While this thread was created in August of 2010, the strategy still works and I have seen it used successfully as recently as GSL3 by oGsMC on his road to the championship (see replay section for the game). That said, several parts are out of date such as the discussion on early reapers, phoenixes, zealot-templar being the optimal mid-game transition (colossi are pretty good...) and some other random stuff which fell victim to patches or meta-game changes). I don't play enough to comment on the match-up with the same authority that I could last summer, so rather than updating it I will just leave it as is with the warning you just read!
02/08/10 - Major Edit 1: Added a warp prism discussion to the Harass > Stalker-Centric Harass section. Added weakness # 5 - Subtle Timings to the Weaknesses section. Added weakness # 6 - Marine Ghost to the Weaknesses section.
03/08/10 - Major Edit 2: Added new replay Gnial vs. Stalk to the Replay > Wins section. Added new replay Bliss vs. Murder to the Replay > Wins section. Added Carriers discussion to the Mid-Game Transition section. Added new replay Bliss vs. Fearless to the Mid-Game Transition > Carriers section. Added new replay Plexa vs. Figgy to the Replay > Wins section.
06/08/10 - Major Edit 3: Boosted phoenixes up the spectrum in the Stalker-Centric Harass > High-Ground Vision section Added discussion of phoenixes against the 1-1-1 build in the same section. (Team Liquid is awesome BTW - freak thunderstorms on vacation? No problem! Go on TL.net! )
10/08/10 - Major Edit 4: Added new replay Gnial vs. Rome to the Replay > Wins section. Added new replay Hat vs. Mintyfresh to the Replay > Wins section.
13/08/10 - Major Edit 5: Created a new section above the replays section: Commentated Replays Added 3 links to JHancho's YouTube page to the Commentated Replays section where we discuss the following replays: Win Gnial v. Taleck Loss Gnial v. Foo Win Hat v. Mintyfresh
13/10/10 - Major Edit 6: Created a new subsection in the replays section: Special Replays: White-Ra Added 2 new replays and a discussion of a void ray build that White-ra does which is more zealot focused, and which embodies the spirit of this guide: early and continuous pressure.
I'm a former diamond T player from phase 1 of the beta. I saw many protoss players, including many of my SC2 friends, complain that T was over-powered in the PvT matchup.
I set out to prove them wrong almost 2 months ago; this strategy is the result!
This strategy is constructed from some builds I saw in the day9 daily during the beta, a build I saw White-ra do several times in his show matches against TLO in phase 2 of the beta, and some tweaking and refining I have done in YABOT and league games.
The General Strategy:
This strategy is an early game strategy, designed to get you to the midgame with an advantage over your opponent using stalkers and void rays. After that, I will leave you with some ideas to finish off your opponent, but it ultimately comes down to the situation and personal preference.
The goal of this strategy is to abuse the mobility, range and shield regeneration 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, tech, or just win outright. It also allows for a fluid, easy transition into zealot/templar for the mid game, and tends to force the T to get an anti-armoured and anti-air mid-game composition, making your zealot/templar even stronger.
The key is to put constant, non-stop pressure on the T starting at about the 4:30 point, preserving your troops while whittling away theirs, and only engaging in a full battle on your own terms.
To do this, get stalkers quickly and send them to your opponent's ramp as soon as they spawn. You should aim to get them there early enough that only a couple of terran units are made. 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.
Avoid making more than 2 gateways until you have a stargate. It is likely that your opponent's build will skew towards marauders and/or tanks since stalkers are so good against marines and hellions. When resources permit it, tech to void ray (I usually begin my stargate when I have between 2 and 4 stalkers). The void rays tend to start popping when I have approximately 6 stalkers and 3 warp gates. The void rays provide an alternative method of harass, can give vision of the ramp to your stalkers, and can shoot the SD's and barracks that are walling the ramp if they have chosen to put them there. It is so easy to micro your void rays when there are a bunch of stalkers underneath that outrange marines, or if the terran has their own wall blocking their way.
If you continue this harass, and avoid committing to close battles with the terran army, you should gain enough of an advantage to be able to safely expand or tech. Not only that, but you shouldn't lose many units if your micro is crisp, ideally leaving you with an economic and army advantage.
I will talk about specific build orders, tactics, and additional complementary units in the three sections below:
1. The Opening 2. The Harass 3. The Mid-Game Transition
1. The Opening:
There are a couple of openings that you can use which allow you to get that early stalker pressure, and transition into the void ray. You can go with a one-gate cyber stalker opening, which allows you to get your first void ray and warp gates out sooner - or a fast dual-stalker opening which allows you to put on a very strong, early harass in exchange for a slightly slower void ray.
Below is an opening that was accidentally popularized by day9 during the beta, and is the fastest way to get two stalkers out without horribly crippling your economy. Many people have tried to replicate the build, and I believe the general consensus is that the following is the most effective way to do it, or is at least effective enough to suffice:
This opening is my personal favourite, particularly on maps like kulas ravine. Maps with short rush distances, wide ramps, or flat entrances allow for the pressure to be much more effective. However, this opening has limitations on maps with small or elevated ramps due to the effectiveness of bunkers and the increase in micro difficulty in those scenarios. As well, long rush distances can make a big difference as the production of a single extra unit at such an early part of the game can greatly increase your opponents army effectiveness.
By going for a one-gate cyber build, the early stalker harass will not be as strong as in the dual-stalker build, but it allows for void rays and warp gates to be obtained earlier. It is often a better opening for maps/positions with short air distances, large rush distances, or small/elevated ramps.
2. The Harass:
Depending on the map, and your enemy's composition, you will want to do either a stalker-centric harass, or a void-ray-centric harass. All that really means is that you will either have a composition skewed more towards stalkers, or more towards void rays, as a response to what your opponent is doing.
The stalker-centric build is stronger against a walling or marine-heavy terran. The idea is to get stalkers, with some sort of high-ground vision unit (the void ray), that will allow the stalkers to harass your opponent up a ramp. For my reasoning behind the void ray over the phoenix, observer and hallucinate, see here: + Show Spoiler +
My old build, which worked quite well, did not include void rays but instead used hallucinate to give me vision while my stalkers harassed the front. While I could really hurt a walled-in terran, there were a lot of builds that the terran could do that shutdown the straight stalker harass. For that reason, I began to experiment with void rays and found a winner. Not only can void rays provide that vision, but they deal a great deal of damage, cannot take damage from marauders or tanks, and harass from all sides of your opponents base.
Here's the breakdown:
Void ray > Phoenix > Hallucinate > Observer Warp Prism?
Observer Observers are a great scouting unit and will help deal with any banshee pushes that your opponent may do...but you need to get expensive tech to use them - the robotics facility. You would essentially be spending 50/100 for the observer + the cost of the robotics facility. Great for scouting, but doesn't compliment the stalker harass.
Hallucinate I really like this one since it is so cheap, it lets you stay on gateways units, and lets you get more sentries. Those sentries can not only hallucinate a scout, fake armies, etc. but they can also be used to contain the terran with force fields. You also end up with a larger ground army this way. However, it lacks the harassing potential that phoenixes and void rays have, and allows the terran to sit back a little bit more comfortably.
Phoenix You need several of them to harass well, but to get the phoenixes you need stargate tech, then the 100's of gas and minerals to get the phoenixes, so you better make any harass good enough to offset the smaller army size you will have compared to if you had gotten hallucinate. Generally speaking it doesn't make sense to spend the same amount of money on phoenixes that you could spend on void rays, when they are not dangerous enough to scare a terran into staying in their base. Never mind that they are useless against bio - why use a 150/100 unit to lift a 100/25 marauder that is armoured, when you could just blast them with a void ray? However, that said, there are certain instances when phoenixes may be preferable to void rays - namely if your opponent goes with a 1-1-1 build. Not only that, but if you do the 2-gate into void ray build, you will easily be able to tell if your opponent is going 1-1-1 well before the stargate finishes...so just make a phoenix instead of a void ray. I am admitting right now that I have not tried phoenixes much in PvT as protoss, but many people have sworn to me that phoenixes are great against the 1-1-1 build. It seems intuitive, since phoenixes are strong against vikings and medivacs, and can lift tanks, putting 2/3 of the 1-1-1 structures out of commission. (I really like this idea since enough terrans have read this guide, that when I play PvT some terrans begin fast-teching to starports in anticipation of my void ray before I even throw down a stargate.) Meta-game aside, it seems like the concept has potential, and I would love if anyone who has made this work (or had it fail horribly) could send me their replays to help support the discussion!
Void Ray Void rays can provide the vision for stalkers, they can provide solid harass around the base while drawing units away from the front where your stalkers are, are pretty meaty, and can pack a punch. Not only that, but stalkers can support the void ray very easily. Simply put your stalkers at the bottom of the cliff, and use your void ray to attack things on the top of the cliff. Your opponent has to be very careful, since if the void ray gets charged up, and you manage to snipe a few marines with your stalkers, it could be GG right there. Also, since your main army is stalkers, it is great to force your opponent to make missile turrets and marines, skewing his composition favourably for your stalkers. They don't know how many void rays you plan on making, so they have to play defensively against that anti air. And you never know - the stargate tech makes it easier to get a MOTHER SHIP!
Warp Prism It was suggested in the comments that a warp prism may be an effective scouting unit. My first reaction was, "Robotics facilities are expensive and warp prisms have low health!" but, after considering it for a bit, it could be kind of neat to harass the front with stalkers, then pick them up and drop them behind the minerals, and then back around. Or simply warp a zealot to send at their scvs and force them away from the front. Food for thought eh? You could also deal with banshees more effectively. I'll reserve judgement until I see it in action.
With the stalker-centric strategy, just keep constant pressure on the front, with the void ray (or maybe 2 void rays) poking around, and you should be able to expand or tech to blink/charge/templars safely. Make sure to keep everything alive! If the terran tries to push out at your stalkers, send the void ray to his minerals, and he has to choose between chasing your stalkers or losing his economy. Likewise, if he is chasing your void ray, just pull it back and put as much pressure on the front as you can safely do. He won't be attacking you if he is chasing a void ray around his base. Remember to keep macroing!
The void-ray-centric harass should be played the exact same way as the stalker-centric harass. However, you should reduce the number of stalkers you make to accommodate a constant void ray pump out of the stargate.
The additional void rays could win you the game - but remember that the intension of this build is not to outright win the game (although the opportunity seems to present itself enough). You should instead try to secure yourself a future advantage by killing some units/structures, skewing their composition, and keeping the void rays alive. Remember that if the terran knows you have void rays somewhere on the map, he has to play more defensive and has to account for them in his unit composition.
3. The Mid-Game Transition:
If you keep harassing and reinforcing your stalker army, you should find yourself in a safe enough position to try to tech or expand. Note that your opponent is stuck on one base and has no map control, so you are not under any huge pressure to expand. If you can instead get a tech or composition advantage, you may be better off than if you go for an expand.
I consider the mid-game core of any protoss PvT to be chargelots, templars and armour upgrades. It is beyond the scope of this guide to discuss why, but in short I find the cost effectiveness of the army, the mobility, and the fluidity of the transitions to be superb.
Below are a series of mid-game transition tactics that can be used to compliment the mid-game transition towards chargelots, templars and armour upgrades.
The stalker-void ray harass is extremely effective in keeping the terran from pushing out. The stalkers wear away at the army while the void rays keep the terran in the back of their base. However, it rarely goes completely as planned. As an additional fail-safe against a timing attack it is a good idea to get one or two sentries to accompany the stalkers. When I'm playing and I'm really in the zone, I will be harassing with the void ray and macroing while mostly just staring at their ramp. When I have to move the screen away I stare at the mini-map and keep my finger hovered over the hotkey to move back to my sentries. The moment I see them try to move down their ramp, I cut the front 1/4 or 1/3 of their army off with a force field. This allows the stalkers to clean up those units that are cut off, without having to worry about their army being larger than yours, or a better mix
Alternatively, if they do manage to break through your contain, you can respond by sending your void rays at their command center and mineral line. They will have to choose between calling off the attack to defend, sending some units back and proceeding with a weakened attack, or attacking and risking losing their base. If they choose to attack, warp in the sentries at your base and try to block them out of your ramp.
Fun Fact: According to day9, if you have 6 sentries, the combined energy regeneration will allow you to force field a small ramp indefinitely.
While a robotics facility is too expensive to get in the early game while going stalker-void ray, it is a critical structure to get for the mid-game in order to maximize your vision and your mobility because of two units: the observer and the warp prism.
Everyone knows about the usefulness of observers; enough said.
Warp prisms are a unit that I have rarely seen my opponents use. The best evidence that they are good and worth getting is White-ra. I have watched many White-ra replays, and he gets one pretty much every single PvT game that lasts longer than 12 minutes, and he does severe harass damage with it and templars.
I used to consider blink to be a necessary step between getting void rays and chargelots, as it allows you to use your stalkers that are already on the field much more effectively. However, I have been convinced both by reader feedback and my own experiences that there are some maps and compositions that make blink an uneconomical choice.
Blink is always useful for kiting bio-balls, blinking into their base after they push out, etc. However, it is often more useful to get charge and templars faster instead of getting blink. I tend to only get blink on select maps such as metalopolis and kulas ravine. These maps have bases that are easily accessible to blink stalkers from multiple directions, and long rush distances for my opponents to take before reaching my base.
Compare those maps to a map like steppes of war. Trying to blink up in steppes of war is like a death sentence since your stalkers are probably going to have to blink near the enemy army, and the enemy army can easily block the one escape route. After they mop up your stalkers, they can then quickly rush across into your base before you can replenish your forces with the short rush distance.
Now I know some of you want to get blink just because it is so damn fun. But is losing fun? NO!!! So don't get blink if it won't be as good as charge.
Several people have suggested that a carrier transition would be easier than a chargelot-templar transition, and if "easier" means that you don't have to invest as much money in tech structures and research, then I have to agree. Not only that, but my limited experience with carriers have suggested that they are cost-neutral against vikings, and we all know that they can decimate tanks and marauders.
I think it would all come down to your opponent's composition. Fortunately, because of the stalker-void ray harass, you should have an idea of what your opponent is making. If your opponent manages to get 1 or 2 vikings out with some tanks, and doesn't have many marines, it seems like it could be a good idea. However, it seems to me that if your opponent is able to deal with stalker-void ray, he probably already has the units available to deal with carriers supported by a weak gateway army.
