Those who watched Homestory cup #2 and IEM Kiev probably noticed white-Ra`s staple TvP build, which is in essence 1 gate robotics. As DeMuslim remarked it is incredibly versatile and safe against all popular Terran openings while leaving many paths to go thus making your opponents life harder.
This is a rough build order
9 pylon 12 gate 14 Assimilator 18 Cybernetics Core Put 3 probes in the assimilator, build a zealot followed by a stalker after gate finishes. Start warpgate research as soon as Core is ready, chrono it. 26/27 Assimilator 28 Robotics Facility (or after scout leaves your base)
You may start building Robotics even if scout is still in your base as it looks like a 4gate till then and making your opponent build bunkers/cut workers/guess is allways a good thing. In fact it was what White-Ra did in the third game in their series after DeMuslim, 4 gated on Jungle Basin after 2 times using his build.
As I said, versatility is the biggest plus this build has. You are safe against cloaked banshees due to fast observer and you can scout and adapt accordingly due to it too.
If you scout Terran taking one rax expand in his base you can safely expand after you add 2 gateways to your gate/Robo (as your observer reaches terran base as in game on Xel Naga caverns against Cloud) or before you add 2 gates if Terran expands outside his base as TLO on Shakuras Plateau and you manage to scout it. Generally you want to add 2 gates after your Robo to not to die and add Robotics Bay after that. Rushing to Collossus is not a good idea which used to be main thing people used to do after 1gate Robo.
Or you can bust terran when you are about 2/3 Immortals as in his game against Demuslim on Xel Naga Caverns. Or do some mix of both if terran tries to go cheap.
One thing I noticed was he didnt do it on Jungle basin doing 4gate and a 2gate expand instead. (Also in replaypack) Probably there is some kind of inherent weakness of this build on that map or he just likes to switch it up.
Also he lost both times while doing it on Scrap Station due to hellion drop/Thor push and Marine drop/hellion incursion. (in Homestory cup #2) So a short air distance is a weakness due to medivacs but I can see it working on ladder if terrans are going fast banshees thus exposing themselves to both bust and making huge investment into cloak which is not gonna pay off due to fast observers. probably why Ra did it. (also I remember him winning games on Scrap Station with beautiful Warp Prism Harrass so short air distance has advantages too)
Artosis did a how-to PvT without losing to all-ins, it should be on his youtubechannel ArtosisTV The build artosis explained is basicly the same as this, and now wonder why - this is a safe yet economical build, which actually also gives you quite the tech if you choose to go collosi.
Started doing this build and so far I'm doing great agaisn't terrans, I'm really only having problems when i botch my forcefields or something like that.
I agree with KOVU on this. A similar build as presented by Response in a similar thread:http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=186579 (i hope I did that right, I'm a noob to TL) basically Response said that you go 1 Gate Robo and scout with the obs and expand. If you see 3 rax pressure you should cancel the Nexus and make an immortal. I've used it against Terran and have had great results against Terrans as well.
On January 25 2011 05:20 daralharb wrote: I agree with KOVU on this. A similar build as presented by Response in a similar thread:http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=186579 (i hope I did that right, I'm a noob to TL) basically Response said that you go 1 Gate Robo and scout with the obs and expand. If you see 3 rax pressure you should cancel the Nexus and make an immortal. I've used it against Terran and have had great results against Terrans as well.
Oh I see, one thing it is different from this one is that he gets expo after 3gate/Robo if he cannot scout Terran 3raxing.
Yeah lots of people are doing this now instead of 1-gate FE. It is AFAIK the safest opener in PvT that can reasonably stay equal economically with a 1-rax FE terran, and is what I consider the new standard.
It feels and looks like a Protoss 1-1-1 if the last 1 was replaced by 'Profit!' since Protoss get air harass via Robo as well. Twilight council + blink openings off this would be quite evil against any sort of bunker expand. Usually, I know I'm safe from a blink stalker rush since people tend to get more gates before getting the robo + obs. However a slightly delayed blink stalker attack with Obs would be ridiculous.
