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I am a diamond Protoss player. I am fairly confident with my play against Protoss and Zerg, but Terran is by far my worst match up. I must have something like a 25% win rate against them... it's not funny any more. I have struggled against them since the beginning, just assuming that everyone was having the same trouble as I was, but apparently that is not true. I have lately been watching streams, reading strategies, watching all my replays, etc etc, but there are still aspects I cannot seem to manage. I was hoping to get some advice from Terran players themselves. Some Protoss somewhere seem to be beating Terran, so when you Terrans get beat, what is it that beats you?
1. Firstly, when do I expand? I have gotten into the habit of keeping a close eye on my Protoss opponents' natural, and take action when they expand. Terran players, when are Protoss safe to expand against you, and when is it a good idea to stay on one base?
2. Late game MM&M. I have a very solid build against early-mid game MM&M and Ghosts. I get +1armor, Chargelots and GS Sentries. It dominates small amounts of MM&M, but Zealots cannot really break through a Terran wall, which makes it mostly a defensive build. Once it gets into the late game and the MM&M hits critical mass, Zealots are useless again. Should I switch to Stalkers to supplement my HT? Or would Stalkers get obliterated by Marauders too easily? Once they mix in a few tanks, there is almost nothing I can do to fight it.
3. Tanks. Ugh, total nightmare here. The Terran player sits in his main/natural and holds it indefinitely with Tanks and Marines. I cannot assault a base with Tanks, because he spreads out his Tanks and uses Marines with Stim to take out Immortals and Void Rays. He moves out when he has about 10+ tanks, and leapfrogs them towards my base. On a map like Desert Oasis, I have taken to Blinking into his base and forcing him to spread out his troops, and stay defending until he is out of resources. But on a map like Steppes of War, he defends his natural, and there is no way into his main. I have tried out-expanding him, but he moves out relatively quickly and then I am stuck with very few troops. HT can't get near enough to storm, and his Marines stick close enough to his tanks to prevent Cols from hitting them. If I cannot attack his base, and I cannot attack his army, how am I supposed to manage? How do Protoss players beat this push and build up? He has a reactor and a wall-off So I can't assault the main early. He gets a tank very quickly, so any assault is cleared easily. He leapfrogs his assault pretty slowly, so there is never a time when his tanks are unseiged, clumped, or particularly vulnerable. Any tips for this situation?
4. Void Rays. I read fairly often that I should get Void Rays to force the Terran to build a good amount of Marines, but with an early stim upgrade, Void Rays melt to as little as four Marines. I cannot keep these things alive for the life of me.
Any help I can get from Terran players would help IMMENSELY. Any answers to these questions? Any other hints or tips for beating Terran?
Thanks in advance.
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1. i think, when you have enough to defend against an early push. especially if you push out with a few units and are keeping terran in his base, thats a prime time to expand.
2. colossus! whenever i see a colossus going terran bio, i cry a little inside, and pray that i already have a few vikings ready. if you can keep the vikings at bay (i know its hard with the range) with stalkers and such, the colossus will destroy things. i've seen my friend's 2 colossi destroy 4 dropships full of marines without a loss.
3. gl hf. see if you can blink stalkers up to the tanks - they'll probably die, but so will the tanks. phoenix lifting the tanks work as well. collosus can take out a few tanks if there are distractions for the tanks to shoot at. of course, these are all situational, and its hard to beat...thats why i like tanks =]
4. you don't really have to kill anything, just snipe a depot here and there if you can. just their presence forces multiple marines (if you can get them to waste stims without a medivac, you're golden), turrets, and a "im staying right here in my base for a while" attitude. expand, tech, do something. you don't have to kill anything with the void rays.
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I have exactly the same problem. Mid-late game a mass Marauder Medivac army with stim destroys anything I throw at it, immortals get focus fired, gateway unit melt, a few vikings completely defeat any attempts at collosi. I have a practice partner that goes straight bio every game and we've played ~40 games the last 2 days, I didn't win 1. I literally tried every unit the protoss has, I simply don't know how to deal with that lategame army on equal ground. If I push early I can do enough damage to outmacro it, but I see no way to win a game where you are both even when the T goes with that sort of composition.
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I'm only a gold level protoss so my tactics may not apply to your game, but I'm fairly succesful against terran, especially tank builds.
In my opinion, the key to defeating a tank build is scouting.
I always make sure I know exactly where the terran army bulk is (observers are so awesome). A tank centred build is strong, but incredibly immobile. I always try to ambush it while on the move with a healthy collosus/immortal/chargelot mix, which in my games is very effective. This way, even if the terran tries to siege his tanks, half of them will be dead by the time the transition into siege mode is completed.
I NEVER try to break a 2-base wallin, I just take full mapcontrol and mass up, and eventually the terran will be forced to move out to take new bases, which is when you should strike.
I don't know if this works in Diamond, but I hope it helps you out a bit.
Cheers.
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On July 14 2010 02:12 n3mo wrote:
4. you don't really have to kill anything, just snipe a depot here and there if you can. just their presence forces multiple marines (if you can get them to waste stims without a medivac, you're golden), turrets, and a "im staying right here in my base for a while" attitude. expand, tech, do something. you don't have to kill anything with the void rays.
With that in mind I wonder if people will eventually go hallucination instead of starport. Poking in with a fake VR and retreating immediately as if you were waiting for more VRs before attacking might accomplish the same goal faster and for less ressources.
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I tried everything I could with storm, etc. and this is really damn hard to counter bio. I have the feeling that to beat that ball you need to be a micro monster. So before you reach top top diamond, you're gonna be owned by noobies who a-move (no hate, just what I see with my fellow protoss - even with a huge gap of skill, it's still insanely hard).
However, when you have the very good micro, bio seems not weak but far less frightening. That's also why we don't see it too often at pro level. I guess it's maybe because it doesn't use your micro to its best and it relies more in the P's hands...
That's why I am now trying out Void rays. At least, if the T is not very skilled, he panicks to harass, overreact, etc. so it's not as frustrating as going chargelots/storms and getting owned by a player who gets supply blocked 10 times and has 3k minerals in bank...
Check out xDaunt post in one of the latest similar thread, he gives good advices.
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BIO is not hard to counter as a protoss. All you need is good HT postiong and a decent amount of them.
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On July 14 2010 02:28 Tar-Moridin wrote:+ Show Spoiler +I'm only a gold level protoss so my tactics may not apply to your game, but I'm fairly succesful against terran, especially tank builds.
In my opinion, the key to defeating a tank build is scouting.
I always make sure I know exactly where the terran army bulk is (observers are so awesome). A tank centred build is strong, but incredibly immobile. I always try to ambush it while on the move with a healthy collosus/immortal/chargelot mix, which in my games is very effective. This way, even if the terran tries to siege his tanks, half of them will be dead by the time the transition into siege mode is completed.
I NEVER try to break a 2-base wallin, I just take full mapcontrol and mass up, and eventually the terran will be forced to move out to take new bases, which is when you should strike.
I don't know if this works in Diamond, but I hope it helps you out a bit.
Cheers. [/B]
Tanks aren't the problem, it's the bio ball that is in my experience. I have little trouble dealing with tank slow pushes (in fact these are the only games I win against that practice partner I was talking about). A bio army with medics and ghosts (similar to Brat_OK's play, you all know what I mean  ) is very difficult to face head on, and not only that but 2 medivacs full of stim marauders can snipe a nexus in seconds (I rage a lot at this).
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On July 14 2010 02:28 Back wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2010 02:12 n3mo wrote:
4. you don't really have to kill anything, just snipe a depot here and there if you can. just their presence forces multiple marines (if you can get them to waste stims without a medivac, you're golden), turrets, and a "im staying right here in my base for a while" attitude. expand, tech, do something. you don't have to kill anything with the void rays. With that in mind I wonder if people will eventually go hallucination instead of starport. Poking in with a fake VR and retreating immediately as if you were waiting for more VRs before attacking might accomplish the same goal faster and for less ressources.
...you're evil D=
i think i will now just play with hit point bars on so i see that no damage is being done...
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On July 14 2010 02:36 TheWarbler wrote:
BIO is not hard to counter as a protoss. All you need is good HT postiong and a decent amount of them.
No. It's the worst nightmare ever. Everything is goind really fast, you have to concentrate a lot and be very precise to snipe ghosts in the middle of the ball. Too late ? Woops. Emped. Everything is so fast with stim and if for the terran this is attack move + emp, the protoss player has lot more stuff to deal with.
Oh, and yeah... for the P to macro he has to look away from the battle.
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1. Pretty much what n3mo said.. if your army is bigger than his he cant kill you. If you are attacking his base / containing him then he cant kill your base since hes stuck in his.
2. I think.. chargelots+high templar is never bad no matter how many marine/marauders they have.. They charge in tanking all the damage while your high templar owns them all.. has worked everytime for me. If its not working for you then maybe your macro is not right since you probably dont have a big enough army.. or maybe your not upgrading at forge (oh yeah sentries guardian shield helps and forcefields.)
3. If terran is turtling then just expand everywhere..
4. like n3mo said.. although I like getting 3 void rays and charging on something then owning loads of marines lol.
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I'm a former diamond T player, I switched to P for phase 2 and am in diamond with over a 90% win ratio vs terran using a couple of builds.
