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a protoss expo does pay off very quickly though. There is practically no build time with a probe and the nexus also gives 10 supply so effectively it's only 300 minerals. Because protoss saturates their main really quickly a maynard means quite a big increase in mining efficiency so that a nexus pays off real quickly.
Also the extra chronoboost can be used for warpgates and the like.
Because warpgates are so fast you can really spend your extra money quite quick with protoss, being behind on some production cycle's is at most a matter of one extra gateway.
I don't think this build is 100% safe though as some really aggresive semi allins from the terran can counter it imo it's still quite a good build. Canceling the nexus and just defending your ramp isn't the end of the world by the way against some crazy all-ins, with a sentry you can still defend the ramp quite well.
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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.
I believe the Game 2 you're mentioning was against lunasky. I've played him several times--he's pretty good. I don't know if he might have been off that game on his macro, but his rating is currently over 1000, so he knows how to play.... I'd guess that he's probably a good bit better than I am honestly.
Actually, that answers your question right there. That replay is against a competent Terran around a 1k rating....
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On August 24 2010 03:44 bobcat wrote:Show nested quote +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.
Vikings were 100 gas. They got buffed to 75 because Blizzard wanted to make them more viable against Mutas, if I recall correctly. They were originally only 125 minerals, though. Still, everything in this game is generally limited by gas, not minerals...
On topic, I've tried FE against Terran on and off, with no major successes. I've lost to timing pushes that come with marauders that hit before I have enough sentries to stop kiting, and to slightly later pushes that just have too many units for me to deal with that hit right before additional production buildings kick in. I've also beaten a Protoss I know is a better player than me as Terran with both sorts of timing pushes.
Unfortunately, is also seems like a Terran 1-rax FE build against this leaves them in a position to hit the Protoss with a timing push, although I haven't tested that extensively.
I'm not going to say that it's impossible, but it's definitely map dependent. LT is probably the most viable map to do this on, and Metalopolis and Xel'Naga Caverns the most difficult, because there is no way to trap Marauders with forcefield on those maps.
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Seems like a 4 rax no gas marine rush would absolutely rape an FE.
No? How would you hold it off?
Pardon me if it's already been brought up, the thread is like 12 pages long... But the marines will arrive before you even finish warp gate (pretty positive of that since your gateway is on 14), and in a large number.
Edit: And I'm aware that stalkers > marines, but there comes a point when you have so many marines that you can just chase the stalkers away. All you have to do with the marines is kill the expo and happily walk back to base, get gas, and expand yourself. Maybe throw down some bunkers.
Has this been tested against 14 gate FE?
Edit #2: He can even bring some scvs to just build a bunker next to your expo. You can hit a marine here and there with the stalker, but killing them all before they get to your base is completely unreasonable. One misstep with the stalker and it's going to lose it's shields from like one volley from the rines.
Edit #3: If he goes all-in with it, four more marines are arriving every 25 seconds... Can you kite to kill four marines that quickly with your initial few stalkers? It seems like no, to me, if he just puts the injured marines in the back. Either way, he only has to hold out until the bunker goes up.
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On August 26 2010 09:06 ltortoise wrote:
Seems like a 4 rax no gas marine rush would absolutely rape an FE.
No? How would you hold it off?
Pardon me if it's already been brought up, the thread is like 12 pages long... But the marines will arrive before you even finish warp gate (pretty positive of that since your gateway is on 14), and in a large number.
Well at this stage you have some Stalkers and you should be sitting them near the bottom of his ramp watching for attacks, or holding Xel'Naga towers. Stalkers are good at kiting Marines around, fleeing when Shields go down, recharging and coming back for more. You'll have to abuse them as they try to traverse the map. If they suffer too many casualties, they'll either fall back entirely, or be whittled down to the point that engaging with what meager Zealots you've rounded up can safely engage.
And if they got Stims, then they'll probably get antsy, pop Stims to chase after you and do some negligible shield damage, but waste a bunch of their own health, doing the job for you.
