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On August 02 2010 23:19 Catch]22 wrote:
Another thought: Why not consider using Warp Prisms as your "spotting" unit, cant be too shabby to be able to warp in reinforcements aswell by picking up an early warpgate upgrade.
Just send a Probe over and plop down a Pylon. Getting a Warp Prism means you're 400/100 in the hole and have no offensive unit from it. A Void Ray + Pylon costs you 500/400 and gives you a much stronger unit and structure to hammer them with.
I've been doing exactly this build this weekend (with the exception of the initial 2-stalker part) and I'm 3-4 against Terran (about 5-2 in PvP and 7-2 in PvZ, by contrast - not counting any of my placement games, which were trivial)
Edit: Two of those losses were from the Terran expecting it and getting early Vikings, which thwarts the Void Ray utterly and leads to instant death when the bio ball makes its move.
The other two of those losses were from the Terran expecting it...and getting very early Marauder + Conc Shell. Your first Stalker is then sacrificed and you lose all momentum.
The three wins I have against them they either didn't expect it at all, didn't build enough Marines to stall for the Viking to come out, or screwed up the Viking micro and let it die without a fight (then just sit on top of their Starport zapping stuff).
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About the dual stalker opening. I've been doing something similar for a while that I practiced a lot during the downtime between phase 1 and phase 2 of the beta in a build order tester.
The order is similar but not exactly the same
9 pylon
chrono nexus
12 gate
scout
chrono nexus
rally 13th probe to vespene geyser
14 gas
15 gate
asym should finish, put 2 probes on gas
15 core
put worker that built core on gas
chrono nexus
build probes to 18
pylon when you can (16 or 17)
18 build both stalkers (you should be basically at a perfect 250m 100g when your core finishes)
chrono gateway
you should be at 21-23 energy on your nexus
chrono 2nd gateway
since stalkers take more than the full duration of a chrono boost to build both your stalkers come out at the same time and you have a slightly better economy
I can post some replays after I get off work if anyone is interested, love this opening
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Hey everyone, thanks for all the feedback. I have added a couple more parts to the "weaknesses" section.
With regards to the 1-1-1 build, I put in a section called "Subtle Timings", since that is what it really comes down to. Does your void ray get there before the viking is made? Did your stalkers get there early enough to optimize on the fact that the terran only has a 1-rax opening?
I also put in a part about ghost-marine.I've never really had trouble with it, as explained there, but dealing with it is very micro-intensive and could be tricky for someone not as comfortable with stalker or sentry micro.
Finally, I included warp prisms in the high-ground scouting analysis. I am reserving judgement on how to fit them into the spectrum until I see some replays or experiment with them a bit, but in theory you could do some kind of neat things with them.
On August 03 2010 05:33 Jaeger wrote:+ Show Spoiler +About the dual stalker opening. I've been doing something similar for a while that I practiced a lot during the downtime between phase 1 and phase 2 of the beta in a build order tester.
The order is similar but not exactly the same
9 pylon
chrono nexus
12 gate
scout
chrono nexus
rally 13th probe to vespene geyser
14 gas
15 gate
asym should finish, put 2 probes on gas
15 core
put worker that built core on gas
chrono nexus
build probes to 18
pylon when you can (16 or 17)
18 build both stalkers (you should be basically at a perfect 250m 100g when your core finishes)
chrono gateway
you should be at 21-23 energy on your nexus
chrono 2nd gateway
since stalkers take more than the full duration of a chrono boost to build both your stalkers come out at the same time and you have a slightly better economy
I can post some replays after I get off work if anyone is interested, love this opening
With the build I posted, you end up with pretty much exactly 250 minerals and 100 gas when the cyber and gateway finish. I don't know how you could fit in the extra 2 probes and still get your stalkers out on time?
I'd love to see a replay. You can PM me or post it here, and at the very least I may be able to incorporate it as a slight variation on the dual-stalker build.
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Take all this with a grain of salt because phase 2 of the beta was the first time I ever played starcraft or any other competitive rts. I've watched a whole lot of day9 vids and I practice bo's and watch replays and I'm currently a plat level player, moving on up.
I just tried this build against a terran on desert oasis and it worked extremely well. I played the match right after reading this thread without even working on the BO and it was pretty sloppy but it worked. When I scouted I saw that he was walling off while getting tech labs on rax. I went 2 gate, got 2 stalkers, threw down the stargate, chronoboosted VRs, added a sentry because somehow I had extra gas and pushed and won. He had a starport, but wasn't able to get up vikings in time to allow him to recover.
It was a plat player, so take that into consideration. It seemed like he was going for typical stargate harass that you see on desert oasis but from what I could tell he was pretty slow.
I ended up winning with a lot of money because I didn't really have any transition in mind.