Whitera did a similar build against TLO a couple days ago (or maybe it was against cloud?), but whitera was lagging too much to micro his void rays and lost.
The reason this build works is that you are abusing the mobility, range and shield regen of very early stalkers, void rays, and warp gates to make it very difficult for the terran to attack you or expand, allowing you to expand and gain a significant economic advantage. It also makes for a natural, easy progression to zealot/templar for the mid game, and tends to force the T to get an anti-armored and anti-air mid-game composition, making your zealot/templar even stronger. There is also ample opportunity to obtain an economic advantage from expanding earlier.
The key is you have to put constant, non-stop pressure on the T starting at about the 4:30 point, and only engage in a full battle on your own terms.
There are a few ways to do this, but personally I like to get 2 gateways and 2 fast stalkers, both out usually by around the 3:55 to 4:00 mark. Then, you can push up their ramp and take pot shots at the marines/marauder, or their wall if they pull their troops back, and then just fall back and let your shields recharge; rinse and repeat. The key is to try to hurt as many soldiers as possible, since medivacs are a long way off, and to damage the wall so you can snipe scvs if he goes to repair
Keep reinforcing with more stalkers and do more harass, staying on 2 gateways. Fast tech to void ray (i usually do when I have between 2 and 4 stalkers). The void rays tend to start popping when I have about 6 or 7 stalkers, and 3 or 4 warp gates. The void rays provide vision of the ramp for your stalkers, and can shoot the SD's and barracks that are walling the ramp. Its soooooo easy to micro your void ray when there are a bunch of stalkers underneath it which outrange marines, and the Terran has their own wall blocking their way. Heck, throw in a sentry so that if they try to push down their ramp to stop you from destroying their wall, you can force field their army in half or hold it at 6 range away from your stalkers. Also, if the opportunity to push presents itself, you can always just use the shield ability.
Then, the natural progression for my build is to keep sniping buildings and untis. Get blink, using the void rays to scout high ground and help cover. From there you can expand, tech to templars really easily, etc. Meanwhile, if you are micro'ing properly you shouldn't lose ANY units, so its just about wearing them down slowly and increasing your advantage. Blink will also help you harass any army that tries to push out, while being able to escape from concussive/stim.
There is the added advantage that if they do push out with a large army, you just send the void rays to their minerals and they have to fall back with some or all of their army. If they DON'T fall back you can jockey their army across the map with your stalkers, then just warp in some sentries at your main and block your ramp indefinitely (or cut their army in half) while the void rays work over their base and you build a larger army.
I just threw this build together yesterday taking bits from day9, whitera and a fast stalker build I worked on during the beta downtime - I've done this build 5 or 6 times, in small maps like steppes of war, and in big ones like cross-positional in Kulas Ravine and Metalopolis - and have yet to get past the early game (blink stalker phase) without winning. All games were against diamond or high platinum opponents. The terran has no map control, and tends to get really desperate and feel like they are way behind because of all the pressure and lack of expansion, and then they do stupid things like all-in rush.
You have to be comfortable macro'ing while doing pretty specific micro though. (My macro tends to suffer a bit)
I can't post replays from work - but if you're intested I can do it up later.
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Colossus Blink-stalker does very well against me. I often go ghost / mnmnm w/ tanks vs toss.
Most of my losses vs toss involve them being agressive with early stalkers, and getting a fairly early expansion to power a 4-5 gate 2 robo build. Templar do well, also, but good ghost play stops that pretty handily.
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Dear Gnial,
Thank you for your awesome post ! Always interesting to have feedback from a terran player. I tried to switch to understand the weaknesses of this race in TvP but it wasn't really useful.
You just confirmed what I said/thought: the key in PvT is VR. I was really unhappy about that for a while and sort of denied it... until I realised that even if it's not a "miracle build", it can at least beat bad players whithout requesting being Bisu...
I would be very interested to watch some replays, so hopefully you'll provide them when you come back from work =)
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Heh, I'll post some in 5 or 6 hours (provided I can figure out how)
Don't misread this build to only succeed because of void rays. I would consider the stalkers the key unit, with some sort of air unit to be used to provide vision. The alternate scouting units would be phoenix or hallucinate. I personally order them this way:
Void ray >> Hallucinate >> Phoenix
Phoenix I'm new to P so I don't even think I've actually tried phoenixes yet. It seems like you need a few of them to harass well, but that really takes a chunk out of your ground army. If you just get 1 or 2 to scout, you may as well get hallucinate since it is cheaper and you can avoid the stargate tech completely.
Hallucinate I really like this one since it is so cheap, it gives you a reason to build more sentries which can be used to help contain the T, and if they do push out you can hallucinate a zealot army to take the damage for your stalkers. You end up with a larger ground army this way, but, it lacks the harassing potential that phoenixes and void rays have.
Void Ray Void rays are just pretty meaty, and can pack a punch. My experience in a voidray/stalker vs marine/marauder battle, the marines and marauder both end up targetting the stalkers if you micro the void rays, while the void rays/stalkers target the marines because marines end up at the front line (shorter attack range than marauders). If your opponent gets more marauders instead of marines, since the marines die first, even if your stalkers all die you end up void ray vs marauder. Who wins that one? If your opponent gets more marines, I just find that I can micro my stalkers so well against them, and can use the sentry shield more effectively.
At the end of the day, you just need more units than them if you are actually going to fight them. Don't try to force a close battle and try to win with micro when you don't have to  I like this build since I seem to be able to get a larger army at some point in the early game.
Edit: Note that if you opt for a non-void-ray scouting unit, you end up with more stalkers to blink into their base with. Blinking into their base has the same effect as sending void rays into their base: they have to come back to defend, or try to base trade. There is quite a bit of room for personal preference. The key components are fast stalkers and aggression.
Also, I don't include observers as a scouting unit since, while they're valuable later (I get the robo bay usually as I'm expanding), this build relies on mobility. Immortals or colossus don't fit the EARLY game composition well, and a warp prism isn't necessary. Getting an observer early is too much of a resource drain.
However, for the mid game, getting that robo bay for observers and a warp prism becomes a great idea. Whitera LOVES harassing mineral lines with warp prisms filled with templars. It fits into that same idea: if the terran goes to attack, drop templars into his minerals, and then warp in zealots and all of a sudden he has to choose between losing his base, or retreating.
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Yup, what Gnial said. Everything I'm seeing, hearing, reading and feeling says fast Stalker harassment at the front door with Void Rays taking pot-shots at whatever they can find, keep him trapped in his base while you expand.
I'm still on the lookout for both a way to identify and counter an 8-minute 1/1/1 push with Marines, Tanks and a Raven, though. It has all of the benefits of being able to counter all Protoss timing pushes (the Tanks he was already building and a single Viking will thwart all Stalker and VR harass - so you had better have done some major damage before they get situated), while simultaneously being able to build its own utterly devastating timing push of its own.
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On July 14 2010 05:34 Bibdy wrote:
I'm still on the lookout for both a way to identify and counter an 8-minute 1/1/1 push with Marines, Tanks and a Raven, though. It has all of the benefits of being able to counter all Protoss timing pushes (the Tanks he was already building and a single Viking will thwart all Stalker and VR harass - so you had better have done some major damage before they get situated), while simultaneously being able to build its own utterly devastating timing push of its own.
Yeah, I can see tank/viking putting an end to the harass. So far I've only played against one 1-1-1 build using the stalker/void ray, and fortunately I got through his wall just as the first tank popped before the void ray or viking even came out.
Obviously that is a terrible sample size, and could just be luck. So I gotta keep puttering away with this build.
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That sounds pretty good Gnial. Do you go for the fast 2-stalker build (or if anybody else does, what is the build order for it)?
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9 pylon
12 gate
14 gas
15 gate
15 core
16 pylon
save the rest of your minerals for 2 stalkers, chrono boost both and either your next probe or save it for warpgate
MAKE SURE you transfer your probes to gas right when it finishes or you'll be stuck waiting on gas for your second stalker
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On July 14 2010 05:42 Skyro wrote:
That sounds pretty good Gnial. Do you go for the fast 2-stalker build (or if anybody else does, what is the build order for it)?
It depends. Usually with a larger rush distance I prefer to go with an economic 1-gate cyber build.
But 2-stalker builds are sooooooooo fun. I love em, so I try to do that whenever I can. If you can get the 2 stalkers to his base by the 4:00 mark, or close to it, the T usually only has a few marines, or 1 marauder. Its just really fun, and you can do really solid damage. Especially if you get the 3rd and 4th stalker there quickly. I've seen some terran's panic and do some really funny stuff.
But the 2-stalker build can be hard-countered by...1 bunker. So I've been shifting away from a really fast 2-stalker build (no longer cutting probes to get them, for instance) in favor of getting that faster economic boost, so that I can get the void ray + 6 or 7 stalkers faster, and get that expansion/templar tech faster.
Edit: Thanks Shifft for the build order
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On July 14 2010 05:34 Bibdy wrote:
Yup, what Gnial said. Everything I'm seeing, hearing, reading and feeling says fast Stalker harassment at the front door with Void Rays taking pot-shots at whatever they can find, keep him trapped in his base while you expand.
