|
On December 10 2010 06:24 [MLG]GCA wrote:Show nested quote +On December 10 2010 06:03 Gecko wrote:
How is this supposed to deal with 2base phoenix/colossus or just plain phoenix builds? I understand that banshees will maul everything in large numbers but this works like a delayed polt timing, and phoenixes deal with that pretty easily. your putting yourself in a position where a few colossi and some phoenixes could clean up everything you have, once your tiny marine force is dead you have no way of killing phoenixes. there's also nothing stopping protoss from abandoning the colossi and transitioning to speedlot/HT/phoenix once he has the phoenixes. Considering that Phoenix openings lose to pretty much everything else Terran does, you aren't going to see them very often. Also, supporting Collosus and Phoenix off two bases leaves you with such a small Gateway army that if the Banshees can move in to take out the Collosus, you're probably dead. What makes this build effective is Obs sniping and using Banshees to snipe tech structures and kill workers. When executed well it is extremely tough to deal with. Also, this is just a transition off of a Standard 2Rax FE. If you scout Stargate you don't have to go for the Banshees.
getting a starport after you one gate fast expand is a pretty common response to banshee builds and it is 100% safe if you play it well. I don't see how this would work against that, you have no marines and you put all your eggs into the banshee basket.
|
On December 10 2010 07:48 Gecko wrote:Show nested quote +On December 10 2010 06:24 [MLG]GCA wrote:On December 10 2010 06:03 Gecko wrote:
How is this supposed to deal with 2base phoenix/colossus or just plain phoenix builds? I understand that banshees will maul everything in large numbers but this works like a delayed polt timing, and phoenixes deal with that pretty easily. your putting yourself in a position where a few colossi and some phoenixes could clean up everything you have, once your tiny marine force is dead you have no way of killing phoenixes. there's also nothing stopping protoss from abandoning the colossi and transitioning to speedlot/HT/phoenix once he has the phoenixes. Considering that Phoenix openings lose to pretty much everything else Terran does, you aren't going to see them very often. Also, supporting Collosus and Phoenix off two bases leaves you with such a small Gateway army that if the Banshees can move in to take out the Collosus, you're probably dead. What makes this build effective is Obs sniping and using Banshees to snipe tech structures and kill workers. When executed well it is extremely tough to deal with. Also, this is just a transition off of a Standard 2Rax FE. If you scout Stargate you don't have to go for the Banshees. getting a starport after you one gate fast expand is a pretty common response to banshee builds and it is 100% safe if you play it well. I don't see how this would work against that, you have no marines and you put all your eggs into the banshee basket.
Whaaaaaat? There's nonstop marine production out of 3 Rax from this build o.O. 5 Marines a cycle. That adds up quite quickly. There's plenty of marines to use  If I'm forced into the situation, I'll make vikings as well. I addressed how well they work against phoenix in my last post. I'm working on adding in thors, which just destroy phoenix. Phoenix are starting to worry me less and less =]
|
The problem is, what happens if the toss goes chargelots? Chargelot/phoenix with a few collsai sprinkled in, maybe 2 just to be targets, will have absolutely no counter with what you have. I had a guy today just go straight chargelots when he saw mass marines, tell me about fucking up my first push when 4 phoenix rolled in my base and lifted scvs and pick off a dship.
Don't discredit the phoenix open, as I think they'll be becoming much more common in the new patch if build time stays as they changed it.
It'll couple with anything to beat marine tank, marine banshee, marauders in lower numbers, drops as phoenix move faster than jesus himself.
|
On December 10 2010 12:03 iAmJeffReY wrote:
The problem is, what happens if the toss goes chargelots? Chargelot/phoenix with a few collsai sprinkled in, maybe 2 just to be targets, will have absolutely no counter with what you have. I had a guy today just go straight chargelots when he saw mass marines, tell me about fucking up my first push when 4 phoenix rolled in my base and lifted scvs and pick off a dship.
Don't discredit the phoenix open, as I think they'll be becoming much more common in the new patch if build time stays as they changed it.
It'll couple with anything to beat marine tank, marine banshee, marauders in lower numbers, drops as phoenix move faster than jesus himself.
