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About the Build
So, I haven't played as much these days. And that makes it harder to execute in game at a high level. But I think I am still relatively solid on the theory side of the game. And I just had this build I was developing in my mind with the latest patch coming out, I couldn't get it out of my head. I played it some vs a friend, he isn't masters tho, I just wanted to see if the build flowed right. It flowed very very well.. I actually think this is quite a strong build.
I think it will be fun for you guys to at least try this out and see what you can do with it. Just work with it yourself if you want to, I am very confident it makes sense.
The State of PvZ
You often hear idra or other zergs complain about the luck factor in stopping early game aggression. Either you take a hit to your economy or you can die if they do an allin or near allin against you with an earlier timing. This complaint may or may not be legitimate.
What they often take for granted, though, is that protoss has similar issues. Those who saw the latest GSL finals know what I am talking about, though many protoss players already did. If you go too heavy on ecomony/tech you can die quite easily to a ling/roach allin. If you play too safe you fall behind in economy as the zerg drones heavy. If you play aggressively and the zerg holds it or swarms you, you can lose the game right there. If you lose your sentries the zerg can re-drone and gain a massive economy lead.
So, like zerg woes in zvp, pvz is largely a guessing game and a balancing act of safety vs economy. And like zerg complaints of inability to scout, protoss has a huge weakness in scouting zerg early game. Speedlings make it so that we have no clue what they are doing.
So the question is, how can protoss safely expand, while keeping up with zerg in economy? I think I have a possible way to do this.
The build
Alright, this build is probably something you've never seen the likes of. This is what we do.
9 pylon, scout
chrono probes at 10
on some maps/positions, stop probes at 12 for gateway. on others, chrono again and gateway at 14. if you stop to 12gateway immediately chrono probes again when it's started.
gas when you have 75. this will be @ 14/15
another chrono on probes, pylon @ 15/16
complete your wallin (leaving gap for zealot), by placing your core as soon as your gateway finishes.
another chrono on probes. 2nd gas @ 75(it will be right after your core starts, @ 21/22)
zealot
alright, here is where the build gets fun. as soon as your core finishes, start a sentry with a chronoboost, and then start hallucination. the chrono on the sentry is necessary. put up a 2nd gateway as well
at this point, use every-single-chronoboost on probes. don't stop using them on probes. you're gonna get over the saturation point for your main base with probes. and meanwhile, pump 2gate sentries and start a forge.
hallucination should be nearing completion, so queue up warpgate research after it.
hallucination should be done, and your sentry will be nearing 100 energy. you should have maybe 3 sentries and a zealot. put the pylon at the bottom of the ramp and move to expand, as though it was a 3gate sentry expand. hallucinate a phoenix, scout in front of your base with it and move towards the zerg base. you will spot any allin coming and can react appropriately. scout the zerg base with hallucination.
if you see roaches or mass lings being produced you are going to need cannons and some more sentries. you will stop the aggression thanks to your fast forge and you will actually get ahead in economy due to constant chronoboosts on probes.
if they are constantly droning, disregarding that you could be doing a fast warpgate attack, then no big deal. this situation is actually worse with 3gate sentry expand because in 3gate sentry expand you haven't been constantly chronoboosting probes. you may be behind in economy but it won't be drastic. at this point you will want to move out with your 1zealot +7-9 sentries. use every single sentry with 100 energy to hallucinate zealots(this will probably only be 2 or 3 of your sentries... so 4-6 zealots). make sure the zerg sees your huge zealot/sentry army moving towards their base. they will massively overreact. don't actually engage, of course. just make them think you are going to. go ahead and clear the watchtowers, and use your hallu zealots to scout around or whatever. meanwhile you can keep chronoing probes and safely tech up.
while your expansion is making get more gateways and a robo if they have a roach den. once your expansion gets up i'd recommend a 2nd robo if they are going roach and a transition to collossus if you scout hydra. make sure to use your forge right away to start upgrading once your expansion is up. it's probably best to transition to a 3rd base and play for the late game, you have a huge amount of probes and your economy will be booming. the late game is where a high-economy high-tech protoss shines. have fun.
Why I made this build
They nerfed warpgate research time in the latest patch. They buffed sentry build time from gateways. It only makes sense to develop a build that is less focused on fast warpgate but takes advantage of the quicker sentry build time. Quicker sentry build time means warpgate is less important to get up a fast expansion. Quicker sentry means faster hallucination, which means faster scouting, which means increased safety.
REPLAY
http://www.2shared.com/file/oTFtA3r2/pvz_synthetiq_fg_forge_exp_hal.html
opponent is random 1050 masters player
(please note that i made a small error in this replay. you should start your sentry BEFORE you start hallucination. I started mine after)
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Very interesting. It will make your warp gate much later, but I am very interested in this and I will try it out.
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Interesting I'll test this out right now and get back to you
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Sounds really cool. Do you have any replays or anything?
What is the zerg's typical reaction and how effectively can you deny scouting with just sentries?
Always good to have new builds popping up.
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On May 15 2011 07:45 Absentia wrote:
Sounds really cool. Do you have any replays or anything?
What is the zerg's typical reaction and how effectively can you deny scouting with just sentries?
Always good to have new builds popping up.
you can deny scouting from slow overlords just fine. sentries do less damage than stalkers but they build quicker, so you will have more of them faster. and I will note, it is quite important to try to deny scouting with this build, you don't want to let them see 2g1f if you can help it.
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On May 15 2011 07:46 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2011 07:45 Absentia wrote:
Sounds really cool. Do you have any replays or anything?
What is the zerg's typical reaction and how effectively can you deny scouting with just sentries?
Always good to have new builds popping up. you can deny scouting from slow overlords just fine. sentries do less damage than stalkers but they build quicker, so you will have more of them faster. and I will note, it is quite important to try to deny scouting with this build, you don't want to let them see 2g1f if you can help it.
Same as the guy above, do you have any replays? Or is this just theorycrafting?
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this sounds like a slightly different form of a really, really old build made back in the beta by Salv, he has different approaches that he lines out but his one base 3gate sentry expand sounds very similar to this
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=128437
while outdated in a lot of ways, and obviously not actually the same build as the one you provide, the flow of the early game and the concept are very similar, i think now that roaches have 4 range and zerg players are more cunning with their timings, the ability to lay down cannons and maximize gateway production to sentries only is more valuable than the additional zealots. and like you said, with the changes in the latest patch a hallucination build seems like a proper form of experimentation at this point.
i might try this style out again (but with the forge instead of the third gateway) as i am having a lot of trouble with pvz in the early game, we'll see how that goes.
edit: i think this was also when sentries still did 8 damage per hit (which is awesome btw XD) so there was obviously a very good reason why this build was around at this time, but yeah like i mentioned earlier, the early hallucination scout seems like it could have some merit right now)
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I'd like to see replays of this. I'm sure the thread won't get closed considering who the OP is, but this sounds pretty legit, so I'd love to see it in action.
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I have try to expand with just 2 gate making sentry but miserably die to roach/ling all-in. Super fast hallucination is a good idea, i'll try this =)
But can't the zerg scout this with ling at the front of your base and count your number of sentry ?
Just 2 gate with sentry is not a lot of presure for the zerg :/
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On May 15 2011 07:58 PtitDrogo wrote:
I have try to expand with just 2 gate making sentry but miserably die to roach/ling all-in. Super fast hallucination is a good idea, i'll try this =)
But can't the zerg scout this with ling at the front of your base and count your number of sentry ?
Just 2 gate with sentry is not a lot of presure for the zerg :/
From the front of your base it looks the same as a 3gate sentry expand. The entire point of the build is that you have no intention of trying to kill the zerg, your intention is to be either ahead or even economically - which is a great position for protoss to be in.
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If you guys want a replay I have one vs my friend (gold player). Otherwise you'll have to wait until I actually get a chance to use it in ladder, and I don't play all that much.
Yes, the build is mostly theory, but I know it flows well as I tested it.
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On May 15 2011 08:15 travis wrote:
If you guys want a replay I have one vs my friend (gold player). Otherwise you'll have to wait until I actually get a chance to use it in ladder, and I don't play all that much.
Yes, the build is mostly theory, but I know it flows well as I tested it.
yes, I would like to see the replay. Very interesting build, indeed. Will see the affect it has on ladder.
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Intressting build. It's obvious that the weakness of it is its inability to punish a greedy zerg, but in the current metagame this build should be very powerful unless it gets too popular and zergs relaise they can be greedy against it. Your expansion is going to be delayed by quite a significant bit, and since most zergs respond to delayed expands by getting out a significant amount of lings to be safe against 1 base all ins, its very possible you'll have trouble securing your expand long after Hallu is out even if zerg dont all in.
I do however like your suggested response should zerg have been greedy and i bet you can get on even terms with zerg if they fall for it, even if your expansion initially gets delayed.
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ok i played ladder until i got a pvz where zerg wasn't cheesing and didn't go hat first (he goes hat first i cannon lol)
so i got a replay now, ill upload it and add it to the main post. so look at the bottom of the main post for the link
(please note that i made a small error in the replay. you should start your sentry BEFORE you start hallucination. I started mine after)
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Even as a Zerg player I approve of this idea. However I see a few problems:
1: Your hallucination poke seems a tad gimmicky, as you already show that you have gotten hallucination before warpgate, so a smart zerg will figure out those Zealots are hallucinations for sure since you dont have warpgates and couldnt produce those numbers that fast. Also your sentries will have low energy. This completely negates the poke's effect as the Z is still save to drone all he wants if he knows what you are doing.
2: Hallucination is a giant energy drain and I am worried that on maps such as XNC you will not have enough forcefields left to defend your natural against the roache/ling that you may have forced.
3: Gas Steals will really throw off all the timings of this build, since sentries really take a damn long time to kill extractors.
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On May 15 2011 08:44 lazyo wrote:
Even as a Zerg player I approve of this idea. However I see a few problems:
1: Your hallucination poke seems a tad gimmicky, as you already show that you have gotten hallucination before warpgate, so a smart zerg will figure out those Zealots are hallucinations for sure since you dont have warpgates and couldnt produce those numbers that fast. Also your sentries will have low energy. This completely negates the poke's effect as the Z is still save to drone all he wants if he knows what you are doing.
2: Hallucination is a giant energy drain and I am worried that on maps such as XNC you will not have enough forcefields left to defend your natural against the roache/ling that you may have forced.
3: Gas Steals will really throw off all the timings of this build, since sentries really take a damn long time to kill extractors.
How will the zerg know I got hallucination before warpgate? Uh I guess actually he MIGHT know, but it'd take a damn fine player to know that my extra 4-6 zealots are hallucination and not the real thing. And that fine of a player is likely to have made SOME units for a possible fast gateway push.
And I agree with point 2 EXCEPT i am only doing the poke because he doesn't have very many guys. If he has a decent force I save all my energy for forcefields.
point 3, I don't let gas steals happen. If for some reason the drone got in my base to steal the gas that early, which is REALLY early, I would stop whatever else I am doing and take my gas.
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On May 15 2011 08:47 travis wrote:
How will the zerg know I got hallucination before warpgate? Uh I guess actually he MIGHT know, but it'd take a damn fine player to know that my extra 4-6 zealots are hallucination and not the real thing. And that fine of a player is likely to have made SOME units for a possible fast gateway push.
I quote your OP:
hallucination should be done, and your sentry will be nearing 100 energy. you should have maybe 3 sentries and a zealot. put the pylon at the bottom of the ramp and move to expand, as though it was a 3gate sentry expand. hallucinate a phoenix, scout in front of your base with it and move towards the zerg base. you will spot any allin coming and can react appropriately. scout the zerg base with hallucination.
A hallucination flying by an overlord that early is a dead giveaway that u went hallucination before warpgate. I don't think you can really avoid your hallucination tech getting spotted if you want to scout the zerg base.
