Seems like there are many topics here with people having the same problem in this matchup. It is certainly extremely frustrating to play against PvT MMM balls when clearly those players know what they are doing (I'm talking about Diamond level PvT since I'm top platinum and facing tons of diamond players now).
I cross reference another topic where the OP has the same problems.
Anyway back to the topic, I'm generally having trouble with MMM balls in the later stages of the game. I am usually able to repel the initial assault, though with more minerals/gas lost against the terran because Marauders and Marines are way cheaper than Stalkers and Zealots. At any rate, in the later stages, once the MMM bioball is protected with Vikings/Tanks, it's pretty impossible to break the contain as Colossi fall pretty easily to them. Not to mention they could have easily placed a ghost academy and went for EMP instead. At any rate, I seem to be having trouble with terrans mid to late game as they seem to have way too many options to decimate the bulk of my toss army easily.
I've three replays here which show me losing to terrans (there are more of them, will probably add them in later as well.) I'd normally go for a 3 (or 4) gate before transitioning out of that build. I have no idea how effective a 2 gate to twilight to archives for HT build would be. But that seems way too heavy on gas, especially when sentries and stalkers are needed. And that would definitely leave alot of unspent minerals around and unable to be used because of the terran contain.
I wasn't expecting such an all-in move by the terran. But I made a glaring mistake when I waypoint my robo to the terran's base and forgot to change it back in the heat of the battle afterward.
I went for Stargate and the terran scanned me. I assumed that he would be busy building up an anti-air army of marines so I decided to expand but that mistake cost me dearly as marine ball was just as effective on my gateway army.
Tried an early pressure on the terran but failed to make any impact as I lost way to many zealots. Decided to tech to carriers but I believe it was too late. Also, stimmed marines with medivac support seem to be extremely effective against all forms of air.
I would greatly appreciate it if people could critique my PvT play, especially on how I'm faring on my micro and macro, apart from my strategies. Thanks!
EDIT: Just tried out HT tech against MMM, and it seems to have worked pretty well, though the players I were facing off against weren't as good as the ones in the replays above, I believe.
Transitioned quickly from 3 gate to HT as fast as possible after I saw the very early Concussive Shell upgrade decimate my first stalker. I did make a couple of mistakes here and there, like losing my scouting probe very early on, and not scouting the immediate area outside my base earlier. If the terran had gone tanks, or planted down bunkers earlier, I'd have a far harder time to break out of the contain. Also, I didn't manage my HT's well, lost them on the first attempted break out.
Tried Gnial's early stalker pressure. Very limited success for me. The terran went marines and tanks though. So I went robo and stargate instead. He scanned me and saw a stargate which was probably why he went Vikings. After my first unsuccessful break in attempt, he expanded and pushed me. But I had HTs by that time and managed to hit back his MM + tank + viking army. Way too many mistakes and botched build orders in the game, but at least the HT push worked and I won the game.
EDIT 2: Got matched with a Terran in Kulas Ravine and I realise the lack of starting base ramps on this map throws the terran into such an advantage as long as he does an early Marauder push.
This is why the lack of a ramp tips the balance so much in the favour of the Terran. I start with a stalker opening, and manage to scout 2 rax before my probe dies to an early marauder. I would have guessed it was a marauder rush, and I decided to pressure his rax with a Stalker. Nonetheless whatever a toss can do on this map, the terran can perform it better, as you can see from his 6-7 marauder push that totally decimated my base due to the lack of a base ramp. I doubt countering would be easy as there is just too small a window for you to get out the correct composition of units to block him.
I'm a 600 diamond protoss player, and PvT is my strongest matchup right now (I'm probably running a 80-85% winrate in the matchup). To understand PvT, you have to break it up into Tier 1 early game , Tier 2 mid game, and Tier 3 late game.
PvT is fairly balanced at Tier 1 and Tier 3. At Tier 1, zealots, stalkers, and sentries do well against smaller bio forces. At Tier 3, once the protoss has unlocked all or most of his tech (especially templar tech), protoss has all the tools necessary to deal with anything that the terran throws at him. To be honest, I think that, if anything, toss has the advantage over terran at tier 3 because the toss can abuse his mobility advantage and make it very difficult for a terran to establish any kind of map control, thereby denying the terran expansions.
The problem for PvT is Tier 2. To be blunt, protoss does not have anything that stacks up well against bio masses (especially when supported by medivacs and/or ghosts) at Tier 2. Chargelots, immortals, blink stalkers, void rays, and phoenixes all MELT in head on confrontations. Honestly, I think that there is a balance problem here, but we can save that for another thread.
A protoss player has to design and map out his PvT gameplan with this Tier 2 disadvantage in mind. This means that a protoss player either has to kill the terran at Tier 1 (or before the terran is able to fully leverage his Tier 2 advantage), find a way to quickly get to Tier 3, or secure a large enough economic advantage that the Tier 2 disadvantage doesn't matter. Protoss players who are successful in PvT invariably do one of these three things.
My personal preference is use void ray builds (as do a lot of other protoss players who are good at PvT) because I can make a play at all of these goals at once. If the terran does not have a marine-heavy build, he dies outright. If the terran does have marines, then I can harass the terran with my void ray(s) and buy time for me to expand and tech up to colossi or high templar. At that point, the terran's Tier 2 advantage doesn't matter anymore (ie a MMM+G push is manageable). There are a number of other threads that describe various void ray builds in PvT and how to use them, so I'll refrain from providing all the details here.
Void rays aren't the only answer. There are a number of builds that other players use. However, just keep in mind the Tier 2 window that terrans have to rape protoss and plan for it accordingly.
I havn`t tried this strat yet because im gone at work, but wouldn`t fast ht`s in the early game to counter the bio ball? I remember sombody saying to have some zealots to flank, well have 3 or 4 zealots hiding but close to your ramp(maybe behind the farthest gas) then when you see him push force field your ramp bring in the zealots from behind, now you have a contain, storm with you ht`s, then merg them and make a push.... All be trying it when i get home...later this weekend. and if it works all post the buildorder on the forums.... sorry i could`nt watch your vid the comp im using doesn`t have the power to run the replay
Learn the timings. Learn when the terran is strong (typically when he has just got emp or stim or medis). Forcefield rmap and move out when you are strong.
I love the way you describe it. YES, it is damn hard to win a bioball midgame. Maybe you can't. But that doesn't imply imbalance in the matchup in his whole : you have to find your way through.
For PvT, you kind of just have to jolt yourself into tier 3 much like you did against Z in BW. I mean also against like deep6 you had to push yourself as protoss into Tier 3 aka reavers or templar.
Like basically what was said you cant really stay around the midgame very long. Immortals can be a good transitional unit until you get temps, but you really do have to get big splash out there against bio and I would also say mech. Colossi in that match up as well, I would also consider transitional, because 4 vikings shut down colossi, so its more of a stepping stone of not dying now until you get templar.
I also agree with xDaunt's post. Although I don't like to use the void ray to stay alive in phase 2 of the game, it is indeed very true that you need to harass the terran player while getting your more powerful tech units out. Be it blinkstalkers, void rays, phoenixes or whatever. Once the bioball gets too big and the terran player pushes out without you having any HT/Colossi and a formidable warp gate mixture, you're done for.
Just got to add that although I don't like VR to harass with in the earlier stages of the game, late game Speed Rays are great if you can get 6-8 out before he pushes out. Speed Rays are actually very fast and can decimate a base in seconds if the terran army is out of position. Too bad Fleet Beacon costs a crapload of resources, and you need to get out other important units too.
- The void ray build works but once in a while you will fall on a faster starport/marine heavy build and that will be the end of you. Very hard to recover from that, but possible. With very good micro it is possible to pull off(dont lose your void rays, no matter what happens - at least if the harass dosent work, you can force him to stay at his base/defend the MMM push with your zeal/sentry/stalker combo.
- the second build(which is my favorite), is fast zeal speed to templars. However you sometimes have to stall the attack slightly and keep chrono boosts for storm upgrade. You also have to go more zealot heavy, to keep gas for a couple of templars. Feedback the medivac + storm and you can stop him. The only problem with this build is - you lose to fast banshees&hellions. Against ghost its a micro intense battle, if you can feedback the ghost/spread your templars enough. If he has a cloacked ghost then that means you had time to make a good number of templars.
On August 11 2010 06:17 Adaptation wrote: From personal experience from PvT
- The void ray build works but once in a while you will fall on a faster starport/marine heavy build and that will be the end of you. Very hard to recover from that, but possible. With very good micro it is possible to pull off(dont lose your void rays, no matter what happens - at least if the harass dosent work, you can force him to stay at his base/defend the MMM push with your zeal/sentry/stalker combo.
- the second build(which is my favorite), is fast zeal speed to templars. However you sometimes have to stall the attack slightly and keep chrono boosts for storm upgrade. You also have to go more zealot heavy, to keep gas for a couple of templars. Feedback the medivac + storm and you can stop him. The only problem with this build is - you lose to fast banshees&hellions. Against ghost its a micro intense battle, if you can feedback the ghost/spread your templars enough. If he has a cloacked ghost then that means you had time to make a good number of templars.
The void ray build isn't necessarily crushed outright if the terran gets vikings out quickly. You just have to make sure that you don't overcommit to void rays and make sure that you're transitioning more quickly into templar tech. If you're worried about a quick marine-centric counterattack, you can throw down some cannons at your expo to stay safe until high templar are online.
I'm not a huge fan of twilight builds anymore because they leave you entirely blind to what the terran is doing. Also, I don't think that they're as effective as void ray builds in terms of securing a quick expansion.
This is a very good post!, I am a 400 point diamond Terran player and I constantly abuse the points mentioned, the match up for me boils down to:
A) Can i survive the early game pressure from toss once he realizes i am getting bio, not too many people can break me here I usually have a bunker built at my ramp, but some really strong 4 gate all ins can win but it doesn't seem like a good thing to promote because you are screwed if it fails.
I would also not suggest going void rays as a harass unless you have amazing micro, since remember the Terran player will have a LOT of marines, early blink seems to be decent as you tech into tier 3 for storm. Keeps me in my base without really investing that much.
B) Once i have 2 ghosts, stim, shields and a few medvacs (maybe 1+ weapons) i push out assuming I don't see a robo bay which makes me want to get a few vikings. If i don't do enough damage here or just win, my success rate of winning the game goes down a ton as we enter into tier 3. I think the real key in winning this battle as toss is getting some good forcefields off
C) If my first push didn't do enough damage, I just go into drop mode, trying to abuse the fact that having to warp in units everywhere is annoying and fragments your army.
Anyway hope that helps understanding the mind set of a Terran doing MMM against a toss
Ok, try having 1-2 voidrays on top of your zealot/stalker/ht mix. That's not there for damage as much as it's there to scare the crap out of marauder abusers and allow your charlelots more room to chase them. Marauders can't kite while being shot by voids, and if Terran lets 2 voids charge on his marauder army it'll be toast in 30 seconds. When he goes for marines still keep the voids, but be careful to keep them alive behind your army, so you can more easily storm and wrap around the bio ball with chargelots as he tries to focus the void. Oh and poke in their base with the voids just to force turret/viking. The whole point is to make the life of your chagelots and HT easier on the ground.
You'd be surprised at how much Terrans out there are scared of just the sight of voidrays, most of them will overreact.
Not to keep agreeing with the the masses but xDaunt's post is exactly right. The toss mindset in the matchup has to be surviving until they get to tier 3. I really don't like trying to win the game in tier 1, the terran can bunker up, they'll probably be making barracks units and its very hard to win with a four gate or 2 gate zt rush against a competent terran. If they're doing a tech build to something like siege tanks or cloaked banshees it can work but because most terrans wall their ramp and have early marines the toss is blind to what's going on so a four gate is dangerous in that regard.
I think the safest option is the 3 gate + robo build and getting the early observer out. It's just so critical to know what the terran is doing since they has so many options. From there you can respond accordingly either by doing some kind of blink stalker harass into high templar, going straight for colossus, force field juggling your ramp til tier 3 if an all out stim push comes etc. The stargate build can certainly work but as a 400ish diamond player I've never really had success with it.
