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I do not take the use of the word overpowered lightly. There are many things in the game I consider powerful or difficult to counter, but this I consider to be nearly unstoppable. I was first introduced to this rush by a Korean Protoss player who destroyed me with it. I have adopted his strategy and refined it to the point where I can win every PvP if I time everything perfectly.
The following replay pack contains 12 games that are all top level Diamond PvP games, won by me consecutively without any PvP losses against other Diamond level players. Some of them are rematches with the same person who knows it is coming and cannot stop it. Only one of them is a game that I lost and it lasted an exhausting 45 minutes:
(Deprecated) Tozar's Overpowered 4 Warpgate Cheese
The reason this cheese is so powerful is because it doesn't require the player to cut any probes, it is simple to micro, it's easy to transition out of, and difficult to scout.
I believe this to be a potential balance issue. Given that I am a Protoss and do not want to see any more nerfs, I propose a slight decrease in the Stalker's Gateway build time, while keeping its Warpgate cooldown time the same to allow it to eliminate the scout probe sooner, preventing it from building more than 2 pylons in the mineral line. This would also remedy issues with powerful reaper rushes and marauder proxies while keeping the mid- to late-game for all races unaffected.
EDIT: This is not a typical 4 Warpgate rush. This build has a very specific timing that allows for up to 4 pylons to be constructed in the enemy mineral line usually before the first stalker is built. The first pylon is built around the 4:30 mark, the first 4 units are warped in around the 5:30 mark.
ADDITION:
This is a replay of someone's attempt at a 2 gate in base with 2 gate proxy aggression, stopped cold by a cannon, which allowed me to continue my build.
(Deprecated) 4 Warp Cheese Vs. Early Aggression - Win
This is an example of aggression thwarting the 4 warp cheese. Note how I fail to scout properly and react in time due to the hiding of his gateways.
(Deprecated) 4 Warp Cheese Vs. Early Aggression - Loss
TIPS FOR COUNTERING:
I don't think this is overpowered anymore, but it is strong against 12-13 gate builds. Just focus on making units and killing your opponent's units. Don't stop mining and don't get supply blocked.
Some detailed tips:
-Scout properly. Warning signs include: no units after cybernetics, heavily chronoboosted warpgate, possibly removing probes from gas
-Maintain production. Don't power all your warp gates on one pylon. You should get at least 3 gates when you scout this build.
-Kill the probe. You can throw off your opponent's timing by killing his scouting probe early. If you kill it before it builds 4 pylons, you might be able to destroy all of the pylons before his warpgate tech finishes.
-Attack the first wave of units as they warp in. That little head start can go a long way.
-Do not attack with all of your workers. If there are four pylons don't attack the pylon with workers, you will have units warping into your base. Sending all your probes to defend is wasteful and cuts in to your mining time, preventing you from warping in units. If you need to use workers to attack to gain an advantage, use no more than 5 because that's usually the most that can attack at a time anyway. The instant you pull all your probes off the minerals is the moment you've lost the game.
-Use stalkers, and keep them alive. Chances are your opponent has cut back on gas to pull this off. Stalkers are easier to micro and having enough of them will grant you an advantage eventually. Sentries are pretty useless in this situation unless you see an opportunity to trap his zealots somewhere, or if you are very low on minerals.
Check this replay for more tips on countering:
Replay
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This was overpowered like...12 patches ago. Now, it's pretty much a standard 4 warpgate rush, which is not hard to defend against as long as you keep up production and don't be too behind on gateway numbers.
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it all depends on micro but can be stopped by good forcefield usage however ive also lost to 3-gate robo builds when the micro is similar.
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It's not overpowered, 3 gate robo with good sentry FF to hold the ramp will hold it. How are you going to up the ramp if the other guy goes 2-3 gate robo obs and produces normal sentry stalkers, while camping his ramp?
User was warned for this post
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On May 28 2010 14:49 Zidane wrote:
It's not overpowered, 3 gate robo with good sentry FF to hold the ramp will hold it. How are you going to up the ramp if the other guy goes 2-3 gate robo obs and produces normal sentry stalkers, while camping his ramp?
Please watch the replays. The pylons are placed in the opponent's mineral line by the scouting probe.
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On May 28 2010 14:52 Tozar wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2010 14:49 Zidane wrote:
It's not overpowered, 3 gate robo with good sentry FF to hold the ramp will hold it. How are you going to up the ramp if the other guy goes 2-3 gate robo obs and produces normal sentry stalkers, while camping his ramp? Please watch the replays. The pylons are placed in the opponent's mineral line by the scouting probe.
uhh? This doesn't happen if the other toss has a brain.
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Fixing a supposedly OP Protoss cheese by buffing another Protoss unit seems a little off. Besides, it would make Reapers even more useless since these have no real use besides early game rushes.
Maybe this will encourage earlier and better scouting, or a change in PvP play? I agree though that there could be a little tweaking.
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On May 28 2010 14:54 Zidane wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2010 14:52 Tozar wrote:On May 28 2010 14:49 Zidane wrote:
It's not overpowered, 3 gate robo with good sentry FF to hold the ramp will hold it. How are you going to up the ramp if the other guy goes 2-3 gate robo obs and produces normal sentry stalkers, while camping his ramp? Please watch the replays. The pylons are placed in the opponent's mineral line by the scouting probe. uhh? This doesn't happen if the other toss has a brain.
Again, please watch the replays. One of them is against Huk, a well-known high level Protoss player.
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Okay I watched 3 replays like you requested.
There really isn't much to say. Normally, unless the Toss tried to do some kind of 2 gate build, he will always be able to get a stalker out in time to kill your probe before you can get anywhere close to completing your warpgate tech, which means no proxy pylons in his main.