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yeah yeah ur def right he will know i got hallu before warpgate if he is any good
i do not, however, think he will know the zealots aren't real unless he sees what is in my base
also i think this is a build you could do in a box series for 2-3 games and then in the next game chronoboost your hallu/wg instead of probes, and instead of expo do 4-5gate allin and u could easily win vs a droner
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On May 15 2011 08:47 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2011 08:44 lazyo wrote:
Even as a Zerg player I approve of this idea. However I see a few problems:
1: Your hallucination poke seems a tad gimmicky, as you already show that you have gotten hallucination before warpgate, so a smart zerg will figure out those Zealots are hallucinations for sure since you dont have warpgates and couldnt produce those numbers that fast. Also your sentries will have low energy. This completely negates the poke's effect as the Z is still save to drone all he wants if he knows what you are doing.
2: Hallucination is a giant energy drain and I am worried that on maps such as XNC you will not have enough forcefields left to defend your natural against the roache/ling that you may have forced.
3: Gas Steals will really throw off all the timings of this build, since sentries really take a damn long time to kill extractors. How will the zerg know I got hallucination before warpgate? Uh I guess actually he MIGHT know, but it'd take a damn fine player to know that my extra 4-6 zealots are hallucination and not the real thing. And that fine of a player is likely to have made SOME units for a possible fast gateway push. And I agree with point 2 EXCEPT i am only doing the poke because he doesn't have very many guys. If he has a decent force I save all my energy for forcefields. point 3, I don't let gas steals happen. If for some reason the drone got in my base to steal the gas that early, which is REALLY early, I would stop whatever else I am doing and take my gas.
This makes a lot of sense, but I would like to ask one thing... In your OP you said zerg will massively overreact to your hallucinated zeal push. If you don't engage and retreat after using all sentry energy on hallucination, what if he decides that 1. he knows you had hallu, or 2. that he has enough units to kill you and commits to an attack? With no map control or FF you will be in quite a lot of trouble, even with 3 or so cannons against a force designed to beat 8 zeals and 8 sentries which he saw knocking on his door.
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On May 15 2011 09:23 ImmortalTofu wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2011 08:47 travis wrote:On May 15 2011 08:44 lazyo wrote:
Even as a Zerg player I approve of this idea. However I see a few problems:
1: Your hallucination poke seems a tad gimmicky, as you already show that you have gotten hallucination before warpgate, so a smart zerg will figure out those Zealots are hallucinations for sure since you dont have warpgates and couldnt produce those numbers that fast. Also your sentries will have low energy. This completely negates the poke's effect as the Z is still save to drone all he wants if he knows what you are doing.
2: Hallucination is a giant energy drain and I am worried that on maps such as XNC you will not have enough forcefields left to defend your natural against the roache/ling that you may have forced.
3: Gas Steals will really throw off all the timings of this build, since sentries really take a damn long time to kill extractors. How will the zerg know I got hallucination before warpgate? Uh I guess actually he MIGHT know, but it'd take a damn fine player to know that my extra 4-6 zealots are hallucination and not the real thing. And that fine of a player is likely to have made SOME units for a possible fast gateway push. And I agree with point 2 EXCEPT i am only doing the poke because he doesn't have very many guys. If he has a decent force I save all my energy for forcefields. point 3, I don't let gas steals happen. If for some reason the drone got in my base to steal the gas that early, which is REALLY early, I would stop whatever else I am doing and take my gas. This makes a lot of sense, but I would like to ask one thing... In your OP you said zerg will massively overreact to your hallucinated zeal push. If you don't engage and retreat after using all sentry energy on hallucination, what if he decides that 1. he knows you had hallu, or 2. that he has enough units to kill you and commits to an attack? With no map control or FF you will be in quite a lot of trouble, even with 3 or so cannons against a force designed to beat 8 zeals and 8 sentries which he saw knocking on his door.
Once your expansion is up and you are in full production I think you will be just fine. Your warpgate will be up and you will already have more energy for forcefields. That really isn't a timing protoss has to be worried about. And if you stay on top of scouting with hallu phoenixes, you have enough time to throw up cannons in response to a huge surge of roach/ling from the zerg.
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Ok thanks for the quick response, that also makes a lot of sense! I'm gonna go try this on the ladder right now, and tell you guys how it goes!
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On May 15 2011 08:47 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2011 08:44 lazyo wrote:
Even as a Zerg player I approve of this idea. However I see a few problems:
1: Your hallucination poke seems a tad gimmicky, as you already show that you have gotten hallucination before warpgate, so a smart zerg will figure out those Zealots are hallucinations for sure since you dont have warpgates and couldnt produce those numbers that fast. Also your sentries will have low energy. This completely negates the poke's effect as the Z is still save to drone all he wants if he knows what you are doing.
2: Hallucination is a giant energy drain and I am worried that on maps such as XNC you will not have enough forcefields left to defend your natural against the roache/ling that you may have forced.
3: Gas Steals will really throw off all the timings of this build, since sentries really take a damn long time to kill extractors. How will the zerg know I got hallucination before warpgate? Uh I guess actually he MIGHT know, but it'd take a damn fine player to know that my extra 4-6 zealots are hallucination and not the real thing. And that fine of a player is likely to have made SOME units for a possible fast gateway push. And I agree with point 2 EXCEPT i am only doing the poke because he doesn't have very many guys. If he has a decent force I save all my energy for forcefields. point 3, I don't let gas steals happen. If for some reason the drone got in my base to steal the gas that early, which is REALLY early, I would stop whatever else I am doing and take my gas.
The zerg will know you have hallucination for two reasons:
-you suggest scouting with a hallucinated phoenix in the original post, which is a dead giveaway
-even if you dont do this most of your sentries will have almost no energy after mass hallucinate, which will seem suspicious considering there is no reason for you to be using the energy for anything other than hallucinate at that stage
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one suggestion, maybe hallu a void ray, scout with it then get it out of Z's line of sight before it dies. Even if you don't get it out of LoS, you still get the scout off, and if you do, then you could draw a reaction
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On May 15 2011 09:34 FictionSC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2011 08:47 travis wrote:On May 15 2011 08:44 lazyo wrote:
Even as a Zerg player I approve of this idea. However I see a few problems:
1: Your hallucination poke seems a tad gimmicky, as you already show that you have gotten hallucination before warpgate, so a smart zerg will figure out those Zealots are hallucinations for sure since you dont have warpgates and couldnt produce those numbers that fast. Also your sentries will have low energy. This completely negates the poke's effect as the Z is still save to drone all he wants if he knows what you are doing.
2: Hallucination is a giant energy drain and I am worried that on maps such as XNC you will not have enough forcefields left to defend your natural against the roache/ling that you may have forced.
3: Gas Steals will really throw off all the timings of this build, since sentries really take a damn long time to kill extractors. How will the zerg know I got hallucination before warpgate? Uh I guess actually he MIGHT know, but it'd take a damn fine player to know that my extra 4-6 zealots are hallucination and not the real thing. And that fine of a player is likely to have made SOME units for a possible fast gateway push. And I agree with point 2 EXCEPT i am only doing the poke because he doesn't have very many guys. If he has a decent force I save all my energy for forcefields. point 3, I don't let gas steals happen. If for some reason the drone got in my base to steal the gas that early, which is REALLY early, I would stop whatever else I am doing and take my gas. The zerg will know you have hallucination for two reasons: -you suggest scouting with a hallucinated phoenix in the original post, which is a dead giveaway
keep up bro 
-even if you dont do this most of your sentries will have almost no energy after mass hallucinate, which will seem suspicious considering there is no reason for you to be using the energy for anything other than hallucinate at that stage
only 2-3 sentries are actually able to hallucinate, which is 4-6 extra zeals (huge difference in army size). most sentries have between 50-100 energy. even nestea wouldn't be able to click through all the sentries and find out the zealots were hallucinated that way.
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But couldn't you just get warpgate first and push out with the exact army but with real units? Seems safer in every way besides a delayed hallu-phoenix.
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On May 15 2011 09:40 sKo wrote:
But couldn't you just get warpgate first and push out with the exact army but with real units? Seems safer in every way besides a delayed hallu-phoenix.
I am not sure you are getting the point of the build. This is an economy based build, our goal is to safely tech up while staying even or ahead of the zerg in economy.
If we got warpgate first and made real units we would be playing blind, and our expansion would be later. With only 2 warpgates we would be susceptible to a roach/ling timing (even with 3gates no forge it can be dangerous on many maps). If we did 3gates it would be 3gate sentry expand. One of the biggest problems with 3gate sentry expand is that you have absolutely no clue what the zerg is doing until hallu, which takes quite a long time now after the warpgate research nerf.
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I like this concept of getting a real fast halluc + putting fake pressure on your opponent and being able to react to what he is doing a lot sooner then usual.
My teammate Azz was thinking about this same concept (minus the pressure) in PvP and I think it could be even more useful in PvZ. This and that new 2 gate expo build will be going under ruthless testing from me :D nice post Travis.
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I have been working on a very similar build. I would simply do the 3 gate sentry expand followed by chrono'ed hallucination. Soon as it was finished I would send out 2 zealots and about 8/10 hallucinated stalkers. Run them up to the zergs base (With the zealots clearing out the scouting lings so they dont see the stalkers not doing any damage). Run them right up to the zergs spine crawlers, send the zealots and hallucinated stalkers in to die, and watch the zerg essentially mass ling roach just to kill of 2 zealots. Meanwhile I would be back at home chrono'ing probes and putting cannons up.
However I think I like your idea of getting Hallu first. One thing I HATE in PvZ is the lack of scouting early game. This way I can scout really damn early.
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This sounds pretty cool, please edit in some replays! ^^
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I was thinking about hallucinating 2 void rays to fake a void atk and as queens see it run away like you're afraid for some reason and he won't suspect they aren't real..maybe.
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On May 15 2011 09:46 Whiplash wrote:
I like this concept of getting a real fast halluc + putting fake pressure on your opponent and being able to react to what he is doing a lot sooner then usual.
My teammate Azz was thinking about this same concept (minus the pressure) in PvP and I think it could be even more useful in PvZ. This and that new 2 gate expo build will be going under ruthless testing from me :D nice post Travis.
Now that a pro has confirmed that this is a great build, I will probably take it as standard. :D (although I was deciding to use it anyways because i fucking hate roach/ling allins)
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i like this... much better than forge expo or 1 gate expo it feels
trying both pepe's 2 gate expo and this 2 gate hallucination
it seems for toss having an expansion only starts paying when you have at least 4 drones over saturation (saturation is defined at 16... over-sat is around 22-26 for an 8 mineral patches)
4 drones mining at the new base, it's 120 minerals/min more
8 drones mining at the new base, it's 240 minerals/min more
above 8 drones mining, each drones adds 100 minerals/min more at new base
It doesn't make sense to build a nexus right after 1 gate as you'll only have about 4 drones to mine at the new base. (in one minute, you have sunk 400 minerals and got back on 120 minerals)
i like this build
and if the Z want's to be greedy...(e.g. 6 lings, one spine)
then my own theory: it's possible to proxy 2 cannons/2 pylons (100+400 sunk cost) between the Z's main and nat (hopefully on high ground) under the cover of hallucinated zealots... most cases it should be a fast game... as the isolated nat is now food for your zealot sentries and reinforcements. (at around 8 min when 1-base muta comes into play, you should have a third cannon in your nat's mineral and another in your main's mineral lines) if he does respond by pulling drones and morphing out a ton of $#@! then cancel everything and go back to your base to expo XD
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This doesnt hold true for pvz as it really doesnt matter if you fall behind in econ if you just sit and turtle your heart out on 2-3 bases and build an unkillable deathball.
