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Hello all-
This is a build I have been testing and optimizing for a while now. The motive behind it is pressuring a Terran fast expansion (gasless or 2rax fe) but it can also press up the ramp if the Terran attempts to tech too fast without sufficient defenses.
The build centers around getting 6 stalkers and 3 sentries to your opponents natural at 6:30. This is possible only by lining up the timings of your sentry production, warpgate research, and 2 additional gateways. It took a lot of testing, but I did all the work for you 
Xel'Naga Caverns offers an enormous natural which allows the build to be extremely damaging because bunkers are not as effective with good forcefields. This can be used on other maps as well, but it is especially effective here for the above reason. For now, let's take a look at the natural on Xel'Naga Caverns and ways we can exploit it.
+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n536/alej15/bunkerplacement.jpg) Here we have the typical bunker placement. These bunkers keep the terran safe from a frontal attack and guard the ramp. However, they do not cover stalkers and sentries slipping up the left side of the left path nor warped-in units coming from Tasteless's secret hallway. ![[image loading]](http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n536/alej15/harass.jpg) Once you begin pushing at the back of the natural, the terran will most likely try to set up a bunker where the black rectangle is. You can cut off the movement of infantry units by placing a forcefield inbetween the geyser and the command center and between the bunker and the vespene geyser in most situations. The black blob is the money spot. Here, you can shut down mining at the expansion and funnel infantry units around the geyser and forcefield them to remove them from the field piece by piece.
Build
+ Show Spoiler +9 Pylon
12 Gateway
14 Gas
16 Pylon
17 Core
18 2nd Gas
20 Stalker + Warpgate
23 Pylon
24 Sentry
27 Gateway
27 Gateway
28 Sentry
30 Pylon
32 Sentry
35 Pylon
36- 3 more stalkers, warped in
Scouting
+ Show Spoiler +
This build is extremely strong against fast expansion builds, as noted above. It is very important that you can eliminate certain builds from what terran can do in order to make the build work. For instance, a 2 gas build is never going to be a fast expansion build, so if you scout 2 early gases you can scrap this build for that particular game. Stealing your opponent's gas will make him more likely to pick a fast expansion build, but he is not necessarily forced down this path.
You should keep your initial scouting probe alive to check if the terran is building his CC at the natural, but if he is not you might need to send your first stalker out to poke at the ramp. Most of the time this will get him to show his hand. If you just see a bunker and marines, he is probably not expanding quickly. But if you see a tech lab and maybe even a reaper if you are so lucky, there is a good chance his is doing an FE build. While this build is strong against FE builds, it is not horrible against 1base builds so don't feel like you can only use this if you are 100% sure of what he is doing.
The build only works when you use your chrono boosts in the way that follows
Chrono Boosting
+ Show Spoiler +2 on Nexus (11 after pylon, 13 after building gateway)
1 on first stalker, 1 on warpgate research
3 on sentries, commencing after you have placed your 2nd and 3rd gateways
What it should look like
+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n536/alej15/Screenshot2011-02-2715_49_09.jpg) At ~5:45, your 3rd sentry, your warpgate tech, and your 2 additional gateways will all be finishing all at the same time if you time the build out as I have posted it. At this point, you transform all 3 of your gateways to warpgates and warp in 3 stalkers. You should have ~375 minerals just as your warpgates come up, which is pretty convenient ^^
+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n536/alej15/Screenshot2011-02-2715_50_52.jpg) At ~6:30, warp in 3 zealots OR 3 stalkers at the proxy pylon. Scout the Terran natural first. If he has expanded, add stalkers and sentries. If he did not, warp in zealots if you want to pressure the ramp or warp in NOTHING and take your natural or start a robotics facility if you suspect cloaked banshees.
Strengths + Execution
+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n536/alej15/Screenshot2011-02-2716_05_10.jpg) This build should crush any fast expansion the terran player chooses with good stalker control and forcefield micro. The terran will be fighting with infantry alongside his bunkers. If you pull back and drag his bio a pixel or 2 beyond the bunker of line of bunkers, forcefield them out and fight only those units. ![[image loading]](http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n536/alej15/Screenshot2011-02-2716_04_21.jpg) Then, once you have killed off a lot of the infantry units, go for the bunker and forcefield reinforcements out of range so only your zealots can be hit by them
Weaknesses
+ Show Spoiler +
If you push up the ramp after seeing no expansion and the terran went for a tank expansion or a tank + bio + raven or banshee all in, you won't be able to kill him any time soon. You can still pressure the expansion with stalkers outside of the range of tanks because he might not have mauraders at this point. If you scout the all in, your best bet might be to transition to 3gate robo colossus off of one base, as scvs are pretty darn good against non-aoe gateway forces.
Replays
+ Show Spoiler +
Note- The proxy pylon can be placed at 30 or 35 as listed in the build order. You might want to place it farther away from the vegetation than shown in the images for safety. The distance won't really matter too much in terms of reinforcing because you engage on your own terms with proper forcefields.
This is by no means an all-in. If the terran expands, this build allows you to do enough damage to the point you can secure your own expansion while he is not safe to mine from his. This is simply meant to apply economic pressure by whittling down the Terran's scv/infantry numbers and forcing him to pull scvs to repair bunkers thus making his expansion and scv mining significantly less efficient. In the meanwhile, you are expanding, teching, and continuing to make probes
I'm obviously not the first person to ever skip the initial zealot and make 3 gateways against terran, but I don't think anyone has optimized it and made a thread about it xD
Feel free to post and let me know what you think or if you have anything to add to the OP.
Thanks for reading!
-Alej
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(Reserved for answering questions/comments)
On February 28 2011 13:34 Rhythm.102 wrote:
This looks identical to the build that RAGEWelmu does :/
my guess is you got the idea from him.
I can assure you I didn't go rummaging through replay packs to find a strategy to plagiarize. I myself worked on the timings so that my 3rd sentry, warpgate tech and 2nd/3rd gates would finish at exactly the same time. I find your claim insulting. Thanks for your contribution.
On February 28 2011 12:21 Shifft wrote:
I would be interested in the advantages of doing this build over a 3 gate sentry expand -> 6 gate timing (MC build).
I find that the 6 gate will always crush a bio-based fast expansion from Terran if executed correctly, which is basically what the goal of this build is. It also lets you get your expansion up quickly no matter what, giving you options to adapt to heavier tech builds. With your build you are warping in 4 stalkers regardless of scouting, while with a sentry expand you will get 5-6 sentries up early instead of 3, letting them build up more energy in case of an all-in.
I guess I'm just not seeing the advantage to attempting to pressure/kill them this early rather than setting yourself up for a safe midgame while still outright killing the same set of strategies from Terran as this build does.
I suppose you could pressure with this and transition into and expo and then 3 additional gateways as you are not all-in at this point. I think the only difference is you make 3 additional units when your second round of warpgate cool downs come up instead of a nexus so your nexus would be a minute later than it would be with a standard 6gate.
The advantage of those 3 additional units and whatever you warp in thereafter is pressure. You're not waiting around for a timing, you are doing economic damage while securing your own expansion and halting a lot of his mining time
On February 28 2011 15:40 Welmu wrote:
Nice! You figured out almost exactly same build I use :D.
I would add in strenghts that it prevents/blocks any kind of push that Terran try to do (1rax expand/2rax/3rax).
Also would add to weaknesses that it doesn't work in too close spawns (lt close/metalo close/steppes for example). Terran's 1marauder/1marine/1-2SCV pressure hits in your base, before you have even sentry out.
