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Hi I've been watching some games and played a few in the past where the protoss player went mass stalkers. It seems like a pretty strong opening that is hard to handle if you don't see it coming.
I wonder how well the 1/1/1 mech opening fares against a mass stalker opening and how to adjust to it. Is there a sure way to know if the opponent is going mass stalkers? I find it really hard to tell what I'm going to be up against because they seem to be able to pump out an army so fast with 3-warp gates and saved up chrono-bost.
I can see getting an early Raven and a defensive PDD may help somewhat but the amount of stalkers is usually overwhelming. Getting siege as early as possible may be another option. What about Banshees + cloak? I don't know the timing I suspect it will take too long. Is it any idea to tech switch to mauraders after wasting minerals/gas on getting a factory and starport down?
So my question is how do you spot if the opponent is going mass stalkers and what do you do if you went with the 1/1/1 opening?
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Sweden33719 Posts
Well, I always go fast raven with the 1/1/1 opening - basically I do something like this:
10 sup (no wall)
12 rax
13 gas
15 OC
Marine
16 sup
reactor+2nd gas
Factory (reactor will finish just before/after you start this)
Nonstop marines
Add starport after you add techlab to fac.
Make tank
Sup
Techlab on starport
Scan protoss base.
2nd tank, followed by raven (or raven before 2nd tank, preference I guess, there'll be a slight downtime while you wait for the gas)
You get a fuckload of marines, can be aggro with tank raven marine, or just sit back and expo. You also have an early raven so it will build up energy for PDD, or it can be used to mess with his probes (auto-turrets are really good for this).
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If I list what I think are the two best strengths 1/1/1 opening has against protoss, it's Voidray and heavy stalker.
Doing 1/1/1 you just play like normal vs. mass stalker. You keep building marines, you keep building siege tank from the factory, then when you don't scout a stargate for void ray so you don't need viking, get a Raven.
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I am unable to survive a 3gate + robo timing push when I do the 1/1/1. The bunker goes down extremely fast.
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point defense drone. Or just get your tanks at a choke point. Or pick up some marauders
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tanks absolutely rape stalkers
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On June 02 2010 06:46 link0 wrote:
I am unable to survive a 3gate + robo timing push when I do the 1/1/1. The bunker goes down extremely fast.
Replay?
You probably expand to early, or slip up on some unit production.
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Mech> Mass Stalker
Tanks > Stalkers as Tanks > Dragoons
You may to need to worry about blink since if they're going MASS stalker, blink could be a viable option. Sensor towers will help out, trust me. You always want good positioning, try to make their units funnel thru one choke or valley, e.g. Metropolis is a good start.
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Do you get siege mode for tanks right away? Or can they handle stalkers well enough without siege mode?
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Honestly if they are building almost nothing but stalkers mech wouldn't be too great b/c of blink (tho against stalkers tanks are better off not being in seige mode and just auto attacking... their dps in that mode is crazy).
If you know they are going all stalkers based on their composition then the 1/1/1 will help by getting you a quick medivac. Get a tech lab on the fact while you build the port then switch them. Build a fast raven followed by medivac. All the while you're building MM off one rax.
A pure stalker build will get melted by MMM in the worst kind of way. Throw in a raven and you might only lose a couple food after the first fight.
Directing this to the OP i think a 1/1/1 build against mass stalkers shouldn't be transitioned into mech considering how mobile a stalker army is. A MMM of 1/1/1 with the fact maybe for an occasional tank (non seige) will win every time.
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Yeah, just got owned by mass blink stalkers. My opponent began with a forge FE and I decided to push early with 8 marines and 2 tanks to apply early pressure as the Expand was just established, but as I fought the mass stalkers, the protoss player researched Blink and my seiged tanks were reduced to rubble. He then proceeded to blink into my base and it was GG. I feel as though a raven wouldn't have helped as much due to mobility of stalkers, and was hoping if someone knew how to transition from 1:1:1 to bio because it simply makes the fact/port unnecessary...
