EPTThe big thing is preventing drops, storm armies and scv lines. I saw minigun play vs this terran, he sees 4 dropships full with marauder comming towards his base, warps in 4 ht's and kills them all with feedback really amazing. In lategame you have pylons allover the place, sees the terran army, warps in 2 ht's and gets 2 perfect storms of and even manages to escape due to highground.
PvT Colossi or Templar - Page 3
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Boysarn
Sweden77 Posts
The big thing is preventing drops, storm armies and scv lines. I saw minigun play vs this terran, he sees 4 dropships full with marauder comming towards his base, warps in 4 ht's and kills them all with feedback really amazing. In lategame you have pylons allover the place, sees the terran army, warps in 2 ht's and gets 2 perfect storms of and even manages to escape due to highground. | ||
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bearjuice
United States98 Posts
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TheGiz
Canada708 Posts
Early in my days of playing SC2 I tried going 3 Gate into expand and HTs. I'd get a couple HTs out before Storm purely for the feedback against Medivacs. Once Storm hit I was golden, and I would grab a ton of Gateways and would hold very well, ESPECIALLY against Terran MMM balls. The thing is though that Colossi can do good damage far earlier than one can get HTs with Storm. Sure taking out Terran healing early is good, but wiping out the units is even better. This is also only countered by very mech-heavy builds or Banshee shenanigans, which the former is pretty rare and the latter happens early enough that one can transition out into Blink Stalkers. If I'm not already outright winning against Terran bio by the mid-game, yes, I will get HTs on my third base. Having such a diverse army makes the Protoss virtually unstoppable at that point, and I can exercise a pretty dominant contain until the Terran quits. So what to do about Vikings? Simple - make them useless. As soon as I see more than a couple of them I give Terran the air and start my HT tech. My Robo with either become passive or make Immortal/Observers while I add more Gateways. IF the Terran is smart enough he'll harass with his Vikings, but his wasting so much resources on them means I'll win the ground war, and with HTs this is a guarantee. So tl;dr go Colossi first and play it by ear. | ||
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b_unnies
3579 Posts
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dudeman001
United States2412 Posts
Colossi and high templar are both expensive and far up the tech tree. But colossi have much more reliable and sustainable damage before Terran can one shot them with vikings. At that point, switching to high templar is both logical and absolutely powerful, because by late game you can pump so many high templar that ghosts are only a hard counter with perfect micro, EMPing every single templar. | ||
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adrift
192 Posts
If your opponent knows you are skipping collosus and reacts appropriately he can do a timing attack that you can not hold. Really, you can't hold it. All he has to do is attack with medivacs/ghosts/bio at the timing when you are either researching storm or have just finished storm but don't have amulet. If he hits before storm finishes you die. If he hits after it finishes but before amulet and he hits any kind of decent emp you die. The safest way to play PvT is to expand, get collosus + charge on two base, then take a third as soon as you safely can and add templar. If you get your third up and have amulet done + collosus you basically can't lose at this point. I have won tons of games against Terrans without going Colossus. I like skipping them better too but I have found that against better Terrans you can't get away with it. If they scout and react with that timing you just kind of die. If your opponent is too bad to make ghosts you can easily get away with immortal + chargelot into HT on 2 base. I used to love this build. Its just way too weak against good terrans that know timings and use ghosts well. | ||
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Skyro
United States1823 Posts
-OP seems to focus on why people tend to go colossi first rather than HT first. This is because the standard build is 1/2/3 gate into robo and in this scenario you must get colossi first vs bio because you simply will not have templar/storm up in time to deal with a push where they have bio upgrades + medivacs. -Obviously the reason people open robo is that it gives scouting (observer), a mid-game unit to defend bio pushes (immortal), and eventually access to an AOE unit (colossi). On particular maps (like Scrap Station) I like to open stargate which also allows me to scout with a phoenix or defend pushes with a Void Ray, but doesn't give me access to AOE. In this scenario it is easier to transition into templar since you don't need the early AOE unit to survive the bio push. Chargelot + sentry + phx + VR does very well vs bio. The problem with stargate openers is that there is a window of weakness where you start to get your air force up, which is why it is most useful on particular maps. -The counters are actually somewhat irrelevant in choosing which to go first. It has a lot more to do with your actual build. Of course if your opponent already has the appropriate counters out on the field before you even have to make your decision that has an effect, but that is rarely the case that people make counters for something that you don't have yet. | ||
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Treehead
999 Posts