On August 11 2010 01:54 xDaunt wrote: I'm a 600 diamond protoss player, and PvT is my strongest matchup right now (I'm probably running a 80-85% winrate in the matchup). To understand PvT, you have to break it up into Tier 1 early game , Tier 2 mid game, and Tier 3 late game.
PvT is fairly balanced at Tier 1 and Tier 3. At Tier 1, zealots, stalkers, and sentries do well against smaller bio forces. At Tier 3, once the protoss has unlocked all or most of his tech (especially templar tech), protoss has all the tools necessary to deal with anything that the terran throws at him. To be honest, I think that, if anything, toss has the advantage over terran at tier 3 because the toss can abuse his mobility advantage and make it very difficult for a terran to establish any kind of map control, thereby denying the terran expansions.
The problem for PvT is Tier 2. To be blunt, protoss does not have anything that stacks up well against bio masses (especially when supported by medivacs and/or ghosts) at Tier 2. Chargelots, immortals, blink stalkers, void rays, and phoenixes all MELT in head on confrontations. Honestly, I think that there is a balance problem here, but we can save that for another thread.
A protoss player has to design and map out his PvT gameplan with this Tier 2 disadvantage in mind. This means that a protoss player either has to kill the terran at Tier 1 (or before the terran is able to fully leverage his Tier 2 advantage), find a way to quickly get to Tier 3, or secure a large enough economic advantage that the Tier 2 disadvantage doesn't matter. Protoss players who are successful in PvT invariably do one of these three things.
My personal preference is use void ray builds (as do a lot of other protoss players who are good at PvT) because I can make a play at all of these goals at once. If the terran does not have a marine-heavy build, he dies outright. If the terran does have marines, then I can harass the terran with my void ray(s) and buy time for me to expand and tech up to colossi or high templar. At that point, the terran's Tier 2 advantage doesn't matter anymore (ie a MMM+G push is manageable). There are a number of other threads that describe various void ray builds in PvT and how to use them, so I'll refrain from providing all the details here.
Void rays aren't the only answer. There are a number of builds that other players use. However, just keep in mind the Tier 2 window that terrans have to rape protoss and plan for it accordingly.
"ok"... First : You aren't a protoss player i think...terran Second : T1 balance? "ok" early proxy reaper and marauder you need take probe out...lose probe etc... Third : T2 is imbalance, good time push mass rine ghost GG Fourth : Late game : How much time you see 150 pop T FUCK HARD 200 pop protoss? How much game you see which in protoss need +3 exp late game for kill terran with mass difficulty...
All terran come on my behind will say "AHHHHH STOP WHINE" omg...play protoss against terran....lose again a lowest skill than you then come speak...i just lose on scrap station (stupid map imba for terran 2 bunker tourette banshee exp on isle no way to follow banshee when they back...) joke!
On August 11 2010 07:29 FoUsTy wrote: "ok"... First : You aren't a protoss player i think...terran
What?
On August 11 2010 07:29 FoUsTy wrote: Second : T1 balance? "ok" early proxy reaper and marauder you need take probe out...lose probe etc...
I'm sorry that you're not good enough to beat early terran cheese. However, there are plenty of protoss players that can beat it. As a protoss player who knows how to beat these terran cheese attacks and basically autowins when a terran tries this crap, I love it when terrans try proxy reapers or early marauders against me.
On August 11 2010 07:29 FoUsTy wrote: Third : T2 is imbalance, good time push mass rine ghost GG
Yes, as I said above, Tier 2 is imbalanced. That's why I said that protoss players need to plan around that disadvantage. Again, it doesn't mean that protoss can't win PvT.
On August 11 2010 07:29 FoUsTy wrote: Fourth : Late game : How much time you see 150 pop T FUCK HARD 200 pop protoss? How much game you see which in protoss need +3 exp late game for kill terran with mass difficulty...
Honestly, I can't remember the last time that I lost a late game PvT. It was sometime back in Phase 1 of beta. Again, maybe you don't know how to do a late game PvT, but it's something that other protoss players and I don't have problems with.
On August 11 2010 07:29 FoUsTy wrote: All terran come on my behind will say "AHHHHH STOP WHINE" omg...play protoss against terran....lose again a lowest skill than you then come speak...i just lose on scrap station (stupid map imba for terran 2 bunker tourette banshee exp on isle no way to follow banshee when they back...) joke!
Ok, whatever. Seriously, dude. You posted total garbage in another thread and you're posting more garbage here. Make sure that you know what you're talking about before you post crap like this.
Terran is strong in late game, but so is Protoss. The Terran player will have the advantage if the Protoss player just charges head on into a prepared Terran static defense (well, DUH!), however, a combination of HT and Colossi with a good chunk of gateway units (and maybe a few air units as well, phoenixes are great for those pesky Ravens) seems very very hard for even a potent Terran static defense to defeat.
As a toss player, I generally go Chargelot into Templar. Early pressure is easily taken care of by sentry/chargelot. A lot of times Terrans will push when Charge is about half way done, 2 FFs at the ramp will give me time to finish charge, and once charge is done, I generally just trash their early push. At about this time I spend minerals on Lots, and my next chunk of gas on Archives, and an HT or two. Chrono out storm, and usually by the time terrans push again I have 1 or 2 STorms worth of energy, and usually one of them can afford a feedback as well, so at that point it's just HT vs Ghost micro.
The only real tricky time is if they push real early, but I usually have enough zealots/sentries to cut his army in half and prevent too much Marauder kiting, so I'm usually okay. The exception being a really early all-in, but I don't see that particularly often.
Essentially, I agree with xDaunt's post.. I use esntries to buy me enough time to get charge up, and then speed up to t3, using quick teching to circumvent the fact that Terran armies are rough at certain stages of the game. Zealot/templar is a really strong lategame vs T, in my experience, as well.
leyra: I agree, chargelots are amazing, allowing you to go HT/colossus with np. I struggle at this as Terran actually.. what would a terran do vs that? The bio ball just gets melted. Transition to mass BC's or mech?
A lot of terrans I play vs transition into heavy thor, but... thors have a ton of energy to FB. Perhaps with a nice support of hellions? It doesn't give me much trouble when I see thors. I dunno, if I see hellions I go a little more stalker heavy and have no problems. I don't know what to do as Terran! Not a Terran player, haha. A friend of mine is a very solid terran player and he usually beats me with bio + ghost just because his macro is so much better. If I pick off his ghosts before any EMP, I win, but.. most of the time he does a good job of at least getting 1 or 2 nice EMPs off. A full-on meching Terran is a lot harder to deal with in general, in my experiences. I usually have to do a lot of cute drops in the back with chargelots and stuff, just abuse their immobility, but it's still really challenging. Especially since they can counter-harrass with Hellions if they so choose.
PvT is my best matchup, so I don't have as many problems with it, so I'm not sure what builds Terrans look at as "strongest" in TvP. PvP though.. ugh x.x
On August 11 2010 07:42 xDaunt wrote:I'm sorry that you're not good enough to beat early terran cheese. However, there are plenty of protoss players that can beat it. As a protoss player who knows how to beat these terran cheese attacks and basically autowins when a terran tries this crap, I love it when terrans try proxy reapers or early marauders against me.
On August 11 2010 08:16 Leyra wrote: As a toss player, I generally go Chargelot into Templar. Early pressure is easily taken care of by sentry/chargelot. A lot of times Terrans will push when Charge is about half way done, 2 FFs at the ramp will give me time to finish charge, and once charge is done, I generally just trash their early push. At about this time I spend minerals on Lots, and my next chunk of gas on Archives, and an HT or two. Chrono out storm, and usually by the time terrans push again I have 1 or 2 STorms worth of energy, and usually one of them can afford a feedback as well, so at that point it's just HT vs Ghost micro.
The only real tricky time is if they push real early, but I usually have enough zealots/sentries to cut his army in half and prevent too much Marauder kiting, so I'm usually okay. The exception being a really early all-in, but I don't see that particularly often.
Essentially, I agree with xDaunt's post.. I use esntries to buy me enough time to get charge up, and then speed up to t3, using quick teching to circumvent the fact that Terran armies are rough at certain stages of the game. Zealot/templar is a really strong lategame vs T, in my experience, as well.
Just my $.02 =]
This all sounds very good but if he goes banshees it's pretty much buy buy. With this build you have no scouting information, and I dont know about you but i find it extremely unpleasant to play in the blind... especially against terran. As I see it you pretty much always have to go either robo, stargate or researce hallucinations... But still the only thing that allows you to deal with banshees is the robo.... After that i transition into collosus and then into HT when he gets some vikings.... Almost every game I play turns out like this and though I do agree that tier two is imbalanced i most definately do not agree about tier 3 being in the protoss favor. A decent terran who slow pushes with tanks, marines and ghosts/vikings (depends on me going collossus or ht) is incredibly hard to deal with. And the fact that they have a building that spot any movement on the minimap makes harashing super dificult aswell. Maybe I just suck, but that just isn't the case against P and Z....
Wow did someone on here actually come in and complain about reapers? Even IF you rushed reaper off something rediculous like 8 rax you can STILL get a stalker out fast enough to make it useless off a standard gate to core chrono stalker build. He might get a probe, maybe 2 if you don't micro. Then you realized you have a big macro advantage and crush him.
Seriously... reapers off standard will actually get to your base AFTER the stalker is out now with the nerfed build time.
On August 11 2010 07:29 FoUsTy wrote: All terran come on my behind will say "AHHHHH STOP WHINE" omg...play protoss against terran....lose again a lowest skill than you then come speak...i just lose on scrap station (stupid map imba for terran 2 bunker tourette banshee exp on isle no way to follow banshee when they back...) joke!
Ok, whatever. Seriously, dude. You posted total garbage in another thread and you're posting more garbage here. Make sure that you know what you're talking about before you post crap like this.
This guy was some known troll on Blizzard forums I think, don't mind him, hopefully he won't be able to post here anymore soon enough
On topic, that's basically how xDaunt said, you can be agressive early on, then T has a window when he has ghosts, medivacs, stim and shields and can push before colossis are out. When colossi are out he'll have to wait for some vikings and once he has them he'll get the upper hand again till HT are out. And honestly once you gets HTs it's lights out, it's ridiculously strong against Terran bio and shouldn't lose if you reach this point, the only way to lose after this is facing a 10x better player, who would've won earlier anyway so that's very unlikely.
Also, VRs are always a very solid opener, it keeps T in his base as he needs quite a lot of marines to hold 1 or 2 VRs while he gets turrets up. Opening VRs serves 2 purposes, containing him and making him waste ressources on air defense, while you can macro up safely and get chargelots into HTs
On August 11 2010 09:14 Tmdemo wrote: This all sounds very good but if he goes banshees it's pretty much buy buy. With this build you have no scouting information, and I dont know about you but i find it extremely unpleasant to play in the blind... especially against terran. As I see it you pretty much always have to go either robo, stargate or researce hallucinations... But still the only thing that allows you to deal with banshees is the robo.... After that i transition into collosus and then into HT when he gets some vikings.... Almost every game I play turns out like this and though I do agree that tier two is imbalanced i most definately do not agree about tier 3 being in the protoss favor. A decent terran who slow pushes with tanks, marines and ghosts/vikings (depends on me going collossus or ht) is incredibly hard to deal with. And the fact that they have a building that spot any movement on the minimap makes harashing super dificult aswell. Maybe I just suck, but that just isn't the case against P and Z....
I didn't mention, but, typically I'll throw down a robo somewhere in there just for mass obs production, in addition to a warp prism for various harrass. Banshees are pretty easy to scout early on, at least fast banshees, my scout lives long enough to see if they grab that 2nd early gas, typically. If they do, I push out a robo a bit earlier. Any sort of really banshee-heavy play just gets raped by HTs, I see terrans do that from time to time. FB just owns them. IF they're smart enough to cloak and waste energy, it's a little harder, but stalkers do really well vs banshees.. so.. /shrug.
I agree with Dogsi. I'd really be interested in seeing replays of any PvT strats where Brotoss comes out ahead. Terran is by far my worst match-up, probably because all my friends play Zerg, so when I run into a Terran in league matches I just kinda putter around not knowing what to do.
On August 11 2010 07:29 FoUsTy wrote: Second : T1 balance? "ok" early proxy reaper and marauder you need take probe out...lose probe etc...
