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You put a lot of work into this, and it is well constructed. I've been loving the idea of four starports on two bases. The target of 4 starports and 3 barracks(TRR) is great, but getting there could probably be smoother. A 1 rax fast expand into tech is pretty dang risky, normal 1 rax expand builds have even fallen out of favor and they get a lot of barracks after expanding to defend a push. Of course a wall of bunkers can hold off gateway units but normal colossus timings should put 2 of them at your base before the starports kick in. That's my primary concern as far as standard robo builds go. High temp play concerns me too but with cloak and constant harrass you should be fine as long as you don't clump up too much.
I don't use the word "counter". Banshees are strong enough that they can hold their own against stalkers, but you should account for phoenixes. Stargate play will probably not be void rays, and whether they see the 4 ports or not, Protoss will usually infer banshees from your front door. Zealot Phoenix is a very normal response to this kind of play and I don't think it's wise to ignore it or write it off. This does not mean the build is bad or that it is "hard countered" by zealot phoenix. You can still do terrible terrible damage and banshees in these numbers will live long enough to clear room for the marines. I think the build will do fine if you play well. I'm just concerned about the opening.
I've actually been thinking about mass banshees as a follow-up to the 2 Thor push. You secure an adequately timed expansion and put serious pressure on Protoss, usually delaying or killing his expo. Then you can pull back, drop a bunch of starports (stop making thors, you only need a few), and get marines and banshees. You only need a few thors to shoot observors and phoenixes from 10 range and bring some scvs to auto repair thors and banshees. I talked about this idea in that thread too, and I like the opening because you are pretty safe behind your early pressure. Just don't go all-in with it. The OP of that thread didn't articulate a mid-game plan but yours fits nicely.
Finally, I like your logic, whether you noticed it yourself or not. The only reason banshees aren't great against colossi is because I'm not making enough of them! As silly as it sounds, I completely agree. 
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meh this look too fragile in the early game to me.
I always scout for a long time with my first probe and then I send a zealot at his front to see if he goes only marines or if marauders are produced, if not I begin mass stalkers and harass him at his front going for 3Gates Stalkers at least and if I feel it 4 Gate + proxy, you cannot expand against that and it forces you to get more barracks unit or maybe tanks.
But I won't throw away the fact a transition to 8 banshees is scary for protoss. When not seen and no phoenixes in play it can do wonders. I just don't feel the early play unless you're opponent is clearly not being agressive.
I will wait until you post better replays or an analysis of them of why your play is solid at any questionable moment of the game.
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First of all, thank you to everyone for the feedback. I am very aware of the early game weaknesses and rest assured that I have answers to all of your questions and dealing with this ^_^. I'll answer everything with replays and such as soon as I get out of work, this is just me letting you guys know that I am reading this and will reply! Thanks again and keep it coming!
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Used to do this a lot...it's "sky mech" but it loses to mass templar stalker, unless you hit clutch EMPs. It's prob pretty good now though cause most protoss probably forgot about it lol.
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On November 28 2010 05:38 aloT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 05:18 SoftSoap wrote:
You guys don't get it. You don't get a observer into his base to scout the 4 port. its placed back in the base and the raven will detect the observer + marines. When executing this build, you focus fire observer and the banshee is really killer when cloaked. Raven spots high ground, and point defense drones kill toss.
You may not think that this build works, im a 1800 toss and when point defense drones are put and my observers are focus fired, its a gg. Its the anti collosos build. And I hate it.
Well put Synystr, play you on the ladder again sometime. I think you misunderstand the other posters in this thread, the critique isnt the strength of the unit composition, but the strength of the build. The major flaw in this build is that getting to the unit composition is very doubtful against half good protoss players. Edit: The strength of the unit composition is also questioned, as a previous guy said, banshees can be easily countered by phoenixes + zealots.
We aren't talking about phoenix zealot we are talking about a anti robotics build. This build doesn't let you scout the terrans base cause of raven. and this build shouldn't be executed if you don't see a robo bay.
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I think Fuzer did this build in the TL Open semi's against Joe, he threw down 4 Starports immediately though and it got scouted due to not having a raven out for observer killing. He still won because Joe sent his phoenixes to Fuzer's main while the banshees hit his expansion.