On December 04 2010 02:37 Skyro wrote: -The answer is you need both late game. It seems many korean protoss would disagree with you, shoring up their Colossi's weakness to air units with phoenixes. Last I recall, phoenixes are cost effective against vikings, and chargelot/Colossi or chargelot/sentry/colossi is solid against any terran land army. Tanks are the biggest problem on the ground (which happen to be the only target a phoenix can lift where the phoenix is displacing more of the opponent's during a fight than his cost). Of course, this comp is a bit weird - and at least a few NA professional protoss players that have been asked their opinions on this comp openly criticize it, but I think the "need" for both HTs and Colossi lategame is a bit overstated. | ||
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Alejandrisha
United States6565 Posts
Whenever I go for collosi vs terran, I feel like I cannot do two things at once because your collosi have to be babysitted by your gateway units to stay alive and your gateway units have to be with your collosi to not get stimmed and rolled over. templar tech gives you more flexibility, as you can warp in your aoe damage where you see fit (once amulet is done), as well as parry drops with feedback, given you have sufficient spotting with pylons and observers. I think collosi is therefore more suited for 2baseplay (if a third is hard to take or you're gunning for a timing) where you can easily bounce back and forth between main and nat to handle drops. On the other hand, templar tech enables you to play more of a management style on 3-5 bases.. until the terran wises up and bolstors his mmm with thors/tanks, then it is wise to grab some voids or even carriers. | ||
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Markwerf
Netherlands3728 Posts
- HT are too gas heavy early on, you need some stalkers, sentries and some upgrades like zealot charge, +1 armor etc which conflict with getting HT. - HT tech is slower and more costly compared to colossus tech. Note that a robo is virtually a neccesity against terran because of the cloaked banshee threat and certain playstyles you want immortals against (such as a thor rush or mech favored terran). HT needs council and templar archives AND storm tech before they really have a good effect, colossi only need the robo bay and a colossus to be effective, you can postpone range even if neccesary. The fact that colossus tech is more gradually and relatively cheaper (if you include a robo anyway) then ht makes them a better first tech target. - Colossi are just too good early on. First of all you NEED some stalkers anyway to prevent your zealots from piling up and to prevent harass and low numbers of vikings don't do that great against colossi anyways. It's quite easy to shield abuse with colossi for example if they just have 2 or 4 vikings. Forcing them into vikings also delays other gas intensive stuff like ghosts or infantry upgrades as well which is a good thing as well. Building colossi is also great to simply use the robo, immortals are cumbersome lategame anyway because they are too slow and too shortranged to do well in big fights if you are using zealots and stalkers too. HT are good lategame when you have the council anyway for zealot legs and you're income starts to get more gas which always happens lategame. Lategame your first base is depleted from minerals but still getting gas, the neccesary upgrades (zealot legs, warpgate etc.) are already done and your production includes no sentries anymore which all let you pile up gas later on. THat gas pileup is the reason to go HT later imo. (some koreans prefer the colossus + phoenix strat but that is imo map dependant and generally inferior to colossi + ht though). | ||
ZeromuS
Canada13389 Posts
Templar tech is a lot more reliable than Collosus IMO. This being said getting collossus can be good but HTs are scary Collossus are not. Vikings own collossus while the ground army is busy. | ||
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Alejandrisha
United States6565 Posts
Also, warping in templar with amulet to proxy pylons or warp prisms to naked terran expansions (such as hidden/isolated pf's) and throwing down a couple of storms is absolutely amazing. Try doing this on xel'naga by putting a pylon on the high ground above the terran's expo (not the gold one but the one farther away from you) and throwing 2 storms right in the worker line can bolster a lead or put you ahead in a management game. | ||
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Markwerf
Netherlands3728 Posts
Sure vikings may counter colossi but with proper stalker micro focussing the vikings it actually becomes really hard for them. Forcing the terran into vikings is often only a good thing, the unit is really poor on the ground, gives a nice target for your stalkers and makes it more difficult for the terran to balance their army. Have too many vikings and they simply lose to the ground, have too few and the colossi can dominate. Colossi not warping in like templar do is in many ways actually an advantage as you don;t need as many warpgates. Colossi build from the otherwise fairly idle robo, sure you can make immortals but they are hardly an upgrade over stalkers and don't actually replace stalkers in their role as they don't function well as a anti-harass unit. Immortals are also rather slow, whereas a chargelot + stalker army is quite fast (and colossi can at least cut corners to keep up with the rest). Templar may be the better lategame tech, but colossi are just too good early on to skip imo. They have a safer and faster tech, give a good use to the robo facility and force T into making vikings which don't mesh well with their infantry upgrades. Usually I just keep making colossi from 1 robo non-stop the entire game, early on they are fantastic when viking numbers are low and basically secure my 3rd. Lategame they are still good as they benefit from upgrades while vikings don't, for example it's not uncommon to be having 2-2 colossi vs 0-0 vikings lategame. | ||
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Skyro
United States1823 Posts