I'm sorry that you're not good enough to beat early terran cheese. However, there are plenty of protoss players that can beat it. As a protoss player who knows how to beat these terran cheese attacks and basically autowins when a terran tries this crap, I love it when terrans try proxy reapers or early marauders against me.
On August 11 2010 07:29 FoUsTy wrote: Third : T2 is imbalance, good time push mass rine ghost GG
Yes, as I said above, Tier 2 is imbalanced. That's why I said that protoss players need to plan around that disadvantage. Again, it doesn't mean that protoss can't win PvT.
On August 11 2010 07:29 FoUsTy wrote: Fourth : Late game : How much time you see 150 pop T FUCK HARD 200 pop protoss? How much game you see which in protoss need +3 exp late game for kill terran with mass difficulty...
Honestly, I can't remember the last time that I lost a late game PvT. It was sometime back in Phase 1 of beta. Again, maybe you don't know how to do a late game PvT, but it's something that other protoss players and I don't have problems with.
On August 11 2010 07:29 FoUsTy wrote: All terran come on my behind will say "AHHHHH STOP WHINE" omg...play protoss against terran....lose again a lowest skill than you then come speak...i just lose on scrap station (stupid map imba for terran 2 bunker tourette banshee exp on isle no way to follow banshee when they back...) joke!
Ok, whatever. Seriously, dude. You posted total garbage in another thread and you're posting more garbage here. Make sure that you know what you're talking about before you post crap like this.
Early reaper/marauder on map like steppes of war, or blistering sand is not balance! If terran is equal skill to you i'm sorry it's a joke! On other map like scrap station (which is REALLY IMBALANCE TOO cause of isles...) LT or kulas proxy is no prob...
My win rate vs Toss when the game gets to tier 3 is a very very low percentage. Once the toss has 2 or 3 bases he can easily afford the 3 units that rape T. Immortals Collsi and HT. When you use these three with gateway units it is srsly unbeliavable hard to stop. The only time I can get a solid win is when the toss hits my static D, then I can counter and get lucky. Otherwise at this point I have no idea what to do at all at tier 3. This MU is becoming very hopeless for me because now every toss finally can realize that tier 2 they need to play safe cuz tier 3 is the promised land. This is by far my worst MU, its hard to force a win in tier 2.
This is what I don't get. Terran basic ground > toss basic ground. Terran air > toss air. Tanks take out cols and temps and terran basics with medics take out immortals.
In low numbers slots take out marauders and marines but in groups marines nad marauders win out. Stalkers can take out marines but lose badly to marauders. Marines and marauders can kite the slots even after the speed upgrade with a little micro.
Immoralts suck vs large groups of terran units and
Cols can and do kick the crap out of marauders and marines. They can, in large enough numbers, even take out tanks. However, here's the kicker, terran air kill them off fast as hell. Terran air also kick the crap out of toss air. So this means if they go air, you must get a lot of stalkers. Those stalkers are in turn mowed down by terran land... I see no actual solution to this. Is it possible to win? Of course. Just can't go toe to toe. However, if this is true, wouldn't this in fact mean that terran IS over powered?
xDaunt is perfectly right, if you can't gain an early advantage it's all about not getting crushed while transitioning to tier 3; going void-rays becomes more and more popular, I will try to depict another approach:
playing some customs against mid-diamond terran training-partners I had some success with one gate robo openers; the goal is to get out one immortal asap (I usually use two chrono-boosts), while also getting one sentry for blocking the ramp and as many stalkers as possible (depending on building-placement and saved chrono-boosts it will be 2-3); depending on the opponent I will add either a second immortal or an observer; this will achieve several things: firstly, it will force your opponent to go slower on marauders and we all know that the marine-heavier the terran produces the easier it gets for protoss-gateway-armies; secondly, if your opponent took an early expansion you should also be able to afford one at this point; this holds especially true due to thirdly: a terran who sees an early immortal will almost always prepare for early colossi, meaning that he won't push all-in with just marine/marauder but will often get 2-3 vikings; if he doesn't he'll probably expect an early push with zealots/immortals/stalkers/sentries and will prepare for holding his ground; therefore, this early immortal will be especially effective when the terran got an early expansion, because mostly he won't have the guts to keep pressure high if he expects colossi any time soon
all of this is of course just a distraction for getting tier 3 with decent eco; after my immortal(s)/immortal+observer I immediatly put down my second gateway + twilight council to get chargelots, expand, get more gateway-units, tech to high templar; notice that you will eventually be in a disadvantage during mid-game BUT if you have done a good job your opponent should'nt be aware of that until it is too late; the more you can trick him into believing that you will go heavy with robo-units the better; he will waste ressources on vikings and also won't dare to build tanks; on 4-player-maps with cross-position I've been experimenting with actually building a robo-bay in the middle of my base to distract the terran from my expand+templar/chargelots-tech since he will rely more on scans for scouting than sending SCV.....although until now I don't feel like it's really worth it, dunno, have to practice it more
On August 11 2010 19:52 Dogsi wrote: This is what I don't get. Terran basic ground > toss basic ground. Terran air > toss air. Tanks take out cols and temps and terran basics with medics take out immortals.
In low numbers slots take out marauders and marines but in groups marines nad marauders win out. Stalkers can take out marines but lose badly to marauders. Marines and marauders can kite the slots even after the speed upgrade with a little micro.
Immoralts suck vs large groups of terran units and
Cols can and do kick the crap out of marauders and marines. They can, in large enough numbers, even take out tanks. However, here's the kicker, terran air kill them off fast as hell. Terran air also kick the crap out of toss air. So this means if they go air, you must get a lot of stalkers. Those stalkers are in turn mowed down by terran land... I see no actual solution to this. Is it possible to win? Of course. Just can't go toe to toe. However, if this is true, wouldn't this in fact mean that terran IS over powered?
Yes, in a heads up fight, terran sometimes has the advantage, especially when he gets very high tank and viking counts. Fortunately, that doesn't happen too often because of how resource-intensive that type of force is. Usually you're going to see either bio-ball tech or some 1/1/1 combination that is heavy on marines. In these instances, you can go toe-to-toe with the terran army if you have templar tech and win.
However, let's assume that the terran has a high tech count and a ton of vikings such that you can't really fight him head on and win with everything else being equal. What you have to do in this instance is play PvT Brood War style: establish map control, secure an economic advantage, and abuse the terran's immobility. You have a ton of options for accomplishing these objectives. DT's, phase prisms, and warp in are absolutely brutal in the mid-late game when it comes to denying expansions. Is terran army somewhere in the field away from his base? Great! Send a warp prism over his base and start warping all sorts of stuff into his base. Send DTs to assassinate expansions. Use fluxed void rays to take down terran bases. If you can catch the terran army in a bad spot with your main army, go attack it. If you can end up trading armies, you win because, hopefully, you will have remembered to take a 2-3 extra expansions than what the terran has while he was sitting in his base building up tanks.
In short, there are a lot of options for protoss in PvT once you get to tier 3. You just have to be creative. Honestly, I absolutely love late game protoss play in all match ups. There are so many wicked tools available for wrecking havoc on your opponent.
I like to open up 3 rax with TvP. It gives me the initiative, good map control. But if I don't kill him with my timing push (usually on ramped maps, it's hard). Then I usually lose because I missed the window and they got enough time to get Colo/HT. By then what is a bio T suppose to do?
Should I: 1) Go ghost? and try to emp the HT? It's extremely difficult I find because unlike P I don't have observer the battle takes place with little notice and my ghosts are usually out of place and FE happens first.
2) Completely switch to mech? Is this appropriate? Considering I invested in 3 rax (plus addons)?
Just read all of the comments, thanks for all of the constructive ones. I guess I was foolishly trying to figure out a way to crack the terran ball when I really have run out of gateway/robo options to do so in the early mid game (I miss Dragoons and Reavers now, imagine what Singularity Charge range upgrade and scarab splash damage would do). I would try out the above strategies once I have more time on my hands.
Anyway Tmdemo mentioned it just now, a chargelot transition into HTs would mean a lack of scouting information, and a horribly weak anti-air (just a small handful of stalkers, not more than 4-5). I was thinking perhaps placing a forge and a couple of cannons after twilight council could be done to somehow protect the mineral line from Banshees. 150+150+150 = 450 gas invested. It probably isn't too much, since zeals are 25 minerals cheaper than stalkers, but still pretty mineral intensive. So I am not too sure about the viability of this build, you're still lacking scouting information.
As for quick void rays, I haven't actually tried it out seriously yet, been rather reluctant to do so as it is not something I favour. Nevertheless I guess I should start exploring its possibilities.
I do believe the PvT matchup is still lacking something, the P player being very static. Once the toss player commits down on a tech tree (robo or twilight), it's pretty impossible for him to switch to the other tech to throw off the terran. The terran on the other hand has plenty of options that he can choose from to combat the toss, and all that is needed is a simple comsat on the toss (unless the toss is somehow able to hide the production of the higher tech tree.)
Somehow I'm starting to feel like the current PvT matchup is a pretty tough hybrid of SCBW's PvT and PvZ.
On August 11 2010 19:52 Dogsi wrote: This is what I don't get. Terran basic ground > toss basic ground. Terran air > toss air. Tanks take out cols and temps and terran basics with medics take out immortals.
In low numbers slots take out marauders and marines but in groups marines nad marauders win out. Stalkers can take out marines but lose badly to marauders. Marines and marauders can kite the slots even after the speed upgrade with a little micro.
Immoralts suck vs large groups of terran units and
Cols can and do kick the crap out of marauders and marines. They can, in large enough numbers, even take out tanks. However, here's the kicker, terran air kill them off fast as hell. Terran air also kick the crap out of toss air. So this means if they go air, you must get a lot of stalkers. Those stalkers are in turn mowed down by terran land... I see no actual solution to this. Is it possible to win? Of course. Just can't go toe to toe. However, if this is true, wouldn't this in fact mean that terran IS over powered?
Yes, in a heads up fight, terran sometimes has the advantage, especially when he gets very high tank and viking counts. Fortunately, that doesn't happen too often because of how resource-intensive that type of force is. Usually you're going to see either bio-ball tech or some 1/1/1 combination that is heavy on marines. In these instances, you can go toe-to-toe with the terran army if you have templar tech and win.
However, let's assume that the terran has a high tech count and a ton of vikings such that you can't really fight him head on and win with everything else being equal. What you have to do in this instance is play PvT Brood War style: establish map control, secure an economic advantage, and abuse the terran's immobility. You have a ton of options for accomplishing these objectives. DT's, phase prisms, and warp in are absolutely brutal in the mid-late game when it comes to denying expansions. Is terran army somewhere in the field away from his base? Great! Send a warp prism over his base and start warping all sorts of stuff into his base. Send DTs to assassinate expansions. Use fluxed void rays to take down terran bases. If you can catch the terran army in a bad spot with your main army, go attack it. If you can end up trading armies, you win because, hopefully, you will have remembered to take a 2-3 extra expansions than what the terran has while he was sitting in his base building up tanks.
In short, there are a lot of options for protoss in PvT once you get to tier 3. You just have to be creative. Honestly, I absolutely love late game protoss play in all match ups. There are so many wicked tools available for wrecking havoc on your opponent.
Just want to post a replay that displays exactly what xDaunt means (good post, btw) :
A fine demonstration of the power of protoss mobility in late game. Although I'd really like to see some Colossi in here as well (if you check the protoss player's econ in late game, you can see he could easily afford it), it's still a great replay to demonstrate what to do against a late game terran bioball.
Has anyone recently seen any replays of a P beating a MM timing push on a map with a big ramp? Of course, early colossus can hold of a bio push easily if you can delay it until you have a colossus, which is easy enough with sentries on some maps. But what about scrap station? Sentry/Stalker/Zealot can't deal with MM early game, a competent Terran player can easily attack before the first colossus comes out. The best option I've come up with is going cannons, but I'm reluctant to spend all those extra minerals.
Not trying to derail the thread but I have a question:
How important is it to kill the medivacs in a MMM ball? Should I prioritize feedback to eliminate the medivacs over dropping a storm over the ball? Should stalkers FF on the medivacs? I'm having problems with MMM balls as well and never sure what I should be prioritizing in my micro.