My feeling is that this might be weak against a 2 Rax expand or any sort of Terran who can get up and hold an expo while forcing P to get up additonal gateways but I don't know the timings since TvP is my weakest matchup.
I wonder how this performs against something non-standard such as the 4 port push assuming both players have reached that point without being crippled.
Thank you for these replays and analysis. I think the PvT matchup is undergoing a lot of changes and players are re-evaluating their builds and starting to slim them down. This was helpful in my current work I'm doing on my PvT matchup.
From my side, as a Protoss, while Terran seem to be moving away from the early Bio aggression and more into a macro style mid to late game mech play, I am still very uncomfortable FE'ing because of said pressure. As you mentioned, this build really opens up your options so definitely something for me to work on.
I am gonna give this build another shot, i need something to do on short rush/air positions because 1gate FE is suicide in those situations against the right player.
Personally, i think this would do very well against weird play. This builds biggest problem before was bancheese but now phoenixes are much more accessible. A tech switch from zealot/immortal to zealot/phoenix is pretty painless now. You get the fast observer for scouting bancheese and then you have access to plenty of gas. I would assume it flows nicely into 2base colossi because you have that nice sentry/zealot base, all that is needed are colossi and some stalkers. also, warp prism harass on short air distances would be baller as hell.
White-ra's version is super cool. In some games he just expands and in some games he goes for the zealot/sentry/immortal aggression plexa showed off. Ra really shows off how flexible this build can be.
On January 25 2011 05:07 W2 wrote: Are you sure he gets the 2nd gas that late? Pretty sure he gets it earlier.
it is that late because he usually goes very zealot heavy/gets a warp prism/expands early.
but as the OP pointed out, the build is very versatile and if you want to go a bit more gasheavy, nothing keeps you from getting it earlier for faster colossi/more stalker/...
This build is really weak it seems early game. Especially in lower leagues, most terrans do a bio push between 6-9 min, the later ones usually having a couple tanks with them. With this build you would not have the army to find off an early push like this. If you ff'd well and held him off through ff's you would still be contained to 1 base, while he is free to expo all over the map and get an economic advantage, since his eco was weakened early for the larger army to pressure the toss with. How could you transition out of a contain like that?
On January 26 2011 02:49 Vededrid wrote: This build is really weak it seems early game. Especially in lower leagues, most terrans do a bio push between 6-9 min, the later ones usually having a couple tanks with them. With this build you would not have the army to find off an early push like this. If you ff'd well and held him off through ff's you would still be contained to 1 base, while he is free to expo all over the map and get an economic advantage, since his eco was weakened early for the larger army to pressure the toss with. How could you transition out of a contain like that?
the idea of the build is to scout what T is doing and act upon that information. You can drop a relatively fast nexus if you see a fast expand or Tech build and if you scout Bio aggression you can chronoboost immortals and get more gateways to help defend and expand when T's aggression is no longer effective.
The late gas is something really brilliant, recently I also try to incorporate it into my game. If you get enough zealots, you can easily deflect marauder-pushs unless you screw up your stalker-positioning.
Basicly the late gas doesn't slow down your robotics too much, but it enables you to get the 1 gate robo 3 gate economicly. If you get the 2nd gas early you don't really have the economy to add 3 gates early. Also, since the protoss production circle is "reversed" there's nothing wrong with letting the gates idle for a few seconds while you throw down your nexus.
On January 25 2011 05:07 KOVU wrote: Artosis did a how-to PvT without losing to all-ins, it should be on his youtubechannel ArtosisTV The build artosis explained is basicly the same as this, and now wonder why - this is a safe yet economical build, which actually also gives you quite the tech if you choose to go collosi.
Started doing this build and so far I'm doing great agaisn't terrans, I'm really only having problems when i botch my forcefields or something like that.
