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As many of us know, Protoss players tend to wall off with a Gateway, Cybernetics Core, and a Zealot. The Pylon powering the wall is placed directly behind the two stronger buildings, out of most units' reach.
I hate this wall so, so much: When lings attack the Cybernetics Core or Gateway, the Zealot often cannot reach and it's extremely annoying to deal with (in my opinion, I've honestly never heard anyone else say this). Recently, I had an idea to improve the building placement within the wall and attempt to punish Zerg players for trying to bait the Zealot.
My suggestion is to place your Pylon to the verymost right of the ramp (directly on the ramp), your Gateway one cubit away from the verymost left of the ramp, your Cybernetics Core above the Gateway sealing the ramp on the left, and your Zealot sealing the wall on the right.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/UVwfr.png)
The small circle is the Pylon, the square is the Zealot, the topmost circle is the Cybernetics core, and the other circle is the Gateway.
When your wall is like this, there is almost no position where Zerglings can run through your Zealot when attacking, with decent micro. The Zerglings in the choke the Cyber Core and the Gateway make are blocked in that same area when you move your Zealot to attack them. The Zealot can simply turn to attack most of the Zerglings attacking the left edge of the Gateway. The sweet spot where you cannot hit the Zerglings risk-free is the middle-most part of your Gate: in this particular spot, a Zerg player with fantastic reaction time can run some lings inside when your zealot begins attacking there. However, only ~five zerglings can fit in this area so it becomes very negligible when you get a stalker.
This is obviously weak to Baneling busts if you can't sniff them out in time.
At this point, you're probably wondering why this is a discussion thread instead of a guide thread. Well, unfortunately, I have had horrible computer problems recently and can't open any replays, so I have no proof any of this works at any level. I encourage TL'ers to try this once or twice and report your results.
GLHF :D
(Oh, this is my first TL post so I'm sorry if I'm doing it horribly wrong, long time lurker)
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Seems very weak to 5RR. Pylon has really low hitpoints so putting it up in front leaves a big gaping hole in this wall, at least that's how I see it.
OP have you defended against a 5RR using this wall off? And if yes, what league was this accomplished in?
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As a Zerg player I would love you to wall off like that. The pylon is very open to attack from early aggression and that crucial pylon powers your 2 most important structures early game, taking this out and it is gg.
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The issue with this type of wall is the largely exposed surface area of the gateway. Assuming the gateway is directly in contact with your zealot, I would estimate about 6-8 lings could be attacking it safely. You still have to pull your walling zealot to deal with them, at which point they'd run on in or away. Likewise, you've also set yourself up with a vulnerable pylon in the line (which you acknowledged).
If not being able to move in time is your issue, and you aren't big on immortals (or have another way out of your base) might I suggest the wallin that have a gateway and a cyber core flanking a zealot standing between them?
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3Roach rush will snipe that pylon, better make sure theres an extra pylon powering that cyber.
Overall, this is weaker to early pressure, and doesn't seem to offer any real benefits. Could be a nice change up to throw out once in awhile I guess... Don't see any toss doing this every game over the standard wall tho.
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On March 03 2011 11:57 Zisc wrote:
Seems very weak to 5RR. Pylon has really low hitpoints so putting it up in front leaves a big gaping hole in this wall, at least that's how I see it.
OP have you defended against a 5RR using this wall off? And if yes, what league was this accomplished in?
It is really difficult to prevent a 5RR with this wall, but it can be done in masters. The wall actually allows for two pylons to nicely re-complete the wall around the original Pylon, so it's not unstoppable. From there, it is a little harder than it normally would be because of the 100 extra minerals you pop on an unnecessary Pylon.
To the other Zerg guy who would love to see this wall because of the easily accessible Pylon: oddly enough, it is the hardest part of this wall to kill. It's set slightly back from the Zealot, so there is no possible way to run in with lings when the Zealot attacks units on the Pylon. Unless you have Roaches at the toss wall (and unless you're rushing you won't have any before the second powering pylon spawns anyways) you won't be able to kill it against a competent player.
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On March 03 2011 12:01 Aequos wrote:
The issue with this type of wall is the largely exposed surface area of the gateway. Assuming the gateway is directly in contact with your zealot, I would estimate about 6-8 lings could be attacking it safely. You still have to pull your walling zealot to deal with them, at which point they'd run on in or away. Likewise, you've also set yourself up with a vulnerable pylon in the line (which you acknowledged).
If not being able to move in time is your issue, and you aren't big on immortals (or have another way out of your base) might I suggest the wallin that have a gateway and a cyber core flanking a zealot standing between them?
Well actually, only three or four can fit outside of the Cyber choke but be longer than a step away from the Zealot. The thing with 4 lings is that you can chronoboost out a Stalker before they even break through the Gateways 450 shields. The vulnerable Pylon really isn't vulnerable against much other than Banelings (look at my last post), and even then you hopefully can scout one of those coming.
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Can't say I really like it. This is close to the way wall-offs tended to be done around the time of release, and there's a reason people changed away from that: it is more vulnerable to a bust, particularly having thr pylon so exposed.