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On May 15 2011 12:01 Mojar wrote:
This doesnt hold true for pvz as it really doesnt matter if you fall behind in econ if you just sit and turtle your heart out on 2-3 bases and build an unkillable deathball.
an unkillable deathball on four sat bases (protected by 3 cannons) each with full upgrades and 8 chronoed warpgates and a few DT's and observers wandering everywhere... yep :D
toss dream game until fungal growth and massive Z counter comes into play D:
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On May 15 2011 12:01 Mojar wrote:
This doesnt hold true for pvz as it really doesnt matter if you fall behind in econ if you just sit and turtle your heart out on 2-3 bases and build an unkillable deathball.
yeah... that's nonsense. there is no such thing as an unkillable deathball. and even if there was, your base can still be killed.
when zerg dies to protoss deathball they either had the wrong unit combination, engaged wrong, or the game was much closer than you're making it out to be (or the protosss was flat out ahead).
don't get me wrong, 200/200 protoss army can be sick strong, potentially stronger than zerg army can be. but zerg can replenish their army quicker if they are miles ahead in macro. and with all the tools zergs have (infestors, baneling drops, roach/hydra surround, corruptors, brood lords), they should be able to kill a big chunk of your deathball if they are 200/200.
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I've been trying to come up with a way to take advantage of the Sentry build time buff, and this really might be just it. Although Warp Gate research is incredibly slow, the scouting by the fast Hallucination really lets you know what to expect from the Zerg... Because that is often the scariest thing while you're setting up your expansion: Not knowing if you've got a bust incoming.
It seems to be fairly safe, though I would like to see some more replays and I will definitely be testing this out myself in the near future.
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I really like the idea behind this build. I might give it a run or have one of my protoss buddy's try it out and see how it goes and how I feel playing zerg against it. I really like the fake pressure you could possibly present to a zerg. Would def confuse me lol.
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If this build gets popular, u can do fake fake pressure and just kill zerg (spam forcefields at ur natural and then move out with real army of 8zeal/8sentry) would be funny lol :D
nice build btw u dont need to click on the sentries to see they energy, if u have hp bars its shown as purple bar travis
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Are you sure this can hold well executed roach ling all ins? Because using halluc means you are down 2 FF's, plus 2gate without warpgate seems kind of low on units. And, that early phoenix tells the zerg you have no warpgate tech, and he does not have to worry about voids/pheonix/dts/blink/4gate.
I guess that means you are relying on good cannons since you have little units. What if a zerg is good at isolating them with roaches? What if a zerg makes 20 lings (doesn't put him that much behind) and keeps denying cannons from going up? You might have to force leapfrog many cannons, and delay your expo by a lot.
Actually, you know what I am really frightened of if I use this build.. is the warp gate timing. It is so late, it might actually be enough time for a zerg to saturate 2 base and start massing roaches on you (he can do it without worrying about holding voids/dts/blink stalkers.)
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Just speculating, but what advantages do you think this has over 2-3 gate +1 stargate expand builds? Those seem to solve the roach/ling allin problem pretty convincingly, and set you up for cruncher style play. Even if you don't get any overlord/queen/drone kills, just forcing spores, insulating from mutas, controlling towers, and shutting down roach/ling early allins seems worth the cost of 1-2 voidrays and a phoenix.
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Really fresh idea, sounds damn interesting.
I'll try this out and report back.
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I really like the idea of this build of getting Hallu first before warpgates. Another thought I've had with this is do a really fast blink stalker build with one sentry to hallu out a phoenix or colossus to get vision of opponent's high ground and then blink your stalkers up into his main and wreak havoc since most zerg won't have their army or any defense inside their base. I've also thought about doing something similar to that in PvT and PvP because getting 5-6 stalkers into their main can definitely cause problems and with faster vision, the attack can come a lot faster and be a lot stronger than most other fast blink stalker play. Just a thought to play around with if anybody would like to try it out.
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On May 15 2011 19:42 KotaOnCue wrote:
I really like the idea of this build of getting Hallu first before warpgates. Another thought I've had with this is do a really fast blink stalker build with one sentry to hallu out a phoenix or colossus to get vision of opponent's high ground and then blink your stalkers up into his main and wreak havoc since most zerg won't have their army or any defense inside their base. I've also thought about doing something similar to that in PvT and PvP because getting 5-6 stalkers into their main can definitely cause problems and with faster vision, the attack can come a lot faster and be a lot stronger than most other fast blink stalker play. Just a thought to play around with if anybody would like to try it out.
a damn good transition sir
btw, warp gate isn't that necessary with good macro although it does bring out one extra round of units as well as shave the distance travelling by around 30 secs... a full minute gained...
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On May 15 2011 18:27 Drowsy wrote:
Just speculating, but what advantages do you think this has over 2-3 gate +1 stargate expand builds? Those seem to solve the roach/ling allin problem pretty convincingly, and set you up for cruncher style play. Even if you don't get any overlord/queen/drone kills, just forcing spores, insulating from mutas, controlling towers, and shutting down roach/ling early allins seems worth the cost of 1-2 voidrays and a phoenix.
I don't get where people got this idea that stargate or dt expand are safe against roach ling "allins". They're not.
The whole concept of a stargate or dt expand is flawed, since it's impossible to hold your expansion if you don't actually win with the dts or voidray.
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On May 15 2011 21:46 dementrio wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2011 18:27 Drowsy wrote:
Just speculating, but what advantages do you think this has over 2-3 gate +1 stargate expand builds? Those seem to solve the roach/ling allin problem pretty convincingly, and set you up for cruncher style play. Even if you don't get any overlord/queen/drone kills, just forcing spores, insulating from mutas, controlling towers, and shutting down roach/ling early allins seems worth the cost of 1-2 voidrays and a phoenix. I don't get where people got this idea that stargate or dt expand are safe against roach ling "allins". They're not. The whole concept of a stargate or dt expand is flawed, since it's impossible to hold your expansion if you don't actually win with the dts or voidray.
Yeah, this. You need a lot of cannons or else you'll just die to the roach/ling all-in surprisingly.
Although roaches and lings can't shoot air, does it matter when you only have one void ray vs like 20 lings and 8 roaches? They can probably destroy half your base before that one void ray kills anything.
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On May 15 2011 21:53 iChau wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2011 21:46 dementrio wrote:On May 15 2011 18:27 Drowsy wrote:
Just speculating, but what advantages do you think this has over 2-3 gate +1 stargate expand builds? Those seem to solve the roach/ling allin problem pretty convincingly, and set you up for cruncher style play. Even if you don't get any overlord/queen/drone kills, just forcing spores, insulating from mutas, controlling towers, and shutting down roach/ling early allins seems worth the cost of 1-2 voidrays and a phoenix. I don't get where people got this idea that stargate or dt expand are safe against roach ling "allins". They're not. The whole concept of a stargate or dt expand is flawed, since it's impossible to hold your expansion if you don't actually win with the dts or voidray. Yeah, this. You need a lot of cannons or else you'll just die to the roach/ling all-in surprisingly. Although roaches and lings can't shoot air, does it matter when you only have one void ray vs like 20 lings and 8 roaches? They can probably destroy half your base before that one void ray kills anything.
i second that too... although i'm more hesistant to say it definitely cannot block a roach/ling all in...
i think there was this newb game i watched in observer 1v1 where the P went mothership and got roach/linged... not sure if it was an all in, but yea he managed to hold it and pwn with mothership and void... barely though so a tad disappointing XD
void or immortal ... hmm what if it were close by air? can someone verify this on the unit tester?
immortals deal more dps but gah...voids...sounds fun lol
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On May 15 2011 21:57 IzieBoy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2011 21:53 iChau wrote:On May 15 2011 21:46 dementrio wrote:On May 15 2011 18:27 Drowsy wrote:
Just speculating, but what advantages do you think this has over 2-3 gate +1 stargate expand builds? Those seem to solve the roach/ling allin problem pretty convincingly, and set you up for cruncher style play. Even if you don't get any overlord/queen/drone kills, just forcing spores, insulating from mutas, controlling towers, and shutting down roach/ling early allins seems worth the cost of 1-2 voidrays and a phoenix. I don't get where people got this idea that stargate or dt expand are safe against roach ling "allins". They're not. The whole concept of a stargate or dt expand is flawed, since it's impossible to hold your expansion if you don't actually win with the dts or voidray. Yeah, this. You need a lot of cannons or else you'll just die to the roach/ling all-in surprisingly. Although roaches and lings can't shoot air, does it matter when you only have one void ray vs like 20 lings and 8 roaches? They can probably destroy half your base before that one void ray kills anything. i second that too... although i'm more hesistant to say it definitely cannot block a roach/ling all in... i think there was this newb game i watched in observer 1v1 where the P went mothership and got roach/linged... not sure if it was an all in, but yea he managed to hold it and pwn with mothership and void... barely though so a tad disappointing XD void or immortal ... hmm what if it were close by air? can someone verify this on the unit tester? immortals deal more dps but gah...voids...sounds fun lol
No, I think we're talking about the roach/ling all-in with 8 roaches and 20 lings that hits at around the 6:30 mark, a couple seconds after the expansion starts with the 3 gate sentry expo build.
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This looks like a very nice opening with high econ and has great scouting potential so is also very safe, i advise making a wall with gateways or something tho. builds looks good i like it ^^
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On May 15 2011 07:32 travis wrote:
because in 3gate sentry expand you haven't been constantly chronoboosting probes.
Actually I always thought this is the right way to play with the 3 Gate expand? oO
I've been using it for several months now and I always dedicate every single one of my CBs on Probes unless I smell cheese/all-ins (no hatch at expansion/massive amounts of Lings, very early Pool or 7RR) up until the Forge is done which is when I will start CBing upgrades+Probes.
What else is supposed to be CBed with the 3 Gate expand build, Warptech or Sentries?
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On May 15 2011 09:37 travis wrote:
only 2-3 sentries are actually able to hallucinate, which is 4-6 extra zeals (huge difference in army size). most sentries have between 50-100 energy. even nestea wouldn't be able to click through all the sentries and find out the zealots were hallucinated that way.
Well, you don't need to click the sentries to see that most have no energy; you just need to display their healthbar (whether it be by having them always on or by pressing alt to check).
Sentries have 5 mana boxes and each of them represents 40 mana, so that's actually pretty easy to check. So... assuming the build you're presenting does become popular (or that you use it more than once against the same opponent), that could be a giveaway.
That said, P also has the possibility of making a genuine zealot/sentry push with sentries which have depleted energy, so Z cannot conclusively determine that the zealots are hallucinated by seeing low energy stores.
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Cool fuckin' idea. I really like this, travis. Gonna see how this one evolves, sounds really neat
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I will have to try this sometime as i am majorly struggling vs Zerg nowadays, where before it was my best matchup.
I basically feel like as soon as i put down my expo i am dead. even if i build up a bit of a force first.
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I will have to try this sometime as i am majorly struggling vs Zerg nowadays, where before it was my best matchup.
I basically feel like as soon as i put down my expo i am dead. even if i build up a bit of a force first.
It certainly seems that alot of protoss are really struggling with zerg all in's these days. i know i am. Its funny how the game changes even when nothing is really changed balance wise.
I tried this build and i like how many sentries you get quickly and the early vision you get, as i would struggle to see what build the zerg would do after he gets queen n lings out and before observer is done. This solves that and makes you reasonabily safe to get that expo up. But if the zerg really wants to kill you at that point and keeps sending units, you will die if you make even the smallest FF mistake. The halu pheonix scout can help tho as you can scout for the all in comming and get extra cannons. This build wont make you feel any safer than the 3gate sentry expo and you will still be feeling insecure for a little bit when your expo goes up, but it will give you more of a heads up on what is comming if you time your scouting halucinations right.
I feel the protoss are at a disadvantage at the moment as the zerg get a free hatch up most of the time and then can get instantly aggressive with the extra lavae or drone up very quickly. It takes protoss a long time to feel that they can move out and expanding is very risky. Im still looking for a safer build that doesnt give the zerg such an economic lead and i still feel that the sentry builds are so fragile unless you play perfectly.
I miss those sentry's from the beta, I built those bad boys even to counter mutas. lol
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well Sentrys lack DPS, that why it works so great, even if you can trade all your units against the sentrys you have basically won the game right there, if you can deny the Nexus for some minutes your getting way ahead, just make sure you don't die to something silly.
While i don't disagree that Hallucinations have some potential, i think it isn't really a more favorable situation than 3 Gate Sentry Expand.
