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I dont like to play colossus wars or early allin pushes in pvp so i try to find strategies that allow me to enjoy playing but also winning. I noticed that on large maps with multiple paths between bases and spread out expos it is possible to play pure blink stalkers.
The goal is to avoid big fights, control map, make expansions far away from main base and most importantly harass. My multitasking and micro skills are way too bad to execute it properly even though I am 1600+ diamond toss.
I begin with standard build order with 1gate cyber, warpgate research and then 2-3 more gates. Then i build TC and try to expand(not in natural! as far as i can!), faster expand and then transition to blinkers is also possible if we can defend it. But in that case it must be natural and future pushes can destroy our whole eco and win a game. Pylons for warp in and in some cases vision are essential for quick reinforcements and knowing where enemy army is.
Its so much better to exp on other side of the map since his slow immortal or colossus pushes must travel long way and then another long way to atack main or back to defend. It also gives you a possibility to kill his new made units. Base trade and elimination wars are always good choices for blink stalkers, and big fights are always bad. I figured it out after some lost games. I also noticed that this strat is extrimely annoing because they know their army is so much stronger but they cant force me to fight.
When stalkers harass and massive slow army is chasing them its possible to pick off some enemy units not defended by colossi/immortals. It is also possible to kill their damage dealing units caught without support or even destroy important buildings.
Since it is impossible to win a game directly without engaging enemy army, your goal is to starve him to death. I also tried to harass with blinkers and transition into robo myself but it can be tricky and need more development.
I have one replay showing my concept:
http://www.speedyshare.com/files/25178168/Stacja_z_omu_2_.SC2Replay
My opponent was also about 1600 diamond player. I really sucked in that game, had 6k mins, forgot to add gas and more gates and did some major blink micro mistakes but i still manage to win after cutting his income and switching into carriers. Idk if carriers are good follow up, it was freestyle. But their intuitive counter is robo heavy army, and we have map full of expos and tons of resources so it can be the best late game transition.
I really want to see some way better players than me managing to execute it perfectly and tearing down top players with insane blink harass :D Is it even possible that this aproach to pvp is viable at top level? I know this concept requires more development, thats the reason why put it here to recieve some feedback, maybe your replays trying that concept, and some standarisation to make it actual build with transitions, counters, follow ups, pros and cons etc. It would be awesome to see top tier players in this insane micro challenge! I hope its not only a cheese working on lower levels.
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Not to be this guy, but look up Miniguns 2 gate into FE mass blink, its the exact same build your talking about.
Search function please. I am the same way as you, i enjoy something other then colossi wars, and have had great success with blink, blink/immortal and immortal/stargate.
But really, your nowhere near the first person to do this and searching woulda shown you that.
Thread:http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=156455
Also : http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=166420 by Tossup, great game that had 0 colossi made.
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Personally I don't do it, because I find it too easy to counter with immortals when players try it against me.
However, if I were to do it, late game I would transition to Carriers instead of Robo tech. Carriers are more efficient food wise than stalkers, and ignore his entire robo army. If you can expand cross map, and get 4 expos, you can just put out 6 stargates and replace your stalkers with carriers as they fall. Plus with your large army of blink stalkers, you don't have to worry about him making blink stalkers to snipe your carriers; you don't have to worry about void rays or phoenix either.
I have never seen anyone go blink stalkers against blink stalkers, but that's assumedly only because I never go blink stalkers to being with.
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i know there are games with blink in PvP since beta. But it was only a little harass and kinda fast tech switch. I try to play more blinkers and take more expansions making threat of base trading at the same time that keeps him in the base.
I see he is so good player so i must check out his strat but i think it is not what i tried to use. Maybe I am wrong.
Also I think blink plays require so much more skill to beat the opponent, especially on lover level. If you can do it with blink strat then standard win is just more simple :D
EDIT: @GoldenH check out a replay, he made almost pure immortal and colossus army. I dont say he played good, he was confused when defending in two places at the same time and wasnt aware of blink escape paths but in general he made the best counter he can in terms of big fight.
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Yes, this works well. I do it most games except on SoW. The big weakness is a DT rush because you can't afford early detection and still stay ahead against standard builds.
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On November 14 2010 09:20 dobrzeee wrote:EDIT: @GoldenH check out a replay, he made almost pure immortal and colossus army. I dont say he played good, he was confused when defending in two places at the same time and wasnt aware of blink escape paths but in general he made the best counter he can in terms of big fight.