Also I like to poke with first stalker on Terran's ramp to scout, but everybody has own style^^
Yep that's why I labled it as Xel'naga. The sentry still barely makes it out and it is kind of tough against extremely early 2rax pressure like one of those proxy tech lab rax builds but you can pull probes and be safe once your additional sentries come. I've had some success with it on meta and LT but you play it out a bit differently. On meta the natural is still pretty wide open so you can do a good bit of damage but on LT you are pretty much throwing units at the bunkers while ff'ing behind them. Neither situation is as good as the one you find on XNC though ^^
Some people were saying they saw you use a similar build. Any huge differences you can spot?
On February 28 2011 17:42 sleepingdog wrote:
Looks like a really nice build, will definitely take a look at the replays when I get home from work - I'm a zealot/sentry/immortal player and don't have much experience with early stalker/sentry play.
What I'd like to know (sorry if one replay shows exactly this!): how does this build hold up against early aggression from terran? Speaking about something like the very common 1-2 scvs, 1 marine, 2 marauders.
Your build skips the first zealot and stalker/sentry won't be able to hold them off long enough....or what am I missing here? Obviously this isn't an issue on, like, meta cross position, I'm talking about closer rush distances...which unfortunately are prevalent anyways.
PS. recommending you for getting highlighted, your posts/threads are great
Yeah those early pushes are harder to parry without the zealot, but on XNC you are less likely to see this kind of push because of the rush distance. And if they still do it the infantry takes quite a while to trudge across the map so you get some help from the map there. I'd have to do some testing to figure out the timings on all the kinds of 2rax pressure terran can do and how many units you'll have when it comes and then update the OP. In close spawns on other maps I wouldn't recommend using this. I opt for the 1gate-robo into 3gate-robo in those circumstances and get that zealot out quickly myself.
Thank you for your kind words 
On February 28 2011 23:55 Antimage wrote:
There have been lots of variations of this floating around. I don't know how I feel about relying on a proxy pylon within your early-game build - I usually just walk my army to their base then build a pylon there afterward.
And I think Axslav has been doing this for a while now too.
If you don't proxy your 7th 8th 9th units won't get there very quickly as your warpgate cool downs come up the 2nd time once your units are pretty much at the natural. Not a huge deal but especially if you warp in zealots to try to pressure the ramp they take a very long time to get from base to base. You could put the pylon in the middle of the map or by their gold to be a bit more conservative with it but I usually dont have an issue placing the pylon a full screen from the vegetation
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Lol awesome guide Alej, I see you tryna work for that highlight lmao....
+1 for pictures showing what to actually do.
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definitly gonna check this out, aleJ a solid player, will leave some comments or questions after ive checked out replays!
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On February 28 2011 06:32 Alejandrisha wrote:Hello all- This is a build I have been testing and optimizing for a while now. The motive behind it is pressuring a Terran fast expansion (gasless or 2rax fe) but it can also press up the ramp if the Terran attempts to tech too fast without sufficient defenses. The build centers around getting 6 stalkers and 3 sentries to your opponents natural at 6:30. This is possible only by lining up the timings of your sentry production, warpgate research, and 2 additional gateways. It took a lot of testing, but I did all the work for you Xel'Naga Caverns offers an enormous natural which allows the build to be extremely damaging because bunkers are not as effective with good forcefields. This can be used on other maps as well, but it is especially effective here for the above reason. For now, let's take a look at the natural on Xel'Naga Caverns and ways we can exploit it. + Show Spoiler +Here we have the typical bunker placement. These bunkers keep the terran safe from a frontal attack and guard the ramp. However, they do not cover stalkers and sentries slipping up the left side of the left path nor warped-in units coming from Tasteless's secret hallway. Once you begin pushing at the back of the natural, the terran will most likely try to set up a bunker where the black rectangle is. You can cut off the movement of infantry units by placing a forcefield inbetween the geyser and the command center and between the bunker and the vespene geyser in most situations. The black blob is the money spot. Here, you can shut down mining at the expansion and funnel infantry units around the geyser and forcefield them to remove them from the field piece by piece. Build + Show Spoiler +9 Pylon
12 Gateway
14 Gas
16 Pylon
17 Core
18 2nd Gas
20 Stalker + Warpgate
23 Pylon
24 Sentry
27 Gateway
27 Gateway
28 Sentry
30 Pylon
32 Sentry
35 Pylon
36- 3 more stalkers, warped in
Scouting + Show Spoiler +
This build is extremely strong against fast expansion builds, as noted above. It is very important that you can eliminate certain builds from what terran can do in order to make the build work. For instance, a 2 gas build is never going to be a fast expansion build, so if you scout 2 early gases you can scrap this build for that particular game. Stealing your opponent's gas will make him more likely to pick a fast expansion build, but he is not necessarily forced down this path.
You should keep your initial scouting probe alive to check if the terran is building his CC at the natural, but if he is not you might need to send your first stalker out to poke at the ramp. Most of the time this will get him to show his hand. If you just see a bunker and marines, he is probably not expanding quickly. But if you see a tech lab and maybe even a reaper if you are so lucky, there is a good chance his is doing an FE build. While this build is strong against FE builds, it is not horrible against 1base builds so don't feel like you can only use this if you are 100% sure of what he is doing.
The build only works when you use your chrono boosts in the way that follows Chrono Boosting + Show Spoiler +2 on Nexus (11 after pylon, 13 after building gateway)
1 on first stalker, 1 on warpgate research
3 on sentries, commencing after you have placed your 2nd and 3rd gateways
What it should look like + Show Spoiler +At ~5:45, your 3rd sentry, your warpgate tech, and your 2 additional gateways will all be finishing all at the same time if you time the build out as I have posted it. At this point, you transform all 3 of your gateways to warpgates and warp in 3 stalkers. You should have ~375 minerals just as your warpgates come up, which is pretty convenient ^^ At ~6:30, warp in 3 zealots OR 3 stalkers at the proxy pylon. Scout the Terran natural first. If he has expanded, add stalkers and sentries. If he did not, warp in zealots if you want to pressure the ramp or warp in NOTHING and take your natural or start a robotics facility if you suspect cloaked banshees. Strengths + Execution + Show Spoiler +This build should crush any fast expansion the terran player chooses with good stalker control and forcefield micro. The terran will be fighting with infantry alongside his bunkers. If you pull back and drag his bio a pixel or 2 beyond the bunker of line of bunkers, forcefield them out and fight only those units. Then, once you have killed off a lot of the infantry units, go for the bunker and forcefield reinforcements out of range so only your zealots can be hit by them Weaknesses + Show Spoiler +
If you push up the ramp after seeing no expansion and the terran went for a tank expansion or a tank + bio + raven or banshee all in, you won't be able to kill him any time soon. You can still pressure the expansion with stalkers outside of the range of tanks because he might not have mauraders at this point. If you scout the all in, your best bet might be to transition to 3gate robo colossus off of one base, as scvs are pretty darn good against non-aoe gateway forces.
Replays + Show Spoiler +Note- The proxy pylon can be placed at 30 or 35 as listed in the build order. You might want to place it farther away from the vegetation than shown in the images for safety. The distance won't really matter too much in terms of reinforcing because you engage on your own terms with proper forcefields. This is by no means an all-in. If the terran expands, this build allows you to do enough damage to the point you can secure your own expansion while he is not safe to mine from his. This is simply meant to apply economic pressure by whittling down the Terran's scv/infantry numbers and forcing him to pull scvs to repair bunkers thus making his expansion and scv mining significantly less efficient. In the meanwhile, you are expanding, teching, and continuing to make probes I'm obviously not the first person to ever skip the initial zealot and make 3 gateways against terran, but I don't think anyone has optimized it and made a thread about it xD Feel free to post and let me know what you think or if you have anything to add to the OP. Thanks for reading! -Alej
Welmu does this exact build PvT in his recent replay pack
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I would be interested in the advantages of doing this build over a 3 gate sentry expand -> 6 gate timing (MC build).