On August 12 2010 09:29 Argolis wrote: Not trying to derail the thread but I have a question:
How important is it to kill the medivacs in a MMM ball? Should I prioritize feedback to eliminate the medivacs over dropping a storm over the ball? Should stalkers FF on the medivacs? I'm having problems with MMM balls as well and never sure what I should be prioritizing in my micro.
It depends. If the MM ball is marine-heavy, then prioritize storm. If it's marauder-heavy, then feedback the medivacs first.
XDaunt, great post, I will look at the matchup with this in mind from now on and I think it will help me in many aspects.
I am a 480 diamond toss player who is getting a win rate vs terran that is basically opposite to yours.
Now, provided I do not successfully repel and counter early aggression, secure an economic advantage, pull off a good void ray harrass, or get to T3 before he does how do I hold my natural?
Is it pretty much impossible to hold your natural on a map with a more open natural expansion vs a similarly skilled terran player without succeeding in those things I mentioned above?
Sentries will hold your ramp fine but keeping them out of your main will not win you the game, you need that natural to continue T3 production.
Also, I agree that 3 gate robo is the safest route to take, I like to use warp prisms to harass. My favorite is 2 immortals to snipe depots and tech labs with a full gateway production cycle to support them. I will pick up the immortals and leave the zealots to die if im lucky and repeat after some poking with my main army. This becomes extremely effective after you have an expansion up since you can support up to 7 maybe 8 gates to warp in at this point.
early voids prevent an early robo, going 3 gate robo prevents you from building early voids, going twilight too soon will hinder your robo, going straight to charge and templar will leave you somewhat blind and open to banshees, 4 gate is not recommended since if you dont win with it the terran will steamroll you at T2.
Is there any other option that I am missing?
thanks in advance guys, I'm really having a lot of trouble with T2 terran.
I'm not a very good player, but to me, if you scout bioball, the most sensible thing would be to go Chargelots and Templars. The builds are parellel, templars are more than effective, and it seems to me that it wouldn't be a bad bet.
Being a mass bioball, chances are that his ghost count isn't going to skyrocket early in the game, so you can transition into a robo slightly later than if you were going Colossi and still be fine.
Now if anyone has a decent build order they could help us Protoss players out with, it would be amazing. I think the most effective and smartest way to do this would be a 2 gate-core-council-archives-gate-facil-gate. That sounds rather long to me though. If anyone has an in-depth build order for me to play with, I would appreciate it, and I'm sure it would help out the OP in something to try as well.
what might work for xDaunt may not work for other players. so don't fall into the one-track mindset of using voidrays to expand...etc. I really consider terran tier 1 to be marine marauder reaper, and protoss tier 1, zealot stalker sentry. After this, immortals are tier2 units that are only cost effective in countering marauders.
voidrays are tier2 units effective in harass a terran composition light in marines; however, the bratOK build (mass rine/ghost) is just of such a simple composition and requires low micromanagement that any mid-level terran player can pull it off, and defend against a huge variety of protoss army compositions.
if you choose to tech to robotics facility, build an observer first if you don't see any marauders being made, then you really have to control the terran's bottom ramp. I know this sounds a little strange; but it's surprisingly effective. Make sure you're on high alert when you're stalling the terran at his ramp early game as he may try to stim & run out, or use medivacs to drop you later on.
Thx ancient, Ive been using voids to some good effect but I still prefer robo tbh.
The most important thing I took from xdaunt is that T2 is no time to be screwing around with terran. You need to be extremely careful if you havent made a dent in them because one lost battle will certainly lose you the game as well as a few lost units or failed harass. I have often pushed a terran at T2 with no advantage and I think this is what alot of my losses are coming from.
Truesyzygy, im working on the safest, all purpose terran build that is easy to change up if need be.
so far goes something like this gate, core, gate, gate, robo then a forge and twilight for +armor and charge.
then you can decide temps or collosus, if you havent expanded you should be making preperations to once your t3 is about to come.
the only reason you should not have expanded is if you have failed a harass/push, or have pressure or threat of pressure from a T2 terran you are on even footing with.
twilight and forge need to be staggered somewhat (dont make them both at the same time) so you can keep near constant gate production with comp. that will be good vs to what the terran is making, only build immortals if you need them and obs first of course.
you can build your robo earlier if they are early expanding or teching, you can also early expand with them if thats your thing.
Your early push/harrasment options are early stalker wall harassment, a large gateway force with immortal support if you think the investment is worth it (good on destructable backdoors) and my personal favorite some very careful warp prism harrasment.
drop the units (immos my fav), warp mode, warp in a cycle of units as soon as they done warping in transport mode and get ready to fly off with the immos. Vikings will fuck this so be careful
Uhhh, I'm kinda on a slump right now.. due to PvT matchups. Never had problem before but somehow just been losing to 90% of the games vs Ts these days.
What do all the better Toss do when they're in this situation. Ts block entrance with 2 depots 1 rax. You see a tech lab. You expect reapers. You make 1 or 2 stalkers and get a robo for Obs to see what Ts doing. Next thing you know, 6-7 reapers with nitro packs come in your base and harass..
The thing I'm having problem with is that Terran used to just rush with the first reaper they made.. but now if I don't see it after i got my stalker out.. I don't expect a reaper ... next thing I know 5-6 reapers come in and I have 1 or 2 stalkers with an Obs..
Should have built more stalkers obviously... but is it always safe to go from 3 gates to robo or 1 gate 1 stalker or 2 and get a fast Ob?
xDaunt, you seem like a verry good Toss vs Terrans. Can you explain your strats and BOs to beat those early cheese builds from Terrans (marauders and reapers)? Help a fellow Toss out ^^
In the time it takes to get 6-7 reapers they could also get 4-5 marauders which will just laugh at your 1-2 stalkers so it's not so much a cheese problem that you have as a build order problem.
I don't think you need a fast observer if you see they've gone tech on the first barracks. If they have then the chances are good they won't have a very fast cloaked banshee out so you can delay your obs to 3gate/robo or 2gate robo. Or infact in those situations I tend to go fast void ray as they won't have (m)any marines.
I like to leave my initial scouting probe at the front of the base/at a nearby xel'naga. That way if they do try some sort of early push I know about it and can rush units if required.
Fast VR won't work. I've tried. By the time I had my first VR CBed out, he already had 4 reapers killing at least 3-4 probes with nitro and VR can't really chase down those reapers.. Maybe you'll kill one. And when you take that VR and go to his base, he'll have 3-4 marines which will be able to push that VR out with no problem.
Usually those reapers plays are on desert oasis and kulas ravine. They will go the long route so your probe at the tower is kinda useless..
I'll try 3 gates robo and 2 gates robo out. They seem very solid.
I still want xDaunt's replays against Ts though haha.. he sounds like a very good Toss against Terran
I'm mid diamond btw.. Used to be 2nd diamond but due to "overpowered Terrans" I've lost so many points it's not even funny.
On August 12 2010 15:28 JiSu wrote: Yeah, I guess I have a BO problem..
Fast VR won't work. I've tried. By the time I had my first VR CBed out, he already had 4 reapers killing at least 3-4 probes with nitro and VR can't really chase down those reapers.. Maybe you'll kill one. And when you take that VR and go to his base, he'll have 3-4 marines which will be able to push that VR out with no problem.
Usually those reapers plays are on desert oasis and kulas ravine. They will go the long route so your probe at the tower is kinda useless..
I'll try 3 gates robo and 2 gates robo out. They seem very solid.
I still want xDaunt's replays against Ts though haha.. he sounds like a very good Toss against Terran
I'm mid diamond btw.. Used to be 2nd diamond but due to "overpowered Terrans" I've lost so many points it's not even funny.
reapers should be the least of your worries, spend more of your early resources on at least 2 gates and a good mix of zealot stalkers and sentries before your robo and you should be fine vs any early aggression from terran
I feel that stalkers/cols are a trap in this matchup. All the units that do really great against bio are super gas intensive. While you do need a few stalkers to keep attack retreat in check along with reaper harrass, sentries and high templars are amazing in this matchup. Also, scouting is ridiculously important as you need to catch the army rather than letting it catch you. The push really makes or breaks your game and I think it feels imbalanced because most players timing sense aren't exactly refined yet. T2 only feels imbalanced because a stalker heavy army simply can't afford the troops that're an actual threat to a bio ball.
Just some perspectives on what works vs my Bioaggression.
My typical build is heavy early MM with shells early on, Stim maybe coming in around Immortal time and usually not going shields until Col time or if they are going Voids and I am forced to go Marine heavy.
Usually money-for-money on the open field, I feel like my early 3 Rax push can take out stuff around the time toss has Zealots / Stalkers / Sents only. So if I wind up on level ground, usually this time is good for a player massing early MM. What kills me during this time is Senturies at the ramp. I cannot push past the ramp on someone who is using their Senturies and has spent a decent amount on their army as well. If they skimp totally on their army, yeah I can brute force the ramp, but usually Senturies hold this stage of the game.
So if you can be aware of if the T is going to be pushing out with MM, try to avoid level engagements. The ramp is where I always will get owned.
A little after that, I feel really weak to several things. 4 Gate pushes at this time are very strong vs. 3 Rax MM. Longer engagements very much favor toss at this point. The shields recharge and at this point stimpack use does not. If you feel you can draw out an engagement into 2 parts, it can give you significant HP advantages. Forcefields are a really good way to split the troops up into bite sized chunks or force the Terran back long enough for him to have to re-stim.
Void rays usually won't be game ending for me, but they will keep me in my base. They are game ending about as much for me as they are for the Toss when either of us screw up. Remember, the more you try to end it now, you could more easily lose your rays and also lose the game for yourself. Keep them alive and you will keep the Terran player in his base, which is the point of Void Rays. If the Terran moves out without his whole MM force, your ground army should be strong enough to hold your ramp. If the Terran does move out with his whole force, your Void Ray's job is to punish him. A forward probe will let you know if the marines are coming with the army or holding back.
For Void Rays -- remember their job is to keep the T in his base. If his army is in his base and he's holding your pokes, don't try to force it down his throat. They are doing their job -- he's in his base! Just let him know they are there and ready to zap things the second he moves out. Then try to capitalize on your expansion or tech.
Usually when my ghosts arrive and are charged up for EMP there is a small window between then and when a 1-basing toss can get up his good tech for dealing with Bio -- Cols, HT, Zealot legs, etc. This is usually the last big window that I feel like I can do a ton with my Bio before I have to settle down and get some tech and expo. I think for toss, it's important to know if the Terran has not expanded, that time just before your Colossus or HT are ready is probably not safe to expo. It's usually one of my last big chances to win with the early Bio mix before the game becomes almost entirely macro or mistake driven.
So, I guess to summarize, here is what gives me problems at different stages of the game:
Very early, Gateway units only -- Senturies @ ramp A little after, T2 units -- Void Ray threats or 4 Gate hard pushes, Immortals but usually only at ramp are they a problem. Hard pushes with good forcefield use. Around Ghost time -- DTs Around Medivac time -- Colossus, Gateway heavy with Charge, HT
Here is what I consider easy at various stages with MM:
Very Early -- 2 gate techs or light gateway massing when I catch them outside their ramp. T2 units -- Void Rays that get too eager, early expo with too little army. Around Ghost time -- Fighting vs Immortals or fighting balled up toss armies, especially on even ground. Around Medivac time -- Any army without several Colossus or HTs.
Most terran i've played against on low diamond in the SEA server opens with some sort of cheese play, so I either defend the cheese and win out right or I lose, hard to get proper PvT practice on the ladder.
Anyway, great post by xDaunt, my PvT mid game focuses on staying alive and out expanding T while I get my tier 3 ready.
If you face 3rax early aggression, split his forces by FF the ramp. Kill the isolated part. He cannot enter your base, all the while you get colossus tech.
Again, chargelots are just completely devastating to my TvP. Chargelots DPS is through the roof, and marauder-heavy bio dosn't stand a chance. You are left with marine-heavy which melts to early colossus faster than your few vikings will take it down.
I usually loose to P's going quick colossus and staying defensive t2 by FFing ramp and such.