Its true if they do not have experience against blink play, Immortal may not be effective, but I like to choose my play based on what I am good at rather than gambling that my opponent is not.
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this is a bad strat, as pylons can warp in opponents units, if you expand far away that also means its harder to defend multiple locations whereas they can defend only 1 point
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I think the way I would respond to this is to "go fucking kill him", superior mobility isn't going to help you much when I'm busting in your front. Stalkers are NOT going to win an elimination race against a robo army.
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@draw it all depends on map control. You really can have very good vision with pylons, xelnaga towers etc and your stalkers will come to help in a second, you can also warp in reinforcments. You should have better eco and more gates since you commit to gate units. I dont say I can prevent that especially when you see how bad i am playing this strat but im pretty sure better player can do it easily. Secondly - defending one point means attacking one point and its favoring slow massive army.
@GoldenH mass immortal really arent that good as it seems, mass colossus is far better choice than mass immos with so small speed and range. It is less intuitive but obviously better, however it dont solve mobility problem that can be abused.
I also forgot to say that it would be wise using that strat to build warpgates in multiple areas in case of base trading
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On November 14 2010 10:03 Alzadar wrote:
I think the way I would respond to this is to "go fucking kill him", superior mobility isn't going to help you much when I'm busting in your front. Stalkers are NOT going to win an elimination race against a robo army.
It all depends on timing of robo attack. If I manage to have 3 bases in different spots and about 4 gates in every one i dont think you have any chance. If you push earlier it would be close.
I think i have replay with elimination wars on blistering sands where I won against immortal army. BS is a little tricky for this strat. It looks good for blink stalkers with backdoor, high and low ground etc but its kinda narrow and way between expansions is short and there is no exp disant from both bases. But if I somehow managed to win on that map, It should be easier on LT or Metalopolis. Again it can be because of opponent but system is giving me players with my skill level.
EDIT: unfortunately I dont have this rep on disk anymore 
and sorry for double post
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On November 14 2010 09:47 dRaW wrote:
this is a bad strat, as pylons can warp in opponents units, if you expand far away that also means its harder to defend multiple locations whereas they can defend only 1 point
Pylons can't even warp in your teammate's units. They definitely can't warp in your enemy's units.
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Recently, I've forced myself to never make a colossus in a PvP and have gravitated to this sort of map control oriented play. I haven't used a ton of blink as a harassment tool, but I have used it a bit to snipe out the Colossi. Instead I've opted for a lot of warp prism play, and warping in zealots / stalkers on high ground behind their mineral line when they move out while expanding aggressively. I kind of model it as a P version of the constant / hitting at multiple fronts medivac dropping that Terrans often do.
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On November 14 2010 10:11 dobrzeee wrote:@GoldenH mass immortal really arent that good as it seems, mass colossus is far better choice than mass immos with so small speed and range. It is less intuitive but obviously better, however it dont solve mobility problem that can be abused.
Certainly, mass Immortals aren't as good as mass Collosus, but they are really good due to their lower gas cost and quicker build time. Especially on one base I highly prefer going Immortals, since I can build 2 immortals at a time on one base, and still build probes, pylons, and all that good stuff. In the time it takes to get that first 1 collosus out, I can get 4-6 Immortals. And let me tell you, 4-6 Immortals are a lot better than 1 Colossus.
I have a pretty good timing at a 200 army push on 2 bases with 9 collosus, most players I play can't handle it, I'm crazy safe (unless they go air), and I can spend any non-macro APM doing harassment or (preferably) parrying theirs.
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I didnt play vs your build but i think that vs limit with 9lolosus push, blink stalkers -> 3 bases(or maybe more) -> carriers or speedvoidrays would work fine.
@phate: it sounds interesting i must try this or add warp prisms to my strategy. But if I do so, how I manage to control all that stuff at once?
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I like 2 gate robo even for harass against a guy going colossus. Immortas drops destroy building so fast and you can warp 2 zealot and go for probes. If you get to flank colossus with immortals they kill them so fast too.
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On November 14 2010 11:40 dobrzeee wrote:
@phate: it sounds interesting i must try this or add warp prisms to my strategy. But if I do so, how I manage to control all that stuff at once?
It all depends on what priorities you set for yourself. I probably am not nearly as active as you on blink harassment, which allows me the time to use the warp prisms. Also, since towards the end of the game you usually run out of gas and have excess minerals, warp prisms/zealots are failry effective mineral dumps.