I find that the 6 gate will always crush a bio-based fast expansion from Terran if executed correctly, which is basically what the goal of this build is. It also lets you get your expansion up quickly no matter what, giving you options to adapt to heavier tech builds. With your build you are warping in 4 stalkers regardless of scouting, while with a sentry expand you will get 5-6 sentries up early instead of 3, letting them build up more energy in case of an all-in.
I guess I'm just not seeing the advantage to attempting to pressure/kill them this early rather than setting yourself up for a safe midgame while still outright killing the same set of strategies from Terran as this build does.
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This looks identical to the build that RAGEWelmu does :/
my guess is you got the idea from him.
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Nice! You figured out almost exactly same build I use :D.
I would add in strenghts that it prevents/blocks any kind of push that Terran try to do (1rax expand/2rax/3rax).
Also would add to weaknesses that it doesn't work in too close spawns (lt close/metalo close/steppes for example). Terran's 1marauder/1marine/1-2SCV pressure hits in your base, before you have even sentry out.
Also I like to poke with first stalker on Terran's ramp to scout, but everybody has own style^^
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On February 28 2011 06:32 Alejandrisha wrote:Hello all- This is a build I have been testing and optimizing for a while now. The motive behind it is pressuring a Terran fast expansion (gasless or 2rax fe) but it can also press up the ramp if the Terran attempts to tech too fast without sufficient defenses. The build centers around getting 6 stalkers and 3 sentries to your opponents natural at 6:30. This is possible only by lining up the timings of your sentry production, warpgate research, and 2 additional gateways. It took a lot of testing, but I did all the work for you Xel'Naga Caverns offers an enormous natural which allows the build to be extremely damaging because bunkers are not as effective with good forcefields. This can be used on other maps as well, but it is especially effective here for the above reason. For now, let's take a look at the natural on Xel'Naga Caverns and ways we can exploit it. + Show Spoiler +Here we have the typical bunker placement. These bunkers keep the terran safe from a frontal attack and guard the ramp. However, they do not cover stalkers and sentries slipping up the left side of the left path nor warped-in units coming from Tasteless's secret hallway. Once you begin pushing at the back of the natural, the terran will most likely try to set up a bunker where the black rectangle is. You can cut off the movement of infantry units by placing a forcefield inbetween the geyser and the command center and between the bunker and the vespene geyser in most situations. The black blob is the money spot. Here, you can shut down mining at the expansion and funnel infantry units around the geyser and forcefield them to remove them from the field piece by piece. Build + Show Spoiler +9 Pylon
12 Gateway
14 Gas
16 Pylon
17 Core
18 2nd Gas
20 Stalker + Warpgate
23 Pylon
24 Sentry
27 Gateway
27 Gateway
28 Sentry
30 Pylon
32 Sentry
35 Pylon
36- 3 more stalkers, warped in
Scouting + Show Spoiler +
This build is extremely strong against fast expansion builds, as noted above. It is very important that you can eliminate certain builds from what terran can do in order to make the build work. For instance, a 2 gas build is never going to be a fast expansion build, so if you scout 2 early gases you can scrap this build for that particular game. Stealing your opponent's gas will make him more likely to pick a fast expansion build, but he is not necessarily forced down this path.
You should keep your initial scouting probe alive to check if the terran is building his CC at the natural, but if he is not you might need to send your first stalker out to poke at the ramp. Most of the time this will get him to show his hand. If you just see a bunker and marines, he is probably not expanding quickly. But if you see a tech lab and maybe even a reaper if you are so lucky, there is a good chance his is doing an FE build. While this build is strong against FE builds, it is not horrible against 1base builds so don't feel like you can only use this if you are 100% sure of what he is doing.
The build only works when you use your chrono boosts in the way that follows Chrono Boosting + Show Spoiler +2 on Nexus (11 after pylon, 13 after building gateway)
1 on first stalker, 1 on warpgate research
3 on sentries, commencing after you have placed your 2nd and 3rd gateways
What it should look like + Show Spoiler +At ~5:45, your 3rd sentry, your warpgate tech, and your 2 additional gateways will all be finishing all at the same time if you time the build out as I have posted it. At this point, you transform all 3 of your gateways to warpgates and warp in 3 stalkers. You should have ~375 minerals just as your warpgates come up, which is pretty convenient ^^ At ~6:30, warp in 3 zealots OR 3 stalkers at the proxy pylon. Scout the Terran natural first. If he has expanded, add stalkers and sentries. If he did not, warp in zealots if you want to pressure the ramp or warp in NOTHING and take your natural or start a robotics facility if you suspect cloaked banshees. Strengths + Execution + Show Spoiler +This build should crush any fast expansion the terran player chooses with good stalker control and forcefield micro. The terran will be fighting with infantry alongside his bunkers. If you pull back and drag his bio a pixel or 2 beyond the bunker of line of bunkers, forcefield them out and fight only those units. Then, once you have killed off a lot of the infantry units, go for the bunker and forcefield reinforcements out of range so only your zealots can be hit by them Weaknesses + Show Spoiler +
If you push up the ramp after seeing no expansion and the terran went for a tank expansion or a tank + bio + raven or banshee all in, you won't be able to kill him any time soon. You can still pressure the expansion with stalkers outside of the range of tanks because he might not have mauraders at this point. If you scout the all in, your best bet might be to transition to 3gate robo colossus off of one base, as scvs are pretty darn good against non-aoe gateway forces.
Replays + Show Spoiler +Note- The proxy pylon can be placed at 30 or 35 as listed in the build order. You might want to place it farther away from the vegetation than shown in the images for safety. The distance won't really matter too much in terms of reinforcing because you engage on your own terms with proper forcefields. This is by no means an all-in. If the terran expands, this build allows you to do enough damage to the point you can secure your own expansion while he is not safe to mine from his. This is simply meant to apply economic pressure by whittling down the Terran's scv/infantry numbers and forcing him to pull scvs to repair bunkers thus making his expansion and scv mining significantly less efficient. In the meanwhile, you are expanding, teching, and continuing to make probes I'm obviously not the first person to ever skip the initial zealot and make 3 gateways against terran, but I don't think anyone has optimized it and made a thread about it xD Feel free to post and let me know what you think or if you have anything to add to the OP. Thanks for reading! -Alej
Thank you for revolutionizing PvT.
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Looks like a really nice build, will definitely take a look at the replays when I get home from work - I'm a zealot/sentry/immortal player and don't have much experience with early stalker/sentry play.
What I'd like to know (sorry if one replay shows exactly this!): how does this build hold up against early aggression from terran? Speaking about something like the very common 1-2 scvs, 1 marine, 2 marauders.
Your build skips the first zealot and stalker/sentry won't be able to hold them off long enough....or what am I missing here? Obviously this isn't an issue on, like, meta cross position, I'm talking about closer rush distances...which unfortunately are prevalent anyways.
PS. recommending you for getting highlighted, your posts/threads are great
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Thank you all for the responses so far. I'll put all of my replies to questions and comments in the 2nd post so make sure you check that out!
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There have been lots of variations of this floating around. I don't know how I feel about relying on a proxy pylon within your early-game build - I usually just walk my army to their base then build a pylon there afterward.