I completely agree with you. That's pretty much the composition of units that hard counters this build. You need vikings. There's no way around that. The vikings will take care of the phoenix for you. Pull back and defend while you get a few rounds of vikings out with the 4 port. Chargelots will still melt to banshees. The vikings will pick up the slack for the marines. I just go mass marine because vikings cut into banshee production and marines are a good mineral dump. Vikings vikings vikings 
|
I'm in gold, so when I was playing earlier today and my Raven didn't find an observer in my base, I thought my opponent was just a moron. It was actually at the back of my natural, and I didn't find it. He actually moved it in when my Starports were nearing completion, and when I was watching the replay I was surprised when he didn't start building any Stargates once he saw my Ports. He just stuck to his 2 Robo build and I annihilated him, but when I was watching the replay I felt like I should've lost.
The moral of the story here is that it seems very hard to completely deny scouting to a determined Protoss - you only have one Raven, and they have a ton of ways they can finagle an Observer behind it. Granted, the window they have to find Starports before it's too late to begin Phoenix production is pretty small, but it exists, and if they make it through you're basically kold.
|
On December 11 2010 04:42 audeamus wrote:
I'm in gold, so when I was playing earlier today and my Raven didn't find an observer in my base, I thought my opponent was just a moron. It was actually at the back of my natural, and I didn't find it. He actually moved it in when my Starports were nearing completion, and when I was watching the replay I was surprised when he didn't start building any Stargates once he saw my Ports. He just stuck to his 2 Robo build and I annihilated him, but when I was watching the replay I felt like I should've lost.
The moral of the story here is that it seems very hard to completely deny scouting to a determined Protoss - you only have one Raven, and they have a ton of ways they can finagle an Observer behind it. Granted, the window they have to find Starports before it's too late to begin Phoenix production is pretty small, but it exists, and if they make it through you're basically kold.
I actually played a few games from the point of a Protoss against this build with a practice partner. You can actually make an astounding number of phoenixs when you see more than 1 starport in the window before their push, but my partner outsmarted me. He scanned, turtled back and made vikings and BCs and roflpwned me. So what I learned there is you can scout the Toss during this small window, see how they react, and then transition accordingly. I'm also planning on adding a couple thors in with the push to deal with phoenix, so this coupled with that might actually negate phoenix as a counter. We'll see
|
Re: Transition: So while you're building the tech labs, you want to scan and see if they've added any Stargates? That seems fairly reasonable. They probably won't be able to build Pylons to hide the Stargates from scans. However, transitioning into Vikings just seems like it puts you at parity; you have a bunch of infantry, they have Colossi, you have Vikings and eventually BCs, they have Phoenixes and Stalkers. At that point it seems like turtling up and claiming a third base is better than direct aggression.
A Thor transition might be more reasonable. It's expensive, but at least then the Factory *does* something. You probably can't support four Banshees plus Marines plus a Thor, but you can definitely swap two Banshees for a Thor. The problem is that you need three or more Ports to get enough Banshees to the point where you can just mow through Stalkers (and Colossi.) I guess you can use the Thor to 250mm down the Colossi?
|
On December 11 2010 11:33 Synystyr wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2010 04:42 audeamus wrote:
I'm in gold, so when I was playing earlier today and my Raven didn't find an observer in my base, I thought my opponent was just a moron. It was actually at the back of my natural, and I didn't find it. He actually moved it in when my Starports were nearing completion, and when I was watching the replay I was surprised when he didn't start building any Stargates once he saw my Ports. He just stuck to his 2 Robo build and I annihilated him, but when I was watching the replay I felt like I should've lost.
The moral of the story here is that it seems very hard to completely deny scouting to a determined Protoss - you only have one Raven, and they have a ton of ways they can finagle an Observer behind it. Granted, the window they have to find Starports before it's too late to begin Phoenix production is pretty small, but it exists, and if they make it through you're basically kold. I actually played a few games from the point of a Protoss against this build with a practice partner. You can actually make an astounding number of phoenixs when you see more than 1 starport in the window before their push, but my partner outsmarted me. He scanned, turtled back and made vikings and BCs and roflpwned me. So what I learned there is you can scout the Toss during this small window, see how they react, and then transition accordingly. I'm also planning on adding a couple thors in with the push to deal with phoenix, so this coupled with that might actually negate phoenix as a counter. We'll see
Oooo this will become the Thor Banshee build that Painuser uses. Needs micro though, and casual players might not like it for that. They might wanna stick to MMM and ADD mass Thor OR mass banshee, with 1-2 ravens late game.
|
On December 11 2010 14:46 audeamus wrote:
Re: Transition: So while you're building the tech labs, you want to scan and see if they've added any Stargates? That seems fairly reasonable. They probably won't be able to build Pylons to hide the Stargates from scans. However, transitioning into Vikings just seems like it puts you at parity; you have a bunch of infantry, they have Colossi, you have Vikings and eventually BCs, they have Phoenixes and Stalkers. At that point it seems like turtling up and claiming a third base is better than direct aggression.
