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About me: I've been reading these forums for years but I haven't posted at all until now... I've made North America's top 200 list a few times, but I lost a lot of games experimenting with new strategies. This is the best new/original one I've come up with, and it's a lot of fun 
Here is a video showing off a few games I've played with this build:
The general idea of the build is to double-nuke as many Gateways as possible. A nuke does 500 damage, and two are enough to kill a Gateway/Robotics Facility. Pylons and mineral lines are also good targets. As shown in the video, it is pretty effective.
I think nukes are underused in TvP; they are such a small investment (100/100 minerals & gas) and Ghosts also add a lot to your army. Using this build I have been able to consistently defeat almost all Protoss builds, including 4 warpgate pushes, immortal pushes, early colossus, Protoss FE, void rays, phoenix, DTs, etc at the 1700 diamond level.
Update: Since people really liked the first video, here are a couple more:
The build order:
- 10 Supply Depot
- 12 Barracks
- 13 Refinery
- 15 Tech Lab
- 15 Orbital Command
- 15 Reaper (scout, harass... keep him alive)
- 19 Command Center at natural
- 19 Supply Depot
- 19 Lift first barracks, build reactor
- 19 Build second barracks on tech lab
- Orbital command at natural
- Bunker at natural
- Third Barracks, tech lab
- Take remaining Gas at natural and main
- Ghost Academy
- Train 2 ghosts, begin researching cloak immediately
- Build factory when cloak is 50% complete
- Second Ghost Academy, should finish same time as cloak
- Reactor on factory
- Starport (can use for Dropship)
- Build 2 nukes as soon as cloak is finished
At this point you should have 4 Ghosts and lots of Marines and Marauders. 2 Ghosts should have approx 100 energy. Send 2 Ghosts out & time it so the nukes finish when they arrive in the opponent's main. Take your second expo while nuking.
The nukes should fall anywhere between 10 and 12 minutes into the game depending on how fast you are & how much pressure the opponent puts on you.
Tips:
I've found the best midgame transition is to make Hellions from the factory (for zealots) and Vikings (for colossus) & Medivacs from the reactor Starport.
Watch for observers around 6-7 minutes, you can see them moving across the screen and a scan is definitely worth it to kill one. Most players are too busy making immortals or colossi and they don't bother to make another one.
Make sure to scan the opponent's ramp and main for observers & good nuke targets. A pair of Ghosts kills an observer in 2 hits & EMP reveals cloaked units.
If the opponent has a cannon at his ramp, you can make a Dropship from the Starport and fly into his main to nuke it.
Avoid walking by Xel'Naga watch towers you don't control with uncloaked ghosts. Try to maintain control of them, or send 3-4 marines ahead of the Ghosts. You can usually sneak around the back / edge of the map with your Ghosts to avoid detection.
Hotkey your Ghost Academies & build 2 more nukes as soon as you launch the first pair, these will finish in time for you to nuke again.
2 Ghosts 1-shot probes. After killing his gateways you can usually snipe 10-20 probes before you run out of energy or nuke again.
Move your Ghosts in closer than you have to in order to Nuke. Sentries can Force Field to push Ghosts outside their max nuke range, canceling the nuke. Split your Ghosts to avoid losing them both to a Storm.
Nuking Pylons often supply blocks your opponent and creates an opportunity for you to finish him off with your army. If he is supply blocked, he can't make observers and you can continue to nuke him. To keep your opponent from making observers, try to unpower or destroy any Robotics Facilities with your nukes.
When double-nuking the main and expo, try to start them at the same time so the opponent will only hear 1 notification and only react to one nuke. If they are listening to music, it doesn't really matter.
10% of the male population is red-green color blind and can not see the red nuke dot.
Large clusters of pylons and gateways are the best targets. The center point of each building is used to determine the damage, so if you place the nuke carefully, you can fit a lot of gateways and/or pylons in the inner (500 dmg) circle. Any pylons in the 250 dmg ring will die to 2 nukes. The 125 damage ring is a little bit wider than it is tall & fits an extra 2 pylons on each side.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/fY86F.jpg) Nuke damage radius
Below is a list of each Protoss building and the number of nukes required to kill it:
+ Show Spoiler +
1 Nuke:
Pylon 200/200
Photon Cannon 150/150
2 Nukes:
Assimilator 450/450
Gateway 500/500
Forge 400/400
Twilight Council 500/500
Robotics Facility 450/450
Templar Archives 500/500
Dark Shrine 500/500
Robotics Bay 500/500
Fleet Beacon 500/500
3 Nukes:
Cybernetics Core 550/550 (1 EMP for 2 nukes)
Stargate 600/600
4 Nukes:
Nexus 1000/1000
10/25 Update: Here are a few replays, showing the build against a few different Protoss strategies. I included a few losses as well. I would recommend XelNaga51 (Heresy vs MoMooMo) as a standard example of the build. The second replay vs Ocean is the 2nd match from the video & it's a very good game.
