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So I've just kind of been working on this build after seeing a few people do a standard forge / 5 gate oriented around +1, and I've been working on and I've found a good timing window.
Has anyone played around with this? I feel it's kind of a safe opener that you get some early detection by virtue of at least 1 cannon at your natural, maybe a 2nd if you want to be safe.
Don't have a specific build order, but I try to get an early nexus (15 when possible with FFE), forge, gate, cyber, gate, 4 gas, get to about 8-10 sentries, then start my stalker warpins while simultaneously having had begun +1 armor, +1 weapons as soon as armor is done. This helps any quick ling/muta that come out, and the 25% damage reduction is quite nice vs zerg melee and with GS it's close to 30-40% vs fast muta opening.
As I push out, hallucinate 8-10 units, usually stalkers. Even if they know its hallucinated, they won't know which ones unless they have detection. It's precisely for the reason that Im hallucinating the same units I have which makes it powerful. Even if you sense something fishy it's not obvious like void rays or colossus so early in the game.
I have some replays to kind of show the potential, mechanics arent great on all of them. The first one I think is pretty well timed, 2nd one sloppy as I've just started playing with it.
All opponents diamond ~250 point season 2.
How viable is it in masters? Is there a better variation? I'm usually at good food count in workers by the time the push happens, with +1 armor done, +1 weapons on the way, and it sets me up good for a mid game I think which can counter everything but an extremely aggressive ling/hydra, but I've only seen that after a failed protoss air opening.
vs fast mutas.
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/157227-1v1-protoss-zerg-gutterhulk
FFE vs roach rush, using hallucinate to snipe the expo since I knew this would be the nail in the coffin to follow up my next push.
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/160779-1v1-protoss-zerg-taldarim-altar-le
on XNC vs a 3 base (9 minute push ... again sloppy on the attack, was indecesive as what to do, but still enough to get a gg out of the opponent due to sheer apparent numbers).
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/160782-1v1-protoss-zerg-xelnaga-caverns
(recommended watching for the mechanics only. I failed miserably with the map architecture and the wall off, first time playing typhoon peaks):
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/157233-1v1-protoss-zerg-backwater-gulch
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I love the idea of hallucinating 8-10 stalkers, i'm going to be sure to try this out. thanks very much for the build 
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Good ldea. I feel that hallucinated zealots are underused as tanks, and like these gateway units with upgrades builds. A lot of potential with an attack that is supplemented by hallucinations.
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It is actually very good build in Masters too 
Have tested few times and worked quite well
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The idea behind this build is awesome, really. I want to try it. I just can't get over watching that first replay on typhon peaks.
Any early pressure and you would have crumbled so easily. The zerg just let you do all of that. it was crazy to watch. Any decent zerg would have absolutely crushed you.
If he had sent a bunch of lings at you what would you have done?
And i'm talking about scouting a bunch of lings here, heading to your base.
Your forge doesn't even get up till around the 7 minute mark.
I like different builds but this just seems like too much build and pray.
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hullucinated zealots are great because they take target priority and the other guy has to manually target your other units, but then your real zealots do insane dps
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This doesn't sound that bad, but your first replay has got me scratching my head
You 15 Nexus'd on Typhoon with your first Pylon in your main and you walled off the entry to your third of all places... If that Zerg made 10lings you would have lost that game
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I normally have that map veto'd. I'm not familiar with it and I do realize that I made a very big blunder on that map not realizing there are in fact two entries into my main.
This build is rather effective on something like shakuras with a more closed off natural as you still have the early cannon + sentry to help you out until your 5 gates are up and running.
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On April 01 2011 14:02 PoisedYeTi wrote:
The idea behind this build is awesome, really. I want to try it. I just can't get over watching that first replay on typhon peaks.
Any early pressure and you would have crumbled so easily. The zerg just let you do all of that. it was crazy to watch. Any decent zerg would have absolutely crushed you.
If he had sent a bunch of lings at you what would you have done?
And i'm talking about scouting a bunch of lings here, heading to your base.
