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Hi, 1k ish Diamond Toss here looking for some advice on some creative solutions for dealing with ghosts in the PvT matchup.
MOST of the games I have played against diamond Ts in the past have centered around 1 base 3 rax timing pushes with around 10 MM and constant reinforcement pressure hoping to break the toss before they can get any significant unit count, OR it has been the more conventional seige mode turtle and macro transitioning into a slow push w/ bunkers and turrets across the map.
Recently however I have started seeing many Terran players skip the tanks and incorporate between 3 and 5 ghosts in their MM balls for EMP and added mobility. The problem as I see it, is that Ghosts and their emp come out way ahead of any reasonable counter the P has (colossus or temps w/ storm). It should also be stated that neither of these units really hard-counter the ghost, they simply allow for some kind of equal footing.
Tech Paths:
Rax /w Tech Lab -> Ghost Academy
vs.
Gateway -> Robo -> Robotics Bay
Gateway -> Twilight Council -> Templar Archives
The counters as I have seen them discussed so far are:
1) Use Templar to feedback the ghosts - In my opinion this shows how theorycrafting only really works on the forums and not in real games. Anyone who has attempted to feedback a ghost in the middle of a MMG ball knows exactly what I'm talking about. For those of you who aren't familiar, I will explain:
- Ghosts (unlike infestors or HTs) are difficult to spot in an army and in the beginning of a battle are very very hard to target for feedback (unlike say thors, ravens, medivacs, or battlecruisers). Having health bars up mitigates this to some degree, but in a battle the chances of you getting them before they get you is infinitesimal.
- By the time you are targetting the ghost for feedback, you've probably already been EMP'd. The sad truth is, just like storm you can cast it long before your unit is in range and there is no animation to dodge. If they cast it as they are A-moving to engage, unless you are already retreating, it's going to hit you.
- Once EMP'd you can't feedback anymore. I know this goes both ways but it's still fair to point out that you only have 1 shot to get this right. If the EMP hits first then feedbacking is out.
- Ohh and did I mention Ghosts can cloak.
In my experience, unless you are the aggressor and have pre-queued the feedbacks on all ghosts in the area before the armies engage, feedback is not a viable solution
2) Spread your army well - This again seems tenuous at best. This technique assumes that you can spread your army out in such a way that it will take more EMPs than the T player can cast to cover your whole army. This is similar to saying the counter to storms is for Ts to spread their MM ball out. Nevermind that every Terran player I have played this against has easily 4 or 5 EMPs ready.
Bottom line here is: Best case scenario, only a large fraction of your army gets EMPd instead of the entire thing.
3) Get Colossi - There are a number of threads explaining why Colossi are not the way to go in PvT matchups in general, but beyond that they do nothing to counter the ghost specifically. They simply provide a way to deal higher DPS to compensate for the fact that now your army has no shields and must win ASAP. I feel like this is the most solid counter of the ones I listed, but it still takes longer to come out than ghosts.
I find the above counters very unsatisfying for the midgame. After thinking about it more there are really 2 approaches I can think of to winning against MM + Ghost and both are more strategic than based on tech level or unit comp.
1) Be the Aggressor - If the Terran player has opted to spend his gas on Ghosts and Ghost tech instead of tanks w/ siege then it becomes much less scary to attempt small prodding attacks at his base(s). These are not all-in attacks and the idea isn't really to inflict heavy damage but to keep the T on their toes. Keeping a constant pressure does 2 things. It prevents there from being 1 end-all-be-all game deciding battle, and it limits the number of stims/EMPs available. Similar to the idea of drawing out the stim, this strategy would hope to draw out the EMP in a situation where you don't intend to fully engage him. Theoretically, if you do this enough, by the time you are ready to engage the T will not have the energy to dump very many.
2) Favor lots of small engagements over 1 big one - This goes hand in hand with the point above but has the downside of requiring a high APM to execute well. Unlike EMP -> Stim -> Win, this strategy typically requires warp prisms or a large number of proxy pylons (preferably both) along with chargelots and temps to deal damage in more places than the T can effectively counter. This does however leave you vulnerable to a large doom push as you will be spending so much on drops rather than purely building an army.
Here is a good VOD on Husky's channel from during the beta that kind of demonstrates this style pretty well. If anyone could suggest other replays of high level players defeating heavy ghost play in PvT, I would greatly appreciate it.
WhiteRA vs Maka - part 1
WhiteRA vs Maka - part 2
WhiteRa vs Maka - part 3
Unfortunately neither of these tactics really addresses the issue that Ghosts come out LONG before chargelots and temps do. I would really appreciate feedback on how to deal with them until then.