8 more:
+ Show Spoiler +
If anyone tries this build, please let me know how it works for you.
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I'd like to see replays. I'm mostly curious how you don't die to any kind of early timing push with an expo that fast and so many add-ons before units.
I love ghosts and nukes so this should be fun to try out
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I think you're going to get nukes nerfed in the next patch with talk like this...
Seriously, I am very interested in some replays if you can post them. Also, nukes ignore armor, correct? I'm pretty sure they do, so you can kill the gateway with exactly 1000 damage. Do you think it's necessary to FE and rush the nukes, or would it be better to start out with a 2 rax expo or a ghost marine opening? I suppose the reaper keeps him contained for a little bit so the FE is safe.
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I love this sound of this, will try.
If nothing else, I have a new favorite youtube video. That was so much fun to watch- is there a chance you could provide the full replays, along with instances of where it failed miserably? (So I can see what works really well against this and avoid it)
EDIT: Considering that zerg makes and uses of a single structure for their stuff, generally clumped to stop dropship sniping, do you think a similar build would work against them?
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LOL...watched the video...and umm....wow...LOL... surprised they didnt scout the academies...and/or made some cannons or more obs.... good stuff though....
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"FE Double Nuke"
Now that's how you catch someone's attention.
I will definitely check this out; replays would be great.
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have you tried EMP then nuke? get the nuke out faster instead of waiting on the second to finish
just wondering
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On October 25 2010 12:46 mikiao wrote:
have you tried EMP then nuke? get the nuke out faster instead of waiting on the second to finish
just wondering
EMPs only do 100 damage to shields, and unless you're still using two ghosts, 75 energy is iffy to throw away if you're relying on Cloak to get the Nuke down.
On October 25 2010 12:21 Senorcuidado wrote:
I think you're going to get nukes nerfed in the next patch with talk like this...
That would be so sad, because just one cannon in the right place / good observing would prevent this from ever going down.
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If the protoss has +1 shields upgrade, do the nukes still kill them?
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Other than the fact that its reliant on sniping the observer, which is still possible, its the best terran strategy that actually has sound logic
I especially Like the one where the protoss DID have cannon/s and an observer, but you still nuked the shit out of him lol
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I would love to see some replays from the start.
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great video, sounds like an awesome strat to give a whirl also.
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That is so completely awesome. I resolve to use nukes more often.
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That was such an awesome video. Can't wait to play some TvP now, def going to try this build. I've always thought Ghosts were way underused in the MU. Thanks for the post Heresy, but can you post some reps, those look like sick games!
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Awesome. Please post replays
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Heh. I was waiting for you to post this.
I ran into Heresy on the ladder when he was just starting this. He killed me twice with this, I beat him once, then I gave up trying to figure out a good way to fight it and cheesed him the next 3 games, with varying success.
Some thoughts about his build:
Despite his low unit count, there is no way to punish him for both not building a Marine before tech lab and expanding off of that one rax.
That fast expand comes before Protoss one gate expo, putting the Terran in a good economic position.
Reaper generally gets to see everything Protoss is doing early game, which allows for a better transition against a 1 gate robo than ghosts, because FE + fast ghosts really delays anything that can handle Colossi.
On maps like Metalopolis, LT, and such, you can keep ghosts out of your bases with a single cannon at each one, forcing him into drop play to nuke stuff.
Spreading your buildings around your main like a smart Protoss (to avoid scans seeing everything) also makes his nukes a lot weaker. A lot of the players in the videos shown just clumped everything. That one guy who kept rebuilding the 7 or 8 pylons around his Nexus was the worst, though.
Some thoughts on Protoss dealing with this:
In general, this is really going to suck. Observers are both expensive and fragile, and with that many ghosts wandering around, Templar are probably a pretty bad choice unless your opponent has horrible emp control or you have the micro to give each Templar separate move orders every time you move your army.
On the subject of observers, they're not really invisible. There's another thread somewhere about how they're easy to see if you shift the camera orientation. Ghosts can detect them after that with EMP, allowing cloaked ghosts to kill Protoss's only mobile detection unit relatively easily. I'm personally not happy about this, but I'm not ready to start crying imbalance yet. If the metagame evolves to the point where Protoss players need to start building cannons when they see a ghost academy, I'll start whining then.
