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On January 30 2011 16:08 Zidane wrote: Stim micro owns any armor or attack upgrade you could get as protoss.
If you just don't cast forcefield or research charge, then yes. And besides, he can only stim so many times before he has a lot (6-8+) medivacs, which is usually when you want the colossi or templars to come out instead of teching directly to them.
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I don't see any point in going for fast double upgrades seeing that they scale so badly with gateway units. It is alright with Zealots, because they have a lot of HP, 2 attacks and already 1 base armor, so if they get to attack due to good forcefields, it works out fine. Stalkers barely benefit from upgrades at all, half their health is in shields, Marauders still do tons of damage to them and they gain a measly 1 attack from the +1 weapons.
Chances are that P will lose once Terran has some medivacs, because colossi will be out too late, let alone HTs.
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well you have to make those fucking zealots cost effecient.
the problem i see as always is scouting&detection (without robo) but i too think there might be some solid build if you can manage to trade Zealots with their units. as long as guardian shield makes them efficient.
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IMO safest way to tech to templar = going colossus =\ i don't always like using them either. just get normal forge and +1 armor then add another once your economy allows it.
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Hello everyone,
This build has been in my mind since the very night I saw this build performed on GSL Semifinals, TSLRain vs HongunPrime. As I like to perform a 1Gate FE whenever I get an opportunity, I was curious about how effective this strategy really is, as anyone else has seen from watching game, I just don't see where HongunPrime was in danger. Although not always the safest option, when I do perform 1GateFE, I struggle with what to do with my early expansion and how to progress, so this looked like a very solid option to turn to. As Artosis commented it was "incredibly safe," and to me it very much looked that way.
Though I've been watching and studying SC2 for the past 3 months, I've only recently started laddering for the last 3 weeks I am up to 2600 Diamond. As my skill comes mainly through reading and studying (game analysis/discussion) at this point, I'm a bit lacking in the experience, but the game knowledge alone so far has helped me progress to Diamond quickly at the very least, a very strange way to go about the game but I just don't have much time to play to get in-game experience like most do.
Since I'm lacking in Master's experience, is there anyone out there at the top notch Master's level that can correctly evaluate this play as I'm hungry to learn. Also, feedback from highlevel Protoss that actually WATCHED the game would be most appreciated.
Very surprised someone thought about this same question ahha, thanks OP for doing what I was too lazy to post.
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Well I can't see any evidence in this thread of this beeing a bad build although so many people seem to disagree. I've seen Tyler use it once on his stream and someone posted a replay of him doing it again so it should be viable. It doesn't sound great in theory (which is probably why people don't think it works) but I'm gonna try it out against my practice partners since I usually lose to in P vs T when I go 2 Gw robo - > Expand and then start going for HT tech.
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straight forward lol...
pros, FAST upgrades, good for 6 gate, blink+charge pressure. similar to what huk does on his stream
cons. down 150 minerals for an extra forge.
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On January 31 2011 08:01 freetgy wrote: well you have to make those fucking zealots cost effecient.
the problem i see as always is scouting&detection (without robo) but i too think there might be some solid build if you can manage to trade Zealots with their units. as long as guardian shield makes them efficient. Neither the replay I posted nor the game from Hongun skipped the robotics.
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I think a single forge and a faster zealot charge is preferable. I remember seeing on tyler's stream as soon as he got his expo he made a forge and a council and pushed with chargelots with +2 armor and just crushed a terran on the korean server.
