Hey guys. If anyone watched the hongun vs tslrain series, aside from hongun playing badly, you will remember honguns double forge build for g1. http://www.gomtv.net/2010gslopens3/vod/1455
Watching this build against rain, it seems incredibly solid. There was never a moment where hongun looked like he was in any danger. He put double forge after his 1gate FE and made lots of stalkers and zealots.
What do you guys think are the significant downsides of going double forge? After hongun held off the first attack, his gateway army could equalize the infantry army of the terran, something that is usually the reverse. It seems this strategy destroys MMM, but is so much safer because you don't have to use collosi.
Ow c'mon this isn't that big topic to talk about this. Cons are easy - you are behind by 300 minerals (2 forges), 100 minerals 100 gas (melee), x minerals x gas (armor). And you will be behind until the upgrade finish, and in fight you regain these ~500/200. It's around 4 stalkers, or 2 sentries and 3 zealots.
Havne't seen the game but terran should have attacked after upgrades started - just when toss was these 4 stalkers behind.
I am usually making +1/+1 slings\blings with as few roaches as possible at beggining and i find them supper effective vs anything.
I don't really like the idea. Gateway units are strong in early game against bio, but become very weak as the army sizes scale. P has enough resources to defend while teching or to defend while upgrading. +1/+1 zealot stalker is crap against mid-game MMM, but +0/+0 zealot stalker collosus is good against mid-game MMM. IMO, T mid-game MMM is too strong to get greedy w/ upgrades before getting AoE damage.
If you let the bio ball grow enough in size and you don't incorporate colossus or storm it doesn't matter if you are 2/2 and he's 1/1 Zealots melt and then you are left with a bunch of stalkers that explode at the sight of a marauder and a bunch of sentries doing 7-8 dps @ 100 gas each.
The worst thing terran can do if he sees you doing this is attack before reaching critical mass or incorporating 2 ghosts. Which rain did on that game.
Also... until terran sees a robotics bay. He doesn't have to spend enormous amounts of gas on vikings that can go to ghosts to counter the imminent templars that you would be a fool not to get considering you have a high gateway count, a twilight council and 1 robotics facility at most.
On December 11 2010 07:54 brainpower wrote: Maybe it would be decent if you went for double ups after you got to templar, but early game it isn't worth it at all.
The whole point of the build is so that you can live long enough to get high templars without using Colossi. If HongUn's units weren't 1/1, and then again 2/2 when Rain did his timing pushes he would have lost 100% The upgrades replace the colossi, in making the gateway units strong enough to stand up to a bio ball. Also if you noticed, HongUn made sure that every couple of minutes he was engaged in a fight with Rain, just so that his bioball doesn't reach a critical mass which can walk over his upgrades.
I feel one forge is plenty, since armor seems so much better than attack vs T. I`ve had battles where my Templar all get EMPed before a single storm, but thanks to my large number of 0/3 chargelots I`ve won easily anyways, despite being about 10 food behind in army size. Zealots with +armor and guarian shield are insane, they`re basically immune to EMP (the Zealots, not the Sentries) and take almost no damage.
I get 2 forges (sometimes 3, rofl) very frequently in all matchups, but really only when I feel safe. IMO 1 is usually enough and you can get 3/3 by late game if you use your chronoboost well.
It also feels very manly and pro to chrono 3 forges at once, don't forget that.
I like this idea. I'm not sure how exactly it should be implemented though, because the problem with colossus builds is that there are build specifically designed to beat them. But if you go templar you really need your zealots to not instantly evaporate when they charge in.
On December 12 2010 08:06 Geovu wrote: I get 2 forges (sometimes 3, rofl) very frequently in all matchups, but really only when I feel safe. IMO 1 is usually enough and you can get 3/3 by late game if you use your chronoboost well.
It also feels very manly and pro to chrono 3 forges at once, don't forget that.
I wish i was placed against people that do this so i can get free wins
Assuming a pure Zealot/Sentry army and that you're using Guardian Shield, +1 armour would reduce Marine damage by 1/3 and Marauder damage by 1/7 (at least on the Zealots). If 1/3 of the resources he's spent on Marines combined with 1/7 of the resources he's spent on Marauders comes to more than you've spent on getting the armour upgrade, I'd consider it a fantastic choice every time (not to mention it gives the added bonus of being prepared for Banshees by default). I'm not so sure about how to justify +1 damage to myself, since it doesn't change how many Zealot swings it takes to kill a Marine (probably takes 1 less swing for a Marauder, can't be bothered verifying), and you're spending an entire 150 more minerals on getting that 2nd Forge. I also like to think that this would lead nicely into Zealot/Templar play in the mid game as opposed to the usual Robo play, since a fast Twilight Council would allow you to get +2 armour, cutting that Marine damage down to the minimum of 1 per shot on a Zealot, and letting you get the Charge upgrade.