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I really like fast coloss versus ghosts. If he is going ghosts that means he likely didn't go factory stargate so the viking response is usually slower. His supporting units are less marauder heavy which means more marines for your coloss to munch on. I skip immortals chrono an obs // warp prism and try to get some harass in or a 2 prong something fancy to negate the EMP ball
Situational and tough matchup though. Emp is a bitch.
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What do you expect people to say? It seems like you are well aware that this topic has been run into the ground on the forums. Some people are going to say, you can get Colossus out in time. Others are going to say that Ghost come out faster (which is not exactly refuting the preceeding point, but they never talk about that). Some people are going to say that you don't need Extended Thermal Lance against Marines, while other will say that they always lose without it.
Pretty much, you either agree with that or disagree with that.
Templar is only good later on once your macro can support them. Good Feedback play (warp them in outside your base so you can flank them) isn't that bad, but it's very risky and Ghost pushes are fairly stable. So in general, it's not the best idea.
I do like that you bring up Warp Prisms though as I grab a Prism before an Observer. Forcing your opponent to do something is much better than knowing what your opponent is doing. If you go Warp Prisms, you can do a good job of delaying the push. Once they see Prism, you know that they'll be getting some Marines and that they have to be left in base since Marauders aren't good once Zealots are in base since you can't kite them anymore. Vikings aren't very cost-effective anti-air units either, so it's not in Terran's interest to fight for air-control.
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On September 14 2010 04:02 whateversclever wrote:
What do you expect people to say? It seems like you are well aware that this topic has been run into the ground on the forums.
"some advice on some creative solutions for dealing with ghosts in the PvT matchup." Specifically in the window before temps come out.
I did a search through the forums and while this topic is mentioned in other threads no one has made a thread to discuss alternatives to "get your colossus faster", or "learn to play". I threw out 2 tactics that could be helpful but I'm hoping there have been other people out there with more success.
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I'm not decrying you for asking or anything like that. I'm just say this is like the 5th Ghosts vs Protoss thread I've seen in the past week, and I don't see a reason why suddenly there are going to be different answers to the same issues.
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I'm 800 lvl diamond and have been playing my 1000 lvl diamond friend pvt a ton to practice how to counter his marine/ghost early game ball. On some maps it is easy (lost temple) you get a bunch of stalkers and ff your ramp. It's tricky but can work. Sometimes if you can hold him off this way and grab a natural you can pump out collosi and make him pay for going ghost tech vs mech.
In less easily defendable maps I often go photons. The truth is 3-5 photon cannons does far far more to stop a marine/ghost bioball than 3-5 zealots. Combine that with some sentries and stalkers and he will be forced to switch to tank tech. At this point he will have map control, but if you can get some collosi or templars out you can push him back and take your natural.
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Chargelot/Light on Stalker/Templar is the ideal composition heading into the late-game IMO. Getting to that point requires you to be quick with your Sentry spellcasting early on. Guardian Shield makes a HUGE difference, as do Forcefields to try and trap the Marines.
Zealots only have 50 Shields, so they take the least amout of damage from EMP. If you can hold off until Charge and Storm, you can win pretty easily. Marines without Medivac support die horribly to storm.
Also, when you see a heavy marine composition, I like to rush to +1 Armor. Assuming you stay ahead in upgrades, the +1 really helps against Marines, as does Guardian Shield.
I do agree with many of OPs points though. EMP is simply easier to cast and be effective and Ghosts are much more difficult to Feedback than Templars are to EMP. More Terran easy-mode stuff to be honest, and I try an stay away from those kinds of criticisms.
Army positioning definitely is key too. It sounds feeble to push the "spread them out" point again, but it seriously does help if you know Ghosts are coming. Spread into a single file arc as best as you can and the EMP will be less effective.
I've also thought about testing something that seems counter-intuitive at first: Archons. EMP does less than 33% damage to them, even better than the Zealot, although unlike the Zealot they can be the target of multiple EMPs.
The key for my theory is that Archons are large units so they would absorb alot of the EMPs radius. Would like to test against someone 
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You can always just out macro the terran player with just gateway units and continue to be aggressive until you get HT. Even if the ghost gets the emp off on you're army, you just have too much units for him to stop anyways. Them making like 2 ghost is like you having 6 more units gateway units then the poor guy. Besides you can always get guardian shield up before the actually combat too and the Terran shouldn't have medivacs yet. Although i'd expect the Terran to stop ghost production and get siege tanks which annihilates anything on the ground and would help them expand.
Just remember to expand while being aggressive. Keep up the macro and watch as you sky rocket in food count.
Sadly i don't have a replay of this since i didn't save it, and i just played it recently too. Too bad there's a limit to how many replays are saved temporarily.
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Remember, spread out your HT's. And even if he does EMP them all before they can even get one storm out, you can just warp in more HT's and storm. EMP costs alot and he isnt going to run around with 7+ ghosts.