Put the two together, and it's probably a good idea to get 2 robo facilities if you're playing against this, because Observers take forever to build, and you're going to need a lot of observers and colossi to fight this.
Also, I will just observe for Protoss players trying to fight this that his unit composition was almost exclusively GtG, with only vikings and ghosts for anti-air. Maybe Carriers are the way to go against this?
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Thanks guys, I updated my post with some replays.
I'm mostly curious how you don't die to any kind of early timing push with an expo that fast and so many add-ons before units.
The reaper keeps the first zealot and stalker busy and allows you to see his build. The bunker finishes in time to stop any early aggression and the scvs at your natural can repair it. I try to keep the reaper alive / at a watch tower so I can see him coming. Once you get the third barracks you start outproducing him & your income kicks in from the expo, allowing you to get stim / turrets / whatever you need to react to his build. The replays I posted show a few examples of the build stopping early timing pushes.
Also, nukes ignore armor, correct? I'm pretty sure they do, so you can kill the gateway with exactly 1000 damage.
I'm pretty sure nukes ignore armor. I've never had a double nuke not kill a gateway. I'm not sure about shields though, anyone know?
Considering that zerg makes and uses of a single structure for their stuff, generally clumped to stop dropship sniping, do you think a similar build would work against them?
They just buffed zerg building health. Zerg buildings are really good targets though. I find that nuking hatcheries and rally points works the best, because any larva, eggs (building ultras for example), and overlords in the area will die. Overseers are difficult to avoid; it takes a lot of snipes to kill them and they can build one faster than the nuke takes to drop. Vikings work well for support.
In TvT, nuking supply depos is very hard but you can kill 20+ at once with one nuke (Terrans almost always build them in one place). It's hard to do and I've only done it a few times. It requires EMP'ing all orbital commands, or you can wait for him to MULE since you can click on the OC to see how much energy it has. Nukes work very well in tank vs tank stalemates, though.
Nukes definitely work best in TvP.
Kyadytim, thanks for the analysis. Its nice to hear things from a Protoss perspective.
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This thread has convinced me to not put my gateways in a group anymore against terran.
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Which replay shows a defence of the dreaded four gate into the planned nuke strat? DL'd the "standard" one and would like to see how this build stack up against the competition, but time is short.
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Not being a Terran player myself, I have been waiting (and fearing) for something like this to come out for quite some time now - nukes didnt seem to have been used to optimal potential yet.
Gonna take a while looking through those 9 replays you provided (thanks for a good selection) so while I do that, I have a few quick questions for the OP from a protoss players perspective:
- How many buildings do you feel you need to take out to make this worthwhile ?
- Do you change into a different build if your opponents base has its buildings spread out a lot (I usually try to get as much vision in my base as possible, especially on a map with a large base area) ?
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On October 25 2010 16:38 Nixda wrote:
- How many buildings do you feel you need to take out to make this worthwhile ?
I think 3-4 pylons is usually enough to get a Protoss player supply blocked. This is almost always possible, since one nuke can kill a pylon. The build usually puts you ahead of Protoss even if the nuke fails, and I usually expo at the same time so I'll have a third base & transition into midgame.
- Do you change into a different build if your opponents base has its buildings spread out a lot (I usually try to get as much vision in my base as possible, especially on a map with a large base area)
If the Protoss base is extremely spread out, you can still go for the mineral line and nuke the main & expo by the ramp and hope to catch some probes running away. Often the Protoss doesn't realize that two nukes have been launched and will only react to one. I don't transition into another build because I don't really have one. This one isn't exactly all-in, as you still have a really strong army and ghosts add a lot to it. A cloaked ghost can run ahead and EMP the opponent's army / all of his high templars, which is usually enough for you to win.
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What about zapping P buildings' shields with EMP, directly before nuking, as in SCBW? Would this be possible?
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On October 25 2010 20:29 Metaspace wrote:
What about zapping P buildings' shields with EMP, directly before nuking, as in SCBW? Would this be possible?
He already answered this, in SC2 its only 100 shields and the 75 energy is more than likely better used for cloak energy. In BW it was effective because it took away all of the shields (if I recall correctly)
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Love to see a strategy which involves ghost and nukeplay posted. I've been trying to develop some ghost strategies and this will really help me a lot. I can see how this could be extremely powerful in a lot of ways. If you manage to snipe all observers and double nuke the robo before the protoss gets a new one you can just go wild at the probes at the mineral line. Two cloaked ghosts kill probes so so fast. I'll definitely try this strategy out!
And also, this is hilarious:
10% of the male population is red-green color blind and can not see the red nuke dot.