the double forge has its place for protoss players who love high gateway counts. I favor high gateway counts but I am more into getting a faster charge and ht tech instead of upgrades that will only show a benefit when you are 2/2 in most cases and a lot of the times you can't even get there since you don't have aoe tech if they do a heavy bio push off of 2 bases
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I've been thinking about this build A LOT recently, also did some testing, because I just hate colossi in PvT. Also the fact that tyler used it should convince the haters around here that it should be viable to a certain extent, no? We don't have to "investigate" cons, because they are really obvious. 300 into forge and another 200/200 into upgrades. Nevertheless....nevertheless: this is EXACTLY the amount of minerals you would have to pay for one single colossus withOUT range being upgraded. You have 200/200 for the robotics bay and 300 + 200 gas for the first colossus. People say "upgrades need to pay off first": well, LOL, so does the thermal-lance upgrade no? And everybody starts it right away when going for colossi.....no? So pure numbers tell us, that when going colossi we invest 200/200 to just be ABLE to produce one, then invest 300/200 to actually have a colossi, then another 200/200 to get the additional range that is nullified anyways once vikings are on the field. Meaning, at this point in time you'll have one colossi, a 2nd colossi in construction and thermal lance researching - equals a shitton of ressources in tech, pardon my language. Forges build slightly faster than the robotics bay, and the upgrades need a little longer than thermal-lance....equals out nearly perfectly, 1/1 will be finished when extended thermal lance + 2nd colossus is done. So just saying "double forge doesn't pay off early enough" isn't a valid argument, because the 1/1 upgrades are being researched in exactly the same "window" when you are very vulnerable because the whole colossus-tech hasn't payed off yet either. Ressource-wise it's 200/200 for the robo-bay, 200/200 for thermal-lance and 600/400 for 2 colossi. Opposed to 300 for the forges and 200/200 for the 1/1 upgrades. This means, when you go for double forge you actually have spare ressources you can spend on even more gateway-units or faster tech to charge/blink/templar.
This being said I agree that having 2 colossi is in most circumstances just better than having 1/1. So it's not about the "it has to pay off" but about the actual efficiency of upgraded gateway-units. Howver, there's still one point that hasn't been mentioned, that I deem so very important: MOBILITY! Capslock isn't even sufficient to emphazise how important this point is. Colossi are a trap, they force you to stay incredibly defensive, you can't split them up, you can't run them around. Colossi-tech result in a terrible drop-defense: day9 even analyzed this in his "dealing with duckload"-daily. You can abuse the hell out of a colossi-techer with drops. He has no possibility to protect against drops cost efficiently. This is, where double forge play into earlier 3rd and templar tech really starts to shine. When you get charge and blink reasonably fast you have an army that is very mobile. You'll have more gateways to warp in units when needed and you have units that are actually able to deal with drops. You can easily split your army into multiple control-groups because you don't need the typical "ball" to protect your vulnerable colossi. In all of my test games, this was the main point why I liked this. It feels so...."liberating"....to not have to babysit those giant, slow bastards that tend to die always when you take your eyes off them for a split second. You can use your robo for warpprisms, you can use your stalkers for blink-harass, you can use your chargelots for run-bys.....compared to the static way a robotics-tech plays out, you have much more possibilities to multitask and attack at multiple locations.
Now after all this praise, what's the downside? Plain and simply the "ball" of terran - chargelots have no range, if terran reaches a chritical-mass they just die regardless of upgrades because they can't hit everything. Colossi are the equivalent of the terran ball, they just do more damage to MM. This is a fact. Therefore, what you ought to do is to constantly engage, never let terran get to a critical mass. If he comes to you: PERFECT! Since my standard-build is nowadays the conservative 3 gate robo before expansion (same as whitera, tyler and nani use it regularly), I tend to attack with 3 immortals and some gateway-units anyways while my expo goes up. Just to kill some stuff and force the terran to pull SCVs to repair/etc. Obviously the double forge play won't work vs timing pushes and I don't see it working vs mech-play either. Once tanks reach a critical mass you always want to have colossi to have something that can kill stuff from a certain distance while chargelots charge in and take the damage.
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Im by no means "top master" but I am in Master's and I personally have been feinting collossus alot and getting charge/blink double forge upgrades and immortals. Its my personal belief that the people on this thread doubting the power of upgrades on gateway units are doing it wrong or havent done it at all.
Most of my PvT matchups when im playing a standard macro oriented game will have this very simple thought process when it comes to unit comp.