Also chargelots are very, very, very good vs bio, as they tank EMP quite well with their low shields and crushes bio. Add some forcefields.
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Thanks for the responses. I agree that HT, once they come out can function really well as Archons (Decoys) or for storm if that is researched.
What I am really trying to focus on specifically is how best to survive the timing push that hits before charge/templar come out. This is typically right as I'm saturating my natural expansion (assuming a standard opening). Also, to clarify these are typically very marauder heavy balls in my experience with a 3:1 ratio marauder to marine. Comps like this just rape my gateway units (even a larger force of them) and the EMP completely negates the immortal's shield bonus. Hope that better describes the circumstance.
I hadn't considered using heavy cannons as that is shunned so much in diamond play, but I could definitely see it working as a way to hold the ball until temps come out.
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On September 14 2010 07:10 Solasce wrote:
Thanks for the responses. I agree that HT, once they come out can function really well as Archons (Decoys) or for storm if that is researched.
What I am really trying to focus on specifically is how best to survive the timing push that hits before charge/templar come out. This is typically right as I'm saturating my natural expansion (assuming a standard opening). Also, to clarify these are typically very marauder heavy balls in my experience with a 3:1 ratio marauder to marine. Comps like this just rape my gateway units (even a larger force of them) and the EMP completely negates the immortal's shield bonus. Hope that better describes the circumstance.
I hadn't considered using heavy cannons as that is shunned so much in diamond play, but I could definitely see it working as a way to hold the ball until temps come out.
Let me preface this by pointing out that although EMP negates the immortal's shield bonus, immortals aren't weak after being EMPed. They still have 200 health compared to 160 that the equivalent 2 stalkers would have. Compared to the other early ranged units (sentry/stalker) they have the most health post-EMP for cost.
I've been having a fair amount of success with an early robobay for an observer, and then if I see they are going heavy bioball, replacing most of my stalkers with immortals (though still a few for anti-air) while teching to HT. I also usually expand fairly early, and get a forge for +1 attack so that immortals 2-shot stimmed marauders. This seems really effective against those heavy marauder bioballs, and is no worse against marine heavy balls than replacing all the immortals with stalkers.
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maybe a few DT will work well if you are able to take out ghosts before T uses scan, else as others said zealots due to lower emp effect and coloss with range probably in a ratio about 10:1 to hold terran inf back until coloss can take them out
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While there are a plethora of ways toss can beat terran early midgame when terran chooses to go ghosts, late game, it becomes exceedingly more difficult. While ghosts are very expensive, the fact that they can drain caster's mana and protoss shield makes every single one of them a great investment. Just the act of denying storm is ridiculously good. Imagine a pvt where storm didnt exist, which is exactly what ghosts do. Even if EMP only took out either shield or mana, it would be worth the cost.
This is the reason why I prefer colossus rather than templars against terran, but even then, the terran infantry ball with tank support just seems impossible to break through. Toss just breaks down late game in every match up.
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Buff idea:
Units inside guardian shield only lose half shields/energy when EMPed.
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I don't think this needs a buff, but an interesting idea still (of course, you could be EMPed to prevent preventing this...)
im a 800-900 pt toss player and I face the same situation in just about all mid-late game PvTs. There are a couple points here that I feel really make a difference when dealing with ghosts.
First: army positioning.
I've found that I miss-micro with temps a lot more often when they're hot keyed with my entire army ONLY. I've started keeping my temps in a separate hot key as well, so that when I'm moving my army around the map, I can easily pick out the templar and move them to a harder to reach area when a conflict arises, and if I'm attack moving they're not going dumb. It can also really help to have a couple of the templar outside of a hot key following a stalker or a colossus (I often have both at some point) so that a single EMP wont get all your temps. Lastly, and this is super important, don't ever attack in a choke, or up a ramp. You need a MUCH larger army then you opponent to get away with this, and it wont be worth it.
Second: Observation. I don't like sacking probes or building lots of observers more then the next guy, but observation has won me the game (or prevented me from losing) numerous times. if you keep an obs with your army and temps, cloaked ghosts will need to die to EMP if they can even get one off. This also gives you the first strike capability more often, which ultimately is the best way to NOT get EMPed. I think that most Terrans want to stim before they want to EMP when there is a 150 pop protoss ball charging in.
As I get to the higher level diamond games, its more and more important to be consistent. I don't think that I lose from strategy problems almost at all anymore, its one or two micro blunders that tips the game out of my favor, and eventually leads to my loss. In PvT this is more true then in some other match ups.
EDIT: DTs are getting talked about a lot here, and I think in general they're trash. Surprise value, and then wasted tech and units. It can occasionally win a game, but as a regular tactic I don't think its going to work out.
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EPT