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I like the idea, but the biggest issue with this is there's so much invested into the nuke play that if the protoss scouts it, or simply goes for an early robo and has an observer out, you're hard countered and possibly completely out of the game. Seems sorta all-in ish.
I'll check out the replays when I get a chance.
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I lold heartily.
On the other hand stop teaching scrubby terruns hao to beat us =[
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two ghost academy and expand - too big investment.
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That is the sickest sc2 video I've seen! Amazing, I defiantly want to try out this build, but what do you do if P goes for some kind of crazy all in play?
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whoa hectic risky! But sounds like a lot of fun. I can only imagine what kind of bmqq you would get from doing that build. I like!
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alot of people have been asking about transitions and such, i think this build is more of an all in. i definitely am going to give it a go though
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On October 25 2010 21:16 DamageInq wrote:
I like the idea, but the biggest issue with this is there's so much invested into the nuke play that if the protoss scouts it, or simply goes for an early robo and has an observer out, you're hard countered and possibly completely out of the game. Seems sorta all-in ish.
I'll check out the replays when I get a chance.
Didn't you see him scan and kill an observer in the video? Two ghosts kill an observer in two shots (20 damage per shot, observers have 20 shield, 40 hp). Actually, there's not a whole hell of a lot that the protoss can do to get rid of your ghosts if you can sneak them up to the base. If you're paying attention, you can see the observer outline before you commit your nukes.
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On October 25 2010 21:04 Kawamura wrote:
If you manage to snipe all observers and double nuke the robo before the protoss gets a new one you can just go wild at the probes at the mineral line. Two cloaked ghosts kill probes so so fast.
I forgot to mention that! After killing his gateways you can usually snipe 10-20 probes before you run out of energy. This keeps him from rebuilding Pylons and Gateways & usually keeps him from mining for a while. Usually when they run with their probes (a panic response at all their bases) they also forget to put them back on gas and their economy is ruined.
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Wow, you are a GOD among men. Your video has made me so happy.
Thank you
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Have you encountered a situation where he spots the cloaked ghost antimation and locks it out of his base with FF? It seems to me that if he can scout a double acadamy that is a dead giveaway nukes are comming and he'll watch his ramp like a hawk.
It might be worthwhile to comsat up his ramp and EMP his sentries if at all possible to prevent this when your ghosts arrive.
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This seems to work only because people invest so little into detection. If any of those protoss had about 3 obs and at least a few back home, I am sure it would have gone differently. More importantly there was one game where the protoss just counter attacks after the nukes fall in his base, what happened in that game? (Havent watched any of the replays, just looking at the video)
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On October 26 2010 01:29 Pandu1986 wrote:
This seems to work only because people invest so little into detection. If any of those protoss had about 3 obs and at least a few back home, I am sure it would have gone differently. More importantly there was one game where the protoss just counter attacks after the nukes fall in his base, what happened in that game? (Havent watched any of the replays, just looking at the video)
Of course you invest so little in detection. If he plays standard you're down an extra 100/200 and a ton of time producing out of your robotics which you need to stop MMG. That's enough extra gas for a collossus!
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This is the best way to use nuke's imo. It isn't really viable as a straight up build though but more as a gimmick you use when toss has his buildings clusted. The early investment in cloak and a 2nd ghost academy is simply too much if the game is any close and he pushes you.
Also there are a fair bit of ways for protoss to stop this. Observers and cannons are the most obvious ones and can really ruin your day but there are other tricks for toss to stop it as well. Double storm on the cloaked ghosts is one way for example, but it's also possible to interrupt a nuke launch with forcefield if the ghost is at (near) maximum range.
Lots of times you'll be able to get 3 gateways + 3 pylons max or so which isn't enough for it to really pay off. You need a extra ghost academy, 2 nukes and probably the sacrifice of 2 ghosts to pull if off.
3 gateways, 3 pylons = 750m. Extra ghost academy, 2 nukes and 2 ghosts = 700m 550g.
I only think this is worth it if you are notice at least 800 minerals of buildings bunched up and can do this relatively safely, ie. not losing your ghosts etc. I simply don't think any build that actively tries to do this is any good as in so many games it simply sucks, if they have a obs or cannon near their natural it is quite unlikely you walk in so easily for example.
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More importantly there was one game where the protoss just counter attacks after the nukes fall in his base, what happened in that game? (Havent watched any of the replays, just looking at the video)
I stopped that attack with a few well-placed EMPs and a couple vikings to take out his colossi. He killed most of my army, though. I did lose that game about 10 minutes later, but it was my fault for suiciding my army up his ramp instead of killing his 2 expansions. It was a very close game, and if I killed his expansions instead I would have won easily.
