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On August 20 2010 11:51 whateversclever wrote:
Stalkers are 125/50
160 Life (80 HP/80 Shield)
1 Armor
10 (+4 Armored) damage
1.44 Cooldown
Vikings are 150/75
125 Life (125 HP)
0 Armor
12 (grounded) Damage
1.00 (grounded) Cooldown
Vikings really aren't that bad grounded compared to Stalkers. They do cost more, but not really that much especially considering just how dirt cheap Marines and Marauders are for their effectiveness. Vikings out DPS Stalkers against ALL units whether armored or not, airborne or not. Stalkers do have more life, a free point of armor, and shields though. Early in the game that's important, but late game it's pretty much irrelevant.
So, yeah. It's not like a Corruptor than only has it's one (or two I guess) uses. There really isn't too much of a drawback to building Vikings. I'm not saying it's game-breaking, but in my opinion they are far too strong. It's a marginal-cost in terms of army composition, but it essentially invalidates an absurd amount of options, namely late air (if you see some hit the field, it'd be kinda asking for it if you built air units) and Colossi. Not to mention with Reactors you can build them absurdly fast.
It's clearly outside of the scope of the thread, so I apologize for that, but to me it's the most absurd Terran unit.
Every toss player hates vikings for different reasons. Yes I can see why you think their ground is a little too good after their air is so nice. I personally dont mind anything other than the absurd range that their Air to Air missiles have. But yes, seeing the gas cost bumped up to 100 so at least they cost as much as phoenixes would be nice.
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On August 23 2010 01:26 Inori wrote:
Has anyone met and tried to adapt this build to the TLO new TvP build, which involved 2 port banshees + marines?
I did and not only you can get obs out by the time they get cloak asap(note that normally they do not get cloak at all in TLO build, at least not with first push), you also get to have warpgate AND nexus done two minutes before the push. And that's alot of stuff you can get there.
EDIT: in order for 3rax to be effective _before_ warpgate is done, they need to start extra raxes by cutting scvs and before you decide to get a nexus...though, if they get 2rines before tech lab, they can still get them after killing the probe. However, it does not change the fact that they need to start raxes before you start nexus, blindly - and on most maps(i'd argue all if micro is perfect) the push can be effectively stopped by pulling some probes to the fight.
Now if they come later (when warpgate finishes/a bit after) and come with stim and kite you forever with great micro, then it can get tough - I personally had to pull a number of probes and get a sentry, which is gas-intensive for this build and delays twilight council. If the map has a backdoor expo, and you don't know if they're 3raxing or getting a CC, it's somewhat of a coinflip. Not that games with later twilight vs no push/ no 1-2 sentry vs push are autolosses by any means, but the situation isn't optimal.
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It all seems great except the 14 gateway part.. If you cant 9 scout fast enough to see a reaper rush because its a 4 player map, you could be in trouble. Seconds matter vs fast reaper.
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this will not be able to defend against a marine/tank/raven/banshee push which usually hits around 10 mins. i'm looking at some of your replays now you have 7 zealots, 7 stalkers and an immortal at this point which gets rolled.
in the replay on scrap station T could have easily done this push after seeing your unit composition was mostly stalkers and you had a robo fac.
now your guide says that if you see a push you should cut probes to get 4 gates up asap, however how will you tell there is a push if you cannot scout? the only way would be to get an obs which means you have just wasted money on a robo fac and obs which are useless against an MTBR push as they don't research cloak. if you decide not to get a robo fac T punishes this with cloak.
i'd like this build to work but i feel like it would not adequately defend against a numerous amount of T strats.
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jisaeltl, with a variation of this build, by 10 minutes I have charge done, ~16zealots ~8 stalkers and a HT; also 4th and 5th gate finishing.
Also, against FE a ghost/marine(heavy)/maradeur(few)/2medivac ~09:30 force is much harder to stop than MTBR(but still possible and you're very ahead if you do).
I firmly believe that on most maps this build rolls 3rax variations, rolls helion drop, rolls tank/marine/raven, rolls banshee/marine or MTBR, etc - and is balanced against a terran FE(map with backdoor expo that you can't scout and have to play as against 1base tech until you get that obs in their base at ~08:30)..or a bit ahead if it's a map you can see it on and they do a really fast FE or 1rax 3maradeur -> CC.
EDIT: if you're on europe, we can get together and practice FE against all these 1base pushes - just PM me.
P.S. some time this weekend I'll probably make a replay package against many types of 1base terran attacks - just need more terran practice partners.