I'm currently working on a similar build, but I throw down just 2 Starports and get an armory for air attack upgrades. Then I take a third and transition into BC's
PS. do you have replays against a well timed 4-gate rush? It seems like your bunkers wouldn't be up in time and your 1 Rax marines would get totally run over :S
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Alright, well I'm back from work now and I'm ready to answer a few of the questions floating around. Firstly and most importantly, is the issue of early pressure and holding my Fast Expand. In the majority of my games, my opponent fast expanded as well. Scouting this gave me the go-ahead to tech in a greedy manner. If I were to scout early pressure from a 3 or 4 gate push, I'd have transitioned to defend it.
Out of my replay archive, I could only find one replay which had any decent early game pressure. The quality of this replay is questionable. This was the very first time I attempted this build, so it is by no means clean. However, the basic idea is there, and so is the early pressure.
http://www.mediafire.com/?s75ncsbiix6wwmb
This replay features a lot of interesting 3-pronged harass and pushes from my protoss opponent, while I struggle to defend against it. What I took away as important from this game was that although I lost my expansion, it gave me more than enough time to get my 5 Banshees out and clean up the push and counter attack for the win. This is by no means the ideal replay to defend my point, so take it with a grain of salt. It's all I have now.
On a similar note, I have added Transitions and Responding to Early Pressure tabs to the OP. This helps flesh the build out a bit better versus early pressure and defending a naked expansion. Most of the questions currently in this thread should hopefully be answered in there.
Moving on, I'd like to touch base on these points:
On November 27 2010 18:05 Lobber wrote:
The delay of your build compared to the standard build also allows for a protoss to get HT with storm and amulet researched which again instantly murders your build. HT chargelot, mass blink, and colossus+phoenix all crush this build and because your build is simply to slow you should expect to see them.
False. The push is fast enough that a midgame protoss will ONLY have HT OR Colossi. While High Templar would do an excellent job at countering this push, they first need to have storm and Amulet researched to fend off the banshees in a decent manner. Teching to high templar over colossi is unusual, and may be a response to seeing four starports, but rest assured that I deny scouting before I build my ports. Getting the banshees out is not the fastest thing ever, but the build is defendable enough to allow the banshees to come out.
On November 28 2010 04:57 Danglars wrote:
Doesn't look optimized from a gas perspective and protoss's scouting from a 1gate FE is usually very thorough. I'll crank out phoenix fast upon scouting 4 ports.
The beauty of this build, is how the gas is acquired and spent. It is not so important to have a large gas pool built up but rather have a large amount of gas income. Off two bases, you can support constant 4 Starport Banshee Production plus minor spending in researching upgrades or buildings marauders.
And I'll never let you scout the starports. You'll see a 1-1-1 build and the response to that is stalkers, rather than phoenix. Once the raven is out and the obs is dead, the starports will begin building banshees, and if by some chance you scout the starports later on, you most likely do not have stargates to begin with and can't get a useful number of phoenixs out before I push. All speaking from a theorycrafter's point of view though. Once I get more replays against play like this, I'll revisit the topic.
Keep the feedback coming and check out the new Transitions and Responses to Early Pressure tabs!
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Interesting build. I've been doing a 2 rax/2 starport build off one base for a few months. Glad to see someone else enjoys using the marine/banshee strat, even if it's a bit different than mine.
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If I see mass marine off 2 base, I'd know you be doing this. :-\
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Funny. If I see a 1-1-1 build, my reaction is to get a stargate
In fact, that's what I'll probably do more often than not. The only time I won't is if I notice a lot of marauders coming out early, in which case I opt to spend chronoboosts on immortals and warp in zealot/sentry. Yes, I've spent time and gas getting a robo bay, but that's just part of playing protoss.
Yes, I know you say you deny scouting with a raven, but if I see a raven, I'll be even more inclined to opt to get a stargate due to the likelyhood of a Polt timing attack. Also, your raven can't be everywhere at once, and if you're hellbent on spending gas and time to get several ravens to try and deny all scouting, I'll be more inclined to opt to get 2 stargates and chrono out 6 or so phoenixes and just fly into your base and kill the raven/any banshees. (I can't tell you how many times I've seen a poor protoss player just fly their observer directly into their opponent's base, and not to the sides/around back. Wasted observers make me cry)
Of course you're going to go marine heavy, since this build uses up a lot of gas. Then again, unless you're keeping your marines all clustered under your banshees, you're going to lose quite a few to phoenixes.