A Thor transition might be more reasonable. It's expensive, but at least then the Factory *does* something. You probably can't support four Banshees plus Marines plus a Thor, but you can definitely swap two Banshees for a Thor. The problem is that you need three or more Ports to get enough Banshees to the point where you can just mow through Stalkers (and Colossi.) I guess you can use the Thor to 250mm down the Colossi?
But you've got to admit, against good Toss, its kinda hard to get in range for the 250mm, no? Especially with zealot surround and colossi kiting you...
|
On December 11 2010 14:46 audeamus wrote:
Re: Transition: So while you're building the tech labs, you want to scan and see if they've added any Stargates? That seems fairly reasonable. They probably won't be able to build Pylons to hide the Stargates from scans. However, transitioning into Vikings just seems like it puts you at parity; you have a bunch of infantry, they have Colossi, you have Vikings and eventually BCs, they have Phoenixes and Stalkers. At that point it seems like turtling up and claiming a third base is better than direct aggression.
A Thor transition might be more reasonable. It's expensive, but at least then the Factory *does* something. You probably can't support four Banshees plus Marines plus a Thor, but you can definitely swap two Banshees for a Thor. The problem is that you need three or more Ports to get enough Banshees to the point where you can just mow through Stalkers (and Colossi.) I guess you can use the Thor to 250mm down the Colossi?
Well if your opponent has Phoenix, you can still make banshees. They will most likely switch from robo tech to stargate to tech to deal with the impending air force. The purpose of making vikings is to tank damage, help kill phoenix and give your banshees a little more freedom to clear the ground force. Viking + marine takes care of phoenix quite easily. I will turtle a little longer personally, until i hit 8 vikings, and then take a third. I still want to be aggressive and push ASAP.
250mm might be unnecessary, it's very hard to hit colossi at range with the ability. I want it there for it's strong AA and ability to tank damage. Its long air range helps in sniping obs and killing clumped phoenix so that my banshees are safe. I would only make 2 thors for the push, rather than cut banshees to assume constant production of thors. They are just there to ward phoenix away and make my push that much stronger ^_^
|
Ok this strategy does not seem to work anymore now when every Protoss do like MC and forcefield around the bunkers preventing the SCVs to repair. Their attack hit right before you can get Banshees out.
Maybe you need to make a Planetary at your expansion to fight this? But you give up so much economy if you do.
|
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.
This is what I have been doing (banshee->thor). Protoss responds with mass stalker and/or templar to the mass banshees, which are weak vs my thor.
I do a similar strat to the poster( without FE), but it is the early protoss pushes that always destroy me (3gate stargate notably).
|
On December 12 2010 04:46 MockHamill wrote:
Ok this strategy does not seem to work anymore now when every Protoss do like MC and forcefield around the bunkers preventing the SCVs to repair. Their attack hit right before you can get Banshees out.
Maybe you need to make a Planetary at your expansion to fight this? But you give up so much economy if you do.
I here what you're saying...Idk, it's very hard to get enough forcefields to cover three bunkers without cutting into the core of a gateway army. I haven't experienced this yet, but I'll let you know what happens if I do. A Planetary is definitely a possibility, but again, it does cut into eco quite a bit, so I wouldn't recommend it.
On December 12 2010 06:33 Mr_Kyo wrote:Show nested quote +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. This is what I have been doing (banshee->thor). Protoss responds with mass stalker and/or templar to the mass banshees, which are weak vs my thor. I do a similar strat to the poster( without FE), but it is the early protoss pushes that always destroy me (3gate stargate notably).