Unfortunately, since I have only really used carriers in 2v2, I am stuck theory-crafting about them which I generally don't like to do. I would prefer to back it up with replays. If anyone has any replays of transitioning into carrier, send them my way - win or lose - and I'll post them in the replays section.
As an aside, I was provided with a sweet, awesome replay by Bliss (TL-aka sYz-Adrenaline). It shows a neat opening that he uses against Terran, which is a variation of the dual-stalker harass, but it doesn't transition into stargate tech. For that reason, I haven't included it in the replays section - but I have included it here for your enjoyment. It is definitely worth watching.
A large part of stalker harass is being able to shoot at units that cannot be healed, or shoot at structures that are on the edges and can't shoot back. Rather than wall off, some terrans opt to build only a bunker at their ramp. This means that there are no buildings which can be harassed from cliff edges other than the bunker which, unfortunately, can be repaired and does shoot back.
Response: I usually respond to the bunker by setting up a perimeter, getting a couple sentries to help contain at the ramp, and getting those void rays out as fast as I possibly can. The void rays can be used to help draw units away from the ramp and out of the bunkers, but if they find other ways to deal with your void ray harass you really can't do much damage. In that case, you should resign yourself to a contain, poke around to see what scouting info you can get, and macro/tech.
Getting a few shots off with your first couple stalkers before they have to replenish shields is really important in gaining momentum for your reinforcing stalkers to build on. Unfortunately, if the rush distances are long, and your build order isn't perfectly crisp, your stalkers may arrive at your opponents base by as late as 5:00. At that point, the terran is likely to have a large enough force to deal with your stalkers somewhat effectively. Just like if the terran gets a bunker, you likely won't deal enough damage to kill many (or any) units, or force your opponent to skew their army towards an anti-stalker composition.
Response: Prepare to contain rather than to harass with your stalkers, and get the void rays out quickly. Remember that any counter pushes have to go a long way to go back to you, so consider expanding earlier or getting blink.
Banshees are the biggest "hard counter" to this build in my experience, since this build doesn't really allow for an easy transition towards detection. Common feedback that I hear from people is that they started trying to play with this strategy, were winning a lot, then they ran into someone who went banshees and mopped the floor with them. Fortunately, in order for the terran to get banshees, they need to divert a great deal of resources and time to the stargate, tech lab, banshee and cloak research. In every game I have played where my opponent has gone banshees, I have managed to break their front with the stalkers and void rays. If he chooses to defend with his banshees you have time to tech to detection and your void rays can keep destroying his base. However, a couple of my games turned into quasi-base trades as he sent the banshees immediately to my mineral line and I had literally nothing that was capable of dealing with them.
Response: Use your void ray to scout while you harass. You may be able to catch it early-ish and get a forge or robotics facility. Also, increase the pressure. Even if the banshee comes out and kills your stalkers, you still have void rays to continue putting the pressure on, so if you commit to void rays and use the brief timing window before the banshees come out to kill all of his anti-air, you could be pretty well situated to take the game.
People seem to theorycraft that this build is weak against reapers - in particular people think the dual-stalker opening is weak against reapers. Fast stalker builds are the strongest anti-reaper rush build a protoss can do. Note that you get 2 stalkers out with the dual-stalker build at the same speed as if you 12-gated and went fast stalker. There are reaper rushes that can arrive before the stalkers come out - but that is no different than if you do any other build as protoss. If terran decides to all-in reaper rush with an 8 or 10 rax or something, I can lose a lot of probes and STILL have an economic advantage, and STILL get those stalkers out to harass.
This weakness isn't determined by what your opponent does, but is somewhat of a restriction that the strategy places on you. When playing this build out, it often comes down to some very subtle timings. If you look at the replay of when I lost to Foo, my stalkers don't arrive at my opponents base until about the 4:55 mark, 5 seconds after his marauder popped out to compliment his marines and only just before concussive shells is researched. Note that the ideal time to arrive is around the 4:30 to 4:40 mark, not only because their army will not be as large, but because key research such as concussive grenades are that much further off allowing you to do more aggressive harass. The same goes for tanks and vikings - it is possible to get the void ray there before they get siege or a viking if you delay and harass with stalkers, or power to the void ray more quickly. In several of the replays where I win, the stalker harass forces the starport to be delayed, or I power to a quick void ray to beat out the starport completely. However, getting the void ray there sooner doesn't work as well if you haven't whittled down their marines - so you have to find a balance.
Response: First and foremost, make sure your build opening is very crisp. Harassing with an early probe can buy you some precious seconds, but don't do a sophisticated probe harass if it means you might forget to put probes in gas, or build your second pylon. Then, stick to the plan. Don't be overly aggressive with your units - try to keep them alive - and harass where you can.
Marine-Ghost is a strong build that the terran can do to break a contain and get an early timing attack on you. That being said, if your opponent goes marine-ghost it is still completely up to you to dictate just how effective that marine/ghost attack is - my opponents tried going marine-ghost against me several times in the beta and I won every time. A quick look at the advantages you have over marine-ghost are as follows:
Early Harass
Marines get ravaged by stalkers in the early harass. In most of the games where my opponent tried to go for marine-ghost, I broke through his wall before the first ghost was finished being produced. Stalkers out-range marines, and have a shield that regenerates. If your opponent doesn't wall, but places a bunker, you can see if it is possible to run your stalkers past the bunker. Its simply a matter of running your stalkers around the base kiting the marines (he will, of course, unload the bunker) and then the next couple stalkers can come and deal with the bunker, or join the stalkers already in the base. If you are in doubt as to whether a kiting mission will work, you should probably play it safe.
The Contain
In a contain you should never clump your units or sentries together. Make a loose concave around the bottom of the ramp, keeping your units away from his cliff, and separate your sentries. He will need to use multiple emps, and even then if he targets the sentries (and you don't get a force field off) your stalkers will still be fine.
Kiting the Bio Ball
Note that when your opponent pushes out, he is still at his base and has to travel a long way to get to yours. You can kite his marines, using the stalker's increased range and movement speed, to wear them down as they go, positioning the injured stalkers so that they don't take fire - or just sending them back to the base to regen. If the marines stim, even better! You can just separate your stalkers and send them in different directions. Even if you lose 1 or 2 stalkers, forcing him to stim long before he reaches your base means that he will be arriving with a weakened army.
Void Ray
When he pushes out, you can send your void ray to his barracks or his minerals. If the void ray charges up fully, it will be able to kill every marine and ghost that spawns with ease. It should be easy enough to charge up when the enemy's army is busy trying to deal with your stalker harass. If the marines/ghosts decide to go back, you can chase them with stalkers and simply move your void ray away.
If he decides to continue with the attack, you gain a micro advantage. You don't need to micro a void ray that is sitting over your opponents critical structures, you can just leave it to destroy things and check in on it occassionally. This allows you to focus just on the bio ball and your stalkers. Your opponent, on the other hand, has to micro his bio-ball and somehow try to deal with a void ray destroying all his stuff.
Commentated Replays
JHancho was kind enough to invite me to commentate some of my replays with him, which works great for us since now we have some commentated replays for educational purposes.
Replays Note: Listed ratings are at the time I posted the replay. Since most of these replays were posted very soon after release, many of these players are actually rated much higher.
K Love has posted a replay which follows the general recipe of the posted build, using a economic 2-gate stalker opening into void rays. He uses a neat proxy pylon tactic which most of the time won't be possible, but it is only a slight adjustment to build that proxy pylon below the cliff and use a void ray to give vision of the high ground to warp zealots or stalkers behind your opponents wall. It will have the same effect, and will be a valid tactic much more often than the hidden probe.
This replay shows how a slight error in timings can compound over time to, possibly, put you in an army size or composition disadvantage if the terran goes for an early game timing attack. Things went wrong starting from the stalker harass, which arrives at ~5:00, and it just goes down hill from there. Compare the army that met my stalkers at 5:00 to the army that would have been there had I arrived on time at ~4:40. Perhaps I should opt for a 1-gate cyber build on scrap station.
White-ra has a similar build that is less stalker-focused and more zealot focused. He reserves his build for maps/positions with the following features:
i) Long rush distance. ii) Short air distance. iii) Discrete pylon locations to provide warp-in range onto opponent's cliff.
He opts for a 1-gate opening. Rather than waiting for stalkers, he quickly builds a zealot and immediately sends it to harass. Then, upon completing the cyber core, he builds a stalker and sends it to support the zealot in its harass.
He then builds a stargate and gets a void ray as quickly as possible. Using a proxy-pylon within range of his opponents cliff, he charges up in advance and warps zealots into his opponents base. While stalkers are great for harassing and assaulting the terran front, the terrain is different inside the base. Once inside the base zealots become an extremely effective complement for the void ray. Zealots have much higher DPS and have more health, so they can tank better and can do more damage should the Terran try to target fire the void ray.
Note that although he lost, there were some pretty severe micro errors that cost White-ra two (arguably three) void rays unnecessarily. Since his void rays were lost, there was nothing preventing strelok from counter attacking with his full force which, coupled with White-ra's aggressive teching and expanding, made the attack easily successful. Try to look at the potential of this build if white-ra had not made those errors, and like me you may see the promise in this variation of the build.
From GSL3: RO8 Set 1 between MarineKingPrime.we (arguably the best marine-handling Terran in the world) and oGsMC. Watch and enjoy with the talented casting of Tastosis. http://www.gomtv.net/2010gslopens3/vod/1451
Just like all of you, I want to make my game and my strategies better. If you have any suggestions, general comments, or relevant replays, send em my way!
Wrap-Up:
This strategy provides a solid way to get you into the mid game. Not only do you feel safe with a fairly large army and map control, but it provides you with various opportunities to win the game outright in the first 12 minutes. If your opponent builds a reaper first, builds too many marines early, doesn't get enough marines, goes hellions, or tries a fast expand, you are pretty much guaranteed to come away with a significant advantage. Not only that, you get to use two of the most fun units in the game - stalkers and void rays - and you get to do lots of fun micro.
Sounds very interesting, and right now I don't have the time to read 100% of it in complete detail, but it seems to be solid and something new. Aside from banshees I don't think there is a magic counter to this, like you said. However isn't the standard (or at least one of the more common builds in TvP), the 1/1/1 opening, the strongest against this? Assuming it is played as I usually play it (Rax w/ reactor, fact w/ techlab, starport w/ techlab), it is very easy to swap the rax and starport to pump vikings to counter the void rays, and marauders to counter the stalkers, as well as the obvious tanks for more anti-ground.
But I do agree that it is very strong against most of the builds you mentioned (Low marines, FE, hellions, etc)
With reaper harass I think people are thinking of a very fast reaper (i.e. before the stalker starts really) which will do just as well as against any other 1gate core build, or very well against the 2 gate into core which you also mentioned (150 minerals worth of delay on that core could lose you the game then and there if its a 7 proxy rax)
Also I can see (Gretorps?) mass stimmed marine w/ ghost doing reasonably well also, as the EMP is so effective against stalkers, and allows the marines to deal with void rays far better than they normally could.
It does seem like a very viable strategy. Banshees are a hard counter but like you said, only if you didn't scout the starport+techlab. However, since it mainly rely's on the power the shield recharge, isn't it quite weak against a Ghost +x Bio army? A standard GMM build with 2reactor rax & 1 tech lab rax destroys groups of stalkers very easily. And with the massive marine production a few Void rays are not that hard to neutralize.
Also, i think you're underestimating the ability of phoenix to harass, sure they wont bother the MM army or help you that much against the wall, BUT they are great (once you have more than 1, pref 2) at killing SCVs since they are so fast, they can just dart in and out and snipe them, something void rays cant do as easily.
Distracting the marines from the wall in a safe manner help you harass the wall more easily etc... But the basic idea is sound.
Right now I only have one strategy I find effective down here in Gold against Terrans. While I consider them my easiest matchup, I think that in the future my current build is going to get blocked by better players. I've ready through this strat and really like the sound of it. I'm going to give it a try at the lower levels and see if I can't master it myself. Thank you for posting this, I look forward to seeing the feedback and will hopefully post some of my own.
you should 1/1/1 -> fast viking into the list of weaknesses too. tanks deal with the stalker harass at the front while marines + viking deal with voidrays. that's what foo did in that replay where you lost.
Gah my worst nightmare as a terran player, well at least when I walled off at the ramp. I do the bunker thing now while massing marines and seems to fight this off fairly well. I'm just wondering, how much point is there to this build when it can be easily countered by a bunker on the ramp?
Now THIS is how you make a thread :D Checking the replays now
EDIT: You clearly know what you are doing PvT which is good This build will REALLY struggle against any kind of 3rax stuff. But as your replays demonstrate, it's ridiculously good against 1-1-1. The game you lost you really only lost because you were being too aggressive and your micro failed you, VRs should have been able to deal with his push relatively easily.
So yea, this strategy is only really weak to marauder pressure imo.
I wouldn't say it's perfect, it is an all in strategy after all. But with clever play it's a pretty cool weapon. I'll give this a go against Corinthos when I get a chance to
Well written. Although I am not a huge fan of Stalkers (due to my lacking mechanics and my view that 2 stalkers without blink are just a faster moving but otherwise worse immortal vs Groundunits) I will give it a try, because I am tired of defensive-mode until I get Charge vs Terran.
great thread, also listed the weakenesses i find cloak banshee rushes still hard to deal with (after phase 1 everyone had stopped doing this) - phase 1 where we were forced robo (zerg was mass roach and terran was cloak banshee rush/marauder)
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.
Sweet strat. I'm a mid Diamond and I tried this a few times this morning with great results. I like the fact that Terran's response to double stalker is more marauders and tanks, which get creamed by void rays.
And man, vikings fall fast to charged void rays. I thought your void ray was dead in the 2nd replay right after the viking popped, but it only got 1 shot off.
I've actually been using a build a lot like this to great success.
I've been trying to transition to carriers/blink stalkers and its been going surprisingly well. I only use the carriers over high-ground or out of range where they're very hard to hit. They go vikings, and I cream the vikings with my blink stalkers. Don't engage their ground army with my stalkers if I can help it.
So far, I don't have any replays where either myself or my opponent didn't massively screw up and kinda make it a wash where any build coulda won, though .
