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Hi TL Forum!
Disclaimers: I’m a bronze level player trying hard to advance up the ladders and am reading these forums heavily to help my game play. I’m not posting a replay because a) it’s a little embarrassing and b) this is a more generic question and I didn’t want to focus on a single build. There are a ton of question in here and I’ve labeled them like this (x) so any help for any part would be much appreciated.
I’ve been using this TvP build exclusively in my ladder play and probably win about 50% of the time but I want to get a higher win level with it. I’ve watched all of the replays in the OP and one general difference between my games and the OP’s are that my games last longer. Instead of over in 14 minutes, they are lasting 25 min ish. So I think fundamentally, I’m building up a MM army with banshees, but being passive about it, missing my attack window, and then pushing with an army that the ‘toss has since teched past while instead of teching I just amassed an army of lower level units. So my question is as follows: what are good signs on when to push generally (1).
I have the build opening down and I match replay timing (medic drop in early 6 min mark) and I always can defend the first toss push if there is one with my bunker and 8 marines. I have lots of success with my drops, usually killing 8-10 probes. I then can get a good idea of what he has with my drop. For this disc, let’s assume he doesn’t have any stargates (I can do well agaisnt that by countering with vikings), I find on the ladders that he either has a bunch (4-6) gates or 2 gates and some robo’s. Usually also has a nexus at natural by this time.
If he has a bunch of gates, I think he’ll have a decent size army to my push (2), so I go to harass with 3-6 banshees and research cloak while building Marines/marauders (2 rax with labs, 1 with reactor – so 2 marauders 2 marines each cycle). Usually I’m able to get some free probe sniping on the order of 5-10 until his stalkers come over. Should I push with my ground army at this point for the front gate(3)? If so, should I loop my banshees around back and attack front and back at same time, or is it better to support the ground army? (4)
Assuming he has robo+2 gates, I usually skip the cloak (as in OP). I’m thinking he won’t have as much ground army so I should not tip my hand with the banshee harass (5) and just wait until I have 6 banshees and whatever ground army I have at that point and push. Usually I’ll run into a colossi. At this point, should I focus fire my banshees and MM on the stalkers to take out the anti air (6), or focus on the colossi b/c it does such massive damage to the MM? (7)
B/c I find I’m running so often into a bunch of stalkers (9ish) I was thinking of trying to bring along a raven for the PDD? It seems in the forums that this is a micro intensive unit for newbies, but can reap good rewards against toss. (8)
Thanks for reading the long post!
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i usually get a raven once i can afford it and wait for stim + 100 energy on the raven to push out and i almost always win then.
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Stim research for MM? And when you push, do you drop a PDD at the ramp (or forces) or use auto turrets or just use the raven for a detector so that you can kill observer and then rely on cloak?
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Diamond player, tried this build 10 games vs P in ladder and I find it fun to keep up the harass with the 3 hellions and 1 banshee hitting the main and expo simultaneosly. It works wonders against the current 3 gate expo heavy sentry meta-game as sentries are so slow and light.
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I use PDD at ramp usually and I don't get cloak because it delays the push a lot... and yes stim for MM
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how do ya'll think the new warpgate/faster gateway build timing will effect this build? I really go back and forth.
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On April 20 2011 05:41 sunbeam22 wrote:
So my question is as follows: what are good signs on when to push generally (1).
If he has a bunch of gates, I think he’ll have a decent size army to my push (2), so I go to harass with 3-6 banshees and research cloak while building Marines/marauders (2 rax with labs, 1 with reactor – so 2 marauders 2 marines each cycle). Should I push with my ground army at this point for the front gate(3)? If so, should I loop my banshees around back and attack front and back at same time, or is it better to support the ground army? (4)
I’m thinking he won’t have as much ground army so I should not tip my hand with the banshee harass (5) and just wait until I have 6 banshees and whatever ground army I have at that point and push. Usually I’ll run into a colossi. At this point, should I focus fire my banshees and MM on the stalkers to take out the anti air (6), or focus on the colossi b/c it does such massive damage to the MM? (7)
B/c I find I’m running so often into a bunch of stalkers (9ish) I was thinking of trying to bring along a raven for the PDD? It seems in the forums that this is a micro intensive unit for newbies, but can reap good rewards against toss. (8)
Hi sunbeam. I'm high plat for reference and I easily win most games when I use this build vs protoss, even when they know it's coming.
I always push out around 4-5 banshees (for me this is generally around 9:30), depending on how the starports were built (was one a bit late or something). If he's one basing, yes he'll have a roughly equivalent army. It's absolutely key that you pick your fight. Don't get split in half running up the ramp too soon. Use the banshees to skirt around the edges and pick off a zealot here or there. You should always keep your banshees with your army. You've spent so much money on them that your ground army is weak alone, and will get stomped if left alone against his ground army. Definitely do not harass with banshees before your push because it does sort of tip your hand.
If there are colossi, there should be only 1. Set the banshees on the colossi and spread out your mm force to try and minimize damage. If there are 2, he sacrificed gateway army for this, and I would probably go for stalkers instead. A raven is amazing and practically auto-win if there are high stalker counts. I try to build one in the 3rd or 4th round of stargate production.
In general, remember that you don't have to attack him. If you are unsure about going up a ramp, just sit at his natural, expand yourself, get map vision, etc. You'll be ahead economically and should have few problems winning.