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Calgary25976 Posts
You named a strategy after yourself? Classy.
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On October 26 2010 01:55 Chill wrote:
You named a strategy after yourself? Classy.
shameless
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On October 26 2010 02:00 HeadLikeAHole wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2010 01:55 Chill wrote:
You named a strategy after yourself? Classy. shameless
poetic? ;o
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I think many players that are terran are looking at this strategy a different way. for Terran it's a better advantage late to midgame because it allows for ur army to be mobile --thus giving u the ability to expand and protect your expos better without getting runned over by a protoss army of zealots or whatnot. also, i would say that for terran, players shouldn't think of this as an ALWAYS win situation but it's a great opener because it'll force the protoss to make units that almost do nothing in offense to their army which gives ur army the advantage because it'll be limiting -- 3 observers = 1 1/2 colossus or 3 immortals whichever ur opponent decides to get. this will buy us enough time to tech to tanks and start to lean towards what terran does best when in a good position; to contain.
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hmmm, so pvt really seems to develop into killing nexus with marauders and gateways with nukes, while 2 hellions destry the ecoline in 2 secs. dont like the way it goes.
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On October 26 2010 01:48 Markwerf wrote:
This is the best way to use nuke's imo. It isn't really viable as a straight up build though but more as a gimmick you use when toss has his buildings clusted. The early investment in cloak and a 2nd ghost academy is simply too much if the game is any close and he pushes you.
Also there are a fair bit of ways for protoss to stop this. Observers and cannons are the most obvious ones and can really ruin your day but there are other tricks for toss to stop it as well. Double storm on the cloaked ghosts is one way for example, but it's also possible to interrupt a nuke launch with forcefield if the ghost is at (near) maximum range.
Lots of times you'll be able to get 3 gateways + 3 pylons max or so which isn't enough for it to really pay off. You need a extra ghost academy, 2 nukes and probably the sacrifice of 2 ghosts to pull if off.
3 gateways, 3 pylons = 750m. Extra ghost academy, 2 nukes and 2 ghosts = 700m 550g.
I only think this is worth it if you are notice at least 800 minerals of buildings bunched up and can do this relatively safely, ie. not losing your ghosts etc. I simply don't think any build that actively tries to do this is any good as in so many games it simply sucks, if they have a obs or cannon near their natural it is quite unlikely you walk in so easily for example.
3 gateways and 3 pylons actually does pay off in the time he needs to spend building them again and turning them into warpgates. Not to mention he may get supply blocked from those 3 pylons. That's when you attack and he won't be able to reinforce as well.
I've used similar builds before and it's not an all in, especially with the FE.
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On October 26 2010 03:02 ahcho00 wrote:
this will buy us enough time to tech to tanks and start to lean towards what terran does best when in a good position; to contain.
Or just be a d1ck and turtle on 2-3 bases while sending ghost commandos dump 4academies worth of nuclear load.
The power of the nukes is not even how they can 2shot buildings, it's how they will make your opponent freak the hell out. Playing against a skilled nuke user is like trying to fight against a god damn ninja in the dark. It's helluva frustrating, and you never actually feel safe enough to push. This will cause players to either to tilt and do stupid all-in pushes vs your turtled towns or to turtle themselves behind loads of detectors; giving you map control. Because let's face it. as long as you got ghost, with or without medvacs, you can gain map control even if most of your army stays at home.
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Used to do this alot when tanks were viable vs P...but yeah...too much gas needed for this now vs good Protoss.
It has some potential though  !
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I updated the replays to show some more diverse Protoss builds. Looking through my replays, most of my losses are against 4 warpgate timing pushes. I'd recommend 1-2 extra bunkers to defend against those.
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... i dont think your playing vs very many... whats a diplomatic term,,,, good toss ;?
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Risky, as a solid gate push will probably kill you, getting the Ghost Academy, two nukes, two ghosts and Cloak is very gas heavy and you'll have atleast one Barracks unavailable for a bit to produce the Ghosts.
If you can keep up the nukes and stay alive I imagine it can be quite devastating, when I 2v2 with my Protoss ally, he always clumps his warp gates.
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Seems interesting and fun, but looks like it takes more work than playing standard :-/
Maybe I'll grind this out after I get bored with other builds.
Right now, it seems that while Nukes are alot more viable than in SC1, why not just implement them into your late game instead of planning your entire game around it?
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When going nukes, I like to use a couple of reapers as bait, they shoot probes, enemy units come to protect probes, they don't notice the red dot in the fight, enemy army and probes toasted, you can also use 1 reaper to spot high ground for a nuke, you don't waste a scan the enemy will see.