Usually your safe on one base, so the problem is setting up a Expansion fast and safe wasting energy on Hallucinations early doesn't seem like such a good idea in that regard.
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The hallu zealots seems kinda gimmicky. If this strat caught popularity, players could really break down the components in this play and tell what is what, know what and what not to expect. But it's an interesting build nonetheless. I'm gonna practice this with a 1100~ master Z partner later. Maybe i'll post the replays, i'll have him approach it differently each time.
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well Sentrys lack DPS, that why it works so great, even if you can trade all your units against the sentrys you have basically won the game right there, if you can deny the Nexus for some minutes your getting way ahead, just make sure you don't die to something silly.
Yup, thats why alot of zerg are having alot of success vs protoss at the moment i think. They are learning that a unit trade in the early game far benifits them than the toss. Also zergs have gotten alot better at holding off the one base all in 4gate of the protoss, so forcing them to start trying to play macro games with zerg, but its really stacked in the zerg favour early game if the toss wants to expand. Allin and win or unit trade and then mass drone as cant be attacked. Win / Win either way unless the protoss plays perfectly with forcefields. Kinda sucks when they can A move into you that you have to be alot better than them just to live. Thats kinda how it seems at the moment, but i will keep trying this build as the halu really does give you abit more reaction time to prepare.
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On May 15 2011 22:47 Meff wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2011 09:37 travis wrote:
only 2-3 sentries are actually able to hallucinate, which is 4-6 extra zeals (huge difference in army size). most sentries have between 50-100 energy. even nestea wouldn't be able to click through all the sentries and find out the zealots were hallucinated that way. Well, you don't need to click the sentries to see that most have no energy; you just need to display their healthbar (whether it be by having them always on or by pressing alt to check). Sentries have 5 mana boxes and each of them represents 40 mana, so that's actually pretty easy to check. So... assuming the build you're presenting does become popular (or that you use it more than once against the same opponent), that could be a giveaway. That said, P also has the possibility of making a genuine zealot/sentry push with sentries which have depleted energy, so Z cannot conclusively determine that the zealots are hallucinated by seeing low energy stores.
Well, he hallucinates during/right before the fight iirc. You can't get out overseers fast enough when he just hallucinates right away during an attack.
If he hallucinates from across the map, sure, you can tell that he's doing a fake push.
However, if he's in front of your base with full mana, and all of a sudden he comes in with hallucinated zealots, it doesn't matter if you know because you can't get detection fast enough.
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Hallucination before warpgate makes absolutely no sense and is just not neccesary.
Hallucination that quickly is just too early, your scouting probe can tell what's up in the early game and you hardly have energy to waste from your sentries then.
Just go warpgate -> hallucination but chrono your cybercore alot, hallucination will come out quick enough for 2 base roach/ling pushes but you will have early warpgate which is just neccesary to make stalkers quickly enough. Not chronoing your gates is fine as you are building pure sentries early anyways..
Simply put, hallucination before warpgate is NEVER worth it.
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On May 15 2011 18:12 W2 wrote:
Are you sure this can hold well executed roach ling all ins? Because using halluc means you are down 2 FF's, plus 2gate without warpgate seems kind of low on units. And, that early phoenix tells the zerg you have no warpgate tech, and he does not have to worry about voids/pheonix/dts/blink/4gate.
I guess that means you are relying on good cannons since you have little units. What if a zerg is good at isolating them with roaches? What if a zerg makes 20 lings (doesn't put him that much behind) and keeps denying cannons from going up? You might have to force leapfrog many cannons, and delay your expo by a lot.
Actually, you know what I am really frightened of if I use this build.. is the warp gate timing. It is so late, it might actually be enough time for a zerg to saturate 2 base and start massing roaches on you (he can do it without worrying about holding voids/dts/blink stalkers.)
First off, I find that there are a lot of "What ifs" in this post. I'm not trying to sound rude or condescending or anything, but with this game you can play the "What if" game all day long. But in response to your post, I'll bring up a couple of points that I feel make your argument a little flawed.
First off, the Protoss is relying on good early scouting to know what's heading his way. That's how in the replay he was able to fend off the roach/ling aggression. Don't underestimate the power of scouting... Because a roach/ling bust is far more dangerous when it goes unscouted than when it is scouted as it gives the Protoss time to react and properly prepare his defenses.
Being able to deny cannons is a possibility however unlikely. 20 lings is not much of a mineral cost for Zerg but 10 larvae is. That could be 10 drones which over the long haul does make quite an impact. But the Protoss is basically slowly "creeping" his way out of his base with Sentries and Cannons, making it quite difficult for a Zerg to shut down the cannons effectively.
As for Warp Gate not being finished early, since this is a purely defensive opening that doesn't actually matter a whole lot. Warp gate tech really helps offensive pushes as you can reenforce immediately, but if you're only looking to turtle for a bit in your base it doesn't matter AS much that you don't get to spawn them wherever you want.
Although you shave off 10 seconds of build time with a Warpgate, the first round of units is a wash since it takes 10 seconds to morph the gateways into warpgates in the first place.
Finally, you are still able to go all sorts of tech avenues just like any other build. Just because you don't have a fast warp gate doesn't mean you can't throw down a Stargate. All that's needed is a Cyber core... So the whole "not worrying about voids/dts" is completely false, as you only need the cyber core to unlock that tech.
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Been battling with PvZ myself, good call on the hallu. Cheaper then a robo fac and obs (which i was doing... :/). Was getting the early forge. +1 sooo much fun for keeping xelnaga's when he sends 4 lings against 1 zeo ^^
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I actually really like the idea/ build. (masters)
People are claiming that the build doesnt allow you to punish a greedy zerg. I actually disagree. The early halluc/ scout means that you can actually more accurately punish a greedy zerg. There is nothing to stop you doing a delayed 5 gate if he takes an early 3rd... or 6gating if hes being real greedy.
Good build, good idea. Probably can be abused if used all the time but as it stands this has been added to my array of PvZ builds.
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On May 16 2011 00:37 CrAzEdMiKe wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2011 18:12 W2 wrote:
Are you sure this can hold well executed roach ling all ins? Because using halluc means you are down 2 FF's, plus 2gate without warpgate seems kind of low on units. And, that early phoenix tells the zerg you have no warpgate tech, and he does not have to worry about voids/pheonix/dts/blink/4gate.
I guess that means you are relying on good cannons since you have little units. What if a zerg is good at isolating them with roaches? What if a zerg makes 20 lings (doesn't put him that much behind) and keeps denying cannons from going up? You might have to force leapfrog many cannons, and delay your expo by a lot.
Actually, you know what I am really frightened of if I use this build.. is the warp gate timing. It is so late, it might actually be enough time for a zerg to saturate 2 base and start massing roaches on you (he can do it without worrying about holding voids/dts/blink stalkers.) First off, I find that there are a lot of "What ifs" in this post. I'm not trying to sound rude or condescending or anything, but with this game you can play the "What if" game all day long. But in response to your post, I'll bring up a couple of points that I feel make your argument a little flawed. First off, the Protoss is relying on good early scouting to know what's heading his way. That's how in the replay he was able to fend off the roach/ling aggression. Don't underestimate the power of scouting... Because a roach/ling bust is far more dangerous when it goes unscouted than when it is scouted as it gives the Protoss time to react and properly prepare his defenses. Being able to deny cannons is a possibility however unlikely. 20 lings is not much of a mineral cost for Zerg but 10 larvae is. That could be 10 drones which over the long haul does make quite an impact. But the Protoss is basically slowly "creeping" his way out of his base with Sentries and Cannons, making it quite difficult for a Zerg to shut down the cannons effectively. As for Warp Gate not being finished early, since this is a purely defensive opening that doesn't actually matter a whole lot. Warp gate tech really helps offensive pushes as you can reenforce immediately, but if you're only looking to turtle for a bit in your base it doesn't matter AS much that you don't get to spawn them wherever you want. Although you shave off 10 seconds of build time with a Warpgate, the first round of units is a wash since it takes 10 seconds to morph the gateways into warpgates in the first place. Finally, you are still able to go all sorts of tech avenues just like any other build. Just because you don't have a fast warp gate doesn't mean you can't throw down a Stargate. All that's needed is a Cyber core... So the whole "not worrying about voids/dts" is completely false, as you only need the cyber core to unlock that tech.
It's not a game. You always gotta consider the "what ifs" when making a build! Especially a build that shows its hand right at the start with the phoenix.
Also you cannot rush voids/dts properly with this build because you wg is delayed and you are spending gas on sentries/hallucinate. So the zerg will breathe a sigh of relief when he sees your early hallucinated phoenix, knowing 1) void/dt/blink rush out of the question 2) safe from 4gate.
Can you please address my biggest worry: a zerg who realizes this, saturates his two bases, and streams roaches/lings at you? Note: I am a very stubborn and evidence-based person.
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On May 15 2011 21:46 dementrio wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2011 18:27 Drowsy wrote:
Just speculating, but what advantages do you think this has over 2-3 gate +1 stargate expand builds? Those seem to solve the roach/ling allin problem pretty convincingly, and set you up for cruncher style play. Even if you don't get any overlord/queen/drone kills, just forcing spores, insulating from mutas, controlling towers, and shutting down roach/ling early allins seems worth the cost of 1-2 voidrays and a phoenix. I don't get where people got this idea that stargate or dt expand are safe against roach ling "allins". They're not. The whole concept of a stargate or dt expand is flawed, since it's impossible to hold your expansion if you don't actually win with the dts or voidray.
whaaat?
it's very safe.
You rush to dts/voidrays you harass with them forcing him to spend money on tech, but then you go back and use them to defend, and they can defend roach/ling just fine, and the opponent doesn't have overseers/hydras yet, so you're SO safe.
Then in the case of stargate you'll have 1 phoenix to see whether he's going hydra or spire, and before he has either of those voidrays help delay expo.
In the case of DTs you can't really scout but you just go blink stalkers because they're pretty damn good against anything, or Archon/zealot like this thread suggests. Make sure you have a forge to detect burrowed roaches or similar garbage, and you're in good shape.
edit: sorry, it's not this thread that suggets Archon/Zealot, it's the archon/zealot thread, but still they're pretty decent.
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What would you do assuming this goes into the late game?
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On May 16 2011 00:36 Markwerf wrote:
Hallucination before warpgate makes absolutely no sense and is just not neccesary.
Hallucination that quickly is just too early, your scouting probe can tell what's up in the early game and you hardly have energy to waste from your sentries then.
Just go warpgate -> hallucination but chrono your cybercore alot, hallucination will come out quick enough for 2 base roach/ling pushes but you will have early warpgate which is just neccesary to make stalkers quickly enough. Not chronoing your gates is fine as you are building pure sentries early anyways..
Simply put, hallucination before warpgate is NEVER worth it.
Did you even read the OP? You don't argue the points I make, you just say "no". and you're totally wrong, lol. You can't scout what the zerg is doing with a probe once he has speedlings, that's nonsense.
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On May 16 2011 03:14 Sir Snoopy wrote:
What would you do assuming this goes into the late game?
Same as protoss always does in the late game vs zerg. Use hallucination and react to what you see. Most likely collossus/stalker/sentry/immortal first, and if the zerg makes tons of corruptors I will switch to immortal/templar/whatever. Keep up on bases.
It's the same as late game play from 3gate sentry expand except you have a better economy.
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This is extremely interesting, and I will definitely be trying this. This is the kind of idea that makes me just smack my forehead and think, "why didn't I think of that earlier?!", insta warpgate research as soon as cybercore is just so set in stone, but this build makes so much sense--
its a really elegant strategy-- if zerg all-ins, you scout it, have cannons, and are ahead in econ.
if zerg goes for an econ heavy build, you won't need warpgate for a bit longer anyways.
