Overall, i like the idea of chrono 1 gate into FE of yours.
Few point i want to clear up: + 14 gates is quite late which will cause delayed cyber, delayed wrap tech delayed stalker. The SCV will live in your base for quite long to notice there is no 2nd gas. You also will die do a proxy reaper rush since it will come quite early for a 14 gates to fence off.
+ I want more detail on chrono usage of yours early on. Probe, Gate, wrap? + how much probes you will pump out after your expo finish b4 getting more gates? remember the cost of 2 bases is a LOT of mineral with the excessive of gas. + What would you do if T go early counter aggression with 3 or more racks? This is most likely happen consider the pressure you put on him early on.
i like your idea but this guide must be worked on more or else it will just be counted as a risky early expo.
It seems like this build would be particularly effective when you can hide the expo - ie not place it at your nat. On a map like metalopolis I think the side expos would be the best choice. The reason for this is it is so common for protoss to hide tech anyway such as VR or DT tech. Any terran scout would reveal 1-gate / cyber which is pretty common early game for toss players, and may be afraid to push out for fear of unknown backstab into their base. Although as someone pointed out already, the 1 gas is a slight giveaway of the fast expo.
It seems like a terran who scouts this should have no problem with a bust seeing as bioball is the current standard vs toss and the terran player will already be massing marine marauder. I have to agree with other posters that it seems near impossible to hold off a 3-rax pump with this build.
@NB: I have at least one replay of a proxy reaper rush against a 14-gate. It's super easy to hold. A lot of players go 14-gate, so I didn't think it was necessary to address proxy reapers, but I can post replays when I get a chance.
I use my early chronoboost on nexus and only start saving while cybercore is warping in such that I have about 50 energy when cybercore finishes. Then I use all of my chronoboost on my gateway to keep it pumping zealots and stalkers. The balance of zealot to stalker depends on scouting. I don't make any early sentries as I don't think they're useful in the open field to defend the expansion until you can make 3 or 4 forcefields. Early sentries won't be useful during the timing window that you're concerned about, but mid-game sentries are critical to prevent marauder kiting before you get charge.
I don't cut probes much, if at all until both my bases are saturate unless I'm under a lot of pressure. As I'm building more gateways, I sometimes use a chronoboost on warpgate research instead of my gateway since redirecting the chronoboost gets me a few more minerals to build gateways before I need to start the next production cycle.
Against heavy early bio pressure, cut some probes and get your 4 warpgates ASAP. Use zealots to tank shots and retreat stalkers as the zealots are about to die. Warp in a new batch of zealots and repeat the process until the push is defeated. Abuse the hill outside the nat on Steppes of War. If he delays the push long enough for you to get 2-3 sentries, a couple good forcefields will make it super easy to hold.
The biggest threat i see is that you open yourself up to banshees. Simple 2 banshee will wreck your day with cloak and any worker advantage you might have gotten with your early nexus, pins all your forces back and lets the terran get his expo up without being behind you at all.
I can see the build opening up to quite a bit of harass as your forces will be spread a bit thin. quick drops at the back of your main/ helion drops/ while poking at the front. Sure the build is viable but its also fragile as the terran will most likely be getting his expo up and have almost certainly more income until your expo starts to really kick in.
The banshee thing is definitely not an issue. I've beaten cloaked banshee rushes with this build several times. I don't have good replays for pure 3 barracks all-ins. Would a competent Terran player please PM me so that we can get a couple replays for what it would look like?
I think it can be solid depending on the map, like SoW. It's a lot more solid vs just straight army-vs-army battles than people realize because you make up the lost income very quickly and kcdc is correct the timings aren't all that different.
The real issue to me is just the fact that even if you do have similar armies at similar timings, it's still harder to guard 2 bases vs 1. On maps like Metal you are opening yourself to some serious hellion + reaper harass ala TLO.
On August 12 2010 03:09 Skyro wrote: I think it can be solid depending on the map, like SoW. It's a lot more solid vs just straight army-vs-army battles than people realize because you make up the lost income very quickly and kcdc is correct the timings aren't all that different.
The real issue to me is just the fact that even if you do have similar armies at similar timings, it's still harder to guard 2 bases vs 1. On maps like Metal you are opening yourself to some serious hellion + reaper harass ala TLO.
Great point--hellion and late reaper harrass are actually the biggest problems I've had and have led to the few games where I've been solidly beaten when using this strategy. I don't think that it's really a weakness of the expansion timing so much as that it's just harder to defend two bases against harrass than it is to defend one base. Any expansion timing will pose this problem to some degree. I'm personally not very good at shutting down hellions because I don't play Zerg and haven't had much practice against them, but I think the fact that the expansion makes harrass harder to shut down will be a control-vs-control issue more than it is a Build A beat Build B issue.
Added some more replays against early attacks. The 3 things you really need to have before you can feel 'safe' against a 1-base Terran are:
-at least four constantly producing warpgates -detection -charge
You'll have to play around with the build and the scouting triggers a bit to get a feel for how quickly you need/can afford to add each of these components. If you see marines in a bunker, you need to get detection ASAP. You want to get charge as soon as you can get away with the tech expense, but it can be tough to get it done before even late Terran 1-base all-ins hit. In this case, you'll need a bunch of sentries. Don't forget to spread them out--an EMP robbing you of your forcefields before you have charge will mean a loss more often than not.
Ok, added my last replay in this thread unless people still want to see more. I have a handle on my timings and strategy, but my mechanics aren't all that good. If you're a good P player, you should try it out. You can definitely make this FE strategy work and get an early advantage essentially 100% of the time unless T is going FE as well.
On August 11 2010 01:31 chair wrote: Protoss have a hard enough time surviving a 2 marauder / 1 marine timing push with zealot + stalker or sentry.
How the hell does spending 400 on a nexus survive this?
Which protoss are you watching??
2 zealot+1 stalker+warpgates about to finish>>>2 marauder/1 marine. Zealots tank marauder shots like champions.
HuK, if you're so curious.
Believe it was a QxC vs HuK game which made this popular
Well first of all, I doubt QXC made 2 marauder/1 marine popular, since terrans have been doing it for such a long time.
Also, HuK is the greediest non-asian toss ever. He never makes a zealot before stalker, he chrono boosts constantly on probes, etc. etc. Even with that, I rarely see him lose to early aggression, and all of the other strong players make more units early game. White-Ra almost always has out 2 zealots before the first stalker, so does socke, kiwikaki, etc.
the real problem is how early is the T aggression relative to the "kick-in timing" of the expo. 2 bases may result max 9 gates with excessive minerals for pylons.But in order for the 5th gates (or what ever tier 2 tech) to start kicking in the army production, it will take hell long time considering the minerals will go in probes, Pylons, gates, assimilators and time for gate turn into wrap.
The mechanic of mule gives the Terran lots of excessive mineral in the beginning such that it would be hard to held of a good timing push if you are using this build. Only recommend on some certain long rush map.
Notice the only choice for tier 2 tech would be stargate or robo immo since colossi takes hell long, same to templar tech.
There is a modified fast expo build from an asian player on Xelnaga Caverns. He gets the nexus about the same time as you, but builds a Robotics shortly before the Nexus. He can hold off the 2Rax fast attack of the Terran Player but has to sacrifice a lot of probes. In this case it is okay because the terran player didnt build more scvs so his attack is stronger...
Interesting build. I never considered FE against T just cause 1 base bio all-ins are so damn common these days. Will definitely give it a shot after I watch some replays.
EPT