I can't wait to try this later tonight! Haven't had a chance to check the replaces yet.
You mentioned that this build turns into more of a contain when Terran places a bunker at the ramp instead of a wall. I was wondering if you've played against a fast expo terran who goes heavy marines into ghost and/or thor while using one or two bunkers to defend his early expo and what success (or failure you've had). I have a feeling that without zealots this may allow for the fast expo. Or am I totally off base in that the bunker + expo can't get up before your stalkers arrive?
I've used stalker-void ray openings a lot against T, and I completely agree with most everything he's said. Getting early blink does make the game more fun, but your army will feel quite small with all of the infrastructure expenses.
As for the build's weaknesses, I'll agree that banshees can be a problem. Another good way for T to beat this build is marine-ghost. If T can emp your sentries to get down the choke, his combat shield/stimmed marines will pose big problems for you. The other thing that would be tough to deal with is a marine-tank opening. An early push before siege research could overwhelm your mobility-based composition, and later, sieged tanks will outrange the forcefield cast meaning T can take back his ramp and push or expand.
It's a good, fleshed out strategy tho, and a lot of T's don't yet know how to properly deal with it.
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).
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
As others have pointed out, going pure stalker early leaves you vulnerable to aggressive marauder pushes. I think that that the safer bet is to get a zealot as your first or second unit (depending upon whether you build a stalker first) and proceed to develop a fairly even ratio of stalker/zealot. This will free up your gas for an earlier void ray and make you impervious to any rush other than some crazy marine rush. The downside is that your stalker pressure will be delayed or less effective. The upside is that you'll have a fairly nasty force that can break and exploit the Terran front more easily than stalker/void ray.
Amazing post, thank you for great quality. I've been doing DTs to harass/contain into own expo, but only out of desperation. This seems like a much better and more well-rounded strategy
Nice strat. Tried it twice today and caught the terran with their pants down twice - building reapers and marines. By the time one of them could get marauders out my 4 stalkers overwhelmed him. Didnt even need voids in the end.
I have been using a similar build researching warp gate after the 1st 2 stalkers then going stargate. I drop a pylon at the front and contain them with stalker/vr till I have my expansion up.
I have just tried it against 3rax medivac push.The micro requirements definitely take some time getting used to, if you screw up and lose first VR or even a few stalkers, you will die pretty quickly. Seems like rushing storm after your expo finishes is probably the best bet, I was never able to stop MMM+ghost push after I pulled back with only gateway units.
Thanks for updating regarding marine-ghost. I don't think stalker-void ray counters marine-ghost; it just comes down to a control battle. If T outplays P, he'll be able to use 5 marines to keep the void ray at bay, start an expo in his base, EMP the sentries to push down his ramp, and get his expansion up before P. If P outplays T, he'll be able to pick off marines and abuse shield regen, damage the wall-in, spread his units to prevent EMP from robbing his forcefields, and keep T contained long enough that P gets his expo up first.
There are a few things that I do think will beat this build straight up. The 6 barracks mass marine cheese will straight up kill this build because it will hit when you only have 2 gateways. But that build can be scouted and responded to by a player who knows about it.
The one I'd really be concerned about is a marine-tank push that sets out before siege research. The unsieged tank prevents stalker kiting and the marines are stronger than stalkers in a battle w/o micro. I haven't run into this build because T rarely seems to be aggressive with tanks early, but I'm pretty sure that won't last.
First two suffice to do a fast poke and help Terran over-commit. After that, it seems like you're better off with a balanced mix - mostly zealot/sentry, with your two initial stalkers. Consider that making your next two units zealots speeds up your stargate, and gets your void ray out quicker. Getting a sentry shortly thereafter can make you a double-threat at the terran ramp; anything that comes out to kill the void ray may get force-fielded out and killed. Best case, FF prevents things from hitting the void ray until it's fully charged anyways.
I only ask because the standard Terran thing to do is a bigass mixed bio-ball. Stimmed marines can make life trouble for void rays, but mostly, the Terran army is just going to whoop on your original army if you can't convince him to stay in his base and get harassed. Switching to zealot/sentry gives you a much better chance of dealing well with his army, I think.
On August 04 2010 01:19 Crosswind wrote: Stupid question:
Why keep building stalkers after the first two?
First two suffice to do a fast poke and help Terran over-commit. After that, it seems like you're better off with a balanced mix - mostly zealot/sentry, with your two initial stalkers. Consider that making your next two units zealots speeds up your stargate, and gets your void ray out quicker. Getting a sentry shortly thereafter can make you a double-threat at the terran ramp; anything that comes out to kill the void ray may get force-fielded out and killed. Best case, FF prevents things from hitting the void ray until it's fully charged anyways.
I only ask because the standard Terran thing to do is a bigass mixed bio-ball. Stimmed marines can make life trouble for void rays, but mostly, the Terran army is just going to whoop on your original army if you can't convince him to stay in his base and get harassed. Switching to zealot/sentry gives you a much better chance of dealing well with his army, I think.
Thoughts?
-Cross
I personally prefer the mixed the force rather than pure stalkers. If you catch the terran in his base with only marauders when your void ray arrives, it doesn't really matter. However, a lot of times you'll have to deal with a terran bio push, and you'll want a better-mixed gateway unit composition to deal with it. Getting some zealots also allows a faster void ray.
Whether you build more than 2 stalkers is going to depend upon the map and how you want to use your void ray(s). If you want to just poke and harass the terran with your void ray to keep him penned up, you'll want more stalkers to abuse his front door. If you're actually thinking about busting his front door down, you'll want some zealots to exploit the breach and help take down marines.
I tried this build now too and it is very good in winning in 8-12 minutes. I just have problems with the transition.
What do you think about transition into carriers? You are already in this tech tree and can get carriers way faster then storm or collossi. So the transition would look like:
-The usual until expansion -Build robo for detection -Build fleet beacon for carriers
Push with 3-4 carriers, 2-3 void rays (from the beginning) and 4-warpgate-army? Mothership ftw?
Sounds like a good build to me, what do you think?
On August 04 2010 01:53 TehForce wrote: I tried this build now too and it is very good in winning in 8-12 minutes. I just have problems with the transition.
What do you think about transition into carriers? You are already in this tech tree and can get carriers way faster then storm or collossi. So the transition would look like:
-The usual until expansion -Build robo for detection -Build fleet beacon for carriers
Push with 3-4 carriers, 2-3 void rays (from the beginning) and 4-warpgate-army? Mothership ftw?
Sounds like a good build to me, what do you think?
They're probably going to react to your Void Rays with some Vikings floating about ready to gun them down and Marines to protect his ground army as it advances. If he then scans and spots you pumping Carriers (you can tell what unit is coming out of that thing from the shape of the blue stuff) he's just going to react with even more Vikings and Marines.
Not sure how well Carriers do against Vikings (I presume something like 3:1, which is about even in cost, since they have equal range and the Carriers can unload a hell of a lot of front-ended damage), but Marines will just disarm the crap out of them. Interceptors are incredibly squishy now. You can't even build a good Zealot force to compliment the Carriers from excess resources, because the end-cost is something like 550 (or 450? Do they start with 4 Interceptors now?) minerals and 250 gas for a single Carrier.
Normally the only safe transitions after a failed air assault, is a strong ground force. Mutas beget Phoenixes, which get raped by Hydras. Void Rays beget Vikings and Marines which get raped by Psi Storm. Banshees beget Void Rays or Phoenixes which get raped by Marines.
That game against the 670 diamond he really did not respond very well, if he had built a viking before his medivac(he had already seen the VR at this point so it was silly not to) or used all of his marines to fight the 2 void rays instead of leaving 2 idle I think you are losing that game at that point. He had you outeconned and a bigger army, he just made a couple bad choices.
As a Terran player it is definitely something I'll keep my eye out for though .
I think the clear transition is up the templar line.
Charge and Blink are both excellent. If you're sitting as his entrance, blink (with void rays giving vision) gives a way to pull him away from his front. If you're still fighting over map control, chargelots are pretty dominant in open ground. Finish with high templars (if he built a lot of missile turrets), or dark templars (if he didn't).
Robo tech just seems sub-par. Colossi and immortals die to the same things that counter void rays (vikings and marines). So do carriers.
Meanwhile, HTs just ball against about 90% of terran units. The only terran units that don't have energy for delicious feedback get crushed by void rays or annihilated by psi-storm.
On August 04 2010 02:14 GunsOfPatriots wrote: O.O this freak me out as a terran player, maybe i should spend some serious thinking in switching race.
You shouldn't worry about it. I'm getting pretty convinced that any Protoss 1 base semi-all in aggression against Terran is doomed to fail in the long run.
quality post! I will try this is I am confident enough in my micro to control this properly while still macroing. It seems physically demanding for a max 100 apm player.
Do you have any tips on how to micro stalkers effectively against terran? For example, what do you prioritize for attacking? I'm thinking: lone marauder > scv building a building > marine > scv repairing > supply depot
I transitioed into carriers from this once because the Terran went marine/tank and turtled really hard (beat off a mid-game push with phoenixes to lift his siege-tanks just barely). Carrier + blink stalker worked well. I avoided engaging his ground army with my stalkers and just kept my carriers out of range. Used the stalkers to mop up vikings.
Sounds cool, i will watch the replays when i get home. Have you ever encountered the terran thor+ghost into fast expo? I'm getting it from low-med diamond players often which just destroy me, my 2 stalkers get to their base when a marauder is already out, so the pressure i can do is minimal.
I'm not sure i can contain for long against this and i'm thinking about VRs vs Thors... Doesnt sound very happy. Any advice on using this strategy against that?
i tried your tactic, very very nice.... But when the opponent builds up a bunker beforce ur stalker arrive u loss almost 100%... i have 100 apm and my opponent 30... still he wins.
With the voidray u can buy some time, but as soon as he build air u loss.
VRs versus Thors isn't actually as one-sided as one might think.
In particular, I'm pretty sure that a single charged VR will beat a Thor, 1v1. Seeing as Thors are incredibly slow, you should be able to get up to full charge before fighting it.
There's nothing that comes out of a factory that is particularly scary to a VR. The scary bits are vikings and marines.
Oh hmm, this strat would probably beat really hard against the rax-fact-rax opening, due to the number of stalkers. Perhaps I need to look up some other TvP strats.
On August 04 2010 03:43 Crosswind wrote: VRs versus Thors isn't actually as one-sided as one might think.
In particular, I'm pretty sure that a single charged VR will beat a Thor, 1v1. Seeing as Thors are incredibly slow, you should be able to get up to full charge before fighting it.
There's nothing that comes out of a factory that is particularly scary to a VR. The scary bits are vikings and marines.
-Cross
The only time a Thor wins one-on-one is if its getting repaired.
I played a game a few minutes ago on steppes of war against a protoss player who tried this build.
I just went on with my game strategy vs protoss, which is to build a rax with tech lab and one with reactor aiming for a quick star port with reactor pumping medevacs. I built my first rax + tech lab at the ramp + supply depot and then finish the wall off with a bunker, that way the bunker is pretty forward and prevents stalkers from shooting at the other buildings without taking damage. Around this time the stalkers started to show up. By that time I get the 2nd rax, that i equip it with reactor. After the reactor finishes I start to pump rines while training rauders from the other rax. (in the meantime i get upgrades such as concusive shells and shields).
Then I build a factory + reactor which i lift and then place my star port on the reactor. While doing that i move my forces to the opponent, and manage to kill some of his troops, while spotting his void ray/starport. After seeing his void ray, i started training 2 viks. I then killed his void ray with my viks and went on to win the game pretty easy.
I have to admit, that my opponent didn't play nearly as good as you, but I also kinda lack some serious skills...
I think that the strategy I used, could give protoss some problems if he would go for your strategy, due to the fact, that terran has a decent bio army, by the time you get void rays, and he also should have his starport + reactor, making it quite easy to pump viks instead of the medevacs.
This sounds very interesting. I usually do some stalker harass and contain against terran but usaully get steamrolled when they push out. Void rays may be the answer. Thanks!
early void rays vs a terran that thinks ur going to mass stalkers is pure win. unless they already have viking up or alot of marines by the time you get your first void ray, you should win.
used this strat 4x so far in platnium league and no losses except for the one where thunderstorm cut my power lol.
Hey everyone, thanks a bunch for all the great comments and ideas.
New Section I have put a part into the 3. Midgame Transition section about carriers in response to some of the comments I've seen. However, I really have no experience with carriers in 1v1 PvT so if anyone has some replays of trying to transition into carriers from stalker-void ray - win or lose - I'd love to put them into the replays section.
New Replay I have uploaded a new replay, against Stalk, that is quite a bit different from the other replays. a) Different map - Desert Oasis. b) I did a 1-gate cyber build instead of the dual cyber build. c) I get warp gate faster. d) The game actually goes into the mid game! Yay! e) And my apm doesn't stay below 50 the entire time like in the other games. See, I'm not always lazy.
I would also like to respond to several comments suggesting that this build will have a short life-span and will become obsolete. Guess what? At the top levels I 100% agree. It would be ridiculous if people could keep doing this build exactly as written, indefinitely, and keep their PvT winning % above 50% for two reasons:
1. Terran players can adapt and learn. 2. If Terran players can't adapt - then the build is over-powered and blizzard will patch it.
However, I do truly believe that parts of this build are here to stay. In Starcraft BroodWar, early dragoon aggression is standard for PvT - and so far I have seen absolutely nothing that makes early stalker aggression seem like a bad idea in SC2 PvT. And perhaps the early-game void-ray may become obsolete on some maps as terrans start actively skewing their composition towards anti-air and anti-armored early. However, I cannot imagine stalker-void ray will ever be 'bad' or 'obsolete' for some maps - in particular maps like desert oasis that allow you to abuse cliffs. (See replay vsStalk)
It could be that this strategy fades into one of several feasible strategies that can be whipped out on certain maps, or that only certain parts of the builds stand the test of time. But I do know that this build is working now, and it couldn't possibly hurt to have this build in your back pocket in the future.
P.S. My "Real Men Proxygate" T-shirt just arrived in the mail. I'm totally gonna proxy my 2-gate stalker harass for the rest of the day.
U r a god! I've been getting raped in every single PvT and have been looking for the right kind of harass to get terran on their back foot (since bio ball rapes toss until templar or colossi). I will use this a lot and I love you!