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On May 15 2011 22:41 Ifrit wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2011 07:32 travis wrote:
because in 3gate sentry expand you haven't been constantly chronoboosting probes. Actually I always thought this is the right way to play with the 3 Gate expand? oO I've been using it for several months now and I always dedicate every single one of my CBs on Probes unless I smell cheese/all-ins (no hatch at expansion/massive amounts of Lings, very early Pool or 7RR) up until the Forge is done which is when I will start CBing upgrades+Probes. What else is supposed to be CBed with the 3 Gate expand build, Warptech or Sentries?
No, 3 gate sentry expand you chronoboost your warpgate. If not you will die to an allin, because you don't have a forge to make cannons. So you need faster warpgate to be able to make faster reinforcements.
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Does this work on all maps? Or only the ones with relatively small chokes? I have this feeling that walling off on maps like XNC would take a while and leave you open to early pressure on your nat.
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On May 16 2011 05:33 FuzzyLord wrote:
Does this work on all maps? Or only the ones with relatively small chokes? I have this feeling that walling off on maps like XNC would take a while and leave you open to early pressure on your nat.
It works on all maps. just place cannons intelligently, and if they try to maneuver around them block it off with forcefields and get stalkers. You will have so many sentries you will be able to lay down a ton of forcefields.
On XNC if they want to wrap around the back they will have to go allllll the way around the rock'd 3rd and that takes forever with roaches.
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Hmm, so say you did this and scout the zerg going 2 base roach ling all-in, I guess you would just put down mass cannons...? Then aren't you way behind, zerg can pick off whatever outside the range, you don't even have wg research done... Interesting idea though, and it will require more game sense to know when to produce which units too imo.
I still think Inca's dt expand has some potential. I mean, with MC as his mentor / partner, he didn't just try some improvised build 3 games in a row in the most important series of his life
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Inca'd DT expand has potential, but the difficulty is finding a balance between disguise/getting the DTs out quick enough. Each of the games he made it totally obvious he was going some sort of tech; only 1 stalker, 1 sentry, 1 zealot--> expo. More sentries would delay the DTs but have better disguise, however it seems Nestea always puts his Evo chamber down around the same time every game, which really reduces the effect of this sort of thing.
Inca getting photon cannons would've helped a lot though.
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On May 15 2011 07:57 BoxedLunch wrote:
I'd like to see replays of this. I'm sure the thread won't get closed considering who the OP is, but this sounds pretty legit, so I'd love to see it in action.
TeamLiquid are extreamely fair on who they ban. Just look at past bans such as IdrA. They are fair to protect these forums.
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On that idea, I think going gas first DT expand would have a much higher potential... still trying to figure out how it would work, the main problem is overcoming the mid-game once the zerg gets one overseer -_-
Anyway, on topic I'm gonna go try this out :D
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On May 16 2011 03:28 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2011 00:36 Markwerf wrote:
Hallucination before warpgate makes absolutely no sense and is just not neccesary.
Hallucination that quickly is just too early, your scouting probe can tell what's up in the early game and you hardly have energy to waste from your sentries then.
Just go warpgate -> hallucination but chrono your cybercore alot, hallucination will come out quick enough for 2 base roach/ling pushes but you will have early warpgate which is just neccesary to make stalkers quickly enough. Not chronoing your gates is fine as you are building pure sentries early anyways..
Simply put, hallucination before warpgate is NEVER worth it. Did you even read the OP? You don't argue the points I make, you just say "no". and you're totally wrong, lol. You can't scout what the zerg is doing with a probe once he has speedlings, that's nonsense.
That is because the OP hardly contained any good arguments in favor of getting hallucination first.
Yes there is a gap between getting denied scouting by lings (though it takes quite some time for speedlings to finish usually) and hallucination finishing. This doesn't mean that scouting earlier is automatically better, after all scouting is only useful if you have the means to adapt to what you see well. This build scouts so early and has no warpgate for a long time that it's quite hard to efficiently use the information you see with scouting. Also note that pressure after your first 1 or 2 sentries finish and before you make your nexus and pylon on the lowground is nonexistant in PvZ.. Once you have a few sentries and WG going you are safe from any early attacks, it is only when you start your expo that you get vulnerable again = > why scout so early when you aren't putting down the nexus that early anyways...
Finally wg before hallucination functions much smoother because:
- wg tech is cheaper and takes longer to research and thus is easier to afford fast. With a hallu first build you need 100/100 when the core finishes and 50/100 for that sentry when the zealot finishes, with a wg first build you effectively save yourself a 50/50 investment for practically two minutes.
- wg tech is safer despite not having fast scouting, hallu won't do any good if they do something wonky like a baneling bust or super fast roach pressure as you won't even have the spare energy to scout then nor will you need to. WG still helps as much as before when making zealots and stalkers...
- Super early hallucination simply conflicts with having a sentry to use hallucination. Suppose you use a FF to kill 4 of his lings on your ramp, you won't even be able to use hallucination when it finishes then..
The entire build is just not efficient, why use so many chrono's on your nexus for example?? Beyond the first four there is almost no use to chrono your nexus as you are saturated by that point anyway, you are better off investing chrono and money into something that can actually allow you to expand faster like WG tech and a forge. An earlier nexus easily makes up the buildtime for probes and allows a quicker maynard. If you chrono wg and then hallucination afterwards it will still finish relatively quickly but you are actually much safer because you have two warpgates going instead of normal gateways much quicker. Warpgates are still 10s faster then normal gates for stalkers which is what you need to make against pushes...
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i also think watching your replay, that this build gives zerg the option of just double expanding cause your no where in shape of pressuring your opponent if he can force cannons out of you.
you also can't afford to constantly scout with phoenixes cause you need the Energy for forcefield defence, while i don't say it has no advantages. i am not sure if it is worth it.
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-I tried a build very much like this, and comedically my opponent decided to 1-base roach rush me (lol wtf) and I died because I had no stalkers or cannons and warpgate was miles away.
-If you hallu just a FEW zealots for the 'attack', that's better than loads because
a)its more realistic looking
b)you don't blow all the energy on your sentries
c)because of b), he can't just see 'oh no energy on sentries, must be hallus'
-possibly you could time your attack with the completion of warpgates and build a proxy pylon, then fly in a hallu phoenix to see if you should actually attack or GTFO
-hallucinate is decent in combat vs a z with no detection, the hallus tank damage
-someone PLEASE take advantage of the fact that 1 hallucinate = 4 probes, combined with the fact that probes which aren't attacking make a movable wall that must be manually targeted to get through, find a way to make this >> FF and post a replay. PLEASE
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On May 16 2011 07:44 freetgy wrote:
i also think watching your replay, that this build gives zerg the option of just double expanding cause your no where in shape of pressuring your opponent if he can force cannons out of you.
you also can't afford to constantly scout with phoenixes cause you need the Energy for forcefield defence, while i don't say it has no advantages. i am not sure if it is worth it.
If he was making a lot of roaches and lings, thinking of breaking a standard 3 gate expo, then he is behind because he used so many larvae.
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I've been doing this, but I didn't think about going hallucination first. Makes total sense though. Considering primarily sentry production, there really isn't a need for warpgate as early as we used to need it.
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Maybe this has been brought up already, but
A sharp Zerg will notice that your Sentries don't have much energy and will conclude that the Zealots are halluciations.
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You don't need hallucination this quickly. What makes you safe against early attacks is a cannon combined with a good simcity. Defend the cannon and you will be safe. With a cannon you can also pressure a hatch first and be safe.
The increase in warpgate research time doesn't affect your sentry count. A warpgate builds a unit 5 seconds faster than a gateway but it also takes 5 seconds for the unit to be available. A unit does not regenerate energy until it is warped in. The patch only gives you slightly more energy with the faster sentry build time.
You didn't mention you can get a very fast +1 attack and be constantly upgrading unless you tech to colossi. Also if you get cheesed (3 roach rush+speedlings) your hallucination will be useless.
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On May 15 2011 09:46 Whiplash wrote:
I like this concept of getting a real fast halluc + putting fake pressure on your opponent and being able to react to what he is doing a lot sooner then usual.
My teammate Azz was thinking about this same concept (minus the pressure) in PvP and I think it could be even more useful in PvZ. This and that new 2 gate expo build will be going under ruthless testing from me :D nice post Travis.
Once zerg's get wise to the build however, wouldn't its effectiveness drop off substantially? Basically, the phoenix scout is a huge tell, and after a few games zerg players won't flinch at the hallc-zealot/sentry pressure, since its not real pressure.
I guess you can always do a REAL 3 warpgate/expand with hallucination to keep the zerg in the dark as to whether the zealots are real or fake. Not sure how viable that is.
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Isn't it really risky to use all of your energy on halluc? I could understand 2-3, but if you give away that there are hallucinations, now the zerg isn't as scared to engage you AND you're low on energy, meaning you might lose all of your sentries and that could be gg right there. Especially if you scout with a phoenix, and a good zerg will likely see that you have an expo, and there's no way you'd be able to afford expand + stargate + huge gateway army.
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Can we get a replays from a passive zerg and from a zerg who hydra rushes?
Btw i didn't read the full thread and all comments but if there are already some replays like this i would like them to be added into the first post.
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I'll play more and get more replays for you guys.
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On May 16 2011 06:33 CanucksJC wrote:
Hmm, so say you did this and scout the zerg going 2 base roach ling all-in, I guess you would just put down mass cannons...? Then aren't you way behind, zerg can pick off whatever outside the range, you don't even have wg research done...
no you aren't way behind you are ahead. you underestimate how big of a hit making units instead of drones is for the zerg when you've been constantly chronoboosting probes
WG research not being done doesn't matter. units cost money anyways, and u have cannons for the extra defense if necessary. instead of spending more money on stalkers or w/e, you can invest in quicker tech.
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On May 16 2011 07:44 freetgy wrote:
i also think watching your replay, that this build gives zerg the option of just double expanding cause your no where in shape of pressuring your opponent if he can force cannons out of you.
umm... if he's totally insane, yeah. and u can actually safely pressure faster than you can with 3gate sentry expand, since u can scout him quicker.
you also can't afford to constantly scout with phoenixes cause you need the Energy for forcefield defence, while i don't say it has no advantages. i am not sure if it is worth it.
the entire point of constantly scouting with phoenixes is so you know how much he has and of what....
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On May 16 2011 08:57 Ravomat wrote:
You don't need hallucination this quickly. What makes you safe against early attacks is a cannon combined with a good simcity. Defend the cannon and you will be safe. With a cannon you can also pressure a hatch first and be safe.
1 cannon does not make you safe vs roach/ling allin if u only have 2 gates. you do need the hallucination that quickly to be safe. I don't even know what you are saying in the last sentence
The increase in warpgate research time doesn't affect your sentry count. A warpgate builds a unit 5 seconds faster than a gateway but it also takes 5 seconds for the unit to be available. A unit does not regenerate energy until it is warped in. The patch only gives you slightly more energy with the faster sentry build time.
ok....?
You didn't mention you can get a very fast +1 attack and be constantly upgrading unless you tech to colossi. Also if you get cheesed (3 roach rush+speedlings) your hallucination will be useless.
It's not worth getting +1 before teching to collossi imo, you need to start your tech first.
if you get cheesed (3 roach rush+speedlings) then you are going to die if you aren't prepared regardless of what build you are doing - that has nothing to do with this build. faster sentry makes it easier to stop this cheese anyways.
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On May 16 2011 09:21 Kovaz wrote:
Isn't it really risky to use all of your energy on halluc? I could understand 2-3, but if you give away that there are hallucinations, now the zerg isn't as scared to engage you AND you're low on energy, meaning you might lose all of your sentries and that could be gg right there. Especially if you scout with a phoenix, and a good zerg will likely see that you have an expo, and there's no way you'd be able to afford expand + stargate + huge gateway army.
As I said in the original post, all of your energy on hallucination IS only 2-3. Most of your sentries won't even have enough energy to make hallucinations. Most sentries will be between 60-100 energy, and this is also why it's very unlikely the zerg can even read that all the zealots are hallucinations.