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On June 02 2010 12:08 Phoenix_XY wrote:
Yeah, just got owned by mass blink stalkers. My opponent began with a forge FE and I decided to push early with 8 marines and 2 tanks to apply early pressure as the Expand was just established, but as I fought the mass stalkers, the protoss player researched Blink and my seiged tanks were reduced to rubble. He then proceeded to blink into my base and it was GG. I feel as though a raven wouldn't have helped as much due to mobility of stalkers, and was hoping if someone knew how to transition from 1:1:1 to bio because it simply makes the fact/port unnecessary...
The cool thing about 1/1/1 is that
a) it's supposed to keep you safe from ALL timing pushes cause you can just flex a little to account for everything
b) you can take your tanks and your marines and some of your SCVs on autorepair and make this neat marine-tank push if you have reason to
c)Instead of that starport going to waste on the start if protoss goes all gateway and no tech, that Raven's PDD is a very nice add, and so is banshee.
d) it sets you up to transition into bio OR mech, especially because you already have access to medivacs(medics are huge!). Just lift your buildings off the tech labs and add more barracks and just start pumping marine-marauder-dropship and get your upgrades.
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On June 02 2010 12:08 Phoenix_XY wrote:
Yeah, just got owned by mass blink stalkers. My opponent began with a forge FE and I decided to push early with 8 marines and 2 tanks to apply early pressure as the Expand was just established, but as I fought the mass stalkers, the protoss player researched Blink and my seiged tanks were reduced to rubble. He then proceeded to blink into my base and it was GG. I feel as though a raven wouldn't have helped as much due to mobility of stalkers, and was hoping if someone knew how to transition from 1:1:1 to bio because it simply makes the fact/port unnecessary...
Seige mode is pretty useless against any protoss ground army except maybe keeping collosi at bay. The dmg tanks put out in regular mode is significant and considering the size of protoss units the splash isn't going to help as much. You're MUCH better off (imo and others agree on forums) just using tanks in normal mode against protoss.
I've played against a few stalker only opponents who blink everywhere and try to base trade (you'll ALWAYS win a base trade against this as long as your standing army is stronger than his and you have at least 2 buildings that can float). I usually get 2 rax before fact because of all the cheesy toss and to counter 4gates but for 1/1/1 it isn't hard to transition to bio.
For starters the port isn't unneccessary considering a bio army is going to want medivacs. Second, having a fact isn't useless since it allows you to build reactors/tech labs while your scvs are building rax which can easily be transfered over. Assuming you don't want to use money on a sensor tower (which i'd recommend if they are doing the blink shit) the fact can be used to scout the exposed parts of your base.
Really what this battle comes down to is positioning and trying to get the stalkers into a position where they can't retreat. It is assumed that if they are going to use this strat that their army stands no chance of beating yours in a head on battle. Therefore I personally just ram down their base and either force them back or gladly base trade. The stalkers are never going to be able to beat down all your flying buildings before they can get away. If there is an island expo on this map then it's an instant win for you. Otherwise this turns into a chasing game but with medivacs and the superior army it's only a matter of time before you kill them. You can even use a single medivac with marines go go around hte map and kill their buildings while you defend your buildings with the main army.
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Against blink stalkers, use tanks but dont put them in siege mode. In siege, stalkers can blink a few right on top of your tanks and they will splash kill each other.
Tank dps vs armored targets is HIGHER not in siege. If you can prevent them reaching your tanks, siege them, otherwise don't.
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I've seen tons of people doing mass stalkers recently. Once you detect that build, you need to lift off your barracks, get a tech lab, and start building marauders. Your next production building should be a second barracks for more marauders. In addition, you should get a second raven for PDD. Also, be sure to spread out your tanks when sieged. There is a 100% chance of the Protoss getting blink, so you want spread out tanks with marauder scattered in between. You can put a Starport on the old reactor from the barracks and get medivacs for the marauders or vikings if he goes Collosi.
Here's a recent game of mine that shows you what I'm talking about. I open with 1/1/1 and he goes mass Stalker. The Protoss isn't very good (for some reason he doesn't like expanding), but it demonstrates how you can respond.
Here is a replay of me losing. It's from Patch 13 though, not sure if they've fixed the issues with watching old replays. You can watch a VOD of the game here, with advice given to me by Trump. I still did well, but I lost because I didn't get marauders fast enough.