I'm still on the lookout for both a way to identify and counter an 8-minute 1/1/1 push with Marines, Tanks and a Raven, though. It has all of the benefits of being able to counter all Protoss timing pushes (the Tanks he was already building and a single Viking will thwart all Stalker and VR harass - so you had better have done some major damage before they get situated), while simultaneously being able to build its own utterly devastating timing push of its own.
Open 15 Nexus vs. the 1/1/1, it'll pay itself off before any push the 1/1/1 can assemble, and you can (with good micro) survive any rush that comes from their 13 Rax in response, though you'll have to pull probes. A 10-Rax will just kill you outright though unless you cancel your Nexus or scout so early that you just make a delayed gate, but you WILL end up behind.
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On July 14 2010 06:14 Kpyolysis32 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2010 05:34 Bibdy wrote:
Yup, what Gnial said. Everything I'm seeing, hearing, reading and feeling says fast Stalker harassment at the front door with Void Rays taking pot-shots at whatever they can find, keep him trapped in his base while you expand.
I'm still on the lookout for both a way to identify and counter an 8-minute 1/1/1 push with Marines, Tanks and a Raven, though. It has all of the benefits of being able to counter all Protoss timing pushes (the Tanks he was already building and a single Viking will thwart all Stalker and VR harass - so you had better have done some major damage before they get situated), while simultaneously being able to build its own utterly devastating timing push of its own. Open 15 Nexus vs. the 1/1/1, it'll pay itself off before any push the 1/1/1 can assemble, and you can (with good micro) survive any rush that comes from their 13 Rax in response, though you'll have to pull probes. A 10-Rax will just kill you outright though unless you cancel your Nexus or scout so early that you just make a delayed gate, but you WILL end up behind.
How am I going to identify a 1/1/1 build THAT early AND force him to commit to it? At that point he could EASILY spot the Nexus and just plop another Barracks down instead of a Factory and then walk all over me with Marine spam.
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On July 14 2010 05:47 Shifft wrote:
9 pylon
12 gate
14 gas
15 gate
15 core
16 pylon
save the rest of your minerals for 2 stalkers, chrono boost both and either your next probe or save it for warpgate
MAKE SURE you transfer your probes to gas right when it finishes or you'll be stuck waiting on gas for your second stalker
that's my standard pvp opener 
What i do differently, however, is making the second gate on 16, and i can always sneak in an extra probe after starting the cyber.
Also, this is the best thread ever, it's really helpful.
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On July 14 2010 05:47 Shifft wrote:
9 pylon
12 gate
14 gas
15 gate
15 core
16 pylon
save the rest of your minerals for 2 stalkers, chrono boost both and either your next probe or save it for warpgate
MAKE SURE you transfer your probes to gas right when it finishes or you'll be stuck waiting on gas for your second stalker
Reaper rush would have a field day with such a late stalker
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On July 14 2010 07:20 Capteone wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2010 05:47 Shifft wrote:
9 pylon
12 gate
14 gas
15 gate
15 core
16 pylon
save the rest of your minerals for 2 stalkers, chrono boost both and either your next probe or save it for warpgate
MAKE SURE you transfer your probes to gas right when it finishes or you'll be stuck waiting on gas for your second stalker Reaper rush would have a field day with such a late stalker
I'm sort of glad you brought this up since I wanted to mention just how exceptionally strong against reaper rushes this build is.
The fastest 1 reaper plays that aren't all-in are about 3:30, maybe slightly less. (not including travel time to the protoss base), and even the fast non-all-in build hurts the terran economy a bit because T has to get the gas so fast. These stalkers come out around 4:00. You only need to keep some probes alive for a few seconds longer than if you didn't get the second gateway.
Even if the terran does kill a few probes before being fended off, they are in an awkward position. Their income is slightly hurt, and they spent all that time building a reaper when they could have been building a marauder or marines. The protoss still got 2 stalkers out just as quickly. Those stalkers can get up on the terran wall or into the terran base and do serious damage.
Edit: I had said something about reaper rush being nerfed, but as you can see at this link, that has been reversed. http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=23094049316&sid=5000&pageNo=2
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Heh. Reverted quite a few of the mysterious Patch 16 changes.
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But hallucinated colossi still don't dissipate force fields 
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Thx a lot for this Thread i looked everywhere to find a good thread about that... Didnt find any that didnt spam "Void ray" all over the place.
I'll try the build but... Wouldnt the terran have at least 1-2 marines + 1 marauder by the time of 4:00 ?
and 1-2 marines + 1 mara can easily kill 2 stalker...
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im really suspicious about the quality of the posts in this thread. Most of the people who actually contributing have the post count less than 100....
anyway, the way to beat T is to survive early, put him into defendsive mode while you expan and caught him offguard when he decided to move out. do something creative with the abilities of your units and avoid face to face engagement. keep up the upgrades
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On July 14 2010 08:32 Yokoblue wrote:
Thx a lot for this Thread i looked everywhere to find a good thread about that... Didnt find any that didnt spam "Void ray" all over the place.
I'll try the build but... Wouldnt the terran have at least 1-2 marines + 1 marauder by the time of 4:00 ?
and 1-2 marines + 1 mara can easily kill 2 stalker...
He MIGHT, but you'll have two Stalkers, which can take a beating while they pull off some shots and then escape when they hit 20-40 shield, regenerate, and then come back for more, while the Terran can't heal for diddly.
This early point in the game is really the only good time to abuse the shit out of the Protoss shield mechanic. Well, any kind of harassment can make use of it, but this early Stalker stuff is probably the most obvious time where it makes a significant difference.
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with just 2 stalkers, it seems like it would be really easy to die to early maurader pressure, specifically a 9 rax. also the 3:30 timing on that reaper sounds off, but hey i'm a toss player what do i know?
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On July 14 2010 08:56 fallore wrote:
with just 2 stalkers, it seems like it would be really easy to die to early maurader pressure, specifically a 9 rax. also the 3:30 timing on that reaper sounds off, but hey i'm a toss player what do i know?
Yeah, I'd like to see some build-order tester numbers to get a feel for how safe it is, especially since they reverted the Barracks and Reaper build times.
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On July 14 2010 08:32 Yokoblue wrote:
Thx a lot for this Thread i looked everywhere to find a good thread about that... Didnt find any that didnt spam "Void ray" all over the place.
I'll try the build but... Wouldnt the terran have at least 1-2 marines + 1 marauder by the time of 4:00 ?
and 1-2 marines + 1 mara can easily kill 2 stalker...
You're right, they tend to have something like that, or 5 marines, or some such thing. Or sometimes less since they try to minimize the units they make early so they can get more teching done.
The idea isn't to fight them in a battle. It is to wear them down. Protoss units can regenerate their shields - terran bio cannot until they get medivacs, which are a long way off. So you just pop up, shoot at the units, then recharge or move the shielded units to the front and the unshielded ones to the back. As newly produced stalkers arrive, you can move them straight to the front for another poke.
Thats why a bunker hard counters it however, since it can be repaired. Its still good to make them repair, and try to snipe scvs and such. But once that bunker is up, you really want to fast tech to blink and hallucinate or voidray. I'll head home now to post some replays.
On July 14 2010 08:40 NB wrote:
im really suspicious about the quality of the posts in this thread. Most of the people who actually contributing have the post count less than 100....
I was bored at work and decided to have some fun with a thread here. Gotta do your first post some time right?
I've only posted intuitive things anyways, you don't have to take my word for anything but if you are a protoss player, you'll be able to look at what is written and get a feel for what we're going for and could get some ideas on how to optimize on whats written - although personally I feel its extremely optimal for at least the first 7 or 8 minutes. (Although I could probably fit armor ugprades in here somewhere, so that the zealot/templars come out of the gate into the mid game really strong)
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Great thread gonna read up on this tomorow when i wake up, since i got problems vs terran aswell
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Inspired by whitera I use a build which I haven't lost with so far, go for a fast star gate with a sentry to ff your ramp and then only build a single void ray.
Its presence alone will cause your opponent to either build more marines or turret up, after thi get around 4 warpgates and spam zealots and upgrade charge.
As long as you keep poking in your VR (you don't have to do any damage but more is better) your opponents bio force will fall to you zealot heavy one.
Its even possible to break their ramp with brute force and still win at times. If they survive this attmept to mantain map control with VR and go zealot templar
High and dark from this anything they throw at you (without them drastically teching of which you should have taken advantage of) you can deal with, even ghosts. Just confining them and maxing with chargelots and high templars is almost an instawin
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Edit: I removed the replays I posted since they aren't compatible with the new patch. I'll go...make some new replays now I guess.
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Just try the build... against 1 comp very hard... It works... Even if he produce a lot more than a regular player... with a lot of micro you can still get the void ray in time or the HT...
I went for Ladder (Im in the 1st/3 of diamond) and went against some1 who reaper rush me... he was in my base at 3:30 Flush... killed 3-4 probe.. while i was chasing a bit... than BAM 2 stalker... then i Went in his base... 1 mara vs 2 Stalker...