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like the idea alot, sounds like a good idea because 3gate expo doesnt seem too great these days...so hard to fend off ling roach agression on maps with huge natural surface area. Never know how much to econ/army. =/.
Been trying to think of a way to get cannons up faster and be able to scout for the all in faster, because if u hallu and see all in coming and try to throw up stalkers/cannons its usually too late (for 3gate expo timing).
But yeah, main problem is safely getting expo up and knowing how many cannons to make...glad other people are having similar problems expanding with pvz. >_<; Im just not comfortable doing other riskier expo builds like stargate -> expo, or DT -> expo...just cuz spores counter both of those builds :\
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On May 16 2011 01:34 W2 wrote:
It's not a game. You always gotta consider the "what ifs" when making a build! Especially a build that shows its hand right at the start with the phoenix.
Also you cannot rush voids/dts properly with this build because you wg is delayed and you are spending gas on sentries/hallucinate. So the zerg will breathe a sigh of relief when he sees your early hallucinated phoenix, knowing 1) void/dt/blink rush out of the question 2) safe from 4gate.
Can you please address my biggest worry: a zerg who realizes this, saturates his two bases, and streams roaches/lings at you? Note: I am a very stubborn and evidence-based person.
Well on a very basic level this is a game xD But to cut semantics, what I meant to say is that every action will prompt a reaction, and then another reaction and it bounces back and forth. You can play the what if scenarios only for so long, because you could say "What if he makes 20 Zerglings" and then I say "I make 5 sim city Cannons" and then you say "Then I expand" then I say "Then I push with X"... You can go on forever playing a hypothetical game and it only leads you so far before you can no longer accurately predict what can happen. Like I said, this is largely semantics, but I don't disagree that you have to account for possible reactions from the Zerg as it is absolutely necessary to try and figure out a build to improve it. That being said, there are so many factors in each individual game that it's not just clear-cut and simple.
As to your points about the Zerg knowing that super fast DTs or 4gtates aren't coming... Well of course they know that. And naturally you won't be able to accomplish a 7 minute DT rush with this build... But this build isn't designed to do that. The idea is to take an early safe expansion, and from there you can do whatever you want. As said, the timings won't be as aggressive for a dedicated Void/DT/Blink push, but once you get that Nexus rolling you aren't really delaying your tech all that much.
Consider a 3gate sentry expand which is quite common in PvZ. You are spending approximately the same amount of gas (most 3gate Sentry expands will opt to get Hallucination to get that scouting in) as this build. The main difference is the ordering... Warp Gate comes later (which again, is more relevant when trying to attack the opponent than it is to defend against).
I guess I should ask, do you feel that a competent 3-gate sentry expanding Protoss can hold against a Zerg who goes for early expo and then goes into ling/roach aggression? The answer should be obvious as the 3-gate sentry expand is so widely used for a reason: It is very good for getting that expansion up and holding it while you get your economy up and running. While obviously not the same, it works on the same basic principle. Just because Warp Gate isn't up doesn't mean those gateways are sitting around doing nothing =P. And while units WILL come out faster and in position with Warp gate (which is one of the obvious reasons it is such a good upgrade to get), you can still churn out units at a reasonable pace with regular gateways.
Once you have the expansion up and running, you're able to do whatever it is you want. Like I said, flat out DT rushes and super fast Void pushes are not possible with this build, but they are equally impossible with a standard 3-gate expand. You can still start to tech to those goals at the same pace of a 3-gate expand (as like I said, you will be spending approximately the same amount of gas as the former), but it won't be a "rush" as you put it.
But that being said, this build is not looking to "rush" to DTs or Voidrays. It's rushing to an expansion instead of tech. A good example of something like this happening was in the HD World Tournament, and it was Sen vs. Strelok and Strelok opened up with a fast expand and then went for slightly delayed cloaked banshees. It's a similar principle, you may not get it at the super amazing speed and crush face with it, but you can still tech towards it and utilize it. Since you haven't delayed your Cyber Core (which a forge fast expand for instance WILL do) you can still persue the tech path of your choice relatively quickly.
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@Travis
This seems a nice build, but isn't there a rather large timing window for the Zerg to kill the FE?
Assuming Zerg goes for Losira timing Roach/Ling
Assuming Protoss has 8? sentry's.
When you go for your fake pressure with hallucinations and the Zerg understands that any seemingly big pressure is in fact a bunch of hallucinations, can't he cut you off from your base and attack the second the phony units dissappear? The Sentry's will have low energy so FF won't be infinite, and aside from a few zealots you only have sentry's which tickle lings.
After the fake pressure, if the Zerg immediatly goes for the all-in, can you hold him? Assuming you haven't build 4+ cannons without any scouting it seems hard to fend off the attack, since with sentry's alone (with low energy) you only delay the attack and Zerg should be able to produce army units faster than you.
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On May 16 2011 15:57 Kraelog wrote:
@Travis
This seems a nice build, but isn't there a rather large timing window for the Zerg to kill the FE?
Assuming Zerg goes for Losira timing Roach/Ling
Assuming Protoss has 8? sentry's.
When you go for your fake pressure with hallucinations and the Zerg understands that any seemingly big pressure is in fact a bunch of hallucinations, can't he cut you off from your base and attack the second the phony units dissappear? The Sentry's will have low energy so FF won't be infinite, and aside from a few zealots you only have sentry's which tickle lings.
the entire reason you pressure is because the zerg has so few units. you have plenty of time to hallucinate another phoenix to find out how he reacts if you need to. you do not actually attack him, you go back to your base with your sentries. I wouldn't recommend going all the way to his base with your units. He won't be able to cut you off.
After the fake pressure, if the Zerg immediatly goes for the all-in, can you hold him? Assuming you haven't build 4+ cannons without any scouting it seems hard to fend off the attack, since with sentry's alone (with low energy) you only delay the attack and Zerg should be able to produce army units faster than you.
yes you can hold him, and you will be able to scout him. with 8-9 sentries you get literally nonstop phoenix scouting and still have tons of energy for forcefields, so you have time to put up cannons if you need to. the only timing we are worried about is a VERY early roach timing from zerg, like him getting to your base as your hallucination is finishing, and you don't really see that timing much because it hurts the zerg economy so much that it's basically allin. if you did see that though, you would need to stop making probes, hold your ramp with forcefield, and tech to immortal or collossus.
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Ugh I posted why this build is complete nonsense but got casually ignored.
I'll just recap it as I can't stand to see people actually believing this build is any good:
- hallucination before wg is harder to afford, you need to have 100/100 straight when the cyber finishes instead of 50/50 which conflicts with any fast sentry buid, idle time on your cybernetics core is bad..
- wg instantly boosts production (less so for sentries now but still the same for stalkers), this makes it critical for being able to defend a nexus. Making units with normal gateways means you don't get the units straight up and make them less fast. What point is there to scout when you don't have the proper means to defend against what you scout? Sure you can do so with cannons but that is very inefficient as you need a really quick forge that way, i'd rather get the nexus before forge.
- wg before hallucination only gets hallucination 2 minutes later then this build while being much more flexible. Hallucination first forces you into scouting & defending as you CANT be aggresive, wg first leaves the zerg much more in the dark and thus less likely to simply outdrone you. Zerg couldnt be more happy to see a super early hallucinated phoenix as it only tells them: "my opponent was an idiot to get hallucination first, i can freely get my third super fast now."
Hallucination is good but just get it after WG... Instead of wasting chrono's on your nexus so much simply chrono your WG tech 4 times and then hallucination once, it still gets out quick enough to scout Losira timings. Roach/ling attacks before the Losira timing are inefficient on 2 bases so all you need to do against those is defend on 1 base, you are actually ahead if you just cancel your nexus against them.. If you make the nexus quickly and hallucination finishes while it's making you are completely fine, you are only at risk of losing the full 400 minerals when a timing hits just after the nexus completes... Any time before that you can simply cancel for only 100m loss much less then zerg loses by being so aggresive that early...
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My major concern is probably that any zerg with a feel for the game will probably know that those zealots are hallucinated due to the lack of sentry energy. If this should be a core tactic, the fake zealots would also be even easier to see through.
Honestly, I can't neither dismiss nor really approve of this build before the patch is more settled and the strategies have been tried out numerous times.
I personally find that 3gate expoing followed by a 4th gate instead of a forge is rather capable of keeping zerg pushes at bay.
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Hmm I might be wrong but I feel that, as long as the Zerg can count the sentry's and look at the energy it's not really a threat. And any Zerg going for Roach/Ling allin doesn't really care about fake pressure, he's making units anyway. Not to discredit the idea, but simply ignoring the meta game idea and just going "hmm lot of sentry's, not much else, lets go f***** kill him" seems like a hard counter.
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On May 16 2011 21:50 CptHandsome wrote:
My major concern is probably that any zerg with a feel for the game will probably know that those zealots are hallucinated due to the lack of sentry energy. If this should be a core tactic, the fake zealots would also be even easier to see through.
Honestly, I can't neither dismiss nor really approve of this build before the patch is more settled and the strategies have been tried out numerous times.
I personally find that 3gate expoing followed by a 4th gate instead of a forge is rather capable of keeping zerg pushes at bay.
No, you'll die to roach/ling without the forge.
Also, does it matter if the zealots are hallucinated if he can't do anything about it except wait a whole minute where Protoss can build up a real army?
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On May 16 2011 10:51 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2011 08:57 Ravomat wrote:
You don't need hallucination this quickly. What makes you safe against early attacks is a cannon combined with a good simcity. Defend the cannon and you will be safe. With a cannon you can also pressure a hatch first and be safe. 1 cannon does not make you safe vs roach/ling allin if u only have 2 gates. you do need the hallucination that quickly to be safe. I don't even know what you are saying in the last sentence
I said a cannon protected by a good simcity will make you safe if you have forcefields. Even if your sentry count is low because you pressured a hatch first with zealot+stalker. All I tried to say is build the forge and a 3rd gate at the front of your natural to help you defend.
Show nested quote +
You didn't mention you can get a very fast +1 attack and be constantly upgrading unless you tech to colossi. Also if you get cheesed (3 roach rush+speedlings) your hallucination will be useless.
It's not worth getting +1 before teching to collossi imo, you need to start your tech first.
I disagree but I'm not surprised that you say this. Against pure roach armies I go stalker/immortal all the time and i feel like it's much easier to micro because you don't lose 300/200 every time you are caught out of position but that's just how I like to play. If you don't rush for colossus you can be constantly upgrading.
if you get cheesed (3 roach rush+speedlings) then you are going to die if you aren't prepared regardless of what build you are doing - that has nothing to do with this build. faster sentry makes it easier to stop this cheese anyways.
I guess I didn't make it clear enough. Let's say someone did this rush to you. You held it off and are in good shape. Now you have an upgrade you don't need. I think getting hallucination first has more drawbacks than benefits.
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On May 16 2011 19:39 Markwerf wrote:
Ugh I posted why this build is complete nonsense but got casually ignored.
I'll just recap it as I can't stand to see people actually believing this build is any good:
- hallucination before wg is harder to afford, you need to have 100/100 straight when the cyber finishes instead of 50/50 which conflicts with any fast sentry buid, idle time on your cybernetics core is bad..
- wg instantly boosts production (less so for sentries now but still the same for stalkers), this makes it critical for being able to defend a nexus. Making units with normal gateways means you don't get the units straight up and make them less fast. What point is there to scout when you don't have the proper means to defend against what you scout? Sure you can do so with cannons but that is very inefficient as you need a really quick forge that way, i'd rather get the nexus before forge.
- wg before hallucination only gets hallucination 2 minutes later then this build while being much more flexible. Hallucination first forces you into scouting & defending as you CANT be aggresive, wg first leaves the zerg much more in the dark and thus less likely to simply outdrone you. Zerg couldnt be more happy to see a super early hallucinated phoenix as it only tells them: "my opponent was an idiot to get hallucination first, i can freely get my third super fast now."
