps that we can abuse blink? I guess if I'm gonna do this I need to do a better job of harassing their economy.
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Against Terran, I almost always do a 3-gate push with mostly stalkers, then get the twillight council and another gate; I get the charge upgrade instead of blink, and pump out just zealots while teching to high templar. You should be able to get 1 or 2 HT out before any significant ghost push, with storm soon after to deal with pretty much anything else.
My only issue right now is if a really good Terran does a marine/tank push. I can fend off the first push (the one with like 6-8 marines and 1 tank) really easily, but once he has ~3 tanks and siege mode, I have major issues, which I'm trying to work out... I'm thinking that there might be some hope in just holding his push as long as possible, and going for a warp prism really quickly. I may be able to do a storm drop and get enough time to retake my front, but it's going to take some practice.
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you need zelots. To be honest teching straight to blink stalkers leaves much to be desired, but if you're set on that, then getting some zelots w/ charge and a few sentries in the mix makes your army much more viable. You already have the citadel tech to get charge, and zelots with sentries in large numbers are very strong. Plus zelots are a good mineral sink, as most higher tech units are gas-heavy (diamond toss player btw).
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I'm Diamond in rank low 10s protoss player.
It really depends what you're going against. Against protoss they will have +2 immortals before your council tech kicks in, giving them a window of opportunity to apply damage to you. And imo I prefer charge over blink, it's just so much more useful since now protoss is usually low on gas in SC2
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I really like this build which is twilight council dependent against zerg: 2 gate -> stargate -> fast twilight council -> templar archive. I have not lost a single game with this against zerg (except a few where I mess up my force field or just plain didnt block with my zealot).
Basically I go the following: Nony phoenix build to begin with - zealot and sentry to keep myself from any early game bs. Once stargate is up, I will build 4 phoenix for harassment and scouting always sending the first phoenix in and not waiting for 4. Meanwhile, warpgates are still producing zealots. Fast twilight council with any left over gas while making phoenix and research zeal speed when up. When you have around 4 phoenix, you can harass your opponent as well as begin your expansion. Finally, templar archive will seal the game.
The strength of this build is the following:
Against mass ling, your army is zealot heavy so it should be fine.
Against baneling bust, force field will separate banelings from zerglings and you'll be fine. Late game banelings - just make templar stalker with blink.
Against mutas, early phoenix will scout out and deter. Plus phoenix owns mutas so you will be fine.
Against hydras, fast zeals/phoenix in their base will deter any sort of push before you get psystorm. If they do decide to push your fast zeal will hold and your phoenix will damage their econ to win. Templar will decisively win once gotten to.
Against broodlord, you will be able to research blink before greater spire (again thanks to phoenix) comes up and stalker templar will totally dominate their game.
Only thing I have not tested this against is a good 1 base roach. Haven't seen this build since roach nerf. I feel that fast zeals and phoenix should be able to hold this off allowing you to expand and get econ advantage with a few cannons. Then psystorm should kick in as roach regen is now crap without burrow.
Twilight council allows for fast zeals to dominate early and blink for your stalkers if they decide to go fungal/brood/banelings.
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I need someone to teach me how to play, so I can improve and get better in my games, can someone please help me?
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On May 25 2010 14:10 Surrealz wrote:
salv, I am aware that the collosi have a great advantage, I am simply asking "from a blink stalkers build, what is the most effective way to segway into something to beat these builds?"
in 75% of games you WILL NOT have time to tech all the way to collosus after putting so much initial resources into Stalkers/Sentries/Hallucination/Possibly DT or HT
Am I better off making HTs, or do you think just starting over and making a robo is better? I really love blink stalkers, but it seems like everything counters them these days. lol
hasuobs went 1-3 against this asian Terran, the only game he won used blink stalkers vs MMM, then transition into fast HT + storm and storm the shit out of that ball.
so you are better off making HT's in that above situation, yes indeed.
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EPT