If you can't do any of that...you'll just basically die, but then, no build in PvT covers everything. You'll just have to accept the fact that no matter WHAT build you choose, you're going to lose to a wide variety of potential Terran openers.
Just find something that gives you a win rate > 50%.
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On August 26 2010 09:06 ltortoise wrote:
Seems like a 4 rax no gas marine rush would absolutely rape an FE.
No? How would you hold it off?
Pardon me if it's already been brought up, the thread is like 12 pages long... But the marines will arrive before you even finish warp gate (pretty positive of that since your gateway is on 14), and in a large number.
Edit: And I'm aware that stalkers > marines, but there comes a point when you have so many marines that you can just chase the stalkers away. All you have to do with the marines is kill the expo and happily walk back to base, get gas, and expand yourself. Maybe throw down some bunkers.
Has this been tested against 14 gate FE?
Edit #2: He can even bring some scvs to just build a bunker next to your expo. You can hit a marine here and there with the stalker, but killing them all before they get to your base is completely unreasonable. One misstep with the stalker and it's going to lose it's shields from like one volley from the rines.
Edit #3: If he goes all-in with it, four more marines are arriving every 25 seconds... Can you kite to kill four marines that quickly with your initial few stalkers? It seems like no, to me, if he just puts the injured marines in the back. Either way, he only has to hold out until the bunker goes up.
Just tried it, doesn't work. Good thought though.
I did win the first game but that was cause my friend seriously botched everything.
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On August 26 2010 09:44 Floophead_III wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2010 09:06 ltortoise wrote:
Seems like a 4 rax no gas marine rush would absolutely rape an FE.
No? How would you hold it off?
Pardon me if it's already been brought up, the thread is like 12 pages long... But the marines will arrive before you even finish warp gate (pretty positive of that since your gateway is on 14), and in a large number.
Edit: And I'm aware that stalkers > marines, but there comes a point when you have so many marines that you can just chase the stalkers away. All you have to do with the marines is kill the expo and happily walk back to base, get gas, and expand yourself. Maybe throw down some bunkers.
Has this been tested against 14 gate FE?
Edit #2: He can even bring some scvs to just build a bunker next to your expo. You can hit a marine here and there with the stalker, but killing them all before they get to your base is completely unreasonable. One misstep with the stalker and it's going to lose it's shields from like one volley from the rines.
Edit #3: If he goes all-in with it, four more marines are arriving every 25 seconds... Can you kite to kill four marines that quickly with your initial few stalkers? It seems like no, to me, if he just puts the injured marines in the back. Either way, he only has to hold out until the bunker goes up. Just tried it, doesn't work. Good thought though. I did win the first game but that was cause my friend seriously botched everything.
Replay please. I can't believe a 4 rax rine rush wouldn't be able to bust the expo of a 14 gate FE...at the least it should force a cancel on that nexus! I am beyond skeptical.
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On August 26 2010 09:06 ltortoise wrote:
Seems like a 4 rax no gas marine rush would absolutely rape an FE.
No? How would you hold it off?
Pardon me if it's already been brought up, the thread is like 12 pages long... But the marines will arrive before you even finish warp gate (pretty positive of that since your gateway is on 14), and in a large number.
Edit: And I'm aware that stalkers > marines, but there comes a point when you have so many marines that you can just chase the stalkers away. All you have to do with the marines is kill the expo and happily walk back to base, get gas, and expand yourself. Maybe throw down some bunkers.
Has this been tested against 14 gate FE?
Edit #2: He can even bring some scvs to just build a bunker next to your expo. You can hit a marine here and there with the stalker, but killing them all before they get to your base is completely unreasonable. One misstep with the stalker and it's going to lose it's shields from like one volley from the rines.