Yeah, the early game is where you're vulnerable. While the 3 bunkers + mass marines is sturdy, there is always room for improvement and a stronger defence before the banshees come out. That's why I'm trying to work the thors in. I still love this build regardless ^_^
|
While your build is nice in theory, 3 bunkers and mass marines is not sturdy at the upper levels.
Scenario 1: 4gate robo with a warp prism in your main, to defend against 4 zealots your going to need to empty out at least 1 bunker, the problem is by the time you finish dealing with the first 4 zealots there are 4 more so you need to empty out another bunker, this is when the protoss main force hits your front and you die.
Scenario 2: Mass blink stalkers end up in your base about when your cueing up your first round of banshees, you lose all your scvs and if you remain calm you attack with your marines once the banshees pop, but he just retreats using your base against you to pick off banshees.
In the replay where you showcase how you hold against a 4gate on steps, he could easily have killed the rocks and walked in behind your bunkers, in fact this has happened to me exactly the way it could have happened to you. You will have to empty the bunkers but you won't have any chance without them.
My problem with the build is that I just really don't believe that Terran can 1rax FE vs a 1basing protoss, it just doesn't work against experienced opponents who will know exactly what your doing.
|
On December 12 2010 12:25 statikg wrote:
While your build is nice in theory, 3 bunkers and mass marines is not sturdy at the upper levels.
Scenario 1: 4gate robo with a warp prism in your main, to defend against 4 zealots your going to need to empty out at least 1 bunker, the problem is by the time you finish dealing with the first 4 zealots there are 4 more so you need to empty out another bunker, this is when the protoss main force hits your front and you die.
Scenario 2: Mass blink stalkers end up in your base about when your cueing up your first round of banshees, you lose all your scvs and if you remain calm you attack with your marines once the banshees pop, but he just retreats using your base against you to pick off banshees.
In the replay where you showcase how you hold against a 4gate on steps, he could easily have killed the rocks and walked in behind your bunkers, in fact this has happened to me exactly the way it could have happened to you. You will have to empty the bunkers but you won't have any chance without them.
My problem with the build is that I just really don't believe that Terran can 1rax FE vs a 1basing protoss, it just doesn't work against experienced opponents who will know exactly what your doing.
This is why I usually only use this strategy on maps with naturals that have small, easy to defend chokes. 3 bunkers + mass marines is just enough to hold out until my banshees come out. It's not meant to be a permanent defence, but more of a time buffer.
Vs 4gate robo, I need to be diligent about my scouting. I try my best to keep an eye around my map for possible warp prism drops, as I know they'll be looking for other means to bypass my wall. The best defence is a few turrets scattered around the edge of my base of I scout anything like this happening. Otherwise, I have to use marines+scvs to buy as much time as possible. It's not easy to defend and I do need to find a better way to expo with better defence.
vs Mass blink stalkers, I can scout a little bit earlier and transition to mass marauder to defend. This is a pretty common response to my wall, so I know what needs to be to handle it. It's never an easy situation, but the push can be held off until banshees arrive, and you need to use those immediately to deal enough damage to catch back up.
The 4gate Jungle Basin replay is a bit old. That is now my strongest map...I always have 1 marine patrolling the outside of my base for proxy pylons to warp into my nat, and a couple marines at either ends of the destructable rocks to watch for any break-ins. 3 bunkers at my main ramp will deter pushes there, and if I scout them breaking my backdoor rocks, I throw down three more bunkers on the top of the natural ramp and tech behind that. It's nearly unbreakable and very easy to scout the aggressive play. It does delay my expansion quite a bit, but it lets me get my banshees out, which allows me to clean up the push and take my expo safely while counterattacking.
1 Rax FE is starting to become outdated with me...I may 2 rax FE or do an early 1 base timing push and expand behind that instead with the intention of 4 Port banshees. It's worked well for me so far, but people are slowly catching on so I'll have to adapt eventually.
|
Something about mass Banshee against a race with only 1 viable anti-air unit, a unit which is horrendously cost ineffective, sickens me.
|
The 3 bunkers not even fully stacked with Marines is a paper-thin defense that people can go through or around with zero problems.
I've seen a couple of replays in OP and I have to say I'm amazed that this thread has reached 9 pages. Your 4-Gate opponent (on Steppes) had enough of an army to crush the bunkers without Guardian Shields and it wouldn't even be close, but he obviously wasn't aware of that. Similar to that guy (don't remember which exact replay it was now) who instead of crushing the bunkers warped in Stalkers at the cliff that he could then never get off the cliff (which was hilarious btw =D). That guy easily had the army to kill you all game but in the end he sacrificed it one half at a time.