On January 26 2011 02:49 Vededrid wrote: This build is really weak it seems early game. Especially in lower leagues, most terrans do a bio push between 6-9 min, the later ones usually having a couple tanks with them. With this build you would not have the army to find off an early push like this. If you ff'd well and held him off through ff's you would still be contained to 1 base, while he is free to expo all over the map and get an economic advantage, since his eco was weakened early for the larger army to pressure the toss with. How could you transition out of a contain like that?
Watch Mana destroy DieStar going for marine/tank in the XMG Cup of today:
On January 25 2011 05:07 KOVU wrote: Artosis did a how-to PvT without losing to all-ins, it should be on his youtubechannel ArtosisTV The build artosis explained is basicly the same as this,
whitera basicaly lost 2 iem finals games due to scv all ins (scrap+1 i dont remember the map)
On January 26 2011 02:53 Flaxler wrote: Mh, do you think this would work in pvp? if u chrono immortal he should be there when 4gate comes.
Absolutely not. You've probably never played against a decently executed 4 gate, otherwise you'd know that you can't possibly hold an aggressive 4 gate with 1 gate robo. At least against a 1 gas 4 gate you need at least 3 gateways to defend.
On January 25 2011 05:07 KOVU wrote: Artosis did a how-to PvT without losing to all-ins, it should be on his youtubechannel ArtosisTV The build artosis explained is basicly the same as this,
whitera basicaly lost 2 iem finals games due to scv all ins (scrap+1 i dont remember the map)
on scrap whitera did a 4 gate which is pretty much an all-in too. He failed with it and got punished. period.
I have been using a similar build to great success, except I build my second assimilator around 19 or 20. The upside of this change is that I get a quicker sentry (I really enjoy the extra energy). The obvious downside of this variation is that the build no longer looks like a single-gas 4-gate, so the terran won't waste minerals prepping for the push.
The reason I'm posting this variation is because I wanted to show that this is such a solid opening that you can make various changes and still be in a great place.
On January 25 2011 05:07 KOVU wrote: Artosis did a how-to PvT without losing to all-ins, it should be on his youtubechannel ArtosisTV The build artosis explained is basicly the same as this, and now wonder why - this is a safe yet economical build, which actually also gives you quite the tech if you choose to go collosi.
Started doing this build and so far I'm doing great agaisn't terrans, I'm really only having problems when i botch my forcefields or something like that.
On January 26 2011 02:49 Vededrid wrote: This build is really weak it seems early game. Especially in lower leagues, most terrans do a bio push between 6-9 min, the later ones usually having a couple tanks with them. With this build you would not have the army to find off an early push like this. If you ff'd well and held him off through ff's you would still be contained to 1 base, while he is free to expo all over the map and get an economic advantage, since his eco was weakened early for the larger army to pressure the toss with. How could you transition out of a contain like that?
over 75% of the time when a Terran does this to me, I win the game with an immortal bust
What would you do vs 2rax openning? I feel you don't have enough units to hold the pressure and 1base colossus is kind of autolose against good terrans
On January 26 2011 07:36 MXG wrote: I have been using a similar build to great success, except I build my second assimilator around 19 or 20. The upside of this change is that I get a quicker sentry (I really enjoy the extra energy). The obvious downside of this variation is that the build no longer looks like a single-gas 4-gate, so the terran won't waste minerals prepping for the push.
The reason I'm posting this variation is because I wanted to show that this is such a solid opening that you can make various changes and still be in a great place.
a smart terran will look at your chronoboosts too, and will see your nexus chrono'ed instead of warpgate tech. So the 1 gas is not THAT much of a fake. (The terran might think 1 gate expo)
In regards to the Artosis video, I'm not sure that was a solid defense against an aggressive terran. In that video the terran does banshee harass first then follows it up with MM. Had the terrain just omitted the banshee tech and spammed MM with an earlier timing attack, I think Artosis would not have been able to defend that. Even if say the terrain had grouped the banshee with the MM's, I think Artosis would have been toast (why don't more terran's do this?).
Problem with fast robo is it leaves you too weak... An observer can't fight. Immortals take 55 seconds to produce which is an eternity and are not cost effective units.