1/1/1 (done properly) absolutely trashes this build if he holds the marines at the top of the ramp (as opposed to behind the wall) to damage the initial stalkers and then keeps pumping marines and then get shis first tank out by the time you get your 4th stalker (with the 2 gate variant) void rays are much too late
Otherwise if you go 1 gate fast ray then he will have 6-7 marines by the time your first voidray arrives. When tank comes out your harass is over and he can almost a-move you if you didnt add on gates
All micro dependent ofc, but its the same way that seige expand or FD in SC1 > 2gate goon if played properly (enough to defend and push out to expand)
Still you can hold enough to transition out (if you do the 2 gate variant) into an expansion or more 1 base play (if you are afraid of 1 base t)
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for those of you who dont think that 1/1/1 beats this (esp the 1 gate variant) then just try the BO a few times or check out my youtube video and the timings are pretty obvious
nice guide. I also just recently realised how strong early chrono boosted stalkers are, although I usually dont go for void rays (I just find them a bit boring) Then again I havent really worked out smooth transitions yet cause I killed my opponents too fast (still in platinum league)
Having said what ive said previously, the 2 gate stalker opening is really nice though
Terrans seem to be really greedy atm and thus fail to counter it properly so its definately worth it even though all it takes is a bunker to pretty much kill your harass (and then they can expand)
Does anyone know how safe it is to expand after your 4th or 6th stalker with the 2 gate variant?
On August 04 2010 09:31 BrTarolg wrote: Having said what ive said previously, the 2 gate stalker opening is really nice though
Terrans seem to be really greedy atm and thus fail to counter it properly so its definately worth it even though all it takes is a bunker to pretty much kill your harass (and then they can expand)
Does anyone know how safe it is to expand after your 4th or 6th stalker with the 2 gate variant?
The toss can expand as long as he can keep the terran penned up in his base. Poking the terran with stalkers and void rays, especially from multiple angles, can do wonders towards accomplishing ihis.
On August 04 2010 09:01 BrTarolg wrote: Btw just so you know
1/1/1 (done properly) absolutely trashes this build if he holds the marines at the top of the ramp (as opposed to behind the wall) to damage the initial stalkers and then keeps pumping marines and then get shis first tank out by the time you get your 4th stalker (with the 2 gate variant) void rays are much too late
Otherwise if you go 1 gate fast ray then he will have 6-7 marines by the time your first voidray arrives. When tank comes out your harass is over and he can almost a-move you if you didnt add on gates
All micro dependent ofc, but its the same way that seige expand or FD in SC1 > 2gate goon if played properly (enough to defend and push out to expand)
Still you can hold enough to transition out (if you do the 2 gate variant) into an expansion or more 1 base play (if you are afraid of 1 base t)
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for those of you who dont think that 1/1/1 beats this (esp the 1 gate variant) then just try the BO a few times or check out my youtube video and the timings are pretty obvious
I don't do the exact build that OP does, but I really haven't had problems against 1/1/1. If they skimp on marines they lose to the stalkers, and if they have a lot of marines and your stalkers haven't picked off a lot of them you can just go robotics facility rather than stargate.
You always want to kill the marines first as they are the only early game unit that can damage your voids.. once the marines are dead you can have a field day with the marauders and buildings.
did more pvt in plat 4th place in league now. most people will mass mauarders at the sight of initial stalkers. i lost one because i build 3 voidrays and only 4 stalkers and the terran massed marines and pushed out with siege/marine
shoot marines unless theres a big ball of it. and if there is you probably cant push anyways.
What i really like is faking an early expend... Building the gate at the ramp of the natural (like in steppes). That way, they usually get marine faster in case of a rush or think i'm going for a quick expend and dont do a lot of unit to defend...
+
That way I can get my stalker in his base 20-30 sec earlier.
It's similar to what I do only replace the void rays with phoenix. You can get the 1st one out to scout very quickly with chrono, it's better for worker harass (I always go after their gas miners first) and if the terran gets tanks you can get a nice timing push by lifting them during your 1st attack.
The fact that phoenix are much faster than voidrays, and can move while shooting, makes their abilities to scout, harass, snipe medevacs or ravens, deal with vikings and most importantly STAY ALIVE better than void rays IMO. When I get that 1st scout in I basically decide to either go more chargelot vs bio or add immortal vs mech and I decide whether or not to expo or wait.
I've Been rolling Terrans with phoenix, whenever I go void rays I get smoked by marine/FE or maurader all in's. Because the extra build time on void rays, the fact that it takes twice as long to move across the map means you get a much earlier scout with phoenix at a more crucial timing (because you'll have time to react). At this point in the game the terran will most likely be walled and you wont have obs yet if you went stargate 1st.
I think this would work very well with the stalker harass and recharge idea because you can keep them running back and forth from their choke to their minerals and keep doing damage to their income or force them to turtle. Also, when they try to repair a structure you grab the scv and snipe him before he does any repairing. Sniping his 1st medevac will be way easier (and devastating). When the first siege tank arrives you can instantly take it out of the fight.
The OP is obviously better than me from the information he gave about his league and rank. I bet you'd have Terrans crying IMBA if you started using phoenix's instead of voidrays.
Hey everyone, sYz-Adrenaline has been kind enough to give me a couple of replays.
In his replays he does a slight variation on the dual-stalker rush, opting to get 2 zealots out before the 2 stalkers. It does delay his attack time considerably - so much so that the early harass doesn't work in either replay, but it has some immediate advantages: With the zealots there to tank it becomes less micro-intensive, and it also has more balance against early marauders.
The first replay is posted in the replays section.
In the second replay he doesn't follow up his rush with stargate tech, so it doesn't really fit into this strategy thread...but it is one of the coolest replays I have seen in a long time. I won't give too much away, but note that a) it is high level play, b) I have never seen so many gateways from one person before, and c) can you say carriers?
Because he went carriers I have put a link to the replay in the 3. Mid-game Transition Carriers section.
t's similar to what I do only replace the void rays with phoenix. You can get the 1st one out to scout very quickly with chrono, it's better for worker harass (I always go after their gas miners first) and if the terran gets tanks you can get a nice timing push by lifting them during your 1st attack.
The fact that phoenix are much faster than voidrays, and can move while shooting, makes their abilities to scout, harass, snipe medevacs or ravens, deal with vikings and most importantly STAY ALIVE better than void rays IMO. When I get that 1st scout in I basically decide to either go more chargelot vs bio or add immortal vs mech and I decide whether or not to expo or wait.
I've Been rolling Terrans with phoenix, whenever I go void rays I get smoked by marine/FE or maurader all in's. Because the extra build time on void rays, the fact that it takes twice as long to move across the map means you get a much earlier scout with phoenix at a more crucial timing (because you'll have time to react). At this point in the game the terran will most likely be walled and you wont have obs yet if you went stargate 1st.
I think this would work very well with the stalker harass and recharge idea because you can keep them running back and forth from their choke to their minerals and keep doing damage to their income or force them to turtle. Also, when they try to repair a structure you grab the scv and snipe him before he does any repairing. Sniping his 1st medevac will be way easier (and devastating). When the first siege tank arrives you can instantly take it out of the fight.
The OP is obviously better than me from the information he gave about his league and rank. I bet you'd have Terrans crying IMBA if you started using phoenix's instead of voidrays.
You are not the first one to try to convince me about the awesomeness of phoenixes - I will have to give it a try. Phoenixes can't provide that devastating punch that a void ray can - but forcing them to throw down some turrets and move away from their front could be useful indeed, and being able to win the air vs air battle could be nice. I may have to bump them up on my high-ground scouting unit spectrum if things go well. At the very least we may be able to identify maps and scenarios where they do have a distinct advantage over void rays, such as maps/positions where the terran is likely to go for drops or some sort of earlier air composition.
Edit: I also added a new replay - Plexa vs Figgy.
Thanks sYz-Adrenaline and Plexa for taking the time to send me some replays
Ive done the 1 gateway version into 2 base carriers twice, and won once and lost once with it
Carriers are incredibly cost effective vs most terran armies, as terrans rarely get enough vikings to counter it The main problem is that during your switch to carriers they take a LONG time to tech and leave a big window of oppourtunity to push against you
The way i did this was going 1 gate 1 stargate and then expanding after my second voidray, then dropping an additional 2 gates to start pumping mass stalker/sentry whilst adding probes You pretty much are forced to drop the additional 2 gates if you want to defend any kind of terran push once he gets a viking (as then your harass ends) - however the stronger his push NOW, the weaker his later timing attack is Then you need to drop a robo, and your fleet beacon and start pumping carriers from 2 stargates THIS is when you are really weakest ihmo because you are living off 3 gate stalker sentry all game and a big marauder push right now spells big trouble for you if he pushes halfway when your carriers are done
Once you got 4 carriers its easygame though, just add additional gates whilst your 4th's are building and then when you push out warp a bunch of stalkers, the terran rarely has 12 vikings to deal with it and also carriers have a biig range so you can focus vikings if you are lucky
Still a rickety transition though
Oh, and never play on lost temple or any droppable natural because you wont be able to defend it (just in standard PVT anyway its an autoloss vs a decent player)
Yeah, we've trying this with a terran friend, he went thor+ghost vs my stalker contain + vr.
It's tricky, i cannot really harras the ramp against this, because he gets a marauder when my stalker gets there. And later on it will depend on my VR against his thor, 1v1 with SCVs repairing is a no-go, so i have to go into a more harras mode and try to break the front, when i get 2 VRs if i charge both i can burn the thor even with all the scvs repairing... Still tricky, but not particulary as hard as i thought.
We are gonna try practicing against 1-1-1 that doesnt sound a lot more scarier...
On August 04 2010 03:43 Crosswind wrote: VRs versus Thors isn't actually as one-sided as one might think.
In particular, I'm pretty sure that a single charged VR will beat a Thor, 1v1. Seeing as Thors are incredibly slow, you should be able to get up to full charge before fighting it.
There's nothing that comes out of a factory that is particularly scary to a VR. The scary bits are vikings and marines.
-Cross
The only time a Thor wins one-on-one is if its getting repaired.
I think it's important, when doing the 2 stalk opening to send a probe up the ramp first, it can either be your 12 scouting probe if you kept it alive or an additional probe you send out before your stalkers finish. Helps deal with early concussive shell, and lets your stalkers abuse their range advantage to get first hits on marines.
For anyone doing the 12gate15gate15core opening, if there is a scv scout in your main do you prefer to kill it before sending your first 2 stalkers to the enemy ramp, wait for your 3rd stalker to clean it up, or just ignore it for long periods of time and what is your reasoning?
On August 05 2010 02:17 Jaeger wrote: I think it's important, when doing the 2 stalk opening to send a probe up the ramp first, it can either be your 12 scouting probe if you kept it alive or an additional probe you send out before your stalkers finish. Helps deal with early concussive shell, and lets your stalkers abuse their range advantage to get first hits on marines.
For anyone doing the 12gate15gate15core opening, if there is a scv scout in your main do you prefer to kill it before sending your first 2 stalkers to the enemy ramp, wait for your 3rd stalker to clean it up, or just ignore it for long periods of time and what is your reasoning?
I leave it until I want to throw down the stargate, this way he'll see the constant stalkers and hopefully make more marauders. When I kill the SCV I'll build the stargate and start sending voids to catch him unprepared.
I feel like trying this bu I'm kinda weary as atm most terrans open marauder rush with concussive shells to pressure my ramp. Going only stalker would be insta lose to that as far as I can tell.
I came across something like this in my laddering earlier today, and let me say, it's annoying as hell to deal with. I just always seem to have the wrong unit. Grr.
On August 05 2010 14:36 HeyJude wrote: What about tanks? My main problem vs Terrans in general is tanks Seems like once he gets even one out I can no longer touch his main.
I must say that it is impressive how effective the stalker harass is on its own. I started doing this build today (more or less, I do some "gut feeling" adjustments), and I have managed to win to games with the first 4 stalkers alone.
Seems like people are not quite as used to early stalker harass as they were the similar goon harass at the wall in BW.
As a terran doing the 1-1-1 build I would like to ask for some advice. I always lose to some stalkerblinkintoyourbase (like this strat) strat and I am wondering how I can hold it. Stalkers are so fast that they can seriously screw your mineral line very fast. Some protosses add phoenixes and then it's completely over (they lift your tanks).
Gnial ... i met someone who uses this tactic and ... donno ... but .... i really HOPE my protoss opponed DOES ur build !
I am a 400 diamond player and ... i usually have the harrasing position ... and only get owned by 4-5 gateways powered by players with good micro skills ...
Plz answer this ... i never build a marine ... i always tech barrack and reaper then mara (or just maraurder - depending on the map .. mood, etc) ... This depends a lot of the scouting ... even if you have a core - i build the reaper anyway (at 14-15) because he will keep you in your BASE ! U need to protect those probes ... at least one stalker ...
The maraurder provides very good defence (except on kulan ravine - where the reaper is in your base already) ... shock shells being researched the same tine - it s a FREE KILL a single stalker at my gates !
I go barracks ... tech ... 2nd barracks reactor ... 3rd barracks tech ... and push.
It s gg right there unless u go 4 gates ! I don t understand how u can counter this ... I was never countered with your build or fast immortal tech , etc
It hasn't even been a week since I posted a bare-bones stalker-void ray build, and we are already starting to see this strategy evolve towards responsive stargate tech rather than just void ray tech, and towards a more diverse gateway composition rather than just stalkers in the later early-game! So thanks to everyone for contributing with your ideas and personal flairs with the build.
I have added a discussion about the phoenix as a possible replacement for the void-ray against the 1-1-1 build. Now, I have to emphasize that I have not tried it yet - but I have had so many people promoting the phoenix in place of the void ray, in particular against the 1-1-1 build, that I had to include it - especially since it is so easy to change from going stalker-void ray to stalker-phoenix...simply click the build phoenix hotkey instead of the build void ray hotkey.
I hope to expand upon that discussion and move it into its own section once I have more information and support - so I will be accumulating replays as people send them, and when I get back to playing in a few days I will create some of my own replays. Send me phoenix vs. terran replays if you have them ! (+++ if the replay also shows stalker harass - but its ok if it doesn't.)