1) Did he get a fast starport? If so, go double forge with charge/blink + some immmortals 2) Did he scan or scout my robotics bay at a time when I know he could get a meaningful amount of anti-collossus shit quickly? If so, either cancel it if its still building or dont use it right away, throw down TC and see #1 3) Did he open with 2 rax then throw down a bunch more rax? get collossus 4) Did he open with 3 rax? get collossus 5) Did he open with an expansion behind a factory for tanks and some rax? See #1 again, but tech to high templar as soon as you can after blink finishes.
Truthfully, the real reason collossus are seen as crucial to the matchup is because of the power of marines. Simply put, marines kill everything that isnt AoE when you get enough of them. This is why I only feel pressed to get collossus going if I know he will have to go out of his way to get a meaningful number of vikings.
I think the key component to the style i mention in item 1 above that most players leave out is blink. Blink is what makes this playstyle actually work. Blink enables your zealots and immortals to actually get into firing range and DO DAMAGE. Your stalkers will all be firing at once too because you can put them just about anywhere you want. Blink also prevents escaping and allows YOU to escape. In increases the efficiency of stalkers 10 fold and thats exactly what the unit needs. Whereas before they were preventing alot of your more powerful units from doing damage, now they are enabling your army to do damage wherever you choose to fight.
I think this playstyle is much more difficult to pull off than a typical collossus deathball but much more effective in MOST situations. The speed in which you get templar or the decision of whether or not you are going to need collossus will be impacted by many factors... one of them that i did not mention above is how big a problem you think medivacs will be. You may need AoE sooner in that case. Once you throw in that healing, upgraded gateway units need a little support, but they still do pretty awesome.
If you think your macro and knowledge of the matchup is good enough to keep up with the double upgrades and tech to the spells you need WHEN you need them I think trying this playstyle will change the way you view PvT forever. To reiterate yet again. This playstyle is not for absolute beginners, you need pretty decent macro and a good sense of how to engage a terran army to make this build work.
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@sleepingdog
Actually these builds work even better against mech builds. The reason they work is because blink and charge together allow your immortals to get in range to do damage without getting blocked by any and everything. Ive been able to succesfully support 5 immortals against mech without any blocking in a normal fight so they can do their full damge, which, with upgrades 3 shots a tank very early on. Maxed out they truck for 65 a piece, but you dont even need to max to 3 shot tanks. When maxed they will 2 shot marauders as well. Its amazing just how good immortals are at breaking an army that seems unbreakable... theyre just so hard to fking use if you cant blink your stalkers around in a concave or blink into the middle of both armies to block a retreat path.
I think your analysis is pretty good and i dont see the holding timing attacks as a problem without a solution. This is a play style i usually transition into based on what theyre doing as well as what they probably think im going to do.
You are absolutely spot on about constantly engaging when you can or at least forcing the engagements when theyre vulnerable... like if you spot a new expansion going up or something. Keeping them from their critical mass allows you to build the army YOU want and tech to AoE a little slower... I feel it allows you to be more adaptive in the process.
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United Kingdom36156 Posts
I hope I'm not hijacking this thread too much, but is it better to get Charge or +1 (armour) first? Just generally speaking?
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I've been trying this build with a 1 or 3 gate expand and then double forge with immortals. It's really strong but it has a window where your army isn't as big as when the 1-1 finished you have to tech to Templar cuz it's closest since I'll get 2-2. U just need really good forcefields and guardian shields. But it seems 2 be good against bio but the new popular mech it seems weak to. But that's my results.
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On February 01 2011 19:05 sleepingdog wrote:
Now after all this praise, what's the downside? Plain and simply the "ball" of terran - chargelots have no range, if terran reaches a chritical-mass they just die regardless of upgrades because they can't hit everything. Colossi are the equivalent of the terran ball, they just do more damage to MM. This is a fact. Therefore, what you ought to do is to constantly engage, never let terran get to a critical mass. If he comes to you: PERFECT! Since my standard-build is nowadays the conservative 3 gate robo before expansion (same as whitera, tyler and nani use it regularly), I tend to attack with 3 immortals and some gateway-units anyways while my expo goes up. Just to kill some stuff and force the terran to pull SCVs to repair/etc. Obviously the double forge play won't work vs timing pushes and I don't see it working vs mech-play either. Once tanks reach a critical mass you always want to have colossi to have something that can kill stuff from a certain distance while chargelots charge in and take the damage.