I'm a 500 diamond player (newer division, so I'm currently #4 in mine) and PvT used to be my worst matchup. Now I'm usually winning at 70%+ (if only I could improve my PvP). I'd suggest going to Gnial's thread about stalker/voidrays harass openings.
Basically, I start off with a stalker heavy start and harass his entrance (trying to force tanks/maruaders) and I proxy a Stargate close to his base. If he's gone marauder heavy, I usually build up to 2 or 3 voidrays and then just try to go in and wipe out his orbital command. If he is going marine/tanks to turtle, I'll get Five or so phoenixes, and just continually harass his mineral line.
If I went voidrays, I generally try to expand quickly, harass to keep his attack from coming, and tech into chargelots+carriers+voids. If I went phoenixes, I go phoenixes (to lift tanks)/blink stalkers/chargelots/ht. Either way, your early harass should really be putting him behind, and forcing him to play the strategy you want him to play. I usually gain a significant early advantage, nullifying the Terran T2 advantage, and play for a T3 win. In PvT you MUST be aggressive early, or that T2 push is gonna wipe you out.
I'm only a sort of middleish Platinum player, and playing random doesn't really help my win rate or allow me to get better at particular MUs as fast, but one thing I have really found helps me in PvT is armour upgrades. I find them to be far superior to attack upgrades for time/money spend vs benefits gained.
With +3 armour, 1 natural armour and Guardian Shield your Chargelots have -6 damage from ranged attacks (eg. every single Terran attack and enough to nullify the damage of un-upgraded marines). I find that a lot of Terrans I play at this level any way overreact badly to one void ray and end up with LOADS of marines against which those armour upgrades shine particularly. Even marauders only do 4 more damage than marines vs zealots. This is a very dramatic increase in chargelot survivability which I think increases the value of your troops far more than the attack upgrades. I know stimmed marauders can still kite chargelots but that's kinda why you don't just run out and fight him head on in the middle of a field with your entire army. You do need a positional advantage and/or good use of FF to really get the most mileage out of your chargelots.
Just tried out 3 gate to HT tech against MMMs. Works pretty effective against terrans. For those of you who want to take a look at a successful HT push from an MMM contain, there's replay #4 uploaded, though as you can see I made alot of mistakes.
Also, I do believe that there's plenty of minerals when teching to HT, so putting down another 3 gates and a forge after the templar archives is manageable even on one base.
On August 12 2010 15:28 JiSu wrote: Yeah, I guess I have a BO problem..
Fast VR won't work. I've tried. By the time I had my first VR CBed out, he already had 4 reapers killing at least 3-4 probes with nitro and VR can't really chase down those reapers.. Maybe you'll kill one. And when you take that VR and go to his base, he'll have 3-4 marines which will be able to push that VR out with no problem.
Usually those reapers plays are on desert oasis and kulas ravine. They will go the long route so your probe at the tower is kinda useless..
I'll try 3 gates robo and 2 gates robo out. They seem very solid.
I still want xDaunt's replays against Ts though haha.. he sounds like a very good Toss against Terran
I'm mid diamond btw.. Used to be 2nd diamond but due to "overpowered Terrans" I've lost so many points it's not even funny.
reapers should be the least of your worries, spend more of your early resources on at least 2 gates and a good mix of zealot stalkers and sentries before your robo and you should be fine vs any early aggression from terran
Edit: same goes with stargates
Ah okay. How many stalkers and sentries you usually get before you put that robo down if you're 2 gate robo.
Here are a few notes in response to some of the above posts:
1) I want to be explicitly clear as to when and why Toss tier 2 loses to Terran tier 2. The problems arise when the terran goes very heavy on marines. Once the terran reaches a critical mass of marines (like 15-20+), you need storm or colossi. Massed marauders, in contrast, aren't as big of a problem because you can always pull out a void ray or use chargelots with sentries (this does not work as well if the terran has gone marauder/medivac). The marines are the problem. What this means is that if the terran is doing some build that does not revolve around heavy marine usage, then you can play more aggressively at tier 2.
2) Any kind of early terran pressure is dealt with by opening 1-gate + core + gate. Honestly, you can usually get away with just 1-gate + core and then save money to put down your first tech structure before the second gateway. All you need is a mixture stalkers and zealots. On 2 player maps, I always 10-gate so that I can crush any proxy-rax cheese (reapers or marauders).
3) Scouting is incredibly important in PvT because of the wide variety of tactics that terrans employ. Check for rax counts, rax-unit counts, and other tech structures. One of the reasons why I love opening void ray is that I get a free look into the terran's base fairly early and will know exactly what he's up to.
I haven't really been saving replays and most of my recent games have been PvP (which I hate and suck at). However, I did assemble some replays for someone else showing what I do with void rays. All of these particular games end rather quickly, but you can see the build that I am using and how strong the void ray opening is against anything that doesn't involve a lot of marines. The next time that I play a terran who goes marine heavy, I'll post that replay to show you how I adapt.
I play mid level diamond (400pts) and I personally really like the TvP matchup. I got stomped last night by a toss player. Basically I went for the morrow build, did a 1 Rax fast expand into 4 rax marine. I had a pretty good econ advantage over the toss player, but I just couldn't push up the ramp because of FF's - early sentries really work wonders lol. He ended up going 4 gate, and pushed me with chargelots and HT's. HT's really messed up my bioball =( Storm on marines + FB on medivacs is really harsh, especially since alot of medivacs will have max energy because they've just been sitting there. To be fair though, I chose not to go ghosts for some dumb reason, probably why I lost that game.
Just my thoughts, but toss players do have a pretty good chance against bio balls. I feel that HT's are the key for them, and not colossi too much since they get taken down by vikings so easily.
Honestly I feel that the most important thing in PvT is expansion timing, much more so than in the other matchups. You really need the extra gas from your expansion in order to get your Templar tech up and running in time to combat the Terran midgame push.
I've found that it's generally pretty safe to expand right after the Terran tries an early game push with a couple marines and marauders, since you will likely have a stalker or two alive and can make a couple sentries as you expand. If you're going void rays this is also right around the time when your first void ray finishes so you can harass with that while you expand even if the Terran didn't try an early push.
If you miss that small window in the early game to expand it seems to me that if the Terran is decent at all you're forced to one-base for far too long (until you get up Templar and have a few storms) and you fall terribly behind in the macro game. If you manage to get your expansion running early enough you can easily crush a midgame bio push with storm or colossus and the rest of the game almost feels like it favors the Protoss, since a zealot/Templar army is so mobile and holds it's own very well against bio so the Terran is almost forced to start going mech, at which point you can use your mobile army to deny expansions and keep the Terran on two base for a long time.
On August 12 2010 15:28 JiSu wrote: Yeah, I guess I have a BO problem..
Fast VR won't work. I've tried. By the time I had my first VR CBed out, he already had 4 reapers killing at least 3-4 probes with nitro and VR can't really chase down those reapers.. Maybe you'll kill one. And when you take that VR and go to his base, he'll have 3-4 marines which will be able to push that VR out with no problem.
Usually those reapers plays are on desert oasis and kulas ravine. They will go the long route so your probe at the tower is kinda useless..
I'll try 3 gates robo and 2 gates robo out. They seem very solid.
I still want xDaunt's replays against Ts though haha.. he sounds like a very good Toss against Terran
I'm mid diamond btw.. Used to be 2nd diamond but due to "overpowered Terrans" I've lost so many points it's not even funny.
reapers should be the least of your worries, spend more of your early resources on at least 2 gates and a good mix of zealot stalkers and sentries before your robo and you should be fine vs any early aggression from terran
Edit: same goes with stargates
Ah okay. How many stalkers and sentries you usually get before you put that robo down if you're 2 gate robo.
On August 12 2010 15:28 JiSu wrote: Yeah, I guess I have a BO problem..
Fast VR won't work. I've tried. By the time I had my first VR CBed out, he already had 4 reapers killing at least 3-4 probes with nitro and VR can't really chase down those reapers.. Maybe you'll kill one. And when you take that VR and go to his base, he'll have 3-4 marines which will be able to push that VR out with no problem.
Usually those reapers plays are on desert oasis and kulas ravine. They will go the long route so your probe at the tower is kinda useless..
I'll try 3 gates robo and 2 gates robo out. They seem very solid.
I still want xDaunt's replays against Ts though haha.. he sounds like a very good Toss against Terran
I'm mid diamond btw.. Used to be 2nd diamond but due to "overpowered Terrans" I've lost so many points it's not even funny.
reapers should be the least of your worries, spend more of your early resources on at least 2 gates and a good mix of zealot stalkers and sentries before your robo and you should be fine vs any early aggression from terran
Edit: same goes with stargates
Ah okay. How many stalkers and sentries you usually get before you put that robo down if you're 2 gate robo.
I usually wait for at least 4-5 gateway units before I make my robo, The ratio of zealots/stalkers will depend on what the terran has but a good rule is for 5 units you should have 2 stalker 2 zealot 1 sentry
Being a Diamond leading Terran player, xDaunt could not be more correct. When I do my Bio build (I took many points from Brat_OK, since his marine heavy start combats void rays, which I believe are the best protoss opening vs Terran), I am tweaking it so that I can do a timing attack before templars have a storm ready or Colossus has the range upgrade.
Basically, if the Protoss goes all gates vs my build I feel very good. When they try to expand early I also feel good pushing in to kill it. What I hate is when they rush to the "Tier 3" while still in one base, because once they have 2 templars with storm, or even 1 colossus with the 9 range upgrade.... boy that hurts, ghosts or no ghosts. I am starting to think that if they do that I will not attack their main at all, but instead camp outside their expantion while I expand myself, and force them to come fight in the open field.
Even in "Tier 2" if you engage where FF's can cut your army in half, your screwed. Fighting in the open field is key.
I just lost to a 400 diamond terran who simply went mass tanks. He countered my void ray pressure perfectly, knew I expanded and decided to take several expansions with this midgame advantage. Mass tanks peppered by marines are really hard to deal with. Also, it was xel'naga caverns so I wasnt able to exploit toss' superior mobility in taking out those expansions. Once he took the middle it was lights out. At one point in the game I had a shitton of immortals, and I killed lots of tanks, but the economic advantage he had, being entrenched in the middle of the map, was too much, even kiting him to unseige then moving in. Terran is so versatile. As weird as it sounds, I think I should have done some high tech mass air.
Theres a PvZ mass air build against zerg on these forums, the void ray collossus build. Im thinking a variation on that might not be bad against terran, but youd need a standing army in the meantime whereas static defense works against zerg. The build refers to the hard to deal with late game comp, but it relies heavily on the void ray speed upgrade and forcing your opponents hand by chronoboosting the air weapons from the cybercore so they think you're warpgating. You still apply pressure if you can, but its just buying you time to expand (on second thought a timing push might crush you unless you charged your VRs on your own buildings and used them for defense or something.)
I was hoping someone could take a look at my replay. PvT
The Terran goes rax into FE and his bunkers completely stopped my push. What did I do wrong? Should I have not pushed and expo'd myself? Should I have rushed Colossi faster when I saw the bio army? I would just like some feedback on this game. Thanks.
Your initial BO is something I don't see too often, but it's good vs very fast reapers, I guess. And that could happen on SoW quite often, so I'm not gonna judge that.
You choose to go for a 3-gate robo build, but I'm not sure if this was a reaction you had due to some stacked resources or if this was your plan at all since you popped the robo and 2 more gates at the same time. Sadly, I don't think you were aware of the FE terran did, and you did not get an obs out early. Right before the 9th minute mark, a fight breaks out, which heavily favored the terran even though Immortals rape bunkers pretty fast. At this point, I would not attack at all. When you saw the FE, I think it would have been a better decision to pull back, expand yourself and tech up.
Eventually you get a robo bay up, but you dearly want to hold your small contain at the terran's front door and end up taking pod shots which even drag an Immortal down with it. Avoid small things like this. Also, keep in mind that where you were positioned was no choke. If the terran had pushed out with a sizeable bio ball at this point, he would have overwhelmed your units very quickly.
13th minute mark: you get your expansion up...but it seems very dark from here on. While his mules were up, the terran had almost double your income, and this has lasted for quite some time. The economic advantage is clearly in his favour.
