iEchoic, i've had a lot of success with your build. Buuut, i think there's a whole in it,
a semi progamer (2495pt protoss the guy) told me that there is a timing for blink, that can come a little bit before banshees, so he gets blink and kills me right away.
He would have won anyway because we're so far away in level (i'm only 1700+ T)
Here's the replay, played in a tournament.
I was a little bit stressed so i didn't execute perfectly the build and didn't have very higher apm as in ladder so sorry for the bad quality playing. and when i saw the blinking stalkers it stunned me totally so i reacted very bad also. not that it would change the game...
So goliath I watched your replay and I'm not as highly rated as you but... your execution in that game was really detrimental to your success. By comparison, in my most recent game executing that build at the 6 minute mark my drop units were completed (3 hellions 1 medivac) and the tech labs were then started (1 on factory) and 2nd star port was about to be started (probably a bit late). You on the other hand hadn't finished your first starport. Also you had a lot of wasted production time at your rax.
at the 7:30 mark (the time of the attack) i had 2 banshees (well 1 with 1 about to pop) and 4 more marines than you. With pulling some SCVs (helpful in worst case as it buys time for next 2 banshees) and the fact my drop would've hit him BEFORE he attacked plus some micro i believe this could've held it off. In any case my example was a random game, not the best execution i've done (and certainly not the best that could be done).
Oh also you let him build a pylon so he could warp in zealots into your base, so that didn't help.
Oh, I also think you built your 2nd gas too early, echo suggests right after star port started.
Hello all I just registered to post here and say TY & GG to the whole good players that are sharing experience with each other. =). I was following this thread for some weeks and I just wanted to say THANK YOU iEchoic for sharing ur build and refining it and also for the great updates. It brought me to silver (lol...) and while i'm still a noob I just crushed a Plat Protoss by using it, what I never expected possible yet ! Here is the replay, so u can see how weak I am (not following the build properly, loosing my raven, lack of macro and micro etc etc) but I won so this build is WEAK NOOB PROOF !!!
pps : iEchoic what's about the "promising TvZ build" u were working on ? (sorry I don't find anymore 6 marines 1 hellion drop into thors thread with gaz before rax, but what are u thinking about?) edit : it's Pookie/legendofbert build there http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=164267 And by the way would u please tell and show me how u're doing with TvT nowadays ?
This build is freakin great, I was on a bit of a losing streak (Platinum) and decided to give this a go again after using it in Bronze I think, and it's actually great against Zerg. The drop lets you get some drones, and usually makes your opponent crap themselves and start building loads of lings. Then you hit with the banshees and he might end up fighting them off with 3 Queens, but then you just back off and he starts building loads of spore colonies (sunk minerals) and usually hydras/mutas. The whole time I would be building marines and double hellions (from my factory with a reactor), so you just send them in when the hydras are too many for your banshees and you just crush the guy.
My macro is really bad, and I usually don't even bother with cloak and this still owns since the banshees just destroy his economy.
I having a problem when toss go for 3 gate blink, he hit before my banshee come out and clock is no where been done. I try to fen it off my marine scv, but blink micro just made me lose too much.
Just wanted to say thanks again for this awesome build. It was my very first build when I first got SC2 - no previous SC experience - and now I'm sitting at 1900 diamond and it's still effective. Good job iEchoic
Ive had tons of success with this build as well, but templars tend to ruin my day ><, the only thing you can go against them is Thors. Even with ghosts, unless you push while numbers are low, bio/banshee gets smashed. Ive even had BC transitions (emp'd so they have no energy) get hammered by just mass storms and stalkers. Havent quite figured out how to beat templars in late game.
But I would say this build works fairly often. Its turned my Toss win ratio from about 20% to around 60%
Ive also been actually incorporating a raven and one less banshee during the push, i find it makes my losses in the push much smaller. (PDD)
Im still in platinum cause I lost a lot of time with other games, but this baby is viable against 2k diamond protoss(best win ration is TVP for me ofc). I have watched Trump use a lot of vikings and banshees mid to late game vs protoss because u can scan their army, kill observer with the vikings and rape with invsible banshee. If u rush to their base and kill their obs production its game over.