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On August 25 2010 17:01 jisaeltl wrote:
this will not be able to defend against a marine/tank/raven/banshee push which usually hits around 10 mins. i'm looking at some of your replays now you have 7 zealots, 7 stalkers and an immortal at this point which gets rolled.
in the replay on scrap station T could have easily done this push after seeing your unit composition was mostly stalkers and you had a robo fac.
now your guide says that if you see a push you should cut probes to get 4 gates up asap, however how will you tell there is a push if you cannot scout? the only way would be to get an obs which means you have just wasted money on a robo fac and obs which are useless against an MTBR push as they don't research cloak. if you decide not to get a robo fac T punishes this with cloak.
i'd like this build to work but i feel like it would not adequately defend against a numerous amount of T strats.
At ten minutes, the protoss will have already reaped the profit of their expansion and will have a larger army than a one-base protoss would have at the same point.
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^ did you even read my post? i even stated the units he had at ten minutes, which isn't enough to stop the push.
@ soulforged: your variation is similar to mine except that I also include phoenixes which completely demolish the push. i feel like getting stalkers is a waste because of the tank dps and PDD however they would negate any early hellion drop play. i start off using OP's build of the FE because MTBR pushes don't have early aggression. i also play on US sorry : (
i drop a robo fac (just for obs for cloak), stargate for exactly 2 phoenixes (banshee/raven) and twilight council for charge (rine/tank) and go off 4 gateways.
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jisaeltl, can you show a few replays of the terran's 10 minute timing push? The best defense I have with a variant of kcdc's FE build can get 14 zealots, 7 stalkers, 1, sentry, 1 observer, and charge finished at 10:00. Meanwhile my 4th and 5th gates are still building. On lost temple or delta quadrant, I'd cut 2 zealots to get a warp prism out for obvious reasons.
On a side note, in the few PvT replays I've saved, the scariest attack I've seen by terran at 10:00 is 13 marauders and 25 marines. This player stopped making scvs at 29 scvs and had 2 reactor/2 tech lab off of 1 base with stim pack done and concussive shells around 70% done.
EDIT: the 13 marauder 25 marine attack actually came closer to 10:30 since the terran has to camp outside your base while waiting for concussive shell to finish. Using Soulforged's modified version of the FE build, it is possible to have 11 stalkers, 16 zealots, and 1 sentry by that time. I tested the battle and the terran ball ended up with with 2 marauders left both in red health, so the protoss should be able to just barely survive by warping in more units during the fight and pulling probes.
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I'd say, for 10 minute pushes, it can be something like this:
3tank, ~14 rine + raven.
~14 rine + 5banshees.
~26 rine ~5maradeur ~1-2 ghost ~2medivacs.
Other variations I don't know. Does the marine/maradeur you mentioned lacks any tech?
Still, I get to beat all of that with charge/1HT/16zealots/8stalkers/about to warp in 5 more units directly into battle.
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This works, but if you add robo instead you can actually defend the 3 rax stim marauder breaks that will kill this with good micro.
It's all about getting your economy to kick in before the stim timing since your army is stronger than theirs before that timing.
And you have to cut probes to hold some early timings.
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I guess I'd call this strategy a 1.5 gate expand, these early expands work because the standard 3 rax has a window where it isn't producing many troops either because it's building addons.
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On August 25 2010 19:05 Piy wrote:
This works, but if you add robo instead you can actually defend the 3 rax stim marauder breaks that will kill this with good micro.
It's all about getting your economy to kick in before the stim timing since your army is stronger than theirs before that timing.
And you have to cut probes to hold some early timings.
I can defend 3rax stim maradeur off of 3gate, and it yields me a bit more units (for example, 1stalker 1immortal compared to 2stalker 1zealot isn't much significant, but i'd rather have 4stalker 2zealot instead of 2immortal 2stalker...and that's not counting the first warp that takes 10seconds of gate->warpgate transition and is ready when it finishes). While it's not as good as immortals against 3rax pure marauder, I believe there to be such an issue with a robo that fast:
1)You can start immortal on their moveout(if they're getting stim + concussive, otherwise they come earlier...but in such a way they'd come earlier than 3rd gate finishes, anyway), indeed - because robo build time is same as gateway time, and immortal with 2 chronos takes 36 seconds to finish.
2)But, if the attack doesn't come and they're teching - for example, a 4helion drop in main + 2helion backstab on nat a bit later, you'd be lacking stalkers to protect both bases. Even if you do not get immortal, seeing they aren't moving out, but start 2 gateways instead, they'd only be finishing when the helions arrive.