Reinforcements.. 3 stalkers against 1 mara... then destroy the wall.. went for SCV and eventually won :D
So this build really work... I never won that easily against a T
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On July 14 2010 06:25 Bibdy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2010 06:14 Kpyolysis32 wrote:On July 14 2010 05:34 Bibdy wrote:
Yup, what Gnial said. Everything I'm seeing, hearing, reading and feeling says fast Stalker harassment at the front door with Void Rays taking pot-shots at whatever they can find, keep him trapped in his base while you expand.
I'm still on the lookout for both a way to identify and counter an 8-minute 1/1/1 push with Marines, Tanks and a Raven, though. It has all of the benefits of being able to counter all Protoss timing pushes (the Tanks he was already building and a single Viking will thwart all Stalker and VR harass - so you had better have done some major damage before they get situated), while simultaneously being able to build its own utterly devastating timing push of its own. Open 15 Nexus vs. the 1/1/1, it'll pay itself off before any push the 1/1/1 can assemble, and you can (with good micro) survive any rush that comes from their 13 Rax in response, though you'll have to pull probes. A 10-Rax will just kill you outright though unless you cancel your Nexus or scout so early that you just make a delayed gate, but you WILL end up behind. How am I going to identify a 1/1/1 build THAT early AND force him to commit to it? At that point he could EASILY spot the Nexus and just plop another Barracks down instead of a Factory and then walk all over me with Marine spam.
What I love, as a Terran player, is that the only "good" way to handle 1/1/1 for Protoss, is to start committing to FE play, which opens up my options such a large amount. 1 base protoss is just so strong, it tunnels Terran into only one or two different options, none of which promote expansion taking. Although marine spam should never beat protoss outright- there needs to be concussive marauder or tank to deal with stalker- it feels good to have a build that moves Protoss off of one base.
There shouldn't be any way to differentiate between 1/1/1 and something else that early, but you can feel out 1/1/1 well before the starport if you can catch the second refinery placement on Terran's 15-17 food, which is no tech lab rax, before the second depot, only one marine trained and rarely trained completely before the refinery is started. There's no way a second gas that early is going to be an expand or an aggressive bio build.
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On July 14 2010 01:52 Zanez.smarty wrote:
I am a diamond Protoss player. I am fairly confident with my play against Protoss and Zerg, but Terran is by far my worst match up. I must have something like a 25% win rate against them... it's not funny any more. I have struggled against them since the beginning, just assuming that everyone was having the same trouble as I was, but apparently that is not true. I have lately been watching streams, reading strategies, watching all my replays, etc etc, but there are still aspects I cannot seem to manage. I was hoping to get some advice from Terran players themselves. Some Protoss somewhere seem to be beating Terran, so when you Terrans get beat, what is it that beats you?
1. Firstly, when do I expand? I have gotten into the habit of keeping a close eye on my Protoss opponents' natural, and take action when they expand. Terran players, when are Protoss safe to expand against you, and when is it a good idea to stay on one base?
2. Late game MM&M. I have a very solid build against early-mid game MM&M and Ghosts. I get +1armor, Chargelots and GS Sentries. It dominates small amounts of MM&M, but Zealots cannot really break through a Terran wall, which makes it mostly a defensive build. Once it gets into the late game and the MM&M hits critical mass, Zealots are useless again. Should I switch to Stalkers to supplement my HT? Or would Stalkers get obliterated by Marauders too easily? Once they mix in a few tanks, there is almost nothing I can do to fight it.
3. Tanks. Ugh, total nightmare here. The Terran player sits in his main/natural and holds it indefinitely with Tanks and Marines. I cannot assault a base with Tanks, because he spreads out his Tanks and uses Marines with Stim to take out Immortals and Void Rays. He moves out when he has about 10+ tanks, and leapfrogs them towards my base. On a map like Desert Oasis, I have taken to Blinking into his base and forcing him to spread out his troops, and stay defending until he is out of resources. But on a map like Steppes of War, he defends his natural, and there is no way into his main. I have tried out-expanding him, but he moves out relatively quickly and then I am stuck with very few troops. HT can't get near enough to storm, and his Marines stick close enough to his tanks to prevent Cols from hitting them. If I cannot attack his base, and I cannot attack his army, how am I supposed to manage? How do Protoss players beat this push and build up? He has a reactor and a wall-off So I can't assault the main early. He gets a tank very quickly, so any assault is cleared easily. He leapfrogs his assault pretty slowly, so there is never a time when his tanks are unseiged, clumped, or particularly vulnerable. Any tips for this situation?
4. Void Rays. I read fairly often that I should get Void Rays to force the Terran to build a good amount of Marines, but with an early stim upgrade, Void Rays melt to as little as four Marines. I cannot keep these things alive for the life of me.
Any help I can get from Terran players would help IMMENSELY. Any answers to these questions? Any other hints or tips for beating Terran?
Thanks in advance.
I was top 10 diamond toss before patch and now I'm about to get back to diamond again, I've been busy with summerschool so I haven't played much.
Expanding is too variable for me to say, but if you see marines + sieged tanks then expand once, and if he is meching take the whole map. I play stop him from getting his third and let him take his natural on most maps. Basically don't break tank lines, take the whole map and outmacro him. Chargelots, Blinkers, templar, a few immortals and if he has no ravens send DTs. DTs sent one at a time is really irritating and requires a scan for each. If he has no maruaders you can get away from him and use the same DT.
Getting collosi and/or HTs should be good enough to kill bio. If he has marauders and tanks and medivacs he probably doesn't have many vikings (or banshees). If he only has a few tanks immortals/collosi are still effective although I prefer collo b/c emp destroys immortals.
Charelots from proxy pylons on multiple ends along with using chargelots to go into his base when he has moved far enough out is viable. Try to spread your chargelots a bit, and put them on different tanks so he takes a lot of friendly fire and your zealots take less splash. I also wouldn't bother with armor upgrades, attack seems way more important and not like armor helps vs tanks.
Void Rays get raped by vikings, marines, missile turrets and generally I wouldn't invest in them until late game if that, and as support. They are only good against BCs really, or if you can charge on rocks/buildings before you get in range of his defense. With viking range and speed I wouldn't even bother now, not counting range nerf on void ray.
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On July 14 2010 11:08 Mnijykmirl wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2010 06:25 Bibdy wrote:On July 14 2010 06:14 Kpyolysis32 wrote:On July 14 2010 05:34 Bibdy wrote:
Yup, what Gnial said. Everything I'm seeing, hearing, reading and feeling says fast Stalker harassment at the front door with Void Rays taking pot-shots at whatever they can find, keep him trapped in his base while you expand.
I'm still on the lookout for both a way to identify and counter an 8-minute 1/1/1 push with Marines, Tanks and a Raven, though. It has all of the benefits of being able to counter all Protoss timing pushes (the Tanks he was already building and a single Viking will thwart all Stalker and VR harass - so you had better have done some major damage before they get situated), while simultaneously being able to build its own utterly devastating timing push of its own. Open 15 Nexus vs. the 1/1/1, it'll pay itself off before any push the 1/1/1 can assemble, and you can (with good micro) survive any rush that comes from their 13 Rax in response, though you'll have to pull probes. A 10-Rax will just kill you outright though unless you cancel your Nexus or scout so early that you just make a delayed gate, but you WILL end up behind. How am I going to identify a 1/1/1 build THAT early AND force him to commit to it? At that point he could EASILY spot the Nexus and just plop another Barracks down instead of a Factory and then walk all over me with Marine spam. What I love, as a Terran player, is that the only "good" way to handle 1/1/1 for Protoss, is to start committing to FE play, which opens up my options such a large amount. 1 base protoss is just so strong, it tunnels Terran into only one or two different options, none of which promote expansion taking. Although marine spam should never beat protoss outright- there needs to be concussive marauder or tank to deal with stalker- it feels good to have a build that moves Protoss off of one base. There shouldn't be any way to differentiate between 1/1/1 and something else that early, but you can feel out 1/1/1 well before the starport if you can catch the second refinery placement on Terran's 15-17 food, which is no tech lab rax, before the second depot, only one marine trained and rarely trained completely before the refinery is started. There's no way a second gas that early is going to be an expand or an aggressive bio build.
I wouldn't say the only way to handle 1/1/1 is FE. Certainly if you're cross positions on large maps or something that might be wise, but 1/1/1 is prone to certain rushes, especially on particular maps. Blistering and Kulas have backdoors that can be blown wide open with a 4-gate or 3-gate robo, Void Rays into Blink Stalkers is very abusable on Oasis, etc.
Frankly Void Rays into Blink Stalkers can be very effective as Void Rays can give you sight onto high ground for you Blink and warp units onto if you have a proxy pylon placed there. A lot of Terran are going 1/1/1 nowadays from what I've seen and they are starting to get too confident in their wall-off.
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+1 armor on Chargelots under GS absolutely destroy early Marauder/Marine/Ghost pushes. As soon as the tanks come onto the field, yes, armor is totally useless, but then again, so are Chargelots at all...
I find it interesting that the only way to beat Tanks are to either kill them before they get them, or to completely avoid the army at all costs. Outmacroing the Tank army is not really an option on some maps. I have tried it. On Steppes of War, the Terran can easily defend his main and natural through one choke, giving him more than enough resources to get a massive army. That army can (if played properly) often destroy an entire 200/200 protoss ground army with very few casualties. Often, the bastard gets 10+ tanks and moves out with them in a leapfrog. You cannot assault that head on, because the tanks go so far back that you cannot blink or charge towards them to take them out. Immortals are goddam useless against tanks because they can be countered by any retarded burn victim with parkinsons. Some maps, you can take advantage of their lack of mobility, but on a map like Steppes that is pretty much impossible.