Phoenix stalker is no new thing unfortunately :< I went phoenix/zealots (before tc upgrades) then phoenix/stalkers because I saw some other Protoss doing it vs me.
And people using this strategy is kind of obvious isn't it :D This is TL the nr1 sc2 site for the western people Posting something here will come into ladder games quite quickly if it is successful then you'll only see this coming more and more.
On August 06 2010 17:34 shannn wrote: Phoenix stalker is no new thing unfortunately :< I went phoenix/zealots (before tc upgrades) then phoenix/stalkers because I saw some other Protoss doing it vs me.
And people using this strategy is kind of obvious isn't it :D This is TL the nr1 sc2 site for the western people Posting something here will come into ladder games quite quickly if it is successful then you'll only see this coming more and more.
Heh, point taken.
Still, although phoenix-stalker may not be 'new' to the greater SC2 community, it seems like anyone going stalker-void ray should make themselves familiar with it to give themselves the flexibility to adapt to a 1-1-1 build (or any other T build, for that matter) that is done in anticipation of void rays presenting themselves on the battlefield.
Myself, I have virtually no experience with phoenixes in the PvT matchup, so in order to write on it with any measure of credibility I hope to support the pro-phoenix feedback I have received with some replays, as well as get some replays illustrating the weaknesses of a phoenix variation.
That said, if the phoenix zealot variation you mentioned works better than phoenix stalker against the 1-1-1 build, I'd love to include that too! Easy enough to transition out of stalkers into zealots.
Void rays give diminishing returns fairly quickly at least for someone like me without the multitask to properly control them separately and keep them charged, alive, and shooting what they should be.
In addition they cost an awful lot and are pretty slow (both in build time and travel time). I've adapted into building 1 void ray as it already forces plenty of response and then phoenix and more gateway units since phoenix are cheaper (after 180s you can have 4 phoenix which cost 600m 400g 8s or 3 void rays which cost 750m 450g 9s) easier to control, quicker to reinforce, and bolster everything you're doing. They're also much better at dealing with a marine viking response to your void rays.
Before this I had several games where the terran player would just marine tank push me and let my void rays destroy his main as there were too many marines to engage his ball with my void rays. My army was just too small and seige + scan deals with FF at my ramp pretty quickly as the sentries die right before or after casting. However with 1 vr into phoenix when he tries this you have more stuff, your void ray can still trash his main and you can take most or all of his tanks out of the initial seconds of the fight which lets stalker sentry zealot destroy marines, especially if you managed to sneak a +1 armor and got a guardian shield off.
okay im a noob just got the game and somehow scraped by into plat, and i just tried this build and got owned so hard. I don't know what i did wrong but the terran just went mass marauders with concussive shot and he out numbered my stalkers so bad that even if he didn't slow them down and pick them off i would have lost. I got out my void ray, but by that time i was in my own base defending and he had enough marines to pick it off and then it was game over. What should I do?
EDIT i played this on steppes of war, is that a bad map to do it on? but a few posts above mine a terran player posted his strat against it, which is pretty much it seems like what just happened to me and i couldn't stop it.
I watched most reps since im hurting vs t atm and wanted to try the void raid variant. I have one qualm, however. You say its a neat way to go into mid game and expo and whatnot. However I only saw one rep in which you expoed(Steppes of War), and I think it was due to the t taking your gas and you going 3 gate instead. All others seem to you killing the terran outwright or the strat being stopped, so isnt this more like an all in?
Edit: Also I would like you to reply to tomtaieot(first poster in this page), since that opening is quite strong/common among diamond players nowadays and thats pretty much what im losing to every time.
I've been using this build all day, and have only lost twice. Once the guy went all in marauders, which seems to counter it (vs me atleast). and the other time the guy snuck hellions into the back of my base killing most of my probes or I would have won. This is my favorite PvT build already because it lets me be on the offensive and I love void rays
The VR build is pretty much the only way to contain a Terran and make them spend a lot on turrets, splitting up their army to defend multiple locations. It's like harassing mutalisks on steroids.
If they mass vikings its fine, shoot and scoot, they can't be everywhere, vikings are slow. Forcing marine stim to chase is also good, as it weakens them for your follow up ground forces. I don't like to rely so much on a single unit but its pretty much the only strat with reasonable success vs T. Gateway units (and immortals) are no match for stim marines/rauders with tanks.
The other option vs T is HT for feedback n storms.
What sucks is the tech tree. You are kinda forced to have an observer regardless of which tech you pick.
I watched most reps since im hurting vs t atm and wanted to try the void raid variant. I have one qualm, however. You say its a neat way to go into mid game and expo and whatnot. However I only saw one rep in which you expoed(Steppes of War), and I think it was due to the t taking your gas and you going 3 gate instead. All others seem to you killing the terran outwright or the strat being stopped, so isnt this more like an all in?
Edit: Also I would like you to reply to tomtaieot(first poster in this page), since that opening is quite strong/common among diamond players nowadays and thats pretty much what im losing to every time.
It is definitely possible to play this strategy like an all-in strategy which is why I try to emphasize harassing cautiously with the intension of not losing troops. Unfortunately most of my games have tended to end earlier rather than later which is less than ideal for educational purposes. However, you'll notice that on both steppes of war replays, and on the desert oasis replay, I do save enough minerals to get my expansion while keeping the pressure on.
That said, it feels a lot less all-in if more sentries and zealots are mixed in to the gateway composition after the initial harass. Personally, now that I'm back from vacation, I'm going to be experimenting with different gateway compositions - and phoenixes - to see if I can improve the feel of the strategy.
With regards to Tomtaietot's strategy, sending a reaper against a fast stalker build - and then going delayed (after reaper) mass marauder against an early void-ray timing, seems like a terrible idea to me. I discuss reapers in the "weaknesses" section of the guide if you're interested. I think Tomtaietot over-estimates the effectiveness of temporarily delaying 1 stalker for the time/resource cost of having to build a reaper, but I won't go into any specific discussion about Tomtaietot's build unless I am provided with a replay that will allow us to gauge timings, etc. If you want to watch a replay exhibiting reapers, my opponent in one of the steppes of war replays tries a later-supply reaper harass after I slightly delay his barracks, much as Tomtaietot suggests he would do. I have 4 stalkers out before the reaper reaches my base...
Gnial, fantastic build and strategy. I'm just getting into sc2, played a lot of wc3 and messed around in brood war, however i'm finding sc2 is a big step up in terms of the quality of players on ladder. Got dumped in silver after placements, and have been using this strategy in PvT with great success and now top of my division, hoping for promotion soon! I basically attribute all my recent PvT wins to you and this thread.
Probably already mentioned, but I have also found if they are going very marauder heavy early, getting some sentries for FFing your ramp is a good way to buy time to get your VRs into position or produce more.
I gave it a try when someone did it against me (TvP). Dual gateway for stalker rush into void ray... it's pretty fun to play and damn effictive/safe. I mean... I won like 10 PvT in a row with this against plat/diamond players in custom game and I only played like 7-8 times with protoss before that xD.
Congrats on the wins Its always good to hear some positive feedback ^^.
@ SwaY
As luck would have it, the one PvT I played today went into the late game, so I've posted the replay (#7 Gnial vs. Roam) in the replay wins section. Hope it helps.
Honestly the past 8 Terran I have played just bunker regardless, even when I single gate, so it kind of makes the rush for 2 stalkers a little more pointless - at least I think.
I think people misunderstand about this build. First, this is a polyvalent but hard build to play. You need to be able to multitask and apprehend the enemy strategy quickly (I won't talk about macro, you NEED to have a good macro no matter what) so that you can see what will be the best : continue to poke the enemy with stalkers and adding VRs laters, going for a wall death outright by sniping the marines with Stalkers and your VRs very close, attacking the wall with stalkers while having VRs going for the economy, etc...
There are plenty of things you can do with this strategy. Be innovative, surprise a Terran. The only way you can win is by knowing the risks, because this is a very polyvalent strategy, but hard to master.
Hi everyone, I have a question about the dual stalker opening. Everything seems to be pretty standard up until after the 14 gas. Do you start saving chronoboost right after your second chrono? More importantly, when do you resume, or know to resume probe production?
On August 11 2010 03:28 wongster wrote: Hi everyone, I have a question about the dual stalker opening. Everything seems to be pretty standard up until after the 14 gas. Do you start saving chronoboost right after your second chrono? More importantly, when do you resume, or know to resume probe production?
I start saving after the second chronoboost so that I can chrono out the first 4 stalkers, or after chronoing out the first 2 stalkers I can chrono something else like warp gate or void rays.
As for when to resume probe production, you resume probe production once you start making the 2 stalkers. You are trying to have exactly 250 minerals and 100 gas when your cyber core and second gateway finish in order to build the 2 stalkers simultaneously, so you want to make as many probes as you can beforehand without overspending. Then you can resume after those first 2 stalkers have entered production.
On August 11 2010 03:28 wongster wrote: Hi everyone, I have a question about the dual stalker opening. Everything seems to be pretty standard up until after the 14 gas. Do you start saving chronoboost right after your second chrono? More importantly, when do you resume, or know to resume probe production?
On August 03 2010 05:33 Jaeger wrote: 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
If you get a unfavorable split, build your buildings far from your minerals, or get harassed at all by an enemy worker you're probably going to have to cut a probe and build stalkers on 17. If you time it right your gateway core and 2nd pylon all finish together.
Having come up against this, as a terran, i found that my 2 rushed cloaked banshee is very effective against this. Early bunker prevents any real stalker action going up the ramp, and when my tank pops out that just stops any stalker harass cold, with 5-6 marines most toss will not send 1 vr alone in as theres too much chance of it dying and opting to wait for the 2nd vr. This allows me to get my 2nd banshee and cloak up (both will pop almost at the same time).
After ward it really becomes a micro war, terran will try and delay long enough to get vikings and have that 1 / 2 banshee destroy the toss mineral line, where as toss will try and pull the marines out of place so the stalkers can waltz into the base, its even more micro intensive if that viking pops. Also i find that if you are up against this, try to snipe the factory tech lab, it will make life inifinately easier for you if you dont let siege tech go up.
Hi, great strat, been trying it out recently with some success.
However, i have one question about the last game you posted against roam. Don't you think it would have been safer to just throw down a robo bay + another robo fac and pump out colossi and switch to stalkers+zlots (blink stalkers to snipe the vikings) from your gates instead of the HT in the late game? i just seems like u put in countless money into the high templars and a good portion of them were not used to their full potential (i.e. getting stormed, getting sniped off, etc)..... and i have a feeling that colossi+stalkers would have destroyed that army comp
You should really experiment more with phoenixes during your mid-game tech. They are awesome mid-game if they try to supplement their bioball with tanks, gives you complete map control, are great scouts, shuts down any dropship shenanigans, and can continue to be a great harassing unit even with vikings on the field. In most cases you probably do need that initial void ray first b/c of the threat of a marauder pushes, but once you transition out of voids mid-game due to vikings or turrets or whatever phoenixes really start to shine.
Also if T goes heavy mech with mostly vikings as AA, a switch to mass speed rays can be instant GG. Basically a stargate opening is very viable vs T, especially on particular maps.
There must be quite a high amount of micro involved at the ramp, since the stalkers have to actually walk uphill to snipe units and this walking up and down of the ramp takes time and disadvantages the toss. Won't the strategy become useless the moment marauders have researched Concussive Shells?
The only map I can currently think of which favours P for this is Kulas, because there is no ramp on that map. In fact I've been abusing 3 gate stalkers on that map to pressure terrans easily simply because of the lack of ramp and this I'm able to snipe off the tech lab without losing units.
On August 12 2010 02:29 divinesage wrote: There must be quite a high amount of micro involved at the ramp, since the stalkers have to actually walk uphill to snipe units and this walking up and down of the ramp takes time and disadvantages the toss. Won't the strategy become useless the moment marauders have researched Concussive Shells?
The only map I can currently think of which favours P for this is Kulas, because there is no ramp on that map. In fact I've been abusing 3 gate stalkers on that map to pressure terrans easily simply because of the lack of ramp and this I'm able to snipe off the tech lab without losing units.
You scouting probe should be able to tell if he's going tech lab first before marine, and while you're on the way to his base with your stalkers you'll get to see either a reaper or a marauder. If he does something insanely fast like 10rax marauder, concussive, marauder you won't be able to do any direct damage, but you'll be in a pretty good shape with a good start on your tech and production you can just delay your next round of gateway units and warp gate research and get your second gas and stargate asap followed by a sentry to buy time if he pushes. If he does a more standard 12rax marauder first on close positions you should be able to hit him before concussive shells are done. In either event send a probe up the ramp first to see if he has shells and take the first volley of shots for your stalkers.
Tried it on few diamond players (I'm plat), and works great. As long as you harass them first before they harass you(send a stalk to their ramp before they get in ur base with reaper or marauder), they'll stay in their base and mass maraud. Meanwhile you just voidray and gg.
Having come up against this, as a terran, i found that my 2 rushed cloaked banshee is very effective against this. Early bunker prevents any real stalker action going up the ramp, and when my tank pops out that just stops any stalker harass cold, with 5-6 marines most toss will not send 1 vr alone in as theres too much chance of it dying and opting to wait for the 2nd vr. This allows me to get my 2nd banshee and cloak up (both will pop almost at the same time).
After ward it really becomes a micro war, terran will try and delay long enough to get vikings and have that 1 / 2 banshee destroy the toss mineral line, where as toss will try and pull the marines out of place so the stalkers can waltz into the base, its even more micro intensive if that viking pops. Also i find that if you are up against this, try to snipe the factory tech lab, it will make life inifinately easier for you if you dont let siege tech go up.
I've only gone against the double banshee build a couple of times - but both times were almost exactly as you've described it. Good breakdown of the banshee vs stalker-void builds. However, I don't think 5-6 marines is always enough (it wasn't in either of the games I played). The void ray can abuse any cliffs that have stalkers underneath to whittle down the marines below the ideal amount. On levels like steppes of war or blistering sands, with a very small cliff near the ramp, you can probably get away with making fewer marines if your bunker and production buildings are placed really well. You would probably want to play your marine count a little bit safer on maps like metalopolis or desert oasis though.
Hi, great strat, been trying it out recently with some success.