Your forge doesn't even get up till around the 7 minute mark.
I like different builds but this just seems like too much build and pray.
I agree with this sentiment. On something like Typhoon peaks I realize that it's now a very impractical map to do a 15 nexus on. It was my first time playing that map on ladder and saw that it was a large map and proceeded to expand without looking at the map architecture.
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On April 01 2011 14:38 Dommk wrote:
This doesn't sound that bad, but your first replay has got me scratching my head
You 15 Nexus'd on Typhoon with your first Pylon in your main and you walled off the entry to your third of all places... If that Zerg made 10lings you would have lost that game
Mistake explained in earlier post.
I will try to come up and post some more replay analysis of this build on a more conventional map such as Shakuras , Metal, etc. where you can safely cover your natural while doing this build.
I'm still not convinced whether 15 nexus or FFE is better for the timings.
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I don't know if I would hallucinate stalkers. Maybe a combination of archons, collosi and immortals. Archons and immortals are big units and have a lot of health so I think they would tank more effectively. Also, collosi are very intimidating and might give a zerg pause on whether or not to engage even if he is 90% sure it is a fake.
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This build is actually hilarious. I love it. I mean, I'd hate to play against it, but it just sounds so awesome.
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On April 01 2011 23:06 TheFinalWord wrote:
I don't know if I would hallucinate stalkers. Maybe a combination of archons, collosi and immortals. Archons and immortals are big units and have a lot of health so I think they would tank more effectively. Also, collosi are very intimidating and might give a zerg pause on whether or not to engage even if he is 90% sure it is a fake.
The hallucination of stalkers is for intimidation and serves practical purposes, if I cut probes and went 7 gate or something silly, then it might be believable that I have a big stalker/sentry army.
But if at 11 minutes you see archons and immortals? No way you have that big of an army and the zerg won't think twice about not targetting them I would think.
With the stalker approach, since it's the same units as what I have, you won't know why ones to target unless you get an overseer, by which point I may have been able to deal some very large damage and snipe your natural, then go sit back and take my 3rd and choose my tech path.
I should also point 8-10 stalkers is only 4-5 hallucinates since you get 2 stalkers at a time I believe, which still leaves you extra energy for guardian shield and some FFs to block a ramp / etc. If you just want to snipe a hatch then retreat.
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Updated some replays on original post
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I'd say hallucinate zealots when about to engange in a direct confrontation: the zealots (2x/hallu) will run into the enemy army and, by virtue of being closer, mess with the AI aggro if enemy is A-moved and soak maximum damage. Archons would be better at the task but are too obviously fake and easy for enemy to avoid wasting dps onto.
IMO this build also requires you to ignore mining gas for too long, which inhibits your initial sentry count. With this build, by the time you start producing sentries, you should be preparing for the impending doom roach push. If zerg decides to macro or tech up for spire in response to this build, you are in luck and the zerg has responded poorly IMO.
Cool build, but chances of survival are slim at best, if the zerg scouts it or responds by punishing, you are screwed. Luck-based play is not my thing i guess
cheers Aerv
EDIT: warms my heart to see such proactive use of hallucinations <3
The damage mitigated by hallucinations appears to > guardian shield by a lot per/energy
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Would work if you run into an enemy who doesn't understand scouting....and or know how to do it. I applaud the creativity though and it's a cool build. I am very fond of making archons or immortals as tanks...to in turn scare the hell out of the enemy at an early mark...just not to early. But it is very vulnerable to any...kind of rush...
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The hallucination concept is great even into masters, but the thing you talked about that worries me is that you wait for both +1 weapons and +1 armor...you want to hit the timing before fast mutas pop out, and waiting for both weapons and armor seems too long of a wait. In your vs.Muta replay, you went for an all-in, and a big reason it worked was that you were in close positions temple - but yea, in general, I believe you'd be better off getting only 1 upgrade and moving out as it is finishing.