The reason I wrote this is because a lot of times when ur first push wont give you the victory vs good players, or ur hellion drop fails, you can transition very well to mass vikings+banshees(just trade a barracks with reactor to 1 port), thanx to double starport. Won a couple of games like that very effectively.
what about 2 gate> stargate? protoss been using this much lately, I dont mean void ray harrass, but timed push with 2-3 void rays and a bunch of stalkers.void rays can feed off the bunkers/wall etc. and its really hard to micro every single marine cause they are really valuable at that time. Only plus of this timed attack that comes like seconds after dropping with ur medivac, is that probes are defenseless, so its all about defending that push for the gg.
The only realistic answer I can find is to use third 50 energy of command center and scan(always be ready for repairs against DTs as you will eventually ran into the occasional cheese) and pray you catch a glimpse of the stargate, so as to prepare at least 2 vikings for a start. I guess you could send a scouting scv around the map for a possible proxy, which is really hard to find anyway.
Seriously, do we have any replays with a viable answer to 2gate>stargate void ray timed push with stalkers? With good micro from protoss side, not the kind of sending void rays inside mass marines instead of charging in wall.
On January 04 2011 12:58 policymaker wrote: Seriously, do we have any replays with a viable answer to 2gate>stargate void ray timed push with stalkers? With good micro from protoss side, not the kind of sending void rays inside mass marines instead of charging in wall.
I practiced against this a bit and the best response I've found is to continue your hellion drop, do a load of damage (his base should be entirely undefended, unless he leaves stuff at home, which weakens it significantly), and build 3-4 bunkers behind the wall (well beyond the wall, 4-5 tiles away concaving around the top of the ramp so stalkers have to run up). Pull SCVs to auto-repair these if he tries to engage. You get banshees/voids out and can hold position above the bunkers, providing more defense and allowing them to be auto-repaired as well.
Games were against practice partners so I didn't save.
but the real problem is guessing he has a stargate. if i know that, ill just proceed with quick vikings, kill his probes, defend and take the game 3 minutes later. Dont you agree about the quick scan to gain information and prepare?
I'm not a fan of scanning for tech path info, as I feel it's entirely negated by simply hiding your tech. Some people say you can tell by lack of buildings in their base, but if you scan their base and only see 2 gateways, they could be going voids or dts. Or expanding. Or hiding blink tech. If you make 2x vikings against DTs or an expansion you're not looking too good.
That said, some players disagree, but I don't think a scan should ever be incorporated into a build just to see tech (except against Zerg, where their hatch/lair/hive can not be hidden).
On January 05 2011 06:19 iEchoic wrote: I'm not a fan of scanning for tech path info, as I feel it's entirely negated by simply hiding your tech. Some people say you can tell by lack of buildings in their base, but if you scan their base and only see 2 gateways, they could be going voids or dts. Or expanding. Or hiding blink tech. If you make 2x vikings against DTs or an expansion you're not looking too good.
That said, some players disagree, but I don't think a scan should ever be incorporated into a build just to see tech (except against Zerg, where their hatch/lair/hive can not be hidden).
I think this is quite true. Actually if the hellion drop works you can get a pretty good scout into their base to see what is happening, but often its quite late unless they are going DTs - that shrine sure takes ages to make. Also it allows to get a viking out vs voids. The only thing that has been troubling is a good 4 gate with FFs behind bunkers tostop repair.
I found your answer very sincere, actually, to my eyes its like accepting the fact that its quite difficult to counter 2 gate stargate. We tried it with a m8 of mine yesterday, we just both got into diamond and we r sitting below 2k, but we can execute the respective builds almost flawlessly(or at least really good, ur build got me to diamond after all).
I feel the same about the scan, but you can only do so much. The truth is though that the wall favors void rays a lot, and im not sure whether a blind viking would help that much(in our practice match, he had a bunch of stalkers, 2-3 void rays and I had hellions killing all his probes, but 4 marines in a bunker, 4-5 out of it, and a couple of banshees. Since I completely capacitated his echo, I commited all my scvs to the bunkers repair and defending, but void rays made the difference. My micro sucks big time, but there no way the marines would ever kill the void rays thanx to his ranged stalkers, micro etc. I will provide replay asap, just for the record.
You suggested more bunkers but I feel that would be more food for charging... if you think it is effective plz do post a replay.
My minerals were low all the time, except for when I threw the expansion. If I have to add something to your bo, I guess that would be ignoring the expansion and investing asap in more barracks for marine support, or, dare I say, a third starport for pure vikings and banshees>vikings transition?Maybe even throwing fast eng bay ? How would you feel about those suggestions?
EPT
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