Very solid and good build to have in the hand book. I've used iEchoic's build many times against protoss with success; this sounds like it will be just as rewarding. Thanks alot

DigitalisDestructi

United States488 Posts

February 04 2011 19:49 GMT

#42

So parn, have you lost even once when using strategy against Protoss?

I'd like to know the most effective way to deal with this air play, if you don't mind, haha.

EDIT: Without going 4gate or stalkers/voidray early on, of course.

Comprissent

United States314 Posts

February 04 2011 20:40 GMT

#43

A few things...

you mention protoss has a huge arsenal of all ins... lol more often than not its T with the big long 1base all in.

I strongly suggest you never stop mule-ing and grab a raven. That's a lot of minerals you are burning, plus ravens are fantastic to shutting down the only ground counter that protoss really has to air (stalker)

to the others saying templar tech is too slow, i'll argue that in order to right banshee/raven you don't need either amulet OR storm, greatly reducing time needed

the main advantage T has in this situation is splitting the protoss resources between tech paths- He will have to devote gas to both observers and then templar and stalker as well

parn

France296 Posts

February 04 2011 21:11 GMT

#44

On February 05 2011 04:49 DigitalisDestructi wrote:
So parn, have you lost even once when using strategy against Protoss?

I'd like to know the most effective way to deal with this air play, if you don't mind, haha.

EDIT: Without going 4gate or stalkers/voidray early on, of course.

That may sounds stupid but, no, i don't remember any loss implying a classic play of the Protoss. I had a TONS of loss when i still was going mass Banshees AFTER fast expand, but not with this build. I also admit that I've never played against a Protoss going fast phoenix harass and being good at it. I think this strategy is very good to easily make your way through the Master league. Once there, you may face good Protoss and some kinds of complications

On February 05 2011 05:40 Comprissent wrote:
A few things...
you mention protoss has a huge arsenal of all ins... lol more often than not its T with the big long 1base all in.

Yea and? As I've written, I don't use those Terran all-in strategies.

On February 05 2011 05:40 Comprissent wrote:
I strongly suggest you never stop mule-ing and grab a raven. That's a lot of minerals you are burning, plus ravens are fantastic to shutting down the only ground counter that protoss really has to air (stalker)

I will never understand people talking about losing minerals if not using Mules ... you don't lose any minerals, you just get those a little slower. Then about Raven, according to me those are too slow and break the mobility factor of this strategy.

On February 05 2011 05:40 Comprissent wrote:
the main advantage T has in this situation is splitting the protoss resources between tech paths- He will have to devote gas to both observers and then templar and stalker as well

Yep i agree, Protoss have to split many resources between Blink/Obs/Colossus/Stargates/Phoenix/Canons/ ... this is why I don't really approve people saying that you "just need to get some Phoenixes and it's over".

LHUCKS1

United States43 Posts

February 04 2011 21:35 GMT

#45

I've used a variation of this...after I have ample gas, I still like to get tanks for defensive purposes in the late game.

OriginalBeast

United States709 Posts

February 04 2011 21:38 GMT

#46

So, he can't go colossus? I mean, If you have like zealot sentry like liquidtyler this build would just be shit.

skatbone

United States1005 Posts

February 04 2011 22:07 GMT

#47

On February 05 2011 02:10 Thrombozyt wrote:
Let me ask you the other way round:
How does your composition fare in an open confrontation against the toss? How do you prevent protoss from taking the map?

You make a good point. In my mass air strategy, I find phoenix to be the toughest counter. While this is only marginally related to the OP, my solution is to go heavy raven. I use mass PDD (after FE and dropping 3 starports) to dictate where I want to have the battle. It doesn't always work, but dropping 6 PDDs will usually make the toss army back off, allow me time to re-position my marines, or pull off a few banshees to harass.

The mass air philosophy is, imo, designed to ensure that an "open confrontation" never takes place because, as I have decided, like the OP, 2-base+ toss ground armies own my 2 base+ Terran army.

Map control/"taking the map" is not a given either as 3 banshees and 2 pdds can wreck a mineral line expansion if not a nexus relatively quickly without making the main Terran army too weak.

I realize the OP is not advising as much Raven play as I use, but I am offering this as a tweak to the strategy that, imo, "prevent[s] protoss from taking the map." Mass expanding with PFs after two bases are running is another way to prevent toss from taking the map.

cnaphan

Canada8 Posts

February 04 2011 22:38 GMT

#48

1. Regarding MULEs, you do "lose minerals" in the sense that queuing units "costs" you money. You lose "mineral opportunity" by not calling down a MULE, just as when you queue you pay the same in the end, but you pay an "opportunity cost". If minerals are not the bottleneck of your strategy, you can afford not to MULE, just as a Zerg can afford to skip some injects, if larvae do not constrain his build.