Edit #3: If he goes all-in with it, four more marines are arriving every 25 seconds... Can you kite to kill four marines that quickly with your initial few stalkers? It seems like no, to me, if he just puts the injured marines in the back. Either way, he only has to hold out until the bunker goes up.
Floop apparently tried this and found that the FE holds, but I suspect that a 5 or 6 rax marine cheese without gas might be able to bust the front on small maps. P would scout the no-gas build long before having to commit to a FE, so against something as odd as a no-gas build, I might play it more conservatively. With some testing, you could determine an optimal response.
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The reason why this start works is because you vulnerable timing when doing this strat is lined up with a terran timing where they will not usually attack. The exception to this is the 3 rax early all-in push, where I think the Op had the most trouble holding - having to pull probes and stall until the extra 3 gates finished and turned into warpgates. AFTER this timing, the toss is basically doing a 4 gate build, with the exception that he is now stretched into defending 2 bases instead of 1 - and his economic advantage will not kick in for another minute or two at most.
Thus the arguments that this build is weak MUST be highlighting the vulnerability the build has before the 3 extra gates are up, or that it is the same as a 1 base 4 gate build in terms of unit production (aka no robo or stargate until later than a 1 base 3 gate 1 tech build). Besides those two weakness, this build IMO obsoletes a lot of 1 base, slow expand builds from toss because the expansion is put up when you are LEAST vulnerable from a T attack.
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On August 26 2010 10:38 ltortoise wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2010 09:44 Floophead_III wrote:On August 26 2010 09:06 ltortoise wrote:
Seems like a 4 rax no gas marine rush would absolutely rape an FE.
No? How would you hold it off?
Pardon me if it's already been brought up, the thread is like 12 pages long... But the marines will arrive before you even finish warp gate (pretty positive of that since your gateway is on 14), and in a large number.
Edit: And I'm aware that stalkers > marines, but there comes a point when you have so many marines that you can just chase the stalkers away. All you have to do with the marines is kill the expo and happily walk back to base, get gas, and expand yourself. Maybe throw down some bunkers.
Has this been tested against 14 gate FE?
Edit #2: He can even bring some scvs to just build a bunker next to your expo. You can hit a marine here and there with the stalker, but killing them all before they get to your base is completely unreasonable. One misstep with the stalker and it's going to lose it's shields from like one volley from the rines.
Edit #3: If he goes all-in with it, four more marines are arriving every 25 seconds... Can you kite to kill four marines that quickly with your initial few stalkers? It seems like no, to me, if he just puts the injured marines in the back. Either way, he only has to hold out until the bunker goes up. Just tried it, doesn't work. Good thought though. I did win the first game but that was cause my friend seriously botched everything. Replay please. I can't believe a 4 rax rine rush wouldn't be able to bust the expo of a 14 gate FE...at the least it should force a cancel on that nexus! I am beyond skeptical.
You underestimate how bad unstimmed marines are vs zealots. The answer, really really bad. Like, I even followed up by making 6 total rax and by that point I had easily lost.
The problem is that only unmicrod stalkers are bad vs unstimmed marines.
Now perhaps me making up the build on the spot was not sufficient. I simply faked a 1 rax FE then threw down 3 raxes safe from scouting and pushed on the 2nd production round. If this isn't correct then let me know I'll do something else.
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Just wanted to give a huge thanks to kcdc. I'm still learning all the kinks and trying to micro the zealots in front of the stalkers correctly, all while trying to get used to applying force field correctly, but I'm having a lot more success now. And I just got promoted to platinum. Thanks again! (now I need to start working on those roach rushes...)
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On August 26 2010 10:47 t3tsubo wrote:
The reason why this start works is because you vulnerable timing when doing this strat is lined up with a terran timing where they will not usually attack. The exception to this is the 3 rax early all-in push, where I think the Op had the most trouble holding - having to pull probes and stall until the extra 3 gates finished and turned into warpgates. AFTER this timing, the toss is basically doing a 4 gate build, with the exception that he is now stretched into defending 2 bases instead of 1 - and his economic advantage will not kick in for another minute or two at most.