Ugh sorry, I am getting worked up, because Terran just seem absolutely ridiculous now, and I cannot see how it is possible to beat them past the early game.
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I'm utterly convinced bio is getting nerfed now.
4 fucking times in a row. Constant Void Ray pressure while trying to build up Chargelots and HTs. 4 times getting fucking steamrolled when they build a few missile turrets and push out.
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On July 14 2010 12:47 Bibdy wrote:
I'm utterly convinced bio is getting nerfed now.
4 fucking times in a row. Constant Void Ray pressure while trying to build up Chargelots and HTs. 4 times getting fucking steamrolled when they build a few missile turrets and push out.
Eh? If you're really having a hard time with them pushing before you get HTs, just forcefield your ramp.
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
On July 14 2010 12:47 Bibdy wrote:
I'm utterly convinced bio is getting nerfed now.
4 fucking times in a row. Constant Void Ray pressure while trying to build up Chargelots and HTs. 4 times getting fucking steamrolled when they build a few missile turrets and push out.
Have you tried getting cannons (at your nat, ofc) and colo instead of hts?
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On July 14 2010 12:53 iEchoic wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2010 12:47 Bibdy wrote:
I'm utterly convinced bio is getting nerfed now.
4 fucking times in a row. Constant Void Ray pressure while trying to build up Chargelots and HTs. 4 times getting fucking steamrolled when they build a few missile turrets and push out. Eh? If you're really having a hard time with them pushing before you get HTs, just forcefield your ramp.
Yeah, easy when they don't Scan the ramp and EMP all your Sentries so you can only get 15 seconds of spare time.
![[image loading]](http://maddok.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/cup-o-rage.jpg)
Edit: won my next game against a Zerg who risked a FE on Desert Oasis.
Urge to rage...lowering.
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As a Terran player, what seems to really be effective against my bio ball is chargelots supported with Collossi. The chargelots do tons of damage and act as meatshields for the Collossi while it does tons of damage to the bioball.
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Alright, I played like, 10 PvZ's, but finally I got some PvT's. As usual, I did the stalker-void strat into zealot/templar and won all 3 of them. What is neat, is I designed the build to counter the bio-ball with ghosts. However, all these reps show the diversity it has in dealing with fast tanks, mech, 1-1-1, etc.
http://www.mediafire.com/?3zjuzmxyti2f3zn
The T does a weird build in this one...I don't know how he was in diamond, seeing as he went lots of hellions vs Protoss stalker rush. Maybe it was one of those weird matching errors where a gold gets paired against a diamond.
http://www.mediafire.com/?hmwkz3zzyuymzlm
The T does a fast reaper. I am doing an economy build, not the double stalkers. I get a bit lucky by getting the surround on the first reaper.
http://www.mediafire.com/?llytjdzvjddzjgd
This is the only one that actually made it to the mid game - but it was weird since I've never done this build vs fast banshees before. I ended up pretty far behind, but because I get armor upgrades, zealot/templar destroys his bio.
In all these replays, the enemy is going anti-stalker (a whole lot of anti ground, no anti air) so the void ray takes a much more important role than it is really supposed to. I was hoping to get a better replay for showing how effective the stalkers are in protecting the void ray against marines and vikings, but its so annoying playing 3 PvZ's in a row when you're trying to ladder a PvT. Gonna call it a night
Edit: Look at how terrible my APM is. You don't need gosu skills to pull this off, just clear thinking.
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I'm not sure why you would go Stalkers against a bio ball, that's just asking for his Marauders to own you but if that works for you more power to ya.
Here's how the PvT dynamic generally works for me.
I mostly go chargelot/sentry/high templar against Terran and it seems to work pretty well. I throw in a couple Stalkers but only enough so that I can take some potshots while he's trying to run back for free shots.
Hallucinated phoenix are great for scouting, but if you see a Starport with a tech lab be sure to throw down a robotics and chrono an observer out.
There seems to be a timing early on where it's really iffy and the Terran player will generally push out. You have to fight what often is a close battle. Keep an eye out w/ the Xel'Naga watch tower so that you're ready for it and either forcefield to cut the army in half, or to stop Marauders from kiting your zealots endlessly. If you're lucky you'll have charge at this point, if not Forcefield is even more important.
After holding off this push I generally expand and poke to see if they have an expansion or anything like that while finishing up my templar tech, moving in to mid/late game.
Keep your templars and sentries spread out so that a single EMP doesn't finish you off. Continue Forcefielding behind their army so that they can't run back from storm/kite your zealots. And try to keep a second group of zealots to the side for flanks.
Be smart about your storms; when the ball is moving towards you, storm in front. When the ball is moving back, storm behind. If they're not moving storm right on them and FF behind to be sure they can't move out.
And don't forget about Feedback. So many Terran units have energy.
I used to have a lot of trouble playing against Terran but ever since I adopted Templar play I've found a lot more success. I've tried using Void Rays and I had some success but a bunch of marines with stim just kill a VR so damn fast. I'm going to incorporate hallucinated void rays as somebody mentioned on one of the first pages though, that sounds great.
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One thing I do not see enough vs Terran, (I am terran btw and I HATE when toss does this to me), is use Warp Prisms. While doing small fights and skirmishes or even while pushing and his attention is off. Fly in warp prisms and warp in some chargelots/stalkers and just stomp the crap out of Factories/Add-ons/SCVS/Supply Depots. This really screws the T up and it is very effective mid and late game, split up a few zlots to scvs then send the rest to production and supply. Also hiding late game void ray tech is very deadly especially on high econ.
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On July 14 2010 01:52 Zanez.smarty wrote:
Void Rays melt to as little as four Marines. I cannot keep these things alive for the life of me.
Thanks in advance.
This is not entirely true. Never underestimate the damage of even one fully charged void ray. If fully charged, it can easily handle 4 stimmed marines, and be left with a bit under 80% hp, with shields gone, but those will regen fast until he gets more marines.
So if you do get void rays, which in my experience do incredible ammounts of damage, be sure to charge them up on the enemy's refinery/barracks/ command center the moment you pop into their base, and maintain the charges, and you can destroy anything he puts in your way.
Just an example, a fully charged void ray can kill 3 vikings, it takes 3 ticks of dmg per viking, done every 0.6 sec, first tick is instant so it takes 1.2 game time seconds to kill 1 viking with 1 void ray when fully charged.
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On July 14 2010 13:43 Gnial wrote:Alright, I played like, 10 PvZ's, but finally I got some PvT's. As usual, I did the stalker-void strat into zealot/templar and won all 3 of them. What is neat, is I designed the build to counter the bio-ball with ghosts. However, all these reps show the diversity it has in dealing with fast tanks, mech, 1-1-1, etc. http://www.mediafire.com/?3zjuzmxyti2f3znThe T does a weird build in this one...I don't know how he was in diamond, seeing as he went lots of hellions vs Protoss stalker rush. Maybe it was one of those weird matching errors where a gold gets paired against a diamond. http://www.mediafire.com/?hmwkz3zzyuymzlmThe T does a fast reaper. I am doing an economy build, not the double stalkers. I get a bit lucky by getting the surround on the first reaper. http://www.mediafire.com/?llytjdzvjddzjgdThis is the only one that actually made it to the mid game - but it was weird since I've never done this build vs fast banshees before. I ended up pretty far behind, but because I get armor upgrades, zealot/templar destroys his bio. In all these replays, the enemy is going anti-stalker (a whole lot of anti ground, no anti air) so the void ray takes a much more important role than it is really supposed to. I was hoping to get a better replay for showing how effective the stalkers are in protecting the void ray against marines and vikings, but its so annoying playing 3 PvZ's in a row when you're trying to ladder a PvT. Gonna call it a night Edit: Look at how terrible my APM is. You don't need gosu skills to pull this off, just clear thinking.
A bit lucky? You got a LOT lucky. That's why I always do 10-Pylon,10-Gate and start the Core as soon as its finished (usually around 15 since I don't Chrono boost until the 11th Probe). You could have lost so godamned many Probes there if he didn't screw up with the first Reaper.
Honestly, none of those games represent the kind of Terran play I lose against. You get some easy wins every now and then, for sure and those are examples of some pretty dense decisions. I had a Terran rage at me about Void Rays when he went absolutely nothing but Marauders and one Ghost when my Void Ray arrived (and that was after 2 Gates. So, it wasn't like I was blitzing for the thing). This was back-to-back on Lost Temple, so he really should have seen it coming.
But, then the PvT on Blistering Sands, the guy had two Marines and one Marauder when my first Stalker arrived, which screwed that up, left Marauders at the front door, arrived late after I killed some SCVs with a couple of Void Rays, stalled his building Missile Turrets for quite a while by killing the SCVs building them, expanded, and it felt like I was working my way up to Chargelots and HTs quite UNcomfortably, because of the amount of attention I had to give the VRs, he eventually got a few turrets up and then the gigantic Marine/Marauder/Ghost blob charges through the front door (didn't even bother to try the rocks) before I could mass a comfortable number of HTs and Chargelots, blocked half of the choke with a Force Field, cut them in half as they tried to pass through, but still got fucking rocked by straight-up firepower thanks to Stims.