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for some reason, i dont do well when i go double starport. instead of making a second starport, i drop a command center, research siege, and make 2-3 more rax. the banshees will force stalkers, and siege tanks rip apart stalkers. im only in plat, but does anyone else do this?
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What do you do against a protoss FE with this build?
Ya i know.. harass with bainshees, hellion drop him.. BUT
What if the hellion drop fails to do eco dmg? or maybe get 2-4 probes?
And his stalkers chase your bainshees away from probe harass..
He will have a stronger eco...
do you just expand yourself, and wait to push out?
Or just push out with 2-4 baines and the marines u got?
The is, he will most defitely have ALOT of zealots, and maybe phoenix stalker, which shuts down this build hard imo 
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On May 18 2011 18:31 MasterFischer wrote:What do you do against a protoss FE with this build? Ya i know.. harass with bainshees, hellion drop him.. BUT What if the hellion drop fails to do eco dmg? or maybe get 2-4 probes? And his stalkers chase your bainshees away from probe harass.. He will have a stronger eco... do you just expand yourself, and wait to push out? Or just push out with 2-4 baines and the marines u got? The is, he will most defitely have ALOT of zealots, and maybe phoenix stalker, which shuts down this build hard imo
Tbh it's fairly hard to not do damage with your hellions I find you need to really really screw up to not do any damage but by keeping up the drops and expanding yourself you can keep map control by having the threat of blue flame 24/7 he really can't leave unless he wants to all in and with the banshees and bunkers and repair you can almost always hold if you can see it coming. Especially if he does FE because he now has to guard double the mineral lines lol super easy to sneak in some hellions from the front while you drop the back.
I play this strange I guess I use the hellion drop to buy me time to expand and maybe do some good damage. Then I expand and use the double banshees to help hold my expansion from a counter with bunker support and I follow with a bunch of barracks so I can steam roll the toss before the amount of colossi can get to the point where my banshees can't snipe them really fast.
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I can be hard to do dmg with hellions against a good pro toss.
They either -> shut down hellions with forcefields, micro probes around so minimal loss, or just kill u with stalkers.
You will get max probe kills of 4-5.. which is not that good, since he has expanded alrdy.. and can chrono boost many many probes FAST..
and you have NO expansion. This is a big problem.
You need to do heavy eco dmg with hellion or bainshee.. or you are behind... hm.. it's risky.
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I've been doing quick blue flame hellion drops against P, then moving to Banshees and it's been awesome. Turns out I've been unknowingly using a variant of this iEchoic build  Love the write up and how much more refined it is to what I've been doing (like getting 2x port, getting vikings if robo bay is spotted, etc.). I was just auto-transititioning to marauder/ghost lategame, which didn't turn out sometimes.
Thanks!
P.S., noticed the write-up is quite old. Are there major differences with all the new patches?
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ur generally safer from 4 gates but may see phoenix more often
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pheonix production cuts into their gateway army. it should prompt you to stop banshee production and use them only to harass when your armies are engaged. That way your banshees can still do damage in his base, or he warps in units at his base making it a little easier to kill his standing army.
If he makes a lot of pheonix it doesnt hurt to start getting your viking numbers up, as it will follow-through and help you deal with later colossus
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Hi i'm about a 700 master player on NA ladder. I like to open 1 gate robo into expand and I have found that this particular build is actually very stoppable as long as you don't lose a lot to the hellion drop. While you are in their base with an obs (or 2) you will know whether or not the terran is going to commit to an attack or a tech change. If he gets a raven, you can safely assume an attack is coming. If he expands early, you aren't going to die. If he commits to an attack after a moderately successful helion drop I have found the perfect solution that is obscenely easy.
MASS CANNONS. He will scan before attacking so he probably won't suicide his army into you but even if he backs off and expands you will be leagues ahead (btw, you should have put your templar archives down as soon as you can after seeing 1-base stargate tech.
but yeah, I've smothered this build with a pillow a couple of times and that's all there really is to it
TLDR: fast expand, defend drops with stalkers, scout, get templar tech, drop many cannons at your expo, hard counter the hell out of this build
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It makes me sad that this got buried, so I will bump it while simultaneously asking a question! How does this work with the current metagame? And is it still a worthwhile build to start learning right now? Thanks!
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It's worthwhile to know and useful to win games if you execute it well. But as VictorJones said, a lot of cannons and intelligent drop defence with stalkers will make it very difficult to win earlyish as this build tends to. It will give you map control though so you can expand or double expand which I like a lot.
If you are confident you can handle hellion drops and banshee control then absolutely learn it and use it
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This build is really cool, though it does need quite some practice to master. I'm using this build vs toss atm and it's working well, just some problems vs 4gate (Ya i know , everybody can def vs 4gate, thats what I thought too... but.. :/)
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The build is awsome, i win 90% of my matches with it, if i lose i watch the replay and see what i have done wrong,most of the time is my macro was fuked up, or i didnt scout/scan what build my enemy is going for (5-10min)
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Hm, I would really love some more, updated replays. Evidently, the replays posted are extremely old. I'll still watch the older ones, just to see what it looks like. I'm having a terrible time vs toss with my standard MMMGV ball. Or it's just cause I'm silver.
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EPT