On December 04 2010 02:55 Treehead wrote: It seems many korean protoss would disagree with you, shoring up their Colossi's weakness to air units with phoenixes. Last I recall, phoenixes are cost effective against vikings, and chargelot/Colossi or chargelot/sentry/colossi is solid against any terran land army. Tanks are the biggest problem on the ground (which happen to be the only target a phoenix can lift where the phoenix is displacing more of the opponent's during a fight than his cost). Of course, this comp is a bit weird - and at least a few NA professional protoss players that have been asked their opinions on this comp openly criticize it, but I think the "need" for both HTs and Colossi lategame is a bit overstated. Phoenixes do not really "solve" the problem of vikings due to viking range regardless of how cost-effective they are (actually they are roughly cost equivalent, it depends on how big of an army we're talking about since in small numbers phoenixes win out). Once vikings hit a critical mass where they kill a colossi in 1 or 2 volleys it is nearly impossible to keep your colossi from being picked off and whittled down slowly. Certainly, if vikings numbers are fairly low in number where they don't pose a great threat of picking off your colossi, or if tanks are in play, phoenix are great. But once they reach a critical mass storm punishes vikings most effectively. You really want to steer away from making mass phoenix as well and use them more as support. HTs also provide balance and forces Terran to get ghosts and provide numerous other benefits like the ability to warp-in. | ||
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LazyMacro
976 Posts
First, I tend to get collossi in PvT because a good T is simply going to timing push before I actually have storm and amulet researched. Before amulet researches, I am relying on having HT already on the field sitting around doing nothing other than using feedback on medivacs or ghosts (and thus not having energy for storm). More often than not if I try to go storm really fast, I die before I can make use of it. If I can't even make use of it, I may as well have spent all of that time and resources simply going collossi. So, this makes collossi a bit of a clutch, in my opinion. I think it's better to have HT once amulet is finished, as I can reinforce my bread and butter army (zealots, sentries, and stalkers) along with my major tech path (storm) without having to wait on a production queue the way every unit produced from anything other than a robo is. | ||
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Treehead
999 Posts
On December 04 2010 05:00 Skyro wrote: Phoenixes do not really "solve" the problem of vikings due to viking range regardless of how cost-effective they are (actually they are roughly cost equivalent, it depends on how big of an army we're talking about since in small numbers phoenixes win out). Once vikings hit a critical mass where they kill a colossi in 1 or 2 volleys it is nearly impossible to keep your colossi from being picked off and whittled down slowly. Certainly, if vikings numbers are fairly low in number where they don't pose a great threat of picking off your colossi, or if tanks are in play, phoenix are great. But once they reach a critical mass storm punishes vikings most effectively. You really want to steer away from making mass phoenix as well and use them more as support. HTs also provide balance and forces Terran to get ghosts and provide numerous other benefits like the ability to warp-in. I'd like to respond to your latest post, but first, I'd like to point out that you said "you need both lategame" whereas many pro late games either go one or the other, and make do with the units they have and solid micro to shore up any weaknesses their less diverse comp might have. Regardless of theorycrafting argument either of us can make, it seems that this statement is not consistent with pro play currently. I am not a pro, but I believe they play it this way for two reasons: 1. Theorycrafting tends to lead one to create a very, very diverse army - which should be capable of dealing with everything, but in practice ends up getting stomped by mass anything. Example: you scout a tech lab on each structure, and make a couple phoenixes to deal with banshees, a couple immortals to deal with thors some zealots and stalkers for core units, colossi to deal with marines, etc. You see his army of mass _____ (fill this blank with any unit you'd want to mass) and just a couple techy support units, and you say "I have a counter for all of that!". Your one unit of "counter" is dead before you're done saying that. Now, you're in trouble. Remember that supply is a resource, too, and that every supply that you don't use building a unit that is reasonably strong all around (aka not colossi and HTs) will be regrettable if your opponent didn't build as many of X unit as you thought he would (or built none at all). 2. In the strat I mentioned specifically, Phoenixes AND Colossi puts a lot of pressure on your opponents vikings. If they focus on the phoenixes and have large numbers, they can win the air battle, but in doing so they delay the death of your colossi, which just ream any bio army, until they can do their job. If they focus on killing the colossi, they must let your phoenixes get in range and begin firing for free (unless you only have one colossi). If you've been attempting to keep up in the air game, you should now win the air - though you probably will lose the ground battle if you didn't engage very advantageously. But here's the thing, if you win the air battle, you can kill anything leftover (assuming nearly all marines evaporated at the sight of colossi) by pulling them into the air. If they won the air battle (and you presumably win the land battle handily), their vikings must come down to hit your zealots, which is also in your favor. The wildcard here (again) is ghosts - but then we're talking about an MMG army with mass vikings, one of those sides of his army is going to be weak - that's a lot of tech. And anyway, I really don't need to defend the build's viability, as I can let people like tester and sangho show the build's viability for me. Tester's phoenixes nixxed Nada's vikings in reasonably large numbers with good micro. I can't micro them like tester did, but that's good enough for me. | ||