Hallucination is good but just get it after WG... Instead of wasting chrono's on your nexus so much simply chrono your WG tech 4 times and then hallucination once, it still gets out quick enough to scout Losira timings. Roach/ling attacks before the Losira timing are inefficient on 2 bases so all you need to do against those is defend on 1 base, you are actually ahead if you just cancel your nexus against them.. If you make the nexus quickly and hallucination finishes while it's making you are completely fine, you are only at risk of losing the full 400 minerals when a timing hits just after the nexus completes... Any time before that you can simply cancel for only 100m loss much less then zerg loses by being so aggresive that early...
I certainly respect travis and his term and contributions as a community member, but I tend to agree with the points you are making here markwerf. Most of the roach/ling timings hit around 7-9 minutes, after the nexus finishes, but before I have any real defense. It's not even that new, i had clan members doing it to me months ago. Other than some kind of one base all in timing that is easily scoutable, once you have some sentries out it doesn't make any sense at all for zerg to attack earlier than when you drop your nexus, as markwerf points out
I think it's really important to get warpgate first so you can adjust how many troops you are building on the fly based on your scouting as well. The OP makes some great points about the state of the matchup, and hallucinate first is definitely unique and could catch your opponent off guard, ultimately I don't know if there is any way to convince me that hallucination first is better.
Overall feel like if you get WG first then hallucinate you should be able to scout zerg's drone count and/or see that he's planning on aggression and adjust. One solid plan i've seen is to drop 2 more gates, cancel the nexus at the last minute and defend the push ( or push back yourself if zerg becomes passive).
(edit, removed whitespace, clarified)
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I casually ignored you, markwef, because I didn't want to have to keep arguing with you. I'll add more replays to the OP as I play more. Some of the things you say are ridiculous.
wg before hallucination only gets hallucination 2 minutes later then this build while being much more flexible
wow. really? so 2 minutes doesn't matter? are you serious?
- hallucination before wg is harder to afford, you need to have 100/100 straight when the cyber finishes instead of 50/50 which conflicts with any fast sentry buid, idle time on your cybernetics core is bad..
umm.. the fact is you easily have the money, I already said how to do the build so either you have the money or you don't.. and you do.
- wg instantly boosts production (less so for sentries now but still the same for stalkers), this makes it critical for being able to defend a nexus. Making units with normal gateways means you don't get the units straight up and make them less fast. What point is there to scout when you don't have the proper means to defend against what you scout? Sure you can do so with cannons but that is very inefficient as you need a really quick forge that way, i'd rather get the nexus before forge.
zerg will almost never get there before you can throw up cannons, and if they did, you wouldn't be able to get your expansion up yet with 3gate sentry expand. the entire point is that any remotely normal attack timing from zerg will be scouted and you can throw up cannons. there isn't much advantage to warpgate first here.
there, markwef, i replied to you. but i already suspect tell it doesn't matter. it was obvious that replying to you probably didn't matter when you kept making arguments that were already explained in the OP. if you don't want to use the build then fine, no loss for me. I just don't want you making incorrect arguments that make other people go "oh this build sucks".
the only correct thing you say is that a weirdly early timing from zerg is going to delay your expansion a lot, but in all honesty it's going to delay it quite a bit if you go 3g sentry expand too. and you don't see a timing that early too often. if that timing actually does come, so that they get there with roaches before you can even put up cannons, it isn't even the end of the world, it just delays you for a little bit.
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On May 16 2011 23:59 Khaladas wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2011 19:39 Markwerf wrote:
Ugh I posted why this build is complete nonsense but got casually ignored.
I'll just recap it as I can't stand to see people actually believing this build is any good:
- hallucination before wg is harder to afford, you need to have 100/100 straight when the cyber finishes instead of 50/50 which conflicts with any fast sentry buid, idle time on your cybernetics core is bad..
- wg instantly boosts production (less so for sentries now but still the same for stalkers), this makes it critical for being able to defend a nexus. Making units with normal gateways means you don't get the units straight up and make them less fast. What point is there to scout when you don't have the proper means to defend against what you scout? Sure you can do so with cannons but that is very inefficient as you need a really quick forge that way, i'd rather get the nexus before forge.
- wg before hallucination only gets hallucination 2 minutes later then this build while being much more flexible. Hallucination first forces you into scouting & defending as you CANT be aggresive, wg first leaves the zerg much more in the dark and thus less likely to simply outdrone you. Zerg couldnt be more happy to see a super early hallucinated phoenix as it only tells them: "my opponent was an idiot to get hallucination first, i can freely get my third super fast now."
Hallucination is good but just get it after WG... Instead of wasting chrono's on your nexus so much simply chrono your WG tech 4 times and then hallucination once, it still gets out quick enough to scout Losira timings. Roach/ling attacks before the Losira timing are inefficient on 2 bases so all you need to do against those is defend on 1 base, you are actually ahead if you just cancel your nexus against them.. If you make the nexus quickly and hallucination finishes while it's making you are completely fine, you are only at risk of losing the full 400 minerals when a timing hits just after the nexus completes... Any time before that you can simply cancel for only 100m loss much less then zerg loses by being so aggresive that early... I certainly respect travis and his term and contributions as a community member, but I tend to agree with the points you are making here markwerf. Most of the roach/ling timings hit around 7-9 minutes, after the nexus finishes, but before I have any real defense.
maybe you should actually try the build. if your nexus is done then you will have already scouted him and you should have had more than enough time to put up cannons in response to aggression.
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Hello TeamLiquid!
First time poster here, but I felt like i had to share my 2 cents in here (actually registered just for it).
't'is a really nice strategy that doesn't follow the regular WG flow. I noticed that most people are willing to give it a chance, i have myself used hallu's for quite a while now (most of the time to fake REAL all-ins with hallu'ed probes making him sometimes pull some of his to tank, thus killin' them) and i must say that I love this idea of fake agression.
About a third of the comments are about how unrealistic the army size is... What about... Hallucinating the zeals, check the energy of sentries and send in just those who have above 50 energy?! Plus one lower if you really want to be convincing (because of the phenix scout). The point is that since you don't plan on attacking anyway, 3-4 sentries less don't really matter. And if you get flanked, those emptied sentries wouldn't have helped alot anyway. It will even make your APM rise a little 
Just tried to be constructive and wishing to get to play more original games
Darthas - really occasionnal plat player.
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On May 17 2011 02:30 travis wrote:I casually ignored you, markwef, because I didn't want to have to keep arguing with you. I'll add more replays to the OP as I play more. Some of the things you say are ridiculous. Show nested quote +wg before hallucination only gets hallucination 2 minutes later then this build while being much more flexible wow. really? so 2 minutes doesn't matter? are you serious? two minutes is an advantage but in my opinion it simply doesn't make up for the disadvantages to delay WG tech so much. Note that you only have 2 to 3 sentries out and you bring your first sentry to 0 energy immediately when you make your first hallucinated phoenix. In the replay you have 1 zealot, 2 sentries with 70 energy on one zero on the other when you expand. If the zerg does some medium speedling pressure to try and cancel your nexus there is just no way you can stop it.. You can only cast FF, have hardly any units and no WG in sight to warp in some units.Show nested quote +
- hallucination before wg is harder to afford, you need to have 100/100 straight when the cyber finishes instead of 50/50 which conflicts with any fast sentry buid, idle time on your cybernetics core is bad..
umm.. the fact is you easily have the money, I already said how to do the build so either you have the money or you don't.. and you do.
uhhm you easily have the money?? Your build is either skipping probes at 12 or doing a 14 gate which is already much less efficient then a normal 13 gate without probe cut. Then you also have to wait a bit when the cybercore finishes to actually start hallucination as you don't have enough gas because you want to make a sentry first... Idle nexus time and idle cybernetics core are not exactly the signs of a smooth build and the reason is simply that hallucination costs 50/50 more then WG tech..
Show nested quote +
- wg instantly boosts production (less so for sentries now but still the same for stalkers), this makes it critical for being able to defend a nexus. Making units with normal gateways means you don't get the units straight up and make them less fast. What point is there to scout when you don't have the proper means to defend against what you scout? Sure you can do so with cannons but that is very inefficient as you need a really quick forge that way, i'd rather get the nexus before forge.
zerg will almost never get there before you can throw up cannons, and if they did, you wouldn't be able to get your expansion up yet with 3gate sentry expand. the entire point is that any remotely normal attack timing from zerg will be scouted and you can throw up cannons. there isn't much advantage to warpgate first here.
Any normal timing attack (such as losira timing) will be scouted with hallucination AFTER warpgate as well. Attacks that come before you can scout with WG - > hallu come before your nexus is completed and can simply be dealt with by defending at the ramp and canceling your nexus. Those super early attacks happen before 25 drones and are inefficient anyway. Note that i'm not saying 3 gate sentry expand is better as some things of your build i definately like such as getting only 2 gates and getting an earlier forge. I'm only arguing that hallucination first is a big nono.
there, markwef, i replied to you. but i already suspect tell it doesn't matter. it was obvious that replying to you probably didn't matter when you kept making arguments that were already explained in the OP. if you don't want to use the build then fine, no loss for me. I just don't want you making incorrect arguments that make other people go "oh this build sucks". the only correct thing you say is that a weirdly early timing from zerg is going to delay your expansion a lot, but in all honesty it's going to delay it quite a bit if you go 3g sentry expand too. and you don't see a timing that early too often. if that timing actually does come, so that they get there with roaches before you can even put up cannons, it isn't even the end of the world, it just delays you for a little bit.
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I just checked the replay (was at work for the other reply's) and that was one of the worst Zerg rushes possible. He attempts a 6 Rouch 17 Zerling rush off twobase, waits some seconds in the middle for no apparant reason, doesn't reinforce and he STILL would have killed you flatout if he had just focused the pylon in front of the Nexus & the lone active cannon. After that 1 rounds of slings would be enough to kill you.
Perhaps other replay's will show otherwise, but this strategy seems incredibly weak to early rushes. And for a later rush, Since the Zerg knows you have hallucinations, he can reverse the logic and apply fake pressure himself and force a ton of cannons? It's not like you'll actually kill anything with sentry's.
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My defense that game was actually terrible, I was late on scouting and late on putting up cannons.
His timing was pretty standard.. He could have been a few seconds earlier but he just wanted to form up I guess.
And he wouldn't have killed me I wouldn't let him kill the pylon that easily, not without losing almost everything.
I don't think it's weak to early rushes, but I suppose time will tell.
I don't know what you mean by "fake pressure" with zerg. I can scout what units he makes and how many(though I suppose zerg maybe could get away with hiding units).
Sorry guys I am trying to get more replays but every pvz I am gettng on the ladder either they like 7-9 pool me or it's on shakuras so I FE.
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On May 16 2011 03:32 travis wrote:
No, 3 gate sentry expand you chronoboost your warpgate. If not you will die to an allin, because you don't have a forge to make cannons. So you need faster warpgate to be able to make faster reinforcements.
Hmm, weird. Most all-ins Zerg uses are pretty telling tho. Baneling busts could be hidden well if they prevent you from seeing the early 2nd gas but everything else should be scoutable in time I guess. But being safe is worth it I guess. I'll continue CBing Probes tho. Cheers.
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this is really interesting, I look forward to seeing more replays :D
really creative build.
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Good shit travis... thank you.
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ROFL. Greatest idea ever: Hallucinate 20 probes for a fake congo line to freak out the zerg!
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Tyler did this build on his stream today. it seemed pretty effective
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On May 17 2011 06:35 Markwerf wrote:
two minutes is an advantage but in my opinion it simply doesn't make up for the disadvantages to delay WG tech so much. Note that you only have 2 to 3 sentries out and you bring your first sentry to 0 energy immediately when you make your first hallucinated phoenix. In the replay you have 1 zealot, 2 sentries with 70 energy on one zero on the other when you expand. If the zerg does some medium speedling pressure to try and cancel your nexus there is just no way you can stop it.. You can only cast FF, have hardly any units and no WG in sight to warp in some units.