It _seems_ like a good alternative overall, though(I'd have to try it a bunch of times before I disregard or favor it), but main point of theory/calculations above is that you can still hold with
3gate->robo. And not cutting probes, at least not before you're chronoing two out of 3 gateways.
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Certain marauder pushes require the P to block/delay off with a FF IMO, I would like to see you prove me wrong here when you got an expansion up, meaning no ramp/small choke to block with FF.
Nevertheless, great OP I will definately check it out deeper when I can.
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On August 25 2010 18:33 iamke55 wrote:
EDIT: the 13 marauder 25 marine attack actually came closer to 10:30 since the terran has to camp outside your base while waiting for concussive shell to finish. Using Soulforged's modified version of the FE build, it is possible to have 11 stalkers, 16 zealots, and 1 sentry by that time. I tested the battle and the terran ball ended up with with 2 marauders left both in red health, so the protoss should be able to just barely survive by warping in more units during the fight and pulling probes.
In this case of no medivac, very late attack(for just marine/marauder), you could either not get archives at usual timing(obs should, probably, see 4rax no CC no fac a little bit before you start it...) and instead grab ~3-4 sentries to cut bio ball in half, or - if obs was too late(let's say, long air distance case), perhaps either get two sentries/zealot instead of HT(that i get for feedback)/stalker.
Or, perhaps, an archon to tank damage.
Also, for anything bio that lacks medivacs (and even if has medivacs but you've got feedback already), you should force stim waste before mayor engagement. It'd pull you ridiculously ahead in combat.
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Hi!
How can I economically force a stim against marauder-marine army without losing too much of an army?
I am playing this build and I am sometimes losing on Steppes of War or Blistering Sands.
Specific thing about these losses is that Terran abused the low ground position from which he could freely shoot at my mineral line or even Nexus itself. I am wondering whether expanding somewhere else would be a good idea. What should I do better to survive this? Please comment.
Replays:
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-142819.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-142825.jpg)
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On August 26 2010 06:07 Nah wrote:Hi! How can I economically force a stim against marauder-marine army without losing too much of an army? I am playing this build and I am sometimes losing on Steppes of War or Blistering Sands. Specific thing about these losses is that Terran abused the low ground position from which he could freely shoot at my mineral line or even Nexus itself. I am wondering whether expanding somewhere else would be a good idea. What should I do better to survive this? Please comment. Replays:
Can't watch the replays at work. I believe MM can't reach your nexus at the nat from the low ground, so I'm assuming you were facing tanks. While it's pretty easy to hold your nat against MM on Steppes, it's much more difficult if T plants tanks in that low ground beside your nat. Against tanks (and this is a general rule regardless of your opening), you need to make T fight for every inch. Know when T is moving out so that you can engage as close to his base as possible. Force him to siege his tanks and then retreat to buy time. If you give tanks a free path to that spot on Steppes, it's going to be really really tough to hold your nat. You really want to slow him down as much as possible while he advances with stalkers, while continuing to build your forces. When he's about to get to that money spot where he can shoot at your nat from the low ground, it's time to throw a bunch of zealots and immortals at him while he's on the move. With good macro and positioning, I'm usually able to stop the tanks from getting into position. Should T manage to get there, however, your best bet is to send some stalkers and immortals at the tanks from the high ground while sending your zealots around the path to hit from the low ground. Make sure your immortals soak up the first volley of tank fire with their hardened shields. Good luck to you. It's really hard to bust tanks when they're set up in a position. It's much better to try to catch them on the move.
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I cannot see this ever working vs a competent terran around 1k rating. I mean even a 2 gate robo expand gets totally rolled against a 3 gate unless it's close pos. Nevertheless I'll watch the replays.
Your first opponent who went 3 rax marauder were many levels below you. He supply blocked himself on 20 food, cut scvs for over 2 minutes in total in the game and he made 3 rax marauder which is probably the easiest build to counter with any opening as toss. Also he randomly made 3 turrets in his main after your expo was up.
Game 2: He was a bit better than the first guy but severely outmacroed by you. He was up on 800 mins on one base after the second fight at your nat. He had 3 rax with tech labs on at this point and 4 marauders against your 5 WGs. Clearly much worse of a player than you.
Game 3: He was obviously alot better at macro. But the timing of his attack was really badly planned. If he had waited for medivacs or attacked before ghosts with a more marine centered army I think that would be almost impossible to hold without templars or colossus. This game showed the strenght of the build though. It can be viable vs people who overcommit early on.