Thus the arguments that this build is weak MUST be highlighting the vulnerability the build has before the 3 extra gates are up, or that it is the same as a 1 base 4 gate build in terms of unit production (aka no robo or stargate until later than a 1 base 3 gate 1 tech build). Besides those two weakness, this build IMO obsoletes a lot of 1 base, slow expand builds from toss because the expansion is put up when you are LEAST vulnerable from a T attack.
Kcdc's original build has, with probe cuts, warpgate with probe cut finish with 3rd gate at 07:00, and same amount of units as my variation, but I don't cut probes, and I also gas before 2nd gate, robo after 3rd gate. The trade-off for me is later scouting, but I found the 9scout information to be unnecessary anyway, since there is a way to adapt to anything with a later scout(besides something like 2proxy rax marines before gas, which I still do better off with a faster stalker/gateway, but I lack an option to start 2nd gate instead of core/before core).
The vulnerability between 1warpgate done - 3warpgate done is about 50 seconds and all the chronoboost on the first gateway + travel time is enough to hold. I only need to pull a few probes against a terran who goes 3rax allin by cutting scvs(and starting 3rd rax before I start nexus), times his attack attack at about 06:40 (20 second earlier wave - no need for probe pull, 20 second later - warpgate wave done, probes are there just to counter scv->zealot trade-off), when warpgate finishes at 06:10 and 3rd warpgate finishes at 07:00 latest.
Not cutting probes there makes effeciency of expo kick in faster and puts me ahead a bunch, and I cut probes against one base tech after reaching 38-40probe(16+16+6+scout) saturation, if probe does not see CC in front or on annoying maps if obs does not see CC in back(have to blindly cut 4-6 probes to know for sure).
Faster 2nd gas allows to start twilight council with obs.
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On August 26 2010 14:18 Soulforged wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2010 10:47 t3tsubo wrote:
The reason why this start works is because you vulnerable timing when doing this strat is lined up with a terran timing where they will not usually attack. The exception to this is the 3 rax early all-in push, where I think the Op had the most trouble holding - having to pull probes and stall until the extra 3 gates finished and turned into warpgates. AFTER this timing, the toss is basically doing a 4 gate build, with the exception that he is now stretched into defending 2 bases instead of 1 - and his economic advantage will not kick in for another minute or two at most.
Thus the arguments that this build is weak MUST be highlighting the vulnerability the build has before the 3 extra gates are up, or that it is the same as a 1 base 4 gate build in terms of unit production (aka no robo or stargate until later than a 1 base 3 gate 1 tech build). Besides those two weakness, this build IMO obsoletes a lot of 1 base, slow expand builds from toss because the expansion is put up when you are LEAST vulnerable from a T attack. Kcdc's original build has, with probe cuts, warpgate with probe cut finish with 3rd gate at 07:00, and same amount of units as my variation, but I don't cut probes, and I also gas before 2nd gate, robo after 3rd gate. The trade-off for me is later scouting, but I found the 9scout information to be unnecessary anyway, since there is a way to adapt to anything with a later scout(besides something like 2proxy rax marines before gas, which I still do better off with a faster stalker/gateway, but I lack an option to start 2nd gate instead of core/before core). The vulnerability between 1warpgate done - 3warpgate done is about 50 seconds and all the chronoboost on the first gateway + travel time is enough to hold. I only need to pull a few probes against a terran who goes 3rax allin by cutting scvs(and starting 3rd rax before I start nexus), times his attack attack at about 06:40 (20 second earlier wave - no need for probe pull, 20 second later - warpgate wave done, probes are there just to counter scv->zealot trade-off), when warpgate finishes at 06:10 and 3rd warpgate finishes at 07:00 latest. Not cutting probes there makes effeciency of expo kick in faster and puts me ahead a bunch, and I cut probes against one base tech after reaching 38-40probe(16+16+6+scout) saturation, if probe does not see CC in front or on annoying maps if obs does not see CC in back(have to blindly cut 4-6 probes to know for sure). Faster 2nd gas allows to start twilight council with obs.