However, i have one question about the last game you posted against roam. Don't you think it would have been safer to just throw down a robo bay + another robo fac and pump out colossi and switch to stalkers+zlots (blink stalkers to snipe the vikings) from your gates instead of the HT in the late game? i just seems like u put in countless money into the high templars and a good portion of them were not used to their full potential (i.e. getting stormed, getting sniped off, etc)..... and i have a feeling that colossi+stalkers would have destroyed that army comp
My standing army would be stronger with the colossi, especially if he stayed primarily on MMM. However, it would be much less mobile. It probably just comes down to personal preference. I LOVE having a mobility advantage over my opponent - particularly terran which tends to have the stronger standing army. If I throw down pylons everywhere I can expand almost anywhere I want, and in order for him to attack he has to deal with wave after wave of templar/storms on the attack route. A pure gateway composition definitely has a disadvantage over colossi in those big scrimishes though, so perhaps I should try to incorporate both into the late game - especially since they both use the same weapon and armor upgrades.
Go colossi if it makes sense - I think they would have worked in the game against roam.
The proxy pylon was a very cute tactic - that makes me think, on maps with big cliffs like desert oasis or metalopolis, it could be great to build a pylon below the cliff and use the void ray to give vision to warp in up top, with virtually the same effect. I'll add that weapon to my PvT arsenal
P.S. I added your replay to the replays section. Thanks for the contribution
You should really experiment more with phoenixes during your mid-game tech. They are awesome mid-game if they try to supplement their bioball with tanks, gives you complete map control, are great scouts, shuts down any dropship shenanigans, and can continue to be a great harassing unit even with vikings on the field. In most cases you probably do need that initial void ray first b/c of the threat of a marauder pushes, but once you transition out of voids mid-game due to vikings or turrets or whatever phoenixes really start to shine.
Also if T goes heavy mech with mostly vikings as AA, a switch to mass speed rays can be instant GG. Basically a stargate opening is very viable vs T, especially on particular maps.
Yeah, I'm going to give it a shot in some of my future PvT's - I keep getting matched up against zerg and protoss on the ladder recently so I haven't been able to try many of the new ideas that have been suggested :/
If you have any replays you'd like to share in which you do the stalker into phoenix (or stalker into void ray - phoenix) PM me and hopefully I can get them from you
JHancho invited me to do some commentaries on the build, so I've posted the links up in a new section just above the replays section called "Commentated Replays". Hope you all enjoy.
This strategy is almost brilliant. I had quite some problems with PvT especially vs early marauder push or mm + ghost.
I think I won like 7-8 games vs T in a Row using it (I'm now rank ~20 diamond btw).
there are so many cool aspects to it I cant even mention them all.
Foremost: it's really fun to play, and it scales with the amount of micro u put into it.
then the constant harrassment always lets you see what units he has and opens up a different action-oriented kind of game, with few pauses between the skirmishes.
if he goes mass marines you need a LOT of micro and attention but with stalker sentries u should be good, in case of marauders you can just rape his base. tanks usually mean he doesnt have enough marines so you can pick em off with voids.
And making your enemy move his marines back and forth between his mineral line (because you attack his gas) and the front (because of the stalkers), is simply awesome :D
something I like to do is get the +1 air attack at the core while the first or second void is being produced. its just 100-100, much cheaper than another void ray and a charged void ray with +1 does INSANE damage. really. 2 of them charged on the refinery can basically kill incoming marines as quickly as they come in (well almost;)
and even if u dont win instantly, ull have time to expand or get colossi/ HT.
funny thing is in two games i stopped pressuring for a moment and in both games the terran used the time to drop me with shuttles, and we effectively did a base trade. both games the terran built mostly marines so the voids couldn't do as much dmg before he got his medivacs. but with voids you'll always kill buildings faster
I just ran into a terran that was expecting this build... He was like 'oh what, a voidray coming now?' LOL so I was shit my plan is exposed. So I quickly transitioned into DT to buy time for storm and rolled him So many people use this build. All my toss friends do. All of them. Every time.
Sometimes it doesn't even matter if he's expecting it, there's just pressure all through the early game that he HAS to answer or be defeated. With the missile turret strategy, you're even reducing the size of the MMM ball because he has to drop several to cut down on the 1-2 void harass.
Then the transition into chargelots + HT (Which I've always preferred against MMM builds) comes with enough time to get the tech and enough to counter.
Some fun facts about void rays: * Void Rays have 150 hp and 100 shield, no armor. * It takes 6 seconds and 50 output dmg to fully charge up. * It takes 5 seconds and no output dmg to charge down. * 3 marines do 108-126 dmg during 6 seconds of charging up. * It takes then 3+3+3 seconds to kill all 3 marines thus taking additional 114-132 dmg (60+36+18 = 114) * Without charging up the proccess would take 16 seconds and ~225 dmg (about the same amount).
Conclusion: * Do not engage vs 3 or more marines when not charged up!
Some fun facts about void rays: * Void Rays have 150 hp and 100 shield, no armor. * It takes 50 dmg and 6 second to fully charge up. * It takes 5 seconds to charge down. * 3 marines do 108-126 dmg during 6 seconds of charging up * it takes then 3+3+3 seconds to kill all 3 marines thus taking additional 114-132 dmg (60+36+18 = 114) *without charging up the proccess would take 16 seconds and ~225 dmg (about the same amount)
Conclusion: * Do not engage vs 3 or more marines when not charged up!
You forget that the void ray does in fact deal damage while it is charging.
Also, if the marines are hurt already from something such as stalkers harass, they can be killed by void rays even faster.
In addition, it is possible to position your void ray so not all the marines can fire at the same time.
You could also try fazing, to ~double your uncharged (or charged) damage to kill marines faster. I Don't think they've patched that yet.
And finally, you can withdraw with the void ray before it takes hull damage, while still damaging/killing marines.
Conclusion:
Its cool to know that if you directly attack 3 healthy marines, you could be in trouble. I would have figured the number was higher than that. But if you take extra measures against those marines, 1 void ray can kill A LOT of them.
Yeah, I will when I find the time to sit down with it. There is a lot of information that needs to be reorganized and restructured to make it suitable for liquipedia
I can honestly say this strategy is genius, it worked like a charm for me. If anyone wants to see replays, just say so here and ill post some of 2/2 games winning in a row against slightly favored opponents
EDIT: i played 3 but only saved 2 EFFF. haha but if you still wanna see some and see how it could be done possibly just let me know
I just tried this strategy out, seems like the T gets way too many marauders out really fast, which totally rape my stalkers. Just pumping pure MM completely rolls whatever units I have, since void rays are pretty expensive...
teh leet newb United States. August 18 2010 11:57. Posts 1942 PM Profile Blog Quote # I just tried this strategy out, seems like the T gets way too many marauders out really fast, which totally rape my stalkers. Just pumping pure MM completely rolls whatever units I have, since void rays are pretty expensive...
If by the time your stalkers get there he has more than 1 marauders it means either you did the build wrong, or T is not going 1/1/1 which makes the build a bit worse. however even if you see mass marauders all you need to do is rush for the void rays instead of continuing the stalker harass
Excellent OP. I have been trying to mimick this build after watching it on JHancho's youtube vids but have failed miserably. Very glad I was able to find it here after being destroyed yesterday for transitioning poorly and too late.
Just wanted to chime in on some of the subtleties of going stalker voids:
-Since I usually do 1 or 2 gate (depending on early pressure) into stargate then toss down my 3rd gateway after stargate, once void production stops (I usually make only 2-3 voids if I micro well and don't get any killed) I toss down my 4th gateway as now I'll be able to afford constant 4-gate production.
-Due to your unit production you will tend to build an excess of minerals which you will want to utilize. Expanding of course is one of the best ways to use your excess minerals, but another great option if you are transitioning into blink stalkers in an attempt to end the game right there is to drop a proxy pylon and warp zealots into their main.
-The most important thing to keep in mind is how your opponent is reacting. I've found if they go marine-ghost or quick banshees I can usually finish them off w/ blink stalkers w/ proxy zealots. Terrans are really put in a bind on what starport units to make if you are effective with your harass.
-I recommend opening w/ phoenixes that aren't very void/blink-friendly like SoW (which is also tank-friendly which phoenixes are great against). If you're cross positions on large maps I also tend to open w/ phoenix open as the travel distance makes it harder to hit those crucial timing windows.
-Carriers I've found can be a surprisingly effective transition if you see early tanks. A few tanks and vikings can completely nullify your harass but it allows you to ample time to toss down an expo and tech switch to carriers. Carriers supported by blink stalkers is potent combination. Just make sure he's not going BC's (i.e. if you spot more than 1 starport, esp both w/ tech labs).
i just completely dominated a terran with this strategy, THANK GOD (you)
What's interesting though was this player decided not to wall in but i just transitioned the harass to be inside of his base and when he got marauders i easily transitioned to voids
...and here I thought I came up with it on my own...
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These are 2 games where the fast vr won the game for me. Other times, while it didn't win the game immediately, it did stall them. They can't push out because: A: I could decimate their undefended base very quickly with a single charged vr. B: A VR supporting my troops means that I just need to finish off the marines to be able to hold the push.
This gives me extra time to expand.
The main weakness I see to this is if they know/spot the starport, they can prepare, limitting your harrass options.
On August 28 2010 07:46 Surrealz wrote: nadagast is using this exact strategy against damadar in the MLG stream on steppes!
Haha, so cool.
On August 29 2010 03:21 Dogsi wrote: The main weakness I see to this is if they know/spot the starport, they can prepare, limitting your harrass options.
Its true that it limits your harass options - but the very fact that they have to prepare for it can give you an edge, as it skews their composition towards marines and can force turrets. The way I play this build, I don't rely on suprising them with void rays. Instead, I use those void rays to force the Terran player to do certain things. If I do suprise them its often an auto-win, but since I can anticipate the things that are effective against void-ray stalker, I can prepare to beat that composition later in the game.
Players like Trump, once they see stargate tech, immediately get marines and turrets out, and fast tech to cloak banshee. In this instance, you can just make a phoenix after the void ray, drop a forge, a cannon or 2, a robotics facility for the obs, warp in a couple sentries, and start getting armor upgrades. You will already have the stalkers/gateways out for the anti-air and anti-marine attack, the void ray can keep threatening the base and possibly force an investment in vikings along with the turrets, and a phoenix will let you scout and really help deal with any banshee play. You can sit back fairly comfortably, and possibly even expand, since there really isn't all that much that they can do to you.
In this instance you are giving yourself an advantage for the mid-game since you are forcing 1-1-1 with cloak research, which later on zealot/templar+observer is strong against, and in the mean time are getting your upgrade advantage.
This is just one scenario, based on possible tendencies your opponent may have, so it obviously won't work across all skill levels and in all situations - but it shows the way you want to think about this build, and builds in general. Sure, this is a build that can be used to all-in instant-win against many players, but if you play it as such it will have its hard counters (such as being scouted). However, it is very easy to transition out of this build since it gets you warp gates, gives you scouting, and almost certainly gives you on-going aggression options.
Cant seem to beat a simple 3 barracks marauder/marines all in - I usually get pushed back and then eventually get overrun. You see it alot in gold and lower since its the easiest thing to make and its simply not working using this build =(
On August 31 2010 06:18 simpliztic wrote: Cant seem to beat a simple 3 barracks marauder/marines all in - I usually get pushed back and then eventually get overrun. You see it alot in gold and lower since its the easiest thing to make and its simply not working using this build =(
are you using force field at your ramp? if they try to leave their base early often you can just force field off a couple times while you do some good damage with the void ray(s). because of this, they often have to leave some marines at their base or turret up which means the army they're pushing with is smaller, or at least thats how it has worked in my experience.
On August 31 2010 06:18 simpliztic wrote: Cant seem to beat a simple 3 barracks marauder/marines all in - I usually get pushed back and then eventually get overrun. You see it alot in gold and lower since its the easiest thing to make and its simply not working using this build =(
are you using force field at your ramp? if they try to leave their base early often you can just force field off a couple times while you do some good damage with the void ray(s). because of this, they often have to leave some marines at their base or turret up which means the army they're pushing with is smaller, or at least thats how it has worked in my experience.
Yeah, simpliztic, perhaps if you posted a replay I could give it a quick glimps and see what is up. It may just be a timing issue or an over-commitment towards void rays and/or stalkers or, well, I suppose it could be a million things.
If I scout the 2 Stalker opening, It's easily beatable with a 3 rax MM opening. P have to invest to many resources into Void Rays and I can have around 8 Rauders and 10 Marines before you can get a void ray out.
On August 31 2010 09:19 Homerclese wrote: If I scout the 2 Stalker opening, It's easily beatable with a 3 rax MM opening. P have to invest to many resources into Void Rays and I can have around 8 Rauders and 10 Marines before you can get a void ray out.
a 1/1/1 would be the biggest hard counter imo.
"I can do X to counter your Y!"
Of course there will be counters, there is no unbeatable strat. But this strat is still a fantastic opening.
On August 31 2010 09:19 Homerclese wrote: If I scout the 2 Stalker opening, It's easily beatable with a 3 rax MM opening. P have to invest to many resources into Void Rays and I can have around 8 Rauders and 10 Marines before you can get a void ray out.
a 1/1/1 would be the biggest hard counter imo.
Post a replay if you can. I am certain that a void ray can come out before you have that many units, but it would still be useful to see exactly what your protoss opponent did to allow your push to work so well. Heck, if you have a great counter to this build, I'd love to post it in the OP in the replays section.
However, I have had conflicting experiences with your own against the 1-1-1 and 3-rax builds. I think you may just be playing opponents that have made big mistakes, or maybe you just aren't giving your own micro enough credit. My experience against MM 3-rax pushes is it comes down largely to a micro/terrain/composition battle - hopefully with the P having an advantage due to map control, positioning, harassing options, etc.
It deffinetly is a great strat, no question. Next time I come up against it I'll save the replay and post it.
It was only in Oceania Platinum, so I guess It could have been done better. I've only seen it 2-3 times and all of those times it must have been executed poorly, because the harrassing stalkers couldn't take the 2 maurauders and 2 marines I have out, and I push and either supply block him or take one of his gateways. It's GG after that. *EDIT* It wouldn't have been your exact build either. I can't really remember, but he didn't get to my base until around 5 mins, maybe a bit over, and got blink very early. was on scrap station as well so that didn't help.
