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On November 10 2010 16:38 douglashv wrote:
It's not about gettting a shit load of sentrys, just enough of them to make the expo, then you should build stalkers or immortals if you see the zerg going mass roaches. After 2-3 warp cycles you should make 3 more gateways and push.
Exactly this, about 6 sentries (good number!), few zealots and go heavily for stalkers afterwards. The sentries are really to be able to get early two gas for tech later while allowing a pretty safe expansion early.
I'd say 3 gate zealot/sentry-expand is pretty much the safest opening right now vs zerg. If you one-base too long you are "doomed" to do damage with some sort of immortal+gateway-push otherwise zerg will be way too far ahead economicly. 3 gate expand allows you to keep up pretty nicely if zerg didn't do 15 hatch and produced "just" drones (but this you should scout anyways and punish him by moving out and infinitely force-fielding his own ramp while killing natural-expo-drones).
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I'm just a crappy gold player (rank 3) so take this for what it's worth:
I love going 2gate robo into 4gate robo, pushing out with 2-3 immortals, several zealots, stalkers and a few sentries and attacking around 60 food. I get +1 weapon and move out when I've got +1 armor halfway done. As long as I attack before Mutas are out, I have around an 80% win rate.
The immortals just demolish queens, roaches, and spine crawlers so I think they're necessary regardless of the opposition's army composition. If I can worst case kill off his expo, I feel like I'm in terrific shape because I'm setting up my expo while attacking and I've got 4 gates and a robo to regroup if my push fails. Depending on the map (especially like shakuras plateau), I like to expand around 40 food but if it's a map that I don't feel I can protect my expo then I'll wait to expand while attacking.
Like I said, I'm just a crappy gold player so take it for what it's worth.
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You get so many sentries so quickly so that they have more energy by the time you need to use them for their abilities.
I get about a half dozen sentries while expanding, and then add in other units, usually stalkers. It works well because if the Z pushes, I can cut their army in half and kill off some of it with my sentry/stalker mix.
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1800 diamond here:
I always use the 3 gate sentry opening, esp. after patch 1.1.2
You worry about roaches but really this build is a great way to counter early roaches.
When you make you're first push after warp gates have finished, the zerg will likely be doing one of two things:
FE with Speedlings with Roach den mutating
7 Roach Rush.
If he 7 RR then you can FF your ramp, wait for warpgate -> stalkers. You'll should be able to counter pressure + expo into -> gg.
If he FEs, then a 3 gate: 1 zealot, 5 sentry, 2 stalker push should hit him right before his roaches spawn. You should be able to FF his main ramp and at the very least snipe a Queen / workers even without "without supurb FF micro". Of course you'll be expanding, so don't commit. The early pressure will make the Zerg cautious allowing you to even up economy and dedicate all you gas toward tech. (1+ colossi is my personal standard).
Just to clarify, this strat turned PvZ from my worst to best matchup, and I have always considered myself more of a micro player who lacks "supurb FF micro."
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Allow me to pimp this build out a bit.
The framework of this build is viable against every zerg opener out there. The delay in tech that you describe is not necessarily a bad thing because in addition to the safety this build brings, it also brings more options to be aggressive than most of the other protoss openings. Sentries are the key to safe aggression against the zerg because you can always just retreat with force fields. The unit combination is safe against roaches, forcefields pending, and can rape lings. The excess minerals you get from building all zeals and sentries (both cheaper minerals than stalkers, duh) leads to a fast +1 and cannons as well, which can deter muta harass for quite a long time while you choose the best response.
Zeals are one of the highest DPS units in the game so with proper forcefielding you can really do some heavy damage... even if you dont, you wont lose your army unless you blew all your forcefields in bad places or overlapped them alot.
Artosis, annoying as he may be at times, said for a zerg player, the best build you can learn is in a ZvZ baneling opener. He claims mastering that build will make you a better zerg player. PvZ 3 gate sentry expanding really allows you to improve upon your entire game while you practice it. You can pressure in any timing window you want and learn from it, you can transition and respond or even use forcing methods like adding double stargate when youve got enough sentries. The framework of this basic build will make you a better play and will do just fine against any zerg player of any style... it takes some mastery, but its easier than it looks. Building layout is important, but if you dont make the same mistakes twice you'll get it down in no time. Its very powerful and versatile. If you are super far positions you can 15 nexus safely if they get a pool after 14, but even then 3 gate sentry expand is fine and wont put you much behind the 15 nexus build in econmy.
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mass sentry/zealot is extremely hard for zerg to counter. The obvious mid game counter is mass burrow move roach, and late game counter is ultras. The problem, however, is in the early game when you have to rely on zerglings.
Fighting in the choke is a bad idea, so always engage in OPEN ground for best surrounds. I would say morph a roach warren anyway, because roaches are simply too valuable to discard vs. protoss. If you see he is going heavy zealot, throw in a dash of roaches, but not too many since they can be easily cut off using force fields.
Make sure your creep spread is good because you cannot afford to fight close to your hatchery, where there are usually narrow chokes. Also, they can block off your ramp.
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EPT