There's no way you'll be in a situation where terran's at critical mass and you're without colossi or templar while using the double forge build. The point isn't to play colossus free so you can show off to all of your little friends, the point is to prioritize upgrades first since hard teching to colossi off of 2 bases leaves you with many vulnerabilities. You have a shit ton of extra gas with this build which is getting dumped into sentries initially, building a robotics bay or a templar archives around the time you start your 2/2 upgrades or when your 3rd is secured (whichever is first) is an obvious choice with this build.
Also I can hardly think of a better build against mech than this one. Charge+blink rapes the shit out of tanks, and immortals are arguably more cost effective against tanks than colossi. When I see mech, that usually means either get a starport or just get 3-4 templars and focus on immortals+zealots with upgrades. This build is perfect for that.
On February 03 2011 01:34 marvellosity wrote: I hope I'm not hijacking this thread too much, but is it better to get Charge or +1 (armour) first? Just generally speaking?
forges first, then council. Save chronoboosts for both. That's one thing I've noticed about this build that's slightly inferior to colossi: you will have less probes in the mid game. With colossi you have enough chronos to boost tech+colossi and have some to spare for probes so you can get to 75 quickly and enjoy a nicely saturated 3rd under optimal conditions. With double forge, you *have* to use chronos on upgrades and charge/blink and usually don't have many to spare on probes.
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Im a T and I faced a similiar build the other day,
The one flaw I saw i this build was that it is so zealot heavy. In my game I immeditatly switched from a rine tank opener into MMM+blue flame hellion, Zeals are the real threat of this build with charge and ups, however with blue flame hellions added to the mix it made me toast the zeals a bit faster than usual which made all the differance, not to mention giving me a reason to build blue flame hellions is trouble as well because I have the option for incredible mineral line harassing as well.
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If you get +2 armor with chargelots you can really control mmm and even tanks until you bring out to high tier baddies. You can transition into a fancypants endgame with +3+3 chargelots and +2+0 carriers for some additional fun. Anyways, the double forge build can for sure hold through many different midgame pushes, but you do need to practice it or else you can screw up the timings and get rolled
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On February 04 2011 14:18 XXXSmOke wrote: Im a T and I faced a similiar build the other day,
The one flaw I saw i this build was that it is so zealot heavy. In my game I immeditatly switched from a rine tank opener into MMM+blue flame hellion, Zeals are the real threat of this build with charge and ups, however with blue flame hellions added to the mix it made me toast the zeals a bit faster than usual which made all the differance, not to mention giving me a reason to build blue flame hellions is trouble as well because I have the option for incredible mineral line harassing as well.
Yeah this happened to me and I was unsure how to react; in retrospect probably just colossus+stalker+blink would have been good, but then you have to fear them getting a whole bunch of tanks from their factories.
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Lately I've been 3 gate expanding with a really fast forge. I don't double forge so I can't speak specifically to this topic but I love getting the fast +1 armor and then +1 attack. Terran typically rolls up with marines, marauders, and siege tanks and my units just don't die with guardian shield. I've won my past 6 PvTs doing this build /shrug. After you hold their attack its really flexible, I usually get the robo for an obs and go from there.
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On February 01 2011 19:05 sleepingdog wrote:
Howver, there's still one point that hasn't been mentioned, that I deem so very important: MOBILITY! Capslock isn't even sufficient to emphazise how important this point is. Colossi are a trap, they force you to stay incredibly defensive, you can't split them up, you can't run them around.
I like your thinking.. how about this:
MOBILITY
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