16th minute mark: a fight ensues. After a very failed attempt to EMP your forces, the standings right before the onslaught is this: 5 zealots, 1 immortal, 14 stalkers, 2 colossi (but range upgrade not done yet) and 4 sentries. Your opponent got 20 marauders, 2 ghosts and no less than 43 marines. 102 supply vs 143. The outcome is quite obvious...you didn't stand a chance.
I see 4 biggies that I think can sum up the game.
1) Upgrades. Against a bio ball, you really want those upgrades. An early +1 armor makes wonders against that heavy amount of infantry. You did use GS at least, which shreds off alot of damage. Still, it's not always sufficient.
2) Economic advantage. The main reason why you lost the game. The terran had an income that riddiculed yours. Because of this, his army was, obviously, alot more powerful. Breaking a turtling terran is not easy with just gateway units. OK, you had a couple of immortals, but they don't excel at this either. They serve you better against marauder pushes at your front door at this stage.
3) Low tech. Asside from the immortals, you had very little to no tech at all available while you still were down in economy. At least you had colossi out when he chose to end the game, but it didn't cut the deal for you. Tier 3 units are absolutely essential at this stage of the game. Void Rays would be nice to keep the terran a little longer inside his base, even though it could be quite risky as his marine number was very high.
4) A reason which triggered the main reason to why you lost the game (well, that sounded kinda spicy): scouting. You had a robo bay, yet you didn't produce a single observer the entire game. This is bad news. A terran has a very wide arsenal of what he can throw at you, and I'm quite sure you didn't even know about the ghosts before he was at your front door. You WANT to know what that guy's up to!
If there's something I would recommend improving on, it's point number 4. Do some more scouting, especially if you go for a robo like you did. Observers are of good use!
On August 14 2010 00:25 FoUsTy wrote: Replay Xdaunt : 50 apm vs 50 apm. Terran see VR and make one raven...not viking... Like we say at this level VR is good......
hey fousty you know i'm real tired of your bs.
the whole point to take away from daunt's replay pack is how to micro against early terran aggression, then transition to void ray to attack the terran main. although the terran usually falls to the void ray push, protoss should follow up the harassment with a well-timed expansion
On August 11 2010 01:54 xDaunt wrote: I'm a 600 diamond protoss player, and PvT is my strongest matchup right now (I'm probably running a 80-85% winrate in the matchup). To understand PvT, you have to break it up into Tier 1 early game , Tier 2 mid game, and Tier 3 late game.
PvT is fairly balanced at Tier 1 and Tier 3. At Tier 1, zealots, stalkers, and sentries do well against smaller bio forces. At Tier 3, once the protoss has unlocked all or most of his tech (especially templar tech), protoss has all the tools necessary to deal with anything that the terran throws at him. To be honest, I think that, if anything, toss has the advantage over terran at tier 3 because the toss can abuse his mobility advantage and make it very difficult for a terran to establish any kind of map control, thereby denying the terran expansions.
The problem for PvT is Tier 2. To be blunt, protoss does not have anything that stacks up well against bio masses (especially when supported by medivacs and/or ghosts) at Tier 2. Chargelots, immortals, blink stalkers, void rays, and phoenixes all MELT in head on confrontations. Honestly, I think that there is a balance problem here, but we can save that for another thread.
A protoss player has to design and map out his PvT gameplan with this Tier 2 disadvantage in mind. This means that a protoss player either has to kill the terran at Tier 1 (or before the terran is able to fully leverage his Tier 2 advantage), find a way to quickly get to Tier 3, or secure a large enough economic advantage that the Tier 2 disadvantage doesn't matter. Protoss players who are successful in PvT invariably do one of these three things.
My personal preference is use void ray builds (as do a lot of other protoss players who are good at PvT) because I can make a play at all of these goals at once. If the terran does not have a marine-heavy build, he dies outright. If the terran does have marines, then I can harass the terran with my void ray(s) and buy time for me to expand and tech up to colossi or high templar. At that point, the terran's Tier 2 advantage doesn't matter anymore (ie a MMM+G push is manageable). There are a number of other threads that describe various void ray builds in PvT and how to use them, so I'll refrain from providing all the details here.
Void rays aren't the only answer. There are a number of builds that other players use. However, just keep in mind the Tier 2 window that terrans have to rape protoss and plan for it accordingly.
All terran come on my behind will say "AHHHHH STOP WHINE" omg...
I'm pretty sure this is the most hilarious thing ever said on teamliquid. Discuss.
On August 14 2010 00:25 FoUsTy wrote: Replay Xdaunt : 50 apm vs 50 apm. Terran see VR and make one raven...not viking... Like we say at this level VR is good......
You do realize that White-Ra and lots of other pro-level players often open with void rays against terrans, right?
Besides, here's a better point: if I'm able to effectively use void rays against terrans with my "50 APM" at diamond level (I'm like 680 or so right now), then a lot of protoss players should be able to similarly use them effectively without requiring massive APM.
Here are two replays against Diamond T players that might help. I always try to keep pressure on them starting with a proxy because I feel like when they see my units, they are forced to react to them. This means that if they see zealots, they KNOW they will need Marauder. By "forcing" them into building units that you can predict, you are able to hit them with units that you did not encourage them to counter.
Proxy 1 gate to Robo/Chargelots/Map control vs rank 3 Diamond: http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/55271-1v1-terran-protoss-blistering-sands Why do I expand so early? Because the proxy gives me map control 2 minutes into the game. Pressure makes the other player react. You want them to react to you, not act in their own comfortable play style.
Does anyone know where I can find a build order for chargelot HT? I've tried it before but end up getting owned by the first big bio ball push because I was saving gas for temps (i.e., no shield, no ff). Should I be constantly getting lot/stalker until the archives starts, then save gas? When should gas unit production stop in order to get enough HT fast enough?
On August 14 2010 00:25 FoUsTy wrote: Replay Xdaunt : 50 apm vs 50 apm. Terran see VR and make one raven...not viking... Like we say at this level VR is good......
You do realize that White-Ra and lots of other pro-level players often open with void rays against terrans, right?
Besides, here's a better point: if I'm able to effectively use void rays against terrans with my "50 APM" at diamond level (I'm like 680 or so right now), then a lot of protoss players should be able to similarly use them effectively without requiring massive APM.
Little seriously please. T against you don't got stimpack fast (as T can do now) When one got 2 viking against one VR he don't hit and run, just let them. I train with one top diamond T which taking fast stim...marine marauder stimed crush stalker VR... And more of that you are late/don't charged VR on rok... anyway............................
High level player, before IEM say "The imbalance is big" dimaga, "T is just too much power" artosis... Well speak about high level player...
On August 14 2010 00:25 FoUsTy wrote: Replay Xdaunt : 50 apm vs 50 apm. Terran see VR and make one raven...not viking... Like we say at this level VR is good......
Je vois que t'est francais, alors, on doit que je respond en cette langue. APM n'est pas tres important, oui, en les haute divisions, il faut qu'on fasse bien avec le <<Micro>>, et seulment la, on doit avoir APM tres haut. Mais le replay d'xDaunt n'est pas dans une division assez haute qu'on doit avoir les main assez rapide, en cette casse, il faut que tu laisse toute seule les joueurs qui voudrais d'etre plus bien, et c'est pas gentile ce que t'as fait.
On August 14 2010 04:14 silencesc wrote: Does anyone know where I can find a build order for chargelot HT? I've tried it before but end up getting owned by the first big bio ball push because I was saving gas for temps (i.e., no shield, no ff). Should I be constantly getting lot/stalker until the archives starts, then save gas? When should gas unit production stop in order to get enough HT fast enough?
I don't think that a strict build order particularly useful beyond timing the building of your twilight council. You're going to have to adjust your gas expenditure based upon what the terran is doing and, specifically, whether he's going to attack you. If you're looking for some kind of guideline, I typically spend gas on 3 stalkers, 3 sentries, charge, and +1 armor before building the templar archives.
But you are really good! Mais tu parles vraiment bien... French is hard... APM on fight means a lot ... I explain ni my last post... And mistake too are explain.
Correct for you :
Je vois que t'es francais, alors je vais répondre dans cette langue. L'APM n'est pas très important, oui, dans les haute divisions, il faut qu'on fasse bien avec le <<Micro>>, et seulement là, on doit avoir un APM très haut. Mais le replay d'xDaunt n'est pas dans une division assez haute pour avoir besoin d'avoir les main assez rapide, dans ce cas, il faut que tu laisses toute seule les joueurs qui voudrais d'etre plus bien ????????????????, et c'est pas gentil ce que t'as fait.
On August 14 2010 00:25 FoUsTy wrote: Replay Xdaunt : 50 apm vs 50 apm. Terran see VR and make one raven...not viking... Like we say at this level VR is good......
You do realize that White-Ra and lots of other pro-level players often open with void rays against terrans, right?
Besides, here's a better point: if I'm able to effectively use void rays against terrans with my "50 APM" at diamond level (I'm like 680 or so right now), then a lot of protoss players should be able to similarly use them effectively without requiring massive APM.
Little seriously please. T against you don't got stimpack fast (as T can do now) When one got 2 viking against one VR he don't hit and run, just let them. I train with one top diamond T which taking fast stim...marine marauder stimed crush stalker VR... And more of that you are late/don't charged VR on rok... anyway............................
I've played plenty of games against terrans who get a quick stim against void rays. Guess what? It still doesn't stop the harassment. Also, why charge on a rock when you can charge right on their wall-in? Again, the point isn't necessarily to kill the terran. It's just to buy me time. It just so happens that those replays show me killing terrans outright.
On August 14 2010 04:25 FoUsTy wrote: High level player, before IEM say "The imbalance is big" dimaga, "T is just too much power" artosis... Well speak about high level player...
You realize that those are both ZERG players right?
How exactly have you avoided being banned so far? You've been a huge troll ever since you first showed up.
On August 14 2010 04:32 FoUsTy wrote: But you are really good! Mais tu parles vraiment bien... French is hard... APM on fight means a lot ... I explain ni my last post... And mistake too are explain.
Correct for you :
Je vois que t'es francais, alors je vais répondre dans cette langue. L'APM n'est pas très important, oui, dans les haute divisions, il faut qu'on fasse bien avec le <<Micro>>, et seulement là, on doit avoir un APM très haut. Mais le replay d'xDaunt n'est pas dans une division assez haute pour avoir besoin d'avoir les main assez rapide, dans ce cas, il faut que tu laisses toute seule les joueurs qui voudrais d'etre plus bien ????????????????, et c'est pas gentil ce que t'as fait.
haha, ouais, j'ai beaucoup des problems avec gramaire (<- definetement pas correct), merci pour les corrections.
Aussi, APM est TRES important, mais les joueurs qui ne sont pas tres bien ont problems avec ce ci; en Gold ou Silver, 50 APM est d'accord.
About build orders: OPINION: Anything beyond your first two minutes should be improvised! If your build order carries you all the way to a twilight council, you are making yourself so inflexible that you lose to a inferior opponent due to the rock paper scissor phenomenon, where your rigid build loses to their rigid build! My advice, and what I do in every game, is to have a general idea of every unit that you want to build against a particular opponent (based on race usually) and go from there. Make sure you are sticking close to that general idea and you should do well!
About VRs vs Terran: Don't do it, please. VRs are soooo vulnerable against Terran's first unit! If you are not a high level player, this will not work for you!
On August 14 2010 05:15 tehemperorer wrote: About VRs vs Terran: Don't do it, please. VRs are soooo vulnerable against Terran's first unit! If you are not a high level player, this will not work for you!
This is probably true. If you're in silver or gold, you really won't need good, finessed void ray usage to beat a terran. Simply improve your mechanics and you should be okay. Make sure that you're building enough workers, keeping your money low, and expanding at the right times. Executing these basics properly will propel you into diamond without having to worry about higher level strategy.
I think I've already mentioned that I don't really like VRs since stimmed marines rape them very easily, but I can't deny that when used properly, VRs are awesome to keep pressure on the terran base. Although I've seen alot of good protoss players (even WhiteRa) losing very quickly due to wasting his first 2 VRs, which is doomed to happen should the terran catch it out of position.