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On November 28 2010 13:45 Antisocialmunky wrote:
If I see mass marine off 2 base, I'd know you be doing this. :-\
Interesting point. I could argue that if I was a Zerg who scouted mass marine off 2 base, I might suspect Marine/Raven. This build does reveal itself in that manner, but all builds have a tell. It then comes down to the Protoss responding correctly and such. The game takes a different pace at that point, which is by all means still playable. It might just change the tempo to a harass based game, rather than a 1a vs 1a.
On November 28 2010 13:53 tetramaster wrote:
Funny. If I see a 1-1-1 build, my reaction is to get a stargate
In fact, that's what I'll probably do more often than not. The only time I won't is if I notice a lot of marauders coming out early, in which case I opt to spend chronoboosts on immortals and warp in zealot/sentry. Yes, I've spent time and gas getting a robo bay, but that's just part of playing protoss.
Yes, I know you say you deny scouting with a raven, but if I see a raven, I'll be even more inclined to opt to get a stargate due to the likelyhood of a Polt timing attack. Also, your raven can't be everywhere at once, and if you're hellbent on spending gas and time to get several ravens to try and deny all scouting, I'll be more inclined to opt to get 2 stargates and chrono out 6 or so phoenixes and just fly into your base and kill the raven/any banshees. (I can't tell you how many times I've seen a poor protoss player just fly their observer directly into their opponent's base, and not to the sides/around back. Wasted observers make me cry)
Of course you're going to go marine heavy, since this build uses up a lot of gas. Then again, unless you're keeping your marines all clustered under your banshees, you're going to lose quite a few to phoenixes.
I personally will never get more than one raven at a time out on the field. Denying scouting is important in the early game and the ramp up to the banshees, but it can only go so far before I've been discovered. If you watch the replay also, I actually always keep my marines and banshees clumped together. I actually go as far as to stack my banshees on top of one marine to hide the amount and keep them protected from phoenix by my marine ball. I'm banking on my marines to take care of your Stargate heavy tech choice in this scenario.
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On November 28 2010 13:53 Synystyr wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 13:45 Antisocialmunky wrote:
If I see mass marine off 2 base, I'd know you be doing this. :-\ Interesting point. I could argue that if I was a Zerg who scouted mass marine off 2 base, I might suspect Marine/Raven. This build does reveal itself in that manner, but all builds have a tell. It then comes down to the Protoss responding correctly and such. The game takes a different pace at that point, which is by all means still playable. It might just change the tempo to a harass based game, rather than a 1a vs 1a.
Yeah, that's the problem exactly but Marine/Tank doesn't rely on a 'big reveal' like Cloaked Banshees kinda do. :-\
Still I think port builds are quite viable in TvP so keep it up. I'd just figure out some way of applying pressure earlier. My 2 base port builds do a select style FE with constant pressure.
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I'd personally need to play a bunch of games to figure out if going 1-2 stargates would work. It stops polt timing attacks pretty well, but off of 2 bases, you can pump a lot of marines with stim and combat shield. (and after watching your rep, yep, keeping marines under banshees and stacking them is the proper thing to do, since you're going to be using them as part of your main army over harassment)
This is pure theorycrafting, this next bit, but I'd probably attempt a 2-base phoenix/collosi mix, getting 2-3 collosi and just melting away as much of your marine support as quickly as possible and finishing up any banshees that don't retreat with 2-3 phoenixes. Due to the speed of phoenixes and the range of collosi, the ball would be in the court of the T player to force the engagement at the natural with PDD or end up in a precarious position
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On November 28 2010 14:03 Antisocialmunky wrote:
Still I think port builds are quite viable in TvP so keep it up. I'd just figure out some way of applying pressure earlier. My 2 base port builds do a select style FE with constant pressure.
Yeah, I agree that some early pressure is definitely something I want to add in. I've tried this build a couple times with early 3 Rax Bio Stim timing pushes. Works to a decent extent, but takes a chance that you lose your army and are open to counterattacks. The build is still in its infancy, so any little bit helps at this point ^_^
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On November 28 2010 14:42 Synystyr wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 14:03 Antisocialmunky wrote:
Still I think port builds are quite viable in TvP so keep it up. I'd just figure out some way of applying pressure earlier. My 2 base port builds do a select style FE with constant pressure. Yeah, I agree that some early pressure is definitely something I want to add in. I've tried this build a couple times with early 3 Rax Bio Stim timing pushes. Works to a decent extent, but takes a chance that you lose your army and are open to counterattacks. The build is still in its infancy, so any little bit helps at this point ^_^
Exactly, he found a good strategy to share, and I've tried it on the ladder going 3 wins 1 loss with it. I will edit replays soon, but maybe the build could use more tweaking and thats why we are here to help
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i hate this strat as protoss 
you should try to transition with thors, because the weakness of your build is obviously phoenix.