And I think Axslav has been doing this for a while now too.
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Dude love your post, going to be using this in my PvT's on Xel
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People need to be talking about this build more. It's one of the scariest openings for a terran at the moment, especially when you look at how hard it is to defend an expansion on the new ladder maps. If you can delay their expo enough and set up your own, it will be almost impossible for terran to defend against the 6 gate follow up.
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bump, its a good build.
You can make the 31 pylon in your base, then another proxy no later then ~6:00 if you want those proxy units asap. Really anytime you want proxy units asap its a bit vulnerable, since latest units from base will not be there yet. So unless map blocks access to hitting pylon, you just make a judgment how far away from them is enough.
Can take probes off 2nd gas and warp in 3zealots after 4stalker/3sent for ~6:40expo with 28probes for stronger later. Or of course keep on gas/keep warping units for stronger attack.
If you want to do mass unit attack cut at 36probes, add 2gates, boost gates and stay on 1 gas for even mix of zealot/stalker. Attack ~11min ~110psi.
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I guess this is similar to a 3 gate expo except it delays the nexus for an earlier timing. My question is, does this earlier timing help a whole lot to be worth delaying your nexus?
Because the normal 3gate expo seems to be so streamlined. High gas sentries are warped in first, allowing for more energy buildup and also a quick nexus. Then finally 2 rounds of stalkers and you are good to crush their expo.
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Alejandrisha, or anyone who has been using this, do you ALWYAS poke up the ramp? and how does it fair against a 3 rax. If you see a big all in push coming, do you always give up the expo and go 1 base colossus?
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On March 09 2011 07:01 W2 wrote:
I guess this is similar to a 3 gate expo except it delays the nexus for an earlier timing. My question is, does this earlier timing help a whole lot to be worth delaying your nexus?
Because the normal 3gate expo seems to be so streamlined. High gas sentries are warped in first, allowing for more energy buildup and also a quick nexus. Then finally 2 rounds of stalkers and you are good to crush their expo.
I find the timing is definitely worth delaying the nexus. You will always get your nexus up after a terran gets his CC mining if he is doing a 2 racks expand (with gas ofc). Instead of taking this lying down, you delay your nexus maybe a minute or 2 but you delay his expansion for up to 4 minutes.
This can be tricky though. Some terrans will do 2 racks expo into 3 rax -> reactored starport and have medivacs a little before the 9 minute mark and you definitely don't want to be at his nat when he starts elevatoring units down. I've tried going 3 gate - pressure - nexus - robo but you don't get the obs to his base in time to see the medivacs start shuttling units down so you should probably leave and let him expand at about 8:30 or so just to be safe. In the meantime, you have your expansion up before his and are beginning colossus production or getting charge or your 2 forges are upgrading.
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On March 09 2011 07:34 milfhunter wrote:
Alejandrisha, or anyone who has been using this, do you ALWYAS poke up the ramp? and how does it fair against a 3 rax. If you see a big all in push coming, do you always give up the expo and go 1 base colossus?
This build does absolute work to a 3 rax. If they are streaming units down the middle like they usually do, you can pick them off with your faster stalkers. If they wait for a timing, you can smash that army given adequate forcefields. The only pressure that worries me with this is proxied maurader pressure, but this can be fended off with probes.. though it does suck to have to pull them.
Also I've run into some terrans pulling all scvs and hitting with just a couple of marines.. although this sounds stupid, you only have 1 sentry and a stalker when it comes and your 2nd sentry is no where near being finished. This would be cleaned up with good scouting (in the middle of the map, they will deny scouting at the ramp) and cutting sentries for the MANLY units so to speak xD
edit: oops missed this part. you should definitely poke up the ramp. lead with your zealot(s) and see what you need too see. worst case scenario you'll lose a zealot. nbd ^^
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Thanks Alejandresha, but if they are not coming down at all and is not expanding, would you poke up the ramp? I ask because I don't know of any other way ot knowing if they are going to tech to banshee or a raven for polt.
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On March 09 2011 08:12 milfhunter wrote:
Thanks Alejandresha, but if they are not coming down at all and is not expanding, would you poke up the ramp? I ask because I don't know of any other way ot knowing if they are going to tech to banshee or a raven for polt.
Even if they are expanding, a lot of the times they will scout your aggression and they won't fly their cc down to the nat. So poking up gives you the chance to see the building/completed command center as well, as they will place it in between the bases which is conveniently very close to the ramp. If you walk up and you just see a bunker and marines, they are probably doing tech labbed starport tech. A lot of the times you can just kill them here. It's tough though. If you walk up and see marines and a bunker with no scvs behind it--something you can kill most of the time--and you balk and run down the ramp and lose a unit or 2, you might have lost your oppurtunity. So you have to be very decisive at this particular juncture. If you walk up and see a tank, gtfo ^^
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On February 28 2011 06:32 Alejandrisha wrote:
I'm obviously not the first person to ever skip the initial zealot and make 3 gateways against terran, but I don't think anyone has optimized it and made a thread about it xD
Feel free to post and let me know what you think or if you have anything to add to the OP.
Thanks for reading!
-Alej
This is one of my favorite PvT builds for some time now. I thank you for really going into length about the specific timings where you can mount an attack on a typical 1rax-2rax Expansion from Terran. My build order is a lot less nailed down, but I do the same thing just dropping a Nexus on the way out, delaying a round of warpins. What I liked about doing this build:
Rallied Crossmap Conc Shell Marauders. I know you've seen it. A 2rax expand with pressure that sometimes stings. Waiting for more rounds of warpins just to gain that edge. Another build I use, the popular 1gate FE, relies on zealots/stalkers and sometimes pulled probes to hold on. I like forcefields, and the 2gas build with 3gateways gives me that, and enough killing power to obliterate 2rax FE guys en route or upon arrival. I absolutely love this build against that, where I felt powerless to defeat it using forcefields, only brute strength (1gate FE).
Availability of followups. You have 2gas. When I do it, I also have an expansion. Robo and colossus is a possibility, as is fast HT (usually with a robo for observers and avail. of immortals in a pinch). Big 6gate pressure, or just chargelot/immortal allin. It's so nice =)
My personal preference 3gates, expo as you're moving out (4 sentries, several stalkers). Proxy pylon to make the attack more effective. Robo after expo, chrono'd rallied immortal when finished. Learned this from a former top200 Protoss, so I can't take credit for its invention either.
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A question to both Alejandrisha and danglars. Do you always expo then robo after the 3 gate?
What would be your prefered out of the 3: robo, double forge, or charge?. And whats your reasons for it? Cuz what ever you guys recommend I am just gonna run with it.
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Another strength of this build is that if you make the proxy pylon very early, you can kill the 1 marine, 2 marauder, 1-2 SCV poke easily by repelling it with force fields at your base, then intercepting their retreat path with units at the proxy pylon.
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iamke55, i've always felt that making that one zealot right in the begining makes it so easy to defend against the 2 marader 1 marine, i wonder why people don't do it.
Also I posted some question in both of guides on standard play and was wondering if you would be kind enough to answer. Sorry I ask so many questions and never contribute cuz of noobness.
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I just want to say from terran perspective. This build is insanely strong. Especially on this map.
You can basicly denie any kind of FE and contain any 2 or 3 rax play. Only weakness seems to be cloacked banchee or helion drop.
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On March 09 2011 08:55 milfhunter wrote:
A question to both Alejandrisha and danglars. Do you always expo then robo after the 3 gate?
What would be your prefered out of the 3: robo, double forge, or charge?. And whats your reasons for it? Cuz what ever you guys recommend I am just gonna run with it.