All the times you actually pulled this off is when the other toss tried to go 2 zealots or a sentry which is pretty unorthodox.
In another replay, one of the tosses doesn't even bother building a stalker period, and opts to go 3-4 gates before a single unit.
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There's nothing overpowered about it, you have to place the gates before your first stalker gets out so your opponent is completely aware it's coming, so they should have enough time to immediately place the same number of gateways. Because you then have to place 2-3 pylons they should have enough of an advantage to beat it off. You're also stopping probe production at 18. The opponents in these replays reacted badly probably because it was the first time they had seen this strategy before. Most of them panicked and made the wrong units (stalkers and sentries instead of zealots), didn't stop their own probe production, saw the gateways and didn't immediately place more gates of their own, or made too many sentries (which in small numbers are bad vs zealots).
p.s. Stealing some korean's build and renaming it after a 50 apm player is funny.
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I don't really get it.
It seems like if the opposing Protoss player builds any kind of army this tactic would fail. If they're only building one Sentry in the first 6 minutes of the game then you probably don't even need Warpgate to roll over them. It looks like at least in the Huk game that he was counting on his Sentry to hold back any aggression with Forcefields. He didn't seem to react to you putting a bunch of Pylons in his base which is weird, I mean obviously *something* is up.
So yeah I think it beats a player who goes hardcore macro/tech but I don't think it's any more overpowered than like a 2-gate rush.
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I watched a number of the replays.
Against HuK he only made 1 gate and a cyber DESPITE scouting your 4 gates. He didn't even make units to defend or choke off his ramp /w a Zealot. (You had to send in another probe to make the proxy pylons so that would have stopped your rush right there) He honestly deserved to lose after making that kind of blunder. (Is this even the real HuK?)
All of the replays that I saw your opponents either made very few gates or produced very few units. You would automatically lose if your opponent was producing units before you completed warpgate. You would automatically lose to any kind of chronoboosted 2 gate zealots build.
Your opponents sucked. Your build is not overpowered. This thread does not deliver.
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Nice lame tactic. Does it work against Zerg or Toss? I cannot see why not. They cannot destroy 4 pylons fast enough as well and the probe can outrun the marine for a while as well.
If the zerg is going a 15 pool or something lings/queen will be late as well. Just put 4 pylons a bit earlier, I am sure 2 will still survive.
As for other toss, I do not think they were expecting this. Probe running through the base until this part of the game is not uncommon, people like to scout as late as possible. And he can see if the other guy makes a 2 gate build and react accordingly (1 stalker and 1 sentry built earlier, less then 4 pylons made in enemy base).
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This strat doesn't work period, with one stalker after a zealot.
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United States10774 Posts
On May 28 2010 15:05 Zidane wrote:
Okay I watched 3 replays like you requested.
There really isn't much to say. Normally, unless the Toss tried to do some kind of 2 gate build, he will always be able to get a stalker out in time to kill your probe before you can get anywhere close to completing your warpgate tech, which means no proxy pylons in his main.
All the times you actually pulled this off is when the other toss tried to go 2 zealots or a sentry which is pretty unorthodox.
In another replay, one of the tosses doesn't even bother building a stalker period, and opts to go 3-4 gates before a single unit.
You and other people are underestimating this build.
I actually lost to the OP earlier today and was completely puzzled at how effective/strong it was. I went normal build, getting a zealot, stalker, warp gate, then realized what he was doing. At this point I added two gates as soon as possible but I still couldn't stop it.
It's a very solid build, and one particular reason is that people don't save up chrono boost because they don't read the strategy fast enough.
At least I feel better about losing to this though. I was like wtf just happened!
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United States10774 Posts
On May 28 2010 15:31 Zidane wrote:
This strat doesn't work period, with one stalker after a zealot.
It works pretty damn well.
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How can a strategy in a mirror match be overpowered???
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I don't know about other Toss players out there but by the six minute mark I usually have about 5-6 units and 3 gates up. Even if that wasn't enough to kill your three pylons before the gates came up, it would easily be enough to take out the first 4 units you summoned. After that your rush is shut down and you just wasted 300 on Pylons that are as good as dead.
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Perhaps no one here realizes I am a #1 ranked diamond player, or perhaps everyone gets up in arms about the word "overpowered" and seeks to discredit anything that claims to be so without taking the time to think carefully about the build. Yes, 2 gate builds shut this down and force me to change my strategy. Yes I have relatively low APM in the early game, but I do not pad it like so many players feel is necessary. Yes, a stalker can be built to kill the scout probe in time (but few people do this, and even if they do, I send another and warp in just outside their ramp).
I don't think this strategy is unbeatable and I don't think I am the best Protoss player out there, but when I win 12 games in a row with the exact same build and little effort, I start wondering if what I'm doing is really fair.
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United States10774 Posts
On May 28 2010 15:36 Kultcher wrote:
I don't know about other Toss players out there but by the six minute mark I usually have about 5-6 units and 3 gates up. Even if that wasn't enough to kill your three pylons before the gates came up, it would easily be enough to take out the first 4 units you summoned. After that your rush is shut down and you just wasted 300 on Pylons that are as good as dead.
I doubt that you actually watched the replays but this rush comes when you have about 4-5 units and 3 gates JUST finished. Once he gets a pylon up it's impossible to match his production speed with four gates + saved-up chrono boost.
EDIT: I mean I'm sure I can figure out a counter to this build but I am just saying it's very, very effective. I don't know why you guys are so quick to discredit it. I got owned by it and I am not a noob either (#1 ranked Diamond as well).
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EPT