If one doesn't like the VR, I've found it quite effective to use a Warp Prism to keep the terran at his toes. It doesn't cost any gas, and T will always have to watch out for it, else he'll suddenly get 3 raging zealots into his mineral line. Warp Prisms are more my thing than the VR since I like getting a robo out before my TC pops. This is very easy to do if T doesn't have an engineering bay out (which means turrets). Also, if I don't see an engineering bay, DTs are very mean against bio, and also a very nice unit to keep on your ramp if T tries to push up. Sure, he can scan. But it's not like he got an infinite amount of those scans either. Too bad you're an ancient by the time Dark Shrine pops, though. To make a long story short, T got alot of options to ruin your day as a protoss player, but the protoss can counter with some very nice elements to make sure the terran is going to regret leaving his base. The VR, as xDaunt has demonstrated quite well, is ONE of several options.
tehemperor, thanks for sharing replays but frankly they weren't of much use. I am Gold, trying to claw my way into Plat (Blizz just started matching me against higher than silver players). Your first opponent banks tons in the beginning and plays passively, your second opponent didn't even scout your base to get a sniff on the proxy. Your play would be fairly useless against a semi-component terran on the level I face when I go to ladder (or I face a mirror MU, cue other whinethread about PvP, only went against 2 zerg in 25 games). They scout you, deny you scouting until robo which means flying blind for way too long or teching too fast to stop their inevitable early mid-game push with 10-25 marines (sometimes marauders in there) and 3~tanks. The timing is such that the push comes after conc/stim and sometimes after shields too. Siege is generally researching so that it finishes when he approaches my ramp. If he doesn't push up (even when I cut him in half with FF he has vision long enough for his sieged tanks go to work anyway) he'll just contain me.
I don't trust myself to hold of any early agression while going the White-Ra build of "1gate-core-stargate void harass to keep him in his base". Even if I did I don't trust the terrans I would face to stay in his base (cue base race which I'll probably lose, charged VR or not), and even if he did, I don't think I would be able to exploit it good enough anyway. I do not want to proxy buildings, only pylons for shorter distance when warping in.
tl;dr How do I grab initiative vs. a terran? Limited by 40-60 avg. APM.
On August 14 2010 08:21 SirNeshorn wrote: If one doesn't like the VR, I've found it quite effective to use a Warp Prism to keep the terran at his toes.
This. I was doing this strat before running into White-Ra's VR harass build. Works pretty similar, get fast robo>observer out. Take a look at the base with your obs, make sure to take tabs at his army composition and location. Now either: 1. get warp prism immediately and go behind opponent's mineral line, use the prism's 'warp' ability and warp in stalkers/zealots to kill of probes. Load your units and hightail out of there when his army comes. There's enough time to get out because your observer should still be alive and you know exactly when the enemy is near. 2. get 2 immortals out, then warp prism. Load the immortals and drop them behind mineral line + warp in units. This takes more time, though if you pay attention to what your enemy's doing with your observer, you can basically time your drop when he is about to make a push. If he pushes before you're ready then you can just include the immortals with your main army and they will help a great deal if you're dealing with marauder heavy type.
The point of this is to slow down his econ by killing scvs before he gets his turrets up. In the meantime, if his army is on the way to your base and decides to go all in/base exchange, hopefully you've got a decent sized army to stave it off. I think its 50/50. But if he decides to go back and deal with your harass, then you can expand and macro up to tier 3 as fast as possible.
One last bump to this topic here. What would be a related strategy in countering an early marauder push (2 rax) in a map with no ramps, such as in Kulas Ravine? Attached is a replay (First post, Replay #6) of what happened with the marauder push and there's practically little I can do to stop the attack, unless I go for a very specialised build or quick Void Rays. The problem here is that the timing window to actually get your units up is so tiny that once you miss it you have more or less lost the game. Somehow maps like this start to show how slightly unbalanced terrans really are when the map is favouring them.
Sounds like you are doing a robotics fac opening if you are transitioning to collosi. Try planning for HT's late against bio ball. It's much harder to deal w/ as terran than collosi play (for me).
i think in earlygame, sentries with their forcefield and their shield are a lifesaver for toss. i use them heavily to slow down the terran bioball advancing or to force them to come to my army in small packages. only problem with sentries are the heavy gas costs, which hinders toss to build colossi or ht as fast as possible.
I Agree with most of points from xDaunt and i think the most crucial momment for this matchup is the transition from early to mid game.First of all you want to put pressure on Terran all the way till you reach the mid game at which point you should be either good teched or with expo.I try as much to instantly harass with 1-2 zealots at the beggining and if i have the opportunity with stalkers and then when i get repelled go for Stargate and Phoenix instead of Void ray.
Phoenix is guaranteed that it will work very good as their speed is unmatchable they can fire while moving back and go around in his base causing havok.You can fly over his base without dieing while Void Rays can be lethal and sometimes game winning(Although i dont see where in the higher levels of Diamond it can be) cause of their speed you cant really scout or harass that much but you can certainly keep him in his base.By the time he decides to make Turrets or move outside his base you should have teched to where you can counter him.I prefer to expand after i get teched so i dont lose silly games even if i have the upper hand but it depends on the opponent.
Dont let him get it easy staying in his base macroing and making 5 barracks pumping units while expoing.Pressure him hard so he forgets about the need to kill you before you get your tech up.
I used to have some trouble against Terran but after playing them in 90% of my ladder games I'm pretty confident. You really need to scout and know what they are doing.
VS Fast Expand: You see them not taking gas or putting an addon on their techlab with your scouting probe. Or you see nothing but marines and non-addon rax when you stalker scout their ramp. Just expand early yourself and make sure you have enough gateway units to hold off an early non-stimmed marine attack. Blink stalkers can be very effective against this but you opt to one base blink stalker instead of expand you are essentially all-in and need to kill them or do serious damage.
VS All-in one base bio: If you see 4-5 rax off one base and mass unit production with no factory in sight. Against this I always go one base collossus with 2-3 gateways. Assuming you get the collossus out in time for their push you can easily end the game afterwards with 1-2 collosus + ranged upgrade because they will not have any way to tech to starport and get vikings in time.
VS "Standard" bio: I open 2 gate robo and expand when they expand or sooner only if I have good scouting and am confident I won't die if they push me. This is usually after I have a decent amount of gateway units and 1-2 immortals. Note: only make immortals if you see marauders. Do not try to use immortals against marine+ghost or something like that. As soon as I expand I add a gateway and a twilight council to get charge then get storm as soon as I can. If they have a good amount of marauders or and/or have a few tanks thrown in then keep making immortals. If they are mainly marine then add more gateways.
Its very important against terran to scout a lot. Even more than the other races. Early game you need to be harassing their ramp with a stalker. Use the same stalker to keep control of the watchtower if they let you - a lot of people will just send one marine to it. Always know what kind of unit comp they have - the more marauders they have the more immortals you need ECT. Also keep an eye on the numbers and don't get caught offguard by a push. You need to know when they are pushing so you can have your units spread in a good concave where they can't land fight winning EMPs.
If they kill your observer make another one. If they kill that one make a third one. If at any point you aren't using your robo for production make a 2nd or 3rd observer to watch for DROPS and island expansions.
Once you get storm you should be able to win provided you don't get outplayed badly. Use storm drops with zealots warping in to harass expansions. It is very hard for them to attack you once you get warp-in storm but you need to be very careful of drops. Before fights use your vision advantage (you hopefully have an observer) to run single templar out and emp ghosts or drop storms on the bio. Feedbacking full energy medivacs is good too.
I really don't like the void ray opening. You are too reliant on the void ray and its pretty common for them to have a lot of marines now with either FE or the marine + ghost push. The only time I make void rays is if I see all marauders or as a late game transition if they are tank/marauder heavy.
Not sure if anyone posted this yet, but it's a vid from HuskyStarcraft's youtube channel on stopping a marauder rush from a 3 rax. Pretty sure the same could be done if it was marine heavy as well.
On August 16 2010 23:29 A3main88 wrote: Not sure if anyone posted this yet, but it's a vid from HuskyStarcraft's youtube channel on stopping a marauder rush from a 3 rax. Pretty sure the same could be done if it was marine heavy as well.
Yeah, people have posted that before. I think it's a terrible way to go about PvT because it leaves you too much on the defensive. Again, the real issue isn't the early game marine/mauder push. The problem is the mid game attack that features large bio masses that are often supposed by medivacs.
Two get through the midgame I will do one of two things:
1) I will use a fast VR opener to keep him in his base and let me build up my army. This means getting collossi out to deal with marines if he keeps making them. Ultimatly the VR harass just lets me be the aggressor and forces him on the defense.
2) I will go for charge and do mass gateways. Zealots just eat up infantry balls it's disgusting. The key is to get a surround and prevent him from kiting you. Even with EMP zealots will still come out on top, cost for cost. I suggest +1 weapons in this build so that you 2 shot stimmed marines. A few sentries in there will also provide devastingly good sheild/FF support. From there it's a slow transition into HT.
Both builds are actually defensive in nature. However, the first build lets you harass the terran base and dictate his composition/army positioning, while your units will turtle up inside your base. The second build focuses on you taking map control and ambushing his army as it moves towards your base.
The key, IMO, is not to try and directly to tech to counters (teching T3 to beat T1? Not gonna happen). I find the real difficulty in this matchup is pacing. It's almost like playing zerg - both Zerg and Toss have to keep pace with terran developments because it's hard to break that wall in the early game. If the terran player techs, you have to tech or expo. If the terran player masses an army, you have to mass an army. While Terran players can punish you if you don't mass an army against them, it's difficult for toss to do the same against terran in those opening stages.
Early pressure I rarely have trouble about. It's the tech units combined with the bio ball that is dangerrous. If he pushes out with a 3-rax bio ball, one should stock up some gateway units to defend with a nice FF and an Immortal or two. However, if he combines his tech with the bio ball, it gets way harder to stop. Sure, it comes later than any 3-rax pressure, but it's still very hard to stop. A terran can turtle, tech up and expand. Then, about 100 supply he can push out with a fairly big bio ball supported by medivacs, a couple of banshees and a raven for PDD. I think there was a recent replay of this from mouzMaNa and mouzMorroW. At this point a protoss will very likely have his tech units up, so it should still not be impossible to stop if you can see when T pushes out. FB'ing a raven before it uses PDD will give protoss a huge advantage in the upcoming battle, as his banshees are no longer protected. And yes, banshees ARE powerful assault units when combined with MMM.
On August 11 2010 01:54 xDaunt wrote: I'm a 600 diamond protoss player, and PvT is my strongest matchup right now (I'm probably running a 80-85% winrate in the matchup). To understand PvT, you have to break it up into Tier 1 early game , Tier 2 mid game, and Tier 3 late game.
PvT is fairly balanced at Tier 1 and Tier 3. At Tier 1, zealots, stalkers, and sentries do well against smaller bio forces. At Tier 3, once the protoss has unlocked all or most of his tech (especially templar tech), protoss has all the tools necessary to deal with anything that the terran throws at him. To be honest, I think that, if anything, toss has the advantage over terran at tier 3 because the toss can abuse his mobility advantage and make it very difficult for a terran to establish any kind of map control, thereby denying the terran expansions.
The problem for PvT is Tier 2. To be blunt, protoss does not have anything that stacks up well against bio masses (especially when supported by medivacs and/or ghosts) at Tier 2. Chargelots, immortals, blink stalkers, void rays, and phoenixes all MELT in head on confrontations. Honestly, I think that there is a balance problem here, but we can save that for another thread.
A protoss player has to design and map out his PvT gameplan with this Tier 2 disadvantage in mind. This means that a protoss player either has to kill the terran at Tier 1 (or before the terran is able to fully leverage his Tier 2 advantage), find a way to quickly get to Tier 3, or secure a large enough economic advantage that the Tier 2 disadvantage doesn't matter. Protoss players who are successful in PvT invariably do one of these three things.
My personal preference is use void ray builds (as do a lot of other protoss players who are good at PvT) because I can make a play at all of these goals at once. If the terran does not have a marine-heavy build, he dies outright. If the terran does have marines, then I can harass the terran with my void ray(s) and buy time for me to expand and tech up to colossi or high templar. At that point, the terran's Tier 2 advantage doesn't matter anymore (ie a MMM+G push is manageable). There are a number of other threads that describe various void ray builds in PvT and how to use them, so I'll refrain from providing all the details here.