I already stated my preference, I recommend you reread what I wrote. The discussion is principally on the initial 3gate stalker/sentry attack on a bunkered, yet wide open expansion. You develop an advantage, kill off a large portion of his army with minimal losses, and frequently kill the expansion or force it to lift back to its main.
Rest is up to what you scout him doing, what you feel most comfortable using, and a few other game-specific factors including how much stuff you killed.
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Why are you not chrono boosting your first sentry and instead waiting for the 2nd one? Seems like you are arbitrarily slowing down your own production just to make your timing work. Same thing with your chrono boosting timing on your warp gate. You had the energy to chrono boost it and you planned to do it anyways, so why wouldn't you chrono it as soon as you start researching? I know you want to time it so that your 3rd sentry finishes just as your warp gate tech finishes, but it doesn't make sense to slow down your entire production just because of that.
Oh nevermind, I guess you fixed these up by the 3rd replay.
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Thank you for putting the work in and posting this. It looks very nice and quite helpful as another VERY solid opening for my toolkit =P
A quick question, you noted in your OP that stealing gas would steer him towards a FE build, would you recommended gas stealing each time you can while using this build? or is it not worth it?
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On March 09 2011 10:32 Zeri wrote:
Thank you for putting the work in and posting this. It looks very nice and quite helpful as another VERY solid opening for my toolkit =P
A quick question, you noted in your OP that stealing gas would steer him towards a FE build, would you recommended gas stealing each time you can while using this build? or is it not worth it?
that's a very good question. I really don't gas steal that much but I think it would really help you if you were doing this build. However, cloaked banshees don't really scare me THAT much when I'm doing this since a lot of terrans won't make a bajillion bunkers when they see you grab a 2nd gas and cb out a gateway unit, and the build that scares me when I am doing this--the tank expo or tank allin-- doesn't necessarily require 2 gases. I guess it depends on your playstyle and what you feel more comfortable playing against. I have yet to run into a 2-thor rush when I'm doing this build and I don't think this build would fare too well against it since you don't scout the specific rush until you actually poke in after 6:30.
So, I will continue to grind away at it and add whatever I find to the OP
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On March 09 2011 08:55 milfhunter wrote:
A question to both Alejandrisha and danglars. Do you always expo then robo after the 3 gate?
What would be your prefered out of the 3: robo, double forge, or charge?. And whats your reasons for it? Cuz what ever you guys recommend I am just gonna run with it.
I typically go robo after I do this just because I love to have multiple observers on the map against terran. I'll typically have scouting pylons at both of the 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock expansions and obs darting around where a drop ship might go to.
I used to favor a lot of gateway heavy play with charge and storm but I have gradually drifted away from that because robo tech just feels a lot safer against gimmicky builds.
Off a one gate expansion on cross map lt or metal though I usually favor heavy gateways /w templar and 1 forge
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On March 09 2011 10:13 KingofGods wrote:
Why are you not chrono boosting your first sentry and instead waiting for the 2nd one? Seems like you are arbitrarily slowing down your own production just to make your timing work. Same thing with your chrono boosting timing on your warp gate. You had the energy to chrono boost it and you planned to do it anyways, so why wouldn't you chrono it as soon as you start researching? I know you want to time it so that your 3rd sentry finishes just as your warp gate tech finishes, but it doesn't make sense to slow down your entire production just because of that.
Oh nevermind, I guess you fixed these up by the 3rd replay.
the lack of chrono on the first sentry helps your gateways get up just a bit faster. And, if you chrono boost that first sentry you absolutely HAVE to cut probe production which I don't like! I've played around with that timing for a while and this is what I have found to be strongest.. but if you fear extremely quick rax pressure then by all means cb that sentry out.
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If you don't want that 2nd sentry to come out too fast you can always wait a little bit before you start producing it. The result would be the same as not chronoboosting the first sentry, only you get the first sentry out faster.
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Been on the build order calculator and you can get 6 stalker 3 sentry out pretty fast, it's been running only about a minute and is at like 2% likelihood of completion and we got:
Waypoint 1 satisfied:
6:02.14: 68M 21G 3E 47/ 50S
Income: 820M 228G
Buildings: 1 Nexus 2 Assimilator 5 Pylon 3 Warp Gate 1 Cybernetics Core
Units: 28 Probe 6 Stalker 3 Sentry
Upgrades: Warp Gate Transformation
And it's slowly cutting down the seconds so it can be done a bit faster, but probably a bit more unsafe near the beginning...
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On March 09 2011 16:03 Lobber wrote:
Been on the build order calculator and you can get 6 stalker 3 sentry out pretty fast, it's been running only about a minute and is at like 2% likelihood of completion and we got:
Waypoint 1 satisfied:
6:02.14: 68M 21G 3E 47/ 50S
Income: 820M 228G
Buildings: 1 Nexus 2 Assimilator 5 Pylon 3 Warp Gate 1 Cybernetics Core
Units: 28 Probe 6 Stalker 3 Sentry
Upgrades: Warp Gate Transformation
And it's slowly cutting down the seconds so it can be done a bit faster, but probably a bit more unsafe near the beginning...
I'd be wary about using build optimizers to find "optimal" build orders. Whenever I try to run this through one of those applications, it chronoboosts the warp gate research while training stalkers out of the gateway. the purpose of the build is to be able to use forcefields to fight the bio army; this is why this build calls for 3 sentries right after the first stalker so that they can build up energy which in turn gives you additional forcefields for when you actually engage. Also, the build order applications don't take into consideration the scouting probe's lost mining time from what I have seen and that is kind of a big deal when we are nickel and diming for seconds in timings.
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On March 09 2011 15:55 KingofGods wrote:
If you don't want that 2nd sentry to come out too fast you can always wait a little bit before you start producing it. The result would be the same as not chronoboosting the first sentry, only you get the first sentry out faster.
I suppose that would keep the timings aligned but I don't see how that would be more effective than holding off on chronoboosting for a few seconds. Seems like it makes executing the build a little bit more complicated to realize the same outcome
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On March 09 2011 09:29 milfhunter wrote:
iamke55, i've always felt that making that one zealot right in the begining makes it so easy to defend against the 2 marader 1 marine, i wonder why people don't do it.
Also I posted some question in both of guides on standard play and was wondering if you would be kind enough to answer. Sorry I ask so many questions and never contribute cuz of noobness.
The initial zealot is crucial for holding off those kinds of pushes but on xel naga the rush distances make those timings a little bit more managable. I suppose a proxy rax against this build would make you think, "damn I wish I had a zealot," but there is no way to know you need it until you know it's coming and by that time it is too late. So rather than trying to blind counter it you'd have to pull probes instead. But, on Xel'naga, I rarely see that kind of aggression so I feel pretty safe using this. On close spawns on other maps I always get it while doing any opening be it 1gate robo -> 3 gate robo or 1 gate FE (though I pretty much always get the zealot for these builds regardless of spawns)
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Excellent write-up! Everything made intuitive sense to me and the timing on the gateways is extremely satisfying :D
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Just used it against a 3700 ML Terran and it worker perfectly.
He played a really greedy 2 Racks Expand (CC at the natural) and didn't even attack me early on (which would've been a desaster for him because I already had 2 Sentrys+1 Stalker).
He only placed 1 Bunker though.
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On March 10 2011 03:04 Binabik wrote:
Just used it against a 3700 ML Terran and it worker perfectly.
He played a really greedy 2 Racks Expand (CC at the natural) and didn't even attack me early on (which would've been a desaster for him because I already had 2 Sentrys+1 Stalker).