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Loved the video lol, should try to use more nukes
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Since people really liked the first video, I made a couple more:
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lol, #2 is awesome. Good music picks too.
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On October 26 2010 03:12 ensis wrote:
hmmm, so pvt really seems to develop into killing nexus with marauders and gateways with nukes, while 2 hellions destry the ecoline in 2 secs. dont like the way it goes.
Or a Protoss player could, you know, stick a single cannon near their ramp, have an observer around, and have a few Stalkers to defend the line.
Just a suggestion.
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Man I want to try this now, but it just seems like a blind 4 gate would crush you with that opening... I guess you can scout it but by then you have committed to the FE and you used your first rax to build 2 addons instead of units so your way behind on men if they hit you with a 5-6 minute proxy pylon 4 gate...
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Love the videos.
You will pay for what you have done to the protoss!
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"10% of the male population is red-green color blind and can not see the red nuke dot. "
haha i love this.
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Wouldn't a single cannon completely stuff this strategy?
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Everyone keeps mentioning how "oh putting cannons here and observers there will make this strat suck". I'm sure anyone with basic skill can walk around the detection range, or fly in with a medivac. But really, when was the last time you put cannons in your base against an enemy player that wasn't someone that muta harassed you? Plus many people do not make an excess of observers, let alone keep one in their base just chilling there doing nothing. Most of them are out at the enemy base or following the enemy army. People just won't want to throw away money on static defenses that have a big chance of never being used.
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On October 27 2010 07:54 Jayzo wrote:
"10% of the male population is red-green color blind and can not see the red nuke dot. "
haha i love this.
Chill beat me with a battlecruiser rush into nukes once because I can't see the dot. (also because I suck, but I may have had a chance!) He had 50+ drone kills on one ghost and it was physically impossible for me to check my expansions for the dot after I had more than two because it took me too long to make sure. Blizz needs to make it redder or more visible to us somehow. Colorblind nuke mode?
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Not exactly a good Strategy, as it's so easy to counter...but fuck, that was so entertaining
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Well , someone did this to me earlier ( i play P) , if he plays it right he will drop the ghosts into your base and/or expansions and nuke them one by one, making it completly impossible for you to focus on anything but pulling your probes and desperatly checking for the red dot everywhere.I would rather be harassed by mutas 20 minutes straight than have this strat done to me.
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On October 26 2010 01:48 Markwerf wrote:
Lots of times you'll be able to get 3 gateways + 3 pylons max or so which isn't enough for it to really pay off. You need a extra ghost academy, 2 nukes and probably the sacrifice of 2 ghosts to pull if off.
3 gateways, 3 pylons = 750m. Extra ghost academy, 2 nukes and 2 ghosts = 700m 550g.
I only think this is worth it if you are notice at least 800 minerals of buildings bunched up and can do this relatively safely, ie. not losing your ghosts etc. I simply don't think any build that actively tries to do this is any good as in so many games it simply sucks, if they have a obs or cannon near their natural it is quite unlikely you walk in so easily for example.
You're forgetting how much they are supply blocked (so no more probes), how many units they can't warp in (2-3 per warp gate destroyed), and just the psychological effect of just having been double nuked.
Awesome build though. I loved the ending of the first video lol. I'll definitely try this out in team games first to see how well it does.
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Well, it's fun. But I have to claim that nobody can hold a real 4Gate rush with any one rax build. Unless the toss you face don't know how FF the bunk so you can repair it. 4Gate now become a pvt stander openning, it stop any Terran FE or Fast tech bulids than savely expand and trans to later game.
You can nuke me once, but no more.
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regardless of how viable this build is against "good toss", its a good gimmick to have in your mind when you have ghosts. its going to be causing massive confusion in the enemy's game, disrupting him. i think quite a few people has said how playing against a skilled nuke user is like playing against a ninja, its very frustrating and makes you go ZOMG WHERE'S THE RED DOT.
i really liked the idea of 2nukes 1shot gateways, lots of protoss cluster them together. with this, he will lose the warpgates and cannot reinforce in the next battle.
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So basically, it's impossible to stop two nukes happening at once.
You scan for the obs in the base. More than likely, there are less than 2 observers in any given place. Pop 4 ghosts into the base, use two to nuke, use two to kill obs. GG gateways.
cost wise, this is going to be 600/600 + 200/200 to kill most production correct? All terran has to do is defend any kind of push there after and win?
Regarding maps, LT must be the best place to do this strategy. If the protoss has taken the gold, you can nuke both at once using the high ground.