I would like to dispel any illusions people might have that bunkers with Marines are enough to defend against much any properly executed Protoss agression on Diamond level. You won't have people running away from them as if they were the Great Wall of China all the time.
Yes, Banshees are good in TvP later on, but they are good in the way PainUser demonstrated at MLG, not the way this build does it. I'd gladly watch any newer/better replays, but this is far from a viable high level build from what I could see.
|
On December 13 2010 07:25 Talin wrote:
The 3 bunkers not even fully stacked with Marines is a paper-thin defense that people can go through or around with zero problems.
I've seen a couple of replays in OP and I have to say I'm amazed that this thread has reached 9 pages. Your 4-Gate opponent (on Steppes) had enough of an army to crush the bunkers without Guardian Shields and it wouldn't even be close, but he obviously wasn't aware of that. Similar to that guy (don't remember which exact replay it was now) who instead of crushing the bunkers warped in Stalkers at the cliff that he could then never get off the cliff (which was hilarious btw =D). That guy easily had the army to kill you all game but in the end he sacrificed it one half at a time.
I would like to dispel any illusions people might have that bunkers with Marines are enough to defend against much any properly executed Protoss agression on Diamond level. You won't have people running away from them as if they were the Great Wall of China all the time.
Yes, Banshees are good in TvP later on, but they are good in the way PainUser demonstrated at MLG, not the way this build does it. I'd gladly watch any newer/better replays, but this is far from a viable high level build from what I could see.
One of the nicer things about having three bunkers is that it can be deceptive. How are you to know they're not fully stacked? It's a big risk to suicide into that many bunkers. I usually have a control of group of SCVs at my natural with autorepair set so I can repair those bunkers. Sure, they can break the defence, but by the time they do, they don't have enough left to do signicant damage where another round of marines + SCVs can't clean up.
I really do appreciate you being critical about this though, yes I do know 3 bunkers with a few marines is paperthin, but they've carried me through 2300 Diamond as of yet. I think the what I really need to tweak is a better early game that leads me to getting my midgame banshees without risk of dying quickly. I could always 2 Rax FE like everyone says I should, but I'm a stubborn bastard xD. 2 Rax FE would fill those bunkers quicker and with more units...Yeah I need to transition to that xD. Thanks again!
|
I've been trying this strat out for the past few games. I've had a little trouble against protoss but that was because I didn't a-move when I moved out and the other was poor bunker placement. Also, I've had quite a bit of luck with this strat in TvT especially. Banshees mobility is great, especially when going up against marines, and they tear apart thors and siege tanks. Your marines should be able to take care of any vikings they have too. I have a friend who plays protoss so maybe I can get some practice iin on him tomorrow :p
|
On December 13 2010 08:35 Synystyr wrote:
One of the nicer things about having three bunkers is that it can be deceptive. How are you to know they're not fully stacked?
The only thing you need to see is that no Marauder shells are coming out of the Bunkers to know you can break it pretty easily. Besides that, you could just poke in with one Zealot and see if all the bunkers are firing and how much damage it takes. Also 300 Minerals in Bunkers and 400 in expo + saturation (because why else would you have put the bunkers at natural choke) means you can't really have 15 Marines inside and behind the wall. Given a minimum of game sense, the Protoss has plenty of information telling him it's perfectly safe (and even a fantastic opportunity) to attack.
SCV repair is negated by Forcefields. Even without FFs I'm pretty sure that 4 Gate army (6 Stalkers 4 Zealots 3 Sentires iirc) could still get past just by sniping SCVs as they come. All you had at the time was 7 Marines in Bunkers and 8th on his way... that's an extremely uneven battle, even with Bunkers, repairs and everything. He wouldn't have lost more than 4 of his units to clear it out and nothing you had behind the wall was ready to deal with what he would have left.
It's one thing to rely on deception, and seeing what those players did I can see it apparently works often =/. It's a whole different thing to hope those Bunkers can actually defend against any reasonable Protoss attack. If the other player realizes he can commit to an attack, it's an inevitable gg.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