He only placed 1 Bunker though.
I'm glad you had good results! Usually you can bust through unlimited bunkers on this map since you can isolate individual ones because of the way the naturals are set up. Bunkers will only really shut this down on a map where the natural is pretty tight and the terran forces you to fight them all at once (I would say lost temple but that got removed.. have to check out the new temple for this)
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This has been working out great for me. A lot of the times terran just get so stressed out by having their orbital stuck in the main meanwhile scanning/scouting your nexus in nat that they try to push down the ramp, in which case it's game over the moment I split their army.
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On March 10 2011 06:37 hifriend wrote:This has been working out great for me. A lot of the times terran just get so stressed out by having their orbital stuck in the main meanwhile scanning/scouting your nexus in nat that they try to push down the ramp, in which case it's game over the moment I split their army.
Yep that's the idea ^^
The only thing you have to be careful of is 2 rax expand into 3 rax starport for quick medivacs. If they catch you from elevatoring down and you don't spot it there is no way you can win that fight and I haven't been able to squeeze out the obs after I robo after nexus in time
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I like this build a lot. It really punishes greedy FE's and still allows the option to expo which is nice. Its always nice watching terran float there CC's home and retreat up there ramp while your expo is on the way
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On March 10 2011 09:13 Alejandrisha wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2011 06:37 hifriend wrote:This has been working out great for me. A lot of the times terran just get so stressed out by having their orbital stuck in the main meanwhile scanning/scouting your nexus in nat that they try to push down the ramp, in which case it's game over the moment I split their army. Yep that's the idea ^^ The only thing you have to be careful of is 2 rax expand into 3 rax starport for quick medivacs. If they catch you from elevatoring down and you don't spot it there is no way you can win that fight and I haven't been able to squeeze out the obs after I robo after nexus in time
Minigun used a Probe to patrol around the edge of the Terrans base to combat this
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On March 11 2011 19:02 Dommk wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2011 09:13 Alejandrisha wrote:On March 10 2011 06:37 hifriend wrote:This has been working out great for me. A lot of the times terran just get so stressed out by having their orbital stuck in the main meanwhile scanning/scouting your nexus in nat that they try to push down the ramp, in which case it's game over the moment I split their army. Yep that's the idea ^^ The only thing you have to be careful of is 2 rax expand into 3 rax starport for quick medivacs. If they catch you from elevatoring down and you don't spot it there is no way you can win that fight and I haven't been able to squeeze out the obs after I robo after nexus in time Minigun used a Probe to patrol around the edge of the Terrans base to combat this
Yeah you can scout it but just because you see the medivacs as they are dropping units on to the lower ground doesn't necessarily make you safe.
I'm thinking of working in hullucination instead of a faster robotics if I know for SURE that they have a command center in their main. It will allow for more time denying the expansion if they didn't go medivacs since I wouldn't have to blindly pull out for fear of them
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Russian Federation266 Posts
Please post replays against someone who doesn't que up 4 marauders at 8 min and doesn't foget to reaserch stim even tho he had the cash since the moment conc. shell finished, doesn't get 250 gas that he cant spend, doesn't do a ... do I need to go on? It's the second replay if you are wondering.
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On March 12 2011 16:15 Tsabo wrote:
Please post replays against someone who doesn't que up 4 marauders at 8 min and doesn't foget to reaserch stim even tho he had the cash since the moment conc. shell finished, doesn't get 250 gas that he cant spend, doesn't do a ... do I need to go on? It's the second replay if you are wondering.
Please don't post here if you are not going to contribute to the discussion; had enough of that already
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On March 12 2011 16:15 Tsabo wrote:
Please post replays against someone who doesn't que up 4 marauders at 8 min and doesn't foget to reaserch stim even tho he had the cash since the moment conc. shell finished, doesn't get 250 gas that he cant spend, doesn't do a ... do I need to go on? It's the second replay if you are wondering.
You're always being BM. The 6 stalkers 3 sentries put a crap load of pressure on the terran.
edit: I love this build. It's like a 3 gate sentry expo except it lets your army be more bulky, safe, AND rich in forcefields if you can't push.
So far I can expand at around 7minutes to 9minutes, but I'm saving this build for close positions since 3 rax is pretty much easy to defend, just warp in 3 zealots instead of stalkers, forcefield, and profit.
Oh, and Alej, do you take both of your natural gases when it finishes? Since we produced a lot of gas units, I think it's best to do so. I chrono-boost out probes during the pressure and it allows you to basically set-up the natural.
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My little Brother just beat me for the first time and what he did MMM . Im proud but I hate marauders so much.
I play P.
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Totally awesome how everything perfectly fits.
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On March 13 2011 02:43 iChau wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2011 16:15 Tsabo wrote:
Please post replays against someone who doesn't que up 4 marauders at 8 min and doesn't foget to reaserch stim even tho he had the cash since the moment conc. shell finished, doesn't get 250 gas that he cant spend, doesn't do a ... do I need to go on? It's the second replay if you are wondering. You're always being BM. The 6 stalkers 3 sentries put a crap load of pressure on the terran. edit: I love this build. It's like a 3 gate sentry expo except it lets your army be more bulky, safe, AND rich in forcefields if you can't push. So far I can expand at around 7minutes to 9minutes, but I'm saving this build for close positions since 3 rax is pretty much easy to defend, just warp in 3 zealots instead of stalkers, forcefield, and profit. Oh, and Alej, do you take both of your natural gases when it finishes? Since we produced a lot of gas units, I think it's best to do so. I chrono-boost out probes during the pressure and it allows you to basically set-up the natural.
Usually, I don't take both geysers immediately. if you delay the expansion and the terran recedes his cc into his base, he is going to tech to medivacs if he hasn't done so already. If you throw up 2 geysers and put those 6 precious probes on mining gas, you most likely won't have enough bulky units to defend against 9 minutes of built of terran rage and frustration that materialzes in marines heavy massive M&M&M mongloid aggression (if he hasn't lost much and stayed up his ramp upon seeing your aggression)
Your best best is taking at most a 3rd geyser and getting out a whole bunch of zealots from your 3 active warpgates as well as tacking on a 4th and perhaps a 5th gate before teching to colossus. Grab a couple of immortals on the way if your ob sees less of a marine-heavy mm ball. If the terran takes his nat and stabalizes and you don't perceive imminent danger, then throw down the 4th. In the interim, you have an expansion and he doesn't. But don't be too greedy what with chronoboosting double nexi. Keep saturation light, 2x per min at your main and just a single layer at your nat until you feel safe. 24 probes on mins (16 at main, 8 at nat) will keep you above the terran in terms of mineral income if he's still on 1 mining base (the 8 probes at the nat will put you ~150-200 mins/minute above the terran after mules are considered. Don't go crazy and press for more than that or you could be sorry.
I recommend checking out tyler's replays/vods for economy management. The guy maximizes the utility of each and every probe. It's pretty amazing from a nerds point of view ^^
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It's an awesome pressure build that requires a certain response from terran. Just had a game where I pressured with a few stalkers and sentries forcing a contain. If the terran does some funky expo timing you can easily keep him on 1 base for a while and safely get an expo.
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Isn't it only 4 stalkers 3 sentries, not 6? I think I might be having horrible reading skills right now..
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On March 24 2011 11:21 iChau wrote:
Isn't it only 4 stalkers 3 sentries, not 6? I think I might be having horrible reading skills right now..