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Most Protoss buildings can be killed with 1-2 nukes, so you can take out most tech & production all at once if they are close together:
1 Nuke:
Pylon 200/200
Photon Cannon 150/150
2 Nukes:
Assimilator 450/450
Gateway 500/500
Forge 400/400
Twilight Council 500/500
Robotics Facility 450/450
Templar Archives 500/500
Dark Shrine 500/500
Robotics Bay 500/500
Fleet Beacon 500/500
3 Nukes:
Cybernetics Core 550/550 (1 EMP for 2 nukes)
Stargate 600/600
4 Nukes:
Nexus 1000/1000
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At The very least, you never have to do any actual damage with nukes for it to be used semi-effectively. Its the psychological effect of "HOLY! MY base and probeline is about to get torn to shreds if I don't do something this moment."
And in terms of tactical gameplay, nukes can be used to force units out of position, akin to how a raven's seeker missile makes units run away (which if you really want that effect that of course raven would be the choice), however, seeing how amazing ghosts are in TvP, I don't see why NOT to do it if you want to have actual fun in SC2.
If people really think that the BO is vulnerable to this this and that, then just play standard then transition into double nukes when you would be normally adding on ghosts anyway. I think the video that showcased you eventually bringing a raven along was awesome, and also allows you to place better EMPs on HT's when there is no observer in the main army.
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I've started experimenting with nukes in TvP matchups. On a map like Lost Temple, when on close air positions, or cross map positions, Terran armies usually setup at their watchtower with their MMMG, and Protoss setup at their watchtower with stalkers, zealots, and collosi, the map quickly transitions into Macro style, with a large end game battle, where one side comes out in the lead.
I like to either go for the double nuke on the gateways, like you were talking about, or something a little bit different. Load up one ghost into a Medivac, and make sure his Hold Fire option is on, so he doesn't reveal himself. Cloak up, and put him basically at the very top of their main's ramp. Now just go for a Marine Marauder drop into the back of their main. The key is to predict how long it will take the protoss to respond to your drop. In real time it takes a nuke 14 seconds to land, and it takes a protoss gateway army with collosi 12 seconds to make it to their ramp. So if you start the nuke launching on the protoss main's ramp right as the drop engages the probes, or just a few seconds after it, half of the Protoss' army is right on the ramp as the nuke goes off.
Best case scenario, you kill off half their army, snipe off some structures in their main, hurt their economy, and all the other perks of doing drops. Middle case scenario, the protoss spots the dot, and keeps their army back, which gives you more time to kill stuff in their main, and plenty of time to pull your drop out. "Worst" case scenario, the nuke lands before or after his army clears the ramp, and all the ghost serves to do is spot when the enemy army will be there, so you know when to pull your drop back before losing it.
The strategy works well on any map where the two players move their armies a ways out from their base, and basically camp them out there. I haven't checked times on how long it takes for the armies to pull back to their main ramp on all the different maps, something I need to get around to, but when I have pulled it off on Lost Temple, it takes Protoss players completely off-guard, and usually gives a large lead, in that they lose either a large chunk of their main or a large chunk of their army, or both.
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On October 30 2010 05:49 Zvendetta wrote:
At The very least, you never have to do any actual damage with nukes for it to be used semi-effectively. Its the psychological effect of "HOLY! MY base and probeline is about to get torn to shreds if I don't do something this moment."
And in terms of tactical gameplay, nukes can be used to force units out of position, akin to how a raven's seeker missile makes units run away (which if you really want that effect that of course raven would be the choice), however, seeing how amazing ghosts are in TvP, I don't see why NOT to do it if you want to have actual fun in SC2.
If people really think that the BO is vulnerable to this this and that, then just play standard then transition into double nukes when you would be normally adding on ghosts anyway. I think the video that showcased you eventually bringing a raven along was awesome, and also allows you to place better EMPs on HT's when there is no observer in the main army.
I think people are underestimating the psychological effect nukes can have.
Case in point:
Opponent had a 100% chance of winning the game (he was about to finish me off), but I landed two clutch nukes on his base and he fell apart right afterwards.
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On October 28 2010 08:12 Touch wrote:
Not exactly a good Strategy, as it's so easy to counter...but fuck, that was so entertaining
I'll quote someone else for this:
On October 28 2010 07:36 FinestHour wrote:
Everyone keeps mentioning how "oh putting cannons here and observers there will make this strat suck". I'm sure anyone with basic skill can walk around the detection range, or fly in with a medivac. But really, when was the last time you put cannons in your base against an enemy player that wasn't someone that muta harassed you? Plus many people do not make an excess of observers, let alone keep one in their base just chilling there doing nothing. Most of them are out at the enemy base or following the enemy army. People just won't want to throw away money on static defenses that have a big chance of never being used.
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Very nice vid. It got me all hyped up about this build.