Artosis really emphasizes ff play, but once terrain has scan, your ramp isn't that secure... Marauders have the same range as stalkers so if you are not using FF's to deny highground sight, they become very difficult to use effectively because the marauders simply trade fire with the stalkers through the FF's unless your placement is perfect. Throw in the fact that marines are ranged while zealots aren't and it is very difficult to pull off a sentry/immortal defense of a MM push if the terran properly uses his scans.
My vote is the best defense is a good offense... Start with 4 gate and push out...with your attack you should be able to figure out their tech tree and be able to react accordingly.
On January 25 2011 04:59 Jakalo wrote: Those who watched Homestory cup #2 and IEM Kiev probably noticed white-Ra`s staple TvP build, which is in essence 1 gate robotics. As DeMuslim remarked it is incredibly versatile and safe against all popular Terran openings while leaving many paths to go thus making your opponents life harder.
This is a rough build order
9 pylon 12 gate 14 Assimilator 18 Cybernetics Core Put 3 probes in the assimilator, build a zealot followed by a stalker after gate finishes. Start warpgate research as soon as Core is ready, chrono it. 26/27 Assimilator 28 Robotics Facility (or after scout leaves your base)
You may start building Robotics even if scout is still in your base as it looks like a 4gate till then and making your opponent build bunkers/cut workers/guess is allways a good thing. In fact it was what White-Ra did in the third game in their series after DeMuslim, 4 gated on Jungle Basin after 2 times using his build.
As I said, versatility is the biggest plus this build has. You are safe against cloaked banshees due to fast observer and you can scout and adapt accordingly due to it too.
If you scout Terran taking one rax expand in his base you can safely expand after you add 2 gateways to your gate/Robo (as your observer reaches terran base as in game on Xel Naga caverns against Cloud) or before you add 2 gates if Terran expands outside his base as TLO on Shakuras Plateau and you manage to scout it. Generally you want to add 2 gates after your Robo to not to die and add Robotics Bay after that. Rushing to Collossus is not a good idea which used to be main thing people used to do after 1gate Robo.
Or you can bust terran when you are about 2/3 Immortals as in his game against Demuslim on Xel Naga Caverns. Or do some mix of both if terran tries to go cheap.
One thing I noticed was he didnt do it on Jungle basin doing 4gate and a 2gate expand instead. (Also in replaypack) Probably there is some kind of inherent weakness of this build on that map or he just likes to switch it up.
Also he lost both times while doing it on Scrap Station due to hellion drop/Thor push and Marine drop/hellion incursion. (in Homestory cup #2) So a short air distance is a weakness due to medivacs but I can see it working on ladder if terrans are going fast banshees thus exposing themselves to both bust and making huge investment into cloak which is not gonna pay off due to fast observers. probably why Ra did it. (also I remember him winning games on Scrap Station with beautiful Warp Prism Harrass so short air distance has advantages too)
This is not the build order. I studied his build really hardcore and have taken it as my own now.
The second gas goes down right after the robo, followed by a gateway and a pylon. You have to go zealot/stalker/zealot/zealot. These are the units you drop. You add third gateway with the next money after you start your warp prism. Also dont start your first zealot until you have money to, if you did the build correctly and gateway scouted this will be when you are at 19 probes. The second gas goes down at ~30 food normally unless he scouts something indicating he will have to abandon the build.
Also it IS map specific. You wouldnt do it in some positions or on certain maps. I feel like the OP is also leaving out the main effect of the drops... inability for the terran to push out until theyve dealt with the drop... it buys you loads of time even if you kill nothing.
Here is an unadulterated example of the Whitera's optimized opener. Ignore the fact that the opener blind countered his opener. The build order is exactly the way whitera does it unless hes forced to deviate based on scouting.
On January 25 2011 04:59 Jakalo wrote: Those who watched Homestory cup #2 and IEM Kiev probably noticed white-Ra`s staple TvP build, which is in essence 1 gate robotics. As DeMuslim remarked it is incredibly versatile and safe against all popular Terran openings while leaving many paths to go thus making your opponents life harder.