Keep in mind he hasn't set up his expo at that particular point yet... Which means that those sentries will only need to guard the ramp which is easily doable. Sure you delay your warp tech by 80 seconds, but it's not like the gateways aren't pumping sentries while he's at it. There's a 5 second different between warp gate cooldown and sentry time build... Since the first round of units is a wash (since it takes 10 seconds to morph the gateway) warp gate for the first use actually yields no benefit. After that point you are netting yourself 5 seconds per sentry.
uhhm you easily have the money?? Your build is either skipping probes at 12 or doing a 14 gate which is already much less efficient then a normal 13 gate without probe cut. Then you also have to wait a bit when the cybercore finishes to actually start hallucination as you don't have enough gas because you want to make a sentry first... Idle nexus time and idle cybernetics core are not exactly the signs of a smooth build and the reason is simply that hallucination costs 50/50 more then WG tech..
Easily might not be exactly what he meant, but the point is he has made the build order the way it is to accomodate his build. Even if he does skip a probe a little early, consider the fact that he will be chronoboosting probes for quite a while afterwards.
Any normal timing attack (such as losira timing) will be scouted with hallucination AFTER warpgate as well. Attacks that come before you can scout with WG - > hallu come before your nexus is completed and can simply be dealt with by defending at the ramp and canceling your nexus. Those super early attacks happen before 25 drones and are inefficient anyway. Note that i'm not saying 3 gate sentry expand is better as some things of your build i definately like such as getting only 2 gates and getting an earlier forge. I'm only arguing that hallucination first is a big nono.
I can agree with the argument that warp gate first will definitely be a better circumstance to fend off earlier than usual aggression, but it also depends on what time as well. Like I mentioned before, the very first round of units created by a warp gate are not 10 seconds faster as it takes 10 seconds to morph the gateways into warp gates. So it's only the second + rounds of units that start to benefit from that 10 second speed boost (or in Sentry's case, 5).
And although you might not have a regularly timed warp gate, you do get earlier cannons with this build which are incredibly strong vs Zerg in the early game. If you sim city correctly, two cannons can really take a huge bite out of early aggression from the Zerg, and since you get the earlier scout in, you won't be in the dark when the aggression starts heading your way.
Something I think that could be said about a build like this is that it might even provoke earlier than usual aggression. It remains to be seen if the build can withstand heavy early pressure (I personally believe it can, though I myself have not tested this yet) but if it can, it could potentially make quite a number of opponents overreact to the "weakness" they see and try to go all-in. If they do, you can scout it and adjust your defenses accordingly.
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I've been thinking about the same issue of being blind to what the zerg is doing from when speed finishes to when you're able to get hallucination out. I considered going hallucination first as well, but I don't like giving up the option of being aggressive, and a good zerg will realize your warpgates will be a minute late as soon as you pop that first Phoenix.
I've been playing around with some gate>robo>gate build and getting a fast observer instead. It'll cost you 125 minerals and 75 gas more total, but it'll give you better scouting early game, mobile detection in case he goes burrowed roaches, access to immortals to counter early roaches, possibility to go for colossi in case he went for a hydrarush, and saves you a bunch of energy on your sentries (making up for the gas cost imo). Also you'd be able to be reactionary with your cannons rather than preemptive on most maps, as they build in 40 seconds and no-speed roaches take a long time to get to your base, hence not investing overly much in defenses.
I doubt I'm the only one who's been thinking about this though, I just haven't been very active lately.
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I tried this build and it worked out a lot better if I simply 2 Gate Forge expanded, with the same idea of spending all chronos on probes and building the second gateway early to squeeze out extra Sentries, but with Warpgate before Hallucinate.
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On May 17 2011 07:23 travis wrote:
Sorry guys I am trying to get more replays but every pvz I am gettng on the ladder either they like 7-9 pool me or it's on shakuras so I FE.
Not sure how seriously you take the ladder (i guess ladder points to men are like diamonds to women) but I guess you could change your 1v1 map preferences to take out the bigger maps.
Nice work though. This roach ling all-ins have been giving me nightmares the last few weeks. GSL can be my lifeline in ladder, but also my downfall.
I have seen Tyler do some 2 gate + Forge expands on his stream recently, with heavy zealot production. Wondered if you had seen him doing this and had any ideas on what hes doing differently to yours?
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i've been using a similar build on the ladder for the past week or so and i have to say i like it quite a bit! If you get the 2nd gateway a bit earlier (like when zlot is building or when 1st sentry starts) you can get a decent amount of sentries out and put your nexus up around the same time as a 3 gate expand. the super early hallucinated phoenix lets you prepare for any allins with the proper amount of cannons. AND if you see zerg just droning and taking a super greedy third, you can either 5-6 gate or hallucinate a bunch of units and fake pressure while taking your own super fast third and teching... seems pretty cool.
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I like this build although I don't go hallucination because it's not smooth.
I think you can go 15 gas 16 gas to even that out.
Although I don't use hallucination first, it's still pretty good. I'm loving this build so far Travis. You can expand a lot faster than 3 gate sentry expo or you can get the cannon first to save yourself.
And it is also quite nice vs the speedling builds where zergs will mass up a lot of speedlings and attack at the 6:30 mark.
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On May 17 2011 06:35 Markwerf wrote:two minutes is an advantage but in my opinion it simply doesn't make up for the disadvantages to delay WG tech so much. Note that you only have 2 to 3 sentries out and you bring your first sentry to 0 energy immediately when you make your first hallucinated phoenix. In the replay you have 1 zealot, 2 sentries with 70 energy on one zero on the other when you expand. If the zerg does some medium speedling pressure to try and cancel your nexus there is just no way you can stop it.. You can only cast FF, have hardly any units and no WG in sight to warp in some units.
As silly as most of this guy's arguments are, this one is worth noting. It's pretty common for a speedling expand to pressure your nexus with a dozen-odd lings as you put it down, and with only one forcefield and three units you'll have trouble preventing the cancel. It's never going to kill you, but it could disrupt your build pretty badly.
That said, obviously a 3G sentry expand would barely even have the expo by that timing, wouldn't have WG either, and would have less probes so needs the nexus more.
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I'm not here to say : "doesnt work" ..Every things works if you work it with it. But i really haven't see the big advantage come from doing it, and isn't specified well in the OP (apart the "use" of the new patch).
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Sry but not rly viable strategy.... As soon as you go 2gate forge expand every good zerg will go macro mode and you wont be able to punishm him. With 2gate you just dont have the production to kill him and he will know that these zelots cant be produced of 2 warpgates.This strategy will fail 100% vs zerg player who scouts and I think there are not many good players left who dont . There are no protosses that leave their expansion before its done as moving before expo finishes creates a danger of running lings and canceling your expo or going into your base and killing your probes. So either way you will end behind and you cant actually do dmg because you cant reinforce with units and you dont have any real damage dealers. Its cute but for people who know the timings it cant be really usable strategy. Good job for the creativity though there are not many people who try to create new strategies just because the ones already known work pretty well and relly not so much on your opponent making a mistake.
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I really like this idea and I'm going to give it a shot myself on ladder tomorrow sometime, once I'm done I'll post some reps.
The one thing that was nagging me is that if you aren't REALLY on top of scouting and you don't see a muta switch - isn't that insta-loss? Cannons sitting idly at the front, and only sentries to try and stop the mutas? I'm speaking of a 2 base muta hit in theory.
Obviously good scouting is the key to ANY game, but I really feel this build would be destroyed by some early/mass mutas if the zerg decides to commit to the mutas really hard.
What would be your switch if the zerg went mutas against this Travis? Just put some cannons up and continue as normal? Or switch into something once you see mutas begin to pop (with a hallu phoenix scouting obviously)?
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As a Zerg player. I really like(dislike lol) the idea of this build. It minimizes the few minutes of uncertainty toss has just as ling speed pops and Zerg has map control and sets into their build order be it macro or roach ling bust.
My scenario here is against a macro zerg, as I believe your build would be very efficient at holding a roach ling bust with the fast forge which really is the solution to the roach ling bust in the first place.
A few points of advise. I highly advise against your fake pressure with 7-8 sentries and a zealot.
My reasoning for this is, from my point of view, I would have a ling scout outside your natural, xel'naga towers if applicable and basically lings in position to give early warning of any push/pressure. When you move out substantially far from your natural, I will send 2 overlords I have along the sides of your main for a two prong scout. Here I do not have to see the number of gates, I just have to see them not being warpgates, and I would know to kill your sentries with lings.
Furthermore, you have already been so greedy, there is no reason for this fake pressure at all. It's kinda like what tyler/incontrol were talking about on sotg when they criticised HuK's play in GSL with him being very risky and aggresive with his early 6-7 sentries, this was before roach ling busts were all that popular though. As stated in your build, you have chrono'd probes, much more so than a 3 gate expand, you have made 8-9 sentries after your first zealot. Being able to be safe with that many chronos on probes and have units number 2 to 10 being sentries should already be a super comfortable position for any toss.
Lastly, your mid game should be extremely favourable because of your halu first, you'll have almost perfect information of your zerg opponent and be in a really comfortable position to be greedy / or punish him for being greedy with a more substantial, later push with appropriate tech choices.
I have always wanted to contribute whenever I see Toss complain about losing to a hyper aggressive early / mid game roach ling zergs, but really if you are being careful with the one unit that lets you win lopsided supply battles (sentries) this should never be the case. And this build seems like the closest to ideal foundation for that so far.
Some of my humble views, nice build Travis.
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as a toss myself i really like the build, very interesting. gonna try it out on ladder later today  thanks for the guide!
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On May 20 2011 08:13 iChau wrote:
I like this build although I don't go hallucination because it's not smooth.
I think you can go 15 gas 16 gas to even that out.
Although I don't use hallucination first, it's still pretty good. I'm loving this build so far Travis. You can expand a lot faster than 3 gate sentry expo or you can get the cannon first to save yourself.
And it is also quite nice vs the speedling builds where zergs will mass up a lot of speedlings and attack at the 6:30 mark.
That is what I've been doing a lot too lately
Getting that second gateway quicker to get sentries out, Stalker first then inbase forge and expanding at 5:40-6min, feels so much safer since the cannon goes down straight away and usually I start +1 because I'm greedy
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On May 20 2011 20:14 Dommk wrote:Show nested quote +On May 20 2011 08:13 iChau wrote:
I like this build although I don't go hallucination because it's not smooth.
I think you can go 15 gas 16 gas to even that out.
Although I don't use hallucination first, it's still pretty good. I'm loving this build so far Travis. You can expand a lot faster than 3 gate sentry expo or you can get the cannon first to save yourself.
And it is also quite nice vs the speedling builds where zergs will mass up a lot of speedlings and attack at the 6:30 mark. That is what I've been doing a lot too lately Getting that second gateway quicker to get sentries out, Stalker first then inbase forge and expanding at 5:40-6min, feels so much safer since the cannon goes down straight away and usually I start +1 because I'm greedy
Yeah variations are pretty good to know.
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I've had quite a bit of success with this build on the ladder recently, so i'll try to post some replays
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this seems like a really cool build, i will definitely try it out on the ladder soon. Even though my pvz is already pretty stable I always look for ways to improve it. I really love the new P with all the changes I just hope that pvp stabilizes somewhat differently, because thats where i still have the largest trouble!
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thats some glorious stuff u got going hallucination is a underused ability indeed.
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The only problem I see is with the fake sentry/zlot attack. If you have an extremely early hallucinate (which is already very uncommon), the zerg will already know due to the pheonix so he will probably expect something fishy.
Also, I think this build is amazing, and am going to try some variations of it, as well as the standard. I think it is very viable.
The argument that the zerg can go 'macro style' and take a quick 3rd or something is very easily scoutable, and the fact that you get your second base up faster than 3gate expo, it seems very viable to me that you could take a quick third too (while the entire time scouting with hallucinate every ~40 seconds to see tech switch.
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I tried this build since i liked hallu last patch.
It seems to work at mid masters lvl.(might upload some replays later)
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Does anyone have any high level reps at all? Just wanting to polish my play using this build because I think it's a bit rough :S
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EPT