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Endorsed
Netherlands1221 Posts
- Colossi are hard countered by Vikings, an easy to get staple unit of a Terran force entering the mid game. Oftentimes, a Terran will pre emptively get four to six vikings in preperation for Colossus, which can shut them down without great micro or extremely stalker heavy (which I find too frail, as your army is inneffective against marauders). Having them sit in the sky (or land and be pathetic), therefore not being useful at all, puts the Terran at a disadvantage. Lol stopped reading here. Collosus aren't hard countered by vikings by any means. Going collosus means the terran has to go vikings. Wich means no medivacs and less bio ground army. Also collosus are amazing, when you get like 4 of them they just kill all the marines in one sweep(main dps of terran bio ball) | ||
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Skyro
United States1823 Posts
On December 04 2010 07:17 Endorsed wrote: Lol stopped reading here. Collosus aren't hard countered by vikings by any means. Going collosus means the terran has to go vikings. Wich means no medivacs and less bio ground army. Also collosus are amazing, when you get like 4 of them they just kill all the marines in one sweep(main dps of terran bio ball) This is true but if your comparing colossi to HT this is hedged by the fact that HTs can make medivacs essentially useless via feedback. | ||
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Hane
France210 Posts
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Skyro
United States1823 Posts
On December 04 2010 06:45 Treehead wrote: I'd like to respond to your latest post, but first, I'd like to point out that you said "you need both lategame" whereas many pro late games either go one or the other, and make do with the units they have and solid micro to shore up any weaknesses their less diverse comp might have. Regardless of theorycrafting argument either of us can make, it seems that this statement is not consistent with pro play currently. I am not a pro, but I believe they play it this way for two reasons: 1. Theorycrafting tends to lead one to create a very, very diverse army - which should be capable of dealing with everything, but in practice ends up getting stomped by mass anything. Example: you scout a tech lab on each structure, and make a couple phoenixes to deal with banshees, a couple immortals to deal with thors some zealots and stalkers for core units, colossi to deal with marines, etc. You see his army of mass _____ (fill this blank with any unit you'd want to mass) and just a couple techy support units, and you say "I have a counter for all of that!". Your one unit of "counter" is dead before you're done saying that. Now, you're in trouble. Remember that supply is a resource, too, and that every supply that you don't use building a unit that is reasonably strong all around (aka not colossi and HTs) will be regrettable if your opponent didn't build as many of X unit as you thought he would (or built none at all). 2. In the strat I mentioned specifically, Phoenixes AND Colossi puts a lot of pressure on your opponents vikings. If they focus on the phoenixes and have large numbers, they can win the air battle, but in doing so they delay the death of your colossi, which just ream any bio army, until they can do their job. If they focus on killing the colossi, they must let your phoenixes get in range and begin firing for free (unless you only have one colossi). If you've been attempting to keep up in the air game, you should now win the air - though you probably will lose the ground battle if you didn't engage very advantageously. But here's the thing, if you win the air battle, you can kill anything leftover (assuming nearly all marines evaporated at the sight of colossi) by pulling them into the air. If they won the air battle (and you presumably win the land battle handily), their vikings must come down to hit your zealots, which is also in your favor. The wildcard here (again) is ghosts - but then we're talking about an MMG army with mass vikings, one of those sides of his army is going to be weak - that's a lot of tech. And anyway, I really don't need to defend the build's viability, as I can let people like tester and sangho show the build's viability for me. Tester's phoenixes nixxed Nada's vikings in reasonably large numbers with good micro. I can't micro them like tester did, but that's good enough for me. I say "need" as in if you can get them, it's almost worth it to get them. A lot of games either don't reach the late late game (max armies) or, especially at the pro level, are so razor tight that you don't have an option to tech to them. I do watch my fair share of replays, but I hardly believe that the majority of korean protoss players transitions into phoenix after colossi when given the option to tech. 1) Your first point does not reflect the dynamic of the protoss deathball. Late game if there is ever a point where your AoE units are killed/disabled you will get rolled over. Obviously colossi are more prone to this than HT since you can warp-in fresh HT quickly. And sure you can think of supply as a resource. But the difference with supply is that there is a cap, so late game (e.g. supply capped army) you want to make as efficient use of your supply as possible, and I don't think you will find any "korean pro" who would opt for pure colossi over an equal supply mix of colossi and HT, generally speaking. 2) This still doesn't address how you phoenix help stop a critical mass of vikings. I think certainly if you can force an engagement by pushing his base or whatever there is more merit to it. The issue then is getting to that point. | ||
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