The strength of bio against Protoss is just absurd. Rarely do I cry foul about balance in discussion forums I post in, but all of these constant buffs to Terran just are NOT fitting the reality that I'm playing in. I'm literally sweating godamned buckets when I play PvT. But when I play PvZ or PvP? Its like a fucking holiday in Hawaii by comparison.
There has to be some obvious, stupid thing I'm missing right now, because PvT is either a cakewalk against some guy who does some bone-head build, or an unequivocal nightmare. There's just no middle-ground I'm seeing.
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A lot of good ideas on here.
Also don't forget about hallucination when assaulting a fortified position. Hallucinated colossi have high hit points, and can also provide sight up the cliff for stalker blink or accurate psi storm. Immortals also work as hallucination meat shields. Just send your fake group in to take the tank hits while you snipe the tanks down with the real units.
Just be wary of detectors, as they make this strategy pretty useless.
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Personally as a T player what is difficult to deal with is early pressure before I can get siege tanks. I think harassing early to prevent an expansion and then macro up and get colossis/VRs/HTs shouldn't fail very often, IMO. Has anyone experimented with hallucinations ahead of your army so the ghosts Emp them instead? might be a good idea.
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Gnials suggestions have worked for me today though I'm only a gold level player. won all day today only lost to a 1-1-1 terran and i could have won but i had some micro accidents.
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On July 15 2010 03:23 Bibdy wrote:A bit lucky? You got a LOT lucky. That's why I always do 10-Pylon,10-Gate and start the Core as soon as its finished (usually around 15 since I don't Chrono boost until the 11th Probe). You could have lost so godamned many Probes there if he didn't screw up with the first Reaper.
If you micro properly you lose like 3-4 probes max, although you're not mining for basically any of the time between the Reaper arriving and your Stalker getting out.
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On July 15 2010 03:23 Bibdy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2010 13:43 Gnial wrote:Alright, I played like, 10 PvZ's, but finally I got some PvT's. As usual, I did the stalker-void strat into zealot/templar and won all 3 of them. What is neat, is I designed the build to counter the bio-ball with ghosts. However, all these reps show the diversity it has in dealing with fast tanks, mech, 1-1-1, etc. http://www.mediafire.com/?3zjuzmxyti2f3znThe T does a weird build in this one...I don't know how he was in diamond, seeing as he went lots of hellions vs Protoss stalker rush. Maybe it was one of those weird matching errors where a gold gets paired against a diamond. http://www.mediafire.com/?hmwkz3zzyuymzlmThe T does a fast reaper. I am doing an economy build, not the double stalkers. I get a bit lucky by getting the surround on the first reaper. http://www.mediafire.com/?llytjdzvjddzjgdThis is the only one that actually made it to the mid game - but it was weird since I've never done this build vs fast banshees before. I ended up pretty far behind, but because I get armor upgrades, zealot/templar destroys his bio. In all these replays, the enemy is going anti-stalker (a whole lot of anti ground, no anti air) so the void ray takes a much more important role than it is really supposed to. I was hoping to get a better replay for showing how effective the stalkers are in protecting the void ray against marines and vikings, but its so annoying playing 3 PvZ's in a row when you're trying to ladder a PvT. Gonna call it a night Edit: Look at how terrible my APM is. You don't need gosu skills to pull this off, just clear thinking. A bit lucky? You got a LOT lucky. That's why I always do 10-Pylon,10-Gate and start the Core as soon as its finished (usually around 15 since I don't Chrono boost until the 11th Probe). You could have lost so godamned many Probes there if he didn't screw up with the first Reaper. Honestly, none of those games represent the kind of Terran play I lose against.
Yeah, I was really disappointed with the types of games I got - but since they were all equally bad and I said I'd post, I just threw em all up. When I find some time in the next few days I'll try to throw down some more laddering games and post the replays. (work + exam friday morning...at the latest I'll be able to post replays on friday afternoon)
Before the new patch, I had 2 great replays against MM-Ghost builds with that void build, one on steppes of war and one cross positional on metalopolis. I did the exact same thing for both, and won both the exact same way against that early timed bio ghost attack.
As for that reaper being a LOT lucky, I had an 8 probe lead on him after I killed the 2nd reaper since it hurt his economy so badly to do that rush. Thats a LOT of probes he would have had to kill with that first reaper in order for the attack to have been even slightly beneficial, so like I say in the rep, at worst I would have been even and I could have carried out the stalker-void push as I had initially planned.
I mean, that was an all-in proxy reaper rush, barracks and gas before a supply depot, stopping scv production at like, 6 or 7 scvs. Also by chance I had decided to hardcore power my economy early, going really late gateway and getting that stalker about as late as possible. He had everything going in his favor, and about the best he could do is break even. The worst he could do...he did, and he auto-lost because of it. I don't think it is prudent to design your build around such an infrequent, slightly-absurd reaper rush play when the worst case scenario of such an attack is that you are about even with them afterwards.
That said, getting a faster cyber means you can put faster pressure on the T, so if you're really worried about reapers it has that flexibility. If I am going 14 gate, maybe I should consider getting a zealot out of that first gateway while the cyber core is building to give me a little bit of extra flexibility against reapers...hmm, stuff to think about
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Well, playing against ~1000 diamond players going the 3 rax push is starting to aggrevate me more than midly, I think my win % against that is barely 30%... :/ I'm really lost against T every game, can't find any opener and followup that I can be comfortable with against 3 rax push + ghost.
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On July 15 2010 03:23 Bibdy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2010 13:43 Gnial wrote:Alright, I played like, 10 PvZ's, but finally I got some PvT's. As usual, I did the stalker-void strat into zealot/templar and won all 3 of them. What is neat, is I designed the build to counter the bio-ball with ghosts. However, all these reps show the diversity it has in dealing with fast tanks, mech, 1-1-1, etc. http://www.mediafire.com/?3zjuzmxyti2f3znThe T does a weird build in this one...I don't know how he was in diamond, seeing as he went lots of hellions vs Protoss stalker rush. Maybe it was one of those weird matching errors where a gold gets paired against a diamond. http://www.mediafire.com/?hmwkz3zzyuymzlmThe T does a fast reaper. I am doing an economy build, not the double stalkers. I get a bit lucky by getting the surround on the first reaper. http://www.mediafire.com/?llytjdzvjddzjgdThis is the only one that actually made it to the mid game - but it was weird since I've never done this build vs fast banshees before. I ended up pretty far behind, but because I get armor upgrades, zealot/templar destroys his bio. In all these replays, the enemy is going anti-stalker (a whole lot of anti ground, no anti air) so the void ray takes a much more important role than it is really supposed to. I was hoping to get a better replay for showing how effective the stalkers are in protecting the void ray against marines and vikings, but its so annoying playing 3 PvZ's in a row when you're trying to ladder a PvT. Gonna call it a night Edit: Look at how terrible my APM is. You don't need gosu skills to pull this off, just clear thinking. A bit lucky? You got a LOT lucky. That's why I always do 10-Pylon,10-Gate and start the Core as soon as its finished (usually around 15 since I don't Chrono boost until the 11th Probe). You could have lost so godamned many Probes there if he didn't screw up with the first Reaper. Honestly, none of those games represent the kind of Terran play I lose against. You get some easy wins every now and then, for sure and those are examples of some pretty dense decisions. I had a Terran rage at me about Void Rays when he went absolutely nothing but Marauders and one Ghost when my Void Ray arrived (and that was after 2 Gates. So, it wasn't like I was blitzing for the thing). This was back-to-back on Lost Temple, so he really should have seen it coming. But, then the PvT on Blistering Sands, the guy had two Marines and one Marauder when my first Stalker arrived, which screwed that up, left Marauders at the front door, arrived late after I killed some SCVs with a couple of Void Rays, stalled his building Missile Turrets for quite a while by killing the SCVs building them, expanded, and it felt like I was working my way up to Chargelots and HTs quite UNcomfortably, because of the amount of attention I had to give the VRs, he eventually got a few turrets up and then the gigantic Marine/Marauder/Ghost blob charges through the front door (didn't even bother to try the rocks) before I could mass a comfortable number of HTs and Chargelots, blocked half of the choke with a Force Field, cut them in half as they tried to pass through, but still got fucking rocked by straight-up firepower thanks to Stims. The strength of bio against Protoss is just absurd. Rarely do I cry foul about balance in discussion forums I post in, but all of these constant buffs to Terran just are NOT fitting the reality that I'm playing in. I'm literally sweating godamned buckets when I play PvT. But when I play PvZ or PvP? Its like a fucking holiday in Hawaii by comparison. There has to be some obvious, stupid thing I'm missing right now, because PvT is either a cakewalk against some guy who does some bone-head build, or an unequivocal nightmare. There's just no middle-ground I'm seeing.
Bibdy: I am plat (working my way back into Diamond after reset) and play T and would enjoy helping you figure out how to beat bio, if you'd like. PM me if you want my name/code. I'll be on tonight at about 6:00 PDT.