2 forges IMO is a waste of resources. In PvT Protoss NEEDS to get to Tier 3 units getting a double forge severely delays your ability to tech up quickly. One forge getting +1 armor and then +1 attack should take a long enough time where you can tech to Collosus or HT by then, getting a double forge wouldn't be so bad when your on 2-3 bases .
On December 11 2010 04:13 k43r wrote: Ow c'mon this isn't that big topic to talk about this. Cons are easy - you are behind by 300 minerals (2 forges), 100 minerals 100 gas (melee), x minerals x gas (armor). And you will be behind until the upgrade finish, and in fight you regain these ~500/200. It's around 4 stalkers, or 2 sentries and 3 zealots.
Havne't seen the game but terran should have attacked after upgrades started - just when toss was these 4 stalkers behind.
I am usually making +1/+1 slings\blings with as few roaches as possible at beggining and i find them supper effective vs anything.
ur talking bad man, how will u be behind making upgrades? as i know Robo+robotic+collosus+rage cost way more than +1/+1 and ur early game mid game late game will be strong enough im trying to do this in PvT like in SC1, if u add Guardian Shield to your 1+/+1 army that really good
i think people should watch the game first cause most of the responses here just make no sense if you actually saw the game.
no in topic... well i tried it a couple times (im not a great player in any way or form) and its really good BUT only if you are far from your enemy because if not most of the timing pushes will be at your door when you are just 1/1 and either kill you or cripple you right there.
Um, while I don't necessarily endorse double forging, after a week break due to finals I came back to play a pvt today to try it out. ANd while the game is obviously awful, considering the army battles, I feel the double forge upgrades definitely made all the difference.
I hate to turbo-bump this, but I only just now discovered this build about a week ago. This build seems incredibly flexible and really forces the match into the late game. Colossi and storm are both just such huge investments that take a while to show returns. Just massing the shit out of gateway units, getting charge quickly, and chronoing upgrades seems to shut down a lot of early-mid game terran aggression.
Think about this: When do tosses lose most pvts? Either in the early game to 1 base plays or in the early-mid game when storm/colossus tech hasn't been fully realized; maybe you just have 1-2 colossi without range or a few templars with storm but no amulet. To compound this, if terran scouts properly they can hard-counter your tech pretty fiercely. If you went storm, this forces you into a very defensive position because it's going to be very hard to attack while keeping your templars safe from emp. If you went colossi, you "have" to get a bunch of stalkers, which are super weak against marauders or tanks. You also give the terran a big timing window to attack you while you have few gateway units and are en-route to colossi or storm. This is a full on reversal from the normal games, you're very strong when terran is normally doing their timing attack which would be arriving when your tech is still weak. Remember, the original kcd fast expansion build that came out in august first used a fast double forge, citadel, 6-8 gates, and forewent a robotics completely.
With the double forge gateway units+immortal build, you're going to be able to go toe to toe with MMM and don't have any particular timing vulnerabilities and can even get aggressive if terran overextends himself! Zealots with armor, guardian shield, and charge are very tough for terrans to take down. AOE damage from storm or colossi only becomes totally necessary when terran has a shit ton of medivacs with a lot of energy. You can relatively reliably secure a third with upgraded gateway units and immortals, then worry about tech. With 3 gas it's much easier to mix or switch techs so that a handful of ghosts or vikings can't completely ruin your day. You can of course get colossus or storm off of just 2 bases after using this opening, and both become much more effective when you already have 2/2 upgrades. With this build, you already have both a robo and a citadel. With an observer you can spot his production structures and react with either storm or colossus. It sucks when you blindly build a robo bay and it just so happens he has two starports with reactors or when you build a templar archives and his ghost academy is already up. It's that much easier to aim storms and feedbacks when your zealots and gateway units can tank for a few more seconds, and colossi get a huge benefit from attack upgrades.
Finally, it's a little easier to micro. It's probably a little more sensitive to forcefield/guardianshield micro, but not having to aim storms and manage colossi makes it so that you don't have those critical mistakes to make and lose you the game.
On December 11 2010 07:54 brainpower wrote: Maybe it would be decent if you went for double ups after you got to templar, but early game it isn't worth it at all.
The whole point of the build is so that you can live long enough to get high templars without using Colossi. If HongUn's units weren't 1/1, and then again 2/2 when Rain did his timing pushes he would have lost 100% The upgrades replace the colossi, in making the gateway units strong enough to stand up to a bio ball. Also if you noticed, HongUn made sure that every couple of minutes he was engaged in a fight with Rain, just so that his bioball doesn't reach a critical mass which can walk over his upgrades.