A friend make a similar build with a safer expand, 3sp@banshee then thors. it works.
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On November 29 2010 22:09 Hane wrote:i hate this strat as protoss you should try to transition with thors, because the weakness of your build is obviously phoenix. A friend make a similar build with a safer expand, 3sp@banshee then thors. it works.
I've thought about using thors before, but decided against it because of the lack of mobility and how gas heavy it is. As stated before, the weakness to a standard polt timing attack is Phoenix, but here, my marine density is soooooo much larger than that attack and I can split my banshees in 5+ directions and harass effectively due to your lack of detection. Phoenix are necessary in stopping this push, but it's effectiveness is cut down tremendously by the marine number. I've never had this push stopped successfully before, even against high templar storm tech.
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My roommate and I tried this build out. We're taking bronze league by storm now
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Australia8532 Posts
On November 28 2010 13:41 Synystyr wrote:Alright, well I'm back from work now and I'm ready to answer a few of the questions floating around. Firstly and most importantly, is the issue of early pressure and holding my Fast Expand. In the majority of my games, my opponent fast expanded as well. Scouting this gave me the go-ahead to tech in a greedy manner. If I were to scout early pressure from a 3 or 4 gate push, I'd have transitioned to defend it. Out of my replay archive, I could only find one replay which had any decent early game pressure. The quality of this replay is questionable. This was the very first time I attempted this build, so it is by no means clean. However, the basic idea is there, and so is the early pressure. http://www.mediafire.com/?s75ncsbiix6wwmbThis replay features a lot of interesting 3-pronged harass and pushes from my protoss opponent, while I struggle to defend against it. What I took away as important from this game was that although I lost my expansion, it gave me more than enough time to get my 5 Banshees out and clean up the push and counter attack for the win. This is by no means the ideal replay to defend my point, so take it with a grain of salt. It's all I have now. On a similar note, I have added Transitions and Responding to Early Pressure tabs to the OP. This helps flesh the build out a bit better versus early pressure and defending a naked expansion. Most of the questions currently in this thread should hopefully be answered in there. Moving on, I'd like to touch base on these points: Show nested quote +On November 27 2010 18:05 Lobber wrote:
The delay of your build compared to the standard build also allows for a protoss to get HT with storm and amulet researched which again instantly murders your build. HT chargelot, mass blink, and colossus+phoenix all crush this build and because your build is simply to slow you should expect to see them. False. The push is fast enough that a midgame protoss will ONLY have HT OR Colossi. While High Templar would do an excellent job at countering this push, they first need to have storm and Amulet researched to fend off the banshees in a decent manner. Teching to high templar over colossi is unusual, and may be a response to seeing four starports, but rest assured that I deny scouting before I build my ports. Getting the banshees out is not the fastest thing ever, but the build is defendable enough to allow the banshees to come out. Show nested quote +On November 28 2010 04:57 Danglars wrote:
Doesn't look optimized from a gas perspective and protoss's scouting from a 1gate FE is usually very thorough. I'll crank out phoenix fast upon scouting 4 ports.
The beauty of this build, is how the gas is acquired and spent. It is not so important to have a large gas pool built up but rather have a large amount of gas income. Off two bases, you can support constant 4 Starport Banshee Production plus minor spending in researching upgrades or buildings marauders. And I'll never let you scout the starports. You'll see a 1-1-1 build and the response to that is stalkers, rather than phoenix. Once the raven is out and the obs is dead, the starports will begin building banshees, and if by some chance you scout the starports later on, you most likely do not have stargates to begin with and can't get a useful number of phoenixs out before I push. All speaking from a theorycrafter's point of view though. Once I get more replays against play like this, I'll revisit the topic. Keep the feedback coming and check out the new Transitions and Responses to Early Pressure tabs!
I just watched that replay - did you leave before your opponent after he GG'd? If so, LOL!
It looks quite deadly once you get to that critical mass of banshees - you said it was your first time doing the build so it wasn't clean and that might be why but you were floating a high amount of minerals for a lot of the game which makes me think the mechanics/timings of the build are not optimal; obviously it looks amazing when it comes off - but i was wandering if you got any replays of this build failing (NOT because of your error but because it just gets "countered")
Overall, it's good to see banshees starting to make their mark in a big way
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EPT