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I have tried builds like this in the past, and have had spotty success. The biggest problem with this build is that you invest a lot of gas into sentries that make fake units. Fake units can be a nice distraction, but they don't do any real damage. Whenever you do a hallucinated attack, it makes your opponent panic and overmake units instead of drones (assuming PvZ), but as far as the actual battle goes, if it's a timing attack with someone who was expecting a timing attack (5/6 gates) with sentries, his preparation will be the same: upgraded roaches. The hallucinations will fall so fast and suddenly your opponent will realise "Okay, his army isn't as big as I thought", and he'll just confidently crush it. Unless you were likely to win the battle before the hallus, you probably won't win it with them. It reduces the amount of forcefields you can make, as well as guardian shields. All of these things have to be taken into account.
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i also like the general strat, and I also do some stuff like that on my own (just intuitive though, i dont like sticking only to builds^^), but the biggest problems are burrow roaches (they will defend easily with them and you have no chance to get aggressive soon again until you have some observers and they can easily outmacro you till then) and fast hydralisks, cause they just demolish gate units.
the hydra thing is easy to scout with hallucinations, but the burrow roach type of defense can really give you trouble with that, so its often times safer to get a robo.
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On April 08 2011 21:16 iamtrickster wrote:
Would work if you run into an enemy who doesn't understand scouting....and or know how to do it. I applaud the creativity though and it's a cool build. I am very fond of making archons or immortals as tanks...to in turn scare the hell out of the enemy at an early mark...just not to early. But it is very vulnerable to any...kind of rush...
Well I'm not making archons or immortals, push happens at about 9 minutes which doesnt generally call for an overseer if they saw FFE or basically a 3 gate expand.
On April 08 2011 22:30 panzzzzz wrote:
The hallucination concept is great even into masters, but the thing you talked about that worries me is that you wait for both +1 weapons and +1 armor...you want to hit the timing before fast mutas pop out, and waiting for both weapons and armor seems too long of a wait. In your vs.Muta replay, you went for an all-in, and a big reason it worked was that you were in close positions temple - but yea, in general, I believe you'd be better off getting only 1 upgrade and moving out as it is finishing.
I try to push out as +1 armor finished, and then I start +1 weapons, at about 9 minutes. I typically push with 8 sentries and about 9 stalkers, + another 11-12 hallucinated stalkers and/or zealots. The goal of my initial push is to inhibit maximum damage without losing my sentry count, trying to snipe a hatchery if I can and then drop my robo based on the tech that I saw.
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On April 08 2011 22:37 Wolf wrote:
I have tried builds like this in the past, and have had spotty success. The biggest problem with this build is that you invest a lot of gas into sentries that make fake units. Fake units can be a nice distraction, but they don't do any real damage. Whenever you do a hallucinated attack, it makes your opponent panic and overmake units instead of drones (assuming PvZ), but as far as the actual battle goes, if it's a timing attack with someone who was expecting a timing attack (5/6 gates) with sentries, his preparation will be the same: upgraded roaches. The hallucinations will fall so fast and suddenly your opponent will realise "Okay, his army isn't as big as I thought", and he'll just confidently crush it. Unless you were likely to win the battle before the hallus, you probably won't win it with them. It reduces the amount of forcefields you can make, as well as guardian shields. All of these things have to be taken into account.
I know what you mean though that it seems like a double edged sword that I force him to overmake units and if I lose my sentries it's going to be a GG having invested so much into +1 armor and no detection other than cannon at natural.
2nd replay (XNC) I ran into a burrow roach, but he didn't have the numbers out fast enough to deal with it in time. I played very sloppy, but managed to squeeze the win. I've yet to try it against masters level players, I just feel that hallucination is underused and I'm trying to have more fun in my play with hallucinating similar units to my ball to mask some damage and confuse damage (such as corruptor vs colossus).
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Well, its always difficult to do such a timing attack and not go all in with it in any possible situation. theres always a way you can lose with a simple timing attack if you do something wrong or youre oppo blindly hardcounters you.
but in general its a good idea, but i think that the hallucinations could better be some forcefields to retreate safely and get youre tech up earlier.
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EPT