Yeah you get 4stalkers 3 sentries at ~6 mins warped in your base. By the time you get to his nat you can have 7 stalkers 3 sentries or 4 stalkers 4 sentries 2zel / 4 stalkers 3 sentries 3 zel by about 6:30 which is my preference if I don't see an expansion immediately and want to poke up.
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FYI alej, the optimizers do everything you say they can't(scouting probe and such).. which is why me and Time and been finding it most useful (=
I think this can still be done better. It just depends if you want to be more eco focused or get out your units quicker. Guarantee it will change when you get your gas // how many guys you put on gas.
Ill try to remind him tonight to take a look at it.
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On March 25 2011 03:41 Noxie wrote:
FYI alej, the optimizers do everything you say they can't(scouting probe and such).. which is why me and Time and been finding it most useful (=
I think this can still be done better. It just depends if you want to be more eco focused or get out your units quicker. Guarantee it will change when you get your gas // how many guys you put on gas.
Ill try to remind him tonight to take a look at it.
I believe I already covered this. I understand that it's possible to have the same units at an earlier time with a different build, but in this case the important thing to consider is the ordering. I want the sentries asap so that they may begin gaining energy as soon as possible. Perhaps I could use a build order optimizer with 1 stalker 3 sentries as one of the bench markers at a certain time but I supposed you and time could show me how that is done etc.
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Ooh, I like this build very much.
If he's doing a timing push, you can even wait for the timing push to begin and then run into his main and forcefield the ramp, preventing his reinforcements from saving his main. :D
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I use a build very similar to this on ladder.... I'm 3200+ master on NA and it works against most of my opponents.... they either try to FE/tech and I win with a push or I contain them and expand.
I've actually only lost one game in the past few days using this build and it was to a blind early Thor all-in. -_-
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Awesome write up.
As a novice protoss (just changed to Toss): would you recommend a 2 gate robo obs FE to them? Or should they still try this? Keep in mind my FF is terrible.
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On March 25 2011 05:15 Jeffbelittle wrote:
Awesome write up.
As a novice protoss (just changed to Toss): would you recommend a 2 gate robo obs FE to them? Or should they still try this? Keep in mind my FF is terrible.
For a newer protoss I would recommend 2 gate robo or 3 gate robo, for sure. They are very safe and you can respond proficiently to just about everything you scout by the time your obs arrives. When your forcefielding skills improve I strongly recommend the 1gate robo into 3gate robo expand though, as you get a faster observer and you can be very flexible based on your scouting information. This build is kind of a trump card in a bo3 or a fun build to use on ladder for the most part; the lack of an early robotics steers me from calling it an extremely flexible build.
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Out of curiosity, how does this build deal with fast banshees? I love the idea of this build, but I feel that a single cloaked banshee would spell disaster for you. Although, I guess if they are teching they won't be able to hold this push off.
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On March 26 2011 02:19 Incursus wrote:
Out of curiosity, how does this build deal with fast banshees? I love the idea of this build, but I feel that a single cloaked banshee would spell disaster for you. Although, I guess if they are teching they won't be able to hold this push off.
In my experience, you can kill the player trying to tech to cloak unless he preemptively pulls all his scvs. You can still manage to bust the wall down by forcefielding the bunker as he will not have cloak or a single banshee when you first walk up his ramp. If I ever walk up the ramp and not see a CC, and I see instead pure marine and a bunker, I throw down a robo. He's going to try to defend with his first banshee without cloak in his base; once you bust the wall you're going to need to focus your stalkers on his banshee and a-move your zealots into the scv's repairing it. I don't think I've ever lost to a cloak rush doing this, but you can lose to it if you walk up the ramp then pull back and try to get an obs out to play defensively.
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Awesome post and great explanation Alejandresha, thank you, will be trying this out!
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On March 26 2011 03:05 Alejandrisha wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2011 02:19 Incursus wrote:
Out of curiosity, how does this build deal with fast banshees? I love the idea of this build, but I feel that a single cloaked banshee would spell disaster for you. Although, I guess if they are teching they won't be able to hold this push off. In my experience, you can kill the player trying to tech to cloak unless he preemptively pulls all his scvs. You can still manage to bust the wall down by forcefielding the bunker as he will not have cloak or a single banshee when you first walk up his ramp. If I ever walk up the ramp and not see a CC, and I see instead pure marine and a bunker, I throw down a robo. He's going to try to defend with his first banshee without cloak in his base; once you bust the wall you're going to need to focus your stalkers on his banshee and a-move your zealots into the scv's repairing it. I don't think I've ever lost to a cloak rush doing this, but you can lose to it if you walk up the ramp then pull back and try to get an obs out to play defensively.
Awesome! The thing that is always in the back of my mind is the Banshee rush, Banshees are that nightmare that keeps me up at night lol. I'll be using this opening a bit more frequently, I imagine an aggressive Protoss will catch Terrans off guard.
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Hmm I might have to revise or scrap this guide completely after watching Kiwi totally dismantle Gretorp's 1rax FE with rallied units from 2 warpgates..
More updates coming in the future-
A look at HuK's 3gate pressure
A look at Kiwi's 2gate expand/just kill people
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On April 05 2011 00:38 Alejandrisha wrote:
Hmm I might have to revise or scrap this guide completely after watching Kiwi totally dismantle Gretorp's 1rax FE with rallied units from 2 warpgates..
More updates coming in the future-
A look at HuK's 3gate pressure
A look at Kiwi's 2gate expand/just kill people
I've studied Socke's 2 gate expand for the last couple of weeks, this is basicly the same build Kiwi does. It's extremely strong vs 1 rax FE as it hits really early. The problem I found is, that it doesn't provide the production capabilities to compete with a 2 rax expo build. Basicly - and I think most players have always agreed on that - toss wants to have one core structure more than terran in order to keep the pressure up.
This means while the 2 gate expo is probably the best way to deal with a 1 rax expand, I haven't been able to put enough pressure on 2 rax expo players from only 2 gates. Now you may argue "what the hell", let's just play defensive and expo yourself.
But then....well then I could play with a one gate expo as well, with 3 more gates added afterwards it's exactly as stable but economicly better.
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The big weakness of the build is ofc, skipping the early zealot. I'm pretty sure there are quite a few players out there who on scouting no zealot, will instantly transition into a fast techlab + second barracks and rush you with 3 SCV's and their first marauder
It is also very weak to a 2 rax FE --> 5 rax opening
As usual, since a 2 rax FE into 5 rax is very strong against 6 gate timings and aggressive 3 gate timings, i don't see why it should be any weaker to this (especially with your stalker heavy composition)
Also, by skipping your first zealot, many good terrans will scout this and in fact, simply cut marines and get their CC at natural down after first marine.
Either way, if you wanna test the timing, hit me up on skype BrTarolg
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Hey Alejandrisha,
I am in no way discrediting you but your build seems almost exactly the same as the slayers_Alicia 3 gate pvt build http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=202262. The only thing different is the unit count and composition, I mean if you get very technical the chrinoboost timing and usage is different but overall I see the same exact builds you just label thisnas your own. I'm only high diamond, low masters so I'm only asking this because I wish to learn no disrespect. If anyone more 1337 than me could enlighten me, that be sweet peace.
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I know it has been a month since this was last responded to, but in light of the changes upcoming on PTR, I've been playing with this build some as I'm tired of being the passive protoss and really enjoy putting some early pressure on my opponents to set the pace of the game.
Why I think this build is even more viable with the upcoming changes:
1) The 3 sentries in this build get chrono'd and all come out of regular gateways. Sentry build time decrease so far is still being implemented on PTR - now chrono's can either be used to get them out faster (I imagine some gas timings would need to be adjusted to get them out faster), or on your WG to negate the 20 second increase in WG timing...which still leaves an extra chrono you can use on your nexus to get your econ up even faster. For some reason I haven't been able to get on the PTR last few days...dying to tinker with this to see if I can hit the Terran faster with the sentry changes.