EDIT: One thing I forgot to mention. On certain maps you just can't go mech against Protoss. Kulas Ravine is one of them. I've never beaten a Protoss of equal skill on that map with mech. Blink is just too good given the terrain. You're better off switching to heavy bio + ghosts with a very small number of tanks.
EDIT 2: I forgot that you asked about detecting the build. The first thing you build from your Starport should be a Viking. Just scout with that. I do that in my replay against SacreBleu.
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Its very difficult to transition from a 1/1/1 build, and if you continue to mass 1/1/1 they will just continue to mass Stalkers. Though what i find very effective, is adding an additional Ghost to "Emp" Stalkers make them very vulnerable to Marauders,Siege tanks, etc. Another suggestion with the Ghost is faking a nuke which sometimes helps scare workers away slowing down their economy or delays a large army from attacking your base.
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On June 02 2010 13:08 SilverforceX wrote:
Against blink stalkers, use tanks but dont put them in siege mode. In siege, stalkers can blink a few right on top of your tanks and they will splash kill each other.
Tank dps vs armored targets is HIGHER not in siege. If you can prevent them reaching your tanks, siege them, otherwise don't.
If I remember correctly that's only true for single target DPS. If you include splash, I think sieged tanks actually do better. Especially since after stalkers blink they usually are clumped up.
You can solve the blinking problem through proper tank positioning. It's true that you still will be damaging your own tanks with splash, but it's been my experience that sieged tanks still do better. I don't have numbers to back that up though; I'd be really interested in reading about some testing.
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Siege tanks have a lot of overkill. 3s per shot. The splash makes up for it, but it puts you in a dangerous spot too if they can abuse blink micro. Normal tank mode does very high dps, fast firing rate, little to no overkill. And positioning, it's not going to be in your favor a lot of times. They will catch you on the move, i see a lot of terran make the mistake of sieging up once engaged (4s is a long time). Just leave them in tank mode, they will destroy stalkers.
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On June 02 2010 13:32 SilverforceX wrote:
Siege tanks have a lot of overkill. 3s per shot. The splash makes up for it, but it puts you in a dangerous spot too if they can abuse blink micro. Normal tank mode does very high dps, fast firing rate, little to no overkill. And positioning, it's not going to be in your favor a lot of times. They will catch you on the move, i see a lot of terran make the mistake of sieging up once engaged (4s is a long time). Just leave them in tank mode, they will destroy stalkers.
Sieged tanks don't overkill in Starcraft 2. Units are hit with the perfect number of shots necessary to kill them. Unless you mean that even with the perfect number of shots there's still wasted damage. But there isn't that much. 3 tanks * 60 damage = 180. Stalkers have 80 health, 80 shields, and 1 armor. So only 18 wasted damage.
I definitely agree with you about leaving them unsieged when you get attacked on the move.
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Blink stalkers are good against siege tanks up to a certain point. You can hold the map and deter a Terran from pushing out with a lot of blink stalkers, but once Terran reaches a critical amount of siege tanks (~15), your blink stalkers become useless. Open up unit tester or try experiments with a friend, mass stalkers with blink will be decimated against sieged tanks as long as there is a good number of them.
All you need to do as a Terran is defend your main and natural from blink stalker harass until you reach that critical number, at which point you are invincible against any thing the Protoss can throw at you from the ground. The air is a different story, but you are keeping an eye on the Protoss, a similar resource army of vikings will beat any Protoss air army. Void rays lose to vikings, carriers win very slightly, but cannot be reinforced quickly and thus are not viable, and phoenix's will win slightly, but cannot effectively do much to help against the ground army.
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Early on in 1/1/1 with marine-tank vs. stalkers and stalker timing pushes, you don't need the siege mode. And I actually think it's better not to get siege mode. In those situations, the gas invested in siege mode can actually hurts more than helps. Friendly splash on marines while firing on zealot because you don't yet have the damage output to cut down all the zealots before they get close. The extra gas you spend on siege mode can delay critical starport tech. For example, you can't siege expand now with Protoss stargate tech, the siege tanks will just die to void ray or are disabled by graviton. Even if siege mode were to be an effective investment of gas at that stage, I feel the Raven makes up for it.