And to address the question of the thread: early stalker aggression is crucial. Even if you don't commit to mass stalker, it often will force marauder, and then the void-ray (which I think should be pretty much standard vT on a lot of maps) will have a field day later on. Also, more marauder means later ghosts, which means sentries are more effective.
And for all the people saying that you can't FF your ramp because the ghost emps ALL your sentries... please please fucking have a probe hidden along the path to your base so you can get your first FF off before the bio shows up, and then run your sentries, then only send ONE to re-FF. There's no way you should be getting all of your sentries EMP'd, that's just poor control unless the ghost has 150 energy.
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On July 15 2010 05:22 Nihilnovi wrote:
Well, playing against ~1000 diamond players going the 3 rax push is starting to aggrevate me more than midly, I think my win % against that is barely 30%... :/ I'm really lost against T every game, can't find any opener and followup that I can be comfortable with against 3 rax push + ghost.
Watch the longer replay I posted (whichever one has the largest file size [edit: the 3rd one]) and you can see how effective zealot/templar is against the MMM ball once they get upgraded armor. Zealot + templar is always great to aim for in the mid game.
As for early game - experiment with stalkers. They are my favorite anti T unit by far. I'm pretty sure they can be used against most good T compositions - I use them against every T early game composition until I get charge.
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On July 15 2010 05:43 Gnial wrote:Show nested quote +On July 15 2010 05:22 Nihilnovi wrote:
Well, playing against ~1000 diamond players going the 3 rax push is starting to aggrevate me more than midly, I think my win % against that is barely 30%... :/ I'm really lost against T every game, can't find any opener and followup that I can be comfortable with against 3 rax push + ghost. Watch the longer replay I posted (whichever one has the largest file size [edit: the 3rd one]) and you can see how effective zealot/templar is against the MMM ball once they get upgraded armor. Zealot + templar is always great to aim for in the mid game. As for early game - experiment with stalkers. They are my favorite anti T unit by far. I'm pretty sure they can be used against most good T compositions - I use them against every T early game composition until I get charge.
My problem is HT's getting EMP'ed, emp is a million times easier to use compared to feedback and has longer range than storm, even using S-shift-queing follow on zlots from different directions(so the ht's are all spread out when going for storm, and stop moving after they cast it) more than 3/4 get emp'ed in the face before casting, and stimmed mmmg balls dont really take much damage from 2-3 storms either way, what do you do in this case? The terrans you met in those games were god-aweful and are they kind of players I beat with my eyes closed, i.e anything would work regardless.
I mean, considering equal skill the terran will 9/10 times get emps on your ht's before you get storm on his mmmg ball @ mid-late game :S
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PVT is one of my toughest matchups, but i've made a ton of progress after switching to a void ray harass. Trying to fight a bio ball head on is just near impossible if they micro properly.. As mentioned several times in this thread and by day[9] bringing the void ray into their base totally throws them off..
I wall off my front like I would vs zerg (this hasn't cost me yet as most of the battles are at their base) and put a zealot and stalker in the entrance. Once their scout is dead I build a starport and then a VR (i usually only have 1 gateway at this point.. so it's pretty fast). Chrono boost out a VR. As it's building spend extra minerals on zealots / stalkers but don't halt VR production.. As the second VR is building I send my army (which is smaller than their ground army by this point). As the second VR is built I send them behind their mineral line.
This is the part where micro is extremely important.. since trying this strat I'm about 7-1 with it. I take my smaller ground army and poke up and their wall and harass.. I dont even focus on killing necessarily just making my presence known. They'll see my smaller army and generally think they have me beat and try to engage. At that second I bring in my two vrs at their mineral line and shift attack their workers (seems to work a lot better than just 1a ing them in).. At this point they try to engage my ground army that I micro away from the damage, as they retreat back to their minerals I snipe them with the stalkers..
Now I havnt perfected this by any means.. I usually have an abundance of resources (700 or 800) due to the micro but if done properly it's gg. Try not to lose your ground army and DO NOT lose your VRs.. the threat of VR's is far greater than the actual damage you can cause once they know they're there. They have to build turrets.. more marines.. basically their plan is fubar. My only lose came to a cloaked banshee and all all marines on Kulas Ravine.. Not sure how I could have done that one differently.
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My problem is HT's getting EMP'ed, emp is a million times easier to use compared to feedback and has longer range than storm, even using S-shift-queing follow on zlots from different directions(so the ht's are all spread out when going for storm, and stop moving after they cast it) more than 3/4 get emp'ed in the face before casting, and stimmed mmmg balls dont really take much damage from 2-3 storms either way, what do you do in this case?
Its all situational right - but you could try spreading them out more. If that doesn't work you could fall back and warp more in. You could put proxy pylons around so you can warp a bunch in during combat, or harass the MMM+ghost ball as it is moving around with random templars.
emp isn't as easy to use as you think it is. It has more potential than feedback does in the hands of a great player, but during battle, with lag, and templars spread out everywhere, charging zealots, maybe some blinkign stalkers and other crazy micro, another templar or 2 kept behind the army in reserve, it just has never been a problem for me to get those storms off.
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Protoss imo should be using their early game power more to get a early expand. Terran bio is very strong against protoss but it needs a fair number of upgrades and complementary units before it gets so strong.
Early immortals are still rediculously strong against terran but not nearly used enough in my opinion, for some reason people like stalkers more whereas the immortal is just better in combat but slower and unable to hit air. Fast immortals require ghosts to counter which is difficult for terran especially if you abuse the shield regeneration early on. That temporarily advantage protoss has is best used to expo imo as pushing a terran is impossible because of their wall.
Also lategame colossi are a better choice then HT imo because they are far less effected by good micro from the terran. HT work wonderful against lower level terran but are very hard to get working if the T is good with stimkiting and EMP, whereas colossi can´t be kited and can be protected fairly well with some stalkers.
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On July 15 2010 06:26 Markwerf wrote:
Protoss imo should be using their early game power more to get a early expand. Terran bio is very strong against protoss but it needs a fair number of upgrades and complementary units before it gets so strong.
Early immortals are still rediculously strong against terran but not nearly used enough in my opinion, for some reason people like stalkers more whereas the immortal is just better in combat but slower and unable to hit air. Fast immortals require ghosts to counter which is difficult for terran especially if you abuse the shield regeneration early on. That temporarily advantage protoss has is best used to expo imo as pushing a terran is impossible because of their wall.
Also lategame colossi are a better choice then HT imo because they are far less effected by good micro from the terran. HT work wonderful against lower level terran but are very hard to get working if the T is good with stimkiting and EMP, whereas colossi can´t be kited and can be protected fairly well with some stalkers.
Yeah, this probably just comes down to preference. I prefer to have a very mobile army, map control, etc. as opposed to the solid slow army. It could be an interesting idea to go fast stalker pressure, and then instead of getting a void ray get that immortal out there early with maybe an observer to scout the ramp...that seems like it takes a long time though and 7 stalkers + 2 immortal + obs doesn't seem as strong as 7 stalker + 2 void rays for pressuring a ramp and harassing. But it does give you the advantage of an easy transition into colossus or warp prisms.
Don't mislead yourself into thinking that good T's can cancel out storm. Watch the latest day9 daily from last night, , whitera vs. TLO (day9daily 154 i believe? Or just dl replays from whitera.com and get them several days before day9 does his commentary). Whitera uses templars so effectively against MMM+ghost and tank, and uses them to harass.
You can say, "well thats white-ra, hes a pro which is why his storms hit". But it illustrates how even as the skill level goes up for both P and T, storm can still pwn. And white-ra always plays in major lag, so those storms could be even more effective
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Here goes first post.
I will not get into using a specific spell or counter. I find this near useless information. Rather, I offer a complete dimension that Protoss players should be incorporating much more often.
Protoss' primary advantage over the other races, contrary to SC1, is their mobility and harassment. I can say the vast majority of my games (90%) have been won largely on capitalizing on Protoss' mobility.
My solution relies on Robo play. Since this facility produces the Immortal and the Collosus and Observers (all essential to any proper PvT play), I will focus on the other Robo unit left out of this party.
Warp Prism
Probably the most underutilized unit in the game. No excuse not to get them (ESPECIALLY Vs. Terran - most likely you will already be going for Collosi or Immortals or both - they fit right into the flow of the build anyway).
Only cost Minerals - will not get in the way of your other power units aside from the time they occupy the Robo queue.
Distance matters not - warp in + flying. You can get to enemies base years before he reaches yours on the ground. Launch warp in/drop while he is on his way to your base and you force him to make a decision - something has to die (either his attack or his base). This is especially useful in this situation - he has tanks and bio-ball - he will be rather immobile, unless he is willing to separate his bio/meds from his tanks.
Look at your replays - is there ever a point where it would have been great to have a proxylon somewhere on the map? Well guess what? This unit IS a pylon that flies and can deploy anywhere, AND can carry a few non-gateway units (2 Immortals or 1 Collosus) to take care of the troublesome units Vs. gateway units (tanks and/or mass bio). Never underestimate the power of being able to call in units anywhere. Read that again.