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On August 03 2010 05:06 Bibdy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2010 23:19 Catch]22 wrote:
Another thought: Why not consider using Warp Prisms as your "spotting" unit, cant be too shabby to be able to warp in reinforcements aswell by picking up an early warpgate upgrade. Just send a Probe over and plop down a Pylon. Getting a Warp Prism means you're 400/100 in the hole and have no offensive unit from it. A Void Ray + Pylon costs you 500/400 and gives you a much stronger unit and structure to hammer them with. I've been doing exactly this build this weekend (with the exception of the initial 2-stalker part) and I'm 3-4 against Terran (about 5-2 in PvP and 7-2 in PvZ, by contrast - not counting any of my placement games, which were trivial) Edit: Two of those losses were from the Terran expecting it and getting early Vikings, which thwarts the Void Ray utterly and leads to instant death when the bio ball makes its move. The other two of those losses were from the Terran expecting it...and getting very early Marauder + Conc Shell. Your first Stalker is then sacrificed and you lose all momentum. The three wins I have against them they either didn't expect it at all, didn't build enough Marines to stall for the Viking to come out, or screwed up the Viking micro and let it die without a fight (then just sit on top of their Starport zapping stuff).
While alot of your criticism is true, you seem to forget how easy it is for T to just pick any pylon off if its too close to the ridge, so you cant warp INSIDE their base, also, having the robo lets you easily get obs vs banshees, or immortals if you need them.
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On August 03 2010 06:24 Catch]22 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2010 05:06 Bibdy wrote:On August 02 2010 23:19 Catch]22 wrote:
Another thought: Why not consider using Warp Prisms as your "spotting" unit, cant be too shabby to be able to warp in reinforcements aswell by picking up an early warpgate upgrade. Just send a Probe over and plop down a Pylon. Getting a Warp Prism means you're 400/100 in the hole and have no offensive unit from it. A Void Ray + Pylon costs you 500/400 and gives you a much stronger unit and structure to hammer them with. I've been doing exactly this build this weekend (with the exception of the initial 2-stalker part) and I'm 3-4 against Terran (about 5-2 in PvP and 7-2 in PvZ, by contrast - not counting any of my placement games, which were trivial) Edit: Two of those losses were from the Terran expecting it and getting early Vikings, which thwarts the Void Ray utterly and leads to instant death when the bio ball makes its move. The other two of those losses were from the Terran expecting it...and getting very early Marauder + Conc Shell. Your first Stalker is then sacrificed and you lose all momentum. The three wins I have against them they either didn't expect it at all, didn't build enough Marines to stall for the Viking to come out, or screwed up the Viking micro and let it die without a fight (then just sit on top of their Starport zapping stuff). While alot of your criticism is true, you seem to forget how easy it is for T to just pick any pylon off if its too close to the ridge, so you cant warp INSIDE their base, also, having the robo lets you easily get obs vs banshees, or immortals if you need them.
Well the idea is you're keeping him contained in his base, with Stalkers and Void Rays zipping around the place, so there's little danger in placing a Pylon somewhere nearby, or at a watchtower that your Probe is hanging out at.
In reality, there isn't much point to warping units inside his base, unless you're warping in enough to threaten him and can reinforce them quick enough to crush him. If you want to distract his main army to pull away from the front door (then push it with your Stalkers), you can do just as well with a Void Ray which can escape fairly easily, rather than losing Zealots charging into his mineral line.
Warp Prisms only seem worthwhile when you've got Chargelots or DTs unlocked, or already went Robo for other reasons and feel like doing an Immortal drop. Earlier in the match, you can do a hell of a lot more damage and confusion with a Void Ray and you don't have to spend Warp-Gate cooldowns and resources to do it. Just the investment of the Void Ray and try not to lose it to Marines.
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I've tried this build, and unfortunately, every Terran happens to go 4+ Rax aggression (some with reactors instead of tech lab) as their initial game plan. I'm usually unable to scout the extra rax since it takes a while (at around 31 supply) that the VR is out of the stargate, let alone able to look into the Terran base. Those kind of builds seem to beat this one pretty hard because his MM count is quite high before I can even get stalkers out to reinforce the first two that I sent to harass. The sheer mass of marines is more than a match for 4 stalkers and 2 voidrays. It's also much more micro intensive to control stalker/VR army than it is to A-move a lot of MMs into the enemy base.
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How would this build fare with a Heavy Marine with Siege Tank opening to secure an expansion?Marines top Void Rays and the Tank can stop Stalker harass. Especially with a map like Lost Temple or Metalopolis, where the natural is easily defended with a few tanks.
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I think the early harass would force the Terran to produce more marauders though.
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Thanks for putting this build up, will try it asap. Seems like a good way to pressure terrans who are going harrass-passive 1-1-1, and hiding behind their wall. About banshees, I guess if you see a tech lab go down, you could build 1-2 pheonixes, get a robo, and still get an ob before the banshee can stop you. You could also try to pick off the banshees before cloak finishes
On August 03 2010 07:17 jamvng wrote:
How would this build fare with a Heavy Marine with Siege Tank opening to secure an expansion?Marines top Void Rays and the Tank can stop Stalker harass. Especially with a map like Lost Temple or Metalopolis, where the natural is easily defended with a few tanks.
I would switch to pheonixes, add sentries and zealots to my mix. Lift the tanks and guardian shield vs marines, your army will die ridiculously slowly to rines behind GS.
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This is actually my main build against Terran too, I've been doing this one for a while after some experimenting and figuring Stalkers were a good place to start. I usually use a Proxy Pylon near their base, then harass with Stalkers while teching to something else.