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Funky vids! Can you put them somewhere more accessible for download? I am living in Germany, they Videos dont show cause of DRM-issues on Youtube. Had to use an proxy to even watch them...
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Haha those videos were sick ill defiantly test this out
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I finally got around to making that picture showing the nuke damage radius:
Something I didn't realize is that the 125 damage ring is a little bit wider than it is tall & fits an extra 2 pylons on each side.
The center point of each building is used to determine the damage, so if you place the nuke carefully, you can fit a lot of gateways and/or pylons in the inner circle.
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Back to the top with ya'.
This is a fantastic build, I've only been trying it against Very Hard AI's at the moment so I can perfect the build, but I've been destroying every single one of them even with their maphacks and I can't wait to try this out in ladder.
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On October 31 2010 05:13 HeadLikeAHole wrote:I finally got around to making that picture showing the nuke damage radius: Something I didn't realize is that the 125 damage ring is a little bit wider than it is tall & fits an extra 2 pylons on each side. The center point of each building is used to determine the damage, so if you place the nuke carefully, you can fit a lot of gateways and/or pylons in the inner circle.
All 3 areas are circles.
Nuke on top of a pylon:
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/IVcjC.jpg)
Nuke in the middle of 4 pylons:
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/IpWsj.jpg)
The damage is the same on all sides.
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Some of the reactions by the protosses seemed so incredibly stupid I can´t believe they´re higher diamonds. I´m 1600 T myself, I used to nuke (rush) a lot in TvT and it actually had some viability but to see nukes working so well against Protoss... I definitely have to try this (vP 38% winrate ATM lololol)
Although I wonder where are all the observers in your games, or why they let you nuke them instead of building like one cannon at their choke.......
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On November 10 2010 21:38 HwangjaeTerran wrote:
(vP 38% winrate ATM lololol)
Sorry for the noob question, but where do you go to see your win rate against each race?
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i just wanted to check back in on this thread to say ive been using this build a lot in 2v2 and it works amazingly! thanks a lot.
(cant do it in 1v1 cause my macro slips and i get timing'd a lot)
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On November 10 2010 21:03 lololol wrote:
All 3 areas are circles.
Thanks for double-checking that. My nuke might have been slightly off-center. It looks like nuking between pylons is more effective than centering the nuke on one of them - it killed 24 instead of 21 pylons.
On November 10 2010 21:38 HwangjaeTerran wrote:
Some of the reactions by the protosses seemed so incredibly stupid I can´t believe they´re higher diamonds. I´m 1600 T myself, I used to nuke (rush) a lot in TvT and it actually had some viability but to see nukes working so well against Protoss... I definitely have to try this (vP 38% winrate ATM lololol)
yeah i don't think they were expecting it. it helps to hide your second ghost academy, sometimes I hide it on the map.
It's good to see people are having some luck with this strategy
By the way, QXC should be casting one of my replays pretty soon http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=162507. It will be interesting to see what he thinks of the build
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Love the vids, I'm going to have to give this strat a try.
I guess you could use 3 or 4 nukes late game?
Would be good for killing some of the high hp buildings...
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On October 25 2010 11:59 HeadLikeAHole wrote:
10% of the male population is red-green color blind and can not see the red nuke dot.
ROFL. Your right about the obs -- the average toss player wouldn't skip an immo for an observer. But don't you think as a toss player, a double scan is a huge indicator of something fishy?
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On November 14 2010 03:32 Warp wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2010 11:59 HeadLikeAHole wrote:
10% of the male population is red-green color blind and can not see the red nuke dot.
ROFL. Your right about the obs -- the average toss player wouldn't skip an immo for an observer. But don't you think as a toss player, a double scan is a huge indicator of something fishy?
Scans give a large radius, you can disguise your scans as tech scans, or just use the edge of your scan to see what you have to see. This is all assuming the protoss spots your scan too.
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I love this base idea. I'm using it with slight modification. The early game is weak against hard pressure. Sure if you can do well enough with the reaper contain you can make it by. I have adopted a planetary fortress as my first expo and well here is an example of how it handles pressure.
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-173273.jpg)
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if you randomly nuke somewhere on the map will your opponent still hear the nuclear launch detected sound? you could fake nuclear launches and cancel nukes just to make him shit his pants and get him off his game
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I agree with TheRabidDeer haha
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Russian Federation266 Posts
On December 12 2010 20:36 darth_hater wrote:
if you randomly nuke somewhere on the map will your opponent still hear the nuclear launch detected sound? you could fake nuclear launches and cancel nukes just to make him shit his pants and get him off his game
Canceling nukes still spends the nuke.
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