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On November 14 2010 10:59 GoldenH wrote:Show nested quote +On November 14 2010 10:11 dobrzeee wrote:@GoldenH mass immortal really arent that good as it seems, mass colossus is far better choice than mass immos with so small speed and range. It is less intuitive but obviously better, however it dont solve mobility problem that can be abused. Certainly, mass Immortals aren't as good as mass Collosus, but they are really good due to their lower gas cost and quicker build time. Especially on one base I highly prefer going Immortals, since I can build 2 immortals at a time on one base, and still build probes, pylons, and all that good stuff. In the time it takes to get that first 1 collosus out, I can get 4-6 Immortals. And let me tell you, 4-6 Immortals are a lot better than 1 Colossus. I have a pretty good timing at a 200 army push on 2 bases with 9 collosus, most players I play can't handle it, I'm crazy safe (unless they go air), and I can spend any non-macro APM doing harassment or (preferably) parrying theirs.
I've been thinking about this. The amount of gas I have to spend on collossi is insane, and so I've been thinking that if I try to include immos as a main part of my army, maybe good positioning and unit control could actually come out on top?
I mean, a collossi has to shoot an immo ten times at 1/3 of its normal damage output just to get through the immo's shield.
Usually in PvP they stick their immos on my collossi even if I micro them away. One shot from an immo on a collossus hurts.
Has anyone already tried skipping collossi entirely and just going immo?
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On November 14 2010 11:50 Kammalleri wrote:
I like 2 gate robo even for harass against a guy going colossus. Immortas drops destroy building so fast and you can warp 2 zealot and go for probes.
This sounds fun. I should try it. 
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On November 14 2010 17:00 LazyMacro wrote:
I mean, a collossi has to shoot an immo ten times at 1/3 of its normal damage output just to get through the immo's shield.
A colossus does two shots for 15 damage each. Those each get reduced to 10 for a total of 20 per shot. It takes only 5 shots to kill off hardened shields and the colossus is doing 2/3 damage, not 1/3.
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There is a reason 4-5 colossi = critical mass and you basically roll over dead unless you have equivalent or greater colossi count.
at 4-5, they will melt lines in the front ranks of an opposing army, even immortals lose all shields and die with the second wave of lasers.
Blink play is fun against robo play though until they get enough immortals to shut down blinking away weakened stalkers. Then you use the large gateway count and tech available to warp in a few rounds of chargelots to mop up. They key is really to NEVER let them get more than one or two colossi at a time. Past that point it becomes increasingly difficult to play with only an upgraded gateway army.
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I've experimented with going immortals before a few times and only on scrap station have I ever had any success. I think they general problem with them is their range. They're gonna have to be in front of your stalkers to even attack, where they get torn apart by the enemy zealots shortly after your own zealots evaporate from the collossi.
On scrap station, I've won a couple of times going for 2-3 immos with a 3 gate army and just plowing through the rocks in the middle in time for me to hit him right as his first collosus is coming out. Other than that, it seems like you would need some insanely good positioning or drop micro with warp prisms to beat them.
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I agree, if I dont want to play another PvP I will go speed voids mixed in with my gateway army. However you need to micro your units to death because colossi will eat up your gateway units and stalkers will shoot holes through your paper voids. Just focus down the colossi with voids and I'm usually fine.
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On November 14 2010 17:00 LazyMacro wrote:
Has anyone already tried skipping collossi entirely and just going immo?
I have, but you need to tech to something, even if its not colossus. Carriers or HT are both reasonable, but Colossus are best.
Colossus are pretty much required in PvP and PvT.
PvP because you want to win the Zealot vs Zealot battle. Yeah, your immortals will own the Stalkers but zealots rule. I happily sacrifice 3-4 Colossi if it means I have 20 zealots wailing away. If he is not going mass zealot then you don't need to build Colossi but you will win anyway. You can't psi storm zealots fighting your own zealots, and carriers.. well.... not enough DPS.
PvT because (1) Marines, you need to be able to kill masses of them from a decent range, You absolutely DO NOT want to fight through a wall of marauder/whatever to get to the Marines. and (2) because it is the only unit that prevents a bioball from kiting your units to death.
PvZ, collosus are not super important because you will need to spend your gas on either phoenix or HT, the Zealots with +1 attack can deal with lings better than colossus, you are going to want immortals to deal with roaches because roaches beat collosus/stalker, and there is no way to deal with corruptors now that they don't have energy. Only time you want Colossus is if he goes straight for mass hydra, you will notice however as there aren't a million zerglings everywhere.
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EPT