This is a rough build order
9 pylon 12 gate 14 Assimilator 18 Cybernetics Core Put 3 probes in the assimilator, build a zealot followed by a stalker after gate finishes. Start warpgate research as soon as Core is ready, chrono it. 26/27 Assimilator 28 Robotics Facility (or after scout leaves your base)
You may start building Robotics even if scout is still in your base as it looks like a 4gate till then and making your opponent build bunkers/cut workers/guess is allways a good thing. In fact it was what White-Ra did in the third game in their series after DeMuslim, 4 gated on Jungle Basin after 2 times using his build.
As I said, versatility is the biggest plus this build has. You are safe against cloaked banshees due to fast observer and you can scout and adapt accordingly due to it too.
If you scout Terran taking one rax expand in his base you can safely expand after you add 2 gateways to your gate/Robo (as your observer reaches terran base as in game on Xel Naga caverns against Cloud) or before you add 2 gates if Terran expands outside his base as TLO on Shakuras Plateau and you manage to scout it. Generally you want to add 2 gates after your Robo to not to die and add Robotics Bay after that. Rushing to Collossus is not a good idea which used to be main thing people used to do after 1gate Robo.
Or you can bust terran when you are about 2/3 Immortals as in his game against Demuslim on Xel Naga Caverns. Or do some mix of both if terran tries to go cheap.
One thing I noticed was he didnt do it on Jungle basin doing 4gate and a 2gate expand instead. (Also in replaypack) Probably there is some kind of inherent weakness of this build on that map or he just likes to switch it up.
Also he lost both times while doing it on Scrap Station due to hellion drop/Thor push and Marine drop/hellion incursion. (in Homestory cup #2) So a short air distance is a weakness due to medivacs but I can see it working on ladder if terrans are going fast banshees thus exposing themselves to both bust and making huge investment into cloak which is not gonna pay off due to fast observers. probably why Ra did it. (also I remember him winning games on Scrap Station with beautiful Warp Prism Harrass so short air distance has advantages too)
This is not the build order. I studied his build really hardcore and have taken it as my own now.
The second gas goes down right after the robo, followed by a gateway and a pylon. You have to go zealot/stalker/zealot/zealot. These are the units you drop. You add third gateway with the next money after you start your warp prism. Also dont start your first zealot until you have money to, if you did the build correctly and gateway scouted this will be when you are at 19 probes. The second gas goes down at ~30 food normally unless he scouts something indicating he will have to abandon the build.
I'm curious as to the logic behind the late gas. 3 zealots + 1 stalker does not seem safer vs early aggression than say 2 zealots + stalker + sentry.
1) You get an extra gateway up alot sooner by delaying the gas so you can have 3 warp ins as your WP gets near their base. The most important thing to the build is how fast you actually get the warp prism. The map in the replay is actually not a great map for it because theres no ramp or point for sentries to wall off and its very very large. An expansion build would be much more suitable for the map. The replay was just to show the exact BO whitera uses. On the maps where its most effecitve, like scrap and close air Meta/LT there isnt a threat of a counterattack because they will lose their economy and zealots are too hearty to just clean up with a couple of units. Additionally once your warpgates convert you will have the gas for 2 sentries or a sentry and an immortal. Moreover, you CB an observer after the warp prism comes out to send down the attack path. It will let you know if you should bring the prism back as well though its probably still not necessary with the sentries you can warp in back home.
2) You can expand behind the drop. You wont want to be mining from 2 gases and expanding that early as you'll be stuck with only sentries. You need the extra mineral income to afford the nexus and transition into the mid-game. Sometimes you'll see whitera try to tech and expand at the same time (as he did vs strelok), but this also fails sometimes. Its really risky to expand and tech obviously, but whitera gets away with doing both sometimes because of the drop harass being so effective. I would imagine as people get used to playing against it, the expanding + teching will stop working for him altogether.