But end game you want both HT and colossi anyway. If you just use HT you run the risk of a clutch emp owning your whole army. If I were to hazard a guess it probably has more to do with a macro-based style, where the larger T1 army consistently throughout the game and lack of weak points of time due to teching allows to expand faster and more times.
edit: Ok just saw the game. Yeah pretty interesting. You still seem to have a "weak" point around when you are tossing down both forges and getting your first set of upgrades. I think he should've took his 3rd earlier however and leverage his army size.
On December 11 2010 07:14 kcdc wrote: I don't really like the idea. Gateway units are strong in early game against bio, but become very weak as the army sizes scale. P has enough resources to defend while teching or to defend while upgrading. +1/+1 zealot stalker is crap against mid-game MMM, but +0/+0 zealot stalker collosus is good against mid-game MMM. IMO, T mid-game MMM is too strong to get greedy w/ upgrades before getting AoE damage.
i agree with this
later on in the game when i get +1 armor and almost have +1 weapons i usually throw down a twilight and another forge, but i think putting them down earlier on is a stupid idea
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
On February 01 2011 19:05 sleepingdog wrote: 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?
Hey sleepingdog, would you mind linking the game which Tyler used it, or tell me which match so I can find it, much appreciated!
I think more and more protoss are realizing that getting a twilight council before robo support bay is a safer and more versatile transition in PvT because you are less vulnerable to the various stim timing pushes. The double forge version of this is certainly viable.
On February 04 2011 11:10 Drowsy wrote: 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.
This was a revelation I had when trying this build. I'd expand, throw down the forges, and find I still had loads of gas, only needing to take 3rd and 4th gases later on. It might seem minor, but saving that 75 on the assimilator and 3 extra probes mining minerals is actually a substantial difference.
I usually throw up my 3rd gas around the time I'm putting my TC up I guess, because there's gonna be a big gas dump as +2/+2 + Charge is started all around the same time.
I'd rather get a 3rd has earlier for the sentries actually to prevent stim kiting, this makes good use of the 1/1 upgrades. Then you may or may not need the fourth gas for 2/2 dedpending on how many forcefields you used or how many sentries has been killed.
Latedi - I suppose it depends how you're getting there - I'm doing 2-gate robo expand into 3 or 4 gates with double forge. And I get my 2nd gas at 21 supply. So I have plenty of gas for lots of sentries without needing the 3rd for quite a while.
Well looking back, my unit composition was awful, I went something like Stalkers with 11 sentries just because of the gas surplus, there was no way for me to spend that kind of money and really fucked up my warpgate cycle, with soo many sentry warp ins, I couldn't get enough Zealots out (or at all really).
And I agree with the sentiment of taking your 3rd gas when you start twilight. I get my forth when I think its safe to start the H.Templar research.
The scary part for me right now is a massive marine marauder Medivac (w/ double engi bay upgrades) push before storm/amulet is finished, usually have to sacrifice my third when it happens
Dommk, I think the idea is that you're supposed to keep the pressure on Terran. With this style army trades are good because once the MMM ball gets too big, it's too powerful against gateway, upgrades or not. So attack and trade and keep both army sizes relatively smaller so you perform better against it.
On February 15 2011 02:11 Dommk wrote: Well looking back, my unit composition was awful, I went something like Stalkers with 11 sentries just because of the gas surplus, there was no way for me to spend that kind of money and really fucked up my warpgate cycle, with soo many sentry warp ins, I couldn't get enough Zealots out (or at all really).
And I agree with the sentiment of taking your 3rd gas when you start twilight. I get my forth when I think its safe to start the H.Templar research.
The scary part for me right now is a massive marine marauder Medivac (w/ double engi bay upgrades) push before storm/amulet is finished, usually have to sacrifice my third when it happens
You should be spending the gas on Immortals as well. Also I like to warp-in a few HT to build up energy while storm is researching. Even HT w/o storm are effective vs medivacs via feedback and you can morph them into archon afterwards if necessary.
On February 15 2011 02:30 Severedevil wrote: Gateway + Upgrades can clearly handle M&M, but Medivacs are still pretty overpowering.
Someone pointed out an interesting thing to me lately. A normal mm army has combat shield, conc shells, and stimpack, that's 250/250, or warp gate research and two upgrades. Or warp gate research and charge. Or warp gate research, hallucination and one upgrade.
I still believe that the key to beating mm is hallucinations more so than an attack upgrade though, I'd rather have armour (if he's marine heavy) and halu rather than armour and attack. If you have one sentry with full energy that's faking 4 zealots to soak up shots.
I think Feedback on the Medivacs is the answer. You don't have to mass Templars and buy Storm + Amulet to use it...
Well, if you have high templar already, I'd rather get it, I mean, feedback is great, buf if you're already that far on the tech path to it, I'd rather just spend that 200/200 to storm. I wouldn't want to spend 300/350 just for feedback and also 50/150 for every high templar just to feedback medivacs. I'd rather just get more upgrades then or charge.