Observers are KEY in using Warp Prisms - they are so fragile that it is imperative that you scout out routes for your Prisms to move through safely. Also, you will need Observers to know when he is pushing, and you need to know when he is pushing so you can know when to send the Prisms to force him to choose. Since we are capitalizing on our advantage (mobility) coupled with his disadvantage (immobility), we need to know where he is at at all times - both the advantage and disadvantage in this case are revealed through map vigilance.
I did not go specifically into what to hit with your Prism force or what to do after he "chooses," this is not my job. Once you are given the opportunity of having him vulnerable, you should know what to do given the situation in the game. There is no denying that the Prism will give you extreme mobility - no matter what unit composition, map, or even matchup.
To sum up, the Warp Prism adds so much and takes away so little - if you are not incorporating these, you are forfeiting a monumental advantage.
Good luck!
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On July 15 2010 06:42 ergoego wrote:
Warp Prism
Probably the most underutilized unit in the game. No excuse not to get them
+1
Warp Prisms are great in the mid game, especially on maps where you can abuse high ground near an enemies minerals.
Or if you have trouble with ghosts emp'ing your templars, you can always keep templars inside the warp prism so they cannot be targetted, or warp them after the emp's go off.
Edit: Also great in the late game, of course.
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I have to say thats a pretty baller first post.
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Alright, I managed to sneak in a couple games today - one of them was PvT.
http://www.mediafire.com/?cfmy0jyzmijjayd
This one the guy over-committed to anti-stalker after the immediate push. You see me do some awkward fast stalker since he is actually random, and I altered my hard economy build to fast stalker when I scouted him. You also have the delight of watching my fail stalker micro, once again proving that it doesn't matter what division you're in - you can beat diamond T with this build.
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Someone mentioned this briefly earlier in the thread, but to everyone worried about ghost emp HT, you'll probably have sentries vs T, so just hallucinate some HT and keep them towards the front of your army (or heck, keep them completely to the side, make it look like you're trying to hide them. Make them blow their emp on the fakes, then hit them with the real thing.
Actually, this works if you're not even going HT but just want to protect your sentries from emp.
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On July 15 2010 21:46 Aeronor wrote:
Someone mentioned this briefly earlier in the thread, but to everyone worried about ghost emp HT, you'll probably have sentries vs T, so just hallucinate some HT and keep them towards the front of your army (or heck, keep them completely to the side, make it look like you're trying to hide them. Make them blow their emp on the fakes, then hit them with the real thing.
Actually, this works if you're not even going HT but just want to protect your sentries from emp.
this is actually something I haven't tried yet, gonna try it out and I'll come back with some results and hopefully replays.
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Hallucinate is one of the most underused tactics used in the game imo. It's really annoying to deal with and vs Terran it's even better since they'll blow their EMPs on the wrong units.
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Unless they build a single Raven which most good Terran do since they are so good vs stalkres, in which case Hallucinate doesn't do much but let you scout.
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Hello ^_^ New guy here.
ZvT
I noticed in the patch notes of patch 17
that the Thor's 250mm strike canon do not damage hidden enemies
and considering that the Zerg Ultralisk is immune to being stunned
if microed properly, the Ultralisk can actually burrow while being bombarded by the 250mm strike cannon
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On July 16 2010 00:38 omnimon3000 wrote:
Hello ^_^ New guy here.
ZvT
I noticed in the patch notes of patch 17
that the Thor's 250mm strike canon do not damage hidden enemies
and considering that the Zerg Ultralisk is immune to being stunned
if microed properly, the Ultralisk can actually burrow while being bombarded by the 250mm strike cannon
Hey new guy, different topics have different titles in order to distinguish what the thread is about. This is a thread about tips for Protoss versus Terran.
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I'm at ~550 diamond right now, and I tried out stalkers into void ray into blink for the first time yesterday vs a FE T, and it worked brilliantly. I'd used a stalker-void ray opening vs T a lot in Phase 1, and that used to result in easy wins until Terrans figured out how to build marines and the void ray's range was nerfed. Once they did work that out, however, the void ray seemed like an expensive clunker that would be completely shut down by 4 marines. Blink, it turns out, is a great transition for this opening, however, because it really extends the use of the void ray. Obviously, the void ray is great for providing vision to blink up cliffs, but it's also great to draw your opponent's focus away from where you'll blink in to attack. The blink transition also sets you up perfectly to get psi storm and a couple HT's just in time for when the T can think about pushing out. When I watched the replay, by the time he was pushing out, I had chargelots and 2 storms, was ahead by 15 food, had about 10 more workers, and the Units Lost tab showed him as having lost about 700 resources to my 50 (only unit I lost was my scouting probe).
The only thing that I'll add to Gnial's tips is that your attack will be very gas-heavy. Massing stalkers alone on one base can keep your gas pretty low, and when you add in the gas-heavy starport, void ray, twilight council and blink research, you're going to wind up with a smaller mass of stalkers and a bunch of extra minerals. My advice would be that if your opponent is not looking to be aggressive with early bio, extend your stay on 2 gateways for stalkers, and use the extra minerals for an expansion at around 6 minutes game time. If you see that early tech lab indicating bio aggression, get your third gateway before your expansion, and use the minerals for defensive zealots. Remember, zealots are too immobile to be useful offensively, so only build them in the early game if you need defense.
Also, I think this opening might be somewhat weak against an early marine-tank push that hits before siege mode. Terrans never seem to do this, but I think it would be quite strong against stalker-void ray.
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As a primarily meching Terran, I have to say that if the Terran is going mech without Bio, you should just get 4 gates and smash. You should be able to just waltz in and crush everything. If instead there's 2 rax 1 fac, you will need to be a little more judicious. Robotech will help here. But whatever you do, you have to get in before there's too many tanks. Once there's 10 tanks, or 6-8+EMP, you're SOL. The good news is, that won't happen for a good long while unless you let the Terran expand.
Oh, and if the terran does get to 10 tanks, your best bets are either Void Rays (if no bio) or Phoenix lift off (if with bio).
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On July 16 2010 20:45 kcdc wrote:
I'm at ~550 diamond right now, and I tried out stalkers into void ray into blink for the first time yesterday vs a FE T, and it worked brilliantly. I'd used a stalker-void ray opening vs T a lot in Phase 1, and that used to result in easy wins until Terrans figured out how to build marines and the void ray's range was nerfed. Once they did work that out, however, the void ray seemed like an expensive clunker that would be completely shut down by 4 marines. Blink, it turns out, is a great transition for this opening, however, because it really extends the use of the void ray. Obviously, the void ray is great for providing vision to blink up cliffs, but it's also great to draw your opponent's focus away from where you'll blink in to attack. The blink transition also sets you up perfectly to get psi storm and a couple HT's just in time for when the T can think about pushing out. When I watched the replay, by the time he was pushing out, I had chargelots and 2 storms, was ahead by 15 food, had about 10 more workers, and the Units Lost tab showed him as having lost about 700 resources to my 50 (only unit I lost was my scouting probe).
The only thing that I'll add to Gnial's tips is that your attack will be very gas-heavy. Massing stalkers alone on one base can keep your gas pretty low, and when you add in the gas-heavy starport, void ray, twilight council and blink research, you're going to wind up with a smaller mass of stalkers and a bunch of extra minerals. My advice would be that if your opponent is not looking to be aggressive with early bio, extend your stay on 2 gateways for stalkers, and use the extra minerals for an expansion at around 6 minutes game time. If you see that early tech lab indicating bio aggression, get your third gateway before your expansion, and use the minerals for defensive zealots. Remember, zealots are too immobile to be useful offensively, so only build them in the early game if you need defense.
Also, I think this opening might be somewhat weak against an early marine-tank push that hits before siege mode. Terrans never seem to do this, but I think it would be quite strong against stalker-void ray.
Yeah, I've been experimenting with different ways to spend those extra minerals effectively.
While I've seen a lot of success going with blink and getting those stalkers, I've found myself feeling in a great position when I skip blink in favor of a quick transition into zealot/templar. The void rays and initial stalkers are great for keeping the terran back in their base, and possibly winning right off the bat. However, rather than getting blink, I get charge instead. Then, by getting zealots instead of stalkers, I end up with more gas to get templars earlier, and get armor upgrades.
There is a lot of flexibility to go either way. The blink stalkers allow you to put continuous pressure on, before a simple (but delayed) transition to zealot/templar. Meanwhile, going for a faster zealot/templar/armor upgrade means that the pressure you are putting on the T is less intense, but you end up in a great position for a mid game timing push.
You can decide during the game depending on your opponents composition, mobility, etc which one feels best.
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On July 14 2010 01:52 Zanez.smarty wrote:
2. Late game MM&M. I have a very solid build against early-mid game MM&M and Ghosts. I get +1armor, Chargelots and GS Sentries. It dominates small amounts of MM&M, but Zealots cannot really break through a Terran wall, which makes it mostly a defensive build. Once it gets into the late game and the MM&M hits critical mass, Zealots are useless again. Should I switch to Stalkers to supplement my HT? Or would Stalkers get obliterated by Marauders too easily? Once they mix in a few tanks, there is almost nothing I can do to fight it.
How do you reach critical mass with bio? It has no splash. Chargelots + HT works WONDERS against bio and is way more costefficient than the bio army. Same thing goes for Colossuses and gateway compositions, extremly potent and very cost efficient vs bio.
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EPT