Note that I am very skeptical of this simply because I've been trying to FE for about 200 games as a protoss and mostly failed vs terrans with good timings.
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On August 26 2010 06:40 StarBrift wrote:
I cannot see this ever working vs a competent terran around 1k rating. I mean even a 2 gate robo expand gets totally rolled against a 3 gate unless it's close pos. Nevertheless I'll watch the replays.
Your first opponent who went 3 rax marauder were many levels below you. He supply blocked himself on 20 food, cut scvs for over 2 minutes in total in the game and he made 3 rax marauder which is probably the easiest build to counter with any opening as toss. Also he randomly made 3 turrets in his main after your expo was up.
Game 2: He was a bit better than the first guy but severely outmacroed by you. He was up on 800 mins on one base after the second fight at your nat. He had 3 rax with tech labs on at this point and 4 marauders against your 5 WGs. Clearly much worse of a player than you.
Game 3: He was obviously alot better at macro. But the timing of his attack was really badly planned. If he had waited for medivacs or attacked before ghosts with a more marine centered army I think that would be almost impossible to hold without templars or colossus. This game showed the strenght of the build though. It can be viable vs people who overcommit early on.
Note that I am very skeptical of this simply because I've been trying to FE for about 200 games as a protoss and mostly failed vs terrans with good timings.
This FE is actually stronger than later FEs because it abuses a timing window where terran is very very weak and stalkers are very strong.
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Meh, close inspection of the replays in the OP revealed exactly what I expected from seeing the idea -- the reason it works has nothing to do with the strength of the build (I actually think its just not viable once the Terrans reach a certain level where they are capable of competent early Rax aggression), but entirely due to the fact that the OP is just better than the Terrans he played. In each of them you were able to get a sizable early game advantage simply because you had better timing/micro than your opponent by a big margin when dealing with the very first units. From there an expansion is a great idea, but I definitely don't think its a build you can count on by any means. Well executed 3 Rax pushes with constant aggression are hard to hold off on one base (especially on like Blistering Sands!), before you even consider sinking 400 minerals into the expansion.
Technically there's a "window" while the Terran builds add-on's but it can be done way, way smoother than the ones demonstrated in the replays and this is before you consider the icky micro from the Terran (and sometimes macro, one of them was floating 400 minerals with one Rax up!) and I just don't see a chance to get an expansion up and running. Keep in mind an expansion only pays for itself once you're able to finish it, get it saturated, and you've had enough time to get up more production facilities and production cycles done in order to catch up to the one basing player, and that just isn't gonna happen inside this "window" whose existence I question.
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On August 26 2010 08:01 Keren wrote:
Meh, close inspection of the replays in the OP revealed exactly what I expected from seeing the idea -- the reason it works has nothing to do with the strength of the build (I actually think its just not viable once the Terrans reach a certain level where they are capable of competent early Rax aggression), but entirely due to the fact that the OP is just better than the Terrans he played. In each of them you were able to get a sizable early game advantage simply because you had better timing/micro than your opponent by a big margin when dealing with the very first units. From there an expansion is a great idea, but I definitely don't think its a build you can count on by any means. Well executed 3 Rax pushes with constant aggression are hard to hold off on one base (especially on like Blistering Sands!), before you even consider sinking 400 minerals into the expansion.
Technically there's a "window" while the Terran builds add-on's but it can be done way, way smoother than the ones demonstrated in the replays and this is before you consider the icky micro from the Terran (and sometimes macro, one of them was floating 400 minerals with one Rax up!) and I just don't see a chance to get an expansion up and running. Keep in mind an expansion only pays for itself once you're able to finish it, get it saturated, and you've had enough time to get up more production facilities and production cycles done in order to catch up to the one basing player, and that just isn't gonna happen inside this "window" whose existence I question.
I dunno man. If you don't want to try it, I can't make you, but I'll say that I keep refining it each time I play, and it seems really strong to me. It seems like every other PvP I play, the other guy asks me if I'm the guy who posted this thread and thanks me because this expansion timing has vastly improved his PvT. Perfect play from a Terran who knows it's coming might be able to break the expo, even with good Protoss micro, but I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that in the current metagame, if you work out the timings cleanly with this build, you will win you most PvT games you play in ladder.
Also, I beat a well-known Terran player with this build last night, so it definitely works against Terran players who know what they're at least some of the time.
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EPT