Maybe 8 Rauders is a bit much. But Terran would have the upper hand when Protoss is going for Rays if Terran does a 3 rax, 2 tech 1 reactor opening. You'd be suprised how easy it is to Micro rauders with CS.
But as I said, Great strat, reading it has me worried as Terran that's for sure.
gonna have to try it out, sounds kinda similiar to what i do in PvT, with the whole constant pressure thing, except with being in the lower leagues, they cant handle it and i win before i can transition into anything else, but yeah :D.
Pretty good strategy. I've tried it and I seem to be loosing less terribly now :p One of my opponents after scouting this placed a bunker on the ramp, a few towers and went for two fast factories and armory. Got about 6 tanks, 2 thors and some marines, was pretty fast gg.
I dedicate my first post (joined in may this year) to thanking you for this build. Since I used it, I haven't lost to a single terran yet. The biggest problem I've had was probably forgetting to build the 2nd pylon or building it too late.
Just tired this. Plat level T didn't even scout but.... I walked up his ramp with a probe and both stalkers, killed a waiting reaper started on his tech lab, killed 2 marines, another 2 reapers, tech lab, a supply D, and he quit. I never even left his ramp.
I do a build very similar to this and one thing that REALLY helps out and makes this sooooooo powerful and imo is very important is to bring a probe along with your void ray when it pops out so that you can build a pylon near the bottom of the terrans ramp. With said pylon you can charge up your voidray on your pylon (even as the pylon is building) so that it goes into battle with a full charge right away and just destroys terran. And obviously the pylon will allow you to get instant reinforcements as well. And don't worry about charging up your voidray and damaging your pylon... it'll just recharge its shields lol.
EDIT: And another thing that is great about this build is that it allows for a very easy transition into phoenix which can do wonders picking off ghosts, scouting, and lifting up tanks during large engagements.
another very important thing: Micro your voidray!!!! Voidrays will keep their charge for about 3 or 4 seconds so do not be afraid to disengage. If he chases your voidray with his marines then your stalkers will be getting a ton of free shots while he is moving and if he does not chase then the marines will target the stalkers (which have 1 armor so marines will be doing significantly less damage) in which case immediately start attacking with your voidray again.
Don't be afraid to micro stalkers either when they are damaged (this means pulling them back so fire is directed at other/more healthy stalkers then instantly attacking again with said stalker). With micro you can win the game with the first push by a landslide a lot of the time.
EDIT: and getting an early sentry while it does delay the voidray slightly will allow you to put up guardian shield which helps soooo much against marines. Marines do six damage, and if they are attacking stalkers then its down to 5 damage, and if you have guardian shield up its down to 3 damage! Thats half of what they normally do.
And also if you mis-micro your voidray and it dies the terran may get eager to do a counter push and with you sentry you can cast forcefield on his ramp as he goes down to split off a few units to pick off with your remaining stalkers.
I have been using this strategy with some really good success. I like to hide my stargate somewhere on the map near my opponents base, get out 2 stalkers to harass, then a void ray as quickly as possible. As I'm prodding with my stalkers I sent my Void Ray to the back of my opponents base and start attacking SCV's. It makes him choose whether to save his SCV's or his front wall. Oftentime my opponent doesn't even have enough marines to kill my VR and the game ends right there.
Some of the weaknesses are if you notice the Terran player is going Banshee's or a lot of early marines. When that happens you need to adapt and possibly tech switch really quick.
I jsut started using this strategy after getting schooled by marauders so hard it was pissing me off. While some games go better then others (mostly due to my macro skills not being the best) I would liek to share one game where it went very well. It was scrap station, and by the time my probe finally got over to scout he only had his barracks finished and was working on his factory. When I arrived, there was only one marine, he had to pull his SCVS of line to push my stalkers back (he surrounded and killed one of them) then my other two arrived to kill his marauder. He finished his airport just as my voidray arrived, he tried to move it and bring up his workers to repair it and my four stalkers started bombarding his workers. Anyways he was "favored" against me (I am a silver player but ranked 3rd in my division) and I weas able to beat him because of this build so give it a try!
A second game the dude did not make anything but marines so I tech switched and instead of making a starport made colossi. Worked liek a dream but it is the early pressure that really get the terrans. And terran players are so smug they dont even try to wall off because they think they will own me b/c I am a protoss. I wish i could see the look on their face when the two stalkers first arrive!
Gnial thanks for your post,it's really helped my game.
I know I've loads of areas I need to improve on but this one I need some guidance:
What factors do you consider when deciding when to transition from vr stalker to the next tech/expand? How do you ensure you will not get demolished by a counter while you are building buildings and not units?
I love it. But I'm alittle conserned with it, simply because I get the feeling that almost every game I play, I get matched vs someone doing the 3 rax rauder push.
On September 08 2010 08:13 Jayrod wrote: How many marines can a fully charged VR take out?
It's less how many it can take out, it's more how many are needed to keep it out. Any units kept in base to defend against Void Rays are functionally dead, since they can't do anything else.
The only unit that shoots back that you'd really want to go after in my opinion are Missile Turrets. If you micro right and split the damage on to the shields (just pull back so it targets the other one), 2 Void Rays can take down a Missile Turret with 0 damage to hull. Once full charged, 2 Void Rays can can take out Missile Turrets without taking any hull damage.
edit: nvm. Thought it over and you're pretty much only at 14 food (1 pylon, 1 gateway, 1 assimilator) once you scout there's no wall. Going from that into 4-gate or 2gate is effortless.
Still, something to consider. If there's no wall, this strat fails hard.
If there is no wall, this strat stays about the same, or gets even better.
A wall is necessary to prevent the stalkers just walking into the T base, and kiting the T units around until they get marauders + concussive.
When the void ray, or any units you warp into the opponents base using a pylon near their cliff, attack the back of their base - they will have to pull back their army, and you can just charge up their ramp with the rest.
White-ra does a void-ray + cliff pyon warp-in + front assault ALL THE TIME. I just watched a few replay packs of his over the last week (~40 games) and he probably does it in 1/2 of his PvT games. That play is stronger if there is no front wall, since you can join your main army with your void ray and warp-in units very quickly, or engage the T army from 2 sides without obstruction.
Wasn't the point of the Stalker harass to keep them from dying / getting any hull damage, though? In all the replays I've seen, you abused Protoss shield recharge in combination with the Terran wall to keep them from dying. Assuming Terran does a more agressive opening and doesn't wall, he'll have enough marines/marauders to at least armytrade you. The voids only come quite a while later. If the Stalkers are gone/reduced in numbers by that point I don't see how the VR harass will work too well.
Sort of a moot point though, since I have still to encounter a Terran that doesn't wall :p For laughs, I'll try it out later today.
Yeah, when I uploaded the replays I was hoping to make a very specific point about how good the two are together. Just like any build though, you have to be flexible, and white-ra has done a take on the build that seems to provide that flexibility.
I'll upload some replays once my internet gets installed at my new place this weekend, since his style is very effective. Essentially, he only makes 1 stalker, and then makes a whole bunch of zealots, and uses the extra gas to tech to void ray faster, uses cliff pylons to warp into the enemy base, and then get templars or colossi more quickly.
And rather than poking up the ramp with just stalkers, he pokes up with 1 zealot and 1 stalker usually, since he can make those units quickly with just 1 gateway, allowing him to get his second assimilator sooner and, ultimately, get his void ray out sooner.
On September 17 2010 00:20 DarQraven wrote: Wasn't the point of the Stalker harass to keep them from dying / getting any hull damage, though? In all the replays I've seen, you abused Protoss shield recharge in combination with the Terran wall to keep them from dying. Assuming Terran does a more agressive opening and doesn't wall, he'll have enough marines/marauders to at least armytrade you. The voids only come quite a while later. If the Stalkers are gone/reduced in numbers by that point I don't see how the VR harass will work too well.
Sort of a moot point though, since I have still to encounter a Terran that doesn't wall :p For laughs, I'll try it out later today.
If this was the case, wouldn't the appropriate Terran counter be to just lower his depots and charge out of the base at you into open ground?
I also believe that the Stalkers can still kite the marines around (even kill a few) before shields are gone and retreat with their superior speed until it recharges again. By then they will be pissed off and go for mass marauders = GG because at that time your void ray shows up =].
That's what happened on my non-wall game anyway....disclaimer: user experiences may vary.
My standard opening TvP is Hellion drop into bio drops. I make a quick bunker and supply depot at the front, effectively stopping the stalkers from getting in. Then when I drop my hellions to harrass the probe line I see the tech and am able to quickly get a vikings. Even if I don't see it, My bunker+scvs can hold the front while 5 marines fend off the VR until the viking pops out.
Quite simple this build is not a scary build in my opinion.
The followups are just as effective. Contain while expand with forcefields zealots and stalkers (By Zealots I mean Cannon Fodder for Stalkers). Void ray harass for longer duration into a chargelot/HT army. Hit the back with void rays while front still gets stalkered.
I actually found this strategy to be very weak against a composition that a high level friend of mine was using, mass marines and tanks. He was able to push the void rays off easily with stim then eventually seige up around my ramp and push up it with the marines. Turrets were up at his main base by then.
I still do the stalker opening pretty much every game but as soon as I get 4 out, I throw down a second gas and get up a twilight council immediately for charge. This lets me hold off virtually any mid-game push and easily transitions into an expansion with HTs or DTs. Its just a little more versatile, the void ray thing is nice but it gets countered too hard.
On September 17 2010 07:52 K Love wrote: Hey, its Hat from one of your videos
I actually found this strategy to be very weak against a composition that a high level friend of mine was using, mass marines and tanks. He was able to push the void rays off easily with stim then eventually seige up around my ramp and push up it with the marines. Turrets were up at his main base by then.
I still do the stalker opening pretty much every game but as soon as I get 4 out, I throw down a second gas and get up a twilight council immediately for charge. This lets me hold off virtually any mid-game push and easily transitions into an expansion with HTs or DTs. Its just a little more versatile, the void ray thing is nice but it gets countered too hard.
Yeah, marine-tank is quite strong. If you decide to commit to void ray after seeing all the marines, it definitely requires some intense void-ray harass and poking around, to at least hold some of their marines back and let you transition into something a little better.
Actually im really happy you posted this i did a very similar but much more crude version in my earlier days and it worked fine your version seems more refined and way more effective
@Gnial are you still opening like this versus Terrans or have you switched over to the KCDC expand? I am just curious, I like both builds personally, KCDC's feels safer to me, but stargate tech is always fun. Ive seen a ton of recent phoenix openers from top players, but I've had mixed success, mainly because im not a top player lol
On September 18 2010 00:32 jarude wrote: Hahaha... hey GNIAL!! I remember playing drunken cs with ya back in residence... guess who man. Lol.
Good to see this kind of strat, I definitely have the most trouble with terran and subsequent marauder abuse. Will try it out asap
ROFL ROFL. Yo!!!
We will have to game some time soon
By the way, I was really confused for a sec since the fellow who posted after you is also named J-rod (with a slight spelling variation).
On September 18 2010 01:45 Jayrod wrote: @Gnial are you still opening like this versus Terrans or have you switched over to the KCDC expand? I am just curious, I like both builds personally, KCDC's feels safer to me, but stargate tech is always fun. Ive seen a ton of recent phoenix openers from top players, but I've had mixed success, mainly because im not a top player lol
I kept running into people countering me without scouting me because they recognized me, so I started experimenting with phoenix play with some success.
However, I haven't been able to play for like, 3 weeks since I've been so busy...I've finally had time in the last week, but I haven't had internet at home...once it gets put in on Sunday I plan on experimenting a lot with robo-facility openings, fast obs, into whatever best destroys my T opponent
I will always keep this build in my back pocket though, and will probably keep using it on maps like Desert Oasis, and close-air positions on metalopolis and lost temple.
This is a great build! I've been doing Void Ray play for a while now but the Stalker harass seems alot better than what I used to do - just play defensively.
On September 18 2010 13:14 ckw wrote: Omg no!!!!! Why did you post this?!?! This strategy is very good, I have such a hard time with it as Zerg.
Lol, I think you are thinking of Antimage's PvZ build. This is primarily for PvT. I can't imagine early stalker harass being very good vs Z - what with the hard counter being...zerglings.
On September 18 2010 12:07 Gradius wrote: This is a great build! I've been doing Void Ray play for a while now but the Stalker harass seems alot better than what I used to do - just play defensively.
The Xel'Naga replay your fundamentals of the strategy were solid. During your stalker harass you got ahead, and later during your void ray harass you were WAAAAAAY ahead. I was watching like, "how could he possibly lose this, he has a lot more workers, an expansion, map control, his opponent can't leave his base", etc. You held him to his base for like, 12 or 14 minutes. But several things stopped you from leaping way ahead of your opponent, and it all comes down to one thing: MACRO!
During your stalker harass you stopped making probes and didn't get a stargate, and just accumulated resources. You could have improved your economy and your tech. Likewise, when you void ray harassed and you expanded, your nexuses sat there not making probes for several minutes. Not only that, but you didn't tech. You just void ray harassed and contained with a fixed number of units and accumulated resources. You had about 3/5ths of the number of probes you wanted to saturate your main and natural. You could have had thousands more resources if you had kept making probes. However, that wouldn't have even mattered since you had 1600 minerals and 600 gas when your opponent reached your base with his final push. You could have had an army large enough to obliterate his, even though you had handicapped yourself by significantly delaying your economy and tech, if you had tried to keep your resources down by building units and buildings. Your micro was great: you probably shouldn't have attacked the ramp when you had 2 bases to his 1, and you had a solid contain. You should have sat back and macro'd and tech'd up. But that miniscule decision pales in comparison to your lack of macro. Remember to macro! You even had your nexuses hotkey'd: make probes! And the "W" key lets you select your warp gates...build units!!! And you had probes hotkey'd too...make unit producing structures and tech!!!
For the lost temple replay, I don't know what exactly was happening there. You did a 3 stalker poke after the 6 minute mark, and didn't support your void rays with stalkers. If you aren't going to attack really, really quickly with those stalkers, don't open with the quick 2-gate opening. Keep making units for gods sake! (MACRO!!!!) And make sure that when you slow tech, or cut probes, to do something like a 2-gate opening, that you make sure you do it for a specific reason: namely, get that quick harass on.