Ive tried getting the gas earlier and then adding a sentry to the drop as ive seen whitera do this to use GS. Its really strong, but the drop is delayed substantially. 90% of the time he gets his 2nd gas after dropping the robo and im guessing he feels its worth it to get the WP out faster in most cases. While I was dissecting his builds a few weeks ago I was reviewing a match against TLO on scrap station where TLO spawned terran. In it, Whitera had a zealot at 50% complete on his gateway and his robo was warping in. He was only at about 80 minerals when it started warping in, so he cancelled the zealot he had at 50% and started the warp prism instead. It was telling to me as to just how important it is to get that drop down fast to keep them in their base or force them to head home or lose everything. Ironically he GG'd TLO with the drop with just 6 units because TLO was preparing a thor drop and didnt have enough to defend.
The different combinations for the drop ive seen are 3 zealots 1 sentry (whitera), 3 zealot 1 stalker (whitera), 2 zealot 2 stalker (adelscott). Of the three I've tried all. The whitera variations feel alot more damaging as stalkers arent great against workers. Zealots are so hearty that I really like having 3. The sentry is good if you can get it to 75 energy before the drop, but it delays the drop a bit to build one (about 30 seconds). In all the combinations, there's no need to get the second gas sooner unless you plan on investing in Tech instead of expanding. I personally prefer to expand behind a drop unless they kill my drop ship and the odds of that happening this early in the game should be roughly zero. If they did rush to 1 viking fast for some reason (why would they?) as part of some elaborate anti-whitera opener, they wont have what they need to punish an expansion anyways. If they fast expo'd you're golden, your drop will work great unless you toss it away and you can expand even more safely. Keep the WP alive and they wont be attacking you any time soon.
In his interview from winning a TSL TL open a couple weeks ago.
Duckload.White-Ra: I wanted to make something new. I wanted to show that not just Terrans can make drops in more than one place, and I want to show that you can use warp prism for harass or scout and puts you in good position even if you do not kill many SCVs. If you do not break Terran midgame economy you are in bad position, they are always ahead in minerals and marauder medivac marine is very strong. Even if you build colossus Terran just makes two starport and vikings, then it is too hard.
I remember using this strategy against Maka and Fenix in Blizzcon, and I will use it in the future, but not always because then Terrans will always prepare for it
Try all the variations for yourself though, they are viable, but the timings are different. Practicing this playstyle has really increased my overall understanding of the matchup.
On February 14 2011 06:10 Fungal Growth wrote: In regards to the Artosis video, I'm not sure that was a solid defense against an aggressive terran. In that video the terran does banshee harass first then follows it up with MM. Had the terrain just omitted the banshee tech and spammed MM with an earlier timing attack, I think Artosis would not have been able to defend that. Even if say the terrain had grouped the banshee with the MM's, I think Artosis would have been toast (why don't more terran's do this?).
Problem with fast robo is it leaves you too weak... An observer can't fight. Immortals take 55 seconds to produce which is an eternity and are not cost effective units.
Artosis really emphasizes ff play, but once terrain has scan, your ramp isn't that secure... Marauders have the same range as stalkers so if you are not using FF's to deny highground sight, they become very difficult to use effectively because the marauders simply trade fire with the stalkers through the FF's unless your placement is perfect. Throw in the fact that marines are ranged while zealots aren't and it is very difficult to pull off a sentry/immortal defense of a MM push if the terran properly uses his scans.
My vote is the best defense is a good offense... Start with 4 gate and push out...with your attack you should be able to figure out their tech tree and be able to react accordingly.
Protoss has chrono-boost. You're not supposed to be spending it all on probes if you suspect aggression. Same thing as making drones when you're supposed to make roaches.
Also, terran doesn't have infinite scans, and if he was preparing for this attack with the scans than that's very clever. It's gonna take some time for him to know. Also, his army will be somewhat smaller because he won't be able to constantly produce if he's not using Mules.
The immortal has enough time to come out unless you don't chrono-boost him and you don't know what forcefield is. Just forcefield it and move away.
You make it sound like Scans > Forcefield. If that was it than all protoss would be dead.