2) The bunker changes for Terran impact the early game more so than the mid-late game as resources are more precious early game so they will want to either protect the bunkers they have put down, or they'll be less likely to use them unless they scout the pressure coming - which if you get that first stalker out in time, you can essentially keep them in the dark.
3) I'm starting to wonder if this could be developed into a PvP build as well by getting out the earlier sentries you can have plenty of FF's built up to defend any early pressure besides a proxy 2 gate. This would give you the option of either pressuring an opponent that tries to get up an early expansion, or allow you to put one up yourself and defend it.
The changes on PTR seemed to really only affect 4gate and sentry-based builds, so I wasn't very excited about the changes until I dug up this build...hoping I can devise some variations on this build for PvP and perhaps even some PvZ situations.
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+ Show Spoiler +On May 07 2011 02:24 silverhand wrote:
I know it has been a month since this was last responded to, but in light of the changes upcoming on PTR, I've been playing with this build some as I'm tired of being the passive protoss and really enjoy putting some early pressure on my opponents to set the pace of the game.
Why I think this build is even more viable with the upcoming changes:
1) The 3 sentries in this build get chrono'd and all come out of regular gateways. Sentry build time decrease so far is still being implemented on PTR - now chrono's can either be used to get them out faster (I imagine some gas timings would need to be adjusted to get them out faster), or on your WG to negate the 20 second increase in WG timing...which still leaves an extra chrono you can use on your nexus to get your econ up even faster. For some reason I haven't been able to get on the PTR last few days...dying to tinker with this to see if I can hit the Terran faster with the sentry changes.
2) The bunker changes for Terran impact the early game more so than the mid-late game as resources are more precious early game so they will want to either protect the bunkers they have put down, or they'll be less likely to use them unless they scout the pressure coming - which if you get that first stalker out in time, you can essentially keep them in the dark.
3) I'm starting to wonder if this could be developed into a PvP build as well by getting out the earlier sentries you can have plenty of FF's built up to defend any early pressure besides a proxy 2 gate. This would give you the option of either pressuring an opponent that tries to get up an early expansion, or allow you to put one up yourself and defend it.
The changes on PTR seemed to really only affect 4gate and sentry-based builds, so I wasn't very excited about the changes until I dug up this build...hoping I can devise some variations on this build for PvP and perhaps even some PvZ situations.
The later WG and faster sentry production leaves a 35 seconds window between when the 3rd sentry comes out of the gateway and when WG finishes when before there was no window. I'd have to do some work on the PTR to see what I can change in terms of chronoboost usage since I don't see any benefit in getting the 3 sentries and a 5th unit out before WG when I get the 3 additional stalkers 20 seconds later than I did before the patch.
I'm guess I'll delegate one or two chronoboosts I previously put on the sentries onto warpgate, but there is definitely a chance I will have to scrap this build in favor of something else that works better with the new changes. I'll definitely keep this build up to date in that regard.
Edit: Well, I still get the 3 gateways at the original time (now 20 seconds before wg finishes) So I'm thinking of cutting out the 1 CB on the WG that I had originally and seeing if I can't get a round of 3 units from the 3 gates right before WG finishes and maybe cutting a probe at 27 food before I put the gates down to ensure I get the gates up in time to finish all 3 before WG finishes. Thanks for bringing this up! Has given me some good ideas I think.
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I'm very interested in seeing what you can come up with as my fun factor with playing protoss in PvT is back again...using this build, I just won my last 4 of 5 PvT matches - and the one I lost was my stupid mistake that screwed up the timing. I watched the replay and if I hit during the proper timing, I would have won.
If I could logon to the PTR (keeps freezing at 70%) I'd see what I could come up with too, but I'll either have to wait until I figure out why it won't update, or until the patch is released. Either way, it seems like you could simply not chrono the sentries as they'd come out just as soon after the patch and instead put 2 more chronos on the WG to negate the 20 second increase and then an additional chrono on the Nexus.
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On May 07 2011 04:26 silverhand wrote:
I'm very interested in seeing what you can come up with as my fun factor with playing protoss in PvT is back again...using this build, I just won my last 4 of 5 PvT matches - and the one I lost was my stupid mistake that screwed up the timing. I watched the replay and if I hit during the proper timing, I would have won.
If I could logon to the PTR (keeps freezing at 70%) I'd see what I could come up with too, but I'll either have to wait until I figure out why it won't update, or until the patch is released. Either way, it seems like you could simply not chrono the sentries as they'd come out just as soon after the patch and instead put 2 more chronos on the WG to negate the 20 second increase and then an additional chrono on the Nexus.
Yes, well the issue I have with putting more chrono on warpgate is this:
Instead of using the patch to your advantage, you are trying to get the same # of units at a slightly later time.
Instead of fighting the patch, I think that instead of adding 2 chronos to WG, taking the 1 that is already in place and putting it some where else can allow you to get a round of units from all three gateways to finish and then warping out 3 more units when it finishes. The only issue here is you are slightly more vulnerable to pressure that comes before WG finishes. I think this could be remedied with scouting. For example, keep your probe alive at the base at the ramp, or worst case scenario bouncing between their ramp and their tower; if you see mauradors on the way, put the 2 CB's on the WG; if you do not, reserve it for non WG-produced units. I'll stop here.. I feel like this too much theorycraft and too little support. I will test it on the PTR today and post again ^^
edit: PTR down tt
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I was finally able to get on the PTR and do some tinkering with the build and while I am in no way a master in macro I was able to squeeze out 2 more units and hit only 10 seconds later than usual...so basically now I'm hitting the natural around 6:50 (I know 10 seconds later should only be 6:40, but I'm still working on hitting the timings perfectly, but it was 10 seconds later than I was normally hitting which was around 6:40 with the original build) With modifications I was able to get out 2 extra zealots so I hit with 2 zealots, 6 stalkers and 3 sentries and since the sentries are coming earlier and I'm hitting slightly later I can squeeze out an extra Guardian Shield if I need it or simply use the extra mana for FF's.
What I did differently:
+ Show Spoiler +
9 Pylon (CB Nexus)
12 GW (CB Nexus)
14 Gas
16 Pylon
17 Core
18 Gas
21 Zealot (CB)
WG Research @100% Core (Still CB once here as I was having trouble squeezing out 3 units and lining up the timing on WG finishing w/o this CB)
23 Pylon
Sentry @100% Zealot
26 Gateway (This allows me to get the second extra unit out before WG research finishes)
Sentry @100% Sentry (CB)
29 Gateway (This allows the 3rd GW to line up with completion of WG research)
30 Pylon
3rd Sentry@100% Sentry
Stalker @100% 2nd GW (CB) - Times up very close to WG research finishing but I'm sure it's more my speed getting in the way here
36 Proxy Pylon
Warp in 3 stalkers and move out to opp natural where you follow up with a warpin of either 3 zealots or you will have enough resources for 2 stalkers and 1 zealot.
You could opt for a 4 zealot, 3 sentry, 4 stalker mix if you saw a heavier marauder composition as you'll have plenty of FF's to keep from getting kited...and the zealots probably hold up better against bunkers if you can't run by them.
Just my take on a few hours of tinkering with it, and if the patch posts tomorrow like people are speculating, at least I have something to work with in PvT until someone better comes along with a different option.
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Good build. Thanks for posting it
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EPT