So, you don't make unit producing or tech buildings even when you have the resources; you don't make units when you have the resources; and you don't make probes when you are busy elsewhere. You were slow to put probes on gas, etc etc... so all I have to say is be diligent about your macro. I thought you were situated to win the Xel'Naga game because of your huge economic advantage, and situated to win the lost temple game since you had void rays while he had only a couple of marines...but you didn't follow it up with good enough macro. Keep playing, it'll come to ya
As mid-high gold this strat is very effective. Although after training my macro with zerg Ive mostly used the void rays, as you would harass with mutas, from the back while my zeal / stalker army hits the front. Trying to hurt his eco more than his army. Works pretty nice, some players straight up leave when they see the void rays comming out, other have tried to base-race. Power to the rays! :-)
I've been using this build a lot (i was doing a variant of it myself until I came across this thread and went ah-hah). It works really well, even in diamond. The main issues are bunkers (or them simply not walling off or long rush distances.
But even in the latter two cases if they bunker up you can just poke and harass long enough to get an expo up. Usually if the terran is competent, I find them expanding while I do, and putting up a starport to get some vikings.
Another terran variant is they decide to stay on one base get 3-4 vikings and push out with a big mm blob. If you don't scout it you're susceptible to a pretty nasty timing attack before you can get extra gates pumping following your expansion.
This build is far from a panacea but it's a great weapon to have in your arsenal to put some pressure on terrans and to take the initiative. Something that is quite hard in this mu from the 5-10 minute window.
This build almost hard counters reaper openings, as far as I can tell. The fact that they've sacrificed a marine or so getting a reaper means that you can pretty much automatically crush their defense of about 1 marauder or 2 marines when you walk up their ramp.
On September 18 2010 06:28 Gnial wrote: I kept running into people countering me without scouting me because they recognized me, so I started experimenting with phoenix play with some success.
Yep. I get the same thing, although it's less of a big deal with the 1 gate FE. The stalker-void ray will be very strong against some openings and weaker against others whereas the FE doesn't have an obvious counter. I've found that some Terran players will recognize my name and blindly put down a bunker at my nat to salvage at the last second....and that's annoying. On the other hand, a lot of Terran players will assume I'm FEing and assume they can FE for free, and since my opening essentially involves a delayed 4-gate, I can just roll their undefended expo.
Very intersting. As a terran player, I haven't encountered this yet (fairly low ~1000 Dimond) but very curious on how I would do against this since I typically do 1/1/1 build with marine/helion only until I get my banshees/3rax out.
Let me know if anyone want to practice against Terran. PM me your info.
On September 18 2010 06:28 Gnial wrote: I kept running into people countering me without scouting me because they recognized me, so I started experimenting with phoenix play with some success.
Yep. I get the same thing, although it's less of a big deal with the 1 gate FE. The stalker-void ray will be very strong against some openings and weaker against others whereas the FE doesn't have an obvious counter. I've found that some Terran players will recognize my name and blindly put down a bunker at my nat to salvage at the last second....and that's annoying. On the other hand, a lot of Terran players will assume I'm FEing and assume they can FE for free, and since my opening essentially involves a delayed 4-gate, I can just roll their undefended expo.
Yeah, because it is very strong against some builds and weak against others, I don't commit until I see what they're doing (or at least get a feel for what they might go). My general game strat now is to do a gate-core opening, and then upon scouting I decide whether to go fast expand, void ray, blink stalkers, 4-gate, or whatever else. Fortunately, all of those builds open with gateway-cyber so it gives me a good amount of time to locate and analyze my opponent.
I know I said I was going to do it a while ago, but I didn't get around to it until today. I edited the OP with a new part in the Replays section called, Special Replays: White-Ra.
Did anyone try this against 'Very Hard' AI? Cuz they have like 4-5 marines when your dual stalkers reach their base and there's basically zero harassment that you can do.
Working on the strat on the AI a few times, it made me realize this strat probably doesn't work against certain terran openings: -If they don't wall off at ramp. Yur voidray would not have anything to charge. -If they go with 2rax pumping marines non-stop. Basically when your 2 stalkers reach their base, they'd have easily 4-5 marines.
I am hoping that I'm missing something here, cuz I seriously can't figure out how to do any harassing with this kind of opening style.
On October 15 2010 15:57 depthcharge101 wrote: Did anyone try this against 'Very Hard' AI? Cuz they have like 4-5 marines when your dual stalkers reach their base and there's basically zero harassment that you can do.
Working on the strat on the AI a few times, it made me realize this strat probably doesn't work against certain terran openings: -If they don't wall off at ramp. Yur voidray would not have anything to charge. -If they go with 2rax pumping marines non-stop. Basically when your 2 stalkers reach their base, they'd have easily 4-5 marines.
I am hoping that I'm missing something here, cuz I seriously can't figure out how to do any harassing with this kind of opening style.
I've been practicing against Very Hard AI w/ this opening in order to learn how to deal with a real T that opens this marine heavy. I will say that it IS doable, but not easy. I might even call it very hard
The key is to micro your stalkers extremely well. You can get them to chase you down the ramp and then take pot shots, pulling your hurt stalkers to the back while you get a void ray to eventually send to their mineral line. You won't win outright against them but you can do serious damage to their eco and win later.
While I've never faced a real oponent that opened quite like the VH AI does, I found it was great training on microing in general.
I'm trying this build now. Is it that good since 1.1.2 patch came out? I managed to get some win in custom games against players at the same level as mine (i'm curently in platinum league), but I find it hard to do, even in favorable situations. That's probably because I'm a micro noob. At least, practising this build might improve my micro a bit.
I'm trying this build now. Is it that good since 1.1.2 patch came out? I managed to get some win in custom games against players at the same level as mine (i'm curently in platinum league), but I find it hard to do, even in favorable situations. That's probably because I'm a micro noob. At least, practising this build might improve my micro a bit.
I cannot attest to this build based on personal experience since 1.1.2 came out - I just haven't had time to get a good laddering session going.
That said, stalker-void ray has been used successfully at least once in the GSL since 1.1.2 was released. I would take that as a much more powerful statement that this build still works - although it may be a bit trickier to pull off than before.
I'm trying this build now. Is it that good since 1.1.2 patch came out? I managed to get some win in custom games against players at the same level as mine (i'm curently in platinum league), but I find it hard to do, even in favorable situations. That's probably because I'm a micro noob. At least, practising this build might improve my micro a bit.
I cannot attest to this build based on personal experience since 1.1.2 came out - I just haven't had time to get a good laddering session going.
That said, stalker-void ray has been used successfully at least once in the GSL since 1.1.2 was released. I would take that as a much more powerful statement that this build still works - although it may be a bit trickier to pull off than before.
To be honest, I'd assume that you usually don't get the Void Ray to fully charge during your harassment unless the Terran player just simply can't stop you, in which case you've probably already won. With that in mind, I imagine the Void Ray harassment would be even more effective, since it'll kill things faster when uncharged than it used to.
I've been considering designing a build like this (in fact, I recently tried one without the Stalker harass, skewing my opponent's army toward lots of Marines, which are quite easy to deal with). Since it's already designed, I can just work on practicing it instead.
I'm trying this build now. Is it that good since 1.1.2 patch came out? I managed to get some win in custom games against players at the same level as mine (i'm curently in platinum league), but I find it hard to do, even in favorable situations. That's probably because I'm a micro noob. At least, practising this build might improve my micro a bit.
I cannot attest to this build based on personal experience since 1.1.2 came out - I just haven't had time to get a good laddering session going.
That said, stalker-void ray has been used successfully at least once in the GSL since 1.1.2 was released. I would take that as a much more powerful statement that this build still works - although it may be a bit trickier to pull off than before.
To be honest, I'd assume that you usually don't get the Void Ray to fully charge during your harassment unless the Terran player just simply can't stop you, in which case you've probably already won. With that in mind, I imagine the Void Ray harassment would be even more effective, since it'll kill things faster when uncharged than it used to.
I've been considering designing a build like this (in fact, I recently tried one without the Stalker harass, skewing my opponent's army toward lots of Marines, which are quite easy to deal with). Since it's already designed, I can just work on practicing it instead.
Well let us know how it works since i r very curious :-s
I'm trying this build now. Is it that good since 1.1.2 patch came out? I managed to get some win in custom games against players at the same level as mine (i'm curently in platinum league), but I find it hard to do, even in favorable situations. That's probably because I'm a micro noob. At least, practising this build might improve my micro a bit.
I cannot attest to this build based on personal experience since 1.1.2 came out - I just haven't had time to get a good laddering session going.
That said, stalker-void ray has been used successfully at least once in the GSL since 1.1.2 was released. I would take that as a much more powerful statement that this build still works - although it may be a bit trickier to pull off than before.
To be honest, I'd assume that you usually don't get the Void Ray to fully charge during your harassment unless the Terran player just simply can't stop you, in which case you've probably already won. With that in mind, I imagine the Void Ray harassment would be even more effective, since it'll kill things faster when uncharged than it used to.
I've been considering designing a build like this (in fact, I recently tried one without the Stalker harass, skewing my opponent's army toward lots of Marines, which are quite easy to deal with). Since it's already designed, I can just work on practicing it instead.
Well let us know how it works since i r very curious :-s
Haha, will do. I have a number of builds I'm practicing as Protoss, a couple of which I haven't yet perfected. I will most certainly keep this thread informed of my success/failure unless someone else does it first.
I'm trying this build now. Is it that good since 1.1.2 patch came out? I managed to get some win in custom games against players at the same level as mine (i'm curently in platinum league), but I find it hard to do, even in favorable situations. That's probably because I'm a micro noob. At least, practising this build might improve my micro a bit.
I cannot attest to this build based on personal experience since 1.1.2 came out - I just haven't had time to get a good laddering session going.
That said, stalker-void ray has been used successfully at least once in the GSL since 1.1.2 was released. I would take that as a much more powerful statement that this build still works - although it may be a bit trickier to pull off than before.
Yes, I heard it has been used in the GSL, but didn't see the replay yet. I'll continue to train this build, I already see improvement in my micro skills.
I'm starting to get better at this build. I think one of the keys here is to be ready to transition to something else at the right time.
I'm trying this build now. Is it that good since 1.1.2 patch came out? I managed to get some win in custom games against players at the same level as mine (i'm curently in platinum league), but I find it hard to do, even in favorable situations. That's probably because I'm a micro noob. At least, practising this build might improve my micro a bit.
I cannot attest to this build based on personal experience since 1.1.2 came out - I just haven't had time to get a good laddering session going.
That said, stalker-void ray has been used successfully at least once in the GSL since 1.1.2 was released. I would take that as a much more powerful statement that this build still works - although it may be a bit trickier to pull off than before.
To be honest, I'd assume that you usually don't get the Void Ray to fully charge during your harassment unless the Terran player just simply can't stop you, in which case you've probably already won. With that in mind, I imagine the Void Ray harassment would be even more effective, since it'll kill things faster when uncharged than it used to.
I've been considering designing a build like this (in fact, I recently tried one without the Stalker harass, skewing my opponent's army toward lots of Marines, which are quite easy to deal with). Since it's already designed, I can just work on practicing it instead.
Actually, a pretty standard strategy is to build a pylon near the enemy base which you use to warp units in, and to charge your void ray on the pylon before you attack. To that end, the build is worse than before.
If that's the case, then yeah, it can't be anything but worse. That's such a shame. I'm not sure one could make any real changes to improve it, either, as it's a pretty expensive build.
Well there are very very few cases where it's better. not charging and go strait to the combat might be better than before because of the timing. As delaying rax/depot building, the few seconds earned in the timing the first VR attacks may do the difference. and if it works well, it will be charged at about the same moment.
A Terran friend of mine was talking about a variation of this build that is all-in and revolves around a 3-4 warpgate timing push with about 2-3 void rays. The VRs are used to break through the terran wall (not quite as effective post-patch, but is still possible), while a large gorund army is amassed. If the terran is going for a FE or tech build, it should be pretty easy to force T to split up his army, and you can even bring one VR to the back of his base during the chaos to kill SCVs/force turrets/further split his army. I have yet to try this myself, but in theory it sounds like a very powerful timing push if executed properly.
If anyone wants to see this build done perfectly, check out game 1 between oGsMC against marinekingprime.we. Fast stalker into void ray into zealot into stalker, against the best marine-terran in the world (arguably).
edit. he did it perfectly as in not how I have it written, haha, but the far superior version I saw white-ra do a few months ago - replays are in there somewhere.
Question... Does anyone know how to do the void ray moving shot? The void ray is moving but still firing/charging the entire time, without stopping. When activated it works like phoenix-move. I do it maybe 25% of the time while chasing stuff.
Edit: Nvm I just found out. Simply point the void ray in right direction. It'll only do the moving shot when it's directly in line with the target.
On December 17 2010 02:07 SugarBear wrote: I'm curious to see if going gas first would get you faster stalkers.
You don't need fast gas to get stalkers, since you have to get a gateway and a cybercore first, and they cost only minerals.
Maybe I just macro really bad, but I've found that when you put down two gateways, pylons, chronoboost probes, and cyber core you end up having trouble getting enough gas for two stalkers and warp gates by the time your second gate finishes.
On December 17 2010 02:07 SugarBear wrote: I'm curious to see if going gas first would get you faster stalkers.
You don't need fast gas to get stalkers, since you have to get a gateway and a cybercore first, and they cost only minerals.
Maybe I just macro really bad, but I've found that when you put down two gateways, pylons, chronoboost probes, and cyber core you end up having trouble getting enough gas for two stalkers and warp gates by the time your second gate finishes.
You may be over-chronoboosting, haha. Check out some of the replays and maybe you can identify some slight differences in your build that may lead to your gas problem. Check out the build orders posted.
On a completely different note - anyone who wants to see this build used in a non-all-in way, that absolutely owns, watch the GSL3 finals.
This build seems awesome and theres a lot of effort put into it. I think one observer in the army is now ok though. The latest patch allows the observer to now be only 25/75 instead of 50/100, which is awesome! The void rays flux vanes are gone now but they can do 20% more damage to massive units now. That should help :D
EPT
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![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/keit/iwantyouforliquipedia.jpg)
Seems like once he gets even one out I can no longer touch his main.