I don't necessarily tech to Void Rays, but the Stalker harass I do quite often. I'll usually tech to Colossi if I see MMM or something.
It's amazing how many games you can win by pushing early with some Stalkers though, I've won many games really quickly simply because they were not ready for it.
On another note, some things I've lost to: Mass Tanks-- I saw Marines and Marauders, and anticipated a bio ball so I teched to Colossi. By the time my observer was out and scouting, I realized he had done the 1/1/1 build and was actually going Tanks. I got Immortals to compensate, but he already had so many tanks he broke my contain, expanded, and then went almost entirely tanks-- Literally 20-30 or so siege tanks. Even with Immortals, I was destroyed.. So Void Rays would have helped a lot!
I also sometimes lose to a quick all-in Marauder attack, it seems to come before you can really get enough Void Rays to counter it effectively and they just do so well against all your Tier 1 units. FF holds them off for a while, but I usually don't have the gas to keep the sentry production up.
Either way, great post. I'll try Voids next time.
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This is 100% what I used to play back in beta but I started to lose more and more games recently. Basically youre whole gameplan in PvT is reaching Chargelots+Templar with Storm and there are a few ways to achive this and in 80% of the viable ways you need air+sentries.
Ok my thoughts, without watching replays yet(I will after this post)... I dont play voidray anymore since I lost every game with early vikings out and a few timingpushes on small maps espacially SoW. And of course the marauderpressure with shells, you have to get zealots plus sentries out to deal with that but you cant so u need quite a few probes till your first airunit arrives.
Anyways I use 2-3phoenixes to achieve the same thing with more mobility. Iam safe to vikings, since phoenixes kill vkings and Iam safe to tanks. Phoenixes also kill workers faster than one single voidray. I can scout for hidden expansions while I contain, and I can deal with Medivacs easily.
But in any 1/2Gaste - Core - Stargate build I feel lost, when I dont get enough sentries out because of the gasheavy airunits. I basically autolose when I cant deal enough damage and he pushes out with marines and a few marauders with shells.
But watching replays right now...
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Beautiful Post! I have been doing the fast "dual stalker" build you posted since I first saw that day 9 daily when I scout the T at a close position 
I usually have trouble with T over any other race,so I really appreciate this one!
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You described what I would consider the strongest 1 base aggression Protoss can pull. That is at least how I feel about it considering it takes the most micro and attention to counter while I'm using the 1 base protoss crusher that I know as avilo's 1:1:1 opening with 6 SCVs on repair on a push. You describe and your replays reflect two gate power stalker to mess with Terran's ramp into Void Ray 4 warpgate aggression. Considered at least semi-all in by some, because you don't stop probe production for the aggression which would be a clear indication of an all-in, it is all about killing the Terran, not transitioning into a macro game. I think Foo shows that, even on the worst map for Terran against this with the short air distance and wide, hard to manage ramp, 1:1:1 handles it- potentially dismantles it. He made some risky choices I would have never taken although they did pay off. This sort of build is by far the majority of what I saw in phase 2 beta. The counter is simple. 1:1:1 with marines, bunker against the easy to scout 2 gate stalker, have good control on marine and viking against the Void Ray, then make a nice late push with marine, assault siege tank, SCV repair, a Raven, with Vikings on the hunt for Void Ray.
Stalker and Void Ray can be frustrating because it's the perfect aggression to pick holes in Terran's play. A bad angle on a building from Void Ray, losing marines to stalker shots or missing a pylon along the ledge for Protoss warp-in when the Void Ray gives vision or needlessly losing Viking to Void Ray can cause a loss, let alone the other things Terran players try to experiment with against the power of 1 base protoss- like various harassment and expands. That builds to a conclusion: I am convinced this isn't going to be a long-lasting strategy. Despite finding a lot of ways to punish mistakes, if Terran doesn't make that mistake, which is perfectly reasonable with some practice, protoss will be dead at 12 minutes.
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These replays really look like my games vs terran beta phase2. If you catch them offguard, you autowin when the voidray comes out, if you are unable to deal damage you autolose because you usually are behind in supply bigtime while the terran has enough money to expand.
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Super Newb:
What does chrono nexus mean?
I tried google and got nothing but a bunch of build orders.
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On August 03 2010 10:15 Fortitude wrote:
Super Newb:
What does chrono nexus mean?
I tried google and got nothing but a bunch of build orders.
Use Chrono Boost on the Nexus to speed up Probe production.
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On August 03 2010 10:15 Fortitude wrote:
Super Newb:
What does chrono nexus mean?
I tried google and got nothing but a bunch of build orders.
Use the chronoboost ability that your Nexus has on itself to increase probe production.
I've been experimenting a lot with blink stalkers / chargelots in PvT. This is a very well thought out guide and I'll be sure to incorporate some of these ideas into my play. Thanks.
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I'm T and I just played 3 Protoss in a row and lost every time vs this build.
FFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
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Impressive replays man, I just watched the top 3, very nice. You really demonstrate the power of void ray after the stalkers force your opponent to go heavy anti-ground.
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EPT