IEM spoiler:
+ Show Spoiler +Just take a look at the IEM game between mOOnGLaDe and Socke on Metalopolis. Socke tries something a bit different by using a pylon in his wall-off, and mOOnGLaDe immediately takes a group of speedlings and straight-up kills him.
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the exposed pylon just creates a weak wall. the standard toss wall works quite well, you just have to position the zealot right. there's really no reason to use this wall instead of the standard one.
also: roaches. pylons die really fast, and then your wall is unneccesarily wide. just wall standardly
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To be honest, I think it unnecessarily exposes the pylon. My micro is good enough to quickly get an attack on a zergling and get the zealot at the choke in time for no lings to get through. It's really not that hard. Plus, it only takes one sentry or stalker behind the wall to get the zerg player to back off.
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wow.... no bashing but this is just pure dumb.... bad vs baneling, vs roaches, vs 6 pools...
you even need to put ur 2nd pylon near the wall to power these 2 building which means its much harder to hide your tech....
and all of those just for half HP of a gate way done by lings....
WHAT?
i mean this is ur 1st post contributing to TL.... could use the search function!
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On top of the roach pressure, a baneling bust would kill the zealot and pylon together, creating a decent size hole for zerglings to stream in
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As a zerg I must say I am in favor of this new wall and I think all of you protosses should adopt it immediately.
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What happened to just chrono boosting a stalker?...
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yep sorry to say but this is a terrible idea...
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When lings attack the Cybernetics Core or Gateway, the Zealot often cannot reach and it's extremely annoying to deal with (in my opinion, I've honestly never heard anyone else say this).
You probably never heard anyone else say that, because mostly everyone just ignores it.
eventually, a ranged unit arrives, the lings pull back, and the shield regen.
There is nothing that has to be dealt with, and no need to pull the zealot to try and kill the lings.
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The pylon is close to the edges and easily sniped by roaches. I don't even see how the zealot is "more protected" with this arrangement. Ah now I see, this allows your zealot to reach lings easier. That's not going to be as useful as having a safer pylon is, for sure.
If anyone is talking about baneling busts up a ramp, you can safely ignore their post as they know nothing. Baneling busts up a ramp will never work, as a single force field negates them and two force fields traps all banelings for ranged units (sentries) to kill them off.
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@ OP, and Cecil Sunkkure
Sorry if this is slighly off topic but does no one here do the Arc around your nexus simcity?
As in one pylon next to the gas then a gate between the pylon and the nexus. Makes it possible to 13 gate and be safe from a 6 pool because your probes are just there to help out. You can even adjust it to make holes in it if you so wish just to allow one zealot to be hitting something at some time.
Any reason why the arc is never ever used in pro games? Why is a wall off at the ramp better than this? it feels so damn solid to me, and so much more economical because you don't have to sacrifice a building just to get out in the case of a 6 pool.
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I can't speak for others, but for me the wall-off at the ramp is nicer not so much for dealing with 6-pool type stuff, but for making it easier to block speedling runbys later. A 6-pool is easy to handle without a wall, but a serious commitment of speedlings later on can cause you a real headache.
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The thing that annoys me about the walloff compared to the sim city at the base is you cant scout his 3 other gateways or his stargate. Also the ramp is blockable by 1 forcefield.
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No hard feelings but it seems damn risky and I would rather stick with old one instead of risking losing the game because of this. Even though it has it advantages!
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The only reason why you would not want to have the Cyber - Gateway - Zealot wall-off, is the fact that Zerg can easily block your cyber core from going up for 10-20 game second if he microes his initial drone correctly, also he will force you to send an extra probe and it all adds up in lost mining time.
This is something you should really only think about in high end of masters, since elsewhere it won't really matter. Also, how you solve it is not (at least not necessarily) this wall. This wall is actually very bad at defending very early pressure but on a large map that probably won't be a problem anyway unless Zerg goes for something earlier than a 13 pool after gas.
I don't quite understand your logic in how the Zealot is easier to move around without letting lings in, when you wall of like this. It just seems like you played a couple of ladder matches and base your facts off of that. I would really like to know what your thoughtprocess were when you decided to to start doing this type of wall-off.
EDIT: Also, you will probably never defend a 7 pool, if this is how you place your initial buildings.
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You know, the Zealot being central is actually not that awesome. When it's up against a ledge as in the normal build, all of the attacking lings will be on one side. With your arrangement, if there are lings attacking the pylon and the gateway simultaneously, as soon as your zealot moves too far against one group, the other can run straight in behind it.
Also the pylon is massively exposed. Early roach play will leave you all kinds of messed up.
There was an alternate wall posted a little while ago that was a much stronger variant of this, with the cyber instead of the pylon up against the ledge. It was really useful in some situations, and safer against the 5RR/3RR even compared to the normal build. The OP's wall, though... sorry... I really can't see any advantage worth the exposed pylon. .
EDIT: found the thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=194363#1
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This wall isnt really good because banelings would crush the zealot+pylon if the zerg plays banelingbust in ZvP
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Banelings, Roaches, or even a 6-10 pool would completely crush that wall-in... the thread that Belisarius referred to has a better building placement in my opinion.
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EPT