Later, if you go full mech, you have the Hellion which cut down zealot(and chargelot) quickly, and when kiting from them can avoid siege tank friendly fire, and even with blink, siege mode siege tank should simply overpower stalker. In all of my experiences, it is not difficult to handle stalker blink micro harassment either. A handful of spread siege tank can cover so much ground and can handle stalker so efficiently, that it merely takes a PDD or two to cover a weak spot and the stalker are almost always killed at great cost to protoss.
Although MMM will kill very gateway heavy protoss armies just as effectively.
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This was an amusing game where stalkers were used to basically abuse me for being really bad at knowing what is happening, but I ended up being able to win because he didn't mix anything in until after my first counter attack. (Granted it's new platinum/old gold level stuff, but maybe it helps.)
I still felt that my opening was pretty solid, and a sensor tower would have prevented the blink into my main - or even just repositioning my turrets to keep his observer out.
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So I know its really, really, really out of fashion, but remember that large bioball of doom? Ya, do that. Just because its in vogue now adays to go 1:1:1 or mech as terran doesn't mean that is your only option.
If you did open either of these two ways, float the factory for scouting and bio up. While yes, tanks melt stalkers, you are fighting one of the most mobile units in the game with one of the most immobile. Fight the instinct to use the fashionable play of the day and make the correct counter instead.
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Thanks for the helpful suggestions, at this point I'm trying to stick with the 1/1/1 opening until I've mastered the mechanics. I'm thinking opening with marines, a few tanks + siege and a raven. If I scout the opponent going 3/4 gateways without robo, I'd continue pumping tanks, putting down a bunker and turtle until I get cloaked banshees out. If the opponent gets a robo and twilight council, I'd worry about stalkers + blink + obs + immortals, I'd like to transition inta a MMM + ghosts army.
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i've actually been using avilo's build (u can find it somewhere on this forum) which works really well. -- marines/tanks/ghosts/raven/banshees.
basically my initial build is 9 scv - 10th building - supply,
then 12 supply, rax/refinery.
pump 1 rine at 15/make OC, then make another supply to block the scout if he hasn't scouted u already -- then 2nd refinery.
at 100 gas -- make factory, and when factory is done, throw down tech lab. then u should have enough to make starport. (note: assuming ur mechanics are generally good, always be making scvs and mule when u can).
always keep pumping those marines --u'll have more than enough money. ur first 125 gas u should pump a tank. then when the first tank finishes, u should still be making that starport --make another tank.
then save for a raven but still pump those marines.
so ur intial army composition should be 10 marines/2 tanks. raven should be coming shortly.
at this time u probably should have around 400 minerals -- make an expansion. and remember to build bunkers.
this initial army should fend off most initial protoss attacks providing u have a decent wall.
when u have this initial army down, build a second rax and u'll throw down a tech lab when it's done -- note: when ur building this 2nd rax make a ghost lab. u should have eonugh gas to make 1 ghost when the tech lab finishes on the rax. upgrade the marine shield next.
after this -- it can vary depending on what the protoss does. if he is mass blink stalker...ur army composition is fine and just keep making the same army composition. if he varies like my friend does which he brings everything lol u gotta change it up. if u scout/scan and see starport it may be pheonix. if u see pheonix -- make vikings. ur econ should be fairly decent now if u transferred scvs correctly and are still pumping scvs. u can throw down another starport and put a reactor on it. if u see a fleet beacon it could be carriers, so get another 2 ghosts or so and get some marines and pump more vikings (u'll need the EMP+vikings/marines) combo to take out the air while ur tank does the ground dmg which his ground army should be fairly small because he went carriers (even if it's a gradual transition into carriers). expand when u see fit as u should always be scouting for that extra base that the protoss might be making. i generally get 2 marines to scout around. if u see no air, that means he probably is going strong ground (immortals/zealots/stalker/sentry. generally no collosus as it hinders the rest of the army composition because of the cost to make them. he may make if he sees a lot of marines but vikings/EMP should make short work of the collosus. remember to upgrade ur units (attack first, armor second) -- if u have enough u should make 2 armory/2 e.bays. this combo is pretty hard for a good toss to beat but u do have to be efficient. u should also do the classic push with tanks.
generally i'll vary the mid - end game a little by making a fusion core and pump bcs from 2 starports. it surprises a lot of protoss and if u do make bcs --- upgrade the attack. it'll take out a huge army with even 3-4 bcs -- not to mention u have tanks/marines.
if u have any questions u can PM me.