On February 15 2011 17:29 HQuality wrote: Here's Ra's explanation of his 1gate>robo>2gate>expand build and how to defence MM+tanks (+raven if t is really good) push with that http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhVwlgDooBs p/s comments on Russian
at the end of all this its w./e our army is vrs a 6 rax with stim/upgrades usually 1-1. You need to micro your collosi really well. Honestly when i have the 2-3 base 6 rax going on, rally to the front of my base and push with my army, like seriously i see like 3+ collosi ,i know theres not going to be a lot of army, maybe 15 stalkers and just straight up snipe the collosi. Takes you forever to get those bad boys back. While another stim sucicide army is at the front of my base.
On February 15 2011 22:35 iChau wrote: Protoss has chrono-boost. You're not supposed to be spending it all on probes if you suspect aggression. Same thing as making drones when you're supposed to make roaches.
You can't chrono that much on zealot/stalker/sentries... The first few go to probes, the rest on warp gate research and by then you don't have much left for military units. Even if you did focus on warp gates it only gets you about (when you factor in energy recharge time) 40% for one building which isn't that much. Also how do you know you are facing aggression? The gap between the scouting probe and the first observer is very problematic.
Also, terran doesn't have infinite scans, and if he was preparing for this attack with the scans than that's very clever. It's gonna take some time for him to know. Also, his army will be somewhat smaller because he won't be able to constantly produce if he's not using Mules.
They don't need to fully utilize those scans because they probably won't have enough racks to fully utilize these extra resources.
The immortal has enough time to come out unless you don't chrono-boost him and you don't know what forcefield is. Just forcefield it and move away.
Immortals are somewhat overrated vs racks units. Marines are a cost effective answer and marauders almost match immortals on a 1v1 cost basis.
You make it sound like Scans > Forcefield. If that was it than all protoss would be dead.
Four purposes for forcefields... Denying high ground sight which is huge...blocking/pushing melee units, countering kiting, and reducing an enemy's ranged arc area. Once terran has high ground sight (scan/mule/medivac/banshee/etc...) the first is worthless. The second is worthless because terran don't have melee threats. The third is of some value but not a huge amount since all their units will still engage. The forth is very difficult to pull off because stalkers and marauders have the same range, so your forcefields have to push the marauders out of range, then your stalkers have to back up to form a perfect counter arc, while your zealots just stand around doing nothing. It's very tricky...
Isn't it a better idea to go Zealot + Sentry instead of Zealot Stalker so you're safer against Marine+SCV all-ins?
On February 14 2011 06:10 Fungal Growth wrote: In regards to the Artosis video, I'm not sure that was a solid defense against an aggressive terran. In that video the terran does banshee harass first then follows it up with MM. Had the terrain just omitted the banshee tech and spammed MM with an earlier timing attack, I think Artosis would not have been able to defend that. Even if say the terrain had grouped the banshee with the MM's, I think Artosis would have been toast (why don't more terran's do this?).
I that case I think you're capable of just perma FFing your ramp until you get Colossus out.
On February 16 2011 06:26 brain_ wrote:In that case I think you're capable of just perma FFing your ramp until you get Colossus out.
Very tricky though... For starters you probably need multiple sentries which is very expensive. Even if you FF the ramp, scan or a terran unit about a 1/3 up the ramp will give high ground vision. If you go for sentry defense, you will probably have to produce zealots because of how gas expensive sentries are but in these types of choke situations zealot/ff is worthless except to prevent kiting in an all out engagement on the ramp itself. If terran gets high ground vision they can hug the ramp and actually still have most of their units engage your units unless your ff-retreat-arc micro is very good. That or terran can continually goad you into wasting your ff's, wait you out, and then run up the ramp. Continually warping in sentries depends on a lot of excess gas.
For the effort and resources people put into ff defenses they really could be building cannons... Costing 0 gas and 0 supply means you can race to gas heavy tech...like colossi/hts/dts/voids which can be GREAT defenders in 7-10 minute mark and allow for a nice transition into your expansion.
EPT