Void rays aren't the only answer. There are a number of builds that other players use. However, just keep in mind the Tier 2 window that terrans have to rape protoss and plan for it accordingly.
What I read from this is: Tier 1 - Protoss >= Terran Tier 2 - Protoss < Terran Tier 3 - Protoss > Terran
Based on that Terran has one advantage out of three. This is something worth complaining about?
For your proposed change at tier two then terran would need a mobility or buff to tier 3 to make it more or less fair at all three tiers.
In all the videos I've watched from Day9, HDH invitational, IEM, etc I've yet to see protoss get consistently decimated by MMM Bioball. I am no pro by any means. But having one out of three chance to have an advantage over the enemy seems reasonable to me.
On August 11 2010 01:54 xDaunt wrote: I'm a 600 diamond protoss player, and PvT is my strongest matchup right now (I'm probably running a 80-85% winrate in the matchup). To understand PvT, you have to break it up into Tier 1 early game , Tier 2 mid game, and Tier 3 late game.
PvT is fairly balanced at Tier 1 and Tier 3. At Tier 1, zealots, stalkers, and sentries do well against smaller bio forces. At Tier 3, once the protoss has unlocked all or most of his tech (especially templar tech), protoss has all the tools necessary to deal with anything that the terran throws at him. To be honest, I think that, if anything, toss has the advantage over terran at tier 3 because the toss can abuse his mobility advantage and make it very difficult for a terran to establish any kind of map control, thereby denying the terran expansions.
The problem for PvT is Tier 2. To be blunt, protoss does not have anything that stacks up well against bio masses (especially when supported by medivacs and/or ghosts) at Tier 2. Chargelots, immortals, blink stalkers, void rays, and phoenixes all MELT in head on confrontations. Honestly, I think that there is a balance problem here, but we can save that for another thread.
A protoss player has to design and map out his PvT gameplan with this Tier 2 disadvantage in mind. This means that a protoss player either has to kill the terran at Tier 1 (or before the terran is able to fully leverage his Tier 2 advantage), find a way to quickly get to Tier 3, or secure a large enough economic advantage that the Tier 2 disadvantage doesn't matter. Protoss players who are successful in PvT invariably do one of these three things.
My personal preference is use void ray builds (as do a lot of other protoss players who are good at PvT) because I can make a play at all of these goals at once. If the terran does not have a marine-heavy build, he dies outright. If the terran does have marines, then I can harass the terran with my void ray(s) and buy time for me to expand and tech up to colossi or high templar. At that point, the terran's Tier 2 advantage doesn't matter anymore (ie a MMM+G push is manageable). There are a number of other threads that describe various void ray builds in PvT and how to use them, so I'll refrain from providing all the details here.
Void rays aren't the only answer. There are a number of builds that other players use. However, just keep in mind the Tier 2 window that terrans have to rape protoss and plan for it accordingly.
What I read from this is: Tier 1 - Protoss >= Terran Tier 2 - Protoss < Terran Tier 3 - Protoss > Terran
Based on that Terran has one advantage out of three. This is something worth complaining about?
For your proposed change at tier two then terran would need a mobility or buff to tier 3 to make it more or less fair at all three tiers.
In all the videos I've watched from Day9, HDH invitational, IEM, etc I've yet to see protoss get consistently decimated by MMM Bioball. I am no pro by any means. But having one out of three chance to have an advantage over the enemy seems reasonable to me.
Well, here's a more accurate representation of what I said
I think Tier 3 is very close and only warp in gives the protoss the edge (if there is one).
With regards to Tier 2 and the bioball, I'd have to see the videos that you were watching to tell you what the protoss did right to win. However, there are plenty of VODs and replays out there showing a Tier 2 terran army absolutely spanking a Tier 2 protoss army. Brak_OK's bio play comes to mind immediately. Once the bioball reaches a certain size, protoss simply cannot win without Tier 3 units. Protoss has a similar problem with hydra masses.
I am also no pro but just another average diamond player. Going to explain how and why i lose to protoss, when i lose.
Against Protoss sometimes i try early marauders with shells. This build dies to void rays. So if you scout it, hide a stargate somewhere and get your autowin. A good terran will try to figure out if you're going void rays. A pro terran will count your pylons and know it anyway, but i'm not that good.
Another build i do often is 2port banshee (standard start not too cheesy), in this case i lose if the protoss pushes before the banshees are out. I could build a bunker to improve this but anyway, if you see a poorly defended terran, go and pressure him. A barracks without addon means he's tech rushing something, not necessarly banshees, could also be a early thor drop or anything along that line. That can be scouted by sacrificing a probe.
That's how good protoss manage to win against me. I hope it helps.
On August 17 2010 02:38 Hider wrote: You cant break up up in tier x. You have to look at timings. IMO its a great MU, because the relative timing advantages constantly turns side.
On August 11 2010 01:54 xDaunt wrote: I'm a 600 diamond protoss player, and PvT is my strongest matchup right now (I'm probably running a 80-85% winrate in the matchup). To understand PvT, you have to break it up into Tier 1 early game , Tier 2 mid game, and Tier 3 late game.
PvT is fairly balanced at Tier 1 and Tier 3. At Tier 1, zealots, stalkers, and sentries do well against smaller bio forces. At Tier 3, once the protoss has unlocked all or most of his tech (especially templar tech), protoss has all the tools necessary to deal with anything that the terran throws at him. To be honest, I think that, if anything, toss has the advantage over terran at tier 3 because the toss can abuse his mobility advantage and make it very difficult for a terran to establish any kind of map control, thereby denying the terran expansions.
The problem for PvT is Tier 2. To be blunt, protoss does not have anything that stacks up well against bio masses (especially when supported by medivacs and/or ghosts) at Tier 2. Chargelots, immortals, blink stalkers, void rays, and phoenixes all MELT in head on confrontations. Honestly, I think that there is a balance problem here, but we can save that for another thread.
A protoss player has to design and map out his PvT gameplan with this Tier 2 disadvantage in mind. This means that a protoss player either has to kill the terran at Tier 1 (or before the terran is able to fully leverage his Tier 2 advantage), find a way to quickly get to Tier 3, or secure a large enough economic advantage that the Tier 2 disadvantage doesn't matter. Protoss players who are successful in PvT invariably do one of these three things.
My personal preference is use void ray builds (as do a lot of other protoss players who are good at PvT) because I can make a play at all of these goals at once. If the terran does not have a marine-heavy build, he dies outright. If the terran does have marines, then I can harass the terran with my void ray(s) and buy time for me to expand and tech up to colossi or high templar. At that point, the terran's Tier 2 advantage doesn't matter anymore (ie a MMM+G push is manageable). There are a number of other threads that describe various void ray builds in PvT and how to use them, so I'll refrain from providing all the details here.
Void rays aren't the only answer. There are a number of builds that other players use. However, just keep in mind the Tier 2 window that terrans have to rape protoss and plan for it accordingly.
What I read from this is: Tier 1 - Protoss >= Terran Tier 2 - Protoss < Terran Tier 3 - Protoss > Terran
Based on that Terran has one advantage out of three. This is something worth complaining about?
For your proposed change at tier two then terran would need a mobility or buff to tier 3 to make it more or less fair at all three tiers.
In all the videos I've watched from Day9, HDH invitational, IEM, etc I've yet to see protoss get consistently decimated by MMM Bioball. I am no pro by any means. But having one out of three chance to have an advantage over the enemy seems reasonable to me.
Well, here's a more accurate representation of what I said
I think Tier 3 is very close and only warp in gives the protoss the edge (if there is one).
With regards to Tier 2 and the bioball, I'd have to see the videos that you were watching to tell you what the protoss did right to win. However, there are plenty of VODs and replays out there showing a Tier 2 terran army absolutely spanking a Tier 2 protoss army. Brak_OK's bio play comes to mind immediately. Once the bioball reaches a certain size, protoss simply cannot win without Tier 3 units. Protoss has a similar problem with hydra masses.
This is my experience, also. You have to abuse recharging shields, you have to harass left, right and center and just avoid all possible confrontation until you've got Collossi or HTs fielded (choice depending on whether he went early Ghosts, or 1/1/1 for Vikings). If you don't take the opportunity to expand, and can't get those units out, say bye-bye to even some Plat-level Terrans. Very frustrating.
This army composition is unbeatable by any terran army comp:
30% void rays 30% stalker 20% phoenix 20% HT
In order to deal with your air, terran needs a lot of marines and they die instantly in every fight due to storm. Vikings cannot do anything against this as phoenixes are stronger and you also have voidrays + stalker/HT support. If he goes tanks/marauders make sure to lift them with phoenixes, but even if you lose all your ground voidrays will steamroll him afterward.
If you just want to beat bio HTs do the job very efficiently, you just have to avoid the EMPs. There are many ways to do this, hiding them, spreading them, warping them midfight, hiding them in warp prisms and you only need 1-2 storms to win the fight. Once you get both HTs and colossus there is just no way for bio to win.
The only thing that terran can do against storm is praying to havens that he will hit all your HTs (if this happens T will most likely win the fight, but this is very hard to rely on). The only other option is to kite with your whole army as HTs are very slow and they cannot keep up to use their storm (this is not always possible and things such as FF or chasing colossi can make it not worth it).
BTW vikings are not that great vs colossi in terms of DPS or cost efficiency (less dps then a marauder). The good thing about them is they are the only units that can actually attack them reliably but in order for that to matter you need a lot more vikings then toss has colossi. Otherwise your whole army will die before they kill the colossi. Terran then must try to kill a couple of your colossi before the fight but this is obviously not reliable and many times just not possible. The best way to do this is by PDD support but it has its faults.
Of course how you get to that high tech is up to you. But the safest way seems to be to go for the macro game by some kind of early threat from 3-4 warpgates that forces terran to play defensively/cautiously. This allows both of you to take your expos and you can safely tech during that time. Once you hit late game, you can lose only if you are outplayed more than slightly.
On August 11 2010 01:54 xDaunt wrote: I'm a 600 diamond protoss player, and PvT is my strongest matchup right now (I'm probably running a 80-85% winrate in the matchup). To understand PvT, you have to break it up into Tier 1 early game , Tier 2 mid game, and Tier 3 late game.
PvT is fairly balanced at Tier 1 and Tier 3. At Tier 1, zealots, stalkers, and sentries do well against smaller bio forces. At Tier 3, once the protoss has unlocked all or most of his tech (especially templar tech), protoss has all the tools necessary to deal with anything that the terran throws at him. To be honest, I think that, if anything, toss has the advantage over terran at tier 3 because the toss can abuse his mobility advantage and make it very difficult for a terran to establish any kind of map control, thereby denying the terran expansions.
The problem for PvT is Tier 2. To be blunt, protoss does not have anything that stacks up well against bio masses (especially when supported by medivacs and/or ghosts) at Tier 2. Chargelots, immortals, blink stalkers, void rays, and phoenixes all MELT in head on confrontations. Honestly, I think that there is a balance problem here, but we can save that for another thread.
A protoss player has to design and map out his PvT gameplan with this Tier 2 disadvantage in mind. This means that a protoss player either has to kill the terran at Tier 1 (or before the terran is able to fully leverage his Tier 2 advantage), find a way to quickly get to Tier 3, or secure a large enough economic advantage that the Tier 2 disadvantage doesn't matter. Protoss players who are successful in PvT invariably do one of these three things.
My personal preference is use void ray builds (as do a lot of other protoss players who are good at PvT) because I can make a play at all of these goals at once. If the terran does not have a marine-heavy build, he dies outright. If the terran does have marines, then I can harass the terran with my void ray(s) and buy time for me to expand and tech up to colossi or high templar. At that point, the terran's Tier 2 advantage doesn't matter anymore (ie a MMM+G push is manageable). There are a number of other threads that describe various void ray builds in PvT and how to use them, so I'll refrain from providing all the details here.
Void rays aren't the only answer. There are a number of builds that other players use. However, just keep in mind the Tier 2 window that terrans have to rape protoss and plan for it accordingly.
oh I love you thanks for that, I'm a Platinum toss and have been struggling against all the Diamond terrans .. just dragged a game out till T3 and I did awesome (won) :D
EPT
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