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stalkers have pretty low DPS. They're good for harassing but massing purely blink stalkers will make sure you lose once they force a fight. You need to mix in other units
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On June 02 2010 06:03 Pking wrote:
Hi I've been watching some games and played a few in the past where the protoss player went mass stalkers. It seems like a pretty strong opening that is hard to handle if you don't see it coming.
I wonder how well the 1/1/1 mech opening fares against a mass stalker opening and how to adjust to it. Is there a sure way to know if the opponent is going mass stalkers? I find it really hard to tell what I'm going to be up against because they seem to be able to pump out an army so fast with 3-warp gates and saved up chrono-bost.
I can see getting an early Raven and a defensive PDD may help somewhat but the amount of stalkers is usually overwhelming. Getting siege as early as possible may be another option. What about Banshees + cloak? I don't know the timing I suspect it will take too long. Is it any idea to tech switch to mauraders after wasting minerals/gas on getting a factory and starport down?
So my question is how do you spot if the opponent is going mass stalkers and what do you do if you went with the 1/1/1 opening?
If I'm going mass stalkers I'm going to open up zealots to get you to make an armoured unit to stop them, (if you make melee units you'll be kited - but terran doesnt have any so you're good.) then bring out the stalkers as they do good against armoured. I'll start a 2 gate push and open up into a 3 gate with a robo. The robo is for scouting, and to get the high ground against your siege or marine/marauder army early on. As I see you are going to continue making a ton of marines and marauders Im going to get a colossis or two to servely cripple your army. My mass stalkers will come into play now, assisting my colossi against the vikings you will probably make to counter them. I'll continue to mass only stalkers and colossi, and when I have the extra gas some sentries with maybe 3-4 immortals against marauders. If I see you mass siege I'll just go air, most likely. All the while I have a forge or two up with a twilight counsil to go 2/2 upgrades.
Just how I'd play it out being the protoss player I am. If you want to see if mass stalkers are coming scan for the cyber core, then scan again 3-5 minutes later and see how many stalkers they have made. Poke a scout, or reaper in and check on them. Get those xel nagas and watch for any early stalker push, I would probably go siege on them as a terran because of the range factor, but I don't play terran much at all, so I don't know a good strategy against stalkers just how and when I'm going to make them.
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Personally I haven't had much trouble with mass stalkers against the 1/1/1 build. I'm assuming you have a reactor on the rax pumping marines, so that's a healthy number of marines. When it comes to starport units, 2 ravens or 1 + banshees is entirely up to you. Generally I push out with my 3rd tank and that's enough to stomp all over most protoss armies. I'd IMAGINE blink stalkers to be really good at keeping a 1/1/1 player camping in his base, but if you pressure harder than your opponent and keep any observers out of your base, you'll be in good shape. Don't underestimate a-moved marines and tanks 
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On June 02 2010 06:09 FrozenArbiter wrote:
Well, I always go fast raven with the 1/1/1 opening - basically I do something like this:
10 sup (no wall)
12 rax
13 gas
15 OC
Marine
16 sup
reactor+2nd gas
Factory (reactor will finish just before/after you start this)
Nonstop marines
Add starport after you add techlab to fac.
Make tank
Sup
Techlab on starport
Scan protoss base.
2nd tank, followed by raven (or raven before 2nd tank, preference I guess, there'll be a slight downtime while you wait for the gas)
You get a fuckload of marines, can be aggro with tank raven marine, or just sit back and expo. You also have an early raven so it will build up energy for PDD, or it can be used to mess with his probes (auto-turrets are really good for this).
This is EXACTLY how I play every PvT. It works quite well against most protoss openings. Gotta vouch for this one 
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EPT