I agree with you, but the people who are just saying this build is fail don't seem to understand the difference between this build and a normal 1 base 4 gate build is only a 50sec vulnerability that actually coincides with most terran non-all-in builds time of impotency. So as long as you can hold off an all-in, which is completely possible, this build puts you waaay more ahead than any other build would. Risk=reward for me.
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I've been using this build in PvT and I've had quite a lot of success with it. I do agree that it looks like the vulnerable timing is at a time the T will not attack. I did loose some games with it, but I was mostly playing around with the builds a bit and/or the Terran was much better than me.
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All marine pushes can be hold off with some good stalker micro generally. Marines are outranged and slower then stalkers and stalkers can speed abuse. So you can see if he leaves base and then get in a few shots and retreat, this should weaken him up a bit before he arrives at your base.
Also you should remember the nexus can take quite a few shots from just marines without stim, so if he starts shooting your nexus keep back and try to poke at him with stalkers. All this should buy some more time towards warpgates. Finally when the nexus has lost it's shields go in with some probes and your force and you should be able to win, warpgates are about to be done so during the fight you can warp in some zealots as well (always have a pylon on top of the cliff next to the expo).
Should be enough to hold off mass marines.
Only really problematic builds imo are builds where the terran proxies (like proxy 1 reaper into marauder or proxy marine builds) and against these you just shouldnt expo and add some more gateways earlier instead (while CBing the warpgates a bit instead of your single gate). Then just go out and kill the proxy.
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For those of you that may be wondering if this works on lower level games IE Silve / Gold this is the best strat I have used. I was hovering around 50% W/L in silver while trying to pick up as much as I could on this site. I watchd the replays on this about 5 times over and applied. I had instant success and went 12-2 and now I am currently ranked #5 gold in my ladder. Yeah no big deal for most people but for those wanting to use something that wins consistantly at lower tiers this is it.
I went up against zerg rushes, maurader pushes, quick voids. 3 rax and still won. The two matches that I lost against were my fault. The other guy turteled and just blew myself up consistantley outside without teching up high enough. If you want replays I can post (if I can figure out wehre the files are kept) but I am a big fan of this strategy. Well done!!!
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@Fresh, thanks for the testimonial. I find this expansion timing works best against Terran, but I have tried it against Zerg and Protoss with mixed results. Against Terran, the expansion timing is safe, IMO. Against Zerg, it can be safe depending how Zerg is opening, how well you're scouting, and how you place your buildings. If you don't know exactly what Zerg is doing, it's pretty risky. Against Protoss, it's pretty much just not safe unless you won an early battle and have a small lead already. Because of the warp-in mechanic and the general uselessness of cannons against P's plethora of mobility options, there's little-to-no defender's advantage in PvP, (sentries do offer a small defender's advantage at chokes w/ FF....make of that what you will. I haven't found a way to turn that into a defensible expansion) so you essentially have to be ahead in order to afford an expansion.
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Updated to add another replay against early MM pressure. Screwed up chasing a scouting SCV and almost lost a stalker for free at the start....coulda been bad news, but the stalker managed to get away w/ 5 HP, so the early barracks pressure was no problem.
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I am having a lot of succes with this build. Thanks a lot.
I messed up a lot of times against banshees though. Its really hard to fight against marauder/marines siegetanks marines and banshees at the same time  .
But its mostly my fault for not getting phoenixes i think.
Lovely build but terran still remains a tough match-up. I am a terrible platinum-player by the way...
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Pretty much been getting rolled by 3 rax MM builds whenever i do this
Even thoiugh my army costwise costs more, you cant really beat MM in terms of cost efficiency (i think you need an army at least 50% larger) so i havn been able to do it sucessfully yet
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EPT