I mean, remember that if you already have a council, charge is a looot cheaper than getting storm out, and on top of that it affects units you already should have plenty of. I get my council mainly for charge and decide on that if I want storm or not.
Someone pointed out an interesting thing to me lately. A normal mm army has combat shield, conc shells, and stimpack, that's 250/250, or warp gate research and two upgrades. Or warp gate research and charge. Or warp gate research, hallucination and one upgrade.
Eh, you really can't think of it that way, Barracks units are incredibly efficient and very cheap for their cost, also factor this in with mules vs chrono boost and it all becomes a kind of a mess.
Whoever said feedbacking the Medivacs, that was a great idea and it helped me a TON, the mid game Medivac timing that hits before storm I delt with pretty handily by warping in 7 templar and delaying storm, it really helped, especially when they archons morph started very early into the battle, they were merged in time for a second wave of gateway units to clean the bio ball.
Also, don't forget to make gateways , I was in the best position in the world when I lost a fight only to realize I was on 3 base with 8 gateways, you can really feel the 45second templar cooldown when you only have 8gates and 3k/3k trust-fund that you are desperately trying to spend..
I've also noticed, around about the time you should reach 100-120~ Pop, when you start researching charge, +2/+2, your minerals start to get out of hand and you really can't spend it because you spent your gas on upgrades, I've kinda always taken a third at that as my que to take a third, even if I don't think I can defend it
Oh yeah...don't keep your pop at 200/200..probably better to keep it at 185-195/200, I made the mistake of doing that and had a Terran drop me, which ended up doing a ton of damage...
But yeah, double forge has been working really well for me, if your opponent is behind/forgets/delays upgrades then it becomes one sided REALLY fast, 2/2 vs 2/2 is a good fight but 2/2 vs 1/0 is a complete rofl stomp, when your upgrades effect every unit, it really adds up quickly
this is a very strong build that has been my standard in PvT. A few points to note:
1) Don't expect zealots/stalkers with upgrades to go up against and MMM ball and win. You will need to have sentries for FF/Guardian shield as well as immortal to win. Guardian shield with +3 armor really really hurts marine DPS. Templars will be necessary as you approach 150+ food mark
2) Since your gateway units are strong, warp prisms should be used more frequently. Personally I like to have two - one that i keep with my main army so i can warp in reinforcements immediately without having to wait for a proxy pylon, and another to scout around and take out poorly protected expos
3) This is a terrible strategy against heavy hellion play. Unfortunately you will have to go back to colossi if they get out 15 or so hellions. On the plus side your colossi will benefit from the upgrades (unlike an MM to mech transition).
Tyler shows the build much better than hongun. In this game he's playing against 1 rax FE. Against more agressiv builds, i found that the built isn't that solid, especially in close positions.
I've been experimenting a lot w/ this build and I completely agree that the build is strong on longer distance maps where you can get an expo up earlier and also it's not great vs tank/hellion (pretty good vs marine/thor though). Its main strength is really in the fact that armor upgrades really dampens marine's insane DPS, zealot DPS from weapon upgrades scales nicely, and the ability to chrono out upgrades faster even if they go double engi bay.
Forge builds are quite strong against harass/drops I've noticed. Small medivac groups aren't nearly as scary or hard to defend when your units are that much more cost effective against T.
the reason i see why this works is actually pretty easy to calculate:
an M&M ball without stim/medivacs can be dealt with a normal gateway army of stalker sentry zealot if stim comes in it essentially increases the DPS of the same M&M ball by 1/3 so 30 food army become as strong as a 40 food army.
due to the gateway based army you can now get enough sentrys and upgrades (since you don't waste gas on Tech)
Sentrys now give you at least a good damage reduction of 2/6 against marines and ~ 2/10,2/20 against marauders. constant guardian shield cannot negate Stims dmg increase completely but its pretty good.
assuming due to double forge you can get a 1/1 upgrade advantage (compared to terran) you are now on equal footing even with stimmed M&M (without medivacs)
This of course still gets broken by Medivacs, but that is what the direct HT tech is for and assuming again you got charge this helps too, its not actually 100% safe solution, but for now it works. cause you have alot better mapcontrol than with Colossus tech, cause your lot less immobile, and you can reinforce alot better via warpgates and most likely can keep terran better on their toes so you can get a 3rd alot safer.
Terran could beat this, by equally spending on upgrades to not give protoss upgrade advantage. which would negate this whole strategy.
(or get ghosts 8D , it is a sentry based build after all)
EPT
, I was in the best position in the world when I lost a fight only to realize I was on 3 base with 8 gateways, you can really feel the 45second templar cooldown when you only have 8gates and 3k/3k trust-fund that you are desperately trying to spend..