2. I believe early aggressive Phoenixes could be handled with 1-2 well-placed turrets. A turret kills a Phoenix faster than a Phoenix kills a Banshee, even without repair. The turret range upgrade might be helpful here. Of course, Phoenixes would make leaving your base very difficult and are probably still a good counter to this sort of play, forcing the Terran to make more Vikings.

A mid-game strategy might be to take a proxy expansion near the enemy base with a PF, bunkers and turrets, then harass from there. I mean, like the rock-protected 3rd on Steppes, or the Island on LT, or the short-cut path on Shakuras, or the side-most expansion on Xelnaga. You'd force the Protoss to either break his army on your PF or trade main bases, which you would almost certainly win.

CurLy[]

United States759 Posts

February 04 2011 22:47 GMT

#49

Being a Toss, I Faced this a few times, on close air Metal shit like that. Obs sniping is ridiculously strong, its not even fair.. They are high priority too so you don't even have to micro usually... Its pretty crazy

Oh btw, I scouted this and went phoenix too, but still can't do shit cuz of all the vikings and obs sniping stealth banshees just raped my probe count and I fell too far behind

Senorcuidado

United States700 Posts

February 05 2011 03:05 GMT

#50

I watched the game on Steppes and I have to say well played. Your macro seemed to slip around the mid game, i would suggest using your map control to expand more. You ended up sinking minerals into marines later on which he probably wasn't expecting so that was pretty good. Perhaps it was because Steppes is small, I haven't seen the other replays yet. Keep it up :D

nyc863

200 Posts

February 05 2011 05:28 GMT

#51

In the game, "banshees stalkers canon phoenix" I think, when you attacked their main mineral line for the first time, you watched half your banshees die to fire before you retreated, and had cloak ready but didn't use it. Why was that?
Smart answer: because you didn't want him to know you had cloak available yet
Dumb answer: because you forgot it was ready

??

Azzur

Australia6260 Posts

February 05 2011 05:40 GMT

#52

Terran masters.

I would say this strat (heavy air) is viable at the master level. I made a post about it as well: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=175014

Synystyr made another post as well: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=172190

One of the paths that protoss would take is HTs. However, I transition to BCs when that happens. BCs perform reasonably well in a straight up fight against many units (even VRs, stalkers). However, you'll want to mix-and-match your army composition depending on what the protoss has.

parn

France296 Posts

February 05 2011 08:35 GMT

#53

On February 05 2011 12:05 Senorcuidado wrote:
I watched the game on Steppes and I have to say well played. Your macro seemed to slip around the mid game, i would suggest using your map control to expand more. You ended up sinking minerals into marines later on which he probably wasn't expecting so that was pretty good. Perhaps it was because Steppes is small, I haven't seen the other replays yet. Keep it up :D

Yea you're right, I remember playing horribly bad in that game, though I still won

And if I remember well that was one of the first time I tried this strategy out, so nevermind.

On February 05 2011 14:28 nyc863 wrote:
In the game, "banshees stalkers canon phoenix" I think, when you attacked their main mineral line for the first time, you watched half your banshees die to fire before you retreated, and had cloak ready but didn't use it. Why was that?
Smart answer: because you didn't want him to know you had cloak available yet
Dumb answer: because you forgot it was ready
??

You're right too, I knew I had cloak available but was pretty sure he had obs over my Banshees (which was wrong) so i didn't wanted to waste the mana cost turning the cloak on.

On February 05 2011 14:40 Azzur wrote:
Terran masters.

+ Show Spoiler +

I would say this strat (heavy air) is viable at the master level. I made a post about it as well: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=175014

Synystyr made another post as well: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=172190

One of the paths that protoss would take is HTs. However, I transition to BCs when that happens. BCs perform reasonably well in a straight up fight against many units (even VRs, stalkers). However, you'll want to mix-and-match your army composition depending on what the protoss has.

Yep those are really good thread too, but in my opinion going FE or Rax-reactor really makes your Banshees harass slower (and weaker) to come. In my build you have to keep in mind that it allows you to easily counter the 1 gate / 1 stargate early harass (thanks to the early engeneering bay) and counter pressure right after. The weak point being that you don't add any reactor on the barrack and become really vulnerable in the first minutes of the game.